A loud sound somewhere made Oh Dear scream.
It was Bolz.
He had brought a truckload of counterfeit Scotch. He got his crew out and they got it aboard.
Bolz was himself pretty drunk and considerably smeared with lipstick.
It was three o'clock in the morning when the captain finally began to mount the ladder to the airlock as the last one aboard.
There was an abrupt roar overhead.
Wonderingly, thinking a freighter might have come back, Bolz got down off the ladder and stared up at the hole through the mountaintop.
He froze.
The black tail of a warship was sliding in!
Plain upon it was the symbol that looked like a fanged snake. And some letters!
THE 243RD DEATH BATTALION!
The hulk, too big for this hangar, came down with bristling guns. It hit the floor with a thud.
A hundred black-uniformed men poured out of the six locks, blastrifles ready!
Bolz, too shocked to move, was instantly seized.
A squad raced into the Blixo.
Shortly the whole crew of the freighter and Oh Dear were being prodded down the ladder to the hangar floor.
Bolz couldn't register what was happening. He had no way of knowing this was the battalion that had been sent by Lombar to "search out any traitors that were confederates of Heller's or took his orders and exterminate them." For the Blixo had left a couple days before the order had been issued by the crashed Lombar Hisst.
A man in a black uniform with scarlet gloves, taller than Bolz, loomed over him. "I am Colonel Flay of the 243rd Death Battalion. Who are you and where is everyone here?"
"I am... I am... Captain Bolz of the Blixo, this ship. I have an urgent cargo of drugs for Voltar."
An officer yelled from the Blixo's airlock, "Colonel, this ship is carrying contraband drink!"
The colonel glared at Bolz. "A smuggler!"
"I'm captain of an Apparatus freighter!"
"In those clothes? Answer me. Why weren't we challenged? Where is the personnel of this base?"
"They've gone!" quavered Bolz.
"Gone where?"
"We don't know!" screamed Oh Dear, who was being held by a Death Battalion soldier. "I am a courier to Lord Endow!"
"Ha!" said Colonel Flay. "Travelling with a smuggler? Bend that pretty fellow over a rifle and make him talk."
"No! Look at my identoplate – "
Two soldiers grabbed either end of a rifle. Another grabbed Oh Dear's head, a fourth grabbed his feet. The first two held the rifle horizontally in the middle of his back. The second two pulled. Oh Dear's spine began to crack. He screamed.
"Tell me where the others have gone!" roared Flay.
"We don't know!" shrieked Oh Dear. "Look at my I.D.!"
An officer fished in Oh Dear's pockets. He looked at the identoplate he found. "This just says he's a clerk in Section 451. That's this planet. He's no courier."
"Make him talk!" said Flay.
They pulled on Oh Dear harder.
"You better talk! You know where they have gone well enough. Don't lie again. TALK!"
Oh Dear went into a high-pitched keening as his spine stretched and cracked. He was able to get out, "I have a despatch. I have a despatch. I have a despatch! I must get it through!"
"To Hells with your despatches," said Flay.
Oh Dear had fainted.
Flay gave a signal and soldiers grabbed Bolz. One of them pulled his head back with a handful of hair and another hit him in the body with a fist. Bolz grunted with the force of it.
"Where have they gone?" demanded Flay.
"They did not tell us!" cried Bolz.
The colonel snapped his fingers and an officer put a light in his hand. Flay walked up to Bolz and shined the light in his eye. "Are you lying to us?"
Bolz writhed, trying to get away from the light. The only thing which was registering with him was that this colonel might discover that he intended to keep this base for his own use.
"His pupillary reaction," said Flay, "shows that he is lying! Hit him!"
The blow echoed through the hangar.
"Once more," said Flay, "I am going to ask you politely and then we will really get to work on you. Where has this base crew gone?"
"I DON'T KNOW!" screamed Bolz.
"Hit him!" said the colonel.
It was the last order he ever issued in this life.
The blow hit the button remote in Bolz's pocket.
