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dusty-looking black rug beside one wall.
Velladon unbuckled his gun belt, placed the gun on the desk, sat down and
switched on the ComWeb.
Behind him, the black rug stirred silently and rose up.
You called that one, Ryter was saying seven or eight minutes later, almost
too well!
Quillan shook his head, poked at the commodore s gun on the desk with his
finger, looked about the silent office and back at the door where a small
group of security men stood staring in at them.
Three men gone without a sound! he said. He indicated the glowing disk of
the ComWeb. He had time enough to turn it on, not time enough to make his
call. Any chance of camouflaged portals in this section?
No, Ryter said. I know the location of every portal in the Executive Block.
No number of men could have taken
Velladon and the two guards without a fight anyway. We d have heard it. It
didn t happen that way.
Which leaves, Quillan said, one way it could have happened. He jerked his
head toward the door. Will those men keep quiet?
If I tell them to.
Then play it like this. Two guards have vanished. The Hlat obviously did it.
The thing s deadly. That ll keep every man in the group on the alert every
instant from now on. But we don t say Velladon has vanished. He s outside in
the Star at the moment, taking care of something.
Ryter licked his lips. What does that buy us?
If the Brotherhood s responsible for this
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I don t take much stock in coincidences, Ryter said.
Neither do I. But the Hlat s an animal; it can t tell them it s carried out
the job. If they don t realize we suspect them, it gives us some advantage.
For the moment, we just carry on as planned, and get rid of the Hlat in one
way or another as the first step. The thing s three times as dangerous as
anyone suspected except, apparently, the Brotherhood. Get the life-
detectors over here as soon as you can, and slap a space-armor guard on the
fifth level.
Ryter hesitated, nodded. All right.
Another thing, Quillan said, Cooms may have the old trick in mind of
working from the top down. If he can take you out along with a few other key
men, he might have this outfit demoralized to the point of making up for the
difference in the number of guns especially if the Hlat s still on his team.
You d better keep a handful of the best boys you have around here glued to
your back from now on.
Ryter smiled bleakly. Don t worry. I intend to. What about you?
I don t think they re planning on giving me any personal attention at the
moment. My organization is outside, not here.
And it would look odd to the Brotherhood if I started dragging a few Star
guards around with me at this point.
Ryter shrugged. Suit yourself. It s your funeral if you ve guessed wrong.
There was nothing, Quillan told Marras Cooms, that you could actually put a
finger on. It was just that I got a very definite impression that the
commodore and Ryter may have something up their sleeves. Velladon s looking
too self-
satisfied to suit me.
The Brotherhood chief gnawed his lower lip reflectively. He seemed thoughtful,
not too disturbed. Cooms might be thoroughly afraid of the escaped Hlat, but
he wouldn t have reached his present position in Nome Lancion s organization
if he had been easily frightened by what other men were planning.
He said, I warned Movaine that if Velladon learned we d checked out the Hlat,
he wasn t going to like it.
He doesn t, Quillan said. He regards it as something pretty close to an
attempted double cross.
Cooms grinned briefly. It was.
Of course. The question is, what can he do about it? He s got you outgunned
two to one, but if he s thinking of jumping you before Lancion gets here, he
stands to lose more men than he can afford to without endangering the entire
operation for himself.
Cooms was silent a few seconds. There s an unpleasant possibility which
didn t occur to me until a short while ago,
he said then. The fact is that Velladon actually may have us outgunned here
by something like four to one. If that s the case, he can afford to lose quite
a few men. In fact, he d prefer to.
Quillan frowned.
Four to one? How s that?
Cooms said, The commodore told us he intended to let only around half of the
Seventh Star s security force in on the
Hlat deal. The other half was supposed to have been dumped out of one of the
subspace section s locks early today, without benefit of suits. We had no
reason to disbelieve him. Velladon naturally would want to cut down the number
of men who got in on the split with him to as many as he actually needed. But
if he s been thinking about eliminating us from the game, those other men may
still be alive and armed.
Quillan grunted. I see. You know, that could explain something that looked a
little odd to me.
What was that? Cooms asked.
Quillan said, After they discovered down there that two of their guards were
missing and decided the Hlat must have
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been on their level, I tried to get hold of the commodore again. Ryter told me
Velladon won t be available for a while, that he s outside in the Star, taking
care of something there. I wondered what could be important enough to get
Velladon to leave the Executive Block at present, but
Brother, I m way ahead of you! Cooms said. His expression hardened. That
doesn t look good. But at least he can t bring in reinforcements without
tipping us off. We ve got our own guards down with theirs at the entrance.
Quillan gave him a glance, then nodded at the wall beyond them. That s a
portal over there, Marras. How many of them on this level?
Three or four. Why? The outportals have been plugged, man! Sealed off. Fluel
checked them over when we moved in.
Sure they re sealed. Quillan stood up, went to the portal, stood looking at
the panel beside it a moment, then pressed on it here and there, and removed
it. Come over here, friend. I suppose portal work s been out of your line.
I ll show you how fast a thing like that can get un-
plugged!
He slid a pocketbook-sized tool kit out of his belt, snapped it open. About a
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