Part 19
1
Brown Limper Staffor chaired the council meeting in a black mood.
There they sat before the raised platform in the capitol room, wrangling, wrangling, wrangling. Disputing him, the senior councilman of the planet. Objecting to his measures.
That black fellow from Africa! That yellow creature from Asia! That tan idiot from South America! That dull, bullheaded brute from Europe! Ugh, ugh, ugh, and UGH!
Didn’t they realize he was doing the very best things that could be done for man? And wasn’t he, Brown Limper Staffor, now representing five tribes since the Brigantes had come, and he was indeed Senior Mayor America?
They were disputing the cost and contract terms of hiring the Brigantes. Of all things! The planet needed a defense force. And these clauses that he had so painstakingly sorted out—spending his valuable time hour after hour with that General Snith—were all necessary.
Senior Mayor Africa was challenging the pay. He was saying that one hundred credits per Brigante per day was excessive, that even council members only got five credits a day, and that if they spread credits around this way they would make them worthless! Wrangle, wrangle, wrangle, taking up picky and unimportant points!
Brown Limper had been making good progress. He had the council whittled down to five now, but it certainly looked like four too many!
He cudgeled his brains as to how to solve this dilemma.
Driven by Lars out to the Brigante suburb of the city that day, it is true he had been taken a bit aback by what the Brigante women were doing. Right in the streets and with no clothes on at any time. But General Snith, during their conference, had said they were just frolicking.
Coming back, Lars had been talking about that wonderful, wonderful military leader of ancient times named . . . Bitter? . . . no . . . Hitler? Yes, Hitler. How he had been a champion of racial purity and moral uprightness. Racial purity didn’t seem very interesting but “moral uprightness” had caught Brown Limper’s attention. His father had always been a champion of it.
Sitting there listening to these endless arguments and objections, he recalled a conversation—purely social—he had had with that friendly creature, Terl. It had been on the subject of leverage. If one had leverage, one could do pretty well what he pleased. Sound philosophy. Brown Limper had grasped that. He truly hoped Terl thought him an apt pupil, for he was very happy to have his friendship and help.
He sure didn’t have any leverage on this council! He tried to think of some way he could maneuver them into appointing himself and a secretary as the sole authority for the planet. He couldn’t quite come up with anything, and he pondered other things Terl had said: good, down-to-earth advice. Something about it being the right thing to do to pass a law and then arrest the violators or use their violations as leverage. Something like that.
It came to him in a flash.
He rapped for silence.
“We will table the resolution to accept the Brigante contract for now,” said Brown Limper in his best voice of authority.
They quieted down and Asia folded his robes with a gesture of—of what was that—defiance? Well, he’d take care of him!
“I have another measure,” said Brown Limper. “It has to do with morality.” And he proceeded to make a speech about morality being the backbone of all societies and that officials must be honest and true and that their conduct must be beyond reproach and that they must not be discovered in any scandalous situations or circumstances.
It went down rather well. They were all reasonably honest men and they saw that official conduct should also be moral even though their different moral codes varied.
They unanimously passed the offered resolution that scandalous official conduct should result in removal from post of any offender. They felt very upright about it.
At least they had gotten one resolution passed. They adjourned.
Back in his office, Brown Limper reviewed some data with Lars about “button cameras.” Lars had some knowledge of them. Yes, he thought Terl could tell him where some were in the compound.
The following morning, when all the officials were out of their rooms at the hotel, Lars, in the name of decency, put some button cameras in unsuspected places in rooms and connected them to automatic picto-recorders. The following night, Brown Limper had a very confidential meeting with General Snith. As a result, a dozen of the better-looking Brigante women were employed at the hotel in various capacities by the manager, who was short of help, and who agreed that such good-looking women should be in posts that directly contacted his guests to make their stay more comfortable.
The evening after that, Terl thought Brown’s measures were very wise and said he was proud of him to have thought of it all on his own.
Brown Limper was very pleased and he went back to his office to work late at night assembling the steps of his plans. Notable among them were charges to bring against Jonnie Goodboy Tyler when Brown Limper at last had a free hand. The list of charges were getting pretty long, and punishment was overdue.
2
It was the dark of the moon. The lights of the cage area had been turned out. The sentry had been told to stay elsewhere.
Brown Limper sat on the ground. Terl crouched close to the bars. Lars Thorenson, using a tiny masked light to occasionally resort to his dictionary, sat between them.
Their voices were very low. There must be no possibility of any of this being overheard. Tonight was the big one!
Terl’s claws twitched and little surges of energy ran through him. This conference was so important, its successful outcome so vital to his plans, he was having trouble breathing. Yet he must sound indifferent, casual, helpful (a new word he had learned). Conflicting impulses had to be sealed off, such as reaching through the bars (which he had de-electrified, unbeknownst to them, by using the inside remote control hidden in the stones); the pleasure of tearing them with claws was very, very subordinate to what he was attempting tonight. He made himself tensely concentrate on the business at hand.
Brown Limper was relating in whispers that he had succeeded in exposing blatant scandal in the council. He had taken each of the four other Senior Mayors aside and shown them certain recordings, and they had realized their conduct was a total violation of their own laws. Each had looked at himself performing perversions he had recently been introduced to by the Brigante women, as many as four women at a time, and had agreed with shame he was a potential disgrace to the government. (Lars had trouble finding “shame” in the Psychlo dictionary, but at last discovered it in the archaic section as an old Hockner word, obsolete.)
A resolution appointed Brown Limper Staffor executive for the council, assisted by the secretary (who could sign his name after much drilling, but who otherwise could not read). The entire authority of the council now reposed in one Brown Limper Staffor as Senior Mayor Planet from here on out and forevermore as the most deserving and competent councilman. The others had packed and gone home. Brown Limper’s word was now law for the whole planet
Terl would have thought some note of elation would be detectable. That was how he would have felt. He whispered an approval and a commendation on how statesmanlike this conduct was. But Brown Limper did not brighten. “Is there something else I could help you with?” whispered Terl.
Brown Limper drew a long breath, almost a sigh of despair. He had drawn up a list of criminal charges against that Tyler.
“Good,” said Terl in a very low voice. “You now have the power to handle him. Are they strong charges?”
“Oh, yes,” whispered Brown Limper, brightening. “He interrupted a council-ordered removal of a tribe, kidnapped the coordinators, murdered some of the tribesmen, stole their goods and violated their tribal rights.”
“I should think,” whispered Terl, “that that was serious enough.”
“There’s even more,” said Brown Limper. “He ambushed a Psychlo convoy and mercilessly slaughtered it, gave no quarter and stole their vehicles.”
“You have proof of all this?” whispered Terl.
“Witnesses from the tribe are right here. And picto-recorder pictures of the ambush are being shown nightly at the Academy right over there in the hills. Lars has made copies.”
