Wasp

CHAPTER III

At the hotel he stopped by the desk and spoke to the clerk. “This war, it makes things difficult. One can plan nothing with certainty.” He made the hand-splaying gesture that was the Sirian equivalent of a shrug. “I must leave tomorrow and may be away seven days. It is a great nuisance.”

“You wish to cancel your room, Mr. Agavan?”

“No. I reserved it for ten days and will pay for ten.” Dipping into his pocket he extracted a wad of guilders. “I shall then be able to claim it if I get back in time. If I don’t, well; that’ll be my hard luck.”

“As you wish, Mr. Agavan.” Indifferent to the throwing away of good money so long as it was somebody else’s, the other scribbled a receipt, handed it over.

“Thanks,” said Mowry. “Live long!”

“May you live long.” He gave the response in dead tones, not caring if the customer expired on the spot.

Mowry went to the restaurant and ate. Then to his room where he lay full length on the bed and gave his feet a much needed rest while he waited for darkness to become complete. When the last streamers of sunset had faded away he took another pack of stickers from his case, also a piece of crayon, and departed.

The task was lots easier this time. Poor illumination helped cover his actions, he was now familiar, with the locality and the places most deserving of his attentions, he was not diverted by the need to find another and safer address. For more than four hours he could concentrate single-mindedly upon the job of defacing walls and making a mess of the largest, most expensive sheets of plate glass that daytimes were prominently in public view.

Between seven-thirty and midnight he slapped exactly one hundred stickers on shops, offices and vehicles of the city transport system, also inscribed swiftly, clearly and in large size the letters D.A.G. upon twenty-four walls.

The latter feat was performed with Terran crayon, a deceitfully chalk-like substance that made full use of the porosity of brick when water was applied. In other words, the more furiously it was washed the more stubbornly it became embedded. There was only one sure way of obliterating the offensive letters—to knock down the entire wall and rebuild it.

In the morning he breakfasted, walked out with his case, ignored a line of waiting dynocars and caught a bus. He changed buses nine times, switching routes one way or the other and heading nowhere in particular. Five times he travelled without his case which reposed awhile in a rented locker. This tedious rigmarole may not have been necessary but there was no way of telling; it was his duty not only to avoid actual perils but also to anticipate hypothetical ones.

Such as this: “Kaitempi check. Let me see the hotel register. H’m!—much the same as last time. Except for this Shir Agavan. Who is he, hi?”

“A forestry surveyor.”

“Did you get that from his identity-card?”

“Yes, officer. It was quite in order.”

“By whom is he employed?”

“By the Ministry of Natural Resources.”

“Was his card embossed with the Ministry’s stamp?”

“I don’t remember. Maybe it was. I can’t say for sure.”

“You should notice things like that. You know full well that you’ll be asked about them when the check is made.”

“Sorry, officer, but I can’t see and remember every item that comes my way in a week.”

“You could try harder. Oh. well, I suppose this Agavan character is all right. But maybe I’d better get confirmation if only to show I’m on the job. Give me your phone.” A call, a few questions, the phone slammed down, then in harsh tones, “The Ministry has no Shir Agavan upon its roll. The fellow is using a fake identity-card. When did he leave the hotel? Did he look agitated when he went? Did he say anything to indicate where he was going? Wake up, you fool, and answer! Give me the key to his room—it must be searched at once: Did he take a dynocar when he departed? Describe him to me as fully as you can. So he was carrying a case? What sort of a case,hi?”

That was the kind of chance that must be taken when one holes up in known and regularly checked haunts. The risk was not enormous, in fact it was small—but it was still there. And when tried, sentenced and waiting for death it is no consolation to know that what came off was a hundred to one chance. To keep going and to maintain the one-man battle the enemy had to be outwitted, if possible, all along the line and all the time.

Satisfied that by now the most persistent of snoops could not follow his tortuous trail through the city, Mowry retrieved his case, lugged it up to the third floor of a crummy tenement building, let himself into his suite of two sour-smelling rooms. The rest of the day he spent cleaning the place up and making it fit to live in.

