The Invaders Plan

by Ron Hubbard

  The outside specter of Lombar had one foot in the nightclub.

  Chapter 5

  I looked at these two idiots. They were sitting there now, sipping out of each other's canisters, laughing, keeping Hightee included in. They were very beautiful people. They did not know that Lombar could order both of them killed without a second thought if he had no further use for them. And certainly would if they threatened any kind of exposure to the Apparatus activities on Blito-P3. There was no way to tell them.

  The music played, the acts went on.

  Suddenly the beam was on our table again. "Oh, no," said Hightee. "I hoped they would miscalculate. I'm all that's left at this table." She stood up. "Never mind, Soltan. They won't double your bill. I'll go sing for my supper." She threaded her way between the tables to the stage. No one paid her very much attention, due to the number of acts that went on and off. She jumped up on the platform, her blue dress glittering. She said something to the bandmaster. He turned and said something to one of his musicians and the fellow reached back into a pile of instruments and handed one out.

  It was the electronic half-globe they call "the chorder-beat." It is about eighteen inches in diameter. Hightee put the curved side of it against her stomach and then buckled it expertly behind her back. She took the "beater" in her right hand. By poising the spread fingers of the left hand over the chorder-beat in different positions and distances, one gets chords, usually enharmonic. By gesturing and sort of hitting in the air with the beater in the right hand, one makes the chords pound out a rhythm. They make a wild, sinuous, suggestive sort of music when they are properly played.

  Hightee said something to the bandmaster. He looked a bit surprised. Then he looked at her more closely.

  I thought, oh, my Gods, he has recognized her! Either through her voice or the song she'd asked for. I almost jumped up and screamed at her to come back to the table. I didn't. I glanced at that Homeview camera crew. They seemed to be at ease. So did the reporters.

  The blinding spotlight turned on her full. Her blue evening dress threw sparks. Her sexy wood nymph mask sucked up attention. She raised her right hand. The bandmaster took it as his cue and watched it to get the beat.

  Spraaaang!went the chorder-beat. Yow-yow!went the band.

  For the first full melody she played and did not sing. And it was sexy! Her body swayed and curved, her left hand seemed to be indicating something else than chords. Her right hand writhed to the beat. It was SEXY!

  Audience attention was almost electric in the air. The way that chorder-beat was playing, the way that performer swayed, they knew they were looking at a polished professional. It seemed to stun them. There wasn't another sound in that nightclub except the band and Hightee's chorder-beat.

  She started the melody again and this time, she sang. Her voice was a throaty, sexy lure. But it had comedy in it.

  There once was a man when I was young, Who said he knew a foreign tongue, He'd teach me!

  "Oh, my Gods!" a man cried out. "It's Hightee Heller!" A ruffle of music and chords from Hightee. A high-pitched scream from the audience. "Hightee! It's High-tee Heller!" Bedlam!

  He said it went a funny way, A thing the ancients used to say.

  He'd teach me!

  A ruffle of chords. Sexy sways. Even above this growing bedlam in the nightclub I heard a yell outside, "Hightee Heller is in there!" It'd need, he claimed, a very soft bed, A place where he could lay my head, To teach me!

  The Homeview crew was grinding it out! There were shouts outside the building. Had the word spread, were the other night clubs emptying? Yes! A mob was pouring in the door! And this club audience was on its feet surging forward!

  So we found a place we could repose, And he removed my underclothes, To teach me!

  "Hightee! Hightee Heller!" Bedlam of bedlams!

  And so we got down to the song, He kept it up so very long, He taught me!

  They had turned the loudspeakers up to get her voice above the ear-shattering racket of the surging crowd.

  Hija, hoopah, jiggety plow, Lecheroo, pokeroo, pow, pow, pow!

  Hourly, too!

  The place was a screaming jam, filling up, people at the front of the stage were trying to climb up on it, all of them yelling! "Hightee! Hightee! Hightee Heller!" Up went the loudspeaker volume again.

  The language is not hard to learn, And I invite you, if you yearn, To be taught!

