Mission: Earth "Doomed Planet" (12 page)

The Grand Council hall was quite a mess. In the last druggy days of Hisst, nobody had even bothered to dust it. Heller had dug the staff out of the basement where they had been prisoners and tried to bring some order to the place. There were no lights, the sun no longer hammered through the round upper windows: he rigged some construction-site floods he found. The Apparatus seemed to have stolen the gold and jewelled cloths and the diamond-studded banners; the place looked pretty bare. He thought he was lucky to be able to get the dust off the hundred-foot-diameter table and find enough unbroken chairs. But what impeded him most was people: they kept coming in, arriving from the cities. Heller commandeered a company of Fleet marines from a battleship landed outside the east gate and told the captain to stop this influx, but the captain, although he had the huge entrance door blocked, kept letting people in. In answer to Heller's challenge, the captain said, "But they're all important people of the realm, sir. Actually we're only getting what the Army doesn't filter out at the gates." The room would hold a couple thousand in a pinch: Heller gave it up. A Homeview crew was interviewing every notable that appeared. They also always seemed to have a camera on Heller. "Chief," said Flick to Madison, "this is madness. Please, please let me steal some cars so we can split." "No!" said Madison. "This isn't over!" Flick pointed to a backflow monitor the director had had set up so he could know how Joy City was cutting in his own scenes. Real Homeview crews, all through the Confederacy, were shooting shots of people in the streets, screaming their lungs out, "Long Live His Majesty Mortiiy!" "It looks awful over to me!" said Flick. "That's the point!" said Madison. "We've lost our riots! You'll never make a PR man, Flick. I've lost client exposure. Somehow I've got to try to make it up and repair the image!" "You're crazy," said Flick. "Of course," said Madison. "That's why I'm a genius. As soon as this conference convenes, I can keep a running commentary going and, hope against hope, regain the initiative! All is not lost, Flick. Don't despair. I've still got a chance to make Heller an immortal outlaw yet!" And he went off to give the director some camera angles. Emperor Mortiiy came in. He was still in his fighting clothes but he had the chains of office around his neck, wore the crown and held the scepter. "What a mob!" he said to Heller. "I think the senior officers of most services are present, Your Majesty," said Heller. "We can't dig up any of the Lords: they're either too slugged up with-dope to move or they ran away." "Well, this isn't a Grand Council meeting," said Mortiiy. "It's an emergency Officers' Conference to dispose of matters of state prior to forming a government. What a MOB!" Mortiiy walked up to the dais. Somebody tried to blow a trumpet and the note went sour. Somebody else dropped the cymbals. Mortiiy, beard bristling, yelled, "This Officers' Conference is called to order!" People drifted to the table but the hall was still a commotion. Mortiiy yelled, "Blast it! Shut up and sit down!" At that moment some new notables burst in the front door and everything remained in a hubbub. "Heller!" yelled Mortiiy, "For Gods' sakes, get up here on the dais and take the post of Viceregal Chairman of the Crown! Maybe you can be heard above this mess!" Heller blinked. It was the most senior aristocratic post of the realm. But, obediently, he jumped up on the dais beside Mortiiy. Heller raised his voice, using the piercing tone of a Fleet officer, "The meeting is called to order!" Somebody else came bursting in the door, collided with one of Madison's cameramen, and two Homeview lights fell down with a crash. The hubbub continued. Heller drew his hand blastgun, set it to "noise" and fired it in the air. There was instant quiet. "The meeting is started!" said Heller. Madison gave a sigh of relief. He purred into the commentary mike, "The outlaw Heller is calling his bandit crew to order!" Mortiiy started to speak but people were sitting down now and it was noisy. Heller reversed the handgun, held it by the muzzle and hit the table sharply three times. "Beautiful," said the director as he telephotoed in on the handgun.

