by Clay Moore
"I'm going to need to your specialized knowledge. I want you to sink back when you had to deliver something to the laboratory. When you were there were there people who looked alike. I mean look exactly alike."
Daniel said in a small voice: "I think that they use the security forces of somebody who was normal. They use them only for the day. Then for the night, they use their own security force of genetic robots."
“I pretty much have the same to report," said Jeff. "Don't worry about it guys," said John. "Doing trade with that factory is perfectly normal and acceptable. Once you have discovered that they are doing genetic robots, you probably need to stay away from them now."
"I wonder what would have happened if I squealed when I knew something," said Daniel. “It's really not worth going over in our heads now. All that would've meant is that we would've had John here a little earlier. It would still be the same plan and the same results."
John looked at Jeff with respect in his eyes. For the past year and a 1/2, Jeff had been an appendage for Elaine. When people thought of Jeff, they just thought of him as the hotel manager, not the hotel owner. He did not correct them. He was trying to make a home for himself here, and for the most part had succeeded.
John reached into his golf club caddy again. He pulled out another role of the explosive paper. The paper was not explosive it was just treated with a chemical to prevent plastic explosives from sticking to things. The three men worked rapidly to cut into squares piece of this paper to utilize as paper between each bomb. John stopped cutting squares when he realized it was time for them to pack the weapons into the duffel. He brought the duffel over and set it on Daniel's desk. Then Jeff and Daniel started packing the bombs into the duffel. They were careful to put a sheet of the paper they cut between each bomb. The idea was that John could ride the Grav-rod and still not make the bombs stick to the each other. Finally, it was done. They had produced the bombs, packed them into the duffel, and set the duffel in the closet. John double checked that the leather jacket was on his bed with his tactical helmet.
The two other men were just standing around in the room trying to mark time. John stifled a chuckle by putting his left hand over his mouth.
“Guys, I've got just a little bit of time left over there are a few things I would like to do. The job you needed to do with me is now done. Let me do my job my way.”
Jeff and Daniel looked at each other and realized what a pair they looked like. They gave John a halfhearted wave of the right hand and then walked out the door. John evidently hoped that Jeff would stand Daniel up for a drink.
John watched them go and then made himself comfortable in the easy chair. He could watch some of the entertainment that's on the three-dimensional. That always was a vast wasteland. He looked at his watch and realized that he had about four hours left. He decided that he would spend those four hours of sleep.
CHAPTER TEN THE STRIKE AT NIGHT
John suddenly woke up. He was instantly awake as was his ability in the Marines. John felt like someone was in his room. Then he heard the small chimes of his watch. He had set his watch to sound an alarm for him to wake up.
He was about to turn over when he actually heard someone in his room. He knew that Jeff had told his entire staff not to come in during the sleeping hours. The person that was in that room wanted to be there to do something nasty.
John made a turn to the left and got into a comfortable sleeping pose. The person in his room froze when he started moving. Then they continued to rifle his chambers. This was not a professional thief. This was a professional spook or cop. Then John noticed that the thief had a blaster in his hands. In the man's hands with a small frame blaster, the kind used by intelligence agencies the galaxy over.
* * * John slipped his hand into his left armpit. There he put his hands on his own weapon. John had no idea what John had to do here. This was entirely a situation that he did not plan for. He was going to plan for it from now on. He needed to be able to interrogate this man. That meant not using the blaster which could kill the man from blaster burns or poke a hole in a vital organ. If the person opposite him starts to fire, then John would fire. And when John starts to burn people start to die.
The opposite number was next to his bed. There seems to be a familiarity with this person. There were a couple ways that he could bring this to a successful conclusion. He knew he was going to make noise. There was no help for that.
He sprang for the knees. The opposite number fell on the butt and rolled down the spine to Janice's head on the floor. The little shriek that came out of the person's mouth was very familiar. Then he remembered her perfume. John likes to think that he remembered every single woman's perfume, and for the most point, he did. In this case, the perfume was something called Hilarity. It seemed like a canon of the perfume makers Association that they use some sort of frame of mind for the product's name.
John managed to get the opposite numbers right hand under his left knee. The person no longer had access to her primary weapon. Then he reached to the desk and hit the light button which turned on every light in the hotel room.
* * *
On her back under his knees rested Janice. All the makeup on her face was completely off. She was an intelligence agent. If there was a question about her, that question had been answered. John reached down with his left hand and pulled her blaster out of her right hand. Now he had to do something that he had done before. John pulled down the brass pull that worked the front zipper from the neck all the way down to the end of the jacket. He pulled open her coat. There was still the ample bosom. He was not there to look at them. He was there to check for weapons. He felt either side of her torso and across her back. John opened the pants. He felt the pants and realized that they were slightly rubberized. He wanted to leave her with as much dignity as she could have at this point, so he opened the fly and stuck his hand into the pants, across her buttock, and ending up at that which made her a woman.
