Free Delay in Transit by F. L. Wallace Page A

distances were not as reliable as they might be.
     
     
Was this man, whoever and whatever he might be, connected with that delay?
According to Dimanche, the man thought he was. He was self-deluded or
did he have access to information that Cassal didn't?
     
     
     
     
Denton Cassal, sales engineer, paused for a mental survey of himself. He
was a good engineer and, because he was exceptionally well matched to his
instrument, the best salesman that Neuronics, Inc., had. On the basis of
these qualifications, he had been selected to make a long journey, the
first part of which already lay behind him. He had to go to Tunney see a
man. That man wasn't important to anyone save the company that employed
him, and possibly not even to them. The thug trailing him wouldn't be
interested in Cassal himself, his mission, which was a commercial one,
nor the man on Tunney. And money wasn't the objective, if Dimanche's
analysis was right. What did the thug want?
     
     
Secrets? Cassal had none, except, in a sense, Dimanche. And that was too
well kept on Earth, where the instrument was invented and made, for anyone
this far away to have learned about it.
     
     
And yet tim thug wanted to kill him. Wanted to? Regarded him as good as
dead. It might pay him to investigate the matter further, if it didn't
involve too much risk.
     
     
"Better start moving." That was Dimanche. "He's getting suspicious."
     
     
Cassal went slowly along the narrow walkway that bordered each side of
that boulevard, the transport tide. It was raining again. It usually
was on Godolph, which was a weather-controlled planet where the natives
like rain.
     
     
He adjusted the controls of the weak force field that repelled the
rain. He widened the angle of the field until water slanted through it
unhindered. He narrowed it around him until it approached visibility
and the drops bounced away. He swore at the miserable climate and the
near amphibians who created it.
     
     
A few hundred feet away, a Godolphian girl waded out of the transport
tide and climbed to the walkway. It was this sort of thing that made
life dangerous for a human -- Venice revised, brought up to date in a
faster-than-light age.
     
     
Water. It was a perfect engineering material. Simple, cheap, infinitely
flexible. With a minimum of mechanism and at a break-neck speed, the
ribbon of the transport tide flowed at different levels throughout
the city. The Godolphian merely plunged in and was carried swiftly and
noiselessly to his destination. Whereas a human -- Cassal shivered. If he
were found drowned, if would be considered an accident. No investigation
would be made. The thug who was trailing him had certainly picked the
right place.
     
     
The Godolphian girl passed. She wore a sleek brown fur, her own. Cassal
was almost positive she muttered a polite "Arf?" as she sloshed by. What
she meant by that, he didn't know and didn't intend to find out.
     
     
"Follow her," instructed Dimanche. 'We've got to investigate our man at
closer range."
     
     
     
     
Obediently, Cassal turned and began walking after the girl. Attractive in an
anthropomorphic, seal-like way, even from behind. Not graceful out of her
element, though.
     
     
The would-be assassin was still looking at merchandise as Cassal retraced
his steps. A man, or at least man type. A big fellow, physically quite
capable of violence, if size had anything to do with it. The face, though,
was out of character. Mild, almost meek. A scientist or scholar. It
didn't fit with murder.
     
     
"Nothing," said Dimanche disgustedly. "His mind froze when we got close. I
could feel his shoulderblades twitching as we passed. Anticipated guilt,
of course. Projecting to you the action he plans. That makes the knife
definite."
     
     
Well beyond the window at which the thug watched and waited, Cassal
stopped. Shakily he produced a cigarette and fumbled for a lighter.
     
     
"Excellent thinking," commended Dimanche. "He won't attempt anything on
this