Death Quest

by L. Ron Hubbard

  The Countess Krak went back to the car. She got in. “Drive on further.”

  Bang-Bang turned left onto Main Street. The Countess Krak apparently didn’t see anything she considered inviting. They went about three-quarters of a mile and Bang-Bang turned right onto something called Beekman Avenue. A sign pointed to North Hairytown. As they approached it, she spotted a place that said:

  Sign Painting

  House Numbers

  She had Bang-Bang stop.

  “They ought to know in here,” she said. She entered the shop.

  A middle-aged woman was at the counter. She looked up with the usual smile accorded to a customer.

  “I have lost my way,” said the Countess Krak, “could you please direct me to the house of Miss Agnes?”

  An instant scowl replaced the welcome. The woman looked closely at the Countess. Then she shook her head. “My dear,” she said, “what the hell would a beautiful girl like you be wanting with a god (bleeped) shrink?”

  “Shrink?” said the Countess Krak.

  “And with that god (bleeped) shrink in particular! Dearie, if somebody referred you to her, you just go back from whence you came and forget about it. There ain’t no limit to what these god (bleeped) doctors will do to earn dough, even send somebody to that (bleepch).”

  “You know her, then. Could you please give me her address?”

  “No way,” the woman said and walked out the back door, slamming it.

  The Countess Krak went back to the cab. “Jettero said the natives repelled landings. Drive on, drive on, O Bang-Bang. We’ll find Miss Agnes yet!”

  They drove through North Hairytown. A street sign said:

  Sleepy Hollow Road

  “According to my passport,” said the Countess, “I was born up that street somewhere. Do all American children get this lost?”

  “Miss Joy,” said Bang-Bang, “as long as we’re into this and probably outflanked, there’s an Octopus service station up there. If we’re on the trail of something connected with Rockecenter, remember that he owns Octopus.”

  “Look,” said the Countess. “There’s a sign to Pokantickle Hills! We’re within a couple of miles of the palace. Maybe we should go straight there.”

  “NO, ma’am. Because we were going to see the parole officer, I didn’t bring a single thing for a fire fight. We’re going to stop at this service station.”

  He pulled in well away from the islands. He got out and threw his cap on the seat. He went over to the office. The Countess Krak followed him.

  The man in the office was a hard-bitten, grease-spattered, service station manager type. He looked up from his accounts.

  “We’re from civilization,” said Bang-Bang. “We’re looking for Miss Agnes. So where is she?”

  “Oh, you mean Dr. Morelay,” the man said. “You must be the people coming to see about the land yacht. And it’s about time! She wanted to park it down here but I was scared stiff something would happen to it. She said just yesterday she didn’t think you were coming at all, so you better be tactful. We have to be careful of her because of him. Now, let me give you a word of warning: Don’t get impudent with her the way you city people can be. She’s a power in this area and can have you held under the insanity laws by just snapping her fingers. I don’t want her getting upset and screaming around here, blaming me, if I send you and you get impolite. All right?”

  “We’ll show lots of respect,” said Bang-Bang, feeling nervously under his armpit where he obviously didn’t have a gun.

  “I’ll be (bleeped) glad to get this thing settled, so just come outside and I’ll point out how you get there.”

  Standing on the island and pointing and showing turns with his hand, he told them exactly how to get to the Morelay Estate, as he called it.

  He went back into the office muttering, “Well, that’s one (bleeping) headache off my plate.”

  They drove away.

  It was perfect sniper country: open and unobstructed shots available. Bang-Bang was unarmed. I felt sure Torpedo would soon be on the scene.

  And then that would be the end of the vicious Countess Krak!

  PART FORTY-FIVE

  Chapter 2

  Up a winding road and into hedge-enclosed and iron-walled streets they went, a sort of a maze of greenery and forbidding steel spikes. There was a security gate between two gray stone pillars and a very professional sign was inset in one:

  AGNES P. MORELAY, P.h.D., M.D.

  KEEP OUT!

  But you couldn’t drive in the gate.

  The inner road was blocked entirely by the most mammoth motor home I have ever seen.

  “Oooooo!” said the Countess Krak. “What is that?”

  Bang-Bang backed the cab and parked it at the street curb well away from the gate and out of its sight. He got out.

  The Countess Krak picked up her shopping bag. She alighted. They walked back along the spiked wall to the gate.

  She stopped and stared at the huge vehicle. “Bang-Bang, I didn’t know they had those on this planet.”

  “Well, yes, ma’am,” he said learnedly, “what you’re looking at is pretty impressive, I will agree. What they do is take the frame of one of these super-size Greyhound buses, the kind that has a scenic deck for Western tours, and they start from there. Now, a Greyhound bus has, below its floor and all along its length, a baggage compartment three feet or so high. Well, they eliminate that, which gives them lots of room. Then they extend the upper scenic floor and you get a two-story bus. Then they turn handcraftsmen loose and they build salons and dining rooms and staterooms and Jesus Christ knows what else. But this one, I see, seems to have a second driving cockpit in the roof, too, like a seagoing sports fisherman. Mike Mutazione told me all about these, in case I ever had to blow one up. Only multimillionaires could ever afford one, ’cause I think they cost three hundred Gs on up. And from the looks of this one, it’s closer to a million!”

