Mission Earth Volume 2: Black Genesis

  PART EIGHTEEN

  Chapter 6

  Just before noon, Heller came to the High Library. It was a very imposing building with a Roman look—ten huge columns stretched across the front, an enormous rotunda, a very noble façade. It was fronted with a vast expanse of steps almost as wide as the building itself.

  He passed a fountain and then a statue with the words Alma Mater on it. He went halfway up the upper steps and slumped down on the stone.

  And well he might slump. I had been kept laughing for the last two hours following his zigzag course around the enormous campus. He trotted here and he trotted there. He was locating every single one of the large number of classrooms, halls, armories and drill fields he would have to attend. He had constantly checked a copy of a computer printout and he had found that he had a schedule which went two classes at the same time, followed by no class for the next hour and then, in one case, three classes at the same time! I was kept in stitches. Not even the great Heller could cope with that schedule. And it went seven days a week!

  As he sat there in the hot noonday sun, he must be realizing that there was no way on Earth he could get a diploma and carry out the silly plans he had undoubtedly made to carry his mission through just to spite me. And get me killed.

  Students were drifting up and down the steps, no vast throng. Young men and women, not too well dressed. Heller must look younger than some of them, despite being, in fact, several years older in time and, in all honesty, decades older in experience. How silly he must feel, a Royal officer of the Fleet, sitting there amongst these naïve creatures. Another joke on him and on them, too. I idly speculated what they would think if they knew a Voltar combat engineer was sitting right there, in plain view, a Mancoian from Atalanta more than a score of light-years away, a holder of the fifty-volunteer star, that could blow their planet to bits as easy as he could spit or could prevent an invasion that would slaughter every one of them. What a joke on them. How stupid they were!

  A couple of girls and a young man drifted by. One of the girls said, “Ooo! Are you on the baseball team?”

  “I didn’t know they were still turned out,” said the boy. “Why, you’re wearing spikes!”

  Heller looked at one of the girls. “You can’t get to first base if you don’t.”

  They all of them burst into screams of laughter. I tried and tried to figure out what they were laughing about. (Bleep) that Heller, anyway. Always so obscure. And he had no right to start currying popularity. He was an extraterrestrial, an interloper! Besides, they were pretty girls.

  “Name’s Muggins,” said the boy. “This is Christine and Coral—they’re from Barnyard College: that’s part of Empire but all women, oh boy!”

  “My name’s Jet,” said Heller.

  “C’m up’n see us s’m’time,” said Christine.

  They all laughed again, waved and walked on down the broad steps.

  And here came Epstein!

  He was dragging an enormously long roll of something behind him. It was about a foot in diameter and certainly over twelve feet long! He passed the fountain and then the statue. He stopped a couple steps below Heller. He was dressed in a shabby gray suit and a shabby gray hat and, in addition to the roll, he was carrying a very scuffed up, cheap attaché case. He sank down on a step, puffing.

  “And how is Mr. Epstein?” said Heller cheerfully.

  “Oh, don’t call me that,” said Epstein. “It makes me uncomfortable. Please call me Izzy. That’s what everybody does.”

  “Good. If you’ll call me Jet.”

  “No. You are really my superior as you have the capital. I should call you Mr. Wister.”

  “You have forgotten,” said Heller, “that you are responsible for me now. And that includes my morale.” Then he said very firmly, “Call me Jet.”

  Izzy Epstein looked unhappy. Then he said, “All right, Mr. Jet.”

  Heller must have given it up. “I see you found some clothes. I was worried that they’d all been destroyed.”

  “Oh, yes. I took a bath in the gym and I got two suits, this hat and this briefcase from the Salvation Army Good Will. They wouldn’t do for you, of course, but if I dressed too well, I would attract attention and invite bad luck. One must never appear to be doing too well—the lightning will strike.”

  This Izzy Epstein was turning my stomach. It was quite obvious that he was a neurotic depressive with persecution complexes and had overtones of religio-mania, evident in his fixations on Fate. A fine mess he would make for Heller. Neurotics are never competent. But on the other hand, it was really a break for me that Heller had run into him. The fellow couldn’t even manage his own affairs, much less Heller’s.

