It was Garrett who answered. “You know from the old medical records what syphilis could do to an uncontaminated population, with no resistance to it? This scourge can act the same way. How much they’ll gain for themselves is doubtful, but they’ll spread the poison of hatred and killing. The world has almost forgotten that; but the memory will come back quickly enough.”
“And still you know—” Maureen sounded ashamed of her own statement. “These people— I know they’re terrible. But somehow they’ve come alive. There’s something in their eyes, even if the sight of it terrifies you—”
Uranov laughed. “Still dreaming of the vigor of the olden days, Maureen? Well, we’ve space enough for vigor now. We’ve got to learn what their plans are specifically and circumvent them—very specifically. And first— But where’s Wojcek? He ought to be here by now.”
Loewe spoke. “I was with him. One of these . . . these killers had worked in the lab once. He recognized him in spite of the body tint and the wig. He got suspicious. They took him away. I don’t think we’ll see him again.”
Garrett swore. Maureen gave a little stifled choking noise. Uranov said coldly, “That’s a score to settle.”
Garrett shook his head. “We can’t talk of settling scores now. Private revenge—that belongs to their way of thought. We’re working to frustrate this movement, and then comes our real job: to see to it that the peace never again breeds such a movement.”
“But how?” Loewe protested. “Short of annihilating this entire camp. We’re far too few to do that, and even if we could—”
“No. These men aren’t lost to mankind. Remember they’ve grown up in a world conditioned to the ideals of Devarupa. They’re revolting against those ideals now because they’re under the domination of a strong leader who appeals to the worst in them; but that condition is still there, if we reawaken the ideals.”
“But how?”
“One problem at a time. First to our current job: Did any of you find a way into S.B.’s quarters?”
Each answered in turn, but their answers amounted only to what Garrett had learned himself: that the sanctum sanctorum of the chief’s high command was tightly, impenetrably guarded.
“And you didn’t gather anything of what his first move is to be?”
“The men don’t know, and they don’t care. It’s enough for them that a strong man is going to guide them to loot and slaughter and vivid excitement. They’ll take what comes when he gives the orders.”
“It all boils down to that, doesn’t it? One strong man. If we can get at him, if we can weaken him in any way—”
“Such,” Uranov suggested, “as killing him.”
“There are other weapons that will not so surely turn against us. Maureen, what did you find out about Astra’s quarters?”
“They adjoin S.B.’s, of course. That’s only practical. She has a dozen ladies in waiting or harem slaves or whatever you want to call them; it’s easy enough for a woman to slip in there. But the way through to S.B.’s is through her boudoir; you couldn’t make it without—”
“—Without her help. Exactly. And that, my dear children, is what we are now going to obtain. Listen—”
“—And you never know what’s going to happen to you next,” said the woman who had learned she was a tramp follower. “Like last night, there I was walking along not bothering anyone unless, like Joe always tells me, I bother people just by walking along, only you can’t believe a word Joe says, that Moon pilot, and all of a sudden this big hunky man appears out of nowhere and—”
She let out a little scream. She had not expected her narrative to be so appositely illustrated. This time there were three men, one for each of her friends, too. She held her breath and reminded herself that it was about time for her to be vaccinated again and she certainly mustn’t forget, or else—”
When she let out her breath again it was in a sigh of anguish. “Of all the—To strip off your clothes and then . . . and then just take the clothes and vanish—” In dazed frustration, she clothed herself with the male garments which Gan Garrett had left behind.
The three female-clad figures followed Maureen unnoticed into Astra Ardless’ apartment. Her ladies in waiting lolled about in provocative boredom, ob-viously longing for the coeducational life outside. Garrett looked at them, and began to understand why certain prerequisites were demanded of a male harem attendant. Maureen coolly walked on into the boudoir, and the three followed her.
Astra Ardless sat alone at her dressing table. Her face was in its natural state while she surveyed the array of cosmetics before her. Seen thus, it was a sad face, a lonely face, an old face, and in an odd way, a more beautiful face than she had ever displayed on the beams.
