J. F. Bone, page 12
I had muffed a chance that had dropped godsent into my lap. Had I not been so certain Kate was the one behind the dope I would have been more careful with the narcosine. Kate would have spilled like a round-bottomed bucket. She’d have answered any questions I asked, including the identity of the mysterious Mr. Big. But it was too late now. It would take hours to rouse her even with an antidote, and I didn’t have either the hours or the antidote. If I wanted to get out of here alive, I’d better get fast.
I peeled the jacket off Big Boy’s body and put it on.
The collar was charred a little but it wasn’t noticeable. Then I stuffed the pockets with papers from Kate’s desk and all that I could cram into the space between my body and the smooth split ryk hide of the jacket. I couldn’t stay around to leaf through them, but maybe there’d be something that would give me a clue to Mr. Big’s identity. I looked a little plump as I turned toward the door, but I didn’t think anyone would notice. On the way out I took a cigar from the full humidor on the desk, stripped off the plastic tube and puffed the self-lighting weed to a glow. Kate wouldn’t be needing that cigar, and I did—not for the tobacco but for the convincing touch that we parted friends!
I walked out of the building unmolested and unnoticed.
Once outside, I tossed the cigar away. I felt like running, but contented myself with a fast walk that took me through the quiet streets almost as fast as a run but not nearly as conspicuously. Back at my quarters I peeled off the jacket, slapped burn ointment on my blistered arm, stuffed the papers from Kate’s office into my instrument bag, put on another jacket, and left the office within five minutes after I had entered it.
I had a chance, and as long as Kate wasn’t discovered, the chance was better. Joe Riker was leaving on a run to Consol 30 that morning. He’d been in earlier to say goodbye to me, but if I could do it, that goodbye would be indefinitely postponed.
I found Joe in the warehouse section, supervising the loading of his wagon. He waved at me as I approached.
“I want to talk to you,” I said. “You about ready to go?”
“Yeah, in about five minutes.”
“That’ll be enough.”
He followed me over to one corner of the warehouse. The ‘breeds loading the wagon never gave us a second glance as I led him behind the corner of the building.
“What gives?” Joe asked.
“Look, Joe,” I said, “once you said you owed me a favor for saving your life. I never thought that I’d have to collect, but it seems as though I must. I have to get out of here, and I want a ride with you.”
Joe looked at me soberly. “You in trouble, Doc?”
“You don’t know the half of it!”
“Well—I dunno. I haven’t any authority to take you. You wouldn’t get past the gate.”
“I would if I hid in the cargo.”
“You must be in trouble! You’re asking for it! A Type ‘A’ like you would have no chance once we got outside. I’d give you four hours at the most, and we won’t be out of scanner range for at least five, no matter how fast I drive the buggy.”
“I’ll take that chance.”
“Well—with a respirator you probably could make it, but the detectors’d pick you up at the gate if you wore it. So you’ll have to go barefaced.”
“I know that,” I said. “I’m not figuring on wearing one.”
“You’d be committing suicide,” Riker said. “I can’t do it—it’d be murder.”
“You’ve got to. I have to get out of here and I don’t want anyone to know how I’ve gone. You’re the only chance I have.”
“Well,” he hesitated and then shrugged his shoulders. “I guess it’s your neck, and you know what you’re doing with it—but in my book you’re sticking it out a kilometer. Bunk down in the cargo. If you leave your metal with me, you’ll get past the detectors at the gate. The boys there don’t usually check wagons going out as long as they don’t turn on the alarm. You’ll get out all right, but I wouldn’t give a damn for your chances after you do.”
I nodded and handed him the Kelly and the bag. It could be worse. If I stayed I was a gone pigeon as soon as they discovered the shambles in Kate’s quarters and got organized. Every minute I could keep them guessing was an advantage. Anyway, I was in pretty good shape, and I thought I’d be able to hold out long enough.
