“By all means,” he said. “I’m afraid my throat is a bit dry . . .”
“Of course,” Angelina said, going for a fresh jeroboam.
It was a quick read. I read it slowly a second time, then settled back into my chair. Angelina gave me an inquiring glance.
“Interesting,” I said. “Undoubtedly dangerous.”
“But we’ve been there before,” she said, smiling. “But I’m sure that it beats early retirement.”
“Oh, it certainly does that!”
Just how dangerous we were soon to find out.
SOME TIME–A GOODLY TIME–LATER
We were traveling on a stripped-down no-frills Special Corps troop transport. We were probably going to have been put in steerage class, but Angelina had a friendly talk with the captain before we unpacked our bags. An unlucky officer volunteered his cabin and vanished belowdecks. I was perfectly happy piling up rack time in the cabin since I had a lot of sleep to catch up on. Plus I needed time for the worst of my bruises to heal. Our last assignment had been a little strenuous—to say the least. I relaxed seriously—while Angelina became the toast of the officers’ mess. She beat them on the pool table and took their money at poker. They loved it and came back for more. I joined her there after a postprandial siesta.
I still hesitated—if ever so slightly—at being among all the smiling green faces. But it was good acclimatization for the planet.
“I talked to the captain,” I told Angelina. “We are due to land tomorrow morning. At six bells in the morning watch.”
“What do you think that means?”
“Haven’t the foggiest. I think he has been reading too many historical novels.”
“Be nice to breathe fresh air again.” She held her hand up and looked at her fingernails. “I think I had better do my nails.”
She waved good-bye at the troops, while I ordered a ship’s rum—a beverage I was increasingly quite drawn to. As I sipped I was joined by a green-skinned officer.
“I’m Major Bond. Jim Bond.”
“We share a first name.”
“I’m to be your guide. I’ll have a squad with me.”
“Guides . . . or bodyguards?”
“A little of both. There are still a few Pinkies on the Green parts of the planet. So we have to be careful. Emotions run deep.”
“Sit. Rum?”
“Yes indeed. I’m still off duty.”
“Have you been to Salvation before?”
“This is my second tour. It will be a fine planet once the new mutation proportion increases.”
“Good luck. Have you ever had anything to do with the . . . Pinkies there?”
“I was liaison officer with one of the larger septs. Nice people. It is all pretty much at peace now. They are more than happy to stay away from the Greens. We have established separation zones to make sure they don’t meet. Some fences, but mostly electronic detectors to assure that it stays that way.”
“I’m looking for one group—one hunter in particular.”
“Go to the Bureau of Pink Indigenous Affairs. They have complete records of all the groups. I don’t deal with them anymore. I’m with FAN now—Food and Nutrition. We establish eating stations and train people to go there at the correct time. Instead of the old fight and feed way.”
“That’s a big job.”
“It’s a big planet. Population is now steady at a little over four million. That will go down steadily as the birth control management kicks in. Each year it will be a little better. Particularly after the average IQ rises.”
“Years . . .” I sipped my rum and suddenly realized the magnitude of the Green operation. “Must cost an awful lot in the long run.”
“Billions.” He smiled. “But there are plenty of planets in the galactic league. They each contribute a few million a year for the Corps—so we are well endowed.”
The spaceport was the same one we had first landed on so long ago. We sat in the rec room during the landing as the image below grew on the screen.
“There is the old port—the same buildings are there,” Angelina said.
“But the abandoned spacers have been removed. And a modern port built on the other side. Three, no four, deepspacers there. One of them a dreadnaught class.”
We landed on the pad close to the others. Gantries and ramps closed in as the locks opened one by one. We watched all the activity on what had once been a baited trap for passing spacers. A strange officer—green of course—entered the room, looking around. Came over and saluted when he saw us.
“Captain Stroud. I have transportation waiting. I was told that you are going to BOPIA?”
“That’s the place.”
“Please come with me.”
I noticed that the waiting ground car had polarized windows that were mirrors from the outside. “Incognito?” I asked.
“A precaution,” the captain said. “The first new generation has yet to be born. The sight of a pink face could cause a riot in the streets among the masses. Some of the brighter of the estroj, who are now working with us, manage to control their reactions to pink skin, though it requires intensive therapy and hypnotic indoctrination. It isn’t until the third generation of gene therapy that the automatic hatred dies away.”
“You have an awful long and hard job of work to do,” Angelina said.
“It is worth it,” he said grimly, pointing to the shuffling people beyond the barrier fence. “Without the help from OOGA, centuries ago, I would have grown up like them on my home planet. A short, wretched, stupid, hate-filled life. I am only repaying the service done to my own world.”
We parked in the courtyard of a large, four-storied building.
“These are the offices of the Bureau of Pink Indigenous Affairs,” the captain said when we had emerged from the ground car. “It is a major operation, as you can see. These nongreen people have been just as deprived as mine by the centuries of hatred. Providing medical aid, education, farming advice is most important to us.”
“Speaking for all us Pinkies—I thank you,” I said.
“Let me take you to the records section. Do you remember the names of the tribal leaders—and where they traveled?”
“Show me a map—I’ll point out the places we visited. And the boss hunter was named Bram.”
“I know him well!” Stroud said. “My first assignment was with his people. Let me check with our resident-commissioner there. How soon do you want to leave?”
“Now—or sooner,” Angelina said.
Captain Stroud was efficiency itself. He checked records, made some calls—then showed us to the parking area where our transportation waited. A hulking brute of a vehicle; with wheels in front and tractor treads to the rear.
“All purpose,” he said as he started the engine. “There are no roads yet where we are going.”
