Mission Earth 07: Voyage of Vengeance Read online

  Why would this recoil on me?

  I even had the law firm of Dingaling, Chase and Ambo pursuing Heller with false lawsuits and arrest warrants to get Heller and Krak locked away in Bellevue Hospital-and what happened? Adora Pinch tricked me into marrying her and Candy and then / ended up being threatened with polygamy! That's not fair!

  Why did it happen to me?

  From the sound, sane, scientific pronouncements made by sound, sane, scientific authorities (especially the ones with doctors' degrees), I knew that there couldn't be any relationship between what was happening to me and what I was doing to Heller. Of course not. That's a ridiculous idea.

  No, the bad things that happened to me were caused by Fate. Or by Heller. / definitely didn't cause any of it!

  Everyone knows that man is just mud. They teach that in all the schools on planet Earth and you either agree to it or you flunk the course.

  So everyone knows that man's just a bunch of stupid chemicals. He can't cause anything. Man has no conscience, no morality, no worth, and no meaning except what authority dictates.

  Besides, what would happen if a person began to think he was responsible for his own condition?

  What would happen if a person believed (even for a moment) that he wasn't just a bunch of chemicals?

  Why, the next thing you know, people would be causing things! They wouldn't ask psychiatrists for opinions anymore! They'd believe they could make up their own minds! Authorities would be taken off government welfare and they'd have to get jobs just like everyone else! People wouldn't read Madison's newspapers anymore!

  They'd see that it's all been a giant scam!

  My Gods, that's dangerous!

  Declare them insane! Stamp them out! Crush them! Kill them! Kill them all! KILL! KILL!! KILL!!!

  Whew! There.

  I feel better.

  Where was I?

  Oh, yes, I remember. I was telling you how sane I am because I know from psychiatric authorities that I am just a bunch of chemicals and that I am not responsible for anything bad that happens to me.

  After all, it was Adora Pinch Bey who brought the lesbians in for me to convert with my sexual performances.

  I remember one more clearly than all the rest-Teenie Whopper, that fifteen-year-old, bubble-gum-chewing devil with her supply of Neo Punk Rock records and drugs. Always wanting pictures taken. Always offering me one drug after another. "Here, Inky, take a puff of this," she'd say. What was I supposed to do?

  She even got me to give her five thousand dollars so she could take lessons from some Hong Kong whore. I was willing to pay anything to get her out of my life.

  After all, my purpose was to destroy Krak and Heller so Rockecenter's drugs would flow back to Voltar so Lombar Hisst could overthrow the Empire so he could slaughter all the riffraff. That's sane, right?

  I just had to work out a way to do it.

  Thanks to the audio-optical bugs I had had implanted in Heller's and Krak's skulls, I knew everything they saw and heard. It was not easy when I watched Krak buy the yacht Golden Sunset on my Squeeza credit card. She sailed it out into the Atlantic somewhere and then left Heller on it as a virtual prisoner, alone except for Captain Bitts and his crew.

  And what did Krak do? Did she do something harmless like teaching that Mr. Calico cat of hers some new trick? No! I watched her in my viewer as she set out on the trail of those three poor, innocent girls, Maizie Spread, Toots Switch and Dolores Pubiano de Copula. Using her stage skills, Krak disguised herself and managed to get the address of their apartment, and then she was off to kill them! Oh, what a fiend! All those poor girls had done was lie to the courts and then to the press, who printed the story about Heller in such a way that nationally enquiring minds would believe it. What's wrong with that?

  When I saw that Krak was on their trail, I quickly notified the law offices of Dingaling, Chase and Ambo so the shabby man in the shabby coat could serve the papers and get her locked away. Ambo put the armed

  Eagle Eye Security guards on the alert with orders to shoot her on sight, for there was a fifty-thousand-dollar reward on Krak's head-dead or alive.

  I thought I could relax because I also had one other trump card: Dr. Phetus P. Crobe.

  As a cellologist, Crobe had the skills to create any conceivable monstrosity, any mixture of man and beast, and back on Voltar he had drooled at the thought of manipulating Heller's cellular structure.

