Buck Rogers 2 - That Man on Beta

by Addison E. Steele

  “My turn?” Blorim asked.

  “To make a toast.”

  “Are you hungry?” Blorim asked. “Where’s the bread?”

  Buck laughed. “No, no, like this.” He raised his glass and sipped at it. Blorim drank the contents of hers.

  “He really believed me,” Professor Von Norbert laughed, turning from the telescreen to Kane. “He discovered that we had his quarters bugged, and I promised to have them cleared, and the fool actually believed what I told him!”

  Kane added his raucous laughter to Von Norbert’s sneering chuckle. “Well, the fool—I just wish he’d get on with it!”

  The two eavesdroppers turned their eyes back to the screen that showed the amorous situation slowly developing in Buck’s quarters.

  “These things do take time,” the professor commented.

  “Not for me,” Kane asserted.

  “That’s what I hear,” Von Norbert concurred.

  On the screen—and of course in Buck’s room as well—the muscular earthman was explaining to Blorim. “Now, you say, ‘To . . .’ something.”

  “Oh,” Blorim acquiesced, “I see. Fine. To something.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” Buck commented. They raised their glasses. Buck took a tiny sip from his own as Blorim drained hers. He raised the bottle with his free hand, tipped it momentarily over his own glass as if pouring, then righted the bottle, leaned over Blorim’s glass and poured it full.

  “This is really good stuff,” Blorim said as she drained her glass again. Each time she spoke her speech became more slurred. After quite a while, Blorim lay back on the bed. Buck caught her arm as she slid downward, took the empty glass from her limp hand and placed it on a table.

  Then he leaned over Blorim, gingerly unwrapped her outer garment, a chiffon cape of Draconian design, and hid it under the bed. “Blorim,” he said to her, gently. “Blorim, can you hear me?”

  With a tiny portion of her mind still functioning, Blorim managed an incoherent sound. “Huh?”

  “Blorim,” Buck almost shouted into her ear, “I want you to remember this. ‘He was wonderful.’ Remember. ‘He was wonderful.’ ”

  Blorim obediently repeated the words in her slurred voice.

  Buck helped the semi-conscious woman to her feet. He managed to get her to the door. “Right, Blorim. Remember. ‘He was wonderful.’ ”

  “Wunn’ful,” Blorim echoed drunkenly.

  Buck pressed the latch, found the door unlocked. It swung open to reveal the same guard who had escorted Blorim to Buck’s room. Buck virtually handed the helpless woman to the guard. “Could you help the lady get home?” he asked the guard. “She, uh, kind of—you know—a glass of wine, then too much excitement.”

  The guard reached for Blorim and she collapsed onto his shoulder. “He was wunn’ful,” she slurred.

  Half-carrying, half-dragging Blorim with him, the guard started down the hall. As he went he grumbled aloud. “Big deal.”

  Buck shut the door of his room from the inside. There was no point in making a break for freedom, now—there was nowhere to go on Villus Beta, and little chance of getting off the planetoid. Instead, Buck retrieved Blorim’s wrap from under his bed. He tried it as a disguise—around his body, around his face. While he was experimenting there was a knock at the door.

  Buck had barely time to get Blorim’s wrap hidden a second time when he found himself face to face with—Grenda!

  “Hi, Buck,” the second young woman said. “You know, I’ve never, uh, been with an earthman. If you know what I mean. Is it true what they say about earthmen?”

  “I—uh—du-du-dunno,” Buck stammered. “What do they say about me?”

  She tried to say something and was held back by some small residue of propriety. Finally she advanced to Buck and raised her lips to his ear. She was wearing as exotic and as skimpy an outfit as Blorim had worn. Her coiffure, Buck noticed, was absolutely spectacular—and absolutely false. As she nestled up to him she knocked it slightly askew and had to reach up to fix it.

  Finally she regained her composure and managed to whisper something in Buck’s ear. He listened until his jaw dropped.

