Bill, the Galactic Hero

by Harry Harrison

  "I don't know about the enemy, but it sure confuses me."

  "You talk like a counter-revolutionary," X screamed and levelled the revolver at Bill. The row behind Bill emptied as everyone there scurried out of the field of fire.

  "I am not! I'm as good a revolutionary as anyone here — Up the Revolution!" He gave the party salute, both hands clasped together over his head, and sat down hurriedly. Everyone else saluted too and X, slightly mollified, pointed with the barrel of his gun at a large map hung on the wall.

  "This is the objective of our cell, the Imperial Power Station on Chauvinistisk Square. We will assemble nearby in squads, then join in a concerted attack at 0016 hours. No resistance is expected as the power station is not guarded. Weapons and torches will be issued as you leave, as well as printed instructions of the correct route to the rallying points for the benefit of the Planless here. Are there any questions?" He cocked his revolver and pointed it at the cringing Bill. There were no questions. "Excellent. We will all rise and sing the hymn, 'For a Glorious Revolt.'" In a mixed chorus of voice and mechanical speech-box they sang:

  Arise ye bureaucratic prisoners,

  Revolting workers of Helior,

  Arise and Raise the Revolution,

  By fist, foot, pistol, hammer and claw!

  Refreshed by this enthusiastic and monotone exercise they shuffled out in slow lines, drawing their revolutionary supplies. Bill pocketed his printed instructions, shouldered his torch and flintlock raygun, and hurried one last time through the secret passages. There was barely enough time for the long trip ahead of him and he had to report to the G.B.I. first.

  This was easier assumed than accomplished and he began to sweat as he dialled the number again. It was impossible to get a line and even the exchanges gave a busy signal. Either the phone traffic was very heavy or the revolutionaries had already begun to interfere with the communications. He sighed with relief when Pinkerton's surly features finally filled the tiny screen. "What's up?"

  "I've discovered the name of the leader of the revolution. He is a man called X."

  "And you want a bonus for that, stupid? That information has been on file for months. Got anything else?"

  "Well — the revolution is to start at 0016 hours, I thought you might like to know." That'd show them! Pinkerton yawned.

  "Is that all? For your information that information is old information. You're not the only spy we've got, though you might be the worst. Now listen. Write this down in big letters so you won't forget. Your cell is to attack the Imperial Power Station. Stay with them as far as the Square, then look for a store with the sign KWIK-FREEZ KOSHER HAMS LTD., this is the cover for our unit. Get over there fast and report to me. Understood?"

  "Affirm." The line went dead and Bill looked for a piece of wrapping paper to tie around the torch and flintlock until the moment came to use them. He had to hurry, there was little time left before zero hour, and a long distance to cover by a very complicated route.

  "You were almost late," Ghoulem the android said when Bill stumbled into the dead-end corridor which was the assembly point.

  "Don't give me any lip, you son of a bottle," Bill gasped, tearing the paper from his burden. "Just give me a light for my torch."

  A match flared and in a moment the pitchy torches were crackling and smoking. Tension grew as the second-hand moved closer to the hour and feet shuffled nervously on the metal pavement. Bill jumped as a shrill blast sounded on a whistle, then they were sweeping up the alley in a human and inhuman wave, a hoarse cry bursting from the throats and loudspeakers, guns at the ready. Down the corridors and walkways they ran, sparks falling like rain from their torches. This was revolution! Bill was carried away by the emotion and rush of bodies and cheered as loudly as the rest and shoved his torch first at the corridor wall, then into a chair on the chairway which put the torch out, since everything in Helior is either made of metal or is fireproof. There was no time to relight it and he hurled it from him as they swept into the immense square that fronted on the power plant. Most of the other torches were out now, but they wouldn't need them here, just their trusty flintlock rayguns to blow the guts out of any filthy lackey of the Emperor who tried to stand in their way. Other units were pouring from the streets that led into the square, joining into one surging mindless mob thundering towards the grim walls of the power station.

