The Early Pohl (27 page)

Woller, stumbling and cursing, followed, and the Earthman. Vincennes opened the main lock and they went into the dome.

There were two great ships inside, dimly lighted by a string of pale lumes overhead. Nolan looked at the mass of them, at the rodlike projections clustered around the nose, and knew them for what they were: Warships!

Scaffolding was still around them. They were not yet ready for launching, not ready for whatever mission of treason Woller had planned them for. But by the look of them the day was close. And Nolan was—awaiting execution.

One look at Woller's iron countenance under the tape showed that. Vincennes' hand, tight-knuckled around the butt of his gun, was ample confirmation.

But the moment had not yet come. Woller said, "Are they waiting?"

Vincennes' glance sped to a lighted door at the far side of the hangar. "Looks that way," he said. "Shall I attend to Nolan first? He's tricky—"

Woller laughed softly. "He's used up all his tricks. We'll take him with us, alive. He might come in handy. He's been out of sight for three years now. I'm just a bit curious where he's been. Perhaps it's somewhere we should know about."

He groped for Vincennes' arm, found it. "Let's go," he said. "We can't keep the chief waiting."

Nolan was first through the door. He was in a small room where four or five ordinary-looking people were sitting around at ease. One was in uniform, the others the perfect example of quite successful businessmen.

"Is he here yet?" whispered Woller. The Martian looked around the room before he answered.

"Not yet. Cafferty—Lieutenant Brie—Searle—Vremczyk. That's all."

The dumpling-shaped soldier in the gray-green of Pluto's militia stared at Woller. "What the devil's the matter with your face?" he spluttered.

Woller answered before Vincennes could. "I had an accident, Brie," he snapped. "Keep your fat nose out of it."

The dumpling turned purple. But he said nothing, and Nolan realized Woller's importance in this gathering. This gathering of—what?

Nolan looked around quickly, and the answer raced to his brain. An officer of Pluto's defense forces—two or three well-dressed men, apparently wealthy, with something about them that shrieked "politico"—and Woller, once overlord of the System's greatest news-dissemination agency, still a man of vast influence. It looked like the back room of a political convention—or the gathering of a cabal.

The Junta!

It had to be the Junta.

What they were saying began to make sense. A tall man in dove gray was speaking.

"We're not satisfied, candidly," he was saying. "Woller, you've had more money than our resources can afford. Everything you've asked for you got. And what have you to show for it? Three ships—not one of them fit to fly."

Woller laughed contemptuously. "Candidly, Cafferty," he mimicked, "I don't care how you feel. My money's gone right along with yours. Warships cost money."

"So do thousand-acre Martian estates," shot the little lieutenant. "How much of your money is in these ships—and how much of ours is in your pockets?"

Woller turned his blind eyes toward the lieutenant and stood motionless for a second. Then, softly, "Once again, Brie—keep your fat face shut. You are not indispensable."

The pudgy soldier glared and opened his mouth to speak—but an interruption halted the quarrel. The door opened without warning, and another man entered.

What he looked like Nolan could not guess. He wore a heat suit with the helmet down. The polar-plastic faceplate was set for one-way vision. Even his voice was muffled and distorted as he spoke.

"Are we all here?" he asked. The others seemed to note nothing odd about his incognito—did he always disguise himself, Nolan wondered? "Where's Orlando?"

Brie answered. "He was on Mars, on the other side of the sun. He's on his way."

The mirror-faced helmet bobbed as its owner nodded. Then it turned toward Nolan. "What's this?" he asked, advancing.

Vincennes gestured with the pyro. "His name is Nolan," he said. "He tried to get rough with Mr. Woller. He's dangerous."

"Dangerous!" The blurred voice was angry. "Then why is he here? We have enough danger as it is. Give me that pyro!"

This was it, Nolan knew, and he tensed his body for the leap he had to attempt, though he knew it was useless. The man in the heat suit reached for Vincennes' pyro. In the moment while the gun was passing from hand to hand there might be a chance. . . .

There were shouts from outside, and the sound of running feet. The man in the heat suit whirled. "Bolt that door!" he shouted. "Bolt it! Now!"

