“And you have some subtle plan to save our boy?” Angelina said as she pulled on her slacks.

“Not that subtle since we have little time and less knowledge of where he is being held. So we just blast our way in.”

“Good. Let us do it.”

I went out onto our balcony and slapped the webber to the wall beside it, where it adhered with an unbreakable molecular grip. Seizing the handle on the thing I swung out into the darkness. “Join me,” I said, and Angelina took my waiting hand. A touch of the button and the liquid web was expelled from the spinneret; it congealed instantly. We went smoothly down just as a spider would on a web.

I swung right on past the balcony on the floor below us, since there were lights on in the room. The window on the floor below was dark, so we landed there. I concealed the webber against the wall, turned, and opened the sliding door with a quick twitch of my lockpick. Down four flights to the basement, thankfully without being seen. Then out through a sealed and alarmed emergency door. Which unsealed at my touch, alarm silenced as well.

“I like that little blue sports car,” Angelina said.

“I do too. But I think we need something bigger and more sober. That one.”

A large, black saloon which opened to my touch, started instantly, bore us away into the night. “I’ll park around the back of the building,” I said. “We will go in through the front. Move fast, play it by ear, not stopping, get Bolivar and get out.”

“Sounds good-and could be fun as well. I realize that we have been leading what could be called a dull existence of late.”

“You can’t go in here,” the guard at the front entrance said as we walked up. He was raising his weapon when I reached out and cracked the deepsleep capsule under his nose. He dropped. Dropped his memory too, since I had incorporated a bit of an amnesia drug in the formula. We pulled on gas masks before entering the building. Fairly quiet at this time of night, even quieter when the blackout spray and deepsleep took effect. Uniformed bodies thudded to the floor on all sides. We stepped around them to get at the uniformed bully who was slumped behind the reception desk. He woke and gurgled briefly when I injected him, drooped again when the next needle hit.

“I am your master,” I whispered into his ear.

“Yes, master.”

“You will obey me.”

“But speak and I obey.”

“Where is the prisoner who was brought here earlier? The one involved in the bank robbery.”

“Interrogation room six.”

“Take us there.”

He did. Most docilely. The few people we met slept comfortably in the corridors. We stopped at the signaled door, our guide joined the others in slumberland; somewhere in the distance an alarm sounded.

“They’ve finally rumbled us,” Angelina said.

“Took them long enough. Ready?”

She nodded. Her features unseen behind the mask-but I knew that she was smiling as she opened the door and threw in the capsules.

They were all unconscious, even Bolivar who hung limply from a rack of some kind. There was blood on his face and hands. As Angelina went to get him down she managed to plant a foot in each of the men around him.

“Thanks,” Bolivar said simply when he opened his eyes. “Bunch of sadists this lot.”

Was it by accident that Angelina managed to walk on their faces as we left?

The alarms were louder now, with the sound of running feet in the distance, hoarse shouts and the occasional sound of gunfire. They were obviously panicked and firing in the dark. We stayed away from the growing clamor and instead worked our way to the rear of the building where we descended to the ground floor.

“This should be the outside wall,” I said dubiously.

“That better be the outside wall,” Angelina said positively. “Now get us out of here.”

Not sure of the thickness of the wall I planted a treble charge. Even around the corner of the corridor we were stunned and deafened by the explosion. We staggered through the debris and out of the immense opening into the night. Not too far from our car. We were well gone before anyone else appeared. Returned the stolen vehicle to the spot where we had found it parked, then made our way back to the. balcony and our room, reversing our escape route.

“I am going to clean Bolivar up and change,” Angelina said. “While you order up more drink for our party.”

“Now it really is a party,” I said. “So we can celebrate a bit-before we figure out what the next step will be. I have the strong sensation that our invisible enemies have been one step ahead of us ever since we arrived on this planet. Let us then do something to even the score.”

I poured the contents of two bottles of good booze-what a waste-down the drain. And ordered more. The party must go on. A newly patched up Bolivar wandered about the suite, detector in one hand, a barbecued porcuswine rib in the other, checking the detectors. Gloriana had wandered out to see what the excitement was about, squealed woefully when she sniffed her departed relative, and had retired again to her bed. Angelina, attired in a nifty tigerstriped negligee, was repairing the damage inflicted on her fingernails by the night’s events.

“As a reward for your medical ministrations I would say that another cool glass of bubbly would be in order,” I offered.

“Very much in order.” She took it and sipped. I knocked back a double dram of Old Kidney Killer, then took some more-with ice this time. Nibbled a canape or two and let myself relax. But could not.

“What do we do about Bolivar?” I asked, phrasing aloud the question that was prominent in everyone’s mind. “This hotel room is not the safest place for him to be.”

“Nor this city-nor this entire planet,” Angelina said with some venom. “I am uneasy about everything-because everything seems to be falling apart in a most unpleasant way. I am beginning to wish that we had never met Chaise. Or let ourselves by hypnotized by all the money he offered.”

I was very much in agreement-but felt that I had to at least attempt to be cheerful.”

“It is going to work out-and we will be rich. But first, as you said, what do we do about Bolivar?”

“I’ll be just fine,” he said. At the very same moment the door chime chimed to contradict his words. “But I think that I’ll be finer if I step into the other room.”

“The police are a very thorough bunch on this backwoods planet,” I said. “So I think that you will be finer still-if you step out onto the balcony instead of the bedroom and hang out about there. I smell trouble.”

My prognostic sniffer was indeed right. Three large and burleys filled the hall outside when I opened the door.

“This is a private party and you are not invited,” I said and closed the door. Or rather tried to, but a large shoe stopped me.

“National Security Police,” the lead goon said, flashing an ornate badge with a hologram of a striking snake. “We are coming in.”

“Without permission or a search warrant?”

“None needed. Not on Fetorr. In the name of justice we have the right enter any premises that we deem suspect.”

“We are having a bit of a party here-what is suspect about that?”

“You are,” he snarled, pushing me in the chest. Normally I would have dropped him for this, but now I was just playing for time. I moved back hesitantly and he smiled. “You were in the presence of a known criminal early this evening.”

“That’s no crime!”

“It is if I say it is. Out of the way.”

They rushed in and I had to step aside or be trampled. Angelina sipped her wine and did not grace them for an instant by acknowledging their rude presence.

“Where is Bolivar diGriz?” the one who spoke asked in a nasty and suspicious way. Perhaps the others couldn’t talk.

“Who are you?”