by Ron Hubbard
"You mean I'm going to Earth?" I said idiotically. That was obvious. You can't handle such an agent from Voltar. I was rattled. I had even overlooked the obvious demand for applause. "I was stunned by your clever recovery," I said lamely. "I couldn't believe our luck in getting out of it. It was all due to you." That made him smile again. For a moment he had started to frown. So I got bold enough to say something else. "We . . . uh . . . we don't have any agents of that caliber."
"Oh, we have a few agents on Earth. You know that. I was thinking of giving you twoof them – Raht and Terb – to help out. They're a couple of the finest killers I have ever seen! Now how's that? Feel better?" I could see that execution order for a failed mission as plain as though I held it in my hand. Might as well make my fight now. "Chief Executive, neither one of them knows geophysics from soup. And I . . . well, I almost failed those courses at the Academy." Lombar laughed. Very pleasantly. He was amused. This was certainly a different Lombar than I had ever known. "But you did take those courses. You know the big words. Soltan, you just have to get used to the idea that I am really your best friend." Now I wasfor it. There was more. I knew there was more.
He extended the gold box to me again. "Have another chank-pop." I could barely get the top off. But it was a good thing I did or what he said next would have otherwise made me faint.
"Have no qualms about the special agent. I have already decided upon him." He looked to see if he had my full attention. "His name is Jettero Heller!"There was a long, long silence in the room while I strove to get my wits around it. For seconds I thought I was having delusions, hearing wrong names. But Lom-bar just stood there smiling.
"He's the ideal choice," said Lombar when I didn't comment. "The Grand Council will believe reports signed by him. I'm told he is very competent, in a stupid sort of way. He has no training as a spy. He knows nothing of how the Apparatus is organized or works. You and he are both Academy graduates and potential friends – you talk his language." I got my wits working again. "But Jettero Heller is a bright engineer. He's been to a ton of postgraduate schools. He's way above my level. I'm all confused. If he has no spy training, if he knows nothing of the Apparatus ..."
"Have another chank-pop," said Lombar, extending the box. And as I nervously took it, I knew there was more to the news.
"Ready?" said Lombar.
I stared at him fixedly.
"Mission Earth," said Lombar, "must be designed and run to fail"I didn't get it.
"The last thing we want," said Lombar, "is an Earth invaded by and conquered by the present Voltarian government. We have our own plans of conquest for that planet. You know that and I know that. Ours will take place a long time before the official invasion. We are not the least bit interested in Blito-P3 having clean air. There are lots of planets. Blito-P3 has other uses and those uses will be made of it long before any oceans flood. For that matter, who the Devils cares about air?" I was beginning to get it now. I also got that Lombar, coming from Staphotten, a planet which has a low oxygen level, cared little about air anyway.
Lombar laughed at my dawning comprehension. It must have been very obvious. "You see, you don't give me credit for being as bright as I am." Cunning was the word for it, I thought. But I am ashamed to say that I replied, "Oh, yes I do."
"Oh, no you don't," said Lombar. "Jettero Heller must be set up to fall flat and the sooner the better. With Raht and Terb to assist and you to run it, that will be very easy to do." I didn't quite like the compliment. He noticed it.
"You're going to have to be very clever," said Lombar, a little urgently. "Jettero Heller, (bleep) his looks and skill, will not be an easy person to fool. But you are going to make sure that he fails utterly, absolutely and quietly.
"His first reports," continued Lombar, "will be his actual reports. By that time, we will have his style. Then all you have to do is keep him from progressing or getting into mischief and we will send in 'Jettero Heller reports' to our heart's content, all forged." One cloud remained. "He won't take our kidnapping of him lightly," I said. "He may refuse to cooperate."
"I'll admit the kidnapping looked like a mistake but really, it fits beautifully." He was getting into his tunic.
He went to the door and beckoned. "Come along and watch a master handle things." So I followed to begin planning Mission Earth, the mission that was carefully designed to fail.
