Mission: Earth "Disaster" (18 page)

Silently I slid the bolt shut.

Carefully I found the secret catch that opened the side wall. It worked smoothly and quietly. The ladder was there to the hatchway above.

I reverently thanked Bugs Bunny for the inspiration he had been in my life. The glass in the square window was silent-break. I hefted my bag of records. I swung it at the window.

There was not even a tinkle.

jagged edges that remained were very convincing.

I stepped back through the secret side wall and closed it behind me.

On silent feet I went up the ladder.

With hushed fingers I opened the upper hatch.

I stepped out into the starlight.

I closed the hatch behind me.

Without a sound, I crept over to an irregularity in the roof and crawled under the eave to be hidden from overfly view.

A ventilation pipe was close to hand that opened into the lower office, so I took my head well away from it.

I SHOUTED A DWINDLING SCREAM!

A silent second from below.

PANDEMONIUM!

The sound of someone trying to open the toilet door!

The crash of a gun butt against the lock!

The rip of a shattered bolt!

"HE'S GONE!"

The sound of a chair as it overturned. A rush of feet.

Then a voice, which was coming through the shattered window as somebody looked down: "That's hundreds of feet straight down!"

"Do you see a body?"

"Shall I call the river patrol?"

"Nothing can live in those rip currents."

"Do you see any sign of a ledge or a rope?" asked Heller.

"Just straight down, sir. Here's my light."

From up the ventilation pipe, the voice of the Countess Krak: "Oh, the poor dumb fool. He committed suicide rather than face a trial."

"Well, can't say as I blame him," came Heller's voice. "His execution was inevitable."

Krak: "Well, let's find the proclamations. That's what we came for."

Sound of boards being lifted. Rattle of papers. More boards.

Marine: "Still no sign of anything down there in that river, sir."

Heller: "Give us a hand with this search."

Krak: "Maybe they're behind the walls."

More boards. Sound of filing drawers opening and closing.

Marine: "Blazing (bleepards), look at this stuff, sir. He must have had blackmail on half the people in the Apparatus."

Other marine: "That's how the 'drunks' operate."

Marine: "What do we do with this stuff, sir? The disintegrator isn't working."

Heller: "They were apparently the prisoner's personal files. He's probably dead but the investigation isn't over, so grab some cartons and we'll hand them to Bis of Fleet Intelligence. No reason to leave them lying around to wreck people, even 'drunks.'"

Krak: "I'm going to look in the outer-office files."

A lot more paper rustling. Then the sounds of boards being put back and jammed in place with boot heels.

Krak: "There're no proclamations in the outer-office files. Just trash. Oh, blast, where could those things be?"

Heller: "He could have been lying."

Krak: "Not the way I got the information. Have we looked under every board?"

Heller: "Every one."

Krak: "Oh, blast!"

Heller: "What did you do with all the affidavits and confessions?"

Krak: "They're in my case in the airbus. What's that got to do with it?"

Heller: "They might contain some clue to this."

Krak: "No. The proclamations were not even mentioned. They're of no use to us now. The prisoner is dead. Oh, blast! Well, there's only one thing to do: get the originals at Spiteos."

Heller: "Oh, no!"

Krak: "Oh, yes! I know they exist and I know exactly where they are. You can slip in there with the tug and we can have them in two minutes!"

Heller: "Dear .. ."

Krak: "No, Jettero. There is too much at stake in this. We should go right back and get the tug–"

Heller: "Dear! That means you could be putting yourself straight into the hands of Lombar Hisst!"

Krak: "Nonsense. You just let down a ladder. I'll go down and pick them up in a flash and we'll be gone. I know you can do it. And our whole lives depend upon it! We don't have to stop at the Royal prison now, so we can return directly to the field. You're always doing far more dangerous things for much less reason. So let's go."

Heller groaned. Then he said, "All right."

I heard them putting the office back together. Then I heard them loading cartons.

The front door clicked shut.

Their airbus took off while I made myself small under the eaves.

I was hugging myself with ecstasy. It was even better than I had ever hoped for!

Krak and Heller were delivering themselves straight into the open jaws of death!

When I knew that I was absolutely safe, I lifted the roof hatch, crept down the stairs, went through the secret door and back into my office.

I tried a switch. The lights were off because of the cut conduit. I found a hand light in a drawer and turned it on. They had done a pretty good job of putting it all back together.

I thrilled with exhilaration. I was out of their vicious hands.

But now I must make my call.

A few short words with Lombar Hisst and the whole situation would be saved!

Guns trained on the spot where the tug would arrive, one fusillade and they'd plunge a mile straight down into the chasm at the fortress edge. An unarmed, unarmored tug—nothing to it!

I grabbed a communications unit.

It was dead.

I rushed into the outer office and stabbed my identoplate at the huge computer console that should connect with everybody.

Nothing happened!

Heller had severed all the conduits and not put them back! Well, all right. I would rush out to a street message center and place the call through civilian circuits.

Swiftly I sped into the night.

The dull light of a message center loomed. I eagerly dived in. I reached in my pocket for coins.

I came up with a Turkish five-kuras coin.

It didn't work.

I fished out a U.S. quarter.

It didn't work.

I found a U.S. Lincoln penny and tried to force it in the slot.

I banged on it and made it jam.

Frantically I looked through my wallet and clothes.

NOT A SINGLE BIT OF VOLTAR MONEY!

I looked around on the floor in case somebody had dropped a fraction-of-a-credit coin. Very bare.

Let's see. Ske. Yes. Ske, my old driver, might be living near. . . .

No. He wouldn't be living at all. I had given him counterfeits and they would have executed him by now.

Meeley! My old landlady. Only a few blocks from here!

