Jettero Heller was perched on the edge of the local pilot seat.
He was still in dress uniform. He had pushed the little red cap to the back of his blond head. With his left hand he was jockeying the throttle to keep the ship moving but no more.
He was holding a microphone in his right hand. He was speaking in the crisp staccato of a Fleet radio officer. "Calling Voltar Interplanetary Traffic Control. This is Exterior Division Tug Prince Caucalsia requesting permission to depart pursuant to Grand Council Order ..." He rattled off the numbers and the whole order, right there on open radio band!
I was feeling irritable beyond belief already and this grated on my raw nerves. "For the sake of the Gods, get some notion of security!"
He didn't seem to hear me. He shifted the mike to his left hand and beckoned at me urgently: "Gris, your identoplate!"
I fumbled in my tunic. Suddenly my fingers connected with an envelope!
There shouldn't be any envelope in these pockets. All my papers had been put in spaceproof sacks before we left. Where the blazes had this envelope come from? Nobody had handed me any envelope! I felt terribly irritated by it. The thing offended me. It should not have been there!
Heller was frisking me. He found my identoplate and sat back down. He pushed it in the identification slot.
The speaker spat out, "Interplanetary Traffic Control to Exterior Division Tug Prince Caucalsia, Apparatus Officer Soltan Gris in charge. Permission authorized and granted."
The voyage authority copy slithered out of the radio panel. Heller slid it under a retaining clip and then handed me back my identoplate.
He must have noticed I was still standing there staring at the envelope. He said, "You look bad. " He got up and unsnapped my too tight collar. "I'll take care of you in a minute. Where's the captain?"
He didn't have to look very far. The Antimanco captain had been in the passageway, glaring at Heller. Obviously, the fellow resented Heller's taking the tug up without a word to him.
"I'll take over my ship now," the Antimanco said in a nasty voice.
"Papers, please," said Heller.
This irritated me. "He is the assigned captain!" I said.
"Papers, please," said Heller, hand extended to the Antimanco.
The captain must have been expecting this. He hauled out a sheaf of documents in their spaceproof sleeves. They weren't just his, they were those of the whole crew, five of them. They were stained and crimped and very old.
"Five Fleet subofficers," said Heller. "Captain, two astropilots, two engineers. Will-be Was engines." He looked at the seals and endorsements very critically, holding them very close to his eyes. "They seem authentic. But why is there no detaching endorsement from your last ship ... three years ago? Yes."
The captain snatched the documents out of Heller's hand. There was no endorsement detaching them from their last cruise because they had turned pirate.
The small time-sight was in its slot at the astropilot's chair. Heller laid a hand on it. "Do you know how to operate this time-sight? It's obsolete."
"Yes," grated the captain and continued in a snarling monotone, "I was serving in the Fleet when they were issued. I was serving in the Fleet when they went obsolete. This whole crew has been serving in the Fleet four times as long as the age of certain Royal officers." There was real hate in his narrow-set black eyes. Every time he had said "Fleet" he had sort of spat. And when he said "Royal officers" you could hear his teeth snap together at the end of each word.
Heller looked at him closely.
The captain then made what might have been a gracious speech if there hadn't been so much snarling hatred in it. "As captain, I am of course at your service. It is my duty and that of my crew to see that you arrive safely at your destination."
"Well, well," said Heller. "I am very glad to hear that, Captain Stabb. If you need my help, please do not hesitate to call on me."
"I do not think we will require it," said Captain Stabb. "And now, if you will please retire to your quarters, I will man this control deck and get this voyage underway."
"Excellent," said Heller.
Oh, I didn't blame the Antimanco for being annoyed. Heller irritated everybody and right now, especially me! All Heller ever did was carp and pick fights!
Heller took me by the arm, "And now we'll attend to you."
He lead me down the tilted passageway and into my room. I had not known what he meant. I got a feeling that he was after me and that by the words "attend to you" he must mean he was going to throw me out the airlock. But I didn't fight very much. I somehow knew that if I moved my arms, the nerves, already stretched to their limit, would snap. And besides, my hands had begun to shake and I couldn't walk very well.
Very gently, he got me down onto the bed. I was certain he was going to pull out a knife and slash my throat, but all he did was get me out of my tunic. It is a tactic many murderers use -- get the victim off guard. I tensed so hard I went into a spasm.
He pulled off my boots and then stripped off my pants. I was certain he was going to lash my ankles together with electric cuffs. He was opening a locker. He must not have been able to find any electric cuffs for he brought out a standard insulation suit and began to wrestle me into it. I would have fought him except that I was beginning to shake too hard.
He got the suit on me and tightened up its pressure around my legs and ankles. I understood now that this was how he was going to shackle me.
"Keep that suit on," he said. "In case of fast changes in G's the blood rushes to the legs. Also, you'll be insulated against stray sparks."
He began to fasten the straps that hold the body to the bed. Now I knew he had really worked it out how to trap me.
"The quick release is right there by your hand," he said.
Then he started going around the room, touching things. I knew he was looking for something to torture me with. Didn't he understand that the way my nerves were tightening up I was being tortured enough?
But it seemed he was only picking up my clothes and loose objects. He had my rank locket in his hand and as he stood considering, I knew he was weighing its use in strangling me. He must have decided against it for he put it in the valuables safe in the wall.
He was looking at the remains of a crushed orange tablet that lay on the edged table and then he picked up the I. G. Barben bottle. It was obvious that he was hoping it was a deadly poison he could secretly introduce into a drink. He didn't know it was amphetamines and I had taken some to make it through that ghastly going-away party a few hours ago.
"If this is what you were taking," he said, "I wouldn't! My advice is to leave it alone, whatever it is. You look awful."
He put loose objects under clamps. He looked around, vividly disappointed that he had found nothing he could use to torture me.
He moved a button rack and fastened it close to my hand. "If you get too bad, you can press the white button -- that calls me. The red button calls the captain. I'll pass the word that you're bad off and he can have somebody keep an eye on you."
Then he saw the envelope I had dropped outside in the passageway and he brought it in. I knew now it was secret orders he had gotten to murder me.
He dropped it on my chest and then wedged it under a strap. "Looks like an order envelope. It's urgent color, so I'd read it if I were you."
And then he closed the door and was gone. I knew, though, that it was only to go off and plot with the captain on how to do me in. But I couldn't object. The way my nerves were stretching, it would be the most merciful thing anyone could do -- kill me. But not with an amphetamine: no, my Gods! That would be too cruel!
Copyright © 1986 by L. Ron Hubbard
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Intrigue, Betrayal, Blackmail... From the violent, heroin-riddled back streets of Turkey to the heart of government corruption in America, Mission Earth relentlessly hurls into a new labyrinth of Earth's underworld, torn by Mafia wars and criminal rivalry, abounding with assassins, killers, prostitutes, drug-runners, and subverted government agents, the gripping story masterly twists and turns with its heart-pounding pace. The fierce, unique blend of tension, ingenuity, humor, betrayal and tragedy continues…
