And as long as I had to depend on someone else to do my work for me, I was going to be just the teenchiest bit concerned about whether they were doing it properly.
I decided it was time to do my best to imitate a cosmic-ray particle, and put on a little speed through the corridors that ran through the subsurface of Ceres.
My vac suit was in my hotel room. One of the other agents had picked it up from my flitterboat and packed it carefully into a small attaché case. I'd planned my circuit so that I'd be near the hotel when things came to the proper boil, so I did a lot of diving, breaking all kinds of traffic regulations in the process.
I went to my room, grabbed the attaché case, checked it over quickly—never trust another man to check your vac suit for you—and headed for the surface.
Nobody paid any attention to me when I walked out of the air lock onto the spacefield. There were plenty of people moving in and out, going to and from their ships and boats. It wasn't until I reached the edge of the field that I realized that I had over-played my hand with Colonel Brock. It was only by the narrowest hair, but that had been enough to foul up my plans. There were guards surrounding the perimeter with radar search beams.
As I approached, one of the guards walked toward me and made a series of gestures with his left hand—two fingers up, fist, two fingers up, fist, three fingers up. I set my suit phone for 223; the guy's right hand was on the butt of his stun gun.
"Sorry, sir," came his voice. "We can't allow anyone to cross the field perimeter. Emergency."
"My name's Oak," I said tiredly. "Daniel Oak. What is going on here?"
He came closer and peered at me. Then: "Oh, yes, sir; I recognize you. We're ... uh—" He waved an arm around. "Uh ... looking for Miss Ravenhurst." His voice lowered conspiratorially. I could tell that he was used to handling the Ravenhurst girl with silence and suede gloves.
"Up there?" I asked.