Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell (91 page)

“There’ll be more grief for the entire Zangastan species if the victor finds himself expected to exchange very live prisoners for very dead corpses.”

“You’ve made a point there,” agreed Leeming. “Maybe it would help if I had nine feet of rope to dangle suggestively in front of the Commandant.”

“It would help if I had a very large bottle of
virx
and a shapely female to stroke my hair,” sighed the Rigellian.

“If you can feel that way after two years of semi-starvation, what are you like on a full diet?”

“It’s all in the mind,” the Rigellian said. “I like to think of what might have been.”

The whistle again. More intensive study while daylight lasted. Another bowl of ersatz porridge. Darkness and a few small stars peeping through the barred slot high up. Time seemed to stand still, as it does with a high wall around it.

He lay on the bench and produced thoughts like bubbles from a fountain. No place, positively no place is absolutely impregnable. Given brawn and brains, time and patience, there’s always a way in or out. Escapees shot down as they bolted had chosen the wrong time and wrong place, or the right time but the wrong place, or the right place but the wrong time. Or they had neglected brawn in favor of brains, a common fault of the overcautious. Or they’d neglected brains in favor of brawn, a fault of the reckless.

With eyes closed he carefully reviewed the situation. He was in a cell with rock walls of granite hardness at least four feet thick. The only openings were a narrow gap blocked by five massive steel bars, also an armor-plated door in constant view of patrolling guards.

On his person he had no hacksaw, no lock-pick, no implement of any sort, nothing but the bedraggled clothes in which he reposed. If he pulled the bench to pieces and somehow succeeded in doing it unheard he’d acquire several large lumps of wood, a dozen six-inch nails and a couple of steel bolts. None of that junk would serve to open the door or cut the window-bars. And there was no other material available.

Outside stretched a brilliantly illuminated gap fifty yards wide that must be crossed to gain freedom. Then a smooth stone wall forty feet high, devoid of handholds. Atop the wall an apex much too sharp to give grip to the feet while stepping over an alarm-wire that would set the sirens going if either touched or cut.

The great wall completely encircled the entire prison. It was octagonal in shape and topped at each angle by a watch-tower containing guards, floodlights and guns. To get out, the wall would have to be surmounted right under the nose of itchy-fingered watchers, in bright light, without touching the wire. That wouldn’t be the end of it either; beyond the wall was another illuminated area also to be crossed. An unlucky last-lapper could get over the wall by some kind of miracle, only to be shot to bloody shreds during his subsequent dash for darkness.

Yes, the whole set-up had the professional touch of those who knew what to do to keep prisoners in prison. Escape over the wall was well-nigh impossible though not completely so. If somebody got out of his cell or dormitory armed with a rope and grapnel, and if he had a daring confederate who’d break into the power-room and switch off everything at exactly the right moment, he might make it. Up the wall and over the dead, unresponsive alarm-wire in total darkness.

In a solitary cell there is no rope, no grapnel, nothing capable of being adapted as either. There is no desperate and trustworthy confederate. Even if these things had been available he’d have considered such a project as near-suicidal.

If he pondered once the most remote possibilities and took stock of the minimum resources needed, he pondered them a hundred times. By long after midnight he’d been beating his brains sufficiently hard to make them come up with anything, including ideas that were slightly mad.

For example: he could pull a plastic button from his jacket, swallow it and hope that the result would get him a transfer to hospital. True, the hospital was within the prison’s confines but it might offer better opportunity to escape. Then he thought a second time, decided that an intestinal blockage would not guarantee his removal elsewhere. They might do no more than force a powerful purgative down his neck and thus add to his present discomforts.

As dawn broke he arrived at a final conclusion. Thirty, forty or fifty Rigellians working in a patient, determined group might tunnel under the wall and both illuminated areas and get away. But he had one resource and one only. That was guile. There was nothing else he could employ.

He let go a loud groan and complained to himself, “So I’ll have to use both my heads!”

