PART SEVENTY-TWO

Chapter 1

J. Walter Madison, dressed in a neat gray flannel suit and blue bow tie, walked out of the training barracks on the heels of Captain Slash of the Forty-third Death Battalion.

They walked across a littered yard, old papers and dust blowing around. It was a sort of stockade but it had long rows of training rooms: Madison, not knowing he had been hypno-language-trained in the past week, was amazed to find he could read all the signs, even “Check Out Here.”

Captain Slash made him sign a book and then a receipt. A clerk handed him his wallet: his money was gone. When he tried to ask what had happened to it, they gave him an identoplate that said, “J. Walter Madison. PR Man. Coordinated Information Apparatus.” When you pushed the back of it his picture flashed on it. When you pushed it a second time, his fingerprints showed up. They must have gotten these when he was in a coma. He pushed the back a third time and a legend flashed, Pay Status:No Pay—P. Oh dear, thought Madison, he was certainly off to a bad start! How on earth could he remedy that? He wasn’t on Earth! Disaster! How would he eat?

Things promptly began to go from bad to worse. Captain Slash walked him over to a squat thing that was sitting in a flat circle. It had front and side windows but he couldn’t see any wheels. However, it could only be a car, for it had a front seat and a back seat.

Slash opened the back door even though it didn’t seem to have any handle. “This is your driver, Flick.”

The driver, Flick, had a face like a squashed oval. He hadn’t gotten out. He didn’t look pleased. He was in a mustard-colored uniform and he might be a chauffeur but he looked more like a bandit, and a very scruffy bandit at that.

“Flick,” said the captain, “deliver this fellow to the Royal Palace and make sure Lombar Hisst gets to see him. It’s urgent.” And he gave the driver the copy of an order.

“Wait,” said Madison in alarm to Captain Slash. “Aren’t you going to accompany me?”

“Why?” said the Apparatus officer. “You’re rated ‘harmless.’”

“Well, all right,” said Madison, “but I apparently am not coming back here. I will need my baggage, particularly a portable typewriter to do my work with.”

“Oh, is that what that funny machine is?” said Slash. “I wondered when I vetted your gear for weapons two days ago. Pretty clumsy. I think you’ll find now that you can use both a pen and a vocoscriber. But quit worrying. Flick put it all in the back of the airbus while you were signing out. So goodbye and good fortune and don’t ever get on my list in a professional capacity.” He laughed. Then he turned to the driver and said, “Get a move on, Flick. The chief is chewing his short hairs off to see this guy.”

Madison promptly got his second shock. He expected the car to roll along the ground. Instead, it leaped into the air like an express elevator. It scared him half to death. The thing couldn’t possibly fly—it didn’t have wings!

When he had swallowed his stomach, they were leveled out and joining a traffic lane at a height of what must be ten thousand feet. A strange city, all swirls, lay over to his right, about the size of three New Yorks. “What town is that?” he asked the driver.

“The fancy name is Ardaucus,” said Flick. “But everybody calls it Slum City. That’s Government City ahead and to the north.”

They turned to the southwest and flew over a range of mountains as high as the Rockies, and all before them lay a vast expanse of desert. Mile-high dancing dust devils were purple and tan in the sun, weird as a chorus line of crazy giants. Madison hoped they weren’t live beings of some alien race that dined on airplanes that had no wings.

It started him worrying about this powerful being he was supposed to see. He would venture a question.

“Who is this chief I am supposed to see?”

Flick glanced back at him and then looked at the card he had been handed. “Apparently you’re an Earthman, whatever that is. And we’re in the air so we can’t be overheard. The chief’s name is Lombar Hisst. Today he controls the Confederacy, all one hundred and ten planets of it. Confidentially, he’s an egotistical (bleepard). Crazy as a gyro with a nick in the rim. You better watch your step if you’re really going to see him. He bites off the arms and legs of babies just for kicks.”

“Thank you,” said Madison. But he thought to himself, sounds just like Rockecenter: bad image with the help and everything.

They were going at a frightening speed. A couple hundred miles of the awfulest desert he had ever seen had reeled off below. To crash in that would be fatal. And this driver seemed to be more interested in trying to light a strange cigarette with a lighter that threw a laser beam instead of a flame. The air was bumpy and he kept missing.

“Are you going to be my driver now?” he asked Flick.

“Unless the chief throws you into that thing,” said Flick, pointing to their right.

On the horizon stood a huge black castle, fronted by a camp that must contain thousands of men.

“That’s Spiteos. The camp is called Camp Endurance on the maps but the real name is Camp Kill. If the Apparatus gets unhappy with you, they send you there to be thrown into that chasm. It’s a mile deep. You’re in the Apparatus now. By the way, what was your crime?”

“I haven’t committed any crimes!” said Madison.

“Oh, space gas!” said Flick. “If I’m going to have to drive for you, we might as well open our coats. I was one of the best thieves on Calabar until I got caught and sentenced to death and the Apparatus grabbed me. And here I been ever since. You must have done something.”

Madison thought fast. He did not want a bad image with his driver. “I failed to finish a job,” he said. And then he knew for sure that this strange planet was rattling him: he had told somebody the truth. He better watch it!

The driver laughed. “Well, if you don’t cut their throats when you get a chance, they’ll catch up with you sooner or later. I think you and me will get along just great.”

Heavens, the fellow had catalogued him as a murderer! Hastily he changed the subject. “What are those mountains over there to our right? I can’t even see their tops.”

“Them’s the Blike Mountains. Fifty thousand feet. We can’t fly over them. Not in this junk heap. Where we’re headed is right down there.”

The driver was pointing.

NOTHING!

No, it was a sort of greenish mist.

They were diving so fast toward that mist he knew they would crash! Oh, to come this far and not even have an obituary:

 

Madison dead . . .

 

Then suddenly he was nauseated. It was a strange feeling. So this was how it was to die. Maybe the shock of the crash was so awful he had started for heaven at once.

No, he was going through a gate!

Round buildings were glittering on every hand, bathed in a greenish light. What strange structures! They had round staircases, jewels everywhere. Huge, expansive grounds with enormous, lifelike statues painted in natural colors. The giants were surrounded by round pools and flower beds. A glittering sign pointed across a grassy circle. It said:

Royal Chambers.

SUDDENLY HE SAW TEENIE!

She was in a sackcloth dress, filthy with mud from head to foot. Her ponytail was undone.

Oh, he knew she’d come a cropper. Here she was a slave. Two old gnarled men were beside her, also grubbing away. An Apparatus guard with what must be a rifle was standing by.

She had an implement in her hand. Madison’s car was skidding along five feet off the ground and it went close by her. She was just standing up, placing her muddy palm against her obviously aching back. SHE SAW HIM!

Then he was by her. Oh, she must have done something awful, to assign her to filthy manual labor. The knight-errant rose in him. “Never mind, Teenie,” he whispered, “I’ll rescue you if I can.”

They stopped in front of a huge, jeweled building with twin curving stairs you could have marched a regiment down.

Two tough-looking officers in black rushed up.

“Delivering J. Walter Madison,” said Flick.

“In the name of seven devils,” said one, “where have you been? The old (bleep) is tearing his toenails out waiting for you! Get the hells up those stairs! Guard, guard! Shove this guy through to the chief, triple pace!”

Hefty hands seized Madison on either arm and propelled him up the stairs and into a corridor at a dead run.

The fatal moment had arrived. J. Walter Madison was about to meet Lombar Hisst.

I have dwelt upon it at length, for it was a moment which would mean much to Voltar’s history and Jettero Heller. And, dear reader, I assure you, not for the good of either!

PART SEVENTY-TWO

Chapter 2

On every hand the pomp of millennia rose: the golden ropes curved in intricate patterns along jeweled friezes depicting parades and battles down the ages; the glowering eyes of long-dead monarchs frowned at Madison as he went along the curving hall. The consciousness reached him that he was dealing with power ensconced in the awesome traditions of history far longer than man, on Earth, had even known how to use an axe of stone.

He was rushed at length into a huge circular room, jeweled and glittering. It was the antechamber of the Emperor’s sleeping quarters.

On the other side of it, a huge desk, carved from a single block of onyx, seemed to be barring a door. All around the desk, machines and equipment had been set up to make an impromptu office.

At the desk sat a huge man, rather swarthy, an odd sheen on his skin. He was dressed in a scarlet uniform, corded round with gold. His eyes had a crazy light.

LOMBAR HISST!

The guards had dumped Madison in the center of the room. Not one to be overly impressed by the trappings of the mighty, Madison straightened up his clothes, picked a bit of imaginary lint from his lapel and sauntered forward.

Without preliminary, Hisst said, “Is Rockecenter all right?”

Madison weighed up the situation. There was concern and worry, not hostility, in Hisst’s voice. “Well,” said Madison, “he was the last time I talked to him.”

“You were close to him, then?” said Hisst.

Any unease Madison felt, he did not show. He was asking himself how good Voltar intelligence was: Did they know the true situation? That Rockecenter would have Madison’s head for failing and running away? He saw what appeared to be a TV screen flickering away: How fast were communications between this place and Earth? He decided he would take a chance. He would name-drop. “Oh, yes,” he said, careful to sound bored. “I handled delicate things for him: telling the prime minister of England or the president of the United States what to think, things like that. My account was several million dollars a year.”

“What a salary!” said Hisst. “You must have been very valuable to him.”

“Well, he often said there were a lot of things only I could handle. I was his top PR man.”

Hisst frowned. This is what the investigators had run into and hadn’t solved. “What is this thing you call PR?”

“Well,” said Madison, “I noticed, talking around, you don’t have a very good image.”

