by Don Wilcox
Now Nitticello was trying his powers. He was calling for action, The valuables. The treasure. It would be found near the wrecked spinner. Or in the pocket of some thief who had passed that way. It should be recovered. It should be delivered to this step. Over and over he pronounced his demands.
At last the sprangling branches of the vine began to vibrate. Something was coming.
Arvo stood his ground. Would it be the jewels this time? Was Nitticello’s own special demand being answered at last? If so, which of them would reach to pick up the treasure when it fell at their feet?
The lavender vine shook with a mighty wave and deposited its treasure: a man.
The fellow dropped limply at King Arvo’s feet and lay there not moving.
“The slave! The earth fellow!”
That was all King Arvo could say at the moment. Nitticello stared, moved a step closer, and touched his sandal to the slave’s head. The prostrated fellow showed signs of life. The shock of being carried over the miles through the vine had stunned him. His eyes were half open, his lips began to mumble something unintelligible, he was breathing.
Nitti scowled. “We call for a treasure and we get this. We’ve missed it again.”
“Another disappointment,” Arvo said.
“Were you wishing for him instead of the gems?” Nitti asked, and the tone of accusation was in his voice. “Very well, this isn’t the worst possible luck.”
“What do you mean?” the king asked, for he had sensed that Nitti foresaw some special use for this prisoner.
“I mean—nothing. I was afraid he was gone.”
“He’ll be gone tomorrow,” the king said.
“Gone, where?”
“I’m condemning him to death.” The slave’s eyes opened wider. He must have caught the idea. He looked around, evidently realizing that he had returned to his captors.
“Don’t do anything rash, Arvo,” Nitticello suggested casually. “I think we may find him useful.”
King Arvo’s jaw tightened. Here it was—the test. Nitticello was trying to take the situation out of his hands.
“The law is plain,” King Arvo said, meeting Nitticello’s eye. “As the ruler of this kingdom, I hereby condemn this slave to die tomorrow.” Nitticello came back with a quick word of warning. “You’d better keep your eye on him, then. He’s vicious. Don’t forget that he broke out of irons once. And here we stand unguarded.”
Nitticello began to back away. The king was left to visualize what might happen if the prone man should suddenly spring to his feet. It was Arvo’s impulse to retreat. But once again he stood solid. And then, as the slave came up on his elbows, Arvo surprised himself by striking the fellow. One quick blow to the jaw. That was enough.
The slave sank back to the ground and closed his eyes, and he looked to be a very sick man.
King Arvo drew a deep breath of strength. He knew he had surprised Nitticello—that Nitti was eying him wondering what had come over him. But King Arvo simply folded his arms and said, “I’ll stand by, Nitti, until you send me a couple of Sashes.”
CHAPTER X
Joe was almost too sick to know or care what was going on. He doubted whether even Pudgy would be optimistic under these conditions. His hands were bound behind him, his ankles were fastened securely, an he was imprisoned within a cell of steel bars.
Across the way, Nitticello and Stobber were talking earnestly.
“I’ve known all along that it would happen sooner or later,” Nitticello said. “Last night it happened. The king has done it. Unless I take desperate measures, this is the end.”
That was all that Joe heard just then, for he lapsed into a sleep of exhaustion.
Stobber and Nitticello had exchanged guarded confidences before. At times of crisis they knew how to understand each other. Just now Nitti was freely admitting that he had never been quite this desperate before.
“You’ll think of something,” Stobber said giving him the wink.
“I’ve thought of it already. It’s a two man job. There’s only one person in the world I would dare trust; and that’s you.”
“Go ahead.”
“We’ve got to act fast. Arvo is determined he’s going to execute this man. We have less than two hours.”
“It’s air tight,” Stobber growled. “If you got any notion of saving him, that’s out. We’ve already announced the assembly of officers. They are already gathering in, waiting for the king to march up and read the death sentence.”
“That’s why we’ve got to step fast. Here’s the secret. This slave and the king look alike—so much alike that if you give them both a clean shave and rolled them in a barrel, you couldn’t tell which was which. Now do you see—this is our one chance to stay in the saddle.”
“You mean—?”
“Make them trade places. Execute the king, by the king’s own orders.” Stobber gave an uneasy groan. He didn’t think it could work. What about the slave’s voice? His manners? How could they be sure that he would behave?
But Nitticello was desperate. The delicate game he played had reached the brink. If King Arvo burst into power, Nitti’s special shelf of luxuries would fall through.
“Get a shaving outfit, Stobber. Get one of the king’s court suits. Don’t let anyone see you. I’ll get the king.”
Five minutes later King Arvo and the prime minister walked up to the cell.
Joe was rousing out of his sleep. A low conversation penetrated his consciousness. The king and Nitti. Nitti was talking nervously. Without opening his eyes Joe listened.
“I tell you, Arvo, you’ve got to talk with him. I think he knows what happened to the girl. It stands to reason—You see we pulled him back from the wrecked spinner. That must mean that he had some connection with her. Maybe he has hidden the jewels himself.”
