Paper or Plastic

by Mackey Chandler

  "You know what she’d worried about, don’t you?" Josh asked as they drove away.

  "No, that was a strange conversation. If you understand any better than me enlighten me," Rog asked.

  "Martee is just as human as we are. She doesn’t always say what is really bothering her when she is upset. Here she is in a new strange place, when she was just starting to understand how things worked in Sitra Falls and the two people she depends on are taking off to go do a shady deal that might be dangerous. What will she do if we don’t come back? I think that’s what is really eating at her."

  "Then why didn’t she say that?"

  "And admit out loud how much she still needs us and depends on us? Make herself look weak and afraid? That’s not our Martee," Josh assured him. "She has a lot more pride than that."

  "Hmmm…I won’t argue with that, Josh. You just may have the right of it."

  * * *

  "Yeah, I know someone who is a collector," the farmer told Josh after he climbed down from his bulldozer. He seemed more worried about Roger though, glancing at him frequently. "I just don't know you well enough to do business. Don't know you well enough to really talk given what you want, even though you come recommended."

  "You worried about a wire?" Josh asked him directly.

  "Sure, it's happened to plenty, people who thought themselves safe."

  "I believe I can calm your fears in that regard." Josh looked around the fields surrounding them. There was a huge scar of bare dirt where the dozer had been working scooping out a broad depression. There wasn't a building in sight and only their truck beyond the nearest fence.

  Josh started taking his clothing off, until he stood buck naked in the cold, with socks and his battered felt hat. Fortunately there was no wind blowing to add to the chill. The farmer had not been shy to feel his clothes for lumps and wires as he laid them across the edge of the dozer blade. When he was bare he asked the man, "Satisfied?"

  The farmer just looked at his hat pointedly. For the first time Josh looked irritated. He looked at Rog all weird about it, like he wasn’t already naked but would be when he took his hat off. Then he let his shoulders slumped and took it off holding it double-handed like a beggar and showed the man the inside. There was no band. At his nod of acceptance he jammed it back in his head.

  "Yes sir," he agreed, trying not to stare at the scars on Josh's legs, "but I'd be much obliged if your friend would do the same."

  "You owe me," Roger informed Josh, as he started stripping. "You owe me two or three for this," he decided, feeling the cold.

  The fellow showed neither surprise nor alarm at Roger's armament and looked satisfied when he started putting it all back on.

  "What about the cane?" The man asked, suddenly furrowing his brow. "The cane could be hollowed out and hold something," he protested.

  "Indeed, something," Josh agreed. He drew steel with a flourish and held it vertically in the sunlight, the blade ringing from the draw for several seconds in the quiet meadow. The farmer liked that – it was definitely not government issue.

  "Would you take payment in metal instead of cash?" Josh asked.

  "Gold?" The farmer inquired, trying to act casual about it.

  "We could arrange that if you want, but what we have with us today is platinum. Would that be acceptable?"

  "Sure, it's liquid and my friend with the goods would probably prefer it. He has a thing about fiat money, you know? So we follow the markets."

  "Many people do," Josh agreed politely. "How many ounces will you require?"

  "Platinum is holding pretty steady. Ten ounces should cover us."

  "We have slices off a bullion bar we kept on the plus side of an ounce. Roger would you get us ten pieces from the truck? This gives you a chance to have a quick assay done before delivery, since it isn't in coin or certified bars. I think you'll be happy with it. It should test laboratory grade. Any overweight take for your trouble assaying it."

  "You’re going to prepay me?" he asked with raised eyebrows.

  "You live here. You have connections and property. You aren’t going to run off and cheat us. I’m no fool about farmers; this isn't even a good down payment on one of your harvesters."

  "That's fine then. What do you say to two days from now – same spot, same time?"

  "Agreed and the same people and circumstances," Josh specified gesturing in a circle, "just we three and our vehicles."

  * * *

  When they returned the bulldozer was gone and there was a small farm tractor pulling a wagon parked beside the completed pond. There was a corrugated metal pipe as a culvert with a sluice gate buried in a berm across one end of the depression. It hadn't started to fill with water yet, but by spring it would be a nice pond. He admired the contours. He hadn't seen any survey stakes, so he figured the old boy did it all by eye. Probably close to an acre by the time it reached the top of the gate he figured.

  The farmer was sitting on the wagon having a cup of coffee. There were six small canvas ammo packs and a blanket folded over a shape on the wagon.

  "I was able to get what you wanted," he said flipping the blanket back. It was an ugly short gun, a FN Minimi-Para. The weapon was belt fed, from the ammo pouch hung underneath in lieu of a magazine in the side port. "The belts are standard 5.56 NATO. You ever shoot one of these?"

  "No," Josh admitted. "But I was with some gentlemen in the Trans Arabic Protectorate, who demonstrated them rather thoroughly. They made a point of telling me why they had such affection for them. Unfortunately our discussion was cut short by a RPG coming through the passenger side of our van. Don't worry; my friend here is experienced with automatic weapons. I intend to use a belt up familiarizing myself with it and he can critique me."

  "It's just a cut down SAW with a folding stock," Roger said, looking it over. "No problem. I know how to shoot it and service it."

