Mission: Earth "Fortune of Fear" (34 page)

There was lots of soap in the bathroom: I am no expert on the subject, but the American soaps, with their penny-a-barrel "perfume," stunk worse than I did. They use violent odors to cover up the even more violent odors of their questionable ingredients, like rancid hog fat. I finally found an "oatmeal health soap" that said it was for "that virgin look." I began my shower.

Lathering away, I thought this difficult situation over. I will admit that I was baffled.

My calculations had been out, somehow, no matter how deeply I thrust them in. Anyone would have thought that the crudest possible thing you could do to a lesbian would be to make her witness natural sex.

The Marquis de Sade himself advocated, as the worst sadistic action possible, "anarchic sexual violence." I had only gone by the book. And he should know. He had been a man who practiced what he preached. Freud himself, a few decades later, would have been utterly spinning, had it not been for the earlier dedicated work of de Sade.

Somewhere I must have slipped. But enough of wondering. I was a man of the future, not the past. I toyed with the idea of simply killing them, disposing of the bodies, calling a moving company and having them take the safe to the manufacturer. I could tell them that I had forgotten the combination. But I discarded the notion, as they might get suspicious. I had to keep my trail covered.

I finished showering. I smelled disgustingly clean– or was that oatmeal?

I put on the Ninja robe. I picked up a gun. I was just putting my hand out to open the door when I heard them talking. They had come to! I listened. Maybe I could pick up a clue that would tell me what to do next.

Pinch's voice, "All right, then, you tell him."

Candy said, "No.
You
tell him. You're much better at tricky things."

"He won't believe me," said Pinch. "He doesn't trust me."

"He's got to believe you," said Candy.

"I don't think I can con him."

Candy said, "You've GOT to try! This is intolerable. He might do the most awful thing I can think of."

Pinch said, "God (bleep) it, he might at that. This is pretty desperate!"

Aha! They thought it was desperate, did they? My heart leaped with hope. There was something they were terrified of. I took a chance. I walked in, gun ready.

They were both staring at me, Candy tied up on the sofa, Pinch securely manacled on the bed. Was there fear in their eyes? Aha! There was! Unmistakable. They were terrified!

Miss Pinch took a deep breath. She said, "If you unchain me and leave the room, I will open the safe and give you your money."

Oh, man. I had accidentally hit upon something they were afraid I would do. I must pretend I knew what it was, even though I didn't.

But I knew Miss Pinch. She was, even more than other women, tricky to the last stab in the back. I would outsmart her. I would at least hear what this was before I murdered both of them.

I went around the room and collected every knife display and weapon in it. I even found the old duelling pistols of such painful memory. It took me three trips to Candy's room before I had the lot piled in there.

I ripped out the telephone cord. I ripped out the connections on the bank camera, after making sure it would not trip some remote. I looked in the cupboard and got all the pepper and mustard and Tabasco sauce and added them to the weapons pile.

With expert loops, I untied Candy's feet from the lashing under the couch and retied her ankles. She knew better than to fight: I was holding a knife in my teeth.

I held a pistol to her head and dragged her into her bedroom and tied her to the bureau.

I came back, and with the Ruger Blackhawk cocked in my left hand, I unshackled Miss Pinch and drew back hastily.

"One false move from you," I said, "and I will blow Candy's head off. Now open the safe."

"When you've left the room and closed the door," she said.

It was taking a terrible chance. But I needed that money in order to continue on my way to wreck the cause of all my woes, Heller.

I backed out of the door and closed it. I held the gun ready on Candy in case there was any treachery afoot.

Some small sounds in the other room. Believe me, this was one of the touchiest points in my whole career. I had to continue to look calm to them but it was very difficult.

I could almost hear my own heart trying to climb into my throat. Women are always dangerous and when they are lesbians they are doubly dangerous-and when they are Miss Pinch, watch it, man, for she was all three.

A voice from the other room. "You can come in now."

I was not to be taken unawares. I got hold of the naked Candy, still tied, and used her as a body shield. I kicked open the door.

Miss Pinch was kneeling, propitiative, in front of the safe. She had her hands behind her. Trickery! The safe was closed! I held the Ruger to Candy's temple, finger on the hair trigger.

