“Sit down, sit down,” said Lombar, waving to a chair. He was smiling and relaxed.
I had been feeling pretty good. Suddenly I was terrified!
The stinger lay neglected on a bench. He was being courteous, even jovial.
What did he want?
“Have a chank-pop,” he said, and extended a gold box of them toward me.
I could feel my heart almost stop beating. My legs wouldn’t hold me up and I sagged into the chair.
He shoved the box at me urgently and I managed to reach out and take a chank-pop and somehow get the top off. The lovely scent made a gentle explosion on my face, cooling it, waking me up.
Lombar settled on a broad, soft bench, still smiling. “Soltan,” he began—and my terror soared; he had never before used my name and never, never would a superior use one’s familiar name. I knew something awful lay in the instant future!
“Soltan,” repeated Lombar in a fond tone of voice, “I have good news for you. A sort of a celebration present after our great win yesterday.”
I couldn’t breathe. I knew it was coming.
“As of this morning,” said Lombar, “you are relieved from post as Section Chief of 451.”
My Gods, I knew it. His next words would condemn me to the cells—after torture!
My face must have gone very white for he became all the more jovial. “No, no, no,” he laughed. “Don’t be afraid, Soltan. I have something much more interesting for you. And if you carry it out well, why, who knows, you might become Chief Executive of the Apparatus. Even Lord of the Exterior.”
Ah, yes. I was very, very right. I was in trouble! Desperation made me find my voice. “After . . . after my slip-up?”
“Why, Soltan,” said Lombar, “you couldn’t have helped that. Heller’s report went on entirely different channels, completely out of your hands, utterly beyond your possible reach.”
He was right. With no copies made, I was never alerted and able to call upon the Shadow Section to help me retrieve the original report and replace it with my altered version. But that wasn’t going to save me now!
He got off the bench and I thought he was going over for his stinger or maybe, worse, to push the buzzer for an arrest guard. But he just looked himself over in the mirror. “We needed that accident,” he said, “to sort of jolt things together. The Grand Council has given us an order and we are going to fulfill it.”
Lombar wandered back and patted me on the shoulder. I couldn’t help flinching, it was so automatic. “Soltan, I am appointing you the handler of the special agent we are going to put on Blito-P3.”
Now I understood. A handler runs an agent in the field, guides him, tells him what to do. Day by day, even hour by hour, a handler is responsible for everything that agent does. If anything goes wrong, the handler is routinely executed.
But a condemned man, especially a condemned man, tries to fight for his life. “But . . . but they only allocated three million credits to the whole project. One ship crash would wipe that out. . . .”
“Pish, pish,” said Lombar. “Endow can run a three-million-credit allocation up to hundreds of millions. A little overrun here, a bit of teasing good news there, a threat somewhere else and any allocation can become a staggering fortune. No, you won’t have any money troubles. None at all. Why, it would cost them trillions to stage a premature, off-schedule invasion. And one that would fail.”
He wandered over to the mirror again. “I thought I was very clever, really. I anticipated the report. I pulled a vast potential allocation within reach. I have a means now of covering ten times the space traffic to Earth and no questions asked, no more dodging the detection screen here. Marvelous. All I have to tell them is that we’re staying in communication with the special agent—and you, of course.”
“You mean I’m going to Earth?” I said idiotically. That was obvious. You can’t handle such an agent from Voltar. I was rattled. I had even overlooked the obvious demand for applause. “I was stunned by your clever recovery,” I said lamely. “I couldn’t believe our luck in getting out of it. It was all due to you.”
That made him smile again. For a moment he had started to frown. So I got bold enough to say something else. “We . . . uh . . . we don’t have any agents of that caliber.”
“Oh, we have a few agents on Earth. You know that. I was thinking of giving you two of them—Raht and Terb—to help out. They’re a couple of the finest killers I have ever seen! Now how’s that? Feel better?”
