Astounding Science Fiction, August 1955 (British Edition) — page 94: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“92 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION ‘““No comment,” Tortha Karf said. “Call the girl on my switchboard and tell her to answer any other news-service calls. We have nothing to say at this time, but there will be a public statement at . . . at 2330,” he decided after a glance at his watch. “That'll give us time to agree on a publicity line to adopt. Lieutenant Sothran! Take charge up here. Get all these bodies out of sight somewhere, including those of Councilman Salgath and Detective Malthor. Don’t let anybody talk about this; put a blackout on the whole story. Vall, you and Dalla and . . . oh, you, over there; take the prisoner down to my office. Sothran, any reports from any of the cars that were chasing that fake police car?” Verkan Vall and Dalla were sitting behind Tortha Karf’s desk; Vall was issuing orders over the intercom and talking to the detectives who had remained at Salgath Trod’s apartment by visiscreen; Dalla was sorting over the things she had spilled when her bag had burst. They both looked up as Tortha Karf came in and joined them. “The prisoner’s still under the drug,” the Chief said. “He'll be out for a couple of hours; the psych-techs want to let him come out of it naturally and sleep naturally for a while before they give him a hypno. He’s not a ServSec Prole; uncircumcised, never had any syntho-enzyme shots or immunizations, and none of the longevity operations or grafts. Same thing for the two stiffs. And no identity records on any of the three.”’ “The men at Salgath’s apartment say that his housekeeper and his two servants checked out through the house conveyer for ServSec One-Six-Five, at about 1830,” Vall said. ““There’s a Prole entertainment center on that time line. I suppose Salgath gave them the evening off before he called you.” Tortha Karf nodded. “I suppose you ordered them picked up. The news services are going wild about this. I had to make a preliminary statement, to the effect that Salgath Trod was not arrested, came to Headquarters of his own volition, and is under no restraint whatever.”’ ‘Except, of course, a slight case of rigor mortis,” Dalla added. “* Did you mention that, Chief?”’ “No, I didn’t.” Tortha Karf looked as though he had quinine in his mouth. “‘Vall, how in blazes are we going to handle this?” “We ought to keep Salgath’s death hushed up, as long as we can,” Vall said. ““The Organization doesn’t know positively what happened here; that’s why they’re handing out tips to the news services. Let’s try to make them believe he’s still alive and talking.” “How can we do it?” “There ought to be somebody on the Force close enough to. Salgath Trod’s anthropometric specifications that our cosmeticians could work him over into a passable impersonation. Our story is that Salgath is on Pol- Term, undergoing narco-hypnosis. We will produce an audio-visual of him as soon as he is out of narco-hyp. That will give us time to fix up an im- personator. We’ll need a lot of sound-recordings of Salgath Trod’s voice, of course— “Tl take care of the Home Time Line end of it; as soon as we get you an impersonator, you go to work with him. Now, let’s see whom we can CORNICODOO<S.COn