“I should think all that is more than adequate to bring about justice,” said Terl. The word “justice” was another one they had to look up in the translations going back and forth.
“There’s even more,” said Brown Limper. “When he turned over the two billion Galactic credits found at the compound, it was over three hundred credits short. That’s theft, a felony.”
Terl gasped. He wasn’t gasping at the shortage. He was gasping at two billion Galactic credits. It made the coffins he supposed were in the cemetery on Psychlo mere kerbango change.
He needed a few minutes to sort this out and he told Lars he needed a fresh breathe-gas cartridge for his mask. Lars got him one, not noticing the electrification switch had been reversed. Terl had to flip his remote, which he did in the nick of time to prevent an electrocution.
As he fitted the new cartridges in place, Terl thought furiously. Old Numph? Must have been. Why, the bumbling idiot wasn’t so bumbling after all! He’d had other swindles going for . . . thirty years? . . . must be! Two billion Galactic credits! Suddenly Terl updated his plans. He knew exactly what he could do with this. Those two billion were going into three or four sealed coffins marked “radiation killed” so they never would be opened and they were going to go right into his cemetery. He had had slightly less workable plans. He abandoned them and a whole new panorama spread before him, one that not only could not fail but also would be enormously profitable. All in a flash he had things rearranged. A plan far safer than he had had. Far more workable. No desperation in it.
The close, dark conference got going again.
“What,” whispered Terl, “is your problem really, then?” He knew what it was exactly. This idiot couldn’t lay his paws on the animal Tyler!
Brown Limper sagged once more. “It’s one thing to have charges. It’s quite another to get my hands on Tyler.”
“Hmm,” said Terl, hoping he sounded very thoughtful and considerate (a new word Terl had looked up). “Let me see. Ah. Hmm. The operating principle here is to attract him to the area.” This was just common security chief technology. “You can’t go out and find him as he is elusive or too well protected, so the right thing to do is to lure him here, away from protection, and then pounce.”
Brown Limper sat up with a sudden surge of hope. What a brilliant idea!
“The last time he was active here,” whispered Terl, keeping the twitches down to a minimum, “was when we did a transshipment firing. If another transshipment firing were done and he knew about it, he would be here in a flash. Then you could pounce.”
Brown Limper saw that clearly.
“But,” said Terl, “you have another problem, too. He is using company property. Company planes, company equipment. Now if you personally owned all that, you would really have him on grand theft.”
Brown Limper got lost. Lars repeated it and clarified it. Brown Limper couldn’t quite grasp it.
“And,” whispered Terl, staying very calm, “he is using the planet. Now I don’t know whether you know that the Intergalactic Mining Company paid the imperial Psychlo government trillions of credits for this planet. It is company property!”
Lars had to look up things in both the Psychlo and an old English dictionary to get across how much was a trillion and then had to write it for Brown Limper. At last Brown Limper could at least grasp that it was an awful lot of money.
“But the planet,” said Terl, “is now mostly mined out.” This was a flagrant falsehood, but these two wouldn’t know that. A planet wasn’t “mined out” until you were almost through the crust to the liquid core. “It just so happens that it is now worth only a few billion credits.” It was still worth about forty trillion. Crap, he’d sure have to cover his tracks on this one! But it was brilliant.
“I am,” whispered Terl, “the resident agent and representative of the company and authorized to legally dispose of its property.” What a lie! Oh, would he have to cover his tracks. “You realized that, of course. The animal Tyler did, which was why he kept me alive.”
“Oh!” whispered Brown Limper. “That had puzzled me! He is so bloodthirsty I couldn’t understand how he let you live when he murdered the Chamcos that very same day.”
“Well, now you know his secret,” said Terl. “He himself was trying to negotiate with me to buy the earth branch of Intergalactic Mining and the planet. That’s why he feels he can go around using company equipment and stamping all over the globe. Of course, I wouldn’t hear of it, knowing his bad character.” (The last was another word Terl had looked up.)
Brown Limper was suddenly engulfed by the trap Tyler had “set” for him. For a moment he felt the very earth he was sitting on was crumbling under him.
“He knows where this two billion is?” asked Terl.
“Yes,” whispered Brown Limper tensely. Good heavens, how blind he had been! Tyler was going to buy the company and the planet, and what would happen to Brown Limper then?
Terl had it all sized up. “But I wouldn’t sell. Not to the animal Tyler. I was thinking of you.”
Brown Limper whistled with relief. Then he looked around over his shoulders both ways and leaned forward, impatient at the delays of cross-translation. “Would you sell the company and the planet to me? I mean us?”
Terl thought about it. Then he said, “It’s worth more than two billion, but if I have it in cash and a few other considerations, I will do it.”
Brown Limper had studied a lot of economics lately. He knew how to be cunning. “With a proper bill of sale?”
“Oh, yes,” said Terl. “The bill of sale would be legal as soon as signed. But it would have to be recorded on Psychlo as a formality.” Oh, devils, if he ever tried to record such a thing, if they even heard of it, they’d vaporize him the slow way!
He pretended the last cartridge had been spent and he bought time with another change. There was a condition where a planet was written off. The company never sold a planet. When one was abandoned, they had a weapon they used. Terl had already decided to destroy this planet. He’d already covered the ground. He got a grip on himself. Any bill of sale he signed would go up in smoke if he destroyed the planet. Good. It might take the company two years to counterattack. He had lots of time. Yes, he could safely sign a bogus bill of sale.
Once more the close huddle was going again. “To make such a concession, you would have to do the following: (1) get my old office set up, (2) let me work in there freely to calculate and build the console of a new transshipment rig, (3) provide any and all needed supplies, and (4) provide me with adequate protection and force at the firing itself.”
Brown Limper was a little doubtful.
“But I will have to take the two billion to the company offices on Psychlo,” said Terl. “I’m no thief.”
Brown Limper could appreciate that.
“And I will have to record the deed of sale for both the planet and the company branch here for it to be totally legal,” said Terl. “I wouldn’t want you holding an unrecorded deed. I want to be fair to you, too.” (That was another word, “fair,” he had looked up.)
“Yes,” said Brown Limper. One could see he was leaning over backward to be fair and legal. He was still a little doubtful.
“And if you have a bill of sale to the company, you own all the equipment and minesites as well as the planet, and Tyler won’t be permitted to fly about.”
Brown Limper sat a little straighter. He began to get a little eager.
“Also,” continued Terl, “you can let it be known through various channels that you are going to fire a shipment to Psychlo. And the moment he hears that, he’ll be right over here and you’ve got him!”
That did it!
Brown Limper almost reached through the bars to shake hands on it until Lars reminded him they were electrified. He got up, restraining an impulse to jump about.
“I’ll draw up the deed!” he said. Too loud. “I’ll draw up the deed,” he whispered. “All your conditions are accepted. We will do exactly what you say!” He rushed off in the wrong direction to get to the ground car. Lars had to collect him and get him into it. Brown Limper had a wild look in his eyes.
