Planetary Agent X

XV

Billy Antrim was riding hard. He had little sure knowledge of just how far behind him the sheriff’s men might be—nor, for that matter, of how many they were.

He was keeping off the roads as much as he could, but that was becoming increasingly difficult since the area was far from sparsely populated now that he was approaching the city. His only chance, he figured, was to get to the city and go to ground.

He twisted and turned over the open fields, trying to keep to such cover as was offered by clumps of trees, by gullies, by lines of fence. And from time to time he cast a glance over his shoulder.

Not that Billy was particularly afraid. Scared, he would have called it. In his profession, you couldn’t afford that emotion. A pistolero in action is cool—he either keeps that way, under stress, or he doesn’t long survive. And thus far Billy Antrim had survived—in spades.

He rode hard and he rode deviously, and from time to time unconsciously he loosened the gun wedged into his belt. For in spite of manufacturers of quick-draw holsters to the contrary, the fastest draw is from the belt.

He could see the lights of the city ahead. In fact, he had been able to see them for some time. He became more optimistic. His favorite slogan was, one chance in a million, but he felt he had better than that now. At least so far as getting to the city was concerned. Beyond that…

It was then that he picked up the sound behind him. His ears were good, with the sensitiveness of the organs of youth, since Billy Antrim was nineteen years of age. There was no doubt in his mind. At this time of night, others would have been sticking to the roads, not riding madly over fields, crossing streams, thundering up and down hillocks.

He darted a look back. Spotted them. Shot a calculating glance toward the city ahead. He would never make it. They were coming up fast. How many of them, he still didn’t know.

“One chance in a million,” Billy muttered. He sneered his own brand of amusement.

He was a slight youth, just past the pimply age, with a sallow face, dirty blond hair and baby-blue eyes—the traditional eyes of the man killer. His teeth were buckteeth enough usually to show through his lips. In spite of youth, he could never have been called good looking. He was five foot eight, weighed slightly less than one fifty, and he moved with the grace of a girl—no, not a girl; with the grace of a panther on the hunt.

There was an outcropping of rocks immediately before him, out of place in this vicinity of gentle fields. He quickly swung around it and came to a halt. His hope was that their eyes were as keen as his own and that they had already spotted him and knew that they were closing in. The other man’s reflexes weren’t usually as fast as those of Billy Antrim’s and now that was all he had left to depend upon.

When they came slewing around the rock outcropping, slowed a bit in view of the fact that they couldn’t be sure exactly where he had gone beyond, Billy was standing there, at comfortable ease, the short barreled gun in his hand and already half aimed.

There were two of them. Only two.

He had flicked the selector switch to full blast, automatic. Now he gently squeezed the trigger and the windshield of the pursuing floater shattered into slivers and dust and the vehicle, suddenly driverless, banked to the left, crashing into the rock pile in a grinding, collapsing, shrieking complaint of agonized machinery, framework and glass.

He stood for a moment, the gun still at the ready, though there was small chance that any life could have survived his attack. He watched expressionlessly, poker-faced, feeling nothing whatsoever in the way of regret or compassion. They had played the game of pursuit and lost. What was there to regret, so far as he was concerned? He had won, in his one chance in a million gamble.

He tucked the gun back into his belt and scrambled to the top of the rocks, marveling as he went that there should be comparatively open countryside this near to Greater Washington. It was deliberate, undoubtedly. Evidently the largest city on Earth had some desperate need of a bit of countryside surrounding it. What amounted to a national park, where there were air, trees, and even an occasional stream. A memory of what the world had been in yesteryear.

From the top he surveyed back over the route he had just covered. So far as he could see, there were no further pursuers. They had evidently sent no more than two men, confident that with radar, sensi-screens and their other ultramodern police equipment and armament, one man posed no problems. There was the faintest of smiles on his usually poker-face.

He returned to his floater, lifted it and headed toward the city. He would have to plan carefully now. Undoubtedly his two pursuers had been in continual communications with their headquarters. Suddenly their reports would have been cut off. Headquarters would undoubtedly send out more men, but, what was more pressing, would call ahead for the city’s police to be on the watch for him.

Billy Antrim’s problems were far from over.

Ronald Bronston said to Irene, “What’s roiling the Old Man?”

She paused long enough from her switches, her order-box, her buttons and phones to say snappishly, “How would I know? He never tells me what’s going on around here. I’m supposed to be clairvoyant, telepathic, and omniscient to boot. I tell you, there’s a lot of jetsam around this office.”

Ronny grinned at her. “Sid Jakes called and said Ross wanted to see me immediately.”

Irene Kasansky was as important a cog in the wheels of Section G, of the Bureau of Investigation, of the Department of Justice, of the Commissariat of Interplanetary Affairs, of United Planets, as was Ross Metaxa himself. Or so, at least, everybody said, including the Old Man when he was slightly in his cups. She loved every soul in the small department and the affection was reciprocated with interest—though no one would have dreamed of admitting it, on either side.

She said now, “Well, don’t stand there. If his high mucky-muck summoned you, scamper.” She added, “Tell him he can have up to fifteen minutes with you. Then he’s got to see Lee Chang about the Han rebellion.”

“Got it,” Ronny told her, making for the inner door.

She looked after him for a split second, deciding that of all the top field agents in Section G, Ronny Bronston least looked the part, which was possibly to be one of his most valuable assets. Irene loved them all, these spearhead men of the conquest of space, but there was a particular something about Ronny Bronston. She snorted inwardly—first thing she knew she’d be letting him catch onto the fact, and then where would things be?

Ronny went through the entry and turned left to the door inconspicuously lettered, ROSS METAXA, COMMISSIONER, SECTION G.

Section G, Ronny thought, all over again. What an innocuous name for Department of Trouble-shooting, Department of Cloak and Dagger, Department of Secret Treasury Department devoted, he reminded himself bitterly, to the principle that the end justifies the means. Ronny had yet to forget he had been raised in an atmosphere of high ethic and ideals.

Ronny knocked and the door slid open.

Ross Metaxa, bleary eyed as always, looked up, as always affecting the acid surliness which fooled everybody—sometimes even himself.

He pushed some reports away from that part of his desk immediately before him and fished the brown bottle from a drawer as he said, “Sit down, Ronny. Drink?”

“Not from that bottle,” Ronny said.

“How’s the wound?” Metaxa growled, pouring himself a slug. “Doctor got you off booze?”

“I’m okay now. I’ve got myself off that Denebian tequila of yours,” Ronny said, sinking into a chair. “I know when I’m well off. I’ll stick to kerosene.”

“Very funny,” Metaxa grumbled, knocking the liquor back over his tonsils, impervious to the other’s shudder. He put the top back on the bottle, began to return it to the drawer, changed his mind and shoved it to one side of the desk. “What do you know about Palermo?” he said.

Ronny cast his eyes slightly upward and spoke as though remembering a lesson. “One of the far out planets, in more ways than space. Colonized by Italians…”

“Sicilians,” Metaxa grunted.

“… only recently joining the UP. The government and socio-economic system seem to be unique.”

His superior grunted sour amusement. “That’s a gentle way of putting it,” he said. “The government is by Maffeo, a very old Sicilian institution which they seem to export along with their emigrants. Its origins are lost in antiquity but seem to go as far back as the slave rebellions of the Romans.”

“Romans?”

“What’s wrong with your history, Ronny?” the other said gruffly. “The Roman Empire. Controlled…”

“Oh, yeah. I remember.”

The other grunted. “You can look it up in the archives later. At any rate, it seems that the planet Palermo was originally settled by peasant types, evidently largely interested in fleeing this very institution. They found their planet, way beyond what were then the reaches of UP, and paid through the nose to have themselves and their scanty belongings hauled out. Space Freightways handled the transportation. One of their usual gyp arrangements.”

Metaxa came to a sudden halt in his delivery and said into his order-box, “Irene, what ever happened to that investigation on Space Freightways? I told you I wanted an immediate report.”

Ronny Bronston couldn’t make out her answer, but he caught the snap in her voice. He grinned inwardly.

“All right, all right,” Metaxa snapped back. “But tell that loafer to get a move on.” He grunted and turned back to Ronny.

“At any rate, the colonists of Palermo managed to foul up their whole project through sheer lack of sophistication. Planted in their number were a handful of the very Maffeo they thought they were getting away from. In less than two generations, the outfit was in control.”

“In what way?” Ronny said.

“In the most brutal way,” Metaxa told him sourly. “You can look up details later. What interests us is that at this time the planet is stagnating under what amounts to a modern form of robber baron feudalism. A handful of bully-boys on the top, a terrified peasantry working their lives away on the bottom.”

“They’re members of UP?” Ronny said. “Why’d we let them in? As long as they were outside, we could have dealt with them. A few agents could have drifted in and pulled some…”

Metaxa was nodding. “Because we were stupid, and they were smart, instinctively smart. Luigi Agrigento, current head of the Maffeo, saw the handwriting on the wall when nearby planets began also to be colonized. He petitioned to join UP and was admitted after the usual mild routine. He understood perfectly well that given membership, Articles One and Two of the United Planets Charter protected him from outside interference.

“And if he’d left it at that, he probably would have gotten away indefinitely with his usurpation of power on Palermo. But that wasn’t the Maffeo way, and never has been. Last year, one of his victims, named Giorgio Schiavoni, managed to stow away on an Avalon trader which had stopped off at Palermo, and after various difficulties wrangled his way here to Earth, where he presented himself at the Commissariat of Interplanetary Affairs and told a rather bloodcurdling tale of suppression on his home planet. He claimed to represent a majority of the planet’s population and requested aid. The Palermo Embassy, of course, put up a howl, invoking Article One.”

Ronny said harshly, “Some of our member planets need interfering with.”

