At that moment, Sar-Say began to worry about the success of his plan. This human was not very intelligent. Or rather, his intelligence was focused in his business and making money. He seemed to have few other interests in life, save the Boston Beans flyball team.
“I am sorry, Gus, but I was their prisoner. They paid me nothing for the valuable information I provided, even though I spoke honestly and at length.”
“So you lied in the note?”
Sar-Say noted the human’s voice had dropped an octave, making his manner seem more menacing. As an alien, Sar-Say was actually more aware of the significance of these unconscious changes in voice and face than were their owners. His years of captivity had taught him the skill of reading human expressions.
“Not at all,” Sar-Say replied. “I pledge to you the sum of one billion credits or their equivalent as soon as we reach any Broan world.”
Heinz stood angrily, his fists two white-knuckled balls at his sides. “Then I’ve taken this risk for nothing. So have the people I hired to break you out.”
“That is not true. Please, sit down and let me tell you my plan to get home and to pay you. In fact, I will make you my prime human contact when I am made administrator of this world, which will make you far richer than a mere billion credits.”
At the mention of additional riches, Sar-Say noted the muscles in Heinz’s face relax and his breathing begin a return to normal.
#
After he had gotten the big, rotund human quieted down, Sar-Say recounted the plan he had worked out over the long months of captivity.
The easiest thing to do would have been for Heinz to hire a starship to return to Klys’kra’t, the coordinates of which Sar-Say had memorized. Presumably there was a ship’s captain and crew amenable to promises of future reward.
Nor would such promises be empty ones. When Sar-Say was awarded the mastership of Earth, he would have near infinite resources with which to reward those who helped him. If Gus Heinz desired the Governor-Generalship of Australia, then that would be his reward. If he also wished to house himself in a mansion, supplied with a steady stream of nubile females, Sar-Say would arrange that too. In truth, once he assumed his rightful place as Master of Earth, there was no limit on his ability to reward supporters, and good reasons for others to see that cooperation paid in cold, hard credits.
All of this was for the future. Today’s problem was that promises of future wealth would not hire a starship. It seemed to him that Heinz was particularly ill suited for the task. As an interstellar merchant, Heinz dealt with shipping agents and other intermediaries, never directly with starship captains or crews.
Sar-Say proposed that Gus take out as large a loan as he could manage, even mortgaging his business if need be. Having obtained funding that he had no intention of repaying, Heinz would contract with a starship captain to transport machine tools and luxury foodstuffs to whatever colony the captain was scheduled to visit on his next voyage.
The cargo would consist of several vacuum-proof shipping containers, one of which Heinz would modify to smuggle Sar-Say aboard the starship. This container would require both breathing equipment and a cooling system that would operate for several days with little possibility of failure.
Heinz would book passage aboard the starship, along with a number of accomplices. Once the starship was in superlight, Heinz would make an excuse to visit the cargo hold, release Sar-Say, and break out the weaponry they would smuggle in the other cases. Once they were armed, taking control of the ship should not be difficult.
Commercial starships were highly automated, which meant that they could extend their foodstuffs for the year-long voyage by disposing of the other passengers and crew.
Sar-Say did not bother to mention this last point to Heinz.
When he finished his explanation, Heinz scratched the stubble on his face and said, “It’s going to take a lot more than I can arrange with a bank to swing this deal.”
“What is your suggestion?” Sar-Say asked.
“I know a guy who handles large sums of money quietly. He’s expensive, though.”
“Would this man also like to make a billion credits for aiding my escape?”
“Sure,” the businessman said. “Who doesn’t like money?”
Sar-Say made the gesture of assent. “Get the money and we will speak again of the number of men we need.”
#
Chapter Twenty
The blockade was clamped down on Boston at nightfall, even while the battalion of Peace Enforcers were moving into position around the city. In previous centuries, such a cordon would have been virtually impossible because of suburban sprawl.
