by Don Wilcox
“I’m glad,” said Kaable. “It’s like I told you last fall, when you had just escaped from prison. Once out, better stay out.”
“I’ve had a hard winter,” Retterlic continued. “Troxian ruffians made lots of work. You know how they do—steal over at night, smash a few Timovian heads, post some Troxian propaganda, and steal back again. I’m so worn out from mending heads that I came back here for a rest. Hope you don’t have too many guests on hand.”
“None at present,” said Kaable. “Not many come this route. Too difficult, you know. I guess that’s why the Troxian soldiers never bother to guard it. I’ve had a slim winter—only one pay customer since you left. But he rolled in money, and thank Providence he hung on all winter. By the way, there’s a curiosity.” Kaable’s long, gnarled face beamed. “You should have been here. He would have hired you, I’ll bet my bassoon, if you can fix heads. His headaches gave him fits. I never knew anyone to put up such a scrap to overcome a handicap. I hated to see him go.”
“No doubt.” The doctor was not particularly interested. He had come back to this Timovian outpost to get a rest from aches and pains.
“I still can’t figure that fellow out,” the inn keeper went on. “Most remarkable guest I ever had. For instance, here’s just one detail. Practically everyone who slips across from Troxia has some story about Gade Lasher—either knew him personally, or had a cousin who worked for him, or was once close enough to shoot him, or—you know. You didn’t boast that way, but you’re an exception.”
“I’ve seen Lasher,” the doctor muttered.
“Well, this fellow had the wildest story of all. He worried about Lasher, and tried to figure out his mind; and once in a burst of confidence he tried to tell me he was Lasher. And the way he looked and acted, you almost wanted to believe him. Trouble was, he was a fanatic on peace. Regular nut.”
The doctor grunted. “Delusions of grandeur. He’d probably suffered too much persecution. Some cases are dangerous.”
“Yes,” Kaable said stoutly. “I felt that way about this one before he left. He’ll be dangerous to Troxia.”
Dr. Retterlic, unimpressed, turned the subject. “Have you heard rumors of the united front against Troxia?”
“Over the radio—yes. The great powers may pounce unexpectedly any day, they say.”
“Ugly business,” the doctor said. “Can’t they see the green monster has stopped spreading of its own accord? Not a conquest all winter. Something’s come over Gade Lasher . . . I wish I knew—”
“Just a breathing spell for Troxia. Waiting for the dictator to rest up. Radio says he’s still recovering from that assassination incident. He’ll march all over us this spring. I hope the powers strike first, though we’re in for a slaughter either way.”
The doctor’s troubled gaze rested on the dim blue mists of the endless valley below. He lit his pipe, and let the match burn down to his fingers. Kaable played a doleful air on the bassoon before he resumed his observations.
“Lots of undertones that Gade Lasher went insane.”
“Yes, I heard that,” said Retterlic. “He hasn’t made a public appearance all winter. Some think he’s run away, others say he’s dead. Maybe murdered.” Kaable saw the doctor grow tense with interest. “What’s your guess, Doc?”
“Gade Lasher’s done,” said the doctor, puffing hard at his pipe. “I’m not guessing; I know. He’s through. I can’t tell you whether he died or went insane or skipped the country, but I’m certain he’ll never whip the Troxians into a white heat again.”
“Think he’s burned out?”
“You might say so.” The doctor caught the other’s quizzical eyebrow. “Frankly, I think he was made the victim of a scientific trick by one of his doctors after that bullet grazed him last summer.”
Kaable shook his head. “Hardly. His own doctors wouldn’t have the nerve. Besides, they’re all in this together. They’re out to pillage the world, the whole rotten bunch of them!”
Retterlic swabbed his high head with a handkerchief, and replied. “Time will answer that. In my opinion, Troxia has begun to cool. If the powers will hold back a little while, they can save themselves a terrific war.”