Ross Metaxa glowered at him, took up his bottle and poured himself another jolt. “Bronston, if you ever express that opinion publicly, you’re out. You’re out so fast, and so hard, you’ll never get a place in UP again, not to speak of this department. Don’t ever forget, Ronald Bronston, that the job of Section G is to advance member planets in their socio-economic systems, their political systems, on certain occasions in their religious systems—but that if we let that fact out, we’re sunk. Needless to say, Palermo is one of the worlds that would prefer to stay just as it is, threat from aliens or no threat. At least, that’s the way Luigi Agrigento and his Maffeo see it. The majority of the peasantry would have other views.”

“And that’s where this Giorgio Schiavoni comes in, eh?”

Metaxa’s heavy face worked. “That’s where he used to come in. Schiavoni did the unforgiveable, given the Maffeo philosophy. He talked. Yesterday, he was shot down leaving the apartment we had assigned him over in the Pittsburg area.”

Ronny stared at him. “Shot down! You mean a man was assassinated right here on Earth?”

“Exactly. Luigi Agrigento’s hand was evidently long enough to stretch all the way, from Palermo. It gives you some idea of his methods.”

Ronny was flabbergasted.

Metaxa wrapped it up. “Your job is the only angle we’ve come up with, so far. It’s to track down and either, preferably, capture or if necessary liquidate the professional killer who did the job.”

“He escaped?”

Metaxa said grimly. “Thus far. I’m rushed now, Ronny. Sid Jakes will give you more details, physical description and so forth.” His face went hard. “But I’ll finish up with this: Giorgio Schiavoni’s death will be atoned for. He threw himself on the mercy of United Planets, in a patriot’s cause, and his protection was left in the hands of this department. There hasn’t been a political assassination on Earth in the memory of anyone living and we allowed ourselves to be careless. Very well, but Schiavoni will be vindicated, that I promise.”

Ronny came to his feet. “I’ll see Jakes,” he said simply.

The office door of Ross Metaxa’s right hand man was, as always, slightly ajar.

When Ronny knocked, Sid’s voice yelled out happily, “Come on in! It’s always open!”

Ronny braced himself and entered. He was still not quite used to the Sid Jakes personality.

The supervisor was as informal in appearance as his boss, if not more so. Ronny sometimes wondered how either of them ever got past the Octagon guards when coming to work in the morning. Jakes invariably looked more like a man in his oldest sports clothes taking off on a weekend fishing, rather than a high ranking official in the staid Octagon.

“Ronny!” he exclaimed, bouncing up from his chair and speeding around the corner of his desk. “Thought you were in the hospital!”

He wrapped his arms around the other and chortled happily. “I told you, when you’re dodging bullets, you ought to zig instead of zagging.”

Ronny had to laugh at him. “And vice versa?” he said.

“As the occasion calls. Sit down, sit down. I read the reports on your assignment on Goshen. Pulled off a neat trick there.”

“Yeah,” Ronny grunted. “And wound up with a hole in my side.”

Sid Jakes zipped around to the other side of his desk again and into his chair. “And got a three month vacation,” he pointed out. “You field men get all the breaks.”

“Yeah,” Ronny said.

Sid Jakes turned serious for a brief moment, the longest known period for him. He said, “I see you’re on this Billy Antrim job.”

“Billy Antrim?”

“This assassin from Palermo.”

Ronny said, “The Old Man didn’t give me his name. You were to fill in the details.”

The Section G supervisor popped his feet up onto the desk. “Okay. Here they come. The lad you’re chasing is named Billy Antrim. Not William, Billy. Our dossier on him isn’t complete as yet. And maybe it’ll never be completed, if you’re able to pull off your assignment quickly.”

Ronny said, “I don’t see how he could have remained uncaught even this long.”

“Because he’s a cunning snake,” Sid told him, grinning as though that made the whole thing happier. “He’s a lad who’s never done anything in his adult life except use a gun. If you can call him an adult.”

Ronny looked at him quizzically.

Sid Jakes took up a report from a desk almost as littered as that of Ross Metaxa. He puckered his lips. “He’s not twenty yet, according to this. At any rate, here’s the rundown. Our Billy wasn’t born on Palermo; he came there as a child with his mother. She was evidently some sort of entertainer, probably on a rather low level. To cut things short, one of Luigi Agrigento’s bully boys evidently gave her a hard time one night. Cuffed her around a bit, for playing too hard to get. And our Billy, who was eleven or twelve at the time, knifed the man to death.” Sid chortled. “Mind you, this chap was one of Luigi’s bodyguards. And a twelve-year-old finished him off. Neat trick, eh?”

“Very neat,” Ronny said dryly.

Sid Jakes chuckled. “Now you’d think that would get friend Luigi all riled up, but not at all. He evidently thought it was the funniest thing that had happened since his grandmother fell down the well. He had Ruth Antrim, the mother, kicked off the planet—for her own protection, since they’ve got vendetta traditions on Palermo that evidently apply even to women—but took over the care of the boy himself.”

“I can see what’s coming,” Ronny said.

“Right. The boy was a crack shot before he was fifteen. Which was just as well, since he killed his second man at that age. Some relative of his first victim who evidently decided vengeance was in order even though Billy was under Agrigento’s protection. He had evidently also learned to throw a knife and…”

“Throw a knife?” Ronny said blankly.

“That’s right. Evidently they’ve got some skills preserved on Palermo that have died off elsewhere,” Sid said happily. “But you might remember that knife routine. And Billy’s not on the large side, even smaller than you, but evidently he can use his knife doing close-in work too.” Sid Jakes grinned. “You beginning to love him more and more?”

“More and more,” Ronny said.

“It seems that Luigi was pleased as Punch with his protégé and began to use him as a professional pistolero. Government on Palermo, it appears, doesn’t call for courts of law, judges, juries, jails and that sort of jetsam.” Sid beamed. “Not at all. The Maffeo takes care of all those little things. At any rate, our charming Billy became quite adept at his trade. A real pro. So much so that when Luigi got in a tizzy about Giorgio Schiavoni escaping from Palermo, and above all sounding off to the Commissariat of Interplanetary Affairs, he sent Billy Antrim to set things right.”

Ronny said, “How did he ever expect Antrim to make his getaway?”

Sid Jakes took his heels from the desk and leaned forward, beaming. He pointed a finger at Ronny. “Now that’s the real beauty of the thing. Our Luigi knew damn well that young Billy wouldn’t ever succeed in making a getaway and hence made no effort to provide one.”

Ronny frowned. “You mean Antrim knew he’d get caught, but pulled the job anyway?”

Sid shook his head. “Not if our dope is correct. Luigi Agrigento figured on throwing Billy to the wolves. He let the boy believe there was a getaway all arranged. But there simply wasn’t.”

The field man didn’t get it. “But I thought Antrim was his favorite protégé. He wouldn’t…”

Sid Jakes chuckled. “I keep telling you about these Maffeo lads. They’re very uncouth, as the term goes. Luigi isn’t the type to let friendship, or affection, interfere with business and there was one advantage in sending Billy to do the job. Billy isn’t a citizen of Palermo, having been born on Delos. When blame is being scattered around, Agrigento will have some claim to innocence.”

Ronny whistled softly. “Well, what happened here on Earth?”

“It was done very professionally indeed. A classical assassination of the very old school, such as you see in the historical Tri-D shows. Giorgio Schiavoni, was located, set up, and fingered. And Billy shot him very neatly indeed, like the old pro he is—at the age of nineteen.

“But it was then that the wheels began to come off for Billy Antrim. The getaway floater evidently simply wasn’t there. Neither were any of his supposed colleagues. He was left stranded with the local sheriff’s men coming in fast.”

“Sheriff?”

“It’s an old police term, going back to antiquity. They still use it in some areas. The head of the local commissariat of police. At any rate, Billy shot it out with them, killing one man and sending two to the medicos. He stole a floater and took off, apparently without plan.”

“And he’s remained at large all this time, on Earth?” Ronny said unbelievingly.

Sid Jakes held up a hand, grinning. “Wait. You haven’t heard it all. The alarm went out, of course, and he was cornered again not three hours later.” Jakes snorted. “This time he killed two men and wounded two bystanders, both women. Then he stole one of the police floaters and was off again. He ditched it later and at gun point forced three people out of a private floater and took off in it. But there was a pattern by now. They could see he was heading for Greater Washington, and set up road blocks.”

By this time, Ronny was staring. The story was incredible.

“They flushed him twice more,” Jakes said. “The last time, just last night. I don’t think even the Old Man knows about this. I haven’t taken it in to him yet. Two of the local floater patrol caught him in their bips and started in pursuit. Mind you, this was a standard police floater, with all equipment. Evidently Billy realized he couldn’t outrun them and lifted his vehicle to about a ten foot level and took out over the fields, with them after him. But it wasn’t Billy’s style to wait until they caught up and finished him off. No sir. He zipped around a corner, got out of his floater and waited. You can imagine their surprise when they came tearing around that corner and there was young Billy, waiting. By the way, he carries a gun that is at least as powerful as one of our Model H’s. When we found the two patrolmen they were like tomato paste.”

Ronny wound it up for the other. “So he made it to Greater Washington, and whatever his destination was.”

Sid Jakes shook his head, as though pleased with the whole affair. “He has no destination. He’s probably just trying to disappear into the city. Billy is basically a city boy, and it’s the best place on Earth for him to hide. Don’t think he’ll head for the Palermo Embassy. He knows better. Billy Antrim hasn’t survived this long by being stupid. He knew. He knew the moment that getaway floater didn’t materialize that he’d been betrayed.”

Sid Jakes leaned back in his chair, beaming at his subordinate. “So that’s your phase of the job. Get Billy Antrim. I don’t need to tell you what his continued freedom means to the department. If political assassinations can be successfully pulled off right here on Earth, heads are going to roll in Section G, starting with Ross Metaxa himself.”

