The Misplaced Battleship
made him jump through hoops. It wasn't necessary. As soon as I showed
him the different blueprints and explained the possibilities he
understood. If anything, he was more eager than I was to find out who
was using his administration as a cat's-paw. By silent agreement the
documents were forgotten.
We agreed that the next logical step would be the Cenerentola
Spaceyards. He had some idea of sniffing around quietly first, trying to
get a line to his political opponents. I gave him to understand that the
League, and the League Navy in particular, wanted to stop the
construction of the battleship. After that he could play his politics.
With this point understood he called his car and squadron of guards and
we made a parade to the shipyards. It was a four-hour drive and we made
plans on the way down.
* * * * *
The spaceyard manager was named Rocca, and he was happily asleep when we
arrived. But not for long. The parade of uniforms and guns in the middle
of the night had him frightened into a state where he could hardly walk.
I imagine he was as full of petty larceny as Ferraro. No innocent man
could have looked so terror stricken. Taking advantage of the situation,
I latched my motorized lie detector onto him and began snapping the
questions.
Even before I had all the answers I began to get the drift of things.
They were a little frightening, too. The manager of the spaceyard that
was building the ship had no idea of its true nature.
Anyone with less self-esteem than myself--or who had led a more honest
early life--might have doubted his own reasoning at that moment. I
didn't. The ship on the ways _still_ resembled a warship to six places.
And knowing human nature the way I do, that was too much of a
coincidence to expect. Occam's razor always points the way. If there are
two choices to take, take the simpler. In this case I chose the natural
acquisitive instinct of man as opposed to blind chance and accident.
Nevertheless I put the theory to the test.
Looking over the original blueprints again, the big superstructure hit
my eye. In order to turn the ship into a warship that would have to be
one of the first things to go.
"Rocca!" I barked, in what I hoped was authentic old space-dog manner.
"Look at these plans, at this space-going front porch here. Is it still
being built onto the ship?"
He shook his head at once and said, "No, the plans were changed. We had
to fit in some kind of new meteor-repelling gear for operating in the
planetary debris belt."
I flipped through my case and drew out a plan. "Does your new gear look
anything like this?" I asked, throwing it across the table to him.
He rubbed his jaw while he looked at it. "Well," he said hesitatingly,
"I don't want to say for certain. After all these details aren't in my
department, I'm just responsible for final assembly, not unit work. But
this surely looks like the thing they installed. Big thing. Lots of
power leads--"
It was a battleship all right, no doubt of that now. I was mentally
reaching around to pat myself on the back when the meaning of his words
sank in.
"Installed!" I shouted. "Did you say installed?"
Rocca collapsed away from my roar and gnawed his nails. "Yes--" he said,
"not too long ago. I remember there was some trouble...."
"And what else!" I interrupted him. Cold moisture was beginning to
collect along my spine now. "The drives, controls--are they in, too?"
"Why, yes," he said. "How did you know? The normal scheduling was
changed around, causing a great deal of unnecessary trouble."
The cold sweat was now a running river of fear. I was beginning to have
the feeling that I had been missing the boat all along the line. The
original estimated date of completion was nearly a year away. But there
was no real reason why that couldn't be changed, too.
"Cars! Guns!" I bellowed. "To the spaceyard. If that ship is anywhere
near completion, we are in big, _big_ trouble!"
* * * * *
All the bored guards had a great time with the sirens, lights,
accelerators on the floor and that sort of thing. We blasted a screaming
hole through the night right to the spaceyard and through the gate.
It didn't make any difference, we were still too late. A uniformed
watchman frantically waved to us and the whole convoy jerked to a stop.
The ship was gone.
Rocca couldn't believe it, neither could the president. They wandered up
and down the empty ways where it had been built. I just crunched down in
the back of the car, chewing my cigar to pieces and cursing myself for
being a fool.
I had missed the obvious fact, being carried away by the thought of a
planetary government building a warship. The government was involved for
sure--but only as a pawn. No little planet-bound political mind could
have dreamed up as big a scheme as this. I smelled a rat--a stainless
steel one. Someone who operated the way I had done before my conversion.
Now that the rodent was well out of the bag I knew just where to look,
and had a pretty good idea of what I would find. Rocca, the spaceyard
manager, had staggered back and was pulling at his hair, cursing and
crying at the same time. President Ferraro had his gun out and was
staring at it grimly. It was hard to tell if he was thinking of murder
or suicide. I didn't care which. All he had to worry about was the next
election, when the voters and the political competition would carve him
up for losing the ship. My troubles were a little bigger.
I had to find the battleship before it blasted its way across the
galaxy.
"Rocca!" I shouted. "Get into the car. I want to see your records--_all_
of your records--and I want to see them right now."
He climbed wearily in and had directed the driver before he fully
realized what was happening. Blinking at the sickly light of dawn
brought him slowly back to reality.
