Kaspar's Box

He started walking down to the end of the block, casually, but rather obviously in a hurry, taking out his hip flask as he did so and going a wee bit faster with each step. He got to the end, took a hard swallow, looked around, saw nobody yet, took another, and then began walking down the street as directed. At this point, he was too committed to run, and too curious and involved to want to.

Near the end of the block was a lamppost and an ornamental tropical tree. As he approached the tree, a figure seemed to ooze right out of it.

"Captain Murphy, what in the world are you doing here?"

He stared at the small figure for a moment. "Why, it's Lieutenant Chung, isn't it? I could ask the same of you."

"I can't believe you'd miss them or worry about them at this point," she said, shaking her head. "Not you."

He looked a bit sheepish and shrugged. "I know, I know. But there was just somethin' about them, somethin' that was wrong, if you know what I mean. Volunteers is one thing, even young girls, but them devil jewels-they was runnin' the show. I don't like that sort of thing. Never held with it. Besides, somethin' in the whole stinkin' mess just got me Irish up. Hundreds of years the damned Limeys run our old land, worked us on our own home soil like slaves, treated us like no better than animals. We threw 'em out finally. Got fed up with it. I'll be damned if I see some other group doin' the same damned thing again."

His answer surprised her. She hadn't thought him even that deep. "My people had a similar experience with the Japanese so I can sympathize. Still, what were you going to do?" she asked him. "Be a new hero of your people? Rush in, blow open the iron gates, find them and steal them back?"

He seemed to sag a bit, and sighed. "Somethin' like that, I guess. Or maybe not. I dunno, really, what I was thinkin' of doin', or what I might be able to do. But I had to see if there weren't somethin', y'see. And," he added, needling a bit, "it didn't look like there was anybody else that cared."

"We've been here ever since they were brought in," the lieutenant told him. "That's why we couldn't stay with you. That way, we were an obvious and public danger to whoever went to so much trouble to get them."

"You saw who took 'em, then?"

She nodded. "We know a fair amount at this point, although not nearly enough. We didn't have to put a one-on-one tail on them, you see. There was enough chemical tracer in the bath wash in the courier ship that I could probably eventually trace them down within a couple of parsecs of this planet if need be."

Murphy glanced back up the street towards the compound. "So what do they look like, these devil folks?"

"Ordinary. I don't think they're behind this at all. Just tools, like the girls and many others. Rich folks playing at being naughty. Their kind's always been with us. Some can be quite dangerous, fanatics who have become lost in their own fantasy world, but they can be dealt with. Oddly, they are usually intellectuals with good contacts and influence. We would rather not have to harm them if we can avoid it, but they must be dealt with."

"You're sure the girls are still in there?"

She nodded. "As of now, yes. But people and vehicles come and go around here, and we sincerely doubt if this is their final destination. They're going to want those babies born outside the city, outside of authorities and monitors and records. We're scouting the place now as minutely as possible to see if there is a good, easy way in. The problem is, the girls are only a part of our problem. We need to know who is behind all this. We need to know just precisely what this is really all about."

"Hmph! Well, I wish I was, but I ain't much of a burglar. Not at my age," the old captain told her.

"That's all right," she responded almost instantly. "We are."

* * *

The next big shock Murphy got was the discovery that there were eight commandos in the team, not just the two. The other six apparently spent the trip in a lower compartment of the courier in some sort of quick-acting suspended animation. The girls, and the powers they had thanks to the gems, apparently never sensed their presence for just that reason. When the enemy's got hold of your computer, it seems, don't tell your computer anything you don't want everyone to know.