Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were almost glassy with stunned comprehension. One of her hands was fluttering at her breast. She was having a little trouble breathing.
Ah, you (bleepch). Your expectations are high, now, aren’t they? I put the documents back in their covers and into the waterproof sleeve.
“So you see,” I said smoothly, “I have saved dear Jettero the trouble of going through all the legal nonsense of getting you restored to life. All he has to do is go quickly on his mission, finish it rapidly, return, present these papers at the palace and the rest of your lives will be a beautiful dream.” It gave me a lot of satisfaction. Heller would never come back. And anybody presenting these forgeries at Palace City would pray for death for days before they got through with them. But, of course, none of this would ever get that far.
“There is only one trouble,” I said.
She looked at me with abrupt attention.
I said, smoothly, “Jettero will probably not take to being cast out of the Fleet. You know how he is. It would mean almost death to him.”
She considered it. She knew it was not without truth.
I went on, “So this is where I need your help. I am the mission handler and these documents are supposed to be known only to me. I am afraid Jettero will balk or try to see friends and get all this modified. It would make the Emperor furious. It would put Jettero in grave danger.”
She could see that.
“Now, let’s be reasonable,” I said. “This is an easy mission, nothing dangerous about it. The sooner he goes, the sooner he will return. The help I need is for you, without telling him anything about these documents, to persuade him to go, to quickly complete the mission and get back. You have to use all your wiles. You can’t use these documents. Can I have that help?”
I watched her, my face betraying nothing of Heller’s real future.
The Countess Krak thought it over very carefully. “I will do it on one condition.”
I waited.
“If,” she said, “you let me hold those documents myself, I will do my best to persuade Jettero to leave as soon as possible and get back quickly.”
It brought me no surprise. I had actually thought it might occur and the dangers to me of these documents being exposed was, I thought, minimal. Actually, I took a sort of glee in her having on her these forgeries. Like I was putting a big death stamp right in the middle of her lovely forehead. (Bleep) her.
“If,” I said, in my turn, “you give me your solemn word that you will not show them to Heller, that you will not mention them to him, then you can hold them. But,” I said, quite factually but with double meaning, “there is danger in it for you. They are Royal documents and a person in your legal status would be imperiled by their possession.”
“There is a chance,” she said, “that you might, shall we say, misplace them? I think it is safer that I hold them, don’t you, Soltan? Then they will appear when needed.”
I shook my head sadly. “You should trust me more. I don’t want to see Heller hurt.”
Ah, well, she thought she knew that.
She took the waterproof packet, verified the documents were still in there, closed it all up and strapped it to her body and pulled down her jumper over it. It made no slightest bulge.
Then she looked at me. “I have to say thank you, Soltan. You deserve my gratitude.”
She was thanking me for putting a knife in her heart.
I left.
All the way back to Government City I actively had to suppress shouting and laughing exultantly. It sort of put flavoring on the bun to also think of an additional power I now had. One word from me to search her and she’d be tortured and killed by experts because of what they’d find. That wasn’t part of the plan. It was just a bit of perfume wafting up.
I controlled myself with effort. I had a lot to do now. A lot to do! This was only the beginning!
PART NINE
Chapter 8
We flew directly to Communication Complex Towers. There is no place that has more traffic, as everyone knows. Air, ground, pedestrian, tens of thousands of people move through it every day, paying their communication bills, arranging for new Homeview service, placing difficult calls to the next inner and next outer planets of this system and just plain complaining about the service. What I wanted was the uppermost dome, Central Directory.
Heller was going to get operated on and bugged—real good!
My driver muttered and complained his way along the tight traffic channels, trying to keep his new paint on the airbus and not on somebody else’s.
I was busy in the back. I took a second set of top-row teeth out of my pocket and put it under my upper lip. I popped color shifters into my eyes so instead of brown they would be bright green. I took off my rank locket and put it in my pocket.
The driver had us in under the dome overhang and into a slot that said:
TEN MINUTES! THIS MEANS YOU!
He said, “Don’t you be too long or I’ll get a fender bash from the local bluebottles!”
“Before much longer, you’re going to be rich,” I said. “So shut up.”
“Hey,” he said, suddenly interested. “You gonna rob this place?” Silly nut. They don’t even keep money in Central Directory.
I sauntered in. Actually there were no more than one or two thousand enquirers and there were a lot of empty interview chairs. I was looking for a female clerk that could turn out to be a complete nitwit. Somebody really dumb. I found her simply by the fact that other customers were avoiding her counter area. This would not take long.
“We have an emergency,” I said. “We need the absolute top authority on cellology in Voltar.”
