Питер Филлипс - In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

No, she decided, Dr. Hishkan’s visitors had to be persuaded to stay around a while, or the entire operation would go down the drain. Switching on half a dozen other screens, she set recorders to cover them, went quickly about the room making various preparations to meet the emergency, came back to her worktable, completed the message to their confederates and fed it into a small shortcode transmitter. The transmitter vanished into a deep wall recess it shared with a few other essential devices. Danestar settled down to study the screens, in which various matters of interest could now be observed, while she waited with increasing impatience for Wergard to call in again.

More minutes passed before he did, and she’d started checking over areas in the Depot where he might have gone with the spy-screen. Then his face suddenly appeared in the instrument.

“Clear of them now,” he said. “They got rather close for a while. Nobody’s tried to bother you yet?”

“No,” said Danestar. “But our Depot manager and three men from the shuttle came skulking along the hall a minute or two ago. They’re waiting outside the door.”

“Waiting for what?”

“For you to show up.”

“They know you’re in the room?” Wergard asked.

“Yes. One of them has a life detector.”

“The group that’s looking around for me has another of the gadgets,” Wergard said. “That’s why it took so long to shake them. I’m in a sneaksuit now. You intend to let them take you?”

“That’s the indicated move,” Danestar said. “Everyðthing’s set up for it. Let me brief you. . . . ”

The eight men who had come off the shuttle belonged to a smuggling ring which would act as middleman in the purchase of the signaling device from the Pit. They’d gone directly to Dr. Hishkan’s office in the Depot’s main building, and Danestar had a view of the office in one of her wall screens when they arrived. The specimen already had been brought out of the vault, and she’d been following their conversation about it.

Volcheme, the chief of the smugglers, and his assistant, Galester, who appeared to have had scientific training, showed the manner of crack professionals. They were efficient businessmen who operated outside the law as a calculated risk because it paid off. This made dealing with them a less uncertain matter than if they had been men of Dr. Hishkan’s caliber—intelligent, amoral, but relatively inexperienced amateurs in crime. Amateurs with a big-money glint in their eyes and guns in their hands were unpredictable, took very careful handling. Volcheme and Galester, on the other hand, while not easy to bluff, could be counted on to think and act logically under pressure.

Danestar was planning to put on considerable pressure.

“They aren’t sure about us,” she said. “Hishkan thinks we’re U-League spies but that we haven’t found out anything. Volcheme wants to be certain. That’s why he sent in word to have us picked up before he got here. Hishkan is nervous about getting involved in outright murder but will go along with it.”

Wergard nodded. “He hasn’t much choice at this stage. Well, play it straight then—or nearly straight. I’ll listen but won’t show unless there’s a reason. While I’m at large, you have life insurance. I suppose you’re quizproofed. . . . ”

“Right.” Danestar checked her watch. “Doped to the eyebrows. I took it twenty minutes ago, so the stuff should be in full effect now. I’ll make the contact at once.”

Wergard’s face vanished from the spy-screen. Danestar turned the sound volume on the wall screen showing the group in Dr. Hishkan’s office back up. Two sets of recorders were taking down what went on in there and already had stored away enough evidence to convict Dr. Hishkan on a number of counts. One of the sets was a decoy; it was concealed in the wall, cleverly enough but not so cleverly that the smugglers wouldn’t find it when they searched the room. The duplicate set was extremely well concealed. Danestar had made similar arrangements concerning the handful of other instruments she couldn’t allow them to discover. When they took stock of the vast array of miniature espionage devices they’d dig up here, it should seem inconceivable to them that anything else might still be hidden.

She sent a final glance around the room. Everything was as ready as she could make it. She licked her lips lightly, twisted a tiny knob on her control belt, shifted her fingers a quarter-inch, turned down a switch. Her eyes went back to the view in Dr. Hishkan’s office.

Dr. Hishkan, Volcheme, and Galester were alone in it at the moment. Three of Volcheme’s men waited with Tornull, the Depot manager, in the hall outside of Danestar’s room; the remaining three had been sent to join the search for Wergard. The craggy lump of the asteroid which wasn’t an asteroid stood in one corner. Several of its sections had been opened, and Galester was making a careful examination of a number of instruments he’d removed from them.

Dr. Hishkan, showing signs of nervousness, evidently had protested that this was an unnecessary delay because Galester was now saying to Volcheme, “Perhaps he doesn’t understand that when our clients pay for this specimen, they’re buying the exclusive privilege of studying it and making use of what they learn.”

“Naturally I understand that!” Dr. Hishkan snapped.

“Then,” Galester went on, “I think we should have an explanation for the fact that copies have been made of several of these subassemblies.”

“Copies?” Dr. Hishkan’s eyes went wide with amazed suspicion. “Ridiculous! I—”

“You’re certain?” Volcheme interrupted.

“Absolutely,” Galester told him. “There’s measurable duplo radiation coming from four of the devices I’ve checked so far. There’s no point in denying that, Doctor. We simply want to know why you made the duplicates and what you’ve done with them.”

“Excuse me!” Danestar said crisply as Dr. Hishkan began to splutter an indignant denial. “I can explain the matter. The duplos are here.”

In the office, a brief silence followed her announcement. Eyes switched right and left, then, as if obeying a common impulse, swung suddenly around to the wall screen in which Danestar’s image had appeared.

Dr. Hishkan gasped, “Why—why that’s—”

“Miss Gems, the communications technician, no doubt,” Volcheme said dryly.

“Of course, it is,” Danestar said. “Volcheme, I’ve listened to this discussion. You put yourself in a jam by coming here. But, under the circumstances, we can make a deal.”

The smuggler studied her. He was a lean, blond man, no longer young, with a hard, wise face. He smiled briefly, said, “A deal I’ll like?”

“If you like an out. That’s what you’re being offered.”

Dr. Hishkan’s eyes had swiveled with growing incredulity between the screen and Volcheme’s face. He said angrily, “What nonsense is this? Have her picked up and brought here at once! We must find out what—”

“I suggest,” Volcheme interrupted gently, “you let me handle the matter. Miss Gems, I assume your primary purpose here is to obtain evidence against Dr. Hishkan?”

“Yes,” said Danestar.

“You and your associate—Mr. Wergard—are U-League detectives?”

She shook her head.

“No such luck, Volcheme! We’re private agency, full-privilege, Federation charter.”

“I suspected it.” Volcheme’s lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace of hostility. “You show the attributes of the breed. Do I know the agency?”

“Kyth Interstellar.”

He was silent a moment, said, “I see. . . . Is Mr. Wergard available for negotiations?”

“No. You’ll talk to me.”