Mission: Earth "Villainy Victorious" (38 page)

"It's too painful," said Too-Too. And Teenie had to get him to puff the joint again.

Too-Too, in a broken voice, began to talk. Gris had forced him and Oh Dear into being couriers and informers by a mechanism known as magic mail. Every three months, by mailing a card through a certain slot, an order continued to be held. But for some reason the
Blixo's
schedule had been advanced and although Too-Too had mailed the last card he had been given on Earth punctually, as he thought, it had been late.

The order which had been held had already gone. The commander of the Knife Section on Mistin had received it. Due to internal Confederacy delays between planets, Too-Too had only now been informed.

HIS MOTHER HAD BEEN MURDERED!

Screaming it out, he went back into a collapse and Teenie had to work hard to revive him. After more mouth-to-mouth marijuana resuscitation, she said, "Now, Too-Too, start from the beginning and begin to spill all the crimes you know that Gris has committed."

Madison listened. This catamite knew quite a bit. It was all headline stuff. Actually, Madison had not been too interested in Gris, regarding him just as a way to get to Heller. But as he listened he began to get fascinated. This was juicy copy!

Finally he said, "You say he gave you orders to kill old Bawtch and two others in your office. Won't that implicate you?"

"Oh, no!" cried Too-Too. "I couldn't murder anybody. I simply told Lombar Hisst. We just transferred Bawtch to another section. That was when Hisst began to set Gris up."

"For what?" said Madison.

But Too-Too had spent what little energy he had and was collapsed again in Teenie's arms.

"Now you've heard it," Teenie said, her eyes smoldering as she looked at Madison over Too-Too's head. "Don't let any grass grow under your feet. GET THAT GRIS!"

Madison grinned. With material like this, how could he miss? It would open the door to Heller with a crash.

Four hours later Madison, in a hurtling Model 99, was hot on the trail. He had been very intrigued by the information that Gris had been "set up." He also knew from recent past experience that the media here had a nasty idea that one should have documents and proof for stories. While this was far from insurmountable-one could always forge and find false witnesses-it might save him time if he could get his hands on the real thing and, thanks to Too-Too, he was certain that, somewhere, a lot of evidence existed.

He had been cautioned by Lombar's chief clerk not to barge in all the time on Lombar Hisst, so the logical target in this case was the old chief clerk himself. The man would be, he thought, at Spiteos or the palace.

Madison, having crossed the green seas and now with the mainland under him, was still trying on the communications system to locate his quarry.

Suddenly into his calling, a harsh voice broke in: "Divert! Divert! This is Apparatus Traffic Surveillance. J. Walter Madison, divert from your course at once and proceed to the Office of the Chief of Apparatus, Government City, without delay."

"Oh, boy," said Flick, overhearing it, "you're in trouble."

"Why is he in trouble?" said Cun who had bullied herself back into her job, Relax Island or no Relax Island.

"It means they been looking for him," said Flick to Cun. "It means they were calling earlier and it means you was out of the airbus instead of standing by its phone. I bet you got yourself (bleeped)!"

"I did not!" said Cun savagely. "I was just peeking."

"I'll bet you were," said Flick. "How come the front of your uniform is wet?"

"I was getting a drink of water. It was you that was getting all hot. And over a scullery maid, too!"

"Peace!" said Madison. "Head for Government City. Do you know where his in-town office is?"

"You can't miss it," said Flick. "Upper end of the town, on the cliff above the River Wiel. You can always tell it from the dead bodies in the streets around it."

"I hope you're joking," said Madison.

"Well, yes, actually I am," said Flick. "He has a chute so he can dump them into the River Wiel."

They sped across the green countryside and soon were over the masses of tall buildings which housed the bulk of the government. The vast area at the upper end skirted tall cliffs which fell into the River Wiel. This section was the oldest and most decayed part of Government City, and the Apparatus, while not the oldest, was certainly the most decayed part of the government and had fallen heir to it.