The inn keeper tooted a skeptical phrase on his bassoon. “Sounds nice, Doc, but the Troxian war machine is too big to cool. If Lasher fades out, watch that sleek general, Blegoff, take over the palace and set off the fireworks. He’s the one you hear on the radio now.”
Rising abruptly, the doctor asked to be shown his room. Kaable provided him with such accommodations as the house afforded, apologizing for his failure to have the rooms in better order. “Too much to think about,” he explained. “Those odds and ends in the corner were left by that nut I spoke of. He sent clear to the United States for some of those electrical instruments, and then didn’t bother to take them along when he left. Hope they won’t be in your way.”
When Retterlic arose, refreshed, the following morning, the “odds and ends” caught his interest. Beautiful compact electrical instruments. Scraps of messages in handwriting. Evidently one of these new devices for transmitting signatures and written messages by radio. He had seen the ads in foreign magazines, “Write by radio.” Here it was, ready for service.
The two distinct styles of handwriting on the scraps of paper argued that the instruments received as well as transmitted—
Retterlic’s pulse jumped. That handwriting was Doraine’s! Yes, and Gade Lasher’s! Unmistakably. He snatched up the papers. Official communications with the palace. Advice for staving off Blegoff and others. Replies to foreign powers. An occasional note of personal sentiment. The final transcript from the feminine hand read: “Do be careful, Gade. I wish you luck.”
The doctor flew through his breakfast and rejoined Kaable on the porch. “That nut—tell me more about him!”
CHAPTER VI
Human Fiber Is Tough
A huge question mark hung like fire in Retterlic’s mind. Had Gade Lasher carried a pressure on the brain since war days? Did he lose his belligerence on the night that he traded a piece of skull for a silver instrument of torture? Gade Lasher’s torture could have been no greater than that of Retterlic himself during these past months, sleepless with fear that he had brought ruin down upon a man who would normally be one of the greatest, noblest leaders of the age.
Bitter remorse stalked beside him wherever he went. He carried the trophy of that operation in his pocket, a lumpy, twice-scarred handful of bone, now well polished. If he could but bring himself to believe those nineteen years of Lasher venom were physically excusable, he would weep with joy—and then die of remorse for his crime.
Now he thrust his hand into his coat pocket as if to reexamine the famous Lasher head as he waited for Kaable’s unaccountable story.
“He was a smallish person, middle aged, clean shaven, dressed in ordinary street clothes. He gave the impression from the way he marched up these stairs that he felt very important to himself. Probably a runaway army officer. He said he’d just been all over Troxia, through the prisons, along the Timovian front—everywhere—tracing a missing friend. A truck carried him past his next stop-off and he wandered up here by chance. Never knew when he crossed the line.
“He hungered for quiet, away from guns and planes and parades. Those Troxian sky fleets that demonstrate on our side of the line every few days gave him an awful shudder. He was awful stirred up when I told him about a neighbor boy who shook his fist at a plane once too often; though the lad still has a chance to live.”
“A bomb?” Retterlic asked.
“Sure—just for practice. Well, this nut dealt me some crisp bills, slept for a week, and acted as if he might stay forever. Everything went fine except when I played my bassoon. He couldn’t stand it. Certain notes gave him shooting pains in the head. I didn’t believe it until I saw him go sick a few times.
“I kept playing now and then until he threatened to leave. My wife and I couldn’t afford to let him go. But on the other hand I
have to play my bassoon. Couldn’t get through a winter without it. So together we worked on him.”
“Worked—how?”
“Encouraged him to get over his headaches. He wanted to bad enough, but he didn’t think it was humanly possible. You see, he carried a metal plate in his head from a recent operation, and he’d discovered it vibrated to certain tones and gave him stabbing pains—”
“I understand perfectly,” said Retterlic, impatient.
“He swore it would drive him crazy before long. Well, we didn’t doubt it; as far as we could tell he was nearly there already. But we didn’t waste any sympathy. ‘Human fabric is tough,’ I told him. ‘Just keep practicing, like I do on my bassoon.’ I thought he’d get angry sometimes, but he was so damned ambitious he never let down. And when my wife told him the trouble she had treating her deafness, he took heart. You see, when she first got that bone conduction instrument for her head the vibration drove her to distraction. But after a few months—”
“Did this man actually get over his pains?” The great weight on the doctor’s heart strained to lift.
