Mission: Earth "Black Genesis" (47 page)

Grafferty didn't know whether he was up or down. He stared at the star. He said, "Oh, my God, it's Lologiggida!" Then he saw he was still trailing the tablecloth and plates. He tore the corner of it off his belt. And while the flashguns flashed, rushed from the restaurant.

Suddenly Jean Lologiggida burst into gales of laughter! She was doubled up with it!

Johnny Matinee rushed over. "Ye gads, I wish I'd been part of that. It'll make the front page!"

Somebody, evidently Johnny Matinee's public relations man, was grabbing the photographers and having a hurried consultation with the proprietor.

The PR man said, "It's nothing to you, kid," to Heller. "Do you mind if Johnny takes your place on the front page? We'll overpaste the shots they took."

"Feel free," said Heller.

They put Johnny Matinee where Heller had stood in front of Lologiggida, got him to assume the same pose. The flashbulbs flashed.

Heller went back to the table. The restaurant was still rocking with laughter. Somebody belatedly started to applaud and Heller turned and took a bow but indicated, with his hand, Johnny Matinee. This seemed even funnier to people.

Bang-Bang was sitting there, doubled over with laughter. "Oh, sangue di Cristo! That Grafferty won't come near a Corleone place for a while. And you bought the joint a million in publicity!"

Heller said, soberly, "And Grafferty won't connect that bottle up with the warehouse job."

Bang-Bang looked at Heller as Heller sat back down. "Hey, I never thought of that!"

Cherubino came over. He had another nonalcoholic beer. He was grinning when he set it down. "This a good kid you got here, Bang-Bang. I'm glad he's part of our family and not some other mob! Maybe you ain't so stupid as I thought!" He went off.

Bang-Bang sat there, looking at Heller. "You know, kid, I'm going to take you up on that offer. I'll even swallow my scruples and join the Army for you." He thought for a bit. Then he said, "It's not because it'll save me from going back to jail. It's just because you're kind of fun to be around!"

But I was not as impressed as they were. Heller's tablecloth trick was something we used to do at the Academy to dumb recruits. And any spacer has vast experience in handling barroom brawls. Heller was just taking advantage of the fact that Voltar technology was far higher than that of Earth's. Still, he was too tricky, too sneaky. And he was making too much progress!

Where the Hells was the communication from Rant and Terb? I couldn't abide the idea of seeing Heller fool all these people into thinking he amounted to something. All that (bleeping) applause!

Bright and early, Heller and Bang-Bang got off the subway at Empire Station. This morning Heller was wearing tailored gray flannel tennis slacks and a gray shirt with a white tennis sweater tied by its sleeves loosely around his neck. And he wore his inevitable red baseball cap and his spikes. He was carrying two heavy rucksacks evidently jammed with things I had no clue about.

Bang-Bang was something else. He had on some nondescript jeans and denim shirt. But on his head he wore an olive drab cap and across it in black was stencilled USMC.

They came up College Walk. Students were moving along, burdened with books, on their way to classes.

But Heller and Bang-Bang, much to my surprise, did not seem to be headed for a class. Heller striding along and Bang-Bang double-timing to catch up, they turned north past High Library and, threading their way around buildings, came almost to 120th Street. There was an expanse of lawn and a tree. Heller headed for the tree.

"All right, this is the command post. Synchronize your watch."

"Right," said Bang-Bang.

"Here is the schedule of plantings we took up last night in the suite."

"Right."

"Now, you've got to look at this from the viewpoint of timed fuses."

"Right!"

What in Hells were they up to? Was Heller trying to get out of his promise to Babe by blowing up the school?

"You put them in undetectably."

"Right."

"And what happens if you don't need an area mined anymore?"

"You pick them up undetectably," said Bang-Bang. "It's a secret operation. Run no risks of barrage."

"Right," said Heller. "Wait a minute. What does USMC mean?" Heller was looking at Bang-Bang's cap.

"Christ! 'United States Marine Corps' of course!"

"Give it to me."

"And leave myself under enemy fire with no moral support?"

