Mission Earth 09 - Villainy Victorious

by Villainy Victorious [lit]

  He abandoned time calculation. He just yanked the strip ahead at random and hoped he was before the start point he wanted.

  He got the afternoon "Family Hour." There was a picture of a woman rocking a child and crooning while the commentator went on and on about the joys of moth­erhood.

  Madison stole a glance at Hisst but Hisst was just sit­ting there, eyes upon the screen. Madison couldn't fig­ure the reaction.

  The commentator said that you should never feed a child anything but mother's milk so that "what gets indrawn with sweet nourishment carries with it, on this channel of deliciousness, a soft and vibrant flow of love and family."

  Madison wished desperately he knew how to fast-forward the strip. He glanced at Hisst to see how he was taking it: the yellow eyes, aside from their ever-present flicker of insanity, were unreadable.

  The picture showed a lot of shots of strange animals rutting in dirt and the announcer condemned all beast milk as imparting only lust and greed, and wound up in style.

  Now there came a series of views of ancient build­ings. SCHOOLS! Oh, thank heavens, this was finally the start of the program they had just enacted.

  A rather nasal commentator voice was running along with a history of schools and began to show those which had been named after members of the Royal family and even Emperors.

  Madison cast a covert glance at Hisst. He was just sitting there in his gaudy scarlet Apparatus general's full-dress uniform, more like a brutish Devil than a man. One couldn't tell what he was thinking.

  Then suddenly the part that Madison had been wait­ing for came on. "... but times change and the parade of power across the stage of history can ever glitter to new heights. Yesterday it was determined by Lord Snor, Lord of the Interior, acting through the Master of Palace City, to celebrate our dedication to fineness and decency in tomorrow's noblemen and courtiers and celebrate as well the glory and dedication of our magnificent and relentless protector of the realm, Lombar Hisst, Spokes­man of the Emperor..." Madison thought the text was absolutely great, for, after all, he had written it himself; but he didn't quite like the trumpet fanfare: it sounded more like razzmatazz. He glanced anxiously at Hisst to see how he was taking it but Madison could get no reac­tion at all!

  "... by changing the name of the Page Royal School to the Hisst Royal School."

  God, thought Madison, he isn't even blinking. He's just sitting there! Can't he see I've built in a name asso­ciation so people will think of him as Royal? Yet, no sign.

  There were pictures of the school and past classes, then a picture of the school as it had been today. (Bleep)! It looked a bit shabbier! It was a round pillbox of a build­ing enclosing a hidden sports field; big enough, but some of the blue and red ropes, in stone, had gaps in them and there was even a broken window!

  But the cameraman, even though his camera was unsteady, had opened up the view and there were the two lines of waiting Lords!

  Martial music!

  And here came Hisst striding along to go between the twin lines of waiting Lords, each Lord flanked by a son or a page. They were pretty drugged-up Lords but at this distance one missed it.

  NOW, right here, this was the tricky part! If the cameraman erred in any way, Madison was dead, dead, dead!

  Hisst strode between the two lines.

  THE FIRST ONES BOWED!

  Then, as Hisst passed, there was bow and bow and bow. The sons and pages were tugging at their sleeves and every Lord was bowing very low.

  Madison was watching so closely he was almost los­ing his eyeballs. One slightest slip of that camera and he would be executed! And the cameraman had been drunk!

  Hisst was through the lines. But it wasn't over yet. Hisst would be walking that path again presently at Madison's utmost peril.

  On the screen, Hisst stepped into the path of the illu­sion projector. A technician turned it on. And the elec­tronic illusion of Hisst, two hundred feet tall, like a gigantic red Devil, seemed to pat the top of the school and the speakers boomed out as he blessed it.

  Screams of cheers racketed. Totally and only boys, and piping and shrill. Were some of them more like ani­mal calls?

  One could not tell what Hisst, there at his desk, thought of any of it. No client reaction! Had Hisst seen something Madison had missed? Oh, pray the Lord, no!

