PART SEVENTY-SIX
Chapter 1
Hightee Heller looked at Madison with a bit of wonder. “You mean, after that beautiful gift you brought me from Jettero, you have something else? My, you are a man of surprises. But come, let us stroll a bit: I’ve been sitting all morning.”
J. Walter Madison hastily grabbed his briefcase and followed her out of the summerhouse. They were instantly accompanied by songbirds.
The acres of the rooftop estate were artfully landscaped with curving paths and pools and waterfalls and trees so that every few yards, on any path one took, one was looking at a new presentation.
Sauntering along, hands thrust into her artist’s smock pockets, Hightee looked sideways at him. “Now what is this something else?”
“Your new musical!” said Madison. “I’ve brought it!”
“That’s unusual,” said Hightee. “Normally I originate them and my own staff develops them.”
Madison hadn’t known that: on Earth artists didn’t write them; they just sang and acted in them. But he plunged ahead. “Well, the order to do it comes from Lord Snor himself. He’s a great admirer of yours, as they all are. When he heard one of the songs from it, he said, ‘THAT’S HIGHTEE!’”
“He did? That’s funny. He’s as deaf as a rock.”
“To everything but a bone-phone,” said Madison hastily. “They put bones into the probe, I mean prones into the bobe. . . .”
Hightee laughed. Then she said, “I’m sorry I got you all flustered. Maybe Lord Snor did wake up and listen to what goes on on Homeview. Stranger things have happened.”
Madison was floundering in his briefcase. The impact of Hightee Heller was a bit much for him. But he was a veteran and he got himself under control. “Look, I better play you one of the songs from it. Where can I find a piano?”
“A what?”
“A keyboard. I’m not any pro but I tinkle away.”
Hightee was walking away from him. He quickly followed. Then he noticed that some of the vine-covered walls they had been passing were actually the sides of structures. She opened something that looked like a garden gate and Madison, coming up behind her, found himself looking into what must be a musical-equipment repair shop.
A middle-aged man was standing over a bench which was littered with electronic components and shells of what might be instruments. He looked up, saw Hightee, smiled and laid down a tool.
“Jarp,” said Hightee, “have you ever heard of an instrument called a piano?”
“No,” said Jarp. “What’s it look like?”
“Teeth,” said Madison. “It has lots of keys like ivory teeth.”
Jarp turned to Hightee. “He’s talking about some primitive mouth instrument.”
“No, no,” said Madison. “It’s quite sophisticated. You play it by hitting the keys with both hands in chords. You mean you don’t have a keyboard? Oh, dear!”
“What scale is it?” said Jarp.
“Eight-note major, thirteen-note chromatic.”
“Do you know the notes?”
When Madison nodded, Jarp dug around and found the remains of a chorder-beat that operated on finger proximity. Madison, after a couple of sour tries, managed to get it to hum the right numbers of vibrations. Jarp turned on a recorder and Madison, moving his finger closer and closer and holding it each time he had the right note, ran the chromatic scale.
“All those notes on one instrument?” said Hightee.
“Yes,” said Madison. “Eighty-eight total.”
“I know,” said Jarp. “He’s talking about a chorder-bar.” He turned to Madison. “When you put a finger down on a long bar, it sounds a note. When you put it down softly you get low volume; when you put it down hard you get high volume. But you were saying something about a keyboard or keys. What’s it look like?”
Madison found some paper, but he was making such a bad job of it, Jarp took it away from him and with a long sheet of paper, using Madison’s hand span for an octave, shortly had a piano keyboard drawn. Jarp looked at it and scratched his head. “Never saw anything like it. It must work mechanically: you strike a key, you say, and it takes a hammer and hits a string. How clumsy! I guess it must be a blood brother to one of those stick harps they once had in the back country of Mistin. Used to jump around naked beating them before they did their spring mating.”
“Well, see what you can do,” said Hightee, “and bring it to the practice room when you finish.” Madison followed her out. They were shortly on a path that wound round a waterfall, the birds flying escort. “Now what’s the story of this musical?” said Hightee. “The book. I hope it isn’t about spring mating.”
Madison laughed easily and donned his most engaging smile. “No, hardly. It’s really a great vehicle that will show your lovely voice off as never before. You see, there’s this mythical planet named Terra. The whole story is a fantasy, you see.”
“Oh, I like fantasy. Prince Caucalsia made a great hit. But go on.”
Madison wished he could just give her the treatment. But it was in his briefcase and she was using the time to get some exercise in. He and the horror-writer had sweat their brains out on it but he hadn’t thought he would have to give it verbally. He hoped he had it straight.
“Well,” said Madison, “this fantasy planet Terra is ruled by a huge monster in a red suit with horns and a tail.”
“You’re describing a Manco devil.”
“Good,” said Madison, who had never heard of one. “I’m glad you’ve got that straight. So this Manco devil rules all the people. And they haven’t got any money and they are starving. Now, in the opening scene we show the people all huddled and starving and praying and the devil comes in and kicks them around.”
“How awful!”
“But wait,” said Madison. “The devil has a huge court of devils and one of these has lost his devil child and an old nurse has put a HUMAN child in its place to fool the devil and the devil raises this human child, thinking it is his own.
“So the sight we saw in the first scene—the main devil kicking the people around—is witnessed by this human child, who is now a young man, and he decides it’s bad.”
“Good for him,” said Hightee.
“But the devils in the court all think this son is one of them. They think he’s a reliable officer of good repute. But really, he’s planning to help the people. So, whenever he can get away, he puts on a mask and starts robbing trains.”
“Trains?” said Hightee. “What’s a train?”
Madison said, “This is a fantasy.”
“Oh.”
“Now, the devils all ship their valuables and money on these trains.”
“Ah, a train is a space-liner between planets,” said Hightee.
“Well, kind of,” said Madison. “And the hero robs them.”
“You mean the fellow goes CRIMINAL?”
“Well, he HAS to,” said Madison.
“Oh, I don’t think that would go down well. People despise criminals.”
Madison said, “Well, this isn’t really criminal. It’s in a good cause. He robs the trains and he gives the money away to the poor and they DON’T STARVE!”
“Listen,” said Hightee. “It’s the people who raise the food. If they didn’t raise the food, they couldn’t buy anything with the money the hero gives them.”
“Oh, the devils grab the food and the people have to bribe them to get it back. So suddenly the devils find out WHO the bandit is. A devil’s own son! So they declare him an OUTLAW! And there’s a lot of fighting and the outlaw escapes.”
“Hurray!” said Hightee.
“But the devils finally catch him,” said Madison, “and hang him. Hang him up high and very dead. The people all cry—”
“Wait a minute,” said Hightee. “I don’t see any part in this for me. There’s no girl.”
“Well, I was coming to that. You’re the hero’s sister.”
“Then I must be a devil, as he was a stolen child.”