This inane remark percolated through the innermost recesses of his mind and began to ferment like yeast. After a while he sat up startled, gazed at what little he could see of the brightening sky and said in a tone approaching a yelp, “Yes, sure, that’s it
—both
heads!”

Stewing the idea over and over again, Leeming decided by exercise time that it was essential to have a gadget. A crucifix or a crystal ball provides psychological advantages too good to miss. His gadget could be of any shape, size or design, made of any material so long as it was visibly and undeniably a contraption. Moreover, its potency would be greater if not made from items obtainable within his cell such as parts of his clothing or pieces of the bench. Preferably it should be constructed of stuff from somewhere else and should convey the irresistible suggestion of a strange, unknown technology.

He doubted whether the Rigellians could help. Twelve hours per day they slaved in the prison’s workshops, a fate that he would share after he’d been questioned and his aptitudes defined. The Rigellians made military pants and jackets, harness and boots, a small range of light engineering and electrical components. They detested producing for the enemy but their choice was a simple one: work or starve.

According to what he’d been told they hadn’t the remotest chance of smuggling out of the workshops anything really useful such as a knife, chisel, hammer or hacksaw blade. At the end of each work period the slaves were paraded and none allowed to break ranks until every machine had been checked, every loose tool accounted for and locked away.

The first fifteen minutes of the mid-day break he spent searching the yard for any loose item that might somehow be turned to advantage. He wandered around with his gaze fixed on the ground like a worried kid seeking a lost coin. The only things he found were a couple of pieces of wood four inches square by one inch thick, and these he slipped into his pocket without having the vaguest notion of what he intended to do with them.

Finishing the hunt, he squatted by the wall, had a whispered chat with a couple of Rigellians. His mind wasn’t on the conversation and the pair mooched off when a curious guard came near. Later another Rigellian edged up to him.

“Earthman, are you still going to get out of here?”

“You bet I am.”

The other chuckled and scratched an ear, an action that his species used to express polite skepticism. “I think we’ve a better chance than you’re ever likely to get.”

Leeming shot him a sharp glance. "Why?”

“There are more of us and we’re together,” evaded the Rigellian, as though realizing that he’d been on the point of saying too much. “What can one do on one’s own?"

“Bust out and run like blazes first chance,” said Leeming.

Just then he noticed the ring on the other’s ear-scratching finger and became fascinated with it. He’d seen the modest ornament before. A number of Rigellians were wearing similar objects. So were some of the guards. These rings were neat affairs consisting of four or five turns of thin wire with the ends shaped and soldered to form the owner’s initials.

“Where’d you dig up the jewelry?” he asked.

“Where did I get what?”

“The ring.”

“Oh, that.” Lowering his hand, the Rigellian studied the ring with satisfaction. “We make them ourselves in the workshops. It breaks the monotony.”

“Mean to say the guards don’t stop you?”

“They don’t interfere. There’s no harm in it. Besides, we’ve made quite a few for the guards themselves. We’ve made them some automatic lighters as well and could have turned out a lot for ourselves if we’d had any use for them.” He paused, looked thoughtful and added, “We think the guards have been selling rings and lighters outside. At least, we hope so.”

“Why?”

“Maybe they’ll build up a nice, steady trade. Then when they are comfortably settled in it we’ll cut supplies and demand a rake-off in the form of extra rations and a few unofficial privileges.”

“That’s a smart idea,” approved Leeming. “It would help all concerned to have a high-pressure salesman pushing the goods in the big towns. How about putting me down for that job?”

Giving a faint smile, the Rigellian continued, “Handmade junk doesn’t matter. But let the guards find that one small screwdriver is missing and there’s hell to pay. Everyone is stripped naked on the spot and the culprit suffers.”

“They wouldn’t care about losing a small coil of that wire, would they?”

“I doubt it. There’s plenty of it, they don’t bother to check the stock. What can anyone do with a piece of wire?”

“Heaven alone knows,” Leeming admitted. “But I want some all the same.” “You’ll never pick a lock with it in a million moons,” warned the other. “It’s too soft and thin.”