Ronny came thoughtfully to his feet. “How come we’re not putting more men on it?”

Sid grinned at him. “Our prestige is low enough as is. If we assigned a dozen men to capture this callow boy, how would it look? Nope. There’s only one of him, so there’ll be only one Section G agent sent to get him. You’ll have, of course, the support of all the police apparatus you’ll need. Just call. But there’ll be only one Section G agent.”

He stood too and stuck out a hand for a shake. “It’ll be a neat trick, if you pull it off, Ronny. And Ross’ll have your scalp if you don’t.”

Ronny said acidly, “From what you say about this Billy Antrim, Ross’ll never have a chance at my scalp if I foul up. Billy’ll already have it.”

XVI

Billy Antrim was on the run under one of the most difficult situations conceivable.

He had no credit card acceptable on Earth.

Looking back at it now, he could see that Big Luigi had deliberately arranged that. The obvious thing would have been to have equipped Billy Antrim with several valid credit cards, just in case. Without one he could breathe and he could get water to drink, but practically all else was closed to him.

This was his first visit to Earth and his first contact with this type of exchange, but animal instinct told him that the simple stealing of a credit card wasn’t the answer. At least, not a permanent answer. In an economy using this exchange medium, somewhere along the line would be ultra-efficient computors, checking and double-checking each transaction no matter how small. A stolen credit card might be used once or twice, but then whatever police powers were available to the accounting computors would be after the thief.

He slept the first night, his stomach empty, standing in the nearest equivalent he could find in the city of Greater Washington to a darkened alley. It was darkened through his own efforts, and he didn’t like that bit of it, either. He had no way of knowing how soon the light failure would be taken care of by the city maintenance department. He slept standing, to the extent he slept at all, his hand never further than inches from the weapon in his belt, the gun which he knew how to use so well.

A maintenance squad floater came through at dawn and Billy, catlike, awoke fully from his drowze. He shrugged his shoulders in the nearest thing he had time for in way of stretching cramped muscles, gave his clothes a rapid brush, stuck his hands in his pockets and stepped out briskly, whistling a currently popular Palermo dance tune.

The two men of the squad looked at him blankly.

Billy grinned his toothy grin and said, “Sure is pretty this time of morning, ay? I just can’t help comin’ out and walkin’ around.”

One of the two men looked up at the lightening sky, his face still empty. Color was there. New color in the gray-black of night. He had seen dawn many thousands of times. Perhaps the first thousand had even awakened some feeling in him. Now, he wished he was in bed. The other one didn’t bother to look up. He grunted sarcasm.

Billy, his hands still in his pockets, turned and went on his way, still whistling.

The first of the two looked after him for a moment. “Crazy young jerk,” he muttered. “Doesn’t know when he’s well off. He’ll freeze his bottom off in this weather with no more but that jacket on.”

The other growled, “What the devil was he doing in this alley with the light off and all?”

The other grunted contempt of the question. “What d’ya think he was doing?”

Billy Antrim was going to have to eat. Already his head felt somewhat light as a result of having not eaten for… how long? There’d been two oranges and half a box of cookies in that floater he’d gloamed from those three scared-to-death yokes a couple of days ago. He sneered amusement. They’d thought he was on some juvenile romp and tried to give him their watches and jewelry. He needed three more watches like he needed a knife in the kidney.

But he had to have food.

The gods to whom Billy Antrim prayed when in his personal fox holes came through. The streets were still largely deserted, but immediately ahead of him a citizen lurched from a doorway and started up the avenue.

Billy’s eyes darted around him. The streets were otherwise clear.

He called out, “Ay! Mac! you dropped somethun!”

The other swayed to a halt, reversed his engines and looked back at the hail. It could only have been for him. His lids were half lowered over cloudy eyes.

“Whuz the matter?” he slurred.

Billy came nearer. “I saw you drop somethun, just when you was coming out of that there house there.”

The other fumbled hands over pockets, absently. “Oh,” he said. Then, finally, “What?”

“I don’t know what,” Billy said plaintively. “I just saw you drop somethun, just when you were coining out of the lobby like.”

The half-drunken, half asleep one grunted a sigh and started back for the door from which he had emerged. Billy followed him into the hall.

The drunk peered around. “I don’t see noth—”

Billy clipped him over the back of the right ear expertly with the butt of the gun.

He couldn’t safely leave him here. He couldn’t even take the time to frisk him here. He grabbed the man by the collar of his jacket and hauled him slowly toward the back recesses of the hall. Given luck, he wouldn’t be found until other inhabitants of the building issued forth later in the day. Especially if Billy did some more in the way of darkening lights.

He sent his hands briskly over the other’s clothing. He was interested in nothing beyond the credit card, and found it without undue effort.

He stood and looked down at his victim. One of his tutors, Piero Caravaggio, of the Agrigento staff, had once told him that if you kicked an unconscious man in the side of the head a couple of times, he wasn’t able to remember your description upon regaining consciousness. It sounded unlikely to Billy, but when you had only one chance in a million, you couldn’t afford to ignore any opportunity to better your odds. He kicked twice.

Before the romp which had culminated in the elimination of Giorgio Schiavoni, Billy had spent a few days with some of the boys sampling the fleshpots of Greater Washington. Thus it was that he was acquainted with the location of those areas of town which catered to the nightowl set, or the workers, theatrical and otherwise, which in any big city must be fed and ministered to at all hours. He summoned a copter-cab at the next corner, dialed the coordinates he wanted and took it to within several blocks of his destination. When the cab stopped, he hesitated. He could do one of two things: press his newly acquired credit card to the cab’s payment screen, which would automatically open the door for him, or break the lock and escape. Which would, of course, immediately set the powers that be after him.

No, the safest thing was to use the card. The drunk he had rolled, with any luck at all, would still be unconscious. Would certainly not as yet have noticed the loss of his card. In fact, given the Antrim luck, the yoke probably would get himself home and into bed to sleep it all off, before discovering his loss. Even then, he would probably list it as lost, rather than stolen—given the Antrim luck.

Billy pressed his card to the cab’s screen and dismounted from the vehicle, which took off into the traffic just beginning to materialize.

He went into a monstrously large cafeteria type restaurant which catered to actors, musicians and the like. He ate once and hugely for the sake of his stomach as it was. Then he went back and past the array of foods once again, this time selecting such items as fruit, bread rolls, sandwiches and cake, which he could carry with him, and returned with these items to his table, tucked away in a largely unoccupied cove of the dining room. There he wrapped them up in an abandoned theatrical publication he had found.

With his package under his arm, he went to the men’s room and did all that was possible to erase the ravages of the past three days. He wasn’t going to be able to be conspicuous on the streets. He had no illusions; every police authority on the planet Earth was on the lookout for Billy Antrim. Happily, his beard was so light as to be almost meaningless, which was a godsend, since he had no shaving facilities.

By the time he issued from the restaurant, it was fully day and he merged into the foot traffic on the pedestrian level of the street.

He had got no more than a block before whining sirens ululated behind him. He came to a shocked halt. This was too quick. The drunk should still be unconscious, still groggy enough not to realize his credit card had been lifted. But even if he had recovered, the fuzz-yokes shouldn’t be on Billy yet.

An auto-department store had opened side doors for the entry of its few workers. Billy Antrim entered briskly, strode at the same speed as the others, went to the lifters and took one to the third floor. He went over to the windows and looked back the way he had come.

There were three floaters, obviously police floaters, pulled up before the restro-cafeteria from which he had emerged only moments before, and disgorging hurrying men, some in uniform. His lips were white over his prominent teeth in a wolf-grin.

Had he known it, Billy Antrim was at that moment looking at the back of his eventual Nemesis, the man who would send him to his death.

XVII

Ronny Bronston strode quickly into the interior of the restro-cafeteria, flanked by Lieutenant Rogozhsky of the Baltimore section of Greater Washington’s police. Rogozhsky was highly sceptical.

Ronny said sharply, “Have your men go through the place. Thoroughly. Then take on the neighborhood. If he’s not here, we’ve probably missed him, but possibly not. He probably needs clothes, a razor, that sort of thing. He might be in a nearby store.”

Rogozhsky said sceptically, “You don’t even know this is him. For that matter, you don’t even know he’s in the city.”

Ronny Bronston flicked open a wallet container. The badge inside said simply, “Section G, Bureau of Investigation,” and it gleamed with a silver sheen.

Ronny said flatly, “I am giving orders, Lieutenant, not debating opinions.”

Lieutenant Rogozhsky flushed, came to the salute and muttered, “Yes, sir.” He turned to his men and took out some of his feelings on them.

Ronny said, “We’re police. Twenty minutes ago somebody here ate a fantastically large meal, then, on the same credit card, bought a great deal of picnic type food. Did you see him—or her?”

The manager was shaking his head. “This place’s completely automated, Citizen… whoever you are. We aren’t one of these swanky joints with waiters and all that jetsam. We don’t specially notice nobody that comes in here. We only got four people on a shift. How’d you expect…”

Ronny said urgently, “A young fellow. Maybe twenty years old. He probably sat off by himself. He was possibly a little shabby in appearance. Even dirty. He probably finally left with a package under his arm—the extra food he’d bought. He probably spent quite a time in the wash room.”

“Hey,” the other exclaimed. “You’re right. A young fella. He sat over there. Over in that corner. He was kind of rumpled up, like he maybe slept in his clothes. He went into the washroom and stayed there quite a time. Then when he went out he had this paper bundle under his arm.”

“How long ago?” Ronny snapped.

“Hell, maybe five minutes before you come in!”

“Lieutenant!” Ronny yelled. “It’s him! Get your men on the streets. Get on your communicator for more floaters. He left no more than five minutes ago!”

