A was as Klarnood spoke; by mid-morning of the next day, the that had been by the Constabulary had out anew. The Assassins by the Solar Hotel—heavily re-enforced the night—had a with Statisticalist on the landing-stage above Verkan Vall's suite, and now Constabulary were around the building. The on Constabulary to be that while had an right to shoot out their among themselves, any likely to was taboo.
Just how successful in this the Constabulary were was open to some doubt. Ever since arising, Verkan Vall had the crash of small arms and the of in other parts of the city-unit. There hadn't been a on the Akor-Neb Sector for over five centuries, he knew, but then, Hadron Dalla, Doctor of Psychic Science, and trouble-carrier extraordinary, had only been on this for a little under a year. If anything, he was that the had taken so long to occur.
One of the to him by the hotel management approached him in the room, a four-inch-square of white plastic.
"Lord Virzal, there is a Assassin in the who this under Assassins' Truce," he said.
Verkan Vall took the and off three of the four edges, which black where they had been fused. Unfolding it, he found, as he had expected, that the message was in the and language of the First Paratime Level:
Vall, darling:
Am I you got here; this time I am in the middle, but good! The Assassin, Dirzed, who this, is in my service. You can trust him implicitly; he's about the only person in Darsh you can trust. He'll you to where I am.
Dalla
P.S. I you're not still angry about that musician. I told you, at the time, that he was just helping me with an in telepathy.
D.
Verkan Vall at the postscript. That had been twenty years ago, when he'd been eighty and she'd been seventy. He she'd him to take up his old relationship with her again. It wouldn't last any longer than it had, the other time; he a Fourth Level proverb about the and his spots. It wouldn't be boring, though.
"Tell the Assassin to come in," he directed. Then he the message on a table. Outside of himself, nobody in Darsh read it but the woman who had sent it; if, as he probable, the Statisticalists had among the hotel staff, it might to some to insanity.
The Assassin entered, off a mask. He was the man arm Dalla had been in the picture; Verkan Vall the pistol and knife on his belt.
"Dirzed the Assassin," he named himself. "If you wish, we can Assassins' Hall for of my identity."
"Lord Virzal of Verkan. And my Assassins, Marnik and Olirzon." They all and with the newcomer. "That won't be needed," Verkan Vall told Dirzed. "I know you from you with the Lady Dallona, on the visiplate; you're 'Dirzed, her Assassin.'"
Dirzed's face, the color of a good gunstock, almost black. He used language.
"And that's why I have to wear this abomination," he finished, the mask. "The Lady Dallona and I can't our anywhere; if we did, every Statisticalist and his six-year-old would know us, and we'd be off an army of them in five minutes."
"Where's the Lady Dallona, now?"
"In hiding, Lord Virzal, at a private in the forest; she's most to see you. I'm to take you to her, and I would that you your Assassins along. There are other people at this dome, and they are not personally to the Lady Dallona. I've no to them of enmity, but their is on political expediency."
"And political is to without notice," Verkan Vall for him. "Have you an airboat?"
"On the landing stage below. Shall we go now, Lord Virzal?"
"Yes." Verkan Vall a two-handed to his Assassins, as though a submachine-gun; they nodded, into another room, and returned light in their hands and of over their shoulders. "And may I suggest, Dirzed, that one of my Assassins the airboat? I want you on the seat with me, to the as we go."
Dirzed's teeth white against his skin as he gave Verkan Vall a quick smile.
"By all means, Lord Virzal; I would much be than to that my client's friends were not discreet."
There were a of hotel Assassins Dirzed's airboat, on the landing stage. Marnik in under the controls, with Olirzon him; Verkan Vall and Dirzed entered the seat. Dirzed gave Marnik the co-ordinate for their destination.
"Now, what of a place is this, where we're going?" Verkan Vall asked. "And who's there we may or may not trust?"
"Well, it's a house to the family of Starpha; they own a five-mile around it, and and underbrush, with deer and boar. A lodge. Prince Jirzyn of Starpha, Lord Girzon of Roxor, and a other top-level Volitionalists, know that the Lady Dallona's there. They're her out of till after the election, for purposes. We've been there since after the 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 and with a zerfa-derivative the Lady Dallona had developed. I was Lord Garnon's Assassin; I him, myself. Why, I hadn't put my pistol away he was in of this sensitive, in a room five above the hall; he at once. We had to us what was going on.
