said. "Anything else to settle before you start
off?"

Quillan nodded. "Couple of details. If you're going to be in your
regular suite, and Fluel finds himself with some idle time on hand, he
might show up for the dalliance you mentioned."

Reetal's smile changed slightly. Her left hand fluffed the hair at the
back of her head, flicked down again. There was a tiny click, and
Quillan looked at a small jeweled hair-clasp in her palm, its needle
beak pointing at him.

"It hasn't got much range," Reetal said, "but within ten feet it will
scramble the Duke's brains just as thoroughly as they need to be
scrambled."

"Good enough," Quillan said. "Just don't give that boy the ghost of a
chance, doll. He has a rep for playing very unnice games with the
ladies."

"I know his reputation." Reetal replaced the tiny gun in her hair.
"Anything else?"

"Yes. Let's look in on the Kinmarten chick for a moment. If she's
awake, she may have remembered something or other by now that she
didn't think to tell you."

They found Solvey Kinmarten awake, and tearfully glad to see Reetal.
Quillan was introduced as a member of the legal profession who would
do what he could for Solvey and her husband. Solvey frowned prettily,
trying very hard to remember anything that might be of use. But it
appeared that she had told Reetal all she knew.

* * * * *

The blue and white Phalagon House diner, driven by Heraga, was
admitted without comment into the Executive Block. It floated on
unchallenged through the big entry hall and into a corridor.
Immediately behind the first turn of the corridor, the diner paused a
few seconds. Its side door opened and closed. The diner moved on.

Quillan, coatless and with the well-worn butt of a big Miam Devil
Special protruding from the holster on his right hip, came briskly
back along the corridor. Between fifteen and twenty men, their guns
also conspicuously in evidence, were scattered about the entrance
hall, expressions and attitudes indicating a curious mixture of
boredom and uneasy tension. The eyes of about half of them swiveled
around to Quillan when he came into the hall; then, with one
exception, they looked indifferently away again.

The exception, leaning against the wall near the three open portals to
the upper levels, continued to stare as Quillan came toward him,
forehead creased in a deep scowl as if he were painfully ransacking
his mind for something. Quillan