by Ron Hubbard
She pushed her hand against her chest. “Oh, my poor ticker!”
The effort had been too much for her. She slumped down. Heller picked up her feet and put her back into bed. Then he gathered up the kit, sniffed curiously at the empty cylinder and then put it all back in her suitcase.
She was asleep. I knew the cycle of withdrawal. She was entering the second stage of it: she was going into what would be a restless, fitful sleep.
Heller looked at her for a bit. Then he inspected the room. The air conditioning was running and he didn’t touch it. The TV had a sign that said:
Not After Midnight, Please
He left it alone.
He stripped and examined his feet. The shoes were giving him blisters. He opened a bag and took out a small medical kit. Aha! Voltarian! A Code break! Then I saw it was just a plain little white box with some unmarked jars of salve. I put it down anyway.
He put some on the blisters and put the kit back in the suitcase, and this time he opened it wider! Hey, it wasn’t full of rocks the way it was supposed to be! It was full of equipment? I couldn’t really see as it was opened against the light and he didn’t look. I made a note that this was a very probable Code break! Those two suitcases must be full of Voltarian gear! No wonder they were so heavy!
Heller turned back the bed and started to get in. Then he changed his mind, got up and got out his little notebook and pen.
He wrote: Got to have a diploma before anyone will listen to you. Then he wrote: Psychology is fake. It can’t do anything or change anybody. It is the government tool of population control.
I fumed! Now he was writing heresy! Oh, the International Psychological Association would get him! Fry his brains with every electric shock machine they could put on him! They are very adamant in protecting their monopoly.
Then he wrote: Somebody is selling some drug on this planet that kills people.
Well, anybody knows that! I scoffed. He actually thought he had discovered something bright! The doctors push it. The psychologists push it. The government keeps the price up. And the Mafia and Rockecenter and a lot of other people get rich. And why not? The population is all riffraff anyway.
But then he did something I really noted. He made a little V mark at the end of each line he had written so far! Now I may have flunked math at the Academy but I do know the symbols. And that check is the mark used in logic equations! It means “Pertinent factor to be employed in a rationality deduction theorem.” I had him! He was using a Voltarian math symbol right there in plain sight. A total Code break. I made an emphatic note of it!
If they didn’t get him, I would!
He fiddled with the lights and figured out how to turn them off.
My screen went dark and, shortly, his even breathing told me he was asleep.
Chapter 6
It had been a long day for me. I got up and was about to pour myself a nice cold glass of sira when a sudden thought struck me, possibly stimulated by seeing him write.
He had given me a letter to mail! I hadn’t inspected it!
It’s always a pleasure to read, secretly, other people’s mail. I deserved some recompense for not having been able to witness his arrest — even though I knew it would be very soon.
I got the letter out of my tunic, thinking it was probably some mushy note addressed to the Countess Krak — and wouldn’t she be on her ear if she knew Heller was sleeping in a secret bedroom with a diseased whore!
I got the envelope squared around and over to the light. It was official green!
My hair stood on end!
It was addressed to:
CAPTAIN TARS ROKE
HIS MAJESTY’S OWN ASTROGRAPHER
PALACE CITY, VOLTAR
VOLTAR CONFEDERACY
URGENT OFFICIAL LONG LIVE THEIR MAJESTIES
He had a line to Roke!
I managed to concentrate through the shock. When had he put this in? And then I recalled that Captain Tars Roke had been at the farewell party! And Heller had talked to him for some time. I hadn’t been alert because I had been foully duped into taking that confounded speed, that amphetamine Methedrine! It had been a plot!
I calmed myself. Now, let’s see: Lombar had told me that Heller would be sending in reports to the Grand Council. I was supposed to intercept them, learn how to forge them and send them on. Only then could I safely do away with Heller!
Ah, well. I was all right, then. I was doing my duty. This was simply Heller’s first report. He was stupidly using me as part of his line to Roke and, in fact, he had no other line to use. So, all was well!
It was double-sealed. But that was nothing. Using methods known only to the Apparatus and tools specially provided for the purpose, I undetectably opened the envelope.
The sheet inside was big, but so are all official communications.
After the usual formal greetings, it said: As we agreed, if you cease to authentically hear from me each month, only then should you advise His Majesty to embark upon the second alternative. And then it rambled on, saying the mission may take a while, that the tug had run well, that he was grateful for some of the tips Captain Tars had given him about polar shifts. And then it went on to recall a lecture Captain Tars had given once about molten planetary cores being generators. And did the captain remember old Boffy Jope, the student who believed planets should turn slower so people would have more time to sleep? And he thought he would get along all right but keep an eye on things, please.
First, I suddenly realized that Heller had been one of Captain Tars Roke’s students in the Astrographic College where the captain often lectured. The tone clearly indicated that Heller had been one of those abominable students who are favored by their teachers!
Next, I realized that this clearly meant Heller had a direct line to His Majesty, Cling the Lofty!
Wait! There was something funny about this letter!
I sat down. I spread it out on a desk. I turned a light on it.
It was not written the way you write a letter! It had gaps between words! It had uneven spaces between the lines!
The words could have occupied half the space they did occupy!