He’d be lots harder to trace here. The shifty-eyed landlord had not asked to see his identity-card, had accepted him without question as Gast Hurkin, a low-grade railroad official, honest, hard-working and stupid enough to pay his rent regularly and on time. To the landlord’s way of thinking the unsavoury neighbours rated a higher I.Q.—in terms of that environment—being able to get a crust with less effort and remaining tight-mouthed about how they did it.

Housework finished, Mowry bought a paper, sought through it from front to back for some mention of yesterday’s activities, There wasn’t a word on the subject. At first he felt disappointed, then on further reflection he became heartened.

Opposition to the war and open defiance of the government definitely made news that justified a front-page spread. No reporter, no editor would pass it up if he could help it. Therefore the papers had passed it up because they could not help it. They’d had no choice about the matter. Somebody high in authority had clamped down upon them with the heavy hand of censorship. Somebody with considerable power had been driven into making a weak countermove.

That was a start, anyway. His first waspish buzzings had forced authority to interfere with the press. What’s more, the countermove was feeble and ineffective. It wouldn’t work. It was doomed to failure, serving only as a stopgap while they sat around and beat their brains for more decisive measures.

The more persistently a government maintains silence on a given subject of discussion, the more the public talks about it, thinks about it. The longer and more stubborn the silence the guiltier it looks to the talkers and thinkers. In time of war the most morale-lowering question that can be asked is, “What are they hiding from us now?”

Some hundreds of citizens would be asking themselves that same question tomorrow, the next day or the next week. The potent words Dirac Angestun Gesept would be on a multitude of lips, milling around in a like number of minds, merely because the powers-that-be were afraid to talk.

And if a government fears to admit even the pettiest facts of war, how much faith can the common man place in the leadership’s claim not to be afraid of anything? Hi?

A disease gains in menace when it spreads, popping up in places far apart and taking on the characteristics of an epidemic. For that reason Mowry’s first outing from his new abode was to Radine, a town two-forty miles south of Pertane. Population three hundred thousand, hydro-electric power, bauxite mines, aluminum extraction plants.

He caught an early morning train. It was overcrowded with all those people compelled to move around by the various needs of war: sullen workers, bored soldiers, self-satisfied officials, colourless nonentities. The seat facing him was occupied by a heavy-bellied character with bloated, porcine features, a caricaturist’s idea of the Jaimec Minister of Food.

The train set off, hit up a fast clip. People piled in and out at intermediate stations. Pigface contemptuously ignored Mowry, watched the passing landscape with lordly disdain, finally fell asleep and let his mouth hang open. He was twice as hoglike in his slumbers and would have attained near-perfection with a lemon between his teeth.

Thirty miles from Radine the door from the coach ahead slammed open, a civilian policeman entered. He was accompanied by two burly, hard-faced characters in plain clothes. This trio halted by the nearest passenger.

“Your ticket,” demanded the cop.

The passenger handed it over, his expression scared. The policeman examined it front and back, passed it to his companions who studied it in turn.

“Your identity-card.”

That got the same treatment, the cop looking it over as if doing a routine chore, the other two surveying it more critically and with concealed suspicion.

“Your movement permit.”

It passed the triple scrutiny, was given back along with the ticket and identity-card. The recipient’s face showed vast relief, The cop picked on the passenger sitting next to him.

“Your ticket,”

Mowry, seated two-thirds the way along the coach, observed this performance with much curiosity and a little apprehension. His feelings boosted to alarm when they reached the seventh passenger.

For some reason best known to themselves the tough-looking pair in plain clothes gazed longer and more intently at this one’s documents. Meanwhile, the passenger developed visible signs of agitation. They stared at his strained face, weighing him up. Their own features wore the hungry expressions of predatory animals about to tear down a victim.

“Stand up!” barked one of them.

