Mission: Earth "Black Genesis" (20 page)

I started praying.

Oh, my Gods, let nothing happen to Heller until I got my hands on that platen! Please, Gods, if anything

happens to him at all, Soltan Gris is a dead man! To Hells with the slaughter of Earth! We'll just disregard that. Think of Soltan Gris! Take pity. Please?

There is a seven-hour time difference between Eastern Standard Time, where Heller was, and Istanbul time, which I was near. So you can imagine how keeping check on Heller was a strain. When he was rising, all refreshed, at 7:00 A.M., I was hanging on the viewer at 2:00 P.M., an exhausted wreck.

He got up quietly and took a shower. Raht, to help his own personal finances, had not brought him any change of clothes so he put on what he had, swearing under his breath as he donned the shoes. He looked at himself in the mirror and shook his head. Indeed, he did look funny with that green-banded, too-small Panama, that purple shirt, the red and white check jacket with sleeves three inches too short, the blue and white striped pants that didn't come down to the ankles, the orange suede, too-tight shoes.

I groaned. He stood out like a searchlight! A cinch for even the most myopic cop to spot. And he didn't even realize it! His main concern would be with aesthetics, not with being unspottable.

Mary was tumbling about restlessly but still asleep. Heller softly closed the door and, with a glance at the car, trotted out of the motel grounds.

There was a diner nearby and he went in and puzzled over the menu, of course not knowing what any of

these things were. But it gave breakfast by the numbers and he ordered "Number 1." It was orange juice, oatmeal and bacon and eggs. But the elderly waitress didn't bring him coffee. She brought him milk and he looked at it and tasted it suspiciously. She told him to drink it, that he was too young for coffee. Then she refused to sell him any of the pie he gazed at longingly, finally foregoing it on the advice that he must learn to control his appetite and she was going to stand there until he finished his oatmeal. She was fifty and a motherly type, with boys of her own. Boys, he was advised, were willful and if they didn't watch their diet, they wouldn't grow. She even managed his money, told him not to display it because it would get stolen and keep some of it in his shoes and tipped herself a dollar.

Authoritatively fed, Heller escaped to the street. It was the main street of the town, lined with shops, and he went trotting along, glancing in the windows.

Don't trot! I begged him mentally. Walk sedately, saunter, don't attract attention! You're a wanted man! Heller trotted with an easy lope. Believe me, nobody runs in the South! Nobody!

He popped into a clothing store, found in just a few seconds that it had nothing that would fit his six-foot-two frame, popped out and trotted on.

A hock shop was just ahead, a place where the Virginians sell the things they steal off tourists. Heller scanned the windows and right-angled into it. There were barrels of discards and shelves full of tagged junk.

The sleepy clerk, having gotten the shop open and expecting to be able to go back to a nap in the rear, was not too helpful. Heller pointed.

The clerk got down an 8-mm Nikon motion picture camera. He said, "You don't want this, kid. They don't sell film for it anymore." Heller was inspecting the big

black and gold Nikon label. He then made the clerk get down another one. Heller laid them on the counter. Heller saw a barrel: it was full of broken fishing reels and tangled line. He got out some.

"Those are deep-sea reels," said the clerk. "The fishing concession at Smith Mountain Lake went broke. They don't work."

"Fishing?" said Heller.

"Catch fish. Sport. Come on, kid, you're not that dumb. I ain't in any mood for jokes today. If you really want something, tell me, take it and get out! I ain't got any time to fool around."

Heller picked out several impressive reels, some broken rods and a hopeless tangle of line. He added some multihooked, steel-shafted bass plugs and a whole pile of weights that had steel hooks on the end. He put these on the counter.

He was staring at a tattered cardboard counter display for portable cassette recorders that were also AM/FM radios. "Give me one of these."

"You mean you're going to actually buy something?"

"Yes," said Heller and pulled out some money.

