Chapter 12

“You have a great deal to lose,” General Smale was saying, “and nothing to gain by your stubbornness. You’re a young man, vigorous and, I’m sure, intelligent. You have a fortune of some million and a quarter dollars, which I assure you you’ll be permitted to keep. As against that prospect, so long as you refuse to cooperate, we must regard you as no better than a traitorous criminal--and deal with you accordingly.”

“What have you been feeding me?” I said. “My mouth tastes like somebody’s old gym shoes and my arm’s purple to the elbow. Don’t you know it’s illegal to administer drugs without a license?”

“The nation’s security is at stake,” snapped Smale.

“The funny thing is, it must not have worked, or you wouldn’t be begging me to tell all. I thought that scopolamine or whatever you’re using was the real goods.”

“We’ve gotten nothing but gibberish,” Smale said, “most of it in an incomprehensible language. Who the devil are you, Legion? Where do you come from?”

“You know everything,” I said. “You told me yourself. I’m a guy named Legion, from Mount Sterling, Illinois, population one thousand eight hundred and ninety-two.”

“I’m a humane man, Legion. But if necessary I’ll beat it out of you.”

“You?” I smiled, curling a lip. “You mean you’ll call in a herd of plug-uglies: real crooks, to do the dirty work. My only crime is knowing something you politicians want, and you’re willing to lie, cheat, steal, torture, and kill to get it. You know that and so do I; let’s not kid each other. I know your measure as a man, Mr. General.”

Smale had gone white. “I’m in a position to inflict agonies on you, you insolent rotter,” he grated. “I’ve refrained from doing so. You might add that to your analysis of my character. I’m a soldier; I know my duty. I’m prepared to give my life; if need be, my honor. I’m even prepared to forego your good opinion--so long as I obtain for my government the information you’re withholding.”

“Turn me loose; then ask me in a nice way. As far as I know, I haven’t got anything of military significance to tell you, but if I were treated as a free citizen I might be inclined to let you be the judge of that.”

“Tell us now; then you’ll go free.”

“Sure,” I said. “I invented a combination rocket ship and time machine. I traveled around the solar system and made a few short trips back into history. In my spare time I invented other gadgets. I’m planning to take out patents, so naturally I don’t intend to spill any secrets. Can I go now?”

Smale got to his feet. “Until we can safely move you, you’ll remain in this room. You’re on the sixty-third floor of the Yordano Building. The windows are of unbreakable glass, in case you contemplate a particularly untidy suicide. Your person has been stripped of all potentially dangerous items, though I suppose you could still swallow your tongue and suffocate. The door is of heavy construction, and securely locked.”

“I forgot to tell you,” I said. “I mailed a letter to a friend, telling him all about you. The sheriff will be here with a posse any minute now, to spring me--”

“You mailed no letter,” Smale said. “Unfortunately, we don’t feel it would be advisable to allow any furniture to remain here which you might be foolish enough to dismantle for use as a weapon. It’s rather a drab room to spend your future in, but until you decide to cooperate this will be your world.”

I didn’t say anything. I sat on the floor and watched him leave. I caught a glimpse of two uniformed men outside the door. No doubt they’d take turns looking through the peephole. I’d have solitude without privacy. I wondered if Margareta had managed to mail the cylinder.

I stretched out on the floor, which was padded with a nice thick rug, presumably so that I wouldn’t beat my brains out against it just to spite them. I was way behind on my sleep: being interrogated while unconscious wasn’t a very restful procedure. I wasn’t too worried. In spite of what Smale said, they couldn’t keep me here forever. Maybe Margareta had gotten clear and told the story to some newsmen; this kind of thing couldn’t stay hidden forever. Or could it?

I thought about what Smale had said about my talking gibberish under the narcotics. That was an odd one...

Quite suddenly I got it. By means of the drugs they must have tapped a level where the Vallonian background briefing was stored: they’d been firing questions at a set of memories that didn’t speak English. I grinned, then laughed out loud. Luck was still in the saddle with me.

The glass was in double panels, set in aluminum frames and sealed with a plastic strip. The space between the two panels of glass was evacuated of air, creating an insulating barrier against the heat of the sun. I ran a finger over the aluminum. It was dural: good tough stuff. If I had something to pry with, I might possibly lever the metal away from the glass far enough to take a crack at the edge, the weak point of armor-glass ... if I had something to hit it with.

