The chief of the group forced his mental image through a mental
photomontage that started with the original picture of the
half-awakened young woman tossing a tousle of hair back out of
one eye, passed through a much-abridged version of the process
of female dressing, and concluded with the trim and striking
number they'd passed on the stairway. Add important item: As an
accessory, whistle-bait was also carrying an overnight bag in one
formal-for-travelling, white-gloved hand.
Nudged, his memory was good.
He hauled his handset out while his men were still making dead certain
that the little flag on the lock meant precisely what it said. By the
time they were convinced that the apartment was truly empty and the
lock bolted from the outside, he had unabashedly reported his failure,
and was concluding a very excellent description of the fugitive Gloria
Hanford.
XI
The average citizen, faced with an impressive uniform, falls into one
of two very widely divided camps. One of these camps contains those of
us who are impressed by the visible, exalted rank of the wearer.
So, by the simple process of snapping, "Official business!" at the
driver of a skycab and simultaneously tossing the driver his official
I. D. card in its ornate leather folder, Junior Spaceman Howard Reed
succeeded in commandeering a skycab.
He took off, leaving the driver in a razzle-dazzle dream of collecting
mileage from the Space Service whilst he spent the time comfortably
relaxing in a pub. Protected from public gaze by the camouflaging
skycab, the junior spaceman proceeded to cruise up the middle level of
Ancient Fifth Avenue, driving a full eighteen inches below the legal
altitude set for cruising skycabs.
He turned on his pocket set to listen to the details of the search that
was being organized for him.
Above him, all around him, even in the subways below him, the vast and
efficient organization of the Military Space Service was converging.
This organization had the will and the manpower to scour this city of
twenty million people almost literally soul by soul if the need be, to
locate a young officer in the uniform of a Junior Spaceman. He might
be driving a Military Vehicle, but more likely would be found in one
of the many public vehicles or public carriers that the city offered
for civilian transportation. There was also the high possibility that
Junior Spaceman Howard Reed might be located afoot on the static
sidewalk or on one of the tramways.
And so, mentally clocking each time-point and making a careful note
of the check-points, the junior spaceman built up a mental map of the
city and its danger points. Until the laws of simple logic failed to
operate, he was going to be exactly where they weren't.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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