Mission: Earth "Black Genesis" (15 page)

pilots have just violated Code Number a-36-544 M Section B!" Dead bodies are hard to get rid of on the spur of the moment and bring in nosy sheriffs and things.

The second engineer's detector flashed red! Something had been knocked out by the blueflash!

The first pilot, blastrifle at ready, sprinted in the direction of the indicator beam. Stabb was tensed at the tug controls, ready to take off again in case the alert turned out to be an ambush.

The Virginia night was August, muggy hot. A thin sliver of moonlight silhouetted the copse of trees. A wind sighed through the weeds around the spaceship.

Then a bark of laughter. The first pilot came running back. He was holding an opossum by the tail! He threw it to one side. "Seems all clear," he said.

"All clear!" said the second engineer, tossing his heat detector back into the airlock.

Stabb peered into the night, his close-set eyes intent. "Where the Hells are they? We've got to be back at the base before the sun rises there!" He glanced at his watch. "We've only got twenty-five minutes to hang around here!"

Suddenly, running feet in the distance, coming down a weed-grown road.

Raht burst into view. He was lugging two enormous suitcases.

He is the most unremarkable-looking Earthman one ever cared to see. Aside from a bristling mustache he affects, there is not one other feature to make him stick in memory. The perfect spy. He is from the planet Modon and glad they were to get rid of him.

He boosted the suitcases into the airlock. He was panting with exertion. But he saw me in the dim shimmer of interior light. "Cripes!" he said, "It's Officer

Gris himself." He always has a bit of a complaining note when he speaks.

"What have you got in these suitcases?" I demanded. "The orders were to get expensive luggage filled with clothes."

He pushed them further into the airlock. "Clothes cost money. You've no idea what inflation is, I made up the weight with rocks!"

He had made up the weight with money in his own pocket, I said to myself. But I hit the buzzer to the back and picked up the bags to take them to Heller. I did not want him to see the agents that would be tailing him from here on out.

Heller had released the passageway doors. I struggled through and dumped the two huge suitcases in the salon. They were expensive-looking cases.

He was sitting at the table. I said, "You'll find clothes in there. Get dressed fast. Take no clothes of your own. You only have a little over twenty minutes, so don't dawdle." I left him, closing the doors behind me.

Raht was still breathing hard. I drew him into the crew salon. He took out a sheaf of documents. "Here's his military school diploma."

I read:

SAINT LEE MILITARY ACADEMY

Greetings: DELBERT JOHN ROCKECENTER,

JUNIOR

has completed his education to the

level of JUNIOR COLLEGE.

Signed, sealed (etc.)

It was a very imposing diploma. It had Confederate soldiers holding rifles at port arms. It had banners and cannons. Very fancy.

"Here's the rest of the papers," said Raht. They were attested transcripts of subjects and grades.

"What clever forgeries," I said.

"Hells no," said Raht. "They're the authentic signatures. The school closed last spring for keeps and the ex-faculty will do anything for a buck. You think I want to get sent up for forgery?"

Always complaining, even when you give him a compliment.

"Where's Terb?" I demanded. "We haven't got much time."

"Maybe he's having trouble. The old clerk at that (bleeped) courthouse didn't want to come down after hours."

Captain Stabb looked in, pointing at his watch. "We're going to have to race to make it now. We have to get back while it's still night!"

But here was Terb, leaping in through the airlock. Terb is one of the most unremarkable Earthmen you'd ever want to see. A bit on the plump side, a bit swarthy, but you would never pick him out in a crowd. He's from the planet Dolo and they were very glad to get rid of him.

"Not Officer Gris himself!" he said. "We must be important after all! Raht, I been wrong. All this time I been telling you we was just dirt and now..."

"Shut up," I said. "Is the birth certificate fixed?"

Terb nodded. He took a small electric switch out of his pocket. "The old clerk wants to see him so he can attest the certificate is issued to a real person known to him that ain't dead. He don't like to be thought crooked. This bird we got here will present himself, hand over another C-note, get the certificate all signed. Then the

instant he walks down the steps of that courthouse, I hit this and good-bye clerk, good-bye records. I planted the bomb before dawn today. Right in the record files!"

