Gordon R. Dickson (47 page)

His eyebrows went up ironically. I
reached into my shirt pocket where I had put the order after folding it up,
still without having read it. I unfolded it and read it now, then passed it to
him.

"'Marc Despard has asked for
authority from me, and I have given it to him, to do whatever is required
...'" he nodded slowly.
"All riiight!"

I took the order back from him and
replaced it in my pocket.

"The first thing I want to do
is check those future-built aircraft we captured," I said, "to make
sure none of those responsible for the atrocities are planning on using them
for escaping. They may even have explosives to destroy the aircraft they can't
use. You're an expert on explosives. What kind do you think they might be able
to get hold of for something like that?"

He grinned and patted himself at
belt level again.

"Primer cord," he said.
"It wouldn't take much to do a lot of damage—particularly if they know
what they're doing."

"That's what we'll search the
area for, then. Come along."

We headed out the door. The Old Man
came with us.

"Want me to put him back
inside?" Doc asked, as we stopped just beyond the tent.

"Why, no," I said.
"Seeing him with us, they won't think I'm doing anything important. It'll
serve to allay suspicions—Major!"

I called out to a short, swarthy
block of an officer in his mid-twenties who was passing by. The fact that he
was on his feet at all this morning meant that he had not been deeply involved
in the celebrations of the night before. He came closer and I recognized him.
There were only so many majors in Paula's army, in any case.

"Major Debrow? Sorry to
interrupt whatever you're doing; but I've got a special job and I'm going to
have to ask you to help. Take a look at this."

I passed him Paula's authorization.

"You see," I said, while
he read it, "we want to move before these criminals take off on us—don't
we, Major?"

His face did not agree. Someone who
was unprejudiced might have found a trace of loathing in it for me, a civilian
who called combat-battered soldiers "criminals."

"Yes, Mr. Despard."

"Good. I knew I could count on
you, Major. We've got an idea that some of them might be trying to get away in
some of the valuable future aircraft these people had. We're going to go and
check. I want you to come along with us."

"Those planes are locked up, as
well as being under guard," Debrow said. "Nobody could get away with
one of them."

"Let's make sure."

We walked toward that part of the
former airport where the post-twentieth-century planes were kept. It was not a
short distance, but eventually we clambered over a low barrier of sandbags and
found ourselves not more than forty feet from the entrance to a separate
hangar, around which perhaps a dozen apparently sober and competent male
soldiers stood guard.

"Go get their officer and bring
him here, quietly, so we can explain things, will you, Major?"

"Just what is it you
want?" Debrow asked. "What do you want him to do?"

"I want to check the men on
guard and have a look inside," I said. "And I want the officer with
us when we do that."

Debrow went forward to the two
soldiers on guard at the hangar door and was challenged. As he answered, I
turned to Doc and saw him looking at me questioningly.

"I want you and me to take off
from here in one of those planes inside," I said in a low voice. "I
don't want the other planes left behind to be workable; and I want the soldiers
on guard here out of action. I'll try to arrange it to give you a chance at
them, one at a time."

"Just the two of us to leave.
Not the major?"

"Not the major."

Doc nodded. Debrow came back, led us
forward to the hangar doors and in through a small personnel door set in one of
them. Inside was the large, dim, echoing interior of the hangar with small,
pearly glowings in the gloom that were the future aircraft. To our right was a
glassed-in office brightly lit with self-powered battle fluorescents, standing
in for the built-in fluorescent lights in the ceiling, now dark for lack of
power from the community's central supply.

Inside at a desk was a single thin,
young officer with first lieutenant's silver bars on the straps of his uniform
leather jacket. He got to his feet as we came in.

"Major?" he said.

"Lieutenant," said Debrow.
"This is Marc Despard."

"I know Mr. Despard," said
the lieutenant.

"And his . . Debrow glanced at
Doc and the Old Man, "servants. Mr. Despard has some special authority
from the Empress for you to see."

I passed Paula's authorization to
the lieutenant. The light blond eyebrows jumped several times while he was
reading it, although the rest of his narrow face remained calm.

"Yes sir," he said passing
the letter back to me. "What is it you want, Mr. Despard?"

"First," I said, "I
want to check the future aircraft, without making a fuss about it. Just you,
the Major and I, and Doc here."

I nodded at Doc.

"Doc," I said, "has
had some experience in handling sabotage. If we find one or more of the
aircraft has been booby-trapped, he may be of help to us in disarming it. This
Experimental with us is called the Old Man. His sense of smell, particularly,
is much more acute than ours, and he works well with Doc on jobs like this.
Now, how many of the future planes are there?"

"Nine," said the
lieutenant.

"Does anyone here know how to
fly them?"

"Nobody's tried so far,"
said the lieutenant. "I believe the plan is to talk first to these people
who had them."

"It seems to me I heard they
weren't hard to operate," I said. "The criminals we're looking for
may have heard that, too. These planes would buy them anything they wanted,
anywhere in the rest of the world, if they could successfully steal them from
the Empress."

I saw both officers looking at me
oddly and wondered if I'd been laying on my image of self-importance too
thickly.

"All right," I said.
"Let's go then. Major, Lieutenant, we'll take three planes apiece. We
won't take the Experimental on this first search. I'll keep Doc and the
Experimental with me until they're needed. Do you have flashlights?"

