I picked up the locket. The chain wasn’t even broken: I had just neglected to push the safety catch closed when I had put it on and the clasp had simply slid out.
The Countess Krak had not taken them!
The kiss on the cheek had been in honest appreciation when she thought, mistakenly, that I had made her a present of a credit card.
She didn’t even know you had to PAY for credit card purchases later, for that had been withheld in the effort to get her to wreck Heller with crazy spending.
I suddenly recalled that earlier she had even asked who was the boss of the hospital and, finding it was I, then supposed that everything in the area was Apparatus gear and thus open to mission requisition. She hadn’t even stolen that.
And then came the lowest blow of all. She wasn’t a crook! Maybe Heller was correct that her police record was false and she had been framed by the Assistant Lord of Education for Manco! Maybe his deathbed confession was wholly valid and she was blameless!
Gradually, I began to seethe. My ire against her began to rise like a red and suffocating tide!
She was taking advantage of her innocence!
She was even denying me the relief of believing she was a criminal!
I knew right then that there was no limit whatever to the skulduggery of the Countess Krak!
Dimly, I became aware that the guard captain was still talking. He was going on and on about something. Eventually he got my attention.
“What?” I said.
“Captain Bolz!” said the guard captain. “I’m trying to tell you that Captain Bolz of the Blixo is awfully upset with you. No one could find you anyplace. He has been wanting to get up to Istanbul but he said he couldn’t leave until he saw you. He’s been tearing the place to pieces looking for you for a day and a half. He’s mad as screaming Devils about it. I’m trying to tell you that you’ve got to go see him right away, regardless of the time.”
Oh, Gods. Fate was not out of ammunition. Here was more trouble.
PART THIRTY-SEVEN
Chapter 1
Where the Hells have you been?” roared Captain Bolz.
He reared up off the gimbal bed in his cabin, a mass of chest hair and wrath.
I stood timidly in the oval doorway, twisting my karakul cap round and round in my hands. The master of the battered Blixo was not his usual self. No affable invitation to have a seat, no slightly fawning demeanor.
“It’s been an awful trip!” he snarled. “A (bleeping) fairy running around flirting with my crew, a crazy, gibbering idiot of a doctor trying to convince the mates the ship would run better if he gave them flippers instead of hands, and the most beautiful woman I ever seen in my whole life locked up in her cabin and not even giving me an ankle glimpse. And then I arrive here and just before I slide in through the mountaintop the whole control panel tries to tell me I’m about to have a collision with a spaceship!”
I cringed. I knew why that was. The hypnohelmet breaker switch in my head!
“Then I get safely into the hangar,” he ranted on, “after braving Gods know what perils and where are you? No Scotch. No ‘Hello, Bolz,’ and that ain’t all! Three months ago when I was up in Istanbul, I meet this rich widow. And she says that she’ll just die if I don’t come back and, (bleep) it, Gris, here I am hanging around this stinking hangar for a day and a half and nobody can even find you!”
“Why did you have to see me?” I ventured timidly. And, indeed, it was true. He didn’t have to clear in through me.
“First things first,” he said. “Sit down in that chair! We can get this over with in time for me to be on that morning plane if we get moving.”
I sat down in a gingerly way, my hand not far from my stun gun butt. These spacers are peculiar people. They can get out of hand. Not only that, you have to be crazy to become a spacer in the first place. Just because some rich widow was waiting for him, he had no call to be so upset. Or did he?
He plopped a thick mass of paper down in front of me. Blank Voltar Apparatus gate passes. An unusual number.
“Stamp those and we can talk further,” he threatened.
“Aren’t these an awful lot?” I said. After all, one should have some care in authorizing official documents.
“It’s none of your business, except the rich widow also owns a counterfeit Scotch distillery and Scotch is getting to be all the rage on Voltar—knocks them kicking! And I’m not offering you a piece of it—either the widow or the Scotch business—and I need so many cargo-gate passes because you might not be around very long.”
Ominous. Distinctly ominous. I knew now that he had something up his sleeve. “You better tell me more,” I said.
“I’ll (bleep) well tell you more when you stamp those (bleeped) passes,” said Bolz. “And don’t date them. Blank that part of your stamp. I can forge that much of it with my own.”
Fate was having its way with me. I knew he wouldn’t tell me until I stamped. I was already too beaten down to argue further. I got out my identoplate, blanked the date and began to stamp.
I stamped and stamped and stamped.
Captain Bolz got himself some hot jolt. He didn’t offer me any. Then he finalized his packing of a trip bag and began to dress in Western clothes.
I stamped on and on. He could land a dozen spaceship freighter loads of Scotch, a case at a time, with all this.
At last I flexed my aching arm. I began to put my identoplate away.
Bolz, who had been tying his Earth shoes, detected the motion. “Oh no, you don’t,” he said. “There’s one more thing.”
He scooped the blank stamped passes up, stack after stack, and locked them in a safe. And from it he then brought out an imposing-looking document. “Sign and stamp this,” he said.
