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to foot anyone under ordinary conditions, close up; but I need a shout or two,
supposedly from him, to back up what I'm going to hypnotize the rest of the
soldiers into believing. Did Liu have some particular way of speaking that was
his alone? Everyone does; and most soldiers can imitate their officers'
mannerisms." "He had a high voice and a snappy, snotty way of talking," said
Calas. "I think I could come up with something like it, if I'm to be yelling
from inside the hutment here, where they can't see me and the hutment'll
probably mess up the way his voice'd sound, some. " "Good," said Hal, '. what
I want you to yel I is an order from Liu to the Urk to shoot. The idea will be
that Artur's somehow gotten loose in here." "Good," said Calas. "I can do that
standing on my head. Anyway, I like the idea of Artur getting loose in here
with the two of them. Or, I would if Artur would have actually done anything
to them, even if he did get free."
CHAPTER
29
"Good," said Hal, in his turn. He moved to the cot and began propping Liu's
head up on the pillow beneath it, so that his throat was visible. The body was
beginning to cool further, but still had not stiffened. He took the officer's
pistol belt from its perch over the back of the bedside chair that held the
rest of the man's clothes, and laid it on the seat of the chair, so that the
power pistol in its holster was lyin.@, flat, with the pistol butt next to the
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bed.
He stretched out the man's arm and curled the dead fingers around the butt of
the weapon, half drawing it from its holster. He chuckled, with a rueful edge
to the chuckle. "What's the joke, Friend?" Calas's voice asked behind him
"Only," said Hal-turning to face the former soldier--the fact I'd just been
thinking earlier that our plans for all this had gone off perfectly this time,
exactly as we made them, up on the ledge. That was before I found Liu and the
Urk had been killed-and everything had to be changed." "You've got a different
idea now?" asked Calas.
There was no doubt in the smaller man's voice. Clearly, he had complete
confidence that whatever might have come up, Hal could adjust their plans to
take care of it. "I had it in mind to arrange things so that the two of them
would take their troops home. Their report would be that both Artur and Cee
had died under questioning. But that it was pretty
THE CHANTRY GUILD
311
clear from what they said that there was no one else living up here. They
would have reported that they'd buried the bodies, the way they buried the
soldiers that Artur'd have been blamed for killing earlier, then simply gave
up and went back to the ga7ison. "
And now?" prompted Calas. The stretcher bearers came in with the dressed and
armed body of the Urk. "Put him down just inside the entrance flap to the
left," Hal told them. "As I was just telling Calas, we've had to change plans.
Now when I hypnotize those soldiers out there I'm going to have to convince
them that everybody killed everybody else. A taller story by quite a bit. Two
dead soldiers, even a dead underofficer's one thing. A dead commissioned
officer's some-
thing else-at least as far as paperwork is concerned. Their headquarters is
going to be grilling these soldiers for details -that's right; take the Urk
off the stretcher and pull him up so
he's not quite alongside Artur. Now turn him nearly all the way over on his
face, so that you can't see the front part of his body. "
They did as he said. "All right," said Hal, when they were finished. "Now,
roll the stretcher up around its poles and lay it along the wall of the
hutment, behind the cot, so it can't be seen. In a moment I want the rest of
you to go out and join the others guarding the soldiers. Send someone to me at
once if any of them show signs Of coming out of their drugged state."
He knelt beside the unconscious form of Artur. "Oh. Also-,- he said, raising
his head to look back over his shoulder at the stretcher bearers, "one of you
go out and get me a length of the rope they had him tied up with. About a
meter's length'I I do."
The bearers looked at each other, and the one nearest the door went out. When
he came back with the rope, Hal took it, tied Artur's hands gently together
behind his back with one end of the rope. "Anyone got a knife?" he asked,
still kneeling beside Artur.
Calas and one of the stretcher bearers were the only ones with such items, Hal [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]