The Invaders Plan (15 page)

I am pretty fast. Otherwise I would have died in my tracks!

The blastgun barrel was into my stomach with violence!

I hardly even saw the man behind it.

With a roll to the side I made the barrel shoot by. I brought my right hand down on the back of the sentry's neck!

He staggered and it gave me my chance.

As he fell, I snatched the gun barrel and got the weapon out of his hands.

His boots drove at my shins and I reeled with the impact.

A green beam of light from the camp flashed as a distant vehicle turned. I saw clearly for the first time that it was a sentry and not an assassin.

But you can't let someone get away with that! Not an attack on an officer.

I reversed the gun and drove the butt against his skull! There was a dull, crushing sound. I hit again just to make sure. He lay there bleeding. He didn't move.

So far, good. And now for Snelz.

The thick door would have masked the sounds of the fight. I stepped over the sentry's body and approached. The thing to do in such a situation, where one is trying to enforce authority and gain respect is play it very bold.

I simply opened the door and walked in. Such a casual act would make him think it was a friend.

He must have. He was sitting at the table in his shirt sleeves, playing twelve-sided dice with himself. Over in a bunk, sleeping peacefully, was one of the camp prostitutes; her clothes lay all over the floor and she looked exhausted. The place stank of spent passion.

When one is really trained, one can reconstruct a situation in a fraction of a second. Snelz had had money.

The first thing he had done was call in a prostitute. He was practicing with six twelve-sided dice so the next thing he planned to do was call in at what they laughingly called a "club" and try to clean out his fellow guard officers to make up what the prostitute had cost him.

Snelz looked up casually, thinking probably that it was some friend intent on getting a loan. He suddenly registered who it was and went white!

Now, duels between officers are not unknown. But Apparatus officers are such swine, they don't duel. They simply murder. And where a General Services officer is concerned, when it comes to a fight with Apparatus troop commanders, they don't even bother to count the bodies.

My face told him why I was there. He raised his left hand in a defensive position as if it could ward off a shot. He almost screamed: "I can explain. . . ."

"Platoon Commander Snelz," I said, for I might as well make this execution official, "you are guilty of fraternizing with a prisoner you were ordered to guard. Apparatus Regulation 564-B-61 Section D. The penalty, as you well know, is death." Unlike civilian life or the Fleet or Army, there are no trials in the Apparatus. Ordinarily he would have simply accepted it. But something had gotten into him.

He stabbed a hand toward his belt! I was certain he was going to draw and shoot.

Well, I am not slow. I wouldn't have lived as I have if I could be outdrawn.

My own hand leaped, with no thought from me, to my breast pocket and the blastick was out and levelled at him before he had hardly touched his belt.

The field of fire took in the prostitute on the bunk behind him and 800 kilovolts would kill her, too. But it wasn't any time for niceties.

I pressed the switch-trigger!

The blastick pin made only a faint pop!

No explosion!

I was holding a dud-loaded blastick! It was a very bad moment. I had no other weapon. I could not reach him to strike or kick. I was defenseless!

He was still scrabbling at his belt and my heart almost stopped as he lifted his fingers. I was quite certain I was dead!

But he was holding two ten-credit notes! He had not been drawing out a weapon. He had been trying to get at money!

Had he heard the switch-trigger fall on a dud load?

No, he had not!

He was holding out the two ten-credit notes and he moved sideways from the chair and fell on his knees. "Please, Officer Gris. Please! Don't kill me!" There was a big stungun lying on a bench not three feet from his reach. I am well schooled. I let no sign of my emotions show. I toughed it out.

"I was just following your orders, Officer Gris. I wasn't fraternizing with a prisoner. You said the prisoner mustn't suspect he was being guarded. You said to make it look like he was under protection from outside threat!" He was bobbing up and down, head lowered, holding out the two ten-credit notes. His hand was shaking like a loose wing on an atmosphere plane.

