by Ron Hubbard
"That welds the deal," he said.
"One more thing," I said. "I want heavy ingot packing cases, nine of them, one hundred pounds to the case."
"That's extra," he said.
"What's the name of that company just south of you?" I said.
"That welds the deal," he said.
With a bunch of "Hey, Ip" and "You there," he got the laborers at it. They found nine battered-up but lock-able ingot cases in the trash heap.
I took one of the fifty-pound ingots off the pile. Gold is deceptive. It looks small but it's heavy.It almost broke my arm. I poked at it with a fingernail and then put my teeth into a corner of it. Nice and soft. Pure gold. Gleaming, lovely! Gold is so pretty!
Into the cases it went, eighteen fifty-pound bars of it. The metal man falsified the inventory log. Out to the front loading platform went the dolly.
I counted nine thousand credits out of the sack and into his pincer-grip fingers. I got my personal receipt. We clanked hands.
The deal was finished. The laborers left. And the dolly sat fifty feet away from the airbus. But an airbus can't get up to the loading platform and still open its doors. I called Ske. I pointed.
He started to lift one of the boxes and then stopped to give me an awful look. I gestured impatiently.
It was warm and it was dusty. Nevertheless, a sweating Ske soon had nine boxes sitting on the floor of the airbus.
I lifted a lordly finger. "To the Apparatus hangar, my man." And he got in and the airbus rose lumberingly, staggering into the sky.
Ske was snarling to himself and the airbus was lurching about. This was silly since the load it carried was only a hair above the full-rated passenger load.
The bouncing around made it a bit hard to do, but I got out the spare Zanco labels and began to affix them, one to the case. They were the immersion type label: when you put them on, they sink into the material of the case and nothing can remove them. The labels said: DANGER HEALTH HAZARD RADIOACTIVE CELLOLOGICAL ELEMENTS THE ZANCO COMPANY IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR SERIOUS BURNS OR DEATH RESULTING FROM OPENING THIS CASE Bright red. Delightful! They would glow even in the dark!
And as the somewhat dusty airbus lurched through the sky, I did some glowing of my own.
Nine hundred pounds of gold was ten thousand, eight hundred ounces, Troy.
On Blito-P3, the current average price of gold was a minimum of six hundred dollars American an ounce, to say nothing of what it brought on the black market or in Hong Kong.
This meant that one Soltan Gris would have six million, four hundred and eighty thousand personal dollars American to play around with. This was so ample I didn't even bother to adjust it for gravity differences. What was a million, more or less?
That would buy an awful lot of Turkish dancing girls.
It would also buy, if I was pushed to use it, an awful lot of Hells for Heller. I giggled because the words are similar in English.
Not only a clever Gris, not only a rich Gris, but a lofty, millionaire, tycoon, fat-cat Gris was not just unbeatable. He was inexorable!
"This ain't no truck!" snarled Ske, narrowly averting a nose-dive crash.
I ignored him. Power, power, who saith it doth not have a sweet taste? I was spending it in English already. And in my imagination, Heller, a ragged, shabby and starving, panhandling bum, approached on the street and begged me for a quarter and I pulled the sleeve of my tailored jacket out of his bony, clutching fingers and slammed the door of my limousine in his tear-streaked face.
Chapter 2
At the Apparatus hangar everything was well. Ske crunched down on the landing target, went into ground mode and rolled off to the side.
From where I sat, I could see Tug Onecontinuing to boil. The back fin was finished. They were doing something to the whole outside hull. In addition to other crews on other jobs, over a hundred contractor men, in bright yellow cover suits were working with bright yellow spray which instantly went black when it hit the plating.
I knew what this was: Heller was redoing the original Fleet absorbo-coat. You could see the difference between the old coating and the new. The old coating was a tiny bit gray; the new coating was so black it was almost not there. Absorbo-coat takes all incoming waves and simply drinks them up; absolutely noenergy gets reflected, visible or invisible. Not the most searching beams or screens can get a bounce off of it. The vessel becomes completely undetectable unless it blocks off a light behind it like a star. It will defeat any modern surveillance system.