Heller took it off his head. He removed his own baseball cap and put it on Bang-Bang. Of course, it was miles too big. Heller put the USMC cap on his own head. I couldn't see it but it must have looked very funny.

"I can't see," said Bang-Bang. "How am I going to plant a sensitive–"

"You're falling behind schedule," said Heller. He handed Bang-Bang one of the rucksacks. Bang-Bang sprinted away, lugging the filled bag and trying to keep the cap off his eyes.

Heller took out a ground sheet. Voltarian by the Gods—one of those inch square ones that open up to ten square feet! The kind that change color to match the ground!

It blended with the grass color. Leave it to him to keep himself neat! Bah, these Fleet guys!

He took out a gas inflatable backrest. Voltarian! It

puffed up. He upended the rucksack over the ground cloth. Books spilled all over the place!

Heller sat down comfortably against the backrest, pawed the books over and found one. Aha! If Babe only could see this! He was not going to class! He was playing hooky!

The book he had was English Literature for Advanced High-School Students as Passed by the American Medical Association. Book One. The Complete, Rewritten and Abridged Works of Charles Dickens. It was a quarter of an inch thick and had large type. Heller, in his customary show-off way, demolished it, turning the pages faster than I could see what the page numbers were. It took him about one minute. He turned the book over, seemingly puzzled that there was no more book there. Then he took out an erasable Voltarian pen—he's always so NEAT, it really gets on your nerves! —and marked the date and the Voltarian mathematical symbol that means "equation completed pending next stage."

He put the book aside and got another one, book two of the same series, The World's One Hundred Greatest Novels Complete, Rewritten and Abridged. It was also a quarter of an inch thick with large type. It took him another whole minute. He marked the date and the Voltarian symbol.

There was no book three so he opened a notebook and wrote High-School English Literature. And then the Voltarian mathematical symbol for "operation complete."

This must have made him feel good for he looked around. Most of the students were in classes, apparently, for there were only a couple of girls loafing along, maybe graduate students. They waved, he waved.

He found another book. It was English Literature I for First Year College as Passed by the American Medical Association. The Complete Significances You Should Get Out of

Literature and What You Should Think About It. He demolished that.

I was getting so dizzy watching the screen blur with turning pages that it was with some horror that I realized the worst. He was writing in his notebook, First Three Years College English Literature and the same Voltarian math symbol: "equation completed pending next stage."

I verified it twice on my watch. Only ten minutes had gone by!

Oh, I know disaster when I see it. (Bleep) him. When he went to get tutored on English literature he would just make a vulgar gesture with his thumb and say, "Yah, yah, yah!"

Bang-Bang came back. "I planted them."

"What took you so long?"

"I had to stop by the college store and get another hat. I couldn't work in your cap." And he had on a tasselled, black mortarboard. He gave Heller back his baseball cap, lay down on the Voltarian ground sheet and promptly went to sleep.

Heller had started on journalism, an unlikely subject that had been on his grade sheet. The book was College Journalism First Year. Essential Basic Fairy Tales of Many Lands. I was glad to see that it was taking him longer. He wasn't reading so fast. He seemed to be enjoying something, so I split the screen and still-framed the other one so I could read it. My Gods, it was the story of the lost continent of Atlantis!

He dawdled along and it took him a half hour to finish College Journalism. Then he saw that he was supposed to have written a sort of end-of-course paper. He got out his bigger notebook, the one he doodled in. He wrote,

CONTINENT SINKS

MILLIONS LOST

Circulation today was boosted by the timely event of a continent vanishing. Publishers ecstatic.

The event was further heightened by a conflict of opinion by leading experts.

However, an unknown expert leaked to this paper-sources cannot be disclosed despite Supreme Court rulings– that all was not known about this event.

The unidentified expert, who shall be nameless, declared that this colony had been founded by an incursion from outer space under the command of that sterling revolutionary and nobleman of purpose and broad vision, none other than Prince Caucalsia from the province of Atalanta, planet of Manco.

