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a
Federation expedition he d be kept out of jams . . .
When the Commissioner had finished, she switched off the newscast, said
glumly,  You missed something, Holati.
Mantelish just showed everybody watching on umpteen worlds the container he s
got that drug in!
 The Tang stuff?
 Yes. It s in that round sort of suitcase he had standing beside his chair.
The Commissioner swore.
 Come along! he said.  We ll take my car and head for the spaceport. The
police weren t sure from exactly where that newscast was coming but if they
catch up with Mantelish before he leaves they ll wait for us and we ll ride in
to his lab with him.
 And if they don t?
 They ll call the car. Then we ll go to the lab and wait for him to show up.
Almost as soon as he d bid the charming little newscaster goodbye, Professor
Mantelish himself began to feel some qualms about the revelations he d allowed
to escape. He began to realize he might have been a trifle indiscreet. Walking
on with the crowds moving towards the spaceport exit hall, he found himself
growing acutely conscious of the Tang drug container in the suitcase he
carried. Normally preoccupied with a variety of matters of compelling
scientific interest, it was almost impossible for him to conceive of himself
as being in personal danger. Nevertheless, now that his attention was turned
on the situation he had created it became clear that many people who had
watched the newscast might feel tempted to bring the drug into their
possession, either for selfish reasons or out of perhaps excessive zeal for
private research . . .
The average citizen at this point might have started looking around for the
nearest police officer. Professor Mantelish, however, was of independent
nature; such a solution simply did not occur to him. He had advertised the
fact that he was headed for his laboratory. That had been a mistake. Therefore
he would not go there which should foil anyone who was presently entertaining
illegal notions about the Tang drug. Instead, he would take himself and the
drug immediately to a little seaside hideout he maintained which was known
only to his closest associates. Once there he could take steps to have the
drug safeguarded.
Satisfied with this decision Mantelish lengthened his stride. About a hundred
yards ahead was the entry to an automatic aircar rental station. As he came up
half a dozen people turned into it in a group, obviously harmless citizens.
Mantelish followed them in, moved over to the wall just inside the entry,
turned and stood waiting, prepared, if required, to swing the weighted
suitcase he held under his flowing robe like an oversized club. But half a
minute passed and no one else came in.
Satisfied, he hurried after the little group, catching up with them just as
they reached the line of waiting cars and climbed into a car together,
laughing and joking. Mantelish got into the car behind them, deposited a
Page 55
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
five-credit piece. The cars began to move forwards, rose toward the exit. He
glanced back to make sure again that no one was following, placed the
Tang container on the floorboards beside him, snapped the car s canopy shut
and put his hands on the controls.
The aircars emerged from the fifteenth floor of the spaceport exit building,
the lights of Ceyce glittering under its night-
screen before them. Mantelish turned immediately to the left, directed the car
up to one of the main traffic lines, moved along it for a minute, then shifted
abruptly to one of the upper high-speed lanes.
He reached his hideaway a scant fifteen minutes later. It was in a residential
shore area, featuring quiet and privacy. The house, overlooking a shallow,
sheltered ocean bay, was built on sloping ground thirty feet above tide level.
It was a pleasant place, fit for an elderly retired man of remarkable habits.
None of Mantelish s neighbors knew him by name or suspected he maintained a
laboratory within his walls an installation in absolute violation of the local
zoning regulations.
He locked the entry door behind him, crossed a hall, opened the door to the
laboratory. He stood motionless a moment, looking around. Everything was as he
had left it months before, kept spotlessly clean by automatic maintenance
machinery.
He went over to a table on which lay a variety of items, the results of
projects he had hastily completed or left incompleted before setting out on
the expedition to the Tang world. He put the Tang container on the table
between a chemical gun and a packaged device which, according to the
instructions attached to it, was a mental accelerator with a ratio of two
hundred and eighty to one, instantly lethal if used under conditions other
than those specified in the instructions. He looked about once more, went out
by another door to the kitchen of the house.
A minute or two later, he heard the laboratory ComWeb buzzing shrilly.
Mantelish glanced around from the elaborate open-face sandwiches he was
preparing. He frowned. Among the very few people who knew the number of that
ComWeb, only two were at all likely to be calling him at this moment. One was
Commissioner Tate, the other was Trigger Argee. If either of them Trigger, in
particular had caught the newscast at the spaceport just now they were going
to give him hell.
His frown deepened. Should he ignore the call? No, he decided; however
unnecessarily, the caller was no doubt concerned about his safety. He must let
them know he was all right.
Mantelish lumbered hurriedly back into the laboratory, came to a sudden stop
just beyond the door. There were two men there. One was seated at the table
where he had put down the Tang container; the other leaned against the wall
beside the hall door. Both held guns, which at the moment were pointed at him.
Mantelish looked from one to the other, lifting his eyebrows. This, he told
himself, was a most unfortunate situation. He knew the pair from a previous
meeting, the conclusion of which had been marked by a certain amount of
physical violence.
He didn t like the look of the guns but perhaps he could bluff it out.
 Fiam, he said with stern dignity to the man at the table,  I am not at all
pleased by your intrusion. I thought I had made it clear to you last year when [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]