Ramog said that would be fine and cut him off. The commissioner was actually enormously relieved. His third line of action was unreeling itself smoothly, and even if Tate got suspicious and panicked now it wouldn’t present a serious problem, though it might still make the operation a little messy.
One could even hope for the S.A.C.’s own sake, Ramog thought, smiling very faintly now, that he wouldn’t panic. The third line of action was not only the least risky, it was by far the most humane.
* * *
Holati Tate set the hopper down a hundred yards from the Headquarters vehicle shelter entrance. The service crew chief’s voice said over the intercom, “Better bring her in, sir. We’re on storm warning.”
Holati obediently turned the hopper, slid her into the shelter and grounded her. The entrance door closed a hundred yards behind him.
“Want her serviced, sir?”
“No, no; she doesn’t need it.” Holati set the hatch on lock, got out and let it snap shut behind him. He looked at the crew chief. “I’ll be taking her out again in thirty minutes or so,” he said. Then he walked off up the dome tunnel toward the office sections.
The crew chief looked around and saw the hopper’s hatch open. He frowned.
“Hey, you!” He went up to the hatch. “Who’s that in there? She don’t need servicing. How’d you get in?”
The man named Gision looked out. He was a large man with a round face and a sleepily ferocious expression.
“Little man,” he said softly, “just keep the mouth shut and take off.”
The crew chief stared at him. Gision was tagged with a very peculiar reputation among the best-informed Project personnel, but the crew chief hadn’t had much to do with him personally and he habitually ignored Project rumors. Rumors about this guy or that started up on almost any outworld operation; they could usually be put down to jumpy nerves.
He changed his mind completely about that in the few seconds he and Gision were looking at each other.
He turned on his heel and walked off, badly shaken. If something was going on, he didn’t want to know about it. Not a thing. He wasn’t an exceptionally timid man, but he had just realized clearly that he was a long way from the police of the Federation.
* * *
Mora was in temporary charge of the communications offices, though Holati Tate didn’t see her at first. He walked up to a plump, giggly little clerk he’d talked to before. She was busy coding a section of the current Project reports which presently would perform some fantastic loops through time and space and present themselves briskly at the Precol Home Office in the Federation.
Holati looked around the big room. “Where’s Trigger Argee?” he inquired.
The clerk giggled. “Visiting her boy friend—” She looked startled. “My . . . I guess I shouldn’t have said that!”
So Holati discovered Trigger had been offered a special four-day furlough from the commissioner to go console Brule Inger in the brig, which was stationed in the general area of Manon’s southern pole. He could imagine Trigger had been a little suspicious of the commissioner’s gesture, but naturally she’d accepted.
He pulled down worriedly on his left ear lobe and glanced over to the far end of the room where three other clerks were working. “Who’s in charge here, now?”
“Mora Lune’s in charge,” said the little clerk. She giggled. “If there’s something . . . maybe I can help you?”
“Hm-m-m,” Holati Tate said dubiously. As the little clerk told the others afterwards, he looked mighty nervous at that moment, hesitating as if he didn’t know what to say. As a matter of fact, he felt rather nervous. “This Mora Lune,” he went on at last. “Who’s she?”
“The commissioner’s secretary,” explained the girl. “Mostly. She does all kinds of things, though. Sort of his assistant.”
The S.A.C. stood stroking his chin and gnawing his lip. Finally he frowned.
“Well,” he said with a sigh, “guess I’ll go see Mora.”
The little clerk giggled brightly and jumped up. “I’ll show you to the office,” she offered. Because, as she explained afterwards, she could just feel that something exciting was up.
That was all she had to tell. Mora sent her back to her work as soon as the two of them reached the door of the Central Communications Office. Mora didn’t look excited except that her eyes had become nearly black. One would have had to know Mora to interpret that correctly, but Holati Tate made a fair guess. Like a man who’s reached a decision, he explained his purpose almost curtly, “I want to send a personal message by long-range transmitter.”
