“Well, we’re all set now,” Ranthar Jard said. “I have a plan of attack worked out; subject to your approval, I’m ready to start implementing it now.” He glanced at his watch. “The Salgath telecast is over, on Home Time Line, and in a little while, a transcript will be on this time line. Want to watch it here, sir?”
* * * * *
The telecast screen in the living room of Tortha Karf’s town apartment was still on; in it, a girl with bright red hair danced slowly to soft music against a background of shifting color. The four men who sat in a semicircle facing it sipped their drinks and watched idly.
“Ought to be getting some sort of public reaction soon,” Tortha Karf said, glancing at his watch.
“Well, I’ll have to admit, it was done convincingly,” Zostha Olv, the Chief Interoffice Cooerdinator, admitted grudgingly. “I’d have believed it, if I hadn’t known the real facts.”
“Shooting it against the background of those wide windows was smart,” Lovranth Rolk said. “Every schoolchild would recognize that view of the rocketport as being on Police Terminal. And including that girl Zinganna; that was a real masterpiece!”
“I’ve met her, a few times,” Elbraz Vark, the Political Liaison Assistant, said. “Isn’t she lovely!”
“Good actress, too,” Tortha Karf said. “It’s not easy to impersonate yourself.”
“Well, Kostran Galth did a fine job of acting, too,” Lovranth Rolk said. “That was done to perfection—the distinguished politician, supported by his loyal mistress, bravely facing the disgraceful end of his public career.”
“You know, I believe I could get that girl a booking with one of the big theatrical companies. Now that Salgath’s dead, she’ll need somebody to look after her.”
“What sharp, furry ears you have, Mr. Elbraz!” Zostha Olv grunted.
The music stopped as though cut off with a knife, and the slim girl with the red hair vanished in a shatter of many colors. When the screen cleared, one of the announcers was looking out of it.
“We interrupt the program for an important newscast of a sensational development in the Salgath affair,” he said. “Your next speaker will be Yandar Yadd—”
“I thought you’d managed to get that blabbermouth transposed to PolTerm,” Zostha said.
“He wouldn’t go.” Tortha Karf replied. “Said it was just a trick to get him off Home Time Line during the Council crisis.”
Yandar Yadd had appeared on the screen as the pickup swung about.
“... Recording ostensibly made by Councilman Salgath on Police Terminal Time Line, and telecast on Home Time Line an hour ago. Well, I don’t know who he was, but I now have positive proof that he definitely was not Salgath Trod!”
“We’re sunk!” Zostha Olv grunted. “He’d never make a statement like that unless he could prove it.”
“... Something suspicious about the whole thing, from the beginning,” the newsman was saying. “So I checked. If you recall, the actor impersonating Salgath gestured rather freely with his hands, in imitation of a well-known mannerism of the real Salgath Trod; at one point, the ball of his right thumb was presented directly to the pickup. Here’s a still of that scene.”