The map offered a street-by-street detail of the military sector. I located several munitions depots within striking distance of where I stood. I thought about the chicanery I hoped to accomplish and started to formulate a plan.
I also picked up a shadow while I was at the train station.
CHAPTER THIRTY
He was an old man. He might have been in his eighties, he might have been in his nineties. That old fellow might have lived on Earth when man first attempted instantaneous travel, for all I knew. After a certain point, the ravages of age do no more damage. This ancient fellow had long since left that point behind. His white hair was as fine as cotton filaments. The hint of pink on his wrinkled white skin was the only color in his face, and his stiffly hunched shoulders rode high on his neck.
He made no effort to hide his curiosity about me but walked right up to me and stared into my face. His dark eyes did not flinch under their bushy white eyebrows, and his thin lips seemed to curl over his gums as he stared up at me. He squinted, and then put on old-fashioned glasses with half-inch-thick lenses that made his eyes look too large for his face.
It did not occur to me at the moment, but I should have realized that an old Mogat like that might well know my face. Well, he would not know me, but he would know my kind. Fifty years earlier, a battalion of Liberators invaded the Mogat stronghold and ended the Galactic Central War. But, as I say, that had not yet occurred to me as the old man gaped at me.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“You.” His voice was as dry as a reed in December. “You, what is your name?” he demanded.
I did not want to alarm the old fellow, so I humored him. “Klein,” I said. A large portion of the Mogat population went by a single name. Klein was a Mogat I met shortly after joining the Marines. He tried to kill me twice. The first time he lost a hand. His second attempt ended with his execution.
“Klein,” the man repeated. His lips worked the name a few more times, but only whistling breath came out of his mouth. Then he shook his head and walked away.
I thought he was gone and breathed a sigh of relief. Five minutes later the old man returned with a solider—a tall, muscular-looking gent. The soldier wore the jade green fatigues of the Mogat Army. He had a sidearm. He might well have been with the military police.
Withered old prick, I thought to myself as I saw the old man and his companion heading toward the train platform. They were about two hundred feet away. The soldier clearly wanted to run after me, but the old man now clung on to him for support. As the soldier studied me, our eyes met. Even from this distance, I did not like what I saw.
At that moment, a cool wind blew across my neck and a train rocketed into the station. The train was long, low, and squat—about thirty feet wide and ten feet tall, traveling on a cushion of magnetic levitation.
I chanced a quick look back and saw the soldier running in my direction. The old man stood watching the scene, still pointing at me. It was at that moment that I finally woke up to the possibility that the old man might well have fought in the Galactic Central War. Suddenly I realized that he might not have mistaken me for someone else. With that momentary epiphany, I jumped onto the train, not caring where it took me. Had I realized where the train was headed, I would never have boarded. It took me to Military Administration—the Mogat Pentagon.
Looking through the train window, I could see the soldier sprinting after me. Come and get it, big boy, I thought to myself, knowing that the best outcome for me would be for the soldier to catch me before he reported sighting a Liberator. Right now it was just the soldier, the old man, and me. I would not feel bad about killing the soldier or the old man if I had to.
The soldier scrambled past pedestrians and leaped up onto the platform. I lost sight of him from there, but he certainly boarded the train before it pulled out of the station.
Each car in the train could carry a hundred passengers, but mine was almost empty. There were only about ten or maybe twelve other passengers. I stood on one end of the car. The soldier entered from the opposite side. He stood staring at me for a moment as he caught his breath. Even if the old man had recognized me as a Liberator, why should the soldier believe such a thing? We had supposedly gone extinct decades ago. I was even more of a fossil than the old geezer who spotted me.
Deciding to take the straightforward approach, I walked right up to that soldier, and asked, “What was with that old man?”
The soldier was a big man. He stood an inch or two taller than me. He probably stood six-five, and he might have outweighed me by forty pounds. He had bristly red hair cropped well above his ears.
“He came up to me in the station looking upset about something,” I continued, still hoping to defuse the situation.
The soldier glared at me and nodded. “He thinks you’re a clone.”
“A clone?” I asked.
“A Liberator clone,” the soldier said.
“A Liberator clone?” I asked, trying to sound as if I had just heard a joke. “I’ve been called a lot of things, but this is the first time anyone has accused me of being a Liberator.”
“You and I are going to step off the train at the next station,” the soldier said. He sounded angry. The insignia on his sleeves must have identified him as military police of some sort. He did not hesitate to order me off the train. If I read his bars correctly, he was a sergeant. I was disguised as a lieutenant. He should not have been speaking to me this way. Only an MP would act so rashly.
“I’m late for a…”
Up to this point, we spoke to each other in polite tones. None of the other passengers should have heard us. “Get off at the next stop,” he growled. He punctuated the command by resting his hand on his pistol.
“If I miss this meeting, it will be your ass,” I said.
As the train started to slow, a young couple stood up to leave. The woman had her arm around the young man’s biceps. They looked like they were in love. The man, a sailor in uniform, saw me, and did a double take. Then he saw the soldier with his hand on his pistol grip. He scurried out of the car the moment the doors opened, pulling the woman behind him.
“What’s the rush?” she asked.
“Hurry!” he snapped.
By the time we stepped onto the platform, the young lovers were halfway down the stairs to the street. I stood in front with the MP inches behind me and to my left. “That old man was wrong,” I said, without looking back.
I could see the MP’s reflection in the train window. He still had that angry expression. His hand was still on the pistol in his belt. I was unarmed.
“They showed us video feeds from the invasion when I was in school. The Liberators in those records looked just like you,” the MP said.
I did not respond. With those words, he had sealed his fate.
By this time the sailor and his girlfriend had completely disappeared and the train had continued down the track. The MP shoved me from behind. Up ahead, I saw a doorway. It might have led to a security station or maintenance closet.
I felt something poking into my back and knew that the man had pulled his gun. “This way,” the MP barked. The man was big and tough. He held the gun steady, but he held it too close. He stood too close.
“Move,” he said.
“You don’t need the pistol,” I said.
“I’m tired of telling you to move,” he said.
I looked around the platform. We were alone. I could see people walking along the sidewalks outside the station, but there was a fence around the platform. The pedestrians could not see us clearly.
“For the last time, clone, move.”