“Just a matter of meters. Nothing interstellar. What do you think?”
“Isn’t it dangerous?”
“Not according to the lab boys,” Arleigh said. “They say this is a standard piece of merchandise on most Rik worlds. Sort of the equivalent of an HM Lektrosport. It’s designed so we can’t do anything terribly stupid, like pop out in the middle of a wall somewhere.”
“If we do, can we sue the Riks?”
“From what you told me, we’d have a hard time finding the dealer who sold it to us.”
“I guess so,” Harry admitted. “Come on over, then. You know where I am.”
Arleigh was there in less than half an hour. He smiled when he stepped through the door and pulled the transit device out of the rik-sack. It took them a couple of minutes to prepare. They dressed for the cold—Arleigh in a quilted down vest, Harry in his rik-suit.
“We’re going to take just a little jump,” Arleigh said. “One hundred meters to the north exactly. Just across the street from here.”
Harry looked through string bead curtains at the high green walls of Fenway Park—less than a hundred meters away to the north.
“Sounds good to me. Play ball.”
Arleigh smiled, an expression made ominously wolfish by his red beard. “Stand by—on zero—four… three… two… one….” They both sucked in their breaths and jammed their eyes shut involuntarily. There was a moment of darkness, deeper than night and briefer than a thought—
—And then they were falling!
The drop was brief, but the rush of adrenaline started Harry’s heart pounding like a triphammer. Arleigh let out a yell just before they hit the ground. In better weather it might have been a softer landing, but the winter chill had left the grassy outfield as hard as concrete.
Harry felt as if he’d broken his kneecap, but the pain faded quickly. Arleigh looked stunned.
“Damn! I forgot—the field in Fenway is sunk below street level!” he cried.
“Next time warn me before we do something like that,” Harry said, rubbing his knee.
“It’s just as well,” Arleigh said. “We might just as easily have wound up knee-deep in a snow bank.”
He looked around. A bright blue sky formed a canopy overhead. The scoreboard was dark and silent, the bleachers empty, and the seats dusted with snow. And the Big Green Wall loomed over them in left field.
“Well, I guess we re lucky then,” Harry said. “Now what?”
“Now we run like hell,” Arleigh said. “Here come the guard dogs.”
Three large, dark shapes came racing across the infield from the dugout in great distance-swallowing bounds.
Arleigh grabbed the transit device, and Harry looked around for the best direction to escape. “We’re never going to make it,” he said.
The three animals drew swiftly closer. Arleigh swore under his breath. Harry could see that he was on-line, involved with menus and mice. He knew as well as Arleigh did that they didn’t have a prayer of calculating the proper distance and elevation to get onto the street, let alone back to the motel. All he could do was stand by helplessly until they were cornered.
“I just hope these dogs are trained to hold off instead of attack,” Harry said.
In less than a minute, the animals were upon them. It was then that astonishment overtook fear.
“Arleigh, I may be imagining this, but I don’t think those are dogs”
The MIT professor broke from his internal contemplation of the MRI on-line network long enough to focus on the three creatures that were now spreading out to surround them. “I think you’re right,” he said.
The animals were too bulky, their legs too muscular, and their heads too big for dogs. Besides that, they were wearing black vests with radios attached.
“Stop where you are!” commanded the leader of the small pack. “You are trespassing. The police have been called. You will wait until they arrive to be arrested.”
“Who’s to be arrested?” Harry asked. “Us or the police?”
The lead animal shook its head in puzzlement. “I do not understand the question.”
“Syntactical ambiguity,” Harry said. “You told us to wait until the police arrive to be arrested. That can be interpreted to mean that the police will arrive to be arrested, and we’re to wait until they do.”
“Dirty-bad language,” the leader said. “Too many dirty-bad meanings.”
“You’re not guard dogs,” Harry said. “You’re offworlders. What are you doing here?”
“We are under contract through Mass-Rik Imports to guard these premises. We come from Howl-Moon-Rock on special employment visas. Sorry we put your dogs out of a job, but we have to eat, too.”
“Alien labor contractees,” Arleigh said. “I don’t believe it.”
Harry chuckled. “I guess it’s better than a bunch of Dobermans ready to rip our throats out.”
“Yeah. I’ll bet you couldn’t get a good grammar discussion going with a Doberman without a pocket full of liver snacks.”
“What are you guys doing this far from home?” Harry asked, ignoring Arleigh’s remark. “No jobs back on Howl-Moon-Rock?”
“Our world economy broke down several lifetimes ago,” the lead guard said. “We now provide contract services for the Rik, and they provide our race with its basic needs.”
“Several lifetimes ago? That wouldn’t be about the time the Rik came upon you, would it?” Arleigh asked.
Before the alien could answer, Harry asked: “How much do you make on this job?”
“Make? Dirty-bad ambiguity again.”
“Earn. Profit. Surplus product. How much?”
“No earning. No profit. No surplus product. I repeat: We provide contract services for the Rik, and they provide our race with its basic needs.”
“Slave alien labor contractees,” Arleigh said.
“Slave alien labor contractees who talk too much,” Harry noted. “I’ll bet the Rik wouldn’t like it if they knew what they’ve told us about them ”
“I wish we could repay the favor.”
“Me, too. But I’m afraid we don’t have time right now to explain to them the theory of labor value.”
“It would be more in our interest to find a higher place to wait for the police,” Arleigh said. “If-ay oo-yay oh-knay at-whay I ean-may.”
Harry smiled and nodded in agreement. “Say fellow, do you think we could get out of the wind. Center field in February is no place to wait for Boston’s finest.”
“Boston’s finest?” the pack leader asked.
“Police. It’s a figure of speech. Another dirty-bad ambiguity. Really, though, couldn’t we wait in an office upstairs? Or at least up out of the wind.”
The alien paused for a moment, tilting its head from side to side. It sniffed the air, then declared: “Follow me. And do not try anything tricky. We are authorized to use violent force if you attempt to escape.”
“Nothing could be further from our minds,” Harry said as they marched towards home plate in single file, the leader first, humans next, and the other two guards in the rear. “By the way, you’re not telepathic or anything, are you?”
“If we were, we wouldn’t need dirty-bad language to communicate, would we?” it replied.
They passed through a gate behind home plate and through two sets of swinging double doors into a corridor lined with frosted glass. Harry’s heart sagged as he realized that they were still at the level of the ballfield, then soared when they turned into a flight of wide stairs halfway down the hall. They went up two flights, then into a low-ceilinged lobby area where the guards took up positions at either end and the leader stationed itself in front of the main doorway.
“The police will be here in a minute or two,” it said. “Do not attempt to resist arrest.”
“No problem,” Harry said. “Arleigh, how are we doing?”