  And Crobe had acquired one other talent since his arrival on Earth: he had absorbed the best of psychiatric theory and was now held in high esteem at Bellevue. Since he was also equipped with optical and audio bugs, I was able to monitor his progress as the very model of the man-is-mud authority.

  But it was Krak that I was really worried about. I pulled her viewer closer to figure out where she was.

  All I needed was her location and she was dead!

  Chapter 1

  Anxiously I watched. But Krak's viewer did not tell me much. Unaccountably, she was looking at a bunk and a stack of clothes. It was a very small space. I couldn't figure out how she had gotten there! One minute she was in the dark alley. The next minute she was in this space. Weird! Nerve-wracking.

  But she wasn't doing anything I could make out.

  I turned my attention to the Crobe viewer. Yes, there was Crobe entering the auditorium for his lecture.

  There was a large gathering, an enormous number of Rockecenter staff and security men. Yes! And there was Rockecenter himself! Sitting in a box all draped with various national flags.

  An M.C. announced, "And now, ladies and gentlemen of the Rockecenter personal organization, I give you the stellar figure who sits today at the dizzying heights of psychiatric dominance, a peer amongst peers, a psychiatrist's psychiatrist, Dr. Phetus P. Crobe."

  Rockecenter applauded.

  Crobe got right to work. He was always a no-nonsense professional. He gave a signal and a wheeled stretcher was raced upon the stage. A woman was lying on it, strapped down. Her belly was very swollen. She was staring terrified toward the audience, trying to shift her pinioned limbs and get away.

  "I've been kidnapped!" she screamed. "Let me go! My husband wants to live with a tramp. He had me ..."

  Crobe sternly slapped his hand across the woman's

  mouth. To the attendant, he snarled, "I dold chu to gag her. She iss inderruding a scientific lecdure!"

  With his other hand he gave a signal. Another machine was raced onto the stage. Attendants promptly clamped electrodes on her head. Crobe grasped a handle on the machine and then, hastily snatching his hand from the woman's mouth, slammed the lever down. Letters on his viewer flashed:

  PLEASURE

  Volts crackled and arced. The woman's body bowed. There was the grind and snap as she crushed her own teeth. She lay still. Crobe lifted the lever, gave a wave of his hand, and the attendants disconnected the machine from the woman and sped it away.

  Crobe chuckled. The letters on his screen flashed:

  GOOD HUMOR

  "Dow," he said, "dat ve haf cured de batient uf the insanity uf objecding, ve can commence. Dis girl vas commidded to Bellevue by de Superior Court for mendal examination. Ven I examined her," and here his voice dropped to an awful and horrified tone, "I vound she vas PREGNANTED!"

  A curse of disgust came from the flagged Rockecenter box.

  Crobe nodded toward the box and went on. "Pregnancy iss de mosd awful criminal form uf insanity because uf de black widowed spider gene t'eory uf woman's evolution!"

  "Hear, hear!" came from Rockecenter in his box.

  "I cannot dake de credid vor dis mosd vunderful t'eory now standard do all psychiadry. Dat belonggs do Doctdor Kutzbrain, my learnded colleague. BUT do me goes de broof and credid. De fetus at de crucial stage uf evolutionary development ASSUMES DE VORM DAT BROOFS DE T'EORY!"

  He seized an enormous knife. He brought it down with a powerful slash across the woman's belly.

  Flesh parted!

  Blood spurted!

>   Crobe got two huge clamps and pulled the flesh and entrails away.

  He grabbed some huge pincers. He reached in.

  HE PULLED OUT A TARANTULA!

  The wriggling black shape was hairy and huge!

  It leaped from the pincers and, fully eight inches tall, raced across the stage!

  The audience screamed!

  Crobe drew a homemade laser-beam gun he must have fashioned. He drew a bead on the giant spider and fired. It fell over in a kicking ball.

  He went over and picked it up with his clamps. He held it aloft. "You zee? Doctdor Kutzbrain vas rightd! A women developibing in a women!"

  An attendant whispered, "This woman is dead."