"Hell, I thought you was like the local kids: all eyes and no dough. You ain't from around here, then." He got a dusty recorder, even put some batteries in it and laid out a package of cassettes. He looked at the money Heller had in his hand and pretended to add something up. "That'll be a hundred and seventy-five dollars."

Heller paid him. They put the weird loot in sacks and Heller was on his way. And I, personally, thought he was as crazy as the clerk did. Obsolete cameras, broken fishing reels, tangled line. Idiocy.

Trotting along, Heller saw a sporting goods store. He right-angled in. He pointed at the window. A young,

wild-haired clerk dived in and brought out a pair of baseball shoes.

Heller looked at them. They were black; they laced to the ankle; they had a long tongue that folded back over the laces. He turned them over. They had no heels, but they had two circles of cleats, one set under the ball of the foot, one set under the heel. The steel cleats were long, about a half an inch high, and the plates which held them were solidly fixed in the leather sole.

"Let you have them cheap," said the clerk. "We got a ton of them. The coach over at Jackson High ordered full uniforms for the baseball team; first, he said they came in too big and wouldn't take them. Then, he ran off with the English teacher and the athletic fund."

"Baseball?" said Heller.

The clerk pointed to a pile of baseballs before he caught himself. "Quit it, kid."

Heller had evidently gotten smart. He said, "Do you have them for sale?"

The clerk just looked at him. Heller walked over to the display of baseballs. They were a trifle bigger and they were a little harder than a bullet ball.

There was an archery target standing up at the back of the store. Heller said, "Do you mind?"

He hefted the baseball. He flexed his wrist and then he threw the baseball at the archery target! I could hear the sizzle of the ball going through the air. It hit the bull's-eye! It plowed right on through, broke the back stand and went splat against the wall.

"Jesus!" said the clerk. "A pitcher! A real pitcher!"

Heller went over and recovered the ball. The hide had come off. He pulled curiously at the insides. "Well," he said to himself, "not so good, but it will have to do."

"Jesus," said the clerk. "You're a natural! Look, do

you mind if I sort of put that target away and when the New York Yankees sign you, I can maybe put it on display?"

Heller was looking for a bag. He found one you could carry over your shoulder. He was counting baseballs into it. The clerk was trying to pump him as to what college team he was on and what were his plans on going Big League and apologizing because Heller looked so young nobody would think he was a veteran. Heller wasn't giving him much encouragement. He was shopping around the shelves. He found a book, The Fine Art of Baseball for Beginners, and mystified the clerk by putting it on the purchases pile. Then he added another book, The Fine Art of Angling for Beginners. Was he going fishing?

But the clerk was busy now. "Look, we got full uniforms. And let's see what shoe size you take. Look, can we kind of put out we outfitted you?"

I thought, that's all we need. Local publicity this very morning!

Heller had to turn down a lot more than he bought: three pairs of shoes, six white, long-sleeved undershirts, twelve pairs of baseball socks with red-striped tops, two white exercise suits, a dozen support underpants, two unlettered uniforms that were white with red stripes, a red anorak with captain's stripes, a black belt and a red batting helmet.

And then Heller saw the caps. They were red baseball caps, not as nice or as stylish as his habitual racing cap, but similar. The bill was longer: it would never crush properly under a racing helmet to act as padding. But Heller was enraptured. He made a sort of cooing sound. He pushed the pile around until he found one his size and put it on. He went over to the mirror.

I flinched. From the neck up, there was Jettero Heller, space-racing champion of the Academy! It had been easy to forget his amused blue eyes, his flowing blond hair and that go-to-Hells-who-cares smile! It was like being shot suddenly back to Voltar! But even then I'd missed it.

"What did you say the initials stood for?" he said.

"Jackson High," said the clerk.

I had been slow, possibly because of the intricate intertwine of the white team letters on the cap. J.H.! THAT was why he was grinning!

"I'll take half a dozen," said Heller, laughing now.

Heller ceremoniously made the clerk a present of the purple shirt and the orange suede shoes and the Panama hat.

They packed the gear up in a sports carry-all. Heller paid him three hundred dollars and took the card.

