The Misplaced Battleship Page 3

Guns!" I bellowed. "To the spaceyard. If that ship is anywherenear completion, we are in big, _big_ trouble!"

  * * * * *

  All the bored guards had a great time with the sirens, lights,accelerators on the floor and that sort of thing. We blasted a screaminghole through the night right to the spaceyard and through the gate.

  It didn't make any difference, we were still too late. A uniformedwatchman frantically waved to us and the whole convoy jerked to a stop.

  The ship was gone.

  Rocca couldn't believe it, neither could the president. They wandered upand down the empty ways where it had been built. I just crunched down inthe back of the car, chewing my cigar to pieces and cursing myself forbeing a fool.

  I had missed the obvious fact, being carried away by the thought of aplanetary government building a warship. The government was involved forsure--but only as a pawn. No little planet-bound political mind couldhave dreamed up as big a scheme as this. I smelled a rat--a stainlesssteel one. Someone who operated the way I had done before my conversion.

  Now that the rodent was well out of the bag I knew just where to look,and had a pretty good idea of what I would find. Rocca, the spaceyardmanager, had staggered back and was pulling at his hair, cursing andcrying at the same time. President Ferraro had his gun out and wasstaring at it grimly. It was hard to tell if he was thinking of murderor suicide. I didn't care which. All he had to worry about was the nextelection, when the voters and the political competition would carve himup for losing the ship. My troubles were a little bigger.

  I had to find the battleship before it blasted its way across thegalaxy.

  "Rocca!" I shouted. "Get into the car. I want to see your records--_all_of your records--and I want to see them right now."

  He climbed wearily in and had directed the driver before he fullyrealized what was happening. Blinking at the sickly light of dawnbrought him slowly back to reality.

  "But ... admiral ... the hour! Everyone will be asleep...."

  I just growled, but it was enough. Rocca caught the idea from myexpression and grabbed the car phone. The office doors were open when wegot there.

  Normally I curse the paper tangles of bureaucracy, but this was one timewhen I blessed them all. These people had it down to a fine science. Nota rivet fell, but that its fall was noted--in quintuplicate. And laterfollowed up with a memo, _rivet, wastage, query_. The facts I neededwere all neatly tucked away in their paper catacombs. All I had to dowas sniff them out. I didn't try to look for first causes, this wouldhave taken too long. Instead I concentrated my attention on the recentmodifications, like the gun turret, that would quickly give me a trailto the guilty parties.

  Once the clerks understood what I had in mind they hurled themselvesinto their work, urged on by the fires of patriotism and the burningvoices of their superiors. All I had to do was suggest a line of searchand the relevant documents would begin appearing at once.

  * * * * *

  Bit by bit a pattern started to emerge. A delicate webwork of forgery,bribery, chicanery and falsehood. It could only have been conceived by amind as brilliantly crooked as my own. I chewed my lip with jealousy.Like all great ideas, this one was basically simple.

  A party or parties unknown had neatly warped the ship constructionprogram to their own ends. Undoubtedly they had started the program forthe giant transport, that would have to be checked later. And once theprogram was underway, it had been guided with a skill that bordered ongenius. Orders were originated in many places, passed on, changed andshuffled. I painfully traced each one to its source. Many times thesource was a forgery. Some changes seemed to be unexplainable, until Inoticed the officers in question had a temporary secretary while theirnormal assistants were ill. All the girls had food poisoning, a regularepidemic it seemed. Each of them in turn had been replaced by the samegirl. She stayed just long enough in each position to see that thebattleship plan moved forward one more notch.

  This girl was obviously the assistant to the Mastermind who originatedthe scheme. He sat in the center of the plot, like a spider on its web,pulling the strings that set things into motion. My first thought that agang was involved proved wrong. All my secondary suspects turned out tobe simple forgeries, not individuals. In the few cases where forgerywasn't adequate, my mysterious _X_ had apparently hired himself to dothe job. _X_ himself had the permanent job of Assistant EngineeringDesigner. One by one the untangled threads ran to this office. He alsohad a secretary whose "illnesses" coincided with her employment in otheroffices.

