“Is that odd?” said the Countess Krak.
He shot the car onto the Bruckner Expressway. “Not terribly. But there’s another thing reported by ships and planes: time lapses and distortions. Ships vanish. Planes fly into other time or lose time on their instruments. The only thing I know of that would do that is a very small black hole. Voltar sometimes stores them in pyramids.”
“Yes?” said the Countess Krak, getting interested.
“So I think that’s where the continent sank. I think Prince Caucalsia’s energy plants went down with it and they’re still running under the sea.”
“And they would cause all that?”
“Only thing I know of that would,” said Heller. “Time distortions from captive black holes.”
“Isn’t that where you sent that Coast Guard ship?”
Heller laughed. “Actually, it went much further east. And they got home all right. The only danger they ran was being sent to a psychiatrist and I wouldn’t wish that off on anybody.”
“So you think this is where Prince Caucalsia established his colony,” said Krak.
“Best guess so far,” said Heller. “I’d write an article about it except that it would be the Code break of the century!” He glanced at her. She was looking through the windshield gloomily.
Heller began to sing the nursery song:
If ever from life you need fly,
Or a king has said loved ones must die,
Take a trip
In a ship
That will bob, dive and dip,
And find a new home in the sky.
Krak joined in:
Bold Prince Caucalsia,
There you are on high.
We see you wink,
And we see you blink,
Far, far, far above the Mo-o-o-o-o-n!
They both laughed.
“Now I’ve got my girl cheerful again,” said Heller.
“I’m just an old nagging grouch,” she said, putting her head on his shoulder. “I don’t know what a handsome guy like you is doing with such an awful scold as me.”
“You’re not a scold,” said Heller.
“Yes, I am,” said the Countess.
“Let’s fight about that,” said Heller.
They both laughed but for the life of me I couldn’t see the joke.
She looked out the window. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“I’m taking you to a den of vice,” said Heller. “And don’t worry. It has everything to do with our getting off this planet. It’s an old abandoned roadhouse in Connecticut.”
(Bleep) them both! While I didn’t have any idea what he was up to now, I knew it boded no good. I had better watch this very carefully.
Gods, how I needed an idea to wreck them!
PART SIXTY
Chapter 3
They boomed along the New England Thruway past New Rochelle, Port Chester and Stamford and then Heller turned off and drove into Norwalk. He stopped at a supermarket and bought some hot dogs, marshmallows, buns and other things.
They drove on, on a state highway.
“Just look around,” said Heller, waving his hand at the hilly countryside all decked out in green. “Those purple flowers on the shrubs are rhododendrons. The trees are maples and evergreens, and all these wild flowers, who knows? Summer is about to arrive and this is the fanfare. Like it?”
“Oh, it is pretty,” said the Countess Krak. “Nowhere near as lovely as Manco, of course, but very nice.”
“You think the planet is worth saving, then,” said Heller.
“Not at the cost of our marriage,” said the Countess Krak. “These primitives drive me spinning. They get the simplest things wrong.”
“Oh, they’re not all bad,” said Heller.
“Well, why can’t they take care of their own planet? How is it my Jettero has to come along and work his fingers to the bone? It’s not our planet. It’s theirs. Why don’t they do something effective?”
“They’re just a little deficient in technology, that’s all,” said Heller.
“A little crazy, you mean. Those engineers in my microwave class at first didn’t see anything wrong at all with letting somebody like Rockecenter suppress new developments so he could make money and stay in power. And psychology, why do they let their children be taught they have no souls and are just the victims of their emotions and can’t control themselves? Admittedly, they’re in bad hands, but why do these people stand for it?”
“Part of their training,” said Heller, “is that they can’t do anything about it and, having seen the muzzle ends of some of their control forces, I can see how the people would feel that way. They’re caught up in an ‘agree or get shot.’”
“Are we ever going to invade this planet?” said the Countess.
“Oh, not for another hundred and eighty years if this mission succeeds. And by then they could be sailing very smoothly. It wouldn’t be much of an invasion: more like an alliance. They’d simply join the Confederation. The danger is they could make the planet uninhabitable and the Grand Council would launch a shooting invasion now just to save the place. I don’t want that to happen to them.”
“Well, I don’t think we ever ought to touch them,” said the Countess Krak. “Do you realize that a primitive culture like this can backfire on a higher-level civilization? It could corrupt Voltar.”
“Oh, I think you’re overstating it,” said Heller. “What could these people possibly do to the Voltar Confederation?”
