Takeoff!

by Randall Garrett

  Lord Curvert poured himself another cup of tea. “All the data we have thus far aren’t worth a ha’penny for the lot. The story they gave me over the telephone was that they had come to Earth on a bet, to pick up a souvenir of some kind, that one of the Thregonnese betting against them had done something to their space capsule, and that somehow—Heaven only knows how!—the United States Navy has gained possession of the capsule. All of which could be a tissue of lies from one end to the other, damn it.” He looked searchingly at his butler. “What’s your opinion, Fesswick?”

  “The story as it stands, my lord, is not consistent with the facts as we know them, but that is merely to say that we have no conclusive evidence of any kind.”

  Lord Curvert snorted at that and looked at his wife. “ And how is your intuition this morning, my dear?”

  “Well, Charles,” she said, smiling rather timidly, “I have a feeling you ought to do something—but I’m not at all sure what.”

  “Well, damn it all, we have to do something! The family has held the Observership perfectly for eight thousand years—guarded Earthmen from interference, so that they could develop their own civilization. I’m not going to have that record spoilt by four Thregonnese clowns!”

  “Couldn’t we just help them to escape with the teleporter?” Lady Curvert asked helpfully. “Then you could put the collars on them and ship them off.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” his lordship growled, staring into his teacup.

  Lady Curvert looked hurt.

  “It can’t be done, my lady,” Fesswick said quietly. “We used to be able to do such things easily, but, in these days, when the cells of a modern gaol are made of steel, we find ourselves hampered by the fact that a teleporter field is badly distorted if one attempts to project it into a metal-enclosed space.”

  “Dear me,” said Lady Curvert. She looked at her husband, saw that he was far too deep in thought to be disturbed, and turned back to Fesswick. “Is there anything at all I can do?”

  “Not, I’m afraid, at the moment, my lady ,” said the robot with dignity. “When both Logic and Intuition have failed, we must resort to Action and Ingenuity, and those are in his lordship’s department.” He poured Lady Curvert another cup of tea. “I am quite sanguine, my lady, over the prospect of his lordship’s solving the problem very shortly. He always has.”

  The police chemist who took the small package of heroin from the safe to analyze it was very careful with the stuff. His job was to run it through an analysis so that he could testify in court that it really was heroin. He didn’t let the package out of his sight for more than thirty seconds.

  Which was plenty long enough.

  He was setting up his testing apparatus, so he didn’t see a long-fingered, aristocratic hand appear out of nowhere, take the package, and replace it with an exactly similar one.

  When the contents of the package turned out to be sugar, the chemist was surprised. The District Attorney was more than surprised; he was furious.

  But there was nothing that either of them could do.

  There was even more surprise in Castle Curvert when Fesswick reported his own analysis of the powder to his master .

  “The substance, my lord,” he said in his precise voice, “is not heroin.”

  “Not heroin?” said his lordship.

  “No, my lord. It is Varesh powder.”

  “Ah-hah!” his lordship expostulated. ‘I And they brought plenty of it, didn’t they?”

  “Yes, my lord. Enough, shall we say, to hypnotize every government official on Earth, if that became necessary. It only needs to be activated.”

  “Things are beginning to fall into place, Fesswick.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Lost their equipment, didn’t they, Fesswick?” he said, grinning.

  “It would appear so, my lord,” said Fesswick, returning the grin.

  “The next step, Fesswick, is to appear to fall in with their nefarious plan.”

  “Yes, my lord. I shall begin preparation immediately.”

  Omboser, Lubix, Forbin, and Alsnokine stepped out of the court building and walked down the imposing-looking steps toward the sidewalk.

  “It’s about time they let us out,” Omboser snarled in Thregonnese. “I knew that as soon as they analyzed the Varesh powder they would realize that it was not one of their local drugs-but I didn’t know it would take the primitive fools that long to analyze it.”

  Lubix patted the pocket of the suit he was wearing. “Well, we got it back, and that’s what’s important.”

  “You idiots!” Forbin hissed, “cease your chatter! The Galactic Observer could be anywhere around.”

