else, so ordinary gangsters don’t use semi-portables. So, when you leave
here, go to Tommie’s room instead of out. They’ll lay for you, of
course, but while they’re waiting Tommie will go out to our ship and
bring back my G-P armor. You put it on, walk out openly, and take a
ground-car—_not_ a copter—to the ship. If they know armor they won’t
shoot at you, because you could shoot back. When you get to the ship go
in, lock the port behind you, and stay there until I tell you to come
out.”
Jim, influenced visibly by the pleasant possibility of shooting back,
accepted the plan joyously; and, after making sure that there were no
spies or spy-rays on watch, the two Tomingans left the room.
A few minutes later, with the same precaution, Vesta and the Manarkan
went to their own rooms; but they were on hand again after breakfast
next morning.
“You know, of course, that you have no evidence admissible in even an
honest court,” Nadine began. “You knew it when you changed your mind
about having a Tomingan voice, not Vesta’s, on those tapes.”
“Yes. Communicator-taps are out—violation of privacy.”
“Exactly. And telepathy is worse. Any attempt to introduce telepathic
testimony, on almost any non-telepathic world, does more harm than good.
So, beyond establishing the fact of guilt in your own mind—a fact
already self-evident, since such outrages can happen only when both
courts and police are corrupt from top to bottom—I fail to see what you
hope to gain.”
“Wouldn’t a Tomingan Lensman be interested?”
“There are none. There never have been any.”
“Well, then, I’ll take it up myself, with. . . .”
Cloud stopped in mid-thought. With whom? He could talk to Phil Strong,
certainly, but he wouldn’t get anywhere. He knew, as well as Nadine did,
that the Galactic Patrol would not interfere with purely local politics
unless something of inter-systemic scope was involved. The Galactic
Council held, and probably rightly, that any people got the kind of
local government they deserved. He certainly couldn’t expect the Patrol
to over-ride planetary sovereignty in regard to a thing that hadn’t
happened yet! He wrenched his mind away.
“Having any trouble following her, Nadine?” he asked.
“No. She’s just leaving the fast-way now; going into his office.”
Thus, through Nadine, Cloud accompanied Tommie into the office of the
District Attorney, saw her tender the spool of tape, heard her explain
in stormy language what it was.
“How did you get hold of it?” the D. A. demanded.
“How do you suppose?” Tommie shot back. “Do we have to come down to City
Hall and take out a license to hang an ear onto such a stinking crumb,
such a notorious mobster and general all-round heel as Number One is?
Public Enemy Number One, it ought to be!”
“No, I wouldn’t say that you would,” the politician soothed. He had been
thinking fast. “I’ll run this tape as soon as I can take a minute alone
in my chambers, and I promise you full and fast action. They’ve gone too
far, this time. Just what, specifically, do you want me to do?”
“I’m no lawyer, so I don’t know who does what, but I want this
Protective Association junked and I want those murderers arrested.
Today.”
“Some of these matters lie outside the province of this office, but I
can and will take initiatory steps. No one will be harmed, I assure
you.”
Apparently satisfied, Tommie left the D. A.’s office, but Nadine did not
leave the D. A.’s mind. This was what the Blaster was after!
Sure enough, as soon as Tommie was out of sight, the official dashed
into his private office and called Number One.
“One, they hung an ear on you last night!” he exclaimed, as soon as
connection was made. “How come you didn’t. . . .”
“Horsefeathers!” the gangster snarled. “Who d’ya think you’re kidding?”
“But they did! I’ve got a copy of it right here.”
“Play it!”
The tape was played, and it was very clear that it was in no Tomingan’s
voice.
“No, it wasn’t an ear,” the D. A. admitted.
“And I was blocked against spy-rays,” said Number One, “so it must have
been a snooper. A snooper with a voice. Manarkans are snoopers, but they
can’t talk. Most snoopers can’t . . . except maybe Ordoviks. There were
a couple of them around last night. Can Ordoviks talk? And
Chickladorians—are they snoopers?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t know either, but I’ll find out, and when I do I’ll go gunning.”
Tommie came back to Cloud’s room and her serenity, skin-deep at best,
vanished completely as the new tape was played.
“Condemn and blast that lying, slimy, two-faced, double-crossing snake!”
she roared. “I’ll call out the. . . .”
“You won’t either—pipe down!” Cloud ordered, sharply. “Mob rule never
settled anything. That’s what you expected, isn’t it?”
“Well . . . more or less, I suppose . . . yes.”
“QX. We got _something_ to work on now, but we need more, and we’ve got
only today to get it. Who’s the crookedest judge in town—the one most
apt to be in on this kind of a deal?”
