Calvin M. Knox (18 page)

T
he
trip
took eight days.
According to Carton's figuring, the cargo ship from Vyom would reach Morilar a
day after he would. Delicate timing would be necessary.

The
girl was terrified of the reception she would get at home. Catton reassured
her. "Your father can be manipulated —you know that yourself. Well tell
him you were abducted and that the note you left was dictated by Doveril. Hell
believe
you."

On
the eighth day the ship entered landing orbit around Morilar. At the spaceport
Catton phoned the Embassy and arranged for a car to pick them up, not telling
anyone that the girl was with him. Reaching the Embassy, he led her quickly to
the Ambassador's office, and made her wait in the hall, away from the beam of
the scanning field.

The
Ambassador looked like his own ghost. His huge frame had shed perhaps thirty
pounds. His face was pale, his skin sagging loosely into pouches where the fat
had dissolved away,
his
eyes weary and sad. He had
taken Esal's disappearance badly.

"I
thought we were never going to see you again," Seeman said. "After
that terrible spaceship disaster—for weeks we thought you'd been killed. And
then word came that you had escaped after all—"

"Does Earth know I'm
alive?"

"Of course.
We sent a message when your ship was reported
missing,
and another when you turned up safe."

"Have I missed anything important in the
last three months?"

The Ambassador shrugged. "Not much.
Things have remained about the same since you left."

Catton
smiled. "Not entirely. I've got a surprise for you, Ambassador Seeman.
Will you excuse me for a moment?" He ducked out of the office. Estil was
waiting in the hall with a pinched, nervous look on her face. "Go
inside," Catton told her. "He isn't expecting you, so be prepared to
shock him."

"You didn't tell him anything?"

"Just that I had a surprise for him.
Nothing more.
Remember:
Doveril
kidnapped
you. He made you write that
note. Got it?"

"Aren't you coming in with me?"

Catton
shook his head. "I don't belong in there. And I don't want to be around
when the weeping and wailing starts. I don't like to watch a man the size of
your father cry.

The girl smiled shyly at him. She stood
hesitating at the edge of the green scanner-field that registered on the screen
inside the Ambassador's office. Catton gave her a blunt shove into the field.
Then, quickly, he turned and strode away, up the stairs to his own room on the
fifth floor.

It
was late in the afternoon. Tomorrow, probably around noon, the cargo ship would
be docking at the spaceport outside Dyelleran. The ship wouldn't remain in
port long-no longer than necessary for Beryaal or one of his agents to verify
the nature of the cargo and send it on its way to Earth.

Catton saw he was in an ambiguous position.
As a member of the Interworld Commission on Crime, he had a legal right to
inspect the cargo of any ship entering or leaving Morilar. But Beryaal, as
chairman of the Commission, could overrule him. Most likely Beryaal would take
precautions to keep any spaceport officials from snooping into that ship's
cargo.

Catton reached for the phone, punched out the
number of Dyelleran Spaceport, and asked to speak to the supervisor of customs
inspection. Ten minutes and three sub-supervisors later, the lean face of an
elderly Morilaru appeared on the screen.

"Yes?"

"Lloyd Catton speaking—of the Interworld
Commission on Crime.
Can you give me a list of the cargo ships due to arrive at Dyelleran
tomorrow?"

"All of them?"

"I'm interested in a particular one
that's probably coming in with an unregistered planet of departure. Or else
it's registered as coming from Vyorn."

"Vyorn?
Not very likely.
Hold it-Ill check."

The
screen blanked for a moment. Then the customs official reappeared. "No, no
ships coming in from Vyom tomorrow, sir. There isn't much traffic between Vyorn
and Morilar, you see."

"I know," Catton said impatientiy.
"Are any ships landing with unregistered planets of
departure
"

The
official ran his eye down a list outside the field of the visual pickup.
"Ah—yes.
One ship, due in at eight minutes past noon.
Doesn't give planet of departure, simply says it's from the Rullimon Cluster.
Might be your ship from Vyorn, sir—Vyom's in that Cluster."

Catton
nodded. By law, an incoming ship did not have to register its planet of
departure prior to customs inspection; it merely had to indicate the galaxy
from which it came. He would have to chance it. This ship was probably the one.

"Ill
be
at the spaceport tomorrow to conduct a personal
inspection of that ship's cargo," Catton said.
"I
don't want any of your men
going aboard till I've looked the ship over."

"Yes, sir."

"And if I'm late, impound the ship and
hold its crew for questioning. I suspect
it's
running
contraband. Ill have further instructions for you tomorrow."

Carton left the Embassy early the next
morning and had himself driven to the spaceport in an official car. The morning
papers were splashed with the story of EstQ See-man's return. Her overjoyed
father had released the kidnap story, but with few accompanying details.
Details, thought Catton, might expose the holes in the story.

Shortly
before noon Catton reached the spaceport. The ship from Vyorn would arrive in a
few minutes. He went immediately to the office of Erwal Kriuin, Supervisor of
Customs Inspection at the big spaceport. Kriuin looked a little surprised to
see him.
"Oh—Commissioner Catton.
I didn't think
you'd be coming out here."

"Why not?
I told you yesterday I'd be here at noon to inspect that incoming
cargo."

"Yes,
of course, but I thought the later instructions from Commissioner Beryaal
cancelled that arrangement, and—"

"What
later instructions from Beryaal?"

The
Morilaru looked bewildered. "Right after you called, he phoned me to find
out about the same ship. I told him you had already made plans to inspect it,
and when I said that he said never mind, that he was going to take care of the
job himself. And since he's chairman of the Commission, I thought that you wouldn't
be coining out here today, and—"

Catton nodded, cutting off the voluble flow.
"There's been a mixup, I see. Is Beryaal here yet?"

