The Invaders Plan (34 page)

I called Bawtch and had him shoo them out. They were both crying so hard that even Bawtch was impressed. He stood for a full minute in the door just looking at me. I can tell when people are impressed.

Later, I was much braced up. Psychology is a wonderful thing. No wonder the governments on Earth will use nothing else!

Well, one thing had gone right today.

I reached for some of the food the dancing girl had left on the desk but it wasn't there again.

At midnight, lying on my desk in the darkened office, I was rudely awakened by the noisy entrance of a visitor. It was a Manco Devil. I knew right away he was from Manco because, over there, their Devils are not the ordinary woods Devils so common to other planets. Manco Devils have horns and long tails which end in a spike and they are a dark, flaming red.

I wondered for a moment why it was that Bawtch had let him in without formal announcement, but a glance at my watch showed that it was midnight and, of course, Bawtch was not there.

I told him not to make so much noise: he would bring the "bluebottles" – the Domestic Police – or, much worse, a Crown inspector down upon us. But he did not pay much attention, so I composed myself as courteously as possible to give him the attention due to a caller.

He had a form in one hand and a pen in the other and he seated himself in the interview chair and with those little shrugs and hitches one makes to get comfortable, began his interrogation.

"Name?" he asked. And when I told him, he, of course, wrote it down on the top of his form.

I was, however, curious. "What form is that?"

"Form 345-678-M," he said.

I told him I was not familiar with that form. He crossed his legs and leaned back. His voice was tolerant. "It's the form one makes out to see if you know."

"About what?" I asked, for I myself am very skilled in interviewing.

"That is the thing we are to establish," said the Manco Devil. He seemed a bit annoyed at my denseness.

I took umbrage at this. "Then how can I answer unless I know about what it is that I don't know?" This did not phase him in the slightest. He twitched his long, spiked tail and somehow this was a signal for the toilet door to open and in came the whole crew of Patrol Craft
B-44-A-539-G,
the one that had taken Heller to Blito-P3 on the original mission. I was a trifle amazed for I had supposed they were safely down in the bowels of Spiteos. But then I realized Snelz had gotten them a pass so it was all right. There were twenty of them, but of course they had come in through the secret doortrap I would have cut tomorrow so that ceased to bother me.

They stood around my office in a ring and then, at a signal from their craftleader, they sat down very smartly at attention.

The Manco Devil said to them, "He claims he doesn't know what he is not supposed to know." The craftleader looked at me critically and then back at the Devil. "Very good. Then we shan't tell him." The crew got up then and ate the baklava the dancing girl had left on the desk, took out electric whips and began to beat me.

I cowered back, stung, and looked for succor to the Devil. But the Devil had changed to Lombar Hisst!

So I had no alternative. I tried to draw my stungun. Then I was horrified. I couldn't get it out of the holster!

The electric whips were sizzling. I looked frantically toward Lombar but it was now Crobe! I wished the occupant of the interview chair wouldn't keep changing. How could I be expected to answer questions if the interrogator kept shifting?

The crew had now finished the baklava. So they turned to the chair for orders. Old Atty was sitting there now.

"He doesn't know that he doesn't know," said old Atty.

The craftleader drew himself up and gave old Atty a Fleet salute, which I thought was very nice of him and showed respect for Atty's age. "Sir," said the craftleader, "we absolutely will not tell him unless we are very generously bribed." That satisfied old Atty but he was now the Devil again. The Devil said, "Now, in the matter of your employment as handler for the King of the underworld on his secret mission, we come to the matter of pay." The patrol craft crew had vanished.

I said, "I will need more pay than that as I am deeply in debt, have drawn all my pay for the next five years, in fact. After they relieved me from this mission I was penniless and couldn't borrow a cent from my driver. When I received the notice that I had been cashiered, Meeley turned me over to the bluebottles." The Devil said, "Actually, that's why I am here. To collect the bill for this interview." I tried to tell him his addition was faulty, that he had added a lorry load of tup onto it, but he would have nothing of that. He leaped to his feet and his pen turned into a torch.