Some of the survivors, who emigrated immediately to the Caucasus, which is behind the Iron Curtain and human beings can't usually go there, were incarcerated by the KGB. Deportation soon followed and they arrived maybe in New York.

The public will be kept informed.

Heller punched Bang-Bang. "Read this."

"Why me?" said Bang-Bang, groggy in what must have been a warm morning.

"Well, somebody has got to read it and pass it. It's the end-of-course paper in Journalism. If nobody reads it and passes it, I can't have the credit for it."

Bang-Bang sat up. He read it with lip movement. "What's this word incarcerated?"

"Put in the slammer," said Heller.

"Oh, yeah. Hey, that's a good word. 'Incarcerpated.'"

"Well, do I pass?"

"Oh, hell, yes. Anybody that knows that many big words is a genius. Hey, I got to get going. Time for another line of charges!" Bang-Bang raced off, tassel of his mortarboard streaming in the wind.

Heller wrote, College Journalism. Passed with In-the-Field Citation.

Two more girls drifted by. They stopped to pass the time of day. "What's your major?" one asked Heller.

"It was Journalism. But I just passed it with Battle Honors. What's yours?"

"Advanced Criticism," said one.

"See you around," said Heller.

After a while, Bang-Bang came back. "First charges picked up. Second series laid." He went back to sleep.

Frankly, they were driving me nuts! What were they doing? Why didn't I hear some explosions as buildings went up?

Heller demolished a couple more subjects and passed himself in his notebook. Bang-Bang had come back again and was once again fast asleep.

Now Heller had gotten into high-school chemistry. But this time he was really tangled. I could tell. He was yawning and yawning. Tension! In fact, it was evidently too much for him for he laid it aside and picked up a text on high-school physics. He read for a while, yawning. Then he picked up the chemistry text again and began looking from it to the physics text.

"Hey," he told the texts. "Agree amongst you on something, will you?"

A clear-cut case of animistic fixation, his habit of talking to things. No wonder he couldn't understand clear-cut texts.

He finished up the chemistry including the college texts on it and then got going once more on physics. He kept going back earlier and looking again.

And then, I couldn't believe it! He started to laugh. He always was sacrilegious. Little spurts of laughter kept erupting. And then he read some more and he laughed some more. And then he got to laughing harder and

harder and rolled off the backrest and beat at the ground with his fists!

"What the hell is going on?" said Bang-Bang, waking up. "You reading comic books or something?"

Heller got control of himself and it was time he did! "It's a text on primitive superstitions," said Heller. "Look, it's almost noon. Pick up those last charges and we'll have some lunch."

Ah, they were threatening the school! Demanding ransom?

Heller had everything gathered up and they went off and bought sandwiches and pop from a mobile lunch wagon.

"Operation right on schedule," said Heller.

"We made our beachhead," said Bang-Bang.

They enjoyed the view of girls as they strolled around. Heller bought a couple of papers. Then, "Time!" said Heller sternly. And Bang-Bang raced off again. When he came back, Heller had the command post all set up and Bang-Bang went to sleep.

If they weren't blowing things up, and I had heard no explosions, this was about the strangest way to go to college I had ever seen. You're supposed to go and sit down and listen to lectures and take notes and hurry to another class....

Heller was halfway through trigonometry when Bang-Bang said, "I'll pick up the last series and lay the next. But then I got to go report to the Army and you'll have to take over."

Heller finished trigonometry and told it, "You sure go the long way round." But he entered it in his notebook as passed.

Bang-Bang returned and dropped the rucksack he had been racing about with. "Well, here goes the pig into the mire. You got the watch now."

Heller had gotten tired of studying, apparently, for he packed his books up. His watch winked at him in Voltarian figures that it was a bit after two. He opened up one of the papers he had bought.

He looked all through it. He couldn't find a trace of what he was looking for: he kept muttering, "Grafferty? Grafferty?"

He opened up the second paper. He got clear back to the photo section before he found it. It was a picture of an indistinct fireman climbing down a ladder carrying an unrecognizable woman. The caption said: