"Of course," Cartwright said.
"Do you mind being present?" Shaeffer asked Benteley. "It may be—difficult."
"I'll stay," Benteley replied.
Verrick and his small group pushed slowly through the door. They removed their suits and glanced cautiously around.
Cartwright greeted Verrick and the two of them shook hands. "A cup of coffee?"
"Thanks," Verrick answered. "You know that Pellig has left?"
Cartwright nodded. "He's heading for John Preston's ship."
The others followed them as they entered the dining-room. Benteley seated himself beside Rita O'Neill at the far end of a table; Verrick saw him but gave merely a momentary flicker of recognition. Shaeffer, the other Corpsmen and Directorate officials, took seats in the background.
"I suppose he'll find it," Verrick murmured. "When I left Chemie he was already thirty-nine astronomical units out; I checked with the ipvic monitor." He accepted black coffee and sipped it with relief. "A devil of a lot has happened today."
"What would Moore do if he got hold of Preston's material?" Cartwright asked. "You know him better than I do."
"It's hard to say. Moore was always a lone wolf. I provided him with materials and he worked on his own on his projects. He's brilliant. He engineered the whole Pellig project."
Eleanor Stevens had come into the room. She stood nervous and uncertain, her thin hands clasped tightly together. After a moment of indecision she slipped into a seat in a recess and watched wide-eyed, a demure and terrified shape half lost in shadow.
"I wondered where you'd gone," Verrick called to her. "You raced me by a—" he examined his watch—"only a few minutes."
"Will Moore return to you if he gets what he wants?" Cartwright asked. "His oath... ?"
"He never worried about that sort of thing." Verrick's glance strayed. "Oaths don't seem as important as they once did."
Benteley said nothing. Under his fingers his gun was cold and moist with perspiration. His coffee cooled beside him, untouched. Rita O'Neill smoked convulsively, stubbed her cigarette out, lit another and then stubbed that.
"Are you going to call a second Challenge Convention?" Cartwright asked Verrick.
Verrick made an intricate pyramid with his massive hands, studied it, then dissolved it back into individual fingers. He gazed absently round the room.
"Why did you come here?" Rita O'Neill's voice cracked out.
Verrick's shaggy eyebrows pulled together in a frown as he turned to Cartwright for an explanation. "My niece," Cartwright said. He introduced them; Rita glared down at her coffee cup and said nothing. Verrick soon forgot her and went back to pyramiding his fingers.
"Of course," he said finally. "I don't know what Benteley has told you. I suppose you understand my set-up, by now."
"What Benteley didn't tell me orally, Shaeffer scanned," Cartwright answered.
"Then you know all I have to say by way of explanation. I don't intend to say anything about Herb Moore." He produced a gun which he propped up right against a milk jug. "I can't very well kill Benteley here..."
Shaeffer and Cartwright exchanged glances.
"We must clear up one thing," Cartwright said. "Benteley is now under oath to me, as Quizmaster."
Verrick snapped: "He broke his oath to me; that ends his freedom of choice."
Cartwright rejoined: "I don't consider that he broke his oath to you."
"You betrayed him," Shaeffer added.
Verrick grunted, retrieved his gun, and replaced it in his pocket. "We'll have to get advice on this," he murmured. "Let's try to get Judge Waring up here."
Judge Felix Waring, the highest ranking jurist in the system, was a grouchy, white-bearded gnome in a moth-eaten black suit and old-fashioned hat.
"I know who you are," he muttered, glancing at Cartwright. "And you, too." He nodded at Verrick. "That Pellig of yours was a fizzle, wasn't he?" He cackled gleefully. "I never liked the looks of him—didn't have a muscle in him."
The ship that had brought Judge Waring had disgorged newsmachines, Hill officials, Directorate bureaucrats, and finally Sam Oster. Ipvic technicians had come in their own ship; signalmen with reels of communication wiring wandered everywhere, stringing up television equipment. Towards the middle of the day the place became a hive of noisy, determined activity. Motion was everywhere, figures coming and going... Benteley stood in a corner, watching gloomily.
"It's nice, here," Rita O'Neill said, settling herself for a doze.
Benteley nodded, then muttered: "So Judge Waring is going to make his decision amid all this din?"
In another corner Leon Cartwright was talking with a barrel-chested, grim-faced man, Sam Oster was congratulating him on his successful bout with his first assassin.
Benteley gazed at them until they separated. Finally he turned—and found himself facing Eleanor Stevens.
"Who is she?" Eleanor asked in a clipped voice.
"Cartwright's niece," he answered, following her gaze.
She shrugged and started away suddenly; after a moment
Benteley followed. "They're about to start; they're going to let that stupid old goat decide," she went on.
"I know," Benteley said listlessly.
"He hardly knows what's going on. Verrick pulled the wool over his eyes at the Convention; he'll do it again. Has there been any news about Moore?"
"An Ipvic screen has been set up, for Cartwright's use. Verrick doesn't care; he didn't interfere."
"What does it show?"
"I don't know. I haven't bothered to look." Benteley came to a halt. Through a half-open door he had caught a glimpse of a table and chairs, ash-trays, recording instruments. "Is that——"
"That's the room they set up." Suddenly Eleanor gave a cry of terror. "Please get me out of here!"
Reese Verrick had moved past the door of the room.
"He knows—about us," Eleanor said as they pushed among the people. "I came to warn you——"
"Too bad!" Benteley said vaguely.
"Don't you care?"
"There's nothing I can do to Reese Verrick."
"You can kill him!" Her voice was shrill with hysteria. "Before he kills both of us!"
"No," Benteley said, "I'm not going to kill Reese Verrick. I'll wait and see what happens. In any case, I'm finished with that."
"And—with me?"
"You knew about the bomb."
Eleanor shuddered. "What could I do?" She hurried after him, frantic with apprehension. "Ted, I couldn't stop it, could I?"
"You knew that night when we were together. When you talked me into it."
"Yes!" Eleanor slid defiantly in front of him, blocking his way. "That's right." Her green eyes glittered wildly. "I knew. But I meant everything I said to you."
Benteley turned away, disgusted.
"Listen to me." She caught imploringly at his arm.
"Reese knew, too. Everybody knew. It couldn't be helped—somebody had to be in the Pellig body."
Benteley stepped back as a grumbling white-bearded little old man pushed angrily past him towards the antechamber. He disappeared inside the room and dropped his heavy book on the table with a thump. He blew his nose, moved critically about examining the chairs, and finally took a seat at the head of the table. Reese Verrick, standing at the window, exchanged a few words with him. A moment later Leon Cartwright followed after Judge Waring.
Benteley's heart resumed beating, slowly and reluctantly. The session was about to begin.