The Invaders Plan (11 page)

When the Domestic Police ran her down, she was the center of a ring of children she had recruited from the slums. These children had been taught to crack any safe and get by any alarm system. It was estimated that their total "take" was in the millions. And they might have been going yet except that she also apparently had schooled them in the techniques of silent murder with no weapons and this hallmarked their every job.

The children involved were executed but Countess Krak was simply handed over quietly to the Apparatus for their own uses. And here she had been at Spiteos for almost three years.

Her first act was a juggler who, with his feet, kept twelve objects in the air at once while spitting fire at them. The second act was two females in lepertige costumes who jetted loops of a liquid, that looked like blood, into fancy patterns in the air and appeared to catch them in their mouths. Colorful.

The third act was a fellow who could triple-somersault from a standing position and explode ban-goes at each loop. He had other tricks.

There was no danger that any of these people would ever betray Spiteos. Their tongues had been cut out and they were illiterate. They brought fancy money.

But Lombar was not paying much attention. He turned to me. "Soltan," he said, "I really don't think you actually envision the real scope of this." He shoved the stinger at some switches and a big screen on the floor in front of us began to roll off views of the hundred and ten planets of Voltar. Near views, far views. Mobs in streets. Industries. Plains geometric with farms. Plains teeming with animals.

Lombar, ignoring the remaining acts, hit another switch. Views of the manors of Lords. Views of Governors' palaces. Views of the Summer Imperial Residence. And then a long string of views of Emperors.

"Power," said Lombar. "Authority! The right of life and death over trillions of peoples." He shut the machine off. He turned to me. "In not too long a time, Soltan, all that will be ours. Ours completely and utterly!
These are big stakes!

"The present rulers are decadent. Our planning and timetable cannot fail." He gestured at me with the stinger. "But there is one weak point in all this. And that weak point is
Earth."
He put his hand on my knee. "That is the key, the important key to everything. Soltan, when an instant invasion of Blito-P3 seemed imminent, I almost died. It would have been the end of everything.

"Soltan, you weren't raised in the slums. You don't know what a dream of power can be. You don't understand the true necessity of wiping out the riffraff from the ghettos, purifying the blood of planets, sweeping away the weak.

"These Emperors do not know what to do with their power. It takes ambition! Yes! And merciless execution of plans. They diddle with their wars, they do nothing about their own homes! Even when they conquer a planet they do not know what to do with the riffraff in the population!

"We use evil to fight and sweep away evil! And we
can
and
will
prevail!" For a moment his eyes flared. There was madness in Lombar and sometimes it showed through.

He patted my knee. "But I am counting on you, Soltan. There must be no Imperial interference on Blito-P3. We care nothing for the salvage of that planet! But we need it desperately. You
must
keep every Voltarian interest in it nullified! Do you understand?" He waited for no answer. The trained acts were through. He stabbed the stinger at a console. Flashing call lights went on in the other room. The glass wall turned black.

Doctor Crobe and Countess Krak came hurrying in through the anteroom and stood inside the door. They didn't expect any applause. They never got any.

"Crobe," said Lombar. "I've got a job for you. We have a special agent going to Blito-P3 and I want you to fix him up." Crobe rubbed his hands and rubbed his nose. He liked this.

"Krak," said Lombar, "we have this special agent to train for Blito-P3. Language." There was something in their attitude, some eagerness or enthusiasm that hit Lombar Hisst in the wrong place. He was suddenly on his feet and across that room like a reptile.

He grabbed Crobe by the coat and snapped his face within an inch of his own. "And (bleep) you, no tricks! No fancy eyes that see through walls! No fingers that become pistols! No telepathic brain receivers!" He had hit Crobe in the leg with each separate order. "Just an average job!" And again he hit Crobe in the leg. He heaved him away.

Lombar turned to Countess Krak. "And as for you, you perverted whore," he snapped her within an inch of him, "off the high tower you go if you teach this agent one single word, one single trick of espionage!" He slammed her against the wall so hard she bounced.