  “No,” he said loudly, “that’s not why they call me Buck, Grenda!” He considered for a moment longer. “Well,” he amended, “maybe it is. I never thought of it quite that way. But listen, what are you doing here? I thought you were on for tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow?” Grenda asked. “No. I was scheduled second, that’s all—not second night, you silly. What about the rest of tonight? And when Blorim came back looking so happy, I thought I’d better come over here and take my turn.”

  “Oh,” Buck said, deflated. “Well, uh—oh well, what the heck.”

  Grenda beamed up at him. “I’m ready.” She reached behind herself and began to undo her costume. Buck backed away in confusion.

  “Uh . . . wait,” he said.

  She looked at him with wide, innocent eyes.

  “I mean . . . uh, would you like some champagne?” he asked. “That is, uh, Vinol. I’m sure I have another bottle here somewhere. Or—we could send out. I know a good deli down near the Loop in Chicago, and . . .”

  Grenda said, “No, thanks.”

  She reached for the light switch and plunged the room into darkness. In the murk there was nothing to be seen, but plenty to be heard. Grenda all but dived into Buck’s arms—arriving with a thud that knocked the wind out of him. There followed a series of words, moans, other sounds.

  In Buck’s voice, “Oooh.”

  In Grenda’s, “Sorry.”

  A series of fumbling sounds, then in Buck’s voice again, so that one was not quite certain whether he was expressing forgiveness or appreciation, “That’s okay.”

  There was a thump, as of two bodies onto a soft surface, and in the voice of the body that landed on bottom, a male body, a male voice, “Ow!”

  And a female, “Sorry.”

  Buck said, once again, “That’s okay.”

  There was a sound of rustling, other sounds, some as of skin sliding on skin, some more moist.

  A voice again, “Oooo.”

  Another, “Sorry.”

  A small light sprang on in the room, and Grenda said to Buck, “Why did you do that?”

  “Because I want to see you,” he answered. “You’re beautiful, you know, Grenda.”

  “So are you,” she cuddled against him.

  As Grenda pressed her cheek to Buck’s naked chest, she could feel his hand on her back . . . caressing her neck . . . sliding up under her wig. She raised her head from his chest to give him a quizzical look.

  “Don’t stop what you were doing,” Buck suggested.

  Grenda shrugged. She put her face back down onto his chest and kissed the muscular flesh there.

  Buck carefully slipped Grenda’s wig from her head and gently spread her real hair across his shoulder. She smiled up at him. He slid the wig under the bed. With one hand he continued to caress her; with the other he carefully opened her purse, slipped her lipstick and makeup from it and slid them under the bed, then closed the purse again.

  He bent his head so that his lips were pressed against Grenda’s ear. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like some wine?” he whispered in her ear.

  She shook her head negatively.

  “Uh, maybe a game of cards? Some bright conversation?”

  She sat up angrily, glared into his face. “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you keep your mind on what you’re doing?”

  “Oh,” Buck stammered. “Well, uh, you see—uh, Grenda, well, I really do like you a lot. And you’re a beautiful person and all, but—well . . .” He stopped speaking.

  She stood over him, hands on her hips. “But, well, what? Don’t earthmen do it the same way everybody else does?”

  “Oh, er, sure,” Buck managed. “It’s just that—oh, well, maybe some other time, Grenda. I’ll try and make it up to you.”

  “The hell you will!” she snapped. “I’
ve got a couple of things to say to that creep Von Norbert for the buildup he gave you. Now, where are my clothes? Okay! And where did my wig go?”

  “What wig?” Buck asked.

  “I had one on when I came in here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure, damn it!”

  “Well, I’ll keep a good eye out for it, Grenda. If a wig turns up anywhere, I’ll let you know about it right away.”

  “Thanks a lot,” she said. She strode to the door and jerked it open angrily. “Listen,” she said, turning back just before she left the room. “There’s one thing I’d like to ask you, Captain Rogers.”

  “What’s that?” Buck inquired.

  “Why do they call you Buck?”

  In the telescreen room, Kane and Professor Von Norbert had both passed out and lay sleeping soundly before the screen. The room was warm and stuffy, the upholstery soft and comfortable, and as for the titillating display of eroticism they had expected to witness—well, who can blame them for falling asleep.