"What treachery is this?" I demanded.

Miss Pinch took her hands from behind her back. She was holding a thousand-dollar bill. She said, "This is yours if you don't do it." Fear was in her eyes.

It was time I found out what they were terrified of. "If I don't do what?" I grated.

It was Candy that answered, all in a babble, the accents of sheer horror, "YOU MIGHT WALK OUT THAT DOOR AND
LEAVE!
WE MIGHT NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN!"

I blinked. A new kind of trick. They had a trap out there and were using the negative ploy, page two million and three of the Apparatus manual on hoodwinking.

Miss Pinch was talking. There was pleading in her voice. "Your money is still in the safe. By your signing a blank invoice I can even get you more. But this is all you can have right now. There are conditions."

"Yes?" I said suspiciously.

"You can have a thousand dollars every day if you will live here with us and promise to do that same thing every night."

"To both of us," said Candy. "Every night."

Oh, this was very suspicious. I said, "What about Psychiatric Birth Control?"

Miss Pinch said, "Anything that gets in the road of something that feels
that
wonderful can stuff it."

"To hell with Psychiatric Birth Control!" said Candy.

Miss Pinch said, "They have lied to us. We have been biting and scratching and smearing lipstick in that back room for years. We have followed the Psychiatric Birth Control texts exactly. We have even had consultations with the psychiatrist in charge of it. And no one, not once, has ever told us the sensation was supposed to come from down THERE! Isn't that right, Candy?"

"That is correct," said Candy. "Not the faintest mention of it anywhere! I was almost to the breaking point of pretending, until I had that... that..."

"Orgasm?" I said.

"Oh, is THAT what an organism is?" said Candy.

"O-R-G-A-S-M," I spelled out for her. "Orgasm."

"Crikes, what a beautiful word," said Candy. "I know why people take up Christianity now, if that is going to Heaven."

"They lied to us," said Miss Pinch bitterly. "They simply told us that, to carry out Rockecenter's program to cut down the population of the world, we had to be lesbians. I was supposed to be the man-one and Candy was supposed to be my wife. We couldn't do anything else, as they've also turned all the males into gays and made it a crime to break up their marriages."

She stood up suddenly. It made me very nervous. She looked around. She couldn't find anything portable to throw so she slammed the whole Iron Maiden over frontwards on the floor. "(Bleep) them!" she gritted. "They've made us underprivileged! They have been depriving us of women's rights for all these years! I'm going to get my revenge!"

I was alarmed. "Wait a minute. This is treason," I said. "What about Rockecenter?"

She spat! She picked up a beer can and slammed it down on the floor. "Rockecenter can go (bleep) himself!

Psychiatric Birth Control! I spit on Psychiatric Birth Control." She picked up another beer can and threw it down with a crash. "I spit on the Chief Psychiatrist! I spit on psychiatry! I spit on Rockecenter for promoting psychiatry! They've cost us years and years and years of a very beautiful thing!" She was looking around wildly for something else to throw down.

I knew how to stop this barrage. It might come my way in a minute. It wasn't psychology, it was a sense of self-preservation. "You can't expect me to live here in the midst of all this mess-all this torture equipment. I'd have nightmares and walk out the door."

"No, no," said Candy hurriedly.

"No, no," said Miss Pinch in a sudden change of attitude. She dive-bombed straight down into propitiation. "Listen. We'll have it all moved out. We'll redecorate the place. You can have the back room. We'll have a lock put on the inside of the door. We'll have the garden cleaned up so you can have a nice view and sit and rest between times. You can come and go as you please. All you have to do is sleep with us in the front room every night and do it to us."

"Not in that bed," I said firmly. "And no shackles or mustard."

"We'll get a nice big bed to hold three," said Candy.

"No shackles, no mustard," said Miss Pinch. "Oh, please don't be a hard-hearted (bleepard), Inkswitch dear. Please, please, pretty please, say yes."

She looked like she was on the verge of honest tears. I said, "Yes."

"Oh!" screamed Candy, "untie me quick so I can kiss you, you dear man!"

