Mission: Earth "Black Genesis" (8 page)

He helped subsidize the starving farmers by buying their unwanted surplus. He increased the importance of Section 451 in the Apparatus and apparently after a couple of management failures, had found an Academy officer to take it over—namely me.

The U.S. subsidy was soon cancelled. But if the Apparatus had been "in" before, it was the hero of the day now. It was king here in Afyon and Lombar soon

would be King on Voltar if he could figure out how to do it. Apparatus Earth base personnel were still the descendants of Turkish war heroes and, like every other Turkish business, they had plaster heads of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey, all over the place. Long live the revolution! Long live opium! Long live the Apparatus! And long live His Majesty Lombar, if he could turn the trick on Voltar.

My contemplation ended. Carts or no carts, we had arrived back at the mountain. And there sat my villa!

It had once belonged to some Turkish pasha, a noble of the long-departed regime and probably, before him, to some Byzantine lord and before him some Roman lord and before him some Greek lord and before him who knows: Turkey is the most ruin-strewn place on Blito-P3. Crossroads between Asia and Europe, most of the civilized Earth races you hear about had, at one time or another, colonized Turkey or run an empire from it! It is an archaeologist's fondest dream: a land absolutely chock-a-block with ruins!

The Apparatus subofficer who founded the place had also rebuilt this villa and lived here a long time. Its maintenance was a standard piece of allocation budgets. Lombar Hisst had once even had the daffy idea of coming down here, a thing which he would never do—it's fatal for an Apparatus chief to turn his back on Voltar– and so had increased the allocation.

It was built straight in against the mountain. It had big gateposts and walls that hid six acres of grounds and its low, Roman style house.

It was all dark. I hadn't phoned ahead. I wanted to surprise them.

The "taxi driver" put my luggage down by the dark gate. He was a veteran Apparatus personnel, a child rapist, if I remembered.

The dim light, reflected from the dash of the old Citroen, showed me that he had his hand out.

Ordinarily, I would have been offended. But tonight, in the velvet dark, gleeful with the joy of arriving back, I reached into my pocket. The Turkish lira inflates at about a hundred percent per year. When last I handled any it was about 90 Turkish lira (ЈT) to the U.S. dollar. But the dollar inflates too, so I guessed it must be about one hundred and fifty to one by now. Besides, it's what we call "monkey-money": you're lucky if anyone will take it outside of Turkey. And my new order gave me an unlimited supply.

I pulled out two bills, thinking they were one's and handed them over.

He took them to his dashlight to inspect them. I flinched! I had given him two one-thousand Turkish lira notes! Maybe thirteen dollars American!

"Geez," said the driver in American slang—he talks English and Turkish just like everybody else around here—"Geez, Officer Gris, who do yer want bumped off?"

We both went into screams of laughter. The Mafia is around so much that American gangster slang is a great joke. It made me feel right at home.

In fact, I pulled out two more one-thousand lira sheets of monkey-money. I hitched up my trench coat collar. In American, I said out of the corner of my mouth, "Listen, pal, there's a broad, a dame, a skirt, see. She'll be getting off the morning plane from the big town. You keep your peepers peeled at the airport, put the snatch on her, take her to the local sawbones and get her checked for the itch in the privates department and if she gets by the doc, take her for a ride out here. If she don't, just take her for a ride!"

"Boss," he said, cocking his thumb like he had a .45, "you got yerself a deal!"

We screamed with laughter again. Then I gave him the two additional bills and he drove off happy as a clam.

Oh, it was good to be home. This was my kind of living.

I turned to the house to yell for somebody to come out and get my baggage.

I had just opened my mouth when I closed it. A far better idea had occurred to me. In the country, they go to bed the moment they can't see: they were all asleep. There should be about thirteen staff, counting the three young boys; actually they were two Turkish families and they had been with the place since the subofficer had originally rebuilt it, maybe since the Hittites had built it for all I knew. They had far more loyalty to us than to their own government and they wouldn't have said anything even if they noticed something odd and they were too stupid to do that—just riffraff.

