We of the Sabotage Bureau remain legalists of a special category.  We know that too much law injures a society; it is the same with too little law.  One seeks a balance.  We are like the balancing force among the Gowachin:  without hope of achieving heaven in the society of mortals, we seek the unattainable.  Each agent knows his own conscience and why he serves such a master.  That is the key to us.  We serve a mortal conscience for immortal reasons.  We do it without hope of praise or the sureness of success.

- The early writings of Bildoon, PanSpechi Chief of BuSab

They moved out onto the streets as soon as the afternoon shadows gloomed the depths of the city, Tria and six carefully chosen companions, all of them young Human males.  She'd musked herself to key them up and she led them down dim byways where Broey's spies had been eliminated.  All of her troop was armored and armed in the fashion of an ordinary sortie team.

There'd been rioting nearby an hour earlier, not sufficiently disruptive to attract large military attention, but a small Gowachin salient had been eliminated from a Human enclave.  A sortie team was the kind of thing this Warren could expect after such a specific species adjustment.  Tria and her six companions were not likely to suffer attack.  None of the rioters wanted a large-scale mopping up in the area.

A kind of hushed, suspenseful waiting pervaded the streets.

They crossed a wet intersection, green and red ichor in the gutters.  The smell of the dampness told her that a Graluz had been broached and its waters freed to wash through the streets.

That would attract retaliation.  Some Human children were certain to be killed in the days ahead.  An old pattern.

The troop crossed the riot area presently, noting the places where bodies had fallen, estimating casualties.  All bodies had been removed.  Not a scrap remained for the birds.

They emerged from the Warrens soon afterward, passing through a Gowachin-guarded gate, Broey's people.  A few blocks along they went through another gate, Human guards, all in Gar's pay.  Broey would learn of her presence here soon, Tria knew, but she'd said she was going into the Warrens.  She came presently to an alleyway across from a Second Rank building.  The windowless grey of the building's lower floors presented a blank face broken only by the lattice armor of the entrance gate.  Behind the gate lay a dimly lighted passage.  Its deceptively plain walls concealed spy devices and automatic weapons.

Holding back her companions with a hand motion, Tria waited in the dark while she studied the building entrance across from her.  The gate was on a simple latch.  There was one doorguard in an alcove on the left near the door which was dimly visible beyond the armorwork of the gate.  A building defense force stood ready to come at the doorguard's summons or at the summons of those who watched through the spy devices.

Tria's informants said this was Jedrik's bolt hole.  Not in the deep Warrens at all.  Clever.  But Tria had maintained an agent in this building for years, as she kept agents in many buildings.  A conventional precaution.  Everything depended on timing now.  Her agent in the building was poised to eliminate the inner guards at the spy device station.  Only the doorguard would remain.  Tria waited for the agreed upon moment.

The street around her smelled of sewage:  an open reclamation line.  Accident?  Riot damage?  Tria didn't like the feeling of this place.  What was Jedrik's game?  Were there unknown surprises built into this guarded building?  Jedrik must know by now that she was suspected of inciting the riot - and of other matters.  But would she feel safe there in her own enclave?  People tended to feel safe among their own people.  She couldn't have a very large force around her, though.  Still, some private plot worked itself through the devious pathways of Jedrik's mind, and Tria had not yet fathomed all of that plot.  There were surface indicators enough to risk a confrontation, a parley.  It was possible that Jedrik flaunted herself here to attract Tria.  The potential in that possibility filled Tria with excitement.

Together, we'd be unbeatable!

Yes, Jedrik fitted the image of a superb agent.  With the proper organization around her . . .

Once more, Tria glanced left and right.  The streets were appropriately empty.  She checked the time.  Her moment had come.  With hand motions, she sent flankers out left and right and another young male probing straight across the street to the gate.  When they were in place, she slipped across with her three remaining companions in a triangular shield ahead.

The doorguard was a Human with grey hair and a pale face which glistened yellow in the dim light of the passage.  His lids were heavy with a recent dose of his personal drug, which Tria's agent had supplied.

Tria opened the gate, saw that the guard carried a round dead-man switch in his right hand as expected.  His grin was gap toothed as he held the switch toward her.  She knew he'd recognized her.  Much depended now on her agent's accuracy.

"Do you want to die for the frogs?"  Tria asked.

He knew about the rioting, the trouble in the streets.  And he was Human, with Human loyalties, but he knew she worked for Broey, a Gowachin.  The question was precisely calculated to fill him with indecision.  Was she a turncoat?  He had his Human loyalties and a fanatic's dependence upon this guard post which kept him out of the depths.  And there was his personal addiction.  All doorguards were addicted to something, but this one took a drug which dulled his senses and made it difficult for him to correlate several lines of thought.  He wasn't supposed to use his drug on duty and this troubled him now.  There were so many matters to be judged, and Tria had asked the right question.  He didn't want to die for the frogs.

She pointed to the dead-man switch, a question.

"It's only a signal relay," he said.  "No bomb in this one."

She remained silent, forcing him to focus on his doubts.

The guard swallowed.  "What do you . . ."

"Join us or die."

