The Invaders Plan (37 page)

The military section wasn't very military! It was a good thing I was taking care of this. Dead crews don't blab.

I looked through a grate at the very end. And there they were, twenty men. Their clothes had been stolen, of course, and they were naked. They were draped about on stone ledges. But they didn't look in too bad a shape. I saw why, then: there was a pile of vermin bones in the middle of the floor and a very active stream of water, an underground seepage, trickled blackly down a blacker wall.

I pushed the prostitute into a nearby empty cell. I would save her for a surprise.

I decided to be brisk. I shouted through the grate, "Who's in charge here?" A tall, husky guy got off the bench, he came over to the grate. "And who the Hells are you?" he said.

Not very beaten down! Well, they'd had vermin to eat and there was water coming down the wall they could catch. They probably didn't see a guard more than once a day and yet here was somebody being spunky.

I decided to be military, "The number of your patrol craft, please."

"So you know we're a Fleet crew," he said. "And what happens when Fleet finally finds out what was done with us?"

"Come, come," I said. "I am here to help you. Do not take that tone with me, my man. Give your craft number, name and rank." Somebody amongst the rest said, "No harm. He knows it anyway." The one at the door shrugged. "Craftleader Soams, Fleet Patrol Craft
B-44-A-539-G.
Who are you and where are we?" Ah, they didn't know where they were. Excellent.

Now, there are two approaches one can use. The first is to be friendly, the second is to extort. Being friendly takes time.

"In return for certain information, I can give you certain things. They will make your life easier. Don't bargain. I haven't got much time." The others were stirring around now, they formed a half circle behind him.

I went back and got some of the counterfeit out of the bag. I left the girl hidden. I returned and waved the notes.

"If you will tell me everything you know about one Jettero Heller, a combat engineer, who accompanied you on your last patrol, this is yours." He went back and they put their heads together. They whispered for quite a while. I could see their various ranks from their conduct. A Fleet patrol craft does not have Royal officers – -there are too many patrol craft. The "captain" is called a "craftleader." He has two sub-officer pilots, a subofficer engineer and odds and ends of specialists who attend to things like finance and food and then a few common spacers. You could see who was who in the deference paid to whispers. They sort of consulted by chain of command. But awfully democratic. They're different than the Army, it is said, because of living so tight together and at such long times in space.

They seemed to be resistant so I said, "With this you can bribe food." Soams came back to the grate and looked at the money I still held. "It isn't enough," he said.

I went back in the other cell and got a few more bills. It appeared to be enough. Aha, I thought. Heller's charm isn't enough to prevent singing birds.

They made a drill of it. That's sort of the way Fleet is. A man would step up, speak his piece, then step back and another would step ahead and speak up.

And of all the sickening drivel I have ever listened to in my whole life, that period in Spiteos talking with that crew topped it.

Heller was a tall, very handsome officer. Heller knew exactly what he was doing. Heller was brave and afraid of nothing. Heller had an excellent singing voice. Heller did thoughtful things, illustrated by bandaging up the medical rating when an airlock slammed on him. Heller was amusing in that he told jokes when things looked grim – examples included.

Absolutely, utterly sickening!

Finally they stood back and Soams reached out and took the money. I had meant to snatch it back but he was too quick.

I looked them over. According to the dream – and it was amazing how closely they resembled themselves in the dream – they had said they knew more than that. I was sure they did.

I went back and got some more money. Imagine paying for such useless trivia! But I had no choice. I would trick them in the end.

Now began parade number two: Heller was very athletic. He held a racing record. He scared them to death once walking with magnetic shoes up to the top of the hull just to get a measurement of waves the interior of the ship was cancelling: he hadn't been able to find a safety line aboard that was long enough and so, four hundred miles above Blito-P3, he went walking on the top of the ship carrying some meter, and no safety line. Stuff like that. Sheer drivel.

They were done. Soams reached through the bars and took the money. But I could sense they were holding something back. A couple looked at each other secretively.

I went and got the food. I was mad enough by then to take a real satisfaction in it. They would soon be dead!

Instead of being impressed by these gaudy cans – they would look and taste just like the real thing and death would follow in minutes – this nut Soams said, "Where you getting all this stuff? You couldn't carry it in your arms." I went back and got the magic bag to show them. I didn't show them it was a magic bag.

And then, catastrophe! That (bleeping) girl, curious about where I was disappearing to, or maybe looking for a possible way to escape, peeked out of that cell!

Soams saw her! (Bleep) her. She deserves everything that must have come to her.

"A girl?" said Soams.

"A girl?" chorused the rest of the idiots. They crowded up to the grate, peeking one after the other.

Oh, well, I knew I had them then. They went back and put their heads together and whispered by chain of command and ship department. And then Soams came back to the grate.

"You want to know something about Heller, don't you?" he said. And seeing my eagerness, he continued. "Well, we know something about Heller that it is vital
you
should know. In fact, knowing it could save your life!" That was what I wanted.

"Down here," and he kicked the bottom of the door, "there is a food slot. They seldom put anything through it but it is big enough to slide that girl through. She looks small. And it is big enough to slide that bag you're holding through."

"All right," I said. "You tell me and I'll slide them through."

"Oh, no," said Soams. "You'd just walk off. After all, you're armed. You could open the door and take them out again if you didn't like it." What could I do? I slid in the bag. Then, with more hope than effect, I tried to wrestle the girl down and shove her through. She had the long nails they cultivate in the Flisten back country to show they never work. I did
not
want to get scratched.

Then one of the spacers came to the grate and he said something in one of those outlandish tongues nobody can talk and the girl instantly went dead still. I thought to myself that spacers really got around. She went through the tight slot without another protest.

