But his mother had reinforced it by continually reminding him of how indulgent she was. After his father departed she had not burdened him with another whom he could only hate, and how very few mothers would bother to give a son this much attention. His mother was a dear thing, still quite pretty at forty-nine. When he thought of all the sacrifices she had made for him, foregoing all other men, the least he could do was reciprocate and forego all other women. But it went deeper than that: completely aside from any Freudian orders from his child psychologist, made more real with mild electric shocks, he truly loved her. She had warned him repeatedly of the dangers of other women, as had his current psychiatrist, and colliding in life with such heartless creatures as Teenie, he agreed with them utterly. It would not only wreck him mentally to have sex with Teenie, it would break his mother's heart. She would probably commit suicide, a thing she often had to be prevented from doing, and he knew, if that happened, he would promptly do the same.
No, to go up those stairs and get in bed with Teenie would be the end of all he knew. Impossible! That was out. Better to die at dawn. Far better.
His thoughts turned to Heller. Victory had been almost within his grasp when everything had come so unaccountably unstuck. The headlines he had been getting for Heller had been magnificent! He fondly recalled the stories about Toots Switch, Maizie Spread and Dolores Pubiano de Copula. Absolute masterpieces, guaranteed to stamp the name of Wister indelibly forever upon the public consciousness. Wister would have become known, as those trials progressed, as the greatest outlaw lover in history. And such plans he had had, to embellish and add glitter to the outlaw part of it! Wister robbing the Federal Reserve Bank had been the least of his PR projections. He could have made it all soar to greater and greater heights. He could have had every law-enforcement agency in the world, every one of them from Nazi Interpol right on down to the meanest town cop, absolutely baying on Wister's trail and slavering to catch him. It would have ended with the biggest public execution man had ever known. Wister would have been absolutely IMMORTAL!
Then he brightened up. He could do the same thing here if he had a chance. That the man's real name was Heller made no difference in his plans. He was tireless enough to simply scrub his other work and start anew. They had Domestic Police. They had the Army Division. And even if the Fleet might be lukewarm at first, he could heat them up. If he worked this right, he would have the whole Apparatus behind him.
He began to daydream in the dim and empty hall: headlines about Heller robbing the estates of Lords and giving the proceeds to the poor; Heller robbing spaceships, 18-point type; Heller kidnapping the daughter of some earl or duke and story after story of her pleading with him piteously to be raped-how the public would LOVE it! Headlines of Heller robbing every bank on every planet of the entire Confederacy, each one with a new twist, each one with new blood, each one with new staggering amounts of loot being given to the poor. What a hero he would be! Heller, the most hunted outlaw in 125,000 years! Confederacy history! MAGNIFICENT!
Then he had another idea: He could hyphenate Heller's name. He could call him Heller-Wister and rake in and rake over ALL the earlier stories, spreading them throughout the entire Confederacy. No, his earlier work was NOT lost-it was only being amplified!
Ah, now he was getting somewhere. And he could safely begin to dream the greatest dream of all: Madison walking up to Bury in a sort of offhand way, "Well, Mr. Bury, I finally finished a job for you. Heller-Wister is immortal." And Mr. Bury would take him by the hand, tears of gratitude sparkling in his eyes and in a voice charged with emotion say, "Madison, you are restored to grace. Please, please accept the presidency of F. F. B. O. and please forgive me for ever doubting you for a second. Never again will I chase you in army tanks!"
The glow faded. A chill wind blew in the hall. The reality of the situation was that, right now, if Bury even caught sight of him, even providing he could get home, he would be stood up against a wall and shot. It was death if he did not succeed with Heller-Wister. Death without even the comfort of a blindfold or cigarette: it was a good thing he didn't smoke.
A bit of the rock music from down below beat for a moment more loudly against the floor. The rhythm sounded so much like Earth that it gave him pause. He began to get a sort of hunted feeling: Bury was sort of supernatural-maybe he could even reach him here! When he thought of possible links between Rockecenter and Lombar, he began to shiver. Oh, it was surely death indeed if he did not somehow get to work on Heller-Wister!
