CHAPTER SEVEN
NO LONGER A THIEF I, nor a hider under rocks. On the 13th day I had unblocked my door and dug my way back to the surface. With this symbolic act I left behind my fugitive’s existence and entered Cliaandian society. With assorted identification and various uniforms I now played a wide selection of roles in this rather repellent society until I knew far more about it than I really cared. In my various identities I only brushed the periphery of the military since I wanted to save my energies for a frontal assault there in full power.
With this possibility I boarded an SST flight to Dosadan-Glup, the fair sized provincial city that happened to be situated adjacent to the military base of Glupost. From what I had been able to determine Glupost was also a major spaceship center and staging area for offworld expeditions. So there was more than chance to the fact that I loitered near enough to the seat reservation clerk to see who got what, and then asked for a seat next to a very attractive who.
Attractive only to me, I hasten to add. By any other standard of measurement the flight-major would win no prizes. His jaw was too big, apparently designed to project into places where it wasn’t wanted, and it had a nasty little cleft built into it as though it had cracked from being poked too far. Suspicious dark eyes lurked under simian shelving brows and the cavernous nostrils were twin fur-lined subway tunnels. I could not care less. I saw only the black uniform of the Space Armada, the many decorations signifying active service, and the wings-and-rockets of a senior pilot. He was my man.
‘Good evening, sir, good evening,’ I said as I slipped into the seat next to him. ‘A pleasure to travel with you.’
He aimed the twin cannons of his nose at me and fired a broadside snort that signaled a close to the recently opened conversation. I smiled in return and buckled my belt and was slammed back into the cushions as the SST hurled itself into the night sky. At cruising altitude most of the wing area slipped back into the hull and I took out my pocket flask and detached the two small cups.
‘It would be a pleasure to offer you a drink of refreshment, noble flight-major, in gratitude for your many services rendered to the glorious cause of Cliaand.’
This time he did not even bother to grunt, but instead picked at his teeth with a none too clean pinky nail until he extracted a fragment of meat from his recent dinner. Close examination convinced him that it was too large to discard so he re-ingested it with a certain relish. A man of simple pleasures. I offered a better one.
‘Nothing too good for our boys in the service. This is narcolethe.’ I sipped at the cup and smacked my lips.
He looked directly at me for the first time and there should have been little splintering sounds as his lips moved slowly into an unaccustomed smile.
‘I’ll drink that,’ he said in a grating voice, and well he should since the small flask of liqueur would have cost him a month’s salary. Narcolethe, the finest drink known to mankind, distilled in small quantities from a scarce botanical source on a minor planet at the galaxy’s rim. Soothing, charming, subtle, intoxicating, inspiring, aphrodisiac, stimulating. It was everything any other drink was, plus much more, with no side effects and no hangover. He took the proffered cup and lowered the caverns of his nose over it and sipped.
‘Not bad,’ he said, and I smiled at this crude understatement as though it were sincerest flattery and offered him the false name I had assumed. He thought about it and realized that an exchange was in order.
‘Flight-Major Vaska Hulja.’
‘The pleasure is mine, sir, the pleasure is mine. May I top that up for you, these cups are so small.’
Very soon, as our razor nosed craft cracked the sound barrier and boomed through the sleep of the dozing citizens on the ground, I came to almost love the flight-major. He was perfect, all-around, with no bulges of doubt or pockmarks of uncertainty. Just as a spider is a perfect spider or a vampire bat a perfect vampire bat, he was a perfect freewheeling bastard. As his spirits lifted and his tongue grew thick the anecdotes became more detailed. The flight-major on strafing:
‘Never make mistake of going after individuals or small groups, it is overall effect that counts. Stay to plan, hit buildings and grouped vehicles, finish the run. On a second run it’s all right to hit groups of people, but only big ones, with firebombs. That spreads and splatters and gets the most.’
