Mission: Earth "Fortune of Fear" (3 page)

Got her!

She was going through shelves.

I watched intently.

The warehouse! She was going through the contents of the warehouse!

She would put down a collapsible, Zanco medical case she was carrying and then go over the rows and rows of labels and choose one. She would take an item out of the rows of them in the carton and put it in the carrying case.

Then I understood what she was doing. She was building herself a first-aid kit. She wasn't taking much of any one item and she was being very selective. Things like instant-heal seals for cuts and burns, rapid blood builders, heart-restart disposable syringes, that sort of thing. I began to realize that she must have the idea Jettero Heller might get hurt as she muttered, from time to time, things like, "He could put his hand on something hot," and "That would heal a blastgun sear." In some goofy way, she must have the idea either that he was shot up or could get shot up. Or maybe that Earth was a battlefield!

Now she was into little machines, each in their neat packages. "I'll bet his spinbrush is all worn out.... Maybe his nerve ends have gotten dull.... Maybe he has grown a mustache and wants it speeded up...."

She found cartons of powders and little vials of liquid and cooed. Little as I knew about the subject, they seemed to be the building blocks of makeups and cosmetics.

She was making no disarray. She was putting everything back in its place after she had taken a few of what she wanted.

The next section she found made me flinch. Surgical electric knives and probes. She seemed to think several would come in handy. Was she going to repair a battlefield or make one?

My attention, which had wandered due to speculation, came back to her with a snap. She had said "Ooooo" in a way I had learned to distrust.

I couldn't make it out at once due to the dim light in the warehouse. And then I flinched as if a cobra had struck at me!

She had found the "Eyes and Ears of Voltar" section! I knew it must be in there somewhere, for I had emptied the whole vault of that now-defunct company and carried it away. But due to the cargo jumble on arrival on Earth, I had never seen it. Some neat soul had stacked it all in order on the shelves, a dozen of this and fifty of that. And the Countess Krak was really reading labels!

A gadget that detected eye-pupillary shift when someone was lying; a mate to the telescope I had ashcanned in New York that looked through walls; a device that detected the kind of weapon someone would use, seconds before he employed it; a tiny radio speaker device that could be planted on someone to make him seem to speak, complete with waterproof transmitter; an ear-relay device to furnish a person with answers,
recommended for lawyers whose clients are undergoing torture: two-way radio connections, accessory extra;
a dart that
causes people to grow warm and itchy so they will disrobe and you can get divorce evidence;
a device that
puts picture, sound and emotion delusions in the brain so that the person believes he is crazy;
a perfume that
makes a person say yes to anything: preantidote capsule for user, accessory extra;
a dart that
can be fired into walls up to one mile away, thus planting an audio-visio bug: purse-size gun, accessory extra;
a search device which
up to one mile reads through clothes and makes the person appear naked: photographic attachment for lewd photographs, accessory extra;
a headlight fitting which
installed in one's own headlights causes other drivers to act like they are drunk and can then be arrested for drunken driving;
a field coil that
stimulates the desire to pick up money and the person can be arrested for stealing.

On and on! Dozens of different types of items!

My hair stood on end! The Countess Krak had another collapsible Zanco case out and was interestedly putting one and two of each in it!

She came to a case of miniature electronic illusion projectors:
moving dancing girls, accessory extra-useful for divorce photographs.
She took a dozen. She found a case of emotional perfume bombs that
cause people to react with emotions that make them say the required things: packs of eight assorted emotions-Caution: point away from self when breaking tip.
She took half a dozen packs!

I was losing my mind! These things in the hands of the Countess Krak! Earth might not be a battlefield yet but it sure would be when she got through with it!

With savage intention, I rose up, ready to rush out and halt this certainty of future massacres of whole populations.

Then, with horror, I remembered the "hypnotic implant" she thought she had given me. It was "You will let me go wherever I want around this hospital and nearby buildings or base. You will let me pick up anything I want." And to it she had added "You'll let me have whatever I take, no matter what it is. You will let me leave with it."