  "It has the PIP mods except the stock and the European carry handle too," the farmer pointed out. "Here’s the bipod and a bag with a spare barrel," he said pulling the blanket away a little more. "And a couple thirty-round mags. The belt carriers are the cloth ones too. The plastic ones Americans use are crap."

  "Still two hundred round belts?" Rog asked. The farmer nodded yes.

  "Well, this is quite satisfactory," Josh concluded. "Would you get a couple ammo packs, Roger? We can have this all moved in two trips."

  "Hey, if you like, hop on the wagon and I'll pull it over to the fence. No point in lugging it any further than you have to, is there?"

  "No I've carried the big version further than I care to remember," Rog agreed. But he watched closely for any tricks as they moved to the truck.

  "Do you really think you need that much gun?" Roger asked, as they rode away in the truck.

  "Like I said, we can’t afford to be arrested and by extension we can’t afford to lose any fight we get into. I seriously thought about getting a Ma Deuce and a couple of SA-5 launchers, but they are bulky and more for the country than the city. I’d still like a couple Claymores or, if we can’t buy them, I can cobble some up easily enough."

  "You saw the cases. I brought a couple long guns too. If we should need it I have a Barrett .50 caliber, tricked out for long range."

  "And you’re complaining about my little gun?" Josh asked, amused.

  "Well, I doubt if we would need it in the city. When we test your new one and get it zeroed in, I’ll show you a couple of mine and let you try them out. Mine are at least legal."

  "I’m sure the authorities are going to check that first thing, if they find you in an alien space ship full of diamonds and platinum," Josh said amused.

  Chapter 18

  "She’s getting better," Josh admitted.

  Roger looked up just in time to see his pickup go past the window and faintly heard the radio pumping out a local program.

  "Hey, she hasn’t driven through the fence and rolled it down the hill. That’s plenty to keep me happy. By the time we have documents and she can get
a license, she’ll be comfortable with the truck.

  "I have all my security gear for New York," Josh abruptly switched subjects. "The cameras we have here, I’d like to hire a local security firm to monitor and have them send any alerts to our cell phones."

  "That sounds like a good idea."

  "But if we should have problems in New York, somebody could come knocking on our door here. Somebody with warrants or somebody that doesn’t need warrants and the security firm couldn’t do anything about them."

  "OK, but what can we do about that?" Rog asked.

  "I’d like to leave this place clean – without anything behind to incriminate us. No trade goods, no weapons. All the platinum we haven't sold and the rest of the unburied diamonds with us. Then it won’t matter if anyone comes in, except it will inform us we attracted some unwanted attention."

  "We have plenty of room in the ship. Why not take them? We might get a deal with someone to dispose of them all. We might spread them out a bit in New York, so they’re not all in one place. We can rent a couple private storage lockers, because the authorities could quickly trace any safe deposit boxes if we go to a bank."

  "Good," said Josh, "I’m glad you agree. But the drive and computer system from the cop ship, I want to do just like we did with the diamonds. I’d like to go way up in the mountains, far from any road and bury them. If we get in a jam they won’t get seized."

  * * *

  Roger turned a final shovel full of gravel over and patted it flat with the back of the shovel. The full moon was plenty to work by, once your eyes adjusted. They had flown to the area of their cabins and gone again high above the tree line. Roger had flown tonight under Martee’s supervision.

  Both the men had a few hours at the controls and some basic skills now, although just imitating the flight envelope of a Cessna. The shore was gravel and allowed them to dig without leaving as visible a disturbed patch as in soft earth.

  After they had the boxes with the drive and computer buried, they replaced the same dry gravel that had been on the surface from the small tarp they spread out to save it. The extra pea gravel that the boxes displaced, they threw as far as they could with the shovels out into the water. Someone could find the treasure with a metal detector, but the point of being here was it was so isolated nobody should ever try.

  They worked away from the disturbed site turning over patches of gravel further and further apart so any change in appearance from above was blended in. They wouldn’t be around in the daylight to inspect it from the air. He was concerned the water-proof cases would slowly come to the surface over a few years, since they were above the frost line. Josh pointed out that would only happen if they never got back to dig them up.

  Miles away in these same mountains, they had flown out another night and let Josh try his new gun and give them a chance to try Roger’s. Josh went through a couple thirty-round magazines, then switched to belt feed and got the feel for it firing controlled bursts until he ran through a whole belt. He produced a compact pistol they hadn’t seen and fired it a bit, but informed Roger he had owned the model before and was already comfortable with it.

  Martee had no interest in Josh’s FN, but she and Josh both got such a kick from shooting the Barrett, that they quickly ran through all the .50 BMG ammo he’d brought. He was glad at fifteen bucks a round, that he had left all his Hornady Match ammo at home. Still, he had to order some up right away.

  All that equipment was clean and packed in the back now, including the restocked ammo. In fact the ship was pretty cluttered with equipment and supplies. The cheap sacks that held the diamonds, were replaced with twice as many sturdy plywood boxes screwed together, with generous handles. The remaining platinum ingots were cut in half and fit in six smaller cases that didn’t waste space and could be lifted by a normal human.

