‘Car,’ a guard said outside, pointing to a driverless bubble-topped vehicle that stood nearby. We were now in a large room, still decorated in the same prison gray. The side door of the vehicle opened at my approach.
‘I will be pleased to take car,’ I nodded and smiled. ‘But where shall I go—’
‘Car knows. In.’
Not the galaxy’s most witty conversationalists. I threw in my bags and sat down. The door wheezed shut and the bank of lights on the robot driver lit up. We started forward and a heavy portal swung open before us. And another and another, each one thick enough to seal a bank vault. After the last one we shot up into the open air and I winced at the impact of sunlight. And looked with great interest at the passing scene.
Cliaand, if this nameless city was any example, was a modernized, mechanized, and busy world. Cars and heavy lorries filled the motorways, all apparently under robot control since they were evenly spaced and moved at impressive speeds. Pedways were on both sides and crossed overhead. There were stores, signs, crowds, uniforms. Uniforms! That single word does not convey the bemedaled and multicolored glories that surrounded me. Everyone wore a uniform of some sort with the different colors, I am sure, denoting the different branches and services. None of them were striped yellow and black. One more handicap placed in my way, but I shrugged it off. When you are drowning who cares if a teacup of water is poured over your head. Nothing about this piece of work was going to be easy.
My car darted out of the rushing traffic, dived down into another tunnel entrance and drew to a stop before an ornately decorated doorway. The great golden letters Zlato-Zlato were inscribed over the entrance which, in Cliaandian, might be described as luxury. This was a pleasant change. A beribboned, jeweled and elegant doorman rushed forward to open the door, then stopped and curled his lip when he saw my clothes. He let go of the door and stamped away and his place was taken by a bullet-necked individual in a dark gray uniform. Little silver crossed knife-and-battle-ax insignia were on both shoulders and his buttons were silver skulls. Somehow, not very encouraging.
‘I am Pacov,’ this depressing figure rumbled. ‘Your bodyguard.’
‘A pleasure to meet you, sir, a real pleasure.’
I climbed out, carrying my own bags it will be noted, and followed the grim back of my watchdog into the lobby of the hotel, which is what it proved to be. My identification was accepted with a maximum of discourtesy, a room assigned, a bellboy reluctantly prodded into showing me the way and off we went. My status as a theoretically respected offworld sales representative got me into the establishment, but that did not mean that I had to like it. My wasp colours branded me an alien, and alien they were going to keep me.
The quarters were luxurious, the bed soft, the bugs enthusiastically present. Sound and optic, they seemed to be built into every fitting and fixture. Every other knob on the knobbed furniture was a microphone and the light bulbs turned to follow me with their beady little eyes when I moved. When I went into the bathroom to shave an optical eye looked back at me through the lightly silvered mirror and there was another optical pickup in the end of my toothbrush – no doubt to spy out any secrets lurking in my molars. All very efficient.
They thought. It made me laugh, and I did, turning it into a snort when it emerged so my patient bodyguard would not be suspicious. He pad-padded after me wherever I went in the spacious apartment. No doubt he would sleep at the foot of my bed when I retired.
All of this was of no avail. Love laughs at locksmiths – and so does Jim diGriz. Who knows an incredible amount, if you will excuse my seeming immodesty, about bugging. This was a case of massive overkill. So there were a lot of bugs. So what would you do with all that information? Computer circuitry would be completely useless in an observational situation like this one, which meant that a large staff of human beings would be watching, recording and analyzing. There is a limit to the number of people who can be assigned to this kind of work because a geometric progression soon takes place with watchers watching watchers until no one is doing anything else. I am sure there was a large staff keeping a keen eye on me, foreigners were rare enough to enjoy this luxury. Not only would my quarters be bugged but the areas I normally passed through, ground cars and such.
The entire city could not be bugged, nor was there reason to do so. All I had to do was act my normal humble, cover-role self for a while until I found the opportunity to leave the bugged areas. And cook up a plan that would permit my complete disappearance once I was out of sight. I would have only one chance at this; whatever plan I produced would have to work the first time out or I would be a very dead rat.
Pacov was always there, watching my every motion. He was watching when I went to sleep at night and the suspicious look in those hard little eyes was the first thing I saw in the morning. Which was just the way I wanted it. Pacov would be the first to go, but until then his mere presence with me meant that my watchers were relaxed. Let them relax. I looked relaxed, too – but I wasn’t. I was examining every aspect of the city that I could see, looking for that rat hole.
On the third day I found it. It was one of the many possibilities I had under consideration and it quickly proved to be the best. I made plans accordingly and that night smiled into the darkness as I went to sleep. I’m sure the smile was observed with infrared cameras – but what can be read from a smile?
The fourth day opened as did all the others with breakfast served in the room.
‘My my, but I am hungry today,’ I told the glowering Pacov. ‘It must be the exhilarating atmosphere and aura of good cheer on your fine planet. I believe I will have a little more to eat.’
I did. A second breakfast. Since I had no idea when my next meal might be I decided to stoke up as best I could.
