Mission: Earth "Disaster" (28 page)

He suddenly changed his plans. He felt the need of support. He knew where Captain Tars Roke was quartered: it was not out of his way. Still striding along, baton tucked under his arm, the gold citations on his tunic gleaming, feeling like an interloper, he approached the senior officers' quarters of the Royal staff. He went up the curving staircase to the front door.

Two more Apparatus guards!

They barred his way.

"I want to see Captain Tars Roke," said Heller, "the King's Own Astrographer."

One of the guards looked toward a screen and pushed a button. A series of names rolled off. He looked back at Heller. "You must not have been around lately, spacer. There's no Roke on this list and it hasn't been changed for months."

"He was transferred to Calabar," said the other, consulting another screen. He looked up suspiciously. "What's your name?"

"Thank you," said Heller. And he turned and walked down the staircase at a military pace. His back felt like it had holes in it.

So that was why Gris had felt he could kill him safely! He had had a communication line with Roke in a code of reminiscences he knew they could not decipher since there was no cipher in it. He felt a twinge of guilt: They had removed poor Captain Roke to cut his communication line. This was adding up to something very bad.

Well, he would go it without support.

The Emperor's quarters lay just ahead, round and imposing, blazing with light. A squad of Apparatus troops marched by, relieving guards and replacing them.

An armored vehicle, an oddity in Palace City, clanked in what appeared to be a constant tour around the imperial quarters.

Heller felt he was getting deeper and deeper into very dangerous territory. Every foot he travelled forward was one he would have to travel back. The only thing which kept him going was the belief that if he could get the proclamations signed, it wasn't likely they would then instantly shoot him. He didn't know he was carrying forgeries which could bring about just that. He stood on the walk, looking up at the curving, gold-and-silver-encrusted staircase that led to the imposing entrance.

Ordinarily, palace guards would be standing there every few steps, their silver helmets blazing. There were none.

Heller gave his baton a bitch and sedately went up the wide steps.

He passed through several halls of state. At this late hour they were deserted, dimly lit, their trappings faintly gleaming.

He went down a hall. He was in the Emperor's living area now: these doors must open into the rooms of Royal staff. They all must be asleep.

His bootbeats echoed far too loudly through this place. His reflection in the polished walls walked with him. It seemed to make him far too evident. Even in ordinary times an officer intruding here would have amounted to near sacrilege. He had been brought up impressed with the majesty and might of Palace City. Doing what he was doing even in daylight and for a better reason would have made him tense.

He went through a mammoth arched door and found himself in the antechamber of the sleeping quarters of the Emperor. And right there his luck ran out. Two Apparatus officers, uniformed in black, were sitting in chairs on either side of what must be the Emperor's bedroom door.

They saw him.

They stood up suddenly.

Heller paced to the middle of the room. He eyed the pair warily. They were both big men. The one on the left was sallow, with the twisted face of a criminal. The one on the right had deeply pocked skin and a snarl for a mouth. These were hoods, not officers, despite insignia and dress.

They were armed with long electric swords! A baton was no match for those!

"What in Hells is an officer of the Fleet doing here?" the one on the left said, advancing. He had his hand on his sword hilt.

"I have urgent news for His Majesty," said Heller. "I must get to him at once."

The one on the right, still beside the door, glanced at it and back at Jet. "He must be out of his wits!"

"What's your name?" snapped the one on the left, still advancing.

Jet knew he was taking a chance. He said, "Jettero Heller, Grade X. I am claiming the Royal officer right of–"

"Heller?" The one on the left took one more forward pace peering. "By blast, it IS!"

The electric sword swept out of its scabbard in a sizzle of sparks!

The one by the door started forward, drawing.

Heller looked at the snapping shaft of the first one's sword. It was coming straight for him.

Time seemed to slow down.

That blazing length was rushing straight at his stomach! One touch of it and he would burst into flame. He could not deflect it with his metal baton.

Heller did a sidestep. He pulled in his stomach. The sword went by him.

He seized the officer's wrist.

The other man was coming, a blazing shaft in his hand.

Heller turned the first officer and, gripping the sword wrist, directed the blade straight at the rushing second man whose sword was upheld for a stroke.

The first man's sword stabbed into the other one.

The second officer's sword, sweeping down at that instant, decapitated the one that Heller held.

Flames and smoke made two blinding pillars.

Heller had jumped back, protecting his eyes from the bursting glare.

The floor was alight with fire. The room was blurred by the billowing smoke.

The tinkle of a red-hot button sounded as it bounced across the tiles.

Heller grabbed a hanging from the wall and beat out the fires.

He stopped and peered through the smoke at the hall entrance door. Had either of this pair hit a pocket alarm?

What a spot to be in! The least they would suspect was attempted assassination!

His only salvation, Heller realized, was to get to the Emperor. How you could explain two dead guards, he didn't know.

He rushed to the bedroom door. It was locked!

The keys must be in that mess of ash. At the risk of a burned boot he pushed at the cremated residue. Yes, there were the keys. Red-hot!

He took a corner of the hanging he had used to put the fire out and picked up the keys. The hanging cloth scorched but he could hold on.

Hastily he tried three keys, one after the other, his fingers blistering even through the cloth. He glanced toward the hall door. No one coming yet. The fourth key turned the lock but its metal was too pliable now and it jammed. He worked it amidst oil smoke that poured out around it. The lock opened. He could not withdraw the key.

He glanced once more at the hall entrance door. Nobody yet.

He stepped into the Emperor's bedchamber and bolted the door shut behind him.

He had had no real idea what he had expected to see: probably Cling the Lofty lying asleep on a huge bed all in silver and gold. But that wasn't what he saw.

