Mission Earth 6: Death Quest

by L. Ron Hubbard

  Heller took hold of a funnel stay. He glanced at the letter he still held and then looked all around at the very empty sea.

  "Well, I'll be blasted!" he said. "I'm a prisoner!"

  Chapter 2

  It was totally and completely the fault of the mixture of drugs and champagne. I am ashamed to confess that the import of what I had just seen and heard did not register on me at all. I freely confess that it was the greatest omission of my entire career. That shows what drup and alcohol can do to one: People should beware and little children should be warned. The fates of nations and empires were hanging in the balance that very moment and all I was thinking about was my AWFUL headache.

  The doorbell rang and the second catastrophe of the day began, with all its sinister implications, and once more I did not grasp it.

  Woodenly, thinking it was one of those (bleeped) paper boys who want you to subscribe to a paper you are already subscribing to, so they can get an all-expense-paid tour to reform school, I wrapped my bathrobe around me and, barefooted, went to the front door and opened it.

  TEENIE!

  DEATH QUEST

  351

  I slammed the door hurriedly. I put on the burglar chains. I shot the heaviest bolts in place. I went into the front room and slammed the shutters shut and put the forged-iron fasteners on. That done, I leaned against a closed shutter, panting. I went back to the front door and checked it. It was locked tight.

  My Gods, what was Teenie doing coming here during business hours, especially when I was alone in the house. Let me tell you, my headache had surged up to a point where I could hardly see.

  I tottered to the fridge and got some ice. I held it against my brow. That was better but not much better.

  Staggering a bit with the aftermath of shock, I groped my way to my back room.

  I stopped dead.

  I thought I was having hallucinations. They say marijuana can give you those.

  Plain as day, I saw a wraith that looked just like Teenie come over the top of the garden fence, step down off a trellis, walk in through the back door, remove her coat and sit down in an easy chair.

  I could not believe my eyes. I was SEEING things!

  She was sitting right there with her knees apart. She wore no underpants. Then my knowledge of psychology restored the reality of the world. I was dealing with a sex-hibitionist. If she matured—which I doubted, from the way she enraged me—she would probably become a model for nonexistent women's clothes. No. A female flasher! Yes, a sexhibitionist all right, unfortunately real and no hallucination. Bless psychology!

  She looked at me with her oversized eyes. She wiped the back of her hand across her too-big lips.

  "I've GOT to complete my education," she said appealingly.

  352

  L. RON HUBBARD

  My Gods, didn't she realize that we were alone in the house? That there was nobody around to defend me or protect me from her nails?

  "NO!" I cried. "What are you doing here during work hours?"

  "I've been fired. And all because I am not educated enough."

  "They can't fire you because of that."

  "Oh, yes, he did. And Pinchy's plans for me are blasted totally. And all because I am instruction deficient."

  "That's not possible."

  "Oh, yes, it is. I ran out of stamps to lick and I walked into Rockecenter's office. And there he was down on his knees in front of an elevator boy, going after it like mad. And I said, 'No, no! That's not the right way to do it!' And I got on the desk and pulled up my skirt and reached for the elevator boy to show them what I'd learned here."

  She gave an audible sniff and brushed away a tear. "But I couldn't have possibly had it correct because Rockecenter screamed at me that I was a stupid brat and had the security men throw me out of the building. See? My elbow is skinned and I lost my hat. They wouldn't even give me back my underpants. So I came to you to ask... You're not listening to me!"

  "I HAVE A TERRIBLE HEADACHE AND I DON'T NEED ANOTHER ONE FROM YOU!"

  "Oh, the marijuana. I wondered if you wouldn't get one when I saw you drinking champagne with it. You have to be streetwise about these things. Is your throat raw?"

  "I can hardly talk."

  "There. You see what lack of education can do? It

  DEATH QUEST

  353

  does happen that I know about marijuana, like any other school kid. Sit right there."

  I wasn't going anyplace. My head felt like it was about to burst whenever I even blinked my eyes. It was her fault. Both last night and appearing so suddenly today.