I gave them the activator-receiver. "This is a special bug. You must keep this within two hundred miles of him at all times."

"But we got him bugged," said Raht. "There's bugs in those clothes and there's bugs in those suitcases and we have the activator right here. We can't possibly lose him!"

"This is another type of bug, an aerial bug," I lied. "It's inserted in his elbow and registers if he handles explosives or touches guns: we don't want you getting shot."

Oh, that was different!

"We can spot him from a ship with this," I lied. "Now this is the 831 Relayer. Keep it right with the activator-receiver.''

They got that.

"Just leave them turned on all the time. See, they look like a telephone connection box. You can put them on the outside of any building or under a bed."

They promised.

Then Raht said, "Money. For us. Inflation is awful!"

I handed them a draft on the Chase-Arab New York Bank. They were happy. So was I: it was government money.

I gave them a few tips. Then I said, "Now get out of here before he sees you."

They went diving out of the airlock, sprinted past the faintly moonlit plantation house and were gone.

Stabb was looking at his watch.

Heller came out. And oh, I had to laugh! Clothes to fit men six feet two inches tall aren't to be had in southern Virginia. They were all too small!

Raht had done a wonderful job. The jacket was LOUD! Huge red and white checks. The pants were LOUD! Huge blue and white stripes. The hat was a bright green, banded Panama: too small! The shoes were orange suede and too tight! The shirt was purple!

He would stand out like a searchlight!

The clothes did look expensive, like they'd been bought by someone with lots of money and no taste at all.

And they looked like they had been outgrown.

Wonderful!

He was lugging the two huge suitcases.

"Don't you think this wardrobe is a bit garish?" he said.

"In the height of fashion! In the height of fashion!" I replied.

I rapidly told him again where he was supposed to go to get his birth certificate. I handed him the other papers.

Then I knelt down in the airlock, pointing a night scope up the road. I wanted to make sure Raht and Terb were out of sight and that the area was still clear. Something was moving in the brush.

"I'm a bit hungry," said Heller behind me. And then he seemed to wander off into the ship.

Stabb came to me. "He says he wants..."

"Give him whatever he wants," I said. There was something moving over there by a slave cabin.

Heller was there again. "I'm going to need some money."

Oh, yes. His money. The orders said five thousand dollars so he'd look affluent. I pulled two thousand out of my pocket and handed it to him. Three thousand wasn't bad for a night's work.

He was closing up some straps on a suitcase.

"We're awful close to time," said Stabb.

I saw what the object that had been moving was. A fox. To Hells with it.

I stood up and turned to Heller. I put out my hand. He, however, didn't take it. Instead, he was extending a letter to me. "Do me a favor, would you, and mail this? I promised to keep him informed."

I took it and put it in my pocket. I was too intent on getting rid of him to pay it any heed. "Well, good luck, Jettero," I said. "This is it. Off you go."

He dropped to the ground, lugging the two big cases. He limped off past the moonlit plantation house.

"Bye-bye, Heller," I said to myself. "And I hope you make a lot of good friends in the pen!"

"We're taking off," said Stabb.

I got out of their way. The second engineer dropped out of the airlock with a machine in his hand. Stabb lifted the tug six feet off the ground and held it there. The second engineer ducked around with his machine and made all the grass stand up straight where the ship had been. He threw his machine into the airlock. The second pilot gave him a hand back aboard. They closed the latches.

The captain said to me, "Are you under orders to make our ship incapable of leaving this solar system?"

As a matter of fact, I was. From the assassin pilot. But it wouldn't do to tell Stabb his ship was to be disabled. "Why?" I said.

"He took the time-sight out of the flight deck just now," said the captain. "And if there's another one, we can't get to it. He's double-barred all his cabins and storage spaces: we won't be able to get into them even with a blastgun! Without a sight, we can't fly her in outer space. But I suppose that's what you required: you said to give him anything he wants."