I could see that execution order for a failed mission as plain as though I held it in my hand. Might as well make my fight now. “Chief Executive, neither one of them knows geophysics from soup. And I . . . well, I almost failed those courses at the Academy.”
Lombar laughed. Very pleasantly. He was amused. This was certainly a different Lombar than I had ever known. “But you did take those courses. You know the big words. Soltan, you just have to get used to the idea that I am really your best friend.”
Now I was for it. There was more. I knew there was more.
He extended the gold box to me again. “Have another chank-pop.”
I could barely get the top off. But it was a good thing I did or what he said next would have otherwise made me faint.
“Have no qualms about the special agent. I have already decided upon him.” He looked to see if he had my full attention. “His name is Jettero Heller!”
There was a long, long silence in the room while I strove to get my wits around it. For seconds I thought I was having delusions, hearing wrong names. But Lombar just stood there smiling.
“He’s the ideal choice,” said Lombar when I didn’t comment. “The Grand Council will believe reports signed by him. I’m told he is very competent, in a stupid sort of way. He has no training as a spy. He knows nothing of how the Apparatus is organized or works. You and he are both Academy graduates and potential friends—you talk his language.”
I got my wits working again. “But Jettero Heller is a bright engineer. He’s been to a ton of postgraduate schools. He’s way above my level. I’m all confused. If he has no spy training, if he knows nothing of the Apparatus . . .”
“Have another chank-pop,” said Lombar, extending the box. And as I nervously took it, I knew there was more to the news.
“Ready?” said Lombar.
I stared at him fixedly.
“Mission Earth,” said Lombar, “must be designed and run to fail.”
I was beginning to get it.
“The last thing we want,” said Lombar, “is an Earth invaded by and conquered by the present Voltarian government. We have our own plans of conquest for that planet. You know that and I know that. Ours will take place a long time before the official invasion. We are not the least bit interested in Blito-P3 having clean air. There are lots of planets. Blito-P3 has other uses and those uses will be made of it long before any oceans flood. For that matter, who the Devils cares about air?”
I was getting it now. I also got that Lombar, coming from Staphotten, a planet which has a low oxygen level, cared little about air anyway.
Lombar laughed at my dawning comprehension. It must have been very obvious. “You see, you don’t give me credit for being as bright as I am.”
Cunning was the word for it, I thought. But I am ashamed to say that I replied, “Oh, yes I do.”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” said Lombar. “Jettero Heller must be set up to fall flat and the sooner the better. With Raht and Terb to assist and you to run it, that will be very easy to do.”
I didn’t quite like the compliment. He noticed it.
“You’re going to have to be very clever,” said Lombar, a little urgently. “Jettero Heller, (bleep) his looks and skill, will not be an easy person to fool. But you are going to make sure that he fails utterly, absolutely and quietly.
“His first reports,” continued Lombar, “will be his actual reports. By that time, we will have his style. Then all you have to do is keep him from progressing or getting into
mischief and we will send in ‘Jettero Heller reports’ to our heart’s content, all forged.”
One cloud remained. “He won’t take our kidnapping of him lightly,” I said. “He may refuse to cooperate.”
“I’ll admit the kidnapping looked like a mistake but really, it fits beautifully.” He was getting into his tunic.
He went to the door and beckoned. “Come along and watch a master handle things.”
So I followed to begin MISSION EARTH, the mission that was carefully planned to fail.
I felt horrible.
PART TWO
Chapter 2
Descending into the bowels of Spiteos was, to some, like taking a trip to the infernal regions that some religions promise to the (bleeped).
But I had always regarded it on a par with entering a monstrous den of wild animals. So I lagged behind Lombar long enough to draw a blastick from the armory. The guards are themselves criminals; I was dressed in the common gray uniform of the General Services, without rank badges; I had no status in this place: one could not only be attacked by desperate inmates, one could also be struck down and robbed by guards.
