Paper or Plastic
Page 17
"Maybe even patent them first," he said, changing his mind, "and we'll put the undisclosed seed where they are physically removed and safe, so nobody can trace us back here or to our rooms in New York and steal them. We'll divide them up and put them in a couple safe deposit boxes in banks we're pretty sure won't have any sayanim."
"And bury a small sample out in my woods so if the whole deal goes bad, we might still make a recovery if we lose them." Roger suggested.
"I like how you think," Josh agreed, "layers of backups and safeties."
"Even if your idea doesn't work out and we have to try to find a document counterfeiter, then we still have the best chance of finding the things we need in New York, so we need to secure our homes here – clean them up so nothing incriminating is left behind to track us, or give any hint what we are doing. Move everything to a location in a big town, where we can buy things and rent storage and not have everyone in town know we are doing something, like they would here."
"Then we need to drive to New York and try to follow your plan. I have definite ideas about how we should present ourselves both at the consulate and to the diamond dealers to be effective. If we walk in and try to do business like we are dressed and look right now, I doubt if they would take us seriously. Can you take some criticism and direction on your appearance?" Roger asked.
"What's wrong with how I look?" Josh protested in mock horror. "I get some five o'clock shadow, but I can't help that."
"Listen to the man," Martee spoke up, with unusual firmness. "He remade my appearance and it has not only made my life safer, but I'm much happier with myself after the remake. I know you have some technical skills and a gift with languages, but trust Roger on this. He understands it as well as he shoots. Besides, I'd kind of like to see how you look all cleaned up," she allowed.
"Ouch, cleaned up? You're getting good enough with the idiom to hurt a guy's feelings."
"And I'm getting good enough with the pistol to hurt much more than that," she assured him.
Chapter 15
Roger looked over the cabin all shuttered up. The heat was set just above freezing, but the pipes were all drained and antifreeze was in the sink traps and toilet.
The refrigerator was empty and the hard surfaces all wiped down for Martee's prints and the floors cleaned exceptionally well. A really careful lab might find a trace of her hair or dander, but a superficial exam would not.
The gun safe was too heavy to bring, but the contents were in his truck and the door left open, so nobody would break into it not knowing it was empty. He'd brought his computer and rolled up the wall screen and put it in its shipping tube, because it was the only thing in the cabin expensive enough to bother stealing.
Josh had just dropped him a text message from home. He was ready to go, which meant his house was as ready as it was going to be. He had elected to bring a good part of his electronic equipment to Seattle and it was all piled in a front corner of the huge box truck he had leased. Josh was apologetic it had taken him a week and a day, to lease a small commercial building and a truck.
Roger was surprised it hadn't taken longer and the only matter on which he had interfered, was to emphasize to Josh not to shortchange them for room, on either the truck or the building. The truck had helped make sure the building was big enough, because it had been hard to find a place smaller than a factory, where they could pull the truck all the way inside. Finally he had found a closed plumbing supply, with an inside dock.
There was no way to dig out his secret room and get rid of everything in it, but he assured Rog the most sensitive pieces were gone and someone searching the basement would have a very hard time indeed finding his inner room, which was booby-trapped. He had sealed the slight crack around his rolling door with fresh mortar and soiled it to match the floor, that he left none too clean.
They elected to leave the lease truck on the very end of the parking lot, beside the creek downtown. The big commercial truck would look out of place in the parking lot for the nature trail. Roger's truck would be acceptable there and they'd recover it last as they were headed out of town.
They would hike to the ship, get in and sit with it hot ready to lift, but wait until full dark before flying back to the truck and easing it inside. After following the stream the short distance from the bridge into town, they would be below the horizon, coming uphill actually, from the stream to the truck. That was the plan anyway.
Martee looked a little distressed leaving the only place she knew on this planet. Her few possessions were in the back seat of Roger's truck. The fact he had little more than she did to pack, didn't seem to register with her. The furniture and kitchen things he left without a thought. He could buy a can opener or a toaster anywhere.
Rog drove into town past Keith's and turned downhill behind the stores across the street and went to the upstream side of the lot. Josh was sitting there in the big van and got out, locking it when they approached. He had sold his truck in Seattle saying it was about time for a new one anyway. He climbed in and handed Martee a key.
"This is a spare for the padlock on the door of the truck," he said. "Sorry, but I haven't had time to make a third."
They climbed the drive back to the main road and were at the turn for the park lot before the downtown was out of sight in their mirrors. Rog parked backed in and locked up. "Martee has a key to the truck now, Josh. I had her drive around my yard and showed her how to work everything, but if something happens I can't drive it would be better if you could take over."
"I bet," he agreed, setting his hat firmly on his head. "Her driving is probably as bad an idea as me flying her ship, from what little I've read from the manuals. I'd likely end up wrapped around a radio tower someplace and that would be embarrassing."