“No, no. The devil stole a brother and SISTER! I forgot to mention it. And in the musical, the sister warns and saves the hero time and again. And SHE’S the one who sings all the songs. The outlaw just runs around shooting people, and the sister, in the songs, describes what he is doing. And all the people begin singing her songs.”
“So there’re a lot of choruses.”
“Exactly!” said Madison. “Now the last scene when they hang him is the great one. All the people are there watching him choke out his life on the scaffold—”
“How grisly!”
“And the sister comes in and sings a great song, a kind of a dirge. And then the devils realize that she was the one who tipped him off all the time and they hang her on the spot!”
“No!”
“Yes. Right alongside her brother on a second scaffold. And then two graves open up and huge skeletal hands come out of them and grab the bodies off the scaffolds. And then the people all rise up and sing the song she had been singing and remember the outlaw forever!”
Hightee Heller was staring at him, wide-eyed.
Madison held his breath. Would she fall for it?
A speaker underneath a flowering tree opened up and interrupted them. “Hightee, the instrument is ready.”
PART SEVENTY-SIX
Chapter 2
Madison, as he followed her into the music practice room, knew he had better be awfully lucky or awfully good or both.
The place was a domed room with no flat surfaces to reflect sound. It was decorated with huge enlargements of Voltarian single notes in pastel blue that hung in various places as baffles to further break up the sound. The interior of the dome was a pastel yellow. Jarp was hanging something from wires in the middle of the room. It was the drawn piano keyboard but the keys were vertical and it was raised five feet above the floor.
“No,” said Madison. “You sit down to it.”
“No musician ever sits down,” said Jarp. “It must be awfully lazy music.”
“Give him what he wants,” said Hightee. “I can’t see for the life of me how you play such a thing. Keys?”
At Madison’s direction, Jarp had a band helper get a stool and then they supported the keyboard horizontal and firmed it in place.
Madison, on his part, couldn’t possibly see how it would work. The keys, white and black, were simply drawn on paper. They had no action up or down at all.
He summoned up his nerve. It was all or nothing. He struck one of the painted, motionless keys with one finger and he got a sort of a howl.
“Oh, no,” he said. “A piano doesn’t sound like that. It vibrates more like a harp.”
“Let’s see if we’ve got the notes right, first,” said Jarp.
Madison limbered up his fingers, wishing he had at least tried to entertain people since he was twelve. He ran the whole scale from bottom to the top. Yes, the notes were all on pitch. But no piano ever HOWLED!
“The tones are wrong,” said Madison. “A piano note is bright and bubbling.”
“My word,” said Jarp. “Well, here’s the adjustment tool and that’s the panel over on the right end. The first slot is ‘attack,’ the second is ‘decay.’ The next one is ‘overtones’ and the bottom one is ‘percussion.’ See what you can do.”
Striking one picture of a key with one finger, Madison fiddled with the controls. He began to perspire. He got rid of the howls and got some sharp striking notes but it still didn’t sound like a piano. Far too dead now.
“What’s this second box under the top one?” said Madison.
“Well, that thing I pasted the picture on is a chorder-bar. I moved the contact points under it so they match the pictures that you drew, only I can’t figure why anybody would want pictures to play an instrument. You simply press the right spots hard or soft. And you don’t want that second box. That’s drums, cymbals and bells.”
“Ah!” said Madison and promptly went to work with his tool on the second box. He found another slot Jarp hadn’t mentioned: it was “resonance.”
Striking one note repeatedly, he thought he finally had it right.
He wiped off his hands, flexed his fingers, and without daring to hope, experimentally struck a chord. It felt so weird not to have anything move.
Everything, he felt, depended upon this now.
He took a deep breath and began to play “Beale Street Blues.”
He got very interested. This thing was putting out sound like the most jangly honky-tonk piano he had ever heard.
He was making an AWFUL lot of flubs and sour chords.
Too much depended on this. He was rattled. He stopped playing and wiped off his hands again. He shook his fingers in the air. What piece had he been enamored with and had played a lot? Then he remembered. It was Scott Joplin’s music they had used in the movie The Sting. It seemed very appropriate.
He started playing. This instrument really did have a wide dynamic range; the soft was soft and the loud was LOUD! He started to give it the heavy downbeat of ragtime.
He glanced sideways at his audience of two. He could tell nothing from their faces.
He thought he had the instrument now. He reached over to his briefcase and whipped out a sheet. “Now this,” he said, “is one of the lyrics of the musical.” Nothing had been easier than to come up with music, for he could pirate the entire library of Earth ragtime and blues and simply get words written to it. He had lifted the tune “The Trickster Rag” from a Broadway musical comedy, The Con Man. The ex-Royal Academy reporter had put new words to it.
“If you would like,” said Madison, “I will play the melody through and then you can sing it. It’s called ‘The Outlaw.’”
Hightee took it, looked at it. Madison went through the tune and then Hightee began to sing:
We hunt him here,
We hunt him there,
For he is hiding everywhere:
The outlaw!
In your favorite boudoir,
If you hear a randy snore,
Don’t look further anymore:
The outlaw!
If you step into a bank
And see the muzzle of a tank,
Don’t ask who you have to thank:
The outlaw!
If there is a town to steal,
If the jewels are very real,
If the beauty has appeal:
The outlaw!
He’ll take anything you’ve got,
Your money, girls, the whole lot,
And leave you tied up in a knot:
The outlaw!
He will use the smartest lure
To take riches from a boor
And give it to the very poor:
The outlaw!
So for this man, strike up the band,
And give to him a helping hand,
For he will give us the whole land:
THE OUTLAW!
Her brilliant voice died away.
“Of course,” said Madison, “when you sing it in the play, you will be wearing black shorts and boots and a wide-rimmed black hat and you will have a gun on each hip and then draw and hold up the audience at the end of the song. And then the outlaw himself rushes amongst them, robs them and runs off to give it to the poor. Terrific theater!”
A man who must be her bandleader had drifted in.
“That’s an amazing downbeat,” said Hightee. “What do you think of it, Tink?”
“Primitive,” said Tink. “It probably came from the backwoods of some planet like Flisten and then got refined a bit. Drums. You know, comes from beating sticks on logs. And the downbeat is probably some kind of a charge motion at a wild animal. Hunter enactment dances. You know, chug chug CHUG, chug chug CHUG.”
“You are absolutely right,” said Madison. “Except it comes from the blacks of Africa and it got to New Orleans and caught on all over the place. It’s called jazz.”
“You sure got that chorder-bar sounding crazy,” said Tink. “Why didn’t you tune it up for him, Jarp?”
“He tuned it,” said Jarp defensively.
“It’s tuned to represent a honky-tonk piano,” said Madison.
“Why do you need the pictures drawn on it?” said Tink.
