Gilpin's Space, page 20
“That’ll be fine, Henry. I remember him as a college kid, and I hope he does decide to join us. Besides, an extra ship will give us that much more cargo and passenger space.”
He beamed. “I’ll be back at dinnertime.”
He left me worrying about whether his son, whom I’d never met, would really be able to cope in the Far Reaches—for certainly there’d be no way in which we could decently turn him down—and also whether a third ship might not overcomplicate problems headachey enough already.
I needn’t have worried. When Chris Kwei turned up about a half-hour later, after we and the Placeks and the other Underseas people had swapped experiences and compared notes, instinct—that instinct the Far Reaches and Laure’s World had awakened, which I still wasn’t used to—told me instantly that he was absolutely solid. A little taller than his father, athletic and obviously in top shape, he had slightly wavy hair, always surprising in a Chinese. His manner was calm, forthright, and alertly intelligent.
He greeted Laure as warmly as Henry had, and she introduced him to us. Pussycat’s people, of course, knew him well. Henry had told him just enough that he could scarcely control his eagerness to hear more, and we spent what remained of the afternoon telling him about Laure’s World and the plans we’d made for it and for ourselves, and letting Owl show him the video record. Once he had seen our neighbors of the reef, nothing could have detered him from joining us.
When we sat down to dinner, there were fourteen of us at table, for Chris’ wife had joined us and so had Latourette’s, and the Placeks had brought his sister. Immediately, serious conversation ceased and celebration started. Toast after toast was proposed, and the wine, now that we were back on Earth and didn’t have to worry about running out of it, flowed freely. We didn’t forget the job ahead of us. Nor did we forget the danger we were in and the risks all of us were going to have to run. We shelved them. It was like R & R in time of war, and all the more enjoyable because of it.
When the party finally broke up shortly after eleven, we could still hear Henry’s men working away at Owl’s facelift, and the fact that they kept on going through the night didn’t disturb my sleep at all. On the two or three occasions when I woke and heard them, it was a reassuring sound, a guarantee that everything possible was being done to improve our chances. That night not one of us stood watch. Somehow we knew we could accept Placek’s assurance that Henry Kwei’s security system was impregnable.
3
We kept busy—very busy. We reviewed our lists constantly, consulting Henry and Chris and Placek, and the Kweis did all the ordering and purchasing. Within hours, supplies started to arrive dockside, and Placek’s crew took over the job of loading them, some on Owl, some on Pussycat. On the afternoon of the second day, Chris’ own ship came in, a bit shorter than our two, rather more gracefully designed, and with very different servos for more delicate manipulation. She moored to the dock’s extreme end, getting ready for her Gilpin drive.
Henry turned one of the dock offices over to us, and it was there that we interviewed people like the cosmetic artist who was going to disguise Franz and Linda, the expert forger whose job it was to provide them with convincing passports and other documents, and an occasional agent from the Free Space underground.
That underground was extremely efficient. Its first reports started to come in within forty-eight hours. They had located Linda’s Swede, and he was indeed in Canada, but not in the North Woods at all. He had a job with a heavy equipment dealer in Ottawa and was considered a real expert. Linda promised us that she’d have no difficulty getting him to come along— all she had to do was say she’d many him. The forger provided her with a Danish passport, complete with a record of her alleged travels showing that she’d been working for a Scandinavian firm in Melbourne for three years, and with credit cards and other identification. He took her passport photograph himself after the cosmetic man had finished with her. Her disguise was simplicity itself: a slight hair rinse; a very different hairdo; eyebrows tilted, darkened, narrowed; glasses she didn’t need—that sort of thing. He also studied her distinguishing mannerisms, and coached her in avoiding them. With Laure’s advice, Chris’ wife got her an entire new wardrobe in none of her once-favorite styles and colors. Then she spent two full days responding to her new name, not responding when somebody called Linda! and generally being another person. When the experts agreed she was as ready as she’d ever be, a Gilpin ship dropped her at a remote airfield somewhere behind Suva, where a car was waiting for her. Three hours later, her plane left for Canada on schedule.
