"Young. Thin. Blond. No special characteristics."
"What kind of weapon is he using?"
"A thumb-gun. That's a heat beam principle."
"I want to recognize Pellig when I see him," Cartwright explained to Rita. "He may be the next person through that door."
The next person through the door was Major Shaeffer.
"I brought this man with me," Shaeffer said to Cartwright, as he entered the room. "As you'll want to talk to him."
A dark, neatly-dressed man in his early thirties had entered slightly behind Shaeffer.
"This is Ted Benteley," Shaeffer said. "A serf of Reese Verrick's."
Benteley was sharp and tense, more on edge than they had first realized. "Shaeffer is incorrect," he said. "I'm not under oath to Verrick any longer. I've left him."
"You broke your oath?" Cartwright asked.
"He broke his oath to me. I left in a considerable hurry and came here direct from A.G. Chemie; there were complications."
"He killed Herb Moore," Shaeffer amplified.
"Not exactly," Benteley corrected. "I killed his body, his physical self."
He began to explain the situation. When he was half through Cartwright interrupted with a question: "Where's—well, I suppose we should still call it Pellig. When we last heard of him he was only a few miles from here."
"The Pellig body is on its way towards deep space," Benteley said. "Moore isn't interested in you any more; now he's got his own problems. When he realized he was stuck in the synthetic body he left Luna and headed straight out."
"Where to?" Cartwright asked.
"I don't know."
"It doesn't matter," Rita said impatiently. "He's not after you; that's what's important. Perhaps he became insane. Perhaps he's lost control of the body."
"I doubt it. Moore will keep struggling to the end; he's desperate and totally ruthless." Benteley described how Moore had destroyed Peter Wakeman.
"We're aware of that," Cartwright said. "What kind of velocity is the synthetic body capable of?"
"C-plus," Benteley answered. He was puzzled by the question. "Aren't you satisfied Moore is moving away from here?"
Cartwright licked his dry lips. "I know where he's going."
There was a murmur and then Shaeffer said: "Of course!" He rapidly scanned Cartwright's mind. "He has to find some way to stay alive. Benteley gave me a lot of involuntary material on the trip here; I can fit in most of the missing parts. Moore will undoubtedly be able to find Preston with the information he has."
Benteley was astounded. "Preston alive!"
"That explains the prior informational request," Cartwright mused. "Verrick must have tapped the closed-circuit ipvic beam from the ship." His cigarette came to an end; he dropped it, ground it out wrathfully, lit another. "I should have paid more attention when Wakeman brought it up."
"What could you have done?" Shaeffer inquired.
"Our ship is close to Preston's. Moore wouldn't be interested in it, though. He's after the method by which John Preston has kept himself alive; he'll be trying to get hold of the apparatus to adapt it for his own use." Cartwright shook his head irritably. "Is there any way we can set up a screen to follow his movements?"
"I suppose so," Benteley said. "Ipvic arranged a con- stant visual beam from the body back to Chemie. We could cut into it; it's still being relayed."
"I'd like to keep a visual check on the Pellig body." Cartwright slid his gun into a suitcase on the floor. "We're better off now, of course. Thanks, Benteley." He nodded vaguely to Benteley. "Pellig won't be coming here. We don't have to worry about that, any more."
Rita was eyeing Benteley intently. "You didn't break your oath? You don't consider yourself a felon?"
Benteley returned her hard stare. "Verrick broke his oath to me. He released me by betraying me."
There was an uncomfortable silence.
"Well," Cartwright said, "let's have something to eat, and you can explain the rest to us." He moved towards the door, the ghost of a smile on his tired face. "We have time, now. My assassin is a thing of the past."
As they ate, Benteley put his feelings into words. "I killed Moore because I had no choice. In a few seconds he would have turned Pellig over to a technician and returned to his own body at Chemie. Pellig would have gone on and detonated against you; some of Moore's staff are as loyal as that."
"How close would the body have had to be?" Cartwright asked.
"It got to within three miles of you. Two miles closer and Verrick would now be dominating the known system."
"No actual contact was necessary?"
"I had time for only a quick look at the wiring, but a standard proximity mechanism tuned to your brain pattern was wired into the circuit. And then there's the power of the bomb itself. The law specifies no weapon a man can't carry in one hand. The bomb was a regulation H-grenade from the last war."
"The bomb is." Cartwright reminded him.
"Everything depended on Pellig?" Rita asked.
"There was a second synthetic body. It's about half complete. Nobody at Chemie expected total disorganisation of the Corps; they got more than they hoped for. But Moore is out of the picture. The second body will never go into operation; only Moore can bring it to its final stages. He kept everybody else down to lower levels—and Verrick knows that."
"What happens when Moore reaches Preston?" Rita asked. "Then Moore will be back in the picture again."
"I didn't know about Preston," Benteley admitted. "I destroyed Moore's body so that he couldn't leave the synthetic. If Preston is going to help him he'll have to work fast. The synthetic won't last long in deep space."
"Why didn't you want him to kill me?" Cartwright inquired.
"I didn't care if he killed you. I wasn't thinking about you."
"That's not quite true," Shaeffer said. "The thought was there. When you made your psychological break you automatically switched against Verrick's strategy. You acted as an impeding agent semi-voluntarily."
Benteley wasn't listening. "I was tricked from the beginning," he said. "All of them were mixed up in it; Verrick, Moore, Eleanor Stevens. Wakeman tried to warn me. I came to the Directorate to get away from rottenness. I found myself doing its work; Verrick gave orders, I followed them."
"You have to have faith in yourself," Rita O'Neill said.
"I stood the rottenness as long as I could, then I rebelled. I think Verrick broke his oath to me... I think I was released. But maybe I'm wrong, and a felon."
"If you are," Shaeffer pointed out, "you can be shot on sight."
"A point came when the whole thing sickened me so much that I couldn't work with it any more, even if it means being hunted down and shot."
"That may happen," Cartwright said. "You say Verrick knew about the bomb?"
"That's right."
Cartwright reflected. "A protector isn't supposed to send a serf to his death. You didn't know Verrick had been deposed when you took your oath?"
"No. But they knew."
Cartwright rubbed his grizzed jaw with the back of his hand. "Well, possibly you have a case. You're an interesting person, Benteley. What are you going to do now? Are you going to take a fealty oath again?"
"I don't think so," Benteley said. "A man shouldn't become another man's serf."