His suspicions were soon confirmed. A swarthy gentleman in the uniform of a Ralan intelligence officer came into the cabin. He waved out the attendant and turned to face Quillan.
“I’m Colonel Ajoran,” he said. “As I’m sure you’ve figured out, you are now in Ralan custody. We’ve known about your mission on the Lorn Worlds for some time, and made arrangements to have the courier which would take you back to Orado intercepted along any of the alternate routes it might take. The courier’s engineering officer was a Ralan agent who jammed the emergency drive to prevent your escape—”
“And then,” said Quillan, nodding, “released a paralysis gas to keep me and the pilots helpless until the courier could be boarded. Waste of effort, in my case, since I’d already been knocked out by the jolt given the ship by the jammed drive. All around, a well-planned and executed operation. My congratulations, Colonel.”
“I apologize for the inconvenience,” said Ajoran. His smile was smooth and easy, and very cold. “But we do intend to get our hands on the Sigma File.”
Quillan didn’t bother to deny knowledge of the File. “What happened to the pilots?” he demanded.
Ajoran shrugged. “One of them shot himself in preference to becoming our prisoner. The other shot the engineering officer. He is now being tortured to death in retribution for his ill-considered slaying of a Ralan agent.” The callousness of the statement itself, combined with the shrug, made it quite clear than Ajoran’s politeness was a surface veneer which could be stripped off in an instant.
“Our proposition is simple, Major Quillan: we want your help in decoding and transcribing the Sigma File. In return, when we reach Rala, you will be treated as a reasonable man who understands that your best course is henceforth to serve Ralan interests as effectively as you have previously done those of the Federation. And you have my assurances that you will find Rala is generous to those who serve it well.”
Quillan saw no point in expressing his opinion on the worth of the good Colonel’s “assurances.” He satisfied himself with a scowl which might as easily be taken for a man deep in thought. “And the alternative?” he asked abruptly.
The cold, smooth smile was back. “No need to go into that, is there? I’m quite sure, after all, that you are a reasonable man.”
Ajoran turned away, headed for the door. “We will discuss the matter further after dinner.” A moment later he was gone and the guard was re-entering the cabin.
“Depends how you define `reasonable,’ ” murmured Quillan. But he turned away as he said it, partly so the guard wouldn’t hear. But mostly so the guard wouldn’t see the cold smile spreading across his own face.
* * *
During the next hour Quillan put in some heavy thinking. He had made one observation which presently might be of use to him. At the moment, of course, he could do nothing but wait. Colonel Ajoran’s plan was a bold one, but it made sense. Evidently Ajoran held a position fairly high up in the echelons of Ralan intelligence. Knowing the contents of the Sigma File in detail, he immediately would become an important man to rival government groups to whom the information otherwise would not be readily available. He could improve his standing by many degrees at one stroke.
At the end of the hour, dinner was served to Quillan in his cabin by a woman who was perhaps as beautiful, in an unusual way, as any he had seen. She was very slender. Her skin seemed almost as pure a white as her close-cropped hair, and her eyes were so light a blue that in any other type they would have appeared completely colorless. She gave, nevertheless, an immediate impression of vitality and contained energy. She told Quillan her name was Hace, that she was Ajoran’s lady, and that she had been instructed to see to it that he was provided with every reasonable comfort while he considered Ajoran’s proposal.
She went on chatting agreeably until Quillan had finished his dinner in the bunk. The colonel then joined them for coffee. The discussion remained a very indirect one, but Quillan presently had the impression that he was being offered an alliance by Ajoran. He possessed unique information which the ambitious colonel could put to extremely good use in the future. Quillan would, in effect, remain on Ajoran’s staff and receive every consideration due a valuable associate. He gathered that one of the immediate shipboard considerations being proffered for his cooperation was the colonel’s lady.
When the pair left him, Ajoran observing that the Talada’s sleep period had begun, the thing had been made clear enough. Neither of the two guards assigned to Quillan reappeared in the cabin—which he had learned was a section of Ajoran’s own shipboard suite—and the door remained closed. Presumably he was to be left undisturbed to his reflections for the next seven hours.
Quillan did not stay awake long. He had a professional’s appreciation of the value of rest when under stress; and he already had appraised his situation here as thoroughly as was necessary.
He had a minimum goal—the destruction of the Sigma File—and he had observed something which indicated the goal might be achieved if he waited for circumstances to favor him. Beyond that, he had an ascending series of goals with an ascending level of improbability. They also had been sufficiently considered. There was nothing else he cared to think about at the moment. He stretched out and fell asleep almost at once.
When he awoke some time later with the hairs prickling at the base of his skull, he believed for a moment he was dreaming of the thing he had not cared to think about. There was light on his right and the shreds of a voice . . . ghastly whispered exhalations from a throat which had lost the strength to scream. Quillan turned his head to the right, knowing what he would see.
Part of the wall to one side of the door showed now as a vision screen; the light and the whispers came from there. Quillan told himself he was seeing a recording, that the Lornese pilot captured with him had been dead for hours. Colonel Ajoran was a practical man who would have brought this part of the matter to an end without unreasonable delay so that he could devote himself fully to his far more important dealings with Quillan, and the details shown in the screen indicated the pilot could not be many minutes from death.
The screen slowly went dark again and the whispers ended. Quillan turned on his side. There was nothing at all he could have done for the pilot. He had simply been shown the other side of Ajoran’s proposition.
A few minutes later, he was asleep again.
* * *
When he awoke the next time, the cabin was lit. His two guards were there, one of them arranging Quillan’s breakfast on a wall table across from the bunk. The other simply stood with his back to the door, a nerve gun in his hand, his eyes on Quillan. Fresh clothes, which Quillan recognized as his own, brought over from the courier, had been placed on a chair. The section of wall which ordinarily covered the small adjoining bathroom was withdrawn.
The first guard completed his arrangements and addressed Quillan with an air of surly deference. Colonel Ajoran extended his compliments, was waiting in the other section of the suite and would like to see Major Quillan there after he had dressed and eaten. Having delivered the message, the guard came over to unfasten Quillan from the bunk, his companion shifting to a position from which he could watch the prisoner during the process. That done, the two withdrew from the room, Quillan’s eyes following them reflectively.
He showered, shaved, dressed, and had an unhurried breakfast. He could assume that Ajoran felt the time for indirect promises and threats was over, and that they would get down immediately now to the business on hand.
When Quillan came out of the cabin, some thirty minutes after being released, he found his assumption confirmed. This section of the suite was considerably larger than the sleep cabin. The colonel and Hace were seated at the far right across the room, and a guard stood before a closed door a little left of the section’s centerline. The door presumably opened on one of the Talada’s passages. The guard was again holding a nerve gun, and a second gun of the same kind lay on a small table beside Ajoran. Hace sat at a recording apparatus just beyond the colonel. Evidently she doubled as his secretary when the occasion arose.
At the center of the room, on a table large enough to serve as a work desk, was writing material, a chip reader and, near the left side of the table, the unopened Sigma File.