Wasp

CHAPTER X

Gurd said, “Did nobody think to bring a spare gun?”

“Take mine,” responded Lithar, handing it over.

Cuddling it in an eager fist, Gurd grinned at him unpleasantly.

“Don’t want to be caught with it on you, hi? Rather it was me than you, hi? Typical wert, aren’t you?”

“Shut up!” snarled Lithar.

“Look who’s telling me to shut up,” Gurd invited. He was talking thickly, as if something had gone wrong with his palate. “He’s making a stack of money out of me else he wouldn’t be here at all. He’d be safe at home checking his stocks of illegal zith while the Kaitempi belted me over the gullet. And he tells me to shut up.” Leaning forward, he tapped Mowry on the shoulder with the barrel of the gun. “How much is he making out of this, Mashambigab? How much are you giving—”

He swayed wildly and clutched for a hold as the car rocked around a corner, raced down a narrower road, turned sharp right and then sharp left. Brank’s car took the same corner at the same speed, made the right turn but not the left one. It rushed straight on and vanished from sight. They turned again into a one-way alley, cut through to the next road. There was now no sign of pursuit.

“We’ve lost Brank,” Mowry told Skriva. “Looks like we’ve dropped the Kaitempi too.”

“It’s a safe bet they’re chasing Brank. They were closer to him and they had to follow someone when we split up. Suits us, doesn’t it. ?”

Mowry said nothing.

“A lousy wert tells me to shut up,” mumbled Gurd. Swiftly they zig-zagged through a dozen side-streets, still without encountering a radio alarmed patrol-car. As they squealed around the last corner near to where their own cars were parked there sounded a sharp, hard crack in the rear. Mowry looked back expecting to find a loaded cruizer closing up on them. There was no car behind. Lithar was lying on his side apparently asleep. He had a neat hole above his right ear. A thin trickle of purplish blood was seeping out of it.

Gurd smirked at Mowry and said, “I’ve shut him up, for keeps.”

“Now we’re carrying a corpse,” complained Mowry. “As if we haven’t trouble enough. Where’s the sense—”

Skriva interrupted with, “Crack shots, the Kaitempi. Pity they got Lithar—he was just the sweetest wert on Jaimec.”

He braked hard, jumped out, ran across the lot and clambered into his own dyno. Gurd followed, the gun openly in his hand and not caring who noticed it. Mowry stopped by the window as the machine started up.

“What about Brank?”

“What about him?” echoed Skriva.

“If we both beat it he’ll get here and find no chance to switch over.”

“What, in a city crammed with dynos?” He let the car edge forward. “Brank’s not here. That’s his woe. Let him cope with his own troubles. We’re beating it someplace safe while the going is good. You follow us.”

With that he drove off. Mowry gave him a four hundred yards lead, droned along behind while the distance between them slowly increased. Should he let Skriva lead him to a hideout or not? There seemed little point in following to yet another rat-hole. The jail job had been done and he’d achieved his purpose of stirring up a greater ruckus. There were no werts to pay off; Brank had got himself lost and Lithar was dead. If he wanted to regain contact with Gurd and Skriva he could use that telephone number or if, as was likely, it was no longer valid he could employ their secret post-office under the marker.

Other considerations also decided him to drop the brothers for the time being. For one, the Colonel Halopti identity wouldn’t be worth a hoot after they’d wasted a few hours checking through official channels to establish its falsity. That would be by nightfall at latest. Once again Pertane was becoming too hot to hold him. He’d better get out before it was too late.

For another, he was overdue to beam a report and his conscience was pricking him about his refusal to do so last time. If he didn’t send one soon he might never be able to transmit one at all. And Terra was entitled to be kept informed.

By this time the other car had shrunk with distance. Turning off to the right, he circled back into the city. At once he noticed a great change of atmosphere. There were far more police on the streets and now their number had been augmented by fully armed troops. Patrol-cars swarmed like flies though none saw fit to stop and question him. On the pavements were less pedestrians than usual and these hurried along looking furtive, fearful, grim or bewildered.

Stopping by the kerb outside a business block he lolled in his seat as if waiting for someone while he watched what was taking place on the street. The police, some uniformed and some in plain clothes, were all in pairs. The troops were in groups of six. Their sole occupation appeared to be that of staring accusatively at everyone who passed by, holding up any individual whose looks they didn’t like, questioning and searching him: They also took particular note of cars, studying the occupants and eyeing the plate-numbers.

In the time that Mowry sat there he and his car were given the sharp lookover at least twenty times. He endured it with an air of complete boredom and evidently passed muster because nobody took it further and questioned him. But that couldn’t go on for ever. Somebody more officious than the rest would pick on him merely because the others had not done so. He was tempting fate by staying there.

