Aliens Alien Harvest - By Robert Sheckley Page 0,5

it's not easy to prove, and in the meantime they've got me on the run. I don't own a damned thing anymore - nothing except this house and Ari." He lifted up the cybernetic ant to show to Julie. "I even have to beg my grocer to extend me credit so I can go on eating!"

Julie looked at him without sympathy. "I know all that, Stan. It's tough, isn't it?"

He thought he detected a tone of irony in her voice. "You're damned right it's tough!" "Granted. But so what?"

He stared at her, uncomprehending. "Did you actually come here to insult me?"

"There's nothing insulting in what I'm saying. I came here to make a deal with you. What I find is you sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. I'm offering you something you can do about it."

"It's not just that I'm broke," Stan said. "There's also ... my condition."

"Tell me about it," Julie said. Stan shrugged. "There's not much to say. Melanoma. I've got six months. Maybe a little longer if I want to lie in a hospital bed and breath pure oxygen." "You look like you're moving around pretty good just now," Julie said.

"Oh yeah, sure. But that's just now. This stuff is the only thing that keeps me going." He took out a vial of Xeno Zip and showed it to her.

"I know all about that stuff," Julie said. "It's my job to keep track of precious substances that come in small packages. And this is the only stuff that does you any good?"

"That's right," Stan said. "It's expensive even for a rich man. For someone whose assets have been seized ... Well, I'll run out soon, and I don't know what happens then."

"Tough," Julie said, with no pity in her voice. "So this stuff won't cure you?"

Stan shook his head. "Some doctors have theorized that if I could obtain absolute unadulterated royal jelly fresh from an alien hive, before any by products were added, and before it had time to lose any of its potency, it might buy me more time. But it's impossible to get."

"Except by going to the source," Julie said.

"Yes, that's right," Stan repeated slowly. "Except by going to the source. To a place where the Aliens actually produce it."

"That's the sort of place I had in mind for us to go," Julie said. "Like I told you, I know where there's a shipload of the stuff."

He stared at her, his eyebrows raised. Then his head slumped and he looked sad and worn. "No, no. It's quite impossible. Even if you knew of such a place - "

"That's exactly what I do know," Julie said. "You know a place where an alien queen produces royal jelly?"

She patted the sleek leather pouch that she carried at her side. "I've got the coordinates right in here, Stan. They're a part of my contribution to this venture."

"Where'd you get that information?"

She smiled. She was so lovely when she smiled. "Like I told you, I was good friends with a Bio Pharm executive. We were a little more than good friends, actually. Well, when he died - he was quite old, you understand - when he died, he decided that that particular secret shouldn't go to the grave with him."

"So what is your idea?" Stan asked. "Do you think we can just go there and get it?"

"That's about what I had in mind," Julie said.

"The Bio Pharm people might have something to say about it."

"I figured we could sneak in, grab the shipload, and get out before they spotted us."

"You think it would be as easy as that?"

She shook her head. "I never said it would be easy."

"Or within the law."

She shrugged impatiently. "There's nothing illegal about salvage. Why don't you think of it as your counterclaim to their lawsuit?"

"What do you mean?"

"They're suing you for patent infringement. Wrongly, you say. Well, prove you mean it. Go in there and take what is yours - then take them to court the way they're taking you."

Stan thought for a long while, then he began to smile. "You know, I think I'd like that."

"Now you're talking!"

"But wait a minute, there are still a lot of problems. We don't have a ship. My alien robot has never had a field test. And I don't have any money."

"We can do something about all that," Julie said. "But there really isn't much time. Not for you and not for me. If we're going to do this, we'll have to start real soon. And once