“Now we will see justice done,” Brown Limper kept repeating all the way back to Denver.
Terl, in his cage, couldn’t believe his luck. Laughs and twitches fought to take over.
He had done it! And he would be—was!—one of the richest Psychlos alive!
Power! Success! He had done it! But would he ever have to be sure this accursed planet went up in smoke. As soon as he left.
3
Jonnie was pitching rocks down off the bluff and into the lake. The vast lake, really an inland sea, stretched out to a cloudy horizon. There was a storm building up out there now, a not uncommon thing for this huge expanse of water.
The bluff on which he stood rose nearly sheer, two hundred feet above the lake. Erosion or some volcanic cataclysm from the cloud-hidden peaks to the northeast had covered the bluff top with rocks the size of a man’s fist. They were simply made for throwing.
He had formed the habit of daily trotting down here from the minesite a few miles away. It was hot and humid here at the equator but the running did him good. He was not afraid of the various animals around here, ferocious though they might be, for he never went unarmed and the beasts seldom attacked unless disturbed. There was a road of sorts to follow, and the Psychlos must have made a habit of coming here from the minesite, perhaps to swim, for the road went across the bluff and down to a beach on the other side. No, not to swim. Psychlos didn’t like swimming. Perhaps to go boating?
Once he had read that this lake area had been one of the most heavily populated on the continent. Several millions had lived here. The Psychlos seemed to have taken care of them long, long ago, for there was not even a trace of fields or huts, much less people, left.
He wondered why the Psychlos mainly hunted people. Dr. MacKendrick said it was probably a matter of sympathetic nerve vibration: animals might not suffer acutely enough to add to the enjoyment of the monsters, or perhaps it was just that man’s nerve pattern, in a body with two arms, two legs, and upright, paralleled their own. Even their nerve gas specialized in sentient beings and was far less effective on four-legged creatures and reptiles. There was a Psychlo text on its use and it said as much. Something about its being attuned to “more highly developed central nervous systems.” But whatever might be the reasons for that, these Psychlos at the minesite had not made much of a dent in the game. And the game, smelling him, did not go racing away. He suddenly realized that he didn’t smell even vaguely like a Psychlo.
The storm out there was building up. He glanced toward the very distant minesite to see whether there was any rush getting back there to beat the storm.
Very tiny in the distance a small tri-wheeler ground car had left the mine. Somebody coming. To see him? Or just somebody out for a ride?
Jonnie went back to pitching rocks. The current state of affairs was a bit gloomy. One of the Psychlos had died; the other three were holding on. They had found about a third of the corpses had two items in their heads, and Dr. MacKendrick was practicing on the cadavers to find out how to bore in and remove them without killing a Psychlo—in case one of the last three made it. They still had two with two objects in their heads. Might even be a relief to them to get rid of the hideous things!
But Jonnie did not much like all this business with cadavers and he turned his mind to something more cheerful.
During the battle he had made an interesting discovery. He had been flying that mine platform with two hands. He hadn’t recalled that until a week had gone by. MacKendrick said it was another part of his brain taking over the lost functions. Under stress, he had assumed, those “lost” functions and nerves healed because of a battle. But Jonnie didn’t believe that.
Jonnie’s theory was that he manipulated the nerves. And it was working! He had begun by simply willing his arm and leg to do what he wanted. Each day he had gotten a bit better. And now he could trot. No cane. And he could throw.
For a hunter, trained as he was, the inability to sling a kill-club had made him feel helpless. And here he was pitching rocks.
He threw one out. It went arcing through the air, down off the bluff, and sent a small white geyser up in the lake, the “plunk” coming back to him a moment later.
Pretty good! If he did say it himself.
The storm out there was towering up a bit higher, grayish black, a bit ugly. He glanced toward the minesite and found the tri-wheeler had almost arrived. It stopped.
For a moment Jonnie did not recognize the rider and he stepped nearer to him, questioningly. Then he saw it was the third “duplicate” of him, a man they called Stormalong. His real name was Stam Stavenger, member of a Norwegian group who had emigrated to Scotland from Norway in ages past, and who had preserved their names and lineage but not their customs. They looked and acted like Scots.
He was Jonnie’s height and build and had eyes like Jonnie’s, but his hair was a shade darker and his skin very much more tanned. Since the lode days he had not bothered to keep up the resemblance and had cut his beard square at the bottom.
Stormalong had stayed at the Academy. A skilled pilot, he enjoyed teaching the new cadets to fly. He had found an ancient flying coat, a white scarf and a huge pair of goggles from a bygone age and he affected these. They gave him a bit of dash.
They swatted each other on the back and grinned at each other.
“They told me I’d find you down here throwing rocks at the crocs,” said Stormalong. “How’s the arm?”
“You must have seen the last one I threw,” said Jonnie. “It might not have knocked down one of these elephants but it’s getting there.” He guided him over to a big, flat rock overlooking the lake and they sat down. The storm was building up but it was an easy run back.
Stormalong was seldom very talkative but right now he was full of news. It had taken some ferreting out, real badger digging, to find where Jonnie was. Nobody knew in America, so he had gone to Scotland to find him or some trace of him.
Chrissie sent her love. He’d already given Pattie’s to Bittie. The chief of Clanfearghus had sent his respects, mind you, not his regards but his respects. His Aunt Ellen sent her love; she was married to the parson now and in Scotland.
He’d gotten on Jonnie’s trail through the two coordinators who had gone back to Scotland, the ones sent out to bring in some tribe or other . . . the Brigades? . . . the Brigantes. Oh, that mob was up in Denver now. Horrible people. He’d seen some. Anyway, they’d brought Allison’s body home for burial and Scotland was in an uproar over the murder of Allison.
But that wasn’t what he wanted to tell Jonnie. The craziest thing had happened on his flight over.
“You know,” said Stormalong, “how you said we could get invaded again here on Earth? Well, it does seem possible.”
He’d been coming over to Scotland on the North Great Circle, flying an ordinary battle plane, making good time, and just as he reached the northern tip of Scotland, right there on his viewscreen and visual as well, he had seen the biggest, most enormous craft he ever hoped to see. For a moment he thought he was running into it and would crash right then. There it was on his screens and through his windshield! But bang! He hit it, but it wasn’t there.
“Not there?” asked Jonnie.
Well, that was exactly it. He’d run into a solid object that wasn’t there. Right in the sky, mind you. Big as all the sky but not there. Here, he had the screen pictures in this pack.
Jonnie looked at it. It was a sphere with a ring around it. Nothing like any ship he had ever heard of. And it looked huge. In fact, at the corner, the Orkney Islands were visible. It looked like it reached from mid-Scotland to the Orkneys. The next consecutive picture showed it enveloping the battle plane taking the shot, and the third one showed it was gone.
“The ship that wasn’t there,” said Stormalong.
