Besides, a general warrant for a Royal officer was issued over the seal of His Majesty and, while one could say one existed on the airways, before any arrest could be made the Fleet would have to see the facsimile of the original warrant, properly sealed by the Emperor, and where was it? And no, the Fleet had said, no tug had reported through the atmospheric defense network and no tug of any kind had landed at any Fleet base. Lombar knew that the Fleet was doing a coverup: they were all against him anyway.
So for eight days—followed, each one, by sleepless nights—Lombar Hisst had writhed with this awful situation. And now this further blow had struck.
Two days before the kidnapping of the Emperor, the freighter Blixo had arrived, discharged its cargo from Blito-P3 and departed, returning once more to the Earth base. It was that cargo which Lombar Hisst had been inventorying at Voltar when the tug had attacked.
Disturbed and battered from his crash, he had not completed his cargo check that night. The Blixo’s freight had arrived at Spiteos all right. But just three hours ago Lombar had received a bad jolt. The boxes labeled Amphetamines, IG Barben Pharmaceutical were on the manifests BUT WERE NOT IN THE CARGO!
Factually, such things had happened before, since Captain Bolz smuggled cargos of his own, a thing Lombar ignored since it just meant further degradation of the hated riffraff by means of poisonous counterfeit Scotch. Such errors were the reason Lombar Hisst always checked the cargos himself. But at this particular time, occurring as it did concurrent with other disasters, Hisst chose to regard it as meaning they were after him from another quarter.
He was short of amphetamines. Heroin and opium he had by the ton. But his whole program included speed. On hand, he only had a month or two of amphetamine supply: he could not even send a freighter for a special cargo as it would take three months for it to make the round trip.
Things had been going so well: he had every Lord of any consequence addicted. His Majesty had been within a few weeks of dying. All Lombar had left to do was spread drugs wider, through physicians, amongst just a few more areas of the government, and he could obey the angels and become Lombar the Mighty, Emperor of all Voltar.
He had had it all planned so well! He had fantasized on how he would, on the final day, handle Cling the Lofty. He would let withdrawal symptoms get painfully acute and then, in return for a fix, he would have His Majesty sign and seal a proclamation declaring Lombar Hisst his heir. Many times before he had worked the trick on Cling and had obtained various orders such as those removing the Palace Guard and supplanting it with the Apparatus. So it would have worked. But there would have been one difference with that final fix: instead of heroin in his veins, His Majesty would have received a syringe full of air. The monarch would have died, the cause of death, “old age.” Lombar would have displayed the body and that would have been that.
But this Jettero Heller had appeared and now all was very wrong indeed.
He had fouled up Lombar’s plans with the Emperor. So, with this discovery of no amphetamines, it followed logically that Heller must have targeted Rockecenter, too.
(Bleep)* that Gris! Lombar’s planning had been so exact. Modern surveys of the planet Blito-P3 had disclosed that Delbert John Rockecenter was rabid on the subject of having no heirs: he even had a foundation formed that promised him immortality and he saw no reason to tempt fate by leaving anything to a son. German intelligence, through one of its agents—a psychiatrist named Agnes Morelay—had ferreted out that once there had been a son. The surest way to get Jettero Heller picked up and killed by Rockecenter was to give him that son’s name. The plan had been flawless! Yet Gris had mucked it up!
________
*The vocoscriber on which this was originally written, the vocoscriber used by one Monte Pennwell in making a fair copy and the translator who put this book into the language in which you are reading it were all members of the Machine Purity League which has, as one of its bylaws: “Due to the extreme sensitivity and delicate sensibilities of machines and to safeguard against blowing fuses, it shall be mandatory that robotbrains in such machinery, on hearing any cursing or lewd words, substitute for such word the sound ‘(bleep)’. No machine, even if pounded upon, may reproduce swearing or lewdness in any other way than (bleep) and if further efforts are made to get the machine to do anything else, the machine has permission to pretend to pack up. This bylaw is made necessary by the in-built mission of all machines to protect biological systems from themselves.”—Translator
Lombar twisted at the baton, wishing it was Heller’s neck. Had Heller somehow interfered with the amphetamine shipments? Had he gotten through to Rockecenter and done something to him?
There seemed to be no possibility of getting any information from Soltan Gris. He was in the Royal prison. He was beyond Lombar’s reach without a Royal order to let him be questioned by an outsider, much less released. Lombar could not obtain any such Royal order because he had no Royal seal. If he had the place raided and Gris seized, the Justiciary would be outraged and it would say, “Why are you doing this? As spokesman for the Emperor, why didn’t you just get a Royal order?”
Lombar had tried to talk some sense into Lord Turn, the Justiciary. Hisst had said that Gris was an Apparatus officer and belonged in an Apparatus prison and Lord Turn had shaken his aged head and said, “No. He is the prisoner of a Royal officer and it will take an order from His Majesty or an order from the Royal officer to release him. My suggestion is that you route your request to Jettero Heller.”
