"That's great," I said, taking a new grip on life.
"Yeah, listen. You Feds seem to know a lot about this case. You got a photograph of the target person?"
Oho! I did have one of Krak! A copy of her passport shot. "I'll get it right over to you," I said.
I hung up. I got Raht on the two-way-response radio and had him come over to pick it up and deliver it.
"I think we've got that (bleeped) Royal officer now," I said. "Rape of a minor."
"Fact?" said Raht, mustache twitching.
"You challenge the facts of a court?" Isaid, incredulous.
"One of these Earth courts?" said Raht. "Yes."
"Rape of a minor is VERY serious," I said. "They sterilize the male and the operation sometimes kills him. And they send what's left up for life. Serves the (bleepard) right!"
"Why?" said Raht.
"You (bleeped) fool!" I raved at him. "He's carrying Grand Council orders. He's not Apparatus. He's Fleet! He could order me killed, just like that! And you better watch it, Raht. One misstep and I'll vaporize you myself!"
"Well, did he rape the minor or didn't he?" said Raht. "He doesn't seem that kind of a person. From all the spying I've done on him, he seems an all right sort of guy. It wasn't his fault we were beat up at the Gracious Palms. It was yours for not planning it well."
"Those were whores at the Gracious Palms!" I raved at the idiot.
"Whores, smores," said Raht. "He's a Fleet man. What could you expect? I can tell you this, none of them were minors! We had the bruises to prove it! Breaks, too!"
"He practically slavers after minors!" I shouted. "Now, (bleep) you, take this photo to Eagle Eye Security."
Raht accepted it. He looked at it. "Oho," he said. "This is his girl. I got a glimpse of her once. This photo doesn't do her justice. She is the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on. There aren't any women on the planet Modon that could touch her for looks. The only woman I've seen that could compare with this girl is Hightee Heller. Poor Terb had some pin-ups of Hightee. I was looking at Terb's things the other day and found them. Now, this girl has the same type of eyes. She looks like a Manco aristocrat and they are the most famous beauties – "
"Gods (bleep) you, Raht!" I screamed at him. "Shut up! Get that photo over to Eagle Eye Security AT ONCE."
He put it in a case he carried. At the door he looked back. He said, "You can't ever convince me that a Royal officer with a girl as beautiful as this one would ever go near any minor, much less try to rape one!"
He got out quickly, just before the chair shattered against the door. What riffraff! It was a good thing I had him in the iron terror of Apparatus discipline. How dare he doubt that Heller had raped a minor! I said so and that should be enough.
I was pretty put out.
I gave Heller's viewer a kick. Too bad there was no button relay on it to shock him. It was an omission. I should have had him fixed up like Lombar had fixed the Antimancos. I still wore the control star, although they were far away.
The viewer, under the impact, had turned toward me. Heller was sitting in the salon playing poker with Captain Bitts, the sports director and a mate.
"I didn't know there were supposed to be five aces in the deck," said Heller. "I've got three and you've got two."
"Special deck," said Captain Bitts. "But as you can plainly see, I have all clubs, so that takes this pot. A flush beats a full house every time." He raked in the pot.
"It's nice of you to let me play on credit," said Heller. "How much do I owe you now?"
"Ten thousand and thirty-three exactly," said Captain Bitts.
"I think we should take a run around the deck," said Heller to the sports director, "while I've still got some shoes to run in." He got up, the sports director rising with him. "We'll have another game this evening when I feel less confused."
I turned away. I was glad he was confused, the rapist. He'd be far more confused than that when we got to him.
Oh, what a beautiful spectacle it would be to see him standing before the court, charged with the rape of a minor!
There was a hubbub in the hall. I was quite surprised. The girls were home from work. Was it that late?
They came in, taking off their things, chattering together at a great rate. They seemed to be excessively upset.
They were talking about psychiatrists in general and they were using quite unladylike four-letter words. I took it that they had been quite disturbed by the live abortion demonstration. Then they got on the subject of Psychiatric Birth Control and the four-letter words redoubled.
"We've got to fight tooth and nail," said Adora Bey nee Pinch. "So we might as well plan the campaign."