“Plenty,” said the Countess Krak. “Sexual perversion, trying people in the press, rotten courts, crazy suits, power attained through economic dominance by a few, psychology, psychiatry, drugs and more drugs. They’re dangerous, Jettero. I believe we should leave them severely alone. Quarantine the place.”
“Oh, dear,” said Heller. “You do seem out of sorts today.”
“I’m worried. I have an awful feeling something dreadful may happen to us. A sort of cold feeling like we’re always being watched by somebody who means us no good.”
I quickly averted my eyes from the viewer. What she had said made my hair stand up on end. How had she guessed that that was exactly the case? Was she a witch or something? By the Gods, that woman would have to be gotten out of the way before much else could be done.
“Look,” said Heller, “we’re making real progress. The spores project is working great and cleaning up the air. And just two days ago, Izzy got Chryster into production on gasless cars. Very shortly, with luck, we will have done everything we can do from the surface of the planet. Then I’ll get the tug and we’ll finish the job.”
I freaked. Gasless cars? That would ruin Rockecenter completely!
And what did he intend to do with Tug One? Oh, Gods, this was much worse than I thought!
I prayed fervently for some idea that would ruin this pair forever.
“I’m sorry that I seem out of sorts,” said the Countess Krak. “It is a lovely day and I don’t want to spoil it for you.”
“Well, never mind,” said Heller. “I have somebody you will enjoy meeting. Not all these inhabitants are bad.”
He swung off the highway abruptly and drove along a road that was hardly more than a trail. Shortly, the abandoned service station came in view.
Chickens flew noisily out of the way of the Porsche and Heller brought it to a stop.
The old blind woman came out of the house. She stood wiping her hands on her apron. “And how are you, nice young man?” she said. “I see you’ve brought your sweetheart today.”
How could she tell? Krak’s footsteps? Her perfume?
They had to go into the house and have a cup of coffee.
“They paying your rent regular?” said Heller.
“Oh, yes,” said the old blind woman. “And it makes a big difference. Didn’t you see I have three times as many chickens now? Quite prosperous.”
She and the Countess Krak chattered about nothing the way women do and after a bit Heller went out and ope
ned the garage. There sat a battered jeep!
I realized suddenly that during all the times I had not watched my viewers, he must have come up here. It made me nervous to think that he could have wandered around without my being aware of it. What else had he been up to?
He put the Porsche in the garage and he and the Countess and the cat got in the jeep, bade the old blind lady goodbye and drove back to the highway.
They drove for a while and then Heller slowed. He looked ahead. The deputy sheriff’s car was sitting there in the speed trap. Heller drew up alongside it.
“Well, if it ain’t the whitey engineer,” said Ralph.
“Hey, will you look at that dame!” said George.
“Dear,” said Heller to the Countess, “may I present Ralph and George? They’re deputy sheriffs of the Maysabongo Marines.”
“Wow!” said George.
“Jiminy!” said Ralph, hastily taking off his cowboy hat.
“We’re just going down to check the place out,” said Heller. “So don’t be alarmed if you see some smoke.”
“Well, I should think so!” said George.
“Jesus, I wish I had a job like yours,” said Ralph.
Heller drove the jeep up the road and plunged it off the highway onto the almost unmarked trail.
“You do slaughter ’em,” said Heller.
Krak was laughing. “But what’s this about Maysabongo Marines?”
“They get a hundred a month extra duty pay for looking after the place and George’s uncle, who is the sheriff, gets two hundred. Extra duty pay. Nobody is liable to bother this area.”
They skirted around full-grown trees and at length topped a rise and drove into the valley. Heller ran the jeep over to the flat area the tug had used and looked around, evidently checking for unwanted debris.
“Where’s this den of vice?” said the Countess.
“Right over there in that stand of trees.” He drove the short distance to it.
“A house!” said the Countess.
“A roadhouse,” said Heller. And he told her about the Prohibition era and how the bootleggers used to bring contraband booze up the creek until two highways and a dam ended its career.
They got out and the cat immediately began exploring. Heller went up the stone steps and unlocked the door. “The place is really a fort,” he said. “Stone walls, armored doors, bulletproof glass. There’s probably enough gangsters buried around here to start a ghost regiment.” The Countess Krak walked into the dance hall area, looking at the yellowed paper lanterns. “The place is cold.”
“I’ll open up all the doors and let the breezes blow through,” said Heller. And proceeded to do so.
“Why did you want this place?” said the Countess.
“Landing area,” said Heller. “And something else.” He beckoned and they went into the bar. He pressed a catch and the end of it opened. He went down the ladder and she followed him.