Hisst looked angry. “Nothing wrong with my image! I’m six foot three inches tall. I weigh 271 pounds—”

“No, no,” said Madison. “The way people think of you. The image of you other people carry in their minds.”

“Huh!” snorted Hisst. “Is it important how I am thought of by the riffraff?”

“Well, yes, it is,” said Madison. “I have heard that you are the virtual ruler of Voltar.”

“Well, of course, I am! I can see that what these (bleeped) Lords think of me could matter. But what does the riffraff have to do with it?”

“Well, you see, PR means ‘public relations,’ though the letters don’t add up to that in Voltarian. The Lords and the riffraff are different publics. But if you don’t have the right image, they could rise up and kill you.”

Hisst frowned. He was thinking that could very well happen anyway. They were all against him.

Madison saw the frown. “You know, Mr. Hisst, I was very close to Rockecenter. I call him ‘Rockie’ and he calls me ‘Mad.’ Many a time, late at night, he used to slip his shoes off and put his feet on his desk and, over a companionable Scotch and soda, he’d confide in me. He trusted me when he really wanted something. I was, so to speak, his most intimate confidence man. I think it’s time we opened our coats. Is there something you desire more than anything else in the world?”

Lombar’s eyes got a bit crazy. The sheen on his face was more pronounced. He leaned forward and spoke in a whisper. “It isn’t that I want it so much. It’s that I have an order about it. In spite of my being a commoner and the fact that all the Lords hate me, I am destined to become Emperor.”

Madison was instantly alert. Ah, he could deal with this. He had heard of it before about Rockecenter. “A call from . . . ?” He left it hanging in the air.

Lombar whispered, “The angels.”

Mad knew he had it made. “Did you know they called Rockecenter to rule Earth?”

“NO!”

“Fact,” said Madison. “Heard them myself. That’s why I became his PR man.”

Hisst instantly frowned. “What’s that got to do with it?”

“Well,” said Madison, “when somebody doesn’t have a good PR man, the riffraff rises up and kills him. BUT if he DOES have a GOOD PR man, the Lords, the public, the riffraff rise as one man and proclaim him Emperor by acclamation.”

Lombar blinked. This was a brand-new idea. Usually, he didn’t bother to listen to people or even answer them. But this Earthman sitting here had been close to Rockecenter. Rockecenter, a commoner, had risen to become the ruler of Earth, and this alone had given Lombar hope that it could be done. Now he was alert to the possibility that some secret technology, heretofore unknown to him, had been employed. He mused on it. It came to him that what this man was saying might get around not having a dead Cling to display. Emperor by proclamation of the public! How novel! But then his suspicious nature began to tell him that it might be too good to be true. He started to sag.

Madison, noting it: “Do you have any other little problems?”

Lombar stiffened. He was instantly wary. He was not going to tell anyone that there was no Emperor in that room behind him and no regalia either. Instead, he clutched at another worry. He said, “This (bleeped) Soltan Gris!”

That startled Madison. “Soltan Gris? Is HE here?”

“You know him?”

Madison had detected the fury. “Oh, I should say so. On Earth he went by the names of Smith, Inkswitch and Sultan Bey. Got in the road all over the place. Knew NOTHING of PR. Wrecked things. An idiot!”

“He’s down at the Royal prison and I can’t get to him and can’t execute him the way he deserves.”

“Well,” said Madison, “that’s a PR problem, too. There are ways. Any other problem?”

“Heller! That (bleeped) Royal officer!”

Madison felt like somebody was giving him candy on a silver platter. The whole room went brighter. But he said calmly, “On Earth he went by the name of Wister.”

Lombar, who had never bothered to listen to anyone before, seized upon the information like a starved hound! THAT was the missing piece of the puzzle of why his strategy had failed. “Aha!” he cried. “Gris didn’t carry out my idea with the birth certificate! It went wrong because that (bleeped) Gris didn’t follow my plans for Heller!”

Madison’s hopes soared to seventh heaven. Oh, what a chance was opening up in front of him! He could finish the job he had been hired to do! He could go home to plaudits and glory! But he made himself look very calm. “Well, Wister-Heller is a PR problem, too. If you really want these things handled, just give me the account and let me get to work. Just give me an office and a budget—”

Lombar cut in. “Not so fast, Madison. Things are pretty delicate around here. I don’t know a thing about PR.”

Madison’s hopes fell. But he pointed to the Homeview screen. “Is that a TV? May I turn on the sound?”

Lombar shrugged. Madison found a button and upped the volume. The picture was a battle scene on Calabar. Apparatus troops were firing at an enormous snowcapped mountain. The announcer was simply saying that Prince Mortiiy’s troops were being blasted out of caves. Mad turned the sound off.

“Now, a good PR,” he said, “would have that announcer stating that those Apparatus troops were fighting at your orders to make the Empire safe. And it would have a shot of you leading them to victory even though you weren’t even there.”

Lombar frowned.

Madison pulled out the newssheet he had been given. He showed Lombar the front page. “If you had a good PR, your name would be all over this, building up the image that YOU were the one to rule. Pound, pound, day after day, week after week, you’d eventually get the message through that YOU and ONLY you should be Emperor.”

“They wouldn’t print it,” said Lombar.

“You would ORDER them to print it,” said Madison.

“Hmm,” said Lombar.

“With a good PR,” Madison said, “not just the riffraff but every Lord in the land would be bowing down to you.”

“Lords bowing to ME? Those stiff-necked (bleeps)? I’m just a commoner! They’d rather die!”

“But if the Lords DID bow down to you,” said Madison, “and day after day such things appeared on Homeview, the people would have to assume that you WERE their master and you’d be Emperor by acclaim!”

Lombar shook his head. “Madison, those Lords would never bow.”

Madison continued to appear calm. He wasn’t. He was playing for very high stakes. He would get another chance at Wister. If he succeeded, Bury would have to admit he had done his job. If he worked Hisst properly, he could be sent home. He would be on top again! He said, “Mr. Hisst (and forgive me if I am already thinking of you as His Majesty), if I get pictures of Lords bowing to you on TV—I mean Homeview—will you retain me as a PR man with an unlimited budget and a free hand?”

Lombar barked a laugh. “That’s a big contract.”

Madison said, “But it won’t take much to start: just a few thousand credits.” Suddenly he remembered Teenie. “And the help of my assistant, Teenie Whopper.”

“WHO,” said Lombar, “is Teenie Whopper?”

“An Earth girl that came with me.”

Lombar suddenly remembered there had been another passenger. “Well, Madison, you can have your Earth girl. But as to money, no. It would be just a waste of cash.”

Madison had a sinking feeling. He would have no resources for bribery, no way to hire actors, no way to order Homeview to screen what he gave them. It looked pretty forlorn! But he had to be bold. “But if I succeed in this first bit, will you okay the big contract?”

Lombar could never recall having done so much listening before. No wonder he always avoided it: it was so tiring. He said, “It’s impossible to get Lords to bow to me. So I can safely agree to your offer. If you can get such pictures on Homeview, all right. But I’m busy now. Goodbye. Guards! Show this Earthman out.”

As it stood, right at that moment, dear reader, Madison’s apparent failure with Lombar left Jettero Heller fairly safe; the empty chamber back of Lombar would sooner or later get exposed and the histories of Voltar and Earth might have righted themselves.

Madison’s chances of getting much further now looked thoroughly zilch. But only at that moment, dear reader, only at that moment. Huge and diabolical forces, already at work on two empires, were about to get a hefty push!

PART SEVENTY-TWO

Chapter 3

J. Walter Madison walked down the long curving steps. Inwardly, he felt downhearted: without connections or knowing channels, without money and without even a press card, things seemed pretty hopeless.

He raised a friendly hand to the two black-uniformed guard officers and they merely looked through him and away.

He climbed into his airbus but he didn’t have any place to go: he didn’t even have a home.

Flick, his driver, said, “Things didn’t go so well, eh? At least thank several Gods you are alive.”

Was his gloom that obvious? thought Madison. But he did feel down. The chance to get back on the job at Wister-Heller had almost been within his grasp, but his fingers had been too slippery. Curse trying to work with madmen!

“Who runs Homeview?” he said.

“The manager of Homeview,” said Flick. “It’s on all their program cards. Here’s one: I keep it so I know when Hightee Heller is going to sing.”

“Heller? Is she any relation to the Royal officer Jettero Heller?”

“She’s his sister. Most beautiful woman in the Confederacy, and can she sing! Billions and billions of fans.”

Well, that wouldn’t do much for him now. He looked at the program. Aha! Homeview was under the Interior Division and that was under Lord Snor. He must be right here in Palace City!

Maybe he could pull something off! He excitedly told Flick to go wherever Lord Snor lived.

They drove through innumerable parks and around innumerable round buildings: there must be thousands of them in these few square miles, all different colors, all basking in this greenish light. But the place seemed unpopulated: patrols of Apparatus guards in mustard uniforms were the only ones upon the walks; Apparatus tanks were the only vehicles.

“Where’s all the people?” said Madison.

“Oh, there used to be a lot of them, especially at this time of day: it’s near quitting time. Ladies would be strolling with retinues, Palace Guards on every step, concerts going in these parks. But that’s all changed. After His Majesty was taken ill he issued an order replacing the Palace Guards with the Apparatus: a lot of families moved to their town or country estates because the Apparatus would stop and search them. There’s plenty of domestics in these buildings but they don’t show their faces. There must be only a few hundred thousand people left here now. Used to be two million.”

“You seem very well informed,” said Madison.