I must have looked excessively blank as I stood in the door to my room in my bathrobe, for Adora turned a beady eye on me. It was not a good sign. She pointed at a chair. "Sit down, husband," she ordered.
I sat down.
"Nothing like breaking things gently," she said to me. "We have it all planned out. Next week, we are going to start converting homos."
"Men?" I said.
"That's right," she said primly. "Unless we do the other half of the job, we'll get nowhere. Those (bleeps) have been trained by the psychiatrists into fellatio and sodomy. They're just a bunch of chauvinistic (bleep) holes! And that's where you come in."
"Hold on!" I said. "I don't want anything to do with homos! They completely nauseate me. I factually get ill just thinking about it."
"Oh, come now. All you have to do is combine it with the anti-lesbian campaign: just let the homos stand around and watch and see how good it is."
"No WAY!" I cried. "They might get worked up and grab me and rape me in the (bleep). No, Madame Pinch Bey. The answer is NO! That's final. Count me out. That's the end of it. No use talking. Get a gun. Shoot me. Turn me in for bigamy. But on homos, you can go straight to Hells."
She looked at me in a very deadly fashion, eyes slitted. She could never abide anyone disagreeing. "I thought it might come to this. I've heard you on the subject before. So I took precautions. I have something to show you." She snapped her fingers: "The large envelope, Candy."
Candy handed it over. As she opened it, Adora said, "These just came back from a private lab." She held them up.
They were ten-inch-by-twelve-inch color enlargements.
"These," said Adora, "are the photos Teenie took of you with Mike and you with Mildred. Beautiful color. They sure look lifelike, don't they? The flesh is just so natural!"
"What do these have to do with it?" I said suspiciously. "We were talking about homos and those are certainly women! Nobody could miss that fact or what was happening either. So what does this prove?"
"Nothing much. Only that you are a lecher." And then a glad and happy expression, very false, appeared upon her face. "But look at these!"
ME AND TEENIE!
In the first one, she had really been yanking me to my feet, but with the robe flying back that way it looked like I was attacking her!
"Now look at number two!" gloated Adora.
I had been trying to bat her hands away but it looked like I was seizing her!
"Hold it!" I cried. "Those pictures are deceptive!"
"Oh, yeah?" gloated Adora. "Well, let's inspect number three!"
With a look of horror, Teenie seemed to be protesting a sexual attack. Actually, I had been trying to get her off of me!
"You like that, huh?" said Adora, gazing at my stricken face. "I think you'll really love number four. So realistic."
I stared. I said, my voice rising in pitch, "But she dropped down on her knees herself! I wasn't pushing her there! I was trying to get her to stand back up!"
"That's pretty juicy porno," Candy grinned, staring over my shoulder.
"Oh, but we're really not to it yet," said Adora. "Just look at number five!"
It showed Teenie tipped back on the bed! A look of fear was on her face. And that wasn't all it seemed to show.
"Hey!" I cried. "I wa
s just trying to discipline her!"
"That's not what the picture shows!" smiled Adora ghoulishly. "But just get a look at number six!"
It showed her bent down on the bed. It showed me yanking her ponytail as she backed up against me.
"Now try to tell somebody," said Adora, "that you don't go in for sodomy."
"Wait!" I cried. "That camera is lying."
"Cameras never lie," said Adora. "The whole world believes in pictures."
"Rats!" I said. "You all saw it. You know very well that nothing whatever was happening! All that was going on was an effort to get her to behave!"
Adora smiled a deadly smile. "Well, it's certainly very plain from these pictures what you were doing, kiddo. Anybody looking at it would accept it as total evidence of what you were doing. That's why the FBI always uses pictures. The public and courts always believe cameras tell the truth. So just look at these again," and she fanned them out. "Here is clear-cut, court, FBI-type evidence of sexual attack, fellatio, sodomy and, in general, THE RAPE OF A MINOR!"
The shock hit me like a concussion wave. I went out like a blown candle.
