Takeoff! (14 page)

“I told you we should have sunk it in deeper water,” Omboser said.

Forbin ignored him. “By the time Omboser got back from his spree, the U.S. Navy was in charge-with a light cruiser. Since we’d left most of our equipment in the capsule, we didn’t even have the instruments we needed to sneak in and get the capsule back.”

“The Navy thinks the capsule is a Russian job,” Lubix supplied helpfully. “They haven’t opened it yet, because they’re afraid there might be a thermonuclear bomb inside it. But they’ve sure got it surrounded while they try to figure out what to do.”

“So,” Forbin finished, “we figured we’d better get in touch with you and tell you what happened. We rented this place and put on a show that we thought would attract your attention without revealing ourselves to the natives. It took us a long time to get the hang of how things are done on this planet, though. Otherwise, we’d’ve done this sooner.”

Then all four of them sat there in silence, watching the Observer, waiting for his decision.

Lord Curvert thought the matter over carefully, then came to a decision. “Very well, my fumble-fingered friends, we’ll see what can be done. He looked up into the air a foot or so above his head. “Rally round, Mr. Jones,” he said, “there’s work to be done.”

The calm voice
or
Fesswick came out of the air; “Anytime you’re ready, Mr. Smith.”

Sergeant Thaddeus McClusky, USMC, shrugged his shoulder a little to adjust the weight of the heavy machine rifle that was slung there. So did Corporal Quinn. Both of them looked with respectful eyes at Lieutenant fig) Fordham, USN, and listened silently as he spoke.

“Remember, men; that may be an atomic bomb down there, so keep on your toes. Absolutely no one is allowed to pass inside this perimeter after dark. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” said Sargeant McClusky.

“Yes, sir,” said Corporal Quinn.

“Very well. Carryon.”

Salutes were exchanged, and the two Marines waited silently while the Naval officer went on down the line to the next post. As soon as he was out of earshot, McClusky muttered a dirty word. “...deckape shavetail,” he added.

“That’s the way the goddam Navy operates,” said Quinn philosophically. “We been here six months watching that gizmo while the Navy sits on its duff and wonders what to do about it. And what do they do? Why, they send us a fresh jaygee from Stateside who tells us to do exactly what we been doin’ all along. That takes real brains, that does.”

Sergeant McClusky nodded his agreement. “‘Remember, that may be an atomic bomb, down here, so keep on your toes,”‘ he mimicked. “Well, you can just bet your stripey little shoulder boards we will, sir. Yes, sir. We’ll watch very closely, sir, and if that thing goes off, we’ll call you right up on the telephone, sir. Won’t we, Corporal Quinn?”

“Just as fast as ever we can,” agreed Corporal Quinn. “We will be moving very rapidly, Sergeant McClusky.”

They turned to look at the little, shallow lagoon which held the unknown thing. There were no lights illuminating it; the Navy didn’t want to attract the attention of any high-flying Russian planes that might be looking the area over. But the light of a tropical full moon cast its silvery radiance over the glittering waters of the lagoon.

The thing itself had been surrounded with a steel net to keep large fish from approaching it and-possibly-setting it off. underwater sonar constantly probed the depths to make sure that Russian frogmen didn’t try to sneak in. The Navy didn’t think the Russians knew where their toy was, but they were taking no chances.

“You know ,” said McClusky, “when I was a kid, I used to love those movies of the South Seas. Remember? They had scenes in ‘em just like this.”

“Yeah,” Quinn agreed softly. “Tropical moon—sea breezes—palm trees gently waving—waves rolling softly against the warm sands.”

“That’s very poetic,” McClusky said in mild astonishment.

“I remember it from an old movie ad,” Quinn said.

“All we need is some guitar music,” McClusky said. “Yeah. And Dorothy Lamour in a sarong.”

“Will I do?” asked a soft, throaty contralto voice from behind them.

Both men spun around, unslinging their rifles with the easy grace of long practice.

Then they froze, as if someone had doused them with a few gallons of liquid air. Their eyes glazed, and their mouths hung agape.

It was not Dorothy Lamour, they decided, because she was not wearing a sarong. She was not even wearing a grass skirt.

Sergeant McClusky recovered his voice. “You ain’t supposed to be here, dressed like that, ma’am,” he said to the vision of loveliness.

