Mission: Earth "Disaster" (36 page)

Bury had caught sight of Heller. He was staring. He went white. "WISTER!"

Rockecenter would have gone on talking but it began to be borne in upon him that he had lost his listener. He glanced with annoyance at the group which had entered. "Tell the general," he said to Heller, "that I am not leaving yet." He turned back to Bury. "I am not through telling you what I think of you! And I will remind you, Bury, that what I think is important! LISTEN TO ME!"

Bury was making little stabbing points at Heller, "Sir, that's your ... sir, that's the fuel man.... Sir, oh, my God!"

"Fuel man? Fuel man?" said Rockecenter. "What are you gibbering about now?"

"Perhaps I had better explain," said Heller. "We have come to make you a fair offer that can settle all this oil trouble, Mr. Rockecenter."

"Who is this?" Rockecenter asked Bury. "What's he talking about?"

"Sir, that one in uniform is Jerome Terrance

"And this," said Heller, "is Mr. Israel Epstein. He controls the companies that own the microwave-power setup, Chryster Motors, gasless carburetors, gasless cars—and he controls, as well, all the U.S. oil reserves now possessed by Maysabongo."

Rockecenter sat down very suddenly. He stared at Izzy. Then he said, "The Jew. You're that (bleeped) Jew!"

Heller said, "I think you two can make a deal that will make everybody happy."

Rockecenter was still staring at Izzy. Then his eyes went slitted and a look of cunning came over his face. "Do I understand that you own the patents of that carburetor and those cars and that microwave-power setup?"

"Companies that I can control do," said Izzy. "They're right here." He opened his case and took them out, advanced and put them on the huge desk.

Bury instantly shifted over behind Rockecenter and inspected them. He whispered something to the effect that they were valid.

"You mean," said Rockecenter to Izzy, "that you are willing to turn these over to me in exchange for peace?"

"Not exactly," said Izzy. "Turn them over to you, yes, but there is something we must have in return."

"Oh," said Rockecenter, seemingly disappointed. Then he glanced sideways at Bury and looked again at Izzy. He smiled a slight, strange smile. "So what do you want in return, Jew?"

Izzy said, "We have certain options we will exercise tomorrow that will put us in possession of billions and also the shares of every oil company. You may have 49 percent of the money and 49 percent of the shares."

"That's giving me even more," said Rockecenter. "So there's something crooked afoot here."

Izzy said, "Mr. Rockecenter, you once had a wife. You also had two sons."

Rockecenter looked like he had been shot.

"According to earlier family wills," continued Izzy, "a son of yours would receive a ten-billion-dollar trust fund. You are trustee of that fund. What we want you to do is recognize Delbert John Rockecenter II as your son."

"I am withdrawing any rights I may seem to have," said Heller.

"This allegation is preposterous!" blustered Rockecenter.

"The documents are right here," said Izzy and drew out copies and passed them over.

Rockecenter stared at them, stricken. The Wall Street lawyer scanned them. Bury whispered something in his ear. Heller only caught a phrase that Miss Agnes had botched it.

"We want," said Izzy, "that acknowledgment. We also want you to pass over that trusteeship, for your son here is now the required age. We also want you to make a will leaving him your entire estate, appointing me executor."

"And if I do this thing?"

"The oil companies can have these patents, the U.S. will have its oil. The refineries will get back in operation...."

"They can't!" said Rockecenter. "The protest marchers claim they're radioactive! They won't let them open!"

"I will promise to see that they are decontaminated and gotten' back into operation," said Heller.

"It's all propaganda anyway!" said Rockecenter. "So what's a little radiation in people's tanks? Riffraff anyway!"

"I can also call the marchers off," said Heller.

Rockecenter sat back. "You're pretty smart, Jew. If I only have 49 percent of the oil companies, you will control their boards and policies. I'll have to resign from everything!"

"That's a little more drastic than was intended," said Izzy. "But let me point out that you would be the wealthiest man in the world."

"And if I say no?" said Rockecenter.

"Why then," said Heller, "I'm afraid Mr. Bury here will be defending you in court on a charge of conspiracy to murder your wife and son. I'm sorry to put it so bluntly. And all the rest of this ' will also go to court and you'll lose anyway."

