Part 30 (1/2)

”I like the way you plan things,” he repeated appreciatively. ”We'll check over that box.”

They left the emba.s.sy dining room together.

It was well after sunrise when Hoddan finished his breakfast, and the bright and watchful new plainclothesmen were very much on the alert outside. By this time the suns.h.i.+ne had lost its early ruddy tint, and the trees about the city were vividly green, and the sky had become appropriately blue-as the skies on all human-occupied planets are. There was the beginning of traffic. Some was routine movement of goods and vehicles. But some was special.

For example, the trucks which came to carry the emba.s.sy s.h.i.+pment to the s.p.a.ceport. They were perfectly ordinary trucks, hired in a perfectly ordinary way by the amba.s.sador's secretary. They came trundling across the square and into the emba.s.sy gate. The ostentatiously loafing plainclothesmen could look in and see the waiting parcels loaded on them. The first truck load was quite unsuspicious. There was no package in the lot which could have held a man even in the most impossibly cramped of positions.

But the police took no chances. Ten blocks from the emba.s.sy the cops stopped it and verified the licenses and ident.i.ties of the driver and his helper. This was a moderately lengthy business. While it went on, plainclothesmen walked over the packages in the truck's body and put stethoscopes to any of more than one cubic foot capacity.

They waved the truck on. Meanwhile the second truck was loading up. And those watching saw that the last item to be loaded was a large box which hadn't been seen before. It was carried with some care, and it was marked fragile, put into place and wedged fast with other parcels.

The plainclothesmen looked at each other with antic.i.p.atory glee. One of them reported the last large box with almost lyric enthusiasm. When the second truck left the emba.s.sy with the large box, a police truck came innocently out of nowhere and just happened to be going the same way. Ten blocks away, again the truckload of emba.s.sy parcels was flagged down and its driver's license and ident.i.ty was verified. A plainclothesman put a stethoscope on the questionable case. He beamed, and made a suitable signal.

The truck went on, while zestful, Machiavellian plans took effect.

Five blocks farther, an unmarked empty truck came hurtling out of a side street, sideswiped the truck from the emba.s.sy, and went careening away down the street without stopping. The trailing police truck made no attempt at pursuit. Instead, it stopped helpfully by the truck which had been hit. A wheel was hopelessly gone. So uniformed police, with conspicuously happy expressions, cleared a s.p.a.ce around the stalled truck and stood guard over the parcels under diplomatic seal. With eager helpfulness, they sent for other transportation for the emba.s.sy's s.h.i.+pment.

A sneeze was heard from within the ma.s.s of guarded freight, and the policemen shook hands with each other. When subst.i.tute trucks came-there were two of them-they loaded one high with emba.s.sy parcels and sent it off to the s.p.a.ceport with their blessings. There remained just one, single, large box to be put on the second vehicle. They b.u.mped it on the ground, and a startled grunt came from within.

There was an atmosphere of innocent enjoyment all about as the police tenderly loaded this large box on a second truck. Strangely, they did not head directly for the s.p.a.ce-port. The police carefully explained this to each other in loud voices. Then some of them were afraid the box hadn't heard, so they knocked on it. The box coughed, and it seemed hilariously amusing to the policemen that the contents of a freight parcel should cough. They expressed deep concern and-addressing the box-explained that they were taking it to the Detention Building, where they would give it some cough medicine.

The box swore at them, despairingly. They howled with childish laughter, and a.s.sured the box that after they had opened it and given it cough medicine they would close it again very carefully-leaving the diplomatic seal unbroken-and deliver it to the s.p.a.ceport so it could go on its way.

The box swore again, luridly. The truck which carried it hastened. The box teetered and b.u.mped and jounced with the swift motion of the vehicle that carried it and all the police around it. Bitter, enraged, and highly unprintable language came from within.

The police were charmed. When the Detention Building gate opened for it, and closed again behind it, there was a welcoming committee in the courtyard. It included a jailer with a bandaged head and a look of vengeful satisfaction on his face, and no less than the three guards who had been given baths by a high-pressure hose. They wore unamiable expressions.

And then, while the box swore very bitterly, somebody tenderly loosened a plank-being careful not to disturb the diplomatic seal-and pulled it away with a triumphant gesture. Then all the police could look into the box. And they did.

Then there was a dead silence, except for the voice that came from a two-way communicator set inside.

