STOWAWAY TO THE STARS

As Larry hid out in another bar, stretching out the drink he didn’t need and wondering whether he should risk trying Ket’s number yet again, his earpiece suddenly went live.

“Hi, if you can hear me don’t speak. This is your friend of the last few days.” As if he needed any help in recognizing Karen’s voice, and speaking in English as well. What a relief. Somehow she must have maintained her cover and got clear of spaceport security. How had she managed that?

“Cough twice if you can hear me.”

He obliged.

“Oh dear, this brings back memories of the last time we did this. Anyway, that’s great. I’m with a friend of yours but he has things to do. He suggested that I meet you in the museum that celebrates your favorite activity. It’s the one not far from where you had a little accident while you were playing with your friend when you were young.”

That all had to be Ket’s prompting. He knew that any keywords in the broadcast would attract the attention of the damned computers that might be listening. But it was clear enough. The museum about the history of space flight was across the park from where he had once fallen in the water while fishing with Ket.

“Um, this is hard, talking one way only. Could you cough twice again if you got this message and it made sense?”

He gave two more coughs.

“Okay, that’s fixed. We can talk properly when I see you. Um, I suppose I should say ‘out’ now. Bye.”

Larry smiled. Karen had really come up trumps. Her ID must have stood up to close scrutiny, she must have talked her way out of trouble and she had remembered Ket’s code. Thank the saints he had given Karen his spare data pin to look after. She must have passed it over to Ket by now. Feelings stirred inside him that he could no longer deny, but they would have to wait. For the moment he had a museum to visit. That was another brilliant idea of Ket’s. The museum security would be right down the priority list of databases to update with new images of him, and no one was likely to think of looking for him there.

****

Larry arrived at the museum first. It was an old, ornate building, belonging to the development period of Central, when cost had not been an issue during the construction of such a structure. The entrance hall was vast, floored in natural marble, and the ceiling was at least three floors high. No synthetic material here, although the result was signs of wear from the many feet that had used the entrance.

Larry found a seat tucked away in the corner near the corridor leading to the first exhibition room and buried himself behind a museum brochure. He began to worry that something had happened to Karen, then he spotted her at the entrance. He lowered his brochure and as soon as he was sure she had seen him, he turned and strolled slowly down the corridor.

She caught up with him in the first exhibition room. It was empty, or he would have moved on until he found a room that was. “Oh Larry, I’m so glad you’re safe. I imagined all sorts of things that might have happened to you.”

“I’m fine, thanks to your intervention with the security man. I have been worried sick that they would break your cover. I’m sorry I could not give you any help, but you had already risked yourself for me to get free. If I had come back it would have been wasted.”

Karen nodded, and told Larry about her experience with spaceport security and meeting Ket. “So now we just have to lie low here until Ket lets us know what transpires. He’s given me a mini-phone a bit like my earpiece, and he’ll call me when there’s any news.”

Larry gave a long sigh of relief. “Well Karen, we have done everything we can. It is in Ket’s hands now. We may as well look around until we hear from Ket. Let us hope he can work something out.”

****

For the next couple of hours Karen browsed in fascination through all the displays and information. She was still finding it difficult to read the strange Universal script. The language translator had put all the Universal words, their spellings and their meanings into her head, and the shapes of all the letters, of which there were considerably more than the twenty six English letters. But reading was still a skill that had to be learnt. However, Larry seemed happy to read things out for her when she had difficulty and the time passed quickly.

As she was browsing she gradually became aware that Larry, who had been beside her explaining things throughout, was now close beside her with his arm around her waist. She moved closer against him for a moment without thinking. Then suddenly realizing what an intimate gesture it was, she pulled away like a startled rabbit.

Before anything else could transpire she was brought back to the present abruptly as the mini-phone tingled in her ear.

****

Ket had arranged an appointment with his closest Council contact, but that left him with the problem that now he had to return to the Council buildings, where he expected that there would be Ziloni agents waiting. He made his way slowly back to his office. Maybe he was being paranoid. But not without cause – after all, they had been willing to shoot down an innocent spaceliner in order to get at Larry.

As he neared the huge complex of buildings containing his office, he saw the car he had seen earlier, still parked with the driver doing something to it.

There was no way he could get past without being seen. But this guy was probably just an observer. He hadn’t interfered before when Ket went out to the spaceport. Maybe it was time to take the bull by the horns, now that he had ensured the safety of the information from Larry. He strode up to the car and as he came alongside the man he stopped.

Without looking at the man he spoke in a conversational tone. “What you’re after is in the hands of several Council officials and members. I’m going to an appointment with one of them. The computers monitor the cameras in this street at all times, so I recommend that you don’t dig the hole your people are in any deeper, by taking any ill-advised action.”

The man did not say a word, but he flung his tools into the back of the car, leapt in and drove off. Ket could see that he was in animated conversation with someone as he drove. Ket sighed with relief that the confrontation had ended peacefully and hurried inside for his appointment.

After it was over he phoned his wife on the office vidphone.

“Gen, you will never believe what’s happened this morning. Larry’s come back, and not only that, he’s got cast-iron proof about the Ziloni. Harbit Wilstrand, on the Council, is convinced that it will clear him. Larry’s been through a string of hair-raising events to get it. For example, it was him involved with the spaceliner the Ziloni attacked.”

