“Floating in space,” Danestar said thoughtfully. “So it’s a signaling device. An alien signaling device! Probably belonging to whatever’s been knocking off Hub ships in the Pit.”
“Apparently,” Wergard said. He added, “Our business here, of course, is to nail Hishkan and stop the thieving . . .”
“Of course,” Danestar said. “But we can’t take a chance on this thing getting lost. The Federation has to have it. It will tell them more about who built it, what they’re like, than they’ve ever found out since they began to suspect there’s something actively hostile in the Pit.”
Wergard looked at her consideringly. Over two hundred ships, most of them Federation naval vessels, had disappeared during the past eighty years in attempts to explore the dense cosmic dust cloud near Mezmiali. Navigational conditions in the Pit were among the worst known. Its subspace was a seething turmoil of energies into which no ship could venture. Progress in normal space was a matter of creeping blindly through a murky medium stretching out for twelve light-years ahead where contact with other ships and with stations beyond the cloud was almost instantly lost. A number of expeditions had worked without mishap in the outer fringes of the Pit, but ships attempting penetration in depth simply did not return. A few fragmentary reports indicated the Pit concealed inimical intelligent forces along with natural hazards.
Wergard said, “I remember now . . . you had a brother on one of the last Navy ships lost there, didn’t you?”
“I did,” Danestar said. “Eight years ago. I was wild about him—I thought I’d never get over it. The ship sent out a report that its personnel was being wiped out by what might be a radiation weapon That’s the most definite word they’ve ever had about what happens there. And that’s the last they heard of the ship.”
“All right,” Wergard said. “That makes it a personal matter. I understand that. And it makes sense to have the thing wind up in the hands of the military scientists. But I don’t want to louse up our operation.”
“It needn’t be loused up,” Danestar said. “You’ve got to get me into that vault, Wergard. Tonight, if possible. I’ll need around two hours to study the thing.”
“Two hours?” Wergard looked doubtful.
“Yes. I want a look at what it’s using for power to cut through standard static shielding, not to mention the Depot’s force barrier. And I probably should make duplos of at least part of the system.”
“The section patrol goes past there every hour,” Wergard said. “You’ll be running a chance of getting caught.”
“Well, you see to it that I don’t.”
Wergard grunted. “All right,” he said. “Can do.”
She spent her two hours in Dr. Hishkan’s special vault that night, and told Wergard afterwards, “It’s a temporal distorter, of course. A long-range communicator in the most simple form—downright primitive. At a guess, a route marker for ships. A signaling device . . . it picks up impulses, can respond with any one of fourteen signal patterns. Hishkan apparently tripped the lot of them in those blasts. I don’t think he really knew what he was doing.”
“That should be really big stuff commercially then,” Wergard said.
“Decidedly! On the power side, it’s eighty per cent more efficient than the best transmitters I’ve heard about. Nothing primitive there! Whoever got his hands on the thing should be able to give the Com Web system the first real competition it’s had . . .”
She added, “But this is the most interesting part. Wergard, that thing is old! It’s an antique. At a guess, it hasn’t been used or serviced within the past five centuries. Obviously, it’s still operational—the central sections are so well shielded they haven’t been affected much. Other parts have begun to fall apart or have vanished. That’s a little bit sinister, wouldn’t you say?”
Wergard looked startled. “Yes, I would. If they had stuff five hundred years ago better in some respects than the most sophisticated systems we have today . . .”
“In some rather important respects, too,” Danestar said. “I didn’t get any clues to it, but there’s obviously a principle embodied designed to punch an impulse through all the disturbances of the Pit. If our ships had that. . .”
“All right,” Wergard said. “I see it. But let’s set it up to play Dr. Hishkan into our hands besides. How about this: You put out a shortcode description at the first opportunity now of what you’ve found and what it seems to indicate. Tell the boys to get the information to Federation agents at once.”
Danestar nodded. “Adding that we’ll go ahead with our plans as they are, but they’re to stand by outside to make sure the gadget doesn’t get away if there’s a slipup?”
“That’s about what I had in mind,” Wergard said. “The Feds should co-operate—we’re handing them the thing on a platter!”
He left, and Danestar settled down to prepare the message for transmission. It was fifteen minutes later, just before she’d finished with it, that Wergard’s voice informed her over their private intercom that the entry lock in the energy barrier had been opened briefly to let in a space shuttle and closed again.
“I wouldn’t bet,” he said, “that this one’s bringing in specimens or supplies . . .” He paused, added suddenly, “Look out for yourself! There’re boys with guns sneaking into this section from several sides. I’ll have to move. Looks like the word’s been given to pick us up!”
Danestar heard his instrument snap off. She swore softly, turned on a screen showing the area of the lock. The shuttle stood there, a sizable one. Men were coming out of it. It clearly hadn’t been bringing in supplies or specimens.
Danestar stared at it, biting her lip. In another few hours, they would have been completely prepared for this! The air truck which brought supplies from the city every two days would have come and left during that time; and as the lock opened for it, her signal to set up the trap for the specimen smugglers would have been received by the Kyth Agency men waiting within observation range of the Depot. Thirty minutes later, any vehicle leaving the Depot without being given a simultaneous shortcode clearance by her would be promptly intercepted and searched.