  They all glanced around apprehensively. Alsnokine whispered, “Do you think he can speak or understand Thregonnese?”

  “Probably not,” said Forbin, “but there’s .no need of talking loud enough for everyone to hear.”

  “What I want to know ,” Lubix said as they headed toward the subway entrance, “is, who’s the creep who called the cops on us?”

  “That character from the Musician’s Union, obviously,” said Omboser. “If Alsnokine hadn’t acted so guilty when he came into the office, nothing would have happened.”

  “What was I supposed to do? Leave it out there for him to look at?” Alsnokine asked defensively. “How could I know he wasn’t the Observer himself?”

  “Quit arguing, you two!” Forbin snapped. “We haven’t lost anything but a little time. Let’s get back to the club and hope that the Observer will contact us again.”

  “If Omboser hadn’t been such a blockhead,” Alsnokine began, “we wouldn’t…”

  “Ahh, shut up!” said Forbin.

  When they reached the Venus Club, a little more than a mile north of the station at Centre Street, Omboser produced his key, unlocked the front door, and went in, followed by his three coconspirators. They stopped suddenly at the sight of a tall, rather handsome, impeccably dressed gentleman who was seated at a table in the middle of the room, sipping at a small cup of espresso.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said with utter aplomb. “That machine of yours makes quite excellent coffee.” He was speaking very cultivated Galactic.

  “The Observer,” the four Thregonnese said in a ragged chorus.

  “Exactly,” said Lord Curvert. “You may refer to me as Mr. Smith. Not as original an alias, perhaps, as, say, ‘Sebastian Tombs,’ but it will suffice. Now, to which of you was I speaking when the local constabulary so precipitately interrupted?”

  “That was me,” said Omboser.

  “Then pray sit down, make yourselves comfortable, and tell me all about your troubles. Consider me your Father Confessor, and tell all.”

  They sat down slowly, all four pairs of eyes focused steadily on the intruder.

  Finally, Omboser smiled. “Well, sir, as I was saying,” he began, “we had this little bet, you see. We knew it was illegal, but it was just a harmless prank. We were to come here, and then go back, that’s all. Nobody would be hurt, nobody would be the wiser, and we would win our bet. See?”

  “I understand so far,” Lord Curvert said agreeably. “Then what happened?”

  “Well...” Omboser began very hesitantly.

  “This idiot,” said Forbin, pointing a thumb at Omboser, “was supposed to stay behind with our capsule. Instead, he went swimming.”

  “It gets pretty boring, doing nothing,” said Omboser pettishly.

  “He went swimming,” Forbin repeated. “We had the capsule underwater, in a little bay at Lukiuni Atoll, out in the Pacific.”

  “There was nobody on the atoll at all,” Omboser said. “It looked perfectly all right to go swimming.”

  “Nevertheless,” Forbin continued, “while Omboser was out cavorting-he’d changed himself into a porpoise for the purpose -a United States Navy patrol plane spotted the capsule from the air.”

  “I told you we should have sunk it in deeper water,” Omboser said.

  Forbin i
gnored him. “By the time Omboser got back from his spree, the U.S. Navy was in charge-with a light cruiser. Since we’d left most of our equipment in the capsule, we didn’t even have the instruments we needed to sneak in and get the capsule back.”

  “The Navy thinks the capsule is a Russian job,” Lubix supplied helpfully. “They haven’t opened it yet, because they’re afraid there might be a thermonuclear bomb inside it. But they’ve sure got it surrounded while they try to figure out what to do.”

  “So,” Forbin finished, “we figured we’d better get in touch with you and tell you what happened. We rented this place and put on a show that we thought would attract your attention without revealing ourselves to the natives. It took us a long time to get the hang of how things are done on this planet, though. Otherwise, we’d’ve done this sooner.”

  Then all four of them sat there in silence, watching the Observer, waiting for his decision.

  Lord Curvert thought the matter over carefully, then came to a decision. “Very well, my fumble-fingered friends, we’ll see what can be done. He looked up into the air a foot or so above his head. “Rally round, Mr. Jones,” he said, “there’s work to be done.”

