The Invaders Plan

A voice: "Honey, are you all right?" It was so fuzzy, I couldn't recognize it from voice quality. But it must be the Countess Krak. Yes, as I glanced at my watch, the guard would have changed.

The viewscreen image came on gradually. Faint, furry. It wasthe Countess Krak. She was in uniform, her helmet was off. Her face was very big. A poor picture.

She looked concerned. She was touching the heal-fast capsule. "Did you fall? Did you have an accident?"

"Oh, hello, darling. I must have fallen asleep again." Bad quality, barely able to tell it was Heller's voice. "No, no. Don't be alarmed. It's nothing. I just had a lot of identifying marks removed by a cellologist."

"You WHAT?"

"Yes. Soltan came and got me and I kept an appointment." There was horror on her face. "They put you under gas? You were out?"

"Oh, please. It's not all that much. It takes more than a little gas to hurt me!"

"Hah, Jettero Heller. A lot you know!" She was quite cross. "You do something crazy like that the minute I turn my back! I've told you, where Soltan Gris is concerned, I can handle him and you can't!" Then she suddenly changed. She cupped his face in her hands, looking at the wound cover. Her voice was full of sorrow and concern. "Oh, my poor darling. What have these beasts done to you?" It gave me a bad moment. Would she guess what really had been done?

Heller tried to laugh her out of it. "Look," he said, fumbling about. "The doctor gave me the tiny piece of arrowhead he took out." He told her the story and then he opened the little gold case.

"It's all bloody!" she said, recoiling. I grimaced. Blood meant nothing to her unless it was Heller's.

"Of course!" said Heller. "He said he took it out of my frontal bone." He picked it up and the fragment became absolutely HUGE on my screen. "Hmmm," he said. "That's fu

"Could have been metamorphic," puzzled Heller. "But obsidian and flint seldom mix."

"Oh, Jet. You should have been more cautious. You should have made them do it here. Where I could be present. They may have said something to you while you were out. Think hard! Do you remember what they said? Any general anesthetic can act as a hypnotic." You and hypnotism, I snarled to myself in a wave of hate as I recalled the horrible thing she had done to me.

Heller said, "Oh, yes. I forgot. It's still here on my wrist. Soltan let me put this on. Only I know the numbers to open it." He busily began to undo his combination. I made a mental note that he favored an idiot's combination – 3, 2, 1. Ho, ho. You could learn things with this bug rig!

"It's still ru

Heller was watching the Countess. And that was good because the whole thing made or broke on just this part of the project. Had I tricked her or hadn't I? My voice, very fuzzy, came out of the speaker, "I feel a little queasy. Have you got something?" Then Prahd, "Could you hold this?" And then my, "Oh, no. The sight of blood makes me quite ill lately for some reason." The Countess Krak was sitting up very straight, listening intently.

Then my voice through the speaker on the ship, "Oh, my Gods, I'm going to be sick at my stomach!" Followed by the heaving sounds.

The Countess started nodding for all the world like a teacher who is approving a pupil for being exceptionally obedient. Then she relaxed. I knew I had won! She thought that the hypnotic suggestion to get sick if Heller was hurt was still securely in place.

When the picture went white, Heller said, "My wrist must have slipped off the table." The Countess shrugged.

"I'll speed play it through," said Heller. But, of course, there were only clicks and snips and bubbles of beakers. He spot-checked the return to the tug.

The Countess said, "I'll get you something to eat." Had I won? You can't ever tell about females, but she apparently didn't suspect anything underhanded had been done. I realized she had been worried about physical damage; nothing would point to anything else.

But my problems with this rig were crucial. I could not hang on Heller's coattails and still oversee all our Earth operations.

There were some minor flaws. Peripheral vision-things in the view field but not being looked at directly – were there, if blurred. I could cope with that. But the overall visio and audio quality left so much to be desired that I was gloomy.

I thought of turning the strip on in my receiver-viewscreen and just leaving it. It had an automatic strip-feeder in it. It would record for days, maybe even weeks, untended. You just put a pile of strips in it. But then, the Countess came back in and I thought that maybe I could pick up some crucial data. After all, I knew nothing of their domestic relationship. It was really a new scene to me for they would not act naturally with me close by. What didthis pair do when they were alone together? So I kept watching.

She had changed from her guard's uniform and was wearing a blue exercise suit. She was holding a couple of steaming canisters with tubes in them – you can't use anything else in space and it was, after all, a spaceship. "Yell up there and tell it to convert the gym to a steam bath, will you? I want to steam some of that anesthetic poison out of you." Heller accommodatingly yelled, "Steam bath!" And they drank their soup.

Well, I was going to find out if water and heat hurt anything. And shortly Heller stripped and walked into the steam. I sure got a lot of steam! But the extra heat and water did not change things. Spurk hadn't flunked there. He had only flunked on range and quality, in my opinion, so far.

When Heller had showered in a bathroom, he yelled, "Gym!" The Countess yelled from somewhere, "You put on an exercise suit! It'll take more than steam to get the poison out." There was still a tinge that he had been naughty.

He was shortly ru

She was crossing the gym toward him when he stepped down to go back to the lounge. He suddenly grabbed her and kissed her. My set viewscreen flickered. Oh ho, it did register emotion in an odd way.

He pushed her back. "Am I forgiven?"

"Oh, Jet, I'd have to forgive you anything!" They kissed again. And then Jet held her away from him and in a cheerful voice said, "You haven't said what youhave been up to today! Maybe it was even worse than me!" She laughed. "I've been drilling for the review." Review? Review? I thought. What review? This was news.

She had jumped back. She did a one-two foot slam, came to rigid attention and then in total mockery, did an exaggerated cross-arm salute followed by a double foot stamp. Heller laughed with delight. "I better watch out. That Snelz will be recruiting you for keeps into the Fleet marines! What a thing to do for such a lovely lady."

"Oh, he says I am very good. You ought to see me with a blastrifle now!" Heller was laughing so hard the screen jiggled.

"No!" she said. "I am very good! There's no reason a girl can't learn to twirl a rifle! You go get it and I'll show you." Heller, still laughing, telling a few doors to open, was soon in the forward part of the ship. I was treated to a shifting view of all kinds of nooks and cra

"Hey," he yelled back to her down the long passage, "Where'd you put it?"

"Just inside the airlock." Her voice was very distant, distorted in transmission.

"I'll ask the sentry," he yelled back.

Views of all parts of the airlock. Then a determined spin of wheels and the airlock door.