“Wroclaw Witold Jaruzelski went and bought a gun.
Now he sat and stared at it, wond’ring what the hell he’d done.”
Not much of a poem, the doctor mused as he considered the icy, inorganic shape of the weapon that was presently nesting in his open drawer like a sedated cobra. But that was all right. Physicians weren’t expected to be creative. Methodical; that was much better. Methodical and prepared.
He had arranged for the purchase of the gun under the requisition category labeled “essential medical instrumentation.” There was a certain poetry in that, too. He reached for it and stroked the unyielding composite barrel with his fingers. Fingers that were practiced at putting people back together again, not the other way around. Difficult to believe so much destruction could emerge from so small an orifice.
Feeling slightly faint, he shut the drawer, knowing for a certainty now that no matter how much he might want to, he wouldn’t be able to shoot the man who called himself Nial. The gun, then, had been a waste of money. Except that while he now knew he couldn’t carry it through, being able to contemplate the act had temporarily made him feel a little better. It was just as well. Killing the broker wouldn’t solve his problems, nor prolong the lives of those presently immobilized in Intensive Care.
Nial was the death-merchant, not he.
Now you’re being profound, Wroclaw, he told himself, and you haven’t time to waste on philosophical maunderings. The broker was due in his office any minute.
The door announced him. Jaruzelski impatiently granted admittance.
Nial seemed relaxed and in good spirits. And why not? Jaruzelski mused. He was about to make a great deal of money.
“Morning, Doc. How’re things in the healing profession?” Without waiting to be asked, he helped himself to the chair opposite the chief surgeon’s desk.
“As well as can be expected on a new world. We’ve isolated and synthesized cures for many of the endemic diseases, but as you know, some of the most obnoxious are also the most persistent. I must always concern myself with sterilizing thoroughly whenever I leave a native ward lest I carry the seeds of possible contamination with me.”
There, that got a twitch out of him, by God! Jaruzelski was pleased at having made the usually imperturbable broker react.
“Don’t worry, I’m clean.”
“Would you tell me if you weren’t?” the broker asked pleasantly. “No matter. You’d infect me, and gladly, in a minute, but no telling who else might walk in. So I believe you.
“Much as I’d like to stay and chat, I have other business to attend to. Do you want the stuff, or do I advise my local friends to buy shares in the domestic mortuary business?”
Jaruzelski picked up a fluid stylus and fiddled with the trim. “Did your employers agree to the proposed payment arrangements and method of exchange?”
Nial nodded. “Yeah, it’s fine with them. I also put in a good word for you. I like you, Doc. You’re a dedicated kind of guy.”
Fortunately for you, not dedicated enough, Jaruzelski mused regretfully, thinking of the gun reposing unused in the drawer. “How soon can we take delivery?”
“As soon as payment clears. Don’t waste your time trying to have someone trace it. You can bet that since my suppliers were efficient enough to acquire the goods, they’re smart enough to conceal payment.”
“I don’t have the time to worry about things like that,” Jaruzelski told him honestly. “I have seriously ill patients to tend to.”
“Yeah, you’re a good man, all right. A little stubborn, but that’s understandable. I’ll arrange the details.” Nial rose and, to the doctor’s great relief, did not extend a hand. He wanted as little contact with this human maggot as possible. “Been interesting doing business with you. No hard feelings.”
The chief surgeon eyed the broker coldly. “I sincerely hope there actually exists a traditional theological Hell and that you go straight to it.”
Nial chuckled. “Naw, I wouldn’t care for it there. I like skiing too much.”
Manz was half dozing when the motion alarm clipped to his right ear jolted him back to full wakefulness. He’d worried it would be tempting to drift off in the dark, peaceful silence of the sealed container, so he’d had the alarm installed as a precaution. Rubbing his eyes and sucking tea, he had a quick look outside.
Nothing had changed within the security shed. Light-amplifying diodes provided just enough illumination for him to see by. None of the other crates and packages containing important but less valuable commodities awaiting transshipment had been touched. A quick check of the special instrumentation that had been installed in the Braun-Roche-Keck shipping container along with its single sleepy inhabitant revealed that a near-vacuum still existed outside as well as within.
