Mission Earth 8: Disaster Read online

  He leaped behind a shrub. He levelled his weapon and fired. A blastrifle does not flash as it shoots, but splashes of deadly energy laced into the target. Then Stabb was pointing at the screen, trying to shout. On the screen there had appeared THREE MORE INFRARED TARGETS!

  The second engineer blazed away.

  TWO MORE TARGETS!

  Suddenly the second engineer let out a piercing scream.

  He leaped into the air.

  HIS WHOLE HEAD BLEW OFF!

  "Quick, (bleep) it!" cried Stabb to the two pilots. "Grab weapons, set them to body heat and wipe that area flat!"

  The two pilots hurtled out the door, slapping at the tops of their weapons.

  They spaced out to the right and left.

  They dropped into cover.

  Stabb had slid into the pilot seat. He was twisting scope dials. He had it on body heat.

  A target to the right of the roadhouse.

  The pilot furthest from us fired.

  A heat target to the left. The furthest pilot fired again.

  A heat target much further to the left.

  The pilot began to fire on automatic.

  Suddenly he let out a shriek.

  He leaped into the air.

  The whole hip area vanished!

  The other pilot was firing hysterically.

  Heat target after heat target was popping up all over the field.

  Frantically he tried to zero in on them.

  Abruptly he screamed and leaped up into the air.

  His head and torso disintegrated!

  "LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!" cried Stabb.

  He was in the local-pilot seat.

  I leaped to the star-pilot seat.

  Stabb was pulling levers and pushing buttons.

  NOTHING HAPPENED!

  We were earthbound!

  The tug controls wouldn't operate!

  Stabb's eyes glazed.

  Then he stood up. He looked at me. "You led us into a trap, Officer Gris!" he snarled. "And I'll be dead in minutes. But I've got just one more job to do." He was reaching to his belt and withdrawing a knife and from the way he looked at me, I knew what he intended. He was going to kill me!

  I grabbed at my control star. I pressed the top prong, that should have given him an electric shock.

  NOTHING HAPPENED!

  I hit the center and pressed the top again. It should have thrown him into a trance.

  NOTHING HAPPENED!

  "Lombar Hisst," said Captain Stabb, "gave me orders that if you fouled up I was to kill you out of hand."

  THE UNKNOWN ASSASSIN HAD BEEN CAPTAIN STABB!

  He raised the blade to plunge it into my chest.

  The expression on his face froze.

  He suddenly folded up over a pilot seat, a long Knife Section knife protruding from his back!

  Someone had thrown it through the airlock!

  Chapter 3

  Footsteps.

  Somebody was coming.

  I was trying to get at my gun.

  "Just sit there quietly, Gris. I can see in there but you can't see me."

  HELLER'S VOICE!

  His ghost!

  Oh, Gods. I began to shake with every bone.

  "Unfasten that gunbelt and throw it out the door."

  Moaning, I did just that.

  "Put your hands high in the air."

  I did that quickly. I was facing front. I did not dare turn and look. I did not know what seeing a ghost would do to my psyche.

  A light footstep behind me.

  Suddenly a piece of line went around my wrists. They were snapped down. Coils of line went around my body and I was wrapped to the pilot seat and tied.

  More footsteps. In the pilot viewports I could see the reflection of the ghost going back through the passageways, kicking open doors, ready to fire if anyone else was there.

  Another voice. "So you were trying to get me killed, just like you did my partner, Terb."

  RAHT!

  I looked sideways. There he was in solid flesh, his mustache bristling out on either side below his nose. He was holding a gun on me!

  "Traitor!" I rasped.

  "Oh, no, Gris. You're the traitor. When you lured that beautiful woman to her death, you turned my stomach. And ordering me to murder a Royal officer! You must be crazy!"

  "Then he’s not dead? He's not a ghost?"

  Raht gave a nasty, squeaky laugh. "He's no ghost. He's a REAL officer, the kind you never could be. When he left for Italy, I followed him. I knew he was out of range of the bugs you had on him and I told him what had been going on. He showed me his orders. From the Grand Council, too.

  "So I came back here ahead of him, gave the old blind woman a note that her niece read to her, and came on through and set this all up like we planned."

  "You mean he actually trusted you out there with a rifle?"

  "I didn't have any rifle. Those were just flash charges I set up. I called, he came out. I ignited one by the door. Then another one by a bush. Then he fired and I ignited a third, all by remote. I simply shut off the visio switch on the activator-receiver. And your viewer went blind. Then he threw down a piece of iron so you'd think his gun had fallen and he stamped his foot so it sounded like a body and I cut off the audio switch."

