The Doomed Planet

  By now he has probably attended the funerals of all his one-time friends, has given their progeny a leg-up into high positions and is very likely known as “Uncle Jet,” the fellow they have to keep cooking the Social Security and Army records for so nobody will notice he is 127 years old, a totally giveaway age for that planet’s short-lived people. They probably keep backing him up ten years at a clip so he never gets above sixty-five. But he must look to them like he is fifty. Maybe he puts white powder in his sideburns to further the deceit.

  Oh, you can excuse it by imagining a conversation between him and Lord Bis, the head of the Combined Service Intelligence Committee. He and Bis would be agreeing it was a very good thing for Heller-Wister to maintain his exalted five-star-general US Army status, even though it is just reserve and never active. By being in the background there, they would agree, any space military adventure on the part of Earth would be known to Voltar long before it happened. But as Earth firmly believes that nothing can go faster than light, a supply line for any Earth attack on Voltar more than twenty-two light-years long would make any attack extremely unlikely. So you would have to regard such a conversation as an utter sham and see it just for what it is:

  AN EXCUSE FOR THIS MONSTROUS, FINAL COVERUP!

  XXII

  And what is this last, biggest coverup?

  Well, dear reader, I will tell you.

  We already know he is hiding the existence of a whole planet.

  But now the matter becomes MUCH more serious!

  Jettero Heller, Duke of Manco, is DEPRIVING VOLTAR OF SOME OF THE MOST MAGNIFICENT DEVELOPMENTS EVER HIT UPON IN THIS WHOLE UNIVERSE!

  Now, let me take these things up one by one and I will soon convince you.

  PR: The skills of PR, even to the tiny degree I have been able to utilize them, have literally saved my life. They are jerking me from total, hounded and depressed anonymity to a position where my name will blaze across the sky. People will no longer be able to push me around and make nothing of my writing. Utilizing only a tiny fragment of PR, I have rooted out the TRUTH. And after this it will be “Yes, Noble Pennwell” and “No, Noble Pennwell” and “I’m shivering in my boots lest you frown at me, Mr. Pennwell!” One assuredly cannot discount the vast value of this technology, now known only to Earth and available nowhere else!

  INTELLIGENCE SERVICES: Unless you can spy upon your own population, you cannot keep them in line. The riffraff will get out of hand and impudent—even revolt—unless spies and armed spy forces are planted on them at every street corner. How else can a government get even with those they do not like? How else but by provoking them into crime and then arresting them? Unless you can make continual trouble for citizens individually and keep them at each others’ throats, then they may unite and in a screaming wave overwhelm the government! On Earth they have developed those skills to a very fine point and practice them in every country. Only there can our power elite learn how to do it!

  BEVERAGES: When you think of what we call strong drink, it becomes a laughing matter. Tup and varieties of sparklewater are absolutely nothing. They merely make one relaxed and cheerful. NOT ONE OF OUR DRINKS IS REALLY EFFECTIVE! It takes white mule to really throw one into the land of I-Don’t-Care. None of our drinks cause one to cast away his inhibitions—they don’t even make anyone see double. What a powerful surge is available from Earth beverages. I know. I have felt it. Yet how to make them is ONLY available in full from Earth!

  MUSIC: You have to experience the scorching beat of Punk Rock to really appreciate what Earth could do for the whole artistic universe. I swear, there is nothing like it ever heard before, anywhere else. The wild abandon of it doesn’t even have to be in tune! And the sentiments are not hidden at all! Only Earth could develop such music. Only Earth can teach us how to properly play it and thus sweep aside our too-smooth and complicated melodies and chords. Punk Rock gets right down to it! It beats your eardrums in!

  DRUGS: This is just cabal and propaganda. I have experienced marijuana, the most powerful of these drugs, and I frankly did not care a snap what happened! I simply let them do anything they liked to me and enjoyed it. DRUGS YOU NEVER HEARD OF ARE AVAILABLE FROM EARTH! IT IS THE SOLE SOURCE OF THE THRILLS YOU CAN EXPERIENCE!

  PSYCHOLOGY and PSYCHIATRY: These are obviously the most advanced population-control techniques ever heard of anywhere. Imagine a government having a corps of doctors it can use to kill anyone it doesn’t like and no questions asked! That’s POWER! Imagine the boon of a state monopoly in bending the minds of children, making them into anything it wishes, even animals just grazing in the fields!

  Now, it must have been quite obvious to you, dear reader, for I rely on your intelligence, that the only reason Lombar Hisst remained insane was because the skilled and qualified Doctor Crobe was FORBIDDEN the use of his normal tools. Had he been able to properly treat Lombar Hisst as he proposed, all would have been well! And only Earth has that technology.

