I tiptoed out of there, feeling somehow that I had escaped with my life.
I went into the change room and searched. Nothing. I examined the clothes she had taken off. Nothing. I looked for false soles in the boots. Just plain, black space-boots.
(BLEEP)!
She was a very clever woman. She not only trained people for the stage, she could also do all kinds of sleight of hand. I would have to watch her very carefully. It would be my neck if I didn't recover those forgeries. The horrible thought hit me that maybe Bawtch had talked before he died. Or left a note or something! Yes, I had no choice but to recover them. Constant watchfulness was the watchword.
Back at the one-way window, I watched the progress of the operation.
She lay in naked repose, oblivious of what was going on.
Prahd was working with rapid expertise. For some reason, he took a lot of measurements with a lot of different scopes and devices, cataloguing them all on a chart. Then he opened a big volume and consulted it. From where I was I could see the page he had: it was headed "Manco." Well, he was right about that. She was from Manco.
Then he made a signal toward the window, indicating the hall. I met him there. He showed me the book. "This lady is from the aristocracy of Atalanta."
I noted sourly that it was "lady" again. "Yes," I said.
"That accounts for it," he said.
"For what?" I said, irritated.
"The perfection. She's the product of tens of thousands of years of selective breeding. The aristocracy married nothing but the most beautiful and bright. Do you realize that her thyroid..."
Oh, Gods, deliver me from a specialist riding his hobby! "Are you going to get on with this operation or aren't you?"
"I just wanted you to be aware that you were tampering with the aristocracy," he said. "It carries the death penalty, you know."
"I told you!" I grated. "She's a nonperson! A criminal! There isn't even any penalty if you killed her."
He went back in the operating room. I went back to the window. Prahd bent over her ankles and looked very carefully. Then he looked over her wrists. Then he looked at me and nodded. He was convinced.
I knew what he had found. Electric cuffs, wrist and ankle, when worn for weeks, make small burns. And she must have been in them for months during her imprisonment, transportation to Voltar and trial before the Apparatus got her. They had left faint scars.
Prahd got to work. He made his "cell soups" from little clips and drillings. He addressed the scarred eyebrow and, very soon, sterilized the two bugs and implanted them. He covered them over with the bone and skin paste and then put the area under a catalyst light.
He then got busy on the ankle and wrist scars. I didn't really like the way he was working. It was with sort of flourishing motions like a painter; he was also cocking his head over and eyeing the effects. Silly (bleepard).
With new lights now on her wrists and ankles, he went prowling for more scars or blemishes: he found some ancient signs of slashes along her right ribs, below the breast, probably from the claws of some wild animal she had been training. He fixed those. Then he found some tiny burns on the outside of her left thigh. I knew where those had come from: Lombar's stinger. He fixed them. Then he studied her whole naked body minutely under a scope. He didn't seem to be finding any more past wounds or blemishes.
He put cups and straps over the work he had done and I thought he would now be finished.
But no. He got out a little set of tools and began to work on the ends of her fingers. I couldn't imagine what he was doing. Then it came to me. He was giving her a manicure!
Having finished that quite expertly, he went to her feet and gave her a pedicure! He seemed to be getting her toenails just right.
I thought he would surely be done now. But no! He was getting out another set of tools. He propped her jaws open, did a thorough inspection of her mouth and then, of all things, began to clean and polish her teeth!
Deliver me from idiots! Her smile was about as dangerous a thing as anyone would ever see without making it blindingly bright!
Done with that at last, he pulled the cloths from under her jaws and stood back. He surveyed her long nakedness. Then, busily, he pulled another lamp down on its swing neck, turned it on and passed it the length of her body, stood back and admired the effect and then did it again. He gently turned her over and did the same thing to her back.
He was giving her a suntan!
I had to admit to myself that two or three years in the dungeons of Spiteos and six weeks in a spaceship might make one a bit pale. But he had something else in mind for he was consulting the tables in the big book. He got a meter out. He was apparently measuring skin color! The people of Atalanta are white but it is a white with a faint tan tinge. He was restoring the exact shade!
He was satisfied with that. Now he was checking her hair color. The blond-gold of it seemed satisfactory by meter.
He was done! Thank Gods! What a tinkerer!
He threw a blanket over her and picked her up and carried her into the hall. I was with him promptly.
Prahd took her into a private room. He laid her on the bed. He covered her up with sheets and blankets. He made sure the recorder was not exerting any weight on her arm. He arranged her head properly on the pillow.
He left the room and closed the door. He looked at me and there was a dreamy farawayness in his eyes. "You know," he said, "she was perfectly right. Anybody who messed up such a gorgeous creature should have atom bombs exploding in his head."
He locked the door and put the key in his pocket. "I'm going to bed now," he said. "I suggest that you go home."
He went away. I was absolutely fuming! I was seething at how blind people could be about the real Krak. Here she had added another ally to her mobs of supporters!
Well, I certainly had no intention of going home! She might come out of that room and attack me! She might even blow up the base!
I got a straight-backed chair and planted it opposite the door. I gathered up the spacer greatcoat, coveralls and other clothes and put them in a stack beside the chair. I took the spaceboots and put them on their sides on the floor. I tilted the chair back against the wall and put my foot on the spaceboots so that if they were even touched, it would cause my foot to move and bring the chair back forward on its four legs to jolt me awake in case I dozed. I took the catch off my stungun and gripped its butt.
I looked at the locked door and for the first time since her arrival I began to smile.
Despite her trickery, I had foiled the Countess Krak. I had finally gained the upper hand. I was impervious to her hypnohelmets while she in turn was now bugged so I could monitor her every move.
Heller, meanwhile, was sinking fast. And if he thought Babe's wrath was rough, he hadn't seen anything yet. The best was yet to come.
I folded my arms across my chest and grinned. Gris, I complimented myself, you got 'em. Sending an implanted Krak off to Heller and his whores would be like tossing an anvil to a drowning man.
Then when Hisst sent the OK, I could humanely end Heller's misery, get the forgeries even if I had to torture the information out of Krak (a delicious thought), sell her to the black market in Istanbul, settle matters with Utanc and then sit back and rake in the money from my host of enterprises.
Sleep well, Countess Krak.
Tomorrow belongs to me.
What will Krak do when she finds Heller
knee-deep in girls?
Is this the end of Heller's mission?
Read MISSION EARTH
Volume 5 FORTUNE OF FEAR