Prenk’s guerrillas had infiltrated the capital city by ones and twos; no group ever larger than two. Each one wore the costume of an easily recognizable class of citizen. They were apparently artisans and workmen, soldiers, sailors, clerks, businessmen, tycoons of industry. Nor were the watches they all wore on their wrists any more alike than were their costumes — except in one respect. They all told the same time, to the tenth of a split second, and they all were kept in sync by pulses from a tiny power-pack that had been hidden in a tree in the outskirts of the city.
At time zero minus thirty minutes, three hundred fifty-nine persons began to enter into and to distribute themselves throughout an immense building that resembled a palace or a cathedral much more than the capitol building even of a world.
At time zero minus four seconds all those persons, who had in the meantime been doing inconspicuous this and innocuous that, changed direction toward or began to walk toward or kept on walking toward their objectives.
At time zero on the tick, three hundred fifty-nine knives came out of concealment and that exact number of persons fell.
Some of the guerrillas remained on guard where their victims lay. Others went into various offices on various businesses. On the top-most floor four innocent-looking visitors blasted open the steel door of Communications and shot the four operators then on duty. The leader of the four invaders stepped up to the master-control desk, shoved a body aside, flipped three or four switches, and said:
“Your attention, please! These programs have been interrupted to announce that former Premier Da-Bay Saien and his sycophants have been executed for high treason.
Premier Ree-Toe Prenk and his loyalists are now the government. Business is to go on as usual; no new orders will be issued except as they become necessary. That is all.
Scheduled programs will now be resumed.”
It was not as easy everywhere, however, as that announcement indicated. By the very nature of things, the information secured by the counterspies was incomplete and sometimes, especially in fine detail, was wrong. Thus, when Seaton took his post on the fifteenth floor, standing before and admiring a heroic-size bronze statue of a woman strangling a boa constrictor whose coils enveloped half her height, he saw that there were four guards, instead of the two he had expected to find, at the door of the office that was his objective. But he couldn’t — wouldn’t — call for help. They hadn’t had man-power enough to carry spares. He’d trip the S O S if necessary, but not until it became absolutely necessary — but that office had to be put out of business by time zero plus fifteen seconds. He’d just have to act twice as fast, was all.
Cursing silently the fact that his magnum was not to be used during the first few silent seconds of the engagement, he watched the four men constantly out of the corners of his eyes, planning every detail of his campaign, altering those details constantly as the guards changed ever so slightly their positions and postures. He could get three of them, he was sure, before any one of them could fire; but he’d have to be lucky as well as fast to get the fourth in time — and if the ape had time to take any kind of aim at all it would be very ungood.
On the tick of zero time Seaton shed his businessman’s cloak and took off. Literally. His knife swept through the throat of the nearest guard before that luckless wight had moved a muscle. He kicked the second, who was bending over at the moment, on and through the temple with the steel-lined toe of one highly special sure-grip fighting shoe.
He stabbed the third, whose throat was protected at that instant by an upflung left arm, through the left side of the rib-cage, twisting his blade as he pulled it out.
Ultra-fast as Seaton had been, the fourth guard had had time to lift his weapon, but he had not had time to aim it, or even to point it properly. He fired in panic, before his gun was pointed even waist-high. If Seaton had stayed upright the bullet would have missed him completely. But he didn’t. He ducked and sidestepped and twisted — and the heavy slug tore a long and savage wound across the left side of his back.
One shot was all the fellow got, of course. Seaton kicked the door open and leaped into the room, magnum high and ready. The noise of that one shot might have torn it, but good.
“Freeze, everybody!” he rasped, and everyone in the big room froze. “One move of any finger toward any button and I blast. This office is closed temporarily. Leave the building, all of you; right now and fast. Just as you are. Come back in here after lunch for business as usual. Scram!”
The office force — some nonchalantly, some wonderingly, some staring at Seaton in surprise — “scrammed” obediently. All, that is, except one girl who came last; the girl who had been sitting at an executive-type desk beside the door of the inner office. She was a fairly tall girl; with hazel eyes and with dark brown hair arranged in up-to-the-second “sunburst” style. Her close-fitting white nylon upper garment and her even tighter fire-engine-red tights displayed a figure that could not be described as being merely adequate.
Instead of passing him as the others had done she stopped, held out both hands in indication of having nothing except peaceable intentions, and peered around his left side. Then, bringing her eyes back to his, she said, “You’re bleeding terribly, sir. It doesn’t seem to be very deep entrance and exit holes in your shirt are only four or five inches apart — but you’re losing an awful lot of blood. Won’t you let me give you first aid? I’m a quite competent nurse, sir.”
“What?” Seaton demanded, but whatever he had intended to add to that one word was forestalled by a bellow of wrath from behind the just-opening door of the inner office.
“Kay-Lee! You shirking slut! How much more of this do you think you can get away with? When I buzz you you jump or I’ll cut your bloody—” The man broke off sharply and goggled at what he saw. He was a pasty-faced, paunchy man of forty; very evidently self-indulgent and as evidently completely at a loss at the moment.
“Come in, Bay-Lay Boyn,” Seaton said. “Slowly, if you don’t want your brains to decorate the ceiling. Did you ever see a man shot in the head with a magnum pistol?”
The man gulped and licked his lips. The girl broke the very short silence. “Whatever you do to that poisonous slob, sir, I hope it’s nothing trivial. I’d love to see his brains spattered all over the ceiling and I’d never let them be washed off. I’d look up at them week after week and gloat.”
“Kay-Lee dear, you don’t mean that! You can’t mean it!” the man implored. “Do something! Please do something! I’ll double your salary — I’ll make you a First — I’ll give you a diamond necklace — I’ll—”
“You’ll shut your filthy lying mouth, Your Exalted,” she said — quietly, but with an icily venomous contempt that made Seaton stare. “I’ve taken all the raps for you I’m ever going to.” She turned to Seaton. “Please believe, sir, that no matter who your people are or what you do, any possible change will be for the better. And I remind you — if you don’t want to fall flat on your face from weakness you’ll let me dress that wound.”
“I wouldn’t wonder,” Seaton admitted. “Blood’s running down into my shoes already and it’s beginning to hurt like the devil. So get your kit. But before you start on me we’ll use some three-inch bandage to lash that ape’s hands around that pillar there.”
That done, Seaton peeled to the waist and the girl went expertly to work. She sprayed the nasty-looking wound, which was almost but not quite a deep but open groove, with antiseptic and with coagulant. She-cross-taped its ragged edges together with blood-proof adhesive tape. She sponged most of the liquid blood off of his back. She sprinkled half a can of curative-antispetic powder; she taped on thick pads of sterile gauze. She wrapped — and taped into place — roll after roll of three-inch bandage around his body and up over his shoulder and around his neck. Then she stood back and examined her handiwork, eyes narrowed in concentration.