  The calm voice or Fesswick came out of the air; “Anytime you’re ready, Mr. Smith.”

  Sergeant Thaddeus McClusky, USMC, shrugged his shoulder a little to adjust the weight of the heavy machine rifle that was slung there. So did Corporal Quinn. Both of them looked with respectful eyes at Lieutenant fig) Fordham, USN, and listened silently as he spoke.

  “Remember, men; that may be an atomic bomb down there, so keep on your toes. Absolutely no one is allowed to pass inside this perimeter after dark. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Sargeant McClusky.

  “Yes, sir,” said Corporal Quinn.

  “Very well. Carryon.”

  Salutes were exchanged, and the two Marines waited silently while the Naval officer went on down the line to the next post. As soon as he was out of earshot, McClusky muttered a dirty word. “...deckape shavetail,” he added.

  “That’s the way the goddam Navy operates,” said Quinn philosophically. “We been here six months watching that gizmo while the Navy sits on its duff and wonders what to do about it. And what do they do? Why, they send us a fresh jaygee from Stateside who tells us to do exactly what we been doin’ all along. That takes real brains, that does.”

  Sergeant McClusky nodded his agreement. “‘Remember, that may be an atomic bomb, down here, so keep on your toes,”‘ he mimicked. “Well, you can just bet your stripey little shoulder boards we will, sir. Yes, sir. We’ll watch very closely, sir, and if that thing goes off, we’ll call you right up on the telephone, sir. Won’t we, Corporal Quinn?”

  “Just as fast as ever we can,” agreed Corporal Quinn. “We will be moving very rapidly, Sergeant McClusky.”

  They turned to look at the little, shallow lagoon which held the unknown thing. There were no lights illuminating it; the Navy didn’t want to attract the attention of any high-flying Russian planes that might be looking the area over. But the light of a tropical full moon cast its silvery radiance over the glittering waters of the lagoon.

  The thing itself had been surrounded with a steel net to keep large fish from approaching it and-possibly-setting it off. underwater sonar constantly probed the depths to make sure that Russian frogmen didn’t try to sneak in. The Navy didn’t think the Russians knew where their toy was, but they were taking no chances.

  “You know ,” said McClusky, “when I was a kid, I used to love those movies of the South Seas. Remember? They had scenes in ‘em just like this.”

  “Yeah,” Quinn agreed softly. “Tropical moon—sea breezes—palm trees gently waving—waves rolling softly against the warm sands.”

  “That’s very poetic,” McClusky said in mild astonishment.

  “I remember it from an old movie ad,” Quinn said.

  “All we need is some guitar music,” McClusky said. “Yeah. And Dorothy Lamour in a sarong.”

  “Will I do?” asked a soft, throaty contralto voice from behind them.

  Both men spun around, unslinging their rifles with the easy grace of long practice.

  Then they froze, as if someone had doused them with a few gallons of liquid air. Their eyes glazed, and their mouths hung agape.

  It was not Dorothy Lamour, they decided, because she was not wearing a sarong. She was not even wearing a grass skirt.

  Sergeant McClusky recovered his voice. “You ain’t supposed to be here, dressed like that, ma’am,” he said to the vision of loveliness.

  “Undressed like that,” Corporal Quinn corrected automatically.

  “Even if you was dressed,” said McClusky, “you hadn’t ought to be here. Women aren’t allowed on this island.” He was still trying to figure out what to do when a voice bellowed out from the next post down the shore.

  “Corporal of the guard! Post Number Five! I got a woman on my post—a nekkid woman! Whadda I do now?”

  Before Corporal Quinn could answer, two more posts called out that they had the same trouble.

  “Why all the fuss?” asked the girl, wide-eyed. “We just want to go swimming in your pretty lagoon.”

  “No, you don’t,” said McClusky, recovering his wits at last. “You’re under arrest, lady.” He reached out to grab her with one brawny fist, but his hand closed on empty air. The girl was deceptively fast. She backed away, still smiling, and McClusky made another lunge for her.