  The music riff. Hands reaching for her, people getting on the stage! Heller on his feet, pushing his way forward to the stage to keep her from being mauled! The glaring spotlight, the busy Homeview crew!

  Hija, hoopah, jiggety plow.They had shoved her back against the band. Dozens of hands were trying to touch her. She was engulfed! Heller was through the mob and to her.

  Pokeroo, lecheroo, pow, pow, pow!

  She was still playing and singing! Heller was to her. He lifted her high in the air above the mob and clutching hands.

  Come see me!

  It was at that exact moment that I pulled my handgun, flipped it to needle blast and with one expert twitch of the trigger, shot out the main spotlight.

  I didn't do it to help Heller. I did it because, back of the mob and coming straight toward me was a yellow-man, holding in his hand what could only be the bill!

  The explosion of filaments was deafening.

  I spun. I had already spotted the main switchboard back of the dance platform. With unerring aim, I blasted it to bits! It was totally dark.

  Above the deafening din of the crowd a new scream sounded, "Police! It's the police!" Dim emergency lights came on. Sure enough, I saw a flicker of blue. Police plowing through the crowd, baton charging the riot!

  A firm hand grabbed my collar and I was yanked out of the booth so fast I flew horizontally. I was being dragged across the floor.

  The emergency exit door banged open! I was being dragged up the alley! I could barely hold on to my gun.

  We were at the airbus. The door opened and I was hurtled inside. And only then did I see who had dragged me. It was the Countess Krak!

  I looked back anxiously toward the emergency exit. Sound and lights were bursting through it out into the alley.

  There came Heller! He was still holding his sister high over his head.

  Behind them came a solid wave of blue! Oh, my Gods, the police were right on their heels!

  The Countess Krak sprang into the airbus and batted me to one side!

  Heller arrived at the door. He launched his sister inside and the Countess Krak caught her expertly and put her on the settee.

  Heller slid fast under the wheelstick.

  A police helmet right at his door. A face.

  "We'll be at the hangar ahead of you, Jet. We're all clear!" It was Snelz! Snelz in a cop uniform!

  The airbus sprang into the air!

  We had fought free!

  Perhaps it was because Hightee Heller was laughing fit to burst – it takes steel nerves to be a celebrity in the Confederation. Perhaps it was because I was still a bit high on bubblebrew. But I felt a bit elated. By not paying the bill I had escaped being cashiered on the one hand for bankruptcy or executed on the other for passing counterfeit money. And nobody but Hightee had been recognized, I supposed, and Hightee wouldn't matter. What luck!

  We stopped at Hightee's garden in the clouds. She unstrapped the chorder-beat and Heller said he'd get it returned to the club for her. She kissed each of them on the cheek and touched my hand.

  She stood for a moment under the darkened trees and called back, "Thank you for a wonderful evening. Good luck, you two! And Jet! I really approve!"She was gone.

  On the way back to the Apparatus hangar, we were given a routine challenge by night sky surveillance and I had to reach over and catch Heller's hand: he was automatically reaching for his own identoplate and I gave him mine. We mustn't leave a trace of identity on this night!

  We landed at the hangar. The guardsmen's air-transport was parked there. Snelz and his men were sit
ting around in the dim hangar depths, chuckling and drinking a late snack. The Countess slipped out in her helmet and gas cape and sped to the tug.

  Heller still sat under the wheelstick. My driver was coming toward us with some big boxes and Heller was waiting for him. The driver wasn't moving very fast so Heller turned to me in the back.

  "I think I owe you a bit of an apology," he said. "I didn't realize this afternoon that I was forcing your promotion party on you at an inopportune moment.

  "You don't have to go back there tomorrow to pay your check. When we arrived and the floorman held out his hand for payment to get us a good table, I couldn't help but see you flinch. I realized you must be broke and that pushing the party off on you came under the heading of a dirty trick.

  "So I slipped into the manager's office and grabbed him and put my identoplate on a blank dinner check." I think my heart stopped beating.