It was an enjoyable ride through familiar country. We soon came to the pasture by the river where the porcuswine had been quartered. Splashed across the shallow river and into the low hills beyond. Then a green meadow opened before us with the familiar tents beyond. Smoke trails rose up into the windless sky.
Laughing children ran out to greet us as we braked to a stop. They swarmed around our vehicle—their elders close behind. I stood up and looked over their heads—to see a familiar figure emerging from one of the tents. I waved and shouted—and he hurried forward.
“How are you keeping, Bram?” I asked as he seized my arms.
“You said that you would be back,” he said. “All the changes—the Green army that landed, the peace that followed—that was your doing?”
“We did promise you,” Angelina said.
“You did. And I thank you from deep down in my heart. All the gratitude in the universe of stars is not enough—”
“Let’s celebrate,” I said, passing him down a box. “There are some interesting drinks in here that I think you will enjoy.”
It was a celebration. A homecoming and a feast. The sun shone, the gril
led venison was delicious, the laughter loud and long. Only the coming of darkness put a damper on the festivities.
“You will stay with us this night,” Bram said.
“Of course,” Angelina said. “And Jim has something he wants to give you.”
I rooted in our bags until I found it and passed it over. A large, gold envelope.
“Open it,” Angelina said. He held it up to the dying light and frowned and moved his lips, then said, “In the writing it says Bram. That is my name. I am learning to read, you see.”
I opened the envelope for him, and in the last of the light, read
LIFETIME GALACTIC PASS. GOOD IN ANY SPACER
GOING TO ANY PLANET
Billing Instructions Inside.
He took it carefully, brushed his fingers across the raised lettering.
“What it says—that is true?”
“True as I was when I told you that someday you would visit the stars. Now you can do just that—”
“And visit you and Angelina?”
“We hope that will be your first stop,” she said, taking his hands in hers. “Just let us know.”
We left early next morning. I don’t believe in wearing out a welcome.
“They are nice people,” Captain Stroud said, splashing the halftrack across a watercourse and grinding up the bank on the far side. “That pass that you gave Bram—I never heard of anything like that before.”
“Nor did we—until we came up with the idea.”
“Wonderful!”
Not to a certain Inskipp, I thought. Because he was going to be billed for all the costs.
As we ground into the parking compound, Stroud said, “Are you going back again in the spacer?”
“That’s what the captain said. A quick turnaround.”
“I have talked to the staff here and they would be greatly pleased if they could meet you, to show you some of the operation here. Since you are the ones who are responsible for bringing this planet out of the dark ages of death and despair. They would like to thank you for this. For the countless Greens to come who will no longer have to live lives of total degradation . . .”
“Of course we will come,” Angelina said. “It will be a great privilege.”
This was the largest building in the compound—obviously the headquarters. No Pinkies here. Green skins and green uniforms were the norm. We passed a communications section where the troops—male and female—worked away at their screens. Scarcely glancing up as we went by. A number of them had red shoulder boards on their uniforms. One of these glanced up at us—kept looking for long seconds—before his attention went back to his keyboard.
And I recognized him—I think. One green face looked like any other. It still disturbed me.
“We have organized a small meeting,” the captain said. “The senior staff would like to meet you.”
“No problem.”
They were gathered in a function hall—tables with glasses and bottles held out some promise. But before we could reach it a gray-haired officer, red boards on his shoulders, stopped before me.
This time I did recognize him.
“You are Overlord,” I said. He nodded solemn agreement.
“I was. We met last under far different circumstances.”
“We did indeed.”
“I now work with the kind people who came here to help us. That is your doing, I suppose?”
“I’m happy to say that it was.”
“I thought so. Now you must excuse me for there is much work to be done.”
He turned and was gone. Angelina wasn’t pleased.
“Isn’t that the thug who wanted us killed?”
“The same. Reformed now.”
“We hope . . .”
After many greetings, and some resolutely nonalcoholic drink, we left. Down another long hall.
“One more meeting,” our guide said. “Our commanding officer would like to see you.”
“A pleasure,” I muttered.
The hall was empty except for a single uniformed man standing by a set of doors. He had red shoulder boards. When we drew close he turned quickly and threw open the doors.
A wave of men rushed out in silence—waving familiar clubs.
Overlord led them. Grimacing in hatred as he swung his club down.
I raised my arm—by reflex—and roared with pain as it struck.
Without turning I knew just what was happening behind me.
“Not in the heart,” I shouted, staggered by the blow.
Overlord struck down again—then screamed as the bullet tore into his arm. Screamed again and fell as Angelina’s carefully placed bullets hit him in both legs.
Her next three shots hit the legs of the next attackers, more bullets exploded in the ceiling above the crowd of attacking men. Chunks of plaster and a cloud of dust rained down on them. They stumbled over each other, fell. Dropped their clubs as they ran to escape the deadly fire. Moments later they were gone and just the wounded men lay huddled on the floor.
“You shouldn’t have saved his worthless life,” she said, her smoking gun muzzle questing and ready.
“Thank you,” I said, rubbing my numb and painful arm.
We accepted the many and fervent apologies. A doctor bandaged my arm, but only after administering a welcome painkiller. We were happy to see the armed guards who saw us safely back to our transport.
“I can understand Overlord’s motives,” I said. “Until I came along he ran this world as his own property.”
“King of the dung heap,” Angelina said, death still in her eyes.
“Yes. But it was his dung heap.”
She took my good arm, and finally smiled.
“It’s time to go home—don’t you think?”
“Past time! Sunshine and peace, relaxation and all the civilized pleasures.”
We laughed together and the future was bright and happy.
Until next time my subconscious whispered.
I ignored it . . .
Stainless Steel Rat 11: The Stainless Steel Rat Returns Page 23