Standard routine followed. We emerged from the hotel at the appointed hour and the robocar was waiting. It started at once towards its programmed destination, the war office where I had been demonstrating the effectiveness of the Fazzoletto-Mouchoir fuses. A number of targets had been destroyed, and today others would be blasted under even more exacting circumstances. It was all good fun.
We surfaced on the main road, spun down it and turned off into the side road that led to our destination. Traffic was light here – as always – and no pedestrians were in sight. Perfect. Street after street zipped by and I felt a familiar knot of tension developing. All or nothing, Slippery Jim, here we go …
‘Ah-choo,’ I said, with what I hoped was appropriate realism, and reached for my handkerchief. Pacov was suspicious. Pacov was always suspicious.
‘Bit of dust in nose, you know how it is,’ I said. ‘Say, look, is that not the good General Trogbar over there?’ I pointed with my free hand.
Pacov was well trained. His eyes only flickered aside for an instant before they returned to me. The instant was all I needed. Knotted into the handkerchief was a roll of small coins, the only weapon I could obtain under the authority’s watchful gaze. I had assembled it, coin by coin, under the bedcovers at night. As the eyes flickered my hand struck, swinging the hard roll in a short arc that ended on the side of Pacov’s head. He slumped with a muffled groan.
And even as he slumped down I was leaning over into the front of the car and banging down on the emergency stop button. The motor died, the brakes locked, we squealed to a stop and the doors popped open. Not more than a dozen paces from the selected spot. A bullseye. I was out and running at the same moment.
Because when I hit my bodyguard and the stop button every alarm must have lit up on the bugging board – there were plenty of little seeing eyes in the car. The forces of the enemy were launched at the same instant I was. All I had were seconds – a minute perhaps – of freedom before the troops closed in and grabbed me.
Would it be enough time?
Running, head down as fast as I could, I turned and skidded into the narrow opening of the service street. This cut through behind a row of buildings and emerged on a different street. There were robots
here loading rubbish into bins, but they ignored me as I ran by since they were simple M types programmed for nothing but this kind of work.
The robot pusher was another matter. He was human and had an electronic lash that he used to stir the robots along. It cracked out and snapped around me and the electric current crackled into my side.
CHAPTER FIVE
IT WAS SHOCKING, to say the least, but I barely felt it. The voltage is kept low since it is meant to stir the robots, not to cook out their brain circuits. I grabbed the whip as soon as it hit and pulled hard.
All of this was of course according to plan. I had seen this robot pusher and his work gang in this same place every day when we passed; Cliaand does love its routine. The robot pusher, a thick-necked and thuggy looking individual, could be counted on to interfere with a running alien – and had done just as I had hoped. When I pulled on the whip I had him off balance and he staggered towards me, jaw agape, and I let him have a roundhouse right on the point of that agaping jaw. It connected.
He shook his head, growled something, and came at me with his hands ready to crunch and rend.
This was not according to plan. He was supposed to drop instantly so I could rush through the rest of the routine before the cavalry arrived. How could I have known that not only did he have the IQ of a block of stone but the constitution of one as well? I stepped aside, his fingers grabbed empty air, and I began to sweat. Time was passing and I had no time. I had to render this hulk unconscious in the quickest way possible.
I did. It wasn’t graceful but it worked. I tripped him as he went by, then jumped on his back and rode him to the ground, accelerating his fall. And held him by the head and pounded it against the pavement. It took three good knocks – I was afraid the pavement would give way before he did – before he grunted and relaxed.
In the distance the first siren sounded. I sweated harder. Indifferent to the ways of men, the robots dumped their dustbins.
The robot pusher was dressed in a uniform of a decomposed green in color, no doubt symbolic of his trade. It was closed with a single zipper which I unzipped, then began to work the clothing off his bulky and unyielding form. While the sirens grew closer. At the last moment I had to stop and tear his boots off in order to remove the trousers, a noisome operation that added nothing good to the entire affair.
The siren echoed loudly from the walls of the service street and brakes squealed nastily close by.
With what very well might be called frantic haste I pulled the uniform on over my own wasp-like garb and zipped it shut. Running feet pounded loudly towards me. I grabbed up the whip and let the nearest robot have a crack right across his ball bearings.
‘Stuff this man into a bin!’ I ordered and stood back as it grabbed up its former master.
The feet had just vanished from view when the first of the red uniformed soldiers burst into sight.
‘An alien!’ I shouted, and shook my whip towards the other end of the narrow street. ‘He went thataway. Fast. Before I could stop him.’
The soldiers kept going fast as well. Which was a good thing since the pair of recently removed boots were lying there right in plain sight. I threw them into the bin after their owner and cracked the whip on my half dozen robots.