So he moved off, driving carefully to avoid the attention of numerous cruizers. Something had broken loose, no doubt of that. It was written on the moody faces of the public. He wondered whether the government had been driven to admit a series of reverses in the space-war. Or perhaps the rumours he’d spread about Shugruma had come close enough to the truth to make authority concede the facts. Or maybe a couple of exceedingly important bureaucrats had tried to open mailed packages and splattered themselves over the ceiling, thus creating a tremendous wave of panic among the powers-that-be. One thing was certain: the recent jailbreak could not be solely responsible for the present state of affairs though possibly it may have triggered it into existence.

Slowly he made his way into the crummy quarter where his room was located, determined to pick up his belongings and clear out as quickly as possible. The car nosed its way into his street. As always, a bunch of idlers loafed upon the corner and stared at him as he went by. There was something not quite right about them. Their ill-kept clothes and careless postures gave them the superficial appearance of lazy bums but they were a little too well-fed, their gaze a little too haughty.

With hairs itching on the back of his neck and a peculiar thrill down his spine, he kept going, trying to look as if this street were only part of a tiresome drive and meant nothing to him whatsoever. Against a lamp-post leaned two brawny specimens without jackets or scarves. Nearby four more were shoring a wall. Six were gossiping around an ancient, decrepit truck parked right opposite the house in which his room was at top. Three more were in the doorway of the house. Every one of these gave him the long, hard look as he rolled by with an air of total indifference.

The entire street was staked, though it didn’t look as if they had a detailed description of him. He could be wrong in this belief, perhaps fooled by an over-active imagination. But his instinct told him that the street was covered from end to end, that his only chance of escape lay in driving on non-stop and displaying absolute lack of interest. He did not dare look at his house for evidence of a Radine-type explosion. Just that small touch of curiosity might have been enough to bring the whole lot into action.

Altogether he counted more than forty beefy strangers hanging around the road and doing their best to look shiftless. As he neared the street’s end four of them came out of a doorway and walked to the kerb. Their attention was his way, their manner that of those about to stop him on general principles. Promptly he braked and pulled in near two others who were squatting on a doorstep. He lowered the window, stuck his head out. One of the sitters got to his feet, came toward him. “Pardon,” said Mowry, apologetically, “I was told first right and second left for Asako Road. It has got me here. I must have gone wrong somewhere.”

“Where were you told?”

“Outside the military barracks.”

“Some people don’t know one hand from the other,” opined this character. “It should have been first right, second left, turn right again after going through the archway.”

“Thanks. One can lose a lot of time in a city this size.”

“Yar, especially when dopes point with the wrong hand.”

The informant returned to his doorstep, sat down. He had not nursed even a dim suspicion.

Evidently they were not on the watch for someone easily recognisable, or, at any rate, not for somebody who looked exactly like Colonel Halopti. Could be that they were in ambush for another badly wanted specimen who happened to live in this street. But he dared not put the matter to the test by returning to the house and going up to his room. If wrong, he would be finally and conclusively wrong to the last choke of breath.

Ahead, the four who’d waited at the kerb had now resumed their leaning against the wall, lulled by Mowry’s open conversation with their fellows. They ignored him as he drove past. Turning right, he thankfully speeded up. However, he did not congratulate himself. He had still a good way to go and the entire city had become one gigantic trap.

When nearing the city’s outskirts a patrol-car waved him down. For a couple of seconds he debated whether to obey or try outrace it. He decided in favour of the former. Bluff had worked before, might do so again. Besides, to run for it would be a complete giveaway and every cruizer in the area would take up the chase. So he braked and hoped for the best. The car drew alongside, the co-driver dropped his window.

“Where are you heading for?”

“Palmare,” answered Mowry, naming a village twenty den south of Pertane.

“That’s what you think. Don’t you listen to the news?”

“I haven’t heard it since early this morning. Been too busy even to get a square meal. What’s happened?”

“All exits barred. Nobody allowed out the city except with a permit from the military. You’d better go back and get yourself informed. Or buy an evening paper.”

The window went up, the patrol-car whined into top speed. Mowry watched it go with mixed emotions. Yet again he was sharing all the sensations of a hunted animal. Nobody could stop him or even show undue interest in him without giving him a nervy this-is-it feeling. If it kept up long enough a time must inevitably come when this would be it.

He stooged around in the car until he found a news-stand carrying the latest editions still damp from the press. Then he parked a few minutes while he scanned the headlines. They were big enough and likely to give the readership a few unpleasant jolts.

