Cliaand, if this nameless city was any example, was a modernized, mechanized, and busy world. Cars and heavy lorries filled the motorways, all apparently under robot control since they were evenly spaced and moved at impressive speeds. Pedways were on both sides and crossed overhead. There were stores, signs, crowds, uniforms. Uniforms! That single word does not convey the be-medaled and multicolored glories that surrounded roe. Everyone wore a uniform of some sort with the different colors, I am sure, denoting the different branches and services. None of them were striped yellow and black. One more handicap placed in my way, but I shrugged it off. When you are drowning who cares if a teacup of water is poured over your head. Nothing about this piece of work was going to be easy.
My car darted out of the rushing traffic, dived down into another tunnel entrance and drew to a stop before an ornately decorated doorway. The great golden letters Zlato-Zlato were inscribed over the entrance which, in Cliaandian, might be translated as luxury. This was a pleasant change. A beribboned, jeweled and elegant doorman rushed forward to open the door, then stopped and stamped away and his place was taken by a bullet-necked individual in a dark gray uniform. Little silver crossed knife-and-battle-ax insignia were on both shoulders and his buttons were silver skulls. Somehow, not very encouraging.
“I am Pacov,” this depressing figure mumbled. “Your bodyguard.”
“A pleasure to meet you, sir, a real pleasure.”
I climbed out, carrying my own bags it will be noted, and followed the grim back of my watchdog into the lobby of the hotel, which is what it proved to be. My identification was accepted with a maximum of discourtesy, a room assigned, a bellboy reluctantly prodded into showing me the way and off we went. My status as a theoretically respected offworld sales representative got me into the establishment, but that did not mean that I had to like it. My wasp colors branded me an alien, and alien they were going to keep me.
The quarters were luxurious, the bed soft, the bugs enthusiastically present. Sound and optic, they seemed to be built into every fitting and fixture. Every other knob on the knobbed furniture was a microphone and the light bulbs turned to follow me with their beady little eyes when I moved. When I went into the bath to shave an optical eye looked back at me through the lightly silvered mirror and there was another optical pickup in the end of my toothbrush—no doubt to spy out any secrets lurking in my molars. All very efficient.
They thought. It made to laugh, and I did, turning it into a snort when it emerged so my patient bodyguard would not be suspicious. He pad-padded after me wherever I went in the spacious apartment. No doubt he would sleep at the foot of my bed when I retired.
And all of this was of no avail. Love laughs at locksmiths—and so does Jim diGriz. Who knows an incredible amount, if you will excuse my seeming immodesty, about bugging. This was a case of massive overkill. So there were a lot of bugs. So what do you do with all that information? Computer circuitry would be completely useless in an observational situation like this one, which meant that a large staff of human beings would be watching, recording and analyzing. “There is a limit to the number of people who can be assigned to this kind of work because a geometric progression soon takes place with watchers watching watchers until no one is doing anything else. I am sure there was a large staff keeping a keen eye on me, foreigners were rare enough to enjoy this luxury. Not only would my quarters be bugged but the areas I normally passed through, ground cars and such.
The entire city could not be bugged, nor was there reason to do so. All I had to do was act my normal humble cover-role self for awhile until I found the opportunity to leave the bugged areas. And cook up a plan that would permit my complete disappearance once I was out of sight. I would have only one chance at this; whatever plan I produced would have to work the first time out or I would be a very dead rat.
Pacov was always there, watching my every motion. He was watching when I went to sleep at night and the suspicious look in those hard little eyes was the first thing I saw in the morning. Which was just the way I wanted it. Pacov would be the first to go, but until then his mere presence with me meant that my watchers were relaxed. Let them relax. I looked relaxed, too—but I wasn’t. I was examining every aspect of the city that I could see, looking for that rat hole.
On the third day I found it. It was one of the many possibilities I had under consideration and it quickly proved to be the best. I made plans accordingly and that night smiled into the darkness as I went to sleep. I’m sure the smile was observed with infrared cameras—but what can be read from a smile?
The fourth day opened as did all the others with breakfast served in the room.
“My, my, but I am hungry today,” I told the glowering Pacov. “It must be the exhilarating atmosphere and aura of good cheer on your fine planet. I believe I will have a little more to eat.”
I did. A second breakfast. Since I had no idea when my next meal might be I decided to stoke up as best I could.
Standard routine followed. We emerged from the hotel at the appointed hour and the robocar was waiting. It started at once towards its programmed destination, the war office where I had been demonstrating the effectiveness of the Fazzoletto-Mouchoir fuses. A number of targets had been destroyed, and today others would be blasted under even more exacting circumstances. It was all good fun.
We surfaced on the main road, spun down it and turned off into the side road that led to our destination. Traffic was light here—as always—and no pedestrians were in sight. Perfect. Street after street zipped by and I felt a familiar knot of tension developing. All or nothing. Slippery Jim, here we go…
“Ah-choo,” I said, with what I hoped was appropriate realism, and reached for my handkerchief. Pacov was suspicious. Pacov was always suspicious.
“Bit of dust in nose, you know how it is,” I said. “Say, look, is that not the good General Trogbar over there?” I pointed with my free hand.
Pacov was well trained. His eyes only flickered aside for an instant before they returned to me. The instant was all I needed. Knotted into the handkerchief was a roll of small coins, the only weapon I could obtain under the authority’s watchful gaze. I had assembled it, coin by coin, under the bedcovers at night. As the eyes flickered my hand struck, swinging the hard roll in a short arc that ended on the side of Pacov’s head. He slumped with a muffled groan.
And even as he slumped down I was leaning over into the front of the car and banging down on the emergency stop button. The motor died, the brakes locked, we squealed to a stop and the doors popped open. Not more than a dozen paces from the selected spot. A bullseye. I was out and running at the same moment.
Because when I hit my bodyguard and the stop button every alarm must have lit up on the bugging board—there were plenty of little seeing eyes in the car. The forces of the enemy were launched at the same instant I was. All I had were seconds—a minute perhaps—of freedom before the troops closed in and grabbed me.
Would it be enough time?
Running, head down as fast as I could, I turned and skidded into the narrow opening of the service street. This cut through behind a row of buildings and emerged on a different street. There were robots here loading rubbish into bins, but they ignored me as I ran by since they were simple M types programmed for nothing but this kind of work.
The robot pusher was another matter. He was human and had an electronic lash that he used to stir the robots along. It cracked out and snapped around me and the electric current crackled into my side.