“Throw the Russian into a detention cell. Hold on to that black-jowled Grabbe-Manhattan man. We’re going over to the hospital and we’ll take this Gris traitor with us.”
Prahd was still there and his car was out at the barracks. They prodded me along and shortly we arrived at the hospital.
It obviously wasn’t their first priority but they put me in an operating room and strapped me down.
Nurse Bildirjin, my latest wife, came in. She regarded me as she would waste in a trash can. She simply banged an anesthetic mask on my face and that was all I knew about that.
It must have been midafternoon when I came to in a hospital room. I was strapped down on the bed, the cat was sitting on my chest, keeping a baleful eye on me, and Nurse Bildirjin was standing by the window.
She saw I was awake. She threw two lead pellets at me. “They missed,” she said.
“Missed!” I protested. “I distinctly felt them hit me!”
“They missed any vital organ. If you had any sense of decency, you would have stood a little further to the left. Then I would be a self-respecting widow.”
“You (bleepch)!” I said.
The cat snarled, lifting a set of claws to rake me.
“Would you like to see your son?” said Nurse Bildirjin.
For the first time I noticed that her stomach was flat. She must have just gotten out of confinement. I hastily counted up on my fingers. That time she had jumped me after my return from New York was definitely not nine months ago.
She had gone out and now she returned with something wrapped in blankets labeled Hospital Nursery. She tipped it toward me.
“Listen,” I said. “It’s impossible. There hasn’t been enough time.”
“Slightly premature,” she said. “Look at him.”
It was a very well-formed baby, several days old.
I blinked. My eyes are brown. My hair is brown. Nurse Bildirjin’s eyes were black. Her hair was black.
THIS BABY HAD BRIGHT GREEN EYES!
It had straw-colored hair.
IT EVEN LOOKED LIKE PRAHD!
I snarled, “That baby must have been conceived the very first night that that doctor arrived here!”
She smiled at me enigmatically. “Well, it just might have been if you hadn’t refused to let him be paid.”
I groaned. Prahd was getting his own back.
“And as it is,” said Nurse Bildirjin, “your son will be quite wealthy when you choose to honor your dowry and let the bank have enough money to pay it.”
“I’ll see you in hells first!” I raged.
The baby started to cry. The cat raked me.
Nurse Bildirjin looked meaningfully at my covered crotch. “Then I guess I’ll just have to advise Doktor Muhammed that you need another operation.”
I cringed. I knew what she meant. They would make me into a eunuch!
“All right,” I said, knowing that I lied, “I will see it is paid.”
But it was right at that moment that I added to my plan. I would go home and deliver Heller and Krak to Lombar. Then I would come back and undo all the damage Heller had done by providing cheap fuel. And last, for dessert, I would see that every Turk connected with this hospital and this base died horribly! Including Nurse Bildirjin and this (bleeped) baby!
PART SIXTY-FOUR
Chapter 9
I spent a very sleepless night. The cat had been replaced with two guards from the base who simply sat, rifles across their knees, looking at me, saying nothing.
Young Dr. Prahd Bittlestiffender, alias Doktor Muhammed Ataturk, came in. He was carrying a pan of instruments. He made a motion to the guards and they went outside the door, making sure I knew they were still there, one on either side.
Prahd closed the door firmly and then said the most outrageous thing that I have ever heard. “I am your friend.”
I snarled. If I hadn’t been strapped down, I would have torn his throat out!
“Now, don’t be so upset,” he said. “I have had a very trying day and a half. You have no idea how nervous it makes one, attempting to operate under the muzzle of a blastgun.”
“Who made the mistake of not shooting you?” I said.
“Let’s not be so antagonistic, shall we? Royal Officer Heller kept a huge revolver trained on me while I removed the two bugs from the head of the Countess Krak, and when she was up and around again she held a rifle on me while I operated on him. The visio and audio bugs you had me install in them are now gone. And I’m glad of it. They are very nice people, you know, not at all like some others I could name.”
“So how does this make you my friend?” I said savagely.
He didn’t answer.
He unbuckled a strap and moved my arm so he could get at my side. He was working with the cups that covered my wounds, checking them. One was on the inside of my left arm, the other had plowed along my left rib cage. He injected a healing catalyst into them. It stung like blazing fire!
He put cups back on the holes and fastened them in place. He strapped my arm down once more.
He looked at me. “Friendship takes many forms,” he said. “Just this morning I kept you from getting into more trouble.”
“I can’t be in more trouble than I am in!” I grated.
“Oh, I think that is entirely possible,” said Prahd.
There was a certain look in his eye which boded no good. I braced myself.
