“And some tricks,” I demanded. They have a lot of erotic gadgets that vibrate and do other things.
No trouble with that. Another screech and another crone came out with hands full of tricks. I dumped them into the visible compartment of the magic bag.
The girl only had a loincloth on, a dirty one. But clothes were no point. Then I thought of something. “There’s a lot of men involved. She may get pretty used up.”
The fat old bat said, “We got ’em by the hundreds.” She kissed the fifty. “Kill her. Who cares?”
One of the other old hags looked at me archly and pulled back her loincloth. “You want something for yourself, dearie?”
Not a Camp Kill prostitute! I got out of there.
I gave the girl the bag to carry. It was a very cunning move. If any counterfeits were traced, they would be traced to her.
At the tunnel barricade, I told the guards, “Bribe meat. I’d appreciate it if you would search her for weapons and all that. She’s too dirty.”
A guardsman grinned, put on a pair of gloves, took her aside and had himself some nice feels. He and the barricade officer were so engrossed, I had to tell them to search the bag. Of course, they would find only the erotic tricks.
When they had, I said, “Note the search on the pass.”
“For how long?” said the barricade officer.
“Mark it indefinite,” I said. “They might not talk just on the promise of one go.”
The guard officer laughed. “Wish I had a secret good enough for this.”
He let me put my identoplate on the pass and then handed it over.
The girl looked more beaten down. I had been surprised to see her blush at the guard’s handling of certain places. Prostitutes are very cold meat usually. Riffraff. Riding the zipbus, she began to look terrified. Maybe she had never ridden a zipbus before. It was true that now and then a prostitute taken into the fortress never came out again, got overworked and died at it or was simply murdered for kicks. But how would she know? She didn’t understand Voltarian and couldn’t talk either.
When we got off at the Spiteos end, she didn’t want to get off the bus! I had to hit her, drag her off and then had trouble making her stand up. I kicked her and forced the bag into her hands. I actively had to keep thrusting at her back to keep her walking ahead.
It dawned on me that I had been swindled. This was one of those noncompliant, won’t types the customers reject. They had given me this girl because she was useless to them! Ah, well, I had my revenge already. The brothel executive would be no more if she tried to pass that fifty. It amused me. Trouble for trouble, fair exchange! But one trouble seems to breed another. In the roster office, the half-naked, yellow-man clerk spent a long time over the records. Spiteos records are pretty bad—nobody ever gets out. But to have no trace at all of an entrance is pretty unusual.
I gave him the probable date and hour. No, nothing. I was just beginning to believe they had never arrived when the yellow-man said, “Military? Did you say military? Well, you should have given me that data. They would be in the military section.”
With considerable directions, taking some more tubes, finding out I had gone too deep and coming back—and all the while enduring the trouble of thrusting this girl ahead of me—I wound up in another section of Spiteos with an office even closer to the entrance than I had first visited. Spiteos is quite a snarl.
I found myself in a guardroom. There were about twenty-four actual guards, uniformed and in riot helmets, sprawled about, some of them shaking dice, others snoring.
The officer was a shabby type—what else in the Apparatus. His contingent was evidently a daily guard from the camp. These were not the usual wardens.
He had no interest in the girl—boys were probably his twist. He had no interest in anything, apparently, but getting his twelve-hour shift over with, getting back to camp and his own vices.
It turned out that there had been a riot amongst military rank-and-file prisoners a century ago and so captures of nonofficer prisoners of possible future value were slammed into the military section. He explained all this to me, yawning.
I gave him the number of men, date and time they must have been entered. He looked at his watch as though I was using up valuable time. But he said, “Two more hours to go in this stinking place.” He searched around and finally found the rosters under some abandoned equipment. He sat down at a mess table and began to go through them.
He shook his head. And just when I had decided they’d never arrived, he put his finger down on a page and traced it along.
“Your date is wrong,” he said peevishly. “Forty-eight hours off. Here they are, but it’s two days later than you said. You ought to keep better administration!” As though I had charge of their records! “They’re in block five. You understand, I can’t give you any other data than that. It isn’t that it’s secret, it just isn’t here. ‘Twenty men,’ it says, ‘military, potentially dangerous. Hold until further orders.’ No other orders noted so they’re still there. Jeemp!” he said to a lolling subofficer, “show this guy where’s block five.”
I noted none of them gave the prostitute a passing glance. They were obviously daily back and forth from the camp. All the better. This crew in here would have no easy time of it as they would have buying from the usual wardens. The money, even counterfeit, would be nearly worthless to them and would be detected sooner as counterfeit. These tough mugs would kill them if they tried to pass it. Riot helmets. I was encouraged.
I thrust the prostitute along after Jeemp. We went through some old black tunnels and he finally stopped and pointed. “It’s down there someplace.” He left.
The area made me nervous. I loosened the stun gun in its holster, checked the knife behind my neck and the blasticks in my pockets. Most of the glowplates had blown out. Water was trickling somewhere. Some large type of vermin leaped out of a sagging cell door. It scared me.
