“This perverted planet!” cried the Countess Krak. “It’s just as if they never heard of normal sex!”
The two little boys were dragged away and I could hear the Countess going through Utanc’s things and giving orders to the staff to pack the whole room up into trunks for storage.
After a time she came in and glared at me. “While you’re at it,” she said, “you better dig up all the evidence of how you got mixed up with Gaylov. There are thirty-two statutes in the penal codes relating to homosexuality.”
“There’s homosexuality in the Confederacy!” I snapped.
“Not with children, you filthy brute.”
“Wait a minute!” I flashed. “I didn’t have anything to do with that! I hate homos!”
“You better be ready to prove it!” said the Countess and stalked off.
The injustice of it was like vinegar in my veins. I began to dig harder, assembling my records. Then I paused. How the hells did you prove you were not a homo? It was almost impossible to prove you were not anything. The only evidence you could collect was that you were things. You could never show a court an absence of anything. You couldn’t walk up to the judge and say “Here is a list of the cars I have NOT stolen.” The judge would just say, “All you had to do was omit from the list the cars you have stolen: guilty as charged!” Justice was totally one-sided. There was no such thing as negative evidence.
And just that moment my eye lighted upon the packet of photographs of me and Teenie. There I was, into her from behind: lying evidence of sodomy! And children? Here was the lying evidence of rape of a minor!
One of the sentries tittered.
I made a hasty motion to tear them up.
The other one stopped me. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you, Gris. We have to attest you didn’t destroy any evidence.”
I began to sweat. I hadn’t turned those little boys into catamites. These photographs were absolute lies. The toils of the law felt like whips as they wrapped around me in my imagination. I could be hanged for things I had NOT done!
I steadied myself. I made a plan right there and then to surreptitiously destroy such things as these photographs the very first chance I got and to pick up things which would only incriminate others, just in case. It gave direction to my work which promptly paid off. I found myself holding the copy of the contract Ahmed, the taxi driver, had made concerning the buying of Utanc. It cheered me up. Ahmed was the criminal in this case, not me. And right under that was a pile of strips from the Heller and Krak bugs that I was sure would show them plotting relentlessly to depart from the careful instructions they had been given by me, their mission handler, and doing all sorts of other things. I, after all, was also under orders here. I DID have evidence that would demonstrate a colossal conspiracy to ruin me.
I got down to my task of collection.
But after three more hours of it, I began to feel very put upon. Why bother to collect all this? It just showed their general cruelty to me.
After all, there would be no trial of ME. My task was to deliver Heller and Krak into the hands of Lombar. One glance at those forgeries of the Royal signature would be followed by one command: “Execute them!” And given Lombar’s hatred of Heller personally and his hatred of the aristocratic class of Krak and everything it stood for, that command would be very swift.
I would have to pretend I was going along with this charade that I would be brought to trial.
But I didn’t have to like it.
PART SIXTY-FIVE
Chapter 3
That afternoon the cruelty became extreme.
They put me on public display!
The Countess had seen that all the records I could gather fitted in a bag with a shoulder strap and she had hung it around my neck, and because she had to go to other parts of the base for affidavits—and, I knew, to talk about me behind my back—she had dumped me in the hangar, lashed to a chair, close beside the hull of the tug where Heller was working.
Clerks and workmen and repair crew all seemed to be finding errands that took them across the hangar floor, and although the two guards on either side of me told them time and time again to keep moving, they would stop and stare. They would whisper to each other behind their hands and once I overheard an old clerk say, “You can tell a lot from faces: look at that scowl.” I would have answered that that horizontal mark was NOT a scowl but came from falling on a skateboard, but the guard, before I could get out two words, told me to shut up.
It was pretty dreadful. Out of those two hundred crew, there were many I had never seen before. I wondered if there had been a special excursion from the New York office.
It was hard to get Heller’s attention. He was helping fit the last sleeves in the tug repairs. He had time to tell the cat it was a great cat when it came swaggering over to show him a rat it had caught, but he didn’t have any time to help fend off the glares his suffering prisoner was getting.
I finally convinced a guard that he should tell Heller it was urgent that I talk to him.
Heller came over and I said, “What am I? Some kind of a circus freak? I feel like a monstrosity Crobe turned out! Why are you keeping me out here in the open?”
“Well, it’s not from any joy in your company,” he said. “I gave you my word to deliver you to Voltar for trial. There are several hundred Turks and about two hundred crew that have expressed varying degrees of desire to kill you. Your guards asked permission to keep you in sight of the Countess or myself.”
“What?” I said.
A guard said, “They respect the officer and his lady too much to start a fight in their presence. And we also don’t want to succumb to the temptation of killing you ourselves. Now stop bothering Officer Heller. We could have told you that.”
