Beta Sector- Anthology

by Stephen A. Fender

  "You there, short and chunky," I called. "Do you have any concealed compartments or drawers built into your steel hide?”

  For a second I thought the android had exploded. The thing had more drawers in it than a battery of cash registers. Big, small, flat, thin, they shot out on all sides. One held a pistol and two more were stuffed with flash grenades; the rest were empty. I put the hat in one, the briefcase in another, and snapped my fingers. The drawers slid shut and its metal hide was as smooth as ever.

  I pulled on a fancy sports cap, buckled the cape up tight, and was ready to go. The luggage was all booby-trapped and could defend itself. Guns, gas, poison needles, the usual sort of thing. As a last resort it would blow itself up. The Gamma-8 went down on a freight elevator. I used the back stairs and we met in the street.

  Since it was still daylight I rented a groundcar. The Gamma-8 and I had a leisurely drive out into the country and reached President Bracer Erbyx's house after dark.

  As befitted the top official of a rich planet, the place was a mansion. But the security precautions were ludicrous, to say the least. I took myself and a 350-kilo robot through the guards and alarms without causing the slightest stir. President Erbyx, a bachelor, was eating his dinner. This gave me enough undisturbed time to search his study.

  There was absolutely nothing. Nothing to do with warships or why one might be needed, that is. If I had been interested in blackmail, I had enough evidence in my hand to shut down the entire government. Perhaps that was a mission for a later date. Today, I was looking for something bigger than political corruption, however.

  When Erbyx rolled into his study after dinner, the room was dark. I heard him murmur something about the servants, and fumble for the switch. Before he found it, the Gamma-8 closed the door and turned on the lights. I was seated behind his desk, all his personal papers before me—weighted down with a Sector Command standard issue sidearm—and as fierce a scowl as I could raise smeared across my face. Before he got over the shock, I snapped an order at him.

  "Come over here and sit down!"

  The android hustled him across the room at the same time, so he had no choice except to obey. When he saw the papers on the desk, his eyes bulged and he just gurgled a little. Before he could recover, I threw a thick folder in front of him.

  "I am Admiral Thar, Unified Sector Command. These are my credentials. You had better check them." Since they were as good as any real admiral's, I didn't worry in the slightest. Erbyx went through them as carefully as he could in his rattled state, even checking the seals under UV and opti-scanner. It gave him time to regain a bit of control and he used it to bluster.

  "Admiral, I will protest this intrusion! What do you mean by entering my private quarters and—"

  "You're in very bad trouble," I said in as gloomy a voice as I could muster.

  Erbyx's tanned face went a dirty gray at my words. I pressed the advantage.

  "I am arresting you for conspiracy, extortion, theft, and whatever other charges develop after a careful review of these documents. Seize him." This last order was directed at the Gamma-8 who was well briefed in its role. It rumbled forward and locked its hands around Erbyx's wrists, handcuff style. The President paid the action little mind.

  "I can explain," he said desperately. "Everything can be explained. There is no need to make such charges. I don't know what papers you have there, so I wouldn't attempt to say they are all forgeries. I have many enemies, you know. If the Unified Government knew the difficulties faced on a backward planet like this . . ."

  "That will be entirely enough," I snapped, cutting him off with a wave of my hand. "All those questions will be answered by a Unified court at the proper time. There is only one question I want an answer to now. Why are you building that warship?"

  * * * * *

  The man was a great actor, the sign of any competent politician. His eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped, he sank back into the chair as if he had been tapped lightly with a hammer. When he managed to speak, the words were completely unnecessary; he had already registered every evidence of injured innocence.

  "What warship?" He gasped out the words.

  "The Titan-class warship that is being built at the Ivaldi Shipyards. Disguised behind these blueprints." I threw them across the desk to him and pointed to one corner. "Of course you are aware that, as an associate member world of the Unified Collaboration of Systems, the tonnage of any warship you build is limited. This monstrosity is nearly four times the mass allowed by Unified law. And those are your initials there, authorizing construction."