The passenger shot to his feet and stood quivering. He swayed slightly and it was not due to the rocking of the train. While the cop looked on, the two frisked the passenger with speed and professional thoroughness. They took things out of his pockets, pawed them around, shoved them back. They patted his clothes all over, showing no respect for his person.

Finding nothing of significance, one of them muttered an oath then yelled at the victim, “Well, what’s giving you the shakes?”

“I don’t feel so good,” said the passenger, feebly.

“Is that so? What’s the matter with you?”

“Travel sickness. I always get this way in trains.”

“It’s a story, anyway.” He glowered at the other, lost patience and made a careless gesture. “All right, you can sit”

At that the passenger collapsed into his seat and breathed heavily. He had the mottled complexion of one almost sick from fear and relief. The cop eyed him a moment, let go a sniff and turned attention to number eight.

“Ticket.”

There were ten more to be chivvied before these inquisitors reached Mowry. He was willing to take a chance on his documents passing muster but he dared not risk a search. The cop was just a plain, ordinary cop. The other two were members of the all-powerful Kaitempi; if they dipped into his pockets the balloon would go up once and for all. And in due time, when on Terra it was realised that his silence was the silence of the grave, a cold-blooded specimen named Wolf would give with the sales talk to another sucker.

“Turn around. Walk bow-legged. We want you to become a wasp.”

By now most of the passengers were directing their full attention along the aisle, watching what was going on and meanwhile trying to ooze an aura of patriotic rectitude. Mowry slid a surreptitious look at Pigface who was still lolling opposite with head hanging on chest and mouth wide open. Were those sunken little eyes really closed or were they watching him between narrowed lids?

Short of pushing his face right up against the other’s unpleasant countenance he couldn’t tell for certain. But it made no difference, the trio were edging nearer every moment and he had to take a risk. Furtively he felt behind him, found a tight but deep gap in the upholstery where the bottom of the backrest met the rear of the seat. Keeping his attention riveted upon Pigface, he edged a pack of stickers and two crayons out of his pocket, crammed them into the gap, poking them well out of sight. The sleeper opposite did not stir or blink an eyelid.

Two minutes later the cop gave Pigface an irritable shove on the shoulder and that worthy woke up with a snort. He glared at the cop, then at the pair in plain clothes.

“So! What is this?”

“Your ticket,” said the cop.

“A traffic check, hi?” responded Pigface; showing sudden understanding. “Oh, well—” Inserting fat fingers in a vest pocket he took out an ornate card embedded in a slice of transparent plastic. This he exhibited to the trio as if it were the equivalent of the keys to the kingdom. The cop stared at it and became servile. The two toughies stiffened like raw recruits caught dozing on parade.

“Your pardon; Major,” apologised the cop.

“It is granted,” assured Pigface, showing a well-practised mixture of arrogance and condescension. “You are only doing your duty.” He favoured the rest of the coach with a beam of triumph born of petty power, openly enjoying the situation and advertising himself as being several grades above common herd.

Eyeing him with concealed dislike, Mowry became obsessed with the notion that some buttocks have been designed by Nature specifically to be kicked good and hard and that such a target was within foot-reach right now. His right shoe got the fidgets at the thought of it but he kept it firmly on the floor.

Leery and embarrassed, the cop switched to Mowry, said, “Ticket.”

Mowry handed it over, striving to look innocent and bored. Pseudo-nonchalance didn’t come easy because now he was the focal point of the coach’s battery of eyes. Almost all the other passengers were looking his way, Pigface was surveying him speculatively and the two Kaitempi agents were giving him the granite-hard stare.

“Identity-card.”

That got passed across.

“Movement permit.”

He surrendered it, braced himself for the half-expected command of, “Stand up!”

It did not come. Anxious to get away from the fat Major’s cold, official gaze, the three examined the papers, handed them back without comment and moved on. Mowry shoved the documents into his pocket, tried to keep a great relief out of his voice ras he spoke to the other.

