“That is a surprise,” Galyan said, indicating the nude couple.

  Maddox grunted as he moved around the desk, feeling along the back wall. Ah, here it was. He flipped a tiny latch. A hidden door opened, revealing a secret passage as lights came on in the ceiling. Maddox ran into the passage, heading for another secret door that would let him into the Lord High Admiral’s office through the back.

  -8-

  Maddox paused for a millisecond before the closed door. He had raced down the secret passage, remembering the route from several years ago. Should he just barge in, or should he try to learn something first by listening?

  The captain put his ear against the door, but he couldn’t hear more than indistinct sounds, muffled talking perhaps.

  “Should I check out the admiral’s office for you?” Galyan whispered.

  Maddox pursed his lips. He had to make a decision. He had raced home and darted too many people to afford to be wrong about this. If he balked now—

  No! He had to discover the truth. But if he was wrong about the Prime Minister’s chief political advisor, if this was an elaborate ploy on Drakos’s or the androids’ part—

  “Balls,” Maddox whispered. He clicked the latch and slid open the secret door.

  From the chair behind his desk, the Lord High Admiral whirled around in shock. Dour old Bill Sanders looked up in amazement.

  Maddox did not try to study either of them. That would take too long. He let his first impressions guide him.

  Cook seemed human, normal and very surprised. Sanders showed what might have been shock but recovered more quickly. Too quickly?

  “Captain Maddox,” Sanders said in his grumpy voice. “First, what are you doing on Earth? Second, how long have you been behind that—?”

  Maddox drew the dart gun and fired. The point of the dart sank into the clothes, maybe even into pseudo-skin, but there was an unmistakable tink sound. The sound could come from metal—the dart tip—striking metal—outer android body casing.

  Yes. Clearly, Sanders was an android.

  At the dart shot, Admiral Cook shouted in outrage. Maybe he believed Maddox was an assassin. The admiral threw himself out of his chair and toward the floor, and he got himself tangled up in the chair’s armrest, crashing down.

  The pseudo-Sanders’ head jerked up with machine speed.

  Maddox silently cursed himself for having acted too hastily. The thing was an android, and he couldn’t really hurt an android with darts. That made both Cook and Maddox defenseless before it. To buy time, Maddox fired several more shots, aiming at the thing’s eyes. The android swatted each dart out of the air, although one dart stuck in its hand.

  Maddox released the dart gun as he saw the .55 Powell “Slam” Master lying on the desk. He dearly hoped it was loaded.

  “You’re under arrest,” Maddox said, moving toward the desk.

  “Arrest, you fool?” the thing impersonating Sanders said. “I’ll have you before a firing squad—”

  The android must have realized the captain had spoken as a ruse. Maddox reached for the hand cannon lying on the desk.

  “No,” Sanders said. The supposed political advisor launched out of his chair. If Maddox had been a regular human with ordinary reflexes, it would likely have been fast enough, but the captain had accelerated reflexes.

  Maddox snatched the gun just ahead of Sanders, raised it and fired.

  BOOM!

  The clever android was extremely fast. At the same instant, it jerked short and darted aside. Although Maddox had fired at point-blank range, the bullet missed, tearing apart the chair Sanders had been sitting in.

  Maddox corrected, with no doubt now that Sanders was an android.

  BOOM! BOOM!

  One of the bullets clipped the fast-moving android’s left shoulder. The heavy slug tore away suit fabric, pseudo-flesh and revealed mechanical workings inside what should have been a human shoulder.

  BOOM! BOOM!

  The next bullets struck the thing’s torso casing, causing the android to crash back and tumble across the carpeted floor.

  Maddox did not spring up onto the desk so he could keep the thing in sight. Instead, he moved carefully around the desk to the right. Cook was shouting from on the floor to his left.

  The door opened and a GCMS officer with a gun in his hand peered within. At the same time, the badly wounded android sprung off the floor, heading for the door.