Riker looked doubtful. “I’ve seen big Type “A’s” like you try things like this before,” he said. “They didn’t turn out so good. I’ll let you out once we get under the edge of the escarpment. But that’s about five hours.” He looked at me curiously. “Say—what’s all this rush for anyway? What’d you do—cheat Kate?”
“I’ll tell you later,” I said. “It’s better now that you don’t know too much. If you got it blind, you may not get in trouble if I get caught.”
He nodded. “Okay, Doc, if that’s the way you want it.”
I could have kissed him. Now, I had a chance. I went toward the truck while Riker called the warehousemen forward on the pretext of checking on what had been loaded, and while he was talking to them, I crawled into the cargo compartment and bedded down between the bales of furs up front. There was a long wait, and then a few more bales were stacked in the box. The doors closed and I was left in inky darkness. The turbines whined into life beneath me. Then came the peculiar floating motion of a rolligon. We were moving!
Then we stopped.
I went through a long nerve-wracking wait that probably lasted a minute or two by the clock, but seemed like hours in the blackness of the van. I sweated it out, praying that Riker wouldn’t doublecross me, wishing that I had a Kelly, hoping that the outcheck was perfunctory. Then we started moving again.
* * *
CHAPTER XIII
« ^ »
We swayed along the track toward the Phargan Canal, and with every turn of the drivers my spirits grew lighter. I was safely Outside and no one knew about it except Joe Riker. It would be hours, maybe even days, before anyone thought of looking for me elsewhere than in the Roost.
If Kate were in condition to run things, it might be different. That woman was smart, but what I knew of her subordinates indicated they were strictly run of the mill. There’d be a search for me all right, but I had the easy feeling it would be unproductive. By the time someone with a first class brain took over and got things organized, a good deal of time would have passed.
But gradually it began to be hard to breathe as the pressurized air of the Roost seeped out through tiny cracks and crevices in the body of the van. My lungs labored and my heart pounded in my chest. The anodyne still exerted its effect; so I didn’t feel too bad, but I was very conscious that all wasn’t well. It wasn’t unbearable at first, but it was unpleasant. The howl of the turbines deafened me, and the smooth bounceless ride of the van made me feel that I was floating in a sea of viscid goo.
The wagon tilted forward, pitching me against the piled cargo. Despite Arthe’s light gravity and my conditioning on heavy Gakan, I found it hard to move. The characteristic anoxic weakness that affects wrong physiologic types on Arthe was beginning to get me—and the anodyne was wearing off! The full crushing weight of the agony that had been hammering at the closed portal of my nervous system was beginning to seep through the nerve blocks. There is, as I have mentioned, a trace of chlorine in Arthe’s atmosphere; not enough to bother Type C’s with their pulmonary adaptability, but plenty to raise particular cain with the lungs of a Type A. Sweat broke out on my face as the first messages crept through my deadened nerves. I had to bite my lips to keep from screaming—and I knew with cold certainty that this was only the beginning. The worst was yet to come!
It did.
The body of the truck became a smooth, softly cushioned, swaying hell, filled with pain I had never imagined. I lasted as long as I could, holding the screams back with an effort of will that brought sweat to my body and tears to my eyes. I strained against the stabbing thrusts in my chest and the massive ache of my oxygen-starved body until I could stand no more. The situation was fiendish in its simplicity. My body demanded oxygen which the thin air could almost supply—but only if I breathed fast. If I breathed slowly, sipping air instead of gulping it, the small amount of chlorine was endurable but if I breathed fast it was agony. Yet if I breathed slowly, my whole body was wracked with an agonized demand for air. Either way I was damned as my starved tissues screamed for oxygen or shrank from the bite of chlorine. I coughed, and each cough added to my pain. My lungs were fire in my chest. I wanted to die, to end this floating torture which had become an exquisite agony endlessly repeated. I didn’t care that my mission was uncompleted, that Sofra was waiting for my return. There was no room in my brain for these unimportant things.