King Arvo shook his head. “The fellow’s half dead. Can’t you give him something to wake him up, at least long enough for his execution?”
“Execution—oh, yes!” Nitti appeared to have forgotten this detail. “But after he’s gone, we’ll never find out—don’t you see—we’ve got to drag this secret out of him first.” They opened the door of the cell and entered. Nitticello produced a hypodermic needle. “Here’s something that ought to loosen his tongue.”
Joe was thoroughly awake now. The needle jabbed his arm. He was helpless to resist, but he couldn’t help wondering what Nitticello had in mind. Nitticello was scheming.
Then Joe looked at the King pityingly, realizing that the poor fellow had been hounded into this situation—this mad determination to have his own way for once.
“Look out!” Joe yelled. Too late he had seen the shadow of Stobber. The husky chief of the Sashes strode in like a cyclone and struck the king across the back of the head before anyone could know what was coming.
The king’s knees sagged, he fell. Nitticello had another needle for him. Then the two men went to work, one of them on the king and the other on Joe.
Ten minutes later they had effected a transformation that was nothing short of miraculous, in Joe’s opinion. He saw himself in the mirror that they held before him and he would hardly have believed it. He was King Arvo Arvadello, yes, in every detail of appearance except for one thing. They had wrapped a white cloth around his throat. “Remember, king,” Stobber was saying sarcastically, “you’ve got an awful bad cold. You can’t talk well. Isn’t that right, Nitti?”
“Yes, such a bad cold,” said Nitti, “that he can’t say a thing except what I tell him to say.”
Joe couldn’t fail to get the idea. He scrutinized the trim drooping mustache, the small spade-shaped back beard, the richly ornamented blue coat with the gold epaulets, and he knew that the court would accept him.
Then he turned his eyes upon the sorry figure that lay on the floor, garbed in slave’s clothes. So that was Arvo—no, it was the Karridonzan version of Joe Peterson.
“He’s too white,” Nitti was saying, looking at the drugged king. “And he’s almo
st too heavy with sleep. We’ve got to make sure he performs, at least long enough to go through with his own death sentence.”
Stobber gave an evil laugh, “That’s irony for you. He got stubborn and insisted, didn’t he?
They bronzed the king’s chest until he looked as if he had gone through a season of work under the sun. They
had trouble enough with his hair, making fast the dabs of hair which they had shorn from Joe’s head, Joe, observing, felt a loss of earthly pride to be wearing a make-believe Karridonzan mane over his freshly shaved head.
One last detail they could not overlook. They gave their new slave the markings of a black eye—a match for the discoloration which Arvo’s fist had bestowed upon Joe’s face the night before. Then they slapped Arvo on the cheeks.
“Anything to say before we gag you?”
“He can’t talk,” said Stobber. “He’s too knocked out for that.”
But Nitticello took no chances. He fixed a stout gag between Arvo’s teeth and bound it with a bandage around his head. Bound hand and foot, the king was carried out of the cell and down the corridor to face his own order for execution.
“All right, your majesty,” Nitticello said, turning to Joe. “This is your chance to perform. No slips. I have two extra needles and I’ll be right beside you every minute. Do you understand What I’m doing for you?”
“You’ve saving my life,” Joe said.
“Good. I think we understand each other.”
CHAPTER XI
The crowds were gathering at the execution grounds. They promenaded down the sulphur colored walk, dressed in their starchiest holiday clothes. This was a dress-up occasion. For miles around, work had been suspended so that peasants and slave-masters could attend. They came from all directions—public spirited Karridonzans, their manes of hair roached high in keeping with the importance of the event.
The chief topic of gossip, however, was not the execution. Most of the people, whether from the court or from the surrounding region, knew very little about the earth-born slave who was to lose his life. That was nothing to them.
The important thing which made their conversations buzz was the return of the lavender vine.
It had come two nights in succession! The old timers were shaking their heads over the deadly toll it had taken. Twelve more on the second visit. Seventeen persons left dead in its path. Two nights of terror.
What would be done about it? Would the king make any mention of it at today’s assembly? Had he any power for dealing with it? Did he know that many people over the kingdom believed that it had come from this very palace within the king’s fortress?
“The king should make some statement,” people were saying. Or, “Perhaps we can gain a hearing with the prime minister.” Or, “We’re going to camp right here on the steps of the palace, my family and I, until we know the valley is safe.”
And there were more anguished reports that reached Nitti’s ears. “Did you hear about our neighbor’s little boy? It struck him in his sleep . . . seeped right in through the open window, bounded through his body and on through the wall. “. . . We lost three cattle and a slave. Tomorrow we meant to take them all to the market . . .”
Nitticello listened, and the chills of uncertainty played through his spine. The lavender vine had always troubled him. It had put those tight wrinkles in his face—worry lines. His sleepless nights had never been caused by a conscience full of remorse for his acts of cruelty; they had come from trying to think his way to mastery over the lavender vine. It had got him, mentally. He had never let King Arvo know it, but the thing had beaten him, over and over. After all these years, he had never learned the skill of calling it into play.
And yet the king had possessed this skill!