But now, suddenly, they had a problem. Not only were the smugglers here, they had come prepared to take care of the two supposed technicians the U-League had planted in the Depot to spy on Dr. Hishkan. She and Corvin Wergard could make themselves very difficult to find; but, if they couldn’t be located, the instrument from the Pit would be loaded on the shuttle and the thieves would be gone again with it, probably taking Dr. Hishkan and one or two of his principal U-League confederates along. Danestar’s warning message would go out as they left, but that was cutting it much too fine! A space shuttle of that type was fast and maneuverable, and this one probably carried effective armament. There was a chance the Kyth operators outside would be able to capture it before it rejoined its mother ship and vanished from the Mezmiali System—but the chance was not at all a good one.
No, she decided, Dr. Hishkan’s visitors had to be persuaded to stay around a while, or the entire operation would go down the drain. Switching on half a dozen other screens, she set recorders to cover them, went quickly about the room making various preparations to meet the emergency, came back to her worktable, completed the message to their confederates and fed it into a small shortcode transmitter. The transmitter vanished into a deep wall recess it shared with a few other essential devices. Danestar settled down to study the screens, in which various matters of interest could now be observed, while she waited with increasing impatience for Wergard to call in again.
More minutes passed before he did, and she’d started checking over areas in the Depot where he might have gone with the spy screen. Then his face suddenly appeared in the instrument.
“Clear of them now,” he said. “They got rather close for a while. Nobody’s tried to bother you yet?”
“No,” Danestar said. “But our Depot manager and three boys from the shuttle came skulking along the hall a minute or two a
go. They’re waiting outside the door.”
“Waiting for what?”
“For you to show up.”
“They know you’re in the room?” Wergard asked.
“Yes. One of them has a life detector.”
“The group that’s looking around for me has another of the gadgets,” Wergard said. “That’s why it took so long to shake them. I’m in a sneaksuit now. You intend to let them take you?”
“That’s the indicated move,” Danestar said. “Everything’s set up for it. Let me brief you . . .”
The eight men who had come off the shuttle belonged to a smuggling ring which would act as middleman in the purchase of the signaling device from the Pit. They’d gone directly to Dr. Hishkan’s office in the Depot’s main building, and Danestar had a view of the office in one of her wall screens when they arrived. The specimen already had been brought out of the vault, and she’d been following their conversation about it.
Volcheme, the chief of the smugglers, and his assistant, Galester, who appeared to have had scientific training, showed the manner of crack professionals. They were efficient businessmen who operated outside the law as a calculated risk because it paid off. This made dealing with them a less uncertain matter than if they had been men of Dr. Hishkan’s caliber—intelligent, amoral, but relatively inexperienced amateurs in crime. Amateurs with a big-money glint in their eyes and guns in their hands were unpredictable, took very careful handling. Volcheme and Galester, on the other hand, while not easy to bluff, could be counted on to think and act logically under pressure.
Danestar was planning to put on considerable pressure.
“They aren’t sure about us,” she said. “Hishkan thinks we’re U-League spies but that we haven’t found out anything. Volcheme wants to be certain. That’s why he sent in word to have us picked up before he got here. Hishkan is nervous about getting involved in outright murder but will go along with it.”
Wergard nodded. “He hasn’t much choice at this stage. Well, play it straight then—or nearly straight. I’ll listen but won’t show unless there’s a reason. While I’m at large, you have life insurance. I suppose you’re quizproofed . . .”
“Right.” Danestar checked her watch. “Doped to the eyebrows. I took it twenty minutes ago, so the stuff should be in full effect now. I’ll make the contact at once.”
Wergard’s face vanished from the spy screen. Danestar turned the sound volume on the wall screen showing the group in Dr. Hishkan’s office back up. Two sets of recorders were taking down what went on in there and already had stored away enough evidence to convict Dr. Hishkan on a number of counts. One of the sets was a decoy; it was concealed in the wall, cleverly enough but not so cleverly that the smugglers wouldn’t find it when they searched the room. The duplicate set was extremely well concealed. Danestar had made similar arrangements concerning the handful of other instruments she couldn’t allow them to discover. When they took stock of the vast array of miniature espionage devices they’d dig up here, it should seem inconceivable to them that anything else might still be hidden.
She sent a final glance around the room. Everything was as ready as she could make it. She licked her lips lightly, twisted a tiny knob on her control belt, shifted her fingers a quarter-inch, turned down a switch. Her eyes went back to the view in Dr. Hishkan’s office.
Dr. Hishkan, Volcheme and Galester were alone in it at the moment. Three of Volcheme’s men waited with Tornull, the Depot manager, in the hall outside of Danestar’s room; the remaining three had been sent to join the search for Wergard. The craggy lump of the asteroid which wasn’t an asteroid stood in one corner. Several of its sections had been opened, and Galester was making a careful examination of a number of instruments he’d removed from them.
