Mission: Earth "Disaster" (31 page)

And here he himself was, in the grip of the army, and couldn't help him!

And he knew he didn't dare stay on Earth more than another five weeks. To be here longer would be fatal to the Emperor and the base!

Driving to the army headquarters in jeeps, there was far less traffic than usual on the streets.

"You're awful lucky to have a ride," the captain said. "When these tanks are empty, that's it. I don't know how we're going to fight this war on no gas."

"I thought you said we'd grab the Maysabongo supplies as soon as war was declared," said Jet.

"I said 'oil,' not gas," replied the captain. "Maysabongo has nailed down all the reserves of crude oil and even though that's seized, it won't do us much good. It's got to be refined to get gasoline and kerosene and the refineries all went radioactive. Jesus, I don't know what use they're going to make of you in Intelligence. You don't seem to have even one brain cell in your head."

"Well," said Jet, "it's a good thing Maysabongo is no bigger than a postage stamp. It won't take much gas."

"It won't take any gas at all, you dumbbell. We'll use a hydrogen bomb." I

"Then why mobilize all these men?" said Jet.

"Questions, questions. It's not yours to reason why. Its just yours to do and die. Didn't they teach you anything at all in the ROTC?"

"They should have taught me to keep my mouth shut," said Heller. !

The captain seemed to find this uproariously funny. "That's the spirit. Grin and bear it. True grit. I got a feeling you'll make it after all."

Heller was very far from laughing. The thought of Maysa-bongo, which had been friendly to him, obliterated, put a new stress on his situation.

The day was very hot: New York in July can be sweltering. He hadn't noticed it before, as the Silver Spirit had been air-conditioned, as had the condo. But riding in this open jeep, the city felt like a steam bath.

They drew up and double-parked outside the armory. Jet picked up his duffel bag and they nudged him inside. They got a receipt for him from the guards and drove away to round up other deserters.

Jet found himself in an enormous hall. They had put camp desks and folding chairs all over the drill floor. The place was crammed with perspiring people and awash with fluttering paper. The place was boiling hot.

A guard shoved Jet into a corner of the room where some medical equipment was set up. He waited and waited, watching men go through a physical examination.

Suddenly somebody asked him for his papers, somebody else told him to strip, somebody else told him to stand on a scale, somebody else told him to cough, another said to jump up and down and put a cold stethoscope against his chest and somebody else told him to get dressed.

A doctor signed some papers and a guard told Jet to go over to another part of the armory. In a mob of young men he waited and waited. Then somebody lined them all up three ranks deep and started looking at their papers.

Somebody said to Jet, "You're an officer candidate. These are enlisted inductees. You're in the wrong place."

They indicated he should go to another corner of the armory. There was a colonel there, very old, apparently very deaf, sitting at a desk with lots of orders in front of him. Jet put his papers down in front of him.

"Who are you?" said the colonel. 

"Wister, Jerome Terrance, it says there," said Jet.

"What do you want?" said the colonel.

A sergeant got up from his desk and looked at the papers. "He's in officer candidate, ROTC. He's supposed to be sworn in."

"I don't care what he was born in," said the colonel.

The sergeant made a sign by raising his hand.

"Oh, sworn in," said the colonel. "All right, Blister, stand in front of the desk and raise your right hand."

Heller's hair stood up. As a Royal officer, taking an oath of allegiance to some other power could get him a fast court-martial.

"Repeat after me," said the colonel. And he rattled off the oath of allegiance to the United States.

Heller rattled off the oath of allegiance to His Majesty, Emperor of Voltar, in Voltarian.

The colonel threw the papers to the sergeant and got back to his own work.

"What the hell was that?" said the sergeant. ' "The oath of allegiance," said Heller with a lisp.

"It didn't sound like you repeated it," said the sergeant.

"I have trouble with my tongue," said Heller, speaking in a muted way.

"Oh," said the sergeant. "Now go over there and get fingerprinted and things."

