"She needs all the help she can get. She knows she can get plenty from me. Why do you think I interrupted my search for her, and risked my carnate existence, to fight those people over a matter of verbalisms and political propaganda?" Verkan Vall went to the newscast visiplate and snapped it on. "We"ll see if I"m getting results, yet."

The plate lighted, and a handsome young man in a gold-laced green suit was speaking out of it:

"... where he is heavily guarded by a.s.sa.s.sins. However, in an exclusive interview with representatives of this service, the a.s.sa.s.sin Hirzif, one of the two who seconded the men the Lord Virzal fought, said that in his opinion all of the three were so outcla.s.sed as to have had no chance whatever, and that he had already refused an offer of ten thousand System Monetary Units to discarnate the Lord Virzal for the Statisticalist Party. "When I want to discarnate," Hirzif the a.s.sa.s.sin said, "I"ll invite in my friends and do it properly; until I do, I wouldn"t go up against the Lord Virzal of Verkan for ten million S.M.U.""

Verkan Vall snapped off the visiplate. "See what I mean?" he asked. "I fought those politicians just for the advertising. If Dallona and Dirzed are anywhere near a visiplate, they"ll know how to reach me."

"Hirzif shouldn"t have talked about refusing that retainer," Klarnood frowned. "That isn"t good a.s.sa.s.sin ethics. Why, yes, Lord Virzal; that was cleverly planned. It ought to get results. But I wish you"d get the Lady Dallona out of Darsh, and preferably off Terra, as soon as you can. We"ve benefited by this, so far, but I shouldn"t like to see things go much further. A real civil war could develop out of this situation, and I don"t want that. Call on me for help; I"ll give you a code word to use at a.s.sa.s.sins" Hall."

A real civil war was developing even as Klarnood spoke; by mid-morning of the next day, the fighting that had been partially suppressed by the Constabulary had broken out anew. The a.s.sa.s.sins employed by the Solar Hotel--heavily re-enforced during the night--had fought a pitched battle with Statisticalist partisans on the landing-stage above Verkan Vall"s suite, and now several Constabulary airboats were patrolling around the building. The rule on Constabulary interference seemed to be that while individuals had an unquestionable right to shoot out their differences among themselves, any fighting likely to endanger nonpartic.i.p.ants was taboo.

Just how successful in enforcing this rule the Constabulary were was open to some doubt. Ever since arising, Verkan Vall had heard the crash of small arms and the hammering of automatic weapons in other parts of the towering city-unit. There hadn"t been a civil war on the Akor-Neb Sector for over five centuries, he knew, but then, Hadron Dalla, Doctor of Psychic Science, and intertemporal trouble-carrier extraordinary, had only been on this sector for a little under a year.

If anything, he was surprised that the explosion had taken so long to occur.

One of the servants furnished to him by the hotel management approached him in the drawing room, holding a four-inch-square wafer of white plastic.

"Lord Virzal, there is a masked a.s.sa.s.sin in the hallway who brought this under a.s.sa.s.sins" Truce," he said.

Verkan Vall took the wafer and pared off three of the four edges, which showed black where they had been fused. Unfolding it, he found, as he had expected, that the pyrographed message within was in the alphabet and language of the First Paratime Level:

Vall, darling:

Am I glad you got here; this time I really _am_ in the middle, but good! The a.s.sa.s.sin, Dirzed, who brings this, is in my service. You can trust him implicitly; he"s about the only person in Darsh you can trust. He"ll bring you to where I am.

Dalla

P.S. I hope you"re not still angry about that musician. I told you, at the time, that he was just helping me with an experiment in telepathy.

D.

Verkan Vall grinned at the postscript. That had been twenty years ago, when he"d been eighty and she"d been seventy. He supposed she"d expect him to take up his old relationship with her again. It probably wouldn"t last any longer than it had, the other time; he recalled a Fourth Level proverb about the leopard and his spots. It certainly wouldn"t be boring, though.

"Tell the a.s.sa.s.sin to come in," he directed. Then he tossed the message down on a table. Outside of himself, n.o.body in Darsh could read it but the woman who had sent it; if, as he thought highly probable, the Statisticalists had spies among the hotel staff, it might serve to reduce some crypta.n.a.lyst to gibbering insanity.

The a.s.sa.s.sin entered, drawing off a cowllike mask. He was the man whose arm Dalla had been holding in the visiplate picture; Verkan Vall even recognized the extremely ornate pistol and knife on his belt.

"Dirzed the a.s.sa.s.sin," he named himself. "If you wish, we can visiphone a.s.sa.s.sins" Hall for verification of my ident.i.ty."

"Lord Virzal of Verkan. And my a.s.sa.s.sins, Marnik and Olirzon." They all hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with the newcomer. "That won"t be needed," Verkan Vall told Dirzed. "I know you from seeing you with the Lady Dallona, on the visiplate; you"re "Dirzed, her faithful a.s.sa.s.sin.""

Dirzed"s face, normally the color of a good walnut gunstock, turned almost black. He used shockingly bad language.

"And that"s why I have to wear this abomination," he finished, displaying the mask. "The Lady Dallona and I can"t show our faces anywhere; if we did, every Statisticalist and his six-year-old brat would know us, and we"d be fighting off an army of them in five minutes."

"Where"s the Lady Dallona, now?"

"In hiding, Lord Virzal, at a private dwelling dome in the forest; she"s most anxious to see you. I"m to take you to her, and I would strongly advise that you bring your a.s.sa.s.sins along. There are other people at this dome, and they are not personally loyal to the Lady Dallona. I"ve no reason to suspect them of secret enmity, but their friendship is based entirely on political expediency."