When they got to the end of the trail Roger led them off the same side around the fence. It had been raining and what snow hadn't melted was coarse and granular from the rain. He didn't try to cover their tracks. It would have been very difficult because this snow wouldn't brush around, like the powder they had before. The walk was harder in the wet snow and they all were silent, remembering Martee would want to count off their steps. Josh seemed to need his cane more than usual and Rog was glad this was a one way hike.
They got to the cleft in the trees, that ran back to the ship and she turned left in an arc, not hesitant at all this time. This time he knew also what he was looking for and the shape of the ship was plain to him before they were so close.
A tan shape burst from the bushes between them and the trees to their right and made Roger's heart leap. His gun was up and cocked, before his brain told him it was a deer. The deer ran at them in a panic for three or four meters, before it swerved wildly to the side and headed for the far tree line. Then his brain re-engaged: Deer don't run towards you.
"Down!" He said loudly to Martee and Josh, following his own advice and squatting. As he dropped a pain ripped down his left arm, so intense he couldn't even cry out, he just gasped. The man aiming at him from around the left edge of Martee's ship stepped out, to get a better shot at him as he squatted low now.
Rog had reloaded his pistol with an armor piercing in the first position, but when he snapped off a shot unsteady, it didn't hit on the armor.
>Boom<
It caught the alien low, right above the left knee and spun him around as he went down. The pain disappeared as soon as the man's aim was knocked off, leaving an unpleasant stiffness. The fellow was not going to stand back up with that wound, but he pushed himself up on one elbow and tried to aim again. Behind him there was the unmistakable
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard Josh shout – "Contact!" – It surprised him Josh would use such explicit terms. They had not worked out any drill beforehand. He must have picked it up in the field. There was another >krack<, disturbing because it was not Martee's gun.
In the sudden silence, he actually heard the sound of her cocking the hammer back and another
Roger's front sight was right over the nose of the fellow struggling to prop himself up and aim his weapon at Roger again. He exhaled and squeezed gently, just like any day at the range. The trigger broke as clean as a piece of glass rod and with a >Boom< the fellow’s face disappeared. The second round Roger loaded now was the expanding bullet. When it expanded to the diameter of a cannon shell it didn't punch a hole through, it simply removed the man's head.
He shifted to turn around but the same overwhelming pain that had brushed down his left arm blasted him worse from his right shoulder, clear down past his hip, so his leg buckled and he fell on his side. He couldn't feel his hand or arm, but he could see his gun lying in the snow.
Rog looked up and there was a different fellow with an electronic weapon still pointed at him, just a couple steps beyond Martee.
The scene didn't make any sense, because Josh seemed to be pressing his thumb firmly against the man's breast bone. The Trishan dropped his weapon, grasping Josh's hand in both of his, making little scrabbling motions. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but his head rolled back loose.
The man fell away from Josh, who lifted his arm in a graceful motion, turning his wrist, which let three feet of polished steel slide out of the man's chest as he went down. Josh turned looking beyond Martee and then beyond Roger.
He slowly turned around, surveying the entire landscape. He seemed satisfied, not at all upset and whipped the foil blade in a odd little flick and turn that Roger had seen before only in a movie. The line of red it drew on the snow made him finally understand what that motion was intended to do. It wasn't dramatic flair – it flicked the blood off the blade, before Josh slid it back home in the cane in his left hand.
The sneaky little bastard never let me know he had that, Rog marveled.
While Josh was disengaging, Martee was calmly removing the spent brass from her revolver and dropping it in her pocket. She didn't seem in any particular hurry as she reloaded and then calmly turned and shot the fellow Josh had run through in the head. She cracked the gun open again, replaced the single round and holstered it. In contrast to Josh's calm she radiated anger.
They both came over and leaned in from each side above him.
"You hit, old man?" Josh enquired.
Rog tried to answer but his jaw chattered like it would from a chill. It was the after effects of the electronic weapon, not the cold. He had assumed it worked like a Taser, but it was entirely different. Unable to talk, he managed to roll his head back and forth for a ‘no’.
"Well I'm sorry, but I'm not up to lifting you," Josh informed him. "Martee – grab his ankle there with your left hand, so your gun hand is free and I'll get the other. With the snow and the grass it shouldn't be all that hard to pull him over to the ship."
It felt weird slipping along, his head nodding off little bumps under the grass and lumps of icy snow. At least his hood kept the wet snow out of his hair. He managed to hold his left arm up on his chest, but the right would still not respond and just flopped along trailing. It lacked dignity, but beat the hell out of being left behind. He felt them change direction a little and go to the right.
Looking left, he saw another corpse lying in the snow, with one of the lethal pistols still in its hand, arm stretched out before him on the snow. The man was still staring open-eyed at him, as he was dragged past, but there was a neat small hole drilled through his forehead. Three against three - we did fine not to lose anyone, he thought. Then they dropped his legs and left him for some reason. He tried to lift his head to see why, but got the same tremors as before, so he stopped straining and just lay back.
Pretty soon Martee and Josh went past on the left, dragging yet another body by the ankles.