There was a square, occupied by a central building which was surrounded by broken pavement and monuments to forgotten glory. All of this would seem to indicate that the Apparatus was also old but this was not true: the service was really quite young as things in Voltar go. It was only that the other parts of the government would no longer live in this place where the fountains no longer ran and the statues were missing heads and legs.

As the Model 99 swept in to land, there was immediate trouble to find a parking place. Wide as the surrounding pavements were, they were covered with randomly parked tanks and vehicles.

Flick squeezed in between a personnel carrier and a flight command car, each of which bore a general's guidon. Cun opened the door while ogling some of the drivers.

"There's something going on here," said Flick. "These are the vehicles of the Apparatus General Staff! You watch it, Chief. They're the most vicious (bleepards) in the Confederacy!"

Madison got out. He felt a little conspicuous in his gray business suit. He made his way through clusters of officers and men in mustard uniforms, black uniforms, green uniforms, every one of them badged with the Apparatus symbol which, if you looked at it from a certain angle, did resemble a bottle.

An overly dressed young woman with a snug on a leash was sauntering in front of the main door. Another one, considerably underdressed and with a hard face, was impatiently twirling a cane. The latter accosted Madison, "How much longer is this silly meeting going to go on?" she said.

"I have no idea, madam," said Madison.

"Well, if you're going in there, you just tell General

Buc that his mistress has been waiting for five (bleeping) hours. I'm fed up!"

Madison went up the broken steps. Two sentries in mustard barred his way. An officer bawled at him, "Madison? Where the blast have you been? Get the Hells in there and fast!"

Madison found himself being propelled across a cluttered lobby and then down a flight of stairs. The officer thrust him into a crowded room.

The place looked more like a cave than an office. It also stank.

Generals in red uniforms were sitting in chairs around the rough rock walls. In the recorded strips of this meeting they look just like Manco Devils.

Lombar Hisst was sitting behind a desk, also uniformed in red. He was turned sideways, watching a staff officer with a remote control in his hand who was electronically chasing an orange arrow around on a projected map.

"This is
Omaha"
the staff officer said. "According to earlier intelligence advices, it is a sort of military nerve center. Estimates are that it will take a million men, after it is occupied, to hold the position and fan out eastward."

"A million men!" commented a general. "That means no supplementary reserve."

"Well, if we are denied the right to simply bomb
New York..
."

"That has to be denied," said Hisst. "It would obliterate the installations that must be seized in operational condition in
New Jersey.
That requires a solely infantry approach, moving through cities on a slaughter basis. Are you afraid of casualties?" he asked the first general with a sneer.

"No," said the first general. "I was simply hoping that some way the Army could be coerced into participation. We only have about four million troops. When distribution to other continents is examined..."

"We could simply concentrate on the
United States,"
said another general.

"No, no, no," said a general with artillery badges. "There are more than twelve nations that are nuclear armed, according to reports. Failure to make this an infantry action on all continents could result in some hysterical nuclear involvement. If the objectives of the chief are to be attained, we have to prevent their use of hydrogen bombs from one country to another across oceans. I think you would find the objective areas totally contaminated and unusable."

An aide bent over Lombar, "Your Excellency, the Earthman has finally arrived."

All eyes swivelled to Madison. (To do him justice, he might not have understood completely that what was under discussion was an invasion of Earth, for the meeting transcripts do not, of course, give internal thoughts of those speaking. Madison's own logs shed no light on this.)

The general of artillery was the one who spoke. "What is the range and thermal penetration potential of an MX3 missile?"

Madison said, "I'm sorry. I don't have it at my fingertips. But I don't think it's much to be worried about. The full project was, if I recall, challenged by the General Accounting Office because of cost overruns and was suspended. I remember reading about it."

"Ha!" said the artillery general. "Good man. So that's a system we don't have to worry about. Now what about the satellite killers? Thosecould be used against spaceships."

