The Invaders Plan

Whatever I expected to happen, I didn't expect the result!

The screen flashed blue white! Total overload!

The hangar sounds roared up to a din.

And Heller's voice: it almost caved in my eardrums! "WHERE'S THE RIFLE?" The sound came out of the speaker like a physical blow!

It almost made the roof of my room blow off!

I fought my way to the controls. I turned every manual knob I could see down to nearly off!

The hangar noises still sounded like a battle. The screen was still white!

I tried to think in the midst of the uproar.

There was a new uproar, local. Feet were pounding up the stairs.

I had everything as low as I could get it!

I grabbed the 831 ten-thousand-mile Relayer, snatched it out of the line and turned it off.

Suddenly I had the most beautiful clear picture of the hangar you ever wanted to see. Brilliant in the minutest detail! And that hangar is dimly lit!

The sentry was trotting back toward the ship. He was carrying a blastrifle. "Snelz had it taken over to have it polished for the review." His voice was clear and natural. I even recognized which guardsman it was by voice tone alone!

Jet took it, "Thanks, guardsman." What quality!

It was just as if he were right here in the room!

There was something else coming in the room. Meeley finished pounding my door down and planted herself before me, fists on hips, furious.

"You get that rifle out of my house this instant!" Oh, Meeley was mad! "You know I don't allow rifles or explosives! Especially in yourhands, Gris!" Oh, she was mad.

"It's the Homeviewer," I pleaded timidly. "I had it up too high!"

"Humph!" said Meeley and slapped me in the face. She flounced out. The door banged shut so hard it almost knocked the wall down.

I rubbed the sting off my cheek and turned back to the viewscreen.

It was dead.

There was no sound.

Spurk ought to be shot! His equipment was inconsistent, sporadic! He should have said so in the directions. But then, I remembered, I hadn't read them.

I turned all manual volumes full on and then in despair, added the 831 Relayer. You had to be an electronics technician to run this stuff!

I had my picture and sound back, fuzzy and poor.

Then it hit me. That (bleeped) tug was totally painted with absorbo-coat paint! No known waves could get through it. And I was actually activating the respondo-mitter and audio-respondo-mitter through a waveproof ship!

There was nothing like absorbo-coat on Earth. So it was all right!

I watched the Countess going through a manual of arms I had never seen before. It included giving the rifle butt a kick that sent it spi

They got to spi

They were laughing. Finally the Countess caught the rifle and came to present arms. "So I'm all ready for the review." Whatreview? I puzzled. Certainly the Countess Krak was not going to be in any review!

Heller said, "I can leave at noon, day after tomorrow." She became sad. He put his arm around her and they wandered to the salon. They sat down on a couch, side by side.

All of a sudden the Countess put her arms around him and her head on his chest and started crying quietly.

After a while, she said, "I'm going to miss you so." He held her close. His voice was attempting encouragement. "I'll do the mission very, very fast. Honest I will." After a little he said, "Mainly, I'm concerned about you." Suddenly he held her away from him. There was a catch in his voice but a bitter determination, "If anybody harms you while I am gone, I will kill them!" She was still crying. But she nodded at him and then said, "That goes both ways!" A chill hit me. They hadn't said it very loudly. But there was a firm intention in it that meant exactly what it said. If anyone hurt the other, the offender was dead.

I didn't want to look or listen anymore. I hastily shut the equipment off.

I needed something to distract me, quick. I didn't want to think what could happen to me if they found out my real intentions.

I had information. I knew when the tug could leave.

I fled from the room.

At a message center at the corner, I got a co

When I started up the stairs, Meeley was blocking the way. She screamed at me, "Don't you ever bring no more rifles into my house! Of all the tenants I have ever had, you, Soltan Gris, are easily the most ..." It went on and on. All of it false. Her tenants were Apparatus officers. They were none of them different than any others, including me and she knew it.

Safely in my room again and the door bolted and barricaded, I caressed the bugging equipment. It certainly worked. I had no doubts at all I could run Heller from Turkey.

I got to thinking of the late Spurk. It was an awfully good thing he was dead. I was a benefactor of the race. Suppose this kind of stuff got installed in everybody! Even I shuddered at the thought.

Chapter 5

When I got the call the next evening, even though he had told me he wanted to see me twenty-four hours before departure, I felt scared. When summoned to see Lombar, one never knew what he was being invited to: his own funeral or somebody else's.

Sometimes he was pleasant, sometimes so agitated you felt he was going to fly apart in screaming bits.

All day I had been sort of putting the idea aside that he might send for me. I had occupied myself with last minute bits. Heller had told me in the morning of the approximate departure time and I had to pretend I didn't know already. All day he was busy making tests of recently refurbished or installed equipment, always at the center of a boil of contractors. It had all made me very nervous.

Food trucks had been coming and going, putting supplies aboard. When Heller asked me where the crew was and how many there would be, I couldn't tell him as I didn't know – Lombar hadn't told me.So I said I would put stores aboard for the number of bunks and stamped food orders to that effect. Enough food and drink for a crew of eleven and two passengers for two years was what I put down. It was a silly purchase – he wouldn't be around anywhere near that long. I charged it off to necessary deception.

Even before noon I had gotten sort of nervous around the ship. I tried to take refuge in a retreat to the Blixobut Bolz wasn't aboard. I drove off on some u

So I was in no real shape for an interview with Lom-bar when, about seven that evening, two Apparatus guards loomed up outside my room door and beckoned. One always tries to read something in their faces: one notes how they are carrying their rifles – on sling or at ready. But it really tells you nothing. So, with no inkling as to the temper of the coming meeting, I found myself further unsteadied by being taken, not to his town office and not to Spiteos, but outside the city. I had no idea where we were going or why.

At length, the patrol van in which we had been riding stopped and the exit panel flew up. A black bulk stood near us in an open field.

It was a type of ship called, by the Fleet, "the gun." Its proper name is "Spacebattle Mobile Flying Ca