Then in a perfectly mild voice, Lombar said, "Officer Gris will tell you what to do. I don't want to hear any more about it. Get out!" Lombar went back to his chair and took a chank-pop. "Gods, they stink!" he said as he sprayed his face and nose. Then, relieved, he waved a hand to the door.

"Get on with it, Soltan. I don't want to hear another word concerning it or Jettero Heller. He's yours now." As I left, he was moving toward the chest where he kept the Royal robe.

At the end of a long, black corridor of Spiteos, going toward my quarters, I thought I heard voices.

I looked quickly about: there should be guardsmen stationed around here. I couldn't see any! The possibility of Heller having escaped shot me full of panic! I could visualize my own body being tossed off the highest tower!

Voices! I paced quickly forward, silently. They got louder. My Gods, they were coming through the closed door of my room!

I halted. I could not make them out. I took a long breath and with a textbook police entrance, I yanked the door open and leaped inside, off to the left, too fast to be shot.

Jettero Heller and the platoon commandant were sitting at the table!

They were eating sweetbuns and drinking sparkle-water. Heller was reading the morning newssheet and laughing about some item. There was a new Homeviewer on a wall shelf that had never been there before and a diddleband was playing some goofy tune.

The secret guards that were supposed to be there weren't outside and here sat their commander taking refreshment with his prisoner! What a homey scene!

I knew right then what Lombar was up against trying to work with the Apparatus. Here was a prisoner, supposedly tightly guarded and incommunicado, completely unguarded and provided with the latest news!

The platoon commander must have read it on my face. He sprang back so suddenly his chair went flying! He came to a terrified attention and crossed his arms in an
X
on his breast, eyes straight ahead but glazed with fear.

"Oh, let him finish his sweetbun," said Heller with an easy laugh. "He and I have just had a peace conference and we're celebrating. I let him and his men know where I am at all times and they bring me the necessities of life from the Camp Endurance canteen. Amity prevails." But the officer knew what he might be facing from me even though he must also understand I would say nothing in front of Heller. He bolted out of the room like a hunted game animal.

Heller tapped the newssheet. "I see that the mysteriously missing Jettero Heller has been found and is now vanished again on a secret mission for the Grand Council." It amused him. And I could see it on the paper, front page, photos of Heller and all. I could read, "FAMED COMBAT ENGINEER . . ." (Bleep) those reporters! Well, we didn't control all the press – not yet!

Heller had tossed the newssheet down and was looking at me brightly. "Hello, hello, hello," he said. "What's this?" He got out of his chair to come over to me. "Been promoted, I see. Grade Eleven no less!" Suddenly I realized why Lombar had promoted me. It made me one rank higher than Heller, easier to control him.

But if Heller had recognized that I was now his senior, he certainly didn't show it. Grades Ten and Eleven are still relatively low and there is even a saying in the services, "Seniority amongst junior officers is like virtue amongst whores." He came over and pumped my hands. "Hearty congratulations. I am sure it was well deserved." Sarcasm? I looked closely. No, just the expected cliche of the officer corps.

"This means," said Heller, with mock solemnity, "that you owe me a dinner in the first nightclub we encounter!" Ah, yes. Traditions of the Royal services. When one gets promoted, every other officer he meets on the first day is owed a dinner in the nearest nightclub at his expense. It's costly and a lot of fellows just go hide that first day.

He took the gold chain off me. He went over to the brightest glowplate and held the emeralds close to his eye, turning them this way and that. "Uhuh!" he said interestedly. "You'll be glad to know they are real emeralds." He kept turning them and looking. "These three at the top of the number are just faintly off-color. But," and he tapped it, "this bottom one is a truly valuable stone. It's from the South Vose diggings. The flaw helps refraction. Lovely green. Remarkable!" Heller came back over to me and hung the chain around my neck and pumped my hands again, smiling, really glad to see me promoted. Then he went back to the table. "Have some sparklewater? There's plenty more in your cupboard now." I finally grasped what had happened. Those (bleeped) junior officers at the club had put a roll of money in that bag they had packed for him. I'd glanced through it but it must have been hidden in an athletic suit or something. I felt a chill. What more had I missed?