  She was bustling around in the front room. Suddenly she came back. "Music is what you have to have with marijuana. They go together. So I put a new Neo Punk Rock record on. You'll feel better shortly."

  The massive stereo speakers in the front room clicked as a needle dropped. Drums began to boom. Every stroke of the stick was tearing my eyeballs out! Guitars screamed and a chorus brayed:

  Subliminal, subliminal.

  A toy car, And a toy girl, Ran up a tree!

  SMASH!

  A toy house,

  And a toy boy,

  Fell out of the tree!

  SMASH!

  The toy car

  And the toy baby,

  Dropped the tree!

  SMASH!

  Where was NASA*

  Where was NASA?

  Where was NASA?

  SMASH!

  "Now, don't you feel better?" said Teenie.

  354

  L. RON HUBBARD

  "Oh, Jesus, no!" I cried.

  "Aha!" said Teenie. "You have to get it balanced. Too much music, not enough marijuana. Just sit right there."

  I could hear her rummaging around in the cupboards in the front room. Then another "Aha!" and she came back with something that looked like a museum sculpture. She was cramming green leaves and buds into the top of it. It had a tube. "This," she said, learnedly, "is called a bhong, or carburetor. Because the smoke goes through water first, it doesn't irritate the throat." She lighted it and got it going. "Adults can sometimes be pretty ignorant," she said, "and they should not be ashamed to ask those who know. I AM educated in some things. My trouble is that I am NOT educated in vital matters. Now take this mouthpiece and take a long, slow pull on it. Hold the smoke in your lungs as long as you can and then exhale."

  I tried to avoid the mouthpiece but it hurt too much to turn my head. I let her put it in my mouth. I could not get any worse so I did what she said.

  "Now again," she instructed.

  I did it again.

  "Now again," she repeated.

  I did. A soft haze began to gather around me. I felt like I was floating.

  "Now is your headache better?"

  Gingerly, I found I could move it a bit without agony.

  "There," she said. "You see the benefit of being educated about some things." She took a couple puffs and then put the pipe aside. "We don't want you stoned," she said, "as I have to talk to you."

  "I don't want to seem ungrateful," I said, feeling oddly disconnected, "but you better leave." I was sure

  DEATH QUEST

  355

  the relief was temporary and the headache maybe even would come back aggravated.

  "No. I do not know enough," she said.

  "It seems you know too (bleeped) much for your age," I said.

  "Well," said Teenie, "I'm not like other teen-agers you know. I'm different. I have a mental problem."

  "I'll bet you do," I said.

  "You see," she said, "I lost my parents when I was eight. They were sent to the electric chair for murdering my grandparents so they wouldn't have to pay the rest home fees. I became a charge of the court and they appointed a wino as my guardian and he used to beat me and lock me in a closet when I couldn't find enough in garbage cans for us to eat. But that wasn't what my mental problem was."

  "For Gods' sakes," I said, "then what WAS your mental problem?"

  "Hyperact
ivity. You see, I was very fond of sports and took them all up. I was on every school team I could get on and I even won a championship skateboarding. The school psychiatrist noticed it one day and he was very alarmed. He diagnosed it very quickly and in the nick of time. Hyperactivity. And he said I needed lots of sex to keep me calm. He told them I couldn't continue in school unless I got competent professional care. He even gave me the first treatment himself. He showed me how to go down on him and I did."

  "Wait a minute," I said. "That's interfering with a minor. That's punishable by law."

  "Oh, no. You don't understand. My guardian—he drank himself to death three years ago and they never appointed another, due to the usual legal delays—told the judge the treatment was making me so tired I couldn't

  356

  L. RON HUBBARD

  look in garbage cans. I was there. The judge explained that psychiatrists and psychologists are professionals and they are not bound by ordinary law: they can even murder people and nothing is done about it because they actually work with the government and courts and, like them, are above the law. They can do anything they want with anyone placed in their care. Even murder them. I was surprised when my guardian questioned it because we were always taught in school that psychiatrists and psychologists are kind of sacred. But that's just a bunch of horse (bleep). I know that now."