Her hair was done up in a tall peak like a temple. Probably that was the shape of her skull underneath. I had to explain what a cellologist was. She punched it out on her keyboard and the symbols appeared on the desktop before her, upside down to me. I can read upside down. Anybody in the Apparatus can.
“You want his communications number?” said vacuum brain. That’s what they do in Central Directory.
“I have to make sure he’s the top authority first. Do you mind?” I reached over across the desktop to the key ranks. I started punching and this lunkhead just sat there interestedly watching me.
You can strip down a lot of data from these communication information consoles. They run off whole categories of professions as well as businesses. They tell you where this or that person can be reached right then if he is in the habit of inspecting calls. To keep from confusing this person with that, they give full identoplate data. And in case the person wants some new service, they give his credit rating.
It was nursery school stuff to get all the senior teaching cellologists on Voltar, to get their credit ratings—which is an index to how high up they are in a profession—to get the listed full identoplate data of these top ones, where they were right this minute and to get every bit of that data rolled off and delivered.
Temple-skull just sat and watched me operate her machine backwards. Maybe she was learning how to use it. Who knows?
When I had the stack of sheets, I said, “Oh, dear! These will be much too expensive!” There was no such data on any sheet I had pulled but chuckle-wit nodded wisely. Where do they find these girls? Back country of Taugo? Where the men have tails?
I punched in cellologists who had very recently had new office service installed, which meant they had just completed all their training, had passed all examinations of qualification. Then I got their full credit backgrounds including histories and origins. Then I got their identoplates. It was a foot-high stack.
“Now do you want someone’s communication number?” said marvel-wit.
I had a foot and a half stack of closely packed print sheets. I put them under my arm. “You gave it to me,” I said. “And I do thank you. You have been so much help. You should be promoted.”
I had caught a supervisor looking over in that direction and my pleasant attitude to the girl said tha
t everything was fine.
I left, jubilant. I had a full intelligence survey of the profession. And without a single trace or show of my identoplate.
Heller was going to be bugged and, by my extensive plan, neither he nor anyone else would know it except me. A bugged man is wholly at one’s mercy.
There was no bluebottle in sight. But my driver said, “You took long enough!”
“For a creature of impending wealth, you whine too much. Fly up in the sky to some blank spot and hover.”
“That’s paper. That ain’t money. You didn’t rob anybody.”
“Give it twenty-four hours,” I said. “Now get going before I bash your fenders myself!”
In the quiet of ten thousand feet above the lanes, I removed my disguise and sorted out my finds.
Professor Gyrant Slahb was my top authority choice. He was probably the dean of cellology in the western, opposite, hemisphere of Voltar. He was retired. He liked to keep his communications blocked from incoming. He had made a packet. The chances of anyone ever being able to contact him were remote.
Now for the bright new graduates. There were many candidates. I was looking for a solitary type who belonged to no clubs and had huge book bills and who had opened an office to an empty waiting room but who had had a brilliant prepractice hospital record. I found him.
He was named Prahd Bittlestiffender and he came from the eastern hemisphere of Voltar. He was twenty-five, unmarried and poor. The chances of him ever having met Professor Gyrant Slahb were nonexistent as Slahb had retired before Prahd got out of kindergarten. There was shortly going to be one cellologist less running around loose.
I fed all but the key tear-offs to the sunlit skies of Government City and ordered my driver to the Provocation Section.
As we skimmed along the brown wave crests of the River Wiel, my driver said, “I ain’t gonna accept no counterfeits!” He remembered the last sad times in the Blike Mountains.
I laughed at him. He said, “You’re acting strange today, Officer Gris.”
“I’m a new man,” I said. It did not seem to encourage him. But indeed, I felt like I was floating. All my skills and talents were in free play. Krak had gotten it and Heller was about to get it. They deserved every bit of what was coming and more!
We flew into the tunnel. I bounced up the steps. Raza Torr was his usual suspicious self. Something in his personality, no doubt. Paranoia?
His hand went into his drawer. Funny habit.
“How are the women treating you?” I said. Anything to ease the tension.
An escort bobbed up but Torr told him, “I’ll take care of this one.”
I led the way, happily and cheerfully. I went immediately to the clothes racks and began to inspect them. Raza Torr seemed quite interested. He made some unsuitable suggestions, holding out a garment used to bury people.
I found the first thing I wanted. It was the overgarment and pants of a type seen on Homeview when they want somebody to look like an old, wise scientist. I chose the proper, loose-flapped hat and then a cane.
I got an ordinary clothes carrying case and dumped my finds in. Then I went back to the racks and searched through until I found the everyday, casual uniform of Army Intelligence, badges and all: it is an ugly color—custard—but it can, because of its cut, look quite smart. It had a dagger hole in the back but not much blood. Nobody would notice. I found the cap. Then I went and got a Grade Thirteen locket, false stones, of course, but quite bright cherry red. I dumped these in the case.