He peered past her at the others.  Things such as this happened frequently in the Warrens, not very often here on the slopes which led up to the heights.  The guard was not a one trusted with full knowledge of whom he guarded.  He had explicit instructions and a dead-man relay to warn of intruders.  Others were charged with making the more subtle distinctions, the real decisions.  That was this building's weak point.

"Join who?" he asked.

There was false belligerency in his voice, and she knew she had him then.

"Your own kind."

This locked his drug-dulled mind onto its primary fears.  He knew what he was supposed to do:  open his hand.  That released the alarm device in the dead-man switch.  He could do this of his own volition and it was supposed to deter attackers from killing him.  A dead man's hand opened anyway.  But he'd been fed with suspicions to increase his doubts.  The device in his hand might not be a simple signal transmitter.  What if it actually were a bomb?  He'd had many long hours to wonder about that.

"We'll treat you well," Tria said.

She put a companionable arm around his shoulder, letting him get the full effect of her musk while she held out her other hand to show that it carried no weapon.  "Demonstrate to my companion here how you pass that to your relief."

One of the young males stepped forward.

The guard showed how it was done, explaining slowly as he passed the device.  "It's easy once you get the trick of it."

When her companion had the thing firmly in hand, she raised her arm from the guard's shoulder, touched his carotid artery with a poisoned needle concealed in a fingernail.  The guard had only time to draw one gasping breath, his eyes gaping, before he sank from her embrace.

"I treated him well," she said.

Her companions grinned.  It was the kind of thing you learned to expect from Tria.  They dragged the body out of sight into the guard alcove, and the young male with the signal device took his place at the door.  The others protected Tria with their bodies as they swept into the building.  The whole operation had taken less than two minutes.  Everything was working smoothly, as Tria's operations were expected to work.

The lobby and its radiating hallways were empty.

Good.

Her agent in this building deserved a promotion.

They took a stairway rather than trust an elevator.  It was only three short flights.  The upper hallway also was empty.  Tria led the way to the designated door, used the key her agent had supplied.  The door opened without a sound and they surged into the room.

Inside, the shades had been pulled, and there was no artificial illumination.  Her companions took up their places at the closed door and along both flanking walls.  This was the most dangerous moment, something only Tria could handle.

Light came from thin strips where shades did not quite seal a south window.  Tria discerned dim shapes of furniture, a bed with an indeterminate blob of darkness on it.

"Jedrik?"  A whisper.

Tria's feet touched soft fabric, a sandal.

"Jedrik?"

Her shin touched the bed.  She held a weapon ready while she felt for the dark blob.  It was only a mound of bedding. She turned.

The bathroom door was closed, but she could make out a thin slot of light at the bottom of the door.  She skirted the clothing and sandal on the floor, stood at one side, and motioned a companion to the other side.  Thus far they had operated with a minimum of sound.

Gently, she turned the knob, thrust open the door.  There was water in a tub and a body face down, one arm hanging flaccidly over the edge, fingers dangling.  A dark purple welt was visible behind and beneath the left ear.  Tria lifted the head by the hair, stared at the face, lowered it gently to avoid splashing.  It was her agent, the one she'd trusted for the intelligence to set up this operation.  And the death was characteristic of a Gowachin ritual slaying:  that welt under the ear.  A Gowachin talon driven in there to silence the victim before drowning?  Or had it just been made to appear like a Gowachin slaying?

Tria felt the whole operation falling apart around her, sensed the uneasiness of her companions.  She considered calling Gar from where she stood, but a feeling of fear and revulsion came over her.  She stepped out into the bedroom before opening her communicator and thumbing the emergency signal.

"Central."  The voice was tense in her ear.

She kept her own voice flat.  "Our agent's dead."

Silence.  She could imagine them centering the locator on her transmission, then:  "There?"

"Yes.  She's been murdered."

Gar's voice came on:  "That can't be.  I talked to her less than an hour ago.  She . . ."

"Drowned in a tub of water," Tria said.  "She was knocked out first - something sharp driven in under an ear."

There was silence again while Gar absorbed this data.  He would have the same uncertainties as Tria.

She glanced at her companions.  They had taken up guard positions facing the doorway to the hall.  Yes, if attack came, it would come from there.

The channel to Gar remained open, and now Tria heard a babble of terse orders with only a few words intelligible:  ". . . team . . . don't let . . . time . . ."  Then, quite clearly:  "They'll pay for this!"

Who will pay? Tria wondered.

She was beginning to make a new assessment of Jedrik.

Gar came back on:  "Are you in immediate danger?"

"I don't know."  It was a reluctant admission.

"Stay right where you are.  We'll send help.  I've notified Broey."

So that was the way Gar saw it.  Yes.  That was most likely the proper way to handle this new development.  Jedrik had eluded them.  There was no sense in proceeding alone.  It would have to be done Broey's way now.

Tria shuddered as she issued the necessary orders to her companions.  They prepared to sell themselves dearly if an attack came, but Tria was beginning to doubt there'd be an immediate attack.  This was another message from Jedrik.  The trouble came when you tried to interpret the message.