“Undressed like that,” Corporal Quinn corrected automatically.

“Even if you was dressed,” said McClusky, “you hadn’t ought to be here. Women aren’t allowed on this island.” He was still trying to figure out what to do when a voice bellowed out from the next post down the shore.

“Corporal of the guard! Post Number Five! I got a woman on my post—a
nekkid
woman! Whadda I do now?”

Before Corporal Quinn could answer, two more posts called out that they had the same trouble.

“Why all the fuss?” asked the girl, wide-eyed. “We just want to go swimming in your pretty lagoon.”

“No, you don’t,” said McClusky, recovering his wits at last. “You’re under arrest, lady.” He reached out to grab her with one brawny fist, but his hand closed on empty air. The girl was deceptively fast. She backed away, still smiling, and McClusky made another lunge for her.

He missed and lost his balance as she danced back out of the way. As he fell forward, he heard Quinn yell: “Halt! Halt or I fire!”

He broke his fall with the butt of his rifle, and twisted to an upright sitting position. The girl, he noticed, was running ~way from the lagoon, toward the sea, with Quinn after her in hot pursuit, still calling for her to halt.

All around, there were similar cries. Sergeant McClusky wondered how many unclad females there were running around on Lukiuni Atoll—where there couldn’t possibly be any women.

Not a man there noticed what was going on out in the lagoon itself. The figure of a man suddenly materialized from nowhere a few inches above the surface of the water. Then he dropped in with scarcely a splash.

Since Fesswick did not breathe, there was no necessity for him to wear any of the usual diving equipment. All he had to do was swim to the steel net, cut through it, and head for the little Thregonnese space capsule. He wasn’t the least bit worried about the Navy’s probing sonar beams; the nullifiers operated by Lord Curvert would take care of them. As far as the sonar operators could tell, there was nothing at all unusual in the lagoon.

Fesswick got busy opening the airlock of the little capsule.

Up on shore, Sergeant McClusky yelled at Corporal Quinn, who was several yards away, at the sea’s edge, staring into the waves. Lights were coming on allover the tiny atoll. Pounding footsteps could be heard from every quarter as confused men ran every which way.

“She just dived into the sea and never came up,” Corporal Quinn was saying wonderingly.

“Why didn’t you shoot?” bellowed McClusky.

“Who the hell do you think I am?” Quinn bellowed back. “Mike Hammer?”

So far, nobody else had fired a shot, either, and by that time, all four of the Thregonnese had dived into the sea, changed into porpoises, and were swimming rapidly away from the atoll.

The final surprise came when, with a great geyser of erupting water, the Thregonnese space capsule shot up out of the lagoon and vanished rapidly into the moonlit sky.

There would be a lot of explaining to do that night and for many nights to come, in Navy circles.

But there would never be any explanation.

“And now,” said Lord Curvert gently, “the question arises as to what to do with you gentlemen.”

They were sitting in the Venus Club again. The space capsule, indetectable to any Earth science, was sitting on the roof of the building.

“Why, just make your report and let us go,” Forbin said politely. “It was only a misdemeanor. We haven’t done anything felonious. We didn’t expose anything to the natives or interfere in any way. Just let us go, and we’ll pay the fine according to the law.”

Lord Curvert was nodding slowly, and there was an oddly sleepy look in his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Certainly. Just let you go.”

The Thregonnese looked at each other with delight, and then looked back at the Observer.

“Or, better yet,” said Forbin insidiously, “just let us stay for a while. How about that?”

“Yes. Yes,” his lordship said rather glassily. “I could just let you stay for a while.”

“As a matter of fact,” Forbin went on in the same tone, “we have a few favors we’d like you to do for us.”

“Favors,” said Lord Curvert. “Certainly. What favors?”

“Well, for instance, why don’t you stand on your head?”

“Certainly.”

“And click your heels together ,” added Omboser, ignoring the scowls that Forbin and the others shot him.

“Certainly,” agreed his lordship. Placing hands and head on the floor, Lord Curvert solemnly upended himself, balanced carefully, and clapped his heels together.

“We’ve done it!” Forbin said gleefully. “We’re in!”

“You sure that assistant of his-that Mr. Jones can’t reach us here?” Alsnokine asked, a trifle apprehensively. “Or see us?”

