"Jeeb!" barked Stabb to an engineer, "get over there and pick those up!"
The engineer threw a blastrifle over his shoulder. He leaped out of the airlock and we heard his footsteps recede. I moved over to the airlock. The tug was lying, of course, on its belly, and it was only a step to the ground. But I sure wasn't going out there. My eyes adjusted from the dim red glow inside the tug. There was quite a bit of light, actually: the glow of distant cities against the sky and the glimmer from the sliver of a moon. I watched Jeeb, rifle ready, approach the foot of the porch.
The fireflies winked. The frog croaked again. An eerie scene though. I wondered if it were true that the bodies of dozens of Prohibition gangsters were buried in this terrain. Gods deliver us from their ghosts.
Jeeb was bending over the object at the foot of the steps. I could see him clearly. Suddenly he straightened up and started to shout back at the tug. "This isn't . . ."
A sharp hissing crack!
Jeeb fell apart! . The whole middle of his body was gone!
I hastily withdrew back into the tug.
"A SNIPER!" screamed Stabb. "There he is! There he is! After him!"
He was pointing at the screen. The infrared had a picture of a man with a rifle at the end of the roadhouse. The second engineer sprang out the door. He had his blastrifle ready at the hip. He raced off to one side, mauling the sight controls. I knew what he was doing. He was setting it to infrared. He ran sideways about twenty-five yards.
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!
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.
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.