Heller got into another line and waited and waited. He was getting worried. Night had fallen. Time was running and he didn't know how he was going to get out of this.

Eventually it was his turn. They rolled each finger in ink and made a card. They put him in front of a camera.

"This is a G-2," somebody said. "Henry, you got any Intelligence blanks?"

They didn't. A man went out and was gone a long time. He came back with the proper I.D. blanks for an Intelligence officer. They typed it out, put his picture and a thumbprint on it and laminated it. They gave him his I.D.

They pushed him over to another part of the armory. There was a row of typewriters along the wall. A single officer, a colonel, was sitting at a single desk in a cleared space. He was beefy and perspiring. His desk was piled two feet thick with loose sheets of paper. Men were sitting on their baggage all around. Aside from the colonel and the enlisted men at the typewriters, Heller was the only one in uniform.

Jet asked one of the waiting men, "What are we doing here?"

"We're waiting for our orders so we can be shipped off to camp." He waved a hand toward the single colonel at the single desk. "Fatty there might or might not get it sorted out tonight. You're in the army now. Hurry up and wait."

Heller glanced at his watch. It was well past midnight. Saturday was here. He had to find out about Izzy. He had to get out of this.

He looked at the colonel perspiring away at his desk. He looked at the typists along the wall.

It was terribly hot in the place. The only cooling they had was a huge fan on a column stand and it was idling away blowing air at an angle toward the ceiling.

Heller walked over to the typists. As he was in uniform, they didn't seem to mind his reading over their shoulders.

They were typing orders for drafts of men to this place and that. They were very backlogged.

Heller saw a corporal coming from the fingerprint area. He saw him put a sheaf of papers down beside the typewriter of an enlisted girl. Heller drifted over.

Heller hoped his own papers would be amongst them. Maybe he could intercept them and do something. He walked over to the girl but just as he was beside her, she got up and walked over to the colonel's desk and laid some papers down.

Jet looked at the file carbon of what she had just typed. It was a list of men being ordered to Camp Dix. The original had just been delivered to the colonel's desk. The name, WISTER, Jerome Terrance, 2nd Lieutenant, Army of the United States, headed it!

He was too late!

He hastily put the carbon in his pocket but that wouldn't solve it.

He looked around. He went over to one of the men sitting on their baggage. He said, "Look at that poor colonel. He must be dying of the heat. You're in the army now. You must learn to respect your officers and help them."

The man looked at him. "Well, yes, sir," he said doubtfully.

"See that fan?" said Heller, pointing to the stand. "Turn it off, move it in closer, point it at the colonel and turn it on again. Got that?"

"Yessir," said the inductee.

He went over, turned the fan off, and moved the stand up beside the colonel. He pointed the fan level. He turned it on.

AN EXPLOSION OF PAPERS FLEW EVERYWHERE!

The colonel slammed his arms down and tried to contain the blizzard. Then he came up like a raging bull.

The inductee who had done it scuttled off, instantly lost in the mob.

The colonel kicked the fan over with a raving curse. Papers were still flying about the armory.

Heller rushed up. "Sir, I'll give you a hand!"

He promptly began to gather papers up, his fast eye taking in every piece as he stacked it.

The enlisted men had rushed from their typewriters and were helping out and Heller had to work fast.

In five minutes all the papers had again been collected. But Heller had the one that sent him to Fort Dix. He also had the typist carbon.

He went over to a desk whose typist had stepped out for a coffee break. He rapidly retyped the draft order to Camp Dix, omitting his own name.

He put more paper in the typewriter and, using the format he saw on other orders lying there, typed a set of orders which sent WISTER, Jerome Terrance, 2nd Lieutenant, Army of the United States, to the "Anti-Saboteur Unit" as officer in charge, detached duty, on his own cognizance and to report only to the Secretary of War.

He put his own file and the carbons in the proper baskets. He went down the line of typists and collected other orders to be signed and took the lot to the colonel.