"Right away, Nirzav of Shonna, one of the Statisticalist who was a personal friend of Lord Garnon's in of his politics, Statisticalism and over to the Volitionalists, on the of this communication. Prince Jirzyn, and Lord Girzon, the new family-head of Roxor, that there would be trouble in the next days, so they the Lady Dallona to come to this 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 that had time to clear.
"There are four Assassins of the family of Starpha, and six menservants, and an upper-servant named Tarnod, the gamekeeper. The Starpha Assassins and I have been the under observation. I left one of the Starpha Assassins the Lady Dallona when I came for you, under to protect her in my name till I returned."
The was above the treetops, toward the northern part of the city.
"What's about that bomb?" Verkan Vall asked. "Who sent it?"
Dirzed shrugged. "The Statisticalists, of course. The was from the Reincarnation Research Institute; so was the case. The Constabulary are on it." Dirzed again.
The dome, about a hundred and fifty in and some fifty in height, among the trees ahead. It was almost from any distance; the was of green and concrete, trees so close as to it with their branches, and the little on the top was with green plastic. As the came in, a of men in Assassins' from the to meet them.
"Marnik, 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 Assassins' Hall and give the word, then come with twice as many men as you think you'll need."
Dirzed his over this. "I hadn't the Assassin-President had you a word, Lord Virzal," he commented. "That doesn't very often."
"The Assassin-President has me with his friendship," Verkan Vall noncommittally, as he, Dirzed and Olirzon out of the airboat. Marnik was it an or so above the top of the dome, away from the of the roof.
The two Assassins him, and a man in upper-servants' and a knife and a long pistol approached.
"Lord Virzal of Verkan? Welcome to Starpha Dome. The Lady Dallona you below."
Verkan Vall had been in an Akor-Neb dome, but a of such had been in his hypno-mech indoctrination. Originally, they had been the for all purposes; about two thousand years ago, when had still on the Akor-Neb Sector, the had been almost under ground, as protection from air attack. Even now, the design had been by those who to live from the city units, to the natural of the landscape. The Starpha was of such domes. Under it was a well, eighty in and fifty in width, with a and a at the bottom. The storerooms, and servants' were at the top, the at the bottom, in of a wide circle around the well, of balconies.
"Tarnod, the gamekeeper," Dirzed performed the introductions. "And Erarno and Kirzol, Assassins."
Verkan Vall and with them. Tarnod them to the tubes—two positive for and two negative for ascent—and they all the former, like air-filled balloons, to the level.
"The Lady Dallona is in the gun room," Tarnod Verkan Vall, making as though to him.
"Thanks, Tarnod; we know the way," Dirzed told him shortly, his on the upper-servant and walking toward a closed door on the other of the fountain. Verkan Vall and Olirzon followed; for a moment, Tarnod looking after them, then he the other two Assassins into the tube.
"I don't that fellow," Dirzed explained. "The family of Starpha use him for work they couldn't an Assassin to do at any price. I've been here often, when I was with the Lord Garnon; I've always he had something on Prince Jirzyn."
He on the closed door with the of his pistol. In a moment, it open, and a Assassin with a narrow and a of looked out.
"Ah, Dirzed." He outside. "The Lady Dallona is within; I return her to your care."
Verkan Vall entered, by Dirzed and Olirzon. The big room was with chairs and and low tables; its were with the of deer and and wolves, and with and pistols and pieces. It was with the soft of cold light. At the of the room, a woman was seated at a desk, speaking into a transcriber. As they entered, she it off and rose.
Hadron Dalla the same Verkan Vall had on the visiplate: he her instantly. It took her a second or two to Verkan Vall under the skin and black of the Lord Virzal of Verkan. Then her with a happy smile.
"Why, Va-a-a-ll!" she whooped, across the room and herself into his not particularly arms. After all, it had been twenty years—"I didn't know you, at first!"
"You mean, in these clothes?" he asked, that she had forgotten, for the moment, the presence of the two Assassins. She had called him by his First Level name, but that was unimportant—the Akor-Neb was by the -irz- or -arn-. "Well, they're not what I wear on the plantation." He her again, then to his companions. "Your pardon, Gentlemen-Assassins; it's been something over a year since we've each other."
