SURVEYS!
There were more than fifteen thousand years’ worth of surveys on Blito-P3! I was amazed that Voltar had been interested in it that long. Every few years, or sometimes every few centuries, a whole survey crew had wandered through the place. They had references here and there to the Voltar Invasion Timetable. Civilizations had risen and fallen and track had been kept of them. I couldn’t read the originals, of course, but the computer summary in Voltarian—the sheet they used to transmit the data into the banks—was pinned to each one.
The most massive collection of these was grouped under just one heading: Earth Government Intelligence Organizations.
The pack covered a span of about three thousand years. Strange-sounding names jumped out at you: Julius Caesar, Karl Schulmeister, Napoleon, Webber, a host of them. They seemed to get thicker as they approached later dates. They were separated into groups, and near the top, the thickest one began with Cheka, then, moving forward, OGPU, NKVD, MGB, and wound up with Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Besopasnosti or KGB. Another pack said OSS and CIA and yet another one said FBI. I guessed that Voltar was keeping tabs on what the potential enemy was doing. And they must be very interested, because every one of these documents was initialed by the existing Chief of Apparatus at the time of its receipt. The latest ones bore initials which I knew by now stood for Lombar Hisst.
Very, very curious: a supersecret organization Voltar didn’t even admit existed, studying supersecret organizations that maybe their governments didn’t admit existed either.
I glanced over my shoulder. I knew exactly how Bob Hoodward must have felt when he was about to blow the cover off something.
I put all those packs back and got into the Voltar files. I was getting a little giddy at the sheer quantity of this stuff. How was I ever going to straighten it out and extract a coherent story?
But if I could ever get through this and sort it out, I really had them! No wonder they would engage in a huge coverup! Their hands were running scarlet with innocent blood! How could a population stand for this? What an explosion my exposé would make!
I was standing in front of a cabinet that was labeled “Don’t File.” Ah, this should be interesting.
I reached in and the very first thing I picked up almost made my eyes pop out. It said:
ARREST HIGHTEE HELLER AND HOLD HER. THEN BARGAIN WITH HER BROTHER AND GET HIM TO COME IN. THEN KILL THEM BOTH.
LOMBAR HISST
My hands shook. I was on the trail! That was Jettero Heller’s sister!
Wait a minute. Hightee Heller was still alive! I’d seen her being interviewed on Homeview not a month ago. She was in her later middle age now, graying but not too badly preserved. They had been having a festival to commemorate her songs. She had even sung a bar or two.
I wondered if she realized there had been a government plot against her life. A celebrity like that? Monstrous!
Maybe there were more details elsewhere. I looked at this vast, vast array of files—millions, billions of bits. The feeling came over me that it might take me years and years. Long before that they would have me shipped off to Modon or bolted to a dusty desk. Desperation took the place of hope.
Abruptly, as I looked back at what I held in my hand, the solution to the whole thing hit me.
Hightee Heller would know all about her brother. She would have letters, clippings, things beyond the government reach. They obviously had never dared kidnap her.
My mind was made up. I would use this scrap of paper for an entry. I would go see Hightee Heller. I would get her help.
Oh, we would blow the cover off everything!
I had Shafter lock the place up. We went back. At the crack of dawn I told them the camping trip was ended. I told the headman to take care of the place and finish Corsa’s project, and I shelled out the rest of my allowance so he could.
We sped back to the city.
At two o’clock that very day, using my family connections with the manager of Homeview, I walked into the drawing room of Hightee Heller’s rooftop estate at Pausch Hills.
A bit gray-haired, retaining some of her beauty and very pleasant, Hightee Heller graciously told me to sit down.
“I’ve come to tell you there has been a plot against your life,” I said.
She looked at the paper and then at me. “What are you doing?” she said.
“I’m writing the story of Jettero Heller’s life.”
“A writer,” she said. “Well, well, you’ve come to the right person, Monte Pennwell. You may have to do some traveling, for his papers are all kept in the place where he was born: Tapour, Atalanta Province, Planet Manco. I can give you a letter to the museum librarian there.”
“What about this threat against your life?” I said.
She went to the window and looked across at Government City. Then she said, “Are you a good fighter, Monte Pennwell?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I never tried.”
That seemed to surprise her. Then she looked at the paper. “From this, I would say that you have somehow gotten into the files of the Coordinated Information Apparatus. Have you got more than this?”
“I’ve got tons and tons and tons,” I said. “I even own the place they’re sitting in: the old fortress of Spiteos. I just bought it.”
“Good heavens!” said Hightee. She grew very thoughtful. She looked back at Government City. Then she looked at me. “You seem a nice young man. I know your family quite well. I won’t give you a letter. I’ll come with you. I haven’t been home for a long, long time.”
