The Inquisitor turned away to face the wall, and muttered through the Catechism of Faith invoking the Verse of Swift Striking, just in case. He turned back to the room.

“It is obvious that the murder is you!” This was directed at Group Leader Wilmer. In the same motion he drew his own pistol. Before the echoes had died in the room, Wilmer had produced a knife from one sleeve, and a small pistol from the other. He leapt at the Inquisitor with inhuman speed but, in spite of this, the Inquisitor, fortified by the Verse of Swift Striking and prepared for the attack, shot him squarely in the chest and at the same time aimed a kick at him that would have felled a tree. The hell blast slowed Wilmer slightly but, unexpectedly, did not take him down. His return shot hit the Inquisitor’s cloak. When he was wearing the cloak it increased his bulk giving more cloak and less Inquisitor to shoot at. The kick missed and as he dived by, Wilmer stuck his knife to the hilt into the Inquisitor’s right thigh. Wilmer would have probably had the time to tumble across the floor and make it out of the door into the night, but his knife refused to release from the Inquisitor’s leg. In the split second of delay, Wilmer was hit twice in the back with hell pistol shots, and the guard by the door caught him on the side of the head with the flat of his servo-axe. This diverted the tumble, and the Inquisitor’s next kick broke his pelvis.

Proctor Paramedes yelled” Back!!” and even the Inquisitor leapt backwards as a web grenade landed on the fugitive’s body and exploded. The sticky strands bound the body to the floor, wall and furniture. He struggled against it with unnatural strength, but even so could make no progress.

The Inquisitor inspected the expensive holes in his cloak and tried to extract the knife from his thigh, but it had jammed in the mechanism somehow, and his ankle would now not move. The slight burning in his stump indicating a serious but not critical malfunction, as did the sucrosol fluid dripping on the ground..

In the second or two that had elapsed, the civilians had barely moved a muscle, and the Captain-General had barely time to reach for his Blade of Honor.

After order had been restored to the room, the Inquisitor continued.

“Once I heard Wilmer’s story, I was suspicious. My search of the library confirmed it. The only control console is upstairs, Councilor Anhalt is in a wheelchair. He wasn’t upstairs calling Wilmer at Headquarters shortly after dinner. There was no call. Wilmer came here to kill the Councilor. He came into the lodge, saw the living area was empty and took his chance. He went into the library and shot the Councilor. Before he could get out, he heard the Captain-General. He was trapped. He shot out the light, dropped the gun and hid behind or beside the door. The Captain-General rushed in, tried the light, saw the body, and heard the noise at the verandah door of Citizen Else trying to get in. Wilmer then drew his own pistol and pretended to have just come into the library from outside.”

“Who he really is, I don’t know, but I doubt that that is Wilmer any more. We have him alive, the Inquisition will find out the Truth”