STOWAWAY TO THE STARS

Larry took advantage of a gap in the oncoming traffic to slip in front of the car ahead, briefly making space between them and the large blue car following them.

“Karen, we’re in big trouble. We’re completely unarmed and there’s no way I can shake off our tail in this little hire car.”

It was unlikely to be the local police force following them. Even if they’d realized he was a wanted man, they wouldn’t make the effort it must have taken to track down this car. It could only be Ziloni agents, though goodness knows how even they could find him so quickly. First priority was to protect his precious data.

“Where have you put the spare data pin?”

“It’s safe, tucked into my new stick-on bra.”

“No good, I’m afraid. They could easily find it there.”

“I can put it where they will not find it without a strip search, if you think it’s really necessary.”

“Yes please, if you don’t mind. I’m sorry, but I want to get you out of this mess if I can.”

She retrieved the pin from its hiding place and thrust her hand down inside her skirt and panties.

Would they be after Karen as well as him? She might have a chance. They had to have tracked him through the spaceport logs. That was the only place he’d left any trail. As luck would have it, Karen wouldn’t show up there, so they might not realize that she was his accomplice from Zilon. Maybe they wouldn’t bother with her, if he could convince them she wasn’t involved. Then she could get away and take her data pin to Ket.

“Karen, I’m probably done for. You can be sure I’ll get away if I can, but these guys will be professional agents, better trained in this type of thing than I am. So it’s most unlikely that they’ll fall for the sort of tricks I pulled on those clumsy soldiers and guards on Zilon. The best chance we’ve got is for me to persuade them that you’re nothing to do with me, just a whore I’ve picked up for the day. I’m sorry if you find that insulting, but it might save your life. Try to make yourself look slutty, pull your top down a bit and hitch up your skirt. If I can get them to let you go, forget about me.”

She looked at him in alarm. “What will I do without you, alone on this strange planet?”

“Have you got any money left over from buying your clothes?”

“Yes, I’m sorry, I forgot to give it –”

“Good, you might need it. You’ll have to find someone in authority, spin them a yarn about being kidnapped maybe, but say you need to get a message to Ketar’hi Dartelii. Explain that he’s an important Union official. He lives in Greti city on Central, his direct code is 111 589 722 651. Can you remember that code?”

She stumbled over it and he repeated it twice more, until he was convinced she had it memorized.

“Right, when we get stopped, stay in the car, try not to say anything, and look petrified. That shouldn’t be too hard.”

Moments later the blue car found an opportunity to force its way past them, and swerved in front, forcing Larry to pull up sharply. Should he try to reverse and make a break for it? No, it was only postponing the inevitable. Instead he leapt out of the car to see if he could get away on foot. But the two men in the other car were equally quick, and one of them was alongside him in a flash. He felt a stun pistol jammed into his ribs.

“You can come quietly, or we can stun you and wait till you wake up,” snapped the agent.

Larry played dumb. “I don’t know what you mean. Who are you, what is all this about?”

“Stop trying to mess us around or I will stun you. You are Laren’hi Rasilii, that face molding doesn’t fool us. You are in big trouble. You’ve really upset the Zilon government. So shut up and keep still while we sort out your accomplice.”

He gave in. Time to try and save Karen.

The second agent, who Larry mentally identified as Number Two, said, “To start with, tell us who the woman is.”

“I don’t know her name, I just picked her up this morning. She’s very friendly, though, and I’ve paid her for the whole day.”

“Too bad. You’ve wasted your money there.”

“Don’t forget he was working with a woman on Zilon,” said Number One. “We don’t have a picture of her because this bastard took out the computers that had recorded her. Check her out while I watch this one.”

The stun gun remained buried in Larry’s side, neatly out of sight of passing traffic. There was no possibility of knocking the gun away, even if he could take a trained agent in unarmed combat. He watched and waited for a better opportunity.

