The Invaders Plan (16 page)

The blazing star of Voltar struggled up beyond the distant hills to drown the desert in its daily fire. The administration office buzzed along. Clerks came, clerks went. I waited and began to seethe. I had to get going. Every extra hour I spent on this planet was full of danger to Mission Earth.

The light was practically burning the stone floor back to lava now. From the murmur that came from Lombar's office, there was no sign of end-conference.

I racked my wits as to how I could spend this time gainfully and speed things up. Then I remembered Heller sleeping and my thoughts about the sex department adventures. Ho, ho. Yes, I could spend my time here. There was a big central data bank console right over there in the corner.

The clerks yow-yowed and said no until a sour old criminal snarled, "Let him. Hisst just promoted him so he can do no wrong – yet." I went over to it, sat down and plugged my identoplate in. When you find yourself with the whole Apparatus data bank available, you make the most of it. This was a master console, not a restricted one like they have in other offices.
Everything
is here, especially blackmail. The only restriction is that your identoplate gets recorded on everything you ask for. I was almost tempted to punch in the Emperor and see what I got. I fought an urge to punch in Lombar Hisst and then I realized it would be just banal or blank. I succumbed to punching in my own name with "Recent Additions." I knew my own file, of course. Anyone high in the Apparatus manages that.

One can actually extract any document and banish it from the file, using a master console. One can add any document to a file, even a flagrant forgery. The trouble is, the identoplate appears in connection with the action. There is a tale of an Apparatus officer that made himself a Fleet Admiral – and so he was, until the next day when they executed him. I hope he found those twenty-four hours worth it!

Disappointment. The only recent addition to my file was my promotion. I thought it a little strange it did not record my removal from Section 451 and then I foolishly rationalized that even though the data banks occupy thirty square miles of buildings, they sometimes fall behind – the Apparatus is not that free from error.

I looked around. The conference was still in progress. I had a wide-open line here, the whole Apparatus data bank before me and no fee to pay. Let's see what else I could find out for free. I punched in, Doctor Crobe.

Dead, said the screen. Well, all right, so the Apparatus lied. That wasn't news. Try again.

Countess Krak, I punched. I took off my cap and laid it down.

No such person, said the screen. So I punched in her real name, Lissus Moam. The screen said, See Countess Krak. Aha! I was getting somewhere. I punched in, Countess Krak. The machine said, Lissus Moam. So I punched, Why are you cross-referencing? The machine said, You have your finger holding down the repeat key. Oh. My finger wasn't but my cap was. I put the cap elsewhere and punched in, Lissus Moam again. The screen promptly said, See Graves Reference.

So I punched, Graves Reference. The screen said, There is no connection to Graves Reference. I hit
Query
three times. The machine said, Please do not argue. The computer is always right. The criminal clerk said, "Are you sure you know how to operate that machine?"

"Be respectful," I said, and he tottered off sneering.

At least I knew Countess Krak did not exist and that Lissus Moam was recorded as dead: they didn't keep the records of dead people. Technically, she had no criminal record now. Useful data to keep to myself.

But, to business: Jettero Heller! If I could find some juicy bit, I could perhaps blackmail him at need into being more compliant. I punched in the name and the subtitle, Sex. The screen said, Male.

That made me cross. These machines are so confounded literal. So I punched in, Sex Irregularities. The screen said, None.

(Bleep) the machine, and I sort of slugged it. "You having trouble?" said the old criminal clerk. There was hope in his voice that he could throw me out of there. I ignored him.

The way the Apparatus screen operates, it can sum-mate in single words or it can show a whole document and then zero in, in a flash, upon the required paragraph. I had been asking for summations. I had better get to documents so I pushed the lever for those.

Affairs with women.

Blank screen.

Affairs with fellow officers. Blank screen.

Affairs with underage. Blank screen.

Affairs with prostitutes.

Blank screen. Then I remembered he had a beautiful sister.

Incest. Blank screen.

Annoyed, I looked to see if the machine had gotten turned off. I made a test.

Jettero Heller? The screen said, Yes? It was operating. I sat there. Suddenly the screen lit up, Warning. Data time is valuable. Please prepare your questions in advance so they can be rapidly handled. Section Chief Data Banks Apparatus. It would close off in exactly five seconds after such a notice.

