Episode 9: Deduction
He got no answer. Instead the girl grabbed his arm and pulled him off to the edge of the gigantic metal room. An opening appeared in the wall and she pushed him through it into a room beyond. The entranceway snapped shut behind them and when he looked he could see no door. The room also was windowless.
Naomi went to a metal table and as she looked down into its surface it became a screen. Mirrored in it was the mountainous countryside they had driven through to get to the barn--or what had seemed to be a barn from the outside. He looked over her shoulder.
They saw as from a height. There was the light car that had chased them from the frontier. Standing near it was a man in an officer's uniform and another in civilian clothes. They were talking and gesturing. Beside the car was a tank. As they watched, its gun fired and the structure they were in shuddered, but they heard no sound.
Lumbering up the mountain road were more tanks and a self-propelled gun. One of the tanks became enveloped in smoke and flames as they watched. After a moment the smoke cleared. The tank was gone; where it had been there was a deep crater.
Gradually, the figures in the drama below grew smaller. At the same time the vista widened, so that they saw more and more countryside. It twisted beneath them and the horizon came giddily into view. A few moments later the curvature of the earth could be plainly seen.
Everything fitted together at once. Some of the things, anyway.
"We're in a ship," he said. "Some kind of rocket-ship."
"It's a planet plane," the girl said. "We're safe now."
"Safe from what?" he asked. "What's this all about?"
She smiled enigmatically. "Hafitz could tell you, if he chose. He's the boss."
"The man in the wheelchair?"
She nodded and took out a compact. As she added lipstick to her mouth, she looked him over, between glances in her mirror.
"You don't look like the spy type. If there is a type."
"I'm not a spy. I don't know what you're talking about."
"The innocent! Go on, take off your coat and shirt. We'll save Hafitz some time."
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Richard Wilson
