Mission: Earth "Villainy Victorious" (44 page)

It was dusk and it was raining. Shining rivulets of water ran from the semidead spaceships of Emergency Fleet Reserve.

As the tug
Prince Caucalsia
came to silent rest on its tail, Commander Crup and old Atty stared nervously as Jettero Heller, not waiting for a ladder, slid down from the airlock on a safety line.

"My Gods, Jet!" Commander Crup whispered, "you've got no business here. There's a general warrant out for your arrest!"

"Hello, Commander! Hello, Atty!" said Heller in a loud voice.

"Sh, sh, sh!" they both said in chorus.

"What are you shushing about?" said Heller. "I can't hear you in this rain!"

"Arrest!" said Crup. "Lombar Hisst has had his agents tearing Voltar apart trying to find where you are!"

"Look," said Heller, again in a loud voice, "if a Fleet officer can't land at a Fleet base without worrying about 'drunks,' I don't know what the Confederacy is coming to."

"It's coming to Hell Eight very rapidly," said Crup. "Hisst is calling himself a dictator and the Apparatus is in charge of everything."

"Not in charge of me," said Heller. "Loan me a fast aircar and, Atty, get this ship full of food and things.

Particularly lots of Food. Put it on the Exterior Division account I gave you last time."

"He's crazy," said Crup.

"Couldn't agree more," said Heller.

An hour later, the old gray-haired enlisted man who served as clerk at the Fleet Officer's Club was taking advantage of a rainy night to try to balance his accounts. He heard a sound at the counter, he looked up and saw someone in a streaming raincloak standing there. He went over.

"Could I have my room key?"

The old clerk stared. He went white. "Good Gods!" he whispered. "There's a general warrant out for your arrest! Agents have been here three times in the past week checking to see if..."

"First things first," said Heller. "My key! And then send some hot tup and sweetbuns to my room. Did you know it's wet out there?"

"Jet, you're crazy!"

"Always was. Can't take time to reform now. Tell Bis of Fleet Intelligence to come up if he's around and has a moment."

Ten minutes later, a stunned Bis entered Heller's posh suite. He heard Heller in the shower and went to the door.

"Jet!" said Bis in a stage whisper, "there's a general warrant out for your arrest!"

"Speak up!" said Heller in a loud voice. "Hand me that bottle of soap, would you?"

"Oh, Jet, you're crazy!"

"Seems to be a universal opinion. How you been? Winning any bullet ball games lately?"

"Oh, Jet, you're hopeless."

"Maybe, but not quite. He who hath no hope is not long in the spaceways. Hand me a towel, would you?"

Heller, towel wrapped around him, was soon sitting in a living room chair, drinking hot tup.

Bis declined a canister. "I don't think you realize how serious all this is," he said, perched nervously on the edge of a couch.

"Oh, I do," said Heller. "Going out in rain like this could make even the strongest men catch cold."

"Jet! The Apparatus is all over the place! They want your blood! And they're a (bleeped) bloodthirsty lot!"

"I'm glad you brought that up," said Heller. "Remember that fellow Gris I tried to deliver to the Royal prison?"

"I know. The papers are screaming about him."

"Well, listen," said Heller. "Coming in, I heard a news bulletin that he was being brought to trial. Apparently he's even going to have some attorneys defending him. Do you recall those boxes of papers I sent you?"

"The Gris blackmail file on the Apparatus?"

"Right. I want you to hand those over to his attorneys."

"WHAT?" Bis stared at him. "But they'd use those to try to get him off."

"Possibly. But it sure would upset a lot of people in the Apparatus."

Suddenly Bis barked a laugh. "You know, I think it would. I'll do it. But listen, Jet, you've got to get out of here. They have this place watched."

"Oh, I'm leaving very shortly," said Heller. "Just as soon as you get me a mustard-colored Apparatus officer's uniform and an Apparatus airbus."

"WHAT?"

"Don't tell me Fleet Intelligence hasn't collected some to use in espionage on another service."

Bis held his face in his hands. "Now I know why a combat engineer has such short life expectancy. What are you going to do?"

