Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell (20 page)

Fingering it in open surprise, Skriva demanded, “Where’d you get this?”

“An agent gave it to me. I’ve influence, see?”

“You expect me to believe that? No Kaitempi
soko
would dream of—”

“It so happened that he had expired,” Mowry put in. “Dead agents are very cooperative, as perhaps you’ve noticed.”

“You killed him?”

“Don’t be nosy.”

“Yar, what’s it to us?” interjected Lithar from the back seat. “You’re wasting time. Put a move on and let’s get the whole thing over—or let’s throw it up and go back home.”

Thus urged Skriva started up and drove forward. Now that he was rapidly coming to the point of committing himself his edginess was obvious. He knew that if the rescue failed and he was caught he’d certainly pay for the attempt with bulging eyes and protruding tongue. If it succeeded there would follow a hue and cry that would make all of them cower in their rat holes for a month and all he’d have gained would be three henchmen who, for the time being, would be more nuisance than asset.

Inwardly he regretted the idea that had made him suggest this stunt in the first place, namely, that there is safety in numbers. Perhaps he’d be better off without Gurd and his fellow jailbirds. Sure, four heads are better than one, four guns are better than one, but he could do without the official hullabaloo that the escapees would drag behind them like the tail of a meteor.

It was too late to retreat. The jail was now in sight, its great steel doors set in high stone walls. Rolling toward the doors, the two cars stopped. Mowry got out. Skriva followed suit, thin-lipped and resigned.

Mowry thumbed the bell-button set in the wall. A small door which formed a section of the bigger one emitted metallic clankings and opened. Through it an armed guard eyed them questioningly.

“Kaitempi call for three prisoners,” announced Mowry with becoming arrogance.

With a brief glance at the waiting cars and their
wert
occupants the guard motioned the two inside, closed the door, slid home its locking-bar. “You’re a little early today.”

“Yar, we’ve got a lot to do. We’re in a hurry.”

“This way.”

They tramped after the guard in single file, Skriva last with a hand in a pocket. Taking them into the administration building, along a corridor and past a heavily barred sliding gate, the guard led them into a small room in which a burly, grimfaced Sirian was sitting behind a desk. Upon the desk stood a small plaque reading:
Commandant Tornik.

“Three prisoners are required for immediate interrogation,” said Mowry officiously. “Here is the requisition form, Commandant. We are pressed for time and would be obliged if you’d produce them as quickly as possible.”

Tornik frowned over the form but did not examine it closely. Dialing an intercom phone he ordered somebody to bring the three to his office. Then he lay back in his chair and regarded the visitors with complete lack of expression.

“You are new to me.”

“Of course, Commandant. There is a reason.”

“Indeed? What reason?”

“It is believed that these prisoners may be more than ordinary criminals. We have reason to suspect them of being members of a revolutionary army, namely,
Dirac Angestun Gesept.
Therefore they are to be questioned by Military Intelligence as well as by the Kaitempi. I am the M.I. representative.”

“Is that so?” said Tornik, still blank-faced. “We have never had the M.I. here before. May I have evidence of your identity?”

Producing his documents, Mowry handed them over. This wasn’t going so swiftly and smoothly as hoped for. Mentally he prayed for the prisoners to appear and put a quick end to the matter. It was obvious that Tornik was the type to fill in time so long as everyone was kept waiting.

After a brief scrutiny Tornik returned the papers and commented, “Colonel Halopti, this is somewhat irregular. The requisition form is quite in order but I am supposed to hand prisoners over only to a Kaitempi escort. That is a very strict rule that cannot be disobeyed even for some other branch of the security forces.”

“The escort
is
of the Kaitempi,” answered Mowry. He threw an expectant look at Skriva who was standing like one in a dream. Skriva came awake, opened his jacket and displayed the badge. Mowry added, “They provided me with three agents saying their attendance was necessary.”

“Yar, that is correct.” Pulling open a drawer in his desk, Tornik produced a receipt form, filled it in by copying details from the requisition. When he had finished he studied it doubtfully, complained, “I’m afraid I cannot accept your signature, Colonel. Only a Kaitempi official may sign a receipt for prisoners.”

“I’ll sign it,” offered Skriva, sweating over the delay.