"Well, only the
Russians
developed those. They received a lot of TV coverage. So I should think that if you avoided the sky-space over
Russia,
they would be no problem."

"Aha!" said the artillery general. "Show us this
Russia,"

Madison walked up to the front of the cave and with a "With your permission" took the remote from the staff officer. He mastered it and the projector began to throw up Earth maps. He found Russia and showed them. (Madison would not have known, since it had happened after his departure, that there was no Russia now.)

Hisst moved restively. He glared at the generals. "All right, you can go and wrangle someplace else now. But get a general operational plan on this desk by tomorrow!"

They rose and their aides got their papers together and they left. Lombar, after a bit, became aware that Madison was still there.

"You've been dismissed!" said Hisst.

"I wanted to see you about Gris," said Madison.

"Gris, Gris, Gris! Well, (BLEEP) Gris! He's the one who is the cause of all this trouble!"

"Could I ask what all this trouble is?" said Madison.

"Amphetamines! Intelligence!" shouted Hisst. "If the sun didn't rise tomorrow and I investigated, I can promise you it would lead to Gris! The
Blixo,
on its last arrival, should have brought amphetamines. It didn't. Now there has not been one freighter since! He never kept his intelligence reports up and now we're going blind."

"I can get him!" said Madison.

That got through to Hisst. But he shook his head.

"I've sent three assassins into the Royal prison. Gris is still alive! It's impossible."

"You don't want him dead," said Madison. "You want him talking."

"He let Heller get away from him," said Lombar in his usual disconnected way. "I'm going to kill him!"

"I can get Heller, too," said Madison.

"Heller has turned all Earth against me," said Hisst. "I am certain that right this minute Heller is racing through the streets of that planet screaming at the people to attack me! He's a scourge! The Army and the Fleet won't make the slightest effort to smash him!"

"Please," said Madison. "Let's open up our coats. Is there some reason you don't want Gris to talk?"

The unpredictable Lombar suddenly broke out laughing. Madison did note later that, with Lombar, he very often felt like he was dealing with someone who was quite insane.

"Did you set Gris up some way?" pursued Madison.

Lombar was still laughing. Finally he said, "If I were ever accused of anything, nothing could be proved. Every order that ever went to Blito-P3, every shipment that ever came from there, bears only the name of Soltan Gris. He stamped his life away!"

"Then you wouldn't mind if Gris came to trial?"

"What's a trial got to do with it?"

Madison said, "A trial that was public, that was reported in the media. Blow by blow."

"That's a funny idea."

"You can even try him first in the media and then he's certain to be found guilty in the court. That's the proper way to do these things."

"How strange."

"You'd emerge the hero," said Madison. "It would help build your image."

"Oh, trials have nothing to do with this," said Hisst, suddenly looking angry. "My problem is how to get the Army and Fleet cooperating."

"Is that very vital?" said Madison.

"He asks me if that's vital," Lombar asked an invisible spectator who wasn't there. "I'd have to withdraw the whole Apparatus from Calabar to invade Earth. At least the Army and Fleet could take over there!"

"You need the cooperation of the Army and Fleet," said Madison. "I CAN GET THEM FOR YOU!"

Lombar stopped. Finally he said, "How?"

"Let me have all the files and witnesses on Gris. I will get him into the press and on trial. Then I will get him to accuse Heller. It can be done so that the whole Army and Fleet will go chasing after Heller like mad dogs!"

"Really?"

Madison took the clipping book he had been carrying. He flopped it open on the desk before Lombar. "These stories are just trial balloons. I wrote every one. They'll print anything I issue. All I have to do is use the media, and the Army and the Fleet will be in your hands!"

Lombar was staring at the book, leafing through it. "They are publishing what you say?"

"I control the media of the Confederacy. It's just a tool. I can use it to whip up a storm that will give you all the support you will ever need for anything you want to do. I can mold public opinion like it was clay! And that is the key to all your projects."