The Clone Republic (Clone 1) Page 4

“Tell me about the game,” Freeman said, with that low, rumbling voice. He listened carefully as I told the story, his face betraying no emotion. He did not say anything when I finished. Looking through me, he reached over and pressed the intercom button on Godfrey’s desk, and said, “Send in the other one.”

  Godfrey and Guttman stepped into the room. Sergeant Godfrey retreated to a far corner and sat quietly.

  Guttman, sweat rolling down his pale and puffy face, stood trembling before the desk. He had tried to dress properly for the meeting, but his armor would not cooperate. He wore his helmet, which no longer fit over his globe-shaped head, like a crown around his forehead. Guttman’s chestplate dangled from his neck. He’d used belts to lash his forearm guards and thigh plates in place. If I had not known that Taj Guttman was a Marine, I would have guessed that he was a comedian doing a parody of military life.

  Freeman seemed not to notice. No glint of humor showed in his face as he directed Guttman to a chair by the desk with a nod. Once Guttman lowered himself into his chair, Freeman showed him the picture of Crowley. “This the man?”

  “I’m not sure. It may have been him. It could be him. I really did not get a good look at that man,” Guttman twittered nervously. “I suppose Harris told you where we saw him?”

  “He mentioned a card game,” Freeman said.

  “I see,” said Guttman. “Whoever he was, he wasn’t very good at cards. He won the first hand, then I cleaned him out on the second. He quit after the third hand.”

  “What were the stakes?” Freeman asked.

  “Morrowtown isn’t exactly a gambler’s paradise,” Guttman said, as sweat dribbled down his forehead. “You might take home $50 if the locals are feeling dangerous.”

  “I understand you can also win government-issue sidearms?” Freeman said.

  Guttman turned completely white. He must have hoped that I would hide that part of the story. He glared at me for a moment, then turned back to Freeman. “Yes, I suppose. I don’t think he had ever seen one before. He held it like he was afraid it would bite him.”

  “Is that the pistol?” Freeman asked, pointing down at Guttman’s holster.

  Guttman fished it out of its sleeve and placed it on the desk. Freeman picked it up between his thumb and forefinger, exactly as Crowley had done. Dangling from the mercenary’s thick fingers, Guttman’s gun looked like a child’s toy. “Is this how he held it?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, just like that.”

  “Idiot,” Freeman said, placing the pistol back on the desk. “He shut off the charge guard outtake valve. This pistol will explode the next time you fire it.”

  Guttman looked at the weapon as if it had suddenly grown fangs. Spinning it in place rather than picking it up, he checked the energy meter, gasped, then moved his hands away quickly. “What do I do with it? Will it blow up?”

  Freeman did not bother answering. Turning toward the communications console, he quietly said, “Take your weapon and wait in the hall.” Guttman picked up his pistol and held it out in front of him as far as his arms could reach. Keeping both eyes fixed on the gun, he shuffled out of the office. I did not know which scared him more, carrying a sabotaged pistol or talking to Freeman.

  “You wait outside, too,” Freeman said to me.

  I started to leave, then stopped. “Excuse me, sir,” I said. “I remembered something else.”

  Freeman, who was now standing behind the desk, stared down at me. He did not say anything as he waited for me to speak.

  “When Guttman lost that first game, he said something about sand ruining these guns. He told Crowley that we had thousands of them around the base.”

  Freeman looked at me and nodded.

  “That will be all, Harris,” Godfrey said over the interLink.

  “Don’t go far,” Freeman said.

  As I left the room, I found Guttman pacing in the hallway. He stormed over to me and stared into my visor. His pudgy face turned red, and his lips were blue as he snarled at me. “Great job, pal! Now I’m in deep.”

  “Guttman, that gun would have blown up in your face if you ever got around to shooting it,” I said.

  Guttman stopped for a moment and thought. His breathing slowed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He pointed down the hall where his pistol lay on a table. “Do you know how to fix it?”

