Mission: Earth "Doomed Planet" (5 page)

If the Confederacy had thought it had riots, these were nothing compared to the riots they were having now, the day following the coronation. A stunned Voltar had not known what to make of the "coronation" event when it had come on Homeview. Word had flashed across mobs and even battles with the Apparatus, and action had suspended while one and all sought the nearest Homeview set in cars, tanks, buildings, stores or homes. At first some thought the rumor that brought them to the viewscreens must be mistaken: Was this some old musical? Or a circus? Or a parody in bad taste? Voltar takes its Royalty seriously and tampering with it had never been taken lightly. It had prospered and been stable for ages in the old galaxy and for 125,000 years in this one under the political system of a benign monarchy. There had been upsets in the past but these infrequent disruptions in Royal rule, even when occasioned by excessive repression, had been resolved by a conclave of the Lords of the land-of which there were thousands, existing not only on the central planet of Voltar but on the other 109 planets. A system existed, in other words, for handling the cessation of a Royal line. In the living memory of most of the four hundred billion inhabitants of the Confederacy, despite their long life expectancy, no coronation had taken place. But they suspected that it would be attended by some vast array of Lords, with pomp, parades, celebrations and even holidays complete with festivals and one's best clothes. It wouldn't be over in ten minutes, most of which was being performed without even saying what it was about. And then, at the end, the statement that that insanely rapturous face was their new monarch and that it was no one less than the head of the organization they had been battling in the streets for days, the Apparatus of trial notoriety, stuffed torches into an already roaring fire. People who had been on the sidelines before burst into the streets with screams of fury. Government offices and buildings that had nothing to do with the Apparatus became the targets for anything one could throw or any weapon one could steal or invent. Normal conduct of affairs and life all but ceased. In its place rose the anarchy of rage. The Domestic Police gave up any real effort to control the mobs and in some places even joined them. The smoke of burning buildings hung like black mourning over thousands of cities. The damage toll was soaring into billions of credits and hundreds of thousands of lives. Reports of all this, oddly enough, were only being centralized by Madison himself. He sat in the Emperor's antechamber at a desk previously used by guard officers. Lounging around the large room were the forty-nine members of his crew. Because they had procured bales of them from Home-view, they were all attired, except for Madison, in the aqua-green uniforms of that organization. The tunics, pants, boots and caps with their goggle-visor bills were easy to slip into. Furthermore, as the news came in, none of them were partial to looking like Apparatus: also, as "Lieutenant" Flick had pointed out, nobody ever looked twice at a Homeview crew-they were accepted as part of the scenery, and while people might be interested in something that was being camera'd, nobody ever looked twice at the crew. The fourteen women backed him up: they thought the uniforms were pretty. Madison, through the night, had dozed while sprawled across the desk. Lombar was in the Emperor's bedchamber, excreta and all, dumped there to sleep off the counterfeit Scotch and LSD and maybe some heroin and speed they did not know or care about. From time to time Apparatus generals came in with reports that the situation was worsening. They would find that there was no one on duty but Madison: he would rouse and blink, hear about some new town going up in smoke and then say, "You just make sure, General, that the Fleet and Army are going after Heller," and go back to sleep. About 9:00 A.M., some fifteen hours after the coronation, Flip brought him his share of the hot jolt and sweetbuns they had looted out of the Imperial stores. "Chief," she said, "you look awful. There's several bedchambers opening into this room, probably left over from when some Emperor had mistresses. They all got bathrooms. I found an Emperor's spin razor and spin brush and even a bottle of soap. I didn't bring you any spare General Services uniform and that one is all sweated up, so I laid out a new Homeview outfit for you. Now eat your breakfast." Madison groggily imbibed the sweetbun and hot jolt. He felt better. "Now," said Flip, "we can slip into that bedroom, rip off a little piece of (bleep) and you can freshen up and change your clothes." Alarm rang through Madison. He suddenly had a bright idea. "No, look. I can't leave this desk unmanned. So you take over for me here while I go bathe and change." "Aw, (bleep)," said Flip. "All right, but you sure are weird. Never mind, I'll get you into bed yet." She sat down in the chair he vacated. Madison looked at the crew. Some of them were dozing, a circle of six were shooting a quiet game of dice for minor loot they had found lying about. Flick was snoring on the floor between Gun and Twa. Madison went into the mistress's bedchamber to shave, brush his teeth, bathe and change into a Homeview outfit. An Apparatus general came in and looked around, eyes a bit wild. "Can I help you?" said Flip in her best approxima tion of a male voice to fit her costume. "I got to see Hisst!" he said urgently. Flip pointed with a polished fingernail. "His Majesty is right over in that bedchamber, sleeping it off. The sideshow is free. We don't have any nuts for sale, but you can tip me if you want." The general hurried toward the Emperor's bedroom. "Cheapskate," muttered Flip. "Hey, Flick! Ain't there some way we can sell some tickets? Isn't every day people can see a drunk Emperor." Then she saw Flick was simply snoring. "(Bleep)," she said. "No enterprise. I could make a fortune with this show." And she began to tally up the potential profits from tickets and drinks and (bleeps) on the side. She got quite interested. The crew lolled on, oblivious of the fate that was about to overtake them.