  Maddox aimed and fired again.

  BOOM!

  The .55 caliber slug took the android in the back, knocking the pseudo-Sanders forward against the GCMS officer. Both of them fell into the secretary’s office.

  She screamed from her desk.

  The other GCMS officers backed away, surprised and unsure what to do. The first officer scrambled off the floor, shouting in alarm.

  The android kept moving, crawling across the carpet as working parts shed from his wounds.

  Maddox strode up, aimed low and fired two more times into the android. After a second of seeing metal fly from the android, the GCMS officers, as a group, also opened up, adding their bullets to the mayhem.

  Finally, as smoke drifted everywhere, the android stopped moving.

  The black-uniformed, cap-wearing, vested GCMS officers looked at Maddox.

  He aimed the hand cannon at them. “Drop your guns,” he said, “all of you.”

  “Sir?” one asked.

  The others looked shocked.

  “I don’t know if you’re men or machines,” Maddox said. “This is Star Watch Headquarters and you five definitely do not belong to Star Watch.”

  “But—”

  Maddox aimed at the speaker’s face. “Drop your guns or we’ll find out the hard way.”

  One after another, the GCMS officers let their guns hit the carpet.

  “Summon the admiral’s marines,” Maddox told the shaking secretary. “Then get Major Stokes on the line. Tell him to bring medical personnel to Brigadier O’Hara’s former office. Three darted people might need medical attention.”

  “Sir?” the secretary asked, bewildered.

  Maddox whirled round. “Galyan!”

  The holoimage made himself visible.

  The secretary screamed again, louder than before, while several of the GCMS officers backed away.

  “Check on Stokes,” Maddox said. “I forgot that I darted him. If he’s awake, give him the message. Otherwise, tell his secretary what to do.”

  “Yes, sir,” Galyan said, disappearing.

  Admiral Cook stumbled into the secretary’s outer office. He had a bloody gash on his forehead. He stared at the android, at the GCMS officers and finally at Maddox. “What just happened?” the Lord High Admiral asked in a husky voice.

  “Good thinking, sir,” Maddox said. “I suggest you tell your marines to quarantine the building. Then, if you don’t mind…”

  “Captain?” asked Cook.

  Maddox was about to say that he’d have Ludendorff come down. But he didn’t think the professor would come or would want anyone to know that he was still aboard Victory. Ludendorff had a phobia of capture by Star Watch.

  Cook was staring at Maddox, maybe in shock.

  “Are you all right, sir?” Maddox asked.

  “Yes, damn it. Now, what’s going on?”

  “It’s time to quarantine the building, sir.”

  This time, the idea seemed to get through. “Right you are, son,” the admiral said. “We’re going to figure out this mess and make someone pay.”

  Maddox nodded, doubting it would be that easy.

  -9-

  “If I might make a suggestion, sir,” Maddox said some time later.

  Lord High Admiral Cook looked up at Maddox from where he sat behind a large table. The old man had been massaging his forehead for over thirty seconds.

  They were in an armored conference chamber, one without any hidden doors or side passages. Heavily armed marines guarded the room from the outside.

  Maddox had been explaining the reasoning of his actions to the admiral. Unfortunately, one call after another had interrupted the explanation. Prime Minister Hampton had shouted though the intercom box, furious that this could ruin the honeymoon period of his new administration. Cook had tried to tell the man the situation was much more serious than that. An android had been his chief political advisor—that could mean the end of his administration before it really got started.

  Hampton had still been shouting when he abruptly hung up. General Torres had called and demanded Maddox’s scalp—Torres the new Intelligence chief. Major Stokes had also called, threatening to resign unless strict measures were implemented against the captain for his reckless behavior.

  The calls had come, Maddox’s explanations had taken a back seat and Cook had become frustrated by it all, massaging his forehead for over thirty seconds.

  “A suggestion, sir,” Maddox repeated.

  Before Cook could ask Maddox what suggestion he might have, a loud knock sounded at the door.

