The SF Hall of Fame Volume Two B (32 page)

"Just the way you did. I'd take one of the old battle
suits, wait until it was good and dark, and then slip out the back way and
climb up six or seven thousand feet. Then I'd switch on my landing lights and
drift slowly down to the parade field to review the troops." Blick grinned
triumphantly.

"It might work," admitted Colonel Harris,
"but I was under the impression that those rigs were so heavy that a man
couldn't even walk in one, let alone fly."

Blick grinned triumphantly. "Not if the suit was
powered. If a man were to go up into the tower of the arsenal and pick the lock
of the little door labled 'Danger! Absolutely No Admittance,' he might find a
whole stack of shiny little cubes that look suspiciously like the illustrations
of power packs in the tech manuals."

"That he might," agreed the colonel.

Blick shifted back in his chair. "Aren't worried, are
you?"

Colonel Harris shook his head. "I was for a moment when
I thought you'd told the rest of the staff, but I'm not now."

"You should be! When the I.G. arrives this time, I'm
going to be inside that suit. There's going to be a new order around here, and
he's just what I need to put the stamp of approval on it. When the Inspector
General talks, nobody questions!"

He looked at Harris expectantly, waiting for a look of
consternation to sweep across his face. The colonel just laughed.

"Blick," he said, "you're in for a big
surprise!"

"What do you mean?" said the other suspiciously.

"Simply that I know you better than you know yourself.
You wouldn't be executive officer if I didn't. You know, Blick, I've got a
hunch that the battalion is going to change the man more than the man is going
to change the battalion. And now if you'll excuse me—" He started toward
the door. Blick moved to intercept him.

"Don't trouble yourself," chuckled the colonel,
"I can find my own way to the cell block." There was a broad grin on
his face. "Besides, you've got work to do."

There was a look of bewilderment in Blick's face as the
erect figure went out the door. "I don't get it," he said to himself.
"I just don't get it!"

Flight Officer Ozaki was unhappy. Trouble had started two
hours after he lifted his battered scout off War Base Three and showed no signs
of letting up. He sat glumly at his controls and enumerated his woes. First
there was the matter of the air conditioner which had acquired an odd little
hum and discharged into the cabin oxygen redolent with the rich, ripe odor of
rotting fish. Secondly, something had happened to the complex insides of his
food synthesizer and no matter what buttons he punched, all that emerged from
the ejector were quivering slabs of undercooked protein base smeared with a
raspberry-flavored goo.

Not last, but worst of all, the ship's fuel converter was
rapidly becoming more erratic. Instead of a slow, steady feeding of the
plu-tonite ribbon into the combustion chamber, there were moments when the
mechanism would falter and then leap ahead. The resulting sudden injection of
several square millimicrons of tape would send a sudden tremendous flare of
energy spouting out through the rear jets. The pulse only lasted for a fraction
of a second, but the sudden application of several G's meant a momentary
blackout and, unless he was strapped carefully into the pilot seat, several new
bruises to add to the old.

What made Ozaki the unhappiest was that there was nothing he
could do about it. Pilots who wanted to stay alive just didn't tinker with the
mechanism of their ships.

Glumly he pulled out another red-bordered IMMEDIATE
MAINTENANCE card from the rack and began to fill it in.

Description of item requiring maintenance:
"Shower
thermostat, M7, Small Standard."

Nature of malfunction:
"Shower will deliver only
boiling water."

Justification for immediate maintenance:
Slowly in
large, block letters Ozaki bitterly inked in "Haven't had a bath since I
left base!" and tossed the card into the already overflowing gripe box
with a feeling of helpless anger.

"Kitchen mechanics," he muttered. "Couldn't
do a decent repair job if they wanted to—and most of the time they don't. I'd
like to see one of them three days out on a scout sweep with a toilet that
won't flush!"

It was a roomy cell as cells go but Kurt wasn't happy there.
His

continual striding up and down was making Colonel Harris
nervous.

"Relax, son," he said gently, "you'll just
wear yourself out."