The place looked like a hospital!

The Emperor was lying on a narrow metal cot!

The place was filthy! 

It stank!

There was a huddled form under a sheet. Heller stepped forward and lifted up the cloth.

Cling the Lofty, in all his public portraits, was a tall, well-formed monarch of middle age, perhaps ninety or a hundred, imperious, arrogant.

This creature here was so far from that that Heller thought for a moment he might have come into the wrong room.

There was a side table and a glowplate. Heller turned it up.

Yes, this was the same man. But he must be at least 180. He was shrunken and gray. Only wisps of disordered hair remained. The face was covered with age mottles but they were not what gave the impression: It was that he looked like someone who had starved to death: Even the outline of the few remaining teeth could be seen through the skin of the face. As Heller peered, the man's eyes fluttered open. They were bloodshot in the extreme. A palsied hand came up. Then fear was replaced by some sort of recognition.

The voice quavered, "Are you a Royal officer?"

"Your Majesty," said Heller and was instantly on one knee.

The skeletal hand reached out, feebly raking at Heller's chest. "A real Royal officer," he said, as though it was too much for him to believe.

"At your service, Your Majesty."

"Oh, thank the Gods. At last! In the name of all my lineage, get me out of here before Hisst has me killed!"

Heller was about to speak. There was a sound of boots in the antechamber. Many! One of the officers had hit an alarm.

Jet gripped his radio. "NOW!" he said.

The door was bulging inward!

Apparatus guards were shouting outside.

Somewhere a siren moaned and then began to climb toward a shriek. Other signals joined it.

Heller was at the door. It burst wide!

The first guard in received the slash of the baton across his face. He flinched and his blastrifle was in Heller's hands. Its butt smashed the guard's chest in.

Heller dropped on one knee.

His finger hit the firing lever.

The bucking rifle sprayed an arc into the rushing patrol. Flame erupted in their place.

Fragments of the patrol spattered through the room. Heller stood up. A guard was moving. He fired once more.

There was only smoke and dismembered bodies in the antechamber.

The scream of gongs and sirens was deafening.

The clamor in the building increased.

Heller stepped back into the room.

He grabbed a covering and wrapped it around the Emperor. The man was desperately clawing the air and Heller suddenly realized he was making grabbing motions at a cabinet over at the side.

Heller grabbed at the cabinet and swung the doors open. It contained the crown and chains of office and a carved diamond seal. Heller swept them all into a bag that lay beside them. Cling was nodding now.

Heller picked the Emperor up, adjusted the blanket to hide the bag and ran through the antechamber.

Heller carried his burdens covered up so no one could see what they were. Streams of people were tearing out of the building, trampling one another, eyes wild.

He went down the broad stairway, carried like a chip in a storm.

Sirens and gongs were ripping the air to bits.

He tried to turn but the running mob was pressing him forward.

With great trouble he forged sideways to his left. He was suddenly out of the panicked, racing throng.

The Emperor and the symbols of state weighed close to 150 pounds and with this increased gravity after so long on Earth, he found it difficult to run. But he headed north toward the mountain.

As he turned around a building he was hit with another screaming mob, fleeing south and east. He had to back up to the wall and brace himself against their buffeting passage.

It was clear again. He began to run. He headed across a park.

Another compact mob was coming like a battering ram. He crouched down in the lee of a statue and let them tear by.

Then he was up and running again. He went around the northernmost building and spotted the conduit path. He raced up it toward the tower.

His heart was pounding and his breath was getting short. His arms were beginning to ache. Yet he still had a half a mile of uphill running to go and it lay through rocks.

Stumbling, narrowly avoiding boulders, leaping across pits, he raced upward toward the tug. He thought his lungs were going to catch fire.

The last hundred yards were agony.

He reached the airlock. The Countess Krak had it open. Her strained face was a blur in the dark.

Heller put his burdens in the airlock.

With his last breath, he shouted, "Maximum rise!"

The tug vaulted skyward.

The Countess got the airlock outer door shut. She spun its lock. She turned on a light.

"Your hands!" she cried. "They're blistered!"

Heller, slumped on the floor, nodded. "Yes," he panted, "things were pretty warm."

The nauseating twist of going through the time barrier gripped them. They went through it and the tug continued to claw for sky.

The Countess got some false skin from her bag and spread it on his hands.

"I heard your 'Now!' said the Countess, "and I pushed the firing button. Nothing happened!"

"Plenty happened," said Heller, holding his chest and trying to get his breath. "You sent a stream of false gamma straight at their alert system. It set off the alarms that tell them the mountain's black hole is about to blow up. I almost got killed in the stampede! They're probably jammed a thousand deep at the exit gates of Palace City. You did fine."

He took a couple more deep breaths. "Oh, am I out of condition."

He struggled up and got to the pilot panel, yanked out the identification of Survey Ship Wave, fumbled in a bag and plugged in Cruiser Vanguard, Routine Patrol. "Where are we?" he yelled at the tug.

"Entering lower range of outer defense perimeter," said the tug.

"Three hundred and forty-four miles altitude. Speed accelerating to fifty miles a second. No beams on us."

"We may have made it," said Heller. "But that doesn't mean much. We have no place to go."

The Countess Krak followed him back into the airlock. He was picking up the burdens he had put aboard. "Did you get them signed?"

Heller didn't answer. He made his way to the small medical room. He dropped the bag in the corner and laid the blanket-wrapped body on the table.

The Countess Krak watched noncomprehending. "I said, did you get them signed?"

Heller was strapping the body down securely and covering the wasted limbs. "No," he said.

"Oh," moaned the Countess Krak.

"Other duties got in the way," said Heller. He was feeling the aged wrist for a pulse.