  SEX: Oh, sex and sex and sex. Before Earth shed its divine light on this subject, who knew anything at all about sex? We are all so unenlightened, we are so dreadfully inhibited on the subject that it is a matter of weeping. Teenie was a master of it, a divine goddess, sent to us from Earth to lead us out of darkness. Today we could have innumerable varieties of sex if we only knew the whole story from Earth. We could have oral sex and anal sex rampant in every salon. We could have mass orgies. And we could have incest as a common way of life. They know how to do these things on Earth. Pratia is not imparting her divine wisdom: she is hoarding it because she is just a voyeur now. She is not even letting this enlightenment escape outside her own family, and I doubt very much, since she has a wandering wit, that she is teaching accurately. The place to get the REAL information is EARTH! It is a paradise of wallowing, rampant sex perversion! Wonderful!

  CATAMITES: All this stupid fuss that was made about catamites is a coverup in itself.

  I will have you know that when Doctor Crobe psychoanalyzed me, I was IMPRESSED! It was a stunning revelation to know why my life had been so tortured and so grim.

  Never had I suspected before that I was merely oral erotic. Failure to know that has almost wrecked my life!

  Just as soon as I get this book into print, I am going to hunt up Har and importune him or blackmail him or anything and force him to let me do it to him every day.

  And, oh, I am certain there will be many changes in my life.

  So I will owe my very sanity to Earth, the only place where such wisdom comes from!

  So now that I have explained it, you can see the vast dimensions of this last coverup.

  JETTERO HELLER is denying the whole Voltar Confederacy, the rest of the universe, if you please, of these colossal benefits!

  But WHY he is doing it is the best of all.

  Now you will recall what the learned Doctor Crobe said about two identities? Good!

  Look at Heller!

  He has TWO identities on Voltar alone.

  On Earth he is known as Wister and maybe others!

  So, hold your hat, we come to the most awful coverup of all:

  JETTERO HELLER has MORE than TWO identities. That makes him a schizo-schizophrenic!

  He is not only just the real villain of this piece.

  HE IS INSANE!

  THE WHOLE OF THE VOLTAR CONFEDERACY HAS BEEN GUIDED FOR NEARLY A CENTURY BY A MAN WHO IS COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY CRAZY!

  Oh, let’s forget for the moment the imagined successes of the Confederacy during that period, since they are hardly to his credit. That Voltar, since he took over as Crown, has never lost a war is simply a tribute to the Army and Fleet, and wars have been few, remember that! And let’s not harp upon the fact that Voltar has never in her history been so prosperous internally: when everybody is employed and working cheerfully, you can’t help but have prosperity. His popularity doesn’t count, for it is based on the fact that he is never in the news and there are no investigative reporters around to tell people the TRUTH!


  The multiple identities would prove it by itself that Jettero Heller is insane. But there is a REAL BIG PIECE OF EVIDENCE YOU MUST NOT OVERLOOK!

  By submerging Earth, JETTERO HELLER HAS COST VOLTAR THE STAGGERING BENEFITS THAT WE COULD GET FROM EARTH!

  I have listed them above. It should be plain to you, dear reader, that only a madman would underprivilege Voltar that way! A vicious, dirty trick to play on all of us!

  SO!

  That spot is blank on the invasion tables.

  The planet Earth belongs there.

  Those tables are SACRED!

  The time for the invasion is still a few years in the future!

  There is AMPLE time to mend this hideous, psychotic coverup engineered by a madman!

  So I give you the vital battle cry:

  RESTORE EARTH TO THE INVASION TABLES AND INVADE!

  I will drive it home in the very best way I know. Read this and it will lift your heart, Voltarian, with a THRILL!

  ODE TO EARTH

  O Earth, O Earth, you luscious globe,

  You beckoning, wine-fat treasure-trove,

  You whet our hunger as you spin

  And lure us with your wealth to win.

  You saved my life with your PR.

  I triumph now without a scar!

  Your spy techniques are quite sublime

  And can be used to undermine.

  And who could think but to extol

  Your psych and psych for mind control.

  Who would refuse to cut their fug

  If offered some divine Earth drug?

  Who can deny that men will drool

  For just one shot of good white mule?

  And no musician would heed sneers

  If he had Punk Rock to drown their ears.

  And who, pray tell, would show aversion

  To lovely butt and mouth perversion?

  And Earth, you number in your riches

  Sex that converts girls to (bleepches).

  Did I say sex? Oh, you excel!

  Sex is the thing you do so well!

  Never has such concentration

  Been leveled at self-gratification!

  Nowhere else in the universe

  Did anyone dream that sex came first!

  We thank the Gods that you are weak

  And believe so well when your leaders speak.

  We praise to the Lords your internal squabbles.

  We’ll just step in and grab your baubles!

  It is so nice you can’t unite,

  For you won’t offer any fight.

  We are so thankful for your schisms

  Brought on by all your social ISMS.

  For all your wealth, you stand around

  And eat suppression, finely ground.

  Your leaders lead you to the slaughter.

  You’re as easy to rape as a poor man’s daughter!

  So we’ll throw you on your back

  And insert us in your crack

  And rape and gut until you squirm

  And fill you full with our bullet sperm!

  And when your dead carpet the streets,

  We’ll roll right in with Rocking Beats

  And loot you of your luscious hoard

  Of the wisdom and lust that I’ve adored.