Desperate, I punched in, Mental Interviews.

A document! At last! I had saved my console connection. The document, a smudgy mess scribbled by some doctor in the loony section, Routine Interview before hospital discharge. I hadn't asked for any portion heading. I punched, Why hospital? It zeroed in to the top of the sheet.

Wounded in rescue of battleship. I punched, Why mental interview? The screen zeroed to, Fight in hospital with male homosexual nurse.

Aha! I punched in, Conclusion? The machine zeroed in on, Male nurse hospitalized.

I thought no, no, no, you (bleeping) machine. I punched, Findings on mental condition subject. The screen zeroed in on, No psychotic nor neurotic signs or symptoms found on the subject of sex. Interview null. Real disappointment.

Hastily, so as not to lose my machine time, I punched in, Disciplinary actions of all kinds and types. The machine said, When? (Bleep) machine.

Since baby, I punched in.

Ah, now we were away! Real documents! Police report when he was seven: arrested for riding speed-wheel on sidewalk; fined one credit. Another report, age twelve: arrested for driving airbus when underage; case dismissed. Another, age fifteen: arrested for illegal skydrop into parade, said done to call attention to new technique in skydropping; case dismissed. Age sixteen: arrested as stowaway on expeditionary space freighter; judge used influence to get subject appointed to Royal Academy. What a talker Heller must have been to get a judge to do something like that! Well, I knew how he'd gotten his appointment anyway. I got mine by my father bribing a Lord's chief clerk.

There didn't seem much hope here. And then a document flashed on, Recommendation for Court-martial.

Aha! There it was. I scanned it. Heller isn't the only fast reader around. In his very first posting after leaving the Postgraduate Corps of Engineers school, one Jettero Heller, Grade I, protested his crew being trained by electric shock; he had argued that he had never been so trained, it being frowned on to electric-shock officers for any reason, and he claimed he didn't want "a goofed up, fried-brained crew on a mission dangerous enough without that." He had refused all persuasions and he had slugged the training officer when he started to put the crew into the machines. He had been relieved of command and remanded to custody pending court-martial.

I eagerly watched for the transcript of the court-martial to appear. Instead, an endorsement flashed on: The said Jettero Heller being senior by three days date of rank to the training officer, said battering does not constitute a charge of an attack upon a senior. The court-martial recommendation is cancelled. Secretary to Admiral of the 95th Fleet.

That was all. But it was enough! Or was it? It introduced a new puzzle. Why would he go nutty over Countess Krak when he was violently opposed to electric-shock training? Was he playing some deep game?

The file, (bleep) it, was otherwise blank for my uses.

"Are you through tying up our machine now," said the criminal old clerk. "Or do you want us to move your bed up here?" Ah, well, maybe I could use this information to chill his affair with Countess Krak.

I made one final punch, Deletions from file, and expected a whole series of identoplate numbers to show up. Nobody can be that good. No deletion numbers showed. (Bleep)!

"Will you please get the (bleep) away from our console?" said the old clerk. "The conference is breaking up."

They exited from Lombar's office, some of the cream of the Apparatus high ranks: gaunt, grayish faces, suspicious eyes, black uniforms, shabby, shabby, shabby. A general in the Army Division looks like a monument lit up for a feast day; a general of the Apparatus looks like a tramp abandoned him in a garbage can as not worth scavenging. They were stuffing papers in their cases, talking to one another out of the corners of their mouths the way felons do. There were fifteen of them. Four were Apparatus heads from other Voltarian planets, eleven were troop commanders. The military arm of the Apparatus – the one they maintain at home, that is – numbers four million guardsmen and while this is minuscule compared to the vast array of the Army Division of Voltar, it is enough to keep other parts of the government at bay. That eleven Apparatus generals had been seeing Lombar meant that something was having to be protected – something secret and sinister in the best Apparatus tradition.

I took my cap in hand, hoped for the best and walked bravely into Lombar's office. He was standing at his desk, scrabbling around, putting some order into the scattered papers of the conference. His hands were shaking. He looked irritable.
Not
good signs!

Lombar looked up and saw me standing there. He scowled. "Who sent for
you?"
he rasped. It was pointless to say that he had. "Shut up!" I hadn't even opened my mouth to speak. Where was the camaraderie he had shown on my last visit? But that was Lombar.

