Space For Hire (Seven For Space) (8 page)

"How could you be sure it would work?"

"It's designed to clear away any artificially imposed brainwaves of whatever type or origin. Supersolar agents are always having to unscramble brains."

I nodded. "I buy your story. Let's head back to Bubble City. I'm worried about what might have happened to Dr. Umani and his daughter."

"It's already happened, Sam. That's why I rushed here to unscramble you." She gave me a look of desperation. "They've kidnapped Esma!"

On the Mars run out to Bubble City Nicole explained things.

She had contacted Dr. Umani after she'd talked to the police mice on Jupiter, telling him I'd been exiled to Pluto. He said that was too bad because his enemies had just captured Esma and that it would be a good thing if I could go looking for her and that he couldn't leave his experiment in its current vital stage of near-completion.

"Doesn't the old man
care
if his daughter is kidnapped?' I asked.

"Oh, yes, he seemed very distraught," Nicole admitted, "but he kept talking about sticking close to the nitty gritty."

"I intend to find out what the hell's going on in that lab of his," I said. " I don't like playing a high-stakes game in the dark."

* * *

Dr. Umani met us outside the door of his lab on the outskirts of Bubble City. It was something of a shock, seeing him again, since the body he now inhabited was that of a giraffe head from Oberon.

"Glad to see you alive and well, Mr. Space," he said, extending a polished hoof. I shook it.

"Any news of Esma?" I asked.

"I'm really not expecting any at the moment. Did you bring back some bodies for me?" He swung his long-necked head to and fro nervously six feet above us. I had to look almost straight up in order to converse with him.

"We didn't have time to round up any," put in Nicole.

"Yeah, I wanted to get here fast," I said.

"I really prefer Earth bodies," he nodded, flaring his wet black nostrils and snorting. "But after my authentic jazz singer's body suffered extensive damage I was forced to take pot luck, as it were, on another. This giraffe head was the best I could scare up here on Mars, and I had to pay a premium to get him. My first cousin Verlag made the brain switch but I think he got me in sideways. I can only see out of one eye."

"I notice you're favoring your left," I said.

"And these hoofs don't help any," he added. "Difficult to get scientific things done with a hoof, I'll tell you."

"I can imagine." I peered up at him. "Nicole told me you were in the final stage of your experiment."

"Near-final," he corrected me.

"Okay, but it's almost done, huh?"

"Let us say that I can see daylight at the end of the tunnel." He lowered his horned head and began to nibble on my hat. It was a snapbrim from Earth, an old nostalgic antique hat from the 1930s that I sometimes wore on a case.

"Hey, lay off that!" I yelled, pulling back.

He gave me a sad left eye. "Sorry. But I seem to favor hats in this body. Eating hats is apparently one of the things that a giraffe head does."

"Not this hat," I said. "This hat can't be replaced. It's historic." I looked it over; there was a tiny nip out of the band.

Nicole was getting nervous. She tugged at my sleeve. "Listen, Sam, shouldn't you be going after Esma?"

"That's actually the job of the Solarpolice," I said. "In fact, maybe they've found her by now."

"No, no, no …" Dr. Umani swayed his neck to and fro. "That wouldn't be possible, since I didn't report her kidnap."

"Why not?" I wanted to know.

"It is imperative that total secrecy be maintained with regard to my experiment. I cannot risk a passle of solar snoops buzzing around me day and night."

"I think you're a sap," I told him bluntly. "Your daughter's safety should come ahead of some lousy experiment."

Umani's dustmop tall flicked against his rump. "Don't you think I have deep affection for Esma?"

"You haven't shown any."

"If my work succeeds," he said in a solemn tone, "then the whole System may be saved, not just my daughter. I can't risk failure. Esma would be the first to understand."

"It's high time I find out for myself what's in that lab," I declared, moving toward the entrance door.

"Not yet!" Dr. Umani trotted to the door, lowering his head toward me, horns at the ready. "I cannot allow even you, Mr. Space, to enter my work quarters at this stage."

"Then tell me the score," I said. "Fill me in on exactly what you're doing and who these enemies of yours really are. If you don't I'm off the case. As of now."

"Oh, Sam, you wouldn't abandon Esma," cried Nicole. "You're not that kind of heel."