Mortiiy was finally able to be heard. He swept a glance around the faces at the vast table and then across the hall. "In 125,000 years," he said, "we have never had such turmoil. We've had a few traitors, we have had a few civil wars, but nothing to compare with this. "I've had an estimate that there are a million civilians dead in the streets, that property damage has mounted to tens of billions of credits. We also almost lost a planet-Calabar-which endured more than five years of heavy attack. I believe that that is also connected with this present scene. "Before we can reorganize the government, we have to root out this disease and handle it or it could just happen all over again. I may have ideas of what was behind it, but I am not going to start my rule with guesses and prejudice. I mean to isolate exactly what caused this chaos and that is the first business of this conference." The senior admiral of the Fleet Admiral's staff shouted from his place at the table, "It was Hisst!" A snarl of agreement coursed throughout the crowded hall. "One man?" said Mortiiy. "I'm more inclined to believe it was a conspiracy. But, all right, it's as good a place as any to start. Who knows anything about Hisst?" A savage roar swept through the room. Notables they might be and conservative to the core, but they had one thing in common: a violent hatred for Hisst. The Homeview monitors which were playing on the far wall were suddenly cut to crowd shots under the glaring lights of the streets where people were watching the conference on portable sets and viewers in store windows. The sound volume roared with hate. Heller pounded his gun butt on the upper split-level of the table. He bent over to Mortiiy and indicated to him a young Fleet officer who, behind the row of admirals, was waving for attention. "Bis?" said Mortiiy. Heller nodded. "Officer Bis," shouted Mortiiy. "You have our attention." An admiral made room so Bis could get to the edge of the table. "Your Majesty," said Bis, "I have an Apparatus clerk who knew Hisst when he was a young Apparatus officer. This man has been very helpful. As a matter of fact he's under the conference table right now with Fleet technicians trying to get temporary power to the individual surface screens at the conference table seats and to the large center viewer here. We're trying to shunt in Apparatus and other data banks for conference use." Bis bent over and yelled into the cavity under-the table, "Hey, Bawtch. His Majesty wants to talk to you. Come out." Old Bawtch stuck his head up over the table rim. The gray hair tufts on either side of his head stuck straight out. His eyes were round and scared. "Somebody give him a seat," said Mortiiy. "Bawtch? Well, see here, Bawtch, if you go on being helpful I can promise you that we can forget your Apparatus connections. Tell us what you know of Lombar Hisst." Old Bawtch nervously took the offered seat. "It was the freaks." "Freaks?" said Mortiiy. "What do freaks have to do with it?" "Well, when I was a young clerk, Your Majesty, I was assigned to the Exterior Division Intelligence Files and a new officer-Lombar Hisst-came in. This was fifty years ago, Your Majesty. I was filing some survey data from a planet named Blito-P3. It's on the Invasion Timetable, Your Majesty, and we've got several thousand years of data oh it because we're going to invade and conquer it one of these days-as a matter of fact there's been a lot of talk lately of stepping it up…" "Don't maunder," said Mortiiy. "You started out talking about freaks." "Well, yes, Your Majesty. I was filing a pack of photographs from a circus run by P. T. Barnum. It had a two-headed calf (that's an animal) and a boy with a dog face (a dog is another animal) and two women joined physically called Siamese twins and some others, and this young Hisst picked them up and began to laugh. And then he said, 'With cellology we could go that one better' and he took the whole pack. "Then the next thing I knew, he had fished a criminal cellologist named Crobe out of a prison and they began to make freaks and sell them to circuses. Those were the first freaks ever exhibited." "How disgusting," said Mortiiy. "'P. T. Barnum', you say? That doesn't sound very Voltarian. I never heard of any circuses by that name." "No, Your Majesty. I didn't make myself clear. The freak idea came from Blito-P3. Locally there, they call it Earth." "Well, that simply shows Hisst might be insane. Thank you for____________________

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"Wait, Your Majesty. It doesn't end there. This Hisst started plaguing me for more data about that planet and the next thing I knew, a section had been created for it, Section 451 Exterior Division Intelligence." "You mean 'Apparatus,'" said Mortiiy. "No, Your Majesty. It wasn't called the Apparatus then. This Lombar Hisst, as a young officer, seemed to gain an awful lot of influence very fast. He'd plague me for data on Blito-P3 and then he'd go to the then Chief of Intelligence or over his head to the Lord of the Exterior and Hisst would put it out as his own ideas and they'd institute it. They promoted him right and left. It was after he got the files on the various intelligence agencies on Blito-P3 that he got the name of our organization changed to the Coordinated Information Apparatus. "Long before he was Chief of the Apparatus, Hisst had put here the provocation techniques of the Russian KGB: it's a system of provoking people to commit crimes so you can arrest them. From the pattern of an organization known as the