lieu of its now inoperative air cushion.
For the moment, the street was clear of other passersby. The scientist came to a halt, Helen still held by his hand, and said pleasantly, “Ah, my good fellow, could you give me a bit of direction?”
From the side of his mouth the police officer growled, “Dust off, Buster.”
Horsten’s eyebrows went up. “I merely wished to ask…”
The other turned and glowered at him. “Can’t you see I’m busy? This damned tin can flicked out on me. Go on, dust.” He turned back to contemplating his vehicle, muttering, “The sergente’ll have my neck.”
Horsten puffed out his cheeks.
Take it easy, you big ox,” Helen said lowly. “He’s a cop.”
Her companion ignored her. “I said I wished to ask some directions.”
The furious minion of Firenze law spun on him, his teeth tight. “And I said to dust off. Can’t you see I’m busy? I’ve got to cook up some explanation for my superior. He
Horsten had started off the conversation with a benign beam, that good-natured air attainable best by truly king-sized specimens of humanity. The beam was rapidly changing to a glare. “I shall give you exactly one more chance to tell me the location of the Ministry of Anti-Subversion,” he said.
“Oh, you will, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Come on, come on, Daddy!” Helen began to pull on her colleague’s arm. Between her teeth she added, in a hiss, “Let’s get out of here.”
“Or you’ll do just what?” the driver said.
Dorn Horsten looked at the armored police scout car. It’s upper surface resembled the corrugated exterior of a hand grenade, or, perhaps, the shell of a turtle. The vehicle squatted there on its three sturdy metal stilts. It was a nasty looking little car.
Very deliberately, Horsten reached his hand out and banged the top of it with his closed fist. The three legs buckled, the end one to the point of allowing the rear of the armored scout to touch the street.
The driver looked at his vehicle for a long empty moment. Then he turned his eyes on the big scientist and looked at him. Finally, he looked down at Helen.
Helen wrinkled her nose at him nastily.
“You shoulda told my daddy,” she said.
The policeman looked back at his car.
Finally he said to Horsten, “What was it you wanted to know?”
“Where is the Ministry of Anti-Subversion?”
“Over there.” The other pointed. He looked back at the armored scout again, gloomily. “What’m I ever gonna tell the sergente?” he muttered.
Horsten hustled Helen across the street in the direction the police officer had indicated.
She looked at him bitterly. “Zorro’s whip is too conspicuous,” she said. “What’d you think is going to happen when that cop tells his sergeant what you just did? And why you did it. And where it was you wanted to go.”
The algae specialist was all good nature again. He looked down at her. “If that man is stupid enough to tell his sergeant what happened, he’ll undoubtedly wind up behind bars for drinking whilst on duty, my dear girl.”
“I surrender,” she muttered. “I give up.”
They came to a halt and stared at the enormous building that confronted them.
“Ministry of Anti-Subversion,” Horsten read with satisfaction.
“Closed,” Helen said. “Look at the size of those bronze doors. The place looks like a cathedral.”
“Um. However, someone should be here. Probably a night shift, or, at least, some guards.”
“So we just knock?” Helen said hopefully, as he started off again, dragging her along.
“Well, I doubt if that would be effective. If they expected evening callers, undoubtedly there would be some entry provided, but all seems quite closed up.”
“I can see it coming,” Helen muttered glumly.
They stood before the gigantic bronze doors which dwarfed ten-fold even the oversized Dorn Horsten.
“There isn’t even an identity screen, a method of summoning the nightman,” Horsten said accusingly.
“All right, all right, you don’t have to find excuses for me,” Helen said. “I’ve been through the equivalent of this before.” She looked back over her shoulder. There was a broad expanse of paved area before the building, and not a soul in sight. The vicinity of the Ministry of Anti-Subversion was evidently not sought out by the citizenry of Firenze, come the cool of evening.
Horsten took the large bronze doorknob in hand. It was an enormous, elaborate thing. He shook it. “Locked,” he announced.
“Come on, come on,” Helen said wearily.
He pulled, seemingly gently. He looked down at the knob, now in his hand. “It came out,” he told her.
Helen grunted.
He put his huge paw against the door and shoved. Something inside the door groaned. He pushed a bit harder. Something rasped metallic complaint. Although his air seemed still one of gentle curiosity, his shoulders were now bunched.
“I’ll be confounded,” he said. “Open all the time.”
“You damned mastodon,” she said. “Come on. Inside, before somebody spots us.”
They pushed their way in, the scientist closing the door behind. They looked about.
“Looks like Grand Central Station,” Horsten muttered.
“What’s that?” Helen said.
“Confound if I know. An idiomatic saving that comes down from antiquity; a connotation of being large in interior.”
“Well, what do we do now?”
“I suppose we stroll about until we find someone.”
“Oh, great. Or until somebody shoots us.”
He looked down at her. “Now, who would shoot a nice little girl like you?”
She snorted at him. “Somebody who figures that nice little girls don’t break into hush-hush government ministries.”
Two massive stairways flanked a bank of a full dozen elevator shafts.
“Elevators,” the big man said. “How anachronistic can you get? Have you noticed, my dear, they seem to go beyond the call of reason to maintain an air of yesteryear on this planet?”
Helen said, “Let’s take the stairs. Then at least some stute won’t be able to trap us between floors.”
She caught onto his belt, gracefully bounded up to his shoulder, to save herself the climb. On the second floor, they looked up and down the extensive corridor that seemingly stretched away into infinity.
“All right,” Helen said. “Do we keep climbing, or what? How do we find the department devoted to the Engelists? This place obviously doesn’t run a night shift. And, for that matter, doesn’t seem to boast much in the way of night…”
A voice behind them snapped, “Stand where you are!”
Dorn Horsten turned—and turned on his good-natured beam. “Ah, here we are, he said jovially. “I knew we’d find somebody!”
The other was a heavy-set, elaborately uniformed, suspicious looking officer who held a heavy scrambler in his right hand. He was about thirty feet from them and stood with his legs well parted and in a slight crouch: the stance of a fighting man.
He was not to be cozened. His heavy, somewhat brutal face bore several scars, mementoes of duel or street fights, or perhaps of military combat.
“Who are you?” he snapped.
Horsten jiggled little Helen on his shoulders to reassure her, and beamed at the other. “The question is, who are you, my dear fellow?”
Obviously the Florentine was confused by this confrontation, but was not to be put off his competent guard. “I’m Colonnello Fantonetti,” he said, the weapon not wavering a particle. “Now, very quickly, who are you and what are you doing on the second floor of this ministry after closing hours?”