All these black-walled cells and rooms were empty save for some bones. It was all quite different than the area they had put Heller in.
The military section wasn’t very military! It was a good thing I was taking care of this. Dead crews don’t blab.
PART SEVEN
Chapter 3
I looked through a grate at the very end. And there they were, twenty men. Their clothes had been stolen, of course, and they were naked. They were draped about on stone ledges. But they didn’t look in too bad a shape. I saw why, then: there was a pile of vermin bones in the middle of the floor and a very active stream of water, an underground seepage, trickled blackly down a blacker wall.
I pushed the prostitute into a nearby empty cell. I would save her for a surprise.
I decided to be brisk. I shouted through the grate, “Who’s in charge here?”
A tall, husky guy got off the bench; he came over to the grate. “And who the Hells are you?” he said.
Not very beaten down! Well, they’d had vermin to eat and there was water coming down the wall they could catch. They probably didn’t see a guard more than once a day and yet here was somebody being spunky.
I decided to be military, “The number of your patrol craft, please.”
“So you know we’re a Fleet crew,” he said. “And what happens when Fleet finally finds out what was done with us?”
“Come, come,” I said. “I am here to help you. Do not take that tone with me, my man. Give your craft number, name and rank.”
Somebody amongst the rest said, “No harm. He knows it anyway.”
The one at the door shrugged. “Craftleader Soams, Fleet Patrol Craft B-44-A-539-G. Who are you and where are we?”
Ah, they didn’t know where they were. Excellent.
Now, there are two approaches one can use. The first is to be friendly, the second is to extort. Being friendly takes time.
“In return for certain information, I can give you certain things. They will make your life easier. Don’t bargain. I haven’t got much time.”
&nb
sp; The others were stirring around now; they formed a half circle behind him.
I went back and got some of the counterfeit out of the bag. I left the girl hidden. I returned and waved the notes.
“If you will tell me everything you know about one Jettero Heller, a combat engineer, who accompanied you on your last patrol, this is yours.”
He went back and they put their heads together. They whispered for quite a while. I could see their various ranks from their conduct. A Fleet patrol craft does not have Royal officers—there are too many patrol craft. The “captain” is called a “craftleader.” He has two subofficer pilots, a subofficer engineer and odds and ends of specialists who attend to things like finance and food and then a few common spacers. You could see who was who in the deference paid to whispers. They sort of consulted by chain of command. But awfully democratic. They’re different than the Army, it is said, because of living so tight together and at such long times in space.
They seemed to be resistant so I said, “With this you can bribe food.”
Soams came back to the grate and looked at the money I still held. “It isn’t enough,” he said.
I went back in the other cell and got a few more bills. It appeared to be enough. Aha, I thought. Heller’s charm isn’t enough to prevent singing birds.
They made a drill of it. That’s sort of the way Fleet is. A man would step up, speak his piece, then step back and another would step ahead and speak up.
And of all the sickening drivel I have ever listened to in my whole life, that period in Spiteos talking with that crew topped it.
Heller was a tall, very handsome officer. Heller knew exactly what he was doing. Heller was brave and afraid of nothing. Heller had an excellent singing voice. Heller did thoughtful things, illustrated by bandaging up the medical rating when an air lock slammed on him. Heller was amusing in that he told jokes when things looked grim—examples included.
Absolutely, utterly sickening!
Finally they stood back and Soams reached out and took the money. I had meant to snatch it back but he was too quick.
I looked them over. According to the dream—and it was amazing how closely they resembled themselves in the dream—they had said they knew more than that. I was sure they did.
I went back and got some more money. Imagine paying for such useless trivia! But I had no choice. I would trick them in the end.
Now began parade number two: Heller was very athletic. He held a racing record. He scared them to death once walking with magnetic shoes up to the top of the hull just to get a measurement of waves the interior of the ship was canceling: he hadn’t been able to find a safety line aboard that was long enough and so, four hundred miles above Blito-P3, he went walking on the top of the ship carrying some meter, and no safety line. Stuff like that. Sheer drivel.
They were done. Soams reached through the bars and took the money. But I could sense they were holding something back. A couple looked at each other secretively.
I went and got the food. I was mad enough by then to take a real satisfaction in it. They would soon be dead!
Instead of being impressed by these gaudy cans—they would look and taste just like the real thing and death would follow in minutes—this nut Soams said, “Where you getting all this stuff? You couldn’t carry it in your arms.”
I went back and got the magic bag to show them. I didn’t show them it was a magic bag.
And then, catastrophe! That (bleeping) girl, curious about where I was disappearing to, or maybe looking for a possible way to escape, peeked out of that cell!
Soams saw her! (Bleep) her. She deserves everything that must have come to her.
“A girl?” said Soams.
“A girl?” chorused the rest of the idiots. They crowded up to the grate, peeking one after the other.