Kurt turned to face the colonel who was stretched out
comfortably

on his cot. "Sir," he said in a conspiratorial
whisper, "we've got to

break out of here."

"What for?" asked Harris. "This is the first
decent rest I've had in years."

"You aren't going to let Blick get away with
this?" demanded Kurt in a shocked voice.

"Why not?" said the colonel. "He's the exec,
isn't he? If something happened to me, he'd have to take over command anyway.
He's just going through the impatient stage, that's all. A few days behind my
desk will settle him down. In two weeks he'll be so sick of the job he'll be
down on his knees begging me to take over again."

Kurt decided to try a new tack. "But, sir, he's going
to shut down the Tech Schools!"

"A little vacation won't hurt the kids," said the
colonel indulgently.

"After a week or so the wives will get so sick of
having them underfoot all day that they'll turn the heat on him. Blick has six
kids himself, and I've a hunch his wife won't be any happier than the rest.
She's a very determined woman, Kurt, a very determined woman!"

Kurt had a feeling he was getting no place rapidly.
"Please, sir," he said earnestly, "I've got a plan."

"Yes?"

"Just before the guard makes his evening check-in,
stretch out on the bed and start moaning. I'll yell that you're dying and when
he comes in to check, I'll jump him!"

"You'll do no such thing!" said the colonel
sternly. "Sergeant Wetzel is an old friend of mine. Can't you get it
through your thick head that I don't want to escape. When you've held command
as long as I have, you'll welcome a chance for a little peace and quiet. I know
Blick inside out, and I'm not worried about him. But, if you've got your heart
set on escaping, I suppose there's no particular reason why you shouldn't. Do
it the easy way though. Like this." He walked to the bars that fronted the
cell and bellowed, "Sergeant Wetzel! Sergeant Wetzel!"

"Coming, sir!" called a voice from down the
corridor. There was a shuffle of running feet and a gray scalp-locked and
extremely portly sergeant puffed into view.

"What will it be, sir?" he asked.

"Colonel Blick or any of the staff around?"
questioned the colonel.

"No, sir," said the sergeant. "They're all
upstairs celebrating."

"Good!" said Harris. "Unlock the door, will
you?"

"Anything you say, colonel," said the old man
agreeably and produced a large key from his pouch and fitted it into the lock.
There was a slight creaking and the door swung open.

"Young Dixon here wants to escape," said the
colonel.

"It's all right by me," replied the sergeant,
"though it's going to be awkward when Colonel Blick asks what happened to
him."

"The lieutenant has a plan," confided the colonel.
"He's going to overpower you and escape."

"There's more to it than just that!" said Kurt.
"I'm figuring on swapping uniforms with you. That way I can walk right out
through the front gate without anybody being the wiser."

"That," said the sergeant, slowly looking down at
his sixty-three inch waist, "will take a heap of doing. You're welcome to
try though."

"Let's get on with it then," said Kurt, winding up
a roundhouse swing.

"If it's all the same with you, lieutenant," said
the old sergeant, eyeing Kurt's rocklike fist nervously, "I'd rather have
the colonel do any overpowering that's got to be done."

Colonel Harris grinned and walked over to Wetzel.

"Ready?"

"Ready!"

Harris' fist traveled a bare five inches and tapped Wetzel
lightly on the chin.

"Oof!" grunted the sergeant cooperatively and
staggered back to a point where he could collapse on the softest of the two
cots.

The exchange of clothes was quickly effected. Except for the
pants —which persisted in dropping down to Kurt's ankles—and the war
bonnet—which with equal persistence kept sliding down over his ears —he was
ready to go. The pants problem was solved easily by stuffing a pillow inside
them. This Kurt fondly believed made him look more like the rotund sergeant
than ever. The garrison bonnet presented a more difficult problem, but he
finally achieved a partial solution. By holding it up with his left hand and
keeping the palm tightly pressed against his forehead, it should appear to the
casual observer that he was walking engrossed in deep thought.

The first two hundred yards were easy. The corridor was
deserted and he plodded confidently along, the great war bonnet wobbling
sedately on his head in spite of his best efforts to keep it steady. When he
finally reached the exit gate, he knocked on it firmly and called to the duty
sergeant.