“Ha, ha,” said Flick without laughing. “A lifetime as a breaking-and-entering thief sort of trains you to keep your eyes open. Untenanted houses are a prime target. But a murderer like you wouldn’t know. You probably got all the dark places in these parks already spotted, though. Here’s your address.”

They were stopped before a huge round building that evidently combined offices and living quarters. It was bright yellow and had gardens jutting out from its walls.

Madison went up a staircase. An Apparatus guard stopped him, called for an officer. One in mustard yellow came out, looked at Madison’s identoplate. “What the blasts is a PR man?”

“A special envoy,” said Madison promptly. “I want to see Lord Snor.”

“Well, you could be a special envoy from the thirteenth hell,” said the officer, “and it still wouldn’t do you any good. You might even get into his quarters and you still wouldn’t make it. He used to have a wife but she’s gone home to her family. He’s got a son but he’s in page school.”

“What’s all this family got to do with it?” said Madison.

“Oh, that’s the way things used to run around here. If you couldn’t see the top man, you saw some member of his family and slid your message in on that channel. But, frankly, I don’t think even they could make it now. Lord Snor just stays in his quarters. He hasn’t been seen for weeks. Wait a minute.” He stepped inside and looked into a door marked CHAMBERLAIN. He talked a moment and then came back. “I thought maybe you could make an appointment for next week or month or something, but the chamberlain says the only ones that see him are the resident doctors who take in the little packages.”

“The little . . . ?”

“The white stuff. Don’t play dumb. You know as well as I do what’s happening with these Lords. Your best chance of getting anything done in the Interior Division is to go into Government City. The clerks all run it from there anyway.”

The white stuff. That meant dope. “Well, thank you. You have been of great help.”

“I wouldn’t give you the time of day if you weren’t from the Apparatus.” And the officer walked off.

Gloom settled in on Madison. The day he began to transact business through clerks had not arrived. And the top men? In sudden revelation, this deserted city was explained. Any minute he expected to see an IG Barben truck. Lombar Hisst had this place on dope! Did this explain the chief’s interest in Rockecenter? Did Rockecenter have a connection to that Earth base in Turkey? No, he doubted Rockecenter even knew about these people. But they knew about Rockecenter.

Madison seldom cursed. He felt a bit like cursing now. You could only deal with top men for the things he had in mind, and with insight he knew that from the Emperor on down, here at Palace City, he would be running into hopheads. Suddenly he understood a bit more about Lombar Hisst: the (bleeped) fool must be on amphetamines himself! A speeder! The signs of persecution were there, delusion was obvious. It wasn’t to the point of feeling bugs under the skin or aging or losing one’s teeth, but it would get there. And he probably had been crazy to begin with.

A chill hit Madison. He had better get his job done on Heller somehow, some way, and get out of this place before Hisst reached raving paranoia and started to kill everyone in sight!

How long did he have? A few months?

He groaned. He didn’t even have any place to start!

“Where now?” said Flick. “It’s quitting time. Do I drive to Government City and find a rooming house?”

“I don’t have any money.”

“Hells of a boss you are,” said Flick. “I’m tired of sleeping in an airbus and I bet you have nightmares: killers always do.”

“Sleep in a car?” said Madison. This was getting worse and worse. He could see himself becoming an unshaven wreck: not the slightest chance of being believed.

“Well, I ain’t going to break into any of these palaces,” said Flick. “That would be a fast route to Camp Kill, with all these guards around. Tell you what, we’ll fly to Slum City and rob a store. You can shoot the watchman.”

Madison wished Flick wouldn’t keep building on that image, yet he could see respect for him was dwindling. “I don’t have a gun.”

“Blowholes! The assignments I get! My last boss lost all his pay in gambling and finally got stabbed in a dice game. Now I’m going to starve to death.”

“Don’t you have any pay? Any quarters?”

“In the Apparatus? A driver’s boss is supposed to provide all that. And I get a murderer who isn’t even packing a gun, that’s dead broke and has no pay status. Can’t you do anything?”

It jarred Madison. Yes, there was something he could do. He could be a knight-errant. He could rescue Teenie; that had been allowed. He would do it even though the thought of sleeping three in an aircar presented new problems.

He mentally donned his plumed helmet. “Drive back to that park in front of the Royal Palace. I’ve got to rescue a girl.”

PART SEVENTY-TWO

Chapter 4

They drove back a mile and slid along the curving path where he had first seen her. The light seemed bad: apparently in this place they followed day and night, and this must be dusk.

The garden space around the painted statue was all dug up but no workmen were about. Flick stopped.

Suddenly, from under the sculptured purple cloak of some long-dead monarch, an Apparatus guard moved out, rifle leveled. It was the same guard he had seen before. Madison hastily presented his identoplate through the window. The guard saw “Apparatus” and relaxed.

“There was a girl here earlier,” said Madison.

“Oh, yeah,” said the guard. “They’re gone now. You haven’t got a puffstick, have you?”

“Give him one,” Madison told Flick.

With a very dirty look, Flick complied. He gave the guard an even dirtier look when he had to light it for him.

“They went over that way,” said the guard. “Between those two orange-colored buildings.”

Flick headed in that direction. “This is getting worse and worse,” he said.

Madison privately agreed with him. If he found her, she would probably be covered with mud and this car, not overly clean already, would really ruin all his clothes then. Anyway, she would be terribly happy to see him and know that, as his assistant, she would be free.

They burst into an area of pools. There was a circular series of waterfalls, each one lower than the next, the water spilling off the lips in shimmering sheets, the underlighting turning them into a cacophony of colors.

They would have passed them by but Madison saw a sudden movement on a rim. It was pretty far away.

TEENIE!

She was running along a lip. She dived through scarlet lights into the next pool. She swam across it. She dived through yellow lights in the next pool and swam toward the next fall.

A sign plainly said:

NO SWIMMING

Oh, Gods, she was going to get into trouble before he even had a chance to rescue her!

Frantically, he directed the airbus to a point where she would come out if she dived into the ground-level pool.

She did! Her body glistened as she shot through a sheet of yellow light. She came swimming boldly across.

Madison got out of the car. He waited at the pool edge.

Teenie came to the rim and with an agile leap, sprang up on it, gleaming in the red lights. She was very lean: her stomach and her thighs were flat. Water cascaded from her shoulders and made sparkling rivulets down her legs. She swept her light brown hair out of her big eyes and looked at him.

“Teenie!” he cried. “I’ve got great news. I’ve got a chance to get us back to Earth. And you’re my assistant now! You’re not a slave anymore!”

She shrugged. She turned and walked over to a bench where she had evidently left her purse. She got out a comb and began to whip the water out of her hair with it.

Madison couldn’t understand it. She didn’t seem glad to see him at all! He walked closer. “Don’t you understand? I’ve freed you! And when I saw the horrible way they treat slaves, you ought to be very happy!”

She gathered her wet hair into a ponytail and put a rubber band around it. Then she went over to the pool waterfall and fished up the piece of sackcloth she had been wearing. She wrung it out and, without putting it on, tossed it over her shoulder. She picked up her purse and began to walk off.

She seemed cross.

Madison tried to find a reason for it. Why was she angry with him? He hadn’t been the one who had gotten her into this mess. That had been Gris.

He followed her, Flick driving the airbus at a slow pace behind him. The little procession went down a curving promenade, between two other buildings. They were approaching a gold structure that was ornate but seemed very aged. Vines had crept up its several stories and were tangled in its balconies. The wide, curving staircase was so huge that it made the thin Teenie look like a toy in a giant world.

Madison followed up. Flick stopped at the bottom.

She went through a pair of gold doors you could have flown a Boeing jetliner through.

Madison entered after her.

They were in a mammoth hall, all festooned with golden cords woven into patterns through which three-dimensional painted angels flew against a white sky. The floor was in patterns of clouds. Hundreds of jeweled chairs lined the walls: it must be some sort of a salon.

There was a mound of silken-fabricked pillows in the middle of the floor. Teenie sat down on them and they were promptly spotted with water.

Madison walked up to her, his footsteps sounding hollowly in the vast place. “Teenie,” he pleaded. “I know a lot of these palaces are deserted now that families have moved out. But you’re just riding for an awful fall. First you’re swimming in a no-swimming pool and now you’re coming in here just because it’s an empty building and you’re even ruining those pillows. Please come along and let me get you out of here. Guards may drop by at any time to turn off the lights or something.”

She picked up what must have been a priceless silken cover from a low table within her reach and began to swab herself with it, using it for a towel. She was ruining it! Oh, how could he stop her from sure disaster?

“Don’t be cross with me,” he begged. “I am your friend!”

She gave a short, barking laugh. “You’re a fine one to talk. Some friend! On that freighter, you didn’t help me a bit. You didn’t even volunteer to keep books for me! You could have put up signs, ‘The One and Only Too-Too!’ You’re even a lousy PR.”

“Oh, come off of it,” said Madison. “I couldn’t get involved with a filthy business like that! You were making that poor boy into a prostitute, ruining his life! You even had him smoking pot. You have no conscience! No moral sense of any kind!”

“You’re a fine one to talk, sleeping with your mother!”

“That’s just the way I was raised!”

“Well, this is just the way I was raised!” snapped Teenie. “Have you got any money?”

“Well, no.”

“And I bet you came around here just to borrow some.”

Madison received a shock. He had sort of wondered if they had let her keep hers.

“I landed with a thousand credits,” said Teenie. “I got it stashed. I’ll let you have ten credits and that’s the limit. You can then proceed to get lost.”

Ten credits? He didn’t know what things cost but it wasn’t enough to sell his pride for. “I wouldn’t touch money made out of the body of that poor boy!”