“Do you recall my putting something in your skull for you?” he said.
I stiffened further. “Well, you didn’t really tell me what it was,” said Prahd. “But I have the distinct impression it is something you don’t want known.”
I began to sweat. He was talking about the breaker switch that prevented any hypnohelmet on this base from working on me. Without it, the Countess Krak could turn me into putty!
“They questioned me,” said Prahd. “They wanted to know if I knew of any other bugs on anybody. Now, yesterday you made another empty promise to Nurse Bildirjin. I don’t believe you have any intention of handling the various compensations of health funds or the dowry. I don’t think you are even going to repair the mosque you blew up.”
“You’re talking about millions of US dollars!” I snarled.
“No, I am talking about that thing I put in your head. You see, Officer Gris, I did not tell Officer Heller or the Countess Krak anything about it.”
“Blackmail!” I said. “You swine!”
“Well, it takes one to know one, doesn’t it?” said Prahd, gathering up his instruments. “Or shall I put it another way: I have learned a great deal serving in the Apparatus. You have been an excellent instructor.”
“So you are not going to tell them about this thing in my head so long as I . . .”
“Meet your proper obligations,” said Prahd. “Frankly, I haven’t the least idea what it is. I only know you. So I will continue to cover it under the heading of a professional confidence. Officer Heller is quite sincere in trying to straighten out the mess you made, and now that I am a Fleet doctor I consider it my duty to help him all I can.”
His green eyes were so bland, he was so self-righteous about it that I would have strangled him had I been able.
“So you’re going to tell him!” I snarled.
“So I am NOT going to tell him. You, for once,” said Dr. Prahd, “are going to honor your obligations. And that will help everyone. Agreed?”
I couldn’t speak because of the way my teeth were gritting. I managed, finally, a nod.
He was satisfied and left.
The dismal day wore on. It was made even worse when, in early afternoon, a songbird got in a bush outside the window and whistled and sang with great abandon. He knew I was in there and he was just mocking me.
Then disaster struck again.
THE COUNTESS KRAK!
She came in all breezy, hair in a modish fluff, dressed in a pale blue suit that matched her pale blue eyes. The only thing which marred her was a healing cup on her eyebrow. She
wasn’t wearing brass-heeled boots but she was carrying a carton.
The guards went out and she placed the box on the foot of the bed. “A brand-new one,” she said. “Just for you.” And she lifted out a hypnohelmet and began to check its controls.
It was the first real evidence I had that Prahd actually had not told them about the thing he had put in my head, for Heller would have been able to figure it out. He had already seen an emergency light turn on mysteriously in the tug. And if she was going to put that helmet on me, she certainly didn’t know it wouldn’t work, for I had fixed every one of them on this planet. The breaker switch in my head kept them from hypnotizing me.
She made no excuses. She simply plopped it on my head and turned it on.
“Sleep, sleep, pretty sleep,” she said.
I closed my eyes and pretended the helmet was doing its job.
“Now, Soltan, you will answer my questions truthfully. What happened to the suggestions I gave you last year that you would be unable to hurt Jettero?”
I knew how to act my part. I muttered, “Slum City.”
“You will tell all.”
“I was ill and I went to a doctor in Slum City. He said I had been hypnotized and he found the suggestion and nullified it.”
“Ah,” said the Countess Krak. “And how is it you could harm me?”
“I did as little as I could. I saved you from a plane terrorists sabotaged. I was keeping you safe from them.” I didn’t even dare open an eye to see how she was taking it. There was a long pause.
“All right,” she said. I could hardly keep from showing my elation. She was buying it!
“Now, listen to me carefully. The things the hypnotist in Slum City told you are now false. Hereafter you will be very careful not to hurt Jettero or myself in any way. You will tell us everything you know that will help us. If you do not, you will feel awful and get terrible headaches. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said in a very muffled way.
“You will also not try to escape us. If you do try, your legs will feel like they are in flames. Understood?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Now, Jettero is being good enough and kind enough to try to straighten out some of the things you have done on this planet. You are under direct and explicit orders to do everything he tells you to do. Understood?”
“Yes,” I said, but I didn’t like this. If I backed down on something she would know this helmet had not worked.
“If you fail to do what he tells you to do, you will at once start vomiting. Understood?”
“Yes,” I muttered, secretly writhing. (Bleep) her! She had led me into a trap!
“Now, you will feel much better when you awake. You will be determined to help Jettero straighten out your life. You will now forget that these were my suggestions and think they are your own. Now, as to your wounds, they will heal rapidly. When you awake you will think that is why I hypnotized you. The wounds will heal rapidly. You will thank me for helping you. Understood?”