Rapidly he read the brief report under the last heading. Lathin’s body had been found and the Kaitempi had grabbed the credit for the kill. That made Skriva something of a prophet. Dopey had been shot to death, Brank and the other had been taken alive. These two survivors already had confessed to membership of a revolutionary force. There was no mention of any others having got away. and not a single word about the mock Colonel Halopti.

Probably authority had clamped down on some items in the hope of giving the escapees a sense of false security. Well, he’d better not fall into that trap; from now on he must not show his documents to any cop or Kaitempi agent. Neither could he substitute any other papers. The only ones near to hand were locked in his case and surrounded by a horde of agents: The only others were in the forest cave with a ring of troops between here and there.

A ring of troops? Yes, that could be the weak point that he might break through if he put a move on. It was highly likely that the numerically strong armed forces were not yet as well-primed as were the police and Kaitempi. And the average trooper is not inclined to argue with a colonel, even one in plain clothes. The chance of being cross-examined and bullied came only from an individual of equal or higher rank. He could not imagine any colonels or major-generals manning the road-blocks. Anyone outranking a junior lieutenant was more likely to be warming an office chair or boozing and boasting in the nearest zith-parlour. At once he decided that here lay his best opportunity to break out of the net. It wasn’t a decision difficult to reach. He’d little choice about the matter. He must find freedom in the open country or remain in the city until caught.

About sixty routes radiated from the perimeter of Pertane. The main ones—such as the wide, well-used roads to Shugruma and Radine—were likely to be more heavily guarded than the secondary roads or potholed lanes leading to villages or isolated factories. It was also possible that the biggest, most important road-blocks would have a few police or agents in company with the troops.

Many of the lesser and sneakier outlets were quite unknown to him; a random choice might take him out of the frying-pan and into the fire. But not far away lay a little-used side road to Palmare with which he was familiar. It twisted and wound in direction more or less parallel with the big main road but it got there just the same. Once on it he could not get off it for another forty den. He’d have to continue all the way to Palmare, turn there onto a rutted cross-country lane that would take him to the Valapan road. At that point he’d be about half an hour’s drive from where he usually entered the forest.

Cutting through the suburbs he headed outward toward this lesser road. Houses gradually thinned away and ceased. As he drove through a market-gardening area a police cruizer whined toward him, passed without pause. He let go a sigh of relief as it disappeared. Presumably it had been in too great a hurry to bother with him or perhaps its occupants had taken it for granted that he possessed a military permit.

Five minutes later he rounded a blind corner and found a road-block awaiting him two hundred yards beyond. A couple of army trucks stood side-on across the road in such a position that a car could pass provided it slowed to less than walking pace. In front of the trucks a dozen soldiers stood in line, coddling their automatic weapons and looking bored. There was no cop or agent anywhere in sight.

Mowry slowed, stopped, but kept his dynomotor rotating. The soldiers eyed him with bovine curiosity. From behind the nearest truck a broad, squat sergeant appeared, marched up to the car.

“Have you got an exit permit?”

“Don’t need one,” responded Mowry, speaking with the authority of a four-star general. Opening his wallet, he displayed his identity-card and prayed to God that the sight of it would not produce a howl of triumph.

It didn’t. The sergeant looked at it, stiffened, saluted. Noticing this, the nearby troops straightened themselves and assumed expressions of military alertness.

In apologetic tones the sergeant said, “I regret that I must ask you to wait a moment, Colonel. My orders are to report to the officer in charge if anyone claims the right to go through without a permit”

“Even the Military Intelligence?”

“It has been emphasised that this order covers everyone without exception, sir. I have no choice but to obey.”

“Of course, Sergeant,” agreed Mowry, condescendingly. “I will wait”

Saluting again, the sergeant went at the double behind the trucks. Meanwhile the twelve troopers posed with the rigid self consciousness of those aware of a brasshat in the vicinity. In short time the sergeant came back bringing with him a very young and worried looking lieutenant.

This officer marched precisely up to the car, saluted, opened his mouth just as Mowry beat him to the draw by saying, “You may stand easy, Lieutenant”

The other gulped, let his legs relax, fumbled for words, finally got out, “The sergeant tells me you have no exit permit -Colonel.”

“That’s right. Have you got one?”

Taken aback, the lieutenant floundered a bit, said, “No sir.”

“Why not?”

“We are on duty outside the city.”

“So am I,” informed Mowry.

“Yes, sir.” The lieutenant pulled himself together. He seemed unhappy about something. “Will you be good enough to let me see your identity-card, sir? It is just a formality. I’m sure that everything will be all right”

“I know that everything will be all right,” said Mowry, as though giving fatherly warning to the young and inexperienced. Again he displayed the card.

