Like explaining shoes to a child, he said, “In the first place, a combat engineer is in the Fleet. The Exterior Division—and I still think you’re from the drunks—is an entirely different Division of the government. When you say you want him transferred, you’re saying that he would have to resign from the Fleet, make application for commission in the Exterior Division, come up through their ranks . . . it would take years! I’m sure you don’t have years. And you have not brought his resignation from the Fleet. So it can’t be done.”
For a moment I wondered if Heller had known all this—that he had known it was this complicated and was using a cunning out. Maybe he was cleverer than I had given him credit for. (Looking back on it now, I wish he had been!)
But the best authorities on bureaucracy are the bureaucrats. So I myself got clever. “If you had this problem I’ve got,” I said, “how would you handle it?” That was a lot better than going back to the Apparatus and finding some blackmail on this fellow—there always is some and if it doesn’t exist, one makes it up and “documents” it. But an order illegally obtained by coercion might, itself, be illegal. It was much more clever to do it straight. Novel, but it might work.
He thought for a while, really being helpful. He brightened. “Ah! I could just give you a standard set of orders for a combat engineer.”
And (bleep) him, he simply pushed some buttons and a couple seconds later a form came out of a slot. He handed it to me. It said:
FLEET ORDER
M-93872654-MM-93872655-CE
REFERENCE: GRAND COUNCIL ORDER
938362537-451BP3
KNOW ALL:
JETTERO HELLER GRADE TEN COMBAT ENGINEER
SERIAL E555MXP IS HEREBY AND HEREWITH AS OF THIS DATE ORDERED TO INDEPENDENT DUTY ON HIS OWN COGNIZANCE TERMINATING ON HIS OWN COGNIZANCE.
ENDORSEMENT: SEE REFERENCE.
ISSUED, AUTHENTICATED AND VERIFIED BY THE FLEET PERSONNEL OFFICER______________________________________________
Brightly, he said, “That all right?”
“Kind of sweeping,” I said.
“Oh,” he said, “combat engineers are always ordered out that way: mostly blasting away behind enemy lines, you know; who can tell how long it will take them. That’s why they have to be such reliable people. They almost always, unless they’re killed, carry through whatever you set them at. Their corps motto, you know, is ‘Whatever the odds, to Hells with them, get the job done.’ Remarkable people. Will those orders do? They’re a standard combat engineer form, you know.”
I was shaken, both by the idiot simplicity of the orders and by what he had just said. Had Lombar known any of this? I doubted it. What were we biting off? Could we chew it?
Jettero Heller had known what the orders would say. He must have received dozens of them. He must have known that this would really put him outside the control of the Exterior Division and the Apparatus. By the evil Gods, I was going to have to work like mad to keep him on a leash! I began to doubt I could execute my orders and make the mission fail.
I got a grip on myself. It’s one thing to go blasting in with the burners wide open and blow up an enemy town. But it was quite another to operate in the dark and secret world of espionage. I thought of the ease with which we’d kidnapped him, I remembered his total stupidity that morning, I thought of his fatal notions of sportsmanship.
“Yes,” I said. “They’re fine. By all means sign it.” I handed over my own identoplate so he could authenticate it and feed his hungry machines. “I’d like some extra copies.”
He punched and scribbled away. “I think Jet’s Academy track record still stands. Great athlete. Nice fellow, too, they say.” And finally, “Here’s his orders. Wish him good luck.”
I got out of there. It felt odd to have done a straight, legal piece of work, no twists. The honest world is a strange place for a member of the Apparatus. It leaves one feeling confused. Unfamiliar territory!
And then, clear of the oppressive environment of the Fleet, I felt a belated surge of triumph. By the wording of these orders, Jettero Heller could be wiped forever from Fleet rolls. He could be made to disappear without a trace and no questions asked. No, Jettero Heller was not smart in the dirty world of espionage and covert technology. In fact, (bleeping) dumb. Lombar would be proud of me. I had just wiped out the kidnapping. We could wipe out Heller. And I freely confess that at that moment I fully intended to drain off all the personal credit from it I could.