That reminded him to check his rebreather. The cartridge that purified his recycled air was still more than four-fifths active, and his supplementary oxygen supply hardly dented. Everything was functioning according to plan.
It was an elegant and bold attempt to catch the jackers … and something of a last resort. Steal my pharmaceuticals, steal me, he mused. If this didn’t work, if the drugs vanished right from under his eyes, Braun-Ives’s next step might well be to call in a metaphysician or two.
Now if only the jackers were sufficiently confident to cooperate. You couldn’t crack a jack without thieves.
His left side was beginning to cramp. Moving slowly and taking his time, he worked his body around into a different position one muscle at a time. It wouldn’t do any good to try to move quickly. Bundled within the container as he was, fast moves would only get him hurt. All those years of gymnastic training were paying off. The adjuster was as limber as he was strong.
A smaller man would’ve had an easier time of it in the crate. But no way would Manz have allowed another Braun- Ives operative or one of Hafas’s shorter officers to take his place. This was his project, he’d been on it from the start, and he was going to see it through to whatever end it met. These jackers he’d never met had cast an unprecedented shadow over his professional competence.
More than that, he was damn curious to find out how they were getting away with it.
His com whispered. “You all right in there, Manz?” Hafas’s voice.
He twisted his lips toward the tiny pickup attached to his breathing mask. “Snug as a mug in a fug. Or a drugged lug. Or something like that. How about some bacon and eggs, over easy? The real stuff. No soy for this boy.”
“Would if we could.” Hafas sounded genuinely sorry.
“But we can’t,” Manz finished for him. “One of the things I’d like to know is how our happy-jacks know when the real pharmaceuticals are arriving. Braun-Roche-Keck ships through empty fake containers on a regular basis, but they’re never bothered.”
“Has to be someone inside your labs supplying the info.”
“That’s my thought also. But first things first. Time enough to track down the leak. Best way is catch the jackers and just ask them.”
“Any time now,” said the inspector encouragingly.
“Yeah. Not that it would be so terrible if this special shipment made it into orbit and reached its intended destinations. But I’d sure like to catch these bastards first.”
“If they haven’t panicked or decided to pack it in.”
“Yeah. Any word on when the shuttle’s due in to pick up this gift box?”
“Seven hours. Maybe eight. No longer.”
“Guess I can stick it out ’til then. Time for the Count to sign off. Keep an eye on the mausoleum for me. The view in here’s nothing to write home about. Same goes for the accommodations.”
In Security Central Moses studied Vyra as she ran through a series of exercises designed to keep her loose and alert. The rest of the Port staff tried hard not to stare, some having more success at this than others. Not all who stared at her were men, and not all who looked away were women. She had that kind of effect on people. With her double-jointed arms she was able to perform certain exercises even the most agile homeworld contortionist could not have duplicated.
“It is possible,” Moses announced into the comparative silence, “that our ruse has been detected and no attempt will be made this time.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Hafas sipped at a coffee. “If they move we vape ’em, and if they don’t then the shipment gets through. It’s a win-win situation for us.”
Vyra straightened and sauntered over. Despite the strenuous activity, she wasn’t even perspiring. “Unless they get away with this one, too.”
The inspector peered around at the gracile offworlder, wondering not for the first time if she was married. Then he remembered that he was. “You really think that’s possible, with your colleague in there?”
“No, I don’t. But then, I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to pull off four successful jackings in a row at the same Port, and they have. Right now my credibility quotient’s about this big.” She stretched her hands wide. The suit she was wearing stretched too. So did the inspector’s eyes. He turned hurriedly back to the bank of monitors he’d been watching.
Numerals flashed by on multiple chronometers as nothing continued to not-happen. Just as oil could displace water, so tension was being replaced by disinterest and subsequent boredom. Their private eternity was reduced by three hours, then four, then five.
“They’re not here,” she mumbled much later. “They’re not going to try. Is the shuttle still on time?”
