"They're telling me!" the Third Co-ordinator said distractedly. He rubbed his long chin, and reached for a switch.
"Psych-tester?" he said. "You heard them? What are the chances of some other Ceetal picking up U-1?"
"It must be assumed," a mechanical voice replied, "that the attempt will be made promptly. The strike you have initiated against those who were revealed by the Agent's report cannot prevent some unknown survivor from ordering U-1's removal to another place of concealment, where he could be picked up at will. Since you are counting on a lapse of two days before the strike now under way will have yielded sufficient information to permit you to conclude the operation against the Ceetals, several of them may succeed in organizing their escape—and even a single Ceetal in possession of such a host as U-1 would indicate the eventual dominance of the species. Galactic Zones has no record of any other mentality who would be even approximately so well suited to their purposes."
"Yes," said the Co-ordinator. "Their purposes—you think then if U-1 got their treatment, being what he is, he could take us?"
"Yes," the voice said. "He could."
The Co-ordinator nodded thoughtfully. His face looked perhaps a little harsher, a little grayer than usual.
"Well, we've done what we can from here," he said presently. "The first other Agent will get to Gull in eleven hours, more or less. There'll be six of them there tomorrow. And a fleet of destroyers within call range—none of them in time to do much good, I'm afraid!"
"That is the probability," the voice agreed.
"Zone Agent Iliff has cut communication with us," the Co-ordinator went on. "Correlation informed him they had identified Tahmey as U-1. He would be, I suppose, proceeding at top velocities to Gull?"
"Yes, naturally."
"Interstellar reports they have not been able to contact their operative on Gull. It appears," the Co-ordinator concluded, rather bleakly, "that Zone Agent Iliff understands the requirements of the situation."
"Yes," the voice said, "he does."
"G.Z. Headquarters is still trying to get through," the robot said. After a moment, it added, "Iliff, this is no longer a one-agent mission."
"You're right about that! Half the Department's probably blowing its jets trying to converge on Gull right now. They'll get there a little late, though. Meanwhile they know what we know, or as much of it as is good for them. How long since you got the last sign from Pagadan?"
"Over two hours."
Iliff was silent a moment. "You might as well quit working her beam," he said finally. "But keep it open, just in case. And pour on that power till we get to Gull!"
It did not take long after his landing on that planet to establish with a reasonable degree of certainty that if Pagadan was still present, she was in no condition to respond to any kind of telepathic message. It was only a very little later—since he was working on the assumption that caution was not a primary requirement just now—before he disclosed the much more significant fact that the same held true of the personage who had been known as Deel.
The next hour, however—until he tapped the right three or four minds—was a dragging nightmare. Then he had the additional information that the two he sought had departed from the planet, together, but otherwise unaccompanied, not too long after he had sent Pagadan his original message.
He flashed the information back to the docked ship, adding:
"It's a question, of course, of who took whom along. My own guess is Pagadan hadn't tripped any triggers yet and was still in charge—and U-1 was still Deel—when they left here. The ship's a single-pilot yacht, shop-new, fueled for a fifty-day trip. No crew; no destination recorded."
"Pass it on to Headquarters right away! They still won't be able to do anything about it; but anyway, it's an improvement."
"That's done," the robot returned impassively. "And now?"
"I'm getting back to you at speed—we're going after them, of course."
"She must have got the message," the robot said after a moment, "but not clearly enough to realize exactly what you wanted. How did she do it?"
"Nobody here seems to know—she blasted those watch-dogs in one sweep, and Gull's been doing flip-flops quietly ever since. The Ceetal's gang is in charge of the planet, of course, and they think Deel and his kidnapers are still somewhere around. They've just been alerted from Lycanno that something went wrong there in a big way; but again they don't know what."
"And now they've also begun to suspect somebody's been poking around in their minds pretty freely this last hour or so."
The two men in the corridor outside the Port Offices were using mind-shields of a simple but effective type. It was the motor tension in their nerves and muscles that warned him first, surging up as he approached, relaxing slightly—but only slightly—when he was past.
He drove the warning to the ship.
"Keep an open line of communication between us, and look out for yourself. The hunt's started up at this end!"
"The docks are clear of anything big enough to matter," the robot returned instantly. "I'm checking upstairs. How bad does it look? I can be with you in three seconds from here."
"You'd kill a few thousand bystanders doing it, big boy! This section's built up. Just stay where you are. There are two men following me, a bunch more waiting behind the next turn of this corridor. All wearing mind-shields—looks like government police."