Black Genesis

  He pegged the upper end of the safety line into the stone parapet, stepped over the edge ...

  I turned my face away. This guy was driving me mad! He had no sense. He didn't give a (bleep) about height or his neck. I heard the staples going into the ver­tical wall but I wouldn't look. I knew I would see the tiny people and cars far too far below!

  The sound of a disintegrator drill. I dared look. He had snapped the spacer safety line loose and was putting a cable hole in the wall. With a Voltarian disintegrator drill!

  I watched intently to see if I got a reaction from the whore. There she was watching a tiny palm-sized gadget, with nothing spinning, bite the exact sized hole through the wall. No chips or sparks. A miracle on this planet. All she had to say was "Hey, man, look at that gimmick eat up stone!" and I had him!

  She said, "I'll go call room service to send you some breakfast, dearie." And she went inside the living room. It depressed me.

  Heller went inside, put the base plate together and shortly had it all connected with the TV. He turned the

  set on. He fiddled with the radio antenna rotator. The dif­ference in reception showed it was turning.

  "Hey, great picture," said the whore. "We done it! They'll send breakfast up right away."

  Heller neated up his kit. Aha, now I would see where he stowed his gear. He certainly would hide a safety line and disintegrator drill! And I had no interfer­ence!

  He was fastening the tool kit up. OH! Right on the face of the kit, big as life, it said:

  JETTERO HELLER FLEET CORPS OF COMBAT ENGINEERS

  It said it in Voltarian script but it said it, just like that!

  He tossed the kit on the sofa. It landed face up!

  He went into the bathroom and kicked off his tennis shoes and the baseball exercise suit. He stepped into the massage shower.

  The massage drops were hammering at him but I could hear somebody banging cabinets in the bathroom. All that woman, Martha, had to do was notice that kit and come in and say "Hey, what's this writing? It looks like something not of this planet," and he would be open to being shot!

  The shower door opened. Her hand was in view. She didn't have her jump suit on. She was holding a cake of soap. She said, "Honey, let me wash your back before we..."

  The interference came on!

  I railed around. The screen simply flashed in jagged lines and the sound roared. It was actively preventing me from getting enough data on that suite and where he

  stowed his gear and thus blocking me from embarking on my raid for the platen and the end of Heller. The min­utes stretched agonizingly into half an hour.

  Then, it was off!

  Heller was sitting on the couch drinking coffee. He was all alone in the suite.

  There was a knock on the door and Heller said, in that penetrating Fleet voice, "Come in, it isn't locked."

  In came a mob of tailors!

  They started displaying bolts of fine fabrics, sum­mer silk and mohair, tweeds, gabardine, shirt silk, pass­ing each one under Heller's nose.

  The lead tailor, with Heller's permission, sat down on the couch with a book of styles. He found he was sit­ting on something, reached under him and picked up the tool kit. All he had to do was inspect the inscription and some of those odd tools and he would know he was talk­ing to an extraterrestrial!

  "Now, we've brought a throwaway suit you can wear today, young sir. But we must choose both a society ward­robe and a college wardrobe. Now, it so happens that the styles this autumn will be ever so slightly gauche. Neat but gauche. In this Ives St. Giles book, we can see that the collar..."

  Sickening. Who cared about all these fancy styles and the pant width in the mode. There was a gabardine trench coat with innumerable straps and a gun pocket that I liked, however. It looked very like one Humphrey Bogart used to wear. But the rest of it... then I realized the true source of my antipathy. It wasn't the styles, it was the tailor. He was a homo. If there is anything I can't stand, it's a gay!

  "Now, could you please stand up, young sir?"

  And he was kneeling in front of Heller, measuring

  him for trousers. He seemed to be having trouble with his tape. He kept stretching it.

  "Oh," said the lead tailor, giggling, "you're really built!"

  "What's the matter?" said Heller. "Hips too nar­row?"

  "Oh, no, young sir. I wasn't talking about hips."

  On went the interference!

  Off went my patience!

  I stood up. I was being personally and vindictively harassed! Harassed? If I did not get that platen, I was dead!

