"Is there any suspicion that you are working with me?" he asked. "If so, then this arrangement must be broken; I can't ruin your career, too."
The bean-sized amplifier imbedded so cunningly in the living bone at his right temple vibrated lightly from the mocking laughter.
"I think they do, Falcon," Val Varga said lightly. "But it doesn't matter; somebody has to do the undercover work—and I happen to be in a position where I can do it with the least suspicion." The voice softened. "Careers aren't important, anyway. I seem to remember that Dad had quite a reputation as a bio-chemist, until the Food Administrators decided his work threatened their dictatorial monopoly. And as a Commander of the IP, you were slated to go rather high."
Curt Varga grinned, and suddenly all of the deadly grimness was gone from his tanned face, and there was only the laughter in his cool grey eyes and the hint of a swashbuckling swagger to the tilt of his head to betoken the man.
"OQ!" he said inaudibly into the amplifier unit. "Now, give me a few facts."
"Well," Val's voice steadied, "the IP is still searching for the Falcon's base; they've got direct orders from Vandor to smash it within a month, Earth time. The situation is getting rather desperate; gardens have been found on half a dozen worlds, and the revenue from sale of vitamins and energy tablets has fallen alarmingly. Unless the base is found and destroyed, the IP is due for a general shake-up in command and personnel."
"Hold it!" Curt said brusquely, glanced at the Martian waiter who padded along the wall toward him.
The waiter, grotesquely-chested, round-headed, with his antennae curled on either side of his great single eye, threaded his way through the tables, stood solicitously over the Falcon's table. His right antennae uncurled, its tip lightly darting out to touch the Earthman's wrist.
"Another cahnde," Curt Varga said loudly. "And a pulnik capsule."
"Five IP agents just entered," the Martian said, the nerve impulse emanating from the antennae and travelling along Curt's arm to his brain, where the impulse was changed into familiar English. "I think they know you are here."