There was a searing flash throughout the hangar!
The Death Battalion, the warship, the Blixo, the crew, Captain Bolz and Oh Dear glowed, suddenly outlined in incandescence. They shifted color upward from red to yellow to violet. They went black. They turned to silica, momentarily holding shape, then they became molten glass.
No one in the base was left alive.
The wall boxes that held the beams in place turned into sand which, under the ferocity of heat, turned to liquid dribble.
And then with a shuddering roar, the walls of the hangar twisted and began to cave in.
The slide of rock went on for quite a while.
Fantastic heat fused the inside of the mountain.
Then there was nothing left of the Earth base.
And buried there, because of the delay and self-interest of Bolz, lying under the pile of shuddering glass which had been Oh Dear and under the countless tons of boiling silica above it, was the ash of the despatch which had been designed to stave off an invasion of Earth.
It would never be delivered.
PART SEVENTY-NINE
Chapter 1
Oh, Madison had little doubt now that he would be able to finish his job with Heller. In the foreseeable future he would have not just the Apparatus but the entire Army and Fleet on Heller's trail.
Oh, what headlines that would make!
He was standing at an upper-story window of the Royal mansion on Relax Island, waiting for Teenie, who was unaccountably delayed. He had landed in the rear of the palace so as to stay out of sight. He was down here to tell Teenie some good news and give her some evidence.
Through the window came one of the softest and most perfume-laden breezes he had ever felt. The magnificent view of the valley below soothed his nerves. And one particular ten-acre square of the farmland down there would soothe other nerves as well: it was smoothly rippling with a flourishing crop of marijuana-Panama Red, if he recalled aright when Teenie, working a crew from her five-thousand island population, had told him what she was doing.
But no labors jarred today the tranquil scene of the terrace. A masked woman, middle-aged, an editor's wife, was strolling along the balustrade, loosely gowned and indolent. From time to time she turned her eyes away from the view and cast glances expectantly along the front of the palace.
Ah, here came what she was looking for. A gallant young officer in a brilliant silver uniform approached her at a slow pace. He stopped, he spread his hands admiringly, he bowed. She stopped and steadied herself against the balustrade. The young officer approached closer. He said something in a low voice and the woman laughed coquettishly. He took her arm and they began to stroll together.
Madison admired how well Teenie had taught her regiment. He knew that their lessons did not include just deportment.
And here behind them smoothly appeared a musician with a chorder-beat. But the tune he was playing and the tones had been taken from Teenie's record collection: it sounded exactly like a romantic gypsy violin.
The officer and the lady sauntered down the wide palace steps. Followed by the violin music, they strolled along a path. They entered one of the many secluded nooks. Each one, Madison knew, had a softly padded bench. He could just see the end of one through the flowering trees.
A begging babble reached his ears.
Presently, as he expected, he saw the woman's gown being laid gently on the bench end.
The musician was now behind a tree, his back to the nook, but the violin musi
c played on.
In the limbs above, a branch of blossoms began to weave.
The musician's face was watchful, intent. He was playing faster now.
Blossoms exploded and the petals showered down.
The music now was mild and slow.
An attendant in silver livery who bore a silver tray sped across the terrace. He entered the nook.
Shortly the gray-blue smoke of marijuana rose.
The violin music played on.
Madison looked down at the terrace. Another publisher's wife had come out. She was masked, but Madison knew her husband published the Daily Conservative.
Another officer came out of the palace. He stopped, he bowed, he approached. He whispered something in her ear and she handed him a flower.
They sauntered down another path.
Another musician followed them.
The pair entered another nook.
From the palace now came a third officer. He strolled to the first nook. Madison faintly heard his voice, "I say, old man, may I cut in?"
Above the second nook a branch of blossoms was going in a circle.
The second musician, back to it, played faster and faster.
The branch of blossoms erupted in a blast of petals.
The second musician smiled and began to play dreamily.
The attendant with the silver tray approached the second nook at speed.
