by Ron Hubbard
"Now, there is some question about the next part as it is said that the Assistant Lord of Education for Manco did it – at least she said so at her trial. But those children were taught to murder and at every job they murdered every guard, some of them pretty horribly.
"The Domestic Police turned her over secretly to the Apparatus: that's how these things work. And she has been here at Spiteos for nearly three years." It was all right to give him details. If I got him to Blito-P3, by the time he returned here everything would be changed anyway. "In those three years, she has murdered three guards. The first simply reached for her hair, probably to stroke it. She had a whip in her hand: she took the butt of it and jammed it straight through his heart.
"A few months later, one of the toughest beasts in Spiteos whispered something in her ear – nobody knows what. She seized him around the back, put her head under his chin and pulled. His back snapped in three places and it took him about four days to die.
"Just two months ago, right down there in the training area, she was teaching one of our toughest special agents a new twist on hand-to-hand combat. Probably in a teasing movement, but not even that, most likely, he made an improper gesture. You know, she wears those thigh boots and jacket but nothing else – factually I don't think she has anything else except some work coveralls she wears to handle big lizards that have scrapey skins. Witnesses say he didn't even touch her and others say he did reach her crotch. Heller, just using the edge of her hand, she broke his arm! Then he called her a stinking whore. They say that, without the faintest trace of emotion, she said, 'I am a virgin and you will apologize' and without waiting for any answer, she broke his jaw. And that isn't the worst of it. She stamped him! She just stamped him on and on. Heller, there wasn't an unbroken bone left in that fellow's body! I didn't see the others, but I did see this fellow afterwards and he looked like red paste!
"The only one that can hit her and get away with it is Lombar Hisst." Heller showed his first interest. "You mean the Chief Executive of the Apparatus has hit her?"
"We're all terrified of him and with very ample reason. After all, he's ..." I checked myself. I had almost said "The most powerful official in the Voltarian Confederacy" but that wasn't quite true yet and would give things away. So I said, "... too dangerous." Heller seemed to be very thoughtful now. So I really drove it home. "Jettero – and I can call you Jettero, can't I? I am a brother officer and have a personal feeling, too. I have got to get you off this planet alive. I have got to do my duty with regard to Mission Earth. And listen, Jettero, you go fooling around with the Countess Krak, making remarks like you did today, getting funny ideas about her and, well, I don't care how good you are with hand-to-hand, you will be one very dead Jettero Heller.
"You steer clear of the Countess Krak! There may be others that don't want this mission to succeed, but this afternoon they took the rear seat. The primary danger you're courting right this moment consists of making passes at that female. Now, I know it is lonely in space and that you're just back from a long trip and all that. But the Countess Krak is death incarnate! Stay away!" I laughed a bit to take the sting out of the order. "After all, it will be hard enough to get you off this planet without that! Now we won't say any more about it." Heller sat there for a while. I could see he was thinking about something very hard. I respected his silence. It was obvious he had a problem now for I could see him gnawing at it.
"There's one thing I can't remember," said Jettero.
I was all attention, inviting his confidence.
He looked at me searchingly. I could see he was deeply troubled, even perplexed. "Would you say her eyes were gray? Or are they pale blue?" I gave it up in disgust. I got him back to the room. I had other important things to do anyway.
Chapter 6
Lombar always said that when you let an underling get away with something and did not punish him severely, you yourself would shortly be in trouble. I considered this very wise.
I could sense that I myself was walking on a very thin crust and, without any doubt whatever, I was headed for trouble. Therefore, it was obvious that I had not properly handled underlings. Before things got further out of hand, I knew I had to punish that platoon commander. His conduct while "guarding" Heller was unforgivable!
So as soon as I had stuffed down some moldy bread – what passes for food at Spiteos – I headed for Camp Endurance. And when I got through, it would have another reason to be nicknamed "Camp Kill." The fortress is connected to the camp by an underground tunnel about a mile and a half long. Traffic with the outside world, for Spiteos, had Camp Endurance as its terminal: any overflight of the area or any inspection for that matter, found only the sprawling camp; it's traffic being justified by the "training activities" it conducted.