"Indeed he isn't," Umani assured her. "Mr. Space would never abandon my daughter in her hour of need."

I was running a bluff, and he knew it. I was trying to pressure him for info and he wasn't falling for it.

"You'll be told everything about my experiment in due order," said Umani, his big liquid eyes shaded by heavy lashes. "I must ask you to trust me."

"What other choice do I have?' I asked, ducking as he took another swipe at my hat. I took it off and stuffed it under my shirt. No use tempting him beyond his control. "Is there anything you can tell me at the moment?"

"There surely is," he said. "I can tell you that Ronfoster Kane, the Robot King, is involved in this savage business."

"How do you know that?"

"I heard one of the kidnappers mutter his name. A slip, I'm certain, yet it was enough to convince me that Kane is behind my daughter's abduction."

I nodded. "This verifies what I already suspected. In fact, Kane could be F. — using that initial as cover. I began to hook the two of them together when that copmouse on Jupiter told me F.'s office belonged to Kane. He may have bought off the mice, since they refused to listen to my logic in linking F. with Kane."

"If my guess is correct," said Umani, "he has Esma imprisoned in his castle fortress on Mercury. Kane has a fire dragon guarding the place, a short-tempered brute, I'm told, but he sleeps a lot."

"Kane?"

"No, the fire dragon. He's reportedly sluggish and inclined to snooze until riled. Once riled, he is a handful to deal with."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said.

"I shall look after Nicole while you're gone," promised Umani.

"Good," I said. "I wouldn't want the goons to go over her again. She was tortured, you know."

"Oh, my!" Umani trotted close to the girl and swung his long-necked head down to stare at her with his good left eye. "What did they do to you, dear?"

"For one thing," she told him, "They tweaked my tummy with fern needles. And that hurts!"

She showed us her tummy and the tweak marks.

"How terrible!" exclaimed Dr. Umani.

"Not really," she said. "It's not so bad once you get used to it."

"I'd better cut out," I announced.

"Not before I tell you the terms," Umani protested.

"What terms?"

"Upon which the kidnap was based. Every kidnap has terms. You get them as part of the package."

"Shoot," I said.

"I'd best reconstruct the scene," said Umani. He sat down in front of the lab door on his haunches and folded his two front hooves. His left eye regarded me with immense sadness. It was the long lashes which gave that effect. Every giraffe head looks sad. "We were obtaining a pre-work snack in the Yum Yum section of the city," he related. "Myself, in the body of the colorful old banjo-strumming jazz singer, my daughter Esma, and my first cousin Verlag. We had ordered a light repast of stippled gork's milk and toasted nubbins and were seated at a yumtable about to eat when the side of the building melted."

"What material?" I wanted to know.

"You mean the building?"

"Yeah, what was it made of?"

"It was a claybrick and limercrix affair with a nearstone base so far as I could determine," he said.

"Then they must have used a .20-40 Emerson heavy-frame swing-cylinder de-energizer," I said.

"Quite possibly," declared Umani, a note of irritation evident in his voice. "I'm no weapons expert, Mr. Space. Might I continue?"

"By all means."

"When the wall melted I immediately sensed that we were the targets. Therefore, I threw myself across Esma in order to shield her from impending danger. Three muscled Loonies entered the Yumroom."

"Same ones who put your drunken Irish body out of commish?"

"The very same. They charged in and struck Verlag brutally to the floor — which subsequently worsened his liver condition — filled my authentic jazz singer's body with nitroballs and made off with Esma, muttering Kane's name as they did so."

"What about the kidnap terms?'

Umani snorted, nostrils distended. "I'm getting to that."

"He's doing his best, Sam," said Nicole.

"The kidnap terms were clearly printed on a faxcard which they left on the Yumtable."

"Still have it?"

"No, it self-destructed. But I memorized the terms. I have a talent for that sort of thing. Helps me in my work when I have to remember complex formulas."

"What about the terms?'

