"Kruze?" I laughed harshly. "He won't care. Not when he finds the facts put both of us out of the way."

The last remnants of Gaylord's grin were fading. "Listen, you—"

I said, "Shall I play it back for you, Controller? Shall I tell you how it really happened?" And then, pacing a few steps: "You went down to your communications section first, of course; had the sigman on duty put out my all-points order. I know that, because the Stelpa girl sent me a thrill-mill. And unless my order had gone out, she wouldn't even have known I was here.

"Anyhow, you sent my order—and then discovered there was a message from Kruze himself on the hook. Probably it said that if I turned up, you should contact him non-channel.

"You saw that as a good way of getting out of a bad spot with your hide in one piece. So you called Kruze, got instructions to pick me up, and here you are."

Gaylord stared at me as if hypnotized. "How did you know?"

"I warped in without a clearance. But one was on file when I got here. That meant Kruze had guessed some of what I planned and was taking steps. And one of those steps would be to get in touch with you."

Gaylord's expression, at that moment, might have meant anything. Smiling thinly, I moved a trifle closer to the voco. "I do hope it works out for you, you understand. And it may. But then again, it may not. It's hard to predict Kruze's reactions. Sometimes it's almost as if he were unconditioned, like us—"

I gestured as I talked, a lot more than was needed, as if somehow that was going to make the words worth hearing. I walked, too—pacing, turning, anything to keep Gaylord just a bit off balance.

Worry already was closing in on him. It hung about him like a cloak. The paragun's muzzle wasn't following me quite so closely.

My next turn carried me even nearer to the voco. Then, when I started to turn again, I tripped.

It was a nice job, deftly done. I reeled, arms flailing—and crashed bodily into the bulky instrument.

The voco rocked wildly. Scanner, scriber, audex—they all tottered, then swept out in a big arc, faster and faster towards the floor.

Gaylord yelled hoarsely and leaped in, trying to save them.

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