  An electric sign blinking on and off drew Bill's attention, KWIK-FREEZ KOSHER HAMS LTD. it read — and he gasped as memory returned. By Ahriman he had forgotten that he was a spy for the G.B.I. and had been about to join a raid on the power station! Was there still time to get out before the counter-blow fell! Sweating more than a little he began working his way through the mob towards the sign — then he was at the fringes and running towards safety. It wasn't too late. He grabbed the front door handle and pulled but it would not open. In panic he twisted and shook it until the entire front of the building began to shake, rocking back and forth and creaking. He gaped at it in paralyzed horror until a loud hissing drew his attention.

  "Get over here you stupid bowb," a voice crackled and he looked up to see the G.B.I. agent Pinkerton standing at the corner of the building and beckoning to him angrily. Bill followed the agent around the corner and found quite a crowd standing there, and there was plenty of room for all of them because the building was not there. Bill could see now that the building was just a front made out of cardboard with a door handle on it, and was secured by wooden supports to the front of an atomic tank. Grouped around the armour-plated side and treads of the tank were a number of heavily armed soldiers and G.B.I. agents as well as an even larger number of revolutionaries, their clothes singed and pitted by sparks from the torches. Standing next to Bill was the android, Ghoulem.

  "You!" Bill gasped, and the android curled its lips in a carefully practised sneer.

  "That's right — and keeping an eye on you for the G.B.I. Nothing is left to chance in this organization."

  Pinkerton was peeking out through a hole in the false store-front. "I think the agents are clear now," he said, "but maybe we better wait a little longer. At last count there were agents of sixty-five spy, intelligence and counter-intelligence outfits involved in investigating this operation. These revolutionaries don't stand a chance...."

  A siren blasted from the power plant, apparently a prearranged signal because the soldiers battered at the cardboard store-front until it came loose and fell flat into the square.

  Chauvinistisk Square was empty.

  Well, not really empty. Bill looked again and saw that one man was left in the square; he hadn't noticed him at first. He was running their way but stopped with a pitiful screech when he saw what was hidden behind the store.

  "I surrender!" he shouted, and Bill saw that he was the man called X. The power plant gates opened and a squadron of flame-thrower tanks rumbled out.

  "Coward!" Pinkerton sneered, and pulled back the slide on his gun. "Don't try to back out now, X, at least die like a man."

  "I'm not X — that is just a nom-de-espionage," he tore off his false beard and moustache disclosing a twitching and uninteresting face with pronounced underbite. "I am Gill O'Teen, MA and LLD from the Imperial School of Counter-spying and Double-agentry. I was hired by this operation, I can prove it, I have documents, Prince Microcephil paid me to overthrow his uncle so he could become Emperor...."

  "You think I'm stupid," Pinkerton snapped, aiming his gun. "The Old Emperor, may he rest in eternal peace, died a year ago and Prince Microcephil is the Emperor now. You can't revolt against the man who hired you!"

  "I never read the newspapers," O'Teen alias X moaned.

  "Fire!" Pinkerton said sternly, and from all sides washed a wave of atomic shells, gouts of flame, bullets and grenades. Bill hit the dirt and when he raised his head the square was empty except for a greasy patch and a shallow hole in the pavement. Even while he watched a street-cleaning robot buzzed by and swabbed up the grease. It hummed briefly, backed up, then filled in
the shallow hole with a squirt of repair plastic from a concealed tank. When it rolled on again there was no trace of anything whatsoever.

  "Hello Bill...." a voice said that was so paralyzingly familiar Bill's hair prickled and stood up from his head like a toothbrush. He spun and looked at the squad of MPs that were standing there and especially he stared at the large, loathsome form of the MP who led them.

  "Deathwish Drang...." he breathed.

  "The same."

  "Save me!" Bill gasped running to G.B.I. agent Pinkerton and hugging him about the knees.

  "Save you?" Pinkerton laughed and kneed Bill under the jaw so that he sprawled backwards. "I'm the one who called them. We checked your record, boy, and found out that you are in a heap of trouble. You have been AWOL from the troopers for a year now, and we don't want any deserters on our team."