"That's blackmail!" said Rockecenter.

"That's murder," said Heller coolly. "And when you add it up with millions of other murders in the name of war, millions of babies dead from your abortion programs and hundreds of millions of lives ruined with inflation just so you can make a quick buck with oil, I wonder that they haven't hanged you a hundred million times over. I'd be glad to hold the rope myself!"

"No, no," said Izzy hastily. "This is a business conference."

"Well, this bird has caused me a lot of trouble," said Heller. "What he calls business is just banditry on a planetary scale. He's just a pirate and I don't like looking at him or talking to him. I disagree completely with the generosity of your offer, Mr. Epstein."

"Mr. Wister," said Izzy, "please stand over to the side, there, and let me continue these negotiations. Mr. Rockecenter can recognize a profit when he sees it."

A scowl drew in the prune wrinkles of Bury's face. He knew he was looking at the good-guy-bad-guy conference approach. He bent toward Rockecenter to whisper some advice but he didn't get a chance to utter it.

Rockecenter whispered at him and then looked at Izzy with a sly expression.

"Jew," said Rockecenter, "I'm afraid we'd have to call in attorneys to draw up such a deal. We – "

"No, you wouldn't," said Izzy, opening his case. "You have Mr. Bury here and our attorney Bleedum was up half the night typing all this out."

One by one, Izzy laid the assignments of patents to the oil companies on Rockecenter's desk. Then he laid out the transfer of Maysabongo oil. Then he drew out the assignment of 49 percent of the sell-option profits and followed it with an assignment of 49 percent of the oil-company shares. Then he laid out the document assigning the trust. Then he laid out a will.

Rockecenter and Bury read them.

Rockecenter said suddenly, "All right. I will sign them. Mr. Bury is a notary. We will execute everything right now."

"And call off the war?" said Heller.

"Of course," said Rockecenter. "You can even have my sacred word on that. When we're through, I'll just ring the president and that will be that."

Rockecenter drew the pack of assignments and contracts to him. Smiling slightly, he rapidly began to sign on every signature place. He finished straight on through to the will and scrawled his name on it with a flourish.

"Now, Jew," he said, pointing to Izzy, "it's your turn."

Izzy grabbed the pack, bent over, adjusted his spectacles and began to sign.

"Now you," said Rockecenter to Twoey when Izzy was done. "There's a document here relating to the trust that requires your signature."

Twoey shuffled forward and scrawled his name.

Rockecenter looked at Heller, then at Bury. "Doesn't he need to sign a quitclaim?"

Bury nodded and went to his attach case and got out a blank form. He brought it over to the desk.

"Now," said Rockecenter, "Bury, as a notary, will need your I.D. to verify your signatures, so lay your wallets out right here." He tapped the middle of the desk.

All three put their wallets there.

Bury looked at them and the signatures. He got busy with notarial stamps and worked down through the pile. Rockecenter whispered something to him.

The Wall Street lawyer got to the last sheet. It was Heller's quitclaim. "You've signed this Jerome Terrance Wister." He finished notarizing it. "But I am going to have to have one signed Delbert John Rockecenter, Junior, from you also. I'll get another blank."

He walked around Heller and went to the wall where his attache case lay. He reached in and handed Heller the second quitclaim.

Heller bent over to fill it in and sign it.

He had his eye on the top of a solid silver inkwell.

In distortion, he saw Bury draw! : Behind his back, the gun came out like a striking snakel

Heller whirled. His hand shot up!

He caught Bury's wrist, forcing it toward the ceiling! THE GUN WENT OFF!

Heller bent the arm into a smashing blow!

He made the clenched gun strike Bury's head!

The scalp parted to the bone!

"HOLD IT!" came a shout.

Heller whirled.

The library doors had slammed open.

THERE CROUCHED AN INFANTRYMAN WITH A BAZOOKA!

TWO MORE SOLDIERS HAD THEIR RIFLES ON HELLER!

Bury fell to the floor behind the couch, blood pouring from his head.

He had taken the gun with him!

