"The Domestic Police turned her over secretly to the Apparatus: that's how these things work. And she has been here at Spiteos for nearly three years." It was all right to give him details. If I got him to Blito-P3, by the time he returned here everything would be changed anyway. "In those three years, she has murdered three guards. The first simply reached for her hair, probably to stroke it. She had a whip in her hand: she took the butt of it and jammed it straight through his heart.
"A few months later, one of the toughest beasts in Spiteos whispered something in her ear – nobody knows what. She seized him around the back, put her head under his chin and pulled. His back snapped in three places and it took him about four days to die.
"Just two months ago, right down there in the training area, she was teaching one of our toughest special agents a new twist on hand-to-hand combat. Probably in a teasing movement, but not even that, most likely, he made an improper gesture. You know, she wears those thigh boots and jacket but nothing else – factually I don't think she has anything else except some work coveralls she wears to handle big lizards that have scrapey skins. Witnesses say he didn't even touch her and others say he did reach her crotch. Heller, just using the edge of her hand, she broke his arm! Then he called her a stinking whore. They say that, without the faintest trace of emotion, she said, 'I am a virgin and you will apologize' and without waiting for any answer, she broke his jaw. And that isn't the worst of it. She stamped him! She just stamped him on and on. Heller, there wasn't an unbroken bone left in that fellow's body! I didn't see the others, but I did see this fellow afterwards and he looked like red paste!
"The only one that can hit her and get away with it is Lombar Hisst." Heller showed his first interest. "You mean the Chief Executive of the Apparatus has hit her?"
"We're all terrified of him and with very ample reason. After all, he's ..." I checked myself. I had almost said "The most powerful official in the Voltarian Confederacy" but that wasn't quite true yet and would give things away. So I said, "... too dangerous." Heller seemed to be very thoughtful now. So I really drove it home. "Jettero – and I can call you Jettero, can't I? I am a brother officer and have a personal feeling, too. I have got to get you off this planet alive. I have got to do my duty with regard to Mission Earth. And listen, Jettero, you go fooling around with the Countess Krak, making remarks like you did today, getting funny ideas about her and, well, I don't care how good you are with hand-to-hand, you will be one very dead Jettero Heller.
"You steer clear of the Countess Krak! There may be others that don't want this mission to succeed, but this afternoon they took the rear seat. The primary danger you're courting right this moment consists of making passes at that female. Now, I know it is lonely in space and that you're just back from a long trip and all that. But the Countess Krak is death incarnate! Stay away!" I laughed a bit to take the sting out of the order. "After all, it will be hard enough to get you off this planet without that! Now we won't say any more about it." Heller sat there for a while. I could see he was thinking about something very hard. I respected his silence. It was obvious he had a problem now for I could see him gnawing at it.
"There's one thing I can't remember," said Jettero.
I was all attention, inviting his confidence.
He looked at me searchingly. I could see he was deeply troubled, even perplexed. "Would you say her eyes were gray? Or are they pale blue?" I gave it up in disgust. I got him back to the room. I had other important things to do anyway.
Chapter 6
Lombar always said that when you let an underling get away with something and did not punish him severely, you yourself would shortly be in trouble. I considered this very wise.
I could sense that I myself was walking on a very thin crust and, without any doubt whatever, I was headed for trouble. Therefore, it was obvious that I had not properly handled underlings. Before things got further out of hand, I knew I had to punish that platoon commander. His conduct while "guarding" Heller was unforgivable!
So as soon as I had stuffed down some moldy bread – what passes for food at Spiteos – I headed for Camp Endurance. And when I got through, it would have another reason to be nicknamed "Camp Kill." The fortress is connected to the camp by an underground tunnel about a mile and a half long. Traffic with the outside world, for Spiteos, had Camp Endurance as its terminaclass="underline" any overflight of the area or any inspection for that matter, found only the sprawling camp; it's traffic being justified by the "training activities" it conducted.
We tried to keep traffic to a minimum but there was plenty of it just the same. The tunnel traffic was very heavy tonight. The outgoing zipbus I caught was halted for a good twenty minutes in the middle of the dark tunnel, parked on a turnout, letting incoming transports through to Spiteos.
The view I had from the zipbus was restricted, limited to a small diamond window beside the seat; the lights were bad but they flashed upon the sides of the incoming vehicles in a green blur.
Plenty of traffic! I wondered what was up. I caught the flick of high-rank flags. I was battered by the roar of heavy-armored trucks. The air disturbance of escort tanks was like a blastcannon and hurt my ears.
Something was certainly up! I yelled up to the half-naked zipbus driver, "Is there a general alert?" But my voice was drowned in tunnel roars and I had to repeat it louder.
He heard me and yelled back, "Ain't none I know about. That first lot was incoming freight with guard tanks. This stuff now is just staff cars – a bunch of (bleeping) bigwigs. You can't never tell what them (bleepards) is up to." The driver hadn't turned around until he said the last. He did now and abruptly realized he was talking to an officer. He went white with shock and whipped back, looking rigidly straight.
Riffraff, I thought. Lombar is right. Trash like this driver ought to be exterminated. But I didn't take it up. I was too impatient to get at that platoon commander.
We finally got to the Camp Endurance outlet and went through the heavy security barricade. There had never been an escape from Spiteos but this would be the logical route – all other Spiteos exits were sealed solid with stone.
The black-uniformed barricade guards double-checked my identoplate, holding blasters pointed at me the while. A gray service uniform is suspect always but I was (bleeped) if I would ever don the shabby black of the Apparatus troops.
The platoon commander who had been assigned with his men to guard Heller was named Snelz. He and his platoon were barracked in Camp Endurance but sent their guard details into the fortress for duty watches. As I did not want Snelz alerted, I said I was just going to the camp club. I knew where Snelz had his quarters.
The officers lived in small bunkers, like animal caves, along the north side of the camp, dug into the hill. It was pretty dark along there. Scraps of music and echoes from a brawl seeped up from the camp along with a fetid stink.
I saw the cave number ahead. There was a light leak underneath the closed door so Snelz would be there. A couple of big boulders stood beside the entrance. And I am afraid my attention was so thoroughly on the light leak that I didn't see the sentry.
Apparatus troops may parade and all that but they are not like the Army. Criminals, the worst riffraff of the planets, they tend to hide even on casual duty. It is either a trait they get from the Apparatus or the Apparatus gets from them. They never do anything straightforward.
They also have entirely different regulations. They can be killed by their officers without censure. This places any guard in a quandary. He either tries to do his duty of protecting his superior – and maybe die in that – or he fails to protect his officer and the officer kills him.