“Listen,” said Hightee, glancing at her locket watch, “I’ve got to run. I have a show to do this afternoon. I’ll walk you to your car, Madison. Somebody tell my maid to bring me a jacket and tell my driver to run out an airbus.”
Madison walked with her out of the music practice room. He had no clue as to whether he had won or lost. An awful lot depended on getting this image built so he could fit Heller to it.
Hightee seemed to be a bit thoughtful. They came to the landing target. She stopped suddenly, “A MODEL 99! Good heavens! I didn’t think they ever would sell one!”
Madison had forgotten all about Flick. Suddenly he decided he could at least use this meeting to prevent further robberies. He said, “My driver will be delighted to show it to you.”
Flick, scarlet-faced, trying to go down on his knees but too frozen to even make them bend, just stood there.
Madison said, “Flick is trying to ask you if you’d honor him by letting him drive you to the studio.”
“That would be an adventure. I’ve heard these ride like a cloud.” Her maid was hurrying up with her things and she turned to her. “Send Tink and the others in my car. I’m going to take a ride in this Model 99.”
Flick managed to get himself unglued enough to open the door for her. When she and Madison were in, Flick, beet-red and gasping, slid under the controls.
They flew to Joy City and Flick managed it without ever taking his eyes off the mirrors which showed him Hightee in the rear seat.
They landed on a target marked Hightee which jutted out of the huge dome. Attendants rushed forward. One yelled back over his shoulder, “Hey! Here’s Hightee in a Model 99!”
Flick had a sudden, obscured fight with the attendants and opened the door himself. Although he seemed to be having great trouble breathing, he stood there, straight as a rod, waiting to help her out and bow.
But Hightee did not get out. She turned to Madison. “You know, Madison, you’re a nice fellow. But any friend of Jettero’s would be. I’m absolutely bowled over by that what’s its name? Piano beat? You get the writer to do the rest of the book and I’ll do the show.”
When she had disappeared inside the dome, Flick said, “You’re an absolute wonder, Chief. I actually drove her in the car! I’m a totally changed and reformed man!”
Madison didn’t even hear him. As they took off, he was grinning from ear to ear.
He had a stage image being manufactured by the most popular star on Voltar, the guy’s own sister! And he would soon, with other media, fit Heller to it.
He would soon put an end to this mediocre hero worship Heller now experienced and push Heller’s name to the heights of true immortality.
And he began to hug himself. He had a bonus! When the musical had been aired and when she had found Heller for him, he would have another headline. It would run:
HELLER
BURNS TEMPLE
KILLS
THOUSANDS
OF
PRIESTS
ROBS
SACRED IDOL
OF
PRICELESS EYE
TO
GIVE PRESENT
TO
HIS SISTER
Sure-fire! She would even have shown the evidence on Homeview. He could use the story on an off day when he didn’t have more exciting news to print about Heller.
He was REALLY making progress now!
PART SEVENTY-SIX
Chapter 3
They were nearly home when Flick turned around. “Chief, I just thought of something. When you were busy with Hightee Heller, you got a viewer-phone call from Queen Teenie.”
Madison was jolted out of his euphoria. All his influence rested on Teenie Whopper, who was busily misrepresenting herself as royalty and holding her position through making page boys into catamites. It was, however, to Madison, the equivalent of a Royal command.
“Go up and hover!” he commanded nervously. “If she gave you a connection, call it back at once!” He was very jittery: apparently, due to time lag, it was difficult to call from Palace City. Was Teenie in town?
A piece of upholstery unfolded and a viewer-phone was staring him in the face.
Teenie’s face appeared. She looked provoked. “I’ve been waiting out here in the desert beside this god (bleeped) message center for an hour! It’s going to ruin my complexion!”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” said Madison.
“Why didn’t you call back?” she snarled.
“Oh, I’ve been meaning to call you. But I got tied up.”
“Tied up with Hightee Heller! You owe me a progress report on Gris!”
“Well, actually,” said Madison, “I’ve been working up to that.”
“Listen, Madison. This ‘all promise and no delivery’ is just the way PRs work. I know! You get busy, you lunkhead. I’ll come back to this message center at sunset and if you don’t have something to report on Gris by then, I’ll have your cotton-picking head!” She hung up violently.
Women! Oh, his mother had taught him well. They were trouble!
He thought fast. He glanced at his Omega watch and saw that he only had about two hours left of the day. He thought faster. Suddenly, he said, “Fly me to Government City, Royal Courts and Prison!”
“What the blazes? Chief, are you all right? Did Hightee run you out of your head?”
“It’s another woman. An almost-woman.”
“Look, Chief, we were just lucky getting in and out of the Domestic Confederacy Prison. You get near a Royal prison and that’s that!”
“Fly!” said Madison.
They flashed above the traffic lanes and lanced along toward Government City.
Madison soon saw the forbidding structure. It was perched upon a craggy hill, a fortress disdainful and aloof from the mundane matters of the worlds.
Flick didn’t land in any courtyard: that was forbidden to anyone except the Emperor. Instead he landed on the sloping road outside its gates. He wouldn’t move any nearer than a steep one hundred yards.
“Goodbye, Chief,” said Flick. “It was great while it lasted.”
“Shut up,” said Madison. He got out and toiled up the pavement. It was heavy going for him, due to the increased gravity.
Above him loomed the towering pillars of the outer gate. As it was still daylight, guards were standing there, stiff as statues, on the other side of the heavy grill.
“I want to see somebody,” said Madison to the nearest guard.
The man just kept on standing there. Madison was not as much as a fly.
Madison got out his identoplate and showed it. The guard didn’t even look at it.
An officer was coming up, electric saber clanking. “What’s this unseemly disturbance out here?”
“It’s no disturbance,” said Madison. “I’ve got to see somebody in here.”
“Well, that’s informative,” said the officer. “All it lacks is his name, your business and what plot you are involved in to subvert the machinery of state. Be off.”
“Look,” pleaded Madison, “this is a matter of life and death.”
“There’s plenty of both in here,” said the officer. “They’re doing life, most of them, and we have assorted brands of death. Now get out of here!”
“Please, please,” said Madison. “It’s my life I’m talking about.”
“Talk away,” said the officer. “In living memory, no one has had the nerve to walk up this road to this gate and ask to get in. . . .”
The statue guard said, without moving his mouth, “Correction, sir. Gris did.”
“Gris!” said Madison. “That’s it. I am his dearest friend. I must see him!”
The officer bent his head way forward and looked at Madison through the bars. He suddenly walked off and Madison fidgeted nervously. He could see the officer talking into a courtyard call box.
The officer came back and gave a signal to open the gates wide enough for Madison to slip through. Then he gave another signal. The gates clanged shut and two guards ceased to be statues and abruptly took Madison by the arms, one on each side, and marched him forward saying, “Hup! Hup! Hup!” the same way Madison had heard his criminals chant. Was he under arrest?
