Somewhere in the city was a killer with a theta bomb—if Holdreth Khain wasn't lying. And I had a hunch he was telling the truth about Zorvash Pedrik.
There were eight Damakoi legitimately in the city. All of them were known to be pro-Galactic men with the possible exception of a Damakoi by the name of Jedon Onomondo, who was still suspected of having anti-Government sentiments in spite of the fact that he had helped us in one or two minor matters.
But Jedon Onomondo had been in the city for three months or so; we'd had him tailed all that time. He couldn't have come to Earth in the last week in an indetectable spaceship.
Nevertheless, I ordered a double watch kept on him.
The next stop was to comb the city for radiation sources.
Ditherium is funny stuff. There are two kinds: positive and negative. When one kind gets near the other, the radiation given out increases as the distance between them decreases. At ten feet from each other, they give out easily detectable X-rays. Within a few inches, they flare violently in the hard gamma.
I knew that no Damakoi could carry them around unless they were encased in heavy lead; the radiation would kill him.
Even so, I started looking for radiation in the city. I had an odd hunch I'd find something.
It took several hours to go over the whole city. The normal sources, such as the power pile on Four Hundredth Street East, were quickly spotted and ruled out. But eventually we located a center of neutrino radiation in the Hotel Grenada, up on Skyline Drive.
"He's in the Hotel Grenada," I told Holdreth Khain. "Let's surprise him before he has a chance to set off that bomb."