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  “In the back,” the diminutive Chinese woman said. “There’s a small head there.”

  He staggered toward the rear.

  The doctor looked at Ronny Bronston and scowled. He said, “You’re not hit as bad as all that.”

  “I know,” Ronny said. “But don’t let de Rudder find it out. It’d hurt his feelings.”

  When Willy came reeling back from the small rest room, he had already removed his hood and insulated suit. He was a good looking type, in an overly earnest sort of way. Only average of weight and build, he didn’t look as though he could have carried a limp man, as heavy as himself, half a kilometer through heavy woods while already in a state of exhaustion. He also didn’t look like a cloak and dagger type.

  Lee Chang Chu, though not knowing what game Ronny had in mind, played along. She said, “Come up here, de Rudder, and give me a rundown, while the doctor is patching up our Ronny.”

  The tyro agent was glad to. Besides, he knew that the Chinese woman was of supervisor grade, as was Bronston, so he was under her command. He sank into the seat next to her in weary relief.

  Section G Supervisor Lee Chang Chu was small, almost tiny. She looked to be at least three quarters Chinese, or possibly Indo-Chinese, the rest European or North American. She favored her Oriental blood; her silk dress was traditional Chinese, slit almost to the thigh on each side. She was delicately pretty, with only a touch of the Mongolian fold at the corner of her eyes. On her it looked unusually good. Her complexion was that which only the blend of Chinese and Caucasian can give. Her figure, thanks to her European blood, was fuller than Eastern Asia boasts; tiny, but full.

  She said to the probationary Section G operative. “How did it come out?” Her voice was small but very earnest, a no-nonsense voice. She was the most unlikely looking secret agent possible, but one does not achieve to the rank of supervisor in Section G without the necessary ability.

  He said, hesitantly, “Evidently satisfactorily, according to Supervisor Bronston.”

  She looked over at him questioningly. “Evidently?”

  “Yes. I missed but the bullet exploded only a very short distance behind him. I assume that he was probably splashed with the stench.”

  She tinkled a laugh. “I would have loved to have seen that stern face of his when the smell hit him.” But then she looked at the other again. “Missed him? With that gun?”

  “Yes.”

  She threw a lever and they left the atmosphere of Neu Reich and went into space.

  She said, “We’ll rendezvous with the Space Services Scout within ten or fifteen minutes.”

  Willy de Rudder said, “I’m not much up on these things. This is my first trip overspace. But won’t Number One’s spaceship get after us?”

  Lee Chang Chu smiled. “No. We have gismos that prevent them from getting us in their sensors. Our spy Space Scouts are almost impossible to detect, at any distance at all, especially with the facilities of comparatively backward planets such as Neu Reich.”

  It was his turn to look puzzlement at her. “I thought that Neu Reich was up on the list of planets with a high military potential. I thought that was why we were upset about her.”

  She shook her head and said, “That is one of the things you must keep in mind about dictatorships, Willy… I assume I may call you Willy. You saved Ronny’s life and I am very close to him.”

  “Of course, Supervisor Chu.”

  “Lee Chang,” she said. “We’re very informal in Section G. We have to be. Too often our lives are dependent upon the agent next to us. At any rate, dictatorships have an Achilles heel. On Neu Reich, their most brilliant space specialist, I suppose you could call him, was a chap who was far and away in advance of the scientists on most other planets. His name was Richthofen, which is about as Germanic a name as you can get. However, some cloddy or other—but not from our viewpoint—put his lineage on the computers and, surprise, surprise, about ten generations ago, space scientist Richthofen turned out to have had a Jewish ancestor. He escaped the planet by the skin of his teeth and refugeed to Earth. We obtained his services. We are now capable of negating the detection sensors of Neu Reich, mainly though his efforts.”

  “I see,” Willy said. “You know, two or three years ago I had no idea that such a department as Section G even existed. Now I am continually amazed at its ramifications.”

  She smiled ruefully and on her it came out like a dream. She nodded and said, “That applies to 99 point something percent of the human race—and must. We don’t seek publicity, Willy.”

