The Invaders Plan

I got the hot jolt down him. "Colonel, you've got to sober up. It is not manly to fall and sway before the misfortunes of life! They happen. One ca

"Who's had misfortunsh?" he said.

"Well, you have. Drowning your sorrows . . ."

"Whoosh drowning their sorrows? I shelebrating! I jush got rid of the (bleeping) old hag and her five awfulbrats. I been shelebrating for two days, wheeeee!" Oh, well, one is not always correct in one's diagnosis. Whatever the cause, I had to get this colonel of Supply in operating condition. It didn't have to be very good operating condition. He would be dead before the night was out.

And so I set to work with Earth psychology, hot jolt and sobering pills to make my prey ready for the slaughter. My luck was still holding.

*For the sake of accuracy, the game "Girl on the Wheel," known in the Army as "Blow Up the Dame," is not a live girl but an electronic, three-dimensional illusion. It is not true that the proprietor moves the girl's breasts out of the way by means of standard battlefield prediction circuits which anticipate the path of the grenade. (Note included at the request of the owner of the Ground Forces Play Club who threatened suit against the publishers unless corrected. – Editor.)

Chapter 4

Only the end objective would ever have persuaded me to work as hard as I had to work to sober up this drunken colonel. But Heller had to be bugged and bugged in such a way that neither he nor anyone else would ever suspect it, and bugged on a line that no one else could enter. But sweating over that colonel the way I had to was begi

The colonel eventually had the same idea. I was pressing a cold cloth to his forehead while holding him on the seat and trying to get another sober pill into him. "Why are you doing this?" he wanted to know.

Ah, he actually was sobering up! "The good of the service," I said.

"I wasn't making a spectacle of myself," he protested.

"No, no," I said. I decided to take the plunge. "Army Intelligence on Flisten is in the midst of a most difficult case. We have been told that you are the most discreet and the most reliable Supply officer in the service." He sat there looking at me. "Nobody ever said thatbefore."

"Well, it's time the truth came out," I said, praying thatcatastrophe would never occur.

He marvelled for a while. "No (bleep)? Somebody said that?"

"The computers say so and they are never wrong," I said.

He perked up. "That's true," he decided.

"On Flisten," I said, "there have been thefts of the most secret and sensitive bugging devices known. A real crime. Affects the security of the State. Even the Emperor." I looked around covertly to make sure we were unobserved.

My delivery was slightly marred by my noticing that we werebeing observed. A shadowy figure just inside the door of the Field Hospital Room, when I looked, faded from view.

Oh, well, just some lush, I guessed. Place was full of lushes. I got back to the project.

I pushed my closed hand up toward his face. I opened it. His eyes fixed on the Timp Snahp, Army Intelligence identoplate.

"Oh, I know you're in Intelligence," he said. "I can tell by your uniform."

"I just wanted you to be sure. For what I am about to impart to you must not be related to a soul. Do you give me your word on that?"

"There's no need to question my word," he said a trifle huffily.

"Good. Then we understand one another. I certainly appreciate your promise of help."

"You're welcome," he said. I wondered if he really was sober. He looked it, though. Still, you can never tell about Army officers.

"So!" I said in a businesslike way. "To business." I leaned forward and spoke very softly. "These bugging devices were stolen. The very latest developments. And," I leaned even closer, spacing each word, "we have reason to believe that the thief was hired by the bug manufacturer!" I saw this startled him. "Only they would know of the devices. We think," and I tapped him on the lapel, "that the manufacturer stole them back on Flisten and is trying to sell them on Voltar!"

"No!"

"Yes! A very cu

"Well, (bleep) them!"

"Now, as you know, hypersecret bugging devices can only be sold to the authorized supply and purchasing officers of the services. And these devices were exclusively Army and could be sold only to the Army."

"Oh, I know that."

"So here is what we are going to do. You are going to pretend to be interested in buying ..."

"Oh, I can't do that. I don't have my purchase form books."

"You gave me your word." He slumped a bit. "So I did."

"Good. You are being very patriotic. The computer was right." That helped, so I plunged on. "You don't have to buy anything at all. I want you to simply inspect the items as though interested in purchasing them. Then I, without them suspecting, will glance at the parts numbers of the pieces they show you and compare them to the parts numbers of those stolen. And if we are right, we will simply go away and I will call my Army Intelligence seniors, they will stage a raid and we will have the whole thing cleared up." He seemed to hesitate. "It will look nice on your already splendid record. Even a citation." I think they also put citations on tombstones, I added to myself.

In Supply, they don't have much of a crack at citations. You almost never see any braid on their chests. It was the clincher.

"Now," I continued as he sat there gloating, "I will slip out and make a call. I'll be right back." I went to a booth and slid his identoplate into the slot and called the number I had already carefully located. It was that of a small specialty electronics firm that flamboyantly called itself THE EYES AND EARS OF VOLTAR COMPANY.Nobody answered. I glanced at my watch. The colonel had taken so long to sober up that we had gone past business hours. But I was prepared for that. I had the residence number of the owner. Using the colonel's plate, I reached him.

"I'm sorry. The store is closed," he said.

"Closed to a million-credit possible contract?" I said.

He pushed the lever that lets one inspect the caller's identoplate. There was an intake of breath. "I'll get my whole sales staff down there. ..."

"No, no!" I said hastily. "The devices we are interested in are only your most secret devices. We don't want anyone to know we are considering such a massive order of them. Do us the favor of coming alone. We must maintain secrecy!"

"Will 1930 be all right?" It would be dark. That would be fine. "Don't light the place up," I added. "There have been agents from the Calabar revolt spotted in town. But don't be afraid. I will have an armed bodyguard with me, posing as a civilian technical expert." That was fine, so I hung up.

I verified that the colonel had a private aircar on call.

The pantsless waitress was presenting a check to be stamped when I got back to the table and the colonel was looking through every pocket in alarm. "I've lost my identoplate!" Smoothness is the essence of an Apparatus trained agent. With the colonel's identoplate in my palm, I scraped around on the dark floor under his feet, amongst the litter of discarded cold cloths. I reached up and dropped it on the table. "You ought to be careful of that," I said. "Never drop an identoplate!" He took it thankfully and stamped the check. "I thought for a moment we'd have to use yours!" he said, laughing.

That would be all I'd need. I was shortly going to have two murders on my hands. No traces left in the club! No, thank you! I even gave the waitress a five-credit tip – it was the colonel's money.