Mission: Earth "Black Genesis" (38 page)

But wait. As he paused, his eye was on a figure and stayed on the figure. The last sentence of the article read:

"And so, for the pittance of $225,000 in expenses, we were able to cover the entire stock-car circuit for one whole season and wound up with all bills paid, which is glory enough for anybody!"

His eyes kept straying back to that "$225,000."

He watched the crowd for a while. Not much of a throng as the UN wasn't in session. One of the tuxedoed security guards drifted over beside his chair and said, out of the corner of his mouth, "Watch out for that deputy delegate from Maysabongo. He just came in, there. The one with the opera cloak and top hat. He carries a kris up his sleeve. Must be two feet long. Runs amok now and then." The guard drifted away.

Heller yawned, a sure sign of tension. He opened a newspaper, the Wall Street Journal. He wandered through it. He paused on a page of box ads featuring real estate

offerings. He examined the "ex-urban" ones—those way past the suburbs and out of town entirely. They had them for Bucks County, Pennsylvania, for Vermont and for various counties in Connecticut. All ideal for the executive weekend. He began to stare at one. It said:

OWN YOUR OWN FEUDAL FIEFDOM BE A MONARCH OF ALL YOU SURVEY

Vast estate going for peanuts

FIVE WHOLE ACRES, NO BUILDINGS

UNTOUCHED WILDERNESS OF CONNECTICUT

ONLY $300,000

His eye was stuck on the $300,000.

He opened the paper to other sections. He looked over "Commodity Markets" with all their vast rows of figures for the various futures for the day. He inspected the stock market with all its tangles of incomprehensible abbreviations.

A movement over at the "Host" door. A huge, dark-complected man in a turban came out with Vantagio. They stood on the lobby side of the door, completing their discussion. I hastily turned up my gain.

It was in English. The turbaned one was thanking Vantagio for straightening out the bill. Then, he looked around and saw Heller.

"New face," said the turbaned giant.

"Oh, that youngster," said Vantagio. "It's in confidence. His father is a very important man, a Moslem. Married an American movie actress. That's the son. He's going to go to college and his father insisted he live here. We couldn't say no. Would have caused endless diplomatic repercussions had we refused."

"Ah," said the turbaned one. "I can clear up that

puzzle for you. You have to understand the Mohammedan religion. You see," he continued learnedly, "in the Middle East, it is tradition that the children, including boys, are raised in, and have to live in, the harem. And this whorehouse is probably as close as his father could come to a harem in the United States. Quite natural, really."

"Well, thank you for clearing up my confusion," said Vantagio, the master of political science.

"I'll just go over and greet him in his native tongue," said the turbaned giant. "Make him feel at home."

Here he came! He stopped in front of Heller. He went through the elaborate hand ritual of the Arab greeting. He said something that sounded like "Aliekoom sala'am." And then a long rigmarole. Arabic!

Yikes! Heller didn't speak Arabic!

Heller rose. With elaborate politeness, he copied the hand motions and bow exactly. Then he said, "I am dreadfully sorry but I am forbidden to speak my native tongue while I am in the United States. But I am doing fine and I truly hope you have a nice evening."

They both bowed.

The turbaned giant went back to Vantagio. "A well-brought-up youth, obviously raised in a harem like I said. I can tell by his accent. But I will keep your secret, Vantagio, especially since he is the son of the Aga Khan."

Leaving Vantagio, the huge turbaned man went promptly over to a little group by the door and whispered to them. Their eyes flicked covertly toward Heller. The secret was being well kept. By everybody.

A half an hour passed and Heller's perusal of the papers had exhausted them. He was sitting there quietly when the deputy delegate from Maysabongo came out of

the elevator and rushed over to the desk. He slammed his top hat down on the counter.

"Where is that pig Stuffumo?" he demanded of the clerk.

The clerk looked anxiously around. There were no security guards in the lobby at the moment.

"I demand it! I demand you tell me!" The deputy delegate was gripping the clerk's coat.