  "I couldn't tell you straight out in front of the waiters and the girls but I passed the message to you a couple of times that it was cared for. I didn't want your evening spoiled." Ske was there now with the boxes and Heller told him to return the comedy cop uniforms to the party costumer tomorrow and take the chorder-beat back to the club at the same time.

  He got out and called back to me, "It was a great party. I hope you did enjoy it. Good night!" He was gone.

  I knew what that identoplate would spell. It would hit the newssheets and Homeview. The Grand Council would know we had not left.

  They would be all over Endow.

  Lombar would be all over me! It might even imperil Lombar's whole Blito-P3 hidden operations!

  A sudden surge of rage hit me. I felt like killing Heller!

  I was instantly sick at my stomach.

  Chapter 6

  After a night of nightmares, burdened with an aching head, my upset stomach refusing even the thought of hot jolt, I sat, at noon the following day, on a pile of rusted hullplates, dully watching the almost unforgivable bustlings in the Apparatus hangar.

  I was expecting the worst. I got something worse than the worst.

  My driver, returning from the return of the comedy cop uniforms and the chorder-beat, walked over to me. From his smug smile, I should have been more prepared.

  He didn't hand me the headache pills I had requested him to get. He did not deliver any of the medicine I had begged him to bring back for my stomach.

  He simply dropped the newssheet in my lap. He walked away and I was left to suffer over it alone.

  There was a huge photo of Heller holding Hightee high above the crushing crowd! Somehow the lighting made the steelman stars vanish and it was Heller, recognizable, vivid, unmistakable!

  The story was not some back-page filler that might be missed. It was headlines!

  GUNSHOTS IMPERIL LIFE OF HIGHTEE HELLER!

  FAMED BROTHER RESCUES HV STAR FROM FLYING BLASTS RIOT POLICE BRAVE STORM OF HOSTILE SHOTS ENRAGED MOB SEEKS POSSIBLE ASSASSIN Last night at the Artistic Club in Joy City, a routine fan orgy of worship for Hightee Heller, Voltar's most popular Homeview star, was turned into a riot of blazing guns and charging battle police when an unknown maniac, using military multiblast weapons, threatened the lives of thousands.

  Braving the avalanche of deadly fire, Jettero Heller, Royal officer and famed combat engineer, with superhuman strength, lifted his sister out of the path of the deadly hail.

  Battle police, in a baton charge, fought furiously to establish order, suffering an unknown number of casualties.

  By purest chance, a Homeview camera team, that visits the Artistic Club routinely, recorded part of the riot and has been beaming it continuously since 3:00 A.M. on the interplanetary Homeview all-home channels.

  Interviewed at dawn in her home on Pausch Hills, Hightee Heller, with the true courage of an artist, disclaimed personal injury. "Please assure my billions of fans that I am perfectly all right," was the only comment she would make. But this reporter detected possible eye bruises.

  Jettero Heller could not be found or interviewed. It had been generally believed that he was engaged in a secret mission for the Grand Council and had long since departed Voltar. A spokesman for the Crown, contacted at dawn, attempted to refute the continued presence of Heller on Voltar, stating, "We have it on the most reliable authority that Jettero Heller left Voltar some time ago. The matter will be brought before the Grand Council in its morning meeting." Police Chief Chalp of Joy City modestly accepted credit for bringing the riot under such swift control. "My men are everywhere," he said. "They are always ready for anything." When this reporter suggested that the riot might have been a publicity stunt, arranged to bring higher recognition to the Artistic Club, the manager angrily pointed out that he had no faintest knowledge that Jettero Heller or his sister were in the club last night and that, in any event, he would never dream of imperilling the life of the idol of billions.

  The gang who shot up the club have not been traced.

  (See our special features, today and tomorrow: HIGHTEE HELLER, HUMAN OR GODDESS? and THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JETTERO HELLER, THE MODEST HERO WHO BECAME THE IDOL OF THE FLEET.) I sat there numbly. They had it all wrong. I was not a gang!I was just one man.

