The Invaders Plan

  ADJUSTMENT RECEIVED.

  I hastily punched,

  PAY STATUS?

  and the machine said,

  I AM SORRY BUT IT TAKES TWO MONTHS TO ADJUST PAY ERRORS.

  And before I could even protest, the machine again said,

  WARNING, WARNING, WARNING. IF SAID OFFICER LOSES ANY ONE OF HIS FOUR PAYCHECKS . . .

  I slammed the keys and shut it off. (Bleep) them! I should have paid it with a counterfeit note! That would show them.

  I was so angry and so upset that I forgot I had two fainted bodies behind me and I stumbled on them as I left.

  Outside I took a deep breath to steady myself. The sour smell of the Apparatus sector and the stink of the River Wiel did not compare with the Blike Mountains.

  “Officer Gris,” said Ske, startling me in the shadows of the building.

  “Don’t you think we better go down to the Apparatus hangars while we got some day left?”

  While I had some paychecks left, I thought. I climbed hastily into the airbus. I had to get this mission going even if it killed me, which it probably would.

  PART SEVEN

  Chapter 7

  We hovered in the sky above the Apparatus hangars, waiting for the landing circle to clear. Such was my urgency and determination that I became impatient. It was all very well to hang there in the soft afternoon sunlight, sitting on the gaudy seat of the new airbus, but that didn’t keep me out of gutter hollow! Way, way over to the west I could see Ardaucus, the fancy name they give Slum City. It even looked smudgy and dirty at this distance. Lombar was right: it ought to be annihilated! But not with me in it!

  “What is holding us?” I at length demanded.

  Ske shrugged. “It’s that Fleet freight skyhauler.”

  Alarm shot through me. I had been careful about keeping Heller away from Fleet anything! And sure enough, down there on the landing circle below, a Fleet skyhauler was hovering, bobbing up and down, giving the final adjustments to something huge and brass-colored—a sort of cylinder. It was getting it finally onto a trundle dolly.

  Even as I looked, the Fleet pilot tripped his let-go and the cables began to reel up. Without waiting for this to be completed, the blue freight carrier zipped up into the sky.

  The trundle dolly was moving into the hangar now and my driver plummeted the airbus down to the target area.

  I was actually quite alarmed to see Fleet touching even the fringes of the mission. The thought of the Fleet patrol crew, probably long dead now in Spiteos, and the words of Soams were almost enough to make me withdraw from the area.

  But the computer threat was fresh in my mind. I jumped out and ran up alongside the trundle dolly. It was inside the hangar now. The crane hook was coming down to engage the rings on the cylinder.

  And there was Heller, riding the crane hook over. I drew back a bit.

  Tug One had had some upper hullplates removed. Right in the middle of her back.

  Heller was giving hand motions to the crane master way above. He dropped off onto the top of the brass-colored cylinder and then guided the hook to engage a huge ring. Heller locked the hook blades in place with a gloved hand and, with him signaling, was hauled high in the air, riding the cylinder as it rose.

  I caught a sign on the cylinder. It said:

  HIGHLY DANGEROUS

  HIGHLY EXPLOSIVE

  DO NOT OPEN

  My Gods, I mourned to myself. She isn’t enough of a bomb already?

  The trundle dolly operator was clambering down. His job finished, he was lighting a puffstick.

  “Have any other Fleet units been around here lately?” I asked him.

  “What’s the matter? Haven’t you seen them?” He hadn’t noticed I’d been missing for three weeks.

  “Well, have they?” I insisted.

  “Naw, this is the first in a couple days. There ain’t been anything else, yesterday or today.”

  “What’s been coming?” I persisted.

  “That’s a funny (bleeped) thing,” he said, looking up at the swaying cylinder. “They can’t change a time-converter in flight. Taking an extra one means they must be going to some well-equipped repair base. I was a drive operator once, you know. Before space started giving me the creeps.”

  Heller had guided the huge brass cylinder down through the place that had been opened in the top of the hull.

  “He wouldn’t let anybody else guide it in,” said the trundle dolly operator. “Or maybe they refused to. Those (bleeping) Will-be Was engines! They’re dangerous even in a battleship. That’s what they were designed for, you know, not for no (bleeped) tug. But I wonder what he’s doing with a spare time-converter.”

  Heller was directing the final lowering. He looked like a speck from where I was standing. The huge cylinder was spinning back and forth with him standing on it.

  “I’ll give you some advice,” said the trundle dolly operator. “Don’t never open one of them time-converters up. Believe what it says on the labels. You could lose your hand! I could even give you some better advice. Don’t never go no place in that (bleeped) tug!”

  He was uncomfortable to be around. I walked deeper into the hangar. The day half platoon was lounging about. They didn’t even glance at me. I approached the subofficer.

  “Have a bunch of things been coming in from Fleet?” I asked him.

  He glanced around. “Most of the contractor crews seem to have gone home.”

  That certainly answered no question. “What do the things look like?” I insisted.

