control room I'd ever seen before. Just anacceleration couch and observation instruments. Midguard explainedthat it wasn't necessary to be a pilot to run the ship; any person whoknew a smattering of astronavigation could get to his destination bysimply telling the ship what he wanted to do.
Jack Ravenhurst took in the whole thing with wide-eyed interest.
"Is the brain activated, Mr. Midguard?" she asked.
"Oh, yes. We've been educating him for the past month, pumpinginformation in as rapidly as he could record it and index it. He'sfinished with that stage now; we're just waiting for the selection ofa test pilot for the final shakedown cruise." He was looking warily atJack as he spoke, as if he were waiting for something.
Evidently, he knew what was coming. "I'd like to talk to him," Jacksaid. "It's so interesting to carry on an intelligent conversationwith a machine."
"I'm afraid that's impossible, Miss Ravenhurst," Midguard said ratherworriedly. "You see, McGuire's primed so that the first man's voice hehears will be identified as his master. It's what we call the 'chickreaction'. You know: the first moving thing a newly-hatched bird seesis regarded as the mother, and, once implanted, that order can't berescinded. We can change McGuire's orientation in that respect, butwe'd rather not have to go through that. After the test pilotestablishes contact, you can talk to him all you want."
"When will the test pilot be here?" Jack asked, still as sweet assucrodyne.
"Within a few days. It looks as though a man named Nels Bjornsen willbe our choice. You may have heard of him."
"No," she said, "but I'm sure your choice will be correct."
Midguard still felt apologetic. "Well, you know how it is, MissRavenhurst; we can't turn a delicate machine like this over to justanyone for the first trial. He has to be a man of good judgment andfast reflexes. He has to know exactly what to say and when to say it,if you follow me."
"Oh, certainly; certainly." She paused and looked thoughtful. "Ipresume you've taken precautions against anyone stealing in here andtaking control of the ship."
Midguard smiled and nodded wisely. "Certainly. Communication withMcGuire can't be established unless and until two keys are used in theactivating panel. I carry one; Colonel Brock has the other. Neitherof us will give his key up to anyone but the accredited test pilot.And McGuire himself will scream out an alarm if anyone tries to jimmythe locks. He's his own burglar alarm."
She nodded. "I see." A pause. "Well, Mr. Midguard, I think you've donea very commendable job. Thank you so much. Is there anything else youfeel I should see?"
"Well--" He was smilingly hesitant. "If there's anything else you want tosee, I'll be glad to show it to you. But you've already seenour ... ah ... _piece de resistance_, so to speak."
She glanced at her wrist. It had been over four hours since we'dstarted. "I am rather tired," Jack said. "And hungry, too. Let's callit a day and go get something to eat."
"Fine! Fine!" Midguard said. "I'll be honored to be your host, if Imay. We could have a little something at my apartment."
I knew perfectly well that he'd had a full lunch prepared and waiting.
The girl acknowledged his invitation and accepted it. Brock and Itrailed along like the bodyguards we were supposed to be. I wonderedwhether or not Brock suspected me of being more than I appeared to be.If he didn't, he was stupider than I thought; on the other hand, hecould never be sure. I wasn't worried about his finding out that I wasa United Nations agent; that was a pretty remote chance. Brock didn'teven know the United Nations Government _had_ a Secret Service; it wasunlikely that he would suspect me of being an agent of a presumablynonexistent body.
But he could very easily suspect that I had been sent to check on himand the Thurston menace, and, if he had any sense, he actually did. Iwasn't going to give him any verification of that suspicion if I couldhelp it.
* * * * *
Midguard had an apartment in the executive territory of the Vikingreservation, a fairly large place with plastic-lined walls instead ofthe usual painted nickel-iron. Very luxurious for Ceres.
The meal was served with an air of subdued pretension that madeeverybody a little stiff and uncomfortable, with the possibleexception of Jack Ravenhurst, and the definite exception of myself. Ijust listened politely to the strained courtesy that passed for smalltalk and waited for the chance I knew would come at this meal.
After the eating was all over, and we were all sitting around withcigarettes going and wine in our glasses, I gave the girl the signalwe had agreed upon. She excused herself very prettily and left theroom.
After fifteen minutes, I began to look a little worried. The bathroomwas only a room away--we were in a dining area, and the bathroom wasjust off the main bedroom--and it shouldn't have taken her that longto brush her hair and powder her face.
I casually mentioned it to Colonel Brock, and he smiled a little.
"Don't worry, Oak; even if she does walk out of this apartment, my menwill be following her wherever she goes. I'd have a report within oneminute after she left."
I nodded, apparently satisfied. "I've been relying on that," I said."Otherwise, I'd have followed her to the door."
He chuckled and looked pleased.
Ten minutes after that, even he was beginning to look a littleworried. "Maybe we'd better go check," he said. "She might have hurtherself or ... or become ill."
Midguard looked flustered. "Now, just a minute, colonel! I can't allowyou to just barge in on a young girl in the ... ah ... bathroom.Especially not Miss Ravenhurst."
Brock made his decision fast; I'll give him credit for that.
"Get Miss Pangloss on the phone!" he snapped. "She's just down thecorridor. She'll come down on your orders."
At the same time, he got to his feet and made a long jump for thedoor. He grabbed the doorpost as he went by, swung himself in a neworbit, and launched himself toward the front door. "Knock on thebathroom door, Oak!" he bawled as he left.
I did a long, low, flat dive toward the bedroom, swung left, andbrought myself up sharply next to the bathroom door. I pounded on thedoor. "Miss Ravenhurst! Jack! Are you all right?"
No answer.
Good. There shouldn't have been.
Colonel Brock fired himself into the room and braked himself againstthe wall. "Any answer?"
"No."
"My men outside say she hasn't left." He rapped sharply on the doorwith the butt of his stun gun. "Miss Ravenhurst! Is there anything thematter?"
Again, no answer.
I could see that Brock was debating on whether he should go ahead andcharge in by himself without waiting for the female executive wholived down the way. He was still debating when the woman showed up,escorted by a couple of the colonel's uniformed guards.
Miss Pangloss was one of those brisk, efficient, middle-agedcareer-women who had no fuss or frills about her. She had seen usknocking on the door, so she didn't bother to do any knocking herself.She just opened the door and went in.
The bathroom was empty.
Again, as it should be.
All hell broke loose then, with me and Brock making most of theblather. It took us nearly ten minutes to find that the only personwho had left the area had been an elderly, thin man who had beenwearing the baggy protective clothing of a maintenance man.
By that time, Jack Ravenhurst had been gone more than forty minutes.She could be almost anywhere on Ceres.
Colonel Brock was furious and so was I. I sneered openly at hisassurance that the girl couldn't leave and then got sneered back atfor letting other people do what was supposed to be my job. Thatphase only lasted for about a minute, though.
Then Colonel Brock muttered: "She must have had a plexiskin mask and awig and the maintenance clothing in her purse. As I recall, it was afairly good-sized one." He didn't say a word about how careless I hadbeen to let her put such stuff in her purse. "All right," he went on,"we'll find her."
"I'm going to look around, too," I said. "I'll keep in touch with youroff
ice." I got out of there.
* * * * *
I got to a public phone as fast as I could, punched BANning 6226, andsaid: "Marty? Any word?"
"Not yet."
"I'll call back."
I hung up and scooted out of there.
I spent the next several hours pushing my weight around all overCeres. As the personal representative of Shalimar Ravenhurst, who wasmanager of Viking Spacecraft, which was, in turn, the owner of Ceres,I had a lot of weight to push around. I had every executive on
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