The Invaders Plan

Chapter 7

I did not have any inkling whatever that I was about to begin what will rank as one of the most awful days of my life.

I went back into the ship. I was tired, I was depressed. I felt all rumpled up, inside and out. If I could only get some sleep!

And there was Heller in the passageway outside my door. He had on a clean, blue, Fleet work-jumper, unwrinkled and creased just so. He had his inevitable red racing cap on the back of his neatly combed blond hair. He looked, despite the hour, rested and glowing with health. I hated him.

His first words increased the intensity of my emotion. "What the blast crash is this horrible stink?" Then he was staring into my cubicle.

I edged past him into my room. "It's my baggage." True, it was literally thrown all over the place. True, Ske had even packed decayed, broken, disposable dishes.

"Look," said Heller, "if you were to step aboard a Fleet vessel with gear like this, dirty as you are, they'd execute you! A spacevessel operates on a closed atmosphere system. This grit would clog the air recirculation filters and I don't think the deodorizers would handle it." He was being patient. "There's a crew laundry and cleaner in the opposite passageway. Throw this stuff in there and get it all washed quickly. You haven't got much time: the groundside water and sewage and power co

It didn't. A shocked look came over his face. "Hey, don't you know this whole ship will be awash with excess electrical charge? It could set them off!"

"I thought you fixed that." He shook his head. But he wasn't thinking about that. Apparently, all he was registering was my objections. He stepped over to me and, in a fast frisk, began to remove blasticks, stunguns, the bladegun from my pockets. "You're a walking arsenal! If that stuff went off, you could blow us out of space!" He stepped over to the wall and gave a knob a spin. A locker opened. "This is a shielded, antiexplosion repository." He started throwing my weapons into it. "Now get any other explosives out of your baggage and throw them in there." Thankfully, I shoved the "Fragile Heirlooms" box in after them.

Heller was looking at my gear again. "It's full of just plain dirt!" (Bleep) that Ske for packing even floor sweepings!

Heller had gone to a passageway locker and gotten some things. "This is a cleaning sheet roll. You pack your uniforms into the slots, roll it up and stuff it in the cleaning machine. They'll come out washed and pressed. Next, this is a dirty clothes and linen cleaning sheet roll. Stuff your underclothes and socks and so on in that, roll it up and put it in the washing machine. These are waterproof bags: put all your papers and notes and so forth in them." He was about to leave when he turned back and looked. "I don't see any dress uniform in that gear." I had never bought a General Services dress uniform. "They don't wear them on Earth!" I meant to be scathing.

"You'll need one for launching." I was too sleepy and roughed up to comprehend why in Hells you needed a dress uniform to launch a ship. (Bleep) these Fleet guys. They were crazy!

"Your driver is still out there. I'll give him some money and he can rush over and get a shop open and bring one back." I groaned. I couldn't cope with all this mania for looking nice. My reluctance must have provoked him.

He stood back and pointed toward the airlock. "You take all that baggage back outside the ship and sort it out into these rolls and bags, take the rolls over to the laundry. And include that uniform you've got on. Then take a shower. You've got to be quick. You won't have facilities much longer!" I nearly wept. All I wanted was some sleep. I actually ached. (Bleep) these Fleet guys. He wasn't in the Fleet now! Who cared if the air filters of the ship all clogged up?

I carried all my baggage outside the ship and began to sort it on the hangar floor.

When I had discarded the broken canisters, old news-sheets and piles of just plain dirt that Ske had packed, I didn't have too much gear, after all. The discards filled two hangar garbage cans.

I neated up the boots and caps and uniforms in the cleaning roll and then belatedly remembered I was wearing one. I emptied all my pockets into the waterproof paper-preservation bags and got my other papers into them. I stripped and put the uniform I was wearing into the cleaning roll and the dirty underthings into the washing roll.

I was standing there naked in the hangar, trying to see if I had everything straight when I heard somebody giggling. The Countess Krak was somewhere about. I didn't wait to see where. I grabbed the rolls and bags and sprinted back into the ship.

The incident didn't help my already rattled state. In the crew's cleaning and laundry room I was faced with huge discs that said this thing and that on them: typical Fleet jargon, typical Fleet lightning bolts pointing at this thing and that. (Bleep) the Fleet. I jammed the rolls into what I thought were the proper doors and then carried the bags of papers back to my room.

The shower did make me feel better. I was amazed at the amount of grime that rolled off! My head cleared up. Maybe all that dirt in my hair had been pressing down on my skull and fogging me up. It was an interesting theory. I was just about to concede that maybe the Fleet had something when a nerve shattering buzzer-gong in the laundry sent me tearing back in there to get my clothes.

I retrieved the underclothes roll. Everything was beautifully clean, beautifully flat and even several tears had been nicely mended.

For a moment I couldn't remember where I had put the uniform roll, there were too many disc doors. I started looking.

I couldn't find it!

With great care, I retraced my every prior action in this place. I had come in the door there and I had leaned hereto rest while I tried to read signs and arrows. I opened the door I was now sure I had put the uniform roll in.

Nothing! I went tearing through the place opening every possible disc door.

Nothing!

I steadied myself down. I read the signs. And then it hit me!

I had put my uniform and boots roll in the disintegrator!

I stood there, naked, weeping quietly to myself. I had no clothes to wear but underpants!

Wait! Ske had been sent out for a General Services dress uniform! All was not defeated. I could yet triumph over Fleet supercleanliness!

With hope, I rushed back to my cubicle.

Success!

A package on the bed!

Quickly, I opened it.

What was I looking at?

I recognized the colonel's cross. That was one rank down, but Ske, of course, could be counted on to be inaccurate.

But what were all these designs?

Lying on a dead-black cloth, the red embroidery was quite startling.

Bones, hangman's noose, electric whips. Bones? Hangman's noose? Electric whips?

The helmet. Black! A huge phosphorescent skull!

It was the dress uniform of a colonel of the Death Battalions!

It even had the belts that represented bleeding intestines!

It was the number one terror uniform of the whole Voltarian forces!

I took a step toward the door. But then I realized Ske would carefully be gone.

Legally I could wear it as I outranked it and in theory a Secondary Executive could wear any of the Apparatus uniforms.

I was too tired. I lay down on the gimbal bed. I turned on a rest-heat light. What an awful way to start a voyage. If I could just sleep for an hour maybe some of this confusion would go away. Maybe, I thought, we would be safely in space when I awoke. Little did I know!