  “How does any long box look?” he said irritably.

  “Where are they putting them?” I demanded.

  “In the lower hold, of course. Say,” and he focused on me very sharply, “can’t you see, or something?” It was obvious he had not noticed I had been missing.

  The hook was now rising out of the open gap in the hull, the cylinder seemingly having been gotten into its storage space.

  Heller was riding the hook. It came down like a bomb. He jumped off and it hit the pavement with a crash.

  “Oh, say, Soltan,” he said, for all the world like he was rebeginning a conversation interrupted a half-hour earlier, “like I was telling you, all the cultural notes and observations are missing from all those earlier Blito-P3 surveys. See if you can get hold of them, will you?” And he yelled back up to the high cab, “Very well done and thank you, crane master!” and with a friendly hand wave to him, he trotted over to the tug and went in through the air lock.

  The day’s work was over. People were drifting off. The sun was gone.

  And then here it came, “Hup, yo, hup, yo, hup, yo!” The cadence counting of the Fleet Marines, totally foreign to Apparatus areas. The slamming bootbeats of the marching squad. In they came and gave the day subofficer a salute. Then, “Pohstings! Guardsman Ip, yuoah post is in the ship!”

  And the Countess Krak, in perfect evolution, boot-slammed in through the air lock.

  The rest of the squad gave a jump and cheer and then dispersed. All just as before!

  Snelz wandered over to the old gravity chair and sat down. I approached him.

  He was lighting a puffstick. “Bit of wind on the desert today. Have a puffstick?” he added as an afterthought.

  “I think you owe me more than that,” I said threateningly.

  “Oh?” He felt in his tunic side pocket and pulled out a five-credit note.

  “I thought I gave it to you a couple days ago. Well, here it is.”

  He probably owed me more than that. But realizing he didn’t even know I’d been gone sort of took the heart out of me. I put the five-credit note in my pocket and walked slowly away.

  I had five credits. It made me brave enough to go “home.”

  I mounted the side steps, avoiding the broken boards. I heard somebody walking in the hall. It was dark. As quietly as I could I slid along the wall to my room. I knew my way. I had done it very often. I am a master at silent approach.

  There were no bars on my door. I sl
id it open. A low glowplate was burning in there and by its light I saw, standing not three feet from me, Meeley.

  She looked like she was going to go through my pockets. I hastily flipped out the five-credit note and handed it over.

  She did not even say thank you. She did not even say I still owed her money for last year. She said, “I wish you would sweep that floor up occasionally! The stench is awful!” And she walked away.

  Later I lay in the broken bed, staring into the dark. I had been gone three weeks. I could have been dead for all they knew. And not once this whole day had anybody said, “Where have you been?”

  PART SEVEN

  Chapter 8

  But if I thought I would continue to be unnoticed and that things would just go on forever in this way, I was very mistaken. I did not have any forecast at all that, today, Heller’s crazy, irresponsible actions would pull the pin and accidentally begin the landslide of events which were to lead us all into catastrophe.

  I awoke, well before dawn, ravenously hungry. I became panic-stricken at the thought of starving and thirsting myself to a point where I would have another Manco Devil’s dream: my poverty had prevented me from eating the entire previous day. I didn’t want to be interviewed again for a job as handler of the King of the underworld.

  Accordingly, I piled out and dressed and, down in the side courtyard, booted my driver awake and bade him fly at once, like mad, dark though it still might be, to my office.

  My hope was to get there before Bawtch and raid the clerks’ supply of hot jolt! It was a cunning plan: I had it all sketched out, complete with the excuse that I had to use the master console. I even embellished the plan with a fancy tale that I had worked like a slave all night, but I didn’t think Bawtch would buy that so I deleted it.

  In the office, I turned on a low light and worked with a ring of magnetic frequency plates, picking the lock of their jolt cupboard. I am very well trained as a lock picker, the tradecraft name for it, and in hardly any time at all I not only had a canister of hot jolt but also a thin, dry, bun crust somebody had abandoned.

  I drank it very quickly, scalding my mouth, and rushed over to the master console, trying not to break my teeth on the bun crust. So far, so good: I had beaten everybody else to the office, I had not been observed. My superb training was standing me in good stead.

  I sat down at the console. In my planning, I had neglected to decide what I was going to ask it. Bawtch had removed his identoplate so I had to use my own. I put it in and the console lit up and then it almost went off again while I tried to think of something to punch into it. It was terribly early to do any thinking, hot jolt or no hot jolt!

  Then I remembered Heller’s remark of yesterday and I quickly punched in,

  BLITO-P3, ALL CULTURAL, ETHNOLOGICAL SURVEY APPENDAGES, ALL SURVEYS PRIOR TO ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

  The screens seemed undecided. Then they blinked and the master said,

  SORREE. THE MATERIAL REQUESTED HAS BEEN DELETED FROM THE DATA BANKS.

