10.
During Vitello’s mission to Vanir, Chuch sequestered himself in the Purple Palace, which his uncle had put at his disposal. It was a fine-looking place with its onion-shaped minarets and pointy towers, all surrounded by massive crenellated walls. The view from the upper battlements of the River Dys and the foothills of the Crossets was unsurpassed.
Chuch was amusing himself in the downstairs torture chamber when Count John came rushing in.
“Haldemar is here!” he cried.
“That’s as it should be,” said Chuch. “He is our ally, Uncle.”
“But those men with him—”
“His retinue, no doubt.”
“There are an estimated thirty thousand of them,” John said. “They have landed on my planet without permission!”
Chuch turned to Vitello. “Did you tell that barbarian he could land with his troops?”
“Certainly not! I was much against it. But what could I do? Haldemar insisted upon accompanying me to Crimsole with his fleet. I could not stop them from landing. I was just able to divert them from the capitol by suggesting they might like to try Fun Park at nearby Vacation City. You know what barbarians are like.”
“But I don’t want them here,” John said. “Can’t we just thank them and give them a good dinner and send them back home until we need them?”
Just then Anne rushed in, her face ashen. “They’re spreading over the countryside, getting drunk and making remarks to women! I’ve pacified them temporarily by giving them unlimited free rides on the roller coaster, but I don’t know how long that will hold them.”
Chuch said, “Uncle, there’s only one way of getting them off the planet. You must muster your ships for the attack on Glorm. Haldemar will follow.”
“No,” Anne said, “we can’t even afford to fight Lekk, much less Glorm.”
“Taking Glorm will make you rich,” Chuch said.
“No, it won’t,” Anne told him. “Most of the profit would go to the Surplus Conquest Tax.”
They argued for several hours. By nightfall, Haldemar’s troops were sacking the outskirts of Vacation City. A steady stream of refugees poured out of the city with tales of how blond berserkers in animal skins were using the cabanas without paying for them, charging hotel rooms and expensive dinners to imaginary people, driving around in motorcycle gangs (for the Vanir never went anywhere without their motorcycles), and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Pushed and prodded by circumstance, Count John mobilized his fleet. Haldemar managed to get his men back aboard their ships with talk of the booty they would win. Slowly the combined fleets steamed toward the perimeter of Druth, where Rufus’ fleet barred the approaches to Glorm.
11.
There was an air of hushed expectancy in the dimly lit War Room of Ultragnolle Castle. On the TV displays, the screens were filled with tiny gleaming figures, rank upon rank of them. Two spacefleets were coming together in the immensity of space. To one side, the forces of Druth were arranged in neat phalanxes. Rufus’ ships were motionless, battle-ready, keeping station just behind the coordinates that marked Druth’s personal space. Approaching them, strung out in a double horn formation, were the enemy. John’s superdreadnaughts held the right flank and center, Haldemar’s lapstraked vessels the left. Dramocles could see that the enemy fleet was considerably larger than Rufus’. John had called up all his reserves. Aside from the regular navy, there were stubby freighters outfitted with missile launchers, high-speed racers with jury-rigged torpedo tubes, experimental craft with bulky beam projectors. John had called up everything that could get off the planet and keep up with the fleet.
Utilizing a split-screen technique handed down from the ancients, Dramocles could watch as well as listen to the conversation between Rufus and Count John . . .
“Hello there, Rufus,” said Count John, in a voice of elaborate unconcern.
Rufus, in his Operations Room, touched the fine tuning. “Why, hello, John. Come visiting, have you?”
“That I have,” John said. “And I’ve brought along a friend.” Haldemar’s shaggy head appeared on another screen. “Hi, Rufus. Been a while, ain’t it?”
Rufus had been peeling a willow branch with a small pocket knife. “Reckon it has,” he said. “How you boys doin’ out there on Vanir?”
“It’s pretty much the way it’s always been,” Haldemar said. “Not enough sunlight, too short a growing season, no industry, no decent-looking women. Not that I’m complaining, mind.”
“I know it’s tough conditions out your way. But wasn’t there some big project planned for Vanir?”
