Mission: Earth "Doomed Planet" (6 page)

HIGHTEE HELLER!

Behind her were pipes and dials that were probably the back of the bridge of a spaceship. Her eyes were very intense. Her voice was strong and clear. "Citizens of the Voltar Confederacy! Hear me! His Majesty Cling the Lofty is ALIVE! It was at his express command and wish that my brother, Royal Officer Jet-tero Heller, rescued him from captivity by Lombar Hisst. "The Chief of the Apparatus murdered legitimate successors to the throne. Then, by the use of poisons called drugs, he suborned the Grand Council and through this treachery has sought to usurp the throne! "At the ancient fortress of Spiteos, long since believed abandoned and radioactive, Hisst has stored enough drugs to poison this entire nation. And he intends to do so! "Here in my hands you see the Royal regalia: the scepter, chains and crown." She held them up. "Army, Fleet, police, officials and citizens! Cast off the usurper! Rally to His Majesty and my brother Jettero Heller!

"DESTROY THE APPARATUS AND LOMBAR HISST!"

The picture went off, leaving the background view of running citizens and flames which had continued throughout. "Oh, my Gods," said a general. "We're finished! It was bad enough without that!" And then Lombar Hisst showed why Lombar Hisst, the commoner, had come so far. "Turn on the Army and Fleet command channels!" he barked. A general grabbed levers on another console. The Army General Staff channel was live. He shunted the incoming signal through a decoder. "… and I don't think we will get any orders from the Lord of Army. We've got to make up our own minds here. So it's been decided to stay neutral. End." "Get the Fleet!" said Lombar. The general threw more levers and shunted to the decoder. As they were thirteen minutes in the future, they had the advantage of selecting any part of current signals as though they were past. After some blurs, the general settled in on the beginning of a Fleet transmission. The others in the room were very tense. An awful lot depended on this: if the Fleet stayed neutral, too, they could still win. "Admiral Farb here, Main Fleet Base at Hite. Call-Jig Fleet Admirals Staff. Have just intercepted a public transmission from Hightee Heller on Homeview that concerns the political situation at Palace City and the general state. We are standing by, red alert, with six thousand combat vessels and fifty thousand Fleet marines. Requesting analysis and orders." A slight delay. Then, "Admiral Farb from Fleet Admirals Staff: Know: No orders or directions from Palace City or the Lord of Fleet. Consensus of Admirals Staff: although Hightee Heller is popular, she has no political status. The regalia displayed cannot be analyzed by lapidarists for authentication simply by being seen on Homeview. There is no proof that there are any drugs stored at Spiteos: charts list it as abandoned for the past 125,000 years. She did not produce the Emperor on the screen, which is, itself, suspect. Fleet Admirals Staff order, number available to all vessels and bases, is to restrain independent actions or demonstrations within your own units and to remain severely neutral. End." "There you are," said Lombar. "We are still in control. Issue Imperial Orders to the Army and Fleet, commending their neutrality and confirming it. Issue a statement to Homeview that it is a lie that there are any drugs at Spiteos, that the statements of Hightee Heller are simply a misguided effort to protect her brother. And go right on shooting the riffraff down in the streets: either they'll get tired or we'll run out of riffraff." "Your… er… Sir," said a general, "there ARE drugs at Spiteos." Lombar fixed him with a sneer of contempt. "Mobs can't get across that desert. Let's get something clear: Properly defended, we can hold Spiteos for years. And another thing: in all our lengthy history nobody has ever been able to make a dent in Palace City. Not even the combined Fleet and Army could take this place. It's been tried. We're safe as safe and we're in control." He stood up. He reached for his cap. The generals stood. One said, "Are you going somewhere, Your… er… Sir?" "Yes, I'm going somewhere," said Lombar. "I'm going to grab a flying tank and get to Spiteos. Order another hundred thousand men in there to defend it. I'm going to make sure nobody exposes our store of drugs until they can be replenished by an Earth invasion. Meanwhile, see to the outer bunkers and defenses of this place. We're in control and mean to stay that way." He put on his cap and started to leave. Then he turned to them. "And you can stop this 'Your Sir' business, all of you! For better or for worse, I took the throne and don't forget it!" "Yes, Your Majesty!" they chorused and promptly knelt.