  If there is one thing you learn in basic training, it’s how to maintain a sidearm. All he had to do was open the buffer valve and discharge some gas. But Guttman had forgotten basic training. It must have been years since he had last stripped and cleaned a pistol.

  “Drain the chamber,” I said.

  “Oh,” he said. “Can you help me?”

  The door opened behind us, and Godfrey peered out. “Harris. Mr. Charming would like another word with you.”

  As I stepped back into Godfrey’s office, I saw Freeman talking to Admiral Brocius on the communications console. “What is your next step?” Brocius asked.

  “I want to have a look around Morrowtown,” Freeman replied.

  “Keep me informed,” Brocius said as he signed off. Freeman placed the photograph of Crowley back in his folder. Then he turned to look at me. “Do you have any civilian clothing?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Dress down; I need you to take me into Morrowtown.”

  As we climbed into the truck, I said, “We’ll save a couple of hours if we go in your flier.”

  Freeman glared down at me, and said, “We’ll take the truck.”

  “Is there a reason I am wearing civilian clothes?”

  “Yes,” Freeman said, and he did not speak again for the entire two-hour trip. I tried to distract myself with memories of boot camp, but you cannot ignore a man whose very presence radiates intensity. I could feel him sitting beside me. I suppose he chose the truck to avoid calling attention to himself; but there was no way this black-skinned giant was going to slip into Morrowtown unnoticed. Just thinking about Freeman trying to be inconspicuous made the long ride pass more quickly.

  The townspeople may have grown accustomed to Marines, but the sight of Freeman sent them running. People hurried out of our way as we walked through the streets. When we got to the gambling house, we found it locked tight. “Do you think anyone is in there?” Freeman asked.

  It was late in the afternoon, but Guttman usually played well into the evening. “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Good enough for me,” Freeman replied. He drew an oversized particle-beam pistol from his belt and aimed it at the door. Without warning, he fired a sparkling green beam at the door, which disappeared behind a cloud of smoke and sparks. Then, lifting a massive boot, he kicked the smoldering remains out of the doorway.

  “We could have knocked,” I said.

  Freeman did not answer as he disappeared into the smoke.

  Kline had struck me as somewhat timid the first time I saw him. On this occasion, he went from timid to terrified. As I stepped through the doorway, I saw him standing beside the liquor bar inside the foyer, the same place he had been standing the time I came with Guttman.

  Looking both scared and surprised, Kline stared unblinkingly at the remains of the door, then raised his hands in the air to show that he held no weapons. His gaze shifted in our direction, and he said, “May I help you?”

  Freeman walked over to Kline and placed the photograph of Crowley on the bar. “We’re looking for this man.”

  Kline looked down at the photograph and studied it for a minute. “He came in a month ago. That was the only time I ever saw him.”

  “What do you remember about him?” Freeman asked.

  “He played a few hands and left; that’s all I know,” Kline said, trying to sound casual.

  “Maybe this will jog your memory,” Freeman said, pulling out his pistol and pressing its muzzle into the fleshy area between Kline’s eyes.

  Kline’s eyes crossed as they looked up the barrel, but he remained composed. “I think he came here looking for soldiers. He asked me if
any of the Marines from the base were coming and offered me $100 to let him join the game.” Kline’s voice trembled, but only slightly. Considering the size of the pistol pressed against his head and the damage that pistol had done to his door, I thought Kline remained amazingly calm.

  “Anything else?” Freeman asked.

  “That’s everything,” Kline said.

  Never shifting his gaze from Kline’s face, Freeman placed his pistol on the bar. He did so very gently, taking great care not to scratch the finish. Then he reached into a pocket below his chestplate. After fishing around for a moment, he removed a small silver tube.

  “Your name is Kline, is that right?”

  “Yes,” Kline said, staring at the tube.

  “Do you know how to kill ants, Mr. Kline?”

  “By stepping on them?” Kline asked.

  “Yes, you can kill one ant that way, but I mean a whole hill of ants.”

  Kline shook his head.

  “You poison one ant with something slow and highly toxic. Kill it too fast, say, by stepping on it or using a fast poison, and all you have is a dead ant. But if you use the right poison, something that works real slow, that ant will infect his entire colony.”

