Heller sat there for a bit, looking at the flowers. From time to time he rearranged them.
Then he took one of them, a gaudy, orange blossom and idly began to pull off its petals. I wondered if he was nervous. I certainly would have been in such a spot as that!
An opium poppy has a big black ball in the center. Really, that's the bulk of the flower. He had it stripped. He smelled it. Silly performance: fragrance comes from petals, not the stamen.
Heller put it aside. He took another flower from the glass. He got out a piece of paper. He laid the whole flower on half the sheet and straightened out its petals. Then he folded the paper over, covering it.
Then he took his fist and banged the package!
I really laughed. That isn't the way you press flowers. You put them in between two sheets of paper and you gently let them flatten and you put it away to dry. You don't bang it with your fist. He didn't even know how to press flowers: he should have asked his mother!
He opened the paper and of course the whole thing was a complete mess. The huge center ball had simply squashed! That isn't the way to handle an opium poppy. You gently scrape the ball and you get the sap and then you boil it and you have morphine!
He must have realized that wasn't how it was done for he just emptied the squashed mess on the table, folded the paper and put it in his pocket.
He looked up. People had been drifting in: Turks of the area, dressed in their sloppy jackets, tieless white shirts, unpressed pants. Maybe twenty of them had come in, a strange crowd for this time of night. I realized that
the word had spread. They just sat down at tables, not ordering anything, not talking, not looking at Heller. They seemed to be waiting.
Then the front door crashed open and into the room swaggered the two top wrestlers of the area!
Now, the Turks love wrestling. It is a national sport. They wrestle in any style. They are big and they are tough and they are good! So that was who Faht Bey had called! The wrestling champs!
The bigger one, a formidable hulk named Musef, swaggered to the middle of the room. The other one, named Torgut, sauntered over to the wall behind Heller's back. Torgut was carrying a short piece of pipe.
About fifteen more townsmen came in behind the wrestlers, avid expectancy on their faces.
The proprietor yelped in Turkish, "Not in here! Outside, outside!"
"Be quiet, old woman," said Musef insultingly.
The proprietor, faced with that growl and about three hundred pounds of famed muscle, got very quiet.
Musef walked over to Heller. "You speak Turkish? No?" He shifted to badly accented English, "You speak English? Yes?"
Heller just sat there looking at him.
"My name," and Musef hit himself on the chest, "is Musef. You know me?"
With a slight incredulity, Heller said, "A yellow-man!" And indeed, now that I thought about it, Musef and Torgut did bear some dim resemblance to the yellow-men of the Confederacy. Not surprising, since the Turks come from Mongolia.
But it was the wrong thing to say. Musef snarled, "You say I yellow?"
There was a ripple through the audience as those
who didn't speak English got those who did to tell them what was being said. And then it had to be clarified for some that "yellow" meant "coward" in English. And believe me, eyebrows really shot up and eyes went round with anticipation. You could almost hear them pant.
Musef pretended to be outraged that Heller was not saying anything further. So he spat, "You want to fight?"
Heller glanced around. Torgut was hefting the iron pipe over by the wall. It was indeed a hostile crowd. Heller looked at Musef. He said, "I never fight..." There was an explosion of laughter in the room. Instantly Musef picked up the glass and threw the water and flowers in Heller's face.
"I was about to say," said Heller, "I never fight without a wager!"
There was more laughter. But Musef thought he saw a way to make money. After all, how could he lose with Torgut and an iron pipe back of Heller. "A wager!" guffawed Musef. Then, "All right. We wager! Five hundred lira! You," he yelled at the crowd, "make sure that it gets paid!"
The crowd screamed with laughter. "We will!" they shouted in English and Turkish. It gave them a perfectly legal excuse to pick the "DEA man's" pocket when he lost. There is nobody quite as cunning as a Turk unless it is a crowd of Turks!
And before anyone knew what was happening, Musef reached out and grabbed Heller's collar and yanked him to the center of the floor! It was not hard to do. Heller, here on Earth, weighed only 193 pounds and Musef weighed 300!
Somehow Musef's hands must have slipped. Heller and Musef were standing there in the middle of the
floor, facing each other. The crowd, on its feet and roaring for blood, made a circle.
Musef reached with both arms. Heller weaved sideways. I knew what Musef was trying to do. The standard Turkish action of engaging is for each opponent to seize the other, with both hands, on either side of the neck. What happens after that is anybody's war.
Musef made a second try. He got his hands on Heller's shoulders!
Heller got his hands on Musef's shoulders!
The first seconds of such a contest is a jostle for position.
And then I didn't understand it. Heller had his two hands on the shoulders of the Turk but Heller's fingers were hidden by the Turk's head. I couldn't see that Heller was doing anything. But neither was the Turk!
Heller's hands just seemed to be rooted there.
The Turk was trying to throw his arms out to get Heller's hands loose. You could see the muscles jump with the Turk's effort. The Turk's face was contorting in savage hatred. But there was enormous strain there!
The two seemed to rotate a few degrees. Now there was a wall mirror in Heller's view. And in that mirror, Torgut was plainly visible. Torgut, iron pipe in hand, was parting the crowd, approaching Heller's back.