  "But I worked for you — helped you —"

  "Take him away," Pinkerton said, and turned his back.

  "There's no justice," Bill moaned as the hated fingers sank into his arms again.

  "Of course not," Deathwish told him, "you weren't expecting any, were you?"

  They dragged him away.

  BOOK THREE

  E = mc2 or Bust

  CHAPTER ONE

  "I want a lawyer, I have to have a lawyer! I demand my rights!" Bill hammered on the bars of the cell with the chipped bowl that they had served his evening meal of bread and water in, shouting loudly for attention. No one came in answer to his call and finally hoarse, tired and depressed, he lay down on the knobbed plastic bunk and stared up at the metal ceiling. Sunk in misery he stared at the hook for long minutes before it finally penetrated. A hook? Why a hook here? Even in his apathy it bothered him, just as it had bothered him when they gave him a stout plastic belt with a sturdy buckle for his shoddy prison dungarees. Who wears a belt with one-piece dungarees? They had taken everything from him and supplied him only with paper slippers, crumpled dungarees and a fine belt. Why? And why was there a sturdy great hook penetrating through the unbroken smoothness of the ceiling?

  "I'm saved!" Bill screamed and leaped up, balancing on the end of the bunk and whipping off the belt. There was a hole in the strap end of the belt that fitted neatly over the hook. While the buckle made a beautiful slip knot for a loop on the other end that would fit lovingly around his neck. And he could slip it over his head, seat the buckle under his ear, kick off from the bunk and strangle painfully with his toes a full foot above the floor. It was perfect.

  "It is perfect!" he shouted happily and jumped off the bunk and ran in circles under the noose going yeow-yeow-yeow by flapping his hand in front of his mouth. "I'm not stuck, cooked, through and finished. They want me to knock myself off to make things easy for them."

  This time he lay back on the bunk smiling happily and tried to think it out. There had to be a chance he could wriggle out of this thing alive, or they wouldn't have gone to all this trouble to give him an opportunity to hang himself. Or could they be playing a double, subtle game. Allowing him hope where none existed? No, this was impossible. They had a lot of attributes: pettiness, selfishness, anger, vengefulness, superiority, power-lust, the list was almost endless, but one thing was certain — subtlety was not on it.

  They? For the first time in his life Bill wondered who they were. Everyone blamed everything on them, everyone knew that they would cause trouble. He even knew from experience what they were like. But who were they? A footstep shuffled outside the door and he looked over to see Deathwish Drang glowering in at him.

  "Who are they?" Bill asked.

  "They are everyone who wants to be one of them," Deathwish said philosophically twanging a tusk. "They are both a state of mind and an institution."

  "Don't give me any of that mystical bowb! A straight answer to a straight question now."

  "I am being straight," Deathwish said at his most sincere. "They die off and are replaced, but the institution of they-ness goes on."

  "I'm sorry I asked," Bill said, sidling over so he could whisper through the bars. "I need a lawyer, Deathwish old buddy, can you find me a good lawyer?"

  "They'll appoint a lawyer for you."

  Bill made the rudest noise he possibly could. "Yeah, and we know just what will happen with that lawyer. I need a lawyer to help me. And I have money to pay him —"

  "Well why didn't you say that sooner?" Deathwish slipped on his gold-rimmed spectacles and flipped slowly through a small notebook. "I take a ten per cent commission for handling this."

  "Affirm."

  "Well — do you want a cheap honest lawyer or an expensive crooked one?"

  "I have 17,000 bucks hidden where no one can find it."

  "You should have told me that first." Deathwish closed the book and put it away. "They must have suspected this, that's why they gave you the belt and the cell with the hook. With money like that you can hire the absolute best."

  "Who is that?"

  "Abdul O'Brien-Cohen."

  "Send for him."

  And no more than two bowls of soggy bread and water had passed before there was a new footstep in the hall and a clear and penetrating voice bounced from the chill walls.

  "Salaam there boyo, faith and I've had a gesundt shtik trouble getting here."

  "This is a general court-martial case," Bill told the mild unassuming man with the ordinary face who stood outside the bars. "I don't think a civilian lawyer will be allowed."

