's glance went
over the clerk, shifted on. He felt something tighten up swiftly
inside him. There was a considerable overall resemblance, but _that_
wasn't the man who had left the office.

Another minute or two went by. Then two other uniformed figures
appeared at the opening to the hall, a sparse elderly man, a blond
girl. They stood there talking earnestly together for some seconds,
then came slowly down the aisle toward Quillan. It appeared to be an
argument about some detail of her work. The girl frowned, stubbornly
shaking her head. Near Quillan they separated, started off into
different sections of the office. The girl, glancing back, still
frowning, brushed against Ryter. She looked up at him, startled.

"I'm sorry," she said.

Ryter scowled irritably, started to say something, suddenly appeared
surprised. Then his eyes went blank and his knees buckled under him.

The clerk sitting at the nearby desk whistled shrilly.

Quillan wheeled, gun out and up, toward the wall behind him. The two
guards there were still lifting their guns. The Miam Devil grunted
disapprovingly twice, and the guards went down. Noise crashed from the
hall ... heavy sporting rifles. He turned again, saw the two other
guards stumbling backward along the far wall. Feminine screaming
erupted around the office as the staff dove out of sight behind desks,
instrument stands and filing cabinets. The elderly man stood above
Orca, a sap in his hand and a please smile on his face.

In the hallway, four white-uniformed men had swung about and were
pointing blazing rifles into the transmitter room. The racketing of
the gunfire ended abruptly and the rifles were lowered again. The
human din in the office began to diminish, turned suddenly into a
shocked, strained silence. Quillan realized the blond girl was
standing at his elbow.

"Did you get the rest of them?" he asked quickly, in a low voice.

"Everyone who was on this level," Reetal told him. "There weren't many
of them."

"I know. But there's a sizable batch still in the subspace section. If
we can get the bomb disarmed, we'll just leave them sealed up there.
How long before you can bring Ryter around?"

"He'll be able to talk in five minutes."

* * * * *

Quillan had been sitting for some little while in a very comfortable
chair in what had been the commodore's personal suite on the Seventh
Star, broodingly regarding the image of the _Camelot_ in a huge