  The Countess Krak was going along the front of it. She found a big nameplate. It said:

  Land Yacht

  Super-Deluxe

  Kostly Custom Coach Company

  Detroit

  Then she went all down the side of it, peeking in the antiglare opaqued windows and trying the various outside entrance doors. It was all white paint and chrome.

  “Bang-Bang,” she said, “it’s just like the circus ground caravans we used to use when I was a little girl. I’ve traveled all over Atalanta in one of these.”

  “I didn’t know you were with a southern circus.”

  “Bang-Bang, can you drive one of these?”

  “Now, wait a minute, Miss Joy. It says right here on these parole release papers that if I’m caught stealing a car, up I go to Ossining again and it’s only a few miles north of here. And I think we got enough troubles already. Here comes the butler or somebody.”

  A very butler-type butler was coming down the drive from the sprawling house. He said in a rather severe voice, “The service station manager phoned us you were coming. If you will accompany me, I shall inform Dr. Morelay you have arrived.”

  “Bang-Bang,” said the Countess Krak, “you stand by out here.” She popped a pill into her mouth. She hefted her shopping bag and followed the butler.

  They went through a large iron entrance door and entered a huge hallway. It was all of gray stone and decorated with displays of broadaxes, battle-axes and headsmen’s axes. The butler motioned for her to wait and walked on through another door at the end.

  The Countess Krak took a completely blank card out of her purse. She took a small vial and sprayed something invisible on it. Then she put both back into her purse.

  The butler came through the door and stood beside it. As though summoning someone to a royal audience, he said, “Dr. Morelay will see you now.”

  The Countess Krak passed him and entered a dark room. It seemed to be a sort of combination consulting room and den, made oppressive by black beams in the ceiling and deadly by the amount of electri
c shock equipment standing about.

  A woman was standing there. She was dressed like a Harley Street doctor would be dressed—black suit coat, pants and vest. She looked to be in her mid-forties. Her grayish hair was pulled severely into a knot. Her eyeglasses had a black silk ribbon. She held them and looked through them with great distaste at the Countess Krak. So this was the Miss Agnes I pretended to know, this was the Miss Agnes that Bury hated so. Rockecenter’s private shrink!

  She began with no preamble. “So there you are at last! First you delay, delay, delay delivery! And all the while I am told I have this wonderful special-built present coming! A surprise it was supposed to be, a surprise I never could imagine! And what finally arrives? That horrible monster of a land yacht! An outright bald hint that I take myself away! Who wants to go away? Not me! A rotten thank you for a lifetime of selfless service! And then what happens? I call and call and call and call! I tell you and tell you and tell you to take it away and give me the money instead. And all I get is the silly excuse that it’s special-built, that it has been designed especially for me and even has a small padded cell!”

  She stalked forward. Her expression was deadly. “Your driver put it right where it is! It blocked the drive! No one has been able to get in and out, for I shan’t let anyone touch it until you give me the money and take it away! So give it to me,” and she stretched out her clawlike hand.

  The Countess Krak glanced over her shoulder to make sure the doors were closed. She reached into her purse and pulled out the blank card. She handed it to Dr. Morelay.

  The woman held it close to her face.

  The Countess Krak said, “There’s nothing on that card, is there?”

  “No.”

  “Then you won’t mind if I put this helmet on your head, will you?”

  “No.”

  The Countess Krak pulled a hypnohelmet out of her shopping bag and, with one smooth motion, popped it on the head of Agnes Morelay and turned it on.

  She led the woman over to the consultation couch and eased her onto it. She plugged in the microphone.

  “Sleep, sleep, pretty sleep. Can you hear me?”

  “No.”

  The Countess Krak took the card out of her hand and took it over to an ashtray and touched a match to it. She came back and fanned a hand under the visor of the helmet.

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Morelay.

  It was only at that minute that I recalled the Eyes and Ears of Voltar perfume the Countess Krak had taken from the warehouse: it made the person say no to everything and was intended to protect chastity. What a vicious creature the Countess Krak was! And here she was daring to put a full-pledged psychologist and psychiatrist on her own couch! What villainy!

  The Countess Krak sat down in the consultant’s chair, held the microphone comfortably before her face and said, “You seem troubled about something. Would you care to tell me about it?”

  “Not enough reward.”

  “What reward should there be?”

  “Money, money, money, money!”

  “What have you done to deserve it?”