  "Hey, whoa," I said. "You're too young to know what you're talking about!"

  "I am not! It's just like Pinchy says. They're a bunch of chauvinistic pigs. They lie!"

  "About what?" I said with a superior air. The idea of this teen-ager talking about my most sacred subjects made my blood seethe, marijuana or no marijuana. "They are the very epitome of truth! You don't understand: they deal with SCIENCE! They never lie."

  "The hell they don't!" said Teenie. "Listen to this: That psychiatrist turned me over to the school psychologist to carry on the treatment and the psychiatrist repeated the same thing—he'd told me every time since the first, I was not to swallow it or I would get pregnant. But I couldn't help it sometimes. And then the school psychologist, when he treated me, would say the same thing but I couldn't help swallowing. And I didn't get pregnant."

  "Now listen," I said sternly, oblivious of the fact it was probably the marijuana talking, "such men usually are sterile. They've been operated on so as not to embarrass husbands whose wives they treat. So you've just proved nothing!"

  DEATH QUEST

  357

  "Oh, yeah?" she said, in her turn very superior. "So try this on for size, buster. The school psychologist had a lot of very mentally sick boys in the school. They were classified as oversexed. And he used to line them up in his office and go down on them to cool them off. And every day or two he'd get an overload of cases and he'd send and get me excused from class so I could come in and help. He'd stand and watch. There were so many of those boys sometimes that I could hardly get my breath from one before another had to be done. It was a fast clinical line, let me tell you. And some of those boys were fifteen and sixteen and pretty foamy. You just couldn't help swallowing! And I never got pregnant once, so there!"

  I dazedly seemed to realize that she had a point.

  "But that wasn't what I had against that (bleeped) psychologist," she said. "Oh, yes, when I was through he would kiss me and tell me what a good girl I was and give me my own treatment, which was doing it to him. BUT, never one God (bleeped) time did he offer the least word of criticism, coaching or anything. He'd just stand there watching and holding himself. So I never got real top-grade education. A thing like that requires coaching. ... You're not listening to me again."

  The marijuana had not worked. Or if it had, this rat-tly (bleep) was making it worse. "I feel terrible," I said. "Please leave."

  "Hey," she said, "there's other things which make you feel good. I may never have had proper education in it but experience counts for something."

  Before I realized what was happening she had come over, knelt in front of me and was peeling back my robe. She looked at me with her oversized eyes and said, "This therapy will help."

  358

  L. RON HUBBARD

  I looked down at her, not realizing at first what she was actually doing.

  Then suddenly I had an awful thought. "Utanc!" I cried. "I must not betray you!"

  I leaped out of my chair as though I were shot from a catapult.

  Teenie was thrown backward on her (bleep) with an awful jolt.

  She looked at me woundedly. "You see," she said, "I'm not even well enough trained to do that!"

  "GET OUT OF HERE!" I bellowed at her.

  She just sat there, staring at me.

  I was baffled, and frightened, too. There was no telling what this teen-age female monster might do next.

  I backed up. I tripped over a footstool and landed flat on my spine.

  She was up off the floor like a leaping panther.

  She sprang astraddle of me!

  I gave her a tremendous shove!

  She flew across the room, hit the wall and sat down at the bottom of it with a crash.

  She got up. She walked around in a very fidgety way. She looked at me a little crossly and then she went into the front room and put on another record.

  The drums were booming hard enough to lift my aching hair half an inch each stroke!

  A whiny, high-pitched voice came on. A man? A woman? Who could tell? Amongst the whang and wow of guitars and the echoes of a chorale, the song went:

  Don't stop me (bleeping)!

  Don't clog my plumbing

  With too much chumming.

  Keep that thing thrumming!

  DEATH QUEST

  359

  Keep your hips drumming!

  I know I am bumming,

  And it ain't becoming.

  But it is so numbing

  When you stop my (bleeping)!

  The piece ended with a pistol shot and the thud of a body falling. And a spoken, hoarse voice said, "It served 'em right!" After the mangling effect the drums had had on my brain, I felt like the shot had gone straight through my tortured skull.

