"Oh, what are they?" said the Countess.
"Diamonds," said Heller.
She picked one up and looked at it against the flashlight. "Ooooo!" she said. "That's beautiful!"
"Thought you'd like them," said Heller.
I was suddenly sitting on the edge of my chair. Slavering. She was looking at what must be a pure blue-white of ten carats!
Heller dumped the rest of the handful in her purse. "Take them along. Diamonds are just coal. I was testing pan hardness by compressing carbon blocks. There's a limit to the amount of this sort of thing you can do. You'd flood the market which, on this planet, is pretty tightly controlled."
She was still looking at the diamond when they went back upstairs.
Heller built a fire in the kitchen range and made some hot dogs. They ate them. Then he showed her how to toast marshmallows on pieces of wire with the front door of the firebox open.
He wound up a Victrola and put on some jazz records from the 1920s and they danced.
Later, Heller locked the place up. They went back and picked up the Porsche.
Driving back to town, the Countess was petting the cat who seemed to be sleeping off an overdose of hot dogs.
"Did we get what we went after?" said the Countess.
"No," said Heller. "I thought there might be something I could use so I looked again. But there isn't anything there I can substitute for really hard pans and make fuel rods. They were all in Box #5."
"How do you communicate with Soltan?" said the Countess.
"He gave me an Afyon address," said Heller. "I'll cable it again when we get back. We really need Box #5."
I smiled thinly to myself. I was doing better than I thought. I really was slowing him down!
But it didn't solve my own problems. I would have to do more. AND FAST!
In came the Blixo, roaring out of the night.
I went aboard the moment they had a ladder up.
"Well, well," said Captain Bolz, "and how is the filthy rich Officer Gris?"
"Problems," I said.
He massaged his hairy chest. "We all got problems. It's a good thing other freighters come in here. I had to go through a whole refit on Voltar. I'm weeks and weeks off schedule. The widow in Istanbul will be absolutely wild. But I've got things to cheer her up. Bar silver but mainly me." He started getting into his shore clothes.
"How are things on Voltar?" I said.
"Hells, I don't know. I'm just a captain of an Apparatus freighter. His Majesty don't tell me anything at all." He laughed at his joke. "You better ask that catamite, Twolah. He came aboard so beaten down he must know half the secrets of the government. Didn't have any trouble with him this time. He just sort of hid in his cabin."
"I have three passengers for you," I said.
"Straight up or suspended?"
"Crobe you've carried before. I'd keep him locked up. The other two don't matter. Neither speaks Voltarian. But the girl, Teenie Whopper, I'd keep away from the crew. She's worse than Twolah."
He stopped tying his shoe and pushed a set of blank forms at me. I had recovered my identoplate from Faht Bey and began stamping.
He put the forms away. "This is a very fast turnaround," he said. "I'm way off schedule. So get your business done with Twolah and get him and your passengers aboard. I'm off to Istanbul for a very fast trip and when I return here, I'm gone."
I followed him down the ladders and then turned and gave the guard captain loading orders for the passengers and the necessary stamps.
"I'll be glad to see that girl go," said the guard captain. "She's sitting in her cell swearing like a pirate, demanding we give her one phone call. The adjectives she's using on your name would melt the stone! You want to see her and calm her down?"
"Gods, no! Tell her to open up one of her trunks and have a nice smoke! What about the man?"
"The Madison fellow? He's no trouble. He's just sitting there saying he knew it would come to this. And that crazy Crobe hasn't said anything at all."
"Well, get them shipped," I said. "I'm supposed to see a courier."
"He's right over there. He didn't even arrive in irons this time."
Twolah, nicknamed Too-Too, was cowering by a ladder. He had a bag. I beckoned for him to follow me and took him into an empty cell.
Too-Too wasn't so much beaten down as bursting with secrets he was afraid the wrong people would get out of him.
He leaned close to my ear. His perfume hit me in a wave.
"He's done it," said Too-Too.
"Who has done what?" I said impatiently.
"Lombar. He has totally subverted the Grand Council with drugs. The court physicians helped him. They've got everybody hooked and Lombar controls all the supplies." He drew back and gazed around to make sure he was not being overheard. He leaned forward: "He has even hooked His Majesty, Cling the Lofty!"
My eyes flared. Oh, what news this was!
"He's going on to hook the population," whispered Too-Too. "In all but name, Lombar Hisst is in virtual control of all Voltar."
It was electric news. I suddenly realized that shortly I would become the Chief of the Apparatus!
"He said to give you this," said Too-Too.
He slid a paper into my hands. I unfolded it. It was made of words and letters cut from newssheets and pasted on a page.
It said:
KILLthe (blEepArd)!
I looked at Too-Too. "What about Captain Tars Roke? Heller had the communication line to him."
"Captain Tars Roke has been dismissed as the King's Own Astrographer. He has been ordered to join the Fleet on distant Calabar. Forget him."
A surge of absolute joy raced through me!
"The rest of the message," said Too-Too, "is to be sure the opium and heroin and amphetamines keep coming and that means to do nothing that would disturb I. G. Barben."
That meant nothing must dislodge Rockecenter!
My joy took a little sag. I thought of my present relationship there. My problems were not all solved.
This was going to be tight!
I stamped the papers he had brought.
My mind was on other things.
"Don't I get my reward?" he said. "You know, the big guard and the fat woman..."
I pushed this loathsome catamite from me. "You'll get your reward when I am Chief of the Apparatus," I snarled.
I had other things to think about.
I had to work out how to handle these matters. I had to solve the problems which were hammering at me. And I had to solve them fast.
In my secret room I tensely crouched over a sheet of paper. I had to make a plan. I was well aware that what I determined might well alter the course of billions of lives. I could not make a mistake: they had to lose, not me.
Black Jowl.
I wrote his name down.
What was I going to do with him?
Then I had it!
I would kill Heller. Then blow up Chrysler Motors in Detroit. Then blast Ochokeechokee, Florida, off the face of the map, thus solving Miami not buying fuel. Then kill Izzy Epstein and Bang-Bang Rimbombo by blowing up the Empire State Building. I listed them. I did not want to overlook any.
Then I would call Bury and I would say, "See? Madison was going too slowly. But now I have eradicated the fuel man and all his works." I would add modestly, "I'm sure you've read it in the papers." Then I would say, "So please get my rating restored as a Rockecenter family spy, for I have done my job and then some." And he would say, "Inkswitch, how proud we are of you. Of course your rating is restored."
Then I would go to Black Jowl in his cell and I'd say, "On your feet, buster. You're talking to a Rockecenter family spy and you only got to phone your office to verify it." And he of course, in a whipped sort of way, would tear up his mortgage on the Earth base.
I'd let him cringe a little before I booted him off the property. Yes, that would be nice, so I added it to the list.