  There was a knock on the tunnel door to Faht's office. Another Raht and Terb message slid under. I snatched it up.

  It said:

  Have our eye on that spot offshore. We're standing by in case he surfaces.

  That did it!

  I bolted out of the house and walked agitatedly around the garden.

  That (bleeped) screaming canary! Trilling and whis­tling gaily in the tree! A party to all this!

  I went inside and got a twelve-gauge shotgun. I loaded it. I saw a flutter of yellow on a limb.

  I fired both barrels!

  The roar was deafening.

  A hole had been blown through an ornamental tree.

  One solitary feather came floating slowly down in the utter silence.

  It made me feel immensely better.

  A guard car came dashing up, of course, but I laughed and sent it away.

  I felt better. I could think. I sat down on a bench.

  What did I actually know? Aha, I had learned one vital thing so far today. The whore had not had the slight­est recognition that she was handling a Voltarian safety line. The tailor had even sat on a Fleet tool kit, plainly labelled, and had simply tossed it aside. The people around Heller's place of residence were totally incapable of observation! Perhaps it would be different when he got into a college. But nobody would notice anything at all anywhere around the Gracious Palms!

  I went to my desk. I wrote a brutal communication to be transmitted at once to the New York office. I said:

  RAHT AND TERB ARE SOMEWHERE IN THE NEW YORK AREA. FIND THEM AND FORCE THEM TO REPORT IN. IF THIS ORDER IS NOT PROMPTLY EXE­CUTED THE ENTIRE PERSONNEL OF YOUR OFFICE WILL BE.

  SULTAN BEY.

  When they reported in, I would direct them to get all plans of that building and pave the way.

  With that backup, I would get this handled once and for all. And before I myself started to show signs of a ner­vous breakdown.

  I phoned for a messenger and got the message on its way.

  I got a pitcher of sira and went back to the viewer.

  The interference was off. Heller was on his way downstairs in an elevator.

  Chapter 6

  Heller was wearing the new "throwaway" suit, I saw in an elevator mirror by peripheral vision. It was a light blue summer weight and it fitted for a change, but its pockets were bulging. He had on a blue shirt with a wide collar spread over the jacket lapels, the gauche look, I suppose, but it still made him look awfully young. How­ever, whatever the tailor was trying to achieve was spoiled utterly by the fact that he still wore his red base­ball cap on the back of his blond head and when he went across the lobby, I could hear that he still wore baseball spikes! He might be clean and neat, some might think him very handsome, but he still didn't have a clue about espionage and looking the part! The baseball cap was easy to explain—he considered himself to be working. The spikes, just because he didn't have comfortable shoes. An idiot!

  But I could be tolerant. He was a marked man.

  He went to the safes and halted before his personal one. I noted the combination.

  He spread out his money inside the safe.

  I became aware of other voices, an undertone in the otherwise quiet area. I turned up the gain. Somebody on a speaker-phone! I could hear both sides! They were speaking Italian.

  ". . . so that is no excuse to let him sleep late!" It was Ba
be Corleone's voice!

  "But, Babe," said Vantagio, "it didn't have anything to do with the girls. Those two UN bigwigs spend half

  their countries' UN appropriations in this place and it's a good thing he didn't let them kill each other."

  "Vantagio, are you trying to pretend I didn't appre­ciate that?"

  "No, no, mia capa!"

  "Vantagio, are you trying to stand in the way of this boy's career?"

  Heller was counting out his money, bill by bill. He seemed to think a few of the bills were counterfeit.

  Vantagio had apparently been struck speechless. Finally, gasping, he said, "Oh, mia capa, how could you say such an awful thing!"

  "You know an education is important. You are jeal­ous and you want him to wind up like some of these bums?"

  "Oh, no!" wept Vantagio.

  "Then please explain to me. I will listen. I will not yell at you. I will listen with patience. Answer this one question: I see in the Sunday paper two days ago, Van­tagio, that Empire University began registering yester­day. And when I ask you, patiently and quietly, Vantagio, the simple question, 'Is the boy properly registered now and starting school?' I get a stupid answer that he slept late."

