Unsigned
143-1/4 East Scjulak Street
Halcyon City
Halcyon
Dear Boss:
Have I got news for you!
A few days ago, Lar Luk—the ex-insurance salesman from Fomalhaut—visited me at the stockade. You could tell something was going on because Luk, usually a loud extrovert, spoke in conspiratorial whispers.
“They are going ahead with your trial,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“I am in a position to know. I think you’re being treated unjustly, Sammy. I came here to do something about it.”
Boss, I was desperate. Despite your encouraging note, I didn’t know which way to turn. I said, “Like what?”
And Luk leaned forward to whisper: “Like helping you escape.”
He clamped a flipper over my mouth before I could blurt out something which would give us away. I calmed down and said: “Can we do it?”
“We can try. We have to try.”
“When?” I asked.
“Tonight, after I leave, after it’s dark. I had to get special dispensation to visit you. They won’t let me visit you again.”
“But what... how....” I’m no intriguer, boss. I felt like a pawn in this game—but a pawn who was about to be checkmated unless he did something about it.
“Here,” said Lar Luk, thrusting something into my hand. “This is a Fomalhautian freezer, Sammy. You’ll stop anybody dead in his tracks with it. When they come to your cell tonight and bring your meal....” Lar Luk didn’t finish the sentence.
“You’ll be waiting for me outside?”
“Yes. With a jetcopter, my friend. It won’t be long now.”
And Lar Luk was gone. I examined the weapon he had given me. It looked deadly, all right, with a dull metal finish and a wicked, funnel-like snout. I was ready, but I didn’t see how I would get through the afternoon.
I tried to sleep. I couldn’t. I tried to think of you and Joanie and what it would be like back on Earth. I couldn’t concentrate. It grew dark slowly, the way it does on Halcyon. I thought they never would come with my supper. I thought they were starving me before the trial so I would confess readily. Then I began to think that maybe someone had seen Lar Luk give me the weapon. Perhaps the cell was wired and every word we said was heard in the stockade commander’s office.
Then I heard footsteps in the corridor. It always sounds like more than one person, the Halcyonians having more legs than we do. I stood there at the door of my cell, waiting. I could feel my heart fluttering around inside me, like a bird.
The cell door opened.
At first I was going to use Lar Luk’s weapon, but I didn’t know what kind of noise it would make. He hadn’t told me. Instead, I used the butt of the gun, banging it down across the guard’s head. He slumped at my feet. I hoped I hadn’t hurt him too badly. I even hoped Lar Luk’s weapon was effective but not lethal. I had nothing against the Halcyonians. I just wanted to escape.
Out into the corridor I ran, passing three cross-corridors before I reached the stockade quadrangle. In the halls, I met no one. So far, I was lucky. But then....
“Halt! Who goes there?”
A guard in the quadrangle challenging me!
I was trembling so much I had to hold Lar Luk’s weapon in both hands to fire it. It made a noise like a siren.
The guard didn’t fall. He kept coming.
I fired again.
It was a siren.
Lar Luk had tricked me.
You can imagine the pickle I was in, boss. The siren summoned more guards, who came at me from all directions. I tried to get away, pounding across the pavement of the quadrangle. From somewhere, a searchlight cut a bright yellow swath across the quadrangle. It found me and held me.
One of the guards fired a blaster, hitting me in the base of the skull and killing me instantly.