They followed the officer into the main entrance and through the vast echoey halls. The officer opened a door and they were in a courtroom. They walked Madison straight across it and stopped him in front of a door.
The officer frisked him, appropriated his identoplate and went through the door. He came back and held it open.
The two guards catapulted Madison into a room. It was a stone-walled chamber but it had a rich rug on the floor. A huge block of stone, like a desk, had another rich hanging thrown over it. An old man, dressed in black, was in a chair behind the desk staring out the window.
The man swiveled the chair around. He picked up Madison’s identoplate and looked at it. He fixed Madison with a wintry eye.
“So you’re a friend of Soltan Gris. Well, well. I am Lord Turn. You can speak freely here.”
Madison took it that they must be alone but he heard a clank behind him. The officer was standing against the far wall, keeping an eye on him.
“I just wanted to make sure he was all right,” said Madison, lamely. “I want to see him.”
“Do you have a Royal order?”
“No,” said Madison.
“Then how could you possibly expect to be able to see a prisoner here?”
“I am very close to Lombar Hisst, Spokesman to His Majesty.”
“Hmm,” said Lord Turn. “Tell me . . . Madison? Do you know anything of the crimes of Gris?”
“Well, sir, I did not come here to testify. He may—”
“No, no. This is not a court you’re standing in. You couldn’t testify anyway unless a court was in session. Let me put this another way. Do you know Royal Officer Jettero Heller?”
“Well, yes, Your Honor—”
“Your Lordship,” corrected the officer fifty feet away.
“. . . Your Lordship,” said Madison. “I do know Jettero Heller.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Well, no, Your Hon—Your Lordship.”
“Blast!” said Lord Turn.
“I know there’s a general warrant out for him,” said Madison, “and I would be happy to—”
“General warrant, piffle,” said Lord Turn. “I am holding his prisoner here. And I am quite sure that Jettero has a very good reason to put this Soltan Gris in Royal custody. But I DO wish the lad had given me a note or something to say what Gris has DONE!”
The conversation had gone all sixes and sevens for Madison. He realized he could not now say that Gris was a criminal to end all criminals, as he had already said he was his friend, thinking they would let him have visitors. Maybe they could get him for contempt or lying to a judge. The cold chill of this stately place was gnawing into him.
“I’m looking everywhere for Heller myself!” he said in a desperate effort to appear helpful.
“And you haven’t found him?”
“No, Your Lordship, but I have lines out.”
Lord Turn looked at him and then barked a short, dry laugh. He punched a couple of buttons on his desk and a court clerk appeared first, being just next door.
Lord Turn said, “This is a man named Madison. I see what this is all about now. It’s just another crude attempt by Lombar Hisst to bypass all normal procedures. For some reason, Hisst does not want to produce a Royal warrant or even a Royal pass. He’s sent another man in here to see Gris.” He turned to the guard officer. “Did you find any poison on this Madison here?”
“No, Your Lordship.”
“Oh, heavens,” said Madison, “I wasn’t sent here by Hisst!”
“You just said you were,” said Turn.
“I just wanted to make sure my friend Gris was all right!” wailed Madison.
A warder had come in in response to Turn’s second buzz. He rattled his opening plates.
“Is the prisoner Gris all right?” said Lord Turn to him.
“Chipper as a songbird, Your Lordship. Just sitting there all day and half the night dictating his confession. He’s on his third roll of vocoscriber paper. Singing like a songbird, too, Your Lordship.”
“Well, maybe someday we’ll know what this is all about,” said Turn. “That’s all, Warder. Now, Clerk, look at this identoplate. Stamp it on something. And leave an order at the gate that this Madison is to be let in if he ever finds where that dear boy Jettero has gotten to.”
Mistaking this for kindness, Madison said, “Could I see Gris for just a moment?”
“And,” said Lord Turn to his clerk, “issue another order for Gris not to be permitted to stand near windows. I think Hisst is trying to assassinate him.” He turned to Madison. “Now, as for you, if I find out that you have found out where Jettero Heller is and have NOT told me, I will have you picked up on a judge’s order and thrown into a detention cell until you tell me why you withheld the information.” He turned to the guard officer. “Throw him out!”
PART SEVENTY-SIX
Chapter 4
Madison picked himself up off the pavement, wishing the guards had not taken the order so literally.
Flick kept out of sight until he was sure the gate was closed and then he ran out and, accompanying the limping Madison, tried to brush him off.
“I told you not to go near that place,” said Flick.
Madison didn’t like this decline of image. “I shouldn’t have gone for the guard’s saber. I should have aimed for his windpipe.”
“Comets! Well, at least they threw you out instead of in. Even His Majesty is careful how he orders that lot around.”
As Madison climbed into the airbus he noticed the sun was almost set. He had Flick go up a few thousand feet. He thought hard for a few moments and then suddenly a plan came to him.
He straightened up his clothes, put on a reassuring face and called Teenie.
She answered instantly. “That’s better!” she said. “I’m sure,” and there was a threatening edge in her voice, “that you have good news. Did you see the (bleepard)?”
“Oh, yes,” said Madison. “And Teenie—I mean, Your Majesty—you would be absolutely boiled over. I spoke of you and he gave the most insulting laugh I have ever heard.”
“WHAT?”
“And he leaned back, idly eating grapes—he’s getting fat as a pig—and he said, ‘Madison, when you see her, give her my best: up her (bleep)!’”
“Oh, the (bleepard).”
“Yes, I thought so, too. They’ve got him writing his memoirs and he showed me some of them, what he thought were funny passages about you. He absolutely rolled on the floor with laughter over his own jokes! Oh, I could have killed him, but the warders were right there and they’d taken away my knife. Such a crass exhibition of unfeeling callousness, I have never before witnessed in my life.”
She had gone white as a sheet.
“He’s bragging,” continued Madison, “of how he led you on just for the pleasure of casting you aside.”
She was grinding her teeth. She suddenly snapped, “That settles it!”
Madison went into sudden alarm. He had overshot his mark. He had not intended for her to do anything. His plan was very simple: he would simply begin to try Gris in the press and push it to such a public pitch that the Emperor would have no choice but to issue a Royal order for a trial. Then, under that guise, he would get Gris to start testifying all sorts of accusations against Heller and he could make these into headlines that would shake the universe.
It was a very good plan. Just plain straight PR, Earth style, done all the time. But it required preparation and work and time. It didn’t need any sudden interventions.
Teenie had not gone on speaking. Madison said, “What settles what?”
“They’re not even going to try him, are they?”
“Well, they will if I work on it hard enough.”
“Yah? Well, Madison, you be out here at dawn tomorrow. I see back of you on this viewer-phone, you’ve got a new car. Fuel it up. We’re going to take a trip.”
Before he could say a word, she had hung up. It left him in quite a quandary.