The current guard shifted position slightly and the axe emitted a puff of ozone. It brought his mind to Teenie.
Up to now he had been thinking that if he went upstairs and went to bed with her, she would then help him. He realized she had made no guarantees of that whatever. All she had promised was that if he went upstairs and slept with her, he would not be executed at dawn!
It was a problem wherein if he did he would die because of his mother and if he didn't he would die because of Bury. It wouldn't help him at all to go up there.
Obviously, this required some other solution!
He was usually good at getting ideas and had always been proud that, because of the Oedipus complex, he was a genius at it. But tonight his mind seemed bankrupt.
He glanced at his Omega wristwatch. He had been sitting here for two hours! What a long time for him just to sit without getting a single constructive idea! He took a grip on himself. After all, he was a PR man, a true-blue professional.
He would be orderly. He would now skim over everything Teenie had said to him since the moment he found her by the pool. It didn't take long. He tried it again.
Suddenly he stiffened in his chair.
HE HAD IT!
If it didn't work, he would only be dead anyway.
IF IT DID, HE COULD FINISH HIS JOB ON HELLER-WISTER!
Madison looked up at the guard. Calmly, keeping all signs of elation out of his voice so the guard would suppose him to be operating in defeat, he said, "Take me upstairs to your mistress."
OH, GOD, THIS HAD TO WORK!
PART SEVENTY-THREE
Chapter 1
The guard hissed sharply into a microphone disguised as a silver button.
Instantly a sergeant sped into the huge hall. He looked at Madison's guard, who jerked a thumb toward the stairs, and the sergeant nodded.
With a clank and a rattle they struck off Madison's chains. He stood up and rubbed his wrists and neck.
They thrust him into a washroom and made him strip and bathe. They inspected him. Intimately.
"He doesn't seem to have any lice or bacteria," said the original guard, gazing critically at Madison, "but he's not well equipped. I don't see how he can give her a good time."
"Well, listen you," said the sergeant to Madison, suddenly flicking a knife out of the back of his silver coat, "if you don't act nice and give her a good (bleep), I'll personally use this to cut your (bleeps) off. Is that understood?"
Madison gulped, covered his (bleeps) protectively with his hand and backed up.
They threw a white silk robe on him that still bore a Royal crest and the words
Property of Queen Hora. Do not use this robe for burial. Return it to palace in undamaged condition.
"Now, what's the proper protocol?" the guard asked the sergeant. "I don't for the life of me recall whether my grandfather said to deliver the man in shackles or gold ropes."
"Neither one," said the sergeant. "It was a collar and a gold leading chain. Why, there's one of them right over on that shelf." He got it and looked at it. "What do you know? It isn't true the collar had spikes inside it. My grandmother must have made that up. See, look here," he showed the guard. "It's an electric wire. And see here, there's the activating button at the end of the chain. Oh, no! Its power pack is dead. No sparks."
"Hey, lucky!" said the guard, gazing into the power recess in a link. "It's the same type we use in our boot toes. Here, I'll take the one out of my left boot." He did so, and when they tested the collar again, it sparked when the button on the end of the chain was pressed.
They put it on Madison.
"Now," said the sergeant, "if I heard right, the protocol is, you lead him in, bow, and when the queen puts out her hand, you place the chain handle in it, and I think you say, 'Your Majesty, here is one to do your bidding: pray thee, if he does not please thee, I shall be right outside the door with an electric whip.' "
"We haven't got an electric whip," said the guard.
"Well, you can't go changing protocol," said the sergeant. "Don't you go shifting words around. You keep the words just like they are, but if this (bleepard) doesn't do as he is told, use your stinger."
The guard checked the inside of his silver boot to see if his stinger was in place and started to nod, but the sergeant interrupted him. "Like I always tell you, be careful of your weapons. The staff would kill you out of hand if anything happened to displease Her Majesty." He had drawn the stinger out of the other man's boot.
The weapon was a limber rod about fourteen inches long. The sergeant gripped the handle and the tip glowed.