  “Well, you look better, anyway,” said Heller.

  “Oh, I’m exhausted! I have been working flat out all night to prepare a proposal for you. The only building I could find open was the Art College, so I had to use their materials.”

  “Is that what that is?”

  “This roll? Yes. All they had left out was studio paper—the kind they use behind models, twelve feet wide, a hundred feet long. And they didn’t leave out any scissors. So I used that.”

  He tried to unroll it. But he didn’t have enough arm reach. Heller started to help him but Izzy said, “No, no. You’re the investor. You there!” he called out suddenly.

  A couple of new students had come out of the library. Izzy stopped them at the top of the huge, wide stairway. “You hold this end,” he said to one. “And you this end,” he said to the other. “Now, hold it tight.” The two stood there, twelve feet apart, holding the top of the roll.

  Heller had followed Izzy up. Izzy took the roll and backed down two steps, unreeling it. At the top, in wild, garish ink, all along it, it said: Confidential Draft.

  “You will probably find it too colorful,” said Izzy, understating it like mad, for it was blazing in the sunlight, “but they had only left around old dried-up pots of poster paint and I had to mix it with water. And there were only some discarded brushes. But, it will give you the idea.”

  He backed down two more steps. Revealed to view were some odd lines and symbols. It looked like three wooden hay forks raking apples—and all of different colors, all bright.

  “Now, that first row is what we call the mask corporations. We incorporate those separately in New York, New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware. They all have different, noninterlocking boards of directors.”

  He backed down another step unrolling the roll further. But there was a bit of wind. Two more students, eating sandwiches, were paused nearby. Izzy sent one to the far side and one to the right side and told them to hold it steady and they did.

  Izzy pointed to the newly displayed mad thunder of color, lines and symbols. “Now, those are the bank accounts for those corporations.”

  He backed down another step, got two more students to hold the sides and two more to hold the extreme top which was buckling. “Now there, and notice the arrows as they intertwine, are the various brokerage firms which will handle orders placed with the mask corporations.”

  Izzy backed another step, unrolling the roll further.

  “What is this?” one student, wandering up, asked another.

  “Psychedelic art,” said one already holding.

  “Now, here we are getting to the more important stages,” said Izzy. “The corporation on the right is in Canada. The one on the left is in Mexico. And these two corporations invisibly control the center one which is in Singapore. Get it?”

  Izzy backed further. He needed more students and got them. Several were now up on a big stone parapet, looking down on it.

  “Now, this series of arrows—the green series is the most important although the purple ones there are useful—transfer the funds of the above corporations in such a way as to bypass all reporting to governments.”

  “Is it a poster?” asked a student.

  “Poster for some new riots, I heard them say,” said another.

  Izzy stepped d
own another broad step and unrolled it further. He got more holders. “Now, this is the Swiss-Liechtenstein consortium of corporations. You may wonder why these seem so independent. Well, actually they are not.”

  He unrolled more chart, got some newcomers to hold it. “The Swiss-Liechtenstein fund flow goes underground to West Germany and thence to Hong Kong. Do you get it? No?”

  More of the chart was unrolled and held, “You can see why, now. The Hong Kong funds—see the purple arrow there—flow to Singapore, come back to Tahiti and . . .”

  He unrolled more chart, “. . . arrive right in our own backyard in the Bahamas. Clever, eh? But look at London.”

  He unrolled more chart. One whole width was devoted to three corporations, three stockbrokers and three bank accounts, all in London. Orange lines radiated out and came back to Hong Kong. “And that is how we get the funds into the Bahamas from the City as they call it. But you will be interested in this.”

  He unrolled more chart and got more holders. There was an interlocking series of lines which stretched out to every bank account and brokerage house, a spider web of royal blue. “That is the arbitrage network. By means of a centrally controlled system, we can take advantage of the differences of currency prices throughout the whole network and every time we transfer any funds, we also make a mint! It requires telexes and lease lines from RCA, of course. But it will pay for itself every week.”