That was the trouble with amateurs. They got ideas. And ideas from an amateur PR were mostly useless and ideas from Teenie might be very deadly.
He very well recalled the chaos Gris caused. Everything had been running along well until Gris tried to muscle in on the PR business. Amateurs just didn’t understand the smooth nuances of it.
Madison scanned over his plan again. It was quite standard and flawless. Create a public storm around Gris, using the media, and then get the trial itself to create a public storm around Heller. And even if His Majesty, for some reason, illness or otherwise, didn’t stamp an order for the trial, public pressure would make it vital that Lord Turn change his mind. It would work.
What in Heaven’s name was Teenie planning? It could well wreck everything! He had only intended to keep her interested! Not throw her into a stampede of senseless activity!
Oh, he mustn’t let this gorgeous victory elude him just when it was beckoning.
He thought of the sad plight of Heller, shivering unknown in some lonely hideout, waiting for Madison to rescue him for posterity. What a waste of material!
Knowing how to handle Gris and Heller in PR terms was easy. Handling an almost-woman like Teenie might be quite something else! What a potential obstruction!
“Eighteen point,” he said, “quote Madison on Edge of Cliff.”
“What?” said Flick.
“Go home,” said Madison. “We need rest. Tomorrow is going to be an awful day.”
At that very second, but more than twenty-two light-years away, the object of Madison’s concern, Jettero Heller, was not shivering in any dark cave. He was riding down Fifth Avenue, New York City, Earth, deafened by the roar of the ticker-tape parade that was celebrating the investiture of new top officials for New York, but which was being led by Babe after her assumption of the title Capa di Tutti Capi and whom people were now starting to call “Queen Babe.” Heller, resplendent in US Army full dress, on the seat beside her, was smiling into the newsreel and TV cameras, totally oblivious of the storm that threatened his whole future on Voltar and his good name and the future existence of Earth as well. The Countess Krak, on the other side, wasn’t smiling. She had a premonition that was giving her nightmares.
PART SEVENTY-SIX
Chapter 5
Madison, as ordered—what else could he do?—was before the entrance of Teenie’s palace at the crack of dawn. His fingernails were not in very good shape: he had been chewing them all night.
A guard captain came out, saw Madison and promptly went back in. When he came out a second time, he was buckling an electric saber around his silver tunic and he was followed by two sergeants with electric battle-axes. They took positions beside the airbus door, waiting for Queen Teenie to emerge.
Madison was in no mental state for any kind of a wait. The morning had already started badly enough. Flick, at the townhouse, when he got into the car, was seen to have an eye that was rapidly turning black. His footwoman had gotten in, disdainfully aloof, and then during flight had elaborately ignored Flick.
From various veiled remarks, Madison had gathered that Flick had been incautiously raving about Hightee Heller and both his bedroom girl and his footwoman had cleaned up on him.
Women! thought Madison. They were always trouble.
And here came more trouble: Teenie, in a suit that was a shimmering jet black, came out the door, drawing on a pair of long, red gloves. She was wearing her crown pulled forward on her forehead and her ponytail was swishing out behind like the tail of an angry cat.
She didn’t comment on the car. She simply got in and took the best seat.
The guard captain got in and then both sergeants.
“Where in hell do you think you’re going?” Teenie said to the guard captain.
“We’re not going to trust you with that man,” the guard captain said, pointing at Madison.
“You got good sense,” said Teenie. “He’s a PR and they don’t deliver, never.”
At that moment the major-domo, very portly, came running down the stairs, clutching rolls of scrolls and trying at the same time to get into his ceremonial robe. He sprang into the airbus.
It did not leave much room for Madison and he had to sit on a ledge across from Teenie.
“Where are we going?” said Madison.
The major-domo ignored him and, leaning forward, passed a slip of paper to Flick. The driver looked at it, glanced back to see if the doors were closed and then took off.
Thinking that they were going into Government City or some such place, Madison was very alarmed when, having emerged from the gate and gone through the nausea that always resulted from the violent time shift, Flick headed the airbus west of south.
As they built altitude, the desert wind devils dwindling in size, Madison tried to lean forward and see the map on Flick’s screen. It looked blank!
The alarm on Madison’s face must have been very pronounced. Teenie scowled at him and said, “Take it easy, buster. You’ve got a long ride. Three hours at the very least.”
Madison reached for a music panel and turned it on, hoping that it would soothe the savage womanly breast. Then maybe she would tell him what this was all about.
Teenie reached over right after him and turned it off. “I don’t want anything spoiling my concentration. I got a whole military campaign to plan.”
“Military?” he gagged.
“Of course! You have gone palsy-walsy with Gris and I just gave up on you. Stronger measures are indicated, buster. And don’t try to pry out of me the battle plan. For all I know, you’re just acting as a spy for Hisst. Militarying and spying go hand in hand.”
She had been talking to him in English and Madison continued in the same language. “I’m no spy, Teenie. I’m on your side.”
“That remains to be seen,” said Teenie. They rode for a while and then Teenie seemed to have completed her plans, for she popped a piece of bubble gum in her mouth as though to celebrate and a small smile began to play around her oversized and now busy lips.
“I should know where we’re going,” said Madison. “After all, I’ve got a right to know where I may have to walk back from.”
“You wouldn’t ever walk back from the place we’re bound,” said Teenie. “Not unless you brought a pair of Jesus shoes. It’s an island, two thousand miles southwest, surrounded by the sea.”
“Are you running away or something?” said Madison.
“Boy, did you ever get up into a fog. Too early for you, I guess. I own the place!”
“You own an island?”
“Sure, mac. It’s the place Queen Hora died.”
“Was she exiled?” said Madison.
“Oh, hell, no, Madison. She just got tired of smuggling her officers into Palace City and, as she was getting old, she simply moved to her island. It’s part of the Treaty of Flisten.”
“Teenie, you’re losing me.”
“Well, you ought to be like me and do your homework. I been sweating it out with the major-domo here and I got it all straight. I bet you thought I was a fake queen.”
“Oh, no,” lied Madison. “The thought never crossed my mind!”
“Oh, yes, you did. I can tell. So let me put you straight, buster. I’m the real article. No fakery about it, completely different from your profession. You see, Queen Hora was what they call a Hostage Queen. You got to know a lot about treaties and things. And I’m getting to be pretty expert now.
“About thirty thousand years ago, Voltar conquered the planet Flisten. The only reason the planet surrendered finally was Voltar promising that the Royal family of Flisten would be preserved. This was all right with Voltar because it gave them an axe to hold over Flisten’s head and the Royal family was moved to Palace City as hostages. It’s a pretty common Voltar maneuver: there’s four or five such hostage families in Palace City.
“Anyway, the Flisten Royal line finally dwindled out because Queen Hora, in spite of all her time in bed, never had any children. And when she died on Relax Island—”
“So that’s the name of the place we’re going to,” said Madison.
