“Here,” said the Arkadian, half regretting that he wore no weapon. If this man were of the police—but no! Events could not have marched that fast. “What is it?”
“Your pardon, Duke Harald. I am Cam Hardy. A public runner, in the service of the Esper Institute. My number,” he touched his cap badge, “is 4063. I have an urgent message for you from the adept, Master Elwyn.”
“Oh,” said Duke Harald flatty. “Right—come in.” And the door slid back into its recess as he released the force lock. He took the folded slip of heavy paper, read it with expressionless features.
“No answer,” he said then, signing the message book. Then waited while the runner disappeared along the corridor.
Did this change anything, he wondered; this sudden summons to a meeting he had decided to request? To beard the lion in his den was one thing. But if the lion asked you in, what then?
There was one precaution he could take. Closing the door again, he folded Master Elwyn’s message into the smallest possible compass, and sealed it—together with the coded spacegram—into a tamper-proof capsule which he marked with the address of the Arkadian embassy. That would be sufficient information for Count Godfrey’s alert old brain, he thought, as he dropped the metal egg into the automatic pneumo-tube. Slower, but surer and more private than the phones, the controls of the tube system could hardly have been altered over night.
And now—Master Elwyn!
“Please be seated, your grace,” said the adept, when Duke Harald had presented himself. Master Elwyn was, the Arkadian had noticed, always studiously careful about the use of titles and terms of courtesy.
“Thank you, Master Elwyn.” Duke Harald was as courteous in his turn; although he could not altogether bring himself to do as Terrans did, and address the other simply as “Master.”
“You have faced me with a problem of some delicacy,” the white-haired adept remarked without preamble. His intelligent old eyes glowed solemnly at Duke Harald. From apparently nowhere he produced—and with something of the air of a conjuror—a battered little plastic cube. Less than half an inch it measured on its sole unbroken side. It looked as though a grinding heel had crushed it under foot.