We plummeted down the tubes, the noisome stench of the place already gagging me. We exited at negative level 501. The smell was awful: they sometimes do not dispose of the remains of prisoners who have died, leaving them in the cell until it is needed for someone else—or just pitching the newcomer in with them.
A long hall with moldy wire walls stretched out before us. Behind the highly charged mesh, a few sunken eyes peered at us. In the higher levels there were the secret laboratories of the Apparatus, but here, in some of the cages, were evidences of scientific work: deformed, distorted shapes of abandoned experiments, still alive, hideous, forgotten.
Lombar, black-garbed in the uniform of a general, strode along, twitching his stinger, looking neither to right nor left, deaf to the moans and pleas which marked our passage.
We turned a corner and came into a small room, dimly lit with a green light-plate. At the far end of it was an even stronger cage, not tall enough to stand in. Lombar threw a switch and the door swung open.
Jettero Heller was stretched at length upon a cold stone ledge. In the dim light I could see that he still wore the once-white sport pants but someone had taken his sweater and shoes. The stab wound of the paralysis dagger had not been tended and dried blood caked his shoulder. His wrists were bound together with a pair of electric cuffs, the kind that continually sting. There were no eating dishes about so he probably had not been fed—and how long had he been here? Four days?
My Gods, I thought, how could one ever expect him to forgive such treatment?
One would have expected him to look degraded. But not so. He was simply lying calmly on the stone ledge, very relaxed and composed.
“Well, well,” said Jettero Heller calmly. “The drunks arrive at last.” It was the Fleet’s contemptuous name for the Apparatus: our insignia was supposed to be a club, a fat paddle with a handle upside down. But the Fleet chooses to believe it is a bottle. Therefore, they call us “drunks,” and this infuriates the Apparatus.
Lombar ordinarily would have struck out with an insult. And I did see his eyes flash for a brief instant. But Lombar had other things to do. He stood at the bottom of the ledge, bent over. He managed a cheerful smile.
“So far, so good,” said Lombar.
Heller just lay there, looking at him coldly.
“This has been,” said Lombar, “the beginning of a test.”
Heller said nothing. He just looked at Lombar. It made one very uncomfortable. Too calm.
“It is necessary to see if you are up to passing standards,” said Lombar, smiling. “You may find it uncomfortable, but we find it vital to pretest candidates for important jobs.”
The gall of him, I thought. But it was a clever approach.
“Now, Soltan here,” said Lombar, with a gesture toward me, “is going to complete the tests and we will know if you have the qualifications.”
With that, he had the nerve to actually pat Heller on the ankle. For an instant, having seen Heller use his feet, I thought it might be a foolhardy thing to do. And then I saw that the ankles were electric cuffed to the stone.
With a reassuring smile, Lombar left the cage. He beckoned to me and, when we were out of earshot, said, “The rest is up to you. Invent something mild, tell him he passed and then give him this.”
Lombar took from his pocket an official copy of the Grand Council order that authorized Mission Earth. He handed it to me. The place smelled horrible, the light was ghastly; the realization that he was dumping this on me and more, leaving me alone with Heller in the depths of Spiteos, made me feel very ill.
The Chief Executive of the Apparatus now began to revert to type. He didn’t seize my lapels or hit me with the stinger. But he put his face very close to mine and his voice was deadly. “Do not arouse his suspicions! Do not let him escape!”
Oh, fine! Two contrary orders in one breath! The real order would be to somehow accomplish the impossible and get Heller’s cooperation. But Lombar was gone.
I went back into the cage. My Gods, the place stank. I tried to smile as I knelt beside the ledge. Heller was just looking at me calmly, too calmly.
“First,” I said, “could you tell me how you spotted that the orderly was a fake?”
He didn’t answer. He just coolly looked at me. He must have been half dead from hunger and thirst. The electric cuffs on his wrists and ankles must have been very painful.
