401.

A little time, it had taken, to explain to the "beauty contest" candidates that once they'd played their decoy roles, they were to get 'out of the way, period. "To be not of harm, to be of safey," Barton had said, then fi- nally shut up and let Limila tell it, wondering if Vertan hadn't leveled truly with these women, or it he simply hadnt known how to make the situation clear.

There were thirty-two of them, and if it hadn't been for the high hairlines and low-set breasts, any one could have been a finalist at Atlantic City or wherever such contests were held nowadays, in Barton's home country.

Most with black hair, a few with dark reddish-brown, and two in between. All much the same height, standing even with Limila as she gave her explanation. When they seemed to understand, she nodded at Barton and he responded in kind.

His robe didn't hang right; he hitched at it, then reached to make sure he hadn't jarred his own wig out of position. But he couldn't, really, in normal movement;

the thing was glued solidly, around the edges, because its alignment was crucial. Barton fingered the improvised remote trigger of the device hidden in the up-piled hair, and reflexively touched the robe over his own false breasts that contained the backup power pack.

Movement caught his eye. Up front at the rostrum, Vertan and four other Tilarans came onstage. And from the other side, ap Fenn entered, with a full squad of armed Marines.

Well, nobody ever said it was going to be easy.

The first part went well enough. Barton thought. Ap Fenn looked surly but was obviously taken by Vertan's carefully worded offer of legalized graft at the spaceports.

Then Vertan threw the kicker, to engage the admiral's attention as fully as possible, about amnesty for Ship One. Except Barton. They'd decided that nobody should try to say any good word for rotten ol' Barton, because Karsen ap Fenn wouldn't go for it in any case, and would simply back off from the whole pitch. But the others: "They are, honored Admiral, of innocence' and of regret They would be of reconciliation, if the adjgtfal is of forgiveness."

And the son-of-a-bitch is buying it! Ap Fenn said words agreeing, and moved to shake Vertan's hand on the deal. Barton hadn't truly followed what the Inter-

402.

preter had said, realizing that Vertan was using that skilled person to give him thinking time between ex- changes. But he had to agree that Vertan had picked one capable woman.

Then came a couple of nonce-events, to pass time. Ap Fenn was asked to preside, in an honorary capacity, over the presentation of awards that Barton figured were prob- ably invented for the occasion. It took a time, and Bar- ton used it to sneak off and take a leak, so he wouldn't be caught short in the pinch.

And then Vertan took the floor again. He looked seri- ous, and Barton wished he wouldn't do that. But Barton knew that Tilara had, in its culture, nothing that resem- bled the game of poker.

The beauty candidates came in four .clutches of eight each, and Barton's idea was that third in line would have the best chance of catching ap Fenn's people off base.

"They have time to get bored, plenty. But the last set, they start getting alert again."

So out of the seclusion booth, when their appointed time came, filed the eight Tilaran women and their four escorts. Barton had Arleta Fox in the middle, more or less, so that if she had trouble with her balance on the high clogs, it wouldn't show much. At first he fretted, but she did better than he expected, so he relaxed on that and worried where it counted more. They walked on up.

Ap Fenn's squad of Marines stood close-spaced be- hind the admiral. The beauty-contingent ritual was that two women at a time came to pose before ap Fenn while the pair's chaperone knelt behind and between them. So when Barton knelt, the sleep-gun in his wig had a good clear shot. First he made sure of ap Fenn, then raised his head a little and moved it from side to side until the Marines dropped.

Barton was beginning to get to his feet when the nasty chatter of automatic-rate projectile fire came from be- hind him.

Limila/screamed, a shout of outrage; he saw her grab her guts and fall down. By instinct, like back in Nam, he reached for weapons he didn't have and dropped to roll under the slugs that screeched past him. But turning, and

403.

then sitting up and the hell with it, he remembered where he was, and why. And used his trigger.

