Nearby an irate oldster looked him over with rheumy gaze and said, “A raid-alarm. What d’you think of that?”
“Nothing,” answered Mowry. “What’s the use of thinking? There’s nothing we can do about it”
“But the Spakum fleets have been destroyed,” shrilled the oldster, making Mowry the focal point of an address to everyone. “They’ve said so time and again, on the radio and in the papers. The Spakum fleets have been wiped out. So what has set off an alarm,?i? What can raid us,?i? Tell me that!”
“Maybe it’s just a practice alarm,” Mowry soothed.
“Practice?” He spluttered with senile fury. “Why do we need practice and who says so? If the Spakum forces are beaten we’ve no need to hide. There’s nothing to hide from. We don’t want any practice.”
“Don’t pick on me.” advised Mowry, bored with the other’s whines. “I didn’t sound the alarm.”
“Some stinking idiot sounded it,” persisted the oldster. “Some lying soko who wants us to believe the war is as good as over when it isn’t. How do we know how much truth there is in what they’re telling us?” He spat on the floor, doing it viciously. “A great victory in the Centauri sector-then the raid-alarm is sounded. They must think we’re a lot of—”
A squat, heavily built character stepped close to him and snapped, “Shut up!”
The oldster was too absorbed in his woes to cower, too pigheaded to recognise the voice of authority. “I won’t shut up. I was walking home when somebody pushed me down here just because a whistle blows and—”
The squat man opened his jacket, displayed a badge and repeated in harsher tones, “I said shut up!”
“Who d’you think you are? At my time of life I’m not going to be—”
With a swift movement the squat man whipped out a rubber truncheon, larruped the oldster over the head with all the force he could muster. The victim went down like a shot steer. A voice at the back of the crowd shouted, “Shame!” Several others murmured, fidgeted but did nothing.
Grinning, the squat man showed what he thought of this disapproval by kicking the oldster in the face and again in the belly. Glancing up, he met Mowry’s gaze and promptly challenged, “Well?”
Mowry said evenly, “Are you of the Kaitempi?”
“Yar. What’s it to you?”
“Nothing. I was only curious.”
“Then don’t be. Keep your dirty nose out of this.”
The crowd muttered and fidgeted again. Two cops came down from the street, sat on the bottom step and mopped their foreheads. They looked nervous and jumpy. The Kaitempi agent joined them, took a gun out of his pocket and nursed it in his lap. Mowry smiled at him enigmatically. The oldster still lay unconscious on the floor and breathed with bubbling sounds.
Now the silence of the city crept into the cellar. The crowd became peculiarly tense as everyone listened. After half an hour there sounded in the distance a series of hisses that started on a loud, strong note and swiftly faded into the sky.
Tenseness immediately increased with the knowledge that guided missiles weren’t being expended for the fun of it. Somewhere overhead and within theoretical range must be a Spakum ship, perhaps bearing a lethal load that might drop at any moment.
Another volley of hisses. The silence returned. The cops and the agent got to their feet, edged farther into the basement and turned to watch the steps. Individual breathing could be heard, some respirating spasmodically as if finding difficulty in using their lungs. All faces betrayed an inward strain and there was an acrid smell of sweat. Mowry’s only thought was that to be disintegrated in a bomb-blast from his own side was a hell of a way to die.
Ten minutes later the floor quivered. The walls vibrated. The entire building shook. From the street came the brittle crash of breaking glass as windows fell out. Still theis was no other sound, no roar of a great explosion, no dull rumbling of propulsors in the stratosphere. The quietness was eerie in the extreme.
It was three hours before the same whistling on a lower note proclaimed the all-clear. The crowd hurried out, vastly relieved. They stepped over the oldster, left him lying there. The two cops headed together up the street while the Kaitempi agent strode the opposite way. Mowry caught up with the agent, spoke pleasantly.
“Shock damage only. They must have dropped it a good distance away.”
The other grunted.
“I wanted to speak to you but couldn’t very well do so in front of all those people.”
“Yar? Why not?”
For answer, Mowry produced his identity-card and his warrant, showed them to the agent.
“Colonel Halopti, Military Intelligence: Returning the card, the agent lost some of his belligerence, made an effort to be polite. “What did you want to say-something about that garrulous old fool?”
“No. He deserved all he got. You’re to be commended for the way you handled him.” He noted the other’s look of gratification, added, “An ancient gab like him could have made the whole crowd hysterical.”
“Yar, that’s right. The way to control a mob is to cut out and beat up its spokesmen.”
“When the alarm sounded I was on my way to Kaitempi H.Q. to borrow a dependable agent,” explained Mowry. “When I saw you in action I felt you’d save me the trouble. You’re just the fellow I want: one who’s quick on the uptake and will stand no nonsense: What’s your name?”
“Sagramatholou.”
“Ah, you’re from the K17 system, hi? They all use compound names there, don’t they?”
“Yar. And you’re from Diracta. Halopti is a Diractan name and you’ve got a Mashambi accent”
Mowry laughed. “Can’t hide much from each other, can we?”
“Nar.” He looked Mowry over with open curiosity, asked, “What d’you want me for?”
“I hope to nab the leader of a D.A.G. cell. It’s got to be done quickly and quietly. If the Kaitempi put fifty on the job and make a major operation of it they’ll scare away the rest for miles around. One at a time is the best technique. As the Spakums say, “Softly, softly, catchee monkey.”
“Yar, that’s the best way,” agreed Sagramatholou.
“I’m confident that I could take this character single-handed without frightening away the others. But while I’m going in, the front he may beat it out the back. So it needs two of us.” He paused to let it sink in, finished, “I want a reliable man to grab him if he bolts; you’ll get full credit for the capture.”
The other’s eyes narrowed and gained an eager light. “I’ll be glad to come along if it’s all right with H.Q. I’d better phone and ask them.”
“Please yourself,” said Mowry with a studied carelessness he was far from feeling. “But you know what will happen for sure?”
“What d’you think?”
“They’ll take you off it and give me an officer of equivalent rank.” Mowry made a disparaging gesture. “Although I shouldn’t say it, being a colonel myself, I’d rather have a tough, experienced man of my own choice.”
The other swelled his chest. “You may have something. There are officers and officers.”
“Precisely! Well, are you in this with me or not?”
“Do you accept full responsibility if my superiors gripe about it?”
“Of course.”
“That’s good enough for me. When do we start?”
“At once.”
“All right,” said Sagramatholou, making up his mind. “I’m on duty another three hours anyway.”
“Good! You got a civilian-type dyno?”
“AII our dynos are ordinary looking ones—they have to be.”
“Mine bears military insignia,” lied Mowry. “We’d better use yours.”