  Hisst was walking back now. The martial music banged and throbbed. Once more he had to pass between the lines of the waiting Lords.

  Would they bow?

  Would the cameraman slip?

  Ah, the first two Lords bowed, then the second two, then the third pair.... Madison was watching every inch of that way like a hawk-or more like a chicken that any instant could get its head cut off.

  Every pair of Lords bowed!

  Hisst climbed into his local ground car on the screen.

  The scene shifted to a cathedral and the announcer said, "We will now bring you to Casterly Church for afternoon vespers."

  It was over.

  Madison, however, knew that his own trial was not. The client may or may not have detected something Madison had not seen. The client reaction was every­thing!

  Lombar roused himself. He pointed at the screen and said, "Play that again!" Was he angry? Was he pleased? Had he suspected?

  Madison suffered the agonies of the damned while the strip ran through once more.

  Then Lombar uttered a shuddering sigh. He said, "They bowed to me."

  Then he sat there for a while.

  Then he said, "They bowed to me, Lombar Hisst, a commoner."

  Then he shook his head. He said, "If I hadn't been there myself, I would never credit it!"

  Then he sort of rotated his head and blinked his eyes and said, "Lords? Bowing to a commoner?" Then, "It's never happened before in the whole 125,000 years of Vol­tar history!"

  Then he was blinking rapidly. "It can only mean one thing. They knew about the angels!"

  "Well, I wouldn't count on them bowing all the time," said Madison. "After all, we have to prepare the minds of the people to eventually accept you as Emperor."

  "Yes," said Hisst. "Yes. We have to prepare their minds." And he was off into some daydream, spinning in who-knew-what part of the universe.

  Madison let him spin for a little while but, after all, this was a client and he had to close.

  "So you can now honor your promise to me," said Madison. "An unlimited budget and a totally free hand."

  That brought Lombar out of his spin. He fixed Madison with a stare. The yellow lights in his yellow eyes were strange. "You can't have a budget. Only a department or section can have a budget. And it would take a Royal order to create a new one." He checked him­self. He must never come so close to saying that there is no emperor or seal back of that door. "His Majesty is far too ill."

  "But you promised unlimited funds!" said Madison. "You said if the Lords bowed..."

  Lombar was shaking his head, annoyed. "Why are you making me listen to you? I don't have to listen to people."

  "It's because the people have to listen," said Madi­son. "To BELIEVE you should be Emperor, they have to listen and I have to see that they listen to the right things and get whipped up about it. It will take PR and it will take time to create the favorable climate. And PR costs MONEY!"

  "Money," said Lombar. "I can only authorize pay. That's why nobody gets paid much in the Apparatus. I can't authorize budgets for departments that don't exist!"

  "Then," said Madison, "as you are a man of your word and worthy to be Emperor because of that, author­ize unlimited pay."

  "WHAT?"

  "You saw the Lords bow."

  Lombar suddenly blinked and began to nod, sort of bowing himself. Madison slid his identoplate across the desk. He saw a basket of forms and found "Change of Pay." He wrote "UNLIMITED" on it and slid it to Lombar.

  Lombar looked at it and then filled it out and stamped it with Madison's identoplate and then found his own in his hand and stamped again.

  Madison alrea
dy had the other order written and he slid it under Lombar's identoplate and it came down on it. The order said:

  J. Walter Madison, in all matters of PR, is to have an absolutely free hand with material, equip­ment and personnel, and no further authoriza­tion required.

  Lombar Hisst

  Chief of the Apparatus and Spokesman for His Majesty, Cling the Lofty.

  Madison knew the man was hooked now in more ways than one. It was time to split with his spoils.

  He got out into the hall and out of sight and then leaned weakly against a door, for he felt his knees would give way.

  It was an awfully good thing Hisst never listened to anybody.

  And who would tell him anyway?

  In fact, who knew what the swindle was? Everyone else, watching, would have thought Hisst would know.

  The cameraman had made it! He had not missed.

  Right back of Hisst, in the golden dress of a page, amongst the crowd of boys, had come Teenie!