Hafas glanced tiredly at a readout. In cooperation with Port Authority, Security had established and maintained a steady-state link with the outworld freighter drifting in geosynchronous orbit.
“Drop is scheduled in one hour, fifty-five minutes,” he intoned. “Well, it was an interesting idea, but it looks like we haven’t fooled anyone except ourselves.” His attention strayed to additional telltales and a single notation. “Two hours ago something small and fast broke one of the greenbeams. The intrusion was duly reported and analyzed. Says here that based on its schematic the techs think it was a honeybee that wandered in from outside, probably hitching a ride on somebody’s pants.” His expression was glum. “Unless you count a little pollen, it didn’t take anything.”
She responded with a singular low whistling noise. It was an offworld reaction, and its significance escaped him.
Manz had about had enough of his voluntary confinement. If their quarry were going to make a move, they were fast running out of time. At this point he doubted that they were. Maybe, he hoped, the shuttle would be early and he could finally get out of this damn box. The recycler continued to supply him with breathable air, but it was starting to grow stale.
Like this not-so-brilliant notion, he told himself.
He thumbed a switch on his feeder tube and got warm broth instead of cold tea. For the past half-hour his thoughts had been largely of solid food. That, and a chance to straighten up and lie down on a real bed. Wearily, he put his eye to the peep lens for what seemed like the millionth time.
In the dim light he thought he saw movement. Not through the lens, but within the container. Inside with him.
Absurd. He’d been folded inside the crate for so long that he was starting to see things. In the darkness, that wasn’t surprising. Fatigue was beginning to take its toll. It was a wonder his eyes hadn’t started playing tricks on him hours ago.
There it was again.
Fascinated and astonished, he nearly forgot to breathe as he watched the tiny drill bore a hole two centimeters wide in the bottom of his container. It was exactly the size of the holes that had been cut in the undersides of the four much smaller shipping containers whose contents had previously been jacked. The operation was carried out soundlessly, with great precision and an absence of sensor-activating waste heat.
A perfectly circular section of composite fell out of the bottom of the box, leaving a smooth-edged hole behind. Twisting around and bending forward, he thought he could see a matching hole in the material of the security shed floor.
Snip a hole and save the cut-out, then when you’re finished seam the excised disc back in place. The building appears inviolate and no one’s the wiser. Do it over and over, again and again, as often as you please. Clever, oh so very clever, he thought.
Except for one thing. The hole was only four centimeters wide. How could you get a hand through an opening that small? For that matter, how could you have a body attached to the hand? The raised floor of the shed was maybe half a meter thick, the open space underneath crisscrossed by alarm beams and under constant vid surveillance. No one could hide in that open space long enough to stick a hand up through the floor into a violated shipping container.
The answer was simple. It wasn’t a hand that came probing up through the hole.
Distinctively ridged and marked, the dark tendril was the thickness of his thumb. Emerging from the hole like a feeding grass eel weaving in a shallow water current, the tapered tip began to feel around the edges of the opening in ever widening circles. The adjuster gaped at it as if hypnotized.
“How’s every little thing?” He whispered into his pickup, his eyes never leaving the flexible intruder.
“Fine.” Hafas sounded relaxed but tired.
“No problems? Nothing on any of the monitors?”
“No. Quiet as ever. Why?”
“Just checking in.” The tendril was now rapidly widening its area of search.
Reaching over, he removed one of the hand cases holding the invaluable pharmaceuticals and placed it on the floor between his feet and the probing tendril. It felt around a moment longer until it impacted the case. As Manz looked on respectfully it quickly explored the entire exterior. With a normal shipment, he surmised, it would have cut out a hole in the bottom of the shipping case itself. In this instance there were several cases inside a much larger container. How would the tendril react to this unprecedented approach?
His answer came a moment later as the green strand vanished back down the hole it had made and returned an instant later with a tiny industrial sonic cutter. The noiseless, invisible beam went to work on the side of the composite case, wielded with skill and precision by the tendril. Try as he would, Manz could find no glint of an eye or other visual pickup. As near as he could tell, the tendril was operating entirely by feel. It had to be remarkably sensitive and precise to violate the integrity of the shipping case without harming any of the priceless pharmaceuticals packed inside.
