The ex-Fleet Marine sat nervously across from him. “Jet, there’s a whisper out that Hisst will pay a hundred thousand credits cash for clues as to where you are.”
“Cheap,” said Heller. “The man always was cheap.”
“Why are you HERE of all places?”
Heller reached into his Apparatus tunic and pulled out an envelope. He laid it before Snelz. “This,” he said, “has got to be delivered to Lombar Hisst.”
“I haven’t got access to him,” said Snelz. “I’m only a captain.”
“Well, I wouldn’t think it would be healthy to give it to him,” said Heller. “If he received it and those seals were disturbed, my guess is that he would very likely execute the bearer just to be sure his mouth stayed shut.”
Snelz looked at the outer cover. It said:
TO LOMBAR HISST
FROM JETTERO HELLER
Private. Personal. Secret.
Snelz’s hand began to shake. “This could get me killed just looking at it! Heart failure!”
Heller laid down a five-hundred-credit note. “Just so you don’t feel too bad being deprived of that hundred thousand.”
Snelz was shocked. “I wouldn’t ever turn you in. You’re my friend! You don’t have to pay me anything either!”
“Well, I told the landing guard officer I was here to pay a gambling debt, so he’ll be on to you for drinks, so I don’t want this to cost you anything personally. Now think, do you know of a way to get this into Hisst’s hand?”
Snelz thought about it. Then he suddenly smiled brightly. “Yes, I think I can do that. And without a hitch.”
“It’s very important that he get it. No slips.”
“No slips,” said Snelz.
“Good,” said Heller. “That completes my business. Would you like to indulge in a few passes with the dice?”
“Oh, Jet, please to the Gods, get out of here. You have both our bodies halfway down into that chasm right this minute. Don’t you realize that Hisst comes to the tower office up there almost every day? He might be in this camp right now!”
“Then it will be very easy to get the message to him, won’t it?” said Heller. “Well, you seem to have lost your gambling fever, so I guess I’ll run along. I’ll stop by the canteen. . . .”
“Jet,” said Snelz in a tight and urgent voice, “you get . . . get out of here. Honest, my heart won’t start again until you’ve left this camp!”
“The day you’re that scared, Snelz,” laughed Heller, “that will be the day. Come on and walk with me to the canteen.”
Snelz convulsively was climbing into his uniform tunic.
Firmly but carefully looking very casual, he walked Heller straight back to the landing target area and got him into his airbus.
Heller took off.
Two hours later, at Emergency Fleet Reserve, Heller complimented old Atty for restocking the tug, shook hands with a worried Commander Crup and, exhibiting the ship identoplate of the cruiser Happy Return, was spaceward ho for Calabar.
PART EIGHTY
Chapter 8
One cannot help but wonder, dear reader, what the course of history might have been if Captain Snelz had not thought of the man he did when asked to design a way to get the message into Lombar’s hands. If he had only told Heller the name that had popped into his mind, the fate of Earth might well have been quite different.
For the man Snelz had thought of was J. Walter Madison!
As he stood on the landing target watching Heller’s airbus leave, Snelz was putting through his mind exactly how to do this.
Lately Lombar Hisst had been coming to Spiteos almost every day for a brief period, usually in the morning. He was doing something strange down in the storerooms with that weird powder. Snelz himself had escorted in several truckloads of strange things marked Lactose, Epsom Salts, Quinine, Baking Powder, Photo Developer, Insecticide and Strychnine. Hisst had several technicians who would take something called amphetamine out of its original capsules, mix the powder with these other things and then, using new capsules, expand the original batch enormously. According to one of the technicians, Hisst seemed to take a lot of pleasure in this strange exercise: he called it “cutting” and seemed to think nobody else could do it as expertly as he.
And Snelz had noted that the Earthman Madison was never kept informed as to where he could find Hisst: that was no real mystery, as Hisst always had the idea that anywhere he went, an assassin would be waiting for him. So, at odd times of the day or night, Madison would show up at Spiteos.
It had become so well known now that Madison was a close creature of Hisst that Madison could come and go as he pleased. The very distinctive Model 99 with its four flying angels was never even challenged in the air. Once landed, Madison had carte blanche. He needed no escort, he didn’t even show his plate, he simply trotted over to the zipbuses, went through the tunnel, up the elevator and into the north tower. Often, nowadays, there weren’t even clerks up there.
Knowing Madison for a fake and no friend of Heller’s, Snelz selected him for a messenger whose message, it seemed, could end in somebody’s death.
Accordingly Snelz, despite the hour, paraded his company. He went down the line, looking very closely at his men. Suddenly he stopped and pointed his baton.