  In the whole walk in and the whole walk out, she had been right back of Hisst, but cut out of the frame.

  The Lords had been alerted by their pages.

  They had been bowing to Queen Teenie, not to Lom­bar Hisst!

  Madison's knees stopped shaking.

  He clutched his goodies to his bosom and sped out of the palace.

  Though distant still, victory beckoned loud and clear just over the horizon.

  HE HAD HIS CHANCE AT HELLER!

  Wild exultation began to pound through him as he finally believed himself that it was true!

  HE WAS THE ABSOLUTE CZAR OF PR ON VOLTAR!

  Lombar seemed to have forgotten about him. The chief went over to the Homeview and fed the strip back in. He sat down on a stool before it, cushioned his jaw in his cupped hands and began to watch it again.

  PART SEVENTY-FOUR

  Chapter 1

  Teenie, standing in the door of her palace, still clothed in the golden page's costume she had worn while walking back of Lombar, received Madison's ebullient good news somewhat grimly. She looked at the authori­zations and gave them back.

  "All right, all right, Madison. We've got it this far. Now you better start delivering. You can't hang around here and get anything done now. I want Gris's head and I want it bad-rotting preferred. So roll up your sleeves and start sweating!"

  The look she gave him was so meaningful and the pop of her bubblegum so explosive that Madison hastily left. She might suspect that this really was a double cross. He wasn't after Gris at all-his real target was Heller-Wister, for only in that way could he come right with Mr. Bury. With Heller-Wister fully handled on Vol­tar, Madison could only then return to Earth a conquer­ing hero-and not be shot as a deserter.

  He hoped Teenie realized that PR was intricate and complex and wasn't done in a minute. The thing to keep your attention on was thoroughness-and GETTING HEADLINES!

  Madison knew the image he would have to complete: it was that of a folk hero on the model of Jesse James, and how well he was researched in such images now-in the yacht he had travelled all over studying famous out­laws. Heavens, he fairly ached to put it into effect.

  He knew just how to attain results: Coverage, Con­troversy and Confidence.

  What he lacked here on Voltar were Connections, another C which he had always had on Earth.

  Well, first things first. He had better get organized. He didn't even have a secretary, much less a string of obedient editors and publishers. Money. That was what he better start with first.

  As he climbed into his airbus, he said to Flick, "How do I get my identoplate changed? Where do I go?"

  "You going to get PAID? Oh, you just lie back on the seat there and relax and I'll have you to the Govern­ment City Finance Office twice as fast as this junk heap will go!"

  They took off in a blur. They rushed through the Palace City gates, outbound, so fast Madison hardly had time to get nauseated from the time shift to thirteen min­utes earlier.

  As he drove frantically across the Great Desert, Flick said, "Oh, but am I tired of eating stale sweetbuns out of garbage pails like we been doing! You also owe me a pack of puffsticks. And I know a rooming house where we can get a room real cheap. Do you feel all right? Are you comfortable? Should I turn on some music?"

  Madison was not paying much attention. He was try­ing to work out how he would go about setting up in such unknown terrain. Then he got off into headlines that kept drifting through his head: 18 point, FLEET OFFICER GOES RENEGADE but he kept discarding them. They were sort of pale and lacked punch. He real­ized this would require a lot of careful planning to really make it good. He had no support troops, he had no lines and the fact that these people on Voltar were ignorant of real PR was both a blessing and a curse. Every trick of the trade would be brand-new to them, but on the other hand, there were no traditional supports. It was sort of like a man approaching a virgin: the question was, how willing would she be to be raped?

  His thinking was interrupted by Flick. The driver had gotten out, opened Madison's door and was now anxiously cautioning him not to trip on the ramp as he alighted. Madison was startled to see how much time had elapsed. They were at the Finance Department.

  Following the anxious directions of Flick, Madison went by himself through the scurrying crowds and came shortly to a counter which had a sign:

  Identoplate Changes

  A bored clerk, in a working coverall to protect his suit, finished downgrading the pay of a disgruntled teacher who had been transferred to a lesser school and turned to Madison. Without interest, he examined the papers. He reached over for his plate-changing machine and then suddenly looked back at the form.