  Erbyx still had the baffled act going as he fumbled with the papers, examined the initials and such. I gave him plenty of time. He finally put them down, shaking his head.

  "I know nothing about any warship. These are the plans for a new cargo liner. Those are my initials—I recall putting them there."

  I phrased my question carefully, as I had him right where I wanted him now. "You deny any knowledge of the Titan warship that is being built from these modified plans?"

  "These are the plans for an ordinary passenger freighter. That is all I know."

  His words had the simple innocence of a young child's. I sat back with a relaxed sigh and lit a cigar.

  "Would you be interested in knowing something about that android who is holding you?" I said. He looked down, as if aware for the first time that the Gamma-8 had been holding him by the wrist during the interview. "That is no ordinary machine, Mr. President. It has a number of interesting devices built into its fingertips. Thermocouples, galvanometers, things like that. While you talked, it registered your skin temperature, blood pressure, amount of perspiration and such. In other words, it is an efficient and fast-working lie detector. We will now hear all about your lies."

  Erbyx pulled away from the robot's hand as if it had been a venomous snake. I blew a relaxed smoke ring. "Report," I said to the android. "Has this man told any lies?"

  "Many," the robot said. "Exactly seventy-four percent of all statements he made were fake."

  "Very good." I nodded, throwing the last lock on my trap. "That means he knows all about this warship."

  "The subject has no knowledge of the warship," the Gamma-8 said coldly. "All his statements concerning the construction of this ship were true."

  Now it was my turn for the gaping and eye-popping act while Erbyx pulled himself together. He had no idea I wasn't interested in his other illicit activities, but could tell I had had a low blow. It took an effort, but I managed to get my mind back into gear and consider the evidence.

  If President Erbyx didn't know about the warship, he must have been taken in by the cover-up job. But if he wasn't responsible—who was? Some militaristic clique that meant to overthrow him and take power? I didn't know enough about the planet, so I enlisted Bracer Erbyx on my side.

  This was easy—even without the threat of exposure of the documents I had found in his files. Using their disclosure as a prod, I could have made him jump through hoops. It wasn't necessary. As soon as I showed him the different blueprints and explained the possibilities, he understood. If anything, he was more eager than I was to find out who was using his administration as a cat's-paw. By silent agreement the documents were forgotten.

  We agreed that the next logical step would be the Ivaldi Shipyards. He had some idea of sniffing around quietly first, trying to get a line to his political opponents. I gave him to understand that the Unified Government, and Sector Command in particular, wanted to stop the construction of the warship. After that, he could play his politics. With this point understood, he called his car and squadron of guards and we made a parade to the shipyards. It was a four-hour drive and we made plans on the way down.

  * * * * *

  The shipyard manager was named Uwax, and he was happily asleep when we arrived. But not for long. The parade of uniforms and guns in the middle of the night had him frightened into a state where he could hardly walk. I imagine he was as full of petty crimes as Erbyx. No i
nnocent man could have looked so terror-stricken. Taking advantage of the situation, I latched my mechanized lie detector onto him and began snapping the questions.

  Even before I had all the answers, I began to get the drift of things. They were a little frightening, too. The manager of the shipyard that was building the ship also had no idea of its true nature.

  Anyone with less self-esteem than myself—or who had led a more honest life—might have doubted his own reasoning at that moment. I didn't. The ship in the dry dock still resembled a warship to six places. And knowing human nature the way I do, that was too much of a coincidence to expect. If there are two choices to take, take the simpler. In this case I chose the natural acquisitive instinct of man as opposed to blind chance and accident. Nevertheless, I put the theory to the test.

  Looking over the original blueprints again, the superstructure hit my eye. In order to turn the ship into a warship, that would have to be one of the first things to go.

