“It was a Fleet vessel,” I said, backing up.
“Listen, Gris, you wouldn’t want me to report you for violations, would you?”
I backed up further. “It was just an oversight.”
He stepped closer. I had never seen colder eyes. “How can anybody expect me to shoot a ship down when I can’t find it? Get a call-in beamer installed in that hull!”
I tried to back up further but the hull of a warplane was at my back. I felt desperate. “I am not under your orders.”
“And we,” he said, “are not under yours!”
The other assassin pilot and the two copilots behind him all nodded as one, with a single jerk of their heads. They were very grim, cold professionals at their trade; they wanted things straight!
It was a bad situation. I would sometimes be in that tug. It was unarmed and unarmored. One single shot from either of these warplanes could turn the Prince Caucalsia into space dust in a fraction of a second.
“So, two orders,” said the assassin pilot. “One: order the hangar chief to install a call-in beamer on that ship’s exterior hull so secretly and in such a place that its crew will never know it is there. Two: I want that ship crippled so that it cannot leave this system on its time drives and try to outrun us.”
“There’s a Royal officer aboard her,” I said.
“Well, decoy him away from the ship so the beamer can be put on the hull. I’ll leave the crippling of her up to you as you’re the best one to get inside her.”
I nodded numbly. I was at a terrible disadvantage. I had left my room so fast I had not taken a gun. I had broken a firm rule never to be around Apparatus people unarmed. And then, I realized, it wouldn’t have done me any good even if I had been armed. They would have complained to Lombar I was refusing his orders.
I nodded nervously.
“Then we’re friends?” he said.
I nodded and offered my hand.
He raised his red-gloved fingers and slapped me across the face, hard, contemptuously.
“Good,” he said. “Do it.”
I raced off to give the secret order to the hangar chief. I raced up the ladder and got Heller to come out.
I took Heller to the hangar map room, out of sight of the tug.
He was in work clothes. He had been doing something inside. His red racing cap was on the back of his head. “Where’d the two ‘guns’ come from?” he asked.
“They’re just guard ships,” I said. “Stationed here. They’ve been away. Nothing to do with the mission.” It gave me a little lift of satisfaction, thinking of what his reaction would be if he knew they were here especially to keep track of his beloved tug and shoot it down if it did anything odd or didn’t return at once from a flight. I only hoped I wouldn’t be aboard when they hit it: an unarmed, unarmored tug wouldn’t stand a chance!
“We will probably be leaving tomorrow,” I said. “While we are near maps, I wanted to show you the U.S. terrain.”
“Hello,” he said, looking at them. “ ‘U.S. Geological Survey.’ It even shows the minerals!”
“And everything even down to the farmhouses,” I said, glad to be able to engage his interest and prevent him from seeing what they were doing in the hangar. “We can make better farmhouse ones, of course, but the minerals are a bonus.
“Now, probably we will be landing in that field there.” And I pointed to the section in southern Virginia I had seen noted on the Lombar orders.
“The town,” I continued, “is named Fair Oakes. See it there? This over here is a better, more detailed map. This is Hamden County. Fair Oakes is the county seat. Now, see this building? That’s the Hamden County Courthouse. The squiggles show it is on a little hill.
“All right,” I said. “Now, pay attention. We will land in this field: it’s a ruined plantation and nobody is ever around. The trees will mask us from any road.
“Now, you will leave the ship there, walk up this path that is indicated, pass this farmhouse, walk up the hill to the back of the courthouse and go in.
“You will be issued your birth certificate — an old clerk will be there even though it is after hours. And then you will walk down this hill and go to the bus station.
“There is a late-night bus. You will take it north to Lynchburg. You will probably change at Lynchburg and then go through Washington, D.C., and up to New York.”
He was being very attentive but looking at the maps. Actually, it was hardly worth explaining what he would be doing after that. The Rockecenter, Jr. false name Lombar had set up for him would draw attention and he’d be spotted. If he registered even at a motel, somebody would be startled enough to call the local press that a celebrity was in town. But it would be no celebrity: just a false name! And then, bang! Rockecenter’s connections would take over. Bye-bye Heller! It was a cunning trap Lombar had laid. There is no Delbert John Rockecenter, Junior!
“You must be sure and use the cover name at all times,” I said. “America is very identity conscious. If you don’t have identification, they go crazy. So be sure you announce and use your cover name when you get it. It’s even a felony not to give a name to the police when they ask for it. Do you understand all that?”
“And what will this cover name be?” said Heller, still looking at the maps.
“Oh, I don’t know yet,” I lied. “We have to get a proper birth certificate. A name doesn’t mean anything unless you can show a birth certificate. It depends on what ones are available there in the Hamden County Courthouse.”
“Hey,” he said, “they’ve got some gold marked on these maps. I was reading some books on the United States and it said the gold was all in the West. Look here. There’s gold marked in Virginia. And on these other maps, there’s gold in Maryland. And there’s gold up here in these… New England?… states.”
“Oh, that was all mined out back in what they call ‘colonial’ times. Way back.” I didn’t know much about geology but I knew that much. I’d seen it before and last year had told Raht to go dig some up and he’d laughed fit to burst. It was then he had explained the maps probably meant “had been.”
“I see,” said Heller. “These surveyors just noted what they call indicators: rose quartz, iron hat, serpentine schist, hornblende. But these… Appalachian?… mountains and those to the northeast are some of the oldest mountains on the planet and I guess you could find anything in them if you looked. This northern… New England?… area was all scuffed up with glaciers in times past: that’s obvious from the topography. So maybe some of the glaciers cut the tops off some peaks and exposed some lodes. Country sure looks pushed around.”
I kept him chattering happily about what he saw. Just a (bleeped) engineer. Sitting here while they bugged his blessed ship! Stupid beyond belief where the Apparatus was concerned. A child in the hands of espionage and covert operations experts. Why be interested in maps? The only thing he’d see for many a year to come was the inside of a penitentiary.
An hour went by. The hangar chief tossed me a signal behind Heller’s back.
“All right,” I said. “But there’s just one thing I, as your handler, must caution you about. Book of Space Codes Number a-36-544 M Section B. Disclosure that you are an extraterrestrial is not authorized. You must not reveal your true identity in any way. The Voltar penalties for that would be far more severe than anything this planet could hand out. You know that and I know that. So for your own protection, I must ask you to give me your word, as a Royal officer, that you will not reveal your actual identity.”
“Soltan, are you trying to insult me? You are bound by those codes, too. You’re not the Emperor to be laying down Voltar law in your own name. But as long as we are on this subject, you do anything to violate Space Codes, and, as a Royal officer and personally, I will have you before the Grand Council stretched so long and thin you’ll sound like a chorder-beat if they pluck you.”