  Vantagio tried to talk. "Mia capa..."

  "Now, you know and I know and the good God him­self knows that boys hate to go to school," continued Babe. "You know that they have to be driven, Vantagio. You know they have to be forced. My brothers, God rest their souls, had to be beaten so there is no reason to explain that to me."

  "Mia capa, I swear..."

  "So the one question I want answered, Vantagio, if you will only let me speak, is why haven't you asserted

  your authority and control over this boy? Why is he not obeying your orders? Now, do not bother to argue. Just phone me up in exactly one half an hour and tell me he has started to school." There was a sharp click. She had hung up.

  Heller had decided that just because some bills had Benjamin Franklin on them, they were not counterfeit. He had packaged the money up neatly. But he was not happy with what he had counted. He was shaking his head.

  He put fifteen thousand in his pocket, already bulg­ing with Gods knew what. He closed and locked his safe and was about to leave the Gracious Palms when Vantagio's voice arrested him, calling from the office.

  "Can I see you a minute, kid?"

  Heller went in. Vantagio's brows were lowered. He looked very down. He gestured to a chair. But like any Italian, he did not come right to the point. They think it impolite.

  "Well, kid, how are you getting along with the girls?" He said it very glumly.

  Heller laughed. "Oh, it's fairly easy to handle women."

  "You wouldn't think so if you had my job," said Van­tagio.

  Aha, I was on the trail of something here. Vantagio was jealous of Heller. He was afraid Heller was going to get his job!

  "Say," said Heller. "You may be the very one I should be seeing about this."

  "What?" he said, very guarded, very defensive. Yes, something was biting Vantagio.

  "Well, actually," said Heller, "I've got quite a bit of money but I think I will need much more."

  "For what?"

  "Well, I've got to do something about the planet."

  "You mean you're planning to take over the whole planet? Look, kid, you'll never do that without a diploma."

  "Oh, that's true," said Heller. "But also, things like that take money. And I wanted to ask you if you could tell me where the gambling is in this area."

  Vantagio blew up. "Gambling! You must be crazy! We run the numbers racket and let me tell you, kid, you'd lose your shirt! They're crooked!"

  Oho, Vantagio was antagonistic! Was he jealous of Heller?

  "All right, then," said Heller. And he took out a copy of the Wall Street Journal and opened it. It was the Com­modity Futures Market page. "I make out that you buy and sell these as they go up and down, day by day."

  Vantagio brushed it aside. "That's a good way to lose an awful lot of money, kid!" He was glowering.

  It occurred to me right that moment that maybe I had an ally in Vantagio. He was obviously hostile to Hel­ler. I began to work out why.

  Heller was unfolding another spread of paper. "Then how about these? They apparently change in price, day to day."

  "That's the stock market!" said Vantagio. "That's a great way to go bankrupt!"

  "Well, how do you buy and sell them?" said Heller.

  "You need a broker. A stockbroker."

  "Well, could you recommend one?"

  "Those crooks," said Vantagio. Quite obviously, he did not want Heller to get ahead. He was nervous, edgy. I became more convinced there was something here— that maybe I could cultivate an ally.

  "You know of one?" said Heller.

  "Aw, look in the phone book classified. But I don't want anything to do with it. And listen, kid, you don't either. Listen, kid, you told me you were going to go to college."

  "Yes," said Heller. "Nobody will listen to you if you don't have a diploma."

  "Right," said Vantagio. But he was edgy. "That's why I called you in here, kid. You know what day this is?" And to Heller's head shake, "It's the second day of registration week at Empire College. You got your papers?"

  "Right here," said Heller, tapping his pocket. "But if it's a whole week..."

  "You," said Vantagio harshly, "have got to go up there right now and register!"

  "But if I have a whole week..."

  "Be quiet!" said Vantagio. He reached into a drawer and got out a book, Curriculum, Empire College, Fall Term. "Geovani Meretrici" was on the catalogue. I thought his name was Vantagio. "What subject is your major?"

  "Well, engineering, I suppose," said Heller.