Out from the palace came a third publisher's wife.
The violin music played on. And Madison knew it would play on for the rest of the day. And other violins would play for the twenty other wives who would be sporting in these gardens this afternoon-after sporting in their bedrooms the entire night before!
Aside from marijuana, any LSD trips they had now were totally full of handsome young officers!
Madison stole a peek at the clipping book he was carrying. The first batches of women were long since returned home. Just to test his muscle he was getting psychiatry good coverage. Page after page contained news stories about the marvelous cures it was effecting, how magnificent Crobe was, how misguided any other form of treatment was and how all rival ideas should be crushed out. Life had become impossible for publishers and editors unless they ran columns and columns about this marvelous new science imported from Blito-P3!
Oh, there was no doubt of it that psychiatry had all the answers. They had won press domination on Earth the very same way: get the wives of the publishers and editors on the couch and being liberally (bleeped) and you got all the column inches you could ever want! And woe betide any competitor in the field: he would be slaughtered!
A voice behind him jarred into his mood. "What the hell have you become? Some God (bleeped) voyeur?"
Chapter 2
It was Teenie and she looked very cross. Her air limousine must have landed in the back near his, for he hadn't heard it. She was drawing off a pair of black gloves and two maids were hastily attending her. This was her upper dressing antechamber.
"Oh, Teenie," said Madison, "you have done so well. Organizing this place and training the officers as you have was a superhuman feat. And look: here are the first fruits of victory!"
He shoved the clipping book under her nose. She shook off a maid who was trying to comb out her hair and reorder the ponytail and took the book.
She looked at it. "I don't see anything here about Gris."
"No, no. This just shows the dawning of press control. Right now they're just bragging about psychiatry. Isn't it marvelous? Some of this is front page! It's never been done before in the history of Voltar! Influencing their press."
"Listen, buster, I'm helping you for just one reason. You'll forget that to your sorrow! I want that Gris spread-eagled on the block down there and hours and hours every day filled with his screams. I've thought of things way beyond anything dreamed up by Pinch. And all the way here from Palace City today, I've been thinking up new ones! Oh, I'm MAD!"
"Teenie," said Madison anxiously, well aware it could be himself, not Gris, on the block down there, "what has happened?"
"The (bleepard) has ruined Too-Too's life, that's what."
"Too-Too? How?"
"That (bleepard) Gris just reached out and smashed him!"
"WHAT? Has Gris escaped?"
"No such luck, for maybe then I could trail him down and capture him. He's still in that stinking Royal prison hiding out from us. And (bleep) all you'vedone to get him out and into that dungeon. I'll let Too-Too tell you-if he can talk."
She turned and gave a signal and a guard rushed off. Teenie took an agitated tour of the ornate dressing antechamber. She looked like an angry and frustrated menace to Madison.
There was a clatter at the door and two white-coated men brought in a stretcher. One of Teenie's maids from Palace City was beside it: she was sponging at the forehead of its burden.
Too-Too lay with ashen face, seemingly a corpse. The men laid the stretcher down upon a sofa and the maid swabbed anxiously at the unconscious visage.
Teenie brushed the maid aside. She bent down and stroked Too-Too's pretty face. The makeup was already smeared. Too-Too did not respond.
Teenie turned to Madison. "I brought him with me in the hopes the quiet here would help. And I also wanted you to hear what a (bleepard) that Gris is. I'm going to have to use mouth-to-mouth resuscitation." She snapped her fingers and a footman raced in with a silver tray. Teenie took a joint out of a silver box and lit it. She then knelt by Too-Too. She took a puff from it and then laid her lips on Too-Too's and blew.
Too-Too began to cough on the smoke. Teenie took another puff and, steadying him, pried his lips apart with her tongue and blew.
Too-Too went into a spasm. He had sat up. He saw Teenie and put his arm around her and began to cry.
Teenie held him off and made him puff the joint. This time he inhaled deeply and then the smoke blubbered out amongst his coughs and sobs.