The lieutenant gave it no more than a hurried glance. “Thank you, Colonel. Orders are orders, as you will appreciate.” Then he curried favour by demonstrating his efficiency. He took one step backward and gave a classy salute which Mowry acknowledged with a vague wave. Jerking himself round like an automaton, the lieutenant brought his right foot down with a hard thump and screamed at the top of his voice, “Pass one!”

Opening out, the troops obediently passed one. Mowry crawled through the block, curving around the tail of the first truck, twisting the opposite way around the second. Once through he hit up maximum speed. It was a temptation to feel gleeful but he didn’t. He was sorry for that young lieutenant who, before long, would be taking a prize lambasting. It was easy to picture the scene when a senior officer arrived at the post to check up.

“Anything to report, Lieutenant?”

“Not much, sir. No trouble of any sort. It has been very quiet. I let one through without a permit.”

“You did? Why was that?”

“He was Colonel Halopti, sir.”

“Halopti? That name seems familiar. I’m sure I heard it mentioned as I left the other post.”

Helpfully, “He is in the M.I… sir.”

“Yar. yar. But that name means something. Why don’t they keep us properly informed? Have you a short-wave set?

“Not here, sir. There is one at the next main road block. We have a field telephone.”

“All right, I’ll use that“A little later, “You hopeless imbecile! This Halopti is wanted all over the planet! And you let him slip through your hands—you ought to be shot! How long has he been gone? Did he have anyone with him? Will he have passed through Palmare yet? Sharpen your wits, fool, and answer me! Did you note the number of his car? No, you did not—that would be too much to expect.”

And so on and so on. Yes, the balloon would go up most anytime. Perhaps in three or four hours, perhaps within ten minutes. The thought of it made Mowry maintain what was a reckless speed on such a twisting and badly surfaced road.

He shot through small and sleepy Palmare half expecting to be fired upon by local vigilantes. Nothing happened except that a few faces glanced out of windows as he went by. Nobody saw him turn off the road a little beyond the village and take to the crude track that led to the Pertane-Valapan artery.

Now he was compelled to slow down whether he liked it or not. Over the terrible surface the car bumped and rolled at quarter speed. If anything came the other way he’d be in a jam because there was no room to pull aside or turn. Two jetplanes moaned through the gathering dusk but carried straight on, indifferent to what was taking place below. Soon afterward a ‘copter came low over the horizon, followed it a short distance, dropped back and disappeared. Its course showed that it was circling around Pertane, possibly checking the completeness of military positions.

Eventually he reached the Pertane-Valapan route without having encountered anything on the track. Accelerating, he made for the forest entry-point. A number of army vehicles trundled heavily along but there was no civilian traffic to or from distant Pertane. Those inside the city could not get out, those outside did not want to go in lest they be detained there for weeks.

At the moment he reached the identifying tree and tombstone the road was clear in both directions. Taking full advantage of the opportunity he drove straight over the verge and into the forest as far as the car could go. Jumping out, he went back and repeated his former performance of carefully eliminating all tyre tracks where they entered the forest and checking that the car was invisible from the road.

The dark of night now was halfway across the sky. That meant he had to face another badly slowed-down traipse to the cave. Alternatively he could sleep overnight in the car and start his journey with the dawn. The latter was preferable; even a wasp needs rest and slumber. On the other hand the cave was more peaceful, more comfortable and a good deal safer than the car. There he could enjoy a real Terran breakfast, after which he could lie full length and snooze like a child instead of rolled up with one ear and one eye open. He started for the cave at once, trying to make the most use of the fading light while it lasted.

With the first streaks of morning he came wearily and red-eyed through the last of the trees. His finger-ring had been tingling for fifteen minutes so that he made his approach with confidence. Clumping along the pebble beach he went into the cave, fixed himself a hearty meal. Then he crawled into a sleeping-bag and surrendered consciousness. The transmission of his report could wait. It would have to wait: communication might bring instructions impossible to carry out before he’d had a good spell of slumber.

He must have needed it because he lay without stirring through the entire day. Dusk again was creeping in when he awoke. Setting up another feed, he ate it, felt on top of the world, expressed it by flexing his muscles and whistling badly off-tune.

For a short while he studied the massed containers and nursed a few regrets. In one of them reposed material for repeated changes of appearance plus documents to cover no less than thirty more fake identities. The situation being what it was he’d be darned lucky to get through three of them. Another container held publicity stuff including the means to print and mail more letters.

But what was the use? The Kaitempi had claimed that kill. Moreover he needed to know the names of any mail-bomb victims so that D.A.G. could exploit those too. He lacked this information. Anyway, the time for that kind of propaganda had now gone past. The entire world was on the jump, reinforcements had been poured in from Diracta, battle-stations had been taken up against a revolutionary army that did not exist. In such circumstances threatening letters had become mere fleabites.