“That ‘poor boy,’ as you call him, happens to be a catamite that that (bleep) Gris set onto Lord Endow. Lord Endow is the head of the Exterior Division and the top man over the Apparatus, when he can stop drooling long enough. So I taught that ‘poor boy,’ as you call him, a few little tricks he could do and when he got back here he pleased Lord Endow no end. The goofy old (bleepard) went absolutely delirious over Too-Too.”

“Wait a minute,” said Madison, in Voltarian, “you just shifted languages. When you started talking about Endow, you shifted to Voltarian.”

“Of course, I did. And it’s court Voltarian. What you just said, you said in executive Voltarian.”

“But how . . .”

“Well, Lord Endow would do anything Too-Too asked, even jump over one of this assortment of moons they got on this planet. And I right away got sent to page school. They hypnotrained me to talk, read and write court Voltarian in five days. But meantime, Too-Too told all the other catamites about the wonderful trip he had had, and boy, were they envious! (Bleeped) by a whole crew for six weeks! He was the hero of the hour! So he’s got me teaching the other catamites and we’re including all the pages.”

“Wait a minute,” said Madison. “You must be lying, Teenie. I saw you doing slave work with my own eyes!”

“Well, jumping Jesus Christ, Maddie, you really are dumb. Is that why you were chattering about me being a slave? Listen, buster, I’ve only got a limited supply of marijuana seed and those dumb gardeners would have wasted it. Sure they got a growth catalyst that matures it in a week, but the old (bleeps) are one hundred and sixty, would you believe it? And they potter and totter when they ought to be drilling and tilling. We’re tearing up all the flower beds in sight and planting the whole place properly with Mary Jane.”

“Oh, God,” said Madison. “More trouble. They’ll kill us. You’re my assistant now. Please, get out of this palace before they shoot us.”

“(Bleep), Maddie! Nobody’s going to shoot us. Too-Too told Lord Endow I was a movie queen on Earth. So the drooling old (bleepard) gave me this palace. Two hundred and thirty rooms! Some queen abandoned it about a hundred or a thousand years ago, poisoned or old age or something. But all her things are still here: Queen Hora, it says on the silver trays. I’m getting cold.”

She snapped her fingers in a peculiar way and two old men in ornate silver livery, who must have been hovering in one of the several hallways, rushed in. They threw a gauzy silken robe on her that left her twice as naked as before. They snapped up the table cover she had used for a towel and vanished back into the hall.

Teenie snapped her fingers again, in a different way, and two old women trotted out. They were dressed in silver gowns. One bore a crystal jug of sparklewater on a crystal tray with crystal glasses. The other expertly balanced a silver tray which must have had ten pounds of colored sweetbuns on it, topped, each one, with a design which said, “Queen Teenie.”

Madison suddenly got the picture.

Teenie had INFLUENCE!

Hope boomed in him like a struck drum. He could almost hear the trumpets blare. Influence could be USED!

The two old women had made their offerings to Teenie, bent to one knee. She had a goblet of sparklewater now in one hand and was cramming an oversized sweetbun into her oversized mouth with the other.

The two old women cast their eyes sideways in a question to Teenie, waiting then for a signal to offer something to Madison.

Teenie shook her head. “Forget him,” she said. “He’s no friend of mine.”

The two old women backed away, bowed and left.

It was more than hunger which made Madison stare after them. He knew just where he stood now. Nowhere.

His hopes of finishing Heller fell crumbling about him.

PART SEVENTY-TWO

Chapter 5

A small obituary ran through Madison’s head:

Earthman Found Dead

An emaciated body was discovered last night in Slum City. The identoplate had the name J. Walter Madison. No known relatives or friends on Voltar.

Teenie sat there stuffing herself with sweetbuns and guzzling down nutritious sparklewater. Maybe, thought Madison, when the beast in her is fed, she will be more kind.

He waited until her face looked relaxed and then he said, “Teenie, common humanity says that you should help me.”

She shrugged. “Why should I? Did you help me on the yacht? No. You didn’t even attempt to persuade that (bleeped) Gris to stay aboard! You ran right off with him!”

Ah, so that was what was biting her. No reason to stir it up further: he would try another tack, earnest and sincere. Even frank! “Teenie, I’ve got to succeed as a PR here. Otherwise I’ll never be accepted back on Earth. Did you ever hear of Wister?”

“The Whiz Kid? Yeah, I read something. And that (bleeping) (bleep) (bleep) Gris was snarling about him one day.”

“Well, Teenie, the Whiz Kid was really Jettero Heller, a Royal officer of Voltar. And I’m in trouble. I never completed my job on him.”

“That’s your (bleep), baby. Not mine.”

Madison was beginning to feel desperate. That obituary was drifting to the last page, below the classifieds. “Teenie, I’ve got to make motions of putting Hisst on the throne.”

“So what’s that to me? He doesn’t and won’t give a (bleep) what’s happening in Palace City. He never even talks to the Lords here and they sure won’t talk to him, no matter what he calls himself. He’s just a rat from Slum City: he’d still have to rule through the Grand Council. He’s got them all drugged up, but even so he can only push them so far. They privately laugh at him behind his back. Even if he gets put on the throne he won’t last any time at all. I know what I’m talking about, because I been through page school now and I know all the pages and they know everything! So all I’ve got to do is keep in good with the catamites, raise lots of Mary Jane and sit here in my queen’s palace having fun. I’ve got it made.”

Madison’s obituary even lost its subtitle. Desperation boiled over. He got down on his knees. “Please, Teenie. Oh, please, help me!”

She laughed at him. She snapped her fingers in yet a different way and two young boys, about twelve, ran out of a hall, stopped before her and bowed.

“You’ve got to excuse me, Madison,” said Teenie. “I have a class starting shortly.”

All sorts of arguments were racing through Madison’s head. He was hastily examining her own assessment of her situation to see if he could punch any holes in it. Having worked for Rockecenter, he knew that madmen could not be dismissed so lightly. But all he could come up with was that she had INFLUENCE and he needed it desperately.

Then suddenly he registered what she was doing. He was horrified for more reasons than one. Good heavens, she was going to disgrace herself and not even be able to help him if she would. She had gone insane!

She had signaled to the two boys before her and they were grinning in a knowing way and taking off their clothes!

“No, no!” cried Madison. “Not here! This is a public audience hall!”

Teenie smiled. She said, “I know. And the audience will be here soon. Bye-bye, Madison. If you ever get back to Earth, say hello to Broadway.”

Madison knelt there, suffering. He ignored the dismissal. Somehow, some way, he would make her listen to his plea, but right now she seemed to be well on the way to destroying her public image. The huge entrance doors weren’t even closed!

The first little boy was looking down, grinning.

Teenie reached her hand out.

Madison stared. He was horrified. “Teenie! What are you doing? Don’t make that boy into a queer! Take that out of your mouth!”

Teenie leaned back and looked in disdain at Madison. “They’re not being made into queers, idiot. They’ll be top-grade catamites when I’m done. It’s still early and I’m just playing around waiting for the audience. You should see what happens then!”

He could see liveried people watching for her bidding in the halls. She was really going to destroy herself before she could be of any possible use to him! He said hastily in English, “Teenie, don’t perform sexual acts in public! The thing you did there is not socially acceptable! Not even in front of the help! What will the servants think?”

She looked at him, annoyed. In English, she said, “What will they think? Listen, mister, they’re so glad to have a live body in the place, they’ll put up with anything. They don’t get paid in this palace unless they’re serving royalty. And you ought to hear the tales they tell about Queen Hora. In the time of their grandfathers she had a new lover every night! And in just the short time I’ve been here they’re saying the good old days are back. What do they think, indeed!” She was angry now and shouting, still in English. “Go ahead and raise your voice to me and you’ll see what these servants think of me! They’ll slaughter you!”

Madison was suddenly chilled. A hand settled on his right shoulder. He glanced sideways in fear. A man in silver livery was standing there, scowling at him with ferocity!

A hand settled on his left shoulder. He whipped his head in that direction. A second glowering man in silver was there. And both these brutes were carrying strange, sharp axes!

“Your Majesty,” said the first one to Teenie, “this man has provoked you in your own palace. Would you care to conduct his trial and execution now or would you prefer to wait until after this evening’s ceremonies?”

Teenie considered it. Then she reached for her Earth purse and looked at her Mickey Mouse watch. “Shattering comets!” she said in Voltarian. “I’m running late!” She glanced toward the men. “I can’t be bothered with him now. Sergeants, shove him in a chair over there and tie him up.” She grabbed her purse and yelled in the general direction of other servants, “Get this hall ready fast!” and raced off up a stairway of gold.

The sergeants pushed Madison backwards across the room and plunked him down in a metal chair. They clamped some shackles on him and bound him there solidly. One of them gave the chains a final yank, unnecessarily hard. “You must be crazy mad, you fool, to insult our queen. She’s the most wonderful thing that’s happened here in centuries and you just made yourself a lot of enemies. So sit quietly! Not another word out of you. Hammer,” he said to the other guard, “you better stay here so you can prevent some other staff from sneaking up and cutting this (bleep’s) throat.” He turned back to Madison. “Insulting Queen Teenie!” And he spat straight in Madison’s face!

Madison cringed. He had not thought he could get any lower. And as the spittle dripped down his cheek, he recomposed his obituary. He added a line:

Body taken to the local garbage dump.

PART SEVENTY-TWO

Chapter 6

The hall resounded with the sounds of hurrying staff who dashed about setting up the place. They roped off two large areas, one with red ropes, the other with blue. Before them they left an open expanse. About five hundred square feet of it was suddenly underlit so that it glowed and shimmered. The whole ceiling turned into a blue haze, much like a summer sky.