I looked at it as he laid it down on the table. Awfully official-looking. Ominous. It said:
I, Soltan Gris, Secondary Executive of the Coordinated Information Apparatus, Exterior Division, Royal Government, Voltar Confederacy (Long Live His Majesty Cling the Lofty), do hereby and herewith acknowledge the receipt of Freighter Invoice 239-765-933 AZ and all substance thereof.
I also herewith specifically state that it was ordered by me personally and that I hold all parties connected with this invoice, and all other sums ever given him by Zanco, totally innocent and blameless and do attest that they were acting under duress and by my orders.
________________________
(Signature)
Identoplate Area.
I read it wonderingly. I said, “All right, but WHAT is it?” I could plainly smell some danger in this.
“You’ll get the invoice when you sign it and not until you sign it,” said Bolz. “And believe me, I will be glad to get it off my hands!”
“But I can’t sign a document like this. I don’t know what it is. I could be shot if it’s something illegal.”
“Come on, come on!” he said. “You’ll make me late for my plane! Sign it! Stamp it! You’ve never been finicky before!”
He had hours yet. What was this mad rush?
He saw I was hesitating. He reached out and touched the corner of the sheet. He was having trouble picking it up with his blunt fingers on that slick table. “All right, I’ll just signify you wouldn’t accept it. But I think you’re a (bleeping) fool not to.”
Cunning entered my mind. If the invoice proved wrong, I could still draw the stun gun and shoot him and get this back. It might cause hard feelings. But it was the best way.
I slapped my hand down on the sheet just as he was drawing it off the table. I pulled it back to me. I got out a pen. I signed it. Then I got my identoplate back in order, again showing hour and date, and stamped it.
He took the sheet and put it carefully in his safe. He took out another sheet. Thank heavens, he left the safe door open. I could still execute my ploy.
The new sheet slid across to me. With one glance at it, my eyes popped and my jaw dropped. It said:
FREIGHTER INVOICE 239-765-933 AZ
&nbs
p; Carrier:
Apparatus Space Freighter Blixo
Captain Bolz, Commanding
Shipper:
Zanco Cellological Equipment and Supplies
Chief:
Koltar Zanco
Item:
30,000 pounds in 50-pound bars
100% pure GOLD
I reeled. My head felt like a spiral nebula in full speedup.
My letter to Zanco had worked! I had told them they had denied me a chance to buy gold with the C30,000 they hadn’t bribed me with. And they had sent the GOLD!
“You want this document back?” said Bolz with a strange sort of sneer.
“Oh, Gods, no!” I cried.
My whole world had suddenly gone inverted. I had been at the bottom of the abyss. Just one glimpse of this had started me soaring.
“You’ve got it on board?” I said.
“Silly question,” said Bolz. “But I’ll humor you. Come down this ladder.”
He led me to a storeroom. He unlocked the door. There were the boxes all lashed in place.
I dived at them.
I twisted the fastenings off the top one.
BEAUTIFUL YELLOW!
With an expert flip I got out my Knife Section knife and scored a deep scratch in one.
Pure, soft, gleaming gold!
I opened another and another.
Bars of glowing GOLD!
Two to the case.
Bars and bars and bars of pure gold!
“Three hundred boxes,” said Bolz. “One hundred pounds to the box. Now if you can stop slavering long enough, come back up and initial my copy of the invoice.”
I didn’t want to leave. He pulled me out of the storeroom, ignoring the way my hands were automatically stretching toward the beautiful, beautiful gold.
Despite his tugging, I wedged myself in the door and counted the ends of the boxes.
“Oh, my Gods,” said Bolz. “They’re all there.” He was still tugging at me. “You’ll make me miss my plane!”
“. . . 297, 298, 299, 300!” I counted. “They’re all there!”
“Yes, they’re all there,” said Bolz. “And I’m Gods (bleep) glad to get rid of them, the kind of crew I’ve got and the price of gold being what it is on this planet. Now, watch. I am locking the door. Come back to my cabin.”
He got me there. In a daze, I initialed the invoice. He put it in his safe and he locked the safe securely. He handed me the storeroom key. Then he picked up his grip and put on his civilian hat.
“You’re on your own,” said Captain Bolz. “Some of the crew will be aboard and I’ve told the mate they can give you a hand unloading it, but I take no responsibility for it from here on out. Goodbye.”
He left.
PART THIRTY-SEVEN
Chapter 2
I sank down at his table. I couldn’t get my eyes shut: they were popped too wide, a frozen reflex.
Minutes went by. I became aware of the fact, at last, that my heart was still beating and that I was still breathing.
Thirty thousand pounds of gold!
Zanco had owed me a 30,000-credit bribe for all the hospital supplies I ordered. That meant that they had paid what must have been a professional price for the metal, a credit a pound. They used a lot of gold in cellological items because it did not tarnish and so did not poison cells. Well, that was all to my benefit: and it was a straight professional deal.
There was a law forbidding the export of metals that would upset the currencies of primitive worlds which was why the Apparatus had never done this on the Earth base. But if they were willing to overlook that, so was I.
I seized a scrap of paper off the littered floor and began to calculate.
The 30,000 pounds on Voltar would weigh about 25,000 pounds on Earth. That was 300,000 Troy ounces.