”And now,” said the voice from the box, ”and now we take our leave of the planet Walden and its happy police force, who wave to us as our s.p.a.celiner lifts toward the skies. The next sound you hear will be that of their lamentations at our departure.”

But the next sound was a howl of fury. The police were very much disappointed to find that it hadn't been Hoddan in the box, but only one-half of a two-way communication pair. Hoddanhadcoughed, sneezed and sworn at them, but from the other instrument somewhere else. Now he signed off.

The s.p.a.celiner was not lifting off just yet. It was still solidly aground in the center of the landing-grid.

Hoddan had bade farewell to his audience from the floor of the amba.s.sador's car, which at that moment was safely within the extraterritorial circle about the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p. He turned off the set and got up and brushed himself off. He got out of the car. The amba.s.sador followed him and shook his hand.

”You have a touch,” said the amba.s.sador sedately. ”You seem inspired at times, Hoddan! You have a gift for infuriating const.i.tuted authority. You may go far!”

He shook hands again and watched Hoddan walk into the lift which raised him to the entrance port of the s.p.a.ce-liner.

Twenty minutes later the forcefields of the giant landing-grid lifted the liner smoothly out to s.p.a.ce. The vessel went out to five planetary diameters, where its Lawlor drive could take hold of relatively unstressed s.p.a.ce. There the s.h.i.+p jockeyed for line, and then there was that curious, momentary disturbance of all one's sensations which was the effect of the over-drive field going on. Then everything was normal again, except that the liner was speeding for the planet Krim at something more than thirty times the speed of light.

Normalcy extended through all the galaxy so far inhabited by men. There were worlds on which there was peace, and worlds on which there was tumult. There were busy, restful young worlds, and languid, weary old ones. From the Near Rim to the farthest of occupied systems, planets circled their suns, and men lived on them, and every man took himself seriously and did not quite believe that the universe had existed before he was born or would long survive his loss.

Time pa.s.sed. Comets let out vast streamers like bridal veils and swept toward and around their suns.

The liner bearing Hoddan sped through the void.

In time it made a landfall on the planet Krim. He went aground and observed the s.p.a.ceport city. It was new and bustling with tall buildings and traffic jams and a feverish conviction that the purpose of living was to earn more money this year than last. Its s.p.a.ceport was chaotically busy. Hoddan had time for swift sight-seeing in one city only. He saw slums and gracious public buildings, and went back to the s.p.a.ceport and the liner which then rose upon the landing-grid's forcefields until Krim was a great round ball below it. Then there was again a jockeying for line, and the liner winked out of sight and was again journeying at thirty times the speed of light.

Again time pa.s.sed. In one of the most remote galaxies a super-nova flamed, and on a rocky, barren world a small living thing squirmed experimentally-to mankind the one event was just as important as the other.

But presently the liner from Walden via Krim appeared on Darth as the tiniest of s.h.i.+mmering pearly specks against the blue. To the north and east and west of the s.p.a.ceport, rugged mountains rose steeply.

Patches of snow showed here and there, and naked rock reared boldly in spurs and precipices. But there were trees on all the lower slopes, and there was not really a timber line.

The s.p.a.celiner increased in size, descending toward the landing-grid. The grid itself was a monstrous lattice of steel, a half-mile high and enclosing a circle not less in diameter. It filled the larger part of the level valley floor, and hornedduryasand what Hoddan later learned were horses grazed in it. The animals paid no attention to the deep humming noise the grid made in its operation.

The s.h.i.+p seemed the size of a pea. Presently it was the size of an apple. Then it was the size of a basketball, and then it swelled enormously and put out spidery metal legs with large splay metal feet on which it alighted and settled gently to the ground. The humming stopped.

There were shoutings. Whips cracked. Straining, horn-tossingduryasheaved and dragged something, very deliberately, out from between warehouses and under the arches of the grid. There were two dozen of theduryas,and despite the shouts and whip cracking they moved with a stubborn slowness. It took a long time for the object with the big clumsy wheels to reach a spot below the s.p.a.cecraft. Then it took longer, seemingly, for brakes to be set on each wheel, and then for the draft animals to be arranged to pull as two teams against each other.

More shoutings and whip-crackings. A long, slanting, ladder-like arm rose. It teetered, and a man with a vivid purple cloak rose with it at its very end. The s.h.i.+p's airlock opened and a crewman threw a rope.