Schutzstaffel, in Germany, developed by a man named Hitler, we began to recruit criminals from the prisons to serve in the Apparatus. Our Death Battalions also come from there. From the CIA in the United States, the Apparatus got the idea of having an independent military force that would fight wars without the approval of the government. From the FBI of that same country, Lombar obtained the pattern they use of ruling the whole land by blackmailing legislative representatives and keeping those bodies in a state of terror by manufacturing crimes that never happened-called Abscams. We–" "Hold it," said Mortiiy. "You're drowning me with names I never heard of." "Those are all from Blito-P3," said Bawtch. "Locally called Earth. That's where we got the pattern of our Apparatus from." A snarl went through the hall. Madison's hopes surged. Maybe he could capitalize on this sudden unpopularity of Earth. Maybe he could image Heller as the protector of that planet: Controversy was what he needed now. He said swiftly into the commentator mike, "The outlaw Heller for the whole past year has had his lair on the planet Earth." Heller, oblivious of the statements Madison was making and, indeed, completely unaware that Madison, behind his Homeview visor, was even in the hall, rapped his gun butt three times for order so Mortiiy could continue. "So Hisst," said Mortiiy, "was interested in the planet Earth so he could create the abomination called the Apparatus. I-" "No, Your Majesty," said Bawtch, "that wasn't why Hisst was interested in that planet. It was the history of a family dynasty named the Rockecenters. They sprang up from a man who was a servant-raper about a century ago. The fellow sold a poison called crude oil for a cancer cure. He was a commoner. He brought up his sons to be thieves and one of them made a fortune out of this crude oil and then, by manipulating it and banks and taking over and using Earth intelligence services, he made himself and his generations that followed virtual emperors of the planet. Hisst was fascinated. He had never imagined before that it could be done. He himself was a commoner from the gutters of Slum City and he dreamed that if he followed this pattern, he could become Emperor here. And he did, even if very briefly." "You say all this happened," said Mortiiy, "on the planet Earth? Incredible! What a weird place that must be!" Madison hastily said into the commentary mike, "The outlaw Heller furthered his outlaw career on Earth by calling himself Rockecenter. This definitely proves his outlaw connections." Mortiiy nodded to Bawtch, signifying he could move away from the table or get back to work. "Now that we know where the Apparatus came from, I am open to a vote to abolish it forever and prohibit use of these criminal patterns of intelligence from Blito-P3." The assent vote was deafening. As Joy City cut back to crowds in cities massed in squares, watching or getting news of this conference, the Homeview monitors on the walls almost split apart with roars. Madison said into the commentary mike, "The outlaw Heller studied Earth intelligence and was an expert in it. He advocates it thoroughly. In no small way, it contributed to his rise as an interplanetary outlaw." He was feeling very hopeful now. He was building Controversy. He was getting Coverage. His Confidence was rising.

The palsied Grand Council clerk they had dug up was lagging in his transcript. Heller was keeping his own notes in his engineering log. He now leaned over to Mortiiy and whispered. "Oh, yes!" said Mortiiy. And then in a louder voice, "We must now go about the business of choosing a new Grand Council." A general said, "Don't use the ones we had. Those Lords became a bunch of drug addicts." An admiral said, "Before you can guarantee the new one won't succumb, I make a motion that we prohibit drugs" Mortiiy said, "Do any of you know anything about drugs?" The admiral in charge of medicine said, "We never used them in the Confederacy. We used various gases for surgery and such. From what I've seen of drugs, they're poison." "We don't have or grow or manufacture them on Voltar," said the admiral in charge of contraband and space patrols. "The idea of drugs here originated with Lombar Hisst. We have an order not to stop any such cargos. It originated with Lombar Hisst." "Well, where did they come from?" said Mortiiy. "The consoles on the table are working now," said Bis. "I'm punching in the Fleet Intelligence analysis of it and also data on the use of drugs from the Apparatus files." The separate consoles in front of the seats were flickering and the huge one which occupied the center of the immense conference table lit up. Mortiiy, from the higher level, stared down at it. He read it. "That's impossible!" he said. "A whole planet going crazy with drugs?" "That's the analysis, Your Majesty," said Bis. "They take them morning, noon and night. They feed them to the schoolchildren, the workmen and the aged. They even fight their wars with soldiers drugged to the hilt." "That's Blito-P3 again!" said Mortiiy. "It was Hisst's secret weapon against Voltar," said Bawtch, crawling out from under the table. "That was why he was mounting that premature invasion of Earth. To get more drugs so he could cave the Confederacy population in." "It ought to be invaded," snarled Mortiiy. "But not to get more drugs." Heller punched a series of buttons under the edge of the table. The display changed. "Your Majesty," he said, "there is already a Grand Council order criminalizing drug production on Voltar. I thought