  "Uwax!" I barked, in what I hoped was an authentic old space-dog manner. "Look at these plans, at this space-going front porch here. Is it still being built onto the ship?"

  He shook his head at once and said, "No, the plans were changed. We had to fit in some kind of new meteor-repelling gear for operating in asteroid belts."

  I flipped through my case and drew out a hologram and snapped it on. "Does your new gear look anything like this?" I asked, sliding the emitter across the table.

  He rubbed his jaw while he looked at it the image. "Well," he said hesitatingly, "I don't want to say for certain. After all, these details aren't in my department. I'm just responsible for final assembly, not unit work. But this sure looks like the thing they installed. Big thing. Lots of power leads—"

  It was a warship, all right; no doubt of that now. I was mentally reaching around to pat myself on the back when the meaning of his words sank in.

  "Installed!" I shouted. "Did you say installed?"

  Uwax collapsed away from my roar and gnawed his nails. "Yes—" he said, "not too long ago. I remember there was some trouble . . ."

  "And what else?" I interrupted him. Cold moisture was beginning to collect along my spine now. "The drives, controls—are they in, too?"

  "Why, yes," he said. "How did you know? The normal scheduling was changed around, causing a great deal of unnecessary trouble."

  The cold sweat was now a running river of fear. I was beginning to have the feeling that I had been missing the boat all along. The original estimated date of completion was nearly a year away. But there was no real reason why that couldn't have been changed, too. I turned to Erbyx.

  "Mr. President, get your car ready. And order your guards to ready their weapons," I bellowed. "We need to get to the shipyard fast. If that vessel is anywhere near completion, we are in big, big trouble!"

  * * * * *

  The motorcade had a great time with the sirens, lights, accelerators to the floor and that sort of thing. We blasted a screaming hole through the night, right to the shipyard and through the gate.

  It didn't make any difference; we were still too late. A uniformed watchman frantically waved to us and the whole convoy jerked to a stop.

  The ship was gone.

  Uwax couldn't believe it; neither could the president. They wandered up and down the empty ways where it had been built. I just crunched down in the back of the car, chewing my cigar to pieces and cursing myself for being a fool.

  I had missed the obvious fact, being carried away by the thought of a planetary government building a warship. The government was involved for sure—but only as a pawn. No little planet-bound political mind could have dreamed up as big a scheme as this. I smelled a rat, but it was fleeting. The rodent had departed, and I was going to have to rush to catch up.

  Uwax, the shipyard manager, had staggered back and was pulling at his hair, cursing and crying at the same time. President Erbyx had his own gun out and was staring at it grimly. It was hard to tell if he was thinking of murder or suicide. I didn't care which. All he had to worry about was the next election, where the voters and the political competition would carve him up for losing the ship. My troubles were a little bigger.

  I had to find the warship before it blasted its way across Beta Sector.

  "Uwax!" I shouted. "Get into the car. I want to see your records—all your records—and I want to see them right now."

  He climbed wearily in and had directed the driver before he fully realized what was happening. Blinking at the sickly light of dawn brought him slowly back to reality.

  "But . . . admiral . . . the hour! Everyone will be asleep . . ."

  I just growled, but it was enough. Uwax caught the idea from my expression and grabbed a transmitter from inside the waiting hover car. The office doors were open when we got there.

  Normally I curse the paper tangles of bureaucracy, but this was one time when I blessed them all. These people had it down to a fine science. Every rivet was noted—in quintuplicate. And later followed up with a memo, wastage, query. The facts I needed were all neatly tucked away in their digital filing catacombs. All I had to do was sniff them out. I didn't try to look for first causes—this would have taken too long. Instead I concentrated my attention on the recent modifications, like the gun turret, that would quickly give me a trail to the guilty parties.

  Once the clerks understood what I had in mind, they hurled themselves into their work, urged on by the fires of patriotism and the burning voices of their superiors. All I had to do was suggest a line of search and the relevant documents began appearing at once.

