Mission: Earth "Fortune of Fear" (39 page)

Miss Simmons was lying back again, tongue lolling.

The Countess Krak raised her microphone once more. "Miss Simmons," she said, "I think..."

Miss Simmons was now on her hands and knees. "Oh, no!" she shouted, "Don't do that! AHHHH!"

A floor lamp beside the chair of the Countess Krak began to dance. She put out an alarmed hand to steady it. The lamp just jiggled worse.

"MORE! MORE! MORE!" cried Miss Simmons.

The closet door slammed shut as she let out a piercing scream.

Miss Simmons was lying there again with her tongue lolling out, panting.

The Countess Krak looked relieved. She composed herself and, in a business-like way, once more raised the microphone to speak. But the voice of Miss Simmons interrupted her, "Now three!"

Miss Simmons had a pillow. She was tearing at it. She got it under her, then turned over and seized it.
"Mumble... mumble... mumble!"
she said.

The floor lamp again began to rock.

Miss Simmons' hand tore a wad of feathers from the pillow.

The Countess Krak stared. She couldn't make it out.

Miss Simmons' housecoat flew up into the air. "Mmm! Mmm! Mmm! Yippeee!" she cried.

Then Miss Simmons was lying there again, panting.

The Countess Krak retrieved the housecoat and then stood staring. In a perfectly natural voice, Miss Simmons was saying, "We will now take up page 92 of Krafft-Ebing. I am certain that your psychology teacher called it to your attention. Six of you form a ring. The other two..."

The lamp had begun to rock. The Countess Krak grabbed it to keep it from falling down.

"Mmm! Mmm! Mmm!" crooned Miss Simmons.

Suddenly the spilled makeup implements on the floor bounced as a shuddering shriek came from Miss Simmons.

The whole pillow-load of feathers shot into the air.

The Countess Krak tried to bat the flying feathers off her face.

The floor lamp came down with a splintering crash.

Miss Simmons lay back, relaxed, smiling under the helmet. She was drenched with sweat and so was the bed around her. She looked totally exhausted. She stretched lazily.

The Countess Krak shook her head. In Voltarian she muttered, "Well, I hope she got her fill! The slut!" Then she raised her microphone and said in English, "The men are all going away now. They are waving good-bye.

You see them walk up the trail and vanish. They were all very happy. Are you happy?"

"Oh, yes," came the muffled voice of Miss Simmons from the helmet.

"Anything worrying you?"

"I'm nice and lovely dirty with the mud. But my leg feels a little strange."

"You broke it dancing for joy," said the Countess Krak.

"Oh, that's all right, then."

The Countess Krak now took a firm grip on her microphone. She said, "The incident you have just been through is the right one, the correct one, the one that happened. All other memories of that time and place are false and are gone. You have just been through the true one. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Miss Simmons.

At that instant there were some shouts and car-door slams outside.

Somebody shouted, "Get up there to Apartment 21!"

I tingled! Grafferty!

The Countess Krak said into the microphone, "You will lie there and think of nothing until I come back."

She put down the microphone, stepped out of the bedroom and closed the door behind her. Doctor Kutzbrain was still standing like an awkward statue.

Feet were pounding up the stairs.

The crash of a boot against the apartment door!

Lock flying into fragments, the door smashed open.

Grafferty and three policemen sprang into the room!

Grafferty stared at the immobile Doctor Kutzbrain. "Where's the rape-murder?" he roared.

The Countess Krak had reached the black bag. She hit the dynamo plunger, turning it off. But she drew out a small object that looked like a thumbtack. I caught the briefest glimpse of the tag on it.

Doctor Kutzbrain went into motion, drawing all eyes.

The Countess Krak stepped across the room to him. She had that tack held in her fingers. She grabbed Kutzbrain by the shoulder with that same hand. At the instant of contact, Kutzbrain let out a yell.

Krak said, "If it's a rapist you're looking for, here's your man!" She stood away.