Slowly the shrieking whine of the turbines, the sickening softness of the ride, the flaming torture of my body merged into a deep jet silence. I welcomed the numbness that enveloped me as consciousness retreated and I sank into a blackness darker than the lightless interior of the van.
I awoke to agony. Riker was bending over me, an oxygen bottle in his hand and a worried expression on his face. I cursed him feebly and retched as his leathery features split into a relieved grin.
“For a moment I thought you were a goner, Doc,” he said.
“I wish I were,” I said.
He lifted my shoulders, and somehow I got out of the van and into the cab. I lay there on the seat, twitching feebly as Riker crawled over my sprawled body and got behind the wheel. We were rolling again, and the good thick air revived me. After a while I managed to sit up, but I was sick for hours afterwards.
Riker pushed the wagon at its best speed, but it was slow. I groaned with anguish as we rolled on under the black, star-studded Arthean sky. Finally the last spasms of my tortured body subsided and I fell into a nightmare-haunted sleep where a faceless Kate pursued me through dome after dome choked with dead and dying men locked in ferocious combat. And all the while I caught glimpses of a dark, formless figure pouring can after can of tonocaine into the air regenerators.
I woke up with Riker shaking me. “Doc! What’s wrong? Wake up!” I struggled back to consciousness. “Uh-okay, Joe. What’s the matter?” I mumbled fuzzily, drugged with departing sleep.
“You were yelling like crazy. Something about wholesale murder.”
“Bad dream, I guess.”
“Bad dream, hell! You’ve got things on your mind!”
I grinned feebly at him. He must have heard plenty, but if he did know what I had been talking about, he didn’t show it. His seamed face only expressed concern. The van was on autocontrol running at cruising speed along the canal bottom. The scanners were on and our armament was on automatic. I suppose we had been going for hours, since Riker’s bunk was let down and I was lying on the seat with a blanket over me.
Riker pushed his bunk back into its rack as I sat up and felt my aches envelop me.
“It’s about dawn,” he said. “Time for breakfast. You’ll feel better with a meal inside you.” He punched the automat button and pulled the hot concentrate out of its receptable. “Here—get some food in you.”
I finished the concentrate, wishing there was more of it, and then lay back on the seat and thought about what I would tell him. It was obvious that I would have to tell him something if I was so full that it kept spilling over in my sleep. I’d probably sleep more before we reached a dome and I’d do it more comfortably if I knew where he stood. What’s more—I had to tell him where I could check his reactions. If he gave the wrong ones, I’d blast him and carry on by myself. In this case it made no difference that he had helped me. Too much hung upon what I knew. But it would be nice to have an ally; I had been going alone too long, and I wanted company.
So I told him the whole story. After about five minutes Riker’s mouth dropped open and stayed that way, and there was quite a silence after I had finished.
“Shambra!” Riker finally said, “No wonder you’ve been having bad dreams. Now I’m gonna have ‘em too!” His face hardened.
“You’re carrying some of the load now,” I said drily as I took his handgun out of its holster. “Now I want to see how you take it. Roll up your sleeve, Joe.”
He looked at me and at the Kelly in my hand pointing at his chest. “Hey! What’s the big idea? Whatcha pointing that thing at me for?”
“I like you, Joe, and I owe you my life. Ordinarily that’d be enough, but I’m carrying a lot of other lives besides my own. Probably you’re okay—you look it and act it—but I have to be sure.” I reached blindly into my jacket pocket, pushed aside the papers I had taken from Kate’s office, and found a syrette of narcosine.
Joe saw the blue syrette. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Truth drug,” I said.
He grinned. “Okay,” he said, “if you’re really worried about whether I’m on your side or not, go ahead.”
I took him at his word. He checked out clean. If he had any psychic blocks they were buried too deep for my poor equipment to handle. But I was satisfied. Nobody in Joe’s economic position would be big enough to rate the expensive and time-consuming process of psychic blockade. At any rate, he was an innocent bystander in the tonocaine plot. He may have transported it, but he never knew what he was transporting. And now that I knew his mental processes, his cryptic remarks about the addict who had died in Dunkelburg were not cryptic at all. He had merely assumed that the police had killed the man. My overactive imagination had done the rest.
