Angelina wriggled painfully on the hook, making high-G turns to avoid capture. She’d be black and blue from head to foot after some of those 15-G accelerations. It was all for nothing because in the end they still caught her in a tractor web and closed in. All the thrashing around had just gained her a little time. None of us realized how important this time really was until the boarding party cracked into the ship.
It was empty of course.
Fully ten days went by before we pieced together what had really happened. It was ruthless and ugly, and even if the psych docs hadn’t assured me that Pepe had told the truth, I would have recognized the manner in which the escape was carried out. Angelina was one step ahead of us all the way. When she had escaped from the battleship in the scout rocket she had made no attempt to flee. Instead she must have gone at full blast to the nearest navy ship, a twelve-man pocket cruiser. They of course had no idea what had really happened aboard the battleship, as I hadn’t put out the general alarm yet. I should have done that as soon as she had escaped. If I had, twelve good men might still be alive. We’ll never know what story she told them, but it was obvious they weren’t on their guard. Probably something about being a prisoner and escaping during the fighting. In any case she took the ship. Five of the men were dead of gas poisoning, the others shot. We discovered this when the cruiser was later found drifting and inert, parsecs away. After capturing the cruiser she had set the controls on the scout ship for evasion tactics and launched it. While we were all merrily chasing it she simply let her ship drop behind the chase and vanished from the fleet. Her trail blurs there, though it is obvious she must have captured another ship. What this ship was, and where she went in it, was a complete mystery.
Back in Corps headquarters I found myself trying to explain this all to Inskipp. He had a cold eye and hardened manner and I found myself trying to justify my actions.
“You can’t win them all,” I said. “I brought home your battleship and Pepe—may his personality rest in peace now that it has been erased. Angelina tricked me and got away, I’ll admit that. But she did a much better job of fooling the boys in the navy!”
“Why so much venom?” Inskipp asked in an arid voice. “No one’s accusing you of dereliction of duty. You sound like a man with a guilty conscience. You did a good job. A fine job. A great job … for a first assignment. …”
“You’re doing it again!” I howled. “Prodding my conscience to see how soft it is. Like keeping him around.” I pointed to Pepe Nero who was sitting near us in the restaurant eating slowly, mumbling to himself with vacant-eyed dullness. His old personality had been stripped from his mind and a new one implanted. Only the body remained of the old Pepe who had loved Angelina and stolen a battleship.
“The psychs are working on a new theory of body-personality,” Inskipp said blandly, “so why not keep him around here under observation? If any of his criminal tendencies should develop in the new personality we’ll be in a wonderful spot to recruit him for the Corps. Does he bother you?”
“Not him,” I snorted. “After the massacres he pulled for his psychotic girlfriend you could grind him into hamburger for all I care. But he does remind me that she is still out there somewhere. Free and planning new mischief. I want to go after her.”
“Well you’re not,” Inskipp said. “You’ve asked me before and I have refused before. The topic is now closed.”
“But I could …”
“You could what?” He gave me a nasty chuckle. “Every law officer in the galaxy has a pic of her and there is a continual search going on. How could you possibly do more than they are already doing?”
“I couldn’t, I guess,” I grumbled. “So the hell with it, as you say.” I pushed my plate away and stood and stretched as naturally as I could. “I’m going to get a large jug of liquid refreshment and go to my quarters and nurse my sorrows.”
“You do that. And forget Angelina. Come to my office at 0900 hours tomorrow and you better be sober.”
“Slavedriver,” I moaned, going out the door and turning down the hall towards the residence wing. As soon as I was out of sight I took a side ramp that led to the spaceport.
That’s one lesson I had already learned from Angelina. When you have a plan put it into action instantly. Don’t let it lie around and get stale and have other people start thinking about it themselves. I was putting myself up against the shrewdest man in the business right now, and the thought alone was enough to make me sweat. I was going against Inskipp’s direct orders, walking out on him and the Corps. Not really walking out, since I only wanted to finish the job I had started for them. But I was obviously the only one who would look at it that way.
There were tools, gadgets and a good deal of money in my quarters that would come in very handy on this job. I would just have to do without them. When Inskipp started to think about my sudden conversion to his point of view I wanted to be well away in space.
A mechanic with a drag-robot was pulling an agent’s ship into place on the launching ramp. I stamped over and used my official voice.
“Is that my ship?”
“No, sir—it’s for Full Agent Nielsen, there he is coming up now.”
“Check with control central, will you? It’s going