Grafferty shouted at Kutzbrain, "Where's the murder?"

Doctor Kutzbrain inhaled a lung full of air. He shouted, "I hate you! I'll tear you to bits! Answer me!"

Oh, Gods, that (bleeped) Krak had used an interrogator dart on him, the one that made a questioner so furious and overwrought he could not ask sensible questions!

Grafferty waved a gun. He roared, "Who the hell do you think you are, talking to police that way?"

Kutzbrain shouted, "You must answer up! I'll kill you if you don't! I'll tear you to bits!"

Grafferty signalled to two policemen. "Take him along, men. And bring this girl as a material witness. And you," he said to the third cop, "look around here and make sure there isn't a corpse in one of these rooms. We need evidence!"

Krak said, "I've got the evidence. It's right here!"

She reached into the black case and tore four tabs off the black roll.

She reached out her hand to Grafferty and the cops, using a magician's forcer gesture, the way they make people feel they have to grab something.

They each took a tab, looking at it.

The Countess Krak pushed the dynamo plunger.

Grafferty and the three cops went into rigid statue stances!

So did Kutzbrain!!

Krak went over and closed the apartment door and put the chain on it.

She stood back and inspected the five statues. They were unseeing, paralyzed into awkward stances.

The Countess Krak went back into the bedroom.

She neatly covered up the naked body of Miss Simmons again. She picked up the microphone and sat down in the chair.

Miss Simmons was sprawled out, relaxed and smiling under the helmet.

"Now," said the Countess Krak, "we will take up how you really feel about Wister. You know you are not good enough for him. But you are eternally grateful to him for not having you himself but letting you be raped. Your gratitude amounts to the worship you would give a saint and you know you would defile him if he so much as touched your body parts. You understand that, don't you?"

"Yes," said Miss Simmons.

"Therefore," said the Countess Krak, "the very next time he comes to class, you will tell him that he has been such a good student you are passing him with the highest grade for the whole remainder of the course. You will tell

him that he does not have to attend your class further, does not have to take any examinations for Nature Appreciation, that he is unconditionally complete, and you will mark your records accordingly so there is no slip-up. Have you got that?"

"Yes."

"You will also tell other teachers what a fine student he has been and will believe it yourself. Got that?"

"Yes."

"At the very next class he attends, you will promptly send him away. You will never have to see him again. Isn't that nice?"

"Very nice."

The Countess Krak fingered the mike. Then she took a deep breath. She said, "After you have sent Wister away, you can please yourself. It will be your life that you are living and I have no wish to take control of it, but I want to give you some very sound advice. Stop running around with this Krafft-Ebing fellow. He and his pals Havelock Ellis and Sigmund Freud are a crummy crowd. My suggestion to you is that you find a nice young man-NOT Wister-and get married. It's your life, but you should consider settling down and doing things in a more normal way."

"A normal way," muttered Simmons.

"Exactly," said the Countess Krak. "You'll find it is much more fun."

"More fun," muttered Simmons.

"Sex without love," said the Countess Krak, "is a waste of time. Do you understand?"

"Waste of time," said Simmons.

"Good," said the Countess Krak. "Are you confused or worried about anything?"

"Oh, no!"

"Good. You will now forget I have ever been here. When I remove the helmet you will go quietly to bed without leaving this room. You will ignore anything you hear or see until tomorrow. You will have a nice night's sleep. You will awake fully tomorrow to a new world. Anything you find or that happens in this apartment or the living room tomorrow you will disregard, invent a reasonable explanation for and will refuse to be troubled about. Okay?"

"Okay," said Miss Simmons.

The Countess Krak turned off the helmet and removed it. Miss Simmons promptly crawled under the bedcovers and was instantly asleep.