The flight-major on recreation:
‘There was just the two of us and we had maybe a dozen bottles and case of weedstick, enough for couple of days, so we got these three girls, one as a spare, you know, just in case, and took them …’
The flight-major on off-worlders:
‘Animals. You can’t tell me we can even interbreed with them. Obvious that Cliaand is source of all intelligent life in universe and only civilizing influence.’
There was more like this and I could only nod my head in rapt attention. Perfect, as I said. What had me almost pulsating with joy was the information that he had just been assigned to the Glupost station after his R & R. This was his first visit to the immense base after years of duty on the fighting front. Destiny was controlling the fall of the dice.
What I had to do next was dangerous and involved a great deal of risk – but the opportunity presented was too good to miss. In the weeks that I had been exploring the details of Cliaand society I had come to know it in great depth. I thought. Now was the time to find out how much I really did know. For the part of society I had picked my way through was just the periphery, the non-military part, and the military was the one that really counted. It dominated this world in every way and had managed to extend its dominance to other worlds as well. Despite the rules of logic, the inverse square, and history. I was going to have to apply my little bit of know-how to crack the final barrier.
I was joining the army. Enlisting in the Space Armada. With the rank of flight-major. As the ship tilted into its landing approach I put thought into deed.
‘Must you report to duty at once, Vaska?’ Strong drink had put us on a first name basis. He shook his head in a shaggy no.
‘Tomorrow I am due.’
‘Wonderful. You do not wish to spend your last night of leave between the cold sheets of a solitary bed in the B.O.Q. Just think what else could be accomplished in the same time.’
I went into some imaginary detail of what could be done with silken sheets in an unsolitary bed. Good food and fine drink were mentioned as well, but these were only of contingent interest. The flask tilted once more and he nodded cheerful agreement to my plan.
As soon as we had landed and our baggage had been disgorged, a robocab took us to the Dosadan-Glup Robotnik. This was the local branch of a planet-wide chain of hotels that specialized in non-human service. Everything was mechanized and computerized. Human beings presumably visited them once in a while to check the gauges and empty the tills, but I had never seen one although I had used these hotels quite often, for many obvious reasons. I had occasionally seen other guests entering or leaving but we had avoided each other like plague carriers. The Robotniks were islands of privacy in a sea of staring eyes. They had certain drawbacks, but I had long since learned to cope with these. To the Robotnik we went.
The front door opened automatically when we approached and a sort of motorized-dolly robot slipped out of its kennel and sang to us.
‘World famous since the day we opened,
The Dosadan-Glup Robotnik welcomes you.
I am here to take your luggage—
Order me and I’ll help you!’
This was sung in a rich contralto voice to the accompaniment of a 200 piece brass band; a standard recording of all the Robotnik hotels. I hated it. I kicked the robot back, it was pressing close to our ankles, and pointed to the robocar
‘Luggage. There. Five pieces. Fetch.’
It hummed away and plunged eager tentacles into the cab. We entered the hotel.
‘Don’t we have four pieces luggage?’ Vaska asked, frowning those beetling eyebrows in thought.
&n
bsp; ‘You’re right, I must have miscounted.’ The luggage robot caught up and passed us, with our suitcases and the back seat torn out of the cab. ‘We have five now.’
‘Good evening … gentlemen,’ the robot at the desk murmured, with a certain hesitation before the final word as it counted us and compared profiles in its memory bank. ‘How may we serve you?’
‘The best suite in the house,’ I said as I signed a fictitious name and address and began to feed boginje bills into the pay slot on the desk. Cash in advance was the rule at the Robotnik with any balance returned upon departure. A bellboy robot, armed with a key, rolled out and showed us the way, throwing the door wide with a blare of recorded trumpets as though it were announcing the second coming.
‘Very nice,’ I said and pressed the button labeled tip on its chest which automatically deducted two boginjes from my credit balance.
‘Order us some drinks and food,’ I told the flight-major, pointing to the menu built into the wall. ‘Anything you wish as long as there are steaks and champagne.’