I realized then why Heller's hands weren't coming loose. Turks usually smear themselves with olive oil before they wrestle but tonight there was nothing there to make Heller's hands slip on the Turk's shoulders and neck.
You could almost hear the muscles grind with the effort of the two wrestlers.
Ah, I had it. Musef could see Torgut and Musef was simply holding Heller in position until the partner could
bring that iron pipe down on Heller's blond head!
The crowd was going wild, cheering Musef on.
Torgut was very near now.
Suddenly, using his grip on Musef to support the forward part of his body, Heller went back and horizontal!
His feet hit Torgut in the chest!
The thud of that double blow was loud above the yelling room.
Torgut flew backwards as though propelled from a cannon. He took three members of the crowd with him!
They landed with a crash against the wall!
The impact shattered the mirror on the opposite wall!
Musef tried to take advantage of the weight shift. He drew back a forearm to hit Heller in the face.
I couldn't see what happened. But Heller's hands clenched suddenly inward.
Musef screamed like a crushed dog!
Heller hadn't done anything to cause that. He had just closed his hands in tighter.
The huge Turk buckled like a falling building and landed like rubble on the floor!
The crowd was silent.
They were incredulous.
They became hostile!
Heller stood there in the middle of the floor. Torgut was a half-dead mess against the far wall, blood trickling down his shoulders. Three town Turks were getting themselves untangled from chairs near him. Musef was collapsed and moaning at Heller's feet.
With his two hands, Heller straightened up his own collar. "And now," he said, in a conversational voice, "who pays me the five hundred lira?"
Now, money is a very important subject to the impoverished Turk. If Heller had had any sense, he would
/> have simply walked out. But he doesn't have any training in this sort of thing. I would have been running already.
The townsmen jabbered together. Then one said in English, "It wasn't a fair bet. You, a foreigner, took advantage of these two poor boys!"
"Yes," said an old Turk. "You exploited them!"
"No, no, no," said the proprietor, getting brave. "You owe me for all this damage. You started the fight!"
Heller looked them over. "You mean you are not going to see that an honest wager is paid?"
The crowd sensed its numbers. It started to edge forward hostilely toward Heller. One tough-looking fellow was nearest Heller.
"Are you going to see that the bargain is kept?" said Heller to the nearest man.
The crowd was closer. Somebody had Torgut's iron pipe.
"Ah, well," said Heller. And before anyone could block him he grabbed Musef off the floor and with a wide sweeping movement threw him at the proprietor!
Musef landed against the counter. Glasses and bottles and kegs soared into the air. The counter fell over on the proprietor!
Every man in that room had ducked!
As the noise died down, Heller said, "Honor seems to be something you have never heard of." He shook his head sadly. "And I did want to try some of your beer."
Heller walked out.
The crowd had recovered a bit. They surged to the door after him and there they began to throw bottles and yell derisively and do catcalls.
Heller just kept on walking.
I saw that he was limping.
I really hugged myself. He had been utterly routed!
His crude scheme to get some money had failed.
Ah, indeed, the roles had reversed. He was the dog and I the hero here.
I went to bed singing—while Heller limped the miles back to base, broke, outcast and alone.
PART THIRTEEN
Chapter 1
The next morning, I felt pretty cheery, I can tell you. I got up early and put on an orange silk shirt and black pants and a cobra-skin belt, with shoes to match.
I had melon and cacik—cucumber salad with yogurt, garlic and olive oil dressing—and I washed it down with very sweet coffee. Delicious. When I criticized it to the cook, he looked so woebegone, I really had to laugh. The whole staff looked woebegone, having been up all night trying to find something they had not done. The joke was on them. I really laughed.
Then I got busy with a big sheet of paper. I am a long way from a draftsman but I sure knew what I wanted. It was up to somebody else to try to make it out.
The school owned another piece of property a little bit closer to town. It had been planned to build a staff recreational hall there but I had other ideas.
I was designing a hospital. It would be one story, with a basement. It would have numerous wards and operating rooms. It would also have a parking lot. It would be surrounded by a wire fence made to look like a hedge. And in the basement it would have numerous private rooms nobody would suspect were there. It would have an Earth-type security system. Every room would be bugged.
I was going to register it as the "World United Charities Mercy and Benevolent Hospital." I was going to make my fortune with it. They really train you in the
Apparatus. "When you mean total evil," one of my professors in Apparatus school used to say, "always put up a facade of total good." It is an inviolable maxim of any competent government.
Finally, I finished it, hoping I could make the plan out myself—I had scratched out and changed quite a bit.
Then I had to write a bunch of orders: one to our Voltar resident engineer to dig some tunnels to it; another to our Istanbul attorney firm to get it registered real fast; another to the World Health Operation for the attorneys to forward which said it was a magnificent donation to the world of health and please could we use their name, too; and another to the Rockecenter Foundation for a grant "for the poor children of Turkey"—they always hand out money if their executives can get a slice back and if Rockecenter can get his name up in lights as a great humanitarian (hah! that would be the day!).
