The voyage from Blito-P3 had only taken five days. It had been quite uneventful. The trouble had come when he had had to penetrate the Apparatus planetary net all tangled up with the beams and defenses of the rebels.
Using one identification or another, he had managed to slip through and the Prince Caucalsia lay up there now, twenty miles above them, invisible to all intents and purposes but, with her vital passengers, a total loss if anything happened to him.
He had come down here in a spacetrooper sled; he was chilled to the bone; his oxygen was almost gone and they were standing on what was a “hill” for Calabar but which was nevertheless thirty thousand feet. Gun flashes flickered on the distant horizon, a burning city was a patch of pink smudge.
There was a dimly seen figure about fifty feet away, hidden by a rock.
Through his face mask that also had an amplifier speaker, Heller called, “I will have to stand closer to you to give you my message.” Thirty blastguns in the ring around him twitched.
The amplified voice came from behind the rock, “You’re close enough. I can’t believe that the great Jettero Heller, idol of the Fleet, wants to come over to the rebels. I am very well aware of what a combat engineer can do. Give me your message from there.”
“I don’t even know if I’m talking to Prince Mortiiy,” Heller shouted above the shrieking wind.
“I don’t even know that you’re Jettero Heller!”
“I was introduced to you as a cadet aboard the warship Illusive twelve years ago,” Heller shouted back. “You were wearing slippers because your feet had gotten burned.”
“Anybody could know that. I’ve met thousands of cadets.”
“I have to see your face up close to know it’s really you!” shouted Heller. “The message, as I have told you, is for your ears alone.”
“That’s how you got this far. Men, bind his hands behind him and take any weapons. Only Jettero Heller would be crazy enough to try to penetrate these lines making all this noise.”
Two pressure-suited soldiers detached themselves from the ring and moved forward very gingerly. They found no weapons and they tied his hands. They pushed him forward across the intervening gap. Heller found it hard walking: in addition to the wind, the 1.5 gravity of Calabar made him feel like he weighed a ton.
He came to a place behind a rock. A light hit him in the face. A hand pulled away his oxygen mask and then let it drop back. “It looks like Jettero Heller all right,” said a gruff voice.
“Turn the light on your own face,” said Heller.
“That’s nerve. Don’t you realize you’re talking to a prince?”
“I’m talking to a rebel,” said Heller, “and unless you listen to me, you’ll go right on being one.”
A barking laugh met this. “Gods-blast! What nerve!” Then the light was suddenly reversed and, through the faceplate, Heller saw and recognized the craggy features and thick black beard of Prince Mortiiy.
“All right,” said Heller. “I give you my word I am not here to assassinate you or harm you in any way. Send these men back out of earshot. My message really is for your ears alone.”
“Comets! I must be crazy. All right, you men, draw back but keep weapons trained on him.”
“I have a complete repair crew, five ships coming here. They’ll arrive in a few weeks. I think you need them.”
“I don’t need anything. The people of this planet support me: they’re in a livid rage against the Apparatus. Furthermore, Apparatus units are pulling out and the Fleet and Army are inactive. I’m winning this war.”
It was a shock to Heller. If the Apparatus was pulling out, they had only one destination: Earth.
Heller glanced around him. The others were now well out of earshot. He leaned closer. “You’ll never win this war without something I’ve brought you.”
Mortiiy barked an amused laugh. “There isn’t anything in the universe that you could bring that’s that important.”
Heller said, “I’ve brought your father.”
“WHAT?”
“His Majesty, Cling the Lofty,” said Heller.
“Oh, well, if you really have him, bring him in, bring him in so that I can execute him! But, of course, I don’t believe you for an instant, as you couldn’t possibly have him.”
“Your Highness, I do assure you that I have him. I also have the regalia and seal.” And he quickly sketched the turn of fate which had brought the Emperor into his hands.
“Then actually he’s running from Hisst!” said Mortiiy. “Will he cancel my rebel status?”
“He’s unconscious.”
“Then he can’t declare me his successor.”
“Not until he gains consciousness.”
“Wait a minute,” said Mortiiy. “This is dangerous! If Hisst knows he is here, he will launch all his troops against us! If it gets out that you kidnapped him, the Fleet and Army will join in. This is EXPLOSIVE! They’d slaughter us!”
“Are there no advantages to having him?” said Heller.
“Does the GC know he is gone?”
“I came here past Voltar. There’s no trace of it in the news. All they’re talking about is a man named Gris that I thought was dead.”
“Then Hisst is playing this quiet.”
“I think so,” said Heller.
Mortiiy leaned back against a rock. The wind screamed above them. Finally, he said, “It has just come to me with a shock what must have happened to my brothers and other successors to the throne. It might not have been my father. It could have been Hisst. Heller, do you suppose that man has the incredible effrontery to try to proclaim himself Emperor?”