Smale had done a good job of stripping the room--and me. I had my shirt and pants and shoes, but no tie or belt. I still had my wallet--empty, a pack of cigarettes with two wilted weeds in it, and a box of matches. Smale had missed a bet: I might set fire to my hair and burn to the ground. I might also stuff a sock down my throat and strangle, or hang myself with a shoe lace--but I wasn’t going to.

I looked at the window some more. The door was too tough to tackle, and the heavies outside were probably hoping for an excuse to work me over. They wouldn’t expect me to go after the glass; after all, I was still sixty-three stories up. What would I do if I did make it to the window sill? But we could worry about that later, after I had smelled the fresh air.

My forefinger found an irregularity in the smooth metal: a short groove. I looked closer, saw a screw head set flush with the aluminum surface. Maybe if the frame was bolted together--

No such luck; the screw I had found was the only one. What was it for? Maybe if I removed it I’d find out. But I’d wait until dark to try it. Smale hadn’t left a light fixture in the room. After sundown I’d be able to work unobserved.

A couple of hours went by and no one came to disturb my solitude, not even to feed me. Maybe they planned to starve me out; or maybe they weren’t used to being jailers and had forgotten the animals had to be fed.

I had a short scrap of metal I’d worked loose from my wallet. It was mild steel, flimsy stuff, only about an inch long, but I was hoping the screw might not be set too tight. Aluminum threads strip pretty easily, so it probably wasn’t cinched up too hard.

There was no point in theorizing. It was dark now; I’d give it a try. I went to the window, fitted the edge of metal into the slotted screw-head, and twisted. It turned, just like that. I backed it off ten turns, twenty; it was a thick bolt with fine threads. It came free and air whooshed into the hole. The screw apparently sealed the panel after the air was evacuated.

I thought it over. If I could fill the space between the panels with water and let it freeze ... quite a trick in the tropics. I might as well plan to fill it with gin and set it on fire.

I was going in circles. Every idea I had started with ‘if’. I needed something I could manage with the materials at hand: cloth, a box of matches, a few bits of paper.

I got out a cigarette, lit up, and while the match was burning examined the hole from which I’d removed the plug. It was about three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter and an inch deep, and there was a hole near the bottom communicating with the air space between the glass panels. It was an old-fashioned method of manufacture but it seemed to have worked all right: the air was pumped out and the hole sealed with the screw. It had at any rate the advantage of being easy to service if the panel leaked. Now, with some way of pumping air in, I could blow out the panels...

There was no pump on the premises but I did have some chemicals: the match heads. They were old style too, like a lot of things in Peru: the strike-once-and-throw-away kind.

I sat on the floor and started to work, chipping the heads off the matchsticks, collecting the dry, purplish material on a scrap of paper. Thirty-eight matches gave me a respectable sample. I packed it together, rolled it in the paper, and crimped the ends. Then I tucked the makeshift firecracker into the hole the screw had come from.

Using the metal scrap I scraped at the threads of the screw, burring them. Then I started it in the hole, half a dozen turns, until it came up against the match heads.

The shoes Margareta had bought me were the latest thing in Lima styles, with thin soles, pointed toes, and built-up leather heels: Bad on the feet, but just the thing to pound with. I thought about trying to work loose a piece of rug to shield my face, but decided against it. I’d have to stand aside and take my chances.

I took the shoe by the toe and hefted it: the flexible sole gave it a good action, like a well-made sap. There were still a couple of ‘if’s’ in the equation, but a healthy crack on the screw ought to drive it against the packed match-heads hard enough to detonate them, and the expanding gasses from the explosion ought to exert enough pressure against the glass panels to break them. I’d know in a second.

I flattened myself against the wall, brought the shoe up, and laid it on the screw-head with everything I had...

There was a deafening boom, a blast of hot air, and a chemical stink, then a gust of cool night wind--and I was on the sill, my back to the street six hundred feet below, my fingers groping for a hold on the ledge above the window. I found a grip, pulled up, reached higher, got my feet on the muntin strip, paused to rest for three seconds, reached again...