Mora indicated restrained surprise. “Oh . . . you’ll want privacy, I suppose?” She added, “And I’m sure you’re aware of the expense factor?”
He nodded. Just getting the long transmitters started up came to around three months of his salary.
Mora looked arch. “Perhaps congratulations are in order? A registration?”
At that, Holati Tate chuckled nervously. “Well, I’ll say this much . . . I’ll want to use the Notary!”
“Of course.” Mora rose from behind the desk. “I’ll attach it for you myself,” she offered graciously. She floated ahead of him down a short hall and into the communications cabinet, dealt deftly there with switches and settings, connected the Notary machine with the transmitter, floated back to the door. “It’s expensive, remember!” She smiled at him once more, almost tenderly, and closed the door behind her.
* * *
“How’d he take it?” Gision inquired a few minutes later.
Mora shrugged. They were in her own office and both were bent intently over a profile map of the area. On the map a small yellow dot moved out from the sprawl of Headquarters domes toward the southern swamps. Gision’s large thumb rested lightly on a button at the side of the frame. Map and attachments were his own creation. “He just clammed up completely when he discovered it was to be a canned message,” she said. “Refused to make it, of course—said he’d be back tomorrow or whenever the transmitters were working again. But I’m not even certain he was suspicious.”
Gision grunted. “You can bet he got suspicious! The transmitters don’t cut out that often.”
“Maybe. He’d already checked out positive on the Notary anyway. It was a registration, all right.” Mora moved a fingertip toward the thumb that rested on the button. “If you let me do that, I’ll tell you what he was going to register.”
Gision shook his big head without looking up. “You’re too eager. And I’m not interested in what he was going to register.”
She smiled. “You’re all scared of Ramog.”
Gision nodded. “And so would you be,” he said, “if you had any sense.”
They sat quietly a few minutes; then Mora began to fidget. “Isn’t that far enough? He’ll get away!”
“He can’t get away—and it’s almost far enough. We want him right out over the middle of those swamps.”
She looked at his face and laughed. “I can tell you’re going to let me do it. Aren’t you?”
Gision nodded again. “And now’s about the time. Put the finger up here.”
She slipped her finger over the button and wet her lips. “Like this?”
“Like that. Now push.”
She pushed down. The yellow dot vanished.
“Is that all?” she said disappointed.
“What did you expect?” Gision said. “An explosion?”
“No,” Mora said dreamily. “But there’s not much to it. If the old boy had been a little sharper, we might have had a questioning.”
He shrugged. Sometimes Mora gave him the chills. “Questionings are what you try when you can’t figure it out,” he explained. “In a setup like this they can get pretty risky. So the boss likes to figure it out.” He added his own basic philosophy, “When they’re dead, they’re safe.”
* * *
Holati Tate was sweating under his clothes when he slid the hopper back out of the vehicle shelter entrance and lifted into the air. Actually, as far as he could tell, everything was rolling along very smoothly, and he could reassure himself with the thought that he was dealing with a group of people who appeared to have proved their competence at this sort of business more than once in the past. If their thinking was up to par, he would be quite safe for the next eight minutes.
But one couldn’t be sure.
Somewhat shakily therefore, he gave the hopper its accustomed fix on the Bio Station and put it on automatic. Then taking a coil of wire out of his pocket, he slipped its looped end over the acceleration switch, secured the loop and gave the wire a tentative tug. The hopper responded with a surge of power.
Holati patted another pocket, which contained a package of emergency rations, and sat back to sweat out the remaining minutes. A persistent fluttering started up in the pit of his stomach. His gaze went wistfully once to the collapsed escape bubble on his left. He was getting a little old for field and track work, he thought; the bubble looked very attractive. But he had no way of knowing just how thorough Ramog’s preparations had been, and no time to check. So the bubble was out, like the grav-tubes and the heavy rifle in the hopper’s emergency locker. Field and track stuff, as if he were a downy cadet! He groaned.