I better check. Here it is." "Then that's done," said Mortiiy. "No, Your Majesty. That's the trouble. It gave Hisst a monopoly. These laws prohibiting drugs exist also on Blito-P3. They are there to protect the real purveyors from competition and thus the governments help them to get wealthy. The answer is to decriminalize and to ignore drugs: they don't profit people then and nobody is interested." "You seem to know something about this," said Mortiiy. "Well, a little bit," said Heller. "Drugs are a rotten business. But when you pass a law against them they become a profitable business." "You mean Blito-P3 has laws against drugs and is loaded with them?" "That's the way they work it," said Heller. "The outlaw Heller," said Madison into the commentator mike, "is being careful to protect his drug associates." "That planet is crazy," said Mortiiy. "This law here, Your Majesty, was proposed and passed by Hisst." That was enough. They wiped it from the books. "Let's get back to where we started," said Mortiiy. "We were trying to get a new Grand Council." Some notable at the back of the hall yelled, "The Lords may have been on drugs, but several had sons. Why not appoint the sons." There was a mutter of approval in the hall. Bis leaned over to his admiral senior and that worthy said, "Gentlemen, Your Majesty, I have bad news for you there. Without a single exception, the sons of Lords here have become catamites." "WHAT?" said Mortiiy. "Where did that come from?''' "Your Majesty," said the admiral, "we regret to tell you they were suborned by a very corrupt and perverted young girl who arrived here a few months ago and who, without doubt, should be executed for actually teaching sexual irregularities. I understand they are common on her home planet. She is an Earth girl. She comes from Blito-P3." "THAT planet again!" said Mortiiy. "First freaks, then corrupting governments with intelligence, then drugs and now catamites!" A notable was waving his arms from the back of the crowd. "Your Majesty!" The man was making such a fuss that Mortiiy impatiently signalled for him to come forward to the table. Heller had to rap several times to quiet the crowd so that the man could be heard. "Your Majesty!" the fellow said, "I am Noble Arthrite Stuffy, the publisher of the Daily Speaker. I am here at the behest of dozens of publishers. You just mentioned freaks. I've been trying to get your attention ever since the name of Crobe came up. He is evidently a condemned criminal from Voltar that went away and returned with some false sciences called psychology and psychiatry. I came as soon as we knew there would be an Officers' Conference. We want a law passed instantly to forbid the promulgation or use of these two subjects." "Why?" said Mortiiy. "Your Majesty, those two subjects claim that sex is the basis for all motivation." "That's nonsense," said Mortiiy. "But it's just some crackpot idea." "No, it isn't, Your Majesty," said Noble Arthrite Stuffy. "Those subjects are a pack of falsities and lies that are used to undermine the population, corrupt them and hold in power vicious governments run by insane men! Psychiatry and psychology played their role in bringing about the chaos we have just been through. Abolish them quick!" "That's quite a charge," said Mortiiy. "I've never heard of these subjects. Where did they come from?" "Blito-P3!" said Noble Arthrite Stuffy. "The planet Earth." "WHAT? That planet again?" roared Mortiiy. "Yes, Your Majesty. The governments there use these subjects all the time. That's why their population is so caved in. These were the subjects that began pushing drugs there." "Can you give me some example of how they helped overthrow the government here?" said Mortiiy. "I'd rather not tell you in public, Your Majesty. It's something very personal that we publishers have found out. If you don't want more drugs, please pass this law!" The Countess Krak had entered the hall from a rear door. She had walked up the steps behind the dais and whispered in Mortiiy's ear, "You told me to report if your father showed any change. He told me to wish you luck and then went peacefully to sleep with a smile on his face. He seems very happy." "Thank you," Mortiiy whispered back. Then, as a sudden afterthought, he said, "You were on Earth for a while. Do you know anything about subjects called psychology and psychiatry?" "Oh, yes, Your Majesty," Krak whispered back. "They're awful. The governments there use them to maim and kill and drive people insane when they don't like somebody. They teach all the schoolchildren they're only animals so they'll act like animals." "That's good enough for me," Mortiiy whispered back. "Sit down back of your man there. You'll be interested in this." Then more loudly he said, "I move that we proclaim psychology and psychiatry, in teaching and in practice, against the law." There was a growl of assent and it was done. "Let's get out of here," said Flick to Madison. "They can't legislate apinst the truth that men are just rotten animals. Don't worry. I've got this under control. I'll have them hunting Heller again before you know it." He gave a signal to the director to get a close shot of Krak. He said into the commentator mike, "I hope you noticed, folks, that the gun moll of the outlaw Heller is working her wiles on the Emperor. Is there scandal in the wind? Or is this just a ploy by Heller to prepare the way to kidnap Mortiiy? Time will tell. Watch your Home-view and stay tuned!" Little did Madison know that he. was about to precipitate the wipeout of the planet Earth!