Chapter IV

Who could say what thoughts, emotions, surged through the robot's
mind? Intelligence there was and an undeniable strength inspiring
confidence.... And something greater--some indefinable prowess
beyond, perhaps, the ken of man--

Calidao, city of mystic intrigue, cosmopolitan city where Solarian, Centaurian and Lalandean hold daily intercourse, bartering in lives and souls, and in treasures and alien lore whose origin and significance shall remain forever hidden in the womb of time--

Thither flashed Frederix in the dead of night, riding the radio beam in from the direction of Kaa. Starshine alone and what light the almost indetectable moons gave illumined the semi-somnolent cosmopolis. Along the main artery, famed Space Boulevard, the varicolored lights of night clubs blazed up through the glassite vaults; the spaceport, a mile and more out of town, shone in a wavering splendour of swirling beacons, pointing white, stabbing fingers into the dark, and the whole was flooded intermittently with brightest green as the great concentration of spacelamps flashed a mighty, guiding column upward and outward to whatever craft might move across the firmament.

Frederix drove down low over the port, searching for sight of a large black freighter marked with Onupari's famous (and infamous) boxed-star insignia. Just as he was rewarded by a glimpse of it lying in the ways, just as exultation swept in a warm tide over him, a blindingly-crimson blast seared up from beneath, cutting a great gap in the left wing, waving futilely after him as he careened into the night, his tortured sight seeping slowly back, trying desperately to keep the crippled ship awing.

He realized that the Calidaoan Vrons and sympathizers bought with golden coins, promises of greatness, and freedom from the "Anarchy of Earth," had indeed taken dictatorial possession of Calidao and were guarding well the ship of Onupari which would bring death to the Double World.

Opening the purring atomics wide, he swept in a wide arc far out over the wastes and back to the farther side of the city, and, cutting in the infra-red viewplates, glided to a swift albeit unsteady landing on the verge of the encircling desert.

He hesitated, but the robot, dropping to the ground, led him unerringly to a small lock opening on one of the back streets. Pausing in the darkness, Frederix peered through the glassite wall.

A young Martian policeman stood smoking thoughtfully beneath a carbon arc, handsome and proudly erect in his bright, apparently-new uniform, quite alone in this narrow thoroughfare.

Frederix's hand dropped to the disrupter, shifted to the needle-gun, and, opening the lock slowly, he aimed and pressed the trigger. Leaping within, he caught the paralyzed youth, lowering him into the shadows of a nearby doorway.

A surge of commendation beat in his brain--praise for his choice of weapons. For why should one so young and handsome die? Why should any of Sol's disillusioned billions die because of a few greedy men who had rushed into a band which would damn the entire system unless someone revealed their duplicity, which had already precipitated all manner of internal strife? Violence would avail naught; they must be shown the plain truth of it so that they might live and be free!

The robot hurried away now, turned swiftly in a high-arched tunnel which intersected the street, and led Frederix to the fantastically carven front of a large mansion whose portal had been but recently blasted asunder. Over that shattered door was the crest of Jethe the munitions baron, and _within the room_--

Nausea seized Frederix's stomach. Hoary-haired Jethe, dealer in power for peace or war, was sprawled across a paper-strewn table in terrible death, his wizened face and body ribboned into one horrible mess of blood and gore, sliced by a disrupter, signature no doubt of Meevo or Onupari--

Dizzy with the sheer bestiality of the scene but driven by some manner of apprehension, Frederix threaded his way through the debris to an all-wave radio clinging on the farther wall, snapped the switch and dialed to the Kaa frequency.

A message was coming through, clear now, proof that the sandstorm had subsided and skies were clear. Frederix recognized the cold emotionless voice of Blake, the Kaa chief operator.

"... the message you've found may ring true, but in the light of Cravens' message from Certagarni, proving Frederix to be in league with anti-service factions, we find that we cannot send ships to a possible trap in Calidao until you've learned from Andres what's really behind all this. Please inform us of any developments. Off!"

Oh, the blind fools! They had found Andres and the message but would do nothing until the paralytic spell had worn away! And Onupari must have been in this room hours before; his ship, prepared for flight, must have long been loaded! He left the place of death at a run.

The tiny monkey-thing led the way toward Space Boulevard, and into the engineer's mind an encouraging thought came. _Onupari has not left!_ And Frederix raged inwardly against the callousness, the bloodlust of that fat, swarthy renegade whom he had seen so many times glossing over crimes charged to him by the Embassy.

The freighter had not taken off yet; the thunder of its atomics would have been easily heard. He might yet--_what_? If the Service men--_If_--

As if they, trying to resuscitate an unconscious man almost an hour's flight away, could come in time!