No. She would be dead, too, for I had paid her with money that would get her exterminated and no questions asked.

The area was all dark. There were no people around. I had no friends anyway.

What to do? What to do? What to do? I had to get word to Lombar and fast!

A police station!

No, Heller might have told the "bluebottles" about it and they might just pick me up for him.

My airbus!

But I didn't know where it would be stored or even if it was still allocated to me.

I looked wildly around. And then I had it. An airbus sat beside a building. I would steal it!

I crept up to it. Nobody was around.

LUCK!

The door was unlocked!

I slid in.

LUCK!

It had no drive-control locks.

LUCK!

It started instantly.

I took off straight up with a roar, leaping into the night. I looked down. Not even a head had come out of a window that I could see.

Now, where was I?

Over to my right was the place where Lombar had his town office. I dived in that direction.

Not even a light there.

I veered off to the left toward a place where Lombar stayed while he was in town, a sort of ramshackle palace.

Completely dark, not even any guards.

Well, to me that could only signify one thing: LOMBAR HIMSELF WAS AT SPITEOS!

Luck again!

Oh, indeed, this was my lucky night!

I vaulted up into the traffic lanes. Below me Government City spread out. I went higher. Slum City in one direction, Pausch Hills in another. My eye fell on the dark masses of the mountains. Beyond them lay the Great Desert. Beyond that lay Camp Kill and Spiteos!

I did a hasty calculation. The distance Heller had to travel to get back to Emergency Fleet Reserve was not as great as the distance to Spiteos but he would cover the distance to his target with the tug. And he drove and flew awfully fast.

This was going to be a near thing.

But I was on my way!

Some small fires were burning at the camp. Beyond it Spiteos, the black castle, lay like a blot upon the ground. The mile-deep chasm against the white desert sand looked like a knife scar in the planet surface.

In the distance I saw no signs of gunfire yet. I really doubted if he could get in there unobserved, absorbo-coat or no. Nobody knew of the existence of Spiteos except a few in the Apparatus: They guarded it thoroughly and carefully, and to blandly fly in there and land on it I considered impossible. No such ships ever came near it. The challenge would be instant, gunfire would be inevitable.

I felt I was in time.

I got a challenge. An airbus at night would be very suspect. With fifteen thousand troops at the camp below Spiteos, they had lots of sentries, lots of time, no traffic to mention.

I pushed my identoplate against the screen. The screen flashed:

Hold where you are!

Not too unusual. I clumsily gunned the airbus into a hovering stop in the sky.

The screen said:

You are not on our traffic list. I picked up the microphone. "I've been gone. It is absolutely, utterly urgent that I see Lombar Hisst at once! This is top priority

emergency!"

Hold.

Spiteos lay black and brooding in the starlight and the glow of a moon just rising. A dreadful place. One could almost hear the groans of the thousands of political prisoners buried a mile deep in its bowels.

I began to fret. I looked over at the horizon where lay Palace City, but of course it was invisible: It was powered with a black hole in the mountain behind it and was thirteen minutes in the future. I hoped that Lombar Hisst wasn't there. Time was its defense but it also made direct communications difficult.

My screen said:

Can you spot the orange flare?

I looked down. At the far edge of the camp, closest to Spiteos, an orange flare pinpointed the dark. "Yes." The screen said:

Land there and nowhere else or we will fire.

I sent the airbus plummeting down.

The orange flare was lighting up a circle on the ground and hurting my eyes.

I made a very bad landing.

I opened the door to get out. There was a ring of Apparatus troops.

An officer was beside me, holding a hand blastgun. "Get out."

"Look, I haven't got time for this!"

"Just precautions. There have been threats against the Chief's life."

"Get me to him instantly!" I cried.

"That's right where you are going!" said the officer. "March!"

"Look," I cried, "at any instant now a tug is going to try to land on the Spiteos roof. Inform your batteries." "A tug?" . !

"A tug."

"March!" "Inform them!" I cried.

"March!"

They took me to the tunnel entrance and pushed me into a guard car. We hurtled to the first checkpoint. The sentries searched me and looked through my satchel of evidence. They pushed me back in and we roared through the long tunnel.

We came out and they escorted me into an elevator.

We went rocketing up and exited into the outer office of Lombar Hisst. There were no clerks-around.

The officer made a signal on Lombar's door.

It opened.

There was Lombar Hisst!

He was as tall and as heavy and as mean looking as always, but there was a heavier scowl on his face. It made me very nervous.

"What are you doing here?" he thundered. "When I was told you wanted to land, I couldn't believe it. You're supposed to be on Blito-P3!"

"Oh, sir, there isn't time! In just minutes, Jettero Heller will be here."

"WHAT?"

"Jettero Heller, sir—the man you sent on Mission Earth."

"You didn't kill him?" said Lombar, incredulous.

"Well, no sir. He ducked."

"WHY is he coming here?" snarled Lombar.

That tone of voice terrifies me when he uses it. I opened my mouth to tell him that Heller was coming to get some forged documents. But then, with sudden wit, I checked myself. If I admitted I knew of those documents, I myself would be involved in the forgery penalties. I wound up just opening and closing my mouth several times.

Lombar's eyes went like slits. "You don't have to tell me. I know why. They're all after me!"

I tried to speak again but he interrupted me. Lombar never waited for any answers.

"Oh, that aristocratic upstart! The insolence!" said Lombar. "Coming to kill me! The effrontery of it!"

His paranoia was not about to be checked by anything I could say.

"Is he coming in a tank?" said Hisst. "No, he wouldn't get near here in a tank. He's coming in a space battleship!" Was there a flash of fear on his face?

"No, sir. Please, sir. He's coming in a tug."

"A what?"

"A space tug."