The Invaders Plan (44 page)

"I couldn't tell you straight out in front of the waiters and the girls but I passed the message to you a couple of times that it was cared for. I didn't want your evening spoiled." Ske was there now with the boxes and Heller told him to return the comedy cop uniforms to the party costumer tomorrow and take the chorder-beat back to the club at the same time.

He got out and called back to me, "It was a great party. I hope you did enjoy it. Good night!" He was gone.

I knew what that identoplate would spell. It would hit the newssheets and Homeview. The Grand Council would know we had not left.

They would be all over Endow.

Lombar would be all over me! It might even imperil Lombar's whole Blito-P3 hidden operations!

A sudden surge of rage hit me. I felt like killing Heller!

I was instantly sick at my stomach.

After a night of nightmares, burdened with an aching head, my upset stomach refusing even the thought of hot jolt, I sat, at noon the following day, on a pile of rusted hullplates, dully watching the almost unforgivable bustlings in the Apparatus hangar.

I was expecting the worst. I got something worse than the worst.

My driver, returning from the return of the comedy cop uniforms and the chorder-beat, walked over to me. From his smug smile, I should have been more prepared.

He didn't hand me the headache pills I had requested him to get. He did not deliver any of the medicine I had begged him to bring back for my stomach.

He simply dropped the newssheet in my lap. He walked away and I was left to suffer over it alone.

There was a huge photo of Heller holding Hightee high above the crushing crowd! Somehow the lighting made the steelman stars vanish and it was Heller, recognizable, vivid, unmistakable!

The story was not some back-page filler that might be missed. It was headlines!

GUNSHOTS IMPERIL LIFE OF HIGHTEE HELLER!

FAMED BROTHER RESCUES HV STAR FROM FLYING BLASTS RIOT POLICE BRAVE STORM OF HOSTILE SHOTS ENRAGED MOB SEEKS POSSIBLE ASSASSIN Last night at the Artistic Club in Joy City, a routine fan orgy of worship for Hightee Heller, Voltar's most popular Homeview star, was turned into a riot of blazing guns and charging battle police when an unknown maniac, using military multiblast weapons, threatened the lives of thousands.

Braving the avalanche of deadly fire, Jettero Heller, Royal officer and famed combat engineer, with superhuman strength, lifted his sister out of the path of the deadly hail.

Battle police, in a baton charge, fought furiously to establish order, suffering an unknown number of casualties.

By purest chance, a Homeview camera team, that visits the Artistic Club routinely, recorded part of the riot and has been beaming it continuously since 3:00 A.M. on the interplanetary Homeview all-home channels.

Interviewed at dawn in her home on Pausch Hills, Hightee Heller, with the true courage of an artist, disclaimed personal injury. "Please assure my billions of fans that I am perfectly all right," was the only comment she would make. But this reporter detected possible eye bruises.

Jettero Heller could not be found or interviewed. It had been generally believed that he was engaged in a secret mission for the Grand Council and had long since departed Voltar. A spokesman for the Crown, contacted at dawn, attempted to refute the continued presence of Heller on Voltar, stating, "We have it on the most reliable authority that Jettero Heller left Voltar some time ago. The matter will be brought before the Grand Council in its morning meeting." Police Chief Chalp of Joy City modestly accepted credit for bringing the riot under such swift control. "My men are everywhere," he said. "They are always ready for anything." When this reporter suggested that the riot might have been a publicity stunt, arranged to bring higher recognition to the Artistic Club, the manager angrily pointed out that he had no faintest knowledge that Jettero Heller or his sister were in the club last night and that, in any event, he would never dream of imperilling the life of the idol of billions.

The gang who shot up the club have not been traced.

(See our special features, today and tomorrow: HIGHTEE HELLER, HUMAN OR GODDESS? and THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JETTERO HELLER, THE MODEST HERO WHO BECAME THE IDOL OF THE FLEET.) I sat there numbly. They had it all wrong. I was not a
gang!
I was just one man.

