Mission: Earth "The Enemy Within" (16 page)

We were about two hundred miles straight up. It was about seven in the evening of a very black autumn night. New York lay about thirty miles to the south of our position, a vast spread of lights. One could see the planes taking off and landing at La Guardia and, further off, John F. Kennedy International Airport. The planes looked like tiny fireflies. The skyscrapers of Manhattan were clearly outlined. There was the Empire State Building! Izzy probably busy! There was the UN, and nearby, one of those high-rises must be the Gracious Palms, probably busy.

To the northeast, scattered like small sheets of light on a black velvet cloth, lay Bridgeport, Danbury, New Haven and, further away, Hartford. It was a crystal clear night.

Directly below us it was black as pitch, a hole of lightlessness.

A call-in receiver was beeping in the panel. Its grid showed the signal was coming from directly below.

I looked at Stabb. I had seen nothing alarming. But he was the accomplished smuggler and pirate.

"Watch," he said. He turned a dial to shift a screen to a different part of the spectrum. He pushed a button and let it enlarge the picture.

There was a police car sitting beside the road. The road was just east of our destination.

"Trap," said Stabb.

I laughed. "That's where they hang out," I said. "They're sheriff's men. Deputy sheriffs. That's a speed trap, not a trap for us."

"You sure?"

"If that Royal officer is down below us, he has probably conned them into seeing nothing. But they won't see anything anyway as we're not going to blueflash. Their names are George and Ralph."

"Devils!" said Stabb. "How'd you know that?"

"It's safe to land. They won't see anything."

"On your orders," said Stabb, giving the usual Fleet half-protest.

Down we went!

The New Haven Submarine Base radar indicated on our hull. They would get no blip back.

A hundred feet up, our pilot laid the tug horizontal. He scanned the ground with a screen. "Not even a sharp rock," he said.

We settled into place.

The second engineer was out through the airlock like a shot. He scanned the area for living things.

A hot spot.

It was Heller!

He came walking up. He stood in the glow from the airlock. He wasn't even disguised. He had on workman's coveralls, dark blue. He wasn't wearing his baseball cap and he wasn't even wearing those deadly spikes!

I saw he had no gun in his hand. He thought he was amongst friends, the fool. So I met him at the port.

He nodded to me and to Stabb. He went down the passageway and knelt. He unlocked the floorplates to the hold.

"If you will give me some crew," he said, "we'll move these inside. There's two dollies over in the edge of the woods."

Stabb looked to me and I nodded. Very soon, with a lot of help from Heller, despite working in the dark, fifteen cases lay on a thick canvas he had put down to protect the dance floor.

A kerosene oil lamp spread a yellow glow across the ancient dance decorations and the Voltar cases. Heller was checking case markings.

"Where's Box Number 5?" he said. Before I could answer, he went trotting back to the ship. He got down in the hold again.

He came out. He opened up other doors to the rear and checked there. He locked everything up once more. "There's a box missing," he said to Stabb. Stabb shrugged. "I never been in that hold," he said. Heller checked the forward cabins and storage spaces. Then he left the ship. He reentered the roadhouse. He once more verified the numbers and the count.

He beckoned to me to follow him. I went into instant alarm. I was carrying a blastick, a Colt Cobra in an ankle holster and a Knife Section knife behind my neck and he was apparently unarmed. But I did not feel comfortable. I turned. Captain Stabb was at the road-house door. He winked at me. I followed Heller.

He had a kitchen fire going. The night was somewhat chilly. He had cleaned up the place. There was a kitchen table and a couple of chairs. Heller sat down at the far end.

I sat down but I didn't take my hand off the 800-kilovolt blastick in my pocket.

Heller had taken some papers out of his pocket, a notebook and a pen. He began to look at the papers– they appeared to be old invoices. I didn't see any sign of the letter.

I looked around. The kitchen was quite clean now. He had a fire going in the old iron cookstove: a wood fire, from the way it popped occasionally and from some wisps of pungent smoke.

The place was lit with a hanging kerosene lamp. Probably the electricity was not turned on. The light glowed and flickered on some old glass jars on a shelf.

A calendar was on the wall: big picture of an elk and the words Hartford Life Insurance. The year was 1932!

Ordinarily I might have been very interested in this place. But I had to get that letter! If I was lucky, in a few minutes Heller would be dead and we would be sailing away.

He was going over some invoices and writing things on the piece of paper. For some reason, seeing him so calm made me very nervous.

I imagined he was reconstructing the list of things in the box.

He wasn't talking so I sort of felt I had to be talking. Maybe I could steer him around and hurry him up and get that letter. Maybe he was being silent because he suspected I had done something with the box. "I never saw those boxes," I said. "I didn't even know they were in the hold. If you remember, I was not aboard the tug at that time."

He was consulting the invoice sheets again. I said, "I do recall, though, a Fleet lorry driving away one day. It had a box on it. I asked the sentry at that time why they were removing a box. He said he didn't know."

He didn't say anything. He was making some sort of a calculation. I wished he'd just give me that letter.

"I mailed the other letter on the first freighter out. It went just two or three days after you gave it to me," I said.

He was trying to locate some item on an invoice. I wished he would speak.

"I know how important it is," I said, "that I mail your letters to Captain Tars Roke. I know he tells the Emperor and the Grand Council. If they didn't hear from you, I know they'd send an invasion fleet right away. They'd have to, to preserve the planet. I can see it is in very bad shape. So don't think for a moment I'd let you down. I know both of us could be killed if this invasion hit. So it's in my interest, too. I'll sure make certain the letters get mailed."

He was busy with his figures. No sign of the letter. Maybe he was upset about the telephone.