Oh, well, I knew I had them then. They went back and put their heads together and whispered by chain of command and ship department. And then Soams came back to the grate.
“You want to know something about Heller, don’t you?” he said. And seeing my eagerness, he continued. “Well, we know something about Heller that it is vital you should know. In fact, knowing it could save your life!”
That was what I wanted.
“Down here,” and he kicked the bottom of the door, “there is a food slot. They seldom put anything through it but it is big enough to slide that girl through. She looks small. And it is big enough to slide that bag you’re holding through.”
“All right,” I said. “You tell me and I’ll slide them through.”
“Oh, no,” said Soams. “You’d just walk off. After all, you’re armed. You could open the door and take them out again if you didn’t like it.”
What could I do? I slid in the bag. Then, with more hope than effect, I tried to wrestle the girl down and shove her through. She had the long nails they cultivate in the Flisten back country to show they never work. I did not want to get scratched.
Then one of the spacers came to the grate and he said something in one of those outlandish tongues nobody can talk and the girl instantly went dead still. I thought to myself that spacers really got around. She went through the tight slot without another protest.
Soams took the food cans. He looked at the money. He looked at the bag. He looked at the bundle of sexual tricks. He looked at the girl, lying very quietly now inside the big cell. I held my breath. Ah, he nodded.
The craftleader came up very close to the bars. He said, “And here is your information. Heed it and it will benefit you.”
I was all ears.
“When Heller,” said the craftleader, “gets word of what has happened to us, he will kill you with his bare hands! Run like mad and maybe it will save your life!”
Of course, my immediate impulse was to smash the door open and snatch those things back. I even could have shot through the bars. But I couldn’t see all the walls in there and they looked dangerous.
The Hells with them.
I stalked up the passageway, ignoring their catcalls and cries of “drunk!” I should stick to orthodox psychology. My original dream analysis had been correct. Only thirst had caused me to act otherwise. The real reason was a censored desire for sexual intercourse with my mother.
I told the guard officer I was through. I even tossed down the pass for the girl. But she wouldn’t need it. They would all soon be dead as she’d eat some of that food as well! I was confident I had handled that scene perfectly.
PART SEVEN
Chapter 4
With one less worry on my mind, I addressed my attention to the crash of the patrol craft. Actually, it was sort of like the Apparatus not to follow through on a project and I didn’t want Lombar coming down on me suddenly with a “Why didn’t you take care of that?” as he had in the original kidnapping.
So, much to the consternation of my driver, instead of going back to Government City, I directed him to fly along a little-used traffic route toward the Blike Mountains. He had lots of fuel. We had lots of food and sweetbuns, thanks to Heller. I had my needle blastrifle and game bag. But I told myself that this was duty, pure duty. And thus it was that we flew and flew.
There was no sign of any crashed spacecraft. I worked it all out. If the crew had arrived at Spiteos forty-eight hours late, then it was a forty-eight hour circle by lorry that we were looking at. You can’t run at random in the Great Desert even in sand lorries; if it wasn’t between Government City and Camp Endurance, then it was on a seldom-followed track forty-eight hours beyond Camp Endurance. Simple logic. But if it wasn’t there, either, then they had sold the patrol craft to smugglers and returned to Camp Endurance by airbus and Gods only knew where the patrol craft would be: while that was a sort of nervous idea, I would do my duty so far as looking for the crash was concerned. If I found it, I might leak it to the newssheets.
The driver was helpful once he got out of me what we were doing. He spotted something and we landed. But it was a crash so old it was almost gone into th
e ground. While examining this, I spotted a songbird, a type they call a “thriller”—found in the desert—and brought him down. He was only a few feet away and sitting but it was a good shot. I put him in the game bag.
Further toward the Blike Mountains, I pretended to find another crash which turned out to be a rock, but I got two more thrillers.
The Blike Mountains were beginning to rise higher and higher. They are icy peaks and while not the tallest on Voltar, their thirty-eight thousand feet will do. You can’t walk over them. The air at their summits is too thin. Even in their passes it is too thin.
After two more false sightings, during which we got six more thrillers, my driver said, “Officer Gris, are we looking for wrecks or are we going hunting?”
For the first time I realized I really was going hunting. The more distance and the more time I could put between me and Heller and Tug One, the better it would be!
Of course, I didn’t answer the driver. He would have interpreted it that I was running away!
We got very cold crossing the first ridge of the Blike Mountains but we came down very fast into the valleys beyond it. This country is all hunting preserve areas, under the domination of the Lords, patrolled and guarded. But it is so vast, there are so many plateaus and gorges, that you can get lost in it utterly and no one would ever find you if you didn’t want it to happen. It is full of all manner of game, some of it even brought in from other planets.
“Somebody followed us over that first range,” said my driver.
I looked. I saw nothing behind us in the sky. An airbus has no detectors. I was nervous.
“I don’t see him now,” said the driver.
I told myself sternly that it was just my nerves: after all, I had had a trying time lately. It was proof I needed a hunting trip!