“And here we’re hi the New Moon, hi the very clutch of his mortal power!
But why Hannas, Jay?”
“Even through the cloud of legal confusion that is always kept around the dealings of the syndicate, it’s clear that Caspar Hannas was about to lose the New Moon.
Now the activities of the Basilisk have enabled him to buy back control at his own price. There—in the difference between bankruptcy and the System’s greatest fortune —you have motive enough, I think.”
“Aye,” agreed Giles Habibula.
“But you said this Basilisk must be a scientist—and Caspar Hannas is no scientist.”
“But he has a very able one—if Brelekko told the truth—completely under his thumb. John Comaine.”
Jay Kalam rubbed abstractedly at his jaw, and then his dark eyes went abruptly to Giles Habibula.
“However,” he said, “all the weight of evidence still rests against Chan Derron.
“For Chan Derron took Dr. Eleroid’s invention—which is probably the very scientific agency that makes possible the feats of the Basilisk.
He has been connected with every crime. He was here, loaded down with concealed instruments, when little Davian was taken.
And once more he has mysteriously escaped.
“I was for a long time reluctant to believe that so fine a Legionnaire as Captain Derron was, could have turned to such a monster as the Basilisk.
But the presence of the female android accounts for that.
It may be that Luroa was the mysterious spy who first frightened Dr. Eleroid! And then she met Chan Derron.”
Somberly, his dark eyes looked far away.
“He would not be the first man degraded and destroyed by the fatal allure of those inhuman things.”
“So, Jay,” sighed Giles Habibula, “some of them were mortal beautiful!”
Jay Kalam’s glance came back to the old man, suddenly intent.
“Giles,” he said softly,
“I’ve an idea!”
“Eh, Jay!”
The fishy eyes blinked uneasily.
“You’re getting too many ideas about a poor crippled old hero of the Legion, Jay.”
“You are ordered, Giles, to find Chan Derron.”
“But we’re all looking for Derron.”
“So we are.”
Jay Kalam’s lips tightened sternly.
“But I’m afraid you haven’t been exerting your full capacities.”
His low voice lifted slightly.
“Giles, as Commander of the Legion, I order you to find Derron and the woman with him.
By any means you can.
You will work alone—but keep in touch with us by ultrawave and call for any aid you need.”
“Find the Basilisk?”
Giles Habibula paled and squirmed.
“How do you think—?”
“Use your own methods,” Jay Kalam told him. “But you’ve been boasting enough of your cloudy past—you might pretend to be another criminal.
Whatever you do, learn everything you can.
Discover the location of the Basilisk’s headquarters—find a target for the keeper of the peace.
Trap Derron and the android.”
Giles Habibula licked his fat blue lips. He gulped.
His seamed face turned greenish-yellow, and glittered with sweat.
He gasped for breath, and mopped with a trembling hand at his bald brow.
“Jay!” he wheezed at last.
“Are you out of your mind?
In all these years, hasn’t Giles given enough to the System—aye, given all his precious genius!—without being flung into this web of fearful horror?”
His pudgy fingers quivered on Jay Kalam’s arm.
“In life’s name, Jay, stay your cruel command! Ah, think, Jay! Poor old Giles might be snatched from beside you at this very moment—to be found perhaps in the black Euthanasia vault, with the blade of the Basilisk in his poor dead back!”
“Remember,” Jay Kalam said gravely, “that it’s for the keeper.”
Giles Habibula caught a sobbing breath.