back.”
He moved quietly away, then came back with appropriate noise. He resumed his former
position, put both pouches into his pocket, and said, “I just had a cogent and gravid idea,
my proud and haughty beauty. How about us taking five and going down stairs and tilting
us a couple of flagons?”
“I’d love to, my courteous and sprightly knave, but I’ve simply got to get this red tape out
first. An hour, say?”
“An hour’s a date, you beautiful thing, you.” He took his leg off the desk and straightened
up. “I’ve got somered-taping of my own to do. So, as Old Baldy would say, keep your. .
.”
Beedy! Is that nice?” She laughed up at him; two deep dimples appeared. “Besides, as
you very well know, I always do!”
In an hour the paper-work was done. (While People all got half a shift off on Compday,
Company Agents got theirs on any day other than Compday). Bee-ay and Beedy tilted
their flagons, ate supper together, and went to their rooms. Not only to separate rooms,
but to separate wings of the immense building.
She, however, did not sleep at all well; and when she went to work Sonday morning she
was still keyed up and tense-for no real reason whatever.
The job went along strictly as usual until, at hour sixteen plus fifty, she had just finished
installing her last pair of newmates of the day and was getting into her aircar to go home.
While she was getting into the front seat a pair of heavily-insulated arms went around her
and a strong gloved hand went over her mouth. She bit and fought, but the glove was
bite-proof and the man was big and fast and immensely strong. He dragged her out of
the driver’s seat and into the back, where he let her struggle; holding her only tightly
enough to prevent her escape. In the meantime a smaller man, also dressed in a
full-coverage suit that looked like asbestos but wasn’t, cut three wires of the aircar’s
power supply and got into the front seat. The car shot straight up out of sight of the
ground, darted northward, and came to ground on the flat top of a high, bare-rock mesa.
“Are you going to behave yourself?” the big man asked.
She nodded behind the glove and he released her completely.
“What the hell goes on?” she demanded, sitting up properly and putting her hair to rights
with her fingers. “You’ll get the flame for this.”
“I think not,” he said, quietly. “You’re not frightened, I’m very glad to see.”
Frightened? Me? Of any person or People ever born? High Company beyond!”
“Good girl. We’ve made a few poor picks, but you and your friend A C B D will make
out.”
“Beedy? You’ve got him, too? Where are you taking us, I if I may ask?” The last
phrase was pure sneer.
“You may not ask,” was the calm reply.
Then the big man, working deftly despite his heavy gloves, lifted the girl’s locket and cut
its chain with a heavy angle-nose cutter. He then twitched the band from her head, tied
the locket to the band with the chain, and threw the bundle, in a high are, out and away.
When it came down there was a flare of greenish brilliance brighter than the sun, the
white glare of a small pool of incandescent lava, and after a few seconds, the odor of
volatilized rock.
“So?” the girl asked, quietly. “So there goes a bit of Company power. But you . . . Oh!”
She broke off sharply as she saw the smaller man touching the aircar here and there
with the looped end of a heavy wire held in one gloved hand. “Oh? High resistance? How
high?”
“One point two five megohms,” the big man said. “We have no intention whatever of
doing you-any harm whatever.”
“You know, some way or other, I’ve rather gathered that?” and she extended a
beautifully-shaped bare arm for the wire’s touch. A minute later, while both men were
shedding their insulation, she spoke again. “You’re going to give me some explanation of
all this, I suppose?”
“We are indeed, Miss Acey Bee-ay, as soon as we get to where we’re going and your
friend joins us. It’s altogether too long and too deep and too involved to go into twice for
the two of you. We’ll take off now.”
The aircar went straight up to twelve thousand feet, then hurtled north northeast at its top
speed. It held course and speed for over three hours. It crossed mountain ranges, lakes,
forests, and rivers. Finally, however, it slanted sharply downward, slowed, stopped, and
descended vertically into a canyon-a crevasse, rather but little wider than the car was
long and half a mile deep.
It landed near a man wearing a greenish-gray uniform, who had a sidearm in a holster at
his hip. This guard saluted crisply and put his hand against a slight projection of the rock,
whereupon a section of the canyon’s wall swung inward, revealing a long, straight,
brightly lighted tunnel. The three got out of the car and the guard stepped aside, drawing
his weapon as he did so. “As usual,” the big man told the guard. “It’s harmless and its
transmitters have been cut. You won’t need the artillery.” He glanced quizzically at the
girl. “Will he’?” “No,” she said, flatly. “I know that you can handle me alone. You know as
much judo as I do and you’re a lot bigger.”
“Excellent) In, then. It’s about a mile. We walk.”
The three walked into and along the tunnel; with the girl, under no restraint, between the
two men.
After walking the indicated mile they came to what looked like-and in fact was-the
entrance to a thoroughly modern building. They went in and the big man, after dismissing
his smaller companion, ushered the girl into a small, plainly-furnished office.
“They aren’t here yet, I see. Take a chair, please.” He sat down behind the desk. “We’ll
wait here; it won’t be very long.”
Nor was it. In about fifteen minutes the door opened and three gray-uniformed men, one
of them pushing a wheeled chair, entered the office. Beedy, without headband or locket,
was chained to the chair. His uniform was tom off, both eyes would soon be
black-and-blue “shiners,” and his flesh was puffy and bruised, but he was still full of fight.
When he saw the girl, however, he stopped struggling instantly and stopped her with a
word as she leaped to her feet, screamed, and ran toward him.
“If you’d used your brain, meathead,” he said, glaring between swollen lids at the man
behind the desk, “and told your gorillas to tell me you had her here, it would’ve saved all
five of us some lumps.”
“Well, I can’t think of everything,” the big man admitted. “I did tell her we had you, come
to think of it, which perhaps accounts for her cooperation.” He studied his three men. The
smallest one of them was of B D’s size, but each of the three bore more marks of battle
than did the captive. “I was not informed that you are such an expert at unarmed combat.
Free him, you, and get out. With the chair.”
“Free him?” one of the captors protested. “Why, he’ll . . .” and one of the others broke,
in:
“But he damn near killed Big Pietr, boss-they’re taking him up to sick-bay now, and . . .”
“You heard me,” the boss said, without raising his voice a fraction of a decibel, and the
three obeyed.
As the door closed, the two went into each other’s arms, the girl moaning over her lover’s
wounds.
“It’s all right, now that I know you aren’t hurt. You aren’t, are you?”
No, not the least bit, in any way,” she assured him. “But they hurt you, and if you think . .
.”
“Hush, sweetheart, listen. I got more of them than they did of me, so, with you here safe,
if they won’t carry a grudge I won’t.” He cocked a blood-clotted eyebrow-with a slight
wince-at the man behind the desk. “No grudge, I take it?”
“Splendid? No grudge at all.”
B D turned to B A. “Wasn’t this in your hunch?” he asked.
“Your getting all beat up certainly wasn’t, but the rest of it . . . well, I guess it could fit the
pattern . . . but don’t try to tell me it was that clear in yours, either!”
“I won’t; but it does fit the pattern.”
“You two are far and away the best we’ve found yet,” the man at the desk said then.
“Since I’m going to be your instructor, you may as well start calling me `Basil.” “Bay-sill?
That doesn’t make sense,” the girl said.
“It’s my name. We don’t use symbols-I’ll go into that later. You are beginning to realize