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The two rooms were not luxurious, but MacMaine hadn't expected that they would be. The walls were a flat metallic gray, unadorned and windowless. The ceilings and floors were simply continuations of the walls, except for the glow-plates overhead.
These were the men of the Permanent Headquarters Staff the military group that controlled, not only the armed forces of Keroth, but the civil government as well. "What's this?" MacMaine hissed in a whispered aside, in English. "Pearr up, my prrotherr," Tallis answered softly, in the same tongue, "all is well."
I want you to take a look at him so that you can testify that we didn't shoot him or anything." Obediently, the two guards headed for the cell, and MacMaine fell in behind them. "You couldn't of shot him, sir," said the second guard confidently. "We would of heard the shot." "Besides," said the other, "it don't matter much. He was going to be gassed day after tomorrow."
Tallis shook his head. "You sent no message, Sepastian. You were watched. You know that. You could not have sent a message." "You saw me send it," MacMaine said. "So did everyone else in the fleet. Hokotan helped me send it made all the arrangements at my orders. But because you do not understand the workings of the Earthman's mind, you didn't even recognize it as a message.
The High Commander had closed his eyes, and he looked as if he had gone to sleep. There was more formality. Through it all, MacMaine stood at rigid attention, flexing his calf muscles occasionally to keep the blood flowing in his legs. He had no desire to disgrace himself by passing out in front of the Court.
He took the dropchute down to the basement of the building, to the small prison section where the alien officer was being held. The guards saluted nonchalantly as he went in. The routine questioning sessions were nothing new to them. MacMaine turned the lock on the prisoner's cell door and went in. Then he came to attention and saluted the Kerothi general.
By the time they realize what has happened, it will be too late." "You're giving us the ship, too?" Tallis looked at him wonderingly. "And eight prisoners?" "Nine," said MacMaine. "I'll hand over my sidearm to you just before your men come through the air lock." General Tallis sat down in the other small chair, his eyes still on the Earthman.
In baiting a rat trap, you have to use real cheese because an imitation won't work. Of course, MacMaine thought to himself, you can always poison the cheese, but let's not carry the analogy too far. All right, then. How to hit the traps? It took him half an hour to devise a completely wacky and unorthodox way of hitting the holes in the enemy advance.
He paused and appeared to listen to the silence in the room before going on. "Stand at ease until the High Commander looks at you again," Tallis said in a low aside. This was definitely the pause for adjusting to surprise. It seemed interminable, though it couldn't have been longer than a minute later that the High Commander dropped his gaze from the ceiling to MacMaine.
It was a standard opening for breaking the pause of adjustment, but it presaged good news rather than bad. "I await your word," MacMaine said. Even after all this time, he still felt vaguely proud of his ability to handle the subtle idioms of Kerothic. "I think," Tallis said carefully, "that you may be offered a commission in the Kerothi Space Forces."
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