e their own test engineers and who have
to keep their products up to legal safety standards. He didn't know
this balderdash of his was going straight to the _Times_ as fast as he
spouted it; he thought I was taking it down in shorthand. I knew
exactly what Dad would do with it. He'd put it on telecast in
Belsher's own voice.

Maybe the monster-hunters would start looking around for a rope, then.

When I got through listening to him, I went over and got a short
audiovisual of Captain Marshak of the _Peenemuende_ for the 'cast, and
then I rejoined Tom and Murell.

"Mr. Murell says he's staying with you at the _Times_," Tom said. He
seemed almost as disappointed as Professor Hartzenbosch. I wondered,
for an incredulous moment, if Tom had been trying to kidnap Murell
away from me. "He wants to go out on the _Javelin_ with us for a
monster-hunt."

"Well, that's swell!" I said. "You can pay off on that promise to take
me monster-hunting, too. Right now, Mr. Murell is my big story." I
reached into the front pocket of my "camera" case for the handphone,
to shift to two-way. "I'll call the _Times_ and have somebody come up
with a car to get us and Mr. Murell's luggage."

"Oh, I have a car. Jeep, that is," Tom said. "It's down on the Bottom
Level. We can use that."

Funny place to leave a car. And I was sure that he and Murell had come
to some kind of an understanding, while I was being lied to by
Belsher. I didn't get it. There was just too much going on around me
that I didn't get, and me, I'm supposed to be the razor-sharp newshawk
who gets everything.

3

BOTTOM LEVEL

It didn't take long to get Murell's luggage assembled. There was
surprisingly little of it, and nothing that looked like photographic
or recording equipment. When he returned from a final gathering-up in
his stateroom, I noticed that he was bulging under his jacket, too, on
the left side at the waist. About enough for an 8.5-mm pocket
automatic. Evidently he had been briefed on the law-and-order
situation in Port Sandor.

Normally, we'd have gone off onto the Main City Level, but Tom's jeep
was down on the Bottom Level, and he made no suggestion that we go off
and wait for him to bring it up. I didn't suggest it, either. After
all, it was his jeep, and he wasn't our hired pilot. Besides, I was
beginning to get curious. An abnormally large bump of curiosity is
part of every newsman's basic equipment.

We borrowed a small handling-lifter a