“I wonder what they’re after.”

“It is no business of yours,” said Pigface, as insultingly as possible.

“No, of course not,” agreed Mowry.

There was silence between them. Pigface sat mooning through the window and showed no inclination to resume his slumbers. Damn the fellow, thought Mowry, retrieving the hidden stickers was going to prove difficult with that slob awake and alert.

A door crashed shut as the cop and Kaitempi agents finished with that coach and went through to the following one. A minute later the train pulled up with such suddenness that a couple of passengers were thrown from their seats. Outside the train and farther back toward the rear end voices started shouting.

Heaving himself to his feet, Pigface opened the window’s top half, stuck his head out and looked back toward the source of the noise. Then with speed surprising in one so cumbersome he whipped a gun from his pocket, ran along the aisle and through the end door. Outside the bawling grew louder.

Mowry got up and had a look through the window. Near the tail of the train a small bunch of figures were running alongside the track, the cop and the Kaitempi slightly in the lead. As he watched, the latter swung up their right arms and several sharp cracks rang through the morning air. It was impossible to see at whom they were shooting.

Also beside the train, gun in hand, Pigface was pounding heavily along in pursuit of the pursuers. Curious faces popped out of windows all along the line of coaches. Mowry called to the nearest face.

“What happened?”

“Those three came in to check papers. Some fellow saw them, made a wild dash to the opposite door and jumped out. They stopped the train and went after him.”

“Was he hurt when he jumped?”

“Not by the looks of it. Last I saw of him he was diminishing in the distance like a champion meika. He got a pretty. good start. They’ll be lucky to catch him.”

“Who was he, anyway?”

“No idea. Some wanted criminal, I suppose.”

“Well,” offered Mowry; “if the Kaitempi came after me I’d hotfoot it like a scared Spakum.”

“Who wouldn’t?” said the other.

Withdrawing, Mowry took his seat. All the other travellers were at the windows, their full attention directed outside. This was an opportune moment. He dug a hand into the hiding-place, extracted the stickers and crayons, pocketed them.

The train stayed put for half an hour during which there was no more excitement within hearing. Finally it jerked into motion and at the same time Pigface reappeared and dumped himself into his seat. His face was thunderous. He looked sour enough to pickle his own hams.

“Did you catch him?” asked Mowry, lending his manner all the politeness and respect he could muster.

Pigface bestowed a dirty look. “It is no business of yours.”

“No, of course not,” confirmed Mowry for the second time.

The previous silence came back and remained until the train pulled into Radine. This being the terminus, everybody got out. Mowry padded along with the mob through the station exit but did not make a beeline for punishable windows and walls.

Instead he followed Pigface.

Shadowing presented no great difficulty. Pigface behaved as though the likelihood of being trailed would be the last thing ever to enter his mind. He went his way with the arrogant assurance of one who has the law in his pocket, all ordinary persons being less than the dust beneath his chariot wheel. In this respect his strength was his weakness, a fatal weakness as he had yet to discover.

Immediately outside the station’s arched entrance Pigface turned right, plodded a hundred yards along the approach-road to the car-park at the farther end. Here he stopped by a long, green dynocar, felt in his pocket for keys.

Lingering in the shadow of a projecting buttress, Mowry watched the quarry unlock the door and squeeze inside. He hustled across the road to a taxi-stand, climbed into the leading vehicle. The move was perfectly timed; he sank into the seat just as the green dynocar whined past.

“Where to?” asked the taxi-driver.

“Can’t tell you exactly,” said Mowry, evasively. “I’ve been here only once before and that was years ago. But I know the way. Just follow my instructions”

The taxi’s dynamo set up a rising hum as the machine sped down the road while its passenger kept attention on the car ahead and gave curt orders from time to time. It would have been lots easier, he knew, to have pointed and said, “Follow that green car.” But that would have linked him in the driver’s mind with Pigface or at least with Pigface’s green dyno. The Kaitempi were experts at ferreting out such links and following them to the bitter end. As it was, the taxi-driver had no idea that he was shadowing anyone.