“Light,” said Jonnie, suddenly recalling some man-theories. “This thing could have been going faster than light. It left its image behind. That’s a guess, you know, but I read that they thought that things that went faster than light could look as big as the whole universe. It’s in some texts on nuclear physics we had. I didn’t understand most of it.”
“Well, that just could be,” said Stormalong. “Because the old woman said it wasn’t that big!”
The old woman?
Well, it’s like this. When he had gotten over his scare, he had backtracked his screen recorders. He hadn’t noticed it in approaching Scotland—you know how it is, you get groggy on a long flight, not alert, and he hadn’t had much sleep lately, cadets being what they were, slow to graduate when desperately needed by the overloaded pilots.
The backtrack of the screens showed this little trace coming up from a farm west of Kinlochbervie. You know, on the northwest coast of Scotland—that little place? Well, he cranked down his speed and went in to that spot, expecting maybe the place had been raided or shot up.
But there was just a burned spot in the rocks—a farm raises mostly rocks around there—and he didn’t see any other damage or hostile force, so he landed near the house.
An old woman came out, all fluttery about two callers from the sky in one day when she didn’t usually see anybody for months on end. And he was made to sit down and have some yarb tea and she showed him this new, shiny pocketknife.
“A pocketknife?” said Jonnie. This ordinarily very quiet Norwegian-Scot was taking his time about getting down to it.
Well, yes. They’d seen some in ruined cities, remember? They folded in on themselves. Only this one was shiny as could be. Yes, I am getting on with it.
So anyway, according to what the old woman told him, there she was combing her dog that often got burrs in him and it almost startled her witless. Standing right behind her was a small gray man. And right behind him was a big gray sphere with a ring around it parked right where the cow was usually staked out. Like to have frightened her silly daft, she said. There hadn’t been a sound. Maybe only a bit of wind.
So she asked the small gray man in for a cup of yarb tea, just like she asked me, except that I’d had the manners to come down roaring and announcing myself.
But the small gray man was very pleasant. He looked a bit smaller than most men. His skin was gray, his hair was gray and his suit gray. The only thing odd about him was he had a box he wore on a strap around his neck and hung on his chest. He’d say something to this box and then, presently, the box would speak English. The small gray man’s voice was quiet and had different tones and the box only had one tone, a monotone.
“A vocoder,” said Jonnie. “A portable translation device. A Psychlo text describes them but the Psychlos don’t use them.”
Well, all right. But anyway this small gray man asked her whether she had any newspapers. And no, because of course she’d never seen a newspaper; few people have. And then he asked her whether she had any history books. And she was disappointed to have to tell him she had heard of a book but didn’t have any.
Well, apparently he thought she didn’t understand, so the small gray man made a lot of motions to indicate something printed on paper was what he wanted.
So she got very helpful. Seems like somebody had bought some wool from her and given her a couple of those new credits in exchange. And explained what they were.
“What credits?”
“Oh, you haven’t seen them?” And Stormalong fished in his pockets and found one. “They pay us now. With these.” It was a one-credit note from the new Planetary Bank and Jonnie looked at it with casual interest. Then his attention riveted on the picture. A picture of him. Waving a gun. He didn’t think it was all that good a likeness and also it embarrassed him a bit.
So anyway, Stormalong went on, the old woman had accepted them because of the picture of you. And she had one of them on the wall. And she sold it to the small gray man for the pocketknife because she had another one she could put on the wall.
“I should think that was a cheap price for the pocketknife, if it was as fancy as you say,” said Jonnie.
Well, Stormalong hadn’t thought about that. But anyway the small gray man finished his yarb tea and put the bank note away very carefully between two pieces of metal, and put them in an inside pocket, and then he thanked her and went back to the ship and said something to somebody inside and got in. He called back for the old woman not to come close, and shut the door. And then there was a curl of flame and it rose up, and then all of a sudden it got as big as the whole sky and vanished. Yes, as Jonnie said, probably a phenomenon of light. But it didn’t fly like our ships and it didn’t teleport. It didn’t seem to be Psychlo, what with the man being a small gray man.
Jonnie had become very quiet. Some other alien race? Interested in Earth now that the Psychlos weren’t here?
He looked across the lake, puzzling about it. The storm was building even higher.
Well, be that as it may, continued Stormalong, that wasn’t why he was here. He fumbled in a flat case he carried for maps.
“It’s a letter from Ker,” said Stormalong. “And he said I had to bring it personally and not let it get out of my hands. I owe him favors and he said if you didn’t get it the whole shaft would fall in. Here it is.”
4
Jonnie regarded the envelope. It was the paper cover used to package antiheat shields. The only writing on it was “AWFUL SECRET.” He held it up to the light, darkening now as the storm drew nearer. It had no explosive in it that he could detect. He ripped it open. Ah, it was Ker’s writing all right. The semiliterate curved hooks and loops might not spell correctly but they spelled Ker’s idea of a Psychlo alphabet. He opened it up all the way to read it. It said:
AWFUL SECRET
Jonnie read the letter again and then, as required, tore it into bits. “When was this given to you?” he asked Stormalong.
“Yesterday morning. I had to trace you.”
Jonnie looked out across the lake. The storm was huge now, towering with black turmoil. It was almost upon them.
Jonnie pushed Stormalong onto the tri-wheeler and started it up. Without another word he tore across the savannah to the minesite.
The growl of thunder sounded and the first stinging slashes of rain lanced the air.
Jonnie knew he had to get to America now. At once!
5
“It’s a trap!” said Robert the Fox.
Jonnie had returned. He rapidly told them what Ker had said. He had given orders for the immediate refueling, checkover and cleaning of Stormalong’s plane to be ready within the hour. He had the copilot who had come with Stormalong in front of him now with Angus standing nearby, and he was comparing the two.
“Can you trust Ker?” demanded Sir Robert.
Jonnie didn’t answer. He was satisfied Angus could be mistaken for the copilot if he darkened his beard, put on a bit of walnut stain and changed clothes.
“Answer me! I canna think ye’ve got all yer wits!” Robert was so agitated he was pacing back and forth in the underground room Jonnie had been using. He was even lapsing into his colloquial Scot dialect.
“I must go. Now and fast,” Jonnie shot at them.
“No!” said Dunneldeen.
“No!” said Robert the Fox.
There was a flurry of translations with his coordinator and then Colonel Ivan shouted, “Nyet!”
Jonnie had Angus changing clothes with the copilot. “You don’t have to go, Angus,” he said. “You said ‘yes’ too hastily.”
Angus said, “I’ll go. I’ll say my prayers and make my will but I’ll go with you, Jonnie.”