“He is calling himself a dictator. Emperor is just one step away.”
“Well, he can’t do it,” said Mortiiy. “The GC and the Lords of the land have to have positive evidence, a body and the regalia, in order to declare the throne vacant and appoint a successor. If you have the body and the regalia, he has to recover them. Gods-blast it, Heller, all you’ve brought me is a total assault! Whether he does or does not say you have the Emperor, he won’t let anything stand in his way to recovering what you have. You are A LIVING BOMB!”
Heller would have spoken but Mortiiy silenced him with his hand. “I’m trying to think my way through this. Is there any chance my father will recover consciousness long enough to cancel the proclamation that made me a rebel and reinstate me as his successor?”
“That is in the lap of the Gods.”
“Heller, if he did or didn’t announce it, you’re sitting on a shell that is about to explode. I know you have a good reputation but somebody could stir things up to try to find you and Hisst would have the body and regalia. With those, he could make himself Emperor. . . . Oh, I almost wish you’d gone someplace else!”
“Your Highness, how much assault can you withstand here on Calabar?”
“There’s two billion population left. The rest have been slaughtered. Most of the cities are rubble. I frankly don’t know.”
“I got an estimate,” said Heller, “while I was looking for you. This war has gone on for five years so you have not done too badly. I think you could stand off the full force of the Apparatus. The rivers are so wide, the mountains so high. . . .”
“We couldn’t stand off the Apparatus PLUS the Fleet and the Army.”
“How about a gamble?” said Heller. “How about gambling that your father will regain consciousness in a few months and let’s gamble again that he will cancel your rebel status and proclaim you successor. And then gamble that the Fleet and Army stay out of it. And then gamble that we put up such a ferocious defense that we cripple the Apparatus.”
Mortiiy shook his head. “Please don’t use that word ‘gamble’ again! You’re painting the thinnest forlorn hope I ever heard of!”
“I’m not through, Your Highness. Then suppose we secretly tell Hisst that the Emperor is here.”
“WHAT?”
“He will know then that we aren’t going to make a public annou
ncement.”
“We can’t anyway! I’m not in line for the throne anymore. It would not do us any good to announce it publicly. It would bring the whole pack down on us! No, the only thing that would save this is for my father to wake up and proclaim Hisst a traitor by Royal proclamation.”
“One other possibility. I inform Hisst secretly that that is exactly what will happen if he brings the Fleet and Army into this war.”
“He’d read it as a declaration that the Emperor was dead or incapacitated.”
“But he wouldn’t be sure.”
“Royal Officer Heller, you are insane!”
“That may or may not be,” said Heller, “but I can hazard that such a message would drive Hisst close to or over the border into insanity. You were an accomplished Fleet officer, Your Highness. You are aware of the principle that unstabilizing enemy command can often get him to do something rash, foolhardy or do nothing at all.”
“Don’t lecture me on strategy and tactics, Officer Heller. I was fighting battles when you weren’t even weaned. There is another principle and that is, when an opportunity presents itself and one does nothing, one is almost certain to lose. Yours is the craziest battle plan I ever heard of. I will adopt it. Go bring my father. I give you my word I will not kill him. We will put him in a nice, safe cave. You can put the rest of the plan into effect. He may, as you say, recover. Until then, we live on hope. You are crazy, Officer Heller. I like you. MEN! UNTIE HIS HANDS!”
PART EIGHTY
Chapter 7
It was dusk and it was raining. Shining rivulets of water ran from the semidead spaceships of Emergency Fleet Reserve.
As the tug Prince Caucalsia came to silent rest on its tail, Commander Crup and old Atty stared nervously as Jettero Heller, not waiting for a ladder, slid down from the air lock on a safety line.
“My Gods, Jet!” Commander Crup whispered, “you’ve got no business here. There’s a general warrant out for your arrest!”
“Hello, Commander! Hello, Atty!” said Heller in a loud voice.
“Sh, sh, sh!” they both said in chorus.
“What are you shushing about?” said Heller. “I can’t hear you in this rain!”
“Arrest!” said Crup. “Lombar Hisst has had his agents tearing Voltar apart trying to find where you are!”
“Look,” said Heller, again in a loud voice, “if a Fleet officer can’t land at a Fleet base without worrying about ‘drunks,’ I don’t know what the Confederacy is coming to.”
“It’s coming to hell eight very rapidly,” said Crup. “Hisst is calling himself a dictator and the Apparatus is in charge of everything.”
“Not in charge of me,” said Heller. “Loan me a fast aircar and, Atty, get this ship full of food and things. Particularly lots of food. Put it on the Exterior Division account I gave you last time.”
“He’s crazy,” said Crup.
