“It might be better to wait until the power demand is at the low.”
“N way,” Harry said. “JPL has its own supply, always at the peak.”
“Then now is as good as any time. I’d like to move on to Tokyo soon.”
“I’ll go see how the Chief is doing,” I said.
He was doing fine with Fee hovering over him while he seemed to be berating Natoma in Cherokee for abandoning the high morality of Eriedom. Natoma was laughing. “He man showven pig,” she told me in XX. M’bantu had taught her a lot while he was helping her turn into the latest shout.
“The Group is waiting to crunch you into the capsule,” I said. “Are you ready?”
“Y.” He got out of the bed. “So I’ve converted you.”
“Hell no! I don’t believe in your doublegaited salvation, but the Group tries to stick together.”
“You remind me of Voltaire, Guig. ‘I hate everything you say but will fight to the death for your right to say it.’”
“Which Voltaire never said, according to Tosca. Come downstairs.”
He listened for a moment and I knew who he was listening to. “R as usual, Guig; only attributed to Voltaire and I haven’t quoted it accurately. Coming.”
There were five Abominable Snowman neutrals waiting in the chopper. Two for Harry and Jimmy and two for the Chief and Fee. The fifth? They all looked at me.
“Not me,” I said. “I want to tepee with my blue wife.”
“Come on, Guig.”
“Why me?”
“You recruited Guess. You’ve got to see it through.”
“Through to what? I don’t even know where this demented op is going. Natoma, tepee?”
“Take care brother, Glig,” Natoma said. “You go. I wait.”
So I go, just as M’bantu brought in Borgia a mite too late. Apologies and split. While we were squirming into our neutrals in the chopper I asked Erie’s favorite son, “What’s your program?”
“Vague and desperate, but anything to get away from U-Con. Loft by kinorep and then use the laterals to get off the premises. I only hope there’s enough gas left.”
“You’ve got full tanks. The tech crynappers filled them for their dastardly crime.”
“That’s a plus, but it’s the only one. I’m in a hell of a pickle. Can I steal a rocket vehicle? I’ve never heard of anyone trying that.”
“The larceny might make your lam easier.”
“If I can, where do I go? The orbiting cyclotron? Ceres and I.G. Farben? The Greek’s mine? I don’t know yet. It’ll take working out, and anyway I’m waiting on Edison’s analysis. Probably it’ll have to be a parking orbit, if I can heist a vehicle.”
“Will the Extrocomputer go along with this?”
He gave me a penetrating look. “What makes you ask that?”
“I know. I got the scenario from Fee-5.”
“She hears too much,” he snapped and cased himself in the neutral.
Harry led us into JPL, again giving all the correct signs and countersigns. “V bad security,” he said. “The code should change every four hours.” At the double doors to the landing theater we stopped and Jimmy Valentine took over. He inspected the moiré pattern shield carefully. Then he got out of the neutral and opened his coverall, displaying more tools than the Chief carried. “Twenty minutes max,” he said. “Stiff all snoops.”
He went to work and it was like Rutherford exploring the secrets of the atom. Harry was peering over his shoulder and the two were mumbling electronics to each other. I was sorry Edison wasn’t with them, but on the other hand he might have been so disputatious that the twenty minutes max might have turned into fifty. So, more waiting.
A uniformed guard came prowling down the broad corridor, thinking his own thoughts. He saw the Snowmen and nodded. Then he saw Jimmy in mufti, working on the shield, and he started forward, alert and purposeful. I wanted to ask him to show us his new wristwatch but instead I said in XX, “Chief. Lepcer. Use Indian guile.”
I started toward the guard ready to swing a swindle but Sequoya beat me with a tiger leap and had both arms around the guard’s neck and a knee in his gut. You might have thought it was a gay romance but the knee pounded up twice and the guard went down, no longer of this world. The Chief disarmed him and tossed the weapon to me. Jimmy and Harry hadn’t even turned around.
“This is guile?” I said.
“It’s a tough habit to break,” he grunted. “I’ll have to learn.”
“Did you kill him?” Fee asked in a choked voice.
“N.”
“Just dulled his rotten old sexuality for a while,” I said cheerfully to soothe her.
The moiré pattern changed to a linear, then a reticulation, then an ogee, then an expanding circle, and finally disappeared.
“Enter,” Jimmy said.
“Fifteen minutes,” Harry said. “Did anybody ever call you a genius, Jimmy?”
“The Bank of England. In an All Points Bulletin. I’d like to leave for Tokyo now. I’m falling behind the bust schedule.”
“Just a few more minutes. He’s got to get that thing out of here and then I have to get you out of here. Pack your tools and put on the neutral.”
Meanwhile Fee and the Chief had opened the doors and we all went into the theater. Now the Chief took over. He handed Fee a light pencil. “Unlock the console. The combination is dit-dit-dah-dah-dit-dah.” Fee inserted the pencil into a socket and flashed it. The Chief opened the hatch of the capsule and poked his head in for a brief inspection. Then he slammed the hatch and locked it, looking satisfied. Harry, Jimmy, and I stood back and watched with about as much interest as the guard was showing.
“Flash combo went out ten years ago,” Jimmy murmured.
“People don’t keep up with the times,” Harry murmured. “Our luck.”
“First time I ever helped heist a spacecraft.”
“Me too. There’s no money in it.”
“Fee. Alert,” the Chief snapped.
“Yes, Chief.”
“Iris.”
She did things to the console and the iris leaves high overhead opened.
Guess took over at the console and motioned to her. She went to the edge of the landing pad and knelt down, raising a hand to give signals. I assume her tongue was between her teeth but she was in the neutral so I couldn’t see. The Chief did things at the console and Fee waved signs and the capsule lifted toward the iris. Sequoya stepped back and watched intently as it lofted. Fee, still kneeling almost in prayer, watched too. Just before the cryocapsule reached the open iris on its way to somewhere it stopped abruptly and hung there.
“What in God’s name!” Guess exclaimed and darted to the console. Before he could touch any of the controls the capsule slanted down, all the mass of it, and crushed the life out of Fee.
9
When I got to the tepee at last, Natoma was there with Borgia and M’bantu. Also the wolves. Also Jacy. I was too exhausted to be surprised. The Zulu took one look at my face and said, “I will take the wolves for a walk.”
“No, please. It might be better for me to talk. You know what happened?”
“We do,” Borgia said. “Guess called at the house and asked us to come here. He told us why.”
“Dr. Guess said you would probably try to hole up like a sick animal and would need all help,” M’bantu added.
“Dio! Do I!” I tried to crawl up to reality. “I — Where’s the Greek?”
“He go,” Natoma said. “Businessiness.”
“What has happened to the poor girl’s clay?” Jacy asked.
“They — They wanted to bury her in a public compost. I held out for a private. El Arrivederci. That’s what took so long… Arrivederci… Until we meet again. Isn’t that a laugh? Fee w-would have—” I began to cry. I’d been holding it back for hours and now it came out in bursts and heaves. Natoma put her arms around me to comfort me. I shook her off. “No,” I said. “I killed her. I deserve nothing.”