“Don’t interrupt,” said Teenie. “I’m trying to complete your education. So when Queen Hora died on Relax Island about fifty years ago, it put the Exterior Division on the spot. You see, the maintenance of the Flisten Royal Palace—my palace—and the Flisten island, my island—was paid for out of Flisten taxes. The treaty was executed by the Exterior Division even though the planet is now under the Interior Division. The Flisten Royal family stayed under the Exterior Division—”
“You’re getting me all mixed up.”
“You don’t need any help. Get the wax out of your ears and listen. So when Queen Hora died, it put the Exterior Division on the spot, like I been trying to tell you if you’d just stop fidgeting. Old Endow and the other officials count on the Flisten taxes for graft. And they been trying to justify to the Flisten taxpayers how come they still paid the Royal tax. And when I showed up, Endow put me in the slot. The old treaty is still valid, the Exterior Division still get their rake-off and everybody is happy as clams. Of course, I can’t never go there, because that’s part of the treaty, but I’m the real Queen of Flisten, sure enough. It’s even awfully legal: about ten years ago His Majesty, Cling the Lofty, issued an order to Endow to head off a Flisten tax revolt by appointing a Hostage Queen of Flisten. But old Endow couldn’t find anyone that wasn’t from the Confederacy and who could be trusted to keep their mouths shut about the graft. So when Too-Too showed up and Endow was ecstatic over him, the old (bleepard) suddenly remembered the order and with one stroke of the pen, between strokes on Too-Too, he executed the blank patent Cling had signed. So there. I’m no fake. I’m a real queen!”
“Well, I’m very happy to hear it,” said Madison. “But when I get finished with my work here, you can go back to Earth.”
“Hah!” said Teenie. “I don’t think you’ve heard a single thing I said about hostage queens. If Voltar takes it into its head to invade Earth, the Apparatus will knock off any royalty around there or anybody calling themselves queens or kings and Endow will appoint me the Hostage Queen of Earth. I won’t ever be able to go back there but Endow will get his whack at the taxes—”
“Teenie, this is madness!”
“There you go,” said Teenie, suddenly speaking in a Park Avenue accent, “I try to educate you in Palace City politics and you insult me. And you’re just a commoner, not Royalty like me.” She blew and exploded a bubble for emphatic emphasis.
They had reached the coast and were now departing, at six hundred miles an hour, across what seemed a green and endless sea. No wonder the map Flick was using looked so blank. It was mainly water.
Madison nudged the footwoman in the front seat—he couldn’t reach the driver. “Tell him,” he whispered, “to turn on something that describes Relax Island.”
“I’m not talking to him,” the footwoman whispered back. “He says he’s reformed and if he doesn’t re-reform, I’m going to black his other eye.”
“You’ve already done him damage enough,” whispered Madison.
“No, that was his bedroom girl. I haven’t begun on him yet.”
Madison had the distinct sensation he was living in a madhouse. Teenie with her jabber about becoming Queen of Earth had thoroughly upset him. And now here was another woman acting up. Oh, but his mother had been right!
He had the sensation that his best-laid plans were going up in smoke. He thought sadly about poor Heller-Wister as they flew across what seemed an endless sea, going further and further, as he thought, from any sensible PR approach. What the blazes did Teenie mean by “military”?
PART SEVENTY-SIX
Chapter 6
Flick, nervously navigating and driving at ten thousand feet, looked all around: there was no land now anywhere in sight, only heaving green sea.
He pushed a button on his panel and in a screen alongside of the map, Madison read:
Madison was chilled. What a bleak and awful place that must be! Black cliffs, no harbors, warning not to land. What on Earth was Teenie thinking of, coming out here?
Flick leaned toward him and whispered, “I think I’m lost. You’re supposed to just punch in the grids but I think this Model 99 is lost, too! I forgot to read my ground distance meter when we left the mainland. That ocean down there is full of toothers, some of them fifty feet long and if they don’t get you, the airborne flying batfish will. Visibility is getting bad. Can you get permission to turn back?”
Madison turned. Others had not heard Flick but the fact that he had moved caused the guard officer to glare. Teenie was deeply lost in her own thoughts, scowling.
Madison said to Flick, “For heaven’s sake, find the place. I’m not tackling any more women today!”
“Me neither,” said Flick. And he began to peer to the left and right.
There was a mist across the sun which made visibility poor. “Haven’t you got a radar?” said Madison.
“You mean beams? Oh, yeah, beams,” and Flick hastily began to twiddle knobs. The screens stayed blank. “I ain’t no ocean pilot,” said Flick. “When I crash ’em I like to have somebody find the remains. Look at that distance meter. We’ve already come twenty-one hundred miles.”
“Wait a minute,” said Madison. “You’re only scanning ahead. What if we already passed it?”
Flick hastily twiddled more controls and shot the beams behind them.
THERE WAS THE MOUNTAIN!
They’d passed right over the top of it with only a hundred feet to spare! It had been hidden by morning clouds.
Madison let out a gasp of relief. They had overshot by twenty miles! Flick slued the airbus around, reducing speed, dropping altitude.
Instantly, the moment they changed course, their speakers boomed, “Warning, warning Model 99-3. This is Satellite Monitor Control, Planetary Defense. We have a Slaughter Warhead ready to launch. Do NOT attempt to land on Relax Island.”
Perspiration started up on Flick’s low forehead as he hastily veered off. He grabbed a microphone. “I been ordered to land here!” And he hastily grabbed Madison’s identoplate and pushed it in the slot.
“We’re sorry, that won’t do,” said Planetary Defense. “There’s been no landing on Relax Island for fifty years, but you’re not the first one to try. Clear off at once!”
A hand was plucking Madison’s sleeve and he turned to find the major-domo pushing something at him. It was an identoplate. He passed it to Flick who withdrew Madison’s and put the new one in the slot. His hand was shaking so, he could hardly get it in.
“Is this a trick or something?” boomed Planetary Defense. “We’ll have to clear this with Government City. Stand by.”
Madison and Flick looked at each other in dismay.
There was a pause, then, “Would Your Majesty accept our apologies? We are merely being diligent in executing Exterior Division orders that no one may land on Relax Island without the express approval of Your Majesty. We bow.”
The major-domo grabbed the mike. “Her Majesty graciously thanks your diligence and watchful eye and verifies that the order is still in force. She releases you to your duties.”
“We kiss the hem of her robe. Out.”
Flick said, “Phewww! A Slaughter Warhead! You were right, Chief, in saying this would be an awful day.” He passed Teenie’s identoplate back over his shoulder to the major-domo.
Madison had been electrified by the exchange. Teenie wasn’t lying, for once. Even Planetary Defense and Government City had her registered as a queen.