We tried to keep traffic to a minimum but there was plenty of it just the same. The tunnel traffic was very heavy tonight. The outgoing zipbus I caught was halted for a good twenty minutes in the middle of the dark tunnel, parked on a turnout, letting incoming transports through to Spiteos.
The view I had from the zipbus was restricted, limited to a small diamond window beside the seat; the lights were bad but they flashed upon the sides of the incoming vehicles in a green blur.
Plenty of traffic! I wondered what was up. I caught the flick of high-rank flags. I was battered by the roar of heavy-armored trucks. The air disturbance of escort tanks was like a blastcannon and hurt my ears.
Something was certainly up! I yelled up to the half-naked zipbus driver, "Is there a general alert?" But my voice was drowned in tunnel roars and I had to repeat it louder.
He heard me and yelled back, "Ain't none I know about. That first lot was incoming freight with guard tanks. This stuff now is just staff cars – a bunch of (bleeping) bigwigs. You can't never tell what them (bleepards) is up to." The driver hadn't turned around until he said the last. He did now and abruptly realized he was talking to an officer. He went white with shock and whipped back, looking rigidly straight.
Riffraff, I thought. Lombar is right. Trash like this driver ought to be exterminated. But I didn't take it up. I was too impatient to get at that platoon commander.
We finally got to the Camp Endurance outlet and went through the heavy security barricade. There had never been an escape from Spiteos but this would be the logical route – all other Spiteos exits were sealed solid with stone.
The black-uniformed barricade guards double-checked my identoplate, holding blasters pointed at me the while. A gray service uniform is suspect always but I was (bleeped) if I would ever don the shabby black of the Apparatus troops.
The platoon commander who had been assigned with his men to guard Heller was named Snelz. He and his platoon were barracked in Camp Endurance but sent their guard details into the fortress for duty watches. As I did not want Snelz alerted, I said I was just going to the camp club. I knew where Snelz had his quarters.
The officers lived in small bunkers, like animal caves, along the north side of the camp, dug into the hill. It was pretty dark along there. Scraps of music and echoes from a brawl seeped up from the camp along with a fetid stink.
I saw the cave number ahead. There was a light leak underneath the closed door so Snelz would be there. A couple of big boulders stood beside the entrance. And I am afraid my attention was so thoroughly on the light leak that I didn't see the sentry.
Apparatus troops may parade and all that but they are not like the Army. Criminals, the worst riffraff of the planets, they tend to hide even on casual duty. It is either a trait they get from the Apparatus or the Apparatus gets from them. They never do anything straightforward.
They also have entirely different regulations. They can be killed by their officers without censure. This places any guard in a quandary. He either tries to do his duty of protecting his superior – and maybe die in that – or he fails to protect his officer and the officer kills him.
This one made a mistake: he played it for his officer. When I was eight feet from that do
or, expecting nothing, the sentry leaped up and lunged in full attack!
I am pretty fast. Otherwise I would have died in my tracks!
The blastgun barrel was into my stomach with violence!
I hardly even saw the man behind it.
With a roll to the side I made the barrel shoot by. I brought my right hand down on the back of the sentry's neck!
He staggered and it gave me my chance.
As he fell, I snatched the gun barrel and got the weapon out of his hands.
His boots drove at my shins and I reeled with the impact.
A green beam of light from the camp flashed as a distant vehicle turned. I saw clearly for the first time that it was a sentry and not an assassin.
But you can't let someone get away with that! Not an attack on an officer.
I reversed the gun and drove the butt against his skull! There was a dull, crushing sound. I hit again just to make sure. He lay there bleeding. He didn't move.
So far, good. And now for Snelz.