I smiled when I thought of going to all that work just to baffle the primitive detection systems of Blito-P3. Even a shabby, old, chipped Apparatus vessel could do it. And then I felt less cheerful: all this absorption would multiply the dangers of Tug Oneblowing up. She would shed nothing!Screaming through space, picking up fields and light . . . I looked away quickly to get my mind off it.
Ah, something more cheerful! The Blixo!The Blixowas just clearing in! My luck was really holding!
One of the several Blito-P3 run freighters, the Blixowas no better or worse. These are small freighters, only about two hundred and fifty feet long. They are rather skinny and light. But they carry good tonnage, certainly all the tonnage that could be utilized. And they would carry fifty or sixty passengers in addition to a twenty spacer crew. Their warp drives push them about six weeks one way, sometimes more, sometimes less. Uncomfortable and shabby, they can slip in and out easily and they are no more dangerous than any other freighter. The best part of them is, they look ordinary: nobody remarks about them coming in and out of Voltar – just some of the thousands every week.
I motioned to Ske and he ground-drove over – a half a mile was too far to walk in my exalted state.
She had settled into her gantry within the last half hour and the huge trundle dolly had finished taking her into the hangar and lowering her to the floor. It was now pulling back out.
But that wasn't all that was beginning to leave the Blixo.Behind the tall hangar screens that had been dropped down for security, I could hear the chatter of small cranes.
A convoy of armored flying lorries was standing by in a short column. They were one by one inching ahead. The Blixowas discharging her priceless cargo under the cover of screens.
The first lorry, all buttoned up after loading, drew out and stood waiting. When joined by the loaded remainder, they would go roaring off across the desert, advertisedly to Camp Endurance, actually all the way through to Spiteos. The vast storage spaces of the antique fortress would be getting filled up. Just a small amount as yet, but as the months went on, it would be appreciable. Lombar would be in jumping glee to see these lorry loads roll in.
Half a regiment of Apparatus guards were standing about to keep the area secure. It wasn't very important to them. They were leaning haphazardly on their blast-rifles, talking to one another about some prostitute or some dice game.
It wouldn't take them long to discharge this priceless cargo. I sat and waited and at length, all the flying lorries were full and the convoy drove over to the nearby landing target and one after the other, they lumbered into the sky. The chain of them thundered off toward Camp Endurance.
I nudged Ske and we drove up near the guard commander and I flashed my identoplate. An orderly near him took its reflection on his board and we went through the security screens and stopped at the airlock ladder.
Actually, it was by my authority as head of Section 451 that these freighters came and went. But you wouldn't have thought it by the attitude of the spacer by the airlock ladder. He was plainly anxious to get off and go into town and have himself a binge.
"Tell Captain Bolz that Officer Gris is here," I said.
"Tell him yourself," said the spacer. They are always a bit surly when they come in from a run.
But we didn't have time for me to administer proper discipline. I was just getting out of the airbus when there was a row in the airlock.
Three big Apparatus guards, apparently sent from Spiteos for the purpose, were pushi
ng and hauling at a debarking passenger – captive is the better word.
There was nothing unusual in this and I was stepping aside to let them brawl their way down the ladder when my alert ear caught what the captive was saying.
"Take your God (bleeped) hands off my God (bleeped) neck and get these God (bleeped) cuffs off my God (bleeped) wrists!" It was in English! Not Turkish or Arabic. But English!
The individual was a bit of a mess, very dishevelled and much the worse for wear from his voyage. He was squat, very muscular. He had black hair and black eyes and a swarthy complexion. He had on the remains of a tailored suit and a blue shirt with black stripes. But that wasn't the oddity. He was in metal, not electric cuffs and he had no ankle shackles. Further, he was not comatose, but awake and talking and tough! All very irregular.
As they reached the bottom I said to the leading guard that had him, "I am Officer Gris. This is all very irregular. Where are your orders?" I sounded very official. You have to be with these Camp Endurance riffraff.