It was all Snelz's fault, I finally worked out. If he hadn't made that silly pact with Heller to be at all times on duty, guarding, he would never have rented those comedy cop uniforms just so he could be handy. Snelz was too conscientious. Just because he had heard shots, glass breaking and screams was no reason to believe Heller needed any help. The idea of charging in for a silly thing like that! Snelz had caused all this. I realized I would have to discipline him.

But the very futility of doing anything at all settled over me. I was just a chip of wood in the roaring river of fate. It would do no good to point out that they were all secretly against me.

I just sat there and waited for the axe to fall, finally, completely and forever. Numb.

In midafternoon, I hardly even stirred when a big lorry drove up to the hangar. The signs on it said: Educational Aids Company.

Delight your students even if they are children.

Entertainment is the backbone of Enlightenment.

Two laborers got down from the truck and boosted a long box out of the back.

Somebody called for Heller and he came down from the top of the hull where they had been restoring plates and shielding and trotted over to the newcomers. He was all bright and alert, red racing cap on the back of his head. A lot
he
knew about the sorrows of life. The axe was hanging over him, too. The thought vaguely cheered me but I soon slumped again under renewed pains in my stomach.

He directed them to carry the box in through the airlock. I knew where it was going: into that lower hold storeroom.

Half an hour after that, I still had not stirred. I dully watched a new lorry drive up. It said: Mineral Resources Equipment Company.

If you think our equipment is too expensive, buy some and manufacture your own purchase price. Sold only under government license to qualified and discriminating metalologists.

Two laborers got out and took down a long, heavy box. Heller showed them where to put it in the ship.

I sat there waiting. I knew it would come and it would not be boxes.

Finally it was there. I felt it. Sort of like an infusion of black poison gas into the scene.

A voice from behind a pile of crates: a horrible whisper.

"Officer Gris."

Lombar Hisst, disguised as a workman, lurked half-hidden behind the dirty cases.

His awful face was intent upon what he was doing. He had a notebook in his hands. From his secret place, he had a view of the tug and the swarms of contractor teams that clambered all around and over it. In their company-colored cover suits, each one bore plainly the different contractor names. Lombar Hisst was listing them, each and every company.

I came up and stood trembling near him. With an abrupt motion he swept a copy of the newssheet out of his workman jacket and whacked it into my face. I caught it. I didn't have to read it. It was another newssheet, a different one but it had the same glaring picture of Heller holding his sister over his head above the crowd.

Lombar had gone back to his furious notebook writing. Eventually he was done. He yanked me back into the cover of the crates.

"You loathsome (bleep)!" he said. "I should shoot you out of hand right now!" He slapped his hand back against the notebook. "All these contractors working, working at vast expense and here you are, keeping it secret so that you can rake off all their kickbacks for yourself!" I hadn't expected that. It was so unjust. If I had tried to put the squeeze on any of these contractors they would have gone running to Heller and he, with his weird Royal officer ideas of honesty, would have beaten me up! But I didn't dare open my mouth.

"Well, what have you got to say for yourself?" demanded Lombar, amber eyes flaming crazily. He didn't expect any answer or wait for one. "It was (bleeped) lucky this was a Grand Council meeting day!

"The position you put us in! Right at the start, the Crown threw it at us! Oh, Endow is a fortunate fellow to have me. When the Crown demanded why Heller had not left, I was able to counter it, no thanks to you!

"I had Endow point out that the Grand Council allocation was so low that it was delaying the mission to Blito-P3. I used it to raise the allocation to thirty million credits instead of three. We can pretend there were other companies here that we own and you'll (bleep) well stamp the fake bills with your identoplate! Do you understand?" All I understood was that I was not lying, that instant, a dead body at his feet. I was grateful.

"In return, you loathsome piece of trash, you are going to get this mission out of here by my deadline! We had to promise that! So be grateful!" I was very grateful.

