They began to dig the hangar crew out.
Crobe they found in the bottom of the net where he had landed safely, only to be at once bombarded by rock following him down.
Apparently the beam box had shorted and the beams had ceased to support the walls they proofed against the numerous earthquakes of the area, and slabs of rock had sheered away from old faults.
These people were making a lot of to-do about nothing. The hangar walls were intact except for a few pockmark holes a yard or less in diameter. No equipment had been damaged unless you counted one safety net. There wasn't even anybody dead-only a fractured skull or two, and Prahd could patch those up.
But everybody passing me was giving me a most undeserved glare.
I had found what was wrong. The power pack in the needle stun rifle had not been recharged for two years and, low-powered, had missed his hand and shot low. My marksmanship was not in question. But nobody would stop long enough to hear the explanation.
They were very unappreciative. After all, I had gotten Crobe down. Not even Bugs Bunny could have done it any better.
I had retired to my room after it became plain, by certain remarks, that I was in the way. They had to get the wounded to the hospital and the beam box repaired quick in case there was an earthquake, and the floor was pretty messy. After all, they were professionals and I was above all such menial work.
Thus it was that just while I was enjoying a delicious dinner of cerkez tavugu-which is boiled chicken, Circassian style, with a sauce of crushed walnuts and red pepper-served by a somewhat beat-up but very obsequious staff, Faht Bey had the effrontery to buzz me again.
"They're ready for your conference," he said.
"Some other time," I said.
"Then my vote is that we feed your Doctor Crobe to a disintegrator bin."
"Wait, wait," I said. I thought very rapidly. I was well aware of the havoc Crobe could wreak: he was a very valuable asset in any Apparatus operation. Heller was very sneaky and he might recover or get lucky and then my neck would be out. Reluctantly, I said, "I will be right down."
The conference in the crew's quarters was attended by very grim faces. I walked in, blastick in my palm, taking no chances. I didn't sit down. It was not that I was invited to. It was simply very plain that the best place for a back was against a wall.
They had Doctor Crobe. Somewhat bandaged-most likely by himself-he was crouched on the floor, and there were three guards with three guns pointing at his head.
"I vote death," said the first assassin pilot who had been cut.
"Seconded," said the second assassin pilot.
"That settles it," said Captain Stabb. "The verdict is hanged by the teeth until he falls in a pot of boiling electronic fire."
"Hold it," I said. "I haven't heard the evidence or voted."
"Do you wish to enter a plea for responsibility?" said Faht Bey.
These fellows were going a bit too fast for me. The green glowplate didn't lend any cheer to the scene. I thought fast. Faht Bey had brought up an out for me but it was a tricky one. By Voltarian law, anyone who is knuckleheaded enough to take full responsibility for a prisoner, even when condemned, could have him. That was how the Apparatus could collect "executed" criminals. There was only one little hooker. If the person then, thereafter, committed any crime, the one who had taken responsibility-the claimant-could also be charged with that crime and if execution occurred could be executed with the criminal.
"It is quite certain," said the assassin pilot who had been cut and who seemed to be acting as the master of the conference, "that said Doctor Crobe will commit some other crime against base personnel, no matter how slight. In that event, the claimant can legally be executed. Therefore the conference entertains the plea. All those voting for it, raise your right index finger. The fingers have it. You are the claimant, Officer Gris. Conference adjourned."
"Wait!" I said.
They had all walked out, including the guards.
It was a frame-up!
Oh, what cunning (bleepards) they were! The probability of Doctor Crobe doing something else was an absolute certainty. I knew the man! What a murderous revenge that assassin pilot had taken. This could get me killed very dead in the most legal possible way. And right when I was in triumph everywhere. Low blow.
Crobe crouched there eyeing me with his glittery black eyes, probably wondering what to turn me into. I hoped it wasn't a spider. I dislike spiders.
I thought. Crobe crouched.
I remembered the expression on the assassin pilot's face when he glanced at me in leaving.
I saw a safety line in a coil, hanging above a bunk.
INSPIRATION!
I got the safety line. I wrapped it round and round Crobe's ankles. I wrapped it round and round his legs. I wrapped it round and round his body, pinning his arms to his sides. I wrapped it round and round his neck and head. I tied it with a triple knot and fused the ends. Not even a ghost could get out of that.
Speedily, I raced to my room.
From my safe I took fifty thousand Turkish lira, amounting to about five hundred U. S. dollars.
I raced back. I found the construction superintendent.
"I want to make a deal," I said. I showed him the money.
His eyes bugged, as I knew they would.
"You are going to build me a cell the like of which nobody ever heard of, and when you do, you get this."
He made a grab. I was too quick for him. "When done and when tested," I said.
"A few thousand on account," he said.
I peeled off ten thousand lira. I gave them to him. "The rest when you execute the plan."
He took the bills. "Where's the plan?"
A small detail I had overlooked. So we sat down near the cocooned Crobe and I drew the plan.
You can get carried away with these things. Once I began to draw I didn't really know when to stop. I kept thinking of other ways he could get out.
But finally we had it and, if I say so myself, it was a masterpiece.
At the very end of the detention corridor there was a big cell which had never been used. It was all the way back. Across the corridor, before you got to it, I would place a sheet of blastproof steel, heavily embedded in the stone of the walls. It would have a bulletproof viewport in it. The door through it would be openable only by combination lock.
Beyond that would be the normal cell bars and their door.
Between these two impenetrable barricades I would place a beam alarm system, so that if anybody got in it would ring and clang all over the place.
Now, there was a chance that Crobe might get persuasive to a guard, as he had already done. So I would leave no way whatever to communicate through these barriers. This required a new ventilation hole be drilled straight up to the air to come out, masked behind a rock, on the mountainside.
The possibility existed that Crobe might try to climb up it, so it would have spikes to gouge anyone who made such an attempt. And furthermore, it would have explosive charges in it, with crisscrossing trip wires, that would blow anyone to bits if they attempted to crawl up it. I would also put saw rays across the outside and inside entrances. In that way, Crobe could communicate to nobody in the cell block, would have air but couldn't get out.
Now for food. I designed a device which went through a maze with fifteen turnings. When you put something on a tray, it would float way up on antigravity pulses and then slide on antigravity rollers through all those turnings. More-it would have fifteen sealed doors that any tray would have to go through. Each door would have a living-presence detector on it and if anything live tried to squeeze through, the door would remain shut.
So far so good.
The light in the place would not hook up to any part of the base. Independent units, powered by the sun at the air-shaft entrance, would be the only power.