“It has been stated authoritatively that the Spakum fleets have been destroyed.”
“Yar, they were still saying so when that bomb fell on Shugruma,” Mowry reminded.
“True, true—I felt it land. In my own house two windows collapsed and a bottle of zith jumped off the table.”
By mid-afternoon thirty people had been fed the tale of the Shugruma and Gooma disasters, plus allegedly first-hand warnings of bacteriological warfare and worse horrors to come. They could no more keep it to themselves than a man can keep a tornado to himself. By early evening a thousand would have the depressing news. At midnight ten thousand would be passing it around. In the morning a hundred thousand—and so on until the whole city was discussing it.
At the arranged time he called Skriva. “What luck?”
“I’ve got the form. Have you got the money?”
“Yar.”
“It’s to be paid before tomorrow. Shall we meet same place as last?”
“No.” said Mowry. “It’s not wise to create a habit. Let’s make it someplace else.”
“Where?”
“There’s a certain bridge where you collected once before. How about the fifth marker past it going south?”
“That’s as good as anywhere. Can you go there at once!”
“I’ve got to pick up my car. It’ll take a little time. You be there at the seven-time hour.”
He reached the marker on time, found Skriva already waiting. Handing over the money, he took the requisition-form and examined it carefully. One good look told him that the thing was well-nigh impossible for him to copy. It was an ornate document as lavishly engraved as a banknote of high denomination. They could cope with it on Terra but it was beyond his ability to duplicate even with the help of various instruments of forgery lying in the cave.
The form was a used one dated three weeks ago and obviously had been purloined from the jail’s filing system. It called for the release to the Kaitempi of one prisoner named Mabin Garud but had enough blank spaces for ten names. The date, the prisoner’s name and number had been typed. The authorizing signature was in ink.
“Now we’ve got it,” prompted Skriva, “what are we going to do with it?”
“We can’t imitate it,” Mowry informed. “The job is too tough and will take too long.”
“You mean it’s no use to us?” He registered angry disappointment.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Well, what do you say? Am I to give this stinker his twenty thousand or do I cram the form down his gullet?”
“You can pay him.” Mowry studied the form again. “I think that if I work on it tonight I can erase the date, name and number. The signature can be left intact.”
“That’s risky. It’s easy to spot erasures.”
“Not the way I do them. I know how to gloss the surface afterward. The really difficult task will be that of restoring the broken lines of engraving.” He pondered a moment, went on, “But that may not be necessary. There’s a good chance the new typing will fill in the blanks. It’s hardly likely that they’ll put the form under a microscope.”
“If they were that suspicious they’d grab us first,” 5kriva pointed out.
“I need a typewriter. I’ll have to buy one in the morning.”
“I can get you a typewriter for tonight,” offered Skriva.
“You can? How soon?”
“By the eight-time hour.”
“Is it in good condition?”
“Yar, it’s practically new.”
Mowry eyed him and said, “I suppose it’s no business of mine but I can’t help wondering what use a typewriter is to you.”
“I can sell it. I sell all sorts of things.”
“Things you just happened to find lying in your hands?”
“That’s right,” agreed Skriva, unabashed.
“Oh well, who am I to quibble? You get it. Meet me here at eight.”
Skriva pushed off. When he’d gone from sight Mowry followed into the city. He had a feed, drove back to the marker. Soon afterward Skriva reappeared, gave him the type-writer.
Mowry said, “I want Gurd’s full name and those of his two companions. Somehow or other you’ll have to discover their prison numbers too. Can you do that?”
“I’ve got them already.” Taking a slip of paper from his pocket, Skriva read them out while the other made a note of them.
“Did you also learn at what times the Kaitempi make their calls to collect?”
“Yar. Always between the three and four-time hours. Never earlier, rarely later.”
“Can you find out about noon tomorrow whether Gurd and the others are still in the jail? We’ve got to know that—we’ll get ourselves in a fix if we arrive and demand prisoners who were taken away this afternoon.”
“I can check on it tomorrow,” Skriva assured. Then his face tautened. “Are you planning to get them away tomorrow?”
“We’ve got to do it sometime or not at all. The longer we leave it the bigger the risk of the Kaitempi beating us to the draw. What’s wrong with tomorrow, hi?”
“Nothing except that I wasn’t counting on it being so soon.”
“Why?”
“I thought it’d take longer to work things. out.”
“There’s little to work out,” declared Mowry. “We’ve swiped a requisition-form. We alter it and use it to demand release of three prisoners. Either we get away with it or we don’t. If we do, well and good. If we don’t, we shoot first and run fast.”
“You make it sound too easy,” Skriva objected. “All we’ve got is this form. It isn’t enough—”
“It won’t be enough, I can tell you that now. Chances are ten to one they’ll expect familiar faces and be surprised by strange ones. We’ll have to compensate for that somehow.”
“How?”
“Don’t worry, we’ll cope. Can you dig up a couple more helpers? All they need do is sit in the cars, keep their traps shut and look tough. I’ll pay them five thousand apiece just for that”
“Five thousand each? I could recruit a regiment for that money. Yar, I can find two. But I don’t know how good they’d be in a fight.”
“Doesn’t matter so long as they can look like plug-uglies. By that I don’t mean the Cafe Susun kind of roughneck, see? They’ve got to resemble Kaitempi agents.” He gave the other an imperative nudge. “The same applies to you. When it’s time to start the job I want to see all three of you clean and tidy, with well-pressed suits and neatly knotted neck-scarves. I want to see you looking as if about to attend a wedding. If you let me down in that respect the deal is off so far as I’m concerned.
You can count me out and go pull the stunt on your own. I don’t intend to try kid some hard-faced, gimlet-eyed warden with the aid of three scruffy looking bums.”
“Maybe you’d like us decked out in fashionable jewellery,” suggested Skriva sarcastically.
“A diamond on the hand is better than a smear of dirt,” Mowry retorted. “I’d rather you overdid the dolling-up than mooched along like hoboes. You’d get away with a splurge because some of these agents are flashy types.” He waited for comment but the other said nothing, so he continued, “What’s more, these two helpers had better be characters you can trust not to talk afterward—else they may take my five thousand and then get another five thousand from the Kaitempi for betraying you.”
Skriva was on firm ground here. He gave an ugly grin and promised, “One thing I can guarantee is that neither of them will say a word.”
This assurance and the way it was made bore a sinister meaning but Mowry let it pass and said, “Lastly, we’ll need a couple of dynos. We can’t use our own unless we change the plates. Any ideas on that?”