The leading guard was thumbing through his papers. There was apparently more than one captive. He found it. "It says he is to be brought in straight up and taken directly to top interrogation." The use of "straight up" means minimal duress and awake. Dangerous practice.
"Who signed those orders?" I demanded.
The leading guard looked at the sheet and then at me. "Why you did, Officer Gris." Oh well, just one of thousands of orders one has to stamp. I looked at it. The order was from one of Lombar's personal clerks, the one that handles interrogation personnel. I went a little bit chilled. I hope they had the right man here. Lombar hated slip-ups. I read the name.
I turned to the captive. "Is your name Gunsalmo Silva?" I said in English.
"American?" he said. "God (bleep) it, do you talk American? Where is this (bleeping) place? What the God (bleeped) Hell is this? What the Jesus H. Christ am I doing in a barn full of flying saucers?"
"Please," I said patiently. "Is your name Gunsalmo Silva?"
"Look, I demand you call the God (bleeped) United States Consul! Right now, do you hear? I know my God (bleeped) rights! You get the United States Consul down here, buster, before I decide to really put your (bleeps) in the fire!" He obviously wouldn't answer. I gestured to the guard to take him to the waiting covered van. He hadn't denied he was Gunsalmo Silva.
As they pushed him into the van, he was shouting back at me, "I'm gonna write my congressman about this!" Well, good luck, I thought. Trying to buy United States postage stamps in the interrogation rooms of Spite-os would be a bit difficult.
There didn't seem to be any more captives coming out so I bounced up the internal ladders to the captain's salon. And there I found Bolz. He was a big man, a grizzled old spacer, the hardness of a hundred years of bouncing off stars. He was uncoiling after his landing. He had his tunic off. Hairy, hairy chest. Probably from Binton Planet, from the way his shoulders hunched and his mouth drooped.
He saw me and waved to a gimbal chair. "Sit down, Officer Gris." I had met Bolz before a time or two. I was glad it was him. "I'm just going to have myself a spot before I waddle over groundside. Care to join me?" He was fishing a bottle out of the table rack near him. I knew what it would be. It was "Johnny Walker Black Label." Earth whisky! I don't know why the captains on this run do it. Blows your head off! I took about three drops of it in a canister, not to drink it, but to be friendly.
Bolz chattered on a bit about his run. The usual stuff. Almost hit a cloud of space debris; bigger electric storm than usual passing this star or that; blew a converter on a main drive; two of the crew in the brig for stealing stores – you know, banal.
And then, my, was my luck holding! I saw the reason for all his friendliness. He made sure no one was at the door and leaned over, whisky fumes rising, to whisper, "Gris, I got twenty cases of Scotch in my locker. I need a pass to get them through the guards and over to a friend in Joy City. Do you suppose . . . ?" I laughed with delight. I made a beckoning motion with my fingers and he handed me the blank. I put my identoplate on it. I had thought all this was going to cost me money!
He beamed. He could get fifty credits a bottle. Then he looked at me speculatively. "It just so happens I bought a black girl this trip. There's high demand in the brothels. You don't mind if I add her to this pass?" Better and better. "Go ahead," I said.
He made a money motion with his fingers. "And how much?" I really laughed. "Bolz, we're old friends. The price is nothing. I don't even have anything illegal to go back to Blito-P3."
"I owe you a favor, then," he said.
"As you will," I said. "But do you mind if I get on with the ship business?" Between the whisky and his coming profit, Bolz was really relaxed. "At your orders, Officer Gris."
"When do you head back?"
"Maybe a ten-day turnaround. I got to replace a converter. Make it maybe ten days. After all, they're your orders, Officer Gris."
"Well, ten days will be just fine. But there are certain items you must have aboard before your shoot-away. The first is a young man named Twolah." Bolz was scribbling with a huge hand. "Probably get spacesick."