Maureen approached her. “Madame wish a massage?”
She started slightly. “No. Who told you— Or did I order . . . I don’t remember— But, anyway, I don’t want one now. Go away. No, not that way. That’s—”
Maureen turned back from S.B.’s door—it had been a ridiculously long chance, but worth trying—and left the room. Two of her attendants followed.
Astra Ardless turned back to the dressing table. She picked up a graceful bottle, contemplated it, and set it down again. She looked at her naked face and shrugged. Then in the mirror she saw the remaining attendant, and turned. “I told you to go,” she said imperiously and yet wearily.
“I cannot go until I have talked with you,” said Gan Garrett softly.
Astra Ardless snatched up a robe. “A man! I’ll have you blinded for this—burned to death even. I’ll—” Her tone softened; there was, after all, something not unflattering in the situation. “Who are you?”
He held out his wrist in silence.
“Gan Garrett—” she read on the bracelet. “Garrett— But . . . but you—” She drew back, half trembling.
“Yes,” he said quietly, “I made a one-way trip.”
“But . . . but nobody ever came back alive from a one-way trip.”
“No.”
“Then you’re . . . you’re dead? You’re a— No. No! Oh, I know the research societies say there’s some evidence of— But it couldn’t be. There aren’t ghosts! There aren’t!”
“I am here.”
She held the robe tight about her and sought to control her shuddering body. “Why? What do you want of me?”
“I have a message for you. A message from Emigdio Valentinez.”
“Migdito! No— He’s not— He’s not what you are, is he? Is he?”
The shrill tension of her voice, the hand that reached out to clutch him and yet was afraid to, the quivering of her lips left no doubt that Uranov’s bit of gossip had been right; and on that Garrett had built his whole campaign. Now he said, “Valentinez is dead. Stag Hartle killed him.”
Her lips quivered no longer. They tightened cruelly. “Hartle killed—” Her hands made a little wrenching motion. It seemed to say, “That settles Hartle.”
“Stag Hartle killed him—for Breakstone.”
Her eyes went blank. “Breaksone? You mean Sacha? He had Migdito killed by that jackal?”
“Do the dead come back to tell lies? Valentinez invented the new use of lovestonite. Breakstone and Hartle needed it. Valentinez died. Breakstone has the lovestonite weapons.”
Astra Ardless said nothing. But her face was no longer old and sad. It had a new vigor in it, and the bitterness of the tragedy that is beyond mere sadness. She rose and moved toward the door of the adjoining apartment.
“No,” said Garrett gently. “You can do nothing alone. You need helpers. I have brought them.” He moved to the door of the anteroom and raised his arm in the prearranged gesture. The other three returned.
The face of Astra Ardless was the mask of Electra. Even that of Alecto. “You will help me?” she said simply, almost childishly.
“We will help you.”
Then even as they approached the door, it dilated. Four guards entered, each with a pistol. The first, in a pure spirit of
fun, discharged the full force of the weapon into the face of the young man named Loewe, whose shrieks were already dying into permanent silence when Sacheverell Breakstone followed his guards.
“Tut, ” said S.B., looking down at the corpse. “Unnecessary. But harmless. And how nice of you, Astra, to collect this little group of traitors for me. It’s a shame that you’ll have to share their fate, which will probably be long and unpleasantly ingenious. Of course, I’m just groping with words, you understand.”
Gan Garrett’s hand twitched helplessly at the popgun that wasn’t there.
IV.
“You surely didn’t think, did you,” S.B. went on with leisurely calm, “that a man of my creative ability could have been so careless as to leave Astra’s room unwired? In an enterprise so daring and significant as mine, one must take all possible precautions. I have had two operatives on shifts regularly listening to this room—save, of course, when I was in it myself. And you”—he turned to Garrett—“you certainly do not expect me to swallow, like Astra, your folderol about being a ghost? How you escaped from a one-way trip, I have no notion, though I intend to learn such a useful secret before I am through with you; but I have no doubt that you are solid and corporeal and alive—for the time being.”
