Mission: Earth "Voyage of Vengeance" (14 page)

The marshals had seized the double in efficient execution of their duties and marched him to the side exit.

I freaked. I was so startled at the fate of that poor double that I almost missed what happened next. It was worse.

Bleedum's back was visible as he turned and walked toward the main door.

The security officer was there. He blocked the way. His face was glaring around Bleedum, straight at my viewer. He reached out with his thumb. He touched a spot just to my viewer's right. The thumb withdrew. He was looking at the makeup paint that had come off on it. AHA!

Then something very peculiar happened.

A black-sleeved arm reached out. A hand grasped the security officer by the elbow.

The security officer got an amazed expression on his face. Then he turned and was marched into the empty hall. He stopped at the top of a long flight of stairs.

The door to the courtroom closed behind them, shutting out the hubbub.

"I don't think you heard the judge. Neither Heavenly Joy Krackle nor Jerome Terrance Wister are now wanted for anything at all."

The security officer heard wide-eyed as he stood teetering.

"And I think when you go to collect your fee, you'll find a hole where Dingaling, Chase and Ambo offices once stood. So skip the zeal, mister. This is the only pay you're going to get."

And teeter, teeter, fall away.

The security officer went down the steps all arms and legs.

THUD!
He hit the bottom.

Philup Bleedum's face was reproving. "Was that necessary?"

"Maybe not necessary, but oh, so satisfactory."

Wait! Wait! There was something wrong here. I was all confused. What had I missed?

I could see Bleedum's back as they got in an elevator.

Then I could see down the courthouse steps.

I saw an arm raised in signal.

I saw a BLACK van speed up and stop at the curb.

I saw a hand open the van side door. AND THERE INSIDE WAS THE COUNTESS KRAK!

"We're free as birds," said Heller, as he climbed in.

Oh, Gods! All today, due to my impaired sight, I HAD BEEN WATCHING THE WRONG VIEWER!

It had been Heller in that courtroom! NOT the Countess Krak!

Emergencies were piling upon emergencies thick and fast. I knew my time was running out and that the forces of evil had united their fangs against me. But I could still act.

If Madison lost his Whiz Kid double and imagined it had been my fault, the PR man might turn on me and decide to make ME famous. Nobody could live through that.

I called Raht on the two-way-response radio. "Crobe," I said urgently, "has become supernumerary.

What facilities do you have? Talk fast, we haven't got much time."

"The two guards that brought him from the base left the Zanco straitjacket. We've got a couple guards here at the New York office."

"Good!" I said. "Tear right over to Bellevue Hospital, kidnap Crobe and send him back to base with orders to hold him there."

"Right away!" said Raht.

I clicked off. It was all I could come up with. I wondered if I could do more to rescue the double. Factually, I didn't feel well enough to go over to Bellevue myself-and part of this was, I had to admit, a fear that they would latch on to me. No matter how enamored one might become of the general subject of psychiatry, it was a wise thing to stay away from psychiatrists. Just because the king needs a headsman is no reason to invite the hooded axe-swinger to dinner.

My eyes hurt and I could not see very well. I closed the shades and lay down. But I could not relax. Some sixth sense told me that the troubles I was in were coming to a crisis.

At length-it must have been past midafternoon-I was nagged by a sense of duty. I should at least look at the viewers.

Examining them, I saw that my mistake in getting them mixed up was quite natural. I had never marked them "Krak" or "Heller" but only
K
and
H
which look enough alike to confuse anyone.

My enemies were back at the condo, saucy as you please. The Countess Krak, helped by her maid, was putting her clothes away. Heller was on a telephone in his condo den, talking to Florida. Izzy was uncomfortably perched in an easy chair beside the fireplace to Heller's right, staring owlishly at Heller.

"Good enough," said Heller. "The extra canal should give you enough water for the vats, so that's okay." He hung up. He turned to Izzy. "They're doing quite well, considering. The project should be finished in a few weeks. How's it going with you, Izzy?"