The chamber stank of old excreta and new vomit. The general closed the bedroom door behind him. He stared at Lombar, still in his coronation robe, lying on the soiled bed. The general was somewhat indecisive and he dithered up and down the side of the bed for a bit. Then he decided that the risks of not waking Lombar overbalanced the risks of his wrath. He shook him by the shoulder. Lombar woke up. It was all right until he tried to turn his head and then the hangover hit him a sledgehammer blow. He winced and then he glared at the general. "Sir, I mean Your Majesty," said the perturbed officer, "I'd like to report…" "Your Majesty?" said Lombar. "Quit that! You could get me killed. Are you trying to be funny?" "No, sir. It's no joke. You were crowned Emperor yesterday." "WHAT? Oh, my head!" "Sir, Your Sir, don't you remember anything about it?" Lombar was trying to move his head. The pain shattered him. He screwed up his face, trying to get oriented. Then he said, "I thought it was just a dream or something. Wait. Is this real?" "Well, yes, Your M… Your Sir, but I have to report that the whole Apparatus Section of Government City is in flames. The troops there fought the mobs and Domestic Police to the last man. I want to call reinforcements for Palace City here." "Well, call them, call them," said Lombar. "Nobody is stopping you. Just a minute." He was staring down at the soiled coronation robe. "You said I was crowned yesterday. I have no recollection of it. WHO DID THAT?" "It was all on Homeview, Your M… Sir. I believe Madison and his camera crew did it, Sir Majesty." Lombar might have been drunk and doped, but all that remained of it now was livid ferocity. "(Bleep) them! Grab a Death Battalion and put Madison and his crew under close arrest. Oh, my head! Then call for your reinforcements. Well, go on! Get out of here!" "Sir, Your Sir Majesty, there's something else. An odd alert just came through on Homeview that an important announcement that affects you will be made in just half an hour. It sounded so ominous, we were worried." Then he saw the animal savagery that was forming on Lombar's face. Hastily, he added, "Yes, Your Sir, I'll put Madison and his crew under arrest." And he rushed out before Lombar took it into his head to kill him. The general had risen to his rank because he didn't take on odds he couldn't handle. He walked right on out past Flip. He went along the hall and out of the building. Palace City's streets resembled, already, an armed camp. The general signalled a colonel of a Death Battalion and gave him a crisp order and a caution. Then the general hurried on to a communications tank to order far more Apparatus troops into the town and around its perimeter. The colonel grabbed a captain of a hundred-man company. Within a brace of minutes, black-uniformed Death Battalion troops went to the various outside doors of the Imperial Palace and entered to converge upon the antechamber through various halls. The aqua-green uniformed crew were suddenly confronted by levelled blastrifles. The dice game went into suspended animation. Gun prodded Twa and Flick awake. Others rose up staring. "CHIEF!" screamed Flip. Madison, who had just finished dressing in a Home-view rig, came out buckling on its equipment belt. He stopped with a jolt. "You Madison?" said the Death Battalion captain. Madison looked at the levelled blastrifles and the deadly troops. "I think there's some mistake. If you'll just step into the bedchamber with me, His Majesty will straighten it out." "His Majesty, or whatever he is, ordered it," said the captain. "You're all under arrest. Come along." "They're going to kill us!" yelped Flick. "No," said the captain. "You're simply under arrest. I don't want any trouble. My advice, knowing something of-and he jerked his head toward the bedchamber– "I'd move quickly before it's something worse. Where's the dungeon in this place?" Flip leaped up. "Right this way!" She led off down a side hall. The rest of them shouldered their equipment, cameras and loot. Madison still would have gone to the bedchamber but the captain blocked his way. "You're stupid," said the captain. "You haven't been in the Apparatus long or you'd know better. Move along!" And he shoved Madison into the wake of his crew. Followed by the soldiers, the crew was led down a long, curving flight of stairs. They came to a vast place that had a whole wall covered with locker doors, equipment, tables