Dragging out Container-5 he set it up, wound it into action and let it run. For two and a half hours it operated silently.

Whirrup-dzzt-pam! Whirrup-dzzt-pam!

“Jaimec calling! Jaimec calling!”

Contact was established when the gravelly voice said, “Come in. Ready to tape.”

Mowry responded, “JM on Jaimec,” then babbled on as fast as he could go and to considerable length. He finished, “Pertane isn’t tenable until things quieten down and I don’t know how long that will take. Personally, I think the panic will spread to other towns. When they can’t find what they’re seeking in one place they’ll start raking systematically through all the others.”

There was a long silence before the faraway voice came back with, “We don’t want things to quieten down. We want them to spread. Get working at once on phase nine.”

“Nine?” he ejaculated, “I’m only on four. What about five, six, seven and eight?”

“Forget them. Time is running short. There’s a ship getting near to you with another wasp on board. We sent him to tend phase nine thinking you’d been nabbed. Anyway, we’ll beam instructions that he’s to stay on the ship while we pick him another planet. Meanwhile you get busy.”

“But phase nine is strictly a pre-invasion tactic.”

“That’s right,” said the voice, drily. “I just told you time is running short.”

It cut off. Communication had ended. Mowry stacked the cylinder back in the cave. Then he went outside and gazed at the stars.

Phase nine was designed to bring about a further dispersal of the enemy’s overstretched resources and to place yet another great strain upon his creaking war-machine. It was, so to speak, one of several possible last straws.

The idea was to make panic truly planet-wide by spreading it from land to water. Jaimec was peculiarly susceptible to this kind of blow. On a colonial world populated by only one race of only one species there had been no national or inter-national rivalries, no local wars, no development of navies. The nearest that Jaimec could produce to a sea-going force consisted of a number of fast motor-boats, lightly armed and used solely for coastal patrol work.

Even the merchant fleet was small by Terran standards. Jaimec was under-developed and no more than six hundred ships sailed the planet’s seas on about twenty well-defined routes. There wasn’t a vessel larger than fifteen thousand tons. Nevertheless the local war effort was critically dependent upon the unhampered coming and going of these ships. To delay their journeys or ruin their schedules or bottle them up in port would play considerable hob with the entire Jaimecan economy.

This sudden switch from phase four to nine meant that the oncoming Terran spaceship must be carrying a load of periboobs which it would scatter in the world’s oceans before making a quick getaway. Almost certainly the dropping would be done by night and along the known sea-lanes.

At college Mowry had been given full instruction about this tactic and the part he was expected to play. The stunt. had a lot in common with his previous activities, being designed to make a thoroughly aggravated foe hit out left and right at what wasn’t there.

He’d been shown a sectionalised periboob. This deceitful contraption resembled an ordinary oil-drum with a twenty-foot tube projecting from its top. At the uppermost end of the tube was fixed a flared nozzle. The drum portion held a simple magneto-sensitive mechanism. The whole thing could be mass produced at low cost.

When in the sea a periboob floated so that its nozzle and four to six feet of tube stood above the surface. If a mass of steel or iron approached to within four hundred yards of it, the mechanism operated and the whole gadget sank from sight. If the metal mass receded, the periboob promptly arose until again its tube poked above the waves.

To function efficiently this gadget needed a prepared stage and a spotlight. The former had been arranged at the outbreak of war by permitting the enemy to get hold of top secret plans of a three-man midget submarine small enough and light enough for an entire flotilla to be transported in one space-ship. Mowry now had to provide the spotlight by causing a couple of merchant vessels to sink at sea after a convincing bang.

Jaimecans were as capable as anyone else of adding two and nothing together and making it four. If everything went as planned the mere sight of a periboob would cause any ship to race for safety while filling the ether with yells for help. Other ships, hearing the alarm, would make wide, time-wasting detours or tie up in port. The dockyards would frantically switch from the building and repair of cargo vessels to the construction of useless destroyers. Numberless jetplanes, copters and even space-scouts would take over the futile task of patrolling the oceans and bombing, periboobs wherever they might be found.

The chief beauty of this form of naughtiness was that it did not matter in the least if the enemy discovered he was being kidded. He could trawl a periboob from the depths, take it apart, demonstrate how it worked to every ship’s master on the planet and it would make no difference. If two ships had been sunk, two hundred more might go down. A periscope is a periscope, there’s no swift way of telling the false from the real and no captain in his right mind will invite a torpedo while trying to find out.