Getting Jamie off was even simpler. Someone in the underground got in touch with his uncle directly, using the special identifying phrases Jamie had given him, and told him that a Gilpin ship could deliver Jamie to the ketch on any reasonably radar-safe stretch of sea off his coast. All he had to do was set the time and place: the transfer would take seconds only—if they had to, they’d simply drop him off with a life jacket and Alec could throw him a line. Jamie said that’d be fine with him; he didn’t mind a bit of wet. The message came back giving exact chart coordinates and setting a time after sunset on the following Saturday, and he was gone. Next day we heard that he’d arrived, and that all was well.
Franz, in the meantime, had to wait for clearances on the dozen or so people he was to contact. He and Laure occupied what little spare time they had accustoming Pussycat’s people as well as Chris and his wife and two kids, a boy and a girl, to the Structural Differential and to dream sessions. Laure had checked them all, and in her opinion none of them would have too much trouble in the Far Reaches. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t have rough going—just that they’d make it.
As for me, I spent most of my time checking purchases, thinking up new “absolute musts,” helping the others when I could, and—I’m ashamed to say it—worrying.
A shipmaster should worry, I told myself, as one doubt after another assailed me, and new causes for worry kept appearing as though by black magic. I worried about the fact that we really knew next to nothing about Linda’s Lars—despite the fact that on Laure’s World and in the Far Reaches I’d never given it a second thought. I began to worry about those of Placek’s crew whom I had not known at Underseas—there were only two of them—and about Henry’s employees, and everything else my imagination could conjure up, including what might happen to Franz if even one of the people he was to contact ratted on him, and what might then become of us. After a couple of days of this, I decided to talk it over with Laure, and she, having listened patiently, suggested that I take a nap.
“Laure, are you serious?” I demanded. “What good would that do?”
’Take a nap,” she repeated. “Pretend you’re a cat. Relax totally, and think of Janet, only of Janet. Then see how you feel.”
I didn’t think much of her advice, but I took it. In my cabin, I laid down and consciously tried to let myself go limp. With my right hand, I touched my wedding ring, and let my memories flow spontaneously, from our first meeting, through our courtship, through the years that followed, all the way to our last night together on Laure’s World. I began to doze—and suddenly, in that strange, crystal clear world between sleeping and waking, it was as though no distance separated us. First, I felt Janet’s lips touch mine, ever so lightly, then her hand on my forehead; and then I heard her voice, Geoffrey, Geoff! Listen to me. Your worries aren’t entirely yours. They’re mostly the mad voices of the world around you, almost like those in the Far Reaches. You don’t have to let it torment you so. Don’t let your guard down—you are among real dangers. But you can put those worries in their proper place so that they’ll lose their power.
Feeling her there beside me, I slept, and when I woke an hour later, my mind was alert, fully aware, but at ease. I went to Laure and told her of it, but she only smiled, unsurprised, and said that she was glad.
When I told Franz about it, later, he looked at me very seriously and told me that he, relaxed and at the point of sleep, felt as though he had never been away from Bess. “But my dreams of her,” he said, actually embarrassed, “are—well, like those I used to have when I was about fourteen. And every time I realize she’s laughing at me, but—but, dammit, it’s fun anyway.”
Finally the reports on Franz’s contacts started coming in, and all but two were favorable. One of those, a tenured professor, had been purchased by the IPP’s destruction of the man who had outpointed him for a major administrative appointment; another was a radio astronomer whose wife had denounced his space-oriented friends and colleagues in exchange for IPP’s saving her delinquent son from a major felony conviction. I felt that we were lucky in each instance. Reports on the others were definitely encouraging. Tammy’s cousin, a Sansei dental surgeon with a hapahaole wife and five sturdy children, built and flew model rockets as a hobby. Another in Hawaii, Peter Dougall, was a close friend of his; newly married, he was a high-tech man in optics, and belonged to at least two pro-space groups. At Stanford, there was a girl friend of Bess Mayhew’s, described as brilliant, beautiful, and on the point of being fired from the University for her forthright political opinions; she was unmarried, but had a live-in boyfriend in her own department: vertebrate zoology. They were convention-going science-fiction buffs.
