Police Your Planet Part 20

Izzy stopped and stared at the rabbity, pale little man. Then he let out a sudden yelp of laughter. "Okay, Randy, we'll find them. Gov'nor, you'd better tell my mother I'll be using the old sheets. Go on. You've got the princess to worry about. We'll be along later."

He grabbed Randolph's hand and ducked out the back before Gordon could protest.

Izzy could only have meant that they were going to hole up in Mother Corey's old Chicken Coop. Bruce Gordon had now managed to make a full circle, back to his beginnings on Mars. He'd started at the Coop with a deck of cards; now he was returning with a club.

He had counted on at least some regret from Mother Corey, however. But the old man only nodded after hearing that Randolph was safe. "Fanatics, crusaders and d.a.m.ned fools!" he said. He shook his head sadly and went shuffling back to his room, where two of his part-time henchmen were sitting.

Sheila had been sitting on the bunk, still in her airsuit. Now she jerked upright, then sank back with a slow flush. Her hands were trembling as she reached for a cup of coffee and handed it to him, listening to his quick report of Randolph's safety and the fact that he was going back outside the dome.

"I'm all packed," she said. "And I packed your things, too."

He shot his eyes around the room, realizing that it was practically bare, except for a few of her dresses. She followed his gaze, and shook her head. "I won't need them out there," she said. Her voice caught on that. "They'll be safe here."

"So will you, now that you've made up with the Mother," he told her.

"Your meal ticket's ruined, Cuddles, and you made it clear a little while ago just where you stand. Remind me to tell you sometime how much fun it's been."

"Your mother was good with a soldering iron, wasn't she? You even look human." She bent to pick up a shoulder pack and a bag, and her face was normal when she stood up again. "You might guess that the cops would be happy to get hold of your wife now, though. Come on, it's a long walk."

He left the car beyond the gate, and they pushed through the locker room toward the smaller exit, stopping to fasten down their helmets. The guard halted them, but without any suspicion.

"Going hunting for those d.a.m.ned kids, eh?" he said. He stared at Sheila.

"Lucky devil! All I got for a guide was an old b.u.m. Okay, luck, Sergeant!"

It made no sense to Gordon, but he wasn't going to argue. They went through and out into the waste and slums beyond the domes, heading out until there were only the few phosphor bulbs to guide their way.

Gordon was moving cautiously, using his helmet light only occasionally, gun ready in his hand. But it was Sheila who caught the faint sound. He heard her cry out, and turned to see her crash into the stomach of a man with a half-raised stick. He went down with almost no resistance. Sheila shot the beam of her light on the thin, drawn face. "Rusty!"

"Hi, princess." He got up slowly, trying to grin. "Didn't know who it was. Sorry. Ever get that louse you were out for?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I got him. That's him--my husband! What's wrong with you, Rusty? You've lost fifty pounds, and--"

"Things are a mite tough out here, princess. No deliveries. Closed my bar, been living sort of hand to mouth, but not much mouth." His eyes bulged greedily as she dug into a bag and began to drag out the sandwiches she must have packed for the trip. But he shook his head. "I ain't so bad off. I ate something yesterday. But if you can spare something for the Kid--Hey, Kid!"

A thin boy of about sixteen crept out from behind some rubble, staring uncertainly. Then, at the sight of the food, he made a lunge, grabbed it, and hardly waited to get it through the slits of his suit before gulping it down. Rusty sat down, his lined old face breaking into a faint grin. He hesitated, but finally took some of the food.

"Shouldn't oughta. You'll need it. Umm." He swallowed slowly, as if tasting the food all the way down. "Kid can't talk. Cop caught him peddling one of Randolph's pamphlets, cut out part of his tongue. But he's all right now. Come on, Kid, hurry it up. We gotta convoy these people."

They were following a kind of road when headlights bore down on them.

Gordon's hand was on his gun as they leaped for shelter, but there was no hostile move from the big truck. He studied it, trying to decide what a truck would be doing here. Then a Marspeaker-amplified voice shouted from it. "Any muckrakers there?"

"One," Gordon shouted back, and ran toward it, motioning the others to follow. He'd always objected to the nickname, but it made a good code.

Randolph's frail hand came down to help them up, but a bigger paw did the actual lifting.

