Mission: Earth "Villainy Victorious" (30 page)

"That isn't the suffering I want to see," said Teenie. "I want him right here under my sharpest knife. For years."

Real desperation seized Madison. He could see them both being killed. "Teenie, what if somehow I arranged it to get him sentenced at the trial and into your custody?"

"I'd have to wait too long," said Teenie. She turned to the governor and began to give minute orders about the cell and the torture chamber and the implements. It took her quite a while.

A radio crackled on the guard captain's belt. It was the major-domo. "Please inform Her Majesty that her regiment is assembling. They've had to get word to the villages and farms. But they should all be ready for review by the time you have come out."

Madison had not realized how deep they had come into the mountain until he tried to walk back up. The foul and ancient air didn't help him catch his breath as he toiled on up the ramps. It took them nearly half an hour to get back into the halls.

A sergeant knelt and would have used a handkerchief to brush off Teenie's boots but women from the palace pushed him aside, and though their cloths were animal skins, they got the stains and mold off Teenie's black suit, boots and red gloves.

Then Teenie walked through the hallways and salons toward the big entrance door.

She strode across the terrace. She reached the top of the outside steps.

She stopped dead.

About five hundred men were standing there in an orderly parade. Their faces were handsome, their physiques magnificent. Obviously the product of noble lines, every one, the titled sons of officers of long ago, mothered by titled ladies of Queen Hora's court. They were young and they were splendid, despite their rags.

An old man, evidently their colonel, stood straight as a ramrod before them. At the sight of Teenie, he and the whole regiment knelt.

"Your Majesty," the colonel bawled, "we have not forgotten protocol. We lie ready to do our duty. We are only too anxious to do Your Majesty's bedding."

From five hundred throats, a song arose:

And then, at a signal from the colonel, they all rose up.

But what had stopped Teenie was the flowers in their hair, whole crowns of them. They had no weapons in their hands nor any sign of any.

They began to form rings by squad and then began to dance, plucking flowers from their garlands and tossing them into the air as they circled with skipping, mincing steps like girls.

Teenie sank down on the top step.

She lowered her head and began to cry.

The regiment stopped in consternation. The major-domo waved his hand at them and they scattered like chaff and vanished.

Teenie's sobs grew very marked.

Madison knelt beside her.

"They aren't soldiers," sobbed Teenie. "They were bred for bed. Oh, Maddie, what am I going to do?"

Madison did not tell her he could recruit five hundred criminals that would take on a Death Battalion in a day! Oh, no. It didn't suit his plans. He was very clever, that Madison. He didn't even push her.

"Maddie," she said brokenly, after she had sobbed for a while, "do you think you actually could get Gris sentenced to my custody?"

"Well, as I am very fond of you, Teenie, as a favor to you, I am absolutely certain that I can."

"Then I'll help you follow your plan to try him in the press," said Teenie, feeling a little better, "and when he is sentenced get custody of him."

A ragged maid was trying to dry Teenie's tears with a scrap of animal fur.

Teenie looked at Madison suddenly. Her eyes went very hard. "But there's one thing you got to know, Madison. If you fail to get me custody of Gris, you'll be right there in that cell yourself!"

Madison had no slightest idea of how he could possibly accomplish such a thing. He had just been talking.

He backed up, nodding in little jerks. "I won't fail you, Teenie."

Gods, was he in for it now!

The second Madison entered the townhouse in Joy City he got to work. He felt that he was marching to the solemn beat of drums and that noble victory beckoned from a nearer point.

How could he fail? He was the most accomplished PR since Julius Caesar, of this he had no doubt. Caesar, an Earth king of long ago, had come, he had seen and he had conquered all of Gaul. Madison would do the same to Voltar. Lack of confidence was not one of Madison's faults. Historians, dear reader, may wish it might have been, for when all this cover-up is exposed, it is very plain that J. Walter Madison was bent upon a course which would alter the history of not only Voltar but of Earth. Some poet once said that the pen is mightier than the sword: in this case one was testing if PR was mightier than the combined good sense of all the leaders of two empires. And as we follow the actions of Madison and others, we shall certainly see if it was. So read on, dear reader, read on. You'll be flabbergasted!

