Mission: Earth "Voyage of Vengeance" (10 page)

On the morrow I would surely catch the insidious Countess Krak!

Strangely eager for my appointment with Fate, I dressed early the following afternoon and made my way to the ABC TV show hall.

There had been no trouble getting admission to the show, "Weirdo World." I had been on the phone to the head of Eagle Eye Security and he had told me they had reserved a seat for me in the audience. He was very eager to have my help. "The place will be jammed with our security people," he had said, "but she has slipped through our fingers before and it will help to have positive identification on hand. The process server will be there. She won't get away this time!"

Disguise had not been much of a problem: my face was swathed in bandages, so much so that I could only see through a slit.

Light was painful to my eyes and I had not wasted any time watching Krak's viewer. She would make her appearance at that show, that was certain. To Hells with the details: not even she could escape such a net.

When I arrived, I quickly located the Eagle Eye Security officer. He was a huge man, dressed in khaki, girded about with armament. He was standing in the foyer, giving each of a dozen security men individual instructions and sending them to their posts.

I plucked at his sleeve. Annoyedly, he pushed at me. "Beat it, you old bat," he said. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

I laughed delightedly. I was disguised as an old woman with a floppy hat and had smeared bootblacking on the bandages to give me a black face. He thought I was some Negress!"It's you that's the bat," I said, "for I have heard they are quite blind. I'm Smith, you idiot, the man Dingaling, et cetera, take their orders from."

"Well, Jesus Christ," said the security officer.

"No, Smith," I corrected him. "Care to fill me in on your arrangements?"

"Oh, yes, sir! The ABC people always cooperate with the powers that be. We've got the whole TV theater boxed in. The 'Weirdo World' M. C., Tom Snide, is quite excited at the idea there may be some action on his show. And they've got extra cameras at every angle. Even mobile cameras outside. The Whiz Kid is being delivered by a Blinks Armored Truck. What's that you're carrying?"

"A portable TV," I misinformed him. It was Krak's viewer. "I want to catch the show the way it goes out over the air as well as in the theater."

"All right. Your seat is middle row and on the aisle. Here's a two-way walkie-talkie that connects with me, in case you spot anything we don't."

"Good thinking," I said, taking it. "But you keep your eyes open, too. I'm not seeing very well today. I'm counting on you."

"Oh, you can," he said, giving his huge automatic's holster a pat. "I'm practically spending my part of that bounty money already. Oh, one more thing: these ABC people cautioned us that once the red light is on, we have to be quiet and we're to stay off the stage unless the woman herself shows up. Then Snide can give us a signal and they can get the nab on the camera."

"Fine," I said and made my way to my seat.

The place was packed with women and one more skirt went totally unnoticed.

I settled myself. I had a good seat from which to see things. The place was like any other theater except it had more camera and spotlight positions. It was, however, hard for me to take in everything through my bandages. Things looked kind of pink and I suspected my forehead was bleeding again. But minor things must not stand in the way of an Apparatus officer. Lombar Hisst and the fate of the Voltar Confederacy were depending on me, to say nothing of the fate of Earth!

The show was about to start: a big clock was giving a countdown to curtain. Some music was playing to keep the audience quiet, but there was a lot of excited chatter going on all around. Housewives of every shape and hue were packing this show today to lay eyes on the Whiz Kid.

I concentrated on Krak's viewer. It was hard to see.

She was sitting in a little room. A slight twinge of alarm went through me. She ought to be preparing herself in some disguise or other to penetrate this show. She wasn't. She had a little TV set in front of her and she had a couple of microphones in her hands.

Where was this room?

In this building? Miles away? Lacking recorded strips to check back on, I could not tell how she had gotten there.

This whole thing was very irregular. The show was about to begin.

But then I relaxed. She could not possibly resist the bait of the Whiz Kid double. She thought he was vital to her plan to find out who was behind this barrage of legal suits on Heller.

Bang-Bang's voice came through the viewer speaker. "I introduced him."

Krak said to the dimness beyond the TV set, "And he knows the route?"