  Ronny was bandaged and had several hypodermic shots in him by the time they rendezvoused with the Space Forces Scout. He was groggy from the drugs and seated comfortably near the rear of the landing craft. They settled into the hatch which housed their small spacecraft in the scout without a hitch. Lee Chang Chu was an expert pilot.

  As soon as she had opened the hatchway, the two men got Ronny up and wrestled him through it as gently as possible. Lee Chang brought up the rear.

  The captain was awaiting them in the corridor of the scout. His eyes went anxious and alert when he saw Ronny was wounded.

  Lee Chang said briefly, “We’ve had a casualty. Put him into a bunk. Then let’s get into underspace. Sheer bad luck might bring us up against one of Number One’s space cruisers.”

  “Yes, ma’m,” the captain said, touching the visor of his cap. He called over his shoulder. Two spacemen came up and took Ronny gently. The captain hurried for his bridge.

  By the time they reached the Neuve Albuquerque spaceport, the wounded man was well on the road to repair. The three Section G agents made their farewells to the doctor and the crew of the space scout and took a passenger craft to the Greater Washington shuttleport. There they separated, Ronny heading for his apartment for a night’s rest, fresh clothing and a few drinks before reporting in to the Octagon in the morning. The next day, he scowled down at his bandaged waist and wondered whether or not to remove the dressing, but decided not to. It wouldn’t hurt to keep it on for another couple of days.

  He took an automated helio-cab from the pickup point on the roof of his apartment house and dialed through to the Octagon, that city within a city on the other side of the Potomac. At the sixth gate, he got out and dismissed the vehicle.

  He approached one of the guard-guides, brought forth his wallet and flicked it open to reveal his badge. It was golden, had a queer sheen and read simply Ronald Bronston, Section G, Bureau of Investigation, United Planets. The guard was a stranger, big and obviously proud of his uniform which he wore with a swagger.

  He scowled at the badge and said, “Section G? Never heard of it.”

  Ronny looked at him and said wearily, “It’s not necessary that you have heard of it.”

  The other took him in. Ronny Bronston was a man of averages. Medium height, medium weight and breadth. Pleasant enough of face in a medium sort of way, but not handsome. Less than sharp of dress, hair inclined to be on the undisiplined side. Brown hair, dark eyes. In a crowd, inconspicuous. He didn’t stand out.

  The guard said, “Where’s your pass?”

  “I don’t need a pass. I’m a supervisor of Section G.”

  “You need a pass to get by me, friend.”

  Ronny decided that it was going to be one of those days. He said, “Look here, who’s your immediate superior?”

  The officious one scowled at him. “Lieutenant Economou.”

  “And who’s his immediate superior?”

  “Commander Hersey.”

  “And who’s his immediate superior?”

  “General Wayne Fox, Commander in Chief of Octagon Security.”

  Ronny Bronston took his badge and put it in the slot of the Tri-Di phone screen standing next to the guard’s post. He said, “General Wayne Fox.”

  The guard’s face went suddenly empty.

  When the general’s face faded in, he said, “Ronny! I thought you were off on one of those romps of yours.”

  The guard�
�s face was wan now.

  “Just got back,” Ronny said. “What do you say we get together for lunch, Wayne? I’ve got a funny story to tell you about old Number One on Neu Reich.”

  “Great,” the general grinned. “Meet you in the senior officer’s mess at noon.”

  “It’s a date.” Ronny flicked off the phone screen and turned back to the guard. He said, “Summon me a three-wheel scooter.”

  The other snapped him a salute. “Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” He pushed a button.

  When the vehicle came scurrying up, Ronny gave him the coordinates of his destination and the other dialed them hurriedly.

  Without a further glance at the man, the Section G operative climbed into the bucket seat and the scooter slid into the Octagon’s hall traffic and began proceeding up one corridor, down another, twice taking to ascending ramps.

  He shook his head at his run-in with the guard and actually felt a bit ashamed of the cavalier manner in which he had handled the man. What was it about third-rate people in positions of minor authority?

  He must have traveled three kilometers before they got to the Department of Justice alone. It was another half kilometer to the Bureau of Investigation. The scooter eventually came to a halt, waited long enough for Ronny to dismount and then hurried back into the hall traffic.

