"Are we ever going to invade this planet?" said the Countess.
"Oh, not for another hundred and eighty years if this mission succeeds. And by then they could be sailing very smoothly. It wouldn't be much of an invasion: more like an alliance. They'd simply join the Confederation. The danger is they could make the planet uninhabitable and the Grand Council would launch a shooting invasion now just to save the place. I don't want that to happen to them."
"Well, I don't think we ever ought to touch them," said the Countess Krak. "Do you realize that a primitive culture like this can backfire on a higher level civilization? It could corrupt Voltar."
"Oh, I think you're overstating it," said Heller. "What could these people possibly do to the Voltar Confederation?"
"Plenty," said the Countess Krak. "Sexual perversion, trying people in the press, rotten courts, crazy suits, power attained through economic dominance by a few, psychology, psychiatry, drugs and more drugs. They're dangerous, Jettero. I believe we should leave them severely alone. Quarantine the place."
"Oh, dear," said Heller. "You do seem out of sorts today."
"I'm worried. I have an awful feeling something dreadful may happen to us. A sort of cold feeling like we're always being watched by somebody who means us no good."
I quickly averted my eyes from the viewer. What she had said made my hair stand up on end. How had she guessed that that was exactly the case? Was she a witch or something? By the Gods, that woman would have to be gotten out of the way before much else could be done.
"Look," said Heller, "we're making real progress. The spores project is working great and cleaning up the air. And just two days ago, Izzy got Chryster into production on gasless cars. Very shortly, with luck, we will have done everything we can do from the surface of the planet. Then I'll get the tug and we'll finish the job."
I freaked. Gasless cars? That would ruin Rockecenter completely!
And what did he intend to do with Tug One? Oh, Gods, this was much worse than I thought!
I prayed fervently for some idea that would ruin this pair forever.
"I'm sorry that I seem out of sorts," said the Countess Krak. "It is a lovely day and I don't want to spoil it for you."
"Well, never mind," said Heller. "I have somebody you will enjoy meeting. Not all these inhabitants are bad."
He swung off the highway abruptly and drove along a road that was hardly more than a trail. Shortly, the abandoned service station came in view.
Chickens flew noisily out of the way of the Porsche and Heller brought it to a stop.
The old blind woman came out of the house. She stood wiping her hands on her apron. "And how are you, nice young man?" she said. "I see you've brought your sweetheart today."
How could she tell? Krak's footsteps? Her perfume?
They had to go into the house and have a cup of coffee.
"They paying your rent regular?" said Heller.
"Oh, yes," said the old blind woman. "And it makes a big difference. Didn't you see I have three times as many chickens now? Quite prosperous."
She and the Countess Krak chattered about nothing the way women do and after a bit Heller went out and opened the garage. There sat a battered jeep!
I realized suddenly that during all the times I had not watched my viewers, he must have come up here. It made me nervous to think that he could have wandered around without my being aware of it. What else had he been up to?
He put the Porsche in the garage and he and the Countess and the cat got in the jeep, bade the old blind lady good-bye and drove back to the highway.
They drove for a while and then Heller slowed. He looked ahead. The deputy sheriff's car was sitting there in the speed trap. Heller drew up alongside it.
"Well, if it ain't the whitey engineer," said Ralph.
"Hey, will you look at that dame!" said George.
"Dear," said Heller to the Countess, "may I present Ralph and George? They're deputy sheriffs of the Maysabongo Marines."
"Wow!" said George.
"Jiminy!" said Ralph, hastily taking off his cowboy hat.
"We're just going down to check the place out," said Heller. "So don't be alarmed if you see some smoke."
"Well, I should think so!" said George.
"Jesus, I wish I had a job like yours," said Ralph.
Heller drove the jeep up the road and plunged it off the highway onto the almost unmarked trail.
"You do slaughter 'em," said Heller.
Krak was laughing. "But what's this about Maysabongo Marines?"
"They get a hundred a month extra duty pay for looking after the place and George's uncle, who is the sheriff, gets two hundred. Extra duty pay. Nobody is liable to bother this area."
They skirted around full-grown trees and at length topped a rise and drove into the valley. Heller ran the jeep over to the flat area the tug had used and looked around, evidently checking for unwanted debris.
"Where's this den of vice?" said the Countess.
"Right over there in that stand of trees." He drove the short distance to it.
"A house!" said the Countess.
"A roadhouse," said Heller. And he told her about the Prohibition era and how the bootleggers used to bring contraband booze up the creek until two highways and a dam ended its career.
They got out and the cat immediately began exploring. Heller went up the stone steps and unlocked the door. "The place is really a fort," he said. "Stone walls, armored doors, bulletproof glass. There's probably enough gangsters buried around here to start a ghost regiment." The Countess Krak walked into the dance hall area, looking at the yellowed paper lanterns. "The place is cold."
"I'll open up all the doors and let the breezes blow through," said Heller. And proceeded to do so.
"Why did you want this place?" said the Countess.
"Landing area," said Heller. "And something else." He beckoned and they went into the bar. He pressed a catch and the end of it opened. He went down the ladder and she followed him.
He played a light on some chiselled letters, Issiah Slocum, Hys Myne, 1689. Then down the galleries.
"The first idea I had," he said, "was to find this lost mine and then pretend to open it and get it in operation.
I didn't think I'd have enough finance. So I was going to make gold and then pretend I'd mined it here." He went down a gallery and lifted a tarpaulin. There lay the boxes the tug had carried as cargo.
"So why didn't you?" said the Countess.
"Well, for one reason, we have money to burn. But the main reason is, there's a missing box. For some reason, Box #5 disappeared on Voltar or en route. It contains the pans necessary to do the molding. Nothing on this planet is strong enough. It would just melt under the bombardment."
"Didn't you ever find it?"
"I've sent two or three notes to Soltan. I asked him to reorder it."
"Do you still need it?"
"Well, yes. But not for gold. I want to make a setup for fuel rods. They take the same kind of pan. I wanted to give the setup to Izzy and they could have rods they would just feed into city mains and get billions of megawatts of power direct."
"I should think he would have reordered it and sent it," said the Countess.
"You sit down over there if you can find a clean place," said Heller. "I want to look through this stuff."
He rummaged around. He put some meters on some metal sheets. Finally, he said, "All sorts of goodies here but nothing that will help. However, this will amuse you."
He went over to a place in the floor and lifted a board, revealing the top of a small sack. He reached in and pulled out a handful of something and went over to her.
"Some weeks ago when I was last up here, I ran a small batch of these." He opened his palm and shined the flashlight on it. It flared!