Dr. Hishkan, showing signs of nervousness, evidently had protested that this was an unnecessary delay because Galester was now saying to Volcheme, “Perhaps he doesn’t understand that when our clients pay for this specimen, they’re buying the exclusive privilege of studying it and making use of what they learn.”
“Naturally, I understand that!” Dr. Hishkan snapped.
“Then,” Galester went on, “I think we should have an explanation for the fact that copies have been made of several of these sub-assemblies.”
“Copies?” Dr. Hishkan’s eyes went wide with amazed suspicion. “Ridiculous! I—”
“You’re certain?” Volcheme interrupted.
“Absolutely,” Galester told him. “There’s measurable duplo radiation coming from four of the devices I’ve checked so far. There’s no point in denying that, doctor. We simply want to know why you made the duplicates and what you’ve done with them.”
“Excuse me!” Danestar said crisply as Dr. Hishkan began to splutter an indignant denial. “I can explain the matter. The duplos are here.”
In the office, a brief silence followed her announcement. Eyes switched right and left, then, as if obeying a common impulse, swung suddenly around to the wall screen in which Danestar’s image had appeared.
Dr. Hishkan gasped, “Why . . . why that’s—”
“Miss Gems, the communications technician, no doubt,” Volcheme said dryly.
“Of course, it is,” Danestar said. “Volcheme, I’ve listened to this discussion. You put yourself in a jam by coming here. But, under the circumstances, we can make a deal.”
The smuggler studied her. He was a lean, blond man, no longer young, with a hard, wise face. He smiled briefly, said, “A deal I’ll like?”
“If you like an out. That’s what you’re being offered.”
Dr. Hishkan’s eyes had swiveled with growing incredulity between the screen and Volcheme’s face. He said angrily, “What nonsense is this? Have her picked up and brought here at once! We must find out what—”
“I suggest,” Volcheme interrupted gently, “you let me handle the matter. Miss Gems, I assume your primary purpose here is to obtain evidence against Dr. Hishkan?”
“Yes,” said Danestar.
“You and your associate—Mr. Wergard—are U-League detectives?”
She shook her head.
“No such luck, Volcheme! We’re private agency, full-privilege, Federation charter.”
“I suspected it.” Volcheme’s lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace of hostility. “You show the attributes of the breed! Do I know the agency?”
“Kyth Interstellar.”
He was silent a moment, said, “I see . . . Is Mr. Wergard available for negotiations?”
“No. You’ll talk tome.”
“That will be satisfactory. You realize, of course, that I don’t propose to buy your deal blind . . .”
“You aren’t expected to,” Danestar said.
“Then let’s get the preliminaries out of the way.” The smuggler’s face was bleak and watchful. “I have men guarding your room. Unlock the door for them.”
“Of course.” Danestar turned towards the door’s lock control in the wall on her left. Volcheme pulled a speaker from his pocket.
They understood each other perfectly. One of the last things a man of Volcheme’s sort cared to do was get a major private detective agency on his neck. It was a mistake, frequently a fatal one. As a matter of principle and good business, the agencies didn’t get off again.
But, if he saw a chance to go free with the loot, leaving no witnesses to point a finger at him, he’d take it. Danestar would remain personally safe so long as Volcheme’s men didn’t catch up with Wergard. After that, she’d be safe only if she kept the smuggler convinced he was in a trap from which there was no escape. Within a few hours he would, in fact, be in such a trap, but he wasn’t in it at present. Her arrangements were designed to keep him from discovering that.
The door clicked open and four men came quickly and cautiously into the room. Three of them were smugglers; the fourth was Tornull, the U-League Depot manager. The one who’d entered first stayed at the door, pointing a gun at Danestar. Volcheme’s other two men s
eparated, moved towards her watchfully from right and left. They were competent professionals who had just heard that Danestar was also one. The gun aimed at her from the door wasn’t there for display.
“As a start, Decrain,” Volcheme’s voice said from the screen, “have Miss Gems give you the control belt she’s wearing.”
Danestar unsnapped the belt, making no unnecessary motions, and handed it over to the big man named Decrain. They were pulling her teeth, or thought they were, which was sensible from their point of view and made no immediate difference from hers; the belt could be of no use at present. Decrain drew out a chair, told her to sit down and keep her hands in sight. She complied, and the man with the gun came up and stood eight feet to her left. Decrain and his companion began a quick, expert search of her living quarters with detectors. Tornull, Dr. Hishkan’s accomplice in amateur crime, watched them, now and then giving Danestar and her guard a puzzled stare which indicated the girl didn’t look very dangerous to him and that he couldn’t understand why they were taking such elaborate precautions with her.
Within six minutes, Decrain discovered as much as Danestar had wanted them to find of her equipment and records. Whenever the detector beams approached the rest of it, other beams had reached out gently and blended with them until they’d slid without a quiver over the shielded areas. The collection of gadgetry Decrain laid out on Danestar’s worktable was impressive and exotic enough to still suspicions, as she had expected. When he announced yet another discovery, Galester observed thoughtfully from the screen, “That’s a dangerously powerful anti-interrogation drug you use, Miss Gems!”
“It is,” Danestar acknowledged. “But it’s dependable. I’m conditioned to it.”
Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 175