“He spent the whole winter at it. For weeks he was deathly sick, and we thought to ourselves, now we’ve done it. Then he began to gain. He made me play for him regular. Soon he ordered some communication instruments from the United States, part of them for a friend back in Troxia. Between times he would hike out on mountain trails, rehearsing speeches. And say—how that man could speak! He could make chills creep down the backbone of a mountain!”
“What did he talk about?”
“His mission—to save the world from the evil hand of Gade Lasher. He was a natural born prophet of peace.”
The doctor’s pipe fell from his teeth. “Hold on. You said he was Gade Lasher.”
“He tried to tell me that once, but he didn’t get far. I knew it was just a mental quirk. He usually referred to himself as the ‘New Lasher.’ He argued that the former Lasher was dead. But sometimes he would go off on other tangents. Once he said, ‘Suppose by some miracle Lasher changed, and lost all his hate—would the people keep him for a leader and follow him back to peace?’ ”
“Well, would they?” The doctor appeared as anxious as the New Lasher had been.
“Not a chance. Like I told this fellow, any change in Lasher would just be on the surface. He wouldn’t know how to be honest and decent, he’s so saturated with lies and trickery. If Gade Lasher started waving a banner of peace, the Troxians would quit him cold and leave him out on a limb—” The narrator rambled on, not noticing that the doctor was lost in his own bitter thoughts. Retterlic had found the answer at last, perhaps, in the glib words of this peasant. The people would never believe in a changed Gade Lasher.
Still, perhaps Gade Lasher was dead. The New Lasher was a different person—so different that this peasant, who knew Gade Lasher’s picture as well as his name, would not believe the two were one. If Lasher should continue this incognito—
“But he did recover from his head pains?” the eager doctor interposed.
“Yes. Miraculous, it seemed to us. But little by little, after hours and months of dogged work—”
Retterlic was on his feet. “When did he leave? Where did he go?”
“Well, about a month ago, right after he killed that Troxian soldier—”
“Killed? How’d that happen?”
“Just one of those night raids across our line. I had a tip that a neighbor, who lives seven miles down the mountainside, was in line for trouble one week, so I went down, and this New Lasher fellow went with me. One midnight they stormed in on us, four of them in green uniforms, and started crashing property right and left. We got the drop on them, and drove them off. But one of them whirled and took some pot shots, so this New Lasher picked him off. It so happened that his uniform was right for the New Lasher, who got into it and marched off at dawn without saying where he was going or why.”
Retterlic hurried up to his room to the instruments. He found instructions, snapped the switches, began to write. In a few minutes the automatic marker swung with the swift, graceful motions of Doraine’s hand.
An hour later, aglow with perspiration, the doctor strode back to the porch, dressed for travel.
“I have confidential news direct from the Troxian government. Five world powers are going to blast Troxia off the map in just one week if she fails to meet their ultimatum.”
Kaable cut his notes so short they forgot to echo. “Ulti—What?”
“They gave Lasher notice to return all stolen lands and pay certain indemnities or else!”
“Then Lasher is alive?”
“My message didn’t say as to that, but there’s one thing certain. Your recent guest, the New Lasher, is very much alive!”
“The government has heard of him? Already?” The bassoonist beamed.
“Heard of him! He’s got the whole empire in a riot with his peace talk. The New Lasher!” There was reverence in the doctor’s voice. “He’s the hope of Troxia now. Everyone who hears him joins his white crusade for peace—”
“They’ll never get him!” the inn keeper exulted. “Once they get in hearing range he’ll convert them. I tell you his words go right through you like an electric handshake!” Old Kaable was so worked up he didn’t notice that the doctor was taking leave. “Looks as if the Troxian dictator has a revolution on his hands. What do you think?”
