Twelve

Morton crawled out of the back seat of the car and stood up. All around them were Irsk bodies. Morton shuddered and said, “Let’s go inside.”

Soldiers and technical people had already preceded them. As they entered, dead bodies were being carried up from the basement. Among the corpses Morton recognized George and Pietro, the only persons (besides Isolina) that he had actually seen in or connected with this house. There was no sign of Isolina. So he now sent Bray and a soldier upstairs to look for her.

She wasn’t there. Shock! Anxiously he himself went up with Bray. He examined the bedroom in the hope that she might have escaped by some secret passage-way. That possibility yielded to a more practical thought when he discovered the direct route down to the back yard from the second floor—to a much greater concern.

Morton stood at the door and peered into the almost darkness of the alleyway. He thought: Suppose she went that way and ran into some of those escaping Irsk.

But an Earth federation unit sent to explore the narrow back street failed to find her body—or anyone else’s. Which was relieving.

He was able at this point to review his own feelings. I deduce, he agreed grudgingly within himself, that she achieved her purpose by offering me sex. I am now personally interested in her welfare.

What interested him, he realized, was not so much the remembered warmth of her body but a kind of basic honesty and intelligence. Those direct questions she had asked of the killers indicated swift recovery from fear. It was pretty ridiculous, but he guessed by her own figures that she had had six or seven hundred different men in five years; and yet, he couldn’t escape the—it had to be—irrational feeling that underneath it all she was a good woman.

Having had these thoughts, he was abruptly motivated to speak. “Wherever she is,” he said, “if she had control of where it would be, she will be doing something rational. The young lady thinks on her feet, and acts according to where her reason takes her.” He spoke with a hopeful note in his voice: “So if we could reason what insight a supremely intelligent, Diamondian woman would have had as a result of what she learned today, then we’d know where she headed when she left here.”

He was aware of Bray giving him a sharp look. “You seem to have been impressed by that young lady, sir,” said the younger man.

“I gather from your account of your visit to the Ferraris farm, that you were too,” countered Morton.

It was true. “For a Diamondian,” Bray began, “Isolina is—” Morton interrupted in a baffled tone, “Where would a sharply rational analysis take you on the basis of what I’ve told you?”

Bray had to admit reluctantly that he was not that rational.

The brief dialogue, having led to nowhere, ended.

Next: “That Lositeen situation—” Bray said. “After what you’ve just told me, we’d better find Lositeen and question him.”

“A good idea,” Morton agreed.

“Maybe I should get out there tomorrow,” said Bray. “What’s the name of that village?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Morton replied.

Which ended that particular dialogue with finality. Morton turned with a decisive gesture, and said to Bray, “I suppose we can safely leave the cleanup here to the Earth federation forces.”

The young officer paused to squeeze his eyelids before answering. And then waited while Morton squeezed his, also. Thereupon Bray winked at his superior and grinned.

It was such a carefree act, bespeaking continuing high energy, that Morton grinned back. Then, abruptly, his face hardened. “Let’s go,” he said. “There’s a doctor in that hospital I want to check on, and maybe right now would be a good time, while I’ve got the military unit here to accompany me.”

Bray held back. “Well, sir,” he said diplomatically, “I guess this is the time to tell you one tiny fact that I’ve withheld.”

His expression and tone were so odd that Morton, who had started to turn toward the door, slowly faced about and stared at him. “What is it?” he asked

Bray told him, finished, “So you see, actually you’re under arrest, presumably because that doctor is undoubtedly covering up for everybody.”

They were standing near the top of the stairway as those words were spoken. All around were the sounds and sights—and a rather gruesome smell—of cleanup: men in Earth federation gray green uniforms, bodies on stretchers, soldiers with mops and pails of water washing blood off the floors.

Morton watched the scene pensively, then turned to Bray and said with a forced smile, “Under the circumstances, lieutenant, what’s to prevent you and me just walking off these grounds?”

“The whole area is surrounded,” said Bray. “We’d be intercepted.”

“Oh.”

Bray continued in a judicial tone, “It will be interesting to see how all this comes out.”

It was—Morton had to admit it, sort of savagely—a minimal comment on his own developing involvement on Diamondia.