  “Is that poison?” Kline asked.

  “No, sir,” Freeman said, shaking his head. “Just a little Super Glue.” He pushed one of Kline’s hands down on the bar with the palm up. Kline tried to close his fingers; but when Freeman squeezed his wrist, the hand fell open. “Now you keep that hand right there, right like that, Mr. Kline.”

  Freeman pulled the eyedropper out of the tube and squeezed, forcing several drops of clear white liquid to ooze onto Kline’s trembling palm. “See, that didn’t hurt. A little glue won’t hurt you.”

  Kline sighed with relief.

  “Now this, this could hurt you.” Freeman pulled something that looked like a lime from his pocket and pressed it into Kline’s freshly glued hand.

  Kline was no soldier, but he recognized the grenade the moment he saw it. “What are you doing?”

  Freeman closed Kline’s fingers around the grenade and held them shut as he quietly counted to sixty. When he released Kline’s fingers, he wiggled the grenade to make sure the glue held fast. Then he pulled the pin from the grenade. “Ever seen one of these?”

  Kline was speechless.

  “This is a grenade. A high-yield grenade will take out a full city block. This here is a low-yield grenade. Small ones like this aren’t nearly so bad. It might only destroy a couple of buildings.”

  “I see,” Kline said, his composure gone.

  “I made this one just for situations like this,” Freeman continued. “This grenade senses body heat. As long as there are no temperature fluctuations, you’ll be perfectly safe. You might want to use your other hand when you grab ice out of that freezer over there. Freezing air would set it off for sure. Don’t pry the grenade from your palm. A change in temperature like that’ll set it off, too. You wouldn’t want to hit it with a hammer or drill into it, either.”

  “I see,” said Kline.

  “See that hole where I took the pin? If anything goes in that hole except this exact pin, that grenade will explode. Don’t stick anything in that hole. You understand?”

  “Yes,” Kline stuttered.

  “You might lose some skin when I pry the grenade out of your hand.”

  “When?” Kline asked.

  “Think you can remember all that?” Freeman asked, ignoring the question.

  “When will you take it?” Kline responded.

  “The grenade is set to explode in forty-eight hours,” Freeman said. “If I don’t see you before then, I guess you can keep it.”

  Kline’s generally nonplussed facade melted, and his lips pulled back into a grimace. “But . . . but how will I find you? Why are you doing this?”

  “We’ll call this an incentive, Mr. Kline. I think you know more information than you are telling me,” Freeman said.

  Kline looked at me for help, but only for a moment. “How will I find you?”

  “I’ll be at the Marine base, Mr. Kline. You come down and visit me if you remember something. But don’t wait too long. Don’t show up in forty-seven hours and fifty-nine minutes because I won’t want to talk to you.” With that, Freeman packed up his picture of Crowley and his gigantic pistol. He screwed the cover back on the tube and started for the door. I followed.

  “What makes you so sure he’s hiding something?” I asked, as we stepped out onto the empty street.

  Freeman did not answer. Having reverted to his silent self, he walked to the next building. “Stop here,” he said, ignoring my question.

  The air was hot and dry. Since I was not wearing my climate-controlled bodysuit, the early evening felt like an oven. The sun started to set, and the sky above Morrowtown filled with crimson-and-orange clouds. The buildings, mostly two- and three-story sandstone structures, took on a particularly gloomy look in the dying daylight. Lights shone in some nearby windows. Freeman’s khaki-colored clothes looked gray in the growing darkness.

  “How do you know Kline is hiding something?” I asked again.

  “I’m not sure he is,” Freeman said. “I want to track him if he leaves town.”

  “In case he goes to warn Crowley?” I asked.

  Freeman did not answer.

  “So that wasn’t a grenade? It was just a tracking device?” Suddenly Freeman seemed almost human. I laughed, remembering Kline’s terrified expression.

  “No, that was a homemade grenade. I placed a radioactive tracking filament inside the glue.”

