Mission: Earth "Villainy Victorious" (34 page)

LADY ARTHRITE SCREAMED!

In the next room, the woman there, on proper timing, was suddenly leaped upon by howling beasts which rushed in from a window that disclosed a jungle. Savage toothers attacked the third woman as she sank to the bottom of an engulfing sea. Timed precisely with the LSD, the fourth woman was being murdered by bats with daggers in their claws while a cavern howled. In the fifth room, the spaceship cabin was beset by space pirates from some ghastly planet who tore a superimposed body limb from limb.

The screams of the other women were no less loud than Lady Arthrite Stuffy's.

All five writhed and bucked, each one carefully attended by a "nurse" who was making sure she stayed there.

Gradually the illusions were faded down and the women were let go into their trips. Started like that, they must have been bizarre indeed, but they lay back, not protesting, spinning with time and space all tangled and with no sense at all to contradict the unrealities of it.

Some hours later, when the drug was wearing off, Crobe came back.

"I see," he said, "that we penetrated the
censor.
We now have in view the inhibitions. The case, I have to tell you, is very grave. There is no cure except to have sex with a handsome young man." It was the standard psychiatric remedy.

"Oh," shuddered Lady Arthrite, "it would ruin my reputation."

Crobe had even been taught to smile, with a little help from the collar. "Not as much as going suddenly insane due to domestic opposition. That would be fatal. But there is no risk at all. We have a private sanitarium where you could go and you would only have to say you had decided to take a rest."

"A hospital?" said Lady Stuffy.

"Hardly that," said Crobe. He opened up a folder and handed her some photographs of Relax Island. They were just stills but they were of some of the views. They had been dipped in perfume and in each one a different handsome officer was talking with a lady.

The jangled senses of Lady Stuffy were soothed and

caressed by the views. She was also still in the end grip of LSD where the victim is in a highly suggestible state.

"How lovely," she panted. "And it will cure these awful subconscious inhibitions?"

"Absolutely," said the well-drilled Crobe. "The matter is extremely urgent. It is plain you need the best possible professional help. We will keep it absolutely secret that you are potentially insane. Here is your ticket on the air-coach in the morning. Be on it."

When Crobe had done the same to all five, Madison did a rapid calculation. At five a day, it would take fifteen days to hook all the wives of the publishers of the seventy-five biggest news chains. Actually, he was organized to handle ten a day. He decided he would put the pressure on and speed it up.

He grinned.

He could almost smell, now, the Heller-Wister headlines!

It was the last week in August in New York. The weather had been warm, even hot, but a cool, sunset breeze was blowing across the landscaped terrace of the condo, rustling the leaves of shrubs.

The Countess Krak was sitting in a garden chair, petting Mister Calico and watching Jettero Heller at the umbrella'd table as he brought his combat-engineer log up to date.

"Jettero," said the Countess Krak, "do you know the date?"

"I was just going to ask you," he said, looking up, pen held thoughtfully against his nose. "Was it Tuesday or Wednesday when they finally let me out of the army?"

"I'm not talking about that, dear," said the Countess Krak. "It lacks just three days to the date you said it would take war vessels to arrive here on Earth if they started the same night you brought the Emperor out of Palace City."

"It was Wednesday," said Jettero and busily made an entry.

"The ships might not have started the same night," said the Countess, "but they could have left within the next twenty-four hours."

"Was it at the new mayor's reception that Bury gave me the news about the last refinery being decontaminated? Or was it at the engagement party?"

The Countess Krak sighed. What a trial that engagement party had been! Madison Square Garden, three bands and a symphony orchestra, five chorus lines from Broadway shows. And Babe Corleone, despite Jettero's instructions, had stepped up to the microphone and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my pleasure to announce the main engagement: My son, Jerome Terrance Corleone is going to up and marry no less a personage than the Countess Krak. How about that?"

And afterwards, when bands were playing and thousands were dancing, Mamie Boomp, who had come up from Atlantic City, said to her, "She really got the intelligence services screwed up about your sailor. Almost every delegate at the UN knew him at the Gracious Palms as a mysterious prince and then they found out he was really Rockecenter's son, which was fine, but when she made that announcement a while ago it threw them in a spin. They approached the Crown Prince of Saudi-Yemen, thinking I might be able to shed some light on it, and I set them straight. It's obvious that Rockecenter was secretly married to Babe Corleone. That made them happy. I like to keep these genealogical matters straight."

That wasn't the only genealogical matter that had been gotten straight. Jettero had had Professor Stringer revise Babe's family tree and put Prince Caucalsia at the head of it. She had been bowled over and would have accepted it even without the thick album of evidences he had put together for her, tracing the descendants of the Manco refugees through Atlantis, to the Caucasus and finally to Aosta in the Alps where Babe came from. And it was true that she had the same blood type, a bit different from the usual lines of Earth, that Krak, from

Manco, had. Jettero had given Babe the tiara with the Manco arms that he had had made at Tiffany's and Babe had worn it in public ever since. It was one of the reasons the press referred to her constantly as "Queen Babe."