Brie, dazed for a second, sprang to obey. Then he turned, his plump, pale face damp with sudden sweat. "What is this, Chief?" he asked. "Are we—is there trouble?"

Chief!
thought Nolan. So this hooded stranger was the leader of the conspiracy. Masked, disguised like the bandit chief of a flamboyant operetta.

The Chief was laughing. "Lots of trouble," he answered. The dull shouting from outside continued, rising to a crescendo as whoever was without pounded against the door and found it locked. Then abruptly it subsided. The huge telescreen on the desk buzzed sharply. The solid little man seated beside it automatically clicked the switch that turned it on.

"Turn it off!" bellowed the man in the heat suit. But it was already working. The prismatic flare on the screen showed no vision impulses were coming in, showed that whoever was calling was using a sound transmitter only—a portable set like those in a heat suit, A voice said sharply:

"Attention, Junta! The man who claims to be the Chief is a masquerader. Kill him! This is the Chief speaking now!"

V

Doubt sprang into the eyes of every man present. It lasted only a second—for the masquerader's action proved the charge against him.

He grappled the pyro from dazed Vincennes, sprang back, fired a warning blast that smashed the telescreen.

"Don't move, anybody!" he ordered. "Nolan—take their guns!"

Nolan threw questions to the winds, sped to obey. He found a business-like little heat pencil in the inner pockets of the chunky man, a pearl-handled burlesque of the service pyro in the gaudy gemmed holster Lieutenant Brie dangled from his belt. Nothing else—and his search was thorough.

"All set," he reported.

"Good enough. Searle—are there heat suits in this room?"

The chunky man looked stricken. He nodded. "In that locker," he said dizzily, pointing to the wall.

"Get them out, Nolan. Give one to every man and put one on yourself. Those outside will take their chances."

Nolan raced to comply. The stillness outside the door was menacing. While he was dragging the suits out, throwing them at the men, while they were putting them on, the man called Searle was staring at the masquerader with dawning comprehension.

"What are you going to do?" he whispered. "Are you—"

The man in the heat suit laughed sharply. "Get your suit on," he said. "You know what I'm going to do. All set?" Every man was garbed, helmets down. "Ten seconds to seal them. One, two, three—"

He counted slowly and Nolan watched him with fascination. At
five
the gauntleted left hand came up to the butt of the pyro, worked the tiny chambering lever half a dozen times. Nolan gasped in spite of himself. There were seven lethal pyro charges in the chamber of that gun—enough to blast down a mountain!

The count was finished. Through Nolan's helmet radio, automatically turned on, the man's calm voice ordered, "All right, Nolan. Open the door and let them in!"

Nolan moved. As his hand was on the lock, just as it turned and the door swung loosely inward—

Blam!
the impostor swung and fired the massive charge in his pyro at the thin wall that kept air and life in the dome.

They were running over icy ground. At most there was a minute or so of advantage—less, if the men they'd left in the room had other weapons concealed somewhere. And still Nolan didn't know who his savior was.

"All right, now," he panted over the helmet phone. "Give. Who are you?"

The answer was a chuckle, mixed with gasping as the smaller man strove to match his speed. "Tell you later," he panted.

"Hold it!" Nolan broke in, suddenly recalling the oversight that had been so disastrous before. "Don't tell me. Show me—and turn off your radio. They've got tracers."

There was a snort of sudden comprehension from the phone, then silence. Nolan looked to see the figure spurt into the lead, gesture ahead. They were rounding the dome. The bulk of the
Dragonfly
appeared, with a big cargo skid drawn up beside it. The gesticulating arm of the other man pointed directly at it.

Nolan glanced around. There was no one following—yet.

The men hadn't had weapons, then—and those who had been outside would not be pursuing anybody. He tried to thrust from his mind the recollection of what had happened when the sucking rush of escaping air had thrown wide open the door he had unlocked, and the tug of naked vacuum gripped the men behind it. A dozen of them there had been, hulking brutes from the flight sheds of a system's blowsiest ports, and one man in a heat suit, faceplate mirrored like that of the man Nolan ran beside. It is not pleasant to see a strong man try to shriek in agony, and fail because the air has bubbled from his lungs.

