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It moved on and I groped for the car’s starting switch through a galaxy of rainbows and roaring discs of light. The groundcar started up, then leaped into motion as I kicked it into gear. As the light hit again I fell over the side and lay still.

For a considerable length of time I was motionless and bathed by the light, searing in even through my closed eyelids. It felt as though I lay there between two and three years but could only have been a fraction of a second. The ladder was in place and I climbed down it, barking my shins well on the tumbled clutter of boxes. Rooting about like a mole in the darkness I kicked and pushed them through the entranceway ahead of me. The roar of great machines was loud behind me, joined a moment later by the sound of rapid firing weapons and the boom of explosions.

“Perfect,” I panted, hurling the last of the boxes. “Weapons are meant to be used, so they are using them. I was sure they would be a trigger-happy bunch and I’m most pleased to see my conclusions justified.” A louder boom announced the destruction of my car. It could not have been better. I felt for the transmitter by the entrance and took it with me as I climbed up the ladder, at a much more leisurely pace.

Standing comfortably on the ladder, with my elbows resting on the ground, I had the best seat for the performance. Jets roared and propellers thrashed from the sky above. Bullets sang and bombs exploded. The groundcar burned nicely, sending up angry spurts of flame whenever the wreck was strafed. As the banging and booming began to taper off I livened it up by pressing the first button on the transmitter.

With a satisfying explosion of sound the rapid-fire guns began to fire from the top of the Pot, while at occasional intervals rockets shot up out of the launcher. Every other round was tracer so the show was most impressive. The forces in the sky above zoomed away to regroup, then returned to the attack with savage vigor. The top of the Pot and the ground all about was torn with explosions. I had raided the Cliaand armory for my weapons and it was nice to see the same side shooting at itself. A bomb exploded no more than thirty meters from me and sand shook down my neck. This part of the show was over; time for the finale.

Sand was falling all around me as I dropped back to the bottom of the hole. With a certain amount of haste I pulled the ladder through the entrance, then tugged on the cables and darted inside. A good part of the sand I had dug out was piled above the entrance and held back by restraining boards. Now removed. I pushed the door shut as the sand slid down with sudden speed. Standing there in the darkness I counted slowly to ten to allow enough time for the sandslide to completely fill the hole. Then I pressed the second button.

Nothing happened.

And this was an essential part of the operation. With all the bombs going off, the ground still shook with their vibration, one more explosion would not be noticed. The second button was to have triggered a buried charge that would conceal all signs of my activities and seal my rat hole at the same time. If it did not go off I would be easily found and dug out…

Memory returned and I cursed my own foolishness. Of course I had made plans for this contingency. The radio signal from my little transmitter could not reach through the ground. I had known that. I groped for the flashlight I had left by the entrance, turned it on and saw the bare end of wire sticking through the wall. It was even labeled 2 so there would be no confusion if I were in a hurry.

I was in a hurry. The explosions were dying away, presumably the mechanical enemy on the Pot had been destroyed, and if my explosion did not go off soon it would look very suspicious to say the least. I wrapped the end of the wire, it extended up to ground level, around the whip aerial on the transmitter and thumbed the button again. There was silence.

Until a jarring explosion went off just overhead, shaking the bones inside my body and rattling my teeth together. My concrete cave boomed like a drum and dirt and chips rattled down. I was safe.

Snug as a roach in the rafters. I turned on the light and looked with pride on my residence for the next couple of weeks. Power supply, shielded of course, food, water, atmosphere renewal, everything a man might need. And the solid state circuitry and devices that had arrived in the meteor. I would work and assemble my equipment and emerge ready to face the world. While the desert above was searched and quartered and the chase went further away. They would never think to look right under their noses, never! I smiled and looked for a bottle to open to celebrate.

Chapter 7

No longer a thief I, nor a hider under rocks. On the 13th day I had unblocked my door and dug my way back to the surface. With this symbolic act I left behind my fugitive’s existence and entered Cliaandian society. With assorted identification and various uniforms I now played a wide selection of roles in this rather repellent society until I knew far more about it than I really cared. In my various identities I only brushed the periphery of the military since I wanted to save my energies for a frontal assault there in full power.

With this possibility I boarded a SST flight to Dosadanglup, the fair sized provincial city that happened to be situated adjacent to the military base of Glupost. From what I had been able to determine Glupost was also a major spaceship center and staging area for offworld expeditions. So there was more than chance to the fact that I loitered near enough to the seat reservation clerk to see who got what, and then asked for a seat next to a very attractive who.

Attractive only to me, I hasten to add. By any other standard of measurement the flight-major would win no prizes-His jaw was too big, apparently designed to project into places where it wasn’t wanted, and it had a nasty little cleft built into it as though it had cracked from being poked too far. Suspicious dark eyes lurked under simian shelving brows and the cavernous nostrils were twin fur-lined subway tunnels. I could not care less. I saw only the black uniform of the Space Armada, the many decorations signifying active service, and the wings-and-rocket of a senior pilot. He was my man.

“Good evening, sir, good evening,” I said as I slipped into the seat next to him. “A pleasure to travel with you.”

He aimed the twin cannons of his nose at me and fired a broadside snort that signaled a close to the recently opened conversation. I smiled in return and buckled my belt and was slammed back into the cushions as the SST buried itself into the night sky. At cruising altitude most of the wing area slipped back into the hull and I took out my pocket flask and detached the two small cups.

“It would be a pleasure to offer you a drink of refreshment, noble flight-major, in gratitude for your many services rendered to the glorious cause of Cliaand.”

This time he did not even bother to grunt, but instead picked at his teeth with a none too clean pinky nail until he extracted a fragment of meat from his recent dinner. Close examination convinced him that it was too large to discard so he re-ingested it with a certain relish. A man of simple pleasures. I offered a better one.

“Nothing too good for our boys in the service. This is narcolethe.” I sipped at the cup and smacked my lips.

He looked directly at me for the first time and there should have been little splintering sounds as his lips moved slowly into an unaccustomed smile.

“I’ll drink that,” he said in a grating voice, and well he should since the small flask of liqueur would have cost him a month’s salary. Narcolethe, the finest drink known to mankind, distilled in small quantities from a scarce botanical on a minor planet at the galaxy’s rim. Soothing, charming, subtle, intoxicating, inspiring, aphrodisiac, stimulating. It was everything any other drink was, plus much more, with no side effects and no hangover. He took the proffered cup and lowered the caverns of his nose over it and sipped.