If I stopped her she would know the hypnohelmet she had used hadn't worked on me because of the breaker switch I secretly carried. It could bring about my death! For if she ever suspected what I was actually doing, that yellow-man she destroyed in Spiteos would have had an easy demise compared to the one she would give me.

I couldn't lift a finger!

How had she known of this warehouse? And then I recalled stating the hypnohelmets were in it. She had jumped to the correct conclusion that it held all sorts of things.

(Bleep) Spurk! I should have killed him years before!

And the hypnohelmets! I realized with horror that she was going to take those, too! And they were perfectly functional as long as I wasn't within two miles of them!

I only had a stungun, a couple of 800-kilovolt blasticks and a Knife Section knife on me. Suicide to go up against the Countess Krak with only those. Maybe if I rushed down to the base I could persuade an assassin pilot to bring his Space Battle Mobile Flying Cannon up here and blow the hospital to bits. And then I shook my head: that might take care of a space battleship but would it faze the Countess Krak?

There was only one thing I could do and I did it. I sat there and suffered. She had tricked me.

My watch got into my view as I wrung my hands.

It was only two hours to plane time!

If I worked fast and accurately, I could at least get her out of Turkey. To Hells with what happened to New York!

I got out her tickets and expense money. Then I paused. They usually issued five hundred dollars to the traveller here at the base in case there were emergencies and he had to come back. I opened the envelope intended for her. A taxicab could cost up to fifty dollars from John F. Kennedy Airport to New York. I would leave her fifty. I put the other four hundred and fifty in my own wallet. I was broke, oh so very broke. It was quite welcome. And she deserved to get a trick for a trick.

Raht. I had to get him off on the same plane. I took the activator-receiver and the 831 Relayer and put them in their cases. I picked up his ticket and money. As an afterthought, I took four hundred and fifty dollars of his money and put it in my own pocket.

I raced down to his room. He was just getting up but he flinched back into bed when he saw me.

"Vacation is over, you loafing bum," I told him. "You're outward bound for New York on this morning's plane. There will be a woman on it, in a hood, cape and veil; passport, U. S.; name, Heavenly Joy Krackle; height, five feet nine and a half inches; blond hair; blue or gray eyes depending on whether she is trying to get something out of you or about to kill you. Keep this unit within two hundred miles of her at all times and after you leave Istanbul, turn on the switch on this one. Mark this unit
K
so you don't get them mixed up if the two people separate."

"This is not very much money," he said, holding up the fifty-dollar bill. "Have they cut down on travel funds? I think I've got time to get over to the base and contact Faht Bey before plane time. I'll need money to live in New York."

(Bleep) him. Sly. I was up to it, however. I snatched up a tablet of prescription blanks, whipped out my identoplate and rapidly stamped the whole pad on the lines where it said
Doktor
__. "Fill these out and hand them in to the New York office. They'll give you money."

"I hope I can buy food with phenobarbital," he said.

I looked at him. Actually, he appeared years younger after his treatment and repair. Healthy for a change. "You're too fat," I said. "Fat from lying around doing nothing. And you've let your mustache grow. She is not to recognize you! Shave it off!" I knew that would get him. It was his pride and joy, sticking out straight on either side.

He flinched.

I whipped out my Knife Section knife from the back of my neck, so quick he didn't even see how it had appeared in my hand. I made a gesture at the mustache.

He wailed and ducked. "I'll shave it! I'll shave it!"

That was better. I had him under control.

I rushed back to Prahd's office. I looked at the viewer. She was leaving the warehouse, three big cases in her hands. I didn't have much time.

With fast motions, I grabbed the odds and ends of the bug set that was left. I raced out into the hall. By opening a couple of doors on patients just awakening, I found a third: it was an unused interview room. I dumped the viewer and box in a cabinet and locked it. I closed the room up. I went back to Prahd's office and got her grip. I raced down to the private room she had occupied. Slowing, I sauntered in.

