Kielgaard said, "The staff going over those books thinks there is some sort of an arrangement by which a 'war ruler' takes over absolute power in an emergency. What would be a better way to take over the planet than to get control of this War Ruler and then provoke an emergency?"
Dan studied the purple oval on the map. "Yes. But what do we do about it?"
"The first of your reinforcements will be coming down tonight. If you can get near that control center and plant a few transceivers, we might be able to make a good deal of trouble for anyone who may have seized it."
"I'll do my best," said Dan. He got up, put most of the maps and folders into a locker, and bought a ticket for Level 10, Section 4. As he turned, he noticed two men standing about twenty feet away, talking. On impulse, Dan went, not to the block that would take him to Level 10, but instead toward the station that his pamphlet had told him would take him to Section 6 of the same level he was on. As he rounded a corner and strode up a deserted corridor, he stooped and slid a mataform unit into the space between a waste container and the wall.
An instant later, he was back beside the posters where he had hidden a transceiver earlier.
Two men were walking in the same direction he had gone.
Dan followed them till they vanished, walking very rapidly now, around another corner.
He picked up the mataform transceiver and looked around for the blocky structure with the big number "10" over it. He saw it, after a moment, near the wall with the lights and moving letters on it.
"Kielgaard," he thought, "what do you suppose that wall is?"
"We think it's a sort of abbreviated classified ad arrangement."