And seconds later, he got another shock. They had dropped below the cloud layer and there, dappled in patches of sunlight, lay the island.
It was BIG! He hadn’t realized that it took so much ground to make up 305 square miles. From four thousand feet, you couldn’t even take it all in.
There were gentle hills and forests. There were waterfalls and rivers. There were squares of fields walled by stone on which crops were growing. There were herds of animals in meadows. And there were little villages with white walls nestling here and there in the brilliant verdure of folded hills. Dropping even lower, he saw that the masses of color were flowering trees and flower gardens.
He tried to compare it to any island he knew of on Earth for beauty. Tahiti? No. It was ten times that.
WHAT A PARADISE!
“Where do I land?” squeaked Flick.
“In front of the palace,” pointed the major-domo.
Madison saw it. It was partially up the slope of Mount Teon and so masked by flowering trees that the size of it was obscured until they were almost landed. Then it burst upon him that he was looking at a building that must be a thousand feet long, curving elegantly upon the mountain breast. It was only three stories high but it must reach back into the mountain.
There was a landing target, the usual blue circle nearly gone. Weeds were pushing through the stone steps which led down to it.
Then Madison took a closer look. All along the curving palace front, what he had taken to be green scallops of decoration was moss, hanging on faded metal ropes which bore only a fleck or two of gilt. Dead limbs from forgotten storms littered the curving steps and terraces.
They got out and stared at the palace.
“Jesus!” said Teenie.
A door opened, one that was inset into the massive entrance grills.
An old man with a stick in his hand, gray beard flying, raced toward them.
“Be off! Be off!” he screamed. Then he drew himself up in his tattered rags and shouted, “You’re trespassing! This is the domain of the Planet Flisten. Fly away fast or I’ll call the guard!”
The major-domo waddled up to him. “Governor Spurt, I will wager you do not even have a guard! Down on your knees, you oaf!”
“Down on my knees in hells for you!”
The major-domo turned, “That is an insult you cannot forgive, Your Majesty. This place is a disgrace: the walks are clogged with weeds, the fountains aren’t even running. Compare it to the beautiful condition you found your palace in Palace City in, hold an immediate trial and let us fertilize the grass with his blood. That is my recommendation. I await your command.”
The old man had been gawping. Now he began to shake. “Did you say ‘Your Majesty’?”
“Her Royal Majesty Teenie the First!” said the major-domo and unsnapped the Exterior Division scroll before the bugging eyes of Governor Spurt.
“Oh, my Gods!” wailed the old man. “We have a QUEEN!”
Faces popped out of palace windows.
The old man rushed forward and fell prostrate at Teenie’s feet. Talking, blubbering really, with his face pushed into the pavement, he said, “Oh, forgive me, forgive me. Mercy! We did not know you existed. We did not know you were coming. We have had no warning. Fifty years ago when dear Queen Hora died, Exterior Division people came and locked up all the chests. We have had no money for paint or material of any kind. No one has come from the mainland. None of us can go. We raise our own food and fish in the sea. We have not forgotten protocol, we drill it every week! Please, please, Your Majesty, don’t execute me on the day your coming has made the happiest day of my life!” Then he stopped for a moment and said, “No. You can go ahead and execute me if it will give you the slightest moment of pleasure.”
Governor Spurt reached out and put her foot on his neck and he clung to it, caressing it.
“I don’t want your life,” said Teenie. “I want you to show me the deepest, rottenest dungeon that you’ve got.”
“Oh, good, you’ll put me in it. It is more than I deserve.”
Teenie looked up. The earlier shout of the old man had been overheard. At least two hundred people, young and old, had come scurrying out of the palace, half-naked and in rags, and were now prostrating themselves on the terrace, steps and landing target. They were all sobbing.
Teenie turned to the major-domo. She removed her foot from the back of Governor Spurt’s neck. “Will you tell this idiot to get up and lead the way to that dungeon?”
Madison had a chill. Was that why she had brought him here? To put him in it?
“Your Majesty,” said the major-domo, “if you are choosing to be merciful despite this man’s offense, could I recommend that you at least let me tell these people to clear some of the debris off the steps and brush the halls so that it will not soil your feet to enter?”
Teenie gave a slight motion with her hand. Governor Spurt instantly kissed her foot and scuttled backwards. He leaped to his feet and bawled at the crowd, “GET BUSY! CLEAN THIS PLACE UP FOR YOUR QUEEN!”
One would have thought, from the ferocity and volume of his voice, that he would have blown them all over backwards but this was not the case. They rose with awe upon their faces and like a wave across them, the look changed to adoration. They started throwing kisses and then took up the bellow of a big fellow at the back: “LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!”
Governor Spurt finally got them going back inside.
Restlessly, Teenie paced about. She had something on her mind and she was not paying too much attention to her surroundings. But, inwardly driven to be in motion, she walked up a path, all weed grown but festooned with heavy-scented flowers, and came to a spot where she could overlook the valleys below.
Madison, somewhat anxious, trailed after her. He looked at the breathtaking view. “How lovely,” he said, hoping it would soothe her. “It’s a garden spot like I have never seen before. Even the softness of the breeze kisses one. And how restful! Even the song of the birds is a lullaby.”
“Shut up,” said Teenie. Then she looked around. “It’s a pretty place, all right. Too (bleeped) pretty, if you ask me! I thought, like it said in the book, it was all black cliffs and rocks.”
One of the sergeants came up with a message from the major-domo. “It’s cleared enough for you to enter now, Your Majesty. But please watch your step, some of the paving is loose.”
Teenie gave her red glove cuffs a twitch and promptly strode down the path. She stamped up the steps and across the terrace. They had the gigantic front doors open now and the ragged staff was lined up on each side, all kneeling, trying to catch her eye.
Governor Spurt was waiting with a burning torch. But Teenie paused beside her major-domo. “If you can get any sense into these people, have somebody assemble my regiment out in front.”
The major-domo bowed and turned back and Teenie followed Governor Spurt.
Men who had suddenly remembered they were sergeants and guards were opening doors ahead of her. A man who was probably the seneschal, for all his rags, was jangling opening plates as he hurried on ahead.
“What are you doing with that wooden torch?” Teenie’s Palace City guard officer demanded of Governor Spurt. “Where are the lights?”
“Oh, sir,” said Spurt, “we ran out of fuel bars way back when I was a boy. Even this wooden torch is a luxury. So many of the people here were nobles and courtiers and high-level technicians that they had quite forgotten folk arts. It took us three years after dear Queen Hora died to work out how to weave the hair of the woolly animals into rope. We never have reevolved the skill of making cloth. We do very well to just weave baskets to carry fish and food, and we could only do that because some of them, as little girls, used to make flower garlands and flower caps. It is a terrible shock, when you are a high-level technology, to suddenly have to flounder with the primitive. The steppingstones upward to a high technology all disappear and one tries in vain to go back down them: everyone has forgotten how.”