He was careful to keep his legs well clear of the tendril and the tool gripped in its coiled tip. The cutter could slice through his shoes and toes as easily as it did the wall of the shipping case.
When a two-centimeter-wide hole had been made in the case, a second tendril appeared alongside the first to feel of the new opening. Satisfied, the first tendril withdrew, taking the cutter with it. The second entered the hole, poked around inside a while, then emerged. Gripped in its sensitive tip was a vial of some foul-looking, urine-colored liquid that was probably worth more than Manz made in a decade. As it slid with its prize into the hole in the floor the other tendril reemerged, entered the hole in the case, and repeated the procedure. Alternating their intrusion, the two tendrils proceeded to extract the entire contents of the case.
When they’d finished, he suspected they’d start hunting for the next portion of the shipment. He had no intention of waiting around to see what their reaction would be if instead of composite and padding they coiled around one of his ankles.
“Everything still okay out there?” he whispered into his pickup.
“Sure,” came the inspector’s unperturbed reply. “You getting antsy in there?”
“Something like that. Tell me, Hafas, how does the landscaping around the shed look?”
There was a pause. “The landscaping.”
A longer pause. “Manz, maybe we’d better get you out of there. Check the status on your rebreather. You sure you’re getting enough fresh air?”
“I may be sucking a little more than usual, but other than tasting lousy there’s nothing wrong with it. You’d be pulling a few extra ‘O’s’ yourself if you were seeing what I’m seeing.”
“I’m looking at the monitors right now. It’s as quiet as a monastery on Charon inside that shed. Nothing’s happening.”
“Not outside my doghouse it isn’t. But you oughta be in here.” As he watched, the tendril reemerged from the hole in the floor and began feeling around for a fresh, untouched shipping case. Reaching up and across, he wrapped his fingers around container number two, but before he could position it between the tendril and himself, the probing coil flicked the bottom of his right foot. Reflexively, he kicked at it.
The green rope jerked back and hesitated. Even as he made a grab for the end, it retreated. A disc of matching, severed composite was jammed up into the hole in the floor as something began to heat-seal it from beneath.
The adjuster started yelling into his pickup. “Hafas, Vyra, get me out of here! Seal off the atrium!”
“What?” came the inspector’s startled voice. “What’s going on, what’s happening? Everything’s quiet out here.”
“Not in here it ain’t! Hafas, I just watched a couple of goddamn roots rifle a Braun-Roche-Keck pharmaceutical case. It’s the plants, man! You’re gonna have to arrest the landscaping.” As he twisted violently within the container a new thought made him add, “And probably the landscapers as well. Get me out of this!”
Suddenly the once peaceful atrium was filled with armed guards, all hunting for imagined jackers, waving their weapons about and generally looking determined but confused. Most of them felt as foolish as they knew they must have looked. A couple of startled clerks gaped wide-eyed at the sudden infusion of heavy firepower and rushed for the nearest doorway. A couple of the guards ran to intercept them, but Vyra waved them away.
“Let them go! You heard Broddy. It’s the plants.” The two guards who’d been planning to make an arrest eyed her blankly.
She loped toward the central planter, clearing the freeform arcrete wall in one bound. “Shut off the beams!” Feeling a little left behind, mentally as well as physically, Hafas gave the order. No sirens wailed as she approached the shed.
They had Manz out of the container in less than two minutes. He showed them where the case had been holed, then helped Hafas wrestle the big container aside. The opening in the floor of the shed had been artfully resealed, but the location was still slightly warm to the touch.
“What’s under here?” Manz eyed the Port tech who’d accompanied Hafas.
The man looked dazed but replied readily enough. “You know: the floor, then an open space, then dirt.”
The adjuster mulled this over, then glanced to his left. “Minder, analyze and report on possibilities.”
The sphere bobbed silently. “Matter transmission.”
“Discard,” his owner instructed impatiently.
“Metaphysics. Atmospheric transmigration. Optical opacity. Mass hypnosis.”