They lived in the old slave quarters to the right of the gate, a building hidden by trees and a hedge. The old gatekeeper, pushing ninety—which is quite old on Earth —had died and nobody had hired a new one as they couldn't decide whose relative should have the job.

The alleged ghazi or man-in-charge was a tough, old peasant we called Karagoz after a funny Turkish stage character. But the real boss was a widow named Melahat: the name means "beauty" but she was anything else but

that, being dumpy and gimlet-eyed; she kept the rest of them hopping.

My plan was to first find something wrong. I took a hand-light out of my bag—one I had stolen from the ship. On secretly silent feet, slipping like a ghost across the cobble-paved courtyard, I faded into the trees, not even letting my trench coat whisper.

Suppressing the beam of the light with two fingers across it, I looked at the grass: it was cut. I looked at the shrubs: they were pruned. I looked at the fountains and pools: they were cleaned out and running.

Disappointed, but not giving up hope, I slid into the main house. Roman dwellings are built around a court open to the sky. The fountain in the center was keeping the place cool. The marble floor was clean with no dust. The side rooms were spotless. Of course, they were kind of bare: I had not had much in the way of funds when I had been here last; the bare Romanness of the house had been Turkified by large numbers of colorful large rugs and draperies and I had sold these to passing tourists one by one—I don't much care for flummery anyway. The staff had tried to replace them here and there with grass mats, but even these were neat and clean. No, I couldn't find anything wrong with the main house. (Bleep)! It spoiled the joke I was about to play.

My own room was at the back, chunked into the mountain for good reasons. I was about to pick its locks and enter when I suddenly remembered what Faht Bey had said about the whore stealing my clothes! That was it!

On silent feet—I had forgotten to change my insulator boots—I crept up to the old slave quarters. I knew it was composed of two large rooms, both opening off the center front door.

I took the Colt .45 out of my pocket and silently pulled back the slide, easing a shell under the firing pin.

I turned my hand-light up to full flare.

I drew my foot back.

Then, all in one motion, I kicked the door open, pounded the glare of the light into the room and fired the gun in the air!

Ah, you should have seen the commotion!

Thirteen bodies went straight up and came down trying to burrow under beds, blanket and floor!

"Jandarma!" I bellowed. It is Turkish for "police." And then, just to add to the confusion, in English I yelled, "Freeze, you (bleepards) or I'll rub you out!"

Well, let me tell you, that was one confused staff! They couldn't see who it was against the glare of the light. They were screaming in pure terror. All kinds of Turkish words came spattering out like "innocent" and "haven't done anything!"

And to add the sugar to the coffee, an Apparatus guard contingent, alerted by the shot, came racing up the road from the archaeological workmen's barracks, engines roaring!

Pandemonium!

Bedlam!

Within a minute the guard contingent—they go by the name of security forces and are there to "protect any valuables dug up"—came rushing into the grounds and converged on my light.

The subofficer's own torch hit me. He hauled up. He said, "It's Sultan Bey!"

The gardener's small boy at once began to throw up.

The staff stopped screaming.

I started laughing.

Somebody turned on some lights. Old Karagoz pulled his head out from under a blanket. He said, "It's Sultan Bey all right!"

The guards started laughing at Karagoz.

A couple of the staff started laughing.

But Melahat wasn't laughing. She was kneeling on the floor. In Turkish, she was wailing at the wall, "I knew when he came back from America and found out that whore had stolen his clothes he'd be furious. I knew it. I knew it!"

They thought I'd been to America.

One of the small boys, about eight, came crawling over and started tugging at the bottom hem of my raincoat. His name was Yusuf, I recalled. "Please don't shoot Melahat," he pleaded. "Please, Sultan Bey! We all pooled our money and we bought you new clothes. And we even stole some extras from tourists. Don't shoot Melahat. Please, Sultan Bey!"