  When they lifted and flew away Martee took over and hugged the land staying down between the peaks. They headed off to drop Josh near Portland, rather than have him fly to New York out of Seattle. The harder their movements were to back track the better. The ship now had a large flat screen mounted off the instrument panel on a bracket. It displayed the reading from an excellent GPS unit, with a remote antenna sitting double taped on the top of the instrument panel under the front glass, the extra cable neatly coiled and lashed with cable ties on the bracket.

  Josh, despite all his grand visions and bold talk of putting wheels on the ship, had avoided drilling a hole anywhere through the body and he never did a sloppy installation. The unit worked fine through whatever sort of material Martee’s people used for spaceship ports. The screen showed the road atlas database now, but they carried both the marine and aviation data sets also.

  It was another example of where Earthmen were slightly ahead of their cousins. Josh had a carry on with him to fly to New York – just enough to avoid calling attention to himself, by not having any luggage at all. He was dressed western, with a fancy shirt, boots and a much nicer hat than his usual felt.

  They swooped down well back from the lights near a big truck stop. He hefted his bag and climbed out, but stuck his head back in.

  "See you in The Big Apple," he added before he slammed the door. If he was disappointed not to experience the orbital flight he had not expressed it at all.

  Martee and Roger watched the solitary figure silhouetted against the lights walk between the rows of big rigs with his distinctive gait, his big cowboy hat visible in profile. Then he turned the corner and disappear around the front side of the restaurant.

  "Will he hire a cab?" Martee asked. They had explained about taxi cabs and how they would probably be using them in New York.

  "I have no idea," Roger shrugged. "We both sort of assume the other knows what he is doing and don’t try to manage each other. He might get a ride with a trucker, or he might approach someone and offer to pay for a ride. He’s been around this world, not like your agents who get in trouble. He can smell danger in how somebody looks and their body language. It’s only about twenty miles to the airport. He’s so stubborn he just might walk it if he doesn’t get a lift. He’d do that to prove he still can, limping all the way."

  "Let’s move too, before we run out of darkness," Martee suggested and lifted without really looking to see if he agreed.

  * * *

  "This is a survival kit I made up," Roger explained. "Most pilots want to have some sort of kit in case they go down. Just some basic stuff. A small four-season tent and a netted pavilion, ground tarp, sleeping bags and pads, space blankets, water purifier, emergency rescue beacon, flare gun, mosquito nets and repellant, a small ax and some fire starting materials and a basic cooking kit with some nice freeze-dried meals, a fishing kit and a first aid kit, both very basic." It was all in two duffels.

  "Wouldn’t it be pretty embarrassing to call for rescue if we were beside a wreck that was obviously no normal aircraft?" Martee wondered.

  "Yeah but I’d do it if the alternative was an impossible hike off a mountain, or through a couple hundred miles of rough wilderness. Coming up with an explanation still beats being dead."

  "Our ships are pretty dependable," Martee assured him.

  "I’m sure they are," Roger agreed. "But anything man-made can fail. This is just in case."

  "I liked what you said," Martee smiled.

  "What?"

  "Man-made. You acknowledge we are the same as Earth humans."

  "Well sure. I thought we were past arguing about that," he said surprised.

  "But now I know you believe it the way you said it so naturally," Martee explained.

  * * *

  A week later they received a postal letter, on Hotel Michelangelo stationery. It contained GPS coordinates and a map of Manhattan, with a location marked on it with a pen. South of Central Park, down on the edge of the theater district and near the 47th Street diamond district. It seemed a pleasant choice, looking at the brochure he included.

  Around the location, areas were marked with a yellow highligh
ter. A sticky note explained those were buildings that reached above the hotel. One glass and steel monster towering over the twenty-floor hotel, right next door.

  "I’ll be waiting for you 0100 to 0300 local time on the roof," his note explained. They called their security company to start service in the morning and tried to catch some sleep before their late night departure.

  * * *

  Roger was quite used to their ship flying or riding as a passenger. But this time he was excited again just like the first time. Martee was flying and seemed oblivious to his tension. She hopped across the Olympian peninsula staying low to the ground, running the GPS in aviation mode with ground collision warning running for known hazards, like power lines and radio towers. The audible warning was off, because it constantly be projected her boring into the ground in the next mile as they followed the contour.

  Once the coastal road and beach flashed under them Martee picked the pace up, a bit but kept close enough to the waves to make him nervous. He wondered if they happened to touch one what would happen, if they would skip off or plow in, but didn’t want to ask. After about a half hour the water changed. The surface looked smoother and the waves were giant gentle rolls so big they were hard to see in the moonlight.

  Martee compared her numbers from the GPS unit to the navigation computer one last time. They had to be carried over manually. Josh had not gotten to where he could input data from one system to the other. He simply had conversion factors in Martee’s computer, to transpose values from one system to the other. Satisfied, she climbed away from the surface without warning Rog.

  Roger had not anticipated the ship would pitch slightly nose down from the angle of climb, so thrust pushed them down in the seats rather than straight back against the seat backs. There was no sharp transition where he felt they were higher than he had ever been in an aircraft.