Well, the king would soon be out of the way, and Nitti would have everything his own way. Yes, as long as he could keep a whip hand over the young American impostor . . . and as long as no one but Stobber ever knew . . .
“Nitticello, you must make the king do something about the lavender vine.” An important townsman confronted him with a savage challenge.
“I’m busy now—”
“See that I have a chance to talk with the king right after the execution. Will you do that?”
“I’ll do my best.”
Nitti hurried away, mopping the perspiration from his forehead. He shook off requests and demands, right and left. His own complicated piece of engineering must be taken care of before he dared think of anything else.
But at least their obsession with the creeping lavender death had lightened their interest in the execution. In a few minutes it would be over, forgotten. Just one more unruly slave checked off, they would think. And Nitti’s path would be clear.
The officers were seating themselves to the left and the right of the execution machine—two banks of seats like a miniature stadium. Seating capacity for not more than six hundred persons. The peasants and some of the townsmen would have to crowd against the fences for their share of the view.
Six hundred persons of importance—officers of the court, slave owners, a few interplanetary tradesmen, captains of the Sashes . . .
Wealth, Nitti thought, as he glanced over the crowd. The private treasures of gems and precious metals, if they could be squeezed into his own hands, would be enough to buy the Karridonzan skystation and add in to the valley kingdom. And what a monopoly that would be!—what a beautiful funnel for more riches from the passing trade between planets! Nitti’s eyes rested on the sulphur-yellow walk, now almost cleared of the hurrying throngs, and for the moment he was seeing a shower of gold before his eyes.
The Sashes took their places in a double line, waiting for the condemned slave to be marched out to the bench. The “king”, resplendent in his blue uniform, but apparently troubled by a sore throat, had been waiting in his private station in the center of the execution grounds. Now Nitti marched to this station, ascended the steps, and officially presented the “king.”
“Rise and bow,” Nitti whispered. The American in the guise of the king rose with dignity, hesitated as if not certain whether he was well enough to be standing on his two feet, then bowed in a satisfactory manner. The crowd rose and saluted him. He returned the salute. The crowd cheered, and he might have returned the cheer, but Nitti touched his arm.
“Enough, enough. Sit down. I’ll give you your cues.”
Stobber pranced in, followed by a quartet of Sashes surrounding the condemned man. The real king would never have been mistaken for anything but a badly beaten slave. Four ropes, wrapped around his half clad body, led to the four Sashes conducting him; each one of them had a secure hitch on him. He was still gagged so that he couldn’t utter a word; but no one would have heard him anyway, for now the crowd was getting keyed up and into the spirit of the affair. Everyone shouted, and the clamor went on until the condemned man had seated himself on the bench.
Joe Peterson swallowed hard and touched his throat. The wrappings were uncomfortable, and he tried to recall why he must pretend he had a sore throat. The afternoon sun blazed off the yellowish pavement of the execution grounds and burned at his eyes. He was sick They had drugged him. They had done it so he would-cooperate. Yes, he was supposed to yield to Nitticello’s every suggestion—that was the price he was paying to save his own life.
Oh, yes, he was the king. That was it. He—Joe Peterson—was the king! Sure, that’s what he had to keep in mind. He was supposed to run this damned show right, because everybody thought he was it.
And why was he putting on the show? To execute the real king, of course.
Joe shook his head dizzily. Execute him, why?
“What are we doing this for?” Joe whispered to Nitti.
“Quiet! I’ll explain later. Just do as I say.”
“But we’re about to kill the real king—hell, we don’t want to do that. Do we?”
“Shut up.”
Joe gulped. The time had come. Joe looked down at the machine. Black and shiny
, rather pretty, in fact. Worm gears and little gun-like muzzles and lots of electrical apparatus. And a long jointed blue bar of metal that led right up to the station where he was sitting. It had a red handle. Joe wore a white glove. He wondered if any of the red would come off on the glove.
Nitti had explained something about all that equipment a little while ago. Now Joe tried to recall what he had said. The use of the ray gun principle—that was it. The rays would slice in vertically, acting on a doublespiral control that caused them to move in from each side, like two vertical walls closing in. Only these walls would be invisible, and they would disintegrate whatever they touched.
Disintegrate, that was what Nitti had said. Pretty word, disintegrate. Tt meant that the victim’s body would start melting away from each side. As if it were being sliced away by a knife on each side. Slice, slice, slice. Both sides at once. Shoulders and arms first. Longitudinal sections from the shoulders to the elbows. And gradually the ears, a little at a time, and the jaws . . .
This was going to be interesting to watch, Joe thought. Only why? Had Nitti explained that, too? Joe asked again, or started to.
“Why did you say—”
“Shut up.”
Anyway it was an ingenious machine. It would give both sides of the stadium an equal view of the show all the time, until the very last cross-section of the victim was sliced away.
The time had come. Joe felt the nudge from Nitti. He reached for the lever. This wasn’t right, he thought. But who was he to change the rules?
Golly, his hand was limp. He was almost too weak to reach.
“Read the sentence first,” Nitti was saying, nudging him again.