"Got it. Locked cabin. Locked (bleep)."
"The other is a scientist. He holds some scientific secrets. He is on a secret mission. Do not put him down on your manifest. He is not to talk with anyone."
"Got it. Locked cabin, empty. Locked mouth."
"Now there are three freight consignments."
"Hey, now," said Bolz. "That's good. You know we never carry nothing back to Blito-P3 but some food and a few spare parts. So! Realfreight! That's good. Makes the ship run better. You know, Officer Gris, we carry too little cargo."
"I'm glad you approve. Now, there's a big lot coming from Zanco Cellological Equipment and Supplies. Physical health sort of thing to set up a base hospital."
"Hey, things are looking up. Maybe somebody can treat that venereal disease that's poking around down there. I got two crew limping with it right now! The dumb (bleepards)."
"Then a bit later, there'll be a second, smaller lot coming in from the same firm but it's being held for inspection. It will have some very sensitive stuff in it so don't let it get knocked around."
"Knocked around," said Bolz, writing busily.
"Now, do you have a lead-sealed storeroom, that can take radioactive material in boxes?"
"Yeah, we got one. They won't blow up, will they?"
"Not unless they're opened," I said. "But they're so sensitive that I brought them down myself. Could you have an officer stow them in it right now. And lock it?" Well, he could do that if he hurried before they all hit groundside for a spree. He pushed buzzers and, with Ske's help, soon had nine "radioactive" boxes in the vault. I turned the key in the lock and put it in my pocket.
Bolz accompanied me back to the exit airlock. "Hey, how we going to unload it if you got the key?" I grinned at him. I was really floating. "I'll be there to meet you when you land on Earth, Captain. I'm going to run this show from Blito-P3!" He swatted me on the back and almost knocked my breath out. "Great news! Then you can stamp passes for here right when I load there! So I'll see you on the target!"
"With a bottle of Scotch in my hand just for you," I said.
"Wait," he paused, puzzled. "How you going to get there before I do? Old Blixois no sprinter but there ain't anything else leaving before I do." We could see Tug Onethrough the gaps in other craft. She only stood out because contractor crews were boiling over her.
He peered. "I don't recognize her. What is she? Looks like a Fleet . . . oh, my Gods, is that one of the Will-be Was engined tugs? Hey, Officer Gris, do you know one of them things blew up? I thought they'd retired all light-craft Will-be Was stuff from service. Oh, now, Officer Gris, I don't know if you'll be there to meet me or not." And he made an explosion motion with his two hands.
It was not too happy a thought to part on. But with promises to be careful and good wishes for his own next voyage, I went down the ladder.
I had a awful lot to do. In fact, on today's schedule there remained the dangerous part of my planning. The real make or break. My mind was full of the problem of how to get the secret bugs for Heller.
As I flew away, Bolz was still standing there, shaking his head.
Chapter 3
We flew up to ten thousand feet. My driver was pretending he had strained his back and scratched his hands. I had headed him for Joy City. I was trying to put makeup on and he kept taking his hands off the wheel-stick and trying to suck the blood out of the cuts the sharp-edged boxes had made. I got some powder in my eye and cursed him.
"Hover!" I demanded. And added a couple violent adjectives.
So he hovered. I was able to complete my face. With a bit of yellow liquid, dulled by pale yellow powder, I was able to duplicate the skin tone of a Flisten race's upper class. With a skin stricture on each temple, I down-slanted my eye corners. With black-looking color shifters, the eyes became quite sinister. I was very pleased. I snapped a close-cut, black wig on and blackened the hair on either side of my face. Wonderful!
I scrambled and grunted myself out of my General Service uniform and into the custard of Army Intelligence. I dropped the high-rank chain over my head, put on the spike-heeled yellow boots and the flat cap. I put my own wallet and the identoplate of Timp Snahp in my pocket.
I admired myself in the mirror. What a snappy, handsome aristocrat! Timp Snahp, Grade XIII, Demon ace of Flisten's Army Intelligence! How the girls must go for him! How the Army criminal element must tremble, the enemy shake under that sinister gaze!
"You going someplace to get shot?" said my driver hopefully.
"Joy City," I said. "The very best bars. North end."
"The Army officers hang out at the Dirt Club this time of day," said my driver. "That's in the south end." I ignored him. He was too willful to be associated with. I was busy packing the civilian suit in a little kit bag and arming myself. Besides, he was right.
We landed a block away from the Dirt Club. "You," I said, "can now go someplace and spend your wealth; I won't need you until dawn tomorrow."
"Wealth!" he sneered. "I really owe that ten credits to Officer Heller!" It didn't work. I sternly ordered him to buzz away. It was a relief to be free of his company.
I checked my weapons. I had a bladegun in my holster. Although it looks like a military issue, it isn't. It shoots flat, metal triangles that practically carve a body to bits. It was a souvenir of my early days in the Apparatus, recovered from a corpse. I had two 800-kilovolt blasticks but I didn't want to use those: they sound like a war going off. I had my Knife Section knife back of my collar. Silence was the watchword today!
Cheerfully, I wended my way through the clutter of yesteryear's parties and down the block. In the distance loomed the Dirt Club. Actually that is not its name. It is The Ground Forces Play Club.It isn't run by the Army at all because the Army Division high ranks could never condone what goes on there: they themselves do it, but they could never officially admit it.
It is about fifteen stories high and covers about twenty acres, all under roof. Across the front of it two blast-cannons perpetually fire flame at each other and a naked girl in a general's hat lies on the top of the flame parabola, quite relaxed. The Army is silly.
I went in, hoping I looked furtive enough for the part of an Army Intelligence officer. I never knew why they put this branch of service in custard, the rest of the Army wears chocolate.
The outer lobby is respectable enough. The first two rooms are just dining bars. It's when you get to the third bar that you know you should never bring your sister here. Halfway to the ceiling there are glass runways and girls parade on them. They don't dance. They even wear a trifle here and there. But they are females who have no appointment in the beds upstairs for the moment and they just stroll along waiting for some customer to pick up a beam-marker light and pot one of them. Then they go upstairs with the marksman and he does some more marksmanship.
The fifth room is like the girl's parade except it is animals doing the parading. They get potted and taken upstairs the same way. The Army, being so much in the field and away from home, can develop peculiar tastes.
Wandering along, looking carefully careless, I had my eye open for a certain badge and, hopefully, a rank that was the same as I was wearing or less. So far I wasn't having any luck. It was early afternoon and the place was by no means crowded. The scattering of badges and ranks were mostly chatting and casually drinking.
I got through the gambling section and into the hypergambling section. It was too early in the day for the girls to be on the wheels. They put them vertically and spread-eagled on these turning discs and around they go while a gambler throws simulated hand grenades at them – made of fabric. If one gets a grenade to contact with one of her breasts, it "explodes," the girl lights up at all points and center and a shower of tokens seems to fly out of her (bleep). At least, that's what they say will happen. The girl can always control the wheel and move her breasts and I've played one for hours without ever a single payoff.* I was beginning to get worried. I had gone through sixteen rooms without spotting thebranch of service badge I was looking for. Maybe Supply officers were too smart to come in places like this!