Mission: Earth "Disaster" (17 page)

She told me to just lie there and not see or hear anything. She went back to the flight deck a dozen feet away.

"Dear," she said, "he says nothing is wrong. I think it is safe to land. And we can go straight to Spiteos."

"Spiteos?" said Heller, thunderstruck. "Why?"

"Dear," said the Countess Krak, "I left some papers there. They are quite vital to our future."

"Lady," said Heller, "Spiteos is Lombar Hisst's terrain. You've been hinting at this for months. I think you'd better tell me all."

"Well, I'm sure it will be all right now to tell you. The mission is over." And she proceeded to tell him all about the Royal proclamations I had had forged. One still had to be signed, but when it was signed, it would restore her identity, titles and lands. The other had to be endorsed at the end of the successful mission and it would give him a Royal post and no more suicidal combat-engineer assignments.

Heller was amazed. "You saw these things?"

"Yes, and they are entirely authentic. You mustn't forget that other people think you are valuable, too! We only have to present them to His Majesty for their final signatures."

"Where are they?" said Heller.

"I hid them at Spiteos," said the Countess Krak.

"Oh, I don't know," said Heller. "Let's face it. You are a nonperson. You do not have any civil status at all. If they laid hands on you and you didn't have these papers, they could just imprison you again. It's too awfully much a risk. I just went through too much when I thought I had lost you to even discuss the matter further. When you're two hundred years old, gray-haired and toothless and I've been dead for decades, you can bring the matter up again. But not before. That's it. That's final. That's all there is to it. You are not going near Spiteos! FINISH!"

"Oh, Jettero."

"No, I mean it! I am NOT going to lose you again!" "Jettero, you are always telling me that all life is, is a series of Consecutive risks joined together with hairs stood on end." "I didn't say that."

"Well, the way you live, you probably think it. This isn't something one should throw away. It means you can have a much better life and it means that I can marry you. This isn't something you throw away. You sit right there."

The Countess Krak came back in. She picked up the helmet microphone. She said, "Are there any other copies of those documents anywhere?"

I had been holding my breath. But now, like a brilliant bluef lash, an idea came to me that had such certainty of success that I was in instant awe. The whole plan came to me, just like that! I could not only escape them but I could also get them captured. I was hard put to keep the elation out of my voice. I forced it to be muffled. I lied, "Yes. The exact same documents, perfect duplicates, are under the floor of my office at Section 451."

When she took the helmet off it was almost all I could do not to split my head in half with a grin. Heller and Krak had delivered themselves straight into my hands!

He passed us through the defense perimeter in the outer reaches of Voltar by giving the number of a patrol craft. I had expected that he would use my identoplate but he didn't even ask me for it.

I wondered where we were going. I had thought that he would land at the hangars of the Apparatus Space Section, of course, the point where we had taken off. By craning my neck I could see that we were over a high plateau. That wasn't even the main Fleet base! Where was he taking us?

It seemed to be late afternoon on the ground. But we were not near enough to make out much detail.

Then he did another crazy thing. A challenge came up to us from whatever was below and Heller said, "Upward Strike, requesting permission to land."

Upward Strike? That was the last of the original intergalactic battleships, 125,000 years old. A museum piece!

We came down like a plummet in Heller's usual landing style: fast and sudden.

We were tail first, bow toward the sky. It put me upside down and I hung there, standing on my head. Then my gimbal bed belatedly reversed and I was being held down, standing up and staring out the suddenly opened port.

WE WERE TOTALLY SURROUNDED BY FLEET MARINES!

They stood with weapons ready—they even had a motorized field piece.

Heller threw open the airlock.

A nailer blared out, "Give us your recognition at once!" I knew that voice. It was Commander Crup.

We were at Emergency Fleet Reserve.

Heller yelled down from the entry port, sixty feet above the ground, "I thought that would get you!" He was laughing.