“I didn’t ask for a lecture,” said the guard captain. “I asked you where the lights were. I see we are entering tunnels back into the mountain and I’m not letting Her Majesty go any further until there’s light.”
Spurt hastily said, “Oh, I’m sure the electronics and electrical devices all work. There just isn’t any fuel. . . .”
The guard officer pushed him aside and strode ahead. Looking along the walls, he finally found a panel. He scraped off the mold and dust, found the catch, opened it and then, taking a spare electric saber battery from his belt, pushed it into a slot.
Nothing happened.
Disgustedly, he recovered his battery and with an acid glare at the governor said to Teenie, “Your Majesty, this place is getting impossible. I think these tunnels go way into the mountains and deep down. I must ask you not to proceed.”
“I got to have a dungeon,” said Teenie. “The deeper and darker and more awful, the better. Lead on!”
Following the sputtering, sparking torch, their shadows eerie on the walls, the group proceeded.
At length, having descended very deep into black rock, they came to a series of openings. There was a guard room. Then there were chambers lined with cells, their doors all corroded and hanging awry. Finally there was a large chamber which seemed to contain a forge and the remains of whips. Teenie patted a slab of stone which lay, filth-encrusted, at its center.
Madison realized it was a torture chamber and when he saw the look on her face by torchlight he felt his hair rise.
She found there were two cells just beyond it, little more than dark holes. She took the torch and peered into them, one after the other. She found some old shackles.
“These,” said Spurt, “are left over from the ancient Teon sea people. I’ve only been down here once, when a courtier sixty years ago lost a pet snug. These dungeons scared me half to death. Could I ask Your Majesty to withdraw from such an awful place?”
Teenie was testing the remains of a door on one of the holes. “This has got to be repaired,” she said.
“Oh, yes, Your Majesty,” said Spurt. “We’ll clean it all up.”
“No,” said Teenie. “Leave it as filthy and awful as possible. I only want it fixed so no one can ever get out. And repair those torture implements, too.”
Madison could stand it no longer. “Teenie, what ARE you up to?” he said in English.
“This,” she said, “is all for Gris.”
“Gris?”
“Yes! The moment I heard torture dungeons existed over here, I had to come at once. They’re torture dungeons, all right. A real horror picture. They’ll do just fine. I am going to put Gris right there in that hole and then every day for the rest of his life I am going to torture him and hear him scream and blubber and beg. I’ll carve on him for years and years!”
“Wait a minute, Teenie. You haven’t got Gris. He’s in the Royal Courts and Prison!”
Teenie, in the torchlight, fixed him with an awful smile. “That’s my military campaign. Queen Hora kept her regiment here. I’m going to smuggle them out and in the dark of night I’m going to storm the Royal prison and get Gris!”
“Teenie, you can’t ask that of anyone. It would be death to try!”
“The men of the regiment were all Flisten nobles, sworn to give their lives at the whim of their queen. In each generation, only the strongest of their descendants were permitted to join the regiment. You are going to get me the arms and transport! And I am going to get Gris!”
“Teenie,” said Madison in shock. “Teenie, listen to me. I can get Gris brought to trial. It will take a long time and lots of work. I can hammer away in the media, try him in the press and absolutely force them to try him. And,” he added in desperation, for his whole plan for Heller depended upon it, “I can guarantee the trial will go on and on! He’d suffer mentally no end!”
“That isn’t the suffering I want to see,” said Teenie. “I want him right here under my sharpest knife. For years.”
Real desperation seized Madison. He could see them both being killed. “Teenie, what if somehow I arranged it to get him sentenced at the trial and into your custody?”
“I’d have to wait too long,” said Teenie. She turned to the governor and began to give minute orders about the cell and the torture chamber and the implements. It took her quite a while.
A radio crackled on the guard captain’s belt. It was the major-domo. “Please inform Her Majesty that her regiment is assembling. They’ve had to get word to the villages and farms. But they should all be ready for review by the time you have come out.”
Madison had not realized how deep they had come into the mountain until he tried to walk back up. The foul and ancient air didn’t help him catch his breath as he toiled on up the ramps. It took them nearly half an hour to get back into the halls.
A sergeant knelt and would have used a handkerchief to brush off Teenie’s boots but women from the palace pushed him aside, and though their cloths were animal skins, they got the stains and mold off Teenie’s black suit, boots and red gloves.
Then Teenie walked through the hallways and salons toward the big entrance door.
She strode across the terrace. She reached the top of the outside steps.
She stopped dead.
About five hundred men were standing there in an orderly parade. Their faces were handsome, their physiques magnificent. Obviously the product of noble lines, every one, the titled sons of officers of long ago, mothered by titled ladies of Queen Hora’s court. They were young and they were splendid, despite their rags.
An old man, evidently their colonel, stood straight as a ramrod before them. At the sight of Teenie, he and the whole regiment knelt.
“Your Majesty,” the colonel bawled, “we have not forgotten protocol. We lie ready to do our duty. We are only too anxious to do Your Majesty’s bedding.”
From five hundred throats, a song arose:
Oh, welcome to us,
Oh, welcome to us.
We greet you, dear Queenie,
And promise sex plus!
And then, at a signal from the colonel, they all rose up.
But what had stopped Teenie was the flowers in their hair, whole crowns of them. They had no weapons in their hands nor any sign of any.
They began to form rings by squad and then began to dance, plucking flowers from their garlands and tossing them into the air as they circled with skipping, mincing steps like girls.
Teenie sank down on the top step.
She lowered her head and began to cry.
The regiment stopped in consternation. The major-domo waved his hand at them and they scattered like chaff and vanished.
Teenie’s sobs grew very marked.
Madison knelt beside her.
“They aren’t soldiers,” sobbed Teenie. “They were bred for bed. Oh, Maddie, what am I going to do?”
Madison did not tell her he could recruit five hundred criminals that would take on a Death Battalion in a day! Oh, no. It didn’t suit his plans. He was very clever, that Madison. He didn’t even push her.
“Maddie,” she said brokenly, after she had sobbed for a while, “do you think you actually could get Gris sentenced to my custody?”
“Well, as I am very fond of you, Teenie, as a favor to you, I am absolutely certain that I can.”
“Then I’ll help you follow your plan to try him in the press,” said Teenie, feeling a little better, “and when he is sentenced get custody of him.”
A ragged maid was trying to dry Teenie’s tears with a scrap of animal fur.
Teenie looked at Madison suddenly. Her eyes went very hard. “But there’s one thing you got to know, Madison. If you fail to get me custody of Gris, you’ll be right there in that cell yourself!”
Madison had no slightest idea of how he could possibly accomplish such a thing. He had just been talking.
He backed up, nodding in little jerks. “I won’t fail you, Teenie.”
Gods, was he in for it now!