Stormalong was standing there and Jonnie pulled him over to a huge Psychlo mirror and stood beside him. Tropic sun had tanned Jonnie lately; their skin tone difference was not so great now. Stormalong’s beard was a little darker: some walnut stain would fix that. There was the new facial scar, well healed now, that Jonnie had gotten: nothing could be done about that, and he hoped people would think Stormalong had had an accident; yes, wait, he could put a bandage on it. Ah, the square cut of the bottom of the beard: that was what was making the difference. He reached for the tool kit Angus always carried, got out some sharp wire snips, and began to make his beard exactly the same as Stormalong’s. That done, he changed clothes with him. Now a little walnut stain in the beard . . . good. He looked at himself in the mirror. Ah, yes. The piece of bandage. He got that and put it on. Now? Good. He could pass for Stormalong. The huge, old-fashioned goggles, white scarf and leather flying coat: yes, they did it. Unless he was looked at too closely or their slight difference in accent was heard . . . He made Stormalong talk, then he talked. No Scot burr in Stormalong’s accent. Scot university? A little soft in pronunciation? He tried it. Yes, he could also sound like Stormalong.
The others were very agitated. The big Russian was cracking the knuckles of his huge hands. Bittie MacLeod was peering into the room. He came forward, his eyes bright with pleading.
“No,” said Jonnie. Pride or no pride, this mission had death in it. “You cannot come with me!” Then he softened. “Take good care of Colonel Ivan.”
Bittie swallowed and backed up.
Angus had finished and run out. The clang of cartridges being changed and the whir of a drill sounded from the hangar where they were readying the plane.
Jonnie beckoned to Colonel Ivan. He and his coordinator came forward. “Get the American underground base closed, Colonel. Every door. So no one can enter but us. Close it so hard they’ll never get into it. Do the same thing with the tactical and nuclear weapons area thirty miles to the north. Seal it. Secure every assault rifle not in use by Scots. Have you got it?”
The colonel had a group there now. Yes, he got it.
Jonnie beckoned to Dunneldeen and Sir Robert and they kept pace with him as he went toward their commissary. Jonnie, in terse, brief statements, told them exactly what to do to carry on, if he were killed. They were very sober, worried for him. The hairbreadth daring of his plan left an awful lot of room for slip-ups. But they got it. They said they would carry on.
“And Dunneldeen,” concluded Jonnie, “I want you over at the Academy in America in about twenty-four hours, coming in from Scotland to take over the pilot training duties of Stormalong who by then, with luck, will be on ‘other assignment.’”
For once Dunneldeen just nodded assent.
The old woman who had come down from the Mountains of the Moon tribe—with her whole family—to run their commissary must have heard rumors in the wind. She had a food package gathered up for two, some gourds full of sweet water, and a big sandwich of roasted African buffalo meat and millet bread, and she stood right there in front of Jonnie until he began eating it.
Sir Robert picked up the food package, and Dunneldeen the gourds, and they walked past the old Psychlo operations office. There was hammering and drill-whirring still coming from the plane area, where Angus was making sure it was all operational. Jonnie picked up a few yards of radio printer paper and glanced at current traffic, looking for any unusual weather in the pilot cross-talk.
Well, well! One . . . two . . . yes, two mentions of the craft that got as big as the sky. Stories similar to the one Stormalong had told him. The small gray man mentioned in both. India. South America.
“The small gray man gets around,” murmured Jonnie. Dunneldeen and Sir Robert craned around to the printout to see what he was talking about. “Stormalong will tell you,” said Jonnie. Earth certainly was of interest to some other civilization in space. But the small gray man didn’t seem hostile. At least not yet. “Keep this or any other base you go to defended on a twenty-four-hour basis,” said Jonnie.
The whirring and hammering had stopped and they went to the plane. It was being dollied to just inside the open hangar door.
Stormalong was standing there with his copilot. “You stay here,” said Jonnie. “Both of you. You,” he jabbed a finger into Stormalong’s chest, “be me. Go on that same route every day in my clothes and throw rocks. And you,” he pointed a finger at the copilot, a Scot they called Darf, “be Angus!”
“I’m na good at a’ the things bonnie Angus kens!” wailed the copilot.
“You do them,” said Jonnie.
A Russian came running in from outside and told them it was all clear, no drones coming. Not on screens or eyeball. His new English had a colloquial Scotch accent.
Jonnie and Angus got in the plane; Sir Robert and Dunneldeen threw the food and water in. Then they both stood there looking up at Jonnie. They were trying to think of something to say but both of them were unable to talk.
Bittie stood back. He waved a timid hand.
Jonnie shut the plane door. Angus gave him a thumbs up. Jonnie signaled the dolly crew to shove them out and pushed the heavy starter buttons with his fists. He looked back. The crews and people in the hangar door weren’t waving. Jonnie’s fingers shoved into the console buttons.
Stormalong watched breathlessly in the door. He had known Jonnie was a flier unequaled, but he had never seen a battle plane vault upward so fast and sharply and rush into hypersonic so quickly. The bottom of the broken sound barrier rocketed back at them as it echoed against the African peaks. Or was that the boom of the storm that engulfed the speeding ship?
A roll of thunder and a lightning flash.
The group in the hangar door still stood there, looking at the place where the ship had vanished into the cloud-boiling sky. Their Jonnie was on his way to America fast. They didn’t like it. Not any part of it.
6
It was dark when they landed at the old Academy. They had flown close to the North Pole, rolling back the sun and arriving before dawn.
There were few lights. No one had lighted the field, for it was not the operational field of the area, and they had slipped in on instruments and viewscreens.
The cadet duty officer was sound asleep and they woke him to get themselves logged in: “Stormalong Stam Stavenger, pilot, and Darf McNulty, copilot, returning from Europe, student battle plane 86290567918. No troubles, no comments.” The cadet duty officer wrote it down. He didn’t bother to get them to sign it.
Jonnie didn’t know where Stormalong and Darf had been berthed. He had not remembered to find out. Stormalong probably in senior faculty berthing. Darf . . . ? He thought fast. “Darf” was still carrying the overgenerous, heavy food bag and a tool kit. After all, Stormalong was their ace here.
Abruptly Jonnie grabbed the food bag and tool kit and shoved them at the cadet. “Please carry these up to my room for me.” The cadet looked at him oddly. Even Stormalong did his own fetching and carrying in this place. “We’ve been flying for days with no sleep,” said Jonnie, faking a reeling motion.
The cadet shrugged and took the bundles. Jonnie waited for him to lead off and he did.
They arrived at a separate bedroom and went in. Stormalong’s, all right. It had a Norwegian woven picture on one wall. Stormalong had made himself comfortable.
The cadet dropped the food bag and kit on the table and would have left. But although Angus was the one who had put this base together originally and knew it inside out, he wouldn’t have known where Darf was berthed. Hastily Jonnie grabbed half the food and the kit and put them back into the cadet’s arms. “Help Darf get to his room.”
The cadet looked like he was going to protest. “He hurt his arm playing skittles,” said Jonnie.
“Looks like you hurt your face, too, sir,” said the cadet. He was quite sullen at losing his sleep but they went off.