  * * * * *

  Bit by bit, a pattern started to emerge: a delicate web of forgery, bribery, trickery and falsehood. It could only have been conceived by a mind as brilliant as my own. I chewed my lip with jealousy. Like all great ideas, this one was basically simple.

  A party or parties unknown had neatly warped the ship construction program to their own ends. Undoubtedly they had started the program for the giant transport. Once the program was underway, it had been guided with a skill that bordered on genius. Orders were originated in many places, passed on, changed and shuffled. I painfully traced each one to its source. Many times the source was a forgery. Some changes seemed to be unexplainable, until I noticed the officers in question had a temporary secretary while their normal assistants were ill. All the girls had food poisoning . . . a regular epidemic, it seemed. Each of them in turn had been replaced by the same girl. She stayed just long enough in each position to see that the warship plan moved forward one more notch.

  This girl was obviously the assistant to the mastermind who’d originated the scheme. He sat in the center of the plot, like a spider on its web, pulling the strings that set things into motion. My first thought that pirates were involved proved wrong. All my secondary suspects turned out to be simple forgeries, not individuals. In the few cases where forgery wasn't adequate, my mysterious X had apparently hired himself to do the job. X himself had the permanent job of Assistant Engineering Designer. One by one the untangled threads ran to this office. He also had a secretary whose "illnesses" coincided with her employment in other offices.

  When I straightened up from my desk, the ache in my back stabbed like a hot wire. I swallowed a painkiller and looked around at my drooping, sack-eyed assistants who had shared the sleepless seventy-two-hour task. They sat or slumped against the furniture, waiting for my conclusions. Even President Erbyx was there, his hair looking scraggly where he had pulled out handfuls.

  "You've found them, the criminal ring?" he asked, his fingers groping over his scalp for a fresh hold.

  "I have found them, yes," I said hoarsely. "But not a criminal ring. An inspired master criminal—who apparently has more executive ability in one ear lobe than all your bribe-bloated bureaucrats—and his female assistant. They pulled the entire job by themselves. His name, or undoubtedly pseudoname, is Blann Toresson. The girl is called Ingrid . . ."

  "Arrest them at once! Guards . . . guards—" Brac
er Erbyx's voice died away as he ran out of the room.

  "That is just what we intend to do,” I said to myself in the direction of the quickly departing president. “But it's a little difficult at the moment since they are the ones who not only built the warship, but undoubtedly stole it as well. It was fully automated so no crew is necessary."

  "What do you plan to do?" one of the clerks asked.

  "Nothing, my pencil-pushing friend," I told him, with the snapped precision of a military veteran. "Sector Command is already closing in on the renegades and you will be informed of the capture. Thank you for your assistance."

  * * * * *

  I threw them as snappy a salute as I could muster and they filed out. Staring gloomily at their backs, I envied for one moment their simple faith in Sector Command. In reality, the fleet I’d spoken of was just as imaginary as my admiral's rank. This was still a job for the Office of Special Intelligence, though Sector Command could well play a role later. Stanley Alvarez would have to be given the latest information at once. I’d sent him a communication about the theft, but there was no answer as yet. Maybe the identity of the thieves would stir some response out of him.

  My message was in code, but it could be quickly broken if someone wanted to try hard enough. I took it to the message center myself. The communications officer was in his transparent cubicle and I locked myself in with him. His eyes were unfocused as he spoke softly into a microphone, pulling in a message from somewhere across the sector. Outside, the rushing transcriber computers copied, coded and filed messages, but no sound penetrated the insulated wall. I waited until his attention clicked back into the room, and handed him an encrypted data cartridge.

  "UCS Central Datanet, Hub 14. Rush," I told him.

  He raised the solitary eyebrow over his eye, but didn't ask any questions. Establishing contact only took a few seconds. As soon as he was finished I took back the cartridge, broke it in two, and pocketed the pieces.