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.But he did not want to feel curious about what such a line of inquiry entailed.Idly he switched on the projector again.A picture formed on the screen, snatched from out of near-time.With relief he saw a cloaked and hooded Hebron, a few minutes in the future, depart from his laboratory.Exuding an odour of sweat laden with pheromonic musk, Eystrach Orm moved down the line of young men bent over their monitor desks.As he passed, each junior policeman felt a tremor of terror mingled with lust.Everyone who worked in that department had to come to terms with Orm’s tastes.He liked young men, but he liked them to be heterosexual, and to overpower their natural repugnance for his advances.Dismay, horror and unwilling but irresistible attraction were for him an indispensable sexual recipe.To this end he used not only his rank, not only his impressive physical presence, but also crudely chemical means.The scent he wore contained concentrated organic compounds that overcame almost any male’s resistance.‘Sir.’‘Yes?’ Orm strode to a monitor who had raised his arm.He bent to the screen, placing his hands on the youth’s shoulders and squeezing slightly as he brought his head close to his.‘Look, sir.’ The policeman was twisting slide-dials, trying to sort the signal he had traced from the rest of the city’s traffic and bring it up on the screen.Orm frowned at the flickering, fading pattern in pastel colors that was brought to the screen.‘It looks like noise.Probably just reflection.’This section prided itself on being able to intercept any beamed signal in the city.‘That’s what I thought it was, sir – a double reflection, it’s so faint.The general traffic completely hides it normally.But—’‘Yes?’ Orm’s hand was fondling his subordinate’s neck.‘It has a constant level, sir.It must be a deliberate output.’‘But it’s too low.It isn’t a useful signal.’‘No sir.But I can’t understand its multiplexing either.’‘Keep on it.Let me know if you need a filter-booster.’‘Yes sir.’Orm’s hand dropped from the policeman’s neck.He prowled away, left the monitor room and came to where the outworld reports were being sifted.‘Well?’Seated at a datagrator was an officer wearing silver braid.His eyes looked dazed as he rapidly absorbed the results that were being fed to his adplant through a silver nerve in his thumb.At the same time a broad-angle holdisplay was before him, though Orm couldn’t see it from where he stood.The officer came out of his near-trance.‘It’s shaping up, sir.Two positive placings, a significant curve of probables over the year.It looks as if he’s moving in this direction.’‘Eh? The cheeky bastard.’ Orm studied a dataplate the officer handed him.The difficulty in these cases sprang from the total lack of migration or trade controls on nearly every planet of the econosphere.A man could land and take off without anybody bothering him, and could even pay his shipground dues without leaving a record of his identity.Despite that, detective work was straighforward.One simply collected, through a far-flung plethora of spies, informers and data machines, a billion or more small facts which were analysed statistically.It always brought results, given enough time.Amazingly trivial objects could be tracked, such as items of cargo.‘Do you think he could actually be here?’ Orm asked wonderingly.‘In Kathundra?’ It seemed irresponsibly reckless – unless the desperate shipkeeper had a reason good enough to risk it.He thought of the mysterious minimum-power signals the monitor had picked up.There could be a connection with the physical reliance the ex-colonnader was supposed to have on his converted cargo ship.The prisoner Romrey had spoken of its unusual communication system.If Boaz was already in Kathundra, then Orm’s quarry was trapped.‘We might snuff out this one sooner than we thought,’ he said with a purr of pleasure.He smiled, feeling a touch of excitement, the excitement of a chase nearing its end.Excitement caused him to sweat more, and as his evaporating perspiration cast extra pheromonic volatiles into the air, his sexual presence became all the stronger.Moving with the burly grace of a puma, he padded back to the monitor room.9‘Look.’Captain Joachim Boaz awoke.He was alone in the ship.Mace had not been there for over three days, but that was no surprise.Her absences were becoming longer.He did not answer.But he felt, impinging on his brain, one end of a very long stick.That stick was a spy-beam that extended seven miles or more.The other end of the beam showed him Mace.At first he wondered why the ship had roused him just to show him one more of her erotic episodes.It was a good part of a minute before he realized that this time something else was happening.Mace was bound to a chair by clasps.Nearby two men sat, wearing the loose flowing garments associated with the high-ranking and leisured classes.It was the apparel that had confused Boaz at first.The men did not look like policemen.One leaned toward Mace, listening intently.And Mace was talking.It was evident she was drugged.Drugs that could get a person eagerly to tell all, on any subject, without inhibition or hint of falsehood, were legion.‘What’s the range?’ he asked.The answer was what he expected: just over seven miles.‘Show me where.’The ship fed a route map to his brain, storing it in his adplant.Boaz wasted no time in getting ready.He pulled on his modsuit, and went to the storeroom.He selected a hand gun and a cutting beamer, both of which he tucked into two of the many recesses of the suit [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]