The purple-cloaked man caught it and made it fast. From somewhere inside the s.h.i.+p, the line was hauled in. The end of the landing ramp touched the sill of the airlock. Somebody made these fast and the purple-cloaked man triumphantly entered the s.h.i.+p.

There was a pause. Men loaded carts with cargo to be sent to other remote planets. In the airlock, Bron Hoddan stepped to the unloading-ramp and descended to the ground. He was the only pa.s.senger. He had barely reached a firm footing when objects followed him. His own s.h.i.+pbag and then parcels, bales, boxes, and other such nondescript items of freight. For a mere five minutes the flow of freight continued.

Darth was not an important center of trade.

Hoddan stared incredulously at the town outside one side of the grid. It was only a town, and was almost a village. Its houses had steep, gabled roofs, of which some seemed to be tile and others thatch.

Its buildings leaned over the narrow streets, which were unpaved. They looked like mud. And there was not a power-driven ground-vehicle anywhere in sight, nor anything man-made in the air.

Great carts trailed out to the unloading-belt. They dumped bales of skins and ingots of metal, and more bales and more ingots. Those objects rode up to the airlock and vanished. Hoddan was ignored. He felt that without great care he might be crowded back into the reversed loading-belt and be carried back into the s.h.i.+p.

The loading process ended. The man with the purple cloak, who'd ridden the teetering ladder up, reappeared and came striding grandly down to ground. Somebody cast off, above. Ropes writhed, fell and dangled. The s.h.i.+p's air-lock door closed.

There was a vast humming sound. The s.h.i.+p lifted sedately. It seemed to hover momentarily over the group ofduryasand humans in the center of the grid's enclosure. But it was hovering. It shrank. It was rising in an absolutely vertical line. It dwindled to the size of a basketball and then an apple. Then to the size of a pea. And then that pea diminished until the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p from Krim, Walden, Cetis, Rigel and the Nearer Rim had become the size of a dust mote and then could not be seen at all. But one knew that it was going on to Lohala and Tralee and Famagusta and the Coalsack Stars.

Hoddan shrugged and began to trudge toward the warehouses. Thedurya-drawnlanding-ramp began to roll slowly in the same direction. Carts and wagons loaded the stuff discharged from the s.h.i.+p. Creaking, plodding, with the curved horns of theduryasrising and falling, the wagons overtook Hoddan and pa.s.sed him. He saw his s.h.i.+pbag on one of the carts. It was a gift from the Interstellar Amba.s.sador on Walden.

He'd a.s.sured Hoddan that there was a fund for the a.s.sistance of political refugees, and that the bag and its contents was normal. But in addition to this, Hoddan had a number of stun-pistols, formerly equipment of the police department of Walden's capital city.

He followed his bag to a warehouse. Arrived there, he found the bag surrounded by a group of whiskered Darthian characters wearing felt pants and large sheath knives. They had opened the bag and were in the act of ferocious dispute about who should get what of its contents. Incidentally they argued over the stun-pistols, which looked like weapons but weren't because nothing happened when one pulled the trigger. Hoddan grimaced. They'd been in store on the liner during the voyage. Normally they picked up a trickle charge from broadcast power, on Walden, but there was no broadcast power on the liner, nor on Darth. They'd leaked their charges and were quite useless. The one in his pocket would be useless, too.

He grimaced again and swerved to the building where the landing-grid controls must be. He opened the door and went in. The interior was smoky and vile-smelling, but the equipment was wholly familiar. Two unshaven men in violently colored s.h.i.+rts languidly played cards. Only one, a redhead, paid attention to the controls of the landing-grid. He watched dials. As Hoddan pushed his way in, he threw a switch and yawned. The s.h.i.+p was five diameters out from Darth, and he'd released it from the landing-grid fields. He turned and saw Hoddan.

”What the h.e.l.l do you want?” he demanded sharply.

”A few kilowatts,” said Hoddan. The redhead's manner was not amiable.

”Get outta here!” he barked.

The transformers and snaky cables leading to relays outside-all were clear as print to Hoddan. He moved confidently toward an especially understandable panel, pulling out his stun-pistol and briskly breaking back the b.u.t.t for charging. He shoved the pistol b.u.t.t to contact with two terminals devised for another purpose, and the pistol slipped for an instant and a blue spark flared.

”Quit that!” roared the man. The unshaven men pushed back from their game of cards. One of them stood up, smiling unpleasantly.