The thick door would have masked the sounds of the fight. I stepped over the sentry's body and approached. The thing to do in such a situation, where one is trying to enforce authority and gain respect is play it very bold.
I simply opened the door and walked in. Such a casual act would make him think it was a friend.
He must have. He was sitting at the table in his shirt sleeves, playing twelve-sided dice with himself. Over in a bunk, sleeping peacefully, was one of the camp prostitutes; her clothes lay all over the floor and she looked exhausted. The place stank of spent passion.
When one is really trained, one can reconstruct a situation in a fraction of a second. Snelz had had money.
The first thing he had done was call in a prostitute. He was practicing with six twelve-sided dice so the next thing he planned to do was call in at what they laughingly called a "club" and try to clean out his fellow guard officers to make up what the prostitute had cost him.
Snelz looked up casually, thinking probably that it was some friend intent on getting a loan. He suddenly registered who it was and went white!
Now, duels between officers are not unknown. But Apparatus officers are such swine, they don't duel. They simply murder. And where a General Services officer is concerned, when it comes to a fight with Apparatus troop commanders, they don't even bother to count the bodies.
My face told him why I was there. He raised his left hand in a defensive position as if it could ward off a shot. He almost screamed: "I can explain. . . ."
"Platoon Commander Snelz," I said, for I might as well make this execution official, "you are guilty of fraternizing with a prisoner you were ordered to guard. Apparatus Regulation 564-B-61 Section D. The penalty, as you well know, is death." Unlike civilian life or the Fleet or Army, there are no trials in the Apparatus. Ordinarily he would have simply accepted it. But something had gotten into him.
He stabbed a hand toward his belt! I was certain he was going to draw and shoot.
Well, I am not slow. I wouldn't have lived as I have if I could be outdrawn.
My own hand leaped, with no thought from me, to my breast pocket and the blastick was out and levelled at him before he had hardly touched his belt.
The field of fire took in the prostitute on the bunk behind him and 800 kilovolts would kill her, too. But it wasn't any time for niceties.
I pressed the switch-trigger!
The blastick pin made only a faint pop!
No explosion!
I was holding a dud-loaded blastick! It was a very bad moment. I had no other weapon. I could not reach him to strike or kick. I was defenseless!
He was still scrabbling at his belt and my heart almost stopped as he lifted his fingers. I was quite certain I was dead!
But he was holding two ten-credit notes! He had not been drawing out a weapon. He had been trying to get at money!
Had he heard the switch-trigger fall on a dud load?
No, he had not!
He was holding out the two ten-credit notes and he moved sideways from the chair and fell on his knees. "Please, Officer Gris. Please! Don't kill me!" There was a big stungun lying on a bench not three feet from his reach. I am well schooled. I let no sign of my emotions show. I toughed it out.
"I was just following your orders, Officer Gris. I wasn't fraternizing with a prisoner. You said the prisoner mustn't suspect he was being guarded. You said to make it look like he was under protection from outside threat!" He was bobbing up and down, head lowered, holding out the two ten-credit notes. His hand was shaking like a loose wing on an atmosphere plane.
The prostitute had awakened. She pulled her dirty hair away from her face with a filthy hand. She didn't take it in at all. "Hey, don't give away no money! You can buy another (bleep)!" Snelz crawled forward, head down. He laid the two ten-credit notes at my feet and scuttled back. He crouched there, all curled in on himself, trying to give a crossed-arm salute while kneeling on the floor.
Ridiculous. All he had to do was reach out and grab the stungun and shoot me. A stupid (bleepard).
I said, "How much money did Heller give you? And for what?" Snelz whimpered. "He gave me fifty credits for sweetbuns and sparklewater, to buy them at the camp store. Oh, and also for papers. He didn't bribe me to do anything else. He said he might need something later but as for the fifty, I could buy something for my men and keep the change." He looked up and clasped his hands under his chin. "We haven't been paid for ages. I didn't realize you would want your share. Don't kill me. I won't forget again! Please!" Any reply I had was interrupted by the prostitute. She scuttled across the floor and made a grab for the twenty credits at my feet. I stamped a boot heel on her hand. The bones snapped!