He liked that idea and he was busily pushing buttons while I arranged the luggage. I also had a bug-detector strapped to my wrist which led me unerringly to the single optic-sonic bug. It was in the same place as every other one I had found, these hotels were really standardized, and I managed to move a chair in front of it when I opened my suitcase.
The delivery doors dilated and champagne and chilled glasses slid out. Vaska was still ordering away on the buttons and my credit balance, displayed in large numbers on the wall, was rolling rapidly backwards. I cracked the bottle, bouncing the cork off the wall near him to draw his inebriated attention, and filled the glasses.
‘Let us drink to the Space Armada,’ I said, handing him his glass and letting the little green pellet fall into it at the same time.
‘To Space Armada,’ he said, draining the glass and breaking into some dreary chauvinistic song that I knew I would have to learn, all about shining blast-tubes, gleaming guns, men of valor, burning suns. I’d had enough of it even before he began.
‘You look tired,’ I told him. ‘Aren’t you sleepy?’
‘Sleepy …’ he agreed, his head bobbing.
‘I think it would be a good idea for you to lie down on the bed and get some rest before dinner.’
‘Lie down …’ His glass fell to the rug and he stumbled across the room and sprawled full length on the nearest bed.
‘See, you were tired. Go to sleep and I’ll wake you later.’
Obedient to the hypnodrug, he closed his eyes and began snoring at once. If anyone were listening at the bug they would detect nothing wrong.
Dinner arrived, enough food to feed a squad – my money meant nothing to good old Vaska – and I ate a bit of steak and salad before going to work. I snapped open the kit and spread out the materials and tools.
The first thing was of course an injection that acted as a nerve block and numbed all sensation in my face. As soon as this took effect I propped the snoring flight-major up and trained the reading light full in his face. This would not be a hard job at all. We both had about the same bony structure and build, and the resemblance did not have to be perfect. Just close enough to match the prison-camp picture on his ID card. The quality of this picture was what one learns to expect from an identification photo, looking more like a shaven ape than a human.
The chin was the biggest job in every sense and massive injections of plastic jell built mine up to Vaska’s heroic size. I molded its shape before it set, cleft and all, then went to work on the eyebrows. More plastic built up the brow ridges, and implanted black artificial hair drove home the resemblance. Contact lenses matched the color of his eyes and expanding rings in my nostrils flared them to the original’s cave-like size. All that remained then was to transfer his fingerprints to the skin-tight and invisible plastic that covered my own fingers. Nothing to it.
While I altered Vaska’s best uniform to a better fit for me he rose – as instructed – and ate some of the cold dinner. Sleep overcame him soon after that and this time he retired to the bed in the other room where his snores and grumbles would not annoy me.
I mixed a stiff drink and retired early. The morrow would be a busy day in my new identity. I was going into the Space Armada.
With a little luck I might get a clue as to the nature of their remarkable military powers.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘I’M SORRY, SIR, but you can’t get in,’ the guard in front of the gate said. The gate itself was made of riveted steel and was solidly set into a high stone wall capped with many strands of barbed wire.
‘What do you mean I can’t get in? I have been ordered to Glupost,’ I shouted in my best military-obnoxious manner. ‘Now press that button or whatever else you do to unlock that thing.’
‘I can’t open it, sir, the base is sealed from the outside. I’m stationed with the outside guard detail.’
‘I want to see your superior officer.’
‘Here I am,’ a cold voice said in my ear. ‘What is this disturbance?’
When I turned around I looked at his lieutenant’s bar and he looked at my flight-major’s double cross and I won that argument. He led me to the guardhouse and there was a lot of calling back and forth on the TV phone until he handed it to me and I looked a steely-eyed colonel in the face. I had already lost this argument.
‘The base is sealed, flight-major,’ he said.
‘I have orders to report here, sir.’
