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“And about time too. I’ll expect you back.” She kissed me but did not look happy. “You’re not going to tell me what you are going to do?”
“No. If I told you I would have to listen too and then I might not do it. But it does involve three things. Finding the gray men, turning them over to our alien friends—then getting out of it myself.”
“Well you do that. But don’t skip any of the steps—particularly the last one.”
We climbed into our various disguises and departed quickly before we changed our minds. Angelina clattered off with knowledgeable tread and I thudded off in the opposite direction. I thought I knew the way but must have made a wrong turning. Looking for a shortcut back to the upper levels, I managed to fall through a rusted plate in the decking into what must have been a covered-over lake or underground reservoir. In any case I thrashed on for quite awhile in the darkness, my course lit only by my glowing eyes, until I found the far end. There was no obvious way out but I settled that by dropping a grenade from my cloaca and flicking it against the wall with a twitch of my tail. It crumped nicely and I crawled through the smoky opening back into the light of day. Just in time to see an officer with a patrol of nasties trotting up to see what was the trouble.
“Help, ohh help, please,” I moaned, staggering in small circles with my claws pressed to my forehead. Thankfully, the officer was also a TV-news watcher.
“Sweet Sleepery—what is bothering you?” it cried aloud emotionally, showing me about five thousand rotten fangs and a meter or two of damp purple throat.
“Treachery! Treachery in our midst,” I cried. “Send a message to your CO to order an emergency meeting of the War Council—then take me there at once.”
It was done instantly, and they took me at my word by wrapping a thousand sucker-tipped tentacles around me and rushing me off my feet. This made the trip easier, and saved my batteries, and I was refreshed and relaxed when they finally dropped me at the door to the conference room.
“You are all repugnant lads, and I shall never forget you,” I shouted. They cheered and slapped their suckers against the deck with wet shlurping sounds and I galloped into the conference.
“Treason, treachery, betrayal!” I cried.
“Take your seat and make your statement in the proper form after the meeting is correctly opened,” the secretary said. But a thing Like a purple whale with terminal hemorrhoids was more sympathetic.
“Gentle Jeem, you seem disturbed. We have heard that there has been mayhem in your quarters, and all we can find of the noble Gar-Baj is his tail which doesn’t say very much. Can you elucidate?”
“I can—and will, if the secretary will let me.”
“Ohh, get on with it then,” the secretary grumbled ungraciously, looking more and more like a squashed black frog with every passing moment. “Meeting called to order, Sleepery Jeem speaking re certain grave charges.”
“It’s like this,” I explained to the attentive War Council. “We of Geshtunken have certain rare abilities—in addition to being inordinately sexy, I mean.” They appreciated this last and there was a lot of squishy banging on the furniture and wet smacking sounds. “Thank you, and the same to you. Now one thing we can do is smell very good—yes, I know, we smell good too, sit down boy, you’re in the way. As I was saying, my keen sense of smell led me to believe that there was something not strictly kosher about this planet. I sniffed and sniffed well—and I sniffed out humans!”
Through the cries of shocked horror I heard shouts of “Cill Airne!” and I acknowledged them with a nod of my head.
“No, not the Cill Airne, the natives of this planet. I detected their traces at once, but they are like mouse droppings and I know the extermination corps is surely taking good care of them. No, I mean humans right here in our midst! We have been penetrated!”
That rocked them back and I let them shout and writhe a bit while I sharpened my claws with a file. Then I raised my paws for silence and there it was in an instant. Every eye, large, small, stalked, green, red or soggy, was on me. I walked slowly forward.
“Yes. They are among us. Humans. Doing their best to sabotage our lovely war of extermination. And I am going to reveal one to you—rightnow!”
My legs’ motors hummed and my power plant grew warm as I sprang into the air with a mighty leap. Sailing in an arc through the air, twenty meters or more. Graceful too. Landing with a horrible crunch that set my shock absorbers groaning. Dropping down crash onto the secretary’s desk which crushed nicely. Paws extended so that my claws sank through the secretary’s damp black hide. Picking him up and waving him about as he writhed and shouted.
“You’re mad. Let me down! I’m no more human than you are!”
That was what made my mind up. Up until this moment it had all been guesswork. The gray men were here, they must be disguised, and the only four-limbed creature other than myself was the secretary. In the position of power to run things, the only really organized alien I had yet encountered. But it was still just guesswork until he had spoken. Roaring with victory I hooked a recently sharpened claw into the front of his throat.
Dark liquid spurted out and he screamed hoarsely.
I gulped and almost hesitated. Was I wrong? Was I going to dismember the secretary of the War Council right in front of the council itself? I had a feeling they would not take that too well. No! It was for only a microsecond that I hesitated—then I tore on. I had to be right. I ripped out his throat, delicately sliced all around his neck—then tore his head off.
There was a shocked silence as the head bounced and squashed on the floor. Then a gasp from all sides. Inside the first head there was another head. A small, pallid, scowling human head. The secretary was a gray man.
While the council was shocked into immobility the gray man was not. He pulled a gun from a gill slit and leveled it at me. Which of course I had been expecting and I brushed it aside. I was not as quick when he grabbed out a microphone from his other gill and began shouting into it in a strange language.
I wasn’t as fast because this was just what I wanted him to do. I gave him more than enough time to get out the message before I grabbed away the microphone. Then he kicked out and got me in the stomach and I folded, gasping and unmoving as he vanished through a trapdoor in the floor.
Recovering quickly I waved away all offers of aid.
“Care not for me,” I croaked, “for the blow was mortal. Avenge me! Send out the alarm to grab all the other black ploppies like the secretary. Let none escape! Go now!”
They went, and I had to roll aside before I was trampled in the rush. Then I thrashed and expired, in case anyone was watching, and peeked through one half-closed eyelid until they were all gone.
Only then did I blow open the locked trapdoor and follow the gray man.
How could I follow him? it might be asked, and I will be happy to answer. During the struggle I had stuck a little neutrino generator into his artificial hide, that is how. A zippy neutrino can pass, undeflected and unstopped, through the entire mass of a planet. The metal of this city’s construction would surely not interfere with them in the slightest. Need I add that I had a directional neutrino detector built into my snout? I never go on a mission without a few simple preparations.
The illuminated needle pointed that way, and down. I went that way, and down at the first stairwell, because I wanted to find out just what the gray men were doing on this planet. My fleeing secretary would lead me to their lair.
He did one better than that. He led me to their ship.
When I saw light ahead I treaded more slowly, then peered from the darkness of the tu