"Maybe. Maybe not. We'll have to check, that's all."
"Are you sure that stuff is to revive the suspendees?" I persisted. "Couldn't it just have been someone wandering down here by mistake during the commotion and—"
"And carrying a hypodermic needle by mistake, and armed with a gas gun by mistake. Sure, Wills."
The expediters returned and Lawton looked at them sourly.
They shook their heads. He shrugged. "Tell you what, Wills," he said. "Let's go back to the office and—"
He stopped, peering down the corridor. The last of our expediters was coming toward us—not alone.
"Well, what do you know!" said Lawton. "Wills, it looks like he's got your fugitive!"
The expediter was dragging a small writhing figure behind him; we could hear whines and pleading. For a heart-stopping second, I thought it was Rena, against all logic.
But it wasn't. It was a quavery ancient, a bleary-eyed wreck of a man, long past retirement age, shabbily dressed and obviously the sort who cut his pension policies to the barest minimum—and then whined when his old age was poverty-stricken.
Lawton asked me: "This the man?"