Adora cuffed me awake. As though from a great distance, her voice was still hammering me. "The negatives are in a safe place. The new law is that you would be sterilized and probably die under the knife, and even if you survived you would go to jail for years and years and be raped there every day by the cons the way they do in Federal pens. There is no slightest way you could avoid being convicted of the charge of rape of a minor"
My brains were reeling. This was what was supposed to be happening to Heller. It was NOT what was supposed to be happening to me! How had Fate contrived this awful miscarriage of justice?
The room stopped spinning a trifle. Then a new fear gripped me. I stammered, "You... you haven't turned me in, have you?"
"No, not yet. But having some idea of how that peanut brain of yours works, I did take a precaution. Uncross your eyes and read this." She pushed something in front of my face. A legal paper:
SUPERIOR COURT INJUNCTION
Whereas and wherefore, the party of the first part, TEENIE WHOPPER, is a ward of this court, and whereas and wherefore the party of the second degree, SULTAN BEY, a.k.a. INKSWITCH, or of any other a.k.a. or name, is known to have reason to wish said party of the first part DEAD, the court hereby issues an injunction against the party of the second degree against the MURDER of said party of the first part.
Whereas and wherefore, if at any time the court demands it, the person of said TEENIE WHOPPER cannot be found or the said SULTAN BEY, a.k.a. INKSWITCH, or of any other a.k.a. or name, cannot produce the person of said party of the first part alive and well, within reasonable time, it will be automatically assumed by the court that the said party of the second degree has MURDERED the party of the first part and the party of the second degree shall be found guilty of MURDER IN THE FIRST DEGREE.
HAMMER TWIST
JUDGE
SUPERIOR COURT
I sat there trembling, fixated by that awful document. The most natural out, by all Apparatus textbooks, had been blocked!
IT WAS TOO LATE TO KILL TEENIE! I had missed my last chance!
"Please note," said Adora, "that I place the paper in your hand and that you have been legally served, a fact which will be carefully recorded in the court. This effectively ends any slightest choice you have in the matter. You WILL cooperate in de-homosexualizing homos. We begin this program next week. And you will do your part or go to a Federal pen and be raped daily by the male inmates. So in seven days we start, and there are no ifs, ands or buts.
"Now go take a shower and get ready for tonight's girls. You seem to be wringing wet with sweat and I detect a peculiar odor to you."
The peculiar odor was the raw, acrid stink of terror.
I knew at that moment, no matter how I dissimulated, I would have to flee. And I only had one week.
WHAT was I going to do in that week?
It required MAXIMUM STRIKE!
PART FIFTY-THREE
Chapter 1
I had a terribly sleepless night. I rolled and tossed and cursed. Time after time I had had that (bleeped) kid right in my bare hands. I could have squeezed the life out of her with the ease of squashing putty.
But it was too late now. I couldn't touch the junior (bleepch)!
I rose hollow-eyed and gaunt of face. Assisted by marijuana-but no alcohol-I had managed to perform. It had helped to put up a mirror so I could be sure no homo would steal in while I lay naked and exposed. I had somehow satisfied the girls while wrapped around with the soft haze of grass. Personally I had not felt much. The "joy of sex" was getting dim for me these days.
The only advantageous thing about this morning was that I had no headache. But now that last night's pot had worn off, the awful whirlpool of terror was spinning in my guts.
Shakily, I got a bhong going and took half a dozen puffs. Instead of calming me, it accentuated my panic.
I had a bad half hour before I could get my hands to stop shaking and prepare some strong coffee. I drank it. My hands shook worse.
A bright voice seared my soul. "Hello, Inky. I just stopped by on my way to school. Boy, am I learning how to (bleep)!"
She was standing there in her ponytail, flat-heeled oxfords and socks around her ankles. She looked at her Mickey Mouse watch. "I've got a few minutes. I could give you a demonstration."
"I didn't know your last name was 'Whopper,'" I said idiotically. What I had meant to say was "You set me up, you filthy, blackmailing (bleep)!" But I had to be careful.