"The less you know about that, the less you can tell the torturers. Get me a false identoplate along with it. You've got lots of time. Shall we say fifteen minutes at the back door?"

Bis stared at him numbly.

Two hours later, Heller landed the Apparatus-marked airbus on the landing target at Camp Kill. The rain had not reached over the mountains into the Great Desert but the airbus bore signs of it: it was suspiciously clean for an Apparatus vehicle.

The guard officer came into the glaring target lights. He looked at the smudgy identoplate that said "Captain Fal."

"I won't be here long," said Heller. "I've come to pay a gambling debt to Captain Snelz."

"Pickings in town must be good lately," said the guard officer.

"Couldn't be better," said Heller.

"Thanks for the tip that he'll have money. He's in those dugouts back under the hill."

Heller got out. He was wearing big sand goggles. He walked at a leisurely pace through the dusty, cluttered camp.

A sentry stood outside a dugout door. Before he could challenge, Heller yelled, "Hey, Snelz, you got any thudder dice for sale?"

There was an instant flurry inside. Then a white face, just a blur in the night, peered out of the low dug-out entrance.

Heller walked boldly past the sentry and entered.

In a hoarse whisper, Snelz said, "My Gods, Jet! Don't you know there's a general warrant out for your arrest?"

"You know," said Heller, in a loud voice, "if people keep telling me, sooner or later I'll believe it."

Snelz shuddered. He turned and made a gesture at a prostitute who lay naked on a far bunk. She grabbed her clothes and scuttled out.

Snelz was tucking his shirt in his pants and trying to drop the door curtain at the same time.

"Heller," he said, "you're crazy."

"No, I'm thirsty."

Snelz, both his shirt collar and his hair standing up, tried to find something that hadn't been emptied in the debris on the table and, after upsetting several bottles and canisters, got some sparklewater poured. Heller sat down and sipped it.

The ex-Fleet marine sat nervously across from him. "Jet, there's a whisper out that Hisst will pay a hundred thousand credits cash for clues as to where you are."

"Cheap," said Heller. "The man always was cheap."

"Why are you HERE of all places?"

Heller reached into his Apparatus tunic and pulled out an envelope. He laid it before Snelz. "This," he said, "has got to be delivered to Lombar Hisst."

"I haven't got access to him," said Snelz. "I'm only a captain."

"Well, I wouldn't think it would be healthy to give it to him," said Heller. "If he received it and those seals were disturbed, my guess is that he would very likely execute the bearer just to be sure his mouth stayed shut."

Snelz looked at the outer cover. It said:

Snelz's hand began to shake. "This could get me killed just looking at it! Heart failure!"

Heller laid down a five-hundred-credit note. "Just so you don't feel too bad being deprived of that hundred thousand."

Snelz was shocked. "I wouldn't ever turn you in. You're my friend! You don't have to pay me anything either!"

"Well, I told the landing guard officer I was here to pay a gambling debt, so he'll be on to you for drinks, so I don't want this to cost you anything personally. Now think, do you know of a way to get this into Hisst's hand?"

Snelz thought about it. Then he suddenly smiled brightly. "Yes, I think I can do that. And without a hitch."

"It's very important that he get it. No slips."

"No slips," said Snelz.

"Good," said Heller. "That completes my business. Would you like to indulge in a few passes with the dice?"

"Oh, Jet, please to the Gods, get out of here. You have both our bodies halfway down into that chasm right this minute. Don't you realize that Hisst comes to the tower office up there almost every day? He might be in this camp right now!"

"Then it will be very easy to get the message to him, won't it?" said Heller. "Well, you seem to have lost your gambling fever, so I guess I'll run along. I'll stop by the canteen...."

"Jet," said Snelz in a tight and urgent voice, "you get... get out of here. Honest, my heart won't start again until you've left this camp!"

"The day you're that scared, Snelz," laughed Heller, "that will be the day. Come on and walk with me to the canteen."

Snelz convulsively was climbing into his uniform tunic.

Firmly but carefully looking very casual, he walked Heller straight back to the landing target area and got him into his airbus.

