They walked into the left-hand hall and even though it seemed to stretch endlessly before them in the dark, they found no assassins.
Madison mourned. It was not only a haunted town-house, it was a hungry townhouse. It had eaten up all their crew. No wonder nobody had wanted to buy it!
"Maybe there are some other panels somewhere," said Flick. He led the way down a side corridor.
They seemed to be in a big room but it was terribly dark. Flick played his light through the place. It seemed to be a tavern. There were tables and chairs around on the floor and a natural wood bar, all polished.
Flick walked over to the counter and looked under it. "A panel!" He stabbed an eager finger in.
Abruptly the room was full of light.
It was also full of babbling sound.
AND AT EVERY TABLE SAT ARMY OFFICERS DRINKING TUP!
They were deep in conversations and laughing, very friendly to each other. One group at the far end was singing an army song. They all wore uniforms of long ago that were covered with mold!
A captain at a nearby table turned and seemed to look at them. "Come in, drink up!" he said.
Flick fled as though pursued by demons!
Then Flick found out those were Madison's running footfalls behind him.
Flick stopped and caught his breath. "Comets, but this is an awful place. The ghosts of all his brother officers, long since dead, carousing in that tavern. It makes your blood run like winter ice."
"Maybe the crew got into one of these side rooms," said Madison.
"Oh, I don't like this," said Flick. "There's nothing like this on Calabar. That's an orderly place. When people get killed, they have the decency to stay dead. It's more gravity than here, you know. It holds corpses in their graves better. (Bleeped) Voltar! You mind what I say, Chief. You murder any people on this planet, bury 'em with WEIGHTS!"
Madison went into a room and Flick followed him. The torch, flashing around, showed what seemed to be a bed and a chair and a table. There was a huge, black window with an easy chair over to the side, placed as though inviting one to sit in it and look through the window.
Madison saw a square box just inside the door and went back to it. Flick was examining the bed: it didn't seem to be a bed but just a block of stone.
"Chief," said Flick. "I seen something like this once. It was a sacrificial altar on Mistin. This place makes me nervous."
Madison opened the wall box. There were several buttons. He pushed the biggest one.
A ROAR OF SOUND!
The whole window lighted up!
Through it one could see the red and glaring flames of a Hell!
Devils were stoking a fire!
There was a long, drawn-out scream when two more devils threw a maiden into the scarlet blaze!
Flick had stopped, stunned, staring at the scene.
Madison turned around to look at the room.
THREE RED DEVILS SAT IN THE CHAIRS!
A dismembered man appeared, bleeding gouts of blood on the sacrificial altar! Another devil above him brought down a knife! The victim let out a scream.
The devil in the easy chair turned to Flick and said, "Stay around. You're next!"
Flick tried to rush from the room. He hit Madison in the door and they both went down.
On hands and knees and then on foot they fled down the hall.
Finally they ran out of run and stopped with shuddering breath.
"I don't like this place," said Flick.
Madison bolstered his own nerve. "Look, Flick, we've got to find the crew. Let's try in here."
Flick nervously pushed his torch around this new room. It was obviously a rather posh salon. Various lounges sat in the expanse. The floor was bare and the walls were bare. It looked like somebody had half moved out.
There was a long buffet table and Flick opened a door of it, probably expecting vases or valuables. It was a panel instead.
"Don't touch the big one," cautioned Madison. "I don't know what will happen."
Flick sorted down a rank of buttons and pushed one.
The salon lights came on.
Now that they could see it better, it was a very nice room, even though the walls and floor were bare.
There was a big set of glass doors at the end. Flick pushed another switch and it was as if floodlights had turned on in a lovely garden. A fountain was playing out there and birds could be heard to sing.
Emboldened, Flick touched another button.
Suddenly, the room was beautifully decorated!
There was a rug on the floor.
Vases with flowers appeared on small wall tables.
PAINTINGS APPEARED ON THE WALLS!
Hastily, Flick turned the switch off. Vases, flowers, rug and paintings vanished!
"OH, MY GODS!" cried Flick. "The objects of art we meant to rob are JUST ELECTRONIC ILLUSIONS!"
Madison suddenly understood. He had seen Lombar Hisst in his red uniform step in front of a thing the Master of Palace City had had placed before the building, and an apparently solid Lombar Hisst, two hundred feet tall, had appeared over the building blessing it.
General Loop was crazy as a coot on scenery with his officers and devils and all. But he was smart as a whip on theft and security.
THERE WAS NOTHING TO STEAL!
Tears were running down Flick's face. With leaden steps he dragged himself away. With a sad, sad voice he muttered, "There goes my dream," and fumbled off to the seventy-sixth floor, leaving it all to Madison to find the vanished crew.
It was a moment of agony and gloom.
Chapter 5
Madison had worked for hours rescuing the crew. Belts underneath the upper-hall floors had shunted them to a "prison" on the seventy-sixth floor and they had been waiting there in fear of being returned to the Domestic Confederacy Prison when Madison let them out.
An embarrassed electronics security man had explained that he also had been taken in, for he said the devices were not of a type in general circulation outside the security forces. He recovered a spare from an electronic parts storeroom and, after he had figured it out, showed them all it was just a chip about the size of a pen point which, put in the path of a microscopic projector, gave images in the air which could move and emit sound. The spare, fortunately, was not of any ghost but of a small boy taking a pee and the crew morale had been restored, even if the laughs were weak.
The sealer had gotten over his fright after a few convulsions, aware now that people were laughing at him and anxious to make amends.
