Jettero Heller could not be found or interviewed. It had been generally believed that he was engaged in a secret mission for the Grand Council and had long since departed Voltar. A spokesman for the Crown, contacted at dawn, attempted to refute the continued presence of Heller on Voltar, stating, “We have it on the most reliable authority that Jettero Heller left Voltar some time ago. The matter will be brought before the Grand Council in its morning meeting.”
Police Chief Chalp of Joy City modestly accepted credit for bringing the riot under such swift control. “My men are everywhere,” he said. “They are always ready for anything.”
When this reporter suggested that the riot might have been a publicity stunt, arranged to bring higher recognition to the Artistic Club, the manager angrily pointed out that he had no faintest knowledge that Jettero Heller or his sister were in the club last night and that, in any event, he would never dream of imperiling the life of the idol of billions.
The gang who shot up the club have not been traced.
(See our special features, today and tomorrow: HIGHTEE HELLER, HUMAN OR GODDESS? and THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JETTERO HELLER, THE MODEST HERO WHO BECAME THE IDOL OF THE FLEET.)
I sat there numbly. They had it all wrong. I was not a gang! I was just one man.
It was all Snelz’s fault, I finally worked out. If he hadn’t made that silly pact with Heller to be at all times on duty, guarding, he would never have rented those comedy cop uniforms just so he could be handy. Snelz was too conscientious. Just because he had heard shots, glass breaking and screams was no reason to believe Heller needed any help. The idea of charging in for a silly thing like that! Snelz had caused all this. I realized I would have to discipline him.
But the very futility of doing anything at all settled over me. I was just a chip of wood in the roaring river of fate. It would do no good to point out that they were all secretly against me.
I just sat there and waited for the axe to fall, finally, completely and forever. Numb. In midafternoon, I hardly even stirred when a big lorry drove up to the hangar. The signs on it said:
EDUCATIONAL AIDS COMPANY
DELIGHT YOUR STUDENTS EVEN IF THEY ARE CHILDREN.
ENTERTAINMENT IS THE BACKBONE OF ENLIGHTENMENT.
Two laborers got down from the truck and boosted a long box out of the back.
Somebody called for Heller and he came down from the top of the hull where they had been restoring plates and shielding and trotted over to the newcomers. He was all bright and alert, red racing cap on the back of his head. A lot he knew about the sorrows of life. The axe was hanging over him, too. The thought vaguely cheered me but I soon slumped again under renewed pains in my stomach.
He directed them to carry the box in through the air lock. I knew where it was going: into that lower hold storeroom.
Half an hour after that, I still had not stirred. I dully watched a new lorry drive up. It said:
MINERAL RESOURCES EQUIPMENT COMPANY
IF YOU THINK YOUR EQUIPMENT IS TOO EXPENSIVE,
BUY SOME AND MANUFACTURE YOUR OWN PURCHASE PRICE.
SOLD ONLY UNDER GOVERNMENT LICENSE
TO QUALIFIED AND DISCRIMINATING METALOLOGISTS.
Two laborers got out and took down a long, heavy box. Heller showed them where to put it in the ship.
I sat there waiting. I knew it would come and it would not be boxes.
Finally it was there. I felt it. Sort of like an infusion of black poison gas into the scene.
A voice from behind a pile of crates: a horrible whisper.
“Officer Gris.”
PART EIGHT
Chapter 7
Lombar Hisst, disguised as a workman, lurked half hidden behind the dirty cases.
His awful face was intent upon what he was doing. He had a notebook in his hands. From his secret place, he had a view of the tug and the swarms of contractor teams that clambered all around and over it. In their company-colored cover suits, each one bore plainly the different contractor names. Lombar Hisst was listing them, each and every company.
I came up and stood trembling near him. With an abrupt motion he swept a copy of the newssheet out of his workman jacket and whacked it into my face. I caught it. I didn’t have to read it. It was another newssheet, a different one but it had the same glaring picture of Heller holding his sister over his head above the crowd.
Lombar had gone back to his furious notebook writing. Eventually he was done. He yanked me back into the cover of the crates.
“You loathsome (bleep)!” he said. “I should shoot you out of hand right now!” He slapped his hand back against the notebook. “All these contractors working, working at vast expense and here you are, keeping it secret so that you can rake off all their kickbacks for yourself!”
I hadn’t expected that. It was so unjust. If I had tried to put the squeeze on any of these contractors they would have gone running to Heller and he, with his weird Royal officer ideas of honesty, would have beaten me up! But I didn’t dare open my mouth.
“Well, what have you got to say for yourself?” demanded Lombar, amber eyes flaming crazily. He didn’t expect any answer or wait for one. “It was (bleeped) lucky this was a Grand Council meeting day!
“The position you put us in! Right at the start, the Crown threw it at us! Oh, Endow is a fortunate fellow to have me. When the Crown demanded why Heller had not left, I was able to counter it, no thanks to you!
“I had Endow point out that the Grand Council allocation was so low that it was delaying the mission to Blito-P3. I used it to raise the allocation to thirty million credits instead of three. We can pretend there were other companies here that we own and you’ll (bleep) well stamp the fake bills with your identoplate! Do you understand?”
