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"There's not a mark of suspicion entered against the Childress Barber College. But here's a possibility for getting you in. The barber college employs one secretary, female. Now, if you could take her place...." Maya smiled. "I might as well apply as a barber student," she said. "You propose to remove a trusted member of their own group from their midst and replace her with a complete unknown?"
Having determined this, she planned her course of action. Near the end of her first month at work, she chose her time one day when Childress was downtown, leaving her alone in the business office. The afternoon classes were in full swing. Taking along a filled-out order form as an excuse, Maya walked quickly down the corridor that stretched across the front of the building.
"None to Solis?" asked Childress in surprise. "No, sir, nor to Phoenicis, either," answered Fancher. "They're both so far, and Solis is a resort, where they might be easier to detect. We're using both public transport and private groundcars.
The three men who stood by a table in the back lobby of the Childress Barber College and checked off the departure of the men at regularly spaced intervals were as different in appearance as they were in their positions in the Order of the Phoenix.
All of them so far have reported safely through the flower shop, except these last two, so the government evidently hasn't thrown a ring around the building yet." "And I don't think they will, either," growled Childress. "I tell you, it's all unnecessary." "Are things going smoothly here?" asked the Chief. "Yes, sir," replied Fancher.
"I could communicate with them in a fashion something I was never able to do before and they were able to write the name of the Childress Barber College so I could read it. But they evidently don't differentiate our dome cities by name. I had no idea the college was here in Mars City until your men contacted me; I just assumed it was at Solis Lacus."
"The Childress Barber College" read the neatly lettered sign above the door. Maya's landlady, moon-faced Mrs. Chan, had pointed out Oxvane Childress to her as he left the building one day: a big man, comfortably stomached, with a heavy brown beard which, even at that distance, she could see was shot with gray. As innocent as you please.
Fancher Laddigan made his way down a long dim corridor in the rear portion of the Childress Barber College, in Mars City's eastern quarter. He stopped and hesitated, with some trepidation, before an unmarked door near the end of the corridor. Completely bald, bespectacled and well up in years, Fancher looked like a clerk and he had the instincts of a clerk.
"Why why, there's no one there right now," said Childress, taken aback. "I think it would look extremely peculiar to any investigator if you weren't there, frantically trying to locate a new secretary," said the Chief quietly. Childress left, in confusion. The Chief turned to Dark. "I think Fancher's handling this very well without my help," he said.
There had been three of them during the morning, two arriving by groundcar and one by copter, at three different chateaus. She had driven to each one and circumspectly inspected the new guest, but none had been anyone she recognized from the Childress Barber College. In a way, she wished she had yielded to Nuwell's importunities. There was much more of interest to do in Mars City.
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