"Oh, yes," she said. "My parents were very famous. But I don't like to have to trade on their name and sound conceited. They used to rush from coast to coast running all the Mafia organizations. They were the biggest hit team in the business until they were sent to the gas chamber in California for murdering the governor. They really lived up to their name. And now that we have been formally introduced, how about lying back and letting me show you this new muscle. You sort of start it with your heel. You put your foot on the fellow's... here, I'll take off my shoe and sock...."
"Teenie, before the Gods, I feel very nervous and upset. You better run along to school, Teenie." What I meant to say was "You set me up, you filthy, blackmailing (bleep)!"
"Oh, you can't get rid of me that easy. I was early today. Here, try some bubble gum. That sometimes eases the strain. It's a sort of substitute for going down on boys the way the psychologist had me do every day. I miss being his assistant, you know."
I chewed the bubble gum. It tasted like plastic.
"Now that you have it gooey, you pull it across your front teeth and blow and make a bubble. Jesus, not like that. I swear to Pete, Inky, you act like you never grew up in a civilized place." She worked her fingers in my mouth, had me blow. The bubble got very big.
It popped suddenly.
I had strips of bubble gum all over my face.
She laughed gaily.
"You'll be late for school, Teenie," I said. I meant to say "You set me up, you rotten, blackmailing (bleep), and I would give half my life expectancy-which might not be long, due to you-to kill you where you stand." I didn't say it.
"Well, I gotta be going," she said. "Oh, by the way, you asked me the other day if the Chinese men were doing it to me. I want to set your mind at rest, Inky. Would you believe it that three of them are homos? They wouldn't touch a woman with a ten-foot pole, even if they were that long, which they aren't. I caught them in a daisy chain last evening and told the Hong Kong whore and she just said 'Really?' and went in to watch. So I'm in no danger, Inky. I'm saving it all up to (bleep) you. Ta-ta." And off she went.
The shot about homos had gone straight to the center of my terrified stomach.
I sat there.
The pattern of the spring sun lay in bars upon the floor.
Bars.
Crobe's viewer flickered. He was having a conference with two other psychiatrists. A young boy, about twelve, was str
apped down on an operating table: his eyes were wide with terror. He was gagged with a block of wood and surgical gauze.
One of the psychiatrists said, "It is no use. Not only does he insist it is wrong to steal, he won't join any of the gangs that do." He was nursing a bandaged hand.
"Totally antisocial," said the other psychiatrist. "A deviant. Too smart-(bleep) for his own good."
"He's hopeless," said the first psychiatrist. "His parents first sent him to me when he was five years old and now, seven years later, he refuses to make any progress. He won't buy drugs from his teachers and, despite repeated electric shocks, refuses utterly to exhibit neurotic tendencies."
"Never make it through college," said the other psychiatrist, shaking his head sadly.
"But now he has the nerve," said the first psychiatrist, "to refuse to talk! Whenever I ungag him he just screams that he's afraid of us."
"Vy dun't you zay zo in de virst blace?" said Crobe. "Dis gonference 'as gone on doo long awready."
"Well, I told you in the first place," said the original psychiatrist, "that it was a terror syndrome. I just brought him in so you could operate. I can't. I hurt my hand beating him."
The boy was trying desperately to escape the straps, writhing from side to side, trying to force words through his gag.
The second psychiatrist said, "Be quiet," and with an expert fist, punched the boy on the button. The youngster collapsed.
Crobe beckoned and two husky male nurses raced up. One was carrying needles and drugs and the other pushed in an electric-shock machine.
The one with drugs pumped a syringe full into the boy's veins. The other one fixed the shock machine to the sides of his head.
Sparks flew and smoke rose up from the electrodes.
The two psychiatrists smiled and nodded to Crobe.
The first one said, "I am sure you can do it like I showed you on that woman. It's really a simple operation: merely cutting the vagus nerve."
"That will cure it. He won't be afraid of anything anymore. Vagotomies are wonderful," said the second psychiatrist.
Crobe grabbed a knife and opened up the boy's stomach. Blood flew. Using a fingernail, he located the nerve in question. He took a pair of fingernail scissors and cut a section out of it.
Mission: Earth Voyage of Vengeance Page 5