And then, clear of the oppressive environment of the Fleet, I felt a belated surge of triumph. By the wording of these orders, Jettero Heller could be wiped forever from Fleet rolls. He could be made to disappear without a trace and no questions asked. No, Jettero Heller was notsmart in the dirty world of espionage and covert technology. In fact, (bleeping) dumb. Lombar would be proud of me. I had just wiped out the kidnapping. We could wipe out Heller. And I freely confess that at that moment I fully intended to drain off all the personal credit from it I could.

I headed for the Fleet Officers' Club to pick up his kit.

My elation was veryshort-lived.

The officers' club lay quietly in the warm daylight of a beautiful afternoon. The mountains around it gazed down benignly. Shrubs and flowers perfumed the gentle air.

It was a trap!

My driver parked the airbus before the main entrance. I trotted up the wide ramp with its inset views of beautiful females.

The huge lobby was deserted except for one uniformed cleaner casually mopping up some spilled drinks. I went directly to the office counter and rapped my stick upon it. I am not a member, of course, and the gray-headed clerk, probably a retired enlisted man, went on pottering with his entry books.

My gray General Services uniform was not likely to get much attention in this place. So I slapped my stick even harder against the counter. "Here, here, snap to attention," I said. He just went on working, I thought he must be deaf. And it was there I made my near-fatal error. I can't stand insolent underlings.

"If you cannot give me some service," I yelled at him, "I shall have no choice but to report you!" No attention. So I shouted even louder, "I am here to pick up the baggage of Jettero Heller!" That got attention. He got right up, came right over. I thought for a moment that that was more like it. But he had his head down and was lifting his eyes at me in a peculiar way. In a voice fully as loud as I had used – and believe me these old spacemen can be heard a mile – he bawled, "Did you say you were here for the baggage of Jettero Heller?" And without the slightest pause, went right on. "You look like you are from the 'drunks'!" There was a slight noise in the lobby. I looked around. The equipment of the uniformed cleaner was still on the floor but the cleaner himself was gone.

In a perfectly normal quiet voice, the clerk said, "Please fill out this form." He fiddled around under the counter and came up with some forms. He read some titles of them to himself. Bent down to look for some more. Brought those up and looked over their titles. My success so far this day must have curdled my wits.

Despite all my training and experience in the Apparatus I did not recognize the routine ploy of just plain stalling.

It was the breathing that alerted me. It was behind me.

I whirled.

Three young officers were standing there! One was in a bathrobe, another in swimming trunks, a third in a sport driver's helmet. And even as I faced them, five more officers came speeding in through various doors. That (bleeped) cleaner was rounding them up!

I have seen glaring faces in my time but these topped it. Another young officer rushed down some stairs, carrying a sports club!

The biggest of them, three feet from me, barked a command, "Get him!" They train you well in the Apparatus. In an instant, I wasn't there to get! I sprang up and back to the top of the counter. I threw the register straight in the first face!

I was over the counter, behind it, driven by the hurricane of roaring fury from those young officers. Arms clawed for me. I threw a chair!

They came over the counter like a tidal wave.

A door on the right. I rushed through it. I was back into the main lobby. I measured my chances to get out the main entrance. But more officers were pouring in from the sports field!

I will say this. I fought a valiant strategic withdrawal. I pitched plates and tables at them. I raced around chairs and spilled them in their way. I even threw vases, flowers and all! I only lasted as long as I did because there were so many trying to catch me! They collided with one another. They were boxing me in. I tried to leap up on the bandstand but with one final, flying tackle a husky athlete brought me down with a crash.

Now you'd have thought they would have simply held me there and asked questions like young, well-bred people should. But oh, no! They put their boots to me! They were mostly barefooted or wearing sports shoes: otherwise they would have kicked me to death!

Finally one of them got the others away. He was a big one and for a stupid instant I thought he was trying to rescue me. But he stood me up and slammed me back against the wall.

"Where is Heller?" he shouted. It was enough to knock in your eardrums.

I didn't get any chance to answer. He doubled up his fist and hit me as hard as he could in the jaw!

It knocked me out cold.

Icy water hit me in the face. I was on the floor.

"Let me!" yelled somebody and hepicked me up and stood me against the wall.

"Where is Heller?" he screamed at me.

And before I could answer, he hauled off and hit me as hard as he could in the stomach.

I remember thinking as I doubled up and dropped that these young gentlemen could certainly use some lessons in proper prisoner interrogation.

They booted me!

I don't know how much later it was. I heard a voice from far off. It was a command voice. Some senior officer amongst officers. "Order! Order! What's he done?" There was a babble of voices. They had stopped hitting me and kicking me long enough so that I was coming around.

"Put him in that chair," said this senior command voice.

They slammed me into it so hard I went out again. Then a new shower of icy water hit me. Through its drip I focused my eyes on a powder blue tunic that was in front of me. It was an older officer in full uniform. Probably a Fleet battleship commander. Very tough.

"No, no, back off," he was saying. "I'll get your answers." I groggily thanked the Devils that somebody was maybe going to listen.

"Where's Heller?" he barked.

And nobody hit me. They teach you in the Apparatus never to talk when you're being beaten or tortured.

The question took some sorting out. I could be executed by the Apparatus for revealing the existence of Spiteos. But they weren't demanding that. They were demanding Heller. I managed to edge around the corner of my training. "I just came to get his baggage," I said.

"We know," said the senior officer. "That's what started all this. Now if you will just tell these young gentlemen where Jettero Heller is, I am sure that life will be . . ." There were disputant voices. "Don't promise him anything, sir!"

"You better talk!" Things like that.

In my groggy state, the tried and true maxim of the Apparatus surged up: "When in doubt, lie."

"I'm just a messenger," I said.

A tumult of objection greeted that.

The senior officer silenced them. "Messenger," and there was sarcasm in his voice, "Jettero Heller disappeared about five days ago tonight. He was due at a party to celebrate the promotion of a classmate just one hour after that evening's game. He never showed up. He is very reliable, in fact he is a combat engineer. An orderly was sent to summon him. A check of all headquarters shows no one sent for him. Ten minutes after he went out the arena door, a parking attendant reported seeing black lorries leave the far end of the grounds." Wow, I thought to myself, this battleship captain or whatever he was certainly could use some lessons in being an interrogator. He was giving me everything they knew! I was also getting plenty of time to think. Made it as easy as opening up a chank-pop.