“You there. You have just volunteered. Lieutenant, dismiss everyone but this man and Timyjo.”
Snelz took the two men aside. Timyjo was the company’s best thief. “Timyjo, go into town and get an expensive suit of gray shimmercloth and all those conservative things that go with it. The stores at this hour should be easy to rob. Make sure they fit this man. Be back before dawn.”
Snelz whiled away the time by buying the guard officer some drinks and shooting a little dice. He even had an hour for a nap.
Timyjo returned laden. In his dugout, Snelz dressed the volunteer. He stepped back admiringly. Same height, same build, same hair coloring. To all intents and purposes, unless one knew him well, one was looking at Madison.
Not to take any chances, Snelz put a pair of sand goggles on him, a thing he had lately seen Madison wear.
He gave the fellow the envelope. He said, “Now, don’t talk to anybody. Just get on a zipbus, go up in the elevator, walk through the clerk’s room, enter the office of Lombar Hisst and lay this squarely in the middle of his desk. Then walk out and come back here.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then we throw you in the chasm and forget about it.”
It was well after dawn. A sleepy camp was recovering from hangovers.
The volunteer, feeling very nervous, pleaded at least for a canister of tup. Then, fortified, he walked out, got on a zipbus, got off, got in the elevator, went up to tower level and entered the clerk’s outer room. He froze. The old criminal chief clerk was sitting there, back to the door.
With no choice but the chasm if he did and the chasm if he didn’t, the volunteer walked boldly across the room.
The old chief clerk glanced up. “He isn’t here,” he muttered and went back to his work.
The volunteer pretended he had not heard. He walked to Hisst’s office door and went in. The place impressed him very unfavorably: one whole wall was glass, a throne chair that looked like tomb-loot was behind the desk. But the volunteer wasted no time.
He took the envelope out of his coat. He laid it on the desk and propped it up with a stinger. Anybody who sat down would be hit with the address.
The volunteer walked out.
The chief clerk muttered, “I told you he wasn’t here.”
The volunteer got into the hall.
Meanwhile Snelz was experiencing shock and heart failure. The volunteer had no more than gotten on the zipbus when the feeling of being smart and clever turned, in Snelz, to horror.
THE MODEL 99 LANDED!
In a state of acute paralysis he watched Madison get out, walk through the dust to the barricade before the zipbus. Snelz didn’t dare breathe. Would the officer on duty notice he w
as logging Madison in TWICE?
Action was the answer to everything with Snelz. He drew a hand blastgun, fired at the top of a pole and shattered the light. He ducked.
As glass showered down, the guards raced for cover. Madison put into action his own method of escape. He swung aboard a zipbus quickly and looked back as it sped away into the tunnel.
Not daring to think what would happen when Madison ran into “Madison” in the elevator or hall, he did something he almost never did: he prayed.
The volunteer, meanwhile, was waiting in the hall for an elevator shaft to signal it was clear. Somebody was coming up!
Not wanting anything like a confrontation, possibly even with Lombar, the volunteer looked hastily around. There was a big box of fresh computer paper in the hall. It was only four feet high but he quickly dived behind it. Peering out, he was horrified to see the real Madison step out of the shaft!
The instant the hall was clear, the volunteer dived headfirst into the shaft to get out of there.
The real Madison walked into the clerk’s office.
“What’d you do?” the chief clerk said, after an indifferent glance. “Forget something?”
Madison walked on into Lombar’s office, saying, “I’ll wait.”
He had the newest clippings from the press. They gave a lot of juicy speeches about Hisst wanting law and order and raging about anyone trying to defame the honor of Apparatus officers, and he knew these shots of his angry face would delight Lombar no end. He wanted to make a nice display of them on the desk.
A stinger was propping up a big envelope and he accidentally knocked it down. He set it up once more. But it was in the way of his clipping spread. He decided it should be put further back. He took hold of it once more and moved the stinger and, then, with a double take, suddenly registered what was in his hand.
He stared, stunned.
TO LOMBAR HISST
FROM JETTERO HELLER
Private. Personal. Secret.
How had that gotten there?
It was still sealed.
Lombar hadn’t seen it yet.
Not knowing anything about Heller’s admonition to Snelz that Lombar would have the messenger killed, particularly if the seals were broken, Madison quivered with greed to know.
What was this? Some secret communication line?
And as it was from the only reason he was doing all he was doing, he could hardly resist.
He broke the seals.
It was all quiet in the outer office.
Madison swiftly read:
Hisst,
Greetings and salutations and all that sort of thing, none of them sincere:
You have known for some time the company I’ve been enjoying as I left you the present of my baton.