Swiftly the chaser and the chased threaded their way through the centre of Radine until eventually the leader made a sharp turn to the left and rolled down a ramp into the basement of a large apartment building. Mowry let the taxi run a couple of hundred yards farther on before he called a halt.

“This will do me.” He got out, felt for money. “Nice to have a good, dependable memory, isn’t it?”

“Yar,” said the driver. “One guilder six-tenths.”

Mowry gave him two guilders, watched him cruise away. Hastening back to the apartment building, he entered, took an inconspicuous seat in its huge foyer, lay back and pretended to be enjoying a semi-doze while waiting for someone. There were several others sitting around none of whom took the slightest notice of him.

Sure enough he’d not been there half a minute when Pigface came into the other end of the foyer from a door leading to the basement garage. Without so much as a glance around he stepped into one of a bank of small automatic elevators. The door slid shut. The illuminated telltale on the lintel winked a succession of numbers, stopped at seven, held it awhile, then winked downward to zero. The door glided open, showing the box now empty.

After another five minutes Mowry yawned, stretched, consulted his watch and went out. He paced along the street until he found a phone booth. From it he called the apartment building, got its switchboard operator.

“I was supposed to meet somebody in your foyer nearly an hour ago,” he explained. “I can’t make it. If he’s still waiting I’d like him to be told I can’t get along.”

“Who is he?” asked the operator. “A resident?”

“Yes—but I’ve clean forgotten his name. Nobody is more stupid than me about names. He is plump, got heavy features, lives on the seventh floor. Major… major… what a soko of a memory I’ve got!”

“That would be Major Sallana,” the operator said.

“Correct,” agreed Mowry. “Major Sallana—I had it at the back of my mind all the time.”

“Hold on. I’ll see if he’s still waiting.” There followed a minute’s silence before the operator returned with, “No, he isn’t. I’ve just called his apartment and there’s no reply. Do you wish to leave a message for him?”

“It won’t be necessary-he must have given me up. It’s not of great importance, anyway. Live long!”

“Live long!” said the operator.

So there was no reply from the apartment. Looked as if Pigface had gone straight in and straight out again. Unless he was lying in his bath and not inclined to answer the phone. That didn’t seem likely; he’d hardly had time to fill a tub, undress and get into it. If he really was absent from his rooms it meant that opportunity had presented itself so far as Mowry was concerned and it was up to him to grab it while it was there.

Despite an inward sense of urgency, Mowry paused long enough to cope with other work. He looked through the booth’s glass, found himself unobserved. Then he slapped a sticker on the facing window exactly where tireless talkers could contemplate it while holding the phone.

It said: Power-lovers started this war. Dirac Angestun Gesept will end it—and them!

Returning to the apartments he strolled with deceitful confidence across the foyer, stepped into an unoccupied lift. He turned to face the open front, became conscious of someone hurrying toward the bank, glanced that way and was aghast to find Pigface approaching.

The fellow was wearing a ruminative scowl, hadn’t yet seen him but undoubtedly would do so unless he moved fast. At once Mowry slammed the door and prodded the third button on the panel. The elevator glided up to the third floor, stopped. He kept it there, the door still shut, until he heard the whine of an adjoining box passing him and going higher. Then he dropped back to ground-level, left the building. He felt thwarted and short-tempered and cursed his luck in a steady undertone.

Between then and mid-evening he worked off his ire by running around like mad, decorating Radine with one hundred and twenty stickers and fourteen chalked walls. On no occasion did anyone catch him at it though, as usual, he had several narrow escapes.

Deciding to call it a day for that kind of work, he dropped the remaining half-stick of crayon down a grid and thereby increased his safety margin to some degree. If stopped and searched they’d now find nothing on him immediately recognisable as subversive material.

