Dirzed shrugged. “The Statisticalists, of course. The wrapper was stolen from the Reincarnation Research Institute; so was the case. The Constabulary are working on it.” Dirzed shrugged again.
The dome, about a hundred and fifty feet in width and some fifty in height, stood among the trees ahead. It was almost invisible from any distance; the concrete dome was of mottled green and gray concrete, trees grew so close as to brush it with their branches, and the little pavilion on the flattened top was roofed with translucent green plastic. As the airboat came in, a couple of men in Assassins’ garb emerged from the pavilion to meet them.
“Marnik, stay at the controls,” Verkan Vall directed. “I’ll send Olirzon up for you if I want you. If there’s any trouble, take off for Assassins’ Hall and give the code word, then come back with twice as many men as you think you’ll need.”
Dirzed raised his eyebrows over this. “I hadn’t known the Assassin-President had given you a code word, Lord Virzal,” he commented. “That doesn’t happen very often.”
“The Assassin-President has honored me with his friendship,” Verkan Vall replied noncommittally, as he, Dirzed and Olirzon climbed out of the airboat. Marnik was holding it an unobtrusive inch or so above the flat top of the dome, away from the edge of the pavilion roof.
The two Assassins greeted him, and a man in upper-servants’ garb and wearing a hunting knife and a long hunting pistol approached.
“Lord Virzal of Verkan? Welcome to Starpha Dome. The Lady Dallona awaits you below.”
Verkan Vall had never been in an Akor-Neb dwelling dome, but a description of such structures had been included in his hypno-mech indoctrination. Originally, they had been the standard structure for all purposes; about two thousand elapsed years ago, when nationalism had still existed on the Akor-Neb Sector, the cities had been almost entirely under ground, as protection from air attack. Even now, the design had been retained by those who wished to live apart from the towering city units, to preserve the natural appearance of the landscape. The Starpha hunting lodge was typical of such domes. Under it was a circular well, eighty feet in depth and fifty in width, with a fountain and a shallow circular pool at the bottom. The storerooms, kitchens and servants’ quarters were at the top, the living quarters at the bottom, in segments of a wide circle around the well, back of balconies.
“Tarnod, the gamekeeper,” Dirzed performed the introductions. “And Erarno and Kirzol, Assassins.”
Verkan Vall hooked fingers and clapped shoulders with them. Tarnod accompanied them to the lifter tubes—two percent positive gravitation for descent and two percent negative for ascent—and they all floated down the former, like air-filled balloons, to the bottom level.