"Nerve-wracking," said Izzy. "But I can't complain. I've done a study as to how our Maysabongo company can buy up all oil reserves in the United States. But you can look at that when you come in. This is your home, after all. You shouldn't be working in it."

The Countess Krak stepped to the door. "Goodness me. The butler didn't bring your coffee, Izzy." She called, "Balmor! Please see that Mr. Epstein gets some of that new peppermint coffee, and right away."

"Oh, you shouldn't bother with me," said Izzy, standing now, looking at her worshipfully.

"Nonsense," said the Countess. "After all, you're our best friend. Somebody has to look after your ulcers! Sit down. Besides, I have a question for you. Have you ever heard the initials 'F. F. B. O.'?"

"Why?" said Izzy guardedly, perched nervously on the chair edge.

Heller said, "She thinks we should go on and clean this whole mess up. If we don't watch it, we'll be reforming the entire planet."

"Well, we
should
clean it up," said the Countess. "Somebody was paying that double and giving him orders. And all he knew was the letter designation 'F. F. B. O.'"

"I'd leave it alone," said Izzy. "Maybe it's a secret underground organization like the Elks. KKK stands for the Ku Klux Klan. They burn blacks and Jews. It isn't very healthy to get mixed up with things like that. Almost as bad as Indians."

"You don't know, then," said the Countess Krak. "Well, never mind, I'll find out. Here's your coffee coming."

I writhed. There she was, pushing, pushing, pushing! If she followed that trail it would take her to Madison and then to ME!

My headache felt worse. I laid down again. I had to be in some kind of shape this evening. I must not arouse the suspicions of Adora and Candy that I had a plan and meant to run.

A buzzing sound. The two-way-response radio. I dug it out wearily.

"Sorry I'm so late reporting in. What I'm about to tell you happened around noon."

"More catastrophe," I said.

"Well, kind of," said Raht. "It's got me worried."

"For Gods' sakes, quit garbling! Give me your report!"

"Well, I got your order, grabbed the two guards from the office and the Zanco straitjacket and a gas bomb, stopped by the air terminal for tickets and then went to Bellevue Hospital.

"When we asked for Crobe, Reception said he must be in, because some marshals from the court had taken a patient named Wister up to see him a while ago and had left, and Crobe was undoubtedly busy in his consulting rooms.

"We went up. We walked into Crobe's suite. A buck-toothed kid was lying on the table and he had a shock machine half connected to him. He was out cold and a syringe was sticking in a vein. Looked like he had been drugged and was being got ready for a shock but somebody interrupted it.

"No Crobe. But the door to the inner office was partly open. We thought maybe Crobe was in there. But we never found out."

"WHAT?"

"Yes. All of a sudden we went out like a light. All three of us. Felt like blueflash."

"You're dreaming! How the Hells could Voltarian blueflash get in Bellevue Hospital?"

"Well, I don't know," Raht said. "But when we came to, the kid was gone, and I'll be blessed if Crobe wasn't lying there where the kid had been. And Crobe had the Zanco straitjacket on him."

Horror surged into my throat as the realization struck me. If this had happened shortly after noon, Heller and Krak would have had ample time to get back to their condo where I had seen them. THEY HAD GONE FROM THAT COURT TO THE HOSPITAL! But this was not the source of the horror.

"Raht," I said anxiously, "did you have anything in your pockets from me? That gave my name or address?"

"I only had my own wallet and, of course, my identoplate."

"Nothing with my name or phone number?"

"No. Why should I? Anyway, this was all very peculiar. I thought I had better tell you because it might have been a Code break. That was a Voltarian straitjacket: had the Zanco label on it."

Then I had another agonizing thought. "Did the New York office guards have anything in their pockets that would lead to me?"

"Well, they had their identoplates. And Crobe's and their airline tickets through to Afyon, Turkey. But that doesn't account for the note we found on Crobe when we woke up. It said, 'Take this murderer home and see that he stays locked up.' It was written in Voltarian and in a very neat Voltarian, too. Are you sure that isn't a
Code
break of some sort?"

