Hans took everything out and placed it on the table with
letter. He looked at all and chuckled. Alfie had stuck to their hastily
concocted cover story and sent items that were not available on the frontier
worlds. It wasn’t anything Hans could use, but he knew someone that might give
him a pretty penny in trade for them.
That meant everything he needed to know was in the letter
that hadn’t even been enclosed in an envelope. If anyone had checked out the
package they would have been able to read it easily. It meant only one thing,
that there was a secret message within the message that Hans was going to have
to figure out. It was something Alfie had often done in the academy – even in
many of his reports that he handed in.
Hans read the letter over a few times. Some of the wording
was a little odd, but nothing stood out right away. He had known that it wouldn’t
have been obvious, but he had hoped that it would be easier than this. He tried
a few of the more basic ways to find a message that Alfie had taught him, but
he kept coming up with gibberish.
Hans rubbed at his temple trying to assuage the headache
that he could feel starting to come on. He
wished that he could call Alfie, but that would have given everything away. A
letter could have been sent electronically, it would have been quicker, but
Hans knew that this way the evidence could be more easily destroyed.
Grabbing a spare notepad, Hans forced himself to try
everything he could possibly think of to find the message that was hidden in
the letter. He needed to find it soon as well. He had already seen people
giving his gloved hands strange looks and he wanted to stop hiding it as soon
as he could – and, more importantly, he needed to warn the government about a
war that was coming.
He copied the contents of the letter over to the notepad so
that he could work with it better. I circled words and letter and wiped his
alterations in an attempt to find a hidden message. It was late by the time he
put the notepad aside to get some rest. He had the next day so that meant he
would have all day to try to figure it out.
Hans sat down to the puzzle with fresh eyes the next day. Hans
was sure he had been going about it all wrong the night before trying to find a
straight up message within the letter. He knew the answer was in there, but it
would have been far better hidden from prying eyes. No combination of words
within the letter made a new message, but there was one special code that Alfie
had always talked about trying to perfect. It was a complicated way of coding a
letter, but complicated was what was called for.
Hans slowly went through the letter and started the
difficult task of rewriting it with the necessary changes. It was a few hours
of tedious work before Hans was sure he was on the right track. A new message
was starting to form that made sense. As the sun set, Hans finally had a
complete message and he was sure that this was what he needed to be reading.
Hans checked the time before calling Duke at home to invite
him over. He kept his tone casual and light.
“Hey, Duke. I was just putting together a good meal and I
was just thinking it would great to have some good company. Why don’t you and
Honora come on over for dinner? Maybe pick up something to drink on the way.
What do you think?” Hans didn’t give Duke a chance to even say hello just in
case he said something that they might all regret.
“Dinner? I take it you’ve got something good then?” Duke
asked.
“Yeah,” Hans breathed a small sigh of relief that Duke had
caught on right away. “I think you both are going to enjoy this meal. So, what
do you say?”
“I think I’ll be right over. Anything in particular to
drink?” Duke asked, almost as an afterthought.
“Whatever you think you might enjoy. Just stop somewhere.” Hans
wanted to roll his eyes, but he kept himself under control.
“Gotcha. See ya inna bit.” Duke hung up the connection
first.
Hans knew that Duke and Honora would only be about twenty
minutes. He decided that it wouldn’t hurt to have something for them all to
eat. He thought about his limited cooking abilities and decided that simple was
best and started cooking.
Hans had just finished putting the meal together for any
potential onlookers when his buzzer called for his attention. He walked calmly to the door, trying to focus
on putting a friendly smile on his face. He opened the door to find Duke and
Honora with similarly fake smiles on their faces as well.
“Come on in guys. Dinner is ready.” Hans stepped aside and
tried to ignore the look of surprise on Duke’s face that there really was food
waiting for them.
“Brought some scotch, hope it’ll do.” Duke handed over the
bottle as he walked in with Honora right behind him. Hans closed the door as
quickly as he could and let the smile fall from his face.
“Scotch is probably the best idea. Eat if you’re hungry
because you might lose your appetite once I tell you what the plan is.” Hans
walked to the table and sat down at his plate.
“Glad to hear there is something. I was starting to worry
that you really did just call us over for dinner.” Duke eyed up the food before
taking a seat and filling his plate. “Looks good though.”
Honora followed suit with a more moderate amount of food.
“Yeah it does look good and I think some food right now does sound good.”
Hans didn’t bother to respond. He placed some food on his
plate as well, but didn’t bother touching any of it. He had lost his appetite
at the realization of Alfie’s plan for getting them on to Earth with no one
knowing. He knew that he should eat, but he just couldn’t quite bring himself
to do so right now. His mind was still reeling.
“So, what is this master plan that your friend came up with?” Duke asked between bites of food.
“After dinner, we’ll break open that scotch of yours and
then we’ll talk.” Hans forced a piece of food into his mouth and swallowed. “Eat
up.”
“Hans, are you okay?” Honora put her fork down and gave her
boss the once over. “You’re looking a little pale.”
“I’m fine. You’ll understand soon.” Hans leaned back in his
chair and eyed up the bottle of scotch.
Duke pushed his plate aside and narrowed his eyes. “I’m
thinking I’d rather know what sort of plan as you this worried.”
Hans stood up from the table, walked into the kitchen and
grabbed three tumblers. He set them down and poured a good measure of scotch
into each glass. He pushed a glass towards Duke and the other towards Honora
before picking up the last glass and raising it into the air.
“I would like to propose a toast to the impossible. May the
word be forever banned from the upcoming conversation.” Hans knocked back the
drink in one gulp and refilled his drink. Neither Duke nor Honora had even
touched their glasses yet. “Drink up, we’ve got a lot to talk about and it
starts with this.”
No comments:
Post a Comment