You won’t tell anybody anything after you hit the bottom down there, I thought. I tensed to make my move.
Something was flashing in front of my eyes. Snelz was flipping some gold-colored credit notes in front of my face. I steadied his hand.
That morning I had drawn the hundred and fifty-five credits I still had left in a year’s pay advance. I had given it to Crobe. He had snarled that I was still ten credits short and he would now go to Lombar anyway if I didn’t come through by nightfall. But there was another hitch. I had gotten sick down there again and I couldn’t stand to go near him even once more.
And here were ten credits!
“Heller sent a man out to buy a lot of things this morning,” said Snelz. “It was Timyjo that went and he is a great thief. He stole most of it, so your cut is big. It was eleven credits but this book cost one credit. Hey, what’s the matter?”
I had sat down weakly on a ledge. After a little, I said, “Snelz, I happen to owe Crobe ten credits. Take it down and give it to him.”
“Oh? Right!”
“Wait,” I said, reviving a bit. “Give me those dice.”
“Indeed, yes! I wouldn’t use them again for anything!”
I took the six dice, gave them a blasphemous funeral prayer and threw them off the rampart and into the depths below. Let the ghosts of the ancients and the executed Apparatus offenders get in trouble with them way down there in their black chasm and let the living live!
PART FIVE
Chapter 1
A half an hour later, I was in the training hall, sitting by the desk. I was about to get one of the worst shocks in my life. At the moment my worries consisted only of a dull nausea in my stomach and the realization that if I were taken off the mission, I would find myself hopelessly overdrawn on pay, bankrupt and cashiered. I was sitting there, hoping to get some idea of how to pry Heller out of Spiteos, observing the scene before me to find any inspiration.
The vast hall was a patchwork of independent projects. Four assistant trainers, in four different places, were trying to get four different acts into shape. One was a wrestling act, one was a juggler and the other two were in such early stages I could not make them out, consisting as they were of just some minor exercises.
The Countess Krak was far back on the right side of the room, quite distant. She was instructing one of her trainers to teach a juggler: the objects were six medium-sized lizards, the kind with razor-sharp spines; it would be a good act when perfected but the juggler was afraid of cutting his hands and the assistant trainer needed coaching on how to get his student to overcome this fear with confidence. I couldn’t hear what the Countess was saying to him but now and then she would herself flip a couple of lizards into the air and grasp them correctly and then pass them to the assistant so he could show the juggler. I didn’t envy the assistant: you could lose a finger on a spiny lizard; but the Countess was being very patient and reassuring. She seemed to have on new clothes and I hoped she wouldn’t be fool enough to wear them on a trained act parade: Lombar would be investigating like a swooping bird of prey.
I hadn’t paid much attention to Heller when I came in beyond making sure he was there as stated by the guards at the door. But now my attention shifted to him.
Heller was through with his studies for the day. Clear over at the opposite corner of the hall from Krak, he was simply going through some ring exercises to keep in shape.
He was doing what is called a “startler”—so labeled because it always brings a shock of indrawn breath from an audience which, of course, supposes the gymnast has lost his grip and is falling.
Performed with a single hanging ring about ten feet from the floor, the gymnast does a single handstand on the ring, his body rising upward, parallel to the rope. It is difficult enough to do one of those handstands on a ring—I never could. But the rest of the stunt is why it is called a startler.
Heller’s hand would slip off the bottom of the ring and his body would start to plummet downward vertically. But his heels would flick forward and, tight together, would catch the rounded top of the ring, one on either side of the rope, and abruptly stop the fall. It is difficult to make heels hold on the rounded top of an iron ring but, even after a drop, he was having no trouble with it. Then he’d reach up for the ring with the other hand and do the startler using that one.
He was having no trouble at all. He was very graceful. To him it was just casual exercise. He was doing it over and over, right hand, then left hand. It really looked like he was thinking of something else—and probably he was: the evening and night with the Countess Krak.
My attention shifted to the wrestling act. It was going on a short distance to the side of Heller’s ring. The assistant trainer there apparently had his hands full—full of trouble. The assistant was a tall, muscular fellow in the usual loincloth. The two he was trying to train were not cooperating: one was a primate, a shaggy beast covered with hair, captured in the jungle of some wild planet; the other was a yellow-man, probably from the Deepst Mountains, one of the race you often see in circuses doing “strong acts”—you know, the kind with no body hair, huge muscles, given to a lot of roaring and posturing. Both primate and yellow-man were about six feet eight inches tall and weighed maybe three hundred pounds. Big.