Two liveried footmen raced out, pushing a big vertical board on wheels. Two more, with the sound of thunder, pushed into view a massive golden throne all covered with sparkling jewels. The seat was twelve feet above the floor, reached by scarlet steps. They placed it in front of the open expanse, across from the ropes.

There was a rumble. On the wall, over to the right of the throne, ten feet above the floor, a whole section moved outward to form a balcony that was a stage. Eight musicians with strange instruments were already in place, adjusting their equipment: they were dressed in shimmering yellow clothing that sparked other colors each time they moved.

A dozen silver-liveried men with axes on tall handles marched in smartly and took positions at the ends of the roped areas and on either side of the throne.

As quickly as they had appeared, the hurrying staff vanished, leaving only the silent musicians and guards. The stillness, after all that noise, was almost like a blow.

There were then some murmurings and footsteps coming from the main entrance stairs.

Madison tried to fish in his pocket, hopeful that he had a Kleenex so he could wipe his face, wet with spittle that was too much like tears.

“Sit still!” snarled Hammer and blocked his motion with the axe. Madison froze: little chains of sparks were racing up and down that blade, giving off the odor of ozone. He recoiled: It wasn’t just a ceremonial axe as he had thought—it was an electric weapon. Gods knew what it would do! Would the sparks jump? He hoped it wouldn’t touch his chains: it could electrocute him! He let the spittle drip. Maybe they were tears now, for he certainly felt like crying. In all of his career as a PR, he had never felt quite so dejected—except maybe that time he had accidentally wrecked the country of Patagonia, or perhaps that afternoon he had icily been dismissed by the president of an international airline Rockecenter had told him to PR, or possibly the dreadful day the presidential candidate Bury had given him as a client suddenly announced he had gone insane. Unaccountable failures dogged his life. He certainly hoped that somehow he would not fail again on Heller: it was his only hope. Or did he have any hope left, sitting here in this overwhelming hall waiting on the whim of a juvenile delinquent from New York? Would that little pathological liar and infant con artist really try him and sentence him to death? He decided she would. Maybe if he threatened to expose her and tell these Voltarians that “movie queen” was just an expression, not royalty. . . . Oh, no! They would kill him if he even so much as looked like he was being critical. She had even taken care of that! He could think of no way to reach her. Actual tears began to mix with the spit.

He became aware that small groups of boys had been coming in the vast front door. They were being greeted by two bowing seneschals in silver and then directed toward the roped areas by polite ushers. The boys were beautifully dressed, some flashier than others. In the main they were handsome or pretty, and a few wore powder and paint. They all had belts with a shining metal plate which hugely, in Voltarian, said “Page.” They appeared to range in age from eight to fifteen, but one couldn’t really tell with these long-lived people. There must be two hundred of them here by now, and laggards still sauntered in.

At last a seneschal with a list gave a signal and the giant front doors closed. Another scanned the roped areas: the larger number of boys were behind the red ropes, a smaller, better-dressed number were behind the blue.

An usher gave a signal to one of the seneschals, who pushed a button on his livery.

A spotlight went on, striking at the top of the golden stairs.

Four heralds closed across the bottom of the balustrade. They raised what must be battle horns. A chorded blast struck the hall.

And in the spotlight glare at the stairway top stood Teenie!

She had a golden crown upon her head, ponytail sticking out behind. She wore a scarlet military coat with golden frogs: it gripped her neck with its high collar and fell away to her black-booted heels. In her hand she carried a golden rod that sparked with jewels, a scepter.

Like a benediction from above, a gauzy gold cape, full of glitter, settled over her shoulders. The two boys Madison had seen earlier were now in golden suits.

Teenie took a forward step to descend the stairs.

The musicians bashed out a cymbal crash! Then they began to play a stately air of celestial majesty. With the two boys in gold carrying her long golden train, in time to the sedate music, Teenie came down the curving golden stairs.

The throng gazed at her in ecstasy.

Followed by the spotlight, she paraded across the hall. With great dignity she mounted the scarlet steps to the throne. Regally, she seated herself, and the two boys gave the train an artistic, curving fold upon the approach. They folded their arms and stood like two small golden statues at her feet. The music ceased.

The seneschal approached the throne and gave a sweeping bow. Kneeling and speaking to the floor, not her, he said, “Your Majesty, I beg to announce the court is assembled. I have further been told to say that there are several virgins here. The courtiers await your pleasure. They beg that you would condescend to caress their ears with the celestial beauty of your voice. They eagerly attend. Long Live Your Majesty. May I withdraw?”

Teenie gave a twitch with the scepter and he backed away. She gazed down upon the lifted faces of the throng across the open space.

The spotlight narrowed to a glittering circle upon her.

She smiled.

A sigh of pleasure rippled like a friendly breeze about the room.

Teenie spoke and her voice was quite commanding and loud: there must be a microphone in the arm of that throne. Her Voltarian accent had changed: she was speaking with the lilt that characterized the speeches of the court.

“Welcome, welcome, my dear, loyal vassals and sweet friends. I spread my love upon you and accept your kisses on my feet. May the blessings of a thousand heavens rain into your waiting lips.” She paused and gave a sly smile. “And into your hips as well.” There was a patter of applause. Teenie smiled more broadly. “I thank you from my bottom.”

Instant cheers broke out.

Then the boys were throwing her kisses.

Teenie beamed. “I love you, too!” she said.

Wilder cheers racked the hall. The sentries had to twitch the ropes as a warning not to burst across the open space to the throne.

Teenie was laughing. She held up the scepter for quiet.

The two boys in gold saw some signal and rushed up the steps to her. She kissed each one and then they unfastened the chain which held the golden cape and, doing a sort of swirling dance with it, bore it off.

Teenie stood up. “But enough, my darlings, of this ceremony. I fear that I must now go into the stuffy, technical end of life. Are you ready for my lecture?”

Cries of “Oh, yes, Your Majesty!” “Please, please!” rocked the hall. No professor in a school ever got such an invitation to begin.

Madison wondered what in heaven she was going to talk about. Like all good PRs, he was an expert in presentation and stagecraft, and up to now he had been struck with awe at how well the page school had trained her and how she must be working under the guidance of an expert palace staff with all the expertise that they must have. A technical lecture after this? Surely Teenie, now on her own, was going to blow it. The foolish girl: good heavens, how she needed his help! And, oh, how desperately he needed her assistance to finish his job with Heller!

PART SEVENTY-TWO

Chapter 7

Covered from throat to heels by her scarlet military coat, topped by her glittering crown, Teenie strode to the wheeled vertical board. Madison could not see what was on it. But he was very glad she had good enough sense not to appear naked or exposed before these boys: they were much too young to be subjected to female nakedness, even that as immature as Teenie’s.

The hall was hushed. She raised her scepter, using it as a pointer. It must have a microphone in it, for her voice came loudly, with authority, from speakers Madison could not locate.

“Here, my loving students,” Teenie said, “we have a graphic illustration of the naked male body.” She gestured with the scepter in a sweep. “A front view, a right-side view, a left-side view and a back. Now, I must admit that the artist has made the (bleep) too large for my taste.” She turned to them and smiled a too-big smile. There was pleased laughter at her joke. “But somehow getting around that point”—more laughter—“you will see that I myself have marked in certain places with an X. Now attend, and no more giggling, for this is serious business and I have left you clearheaded for this part of the program so that the information can slide in and stick. There are 172 of these Xs on these four drawings. Can everyone see them?”

Choruses of “Yes.”

“They are called the erotic spots. Touching them or manipulating them can bring about sexual stimulation, prolong it or cool it off.” Jabbing with her scepter she rattled them off, for each one had a name. English? Chinese? She turned to the assemblage, quite out of breath, and smiled. “I know it seems an awful lot, but nevertheless, you must know each one and know just how to use it. You will see these boards again in subsequent evening classes. The palace artist, who is a very splendid fellow really, despite his exaggerated idea of (bleeps) . . .” She paused to let their laughter pass. “He offered to make copies of this for you, but the information is secret. So these boards will be placed in the basement near the rear portcullis and you can slip in and out to your heart’s content and study them. Now mind that you do, for you will be personally examined on each one of them. Got it?”

The two groups nodded vigorously, interest was intense.

“Now,” said Teenie, “for tonight’s first demonstration. I need a virgin volunteer.”

Instantly fifty hands went flailing toward her.

Teenie pointed with the scepter. “I’ll take you!”

A boy who appeared to be about fifteen slid eagerly under the red ropes. He was quite pretty, with a clear white skin.

The staff ran out a platform five feet high with steps. The two young boys in the golden suits led the volunteer up it. With expert hands they stripped off his clothes and in a moment had him standing there naked. They withdrew. Teenie mounted the platform. “Now behold!” She pointed with her scepter to the boards. Then with one finger she touched a spot on the boy near the spine.

INSTANT RESPONSE!

The audience gasped.

Teenie pointed at the boards with her scepter. Then she touched a spot on the lower outside right thigh.

THE RESPONSE DEFLATED!

The audience groaned.

Again Teenie indicated the boards and then, with one finger, touched the lower middle lip of the boy’s mouth.

RESPONSE OCCURRED AT ONCE!

She gestured at the charts and then she touched the side of the boy’s neck.

THE RESPONSE GREW BIGGER AND STAYED!

Once more she pointed at the chart. Then with one light finger she touched a spot at the lower center of the boy’s pubic hair. His eyes rolled up, his chin thrust forward, he gave an ecstatic groan.