Number Two strolled round the car to the passenger door and whipped it open. As was to be expected, the agents were making a minimum of fuss and no one was taking any notice of them. He grabbed Karen’s little finger and offered it up to a hand-held ID reader.

“She’s Maret Lidison. I’ll query the Drazen database for details.”

When the ID reader chimed, he consulted it again.

“According to this, she’s a country hayseed who’s never been off-planet. That doesn’t sound like his bitch from the attack. I’ll do a facial scan to see what that shows up.”

He held a palm-sized scanner up to Karen’s face, then he pinched her face in several places. Larry drew in a deep breath as she seemed to tense, but she relaxed again and started to whimper.

“She has no face molding on, and she’s not in any of the databases. Looks like Rasilii was telling the truth – she’s just a local hooker.”

“That makes sense,” said Number One. “Both of the spaceport logs show him alone. He made no attempt to hide who he was when he arrived on Drazen, so it’s hardly likely he would have somehow hidden his accomplice. Our instructions are to apprehend Laren’hi Rasilii and any known associates. There’s no record of him ever having a female accomplice in the past, except for the trainee who got killed, and a whore he’s picked up since he arrived on Drazen scarcely qualifies.”

“I guess this creep just likes having tarts about all the time. This one does have long dark hair like the description of the other one, but that’s probably the type he goes for.”

That shows how little you know, thought Larry wryly. I normally go for blondes, though I’d gladly have made an exception for Karen. He also offered up a silent prayer of thanks that the computers he had blown up were the same ones that monitored the cameras.

Number Two continued, “We can do without the extra baggage, or another dead body to dispose of. I’ll check out the car and the whore. If she’s clean I’ll put the fear of the seven saints into her so she’ll get rid of the car for us.”

For the third time, Larry saw poor Karen enduring hands all over her body. This time it was a much more thorough search, but at least it was professional and totally impersonal. And it fell short of the internal search that would have been needed to find her hidden secret.

She played her part well, cringing and whimpering. Given that it was what Larry had told her to do, he was reasonably certain it was an act, but it was very convincing.

“She’s clean,” announced Number Two. “I’ll check the car over.”

He gave the car a thorough inspection, searching carefully in the glove compartment and side pockets and under the seats. After that he swept the whole car for electronic devices. When he came to the passenger seat he pushed Karen out of the way with casual disregard.

He finished by removing the two items of luggage and putting them in the blue car. He went back to Karen, who cringed away again.

“Okay,” he said. “Take this car and piss off. Hand the car back or lose it somewhere. Don’t leave it where it will attract attention or we’ll track you down and make you sorry. Do you understand?”

She nodded, looking terrified.

Larry suddenly had a horrified thought. Oh shit, she doesn’t know how to drive these cars. However, this inability was not immediately apparent as Karen slipped into the driver’s seat, reversed the car well clear and shot off up the road. Larry thought that he detected that characteristic flick of her head as she went. She disappeared into the first side turning, a little way up the road.

****

As Karen drove away from Larry, she felt sick at the thought of her predicament, coupled with fury at the way she had been treated. She was alone on an alien planet, with the man she had grown so fond of in the hands of the Ziloni. All she could think about was that she had to get him back. The question was, how?

Driving the alien car was the one thing that hadn’t worried her. Even Larry, who should have known better, had fallen into the trap of confusing lack of knowledge of Union technology with lack of ability and common sense. Karen had watched him driving. Compared with the complications of Earth cars, with clutch and gears to cope with, this advanced technology struck her as simplicity itself.

The main control was similar to an airplane control column. Rotating the control provided steering not unlike an Earth car, except with less movement needed, but acceleration was produced by forward pressure on the column, and braking by back pressure. When the car was at rest, back pressure produced reverse motion.

Foot pedals were used for indications, and probably other things like dipping the lights, but Karen only wanted to make the car go. Other drivers would have to cope without any signals from her, and it wasn’t raining and it wasn’t dark, so she didn’t care about the foot pedals or the array of controls on the dashboard. If she did have problems, the car’s computer would stop her having an accident.