"You mean hand torches?"
said the lieutenant. "Yes, sir." He went to a locker across the
office and came back with flashlights for Debrow and myself. Leaving the Old
Man in the office, we went out into the hangar proper and split up.

I took the three planes closest to
me, forcing the two officers to take the ones further over. In the illumination
of the flashlight, the first aircraft I came to seemed to glow with an inner
gleam of its own. It was made of some milky, semi-translucent plastic and
looked light enough to float up in the air if it was breathed on too heavily.
But in spite of appearances, it was solid and firm when I pulled open the door
in its curving side and stepped in. Within, possibly because of the almost
egg-shaped hull, there was more room than I would have guessed. I went forward
to the control panel.

It was a simple-looking affair, a
single small television-like screen inset in the panel and a five-key keyboard
just below it. I pushed down one of the keys at random and the lights went on;
not only on the panel but all over within the aircraft.

"Ready,"
said a voice.

I grinned. There had been no pattern
at all to what I was looking at; and now, suddenly, there was very nearly a
complete one.

"How do I take off?" I
asked.

"You may pilot yourself, or
instruct a takeoff and flight."

"Thanks. Go back to
sleep." I punched the same key again and the lights went out.
Experimentally, in the glow of the flashlight, I punched another of the keys.

"Ready,"
said a voice, as the lights went on
once more.

"Go back to sleep."

So, that was it. The secret to
flying these things. It was that there was no secret at all. I punched off
again, the lights went out and I beckoned Doc to follow me. Together, we left
the plane.

"All right," I whispered
to him, "get busy taking out those other planes. I'll take my time with
the two I've still got to look at. Meet you at the last one, the third one up
straight ahead near the back of the hangar. I'll go as slow as I can, but don't
let those two officers see you."

"They won't," said Doc and
he evaporated in the gloom.

I took the Old Man and went on to
the next plane and let myself in, then sat down before the control panel and
turned it on. I had quite a little conversation with the computer, or whatever
it was, on this second aircraft; and by the time I had finished asking
questions, I had as good a general knowledge of this kind of craft as if I had
kept one around for some years. They were ridiculously, child-level foolproof,
and operable.

After I had wasted as many minutes
as I thought I reasonably could, I went on to the third craft, poked about
inside for a while, and then stepped out again. Neither Doc nor the other two
men were in sight. I stepped around to the far side of the plane to wait; and a
finger tapped me on the shoulder.

I whirled, stepping back instinctively
as I did so, and found Doc grinning at me.

"All set," he said.

"Good. Come on then."

We walked toward the next plane over
and found the lieutenant there, conscientiously examining the craft's
undercarriage with his flashlight.

"Did you find anything,
Lieutenant?"

He got to his feet.

"No sir. You, sir?"

"No luck for me, either. Maybe
Major Debrow's found something. Shall we go see?"

We all moved over and found Debrow
inside his last aircraft. After a moment he came out.

"Nothing," he said.

"I'm greatly relieved," I
said. "Now, if you don't mind, Lieutenant, I'd like to examine the men
you've got on guard here?"

"But why, sir? We didn't find
anything."

"For that very reason. We want
to be sure. The Empress wants us to be sure. Doesn't she, Major?"

"Lieutenant," said Debrow
with a tight throat.

"Yes, Major. Yes, Mr. Despard.
If you'll come up to the office, I'll bring in the men on the doors
first—"

"You'll bring them in one at a
time, Lieutenant," I said. "Is there another door to this hangar besides
those in the front?"

"There's a small service
entrance in the back wall."

"Good." I turned to Doc.
"After we examine each one, I'd like you to take him out the back way and
back to his post. See he doesn't talk to any of the others, particularly not to
any who haven't been examined yet. You go out with the lieutenant here, so
you'll know where to bring them back to. Lieutenant?"

"Mr. Despard?"

"I imagine you'll be taking the
place of each of your guards as you relieve them. If Doc should come for you without
returning the man he last took—if he comes for you alone—it'll mean we've found
one of them. I'd like you to come back with Doc as naturally as possible, so as
not to alarm any of the others we may find."

The lieutenant opened his mouth,
glanced at the Major and closed it again.

"Perhaps," said Debrow,
"it might be better if the lieutenant simply stayed here, Mr. Despard.
It's a little unusual, his filling in for one of the enlisted men on post;
and—"

"If you don't mind,
Major?" I said.

"No sir," said Debrow
slowly. "I don't mind, sir."

"Then we'll do it this way, I
think. Lieutenant, will you take Doc out so he can get the first guard?"

They went off. I turned to Debrow.

"Major, how well do you know
the lieutenant?"

"I've known him for several
years. More than three years, I'd say."

"But do you know him
well?"

Debrow looked at me with sudden
caution. After a second he answered, slowly.

"I couldn't say...
well,
Mr. Despard."

"Yes," I said.

I left it at that. After a few
minutes of silence on both our parts, Doc came back with the first guard, a
chunky lance corporal five and a half feet tall and looking about the age of
the lieutenant.

"Your name?" I asked.

"Lance Corporal Charles Onash,
sir. Third Platoon, Fourth Company, Blue Regiment."

"Have you ever ridden a
motorcycle, Corporal Onash?"

"No sir."

"Good. You can go. Take him
back, Doc."

The next man had never ridden a
motorcycle either. No more had the three after that. The fifth man we
questioned had. I had to reach for some other mysterious question.