"Why didn't you two wait?" Mother Corey asked, his voice booming out of his Marspeaker. "I figured Izzy'd stop by first. Here, sit over there.

Not much room, with my stuff and Randolph's, but it beats walking."

"What in h.e.l.l brings you back?" Gordon asked.

The huge man shrugged ponderously. "A man gets tired of being respectable, cobber. And I'm getting old and sentimental about the Chicken Coop." He chuckled, rubbing his hands together. "But not so old that I can't handle a couple of guards that are stubborn about trucks, eh, Izzy?"

"Messy, but nice," Izzy agreed from the pile above them. "Tell those trained apes of yours to cut the lights, will you, Mother? Somebody must be using the Coop."

They stopped the truck before reaching the old wreck. In the few dim lights, the old building still gave off an air of mold and decay. Gordon shuddered faintly, then followed Izzy and the Mother into the semi-secret entrance.

Izzy went ahead, almost silent, with a thin strand of wire between his hands, his elbows weaving back and forth slowly to guide him. He was apparently as familiar with the garrote as the knife. But they found no guard. Izzy pressed the seal release and slid in cautiously, while the others followed.

In the beam of Gordon's torch, a single figure lay sprawled out on the floor halfway to the rickety stairs to the main house. Mother Corey grunted, and moved quickly to the coughing, battered old air machine.

His fingers closed a valve equipped with a combination lock.

"They're all dead, cobbers," he wheezed. "Dead because a crook had to try his hand on a lock. Years ago, I had a flask of poison gas attached, in case a gang should ever squeeze me out."

In the filthy rooms above, Gordon found the corpses--about fifteen of them, and some former members of the Jurgens organization. He found the apelike bodyguard stretched out on a bunk, a vacant smile on his face.

A yell from the bas.e.m.e.nt called him back down to where Izzy was busily going through piles of crates and boxes stacked along one wall. He was pointing to a lead-foil-covered box. "Dope! And all that other stuff's ammunition!"

He shivered, staring at the fortune in his hands. Then he grimaced and shoved the open can back in its case. He threw it back and began stacking ammunition cases in front of the dope. Gordon went out to get the others and start moving in the supplies and transferring the corpses to the truck for disposal. Randolph scurried off to start setting up his makeshift plant in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Mother Corey was staring about when they returned. "Filthy," he wailed.

"A pigpen. They've ruined the Coop, cobber. Smell that air--even _I_ can smell it!" He sniffed dolefully.

Mother Corey sighed again. "Well, it'll give the boys something to do,"

he decided. "When a man gets old, he likes a little comfort, cobber.

Nice things around him..."

Gordon found what had been his old room and dumped his few things into it. Sheila watched him uncertainly, and then took possession of the next room. She came back a few minutes later, staring at the ages-old filth.

"I'll be cleaning for a week," she said. "What are you going to do now, Bruce?"

He shook his head, and started back down the stairs. He hurried down into the bas.e.m.e.nt where Randolph was arranging his mimeograph.

The printer listened only to the first sentence, and shook his head impatiently. "I was afraid you'd think of that, Gordon. Look, you never were a reporter--you ran a column. I've read the stuff you wrote. You killed and maimed with words. But you never dug up news that would help people, or tell them what they didn't suspect all along. And that's what I've got to have."

"Thanks!" Gordon said curtly. "Too bad Security didn't think I was as lousy a reporter as you do!"

"Okay. I'll give you a job, for one week. See what outer Marsport is like. Find what can be done, if anything, and do it if you can. Then come back and give me six columns on it. I'll pay Mother Corey for your food--and for your wife's--and if I can find one column's worth of news in it, maybe I'll give you a second week. I can't see a man's wife starve because he doesn't know how to make an honest living!"

Rusty and one of Mother Corey's men were on guard, and the others had turned in. Gordon went up the stairs and threw himself onto the bed in disgust.

"Bruce!" Sheila stood outlined in the doorway against the dim glow of a phosphor bulb. Her robe was partly open, and hunger burned in him; then, before he could lift himself, she bent over and began unfastening his boots. "You all right, Bruce? I heard you tossing around."

"I'm fine," he told her mechanically. "Just making plans for tomorrow."

He watched her turn back slowly, then lay quietly, trying not to disturb her again. Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow he'd find some kind of an answer; and it wouldn't be Randolph's charity.

Chapter XV