Part 6 (1/2)

The plainclothesman dithered.

”How's he going to get to the s.p.a.ceport?”

”I wouldn't know,” said the servant. ”They've figured out some way. I could use a little extra money, too.”

He lingered, but the plainclothesman was staring at the innocent, inviolable parcels about to leave the Emba.s.sy for distant parts. He took note of sizes and descriptions. No. Not yet. But if Hoddan was leaving he had to leave the Emba.s.sy. If he left the Emba.s.sy....

The plainclothesman bolted. He made a breathless report by the portable communicator set up for just such use. He told what the Emba.s.sy servant had said, and the inference to be drawn from it, the suspicions to be entertained--and there he stopped short. Orders came back to him. Orders were given in all directions. Somebody was going to distinguish himself by catching Hoddan, and undercover politics worked to decide who it should be. Even the job of guard outside the Emba.s.sy became desirable.

So fresh, alert plainclothesmen arrived. They were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and they took over. Weary, hungry men yielded up their posts. They went home. The man who'd gotten the infallibly certain clue went home too, disgruntled because he wasn't allowed a share in the credit for Hoddan's capture. But he was glad of it later.

Inside the Emba.s.sy, Hoddan finished his breakfast with the amba.s.sador.

”I'm giving you,” said the amba.s.sador, ”that letter to the character on Darth. I told you about him. He's some sort of n.o.bleman and has need of an electronic engineer. On Darth they're rare to nonexistent. But his letter wasn't too specific.”

”I remember,” agreed Hoddan. ”I'll look him up. Thanks.”

”Somehow,” said the amba.s.sador, ”I cherish unreasonable hopes of you, Hoddan. A psychologist would say that your group identification is low and your cyclothymia practically a minus quant.i.ty, while your ergic tension is pleasingly high. He'd mean that with reasonable good fortune you will raise more h.e.l.l than most. I wish you that good fortune. And Hoddan--”

”Yes?”

”I don't urge you to be vengeful,” explained the amba.s.sador, ”but I do hope you won't be too forgiving of these characters who'd have jailed you for life. You've scared them badly. It's very good for them.

Anything more you can do in that line will be really a kindness, and as such will positively not be appreciated, but it'll be well worth doing.... I say this because I like the way you plan things. And any time I can be of service--”

”Thanks,” said Hoddan, ”but I'd better get going for the s.p.a.ceport.”

He'd write Nedda from Darth. ”I'll get set for it.”

He rose. The amba.s.sador stood up too.

”I like the way you plan things,” he repeated appreciatively. ”We'll check over that box.”

They left the Emba.s.sy dining room together.

It was well after sunrise when Hoddan finished his breakfast, and the bright and watchful new plainclothesmen were very much on the alert outside. By this time the suns.h.i.+ne had lost its early ruddy tint, and the trees about the city were vividly green, and the sky had become appropriately blue--as the skies on all human-occupied planets are.

There was the beginning of traffic. Some was routine movement of goods and vehicles. But some was special.

For example, the trucks which came to carry the Emba.s.sy s.h.i.+pment to the s.p.a.ceport. They were perfectly ordinary trucks, hired in a perfectly ordinary way by the amba.s.sador's secretary. They came trundling across the square and into the Emba.s.sy gate. The ostentatiously loafing plainclothesmen could look in and see the waiting parcels loaded on them. The first truckload was quite unsuspicious. There was no package in the lot which could have held a man in even the most impossibly cramped of positions.

But the police took no chances. Ten blocks from the Emba.s.sy the cops stopped it and verified the licenses and ident.i.ties of the driver and his helper. This was a moderately lengthy business. While it went on, plainclothesmen worked over the packages in the truck's body and put stethoscopes to any of more than one cubic foot capacity.

They waved the truck on. Meanwhile the second truck was loading up. And the watching, ostensible loafers saw that nearly the last item to be put on it was a large box which hadn't been visible before. It was carried with some care, and it was marked fragile, and it was put into place and wedged fast with other parcels.

The plainclothesmen looked at each other with antic.i.p.atory glee. One of them reported the last large box with almost lyric enthusiasm. When the second truck left the Emba.s.sy with the large box, a police truck came innocently out of nowhere and just happened to be going the same way.

Ten blocks away, again the truck load of Emba.s.sy parcels was flagged down and its driver's license and ident.i.ty was verified. A plainclothesman put a stethoscope on the questionable case. He beamed, and made a suitable signal.

The truck went on, while zestful, Machiavelian plans took effect.