Olirzon was at the reunion; Dirzed a look of resignation, as though he might have something like this to happen. Verkan Vall and Dalla sat on a near the desk.
"That was sweet of you, Vall, those men for talking about me," she began. "You took an chance, though. But if you hadn't, I'd have you were in Darsh—Oh-oh! That was why you did it, wasn't it?"
"Well, I had to do something. Everybody either didn't know or weren't saying where you were. I assumed, from the circumstances, that you were somewhere. Tell me, Dalla; do you have scientific proof of reincarnation? I mean, as an fact?"
"Oh, yes; these people on this have had that for over ten centuries. They have for into a part of the mind that we've been able to reach. And after I out how they did it, I was able to some of our hypno-epistemological to it, and—"
"All right; that's what I wanted to know," he cut her off. "We're out of here, right away."
"But where?"
"Ghamma, in an I have outside, and then to the First Level. Unless there's a paratime-transposition nearer."
"But why, Vall? I'm not to go back; I have a of work to do here, yet. They're to set up a series of control-experiments at the Institute, and then, I'm in the middle of an experiment, a two-hundred-subject memory-recall experiment. See, I two hundred sets of for my new technique—injection-ampoules of this zerfa-derivative drug, and records of the formula, which can be played on an ordinary reproducer. It's just a of our hypno-mech process, that of in the mind, to be at will to the level of consciousness, it the other way, and into knowledge already in the mind. The way these people have always done has been to put the in an and then record in the state; when the comes out of the trance, the record is all there is, the memories of past have been in the mind. But with my process, the can about his last reincarnation, and as many that as he to. I haven't from any of the people who these auto-recall kits, and I must—"
"Dalla, I don't want to have to Paratime Police authority on you, but, so help me, if you don't come with me, I will. Security of the of transposition."
"Oh, my eye!" Dalla exclaimed. "Don't give me that, Vall!"
"Look, Dalla. Suppose you here," Verkan Vall said. "You say is a scientific fact. Well, you'd on this sector, and then you'd take a memory-recall, under hypnosis. And when you did, the wouldn't be a any more."
"Oh!" Dalla's hand to her mouth in consternation. Like every paratimer, she was to with all her being from the of to any out-time the ability of her to pass to other time-lines, or the of lines of probability. "And if I took one of the old-fashioned trance-recalls, I'd out everything; I wouldn't be able to keep a thing back. And I know the of transposition!" She looked at him, aghast.
"When I back, I'm going to put a through that this whole be out of for all paratime-transposition, until you people at Rhogom Foundation work out the problem of return to the First Level," he told her. "Now, have you any notes or anything you want to take with you?"
She rose. "Yes; just what's on the desk. Find me something to put the tape and in, while I'm them in order."
He a large game from under a of pieces, and it while she the material rapidly, of record tape and into it. They had when the door open and Olirzon, who had gone outside, into the room, his pistol drawn, vilely.
"They've double-crossed us!" he cried. "The of Starpha have on us." He his pistol and up his submachine-gun, taking the of the door and go with a in the direction of the tubes. "Got that one!" he grunted.
"What happened, Olirzon?" Verkan Vall asked, the game on the table and across the room.
"I up to see how Marnik was making out. As I came out of the tube, one of the took a at me with a pistol. He missed me; I didn't miss him. Then a more of them were up, with pieces; I one of them they fire, and jumped into the and came over ears. I don't know what's to Marnik." He another burst, and swore. "Missed him!"
"Assassins' Truce! Assassins' Truce!" a voice out of the tube. "Hold your fire, we want to parley."
"Who is it?" Dirzed shouted, over Olirzon's shoulder. "You, Sarnax? Come on out; we won't shoot."
The Assassin with the and from the tube, his and his hands in of him in a ecclesiastical-looking manner. Dirzed and Olirzon out of the gun room, by Verkan Vall and Hadron Dalla. Olirzon had left his submachine-gun behind. They met the other Assassin by the of the pool.
"Lady Dallona of Hadron," the Starpha Assassin began. "I and my colleagues, in the of the family of Starpha, have orders from our clients to our protection from you, and to you, and all with you who to protect or support you." That much like a of some formula; then his voice more conversational. "I and my colleagues, Erarno and Kirzol and Harnif, offer our for the of the of the family of Starpha, in without of of friendship. Was or discarnated?"