HE (BLEEPULATED)!

Gasps echoed in the audience like an echo of the groan. Then there were cries of amazement and suddenly wild applause.

But Teenie wasn’t through. She touched a spot at the base of his throat. He straightened up.

ANOTHER RESPONSE!

Gasps of astonishment slid through the hall.

Teenie leaned over and touched his ear with her tongue.

ANOTHER (BLEEPULATION)!

The crowd went mad!

The stern-faced sergeants had to twitch the ropes quite hard to prevent a forward surge onto the cleared space.

“We could keep this up all night,” said Teenie, “and though I’d dearly love to, the program must continue. You,” she said to the volunteer, “have been a very good boy. You are very pretty, too.” And she gave his (bleep) a pat. It was suddenly erect again. “So thank you for coming up here.”

Although dismissed, the boy dropped to his knees and clutched the bottom of her military coat. He kissed it passionately. “O Teenie, Queen Teenie, thank Gods that you are here. I shall be your vassal forever.”

She patted his head and smiled. “For that, sweet fellow, my two little grooms will take you into the hall there and in no time at all, you will no longer have to suffer your virginity.”

Many behind the ropes had knelt when the boy did. There came a shout of “Long Live Your Majesty!” from 250 pairs of lips, more like a prayer than an accolade.

Madison was torn between revulsion at what she had just demonstrated and sheer awe at the power she had over these misguided youths. Oh Lord, he prayed, if I could just somehow channel this INFLUENCE in handling Heller!

PART SEVENTY-TWO

Chapter 8

But Teenie never glanced at Madison. She obviously had forgotten him utterly.

The platform and the boards were now being wheeled away.

Teenie said, “Thank you for your patience, lovely court. After the ardors of stuffy technical harangue, I bid you have a moment’s relaxation before we go on.”

Madison blinked. She certainly taught a very unorthodox class! What more could there possibly be to this after TWO (bleepulations)? He knew she could be taken in hand and educated in good presentation. She had achieved a program peak with “Long Live Your Majesty.” There couldn’t be anything more. Then he wondered why he should be so anxious to be tried and probably executed. He must think of something!

Teenie had clapped her hands and servants were now passing amongst the boys behind the ropes. They had silver boxes and were handing out a joint to every four boys and lighting them.

Marijuana smoke soon rose sweetly and blue in the hall. The boys had evidently already been instructed in their use for they dragged the smoke in and held it, on and on, while the joints went round. One could see the euphoric surges hit their faces.

Teenie had walked over to the musicians. The bandmaster had come down and was kneeling before her while she conversed quietly with him. Then he kissed the hem of her military cloak and raced back up to the bandstand.

A prolonged chord was struck. The hall was filled with sound. And then Madison could not believe his ears.

ROCK AND ROLL!

Good heavens, how had these musicians ever learned this? It was an old piece of the Beatles! The electric whang of the guitars was there, even if a little strange, but the savage, pounding rhythm surged clear up to the painted angels. Then, as he saw the boys begin to jerk under the pall of marijuana smoke in time to the music, he remembered that Teenie had had an awesome collection of records in her baggage as well as tapes and players. Somebody must have matched current to them and these musicians had practiced to imitate the sound. He expected any minute to see Harrison walk out and begin to sing!

But this was just an interlude. Teenie had retired to her throne. She sat there, buttoned up to her throat, keeping time with her scepter. A servant knelt before her and passed her the pipe of a golden bong. She took only a small puff of it, seemingly to just be companionable, and then waved the servant away.

The volunteer came back into the vast chamber, beaming and delighted. He whispered to his companions and they shook his hands and kissed him, making him a momentary swirl of attention.

The two boys came back, adjusting their clothes at the door, and then stole a puff apiece from a nearby joint and went once more to take their places near Teenie. One of them made a circle with his finger and thumb at her, an “okay” she must have taught him. She winked and nodded and he grinned and stood once more with folded arms like a statue.

A piece ended. A male singer in a shimmering military shirt came out. He held a microphone in his fist. The music started up with the beat of rock and roll. The audience began to move in rhythm to it. The singer screwed up his face and then he began to move his hips just like Elvis Presley! It so startled Madison to see this that for an instant he had the delusion of being in some Earth nightclub decades ago, and he didn’t register for a moment that this was NOT a Presley song! The beat was there but not the meter.

Oh, a soldier’s life is the life for me,
Tuma-a-diddle, tuma-a-diddle, paw-paw.
In camp and plain, I’m always free
To tuma-diddle, tuma-diddle, paw-paw.
No women ever spoil my view
With tuma-diddle, tuma-diddle, paw-paw.
They’re always wanting something new,
Not tuma-diddle, tuma-diddle, paw-paw.
For it is the men that I enjoy
To tuma-diddle, tuma-diddle, paw-paw.
The best there is, I find, is boy!
Oh, tuma-diddle, tuma-diddle, paw-paw.
The enemy I do not mind
If tuma-diddle, tuma-diddle, paw-paw
Can go on in my behind
With tuma-diddle, tuma-diddle, paw-paw,
And if my bunkmates all are kind
With tuma-diddle, tuma-diddle, paw-paw.
Surrounded by ten thousand (bleeps)
That tuma-diddle, tuma-diddle, paw-paw,
All passionate and hard as rocks
To tuma-diddle, tuma-diddle, paw-paw,
Eager to slide in my buttocks
And tuma-diddle, tuma-diddle, paw-paw!
So (bleep), (bleep), (bleep) and (bleep) in me!
Tuma-diddle, tuma-diddle, paw-paw.
And let me (bleep) and (bleep) in thee
With tuma-diddle, tuma-diddle, paw-paw.
Oh, what a love-ul-lee Arm-eee!
With its tuma-diddle, tuma-diddle,
OH! BOY!

But that was not the end. Teenie had been waving her scepter to the beat and watching the boys sway. She gave a sudden signal. The music went up in volume, battering the hall.

Teenie stood up.

A blue spotlight came on.

She reached up to the collar of her military coat.

She gave a rip.

It fell off!

She still had on her crown. She was wearing a red jacket so short that it barely covered the tops of her shoulders and her breasts, leaving her exposed from throat to crotch. She had on a small, scarlet jockstrap, no bigger than bikini pants, which had a gold metal plate in front. What had appeared to be boots were simply foot platforms, laced with red to her ankles, leaving the tops of her feet bare.

SHE WAS PAINTED FROM THROAT TO HEEL WITH PHALLIC SYMBOLS!

A groan of ecstasy rose even above the music from the crowd.

The singer began to sing the song again.

Between the two kneeling grooms in gold, Teenie began to dance in place. But she was not moving her limbs. All that was moving was her muscles!

Selectedly, in rhythmic time, balanced from right to left, the flesh was jerking and leaping, savage but under perfect control. The spotlight began to change colors in rhythm.

She took a step downward, muscles still dancing. Then step by step she descended, provocative, seductive. And when the muscles leaped the phallic symbols writhed and jerked.

Oh, she had been well taught by the Hong Kong whore! As she extended her hands and feet, exactly in time to the music beat, the muscles whipped and rippled.

Now she was advancing across the open space, planting her feet so that the heel struck last. The song and music thudded on.

She went all along the ropes, muscles writhing, and her hips began to grind.

The boys watched her with eyes that were glazed with appreciation, awe and passion. Their mouths were open and their breath was coming hard.

Then Teenie turned away from them so they could see her behind and marched with beating steps while her buttocks writhed in time.

The song had rolled off twice again and now neared its end. She began to spin her scepter over her head. She suddenly caught it and shoved it between her legs from behind and threw up her arms.

The cymbals crashed. The lights burst on.

SCREAMS OF ECSTASY AND APPLAUSE CAME FROM THE BOYS!

The two little boys rushed up and put a golden cape on her that covered her, neck to heel. She turned and, holding the shimmering folds to her, made kissing sounds at her audience.

Good God, thought Madison, she certainly peaked that performance! He had not known she could muscle-dance, although he had often heard her speak of her training under the Hong Kong whore.

She certainly held these boys in her palm. Their attitude toward her was expressed in their adoring eyes. If he could only get her to listen to reason. This was a juggernaut of influence to be channeled!

But she certainly must be finished now, and any moment she would come over and say “Off with his head!” and he never would be able to bring Heller the fame to which he was entitled.

A tear coursed down Madison’s cheek as he thought how brutal life really was. The plum was almost within his grasp and yet he sat here starving.

Then he sat up with amazement. This program had even more to it! But it couldn’t have! Not after that climax!

PART SEVENTY-TWO

Chapter 9

At a wave of Teenie’s hand, many staff ran out. They were pushing carts on which teetered mountains of sweetbuns and tanks of sparklewater and canisters, both of which were seasoned with hash oil. They thrust them through the ropes and the boys fell on them avidly to remedy the tight jaw muscles and dry throats Madison knew the smoked marijuana must have given them.

Another huge board was put in place and when the tumult had died down and all the boys were contentedly gulping and chewing, Teenie stood before the new display and raised her scepter for quiet.

“I am glad you liked the dance,” she said, “but it was wholly education—we must always complete our education. I did it just to demonstrate muscle control. For muscle control is EVERYTHING!”

She had their rapt attention. “Now I want from you another virgin volunteer.”

Several would have dashed forward but she pointed out a tall brunette boy of perhaps sixteen. The sergeants let him through the blue ropes. He walked forward: he was very handsome, striding with a lordly, springing gait. His clothing shimmered in all colors of the rainbow.