So what? Who wanted to ride in this (bleeping) tug and maybe get shot down?

Stabb sent the ship hurtling into the sky.

Now to race back to the base and land just before dawn.

Stabb cranked the tug auxiliaries up toward the speed of light.

I was jubilant.

Heller was off my hands!

I couldn't wait to get back to a viewer and see how he got everything he had coming to him. The (bleepard). All the trouble he'd caused!

Less than two hours later, I was sitting in my secret room in my villa, about 105 degrees of longitude from Heller, watching his every move.

I was ecstatic! The picture on the viewer was brilliant! The sound was perfect even down to the crickets! The 831 Relayer was doing its job!

I had to backtrack the recording strip a bit to where he left the ship.

And there he was, carrying two heavy suitcases, limping through the Virginia night. Up ahead there was a farmhouse, shedding light across a barnyard.

Any true spy, even slightly trained, would have taken a wide path around it. But not Heller!

There was a growl.

Then there was a savage snarl!

A huge sheep dog barred the way!

I realized with a chuckle that Heller had probably never seen a dog. The nearest thing to it were the hondos of Flisten which, when domesticated, specialized in chewing up the whole family.

There it stood, fangs bared! It was crouching down. I knew it would charge. Good-bye, Heller. This thing is going to end right here on a hot night in Virginia and between the fangs of a dog!

With a short run to get a fast start, it sprang into the air, the fangs aimed straight for Heller's throat!

Heller let go the suitcases.

His hands flashed out.

He grabbed the dog by the loose skin on either side of the jowl!

Pivoting on his heel, using the momentum of the dog, he sent the beast twenty feet behind him!

It sailed through the air! With a clunk, it collided with a tree, let out one yelp and lay still.

I expected Heller to run. That much sound would attract attention in the nearby house.

Heller walked over to the dog and examined it. Then he picked the big brute up in his arms. He went back to his suitcases and somehow got hold of their handles.

He was limping to the lighted house!

The screen door opened. A farmer was standing there with a shotgun!

Heller limped right on up to the porch. He dropped his suitcases. "Ah'm afraid yoah dawg ran intah a tree," said Heller in a thick Virginia accent.

The farmer opened the door wider and Heller took the dog into the living room and laid it down on the rug. "He ain't bleedin' none, so Ah s'pose he'll come around," said Heller.

The Virginian bent over the dog. It made a feeble struggle to get up and the farmer petted it and it relaxed with a faint thump of its tail.

"Naw," said the farmer, "he ain't hurt none. You f'um heahabouts, kid?"

"Heahabouts," said Heller. "Ah'll be gittin' on now."

"Hell, no. Not aftah you done a white-man thing lahk that! Martha, bring some cawfee in heah!" he yelled toward the kitchen.

"Aw, no," said Heller. "Ah be much obliged. But Ah got me an appointment in town. A fellah's a-waitin' foah me at th' co'thouse. Ah'm much obliged but Ah be late awready."

"Well, hell, kid, tha's more'n two mile. An' you limp-in' an' all. Be downright unneighbo'ly of me not to run you intah town! Ah'll git mah truck!"

The dog had gotten over on its belly. It was staring at Heller with the strangest look.

The farmer cranked up his truck outside and Heller picked up the suitcases, tossed them into the back and got in. And they rattled off to town.

(Bleep), I thought. That didn't go so good. It was the Virginia accent that had brought it off. (Bleep) that Countess Krak! She ought to stick to teaching freaks!

Heller alighted at the courthouse. The farmer said, "Drop by any ol' tahm, when ya'll comes back home, kid."

"Ah be lookin' fohw'd to ut," said Heller, "an' much obliged foah th' lift."

And off went the farmer.

Heller looked up at the courthouse. There were just two windows lit on the second floor. The front door was open and Heller limped up the steps. He pushed open a door.

A real old codger, dressed in black, was hunched over a desk in the space behind the counter. He had a couple of file drawers open. The sign on his desk said: