My eyes, flicking constantly to the airlock, had seen no sign of Lombar. Oh, my Gods, how long can I keep this up?
"Jettero," I said pleadingly, "there must be some additional item we have forgotten." He thought hard. But he did seem to be having trouble breathing. His chest kept jiggling and his mouth was very straight.
"Well," he said at last. "Youwon't need anything as you're going along. Ah, I have it! A whole new wardrobe for the Countess Krak!" He wrote and he wrote. Boots, dresses, jumpers, a tiara, chank-pops, on and on. Finally he was done. I stamped it.
In agony I was looking at the airlock. No Lombar.
And then, accidentally, my eye shifted to another direction. The exterminator truck? It was GONE!
Oh, (bleep) him, Lombar and that bunch of hoods with him had slipped out of that ship and driven off! The coast was clear and probably had been for some time! I had been doing all this stalling totally in vain! They must have left the ship right on my heels! Maybe while I was changing in the truck!
"That's all for now," I said quickly.
Heller took all the stamped sheets, separated the copies. He handed the former over to an order clerk and the latter to me.
"Thank you very much, Soltan," he said. "That was very thoughtful of you. I thought you were just playing a joke at first and that I was playing a joke on you back. But halfway through, I began to see that you meant it. I'm sorry I was laughing at you. I hope they can find that yellow and purple bubblebrew. So far as I know, it doesn't exist. And neither do the solid gold-heeled lepertige leather thigh boots I put down for the Countess. But we'll let the purchasers worry about that. I thought we were supposed to leave very quietly. But obviously, that isn't required. That sure will be some going away party! So thanks again." He clickety-clacked away on his hull shoes and was shortly swarming up a rope to complete testing the plates. I watched him sourly. These Fleet guys, I had heard, did play jokes with purchase orders: sky-blue carbon black, cans of vacuum, a pound of photons, a perimeter of assorted space particles.
And then I thought of my revenge. If and when he got as far as demonstrating that element conversion equipment, he was in for some realhumiliation. Serve him right!
I went back to my airbus. I told my driver to go up someplace and hover. I needed some peace and quiet.
It wasn't until a half hour later that I suddenly realized how the Finance Office would treat some of those orders. They would declare them "frivolous" and "exterior to existing allocations." And they would not do that until the orders had actually been placed and the goods delivered. You could spend millions of government money unless it was "frivolous." In a sudden panic, I started tallying up the probable cost of these bills! The further I tallied, the more frantic I became.
If these orders were disallowed, they could be debited against the account of the stamping officer!
Some, like uniforms, might get okayed but the rest came to about eight hundred and fifty credits! Maybe more!
If I overdrew my account I would probably be court-martialled, even cashiered!
Ske said, "What's the matter with you? You look like you're having a convulsion!" Finally, I managed to tell him. "Drive to the Finance Office. I've got to place nine hundred credits into my year's advanced pay account and quick!" I nearly would be broke again!
Slumped, I gloomed over my fate as we rode along.
And then I sat up straight with a new horror. With all those parties, fireworks and wreaths on the ship, Lombar was going to tear my guts out for violating the secrecy of the mission!
I suddenly yelled, "(Bleep) Heller. (Bleep) him and all his kind!" It didn't help to hear Ske laughing. He wouldn't laugh if he really knew how bad it was.
It had begun as such a beautiful day.
Chapter 9
I had spent the remainder of the day before tending to this and that and then had spent the night rolling around in a growing state of apprehension. Today I was somehow going to have to lure Heller to that miniature hospital and get him operated on. My main worry was the Countess Krak. If she suspected I had done something to Heller, Spiteos or no Spiteos, she would find ways to kill me. When I finally got to sleep, it was only to have a nightmare about her mistaking me for the yellow-man I had seen her stamp to pulp. In it, I kept trying to tell her that the only reason I was having a nightmare was because she had a role reversal, prompted by an elektra complex of father fixation, but she just kept on stamping. I woke up streaming sweat and for a few moments had been sure it was my blood kicked out of me. I didn't go back to sleep!
In the morning, I approached Tug Oneafter sunrise when I was sure Krak had gone. The best tricks I could think of held firmly in my mind, I walked aboard, smiling a smile I did not feel. Heller was already up, sitting in the fancy salon, polishing off some notes. He was dressed in a white, flare-collared, work cover suit of some sparkly material. These Fleet guys certainly can put on airs. I hoped it got bloodstained before the day was out!
"You'll have to postpone any other work you have for today," I said. "You have a physical readiness appointment." He laughed. "I think I'm ready. I'm in pretty good shape, actually. I was about to run around the hangar for a workout before the crews came this morning."
"May I sit down?" I said and did. "Jettero, you don't understand espionage. That's why I am here to guide you. In the place where we are going, they do ALL their police records with identifying marks. If you have any identifying marks, you can be spotted, just like that!" And I snapped my fingers.
He shook his head. "I don't have any."
"Hah!" I said. I reached over and grabbed the glistening white cloth and pulled it aside to bare his shoulder. I secretly hoped the cloth would tear. "What do you call that?" And I pointed to where Lombar's paralysis dagger had left a small white scar. "Do you see?" I let go and the jumper sprang back in place. I looked at his face searchingly. For a combat engineer who had been through all the battles and adventures he had, he certainly had few marks on him.
Then I found one. Just at the outer edge of his right eyebrow there was a tiny scar. The very thing! Through it one could enter between the temple and the overeye bone.
"So," I said, triumphantly, "there's two already." And I pointed to the eyebrow scar.
"Oh, that," he laughed. "You won't believe this but I was with a campaign on a primitive planet once. I had to get into a stockaded village. And I got hit with a stone-headed arrow! Honestly. A bow and arrow! The on-board doctor who fixed it laughed and laughed over it. I was standing there with a blastgun ready to shoot and got hit with an arrow! Hilarious. Had the whole squadron laughing. It's nothing."
"It's an identifying mark," I said impressively. "Where we're going, they would see that and recognize at once you were from Voltar. Pick you up like that!" And I snapped my fingers to emphasize it.
Heller exploded with laughter. "We don't use bows and arrows on Voltar! Look around, Soltan. You see any?" He thought it was screamingly funny. He laughed and laughed. I hoped he choked.
I could see I was getting nowhere on that course, so I went into my second argument. I had spent hours on this project, all aspects of how to lure him into an operation. "Well, that may or may not be," I said a bit sternly. "But it doesn't get around Regulation 534279765 Part A, Paragraph 1! It distinctly states that no one with identifying marks may be landed on Earth! So there!" He had stopped laughing. "You have the regulations here to show me, of course." Well, I couldn't do that. I had just made it up. But I can think pretty fast. "You know of Book of Space CodesNumber a-36-544 M Section B, prohibiting landing and disclosure of extraterrestrial identity." He knew of that, yes.