All I understood was that I was not lying, that instant, a dead body at his feet. I was grateful.
“In return, you loathsome piece of trash, you are going to get this mission out of here by my deadline! We had to promise that! So be grateful!”
I was very grateful.
“What are those boxes I saw being hauled in?” he demanded. “He’s got things there I am sure he’s going to use to try to make this mission a success. You know very well it must fail. I have told you time and again we cannot possibly let it succeed.”
He did not want any answer. He considered for a moment. Then he said, “Very well. In two days I will bring a special crew in here. You will distract Heller to some other place and we will inspect what he is taking.”
Through a crack in the crates we could see the tug. Heller slid down a rope and dropped lightly to the pavement. He beckoned and five Apparatus hangar people came over to him swiftly. They listened to him interestedly and laughed a couple of times and then sped off, quite unlike Apparatus personnel, to do what Heller had asked.
I glanced at Lombar. He had his upper lip raised in an expression of the purest hate. His eyes began to smolder. Under his breath he was muttering about “athletes” and “Royal officers” and “snobs,” a stream of profanity mixed in. There was no doubt that he hated Heller and all his kind.
Lombar suddenly turned to me. “You are going to have crew trouble. That (bleepard) will get around them. He’ll breed loyalty. He’ll undermine your control of any crew unless I handle it.” He thought for a moment. “Yes, yes, that will do it. I’ll put the captain and crew aboard that tug the day she leaves.”
For the first time, I found courage to speak. I squeaked, “She has Will-be Was main drives. She is very quick and sudden. She is a dangerous ship!”
“All the better,” said Lombar. He had heard me! “Will-be Was main drives. That will be a little harder but I will find and fix up a crew!”
I was still gripping the newssheet. He snatched it back from me and put it in his pocket. “That’s another thing. Have you heard any clues as to who leaked that original story about Heller and the mission? I thought not. I’m looking. I’m looking. I have to do everything myself but I’ll find whoever it was!”
>
Heller was guiding down a piece of plating. Lombar looked through the crack at him. He swore again. It made him savage.
Lombar turned and seized my tunic lapels. He snapped me very close to him. From nowhere the stinger had appeared and he cut painfully at my leg to punctuate his speech.
“You are going to get this mission out of here by my deadline! If you don’t we really could have Crown inspectors all over this hangar and there would be Hells for everyone! The whole Blito-P3 project is threatened by this mission! Twenty-four hours before departure, you and I will have another meeting! So you get this moving. You get Heller going! You get him off this planet! And if you don’t make it by deadline, I will kill you very slowly with my bare hands!” The stinger struck again. “And one more last thing: As a punishment for attempting to privately short-circuit this rake-off to yourself, you are not going to get a single credit of the additional allocation! You are a thief!”
He dropped me and I staggered. I stood there for a little while, numb and hurting. Finally I realized Lombar had left: an old disguised air-truck was flying away.
Once more I started breathing. I got my legs working and made it over to the pile of rusty plates. I sank down. I was surprised to still be alive, to still have four paychecks. I had almost begun to cheer up when a horrible realization hit me.
He had said “deadline.” That we had to be gone by his deadline. But he had not said when that deadline was!
I tried to make some estimate. Twenty-seven million had been added to the allocation. That meant it would take a couple days for him and Endow to dream up some fake companies and register them, maybe a couple days more, for appearances’ sake, to date their billings and get them stamped. I knew they would not be careless about these details. Only the chance for a rake-off, personally, of twenty-seven million credits had saved my life: I had no illusions about that. But when was this deadline?
Then another horrible thought hit me. I doubted very, very much that I could prevail upon Heller to wind up his refit, finish the tug and get going. That was the main problem! That is what I had to work on.
And the very thought of pushing him made me feel ill!
PART NINE
Chapter 1
Probably I should have waited until I was less in shock from Lombar’s visit. But I knew I had to act while spurred with anxiety, newly freshened, to get off this planet.
To get Heller really going I had to pry him apart from Krak!
My screaming necessity was so great that it thrust into my mind a vital fact about Heller I had not used. He had been disciplined early in his career for refusing to let his crew be electric-shock trained. He had been quite violent about it, he detested electric-shock training. He had even said he wouldn’t use a crew with “fried brains.”
Yet here he was all involved with a female trainer who must use nothing else!
I saw Heller go into the tug.
Now was the time!
I straightened up my tunic. I made sure my stun gun was loose in its holster in case I had to draw.
With determination, I entered the air lock.
Heller was in the flight deck. Workmen had more or less reassembled the panels and controls and Heller was checking the size of the base mount on the maneuvering sight in front of the astropilot’s chair. He had a little rule out and was measuring away.
My back was to the passageway. There was no one else about. I had to get this over with.
“Heller,” I said, “there is something you do not know.”
“Probably a whole universe full,” he said, going on with his measuring.
“Do you remember,” I said, “coming within a hair of being court-martialed because you refused to let a training officer electric-shock train your crew?”
I had his attention now. He was turned slightly toward me, a frown of curiosity on his face.
“There is something you must know. You hate electric-shock training. Krak has you fooled! She uses nothing else! She is just a dirty cheat that is . . .”