Teenie, he had left at Palace City. Reencouraged, she was making plans to ready up the island for the receipt of Gris, but reconciled that his incarceration there would take some time. Madison had even gone so far as to discuss with her how she could shake loose Endow from some of the maintenance money for the island to buy an air-coach and some fuel bars and new torture implements. She had decided to teach Too-Too, Endow's dearest catamite, a new way to kiss and was sure that would do it. So Teenie was no barrier, at least for a time, though he shuddered at what might happen if he failed to get her custody of Gris.

He now had his roustabouts clear out a seventy-sixth floor large salon and set it up with tables. He sent out a crew logistics man to get vocoscribers, paper, pens and copies of every newspaper published, not only on Voltar, but on all 110 planets.

Then he called together four of his criminal reporters and stood before them, tall and commanding in the glittering light of dawn.

"You are now," Madison said, "creative artists. Lay aside the habits of drudgery and facts. Unleash your imaginations. You are now, from this moment, public relations men. At once, without delay, begin to write news stories of the crimes of one Soltan Gris, an Apparatus officer languishing in the Royal prison."

"Could we know something about him?" the most senior criminal reporter said.

"He is a blackguard," said Madison. "That's all you have to know. We are going to try him and find him guilty in the press, and by that, force them to bring him to a public trial. That done, we have other game in sight."

"Wait a minute," said the leading reporter. "I don't think anybody has ever done this on Voltar. People might not think it's fair."

"It's up to you to manufacture crimes so monstrous that the public will be ravening after his blood. Do that and all thought of civil rights are swept aside. That's
PR
at its best."

Another criminal reporter said, "You used a funny term there, 'public trial.' I never heard of one. On Voltar, trials are private and they simply announce the crime and sentence."

"Aha!" said Madison. "Star Chamber proceedings. Well, we can attack that in due course. Right now get very busy and dream up the crimes of Gris and we'll get them into print."

The four went into a huddle and then one said to Madison, "We know lots of crimes because we knew lots of criminals in prison. But could you give us some guidance in this?"

"Guidance?" said Madison haughtily. "You mean you want me to do your jobs? No, no, my friends. Let your imaginations take over, let the paper roll. After all, you are now
PRs!"

They nodded and got to work.

Madison now called the roustabouts and had them set up a seventy-sixth floor music salon. He was delighted to find that Hightee's staff had sent over the reworked chorder-bar with a note that they had duplicated it-making another but without the "pictures." Madison sat down to it and began to record
ragtime,
and the ex-Academy of Arts reporter and the horror-story writer listened in amazement and got to work on the musical. Madison left them arguing about whether the choruses should be danced by skeletons or ghouls and went on to his next project.

Corralling the director and the rest of the available staff, he turned over to them what apparently had been General Loop's drill hall, one of the largest rooms he could find on the seventy-sixth floor.

Madison told the director, "You take over here. Get rid of their prison pallor, show them how to wear clothes.

You are really running a sort of actors' school just now. And above all, get them trained so they can hold a sincere and earnest smile without strain. We've got to get rid of the killer look."

"That will be tough," said the director. "They're killers!"

"Well, nobody is asking you to change that," said Madison. "The final product is sometimes killing. But it is done in a different way: it's called
PR."

"Got it," said the director and promptly went to work.

Madison then went back to see how the reporters were coming along. They looked up from their work. They were all smiles.

"We've got it," said the leading criminal reporter. "We've worked out some great copy. 'Soltan Gris, the Apparatus officer, has been detected rushing all over the farm country of this planet poisoning the wells. He's been killing grazing animals that way like flies.'"

Madison looked at the copy. These fellows were on the right track but they were kind of green. He had expected that. "That's fine, boys. But add this for a bit of zing: The mangled body of the informant who told you was found immediately afterwards, drowning in her own blood."

