you were sent with instructions for Mr. Durham. Will you tell us now what they were?"
Susan's face was such a blank of amazement that Durham would have laughed if the situation had not been so extremely unfunny.
"Nobody sent me with anything. Nobody even knows I came. Lloyd, are these people crazy? Are you crazy? What's going on here?"
He said, "I'm not sure myself. But I think there are only two possibilities. One, your father is a scoundrel. Two, he's a fool being used by scoundrels. Take your pick. In either case, I'm the goat."
Her white cheeks turned absolutely crimson. She tried twice to say something to Durham. Then she turned and said to the Wanbecqs, "I've had enough of this. Let me out."
They merely glanced at her and went on talking.
"You might as well relax," said Durham to her, in colloquial English, hoping the Wanbecqs could not understand it. "I'm sorry you got into this, and I'll try to get you out, but don't do anything silly."
She called him a name she had never learned in the Embassy drawing rooms. There was a manual switch recessed in the body of the taxi, high up, and sealed in with a special plastic. It said EMERGENCY on it. Susan took off her shoe and swung.
The plastic shattered. Susan dropped the shoe and grabbed for the switch. Wanbecq yelled. Wanbecq-ai leaped headlong for Susan and bore her back onto the seat. She was using her gun flatwise in her hand, solely as a club. Susan let out one furious wail.
And Durham, moving more by instinct than by conscious thought, grabbed Wanbecq-ai's uplifted arm and pulled her over squalling onto his lap.
Wanbecq started forward from the opposite seat.
"Don't," said Durham. He had Wanbecq-ai's wrist in one hand and her neck in the other, and he was not being gentle. Wanbecq-ai covered him, and the two of them together covered Susan. Wanbecq stood with his knees bent for a spring, his gun flicking back and forth uncertainly. Wanbecq-ai had stopped squalling. Her face was turning dark. Susan huddled where she was, half stunned. Durham shifted his grip on Wanbecq-ai's arm and got the gun into his own hand.
"Now," he said to Wanbecq. "Drop it."
Wanbecq dropped it.
Durham scrabbled it in with his heel until it was between his own feet. Then he heaved Wanbecq-ai forcibly at her husband. It was like heaving a rag doll, and while Wanbecq was dealing with her Durham managed to pick up the other gun.
Susan lifted her head. She looked around with glassy eyes and then, with single-minded persistence, she got up.
Durham said sharply, "Sit down!"
Susan reached up for the emergency.
Durham smacked her across the stomach with the back of his left hand, not daring to take his eyes off the Wanbecqs. She doubled over it and sat down again. Durham said, "All right now, damn it, all of you—sit still!"
* * * * *
The taxi sped on its humming rail, farther and farther into the reaches of the spaceport. Below there were the wide clear spaces of the landing aprons, and great ships standing in them, their tails down and their noses high in the air, high above the monorail, towering over the freight belts and the multitude of machines that served them.
Ahead there was the onracing edge of twilight, and beyond it, coming swiftly, was the lunar night.
Durham said to Wanbecq, "What's this all about?"
Wanbecq sneered.
"You know," said Durham, "there's a law against changing the color of your skin for the purpose of committing criminal acts. That's so the wrong people won't get blamed. There's a law against carrying lethal weapons. There is even, humorously enough, a law against espionage on The Hub. You know I'm going to turn you over to the authorities?"
Again Wanbecq sneered. He was a hateful little man, but he looked so young and so proudly martyred that Durham almost felt sorry for him.
Almost. Not quite.
"On second thought," he said, "I guess I'll save you both for Jubb."
That was a random shot, prompted by the memory of how their faces looked when the shadow-thing had squealed that word at them. It hit. Wanbecq's face became distorted with a fanatic hatred, and Wanbecq-ai, rubbing her throat, croaked, "Then you are in league with The Beast."
She pronounced that name with unmistakable capitals.
"Who said I was?" asked Durham.
"The darkbird came to help you. It told us Jubb had claimed you."
"It did," said Durham softly, "did it?" The dark birds will soon fly. The dark birds merely refer to a couple of ships engaged in poaching. That's what you say, Mr. Hawtree.
"What is a darkbird? You mean that shadow thing?"
"They are the servants, the familiars of The Beast," said Wanbecq. "The instruments by which he hopes to enslave all humanity. Do not pretend, Mr. Durham."
"I'm not. This Jubb—what is he beside The Beast?"
Wanbecq stared at him, and Durham made a menacing gesture. "Come on, I want to know."
"Jubb is the ruler of Senya Dik."
"And Senya Dik?"
"Our sister planet. A dark and evil sister, plotting our destruction. A demon sister, Mr. Durham. Have you ever heard of the Bitter Star?"
"I never heard of any of it but I find it very interesting. Go on."
"Whoever controls the darkbirds controls the Star, and whoever controls the Star can destroy anything he wishes. This is Jubb." Wanbecq thrust out his hands. "You're human, Mr. Durham. If you have sold your soul, take it back again. Fight with us, not against us."
"I assume," said Durham, "that Jubb is not human."
Wanbecq-ai made an abrupt sound of disgust. "This is silly, Mr. Durham. If you know so little why are you going to Nanta Dik at all?"
Durham did not answer. He did not have any answer to that one. Wondered if ever he would have it.
"If you are so ignorant," continued Wanbecq-ai viciously, "of course you don't know that the Terran consul Karlovic is over his head in intrigue, conniving with Jubb in order to make this treaty of Federation."
Durham sat up straight. "A treaty of what?"
"The sector," said Wanbecq slowly, "will belong either to the human race or to the beast, but it cannot belong to both."
"Federation," said Durham, answering his own question. And suddenly many formless things began to fit together into a shape that was still cloudy but had a sinister solidity. In order for a solar system to become a member of the Federation its member planets were required to have achieved unity among themselves, with common citizenship, a common council, common laws. And in order for a sub-sector to become federated, all its solar systems must have reached