Joe was a little resentful when he woke up, but I guess he understood because our relationship remained pleasant.
“Well, Doc, whatcha got in mind?”
Kate’s unconscious body had probably been discovered hours ago, and goon squads were undoubtedly searching the Roost for me. It wouldn’t be too long before someone would get the idea that I wasn’t in the Roost and start wondering how and when I had gotten out. It was inevitable that they’d connect me with Riker. After all, he’d sponsored me. About all the time I could count on had already passed. I had to get back to Dunkelburg as fast as I could, but the only fast way was by air transport, and to fly I’d have to get to a dome.
“How far is the nearest dome?” I asked.
Joe squinted at a route map, looked up at the fading stars, consulted the course computer, and finally said, “There’s one called Bluestone about six hours from here.
“How long have we been gone from the Roost?”
“Twenty hours.”
“Bluestone’s Class II,” I said. “We’ll go there. There’s time.”
“Okay, but how do I explain the detour to the gate guard?”
“Doesn’t anything ever go wrong with these rigs?”
He grinned. “Not usually, but something could if it’s really necessary.”
“Engine trouble—or something like it?”
He nodded. “I could jimmy the drive a bit—not enough to stall us, but enough to make us turn off course for repairs.”
“That’s the general idea,” I said, “but don’t damage the drive. We need all the speed we can get.”
He looked thoughtfully at the instrument panel. “How about shorting out the autocontrols? Automatic troubles call for second echelon repair at the nearest shop, and they’re a perfect excuse to turn into Bluestone.”
“Fine,” I said.
Riker nodded and swung the wagon into an intersecting canal. “We can damage the automatics later,” he said. “Meanwhile, there’s no sense in taking chances. I’ll leave ‘em on. I like to have them handy just in case of ambush.”
I spent the rest of the morning reviewing the papers I had taken from Kate’s desk. They didn’t add much except to give me a listing of the domes scheduled for H-Day. There were twenty, about a third of the inhabited domes on Arthe. Both Dunkelburg and Bluestone were on the list. By the time I finished the papers, it was getting on toward noon, and the long steep road to the rimrock lay before us. Beyond the Rim was Bluestone. Riker shorted out the control box. The air filters quickly cleared the oily smoke and ozone out of the cab as we drove toward the open sky of the desert.
“How far away is it?” I asked as we cleared the rimrock and began the run to the dome.
“About thirty kilometers, give or take five,” Riker said. “The map says thirty-two. That shouldn’t take more than two hours. I’d go faster if I could, but this road’s a mess.”
“Don’t push it,” I said. “We have plenty of time, so let’s get there alive.”
“You been here before?”
“Just passing through on my way to Dunkelburg. I came in on a local hop from Thermopolis. We stayed at the airfield about ten minutes. They didn’t let us off the plane and it was night, so I didn’t see anything much.”
The sudden explosion lifted the entire cab straight up in the air. I wasn’t really conscious of the sound, the screech of riven metal, or the slam and rattle of debris against the cab. I heard the noises, but it was the drunken tilt of the van that held my attention. The cab passed the point of no return and plunged downward. I remember thinking that the trunk wouldn’t go over, that it was moving far too slowly. I remember Riker saying with dragged-out deliberation “—that—god—damned—auto—control—I—blew—it—too—soon—”. And then something happened and I was enfolded in a blinding flash of light that gave way to a warm blackness that shut out sight and sound.
* * *
CHAPTER XIV
« ^ »
The roof of my skull was on fire. But aside from that I seemed to be all right. I couldn’t move, but that was because someone had tied me like a gift package. I was being carried on some sort of litter in through a long dark tunnel whose highly polished walls amplified the reflections of the bobbing lights and torches carried by the moving figures around me.
