The Mysterious Planet

CHAPTER 16 Vigil at Night

JAKES LISTENED TO THE PLAN, and shook his head. “It must be a fake, Bob. I don’t care how convincing it was. Look, do you think Wallingford’s dumb enough to send one man here when he’s busy trying to build up a fleet for an all-out invasion. And with an improved radar screen!”

“I know Dad’s voice!” Bob insisted.

“All right, so you know his voice. But do you know he is going to do what the message says? Do you even know that we’re not the only captives on this planet?”

Juan sat up abruptly. “What? How did you learn this, Simon?”

“I got it out of Emo, of course. The kid will do anything I ask—he thinks I’m his own personal freak.” Jakes lay back, watching the effect, and enjoying their faces. “All right, here’s the dope—and don’t go calling me a dumb spy from now on. Thule has a whole bunch of prisoners. They copped a whole freighter and a passenger ship. They’ve also picked up a couple of the men from Wing Nine who managed to live, and they put them back together.

Maybe a hundred and fifty persons altogether!”

“Then why haven’t we seen them?”

“I got a glimpse of them. Through a window. But they aren’t running around loose like us. None of this high and mighty courtesy, and all for the love-of-studying-us stuff for them. They’re locked up on the top floor of one of the buildings here. Emo says they get good treatment, and maybe he’s right. But not like us.”

He lifted himself up. “And if you want to know why we’re being treated this way, all I can guess is that they figure we’re young enough to make good suckers! Why else? Anyhow, if they’ve got prisoners—the ones from the freighter for months—why not your father?”

“They wouldn’t know about the kind of slang he used,” Bob tried to defend himself.

“They’d know we had some kind. Every language has slang,” Simon said.

Juan nodded. “That is true. And it is very difficult to make a slang sound real that is not. If they wanted your father to speak to you in slang, then he would be made to speak to you in slang. I think Simon is right. Better we should not go there. It is a trap.”

“I’m going,” Bob announced shortly. “If it is on the level, I’m not going to have him risking his life for nothing.”

“Well, you’ve got a point there. Hey, I know. That’s it!” Jakes got clear off the bed this time.

“Look, they found those papers missing. Only I did a good job, and they couldn’t trace them.

But they figured one of us must have ‘em. So they want you to bring them out, and they’ll just pick you up and get them back. Slick. As good as if I’d thought of it myself.”

That was the best guess Bob had heard. It could be true—in the event his father was a prisoner. But he still couldn’t be sure, and the feeling that the Thulians knew all about the stolen papers still stuck in his head.

“I’m going,” he repeated.

Jakes shrugged. “Okay, be a sucker. Go ahead. But not with the papers! I’ve got my own plans for them. I’m getting in thicker and thicker with Emo, and with everything else I’ve found, I should be leaving here any day. These ideas are my own, too—none of the stuff being planted on me, like your message. You’d better stick around until then, Bob.”

Juan nodded. “Simon has good plans, Bob. We can take off in the Icarius all together and with the papers.”

“You can keep your blasted papers!” Bob told them as he went out. But he wasn’t happy about it. He’d been counting on their being wild to take a chance with him, and it hurt to know that he would have to go it alone.

Here and there during the day, Bob picked up a complete set of dark gray clothing of the style worn here generally. It was the least visible stuff he could get. His mind was only partly on it, though. He was trying to remember the exact phrasing of the message. Some of it had sounded strange at the time. That business about “daddikins” was odd, considering that his own childhood name for his father had been a shortened mispronunciation of Commander—“kanner.” Yet, if his father had been in a hurry…

Jakes had ruined his faith, without giving him a good argument. And the two of them might at least have offered to help him, instead of being so smug about their own plans to steal back the Icarius.

But he should have known that they really meant to help. When he got back, Juan stood in the hall, holding a finger over his lips. Bob went up, and the boy leaned forward. “We’ve figured out how to get you free of Valin. Leave that to us, will you not?”

The problem of Valin had been bothering Bob. He nodded quickly, and went into the room to find the tape recorder turned on, and Jakes looking through a few of the reels. He was just about to put one on the machine, and his eyelid drew down in a quick wink.

“You aren’t going to start that thing, are you?” Bob asked indignantly.

“I dunno. I’ve been thinking over that stuff we heard. You know, it wasn’t so bad, at that. Kind of interesting…”

The caterwauling began as he finished speaking. It was a particularly vile example of Thulian music. Juan came in at once, his face taut with admiration. Behind him, a door opened, and Valin and Emo looked out.

“Get it out! Stop that stuff!” Bob yelled. “Either cut it out, or I’ll put a foot through that thing!”

Valin stepped in softly. “My favorite piece of music, Simon. I knew you’d learn to love it. There where the yornel breaks through like a wave on a cliff…”

“Lovely,” Juan said, and Jakes nodded slowly.

“Then take it somewhere else to appreciate it,” Bob ordered. “I’ve got a headache already.”

Jakes looked up at Valin. “Hey, do you think we could listen to it in your room?”

“It would be completely enjoyable,” the Thulian said instantly.

Emo brightened up. “A good old steam session, that’s what we’ll have. I’ve got some tapes with me that are really round!”

They went off quickly, and Bob waited until the door was closed and the sounds of the tape began to shriek out in the other suite. Good old Simon, he thought. Jakes was really making a sacrifice for him, spending a night listening to that stuff.

