Coming on top of the tensions already seething in the office, the shock of such an attack might have brought on complete confusion. But Volcheme immediately was snapping out very practical orders. The four smugglers detailed to help find Corvin Wergard were working through the Depot’s underground passage system within a few hundred yards of the main building. They joined the group in the office minutes later. The last of Volcheme’s men was stationed in the control section. He confirmed that the defensive force fields enclosing the individual sections of the Depot inside the main barrier had been activated. Something occurred to Volcheme then. “Who gave that order?”
“Wergard did,” said Danestar.
They stared at her. “That was Wergard,” Tornull agreed. “I didn’t realize it, but that was his voice.”
Volcheme asked Danestar. “Do you know where he is?”
She shook her head. She didn’t know, as a matter of fact. Wergard might have been watching the lock from any one of half a hundred screens in the Depot. He could have been in one of the structures adjacent to the control building . . . too close to that weird fiery phenomenon for comfort. Radiation attack? What had he really made of it? Probably, Danestar thought, the same fantastic thing she’d made of it. His reaction, the general warning shouted into the communications system, implied that; very likely had been intended to imply it to her. She was badly frightened, very much aware of it, trying to decide how to handle the incredibly bad turn the situation might have taken.
Volcheme, having hurried Tornull off to make sure the space shuttle, which had been left beside the building’s landing dock, was within the section’s barrier field, was asking Galester and Dr. Hishkan, “Have you decided what happened out there?”
Galester shrugged. “It appears to be a selective antipersonnel weapon. The truck presumably was enclosed by the charge because there was somebody still on it. But it shows no sign of damage, while the clothing the men outside were wearing disappeared with them. It’s possible the weapon is stationed outside the Depot and fired the charge through the open lock. But my opinion is that it’s being operated from some concealed point within the Depot.”
Volcheme looked at Hishkan. “Well? Could it have been something that was among your specimens here? Something Miss Gems and Wergard discovered and that Wergard put to use just now?”
The scientist gave Danestar a startled glance.
Danestar said evenly, “Forget that notion, Volcheme. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Doesn’t it? What else makes sense?” the smuggler demanded. “You’ve been here two weeks. You’re clever people, as you’ve demonstrated. Clever enough to recognize a really big deal when Hishkan shoved it under your noses. Clever enough to try to frighten competitors away. You know what I think, Miss Gems? I think that when I showed up here today, it loused up the private plans you and Wergard had for Hishkan’s specimen.”
“We do have plans for it,” said Danestar. “It goes to the Federation. And now you’d better help us see it gets there.”
Volcheme almost laughed. “I should?”
Danestar said, “You asked what else makes sense. There’s one thing that does. You might have thought of it. That U-League specimen didn’t just happen to be drifting around in the Pit where it was found. Somebody made it and put it there!”
She had the full attention of everyone in the office now, went on quickly. It was a space-signaling device which could tell human scientists a nearly complete story of how its unknown designers were able to move about freely in the dust cloud and how they communicated within it. And recently Dr. Hishkan had twice broadcast the information that human beings had the space instrument. The static bursts he’d produced had been recorded a great deal farther away from Mezmiali than the Pit.
Volcheme interrupted with angry incredulity. “So you’re suggesting aliens from the Pit have come here for it!”
“I’m suggesting just that,” Danestar said. “And Dr. Hishkan, at least, must be aware that a ship which vanished in the Pit a few years ago reported it was being attacked with what appeared to be radiation weapons.”
“That’s true! That’s true!” Dr. Hishkan’s face was white.
“I think,” Danestar told them, “that when that airtruck came into the Depot, something came in with it the truckers didn’t know was there. Something that had a radiation weapon of a kind we don’t know about. Volcheme, if you people have a single functioning brain cell left between you, you’ll tell the control building right now to put out a call for help! We’re going to need it. We want the heaviest Navy ships near Mezmiali to get down here to handle this, and—”
“Volcheme!” a voice cut in urgently from the screen communicator.
The smuggler’s head turned. “Go ahead, Yee!” His voice was harsh with impatience.
“The U-League group that’s been hunting for this Wergard fellow doesn’t answer!” Yee announced. He was the man Volcheme had stationed in the control building. “Seven men—two wearing communicators. We’ve been trying to contact them for eight minutes. Looks like they might have got wiped out somewhere in the Depot the same way as the truck crew!”
There was an uneasy stir among the men in the office. Volcheme said sharply, “Don’t jump to conclusions! Have the operators keep calling them. They may have some reason for staying quiet at the moment. The others have checked in?”
“Yes,” said Yee. “Everyone else who isn’t in the control building is sitting tight behind defense screens somewhere.”
“They’ve been told to stay where they are and report anything they observe?”
“Yes. But nobody’s reported anything yet.”
“Let me know as soon as someone does. And, Yee, make very sure everyone in the control building is aware that until this matter is settled, the control building takes orders only from me.”
“They’re real aware of that, Volcheme,” said Yee.
The smuggler turned back to the group in the office. “Of course, we’re not going to be stupid enough to take Miss Gems’s advice!” he said. If he felt any uncertainty, it didn’t show in his voice or face. “Somebody has pulled a surprise trick with some radiation device and killed a number of people. But we’re on guard now, and we’re very far from helpless! Decrain will stay here to make sure Miss Gems does not attempt to interfere in any way. The rest of us will act as a group.”
He indicated the men who had been searching for Wergard. “There are four high-powered energy rifles on the shuttle. You four will handle them. Galester, Dr. Hishkan, Tornull, and I will have handguns. Dr. Hishkan tells me that the radiation suits used for dangerous inspection work in the Depot are stored on the ground level of this building.
“Remember, this device is an antipersonnel weapon. We’ll be in the suits, which will block its effect on us at least temporarily; we’ll be armed, and we’ll be in the shuttle. There’s a barrier exit at the building loading dock, through which we can get the shuttle out into the Depot. Scanscreens are being used in the control building to locate the device or its operator. When they’re found—”
The communicator clicked. Wergard’s voice said, “Volcheme, this is Wergard. Better listen!”
Volcheme’s head swung around. “What do you want?” It was almost a snarl.
“If you’d like a look at that antipersonnel weapon,” Wergard’s voice told him drily, “switch your screen to Section Thirty-six. You may change your mind about chasing it around in the shuttle.”
A few seconds later, the wall screen flickered and cleared. For an instant, they all stared in silence.
Like a sheet of living purple fire, the thing flowed with eerie swiftness along the surface of one of the Depot’s side streets toward a looming warehouse. Its size, Danestar thought, was the immediately startling factor—it spread across the full width of the street and was a hundred and fifty, perhaps two hundred, yards long. As it reached the warehouse, the big building’s defense field flared into activity. Instantly, the fiery apparition veered sideways, whipped around the corner of the street and was gone from sight.
Shifting views of the Depot flicked through the screen as Dr. Hishkan hurriedly manipulated the controls. He glanced around, eyes wide and excited. “I’ve lost it! It appears to be nowhere in the area.”
“I wouldn’t worry,” Volcheme said grimly. “It will show up again.” He asked Galester, “What did you make of that? What is it?”
Galester said, “It’s identical, of course, with what we saw engulfing the truck and the men at the lock. We saw only one section of it there. It emerged partly above the surface of the Depot and withdrew into it again. As to what it is . . . ” He shrugged. “I know of nothing to compare it to precisely!” He hesitated again, went on. “My impression was that it was moving purposefully—directing itself. Conceivably an energy weapon could control a mobile charge in such a manner that it would present that appearance.”