“You must mean Schligte Productions. They’d planned to film their new super war epic, Succotash Soldiers, on our planet. It would have meant a lot of work for the boys. But production’s been held up indefinitely.”
“Well,” Rufus said, “that’s show business.”
The amiable, rambling talk of these men could not conceal the air of tension that ran through their casual words like a filament of tungsten steel passing through the inconsequential fluff of a fiberfill pillow. At last Rufus asked, “Well, it’s nice to pass the time of day with you fellows. Now, is there anything I can do for you?”
“Why yes, Rufus,” John said. “We’re just passing this way on our way to Glorm. We ain’t got no quarrel with you. Me and the boys would appreciate it right kindly if you’d ask your boys to step aside so we could continue.”
Rufus said, “It downright distresses me to tell you this, but I don’t think I can do that.”
John said, “Rufus, you know very well we’ve come here to have it out with Dramocles. Let us through. This doesn’t concern you.”
“Just a minute.” Rufus turned to a side monitor which employed a tight-beam TV circuit passing through a double scramber. He said to Dramocles, “What do you want me to do?”
Dramocles glanced at the differential accelerometer. It showed that John’s and Haldemar’s spaceships were creeping forward slowly, taking their time, just moseying along, but they were on the move, directly toward Rufus’ phalanx.
Dramocles had already ordered his own ships to a distant backup position on the perimeter of Glorm. He told Rufus to hold position and await orders. Then he heard a commotion behind him. The guards were arguing with someone who was trying to gain admittance to the War Room. Dramocles saw that it was Max. There was a woman with him.
“What is it?” Dramocles asked.
Max said, “Have you given Rufus any orders yet? No? Thank God! Sire, you must listen to me and to this young lady. There’s treachery afoot, my lord!”
The enemy fleet was not yet within firing range of Rufus’ ships. There was still a little time.
“Hold everything for a moment, Rufus,” Dramocles said. “I’ll get back to you in a minute.” He turned to Max. “Come in. This had better not be some wild fancy, Max. And who’s your friend?”
“They call me Chemise,” the girl said.
“Max,” Dramocles said, “I’ve got no time for Tlaloc. The real fighting is about to begin.”
“I know that, Sire,” Max said. “It’s why I have come. I have just received the most astounding information. It is of vital concern to the war.”
“You must make peace!” broke in the girl. “On any terms at all, but make peace.”
“The matter’s gone too far for that,” Dramocles told her. “Besides, this is my destiny.”
“But that’s just the point!” cried Chemise. “This is not your destiny at all! It’s someone else’s! You have been manipulated, Dramocles, duped, deceived! You think you command, but there’s another who directs you by indirection, forcing you to go against your deepest wishes in order to achieve his!”
“And who is this personage?”
“He is Tlaloc!”
Dramocles looked intently into her frank blue eyes. “My dear,” he said gently, “I have no time to talk conspiracy. There is no Tlaloc. Max invented him.”
She shook her head vehemently. “So
Max thought at one time, though he knows better now. Actually, the name was suggested to him by Tlaloc himself, and projected by astral cinematography from the planet where he lives.”
“This is madness! What planet are you talking about?”
“Earth, my lord.”
“Earth is in ruins.”
“That’s not the Earth I mean,” Chemise said. “There are uncountable Earths, each lying within its own reality stratum. Normally, there’s no way of getting from one reality stratum to another. But in this case, a singularity exists, forming a connection between Glorm and this Earth. The two are tied together by a wormhole in the cosmic foam.”
“I don’t understand this at all,” Dramocles said. “Do we really need these complications? And how do you know all this, anyhow?”
“Because, King, I am from that Earth. I can show proofs of this, but it will take time. I beg you to accept my word for the present. Tlaloc exists, and he is a magician of supreme power. He needs Glorm, and he’s making you dance to his tune.”
Dramocles looked at the nearest monitor. He could make no sense out of the confusion of colored dots and streaky lines. Spacefleets were maneuvering, and the situation was unclear.