I felt horrible.
Chapter 2
Descending into the bowels of Spiteos was, to some, like taking a trip to the infernal regions that some religions promise to the damned.
But I had always regarded it on a par with entering a monstrous den of wild animals. So I lagged behind Lombar long enough to draw a blastick from the armory. The guards are themselves criminals; I was dressed in the common gray uniform of the General Services, without rank badges; I had no status in this place: one could not only be attacked by desperate inmates, one could also be struck down and robbed by guards.
We plummeted down the tubes, the noisome stench of the place already gagging me. We exited at negative level 501. The smell was awful: they sometimes do not dispose of the remains of prisoners who have died, leaving them in the cell until it is needed for someone else – or just pitching the newcomer in with them.
A long hall with moldy wire walls stretched out before us. Behind the highly charged mesh, a few sunken eyes peered at us. In the higher levels there were the secret laboratories of the Apparatus, but here, in some of the cages, were evidences of scientific work: deformed, distorted shapes of abandoned experiments, still alive, hideous, forgotten.
Lombar, black garbed in the uniform of a general, strode along, twitching his stinger, looking neither to right nor left, deaf to the moans and pleas which marked our passage.
We turned a corner and came into a small room, dimly lit with a green light-plate. At the far end of it was an even stronger cage, not tall enough to stand in. Lombar threw a switch and the door swung open.
Jettero Heller was stretched at length upon a cold stone ledge. In the dim light I could see that he still wore the once white sport pants but someone had taken his sweater and shoes. The stab wound of the paralysis dagger had not been tended and dried blood caked his shoulder. His wrists were bound together with a pair of electric cuffs, the kind that continually sting. There were no eating dishes about so he probably had not been fed – and how long had he been here? Four days?
My Gods, I thought, how could one ever expect him to forgive such treatment?
One would have expected him to look degraded. But not so. He was simply lying calmly on the stone ledge, very relaxed and composed.
"Well, well," said Jettero Heller calmly. "The 'drunks' arrive at last." It was the Fleet's contemptuous name for the Apparatus: our insignia was supposed to be a club, a fat paddle with a handle upside-down. But the Fleet chooses to believe it is a bottle. Therefore, they call us "drunks," and this infuriates the Apparatus.
Lombar ordinarily would have struck out with an insult. And I did see his eyes flash for a brief instant.
But Lombar had other things to do. He stood at the bottom of the ledge, bent over. He managed a cheerful smile.
"So far, so good," said Lombar.
Heller just lay there, looking at him coldly.
"This has been," said Lombar, "the beginning of a test." Heller said nothing. He just looked at Lombar. It made one very uncomfortable. Too calm.
"It is necessary to see if you are up to passing standards," said Lombar, smiling. "You may find it uncomfortable, but we find it vital to pretest candidates for important jobs." The gall of him, I thought. But it was a clever approach.
"Now, Soltan here," said Lombar, with a gesture toward me, "is going to complete the tests and we will know if you have the qualifications." With that, he had the nerve to actually pat Heller on the ankle. For an instant, having seen Heller use his feet, I thought it might be a foolhardy thing to do. And then I saw that the ankles were electric cuffed to the stone.
; With a reassuring smile, Lombar left the cage. He beckoned to me and, when we were out of earshot, said, "The rest is up to you. Invent something mild, tell him he passed and then give him this." Lombar took from his pocket an official copy of the Grand Council order that authorized Mission Earth. He handed it to me. The place smelled horrible, the light was ghastly; the realization that he was dumping this on me and more, leaving me alone with Heller in the depths of Spiteos, made me feel very ill.
The Chief Executive of the Apparatus now began to revert to type. He didn't seize my lapels or hit me with the stinger. But he put his face very close to mine and his voice was deadly. "Do not arouse his suspicions! Do not let him escape!" Oh, fine! Two contrary orders in one breath! The real order would be to somehow accomplish the impossible and get Heller's cooperation. But Lombar was gone.
