Death Quest

  I had not realized how extensive this yacht was! But two hundred feet of vessel with lots of beam must make her at least two thousand tons. Music salon. Nightclub. Theater. Steam baths. Breakfast dining room. Luncheon dining room. Banquet hall. Gymnasium. Inside swimming pool. Sun swimming pool. Squash court. Race track . . . race track? Yes, there it was marked, and beside it, Miniature car garage.

  Cabins, cabins, cabins. The ship must have room for fifty guests or more. In suites, yet! What a yacht! More like a liner! And apparently fairly new, judging by the modernness of the decor. It must have cost a fortune to build and was costing another one to keep up.

  He found what he thought he wanted: Owner’s Master Suite. He traced out the ways to get to it from where he was.

  He went up another deck. He halted, listening, before he went into a passageway. He looked around carefully. Polished walnut and mahogany and brass with colorful tiled decks.

  In a rush he went to another cross passage, stopped and listened. Footsteps on the deck above. He froze. They receded.

  He got something out of his sack. I held my breath. Was he going to shoot up this ship? Blow it up?

  He moved into the passageway again. There was a big impressive brass-bound door ahead of him. Owner’s Master Suite, Drawing Room. He passed it by. Next door, Owner’s Master Suite, Bathroom. He passed it by. Next door, Owner’s Master Suite, Dressing Room. He went by it. Then, Owner’s Master Suite, Bedchamber. He halted.

  He didn’t try the knob. He went silently to work with a picklock.

  PART FIFTY

  Chapter 5

  He went in through the door so quickly and shut it so silently behind him that the surprise was absolute. The Countess Krak was propped up in bed, wearing a blue negligee. A silken cover was over her bent knees against which she was holding a neglected magazine. She was looking out through a square, brass-bound port toward fires on the beach. But her posture showed no interest.

  Something must have made her aware that someone else was in the room.

  She whipped her head sideways. She went white!

  “THE BLACK!” she cried.

  With all her might she hurled the magazine across the room!

  It struck him with a thud in the chest.

  “No, no,” he said. “It’s me. I’m sorry I frightened you!”

  She peered at him, up on her knees now, on the bed. Then, “Jettero, get away from me! Your sins have blackened your face.”

  “Dear,” he said, “you’ve got to listen.”

  “There is nothing to listen to!” she flamed. “You lied to me about other women! You married some cheap harlot! And then you married another one! You have blasted all my hopes and dreams! Get out! I never want to see you again!”

  “Dear, are you going to listen to me or do I sit on you!”

  “Don’t you touch me, you philandering, unprincipled beast!” Her hands had been grasping about. She seized a bottle of sun lotion and hurled it at him with all her might!

  It grazed his head and crashed against the wall behind him!

  She leaped off the bed, grabbed for a chair to throw at him. It raised my hopes. She could kill men!

  Heller suddenly dived. He hit her legs just above the knee.

  She went down with a thump against the Persian carpet.

  Instantly she was back at him, scratching, trying to bite.

  He caught her arms and then quickly shifted to grip both her wrists with one hand. He sat down on her and with one of his thighs, pinned her kicking legs to the floor.

  “You brute!” she screamed.

  She tried to bite the hand which held her wrists. He moved it and her wrists up above her head and held them against the floor.

  “You,” he said, “are going to do some listening!”

  “I won’t!”

  With his free hand he was snaking his sack toward him. He fumbled inside it, brought out a stack of papers and laid them on the floor.

  She struggled valiantly to get loose. Then she lay back, breathing hard, her eyes flaming. “Now I suppose you are going to rape me like you did those other women!”

  Heller had taken a piece of paper off the stack. He opened it and shoved it in front of her face. “Look at this.”

  “I won’t!” She turned her head away from it.

  Remorselessly, using the elbow of the arm that held her wrists, he forced her head over the other way toward the paper he held. She closed her eyes, tightly and violently.

  Heller said, “LOOK AT THAT PAPER! What is it?”

  “You can prove nothing to me!” she said.

  “Answer me. What is that paper?”

  “You’re hurting me. Ouch.” She looked. Her eyes flamed. “It’s that nasty suit by that awful Mexican (bleepch)!” She struggled to get free.

  He shifted the paper in his hand and pushed it at her face. “Read that paragraph! What is the date in it?”

  She was hissing and snarling. Then, “Ouch. You’re breaking my arms! ALL RIGHT! It says you married her twenty-six months ago!”

  He threw that aside and took another paper. She tried wildly to get loose.

  “Look at this paper! What is it?”

  “You’re bruising my neck. It’s that suit from that whore, Toots Switch!”

  He shifted the paper. “Read that paragraph! What’s the alleged date?”

  “It says you married her fourteen months ago! Why are you torturing me? I hate them. I hate them! I hate them!”

