"I want to come," said Pel. Ian looked at him for a long moment, then nodded, without changing expression.
"You can come," he said.
When we got back to the Expeditionary Headquarters building, the rooms and corridors there seemed even more aswarm with officers. As Ian had said, they were mostly Dorsai. But I saw some among them who might not have been. Apparently Ian commanded his own loyalty, or perhaps it was the Dorsai concept that commanded its own loyalty to whoever was commanding officer. We went to his office; and, sitting there, waited while the reports began to come in.
The first three locations to be checked out by the officer Hunter Teams drew blanks. The fourth showed evidence of having been used within the last twenty-four hours, although it was empty now. The last location to be checked also drew blank
The Hunter Teams concentrated on the fourth location and began to work outward from it, hoping to cross sign of a trail away from it. I checked the clock figures on my wrist unit. It was now nearing one a.m. in the morning, local time; and the six hour deadline of the enlisted mercenaries was due to expire in forty-seven minutes. In the office where I waited with Ian, Pel, Charley ap Morgan, and another senior Dorsai officer, the air was thick with the tension of waiting. Ian and the two other Dorsai sat still; even Pel sat still. I was the one who fidgeted and paced, as the time continued to run out.
The phone on Ian's desk flashed its visual signal light. Ian reached out to punch it on.
"Yes?" he said.
"Hunter Team Three," said a voice from the desk "We have clear sign and are following now. Suggest you join us, sir."
"Thank you. Coming," said Ian.
We went, Ian, Charley, Pel and myself, in an Expedition Command Car. It was an eerie ride through the patrolled and deserted streets of my city. Ian's Hunter Team Three was ahead of us and led us to an apartment hotel on the upper north side of the city, in the oldest section.
The building had been built of poured cement faced with Castlemane granite. Inside, the corridors were old-fashionedly narrow and close-feeling, with dark, thick carpeting and metal Avails in imitation oak woodgrain. The soundproofing was good, however. We mounted to the seventh story and moved down the hall to suite number 415 without hearing any sound other than those we made, ourselves.
"Here," finally said the leader of the Hunter Team, a lean, gnarled Dorsai Senior Commandant in his late fifties. He gestured to the door of 415. "All three of them."
"Ian," said Charley ap Morgan, glancing at his wrist unit. "The enlisted men start moving into the city in six minutes. You could go meet them to say
., *•*« we've found the assassins. The others and I - "
"No," said Ian. "We can't say we've found them until we see them and identify them positively." He stepped up to one side of the door; and, reaching out an arm, touched the door annunciator stud.
There was no response. Above the door, the half-meter square annunciator screen stayed brown and blank
Ian pressed the button again.
Again we waited, and there was no response.
Ian pressed the stud. Holding it down, so that his voice would go with the sound of its announcing chimes to the ears of those within, he spoke.
"This is Commander Ian Graeme," he said. "Blauvain is now under martial law, and you are under arrest in connection with the assassination of Field Commander Kensie Graeme. If necessary, we can cut our way in to you. However, I'm concerned that Held Commander Graeme's reputation be kept free of criticism in the matter of determining responsibility for his death. So I'm offering you the chance to come out and surrender."
He released the stud and stopped talking. There was a long pause. Then a voice spoke from the annunciator grille below the screen, although the screen itself remained blank
"Go to hell, Graeme," said the voice. "We got your brother; and if you try to blast your way in here, we'll get you, too."
"My advice to you," said Ian - his voice was cold, distant, and impersonal, as if this was something he did every day, "is to surrender."
"You guarantee our safety if we do?"
"No," said Ian. "I only guarantee that I will see that Field Commander Graeme's reputation is not adversely affected by the way you're handled."
There was no immediate answer from the screen. Behind Ian, Charley looked again at his wrist unit.
"They're playing for time," he said. "But why? What good will that do them?"
"They're fanatics," said Pel, softly. "Just as much fanatics as the Friendly soldiers were, only for the Blue Front instead of for some puritan form of religion. Those three in there don't expect to get out of this alive. They're only trying to set a higher price on their own deaths - get something more for their dying."
Charley ap Morgan's wrist unit chimed.
"Time's up," he said to Ian. "The enlisted men are moving into the suburbs of Blauvain now, to begin their search."
Ian reached out and pushed the annunciator stud again, holding it down as he spoke to the men inside.
"Are you coming out?"
"Why should we?" answered the voice that had spoken the first time. "Give us a reason."
"I'll come in and talk to you if you like," said Ian.
"No - " began Pel out loud. I gripped his arm, and he turned on me, whispering. "Torn, tell him not to go in! That's what they want."
"Stay here," I said.
I pushed forward until Charley ap Morgan put out an arm to stop me. I spoke across that arm to Ian.
"Ian," I said, in a voice safely low enough so that the door annunciator would not pick it up. "Pel says - "
"Maybe that's a good idea," said the voice from the annunciator. "That's right, why don't you come on in, Graeme? Leave your weapons outside."
"Tom," said Ian, without looking either at me or Charley ap Morgan, "Stay back Keep him back, Charley."
"Yes sir," said Charley. He looked into my face, eye to eye with me. "Stay out of this, Tom. Backup."
Ian stepped forward to stand square in front of the door, where a beam coming through it could go through him as well. He was taking off his sidearm as he went. He dropped it to the floor, in full sight of the screen, through the blankness of which those inside would be looking out.
"I'm unarmed," he said.
"Of that sidepiece, you are," said the annunciator. "Do you think we're going to take your word for the rest of you? Strip."
Without hesitation, Ian unsealed his uniform jacket and began to take off his clothes. In a moment or two, he stood naked in the hallway, but if the men in the suite had thought to gain some sort of moral advantage over him because of that, they were disappointed.
Stripped, he looked - like an athlete - larger and more impressive than he had, clothed. He towered over us all in the hall, even over the other Dorsai there; and with his darkly tanned skin under the lights he seemed like a massive figure carved in oak
"I'm waiting," he said, after a moment, calmly.
"All right," said the voice from the annunciator. "Come on in."
He moved forward. The door unlatched and slid aside before him. He passed through and it closed behind him. For a moment we were left with no sound or word from him or the suite; then, unexpectedly, the screen lit up. We found ourselves looking over and past Ian's bare shoulders at a room in which three men, each armed with a rifle and a pair of side-arms, sat facing him. They gave no sign of knowing that he had turned on the annunciator screen, the controls of which would be hidden behind him, now that he stood inside the door, facing the room.
The center one of the three seated men laughed. He was the big, black-bearded man I had found vaguely familiar when I saw the solidigraphs of the three of them in Ian's office; and I recognized him now. He was a professional wrestler. He had been arraigned on assault charges four years ago, but lack of testimony against him had caused the charges to be dismissed. He was not as tall as Ian, but much heavier of body; and it was his voice we had been hearing, because now we heard it again as his lips moved on the screen.