  "Begorrah, landsman — it is Allah's will that I be prepared for all things." He whipped a bristling moustache with waxed tips out of his pocket and pressed it to his upper lip. At the same time he threw his chest back and his shoulders seemed to widen and a steely glint came to his eye and the planes of his face took on a military stiffness. "I'm pleased to meet you. We're in this together and I want you to know that I won't let you down even if you are an enlisted man."

  "What happened to Abdul O'Brien-Cohen?"

  "I have a reserve commission in the Imperial Barratry Corps. Captain A. C. O'Brien at your service. I believe the sum of 17,000 was mentioned?"

  "I take ten per cent of that," Deathwish said, sidling up. Negotiations were opened and took a number of hours. All three men liked, respected and distrusted each other so that elaborate safeguards were called for. When Deathwish and the lawyer finally left they had careful instructions about where to find the money and Bill had statements signed in blood with affixed thumbprint from each of them stating that they were members of the Party dedicated to overthrowing the Emperor. When they returned with the money Bill gave them back their statements as soon as Captain O'Brien had signed a receipt for 15,300 bucks as payment in full for defending Bill before a General Court-martial. It was all done in a businesslike and satisfying manner.

  "Would you like to hear my side of the case?" Bill asked.

  "Of course not, that has no bearing at all on the charges. When you enlisted in the troopers you signed away all your rights as a human being. They can do whatever they like with you. Your only advantage is that they are also prisoners of their own system and must abide by the complex and self-contradictory code of laws they have constructed through the centuries. They want to shoot you for desertion and have rigged a foolproof case."

  "Then I'll be shot!"

  "Perhaps, but that's the chance we have to take."

  "We—? You going to be hit by half the bullets?"

  "Don't get snotty when you're talking to an officer, bowb. Abide in me, have faith, and hope they make some mistakes."

  After that it was just a matter of marking time until the trial. Bill knew it was close when they gave him a uniform with a Fusetender First Class insignia on the arm. Then the guard tramped up, the door sprang open and Deathwish waved him out. They marched away together and Bill exacted what small pleasure he could from changing step to louse up the guard. But once through the door of the courtroom he took a military brace and tried to look like an old campaigner with his medals clanking on his chest. There was an empty chair nex
t to a polished, uniformed and very military Captain O'Brien.

  "That's the stuff," O'Brien said. "Keep up with the G.I. bit, outplay them at their own game."

  They climbed to their feet as the officers of the Court filed in. Bill and O'Brien were seated at the end of the long, black plastic table, and at the far end sat the Trial Judge Advocate, a grey-haired and stern looking Major who wore a cheap girdle. The ten Officers of the Court sat down at the long side of the table where they could scowl out at the audience and the witnesses.

  "Let us begin," the Court President, a bald-headed and pudgy Fleet Admiral, said with fitting solemnity. "Let the trial open, let justice be done with utmost dispatch and the prisoner be found guilty and shot."

  "I object," O'Brien said, springing to his feet. "These remarks are prejudicial towards the accused who is innocent until proven guilty —"

  "Objection overruled." The President's gavel banged. "Counsel for the Defence is fined 50 bucks for unwarranted interruption. The accused is guilty, the evidence will prove it and he will be shot. Justice will be served."

  "So that's the way they are going to play it," O'Brien murmured to Bill through half-closed lips. "I can play them any way as long as I know the ground rules."

  The Trial Judge Advocate had already begun his opening statement in a monotonous voice.

  "...therefore we shall prove that Fusetender First Class Bill did wilfully overstay his officially granted leave by a period of nine days and thereafter resist arrest and flee from the arresting officers and successfully elude pursuit, whereupon he absented himself for the period of over one standard year, so is therefore guilty of desertion...."

  "Guilty as hell!" one of the court officers shouted, a red-faced cavalry major with a black monocle, springing to his feet and knocking over his chair. "I vote guilty — shoot the bugger!"

  "I agree, Sam," the President drawled, tapping lightly with his gavel, "but we have to shoot him by the book, take a little while yet."