Lieutenant Rogozhsky was a competent officer, no matter what his opinion might be in regard to Bureau of Investigation bigwigs interfering with his department’s affairs. He got on the ball.

Ronny Bronston took a small communicator of his own from an inner pocket. It looked innocuously like a woman’s vanity case. He sat down at a table, propped it before him and clicked it on.

He snapped to whoever was at the other end. “It’s Antrim. We’re no more than five minutes behind him. He’s got himself a credit card somewhere. We’ll check back on that later. I suspected he’d be desperately hungry and that the first time he ate it would be a gargantuan meal, followed by something he could take along. I had the computors watching for such an order. It came through. The credit card he’s got is 25X-3342-K852-Division GW. Alert all computors to check every purchase on that card. Alert at least a thousand police floaters, all over the city. We’re in the Baltimore area, but he might already have taken a pneumatic somewhere else. They’re to be on instant alert for when he uses that card the next time.”

Billy Antrim had intuition as well as cunning. He ditched the credit card in the first waste chute he passed and left the department store by a back entry.

He strode, seemingly at ease, hands in pockets again, and slouching like a high school youngster. But nonchalant though his pace seemed, he made the best time he could without looking as though he was in a hurry. Several police floaters, dashing about in high state of efficient confusion, passed him by, going this way, going that.

With his left hand he loosened the weapon in his belt. It was getting warm. Much too warm. They were bringing in every fuzz-yoke in the city.

He stopped at a traffic regulator and spoke to the occupant of a floater who was impatiently waiting a go-ahead.

Billy stuck his head in the window, grinned ruefully and said, “Ay, citizen, you goin’ over toward the river?”

The citizen in question scowled at him. “What of it?”

“Well, I’ll tell you. You’ll probably just laugh but…”

The other grunted, darted a look at the regulator. He was still held up. It’d take more than some youngster’s minor tragedy, whatever it was, to make him laugh this time of day, especially since he hadn’t even had time for coffee.

Billy was saying plaintively, “… so the fellas though it’d be a big joke to swipe my junior I.D. credit card. And when the party was over, here I am, and I can’t even take a pneumatic.”

“Okay, okay, climb in. I’m not going to cancel my dial, though. I’ll take you as close as we get to wherever you’re going. Then you’ll have to manage however you can.”

“Gosh, thanks a million, Citizen.”

Billy climbed in, slouched down in the seat, teenage style, and watched city, traffic and pedestrians go by. The fuzz-yoke was getting thicker by the minute.

The floater swung up to a higher level for speed and Billy noted the passing of the town below with satisfaction. They’d have Baltimore behind them in moments.

His benefactor remained glumly silent, which was all right so far as Billy Antrim was concerned, until they reached the vicinity of the Potomac.

He said, then, “You said the river, boy. Where do you want me to drop you?”

Billy Antrim said softly, “You aren’t dropping me, Mac. I’m dropping you.”

The other blurted, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Billy brought the gun from his belt with an easy motion and held it on the other’s waist. “This is a romp, Mac. Put the floater on manual, and let’s get down.”

“Why, you damn…” The other reached for him, in fury.

With a fluid speed, Billy slapped him hard against the side of the head with the gun barrel. Then he slugged him again, more deliberately, but more effectively.

Billy sneered. Once a yoke, always a yoke. It was like Big Luigi had always said. You never got over it. You’re born a yoke and you die one.

He frowned at the thought. Who was he to be appreciating Luigi Agrigento? Luigi had treated him as though he was a yoke himself. Even as he was turning the floater controls to manual, Billy Antrim had the first twinge of doubt about the philosophy in which he had been raised. Maybe this citizen he had just slugged was only a yoke, but Billy wondered if he would have sent what amounted to a son to his sure death to gain only a minor advantage, a Maffeo revenge.

Fortunately, his victim was an even smaller man than was Billy Antrim. By considerable effort he was able to boost him over the front seat into the back and down on the floor of the vehicle. Billy then gave him another tap on the temple—with the butt of the gun this time.

He brought the vehicle to a near-stop and considered his situation. He was without a credit card again. He had one possibility that came to him immediately. He could lift this yoke’s card, kill him rather than just leaving him unconscious, get out of the floater after dialing it to, say, Mexico City, and then have the use of the card for possibly as much as twenty-four hours before the floater and its body were discovered. The auto drive would take it clear through to Mexico, and tucked down on the floor like this, the yoke would probably never be spotted.

He didn’t know why he decided against the step. Perhaps, for one thing, he wasn’t sure he’d have the use of the card for that length of time. He couldn’t figure out how the fuzz-yoke had got onto him so quickly with that last credit card he’d stolen. There must be some angle he wasn’t aware of.

He sneered self-deprecation and dialed the floater toward the Norfolk section of the city. It was about as far as he could get from where they’d flushed him in the Baltimore area, and besides, it was one of the oldest and least respectable sections of town—where the interplanetary spacemen hung out, and those that were this millennium’s nearest equivalent to the slum elements of an earlier age. His clothes would attract less attention here.

When he put down, in as quiet a vicinity as he could find, he took up his bundle of food, slipped his newly acquired credit card into his pocket, slugged his benefactor once more for luck, and dialed the floater’s controls to Richmond. After it had disappeared with its unconscious passenger, Billy faded into the neighborhood.

XVIII

Ronny Bronston was looking on the harassed side, and Sid Jakes’ grin of derision didn’t make him feel any the happier.

Ronny said, “He’s got a new credit card. One that he got from an electrical engineer whose apartment is in the Baltimore area. A fellow named Ernest Gutenberg.”

Sid flicked a switch. “What did you say the number was?”

“78Y-7634-L991 and, of course, Division GW.”

“How do you know it was Antrim?”

“Who else? We were minutes behind him. Somehow he managed to get into Gutenberg’s floater. The man’s wife says that he was heading for his office, near the Capitol Building Museum. When he was found, on the floor of the back seat, his credit card was gone and the floater had come to a halt in the center of the Richmond area. By the way, Billy’s score, here on Earth, has gone up to seven. Gutenberg died from concussion. Seven dead, half a dozen wounded in varying degree.”

Sid Jakes nodded, his face grim for once. “The little rat is a one man task force.” He bounced up from his chair, walked unhappily about his desk, sat down again. “Maybe we ought to put more men on it,” he groused.

“No!” Ronny blurted.

Sid looked at him and chuckled. “Getting to be a matter of pride, eh? Where do you think he is?”

“Probably in the Norfolk area. He hasn’t used his new card yet. That youngster’s like a cornered fox. He hasn’t done anything wrong yet…” Ronny Bronston took in the amused expression on his superior’s face and growled. “I mean he hasn’t done anything wrong from his viewpoint. With his luck, he should have become a gambler instead of a professional gun for hire.”

“Why Norfolk?” Jakes said.

“It’s the farthest point from Baltimore still in Greater Washington. And, besides, it’s a section where he can stay the most inconspicuous. His clothes must be getting on the crumby side by now, but there are others with crumby clothes in Norfolk.”

Sid said happily, “I’m glad it’s your problem, instead of mine. Where do you think he’s hiding himself?”

Ronny didn’t answer. He said, instead, “Look, can you have Irene go to work on alerting every museum, every art gallery, every library in Greater Washington? Every place where entry is free and there are chairs, rest rooms and lots of people. Same for parks, zoos, that sort of thing. Alert all attendants at such places. Do we have a picture of him yet?”

“No.” Jakes said. “Through our attaché in Palermo we’ve picked up all the dope on him we can, but no picture as yet. But we can have one of the artists do up a sketch based on his physical description. Buckteeth, light brown, almost blond hair, blue eyes.”

“Okay,” Ronny said wearily, coming to his feet. “I think I’ll get over to the Norfolk area. If I had to disappear in this city, I think that’s where I’d head.”

Sid chuckled amusement. “From what we’ve seen of this Billy Antrim, he’s probably one ahead of you. He figures that that’s where you’d figure he’d be, so he’s probably in some swank area such as Arlington, or maybe back in Baltimore.”

“You’re great for my morale,” Ronny muttered. “How’s the rest of the case going?”

Sid Jakes shook his head. “Stymied. Billy Antrim wasn’t a citizen of Palermo. The Palermo Embassy denies they had anything to do with the shooting of Giorgio Schiavoni. Claim it must have been a personal matter between Antrim and Schiavoni. In fact, they hint there was bad blood between the two, when Schiavoni and Billy were both back on Palermo. What’s more, they’re hinting rather heavily that even in questioning them about the matter, Article One is being strained, if not broken.”

“Oh, swell,” Ronny said.

“Worse than you think,” Sid grinned. “Ross is going drivel-happy. This is a real tough one. Most of the victims of our Section G shenanigans never know what hit them. They’re not looking for our particular type of double-dealing. Palermo’s another thing. The Maffeo lads suspect everybody, given cause or not. Our representatives on their planet are bugged, shadowed, have their mail read and their space cables scanned, automatically.”

“So what’s the answer?” Ronny said.

“We don’t have any answer. Not so far,” Sid said, as though pleased. “The way it looks to me, Luigi Agrigento and his Maffeo are going to live happily ever after, and Palermo is going to remain in the dark ages, whether or not the balance of United Planets continues to haul its way up by the bootstraps.”

Ronny Bronston said, “I’m glad I’m only a bloodhound on this assignment. You and Ross can have the headaches.”

XIX

Billy Antrim was in Norfolk, all right, but in one other respect he was one ahead of his unknown pursuer. He wasn’t foolish enough to spend his time in museums, zoos, or even parks. His intuition as a killer animal on the run told him that such institutions would be on the watch.

Instead, he made his way to the nearest secondary school, slouched his way in in his now practiced imitation of the teenager of all centuries, joining the crowd. At the first opportunity, he took up a pile of books which some negligent student had left unsupervised for the moment, and carried them along under his arm in like fashion to his neighbors.