“Trellis. High Judge Rose Trellis of the Enchanting. . . .”
“Skip the embellishments. Take both of these tapes to Judge Trellis and
_insist_ on seeing him at once.”
“It isn’t a him—she’s a her.”
“Her, then. Make it snappy. And don’t blow up if she gives you the
brush-off. We’re after data. And on your way back, pick up that
newspaper editor and bring him along.”
_Chapter 9_
▂▂▂▂▂▂TROUBLE ON TOMINGA
TOMMIE LEFT, accompanied mentally by Nadine, and reached the judge’s
antechamber; with Vesta taping in Middle-Plateau Tomingan everything
that occurred. The approach was difficult, and Tommie’s temper grew
shorter and shorter.
“Get out of my way!” she bellowed finally at the sergeant-at-arms
barring her way to the judicial Presence, in a voice that rattled the
windows and was audible above four blocks of city traffic. “Or shoot, if
you want to get yourself and this building and half of Mingia blown
clear up into the stratosphere! Jump! Before I take that blaster and
shove it so far down your throat it’ll hit day-before-yesterday’s
breakfast!”
The guard did not have quite enough nerve to shoot, and Tommie almost
wrenched the door of the judge’s inner office off its hinges as she went
in.
“What’s this, pray? Get out! Sergeant-at. . . .”
“Shut up, Rose Trellis of the Enchanting Vistas of Exotic Blooms—you’re
listening, not talking. Here’s two tapes of what Number One and his
misbegotten scum have been doing. Play ’em! And then _do something_
about ’em! And listen, you lying, double-crossing, back-biting
slime-lizard!” Tommie’s prettily-made-up face was in shocking contrast
to the venemous fury in Tommie’s eyes as she leaned over the judge’s
massive desk until nose was a scant ten inches from nose. “If that
atomic blast goes off tonight you and your whole Srizonified crew will
wish to all your devils you’d never been born!”
Whirling around, Tommie strode out; nor did anyone attempt to stop her.
No one knew what would happen if they did; and no one cared to find out.
Judge Trellis did not play the tapes. In panic fashion she called the
District Attorney, who promptly made it a three-way with Number One. The
three talked busily for minutes, then met in person, together with
several lesser lights, in a heavily-guarded room. This conference, the
subject matter of which was so obvious as to require no detailing here,
went on for a long time.
So long, in fact, that Tommie and the newspaper man got back to Cloud’s
hotel room while Vesta was still taping a word-by-word report of the
proceedings. Tommie was subdued, almost apologetic.
“I know you told me not to blow up, Captain Cloud, but they made me so
mad I couldn’t help it.”
“In this case just as well you did; maybe better. You scared her into
calling a meeting, and they’ve spilled every bean in the pot. We’ve got
exactly what we wanted—enough to stop that gang right in its tracks.
Now, as soon as the girls get the last of it, we’ll let your editor in
on it.”
It was soon over, and Cloud, after a quick run-down of the situation and
a play-back of parts of the tapes for the newshawk’s benefit,
concluded:—
“So, over the long pull, the issue isn’t—can’t be—in doubt. Public
opinion will be aroused. There are honest judges, there are a lot of
honest cops. At the next election this corrupt regime will be thrown out
of office. However, that election is a year away, the present
powers-that-be are all in the syndicate, and we must do something
_today_ to stop the destruction scheduled for tonight. Little
Flower-and-so-on tells me that you’re a crusading type, fighting a
losing battle against this mob—that they’ve got you just about
whipped—so I thought you would be interested in taking a slug at ’em by
getting out an extra—strong enough to stir up enough public sentiment
so they wouldn’t dare go ahead. Would you like to do that?”
“Would I?” The newsman grinned wolfishly. “I’ll get out the extra, yes;
but I’ll do a lot more than that. I’ll print a hundred thousand dodgers
and drop ’em from copters. I’ll have blimps dragging streamers all over
the sky. I’ll buy time on every radio and tri-di station in town—have
the juiciest bits of these tapes broadcast, every hour on the hour.
Mister, I’ll tear this town wide open before sundown tonight!”
He left, breathing fire and sulphurous smoke, and Cloud made motions to
attract the Manarkan’s attention.
“Nadine? These Tomingans take things big, don’t they? All to the good,
with one exception—will any repercussions—flarebacks—hit you? Those
characters are tough, and will be desperate, and I wouldn’t want to put
you in line with a blaster.”