  Heller had the front page of a newspaper. “Look at this news story. What is it?”

  “You’re breaking my legs! It’s that awful Maizie Spread.”

  “What does that line say?”

  “That you came to her father’s farm a year ago. And oh, you brute, I bet you had fun! I hate her!”

  He now picked up a booklet. “Now look at THIS. What is it?”

  She tried to get away from him again. She closed her eyes. He applied pressure. “It’s your Fleet combat engineer log!” she snapped.

  He opened it. “Look at this. Look at these pages. Do you see Planet Earth? Blito-P3?”

  She struggled, but she scanned the pages. “No!”

  “Now look at this last page.”

  Suddenly she freed her wrists and grabbed the log. He must have relaxed his grip for now she was able to sit up. She did so, eyes riveted on the log.

  She turned it over to verify it was actually the log. Then she tore through the pages again. Then she stared at him. She said, “You never even saw this planet until a year ago! And you never even landed then!” Her eyes were wide with astonishment.

  Suddenly she began to cry. She reached out and put her arms around his neck, clutching him convulsively, sobbing.

  There was a rap on the door. A gruff voice said, “Ma’am, are you all right in there? A sentry reported something breaking somewhere this end of the ship.”

  She raised her head, swallowed hard and made a determined effort to speak.

  “No, nothing is broken now!” she cried. “Thank Gods it’s just been mended!”

  The footsteps went away.

  PART FIFTY

  Chapter 6

  After a while, the Countess Krak stood up and began to pace, barefooted, in her negligee, back and forth across the yacht bedchamber. She seemed very agitated.

  Heller, sitting in the middle of the Persian rug, still in his black underwater suit, watched her and I watched his viewer. Hers was still off.

  She stopped suddenly, wringing her hands. “Oh, how I have wronged you!” she said with a wail.

  “No, no,” said Heller. “We’ll just forget about it and start over as though it never happened.”

  “NO! I refused to accept your word. I didn’t trust you. I told you to your face that you were a liar. Oh, how AWFUL! I even sullied the honorable word of a Royal officer of the Fleet! You will never forgive me!”

  “But I do forgive you.”

  “Oh, no! It is too horrible!” She got down on her knees beside hi
m. “I can never make it right! It’s an absolutely unforgivable thing I did!” She sprang up again and began to pace. “Oh, dear! Oh, dear! How can I ever make it up to you!”

  “By just being your beautiful self,” said Heller.

  “Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “I believed those false suits. I believed the newspapers. I believed what those fiends said but I didn’t believe my darling Jettero!”

  She dropped down on her knees beside him once more. “I was absolutely HORRIBLE!” She was staring at his face. “Oh, heavens! I even slashed your face to ribbons with that bottle I threw!”

  Heller touched his face, looked at his fingers to see if there was any blood. Then he touched a bandage. “Oh, you mean these. Those are just razor cuts. Nothing.”

  She had a hand tentatively touching his chest. “Is there anything broken here? A rib? Oh, dear,” she wailed, “I smashed your chest with that magazine!”

  “Magazine?” said Heller. “Oh, that. It didn’t seem worth ducking.”

  She was touching his head and shoulders anxiously.

  Then she looked down and let out a shriek. “Your hands! They’re cut to bits!”

  She had his palms lifted and was staring at the torn gloves. There were some tiny spots of blood.

  “It’s nothing,” said Heller. “I just got them climbing up a wire rope.”

  “OH!” she wailed. “You’re just trying to spare my feelings and make me think I didn’t cause these AWFUL injuries. But I did!” She suddenly put his head against her breast. “I’ve hurt my darling Jettero! Oh, I should be whipped!” She pushed him back and looked anxiously at his face. “Are they paining you terribly?” Then she shook her head. “You wouldn’t say if they were. Here, I’ll be as gentle as possible. Can you stand?”

  “Of course, I can stand!” said Heller, getting to his feet.

  “Here, lean on me, I’ll get you over to the couch.” She eased him down on it. “Sit there,” she said anxiously. “I’ll get a basin of water and soak your hands so we can get those blood-caked gloves off of you.”

  She rushed off and came back with a basin of water. She put his hands in it. She was working to get the cotton off them. Bending over the basin, her tears were splashing into the water. “I’ve hurt my darling Jettero. And all the time he was innocent!”

  “Listen,” he said. “That’s all over now.”

  She looked up at him. “No, it isn’t. For the next hundred and fifty years, every time you look at me, some little part of you will say, she didn’t believe me, and she attacked me and all because of her I got maimed and crippled.”