The prostitute had awakened. She pulled her dirty hair away from her face with a filthy hand. She didn't take it in at all. "Hey, don't give away no money! You can buy another (bleep)!" Snelz crawled forward, head down. He laid the two ten-credit notes at my feet and scuttled back. He crouched there, all curled in on himself, trying to give a crossed-arm salute while kneeling on the floor.

Ridiculous. All he had to do was reach out and grab the stungun and shoot me. A stupid (bleepard).

I said, "How much money did Heller give you? And for what?" Snelz whimpered. "He gave me fifty credits for sweetbuns and sparklewater, to buy them at the camp store. Oh, and also for papers. He didn't bribe me to do anything else. He said he might need something later but as for the fifty, I could buy something for my men and keep the change." He looked up and clasped his hands under his chin. "We haven't been paid for ages. I didn't realize you would want your share. Don't kill me. I won't forget again! Please!" Any reply I had was interrupted by the prostitute. She scuttled across the floor and made a grab for the twenty credits at my feet. I stamped a boot heel on her hand. The bones snapped!

She gave a scream and went running naked out of the door. Outside she stumbled over something and gave another scream. She came rushing back into the room, completely dazed, not knowing where she was going. "He killed the sentry!" She cowered back in the corner of the cave, gripping her broken hand, too demented to realize all she should have done was run away.

Snelz gave a glance toward the outside darkness. With all this screaming, other officers might well come rushing over. Before he could get up too much hope and realize he had a gun within reach and that I was holding a dud, I thought I'd better finish this.

"Snelz," I said, and had his gaze riveted upon me at once with the tone I used, "you have reminded me that you were in fact executing an order. However, you were doing it in far too friendly a fashion." He seized upon it. "I did it to get his promise," he said in a hopeful rush of words. "He gave me his word as a Royal officer, he would let me or my men know where he was at all times. He said he knew I had a tough job and that he'd make it easy for me. I actually persuaded him to fully cooperate. And Officer Gris, that's the word of a
Royal officer,
not like that of Apparatus people." It was a slur, really. He obviously included me in "Apparatus people." He recognized his mistake. He wailed, "I'll give you your share after this! Please don't kill me!" I had been edging over toward the stungun. I was now blocking the route to his reaching it.

"I'll execute my orders faithfully!" said Snelz. "I'll keep him cooperating. He won't suspect he's a prisoner and he won't escape. I pledge my life on it." He thought for a moment to see if there was anything else. There was. "I'll give you half whatever I get from him!" As I now did not have to back down because I was defenseless, I decided to be magnanimous. "All right. If you do that faithfully, you can have your life." His relief was obvious. "You won't be sorry, Officer Gris. Can I get up now?" I put the dud blastick back in my pocket. I pulled the charge out of his stungun and threw it back down on the bench. A close one!

He went outside and pulled the sentry back toward the light of the cave. He checked to see if he was dead. "You certainly squashed his skull," said Snelz. "But he isn't dead. Can I have one of those ten-credit notes back? The camp doctors will want six to fix his head and another four to repair the whore's hand." The nerve of him. The going charge for both would be under five. But I kicked one of the notes over to him and then, as an afterthought, picked up the other one and put it in my pocket.

The whole thing had been so messy, I was gloomy all the way back to Spiteos. I could not for the life of me figure out what had gone wrong with the blastick. Obviously it was the one Heller's friends had sent him in the baggage for I had expertly put the dud armory one in his boot. I couldn't figure why his friends would send him a dud-loaded weapon. Of course, when you get them off the shelf, they have a dummy load in them. And it came to me that he simply, stupidly had not loaded the weapon.

Riding the zipbus back, I was almost at the Spiteos end before I recalled that he had adjusted my face patches. But he was not that clever. And I would have felt the blastick leave my pocket if he had shifted back.

I was all out of sorts. Things were not going right at all. But one thing I knew for sure: I was not going to be left standing, holding a dud weapon in a bluff again. Even coming back, unarmed, through the camp tonight had been a risk I had no right to take, what with Lombar counting on me.

