"And we can't defend him here?"
"We can try. Maybe I can find out what went wrong. Maybe I can get more information on Keith Pellig."
"Will you take Leon someplace else?"
"It's not worth it. This is as good a place as any. At least there aren't many minds to blur scanning, here." Wakeman got stiffly to his feet and pushed away his half-finished drink. He felt old; and his bones ached. "I'm going downstairs and go over the tapes we scanned on Herb Moore, particularly the ones we got the day he came to talk to Cartwright. Maybe I can put something together."
Rita slipped on a robe and tied the sash around her slim waist. She dug her feet into ankle-length boots and fished together her brush and sun-glasses and lotion. "How much time do we have before he gets here?"
"We should start getting ready. Things are moving fast. Too fast for anyone's good. It all seems to be... falling apart."
"I hope you can do something." Rita's voice was calm, emotionless. "Leon's resting. I made him lie down; the doctor gave him a shot of something to make him sleep."
Wakeman lingered. "I did what I thought was right. I must have left something out. It's clear we're fighting something much more complex and cunning than we realized."
"You should have let him run it," Rita said. "You took the initiative out of his hands. You're like Verrick and the rest of them. You never believed he could manage. You treated him like a child until he gave up and believed it himself."
"I'll stop Pellig," Wakeman said quietly. "I'll correct things. I'll find out what it is and stop him someplace, before he gets to your uncle. It's not Verrick who's running things. Verrick could never work anything out this clever. It must be Moore."
"It's too bad," Rita said, "that Moore isn't on our side."
"I'll stop him," Wakeman repeated. "Some way, somehow."
"Between drinks, maybe." Rita halted for a moment to tie the laces on her boots, and then she disappeared down a descent ramp toward Cartwright's private quarters. She didn't look back.
Keith Pellig climbed the wide marble stairs of the Directorate building with confidence. He walked swiftly, keeping up with the fast-moving crowd of classified bureaucrats pushing good-naturedly into the elevators and passages and offices. In the main lobby Pellig halted a moment to get his bearings.
With a thunderous din, alarm bells went off throughout the building.
The good-natured milling of officials and visitors abruptly ceased. Faces lost their friendly monotony; in an instant the easy-going crowd was transformed into a suspicious, fearful mass. From concealed speakers harsh mechanical voices dinned:
"Clear the building! Everyone must leave the building!" The voices shrilled in a deafening cacophony. "The assassin is in the building! Everyone must leave!"
Pellig lost himself in the swirling waves of men and women pouring around with ominous grimness. He edged, darted, pushed his way into the interior of the mass, toward the labyrinth of passages that led from the central lobby.
There was a scream. Someone had recognized him. There was rapid firing, a blackened, burned-out patch of charred bodies, as guns were fired in crazed panic. Pellig escaped and continued circling warily, keeping in constant motion.
"The assassin is in the main lobby!" the mechanical voices blared. "Concentrate on the main lobby!"
'There he is!" a man shouted. Others took up the roar. "That's him, there!"
On the roof of the building the first wing of military transports was settling down. Green-clad soldiers poured out and began descending in lifts. Heavy weapons and equipment appeared, dragged to lifts or grappled over the side to the ground level.
At his screen, Reese Verrick pulled away briefly and said to Eleanor Stevens, "They're moving in non-teeps. Does that mean—"
"It means the Corps has been knocked out," Eleanor answered. "They're through. Finished."
"Then they'll track Pellig visually. That'll cut down the value of our machinery."
"The assassin is in the lobby!" the mechanical voices roared above the din. Down corridors MacMillan heavy-duty weapons rolled, guns bristling like quills. Soldiers threw plastic cable spun from hand-projectors in an intricate web across the mouths of corridors. The milling, excited officials were herded toward the main entrance of the building. Outside, soldiers were setting up a ring of steel, a circle of men and guns. As the officials poured from the building they were examined visually one by one and then passed on.
But Pellig wasn't coming out. He started back once—and at that moment the red button jumped, and Pellig changed his mind.
The next operator was eager and ready. He had everything worked out the moment he entered the synthetic body. Down a side corridor he sprinted, directly at a clumsy MacMillan gun trying to wedge itself in the passage. As the locks of the gun slid down, Pellig squeezed through. The locks slammed viciously after him and the passage was sealed off.
"The assassin has left the lobby!" the mechanical voices squalled. "Remove that MacMillan weapon!"
The gun was hastily collected and propelled protesting and whirring to a storage locker. Troops poured after Pellig as he raced down deserted office corridors, cleared of officials and workers, yellow-lit passages that echoed with distant clangs.
Pellig thumb-burned his way through a wall and into the main reception lounge. The lounge was empty and silent. It was filled with chairs, vid and aud tapes, lush carpets and walls—but no people.
At his screen, Benteley started with recognition. This was the lounge where he had waited to see Reese Verrick...
The synthetic body skimmed from office to office, a weaving, darting thing that burned a path ahead of it without visible emotion or expression. Once it raced through a room of still-working officials. Screaming men and women scrambled wildly for escape. Desks were hastily abandoned in the frantic rush to exits. Pellig ignored the terrified workers and skimmed on, his feet barely touched the floor. At a checkpoint he seemed almost to rise and hurtle through the air, a blank-faced moist-haired Mercury.
The last commercial office fell behind. Pellig emerged before the vast sealed tank that was the Quizmaster's inner fortress. He recoiled as his thumb-gun showered harmlessly against the thick rexeroid surface. Pellig stumbled away, momentarily bewildered.
"The assassin is at the inner office!" mechanical voices dinned above and around him, up and down corridors, in rooms throughout the elaborate building. "Surround and destroy him!"
Pellig raced in an uncertain circle—and again the red button twitched.
The new operator staggered, crashed against a desk, pulled the synthetic body quickly to its feet, and then proceeded to systematically burn his way around the side of the rexeroid tank.
In his office, Verrick rubbed his hands with satisfaction. "Now it won't be long. Is that Moore operating it?"
"No," Eleanor said, examining the break-down of the indicator board. "It's one of his staff."
The synthetic body emitted a supersonic blast. A section of the rexeroid tank slid away, and the concealed passage lay open. The body hurried up the passage without hesitation.
Under its feet gas capsules popped and burst uselessly. The body did not breathe.
Verrick laughed like an excited child. "See? They can't stop him. He's _in_." He leaped up and down and pounded his fists against his knees. "Now he'll kill him. Now!"
But the rexeroid tank, the massive inner fortress with its armory of guns and ipvic equipment, was empty.
Verrick squealed a high-pitched frenzied curse. "He's not there! He's gone!" His massive face melted with disappointment. "They got the son of a bitch out!"
At his own screen, Herb Moore jerked controls with convulsive dismay. Lights, indicators, meters and dials, flowed wildly. Meanwhile, the Pellig body stood rooted to the spot, one foot into the deserted chamber. There was the heavy desk Cartwright should have been sitting at. All that was left were files, warning apparatus, equipment and machinery. But Cartwright wasn't there.