“I want down, Daddy!” Helen shrilled. “I’m afraid of that man.”
Horsten said something and, ignoring the colonnello momentarily, slipped her to the floor, tucking Gertrude and the Dolly’s Nurse Kit under his arm. Then he turned back to the Florentine.
“I came to inquire into the Engelists,” he said, in a tone that might have been disarming had the words been other.
“The Engelists?” the armed man blurted. “You admit it?” Then, “How did you get in here?”
“I walked in,” the big scientist said simply. He looked down at Helen, whose lower lip was trembling. “Now, now,” he said. “After a time, Daddy will play alez-oop with you.” He looked back at the anti-subversion officer. “So, you can tell me with whom I can get in touch in order to investigate thoroughly this Engelism program.”
The other shook his head, as though unbelieving, but the gun didn’t waver. He said, “This whole ministry is devoted to fighting the Engelists. I am head of my department Luckily, I was working late tonight. You have explained nothing. You are under arrest.” His eyes went to an empty desk which stood before the rank of elevator doors. On it was an orderbox and various switches and burtons. Still keeping his eyes on Dorn Horsten, as well as the muzzle of his scrambler, he started in that direction.
Helen said, “Allez-oop!”
The massive scientist had been holding her by one hand. Now, he suddenly flipped her upward, spun her, and flung her toward a stone column which stood some ten feet before the elevators.
The colonnello’s trigger finger had, at the first motion, tightened, but then he stood there, eyes bugging.
In air, Helen seemed to become a ball then, at the last split moment, she turned, legs foremost, and struck the stone pillar. Seemingly, she bounced; somehow, upward. She seemed to spin in the air. A tiny human pin-wheel she turned and turned again. Hit the desk toward which the Florentine had been heading; caromed off in an impossible exhibition of tumbling; hit the metal door of one of the elevators, caromed off and struck immediately before the colonnello. She bounced high. His head reared back in alarm. She settled down, light as gauze, on his shoulder.
“Oooo,” she said. “I musta slipped.” Her right arm was around the startled officer’s head, holding on tightly.
But her little left hand had a secure grip on the scrambler which, a moment ago, had been in his own supposedly competent grasp—and the muzzle was boring into his left ear.
Dorn Horsten was clucking as though in apology. “Now, dear,” he scolded her, “do be careful. You might blow the colonnello’s brains out.” He frowned slightly, as though in inner debate. “Assuming…” he added, but let the sentence dribble away.
The Florentine was frozen.
Horsten approached and took the gun from Helen’s hand and she dropped gracefully to the floor and smoothed out her pretty blue dress in an exaggerated little-girl gesture.
The scientist said, and there was authority in his voice now. “Where’s your office?”
Still dazed, the other indicated. “In there.”
“All right, let’s all go in there.”
Herding the colonnello before them, Horsten and his diminutive companion entered the office. It was large but standard, with the usual conglomeration of desks, files and office equipment, including orderboxes and vocotypers.
Even as Helen, humming under her breath, put her Dolly’s Nurse Kit on the larger desk and began pulling play vials and hypo needles forth, the big scientist ushered the captive to a chair.
The self-named Colonnello Fantonetti was not a coward. He grated, “What do you want? I warn you…”
Horsten silenced him with a wave of the pistol. “Just as I told you, information about the Engelists.”
“You’re obviously Engelists yourselves,” the other rasped.
“To the contrary, my dear fellow.”
It turned out that Helen’s play hypodermic needles were not exactly toys. She efficiently swabbed a section immediately above his wrist—not taking the time to have him remove his tunic, and roll up a sleeve—and pressed home a shot. She then returned her Dolly’s Nurse equipment to its box and bounded up into a chair very neatly.
Horsten said to the victim, “Scop, you know. Sorry it’s necessary. But we’re quite keen about finding out all there is to know on the Engelists.”
The other gritted his teeth. “You can’t escape,” he said, somewhat out of context with the subject.
“Um,” Horsten said. He looked down at his wrist chronometer and made impatient tush, tush noises while he waited. Helen sat there quietly, smiling in childlike innocence at the colonnello until that worthy, in disgust, closed his eyes to escape.
Horsten said finally, “What is your name?”
The colonnello had blisters of cold sweat on his forehead and he tried desperately to hold his lips tight. However, finally they opened.
“Salvador Marie Fantonetti.”
“And your position?”
“Colonnello, on the staff of His Eccellenza, Alberto Scialanga, the Third Signore.”
“What are your duties?”
“To combat the Engelists.”
“Who are the Engelists?”
“Subversives who wish to overthrow the government of the First Signore and the Free Democratic Commonwealth of Firenze.”
Dom Horsten said, “How do they expect to accomplish this?”
There was a slight hesitation in the drugged man’s voice. Finally, “I do not know.”
Horsten scowled. “Well, what methods do they use?”
“They attempt to subvert the institutions of Firenze.”
“Of course, but how?”
“By… by speaking against the First Signore and his Council of Signori.”
Helen said, “Do they have radio, Tri-Di, other broadcasting facilities?”
“No.”
“Well, do they have newspapers?” She was scowling in growing puzzlement as was her partner.
The colonnello remained silent.
She reworded it. “Do you think they have newspapers?”
“No.”
Dorn Horsten said impatiently, “Do they write books against the government?”
The Florentine remained silent.
“Do you think they write books against the government?”
“I… I do not know.”
“Do you know of any pamphlets, leaflets or other printed propaganda they have written against the government?”
“No.”
Helen said, a touch of disbelief in her voice, “What do they do in their attempts to overthrow the government?”
“They attempt to recruit followers to their underground by speaking against the administration of the First Signore.”
Helen and Dorn Horsten looked at each other.
The scientist started on a new tack. “Have you ever captured any Engelists?”
Their prisoner of the Scop drug remained silent.
Frowning his growing bewilderment, Horsten demanded, “Have you ever captured any persons you suspected of being Engelists?”
“Yes.”
“How many of these did you prove were Engelists?”
He remained silent.