He located the school library and stayed there as long as he thought practical, and then managed to find the students’ projection rooms, where he spent the rest of the morning watching educational Tri-D tapes. It didn’t take him long to locate those pertaining to historical matters involving wars of the past and such items of violence.

He discovered by chance that noon-time meals in the school’s cafeteria were free and saved his paper wrapped reserves from the restro-cafeteria of that early morning.

But sleep was now becoming the ultimate necessity. He hadn’t truly slept for three days and even youth has its limits, especially when under the stress being carried by Billy Antrim.

However, he couldn’t discover a hiding place in the school buildings where he could trust himself for even an hour, and he knew that if he took the chance, an hour would never do. Once down, he was going to be a log for at least eight hours, possibly more. He couldn’t afford to let down his defenses for that length of time, even if he had found a hole in which to hibernate.

The Antrim luck continued to hold when school let out. He took up his books and drifted along with the current of students, those who were pedestrian. He hated to be out in the light of day at all but at least he had protective coloring for a time. He had no idea of how good a description Earth authorities had of him. For all he knew, Luigi Agrigento might have even leaked them a photograph, his fingerprints and whatever else they might have wanted the better to hunt down Billy Antrim. His lips pulled further back in a wolf-like, humorless grin; Big Luigi wasn’t going to be entirely happy until he got word that his former protégé was no more. There was a lot Billy knew about the workings of the Maffeo.

As his fellow students dropped off to the left and right, Billy Antrim was faced with the problem of new camouflage. He wasn’t going to be able to walk the streets, certainly not after nightfall, with his armload of books and remain inconspicuous. He had to find shelter, and, above all, he had to find sleep.

He pulled up short before a Sauna-Turkish Bath.

If it was anything like the Moorish type bath which had come down in Sicily from the days when the Saracens had occupied that island, and later went on the planet Palermo…

He’d take the chance. He entered.

The place was, of course, highly automated. There was but one attendant and he, bored, was scanning a portable Tri-D set. He hardly looked up. “In there,” he said.

The dressing room had individual lockers, of course. Right now, he was the only customer. Billy Antrim hesitated only momentarily before parting with his clothes, his food supply and, above all, his knife and gun. But there was nothing for it. He locked them up and slid the elastic which bore the key about his wrist.

There were lettered instructions about the room. He followed directions, spent a minimum time in the steam room, took one quick plunge in the pool, then sought out the massage rooms. They were separate cubicles. He entered one. There was no key, but the door evidently registered OCCUPIED when someone was inside.

He sneered at the instructions for making operative the electrical masseur and flung himself down on the massage table, asleep before his body had completely relaxed on the hard surface.

A voice said, “Hey, chum, you fell asleep. You figuring on stayin’ all night?” There was a laugh, as though something hugely amusing had been said.

Ordinarily, Billy Antrim’s awakening was instantaneous, as a professional killer’s should be. But now his exhausted body resisted awakening. He muttered something, fretfully.

“Come on, come on, boy. I’m closing up.”

Billy Antrim felt a less than gentle hand shaking him. He came instantly alert, staring at the other, his blue eyes ice.

The attendant he had seen earlier in the other office pulled back his hand quickly. He said, stubbornly, “It’s closing.”

Billy swung his legs around and to the floor.

“Awright,” he muttered. “Gosh, I musta fell asleep.”

The attendant left and Billy made his way back to the dressing rooms and reacquired his belongings. Nothing had been touched.

This was the crucial point, now. Before returning to the entry office, he loosened the gun beneath his jacket, but then assumed a puzzled and repentant expression.

He approached the desk with its payment screen against which to press a credit card.

“Ay, Mac,” he said sorrowfully. “Guess what? I’m sorry, but it looks like I forgot my credit card.”

“Oh, yeah?” The attendant looked at him truculently. “I shoulda noticed. Why, you probably ain’t even got a adult card. Come on, boy. Get that junior I.D. out. You’re not talking yourself out of paying up. I seen dead beats before.”

Billy said doggedly, “I’m sorry, Mac, but like I told you. I musta left it home. I’ll pay you tomorrow.”

“I never even seen you before. I’m calling the police, sonny. Nobody’s walking out on this business.” He reached for a switch.

Billy Antrim had two alternatives. The butt of the gun was within inches of his right hand. But a new killing would bring down the fuzz-yokes, and they were already too close behind for comfort.

He said hurriedly, “Look. This here ring. It’s a star sapphire. I’ll let you keep it, until tomorrow. Then I’ll come back and pay off.”

The other’s eyes narrowed in greed. “Okay, boy. I trust you. You know how it is.”

“Yeah, sure,” Billy said bitterly. “I know how it is.” He turned and left.

His mother had given him the ring. Back when they had been flush once. He suspected it had been given to her by a male admirer, most likely a lover, but it was the only thing he still possessed to keep alive the memory of Ruth Antrim, the one person he had ever loved. Now it was gone.

What had happened to Ruth Antrim? After Big Luigi had shipped her off, Billy had never heard. She had probably written him, she would have written, but he suspected Luigi Agrigento had confiscated any such mail. Luigi at the time was amusing himself by educating the boy in the traditions of the Maffeo, and in the use of the gun, the knife, the sap.

It was dark on the street. Warily, Billy Antrim trudged along, portraying the schoolboy who had dropped off at a theater and was now making his way on home.

He had no time to be thinking of Ruth Antrim and Luigi Agrigento, but for the moment he couldn’t keep them from his mind. For the past three days fingers of doubt had been touching sensitive spots in his mind. While still a member of the Maffeo machine of Palermo, it had been easy enough to rationalize his way of life. The things he did were by order of Big Luigi himself, weren’t they? And Luigi Agrigento was the most important man on Palermo. It was as simple as that. What Big Luigi said was law.

But now, as a victim of the machine, rather than a cog in it, the injustice of the Maffeo way was more evident.

Billy Antrim sneered at himself, in sour self-deprecation. He was a rat on the run. Why not face reality? He was scum that the decent members of the race had to mop up. And then, contradictorily, he told himself in braggadocio that they’d have their work cut out in the mopping.

“One chance in a million,” he muttered.

It was getting too late for a schoolboy to be out. He’d be the more conspicuous by hanging onto the guise. He dropped the books into a waste disposal chute, straightened up and walked with a swagger, and as though he had already had two or three drinks before going out on the town seriously.

With luck, he decided, he might be able to crash a party. A party that would provide food and drink, though drink he could do without. Even at the most secure of times, a little alcohol went far with Billy Antrim. He could afford no blurred edges now.

He didn’t find the party, but he did as well.

A middle-aged, slightly overweight, overly-blonde, overly-dressed madonna of the cocktail lounges allowed him to pick her up. In fact, she couldn’t have been more obviously approachable had she dropped her handkerchief. She reminded him of someone, but he couldn’t finger the resemblance.

In their early preliminaries, she giggled archly and said, “I must be robbing the cradle. Why, you can’t…”

Billy was looking his most adult. “I know I look young. Always have. I guess when I get up into my fifties, I’ll be glad. Now it’s a pain in the neck. Anyhow, I’m twenty-five. And I’ll bet you’re not any older.”

She giggled again. “Well, to tell you the truth…”

“Call me Jimmy,” he said.

“All right. I’m Betty Ann. To tell you the truth, Jimmy, I’m twenty-five too.”

She was a good twenty years senior to that, Billy decided cynically.

“How about a drink?”

“We don’t have to go any further than in there, Jimmy,” she laughed, indicating the nearest auto-bar. “You know, I’m glad we met. I think we’re going to have fun. Wasn’t it a coincidence?”

It turned out that he had left his, credit card at home.

She laughed at that, too. At the edge of forty-three, Betty Ann had picked up the bills before. She didn’t particularly mind any more. Her need was for young men and to indulge it she had found long since that the best bet was to haunt the poorer sections of the city—and to be quick and willing to press her own credit card to the payment screen.

XX

He spent the night at her apartment. Not that it did her much good. In spite of his youth, and what she had hoped would prove his prowess as a lover, it was as a deep sleeper that he turned out to be a veritable phenomenon. Betty Ann was disgusted.

In the morning she fed him breakfast, sitting across the breakfast nook from him, taking no more than coffee for herself.

In the light of day, without cosmetics, she was fully her age. Perhaps even a bit older in appearance than reality, for the past ten years had been hard ones, filled as they were with desperate attempt to halt the flight of youth in parties, in alcohol, in hard pursuit of Eros. It was all Billy could do to bring his eyes to her face, even as he wolfed a prodigious breakfast of six eggs, a full quart of milk, six or eight slices of bacon and as many of toast, with butter and marmalade.

He had placed who she reminded him of, now that he saw her in morning’s unkindly light. Ruth Antrim. His mother after playing the late hour shows; tired and disheveled and caring nothing—except for him, of course.

Betty Ann watched him wearily as he ate. “What did you plan on doing today?” she said finally. There was no girlish giggle in her voice now, only the weariness of a middle-aged woman who wouldn’t, who couldn’t, quite give up as yet.

He looked up at her, quickly looked down again. “I don’t know,” he said. Then, slowly, “You’re a lot of fun.”

“No, I’m not,” she said.

“Sure you are. Why don’t we just hang around here today? It’s my day off. We’ll hang around and have a lot of laughs.”

“And tonight you’d spend here again, eh?”

“Well, sure.”

“I’m afraid not, Billy.”

His eyes were blue ice. “The name’s Jimmy.”

“Kids named Jimmy don’t carry guns with the front sight filed away and the forepart of the trigger guard, so as not to get in the way of a quick draw.”

His voice was as level and cold as his eyes. “You seem to know a lot about guns, lady.”