The last letter was just a dispatch. Here at the Blito-P3 base they have the usual Officers Council, chaired by the base commander, that is supposed to pass on new projects. But, as Section Chief of 451 and Inspector General Overlord, I surely didn't need their consent. I just told them that this is what was going to happen and they could lump it. To Hells with their staff recreation. And besides, didn't the Grand Council Order say to spread a little advanced technology on the planet? So they could go to Hells and do what they were told. I stamped it with my identoplate loud and plain. They knew better than to trifle with me. I even added a postscript to that effect.
It was quite a relief to get all this tedious work done. So I called for the housekeeper.
When she came in, hollow-eyed from no sleep, scared as to what I might want now, I said, "Melahat Hanim" (a very polite way of addressing a woman in Turkey is to add "hanim" to her name—it flatters them; they
have no souls, you know), "has the beautiful lady arrived from Istanbul?"
She wrung her hands and shook her head negative. So I said, "Get out of here, you female dropping of camel dung," and wondered what else I could do to while away the hours before ten. It's no use going to town too early—the roads are too cluttered with carts.
Then I thought I had better check on Heller. I didn't much care to know what he was doing in the ship so I hadn't even bothered to rig the 831 Relayer.
The recorder was grinding away, the viewer was off. So I figured I might as well start early. I turned the viewer on and began to spot-check forward.
Last night he had simply walked home and gone aboard. Limping! Must have hurt his foot.
Speeding forward, I heard a shrill whistle on the strip. So I went back over it at normal speed.
I saw the airlock open and then, way down at the foot of the ladder, there was Faht Bey, holding a hull resonator against the tug's plates.
"There you are," said Faht Bey, looking up. "I'm the base commander, Officer Faht. Are you the Crown inspector?"
"I'm on Grand Council orders, if that's what you mean. Come on up."
Faht Bey was not about to climb that eighty feet of rickety ladder from the bottom of the hangar to the airlock on the vertical ship. "I just wanted to see you."
"I want to see you, too," said Heller, looking down the ladder. "The clothes in your costume section are too short and the shoes there are about three sizes too small for me." I was disappointed. He hadn't hurt his foot, it was tight shoes. Well, you can't always grab the pot.
"That's what I wanted to see you about," Faht Bey yelled up at him. "The people in town are looking all
over for somebody that fits your description. They say he waylaid two popular characters at different times in an alley and beat them up with a lead pipe. One has a cracked neck and the other a broken arm and fractured skull. They had to be shipped into Istanbul to be hospitalized."
"How'd you know it fits my description?" said Heller. My Gods, he was nosy. "This is the first time you've seen me."
"Gris said what you looked like," said this (bleep) Faht Bey. "So please don't take it badly. It's my guess you'll be leaving here in two or three days." Well, (bleep) him! He must have read Lombar's order to Raht! "So I've got to invoke my authority on the subject of base security and ask you not to leave this hangar while you're here."
"Can I wander around the hangar?" said Heller.
"Oh, that's all right, just as long as you don't leave the outside-world end of the tunnels."
Heller waved him an airy hand. "Thanks for the tip, Officer Faht."
And that was the end of that one. I sped ahead to the next light flash that showed the door was open.
Heller was going down the ladder, zip, zip. He landed at the bottom with a tremendous clank. It startled me until I realized he was wearing hull shoes with the metal bars loose.
He started clickety-
clacking around, a little notebook held in his hand, making jots and touching his watch now and then. He went around the whole perimeter of the hangar, clickety-clack, POP. I knew what he was doing. He was just amusing himself surveying the place. These engineers! They're crazy. Maybe he was practicing his sense of direction or something.
I kept speeding the strip ahead. But that was all he
was up to. He'd stop by doors and branch tunnels and make little notes and loud POPs.
Now and then he'd meet an Apparatus personnel. The first couple, he gave them a cheerful good morning. But they turned an icy shoulder to him. After that he didn't speak to anyone. My rumor was working!
He got into some side tunnels and took some interest in the dimensions of the detention cells. It would be hard to tell they were cells for they were not as secure as Spiteos—no wire. They just had iron bars set into the rock. The base crew who had redesigned the place had overdone it on detention cells—they had made enough for hundreds of people and never at any time were there more than a dozen. They were empty now.
Speeding ahead, I saw that he had stopped and I went back to find what was interesting him so much.
He was standing in front of the storage room doors. They are very massive. There are about fifty of them in a curving line that back the hangar itself, a sort of corridor. The corridor has numerous openings into the hangar itself.
They were all locked, of course. And the windows in the doors, necessary to circulate the air and prevent mold, are much too high up to see through. I was fairly certain he would not even guess what they contained.
Lombar, when the pressure was put on Turkey to stop growing opium, had really outdone himself. He had ordered so much of it bought, it would have glutted the market had it all been released. Now, there it was, nicely bagged in big sacks. Tons and tons and tons of it.
But even if one jumped up and got a look through the windows, there was nothing to be seen. Just piles of bags.
Heller examined the floor. But what was there to find? Just the truck wheel wear.
He bent over and picked up some dust and then, to wipe his hand, I suppose, he put his hand in his pocket and brought it out clean.