"Hey," said a reporter, bright-eyed with admiration, "that's genius!"

"No, that's just PR," said Madison. "You'll get the hang of it quickly enough. Now, the four of you revise it, make duplicates of your release, and get it to the city editors."

"Right!" the four reporters chorused, obeyed him and rushed out, on their way.

Madison smiled. Oh, things were going well. Just

like old times. And when he got Gris on the stand, he could coach his lawyers on how to get him off: simply accuse Heller. Copy, copy, copy, miles of headlines!

J. Walter Madison was in his element!

Madison was feeling very much indeed in his element as he ate supper that evening. He was waiting for tidings from the reporters he had sent out and he was very confident that the news would be good.

He had even arranged a little internal PR caper to get peace back and he was having dinner with Flick: Flick had the best and most chefs.

So Madison was in a combination dining room and kitchen of the seventy-sixth floor and Flick was at the other end of the table. Flick was looking pretty bad: both his eyes were blackened now, for, as his footwoman had promised, one more raving mention of Hightee Heller would collide with her fist and Flick had incautiously raved anew about Hightee Heller.

Flick's "bed-maker" was a willowy brunette with very deceptive beauty. She had been doing thirty years for passing herself off as married and then blackmailing men she picked up with threats of mayhem from a nonexistent champion wrestler husband. Her name was Twa. She was draped over the counter of the sparklewater dispenser.

"I can't believe what you told me," she said incredulously.

Flick's footwoman, whose name was Cun, was lounging, still in uniform, against the door on the other side of the table. "Well, I seen it," she answered the other girl.

Flick, distracted from his elsewhere thoughts, glanced up from his plate. "You two don't belong in here. Can't you let me and the chief eat our supper in peace?"

Madison grinned and covered it with a sip from his canister. Flick was in a fair way of getting himself killed by these two, and Madison had set up another scenario.

"You may have seen it," said Twa, ignoring Flick, "but how do I know you really have the eye to judge?"

"Listen," Cun bristled. "Before they threw me in the jug for outright spite, I was a bodyguard for the richest whorehouse madam on all Mistin. I'm telling you, there was five hundred guys, half-naked, handsome as Gods, standing there in front of that palace just begging to (bleep). And they were the heaviest hung birds I ever seen. And I tell you I've seen plenty. I never was no whore, you understand. But I had to pass on lots of men. So I am an expert!"

Flick was very uncomfortable, staring at his plate through swollen, discolored eyes.

"Yeah," said Twa to Cun, "but you're just pushing it on the basis of mass observation. Wasn't there a particular one?"

"Oh, there was that," said Cun. "He was young and he was handsome: he had silky black hair and the softest eyes. And when they scampered off, he almost knocked me down. It wasn't no accident. He whispered, plain as day, 'You see that flower tree over there? It's nice and soft behind it and I have something pretty hard that needs handling. I haven't had any in ages, and boy, do you look good!'"

"NO!" said Twa. "REALLY?"

"Oh, that's a fact," said Cun. "And there was a big blond one, what a MAN! They're all aristocrats, you know. And as he rushed by, he said, 'Hey, cutie, do you know where I can find a willowy brunette?'"

"Oh, boy," said Twa. She turned to Madison. "Chief, can me and Cun run an errand for you to that island?"

"SHUT UP!" screamed Flick.

"We can leave Flick home," said Cun. "I can find the place."

"YOU'RE STAYING HERE!" howled Flick.

"Why should you care?" said Twa. "You're not interested in us. All you can talk about is Hightee Heller."

"SHE'S TOO NOBLE FOR YOU TO EVEN SPEAK HER NAME!" roared Flick.

"Noble, that's the key," said Twa. "Five hundred noblemen just slavering to get a girl's back to the grass. Get the old Apparatus bus ready, Cun. I'll go get my coat. I think I saw the chief nod."