  What’s this? I thought. I could understand a delete of recent material but not prior to a hundred years. Heller had specifically requested such material. I had to give him something that would show I was working these days. I punched in,

  CORRECTION: ALL SUCH MATERIAL UP TO TWENTY YEARS AGO.

  The computer said,

  SORREE DELETED.

  It provoked me. One can get pretty cross with computers, especially early in the morning. I got incautious. I punched in,

  CORRECTION: ALL SUCH MATERIAL FROM PRESENT TIME ALL THE WAY BACK.

  The computer said,

  SORREE. COMPARING QUESTION TO THE IDENTOPLATE OF THE INTERROGATOR, YOU KNOW VERY WELL IT ISN’T AVAILABLE. VERY DELETED.

  (Bleep)! That really put me up against it. There was nothing I could show Heller that demonstrated my helpfulness. Aha! I punched in,

  PLEASE GIVE ME COPIES OF THE DELETIONS.

  This sort of caused the screen to fog up. Then it said,

  HOW CAN YOU GIVE A NOTHING TO SHOW A NOTHING IS?

  (Bleep) computers. They are so illogical. Can’t think. I furrowed my own brow. Then I had it.

  PLEASE GIVE ME THE NUMBER AND IDENTITY OF THE PERSON WHO ORDERED THOSE DELETIONS.

  The computer thought it over. And then, amazingly, it gave it!

  LOMBAR HISST.

  There was his name, designation and identoplate facsimile! Imagine the great Lombar Hisst leaving his name in the machine!

  Hastily, I punched “Deliver Copy.” And the paper promptly rolled out. It was a certified copy and it said,

  ALL, CULTURAL, ETHNOLOGICAL, POLITICAL AND RELATED MATERIAL REGARDING BLITO-P3, WAS ORDERED PERPETUALLY AND ADDITIVELY DELETED FROM THE DATA BANKS ON BELOW DATE NOW TWENTY-FIVE YEARS PAST, BY LOMBAR HISST, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE COORDINATED INFORMATION APPARATUS, EXTERIOR DIVISION, VOLTARIAN CONFEDERATION. SAID IDENTOPLATE FACSIMILE HEREBY AFFIXED BELOW.

  I finally had something that would prove to Heller that I did work and was around. I folded the copy up and put it in my pocket.

  I was in the act of shutting off the machine when I heard voices coming from a side office.

  “But I don’t want to go!” It was Too-Too’s voice.

  “You poor thing, I know how you feel.” It was Bawtch’s voice. “But that brute is quite capable of carrying out the most insane actions.” I couldn’t imagine who he was referring to.

  There was the sound of blubbering.

  “Now hold still.” It was Bawtch again. “Blow your nose into this handkerchief. You’re getting your face powder all smeared and gummed up.” The sound of blowing.

  “Here,” came Bawtch’s voice, “is a packet of trash information. The same material will go to Hisst by regular routing. But you take this packet—here, I’ll put it in this secrecy-case—straight to Lord Endow’s office. Don’t show it to the receptionist or secretary. Insist that you present it to Lord Endow himself, in private. They will search you for weapons—don’t flinch—and then pass you in. Lord Endow will open the secrecy-case. He will see at once that it is trash and he will ask you why. And you will say you saw him riding in the last parade and were stricken with love.”

  Blubbering. More blowing. Finally Too-Too said, “But I hear he is too big!”

  “Yes, I know, you poor thing. Here is some grease. Now run along before that unspeakable (bleepard) thinks up something even worse!”

  I was frankly shocked. Bawtch could get imprisoned for referring to a Lord as an “unspeakable (bleepard).” But there was a good side to this. Bawtch was pushing the project right along. I got up. I was even thinking of telling him I was glad he had had a change of heart when I heard a violent howl of cursing.

  Honestly, it was worse than a spacer pirate! And it finished with “. . . will call Internal Investigations to find out what happened to this jolt bar!”

  Ulp. I had forgotten to shut it. I wondered if this was the time to use the escape route. But I was fortified by the hot jolt and the crust and I braved it out. I walked past the open bar. “How about a canister of jolt?” I said.

  He just stood there, glaring at me. I walked on out. I think he suspected.

  I woke up my driver again and directed him to fly to the Apparatus hangar. I was on my way, without knowing it, to keep a very grim appointment with the wood Gods of awful fates.

  Time had run out on me. Completely.

  PART EIGHT

  Chapter 1

  At the hangar, everything was in a bustle.

  We had arrived just as the contractors were coming on the job for the day and there were work crews, work crews, work crews. They were in the differently colored cover suit uniforms of their companies and as they scrambled and rushed about they made a scene of spattered hues and industry, quite foreign to an Apparatus hangar.

  I did not see Heller. The day half platoon was on duty, so Krak had gone.

  After I got bumped and jostled a few ways and just after a rushing dolly with a load almost knocked me flat, I wit
hdrew over to the side. I found a pile of old Apparatus debris and sat down, sort of fortified against this rush and clamor. It was absolutely exhausting to watch.