"Showed it to him twice," said Bang-Bang.

I was a little bit baffled. How could Bang-Bang have introduced anybody to anybody? The show hadn't started! I thought, she certainly better get a move on or she'll be late for this show.

The curtains parted. Buzzers went. Red lights flashed.
On the Air
appeared in a big panel. A girl in a housecoat held up a huge card. It said:

APPLAUD

Music blared. Tom Snide himself pranced out on the stage throwing kisses. He was an older man with curly hair and a very false smile. "Good afternoon, good afternoon, housewives of America, my dearest friends who keep sweeping my popularity from coast to coast."

The girl in the housecoat held up a card:

LAUGH

"Just don't sweep it under the rug," said Snide. The girl held up a card:

LAUGH HARDER

"Welcome to 'Weirdo World'!" said Snide. "I'm sure all of you feel right at home."

The girl held up a card:

HOWL WITH LAUGHTER

"Today we were lucky enough to get on our show a young man who has stirred the hearts and skirts of America and the world. And here he is, the weirdo you've been panting for, the notorious outlaw, WISTER, THE WHIZ KID!"

The girl held up a card:

SHRIEK!

The Wister double peeked out from behind a potted palm, raced over to cover behind a desk and then hid behind a piano.

"What are you ducking for?" said Snide.

"I'm afraid that audience will swarm over the footlights and rape me," said the double.

The girl held up a card:

SAY OOOOO WITH DELIGHT

"No, no," said Snide. "We've packed the place with security guards so they can't get at you. Come out in plain sight."

"And no process servers?" said the double.

The girl held up a card:

SHRIEK WITH LAUGHTER!

The audience shrieked, but Tom Snide had lied. The shabby man in the shabby coat was peering out from under the brim of his shabby hat, just two seats away from me. His face was all bandaged up, too! But he was waiting for the Countess Krak, commitment paper in his hand. And then I looked just beyond him. Two Bellevue attendants! They must have a wagon outside waiting.

I glanced at my viewer. The Countess Krak was sitting there watching the show on TV!

A camera swept the shrieking housewives. I saw it on the Countess Krak's screen. The camera, amongst the others, SHOWED ME!

I scrunched down. Oh, Gods, she had better not notice!

Then her screen, seen through my viewer, was again showing the stage.

The Whiz Kid swaggered into full view. He was dressed in the black of a Western outlaw, but had red hearts for pistol holsters. His buckteeth and hornrimmed glasses did not go too well with the rig.

He sat down in the interview chair.

"How do you do it?" Snide said. "Get all these women so crazy over you that they sue you for billions?"

"I guess it just comes natural," said the double.

The girl held up a card:

LAUGH WHILE SAYING OOOOOO

"When you really get into it, it's easy to understand," said the Whiz Kid.

Card:

LAUGH LOUDER WHILE OOOING LOUDER

"The women all over the country seem utterly crazy over you," said Snide. "Doesn't that seem sort of weird?"

"It's a hard life," said the double. "And the longer I'm at it, the harder it gets."

Card:

SCREAM WITH LAUGHTER

WHILE OOOING WITH SCREAMS

"Most men," said the double, "couldn't stand up to it, and I admit I have been lying down on the job."

Card:

SHRIEK WITH LAUGHTER

"I understand they want to arrest you now for raping a minor," said Snide. "I shouldn't have thought you would have stooped to that."

"Well, she was pretty short," said the Whiz Kid.

Card:

HOWL WITH LAUGHTER

"With all these legal entanglements," said Snide, "I should imagine you have pretty steep legal fees."

"It's worth it," said the Whiz Kid double. "But the real cost is in replacing pants I have to leave behind when the husband comes home unexpectedly."

Card:

LAUGH LIKE MAD

Snide said, "Well, if you are going to devote all your spare time between robbing trains and stealing cities to hopping in and out of beds, I think your legal fees will soon exceed what you find in the Wells Fargo boxes. The law is a pretty expensive business. How do you propose to solve it when this bed-hopping bankrupts you?"