Garrett answered him with equal calm. “It was a pretty frame, S.B., but the picture stepped out of it. Very pretty, and quite worthy of you. But I didn’t expect to find you at the head of this lovestonite racket.”
S.B. smiled his satisfaction. “So? You find that you had underestimated my abilities?”
“Not under. Over. I thought you were too clever to make such a fool of yourself. It smelled more like, say, Hartle’s work to me.”
“Hartle!” S.B. snorted. “That mercenary! That jackal! A man of action, yes, even of a certain contemptible ingenuity. But what creative power does he have? Do you think for a minute that he could conceive and carry out such a colossal undertaking as this?”
Garrett smiled. “You’re doomed, S.B. You’re damned. What can you accomplish with this devilish violence? Kill off a few hundred people—say even a few thousand. And then the millions of mankind will swallow up your little terrorists as though they had never been.”
A trace of anger contorted S.B.’s face, then faded into a laugh. “Poor idealistic idiot! My dear Astra, before I dispatch you and your fumbling confederates to appropriate destinations, I should like to borrow your boudoir for a lecture hall. Sit down. Sit down, all of you. And you boys, keep your trigger fingers steady. Now Garrett, Uranov, Miss Furness, you are to have the privilege of hearing the functioning of a great creative mind.”
Garrett sat down comfortably enough. He did not need the added illogical reassurance of Maureen’s handclasp. Get S.B. talking, induce him to reveal of his own accord all they needed to know, and keep him talking until the opportune break presented itself. That had been his hastily contrived strategy, and it seemed to be working. The man was a frustrated creator; Uranov had told him that, and it was the key to the whole set-up. And the mediocre, the self-insufficient creator can never resist an audience which must perforce admire him.
“All Sollywood,” Sacherverell Breakstone begain, “ackowledged my creative-executive supremacy. The Little Hitler, they called me. And I remember reading in a biography of that great man how he could have been a magnificent painter had he chosen to follow that line instead of creating in terms of maters and men. Even so, I could have been a great musician, but I instinctively turned away from the sterility of such purely artistic creation. I found my metier in Sollywood; but even there I was cramped, strangled by the limitations of peace. The man who would create with men needs weapons. The man who would create life must be able to mete out death.
“I had my plans for lethalizing the period weapons of Sollywood—filing the daggers, clearing the barrels, finding ammunition somehow through armsleggers— But it was a difficult project. You men of the W.B.I and the powers of the Department of Allocation— I could have done it. I should have created the means of frustrating you. But then, Hartle came to me with the inspired discovery of Emigdio Valentinez.”
“You—” Astra Ardless’ voice was harsh and toneless, hardly recognizable as human. “You did kill him—”
“Not quite. Hartle had forestalled me there. Valentinez was already dead, although I should surely have ordered his death if he had not been. But why are you so concerned, my dear? You were willing to accept a share in an empire founded on a thousand other deaths, and yet you boggle at that one as though you were the idiot Devarupa himself.”
Astra Ardless said nothing. She looked as though only her own death interested her now.
“This is indeed,” Breakstone went on, “a brilliant little weapon, which I think I may claim the credit of inventing, with the basis of the few hints of Valentinez and Hartle. This particular model,” he brandished the one in his hand, “contains a disk of lovestonite a centimeter and a half in diameter and a centimeter thick. It was charged in direct sunlight, using a fifteen-centimeter burning glass focused on it. It contains approximately the solar energy of a full day.
The trigger releases that energy for one twenty-fifth of a second. This slide here controls the time of passage. At this end of the scale, the energy released in that twenty-fifth of a second is only enough to daze and blind momentarily. At this end—” He concluded the sentence by indicating the scorched face of the corpse of Loewe. “It is all weapons in one, from the gentle stunner to the conclusive killer. And by its power I shall create a new world.”