I got interested in the act. Apparently the primate and the yellow-man were supposed to be having a fight over a big red piece of fake fruit. It was really a comedy-acrobatic wrestling act, all rehearsed and precisely timed. But to an audience it would look like a funny fight. It was supposed to begin with the primate hunched down eating the fruit. Then the yellow-man was supposed to jump on the primate to take the fruit away and they would leap and spin and so on for a time and finally the primate would solve it by splitting the fruit in half and they’d both sit down to eat it, the funniest part being that it was the primate, an ape, really, that solved it.
The assistant trainer wasn’t having any trouble with the primate. Like any big ape, it could spin and somersault with great agility. The trouble was with the yellow-man. And I must say that I would not have liked to meet him in an alley. He was so motivated by brute force that he was really punishing the primate and it was making the ape a bit sullen to be side-punched and kicked when it wasn’t part of the scenario.
At one point of the act, the yellow-man was supposed to get a strangle armlock on the primate. The ape was then supposed to front somersault out of it. Apparently the yellow-man wouldn’t let go enough so the primate could flip. The yellow-man, hate in his eyes, was trying to finish the grip and really strangle the ape.
I heard the assistant trainer’s voice dimly in the din and clatter of the hall. He said to the yellow-man, “Look. I’ll take the place of the ape and you put the grip on me and I will show you exactly where to clamp so the ape can get out of it and do his somersault.” I thought, trainer, I wouldn’t do that if I were you, that yellow-man is kill-crazy.
The primate had turned a bit sullen and, rubbing its throat, shuffled off to one side out of the way. The assistant trainer stood in its place and indicated that the yellow-man should begin.
Well, I’ve seen some looks of savage anticipation in my time but the look that came over that yellow-man beat them all. They had probably found him in some Domestic Police cell charged with murder or he wouldn’t be here at Spiteos. He had probably suffered what he thought was injustice and bad treatment—rightly so at Spiteos. And here was his chance!
He sprang on that assistant trainer like a ferocious beast!
With an animal snarl he slammed his arm around the trainer’s neck. Gripping his own wrist with his other hand, he began to apply the pressure!
There was murder in the yellow-man’s eyes, hate in the roars which went past his bared teeth. I expected at any instant to hear the trainer’s neck snap. He could not cry out.
The racket in the place was such that no one else seemed to be paying any attention. Maybe this sort of thing was too usual in these acts. I was certain the ye
llow-man was going to chalk up a new murder right that instant. My eye caught a movement to the side of them.
Heller had not caught the ring with his heels. He front-flipped to land on his feet.
In a flash of motion, Heller was close by the fight!
He reached down, almost unconcerned, and with a thumb and forefinger put a clamp on the giant’s elbow! It is an ordinary release defense action, it produces considerable pain and paralysis, though how Heller knew what points to touch on a yellow-man—who is made differently—I do not know.
The roar of the giant turned to a screech!
He let go of the trainer like the trainer had gone red hot. He whirled to rear up against Heller!
Heller quietly kicked the giant in the back of the head with his toe. It was not a lethal kick. The yellow-man flopped forward, out cold.
The trainer was struggling up. Heller gave him a hand. The fellow couldn’t talk yet but thanks was on his face.
I couldn’t hear what Heller was saying but he was being solicitous about the trainer’s neck and was rubbing it for him. The primate then got up and came over to them and—it made both the trainer and Heller laugh—solemnly shook Heller’s hand. Actually it was very funny for one doesn’t expect apes to know much. I laughed myself—and it was the last laugh I had that day!
The trainer went over and got an electric whip. The giant was still out cold. Heller saw that it was under control and apparently decided that was all the exercise he was going to do today. He picked up his exercise suit top and slipped into it. Then he trotted across the room, threw a kiss to the Countess Krak and left the hall.
Knowing the guards outside would be hard on Heller’s heels and that he was just going up to bathe and dress anyway, I lingered on a bit, my eyes on the Countess. There was my enemy, there was the one stalling this mission.
She had had some minor success training the trainer but it was almost as if she had been waiting for Heller to leave. And, if I had been about to follow, I would have stopped because here she came, walking through the noisy hall toward me.
Well, I must say the guard Timyjo exercised good taste in his stealing. Or maybe Heller had specified it. But the Countess Krak was certainly gorgeous in her new turnout.
She was wearing brand-new, hip-length shimmering boots, black with gleaming brass heels. She had on flesh-colored tights and wore a tight, waist-length jacket of black leather and spangles. On her head, as a crown to her neck-length yellow hair, she wore a little visored hat, smaller at the top than around her head: it was glittering with black discs and it had a little plume upright at the center front. It was a costume patterned on the clothes she used to wear but oh, what a new and expensive difference!
And she was beautiful. There is no arguing with that. She was fabulously, magnificently beautiful. My enemy. She sat down in a big chair across from me, her back to the room. She turned her perfectly formed face toward me.
“Soltan,” she said, “you’ve got to help me!” And there were tears trembling in her eyes!