“But you have a badge and not a plastic card,” Tornik objected. “You are only an agent and not an officer.”

Mentally abusing this infernal insistence upon rigmarole, Mowry interjected, “He is of the Kaitempi and temporarily under my command. I am an officer although not of the Kaitempi.”

“That is so, but—”

“A receipt for prisoners must be given by the Kaitempi and by an officer. Therefore the proper conditions will be fulfilled if both of us sign.”

Tornik considered this, decided that it agreed with the letter of the law. “Yar, the regulations must be observed. You will both sign.”

Just then the door opened, Gurd and his companions shuffled in with a rattle of wrist-chains. A guard followed, produced a key, unlocked the manacles and took them away. Gurd, now worn and haggard, kept his gaze on the floor and maintained a surly expression. One of the others, a competent actor, glowered at Tornik, Mowry and Skriva in turn. The third, who was subject to attacks of delight, beamed around in happy surprise until Skriva bared his teeth at him. The smile then vanished. Luckily neither Tornik nor the attendant guard noticed this by-play.

Mowry signed the receipt with a confident flourish; Skriva appended his hurried scrawl beneath. The three prisoners silently stood by, Gurd still moping, the second scowling, the third wearing the grossly exaggerated expression of one in mourning for a rich aunt. Number three, Mowry decided, was definitely a dope who’d ham his way to an early grave.

“Thank you, Commandant.” Mowry turned toward the door. “Let’s go.”

In shocked tones Tornik exclaimed, “What, without wrist-chains, Colonel? Have you brought no manacles with you?”

Gurd stiffened, number two bunched his fists, number three made ready to faint. Skriva stuck his hand back in his pocket and kept full attention on the guard.

Glancing back at the other, Mowry said, “We have steel anklets fixed to the floors of the cars. That is the M.I. way, Commandant.” He smiled with the air of one who knows. “A prisoner runs with his feet and not with his hands.”

“Yar, that is true,” Tornik conceded.

They went out, led by the guard who had brought them there. The prisoners followed with Skriva and Mowry bringing up the rear. Through the corridor, past the barred gate, out the main door and across the yard. Armed guards patrolling the wall top sauntered along and eyed them indifferently. Five pairs of ears strained for a yell of fury and a rush of feet from the administration building, five bodies were tensed in readiness to slug the guide and make a dash for the exit door.

Reaching the wall, the guard grasped the locking-bar in the small door and just then the bell was rung from outside. This sudden, unexpected sound jolted their nerves, Skriva’s gun came halfway out of his pocket. Gurd took a step toward the guard, his expression vicious. The actor jumped as if stung. Dopey opened his mouth to emit a yelp of fright, converted it into a gargle as Mowry rammed a heel on his foot.

Only the guard remained undisturbed. With his back to the others and therefore unable to see their reactions he lugged the locking-bar to one side, turned the handle, opened the door. Beyond stood four sour-faced characters in plain clothes.

One of them said curtly, “Kaitempi call for one prisoner.”

For some reason best known to himself the guard found nothing extraordinary about two collecting parties turning up in close succession. He motioned the four inside, held the door open while the first arrivals went out. The newcomers did not head straight across the yard toward the administration block. They took a few steps in that direction, stopped as if by common consent, stared at Mowry and the others as they passed into the road. It was the disheveled look of the prisoners and the chronic alarm on the face of Dopey that attracted their attention.

Just as the door shut Mowry, who was last out, heard an agent rasp at the guard, “Who are those,
hi?”

The reply wasn’t audible but the question was more than enough.

“Jump to it!” he urged.
“Run!”

They sprinted to the cars, spurred on by expectation of immediate trouble. A third machine now stood behind their own two, a big ugly dyno with nobody at the wheel. Lithar and Brank watched them anxiously, opened the doors in readiness.

Scrambling into the leading dyno, Skriva started its motor while Gurd went through the back door and practically flung himself into Lithar’s lap. Behind, the other two piled into the rear of Brank’s car.

Mowry gasped at Skriva, “Wait a moment while I see if I can grab theirs—it’ll delay the chase.”