  “The Rockecenters had a sacred charge from Goebbels to render all other races incapable of defending themselves against Hitler. The Germans may have lost the war but this did not nullify the sacred trust. As a psychiatrist and psychologist, knowing my debt to Germany for those vital subjects, I have forwarded them with dedication. The Rockecenters advocated worldwide population reduction for generations. It is a sacred family trust and I have carried it on. With every possible trick I could devise I have made Delbert John Rockecenter carry out his family commitments. Utilizing the Rockecenter control of the World Federation of Mental Stealth and the National Associations of Mental Stealth, I have spread far and wide the doctrine of Psychiatric Birth Control. And for Delbert John Rockecenter himself, personally, I caused him to found the foundations which, with glandular operations and drugs, have made him immortal.”

  “Is there anything else for which you should be rewarded?”

  The body on the couch did a small writhe. The voice was muffled but it carried hate. “I listen to his puking drivel about watching chorus girls going to the toilet and making Miss Peace exhibit herself to him while she pees until I could simply strangle him.”

  The Countess Krak lowered the microphone into her shoulder. She muttered in Voltarian, “Hmm. Where there is this much hate, there must have been love. Oh, well, I’d better get down to business.” She raised the mike and said in English, “Is there a son?”

  The body on the couch writhed worse. “That would be a DISASTER! There is a ten-billion-dollar trust fund that would go to a son. It would split the control of Delbert John into fragments! THERE IS NO SON! THERE MUST NEVER BE A SON!” Then she relaxed a bit and an evil-sounding laugh came out of the helmet. “There can never be one now. The drugs he’s been on for years and years and something else I did have made him totally impotent! I think I handled that very nicely.” Then she went into a writhe again. She grated, “The dirty, filthy, two-timing (bleep)!”

  The Countess Krak lowered the microphone. “Oh dear,” she said, “this hate is getting in the way.” In English she said into the mike, “Was there ever a time when you were in love with Delbert John Rockecenter?”

  The body on the couch did an instant explosion. Then it shuddered and writhed. Muffled venom came from the helmet. “He ought to be killed. He ought to be killed!”

  “I think you better tell me all about this,” said the Countess Krak.

  The woman went stiff.

  “Tell me,” said the Countess Krak firmly.

  “We were children. I lived right here on this neighboring estate. At every party, I was there. And every time I saw Delbert John, I used to think that someday I would marry all that beautiful Rockecenter money. It was what I lived for, just to marry him. I studied psychology just to know how to marry him. I took up psychiatry just to marry him. I forewent (bleeping) all the other little boys just to marry him. I didn’t even (bleep) at college so I could marry him.” A wail. “And what did he do? When I returned, proudly holding my psychiatric degree, all ready for the kill, the dirty (bleep) had got high on drugs and run off and married a (bleeping) chorus girl!” There was an agony of motion on the couch, as though she had been stabbed. “I was SCORNED! I was FORGOTTEN!” She got her breath. “And where was Miss Agnes, his childhood sweetheart? NOWHERE!” She lay gasping.

  “So what did you do?” prompted the Countess Krak.

  “I swallowed my (bleeping) pride! I served him like a slave! The family never learned of the marriage or they kept it hushed up. But that was not the problem. When he learned that the (bleepch) was pregnant, he was beside himself. He didn’t know what to do. If the baby was a son, it would inherit ten billion bucks by trusts! It would shake his control.

  “He came to me. He had the woman hidden out in a lodge in the Catskills. He did not have nerve enough to kill her, the coward! And what did I do? I helped him, fool that I am. And the ungrateful (bleepard) has never begun to pay the rewards he should! Having gotten rid of her for him, he once more did not marry me!”

  The Countess Krak said, “What did you do with the woman?”

  “I sent her to her parents.”

  “Where was that?”

  “A farm in Hamden County, Virginia.”

  “And what else did you do?”

  The muffled voice said, “The parents were easy. It took money and a tale that no one was sure who the father was. And in that stuffy neighborhood, that kept them quiet. They and the girl were frightened, too. They had a choice between money and being rubbed out and they took money. But I privately used my professional connections. I made sure the local doctor did his duty.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Tremor Graves, MD, an old country practitioner that could have had his license suspended many times over. The woman was too far advanced for abortion. But I got his pledge to kill the child and then the m
other at birth by ‘natural causes.’ Brought on from shock, of course.”

  “What shock?”

  “Her parents being killed in an auto accident that cost fifteen thousand dollars.”

  “Where did all this occur?”

  “Hamden County, Virginia.”

  “When?”

  “Eighteen years ago.”

  Suddenly, I understood the brilliant plot of Lombar Hisst. Somewhere in all those survey records of Earth which he studied and hoarded, due to his vast interest in the marvelous fact that a man like Delbert John Rockecenter, not of royal birth, could control a whole planet, a thing to emulate—the Apparatus chief had gotten wind of this. And he had known very well that giving Heller that name was a death warrant. I understood why he had used that very county and specified that very age. One whisper of Heller using it would bring—and indeed had brought—the Rockecenter Angels of Death swarming. Why, this was the very reason Madison was on the job! Clever, clever Lombar!