  When I straightened up from my desk the ache in my back stabbed like ahot wire. I swallowed a painkiller and looked around at my drooping,sack-eyed assistants who had shared the sleepless seventy-two hour task.They sat or slumped against the furniture, waiting for my conclusions.Even President Ferraro was there, his hair looking scraggly where he hadpulled out handfuls.

  "You've found them, the criminal ring?" he asked, his fingers gropingover his scalp for a fresh hold.

  "I have found them, yes," I said hoarsely. "But not a criminal ring. Aninspired master criminal--who apparently has more executive ability inone ear lobe than all your bribe-bloated bureaucrats--and his femaleassistant. They pulled the entire job by themselves. His name, orundoubtedly pseudoname, is Pepe Nero. The girl is called Angelina...."

  "Arrest them at once! Guards ... guards--" Ferraro's voice died away ashe ran out of the room. I talked to his vanishing back.

  "That is just what we intend to do, but it's a little difficult at themoment since they are the ones who not only built the battleship, butundoubtedly stole it as well. It was fully automated so no crew isnecessary."

  "What do you plan to do?" one of the clerks asked.

  "I shall do nothing," I told him, with the snapped precision of an oldspace dog. "The League fleet is already closing in on the renegades andyou will be informed of the capture. Thank you for your assistance."

  * * * * *

  I threw them as snappy a salute as I could muster and they filed out.Staring gloomily at their backs I envied for one moment their simplefaith in the League Navy. When in reality the vengeful fleet was just asimaginary as my admiral's rating. This was still a job for the Corps.Inskipp would have to be given the latest information at once. I hadsent him a psigram about the theft, but there was no answer as yet.Maybe the identity of the thieves would stir some response out of him.

  My message was in code, but it could be quickly broken if someone wantedto try hard enough. I took it to the message center myself. The psimanwas in his transparent cubicle and I locked myself in with him. His eyeswere unfocused as he spoke softly into a mike, pulling in a messagefrom somewhere across the galaxy. Outside the rushing transcriberscopied, coded and filed messages, but no sound penetrated the insulatedwall. I waited until his attention clicked back into the room, andhanded him the sheets of paper.

  "League Central 14--rush," I told him.

  He raised his eyebrows, but didn't ask any questions. Establishingcontact only took a few seconds, as they had an entire battery of psimenfor their communications. He read the code words carefully, shaping themwith his mouth but not speaking aloud, the power of his thoughtscarrying across the light-years of distance. As soon as he was finishedI took back the sheet, tore it up and pocketed the pieces.

  I had my answer back quickly enough, Inskipp must have been hoveringaround waiting for my message. The mike was turned off to thetranscribers outside, and I took the code groups down in shorthandmyself.

  "... xybb dfil fdno, and if you don't--don't come back!"

  The message broke into clear at the end and the psiman smiled as hespoke the words. I broke the point off my stylus and growled at him notto repeat _any_ of this message, as it was classified, and I wouldpersonally see him shot if he did. That got rid of the smile, but didn'tmake me feel any better.

  The decoded message turned out not to be as bad as I had imagined. Untilfurther not
ice I was in charge of tracking and capturing the stolenbattleship. I could call on the League for any aid I needed. I wouldkeep my identity as an admiral for the rest of the job. I was to keephim informed of progress. Only those ominous last words in clear kept myhappiness from being complete.

  I had been handed my long-awaited assignment. But translated into simpleterms my orders were to get the battleship, or it would be my neck.Never a word about my efforts in uncovering the plot in the first place.This is a heartless world we live in.

  This moment of self-pity relaxed me and I immediately went to bed. Sincemy main job now was waiting, I could wait just as well asleep.

  * * * * *

  And waiting was all I could do. Of course there were secondary tasks,such as ordering a Naval cruiser for my own use, and digging for moreinformation on the thieves, but these really were secondary to my