Fine beginning, thought Jonnie. About now Sir Robert definitely would be talking about planning raids right. You plan a raid, he would be saying. One as dangerous as this one might be, certainly hadn’t wasted any planning time.
The cadet and Angus didn’t come back and he had to suppose it had been successful. He stripped off his clothes and rolled into Stormalong’s bunk. He forced himself to go to sleep. He would need it.
It seemed like only seconds later that he was alarmed awake with a shake of the shoulder. He sat up suddenly, hand going under the blanket to his blast gun. A face mask. A breathe-mask. The “hand” was a paw.
“Did you deliver my letter?” whispered Ker.
It was broad daylight. A late-morning sun was streaming in through the discolored glass of the window.
Ker stepped back, looking at him oddly. Then the midget Psychlo catfooted over to the door to be sure it was closed, looked around the room for bugs or other surveillance devices, and came back to the bed where Jonnie had swung his legs down.
Ker guffawed!
“Is it that plain?” said Jonnie, a little cross and smoothing his hair out of his eyes.
“Not to an unobservant idiot,” said Ker. “But to one who had sweated on as many driver’s seats and in as many shafts with you as me, I know you, Jonnie!”
He swatted his paw into Jonnie’s palm. “Welcome to the deep pit, Jonnie . . . I mean Jonnie logged in as Stormalong! May the ore fly and the carts roll!”
Jonnie had to grin at him. Ker was always such a clown. And in a way he was fond of him.
Ker stepped very close. He whispered, “You know you could get yourself squash killed around here. The word trickles out through the cracks in the bunkroom doors—top, high-level bunkrooms. You and me, too, if they trip the latch on us. Caution is the word. You ever have a criminal background? No? Well, you will have when they get through with you. Good thing you’re in the hands of a real criminal, me! Who came with you? Who’s Darf now?”
“Angus MacTavish,” said Jonnie.
“Oho! That’s the best news of the day next to your being here. Angus has a way with the nuts and bolts. I keep track of things. What’s first?”
“First,” said Jonnie, “I get dressed and eat some breakfast. I’m not showing my face in that dining room. Stormalong trained most of these flying cadets.”
“That he did, while I trained the machine operators. You know I’ve been doing a great job on that, Jonnie.” Jonnie was dressing, but Ker the chatterbox rattled on. “This Academy is the most fun I ever had, Jonnie. These cadets . . . I tell them stories about teaching you and things you did—mostly lies of course and made up to make them do better—and they love it. They know they’re lies. Nobody could blade-scrape thirty-nine tons of ore an hour. But you understand. You know me. I love this job. You know, it’s the first time I’ve been really glad I’m a midget. I’m not much taller than they are and I got them—Jonnie, this will kill you unless somebody else does it first—I got them believing I’m half-human!” He had taken a seat on the bed, which sagged under his seven hundred pounds, and now it almost collapsed as he rolled around in laughter. “Ain’t that rich, Jonnie? Half-human, get it? I tell them my mother was a female Psychlo that raped a Swede!”
Jonnie, in spite of the seriousness of their mission, had to smile. He was getting into Stormalong’s clothes.
Ker had stopped laughing now. He was just sitting there, looking pensive. “You know, Jonnie,” and he sighed so that his breathe-mask valve fluttered and popped, “I think this is the first time in my life I ever had friends.”
Eating a few bites of breakfast and chasing it down with some water, Jonnie said, “First thing you do is go down to the Academy commandant and tell him you want Stormalong and Darf assigned at once to your special project. I’m sure they gave you authority from upstairs.”
“Oh, I got authority,” said Ker. “I got authority running out of my furry ears. And upstairs is all over me to finish that breathe-gas circulator. But I told them I needed help and parts from the Cornwall minesite.”
“Good,” said Jonnie. “Tell them Dunneldeen will be over in a couple of days to replace Stormalong in the training schedule. Say you arranged that, too, to keep the school from disruption. Then you get a closed ground car out in front of this building, get ‘Darf’ in it, and come back here and knock on my door and we’re away.”
“Got it, got it, got it,” said Ker as he went rumbling off.
Jonnie checked his blast gun and put it inside his coat. He would know within an hour or two whether Ker was playing this straight. Until then . . . ?
7
They got to the car without incident beyond a couple of sly cracks from passing cadets such as, “Had a crash, Stormy?” in reference to the bandage, and “Wipe one out, Stormalong? Or was it that lass in Inverness? Or her daddy?”
There was a big package in the car, making seating tight even in Psychlo seats. Ker swept the car out across the rolling plain with the effortless skill of one with years and tens of thousands of hours on a console behind him. Jonnie had not remembered how well Ker drove. Better than Terl on ground cars and machinery. “I told them,” he said, “that it was you two that had gone to fetch the housing needed from Cornwall. I was even seen to unload it from your plane.”
Nothing like having an experienced criminal along, Jonnie commented. It tickled Ker and he cranked up the ground car to a hundred fifty. On this rough plain? Angus had shut his eyes tight as the shrubs and rocks whooshed by.
“And there’s two air masks and bottles I brought,” said Ker. “We’ll claim breathe-gas is leaking in the pipes, not enough for me, too much for you. Put them on.”
They deferred it, however, until they were near the compound. Chinko air masks, cut down to fit a human, were a mite uncomfortable at any time.
Jonnie didn’t care about the speed. He took an instant to glory in the beautiful day. The plains were a bit brown and the snow a trifle less on the peaks at this season. But it was his country. He was tired of rain and humid heat. It was sort of good to be home.
He snapped out of it suddenly as they screeched to a slow in billowing dust on the plateau near the cage. Ker didn’t care where he went in a vehicle. Ker leaned out the window and yelled at the cage, “It came. I don’t think it’s the right housing but we’ll see!”
Terl! There he was, paws on the bars. They had the electricity off.
“Well, speed it up!” roared Terl. “I’m tired of being roasted in this sun. How many days yet, you crap brain?”
“Two, three, no more,” yelled Ker. He shot the vehicle into a perilous reverse and it spun up in the air about seven feet and came down diving toward the other side of the compound to enter the garage doors.
Ker shot in and spun the car down a ramp into a deserted sector and stopped.
“Now we go to his office,” he said.
“Not yet,” said Jonnie, hand on the blast gun inside his coat. “Remember that old closet where they first imprisoned Terl?”
“Yes,” said Ker, doubtfully. “Is it still rigged with breathe-gas?” said Jonnie.
“I guess so,” said Ker.
“First drive by the electronics storeroom and pick up a mineral analysis machine and then drive to that closet.”
Ker was a bit uneasy. “I thought we wanted into his office.”
“We do,” said Jonnie. “But we got a little business first. Don’t be alarmed. The last thing in the world I would want to do is hurt you. Relax. Do what I said.”
Ker revved up and shot the car through the mazes of ramps on its way to do as Jonnie said.
