The guy had been right, although he didn't know it. And the woman had been dead wrong, although she didn't know it. Chief of Security, John Henderson, had on this night of the synthi-rain, quit a little early. Had, on this not-very-busy night gotten home a little sooner than usual. About an hour and a half sooner, to be precise. He had come in through the rear lock. Had come in quietly, for he planned a little surprise for his wife. Had stood very quietly in the doorway of the darkened anteroom that led directly to the living room. And he had listened. And he had watched.
He came through the doorway. He leaned down over his wife, took the gun from her hand and laid it on a table. He leaned down once more, took the woman in his arms. There was something quite impossible to express in his eyes.
He took her to the bedroom, put her down carefully, studied the shock-stiffness of her form. He went to a wall cabinet, got a hypodermic, found an artery in the woman's arm. Her breathing at once calmed, flattened. Sleep-breathing now.
The man back in the living room was a little larger problem. He was quite heavy for his slender build. Henderson half carried, half dragged, the body out through the front lock and out to the 'copter port alongside the house.
Artie Sterling's 'copter was there. Henderson had seen it when he came home but there hadn't been any significance to it then. He stuffed the body into the freight deck. Then he carefully latched the lock shut. Registration numbers on the ship gleamed dully in the half darkness. X-13-X. "X," the unknown. "13," the ill-fated.
He went back to the house, pulled the metal lock to behind him. He stood rigidly for a long long while. Thinking.
He went over to the transmitter set in the corner of the room and looked down at it. He brought his right hand up, let it hover over the control buttons.
The room was as silent as a room can ever be.
A buzzer suddenly bracked out. It was a loud, naked, startling sound. Like a bugle in an empty church. Henderson jerked. He gulped in a trembling breath, turned, nervously wet his lips. He went over to the outside front lock and pulled it open.