I then went back to the clothes racks and got out a common civilian afternoon one-piece and its haberdashery and shoes.
“What the Hells are you doing, Gris?” demanded Raza Torr. “This some new personal murder spree?”
I ignored his tone. I was too cheerful. “It’s really official business,” I said. “Legally illegal as can be. I have an assignment to infiltrate and provoke the Retired Prostitutes Association to strike a blow for Prince Mortiiy over on Calabar.”
“You mean you’re leaving for Calabar?” He was fingering the clothes as though for quality. He opened the pockets of some of the garments I had chosen. I thought he was seeing if there was any money in them. How wrong I was!
I went over to their makeup section. I got me some false-skin, some spare teeth, a lot of wadding, some fake hair, some different colored eye-color shifters and some pats of powder of different shades. I brought those back and threw them in the case. Then I added, from another section, a portable scriber that is used for forging orders in the field.
He was tagging me now. As we went through the weapons section, I didn’t even pause. “What?” he said. “No dead bodies?”
“Not with your self-exploding guns,” I said. “Here’s what I want.”
It was the false identoplate section. I began to rake through its bins.
“Wait a minute. Those things key into the immediate arrest list.”
I smiled at him. I picked out one for Army Intelligence. It looked real good. Officer Timp Snahp. I put it in my pocket. “Now,” I said, “you are going to make me two counterfeits.”
“I can’t do that!” he wailed. “(Bleep) it, Gris! You make so many crazy mistakes you are liable to pull an investigation in on me!”
“Oh, Raza,” I said, mockingly sad. “A person in your position, talking about someone making mistakes. Tch. Tch.”
He went over to the machine himself and told the operator to leave. I gave him the names of Professor Gyrant Slahb and Prahd Bittlestiffender and all particulars. This identoplate maker at the Provocation Section is the exact same model of machine that they use in the Finance Department to make real ones. But it is ordinarily used just to make false ones.
I will say Raza Torr was doing a first-rate job. He finished up and then aged the plates in an aging buffer and spray. He said, “You’re dangerous, Gris. You can get executed for using a real counterfeit, even in the Provocation Section. There are limits.”
“Good,” I said, “let’s hit one.” I handed him the phony Army Intelligence identoplate. “Now make one with this same name but change the series number so it won’t trigger an arrest alarm. And promote ‘Officer Timp Snahp’ to Grade Thirteen and base him on Flisten. Right?”
“It won’t respond in the computers,” he protested.
“No, but it will rattle around for twenty-four hours because it won’t match up to anything. And who knows what Army Intelligence in Flisten is up to? Do it. Officer Timp Snahp might want to take somebody’s mistress out to dinner.”
His hands clenched so hard that he was in danger of breaking their bones. But he did need reminding now and then that blackmail isn’t something that is lightly held.
He was actually gritting his teeth as he did it. He made a mistake and had to get another blank.
When he was done, I did a final wander around, picked up an item or two I thought I might like. And then that was all.
I patted him consolingly on the shoulder. He needed soothing. “The originals are in a perfectly safe place. There’s not a soul that will find them unless something happens to me. You haven’t a thing to worry about. So don’t look so worried. Nothing is going to happen to me: those originals will never get mailed to the Commander of the Death Battalion.”
His hand had been gripping his beltgun. And as I spoke, it sprang clear of it convulsively. Color had drained from his face.
I patted him again. I took my loot and turned my back on him and left.
To Hells with Raza Torr. My game was Jettero Heller. He was right in my sights.
This was coming off as smooth as high-priced tup and every bit as heady.
Heller was going on his mission and he was going to go on it at my total mercy and he was never going to come back!
PART NINE
Chapter 9
Physically bugging someone so that even he does not know it is not a simple project, particularly when that someone is knowledgeable about wavelengths. But Heller was stupid on the subject of espi
onage. Complicating the project was the fact that I was determined that not only Heller would remain ignorant of it: no one anywhere would know of it except myself. I wanted no intruders on my private line!
However, my considerable skill as an Apparatus officer could surmount the huge obstacles. In my present mood I was confident I could get it done.
What I needed now was a secret operating room. Hovering at ten thousand feet above the traffic lanes of Government City, I considered it. Then I remembered the Widow Tayl.
Early in my days with the Apparatus, I had been serving on the night watch desk, a routine posting for new officers. A call had come in from the Domestic Police Execution Center to the effect that they had a criminal who was begging to be put in contact with the Apparatus. They sometimes do this, hoping that, instead of being executed, they will be transferred to an Apparatus regiment under a false identity. Purely routine.