So, without further thought, and possessed only of a suicidal and impractical enthusiasm, I had foolishly escaped. Only the luck that watches over the completely witless had saved my life and permitted my return, undetected, to my prison cell. I blushed now with shame as I thought about the stupidity of my plan. Lack of thought, lack of foresight—and the incredibly dumb assumption that all security in the giant building would be identical. During our daily exodus and return to the cell block I had noted the exceedingly simple locks on all of the doors, the absence of any alarms. I had assumed that the rest of the building had been the same.
I had assumed wrong. The car of the magleviift had notified the guards when it had been used. I had spotted the detectors in the corridor at once when the door had opened on the top floor. That was why I had tried the escape hatch in the roof, hoping to find a way out through the mechanism at the top of the shaft.
Except that there had been no mechanism there—just another door. Opening into another floor that did not appear on the bank of buttons inside the car. Some secret location known only to the authorities. Hoping to penetrate this secret I had climbed onto the doorsill and searched for a way to open the door. Only to have the elevator vanish from behind me leaving me stranded on top of the empty shaft.
I had come out of this little harebrained adventure far better than I had deserved. Luck would not ride with me a second time. Cool planning was needed. I put this nearly-disastrous escapade behind me and thought furiously of schemes and ways to make contact with the crewgirl.
"Do it honestly," I said, and shocked myself with the words.
Honest? Me? The stainless steel rat who prowls the darkness of the night in solitary silence, fearing no one, needing no one.
Yes. Painful as the realization was, just this once honesty was indeed the best policy.
"Attention, foul jailers, attention!" I shouted and hammered on the bars of my cage. "Arouse yourself from your sweat-sodden slumbers and vulgar, erotic dreams and take me to Captain Varod. Soonest—or even sooner!" My fellow prisoners awoke, calling out in righteous anger and threatened all sorts of unimaginative bodily harm. I returned the insults with enthusiasm and eventually the night guard appeared, scowling with menace.
"Hi, there," I called out cheerily. "Nice to see a friendly face."
"You want your skull broke, kid?" he asked. His repartee just about as sharp as that of the inmates.
"No. But I want you to stay out of trouble by instantly taking me to Captain Varod since I have information of such military importance that you would be shot instantly if suspected of keeping it from the captain for more than a second or two."
He added some more threats, but there was a glint of worry, in his eyes as he thought about what I had said. It seemed obvious, even to someone of his guttering intelligence, that passing the buck was the wisest fallback position. He growled some more insults when I pointed back down the corridor, but left in any case and went to his telephone. Nor was my wait a long one. A brace of overmuscled and overweight guards appeared on the scene within minutes. They unlocked my cell, clamped on the cuffs and hurried me into the magleviift and up a few hundred stories to a bare office. Where they fastened the cuffs to a heavy chair and left. The lieutenant who entered a few minutes later was still blinking the sleep from his eyes and was not happy at being disturbed in the middle of the night.
"I want Varod," I said. "I don't talk to the hired help."
"Shut up, diGriz, before you get yourself into worse trouble. The captain is in deep space and unreachable. I am from his department and urge you to speak quickly before I bounce you out of here."
It sounded reasonable enough. And I had very little choice.
"Have you ever heard of a space-going Venian swine who goes by the name of Captain Garth?"
"Get on with it," he said in a bored voice, yawning to drive home the point. "I worked on your case so you can speak freely. What do you know that you haven't told us already?"
"I have information aboufbur gun-running friend. You do have him in custody, don't you."
"DiGriz—you give us information, that is the way that it works, not the other way around." That was what he said, but his expression spoke otherwise. A fleeting instant of worry. If that meant what I thought it meant then Garth had managed to escape them.
"I saw a girl today, a new prisoner being brought in. Her name is Bibs."
"Did you get me out of bed to describe some sordid sexual secret?"
"No. I just thought you should know that Bibs was a crewgirl on Garth's ship."
Tills caught his attention instantly, and not being as experienced as his commanding officer he could not conceal the look of sudden interest. "You are sure of this?"
"Check for yourself. The information on today's arrivals should be readily available."
