The Invaders Plan

"Absolutely. Spares, power packs, everything. Here's even the installation instructions. It is. I'm afraid, in technical language as it's intended for a professional cellologist, but I am sure the Army has lots of those." He laughed.

That was the last laugh he had this life.

I stepped back, drew my bladegun and shot him in the throat.

The colonel, startled with the fly of blood, was not the steady old campaigner I had thought he would be. I would have supposed he could add it up. I had found a parts duplicate, I was executing the offender. He didn't add it up. He grabbed for his gun! He was turning toward me!

What can you expect of Supply?

"What the Hells are you doing?" he roared at me.

But my concern was not to have a blastgun going off near that sensitive equipment. The resulting magnetic shock waves might disarrange it or something!

The colonel did not get his gun further than pointing at my shoes.

I shot him in the throat! He staggered back. He dropped the gun as he clutched at his throat.

My plans had gone awry. I had thought the colonel would understand. I was a bit off-balance.

Boots were hammering in through the back door!

I had forgotten the driver!

He stopped twenty feet from me. He saw his colonel writhing and dying on the floor in a spatter of blood.

The driver drew his gun. He pointed and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. And then he did something silly. He dropped the gun and grabbed a bayonet out of his boot and started a lunge for me.

I fired and missed! (Bleep) the inaccuracy of a bladegun! It only contained one more blade!

The bayonet was up and coming down. I fired! I rolled to the side.

The driver drove the bayonet two inches into the floor. He fell on it, dead.

Ow, what a slaughterhouse! Blood all over the place! But I reached for the boxes.

"Stiffen, Gris!" It came from the door to the next room! A blastgun pointing.

Chapter 6

My own gun was empty. And that blastgun over there was very steady.

I was caught!

With the act witnessed and the bodies in full view!

A sinister, dark figure edged into the room.

"I told you, you made mistakes, Gris." It was Raza Torr! Provocation Section Chief!

He lifted an object he was holding in his left hand. "I've got full pictures of the entire action here, Gris. Throw down that gun." No point in not doing so. It was empty.

"You're so inept, Gris."

"Call in your men," I said.

"Oh, there are no men. I can handle you. In this camera I have just put everything you just did. It also holds your meeting with the woman outside the hypnotist's office – and that, by the way, was pretty clever, she's been executed by now. I also have your approach to that cellologist in Slum City and I have no doubt he'll be dead shortly. I have your meeting with this dumb (bleepard) of a colonel in the Dirt Club. And I have this very messy mess you just made, totally complete." Talking isn't shooting. Keep him talking. "Then you were the one that blew up my airbus in the Blike Mountains!"

"Andgot back that counterfeit money before you, you dumb idiot, could spread it all around and start an investigation that would lead back to us. You don't mess up by halves, Gris."

"You tried to kill me out there," I said offendedly. "What a thing for a brother Apparatus officer to do!"

"I didn't know that you had a magic-mail setup to send those pictures of me to the Commander of the Death Battalion. That's all you owe your life to right this minute. I WANT THOSE ORIGINALS AND ALL COPIES!" I shrugged. "I don't have them on me. They're at my office. Let me get this straight. If I turn those over to you, you will turn over that camera and its originals to me. Right?"

"You have it exactly! My Gods, I'm worn out worrying about it. Supposing somebody else killed you? And you're prime meat, Gris. So get moving. We'll go to your office."

"How'd you trail me? You're not that good."

"That reminds me you better take the bugs out of those clothes you're wearing. I put them in when you got them. You're inept, Gris." No problem about bugs in this place. They were all over the shelves. He was missing things, too.

"I'll make a bargain with you," I said. "You help me clean this up and then we'll go to my office and swap. You don't want this on the trail."

"True," he said.

"You've got a stolen car outside, right?" I said. He nodded. So I went on. "We call a truce. You help me and then we go. You have my word on the swap." That seemed to soothe him.

I dug around in the colonel's corpse to get the blade out. Messy. Then I flopped the driver over and dug the blade out of his throat. Very messy. Then I got the one out of Spurk's throat. Very, very messy.

"You look like a butcher!" Raza Torr said. "You're getting blood all over your hands and clothes." Listen to who was talking about blood, the chief of the Provocation Section!

It took me two full minutes to find the blade that had missed the driver. It had embedded itself in the back doorjamb with just a tiny sliver showing. I used some electronic pliers to pull it out.

I opened a cash drawer. There were only a few tokens in it but I put those in my pocket. I left the drawer upside down on the floor.

Then I got a box from the shelf and with loving care put the two complete sets and directions in it and lashed it closed and marked it with a big X.With Raza Torr escorting me, I carefully put it in his stolen car.

I went back and found some more big boxes and ransacked the vault. I didn't know what the stuff was and I certainly didn't stop to read the directions. Who cared what assortment of sophisticated gear I was taking. It had to look like a massive burglary.

I even made Raza Torr carry some of the filled boxes to the stolen car. The back was getting pretty full.

I then really put Raza Torr to work. We lugged the colonel's body out and put it in the back seat of his car. We lugged the driver out and put him in the driving seat.

Then I grabbed a blastick and took the safety off so any jar would fire it and put it in the colonel's cooling hand.

I fumbled a bit with the automatic pilot, finally got it set. I started the car. I engaged it and away it flew, higher and higher in the sky, probably heading for Slum City.

In an hour or so it would probably run out of fuel or crash into another aircar in the traffic lanes.

I found a can of cleaning spirits and poured it over the counter and around Spurk's body. I dropped an igniter in it and the flame exploded up.

"Let's get out of here!" said Torr. He was clutching the camera.

We got into the stolen car.

"I take it back," he said, putting the camera down. "You sure are thorough!"

"I sure am," I said, and I put ten inches of the Knife Section knife into his back.

Flames were leaping up in the store. Far out I heard a fire-alert siren start.

I pushed Raza's body aside and slid under the wheelstick. The aircar soared into the night sky and was quickly mingled with the flow of traffic.

I flew out over the River Wiel. I put the aircar on hover. I pulled the knife out and cleaned it.

Almost over his Provocation Section area, I dumped Raza Torr's body out. Too bad not to have the use of the section anymore but I would soon be gone anyway. Tomorrow, if I thought of it, I would mail those pictures of him murdering the mistress to the Commander of the Death Battalion. A poetic touch. No, maybe to the newssheets. No, better not. Let sleeping corpses lie. One can get too artistic.

I flew to my office area. Nothing and nobody there at this time of night. My airbus was parked and locked. I carried my loot into a basement under my office.

I spent an hour eradicating all trace of Eyes and Ears and pasting labels of Zanco on the boxes. Then I put some I didn't want into the stolen car, set it on automatic and let it fly off to crash somewhere. Help the police is my motto.