In addition, Franz was going to have to contact four friends of his: Andy Feuerbach, a rancher-agronomist in Colorado, Antonina Tam, a veterinary student at U.C., Davis, and Ollie Taliaferro and Terry Ann Golding, both of whom worked for a leading computer outfit near San Jose. Feuerbach was married and had three offspring; the others were single. It meant that Franz was going to have to make at least seven and perhaps eight separate contacts, for in the atmosphere the IPP had created who would dare to trust an absolute stranger? Besides, there was always the possibility that one or another of our recruits would want to take a close friend or relative along, so he would have to interview those, too.
I didn’t think it fair to him, and said so. “I know we’ve gone over all this before,” I told him, “but the risk ought to be more fairly distributed. Is there any good reason why I can’t help along?”
“Indeed there is, Commander, sir. It’s because I know almost all these people, and you don’t. Besides, if you went kiting off on my press gang detail, you’d more than double the chances of Br’er Breck getting us. Then you and Owl couldn’t come plopping down out of Gilpin’s Space to pick us up if we scream for you.”
I argued that Placek could do that with Pussycat, but neither Franz nor Laure bought it, so—still feeling guilty—I gave it up, and we settled on working out as swift and effective a modus operandi as we could. With Henry’s help, we outlined a communications network with the underground, providing as many fail-safe alternatives as possible. We decided that in a few cases, primarily where we were dealing with singles and childless couples, and where they could plausibly announce they were taking a few days’ rest or vacation, they could make at least the first stages of the journey under their own power, probably to designated assembly points where we could pick them up when we picked up one or more of the families. Franz would have to pass the word to us via the underground. We discussed what each of them would be asked to bring along, and prepared lists of things we’d purchase for them to ensure against their overloading and wasting too much time in preparations. In the majority of cases, Henry assured us, the under ground could expedite any requests they’d make, using carefully selected commercial computer Channels, where orders would arouse no suspicions even if monitored. Tentatively, we allowed six weeks for the operation, more than enough time for Henry to complete the conversion of his son’s ship and for us to finish our buying and provisioning.
Or so we thought.
A day or so after Linda’s departure, the disguise artist began to work on Franz. To the accompaniment of dreadful moans, off came the heroic moustache—not completely, to our surprise. Now, on Franz’s upper lip, there was an almost pencil-thin line, too closely shaven, too carefully nurtured. “Lord God!” he exclaimed, when he first saw it in the mirror. “I look like a Buenos Aires gigolo!”
“Precisely,” agreed the disguise man, vastly pleased. “All the so-nice rich ladies will be thinking so, yes?”
“Yes, goddam it!”
The next step, almost as traumatic, was the cutting and taming of his ordinarily feral hair, parting it ever so tidily on one side, slicking it down with something smelly, and making his eyebrows decidedly less masculine. Somehow, too, the disguise artist managed to increase the angle at which his ears stuck out, and, with a subtle lotion, to shadow the skin under his lower lip so that he looked absolutely sullen, and to alter the appearance of his nostrils. Suddenly, he hardly looked like Franz at all, and I told him so. “My lad,” I said, “you’re going to have to watch your step. Remember, we’re depending on you. You can’t abandon us to become some ever-so-rich woman’s mascot.”
He answered me very rudely, then apologized to Laure for it.
After that, the artist carefully coached him for a day or two, just as he had Linda, only more so. He taught him how to mince a little when he walked, how to pitch his voice a little higher, how to avoid habitual mannerisms. He even insisted that he start smoking cigarettes, which everyone knew he was passionately against. Like Linda, too, he was provided with a passport, Canadian in his case, a background of overseas employment, and a devoted aunt in Quebec, complete with well-worn picture. She had only recently been installed in one of the underground’s safe-houses, and was to be one of his main contacts. Finally, a Gilpin ship picked him up for Suva, where he would take off by commercial airline for Hawaii, his first stop.
His passport said he was an accountant—a profession few people find interesting enough to ask too many questions about, and one that provided him with a ready-made out for those who did: He was just so damned tired of juggling books that all he wanted was to run the few errands his boss had sent him on, see a bit more of the wicked world, and take it easy for a while. The messages he carried for Tammy and for Bess, as well as his recordings of Laure’s World, were all on special microflexes, undetectable by ordinary airport and police search devices. They could be set to wipe after one playing or if anyone unauthorized tried to use them. They would play through any video setup.
