“He left here, not fifteen minutes ago. Wouldn’t accept my offer of a guide. I warned him . . .”
“Where are his clothes?” Retief asked.
“On the shelf—there.” The attendant pointed to a coat, trousers, boots, a tangle of heavy leather belts, and am empty holster in a neat pile.
“A cop?” Retief said. He examined the garments. “No identification,” he said. “And no keys.”
“What happened?” the attendant asked.
“An angel hit him.”
“He’ll be out for hours, then,” the attendant said. “A big angel gives a pretty good shock. Hah! These tourists are all alike.”
“Yum, you don’t have a police force here—or an army . . . ?”
“No, what would we need with those?”
“Can you get a few friends together—volunteers, to watch the patrol boat?”
“Sure, Retief. All you want.”
“Station about a dozen in the underbrush around the boat; tell them to keep out of sight—we don’t want to scare anybody off. But be careful—a spear-gun is no match for a Mark IV blaster.”
“I’ll call the boys.” Yum went into the attendant’s office, emerged five minutes later.
“All set,” he declared. “What about him?” he indicated the sleeping cop.
“Have the fellow on duty watch him until your friends get here—meanwhile, he’d better put him somewhere out of sight.”
“What about the bomb?”
“We’ll have to try to stampede somebody. Whoever sent our friend here doesn’t know he didn’t make it.”
Retief looked at Yum, frowning in thought. “Yum, peel out of that scare suit and put the uniform on.” He began stripping off the Striding Devil disguise. “I’ll borrow some local garb.”
“You’ve got an idea?”
“Not much of one. Just a wild hunch.”
Yum kicked free of the last of the diving gear, pulled on the shapeless patrol outfit. It hung ludicrously on his squat frame.
“Retief, I wouldn’t fool anybody in this . . .”
“That’s just the point, Yum. Now let’s move . . . !”
* * *
Yum stopped before a dark entry, pointed up at a lighted floor above. “This is it,” he called over the howling wind. Retief’s long violet cloak whipped at his ankles; Yum held onto his Patrolman’s cap with one hand.
“All right.” Retief leaned close to Yum and shouted. “You wait five minutes, Yum; then just move off down the street. Move as though you were in a hurry. Then you’d better go back and help out the boys. If anybody comes close, let him get the port open; then hit him fast.”
“Well—I guess you know what you’re doing.”
Retief climbed the trembling wicker stairway, gripping the handrail as a violent gust bounced him against the swaying wall. Two flights up he pushed aside a hanging lettered TERRESTRIAL CONSULATE-GENERAL—EMERGENCY QUARTERS.
Wimperton and Pird looked up from a table on which a meal of emergency rations was laid out in the bleak light of a feeble DC lamp. Wimperton’s mouth opened wide. Pird scrambled up and stood wiping his fingers on his pink vest.
“Hi, boys,” Retief said cheerfully. “Damnedest thing happened to me. You’ll never guess.”
“Ah . . . you fell out a window?” Wimperton hazarded.
“Close, but no dope-stick; the catwalk broke under me. Quite a ride.” He strolled to the window. “Some wind out there. Say . . .”
“Yes, indeed, quite a wind, you’re right,” Pird piped.
“Look here,” Retief said. “Is that a Patrolman? Wonder what he’s doing out in the storm!”
Wimperton and Pird jumped to the window, craned. Below, Yum’s ungainly figure waddled briskly along the pitching street, turned a corner.
“Hey, that’s—” Wimperton started.
“Yes, that’s strange, all right,” Pird cut in. “Poor weather for a stroll.”
“But that wasn’t—”
“Wasn’t anything for us to worry about, ha ha,” Pird babbled. He pretended to yawn. “Well, about time to turn in, eh?” He patted his mouth, watching Retief.
“I’m glad you suggested that,” Retief said. “I was afraid you’d want to sit up and talk.”
“Just take that first room there,” Pird said eagerly. “Lovely room. Just lie right down and drift right off. Wimperton, you show Mr. Retief the room and I’ll just . . . ah . . . check a few things.”
Retief glanced back from the door, caught a glimpse of Pird darting past the outer hanging. He stepped into the room. There was a tidy bunk, an easy chair, a rug, a tri-D set.