“Okay, Janice. Let's dispense with the witty repartee. I operate here under license of Faraway. That makes me counter intelligence. Although I don't think you have much knowledge to get caught like this."
"Am I under arrest?” "No. You're under a death sentence right now. I have a license to kill, and this government affirms my license to kill."
“Are you telling me that Eridani allows extreme sanction?” * * *
"No, we call it our license to kill. This grant makes it possible to kill or not to kill. But on occasion, there is usually an order to kill. Right now they do not have an order for me to kill so I would have to kill on my license. Faraway it will back whatever play I make.
“Now what is so important that it's worth your life to come back into my room?"
“To tell you the truth I wanted to see if I could get you to service me again." John gave her a little playful slap on her rump. "Right now you are an enemy agent. Eridani treats Alphacent as being slightly enemy. You know this. This is probably at the top of everybody's mission brief. They probably tell you don't mess with Eridani agents. Surely you knew I was an Eridani agent."
"No, I did not know that you were Eridani or an Eridani agent. All I thought when I saw you was that you were dark, tall and handsome. I had not expected that you would have so great an attribute. It's that thing that I fell in love with.”
"You tell a cute tale. But one would expect that from somebody who is under the threat of execution. Janice this is the second time that you have come under my notice. I felt that you were a small fry in your intelligence agency."
"Since you're going to kill me anyway, why don't you tell me your whole plot?" John started laughing. It was that long, braying laughter that you get when something is hilarious. Finally, John was able to get himself under control. Absentmindedly he reached down and squeezed Janice's right breast.
“Janice, I wish I had the time to take you up on your offer.”
“Oh please, John, linger and partake of my delights." John wore a smile as he sn
apped the pants together and zipped up her fly as carefully as he could. He pushed her two breasts together and zipped up her jacket. Still sitting on her he grabbed his room’s communicator.
"Hey Jeff, do you ever go to sleep? I was wondering if those two agents from Eridani arrived yet?” “Yes they have come, and they are available. The officers told me to inform you that they have arranged with the police department to house anybody you deem a danger in their jail.”
“Did they tell you when they were leaving?" "I think they're staying here for three days and then taking the Navy ships out when they come back from their mission."
"All right go ahead and connect me to their room."
John heard the regular clicks and buzzes as the software attempted to connect him to the other room. Finally, the software was able to do it, and he heard a very familiar voice. It was agent Lacroix and agent Marni. John told him that he had the suspected agent under his control. He wanted them here as fast as they could arrange. They said yes and then shut the communication off.
"I think we're wasting time here. The time that could be better used naked." The two capture agents entered John's rooms using the search pattern that was taught in the Academy. Agent Marnie returned to the door to close it. Agent Lacroix went over to John and looked into the eyes of Janice.
“I think we've seen this one before."
"You mean we been having problems with this woman and nobody has done anything about it." “She uses sexual favors as kind of a way to get her off of whatever problems she might be in. Did she and you do the naked shuffle?”
Agent Marnie walking back from the door chuckled at her partner’s joke.
“Don't worry about your boss here," said Janice. "Why," said Lacroix.
"I fell in love with him.” John and the other agents stopped stock still. If she was even just half right, then she was giving them a lot of leverage.
“Where are you guys taking me?" “There is the world that has allowed us to establish a prison for this kind of prisoner. We came in and taught them how to be keepers for this prison. How long you stay in it is not a matter of winning a trial. It is the officer who has marked you who has a choice for how long you stay. Sometimes they forget about you when they retire.”
"That's not a chance for new life."
John said: "The alternative is that I put a blaster bolt through your skull." The agents had never been in an interrogation on the floor before. They knew when the principal had pulled the big trigger. He had offered her a way out.
"What do you need for me to spend a few years and then get out?"
"As you said, I want you to give me the plot of your position here.”
"We are interested in the Faraway discovery of two very similar bodies.”
“I can confirm to you that they are exact duplicates of each other." "I was not there to do anything other than to determine if it still existed. I think however that you made a discovery this morning."
“I discovered that the person in charge of the new intergalactic interests is Anton Hecton." “Yeah, I thought that you might understand that one. We were not worried that Anton Hecton is on Faraway. It seems this planet is something of a bad luck charm for Alphacent. "
"And what was all of that prattle you were playing with me." "Let me tell you it was not much of hardship. Some of the leadership of my organization were calling you Satan himself. That's why it was such a shock to meet you in person. And then some of the other ladies were commenting on your attributes. By the time I met you at the bar all of your swimming at the pool with a rather inappropriate suit had come to an end. I couldn't gauge if what they were saying was true. It sounded more like a woman's wet dream."
"I didn't think they did that," said John. * * *
Agent Marnie gave Janice a knowing look. "When I discovered that it was not a fake. I wanted to try you. The best way to do that would be to give you a little bump and grind. The combo agreed to play certain pieces of music that bump and grind dance used for. And I knew I was getting to you as well. And the whole thing went up in smoke when I slept too late, and you looked in my purse.