J. Walter Madison had been perfectly correct about the Army's General Whip: he had gotten the word when he saw his severed "head" on Homeview being presented to Lombar Hisst. The popular member of the Army General Staff had at once ordered a million troops to Calabar and taken the command of them himself. Making record time, he had promptly relieved the Apparatus forces who had been battling the rebels. The moment the Apparatus troops were spaceward ho for Voltar, General Whip, now in command of the offensive on Calabar, had penetrated a rebel radio band the Apparatus had been monitoring and had achieved contact with Prince Mortiiy. "Your Highness," said General Whip, well known for his wit, "you will be pleased to know that I am officially dead." "WHAT?" Mortiiy exclaimed. "I am probably the only casualty in history killed solely by Homeview. I have a million army troops at my disposal just landed on Calabar. I pledge my honor as an officer no treachery is intended: their officers are all loyal to me. What does Your Highness wish to do with them?" "Welcome to Calabar, General Whip," said Mortiiy. "I am very pleased to bring you back to life. Use your troops to relieve my men in their defensive positions in case the Apparatus comes back. It would be embarrassing to them to fight on Voltar. Can you provide my forces with your transportation? We have some urgent visiting to do." "It gives me great pleasure, Your Highness, to accommodate you. I only ask for a lock of hair from the head of Lombar Hisst when you amputate his windpipe." "My pleasure, General Whip." That was the conversation which led up to the High-tee Heller broadcast over Voltar. Now Mortiiy's "urgent visiting" was being carried out. Captain Snelz was sleeping peacefully in his dugout at Camp Endurance just a few hours before the Hightee Heller message was to come over Homeview. He had no inkling anything was up. Camp Endurance, guarding Spiteos, was two hundred miles deep in the impassable Great Desert and aside from a few suicidal civilian airbuses– which had been promptly shot down– was disdainfully aloof from the riots which beset the planet and, indeed, all the Confederacy. Captain Snelz, with the philosophy of a one-time Fleet marine– cashiered for cheating at dice– had an arm wrapped around his favorite harlot and was snoring peacefully. The five hundred credits from Heller had not only paid all his debts but had financed a winning streak, and he was now owed gambling lOUs from fully a fifth of the officers in the camp. He did not know he was about to become the hero of the Battle of Camp Kill. Accordingly, it was with shock that he opened up his I'm dreaming," said Snelz. "You'll have nightmares if you don't get up," said Heller. "My Gods, I got you safely out of here some time ago! What are you doing back?" "A social call," said Heller. "Who's he?" the awakened harlot said, staring up in sudden terror at a figure dressed in the scarlet of an Apparatus general. "He's a Manco Devil," said Snelz. "Get out of here, you (bleepch), and don't open your face!" The harlot fled. "That's an awful way," said Heller, "to describe a combat engineer that's simply dropped in to do you a favor." "ME a favor?" gasped Snelz. "Comets, Jet, you're going to get both of us killed. Rumor's got it there's a million-credit bounty on your head!" "Let's not discuss small change," said Heller. "What I have for you is utterly priceless. A commission as a colonel in the Fleet marines. I know how you have longed to regain your former status." He handed over an embossed scroll. "I was just a lieutenant," said Snelz, but he took the commission with a suddenly shaking hand. "And this," said Heller, handing him another paper, "is your resignation from the Apparatus, effective in a few hours. We want everything regular." "Wait a minute," said Snelz, holding the commission closer to the night glowplate. "This isn't signed by Cling the Lofty, it isn't signed by Emperor Hisst. It's signed by Mortiiy. Comets! How the Hells many Emperors are there?" "You get the idea," said Heller. "It's something we want you to help sort out. So please muster your company…" "Jet, this camp has just been reinforced and the commandant is expecting another hundred thousand men. My company is only a hundred. If we attacked this horde, we wouldn't even wind up as blood blots. Suicide!" "I never thought I'd hear a Fleet marine quibbling about odds," said Heller. "But truthfully, I don't want you to attack anybody. I only want an escort and a minor favor." Snelz groaned but he got up and climbed into his uniform. He leaned out the dugout door and sent his sentry scurrying through the predawn blackness to muster his company. Stepping down the path, his feet got tangled in some straps and he bent down to pick up an object. It was an absorbo-cloak that made all detection signals null. Propped against a rock was a spacetrooper sled. "So that's how you got in here," said Snelz. "Let's not go prying into the secrets of a combat engineer," said Heller. "It has nothing whatever to do with the know-how of Fleet marines, Colonel. Now, if you will just call over one of your men and have him pick up this musette bag, please. It won't look right for an Apparatus general to be lugging things about." The company had fallen in. In the dim blue lights of the camp, they were quite bored to see that they were acting as an escort to an Apparatus general. Then fifteen of them, Snelz's old platoon, peered more closely and went rigid: they knew Heller very well. But, eyes straight ahead and trying to keep their hair from standing on end, they, with the rest, obeyed the evolution orders of their captain. In proper order, the company went over the chasm bridge to the far side of the great gap. The officer at the far barricade stood up alertly. "I'm inspecting your defenses," said Heller in a gruff voice. The officer saluted and the company went on. Heller guided them along the rim of the mile-deep chasm. It was very dark and the path was treacherous. Across the gap they could see the great bulk of the castle Spiteos against the stars. Heller took the musette bag. He removed an object that looked like a small spear. He braced it in a rock. He sighted it in carefully. He went a few more feet and placed another one. "If you're trying to blow up Spiteos," whispered Snelz, "those little spears won't do anything. They're just rock-splitting missiles. We use them to prepare a breach in fortress walls. I know them. They won't make a dent in that castle." "Patience, patience," said Heller. "Little by little, if we persevere, even the greatest task gets done." "You're crazy" said Snelz. "A man is known by his friends," said Heller and went on placing spears. They marched, then, back across the bridge. Heller inspected several gun emplacements, complimented the men in them and then walked back to the dugout. "Dismiss your men," he said. Snelz, soaking wet with the tension of passing under the eyes of guards, did as he was told. "Now I don't have time," said Heller, "to do the rest. So it's up to you." And he handed Snelz the musette bag. And in a few words explained to him what he wanted. Snelz stared at him numbly. "I sure hope I am on the winning side," he said. "Just make sure you are, Colonel," said Heller. And he slipped on the absorbo-cape, took hold of the space-trooper sled and, with a grin at the palsied Snelz, took off vertically, up into the stars like a ghost. Snelz stood there for quite a while. There were no shots. He let out a sigh of relief. He knew now why the life expectancy of a combat engineer was only estimated at two years of duty. He looked at the musette bag in his hand. The life of a Fleet marine colonel, he mourned, was evidently far less than that!