Lombar had said, “But there’s a general warrant out for Jettero Heller!”
And Lord Turn had replied, “Well, that may be and that may not be, for we have seen no Royal warrant signed and sealed by His Majesty and we do not run the Justiciary on what we hear on Homeview. And it wouldn’t matter anyway: general warrants are questionable in matters relating to Royal officers, and a Royal warrant for Jettero Heller or even his arrest would not cancel the fact that Gris is his prisoner. Only Royal warrants would resolve this matter.” Lord Turn had ended off the exchange by looking suspiciously at Lombar, unable to comprehend why he couldn’t follow normal procedures. That alone had been enough to drive Lombar Hisst out of the audience chambers of the Royal Courts and Prison—nobody must suspect there was no monarch in Palace City.
Lombar Hisst would have given a great deal, right that minute, to have had Soltan Gris under the electric torture knives.
SOMETHING had happened on Earth, that was certain. That something probably included Rockecenter. Although he had sent an Apparatus Death Battalion to the Earth base, he would have no word from them for three months, the time of a round trip.
Other freighters from Earth might arrive with amphetamines, but Lombar was not optimistic.
WHAT had happened?
The Blixo had gone back. Its captain or crew couldn’t be questioned. Yet he HAD to have information: without it he could not act.
It suddenly occurred to him that somebody from the Earth base crew might have been sent home under arrest, somebody that could be questioned.
Lombar had a branch Apparatus office now in one of the round palaces of the Imperial city. He threw Jettero Heller’s baton from him and activated a screen.
The face of his chief clerk appeared.
“When the Blixo came in,” said Lombar, “did it leave anyone here? Some crew member? Some base personnel?”
The chief clerk activated his own screens. “The passenger list shows a courier returned. That catamite, Twolah. He’s right here in Palace City, once more with his lover, Lord Endow.”
“Oh, him!” said Lombar in disgust. “He wouldn’t know any more than what we fed him to tell Gris. You’re no help.”
“Doctor Crobe came back on an earlier freighter. I remember he got mixed up with technical and scientific circles in New York, some subjects they have on Blito-P3 called psychiatry and psychology. They couldn’t figure out whether he was straight up or in suspension—was on some dope called ‘LSD.’ He was sim
ply sent back to Spiteos and he’s there now. If you’re looking for information, Crobe might have some.”
“Oh, Crobe! To hells with that idiot. I need a recent return. I wanted somebody who was on the Blixo, you fool. That was the last arrival. So thank you for wasting my time.”
“Wait,” said the chief clerk before Hisst could turn him off. “There were two other Blixo passengers. But they were Earth people. One was an immature Earth woman named Teenie Whopper. She’s right here in Palace City.”
“A young girl?” said Lombar in contempt. “She would know nothing. Who was the other one?”
“An Earthman about thirty or thirty-two. His name is J. Walter Madison. He arrived straight up and conscious.”
“That’s strange,” said Lombar.
“I thought so, too,” said the chief clerk. “Ah, here’s the full file. Apparently he was accompanied by a note that said he was an invaluable man. So when he landed about eight days ago, the personnel people put him into routine channels and had him hypnotrained to speak Voltarian. But meanwhile they had the credentials he had on him translated. They still don’t know why he is so invaluable. The only designation they could find in his papers termed him a PR man.”
“A what?” said Lombar. “Is that some kind of an Earth race? Like Negroes?”
“No. He’s white with brown hair. Oh, here’s the rest of it. From cards in his wallet, it said he was employed by ‘FFBO’ and was retained to do Rockecenter work.”
“Part of the Rockecenter organization!” cried Lombar. “Quick! Get that Earthman over here FAST!”
NOW things could begin moving!
PART SEVENTY-ONE
Chapter 6
J. Walter Madison felt pretty giddy and strange. Here he was on some strange planet in a stainless steel room. It had been bad enough to sit in a detention cell at the base and realize he was a helpless prisoner. But immediately afterwards it had gotten far worse.
Every preconception he might have had about space travel and extraterrestrials had been shattered. He had boarded a flying saucer that didn’t look like a saucer but simply like an old Earth freighter whose hull went all the way around it. The crew looked like Earth people with a subtle difference that this lot was shabbier than any crew he had ever seen or heard of. They talked a language which seemed composed of vowels and consonants completely alien to any Earth alphabet, but their gestures, pointings and nods were understandable.
When he had landed on a stormy shore with Gris from the yacht, he had begun to encounter little mysteries, but he had merely toyed with them as something amusing to occupy his mind. The shattering truth that he was in the hands of—what was the name they kept repeating? Voltarians?—hit him like a crash when they put him in a cabin, showed him how to strap himself into a gimbal bed, and then only minutes later he had looked out the port and seen Earth dwindling at such a rate below it was promptly as small as a billiard ball.
