I brushed off some webs from the blanket covering of the viewers and even killed a spider or two as a sort of hors d’oeuvre to the main bout. I threw back the cover and sat down.
For a moment I thought I had gotten the wrong station or something. It was a hall. People were rushing back and forth in mad streams, very busy. It was Heller’s view of the world. He must be in some other building. Their half floor at the Empire State had never had that much traffic tearing around. But no, it was their floor all right. A nearby sign said:
Wonderful Oil for Maysabongo
Front Office
What on Earth was going on? They didn’t ever have that much staff. Or did they?
He was now passing the Telex Communication Centrale. It was pretty jammed up. Machines were hammering away inside.
A man in white overalls stopped him. “New York Telephone Company, Lease Line Crew Chief, Alf Underwood” was on the badge Heller looked at.
“Hey, you,” said the man to Heller, “you look like an executive. We got an order here to run three more lease lines from this floor to the Chryster Building. We dunno where you want the automatic relay switchboard.”
Heller looked into the communications room. Gods, there was an operator at every machine and they were working like crazy. Heller pointed to a young man at the end machine. “See him,” he said to the crew chief. “The one in the lavender shirt. And if he can’t tell you, see Mr. Epstein over at Multinational, third corridor to your right.”
Heller went on. He was breasting quite a stream of clerks and callers. He arrived near the door of Multinational, marked with its big logo of an anarchist bomb.
So many people were rushing in and out that he was stalled. He finally got into a line of people waiting to go in.
It looked like he would take so long that I switched my attention to the other viewer. Krak was somewhere else. Looked like Fifth Avenue. She was going along, looking into shopwindows. My attention was at once riveted. She must be going to buy something and on my Squeeza credit card. The scene had such potential havoc in it that I didn’t want to look. But just as one’s eyes will rivet upon an imminent disaster, I could not tear my attention away.
She passed by Tiffany’s with only a casual glance and I began to breathe once more. But the way she was staring at street numbers quickened my pulse. Then she saw something ahead. It was a banner sign in a window:
Grand Opening
Post Winter Sale
FURS!
They had racks of them, visible through the window.
She went in. A clerk bustled over.
“I wonder,” said the Countess Krak, “if you have something suitable for a space voyage.”
I felt the blood rushing to my head! It could only mean one thing. She was doing some sort of planning about going home! Maybe they had had a huge breakthrough!
“Space voyage, madam?”
“Yes. Something soft and warm and comfortable that can be worn instead of a pressure suit.”
“Oh, I am sorry, madam,” began the clerk.
A tall gentleman in a pinstripe tail coat had come up. “Please answer the phone, Beevertail,” he said sharply to the clerk. “Madam, I could not help but overhear your request. Beevertail is a bit new: came in with our last shipment of pelts from Canada. He would not understand that you are from NASA. Now, it just happens that we have a mink jump suit that would be just the very thing you are looking for. This way, please.”
Hastily, I turned to the other viewer. Maybe Heller was making enough money now to pay for such frills as mink jump suits. Such a thing would cost a fortune! I knew by experience!
Izzy just that moment spotted Heller in the line. He jumped up. He grabbed a young clerk and shoved him bodily into the chair to handle the callers and then grabbed Heller and pulled him out of the line into the hall.
“Oh, Mr. Jet. I do apologize for keeping you waiting. It’s because I am so inefficient.”
Heller got him out of there and into a vacant space in the hall. He had a sheet of paper and showed it to Izzy, speaking very low, like a conspirator. “It’s your daily broker order list. Chicago Board of Trade: Sell your 1,000 contracts of March wheat today; it is going down by market opening tomorrow by ten cents a bushel. At market opening tomorrow, sell short 1,000 contracts of corn; it is going to drop thirty cents before close. Chicago Mercantile Exchange: Get rid of all our feeder cattle today; they’ll be going down to hoof level by tomorrow morning. New York Commodity Exchange: Buy 2,000 contracts of gold at market opening and place a sell order at $869.15 an ounce; that’s what it will hit at 3:30 tomorrow afternoon. New York Cotton Exchange: Offload every contract of cotton we have today, as the price has peaked. Got it?”
“Just a minute,” said Izzy. He yelled for another clerk and gave him the list to rush to the brokers at once. Then he turned back to Heller. “Mr. Jet, I don’t know how you get these lists. You must know some cow at the Chicago stockyards and the head of the Federal Reserve. Oy! Such lists! You haven’t failed once in thirty days of commodity trading. You know within two, twenty-four, thirty-six hours, exactly what the market will do! You never lose! You buy, sell. Always right on the money!”
“I’m trying to make a few billion,” said Heller. “We need it for the spores plant; we need it to buy Chryster back from IRS and the government; and you need it to get your plan to take over the world with corporations going.”
“Yes, yes. I know that and we are already a half a billion on our way to it. But I’m scared to death. The quantities we buy are so big. If we ever missed, we’d be wiped out. I go have nightmares every night that this will turn into another Atlantic City!”
Oh, I hoped it would! This scene was giving me chills! Half a billion? That was almost twice what I had! Money is power and with enough money, Heller could succeed! All this had been going on, like an avalanche roaring at me down the mountainside, while I was just peacefully whistling.
