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, easily clearing an abandoned gun wedged in the passage.
"The assassin has left the lobby!" the mechanical voices bawled.
Troops poured after Pellig as he raced down corridors, cleared of officials and workers, but Pellig thumb-burned his way through a wall and into the main reception lounge, now empty and silent. The synthetic body skimmed from office to office, a weaving darting thing that burned a path ahead. The last office fell behind and Pellig stood before the sealed tank that was the Quizmaster's inner fortress. He recoiled as his thumb-gun showered harmlessly against the thick rexeroid surface.
"The assassin is in the inner office!" mechanical voices dinned. "Surround and destroy him!"
Pellig raced in an uncertain circle—and again the red button shone.
The new operator staggered, crashed against a desk, pulled the synthetic body quickly to its feet, and then began to burn his way to 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?"
"No," Eleanor said, examining the indicator board. "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 uselessly. The body did not breathe.
Verrick laughed like an excited child. "They can't stop him! He's in!" He leaped up and down and pounded his fists on his knees. "Now he'll kill him. Now!"
The rexeroid tank, the massive inner fortress with its armoury of guns and ipvic equipment, was empty.
Verrick squealed a high-pitched, frenzied curse. "He's not there! He's gone! They got him away!"
At his own screen Herb Moore convulsively jerked controls and lights, indicators, meters and dials, flashed wildly. Meanwhile, the Pellig body stood rooted in the deserted chamber. There was the heavy desk Cartwright should have been sitting at but he wasn't there.
"Keep him looking!" Verrick shouted. "Cartwright must be somewhere!"
The sound of Verrick's voice grated in Moore's aud phones. On the screen, his technician had started the body into uncertain activity. The schematic showed Pellig's location dot at the very core of the Directorate; the assassin had arrived but there was no quarry.
"It was a trap!" Verrick shouted in Moore's ear. "Now they're going to destroy him!"
On all sides of the demolished armoured chamber troops were in motion, Directorate resources responding to Shaeffer's hurried instructions.
Eleanor leaned close to Verrick's hunched shoulders. "They deliberately let him get in. Now—they're coming for him."
"Keep him moving!" Verrick shouted. "They'll burn him to ashes if he simply stands there!"
Pellig floundered in confusion. He raced along the passage and out of the chamber, then sped from door to door like a trapped animal. Once he halted to burn down a gun that had ventured too close and was taking aim. The gun dissolved and Pellig sprinted past its smoking ruin, but behind it the corridor was jammed with troops. He gave up and scurried back.
Herb Moore snapped a sentence to Verrick: "They took Cartwright out of Batavia."
"Look for him!"
"He's not there." Moore thought quickly. "Transfer to me your analysis of ship-movements from Batavia. We know he was there up to an hour ago. Hurry!"
The metalfoil rolled from its slot by Moore's hand. He snatched it up and scanned the entries. "He's on Luna," Moore decided. "They took him off in, their C-plus ship."
Moore slammed home a switch; buttons leaped excitedly. Moore's body sagged limply.
At his own screen Ted Benteley saw the Pellig body jump and stiffen. A new operator had entered it; above Benteley the red button had moved on.
The new operator wasted no time. He burned down a handful of troops and then a section of wall, fusing the steel and plastic together in a molten mass. Through the rent the synthetic body skimmed, a projectile plunging in an arcing trajectory. A moment later it emerged from the building and, still gaining velocity, hurtled straight upward at the dull disc of the moon.
Below Pellig Earth fell away. He was moving out into free space.
Benteley sat paralyzed at his screen. Suddenly everything made sense. As he watched the body race through darkening skies that lost their blue colour and gained pinpoints of unwinking stars, he understood what had happened to him. It had been no dream. The body was a miniature ship, equipped in Moore's reactor labs. And he realized with a rush of admiration that the body needed no air, that it didn't respond to extreme temperature. It was capable of inter-planetary flight.
It was doing that now.
Peter Wakeman received the ipvic call from Shaeffer within a few seconds of the time when Pellig left Earth. "He's gone," Shaeffer muttered. "He took off like a meteor."
"Heading where?" Wakeman demanded.
"Towards Luna." Shaeffer's face suddenly collapsed.
"We gave up. We called in regular troops. The Corps couldn't do a thing."
"Then I can expect him any moment."
Wakeman broke the connection and returned to his tapes and reports. His desk was a chaos of cigarette butts, coffee cups, and an unfinished drink. Now there was no doubt: Keith Pellig was not a human being. He was clearly a robot combined with high-velocity reactor equipment, designed in Moore's experimental labs. But that didn't explain the shifting personality that had demoralized the Corpsmen. Unless——"
Some kind of multiple mind came and went. A fractured personality artificially segmented into unattached complexes, each with its own drives, characteristics and strategy. Shaeffer had been right to call in regular non-telepathic troops.
Wakeman lit a cigarette and aimlessly spun his good-luck charm until it tugged loose from his hand and banged into the tapes stacked on his work-desk. He almost had it. If he had more time, a few days to work the thing out... He got up suddenly and headed for a supply locker. "Here's the situation," he thought to the Corpsmen scattered around. "The assassin has survived our Batavia network. He's on his way to Luna."
He radiated what he had learned about Pellig and what he believed. The answering thoughts came back instantly.
"A robot?"
"A multiple-personality synthetic?"
"Then we can't go by mind-touch. We'll have to lock on physical-visual appearance."
"You can catch murder-thoughts," Wakeman disagreed, as he buckled on a protective suit. "But don't expect continuity. The thought-processes will cut off without warning. Be prepared for the impact; that's what destroyed the Corps at Batavia."
"Does each separate complex bring a new strategy?"
"Apparently. Find him and kill him. As soon as you catch the murder-thought burn him to ash."
Wakeman poured himself a drink. He locked his helmet in place, snapped on the air-temp feed lines, collected a gun and hurried to one of the exit sphincters.
The arid, barren expanse of waste was a shock. He stood fumbling with his humidity and gravity control, adjusting himself to the sight of an infinity of dead matter. The moon was a ravaged, blasted plain of gaping craters where the original meteors had smashed away the life of the satellite. Nothing stirred, no wind or flutter of life. Whereever he looked there was only the pocked expanse of rubble. The face of the moon had dried up and split. The skin had been eroded; only the skull was left, and as Wakeman stepped gingerly forward he felt that he was tramping over the features of a death's head.