A little alarm bell started going off in my head. Was this the cold, emotionless Countess Krak? What new ploy was this? I have never trusted women and I certainly tripled that for the Countess Krak.
“Soltan,” she continued, “Jettero has done the English. He has the New England and Virginia accents down perfectly. I even went off into slang and mannerisms and he has those. I have gotten him through Earth geography and geology. He has a grasp of political structures and demography for the planet. He has reviewed the peculiarities of the Solar System . . . .”
One tear fell and coursed down her smooth cheek. Almost a wail came out of her. “Soltan, I have run out of things to teach him!”
Oho and aha! I thought. And you’re running out of ways to stall his departure!
“Soltan, can’t you get me permission to teach him espionage? He will be in danger if he does not know that. And I don’t think he has the basics of it.”
Lady, I thought, that is the understatement of all time.
“Countess,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as smug and lofty as I felt, “Lombar gave very definite instructions about that.”
“But why, Soltan, why? He’ll be in danger if he doesn’t understand a key subject like that!” And another tear spilled out.
“Lombar has his reasons,” I said. For some reason I suddenly felt sick. “And Lombar’s reasons are always good ones. I think he simply wants Heller to be more natural. You know how real special agents act: darting about, peering under garbage can lids, sure to draw attention to themselves. Right now Lombar could kill us both for what I’m permitting. It’s really a very simple mission, just introducing a little technology onto the planet. . . .”
My attention was suddenly drawn to something happening behind her.
The giant had recovered. The assistant trainer was not to be seen. But the yellow-man was walking toward us. He was rubbing his elbow. He looked very annoyed. I felt a surge of fear.
The Countess was trying to think of some way to persuade me. She did not alert to the fact that I was staring at the giant. Maybe I was not being obvious. Maybe there was a tiny trace of hope that this murdering brute of a yellow-man now walking up behind her would kill her and solve all my problems. She was unarmed. I studiously kept my hands away from any of my own weapons.
She was sitting down. She was out of position. There was even a chair arm in her way if she tried to rise swiftly. The giant came on, rubbing his elbow, aggrieved, unnoticed by anyone but me. He stopped right behind her. From the look of him he was going to kill her. My hopes rose.
She was about to speak to me again, a pleading look on her face.
The yellow-man let go of his elbow and cuffed her shoulder hard!
He roared at her, “You keep that (bleepard) Heller away from me or I’ll break his (bleeping) neck!”
She swiveled in the chair and looked up at his towering height.
She snapped, “Don’t you dare talk about Jettero that way!”
There was a hiss of indrawn breath from fifty people. The hall went tomb-silent instantly.
The giant slowly raised his arms to seize and strangle her. His voice was grating and every word held death. “I’ll say anything about him I please! He’s just a Devils (bleeped) Royal officer! A snotty, rotten, stuck-up (bleep)!” The arms came down.
Her face had gone white.
Her hand flashed to the back of her chair and it went spinning away!
She was over to his right!
There was a sound like a shot. I hadn’t even seen her hand move but his left wrist was broken, dangling!
And then began a devil’s dance I shall not want to watch again.
This was no emotionless statue. This was a live ball of raging fury!
She hit him in the face with the backhand swing of her left.
She turned. Her right arm came swinging in in a wide sweep toward his face. Just before it hit, her right foot hit the floor, the brass heel cracked like a shot. It seemed to give the back of her hand a whiplike propulsion. The blow against his face was the crunch of breaking bones!
It had spun her to the right. Her left arm began a sweep back. Her left foot exploded on the floor. The back of her open hand impelled into his cheek and more bones broke!
This had carried her to the left. Her right arm went out. She turned back. The boot stamped! The hand crashed into his jaw!
The back of her left hand, the back of her right hand, one after the other like a remorseless machine, she drove him backwards.
The yellow-man had sixty feet of hall behind him. Step by punished step he was being driven backwards! Blood was cascading down his chest. He was howling like a trapped animal!
Step by step, strike by strike she drove him back. A ghastly, precisely timed ballet of blood and punishment. Only those sounds, the stamp of a boot, the crash of the hand, the raging howl of the giant echoed in the room.
Fifty of the sixty feet he went, dying all the way.
And then he tried to counterattack!
He kicked at her! Had it connected it would have smashed her chest. But with perfect timing she seized the heel! Using his own momentum against him, she pulled the heel up until he lay horizontal in the air. Her foot lashed out at what remained of the giant’s jaw.
Like a huge arrow he shot backwards. The electric-shock machines were there. His head slammed into a machine arm. The sound was like an exploding melon! He crashed downward to the floor.
The Countess Krak was no cold killer now. She was a blazing fury. She followed up and stamped upon his chest, his arms, his face!