“Come, come,” I said, feeling like an idiot schoolmaster, “it is to your advantage to answer my questions. Then we will see if you have passed and things can be much more comfortable.”
For a while he just continued to look at me. Then, with his words a trifle thick from the swelling of the tongue that goes along with thirst, he said, “From your accent, you’re an Academy officer, aren’t you?” He shook his head a little. “What sad route brought you to the drunks?”
An unaccountable surge of rage hit me. Who was the prisoner here? Or wait, was he trying to forge and exploit a bond? Was he being arrogant and disdainful like Fleet officers do in the face of defeat?
My hand gripped the blastick hard enough to crush it. How dare he pity me?
My wits had been dispersed in all directions. This fellow was dangerous even to talk to. I carefully calmed myself. Indeed, who was the prisoner here? I looked at him very carefully and what I finally saw amazed me. He really wasn’t thinking about himself. He wasn’t thinking about the pain of electric cuffs or hunger or thirst. He actually felt sad that another being could fall as low as I. His question had nothing to do with himself at all! Only me.
I could have talked about myself. I could have said, “Sometimes one follows the wrong chart.” I could have laid it all out for him and come to an honest understanding. How different it all might have been had I done so.
But there was Lombar like a black cloud in my sky. I wasn’t courageous enough to be honest. In that moment I sealed the doom of an awful lot of people. A complete coward, I put a false smile on it. I repeated, “Come, come. Just tell me about the orderly.”
He was silent for a bit. Then he said, “Why should I? You’ll just improve your techniques on the next kidnapping.”
“No, no,” I said. “This is just a test of perceptions and reactions. Purely scholastic.”
He shrugged. “When I came out the door and caught a whiff of him, I knew he was no Fleet orderly. In the close confines of a spaceship, a crew has been known to kill someone who never bathes or who uses scented powder. There are no smelly Fleet orderlies.”
I had gotten out a notebook and was making silly notes to add to the illusion. “Very good. Keen sense of smell. Anything else?”
He looked at me, faintly amused. “His belt was upside down, he had his spats on backwards and there was the bulge of a forbidden knife at the back of his neck.”
“Ah, excellent,” I said, pretending to write. And indee
d it was excellent. I hadn’t seen the knife bulge.
“But,” said Jettero, “I flunked smelling the ozone that always comes from an electric whip even out of use and I did not hear your boss close the door behind me. So I flunk. I am not the fellow for your job.”
“No, no, no,” I said hastily. “That’s for me to judge. Now let’s get on with this. Why did you let that other player win?” I really wanted to know. It had puzzled me ever since I had seen it.
He looked at me as though wondering what sort of a monster I was. He didn’t answer, so I said, “Why did you throw the game away?”
In a very patient voice, the way one explains something to a child, he said, “His sweetheart was in the stands. She had come clear from his home planet to watch him play. If he had lost, it would have shamed him in front of her.”
“Oh, wait,” I said. “You tossed him some balls. You were mocking him. That was far worse than just defeating him.”
“That is true,” said Heller. “So I had no choice except to distract attention from him by stepping outside my ring and losing the game. If you were watching, you saw it work. He kept his pride and was not shamed.”
I was astonished. I felt upset. Anyone in the Apparatus could tell you that it is utterly fatal not to win every time and in every place. Compassion is a fatal word! The dirtier one played, the better. And always to win, no matter what the cost to anyone.
This fellow would never make a spy. Never! Lords help him! And lords help me as his handler!
“Great!” I cried, feeling as false as a prostitute. “You’ve passed with all tubes blasting! You’re the very fellow for the job!”
PART TWO
Chapter 3
The light of the wire cage was bad, the stink was overpowering. I produced the copy of the order and with a flourish of fluttering seals, held it in front of his face.
“The Grand Council, no less,” I said. “One of the most important missions of the year! And as you can see, it has been entrusted to the Exterior Division with complete autonomy and discretion.” I made the paper snap importantly.