"Open up! It's Wetzel."

Unfortunately, just then he grew careless and let go of his
headgear. As the door swung open, the great war bonnet swooped down over his
ears and came to rest on his shoulders. The result was that where his head
normally was there could be seen only a nest of weaving feathers. The duty
sergeant's jaw suddenly dropped as he got a good look at the strange figure
that stood in the darkened corridor. And then with remarkable presence of mind
he slammed the door shut in Kurt's face and clicked the bolt.

"Sergeant of the guard!" he bawled. "Sergeant
of the guard! There's a
thing
in the corridor!"

"What kind of a thing?" inquired a sleepy voice
from the guard room.

"A horrible kind of a thing with wiggling feathers
where its head ought to be," replied the sergeant.

"Get its name, rank, and serial number," said the
sleepy voice.

Kurt didn't wait to hear any more. Disentangling himself
from the head-dress with some difficulty, he hurled it aside and pelted back
down the corridor.

Lieutenant Dixon wandered back into the cell with a
crestfallen look on his face. Colonel Harris and the old sergeant were so
deeply engrossed in a game of "rockets high" that they didn't even
see him at first. Kurt coughed and the colonel looked up.

"Change your mind?"

"No, sir," said Kurt. "Something
slipped."

"What?" asked the colonel.

"Sergeant Wetzel's war bonnet. I'd rather not talk
about it." He sank down on his bunk and buried his head in his hands.

"Excuse me," said the sergeant apologetically,
"but if the lieutenant's through with my pants I'd like to have them back.
There's a draft in here."

Kurt silently exchanged clothes and then moodily walked over
to the grille that barred the window and stood looking out.

"Why not go upstairs to officers' country and out that
way?" suggested the sergeant, who hated the idea of being overpowered for
nothing. "If you can get to the front gate without one of the staff
spotting you, you can walk right out. The sentry never notices faces, he just
checks for insignia."

Kurt grabbed Sergeant Wetzel's plump hand and wrung it
warmly. "I don't know how to thank you," he stammered.

"Then it's about time you learned," said the
colonel. "The usual practice in civilized battalions is to say 'thank
you.'"

"Thank you!" said Kurt.

"Quite all right," said the sergeant. "Take
the first stairway to your left. When you get to the top, turn left again and
the corridor will take you straight to the exit."

Kurt got safely to the top of the stairs and turned right.
Three hundred feet later the corridor ended in a blank wall. A small passageway
angled off to the left and he set off down it. It also came to a dead end in a
small anteroom whose farther wall was occupied by a set of great bronze doors.
He turned and started to retrace his steps. He had almost reached the main
corridor when he heard angry voices sounding from it. He peeked cautiously
around the corridor. His escape route was blocked by two officers engaged in
acrimonious argument. Neither was too sober and the captain obviously wasn't
giving the major the respect that a field officer usually commanded.

"I don't care what she said!" the captain shouted.
"I saw her first."

The major grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him back
against the wall. "It doesn't matter who saw her first. You keep away from
her or there's going to be trouble!"

The captain's face flushed with rage. With a snarl he tore
off the major's breechcloth and struck him in the face with it.

The major's face grew hard and cold. He stepped back,
clicked his calloused heels together, and bowed slightly.

"Axes or fists?"

"Axes," snapped the captain.

"May I suggest the armory anteroom?" said the
major formally. "We won't be disturbed there."

"As you wish, sir," said the captain with equal
formality. "Your breechcloth, sir." The major donned it with dignity
and they started down the hall toward Kurt. He turned and fled back down the
corridor.

In a second he was back in the anteroom. Unless he did something
quickly he was trapped. Two flaming torches were set in brackets on each side
of the great bronze door. As flickering pools of shadow chased each other
across the worn stone floor, Kurt searched desperately for some other way out.
There was none. The only possible exit was through the bronze portals. The
voices behind him grew louder. He ran forward, grabbed a projecting handle, and
pulled. One door creaked open slightly and with a sigh of relief Kurt slipped
inside.