“All right,” Dramocles said. “Who are you? What the hell is going on?”
Chemise told Dramocles that she was a girl from Earth, bom in Plainfield, New Jersey, some twenty-six years ago. Her name at that time was Myra Gritzler. Normal in all other respects, Myra had the misfortune of weighing 226 pounds at the age of sixteen. This was due to an obscure pituitary defect which Earth doctors were unable to correct, but which, in ten years, would remit spontaneously and dramatically when Myra travelled through the cosmic wormhole between Earth and Glorm. But she could not know that then. At sixteen she was a bright, lonely fat girl, scholastically superior to the children around her, laughed at by her classmates and never invited to pajama parties.
Life was discouraging until the day she met Ron Bugleat. Ron was seventeen, tall and skinny, red-haired, with homely country good looks. He was president of his school’s computer club. He had been Fan Guest of Honor at Pyongcon, North Korea’s first science-fiction convention. He also published his own magazine. It was called Action at a Distance: A Magazine Devoted to the Study of the Non-Obvious Forces That Shape Us. Ron was a conspiracy buff.
Ron believed that much of mankind’s history had been influenced by secret forces and hidden influences unacknowledged by the ‘official’ historians. Many people in America believed something like this, but Ron didn’t believe what they believed. He looked down on most conspiracy buffs as gullible and intellectually naive. They were the sort of people who would believe in Atlantis, Lemuria, deros in underground caverns, little green men from Mars, and anything else that was presented to them with some show of verisimilitude. These people could be manipulated by superior intellects, and evidence of that manipulation could be hidden to all except the very discerning. A false conspiracy was a good concealment for a real conspiracy.
Ron believed that superior intellects had been manipulating humankind intermittently throughout recorded history. He thought it was happening now. He thought he knew who was doing it.
All of the leads that Ron had been following in the last few years led to one organization, a large corporation called Tlaloc, Inc.
Myra joined Ron in his investigations. They turned up more and more evidence of Tlaloc’s influence in high places. A pattern began to emerge of a large, secretive corporation gaining power through corruption and psychic domination. Tlaloc, Inc., had a way of reaching people and gaining adherents. The people who worked for Tlaloc seemed to have a special understanding among themselves. Intelligent and arrogant, they respected no one except their leader, the mysterious and reticent Tlaloc himself.
Myra soon learned that the Tlaloc organization was aware of her and Ron, and displeased. The local police began to harass them. Ron’s license to vend frankfurters on the street was revoked without reason. Myra was enjoined by court order from selling her macrame without supplying documentary proof that all of her string was made in the U.S.A. They began to receive obscene phone calls and, finally, outright threats.
Just as their situation was growing desperate, they were visited by a mild-mannered man in his sixties with a hearing aid and wearing a seersucker suit. He introduced himself as Jaspar Cole of Eureka, California, a retired prosthetics manufacturer. Cole and his friends had become alarmed about the growing power of Tlaloc, Inc., but they could think of nothing to do about it until they read a newspaper article about Ron and Myra. Jaspar Cole had come to offer them financing in their continuing efforts to unmask the real identity of Tlaloc and the true purpose of his organization.
When the threats and harassment turned ugly, Ron and Myra went underground to protect their lives. It was at this time that Myra changed her name to Chemise. Working out of an abandoned warehouse in Wichita, Kansas, she and Ron gathered a great deal of evidence on Tlaloc’s suborning of officials and their biggest single coup—their outright purchase of all Mafia services for a period of ten years.
Against her advice, Ron presented his evidence to local CIA headquarters. They thanked him politely and said he would be hearing from them. Two days later, Ron was dead. The only evidence of foul play was the green stains on his fingernails, which were listed as “idiopathic anomalies.” Chemise knew from her research that the newest CIA poison, KLAKA-5, produced similar stains.
Working alone, Chemise found aid and assistance from science-fiction fans all over the country. Occult groups devoted to white magic also helped her. As her work went on, she discovered that she was developing psychic powers, as if in response to her long association with Tlaloc. She learned that this was indeed the case in her one meeting with Tlaloc himself.