Of course, they had just made it all up to frighten me. My treatment of these people had been just what such riffraff deserved. But it showed me the futility of expecting humane treatment.
Prahd came around and checked my wounds right in public, and people thought they had not been serious enough and were very disappointed when he pronounced me well. But they cheered when he told Heller I could travel any time.
About four o’clock, an electronics man who had been working inside the tug came out carrying a viewer-phone. “Sir,” he said to Heller, “this thing keeps ringing. It’s on an Earth band and it’s got Me Only . . . chalked on its glass.” Heller took it and the man gave him a crossed-arm salute. This (bleeped) crew was certainly putting on airs!
Heller found a toolbox, saw that nothing but black hull was behind him and sat down. He pushed the answer button.
“Oh, thank heavens, Mr. Jet,” said Izzy. “I finally reached you.”
“Something wrong?” said Heller.
“No, I just wanted to tell you that everything’s all right. That’s what makes me nervous. The wonderful news that Miss Joy was all right after all couldn’t help but whet the appetites of Fate. How is she? Is she still all right?”
“She’s just splendid, Izzy, as always. I’ll ask her to call you this evening and you can see for yourself.”
“Oh, that will be wonderful. But I don’t deserve it.”
“So, how are things?”
“Well, bad news first. When Russia blew off the map, of course, that killed all threats of international holocaust, so the price of gold went down. I was going to sell that weighty lot you gave me but it’s only worth about six million now. Do you think I should hold on to it?”
“That’s up to you,” said Heller. “Is Russia that bad?”
“Oy, Mr. Jet. Russia ain’t. And every one of its satellites has thrown off the yoke. It just shows you that there’s a God in the heavens after all.”
Hastily Heller said, “How are the options?”
“All right. I’ll get around to the good news now. Oil shares are going down like the Black Friday of 1929. We could already net five billion on the sell options. Brokers are ringing the phone to pieces trying to deal but we’re holdi
ng on. Miss Simmons is doing the greatest job you ever heard of. They tried to shut her off the media and her people took to the streets in every country with bullhorns. People won’t touch radioactive gasoline or oil and Maysabongo is exercising its buy-reserves options, so that’s shut off. Our oil-shares buy options are just sitting there waiting to take over every oil company.”
“What is the last date for all these options?” said Heller.
“The shares are all July options. The last real operative date is the Monday before the first Saturday following the third Friday in July. That’s because brokers close them out a week earlier than the actual date on the options so they can clear their books.”
“That’s confusing,” said Heller.
“Well, I know,” said Izzy. “But if you don’t keep such things confusing, then how could people in the know win?”
Heller looked at his watch. “That Monday, then, is only about thirteen days away. So everything is going fine, then.”
“Right on schedule, Mr. Jet.”
“Well, you’ve got it all under control, then. I won’t be seeing you for a while, Izzy.”
“Oh, no! Did I do something to displease you?”
“Of course not,” said Heller. “It’s just that I have some other duties I must attend to.”
“What if something goes wrong?”
“We’ve discussed all this. You have Rockecenter, Junior, for a front name. And you are perfectly capable of handling any corporate angle anybody ever heard of. You have never fooled me for a minute, Izzy Epstein.”
“Oh, dear!” said Izzy in dismay.
“Oh, by the way,” said Heller, “you can close the condo.”
“Oh, NO! I have done something wrong! You are mad at me!”
“No, I am not!”
“I refuse to close the condo!”
“At least lay off the staff,” said Heller.
“You’ll need them when you get back!” wailed Izzy. “They had the whole place full of flowers to celebrate Miss Joy’s safe return! DON’T LEAVE US, MR. JET!”
Heller looked upset. He tried to speak a couple of times and couldn’t. Then he managed, “I’ll call you later, Izzy.”
Heller turned it off and put the viewer down. He wandered away, looking very unhappy.
Faht Bey was just coming out of the tunnel into the hangar and approached him. “You don’t look very cheerful, sir.”
“It’s kind of hard to leave,” said Heller. “But I can’t wait around another thirteen days when there’s no reason.”
“It’s the lady, isn’t it, sir?” said Faht Bey. “She seems awfully anxious to get home, and I don’t blame her a bit, after all she’s been through.”
“No,” said Heller, “it isn’t just the lady. My job here appears to be done and I want to get my report in as soon as possible. His Majesty and the Lords should know what is going on. Something smells.”
“I quite agree, sir. I’ve thought it for years. Link, the repair chief, just told me that the tug will be ready by sunset. What last-minute orders do you have for me?”
