“What clever forgeries,” I said.
“Hells no,” said Raht. “They’re the authentic signatures. The school closed last spring for keeps and the ex-faculty will do anything for a buck. You think I want to get sent up for forgery?”
Always complaining, even when you give him a compliment.
“Where’s Terb?” I demanded. “We haven’t got much time.”
“Maybe he’s having trouble. The old clerk at that (bleeped) courthouse didn’t want to come down after hours.”
Captain Stabb looked in, pointing at his watch. “We’re going to have to race to make it now. We have to get back while it’s still night!”
But here was Terb, leaping in through the airlock. Terb is one of the most unremarkable Earthmen you’d ever want to see. A bit on the plump side, a bit swarthy, but you would never pick him out in a crowd. He’s from the planet Dolo and they were very glad to get rid of him.
“Not Officer Gris himself!” he said. “We must be important after all! Raht, I been wrong. All this time I been telling you we was just dirt and now…”
“Shut up,” I said. “Is the birth certificate fixed?”
Terb nodded. He took a small electric switch out of his pocket. “The old clerk wants to see him so he can attest the certificate is issued to a real person known to him that ain’t dead. He don’t like to be thought crooked. This bird we got here will present himself, hand over another C-note, get the certificate all signed. Then the instant he walks down the steps of that courthouse, I hit this and good-bye clerk, good-bye records. I planted the bomb before dawn today. Right in the record files!”
I gave them the activator-receiver. “This is a special bug. You must keep this within two hundred miles of him at all times.”
“But we got him bugged,” said Raht. “There’s bugs in those clothes and there’s bugs in those suitcases and we have the activator right here. We can’t possibly lose him!”
“This is another type of bug, an aerial bug,” I lied. “It’s inserted in his elbow and registers if he handles explosives or touches guns: we don’t want you getting shot.”
Oh, that was different!
“We can spot him from a ship with this,” I lied. “Now this is the 831 Relayer. Keep it right with the activator-receiver.’’
They got that.
“Just leave them turned on all the time. See, they look like a telephone connection box. You can put them on the outside of any building or under a bed.”
They promised.
Then Raht said, “Money. For us. Inflation is awful!”
I handed them a draft on the Chase-Arab New York Bank. They were happy. So was I: it was government money.
I gave them a few tips. Then I said, “Now get out of here before he sees you.”
They went diving out of the airlock, sprinted past the faintly moonlit plantation house and were gone.
Stabb was looking at his watch.
Heller came out. And oh, I had to laugh! Clothes to fit men six feet two inches tall aren’t to be had in southern Virginia. They were all too small!
Raht had done a wonderful job. The jacket was LOUD! Huge red and white checks. The pants were LOUD! Huge blue and white stripes. The hat was a bright green, banded Panama: too small! The shoes were orange suede and too tight! The shirt was purple!
He would stand out like a searchlight!
The clothes did look expensive, like they’d been bought by someone with lots of money and no taste at all.
And they looked like they had been outgrown.
Wonderful!
He was lugging the two huge suitcases.
“Don’t you think this wardrobe is a bit garish?” he said.
“In the height of fashion! In the height of fashion!” I replied.
I rapidly told him again where he was supposed to go to get his birth certificate. I handed him the other papers.
Then I knelt down in the airlock, pointing a night scope up the road. I wanted to make sure Raht and Terb were out of sight and that the area was still clear. Something was moving in the brush.
“I’m a bit hungry,” said Heller behind me. And then he seemed to wander off into the ship.
Stabb came to me. “He says he wants…”
“Give him whatever he wants,” I said. There was something moving over there by a slave cabin.
Heller was there again. “I’m going to need some money.”
Oh, yes. His money. The orders said five thousand dollars so he’d look affluent. I pulled two thousand out of my pocket and handed it to him. Three thousand wasn’t bad for a night’s work.
He was closing up some straps on a suitcase.
“We’re awful close to time,” said Stabb.
I saw what the object that had been moving was. A fox. To Hells with it.
I stood up and turned to Heller. I put out my hand. He, however, didn’t take it. Instead, he was extending a letter to me. “Do me a favor, would you, and mail this? I promised to keep him informed.”
I took it and put it in my pocket. I was too intent on getting rid of him to pay it any heed. “Well, good luck, Jettero,” I said. “This is it. Off you go.”
He dropped to the ground, lugging the two big cases. He limped off past the moonlit plantation house.
“Bye-bye, Heller,” I said to myself. “And I hope you make a lot of good friends in the pen!”
“We’re taking off,” said Stabb.
I got out of their way. The second engineer dropped out of the airlock with a machine in his hand. Stabb lifted the tug six feet off the ground and held it there. The second engineer ducked around with his machine and made all the grass stand up straight where the ship had been. He threw his machine into the airlock. The second pilot gave him a hand back aboard. They closed the latches.
The captain said to me, “Are you under orders to make our ship incapable of leaving this solar system?”
As a matter of fact, I was. From the assassin pilot. But it wouldn’t do to tell Stabb his ship was to be disabled. “Why?” I said.
“He took the time-sight out of the flight deck just now,” said the captain. “And if there’s another one, we can’t get to it. He’s double-barred all his cabins and storage spaces: we won’t be able to get into them even with a blastgun! Without a sight, we can’t fly her in outer space. But I suppose that’s what you required: you said to give him anything he wants.”
So what? Who wanted to ride in this (bleeping) tug and maybe get shot down?
Stabb sent the ship hurtling into the sky.
Now to race back to the base and land just before dawn.
Stabb cranked the tug auxiliaries up toward the speed of light.
I was jubilant.
Heller was off my hands!
I couldn’t wait to get back to a viewer and see how he got everything he had coming to him. The (bleepard). All the trouble he’d caused!
PART FOURTEEN
Chapter 1
Less than two hours later, I was sitting in my secret room in my villa, about 105 degrees of longitude from Heller, watching his every move.
I was ecstatic! The picture on the viewer was brilliant! The sound was perfect even down to the crickets! The 831 Relayer was doing its job!
I had to backtrack the recording strip a bit to where he left the ship.
And there he was, carrying two heavy suitcases, limping through the Virginia night. Up ahead there was a farmhouse, shedding light across a barnyard.
Any true spy, even slightly trained, would have taken a wide path around it. But not Heller!
There was a growl.
Then there was a savage snarl!
A huge sheep dog barred the way!