She shrugged, wearily. “I read a lot and watch the Tri-D shows a lot. A single woman my age has got lots of time to watch the shows. I woke earlier than you and watched this morning for awhile. The drawing they show of you isn’t very good, but good enough, Billy Antrim.”

He looked at her, poker-faced, but his mind was racing.

She shook her head. “If you had to be worried about me telling them, I could have done it hours ago. All I had to do was pick up the phone while you were still asleep, after I had checked your clothes and found the gun. I suppose I should have…”

“I don’t like that kinda talk, Betty Ann.”

“… But I didn’t. I don’t know why. You’d better go now, though.”

He looked at her for a long moment. He couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t called the police, either. She certainly wasn’t in love with him; he wasn’t the type to inspire love in a woman. Besides, she hadn’t had time to fall in love with him. And be in love with a seven-time killer on the lam? Not even a woman as desperate as Betty Ann.

His best bet would be to add her to his list. She would have a better description of him than was evidently available thus far. She’d said the drawing they were showing over the air wasn’t so good. She’d be able to improve it for them.

She chose that moment to reach for the coffee pot, wearily. He had seen Ruth Antrim in that exact pose a thousand times.

A thousand times back in those days when there had been only the two of them. And when all the world had been only the two of them. When no one else had counted. Tired she might have been, exhausted from twice the number of shows a performer should have been expected to give—but never so tired that she couldn’t discuss the dream with him.

The dream of their settling down somewhere and of Ruth finding some other manner of supporting them—it had never been quite clear what that might be, since she had known nothing else but show business. And he would go to school, and soon, very soon, such would be his efforts, he would be able to find a grand position of his own, and then Ruth Antrim would need work no longer. And then, indeed, the goal would have been reached. A home of their own, with Ruth to keep it and with Billy faring forth each morning to his labors, and she there to greet him at day’s end.

He more or less knew it now for a boy’s dream and that of a tired woman in her early middle years. Deep within, he knew it had lacked reality. That at best there had been no room in it for his own marriage and eventual children. There had been no room in it for anything or anyone except Ruth and Billy Antrim. But still it was a dream that came back to him.

Billy Antrim didn’t have many dreams.

He shook his head and came to his feet.

“Goodbye, Billy,” Betty Ann said after him.

Ronny Bronston was saying into his portable communicator, “It was him, all right. The description tallied. He’s evidently got Gutenberg’s credit card, but is too smart to use it unless it’s an emergency. He went into a Sauna-Turkish Bath in Norfolk and spent nearly four hours there. Sleeping, of course. Then he told the attendant he’d forgotten his credit card and left a star sapphire ring as a pledge.”

Sid Jakes interrupted him quickly: “You think he’ll go back to redeem it?”

Ronny snorted. “Of course not. I think he’s cunning enough never to go back to where he’s been before. Besides, he’d be in the same position as before. The moment he used the credit card, to redeem his ring, we’d be onto him. At any rate, the Sauna-Turkish Bath attendant had second thoughts about the ring, wondering if it was stolen. It seemed too valuable to have been left in lieu of such a minor amount. He reported it, and the police relayed the story to me. They relay anything that involves somebody getting or trying to get something, or some service, without having a credit card.”

“You don’t seem to be making much progress,” Jakes chuckled, as though that was amusing. “Ross is beginning to have second thoughts about assigning you to the job.”

Ronny grunted. “At least I know I was right, before. He’s in the Norfolk area. And now, with his face all over town, he’ll be doubly hard put to hide himself. He’ll show. Within twenty-four hours I wager he’ll show. His luck can’t hold forever.”

XXI

However, it was holding thus far.

Billy Antrim had to stay out of the light, and that was exactly what he was doing. In the cheapest part of the Norfolk section of Greater Washington, he was sitting, half sprawling, at a table in the darkest bar cum nightclub he could locate, the Pleasure Palace.

Had he dared, he would have put his face in his arms, as though in drunken sleep, but he was afraid that the one caustic faced usher who supervised the automated alleged amusement center would have ordered him from the premises. As it was, he leaned his face on a cupped hand, so that the fingers could cover his prominent teeth, his chin and part of the nose, and pretended to watch the fairly spicy canned Tri-D show.

He had to do something, and fast. As it was, the only thing he was accomplishing was to keep a few jumps ahead of the authorities. He knew it was only a few jumps by the inordinate number of police floaters on the streets. It had been nip and tuck a few times. They obviously knew he was in the Norfolk area. He had to do better than this, or it was just a matter of time before he slipped and they would have him.

At the thought of it, he loosened the gun. He would at least go out with a bang. He twisted his mouth at the thought. He undoubtedly would, but what would be accomplished? What percentage was there in his being able to take two or three more of the fuzz-yokes with him—or even a hundred more?

The usher was eyeing him.

Billy had sat down at a table where there were a couple of glasses, one of them with an inch of dregs still in the bottom. He had pretended this glass was his own, but even had the usher been fooled on that—his eyes hadn’t been on Billy when he’d entered—he had evidently gotten around to noticing that his new customer wasn’t doing much in the way of drinking up and dialing anew.

He had to do something, or leave. If the usher got around to coming to the table, he might recognize the Antrim features, even in this light.

Billy got to his feet and stepped over to the next table, which was occupied by a single customer, obviously deep in his cups. He couldn’t have been much more than in his early twenties himself, surly faced, soft in spite of his age, a trickle of drink-induced saliva at the side of his mouth. He was sloppy drunk.

“Ay,” Billy said, grinning, “ain’t you Steve Osterman, met at a party last week?”

The other glowered up at him. “No, I ain’t no Steve whatever. And we never met at no party.”

Billy shook his head in wonder and slid into a chair at the other’s table. “Well, we sure as hell met somewheres. I never forget a face.”

The other grunted. “Name’s Barry. Horace Barrymore. Ev’body calls me Barry.”

Billy snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Barry. Now I remember. It was a great party.”

The other scowled at him. “You from Detroit too?”

“Sure? Of course. That’s where the party was. What you doing in Greater Washington, Barry?”

The other squinted at him slyly. “Gotcha that time. I never been in Detroit. I’m from Miami-Havana, see? And I got you figured out, Buster.”

Billy’s hand dropped into his lap. “Oh, you have, eh?”

“Yeah. I know you, Buster.” The other chuckled to himself and picked up his glass. It was empty.

From the side of his eyes, Billy Antrim could see the usher making his way in their direction.

The self-named Barry grinned. “Yep. You’re a drink cadger. Thas what. You just kinda pretend you know a guy and get talkin’ to him, hopin’ he’ll spring for a drink. Well, Buster, let me tell you somethin’…” He hesitated for a long moment, as though having dropped his trend of thought. “Let me tell you somethin’.” He burped. “Let me tell you, you picked the right man, Buster. I’ll buy you a drink. Fact, I’ll buy you a whole flock of drinks.”

Billy let air out of his lungs, silently.

The other punched the auto-controls. “Pseudo-whisky and wasser, eh? Man’s drink. And where I’m goin’ there’s nothin’ but men needed.”

The drinks appeared and the usher sheered off and headed elsewhere.

Billy said, cautiously, hiding his face behind the glass. “You celebrating somethun’, Barry?”

“Damn right. I’m killing two birds with one stone, see? Two birds.” For a moment he seemed to have lost his trend again. But then he said, “Spending my credit, see? No good where I’m going. And same time, celebratin’ leavin’ this damn Earth.”

Billy said, keeping the conversation going, “You a spaceman?” He was wondering how best to approach his heaven-sent gift about ordering some food instead of more drink. The man might even have a hotel room he could be coaxed into sharing for the night.

“Spaceman!” the other sneered. “Do I look like a space rat? I’m a colonist. Par… part… participatin’ in foundin’ of a new worl’. Unnerstan’? Like the brochures said. Out into the glor… glorious far beyon’. Leave this stinkin’ Earth behine. A man don’t hava chance here. Never get anywhere. That right… whus your name? Have ‘nother drink. I know you’re nothin’ but… spunger. But thas all right. Havanother drink.”

“Make mine light ale, this time,” Billy said softly. “Look Barry, you interest me, like. How you go around gettin’ to be a colonist?” He ran his tongue over the bottom of his upper teeth.

The other grunted surly amusement, and rubbed thumb and forefinger together. “You inherit some ol’ family art objects and convert ‘em to credit. Thas how. Then you join up.”

“Join up what?” Billy said softly. His blue eyes were only slits now.

The other was impatient at his stupidity. “Join up one of the companies, course. Put up your share. Join company. Pioneers. Out inta glorious far beyon’. Start up new worl’. Plenty chances for everybody. Live glorious natural life of frontiersmen of old. Get rich, exploitin’ new worl’.”

Billy Antrim said the next very softly. “Teamed up with a lot of your friends, eh?”

“Frens, hell. None of my frens ever had ‘nough credit to make colonist. I just bough inta one of the new formin’ companies. You gotta belong to a company, with lotta pull. Get permission to leave stinkin’ ol’ Earth. Gotta have pull ina high place. New Arizona Company. Hire a spaceship from Space Freightways. Land on New Arizona. Stake out claims. Live glorious natural life. Chance for everybody getta head. Not like stinkin’ Earth—everybody down on you, less you benta lots school an’ all.”

The man was drooling drunk, Billy realized. Drunk beyond the point of memory tomorrow. He said, urging in his voice. “So you don’t know anybody else among the colonists, ay? When do you check in with them?”

Barry eyed him owlishly, and for a moment Billy Antrim was afraid the other was going to fall forward, passed out. But with a dull shake of the head, he evidently regained enough clarity to get out, “Big party tonight. Spend all last Earth credits. Tomorrow, ev’thing set. Take shuttle rocket, local spaceport, shuttle out New Albuquerque. Got alla tickets. Get aboard S/S Ley. An’ we burn off for New Arizona. Burn off. Thas space talk for…”

A voice from behind him said, “Friend, your buddy here seems to have had enough. In fact, I should’ve noticed him earlier. How about getting him on home?”