"None of us," Olirzon said. "How about Marnik?"
"He was were against him," Sarnax replied. "We will allow five minutes until—"
Olirzon, who had been looking up the well, at Dalla, her flat, and at the same time out his pistol. Before he it, a from above and he on his face. Dirzed, Verkan Vall, and Sarnax, all their pistols, but had the had vanished. There was an of above.
"Get to cover," Sarnax told the others. "We'll let you know when we're to attack; we'll have to with that shot, first." He looked at the on the floor, angrily, and to the tube, upward.
Verkan Vall replaced the small pistol in his and took Olirzon's belt, with his knife and pistol.
"Well, there you see," Dirzed said, as they to the gun room. "So much for political expediency."
"I think I why your picture and the Lady Dallona's were so widely," Verkan Vall said. "Now, would your bodies, and the Statisticalists for you."
"That had to me, Lord Virzal," Dirzed said. "I our will be but not mutilated, to the public," he added placidly. "If I out of this carnate, I'm going to pay somebody off for it."
After a minutes, there was more of: "Assassins' Truce!" from the tube. The two Assassins, Erarno and Kirzol, emerged, the gamekeeper, Tarnod, them. The upper-servant's was bloody, and his to be broken. Sarnax followed, a long pistol in his hand.
"Here he is!" he announced. "He Assassins' Truce; he's to Assassins' Justice!"
He to the others. They the on the floor, and Sarnax him through the head, then the pistol him. "Any more of these people who the will be similarly," he promised.
"Thank you, Sarnax," Dirzed spoke up. "But we an Assassin: this won't that. We think you should retire one of your number."
"That at least, Dirzed; wait a moment."
The three Assassins at some length. Then Sarnax and with his companions.
"See you in the next reincarnation, brothers," he told them, walking toward the gun-room door, where Verkan Vall, Dalla and Dirzed stood. "I'm joining you people. You had two Assassins when the began, you'll have two when the starts."
Verkan Vall looked at Dirzed in some surprise. Hadron Dalla's Assassin nodded.
"He's to do that, Lord Virzal; the Assassins' for such of allegiance."
"Welcome, Sarnax," Verkan Vall said, with him. "I we'll all be together when this is over."
"We will be," Sarnax him cheerfully. "Discarnate. We won't out of this in the body, Lord Virzal."
A submachine-gun from above, the the pool; the water actually steamed, so great was their velocity.
"All right!" a voice called down. "Assassins' Truce is over!"
Another of fire out the lights at the of the tube. Dirzed and Dalla across the room, pushing a cabinet them; Verkan Vall, who was Olirzon's submachine-gun, moved to allow them to it on in the open doorway, then the door half-shut against it. Sarnax came over, rifles, pistols, and ammunition.
"What's the situation, up there?" Verkan Vall asked him. "What have they, and why did they turn against us?"
"Lord Virzal!" Dirzed objected, scandalized. "You have no right to ask Sarnax to confidences!"
Sarnax against the door. "In the of Jirzyn of Starpha!" he said. "And in the of his mother, and of his father, he was! Dirzed, do not talk foolishly; one not speak of betrayers." He to Verkan Vall. "They have three of the family of Starpha; your Assassin, Olirzon, the other three. There is one of Prince Jirzyn's relations, named Girzad. There are three other men, Volitionalist workers, who came with Girzad, and four Assassins, the three who were here, and one who came with Girzad. Eleven, against the three of us."
"The four of us, Sarnax," Dalla corrected. She had on a pistol, and had a light deer under her arm.
Something moved at the of the tube. Verkan Vall gave it a burst, though it was only a dummy, to fire.
"The four of us, Lady Dallona," Sarnax agreed. "As to your other Assassin, the one who in the airboat, I don't know how he fared. You see, about twenty minutes ago, this Girzad in an airboat, with an Assassin and these three Volitionalist workers. Erarno and I were at the top of the when he came in. He told us that he had orders from Prince Jirzyn to the Lady Dallona and Dirzed at once. Tarnod, the gamekeeper"—Sarnax against the door again—"told him you were here, and that Marnik was one of your men. He was going to shoot Marnik at once, but Erarno and I and his Assassin stopped him. We Marnik about the in the situation, according to the code, Marnik to go here and join you. Instead, he the airboat, over Girzad's boat, and let go a blast, setting Girzad's on fire. Well, that was a act, so we all after him. We must have something, the down, smoke, about ten miles away. Girzad got another out of the and he and his Assassin started after your man. About that time, your Assassin, Olirzon—happy to him—came up, and the Starpha at him, and he and two of them, and then jumped the tube. One of the jumped after him; I his at the when I came to you formally. You know what after that."