“Discard,” Manz said dismissively, “and get real.” There was a brief delay. “Is the floor solid?” the sphere inquired. Its owner stared expectantly at the tech. So did Hafas and Vyra.
“Uh, I don’t believe so. There’s a gap, sort of an air sandwich. Room for fibering and other equipment, conduits. That sort of thing.”
“How about the four pillars that hold this vacuum palace off the ground?” Manz asked him.
“All solid, except the one that’s ducted for the aforementioned equipment.”
“Where do the lines run?”
The tech sounded defensive without knowing why. “Under the atrium floor, of course. Outside. Air exhaust to the pumps that maintain the vacuum inside the shed, fiberops to control, and so on.”
Manz rushed out of the shed, shoving his way through the miniature jungle, and halted at the top of the wall.
“They can’t go on forever.” He stared at the smooth, paved floor.
“What can’t go on forever?” Hafas asked him. “What happened in there? Where are the contents of that case?”
“Maybe right here. Maybe right under our feet. Maybe already on their way out of the Port.” He spared the inspector an impatient glance. “Roots, Hafas. Roots. How long can they grow?”
The florid-faced officer looked blank. “How the hell should I know? I’m a cop, not a gardener.”
“This might be a good time to take it up.” The adjuster’s gaze rose to the nearest decorative planter located outside the atrium, beyond the double set of security doors. “Looks like about thirty meters.”
“What does?” Hafas sputtered.
“From this planter in here to that one out there. Maybe, Inspector, you ought to have some of your people turn in their guns for pruning shears.” He shook his head in amazement. “Next thing you know, pussywillows will be picking our pockets.”
“Manz, I wish you’d explain yourself.”
“I’m trying to. I’m trying to explain it to me, too. Right now I’m feeling pretty cramped from being boxed up in there. Time for a walk.” He jumped off the retaining wall and headed for the doors. Bemused, the inspector followed.
A third decorative planter, healthy and well watered, was situated some twenty meters from the one located immediately outside the Administration Center. A fourth formed a bright, colorful barrier between the bustling main storage bay and a passing serviceway. Cargo carts and self-propelled flatbeds hummed back and forth along the pavement.
Manz halted alongside the planter that fronted the road. Looking back the way they’d come, he could just make out the entrance to the distant Administration Center and its vulnerable atrium in the middle. One heavily foliated planter inside, three more positioned in a rough line outside, terminating in this one beside the service road. He turned to study the dense growth. A cart or two-person transport could pull up right alongside and remove anything from the base of the trees and bushes without being observed. Anything at all.
He walked to the end of the planter and scrutinized the serviceway. Currently there were no vehicles stopped at the curb, but surely the jackers wouldn’t be dumb enough to hang around while the jack was in progress. Besides, there was no need to expose themselves at a sensitive moment. They could drive in and make the pickup at any time. The individual drug vials were factory-sealed. They could easily survive being buried in a little dirt without damage, their contents still active, for many days.
Even deep underground.
Climbing up into the planter, he started searching the bases of the various growths, trampling smaller foliage underfoot. Hafas and the others watched him uncertainly. Then Vyra stepped up onto the planter and joined in. A moment later Moses, too heavy to surmount the retaining wall, commenced a detailed inspection of the decoratively pebbled fringe.
“What are you looking for?” the baffled inspector asked the adjuster.
Manz spoke without looking up. “The jacked goods, of course. They’re down in here somewhere, unless they’ve somehow been passed further up the line.”
“Line? What line?”
“The relay line.” This time the adjuster did look up, gesturing back the way they’d come. “It’s the plants. Inspector. I don’t know how, much less why, but they’re some of your jackers.” He grinned. “How’re you going to cuff a philodendron?”
“I asked you earlier to explain yourself. Now you will, this minute, or by God I’ll haul your ass downtown!”
“Take it easy.” Manz made soothing gestures. He pointed off into the distance, back toward the atrium.