"He's a courier carrying confidential material. He'll be on the run quite often. Now Twolah is sort of . . . well, man crazy. You are not to let him talk to anyone or the crew or another passenger. And don't let him get sexually involved with the crew."
"Got it. Locked cabin. Locked (bleep)."
"The other is a scientist. He holds some scientific secrets. He is on a secret mission. Do not put him down on your manifest. He is not to talk with anyone."
"Got it. Locked cabin, empty. Locked mouth."
"Now there are three freight consignments."
"Hey, now," said Bolz. "That's good. You know we never carry nothing back to Blito-P3 but some food and a few spare parts. So! Realfreight! That's good. Makes the ship run better. You know, Officer Gris, we carry too little cargo."
"I'm glad you approve. Now, there's a big lot coming from Zanco Cellological Equipment and Supplies. Physical health sort of thing to set up a base hospital."
"Hey, things are looking up. Maybe somebody can treat that venereal disease that's poking around down there. I got two crew limping with it right now! The dumb (bleepards)."
"Then a bit later, there'll be a second, smaller lot coming in from the same firm but it's being held for inspection. It will have some very sensitive stuff in it so don't let it get knocked around."
"Knocked around," said Bolz, writing busily.
"Now, do you have a lead-sealed storeroom, that can take radioactive material in boxes?"
"Yeah, we got one. They won't blow up, will they?"
"Not unless they're opened," I said. "But they're so sensitive that I brought them down myself. Could you have an officer stow them in it right now. And lock it?" Well, he could do that if he hurried before they all hit groundside for a spree. He pushed buzzers and, with Ske's help, soon had nine "radioactive" boxes in the vault. I turned the key in the lock and put it in my pocket.
Bolz accompanied me back to the exit airlock. "Hey, how we going to unload it if you got the key?" I grinned at him. I was really floating. "I'll be there to meet you when you land on Earth, Captain. I'm going to run this show from Blito-P3!" He swatted me on the back and almost knocked my breath out. "Great news! Then you can stamp passes for here right when I load there! So I'll see you on the target!"
"With a bottle of Scotch in my hand just for you," I said.
"Wait," he paused, puzzled. "How you going to get there before I do? Old Blixois no sprinter but there ain't anything else leaving before I do." We could see Tug Onethrough the gaps in other craft. She only stood out because contractor crews were boiling over her.
He peered. "I don't recognize her. What is she? Looks like a Fleet . . . oh, my Gods, is that one of the Will-be Was engined tugs? Hey, Officer Gris, do you know one of them things blew up? I thought they'd retired all light-craft Will-be Was stuff from service. Oh, now, Officer Gris, I don't kn
ow if you'll be there to meet me or not." And he made an explosion motion with his two hands.
It was not too happy a thought to part on. But with promises to be careful and good wishes for his own next voyage, I went down the ladder.
I had a awful lot to do. In fact, on today's schedule there remained the dangerous part of my planning. The real make or break. My mind was full of the problem of how to get the secret bugs for Heller.
As I flew away, Bolz was still standing there, shaking his head.
Chapter 3
We flew up to ten thousand feet. My driver was pretending he had strained his back and scratched his hands. I had headed him for Joy City. I was trying to put makeup on and he kept taking his hands off the wheel-stick and trying to suck the blood out of the cuts the sharp-edged boxes had made. I got some powder in my eye and cursed him.
"Hover!" I demanded. And added a couple violent adjectives.
So he hovered. I was able to complete my face. With a bit of yellow liquid, dulled by pale yellow powder, I was able to duplicate the skin tone of a Flisten race's upper class. With a skin stricture on each temple, I down-slanted my eye corners. With black-looking color shifters, the eyes became quite sinister. I was very pleased. I snapped a close-cut, black wig on and blackened the hair on either side of my face. Wonderful!
I scrambled and grunted myself out of my General Service uniform and into the custard of Army Intelligence. I dropped the high-rank chain over my head, put on the spike-heeled yellow boots and the flat cap. I put my own wallet and the identoplate of Timp Snahp in my pocket.