Teenie made him do it again. He became calmer.
"Oh, Teenie, dear Teenie," Too-Too said, "my life has come to an end. Hold me close, dear Teenie, so that I can perish in your arms."
"Hush, dear Too-Too, you'll live many a day to be (bleeped) by many men yet. We're going to get that (bleepard) Gris. I'll even show you the dungeon where he'll be tortured. Now tell this man here what you told me so he'll get off his (bleep) and begin working like he meant it!"
"It's too painful," said Too-Too. And Teenie had to get him to puff the joint again.
Too-Too, in a broken voice, began to talk. Gris had forced him and Oh Dear into being couriers and informers by a mechanism known as magic mail. Every three months, by mailing a card through a certain slot, an order continued to be held. But for some reason the Blixo's schedule had been advanced and although Too-Too had mailed the last card he had been given on Earth punctually, as he thought, it had been late.
The order which had been held had already gone. The commander of the Knife Section on Mistin had received it. Due to internal Confederacy delays between planets, Too-Too had only now been informed.
HIS MOTHER HAD BEEN MURDERED!
Screaming it out, he went back into a collapse and Teenie had to work hard to revive him. After more mouth-to-mouth marijuana resuscitation, she said, "Now, Too-Too, start from the beginning and begin to spill all the crimes you know that Gris has committed."
Madison listened. This catamite knew quite a bit. It was all headline stuff. Actually, Madison had not been too interested in Gris, regarding him just as a way to get to Heller. But as he listened he began to get fascinated. This was juicy copy!
Finally he said, "You say he gave you orders to kill old Bawtch and two others in your office. Won't that implicate you?"
"Oh, no!" cried Too-Too. "I couldn't murder anybody. I simply told Lombar Hisst. We just transferred Bawtch to another section. That was when Hisst began to set Gris up."
"For what?" said Madison.
But Too-Too had spent what little energy he had and was collapsed again in Teenie's arms.
>
"Now you've heard it," Teenie said, her eyes smoldering as she looked at Madison over Too-Too's head. "Don't let any grass grow under your feet. GET THAT GRIS!"
Madison grinned. With material like this, how could he miss? It would open the door to Heller with a crash.
Chapter 3
Four hours later Madison, in a hurtling Model 99, was hot on the trail. He had been very intrigued by the information that Gris had been "set up." He also knew from recent past experience that the media here had a nasty idea that one should have documents and proof for stories. While this was far from insurmountable-one could always forge and find false witnesses-it might save him time if he could get his hands on the real thing and, thanks to Too-Too, he was certain that, somewhere, a lot of evidence existed.
He had been cautioned by Lombar's chief clerk not to barge in all the time on Lombar Hisst, so the logical target in this case was the old chief clerk himself. The man would be, he thought, at Spiteos or the palace.
Madison, having crossed the green seas and now with the mainland under him, was still trying on the communications system to locate his quarry.
Suddenly into his calling, a harsh voice broke in: "Divert! Divert! This is Apparatus Traffic Surveillance. J. Walter Madison, divert from your course at once and proceed to the Office of the Chief of Apparatus, Government City, without delay."
"Oh, boy," said Flick, overhearing it, "you're in trouble."
"Why is he in trouble?" said Cun who had bullied herself back into her job, Relax Island or no Relax Island.
"It means they been looking for him," said Flick to Cun. "It means they were calling earlier and it means you was out of the airbus instead of standing by its phone. I bet you got yourself (bleeped)!"
"I did not!" said Cun savagely. "I was just peeking."
"I'll bet you were," said Flick. "How come the front of your uniform is wet?"
"I was getting a drink of water. It was you that was getting all hot. And over a scullery maid, too!"
"Peace!" said Madison. "Head for Government City. Do you know where his in-town office is?"
"You can't miss it," said Flick. "Upper end of the town, on the cliff above the River Wiel. You can always tell it from the dead bodies in the streets around it."
Mission: Earth Villainy Victorious Page 28