The information revolution had changed the face of the city and of the world. People like their elbow room. Most cities were now commercial islands in a sea of open space, with the populace spread as thinly as possible around them. Entire towns had disappeared during the century-long Diaspora, returning the surrounding countryside to its natural condition, or to farmland.
Though decried by some, like the exodus from the family farms throughout the twentieth century, the emptying of the suburbs had benefited just about everyone. Now, when the need to seal off a major port like Boston arose, at least it was possible to draw a line around the city that encompassed the whole of the city’s population.
Other technologies assisted in the search for Sar-Say as well. Civil disturbances over the years — riots, strikes, terrorist attacks — had caused every city on Earth to be continuously surveyed by overlapping security cameras. These had caught the attack on the mall from three different angles.
Four men were recorded loitering for an hour prior to the assault. When the tight group of guards and alien moved into view, they each drew concealed electric stunners from their jackets and fired in unison. The jolts sent the four guards down. Lieutenant Forster fell into a flower bed, causing the gash on his forehead. Another guard collapsed into a pedestrian bench and lay on the ground with his arm sticking out at an unnatural angle.
Sar-Say showed no evidence of distress during the attack. He shifted into a fast lope using all his limbs, while his four rescuers struggled to keep up. The five entered an underground passage to the metro station.
A few minutes before the attack, a woman whose face was covered by a flowered hat had placed a plastic drinking cup over the lens of the passageway security camera, blocking its view. As a result, the party disappeared into the non-surveillance section of the subway. Nor had any other camera caught their emergence from the underground.
“Well, we have their pictures,” Lisa told Mark as they ate a hurried dinner. “That’s something.”
“Not much,” he replied. They wore sun goggles, droopy hats, and seem to have all worn their hair unstylishly long, with full beards concealing most of their faces.”
“Disguises?”
“Either that or a renegade group of Hasidic Jews!”
Lisa giggled. “Any chance of identifying them from the camera images?”
“My boss says that the police are trying to program the computers to watch for individuals with similar body sizes and walks. That means a lot of innocent people are going to be hassled by the police over the next few hours, but we might get lucky and catch one of them.”
“What else?” she asked.
“They are questioning the researchers with access to Sar-Say and checking their email accounts. One of them may have gotten sloppy.”
“What’s the chance of that?”
“Pretty damned close to zero. What do they have you doing?”
She sighed. “I just sit around and answer questions about Sar-Say. I know it is silly, but I’m worried about him.”
Mark frowned. “Why, for God’s sake?”
“I guess I like him. He isn’t a bad person, you know. He’s just dedicated to escaping custody and going home.”
“Not to mention taking over the Earth for his own profit.”
She sighed again. “That, too, I guess. I certainly don’t want him to escape, but I don’t want him killed either.”
“It was a possibility earlier, but there isn’t much chance of that since we discovered he arranged this.”
She shook her head. “Not much chance of that until his accomplices realize that whatever they have planned isn’t going to work. What do they do then? They certainly aren’t going to deliver him back to the Institute here at Harvard. Most likely they will kill him to protect themselves.”
“At the moment, I would be very relieved if we found him floating face down in the bay.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “I would, too, rather than see him escape. But I hope we get him back alive, if for no other reason than that I have too much time invested in teaching him Standard to see all of my work go for naught.”
He nodded. “That speech of his was something of a spellbinder, wasn’t it?”
She agreed. “He nearly convinced me, and I know better!”
They sat in silence, each consumed by private thoughts for the rest of the hurried meal. Twenty minutes later, they kissed in front of the convention center, and Lisa disappeared inside once more. With nothing to do, Mark turned and strode up the mall toward where the abduction occurred.
He couldn’t have explained his motivation. He just wanted to see the spot.
#
The man Gus Heinz brought to see Sar-Say reminded him of a race known as the Kaylar. They were short, broad, had no necks and bullet-shaped heads. Their shoulders were broad and their hips narrow, giving their torsos a triangular look. Those characteristics also described this new human.