  The two men exchanged glances.

  “Enter,” Cook said.

  A big marine opened the door and Doctor Lisa Meyers waltzed into the chamber. She wore high heels and a dark blue suit with her hair up.

  The marine must have seen Cook’s nod, because the armed man grinned as he studied her posterior while shutting the door behind her.

  Doctor Meyers gave Maddox a withering glare before turning to the older Lord High Admiral.

  “I wish to press charges against that man,” she said, pointing at Maddox without looking at him.

  Cook gave her an uncomprehending stare.

  “Did you hear me?” she demanded.

  The admiral collected himself. “You’re in no position to make any demands. You’re—”

  Maddox loudly and obviously cleared his throat.

  Cook checked himself.

  “Yes?” she said. “I’m what?”

  “You’ve had a harrowing day,” Cook said.

  Maddox nodded in approval.

  “Do you suppose my interview with General Torres has any bearing on what occurred?”

  “Just a minute,” Cook said, interrupting her. “Let’s be honest. You had sex with Torres in his office.”

  “After the interview was over,” Meyers said. “Admiral, Torres and I are both adults.”

  “No one is denying that,” Cook said. “But this is a military installation, the heart of Star Watch, in fact. It’s unprofessional.”

  “I’m not governed by your military dictates or customs. I am the Prime Minister’s liaison officer, doing my job as I see fit. Your man there shot me today. That was a vicious assault, a criminal act.”

  “He did it in the line of duty,” Cook said.

  “On what possible grounds?”

  Cook seemed bemused by the question.

  “I can answer that for you, sir,” Maddox said.

  Meyers turned toward him with an icy stare.

  “Uh, go ahead,” Cook said. “I’d like to hear this too.”

  “I was in a life or death situation,” Maddox told Meyers. “When I burst into the room, it appeared as if you had subdued the general.”

  “Don’t be absurd,” she said.

  “Espionage is carried out in a variety of ways,” Maddox said. “I assumed—incorrectly, it turns out—that you were an enemy agent suborning the Intelligence chief of Star Watch. After all, I did end up finding an android infiltrator. I thought you might be one too.”

  Meyers opened her mouth to retort.

  “I realize you’ve called the Prime Minister and pled your innocence to him,” Maddox said. “I congratulate you on your quick thinking. But you don’t seem to understand how serious it is that Hampton used an android as his chief political advisor. What’s more, this android vetted you. You are on dangerously thin ice, Doctor Meyers.”

  She raised her chin in an imperial manner. “Through the Prime Minister, I am a representative of the People. By assaulting me, you have assaulted the People, the very authority by which Star Watch operates.”

  Cook slapped the table. “This is too much. You were having sex with my Intelligence chief in his office. I will have decorum in headquarters. What’s more, I question—”

  Maddox cleared his throat again.

  Cook waved that aside. “I question your ethics, Doctor. I question your loyalty to Hampton and to the Commonwealth.”

  Doctor Meyers’ eyes seemed to shine as a cruel smile spread across her stunning features. “You have overreached,” she said softly. “I doubt you will be able to keep your position now, Admiral.”

  “I hold my position by the will of the Great Council,” Cook said. “Hampton cannot summarily dismiss me. At this point, he will be lucky to keep his office.”

  “We shall see who is lucky and who isn’t,” she said. “The android affair will blow over soon enough. Star Watch cannot afford to let the world know about it, or confidence will plummet throughout the Commonwealth. Star Watch cannot afford that—not with a coming war against the New Men.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cook said.

  “You have insulted the Prime Minister’s liaison officer,” she said, “which is the same as insulting the Prime Minister to his face.”

  Cook did not retort, as he was too busy staring at her, wondering why she’d said they would soon have a war with the New Men.

  “The Prime Minister is in no position to threaten the Lord High Admiral,” Maddox told Meyers. “The Prime Minister just sent an android to murder the head of Star Watch.”

