Jerome Bixby

“ Karrin made a great show of inspecting their immediate surroundings for eavesdroppers.
He said: "This is a very important, a top secret mission. We—the Council—believe that you are the only man who can fly it. We selected you from among thousands, Rhiannon!"
Rhiannon stood ever more stiffly, his face incandescent.
"Yes sir. I didn't know you were a Council Member, sir."
"Very few people do," Karrin replied dryly. "Now, soldier, a special boat is being tuned up at my private field. ”

“ Karrin put his hand on Rhiannon's sleeve and walked the big man into the vast quiet of Bed 52. Atoms came after them, wagging almost everything but his head which arrowed straight and true after the giant figure.
When he was paid no attention, however, he sulked over to his box and lay down and was immediately asleep. "Sergeant" Atoms would have been a poor choice to stand guard duty—he had been known to sleep the clock around, silent and unmoving. ”

“ Rhiannon looked up at him, his forehead plowed over with thought; then gradually a wide grin spread his lips. "We done it, didn't we?"
"We sure did."
Karrin's face was flattened at the cheeks. How the Patrol had known of this meeting he would never know, short of torturing each of his "cooperative men." Janus was gone. The briefcase was gone. The real Rebel boat was probably bright drifting dust somewhere between here and Llarn's moon. Karrin shivered. ”

“ The twelve Navy spaceboats in 52, lined hip to hip like reclining madames on their slanting cradles, seemed suddenly to begin to shed their skins as a solid parasitica of out-ship workers melted in streams toward the upthrust frameworks of the lifts. ”

“ Rhiannon looked up vaguely. "What, sir?"
"Get us back to Llarn, Rhiannon. I've got to report this to the President."
The swirling salt of the nebula moved out of the port and vanished as the big man tailed the boat around and side-stepped it into hyper-space. Karrin stood with wet hands clasped at his back. My papers. My money. I'll get them and make a run for Rebel H.Q. Surely the tip had not implicated him or he would never have gotten off Llarn in the first place. The Patrol would have seen to that: they knew that so many things could go wrong out in space. ”

“ It had been a Patrol boat. He'd seen that Nova.
He shifted uneasily in his wrappings of tubemonkey suit and reflections. He looked up again at Karrin's office. The man had moved back from the window; only his head was visible, seeming to roll like Tweety back and forth on the broad sill as he crossed from safe to desk, desk to safe. That distant face was sculptured in pure anxiety. Karrin was obviously, was definitely, not reporting to President Naro. He wasn't doing anything of the kind.
Rhiannon put these observations one under the other, added them, and got the right answer. ”

“ A—ah—'Rebel' underground will likely start up—and as you've already seen, a man with a briefcase will hardly doubt the purity of my kitchens or suspect one of my cabin-boys of unwanted partisanship. I have some very cooperative men working for me."
Putting a boot on the hatch-ladder, Janus showed a sardonic grin through his faceplate. "Every man's purse is a traitor—"
Karrin sliced off the words with a quick gesture and shot a look at Rhiannon. The tubemonkey was staring through the front port at the stars, his face a caricature of bliss. ”