He showed signs of pausing. Garrett spurred him on with a fresh laugh. “I’m still amazed at your stupidity, S.B. What can your few accomplish, even armed with that?”
“What could five serpents accomplish in a herd of five thousand rabbits? Especially if they had the certainty of winning many of those rabbits over to serpentry, and even of equipping them with fangs?”
“A nice metaphor. But, of course, you’re only groping with words.”
“I’ve gone beyond words now, Garrett. It’s the deeds of Breakstone that will change the world.”
“And they are—”
“Listen, you idiots. Understand how a man must act to create. Tomorrow we take over the Moon. That is simple. All the life, all the supplies and communications of the Moon center in Luna City. That we take over, and we need pay no further heed to the few isolated scientists and engineers and work crews that we cut off. Now we own a satellite. We take over the spaceport and the translunar experimental station. We control the spatial wireless and with forged messages lure most of Earth’s spaceships here. We then control a space fleet.
“Then, at our leisure, we invade Earth. We have left enough men behind to be our helpful Quislings in this invasion. The W.B.I. can fight individual armsleggers, but it is not strong enough to combat my armed hundreds, who will soon be thousands. And there is no other physical force to resist us. Even those who are strong enough to resist will be sapped by their own idealistic beliefs. They will not dare to kill us until it is too late and they have themselves been killed.
“And then— You know that classic, ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’? I produced an unimportant epic of it as one of my first creations. It reaches its high point when the hero says four words, which mean all of life to him, as they must to any man of creative genius. Four words that have never been true before in all history, but which will find truth at last when I utter them:
“The world is mine!”
Garrett was moved to shudder at the blazing light of S.B.’s eyes, as vivid and as murderous as a lovestonite flash. But he forced himself to go on scoffing. “And you expect your hundreds and thousands to follow you loyally? Can a man like you inspire love and loyalty?”
“Love! Loyalty! Say rather loot and laziness. They are offered the privilege of sacking the Earth, and their lazy souls are spared the necessity of ever thinking or acting for themselves.”
“They’ll never follow you. The risks are theirs and the g
lory is yours.”
“You think not? Then come. Tonight I speak to them. For the first time I tell them a definite plan. I outline the assault upon Luna City. And you shall hear me speak, and you shall know for yourself if they will follow me. Boys,” he said to the guards, “bring these carefully after me. They are to be honored guests at the foundation of the new world.”
Outside, in the public square of this dome which Breakstone had filled with his army, the hordes were beginning to gather, the seething mass of these new Huns. Inside, in this upper room, S.B. waited patiently. As a producer-director, he had been noted for his sense of timing. Now with that same sense, he awaited the exact moment when he should go out on that balcony and address his followers.
The suppression of balconies, Gan Garrett reflected with bitter whimsicality, may be necessary in a world which wishes to prevent the rise of dictators.
A guard came in, saluted, and said, “Hartle.”
Sacheverell Breakstone returned the salute and nodded. “Show him in.”
Stag Hartle came in, wearing an ascot which was unusually brilliant even for him—so blinding as almost to eliminate the need for lovestonite weapons. “Hi, boss,” he said casually. “Just wanted to—” His voice dropped as he spotted Garrett. “Christmas on wheels,” he muttered. “Ain’t it bad enough to see a ghost without him being in drag?”
“Mr. Garrett is no ghost,” said S.B. “And the female garments are merely part of a plot of his against me—a plot which miscarried as grievously as your attempt to railroad him on a one-way trip. Clumsy work, Hartle.”
Hartle bridled. “My part of it was O.K. I’m reliable. And that’s what a lot of people are finding out now, boss.”
“So? And what does that mean?”
“It means that when I tell ’em there’s going to be loot and excitement, they believe me. When you talk big, S.B., they begin to wonder what’s in it for them, or are they just all stooging for you?”
“So? Go on—”
The Compleat Boucher Page 41