Heller stood up. The fool. He had been told the man had a kris in his sleeve! A kris is the wickedest short sword there is! And I didn't have that platen!

"Harlotta was not there!" snarled the deputy delegate. "She is with Stuffumo! I know it!"

The elevator door opened and a very fat brown man in a business suit walked out.

"Stuffumo!" screamed the deputy delegate. "Enemy of the people! Capitalistic warmonger! Death to aggressors!"

He raced across the room. The clerk was madly pushing buzzers. Stuffumo flinched, tried to get back into the elevator.

The deputy delegate whipped the kris out of his sleeve, two feet of wavy steel!

He made a slash through the air. The blade whistled!

The top of Stuffumo's waistcoat gapped!

The deputy delegate drew back the blade to strike again.

Suddenly, Heller was in front of him!

The blade swished as it began the second slash.

Heller caught the man's wrist!

He pushed his thumb into the back of the man's hand. The blade fell.

Heller caught it by the handle before it hit the floor.

Two security guards were there. Heller waved them

back. Heller gently pushed the deputy delegate and Stuffumo into a corner of the elevator.

"What room is Harlotta in?" said Heller, hand poised over the elevator buttons.

Both Stuffumo and the deputy delegate stared at him. Heller was hefting the kris. "Come, come," he said. "At least tell me what floor. We can find her."

"What do you mean to do?" said the deputy delegate.

"Why," said Heller, "she has caused two important men embarrassment. She'll have to be killed, of course." And he hefted the kris.

"No!" cried Stuffumo. "Not Harlotta!"

"NO!" cried the deputy delegate. "Not my darling Harlotta!"

"But I am sure it is house rules," said Heller. "She could have caused you both to kill each other. It isn't permitted!"

"Please," said Stuffumo.

"Please don't," said the deputy delegate.

"I'm afraid there's no other way," said Heller.

"Oh, yes, there is!" cried the deputy delegate, triumphantly. "We can have a conference about it!"

"Correct!" said Stuffumo. "The proper solution to all international disputes!"

The two promptly sat down in the corner of the elevator, facing each other.

"First, the agenda!" said the deputy delegate firmly.

Heller pushed the out-of-operation button and walked out, leaving them in the elevator.

One of the Italian security guards said, "Thank you, kid. That was good knife work. But you should pay attention when I tip you off. They have diplomatic immunity, you know, and can't be arrested for anything, no matter what they do. But law-abiding Americans like you and

me can be. We usually don't stick around when that one arrives. Maybe he'll be good now."

Vantagio came out. Heller handed him the kris.

The two ex-combatants walked out of the elevator. "We have come to an accord," said Stuffumo. "Bilateral occupation of territory."

"I will have Harlotta Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He will have her Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays," said the deputy delegate.

"We have to spend Sunday with our wives," added Stuffumo.

"Vantagio," said the deputy delegate, "may we borrow your office for the formal ratification and signing of the treaty?"

Heller watched them until they vanished into Vantagio's office. He yawned. He gathered up his papers, entered the elevator and exited at the top floor.

As he passed down the hall to his room, a nearby door opened and a girl rushed out. She had on a silk robe but it wasn't tied and her forward motion blew it back and exposed everything she had. She was a beautiful brunette!

"Oh, there you are, pretty boy. Business is too slack tonight. Some of the girls say you have something beautifully new." She looked at him seductively, stroking his arm. "Please, pretty please, can I come in with you and we..."

My screen flashed out. The interference roared.

But I had a lot of other things to puzzle over. He was interested in his usual hobby, speed. He was interested in an executive retreat in the wilderness. I felt I should be able to piece it together.

But even though I labored into the Turkish dawn, I could not figure out how you would run a racing car in a tree-infested wilderness. Or why.

It was three in the afternoon in Turkey when I arose. Not really thinking, still numb with sleep, I walked into my secret office and, like a fool, looked into the view-screen.

I nearly fainted!

I was staring twenty stories straight down!

