Brian Stableford: Asgard's Conquerors

“I can’t use the Tetron scrip,” he said. “It’s registered to user, too easy to trace. But if we were together, we could split everything fifty-fifty, couldn’t we?”

I supposed we could. It was a lot of money to pay a maintenance man for fiddling a lock or two, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be partners with John Finn. I was sure, though, that I didn’t want to serve ten years in a penal battalion. But we hadn’t got to the bottom line yet.

“And I’ll want half of the ship,” he added.

“The ship!”

“Well,” he said, patiently, “it’s not really your ship, anyhow. It was Mickey’s. It always should have come to me. I’m just a little late in claiming it, that’s all. I’m only asking half. Half of everything. What other options do you have?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, sourly. “But I bet they’d be cheaper ones.”

“Sure,” he replied. “They aren’t charging you for the room, are they?”

I hadn’t heard an offer like it since Jacinthe Siani had volunteered to buy me out of jail on Asgard with Amara Guur’s money. If it came to a contest, I decided that I’d rather deal with John Finn than with Amara Guur—but it wasn’t the kind of choice a sane man would want to be faced with. I was in the frying pan again, and I was only being offered a fire to jump into.

“I don’t know yet what the Star Force intends to do with me,” I told him.

He laughed. “If you wait to find out, it will be too late to stop them. They only have a dozen men on Goodfellow, and they’re mostly ones they couldn’t trust to do a good job in the real line of action, but they have a couple of hundred combat soldiers on Leopard Shark. Once you’re in their hands, Superman and the Scarlet Pimpernel couldn’t get you out. This is your last chance, Mike. Take it or leave it.”

It didn’t seem to be much of a chance, but there didn’t seem to be any others.

“Okay,” I said, defeated. “You’re on. Spring me, and the ship’s half yours. Half the money, too. I presume that I can leave it to you to get the paperwork ready?”

“You certainly can,” he assured me. He sounded very pleased with himself. He had every right to be. When I thought what I’d had to go through to earn that money, the idea of cutting him in as a reward for opening a door seemed pretty sick. But if I wasn’t free, I couldn’t spend my money, could I?

“Get some sleep,” said Finn. “I just have to make a few preparations, and then we’re away. I wouldn’t do this for everyone, you know—but you’re nearly family.”

I tried to smile. I never had a brother, but if I had, I wouldn’t have wanted one like John Finn. It was bad enough to have him for a friend. Sometimes, though, friends are in such short supply that you have to take whatever you can get.

It can be an unfriendly universe, sometimes.

I cannot claim to be the galaxy’s foremost expert on jailbreaks—although, as you will learn later, I have more than a single instance of experience from which to generalize. Nevertheless, I believe that I can confidently identify four criteria that need to be fulfilled if the break is to stand much chance of success. While not wishing to encourage delinquent behaviour, I am prepared to pass on these pearls of wisdom.

Firstly, it helps a lot if make your break at a time when those people who are interested in keeping you locked up are not paying attention. This might be because you have arranged with your allies to create some kind of a diversion, but is more likely to be because they are all asleep.

Secondly, it helps a lot if you can move around inconspicuously once you are no longer in your place of imprisonment. Darkness helps, but even in darkness it is a good idea not to be instantly recognisable as a fugitive to anyone you may happen to meet.

Thirdly, you must have somewhere safe and cosy to go— either a vehicle in which you can make a clean getaway or a place of refuge where you can be securely hidden away while a search is conducted.

Fourthly, never—but never—put your trust in the supposed expertise of an assistant who has always seemed to you in the past to be a confirmed no-hoper.

Anyone studying these four criteria will immediately realise that John Finn’s grand scheme to liberate me from my secure quarters on Goodfellow was bound to be a bit rickety. The fact that he could open the door was merely a beginning, and counted for less than one might imagine.

One problem with trying to be inconspicuous on a microworld is that it is very small and entirely artificial. It has no cycle of day or night, so the internal lights are never switched off. Another is that everybody knows everybody else by sight, and a stranger sticks out like a sore thumb. Your average microworld has very few hidden and forgotten corners, and in any case is crammed full of sensory equipment and alarms because it has to be perpetually on guard against things going wrong. If its staff are engaged in scientific research they could hardly work a regular eight hours out of twenty-four, even if twenty-four hours did mean anything special, because they have to fit their personal timetables into the timetables of their observations.

Had I thought about all this very carefully, I would have realised that John Finn’s escape plan was far from certain to succeed. Unfortunately, I didn’t think about it carefully. I just assumed that he could do it. This was not because I am the kind of person who readily puts his trust in his fellow man, but because I was still feeling benumbed and disoriented by the horrible shock of it all.

I don’t know what time it was when he turned up again. I don’t even know what kind of time-system the microworld was using. But I was roused from sleep to find that the dimmed light had been turned up a fraction, and that Finn was trying to press some kind of weapon into my fist.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“Mud gun,” he said. “Benign weaponry issued to police forces in enlightened nations. Fires wet stuff that goes through your clothes. Skin absorbs some organic that acts as a muscle relaxant. Makes you feel like you do in dreams sometimes, when you want to move but can’t.

Purely temporary effect. Okay?”

I took the weapon. Then he gave me an overall made out of silvery plastic. He was wearing one just like it. I put it on.

“Right,” said Finn. “I reckon we should have a clear run if we time it right. Keep your head down—if anyone does see us, they’ll probably figure you for one of my boys. I daren’t dim the lights—any little thing goes wrong makes people very nervous. We’re going straight for the umbilical. A few hundred metres. Stay close.”

I nodded.

He stood for a while, studying his wristwatch. About three minutes passed before he said: “Let’s go.”

We went.

He took me along at a brisk walk. My feet kept wanting to break into a trot, but I controlled the impulse and stayed behind him. I wished that he’d brought something to hide me in, but microworlds don’t have that kind of mobile equipment. Laundry baskets are rarely seen outside of old movies.

We got at least three quarters of the way before the unexpected happened and someone came through a hatchway ahead of us. It was a tall, white-haired man and he was seemingly engrossed in studying the display on a small hand-held bookplate. I dropped in behind Finn, trying to keep my face out of the direct line of sight. Finn marched bravely on, and greeted the man cheerfully. The guy with the bookplate barely glanced up, and muttered a reply. I thought we were safe for five whole seconds, until we had to pass through the hatchway ourselves and I spared time for a quick backward glance.

The white-haired man had stopped and was staring after us, with a look of puzzlement on his face.