One Step From Earth

On Thursday night he stopped at the delicatessen next to his apartment house and bought two sandwiches and a cold six-pack of beer. He had a long evening's work ahead of him and no time for cooking or a restaurant. When he entered the apartment he locked the door carefully behind him and turned on the portable radio as he always did. W carried this with him to the bedroom when he changed his shoes for his slippers, and even took it with him to the kitchen when he opened a beer and put the remaining bottles into the refrigerator. He had built the detector into the radio himself, had tested it often and knew that it was reliable. The apartment had not been bugged in his absence. He had been ordered to take this precaution and did so automatically. His attention was upon the report he had to make and how to compose it so that it would be both detailed and still short. It would be too complex to enter directly, a character at a time, into the hand calculator. He took out his typewriter and slowly and meticulously typed out his notes. It was after nine before he was done, past midnight before he had encoded it all to his satisfaction. After this his neck hurt and he was tired — but he had been trained well. In a large stone ashtray he burned the sheets of paper with his notes and draft — along with the used length of ribbon from the typewriter. He pounded the resultant black mess into dust with a ladle from the kitchen and did not retire until the last fragment had been flushed down the toilet. The work was done and he was satisfied.

He was usually able to put this clandestine part of his life from his mind while he worked, but not this Friday. Up until this moment it had all been part of a game to him. A complex and possibly dangerous game, but one without the importance of the real work that they were doing in the laboratory. But now this had all changed. The armed soldiers at the entrance to the lab, the manifold examinations of his pass, all held a different significance now. They were there to prevent precisely what he was doing. He felt what — pride? — in what he was accomplishing. Perhaps. But he was doing only what he had been trained to do. And until the report had been left his work was not at an end. When five o'clock came he tried not to hurry as he put on his coat and went out to the car.

There must have been an accident somewhere ahead, he could hear the sirens in the distance, while the normally heavy Friday traffic was now stopped dead. He crawled along with the others for five blocks before he could extricate the car and work his way around the jam. The carwash closed at six. If he was late it would be another week before the drop could be made. The thought of waiting for that amount of time was frightening and his hands were damp on the steering wheel and he fought his way through the crawling traffic.

He need not have worried. It was a quarter to six when he pulled into the drive by the pumps, returning the smile of the black man at the till.

"Almost didn't make it," the man said, ringing up the sale. "The wife give you hell with a dirty car for the weekend." Adam Ward nodded and paid — then waited for the light before he crossed the road. They were getting to know him here as well and Mom nodded her well-dyed head and put his beer on the bar before him. He sipped it quickly, suddenly eager to have this matter done with. As he turned to the toilet one of the other customers shuffled in ahead of him and locked the door.

"Sure beat you that time," Mom cackled. "Another beer so you'll really have something to work with!"

He started to say no — then nodded. A second beer might help explain his sudden generosity with the dollar tip.

When he heard the gurgle of the ancient plumbing he gulped the last of the beer, trying not to cough when he did so, and was standing outside when the door rattled open.

"We're just middlemen, Sonny," the old man said, glaring as he emerged from the toilet, and for one heart-stopping moment Adam thought that he had been discovered. But it was the classic remark. "Goes in one end then out the other."

Door locked behind him and tested. Good. Two lengths of magnetic tape this time; there was a lot to report. On tiptoe he reached up and slipped the bandaid into place — and experienced a feeling of intense relief. It was done. His part was finished. Others would process the information he had obtained. Relief, and two beers, gave him good excuse to use the facilities. To flush, to wash his hands in the grimy sink, dry them on his handkerchief then unlock the door. Two grim-faced men stood waiting for him outside.

"You are under arrest," the first man said, showing him a gold badge of some sort. "Just don't make any fuss and you won't get hurt."