Alapertane (little Pertane) was the biggest and nearest port on Jaimec. It lay forty den west of the capital, seventy den north-west of the cave. Population a quarter million. It was highly likely that Alapertane had escaped most of the official hysteria pervading elsewhere, that its police and Kaitempi were less suspicious, less active. Mowry had never visited the place and therefore neither had Dirac Angestun Gesept. So far as Alapertane was concerned he had little grief to inherit.

Well, Terra knew what it was doing and orders must be carried out. He would have to make a trip to Alapertane and get the job done as soon as possible. On his own, without the dubious help of Gurd and Skriva who—so long as the hunt was on—remained dangerous liabilities.

Opening a container, Mowry took out a thick wad of documents, thumbed through them and carefully considered the thirty identities available. All of them had been devised to suit specific tasks. There were half a dozen that established his right to roam around the docks and peer at shipping. He chose a set of papers that depicted him as a minor official of the Planetary Board of Maritime Affairs.

Next he made himself up for the part. It took him more than an hour. In the end he was an elderly, bookish bureaucrat peering through steel-rimmed spectacles. That done, he amused himself blinking at his image in a metal mirror and talking nonsense in characteristically querulous tones. Long hair would have perfected his appearance since he still had the short military crop of Halopti. A wig was out of the question; except for spectacles, the strict rule of facial disguise was to wear nothing that could be knocked, blown or taken off. So he shaved a patch of cranium to suggest approaching baldness and left it at that.

Finally he found himself another case, inserted its plastic key and opened it. Despite all the risks he had taken and might again take this was the action he detested most. He could never get rid of the notion that explosive luggage was highly temperamental, that many a wasp had been blown to the nether regions with a phantom key in his hand and that Terran authorities had kept silent about it.

From yet another container he took three limpet mines, two for use and one as a spare. These were hemispherical objects with a heavy magnetic ring projecting from the fiat side, a timing-switch on the opposite, curved side. They weighed eleven pounds apiece and together made a load he’d rather have been without. Putting these in the case, he stuffed a pocket with new money, checked his gun. Switching Container-22 he set forth, again through the dark.

By now he was becoming more than fed up with the long, trying journey from the cave to the road. It hadn’t looked much on an aerial photograph when seen through a stereoscopic viewer but the actual doing of it was tough. Especially when trudging through the dark and carrying a load. Repeatedly he cursed his choice of a hideout while reluctantly admitting that his cache had been protected by its very remoteness.

He reached the car in broad daylight, thankfully dumped the case on the back seat, checked the road for passing vehicles. The coast was clear. Racing back to the car he got it out fast, parked it while he scuffed tire-tracks from the verge. There he headed for Alapertane, choosing a route that kept him as far as possible from the angry capital.

Fifteen minutes later he was compelled to pull up. The road was filled with a convoy of army vehicles that were bucking and rocking as they reversed one by one into a treeless space. Troops who had dismounted were filtering in ragged lines between the trees on both sides of the road. A dozen glum civilians were sitting in one truck with four soldiers to guard them.

As Mowry sat watching a captain came alongside the car and asked, “Where’re you from?”

“Valapan”

“Where d’you live?”

“Kiestra, just outside Valapan”

“Where’re you going?”

“Alapertane.”

This seemed to satisfy the other. He made to move off.

Mowry called, “What’s happening here, Captain?”

“A round-up. We’re collecting the windy and taking them back where they belong.”

“The windy?” Mowry looked baffled.

“Yar. The night before last a lot of yellow-bellied sokos bolted out of Pertane and took to the woods. They were worried about their skins, see? More followed early yesterday morning. By now half the city would be gone if we hadn’t pinned them in. Civilians make me sick.”

“What got them on the run?”

“Talk,” He gave a sniff of contempt. “Just a lot of talk.”

“Well, there’s no rush from Valapan,” offered Mowry.

“Not yet,” the captain gave back. He walked away, bawled out a slow-moving squad.

The last trucks got off the road and Mowry forged ahead. Evidently the jailbreak had coincided with strong governmental action against a jittery populace as well as against subversive forces. The city would have been ringed in any event, whether Gurd had been wangled out the jug or not.

Speculations about the fate of Gurd and Skriva occupied his mind as he drove along. Had they been caught or were they lying low somewhere within the ring? As he passed through a village he was tempted momentarily to stop, call their telephone number and see what response he got. He resisted the notion as profitless but he did pause long enough to buy a morning paper.

The news was little different, the usual mixture of boastings, threats, promises, directives and warnings. One paragraph stated categorically that more than eighty members of Dirac Angestun Gesept had been hauled in “including one of their so-called generals.“He wondered how this could be and which unfortunate character had been burdened with the status of a revolutionary general. There was nothing about Gurd and Skriva, no mention of Colonel Halopti.

