whims. He said, “Are you the man who notified us?”
The guard was still holding his wrenched hand, and with a pain-distorted face mumbled, “I claim the reward, your mightiness, and I accuse that man—”
“You’ll get your reward,” said the lieutenant, without looking at him. He motioned curtly to his men, “Take him.”
Toran felt the clown tearing at his robe with a maddened grip.
He raised his voice and kept it from shaking, “I’m sorry, lieutenant; this man is mine.”
The soldiers took the statement without blinking. One raised his whip casually, but the lieutenant’s snapped order brought it down.
His dark mightiness swung forward and planted his square body before Toran, “Who are you?”
And the answer rang out, “A citizen of the Foundation.”
It worked—with the crowd, at any rate. The pent-up silence broke into an intense hum. The Mule’s name might excite fear, but it was, after all, a new name and scarcely stuck as deeply in the vitals as the old one of the Foundation—that had destroyed the Empire—and the fear of which ruled a quadrant of the Galaxy with ruthless despotism.
The lieutenant kept face. He said, “Are you aware of the identity of the man behind you?”
“I have been told he’s a runaway from the court of your leader, but my only sure knowledge is that he is a friend of mine. You’ll need firm proof of his identity to take him.”
There were high-pitched sighs from the crowd, but the lieutenant let it pass. “Have you your papers of Foundation citizenship with you?”
“At my ship.”
“You realize that your actions are illegal? I can have you shot.”
“Undoubtedly. But then you would have shot a Foundation citizen and it is quite likely that your body would be sent to the Foundation—quartered—as part compensation. It’s been done by other warlords.”
The lieutenant wet his lips. The statement was true.
He said, “Your name?”
Toran followed up his advantage, “I will answer further questions at my ship. You can get the cell number at the Hangar; it is registered under the name ‘Bayta.’?”
“You won’t give up the runaway?”
“To the Mule, perhaps. Send your master!”
The conversation had degenerated to a whisper and the lieutenant turned sharply away.
“Disperse the crowd!” he said to his men, with suppressed ferocity.
The electric whips rose and fell. There were shrieks and a vast surge of separation and flight.
Toran interrupted his reverie only once on their way back to the Hangar. He said, almost to himself, “Galaxy, Bay, what a time I had! I was so scared—”
“Yes,” she said, with a voice that still shook, and eyes that still showed something akin to worship, “it was quite out of character.”
“Well, I still don’t know what happened. I just got up there with a stun pistol that I wasn’t even sure I knew how to use, and talked back to him. I don’t know why I did it.”
He looked across the aisle of the short-run air vessel that was carrying them out of the beach area, to the seat on which the Mule’s clown scrunched up in sleep, and added distastefully, “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
The lieutenant stood respectfully before the colonel of the garrison, and the colonel looked at him and said, “Well done. Your part’s over now.”
But the lieutenant did not retire immediately. He said darkly, “The Mule has lost face before a mob, sir. It will be necessary to undertake disciplinary action to restore proper atmosphere of respect.”
“Those measures have already been taken.”
The lieutenant half turned, then, almost with resentment, “I’m willing to agree, sir, that orders are orders, but standing before that man with his stun pistol and swallowing his insolence whole, was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
14
THE MUTANT
The “hangar” on Kalgan is an institution peculiar unto itself, born of the need for the disposition of the vast number of ships brought in by the visitors from abroad, and the simultaneous and consequent vast need for living accommodations for the same. The original bright one who had thought of the obvious solution had quickly become a millionaire. His heirs—by birth or finance—were easily among the richest on Kalgan.
The “hangar” spreads fatly over square miles of territory, and “hangar” does not describe it at all sufficiently. It is essentially a hotel—for ships. The traveler pays in advance and his ship is awarded a berth from which it can take off into space at any desired moment. The visitor then lives in his ship as always. The ordinary hotel services such as the replacement of food and medical supplies at special rates, simple servicing of the ship itself, special intra-Kalgan transportation for a nominal sum are to be had, of course.
As a result, the visitor combines hangar space and hotel bill into one, at a saving. The owners sell temporary use of ground space at ample profits. The government collects huge taxes. Everyone has fun. Nobody loses. Simple!
The man who made his way down the shadow-borders of the wide corridors that connected the multitudinous wings of the “hangar” had in the past speculated on the novelty and usefulness of the system described above, but these were reflections for idle moments—distinctly unsuitable at present.
The ships hulked in their height and breadth down the long lines of carefully aligned cells, and the man discarded line after line. He was an expert at what he was doing now—and if his preliminary study of the hangar registry had failed to give specific information beyond the doubtful indication of a specific wing—one containing hundreds of ships—his specialized knowledge could winnow those hundreds into one.
There was the ghost of a sigh in the silence, as the man stopped and faded down one of the lines; a crawling insect beneath the notice of the arrogant metal monsters that rested there.
Here and there the sparkling of light from a porthole would indicate the presence of an early returner from the organized pleasures to simpler—or more private—pleasures of his own.
The man halted, and would have smiled if he ever smiled. Certainly the convolutions of his brain performed the mental equivalent of a smile.
The ship he stopped at was sleek and obviously fast. The peculiarity of its design was what he wanted. It was not a usual model—and these days most of the ships of this quadrant of the Galaxy either imitated Foundation design or were built by Foundation technicians. But this was special. This was a Foundation ship—if only because of the tiny bulges in the skin that were the nodes of the protective screen that only a Foundation ship could possess. There were other indications, too.
The man felt no hesitation.
The electronic barrier strung across the line of the ships as a concession to privacy on the part of the management was not at all important to him. It parted easily, and without activating the alarm, at the use of the very special neutralizing force he had at his disposal.
So the first knowledge within the ship of the intruder without was the casual and almost friendly signal of the muted buzzer in the ship’s living room that was the result of a palm placed over the little photocell just one side of the main air lock.
And while that successful search went on, Toran and Bayta felt only the most precarious security within the steel walls of the