“Not a chance,” Forbin said. “I turned on the nullifiers in our ship myself.”

“We’ve done it,” Lubix gloated. “In spite of all the setbacks, we have our ship, and we have the Observer. Now we can start having a little fun.”

“Are you gentlemen just going to leave me like this?” Lord Curvert asked politely.

They all turned to look at him.

He did a neat handspring-and-flip, and landed on his feet. “A confession of intent,” he said mildly, “is bad enough. When combined with an actual attempt, it becomes very bad indeed.”

None of them said anything.

“Oh, no,” his lordship went on, “I’m not hypnotized. In the first place, the substance you have been thinking is Varesh powder is nothing but powdered sugar. I saw you put it in the activator in your capsule, and I saw you put a pinch of it into the air. But I’m afraid sugar just doesn’t have the proper effect.

“In the second place, even if it had been Varesh powder, nothing would have happened, because I am wearing filter plugs in my nostrils, just as you are. The one difference is that my plugs function, while yours don’t..

“I’m afraid that while my assistant, Mr. Jones, was in your capsule, he put a few rather clever little gimmicks into your controls. In addition, he sprayed a little genuine Varesh powder through the teleporter just a few seconds ago. And it’s having its effect, isn’t it?”

It was. Robbed of their conscious volition, the human body shapes which the Thregonnese had assumed were beginning to look oddly lumpy as they tended to return to their normal shapes.

“I am sending you back to Thregonn for punishment,” he said. “I’ll tell you what the conspiracy was, and you correct me if I’m wrong, so that everything will be nice and legal.

“You intended to use this Venus Club set-up to trap me first. Then, after I had been hypnotized, you intended to take over the various governments of Earth. Now, there, I’m a little hazy-just what was your reason for wanting to take over? Were you going to set yourselves up as supreme dictators, so that you could push everybody around?” He looked at Forbin as he spoke.

“For a while,” admitted the thoroughly hypnotized Forbin. “Then, if we got bored, we thought it might be fun to start an atomic war among these primitive people.”

“Worse than I thought,” said Lord Curvert distastefully. “‘I hope they straighten you out thoroughly on Thregonn.”

By this time, the four Thregonnese had returned to their “normal” shape. They looked like four fat, pink kewpie dolls.

“All right,” said Lord Curvert, “let’s go. You’ll get in your ship and go straight to Thregonn, understand?”

“Yes, sir,” they chorused. “Straight to Thregonn.”

“And just to make sure you do, you’ll give yourselves another dose of Varesh powder every twenty-four hours. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” they chorused.

“Fine. Let’s go.”

They went up to the roof, and the four fat kewpies climbed into the vessel. The airlock closed, and a few seconds later the little spaceship fired skywards.

“Take me home, Fesswick,” said Lord Curvert.

“That’s very odd,” said Lady Curvert.

Lord Curvert looked up apprehensively from his Times. “Not another one, I hope.”

“Oh, no, Charles. Not another case. I was just thinking that it was very odd that the paper should come out with an editorial on the Teddy boys today. The editor says that juvenile delinquency is getting worse and something must be done to stop it.”

“I’ll write a letter to the Times, my dear,” said Lord Curvert.

Fesswick shimmered in through the doorway. “I beg to report, my lord, that Thregonn acknowledges the landing of the capsule. The four have been placed in arrest by the authorities. Their parents have been notified.”

“Good,” said Lord Curvert. “People here on Earth complain about juvenile delinquency, Fesswick. Just wait until they find out what it’s like on a Galactic scale.”

DESPOILERS OF THE GOLDEN EMPIRE

This
is
an odd one.
It
needs an Afterword instead of
a
Foreword.

By
Randall Garrett

I

In the seven centuries that had elapsed since the Second Empire had been founded on the shattered remnants of the First, the nobles of the Imperium had come slowly to realize that the empire was not to be judged by the examples of its predecessor. The First Empire had conquered most of the known universe by political intrigue and sheer military strength; it had fallen because that same propensity for political intrigue had gained over every other strength of the Empire, and the various branches and sectors of the First Empire had begun to use it against one another.

The Second Empire was politically unlike the First; it tried to balance a centralized government against the autonomic governments of the various sectors, and had almost succeeded in doing so.