  He unrolled more chart, got more holders. The steps were pretty thronged by now.

  “What was the artist thinking when he drew it?” asked a girl.

  “Soul music,” said a learned boy.

  “I think it’s quite lovely,” said another girl. “It certainly makes one tranquil.”

  “And now,” Izzy said to Heller, “I’ll bet you’ve been holding your breath waiting until I got around to this.” He waved his arm in a grand gesture at a single corporation marked with a circle and red arrows. “That,” said Izzy, “is MULTINATIONAL! By reason of nominee shares, noninterlocking controlled boards, it orchestrates the entire conduct of the entire remaining chart. And listen, here is the best part: it calls itself a MANAGEMENT company! It isn’t visibly liable for a single thing any other company does! Isn’t that great?”

  “But why,” said Heller, “why all these different corporations and brokerage houses and bank accounts?”

  “Now, I am responsible for you. Right?”

  “Right,” said Heller.

  “If any one of those corporations goes broke, it folds all by itself and it doesn’t do a thing to any other part of the entire consortium. You get it? You can go bankrupt to your heart’s content! You can also sell them for tax losses, buy other corporations with them. You can also hide and vanish profits. Everything.”

  “But,” said Heller doubtfully, “I don’t see that so many—”

  “Well, I will admit I haven’t told you the real reason.” He leaned over to Heller’s ear. “You told me you had an enemy. Mr. Bury of Swindle and Crouch. He is the most vicious, unprincipled lawyer on Wall Street. With this setup, he will never be able to touch you.”

  “Why not?” said Heller.

  Izzy leaned much closer and whispered much more quietly, hard to hear above the chatter of the crowd. “Because in every record, neither you nor your name will ever appear in any of this. And anything you are publicly connected with will not feed back into any of this. They are all private companies, all for profit, all controlled by actual stock shares. It is impenetrable!”

  He stood back. “There is just one thing more I need your approval on. I didn’t put it on this chart. An art student did it for me at breakfast.”

  Tucked in the bottom of the roll was another roll. It opened to a picture about two feet by three. It was a round, black globe. It had a little piece of rope or something sticking out of the top of it. Sparks were flying from the tip.

  “What is it?” said Heller.

  “It is my proposal for the evolving logo of Multinational! Actually, it is the old symbol of anarchy, a bomb! See the lit fuse?”

  “A chemical powder bomb,” said Heller.

  “Now, we turn the poster over and we simply see a dark sphere with a wisp of cloud at the top. And that’s what we will put out as the logo but you and I will know what it really is. Now do you approve?”

  “Well, yes,” said Heller.

  “The chart and the logo?”

  “Well, yes,” said Heller.

  “I know it is crude and hastily done. I haven’t even filled in many of the names. I think it is very tolerant of you to approve it.”

  “What is this?” a newcomer asked Heller. “A work of art?”

  “Yes,” said Heller. “A work of art!”

  “Well, now, let’s roll it up,” said Izzy.

  “No,” said several of the crowd at once. One said, “A lot of people haven’t been able to see it. We’ll spread it out on the steps here and people can go up on the parapet there or climb the statue and get a real look.”

  Overruled, Heller and Izzy drew back and let them have their way.

  “Did you get re-enrolled?” said Heller.

  “Oh, yes,” said Izzy. “That’s why I was a little late. While I was doing all this, I got a brand-new idea for a doctorate thesis. And I saw them about it. It’s ‘The Use of Corporations in Undermining Totally the Existing World Order.’”

  “And they agree to let you re-enroll and write it?”

  “You see, the mistake I was making was getting off into political science and they kept telling me so. My doctorate is in business administration. But this new idea is perfect. It doesn’t contain the word government, it does contain the word corporations. And world order can be interpreted to mean capitalistic finance. So unless some horrible, malignant fate overtakes me from some other quarter, I can get my doctor’s degree at the end of this October.”

  “Then you paid your bill,” said Heller.

  “Oh, yes. You can have your two hundred advance back.”