“Be calm, Izzy,” said Heller. “Be calm. Here, come with me. I’ve been meaning to show you because I can’t be here all the time and you’ll have to know how to do it.”
They walked through the throng of hurrying people. Heller stopped before a blank door and took out a key. “This is the spare office I asked you to give me last month. Now, don’t start screeching that I have ruined the decor or something, because I can patch up the holes in the wall and the floor and nobody will know the difference.”
They went in. Heller locked the door behind him.
It was a very wide office now because some of the partitions or internal divisions had been removed and were stacked up over at the side.
A huge, long sheet of slate covered the entire far wall. It had white columns painted on it. At the tops of these columns were “Wheat,” “Corn,” “Soybeans,” “Cattle,” etc., etc.—all the various things sold on the commodity markets in terms of futures. Under each was a column of figures, very large. Over to the left were columns of times and months of contracts.
Along the far right wall, a set of ticker-tape machines stood chattering away, spewing out tape.
A stack of newspapers littered a desk.
Close to the wall opposite the huge slate stood a contraption that looked like it was built of armor steel. It had a padlock on the back and Heller unlocked it and opened the door.
The time-sight!
Heller stuck his eye to the eyepiece and twiddled a side knob. I couldn’t make out the numbers but they seemed to be future numbers on the slate up to, perhaps, thirty hours. At least that was what the digital in the frame was spitting as time.
“Izzy,” said Heller. “This is very confidential. The public must not get possession of these. It’s a navigational time-sight.”
“A what?”
“It reads the future,” said Heller. “Right now, if that board is kept up daily, this device reads the future of that board. You can see what it will be reading this afternoon or tomorrow at specific times. It reads whatever is put on the board in th
e future.”
“Magic!” said Izzy in tones of horror. “Divination! Oy!”
“No, no,” said Heller. “It’s just a machine, an invention. Look into the eyepiece.”
“Never!” said Izzy. “Black magic! Necromancy! My mother would never forgive me. My rabbi would go into shock! He’d revoke my bar mitzvah! One must never touch magic! Moses would roll in his grave fast enough to turn the Red Sea into buttermilk!”
“Izzy,” said Heller, “it has nothing to do with magic. It’s just that time is the dominant factor in this universe and forms the positions of matter in space. The machine simply operates on a feedback.”
Izzy was shuddering back, afraid of his future chances in heaven.
Heller said, “All it’s reading right now is future dollar marks.”
“Dollar marks?” said Izzy.
“Correct and direct,” said Heller.
“Well, that puts a different value on it,” said Izzy.
Heller said, “Izzy, I have to come in here twice a day and chalk up the whole board, using the data from those machines. If I get busy on something else, we lose out. I also have to read the sight and figure out what to buy and sell. And you, with your business administration knowledge, would be much better at it than I am. You could probably make the setup grind out twice as much as I do.”
“You mean we would make a billion a month?”
“Whatever you say,” said Heller.
“How do you operate the machine?” said Izzy.
“Well, I can’t demonstrate that until you take an Oath of State Secrecy. The Fleet is very touchy about these.”
Izzy promptly raised his right hand.
“No,” said Heller. “Put your hand on your heart.”
Izzy did.
Heller said, “Repeat after me: ‘I do hereby solemnly acknowledge that I have been entrusted . . .’”
Izzy did.
Heller continued, “‘. . . with a secret of state and swear never hereafter to impart its portent or content in any way whatsoever . . .’”
Izzy repeated it.
Heller went on, “‘. . . to any unauthorized person, even under the threat or fact of torture or extinction.’”
Izzy repeated that with his eyes a bit round behind his glasses.
Heller continued, “‘And should I violate this oath, I hereby surrender all my rights and privileges as a citizen, my rank as an officer and my name as an individual.’”
Looking a bit white, Izzy did so.
Heller concluded, “‘Long Live His Majesty!’”
Izzy looked at him, cocking his head over oddly. I knew what had happened. Heller was so used to simply spilling out the Oath of State Secrecy he had overrun it accidentally.
Izzy said, “Long Live His Majesty?”
“Correct!” said Heller, hurriedly. “Now I can show you how to operate this.”
“His Majesty?” said Izzy. “Then it is black magic after all. You made me take an oath to Satan, the King of the Nether Regions!”
I hurriedly grabbed a pen. Heller was skidding right on into an outright Code break. He’d have to tell Izzy now that he was an extraterrestrial, a Royal officer of the Voltar Fleet and a subject of the Emperor, Cling the Lofty.
But instead, Heller replied, “Of course. Isn’t it said that money is the root of all evil?”
Izzy thought that over. He nodded. “How do you run the sight?” he said.
I threw down my pen in disgust. Heller was getting too knowledgeable about this planet!
Heller was showing him, in some detail. Izzy, looking through the eyepiece, said, “Wait. Look at those pork bellies! The March contract will go down to thirty-four, the lowest I’ve ever seen them. Hurry, Mr. Jet. Finish showing me. I can sell them short in the next half-hour and make three hundred thousand dollars! Pork bellies will really get us out of the mud today!”
