out that the bookkeeper had
disappeared. Velladon and Ryter apparently got wise to what he was
trying to do. So the Mooleys sent me here to find out exactly what was
going on before they took action. I arrived four days ago."

She gave a regretful little headshake. "I waited almost a day before
contacting Heraga. It seemed advisable to move very cautiously in the
matter. But that made it a little too late to do anything. Quillan,
for the past three days, the Seventh Star Hotel has been locked up
like a bank vault. And except for ourselves, only the people who are
in on the plot are aware of it."

"The message transmitters are inoperative?" he asked.

Reetal nodded. "The story is that a gravitic storm center in the area
has disrupted transmissions completely for the time being."

"What about incoming ships?"

"Yours was the only one scheduled before the _Camelot_ arrives. It
left again eight hours ago. Nobody here had been let on board. The
guests who wanted to apply for outgoing berths were told there were
none open, that they'd have to wait for the _Camelot_."

She went over to a desk, unlocked a drawer, took out a sheaf of
papers, and handed one of them to Quillan. "That's the layout of the
Star," she said. "This five-level building over by the shell is the
Executive Block. The Brotherhood and the commodore's men moved in
there this morning. The Block is the Star's defense center. It's
raid-proofed, contains the control officers and the transmitter and
armament rooms. About the standard arrangement. While they hold the
Executive Block, they have absolute control of the Star."

"If it's the defense center, it should be practically impossible to do
anything about them there," Quillan agreed. "They could close it up,
and dump the air out of the rest of the Star in a minute, if they had
to. But there must be ... well, what about the lifeboats in the
subspace section--and our pals must have a getaway ship stashed away
somewhere?"

"They have two ships," Reetal said. "A souped-up armed freighter the
Brotherhood came in on, and a large armed yacht which seems to be the
commodore's personal property. Unfortunately, they're both in subspace
locks."

"Why unfortunately?"

"Because they've sealed off subspace. Try portaling down there, and
you'll find yourself looking at a battle-plastic bulkhead. There's no
way of getting either to those ships or to the lifeboats."

Quillan lifted his eyebrows. "And _that_ hasn't