The outer door of the skid was open, and the impostor trotted in. When Nolan was beside him he leaned on the lock control. Ever so slowly, the outer door closed; slowly the inner opened.

They burst into a chamber where a man was just rising from a telescreen, face contorted with consternation and hate, hand bringing up a pyro from a drawer in the chart table.

The pseudo-chiefs gun spoke first, and the head and shoulders of the other disappeared in a burst of flame and sickening smoke. There was no time for delicacy. Ruthlessly shoving the seared corpse away, the stranger dove for the controls, touched the jet keys.

The ungainly skid shuddered, then drove forward. The stranger opened all jets to the limits of their power. Creaking and groaning, the skid responded. The dial of the speed indicator showed mounting acceleration, far beyond what the ship was designed for.

Nolan, clinging with one arm to a floor-bolted chair, threw back his helmet and yelled: "I'm ready any time! What's the story? Who the devil are you?"

The impostor waved a hand impatiently. His muffled voice came: "Take a look in there. There may be more aboard!"

Nolan grimaced and nodded. He picked his way over the jolting floor, blaster out, to the threshold. His groping hand encountered the lume switch, flooded the cargo hatch with light. It was almost empty. A few crates, the long casket-like object he had seen in the ship. Nothing behind which a man could hide.

Nolan turned to see the masquerader unzipping the folds of his heat suit with one hand while he guided the careening skid with the other. He brought out a tiny black box, opened it to show a key and a lever. He thumbed the lever open, braced the box between his knees, began tapping the key rhythmically. A curious shrill staccato came from the box.
Dee dideedeedit didideedit deedeedit deedeedee didee didididit—

After a second he stopped, waited. Then faintly an answer came back from the box.
Deedeedee dideedidit—

And silence. Satisfied, the man closed the box, slowed the skid to a point where its guidance no longer required complete attention. They had reached the ring of ice hummocks that surrounded Woller's dome. The skid bounded over the first rise, zoomed through that trough and the next; then the man kicked the rudder jets. It spun along the trough to where the hummocks were highest; then he cut the jets.

He turned to Nolan, threw back his helmet.

"My God," gasped Nolan. "Pete!"

Petersen grinned. "You called it, boy," he admitted. "Don't I get around though?"

Nolan closed his eyes and tightened his grip on the back of his chair. "The story," he said. "Quick."

Petersen shrugged. "How can I tell it quick? It's long. . . . Maybe if I tell you one thing you can fill in the details."

"What's the one thing?"

"I work for TPL."

TPL-Tri-planet Law! That explained—

Nolan exhaled slowly. "I begin to see," he said. "I always did think you knew too much for a guy that made his living at cards."

Petersen laughed. "My biggest trouble," he said wryly. "I can't win at cards. Whatever I do. It's been quite a drawback to my career. You can see how people would get suspicious of a professional gambler who always loses. I had to keep on the move."

Nolan's brain was beginning to work again. "But listen," he said. "How come you didn't turn me in when you picked me up—right after I escaped? If you worked for the Law—"

Petersen's face grew serious. "Boy," he said, "you gave us a lot of trouble. You and your escapes. We weren't planning to keep you in jail, Steve. Any fool could see you were being framed—fixed court, semi-pro witnesses. But TPL couldn't step in, out in the open. We didn't know enough for a showdown. So you were going to be summoned to Mars for further questioning. When we found out all you knew you were to be taken care of some way or other. Given a new identity, kept undercover until we were ready to move."

"And I jumped the gun."

Petersen nodded. "I was in the neighborhood, heading for Earth. The TPL man on the ship called Earth Base; they called me. The ship had you spotted, but they decided not to pick you up. Base figured that if you thought you were being hunted you'd keep yourself under cover and we wouldn't have to bother. And if I picked you up I could pump you myself."

Nolan grinned. "How did you do?"

"Fine. You talked more than a ventriloquist with a two-tongued dummy. . . . Then you turn up on Pluto, just when things are getting hot."

"After three years of hiding in third-grade ratholes for fear of the law." There was no bitterness in Nolan's voice. Just a calm statement of an unpleasant fact.

Petersen's voice was level, too, but his eyes were alert as he watched Nolan. "That couldn't be helped, Steve. You know what was at stake."