I broke out in a cold sweat. Forge? I had almost put my foot directly into a trap!
This letter was a platen code!
The way that is done, you take an opaque sheet of material that fits exactly over the sheet of writing paper. You cut long slots in the opaque sheet.
Everything is then covered except a few words.
Those platen words are the REAL message! The rest is just junk.
One would have to lay the platen on this sheet to read it.
I didn’t have Heller’s platen!
Unless I had that platen, I could forge nothing! The hidden message would not match Tars Roke’s platen!
You can tell these codes because, in order to get words to appear in the platen holes, you have to write them in exact places on the sheet and that makes spaces and lines uneven!
Sometimes it makes goofy sense, trying to fill in around the key words. But Heller was clever. He’d made up some story about somebody called Boffy Jope so he would have enough words.
It had long been daylight in Turkey, of course. I had had no sleep. Unlike that (bleepard) in America who was lying in bed slumbering peacefully without a single care, I was a real slave of duty.
Besides, I was worried sick.
Sleep or no sleep, I worked right on. In every conceivable way I could, I tried to figure out the hidden message so I could get the platen.
I tried to find “Gris is doing me in.” That didn’t work. I tried “The Earth base is full of opium.” But that didn’t work. Actually, they couldn’t work as the applicable words didn’t appear in the letter.
I tried “Lombar is going to use drugs to cave in Voltar,” but the name of Lombar and the word drugs… Wait! Maybe the platen only picked out letters! Maybe not full words!
Two hours I spent on it, feeling worse and worse.
I deci
ded I needed air. I went outside and walked around the garden. Several staff ran away when they saw me but even that didn’t cheer me up.
I went back in. Courageously, I tackled it all again.
And at length, I had it figured out. This was a key sentence platen!
The operative word was “authentically.” Heller had written, “If you cease to authentically hear from me…”
He and Roke must have ducked into the tug — yes, they had been gone a bit — and conspired to arrange a key sentence such as “Cores are molten” and exchanged platens. If the platen, placed over the letter, did not show up the agreed upon sentence, “Cores are molten” or whatever it was, the message was not authenticated and was a forgery.
If an authenticated message did not arrive periodically on schedule, it said right there that Roke was to advise His Majesty to embark upon the second alternative! A FLAT-OUT, RIGHT NOW, BLOOD-AND-FLAME INVASION OF THE PLANET EARTH!
If they didn’t get Heller’s reports regularly, it would mean he had been interfered with and had failed. No reports equalled Earth would be a slaughterhouse!
But to Hells with Earth. If that invasion took place, every plan Lombar had would go up in smoke! As the Grand Council knew nothing of the Earth base, it would go splat, too!
But far more important than that, I would be killed! Lombar’s hidden agent would see to that even if I escaped everything else!
Heller’s reports MUST GO THROUGH!
Hey, wait!
If Heller were successful, then all Lombar’s lines and planning on Earth would be ruined! For his closest associates would be bankrupted!
If it even looked like Heller was going to win in improving this planet, Lombar’s hidden agent would kill me!
My head began to ache.
Heller lose, Heller win, there was one thing certain: Gris would be dead!
I made myself sit down. I made myself stop tearing at my hair.
I must calmly work this out!
So, gnawing on the sira glass until I threw it against the wall, I worked it out.
I must get hold of Heller’s platen! Then I could forge reports that would make the Grand Council — via Roke — think Heller was doing his job, while in fact, Lombar was protected in that Heller would be doing nothing at all. He would be dead.
But wait. I didn’t have the platen. Until I got the platen, NOTHING MUST HAPPEN TO HELLER!
And there the idiot was with a marked car, police in several states alert, carrying a name that would get him sent to the pen as an imposter, a totally untrained agent in deadly danger of being scooped up!
I started praying.
Oh, my Gods, let nothing happen to Heller until I got my hands on that platen! Please, Gods, if anything happens to him at all, Soltan Gris is a dead man! To Hells with the slaughter of Earth! We’ll just disregard that. Think of Soltan Gris! Take pity. Please?
Chapter 7
There is a seven-hour time difference between Eastern Standard Time, where Heller was, and Istanbul time, which I was near. So you can imagine how keeping check on Heller was a strain. When he was rising, all refreshed, at 7:00 A.M., I was hanging on the viewer at 2:00 P.M., an exhausted wreck.
He got up quietly and took a shower. Raht, to help his own personal finances, had not brought him any change of clothes so he put on what he had, swearing under his breath as he donned the shoes. He looked at himself in the mirror and shook his head. Indeed, he did look funny with that green-banded, too-small Panama, that purple shirt, the red and white check jacket with sleeves three inches too short, the blue and white striped pants that didn’t come down to the ankles, the orange suede, too-tight shoes.
I groaned. He stood out like a searchlight! A cinch for even the most myopic cop to spot. And he didn’t even realize it! His main concern would be with aesthetics, not with being unspottable.
Mary was tumbling about restlessly but still asleep. Heller softly closed the door and, with a glance at the car, trotted out of the motel grounds.
