“I wouldn’t call it minor, but nonetheless, the explosion was unquestionably an accident. And now, to have it taken in hand by the Goddesses of Ill Fortune, to have it poked at, framed, to have upheavals, public order disturbed, murders provoked, cities destroyed, the very land itself polluted—”
“Oh just shut up!” I cried at last, breaking him off in mid-sentence. Left to himself, the inspector seemed ready to go on running us down in public forever.
“Spouting off just because we’re taking it quietly. And you call yourself a man, blabbering on like that? Just when are you suggesting that we ever did anything like that!”
“When?” laughed Bayleaf mockingly. He began to count on his fingers. “The Castle of Geboro affair on Orius, the Baron Kitalock murder on Tevious, the child kidnapping on Kelbat, the Gaidle…”
Oh no. I cradled my head in my arms. The enemy had studied all about us. It would take more than a half-hearted effort to cut him down to size. But if we quailed now and returned home, it would be curtains for us with the WWWA. We had to give him a good, hard bite.
“Oh, those,” I said nonchalantly, feigning calm. “Weren’t those all incidents, not accidents? And didn’t we solve them all?”
“Solve them!” growled Bayleaf, grinding his teeth. “What do you have to brag about! Each and every one of them was a textbook study of bloodshed and destruction! Solved them, you say? That’s absurd. Are you following me? In the case of Orius, nobody has been able to live there since. It’s a ghost planet.”
Eeeeek!
Again I gave a silent scream. Even I thought we’d rather overdone things on Orius, but I’d never dreamed it had been that bad. Even so, he would have to do better than that to daunt us.
“So just what the hell are you driving at?!” I cried in desperate counter-attack. A yummy-looking young gent glanced my way in surprise. Blast! Another man scared off for good. “Every one of those cases was bound to turn out the way it did! It’s not our fault things happened that way!”
“Aha!”
Inspector Bayleaf raised his chin and looked down on us through narrowed eyes. It was a display of the most blatant contempt.
“In that case, I suppose you’re going to claim it wasn’t your fault that you fought a dogfight right over Kurutomi Space Port, dragging the Galapagos and fifty-five innocent citizens to their deaths!”
Ooof!
His words seemed to make an almost audible noise as they plunged into my heart. Damn! Using the very thing we were most upset about ourselves…
“Well, I suppose you can claim anything you want,” continued Bayleaf, looking askance at us with a victor’s pride. “After all, you’re the almighty Trouble Consultants from the WWWA. So let it pass, let it pass. But I at least must ask you to settle the score. Isn’t that so? If you don’t, what consolation will there be for the fifty-five dead?”
“We feel exactly the same way,” I said. Turning sentimental, I found myself agreeing with Bayleaf. But that was just the inspector’s trap. What Bayleaf meant by settling the score was completely different from what Yuri and I had in mind.
“I’m grateful you agree,” he said, with a snaky smile on his lips. “In that case, you can accompany me to headquarters now. Yes, you can stay there for forty days or so and help us answer a few questions.”
“What!”
I was flabbergasted. The very idea was ridiculous.
“Why are you so surprised?” asked Bayleaf with an icy look on his face. “Didn’t you just agree to settle the score?”
“No!” I wailed. “That’s not what I meant!”
“I see…”
Again the contemptuous gaze.
“So I take it WWWA Trouble Consultants don’t have the human compassion to mourn the dead?”
“How dare you!”
I exploded at Bayleaf words.
“Now you listen to me! What on Earth were you cops up to while we were being attacked by unidentified flying saucers? Were you sitting around sucking your thumbs and crying dearie me, dearie me? Or maybe you were just enjoying the show, waiting for us to make a mistake? How about it? On Dangle don’t the police do anything when somebody starts a battle in your airspace?”
“What did you just say?!” roared Bayleaf. His face went crimson, then white, and finally black.
“We were waiting here to make you see reason and to send you back where you came from! And even while we waited—the Galapagos tragedy! As if that by itself wasn’t more than we could endure, now you come and insult us to our faces!
“Very well! If that’s how it’s going to be, then to hell with the WWWA and United Galactica! I’ll teach you a lesson you’ll never forget!”
“Very funny! Try it and see how far you get!”
“By God, I will!”
Sparks flew between us. Touch and go, we were only an inch away from a battle royal. It had gone beyond words. But just at that moment…
“Wh-what’s going on here?”
A man burst hurriedly into the lobby. He was a short, dignified-looking gentleman of fifty-five or fifty-six, clearly a top executive type.
“Damnation!”
Inspector Bayleaf ground his teeth at the sight of him.
“There were so many checkpoints along the way I was afraid something was going on,” the man chattered at Bayleaf. “And sure enough, just look at you! Inspector, what is the meaning of this?!”
“You can see for yourself, Mr. Merutonan,” replied Bayleaf in chagrin. The old gent was none other than our client, managing director Merutonan of the Gravas Foundation. “A spaceship has crashed, and I was just at the point of requesting some important witnesses to voluntarily accompany me to headquarters.”
“You seem to be stretching things a bit,” snapped Merutonan. “I speak for the Gravas Foundation in turning down your request. These two young ladies are here at the invitation of the Foundation.”
“Mr. Merutonan,” said Bayleaf. “It’s true the Gravas Foundation virtually controls Dangle. Even so, I don’t think it would be wise to make enemies of the Central Police.”
“Say what you like,” Merutonan said brusquely. “On my legitimate authority, I intend to take these two ladies with me.”
“You do, do you?!” exclaimed Bayleaf, crumbling in the face of Merutonan’s resolve. “Then do as you please!”
Bayleaf reluctantly left the lobby, his twenty underlings in tow.
“Now then,” said Merutonan, turning to face us. He still spoke crisply from the previous argument, and his splendid bald dome gleamed with sweat. “I’m terribly sorry to have been so late. We’ll go straight to Gravas Heavy Industries headquarters.”
We were promptly bundled into a big black aircar limousine waiting outside the spaceport terminal. The limousine lifted off, and moments later we were barreling down the highway, due south.