And that was how, with the Apparatus files, I got all the data that permitted me to finish the confession of Soltan Gris.
I hope you appreciate it. It was an awful lot of work!
It DOES contain the coverup of all time!
And right now, with no more ado, I will get on with it and grab that Soltan Gris by the neck in midflight and tell you what really happened after that fatal day he rushed into the Royal Prison hoping to be executed quickly!
The REAL story is a stunner!
PART SIXTY-EIGHT
Chapter 1
Jettero Heller, Royal officer of the Fleet, Grade Ten, and member of the Corps of Combat Engineers, tried to counter the eagerness of his lady, the Countess Krak.
He did not like the idea of approaching Spiteos, heavily defended as it was, in an unarmed and unarmored tug.
Just returning from what he supposed to be the completion of Mission Earth after an absence from Voltar of ten months, he did not like the look of things.
He was still traveling on his own orders, those of a combat engineer, and these gave him very wide latitude. He didn’t have to report in to the Apparatus and he had no slightest intention of doing so.
Ten months before, after he had been kidnapped by Lombar Hisst and thrown into the dungeon at Spiteos, he had found himself being pushed into a mission under the Exterior Division. His mission handler was supposed to be an Apparatus officer named Soltan Gris. What Gris didn’t know was that Jet had never once supposed himself to be directed by the Apparatus.
Before they left, while outfitting the mission vessel Prince Caucalsia, a space tug, Jet had had a chance to talk to Bis of Fleet Intelligence.
“The ‘drunks’ are up to something,” young Bis had said. “We can’t do anything direct because we do not have the cooperation of the Lord of the Fleet. He’s on the Grand Council; he’s a nobleman but not a Royal officer. What it’s going to take is massive evidence. With that we can force the issue. So I wish you would undertake the mission and keep your eyes open. But stay alert. Even at the best of times the Apparatus is dangerous. So stay alive and be nimble and maybe the Fleet will have the ‘drunks’ dead to rights.”
The mission had been dangerous enough to please even the most suicidal soul and he’d almost lost his darling, the Countess Krak.
On Voltar Homeview news, the bit that the Chief of the Apparatus, Lombar Hisst, was now the spokesman for His Majesty, Cling the Lofty,
rang an alarm bell in Jet.
If, however, he reported in to Bis, his mission would be over, his orders canceled and he would not have solved the situation of the Countess Krak.
If she continued on as a nonperson, he could not marry her. Worse, she could be picked up by the Apparatus at any time and slammed back into Spiteos or even executed.
There were these so-called Royal proclamations Gris had given her. As yet not fully validated by the signature of the Emperor, they offered an out for her. He didn’t care so much about the other one commending himself—he had them by the bale already.
Gris had given them to her to secure her cooperation in getting the mission launched. Jet didn’t trust anything connected with Gris.
They had not found the duplicates in Gris’ office. Gris was apparently dead now. She said she had hidden the originals at Spiteos. Dangerous!
Well, a few more hours before reporting in would make no difference. He was still operating under his own cognizance. He decided to take a chance. So he said “All right.” It was a fateful decision: even though it showed no sign of it on the surface, it was going to change the course of hundreds of billions of lives.
In the dark outside of Gris’ office in Government City, they loaded up the cartons of blackmail material they had found and the two Marines drove them back to Emergency Fleet Reserve.
Commander Crup met them by the parked tug. “You deliver the prisoner all right?”
“Committed suicide,” said the Countess Krak.
“Well, that saves the government expense,” said Crup. “I wish that could be arranged for all the—‘drunks.’”
“Maybe somebody is working on it,” said Jet. “Could you please see that these boxes are delivered to Fleet Intelligence Officer Bis? They were the prisoner’s personal blackmail files. Tell him I’ll report in a bit later when I’ve attended to one last detail.”
Old Atty, Heller’s former racing repair chief and now a watchman here, came up beaming all over himself. “We changed her water and air, we crammed her full of food and we put enough spare fuel rods in her hold to take a grand tour of the galaxies.”
“She’ll only be in operation a few more hours,” said Jet. “I think you overdid it.”
“You had a hundred thousand credits left on Mission Earth allocations. ‘Drunk’ money: you think I’d leave that unspent? I even got flowers for the lady!”
“But the ship will be coming right back here,” said Jet. “For lay-up.”
“No, she won’t,” said Commander Crup. “Tug One belongs to the Exterior Division now and the only reason you can come here at all is because you are on Fleet orders.”
“Well, I don’t want to turn a nice ship like this over to the ‘drunks’!” said Jet. “They’d just strip the silver and gold and precious stones out of it and use it to throw garbage in.”
“You must have been in action,” said Commander Crup. “I see the tail has been repaired. That permits you to file a total-loss report and give it to the lady.”
