"After the shooting and the communication, Dalla took the officiating
gun artist, one Dirzed, into her own service. This Dirzed was spoken
of as a generally respected member of something called the Society of
Assassins, and that'll give you an idea of what things are like on
that sector, and why I don't want to send anybody who might develop
trigger-finger cramp at the wrong moment. She and Dirzed left the home
of the gentleman who had just had himself discarnated, presumably for
Dalla's apartment, about a hundred miles away. That's the last that's
been heard of either of them.

"This attempt on Dalla's life occurred while the pre-mortem revels
were still going on. She lived in a six-room apartment, with three
servants, on one of the upper floors of a three-thousand-foot
tower--Akor-Neb cities are built vertically, with considerable
interval between units--and while she was at this feast, a package was
delivered at the apartment, ostensibly from the Reincarnation
Institute and made up to look as though it contained record tapes. One
of the servants accepted it from a service employee of the apartments.
The next morning, a little before noon, Dr. Harnosh of Hosh called her
on the visiphone and got no answer; he then called the apartment
manager, who entered the apartment. He found all three of the servants
dead, from a lethal-gas bomb which had exploded when one of them had
opened this package. However, Hadron Dalla had never returned to the
apartment, the night before."

* * * * *

Verkan Vall was sitting motionless, his face expressionless as he ran
Tortha Karf's narrative through the intricate semantic and
psychological processes of the First Level mentality. The fact that