I went back into the cage. My Gods, the place stank. I tried to smile as I knelt beside the ledge. Heller was just looking at me calmly, too calmly.
"First," I said, "could you tell me how you spotted that the orderly was a fake?" He didn't answer. He just coolly looked at me. He must have been half-dead from hunger and thirst. The electric cuffs on his wrists and ankles must have been very painful.
"Come, come," I said, feeling like an idiot schoolmaster, "it is to your advantage to answer my questions. Then we will see if you have passed and things can be much more comfortable." For a while he just continued to look at me. Then, with his words a trifle thick from the swelling of the tongue that goes along with thirst, he said, "From your accent, you're an Academy officer, aren't you?" He shook his head a little. "What sad route brought you to the 'drunks'?" An unaccountable surge of rage hit me. Who was the prisoner here? Or wait, was he trying to forge and exploit a bond? Was he being arrogant and disdainful like Fleet officers do in the face of defeat?
My hand gripped the blastick hard enough to crush it. How dare he pity me?
My wits had been dispersed in all directions. This fellow was dangerous even to talk to. I carefully calmed myself. Indeed, who wasthe prisoner here? I looked at him very carefully and what I finally saw amazed me. He really wasn't thinking about himself. He wasn't thinking about the pain of electric cuffs or hunger or thirst. He actually felt sad that another being could fall as low as I. His question had nothing to do with himself at all! Only me.
I could have talked about myself. I could have said, "Sometimes one follows the wrong chart." I could have laid it all out for him and come to an honest understanding. How different it all might have been had I done so.
But there was Lombar like a black cloud in my sky. I wasn't courageous enough to be honest. In that moment I sealed the doom of an awful lot of people. A complete coward, I put a false smile on it. I repeated, "Come, come. Just tell me about the orderly." He was silent for a bit. Then he said, "Why should I? You'll just improve your techniques on the next kidnapping."
"No, no," I said. "This is just a test of perceptions and reactions. Purely scholastic." He shrugged. "When I came out the door and caught a whiff of him, I knew he was no Fleet orderly. In the close confines of a spaceship, a crew has been known to kill someone who never bathes or who uses scented powder. There are no smelly Fleet orderlies." I had gotten out a notebook and was making silly notes to add to the illusion. "Very good. Keen sense of smell. Anything else?" He looked at me, faintly amused. "His belt was upside-down, he had his spats on backwards and there was the bulge of a forbidden knife at the back of his neck."
"Ah, excellent," I said, pretending to write. And indeed it was excellent. I hadn't seen the knife bulge.
"But," said Jettero, "I flunked smelling the ozone that always comes from an electric whip even out of use and I did not hear your boss close the door behind me. So I flunk. I am not the fellow for your job."
"No, no, no," I said hastily. "That's for me to judge. Now let's get on with this. Why did you let that other player win?" I really wanted to know. It had puzzled me ever since I had seen it.
He looked at me as though wondering what sort of a monster I was. He didn't answer so I said, "Why did you throw the game away?" In a very patient voice, the way one explains something to a child, he said, "His sweetheart was in the stands. She had come clear from his home planet to watch him play. If he had lost, it would have shamed him in front of her."
"Oh, wait," I said. "You tossed him some balls. You were mocking him. That was far worse than just defeating him."
"That is true," said Heller. "So I had no choice except to distract attention from him by stepping outside my ring and losing the game. If you were watching, you saw it work. He kept his pride and was not shamed." I was astonished. I felt upset. Anyone in the Apparatus could tell you that it is utterly fatal not to win every time and in every place. Compassion is a fatal word! The dirtier one played, the better. And always to win, no matter what the cost to anyone.
This fellow would never make a spy. Never! Lords help him! And Lords help me as his handler!
"Great!" I cried, feeling as false as a prostitute. "You've passed with all tubes blasting! You're the very fellow for the job!"
