I squirmed back as far as I could. My feet connected with the girders that wrapped up and around the kettle —-the ribs. Rolling on my stomach for a quick glance, I saw the mechanic standing in the door of the cockpit. A new target, I thought. I could kill him as he left the ship and hide his body in the cargo nets.
Rising silently to my feet, never taking my eyes off the mechanic, I breezed toward the back of the kettle, the cargo nets, and the open doorway. There, I stopped.
Standing at the top of the ramp was a boy who could not yet have been in his twenties. He wore white overalls and a white hard hat. The boy looked strong. The zipper of his jumper was down to his chest. He had a stunned, slightly stupid look on his face as he stared at me. “Do you know where Fred …Hey? Who are you?” Never realizing the gravity of his situation, the boy spoke in a soft voice that did not carry.
I slammed the edge of my hand hard across his throat—a slow method of murder but effective in keeping a victim silent: if you crush your victim’s windpipes, you render him voiceless. He will then spend a full minute thrashing about as he suffocates, but he cannot call for help.
This boy brought his hands along the bottom of his throat as he struggled for breath. His lips formed a wide, gasping O. I slung him sideways into the heavy cargo netting. The cables rattled as they brushed against the side of the kettle, but the noise was soft. Then, as he tried to wrestle free of the netting, I finished the boy by slamming the heel of my hand into the side of his neck. The whole thing was quick and silent. The sounds of the murder did not disturb the mechanic and pilot as they chatted up at the cockpit.
A moment later, a nearly naked boy lay tucked under a mess of cargo netting. No one would find him for a while, at least not until the next time somebody loaded cargo onto this transport.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I had no plan. Here I was, on an enemy ship, probably in the center of the enemy fleet, and I was not sure what to do next. I did not make it off the transport in time to tail Wingate. I did not have a prayer of sabotaging the fleet, or even this ship. Escape seemed out of the question. My best bet would be to find a way onto the bridge of the ship and learn the fleet’s galactic coordinates. If I could locate that information and broadcast it to Huang, the U.A. Navy could come after the bastards. After what I saw on New Columbia, I liked the idea of U.A. ships having a fair fight.
Looking around the landing area, I stared into the ivory horizon where the runway met the walls. Cavernous and square, this hangar was designed for transports and cargo ships, not fighters. With the exception of Harriers, which had a vertical take off, fighters took off in runway tubes, allowing them to build up speed before entering battles.
The overalls were a bad fit. Either the kid I took them from had been less than six feet tall or he liked wearing pants that showed his ankles and sleeves that did not cover his wrists. And his clothes were baggy. I did not expect a tailored fit, still they had looked snug on the boy’s muscled body. With my tall and lanky frame, I vanished under the wide swath of cloth.
The worst thing was the boots. A swampy, phosphorous stench rose out of them, and they were hot and moist around my feet. Given the choice, I would have preferred to go barefoot.
I found a pair of mediaLink shades inside one of the waist-line pockets. The lenses were greasy and dusted with dandruff. I checked the three small pores at the base of each of the eyepieces to make sure that the microphones were clear. The pores were mostly clean and I blew off the hairs and dandruff.
When I reached the door of the hangar I stopped to look back. There sat the transport, alone in the center of the brightly lit landing pad. The world around the transport was ivory white. In that bright lighting, the transport was the color of eggshells. It almost blended with its surroundings; but because it did not quite blend in, it stood out even more.
What about Fred the chatty mechanic and his friend the pilot? Would they discover the little surprise I had wrapped up in the cargo bay? They might, but that could not be helped. Sooner or later, somebody would spot the body no matter where I hid it.
The hall outside the hangar seemed to stretch the entire length of the ship. The polished gray floor went on as far as the eye could see. This was a major corridor, a squared tube with twenty-foot walls. Clumps of people moved through it, but it was far from crowded. Compared to the bustling walkways of most U.A. ships, this corridor was deserted.
Enough time had passed since Wingate left the transport that I had not a prayer of catching up to him. In my mind, Wingate had become a low priority at this point. He had led me to the enemy fleet. But even capturing Crowley and Atkins seemed unimportant at the moment. What would I do with them this deep in enemy territory?
All I could do was go along for the ride. My first priorities now were to blend in and to find my way around this ship.
Navy crews had a practice called “hot bunking.” It meant that three men slept in the same rack—obviously not at the same time. They had eight-hour shifts—work eight hours, recreate eight hours, sleep eight hours. That meant that at any time, one-third of the crew would work while one-third slept and another third ate and played. The thirds were not always equal. The day crew, meaning the crew on duty when the captain was on duty, was generally larger than the others.
Hot bunking caused problems for saboteurs like myself because it meant that the ship never slept. There would always be men at the helm and in the engine rooms. So what could I accomplish? I toyed with the idea of slipping a cable into the broadcast engines, but I did not feel like committing suicide.
Feeling like I needed a better disguise than these coveralls, I followed the hall toward the center of the ship. Old as this ship was, it was still of a Unified Authority design. The basics were the basics. I knew that the landing bay would be on the bottom deck and that I would have to go to another deck to find what I wanted—a gym. Fifteen minutes and two decks later, I found one.
I began unzipping my jumper even before I entered the locker room, and had it off my shoulders by the time the door closed behind me. Training did not appeal to these sailors by the look of things. The locker room was nearly empty. I heard someone in the shower and a couple of men with towels around their waists discussed the battle at New Columbia in front of the mirrors.
Both men were Japanese. I noticed that quickly. They had black hair, narrow eyes, and bronzed skin. One man stole a casual glance in my direction while his friend spoke. Had this gym been for Japanese only, I might have been caught. But a moment later, a blubbery man with white skin turned the color of rare roast beef stepped out of a steam room. The man did not have a towel. Drops of water splashed from his flabby legs as he walked.
I grabbed shorts and a shirt from a shelf and tossed my coveralls into a locker. A moment later, I walked out to exercise, the mediaLink shades hidden in my pocket. And things continued to go my way. There was only one other person working out. He did not look at me as I climbed on a stationary bike, dropped the shades over my eyes, and began pedaling.
Now that I had changed to exercise clothes, I blended in. What I needed to do next was contact Huang or Freeman; but with another person in the room, I did not want to hold a conversation.
In this case, I went the old-fashioned route and composed letters, customizing a form letter by choosing words and phrases from a menu and optically typing words when needed.
On my own shades, I had a menu of people I contacted on a regular basis. It was a short list that included only the late Bryce Klyber and Ray Freeman. The boy’s shades had a different list. Using optical commands, I typed Freeman’s address on a virtual keyboard that was always present at the edge of your vision when you composed letters.
Freeman and I swapped emergency codes so that we would always be able to locate each other in situations like this. There may have been multiple Ray Freemans in the galaxy, but he was the only one who received messages sent with this code.
Optical typing was a slow process. When I switched from the keyboard to the context-sensitive letter, it was a relief. I selected an urgent document. The default letter that appeared was a request for financial assistance; but every word was interactive and as I changed words at the front of the letter, the rest of the document composed itself.
