Stan laughed. "Not a chance—there's nothing that's apt to be familiar on this planet!" He dropped in the ice cubes. "Still, it's awkward. For all I remember of my past life, I might as well have been born in a vat."
Tanner smiled faintly. "I didn't know you were in the smuggling business."
"It's a good front and one in which we won't get our own fingers dirty. Besides, you haven't asked me what we were smuggling."
Tanner swirled his drink so the ice cubes clinked against the side.
"Alright, what are we smuggling?"
"Sometimes packages, sometimes suitcases, sometimes hat-boxes. Our men take receipt of the packages and deliver them to different destinations where they think they're going to be picked up. Perhaps a broom closet in a building, perhaps a trash box on a city street, maybe a locker in a train station. There's only two things I haven't told the men—what's in the boxes, and the fact that they're never going to be picked up."
"What happens then?"
Stan sat down in a leather upholstered chair and threw a leg over the arm. "Nothing. Not until November 4th, that is. At twelve noon, London time, half the cities of this world will be blown off the globe."
Tanner looked puzzled. "So? The air forces the fleets, and the armies will still be intact."
"They'll be much too busy to fight us," Stan said smoothly. "You see, Tanner, they'll be fighting each other."