It was very late but I went straight to the armory. The old cretin that runs the place slept inside. I unlocked the top half of the door with my identoplate and yelled into the darkness. After three tries, the lights went on and the old fool came fumbling up to the counter, half-asleep.

"What the Devils do you mean, waking me up?" he snarled.

I was in no mood for this. I reached my hand over the lower part of the door and tripped the latch. I sent the bottom section slamming into his stomach!

I was inside in a second and before he could recover, I hit him with a backhand. He fell and I let him have a boot. "When you are talking to me, show some respect!" He lay there on the floor. So I picked my way along the shelves. I got down a stungun and holster. I picked up two blasticks and a case of cartridges. Then I saw some Knife Section knives and neck scabbards and took a set.

I booted him again. "Log these out so you can't claim you were robbed!" He got up. His papers had gone all over the place when the door was slammed back. He gathered them from the floor and began to record the numbers of the weapons I had taken. He held out his hand for my identoplate and then pressed it on the sheet. He said, "Officer Gris, you're getting more like Lombar Hisst every day." I looked at him. If he had intended a slur, he could have been killed for it. I decided he had not.

"Thank you," I said.

Later I lay in my bed, listening to the even breathing of Jettero Heller, asleep on the other side of the room. Things were not going well at all!

I thought it out very carefully, staring into the dark. As long as we remained on Voltar, my neck was at risk. Here, Jettero Heller was surrounded by a world he knew and could manage. He had subverted the guard – although I had sure slowed that down tonight. He had tons and tons of friends in Government City and the Fleet. He might pull anything. And we were directly under the view of Lombar Hisst. I did not dare foul up. It was an awful position to be in.

I took my resolve right there. Regardless of anything, I would rush through all preparations and leave Voltar fast!

When we got to Blito-P3 it would be a different story. I would have no worries about Heller breaking out. He would have no friends.

I would really push it to get Heller to Earth, for there, he would be completely at my mercy!

The thought of Jettero Heller safely imprisoned in some nice Earth penitentiary was so pleasing, I had trouble getting to sleep, just gloating on it.

I awoke at dawn, all full of energy and ambition to blast us out of the Voltar Confederacy quick and get safely to Earth with Heller. As I piled into my clothes, I glanced over at him. There he was, sleeping with a half smile on his face as though he hadn't a care or worry in the world. He was very good-looking, even in sleep, which is unusual. He was a very masculine fellow but he was pretty, too. I wished I had more blackmail material on him. Anyone that was that handsome must have had plenty of wild adventures in the sex department. I told myself I wouldn't need the data now. We were going to leave and
fast.

I gulped down some of his sparklewater and crammed a sweetbun in my mouth, rapidly planning out the day. I would rush down to training and make an appointment for him. I would dash over to Crobe's and schedule any operations. Then I would come back and grab him and within just a couple of days we'd be gone. He could finish his studies and heal up en route to Earth.

As I rushed out of the door, one of the sentries grabbed my arm. "Officer Gris, you're wanted in the Chief Executive's tower office. Very urgent. They told me to tell you about a minute ago but you're awake." My mouth dried up. A summons from Lombar usually meant trouble. Like a dying person's life flashing past their eyes, such news always brings a review of one's crimes. Had he heard of Heller's survey? Other things?

I put a brave face on it. Whatever it was I would handle it speedily. I hoped. I had my own plans to execute. But one of Lombar's troubles, and he had a few, was telling you that some job was entirely up to you and then, shortly after, barging in again and interfering – one more good reason to blast off from Voltar.

In the tower anteroom, I might have dashed right on through and into Lombar's office. A clerk stopped me. The clerks there don't like me – a sign of obvious envy. "That office is jammed with Apparatus planet heads. A lot more rank than you. Sit right down over there and wait." Must be all the staff cars I'd seen rushing in last night. Maybe Lombar had been working all night. He was like that, work like mad but
only
when his personal pet projects were involved; at other times he just loafed and did things like reviewing "freak parades." I was annoyed.