At the ten-time hour he champed through an overdue meal, having eaten nothing since breakfast. That finished, he looked up Sallana’s number, called it, got no reply. Now was the time. Repeating his earlier tactic, he went to the building, took a lift to the seventh floor, this time without mishap. He trod silently along the heavy carpet of the corridor, looking at doors until he found one bearing the name he sought.

He knocked.

No answer.

He knocked again, a fraction louder but not loud enough to arouse others nearby.

Silence answered him.

This was where his hectic schooling came in. Taking from his pocket a bunch of keys that looked quite ordinary but weren’t, he set to work on the lock, had the door open within precisely thirty-five seconds. Speed was essential for that task—if anyone had chosen that time to enter the corridor he’d have been caught redhanded. Nobody did appear. He slipped through the door, carefully closed it behind him.

His first act was to make swift survey of the rooms and assure himself that nobody was lying around asleep or drunk. There were four rooms, all vacant. Definitely Major Pigface Sallana was not at home.

Returning to the first room, Mowry gave it a sharp examination, spotted a gun lying atop a small filing cabinet. He checked it, found it loaded, stuck it in his pocket.

Next, with expert technique he cracked open a big, heavy desk and started raking through its drawers. The way he did it had the sure, superfast touch of the professional criminal but was in fact a tribute to his college training.

The contents of the fourth drawer on the left made his hair stand on end. He had been seeking with the intention of confiscating whatever it was that made cops servile and even persuaded Kaitempi agents to stand to attention. Jerking open the drawer, he found himself gazing at a neat stack of writing paper bearing official print across its head.

This was more than he’d expected, more than he had hoped for in his most optimistic moments. To his mind it proved that despite his college lectures about caution, caution, everlasting caution, it pays to play hunches and take chances. What the paper’s caption said was:

In other words: the Sirian Secret Police—District of Radine. No wonder those thugs on the train had made ready to grovel. Pigface was a Kaitempi brasshat and as such out-ranked an army brigadier or even a space navy fleet leader.

This discovery upped the speed of his activity still further. From the pile of luggage in the back room he seized a small case, forced it open, tossed the clothing it contained onto the floor. He dumped all the Kaitempi writing paper into the case. A little later he found a small embossing machine, tested it, found that it impressed the letters DKT surmounted by a winged sword. That also went into the case.

Finishing with the desk he started on the adjacent filing cabinet, his nostrils twitching with excitement as he worked at its top drawer. A faint sound came to his ears, he stopped, taut and listening. It was the scrape of a key in the door-lock. The key failed to turn at the first attempt, tried again.

Mowry jumped toward the wall, flattened himself against it where he’d be concealed by the opening door. The key grated a second time, the lock responded, the door swung across his field of vision as Pigface lumbered in.

Pigface took four paces into the room before his brain accepted what his eyes could see. He came to a full stop, stared incredulously and with mounting fury at the ransacked desk while behind him the door drifted around and clicked shut. Reaching a decision, he turned to go out and then saw the invader.

“Good evening,” greeted Mowry, flat-voiced.

“You?” Pigface glowered at him with outraged authority. “What are you doing here? What is the meaning of this?”

“I’m here as a common thief. The meaning is that you’ve been robbed.”

“Then let me tell you—”

“When robbery is done,” Mowry went on, “somebody has to be the victim. This time it’s your turn. No reason why you should have all the luck all the time, is there?”

Pigface took a step forward.

“Sit down!” ordered Mowry, in sharp tones.

The other stopped but did not sit. He stood firm upon the carpet, his small, crafty eyes taking on a stubborn glint, his complexion dark. He spoke in manner suggesting that at any moment he might go bang.

“Put down that gun.”

“Who?—me?” said Mowry.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” declared Pigface, conditioned by a lifetime of creating fear. “Because you don’t know who I am. But when you do you’ll wish.”