  “What?” Meyers said. “You can’t possibly believe the Prime Minister knew Sanders was an android?”

  “Does it matter what I believe?” Maddox asked in a conversational tone. “It’s what the People will believe—if we say so. You are quite wrong about Star Watch helping you to brush the “android affair” under the rug. Hampton is a buffoon at best—”

  Meyers gasped in disbelief.

  “Once the People learn Hampton trusted an android,” Maddox said, “I imagine the clamor will sound so loudly that the Great Council will be forced to impeach him.”

  Meyers closed her mouth as she stared at Maddox silently.

  “As Hampton’s liaison officer,” Maddox continued, “I would think that you would put aside your indignities in order to smooth the admiral’s feathers, not stir them even more.”

  “You darted me,” she said.

  After a second, Maddox shrugged.

  “You don’t care that you darted me?” she said, her voice rising.

  Maddox only smiled faintly.

  “Do you care that you shot me with a dart or not?” she demanded.

  “Doctor Meyers,” Maddox said softly. “Let me assure you that I do not care in the least that I shot you with a knockout dart while you were suborning the Intelligence chief with your undoubted charms.”

  “How dare you say that?”

  Maddox shrugged. “I care that Prime Minister Hampton sent an android to murder the Lord High Admiral or possibly drug him and maybe insert some of kind of obedience chip in him. That I care about deeply.”

  “Your suggestions are absurd,” Meyers said.

  “I also care that you’ve been enticing our Intelligence chief,” Maddox said. “I wonder why, and I wonder for whom.”

  Doctor Meyers’ eyes narrowed to slits. She turned to Cook. “Is that your story too?” she asked coldly.

  “Might I make a suggestion, sir?” Maddox asked.

  Cook eyed the captain, finally nodding.

  “Doctor Meyers might be too close to the tragedy today to see clearly,” Maddox said. “Too...personally involved. Perhaps she should return to the Prime Minister for recuperation. Further, because she is such a valuable member of the Prime Minister’s team, you should request that he leave her position open at present, awaiting her return at the proper time.”

  “You’re obviously trying to get rid of the Prime Ministerial liaison officer,” Meyers said flatly, “so you can work without supervision.”

  “On no account is that true,” Maddox said. “You are too valuable to easily replace. I suggest you tell the Prime Minister that the Lord High Admiral said so.”

  “The Prime Minister wishes to have a direct link to Star Watch Headquarters,” Meyers said. “That means having a liaison officer, one he trusts.”

  “I suggest that the Prime Minister has lost that possibility for a time,” Maddox said. “We shall look into the android affair and report to him when we learn more. In the meantime, you and the Prime Minister can concentrate on the political backlash of this murder attempt and the seriousness of trusting an android. That means you will let the Lord High Admiral do his job without any… civilian interference.”

  “There was no murder attempt,” Meyers said. “That is sheer fabrication.”

  “An android attacked today,” Maddox said.

  “That isn’t the report I heard.”

  Maddox nodded. “I congratulate you on your resources. You inserted your tentacles in headquarters quickly.”

  Once more, her eyes seemed to shine dangerously. “You think you’re clever, don’t you, Captain?”

  “I’m beginning to wonder if you’re more dangerous than ‘Sanders’ was.”

  “I’m no android.”

  “I know,” Maddox said.

  “Oh?”

  “I knew once I darted you that you were human.”

  Meyers eyed Maddox. “Check, for now,” she said. “But it isn’t checkmate, Captain. I will take you up on your suggestion and return to Prime Minister Hampton. He is the center of gravity in this case.”

  “I thought it was the People,” Maddox said.

  “Hampton is the voice of the People, as they elected him through the other delegates.”

  “Touché,” Maddox said in a mocking tone.

  “This isn’t the end of it,” Meyers said. “While you may have won this round, you’ve made a deadly enemy of me, and thus the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Planets.”

  Maddox did not respond—just gave her that faint smile.