Newhouse did as he'd been asked. Captain Smith had been wearing an antigrav harness under her robes. Since none of the three was obviously carrying a sword, axe, or spear, it had been assumed that they were unarmed, except, perhaps, for a small dagger or the like, which was perfectly permissible. But the Oassi had no idea what the term "miniaturization" meant. Newhouse, Pemberton, and Smith were all armed to the teeth.
Even so, an antigravity unit required extra clothing to cover it; the uniforms of Pemberton and Newhouse were a little too close-fitting to hide it completely.
Captain Smith was better than her word. Less than two minutes later, she opened the door and handed Newhouse the harness. The lieutenant put it on and walked over to the narrow, slit-like window that looked out on the courtyard.
Dynak was a moonless planet, and, at this time of year, the stars that might have shone in the night sky were obscured by the black blanket of a nearby dark nebula, a great dust-cloud that shrouded most of the sky.
Except for the flickering torches in the courtyard below and the glow of candlelight from the windows of the citadel, the walls of the citadel were in utter darkness. Certainly the guards forty feet below couldn't see a man crawling along the walls, and they probably wouldn't believe their eyes if they did.
Newhouse then adjusted the power unit to a point where he only weighed a few ounces and lifted his feet off the floor, doubling his knees up against his abdomen. Since his mass remained the same, he drifted downwards very slowly under the slight pull of attenuated gravity.
"You're not completely neutralized," Captain Smith then pointed out.
"I don't want to be," Newhouse said. "I've got to have a little weight so that I can get a fingertip purchase on that rough wall. Otherwise, I'm likely to push myself away from it, and I don't want to use the air jet unless I have to." He landed lightly on his heels and then stood up slowly, so as not to push himself off the floor again. He slid, rather than walked, back to the window. "Bye, kiddies," he said. "Save me a sandwich." And he eased himself out the window.
He was gone longer than he had thought he would be. It took him nearly an hour to find which of the windows in the royal wing opened into Boccaccio di Vino's bedroom, moving himself carefully across the stone wall of the citadel, avoiding windows, staying out of sight of the patrols that walked the upper parapets, and keeping his ears open for the distinctive sound of the Earthman's voice. He even found time to curse the nomadic tribes that roamed the grass plains to the south because their very existence kept the city of Oassi in a perpetual state of preparedness against raids, which meant that there were lookouts and guards all over the place and he had to be extra cautious.