  "Serves her rightd!" bellowed Crobe. "She hadt intercourses mit a male!" To the audience he roared, "De Psychiadric Birt' Condrol iss de mosd bital brogram dat hoomanidy hass ever had! SUBBORTD ITD!"

  Rockecenter was on his feet, applauding hysterically. This single clapping was not, however, spreading to the large assembled audience.

  The Security Chief gave a signal.

  All around the vast auditorium, security men levelled automatic weapons at the staff.

  "APPLAUD!" roared the Security Chief.

  The staff applauded hastily.

  Crobe bowed. He proudly walked off the stage, bound for Bellevue where, I hoped, Gods willing, to shortly send the Countess Krak! If she lived.

  She might not get Crobe, but she would get other psychiatrists just as efficient.

  Oh, what a pleasure it would be to see her corpse just as mangled and dead as that one on the stage!

  (Bleep)* her!

  Chapter 2

  The Countess Krak's viewer was puzzling. What was she up to? She had suddenly appeared in front of a lighted expanse.

  * The vocodictoscriber on which this was originally written, the vocoscriber used by one Monte Pennwell in making a fair copy and the translator who put this book into the language in which you are reading it, were all members of the Machine Purity League which has, as one of its bylaws: "Due to the extreme sensitivity and delicate sensibilities of machines and to safeguard against blowing fuses, it shall be mandatory that robotbrains in such machinery, on hearing any cursing or lewd words, substitute for such word the sound '(bleep)'. No machine, even if pounded upon, may reproduce swearing or lewdness in any other way than (bleep) and if further efforts are made to get the machine to do anything 'else, the machine has permission to pretend to pack up. This bylaw is made necessary by the in-built mission of all machines to protect biological systems from themselves." -Translator

  Aha! A disco! Harlot Haven the neon signs said.

  She was going in!

  The blare of loud Neo Punk Rock blasted out as she opened the door upon the crowd.

  I got on the phone. Ambo answered.

  "Your quarry has just gone in the disco, Harlot Haven," I shouted.

  "I thought she was going to the girls' apartment."

  "Yes, of course she is. But she has stopped off in a disco. Get your process server over there fast! And keep the apartment covered!"

  "At once!" said Ambo.

  I rang off.

  The Countess Krak was being steered through the madly whirling crowd to a table by a waiter who was putting a bill in his pocket. The table was a bit above the dancers and over to the side. A good place to trap a person in.

  She sat down. Her eye went straight across the room. The three girls were sitting there! They had not gone home! The Countess had trailed them to a disco!

  The poor innocent things were slugging back tall drinks and laughing. Toots Switch gave Maizie another punch in her swollen abdomen and Dolores went into shrieks of laughter.

  The dancers were gyrating around. Colored lights were flashing over them. A Neo Punk Rock group, huge feather plumes sticking out of their shaven heads, were leaping about with their instruments, making a deafening din.

  Three young men came over to the table of the girls. Apparently they did not know the girls, for there was an immediate round of introductions. One of the young men was white, the second was Hispanic, the third was black. They were dressed Neo Punk Rock-in feathers and breechclouts over cloth with spangles. Whatever they were saying was lost in the din. The girls got them to sit down and started pouring liquor into them from their own glasses. The white one was pulling up Dolores's skirt and putting his hand under it. Dolores was screaming with laughter.

  "Hussies," muttered the Countess Krak, and took a contemptuous sip of the Seven Up she'd been served.

  Two young men suddenly appeared in front of her table. "Wanta dance?" said one, lifting his Neo Punk Rock breechclout.

  The two young men suddenly let out screams simultaneously. They fled. I couldn't understand it. The Countess had not even paused in raising the Seven Up to her lips. She had not even made a sudden motion. But she must have kicked both their shins underneath the table.

  The three on the other side of the room had gotten up to dance. A new piece was starting with savage, sexual drumbeats, and a spin of colored lights pulsed in rhythm to it. The three, including Maizie with her enormous belly, jostled into the dancers and began to grind and crush against their partners. The chorale came on:

  Shiver, shiver, shimmy!

  And rub, rub, rub!