“Couldn’t agree more,” said Heller.
An hour later, the old gray-haired enlisted man who served as clerk at the Fleet Officer’s Club was taking advantage of a rainy night to try to balance his accounts. He heard a sound at the counter, he looked up and saw someone in a streaming raincloak standing there. He went over.
“Could I have my room key?”
The old clerk stared. He went white. “Good Gods!” he whispered. “There’s a general warrant out for your arrest! Agents have been here three times in the past week checking to see if . . .”
“First things first,” said Heller. “My key! And then send some hot tup and sweetbuns to my room. Did you know it’s wet out there?”
“Jet, you’re crazy!”
“Always was. Can’t take time to reform now. Tell Bis of Fleet Intelligence to come up if he’s around and has a moment.”
Ten minutes later, a stunned Bis entered Heller’s posh suite. He heard Heller in the shower and went to the door.
“Jet!” said Bis in a stage whisper, “there’s a general warrant out for your arrest!”
“Speak up!” said Heller in a loud voice. “Hand me that bottle of soap, would you?”
“Oh, Jet, you’re crazy!”
“Seems to be a universal opinion. How you been? Winning any bullet ball games lately?”
“Oh, Jet, you’re hopeless.”
“Maybe, but not quite. He who hath no hope is not long in the spaceways. Hand me a towel, would you?”
Heller, towel wrapped around him, was soon sitting in a living room chair, drinking hot tup.
Bis declined a canister. “I don’t think you realize how serious all this is,” he said, perched nervously on the edge of a couch.
“Oh, I do,” said Heller. “Going out in rain like this could make even the strongest men catch cold.”
“Jet! The Apparatus is all over the place! They want your blood! And they’re a (bleeped) bloodthirsty lot!”
“I’m glad you brought that up,” said Heller. “Remember that fellow Gris I tried to deliver to the Royal prison?”
“I know. The papers are screaming about him.”
“Well, listen,” said Heller. “Coming in, I heard a news bulletin that he was being brought to trial. Apparently he’s even going to have some attorneys defending him. Do you recall those boxes of papers I sent you?”
“The Gris blackmail file on the Apparatus?”
“Right. I want you to hand those over to his attorneys.”
“WHAT?” Bis stared at him. “But they’d use those to try to get him off.”
“Possibly. But it sure would upset a lot of people in the Apparatus.”
Suddenly Bis barked a laugh. “You know, I think it would. I’ll do it. But listen, Jet, you’ve got to get out of here. They have this place watched.”
“Oh, I’m leaving very shortly,” said Heller. “Just as soon as you get me a mustard-colored Apparatus officer’s uniform and an Apparatus airbus.”
“WHAT?”
“Don’t tell me Fleet Intelligence hasn’t collected some to use in espionage on another service.”
Bis held his face in his hands. “Now I know why a combat engineer has such short life expectancy. What are you going to do?”
“The less you know about that, the less you can tell the torturers. Get me a false identoplate along with it. You’ve got lots of time. Shall we say fifteen minutes at the back door?”
Bis stared at him numbly.
Two hours later, Heller landed the Apparatus-marked airbus on the landing target at Camp Kill. The rain had not reached over the mountains into the Great Desert but the airbus bore signs of it: it was suspiciously clean for an Apparatus vehicle.
The guard officer came into the glaring target lights. He looked at the smudgy identoplate that said “Captain Fal.”
“I won’t be here long,” said Heller. “I’ve come to pay a gambling debt to Captain Snelz.”
“Pickings in town must be good lately,” said the guard officer.
“Couldn’t be better,” said Heller.
“Thanks for the tip that he’ll have money. He’s in those dugouts back under the hill.”
Heller got out. He was wearing big sand goggles. He walked at a leisurely pace through the dusty, cluttered camp.
A sentry stood outside a dugout door. Before he could challenge, Heller yelled, “Hey, Snelz, you got any thudder dice for sale?”
There was an instant flurry inside. Then a white face, just a blur in the night, peered out of the low dugout entrance.
Heller walked boldly past the sentry and entered.
In a hoarse whisper, Snelz said, “My Gods, Jet! Don’t you know there’s a general warrant out for your arrest?”
“You know,” said Heller, in a loud voice, “if people keep telling me, sooner or later I’ll believe it.”
Snelz shuddered. He turned and made a gesture at a prostitute who lay naked on a far bunk. She grabbed her clothes and scuttled out.
Snelz was tucking his shirt in his pants and trying to drop the door curtain at the same time.
“Heller,” he said, “you’re crazy.”
“No, I’m thirsty.”
Snelz, both his shirt collar and his hair standing up, tried to find something that hadn’t been emptied in the debris on the table and, after upsetting several bottles and canisters, got some sparklewater poured. Heller sat down and sipped it.