"Sir," said one of the captains, "these coordinates are on the edge of the star Glar. I have to inform you that there is war in that area."
"I know," said Heller. "That is where we are going. The Confederacy is under the control of Lombar Hisst; the safest place we can go is to take sanctuary under Prince Mortiiy on Calabar."
A shock went through them.
"We will be welcome, I think," said Heller, "because we carry repair tools, technicians and men. Mortiiy has managed to hold out for five years. The Apparatus is the only force pressing the attack there. Calabar is an awfully big planet."
"Sir," said another captain, "there must be some other reason."
"Well, yes there is," said Heller. "I have reason to believe that if Lombar Hisst knows I have gone there, he will commit all his forces to the attack of Calabar."
"Is there some benefit in this?" said Faht Bey.
"Yes," said Heller. "He will not then attack Earth. You have a right to know that the reason we are going there is to save this planet."
They looked at him doubtfully. Then one said, "Maybe you figure he will whittle down all his forces throwing them against Calabar."
"That he will," said Heller. "Unless something happens to sour my relations with the Fleet and Army, neither one will cooperate in what they will consider to be an insanity-full-scale war just to get hold of me. But I don't want to seem to have such a grandiose idea of my own importance. I happen to have something Hisst wants very badly. He'll come for us, all right, and unless by some fluke he gets Fleet and Army help, he'll shatter himself against the hundred-thousand-foot peaks of Calabar."
"Well, we've all wanted to get out of the Apparatus and be free men again," said another captain, "and we're willing to work for the chance. But how will Hisst know that you have gone to Calabar?"
"That's why we didn't seize the Blixo," said Heller. "I just gave the courier on it a letter to Lombar Hisst. I told him what I have. And I told him we would be waiting for him on Calabar. He'll go crazy and throw in everything he's got. And, without help from the other services, that will be the end of Lombar Hisst."
They grinned suddenly. They rushed off to their ships.
One by one Heller watched them as the spaceships shot up into the night.
Heller waved a hand to the captain of the Blixo, "Be sure you have a good passage to Voltar!" he shouted. He went into the tug's airlock, closed it and sent the Prince Caucalsia spaceward ho!
Chapter 6
Captain Bolz smiled and scratched his hairy chest. The hangar and base, empty now of everything except the Blixo, had ceased to exist as an extension of Apparatus authority. He had his own plans.
In his cabin he got dressed in Western clothes. He put a wad of Turkish lira in his wallet. A frightened Oh Dear stared at him.
"We're supposed to wait for our cargo and go," said Oh Dear. "I'm certain Officer Heller is right. If I don't deliver this and Hisst finds I have not, I'll be dead."
"To Hells with Officer Heller," said Bolz. "They left that Daimler-Benz in the yard of the villa. Even that old driver with the funny laugh is still hanging around. I'm going out there, stop him from stealing the car and go on up to Istanbul and see my friend the widow."
Bolz stopped to give his mate orders to pick up the cargo when it arrived by air and load it and then, with a jaunty air despite his bulk, went out and found Ters who, for a consideration, was shortly rolling him in luxury through the night to Istanbul.
Throughout the entirety of the next day, a frightened Oh Dear waited. He hardly concerned himself with the arrival of the cargo when it was brought in by the mate and crew from the airport in the afternoon. Oh Dear conceived that Bolz might be deserting and this would leave him captainless and unable to get back to Voltar. He didn't speak a single Earth language: he saw himself stranded.
Dusk came, the light vanishing above the electronic illusion. No Bolz. If he had been there, they could leave in an hour.
The upper hole in the mountain went black. The hours dragged. Oh Dear began to be afraid of the hangar. It was so empty that his footfalls as he paced scared him with their echoes. He began to get the idea that the place was peopled now with ghosts.
Midnight came and went. One o'clock took forever to arrive. The digitals of his watch seemed to be motionless and refusing to move onward toward two. Then it became two and then two-thirty.
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 music 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 the
ir 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've done 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.
Mission Earth 09 - Villainy Victorious Page 28