As you know—for you keep saying so on Homeview—His Majesty is suffering from an indisposition, and we really do not want to trouble him with such a small matter as signing and sealing a Royal proclamation declaring you a traitor and a menace to the state.
However, we can promise you that in the event you seek to use the Army or the Fleet in attacking Calabar, the proclamation will be issued and that will be the end of Hisst. So my advice to you is simply to fly into a few rages, shoot some of your own staff and let nature take its course.
Hoping not to have the
pleasure of seeing you
hanging on the gallows,
Jettero Heller
Madison read it again. Suddenly everything began to click together. Time after time he had told Hisst that all he had to do was get a Royal proclamation about this thing or that: Hisst every time had looked extremely cagey!
Madison abruptly understood.
There was no Emperor back of that Palace City door Hisst guarded and saw guarded so carefully!
Jettero Heller had kidnapped the Emperor!
So THAT was what this was all about!
Madison glanced around. He did not think that he was in any way observed.
This was not a communication line. It was a first time.
Risks were the very thing his profession was made of. Madison put the envelope and dispatch in his own briefcase. He left no trace of it on the desk.
He arranged his PR display of clippings. He went into the clerk’s office. He said, “Have there been any urgent messages for Hisst?”
The old clerk shook his head.
A surge of elation coursed through Madison. What an outlaw! Heller had somehow, unbeknownst to anyone, slipped into this office, maybe from the roof, and had left Hisst this envelope.
Looking very calm, Madison sat down at the console of the computer and, as though to pass the time, began to extract bits of information he might find handy, such as the strength of forces on the planet Calabar. Then he began to tally up the enormous numbers available in the Army and the Fleet.
Obviously, from the message, Heller didn’t want these people after him. Madison was trying to work out how he could accomplish just that.
Oh, what headlines all this would eventually make!
Not right now, of course, but later when he had his campaign all worked out and perfect.
If he had had any slightest doubt before, that he would make his goal, he had none now. He would, for sure, return to Earth in glory—if, of course, there was anything left of it.
Hisst came in an hour later. Madison walked with the man into his office. Hisst was very pleased with the press.
“Things are going well,” said Hisst.
“Yes, we’ll have you Emperor in no time,” said Madison.
HE DID NOT SAY ONE SINGLE WORD ABOUT THE HELLER DISPATCH!
Snelz, when the volunteer, sneaking past the barricade, had returned, sighed with relief.
He saw Hisst arrive and go up to the tower.
Neither the chief nor the real Madison came out.
He could only assume that the message had been delivered.
For a second time, a message which would have forestalled an invasion of Earth had been stopped en route.
And not only that, this one had fallen into the hands of a man to whom it gave total power: J. Walter Madison, who could use it in any villainous way he chose and at a moment when he considered it would be the most advantageous in a headline.
KNOWLEDGE WAS POWER! And Madison now knew that he was the only one on Voltar with the vital, pivotal information that the Emperor was on Calabar and Heller was holding him a captive!
WHAT A STORY!
But not for now. No, no, not for now. This one had to be built up to with the biggest BANG this universe had ever heard!
As he returned to Joy City, the glee in Madison threatened to bubble out and explode!
The fate of two empires was truly up for grabs! And J. Warbler Madman was the one who would do the tossing!
PART EIGHTY-ONE
Chapter 1
The first toss by Madison came the moment Soltan Gris took the stand in the crowded courtroom.
Lord Turn had bowed to the pleas of his own guard captains, the newssheets and the Domestic Police, who all promised they could not prevent riots unless the people were kept informed, minute to minute, on the progress of the proceedings. They pointed out there were no laws or regulations which forbade it: it was simply a new idea. Lord Turn, against his better judgment, had agreed to a public trial.
Madison, who was behind it, could not have asked for more.
The biggest courtroom of the old castle was jammed from the dais to the entrance doors. Even the buttresses had stages clinging to them. The gray stone looked down upon six thousand people crammed in where only four thousand should have been. The high windows let in shafts of dusty sunlight.
The Homeview crews were in ecstasy. They had never been permitted in a courtroom before and they kept racing about jamming cameras into people’s faces, hitting mouths with microphones, telling people to look this way and that, colliding all the while with press photographers and stumbling over reporters.
Lord Turn, in vain, was
banging his mace of office on the dais gong. He was nearly in despair: this whole thing was being seen all over Voltar and, on delay, throughout the entire Confederacy. He was certain people were bound to get the impression that he ran a very disorderly court. He wished to blazes those refreshment vendors would stop hawking their wares at the tops of their voices.
Only when his chief clerk brought him an electronic megaphone did hope revive in him that he would be heard. He pointed it at the gong and struck a tremendous blow with his mace. The result was ear-shattering.