  Teenie came back in, switching her ponytail. "Now, how is that? Is your headache all gone now?"

  I was too much in pain to get off the floor and find a gun and shoot her. "God (bleep) you," I grated in a deadly voice. "Get the Hells out of here and now, now, now!"

  "Well, I like that!" she said indignantly. "I'm only trying to help you!" Her eyes got deadly. She stamped her foot. "The trouble with you, you (bleepard), is pretty plain! You're a JERK! I try to give you a hand and what do you do? You spit on me! You don't know what decency is! Where the hell are your manners? Listen, you (bleepard), you've got the finest sex equipment I've ever seen in my life and believe me, I'm an expert! And do you know what to do with it? NO! You're cruel, obscene, selfish, rotten, mean, perverted, depraved, sadistic, vicious and STUPID!" She stopped. She had run out of adjectives. Her large eyes glared like a panther's. "And besides that," she finished, "you're no gentleman!"

  I tried to find something to say. Every word had gone into my skull like a sledgehammer. I wanted to strangle her. But the room was spinning.

  "So you haven't got a thing to say," she said. "Well,

  360

  L. RON HUBBARD

  that's good, because I have! I came over here today, thinking that in my plight, you could help. You're rich. I haven't even got a job now. I got no job because I'm uneducated. I came over here thinking that out of decency you would give me enough money to go to school. But you're so rotten, you don't have the slightest God (bleeped) idea of anything but wrecking people's nerves. So there's only one thing I can do."

  I was horrified that she might put on another record. What came was far worse!

  "And you know what I'm going to do?" she demanded. "I am going to stay right here and reform the hell out of you until you are decent enough to at least associate with mangy dogs! I'm going to nag, nag, nag you until you decide there is somebody
else in the world besides yourself. I'm going to——"

  "Wait," I pleaded, for I could stand it no more. "What would it take to get you to leave and never come back and never see you again, ever?"

  "Five thousand dollars," she said. "I got to finish my education. I live in an attic by myself so living don't cost much, but tuition does. There's a Hong Kong whore that runs a special school that teaches all the ins and outs of sex. I can buy a crash course. Then I'll know what I'm doing! I've got to unlearn everything the psychiatrist and psychologist taught me and everything in the grammar-school sex textbook. And I got to get me some real education! I'm a fast learner: you got to learn fast if you live on the streets of New York and want to stay alive. So I'm quick. She'll take me as a pupil, despite my age. But I need five thousand dollars. Then I can find some satisfaction and succeed in life. I can grow up and amount to something. I can make people happy and..."

  Her voice had been literally smashing what was left

  DEATH QUEST

  361

  of my brain cells into ragged, mangled pulp. I said, "If I do that, will you promise faithfully, swear, attest, affirm that I will never in all my life, ever, ever, lay eyes on you again?"

  "Cross my heart and hope to die!" she said.

  Oh, Gods, it was worth it. I crept to my money hoard. I counted out five thousand dollars.

  She took it. She counted it. Then she put it in the pocket of her cloth coat and pinned it there with a safety pin.

  Before I could stop her, she gave me a moist kiss. She pulled back. She smiled happily. "I'm sorry I had to tell you the truth about yourself," she said. "But sometimes the truth pays. Are you sure I can't do anything else for you? Fix you another bhong? Play you some more records? Go down on you so you will have a calm afternoon?"

  "Get out of here," I wept.

  "Well," she said. "I'm not as ungrateful as you are. If you ever change your mind about seeing me, I live in the garret of one of the old houses in Tudor City." And she gave me the exact number. "All you have to do is climb the fire escape and slide in the window. It's permanently stuck open. Tudor City, you know, is just south of the United Nations and you get there over a bridge from 42nd Street. The buildings used to be kept up and they had little parks of their own and private footpaths, but the last couple of years they've gone to hell and the parks are used to grow marijuana, mostly. At least that's what I use them for. Now, please remember the number." And she gave it again twice. "If you don't mind climbing a fire escape and if you don't mind dust and old trunks, we can just lie there and do it for hours and hours the right way, or if your back gets tired I can use my mouth