If he pondered once the most remote possibilities and took stock of the minimum resources needed, he pondered them a hundred times. By long after midnight he’d been beating his brains sufficiently hard to make them come up with anything, including ideas that were slightly mad.
For example: he could pull a plastic button from his jacket, swallow it and hope that the result would get him a transfer to hospital. True, the hospital was within the prison’s confines but it might offer better opportunity to escape. Then he thought a second time, decided that an intestinal blockage would not guarantee his removal elsewhere. They might do no more than force a powerful purgative down his neck and thus add to his present discomforts.
As dawn broke he arrived at a final conclusion. Thirty, forty or fifty Rigellians working in a patient, determined group might tunnel under the wall and both illuminated areas and get away. But he had one resource and one only. That was guile. There was nothing else he could employ. He let a loud groan and complained to himself, “So I’ll have to use both my heads!”
This inane remark percolated through the innermost recesses of his mind and began to ferment like yeast. After a while he sat up startled, gazed at what he could see of the brightening sky and said in a tone approaching a yelp, “Yes, sure, that’s it—both heads!”
Stewing the idea over and over again, Leeming decided by exercise-time that it was essential to have a gadget. A crucifix or a crystal ball provides psychological advantages too good to miss. His gadget could be of any shape, size or design, made of any material so long as it was visibly and undeniably a contraption. Moreover, its potency would be greater if not made from items obtainable within his cell such as parts of his clothing or pieces of the bench. Preferably it should be constructed of stuff from somewhere else and should convey the irresistible suggestion of a strange, unknown technology.
He doubted whether the Rigellians could help. Twelve hours per day they slaved in the prison’s workshops, a fate that he would share after he’d been questioned and his aptitudes defined. The Rigellians made military pants and jackets, harness and boots, a small range of light engineering and electrical components. They detested producing for the enemy but their choice was a simple one: work or starve.
According to what he’d been told they hadn’t the remotest chance of smuggling out of the workshops anything really useful such as a knife, chisel, hammer or hacksaw blade. At the end of, each work period the slaves were paraded and none allowed to break ranks until every machine had been checked, every loose tool accounted for and locked away.
The first fifteen minutes of the mid-day break he spent searching the yard for any loose item that might somehow be turned to advantage. He wandered around with his gaze fixed on the ground like a worried kid seeking a lost coin. The only things he found were a couple of pieces of wood four inches square by one inch thick and these he slipped into his pocket without having the vaguest nation of what he intended to do with them.
Finishing the hunt, he squatted by the wall, had a whispered chat with a couple of Rigellians. His mind wasn’t on the conversation and the pair mooched off when a curious guard came near. Later another Rigellian edged up to him.
“Earthman, are you still going to get out of here?”
“You bet I am.”
The other chuckled and scratched an ear, an action that his species used to express polite scepticism. “I think we’ve a better chance than you’re ever likely to get.”
Leeming shot him a sharp glance. “Why?”
“There are more of us and we’re together,” evaded the Rigellian as though realising that he’d been on the point of saying too much. “What can one do on one’s own?”
“Bust out and run like blazes first chance,” said Leeming. Just then he noticed the ring on the other’s ear-scratching finger and became fascinated with it. He’d seen the modest ornament before. A number of Rigellians were wearing similar objects. So were some of the guards. These rings were neat affairs consisting of four or five turns of thin wire with the ends shaped and soldered to form the owner’s initials.
“Where’d you dig up the jewellery?” he asked.
“Where did I get what?”
“The ring.”
“Oh, that.” Lowering his hand, the Rigellian studied the ring with satisfaction. “We make them ourselves in the workshops. It breaks the monotony.”
“Mean to say the guards don’t stop you?”
“They don’t interfere. There’s no harm in it. Besides, we’ve made quite a few for the guards themselves. We’ve made them some automatic lighters as well and could have turned out a lot for ourselves if we’d had any use for them.” He paused, looked thoughtful and added, “We think the guards have been selling rings and lighters outside. At least, we hope so.”
“Why?”
“Maybe they’ll build up a nice, steady trade. Then when they are comfortably settled in it we’ll cut supplies and demand a rake-off in the form of extra rations and a few unofficial privileges.”
“That’s a smart idea,” approved Leeming. “It would help all concerned to have a high-pressure salesman pushing the goods in the big towns. How about putting me down for that job?”
Giving a faint smile, the Rigellian continued, “Handmade junk doesn’t matter. But let the guards find that one small screwdriver is missing and there’s hell to pay. Everyone is stripped naked on the spot and the culprit suffers.”
“They wouldn’t care about losing a small coil of that wire, would they?”
“I doubt it. There’s plenty of it, they don’t bother to check the stock. What can anyone do with a piece of wire?”
“Heaven alone knows,” Leeming admitted: “But I want some all the same.”
“You’ll never pick a lock with it in a million moons,” warned the other. “It’s too soft and thin.”
“I want enough to make a set of Zulu bangles. I sort of fancy myself in Zulu bangles.”
“And what are those?”
“Never mind. Get me some of that wire-that’s all I ask.
“You can steal it yourself in the near future. After you’ve been questioned they’ll send you to the workshops.”
“I want it before then. I want it just as soon as I can get it. The more the better and the sooner the better.”
Going silent, the Rigellian thought it over, finally said, “If you’ve a plan in your mind keep it to yourself. Don’t let slip a hint of it to anyone. Open your mouth once too often and somebody will beat you to it.”
“Thanks for the good advice, friend,” said Leeming. “Now how about a supply of wire?”
“See you this time tomorrow.”
With that, the Rigellian left him, wandered into the crowd.
At the appointed hour the other was there, passed him the loot. “Nobody gave this to you, see? You found it lying in the yard. Or you found it hidden in your cell. Or you conjured it out of thin air. But nobody gave it to you.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t involve you in any way. And thanks a million.”
The wire was a thick, pocket-sized coil of tinned copper. When unrolled in the darkness of his cell it measured a little more than his own length, or about seven feet.
Leeming doubled it, waggled it to and fro until it broke, hid one half under the bottom of the bench. Then he spent a couple of hours worrying a nail out of the bench’s end. It was hard going and it played hob with his fingers but he persisted until the nail was free.
Finding one of the small squares of wood, he approximated its centre, stamped the nail-point into it with the heel of his boot. Footsteps sounded along the corridor, he shoved the stuff out of sight beneath the bench, lay dawn just in time before the spyhole opened. The light flashed on, a cold reptilian eye looked in, somebody grunted. The light cut off, the spyhole shut.