Gold had shot up lately. It was running around $850 an ounce. It had been that years ago and then had dropped but now inflation had caught up with it again. It would go higher, not lower.
I calculated further. I gasped. That was $255,000,000.00!
GODS!
I could pay off the credit card companies!
I wouldn’t lose the villa. The staff wouldn’t be sold into slavery. I wouldn’t be sold into slavery.
More! With that much money, I could wheel and deal and wangle and get anything done to Heller and Krak that I wanted!
WOW!
It didn’t even make any difference if she was using my credit card!
Who the Hells cared?
WOW! WOW!
I could buy that bulletproof limousine!
I could buy and sell anybody I wanted to!
Utanc even would fawn on me!
Oh, a gorgeous world was really opening up!
WOW! WOW!! WOW!!!
But wait.
Thirty thousand pounds of gold!
That was 12½ Earth TONS!
I couldn’t even get a truck to carry it!
I could not hide it or bury it.
Keeping gold lying around meant its loss, as I had just so harshly experienced.
Ye Gods, I couldn’t even get it out of the hangar!
No wonder Bolz had told me I was on my own.
My problem was I HAD TOO MUCH GOLD!
I briefly toyed with the idea of just accepting a little bit. But that was unthinkable. I could not abandon even a shadow of that beautiful metal.
Wait. I had to think!
The mistake I had made before was trying to hold on to it. I must not make that same mistake again!
If I turned up in Istanbul with that much gold, they’d investigate me to bits. My cunning plan of local buying through the Pahalt General Merchandising Emporium that I had set up earlier couldn’t account for any amount like this. I doubted that there was this much gold reserve in the whole Turkish National Bank!
Yet I had to convert it. Despite my overwhelming love of it, I had to convert it into ready cash before somebody turned it into lead and paint. But where? And how?
The only place they would accept gold with no questions, under their new laws, was Switzerland. But there were lots of borders to cross between here and there!
Borders? “Border-jumper.” The line-jumper!
But that meant letting the Antimancos in on it. It meant dangling gold in front of a crew of pirates! They would kill anyone for a fraction of that much wealth.
How was I going to do this? How could I fool Stabb?
I had to make this work!
My life depended upon it utterly.
No matter the risk, I was going to handle this.
But Gods, did I need an idea!
No sooner prayed for than received! Instant service from the celestial realm!
Like a bolt from the blue, the idea struck!
PART THIRTY-SEVEN
Chapter 3
All weariness was forgotten. The glow of the gold had entered into my soul. The yellow energy of it coursed like precious perfume through my nerves and lent power to my limbs.
Oh, but there were going to be some changes now!
I rushed down the ladders of the Blixo and leaped outside the battered ship. I sped to the guard office and grabbed the domestic telephone. I called the taxi driver.
“It’s too early,” he said sleepily. “What’s the rush?”
“Money,” I said.
“You got some?” he said, wide awake.
“Beyond your wildest dreams.”
“I’ll be right down instantly.”
Oh, that proved it. There were really going to be some changes now.
He arrived with a screech of brakes that turned him halfway round.
“Follow that hospital!” I said.
He got it. As fast as that engine could turn, we churned the road to the entrance door.
I leaped out. I rushed right by Reception. I sped down the hall.
I burst into Prahd’s room.
“Oh, NO!” screamed Nurse Bildirjin. “Not you!”
I gave a short bark
ing laugh. Oh, but there were going to be some changes made!
“Prahd,” I said, “you have a duty to perform.”
“And then my pay starts,” he said.
“You will do as you are told,” I said.
I had the plan all worked out. The first of it was to get the Antimancos out of the way for the whole day. Oh, yes, I had the control star. But I wasn’t taking any chances. I didn’t need a line-jumper run by Antimancos in a hypnotic trance or shocked senseless with electric jolts. This gold was too precious to risk.
“I am going to bring a five-man crew here in the next few minutes,” I said. “You are going to inoculate them against epizootics.”
“There is no such disease,” said Prahd.
“Then invent it,” I snapped. “And while you are inoculating them, you are going to discover they have rabies. And all day long you are going to retain them here in a ward and under no circumstances let them go back to the base until I give the word.”
“It would only take an hour to cure rabies,” said Prahd.
“Then invent a cure that takes all day!” I snarled.
“And then my pay starts,” said Prahd.
(Bleep) him, he was at THAT again! Didn’t the idiot realize that he was officially dead? I couldn’t start his pay without it appearing on the books that he was still alive.
“You will do what you are told!” I shouted.
“But it’s hardly dawn yet,” he said.
“Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day!” I howled at him.
I rushed out. It occurred to me he wouldn’t do it. I rushed back. “If you don’t, I’ll burn the hospital down!”
That made it a sure thing. The hospital was nothing to me. I could get no money out of it. He could see I meant it. He raised his hands defensively and nodded wildly. “I’ll do it!”
I raced back out to the cab.
We went shrieking down the road to the barracks. “Wait there,” I said.
I ran down the tunnel.
I streaked across the hangar. I flashed up the passageway to the crew’s quarters. I burst into the Antimancos’ room.
Five blastguns were centered on me instantly. Unintimidated, I shouted, “On your feet, all of you, and fast!”