"And political expediency is subject to change without notice," Verkan Vall finished for him. "Have you an airboat?"

"On the landing stage below. Shall we go now, Lord Virzal?"

"Yes." Verkan Vall made a two-handed gesture to his a.s.sa.s.sins, as though gripping a submachine-gun; they nodded, went into another room, and returned carrying light automatic weapons in their hands and pouches of spare drums slung over their shoulders. "And may I suggest, Dirzed, that one of my a.s.sa.s.sins drives the airboat? I want you on the back seat with me, to explain the situation as we go."

Dirzed"s teeth flashed white against his brown skin as he gave Verkan Vall a quick smile.

"By all means, Lord Virzal; I would much rather be distrusted than to find that my client"s friends were not discreet."

There were a couple of hotel a.s.sa.s.sins guarding Dirzed"s airboat, on the landing stage. Marnik climbed in under the controls, with Olirzon beside him; Verkan Vall and Dirzed entered the rear seat. Dirzed gave Marnik the co-ordinate reference for their destination.

"Now, what sort of a place is this, where we"re going?" Verkan Vall asked. "And who"s there whom we may or may not trust?"

"Well, it"s a dome house belonging to the family of Starpha; they own a five-mile radius around it, oak and beech forest and underbrush, stocked with deer and boar. A hunting lodge. Prince Jirzyn of Starpha, Lord Girzon of Roxor, and a few other top-level Volitionalists, know that the Lady Dallona"s hiding there. They"re keeping her out of sight till after the election, for propaganda purposes. We"ve been hiding there since immediately after the discarnation feast of the Lord Garnon of Roxor."

"What happened, after the feast?" Verkan Vall wanted to know.

"Well, you know how the Lady Dallona and Dr. Harnosh of Hosh had this telepathic-sensitive there, in a trance and drugged with a _zerfa_-derivative alkaloid the Lady Dallona had developed. I was Lord Garnon"s a.s.sa.s.sin; I discarnated him, myself. Why, I hadn"t even put my pistol away before he was in control of this sensitive, in a room five stories above the banquet hall; he began communicating at once.

We had visiplates to show us what was going on.

"Right away, Nirzav of Shonna, one of the Statisticalist leaders who was a personal friend of Lord Garnon"s in spite of his politics, renounced Statisticalism and went over to the Volitionalists, on the strength of this communication. Prince Jirzyn, and Lord Girzon, the new family-head of Roxor, decided that there would be trouble in the next few days, so they advised the Lady Dallona to come to this hunting lodge for safety. She and I came here in her airboat, directly from the feast. A good thing we did, too; if we"d gone to her apartment, we"d have walked in before that lethal gas had time to clear.

"There are four a.s.sa.s.sins of the family of Starpha, and six menservants, and an upper-servant named Tarnod, the gamekeeper. The Starpha a.s.sa.s.sins and I have been keeping the rest under observation.

I left one of the Starpha a.s.sa.s.sins guarding the Lady Dallona when I came for you, under brotherly oath to protect her in my name till I returned."

The airboat was skimming rapidly above the treetops, toward the northern part of the city.

"What"s known about that package bomb?" Verkan Vall asked. "Who sent it?"

Dirzed shrugged. "The Statisticalists, of course. The wrapper was stolen from the Reincarnation Research Inst.i.tute; so was the case. The Constabulary are working on it." Dirzed shrugged again.

The dome, about a hundred and fifty feet in width and some fifty in height, stood among the trees ahead. It was almost invisible from any distance; the concrete dome was of mottled green and gray concrete, trees grew so close as to brush it with their branches, and the little pavilion on the flattened top was roofed with translucent green plastic. As the airboat came in, a couple of men in a.s.sa.s.sins" garb emerged from the pavilion to meet them.

"Marnik, stay at the controls," Verkan Vall directed. "I"ll send Olirzon up for you if I want you. If there"s any trouble, take off for a.s.sa.s.sins" Hall and give the code word, then come back with twice as many men as you think you"ll need."

Dirzed raised his eyebrows over this. "I hadn"t known the a.s.sa.s.sin-President had given you a code word, Lord Virzal," he commented. "That doesn"t happen very often."

"The a.s.sa.s.sin-President has honored me with his friendship," Verkan Vall replied noncommittally, as he, Dirzed and Olirzon climbed out of the airboat. Marnik was holding it an un.o.btrusive inch or so above the flat top of the dome, away from the edge of the pavilion roof.

The two a.s.sa.s.sins greeted him, and a man in upper-servants" garb and wearing a hunting knife and a long hunting pistol approached.

"Lord Virzal of Verkan? Welcome to Starpha Dome. The Lady Dallona awaits you below."

Verkan Vall had never been in an Akor-Neb dwelling dome, but a description of such structures had been included in his hypno-mech indoctrination. Originally, they had been the standard structure for all purposes; about two thousand elapsed years ago, when nationalism had still existed on the Akor-Neb Sector, the cities had been almost entirely under ground, as protection from air attack. Even now, the design had been retained by those who wished to live apart from the towering city units, to preserve the natural appearance of the landscape. The Starpha hunting lodge was typical of such domes. Under it was a circular well, eighty feet in depth and fifty in width, with a fountain and a shallow circular pool at the bottom. The storerooms, kitchens and servants" quarters were at the top, the living quarters at the bottom, in segments of a wide circle around the well, back of balconies.

"Tarnod, the gamekeeper," Dirzed performed the introductions. "And Erarno and Kirzol, a.s.sa.s.sins."

Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with them. Tarnod accompanied them to the lifter tubes--two percent positive gravitation for descent and two percent negative for ascent--and they all floated down the former, like air-filled balloons, to the bottom level.