He scrabbled around some more. "Oh, yes," he said, and dredged a file up from the mess. It was one of those his clerks prepare for him to group all related matters of one subject. He snapped a paper out of it. "The invoice. Sign it!" The paper he hurled at me was a shipping receipt. I studied the form: The below named officer hereby signs for and acknowledges the safe receipt of SECRET CARGO No. 1, Shipment No. 1 from Blito-P3. All warrantied in good condition and full content.

Signed Officer Soltan Gris, Section Chief, Section 451 (Blito-P3).

So
that
was what all the traffic was last night. The first freighter load in from Earth!

A wave of near nausea hit me. Supposing Jettero Heller had done his survey today instead of yesterday. I shuddered. He would have found this cargo piled up in its ready storeroom!

Somebody, one of the clerks, popped in and told Lombar, "It will be ready in a few minutes." He popped out. What "it" was, I had no idea. But I wasn't registering very well. Pure luck had saved this cargo from being exposed by Heller! (Bleep) him, he was too hard to control here on Voltar.

"Well sign it, sign it!" Lombar yelled at me.

I looked at him in helpless confusion. I didn't dare argue with him. Not Lombar Hisst!

Then he seemed to realize what was wrong. He sat down. "I forgot to tell you. You are still Section Chief of 451." He waved aside the remarks he must have supposed I was making. Talking with Lombar is pretty onesided. He can imagine you are talking. Eerie. "I know, I know," he went on. But we looked all through the personnel files and we could not find anyone suitable to relieve you as Section Chief of 451. Yes, yes, but the numbers of Academy trained officers in the Apparatus are very few. And due to their silly Codes, they can't be trusted with honestly dishonest crooked business. So that leaves you." It was a very left-handed sort of compliment at best.

I did manage, emboldened by hope, to get out a remark. "That means I'm relieved as handler of Mission Earth."

"Now you may wonder," said Lombar, "if this relieves you as handler of Mission Earth. It doesn't. You continue to have that, too." He was getting down to it now. He sat back, fiddling irritably with a pen. "You may wonder how you are going to be on Blito-P3 and handle Section 451 on Voltar. But that is very simple. You have the 451 clerical staff here on Voltar and they'll continue under your chief clerk and they'll simply send anything to be signed to you on Blito-P3. You'll just send it back here, signed.

"Oh, yes, that reminds me. I don't trust the base commander in Turkey so you'll supervise him, too." I felt like I was being pulled in several directions at once. He wasn't mentioning the key point: Jettero Heller would be operating in what they call "The United States" and I would have to be in Turkey! He was hard enough to control face-to-face. How could anyone control him a third of the way around a planet! This I would have to solve and quick!

"No, no, no," said Lombar as though I had spoken, which I hadn't. "The order for the 'goods' will come from here in blank. You'll sign it. The shipping form, attesting it has been shipped from Blito-P3, will be signed by you down there. And you will include with it a postdated receipt acknowledging the receipt of the shipment here. Very easy and straightforward." It meant I wrote an order for a shipment as though I was on Voltar, got the order filled on Blito-P3, signed an attestation it had been shipped and then signed and attested it had been received back on Voltar.

"You're the only one whose signature we trust," said Lombar. "So we want only your signature and identoplate on all this traffic. So sign that receipt you're holding there and you can get back to work." I hadn't even
seen
the shipment. I only had a hint, from the blur of trucks in the tunnel, that it had arrived.

Lombar seemed to misinterpret my confusion. "Oh, the pay. Well, I'll see that you continue to be paid as Section Chief of 451. Then I'll see that you are paid again as mission handler for Mission Earth." Apparently he thought I was hung up on pay. "And then I can arrange for you to be paid as an inspector of cargos. Three additional paychecks." He looked searchingly at me. My confusion had not lightened one bit. "And then, of course, you'll get your little whack out of various allocations, outfittings, padded accounts and all that. You'll be wealthy. Well, I'm glad we settled all that." He certainly was jumpy. He barked into a communications box, "Is it ready yet?" and got back, "Shortly." I was standing there, trying to wrap my wits around these developments. I must have looked like I had been hit with a stungun.