I had trouble cutting her bonds off. Miss Pinch was hugging me and letting out little snarling sounds.

Candy got loose finally and kissed me.

Miss Pinch said, "You'll get your thousand bucks every day. And we'll fix up the place." Then she added, "And it's all settled?" as though she wanted to be reassured.

"Yes," I said again.

"Oh, goody!" cried Candy, clapping her hands. "Let's all get dressed and go to a restaurant and have a deflowering celebration."

"No," said Miss Pinch, looking at me with a cocked head, compressed mouth and hungry eye, "Let's stay right here and do it all over again. We've got the whole night. But I'm first this time, Candy. You can watch if you promise not to scream. I'M the one who gets to scream when I have another of those GORGEOUS orgasms. I'm getting breathless just thinking about it."

That was how I got the safe open. In fact, three safes. Well, not exactly as I planned, but one must learn to improvise. One must know how to go deeper into things than one might have, at first, intended.

One has to know when to take things lying down.

Alas, if it had only kept up on a level with that night.

For more than sixty hours now, my best-laid plans were getting blocked. Stopping Heller was not making any progress, and it MUST, it MUST, it MUST!

In the back room of the apartment, I was fidgeting. Part of it was scratching fleas.

For two days a Hellish din had been going on in the basement flat and garden. Redecoration and refurnishing were proceeding apace.

I had signed a couple of Octopus Oil blank petty cash invoices with the name John Smith, and after that all Hades had come unstuck. Workmen in the front room, workmen in the back room, workmen in the garden. Plumbers, painters, electricians and even gays directing the new decor and furnishings. It was a very good lesson that one should never sign invoices!

But the main reason I was fidgeting (aside from scratching fleas) was my inability to raise Raht on the two-way-response radio. I knew he had it and I also knew he was refusing to answer it, just to spite me.

I did not dare phone the New York office, as I was on the run. Raht was different, because on the two-way I could fool him into thinking I was in Africa.

That I contact him was desperately crucial: The 831 Relayers were on and at this close range my viewers were just flared out. I did NOT know what was going on with my Target One: Heller! Without that data and without a check on that hellhound, the Countess Krak, I dared not act.

I was in a rage to get something-anything-done to begin the job of finishing him off.

I had money-three thousand dollars. Two of the bills were my regular pay. The third one was for overtime.

I stared disconsolately into a bucket of daffodil-yellow paint. A flea was swimming around in it, getting all yellow. I was about to push him under with a paint paddle when he jumped out and vanished. The incident sharpened my restless mood. I had to get out of this overrun place and think.

I wiped some yellow paint spatters off my trench coat and went out for a walk. The brisk and windy day should cool my fevered brow, calm me and let me concentrate.

All unsuspecting, I walked by a newsstand. And there on the front page of the
New York Grimes,
big as big, it said:

WOMEN'S BOMB RIGHTS

COMING UP AT UN

SECURITY COUNCIL

PETTICOAT PICKETING BEGINS

ANTINUCLEAR PROTEST

MARCHERS HOLD RALLY

AT EMPIRE UNIVERSITY

Heller again! They had put that headline there just to nag me.

Then the full import of it hit me. If that bill passed the Security Council now, Miss Simmons would be drooling all over Heller! Rather than flunk him out of Empire as she had promised, she would pass him! I would have lost a vital ally I had counted on to block his villainous rehabilitation of this planet, a plot that would ruin me, Lombar and Rockecenter.

Oh, I knew an emergency when I saw one. What could I do?

I stood on the corner, almost frantic with the urgency of the emergency. I stared up into the sky, beseeching the Gods for an omen. I got it! Right in my line of view was the Octopus Oil Company Building! Rockecenter was in his Heaven and all would soon be right with the world. I realized that Bury could not possibly know that "Wister" was behind this women's rights thing. Rockecenter, Bury and everyone who mattered knew how dangerous women were already. But completely aside from that, Rockecenter controlled the uranium supplies of the world, and the thermonuclear-bomb market would crash if there was no more war on the horizon! That bill, if passed, could bring about a devastating and disastrous peace! Rockecenter must be frantic!