  He missed and lost his balance as she danced back out of the way. As he fell forward, he heard Quinn yell: “Halt! Halt or I fire!”

  He broke his fall with the butt of his rifle, and twisted to an upright sitting position. The girl, he noticed, was running ~way from the lagoon, toward the sea, with Quinn after her in hot pursuit, still calling for her to halt.

  All around, there were similar cries. Sergeant McClusky wondered how many unclad females there were running around on Lukiuni Atoll—where there couldn’t possibly be any women.

  Not a man there noticed what was going on out in the lagoon itself. The figure of a man suddenly materialized from nowhere a few inches above the surface of the water. Then he dropped in with scarcely a splash.

  Since Fesswick did not breathe, there was no necessity for him to wear any of the usual diving equipment. All he had to do was swim to the steel net, cut through it, and head for the little Thregonnese space capsule. He wasn’t the least bit worried about the Navy’s probing sonar beams; the nullifiers operated by Lord Curvert would take care of them. As far as the sonar operators could tell, there was nothing at all unusual in the lagoon.

  Fesswick got busy opening the airlock of the little capsule.

  Up on shore, Sergeant McClusky yelled at Corporal Quinn, who was several yards away, at the sea’s edge, staring into the waves. Lights were coming on allover the tiny atoll. Pounding footsteps could be heard from every quarter as confused men ran every which way.

  “She just dived into the sea and never came up,” Corporal Quinn was saying wonderingly.

  “Why didn’t you shoot?” bellowed McClusky.

  “Who the hell do you think I am?” Quinn bellowed back. “Mike Hammer?”

  So far, nobody else had fired a shot, either, and by that time, all four of the Thregonnese had dived into the sea, changed into porpoises, and were swimming rapidly away from the atoll.

  The final surprise came when, with a great geyser of erupting water, the Thregonnese space capsule shot up out of the lagoon and vanished rapidly into the moonlit sky.

  There would be a lot of explaining to do that night and for many nights to come, in Navy circles.

  But there would never be any explanation.

  “And now,” said Lord Curvert gently, “the question arises as to what to do with you gentlemen.”

  They were sitting in the Venus Club again. The space capsule, indetectable to any Earth science, was sitting on the roof of the building.

  “Why, just make your report an
d let us go,” Forbin said politely. “It was only a misdemeanor. We haven’t done anything felonious. We didn’t expose anything to the natives or interfere in any way. Just let us go, and we’ll pay the fine according to the law.”

  Lord Curvert was nodding slowly, and there was an oddly sleepy look in his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Certainly. Just let you go.”

  The Thregonnese looked at each other with delight, and then looked back at the Observer.

  “Or, better yet,” said Forbin insidiously, “just let us stay for a while. How about that?”

  “Yes. Yes,” his lordship said rather glassily. “I could just let you stay for a while.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Forbin went on in the same tone, “we have a few favors we’d like you to do for us.”

  “Favors,” said Lord Curvert. “Certainly. What favors?”

  “Well, for instance, why don’t you stand on your head?”

  “Certainly.”

  “And click your heels together ,” added Omboser, ignoring the scowls that Forbin and the others shot him.

  “Certainly,” agreed his lordship. Placing hands and head on the floor, Lord Curvert solemnly upended himself, balanced carefully, and clapped his heels together.

  “We’ve done it!” Forbin said gleefully. “We’re in!”

  “You sure that assistant of his-that Mr. Jones can’t reach us here?” Alsnokine asked, a trifle apprehensively. “Or see us?”

  “Not a chance,” Forbin said. “I turned on the nullifiers in our ship myself.”

  “We’ve done it,” Lubix gloated. “In spite of all the setbacks, we have our ship, and we have the Observer. Now we can start having a little fun.”

  “Are you gentlemen just going to leave me like this?” Lord Curvert asked politely.

  They all turned to look at him.

  He did a neat handspring-and-flip, and landed on his feet. “A confession of intent,” he said mildly, “is bad enough. When combined with an actual attempt, it becomes very bad indeed.”

  None of them said anything.