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but found nothing in his stomach except digestive juices to expel.
The raw, searing throat-and-mouth bum of the internal acids had
brought him back to himself again.
He felt clearer-headed now. He was aware of his body in a
more normal sense, and the pressure areas were beginning to send
signals along his nerves in a more normal fashion-not yet as
sharp pain, but rather as deep-seated aches. Under the acid taste
lingering in his throat, he was conscious of a raging thirst, and his
eyes burned and gritted as if he had been staring into dust-filled
air, unblinkingly, for some time. Beyond this, however, his mind
was newly alert, with the abnormal alertness of someone under a
high fever- He looked down at his feet and saw the body of Hem,
still there. He looked ahead through the windshield of the moving
buggy and saw the tall black semicircle of the main Complex
dome, now partially occulting the stars ahead.
Feverishly, with a rush, the whole plan of Biset and her
underground arbites tumbled into understanding before him. Bar-
sey knew he had set forth to visit the caretaker of a dead friend's
dwelling. Now he would be on record as returning with one of the
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arbites who had shared his shipwreck-and that arbite shot to
death, while he, himself, showed two burns through him and an
empty weapon at hand. Plainly, from what Mara had said, he had
been intended by Biset to be a corpse like Hem by the time the
buggy rolled automatically into its stall at the main Complex.
That meant an investigation by the World Police-the only
ones competent to investigate in a case where an Adelman was
suspected of something illegal. Biset, herself, as a fellow survivor
of the lifeship journey, would be automatically disqualified from
investigating. That meant an investigator must be applied for from
Earth, must make the trip out and spend days or weeks-weeks,
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undoubtedly, thought Giles, if the World Police were as infiltrated
with Biset's arbite underground Association members as the Po-
licewoman had claimed. Whoever was sent out would almost cer-
tainly be a member of that Association and would spin out the
investigation as long as the Association needed or wanted it spun
out.
That would give the underground the six months Paul and
Biset had mentioned, or as much time as it needed to prepare for
the wholesale slaughter of the Adelborn and the work arbites.
Giles made himself move. He managed to reach out and
switch on the voice control to the autopilot of the rock buggy.
"Change destination," he croaked at it, as the small white
light on the panel before him lit up. "Go to ... the place where the
Albenareth are. The alien area in the main Complex. I want to
locate an Albenareth Captain...."
For a moment he doubted that his words had conveyed any
clear and adequate order to the autopilot. But then, abruptly, the
vehicle altered direction. Giles fell back in his seat, panting. There
was nothing to do now but wait-and hope that this new destina-
tion he had ordered was not too far away in terms of time.
The buggy rocked and jolted along. After a while, he was able
to see that they were close to the high metal wall that was the base
of the main Complex dome, and running along parallel to it. They
would be headed toward a different entrance from the one at which
they had originally emerged. After some fifteen minutes, Giles saw
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such an entrance approaching. But the doors of it did not dilate as
they got close, and his buggy went on by. He lapsed into a state
that was half doze, half actual unconsciousness.
The buggy stopped with a jerk.
He roused himself and looked around. He was already inside
the dome, in a parking area. Some twenty meters from him was a
building that seemed to grow out of the dome itself, and in a wall
of the building facing him was a transparent section beyond which
the head of an Albenareth looked at him. The thin mouth moved^
as if speaking.
Belatedly, Giles punched on his intercom.
"Repeat, your business here?" an alien voice was asking in
the human tongue. "You have arrived and flashed a recognition
signal, but you have not answered my question. What do you
want?"
"Sorry . .." said Giles thickly. "Intercom off. Sorry. I want to
... I want to meet with the Captain Rayumung again."
"Which Captain Rayumung? We have a number of individ-
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uals here of that rank and honor."
"The . . . Captain Rayumung who lost her ship in an explo-
sion . . . who came to this world in a lifeship with a number of
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