  “Oh, no,” said Heller. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Oh, yes. But worse, I would know it myself.” She got up suddenly and walked back and forth, wringing her own hands. “I have to make this right! I have to do something to make amends for it. I can’t live with myself unless I do!” Then she wailed. “I even deserted you when you needed me!” She stopped and knelt before him pleadingly. “Tell me you forgive me!”

  “I forgive you utterly,” he said.

  She got back up. “No. That isn’t enough. I can’t permit you to forgive me. It is too awful!” Then she suddenly stood up very straight. She said in a firm voice, “I have no right to inflict my upset on you when you’re in so much pain. You don’t need an emotional female on your hands. So stop worrying. I will be efficient and effective.”

  She got down on her knees again and peeled off his gloves. She rinsed his hands in the basin and set it aside. She peeled him out of his wet suit. At his direction, she got the light out of his sack and played it on his face, evidently turning it back to its natural color.

  She went and got the Zanco medical kit she had assembled. And with far, far too much instant-heal and with far, far too many cups and bandages, took care of his very superficial injuries.

  Then she went over to the phone by the bed, made a call, and after a bit, when a tray was delivered, brought it in. She made him get into bed, propped up, put the tray of broth and crackers on his lap and began to dip crackers into the broth and put them in his mouth.

  That done, she made sure he was very comfortable, lying back on the pillows. “Do you feel up to talking?” she said.

  “Listen,” said Heller. “I’m not sick. I’m okay.”

  “Please stop pretending,” she said. “I can face up to what I have done and it is absolutely disgustingly AWFUL. So don’t try to spare my feelings. Just tell me now everything that has been going on and don’t gloss over any details.”

  So he told her about the race and the publicity and the suits and the Sea Skiff and the Coast Guard and, under her questions, anything else he could recall, including the fact that there were arrest warrants out for him.

  She thanked him and sat back. “It’s the women,” she said. “They caused the trouble. And because my Jettero is so handsome and so darling, I was a jealous fool. Yes. It was the women.”

  “Izzy says—” began Heller.

  “No, no. Izzy is a man. He wouldn’t understand these things,” said the Countess. “A woman—any woman—would move heavens and planet to get her hands on my Jettero. I understand that completely. It all makes sense.”

  “I think there is more to it than . . .”

  But she was not listening. She got up and went to another room. She was gone for a while and there were some goings and comings and the murmur of voices.

  She came back. She had a glass of water and two capsules. “Now, you’re in pain and you have been under a strain. The captain told me that if I had any trouble sleeping, to tell him. So I have just done so. These are called Nembutal. You will be able to sleep. You are quite safe. Nobody knows you are here. So take them and get some rest.”

  “I don’t think I need—”

  “Take them,” she said and put them in his mouth. She gave him some water to wash them down.

  “Now just lie back and relax,” she said. “Everything is going to be all right.” She reached over and gave him a gentle kiss amongst the overdone mass of bandages. She turned off the light.

  My viewer went black. The audio carried the faint hum of ship machinery. And then the gentle breathing of Heller.

  I set the viewer alarm for when he would awake. Obviously, it would not be for some time.

  At least I knew exactly where he was. And no threat to me at the moment. Or so I thought.

  I, too, went to bed.

  Fool that I was, I had no clairvoyance whatever of the blazing storm of disaster which was about to be turned loose! With me in the eye of the worst series of catastrophes Hells had ever unleashed.

  Stupid with shock, champagne and marijuana, I had no inkling that my last days on Earth were about to pounce.

  Looking back on that moment, I am incredulous that I could have been so unalert and calm.

  Dark, devilish disaster was on its devastating way.

  PART FIFTY-ONE

  Chapter 1

  When I arose the next morning it was nearly noon. I could not think. The combination of marijuana and alcohol was giving me a far worse hangover than the one before. I decided it had been that awful experience with Teenie and her (bleeped) flashgun. Somebody ought to kill that kid, I decided, but my wits were so thick and thinking was so painful that I could not even dwell on that pleasant prospect.

  Limping around, wishing Prahd was there to grow me a new head, I wandered into the back garden. It was a beautiful spring day for some people but not for me. The warm sun, however, seemed to relax my nerves and I stretched out, hopeful of an undisturbed hour.

  Not so. A buzzer was going somewhere. I finally recognized it as coming from my room. It was the viewer. I sat down thickly to watch it.

  Heller was awake. He was sitting up in bed. The curtains of the sleeping cabin were all drawn shut. He was staring at a little sign, suspended with a blue ribbon from a pipe. It said:

  Please push Bell S

  I was so stupid after last night, not even a sixth sense warned me
of the catastrophe this was to begin.

  He looked around. There was a button panel. One said S and had a small drawing of a steward beside it. He pushed it.

  Instantly, like a magic genie, a gaunt-faced man dressed in a white short jacket and black pants came in. He bowed. “Madam gave me strict instructions, sir, for when you rose.”