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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 83: Kondor 283
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Slade 278
An unfamiliar man stuck his head in through the door, and said, “Doctor Smith? I’m sorry I wasn’t here to meet you when you arrived, sir. I’m Jones, the building proctor. I have your keys; can I show you to your office, sir?”
“Oh--certainly. If you will excuse us, Doctor Albert, I’ll catch up with you a little later.”
“Certainly, Doctor Smith. I teach a class at three, but should be back before the end of the day.”
“Maybe I’ll catch up with you and sit in on the class. Always good to brush up on the simple things, and I’m sure Walters would benefit from it. Come, Walt,” and he followed the proctor into the hall.
“It happens that Doctor Simmons is on sabbatical at the moment, so his office isn’t being used. However, try not to disrupt it too much.”
The office in question was four doors farther from the stairs and on the opposite side of the hallway. It had several comfortable-looking chairs and a solid wooden desk. He set his duffel on this and unzipped it. “I’ve brought some of my gear, but under the circumstances you should learn to use it.” He pulled out the parabolic listening system and handed it to Zeke.
“What, you want me to wear this? With those parabolic dishes I’m going to look like some goofy cartoon mouse!”
“They’re not that big, and they’ll let you hear quite a bit without losing stereolocation.” He followed this with the starlight scope. “This,” he said, “is of course useful for night vision, but it also has the heads-up display for the operations of the other devices, of which this,” he pulled out the sniffer, “is in some ways most interesting. That’s a gas and particulate detector which will let you know everything from whether there’s some exotic gas in the air to whether the oxygen level is dropping.”
Zeke was now holding the three pieces in his arms. “And you want me to use these because?”
“Pretty much the same reason I had you learn to use the ranging binoculars back in the parakeet world: If we both know how to use them, we can take turns. I’ve not used them much, but I’m familiar enough with them that I can show you. On the other hand, it’s what we call user-friendly; you probably don’t need me to show you anything.”
He took one more item from the bag, a small piece of plastic, one of the diktar, the plastic coins that were money on the Mary Piper spaceship run. He knew what he wanted to do with it; the question was how to do it. He stood pondering for a moment.
“Everything all right?”
He nodded. “I’ll be right back,” and he headed out the door back toward Doctor Albert’s office.
He knocked, and heard the doctor call for him to enter. “Got a minute?” Kondor asked.
“Barely,” the professor replied.
“Well, I’ll walk with you to your class, if I may, but I’ve got a request you’re going to think is a bit silly. I want you to take this,” he said, holding out the diktar, “and keep it with you at all times. Even if you use the lavatory in the middle of the night, have this with you. If anyone asks, just tell them it’s a good luck charm.”
“A good luck charm? Is that what American scientists believe? I was in horse racing for quite a few years, and frankly, luck is for the punters.”
“Oh, I quite agree,” Kondor assured him. “I don’t believe in luck at all. That--call it a sort of biometric tracking device. It’s not accurate to distance at all, but it’s attuned to me such that I can always sense the direction to it.”
“What, some kind of psychic phenomena research?”
“I think that how it works is classified,” he said, trying to find a way out of it, “but I was never told quite exactly how it works. Tell you what, I know you think it absurd. I’ll sit here in your office, you walk into your lab and close the door, hide it somewhere, and then come get me and I’ll find it.”
Albert had taken hold of it, and tossed in the air and caught it once, a thoughtful look on his face. “You’re on,” he said, and stood and walked out the door into the other room. Kondor waited about two minutes, and the professor returned. “Ready,” he said.
Kondor could sense the scriff; he sorted it out from the equipment in his office and that which he left back at the apartment, and so followed it to the door of the lab. Albert was holding it open--but as Kondor passed him the vector shifted sharply. He stopped short, turned toward the doctor, reached out a hand and touched the jacket.
“Very clever, Doctor,” he said, as he lifted open the suit jacket and put his hand in the inside pocket to draw out the plastic coin. “I recommend, though, that you keep it in a different pocket--if it happens that your jacket is lying on a chair when you’re kidnapped, I’ll be able to find the jacket but not you.”
Clearly impressed, Albert took the coin and placed it in a trouser pocket. Kondor then said, “Let’s get to class,” and waved an arm for the professor to lead the way.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
