Heller came back in. He went into the crew quarters, as I could see in the reflecting port glass. He came out lugging a trash-disintegrator unit. He carried it over to the pile and small blue lights began to glow around the bodies as buttons and bits of metal momentarily resisted disintegration.
An intermittent flash of light appeared on the track to the road-house. It grew stronger. A car! The deputy sheriffs were coming in!
Oh, thank Gods, I would be saved! They would see the spaceship and come over, and I would yell at them that I was a Federal agent and order them to arrest Heller and Raht. I even had my Inkswitch I.D. with me. I wasn't going to be exterminated here after all! I'd even have Heller on a Code break.
The car lights bored straight at the spaceship. Then they veered off and pointed toward the front of the roadhouse.
The cops jumped out on either side of their car. Heller walked up to them.
Ralph said, "Having trouble here, whitey engineer?"
They weren't even looking at the spaceship. And then I realized with a sickening comprehension that it was that (bleeped) absorbo-coat—it hadn't even reflected their car lights back to them. To all intents and purposes, the tug was invisible!
Heller was closer to them now. George said, "We heard some shots and screams."
"Wildcat," said Heller.
"No (bleep)?" said Ralph.
"Must've come down from Canada," said George.
"We missed him clean," said Heller. "He ran down the creek bed, thataway." He was pointing.
The two deputies rushed off down the creek, drawing their guns. They went right off, leaving their car lights on! I groaned. Well, maybe when they came back they'd see something unusual and rescue me.
Heller was stuffing diamonds in the gunny sack on the porch. He tied the neck and threw it in the jeep.
He and Raht went into the house and shortly began to dolly out boxes from the deep mine shaft. They piled them outside the airlock.
Heller came in and spoke to the floorplates in the passageway. It was sort of eerie how the locks were tuned to his voice. "Hold hatch, open up," he said, and the floorplates flopped back with a clang.
He lowered himself down into the limited hold of the tug. In the reflecting glass, I saw him pop back almost instantly. "What's this?" he said. He was holding a sack he'd found. He opened it and peered at the contents. "Junk stones?" It was the flawed glitter I had bought in Switzerland to fool Captain Stabb. Heller took it to the airlock and tossed it to Raht.
He went back into the hold. He came up in a moment. "What the blazes?" He was carrying something heavy. He went to the airlock. "Of all things," he said to Raht. "There's about 750 pounds of gold ingots down there."
I felt like my skull had exploded. Stabb! He was the one who had stolen my first gold shipment. He'd hidden it in the tug hold, meaning probably, when he got a chance, to do away with me and steal the tug.
"Isn't that an awful lot of gold for this planet?" said Raht.
"It sure is," said Heller. "Worth about seven million dollars at current prices. We'll take it out of its boxes and you stack it on the floor of the jeep. Transfer it to my Porsche at the old lady's. She won't be able to see what it is."
I groaned again. Raht hadn't even killed the old lady. What a rotten Apparatus agent. He ought to be fired!
"That makes me nervous," said Raht. "That's an awful lot of money."
"Hand it over to my financial advisor, Izzy Epstein. He'll know what to do with it," said Heller. "Give me a hand and we'll load it."
They passed it out of the hold. Raht drove the jeep over, turned it around so the lights pointed at the house and they put the gold down on the back floorboards.
The deputies were coming back. I prayed they'd notice the black bulk of the tug and come over.
Heller went to meet them, very visible in the combined lights of the sheriff's car and the jeep.
"Didn't find him," said Ralph.
"Found his tracks, though," said George. "He's a big'un. Mind if we come over hunting him tomorrow?"
"Come ahead," said Heller. "As Maysabongo marines, you can hunt around here all you please. Just remember to wear your stars."
The deputy sheriffs went to their car. They got in. When they turned it around their headlights in the viewscreen almost blinded me!
They drove off and the bouncing haze of lights vanished from view. There was one chance gone. I still, however, had hopes. Suddenly I remembered the controls of the tug didn't work. It would be here all night and tomorrow in daylight it would be visible. A crowd would gather and I could yell to them I was a kidnapped Fed.
Heller and Raht were locking up the roadhouse.
They came back and began to pass boxes down into the hold.
Heller took the last one and turned it over and opened the wrong side.
A false bottom! So that was where he had gotten the blastgun to shoot the Antimancos with! That original cargo had had false-bottomed boxes! We had missed it on Voltar. He was taking some items out. He laid them in the airlock. Then he manhandled the rest of the box down into the hold. He was in there a while and I could hear him pulling things around, probably lashing things tight.
He came back and took up a unit he had taken from the box and handed it to Raht. "You give this to Izzy. It's a viewer-phone on a wavelength they've never heard of on this planet. I already pried the nameplates off, so tell him it's something I invented and it won't be any Code break. I'd appreciate it if you got this to him tonight. He can call me by pressing this button here. I couldn't say much over the phone from the plane as NSA monitors all those calls. I want to hear from him just as soon as possible. Got it?"
"Yes, sir," said Raht. "Won't he see you're in a spaceship?"
"I'll hold the camera low at my end. He'll only see my face and some pipes over my head. He's sort of used to me being in odd places anyway. He's already got a Voltarian time-sight in a locked box, so he's taken the security oath. Tell him that applies to this as well. We've still got an awful lot to do and he'll be pretty upset if he doesn't hear."
"Got it, sir," said Raht. I was nauseated. The traitor hadn't ever said "sir" to me.
Heller came over. He picked up the cat and set it on the instrument ledge. He said to me, "Agent Raht tells me that amongst other things you've had him on reduced pay and no allowances. Is that right?"
"Serves him right," I snarled. "He's a bungling idiot! And now that he's turned his coat, he'll sell you out too!"
Raht, in the airlock, said, "Don't you talk about being a traitor. You've broken every law in the book! All I've done is bring you to justice!"
Heller was ignoring this. He was going through my pockets even though I tried to squirm away. He found wads of paper and my wallet. I went absolutely cold. The Squeeza credit card I had recovered from Krak was in it. It had Heller's Empire State Building address written on the back. If he found that he'd know I was directly connected to his girl's death. He would murder me!
He was looking through the papers. He found a requisition blank. He filled it in, a restoration of Raht's pay and allowance with back pay. He took my identoplate and stamped it. He handed it to Raht to turn in to the New York office of the base.
Heller said to Raht, "I understand he promised you ten thousand dollars for the hit."
Raht shook his head. "No, sir, I don't want that."
"Well, here it is anyway," said Heller. He opened up the wallet and I prayed that he would miss that card. He removed ten one-thousand-dollar bills from my cash and handed them to Raht. "Buy a wreath for Terb's grave and get yourself some new clothes."
It infuriated me. I said, "I've got the laugh on you. You're not going to get out of here. This tug's controls won't operate. You're stuck!"