Rhiannon put these observations one under the other, added them, and got the right answer. He'd been taken. Just as his fellow workers could play incredible jokes on him--when Stevie wasn't around--and have them pan out because of his braincut, so had Spy Karrin pulled a whopper.
Having worked this out, the busy cells slowed down, the lights began to dim behind the giant's dulling eyes. He stood there in the darkness, having one grim determination, and not knowing quite why he had it.
Karrin came out of his office and grunted down the 'scalator, unused to the knee action of climbing and descending. His shadowy figure came across the floor, gradually giving its details. His face was red, his eyes were feathered with red; he hugged the carrycase like a mourning Apache mother.
Rhiannon blocked the door; his voice came puzzledly: "I ain't going."
The carrycase thudded to the floor; it didn't bounce, but if it had, the appearance of Karrin's atom pistol would have shaded the second thud. Rhiannon planted his legs like standards.
"I ain't going to fly you anyplace," he said, "an' I ain't gonna let you go either. I--don't know why--I--can't--won't--"
At that moment a door rolled open at the far end of 52, and the tall, wary shapes of Patrolmen blinked through the rectangle of light into the dark pool of the Bed. They made directly for the still lighted office.
Silently, silently! Karrin had to reach to do it. He reached high, standing on tiptoe, and brought the butt of his gun down on Rhiannon's head. The giant made a sound like a baffled ape and took a forward step. His outflinging leg struck the floor without sensation and buckled. The gun went up and came down twice again.
Rhiannon felt a cloth-ripping pain in his head. Static crackled and slammed into his brain. It swelled louder and more penetrating; then muffled down to lengthening drumrolls.
The nebula beckoned him from his straight path back to Polaris. He circled it carefully, although there wasn't any sign of danger. It wasn't a very interesting nebula. He wheeled Karrin's boat once again toward Polaris and his three-headed friends. Sergeant Atoms sat alertly at his side.
Then suddenly, terrifying, the boat pulled away from under their feet and left them cold and lonely in airlessness. The sweet stars began to blink out in clusters; the celestial static dimmed down into the silence of infinite sleep.