"I am sorry I had to cut you off on the phone. You see, the National Security Agency monitors all longdistance calls. It was my fault really. I didn't give you a phone number you could call."

I wrote the cover phone number in Afyon on a piece of paper of my own, torn from a notebook, and put it down on the table near him.

He just kept on working.

"I should have given you a mail address, too," I said. I wrote the mail address he could use in Turkey on another piece of my own paper and laid it on the phone number. "Future reports can just be mailed to this. I'll take the one you've got now."

He was riffling through his papers. Sort of absently, he encountered a sheet and laid it on the table halfway between us. He went on working.

I picked it up. It was a request form. It said:

Mission requirement: one professional cellologist experienced in making spores.

"Oh, I can get this for you," I said. "Just give me any note of anything you require. On this, I'll get them to send the most competent cellologist I can find." What a lie that was. "I'll send this request right along with your current report. Yes, indeed. Right along with your current report." (Bleep) you, where IS it!

He was writing more things down on the sheet. He was saying nothing.

I was getting pretty uneasy. "I know you are probably reconstructing the contents of the box. Well, you just reconstruct it and I'll put it on special order on the very next freighter. You'll have it all replaced within three months or so." And that was an even bigger lie than the cellologist one. "I'll send it out right with your current report!"

He was making a list of measurements. All I could see was his hand, arm and the top of his blond head. I didn't know what mood he was in at all. I didn't know what he intended, really. Maybe he had some other means or idea. I couldn't be sure.

"Really," I said, "we shouldn't wait around here too long. Those two sheriff's deputies out there on the highway might have seen something. If you give me the report now, I'll be going."

He was adding up something. The awful thought came to me that he might be stalling me for some reason. I didn't feel it took that long to figure out just one box.

"I know they are very friendly but you can't ever trust sheriff's deputies, no matter how much you've conned them. So if you'll just give me the report, I'll be going."

Aha. I had it. He suspected that as soon as we got the report we'd kill him. That was it. He wasn't going to give me the report! That raid on the Gracious Palms suite had tipped him off!

I better calm his fears! "Look, I didn't have anything to do with the ransacking of your suite at the Gracious Palms. That happens all the time in New York. They were probably just looking for money. You can have every confidence in me, Jettero. You can trust me to faithfully mail that report for you. You can go in another room and write it. I won't look."

He was writing out a lot of figures on a new blank sheet of paper. Suddenly he handed it to me. It was the order for the replacement of Box Number 5. It had the manufacturer's name and address on it.

"Oh," I said. "I'll get this right off. Now, if you give me your monthly report..."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out two large envelopes.

The report! It was addressed to Captain Tars Roke!

The other one was addressed to Snelz!

"Oh, I'll get these right off for you," I said. Then my eye caught sight of the old glass jars. "Listen, I know this has been very upsetting for you. I'll make it up to you. I'll go in the crew's galley of the tug and get you some hot-jolt powder. Now you just sit there. We don't want too much activity outside. Look, I'll even thrash around and see if I can find some canisters of sparkle-water in the crew's stores—no reason to open up your own quarters in the back of the tug. I know how tired you are of drinking Seven Up. You wait right there. Let me be some help for a change."

I raced out.

With any luck, I had it and Heller would be dead in minutes! And my worries would be over!

Aboard, I tore into my old cabin. I locked the door. I got out the tools necessary and in seconds had the Tars Roke letter open.

I read it avidly:

Dear Captain Tars,

Well, things are going along fair. It's a nice planet. It's too bad they don't appreciate it more.

I am mostly involved currently with basic setup. They use a fossil fuel in a most inefficient manner, even though I am certain that, even with their primitive technology, they know better. I think they may even hide efficiency inventions, as nobody could be that stupid.

It is the wasteful method of using this fuel that is causing the bulk of their atmospheric and regolithic contamination. It is also, strangely enough, the basic cause of their financial inflation, which is planetwide. I am working on this. Technically, the fuel problem is simple.

The people are a lot of them very nice people. They do have rather odd leadership and seem to easily let themselves be led into false technologies. They have a thing called "psychology" which is ridiculous. They even force schoolchildren to learn it. You won't believe this, but they think matter created life. This somehow tends to make them immoral and without honor. I have to be careful in dealing with them to keep my own honor clean. But I am making progress with people.

The political and economic aspects are under study. The job does not seem impossible. So please don't recommend the second alternative unless you cease to authentically hear from me or I have obviously failed.

But speaking of study, do you recall Isto Blin? He said there was nothing wrong with learning a dead mathematics except it was liable to take him to the tomb with it.

Please remember me to your dear wife.

I trust Their Royal Majesties are well and that the State prospers. With courteous salute,

Jettero Heller

It was written with uneven lines. Some of the words were cramped, some extended. A definite platen code.

I quickly got out the first letter copy. It was duplicated in the exact size. I laid the two large sheets over one another. I studied it for duplicate words and match.

I did it again.

I did it backwards.

I did it upside down!

Nothing matched!

My head was in a whirl. What was I holding here?

It was a platen code. But... Then I realized with a beaten sag that Heller was using a sequence of platens! He had a whole pad of them! I looked carefully into a corner. Yes, there it was! A number. It said 2. So faint I could barely make it out in strong light.

Those Devils at the departure party had made up a series of platens!

Listlessly, I opened the second letter addressed to Snelz. It had, as I suspected, a letter in it to the Countess Krak. I scanned it without interest. Just a mushy love letter. He was looking forward to the moment they were reunited. Just mush.

A scratching came at the door. I quickly hid the letters and opened it.

Captain Stabb was there. "He's come out on the porch over there. He's a perfect target. Can we kill him now?"

I sighed. And I really was disappointed. "There's been a hitch. It will have to wait until next time."