Throwing the paper away, he continued his journey. Shortly before noon he reached the centre of Alapertane and asked a pedestrian the way to the docks. Though hungry once more he did not take time off for a meal. Alapertane was not surrounded, no snap searches were taking place, no patrol-car had halted and quizzed him. He felt it wise to cash in on a favourable situation that might soon change for the worse. So without bothering about a feed he made straight for the waterfront.

Planting the dyno in the private car-park of a shipping company, he approached the gates of the first dock on foot, blinked through his spectacles at the policeman standing by the entrance and asked, “Which way to the harbour-master’s office?”

The cop pointed. “Right opposite the third set of gates.” Going there, Mowry entered the office, tapped on the counter with the impatience of an oldster in a hurry. A junior pen-pusher responded.

“You wish?”

Showing him his papers, Mowry said, “I wish to know which ships will depart before dawn tomorrow and from which docks they will leave.”

Obediently the other dug out a long, narrow book and sought through its pages. It did not occur to him to question the reason for this request. A piece of paper headed Planetary Board of Maritime Affairs was more than enough to satisfy him and, as any fool knew, neither Alapertane nor its ships were menaced by the Spakum forces.

“Destinations as well?” asked the youth.

“No, those don’t matter. I wish only the names, the times of departure and the dock numbers.” Mowry produced a stub of pencil, a sheet of paper and peered fussily over his glasses.

“There are four,” informed the other. “The Kitsi at eight-time, dock three. The Anthus at eight-time, dock one. The Su-cattra at nineteen-time, dock seven. The Su-limane at nine-teen-time, also dock seven.” He flipped a page, added informatively, “The?elami was due to leave at nineteen-time but is held up with some kind of trouble in the engine-room. It is likely to be delayed several days.”

“That one doesn’t matter.”

Leaving, he returned to the car, got out the case and went to dock seven. The policeman on duty took one look at his documents and let him through the gates without argument. Once inside he walked quickly toward the long shed behind which towered a line of cranes and a couple of funnels. Rounding the end of the shed he found himself facing the stern of the Su-cattra.

One glance told him that at the present time he had not the slightest hope of fixing a limpet-mine unseen. The vessel lay against the dockside, its hatches battened down, its winches silent, but many workers were hand-loading late cargo by luggug it up the gangways from waiting trucks and a small mob of officials stood around watching. Across the basin lay the Su-limane also taking cargo aboard.

For a short time he debated within himself whether to go after the Anthus and Kitsi. There was the disadvantage that they were in different docks a fair distance apart. Here, he had two suitable ships within easy reach of each other. And it was probable that the other vessels also were loading, thus being no easier to victimise.

It seemed that in his haste he had arrived too early. The best thing for him to do would be to go away and come back later after workers and officials had gone home. But if the cop on the gate or a waterfront patrol became nosey it would be hard to explain his need to enter the deserted dock area after all work had ceased. A hundred excuses could turn into a hundred self-betrayals.

“I have a personal message for the captain of the Su-cattra.”

“Yar? What is his name?”

Or, “I have a corrected cargo manifest to deliver to the Su-limane.”

“Yar? Let me see it. What’s the matter-can’t you find it? How can you deliver it if you haven’t got it? If it’s not in your pockets it may be in that bag. Why don’t you look in the bag? You afraid to open it, hi?”

Leaving the dockside he walked past the end of the huge shed which stretched the entire length of the dock. Its sliding doors stood three feet ajar. He went through without hesitation. The side farthest from the dock was stacked roof-high with packing-cases of every conceivable shape and size. The opposite side was part full. Near the main quayside doors halfway up the shed stood an array of cardboard cartons and bulging sacks which workers were taking out to the Su-cattra.

Seeing the name Melami stencilled all over the nearest stack of cargo, Mowry looked swiftly toward the distant loaders, assured himself that he had not been observed, dodged behind a big crate. Though no longer visible from inside the shed he could easily be seen by anyone passing the sliding doors through which he had entered. Holding his case endwise ahead of him, he inched through the narrow gap between two more crates, climbed over a big coffin-shaped box, squirmed into a dark alcove between the stack and the shed’s outer wall.

It was far from comfortable here. He could not sit, neither could he stand erect. He had to remain half-bent until, tired of that, he knelt on his case. But at least he was safe. The Melami was held up and nobody was likely to heave its cargo around for the fun of it. He stayed there for what seemed a full day. The time came when whistles blew and sounds of outside activity ceased. Through the shed’s wall sounded a muffled tramp of many feet as workers left for home. Nobody had bothered to close the shed’s doors and he couldn’t make up his mind whether that was a good thing or not. Locked doors would suggest an abandoned dockside guarded by none save the cop on the gate. Open doors implied the arrival of a night-shift or per-haps the protection of roving patrols.