"What are those boxes I saw being hauled in?" he demanded. "He's got things there I am sure he's going to use to try to make this mission a success. You know very well it must fail. I have told you time and again we cannot possibly let it succeed." He did not want any answer. He considered for a moment. Then he said, "Very well. In two days I will bring a special crew in here. You will distract Heller to some other place and we will inspect what he is taking." Through a crack in the crates we could see the tug.

Heller slid down a rope and dropped lightly to the pavement. He beckoned and five Apparatus hangar people came over to him swiftly. They listened to him interestedly and laughed a couple of times and then sped off, quite unlike Apparatus personnel, to do what Heller had asked.

I glanced at Lombar. He had his upper lip raised in an expression of the purest hate. His eyes began to smolder. Under his breath he was muttering about "athletes" and "Royal officers" and "snobs," a stream of profanity mixed in. There was no doubt that he hated Heller and all his kind.

Lombar suddenly turned to me. "You are going to have crew trouble. That (bleepard) will get around them. He'll breed loyalty. He'll undermine your control of any crew unless I handle it." He thought for a moment. "Yes, yes, that will do it.
I'll
put the captain and crew aboard that tug the day she leaves." For the first time, I found courage to speak. I squeaked, "She has Will-be Was main drives. She is very quick and sudden. She is a dangerous ship!"

"All the better," said Lombar. He had heard me! "Will-be Was main drives. That will be a little harder but I will find and fix up a crew!" I was still gripping the newssheet. He snatched it back from me and put it in his pocket. "That's another thing. Have you heard any clues as to who leaked that original story about Heller and the mission? I thought not. I'm looking. I'm looking. I have to do everything myself but I'll find whoever it was!" Heller was guiding down a piece of plating. Lombar looked through the crack at him. He swore again. It made him savage.

Lombar turned and seized my tunic lapels. He snapped me very close to him. From nowhere the stinger had appeared and he cut painfully at my leg to punctuate his speech.

"You are going to get this mission out of here by my deadline! If you don't we really could have Crown inspectors all over this hangar and there would be Hells for everyone! The whole Blito-P3 project is threatened by this mission! Twenty-four hours before departure, you and I will have another meeting! So you get this moving. You get Heller going! You get him off this planet! And if you don't make it by deadline, I will kill you very slowly with my bare hands!" The stinger struck again. "And one more last thing: As a punishment for attempting to privately short-circuit this rake-off to yourself, you are not going to get a single credit of the additional allocation! You are a thief!" He dropped me and I staggered. I stood there for a little while, numb and hurting. Finally I realized Lom-bar had left: an old disguised airtruck was flying away.

Once more I started breathing. I got my legs working and made it over to the pile of rusty plates. I sank down. I was surprised to still be alive, to still have four paychecks. I had almost begun to cheer up when a horrible realization hit me.

He had said "deadline." That we had to be gone by his deadline. But he had not said when that deadline
was!

I tried to make some estimate. Twenty-seven million had been added to the allocation. That meant it would take a couple days for him and Endow to dream up some fake companies and register them, maybe a couple days more, for appearances' sake, to date their billings and get them stamped. I knew they would not be careless about these details. Only the chance for a rake-off, personally, of twenty-seven million credits had saved my life: I had no illusions about that. But when was this deadline?

Then another horrible thought hit me. I doubted very, very much that I could prevail upon Heller to wind up his refit, finish the tug and get going. That was the main problem! That is what I had to work on.

And the very thought of pushing him made me feel ill!

Probably I should have waited until I was less in shock from Lombar's visit. But I knew I had to act while spurred with anxiety, newly freshened, to get off this planet.

To get Heller really going I had to pry him apart from Krak!

My screaming necessity was so great that it thrust into my mind a vital fact about Heller I had not used. He had been disciplined early in his career for refusing to let his crew be electric-shock trained. He had been quite violent about it, he detested electric-shock training. He had even said he wouldn't use a crew with "fried brains." Yet here he was all involved with a female trainer who must use nothing else!

I saw Heller go into the tug.