name, Dopey.'
'Thank you,' the alien said. 'That too is useful, although I am not sure that a change will be permitted. At any rate, because of their evolutionary heritage the Be-the persons in charge, that is, would not be on a planet of this mass.'
'So they're not really going to be around to save us?' Jimmy Lin demanded in alarm.
But that was one question too many. Dopey evidently had what he had come for. Without farewell, he turned and disappeared into the mirror, which re-formed seamlessly behind him, like a puddle of mercury closing over a stone.
Dannerman stared after him for a long minute, though there was nothing to see but his own reflection in the wall. He was puzzling over something, and it showed. 'What's the matter?' Pat demanded. 'You still wondering why he showed us that message?'
'Actually no,' Dannerman said. 'I think that's pretty obvious now, isn't it? He's using us to be his sneak- preview film critics, getting our reactions before he puts the thing on the air. No, it's something else.' He hesitated for a moment. Then, 'Tell me something, Pat. When we were talking I mentioned Hilda to you, didn't I?'
'Sure. Your boss in the Bureau. I remember.'
'But did I ever say her last name? No, I didn't think so. So how did Dopey know that it was Morrisey?'
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Dan
So Dannerman had one more puzzle to add to his collection. He was certain he'd never mentioned Hilda Morrisey's last name, and the Bureau did not advertise the names of its personnel. And it was not information that could be picked up from the monitored broadcasts.
But Dopey had known it.
In fact, Dopey seemed to know quite a few of the things they had never spoken aloud. How? There was one easy answer to that: Someone might have been sloppy in concealing some of the notes as they read them or passed them around. But that didn't explain Hilda Morrisey, and Dannerman didn't believe it anyway. What he believed was that Dopey possessed sources of information they didn't know about.
Whatever those sources might be.
He snorted in disgust-muffled quickly, because he didn't want Pat, or any one of the Pats, to come over to see what was bothering him. That had happened twice already, and he had waved them away. He wished he didn't have to. He wanted badly to talk it over with the others, because someone else, Rosaleen maybe-well, any of them-might have a clarifying insight he had missed. But if even the eyes-only note-passing was compromised, they would simply be giving more information to Dopey, or Dopey's masters.
Would that matter? Would that sort of information be useful to them? Dannerman could form no satisfactory answer to that, either, but it was simple basic tradecraft to deny as much information as possible to the enemy, and-
His thoughts were interrupted by a new sound. Something had begun squealing shrilly, somewhere. When Dannerman raised his head he saw Patrice holding the helmet in her hand, looking puzzled. 'I think it wants something,' she said.
'It wants one of us to put it on, of course,' Rosaleen said crossly. 'Give it to me.'
Evidently she was right. As soon as she had it settled on her head the beeping stopped. By then most of the others had converged around her, clamoring to know what she was hearing. Rosaleen didn't take the helmet off, only held up her hand and said, 'Relax. It's basically the same message, but with a few- improvements. Give me a moment.'
'Then this time we do it in alphabetical order, remember?' Pat reminded them. 'Pat comes before Patrice or Patsy, so I get the first look.'
Jimmy Lin emitted a long, exasperated sigh, Martin muttered something that sounded obscene. Dannerman only waited; he was as impatient as anyone, but he accepted the fact that it would go faster if they didn't argue. When all four women had had a look-each looking puzzled, even faintly disappointed, when they were finished-his turn came. As soon as the helmet was on his head and the eyepieces in place the figure of the French astronaut popped into being and began to speak. 'Messieurs et mesdames, 'it began, 'je m 'appelle Colonel Hugues duValier, peut-etre vous me connaissez, et je suis-'And then the French language was drowned out by another voice, overriding the colonel with unaccented American English:
'Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Colonel Hugues duValier. Maybe you know me; I am an astronaut at present in orbit on the astronomical satellite known as Starlab. I have a message of the greatest importance for everyone on Earth-'
It was the same message as before, but reworked to remove their objections. The colonel wasn't risking any distractions to his audience by speaking in many tongues; there was a simple voice-over, the same thing viewers heard on any newscast anywhere in the world. The phrase 'Beloved Leaders' was still there, but modified to: 'they are called 'Beloved Leaders,' but we can know them simply as the forces which have so far-and very successfully!- born the brunt of the attack.' When Delasquez and Jimmy Lin had had their turns Dannerman asked about languages, just to clear up one final point. The answers were the same as before, Ukrainian for Rosaleen, American English for Dannerman and the Pats, Spanish for Delasquez and Chinese for Jimmy. 'But this time,' Rosaleen said, 'the Ukrainian was all Ukrainian. They corrected some of the Russian words.'
Dannerman nodded thoughtfully, but said only, 'Fast work. Dopey must have real good production facilities.'
When he stopped there, Pat gave him a perplexed, maybe even an unfriendly, look. 'Is that all you have to say about it?'
He shrugged; Jimmy Lin answered for him. 'What's to say? We're just Dopey's damn test audience, aren't we? And we did our job for him. He listened to everything we criticized, and he changed the message around to suit. Now-' He turned and faced the wall, cupping his hands around his mouth. '-are you listening, Dopey? Okay, then listen to this. You got it right this time. It's fine the way it is, so don't bother us with any more revisions; just keep the food coming.' He turned to Dannerman, grinning. 'Does that about cover it? Because if it doesn't we could-'
He didn't get a chance to finish the sentence, because he was interrupted. Abruptly the ground began to tremble. Everyone who was standing suddenly began to reel; Jimmy grabbed Martin Delasquez's shoulder to steady himself, nearly bringing them both down. 'Oh, hell,' Jimmy grunted, his voice as shaky as the floor. 'They're doing it again.'
The odd thing, Dannerman thought, was that this time he hadn't heard any explosion, just the sudden uneasy twist and slide in the floor beneath him. But the tremor was a big one. Some cans of something or other on top of their stacks of supplies were jarred loose and clattered to the ground. Rosaleen sat down abruptly. There were yips of surprise from at least two of the Pats. Then it was over.
No. Not quite over. Just as everyone opened their mouths to tell each other that this one had been an unusually bad one, all right, something else happened. The mirror walls flickered and changed color. Jagged streaks of bright red danced around them like slow lightning flashes; that permanent diffuse pale glow from overhead darkened and their only light came from the radiant walls as they turned lurid orange in one spot, blotchy bright red in another. For a moment they seemed to go almost transparent, and through the nearest one Dannerman saw, or thought he saw, a shadowy ziggurat of bright metal. A Doc was standing there transfixed, all of its arms raised toward the sky in what looked like abject terror.
Then the colors faded. The faint visions from outside clouded and disappeared. The steady overhead glow returned, the walls became featureless mirrors again and everything was as it had been before. Everything but the prisoners, at least; but they were all shaken and bewildered. 'What in the name of God was that?' Martin Delasquez angrily demanded of the room at large.
Rosaleen was the one who tried to answer. She was getting back to her feet, wincing, with one of the Pats helping her on either side. 'I think it must have been some kind of a power failure,' she said soberly. 'I do not think