  We’ll suck you dry!

  Our thirst you’ll quench

  With the dripping blood of every wench!

  And when you are then but a husk,

  To me, you’ll smell like lovely musk.

  And to Voltar as slaves we’ll bring

  Every virgin for a fling

  And have here in our native land

  All the things that made you grand!

  Until this happens, I will rave

  And beg and plead until you, slave,

  Are captured there and put in chains

  To let us pick your luscious brains.

  And then at length establish here

  Your culture as a proud veneer

  Upon our peoples far and wide

  So that their semen runs like tide

  Up into your legs spread wide!

  For with your culture, we will nurse

  A whole enticing universe,

  And from your womb, tomorrow springs

  As you lie weeping with slashed-off wings.

  So cower there, O Earth, we come!

  And we will beat the funeral drum

  For bodies slaughtered on your plain

  That died in agony and pain.

  Don’t plead, O Earth, for mercy now!

  Your time has come and this I vow:

  Each thing you know we will suck up

  And toast your death with blood in cup!

  Surrender? No, it is too late.

  Just weep while soldiers fornicate

  Upon your grave up there so high,

  So soon to be our Voltar sky.

  But, cheer up, Earth! When soul has flown

  It will in Voltar find its home.

  Your wisdom wise like graveyard flowers

  Will come to us and will be ours!

  So, Earth, just bare to us your breast

  And let us suckle you in death!

  VOLTAR! SEEK NOT MORE OF MY PERSUASION!

  LAUNCH ON TIME THE EARTH INVASION!

  THE (TRIUMPHANT) END!

  (To be published immediately after The Triumphant End)

  LETTER FROM MONTE PENNWELL

  TO HIS PUBLISHERS

  TO: BIOGRAPHICS PUBLISHING COMPANY

  COMMERCIAL CITY

  PLANET VOLTAR

  GENTLEMEN (though I am certain there is not one in the shop!):

  I have just received back for author’s approval the edited copy of my book.

  I AM OUTRAGED!

  I am so angry, I have never been so angry!

  I hardly know how to start screaming at you!

  You have changed the name of every single Lord in the book! I demand you use the real ones I used!

  You ink-spattering dabblers and meddlers!

  You have changed the US Army name that Jettero Heller used on Earth. It wasn’t Wister! I gave the REAL name!

  And if this were not effrontery enough, YOU HAVE CHANGED MY NAME AS AUTHOR! “Monte Pennwell,” indeed! THAT IS NOT MY NAME! My family name is one of the most honorable and respected names in the whole Confederacy and I INSIST THAT YOU USE IT!

  It is a wonder to me you didn’t change the names of New York and Turkey!

  THIS IS VILLAINOUS!

  I WILL HAVE YOUR HEADS!

  YOU SIGNED A CONTRACT!

  I know my rights!

  If you DARE to dicker around with me, I will take you RIGHT TO COURT and sue you for a BILLION CREDITS!

  This book deals with corruption in government. I don’t care if it attacks the leaders of the state! YOU IDIOTS! That’s why I’m writing it!

  There has been a MONSTROUS COVERUP! This book is intended to EXPLODE it into view!

  The people of Voltar are being VICTIMIZED! They are being denied possession of a planet RICH IN WISDOM!

  They are being misled and manipulated by an archvillain WHO IS INSANE!

  I must get the word to them so they can RISE AS ONE MAN and SCREAM THEIR FURY at this DECEPTION!

  Earth is right there aching to be TORN TO PIECES!

  We could FEAST upon it!

  You LACKEYS!

  You MINIONS of a VILE and CORRUPT MADMAN!

  HOW DARE YOU LABEL THIS AS A WORK OF FICTION!

  How dare you insert an introduction that REFUTES EVERYTHING!

  How dare you infer that I am simply an IMAGINATIVE WRITER?

  Oh, let me tell you, you’re in REAL TROUBLE!

  I have PROOFS!

  I have hundreds of pounds of COURT RECORDS! I have a WHOLE FORTRESS FULL OF DOCUMENTS! I have all my notes and copies of the logs and records on Manco. I have my recordings of all interviews! I even have the Gris strips of every move Heller ever made!

  I am armed like an Army with FACTS!

&
nbsp; They won’t dare touch me!

  I am shouting out the spirit of a great crusade! Invade Earth at ALL COSTS! We cannot afford NOT TO!

  For an instant, I will throttle my rage and demean myself by trying to appeal to your reason even though it is quite obvious you have none!

  You must not let yourselves be browbeaten by the VILE Duke of Manco into foregoing the HUGE benefits of invading Earth.

  Look what that planet has done for me already! It has made me into a MAN! As soon as this book is published, I will haunt the house of Har and do my Earth thing with him until I get completely well! I have been assured by a great Earth authority and psychiatrist that it will handle all my family problems. AND I MUST HANDLE THEM! THEY ARE UNBEARABLE!

  They are plaguing me about jobs and even proposing the UNTHINKABLE: that I marry that AWFUL Lady Corsa in that AWFUL rustic Modon. I am going completely MAD!