There was a diner nearby and he went in and puzzled over the menu, of course not knowing what any of these things were. But it gave breakfast by the numbers and he ordered “Number 1.” It was orange juice, oatmeal and bacon and eggs. But the elderly waitress didn’t bring him coffee. She brought him milk and he looked at it and tasted it suspiciously. She told him to drink it, that he was too young for coffee. Then she refused to sell him any of the pie he gazed at longingly, finally foregoing it on the advice that he must learn to control his appetite and she was going to stand there until he finished his oatmeal. She was fifty and a motherly type, with boys of her own. Boys, he was advised, were willful and if they didn’t watch their diet, they wouldn’t grow. She even managed his money, told him not to display it because it would get stolen and keep some of it in his shoes and tipped herself a dollar.
Authoritatively fed, Heller escaped to the street. It was the main street of the town, lined with shops, and he went trotting along, glancing in the windows.
Don’t trot! I begged him mentally. Walk sedately, saunter, don’t attract attention! You’re a wanted man! Heller trotted with an easy lope. Believe me, nobody runs in the South! Nobody!
He popped into a clothing store, found in just a few seconds that it had nothing that would fit his six-foot-two frame, popped out and trotted on.
A hock shop was just ahead, a place where the Virginians sell the things they steal off tourists. Heller scanned the windows and right-angled into it. There were barrels of discards and shelves full of tagged junk.
The sleepy clerk, having gotten the shop open and expecting to be able to go back to a nap in the rear, was not too helpful. Heller pointed.
The clerk got down an 8-mm Nikon motion picture camera. He said, “You don’t want this, kid. They don’t sell film for it anymore.” Heller was inspecting the big black and gold Nikon label. He then made the clerk get down another one. Heller laid them on the counter. Heller saw a barrel: it was full of broken fishing reels and tangled line. He got out some.
“Those are deep-sea reels,” said the clerk. “The fishing concession at Smith Mountain Lake went broke. They don’t work.”
“Fishing?” said Heller.
“Catch fish. Sport. Come on, kid, you’re not that dumb. I ain’t in any mood for jokes today. If you really want something, tell me, take it and get out! I ain’t got any time to fool around.”
Heller picked out several impressive reels, some broken rods and a hopeless tangle of line. He added some multihooked, steel-shafted bass plugs and a whole pile of weights that had steel hooks on the end. He put these on the counter.
He was staring at a tattered cardboard counter display for portable cassette recorders that were also AM/FM radios. “Give me one of these.”
“You mean you’re going to actually buy something?”
“Yes,” said Heller and pulled out some money.
“Hell, I thought you was like the local kids: all eyes and no dough. You ain’t from around here, then.” He got a dusty recorder, even put some batteries in it and laid out a package of cassettes. He looked at the money Heller had in his hand and pretended to add something up. “That’ll be a hundred and seventy-five dollars.”
Heller paid him. They put the weird loot in sacks and Heller was on his way. And I, personally, thought he was as crazy as the clerk did. Obsolete cameras, broken fishing reels, tangled line. Idiocy.
Trotting along, Heller saw a sporting goods store. He right-angled in. He pointed at the window. A young,
wild-haired clerk dived in and brought out a pair of baseball shoes.
Heller looked at them. They were black; they laced to the ankle; they had a long tongue that folded back over the laces. He turned them over. They had no heels, but they had two circles of cleats, one set under the ball of the foot, one set under the heel. The steel cleats were long, about a half an inch high, and the plates which held them were solidly fixed in the leather sole.
“Let you have them cheap,” sai
d the clerk. “We got a ton of them. The coach over at Jackson High ordered full uniforms for the baseball team; first, he said they came in too big and wouldn’t take them. Then, he ran off with the English teacher and the athletic fund.”
“Baseball?” said Heller.
The clerk pointed to a pile of baseballs before he caught himself. “Quit it, kid.”
Heller had evidently gotten smart. He said, “Do you have them for sale?”
The clerk just looked at him. Heller walked over to the display of baseballs. They were a trifle bigger and they were a little harder than a bullet ball.
There was an archery target standing up at the back of the store. Heller said, “Do you mind?”
He hefted the baseball. He flexed his wrist and then he threw the baseball at the archery target! I could hear the sizzle of the ball going through the air. It hit the bull’s-eye! It plowed right on through, broke the back stand and went splat against the wall.
“Jesus!” said the clerk. “A pitcher! A real pitcher!”
Heller went over and recovered the ball. The hide had come off. He pulled curiously at the insides. “Well,” he said to himself, “not so good, but it will have to do.”
“Jesus,” said the clerk. “You’re a natural! Look, do you mind if I sort of put that target away and when the New York Yankees sign you, I can maybe put it on display?”
Heller was looking for a bag. He found one you could carry over your shoulder. He was counting baseballs into it. The clerk was trying to pump him as to what college team he was on and what were his plans on going Big League and apologizing because Heller looked so young nobody would think he was a veteran. Heller wasn’t giving him much encouragement. He was shopping around the shelves. He found a book, The Fine Art of Baseball for Beginners, and mystified the clerk by putting it on the purchases pile. Then he added another book, The Fine Art of Angling for Beginners. Was he going fishing?