Heller took off.

Two hours later, at Emergency Fleet Reserve, Heller complimented old Atty for restocking the tug, shook hands with a worried Commander Crup and, exhibiting the ship identoplate of the cruiser
Happy Return,
was spaceward ho for Calabar.

One cannot help but wonder, dear reader, what the course of history might have been if Captain Snelz had not thought of the man he did when asked to design a way to get the message into Lombar's hands. If he had only told Heller the name that had popped into his mind, the fate of Earth might well have been quite different.

For the man Snelz had thought of was J. Walter Madison!

As he stood on the landing target watching Heller's airbus leave, Snelz was putting through his mind exactly how to do this.

Lately Lombar Hisst had been coming to Spiteos almost every day for a brief period, usually in the morning. He was doing something strange down in the storerooms with that weird powder. Snelz himself had escorted in several truckloads of strange things marked Lactose, Epsom Salts, Quinine, Baking Powder, Photo Developer, Insecticide and Strychnine. Hisst had several technicians who would take something called
amphetamine
out of its original capsules, mix the powder with these other things and then, using new capsules, expand the original batch enormously. According to one of the technicians, Hisst seemed to take a lot of pleasure in this strange exercise: he called it "cutting" and seemed to think nobody else could do it as expertly as he.

And Snelz had noted that the Earthman Madison was never kept informed as to where he could find Hisst: that was no real mystery, as Hisst always had the idea that anywhere he went, an assassin would be waiting for him. So, at odd times of the day or night, Madison would show up at Spiteos.

It had become so well known now that Madison was a close creature of Hisst that Madison could come and go as he pleased. The very distinctive Model 99 with its four flying angels was never even challenged in the air. Once landed, Madison had carte blanche. He needed no escort, he didn't even show his plate, he simply trotted over to the zipbuses, went through the tunnel, up the elevator and into the north tower. Often, nowadays, there weren't even clerks up there.

Knowing Madison for a fake and no friend of Heller's, Snelz selected him for a messenger whose message, it seemed, could end in somebody's death.

Accordingly Snelz, despite the hour, paraded his company. He went down the line, looking very closely at his men. Suddenly he stopped and pointed his baton.

"You there. You have just volunteered. Lieutenant, dismiss everyone but this man and Timyjo."

Snelz took the two men aside. Timyjo was the company's best thief. "Timyjo, go into town and get an expensive suit of gray shimmercloth and all those conservative things that go with it. The stores at this hour should be easy to rob. Make sure they fit this man. Be back before dawn."

Snelz whiled away the time by buying the guard officer some drinks and shooting a little dice. He even had an hour for a nap.

Timyjo returned laden. In his dugout, Snelz dressed the volunteer. He stepped back admiringly. Same height, same build, same hair coloring.
To
all intents and purposes, unless one knew him well, one was looking at Madison.

Not to take any chances, Snelz put a pair of sand goggles on him, a thing he had lately seen Madison wear.

He gave the fellow the envelope. He said, "Now, don't talk to anybody. Just get on a zipbus, go up in the elevator, walk through the clerk's room, enter the office of Lombar Hisst and lay this squarely in the middle of his desk. Then walk out and come back here."

"And if I don't?"

"Then we throw you in the chasm and forget about it."

It was well after dawn. A sleepy camp was recovering from hangovers.

The volunteer, feeling very nervous, pleaded at least for a canister of tup. Then, fortified, he walked out, got on a zipbus, got off, got in the elevator, went up to tower level and entered the clerk's outer room. He froze. The old criminal chief clerk was sitting there, back to the door.

With no choice but the chasm if he did and the chasm if he didn't, the volunteer walked boldly across the room.

The old chief clerk glanced up. "He isn't here," he muttered and went back to his work.

The volunteer pretended he had not heard. He walked to Hisst's office door and went in. The place impressed him very unfavorably: one whole wall was glass, a throne chair that looked like tomb-loot was behind the desk. But the volunteer wasted no time.

He took the envelope out of his coat. He laid it on the desk and propped it up with a stinger. Anybody who sat down would be hit with the address.