  Still, had they remained alert they would have seen the inside of Buck Rogers’ room after Grenda’s departure. Buck checked the door, began searching the room. Was he looking for Grenda’s missing wig? Hardly! He knew where that was.

  He crept around the baseboard of the room, checked all the ventilator inlets and outlets, pulled away a grille and found—the second monitor camera! He pulled it from its place, snapped the lead that carried power to it and images and sounds away.

  In the telescreen room, the panel that carried the video image went blank and the loudspeaker that carried its audio counterpart hissed into silence. Von Norbert and Kane snored away.

  Buck Rogers stood before a mirror in his room, carefully—if somewhat clumsily—applying to his face the makeup that he had extracted from Grenda’s purse. He did the best he could, then slipped the purloined wig over his own close-cropped hair. Finally he slipped Blorim’s wrap around himself. He examined himself in the reflecting panel.

  Well—he wasn’t exactly a ravishing beauty, but—he might pass muster in a dark alley at midnight.

  He strode to the door, reached for its catch when—it opened in front of him and Orell stood there staring. She screamed. He grabbed her with one muscular arm and pulled her into the room, shoving the door closed behind her with his other hand.

  Orell gaped up into his face. “I’m—I’m—it’s my turn!” she gasped. “Who—who are you?”

  Buck thought as fast as he could. “Don’t you know me?” he asked after a moment of silence.

  “No,” Orell shook her head. “You’re not from Villus Beta, I’d recognize you if you were.”

  “That’s right,” Buck said in a weak imitation of a female voice.

  “Then you must be one of Princess Ardala’s ladies-in-waiting.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Buck said, trying still to sound like a woman. “The princess is claiming her royal prerogative. A princess gets her way, you know. You’ll have to wait, dearie.”

  “But where’s Buck?” Orell demanded.

  “He went to the princess’ chambers,” Buck explained, improvising as fast as he could. “He’ll be back here afterward. He’ll send for you when he’s good and ready.”

  Orell started to leave, crestfallen. Then she turned back and planted her feet firmly on Buck’s floor. “Good and ready, hey?” she said. “Well, I think I’ll just wait for him right here!”

  Buck flounced past her to the door. “If that’s the way you want it, dearie, that’s fine with me. Ta-ta!” He opened the door, stepped into the hallway and shut it again behind him. He started down the corridor, past the bored and sleepy guard.

  “Hey, I thought I just saw you come out o’ there,” the guard exclaimed, shaking his head blearily.

  “Ha-ha!” Buck said in his falsetto voice, “I went back for some more. That Rogers is really something! Ciao!” His heart pounding with every step, waiting for the guard to figure things out and command him to halt—or zap him with a laser—Buck continued down the corridor.

  By the time he rounded a corner and knew that he was out of sight of the guard, he was covered with sweat—but he was safe, at least for the moment! He made his way carefully through the by-ways and corridors of Villus Beta, avoiding contact with anyone he could avoid, making his exchanges with those he could not avoid as brief and impersonal as possible.

  His closest call came when he was stopped by a guard who put his hand on Buck’s arm and swung him around under a ceiling light. Buck was ready to slug the guard and make a run for it when he realized that he wasn’t being interrogated as an interloper—the guard was making a pass at him!

  Buck barely managed to keep a straight face as he flirted briefly with the guard, suggested a rendezvous in the nearby garden, and sped away from the encounter as fast as his flimsily clad legs could carry him!

  But one aspect of the strange encounter stayed with Buck as he put distance between himself and the guard.

  “Are you a real woman?” the guard had asked.

  Buck had thought he was caught, but he brazened it out. “Why—aren’t you a real man?” he responded.

  “You know what I mean,” the guard said. “Are you a regular kind of woman—or one of those five-year specials?”

  “Five-year specials?” Buck echoed, puzzled.

  “You know,” the guard said. “Those ones with the special accelerated growth hormones. The ones they’re making for the Gregorian war.” He looked at Buck in annoyance. “Don’t act like it’s such a secret, honey. Everybody on Villus Beta knows. If you’re one of those specials, it’s okay with me. If they’re big enough, they’re old enough, that’s my motto!” He leered and petted Buck on the arm.