The wall was directly behind me. I could back up no further! He rammed the flaming torch straight into my stomach and it was agony!

I started to run but the faster I ran the more I was in one place. The Manco Devil got around in front of me and jammed the flaming torch into my stomach again.

With a tremendous effort I tried to draw my gun and shoot him but I could not get it out of the holster.

I leaped up on the desk. But
Tug One
came screaming through the room, pulled me off the desk and exploded in midspace with the loss of all hands.

"That's your fault," said Commander Crup. "I wash my hands of the whole affair." Then the Devil was there again. He had two lepertiges, one on each side of him. He was barely able to hold them back. He yelled at me, "If you find out, I will turn these animals loose and they will rip your guts out!" This intimidated me. I screamed at him, "I'll pay your bill!" I rushed over to a filing cabinet and I got out huge handfuls of counterfeit credit notes and began to throw them at him.

Abruptly the room was empty!

With a groan, I lay back down on the desk. After I had recovered a bit, I looked down and was interested that the flame had not scorched the secret papers I was carrying for the Emperor.

Thankfully, I dropped into a troubled sleep.

I hit the floor with a crash. It was midmorning.

From a long way off, Bawtch was saying, "You only stamped half of them yesterday. I was taking it easy on you. But there's months of accumulated work undone." I got my eyes open. Bawtch was standing there with a yard-high stack, trying to step over me and get them on the desk.

I struggled to get up. Then I must have fainted. For when I came around again, there were two more clerks in the office. Bawtch was saying to them, "But if he dies on us, we won't ever get these forms stamped." Probably I fainted again. When I came around, I had been dragged over against the wall and there were four clerks in the office.

"I think he's sick," said one of the clerks. "His forehead is hot."

"Be just like him to get one of these new fevers and infect the lot of us," said Bawtch.

"I think we ought to call in a doctor," said another clerk.

"Yeah, you can't have him just dying in here," said another clerk. "It would stink the place up and it's bad enough already." After what may have been hours later, I came around again. I was being laid out flat on my back. There was a doctor there – I recognized him; he was what they call a "medical doctor" because they push out medicine; this was one the prostitutes of the district used; he gave them pills which caused abortions when they got pregnant. He was unpacking a bag on my desk.

He bent over me and pushed a strap down on my forehead and I tried to worm away, thinking he was about to give me a shock. He might not heed the penalty for shocking an officer. These medical doctors are pretty criminal.

The strap turned out to be a temperature gauge. "He's got a fever," this medical doctor said.

"Probably infect all of us," said Bawtch.

The doctor said, "Open your mouth!" and he forced it open. "Aha! Swollen tongue!" He stood up, evidently talking to Bawtch. "It's an obvious case of
diploduckus infernam,"
he said learnedly. "The new disease that came in from Flisten," he added learnedly. "He will break out in black spots in a couple days and then they will suppurate."

"Is it infectious?" said a clerk.

"Very," said the doctor.

The clerks hastily got out of there.

"How am I going to get these papers stamped?" said Bawtch.

That was out of his field so the doctor said, "I am going to make out a list of pills, powders and wonder drugs. They don't work but he will feel more comfortable."

"We can't buy those," said Bawtch. "He doesn't have any money on him. I looked."

"What?" roared the doctor. "You mean you got me all the way over here . . ." Oh, he was angry!

He tore up his list, threw his things back in his bag and stamped out. He slammed the outer door.

"Now you see what you've gotten me into," said Bawtch. He left. And
he
slammed the door.

I lay there waiting for the black spots to break out and then suppurate.

I was probably unconscious for a long time and when I woke again it was quite late in the day. The patrol craft crew had left the toilet door open and the afternoon sun was slanting in.

My driver was kneeling there. He had been shaking my shoulder. He turned into a Crown inspector and then back into my driver.