Heller was going out the door when the clerk yelled, "Hey! You forgot to tell me your name!"

"You'll hear," Heller yelled back and was gone.

Ah, well, there was hope. If he'd given the name he was supposed to use, that (bleeped) clerk would have been all over town with a megaphone. I was thankful Heller was modest. He certainly wasn't smart. He was trotting up the street now in a scarlet baseball cap with his own initials on it and wearing a long-sleeved baseball undershirt. He had retained the blue-striped pants and red-checked jacket. He stood out like a beacon! And worse than that, the spikes he was wearing were clickety-clacking on the pavement even louder than his old-time hull shoes!

It was Lombar's fault, really: he had ordered that Heller not be trained in espionage; any self-respecting spy would know you must remain unnoticeable. A

trained agent would have looked at the population around him and dressed like that. He sure did not resemble anyone else in that quiet southern town! Looking at him now, to paraphrase the clerk: Jesus!

Heller glanced at his watch. It was getting on toward nine. But he had another stop. It was a candy store!

I groaned. I was dealing with an idiot, not a special agent. Special agents don't eat candy! They smoke cigarettes!

Some little twelve-year-old kids were in there haggling with the clerk over the price of gumdrops which seemed to have gone up. Two of them were wearing baseball caps, the way little kids do in America. And I realized that Heller, now wearing one, would mind-associate in people that he was even younger!

Heller went down the counter, apparently looking for one particular type of candy. He found it: it was individually wrapped in transparent paper; it was red and white in a spiral, just like it's advertised in magazines sometimes.

The kids bought their dime's worth and Heller promptly overwhelmed the aged lady clerk by purchasing ten pounds of candy! Not only did he buy the white and red kind, but also other kinds, and he wanted them all mixed up which brought about the problem of putting them in different bags, all mixed up, and then there not being a big enough bag to contain all the other bags. He sure ruined the day for the old lady clerk.

Laden, Heller got back on the street. There was a cop car parked at the corner. Now any trained agent would have gone the other way. But not Heller. He trotted right past the cop car!

I saw, in peripheral vision, the cops look at him.

It was time to go back and fortify myself with cold

sira. And take time off for a small prayer. If they had special Hells for Apparatus case handlers, the one they would send me to would specialize in forcing totally untrained agents on me! Neither the sira nor the prayer helped!

If anything happened to Heller before I got that platen, I was done for!

In the room, Mary Schmeck was still restlessly asleep. Heller threw his loot down on his bed. He lifted his two suitcases up on a long bureau, side by side, and unfastened the straps.

I was going to get a look at their contents! Maybe the platen was right on top!

Foolish hope. There were no rocks but there sure was a wild medley of little tubes and boxes and coils of wire. What a junk heap!

Heller got out a small tool case and two small vials. He picked up the two obsolete Nikon cameras and put them on a table. He inspected the edge of a label, then put some drops under the edge and the gold and black NIKON lifted right off! He did the other one.

Then he took two small cases from the grips and opened them. The time-sights! Both of them! Indeed, the tug was planet bound! I knew the Apparatus could never pry another one out of the Fleet!

From the second vial he took a bit of what must be glue and put it on the label backs and in a moment, glaring on the side of each time-sight was NIKON.

They looked now like two Super 8 motion-picture cameras!

He put them back in their small cases and back into the grip. He threw in the two obsolete ones as well.

Then he got out the candy he had made on the ship. The wrappers were a bit different but not remarkably so.

He had what must be three pounds of it! He mixed it into the other candy sacks and then started packing the bags all through the other grip. Very unneatly, too.

Then he packed the broken fishing rods and reels hit or miss through everything. He added the tangles of line in snarls and coils in and over the other contents. Then he took the bass plugs and the weights and began to jam them in anywhere and everywhere.

What a MESS!

And I thought Fleet guys were always so neat!

He had to let the suitcase straps out to accommodate all the extra. He neated up the athletic carry-all and he was ready.