Billy, keeping his face averted, said, “Yeah. Suppose you’re right, Mac.”

The usher said, “Here, I’ll help you with him. Cheese, he’s really got a load on.”

“Hey,” Barry protested feebly. “I ain’t drunk. I been drunker’n this. Big blowout. Gotta celebrate.”

“Sure, sure,” Billy soothed him. “Come on, let’s get on home.”

“Hey, wait up just a minute, friend. Somebody trot out his credit card. You got a man-sized bill here.”

Billy moistened his lips. “The drinks were on him.”

“Yeah. Well, by the looks of your pal, he’s passed out. How about that? Hey, haven’t I seen you someplace before?”

Billy said quickly, “I’ll take care of it.” He fished his purloined credit card from his wallet and pressed it against the payment screen. “Come on, help me to a cab with him. I wouldn’t want him to puke all over your floor.”

“Cheese,” the other said. “Let’s get going.”

XXII

Ronny Bronston took the message in the police floater in which he was prowling the Norfolk waterfront entertainment area.

Credit Card 78Y-7634-L991-Division GW has been utilized to pay a nightclub bill at the Pleasure Palace…

Ronny snapped to his driver, “You know where the Pleasure Palace is?”

“We passed it not five minutes ago. There on…”

“Get there! Fast!”

While the floater spun, ignoring traffic, narrowly averting disaster three times in thirty seconds, Ronny grabbed the hand mike.

“He’s on the run! Pleasure Palace nightclub, Norfolk Waterfront. All floaters zero in! Something important happened. He’s had to use the credit card. Zero in!”

Billy Antrim was as near to being in a funk as Billy Antrim ever allowed himself to get. He could hear the whining of the sirens from afar, a multitude of sirens. It brought to mind a faintest memory of youth when he had still been with his mother and their way of life had involved planet jumping with the troupe with which she had performed. It had been a planet in the Aldeberan group, he couldn’t remember exactly which one. He’d been too young, but the planetwide holiday had been celebrated in a fantastic blowing of whistles and sirens. Thousands and thousands of sirens. On business buildings, on official cars, on factories, on ships, seemingly everywhere. It had been ear piercing, nerve racking…

He tore his mind from such nonessentials. He was in the clutch now. It was no time to be thinking of Ruth Antrim, and childhood. He had to get out of here, but fast!

He had dialed the cab more or less at random. He hadn’t the vaguest idea where this Horace Barrymore might be staying. Some hotel, undoubtedly, but which was a mystery.

A floater was screaming down the street at them. Billy dropped to the cab’s floor, leaving his semi-conscious companion propped against the glass of the door, eyes bleary but open. A light flashed, lingered a moment on the other’s face, then the police vehicle was past.

Billy Antrim muttered, “One chance in a million,” and regained his seat.

Even as they sped, he went through the other’s things. Ticket on the rocket shuttle to New Alburquerque. A small sheaf of papers identifying Horace Barrymore as a member of the New Arizona Company. A spaceport pass, signed by an official of the company and the first officer of the Spaceship Ley. And the credit card which would halve made so much difference, had Billy been able to utilize it earlier to pay the bar bill at the Pleasure Palace.

But things were still looking up better than they had ever since the debacle that had taken place on the shooting of Giorgio Schiavoni. If he could only get out of this immediate tight spot.

Another floater was screaming up the sub-freeway toward them, its lights blazing. Billy ducked to the floor again. It was past.

His lips, white, thinned back over his prominent teeth in his wolf grin. As long as the fuzz-yokes were heading in the direction of the Pleasure Palace, he was comparatively safe. But as soon as the usher there revealed that Billy had left in a cab with a companion who was dead drunk, then the fat would be in the fire. They’d know what they were looking for.

Suddenly inspiration came. He grabbed up a directory, thumbed through it. Then quickly redialed the cab.

The auto-motel was only a few hundred yards away. The cab pulled up. As usual, there was but one clerk.

Billy got out and said, “Ay Mac, my buddy here took on too big a load. Gotta room?”

The clerk had seen drunks before. In his time he had seen literally thousands of drunks. Drunks no longer interested him in the slightest. “He got a credit card to register with?”

“Sure, here it is.”

“You registering too?”

“Naw, just my buddy. Wait’ll I dismiss this here cab.” Billy manhandled Barry from the floater-cab, turned him over to the clerk to balance waveringly for the moment necessary to press the Horace Barrymore credit card to the payment screen, then turned back.

Between them, they managed to usher, push, half carry the flopping drunk to a room. Billy let him drop to a bed. He grinned at the clerk.

“I’ll see he gets into the bed, and all. How about lettin’ me have a bottle of pseudo?”

The other looked at him. “Ain’t you guys had enough liquor?”

Billy chuckled deprecation. “Ernie here has, but not me. I only had one or two. Besides, when he wakes up tomorrow, he’s gonna need a couple quick ones to keep him from dying. That’s the way he handles it. Hair of the dog.”

The clerk shrugged. “Each man can go to hell in his own way, I always say. I’ll get the pseudo.”

Billy began taking off the drunken Horace Barrymore’s shoes. His mind, behind his poker mask, was racing. He had to handle this exactly right. He couldn’t afford any mistakes now. On the road outside he could hear the floaters screaming by.

It was one chance in a million. Whoever was in overall command would expect—Billy was gambling—for the quarry to put as much distance between himself and the Pleasure Palace as possible. Instead, Billy had gone into hiding less than half a mile from the alleged palace of pleasure.

The pseudo-whisky came, the clerk gave another listless look at the drunk sprawled on the bed, grunted and left.

Billy Antrim had already taken the vital papers of the other. Now he stared down at him.

The spaceship left tomorrow.

Once spaceborne, he would be outside the jurisdiction of Earth. The ship wasn’t even scheduled to set down on a United Planets world. It was colonizing a new planet. Billy Antrim would be answerable only to whatever authorities the colonists would set up. And Billy was going to be an invaluable citizen, so far as such authority was concerned. A new world, a frontier world, could use citizens with Billy’s qualifications.

He turned his right hand over so that it was palm upward and gave it a flick. A double edged fighting knife slid into his grip.

He could put a sign, on the door requesting that the room not be disturbed. He could leave a call with the auto-service to the same effect. It would be well into tomorrow afternoon before Horace Barrymore was discovered.

By that time Billy Antrim would be well on his way to the stars. And who knew what he would find out there? Perhaps the chance at a new life. A different life than the one Luigi Agrigento had decreed for him when he’d been a boy of eleven. A life not composed of gun and stiletto. A life with meaning, such as his mother and he had once dreamed of for him.

The thought went through his mind. Perhaps he might even meet Ruth Antrim out there, once again. It was only seven or eight years, after all. But then he sneered self-deprecation, even as he stepped toward the unconscious Barrymore, the knife blade gleaming. Seven years, but look what he had managed to become. Would Ruth Antrim want to see what he was today, or would he want her to?

There was a line slowly trailing into the huge passenger-freighter—reminiscent, somewhat, of Noah’s animals trailing into the Ark. Indeed, most were filing along two by two. Billy Antrim was one of the few who were single. That was just as well, he told himself. Married couples were conservative, lacking aggressiveness, compared to a single man. Billy would be able to make his place in this New Arizona.

They gave you a shot here. A little bit further on, they asked some questions. Further on they checked your papers, and still later, you had to sign some things. Then you shuffled along again.

Toward the end, there were two burly ship’s officers. Before Billy realized what they were about, they had touched him here, there, the places a man carries a gun. A quick frisk.

He started to protest, but the senior of the two grinned at him and whipped the gun from his belt.

“Sonny,” he said, “in spite of all you’ve heard about adventure in space, it’s not like that at all. Sorry. Captain’s orders. No weapons among the passengers so long as we’re spaceborne. You’ll get this oversized cannon back when you land.” He looked at it and grunted. “Where’d you get this thing, anyway?”

“It usta belong to my old man,” Billy said sourly. “He usta be a gun crank, like.”

“He must have been,” the other chuckled. “Hey, Bob, look at this. Front sight filed away, and all.”

But his companion had taken on the next colonist in the line.

Billy shuffled on toward the ship. He had carried the last hurdle.

There had been some crucial moments during the past twelve hours, but he had cleared every obstacle. He had crossed Greater Washington in another cab, using Horace Barrymore’s credit card. He had got through the press of people at the shuttle-spaceport, without exposure, hiding his face in a handkerchief and sneezing time after time, just as he’d passed the ticket gate. He had sat in the back of the shuttle rocket, hiding his head in his arm and pretending sleep every time someone had come near.

Once outside Greater Washington, he felt some relief. He assumed they had circulated the inadequate drawing of him throughout the globe. Most likely. He didn’t know. But at least people weren’t expecting to run into him out here.

His papers had been cleared without difficulty. He had, on the rocket shuttle, practiced Horace Barrymore’s shaky signature a few times. It wasn’t difficult. A scribble.

It had carried him past, easily enough.

And now he was actually entering the ship.

At the entry level stood another ship’s officer, sheaf of papers in hand.

“Name?”

“Horace Barrymore.”

“Horace Barrymore. Here it is. Berth 33, Compartment Twelve. Down that way, son.”

Billy Antrim went as indicated. He had no baggage, but on the other hand, neither did most of the others. The baggage had been checked earlier. Billy, of course, had none to check. After they were spaceborne he would put up a big howl, to cover. He could claim that they’d lost his things. It shouldn’t be difficult. He might even get some sort of reimbursement.

Compartment Twelve was but a hundred feet or so down the corridor along which he walked. The door was closed. He opened it and stepped in.