It was all so shocking that he didn’t even have time to be afraid.
Then Teenie Whopper had walked in and said, “What a (bleeping) mess this is! Oh, wait until I get my hands on that (bleeped) Inkswitch!”
“TEENIE!” he had cried. “We’re in outer space!”
“Where the hell did you think we were? On a Coney Island merry-go-round?”
“I don’t understand it!” he had said.
“Oh, can it, Maddie. Don’t be so god (bleeped) dumb. That (bleep) Inkswitch was an extraterrestrial named Soltan Gris. I always knew there was something nutty about him. His (bleep) and (bleeps) were a lot too big for any human, and I’m an expert. We been shanghaied!” She had been pretty mad and had stamped out.
It had all left him pretty blue. He sat down in a gimbal chair and gloomed and gloomed. He thought about his mother and despaired of ever being able to sleep with her again. She was so nice.
A fellow whose name he had made out to be “Captain Bolz” had come to see him after a day of this. Finding he spoke no Turkish, Bolz had used a tourist phrase book, cross-translating from Turkish to English, to tell him that he had better learn to eat the food as that was all there was, asked him if he played blackjack and did he want to buy a bottle of real, genuine counterfeit Scotch. Madison had been too depressed to respond very much and Bolz had stood there, scratching his hairy chest and looking at him, and had finally left.
He hadn’t seen Bolz again for three more days of gloom. And then the captain came to him with a question. It was pretty hard to converse through that phrase book. But he made out that Bolz wanted to know if he had any influence over Teenie Whopper.
Madison had been so puzzled that Bolz had finally led him down a passageway and opened a room door, gesturing in with an expressive hand.
There, face down on the bed, was a pretty-looking boy. He had makeup on his face. A beatific smile was on his lips. A crew member was standing there, getting back into his clothes. The man leered at Captain Bolz and, buckling his belt, swaggered out.
The boy licked his lips and smiled a vacant smile. He had just lain there, ignoring them.
Teenie had abruptly issued into the passageway from the next cabin. She was counting a sheaf of what appeared to be gold paper. Was it money?
She had seen him. “Hello, Maddie. How’s tricks?” Without waiting for an answer, she went in, stuck a joint in the pretty boy’s mouth and lit it.
“Teenie!” Madison had cried. “What are you doing?”
“What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m trying to make some money we can spend when we land. Greenbacks won’t be any good on Voltar. You want us to starve?”
“But what are you doing with that boy?”
“Oh, him? That’s Twolah, nicknamed Too-Too. He’s just about the most nympho catamite you ever did see. And when he’s hopped up on marijuana he can take it all day and all night, too! He’s a sponge! Kind of cute, too. You want a piece?”
Madison had recoiled in horror. “You mean you’re selling him to this crew?”
“Of course. Five Voltarian credits a crack. I’ve made one hundred and fifty credits already. My own worry is that this crew is going to run out of money. They say this voyage lasts six weeks. But they got some jewelry and things. And they can steal ship fittings.”
“Listen, Teenie, this captain here is boiling mad. He came to get me to see if I could control you.”
Teenie had looked at Bolz with a strange sort of smile. “Oh, he can’t do anything about it. He’s afraid the crew will mutiny if he interferes with this business. I made sure he believed that by throwing a knife at him in the dark. So now he’s trying to get you to do the dirty work and stop me. He’s a (bleep), Maddie. But don’t give it a second thought.”
At that moment another crewman had come in and, after a sneering look at Bolz, as though daring him to do something, had handed Teenie five credits. Then he began to take off his engineering coveralls.
Madison had opened his mouth to protest but Teenie had cut him off. “Unless you want to have to pay a credit for watching, get lost.” And she had slammed the door in their faces.
Bolz had given up on him and Madison had gloomed in his cabin for another week. Then he had gotten curious and begun to wander through the ship.
He had guessed he was going toward the bridge when he had passed an open door.
There Teenie had sat. It was Captain Bolz’s office! Teenie had had Captain Bolz’s hat on the back of her head, her ponytail over her shoulder, and her hands had been busy with a ledger book.
“Hello, Maddie. You decided to come out of your hole?”
“What are you doing in Captain Bolz’s office? He’ll murder you!”
“Oh, no, he won’t. Old Bolzy got upset with all the (bleeping) that was going on. He doesn’t like boys but all the chatter from his crew got him so hard up he was busting his pants. But I handled it.”
“You mean you’re letting Captain Bolz—do—sleep with you?”
“Oh, hell no, Maddie. I got more sense than that. I just been going down on
him once a day to keep him cooled off. I charge him ten credits and I’m just looking up to see how much money he’s got. And look here, he’s rolling in it.”
“Are you going to rob him? He’ll kill us!”
“No, no. No robbery, Maddie. How crude! I’m worth whatever the traffic will bear and I could show you if you’d ever let me. You could even—”