Once out of sight in the side road she stopped, and then she found that a three-point turn was indeed beyond her skill level. All the computer did was complain about an illegal maneuver. She ignored it and shunted around until eventually she had the car pointed the other way. One irate driver indicated his displeasure at her performance, but she responded by teaching him a traditional Earth finger gesture.

****

After Karen had disappeared, the two agents hustled Larry into their car. Throughout they were most careful to keep him covered with a stun pistol, allowing him no possibility of escape. Number One sat beside him, stun gun firmly pressed into his ribs. Number Two started the car and eased it forward into the traffic.

Larry was startled when his communication earpiece sprang to life.

“Larry, if you can hear me, cough or something.”

He obliged by clearing his throat.

Karen’s next words dispelled any faint doubt as to whether she had been acting earlier when she had appeared to be terrified.

“Good. I’m going to follow you, but first I need to know whether your guys come my way or whether they turn round. If they do turn, can you cough three times, otherwise cough once when you pass the side road I’m in.”

The words left him stunned. Why the hell couldn’t she take the opportunity to get away to safety? But by all the saints she had some nerve and initiative. If only he weren’t doomed in the hands of these bastards, he would have loved to get to know her better.

The agents set off straight ahead, so Larry coughed once, quietly, as they passed the side road.

“Okay. I’m keeping about three cars behind you, because I’m afraid they might recognize this car. Can you cough once any time you turn left, and twice any time you turn right. That way I can hang well back where I won’t be seen.”

After about a kilometer they took a right turn. He cleared his throat loudly twice.

“I assume that’s a right turn by the large green building. Cough again if I’m wrong.”

In this way they progressed several kilometers, turning three or four times. Larry varied the noises he made to avoid arousing suspicion, and Karen continued a running commentary over the earpiece to tell him what she understood by his signals. If she’d had a full course of IEP surveillance training she couldn’t have done any better. But God knows what she would try to do when they arrived at wherever they were going.

After a final turn the agents drew to a halt in front of a large house in a quiet, prosperous residential area. Thinking quickly about Karen following him, Larry said in a conversational tone, “I take it we’ve arrived.”

Number One snarled at him to shut up. Behind them Karen must have changed her mind about following him into the side road. Over the earpiece he heard the whine of her gyros braking hard, and hooting that must have been from someone annoyed at her action.

As Larry was frog marched into the house, he noted the number and again struck up a conversation.

“Number twenty seven, I see. Twenty seven Crastenton Terrace in fact. Did you know that in many primitive cultures twenty seven is an unlucky number?” he lied.

Fortunately the agents seemed to be unfamiliar with primitive cultures and must have assumed he was trying to wind them up. They ignored him. His earpiece came to life again.

“Larry, how the hell do I call the cops on this planet?”

Thank the saints, she was showing common sense and thinking rationally. He had been expecting her to make a crazy suicidal bid to rescue him herself, and was ready to shout a warning to her not to attempt it. Instead, what she was planning had a chance of success. The only trouble was, he didn’t know which code was used on Drazen for emergencies. He made more conversation.

“You do realize that before you caught me, I called 4321 for the cops on the car vidphone. They’ll be onto you soon.”

Number One sneered, “I find that hard to believe, since the code on this planet is 3210. I don’t think they’ll give us a problem.” Over his earpiece Larry heard Karen’s exultant voice. “Oh yes, thank you asshole. I’ve got that.”

****

Karen had given no consideration at all to fleeing. She was much less concerned than Larry was about the data on the Ziloni plans. The important thing was that Larry had been taken captive and she wanted him back. It also pissed her off that the chauvinistic agents had assumed that she posed no threat, even though that contempt was responsible for her continued freedom. Now she would make them pay for it.