  "UNLIMITED PAY?" He went boggle-eyed. He hastily pushed buzzers and Madison found himself sur­rounded on every hand by Finance Department Security Police.

  An officer took the Change of Pay form through a door while the others just stood and stared at Madison. The officer could be seen punching buttons and turning on lights that apparently verified codes hidden in iden­toplates.

  When he came back, he held on to the form and waited. It made Madison very nervous.

  Shortly, an old man with a Finance Department executive badge came behind the counter and the officer gave him the form.

  "I can't understand it," the officer said. "It's genu­ine."

  "This is impossible!" said the aged executive. "Un­limited pay status? He could buy the planet!"

  "Well, it's your business now," said the officer, and at a signal all the Finance Police left. But all along the counters, the word had spread and clerks and others were peering at Madison and whispering.

  Another executive came behind the counter and the first one handed him the form and said, "Gods, look at this, Cipho. That guy Hisst gets crazier every day! It's a valid order. But what do we do?"

  Cipho said, "What allocations would it come out of? Let me see the other papers."

  They examined them minutely. They conferred. Madison got very nervous. He said, "Is there something wrong?"

  The first executive looked at him. "We can't deter­mine what budget it comes out of. Your rank is PR man, whatever that is, and it's in the Apparatus. Your pay status says No Pay-P, so that means you were to be attached to Palace City. Hisst signed this authorization not only as Chief of the Apparatus but also as Spokes­man for His Majesty, so that would make it Royal. We can't determine which letter designation to put after the new pay status. I'm afraid you will have to come back."

  Madison's stomach rumbled. He thought of his image with Flick. He thought of Teenie's meaningful look. He thought of his anxiety to get started. "Is there no way it can be done now?"

  "Well, it's dangerous," said Cipho. "You might over­draw somebody's budget. You might decide to buy Indus­trial City or something and then you'd jam all our com­puters."

  "What kind of money is in those budgets?" said Madison desperately.

  They went in the other room and came back. Cipho said, "The Apparatus is nearly
overdrawn because of the revolt on Calabar. Palace City is nearly empty now, so its allocation is only 50 percent utilized. The Royal expendi­tures have dropped to almost nothing."

  "Money," begged Madison. "How much money is in them?"

  "There's a billion Palace City that won't be used and about four billion Royal."

  Madison's hopes soared. "Look, just give me a pay status on all three."

  "Hmm," said Cipho.

  "Look," said Madison, putting on his most earnest and sincere face, "I am a reasonable man. If I guarantee to advise you if I intend to draw more than a billion at any one time and confer with you, will you make it a pay status for all three? That way it would only debit from existing funds."

  "You'd have to put it in writing," glowered Cipho.

  "It would keep the computers from locking up," said the first executive. "Give him some paper."

  They got the signed and stamped undertaking and marked his identoplate Pay Status: Unlimited-APR.

  Madison accepted it with a very straight face. Never in his whole career had he ever had a billion-dollar draw­ing account! Oh, what he could do with that!

  They had the look of men who had bested him. And he was very solemn as he walked away.

  A BILLION-DOLLAR DRAWING ACCOUNT!

  Chapter 2

  On the way out, Madison put his new identoplate to use. At the cash-withdrawal counter the pretty girl there looked at the identoplate and stared at him round-eyed. "Unlimited pay status?" she gulped. "How... how much cash do you want?"

  Madison gave her the first figure that came into his head. "Oh, fifty thousand for now."

  She scratched her head. "That will be an awful wad. It will ruin the shape of your suit. Wait right there. I'll see if we have some thousands."

  She came back with a neat pack and while she was stamping things, Madison looked at the banknotes. It was the first time he had seen any Voltar money up close. It was gold-colored paper, quite pretty. It sparkled. He petted it. Very nice.

  "You wouldn't have some idle time tonight, would you?" asked the girl hopefully.