A herald suddenly appeared behind Teenie’s back, whispered something to her and withdrew. “Aha!” cried Teenie as the youth approached. “We have another high nobleman amongst us: the son of Snor, heir to his father, the Lord of the Interior! Advance, milord, if you have come to pledge fealty to your queen.”

The boy ran forward and knelt suddenly at her feet. He reached out and grasped the bottom of her golden cloak and pressed it ardently to his lips. “I do acknowledge that I am thy vassal, O Queen Teenie, and do but wait any bidding of your slightest whim.”

Madison stiffened with excitement. Lord Snor controlled Homeview and this boy was one of two who had access to him. Oh, God, he moaned, what a prize! But Teenie and her influence seemed light-years beyond his reach. Oh, God, he must think of something to get her to cooperate and give over this notion of executing him. She didn’t even know the value of that lordling who now knelt at her feet.

Teenie lightly touched him with her scepter. “Your fealty now I do accept. Rise, my vassal, and embrace your queen.”

The boy rose and they engaged in a perfunctory embrace while moans of envy coursed through the room. The boy stood away and looked back at the crowd with a cockiness that said he guessed that would show them.

There was another rumbling roar and servants pushed the platform up on which the first volunteer had stood. It now had a cushioned table on it.

Teenie made another signal and Too-Too ducked through the ropes and raced away from the crowd to her. He was followed by cheers and calls of “Lucky Too-Too!”

The orchestra began to play again—less volume but a hard and sexy rock beat.

The two golden pages walked Too-Too and the son of Snor up the steps of the pedestal, mounting in the rhythm of the sexy music. They reached the top and turned around.

The music pulsed with a heavy rock beat and pulsing with it came a play of colored lights lacing forward and backward over the crowd.

Teenie settled her crown over her ponytail and walked up to the new display board. She pointed at the picture with her scepter. Single amongst the roving colored lights, a white light glowed upon it. “The artist has drawn a beautiful picture here and I know you will all agree. Attend!” She gave her scepter a jab at it. “This is the sphincter muscle! As you can see on this chart, it is located just inside the anus. It is a ringlike muscle which normally maintains constriction of this body orifice and is capable of relaxing and contracting.”

She turned and fixed them with her eye. The music pounded and the lights pulsed. “Now, if this muscle were NOT under your control, it would be disaster, right?”

“Right!” they chorused back.

“IT IS THE MUSCLE OF LIFE AND DEATH!” cried Teenie.

They stared at her with awe.

“When people die,” she cried, “it lets go!”

A gasp of horror rose above the beating music.

“Therefore,” cried Teenie, “an active sphincter muscle is a sign of life!” She drew herself up sternly and called, “Is yours active?”

The crowd of catamites and catamite initiates responded with an emphatic “YES!”

Teenie shouted, “Then you LIVE!”

Cheers racketed around the hall above the beat of music.

“Now, so much for the technology,” said Teenie. “It is in your power to control the sphincter muscle. Oh, you say, no, no, not possible. Well, young gentlemen, I must inform you that it is not only possible, you can make it go round and round!”

Cries of “No!” and “That can’t be!”

“Ah, yes!” said Teenie. “You can learn to control it, and in your study time in future days in the basement study rooms, I will make available to you a probe. It is a simple matter, no more difficult than finding the control points and discovering how to wiggle your ears. Ah, I see you do not believe it. And so, my courtly gentlemen, I have arranged a demonstration!”

She walked to the platform steps and mounted it to the music beat. The spotlight had followed her and now it fell also upon the two boys who stood there.

She put her hand on the shoulder of Too-Too. “This pretty expert has been trained and is much experienced.” Too-Too looked at her adoringly, eyes bright in his painted face. It was obvious that the privilege of being touched by her was almost more than he could bear.

Teenie made a gesture and the two grooms started to strip Too-Too and the son of Snor.

Madison abruptly understood, from his experience on the Blixo, what was about to happen. “No!” he shrieked. “No, Teenie, no!”

Instantly the guard was in front of him.

The electric axe was huge in Madison’s face.

“Be silent!” snarled the guard.

Madison raised his eyes in prayer. Teenie’s voice came to him. “Bend over, dear Too-Too,” she said. “Now, grooms, make the lordling here stand upright behind him and do not let him move. Not a muscle!”

The orchestra played devotedly.

The boys behind the rope stared as the colored lights laced across them. They let out a concerted groan of interest.

“Too-Too,” came Teenie’s voice, “begin!”

Madison could not see around the axe.

Madison shifted slightly. There was a hole in the blade. He could just see the face of the son of Snor. It was wreathed in ecstasy.

“Don’t let him move at all!” came Teenie’s voice.

The bandleader gave a signal and the volume of the music rose.

The boys behind the ropes were standing with their mouths open in amazement.

The bandleader directed for more volume and the heavy throb was making the curtains jump.

Madison tried to see through the hole in the axe.

A boy in the audience said, “I don’t believe it,” in a passion-choked voice.

“Those grooms are holding him like a statue!” said his companion, wide-eyed.

Too-Too’s horizontal face held a knowing smile.

The crowd was wide-eyed and panting.

Madison, staring, flinched at a scream of ecstasy from the son of Snor.

A moan went through the hall. It had the tension of sexual yearning in it, desire that throbbed as heavy as the music beat.

Teenie leaped down off the platform and sprang up the steps to her throne. The spotlight followed her and she stood, arms raised on high. The music was louder, heavier. She began to sway to the rhythm of it, scepter raised on high, golden crown flashing.

Her golden robe fell from her and she stood there swaying while the phallic symbols writhed upon her.

“Vassals and courtly gentlemen!” she cried. “Hear my Royal command! HAVE AT IT!”

They gave a thankful shout! Behind the ropes they fell upon one another like wolves in heat. The music and marijuana and the tableaux, the pulsing colored lights, had driven them mad with lust that no longer could be restrained.

The air above the roped-off areas was a sudden explosion of castoff jackets and other clothing.

The floor behind the ropes began to sink and with it went the sound of savage music and the lights, the stacks of sweetbuns and sparklewater and the cries of the boys.

A second floor slid over and the crowd was gone.

PART SEVENTY-TWO

Chapter 10

Madison knew his time had come.

The servants were rolling the platform away—Too-Too and the lordling had scampered off into the orgy and behind the ropes had begun to hug and kiss. The big board went and then the throne.

The musician balcony was sliding back into invisibility, for the same piece they had been playing had melted undetectably into recordings which still thumped very faintly from the floor below.

The lights in the room went back to normal. The marijuana smoke was sucked away by ventilators. A fresh smell like violets gently replaced it.

Madison cowered in his chair under the watchful eye of Hammer. Little sparks ran up and down the blade of the electric axe. Madison cringed back to keep it from touching his chains.

There seemed to be a gathering of the staff. Men and women in clothes that might be worn by cooks and chambermaids and technicians were drifting in. Even the musicians that had played joined the collecting throng. There seemed to be more than a hundred of them, including the seneschals, heralds and guards. Even the old gardeners came in: one of them had a bouquet of massive flowers.

Madison wondered if they were all there to attend his trial. It made him acutely uncomfortable. Maybe they loved the sight of blood!

Teenie had been talking to some artist-looking fellow and they were now both laughing. Somebody had taken away her golden cape and replaced it with a plain red cloak that hung about her.

She started to walk toward the staircase that led upward. Madison felt a sudden surge of hope. She seemed to have forgotten him entirely: at least with luck he’d live another day. He tried to make himself very small so as not to attract her attention.

The staff had formed two lines now and Madison understood that they were not there to witness his demise. This must be some sort of a nightly informal ritual. Earlier moments might belong to the great Lords, but this was their little gathering, no more than a wishing of good night as they sent her off to bed.

A portly old man, coated in many golden frogs like an officer, probably the major-domo of the place, approached her as she strolled between the two rows of servants. He dropped to his knee and the whole staff instantly knelt. She stopped. He grasped the hem of her robe and pressed it to his lips. Speaking to the floor, he said, “Your Majesty, your staff wishes to thank you for letting them enjoy themselves doing their jobs.”

Teenie looked all around at them, beaming and pleased. “Oh, dear trusted people. You are so sweet to be among. I thank you.” And she began to name different sections of the staff, thanking each personally. Then she cried, “I love you all!”

They gazed at her with adoring eyes. The major-domo was about to say something else when a squabble broke out. Six women who, from their uniforms, were maids, were hissing and snarling at each other.

An old woman, stern and beautifully uniformed, was at them at once, speaking to them sharply for causing a disturbance. The major-domo went over to them.

It developed that they were having a dispute as to which two of the six should take the night watch and put Teenie to bed. It was quite bitter. It seemed that some of them had been switching watches. The major-domo pointed with authority at two of them whose watch it really was: they would take it! This pair stood promptly taller, their faces very proud. And then they suddenly stuck their tongues out at the other four and raced upstairs to get Teenie’s bath ready. The abashed four, who had sought to interlope, looked at Teenie and knelt with both knees on the floor with a trace of fear. She smiled at them and they let out a sigh and then smiled back. It struck Teenie funny and she threw them a kiss and began to laugh. The whole staff began to laugh. Then, “Long Live Your Majesty!” they cried.

Teenie opened her mouth to tell them all good night when the guard captain in flashing silver caught her attention and pointed way over to the wall where Madison cowered.

“(Bleep) that guard captain,” choked Madison. Teenie had obviously forgotten all about him, for now she frowned and looked toward him as though she had noted some unwanted bug. The staff looked toward him as well and glared: evidently his crime of provoking their darling Queen Teenie had circulated through the whole, vast palace.

The guard captain and Teenie engaged in a whispered conversation. Then, with two guards flanking her, she followed the captain over to where Madison sat.

