Billy Neville hit the ground not four miles from the designated skyport. A commandeered copter took him to it just in time to see the squat passenger vessel jetting down into her berth. He looked anxiously about the station. There was not a uniformed man in sight except a couple of traffic men of the local detachment. He needed help and lots of it.
Neville had no choice but to play his trump card. It was a thing reserved only for grave emergencies. But he considered the present one grave. He took his police whistle out of his vest pocket and shrilled it three times. It was a supersonic whistle—its tone only audible to first-class detectives having tuned vibrators strapped over their hearts. To sound a triple supersonic call was the police equivalent of sending out an eighth alarm fire-call. But Neville blew the blast. Then waited.
A man strolled up and asked the way to Newark.
"Wait," said Neville, only he did not use words but merely lifted his right eye-brow slightly. It was not long before four others came up and craved directions as to how to get to Newark. He lit a cigarette as they gathered around.
"The ship Fanfare has just landed—out of Callisto with wayside stops in the Belt. There is a passenger carrying three bags covered by gray canvas. Tail him. Tail everybody he contacts. If you need help, ask local HQ. If they can't give enough, ask Luna. But whatever you do, don't make a pinch. This guy is small fry. My code number is...."
Neville knew better than to flash a badge on these men, even if he was in uniform. Both badges and uniforms could be counterfeited. But he knew that they knew from his procedure that he was a department agent.
"There he comes," he warned, and promptly ducked behind a fruit stall and walked away.
Headquarters readily gave him a rocket and a driver to take him to Lunar Base. He had no trouble breaking down the barriers between him and the second most important man in the I.P.—the first being the General-General in Charge of Operations. The man he wanted to see was the Colonel-General, Head of the Bureau of Identification.
Neville allowed himself to be ushered into the office, but it was not without trepidation, for old Col.-General O'Hara had a vile reputation as a junior-baiter. He was not at all reassured when he heard the door click to behind him with the click which meant to his trained ears that the door would never be opened again without the pressure of a foot on a certain secret pedal concealed somewhere in the room. Nor did the appearance of the man behind the desk do anything to relieve his own lack of ease.