"These are urgent, sir," he said.

The colonel grunted, mopped his brow and signed the lot.

Heller took them back to the typists, put his own in his pocket, picked up his duffel bag and walked out.

Ten minutes later, he stepped into the Silver Spirit Rolls Royce.

"Are you in the army now, sir?" said the chauffeur.

"I've already fought my first campaign," said Heller. "But the Empire State Building must be swarming with saboteurs. Take me there at once!"

NOW to find out what had happened to Izzy!

Driving through the deserted streets of very late night New York, Heller removed his tunic and snipped the ROTC shoulder patch away. He polished up the gold castles which represented Intelligence and burnished his single rank bars. He redonned the tunic and slipped his orders and I.D. into his side pocket.

He stopped the chauffeur on 34th Street and went forward to the Empire State Building side entrance on foot.

Two New York policemen were there, lounging on either side of the door. They looked at him suspiciously. He went on in.

At the elevators, the boy on night duty let him into the car. Jet gave the number of his floor. The boy turned around to him. "I can take you up there but they might not let you out of the car."

"Who's 'they'?" said Heller.

"New York City Police," said the boy. "They've been blocking off half of that floor since last Tuesday."

"Take me anyway," said Jet, very curious.

The boy shrugged and they shot upwards. The car stopped and the door opened.

In front of nun, in the floor lobby, sat FIVE cops! Four instantly came to their feet, clubs alert. The fifth, a police captain, sat at a desk which blocked the hall that led to all of Jet's and Izzy's offices.

Heller walked up to the captain. He wanted to get into these offices and look around: maybe Izzy had left him a note. "I have to search the place," he said.

"No, no," said the captain. "Nobody gets in or out of this area." 

"What's the matter?" said Jet. "A bomb alert or something?"

"Worse than that," said the captain. "A bunch of desperate criminals are holed up in the Maysabongo Legation right down that hall."

"What have they done?" said Jet.

"Littering," said the captain, "and a court injunction has denied them the use of sidewalks."

"Aha!" said Jet. "The very people I must interrogate." He held out his Army I.D. and his orders.

The captain waved them aside. "Listen, Army, these people have immunity inside their legation. So far it's just a civil matter. But we can't let you pass. Their phones are shut off, so don't try any funny business."

"I must see them," said Heller.

"Sorry, Lieutenant. That's quite impossible. We've got our orders. Nobody in or out and that means nobody, including you. Come Monday, after war is declared, army commandos will hit this place and clean it out. But up to then, no dice. That's the way it is, Lieutenant. The Maysabongo Legation is sealed off. Get lost."

Heller said, "Can't I even go into the other offices?"

"Nope," said the captain. "This whole half-floor is shut and there's cops on every entrance. So bye-bye, Army. Sergeant, escort him out of the building." On the street again, Heller walked back and got into the Rolls.

At least he now knew where poor Izzy was!

"Take me home," he told the chauffeur.

Balmor, despite the hour, met him at the door. "Oh, sir, how opportune. Miss Joy is just this minute on the phone."

Heller walked across the salon and picked up the instrument. "I didn't get a chance to phone, dear."

"When you didn't call to say you arrived, I got worried. How are my two warriors?"

"Well, one is now in the army and the other is lying here snoring off a pint of cream."

"How dreadful!"

"Oh, cream won't hurt him. It's pasteurized."

"I mean the army."

"They wouldn't take him. Criminal record. Illegal alien. They only like to send good fellows out to be shot."

"Jettero, be serious."

"It is serious, but I'm not going to discuss it past the ears of NSA. How's the sick man?"

"He just lies there. The doctor says he is better but he doesn't seem to know where he is and he doesn't speak. That's what I'm worried about. He may not recover. What's this about the army?"

"Don't worry about that. I have it under control. I may be busy for a couple days. Love you."

"You take care of yourself, Jettero. This planet isn't worth it."

"It's the only planet we've got at the moment. Take care of things, dear."