“This is dandy.” He patted the bed. “Well, Wimperton, have a pleasant night.”
“Yes indeed—you too . . .” Wimperton disappeared. Retief flipped the light off, lay back and waited. A minute passed. The door curtain twitched aside for a moment, dropped back. Lights winked off in the outer room.
Retief rose, glanced out. The shelter was deserted. He crossed to the outer hanging, went down the swaying wicker stairs three at a time, stepped out into the storm-whipped street. Pird and Wimperton, each dragging a suitcase, staggered out of sight around the corner. Retief wrapped the cloak close and followed.
* * *
Standing in the shadows by the straining wicker-work wall of a Public Entry Well, Retief watched Wimperton and Pird as they paced the ramp. Pird glanced at a finger watch.
” . . . any time now . . .” the words came faintly through the hammer of the wind and the groaning of wicker. Pird stopped before Wimperton, apparently asking a question.
Wimperton reached inside his coat, brought out a thick packet of papers restrained by a red rubber band, waved them at Pird, put them back. Retief edged closer.
” . . . don’t like it either,” Wimperton’s nasal voice stated. “Either the locals are wise—or they’ve got a deal with . . .” The wind whirled the words away.
Retief stepped back into the street, saw the pink glow of a public phone fifty yards distant. He fought his way to it through the wind, dialed, asked for Yum.
“No action here yet,” the native said. “How did the routine go over?”
“Our pigeons flew the coop, all right. They know they’ve got troubles, but they’re not sure just what kind. They’re at a Public Entry near the consulate, waiting for a pick-up.”
“They’ll have a long wait; their driver’s still asleep.”
“Yum, I have a feeling the bomb’s timed to go off at the peak of the storm. How long will that be?”
“Oh, about two hours, I’d say.”
“What will conditions be like at the top of the consulate tower now?”
“Rough. The towers lean to the wind. The ceilings fold right down against the floors in a good blow—and this one’s a dandy.”
“We’re about out of time, Yum—and there are two parties still unaccounted for. I’m afraid I have one more trip in this wind.”
“You’re coming back here?”
“I’m going up—and I’d better get moving while there’s still crawl space in the consulate.”
* * *
A howling gale struck Retief’s head as he hauled himself up from a dark opening onto the thirtieth-floor balcony, looked up the long slant of the tower face. Forty feet above, the guard rail lining the terrace of the consulate penthouse was dimly visible in the murk.
Under Retief, the tower wall trembled and moved like a living thing. He reached for a handhold, started up the thirty-degree slope. Gusts tore at him; he rested, hugging the surface, then went on. Ten minutes later he pulled himself over, lay full length on the steep slope of the tower roof.
The wind was less, here in the shelter of the canted floor. Retief slid down, then jumped, tumbled through the wind-tattered entry hanging, caught himself and blinked through the gloom of the deserted office.
From the far wall, a grunt sounded. Retief made his way across the room, flicked a wall switch. Dim light glowed, showed him the trussed form of Consul-General Jack Dools huddled in the angle of wall and floor. Five bloodshot eye-stalks quivered appealingly at Retief.
He went to a tilted desk, extracted a letter knife from a clip, came back and sawed at the cords binding the Groaci, then pulled the gag free of the mandibles.
“Ah, the shining of the sun on your ancestral egg-hill,” Dools gasped in Groaci. “To express heartfelt gratitude; to vow eternal chum-ship . . .”
“Think nothing of it, Mr. Dools. You feel well enough to travel? We’ll have to go down the outside; the stairs are collapsed.”
“How pleasant to see you alive, dear fellow,” Dools went on in Terran. “I feared the miscreants had done their worst. I tried to interfere, but alas—”
“I saw you; at the time, I had the idea you were doing the sawing, but then I got to thinking about the booze and girly-book supply in the filing cabinet. Alcohol would poison you; and as for unadorned mammals—”
“Mr. Retief, take care,” Dools hissed. “My hearing is keen; someone comes . . .”
Retief looked toward the doorway, then hastily tucked the cut ends of the rope out of sight under Dools’ body. “Play ’em close to your thorax, Mr. Dools,” he cautioned.