Naturally, we worried about Franz, for a great deal could conceivably go wrong, but we told ourselves that he had a good head and that he’d have the underground to fall back on in emergencies. Anyhow, we had other fish to fry. Supplies kept arriving. Work on Chris Kwei’s neat little ship progressed rapidly. Then, too, we had people to consider—people who might or might not be suitable. Oddly enough, when the parents passed muster, the children inevitably did, too. We didn’t have to weed out any of Placek’s folk, but when it came to checking Chris’ crew, we found that all but three, his Dutch nukepak engineer, his captain, and his cook, were too uncertain, possibly too Earthbound, to consider. That made no difference, really; they had not been told what was in the wind, and Henry Kwei simply transferred them to non-space vessels.
Within a week, we began to get messages from Franz. He had stayed with Jerry Sakakura, Tammy’s Sansei relative, for two days, and had found the whole family sick of the IPP, scared of the future, and—best of all—qualified. They fell in love with Laure’s World at first sight. Luckily, they had been planning a vacation in Tahiti, talking about it to all their friends, and felt that if they announced they’d suddenly been offered bargain fares no one would question their leaving a couple of days early; other dental surgeons at the clinic would stand in for him. Franz made arrangements with the underground to pick up professional equipment and everything else that wasn’t ordinary tourist luggage. They could be expected to arrive in a week or so. However, their friend Peter Dougall and his wife would have to make other arrangements. Under cover of a business trip to the mainland, which he could manage, they’d rendezvous with others in the Bay Area who had to be picked up directly by Gilpin ship.
Then, rather to our surprise, Linda showed up with her big Swede, Lars Nordstrom. She had had no difficulty persuading him, not only because she was marrying him, but also because he was well aware of the menace in Earth’s future and of the hope and adventure promised by Laure’s World. Laure took one look at him and knew that he would do: a powerful man, so relaxed that he seemed deceptively slow, so confident of his own strength and sanity that he radiated security. He had had only a sketchy formal education, but he spoke English with only a faint accent, and we found out later that he not only seemed to know something about everything, but could turn his hand to almost any task. He’d told his employers that he was running off to marry a girl from the old country; and they’d given him their blessing. Linda told us that they’d gone to Vancouver by train, then flown to Japan as tourists, then on to Taiwan. No one had subjected them to close questioning. Then, much embarrassed, she had explained that, well, they still weren’t married. It was because—well, it was because—
Laure interrupted her. “My dear,” she said, “obviously it was because there wasn’t a ship’s captain around to marry you.” She turned to me. “Commander Cormac, please get your Gideon Bible.”
I did perform the ceremony, but not then. We waited until work was over and everyone could attend, and in the meantime, by one of Laure’s organizing miracles, everyone had sent ashore for wedding presents and champagne and a terrific cake. I couldn’t give them Owl’s best cabin for their honeymoon— the captain’s was too instrumented—but we did the best we could.
Everyone felt that things were starting off auspiciously, and certainly during the next few days our morale was high. Chris especially was bubbling with enthusiasm. As soon as his drive was completed and installed aboard Young Unicom, his ship, he insisted on taking off, not just for Gilpin’s Space, but for the Far Reaches. He wanted me to come, but there was no way I could leave Owl and Laure, so Placek and Latourette went with him. They were gone five Earth-days, and Chris was so hyped on the Far Reaches—all he could talk about was Laure’s World and its underwater beings—that he didn’t even bother to take a look at Mars or Venus or even the outer planets; he just wanted to make sure he’d survive the tough spots. Now he was full of confidence, thinking of new equipment he could order, new ways he could help the rest of us. I told him about our plan to carry Alec’s ketch as deckload, surrounding it with a metal cobweb to have it within the Gilpin field, and delighted, he told me he owned a yacht himself, a thirty-five-foot junk, specially built for him of teak and designed for the high seas, and with a mininuke auxiliary providing power for everything. At once, he started arranging with Placek to carry it as Pussycat’s deckload—his own ship was a bit too short—and the two of them, with Lars’ active help, had a wonderful time designing a cradle for her and getting the metal webbing ready.