Billy Antrim scowled. It didn’t look to be the type of compartment devoted to passengers. On the far side of the room was a desk at which was seated an easy-going looking young man, his face tired and his clothing rumpled and dirty—like Billy himself.

He looked up quizzically. “Hello, Billy,” he said, his hand reaching for the automatic which lay on the desk.

Billy Antrim blurred into motion. He crouched, his right hand flicked and the knife was there magically. He threw the hand back for the cast.

Ronny Bronston’s eyes blinked in surprised alarm—his fingers were still inches from the gun.

Then there was something in the wild blue eyes of Billy Antrim. He threw the knife—

His throw was not quite true. It missed Ronny Bronston’s head by scant millimeters and broke its point in a clang on the steel bulkhead beyond.

The gun was trained on Billy’s stomach.

The Section G agent took a deep breath, swallowed, then managed to say, “You missed, Billy. I didn’t expect you to miss.”

Billy Antrim sneered. “It’s all luck,” he said. “Everything’s luck, I had one chance in a million, and didn’t make it.”

The gun was steady.

“Sit down over there, Billy. I set this whole thing up only minutes ago. I didn’t expect you quite yet. But shortly there’ll be some local agents of my department showing up. Then we’ll get about our business.”

Billy sat, his strained juvenile face still in sneer. “You ain’t got a jug could hold me, yoke.”

Ronny Bronston looked at him meditatively. Evidently the other didn’t know that there were no prisons for such as him on presentday Earth. Criminals of Billy Antrim’s ilk were turned over to medical science for rehabilitation.

Ronny said, “It’s been a long trek, Billy. I don’t mind admitting you almost made it. You know what your big mistake was?”

“Yes.”

“Oh?” Bronston raised eyebrows.

“I didn’t slit that drunken bum’s throat last night. I should’ve. But instead I just poured more liquor down his gullet. I thought he’d stay under long enough for me to make it. He musta woke up right after I left.”

Ronny Bronston looked at him in puzzlement.

“It doesn’t sound like a man with your background. Why couldn’t you kill him? You’d already finished off eight others.”

“Seven,” Billy muttered.

“Eight. One of those two women bystanders you wounded in Scranton died in the hospital.”

Billy winced.

“With a record like that,” Bronston pursued, “you should have been capable of finishing Barrymore off to make sure your back trail was clean.”

Billy said sourly, “What difference does it make? Maybe I was gettin’ tired of all the killin’. Ever since I knew Big Luigi give it to me, I been thinking about it all. About my old lady, and how she always said I was gonna go to school and all. But after I knifed one of Big Luigi’s goons he sent her off the planet, and I never seen her again.”

For a long moment, Ronny Bronston looked at the other. Billy Antrim, defeated now and at bay, still looked like nothing so much as a defiant school youngster, caught in some misdemeanor and hauled before the principal. There was even somewhat of a wistful quality in the juvenile killer’s face, as though of a child grown almost to adulthood who had been allowed down through the years to press his face against the windowpane and look in at the others, celebrating their Christmases and birthdays—but never allowed to enter and participate.

Ronny shook his head, as though to clear away a trend of thought he couldn’t afford.

He said, “I’m afraid not. I’ve been looking further into your dossier, Billy. Section G has been checking you on every planet you’ve ever set down on. And we’ve been checking that of Luigi Agrigento, too.”

Billy was scowling at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, ya stupid yoke. I know what happened to my old lady.”

“That’s not Luigi Agrigento’s way. His henchman molested your mother and as a result you killed him. Somebody, given Maffeo outlook, had to pay. And since it was your mother who was the original…”

Billy Antrim was on his feet, shaking. “You lie!”

Bronston, his eyes wary, shook his head. “Sit down, Billy. You know better. I have no reason to lie.”

Billy slumped back into the chair, his once poker face twitching. “You he,” he muttered.

Bronston shrugged, as though he couldn’t care less. “Agrigento evidently turned her over to his goon’s relatives. And they… I didn’t understand this part of it. What does capontina mean?”

“No,” Billy Antrim whispered, his head in his hands, his body swaying. “No.”

Bronston said, an element of contempt in his voice. “You fizzled out, in the real clutch, Billy. You should have finished off Barrymore. And just a few minutes ago. You missed me with that knife on purpose, didn’t you?”

Billy Antrim didn’t answer.

“You haven’t got the guts to kill any more, Billy,” Bronston told him.

Irene Kasansky looked up from her screens and order boxes, her switches and buttons, and said with as near to a smile as Irene Kasansky ever came to a smile, “Hello, Ronny. How’d you make out in New Albuquerque?”

Ronny said, exhaustion in his voice, “Not now, Irene. Is the Old Man available?”

Irene snorted and said, “Sid Jakes is with him. But it’s nothing more important than your report. Where’ve you been?”

Ronny didn’t answer. He was too exhausted to go through this more than once. He pushed his way through the door to the back and headed for Ross Metaxa’s office.

Sid Jakes was sitting in a heavy chair across from the commissioner, who sat behind his desk. They both looked up when Ronny entered without knocking.

He slumped into a chair.

“Ronny!” Sid chortled. “How come no reports? For awhile you had me worried. I was afraid our Billy-boy had done you in.”

Ronny shook his head. “I haven’t been in a bed for four days,” he said.

Ross Metaxa reached down into his desk drawer and came out with his brown bottle. “Drink?”

“I guess so,” Ronny muttered. “Even that stuff.”

While Metaxa poured, Sid chuckled, “Well, I suppose the fact you’re here winds up the Billy Antrim segment of our troubles with Palermo. Now we’ll have to get to work on the basic problem of our Maffeo friends. And that’s going to be a neat trick, if possible at all, what with Article One of the Charter.”

Ross Metaxa handed the drink over to his field man and growled, “Did you have to finish him off, or were you able to capture him? He might turn evidence, in case we ever have anything to take into the interplanetary courts. But above all, it’s good propaganda, the civilization bit. The fact that here on Earth we don’t execute or even imprison criminals, not even murderers. We rehabilitate them and release them as valuable members of society. Gives a good example to rawer worlds.”

Ronny shook his head. “Not exactly either. I’ve spent the last day and a half with Billy Antrim getting plastic surgery up in New Chicago.”

“Plastic surgery!” Metaxa exclaimed, his moist eyes bugging.

Ronny knocked back the drink and shuddered. It was every bit as bad as he remembered it.

He said, “By the way, what ever happened to Ruth Antrim, Billy’s mother?”

“What’s that got to do with it? Have you gone completely crazy?” Ross was blurting.

Sid Jakes said, “We even traced that out. She’s living on Goshen now. Married to some sort of mining engineer.” He grinned. “I suspect you have another bomb to drop, Ronny.”

“The Department of Dirty Tricks,” Ronny muttered, unhappily. “You see, I had to goose Billy.”

Ross Metaxa rasped, “Where’s Antrim, damn it!”

Ronny Bronston looked at him. “On his way back to Palermo.”

Even Jakes lost his poise at that one.

Ronny said softly, “He has a date with Luigi Agrigento.”

Metaxa closed his eyes and talked as though to himself. “I can fire him. I can claim he went off his rocker. I know what he had in mind. He figured that one man murder mill will get Agrigento. But does the fool realize that if he doesn’t and it comes out that the Bureau of Investigation had a hand in the attempted assassination of a Chief of State what it will mean? The member planets will drop out of UP like dandruff.”

Ronny was shaking his head. He reached over, took the brown bottle and poured himself another. “Billy’s familial with Luigi’s security. He’ll be able to get through, especially with the plastic surgery. And remember, Billy is a citizen of Delos, not Palermo. The moment Luigi Agrigento dies by the hand of a citizen of another world, Article Two goes into effect. Palermo has been interfered with politically by another member planet of UP.”

Ronny got to his feet, preparatory to leaving. His voice was dead. “Which will be an excellent excuse for the United Planets Space Force landing, and, uh, reestablishing order.”

Sid Jakes, his face empty, said, “Antrim. You think he’ll… ?” His voice dribbled off.

Ronny said flatly, “Get away? Not on Palermo. He’s expendable. He was the tool Section G needed, and I used him.” He grunted deprecation. “Remember when you told me how the guts of my conscience were going to be strained the first time I got one of the jobs we’re really here for? I didn’t know what you were talking about then. I do now.”

Ross Metaxa scowled down at his brown bottle, wordlessly.

Nor did Sid Jakes say anything further.

Ronny said, “And now I think I’ll go home and get drunk a little, and tell myself that the end justifies the means—though there hasn’t been a decent thinker in the history of man who could arrive at that conclusion.”

It was in a far place from the office of Ross Metaxa in the Octagon.

A slight figure was inching its way along a building ledge, his back and arms pressed tight against the stonework. He had about four inches upon which to operate. It was a matter of twenty or thirty yards, but he had few doubts.

“One chance in a million,” he muttered. You didn’t have much better odds than that when your goal was one of the most highly protected Chiefs of State in United Planets.

However, he had his own gods and now he was praying to them, and they weren’t going to turn him down.

They didn’t.

He made it to the window, brought the gun from his belt and rested it on the window sill.

He said softly, “Big Luigi.”

The heavy man behind the desk stiffened, startled, but didn’t turn. For the moment he was frozen.

The voice came ever so softly, “You wouldn’t remember the face, Luigi, but it’s me, Billy Antrim. You remember. Billy, the kid you sent for Giorgi, down on Earth. I just wanted you to know, Luigi.”

The heavyset man’s hands flew—one to a button, one to a desk drawer.

Billy Antrim pressed the trigger, in an affectionate way.

And the guards stormed through the door, weapons in hand. Far too late for Luigi, but with ample time for Billy. For once again it was a matter of no getaway arranged for pistolero Billy Antrim.