The Battle of Camp Kill bepn in the early afternoon. It began suddenly and unexpectedly and rushed to a disastrous conclusion. Only a few hours after the Hightee Heller announcement had superimposed itself over Homeview, Lombar Hisst arrived at Spiteos in a monstrous flying tank. He landed on the parade ground, gave himself another speedball and, seating himself on the turret in the burning desert sun, began to supervise the landing of a hundred thousand reinforcements. Lombar Hisst felt ferociously good. He was at the height of his intellectual powers, he was achieving a sustained and elevated mood. He felt capable of superhuman feats. That was from the speed. The heroin was giving him a smooth-off of rough edges, a physical warmth and feeling of great satisfaction. And his underlying personality, psychotic paranoia, had shifted over to the kingly phase of megalomania. Up there on the tank, huge in his red uniform, he was indeed, not just in his imagination, a very dangerous man. The giant black castle of Spiteos loomed over to his left. It contained thousands of tons of opium and heroin in its upper storerooms, enough to bring an awful lot of population under control, to say nothing of a conclave of Lords. It was the amphetamine that worried him: while he had enough of the pure stuff for years of his own supply, he did not have enough to carry even the Lords on for another month no matter how hard he adulterated it. He was speculating as to when he could get the Earth invasion launched: he had not touched the ships and troops scheduled for it in the isolated staging areas. He was depending right now for reinforcements on the prisons he had almost emptied out: they might be a sorry lot and they might look weird in the ways they wore their uniforms and carried their arms but they were killers, make no mistake about that. Loosed upon the population with heavy weaponry, they could sweep the mobs away like chaff, screaming "Long Live Hisst!" for giving them the chance to murder, loot and rape. The million in from Calabar were already setting a fine example in the cities: they were like packs of lepertiges let loose on helpless wool animals. People had no way now to keep count of the civilian casualties. So Lombar, sitting there, felt very safe and confident. The Fleet and Army, not knowing whom to obey, were very neutral. Spiteos was easy to defend and Palace City was impregnable, utterly. Above his head, low in the atmosphere, were three hundred Apparatus war vessels. They might be old and cast off from the Fleet, for they were intended for raids on unconquered planets just to keep them busy and afraid, but they were better than anything less than the Fleet. Drifting up there, they were standing guard while the latest reinforcement freighters disgorged their hundred thousand on the hot sand just below the camp. The regiments were forming up. There were a hundred of them. They made a grand display. Lombar smiled a wolfish smile, tasting his power as the horde marched in to pass in parade and then prepare their close-by bivouacs. There was no music: that was not Apparatus style. But the thud of all those feet made the very ground quail. Lombar's smile broadened until he showed his teeth: the standard bearers as they passed had gotten the word– they were giving him the quick change of step and momentary kneel that was the Royal salute. Then a sharp sound penetrated his ears. It sounded like a rapid series of explosions, quite small. They seemed to come from the chasm across from the castle. It was quite like small arms fire. But the burst was very short. Nothing else happened. Believing it must be some squad practicing or executing somebody with guns instead of throwing them in the chasm, Lombar Hisst ignored it and looked back at his passing troops. The last of them were just now going by, the rest had already fanned out and were busy annealing together dirt huts in a clutter of trucks and poles: it appeared to be a new town of mean shacks that was magically manifesting out of the sand. What saved Lombar's life at that moment was the desire to cool his thirst. He dropped down through the turret into the capacious cabin of the flying tank, and one of the crew, to restrain the afternoon sun which had been streaming in to compete with the overloaded air coolers, let the turret cover snap shut. Lombar was standing just behind the explosion-proof observer port. He was pouring a canister full of sparklewater. From across the parade ground there was a terrible flash!