  "You mean, you turncoat, that you also set up this battle?"

  "No, no. He did that when he knew that you were deaf and blind. He put infrared illusions all around and body heat simulators, all remote. We controlled them from way over in the woods. We were nowhere near you! Oh, he's a real officer, he is—a joy to work with one for a change. Nothing like the trash you are. Terb has been avenged!"

  I was still confused. "Why did those men leap up in the air with a shriek?"

  "Oh, that was his secret weapon. It found and clawed each man in turn. A remote-controlled, radio-directed cat."

  Heller's voice behind me: "Get up there, Mister Calico. Sit on his chest and if he moves or speaks, hit him."

  The cat sprang up into the spaceship. It sailed onto my chest. It sat there glaring balefully at me.

  I opened my mouth to speak.

  The cat raked my face with savage claws.

  "I think he knows," said Raht, "that you had a hand in killing his mistress. I'd watch out if I were you. That's a hit cat to end them all! It scares me to death!"

  I looked down into its close-up baleful eyes.

  It was sort of snarling down deep.

  I did not dare move.

  Chapter 4

  Heller said, "Let's get this battlefield cleaned up, Agent Raht. Those shots might attract visitors."

  He picked up the corpse of Stabb and dragged it out through the airlock. They worked outside and I could see them making a pile of bodies. I shuddered. I was certain they were going to kill me, too.

  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 invi
sible!

  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!"

  "Oh, thanks for reminding me," said Heller. He went out and dug around in the dirt and came back with a cylinder. It was emitting a faint buzz. He switched it off and threw it in a cabinet. "The only reason I called you in here," he said, "was I needed the tug. You landed on an engine-control cancellation coil that operated the moment you opened your airlock. You stupidly had it open already when you landed. Only the air cushion kept you from crashing. Stupid Antimancos." ;

  "I got their I.D. plates," said Raht. "You want them?"

  "Throw them in that drawer," said Heller. "They're probably false anyway. Unless I miss my guess they were ex-subofficers from the Fleet, probably under condemnation to death and grabbed by the Apparatus."

  "Can you really run this tug all by yourself?" said Raht.

  Heller reached down to a floorplate and pulled it up. An array of buttons and controls I had never seen before were disclosed. He was closing switches and activating it. "That captain was a know-it-all," said Heller. "Typical subofficer gone bad. I tried to tell him the day we left Voltar that in her refit I had had her totally robotized. But he didn't seem to want to listen. I thought it might come to this. She doesn't need a crew. I'll be all right."

  Raht was pointing at me tied up in the star-pilot chair. "What you going to do with him?" I could see it in his eyes that he thought it would be a good idea to take me out and shoot me.

  "Regulations state," said Heller, "that if at all
feasible an officer found involved in crimes should be taken to the nearest base for an officer's conference trial. I'll deliver him to the base in Turkey with your evidence affidavits and mine and they can handle him."

  My blood turned into slush. The Afyon base commander, Faht Bey, was just waiting for such a chance! They'd find me guilty in a second and execute me in the most painful possible way.

  My wits were racing. Oh, there must be some way to get out of this!

  I was facing death for sure!

  Heller! Gods, how he had tricked me. And he was riding high. I did not know what he had in mind now to finish his mission but I knew it would be a catastrophe for Rockecenter and therefore Lombar. Well, to Hells with them! I had to think of ME!

  Wait, wait. Suddenly I had a surge of hope.

  At the Afyon base I had spread the rumor that Heller was under orders to kill them: They would shoot him if they saw him. I had taken care of that.

  And Voltar? Why, Lombar hated Heller and Lombar was now in control of the entire Voltar Confederacy!

  Heller was not home safe at all!

  He was the one at risk.

  All I had to do was con him in some way and stay alive and I would win completely in the end.

  I would pretend to be cooperative. I would pretend to be his friend. I would lead him in some brilliant way straight to his doom.

  My confidence began to return. I would think of something. All was very far from lost.

  I almost laughed aloud. Heller and his Royal-officer ways— he'd be the dead one in the end.

  Heller was bidding Raht goodbye.

  Raht gave him a formal crossed-arm salute, admiration beaming from his face.

  Heller closed the airlock.

  He put the cat back on my chest.

  Heller picked up a cordless microphone from the new controls that he had bared. "Take off and hold at altitude three hundred miles above New York," he told the tug.

  It promptly and smoothly took off.

  Heller went to the crew's galley and fixed himself a canister of hot jolt, which must have been his first taste of it in many months.

  He came back to the other pilot chair, sat on its arm and watched the planet fall away.

  Chapter 5