“As happens, I do know who you are,” Mowry chipped in. “You’re one of the Kaitempi’s fat rats. A professional torturer, a paid strangler, a conscienceless soko who maims and kills for money and for the sadistic pleasure of it. Sit down when I tell you.”

Still Pigface refused to sit. On the contrary, he refuted the popular belief that all bullies are cowards. Like many of his ilk he had brute courage. His eyes flared with hate, he took a heavy but swift step to one side while his hand dived into a pocket.

But the eyes that so often had calmly watched the death-throes of others had now betrayed him to his own end. The step had hardly been taken, the hand only just reached the pocket, when Mowry’s gun went br-r-r-up!, not loudly but effectively. For five or six seconds Pigface stood wearing a stupid expression, then he teetered, fell backward with a thud that shook the room, rolled onto his side.

Gently opening the door a few inches, Mowry gazed into the corridor, remained listening awhile. There came no rush of feet toward the apartment, nobody raced away yelling for help. If anyone had heard the muffled burst of shots they must have attributed the noise to the flow of traffic far below.

Satisfied that the alarm had not been raised, he shut the door, bent over the body, had a close look at it. Pigface was as dead as he could be, the brief spray from the machine pistol having put seven slugs through his obese frame.

It was a pity, in a way, because Mowry would much have liked to have hammered, kicked or otherwise got out of him the answers to some cogent questions. Whether he could have gained his purpose in this respect was highly doubtful but it would have been worth the trying. There were many things he wanted to know about the Kaitempi, in particular the identities of its current victims, their physical condition and where they were hidden. No wasp could find supporters more loyal and enthusiastic than genuine natives of the planet rescued from the strangler’s noose.

But one cannot thump information from a corpse. That was his sole regret. In all other respects he had cause for gratification. For one thing, factual evidence of the methods of the Kaitempi was of such a revolting nature that to remove any one of them from the scheme of things was to do a favour to Sirians and Terrans alike. For another, such a daring, killing was an ideal touch in present circumstances: it lent murderous support to stickers and wall-scrawls.

It was a broad hint to the powers-that-be that somebody was willing and able to do more than talk. The wasp had done plenty of buzzing around. Now it had demonstrated its sting.

He searched the body and got what he had coveted from the moment that Pigface had basked in adulation upon the train. The ornate card set in thin plastic. It bore signs, seals and signatures, certified that the bearer held the rank of major in the Secret Police. Better still, it did not give the bearer’s name and personal description, contenting itself with using a code-number in lieu. The Secret Police, it seemed, could be warily secret even between themselves, a habit of which others could take full advantage.

Mowry now returned attention to the filing cabinet. Most of the stuff within it proved to be worthless, revealing nothing not already known to Terran Intelligence. But there were three files containing case-histories of persons who had also been made to conform to the Kaitempi habit of hiding identities under code-numbers. Evidently Pigface had abstracted them from local headquarters and taken them home to study at leisure.

He scanned these papers rapidly. It soon became clear that the three unknowns had earned the enmity of the government by nursing political ambitions. They were potential rivals of those already in power. The case-histories said nothing to indicate whether they were now living or dead. The implication was that they were still alive, with their fate yet to be decided, otherwise it seemed hardly likely that Pigface would waste time on such documents. Anyway, the disappearance of these vital papers would aggravate the powers-that-be and possibly scare a few of them.

So he put the files in the case along with the rest of the loot. After that he made a swift hunt around for anything previously overlooked, searched spare suits in the bedroom, discovered, nothing more worth taking. The last chore was to remove from the apartment all clues capable of linking him with the existing situation.

With the case in one hand and the gun in his pocket, he paused in the doorway, looked back at the body.

“Live long!”

Pigface did not deign to reply. He reposed in siience, his podgy right hand clasping a paper on which was inscribed:

Executed by Dirac Angestun Gesept.

Whoever found the body would be sure to pass that message on. It would be equally certain to go from hand to hand, up the ascending scale or rank, right to the top brackets. With any luck at all it would give a few of them the galloping gripes.