I felt like I was going to fall!

The people were small spots in the street below; the cars were toys!

The strain I had been under was telling. The shock was too much. I pulled my eyes away and shuddered into a chair. After a few minutes, I got control of my stomach and dared take another look.

What in Hells was he up to?

He was on a cupola that crowned the Gracious Palms. Fifteen feet below him, firmly on the asphalt roof, a whore in a green jump suit was steadying a line up to him.

He was rigging a TV antenna kit! That's what it read on the top of the box he was steadying on his knees:

HANDY JIM-DANDY FULLY-AUTOMATIC

INSTALL-IT-YOURSELF RADIO-CONTROLLED

REMOTE TV ANTENNA WITH SIGNAL BOOSTER

He had inset the feet into the concrete top of the cupola. He was now adjusting the booster. He glanced

around and it was visible that several nearby buildings had them. He must have had it sent out for the day before.

Oho! So he was having signal trouble, too! But wait, this must mean that the TV wasn't working when my equipment wasn't working, so those girls in his room weren't there to watch TV!

He completed the upper installation and then, box under his arm, he started down a line.

I had him. Code break! It was a spacer safety line! He was carrying Voltarian gear in his suitcases!

He was working with a stapler, fastening the TV cable to the stone as he descended.

He got to the bottom and turned toward the woman. There she was, a New York whore, holding a spacer safety line manufactured in Industrial City, Voltar! I watched like a hawk. Did she realize it? Everything depended on that! I could simply order him off the mission and court-martialed!

"Here's your clothesline, honey," she said. "Now, what do I do?"

He took it, gave it the snap that causes it to come loose at the top and caught it in coils around his wrist as it fell—a typical show-off spacer gesture: I don't know how they do it.

"You just uncoil this reel, Martha. Just walk along and I'll fasten it down as we go."

"Okay, dearie," she said. And along they went. She had a stick through the reel and Heller was snubbing it under the parapet with the stapler.

Then, I realized something else. Heller must know where the interference was coming from. The roof he was laying the cable on was about three hundred and fifty feet long, perhaps double the building width. The antenna was outside the interference zone. I tried to plot

from this where and what the interference might be, for I was not only very curious about what he did in that suite, I also had to know where he could have hidden the platen. I got all tangled up.

The girl had come to the far end of the roof. "Now what do I do, pretty boy?"

"You go down to my room and open the double doors and stand on the balcony and steady the safety line again."

She ran off. Heller tied the reel to the safety line and then paid it out so that it landed on his balcony below. The girl came out on the balcony and got the reel.

He pegged the upper end of the safety line into the stone parapet, stepped over the edge ...

I turned my face away. This guy was driving me mad! He had no sense. He didn't give a (bleep) about height or his neck. I heard the staples going into the vertical wall but I wouldn't look. I knew I would see the tiny people and cars far too far below!

The sound of a disintegrator drill. I dared look. He had snapped the spacer safety line loose and was putting a cable hole in the wall. With a Voltarian disintegrator drill!

I watched intently to see if I got a reaction from the whore. There she was watching a tiny palm-sized gadget, with nothing spinning, bite the exact sized hole through the wall. No chips or sparks. A miracle on this planet. All she had to say was "Hey, man, look at that gimmick eat up stone!" and I had him!

She said, "I'll go call room service to send you some breakfast, dearie." And she went inside the living room. It depressed me.

Heller went inside, put the base plate together and shortly had it all connected with the TV. He turned the

set on. He fiddled with the radio antenna rotator. The difference in reception showed it was turning.

"Hey, great picture," said the whore. "We done it! They'll send breakfast up right away."

Heller neated up his kit. Aha, now I would see where he stowed his gear. He certainly would hide a safety line and disintegrator drill! And I had no interference!

He was fastening the tool kit up. OH! Right on the face of the kit, big as life, it said:

JETTERO HELLER FLEET CORPS OF COMBAT ENGINEERS

It said it in Voltarian script but it said it, just like that!