Wow- there were four of them, Rog realized. This one couldn't still be alive, or Martee would have shot him again. If she had doubts about the one Josh dispatched she was taking no chances. But it still left a red trail in the snow.
If he's still leaking that bad with no heart beat there must be a lot of holes in the sucker Roger thought. Probably eight of them, entries and exits for all four of Martee's other shots.
"Akent eve um." Roger struggled to speak, but still shook. Josh, to his credit, came back and kneeled down, leaning on his cane.
"Is it important Roger?"
He shook his head yes, as well as he could.
"I know to get your gun. I won't leave it. Is that it?"
Roger shook his head no.
"You want the guns and stuff off the aliens?" he guessed.
Roger thought a moment and alternatively shook his head yes and no. It made him a little sick to do.
"You want the guns and stuff and the aliens?" he asked.
Roger emphatically shook his head yes.
"Crap Rog, it's going to hard enough dragging your ass up in the ship, without all four of these long pigs. And we have no tarp or body bags. They are going to make a hell of a mess on the deck. Is it really that important?"
Rog just shut his eyes and set his mouth as hard as he could although that made his jaw quiver. He stubbornly shook his head yes. It probably looks more like I'm crying than being firm he thought.
"OK, if you insist. We'll drag your worthless butt in first, so we don't have to slide you over the gore and blood. If I didn't trust your woods instincts real well, I'd pretend I didn't understand and do the hell as I please. I gotta go tell Martee." He disappeared with no more chatter.
Pretty soon they came back and resumed moving him.
"Anku, anku," was the best he could manage.
"Shut the hell up," Josh told him without noticeable rancor. "I couldn't hear if a damn tank company was coming through the woods with you babbling and I'm starting to get grouchy."
Roger was able to lever himself a little with his left arm, when they rolled him in the door. The right arm was getting feeling back, but still had no strength.
They just laid him against the back of the seats, on his side and he kept quiet and watched, as they struggled to load the four Trishans in the ship. Roger could see the diamonds and other trade goods were gone from the back.
Josh came back after the last body was loaded and dropped a pile of guns and door openers by the aliens. He came over last with Roger's gun, taking a small flashlight from his shirt pocket. He pulled the magazine, pulled the slide back, locked it and, putting his mouth over the muzzle, blew hard through it. He looked down the barrel and shone the small light in the port. Then he replaced the single round in the magazine, reinserted it and jacked a round in the chamber.
"There's no obstruction in the barrel, loaded and unlocked, ready to fire. I figure you can point and shoot, long before you can grip and work the slide."
He laid it on the deck, positioned to pick up left-handed. "Martee and I have to check something out. We'll be back in just a minute. Don't shoot my hairy little butt when I come back to the door."
They were gone a long time.
Roger worked his hand, not knowing if that helped or not, but it gave him something to do. The cabin seemed to be slowly warming up so Martee must have turned the power on. He hoped that wasn't a danger. It made him wonder how they had found the ship. Had their previous visit given it away?
There was a spot on his back so cold it hurt, even though it was warming up. He fumbled around behind with his left arm, but couldn't get to it. He unzipped his jacket in the front struggling, because it didn't want to come apart at the end when it was all the way down. Finally he got it open and when he reached in the back there was a big pad of ice pushed up under his jacket, on the small of his back.
The snow had packed itself in there – scooped in the edge of his jacket as they dragged him along by his ankles. He got his hand behind it and it fell out pr
etty easily. That was much better.
When Martee returned he was sleeping. He'd rolled on his back and was holding his pistol in his left hand on his stomach, even though he didn't remember moving.
"Roger," she said softly, holding his hand with the pistol down, like she was scared he might lift it.
"You OK?" he asked right away, fully awake.
"I'm more concerned if you are all right. You're the one who got stunned."
He lifted his right arm and worked it. Something popped in his shoulder and he was sore as hell, but it worked. Suddenly he rolled past her, turning his head and vomited on the deck. Considering the bodies piled beyond, it didn't really add all that much to the mess.
"Yeah," he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "Never felt better."
With a little help from Martee hanging on to his belt and lifting in the rear, he pulled himself up on the seatbacks and staggered forward into the copilot seat.
When he realized the hatch was sealed, he was worried. "Where is Josh?" he asked. "Why are you lifting without him on board?"
"We followed the tracks in the snow," she explained, bringing the screens to life. "Their ship, just a little smaller than this one, was up behind the rocks, near the end of the open space with no trees. It had the diamonds and the other things in it and some cases of theirs we haven't gone through."
"You were able to get inside?" he asked. Didn't they lock it up like you?"
"They not only left it unlocked, they left it powered up to keep the inside warm. Apparently they have been waiting quite a while. There are some empty food containers inside and they apparently took turns inside to warm up. From up higher they must have been able to see us coming from inside, or took turns as lookout. In any case they all rushed into position once we showed up. There was a cup of tea sitting inside, still warm."