But it was the TV crews and cameras that worried the Countess Krak. With all the exposure they were getting, if Lombar Hisst had a single agent operating on Earth, he would have no trouble whatever in finding Jettero. And all during the weeks that followed Krak's arrival in New York this last time, she had had more than an uneasy feeling that they were going to get hit and hit hard.

"Well," said Jettero. "I think that brings it up to date. Babe will address the UN next week and get nuclear bombs outlawed. Congress in its fall session will decriminalize drugs and take the profit out of the scene. The fuel situation is handled and will gradually phase over. The atmosphere is cleaning up and the poles are stable. It's been a lot of work to clean up this planet, but I think it's nicely on its way."

"I don't like it," said the Countess Krak.

"What? It's a very nice planet. A little goofy with its fake psychiatry and psychology, but now that Rockecenter interests aren't organizing and financing them to keep the people down, even that may someday come straight."

"I didn't mean I didn't like the planet," said the Countess Krak. "I don't like the situation. We're sitting ducks."

"Well, I must say," said Heller, "that you're a very pretty duck. Don't you think so, Mister Calico?"

The Countess Krak was just drawing her breath to tell him she wished she had his iron nerve when Balmor, the butler, came to the terrace. "Sir," he said, "that special phone in your study keeps buzzing and buzzing. I know you told me not to answer it but I think, sir, it needs attention."

It was Faht Bey on the viewer-phone. He looked very agitated. He was calling from the Turkish base.

"Sir," he said, "I think you better come over here at once."

"What's the matter?" said Heller. "Has Prahd's patient taken a turn for the worse?"

"No, Prahd says there is no change. It's something else. I've got some news from home and I think you better come over here and do the interrogation yourself."

Heller looked at the sweating face. The Emperor wasn't dead. It was too soon by three or four days for even a scout vessel to get here from Voltar. Obviously Faht Bey didn't want to discuss it on the viewer-phone because other members of the base there could be monitoring.

"All right," he said. "Expect me."

He went back to the terrace. "Dear," he said to the Countess Krak, "I'm going to take a Mach 3 to Turkey."

"I knew it!" said the Countess Krak. "Something has happened."

"Nothing has happened. It's just that Faht Bey wants me there for a talk."

"I'll get packed. I'm coming with you."

"That's my pleasure," said Heller.

Shortly after dawn in Afyon, Turkey, Heller, the Countess Krak and Mister Calico debarked from the Air Force plane and got into the waiting Daimler-Benz.

Having left the Countess and the cat at the villa, Heller was shortly afterward sitting across the desk from Faht Bey in his office.

"Thank Gods you got here," said Faht Bey. "I think we're in for trouble." And he passed to Heller a demand despatch from the Apparatus General Staff.

"It's the
Blixo"
said Faht Bey. "She came in last night."

"But the ship must have left a couple days before I made my call on Voltar," said Heller. "Nothing had happened there at the time the
Blixo
departed. And she wouldn't have picked up anything in passage. She's just a freighter."

"Well, Gris had couriers that travelled on the
Blixo.
Two catamites that alternated. This one is Odur: we've got him in detention and he's scared to death. He had that despatch for Gris: at the time, nobody on Voltar suspected that Gris was no longer here. You better read it."

Heller sighed. A demand order for information was not much to be alarmed about. He read it:

Heller leafed over to the next sheet:

"Well," said Heller, "you have been holding incoming freighters, but as of this moment, since not enough time has elapsed for him to know they will not return, he isn't aware of any curtailment of shipment. This planning– – "

"You better talk to the man we're holding in the next room, sir." Faht Bey pushed a buzzer.

Captain Bolz was brought in by two guards. His hairy chest was heaving with indignation.

"Bolz," said Faht Bey, "this is Royal Officer Jettero Heller, a combat engineer of the Fleet operating on his own cognizance and therefore officially. You had better tell him what you told us."

"I got plenty to say!" roared Bolz. "As a blasted Royal officer, I know you can have me exterminated, but I'm going to have my say anyway! I come in here, innocent as a virgin, doing my duty as an Apparatus freighter captain, two days ahead of schedule after a competent passage and what do I find? A whole base wearing Fleet insignia! An order putting my ship under detention! I think you've all gone crazy!"

"Quite likely," said Heller. "And I am sorry for any inconvenience. Now, what was this information you had?"

Bolz lost a lot of his glare. He looked down at his big feet and shifted them uncomfortably. "Well, these fellows here know well enough that I was carrying contraband Scotch whisky and they probably already told you. A captain that never gets paid has to have a little profit– – "

"The information," said Heller firmly.

"Well, I didn't have room for a cargo of I. G. Barben amphetamines once I had the whisky aboard, so I left them in the storeroom here."

"And when you arrived on Voltar somebody noticed it?" said Heller.

"The amphetamines were on the manifest," said Bolz, "but they weren't aboard. I happen to know that Hisst always checks the drug shipments against the manifests, because every time I try to pinch a little cargo, he has appeared personally to scream."

"Then there has already been a cessation of shipment," said Heller, looking back at the Apparatus General Staff order. "Now, where is this catamite?"