“I want enough to make a set of Zulu bangles. I sort of fancy myself in Zulu bangles.”

“And what are those?”

“Never mind. Get me some of that wire—that’s all I ask.”

“You can steal it yourself in the near future. After you’ve been questioned they’ll send you to the workshops.”

“I want it before then. I want it just as soon as I can get it. The more the better and the sooner the better.”

Going silent, the Rigellian thought it over, finally said, “If you’ve a plan in your mind keep it to yourself. Don’t let slip a hint of it to anyone. Open your mouth once too often and somebody will beat you to it.”

“Thanks for the good advice, friend,” said Leeming. “Now how about a supply of wire?”

“See you this time tomorrow.”

With that, the Rigellian left him, wandered into the crowd.

At the appointed hour the other was there, passed him the loot. “Nobody gave this to you, see? You found it lying in the yard. Or you found it hidden in your cell. Or you conjured it out of thin air. But nobody gave it to you.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t involve you in any way. And thanks a million.”

The wire was a thick, pocket-sized coil of tinned copper. When unrolled in the darkness of his cell it measured a little more than his own length, or about seven feet.

Leeming doubled it, waggled it to and fro until it broke, hid one half under the bottom of the bench. Then he spent a couple of hours worrying a nail out of the bench’s end. It was hard going and it played hob with his fingers, but he persisted until the nail was free.

Finding one of the small, squares of wood, he approximated its center, stamped the nail-point into it with the heel of his boot. Footsteps sounded along the corridor, he shoved the stuff out of sight beneath the bench, lay down just in time before the spyhole opened. The light flashed on, a cold, reptilian eye looked in, somebody grunted. The light cut off, the spyhole shut.

Resuming his task, Leeming twisted the nail one way and then the other, stamping on it with his boot from time to time. The task was tedious but at least it gave him something to do. He persevered until he had drilled a neat hole two-thirds of the way through the wood.

Next, he took his half-length of wire, broke it into two unequal parts, shaped the shorter piece to form a neat loop with two legs each three or four inches long. He tried to make the loop as near to a perfect circle as possible. The longer piece he wound tightly around the loop so that it formed a close-fitting coil with legs matching the others.

Propping his bench against the wall, he climbed it to the window and examined his handiwork in the glow from outside floodlights, made a few minor adjustments and felt satisfied. He replaced the bench and used the nail to make on its edge two small nicks representing the exact diameter of the loop. Lastly he counted the number of turns to the coil. There were twenty-seven.

It was important to remember these details because in all likelihood he would have to make a second gadget as nearly identical as possible. That very similarity would help to bother the enemy. When a plotter makes two mysterious objects to all intents and purposes the same, it is hard to resist the notion that he knows what he is doing and has a sinister purpose.

To complete his preparations he coaxed the nail back into the place where it belonged. Some time he’d need it again as a valuable tool. They’d never find it and deprive him of it because, to the searcher’s mind, anything visibly not disturbed is not suspect.

Carefully he forced the four legs of the coiled loop into the hole that he’d drilled, thus making the square wood function as a supporting base. He now had a gadget, a thingamabob, a means to an end. He was the original inventor and sole proprietor of the Leeming-Finagle something-or-other.

Certain chemical reactions take place only in the presence of a catalyst, like marriages legalized by the presence of an official. Some equations can be solved only by the inclusion of an unknown quantity called X. If you haven’t enough to obtain a desired result you’ve got to add what’s needed. If you require outside help that doesn’t exist you must invent it.

Whenever Man had found himself unable to master his environment with his bare hands, thought Leeming, the said environment had been coerced or bullied into submission by Man plus X. That had been so since the beginning of time: Man plus a tool or a weapon.

But X did not have to be anything concrete or solid, it did not have to be lethal or even visible. It could be as intangible and unprovable as the threat of hellfire or the promise of heaven. It could be a dream, an illusion, a whacking great thundering lie—just
anything.

There was only one positive test: whether it worked.