“They reminded me,” said Teenie, in English, “that I have several dress fittings in the morning and gardening in the afternoon. They couldn’t find time to fit in a trial, so we’ll have it now. Guilty or not guilty?”

“Of what?” wailed Madison.

“In the confines of a palace, unless he is dealing with a person of higher rank,” said Teenie, “the nobleman has the power of life and death over offenders to his property or person.”

“I didn’t offend you!” cried Madison in English. “I was just trying to get your help! You NEED me!”

She turned to the guard captain and, in Voltarian, she said, “He pleads guilty as charged. Enter it in the palace records.”

“TEENIE!” cried Madison, “You MUST listen. . . .”

“I don’t have to listen to you,” she said in English. “You’re guilty as hell and you know it. You never even lifted a finger to stop that (bleep) Gris. You got yourself into this mess because you didn’t play ball with me.” She shifted to Voltarian, “I therefore pronounce the prisoner guilty and the sentence is to be carried out without fail.”

The guard captain nodded.

Madison said, “You haven’t said what the sentence is!”

She was speaking in English again. “Well, Maddie, I get all heated up conducting these classes; they sometimes bring me to the brink of (bleep) and I ache. I’ve always wanted to break that fixation you have on your mother. So you’re sentenced to coming up to my bedroom and (bleeping) me until I’m all limp and satisfied.”

“OH, NO!” screamed Madison, and cringed back so hard his chains rattled. Then he thought in quick streaks of blue light and inspiration hit him. “Look,” he said, “right down under that floor there are 250 boys! I can still hear the music pound! Any one of them would—”

“Maddie,” she said sharply in English, “you got your wires crossed. The moment I start (bleeping) one of those pages, the rest would be so jealous of him they’d slaughter him! Besides, I’m making them into perfectly good catamites and it would ruin them.”

“You’ve got men on this staff!” cried Maddie in English.

“They’re commoners and they’d be executed if they were found in bed with royalty,” said Teenie, continuing in English. “I’m too fond of them to put them at risk. Queen Hora used to use noble guard officers: she had a whole regiment of them. But they are not here. So can the chatter, Maddie. You’re for it, me bucko boy.”

Madison was shuddering to the depths of his soul. “No,” he pleaded. “The answer is no!”

Teenie smiled and it made him flinch. He knew this wasn’t all of it.

“All right,” she said, glancing at her Mickey Mouse watch, “just sit there and think it over. This guard captain has orders that if you don’t come up to my room tonight, then, straight up sharp at 6:00 AM you are to be taken to the dungeons and executed with an electric axe. So if you change your mind, your guard here will have orders to bring you up to my room, no matter the hour.”

She gave him a little mocking wave and turned away.

The staff insisted that she sit on a little silver seat with handles as she might be too tired after her long evening to walk up the stairs, and they bore her off, up the golden steps and out of sight.

PART SEVENTY-TWO

Chapter 11

For a very long time Madison sat, and he sat in the deepest gloom. The metal chair was cold, the chains were colder and the guard’s electric axe, with its racing sparks, chilled him even more.

It was dark now in the hall. The rock music from below was only the faintest thumping, more like the mutter of some hungry beast than music.

Half-seen in the dimness, the painted angels on the walls seemed to look at him. He had little doubt that he would be joining the real angels soon and spend the rest of eternity sitting on some cloud holding a useless harp. Madison knew he could never learn to play it.

At length he was able to struggle up out of his shock, enough to think about his terrible conflict: If he did go upstairs he would die; if he didn’t go upstairs he would die.

He had been very well brought up: He had to be true to his mother at any cost, even his life. Since he had been a baby it had been dinned into him that boys who did not sleep with their mothers were unnatural and it had been proven to him without doubt, even in his schools, where the word of the psychiatrist Freud was five times holier than God’s. Unless one had a firm Oedipus complex, expressing libidinous desires for one’s mother, one could never hope to be a genius at his trade. To abandon it would be a negation of his own wits. Without this bright spark, according to all Freudian teachings, he would fall into crass mediocrity, descended to a mere hack or drudge. There was no such thing, according to psychologists, as a genius who was not neurotic. Without that genius—which Madison never doubted—he would die professionally. Like all PR men, belief in himself was the first thing one had to establish and only then could others believe in him.

But his mother had reinforced it by continually reminding him of how indulgent she was. After his father departed she had not burdened him with another whom he could only hate, and how very few mothers would bother to give a son this much attention. His mother was a dear thing, still quite pretty at forty-nine. When he thought of all the sacrifices she had made for him, foregoing all other men, the least he could do was reciprocate and forego all other women. But it went deeper than that: completely aside from any Freudian orders from his child psychologist, made more real with mild electric shocks, he truly loved her. She had warned him repeatedly of the dangers of other women, as had his current psychiatrist, and colliding in life with such heartless creatures as Teenie, he agreed with them utterly. It would not only wreck him mentally to have sex with Teenie, it would break his mother’s heart. She would probably commit suicide, a thing she often had to be prevented from doing, and he knew, if that happened, he would promptly do the same.

No, to go up those stairs and get in bed with Teenie would be the end of all he knew. Impossible! That was out. Better to die at dawn. Far better.

His thoughts turned to Heller. Victory had been almost within his grasp when everything had come so unaccountably unstuck. The headlines he had been getting for Heller had been magnificent! He fondly recalled the stories about Toots Switch, Maizie Spread and Dolores Pubiano de Cópula. Absolute masterpieces, guaranteed to stamp the name of Wister indelibly forever upon the public consciousness. Wister would have become known, as those trials progressed, as the greatest outlaw lover in history. And such plans he had had, to embellish and add glitter to the outlaw part of it! Wister robbing the Federal Reserve Bank had been the least of his PR projections. He could have made it all soar to greater and greater heights. He could have had every law enforcement agency in the world, every one of them from Nazi Interpol right on down to the meanest town cop, absolutely baying on Wister’s trail and slavering to catch him. It would have ended with the biggest public execution man had ever known. Wister would have been absolutely IMMORTAL!

Then he brightened up. He could do the same thing here if he had a chance. That the man’s real name was Heller made no difference in his plans. He was tireless enough to simply scrub his other work and start anew. They had Domestic Police. They had the Army Division. And even if the Fleet might be lukewarm at first, he could heat them up. If he worked this right, he would have the whole Apparatus behind him.

He began to daydream in the dim and empty hall: headlines about Heller robbing the estates of Lords and giving the proceeds to the poor; Heller robbing spaceships, 18-point type; Heller kidnapping the daughter of some earl or duke and story after story of her pleading with him piteously to be raped—how the public would LOVE it! Headlines of Heller robbing every bank on every planet of the entire Confederacy, each one with a new twist, each one with new blood, each one with new staggering amounts of loot being given to the poor. What a hero he would be! Heller, the most hunted outlaw in 125,000 years! Confederacy history! MAGNIFICENT!

Then he had another idea: He could hyphenate Heller’s name. He could call him Heller-Wister and rake in and rake over ALL the earlier stories, spreading them throughout the entire Confederacy. No, his earlier work was NOT lost—it was only being amplified!

Ah, now he was getting somewhere. And he could safely begin to dream the greatest dream of all: Madison walking up to Bury in a sort of offhand way, “Well, Mr. Bury, I finally finished a job for you. Heller-Wister is immortal.” And Mr. Bury would take him by the hand, tears of gratitude sparkling in his eyes, and in a voice charged with emotion, say, “Madison, you are restored to grace. Please, please accept the presidency of FFBO and please forgive me for ever doubting you for a second. Never again will I chase you in Army tanks!”

The glow faded. A chill wind blew in the hall. The reality of the situation was that, right now, if Bury even caught sight of him, even providing he could get home, he would be stood up against a wall and shot. It was death if he did not succeed with Heller-Wister. Death without even the comfort of a blindfold or cigarette: it was a good thing he didn’t smoke.

A bit of the rock music from down below beat for a moment more loudly against the floor. The rhythm sounded so much like Earth that it gave him pause. He began to get a sort of hunted feeling: Bury was sort of supernatural—maybe he could even reach him here! When he thought of possible links between Rockecenter and Lombar, he began to shiver. Oh, it was surely death indeed if he did not somehow get to work on Heller-Wister!

The current guard shifted position slightly and the axe emitted a puff of ozone. It brought his mind to Teenie.

Up to now he had been thinking that if he went upstairs and went to bed with her, she would then help him. He realized she had made no guarantees of that whatever. All she had promised was that if he went upstairs and slept with her, he would not be executed at dawn!

It was a problem wherein if he did he would die because of his mother and if he didn’t he would die because of Bury. It wouldn’t help him at all to go up there.

Obviously, this required some other solution!

He was usually good at getting ideas and had always been proud that, because of the Oedipus complex, he was a genius at it. But tonight his mind seemed bankrupt.

He glanced at his Omega wristwatch. He had been sitting here for two hours! What a long time for him just to sit without getting a single constructive idea! He took a grip on himself. After all, he was a PR man, a true-blue professional.

He would be orderly. He would now skim over everything Teenie had said to him since the moment he found her by the pool. It didn’t take long. He tried it again.

Suddenly he stiffened in his chair.

HE HAD IT!

If it didn’t work, he would only be dead anyway.

IF IT DID, HE COULD FINISH HIS JOB ON HELLER-WISTER!

Madison looked up at the guard. Calmly, keeping all signs of elation out of his voice so the guard would suppose him to be operating in defeat, he said, “Take me upstairs to your mistress.”

OH, GOD, THIS HAD TO WORK!