Chapter 3
The light of the wire cage was bad, the stink was overpowering. I produced the copy of the order and with a flourish of fluttering seals, held it in front of his face.
"The Grand Council, no less," I said. "One of the most important missions of the year! And as you can see, it has been entrusted to the Exterior Division with complete autonomy and discretion." I made the paper snap importantly.
As he made no response, I summoned up the brightest voice I could in that horrible place and said, "We hadto have the best in Voltar and we have chosen you!"If this quickened any ambition in him, it was not detectable.
"I think," he said, "that you had better get me my watch." I had no idea why a watch had anything to do with it. I had to get a guard anyway to get the electric cuffs off. So I went to a wall installation and hit the buzzer.
After a while, a wrinkled cripple showed up and looked at me uncertainly. "Remove the electric cuffs from this prisoner," I ordered. "And bring some food and water. Also, bring back his possessions." Muttering that he had to get the circuit combinations, the sorry excuse for a guard limped off.
We waited and after a while the wreck came back with a metal card, a water jug and some filthy looking meal in a rusty can. I stood back, alert, while the cripple fumbled around with the card and finally removed the wrist and ankle cuffs. He put the food and water down on the filthy floor and limped off.
"Wait," I said. "Where are the prisoner's possessions?" The guard just drew further off, saying in an annoyed whine, "I'm off duty now. You'll have to buzz for the next guard." Heller was sitting up. He was cautiously sipping at the water jug, not taking too much, letting the swelling of his tongue go down. I buzzed again, cross that the first guard wouldn't even tell the next one the message.
After a lapse of half an hour or more and several buzzes sent, a huge, overbearing Calabarian came into the room. "What's all the row here?" he demanded angrily. "Buzz, buzz, buzz! Nobody can rest!" I had backed up, blastick ready. This fellow weighed at least three hundred pounds and his naked torso was a mass of knife scars. He had a face from a nightmare.
"Get this prisoner's possessions. A sweater, a pair of shoes and a watch." I turned to Heller and he nodded that that was all.
"And what service are you?" demanded the huge guard. "How do I know who you are? You ain't wearing no Apparatus uniform!"
"I'll make it worth your while," I said, acutely aware of being a mile deep and at the mercy of these thugs.
The monster seemed to nod as though that was what he had been waiting to hear. He disappeared.
Heller diffidently ate a little bit of the food. He washed it down with another swallow of water.
I twitched the Grand Council order in my hand. "This is a great opportunity," I said coaxingly.
Heller shook his head. "Wait." After a long time the big guard came back. He had a new, shallow cut under one
eye. He threw the shoes on the floor in front of Heller and slapped the sweater, now very filthy, at Heller's face. "He wasn't wearing no watch when he came in," he said.
I looked at Heller. "You wouldn't be wearing a watch in a game of bullet ball," I said.
"A friend was holding it," said Jettero. "He gave it back when I left the floor. These apes took it."
"Get his watch," I told the guard. "No watch, no pay." He snarled to himself and went off again.
The water and food were helping. Jettero stood up and I was very alert, gripping the blastick. But he just exercised his limbs a bit. Then he sat down and used a sleeve of the sweater and some of the water to sponge out the shoes: somebody else had been wearing them, they were filthy.
After a long time the huge guard came back. He had a new bruise on the side of his mouth and his knuckles were skinned. But he was holding the watch.
I had never seen a space engineer's watch before. I took it to make sure it contained no trick weapons: life in the Apparatus makes one suspicious. But it was just a big, round dial with a small hole in its face and a heavy metal band. I handed it over to Jettero. He nodded that this was it and began to put it on.
"The pay," said the guard.
I took a ten-credit note from my pocket, a pretty big sum for a guard in Spiteos.
The guard looked at it like it had kicked him. "Ten!" he snarled. "I had to pay sixty credits to redeem that watch!" He made a lunge at Jettero to grab it back.