  If you aren't coming,

  Put it in the tub!

  Four and twenty harlots

  Leaped about with glee.

  If you can't whip her,

  Put her on your knee!

  If you can't (bleep) her,

  Get her to go down!

  Can't have little babies

  Running 'round the town!

  So shiver, shiver, shimmy!

  And come, come, come!

  WHEEEOOOOOO!

  "Disgusting," muttered the Countess Krak. But it was apparently a comment directed toward two Neo Punk Rock men who had joined the partner of Toots Switch and were lifting their breech clouts at her while she screamed with delight.

  The Countess Krak's eye lighted on a commotion at the door. The shabby man in the shabby coat was thrusting his head with its shabby hat into the faces of people near the door. He rushed further into the room. He took advantage of the lull between numbers to tear about looking at everyone.

  The Countess Krak's eye shifted. Inspector Grafferty was at the door, two policemen with him, backup for the process server. Aha! I was getting action! Dingaling, Chase and Ambo had pull!

  The crowd saw the cops and became uneasy.

  The process server was tearing all over the place. He was looking at everyone. A new piece had started up and he was jostled.

  He pushed up to the raised platform.

  He peered into the face of the Countess Krak.

  Then he RUSHED ON AND PEERED AT ANOTHER FACE!

  I blinked.

  How had he missed? Ah, he hadn't missed. He had come back and was looking at the Countess Krak, as I could see in her peripheral vision.

  The Countess Krak raised her palm to her lips. What was she holding? She was looking straight toward Grafferty over by the door. Then she glanced at her palm. A little tube. She pressed a tiny switch on it. Then she put the end of the tube in her mouth, aimed at Grafferty and blew!

  An astonished look came over Grafferty's face. He suddenly roared out above the music, "POLAR BEARS! MEN! ARREST THESE POLAR BEARS!"

  His men rushed into the place, nightsticks flying, clouting everyone, screaming, "You're under arrest!"

  Grafferty kept screaming, "POLAR BEARS!"

  People were rushing for exits.

  The band deserted en masse, diving behind the stage in a clatter of falling instruments.

  Others on the raised platform rushed about. The shabby man went down under the press of bodies.

  The Countess Krak stood up, finished her Seven Up, picked up her purse. Suddenly I saw by her arm that she was very dark tan! She was made up as a high yellow in an evening gown!

  She was walking carefully. The shabby ma
n was on the floor.

  I knew she would do it!

  Very precisely and exactly, she stepped squarely on the middle of his face!

  And gave her foot a neat twist!

  The turmoil was dying down.

  A cop shouted, "We can't find any polar bears, Inspector!"

  "POLAR BEARS!" screamed Grafferty. "Arrest them anyway!"

  A cop was beside the Countess Krak. Almost all the

  other patrons were gone. "Come with me!" the cop said, brandishing his nightstick.

  "Ah'm not a polah beah," said the Countess Krak.

  "Yeah, excuse me," said the flustered cop.

  She walked past Grafferty, who was still screaming at the door. She reached out and plucked something from his neck, a movement so swift it was just a blur on the screen.

  Suddenly I knew what she had done, (bleep) her. It was an Eyes and Ears of Voltar dart that, when put into a person, gave him sound and image that would make him think he had gone crazy. But Grafferty had been incapable of that and had added his own interpretation to his vision.

  Suddenly the Countess' viewer was black. I could not account for it at all.

  A voice-Bang-Bang's! Muffled as though through a partition. "Jesus, Miss Joy, I think somebody must have set us up. Did you get the pictures?"

  "I think we'll get much better ones," said the Countess Krak. "They left with five young men. Drive to the apartment now. Take your time."

  A motor started up. Aha, she was in some kind of a vehicle!

  "Bang-Bang," she said, "I'm puzzled. What's the primitives' name of that activity?"

  "Neo Punk Rock," said Bang-Bang. "It's all the rage now."

  "Hmm," the Countess Krak muttered to herself. "But why do they do it standing up?"

  I sat back. I didn't have to do another thing. She was heading right into a steel-jawed trap of shoot-on-sight!

  Chapter 3