“No . . . almost certainly not,” Nadine replied, after a minute of
thought. “They are looking for a telepath with a voice, which they won’t
find on Tominga. They know Manarkans well—many of us live here
permanently—and I’m quite sure that none of the gang would suspect such
an unheard-of thing as Vesta and I have been doing. They are not
imaginative, and such a thing never happened before—not here, at
least.”
“No? Why not? What’s strange about it?”
“The whole situation is new—unique. This is probably the first time in
history that these exact circumstances—especially in regard to
personnel—have come together. Consider, please, the ingredients: a real
and bitter grievance, victims willing and anxious to take drastic
action, a sympathetic telepath who is also an expert in shorthand, a
master linguist, and, above all, a director or programmer—you—both
able and willing to fit the parts together so that they work.”
“Um . . . m . . . m. Never thought of it in that way. Could be, I guess.
Well, all we can do now is wait and see what happens.”
They waited, and saw. The crusading editor did everything he had
promised. The extra hit the streets, its headlines screaming
“CORRUPTION!” in the biggest type possible to use. The taped
conversations, with names, amounts, times, and places, were printed in
full. The accompanying editorial should have been written with sulphuric
acid on asbestos paper. The leaflets, gaily littering the city, were
even more vitriolic. Every hour, on the hour, speakers gave out what
sound-trucks were blaring continuously—irrefutable proof that the city
of Mingia was being run by a corrupt, rotten, vicious machine.
Mingia’s citizens responded, but not quite as enthusiastically as the
Blaster, from his limited acquaintance with the breed, had expected.
There was some organizing, some demonstrating; but there was also quite
a lot of “So what? If they don’t, some other gang of politicians will.”
Cloud, however, when he went to his rooms after supper, was well pleased
with what he had seen. They _couldn’t_ blast 53, not after the events of
the afternoon. The Chickladorians and Vesta and Nadine, when they came
in, agreed with him. The situation was under control. They were tired,
they said. It had been a long, hard day, and they were going to hit the
sack. They left.
Cloud intended to stay awake until midnight, just to see what would
happen, but he didn’t. He was tired, too, and within a couple of minutes
after he relaxed, alone, he was sound asleep in his chair.
Thus he did not hear the vicious thunder-clap of the atomic explosion at
midnight; did not see the reflected brilliance of its glare. Nor did he
hear the hurrying footsteps in the hotel’s corridors. What woke him up
was the concussion that jarred the whole neighborhood when a half-ton
bomb demolished the building which had been Number One’s headquarters.
Cloud jumped up, then, and ran out into the hall and along it to Vesta’s
room. He pounded. No answer. The door was unlocked. He opened it. Vesta
was not there!
Nadine was gone, too. So were the Chickladorians.
He rushed up to the lobby, only to encounter again the difficulty that
had stopped him short before. _He could not make himself understood!_ He
didn’t know three words of Upper Plateau, and nobody he could find knew
even one word of English, Spanish, Spaceal, or any other language at his
command.
He took an elevator down to the street level and flagged a cruising cab.
He handed the driver the largest Tomingan bill he had; then, pointing
straight ahead and making furious pushing motions, he made it plain that
he knew where he wanted to go, and wanted to get there in a hurry. The
hacker, stimulated by more cash than he had seen for a week, drove
wherever Cloud pointed; and broke—or at least bent—most of Mingia’s
speed-laws in his eagerness to oblige.
Cloud’s destination, of course, was the spaceport; but when he got to
the _Vortex Blaster I_, Jim wasn’t there any more. None of his crew was
aboard, either. The lifeboats were all in place, but the flitter was
gone. So were both suits of armor—and the semi-portables—and the spare
DeLameters—and both needles—even his space-hatchet!
He went up to the control room and glanced over the board. Everything
was on zero except one meter, which was grazing the red. All four semis
and both needles were running wide open—pulling every watt they could
possibly draw!
Angry as he was, Cloud did not think of cutting the circuit. If he had
thought of it he wouldn’t have done it. He didn’t know exactly what his
officers were doing, of course, but he could do a shrewd job of
guessing. If he had known what they were up to he wouldn’t have
permitted it, but it was too late to do anything about it now. With
those terrific weapons in operation they _might_ get back alive—without
them, they certainly would not. _What_ a land-office business those
semis were doing!
They were.
Tommie and her brother, wearing Cloud’s two suits of armor, were each
_carrying_ a semi-portable; wielding it, if not as easily as an Earthly
gunner wields a sub-machine-gun, much more effectively. They were
burning down a thick steel door. Well behind them, the third semi was
bathing the whole front of the building in a blinding glare of radiance.