"Yes,
sir.
He's on the field waiting for the ship to land."

"Which will be
when?"

Kriuin
glanced at a wall clock. "Six minutes, Commissioner Catton."

"Is Beryaal
alone?"

"He
has a group of men with him, sir. But he ordered me to keep my inspectors away
from the ship until he was finished looking at it."

Carton's
face darkened. No doubt the group with Beryaal was the special crew that would
take the cargo of matter duplicators on to Earth. Beryaal's plan seemed simple
e-nough: he would check the cargo to make sure all was well, supervise the
changing of crews, and send the ship off again with his blessing. No mere
customs inspector would dare to protest once Pouin Beryaal himself had
okayed
a cargo for transit.

A
showdown with Beryaal was inevitable. The wily Morilaru had so thoroughly
embedded himself in positions of trust that defeating him might be close to
impossible. But Catton had to try.
For Earth's sake.

"Get me a hand
camera," Catton ordered suddenly.

Kriuin
burrowed into a closet and produced one of the pistol-sized closed-circuit
video cameras used in customs work. When a customs inspector went aboard a
ship, he carried one of the little cameras, which he trained on any item of
interest in the cargo hold. It not only broadcast the image to a special screen
in the customs office, where other officials could take note of it, but also
piped the image into a video taper which made a permanent record of the inspection
for use in later inquiry.

Casually Catton opened the camera and
detached the micro-miniaturized phosphor-coated "eye" that was the
core of the instrument. He slipped the "eye" into his jacket pocket.

Kriuin
said tactfully, "You understand, sir, that the instrument will not
function unless the
perceptor
tube is in place—"

"Of course I realize that," Catton
said irritably. He did not
want
the
camera to function. He wanted to avoid creating any permanent record of the
scene that would take place inside the cargo ship—but he intended that Beryaal
and his men would think that such a record was being made.

A few minutes later, field warning signals
began to wail. The ship was landing. An area was cleared on the field and the
dull-gray ship that Catton had last seen rising from the spaceport on Vyom now
descended on a fiery tail of jet exhaust. It came to rest in the middle of its
clearing. The decontaminating squad came scurrying out to swab down the landing
area.

After
five minutes the ship's hatch opened and the crew of eight came down the
catwalk, one after another, while nine other figures walked out onto the field.
Catton recognized the figure in the lead. It was the immensely tall, dominating
figure of Pouin Beryaal.

Catton
fretted a few impatient minutes more. Then, as Customs Supervisor Kriuin
goggled in utter confusion, Catton carefully checked the charge units of his
blaster, smiled at the customs official, and left the office. He trotted
downstairs and out to the main approach to the field.

A Morilaru guard stared inquisitively at him.
Catton flashed his Crime Commission credentials. "I'm inspecting that
ship."

"Of course, sir."
The guard stepped complacently aside.

The
five hundred yard walk to the ship seemed endless. At last Catton reached the
entry hatch. He climbed up, hand over hand, and hauled himself into the open
lip of the freighter. Beryaal's crewmen, standing around uncertainly, frowned
at Catton as he came aboard.

"What
is it, Earthman?" asked a big, rough-looking Morilaru.

"I'm
inspecting the cargo. Anyone want to see my credentials?"

"Inspection won't be necessary,
Catton," said a familiar voice. Pouin Beryaal strode out of the shadows at
the rear of the cabin. The Morilaru's brooding eyes glared daggers at Catton.
"I'm handling inspection in here myself, Catton. I thought I left word at
the customs office that you didn't have to bother coming aboard."

Catton smiled to mask his inner tension.
"I thought I'd help you look around, Beryaal."

"I don't need any help."

The
Earthman let the hand-camera become visible, projecting from his clenched left
fist. He flashed it around,
then
centered it on
Beryaal. "Surely," Catton said quietly, "you don't have any objection
to letting me examine the cargo—just for the record?"

Facial
muscles bunched and knotted in Beryaal's cheeks. The big Morilaru seemed to
sizzle inwardly. Thanks to the camera, Beryaal was in an awkward position. If
everything were being monitored and taped in the customs office, then Beryaal
could not in good faith deny Catton the right to examine the cargo without
subjecting himself to embarrassing inquiries
later.
And once Catton succeeded in filming the cargo, everything was lost.

Beryaal
growled, "This is a special cargo. Put your camera away and well inspect
it together."

"Why can't I use the camera?"

"Because this is a matter of Commission security.
If you.
videocast
this back to the customs office, it'll be whispered all over the port in ten
minutes, I insist on security."

Now
it was Carton's rum to sweat. Beryaal had a valid point there. But if Catton
surrendered the
camera,
and Beryaal signalled the crew
to jump him—

He
had to risk it. He made an ostentatious show of clicking the camera off and
putting it in his pocket.

"Come,"
Beryaal said. "I'll take you down to the cargo hold."

They
rode down in the creaking elevator together. As it reached bottom Beryaal
muttered, "You inquisitive idiot, do you think I'm going to let you get
out of this ship alive?"

"Threatening
a fellow Commissioner?" Catton said with false innocence. "Why, whatever
for, Beryaal?"

Beryaal
let his torch glint on the rows upon rows of crates stacked in the hold.
Hundreds of crates, each holding a matter duplicator.
Catton
heard the elevator creaking behind them, on its way back up. Probably Beryaal
had already given the ambush signal. The crewmen would descend, attacking him
in the darkness of the cargo hold.

Beryaal chuckled. "You think there are
hypnojewels in these crates, eh, Catton?"

"Not at all," the Earthman said
levelly, "I wouldn't be risking my life over some hypnojewels, and you
know it. You've got a thousand matter duplicators aboard this ship. Your
henchman Doveril went to Vyorn and paid for them with hypnojewels—just before I
killed him."

Beryaal gasped.
"What—you know?"