“Well, all right,” said Heller. “Let’s start with those three old freighters over there.” He pointed across the hangar where three battered hulks about the size of the Blixo had been shunted long ago against the wall and stood festooned with litter and dust. “I was into them this morning, and with some work they will still fly. Get them fully operational.”
“That shouldn’t take long,” said Faht Bey.
“Now, any freighters coming in here should simply be stopped and held. Do not permit them to load drugs or depart.”
Faht Bey visibly shuddered. “They’ll object.”
“Look,” said Heller. “When I get home, I will report this whole matter to His Majesty or other authorities and tell them what I have done and why. In such cases it is just a formality: nobody really cares much what happens on an unconquered planet. They almost always back up combat engineers in matters of creating or taking over bases. In any case, you have my appointment in writing and I promise you faithfully that if anything goes wrong I will bail you out.”
“That’s good enough for me, sir,” said Faht Bey. “You see, I and most of my men here hate handling drugs. Have you noticed that none of us take them? They’re pretty awful!”
“Amen to that,” said Heller. “I’ve had some experience with how they ruin people.”
“There is another thing,” said Faht Bey. “What will we do with these criminals whose identities we are supposed to change?”
“Well, a promise is a promise,” said Heller. “You don’t need enemies. Finish them up. Just don’t accept any more.”
“Good,” said Faht Bey. “Can you give me a hint as to what the operating policy of this base should be?”
“Make friends,” said Heller. “Get Earth doctors trained fast in disease eradication. Get Prahd to pass on what he knows about drug rehabilitation. Help the farmers around here to shift their crops over to something less deadly.”
Faht Bey was laughing. “You mean actually run the school?”
“Why not?” said Heller. “Of course, the Fleet or His Majesty may have other orders for you. They may even order you to evacuate the place. Who knows? But it’s best to let the future take care of itself.”
“Sir,” said Faht Bey, “we’d leave this desolate plateau in a minute if we had the chance.”
“Well, life is never all sweetbuns and pink sparklewater. At least someday you can go home.”
“Thanks to you, Officer Heller. You’ve been a breath of life itself. I and all my men will bless you to the day we die.”
I almost vomited at this praise of that (bleeped) Heller. And as to the day they died, I’d come back here with a Death Battalion and make that as soon as possible!
I began to think of all the rotten things Heller had done that I now had to undo. Just knocking out his microwave-power unit was no longer enough. Yes, one could bomb Ochokeechokee and Detroit and the Empire State Building. But that probably wouldn’t be enough. In addition to a Death Battalion to handle this base, I would have to requisition an Apparatus Flying Raid Squadron, obliterate all existing military bases and—those that refused to capitulate—seats of government. It would not have to be a major invasion, for we had a puppet potential.
I could just see Rockecenter now. There he was, all ragged and forlorn, huddling in an alley amongst the garbage cans, and I would come up to him, splendid in a full-dress Voltar uniform, flanked by good criminal Apparatus aides, and I would say, “Delbert, do you remember me?”
He would gasp and grovel and say, “Good God! Inkswitch, my family spi!”
I would say, “No less, Rockie, old boy. I’ve come to put you back on the throne of Earth, the place from which you fell.”
And he would be babbling his gratitude while an aide supported his head to give him water and another bathed his wounds.
Then together, arm in arm, we would walk forth, deaf to the piteous screams of the maimed and dying, and treat the riffraff to a holocaust the like of which had never been seen before.
And out of the gutters that ran with blood, Miss Pinch’s pale hand would rise up and she would cry, “Forgive me, Inkswitch! Forgive me, for I did not know. . . .”
Somebody was shaking me.
“Wake up.” It was Heller’s voice. “Get in the tug. The sun is setting and we are leaving for Voltar within the hour.”
I smiled. That was all I needed to make my dream come true.
PART SIXTY-FIVE
Chapter 4
Aboard the speeding tug, for three solid days, I lay strapped down in a gimbal bed.
It was sheer torture: The Will-be Was time-drives were roaring flat-out for the first half of the trip, driving us to the brink of extinction, and roaring flat-out for the last half of the trip, braking us down. Sparks were flying off everything, and amidst the crackle and din, one didn’t know from one minute to the next whether the vessel would blow up. I hate space travel, and espe
cially in that (bleeped) tug.
The cabin I occupied was to starboard and immediately aft of the bridge, and every time the door opened, I craned my neck to see if anyone was on watch.
The Countess Krak, dressed in a black spark-insulator suit, had come in from time to time to feed me and check my bonds, and never once had I seen anybody in a pilot chair. My whole conclusion was that I was not only in the hands of speed maniacs but that they were also insane. There are all kinds of things to run into between stars and, I had to conclude, they had simply left it up to the robot tug to avoid them. It put me on the verge of a nervous breakdown, complete with froth.
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