In back, the fourth was doing the same to the rear wall. On the sides,
the two needle-beams were darting from window to window, burning to a
crisp any gangster gunner daring to show his head to aim.
For the Tomingans had not been nearly as optimistic as had Cloud, and
they had made complete preparation for reprisal in case Number One
should make good his threat. The Manarkan had been willing to cooperate.
Thlaskin, ditto. Vesta had been quiveringly eager. Maluleme had gone
along. They had not mutinied—they simply did not tell Cloud a thing
about what they were going to do.
Number One had not been in his headquarters, of course, when that
thousand-pound bomb let go. He thought himself safe—but he wasn’t.
Nadine the telepath knew exactly where he was and exactly what he was
doing. Vesta the linguist poured the information along, via the
flitter’s broadcaster, to the receivers of hundreds of ground-cars and
copters far below. Thlaskin the Master Pilot kept the flitter close
enough to the fleeing Number One so that Nadine could read him—fully,
she thought—but far enough away to avoid detection. Thus, wherever he
went, Number One was pursued relentlessly, and his merciless pursuers
closed in faster and faster.
Number One’s flight, however, was not aimless. He knew that a snooper
was on him, and had enough power of mind to shield a few highly
important thoughts. He wasn’t really THE Big Shot. He had called Yellow
Castle, though, and they had told him that he could come in in one
hour—the army would be ready. But did he have an hour, or not?
He did; just barely. The saps were snapping at his heels when he
switched to a jet job and took off in a screaming straight line for the
Castle.
Vesta wanted to ram him to drop a lifeboat on him, to wreck him in any
way possible; but Thlaskin refused. Captain Cloud would be mad enough at
what they’d done already—any such rough stuff as _that_ would be
altogether too damn much! And, since the rebels’ jets were still on the
ground, Number One had reached sanctuary unharmed.
Yellow Castle, however, was not as impregnable as the gangsters had
supposed. They had armor, true, but it was not at all like Cloud’s. They
had weapons, true, but nothing even faintly resembling the frightful
semi-portable projectors of the Galactic Patrol—nothing even remotely
approaching the Patrol’s beam-fed needle beams.
Thus the Tomingans, Tommie and Jim, stood in armor of proof scarcely an
arm’s length from Yellow Castle’s heavy steel door and burned it down
into a brooklet of molten metal. Then on in; blasting down everything
that resisted and, finally, everything that moved. Nor did any gangster
escape. Those who managed to avoid the armored pair were blasted by one
of the other semis or speared by one of the needles.
Yellow Castle, already furiously ablaze, was left to burn. Jim, after
giving instructions as to how his lieutenants were to dispose of such
small fry as might be left alive in the city proper, helped his sister
load the Blaster’s weapons and armor into a ground-car. They drove out
into the middle of a great open field. The flitter landed; Cloud’s
borrowed equipment was hauled aboard. Tommie and Jim followed it.
“If you were really smart, I think you’d flit right now,” Vesta said to
Tommie. “Captain Cloud isn’t going to like this a little bit.”
“I know it. I’m not smart. This was worth anything he cares to do about
it. Besides, I want to thank him myself and tell him good-bye in
person.”
The flitter took off and returned to her mother-ship. Tommie and
Thlaskin put her away, then the peculiarly assorted six went up to the
control room and faced the quietly seething Tellurian.
Not boldly—only Tommie and Nadine were really at ease. Jim was defiant.
Thlaskin was nervous and apprehensive; Maluleme was just plain scared.
So was Vesta—her tail drooped to the floor; she seemed to have shrunk
to four-fifths her normal size; her usual free-swinging, buoyant gait
had changed almost to a slink.
Cloud stared at Nadine—chill, stern, aloof; an up-to-date Joan of Arc
or a veritable destroying angel—nodded at her to synchronize with his
mind. She did so, and her mind bore out everything implied by her
attitude and expression. She was outraged to her innermost fiber by the
conditions she had just helped to correct.
“You were the prime operator in this thing,” he thought, flatly. “With
your knowledge of law and your supposed respect for it, how could you
take it into your own hands? Become part of a law-breaking mob?”
“It was necessary. Law in Mingia was shackled—completely inoperative.
We freed it.”
“By murder?”
“It was not murder. The lives of all who were killed were already
forfeit. The corrupt judges, officials, and police officers will be
dealt with by Mingian law, now again operative. Of all your crew, only
Tommie could by any chance have been taken or recognized. If our coup
had failed, she and Jim would have been shot without trial. Since we
succeeded, however, Tommie was not recognized, being in your armor, and
Jim is now Mingia’s hero. He is also the new Commissioner of Police.