I headed for the Fleet Officers’ Club to pick up his kit.
PART TWO
Chapter 6
My elation was very short-lived.
The officers’ club lay quietly in the warm daylight of a beautiful afternoon. The mountains around it gazed down benignly. Shrubs and flowers perfumed the gentle air.
It was a trap!
My driver parked the airbus before the main entrance. I trotted up the wide ramp with its inset views of beautiful females.
The huge lobby was deserted except for one uniformed cleaner casually mopping up some spilled drinks. I went directly to the office counter and rapped my stick upon it. I am not a member, of course, and the gray-headed clerk, probably a retired enlisted man, went on pottering with his entry books.
My gray General Services uniform was not likely to get much attention in this place. So I slapped my stick even harder against the counter. “Here, here, snap to attention,” I said. He just went on working, I thought he must be deaf. And it was there I made my near-fatal error. I can’t stand insolent underlings.
“If you cannot give me some service,” I yelled at him, “I shall have no choice but to report you!” No attention. So I shouted even louder, “I am here to pick up the baggage of Jettero Heller!”
That got attention. He got right up, came right over. I thought for a moment that that was more like it. But he had his head down and was lifting his eyes at me in a peculiar way. In a voice fully as loud as I had used—and believe me these old spacemen can be heard a mile—he bawled, “Did you say you were here for the baggage of Jettero Heller?” And without the slightest pause, went right on. “You look like you are from the drunks!”
There was a slight noise in the lobby. I looked around. The equipment of the uniformed cleaner was still on the floor but the cleaner himself was gone.
In a perfectly normal quiet voice, the clerk said, “Please fill out this form.” He fiddled around under the counter and came up with some forms. He read some titles of them to himself. Bent down to look for some more. Brought those up and looked over their titles. My success so far this day must have curdled my wits. Despite all my training and experience in the Apparatus I did not recognize the routine ploy of just plain stalling.
It was the breathing that alerted me. It was behind me.
I whirled.
Three young officers were standing there! One was in a bathrobe, another in swimming trunks, a third in a sport driver’s helmet. And even as I faced them, five more officers came speeding in through various doors. That (bleeped) cleaner was rounding them up!
I have seen glaring faces in my time but these topped it. Another young officer rushed down some stairs, carrying a sports club!
The biggest of them, three feet from me, barked a command, “Get him!”
They train you well in the Apparatus. In an instant, I wasn’t there to get! I sprang up and back to the top of the counter. I threw the register straight in the first face!
I was over the counter, behind it, driven by the hurricane of roaring fury from those young officers. Arms clawed for me. I threw a chair!
They came over the counter like a tidal wave.
A door on the right. I rushed through it. I was back into the main lobby. I measured my chances to get out the main entrance. But more officers were pouring in from the sports field!
I will say this. I fought a valiant strategic withdrawal. I pitched plates and tables at them. I raced around chairs and spilled them in their way. I even threw vases, flowers and all! I only
lasted as long as I did because there were so many trying to catch me! They collided with one another. They were boxing me in. I tried to leap up on the bandstand but with one final, flying tackle a husky athlete brought me down with a crash.
Now you’d have thought they would have simply held me there and asked questions like young, well-bred people should. But oh, no! They put their boots to me! They were mostly barefooted or wearing sports shoes: otherwise they would have kicked me to death!
Finally one of them got the others away. He was a big one and for a stupid instant I thought he was trying to rescue me. But he stood me up and slammed me back against the wall.
“Where is Heller?” he shouted. It was enough to knock in your eardrums.
I didn’t get any chance to answer. He doubled up his fist and hit me as hard as he could in the jaw!
It knocked me out cold.
Icy water hit me in the face. I was on the floor.
“Let me!” yelled somebody and he picked me up and stood me against the wall.
“Where is Heller?” he screamed at me.
And before I could answer, he hauled off and hit me as hard as he could in the stomach.