  It was all Snelz's fault, I finally worked out. If he hadn't made that silly pact with Heller to be at all times on duty, guarding, he would never have rented those comedy cop uniforms just so he could be handy. Snelz was too conscientious. Just because he had heard shots, glass breaking and screams was no reason to believe Heller needed any help. The idea of charging in for a silly thing like that! Snelz had caused all this. I realized I would have to discipline him.

  But the very futility of doing anything at all settled over me. I was just a chip of wood in the roaring river of fate. It would do no good to point out that they were all secretly against me.

  I just sat there and waited for the axe to fall, finally, completely and forever. Numb.

  In midafternoon, I hardly even stirred when a big lorry drove up to the hangar. The signs on it said: Educational Aids Company.

  Delight your students even if they are children.

  Entertainment is the backbone of Enlightenment.

  Two laborers got down from the truck and boosted a long box out of the back.

  Somebody called for Heller and he came down from the top of the hull where they had been restoring plates and shielding and trotted over to the newcomers. He was all bright and alert, red racing cap on the back of his head. A lot heknew about the sorrows of life. The axe was hanging over him, too. The thought vaguely cheered me but I soon slumped again under renewed pains in my stomach.

  He directed them to carry the box in through the airlock. I knew where it was going: into that lower hold storeroom.

  Half an hour after that, I still had not stirred. I dully watched a new lorry drive up. It said: Mineral Resources Equipment Company.

  If you think our equipment is too expensive, buy some and manufacture your own purchase price. Sold only under government license to qualified and discriminating metalologists.

  Two laborers got out and took down a long, heavy box. Heller showed them where to put it in the ship.

  I sat there waiting. I knew it would come and it would not be boxes.

  Finally it was there. I felt it. Sort of like an infusion of black poison gas into the scene.

  A voice from behind a pile of crates: a horrible whisper.

  "Officer Gris."

  Chapter 7

  Lombar Hisst, disguised as a workman, lurked half-hidden behind the dirty cases.

  His awful face was intent upon what he was doing. He had a notebook in his hands. From his secret place, he had a view of the tug and the swarms of contractor teams that clambered all around and over it. In their company-colored cover suits, each one bore plainly the different contractor names. Lombar Hisst was listing them, each and every company.

  I came up and stood trembling near him. With an abrupt motion he swept a copy of the newssheet out of his workman jacket and whacked i
t into my face. I caught it. I didn't have to read it. It was another newssheet, a different one but it had the same glaring picture of Heller holding his sister over his head above the crowd.

  Lombar had gone back to his furious notebook writing. Eventually he was done. He yanked me back into the cover of the crates.

  "You loathsome (bleep)!" he said. "I should shoot you out of hand right now!" He slapped his hand back against the notebook. "All these contractors working, working at vast expense and here you are, keeping it secret so that you can rake off all their kickbacks for yourself!" I hadn't expected that. It was so unjust. If I had tried to put the squeeze on any of these contractors they would have gone running to Heller and he, with his weird Royal officer ideas of honesty, would have beaten me up! But I didn't dare open my mouth.

  "Well, what have you got to say for yourself?" demanded Lombar, amber eyes flaming crazily. He didn't expect any answer or wait for one. "It was (bleeped) lucky this was a Grand Council meeting day!

  "The position you put us in! Right at the start, the Crown threw it at us! Oh, Endow is a fortunate fellow to have me. When the Crown demanded why Heller had not left, I was able to counter it, no thanks to you!

  "I had Endow point out that the Grand Council allocation was so low that it was delaying the mission to Blito-P3. I used it to raise the allocation to thirty million credits instead of three. We can pretend there were other companies here that we own and you'll (bleep) well stamp the fake bills with your identoplate! Do you understand?" All I understood was that I was not lying, that instant, a dead body at his feet. I was grateful.

  "In return, you loathsome piece of trash, you are going to get this mission out of here by my deadline! We had to promise that! So be grateful!" I was very grateful.