Someone inside was calling for help!
If I had been a hardened conspirator, I would never have stopped to investigate. But, of course, I wasn't. I pushed the door aside, against resistance, and peered in.
And that was my third major shock in the past quarter of an hour, because, writhing feebly just inside the door, staring up at me with an expression of pain and anger, was Luigi Zorchi.
He propped himself up on his hands, the rags of his plastic cocoon dangling from his shoulders.
"Oho," he said faintly. "The apprentice assassin again."
I found water for him at a bubble-fountain by the ramp; he drank at least a quart before I made him stop. Then he lay back, panting, staring at me. Except for the shreds of plastic and the bandages around the stumps of his legs, he was nude, like all the other suspendees inside their sacks. The luxuriant hair had already begun to grow back.
He licked his lips. More vigorous now, he snarled: "The plan fails, does it not? You think you have Zorchi out of the way, but he will not stay there."
I said, "Zorchi, I'm sorry about all this I—I know more now than I did yesterday."
He gaped. "Yesterday? Only yesterday?" He shook his head. "I would have thought a month, at the least. I have been crawling, assassin. Crawling for days, I thought." He tried to shrug—not easy, because he was leaning on his elbows. "Very well, Weels. You may take me back to finish the job now. Sticking me with a needle and putting me on ice will not work. Perhaps you should kill me outright."