Gordon Dickson - Time Storm

“No. No, you shouldn’t. I have to rest now; but—see me after lunch, Marc. Dear Marc.... What would I do without you?”

“Come on, now. You’re the Empress. You can do anything.”

She smiled dazzlingly.

I went out. Aruba was gone, as I had expected him to be; and I went directly back to my own tent. Doc was off the couch and on his feet the second the tent flap fell behind me.

“We’re leaving for home right away,” I said. “I’ll explain as we go. You armed?”

“My rifle’s with the jeep,” he said. He patted his shirt at belt level before and behind. “Belly gun and knife.”

“Right. I want your help in bringing some blood-soaked criminals to justice,” I said. “The Empress has given me special authority to corral the soldiers who committed atrocities on certain innocent people among the civilian population opposing us until tonight.”

His eyebrows went up ironically. I reached into my shirt pocket where I had put the order after folding it up, still without having read it. I unfolded it and read it now, then passed it to him.

“’Marc Despard has asked for authority from me, and I have given it to him, to do whatever is required ...’” he nodded slowly. “All riiight!”

I took the order back from him and replaced it in my pocket.

“The first thing I want to do is check those future-built aircraft we captured,” I said, “to make sure none of those responsible for the atrocities are planning on using them for escaping. They may even have explosives to destroy the aircraft they can’t use. You’re an expert on explosives. What kind do you think they might be able to get hold of for something like that?”

He grinned and patted himself at belt level again.

“Primer cord,” he said. “It wouldn’t take much to do a lot of damage—particularly if they know what they’re doing.”

“That’s what we’ll search the area for, then. Come along.”

We headed out the door. The Old Man came with us.

“Want me to put him back inside?” Doc asked, as we stopped just beyond the tent.

“Why, no,” I said. “Seeing him with us, they won’t think I’m doing anything important. It’ll serve to allay suspicions—Major!”

I called out to a short, swarthy block of an officer in his mid-twenties who was passing by. The fact that he was on his feet at all this morning meant that he had not been deeply involved in the celebrations of the night before. He came closer and I recognized him. There were only so many majors in Paula’s army, in any case.

“Major Debrow? Sorry to interrupt whatever you’re doing; but I’ve got a special job and I’m going to have to ask you to help. Take a look at this.”

I passed him Paula’s authorization.

“You see,” I said, while he read it, “we want to move before these criminals take off on us—don’t we, Major?”

His face did not agree. Someone who was unprejudiced might have found a trace of loathing in it for me, a civilian who called combat-battered soldiers “criminals.”

“Yes, Mr. Despard.”

“Good. I knew I could count on you, Major. We’ve got an idea that some of them might be trying to get away in some of the valuable future aircraft these people had. We’re going to go and check. I want you to come along with us.”

“Those planes are locked up, as well as being under guard,” Debrow said. “Nobody could get away with one of them.”

“Let’s make sure.”

We walked toward that part of the former airport where the post-twentieth-century planes were kept. It was not a short distance, but eventually we clambered over a low barrier of sandbags and found ourselves not more than forty feet from the entrance to a separate hangar, around which perhaps a dozen apparently sober and competent male soldiers stood guard.

“Go get their officer and bring him here, quietly, so we can explain things, will you, Major?”

“Just what is it you want?” Debrow asked. “What do you want him to do?”

“I want to check the men on guard and have a look inside,” I said. “And I want the officer with us when we do that.”

Debrow went forward to the two soldiers on guard at the hangar door and was challenged. As he answered, I turned to Doc and saw him looking at me questioningly.

“I want you and me to take off from here in one of those planes inside,” I said in a low voice. “I don’t want the other planes left behind to be workable; and I want the soldiers on guard here out of action. I’ll try to arrange it to give you a chance at them, one at a time.”

“Just the two of us to leave. Not the major?”

“Not the major.”

Doc nodded. Debrow came back, led us forward to the hangar doors and in through a small personnel door set in one of them. Inside was the large, dim, echoing interior of the hangar with small, pearly glowings in the gloom that were the future aircraft. To our right was a glassed-in office brightly lit with self-powered battle fluorescents, standing in for the built-in fluorescent lights in the ceiling, now dark for lack of power from the community’s central supply.

Inside at a desk was a single thin, young officer with first lieutenant’s silver bars on the straps of his uniform leather jacket. He got to his feet as we came in.

“Major?” he said.

“Lieutenant,” said Debrow. “This is Marc Despard.”

“I know Mr. Despard,” said the lieutenant.

“And his . . Debrow glanced at Doc and the Old Man, “servants. Mr. Despard has some special authority from the Empress for you to see.”

I passed Paula’s authorization to the lieutenant. The light blond eyebrows jumped several times while he was reading it, although the rest of his narrow face remained calm.

“Yes sir,” he said passing the letter back to me. “What is it you want, Mr. Despard?”

“First,” I said, “I want to check the future aircraft, without making a fuss about it. Just you, the Major and I, and Doc here.”

I nodded at Doc.

“Doc,” I said, “has had some experience in handling sabotage. If we find one or more of the aircraft has been booby-trapped, he may be of help to us in disarming it. This Experimental with us is called the Old Man. His sense of smell, particularly, is much more acute than ours, and he works well with Doc on jobs like this. Now, how many of the future planes are there?”

“Nine,” said the lieutenant.

“Does anyone here know how to fly them?”

“Nobody’s tried so far,” said the lieutenant. “I believe the plan is to talk first to these people who had them.”

“It seems to me I heard they weren’t hard to operate,” I said. “The criminals we’re looking for may have heard that, too. These planes would buy them anything they wanted, anywhere in the rest of the world, if they could successfully steal them from the Empress.”

I saw both officers looking at me oddly and wondered if I’d been laying on my image of self-importance too thickly.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s go then. Major, Lieutenant, we’ll take three planes apiece. We won’t take the Experimental on this first search. I’ll keep Doc and the Experimental with me until they’re needed. Do you have flashlights?”

“You mean hand torches?” said the lieutenant. “Yes, sir.” He went to a locker across the office and came back with flashlights for Debrow and myself. Leaving the Old Man in the office, we went out into the hangar proper and split up.

I took the three planes closest to me, forcing the two officers to take the ones further over. In the illumination of the flashlight, the first aircraft I came to seemed to glow with an inner gleam of its own. It was made of some milky, semi-translucent plastic and looked light enough to float up in the air if it was breathed on too heavily. But in spite of appearances, it was solid and firm when I pulled open the door in its curving side and stepped in. Within, possibly because of the almost egg-shaped hull, there was more room than I would have guessed. I went forward to the control panel.