Chemise had been tracking down a rumor about a coven of Tlaloc worshipers in Waco, Texas. She was staying at a Quality Court motel outside of town. The telephone in her room rang. A man told her that he was Tlaloc. Since she was so interested in him, he suggested that they meet. He would send a car around for her immediately.
Chemise had a few minutes of absolute panic before she calmed herself down. She was sure it was Tlaloc she had been speaking to; the force in that voice had been extraordinary, as had been the sense of evil that it conveyed. It was Tlaloc, all right. But he didn’t have to lure her to a secret rendezvous in order to kill her. She knew now that Tlaloc was powerful enough to have her eradicated anytime he seriously wanted to. No, there was some other reason for this meeting, and Chemise was curious.
A limousine took her down State Highway 61, past Popeye’s Fried Chicken, Wendy’s Hamburgers and Fat Boy’s Pork Barbecue, past Hotdog Heaven and Guns for Sale, past an Exxon station, past Smilin’ Johnson’s Used Car Emporium and Slim Nelson’s Pancake Palace, to the Alamo Motel on the outskirts of town. The driver told her to go to Room 231. Chemise knocked, and was told to come in. Within the dimly lighted room, a bald, moustached man was sitting in an armchair, waiting for her. He reminded her of Ming the Merciless from the old Flash Gordon comic strips. She knew who he was even before he told her.
“I am Tlaloc,” he said. “And you are Myra Gritzler, also known as Chemise, and my enemy, sworn to destroy me.”
“When you put it that way, it really sounds ridiculous,” Chemise said.
Tlaloc smiled. “There is a considerable disparity between our powers. But you have potential, my dear. A good enemy is not to be despised. And a resourceful magician finds a use for anything.” Chemise said, “So you are actually a magician?”
“Yes, as you have surmised. I am what you call a black magician, dedicated to myself and my followers rather than to that illusory abstraction men call God. I am a remarkable magician, if you will permit me to say so. My abilities are greater than those of Paracelsus or Albertus Magnus, greater than Raimondo Llull’s or the remarkable Cagliostro’s, greater even than those of the infamous Count of Saint-Germain.”
Chemise believed him.
Tlaloc was powerful, evil, and her enemy. At the same time, she felt unthreatened in his presence. She knew that he wanted to talk, to be admired, and that her life was not presently in danger.
“I will admit,” Tlaloc went on, “that this is an easy century in which to be a magician. Today, profit-sharing has replaced religion, and the blind worship of science has done away with the last vestiges of common sense. A few hundred years ago, the Church would have burned me at the stake. Today, the agents of the FBI and CIA have replaced the familiars of the Inquisition.” Chemise listened, scarcely daring to breathe. The malign ambition radiating from the man was unmistakable, disquieting. They sat facing each other on separate twin beds, a single lamp casting their shadows across the wall.
“As my enemy,” Tlaloc said, “you will be interested in knowing my plans, the better to defeat me. Briefly, I intend to take over political control of America first, a matter very close to accomplishment. My representatives in China and the Soviet Union are ready to take over control of their respective countries. There will be nothing so crude as a putsch-, just de facto power which will give me control of the planet Earth.”
“That’s incredible,” said Chemise.
“Oh, that is only the beginning,” Tlaloc said. “It is a means rather than an end. Control of Earth is a precondition for what I’m really after.”
“I don’t understand,” said Chemise. “If you can rule Earth, what else is there for you to strive for?”
“You don’t know the size of the game I’m playing. This Earth is not very important in the cosmic scheme of things, despite the opinions of its inhabitants to the contrary. It is simply one planet within one universe, itself within one reality stratum. There are many reality strata, Chemise, many universes, many Earths. To move between reality strata—that is the supreme trip which confers power.
“Let me present my project to you in practical terms. There is a planet named Glorm, existing in a reality stratum different from this one, but connected to it by what we may call, in present-day terminology, a wormhole in the cosmic foam. To control the passage between Earth and Glorm would be to command the two ends of a continuum of supreme power. To do this, I must take over Glorm as well as Earth.”
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