"But ... admiral ... the hour! Everyone will be asleep...."
I just growled, but it was enough. Rocca caught the idea from my
expression and grabbed the car phone. The office doors were open when we
got there.
Normally I curse the paper tangles of bureaucracy, but this was one time
when I blessed them all. These people had it down to a fine science. Not
a rivet fell, but that its fall was noted--in quintuplicate. And later
followed up with a memo, _rivet, wastage, query_. The facts I needed
were all neatly tucked away in their paper catacombs. All I had to do
was sniff them out. I didn't try to look for first causes, this would
have taken too long. Instead I concentrated my attention on the recent
modifications, like the gun turret, that would quickly give me a trail
to the guilty parties.
Once the clerks understood what I had in mind they hurled themselves
into their work, urged on by the fires of patriotism and the burning
voices of their superiors. All I had to do was suggest a line of search
and the relevant documents would begin appearing at once.
* * * * *
Bit by bit a pattern started to emerge. A delicate webwork of forgery,
bribery, chicanery and falsehood. It could only have been conceived by a
mind as brilliantly crooked as my own. I chewed my lip with jealousy.
Like all great ideas, this one was basically simple.
A party or parties unknown had neatly warped the ship construction
program to their own ends. Undoubtedly they had started the program for
the giant transport, that would have to be checked later. And once the
program was underway, it had been guided with a skill that bordered on
genius. Orders were originated in many places, passed on, changed and
shuffled. I painfully traced each one to its source. Many times the
source was a forgery. Some changes seemed to be unexplainable, until I
noticed the officers in question had a temporary secretary while their
normal assistants were ill. All the girls had food poisoning, a regular
epidemic it seemed. Each of them in turn had been replaced by the same
girl. She stayed just long enough in each position to see that the
battleship plan moved forward one more notch.
This girl was obviously the assistant to the Mastermind who originated
the scheme. He sat in the center of the plot, like a spider on its web,
pulling the strings that set things into motion. My first thought that a
gang was involved proved wrong. All my secondary suspects turned out to
be simple forgeries, not individuals. In the few cases where forgery
wasn't adequate, my mysterious _X_ had apparently hired himself to do
the job. _X_ himself had the permanent job of Assistant Engineering
Designer. One by one the untangled threads ran to this office. He also
had a secretary whose "illnesses" coincided with her employment in other
offices.
When I straightened up from my desk the ache in my back stabbed like a
hot wire. I swallowed a painkiller and looked around at my drooping,
sack-eyed assistants who had shared the sleepless seventy-two hour task.
They sat or slumped against the furniture, waiting for my conclusions.
Even President Ferraro was there, his hair looking scraggly where he had
pulled out handfuls.
"You've found them, the criminal ring?" he asked, his fingers groping
over his scalp for a fresh hold.
"I have found them, yes," I said hoarsely. "But not a criminal ring. An
inspired master criminal--who apparently has more executive ability in
one ear lobe than all your bribe-bloated bureaucrats--and his female
assistant. They pulled the entire job by themselves. His name, or
undoubtedly pseudoname, is Pepe Nero. The girl is called Angelina...."
"Arrest them at once! Guards ... guards--" Ferraro's voice died away as
he ran out of the room. I talked to his vanishing back.
"That is just what we intend to do, but it's a little difficult at the
moment since they are the ones who not only built the battleship, but
undoubtedly stole it as well. It was fully automated so no crew is
necessary."
"What do you plan to do?" one of the clerks asked.
"I shall do nothing," I told him, with the snapped precision of an old
space dog. "The League fleet is already closing in on the renegades and
you will be informed of the capture. Thank you for your assistance."
* * * * *
I threw them as snappy a salute as I could muster and they filed out.
Staring gloomily at their backs I envied for one moment their simple
faith in the League Navy. When in reality the vengeful fleet was just as
imaginary as my admiral's rating. This was still a job for the Corps.
Inskipp would have to be given the latest information at once. I had
sent him a psigram about the theft, but there was no answer as yet.
Maybe the identity of the thieves would stir some response out of him.
My message was in code, but it could be quickly broken if someone wanted
to try hard enough. I took it to the message center myself. The psiman
was in his transparent cubicle and I locked myself in with him. His eyes
were unfocused as he spoke softly into a mike, pulling in a message
from somewhere across the galaxy. Outside the rushing transcribers
copied, coded and filed messages, but no sound penetrated the insulated
wall. I waited until his attention clicked back into the room, and
handed him the sheets of paper.
"League Central 14--rush," I told him.
He raised his eyebrows, but didn't ask any questions. Establishing
contact only took a few seconds, as they had an entire battery of psimen
for their communications. He read the code words carefully, shaping them
with his mouth but not speaking aloud, the power of his thoughts
carrying across the light-years of distance. As soon as he was finished
I took back the sheet, tore it up and pocketed the pieces.
I had my answer back quickly enough, Inskipp must have been hovering