I was running out of adrenaline to sustain my shock. Wearily, I said, "So where is Crobe?"

"On his way to Turkey, of course. But I don't see how that bucktoothed kid got off the table, drugged like he was, and exploded a blueflash and..."

"Raht! Stop babbling!"

"But when we left with Crobe in a bag, the Bellevue desk wanted to know why we were taking Wister out in a straitjacket, because their record now showed he had passed the court-ordered mental examination and had been pronounced totally sane. This whole thing has been crazy."

I interrupted him. My head ached too much to listen to him further. "You fouled up as usual! If I wanted Bellevue blown up because of a Code break, I'd blow it up myself. There's no depending on you!"

"Blow up Bellevue?" Rate said, "Oh, please don't do that. They might remember us at the desk! I don't think..."

He was hopeless. I broke the connection.

I sat there sweating. Maybe Crobe had talked while Heller and Krak had him. Crobe knew why I had sent him to New York-to do in Heller.

My palms were wringing wet. I heard something in the areaway and almost jumped out of my skin.

Krak and Heller might turn up anywhere! At any moment!

But it was only the girls coming home from work.

Oh, by the Gods of space, it was a good thing I had a plan and could run. For, adding to my anxiety, they came in chattering about how nice it would be when they had all the homos reformed.

It was all I could do to sit there and not speed out the door screaming that very instant.

Life is often too much for one.

I rose in an exhausted stupor the following day. It had been very difficult the night before. It had taken four bhongs of marijuana to get any performance going at all. My throat was parched. I was having trouble seeing. The threat of homo demonstrations was coming through like a nightmare.

I drank a quart of grapefruit juice almost without stopping. I ate a package of Oreo cookies. I still felt terrible. I needed something to start me going.

By the simple action of staring through the bandages at my viewers, I got it. Raw terror!

Crobe's had gone blank, for he was way out of range. But Krak's and Heller's were very live.

They were sitting at breakfast amidst the greenery of the roof terrace, the April sun sparkling on the snowy linen and tableware.

Heller was neatly dressed in a three-piece gray flannel suit, impeccably groomed, obviously ready for the day. The Countess Krak was in a flowy sort of morning gown. The whiteness of it hurt my eyes. She was delicately eating orange ice from a crystal and silver cup, but her attention was on the papers.

She looked up and, in a somewhat explosive voice, said, "Well, I never! Not one single line about the dismissal of the criminal charges or the suits. Not a word about the double's confession. Just some idiocy about a nationwide cat hunt."

Heller looked sideways. The cat was on the terrace lapping cream. "Mister Calico," said Heller, "you better lie low. They're on your tail at last."

"Jettero," said the Countess, "you are not taking this seriously."

"How can you take newspapers seriously?" said Heller.

"I do take it seriously. This is black propaganda by deletion. They haven't said a thing to cancel the impressions they created earlier. They're character assassins, that's what they are. And there's no remedy in these fake courts. When I think what they have said about you, my blood seethes! And now that we've handled it all, they don't recant. Jettero, this is a
very
managed press."

"It's just the way they are," said Heller. "I'm too busy to get involved in a 'Clean News for Clean People' campaign."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm on it," said the Countess Krak. "There's the doorbell."

"What are you up to?"

"I sent Bang-Bang out on what he calls a 'clandestine reconnaissance.'"

"And top of the morning to you both," said Bang-Bang. He had come out on the terrace. He was carrying a burden of books. "Every dictionary I could locate in the stores."

The Countess Krak grabbed them.

The butler got a chair for him, a waiter handed him coffee and Bang-Bang sat and watched the Countess tearing through the dictionaries.

"F.F.A." said the Countess Krak. "Future Farmers of America. F.F.V. First Families of Virginia."

Heller said, "I shouldn't think the First Families of Virginia were paying anyone to become a notorious outlaw."

Bang-Bang said, "You never know, Jet. My people were some of the first Sicilians in New York, and look at me!"

The Countess put the last dictionary aside. "Oh, dear. It isn't in any of them. What
could
F. F. B. O. stand for?"