"I'll act as my own lawyer," said the double. "Nothing is going to keep me from tasting the pleasures of the flesh. The country is absolutely crammed with beautiful women with nothing to do after their husbands leave for work." Then in a whisper, barely audible on the program, he said, leaning toward Tom, "Hey, you're off the script."

"Well," said Snide, ignoring the double's aside, "we'll just see how well versed you are in law. We have a lawyer here to interrogate you on the subject of law."

Another sound. Voltarian! I thought I had lost my wits. Then I located it. It was coming from my viewer. The Countess Krak had her left-hand microphone in her hand and into it she had said, "Cue. Walk to center stage." In VOLTARIAN!

Snide had risen and was making an elaborate, ushering bow.

ONTO CENTER STAGE WALKED MISTER CALICO!

Oh, indeed Snide was off the script!

The cat had a black harness. It was wearing a big, black bow tie. It surveyed the audience.

"Chair on your right," said the Countess Krak in Voltarian into her left-hand mike.

The cat jumped up on the second interview chair. It sat down, looking at the Whiz Kid double.

"What the hell is this?" said the double. "That's no attorney. That's a cat!"

The cat opened its jaws. It said, "I am a lawyer cat."

The girl with the cards was just standing there staring. The audience was open-mouthed.

A talking cat!

Oh, that devil Krak. I knew exactly what she had done. She was using Eyes and Ears of Voltar gear. She had a mike hidden in the cat's ear to direct it and she had a speaker hidden in the cat's tie so she could talk through the cat. And she'd even trained the cat to open and close its mouth when it heard the speaker going. (Bleep) her!

Snide was in on it! The fool had fallen for it as an unheard-of novelty! Snide said to the cat, "The Whiz Kid seems to doubt your credentials, Lawyer Calico. Perhaps you had better convince him."

The cat-Krak talking through her right-hand mike -said, "He should understand the PURR-pose of the law."

The girl with the cards had recovered. She raised a card:

LAUGH

The audience didn't read the card. They were saying, "A talking cat." "It's really talking." "What a cute cat." "Listen to it TALK!"

"Snide," said the cat, "you have a very disorderly audience." It turned to the seats. "Order in the court!"

Snide banged a gavel. "I am sorry, Lawyer Calico. Continue with your credentials."

Krak, watching her TV of the show, leaned into her right-hand mike. The cat seemed to say, "Cats are the very basic of the law. All cases begin with a CAT-alogue of crimes."

The girl raised her card:

LAUGH

It wasn't needed. The audience was laughing.

Where the Hells was Krak operating from? I grabbed the walkie-talkie. I said, "That's her, making the cat talk!"

"We'll handle," said the security officer back.

"Continue," said Snide to the cat.

The cat seemed to say, "The law violently opposes anything DOG-matized. Police CAT and MOUSE with criminals. Criminals RAT on one another. Judges think everyone is a RAT. And the end product of any legal action is a CAT-astrophe!"

The audience, uncoached, was screaming with laughter.

"But Snide," the cat seemed to say, "I'll give you the final proof that I am indeed a lawyer cat."

Krak was whispering orders into her left-hand mike.

The cat got up off the chair and jumped onto the Whiz Kid double's knee. It seemed to pull something out of its harness. It was sniffing into the Whiz Kid's pockets. Had it put something in one?

"What are you doing?" said Snide.

"I'm doing what every lawyer does," said the cat.

Suddenly it grabbed the double's wallet out of his hip pocket!

It clenched the wallet in its teeth.

It ran off the stage!

THE DOUBLE RACED AFTER IT!

The audience howled with laughter.

I screamed into the walkie-talkie, "FOLLOW THAT CAT!"

Ignoring the red lights, security men were all over the stage, racing across it after the cat.

I leaped up and sped after them!

On their trail, I burst out of an outside door just in time to see the cat streaking down a long flight of steps. The double was speeding in its wake.

A van, different from the one they had had before, was sitting at the bottom of those steps!

Yikes! The cat had planted Unit B on the double and had the Unit A on itself! The follow-compellers!