I remember thinking as I doubled up and dropped that these young gentlemen could certainly use some lessons in proper prisoner interrogation.
They booted me!
I don’t know how much later it was. I heard a voice from far off. It was a command voice. Some senior officer amongst officers. “Order! Order! What’s he done?”
There was a babble of voices. They had stopped hitting me and kicking me long enough so that I was coming around.
“Put him in that chair,” said this senior command voice.
They slammed me into it so hard I went out again. Then a new shower of icy water hit me. Through its drip I focused my eyes on a powder blue tunic that was in front of me. It was an older officer in full uniform. Probably a Fleet battleship commander. Very tough.
“No, no, back off,” he was saying. “I’ll get your answers.”
I groggily thanked the Devils that somebody was maybe going to listen.
“Where’s Heller?” he barked.
And nobody hit me. They teach you in the Apparatus never to talk when you’re being beaten or tortured.
The question took some sorting out. I could be executed by the Apparatus for revealing the existence of Spiteos. But they weren’t demanding that. They were demanding Heller. I managed to edge around the corner of my training. “I just came to get his baggage,” I said.
“We know,” said the senior officer. “That’s what started all this. Now if you will just tell these young gentlemen where Jettero Heller is, I am sure that life will be . . .”
There were disputant voices. “Don’t promise him anything, sir!” “You better talk!” Things like that.
In my groggy state, the tried and true maxim of the Apparatus surged up: “When in doubt, lie.”
“I’m just a messenger,” I said.
A tumult of objection greeted that.
The senior officer silenced them. “Messenger,” and there was sarcasm in his voice, “Jettero Heller disappeared about five days ago tonight. He was due at a party to celebrate the promotion of a classmate just one hour after that evening’s game. He never showed up. He is very reliable, in fact he is a combat engineer. An orderly was sent to summon him. A check of all headquarters shows no one sent for him. Ten minutes after he went out the arena door, a parking attendant reported seeing black lorries leave the far end of the grounds.”
Wow, I thought to myself, this battleship captain or whatever he was certainly could use some lessons in being an interrogator. He was giving me everything they knew! I was also getting plenty of time to think. Made it as easy as opening up a chank-pop.
“Fleet police have been looking everywhere for him for five days,” this uneducated officer went on.
Spiteos was safe. The Apparatus was safe. The mission was safe. What amateurs these spacers were after all!
“Well, they can stop looking,” I said. And I was very glad to have found out about it. It was almost worth the beating to be able to turn it off. “Jettero Heller was needed for urgent consultation on a matter of the Grand Council.”
It didn’t stop them. But it slowed them down. There were some “yah-yahs” of disbelief. Somebody had a smart idea and dived at me and while another held me, my identoplate was taken from my pocket.
“Section 451 of the Apparatus!” It was a yelp of triumph. It was followed with “I-knew-its,” “Drunks!” and snarls. And they would have attacked again but I had the situation now.
So what if the mission was confidential. “You don’t want that identoplate,” I said coolly. “You want the orders in my paper case. It must be over around the counter. Unfortunately, if you open the case, I will have to swear you all to secrecy. But that’s all right. Go ahead.”
They still didn’t believe me. They found the case—pretty badly smashed it was, too. They brought it over for me to unlock. I rattled off the oath of State secrecy and they all said yes. I opened the case and threw them the Grand Council order and the personnel order of Jettero Heller.
The senior officer read them. Some bright spark from Fleet Intelligence held up his hand to halt any further action, took the two orders and went to the switchboard.
He came back, lips curled in disgust. “The first time anything connected with the drunks was ever straight. They’re authentic. We’ll have to let him go.” Thank the Gods I’d gone to Fleet Personnel before I came to this den of young lepertiges! The magic of a written order. Regardless of what chicanery lay under it. That was the way they ran their lives.
“I came,” I said demurely, “to pick up his baggage.”
The (bleeping) fools thought their friend was safe!
