Engineers -- Fiction; Science fiction; Space pirates -- Fiction
For example, the trucks which came to carry the Embassy shipment to the
spaceport. They were perfectly ordinary trucks, hired in a perfectly
ordinary way by the ambassador's secretary. They came trundling across
the square and into the Embassy gate. The ostentatiously loafing
plainclothesmen could look in and see the waiting parcels loaded on
them. The first truckload was quite unsuspicious. There was no package
in the lot which could have held a man in even the most impossibly
cramped of positions.
But the police took no chances. Ten blocks from the Embassy the cops
stopped it and verified the licenses and identities of the driver and
his helper. This was a moderately lengthy business. While it went on,
plainclothesmen worked over the packages in the truck's body and put
stethoscopes to any of more than one cubic foot capacity.
They waved the truck on. Meanwhile the second truck was loading up. And
the watching, ostensible loafers saw that nearly the last item to be put
on it was a large box which hadn't been visible before. It was carried
with some care, and it was marked fragile, and it was put into place and
wedged fast with other parcels.
The plainclothesmen looked at each other with anticipatory glee. One of
them reported the last large box with almost lyric enthusiasm. When the
second truck left the Embassy with the large box, a police truck came
innocently out of nowhere and just happened to be going the same way.
Ten blocks away, again the truck load of Embassy parcels was flagged
down and its driver's license and identity was verified. A
plainclothesman put a stethoscope on the questionable case. He beamed,
and made a suitable signal.
The truck went on, while zestful, Machiavelian plans took effect.
Five blocks farther, an unmarked empty truck came hurtling out of a side
street, sideswiped the truck from the Embassy, and went careening away
down the street without stopping. The trailing police truck made no
attempt at pursuit. Instead, it stopped helpfully by the truck which had
been hit. A wheel was hopelessly gone. So uniformed police, with
conspicuously happy expressions, cleared a space around the stalled
truck and stood guard over the parcels under diplomatic seal. With eager
helpfulness, they sent for other transportation for the Embassy's
shipment.
A sneeze was heard from within the mass of guarded freight, and the
policemen shook hands with each other. When substitute trucks
came--there were two of them--they loaded one high with Embassy parcels
and sent it off to the spaceport with their blessing. There remained
just one, single, large-sized box to be put on the second vehicle. They
bumped it on the ground, and a startled grunt came from within.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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