But if they were suspicious of him, why hadn't he been placed under arrest? They don't want to scare me off, Troy thought. They're not sure, and if I'm up to something they don't want to scare me off before they know just what it is.... * * * * * He'd swung around to the hall, mind reaching ahead through the next few minutes, outlining quickly the immediate steps he would have to take--and so he was almost past the Hammerhead before he saw it. The door to the Low Dsala's offices had opened quietly, and the Low Dsala stood there five feet away, the horizontally stalked eyes fixed on Troy. Troy started involuntarily. He might be very close to death now. To approach a Hammerhead ... let alone the station's ranking officer ... unbidden within a dozen steps was a dangerous thing for a prisoner to do. The Dsala's left hand hung beside the ornament-encrusted bolt-gun all the officers carried--and those broad torturers' hands could move with flashing speed. But the creature remained immobile. Troy averted his eyes from it, keeping his face expressionless, walked on with carefully unhurried steps, conscious of the Dsala's stare following him. It was one of the comparatively few times he had seen a Hammerhead without its suit. If one knew nothing about them, they would have looked almost comical--there was a decided resemblance to the penguins, the clown-birds of Earth, in the rotund, muscular bodies and the double set of swimming flippers. The odd head with its thick protruding eyelobes and the small, constantly moving crimson triangle of the mouth were less funny, as were the dark, human-shaped hands. Troy felt a chill on his back when he heard the Dsala break into sudden speech behind him: a high, quick gabble in its own language. Was it expressing anger? Drawing the door quietly shut, he heard Clingman begin to reply in the same tongue. * * * * * Reese looked briefly up from the intercom desk as Troy stopped before it. "Finished with Clingman?" he asked. "Uh-huh," Troy said. "Any other little jobs waiting before I can get back to sleep?" "Not so far," Reese told him sourly. "Pleasant dreams." He returned his attention to the panels before him. So Dr. Rojas, as had seemed almost certain, had put in no call for him. But if he didn't show up at Room 72, how long before they began to wonder where he was? Perhaps four or five minutes....