Chapter IX

It took minutes only.

He had headed back to the waterfront, afraid to run, with some vague notion of stealing a boat. Before he reached the row of saloons and joints, a smart-looking squad of eight tall men overtook him.

“Hold it, mister,” a sergeant said. “Are you Orsino?”

“No,” he said hopelessly. “That crazy woman began to yell at me that I was Orsino, but my name’s Wyman. What’s this about?”

The other men fell in beside and behind him. “We’re stepping over to O.N.I.,” the sergeant said.

“There’s the son of a bitch!” somebody bawled. Suddenly there were a dozen sweatered Guardsmen around them. Their leader was the thug Orsino had beaten in a fair fight. He said silkily to the sergeant: “We want that boy, leatherneck. Blow.”

The sergeant went pale. “He’s wanted for questioning by the O.N.I.,” he said stolidly.

“Get the marine three-striper!” the Guardsman chortled. He stuck his jaw into the sergeant’s face. “Tell your squad to blow. You marines ought to know by now that you don’t mess with the Guard.”

A very junior officer appeared. “What’s going on here, you men?” he shrilled. “Atten-shun!” He was ignored as Guardsman and marines measured one another with their eyes. “I said attention! Dammit, sergeant, report!” There was no reaction. The officer yelled: “You men may think you can get away with this but by God, you’re wrong!” He strode away, his fists clenched and his face very red.

Orsino saw him stride through a gate into a lot marked Bupers Motor Pool. And he felt a sudden wave of communal understanding that there were only seconds to go. The sergeant played for time: “I’ll be glad to surrender the prisoner,” he started, “if you have anything to show in the way of--”

The Guardsman kicked for the pit of the sergeant’s stomach. He was a sucker Orsino thought abstractedly as he saw the sergeant catch his foot, dump him and pivot to block another Guardsman. Then he was fighting for his life himself, against three bellowing Guardsmen.

A ripping, hammering noise filled the air suddenly. Like cold magic, it froze the milling mob where it stood. Fifty-caliber noise.

The jaygee was back, this time in a jeep with a twin fifty. And he was glaring down its barrels into the crowd. People were beginning to stream from the saloons, joints and shipfitting shops.

The jaygee cocked his cap rakishly over one eye. “Fall in!“ he rasped, and a haunting air of familiarity came over Orsino.

The waiting jeep, almost bucking in its eagerness to be let loose--Orsino on the ground, knees trembling with tension--a perfect change of mount scene in a polo match. He reacted automatically.

There was a surrealist flash of the jaygee’s face before he clipped him into the back of the square little truck. There was another flash of spectators scrambling as he roared the jeep down the road.

From then on it was just a question of hanging onto the wheel with one hand, trying to secure the free-traversing twin-fifty with the other, glancing back to see if the jaygee was still out, avoiding yapping dogs and pedestrians, staying on the rutted road, pushing all possible speed out of the jeep, noting landmarks, estimating the possibility of dangerous pursuit. For a two-goal polo player, a dull little practice session.

The road, such as it was, wound five miles inland through scrubby woodland and terminated at a lumber camp where chained men in rags were dragging logs.

Orsino back tracked a quarter-mile from the camp and jolted overland in a kidney-cracking hare and hounds course at fifty per.

The jeep took it for an hour in the fading afternoon light and then bucked to a halt. Orsino turned for an overdue check on the jaygee and found him conscious, but greenly clinging to the sides of the vehicle. But he saw Orsino staring and gamely struggled to his feet, standing in the truck bed. “You’re under arrest, sailor,” he said. “Striking an officer, abuse of government property, driving a government vehicle without a trip-ticket--” His legs betrayed him and he sat down, hard.

Orsino thought very briefly of letting him have a burst from the twin-fifty, and abandoned the idea.

He seemed to have bitched up everything so far, but he was still on a mission. He had a commissioned officer of the Government approximately in his power. He snapped: “Nonsense. You’re under arrest.”

The jaygee seemed to be reviewing rapidly any transgressions he may have committed, and asked at last, cautiously: “By what authority?”

“I represent the Syndic.”

It was a block-buster. The jaygee stammered: “But you can’t--But there isn’t any way--But how--”

“Never mind how.”

“You’re crazy. You must be, or you wouldn’t stop here. I don’t believe you’re from the continent and I don’t believe the jeep’s broken down.” He was beginning to sound just a little hysterical. “It can’t break down here. We must be more than thirty miles inland.”

“What’s special about thirty miles inland?”

“The natives, you fool!”

The natives again. “I’m not worried about natives. Not with a pair of fifties.”

“You don’t understand,” the jaygee said, forcing calm into his voice. “This is The Outback. They’re in charge here. We can’t do a thing with them. They jump people in the dark and skewer them. Now fix this damn jeep and let’s get rolling!”

“Into a firing squad? Don’t be silly, lieutenant. I presume you won’t slug me while I check the engine?”

The jaygee was looking around him. “My God, no,” he said. “You may be a gangster, but--” He trailed off.

Orsino stiffened. Gangster was semi-dirty talk. “Listen, pirate,” he said nastily, “I don’t believe--”

“Pirate?“ the jaygee roared indignantly, and then shut his mouth with a click, looking apprehensively about. The gesture wasn’t faked; it alarmed Orsino.

“Tell me about your wildmen,” he said.

“Go to hell,” the jaygee said sulkily.

“Look, you called me a gangster first. What about these natives? You were trying to trick me, weren’t you?”