"But why did Prince Jirzyn order our discarnation?" Dalla wanted to know. "Was it to the Statisticalists with it?"
Sarnax, about to answer, off and at the opening of the with a pistol.
"I got him," he said, in a pleased tone. "That was Erarno; he was always playing with the tubes, against negative and up against positive gravity. His will up to the top—Why, Lady Dallona, that was only part of it. You didn't about the big scandal, on the newscast, then?"
"We didn't have it on. What scandal?"
Sarnax laughed. "Oh, the very father and family-head of all scandals! You ought to know about it, you started it; that's why Prince Jirzyn wants you out of the body—You a by which people give themselves memory-recalls of previous reincarnations, didn't you? And to do it with? And gave one set to Tarnov, the son of Lord Tirzov of Fastor?"
Dalla nodded. Sarnax continued:
"Well, last evening, Tarnox of Fastor used his outfit, and what do you think? It that thirty years ago, in his last reincarnation, he was Jirzid of Starpha, Jirzyn's older brother. Jirzid was to the Lady Annitra of Zabna. Well, his was on a with the Lady Annitra, and he also wanted the title of Prince and family-head of Starpha. So he this Tarnod, I had the of discarnating, and who was an here at the lodge. Between them, they Jirzid a hunt. An accident, of course. So Jirzyn married the Lady Annitra, and when old Prince Jarnid, his father, a year later, he succeeded to the title. And immediately, Tarnod was here."
"What did I tell you, Lord Virzal? I that son of a had something on Jirzyn of Starpha!" Dirzed exclaimed. "A family, this of Starpha!"
"Well, that's not the end of it," Sarnax continued. "This morning, Tarnov of Fastor, late Jirzid of Starpha, the High Court of Estates and entered to his name to Jirzid of Starpha and to the title of Starpha family-head. The case has just been entered, so there's been no hearing, but there's the of an among all the about it—some are that the doesn't from one to the next, and others that property and titles should pass along the line of physical descent, no what has into what body. They're the ones who want the Lady Dallona and her suppressed. And there's talk about the entire of estate-ownership and estate-inheritance. Oh, it's an of a business!"
"This," Verkan Vall told Dalla, "is something we will not when we home." That was as close as he come to it, but she his meaning. The of major in out-time social was not viewed with by the Paratime Commission on the First Level. "If we home," he added. Then an idea to him.
"Dirzed, Sarnax; this place must have been used by the of the Volitionalists for top-level conferences. Is there a passage anywhere?"
Sarnax his head. "Not from here. There is one, on the above, but they it. And if there were one here, they would be the outlet."
"That's what I was on. I'd to an that way, and then make a up the regular tubes." Verkan Vall shrugged. "I Marnik's our only chance. I he got away safely."
"He was going for help? I was that an Assassin would his client; I should have of that," Sarnax said. "Well, if he got carnate, and if Girzad didn't catch him, he'd still be ten miles from the nearest city unit. That us a little chance—about one in a thousand."
"Is there any way they can at us, by those tubes?" Dalla asked.
"They cut a in the floor, or one through," Sarnax replied. "They have of thermite. They a of over our heads, or clear out of the and one the well. They use or radiodust, but their Assassins wouldn't permit such illegal methods. Or they shoot sleep-gas at us, and then come and cut our at their leisure."
"We'll have to out of this room, then," Verkan Vall decided. "They know we've ourselves in here; this is where they'll attack. So we'll the of the well; we'll be out of from above if we keep close to the wall. And we'll all the rooms on this for of through from above."
Sarnax nodded. "That's sense, Lord Virzal. How about the tubes?"
"We'll have to them. Sarnax, you and Dirzed know the of this place than the Lady Dallona or I; you two check the rooms, while we the and the well," Verkan Vall directed. "Come on, now."