  I did not see the point in gluing a grenade to Kline’s hand. I believed him when he said that he did not know anything.

  Despite his lack of social skills, Freeman knew how to read people. Moments after we left the bar, Kline popped his head out of the door. He spotted us and jogged over, carefully cradling his left hand, the one with the grenade, as if he were holding an infant.

  “You won’t leave Gobi?” Kline asked.

  “Do you remember something?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head but never taking his eyes off Freeman.

  “I’ll be at the base,” Freeman said in his rumbling voice.

  Freeman turned and walked toward the truck. I followed. “Do you think he is a spy of some sort?” I asked quietly.

  “I don’t trust him,” Freeman said.

  Freeman and I did not speak to each other during the drive back to base, but the silence did not bother me this time. He sat very still, his eyes forming sharp slits as he surveyed the moonlit landscape.

  Perhaps I was slow. We were nearly back to Gobi Station before I realized that Freeman was looking for enemies. For all we knew, Crowley had an entire army on the planet, and he could easily ambush us on our way back to the fort. A lone soldier and a mercenary would not stand much of a chance in an ambush, but Freeman, well armed and always watchful, would not go down so easily.

  If we drove past any enemies that night, they did not make a move. Except for the hollow cry of distant lizards scurrying along some far-off dune, I never saw any signs of life.

  Gobi Station might have been the grandest building on the entire planet. Several times larger than any building in Morrowtown, the outpost had huge sandstone walls lined with columns and arches. A domed roof covered each corner of the structure. The first settlers on Gobi were probably Moslem—Gobi Station had a Moorish look about it. The outpost’s sturdy walls and thick ramparts made for a good fortress. The yellow light of our poorly powered lanterns poured out from the outpost’s arches and reflected on the gold-leafed domes. As we drove toward the motor pool, I felt warm relief in the pit of my stomach. We parked the truck, and I returned to my cell to sleep. Freeman headed toward Gutterwash Godfrey’s office. I suppose he wanted to report to Vice Admiral Brocius.

  Taj Guttman met me at the door of the barracks. At night, he wore a long, white robe that he cinched with a belt around his gelatinous stomach. Th
e belt looked equatorial. “What happened in town?”

  “Not much,” I said, pulling off my shirt. I walked into my cell hoping to get away from Guttman. He followed. Trying to ignore him, I dropped my pants.

  “Did you find Crowley?”

  “No, but Freeman made quite an impression on Kline. That Freeman is a real prick. He glued a grenade to Kline’s hand.”

  “He what?” Guttman sounded shocked. He made a whistling noise. “So do you think I’m going to get in trouble?”

  “I don’t think Freeman cares about you. I don’t think he cares about anybody. Just stay out of his way. You’ll be okay unless he decides to shoot you.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Kline had a secret, and Freeman must have figured it out. Working with subtle clues that escaped my attention, Freeman pieced that secret together and shared it only with Admiral Brocius, leaving the rest of us unprepared.

  Looking back, I should have seen it coming. A stockpile of military-grade weapons in a tiny garrison would be too easy a prize for a struggling army of traitors to ignore. Judging by Guttman and the other men who went into town, Crowley would expect little resistance if he attacked Gobi Station. Who knew how long he had had our base under surveillance. He had probably known our numbers, might even have been watching when Ray Freeman landed. Freeman’s arrival probably worked like a catalyst, spurring Crowley to act sooner than he had intended.

  Freeman knew that someone like General Crowley would not come to a backwater planet like Gobi for no reason. If Crowley was here and weapons were here, Crowley undoubtedly wanted the weapons. Freeman didn’t share this useful information, however, because he had come on a bounty-hunting expedition and wanted to capture Crowley. If he had warned us, we would have prepared for the attack and Crowley would have seen us mounting guns and sending out patrols. He might have tried to flee the planet, and Freeman did not want that. Freeman had sized up the situation and decided to offer up my platoon as bait.

  Crowley made his move the following morning. It started with a single explosion that shattered the silence and shook the desert like cracking thunder. The explosion came from the north side of the base, rattling the outpost’s massive walls.