World Of Ptavvs   ::   Нивен Ларри

Страница: 89 из 127

How could they have covered so many details?"

"I think he told you the truth," Marda said decisively.

Lit looked at his wife in surprise. Marda was notoriously slow to reach decisions. "Don't get me wrong," he said. "The Arms could have attended to all these little things. What bothers me is the work it must have taken. Hiding Greenberg. Coaching his wife. Tearing things up in the starship's life system. They can put everything back later, of course, but imagine going to all that trouble! And the disturbance at Menninger's. My God, how could they have worked that? Training all those patients! And they flatly couldn't have borrowed the Golden Circle. Ninety millionaires at the Titan Hotel are all screaming murder because they can't go home on time. Thirty more on Earth are going to miss their honeymoon trips. Titan would never have let that happen! The Arms must have out-and-out stolen that ship."

"Occam's Razor," said Marda.

"Occam's-? Oh. No. Either way, I have to make just too many assumptions."

"Lit, how can you take the chance? If Garner isn't lying, the whole solar system's in danger. If he is, what's his motive?"

"You're really convinced, aren't you?"

Marda bobbed her head vigorously.

"Well, you're right. We can't take the chance."

When he came out of the phone booth he said, "I just sent the fleet the record of my interview with Garner. The whole bloody hour. I'd like to do more, but Garner'll hear everything I say. At this distance he's bound to be in the maser beam."

"They'll be ready this way."

"I wonder. I wish I could have warned them about the helmet. The very worst thing I can think of is that Garner might get his hands on the damn thing. Well, Lew's bright, he'll think of that himself."

Later he called Ceres again, to find out how the other side of the check was going. For more than two weeks now, Belt ships had been stopping and searching Earth ships at random. If Garner's snark hunt was an attempt to cover something, it wasn't going to work! But Ceres reported no results to date.

Ceres was wrong. The search-and-seizure tactics had had at least one result. Tension had never been so high between Earth and Belt.

The copilot sat motionless listening to Kzanol/Greenberg's side of the conversation. He couldn't understand overspeak, but Kzanol/Greenberg could; and Kzanol listened to the shielded slave through the mind of the copilot.

"I ought to get rid of you right away," Kzanol mused. "A slave that can't be controlled can't be trusted."

"That's truer than you know." A hint of bitterness showed in Kzanol/Greenberg's voice. "But you can't kill me yet.

|< Пред. 87 88 89 90 91 След. >|

Java книги

Контакты: [email protected]