“Figure it out for yourself,” Retterlic retorted as he struck off up the trail. “I’ve got an official mission for Troxia.” He patted his coat pocket as he hurried along the path. Not a single bassoon note caught up with him.
CHAPTER VII
One More Purge
The sleek, natty General Blegoff tugged at the ends of his antennaelike mustache and glared at General Duboval, second in command. “We need one more purge.” Blegoff hit his words savagely. “We’ve been duped long enough.”
Duboval said nothing. He preferred to save his words Until all ten members of the inner circle arrived. These secret meetings were perilous; they gave Blegoff the opportunity to purge on impulse.
“Duped!” the number one general repeated, “and by a damned female, at that!”
Duboval snapped on the radio, turned it to an international commentator who spoke from half a continent away.
“It is no secret,” came the voice, “that the five powers comprising the United Front will loose their forces upon Troxia tomorrow noon, if their demands are not met by that hour. These nations deny that their action constitutes aggression. They insist that Troxia’s cumulative offenses have driven them to this extreme. Until this belligerent empire is subdued there can be no security of life or peace of mind, nor any satisfactory business conditions.
“Hence, the world waits upon the brink of a precipice, beyond which may be catastrophe for civilization. Armies were on the move today.
“In the face of this crisis, the dramatic dictator of Troxia remains silent. He still does not show his face before his clamoring subjects, and they are growing suspicious that he may be dead.
“Meanwhile the White Crusade is gaining momentum every hour as the mysterious little man who calls himself the New Lasher challenges the Troxians with his peace program. Making scores of rousing speeches daily, he flies from city to city, and from hamlets to prisons to barracks, converting thousands. Tomorrow noon, the very hour set for the United Front to strike, this spectacular White Crusade will march upon the dictator’s palace to demand acceptance of the New Lasher’s peace program.
“It is a crucial moment for Troxia, but General Blegoff’s armies are reported to be ready on the Timovian border. Moreover it is believed that the inner governmental circle, meeting secretly, are planning to crush the White Crusade if it reaches the palace. It is a question whether the government will respect the centuries old custom of Troxia that no peaceful assembly before the ruler’s palace shall be dispersed with violence.
“Thus far the secret police have utterly failed—”
; “Snap that damned thing off!” Blegoff shouted. Someone obeyed.
The irate general turned on the group. “I tell you, we’ve been duped. Lasher’s either dead or out of the country. And one smart female has held us at bay—”
“With the help of the Purple Guards,” Duboval interrupted.
“But I talk with Lasher every day by television,” someone protested.
“One smart female secretary,” the general reiterated, “with talking films and some clever forgery—”
“Can you prove it?” Duboval challenged.
“I’ll prove it aplenty!” the general snarled. “If we had the nerve to go through with one more purge, we’d see for ourselves. Instead we’re at a standstill, just because she’s a female.”
“We’ve been too damned free with our power to purge,” Duboval snapped. “Where’s Lippen?” No one answered. “Where’s Blotchup?”
“Coming,” said Blegoff. “He got in past the Purple Guards finally, to squeeze some proofs out of the superintendent of documents.”
Blotchup arrived, threw a cardboard box on the table. “There’s your evidence.”
But of the box came scraps of film.
The men snatched up the pieces, held them to the light, saw the bearded face of Gade Lasher.
Blotchup explained, “Lasher’s speeches have been cut to hell. I’ve compared these scraps of sound track with the printed speeches. No question about it. Some smart technician has pulled out some sentences. Every time we shoot a question to Gade Lasher’s confidential secretary, she touches a button that selects one of several stereotyped answers. Automatic movie instruments do the rest. We look on our televisor. Gade Lasher appears, roars an answer at us, and flashes off. That, my fellow simpletons, is how our dummy dictator has held the whip over us for the last—”
“One more purge!” Blegoff growled. “We’ll draw lots to see who does it.”
“Where’s Lippen?” Duboval demanded. “We’ve no right to take action till Lippen comes.”