The place had not been much cleaned up since the battle, but hundreds of planes were still there, the thousands of vehicles and mining machines, the dozens of shops for various types of work and hundreds of storerooms—the bric-a-brac as well as the valuables of a thousand years of operation. Jonnie looked at them speculatively—they were wealth for this planet in the way they could be used to rebuild it. And every minesite had huge and similar stores of material. These things should be preserved and cared for—they were irreplaceable, since the factories that had made them were universes away. But plentiful as they were, they would run out and wear out eventually. Another reason to join the community of stellar systems. He doubted that much of this was made on Psychlo: the Psychlos were exploiters of alien races and terrain; hadn’t they even borrowed their language and technology? Teleportation seemed to be the key to their power. Well, he was working on that.
They drew up before the old closet and Angus struggled in with the mineral analysis machine. Jonnie fiddled with the breathe-gas circulator. They checked their own air masks and shut the door. They told Ker to take his mask off.
Ker, a trifle apprehensive, yet had the presence of mind to pull out a wad of black waste and block the view port.
Jonnie and Angus went right to work. They persuaded Ker to put his head on the mineral analysis plate. He did but he kept rolling his amber eyes up at them sideways as though he thought they were a bit crazy. He recalled the machine’s use on Jonnie and he tried to tell them he had never been shot in the head much.
They worked. Angus had become very expert in adjusting these machines and he twiddled knobs for different depth settings and focuses. Ker was getting a crick in his back bending over and said so. They shushed him. They turned his head in every direction on the plate. At the end of a sweating thirty-five minutes they let him up.
Ker stood there rubbing his neck and trying to get his spine straight again.
Jonnie looked at him. “Tell us about your birth, Ker.”
Ker thought this was a bit mad. He opened his mouth to speak and then glanced at the door. He took a device out of his pocket and plunked it against the area beside the view port. It had a little light sphere on it and would tell them whether anyone was standing outside. Angus checked the intercom set into the panel and turned it off.
“Well,” said Ker, “I was born of wealthy parents—”
“Oh, come on, Ker,” said Jonnie. “Truth, we want the truth, not some fairy tale!”
Ker looked a little offended. He sighed in a martyred fashion. He took out a miniature box-flask of kerbango and chewed off a small piece. He needed that. He hunkered down against the wall and began all over again.
“I was born of wealthy parents on Psychlo,” said Ker. “The father was named Ka. It was a very proud family. His first female gave birth to a litter. Usually a Psychlo litter is four pups, sometimes five. In this case it was six. Well, it often happens that when there’s that many pups, one of them is a runt—not enough space in the female organs or something.
“So anyway, I was the sixth pup and a runt. Not wanting the family disgraced, they threw me out in the garbage, that being the usual treatment for such.
“A family slave, for his own reasons, fished me out and took me away. He was a member of an underground revolutionary organization. There are miles of abandoned mine shafts under the Imperial City and slaves escape into them and nobody can keep them policed, so there I was. Maybe that’s why I’m at home in the mines. The slaves were of the Balfan race, blue-colored people. They aren’t exactly ordinary-looking—they can breathe breathe-gas, the Psychlo atmosphere, and don’t have to wear masks and so they can be seen easily in the streets. Maybe they had an idea they needed a Psychlo of their own to plant bombs or something. But anyway, they brought me up and trained me to steal things for them. I could slip in and out of small places, being so small.
“When I was about eight, which is pretty young for a Psychlo, an Imperial Bureau of Investigation agent named Jayed infiltrated the group with what they call agents provocateurs, to provoke them to commit big crimes so they could be arrested. The I.B.I. raided the underground after a while.
“Being small, I got out through an old ventilator shaft. I was hungry after that and just wandering in the streets. So I found a small window in back of a goo-food ship; it was too small to be barred for no normal Psychlo could get in. So I crawled through and tripped an alarm system—a fact that encouraged me later to learn all about such things.”
Ker paused and took another small chew of kerbango. Actually it was a welcome break for him: one can’t handle kerbango wearing a breathe-mask, for you can’t spit out the small grainy residue. It was kind of a relief to him as well. He’d never told the story before.
“Anyway,” Ker continued, “they tried me and found me guilty and sentenced me to be branded with the three bars of denial and a century of service in the imperial pits. There I was, eight years old, at hard labor with hard criminals.
“I was too small to fit any of their shackles so they just let me run around and that’s why I haven’t any shackle marks on my ankles. I don’t have to be careful when I take off my boots.
“Because I was footloose (ha-ha), the older criminals could use me to carry illegal messages between the chain gangs and cells and they educated me pretty thoroughly in crime.
“When I was about fifteen, there was a plague hit the pits and a lot of guards died, and having no shackles, I escaped.
“By this time I knew my business, even though fifteen is pretty young for a Psychlo. Being small, I could get in and out of windows and cubbyholes nobody thought to bar, and I collected myself a lot of ready cash.
“I bought false identity papers, bribed an Intergalactic Mining Company personnel clerk, and got myself employed as a shaft man because I could get in and out of small places.
“I served in various systems for the company and have somehow gotten along for the last twenty-five years. I’m only forty-one and a Psychlo lives to be about one hundred ninety, so I got one hundred forty-nine years to go. The immediate problem is how I plan to spend it (ha-ha).”
“Thank you,” said Jonnie. “What leverage does Terl have on you?”
“That ape? None now. He did have, but not now. None. Praise the devils!”
“Were you ever trained in math?” asked Jonnie.
Ker laughed. “No, I’m dummy at it. All I am is a practical engineer—no education but experience . . . and crime of course.”
“Do you like cruelty, Ker?”
The midget Psychlo hung his head. He looked ashamed in the reflected light from the machine. “As long as I’m being honest, which is a novelty I can tell you, I have to pretend to like cruelty, to get my fun out of hurting things. Otherwise other Psychlos would consider me abnormal! But . . . no, I don’t like it, I’m sorry to say.” He roused himself. “Say, Jonnie, what’s all this about?”
Angus and Jonnie looked at each other. This Psychlo didn’t have any objects in his head. None at all!
But Jonnie was not going to let go of vital data. Ker didn’t know about such objects and probably very few Psychlos did. “You’ve got a different skull structure from other Psychlos,” said Jonnie. “You are completely different.”
Ker jerked into alertness. “Is that a fact? Well, well. I often felt there was some difference.” He became pensive. “Psychlos don’t like me. And actually I don’t like them. I’m glad to have the reason.”
Jonnie and Angus were very relieved about their test. They didn’t want Ker attacking them and committing suicide when he realized they were seeking the answer to the riddle of teleportation.
They were just gathering up their gear when the telltale on the door flashed. Somebody was just outside.
8
Ker got on his breathe-mask. He tiptoed over to the machine and picked it up, using only one arm. Then he tiptoed over to the door and suddenly swung it open as though walking out.