“Really? So is he all right?”

“Yes, he seems to have survived it all.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. You must bring him home to visit as soon as he’s in the clear.”

“That’s not all. He had someone with him, a girl called Karen. She got tangled up with him while he was on the run, a primitive no less, and she’s been with him on his escapades.”

“Then you must bring her as well. Oh, are they, er, involved together, do you think?”

“No, I don’t think so. Although come to think of it, there was something about the way Karen spoke of Larry. Anyway, I’ll phone again when I know what’s happening.”

Two hours later he got the news he was hoping for.

****

Braxel Strensin was having a really bad day, and now he had a difficult decision to make.

Two days ago, a top priority instruction had come through from the Ziloni High Command. All current Secret Service operations were suspended. All personnel were diverted to the task of apprehending or intercepting Laren’hi Rasilii before he could pass on stolen intelligence of critical importance to Ziloni High Command.

Even Strensin had no idea what that intel was, but it had the High Command shitting themselves to get it back, so it must be red hot. The rumor was that a similar order had gone out to every Union planet where Zilon had an embassy, but the operation on Central was the most important and critical one because the expectation was that Rasilii was trying to get the intel to the Galactic Council.

As second in command of the Security section of the embassy on Central, Strensin had been tasked with guarding every spaceport on Central that handled interstellar flights. He had taken the most important watch on Greti’s main spaceport himself. Earlier this morning, near the end of his 8-hour stint, Rasilii had tried to smuggle himself and his bitch accomplice through to Central on a scheduled interstellar flight, using a false ID.

Strensin had been tired and not expecting any action, and he hadn’t spotted Rasilii. If he was honest he’d been distracted by the woman with Rasilii. He would never have identified her from the poor quality holos he had seen. In the security line she had looked gorgeous, with long, flowing, dark hair, a short skirt and skin-tight top that displayed a stunning figure. It would probably have got her arrested back on Zilon. Like a fool he had been ogling her instead of paying attention to her companion, and Rasilii had got away.

A bit later Ketar’hi Dartelii had appeared and been escorted into the security section. No way had either Dartelii or the bitch come back out of the security section, but before long Vartzil, the agent guarding the exterior of the spaceport, had reported in that he’d spotted Dartelii and the woman heading for the subsurface transport system together. Vartzil, the incompetent fool, had managed to lose his targets, even though they were a pair of amateurs. At least, Dartelii was an amateur. No one had found out who the hell the bitch was. She wasn’t an IEP agent, she wasn’t a known associate of Rasilii and she wasn’t in any database.

Now, just when he thought that the day couldn’t get any worse, the agent keeping watch on Dartelii’s office complex had reported in that Dartelii had confronted him, bold as brass, and told him that what they were trying to retrieve was in the hands of several Council members and officials. He’d taunted the agent to do something stupid in a street that was crawling with computer-controlled cameras, and probably computer-controlled security as well. Not surprisingly, the agent had bailed out.

Strensin thought long and hard. He was in charge of the spaceport operation and so he’d get a major share of the blame for this fiasco. The way High Command was panicking about whatever it was that Rasilii had got, they’d be looking for scapegoats.

He came to a decision. It was time to bail. Okay, if he was going to do it, the sooner the better. He turned to Brachard.

“I’ve got to get back to the embassy, now this has all gone tits up. I want you to hang on here in the spaceport. Try to find out what the hell went wrong, why we never spotted Dartelii and the woman leaving. We’ll need reasons why we fucked up so badly.”

He hurried out of the spaceport, but he didn’t return to his car and he headed away from the embassy. As he went, he made a call on his mini-phone to a number unknown to any of his superiors and not stored on any of his phones. It was to his mistress.

“Yelin, it’s Braxel. I need to implement operation Diplomatic Retreat immediately.”

“Oh Braxel, darling. Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’ve thought carefully, but there’s no alternative.”

“All right, I’ll see you soon. I’ll be ready.”

That was it. He was committed now.

He had prepared this escape plan a year ago, when it first became apparent to him that High Command was going in a direction he didn’t like, and unpleasant things started to happen to agents who fouled up.

He was certain that no one knew about Yelin. She came from a thinly populated planet with plenty of space to drop out of sight, and she had family who would help them set up a home there. It was the hope that the plan would come to fruition that had kept her sweet for the past year. She knew that while he was on Central, working for the embassy, their relationship would never be more than quick, furtive meetings, but he had sworn to her that no matter what, he would implement the plan when he had enough savings tucked away. He hadn’t expected things to come to a head so soon, but Rasilii had been the final trigger.

Now he had to get off Central fast and fix himself up with a false ID. An authentic one, not whatever cheap and inadequate fix Rasilii had tried. With that he could lay a long trail of confusion before ending on Yelin’s planet. Thank the saints the Galaxy Sector was so big, it should make him impossible to trace, even if they expended the effort that they had to track Rasilii. Which they wouldn’t, he didn’t flatter himself he was so important in the scheme of things.

Life might not be so bad after all. Yelin was a sweet, compliant little thing, she might almost have been a Ziloni. Not like that shrew of a wife of his. He should have known better than to marry an off-worlder like her. So many of them didn’t know their place. He would miss the kids though.