Ron Goulart - Suicide, Inc

“Hush, my pet.” He carried Camilla all the way into the reed hut. “I want Winiarsky to hear this.”

The runaway professor was a tall, lank man in his early thirties, bearded. “Are you this Cruz that Jazzmin has been telling me about?”

“The same.” He deposited the body of the hypnotized alfie on a cot that sat on a very believable grout-skin rug. “She’s not rigged to destruct if questioned this way, proving the opposition doesn’t think of everything.”

“You mean she isn’t just looped from the booze you were probably guzzling off in the bushes?” asked the still indignant Jazz.

Ignoring her entirely, Cruz knelt beside the cot. “Camilla, tell me again who you work for.”

“That should be whom,” muttered the professor.

“I’m on special assignment for the Covert Public Relations Department of Syndek,” she said in a low even voice, eyes remaining tight shut.

“Why are you here posing as a jungleperson?”

“Mr. Bjorn assigned me,” she replied.

“Who’s Bjorn?”

“The Chief Troubleshooter.”

“Not an alfie?”

“No, he’s a real person. Humanoid.”

“Continue.”

“Mr. Bjorn had received an unconfirmed report that you two, Cruz and the reporter, might be coming to Jungleland. That tied in with earlier intelligence that Winiarsky had been spotted in the area.”

“What do you do when you find Winiarsky?”

“Capture him.”

“And then?”

“He is to be incapacitated and delivered to Mr. Bjorn.”

“Where?”

“I am to contact Mr. Bjorn and he’ll inform me where to drop Winiarsky.”

Standing up and back, Cruz stroked his moustache. “I think mayhap I’ll have the lass drop me on Bjorn instead,” he said thoughtfully. “That’ll no doubt lead to lively times for all concern-”

“You can’t do that,” cried Jazz. “They’ll kill-”

“Say, wait a moment,” put in the professor. “Are you implying that if I were turned over to this Bjorn fellow I, too, would be killed? I wasn’t aware, when I decided to hide out, that my plight was quite that-”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you while I thought he was off cavorting,” she said, twisting her fingers together. “All sorts of people are hunting you, some with rather base motives.”

“Jazz,” said Cruz, “I’ll fix it so you can take Winiarsky to the safe hideout where we’ve got Ruiz stashed.”

“Would that be Oscar Ruiz? He and I grew up together at Horizon-”

“Which is what’s behind this whole delightful escapade,” said Cruz. “Listen attentively and I’ll give you a concise rundown. Then we’ll get you safely clear and I’ll set up a rendezvous with the Bjorn gent.”

She was a thin darkhaired young woman, her cheekbones prominent, her large eyes underscored with shadows. “Now what?” she said in a faraway voice when Smith and Saint entered her room.

“Liz?” Smith looked at the young woman sitting up on the floating bed, unsure he had the right patient.

She studied him for a moment. “I don’t see the purpose of this,” she said finally. “Getting someone to look like Jared Smith. How can that hurt me any more than the-”

“I am Jared,” he assured her, crossing to the bed. This was Liz Vertillion, but much changed.

“I don’t think I believe that,” she said. “I don’t believe anything, haven’t for a long time.”

“Dear lady.” Saint perched on the edge of the narrow bed. “You can believe in us. We’ve come here, at considerable risk, to spring you from this vile-”

“Oh.” Liz put her thin hand up to her mouth, rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “If that’s true, you’ve screwed it up by saying so right out loud. They watch and listen to everything I do and say in here and now they-”

“We fixed that before dropping in,” explained Smith, taking her arm. “But in ten minutes or so one of their security mechs may start getting uneasy. Which is why you’d better gather your stuff and-”

“I don’t have anything, Jared. Only this hospital gown.”

“Fear not, dear lady.” Saint reached into an inner pocket of his tunic to produce a small parcel. “This spoiled the line of my outfit, but it couldn’t be helped. You’ll find a lightweight allpurpose shift folded neatly within. Not the most stylish of garments, yet-”

“Is he a conman, Jared?”

“Not at the moment, though usually.”

“Funny. I guessed he was, but I believe him.”

Saint said, “You are a deucedly perceptive wench.”

“Jared?” With his help she left the bed. “Is it all right if I don’t understand what’s going on?”

“Yep, don’t worry about that.” He put an arm around her narrow shoulders.

Cruz landed the skycar in the quiet jungle clearing. “Heckling will do you not a shred of good, my pet,” he told Jazz.

“You’re really being incredibly stupid.” She was in the passenger seat beside him, slouched, arms folded. “Putting yourself into the jaws of Syndek is-”

“Jazzmin,” put in Winiarsky from the back seat, “as a neutral observer, allow me to point out that-”

“But you aren’t a neutral in this,” she said impatiently. “Syndek wants you, too. They want to pump your brain dry, then dump you someplace.”

“Even so, what I hear from my vantage point is-”

“Oh, calamity! Quit lecturing me, since I’m no longer-”

“We all get out here,” mentioned Cruz as he dropped from the cab to the orange moss of the clearing.

Coming toward them from the neolog hunting lodge some fifty yards distant was a large jungle-green robot.

“Ah, it is Bwana Cruz unless these eyes fool me.”

“I think your boss is expecting me, Tomo.”

“He is, most anxiously. For we have a saying here in the Great Jungle…” Tomo paused, raising a metal finger to his metal chin. “But, alas, it appears to have been erased from my store of useful aphorisms. Pity.”

A small, wiry man with shortcropped greying hair stepped out onto the shady verandah of the lodge. He wore a two-piece tan huntsuit. “Glad I could be of help,” he said as he came down the steps.

“If you really want to help, Mr. Macumazahn,” said Jazz, who’d disembarked and was standing close to Cruz, “you’ll convince him to drop his crackpot scheme.”

“This is Jazz Miller,” introduced Cruz. “And Professor Winiarsky.”

Tomo was peering into the skycar, chuckling. “Run-fling true to form, Bwana Cruz,” he said. “Bringing along not one but two pretty ladies. This one in here, though, seems to be out cold.”

“I’d be grateful if you toted her inside, Tomo.”

“Glad to oblige, sir.”

Henry Macumazahn said, “Right after you called, Cruz, I had Tomo run my spare skyvan out of the hangar. It’s beyond the house, ready to take off.”

“We have a saying about gratitude, Henry, but it slips my mind,” Smiling, he glanced skyward. “Nobody tagged us from Jungleland, but I think it’s best that Jazz and the professor make the rest of their trip in another craft. That way-”

“Fooey,” said the reporter. “I’m not budging. Because if you honestly think I’m going to let you commit suicide, Mr. Cruz, you-”

“Young woman,” said Macumazahn. “Take the advice of a fellow who’s led many an expedition in dangerous country. There can be only one leader and if-”

“Who voted him boss?” She jerked a thumb, angry, at Cruz. “I volunteered to tag along, but that doesn’t include standing back while-”

“You don’t seem to have much faith in him,” said the hunter. “I myself am certain Cruz will come out on top.”