He raised it and gave Madison a slash across the lower thigh.
YIKES! It gave a stinging shock like the bite of a huge insect! Madison yanked the robe aside and stared at his thigh.
"Oh, that was just low power," said the sergeant. "You don't think I'd mark you up just before you went to please Her Majesty, do you? Man's an idiot," he commented to the guard. "Now, when you present him and go back to stand guard in the hallway, you keep your ear to the door and if you hear any protests or arguments or if you DON'T hear some moans and squeals of pleasure, you go right back in and sting the Hells out of him until he DOES do his job! Understand?"
The guard nodded. "Sure is great to have things running normally again."
"Well, yes," said the sergeant. "And you just make sure that Her Majesty doesn't have to wear her thumb out pushing the button on that collar chain. The darling is entitled to all the fun this fellow can give her."
"What do I do when she's through with him?" said the guard.
"Oh, you'll probably have been relieved by that time and I'll be hanging around. But if it happens on your watch and she hasn't told you otherwise, listen to make sure it's all quiet and has been for some time. Then beckon up one of her maids-probably the one on watch at the foot of her bed-and tiptoe in. Now, this is the tricky part: use your ultraviolet lamp and eyeglass so you don't wake Her Majesty, and look very carefully at her face. If she's frowning or sleeping restlessly, take him to the execution hall. If she's sleeping with a slight smile, then get this fellow out very carefully without waking her and send him back to his regiment."
"I haven't got a regiment," said Madison.
They both looked shocked. Then the sergeant said, "That's true. Those clothes hanging there are no uniform I ever saw before. Wait a minute. Maybe this is all wrong. Are you sure you're a nobleman?"
Madison's mind raced. Despite all these horrible arrangements which he only hoped he could escape, he had to get up those stairs and present his inspired idea to Teenie. He drew himself up haughtily. "I," he said, "am one of the
Knights of Columbus!"
"Is that noble?" said the sergeant. "You see, if a male commoner were to lay hands upon her, protocol requires instant death. So don't go trifling with us."
"A
knight"
said Madison, "in her native language, means a gentleman-soldier. It is one who has been raised by his sovereign to the nobility. I came here as a
knight-errant."
The sergeant told the guard. "Well, that may be. Tell you what. When you take him out of her bed, put him in one of the better dungeons and hold him and I'll get this clarified in the morning. If it turns out he isn't really noble after all, we'll have the pleasure of executing him anyway. I sure didn't like the way he was yelling and screaming at her yesterday afternoon. Didn't sound very noble to me! And if he starts yelling and screaming at her again, take him out of there fast! We don't want our dear queen getting upset and leaving us."
The guard gave the chain a yank and Madison, not expecting it, flinched back.
The guard pressed the button in the handle.
It felt to Madison that his neck had been sawed through! It wasn't an electric shock, it was a tearing sensation. Awful!
"Come along," said the guard. "Her Majesty awaits."
The sole of Madison's foot recoiled from the cold, rough floor stones of the washroom. "You didn't give me any slippers! At least let me put on my shoes!"
"Barefoot is just great," said the guard. And he gave the button another push.
Madison gripped his head so it wouldn't fall off.
He followed.
Everything depended on the next few minutes. He would be a dead man or a hero!
His idea MUST work!
Chapter 2
He wasn't being taken up the golden stairs. He was being led up a circular metal set of steps that spiralled back of the walls. It was very dark and from the deadness of the air Madison suspected it had long been out of use. Suddenly a gate with spikes barred their way: he could see small sparks chasing back and forth, skipping from tip to tip on daggerlike extrusions, ready to impale any unauthorized interloper. No wonder Flick said no-no on robbing these palaces. They were FORTS!
The guard did something over at the side and with the groan of long disuse the portal slid aside.
They seemed to be in a dark box now, another thick door facing them. The guard picked up a dusty microphone and said something, evidently to a remote security desk-some sort of numbered password. Then the guard shoved him in front of what must be a closed-circuit camera.