PART TWO
Chapter 7
Jettero Heller’s room apparently lay at the end of a long passageway on the top floor. The hotel manager had shown up, an old spacer with a totally bald head who, judging from burn scars on his face, was a retired gunner. Behind us trooped several of the young officers, led by the biggest one who had done the most beating: they were coming along “just in case.” I really wanted a chance to ransack through his things and find some weaknesses and personal flaws to aid in handling him.
“I think,” I said, “that he’ll be giving up his room. This mission is going to take a while. I’ll be packing up all his possessions.”
The manager didn’t even glance at me but I could see a reaction. It reminded me I was not wholly out of this place yet. We arrived at the last door and he threw it open. He threw it wide open. So I could look.
I’d expected, of course, just a little cubicle, the standard officer’s room. What I saw stopped me dead!
It was a suite! Three spacious rooms stretched out, and way over at the far end of the last one there were big doors and a garden terrace that overlooked the mountains!
A junior officer’s quarters? Oh, no. There was many an admiral who had no such quarters as this!
I went sort of numb. Spacers always tend to bring the look of a ship down to the planet surface. They also have lots of time in space and are given to making things out of whatever is handy: a blastgun breech carved into a wood nymph, a piece of armor shield made into a table, a control seat made into a chair, an acceleration couch converted to a settee, spare porthole casings made into picture frames, that sort of thing. And they were all here, of course, but beautifully done.
One expects the souvenirs from many a planet: the toy muscle-dancing girl that swings her hips as she hands you a bottle opener, the polished shell of a sea animal that glitters but says on it Memories of Bactose, the little boy with six arms who waves flags and spells out Come Home to Erapin, the carved woman that opens an inlaid box and throws you a chank-pop when you say “Kiss me, Serafin!” They were all here along with the banners and wreaths but they were all absolute top of their line: exquisite!
The gleaming metal f
loors were strewn with rugs from a dozen planets, each one a collector’s item.
And the whole place harmonized together with beautiful taste.
Wow! There was many a Lord who would have envied this layout!
I at once thought I had Jettero’s fracture point: I doubted he was wealthy in his own right and no Grade Ten junior officer could ever afford a thousandth of this on Fleet pay. Jettero must have both hands in the appropriations take, right up to the elbows!
We stepped over to a musical bar in the first room and the old gunner indicated the whole suite with a sweep of his hand. Like a tourist guide, monotonously, he said, “Five years ago the battleship Menuchenken crashed a thousand miles inside enemy lines on the planet Flinnup. It was hopeless: the ship’s drives were disabled, three thousand officers and crew faced capture and execution. Jettero Heller penetrated the Flinnup defenses with vital spare parts, got the drives operating, pried the Menuchenken out of a caldron of fire and brought her out.”
He paused. “When the Menuchenken crew was released from the hospital, they came here.” He moved his hand slowly to indicate the rooms. “They did this while Jettero was out on another mission—as a gift.”
He indicated the walls and a few of the fittings. “It has been added to since by others. If his present mission took a hundred years, this would still be here. It’s a showplace of the club! And it’s Jettero’s home.”
Oh, well, I thought. So he wasn’t a crook. But people have other fracture points. “I better pick up the few things he will need.”
“Don’t let him touch anything,” said the big, tough officer. “We’ll do any packing.”
They jostled me aside and opened an invisible door, displaying a vast closet of clothes and personal gear. One of the officers lifted a dress uniform off the rack and brought it out.
“No, no,” I said. “He’ll be under cover. No uniforms. Just personal necessities. He’s traveling light.”
They shrugged and began to gather those up. But they had dropped the dress uniform close to me and I looked at it. It was red-piped, of course, and had the gold “Ten” for his grade woven into the stand-up collar. Now most civilians think that the wavy gold, silver and copper lines that ornament the chest of some dress uniforms are just that: ornaments. They wonder sometimes why some junior officer looks like a metal mine on parade and some seniors look so plain. The fact is, those thick, wavy lines of braid are citations; they are sewn in such a way that the top flap can be lifted and under it, in tiny letters, is the citation itself.