Heller stood there, unarmed. The soldiers were too far away to rush.

Rockecenter stood, with a sharp, crazy laugh. He scooped up all the papers. He scooped up their wallets. He reached down and grabbed a huge steel briefcase. It had a circular dial combination. He opened it. The only thing that made it different from a safe was that it had a handle.

"You think I'd keep my word on a crazy deal like that? All I wanted from you was the patents! Now we can nullify and hide this work and keep the world on profitable oil." He peered over at Bury on the floor. The man appeared to be dead. "I'll take the rest of this along to keep it out of plotting hands." He stuffed the papers and wallets and all Izzy's papers into the case, got them out of the way of the beveled, fitted edges, closed it and spun the combination.

A major general came rushing in, followed by a squad.

"General," said Rockecenter, "hold this riffraff until I return. Then, as we will be at war, we'll have work for a firing squad!"

Has Rockecenter foiled the entire plan?

What will Hisst do to retaliate?

Find out in MISSION EARTH

Volume 9 Villainy Victorious

About the Author L. Ron Hubbard

Born in 1911, the son of a U.S. naval officer, the legendary L. Ron Hubbard grew up in the great American West and was acquainted early with a rugged outdoor life before he took to the sea. The cowboys, Indians and mountains of Montana were balanced with an open sea, temples and the throngs of the Orient as Hubbard journeyed through the Far East as a teenager. By the time he was nineteen, he had travelled over a quarter of a million sea miles and thousands on land, recording his experiences in a series of diaries, mixed with story ideas.

When Hubbard returned to the U.S., his insatiable curiosity and demand for excitement sent him into the sky as a barnstormer where he quickly earned a reputation for his skill and daring. Then he turned his attention to the sea again. This time it was four-masted schooners and voyages into the Caribbean, where he found the adventure and experience that was to serve him later at the typewriter.

Drawing from his travels, he produced an amazing plethora of stories, from adventure and westerns to mystery and detective.

By 1938, Hubbard was already established and recognized as one of the top-selling authors, when a major new magazine, Street and Smith's Astounding Science Fiction, called for new blood. Hubbard was urged to try his hand at science fiction. The redheaded author protested that he did not write about "machines and machinery" but that he wrote about people. "That's just what we want," he was told. The result was a barrage of stories from Hubbard that expanded the scope and changed the face of the genre, gaining Hubbard a repute, along with Robert Heinlein, as one of the "founding fathers" of the great Golden Age of Science Fiction.

Then as now he excited intense critical comparison with the best of H. G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe. His prodigious creative output of more than a hundred novels and novelettes and more than two hundred short stories, with over twenty-two million copies of fiction in a dozen languages sold throughout the world, is a true publishing phenomenon.

But perhaps most important is that as time went on, Hubbard's work and style developed to masterful proportions. The 1982 blockbuster Battlefield Earth, celebrating Hubbard's 50th year as a pro writer, remained for 32 weeks on the nation's bestseller lists and received the highest critical acclaim.

"A superlative storyteller with total mastery of plot and pacing."—Publishers Weekly

"A huge (800+ pages) slugfest. Mr. Hubbard celebrates fifty years as a pro writer with tight plotting, furious action, and have-at-'em entertainment."—Kirkus Review

But the final magnum opus was yet to come. L. Ron Hubbard, after completing Battlefield Earth, sat down and did what few writers have dared contemplate—let alone achieve. He wrote the ten-volume space adventure satire Mission Earth.

Filled with a dazzling array of other-world weaponry and systems, Mission Earth is a spectacular cavalcade of battles, of stunning plot reversals, with heroes and heroines, villains and villainesses, caught up in a superbly imaginative, intricately plotted invasion of Earth—as seen entirely and uniquely through the eyes of the aliens that already walk among us. With the distinctive pace, artistry and humor that is the inimitable hallmark of L. Ron Hubbard, Mission Earth weaves a hilarious, fast-paced adventure tale of ingenious alien intrigue, told with biting social commentary in the great classic tradition of Swift, Wells and Orwell.

So unprecedented is this work, that a new term—dekalogy (meaning ten books)—had to be coined just to describe its breadth and scope.