She located the vidphone in the centre console of the car. It would clearly broadcast a picture as well as sound. She tousled her hair into as much of a mess as she could manage, then she gritted her teeth and raked the fingernails of her right hand across the left side of her neck, leaving four red wheals.

She punched the emergency code into the phone and a message immediately flashed up on the miniature screen, but it was in Universal. Before she had figured out what it said, it was replaced by a picture and voice of an operator.

“Police emergency line, what is your emergency?”

She tried to put as much panic as possible into her voice, which was not difficult. “Help me, please! My husband and I have been attacked and kidnapped, and I have been raped. I managed to get away, but they still have my husband. He is being held at twenty seven, Crastenton Terrace. Please come quickly, I’m scared they will kill him. They have guns.”

“Stand by caller. We will have someone with you as soon as possible. Are you safe where you are?”

“Yes.”

“Then stay where you are and watch out for our officers.”

“Okay, I shall wait nearby. Please hurry.”

Through her earpiece she heard Larry shouting in English. “Hide the car a few blocks away, and keep out of sight till the police arrive.”

“What the hell was that?” she heard a voice snarl, followed by a loud smack.

Larry’s voice again. “I find primitive languages so much more expressive when I want to tell you what I think of you. Do you want me to translate?”

This brought a second blow, louder than the first, that Karen heard clearly over her earpiece. She squeezed her eyes to stem the tears as she imagined what Larry was going through, and concentrated on what she had to do. She found a quiet side road three streets away and parked the car and locked it. She hurried back to Crastenton Terrace, found a rather overgrown front garden close to number twenty seven and hid there. She tried to make her case look more convincing by disheveling her clothes. She couldn’t risk tearing them. If she succeeded in rescuing Larry, they were all she was likely to have to wear later.

****

Before he had fully recovered from the beating he had earned from his warning call to Karen, Larry was dragged upstairs to a small room at the back of the house. It was sparsely furnished, a table and chair on one side, a heavy metal cabinet on the other. Dominating the room was an interrogation chair in the middle. Larry was stripped naked and searched by a third agent who had been waiting in the room, while Number Two carefully kept him covered. Number One had disappeared somewhere. Larry was handcuffed to the interrogation chair and Number Two left as well.

The situation appeared to be hopeless. He’d looked in vain for an opportunity for escape from the moment of his capture, but these guys had shown a clinical professionalism. Now he was handcuffed in their stronghold and all hope was gone. He didn’t care too much about his own life, it had been in ruins anyway, though he’d prefer the end to be quick. But please the seven saints, don’t let Karen screw up this rescue attempt and get caught as well, with the spare data pin. That would mean all they’d achieved had been for nothing.

Number Three spread out Larry’s clothes, possessions and cases over the table, and started searching through them all carefully. As he worked he said to Larry, “You’re quite a catch. All hell has been popping about you. Agents on every planet in the Union have had top priority orders to track you down. And where should you turn up but our neck of the woods. So are you going to tell me what you’ve done now, or shall I force it out of you later?”

“Later is fine with me. How did you track me down? Checking all the spaceport logs I can understand, that would have told you I was on Drazen, but you still had to locate me.”

“It was hard work. We traced you hiring a car, then we had to pull a lot of strings to trace the car. I hope you’ll be worth all the effort.”

He gave a grunt of satisfaction as he discovered the data pin and printouts in Larry’s underpants. “Ah, what have we here?”

He whistled as he read through the printout. “No wonder High Command are moving heaven and earth to get these back. You really have been busy, haven’t you. Hmm, I seem to think there should be two data pins. We found nothing in the car. Where is the other one?”

Larry shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Deny it all you want, it doesn’t matter. You’re going in the scanner shortly. If the other one is inside you, you won’t enjoy us getting it out. After that we’ll scramble your brain for what you know. So make the most of the time you have left.”

Over his earpiece Larry heard a little wail, reminding him that Karen was able to hear all that was happening. Then he heard her exclaim, “Oh thank God! This must be the police.”