  “Oh, ah, everybody knows about it, hey?” Buck managed to get out. “Er, of course they do. Well, if you must know, why, yes, I’m one of the specials. I didn’t think you could tell, big boy.”

  “I couldn’t, believe me, sweetie. I just kind of guessed. You look terrific for a five-year-old. I seen some of the early models that went all wrong. It was a sad sight to see, too!”

  Gradually Buck was coming to an understanding of the complete ruthlessness, the disregard for humanity, of the Draconian leadership. Kane’s callousness was of course obvious. But Professor Von Norbert, beneath his distinguished appearance and scientific demeanor, was at heart no better than his partner!

  The guard was still smiling at Buck, thinking him a woman—or pseudo woman. “I get off duty at six,” the guard said. “Wanna meet me then?”

  “Oh, I can’t wait that long,” Buck cooed. “I’ll meet you in the garden in about two minutes. How about that?”

  “But I’m on duty! I can’t leave my post—they’d court-martial me!”

  “Tough luck,” Buck twitted the guard. He turned away, tossed a final seductive look over one shoulder and flounced away.

  S I X T E E N

  By royal prerogative, the Princess Ardala had been assigned a sumptuous suite of rooms, not in the bowels of the wedge-shaped city of Villus Beta, but on the surface of the planetoid. She left her curtains open a crack, so the splendid celestial sights of the Villus system were visible in the depth of night. The double sun of Villus was of course shining its light on the other side of the planetoid, but from Ardala’s bed she could, if she awoke in the night, watch the splendid dance of the asteroids as they drifted eternally in their complex, interlocking orbits.

  A number of the smaller mini-planets had been captured by each of the larger ones, and swung around their primaries like miniature moons, sending rays of pale light dancing over the surface of every object they could reach.

  Ardala, dressed in a voluptuous nightgown that would have served to tempt the most jaded of appetites, tossed restlessly in her huge, satin-sheeted bed. She was only partially wakeful, but some sound, some evidence of motion in the room penetrated her sleep-fogged senses.

  She sat upright suddenly. There was someone in her bedchamber! She
reached under an overstuffed pillow and drew out a tiny laser-pistol. She was wide awake now! “Stop where you are!” she snapped into the partial darkness. “I have my laser pointed right at—”

  But a powerful hand crashed into her graceful wrist. She managed to retain her grasp on the pistol and squeeze off a blast, but the beam went far wide of the mark, burning an ugly scar into the fancywork of the wall.

  “Ardala!” a manly voice exclaimed. “It’s me, look!”

  The powerful hand kept its grip on her wrist. With his other hand the stranger reached through the murk and flicked on a room light. Ardala stared at the person who had invaded her room—apparently a woman, clad in a set of filmy, sexy garments.

  “Who?” Ardala asked.

  The stranger smiled.

  The princess studied the smiling face. “Buck?” she stammered. “Buck? You’re very pretty!”

  Buck lifted one hand self-consciously to the wig he had stolen. “Thanks, Ardala, but I don’t have time for compliments. Are you ready to go to Earth?”

  “Yes,” Ardala replied. “Oh, yes. Look what I got for you. I was going to hunt you up and give it to you in the morning.”

  She reached under her pillow again and brought out a gleaming, plexiglass rectangle.

  Buck looked at the object, recognized it and smiled happily. “Theopolis!” he exclaimed. He reached for the computer and Ardala handed him its carrying strap.

  “Theo, you old devil,” Buck said happily as he hung the strap around his neck. To Ardala, Buck said, “This is really great! This is going to simplify our escape a lot. I wanted to get Theo back and I didn’t know where he was. And I really didn’t want to face the computer council back on Earth without him.”

  “We can sneak out of here and get a ship right now,” Ardala suggested. She climbed out of her bed and started toward the window.

  “Not yet!” Buck stopped her. “We have to get to the main computer room first, and tap the big system for information on my family.”

  “No,” Ardala demurred. “There isn’t time. We have to get off this planetoid and out of this whole sector of space, fast! Kane, or even my father, might be after us at any moment!”