and benches. It had round windows that overlooked a park. "Well, here we are," said Flip. "This is no dungeon!" snapped the officer. "Captain," said Flip, "when you have been in as many dungeons as I have, you get to be an expert. Just because this LOOKS like the Imperial galley with its lockers all crammed with food is no reason it isn't a perfectly satisfactory dungeon for your purposes. Now, if you want to give your troops piles from sitting on stone ledges, that's up to you. But a smart officer always thinks of his troops above everything. Look at those soft benches." The deadly expressions on some of the soldiers' faces relaxed. It was the captain who laughed. "Now, we're only under arrest," said Flip. "We are just movie people, not dangerous like soldiers, so don't worry that we'll try to get away. Maybe Hisstee didn't like some of the shots we took. Celebrities are funny that way. This will all blow over and there's nothing like full stomachs. So let's all just sit down and have a nice party. Girls, start looking in those lockers for some tup. Imperial grade." She slipped a very sharp electric kitchen knife into her boot under cover of her gesture toward the lockers. The captain and the soldiers sat down. Several criminals studied covertly how to slip the power charges out of the blastrifles now leaning against tables. Madison handed the captain the half-finished bottle of LSD and Scotch. The electronics man pulled the Imperial chefs Homeview set out of its locker and turned it on. His intention was to mask the sound of any commotion if Madison gave the signal to fight their way out of here. Comets, there were certainly enough shots and screams coming out of Homeview, as its crews covered battles and riots, to mask anything short of blowing up the whole Imperial Palace.

Lombar Hisst struggled with the coronation robe and with a curse threw it in the corner. If he had appeared in Homeview in that, he had no illusions as to what the penalty would be. With care, he had built himself into a dominant position and, with care, he could have built it into Emperor. He might have even made it without a body and regalia, given enough dope to use on a conclave of Lords. But in some way he could not explain, he had been plunged forward too fast. He did not understand that it had happened through alcohol and LSD. But however it had happened, of one thing he was sure: Heads were going to roll! Curses were issuing from him in torrents. He was • enraged beyond any rage he had ever felt before. He was actually quite deadly. He still had troops, he still had guns: he held the center of government. People were going to pay! And pay in blood! A cold shower did not help much. Lacking any other clothes, he got back into his scarlet general's uniform. He went into the antechamber: it was cluttered but empty. He got into his desk and found some speed and heroin and gave himself a speedball, a powerful mixture of the two. Almost at once he felt better, even more deadly but more in control. Factually, at times of crisis such as now, Lombar Hisst was something to reckon with. The Apparatus General Staff had taken a large chamber at the front of the building. Lombar hit buzzers and very soon those who were at Palace City, the bulk of his generals, were sitting in the antechamber. "Now, give me your situation reports," snarled Lombar. And in the next ten minutes he competently ordered a redisposition of troops without even touching his invasion staging areas. The generals were suddenly much heartened and barked orders into their own radios for relay. The population would soon be on the run. The general who had awakened him was glancing at his watch and Lombar glared at him with annoyance. "It's the Homeview," the man said. "It's coming on in thirty seconds. May I activate the set?" Lombar snarled at him to go ahead. The picture was a running battle between retreating Apparatus tanks and a mob using airtrucks that didn't seem to care what happened to them. At Homeview, a monitor switched and showed street fighting in the capital of Mistin against a background of smoke and flame. Suddenly, without erasing the Homeview panorama, a second, brighter picture came on. It was an overplay. That meant it was not coming from the Homeview studios: it was not even coming on Homeview lines. It was being battered into the network by some remote transmitter that might be anywhere, most probably in outer space.