I considered what Bugs Bunny would have done in a similar circumstance. He would have approved of the caper of the toilet escape route I had just ordered. But, although my memory is superb, I could not remember a single strip that solved this uninformed situation except one where he takes a telescope on a platform he has gotten onto and, by means of many curves and levers, looks in on somebody who was chasing him in a police car. I obviously had no telescope that long.
Surmounting my hunger, I made a supreme effort and, being well endowed with wits, suddenly solved it.
Endow was the crossroads of information between the Apparatus and the Grand Council. Lombar had to take up everything with Endow. Endow had a weakness: pretty boys!
I got out my blackmail folders, local office.
I pushed buzzers. I got one to work and very shortly I had two of the Section 451 clerks in there looking slightly amused and tolerant.
These two boys were nicknamed “Too-Too” and “Oh Dear.” Their real names are Twolah and Odur. They were from Endow’s home planet, Mistin. They were promising children, doted upon by their separate mothers, spoiled rotten and totally dominated. They had entered the University of Mistin with high marks and had proceeded upon brilliant scholastic careers. They were excellent students. They fell in love, one with an elderly male professor of cellology, the other with the dean of males. They were caught. They were expelled. They were ruined. They were eminently fitted for my purpose: they were very pretty. I would shortly wipe the amusement from their girlish faces.
“You, Twolah, and you, Odur, have just been promoted.”
They liked that but were wary.
“By the powers vested in me as Section Chief, you two are appointed alternate couriers to Blito-P3. At intervals comparable to the time it takes to make a round trip to Blito-P3, you will relieve each other. One of you will bring me all the paper I have to sign and return. Then the other will do so.”
They looked uneasy. I have something of a reputation in the office. They knew this was not all. Three months of travel, followed by three months layoff, even though space travel in a freighter is not that comfortable, was a bit of a plum.
“On your off-time at home,” I said, “you will take messages to Endow personally. Any kind of a message from here you can dream up. And you will hang around for answers. And you will pretty yourselves up and display yourselves so that each one of you, by turns, becomes his beloved. And you will pump him for all current news about Blito-P3 and bring it to me.”
Too-Too minced coyly, “And what if Lord Endow refuses to slip into the trap?”
“I don’t think he will refuse. Because you are each of you going to make sure that he doesn’t. Have you ever heard of a magic mailing?”
It is tradecraft. They were trained as spies but not in the higher levels of the art. “I will explain,” I said.
“I am sure you will,” lisped Oh Dear.
“A magic mailing is a message or order which is held in place in a postal chute. It sticks there in the chute for a determined time, in this case three months. A separate card with a frequency stamped on it has to be mailed past it before the stick expires. If it is, the magic mail stays unmailed another three months. But if at any time the renewing card isn’t mailed, the magic mail drops into the post and gets delivered.”
They were getting white. Pretty. But white.
“Each time you deliver a batch of forms to me on Blito-P3, you will also deliver all the news there is on the subject from the Apparatus, the Grand Council, Endow and Lombar Hisst. IF I consider you are not making it up, that you are really diligent in doing your espionage job in your off-period here, I will give you a receipt with a frequency and you can mail it. It will hold up the magic mail.”
They were whiter and not prettier.
“Who is the magic mail to be addressed to?” said Too-Too.
“Whom does it concern?” faltered Oh Dear.
“The magic mail will be addressed to the Commander of the Knife Section on Mistin. You understand that it won’t ever be delivered if you thoroughly do your jobs.”
They got that, so I plowed on. Psychology is a wonderful thing. “You both love your mothers, don’t you?”
I knew this because there are exact states and phases in all boys and males. It says so right in the Earth textbooks. First they are oral passive, then they are oral erotic, then they are anal passive after which they become anal erotic. This is followed by what is called “latency” and finally, genitalia is arrived at. So these two boys were fixated in the development stage of anal erotic. Mothers change diapers. So, of course, it follows as day and night that they loved their mothers.
“You wouldn’t order our mothers murdered?” said Too-Too, incredulous.
I flipped the Knife Section knife from its sheaf behind my neck and threw it into the floor between their feet where it stuck, quivering. This, I knew by the texts, added the phallic symbol. They fell into each other’s arms and wept.
I called Bawtch and had him shoo them out. They were both crying so hard that even Bawtch was impressed. He stood for a full minute in the door just looking at me. I can tell when people are impressed.
Later, I was much braced up. Psychology is a wonderful thing. No wonder the governments on Earth will use nothing else!
Well, one thing had gone right today.
I reached for some of the food the dancing girl had left on the desk but it wasn’t there again.