A wave of breathe-gas burst out of the room.
Lars was standing there, frozen in the act of attaching a listening device to the door. He wore no air mask.
The invisible puff of breathe-gas hit Lars full in the face.
He must have been in the act of taking a breath at that moment, for he rose on his toes like someone being strangled.
He gagged. He reeled back. He fought for air. He started to turn blue. In another few seconds he would start into convulsions.
Jonnie and Angus grabbed him, one on each arm, and rushed him back to clearer air. Angus fanned him with a metal plate he’d found on the floor.
Gradually Lars came back to life. The blue tinge faded. But what he said was, “What were you doing in there?” and he said it angrily.
“Now, now, laddie,” said Angus soothingly. “Here we are saving of your life and ye’re making mean sounds. Tch. Tch.”
Lars was looking at Jonnie with a peculiar expression on his face. Jonnie went over to where Ker was rattling the housing around in the car as though he had just put it there.
“It’s all right now,” said Ker. “No cracks or metal faults in the housing. We better go see if it fits.”
They drove off and left Lars lying there, gazing after them with that peculiar look.
“Why’s he looking at me that way?” asked Jonnie.
“You better be careful,” said Ker. “He’s a crazy one. And he’s the council’s long nose and pry. He’s got some idea that somebody named Bitter or Hitter was the greatest military leader in your history, and if you stand still for ten seconds he’ll begin on you. It’s some church. There’s nothing wrong with religion, but plenty wrong with what he says. Terl wrecked his wits. But there wasn’t much there in the first place. Ha. Ha.”
“But why that peculiar look at me?” asked Jonnie.
“Natural suspicion,” said Ker. “Say, you know I feel a lot better since talking to you creatures! I sure am glad I’m different.”
They stopped and got out below the top compound level where Terl’s office was. They removed the housing from the car and struggled up the ramp with it.
Just before they went in, Angus stopped them. “Why couldn’t Terl fix this place up himself?”
Ker laughed. “When Jonnie left here he said to spread it that the place was booby-trapped. But that isn’t all of it.” He indicated the door to Terl’s office with a paw wave. “If the Psychlos got out from the dormitory section they could come here and kill anybody working here. Terl’s pretty sure they’d kill him if they got loose. They hate him.”
“Wait,” said Jonnie. “That means Terl will get them killed before he moves in here.” He put a hand on the door latch to the office. “You did debug this place and look for booby traps?”
“Ha. Ha!” said Ker. “I had been tearing this place to bits waiting for you!”
They went in and set the housing down. Indeed the place was a wreck. Wires pulled out, the old breathe-gas circulator scattered in bent pieces on the floor, desks and chairs askew, paper thrown about.
Jonnie looked it over. At once he saw that in Terl’s inner office the whole lower section of the wall to the right of Terl’s desk as he would sit at it was lined with large, locked compartments. “Been into those?” he said.
Ker shook his head. “No keys. A security chief loves his security.”
Jonnie sent Angus out to find a sentry. The cadets were still the guards in this compound. Ker, with his blanket authority, repeated what Jonnie whispered to him and sent for Chirk.
They got to work sorting out wires and papers and trash and presently three cadet sentries showed up with Chirk.
She was a long way from the smart-looking secretary of the old days. They had her on three chain links attached to a collar. Her fur was all the wrong way. There was no powder on her nosebone and no polish on her triple-jointed claws. She wore just a cloth thrown around her shoulders, no other clothes.
“Where’s the keys?” said Ker, as prompted.
Keys! Everybody wanted keys! Her voice was punctuated with fang clicks and snaps and hisses. It wasn’t enough Terl brought them all to this and sought to ruin her company record by saying she was disobedient and didn’t follow orders, but she had to be dragged all over—in chains!—just to say what keys now? That day of the battle Terl provoked, everybody had been after the keys, keys, keys. Her company duties—
Jonnie was quietly whispering in Ker’s ear. Ker whispered back, “You trying to start a riot?” But as Jonnie insisted, Ker said loudly to Chirk, “Shut up! Just because Terl plans to murder all of you down there is no reason to take it out on us!”
Chirk went very still. Through the face mask glass her eyes got very round. The flutter valve of the mask started pumping rather quickly.
Jonnie whispered again and Ker said, “It might or might not make any difference, but when he moves in here and has free reign of this whole compound, he will be furious with you if the keys aren’t found!”
The muscles in the middle of her body where her heart was were twitching and leaping. The flutter valve stopped totally for half a minute. Then started again. “He’s moving in here?” she said so quietly it was hard to hear her though the mask.
“Why else are we fixing it up?” said Ker. Then menacingly, “Where’s the keys to those wall doors?”
Chirk shook her head. “He never let anybody have them. They’re maybe gone!” Was that a sob in her breath?
“Well, take her away,” said Ker gruffly to the guards.
They dragged her off.
“What’s going on here?” demanded Lars, popping up in the door.
“We’re trying to find the access panels to the wiring,” snapped Ker. “It’s all shorted out!”
There were breathe-gas vials scattered around. Jonnie reached behind his back and turned one on. Angus, Ker and himself were wearing masks.
Ker was reaching in his pocket. He pulled out a handful of items and shoved them at Lars. “This is a dangerous job! I demand a higher bonus! These were in the first wiring recess!”
Lars looked at them. Three were dented bullets that looked like radiation ammunition but weren’t. Another was a bent time fuse of the kind set in small blast holes. The biggest was a wad of malleable explosive compound.
“Somebody has been getting into this office!” said Ker. “After this I want the door locked. I want nobody in or out of here but us and I want you miles away before you kill yourself and get me blamed for it. I know how you work!”
Lars was beginning to cough again from the new breathe-gas coming out of the vial.
“See?” said Ker. “These ducts are still loaded with breathe-gas and it leaks!”
Lars was backing out into the hall, still coughing. He lifted the objects that had been put in his hand. “Are these dangerous?”
“Take them and throw them at your betters and find out!” said Ker. “And if I see you around here again, I’ll tell them you are slowing down this job by issuing orders to take it easy. Get out, go away, stay out, and if I see your face again you will just have to find another expert! Got it? I’ll quit!”
Lars looked at Jonnie in a very peculiar way. But at that moment, from the direction of the distant dormitory three levels down, came some angry howls and snarls. Lars rushed off.
“Did you really find those items in here?” said Angus.
“Of course not,” said Ker. “Shut, lock and bar those doors out there and let’s get to work. The last place Terl will want to be for now is in this compound. After we’re finished and he’s sent somebody else to see whether they get blown up is the first he’ll want to see of this place.” He listened to the distant howls and roars. “You sure started a riot, Jonnie. Terl will hear that clear out in the cage. That Chirk really told them!”
Jonnie barred and locked the outer doors and then gestured from Angus to the wall cabinet locks and Angus whipped out a small set of picks and went to work on them.
They were in business!