"Blazing comets!" yelled Commander Crop. "It's Jettero Heller! Jet, boy! You scared us half to death! We didn't see it was Tug One until the last two seconds. You could've gotten yourself shot!"

"I didn't want to put it on the communication channels that I was arriving here. And I wanted a guard of marines. I've got a prisoner I promised to bring home for trial. I've got to deliver him to the Royal prison."

"Who?"

"Remember that Soltan Gris?" said Heller.

"A 'drunk'?" said Commander Crup. "Well, its about time somebody arrested him. What about Tug One? It's an Apparatus vessel now."

"I'm transferring it to independent duty on my own cognizance. I've had a bellyful of 'drunks.'"

"Who hasn't?" said Commander Crup. "Get the ladder out and you can get down."

"Good," shouted Heller. "And if old Atty is around, I want to see him, too."

Oh, this was boding no good for me. Those Fleet marines looked deadly. I waited anxiously to see what was going to happen.

When they got the ladder, Heller went down it in a long slide. Then he ran over and he and Commander Crup swatted each other on the back. The marines stood alertly, eyeing the tug, and I knew they were slavering in the hopes of getting a shot at a "drunk." I began to sweat.

Old Atty, once Heller's racing repair chief and a watchman BOW, came tearing up in a triwheeler and pumped Heller's hand and wiped his eyes.

Fleet reunion! I bad forgotten how many friends Heller had. Next he'd probably take me to his palatial quarters at the officers' club and let the younger men beat up on me for sport. They were grouped around Heller down there. Then Crup rushed off and a Fleet marine sergeant rushed off and Any rushed off. They all looked very businesslike. What was Heller up to?

It struck me that nobody elsewhere had the least idea we were back. I prayed I could still make my idea work. Everything depended on delivering Heller to Lombar, and here he was surrounded by Fleet, the mortal foes of the Apparatus. The marine sergeant came back and handed Heller a bag and Heller scaled the ladder and gave it to the Countess Krak. Then old Any returned with a truckload of fuel rods, followed by an atmosphere-and-water truck. Then a civilian airbus jumped the fence and Commander Crup got out and talked with Heller.

Suddenly, I heard a step in my door and glanced hastily sideways and got the impression of a Fleet marine beside me. I felt a surge of fear. They had come to get me! I felt the buckles of the gimbal bed part and looked up.

I WAS STARING INTO THE FACE OF THE COUNTESS KRAK, DRESSED AS A FLEET MARINE!

Her hair was tucked under the combat helmet. The tan, high-collared tunic was darker than the slight tan of her face. She had done something with makeup and looked like a too-handsome young space soldier.

So that was how he was going to hide her. I overcame my terror of being so close to her and filed the information away.

Now, Soltan," Krak said. "No tricks. When does your office close?"

A surge of hope raced through me. I didn't show it in my face. "Six," I said.

"That's sunset," she said. "And there won't be anyone there?"

"Nobody. They dive for home."

"Now listen carefully. We're taking you there to get the duplicates of those Royal proclamations. If you even so much as quiver, We'll break your legs. Understood?"

I nodded, careful not to look eager. This was going exactly per my plan.

She had a marine electric dagger in her hand. She put the satchel of my records over my head. That was what I wanted, too.

"When we've got those proclamations," she said, "we are delivering you to the Royal prison. Remember that I did not give my word that you would arrive there alive. The price is your cooperation in delivering those documents."

"You'd kill me?" I said.

"After your trying to murder Jettero? I saw it, remember. You don't deserve a trial. So do you go along quietly and help? Or do I find out right here how effective this electric dagger is?"

She had it on. I could hear it whirr. But I tried to hide a smile. She was playing the game exactly as I wished.

She prodded me down the ladder. I went the sixty feet to the ground and two Fleet marines took hold of me and marched me roughly to the civilian car. The driver was a marine and beside him sat another, holding a needle handgun pointed straight at me. I got in the back. Heller sat on one side of me, Krak on the other. Heller waved to Crup and we vaulted into the sky. All Voltar spread out below in the waning sun. We passed around the main Fleet base and began to mingle with the sky traffic. The driver was identifying us with his own identoplate, just another bunch of marines going on liberty. As we approached Government City we bucked the outgoing evening traffic. The River Well wound a golden track around the cliffs where the offices of Section 451 perched in decay.