"What was your mission here?" "My mission was to determine whether or not there had been a genetic robot discovered on Faraway. This would be contrary to the treaty of Faraway.The fact that those Genetic robots were dead did not mean anything to my superiors."
"Were you to do anything on behalf of Alphacent to render those mechanical wombs from being destroyed. "All my mission was was gather information. Once I had the information I was to transmit it back to Alphacent. It was faster to send me, and send back Intel."
"Were you to wait for an action team to arrive?" "No, I did not get a chance to send back any information to Alphacent using Hypercom. This was just some minor mission. An Action team was not indicated. The team was merely placed on alert. The big problem though is that the route that we use from Alphacent to Faraway is way over three days in length. Our trip took three days 14 hours."
John signaled for agent Marnie and agent Lacroix to follow him over to the door. Once they were all there, he inflicted his voice to be a little bit more than a whisper.
"I believe her, but that doesn't mean that we don't look out for ourselves. if an action team was sent to Faraway, how long before that team gets here."
"I think I know one way we can do this. Hypercom's are near instantaneous communication." John nodded and so did Marnie because that was a well-known fact of Hypercom. "What an intelligence unit might do is preposition small teams. If there were a planet closer than three days, they could receive their orders and start out all in a day. If Piper takes another day, then they are on our turf. And their job is to make Janice dead or to rescue her."
John said: "I hate to do this to Jeff, but can you hold up here?" "Actually we can hold up in probably the best place to hold up," said agent Marnie. "What has put her in jail. One has to tell A that it was a real fine time that the planetary director gave for us. You know exactly what we were, and we were told to smile about it."
"Yeah, the planetary director loves to be in the know. The days of him knowing from day to day what's going on are coming soon to an end. There's just too much economy and technological prowess to ignore Faraway. So the planetary director did, in fact, give you permission to use their jail. Does he know that there may be a possibility of combat?"
"I don't think I told him that. But when we hold up with Janice in his jail and Lacroix and I have our sub machine blasters. There is no way that anyone can be blind I to that."
"Are you able to take her to the police when I leave my room?"
"Hey," said Janice, "I thought I was going to get to spend time with you until you had to go." "I don't know if you are not an agent or just an intelligence agent. I can't afford to play this like that. I have to treat you as if you are a rattlesnake."
Agent Lacroix said: "what is a rattlesnake. Everybody keeps saying that I'm holding a snake here, and it means that there is something particularly deadly in hand. So what is a rattlesnake?"
"You'd have to check the terraforming records for Eridani. I have a feeling that snakes were not one of the favorite animals. From my reading, I take it a snake that was poisonous and had a triangular head. Was a rattlesnake if it also contains a rattle on its tail. Now answer my question. Can you handle my little package for me."
"Yes, we can. In fact, by the time you're finished, we will have probably on a prison ship. Within six hours of that, we will go then on our way to Eridani."
"Here's my judgment of her — " "Let me get my slate set up. And we will do this by the book," said agent Marnie. She took out her slate and worked the fastest that he had ever seen a person work a Slate. Agent Marnie pointed it at John. With her right hand, she made a rolling motion with the finger.
"This is senior agent John Hardesty. This is my judgment of the agency known as Janice from Alpha Centauri. Without the equipment to figure out whether or not she was speaking the truth, we have determined that we buy m
ost of what she is saying. Because this is what we feel, we recommend that she receive a small term of incarceration and then be released to the general population." John made the cutoff signal to agent Marnie. She shut off her slate video recorder.
Agent Lacroix and agent Marnie lifted Janice up from the floor. Agent Lacroix zipped up the vital positions on her clothing. Then they marched her out of John's room and out of the hotel.
Apparently, John's activities had stirred up the hotel. He didn't know how long it would last, so he reached into his closet and pulled out the duffel. He made sure that his pistol was still in its shoulder holster. He put on the leather jacket. He made a makeshift backpack out of the duffel, by slipping his arms through the looped handles. The zipper to open the duffel was against his back. The last thing he put on his head was is fully charged tactical helmet.
His tactical helmet told him that the time was full dark, but it did not have enough time to work on the human mind. Somebody who has very little to do but stay awake sometimes their performance gets degraded the longer they remain in that situation. The best thing that anybody in command can do is to have breaks where the guard can relax, drink a cup of coffee, and relieve sore bladders. What you get for an investment about 10 to choose to 15 minutes was a refreshment of the guard force. This was something that John learned while he was a master sergeant of the Eridani High Guard Marines.
What he was going for was the idea that whoever was in charge of the guards did not treat his people as people. He treated them as property. Most genetic robots can determine when they are being treated without respect. He didn't think that he could get an entire guard unit to revolt. All he wanted was for those people to take a moment before they fired. That period of doubt always seemed to work in his favor.