Casually I strolled around the far side of the table. He was sitting down now. He was wearing a shiny white, thin flying suit and a pair of ankle-high hull boots. I let my eyes drift over him without appearing to search. Then I saw it: a short blastick, the 800-kilovolt type that would tear a wall apart. They are about six inches long and he had it shoved just inside the top of his right boot.

I went over to a mirror, pretending to inspect some of my face patches that obscured the damage suffered at the club. I could watch him in the mirror. From the litter of papers and canisters he picked up a short red rod. Another weapon! I planned exactly which way I would dodge, how I would dive at him.

"They put this whizzer in my bag," said Heller, holding it up. "They must have thought I was in trouble. You ever see one of these?" And he tossed it to me!

I fumblingly caught it. "They're quite recent," he continued in an interested voice. "You hold them carefully by the bottom ring and they send up a flare you can see for five thousand miles! Fact. Blow your hand off if you aren't careful." He was finishing off his canister of sparklewater. "They sent a blastick and a thousand credits: must have taken up a collection. But I've got a lot of money on account at the club and the manager will pay them back." I felt a surge of contempt. The dumb fool. With a thousand credits he could have literally bought his way out of Spiteos and if he had had any sense he could have
blown
his way out with that blastick. And here he was laying it all in the open. And he hadn't even guessed what was in store for him. On the subject of intrigue he didn't have two brain cells to click together. What a stupid (bleepard)!

Watching him cheerfully sipping sparklewater and idly skimming the sports page, my contempt began to be tinged with pity.

"We've got lots to do today," I said. "You've got two appointments, one with the Countess Krak and the other with Doctor Crobe."

"Hey, look at this!" and his nose was buried in the sports page. "Timbo-chok just beat Laugher Girl in a five lap free-for-all at Mombo Track! Well, well! That Laugher Girl was the fastest car at Mombo. Who'd have thought it possible? Let's see, here, who was driving . . . ?"

The interior of ancient Spiteos is a labyrinth of windowless, black stone. Above ground level it is mainly a deserted hulk but huge with rooms and vaults and tunnelled passageways. The original inhabitants of the planet believed in fortress security – but it had availed them not at all when our forefathers came.

When we left the room, we were already pressed for time. I had to make a stop at the armory – to get a dummy-loaded, dud blastick to secretly exchange for the one he was now carrying. And Countess Krak was notorious for not wanting to be kept waiting: her reaction to anyone being late could be deadly.

Accordingly, I was not pleased at all when Jettero Heller insisted on walking. I supposed he wanted the exercise – athletes are a trifle loony on the subject – and, obedient to my orders not to arouse his suspicions, I had to acquiesce. So we avoided the first stage of tubes and began a wandering course through the upper reaches of Spiteos, a badly lit stroll through endless mazes of dust.

He was wearing the hull boots. Now, these boots have peculiar soles: they alternate bars of powerful magnets with ridges of a coarse fiber. To walk on a metal wall or deck, the magnet bars are left down – and they are very handy in weightless space and could undoubtedly save your life. But when walking on stone or nonmagnetic surfaces, one simply clicks one's heels together in a certain way and the magnets draw up, leaving one walking on the rough fiber ridges.

But Jettero Heller was walking on stone floors and steps and he had left the magnets
down!
Clickety-clack, clatter, clatter! Loud! He sounded like a tank!

It got on my nerves. All he had to do was click his heels and the magnets would draw up and leave him walking silently.

In espionage one has to cultivate a soft tread. A good agent practices and prides himself on being able to walk with total silence on anything, even gravel. The success of a mission – yes, and even his life – may depend on how silently he can move about.

Heller was not only walking with the subtlety of a tank column, but every ten or fifteen paces he would do a little extra skip, a real loud snap of metal on stone. Deafening!

He seemed much interested in the walls themselves and now and then would rap them with a ring he wore. "These ancients sure could build," he commented many times.