“The information will be easy to supply. The earlier bulletin announced that the TakaiCha is going at 0645 hours today…”

“What time is it now?”

Hanasu blinked farsightedly at his watch and finally made out the numbers. “O-three-one-one,” he said.

“Can you get transportation? Get me there in time?”

He had to think about this for awhile before reluctantly nodding. “Normally, no. I have no reason to take the car out. But tonight I could report that I am volunteering for the search. They will probably say yes.”

“We can only try.”

The ploy worked. Within ten minutes we were bouncing over the iron-hard snow in an electrically powered, ski-mounted, propeller driven bone-breaker of an unsprung vehicle. No luxuries here. The heater was nonexistent, as were cushions on the seats. These people carried the hairshirt business entirely too far. My newly built radio-ejector was fitted with a strap so I could sling it over my shoulder. All the tools I might need were in a bag beside it. I looked out at the snowflakes whipping through the beams of the headlight and tried to plan ahead.

“How close can you get me to the fence?” I asked.

“As close as you like. There are no roads or marked tracks as you can see. The radio direction finder is followed from point to point.”

“That’s good news. Here is the plan. You drop me off at the fence and keep going. But mark the spot. Come back in exactly one hour. If you see any excitement or hear any alarm on the radio stay away.”

“That is good. There will be enough time then for me to get back to the school and take the poison.”

“Have it instead of breakfast, right. But don’t do anything until you are sure they have me. There may be trouble, but they will not have an easy time grabbing hold of me.”

“You have skied before?”

“I’m a champion.”

It was a piece of cake. Twice we saw the lights of other cars, but they kept their distance. There was a good deal of rushing about this night. Then we were among dark buildings, bouncing over the ruts and doing suicide slides around corners. Hanasu was a real cold-nerved hotrod driver. The fence appeared and we paralleled it. The lights of a gate were visible ahead, then suddenly blotted out by a swirl of snow.

“I bail out here,” I shouted. “Look at your watch and keep moving.”

I threw my gear out into the snow and dived after it. The car was moving even before I landed, the blast from the propeller enveloping me in a sudden blizzard. It was dark, cold, miserable—and perfect cover. I took a detector from the toolbag and cautiously approached the fence.

There was absolutely nothing to it. I could have neutralized the simple alarm and cut my way through that fence with one eye closed, standing on one leg with my right hand behind my back. In fact, since I have always felt that a little bit of the old personal braggadocio does no harm, I closed my eye, stood on one leg, grabbed the back of my neck with my hand—and did the job that way. Only when the links had been cut did I use both hands, holding the opening wide with one and pushing my oddments through with the other. Then it was the work of a moment to close the links with the molecular welder, put on the skis and slide off into the darkness. Behind me my tracks were already filling in. The first part of the job was done.

There was no problem in finding the spacer. In the darkness of the spaceport the ship was lit up brighter than day. I slithered towards it, staying close to the darkened buildings until I was behind the last one and looking out across the pad.

What a lovely sight. Lights burned brightly on towers, hissing when the snow blew against them. Men and vehicles scurried about servicing the tall spire of the ship. And there, prominent on the tailfin, was the name, Takai Cha. This was the ship; it would be leaving soon just as planned.

Only how was I ever going to get close enough to fix my gadget into place?

Sixteen

That was a problem that obviously had but one solution. I was not going to get near the ship dressed as I was. But I could go there and work on the hull unremarked if I looked like one of the servicemen. So—I had to put the grab on one of the service men.

It was easy enough to find a dark corner behind some bins to stow my gear. But the kidnapping proved a good deal harder. I prowled around the fringes of the lit area like a wolf around a campfire, but with little result. No one left, no one arrived. The laborers labored on with Kekkonshikian plod, slowly and carefully with no display of emotion. I was displaying enough for all of them. Hanasu’s watch tripped through the seconds and minutes—and then the hour. I had missed my appointment. What was worse I had not done the job I had come for. In less than an hour more the spacer would be taking off and there was still no way of getting near it.

My patience was gone, I was frothing slightly, and thinking up and rejecting one suicidal plan after another, when one of the servicemen decided to leave. He climbed down from the service gantry and walked slowly through the accumulated snow toward one of the buildings. I had to zip around the back, slither on my belly past some lit windows, then dash to the front again. It worked because I was just in time to see him enter a door marked “BENJO” in large letters. I whisked in right behind him and saw what a benjo was.

Being a respecter of certain rights I restrained myself and let him finish his communion with the gods of the watercloset before I decked him. This also made sure that his fingers were busy with zips and buttons. He never knew what hit him. I knew, it was the edge of my hand. After that it was off with his coveralls, zip-zip with the wire on ankles and wrists, another bit around his head to hold the gag into place, then back into the john. I wired him to the plumbing and locked him into the cubicle. I could have left him out in the snow to freeze to death, but this went very much against my own moral philosophy that I had been preaching to Hanasu. I also happened to believe in it. All would go well as long as he wasn’t discovered until after the spacer took off. Which would not be long now.

His coveralls were a tight fit but I doubted if anyone would notice the difference. His safety helmet covered my head and, with the collar turned up, very little of me was visible. Now for the final step.

I felt very conspicuous marching out under the lights with the tube under one arm, the tool bag slung casually in the other. And I had to walk slow, slog along when I wanted to run. This was hard to do, but my only safety lay in looking normal. Slow and steady. No one looked up, no one seemed to care about anything except his own work. I still sighed deeply when I reached the cab of the mobile gantry and threw in my things. The controls were simple enough. Slowly and carefully I drove around the base of the ship, out of sight of any of the servicemen for the moment. But there might be men watching who I could not see in the darkness so I still moved at the sluggish pace of the others. Onto the gantry with my equipment, then slowly up beside the fin to the top, the standard location of the flare ejector.

Of course there wasn’t one there. This made little difference since I was now taking the place of one of the only people who might spot my addition. It had to go on and on it went. The molecular welder hummed happily and the metal of the holddown fins was joined irrevocably to the metal of the hull. It would not be visible from the ground in the still driving snow.

“Do the job, baby,” I said, patting it affectionately. Then back down and a quick vanishing act.

This time I didn’t risk the walk but drove the gantry away instead, parking it in the shadow of the nearest building. Ten minutes to go. A car rolled out with the crew who stamped stolidly aboard. The other cranes and platforms were pulling away as well and it was getting very close to takeoff time.