I get into the spaceport administrative area about once in twenty or so hours. Oughourlian is a somewhat less frequent visitor. The others had never been there, and they were visibly awed by all the gleaming glass and brightwork, and the soft lights and the thick carpets. All Port Sandor ought to look like this, I thought. It could, and maybe now it might, after a while.
There were six chairs in a semicircle facing Guido Fieschi's desk, and three men sitting behind it. Fieschi, who had changed clothes and washed since the last time I saw him, sat on the extreme right. Captain Courtland, with his tight mouth under a gray mustache and the quadruple row of medal ribbons on his breast, was on the left. In the middle, the seat of honor, was Bish Ware, looking as though he were presiding over a church council to try some rural curate for heresy.
As soon as Joe Kivelson saw him, he roared angrily:
"There's the dirty traitor who sold us out! He's the worst of the lot; I wouldn't be surprised if—"
Bish looked at him like a bishop who has just been contradicted on a point of doctrine by a choirboy.
"Be quiet!" he ordered. "I did not follow this man you call Ravick here to this ... this running-hot-and-cold Paradise planet, and I did not spend five years fraternizing with its unwashed citizenry and creating for myself the role of town drunkard of Port Sandor, to have him taken from me and lynched after I have arrested him. People do not lynch my prisoners."
"And who in blazes are you?" Joe demanded.
Bish took cognizance of the question, if not the questioner.
"Tell them, if you please, Mr. Fieschi," he said.
"Well, Mr. Ware is a Terran Federation Executive Special Agent," Fieschi said. "Captain Courtland and I have known that for the past five years. As far as I know, nobody else was informed of Mr. Ware's position."