PART SIX
Chapter 5
At midnight, lying on my desk in the darkened office, I was rudely awakened by the noisy entrance of a visitor. It was a Manco Devil. I knew right away he was from Manco because, over there, their Devils are not the ordinary woods Devils so common to other planets. Manco Devils have horns and long tails which end in a spike and they are a dark, flaming red.
I wondered for a moment why it was that Bawtch had let him in without formal announcement, but a glance at my watch showed that it was midnight and, of course, Bawtch was not there.
I told him not to make so much noise: he would bring the “bluebottles”—the Domestic Police—or, much worse, a Crown inspector down upon us. But he did not pay much attention, so I composed myself as courteously as possible to give him the attention due to a caller.
He had a form in one hand and a pen in the other and he seated himself in the interview chair and with those little shrugs and hitches one makes to get comfortable, began his interrogation.
“Name?” he asked. And when I told him, he, of course, wrote it down on the top of his form.
I was, however, curious. “What form is that?”
“Form 345-678-M,” he said.
I told him I was not familiar with that form. He crossed his legs and leaned back. His voice was tolerant. “It’s the form one makes out to see if you know.”
“About what?” I asked, for I myself am very skilled in interviewing.
“That is the thing we are to establish,” said the Manco Devil. He seemed a bit annoyed at my denseness.
I took umbrage at this. “Then how can I answer unless I know about what it is that I don’t know?”
This did not phase him in the slightest. He twitched his long, spiked tail and somehow this was a signal for the toilet door to open and in came the whole crew of Patrol Craft B-44-A-539-G, the one that had taken Heller to Blito-P3 on the original mission. I was a trifle amazed, for I had supposed they were safely down in the bowels of Spiteos. But then I realized Snelz had gotten them a pass so it was all right. There were twenty of them, but, of course, they had come in through the secret trapdoor I would have cut tomorrow so that ceased to bother me.
They stood around my office in a ring and then, at a signal from their craftleader, they sat down very smartly at attention.
The Manco Devil said to them, “He claims he doesn’t know what he is not supposed to know.”
The craftleader looked at me critically and then back at the Devil. “Very good. Then we shan’t tell him.”
>
The crew got up then and ate the baklava the dancing girl had left on the desk, took out electric whips and began to beat me. I cowered back, stung, and looked for succor to the Devil. But the Devil had changed to Lombar Hisst!
So I had no alternative. I tried to draw my stun gun. Then I was horrified. I couldn’t get it out of the holster!
The electric whips were sizzling. I looked frantically toward Lombar but it was now Crobe! I wished the occupant of the interview chair wouldn’t keep changing. How could I be expected to answer questions if the interrogator kept shifting?
The crew had now finished the baklava. So they turned to the chair for orders. Old Atty was sitting there now.
“He doesn’t know that he doesn’t know,” said old Atty.
The craftleader drew himself up and gave old Atty a Fleet salute, which I thought was very nice of him and showed respect for Atty’s age. “Sir,” said the craftleader, “we absolutely will not tell him unless we are very generously bribed.”
That satisfied old Atty but he was now the Devil again. The Devil said, “Now, in the matter of your employment as handler for the King of the underworld on his secret mission, we come to the matter of pay.”
The patrol craft crew had vanished.
I said, “I will need more pay than that as I am deeply in debt, have drawn all my pay for the next five years, in fact. After they relieved me from this mission I was penniless and couldn’t borrow a cent from my driver. When I received the notice that I had been cashiered, Meeley turned me over to the bluebottles.”
The Devil said, “Actually, that’s why I am here. To collect the bill for this interview.”
I tried to tell him his addition was faulty, that he had added a lorry load of tup onto it, but he would have nothing of that. He leaped to his feet and his pen turned into a torch.
The wall was directly behind me. I could back up no further! He rammed the flaming torch straight into my stomach and it was agony! I started to run but the faster I ran the more I was in one place. The Manco Devil got around in front of me and jammed the flaming torch into my stomach again.
With a tremendous effort I tried to draw my gun and shoot him but I could not get it out of the holster.
I leaped up on the desk. But Tug One came screaming through the room, pulled me off the desk and exploded in midspace with the loss of all hands.
“That’s your fault,” said Commander Crup. “I wash my hands of the whole affair.”
Then the Devil was there again. He had two lepertiges, one on each side of him. He was barely able to hold them back. He yelled at me, “If you find out, I will turn these animals loose and they will rip your guts out!”
This intimidated me. I screamed at him, “I’ll pay your bill!”
I rushed over to a filing cabinet and I got out huge handfuls of counterfeit credit notes and began to throw them at him. Abruptly the room was empty!
With a groan, I lay back down on the desk. After I had recovered a bit, I looked down and was interested that the flame had not scorched the secret papers I was carrying for the Emperor.
Thankfully, I dropped into a troubled sleep.
PART SIX
Chapter 6
I hit the floor with a crash. It was midmorning.
