Taranto said nothing as the craft rose in the air and swooped off toward the spaceship. Someday, Meyers would ask how he had gotten away from the Syssokans. When it happened, Taranto swore to himself, he would _show_ the slob. NINETEEN It was twenty after eight when Westervelt found himself back at the communications room with Smith. Rosenkrantz had alerted them to a message coming in from Syssoka. "They didn't expect to hit us during office hours," he explained, "but as long as you're here, I thought maybe you'd like to get it fresh." Smith had told the girls to pass the word to Lydman and Parrish, and Westervelt had followed him down the hall with the feeling that he had displayed his eye under the good lighting long enough. Now they listened as a slim, brown-haired man with a faintly scholarly aura completed his report on the escape of Louis Taranto and Harley Meyers, spacers. Joe Rosenkrantz was fiddling with an auxiliary screen and murmuring into another microphone. "... so it was a rather close call, even though the formula you sent us appears to have worked perfectly," said the scholarly man. "I have not been able to determine exactly what caused the delay on the part of the Syssokans, since it seemed imprudent to display my little flying spy-eye where it might be seen, or even damaged." "Maybe you can pick up some rumors in the future," suggested Smith. "If you do, we'd appreciate hearing them, to add to our file and make the case as complete as possible." The transmission lag was much less than that occurring with Trident. The D.I.R. man on Syssoka agreed to forward any subsequent discoveries. "Those spacers you contacted are already heading out-system," he told Smith. "I think they did a nice, clean job. It was too bad that they were seen at all, of course, but it will be news to me if the Syssokans drop around with any embarrassing questions." "Well, there _is_ a large foreign quarter there," Smith recalled. "Why should they suspect Terrans, after all?" "Oh, they will, they will. They suspect everyone; but they must know so little that I feel sure I can bluff them. I can prove that I was here at the official residence all day." "Good!" said Smith. "Just in passing, I take it that no one was much hurt?" The man on Syssokan grinned briefly. "No one on our side," he said, "although I understand the prisoners were suffering some from exhaustion and dehydration. This Louis Taranto seems to be quite a lad. There is reason to believe that he killed two or three of his guards with his bare hands--at least I saw the burial party carrying bodies with them as they marched the rest of the way back to the city." Smith laughed. "I'll have to add a note opposite his name and contact him. I could use a field agent like that! Well, my operator tells me I have another call coming in. Thanks for your work on this."