Part 3 (1/2)
Pell grinned. ”Best idea all morning. Come on.”
Some minutes later they sat across from each other at a table in the big cafeteria on the seventy-third level. It was beginning to be crowded now with personnel from other departments and bureaus. The coffee urge came for nearly everybody in the government offices at about the same time.
Pell was studying by eye a handful of spare data cards he'd brought along and Kronski was reading faxpaper clippings from a large manila envelope marked _Supremist Party_. Just on a vague hunch Pell had viewplated Central Public Relations and had them send the envelope down by tube.
”_Prominent Educator Addresses Supremist Rally_,” Kronski muttered.
”_Three s.p.a.ceport Cargomen Arrested at Supremist Riot. Young Supremists Form Rocket Club._ Looks like anybody and everybody can be a Supremist.
And his grandmother. Wonder how they do it?”
”Don't know.” Pell wasn't really listening.
”And here's a whole town went over to the Supremists. On the moon.”
”Uh-huh,” said Pell.
Kronski sipped his coffee loudly. A few slender, graceful young men from World Commerce looked at him distastefully. ”Happened just this year.
New Year they all went over. Augea, in the Hercules Mountains. Big celebration.”
Pell looked up and said, ”Wait a minute....”
”Wait for what? I'm not goin' anywhere. Not on this swivel-chair of a job, d.a.m.n it.”
”New Year they all become Supremists. And the last week of December everybody on the moon gets his inoculations, right?”
”Search me.”
”But I know that. I found that out when I was tailing those two gamblers who had a place on the moon, remember?”
”So it may be a connection.” Kronski shrugged.
”It may be the place where we can study a bunch of these cases in a batch instead of picking 'em one by one.”
”You mean we oughta take a trip to the moon?”
”Might not hurt for a few days.”
Kronski was grinning at him.
”What are you grinning at?”
”First you got to stay over on your vacation, so you can't go to the moon with your wife. Now all of a sudden you decide duty has got to take you to the moon, huh?”
Pell grinned back then. ”What are you squawking about? You said you wanted to get out on this case.”
Kronski, still grinning, got up. ”I'm not complaining. I'm just demonstrating my powers of deduction, as they say in teleplays. Come on, let's go make rocket reservations.”
Chapter III