And still Foote had no idea what the special project was... or rather had been, For now, it would appear, the project had been properly aborted. Evidently it had not involved great numbers of members; perhaps Adams was the last, excluding Brose himself, of course.

That clanged loudly in Foote's professional mind. Adams, a part of the project, now under the protection of Footemen commandos, might under the stress of these circumstances be persuaded to blab to one of Foote's expert personnel the nature of the special project... a venture, Foote had no doubt, which was intended to make Runcible the target. Runcible was to have been the slaughtered goat, but--it had not quite worked out that way. The 'dozers in Southern Utah continued; Runcible had not been interrupted. But Brose had been: completely so.

In fact Foote could not recall ever having seen Brose--or anybody--so messy in their emotionality. So out of control. Foote thought, _This special project must have been a critical endeavor. Could it conceivably have been directed at the absolute and total elimination of Louis Runcible? In other words, could we have witnessed here the instigation of the final showdown between Brose and the fabulous empirebuilding conapt constructor? Instigation--and rapid collapse!_

_My lord_, Foote thought mildly, _my field rep, in talking to Louis Runcible, and I myself in vidphone conversation with him, obtained no impression that he was preparing such enormously precise and effective steps by which to protect himself. Louise Runcible had seemed utterly unaware--even unconcerned--as to what was being prepared to ensnare him... how then could he have responded so decisively, and in such short a time?_

And Runcible had not comprehended the meaning of the death of his employee, Robert Hig; that had been apparent on the vidphone.

Therefore, Foote realized, it is possible, even probable, that Hig and then the Yance-man Lindblom, and before that the Yance-man-woman Arlene Davidson--none of these were dispatched at Runcible's instigation, or even with his knowledge.

The safety of Louis Runcible is being shored up, Foote decided, but not by the man himself.

An additional figure unglimpsed by me, by Runcible, by Brose-- the additional figure--has entered the arena and is competing for power.

He thought, I'm glad I'm content with what I have. Because, had I begun to overreach myself, as Brose has done in this special project, I might have found myself the target--_and the marksman, if this is accurate_.

Within the hour Webster Foote descended to the roof of the dead Yance-man's villa. Shortly, followed by his two expert leadies who lugged the heavy cases containing his detection equipment, Webster Foote made his way down the deep-pile carpeted hail to the top floor of the villa. Ahead he made out a forlorn sight: a phalanx of alert leadies, guarding a closed door. Within lay the body of their dominus, the lord of the demesne. And, if the type VI leady in charge were correct--that leady still keeping watch outdoors in the night darkness-- the murderer had been trapped within the room, at the spot at which the killing had taken place.

Thus, Foote reflected, does the death rattle function. History has proven, tragically, that one cannot, no matter how highly placed, insure oneself against assassination. But one can threaten--and carry out the threat--_that the killer will be trapped_. At the instant of Verne Lindblom's death the machinery of apprehension, encircling the killer, had gone into operation, and so it could be presumed, as the type VI leady so did, that when he, Webster Foote, opened the bedroom door he would face not only a corpse (he hoped unmangled) but an armed, professional assassin as well--ready to fight it out to save his life.

Foote came to a halt before the phalanx of leadies, who, loyal dogwise, waited, guarded in dignified silence. Turning to his own two leadies he said, "A weapon." He pondered as they set down their heavy loads, opened the cases, waited for a more exact instruction. "One of the ephemeral nerve gasses," Foote decided. "To produce dysfunction temporarily. I doubt the individual within has an oxygen tank and mask in his possession." One of his two leadies obediently handed him the long, slender cylinder with its intricate tip. "Thank you," Foote said, and, passing through the phalanx of silent Lindblom leadies he reached the closed bedroom door.

Presenting the tip of the cylinder to the wooden surface of the door--clearly the door had been lovingly salvaged from some old mansion--he pondered for a moment as to the vanity of life, the fact that all flesh was grass and so forth, and then squeezed the trigger.

The tip of the cylinder rotated at high velocity, bored in an instant through the wooden but solid, not hollow-core, door, broke through, sealed the hole with plastic slime so that none of the gas could back up to affect the weapon's user, and then, on its own cycle, shot a fragile sphere of neurologically disjunctive synapse-depotentiating gas into the room beyond; the sphere landed in the darkness of the room and no power on earth could have intervened to prevent its fracturing; the distinctive noise meant to be audible reached Webster Foote and he then examined his round pocket watch and prepared to wait. The gas would be active for five minutes and then, due to its own constituents, would turn benign. Entry, in safety, could then be made.

Five minutes passed. "Now, sir," one of his leadies said.

Webster Foote withdrew the cylinder, returned it to the nearer of the two leadies, who placed it in the carrying case once more. However, it was within the realm of possibility that the killer had been provident, had come equipped to counter this weapon with a neutralizing agent. So, from the case, Foote selected a funny-gun, as an offensive weapon, and then, after some deep thought, the kind that tended, over past circumstances, to save his hide, he asked for a plastic protective shield which he unfolded, draped awkwardly but effectively over himself; one of his leadies assisted him so that at last the shield, capelike, covered him except for his shins and English wool socks and Londonfabricated Oxfords. Then, carrying the funny-gun, which was not funny at all, he again passed through the phalanx of Lindblom leadies. And--opened the bedroom door.

"A flare," he ordered instantly. The room was dark; no time to grope for--grope and miss--the switch.

One of his two superbly trained ieadies without hesitation obligingly lobbed a safe-style indoor flare into the bedroom; the flare lit up, a warm, comforting yellow light that did not dazzle but clearly illuminated each object. There was the bed; on it, under his covers, lay the dead man, Verne Lindblom, eyes shut. Peaceful, as if unaware; as if he never had been informed of, made acquainted with, the fact of his painless and instantaneous death. Because this was obvious to Foote; the relaxed supine state of the dead man indicated that one of the tried and true, long-tested, much-used cyanide instruments had been employed. Probably a homeostatic dart directly into the brain or the heart or the upper ganglia of the spinal column. _Merciful, anyhow_, Foote said to himself, and he glanced around for what he anticipated: a completely helpless adult male, unable to move or talk, twitching in paroxysms of arrhythmial neurological reflex arc activity; unable to protect himself or escape.

But the bedroom contained no such man. In that or any other state. The dead man, peaceful, under his covers, was alone in the room--he and Webster Foote: no one else. And, as Foote made his way cautiously into the adjoining room, through which entry, by the window, had originally been made, he saw no one there either. Behind him his two trained leadies followed; he saw no one there and they saw no one there and they at once began opening side doors, poking into a bathroom with wondrous mosaiclike tile, then two closets.