From a long way off, Bawtch was saying, “You only stamped half of them yesterday. I was taking it easy on you. But there’s months of accumulated work undone.”
I got my eyes open. Bawtch was standing there with a yard-high stack, trying to step over me and get them on the desk.
I struggled to get up. Then I must have fainted. For when I came around again, there were two more clerks in the office. Bawtch was saying to them, “But if he dies on us, we won’t ever get these forms stamped.”
Probably I fainted again. When I came around, I had been dragged over against the wall and there were four clerks in the office.
“I think he’s sick,” said one of the clerks. “His forehead is hot.”
“Be just like him to get one of these new fevers and infect the lot of us,” said Bawtch.
“I think we ought to call in a doctor,” said another clerk.
“Yeah, you can’t have him just dying in here,” said another clerk. “It would stink the place up and it’s bad enough already.”
After what may have been hours later, I came around again. I was being laid out flat on my back. There was a doctor there—I recognized him; he was what they call a “medical doctor” because they push out medicine; this was one the prostitutes of the district used; he gave them pills which caused abortions when they got pregnant. He was unpacking a bag on my desk.
He bent over me and pushed a strap down on my forehead and I tried to worm away, thinking he was about to give me a shock. He might not heed the penalty for shocking an officer. These medical doctors are pretty criminal.
The strap turned out to be a temperature gauge. “He’s got a fever,” this medical doctor said.
“Probably infect all of us,” said Bawtch.
The doctor said, “Open your mouth!” and he forced it open. “Aha! Swollen tongue!” He stood up, evidently talking to Bawtch. “It’s an obvious case of diploduckus infernam,” he said learnedly. “The new disease that came in from Flisten,” he added learnedly. “He will break out in black spots in a couple days and then they will suppurate.”
“Is it infectious?” said a clerk.
“Very,” said the doctor.
The clerks hastily got out of there.
“How am I going to get these papers stamped?” said Bawtch.
That was out of his field so the doctor said, “I am going to make out a list of pills, powders and wonder drugs. They don’t work but he will feel more comfortable.”
“We can’t buy those,” said Bawtch. “He doesn’t have any money on him. I looked.”
“What?” roared the doctor. “You mean you got me all the way over here . . .” Oh, he was angry!
He tore up his list, threw his things back in his bag and stamped out. He slammed the outer door.
“Now you see what you’ve gotten me into,” said Bawtch. He left. And he slammed the door.
I lay there waiting for the black spots to break out and then suppurate.
I was probably unconscious for a long time and when I woke again it was quite late in the day. The patrol craft crew had left the toilet door open and the afternoon sun was slanting in.
My driver was kneeling there. He had been shaking my shoulder. He turned into a Crown inspector and then back into my driver.
“I know you told me I mustn’t go there. But this noon when I finally heard you were sick, I thought I’d better go down to the Apparatus hangar and tell them.”
I must have passed out again. He shook me awake. “When I told Heller he said he was very sorry to hear it and to tell you he hoped you got better real soon and he asked if there was anything he could do to help.”
Probably I passed out again. He was shaking me. He turned into the Turkish dancing girl. She put her arm under my shoulders and was lifting me up a bit.
“Heller sent this up,” she said. “A whole case of canisters and ten pounds of sweetbuns. Here, put your mouth around this space canister tube. It’s green sparklewater. Now draw in. That’s the way.”
It tasted just like boza, a drink they make in Turkey from fermented wheat. It proved she was, in fact, real and that she was a Turkish dancing girl. I was afraid it was all an illusion.
I must have passed out for it seemed to be some time later. My driver had an arm under my shoulders and was making me take some more sips.
He must have spent an hour or two at this for the sun was way down when he said, “Now that’s the end of that canister.” And laid me back.
My tongue wasn’t so swollen. “What happened to the dancing girl?” I whispered. “Did she leave when I couldn’t pay her?”
The room was quite dark the next time I awoke. My head felt much clearer. My tongue wasn’t swollen at all. My driver was hol
ding me up again. “This is one of the sweetbuns Heller sent. We have lots and lots of them. Take a small bite and chew and don’t choke on the crumbs.”
I got some of it down. My head seemed clearer shortly. But I now had a pain in my stomach.
“I can’t pay the doctor for the pills,” I told my driver frankly.
“Doctor?” said my driver, quite surprised. “Oh, you mean that medical doctor. We were thinking back and you know, we don’t think you had anything to eat or drink for three days. Two days without water can make anybody crazy. Run a fever, too. Heller said so. He told me what to do. Snelz told him it would upset you if he left the hangar, it being a secret mission and all. So he couldn’t come himself and that’s why he had to tell me what to do.”
Invaders Plan, The: Mission Earth Volume 1 Page 30