He played a light on some chiseled letters, Issiah Slocum, Hys Myne, 1689. Then down the galleries.
“The first idea I had,” he said, “was to find this lost mine and then pretend to open it and get it in operation. I didn’t think I’d have enough finance. So I was going to make gold and then pretend I’d mined it here.” He went down a gallery and lifted a tarpaulin. There lay the boxes the tug had carried as cargo.
“So why didn’t you?” said the Countess.
“Well, for one reason, we have money to burn. But the main reason is, there’s a missing box. For some reason, Box 5 disappeared on Voltar or en route. It contains the pans necessary to do the molding. Nothing on this planet is strong enough. It would just melt under the bombardment.”
“Didn’t you ever find it?”
“I’ve sent two or three notes to Soltan. I asked him to reorder it.”
“Do you still need it?”
“Well, yes. But not for gold. I want to make a setup for fuel rods. They take the same kind of pan. I wanted to give the setup to Izzy and they could have rods they would just feed into city mains and get billions of megawatts of power direct.”
“I should think he would have reordered it and sent it,” said the Countess.
“You sit down over there if you can find a clean place,” said Heller. “I want to look through this stuff.”
He rummaged around. He put some meters on some metal sheets. Finally, he said, “All sorts of goodies here but nothing that will help. However, this will amuse you.”
He went over to a place in the floor and lifted a board, revealing the top of a small sack. He reached in and pulled out a handful of something and went over to her.
“Some weeks ago when I was last up here, I ran a small batch of these.” He opened his palm and shined the flashlight on it. It flared!
“Oh, what are they?” said the Countess.
“Diamonds,” said Heller.
She picked one up and looked at it against the flashlight. “Ooooo!” she said. “That’s beautiful!”
“Thought you’d like them,” said Heller.
I was suddenly sitting on the edge of my chair. Slavering. She was looking at what must be a pure blue-white of ten carats!
Heller dumped the rest of the handful in her purse. “Take them along. Diamonds are just coal. I was testing pan hardness by compressing carbon blocks. There’s a limit to the amount of this sort of thing you can do. You’d flood the market which, on this planet, is pretty tightly controlled.”
She was still looking at the diamond when they went back upstairs.
Heller built a fire in the kitchen range and made some hot dogs. They ate them. Then he showed her how to toast marshmallows on pieces of wire with the front door of the firebox open.
He wound up a Victrola and put on some jazz records from the 1920s and they danced.
Later, Heller locked the place up. They went back and picked up the Porsche.
Driving back to town, the Countess was petting the cat who seemed to be sleeping off an overdose of hot dogs.
“Did we get what we went after?” said the Countess.
“No,” said Heller. “I thought there might be something I could use so I looked again. But there isn’t anything there I can substitute for really hard pans and make fuel rods. They were all in Box 5.”
“How do you communicate with Soltan?” said the Countess.
“He gave me an Afyon address,” said Heller. “I’ll cable it again when we get back. We really need Box 5.”
I smiled thinly to myself. I was doing better than I thought. I really was slowing him down!
But it didn’t solve my own problems. I would have to do more. AND FAST!
PART SIXTY
Chapter 4
In came the Blixo, roaring out of the night.
I went aboard the moment they had a ladder up.
“Well, well,” said Captain Bolz, “and how is the filthy rich Officer Gris?”
“Problems,” I said.
He massaged his hairy chest. “We all got problems. It’s a good thing other freighters come in here. I had to go through a whole refit on Voltar. I’m weeks and weeks off schedule. The widow in Istanbul will be absolutely wild. But I’ve got things to cheer her up. Bar silver but mainly me.” He started getting into his shore clothes.
“How are things on Voltar?” I said.
“Hells, I don’t know. I’m just a captain of an Apparatus freighter. His Majesty don’t tell me anything at all.” He laughed at his joke. “You better ask that catamite, Twolah. He came aboard so beaten down he must know half the secrets of the government. Didn’t have any trouble with him this time. He just sort of hid in his cabin.”
“I have three passengers for you,” I said.
“Straight up or suspended?”
“Crobe you’ve carried before. I’d keep him locked up. The other two don’t matter. Neither speaks Voltarian. But the girl, Teenie Whopper, I’d keep away from the crew. She’s worse than Twolah.”
He stopped tying his shoe and pushed a set of
blank forms at me. I had recovered my identoplate from Faht Bey and began stamping.
He put the forms away. “This is a very fast turnaround,” he said. “I’m way off schedule. So get your business done with Twolah and get him and your passengers aboard. I’m off to Istanbul for a very fast trip and when I return here, I’m gone.”