“I can’t do that,” said Jet. “It isn’t honest.”
“Oh, you,” said Commander Crup. “You’re dealing with the ‘drunks.’ What’s honesty got to do with it? Look, I’ll file the report for you myself. I’ve got your mission-order number. I’m blasted if the Apparatus is going to get anything off the Fleet! Even if they paid for it.”
“No,” said Jet.
“Yes,” said Crup. “Lady, you’ve got yourself a space tug. Put it in the back yard and raise kids in it.”
The Countess Krak, dressed as a Fleet Marine for disguise, blushed a blush that was visible even in the night.
They all laughed. “I see I can’t keep any secrets around here,” said Jet. “We’ve got to get going. Tonight’s work isn’t done. A million thanks to all of you. If all goes well, I’ll invite you to the wedding.”
PART SIXTY-EIGHT
Chapter 2
Up into the Voltar night soared the Prince Caucalsia. She had an appointment with destiny that none of them suspected.
It looked like a very simple thing to Jet from an operational standpoint. His only worry was for the Countess Krak.
As far as he and the tug were concerned, they could escape detection. A dull green cast of light from a partial moon made the surface of Voltar luminescent. There was the main Fleet base to the south, and beyond it, Government City. And to the west of these sparkling lights and glowing traffic streams lay the mountains which blocked off the Great Desert.
The Countess Krak had changed into an athletic suit. She stood in the passageway now behind Heller, drawing on a pair of gloves. “It’s very simple,” she said. “Don’t look so tense. The documents are in a waterproof envelope in a crevice on the roof.”
“That’s a relief,” said Heller. “I don’t know how long I can hold above the castle undetected. Where is the crevice exactly? I know that roof.”
“Right beside the exit elevator. They drilled some extra holes to install a false radiation reflector. I simply rolled the envelope up and put it in the hole. It won’t take me a second to recover it.”
“The exit elevator has a dome. I can’t sit down on it. We’ll have to roll out a ladder and I don’t like that. It has no absorbo-coat on it.”
“Well, you’re always telling me I’m an angel,” said the Countess Krak, “but I can’t fly. I’ll need the ladder.”
“We’ll have to be very fast. I’ll put the ladder in place and when I give you a signal, open the airlock outer door, kick the ladder out, go down it like a flash, get your envelope and get right back up. We’re not hanging around!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said the Countess Krak in English.
Heller didn’t smile. He put the ladder hooks through rings and checked the coil so it would unroll quickly. He gave her a pat on the shoulder. “Don’t forget to allow for the slightly greater gravity. Once you’ve got the envelope, get back up into the airlock like a shot!”
He took the tug off automatic control and, somewhat anxiously, wishing it were possible for him to do this gymnast act, sent the tug hurtling the two hundred miles across the Great Desert.
Jet didn’t like the presence of the moon. And he didn’t like the risk of the uncoated ladder, for he was almost certain it would set off alarms.
He still had the illusion projector in the overhead. He checked it to be sure it would project an electronic illusion above the camp if the alarms went off. The image of the tug suspended in the air should attract any gunsights.
He did not know at that time that Lombar Hisst had long since parked a heavy flying cannon underground in the structure. He thought all he had to do was get in and get out, and there was nothing like the quick-maneuvering tug to do a thing like that. He could move it faster in the sky than gun controls could track it and get their heavy pieces repointed to fire. So his main interest was simply on making sure that the Countess Krak got down and got up. THAT made him very nervous. But he couldn’t do the flying and the gymnastics, too.
Jet brought the tug down over Spiteos, as invisible as a ghost. He was flying very slow so there would be no air or space turbulence to spot. He was being careful not to become a silhouette against the moon.
Below him the castle brooded blackly against the greenish-glowing desert sand. The gash of the mile-deep chasm gaped close by the fortress side.
All seemed peaceful down there: A few fires burned in Camp Kill; watchlights made pools along the roads and at the barricades.
He came down to thirty feet above the castle roof, directly over the dome. His screens read no detection yet.
“NOW!” he shouted.
The Countess Krak spun the airlock wheels. She thrust back the door. She dropped the ladder out.
INSTANT ALARMS!
The strident voices of the bells brayed like things insane!
“COME BACK!” shouted Heller. “I’M LEAVING!”
But the Countess Krak was gone!
Jet jammed his thumb against the illusion on-bu
tton. The image appeared over the camp.
A savage barrage erupted!
A cone of electric fire scorched up from the camp, crossed at the illusion and stood another cone in the air above!
Heller could not leave his controls. He could not peer over the edge.
The Countess Krak had decided to take the chance. She was three feet down the ladder when the first alarm went off. She dropped almost free-fall to the castle’s roof.
She raced to the cache. It was all black stone. The hole, in this ink, was hard to locate.