I mourned. Now, with Izzy’s expertise on commodity futures, the money would roll in!
I turned my attention to the Countess Krak. With Heller making money absolutely at will with the time-sight on the commodity market, she mightn’t use her credit card. MY credit card.
Yikes! She wasn’t in the fur shop now. She was in an auto salesroom—Porsche!
A huge sign said:
Who Cares about the Cost
When You Can Ride
in Foreign Luxury?
A salesman was bustling up to her. She was looking at a sparkling blue Porsche 1002 coupe.
“Do you have any disposable cars?” said the Countess Krak. “We won’t be on the planet very long.”
The salesman caught his breath. He, however, was up to it, (bleep) him. He said, “Oh, yes, miss. Disposable cars? That one right there.”
She regarded it thoughtfully.
“It’s eighty-five thousand dollars,” said the salesman. “It’s turbocharged for track and street. It’s the fastest thing in America. Its slalom is 8.0 seconds, five-speed box, overhead cams . . .”
“I’ll take it,” said the Countess Krak. “It matches the color of his eyes.”
“Time payment?” said the salesman.
“Oh, no. He had a sort of birthday a month ago and the present was a bust. So I’ll want the car right away. Tie a nice blue ribbon around it and send it over. And just put it on this Squeeza credit card.”
PART FORTY
Chapter 2
I was frantic.
I had to act.
In a blur of action, I made up my mind.
I would send Crobe!
Only Crobe could be counted upon to do Heller in!
Ters was in the yard. I flew into the car. With tensely pointing finger, I had him race me to the hospital.
A wild search through the Zanco shelves of the warehouse revealed a third audio and visio set, complete with an 831 Relayer, hidden under the other cases.
With this box under my arm, I sped into the hospital.
Prahd was in the basement operating room, working to alter the fingerprints of a newly arrived criminal. He was fortunately at a rest point and was just telling the hunted man he could go back to his cell.
Prahd looked up and saw me. “Ah,” he said, “you’ve come to tell me my pay has started.”
I gritted my teeth. I was in no mood for labor-relations conferences. “Grab whatever you need to install these you-know-whats,” I said. “And come with me! You have a colleague in dire peril. There must be no delay.”
“A cellologist?” he said, blinking his big green eyes.
“No, me!” I said. “Get going!”
He grabbed what he thought he would need. I even helped him carry it.
We got into the car and sped for the archaeological workman’s barracks.
We hurried down the tunnel. We crossed the vast hangar floor. We went up the cell block corridor.
I peered in. We were in luck! When there is no sun to watch going up and down, one can lose track of day and night. Obviously, this was the case with Crobe. He was lying in the bunk, sound asleep.
With a firm push on the remote control button, I activated the bed clamps.
The metal arms swung over and pinned the body firmly to the mattress.
I undid the combination lock of the outer door. I turned the key on the inner door.
Crobe was looking around wildly, staring down at the metal arms and then at me and Prahd. “Wh . . . wh . . . wh . . . ?”
“Feed him the gas!” I said.
Prahd instantly had the mask ready. He clamped it on.
“Wh . . . wh . . . wh . . . ?” sputtered Crobe.
He was out.
I covered the viewport on the inside of the armored door. I thrust the box at Prahd.
“Install them quick,” I said. “There is no time to lose.”
“Wait a minute,” said Prahd. “These are a different type. There are three units. Unit A alters the vision response of one eye so that it sees through solids like metal or clothes or bone, depending on where the person focuses his v
ision. Unit B registers the emotional response of the spy to what he sees. Unit C is just the usual audio bug.”
I looked at the box. He was right. So Spurk had lied when he told me that he had only two units and then lied again when he said they didn’t make any that monitored emotions. No wonder I felt justified in killing him and emptying his safe. Spurk was a crook.
“Details, details,” I snapped. “Do they all operate as respondo-mitters? Do they have a two-hundred-mile activator-receiver? Is there an 831 Relayer for them?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Well, put them in! What are we waiting for?”
Prahd set up some burners and catalysts on the desk. He sprayed the place with disinfectant—it was pretty filthy, as Crobe had not used the toilet to relieve himself—and shortly got to work.
I rushed out. I went to see Faht Bey. He sat at his desk and said icily that he was out.
“You’ve got to help me,” I said.
“That would be a distant day,” he said.
“No, no. This affects the security of the base. I have to ship Dr. Crobe to New York.”
“You mean he’ll be out of this base?”
“Yes.”
“Never to return?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll give you all the help you need.”
We made the arrangements at once. Crobe would be put in a Zanco restraint coat—something like a straitjacket they use on Earth, except it is held magnetically and has no ties. Two guards in plain clothes would accompany him to make sure he got there. The guards would have instant two-way-response radio contact with the base in case he got loose or anything went wrong.
While Faht Bey finalized those vital steps, I went back to the cell.
Prahd was working away, using a perpetual scowl mark to cover up the implanting of the bugs.
I looked at the library. Yes, he had been employing the language strips. But the things which showed wear were the psychiatric and psychological texts. Oh, I had been right! He had really been fascinated!
That was what gave me my biggest idea. I went into the false ID department and we got to work.