She gave a scream and went running naked out of the door. Outside she stumbled over something and gave another scream. She came rushing back into the room, completely dazed, not knowing where she was going. "He killed the sentry!" She cowered back in the corner of the cave, gripping her broken hand, too demented to realize all she should have done was run away.
Snelz gave a glance toward the outside darkness. With all this screaming, other officers might well come rushing over. Before he could get up too much hope and realize he had a gun within reach and that I was holding a dud, I thought I'd better finish this.
"Snelz," I said, and had his gaze riveted upon me at once with the tone I used, "you have reminded me that you were in fact executing an order. However, you were doing it in far too friendly a fashion." He seized upon it. "I did it to get his promise," he said in a hopeful rush of words. "He gave me his word as a Royal officer, he would let me or my men know where he was at all times. He said he knew I had a tough job and that he'd make it easy for me. I actually persuaded him to fully cooperate. And Officer Gris, that's the word of a Royal officer,not like that of Apparatus people." It was a slur, really. He obviously included me in "Apparatus people." He recognized his mistake. He wailed, "I'll give you your share after this! Please don't kill me!" I had been edging over toward the stungun. I was now blocking the route to his reaching it.
"I'll execute my orders faithfully!" said Snelz. "I'll keep him cooperating. He won't suspect he's a prisoner and he won't escape. I pledge my life on it." He thought for a moment to see if there was anything else. There was. "I'll give you half whatever I get from him!" As I now did not have to back down because I was defenseless, I decided to be magnanimous. "All right. If you do that faithfully, you can have your life." His relief was obvious. "You won't be sorry, Officer Gris. Can I get up now?" I put the dud blastick back in my pocket. I pulled the charge out of his stungun and threw it back down on the bench. A close one!
He went outside and pulled the sentry back toward the light of the cave. He checked to see if he was dead. "You certainly squashed his skull," said Snelz. "But he isn't dead. Can I have one of those ten-credit notes back? The camp doctors will want six to fix his head and another four to repair the whore's hand." The nerve of him. The going charge for both would be
under five. But I kicked one of the notes over to him and then, as an afterthought, picked up the other one and put it in my pocket.
The whole thing had been so messy, I was gloomy all the way back to Spiteos. I could not for the life of me figure out what had gone wrong with the blastick. Obviously it was the one Heller's friends had sent him in the baggage for I had expertly put the dud armory one in his boot. I couldn't figure why his friends would send him a dud-loaded weapon. Of course, when you get them off the shelf, they have a dummy load in them. And it came to me that he simply, stupidly had not loaded the weapon.
Riding the zipbus back, I was almost at the Spiteos end before I recalled that he had adjusted my face patches. But he was not that clever. And I would have felt the blastick leave my pocket if he had shifted back.
I was all out of sorts. Things were not going right at all. But one thing I knew for sure: I was not going to be left standing, holding a dud weapon in a bluff again. Even coming back, unarmed, through the camp tonight had been a risk I had no right to take, what with Lombar counting on me.
It was very late but I went straight to the armory. The old cretin that runs the place slept inside. I unlocked the top half of the door with my identoplate and yelled into the darkness. After three tries, the lights went on and the old fool came fumbling up to the counter, half-asleep.
"What the Devils do you mean, waking me up?" he snarled.
I was in no mood for this. I reached my hand over the lower part of the door and tripped the latch. I sent the bottom section slamming into his stomach!
I was inside in a second and before he could recover, I hit him with a backhand. He fell and I let him have a boot. "When you are talking to me, show some respect!" He lay there on the floor. So I picked my way along the shelves. I got down a stungun and holster. I picked up two blasticks and a case of cartridges. Then I saw some Knife Section knives and neck scabbards and took a set.