Then qualms began to hit me. I was as tense as a string about to break. Could I pull this thing off? My life depended upon it and so did Heller's death. If it didn't work, they would deliver me to the Royal prison. That was the province of the Justiciary of Voltar and not even Lombar could tamper with the decisions of those grim judges. In the Domestic Police prisons, the Apparatus could spirit away criminals after they had been sentenced, but not the Royal prison. Stern tradition guided the justiciary there, for it housed only the most notorious criminals, those with crimes against the state. If they locked me in there under charges, not even Lombar could get me out.

This was a very risky thing.

Lombar had better appreciate all the dangers I was suffering on his behalf. We came in slowly, making sure that the office was now closed. Old Bawtch, the chief clerk there, was dead. I had ordered him killed along with the two forgers. So there was no risk that they would be around to expose the invalidity of what we had come to pick up.

It was dusk. "Looks like they've all gone home," the marine driver said.

"Go ahead and land," said Heller.

The driver chose a place between two parked airbuses and killed the engine. Heller got out and looked around. There was nobody in sight. The building was locked. He was carrying a shoulder kit bag and he got out an instrument. He went up and down the wall tubing with it. He located what I knew to be the central communications conduit of the place. With two suction cups he fixed a field coil over the area. It would give the circuits the appearance of still being alive. No alarm would trigger.

Then, with a pair of snips, he cut the conduit apart. No alarm would go off and nobody could make a call out of that building now.

I was praying soundlessly to every God I knew that my trick would work.

Heller beckoned to the two marines. They already had guns pointed at me. "This is the prisoner's office. We are going in here to collect some papers. But he also might get the idea of laying his hand on a weapon. This is also Apparatus territory and he might get the idea his friends will rescue him before we can get him to the Royal prison. So at his first suspicious move, shoot to stun."

Heller motioned to me and I pushed my identoplate against the lock.

Inside, the place was its old, musty, dark, cluttery self, redolent with what sarcastic people are prone to call "drunk stink." I had no time to look around: under the prod of guns, I went through to my old office in the back. Heller set a lamp down on a side table. Nothing had changed: dust was thick; there was even an empty hot-jolt can just where I had left it so long ago. Oh, office of bitter memory and pain, office of nightmares and overwork, office of travail—I had not missed it even a little bit.

My private toilet door was closed.

"Well, where are they?" said the Countess Krak.

Of course, there were no duplicates of those Royal forgeries. I said, "Oh, don't think I am unwilling to cooperate. I am just trying to remember exactly which floorboard I have to lift." It really didn't matter which one I addressed first: there was ample blackmail material under each and every separate one of them, for I had been collecting career data for all my years in the Apparatus. It's the only way one could get along and get his way. I managed to look a little distracted. I gripped my lower abdomen and made a face. Then I started to bend over to lift a board. I got it partially up. One could see there were papers under it. I dropped it. "No, that's not the one. I don't want to tear the whole place up ..." I grimaced harder. "If I only didn't have my mind on having to go to the toilet. . ."

"What?" said Heller.

"I've got diarrhea," I said. "It's the increase of gravity. A spacer like you wouldn't notice it, but weighing one-fifth more now has got my system upset. If you let me go to the toilet, maybe I could concentrate." Holding my lower abdomen with one hand, I pointed at the toilet door with the other. Heller gestured to a marine. "Check it out."

The marine opened the toilet door, played a light around the place, grimacing at the cluttered stink. He shined the light at the window and went over close to it to look down at the River Weil flowing darkly five hundred vertical feet below. The window was the kind that seals and never opens. He came out. Rather hurried, to keep up the pretense, I went in. I looked back at the Countess Krak and closed the door.