“Some kind of root came up through a hole it had cut in the shed floor. Or maybe it’s a vine, I don’t know. I’m an insurance adjuster, not a botanist. Came up right under the big container, so it never appeared on any of the shed’s internal vid pickups. That’s how the jackings took place without setting off any alarms or showing up on any of the internal vids. The entry holes were always made out of pickup view, probably directly under each case. The roots would take their own sweet time jacking the drugs, then perfect-seal the holes in the shed floor. Easy to make a seamless, invisible repair to composites. No need or reason to seal the holes in the cases.” He bent to shove aside a cluster of thick, ripple-marked spatulate leaves.
“The roots or vines or whatever the hell they are remove the drug vials one at a time, taking ’em down through the hole, back through the service space that separates the two floors of the shed, and probably on into some conduit space they’ve appropriated in the one part-hollow support pillar. Once underground and out of sight they move the jack along beneath the floor of the atrium. Probably made their own tunnel. I’ll bet if you haul some equipment in there and pull up some of those decorative floor slabs and dig down a little ways, you’ll find it.
“That leaves the problem of moving the jack to a safe pickup point. This being the last planter in the vicinity, I’m betting it has to end up here.” Again he nodded back the way they’d come. “I don’t know how long these root-things are, but they can’t be hundreds of meters or there’d be no room to fit ’em in the planters. So they have to transfer the jack, passing it along underground from the atrium to the next planter in line, then the next, and finally to here.” He looked over his shoulder.
“The jackers must just pull in here when the mood takes them and make the pickup. Nobody’s watching this serviceway. No reason to.” He paused to stare evenly at Hafas.
“This wasn’t done with mirrors, Inspector. It’s all real. I know; I watched it happen.”
“When you line all the pieces up like that, it makes a crazy kind of sense,” Hafas admitted, “except for one thing: how do you turn a bunch of plants into drug jackers? Much less teach part of a tree or bush how to use a sonic cutter and sealer and how to discriminate between an empty box and individual pharmaceutical vials.”
“I told you I’m not a botanist. I haven’t the faintest idea. I’ve been kind of wondering about that myself.” He glanced over at Vyra. “Find anything?”
Bent over and searching, she turned to him, wiping soil from her hands. “Sour smells. A couple of earthworms. Some beetles. None of them looked particularly guilty. I always thought you were certifiable, Broddy. Now I’m sure of it.”
He grinned at her. “Then why are you helping me look?”
“Because I’m certifiable too. Besides, the how makes a crazy kind of sense. It’s the why that still has me baffled.”
“No less than me, my little eggplant.” He straightened again, a strange look on his face, and turned to Hafas. “Inspector, do your duty.”
“I beg your pardon?”
With a sweeping gesture the adjuster encompassed the entire planter. “Arrest these plants! If that’s what they are.”
Vyra regarded him out of bemused violet eyes. “Broddy, don’t you think you’re reaching a bit here?”
“Maybe. But all this puts me in mind of a recent friend. I didn’t have the privilege of knowing him for very long, but he did some pretty impressive reaching himself. Across a number of light-years.”
Hafas was stumped and didn’t try to hide it. “You’ve lost me again.”
“We’ve all been lost here, Inspector. Gamboling blindly, that’s what we’ve been doing. No wonder these jackers have made us look like idiots. They’ve had some unanticipatable help.
“Here you were, unable to find a trace of the jackers or their modus no matter how hard your department tried, searching earnestly for special equipment, or experienced thieves, or maybe even trained animals, and all the time it was the shrubbery doing the snitching.” He hopped off the planter, turning to scrutinize the foliage.
“You heard me. Arrest ’em. Get some trucks in here, uproot the lot, and haul it all off to quarantine until we can sort out the complicit vegetables from the innocent ones.”
Hafas’s expression was grim. “All right, I’ll do it. But only because I don’t know what else to do. But you’d better be right about this, Manz, or I’ll … I’ll devise a new ordinance to bring against you. Because I’m not going to be made the butt of a thousand jokes all by myself. I’m going to want to have someone handy to stick out there in front of me when the media comes calling.”
“Fair enough,” the adjuster agreed as a cablelike tendril exploded from the damp earth of the planter to whip around his neck.