They were apparently well wound up when Bob sneaked down the hall and up the stairs to the subway. He’d avoided the lobby, where he might have been spotted. In the Thulian costume, he felt he looked fairly inconspicuous, though.

The subway rolled along, while the automatic map drew a picture for Bob, outlining his route in green, and showing where he had to transfer. He made good connections, and was at the proper end of the park long before he had expected.

Killing time was going to be hard. He sat on one of the padded benches, trying to watch the birds and make some kind of a plan, but the second hand of his watch seemed to be standing still. He fell to examining the park carefully for a hiding place, and decided on a tree at one side which had low, sweeping branches that should form a good spot.

Then the air began to darken softly, growing darker each minute. Bob waited until it was hard to see details, then got up and walked toward the tree. Beside it, he paused to look for anyone who might see him, then ducked under the branches and crouched down.

In five minutes, his legs were aching, and he had to stand up to rest them. He checked the little radio in his ear again, but it remained stubbornly silent. There was only the dopey mutter of birds and the rustling of wind through the leaves.

Then, straight ahead, a branch snapped. Bob peered forward through the branches. At first he could see nothing, but then a vague form came into view, walking across the grass right where his father must be planning to land. It moved ahead until it stood with its head silhouetted against the whiteness of one of the walks, turned its face up toward the sky, and seemed to be sniffing appreciatively of the air or admiring the stars!

The radium dial on Bob’s watch marked the passing of more minutes, and the man out there stood relaxed, his head turning a bit now and then, but apparently intending to park there all night.

Bob reached for his knife, regretting that he hadn’t brought the gas gun he’d taken from Valin. He was trying to convince himself that this was a military operation now, and that the man out there was an enemy— an enemy who stood in the way of success.

He got the knife open at last, and balanced it. He’d been trained at throwing one, and this fitted his hand nicely. The blade was sharp, and the man was a perfect target. Then Bob let out a soft sigh of disgust and closed the weapon, dropping it back in his pocket. Maybe he was being yellow—but all he could think of was that the man was a human being, almost like himself, and one of a group who had never treated him with anything but courtesy and respect. He couldn’t do it.

Abruptly, there was no need. The man took a final deep breath and moved over to the sidewalk. He swung off down the park, making a faint whistling sound between his teeth, leaving the place to Bob.

Half of the hour of darkness was already gone. Bob moved out a bit where he could explore the sky above, looking for a tiny streak of blue that would be a rocket exhaust, but there was nothing but a speckle of stars shining through streaks in the clouds. Of course, the rocket might be behind one of the clouds, out of his view.

But it was getting late now, and he had to face other unpleasant alternatives. It was more probable that his father had been caught in the warning system, and that one of the super-speed missiles had gone shooting up to intercept him, or that he had been spotted coming down and was even now being carted off toward their prison. To have gotten through the net once and away again was nearly unbelievable luck; a second time would be a minor miracle.

Thule must have picked up the radio signal, anyhow. And Bob had no idea of how clever they were at decoding. If the language machine worked both ways, and there was no reason he could see why it shouldn’t, then they would have had time to strip the minds of their captives of all the information needed to interpret it.

Jakes’s words kept coming back to him. When he looked at them honestly, he had to admit that the other’s explanation of it as a simple trap was better than any other reasoning. And in that case, they had already captured Commander Griffith, and they must be waiting patiently, enjoying their joke on Bob.

But there were still ten minutes left of darkness, and it would be stupid to quit at this stage.

With the heat and light in the air turned down, it had grown cold, and Bob’s teeth began to chatter faintly as he strained to see up through the clouds. He should have worn something warmer, but he hadn’t been out in Thule’s brief night before.

There was the sound of quiet steps in the distance behind him, and he drew deeper into the shadows. Normally, the people of Thule preferred to stay indoors during the darkness, but tonight seemed to be jinxed.

As he listened, there were still more steps along the sidewalk to his right.

Suspicion was stronger in him now, but he tried to play the game out by pulling himself up to the bole of the tree. His fingers explored above him for a handhold he could use in climbing up it, but the branches were just too high here. He couldn’t jump for it without attracting their attention.

It was growing lighter again, moving from night to dawn in a few minutes. He huddled against the tree, unable to see through the drooping branches, except for a few inches near the ground. He could make out feet moving on the sidewalk, and saw another pair cross the grass—probably the man whom he had heard behind him. The two met and stopped, and he could hear their soft voices, too low for the words to be clear.

They stood there for a minute or so, until the full light of day was restored, and the last faint hope that Bob’s father might still land had vanished. He edged around silently, putting the trunk of the tree between himself and the feet, watching to make sure he didn’t step on a twig that would give him away. The voices went on, revealing that they were still there.

Bob debated trying to sneak away, keeping the tree between them. He could also just saunter out casually, as if he had been coming across the grass and had simply passed under the tree. If they hadn’t been watching too closely, this move might not catch their attention. Certainly he couldn’t simply stand there all day. Valin must have missed him by now, and there was probably a hue and cry going up for him right at the moment.

Then his puzzle was settled from outside.

“Bob Griffith,” a voice called out quietly. “Bob, you might as well come out from behind that tree.”

It was Valin’s voice. Bob grunted in angry self-disgust and futility and bent down to come out.

Waiting for him on the sidewalk were Ondu and Valin, both carrying the little hand guns at their hips.