Oh, it was a great homecoming. The guard subofficer said, "I told them they better put on a gatekeeper. Serves them right." And then he stepped close and whispered, "Thanks for the tip about that Crown agent." And the guards drove off laughing.

I pointed the gun at the gardener. "Your grounds are in terrible shape. Get up right now and fix them." And he scuttled out like a rocket, followed by his two helpers, both boys. I pointed the gun at the cook. "Get me something to eat and then clean up your kitchen, it's filthy." And he scuttled out. I pointed the gun at the head cleaning girl, "Get those rooms dusted! Right now!" And she and two small girls who help her left with speed. And then I pointed the gun at Karagoz, "Your accounts are probably in total disorder. Get me a full accounting by dawn!"

As I walked to my room, I burst out laughing. How different than Voltar.

How good it was to be home!

Here, I was power itself!

On this planet, I could get anything executed, even Heller!

Melahat had followed me into my room. It is a big place. It has lots of closets. She showed me that my clothes had been replaced and were hanging there. She stood wringing her hands.

"Please," she begged, "I told you that that girl was no good. After you went to America she just started running around with anybody. She said you hadn't paid her and she grabbed your clothes and ran off."

"There'll be another one in here tomorrow," I said.

"Yes, Sultan Bey."

"Put her in that room that used to be used for tools."

"Yes, Sultan Bey. Are these clothes all right?"

"They probably won't fit."

"Yes, Sultan Bey."

Two small boys rushed in with my baggage and hastened out.

"Tell that cook to bring in some food. Now clear out!"

"Yes, Sultan Bey."

A serving man and the cook hastened in with a big bowl of hot iskembe corbusi—it's a heavy soup of tripe and eggs and they often keep it on the back of the stove just in case. There was also lakerda, slices of dried fish. There was a big pitcher of chilled sira, which is fermented grape juice and a platter of baklava, a sweet pastry containing ground walnuts and syrup.

"It's all we have right now," the cook quavered. "Nobody said you were arriving!"

"Get to town at dawn," I reprimanded him, "and get some decent food! And stop putting all the purchase money in your pocket!"

He blanched at the accusation. So I said, "And send in Karagoz!" That really upset him for Karagoz handles the accounts. He and the serving man rushed out.

I sat down at the table and began to eat. It was delicious! What the Gods must dream of—the reward for being mortal.

Karagoz came. "You said I had until dawn to finish the accounts."

"You've stolen and sold all the rugs," I said.

"Yes, Sultan Bey." He knew (bleeped) well I had sold them but he sure knew better than to say so.

I had a mouthful of wonderful baklava. I washed it down with the chilled sira. "Add a special requisition to buy rugs for the whole house. The most expensive kind. Even Persian." Who knew when I might hit another snag on money and would have to sell them again. Recent experience on Voltar had made me prudent.

"Yes, Sultan Bey."

"And turn in any commission you get to me," I said.

"Yes, Sultan Bey."

"And reduce the amount of money you're spending on staff food. By half. They're too fat!"

"Yes, Sultan Bey."

"That is all," I said, dismissing him with a wave of the sira glass.

He backed out the door.

I sat there grinning. I really knew how to handle people. Psychology is a wonderful thing. A true tool in my line of business.

I could get away with anything on this planet!

And that made me think of Heller.

I bolted the door to my room. I went into the right-hand closet. I pushed the back panel and it slid open. I stepped through into what was really my room.

It was bigger than the one I had just left. It was unknown to the staff. It didn't show from the outside as it was dug back into the mountain. A secret door at the end of it led right down into the base. Another secret door led to a passage that ended in the archaeological barracks.

I opened a closet. The laugh was on the staff. Here were my real clothes, various costumes of different nationalities. They were all here.

A cupboard disclosed that my makeup kits were

intact.

I opened a panel and revealed my guns. They were protected by a device which took moisture and oxygen out of their hiding place. I removed the chambered cartridge and clip from the Colt .45 and put it away. I got out a Beretta which is more my style, really, being easier to hide—and I even have a license for it.