  “But how . . . ?”

  “Right after I left you yesterday, I went to the Bank of America. I showed them the two hundred which proves I had a job and borrowed five thousand dollars without collateral. I paid off the government loan and have far more left than I really need. I won’t have to sleep in the park—I’m always afraid of being mugged. I can stay in a dorm a couple of nights until we get our offices. And, if you don’t mind, I’ll sleep there when we do.”

  I was speechless. How could this ragtag, mucked-up mess of a timid little man walk into a bank and borrow five thousand just by showing them a couple of hundred-dollar bills?

  “Now wait a minute,” said Heller, obviously having afterthoughts. “It will take a long, long time to set up all those corporations in Hong Kong and Tahiti and wherever. What do you have in mind as a time schedule?”

  “Oh, that is my fault,” said Izzy. “I have been under such a nervous strain lately. I didn’t want to tell you because I was afraid you would balk.”

  “So, how long? Two months? A year?”

  “Oh, heavens, no! I was shooting for next Tuesday! I thought you would want it Friday but there’s a weekend . . .”

  “Next Tuesday,” said Heller. Then he seemed to rally. “You’re going to need money for all this. So here is ten thousand to start with. Will that be enough?”

  “Oh, heavens, yes. Too much, actually. I’ll put it in a locker at the bus station to keep it safe. And then put it in the first bank account. And then, when everything is set, you can put your capital in the various bank accounts and it will get transferred around and start to get to work. Is it too much to ask to meet you here on these steps 4:00 PM Tuesday?”

  And then I thought I had it. This Izzy was a sly, clever crook. He was going to take all of Heller’s money, deny him any control and leave him broke. I canceled any idea of interfering with Izzy Epstein! He didn’t even give Heller a receipt!

  Izzy got his chart back from the congratulatory crowd. Several even helped him
carry it as he went away.

  I laughed. Maybe that was the last Heller would ever see of him!

  PART EIGHTEEN

  Chapter 7

  I was quite heartened by the number of potential allies I was picking up in case everything else went wrong with my plans for Heller. Vantagio, Miss Simmons, this Izzy Epstein. I began to keep a list. When Raht and Terb called in, possibly I could greatly embellish my planning.

  Heller spent the afternoon doing some more checking on class locations, obviously still trying to figure out how to be in two or three places at once and get tutored at the same time. And then he went around to the other side of what was labeled “Journalism” and found the college bookstore on Broadway.

  All day he had been running into people and sticking his nose into professors’ offices and making up a list. He had been using the back side of a computer printout with the staples removed and now had this yard-long sheet with titles and texts and manuals and authors scribbled all over it. He handed it to the girl behind the counter. She was obviously some graduate student doing part-time work to handle the current rush. Pretty, too.

  “All this?” she said, adjusting her horn-rimmed glasses. “I can’t read some of this writing. I wish they would teach kids to read and write these days.”

  Heller peered over at what she was pointing at. Yikes! He had annotated the list over on the edge with Voltarian shorthand!

  My pen was really poised. Oh, I’ve seen Code breaks in my time. Maybe a whore and a tailor wouldn’t know they were dealing with an extraterrestrial but he was in a college area and those people are smart.

  “It’s shorthand,” said Heller. “The main titles and authors are in English.”

  They were, too. In very neat block print.

  “What’s this here?” said the girl, lifting her glasses above her eyes to see better. She was pointing at The Fundamentals of Geometry by Euclid. “We don’t have any books by that author. Is it a new paperback?”

  Heller told her she’d have to help him as he didn’t know either. She went to her catalogs and looked up under “Authors.” She couldn’t find it. So she looked in a massive catalog of alphabetical book titles. Then, cheered on by Heller, she looked up the author in the book titles. “Hey, here it is!” she said. “Euclidian Geometry as Interpreted and Rewritten by Professor Twist from an Adaption by I. M. Tangled.” She went and found a copy. “You wrote here that his name was ‘Euclid’ when it was ‘Euclidian.’ You should learn how to spell.”