General Loop, they all agreed, had been purloining government property and devices, and this made him a fellow criminal and so, somehow, made it all right. Whether he had done all this just to exercise a hobby or scare his fellow officers half to death was entirely beyond their interest. Madison had another theory-that manufacturers, knowing Loop was somewhat crazy, had installed the devices in the hope of getting a contract after showing what they could do. Madison had noticed different makers' names on the activating boxes; he didn't think any of this was in use or known to the government at all. He had not found a single Security Forces stamp on anything. If it were government property or even known to the government, it would have long since been taken out. But he didn't disagree with the crew; they needed all the solace they could get.
The crisis was over. The crew had slept. And Madison now had other things to do.
In a seventy-sixth floor briefing room which General Loop had probably used to address his own staff, Madison had assembled his gang here today for purposes of his own.
They looked much better now: the men had shaved and cut their hair, the women were coiffed and made up. They were gaunt but good food would handle that. The prison pallor still showed through but a few days under sunlamps would turn them a more natural color. The stink was gone!
The cooks were lounging in the doors, the rest sat on chairs and benches. And all eyes were on Madison as he stood upon the raised platform at the front of the large room.
"I have gathered you together this afternoon," said Madison, "in order to clarify for you why you are really here. I am certain some of you have probably wondered, and the very essence of a team is a common purpose.
"Now, I know some of you were curious as to what
PR man
really meant. It does
not
mean 'parole officer': I just told them that so I could spring you."
The crew sat up more alertly. It made them feel better to know that they were not in the hands of just another Apparatus officer but with one who now seemed
Madison had worked for hours rescuing the crew. Belts underneath the upper-hall floors had shunted them to a "prison" on the seventy-sixth floor and they had been waiting there in fear of being returned to the Domestic Confederacy Prison when Madison let them out.
An embarrassed electronics security man had explained that he also had been taken in, for he said the devices were not of a type in general circulation outside the security forces. He recovered a spare from an electronic parts storeroom and, after he had figured it out, showed them all it was just a chip about the size of a pen point which, put in the path of a microscopic projector, gave images in the air which could move and emit sound. The spare, fortunately, was not of any ghost but of a small boy taking a pee and the crew morale had been restored, even if the laughs were weak.
The sealer had gotten over his fright after a few convulsions, aware now that people were laughing at him and anxious to make amends.
General Loop, they all agreed, had been purloining government property and devices, and this made him a fellow criminal and so, somehow, made it all right. Whether he had done all this just to exercise a hobby or scare his fellow officers half to death was entirely beyond their interest. Madison had another theory-that manufacturers, knowing Loop was somewhat crazy, had installed the devices in the hope of getting a contract after showing what they could do. Madison had noticed different makers' names on the activating boxes; he didn't think any of this was in use or known to the government at all. He had not found a single Security Forces stamp on anything. If it were government property or even known to the government, it would have long since been taken out. But he didn't disagree with the crew; they needed all the solace they could get.
The crisis was over. The crew had slept. And Madison now had other things to do.
In a seventy-sixth floor briefing room which General Loop had probably used to address his own staff, Madison had assembled his gang here today for purposes of his own.
They looked much better now: the men had shaved and cut their hair, the women were coiffed and made up. They were gaunt but good food would handle that. The prison pallor still showed through but a few days under sunlamps would turn them a more natural color. The stink was gone!
The cooks were lounging in the doors, the rest sat on chairs and benches. And all eyes were on Madison as he stood upon the raised platform at the front of the large room.
"I have gathered you together this afternoon," said Madison, "in order to clarify for you why you are really here. I am certain some of you have probably wondered, and the very essence of a team is a common purpose.
"Now, I know some of you were curious as to what
PR man
really meant. It does
not
mean 'parole officer': I just told them that so I could spring you."
The crew sat up more alertly. It made them feel better to know that they were not in the hands of just another Apparatus officer but with one who now seemed to be saying that he had other goals and might well be a master criminal in his own right, only using the Apparatus for some crooked purpose of his own. His popularity rose.
"The actual meaning of
PR,"
continued Madison, "is PUBLIC RELATIONS. That is the activity in which you will now be engaged."
They nodded but now they looked puzzled. They had never heard of this. The only relations they had ever had with the public consisted of victimizing it.
"As this will be your work," said Madison, "I had better explain in detail."
Madison stood up very straight. His face began to glow. His own love of his subject took over. In a voice more suited to a cathedral, he said, "PR is one of the noblest pursuits of man!"
His audience was jolted. They stared at him wide-eyed.
Madison was off. His voice contained the caress of eulogy. "Public Relations is an art that FAR transcends mere painting and crass poetry."
The audience gawped.
"It is," crooned Madison, "the magic of telling people what to think and bludgeons them to change their minds."
A roustabout called out, "Now that's more like it, Do we hit soft to stun or hard to kill?"
Madison smiled a beautiful smile. "You always hit to kill."
The gang buzzed and nodded. "Got it," came from many voices. Then someone in an aside to his neighbor confided loudly, "That's what his Lieutenant Flick said last night. He's a killer! One of the greatest murderers of all time!"
Everyone began to applaud, even the cooks at the door. Then they stood and chanted, "The chief! The chief! The chief!" Madison, an expert at timing and stage presence, knew when speeches should end. He bowed.
The tumult had died down as the people were now departing.
Madison became aware of something. No Flick. He called out, "Where
is
Lieutenant Flick?"
The driver footwoman said, "He's in bed. He didn't even touch me. I can't do my job. I think he's down in the mouth. Even suicidal."
Madison, in alarm, immediately passed through the halls to the apartment which had been appropriated by Flick.
The man was lying with his face to the wall. He appeared to be completely caved in. Madison had to shake him by the shoulder to get any response.