"Oh, yes. I shall quote them." Dr. Umani's horns lifted and his pink rubbery lips pursed. "The card began: ‘To Whom It May Concern. ‘Then it continued; ‘We have once again attempted to wipe out Dr. E. Q. Umani. But if, by happenstance, his brain is transferred to yet another body and he lives he must heed our warning in order to keep his daughter alive. The Umani Experiment must cease. It must not be brought to completion. If it is the girl will be done away with. Painfully. If, within the next Marsperiod, this experiment has indeed been abandoned and the lab destroyed, then the girl will be allowed to live, although she will be retained until certain plans have come to fruition. ‘And that was the end of it."

"What plans?" I wanted to know.

"Never mind," Umani snorted. "The point is, I must continue my experiment. And you must bring back Esma. Her life depends on you."

"What is Kane's connection with your work?" I asked. "And what —"

He cut me off with a raised hoof. "No more questions, Mr. Space. Verlag is waiting for me in the lab. I must trot. Come, my dear." He nodded his head at Nicole. "I'll show you your quarters."

"See you later, Sam." Nicole said.

Umani gave me a parting smile. Big yellow teeth in black gums.

I never liked to watch a giraffehead smile.

"You seen the Gimp around?"

I was doing the asking. The dogface to whom I'd directed my question was big and shaggy and built like the side of a bank. His name was Ham Bodeen and he never said three words when he could say two and never said two when one would get the job done.

Now he said, "Naw."

"When was he in last?"

"Week ago," said Ham.

"Alone?"

"Nope."

"Who was with him?"

"The usual."

He meant TeTe, Gimp's hanger. Gimp Hovel was too dumb and too ugly to latch onto anyone better than TeTe, an ex-goongirl whose best days — and nights — were behind her.

"So she still flops with him, eh?"

"Still."

"Where?"

"Hard to say."

I slipped him a fiver. "Any easier now?"

We were at a table in one of the rougher dendives on Luna, and in a place like this it's better to keep your credits out of sight. That's why I passed him the fiver under the table. His big hardskinned paw folded over it and his dog-bright eyes gave a flicker. He was going to tell me more.

"Old Colony," he said. "Second fleahut from the crossing off Black-crater Road. You might try it."

"I just might," I said.

* * *

Blackcrater Road had been slashed into the lunar surface back in the days when the first Moon colony was established, and it was in lousy shape now, tough to negotiate even in a sandcar.

The area was dark and deserted, a fetid backwash of cracked dome-buildings and occasional fleahuts — which had housed the Moonworkers when the colony had still been operational.

The sandcar I'd rented was nearly as used up as the area around it; the vehicle wouldn't respond to more than half power and its engine labored to propel it over the pitted, rock-strewn road. I was beginning to heartily curse its poor performance when the Gimp's fleahut popped into view over a sand rise.

It was where Bodeen said it would be, just one hut past the crossing. I spotted Hovel's dented sandbike, meaning he was inside. With TeTe, no doubt.

I cut power and climbed out of my machine.

The fleahut's slidedoor was unsealed, and I didn't bother to knock. The Gimp was an old pal of mine.

He was there all right, but he wasn't in any condition to say hello. The strong odor of Moonjuice hit me like a fist as I stepped inside. Hovel was on a fraying, half-sagged plastocot near the wall, flopped on his back, arms flung out, mouth open, breathing harshly through his fleshy nose.

He was juiced to the eyeballs.

"Who the freeb are you?" demanded TeTe. She was at the hut's table with a drink in front of her, a skinny little blueblonde in a faded slackbag. The bag had holes at both elbows. From the anger in her eyes I could see she was still sober enough to talk.

"If it matters to you, sister, my name is Space." I nodded toward the Gimp. "Wake him up fast and pour some hot Earth coffee into him. I need the bum."

"Don't try and give me orders. You —"

I whacked her once and she shut up, knowing I'd do it again. "You heard me. Move it!"

She hauled Gimpy into a sitting position, yelling at him to wake up, that there was some kind of nut here to see him.

"Huh, huh, huh," he sniffled. "Whosa matter?"

I walked over and grabbed a handful of shirtfront, pulling him half off the cot. "Wake up, Hovell! You've got what I need and you're going to give it to me. C'mon, on your feet."

I jerked him up. He swayed there, blinking me into focus. "Sam … Sam, ole pal."

"Yeah," I said, smacking him hard with the flat of one hand while I held him up with the other. "It's your ole pal, here to collect a debt."