The consulate was guarded by armed Security Corpsmen. And, unless there had been a slackening of public animosity, the building was probably still surrounded by a howling mob.
It was. More than a thousand shouting New Yorkers clustered around the building, pressing close to the steps but not daring to approach for fear of the guns of the Security men. The mob, frustrated, kept up a low animal-like murmur beneath the hysteria of the shouts and curses it hurled forth.
Harriman ordered his driver to park his car several blocks north of the scene of the disturbance. The Agency subchief proceeded cautiously, on foot, making his way between the packed rows of angry demonstrators toward the consulate. He felt a dryness in his throat. He was gambling everything, now.
He needed a Nirotan—dead or alive, preferably alive. And there was only one way for him to get one, he knew.
He made his way up the steps of the consulate. The guards, recognizing him, gave way. Harriman called them together.
“I’ve got orders to bring a Nirotan out,” he whispered. “Just one. They want him down at Headquarters. When I get him out, I want an armed convoy through this crowd—eight of you on each side of me, with drawn guns, in case anyone in the crowd tries to make trouble. All that understood?”
They nodded. Tension pounded in Harriman’s chest. He was taking a tremendous risk, putting a Nirotan in front of the crowd in broad daylight. But there was no help for it. If he came at dead of night, when the mob had diminished, he would get no response from within. Nirotans slept the sleep of the dead at night—this much had been definitely established.
Harriman waited in the scanner beam while the Nirotans within examined him. At last, he heard the heavy door begin to clank open. Beady yellow Nirotan eyes stared at him from within.
“Yes? What do you want?”
“To talk,” Harriman said. “Something new has come up that you must be told about.”
The door widened a little to admit Harriman. But, instead of stepping inside, he extended a hand and seized the wrist of the Nirotan. Harriman tugged. The Nirotan, for all his great height, had the light bones of a flying creature; besides, surprise was on Harriman’s side. The astonished Nirotan came tumbling through the half open door before he knew what was happening. A great shout went up from the mob at the sight of the bat-creature. Harriman felt a twinge of fear at the raucous roar of the crowd. The Nirotan was squirming, struggling to break Harriman’s grasp. His wings riffled impotently.
“What is the meaning of this?” demanded the bat-creature indignantly.
“Just come with me, and don’t struggle, and everything will be all right,” Harriman said soothingly. He let the alien catch a glimpse of the tiny needle-blaster he held in the palm of his free hand. “We want to talk to you at headquarters. The crowd won’t hurt you if you cooperate with me.”
For an uneasy moment Harriman wondered if the alien might not prefer suicide to cooperation. But evidently the Nirotans’ pride did not extend that far. Eyes blazing with fury but otherwise meek, the Nirotan allowed himself to be led down the consulate steps by Harriman.
“Keep back!” the Security Corpsmen shouted, gesturing with their weapons, as they formed an enflankment to protect Harriman and his captive. An ugly menacing buzz rose from the crowd; some began to jostle forward, evidently impelled by hotter heads behind them. But they gave way as the little convoy proceeded past.
The trip to the car seemed to take hours. Harriman was limp and sweat-soaked by the time he finally reached the vehicle and thrust the Nirotan in. There had not been a single overt act of violence on the part of the crowd. It was as if the actual sight of a Nirotan walking safely through their very midst had left them too stunned to react.
“This is an outrage,” the Nirotan started to say, as the car pulled away. “I will protest this kidnapping and I—”
Smiling in relief, Harriman took from his pocket the anesthetic capsule he had prepared, and crushed it under the Nirotan’s snout. The bat-creature slumped instantly into unconsciousness and said no more.
Some fifteen minutes later, a stretcher was borne into the headquarters of the Terran Security Agency. The form on the stretcher was totally swathed in wrappings, and it was impossible to detect what lay beneath. Harriman supervised delivery of the stretcher to the inner office of Security Corps Medical Examiner van Dyne.
Dr. van Dyne looked puzzled and more than a little irritated. “Would you mind telling me what all this mystery is about, Harriman?”
Harriman nodded agreeably. “Is your office absolutely secure-tight?”
“Of course. What do you think—”
“Okay, then. I’ve brought you someone to examine. He’s currently out with a double dose of anesthetrin, and I’ll guarantee his complete cooperation for the next couple of hours, at least. Don’t ask any questions about where or how I got him, Doc. Just examine him, and get in touch with me the instant you’re finished.”
Harriman reached forward and yanked the coverings off the figure on the stretcher. Even in sleep, the face of the Nirotan was hideous. Dr. van Dyne’s jaw sagged in disbelief.
“My God! A Nirotan! Harriman, how did you—”
“I told you, Doc, don’t ask any questions. He’s here, that’s all, and until the anesthedrin wears off he won’t say a word. Look him over. Find out whether or not a Nirotan can be a vampire. Let me know the outcome—and don’t breathe a syllable of this to anybody else, anybody, or it’ll be worth your head and mine. Clear?”
The pudgy medico looked troubled by the obvious irregularity of the situation. But he remained silent for a moment, eyeing the slumbering Nirotan on the stretcher. Finally van Dyne said, “Okay. I’ve always wanted to have a close look at one of these fellows. And we can get a lot of things settled this way.”
Harriman smiled. “Thanks, Doc. Remember, you don’t know anything. If there’s any blame to be taken, let me be the one to take it. How soon will you have any information to give me?”
“That’s hard to say. Suppose you stick around the building for a while. I’ll phone you in—oh, say, an hour and a half.”
“Right. I’ll be waiting.”
As Harriman walked toward the door of van Dyne’s office, the medical examiner had already begun to select the equipment he planned to use in the examination.
Back in his own office, Harriman dropped down wearily at his desk and ran tensely quivering hands through his hair. In ninety minutes, he would have the answers to some of the questions that were plaguing him about the Nirotans.
He had kidnapped a Nirotan in front of a raging mob. It had been bold, foolhardy—but necessary. Without a close look at one of the bat-creatures, it was impossible to take even the first steps toward solving the vampire mysteries.
Now, he needed information. He rang up the library circuit and requested everything they had on Nirota—immediately.
The tapes started arriving a few minutes later. Harriman sorted through them. The first ones were dry statistics on Terran-Nirotan trade over the past ten months. But at length Harriman came up with something that was more useful to him—a tape about Nirota itself.
The Nirotans are a proud, aloof people, Harriman read. They do not welcome contact with other races except for the purpose of trade.
Their historical records stretch back for nearly fifteen thousand Terran years. They have had space travel for ten thousand of those years. The Nirotan Federation extends over some thirteen worlds, all of them settled by Nirotan colonists many centuries previously.