"I know you told me I mustn't go there. But this noon when I finally heard you were sick, I thought I'd better go down to the Apparatus hangar and tell them." I must have passed out again. He shook me awake. "When I told Heller he said he was very sorry to hear it and to tell you he hoped you got better real soon and he asked if there was anything he could do to help." Probably I passed out again. He was shaking me. He turned into the Turkish dancing girl. She put her arm under my shoulders and was lifting me up a bit.

"Heller sent this up," she said. "A whole case of canisters and ten pounds of sweetbuns. Here, put your mouth around this space canister tube. It's green sparklewater. Now draw in. That's the way." It tasted just like
boza,
a drink they make in Turkey from fermented wheat. It proved she was, in fact, real and that she
was
a Turkish dancing girl. I was afraid it was all an illusion.

I must have passed out for it seemed to be some time later. My driver had an arm under my shoulders and was making me take some more sips.

He must have spent an hour or two at this for the sun was way down when he said, "Now that's the end of that canister." And laid me back.

My tongue wasn't so swollen. "What happened to the dancing girl?" I whispered. "Did she leave when I couldn't pay her?" The room was quite dark the next time I awoke. My head felt much clearer. My tongue wasn't swollen at all. My driver was holding me up again. "This is one of the sweetbuns Heller sent. We have lots and lots of them. Take a small bite and chew and don't choke on the crumbs." I got some of it down. My head seemed clearer shortly. But I now had a pain in my stomach.

"I can't pay the doctor for the pills," I told my driver frankly.

"Doctor?" said my driver, quite surprised. "Oh, you mean that medical doctor. We were thinking back and you know, we don't think you had anything to eat or drink for three days. Two days without water can make anybody crazy. Run a fever, too. Heller said so. He told me what to do. Snelz told him it would upset you if he left the hangar, it being a secret mission and all. So he couldn't come himself and that's why he had to tell me what to do." My driver was fumbling in his tunic. He got something out. "Look, he paid me the two credits I spent and he gave me twenty credits for all the work I did running about and all. So here's yours." He was holding a five-credit note in front of my nose.

I decided instantly not to kill Heller today.

The pain in my stomach vanished!

For two days Bawtch waited for me to break out in black spots which would then suppurate. He must have had a hole in the door he could look through, for he was his old, very assured, nasty self when he came in.

I had had no more hallucinations, only a few nightmares. I had slept most of the time. And I sure had soaked up sparklewater and gorged sweetbuns.

Bawtch put the tall stack on the desk. "I am certainly glad we can get this work stamped," he said. "The whole section labors like mad making up papers and it is very bad for morale when they don't get stamped in the end." I was feeling pretty good so I just stamped away. The whole pile was finished in an hour.

"There isn't any more work for you," said Bawtch with some hostility. "So when are you going to get out of here?" He must have seen I was thinking of something else. He really bored in. "Your driver took five credits over to Meeley and you've got your room back." I hastily looked into my pockets. Sure enough, the (bleeped) driver had not given me the five credits but had given them to Meeley! That meant I would have to move out of this office: I would be about and visible!

The cheer I had been feeling evaporated. The specter of Lombar seemed to loom outside the building.

"This is
not
your living quarters!" said Bawtch getting almost savage. He had said it so hard his side-blinders flapped.

I decided to take a hard line with him. I realized that I had, in effect, been hiding here. As I was never in my office, no one would ever look for me here. I said, "I have some strategic decisions to make. This
is,
after all, my office! I have a perfect right to sit here and think!" The only answer he had was a sort of "Hmph." He flapped out.

I found out almost immediately why Bawtch had wanted me out of the office. The contractor people! They bustled in with a few glares at me, probably thinking I had wasted part of their day, and began measuring and pounding in the toilet.

Oh, well. Nothing that minor could drive me out into the threatening daylight.

The escape plan the contractors were doing reminded me of dear Bugs Bunny. I wondered what
he
would do in circumstances similar to mine. I couldn't remember any comparable strip and thinking about it unfortunately brought my thoughts to Heller and the mission.