I flinched now as the Countess Krak went out of the bedroom and closed the door behind her. I knew what I would do: kill the witnesses. My only question was
how
she would do it. I was losing allies right and left and could only sit there in that closet, trapped, and watch, powerless to prevent the inexorable, crushing wheels of Fate.

Police Inspector Grafferty was standing in a silly pose, immobile, staring at his hand. The three policemen remained in different stages of arrest, one looking at the ceiling, another at the floor, the third twisted halfway round, staring blankly at his chief.

Kutzbrain had his mouth open, stopped in mid-flight of overwrought fury.

The Countess walked up to Kutzbrain and recovered her dart. She put it in the black container.

Then she went to each policeman, took his gun away, unloaded it, took his spare shells and dumped them in the shopping bag. She put their guns back in their holsters. She pried Grafferty's from his fingers and did the same and then holstered it for him. How had she learned to do that? I was puzzled until I recalled that Bang-Bang was always around the office. What had that mad car-bomber been teaching her? Goose pimples broke out on my arms despite the closet heat. I did not like this! What would she do now? Something diabolical, I was certain.

She then got on her jacket. She threw her black sable short cape over her shoulders. She stepped to a mirror and arranged her blond fluffy hair. Then she recovered and drew on her scarlet gloves.

She went over to a window and opened it an inch. It was dusk but the sound of neighborhood children shouting and yelling came from the street.

She wound up the microphone cord very neatly and packed the hypnohelmet in the shopping bag. She looked around to see if she had left anything.

Then she drew out a very tiny object.

I froze.

A BOMB!

Oh, my worst fears were realized.

The Countess Krak looked at the five men. It was like a waxworks where they show famous figures in the middle of a notorious crime. But this crime was not something of the past, exhibited for historical edification, it was here and now! It was about to happen in all its hideous awfulness!

Those poor devils were about to feel the full fury of the remorseless Countess Krak.

Poor Kutzbrain. If only somebody had thought to warn him that she had slaughtered three men for simply making an innocent pass at her! I knew she would never forgive that. She had simply put it off because she had other things to do. Now the world of psychiatry was about to feel the full degradation of one of its leading lights. I wondered if in his final moments he would trace his downfall to the cheery words inviting her to lie down on the couch for a jolly romp? How, in his profession, could he possibly suspect he had been dealing with worse than death itself? Alas, poor Kutzbrain's professional habits-nay, his professional duty to rape women and wives-had not included a subcourse in dealing with a Manco Devil incarnate, like the vicious Countess Krak.

She placed the bomb a bit closer to Kutzbrain than the rest. She looked around one last time. Her gaze lingered on Kutzbrain.

Then she pushed the plunger!

The bomb was set to go on time!

She picked up her shopping bag. She walked to the door. She left it wide open.

She walked sedately down the stairs.

She went out the front door of the apartment and into the dusky street.

She crossed it. A side alley was directly across from the apartment building.

She lurked like a lepertige beside the trail, hidden and waiting to enjoy the death agonies of its prey.

She had a hand in the shopping bag. She checked the position of her thumb. It was resting on the trigger of the dynamo that immobilized the men.

She was watching the apartment window intently as though expecting something to happen. It happened!

A FLASH!

Smoke began to roll out the window slit she had left open.

She pressed the trigger of the dynamo, releasing the men.

INSTANT SCREAMS!

The sounds they were emitting must have been tearing out their throats!

They were deafening even across the street.

The thunder of feet!

More screams of terror!

Police Inspector Grafferty came tearing out of the apartment house.

He leaped into a squad car at the curb. He was frantically trying to find the keys. He was screaming, screaming, screaming the whole while!

Two more police burst out. They were howling with panicked horror.

They sprang into the second squad car. It started up instantly. Its wheels screeched and smoked as it sped a weaving course away.

The third cop had fallen down the stairs. Howling, he finished rolling across the foyer and leaped as though shot from a rocket into the squad car.

Grafferty and the cop wrestled for the wheel, both screaming.

The third cop got the engine started.