Several hundred Tilarans went down when -his sleep- gun hit them. But so did ap Fenn's butchers, at the back of the pavilion. Barton stood up. He started to move toward Limila, when something huge cast a shadow over the whole place. He looked up and saw a ship that didn't belong with anything he recognized. Damn it, there wasn't time for anything new, here. But the sheer bulk of the thing held him fixed. He saw it dip toward the port, hesitate-dust clouds flew up, from the impact of that ship's fields-and then it lifted again, and moved across his view.

Toward where? Barton shook his head; he'd figure that out, later.

Now he went to Limila. Her head shook violently;

Myra was holding her, and said, "We have to get out of here; I can carry her."

"No," said Barton. "I can do it."

"You stupid son-of-a-bitch, Barton!" Myra screamed it "If you carry Limila, who's going to tote the admiral?"

And then Barton came back to something like normal.

"Yeh, sure." It wasn't, he thought, as though he had all his brains working. He looked at Limila, and her color wasn't too bad. He scrunched down and moved things' around and got Karsen ap Fenn up into a fireman's carry, and said, "Which way, Myra?" Because Barton was in shock, he knew, and had lost track of his head-

Myra steered him out of the pavilion and got them started across the port. "If Abdul and the others have the Big Hundred for us-" Well, thought Barton, maybe it made sense.

No such luck, though. Abdul helped them aboard the ship that ap Penn had dubbed the Big Hundred, but the place was only a temporary shelter, not a way to go any- where. Dumping the admiral into a chair. Barton lis- tened. The fuel tanks were saturated with Abdul's inhibi- tor, after all, and for now the ship was dead. -

Its crew wasn't, though. "We were lucky enoughJ^ said Abdul, "to get aboard without provoking comblt. And once inside, our possession of individual Shields against the sleep-gun made it relatively simple to take the ship without inflicting casualties." *

404.

"Yeh, sure," said Barton. "Any chance they got a medic on here?"

"Ap Fenn's personal doctor,'* Abdul said. "He is not yet awake."

"Soon as you can, get him up. Limila needs help, and fast." Barton turned away.

Abdul Muhammed said, "You leave her now? What- is more important?"

And Barton nearly hit the big man. Fuming, raging, so angry that almost he forgot the needs of what was happen- ing, he caught himself, and said, "Get that doc on Limila, Abdul. Soon as possible, like I said. No point in me sitting by her; I can't do shit. What I can do is frag Karsen ap Fenn's mind back to kindergarten. And that's going to take some time, and I'd better get at it."

Abdul blinked, and nodded. "Yes. I see." And from the look of the man. Barton lost whatever resentment he'd had.

Barton didn't ask aid, though; again he got ap Fenn up over into a carry, and took him to captain's digs and dumped him onto the bed. He heard someone following him, and turned and looked, and saw Arleta Fox. She'd scuttled the high-lift shoes; she was walking in good order.

She said, "Once you regress him, maybe I can heip."

Barton nodded; then he set to work. He slapped ap Fenn awake and asked questions. The answers didn't satisfy him; the admiral still remembered who Barton

*was, and that they were on Tilara. Barton hit him with ten minutes of the Demu sleep-gun, waited a time, and used his hands to bring the man awake again. Some while later they had a third session, leaving ap Fenn's cheeks red and , swollen by the time he woke. It wasn't that Barton en- joyed slapping the hell out of a zombie, but he had no bet- ter way to make the son-of-a-bitch come alive.

This time, ap Fenn didn't know Barton from Adam's off ox. Leaning closer. Barton said, "Where are you?

What's your job?"

In a plaintive tone, ap Fenn said, "The Space Agency

*-I'm highly placed there, you know. What kind of whorehouse is this, that beats up influential customers?"

*He blinked, and for all that Barton could tell, maybe he was even thinking. "I ..tell you-call me transportation home, and tomorrow 111 send you a bonus, for luck."

405.

-Sure. You do that." For his own luck, though, Barton gave ap Fenn two more zap-sessions with a waking inter- lude between, so that when he was done, the' admiral seemed to speak as an ambitious and somewhat idealistic young man of about the age of twenty.

Pooped out of his mind. Barton turned to Arleta Fox.