‘You were to report here yesterday. You have overstayed your leave.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, must have been an error in recording. My orders read report today.’ I held them up and saw that the reporting date was the previous day. That drunkard Vaska had got me into the trouble he deserved himself. The colonel smiled with all the sweetness of a king cobra in rut.
‘If the mistake were in the orders, flight-major, there would certainly be no difficulty. Since the mistake was yours, lieutenant, we know where the error lies. Report to the security entrance.’
I hung up the phone and the guard lieutenant, grinning evilly, handed me a set of lieutenant’s bars. I unclipped my double-crosses and accepted the humbler rank. I hoped promotion was as fast as demotion in the Space Armada. A guard detail marched me along the wall to a similar airlock type of entrance and I was passed through. My credentials and orders were examined, my fingerprints taken, and in a few minutes I was through the last gate and inside the base of Glupost.
A car was summoned, a private soldier took my bags, we drove to the officers’ quarters and I was shown to my room. And all the time I kept my eyes open. Not that there was anything fascinating to see. See one military base and you’ve seen them all. Buildings, tents, chaps in uniform doing repetitious jumping, heavy expensive equipment all painted the same color, that sort of thing. What I had to find out would not be that easy to uncover. My bags were dumped in the tiny room, salutes exchanged, the soldier left, and a voice spoke hoarsely from the other bed.
‘You don’t happen to have a drink on you, do you?’
I looked closely and saw that what I at first thought was a bundle of crumpled blankets now appeared to contain a scrawny individual who wore dark glasses. The effort of talking must have exhausted him and he groaned, adding another breath of alcoholic vapor to the already rich atmosphere of the room.
‘It so happens that I do,’ I said, opening the window. ‘My name is Vaska. Do you prefer any particular brand?’
‘Ostrov.’
I could think of no drink by that title so presumably it was my roommate’s name. Taking the flask with the most potent beverage from my collection I poured him half a glass. He seized it with trembling fingers and drained it while shudders racked his frame. It must have done some good because he sat up in bed and held out the glass for more.
‘We blast off in two days,’ he said, sniffing the drink. ‘This really isn’t paint remover, is it?’
‘No, it just smells that way to fool the MP�
�s. Where to?’
‘Don’t make jokes so early in the morning. You know we never know what planet we’re hitting. Security. Or are you with security?’
He blinked suspiciously in my direction: I would have to watch the questions until I knew more. I forced a smile and poured a drink for myself.
‘A joke. I don’t feel so good myself. I woke up a flight-major this morning …’
‘And now you’re a lieutenant. Easy come, easy go.’
‘They didn’t come that easy!’
‘Sorry. Figure of speech. I’ve always been a lieutenant so I wouldn’t know how the others feel. You couldn’t just tip a little more into this glass? Then I’ll be able to dress and we can get over to the club and get into some serious drinking. It’s going to be awful, all those weeks without drink until we get back.’
Another fact. The Cliaand fought their battles refreshed with water. I wondered if I could. I sipped and the disturbing thought that had been poking at me for some minutes surfaced.
The real Vaska Hulja was back at the hotel and would be discovered. And I could do nothing about it because I was in this sealed base.
Some of the drink went down the wrong pipe and I coughed and Ostrov beat me on the back.
‘I think it really is paint remover,’ he said gloomily when I had stopped gasping, and began to dress.
As we walked to the officers’ club I was in no mood for communication, which Ostrov probably blamed on my recent demotion. What to do? Drink seemed to be in order, it wasn’t noon yet, and it would be wisest to wait until evening to crack out of the base. Face the problems as they arose. Right now I was in a perfect position to imbibe drink with my new peer group and gather information at the same time. Which, after all, was the reason that I was here in the first place. Before leaving I had slipped a tube of killalc pills into my pocket. One of these every two hours would produce a massive heartburn, but would also grab onto and neutralize most of the alcohol as soon as it hit the stomach. I would drink deep and listen. And stay sober. As we walked through the garish doorway of the club I slipped one out and swallowed it.
The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection Page 88