The back of his hand moved so fast I did not even see it coming!
It cracked against my mouth!
I went backwards as though I had been hit by a zipbus, skidding down the passageway.
He was stepping quickly in my direction. From the expression on his face, I was certain he was going to kill me!
I grabbed the butt of my holstered gun.
My arm would not pull it!
I tried again. I could not get the muscles of that arm to function!
It was as though I had abruptly become totally paralyzed from the shoulder to the fingertips!
I was still certain he was going to kill me. He knelt down in front of me.
“There is something you don’t know!” he said. “That very first day I went into the training room, I saw those brutal, shock-training machines. I went around to them one after the other. I checked their connections and control panels.
“Not one of those machines had been used for years! They were totally inoperational!”
His voice went very hard. “You had better be very careful of spreading lies about the Countess Krak!”
I was more certain than ever that he was going to kill me. I strenuously tried to pull my gun. My arm just plain wouldn’t work!
Those eyes, blue as gas flames, felt like they were scorching holes in my skull.
His hand moved toward one of his inside breast pockets.
I was certain he was going to take out a blastick or knife and finish me off.
I made a frantic effort to pull my gun. My hand and arm just plain wouldn’t obey me!
He had a paper in his hand. No, a copy of a clipping from a newssheet.
“I had this case looked up in the newssheet files. It concerns the deathbed confession of the former Assistant Lord of Education for Manco. See for yourself.” He turned it to me. I saw it. That’s what it was. But my eyes switched back at him in terror.
Once more I tried to pull my gun. My muscles again would not work!
Heller was looking at the sheet. “It clearly states here that the Manco Domestic Police interrupted a burglary and shot someone when he fled. That someone turned out to be the Assistant Lord of Education for Manco!
“He was dying of wounds. He wanted to make a confession and he did. He said that he had noticed one of his new university graduates was extremely skilled in training. Her father, the stage magician, Count Krak, had been killed recently in a plane crash. The mother, a noted trainer named Ailaena, had gone into seclusion from sorrow.
“This Assistant Lord of Education confessed that he had been about to be ruined with gambling debts. He conceived a plan. He kidnapped Ailaena. Then he told the daughter, Lissus Moam, that he would torture her mother to death unless Lissus trained forty-three children he would select from poor houses.
“He said he told Lissus Moam that it was a government project, ordered by the Apparatus. They wanted small operatives that could penetrate enemy strongholds and bring back information. He promised that if she did this, he would release her mother, Ailaena, unharmed.
“When he finally had the children trained, he put them to work robbing banks. He was very afraid there would be witnesses to these robberies. He himself gave the children weapons and told them they must murder every guard. When the children did not want to do this, he capitalized on the fact that the children loved Lissus. He told the children that if they did not murder all guards, he himself would murder Lissus Moam. The children were certain he would. He told them that if they talked or ever mentioned his name, he would kill Lissus Moam with torture.
“When Lissus had finished the training, this insane fool killed her mother. He held Lissus prisoner in case the children were caught.
“The children were eventually caught, probably due to his faulty information or greed. He was able to produce and denounce Lissus Moam as the instigator and got off himself without suspicion.
“The children were executed. Lissus Moam was sentenced to
die but, due to her skills, was spirited away by the Apparatus and some criminal was executed in her place.
“The Apparatus has been holding an innocent person for nearly three years! You have not even been decent enough to tell her!”
I was quite certain I myself was going to die in the next few seconds or minutes, such was the expression in those eyes!
Valiantly, I once again attempted to make my arm work. It would not function!
“I,” said Heller, “am going to put this in the hands of legal counsels. I am going to clear her name. And I am going to marry the Countess Krak!”
He reached toward me. I was certain he was going to kill me.
I once more tried to pull my gun.
But he got me to my feet and into the crew salon. He sat me in a chair. He went to a locker and got a napkin and then he dampened it at the water bar.
His back was turned to me so I once more tried to draw my gun. It was futile. I couldn’t make either hand or arm work. I was paralyzed!
He came back and began to sponge the small spot of blood at the side of my mouth. “I am sorry I hit you. I wasn’t thinking. I just suddenly reacted. I assure you, that isn’t like me. I was just trying to shut you up, not trying to knock you down.”
Gods help me if he had really hit!
“I just got this this morning,” he said. “I was going to tell her tonight as a surprise and ask her to marry me. We can certainly delay this mission long enough for a proper clearing of her name and a wedding. The mission isn’t that urgent. Planets don’t go to pieces in a day.”
Perhaps it was the cool water. Perhaps it was his softer tone. But, faced with this further threat of delay, I found courage enough to talk.
“No, no, no,” I said. “You mustn’t start action to clear her name.”
He drew back.
“You don’t understand the legalities,” I babbled. “When a person is listed as dead, they destroy all the records! Right in the master data file, she is no longer listed. That Assistant Lord of Education for Manco is also dead. That confession applies to people who are dead. The Domestic Police will have destroyed all those records. You are dealing with a nonperson. Lissus Moam and the Countess Krak do not exist in the world of the living! It says so right in the master files. I have checked!”