  Ronny entered the office. There was a neatly uniformed reception girl-cum secretary there at the sole desk the room boasted. She had a harassed and cynical eye, was evidently about forty, and looked ultra-efficient, rather than good-looking. She was widely thought of as the operational brains behind Section G, and she was also reputedly sugar on Ronny Bronston.

  Ronny said, “Hi, Irene. What’s the jetsam today?”

  “Ronny!” Irene Kasansky said, never ceasing for a moment in the flicking of levers and pushing of buttons, “We heard you were shot in that Neu Reich assignment. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

  “It wasn’t as bad as all that. I came to report. Maybe afterwards I’ll ask for some time off to rest and go fishing. Is Sid in?”

  She clicked an order-box and spoke into it, listened for a moment and then said, “If I wasn’t a lady, I’d clobber you, you idiotically grinning cloddy.”

  She looked up at Ronny. “He’s free.”

  “Thanks, Irene,” Ronny said and went through the door behind her. He made one turn to the left and two to the right, in the corridor that stretched beyond, and came up to a door lettered simply, Sidney Jakes.

  He knocked and a voice called happily, “Come on in, come on in. It’s always open.”

  Ronny entered and found Sid Jakes behind his desk. He was the most off-beat looking high government executive that Ronny Bronston had ever met, Assistant to Ross Metaxa, Commissioner of Section G. His dress was on the ultra-informal side, seemingly more suited to sports wear than a job in the super-conservative Octagon. He couldn’t have been much older than Ronny’s thirty or so and he had a nervous vitality about him that could wear another down in a matter of half an hour.

  On Ronny’s appearance, he popped to his feet and dashed about the desk to wring the newcomer’s hand with an enthusiasm that would have suggested they were long separated brothers. “Ronny, old chum-pal,” he said. “My right arm!”

  “Thanks, Sid,” the newcomer said sourly. “You keep giving me these sticky assignments and I’ll probably have my own shot off one of these days.”

  “Sit down, sit down, old chum-pal,” Jakes said. He rushed his subordinate to a chair, saw him seated, then dashed back around the desk to his own swivel chair.

  He said, his voice the nearest to sounding serious that it ever got, “Lee Chang reported that you copped one on Neu Reich. How come you’re up and around?”

  Ronny shook his head. “It wasn’t much of a hit. I faked most of it to see how Probationary Agent Willy de Rudder would react. I pretended to be so badly hit that I ordered him to finish me off, so I wouldn’t fall into Number One’s guards’ hands.”

  The other cocked his head. “How did de Rudder work out? He looked like he had the makings of a pretty good agent.”

  Ronny made a negative motion with his right hand. “He’s not field agent material, Sid.”

  His superior said, “Why not?”

  “First of all, he missed Number One. And he did it on purpose, though he was under direct order to shoot the funker. Evidently, he couldn’t bring himself to kill an unknowing, defenseless man.”

  Sid Jakes didn’t get it. He said, “That gimmicked up bullet wouldn’t have killed him. Especially in view of the fact that we know he wears bulletproof underwear, or whatever, all the time.”

  ’I know. But I didn’t tell de Rudder that until later. I wanted to see how he’d react, how dedicated a Section G agent he would make.”

  “And then?”

  “Later I pointed out to him that if one of us was in danger of being snagged that the other would have to finish him off. Or if both were in such danger that we’d have to suicide. Some time after, I took a minor hit, but pretended it was much worse. I ordered him to garrot me with his belt, since we had no weapons. He refused and insisted on helping me back to where Lee Chang was scheduled to pick us up. Finally, I told him I was going to faint and gave him a direct order to finish me. He still refused.”

  Sid Jakes got out a happy laugh. “Suppose he’d have obeyed the order? That would’ve been a neat trick on you if he’d done it.”

  Ronny shook his head. “If he had started to, I would have recalled the order and proceeded on to the rendezvous point on my own two feet. He’s not field agent material, Sid. He’s too emotional, too sentimental.”

  Sid Jakes grinned at him. “Ronny, he was trying to save your life.”