‘We march,’ I ordered. ‘To the next location.’ I hoped they were programmed for a regular route – and they were. The truck-robot led the way and the others fell in behind him. I went behind, whip ready. My little procession emerged into the police-gorged, soldier-full street. Armored vehicles twisted around us and drivers cursed. My faithful band of robots struck straight across the street through this mess while I, with a paralyzed smile on my lips, trotted along after them. I was afraid that if I made any attempt to change the orders my mechanical team would stage a sit-down right there in the street. We passed behind the abandoned ground-car just as my old bodyguard, Pacov, was being helped from it. I turned my back on him and tried to ignore the chill prickling up and down the nape of my neck. If he recognized me …
The first robot entered another serviceway and I staggered after them until, after what felt like a two day walk, I entered this haven of relative safety. It was a coolish day but I was sweating heavily: I leaned against the wall to recover while my robots emptied the bins. More cars were still appearing in the street I had so recently left and a flight of jets thundered by overhead. My, but they certainly were missing me.
What next? A good question. Very soon now, when no trace of the fugitive alien could be found, someone would remember the one witness to his escape. And they would want to talk to the robot pusher again. Before that moment came I would have to be elsewhere – but where? My assets were very limited; a collection of garbage collecting robots, now industriously clanking away at their trade, two uniforms – one worn over the other – either of which made me a marked man, and an electronic whip. Good only for whipping robots; the feeble current it generated was just enough to close a relay to cancel a previous order or action. What to do?
There was a grating noise close behind me and I jumped aside as a rusty iron door slid upwards. A fat man in a white hat poked his head out.
‘I got another barrel in here for you, Slobodan,’ he said, then looked suspiciously at me. ‘You ain’t Slobodan.’
‘You’re right. Slobodan is someone else. And he is somewhere else. In the hospital. Having a hernia removed. They’re putting in a new one.’
Was opportunity tapping? I talked fast and thought even faster. There was still plenty of rushing about in the street I had so recently crossed but no one was looking into the serviceway. I cracked my whip across the gearbox of the nearest robot and ordered him to me.
‘Follow that man,’ I said, snapping my whip in the right direction. White hat popped back inside, the robot followed him and I followed the robot.
Into a kitchen. A big one, a restaurant kitchen obviously. And there was no one else in sight.
‘What time do you open?’ I asked. ‘I’m getting quite an appetite on this job.’
‘Not until tonight – hey! Tell this robot to stop following me and get that garbage out of here.’
The cook was backing around the room with the robot trundling faithfully after him. They made a fine pair.
‘Robot,’ I said, and cracked the whip. ‘Do not follow that man any more. Just reach out your implacable little robot hands and grab him by the arms so he cannot get away.’
The robot’s reflexes, being electronic, were faster than the cook’s. The steel hands closed, the cook opened his mouth to complain – and I stuffed his hat into it. He chewed it angrily and made muffled noises deep in his throat. He kept this up all the time I was tying him into a chair with a fine assortment of towels, securing the gag in place as well. No one else had appeared and my luck was still running strong.
‘Out,’ I ordered the robot, cracking it across the patient metal back. The others were still working away and I laid about like a happy flagellant until they were all quivering for orders.
‘Return. To the place from whence you came this morning. Go now.’
Like well trained troops they turned and started away. Thankfully, in the direction away from the street we had just crossed. I popped back into the kitchen and locked the door. Safe for the moment. They would trace me to the robot rubbish men sooner or later, but would have no idea where or when I had left the convoy. Things were working out just fine.
The captive cook had managed to knock the chair over and was wriggling, chair and all, towards the exit.
‘Naughty,’ I said, and took the largest cleaver from the rack. He stopped at once and rolled his eyes at me. I put the cleaver and the whip where they could be reached quickly and looked about. For a little while at least I could breathe easy and make some definite plans. It had all been rush and improvise so far. There was a sudden knocking in the distance and the sharp ringing of a bell. I sighed and picked up the cleaver again. Rush and improvise was the motto of this operation.
; ‘What is that?’ I asked the cook, slipping the hat from his mouth for the moment.
‘The front door. Someone there,’ he said hoarsely, his eyes on the cleaver I held ready over his head. I restored the gag and sidled to the swinging door on the far wall and opened it enough to peek through.
The dining room beyond was dark and empty. The banging and ringing came from the entrance on the far side. No one else had appeared to answer this noisy summons so I felt safe in assuming that the cook and I were alone for the moment. Now to see what it was all about. With the cleaver at the ready I went to the front entrance, slid back the bolt and opened the door a crack.
‘Whaddayawant?’ I asked, aiming for the same rudimentary grammar and low accent voiced by the cook.
‘Refrigerator service. You called you got trouble. What kind of trouble?’
‘Big trouble!’ My heart bounded with unexpected joy. ‘Come in and bring biggest toolbox you got.’
It was a fair sized toolbox and I let him in, closed the door behind, and tapped him smartly on the back of the head with the flat of the cleaver blade. He folded nicely. His uniform was a utilitarian dark green, a great improvement on wasp, white or garbage, my only choice up to this moment. I stripped him quickly and tied him to a chair next to the cook where they commiserated in silence with each other. For the first time I was ahead of my pursuers. With luck it would be some hours before my captives were discovered and connected with my flight. I put the green uniform on, prepared a large number of sandwiches, picked up the toolbox, tipped my uniform cap to the captives in the kitchen, and slipped out the front door.
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