“Yes.”
She turned off the helmet and removed it. She said, “Wake up now.”
I carefully kept the fury I was feeling out of my voice. I said, “Thank you for helping me.”
She put the helmet away and left.
I cursed a steady stream for minutes. Trapped! I had to obey Jettero Heller or they’d know the helmet didn’t work and she would simply stamp me into a mangled mess.
They were all against me. Prahd, the base, the people of Turkey, even the songbird outside the window.
I swore a savage oath to every God I knew of, including Jesus Christ, that I would get even with them all, every one!
They all thought I was powerless. What they didn’t know was that I was backed and had at my call the whole Voltar Confederacy, if only I could get Heller and Krak home.
Far into the night I turned and twisted. And then, very late, I came to a decision. I would be very cunning while we still remained on this planet. I would pretend to go along with whatever Heller said. I only hoped that it did not prove too much for me to bear. I must do anything I could to get him to Voltar.
Little did I know the suffering he planned for me the very next day! It was to prove completely every bad thing I had ever thought of him!
PART SIXTY-FIVE
Chapter 1
I could tell by the window that an early June dawn was barely breaking, and yet I was being gotten out of bed.
I knew they were up to some deviltry because they would not talk.
Heller was there. He had on a stylish Panama hat, a summer-weight flannel business suit, a blue silk shirt and a dark blue polka-dot bow tie. I could tell from the box-back cut of the jacket that he had an automatic holstered in the rear of his belt. He was carrying a gray suede attaché case. He was just watching.
Two guards and a nurse were dressing me. They had brought over a conservative dark blue suit and ensemble from my wardrobe. I protested. “This is cruelty. I am a wounded man and need my rest!” That was the third time I had said it and they still didn’t stop.
Finally they shoved me out into the corridor. Heller nudged me along.
In the lobby I beheld Faht Bey. He was dressed in Western business clothes. He didn’t even say good morning.
Heller pushed at me to make me go out the front door.
I stopped dead still on the steps.
There stood my Daimler-Benz with the red eagles on the door!
“So you’ve even taken over my car!” I said.
Heller just nudged me to get in.
I looked back of us. The two guards and Faht Bey were climbing into a nondescript car from the base. Heller nudged me again and I climbed into the Daimler-Benz and sat down.
He climbed in and sat beside me. And then something happened which infuriated me. Those two scoundrels Ters and Ahmed were sitting in the front seat. Ahmed turned around and winked at Heller!
“That man doesn’t deserve any amnesty!” I snapped. “He’s much more guilty of upsetting this area than I am! He raped the women! He even brought that agent in!”
“We’ve already discussed it,” said Heller. “You’re the one who gave the orders.”
The injustice of it bit like a whip. Never mind. I’d tell Lombar and Ahmed would be shot.
We rolled out onto the main road. Faht Bey and the other car followed.
“Where are we going?” I demanded.
“You seem to have made quite a mess around here,” said Heller. “You owe what they call kaffarah to a lot of villages; you owe the construction of a new mosque; and you signed some things, amongst them a bounced bank order for a dowry, on the Piastre National Bank. The manager of the local branch says nobody can make heads or tails of your finances. So we’re going to call on a man who might be able to: Mudur Zengin in Istanbul.”
I slid far down in my seat. The last man I wanted to see was Mudur Zengin. Teenie had said he was furious with me.
It quite spoiled my trip. I couldn’t even think of ways to escape, I was so involved with trying to figure out what I might say to Mudur Zengin. I must owe him an absolute fortune in monies advanced by his bank.
We passed through the summer countryside of Turkey, but I saw none of it. We battled traffic through Uskudar on the Asian shore of the metropolis, but I gave it no heed. We crossed the Bosporus, but I was unmindful of the thick traffic below us on the water. We honked our way along Kemeralti Street in Beyoglu and still I cringed. We threaded a passage across the Golden Horn on the Galata Bridge and, wending through the hundreds of towers and minarets, were all too soon in front of the Piastre National Bank. I was exhausted from nearly three hundred miles of dread.
It was going to get worse.
Mudur Zengin said he would see Faht Bey, but when we all trooped into his office and he saw me, he looked like he was going to throw us out.
Heller took the initiative. He looked around the ornate room and pulled three chairs up to the carved desk. “Do you mind if we sit down?” he
said.
“I have no business with this man!” said Zengin, looking hard at me.
Heller pushed me into a chair and sat down himself. Faht Bey took the third.
Mudur Zengin still stood. He was shaking angrily.
“We’re trying to straighten out his affairs,” said Heller.