Prahd was there all shaved and combed and in a fresh doctor's coat.

Krak entered the door with her cases. En route she had picked up the two hypnohelmets. She looked like a walking baggage rack. Prahd hastened to take things from her and put them on the bed.

Her eyes were bright. She did not look like a person is supposed to look after an operation. She stretched out her arm to free it from the cloak. She said to Prahd, "I peeked under the bandage," and she indicated her wrist. "You seem to have gotten rid of my scars. And I seem to have my tan back. I think you did a wonderful job. And look at my teeth gleam." She showed him.

I flinched.

But Prahd beamed and dug his toe into the floor like a wriggling little boy. Idiot. She had taken him in entirely!"I'm so happy you're pleased," he said. "It is an honor indeed to serve such a lovely patient. You can take all the cups and bandages off by midafternoon. They're just there to take the redness out."

He was looking at the cases. They were white cases and they had Zanco on the side of them, in Voltarian. A real potential Code break. I couldn't stop her from taking them!

"Wait right there," Prahd said. He rushed out at speed and was back in a flash. He had a whole box of assorted decals in his hands. He sorted through them. He chose half a dozen.

Using water from the washbasin he fixed them on the cases and the hypnohelmet boxes, covering the Zanco labels. He put the sixth one on her grip. They said:

WORLD HEALTH OPERATION

LABORATORY SPECIMENS

HANDLE WITH CARE

DO NOT X-RAY

INTERNATIONAL DISEASE CONTROL

TURKEY

They had red crosses and red crescents on them and the United Nations symbol.

He got a seal out of the box and fastened the three cases shut with wire and lead and the W.H.Op. symbol. "Now," he said, "if anybody stops you, tell them you're on your way to the International Disease Control Laboratory in New York. That's where we send specimens. Tell them the cases contain hermetically sealed bottles of spinal meningitis."

"Spinal meningitis," she repeated. "I can't thank you enough, Doctor, for all your treatment and assistance."

"It has been a pleasure to serve your ladyship." He bowed. Gods, you'd think he was in a Royal court!"A pleasant journey and happy return." I sure didn't share the latter sentiment. Once the Countess Krak left here she would be gone for good! He actually backed out of the door!

She was packing the greatcoat and spacer coveralls in her grip. I had to get her out of here. Just being near her made my hands shake. I got out her ticket and passport.

"That's your name for this planet," I said.

She looked at the passport. "Heavenly Joy Krackle!" she said. "I'd guess you thought of that, Soltan. How sweet of you!"

"And here's your money. You'll need it for cab fare at the other end." I gave her the fifty dollars.

She looked at it curiously. And I will say that modern U. S. money, a dingy blackish green on gray-green paper, does not compare very well in appearance to the gold gleam of Voltar currency. She was looking at the picture.
"Grant?
In English, that means 'give away.' This bill can't be very valuable if they just give them away. How much is this worth in credits?"

"They don't know of us yet," I said, "so the U. S. dollar doesn't exchange against credits. But, at a guess, one dollar is about one-fifth of a credit."

"Oh, dear," she said. "This is only ten credits, then. I don't have any clothes, Soltan. I mustn't let Jettero see me like
this!
Can't you at least loan me some money?"

In no manner whatever, I thought. This was the cream of the jest. In my recent trip to the U. S. I had found to my agony what women would spend on clothes. But, thanks to my exploits, Heller was pretty flat. A few pretty dresses and fur coats would break him. I was exporting financial ruin to him. And he deserved it for all the trouble he made.

I must have spent too much time gloating. She was speaking again. "Soltan, I know you are the handler for Mission Earth. You made that very plain back at Spiteos when you brought Jettero to me to language-train. A mission handler also handles mission expenses. I know that your boss, Lombar Hisst, thinks this is a pretty important mission. He told me so when I left. He said I was being sent to make sure the person on the mission was happy and not too overworked. And I know from the secret documents you showed me, His Majesty thinks it is very important, too. So I can't imagine their skimping on finance for it!"