“Sar-Say, I would like to introduce Benny Ludnick. Benny’s the man I told you could help us.”
Sar-Say held out his six-fingered hand. “Welcome, Mr. Ludnick. Gus has told me a great deal about you.”
“Did he tell you that I can get a million credits just by reporting where you are?”
“A reward?” Gus Heinz asked with what Sar-Say considered too keen an interest.
“Announced as I was coming over here,” Ludnick said, nodding.
“You can do that, of course,” Sar-Say replied. “Or, you can make one billion credits if you help me return home.”
“Why would any of us help an alien? It would be like betraying our own family.”
“More like saving your family, Mr. Ludnick. Did you see the reports of my speech to the institutes?”
“I saw excerpts on the news.”
“Then you know this resistance your government is planning is useless. We will find you anyway… if not tomorrow, then next year, or certainly within a decade or two. We are very good at detecting signals emanating from star systems outside Civilization. When we detect such a signal, it is our policy to protect ourselves and our member species by bringing those systems into Civilization, by force if necessary. Many of you will die in the process, possibly all of you.”
“You don’t paint a very good picture.”
Sar-Say lifted his shoulders in a convincing imitation of a shrug. “I speak the truth. If you turn me in, you will likely die during the conquest. If, on the other hand, you assist me, then your species will be saved much death and destruction, and you personally will become rich beyond your wildest dreams. Are you interested?”
“Damned, straight,” the bullet-headed man replied. “The first rule of life is to look out for Number One. But can you deliver? Where would you get your hands on a billion credits?”
“By taxing the people of Earth after we bring you into Civilization, of course,” Sar-Say said, finishing with, “Save for those who aid me, who will have a lifetime exemption from all such taxes.”
“What do I have to do to earn this money?”
Sar-Say told him of the plan to take over a starship once it was underway, emphasizing that they would need four or five good men to make the plan work. “Each will receive a voucher for one billion credits for their services the moment I reach my home. When we return to Earth at the head of the fleet, you will be equally rewarded for your help.”
“And how long will this take?”
“I estimate 18 months to two years. Most of that time we will be superlight, crossing the interstellar gulf between here and Civilization. Then I will need some time to organize a fleet and return here via single-ended stargate jump. The return voyage will take no time at all.”
“What if I am caught after you make your escape?”
“I suspect they will execute you,” Sar-Say replied. He had learned that humans respected an admission against one’s own interest. He watched Ludnick carefully to see if he had exceeded his knowledge of human psychology.
That caused Ludnick to pause for long seconds, before answering, “Then I’d best not be caught. What about money to arrange your deal?”
“That will be your responsibility. At the moment, I have none. We will need quite a lot of money, I fear. Do you have the wealth needed to charter a ship outright?”
“Not bloody likely! You have to be a small country to have your own starship.”
“A pity,” Sar-Say replied. “Then we have to go with the hijacking plan.”
“That isn’t as easy as you make it sound,” Ludnick replied. “They are very careful to inspect outgoing cargo before it is loaded onto an orbital ferry.”
“Then you will have to figure out how to prevent that.”
Ludnick nodded. “There are ways. They are expensive, but it can be done.”
“Then do it. How soon can you be ready?”
“I haven’t said that I am in yet.”
“Come now, Mr. Ludnick,” Sar-Say said. “If you weren’t interested, you would not be here. Must I increase my offer?”
“To what?”
“How would you like to own Manhattan Island when I return?”
The broad-shouldered man’s eyes momentarily grew wide.
“I ask again. How long will it take to complete preparations?” Sar-Say asked, confident that he had recruited another, and probably more capable, ally than Gus Heinz.
“Couple of weeks. What about the blockade?”
“We will have to wait it out,” Sar-say replied “They can’t keep this city locked up forever. It will probably be canceled before this week is out.”
“I’ll need guarantees if I join you,” Ludnick said truculently to cover the slip he had made when Sar-Say increased his offer.