"One more thing, sir. The place is full of gas. It's just as well, we think.
"No, sir', we haven't. If you'll turn off the sonics, I'll look." He turned from the phone. "Watts, check in the hall and see if anybody dropped dead out there."
"But the sonics are still going!"
"They should be off. Try it."
A ballpoint pen peeped from the shirt pocket of the unconscious guard. Matt saw it, snatched it, and drew rapidly: a heart on the guard's forehead, three drops running down the straight bridge of the nose.
The one called Watts opened the door a crack. No sonic numbness touched him. He opened it farther. "Hey!" He snaked out and ran down the hall toward Fox's body. Matt was on his heels.
"It's a guard," he called back.
"Check the ident." Watts began going through Fox's pockets. He looked up once as Matt sidled past him, then continued with his work.
"It's Elaine Mattson," said Jesus Pietro. "Has to be. You're sure she was alone?"
"If there'd been anyone with her, he would have been in the same condition. I think she was alone, sir."
That made sense. Which was hardly a guarantee, Jesus Pietro thought. "Thank you, Major Jansen. How are the hunting squads doing?"
"They've found nothing, sir. They're still quartering Alpha Plateau. Shall I see how far they've gotten?"
"Yes. Call me back." He hung up and tilted back his desk chair, with a frown wrinkling his forehead.
They had to be somewhere on Alpha. And they couldn't all be attacking the Hospital.
Elaine Mattson, captured. Well and good. She must have set off that mysterious explosion to cover her entrance. Had she also worn that Implementation uniform? It might be. She'd pass at a distance, long enough to knock out a crew woman and get a better disguise.
Maybe. Maybe.
He picked up the sixth dossier, the one lying alone next to the stunner. Polly Tournquist's life.
Born twenty-two years ago, firstborn in a family with no known connection to the Sons of Earth. Her father's left eye had come from the organ banks, after he'd lost his own to a fishing fly. A good, loyal colonist. A disciplinarian in his own family.
Raised on Delta, sector four. Studied at Colony University, with good grades. She'd met Jayhawk Hood there. Her first love affair. Why? Hood would have made a bad gigolo, small, puny, not good-looking--but some girls like a man with a mind.
Finished high school and college, went to work at Delta Retransmitting Station. Affair with Hood had cooled to friendship, apparently. But she'd joined the Sons of Earth. Revolting against authority? Her father would have turned her in, had he known. Look at the lines of disapproval in that ferret face... hmm? Without those lines, he'd look something like Jayhawk Hood!
It all helped. By now she'd been in the coffin cure for thirty hours. If a voice came to her now, the only sensory stimulus in her cosmos, she'd listen. And believe. As others had. Especially if the voice appealed to the right incidents in her past.
But for now she'd have to wait. The Sons of Earth came first. One down, four to go... Jesus Pietro reached for his cup and found the coffee stone cold.
A question touched, his mind. He grimaced, pushed it back to wherever it had come from. He opened his desk-phone and said, "Miss Lauessen, will you order me more coffee."
"Are you sure? You'll be awash with the stuff."
"Just get it. And"--the same thought crawled out into the light, and before he could stop himself--"get me Matthew Keller's file. Not the one on my desk, the one in the dead file."
She came in a minute later, slender and blonde and looking coolly remote, carrying a folder and a pot of coffee. He opened the folder at once. She frowned at him, started to ask something, saw that he wasn't listening, and left.
Matthew Keller. Born... Educated... Joined Sons of Earth tenth month, 2384, in middle age. Why so late? Why at all? Became a professional killer and thief, stealing for the Sons of Earth, killing Implementation officers foolish enough to venture into the colonist regions in insufficient numbers. Thief? Damn! Could Keller senior have stolen that car? The car Keller junior rode straight down into the void! Trapped in Sector 28, Beta, fourth month, 2397; captured, convicted of treason, disassembled for the organ banks. Oh, Jesus Pietro, you clever liar, you. Half the Hospital must know he really went off the edge, forty miles down to Mist Demons and hellfire.
So? Jesus Pietro dumped his cold coffee, into a wastebasket, poured a fresh cup, and sipped.
A flicking shadow somewhere at the corner of his eye. A noise. Someone was in the room. The cup jumped in his hand, searing his lip. He put it down fast and looked around.
He went back to the dossier.
Matthew Keller. What idiot whim had made him ask for this? Keller senior was dead. Crippled, crawling, he'd gone off the Void edge split seconds before--
"Castro."
Jesus Pietro looked up with a start.
He looked down. Treatment reports... Not good, but no disaster. Too many people had been injured in the, mass escape, but some could be saved. Luckily the organ banks were full. And could be filled again, from the vivarium, once the Surgery Section found time. Why did everything have to happen at once?
"Castro!"
Jesus Pietro's chin jerked up--and he caught himself before his eyes followed. He'd done this once before, hadn't he? There'd been a noise... and someone had called his name... and what the Mist Demons was someone doing unannounced in Jesus Pietro's private office? He let his eyes travel to the edge of the desk--
Crew clothing.
But it was rumpled and dirty, and it didn't fit, and the hands that rested flat on his desk had dirty short finger-nails. A colonist in crew clothing, for sure. In Jesus Pietro's office. Unannounced. He'd gone past Miss Lauessen, unannounced.
"You."
"Thats right. Where is she?"
"You're Matthew Keller."
"Yes.
"How did you get in here?" Somehow he kept the tremor out of his voice, and was proud of it.
"None of your business. Where is she?"
"Who?"
"Don't give me that. Where's Polly?"
"I can't tell you that. Or anything else," said Jesus Pietro. He kept his eyes fixed on the man's stolen gold belt buckle.
At the periphery of his vision he saw two big, none-too-clean hands reach down to his own right hand. His visitor leaned heavily on that hand, and when Jesus Pietro belatedly tried to withdraw it, he couldn't. He saw his visitor take hold of his middle finger and bend it back.
The pain was shocking. Jesus Pietro's mouth came wide open, and he looked up to plead...
He was reaching for Polly Tournquist's folder when agony struck his hand. He snatched it back as if trying to get it off a hot stove. Reflex. The middle finger stuck out at right angles to the knuckles.
Mist Demons, it hurt! How the blazes had he--
"Well, Castro?"
He remembered enough, barely enough, not to look up. Someone or something was in this room, something or someone with the power to make people forget. He made a logical connection and said, "You."
"Right. Where's Polly Tournquist?"
"You. Matthew Keller. So you came for me."
"Let's not play games. Where's Polly?"
"Were you in the car that attacked the Hospital? The one that dove straight down?"
"Yes.
"Then how"
"Shut up, Castro. Tell me where Polly is. Now. Is she alive?"
"You'll get no information from me. How did you get back from the void?"
"I flew back."