The door before Baxter's desk opened, and Charlie and Foster came in. Clatclit and I ducked back from the pane, and listened, holding our breaths.
"About time!" Baxter growled. "Since you two are alone, I assume this was another wild goose chase!"
His fist slammed down atop the crumpled shirt, and I caught his meaning. Apparently, when they'd discovered my cell empty, they'd tracked my trail by whatever electronic device followed up the location of that rigged garment, and had been led miles astray in the Martian desert, finding only the empty blouse at the end of their quest.
"Yes and no, sir," Charlie said. "It's—it's the weirdest thing."
"Well? What?" Baxter snapped angrily.
Charlie, while replying, was unhitching a sort of tanklike apparatus from his back, from which a flexible tube ran into the end of the pistol at his belt. With the surprise of sudden memory, I recognized one of the weapons of the earlier settlers at Marsport: a sugarfoot-repelling water pistol, with three-gallon ammunition tanks.
"We got out the pack, sir, when we returned."
"Yes, yes," Baxter interrupted violently. "You took the dogs and trailed Delvin by scent from his cell. Fine. But did you find him!"
"We had trouble, sir. It was outside the crater, and the dogs needed air-booster muzzles, which cut down their sense of smell. And the trail was spread way out, too, as if Delvin had only touched the ground every thirty feet or so!"
I remembered Clatclit's bounding transportation from the cell, and had to smile. The dogs must have been starting and stopping every five minutes over that sporadic trail.