  Ronny looked at him emptily and said, “Under the circumstances, Sid, at that time, that supposedly wasn’t the requirement.”

  Sid Jakes flicked on his order box and said into it, “Sweetheart, assign former Probationary Agent Willy de Rudder to some desk job here at headquarters.”

  The box squawked back and he grinned and said, “All right, all right, but if your disposition doesn’t improve I’ll withdraw my proposal of marriage.”

  He flicked the orderbox off and laughed amusement and said, “What a woman. I’ll wager she drinks vinegar with her meals instead of wine. If she wasn’t so indispensible, Metaxa would have fired her years ago. As it is, you’re the only one in the Bureau she doesn’t climb all over.”

  Chapter Four

  The phone screen lit up and Ross Metaxa was there. As usual, he looked rumpled, tired, and as though he’d had too much to drink, or too little sleep, or both, the night before. The Commissioner of Section G was in his middle years, sour of expression and disposition, moist of eye, dark of complexion, as though he was of Mediterranean extraction.

  He said now, “Irene tells me that Ronny is there with you. How did the Neu Reich assignment come off?”

  Sid Jakes chuckled. “You know Ronny. Never fails. But we had to scratch that probationary agent we sent with him.”

  “All right. Don’t bother me with the details. Both of you come to my office. I’ve got another job for Ronny.”

  Sid said, “He’s recuperating from a wound.”

  “Can he walk?”

  “Sure. As Irene told you, he’s here in my office.”

  “Then come on over.” The weary face faded.

  Sid Jakes shook his head. “The Old Man’s a goddamned slave driver. Maybe we can talk him out of it.” He came to his feet and led the way.

  Ronny sighed and followed. Damn little chance there was of ever changing Ross Metaxa’s mind about anything.

  They went down the hall to a door inconspicuously lettered Ross Metaxa, Commissioner, Section G. Ronny wondered all over again at the lack of ostentation in all pertaining to this man, who was possibly the single most powerful figure in United Planets, all unbeknownst to the billions of persons who counted themselves citizens of the loose confederation.

  Sid Jakes knocked briefl
y and pushed on through followed by his top agent, without waiting for response.

  Metaxa was behind the desk. On their appearance, he opened a drawer and brought forth a squat dark bottle and a glass. “Drink?” he said, pouring a heavy shot.

  “At this time of day? And that?” Sid Jakes snorted. “I’m much too young.”

  Ronny made with an exaggerated wince. “Denebian tequila,” he said. “I wonder what the hell they make it out of.”

  Metaxa knocked the water-colored guzzle back over his tonsils with the stiff wrist of the practiced drinker.

  He said, “Sit down. How bad’s your wound, Ronny?”

  “Not too bad. I’ll be taking the bandage off in a couple of days. However, I was looking forward to a vacation.”

  “It’ll have to wait. But this assignment will be the next thing to a vacation.”

  Sid Jakes chuckled, “I’ll bet.”

  Ronny said in resignation, “What’s it all about?” The newcomers had taken seats.

  But at that moment came another knock on the door and Ross Metaxa pressed a button beneath his foot to activate it.

  There entered possibly the largest man Ronny Bronston could ever remember having seen. His size was considerably muted, however, by his ultra-conservative dress, the anachronistic pince-nez glasses he wore, and his air of the scholar. It was Doctor Dorn M. Horsten. All three knew him, though he and Ronny hadn’t been in contact since the noted research algae specialist had been recruited into Section G.

  Ronny and Sid Jakes came to their feet and shook hands and exchanged the usual amenities.

  Metaxa growled, “Sit down, everybody.” He looked at the big man. “You’re the least likely seeming agent in the section. I understand that Lee Chang Chu recruited you into her Special Talents class, as she calls it. ESPers, midgets, pickpockets and everything else off-beat. What’s your special talent?”

  Doctor Horsten was a very nice, very soft-spoken man. He said, “I suppose that the best thing would be for me to demonstrate.”

  He brought forth from its shoulder rig his H-gun. In his hands the large weapon was dwarfed. He took the barrel and twisted it into the shape of a pretzel.