Hence, aside from breaking local laws—which, as I have explained, do
not count—we are guilty only of unauthorized use of Patrol equipment.”
“Huh? How about interfering in planetary affairs, the worst in the book?
And revealing Stage Ten stuff to a Stage Eight planet?”
“You are wrong on both counts,” Nadine informed him. “We were on shore
leave—that fact is in the log. We volunteered, purely as individuals,
for one day of service in the Underground. This procedure, while of
course forbidden to armed personnel of the Patrol, is perfectly legal to
its civilian employees. A special ruling would have to be made to cover
this particular incident, and no _ex post facto_ penalties could be
imposed.”
“That’s quibbling if I ever heard any, but you’re probably
right—legally—at that. But how do you wiggle out of the ‘revealing’
charge?”
“In the specific meaning of the word, as defined by the highest courts,
nothing was revealed. Weapons and armor were seen, of course; but they
have been seen on Tominga before. Nothing new was learned; hence there
was no revealment. And as for Jim’s leaving the ship against your
orders, you had no right to issue such orders in the first place.”
Still seething, but on a considerably lower level, Cloud pondered. It
_wasn’t_ murder—nobody would or could call it that. “Extermination”
would be more like it—or “justifiable germicide.” She was probably
right on the rest of it, too. Even though he was, by virtue of being the
captain of the _Vortex Blaster I_, an officer of the Patrol—strictly
speaking a commander, not a captain—there wasn’t a thing in the world
he could do about it.
Nadine had been keeping Vesta posted; and the latter, recovering
miraculously her wonted spirit and with tail again aloft, was passing
the good news along to the others.
“Don’t get _too_ cocky, sister!” Tommie advised her sharply. “Not yet,
anyway.”
“Huh?” Vesta’s tail dropped to half-mast. “Why not?”
“You just said she pleaded guilty for all of us to unauthorized use of
Patrol equipment. For what we really did that’s certainly a
featherweight plea—if I ever get into a real jam I certainly want her
for my lawyer—but he can make it plenty tough for us if he wants to.”
“I got a question to ask, boss,” Thlaskin put in, before Cloud said
anything. “You got a license to be sore as hell, no argument about that,
but I ask you—are you sore mostly because we took the stuff or because
we didn’t let you in on it? We _couldn’t_ do that, boss, and you know
why.”
Cloud did know why. The pilot had put his finger right on the sore spot,
and the Blaster was honest enough to admit it.
“That’s it, I guess.” He grinned wryly.
Tommie, who had been whispering to Vesta, asked: “You got back here
while we were still sucking juice, didn’t you?”
“Yes, and as Nadine will undoubtedly point out if I don’t, that fact
makes me an accomplice for not pulling the switches on you. So, already
being an accessory during and after the fact, I may as well go the
route. If any of us gets hauled up, we all do.”
“No fear of that,” Tommie assured him. “One thing Tomingans are good at
is keeping their mouths shut. Maluleme and Vesta will spill everything
they know, and brag about it, sooner or later,” the Vegian did not
relish translating this passage, but she did so, and accurately,
nevertheless, “but that won’t do any harm. It’s _you_ that’s in the
driver’s seat. You could’ve nailed us all to the cross if you liked, and
I for one didn’t expect to get off easy. Thanks. I’ll remember this. So
will everybody else who knows. You’re washing me out, of course?”
“Not unless you want to stay here on Tominga. You’re a good engineer,
and I can’t picture this as happening again, can you?”
“Hardly. I like this better than stationary work. Thanks again, chief.
My brother wants to thank you, too.”
After the sincerely grateful and appreciative Tomingan had gone, Cloud
said:
“Vesta and Maluleme—if Tommie was right about you two having to talk,
make a note of this. Don’t do it as long as you’re members of this crew.
If you do, I’ll fire you the second I find out about it. Now
everybody—as far as I’m concerned none of this ever happened. We came
here to blow out vortices and that’s all we did. We’ll go back to the
hotel, get a few hours sleep, and. . . .”
The long-range communicator, silent for weeks, came suddenly to life in
English.
“Calling space-ship _Vortex Blaster One_, Commander Neal Cloud.
Acknowledge, please. Calling space-ship _Vortex Blaster One_. . . .”
“Space-ship _Vortex Blaster One_ acknowledging.” The detector-coupled
projector had swung into exact alignment. “Commander Cloud speaking.”
“Space-ship YB216P9, of First Continent, Tominga, relaying message from
Philip Strong of Tellus. Will you accept message?”
“Will accept message. Ready.”