Lombar stood there, watching through a pair of light magnifiers, grunting from time to time as he checked off expected actions.
The lights of B-44-A-539-Gflared up. Its chargers began to whine. The personnel carriers drew back. The patrol craft leaped like a lightning flash and was gone into the sky.
The speedwheeler whispered back and the member of the Knife Section got off. He pushed the vehicle at the waiting mechanics to reload and then sauntered over to Lombar.
"Took it like babies," said the bogus messenger with an evil grin. He handed over the envelope. I took it because Lombar was busy scanning the sky. It said, Fleet Orders. Very Secret. Very Urgent.
Lombar had the light magnifiers on the heavens. "They spoke to no one." It was a statement, not a question.
"No one," said Knife Section.
"They were all there," said Lombar. Another statement.
"All there," said Knife Section. "The craftleader called the roll."
"Ah," said Lombar, seeing something in the sky, "they've turned. In less than an hour they'll all be safe in Spiteos and B-44-A-539-Gwill be found in a day or two burned to a crisp in the Great Desert." It seemed to give him a lot of satisfaction. My blood was running cold. Conditioned as I was to operations of the Apparatus, the kidnapping of a Royal Fleet crew and wanton destruction of an expensive long-range star patrol craft was a bit wide even for that lawless organization. And forging some admiral's signature could bring a death sentence. I was still holding the envelope the Knife Section had handed me and I hastily put it in my blouse, just in case.
Lombar took another look at the sky. "Good! So far, good! Now we're going over to the officers' club and pick up that (bleep), (bleep), (bleep)Jettero Heller! Load up!"
Chapter 4
It is one thing to dispose of an Apparatus ranker: you just shoot him; it is quite another to illegally do away with a Royal officer. But Lombar Hisst was going about it like it was something one did every day, without a second thought.
The officers' club was a brilliant blare of light and sound. It was a high-roofed series of buildings – dining rooms, bars, accommodations for single officers and an enclosed sports arena. It was built to house around forty thousand. It stood in an inset valley, backed by towering mountain peaks.
A second moon had risen now and it was far too light for comfort. Lombar found shelter for the trucks under the shoulder of a hill – he had a talent for locating darkness – and we proceeded on foot, keeping to shadows and out of sight, with two squads of the 2nd Death Battalion.
The bulk of the sound was coming from the sports arena. All around, outside its exits, there were many flowering shrubs and the air was heavy with their night perfume. They furnished shadow and concealment and Lombar, with silent flicks of his stinger, inserted a cordon of guards into strategic places so that they made a hidden half-moon with the arena's main exit at the center. With their black uniforms, one would never know that thirty deadly Apparatus troops formed a trap.
Lombar shoved me forward and we went to a barred window near the exit and peered in.
A game of bullet ball was in progress. The spectator seats were a mass of color and, just as we looked, a roar of applause was enough to make the door tremble. Somebody had scored.
You know bullet ball, of course. The wide floor of the arena is divided up into precise white circles, each about ten feet in diameter and fifty feet, one from another. Each contestant has a bag of forty-two balls. In the civilian and professional version of the game, these are quite soft, about three inches in diameter and covered with black chalk. The players, in the civilian version, are dressed in white and number four. But this is the Fleet version.
Young officers being young officers, in the Fleet version the balls are very hard, like true missiles. They are chalked bright red. And the players strip to white pants, leaving their chests bare. The Fleet version increases the individual players to six and that can be very dangerous indeed.
The object, of course, is for each single player to try to take out all the other players. A hit must be on the torso, above the belt and below the chin. If one steps out of his circle in his efforts to dodge, he is, of course, out of the game.
It is a great test of skill and agility not only to throw accurately but also to dodge the "bullets" of the other players.
One of those balls can travel anything from seventy to a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour. They can crush ribs, break arms or smash skulls. And one can't anticipate their real paths. A really good player can throw them so they curve suddenly in flight when only five feet away and instead of dodging out of the way, one can accidentally move straight into them. An expert can also make a ball "break" down or up in flight at the last split second or even make them screw through the air, utterly unpredictable.
Dodging is an art in itself – trying to look like you'll be in one place while being in quite another when the bullet actually arrives requires foot and body work that would make a leap-dancer look like a cow. A player can have several bullets coming at him all at once from five different directions! Every one of them totally lethal.
In the Fleet version, adding two more players, six instead of four, it can get pretty fast! And the Fleet players don't just try to get their opponents to stepout of the ring: they send them flying! I never cared for bullet ball myself, even if they ever would have let me play.
The sight we saw before us must have been the last of a series of sets. Several vanquished players were on the sidelines, below the massed and cheering crowd. One player was being put on a stretcher.
On the floor was a nearly finished final game. There were only three players left unmarked and on their feet. The two furthest from us were evidently combining against the one nearest us who had just expertly reached out and caught both bullets in his hands, left and right. If you can do that, you of course have more ammunition but Lords help your stinging hands! That was what had made the crowd cheer.
The player nearest to us still held the two balls. He was sort of dancing on his toes, weaving to left and right.
Another player threw and as far away as we were and despite the crowd sounds, the sizzle-whip of the ball was loud. Real velocity!
I was still a bit light-blinded and I didn't quite see how it happened. But the crowd sure did! The nearest player, in that split second, had thrown his right-hand ball and almost in the same motion had caughtthe incoming sizzler.
Then the crowd really went wild! The bullet of the nearest player had hit an opponent in the chest and knocked him backwards eight feet and clean out of his ring!
I gasped. I had now and then seen a player throw and catch in the same play but I had never seen one throw, catch and hit!
I was distracted by the rumbling whisper of Lombar beside me. He had the bogus orderly by the neck and was showing him the nearest player. "That's Jettero Heller. Do exactly as I told you. No slips!" He gave him an envelope and the man from Knife Section slid inside.
So that was Jettero Heller. I felt not just nervous but a little sick. Listening to that crowd of females and junior ranks, this fellow was not just a little popular. And popular people get missed when you kidnap them. I glanced at Lombar.