Soams took the food cans. He looked at the money. He looked at the bag. He looked at the bundle of sexual tricks. He looked at the girl, lying very quietly now inside the big cell. I held my breath. Ah, he nodded.

The craftleader came up very close to the bars. He said, "And here is your information. Heed it and it will benefit you." I was all ears.

"When Heller," said the craftleader, "gets word of what has happened to us, he will kill you with his bare hands! Run like mad and maybe it will save your life!" Of course my immediate impulse was to smash the door open and snatch those things back. I even could have shot through the bars. But I couldn't see all the walls in there and they looked dangerous.

The Hells with them.

I stalked up the passageway, ignoring their catcalls and cries of "drunk!" I should stick to orthodox psychology. My original dream analysis had been correct. Only thirst had caused me to act otherwise. The real reason was a censored desire for sexual intercourse with my mother.

I told the guard officer I was through. I even tossed down the pass for the girl. But she wouldn't need it. They would all soon be dead as she'd eat some of that food as well! I was confident I had handled that scene perfectly.

With one less worry on my mind, I addressed my attention to the crash of the patrol craft. Actually, it was sort of like the Apparatus not to follow through on a project and I didn't want Lombar coming down on me suddenly with a "Why didn't you take care of that?" as he had in the original kidnapping.

So, much to the consternation of my driver, instead of going back to Government City, I directed him to fly along a little-used traffic route toward the Blike Mountains. He had lots of fuel. We had lots of food and sweetbuns, thanks to Heller. I had my needle blastrifle and game bag. But I told myself that this was duty, pure duty. And thus it was that we flew and flew.

There was no sign of any crashed spacecraft. I worked it all out. If the crew had arrived at Spiteos forty-eight hours late, then it was a forty-eight hour circle by lorry that we were looking at. You can't run at random in the Great Desert even in sand lorries; if it wasn't between Government City and Camp Endurance, then it was on a seldom followed track forty-eight hours
beyond
Camp Endurance. Simple logic. But if it wasn't there, either, then they had sold the patrol craft to smugglers and returned to Camp Endurance by airbus and Gods only knew where the patrol craft would be: while that was a sort of nervous idea, I would do my duty so far as looking for the crash was concerned. If I found it, I might leak it to the newssheets.

The driver was helpful once he got out of me what we were doing. He spotted something and we landed. But it was a crash so old it was almost gone into the ground. While examining this, I spotted a songbird, a type they call a "thriller" – found in the desert – and brought him down. He was only a few feet away and sitting but it was a good shot. I put him in the game bag.

Further toward the Blike Mountains, I pretended to find another crash which turned out to be a rock, but I got two more thrillers.

The Blike Mountains were beginning to rise higher and higher. They are icy peaks and while not the tallest on Voltar, their thirty-eight thousand feet will do. You can't walk over them. The air at their summits is too thin. Even in their passes it is too thin.

After two more false sightings, during which we got six more thrillers, my driver said, "Officer Gris, are we looking for wrecks or are we going hunting?" For the first time I realized I really was going hunting. The more distance and the more time I could put between me and Heller and
Tug One,
the better it would be!

Of course I didn't answer the driver. He would have interpreted it that I was running away!

We got very cold crossing the first ridge of the Blike Mountains but we came down very fast into the valleys beyond it. This country is all hunting preserve areas, under the domination of the Lords, patrolled and guarded. But it is so vast, there are so many plateaus and gorges, that you can get lost in it utterly and no one would ever find you if you didn't want it to happen. It is full of all manner of game, some of it even brought in from other planets.

"Somebody followed us over that first range," said my driver.

I looked. I saw nothing behind us in the sky. An airbus has no detectors. I was nervous.

"I don't see him now," said the driver.

I told myself sternly that it was just my nerves: after all, I had had a trying time lately. It was proof I needed a hunting trip!

Amazingly, dusk was falling. Perhaps it was just dropping lower behind the first range of the Blikes, but it seemed awfully dark. It's not a country to land in, in the dark!

I quickly chose a landing spot. It was a little plateau. Grassy, a few scrub trees. It was right on the edge of a three-thousand-foot drop down to a white running river. But there was a line of rock at the edge that jutted up.

"Land!" I ordered.

He did. He shut off the drives. What beautiful quiet! Just the hiss of wind through the scrub trees and the mutter of water far below in that gorge. I relaxed. Delightful. After a bit I got out and walked over to the piles of rocks that rose at the edge of the cliff. I climbed up. There was an animal path on the other side, a couple of caves and way, way below, the water. My, it was black down there: already you could see no more than some white foam.

The driver had gotten some sticks together. I put a little firepowder on them and when the air soaked into it, the blaze crackled happily. It was cool and it was getting very dark.

The driver ripped the feathers off the thrillers and we put them on sticks and began to roast them. After half an hour of fond attention, they were done.

I was sitting on a boulder, eating a thriller. The fire was bright. Beyond it sat the driver eating another bird. I had just reached back for another stick.

The blastshot was right where my head had been!

The heavy concussion blew the fire out totally!

Believe me, I scrambled!

The driver heard me going and he followed. I got over the mound of rocks at the cliff edge and got to the other side. If my driver hadn't plowed into me, almost knocking
me
loose, he would have gone three thousand feet down!

I crouched down on the animal trail on the cliff. I was not going to peer over the top of those rocks. Not yet!

"I was right," said the driver. "Somebody followed us!"

"Get up there and peek over," I said.

He scrambled a bit. A rock came loose and started a small avalanche. That sound was what did it!

A spray of blastfire roared over the top of the rocks. The concussion was awful! Whoever it was was using a fangun! It is a weapon that puts out electric fire in a forty-degree front arc! No hunting weapon that! No gamekeeper weapon! That was military! My Gods, who was after us? The Army?