Edging out of the alcove he sat on a crate and rubbed his aching knee-caps: He waited two more hours to let overtime workers and other eager beavers get clear. When his patience ran out he walked through the deserted shed, stopped behind its quayside doors that were directly opposite the middle of the Su-cattra.

From the case he took a limpet-mine, set its timing-switch to give a twenty-hour delay, threaded a length of thin cord through the holding loop. He peeped out the door. There was not a soul on the dockside but a few sailors were busy on the ship’s top deck.

Boldly he stepped out of the shed, crossed the intervening ten yards and dropped the mine into the narrow stretch of water between ship and dockside. It hit with a dull plop and a slight splash, sank rapidly to the limit of its cord. It was now about eight feet below the surface and did not immediately take hold. He waggled the cord to turn the magnetic, face toward the ship. The mine promptly attached itself with a clang loud enough to resound all over the big vessel. Quickly he let go one end of the cord, pulled on the other and reeled it in through the holding-loop.

High above him a sailor came to the deckrail, leaned on it and looked down. By that time Mowry had his back toward him and was strolling casually toward the shed: The sailor watched him go inside, glanced at the stars, spat in the water and went back to his chore.

Soon afterward he repeated the performance with the Su-limane, sticking the mine amidships and eight feet down That one also had a twenty-hour delay. Again the clang aroused careless attention, bringing three curious sailors to the side. But they took their time about it, saw nobody, shrugged it off and forgot it.

Mowry made for the exit gates. On the way he passed two officers returning to their ship. Engrossed in conversation, they did not so much as glance at him. If only they’d known of the long swim in store, he thought, they’d willingly have beaten out his brains.

A different policeman was on duty by the gates as he went through.

“Live long!”

“Live long!” echoed the cop, and turned his attention elsewhere.

Trudging a long way down the road and rounding the corner near to the gates of dock three, Mowry saw the car-park and came to a halt. A hundred yards away his car was standing exactly where he had left it but had become the subject of unwelcome interest. Its hood was raised and a couple of uniformed police were prying around the exposed dynomotor.

They must have unlocked the car with a master-key in order to operate the hood’s release-catch. To go to that length meant they were not amusing themselves by being officious. They were on a definite trail.

Retreating behind the corner, Mowry gave swift thought to the matter. Obviously those cops were looking for the dynomotor’s serial number. In another minute one of them would be crawling under the car to check the chassis number. This suggested that at last authority had realised that Sagramatholou’s car. had changed its plates. So the order had gone out to inspect all cars of that particular date and type.

Right in front of him, hidden from the car-park, stood the unoccupied cruizer belonging to those nosey-pokes. They must have left it there intending to edge it forward a few feet and use it as a watching-post if necessary. Once they’d satisfied themselves that the suspected dyno was indeed a hot one, they’d come back on the run to set a stakeout.

Cautiously he took a peep around the corner. One was talking excitedly while the other scribbled in a notebook. It would be another minute before they returned because they would close the hood and relock the dyno in order to bait the trap.

Certain that no passer-by would question something done with casual confidence, he tried the cruizer’s door-handle. It was locked. He had no key with which to open it, no time to pick it, and that put an end to any thought of taking one car in lieu of the other. Opening his case, he took out the spare limpet-mine, set it for a one-hour delay. He lay in the road, rapidly inched himself under the cruizer and stuck the bomb to the centre of its steel framework. Wriggling out, he brushed himself down with his hands. Seven people had seen him go under and emerge. Not one viewed his actions as extraordinary.

He snatched up his case and departed at a pace that was little short of a shambling run. At the next corner he looked back. One cop was now sitting in the cruizer and using its short-wave radio: The other was out of sight, presumably concealed where he could watch the dyno. Evidently they were transmitting the news that the missing car had been found and were summoning help to surround it.

Yet again adverse circumstances were chivvying him into a tight corner. He had lost the car on which he had relied so much and which had stood him in such good stead. All that he now possessed were his gun, a set of false documents, a large wad of counterfeit money and a case that was empty save for what was wired to its lock. The case he got rid of by placing it in the entrance to the main post-office. That action would not help to cool things down. Discovery of his dyno had warned Alapertane that Sagiamatholou’s killer was somewhere within its bounds. While they were squatting around it in readiness to snare him a police cruizer would shower itself all over the scene. Then somebody would dutifully take a lost case to the nearest precinct station, a cop would try key it open and make an awful mess of the place.

Alapertane already was half-awake. Two big bangs were going to bring it fully awake and on its toes. Somehow he’d have to get out before they copied the Pertane tactic and ringed the town with troops.