Part 5 (2/2)

The din of arriving horns and sirens had stopped, and a mutter of profanity was developing, when a last vehicle arrived. It was an ambulance, and it came purposefully out of a side avenue and swung toward a particular place as if it knew exactly what it was about. When its way was blocked, it hooted impatiently for pa.s.sage. Its lights blinked violently red, demanding clearance. A giant fire-fighting unit pulled aside. The ambulance ran past and hooted at a cl.u.s.ter of police trucks. They made way for it. It blared at a gathering of dismounted, irritated truck personnel. It made its way through them. It moved in a straight line for the gate of the Interstellar Emba.s.sy.

A hundred yards from that gate, its horn blatted irritably at the car of the acting head of munic.i.p.al police. That car obediently made way for it.

The ambulance rolled briskly up to the very gate of the Emba.s.sy. There it stopped. A figure got down from the driver's seat and walked purposefully in the gate.

Thereafter nothing happened at all until a second figure rolled and toppled itself out on the ground from the seat beside the ambulance driver's. That figure kicked and writhed on the ground. A policeman went to find out what was the matter.

It was the ambulance driver. Not the one who'd driven the ambulance to the Emba.s.sy gate, but the one who should have. He was bound hand and foot and not too tightly gagged. When released he swore vividly while panting that he had been captured and bound by somebody who said he was Bron Hoddan and was in a hurry to get back to the Interstellar Emba.s.sy.

There was no uproar. Those to whom Hoddan's name had meaning were struck speechless with rage. The fury of the police was even too deep for tears.

But Bron Hoddan, back in the quarters a.s.signed him in the Emba.s.sy, unloaded a dozen cooled-off stun-pistols from his pockets and sent word to the amba.s.sador that he was back, and that the note ostensibly from Nedda had actually been a police trap.

Getting ready to retire, he reviewed his situation. In some respects it was not too bad. All but Nedda's share in trying to trap him, and having a party the same night.... He stared morosely at the wall. Then he saw, very simply, that she mightn't have known even of his arrest. She lived a highly sheltered life. Her father could have had her kept completely in ignorance....

He cheered immediately. This would be his last night on Walden, if he were lucky, but vague plans already revolved in his mind. Yes.... He'd achieve splendid things, he'd grow rich, he'd come back and marry that delightful girl, Nedda, and end as a great man. Already, today, he'd done a number of things worth doing, and on the whole he'd done them well.

III

When dawn broke over the capital city of Walden, the sight was appropriately glamorous. There were s.h.i.+ning towers and curving tree-bordered ways, above which innumerable small birds flew tumultuously. The dawn, in fact, was heralded by high-pitched chirpings everywhere. During the darkness there had been a deep-toned humming sound, audible all over the city. That was the landing grid in operation out at the s.p.a.ceport, letting down a twenty-thousand-ton liner from Rigel, Cetis, and the Nearer Rim. Presently it would take off for Krim, Darth, and the Coalsack Stars, and if Hoddan was lucky he would be on it. But at the earliest part of the day there was only tranquillity over the city and the square and the Interstellar Emba.s.sy.

At the gate of the Emba.s.sy enclosure, staff members piled up boxes and bales and parcels for transport to the s.p.a.ceport and thence to destinations whose names were practically songs. There were dispatches to Delil, where the Interstellar Diplomatic Service had a sector headquarters, and there were packets of emba.s.sy-stamped invoices for Lohala and Tralee and Famagusta. There were boxes for Sind and Maja, and metal-bound cases for Kent. The early explorers of this part of the galaxy had christened huge suns for little villages and territories back on Earth--which less than one human being in ten thousand had ever seen.

The sound of the stacking of freight parcels was crisp and distinct in the morning hush. The dew deposited during darkness had not yet dried from the pavement of the square. Damp, unhappy figures loafed nearby.

They were self-evidently secret police, as yet unrelieved after a night's vigil about the Emba.s.sy's rugged wall. They were sleepy and their clothing stuck soggily to them, and none of them had had anything warm in his stomach for many hours. They had not, either, anything to look forward to from their superiors.

Hoddan was again in sanctuary inside the Emba.s.sy they'd guarded so ineptly through the dark. He'd gotten out without their leave, and made a number of their fellows unwilling to sit down and then made all the police and munic.i.p.al authorities ridiculous by the manner of his return.

The police guards about the Emba.s.sy were very positively not in a cheery mood. But one of them saw an Emba.s.sy servant he knew. He'd stood the man drinks, in times past, to establish a contact that might be useful. He summoned a smile and beckoned to that man.

The Emba.s.sy servant came briskly to him, rubbing his hands after having put a moderately heavy case of doc.u.ments on top of the waiting pile.

”That Hoddan,” said the plainclothesman, attempting hearty ruefulness, ”he certainly put it over on us last night!”

The servant nodded.

”Look,” said the plainclothesman, ”there could be something in it for you if you ... hm-m-m ... wanted to make a little extra money.”

The servant looked regretful.

”No chance,” he said, ”he's leaving today.”

The plainclothesman jumped.

”Today?”

”For Darth,” said the Emba.s.sy servant. ”The amba.s.sador's s.h.i.+pping him off on the s.p.a.ce liner that came in last night.”

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