  "What kind?" demanded Vantagio.

  "Well, if you give me the book there, I can study it over and maybe in a couple of days..."

  Vantagio was really cross now. What was this temper all about? He was reading from the book, '"Aerospace Science and Engineering'? 'Bioengineering'? 'Civil En­gineering and Engineering Mechanics'? 'Electrical Engi­neering and Computer Science'? 'Mineral Engineering'? 'Nuclear Science and Engineering'? Just plain 'Engi­neering'?"

  "Nuclear Science and Engineering," said Heller. "That sounds about right. But..."

  Vantagio raised his voice. "They have a Bachelor,

  Master, Doctorate and other degrees in it. So, that's it! Nuclear Science and Engineering! Sounds impressive."

  "However," said Heller, "I would like to look..."

  "All right!" said Vantagio. "Now, here is a map of Empire University. See, here is the library and all that. But this is the administration building and this is the entrance. And here is a map of subways. You walk over to this station near here. Then, you go across town. And you transfer at Times Square to Number 1 and you get off at Empire University at 116th Street and you walk along here and right into that administration building and you sign up! You got it?"

  "Well, yes. And I appreciate your help. But if there is a whole week..." He trailed off because Vantagio was sitting there looking at him in a strange way.

  Vantagio started up again. "Kid, have you lived around New York before?"

  "No," said Heller.

  Vantagio assumed a confidential air. "Then you don't know the customs. Now, kid, when you're in a strange place, it is absolutely fatal not to follow the cus­toms."

  "That is true," said Heller.

  "Now, kid," said this master of political science, "it so happens that there is a mandatory, American Indian custom regarding saving a man's life. And Indian law remains in full force by prior sovereignty. Did you know that when you save a man's life that man is responsible for you from there on out?"

  I boggled! Vantagio was telling Heller an Earth Chinese custom! And he was telling Heller absolutely back­wards! In old China, according to our Apparatus sur­veys, when you saved a man's life you were then and there responsible for that man forevermore! So we

  warned operatives
never to save anyone's life in China! Vantagio was using his learning with a twist and he must know very well he was lying!

  "Are you sure?" said Heller.

  Vantagio looked at him, smug and superior. "Of course, I am sure. I am a master of political science, ain't I?"

  "Yes," said Heller doubtfully.

  "And you saved my life, didn't you?" said Vantagio.

  "Well, it seems so," said Heller.

  I suddenly got it! Vantagio! He was a tiny man, only five feet two inches tall. Right next door to Sicily lies Corsica, same people. And a small man in Corsica named Napoleon also felt inferior to everyone. Vantagio was suffering from an inferiority complex in the face of Heller's deeds and acclaim! The things Heller had done had the Sicilian writhing with insecurity. And then I really got it: Vantagio was not his given name—it was his nickname! It means "Whiphand" in Italian!

  Vantagio rose to his full five feet two and looked sternly at the seated Heller almost at eye level. And then this master of political science said, "You saved my life, so therefore you have to do absolutely everything I tell you! And that's the way it is now from here on out!"

  Heller must have looked contrite. "I see that that's the way it seems."

  Suddenly, Vantagio was all smiles and cheer. "So, we have settled that! Have a cigar. No, I forgot, you mustn't smoke. Here, have some mints." And he shoved a box at Heller.

  Heller took one and Vantagio came around and pat­ted him on the back. "So, now we know where we stand. Right?"

  "Right," said Heller.

  "So, you go straight down to the subway and go reg­ister right now!" But he said it with cheer.

  Heller got up and walked to the door with Vantagio, who opened it for him and gave him another pat.

  When Heller glanced back, Vantagio was all beam­ing and waving good-bye.

  Well, it is very hard to understand Sicilians. This Vantagio appeared pretty treacherous, changeable. I had reservations about trusting him and including him in my plans. Still, there was a chance I could turn that burning jealousy and inferiority to account.

  Chapter 7

  Expecting, of course, that Heller would now do everything Vantagio had told him to do, I was not paying much attention. Heller went down into a subway station and looked into a phone book. I thought he might be call­ing the college.