So saying he raced to the third car, frantically tugged at its handle. It refused to budge. Just then the jail’s door opened and somebody roared, “Halt! halt or we—” Brank promptly stuck an arm out his open window, flicked four quick shots toward the door gap and missed each time. But it was sufficient to make the shouter dive for cover. Mowry pelted back to the leading dyno and fell in beside Skriva.

“The cursed thing is locked. Let’s get out of here.”

The car surged forward, tore down the road, Brank accelerated after them. Watching through the rear window, Mowry saw several figures bolt out of the jail and waste precious moments fumbling by their dyno before they got in.

“They’re after us,” he told Skriva. “And they’ll be bawling their heads off over the radio.”

“Yar, but they haven’t got us yet.”

Gurd said, “Did nobody think to bring a spare gun?”

“Take mine,” responded Lithar, handing it over.

Cuddling it in an eager fist, Gurd grinned at him unpleasantly. “Don’t want to be caught with it on you,
hi?
Rather it was me than you,
hi?
Typical
wert,
aren’t you:

“Shut up!” snarled Lithar.

“Look who’s telling me to shut up,” Gurd invited. He was talking thickly, as if something had gone wrong with his palate. “He’s making a stack of money out of me else he wouldn’t be here at all. He’d be safe at home checking his stocks of illegal
zith
while the Kaitempi belted me over the gullet. And he tells me to shut up.” Leaning forward, he tapped Mowry on the shoulder with the barrel of the gun. “How much is he making out of this, Mashambigab? How much are you giving—”

He swayed wildly and clutched for a hold as the car rocked around a corner, raced down a narrower road, turned sharp right and then sharp left. Brank’s car took the same corner at the same speed, made the right turn but not the left one. It rushed straight on and vanished from sight. They turned again into a one-way alley, cut through to the next road. There was now no sign of pursuit.

“We’ve lost Brank,” Mowry told Skriva. “Looks like we’ve dropped the Kaitempi too.”

“It’s a safe bet they’re chasing Brank. They were closer to him and they had to follow someone when we split up. Suits us, doesn’t it?”

Mowry said nothing.

“A lousy wert tells
me
to shut up,” mumbled Gurd.

Swiftly they zigzagged through a dozen side streets, still without encountering a radio alarmed patrol car. As they squealed around the last corner near to where their own cars were parked there sounded a sharp, hard crack in the rear. Mowry looked back expecting to find a loaded cruiser closing up on them. There was no car behind them. Lithar was lying on his side apparently asleep. He had a neat hole above his right ear. A thin trickle of purplish blood was seeping out of it.

Gurd smirked at Mowry and said, “I’ve shut
him
up, for keeps.”

“Now we’re carrying a corpse,” complained Mowry. “As if we haven't trouble enough. Where’s the sense—”

Skriva interrupted with, “Crack shots, the Kaitempi. Pity they got Lithar— he was just the sweetest
wert
on Jaimec.”

He braked hard, jumped out, ran across the road and clambered into his own dyno. Gurd followed, the gun openly in his hand and not caring who noticed it. Mowry stopped by the window as the machine started up.

“What about Brank?”

“What about him?” echoed Skriva.

“If we both beat it he’ll get here and find no chance to switch over.”

“What, in a city crammed with dynos?” He let the car edge forward. “Brank’s not here. That’s his woe. Let him cope with his own troubles. We're beating it someplace safe while the going is good. You follow us.”

With that he drove off. Mowry gave him a four hundred yards lead, droned along behind while the distance between them slowly increased. Should he let Skriva lead him to a hideout or not? There seemed little point in following to yet another rat hole. The jail job had been done and he’d achieved his purpose of stirring up a greater ruckus. There were no
werts
to pay off; Brank had got himself lost and Lithar was dead. If he wanted to regain contact with Gurd and Skriva he could use that telephone number or if, as was likely, it was no longer valid he could employ their secret post-office under the marker.

Other considerations also decided him to drop the brothers for the time being. For one, the Colonel Halopti identity wouldn’t be worth a hoot after they’d wasted a few hours checking through official channels to establish its falsity. That would be by nightfall at the latest. Once again Pertane was becoming too hot to hold him. He’d better get out before it was too late.

For another, he was overdue to beam a report and his conscience was pricking him about his refusal to do so last time. If he didn’t send one soon he might never be able to transmit one at all. And Terra was entitled to be kept informed.