The Countess Krak smilingunnerved me. There was a big padded chair, a fairly new one, close by the wall. It had a new glowplate over it. A low table was in front of it and a matching chair was on the other side. A newly created cozy nook. I stumbled back against the big chair and sat down in it abruptly.
She had turned and was facing the whole room. She clapped her hands together to attract attention. The more than forty men hastily turned to face her.
"I think," said the Countess Krak, "that this is enough for today. You have done very well. You are all sweaty now, so you should go wash your clothes and take baths. And then, because you have been up since the middle of the night," she paused and smiled brightly, "you can have the rest of the day off!" You could have created the same effect by levelling a blastcannon at them. It had never happened before in the modern history of Spiteos. They looked at each other. They looked to the door to see if execution squads were waiting. They looked at her. They had worked for years for the Countess Krak. They didn't understand this. She lightly laughed. "Well, run along!" In terror they plunged en masse to the exit ramp and vanished.
She turned around and came walking toward me. Halfway across her smile vanished and her eyes blazed!
I knew it. I knew this change was not there to stay. She was still the Countess Krak! I braced myself for a blow.
She seized my arm and yanked me out of that chair like a cargo hook had grabbed me. She hurled me to one side.
Then she did a very idiotic thing. She took off her headcloth and carefully wiped the seat of the chair where I had been sitting. Just as if I had gotten it dirty!
She looked at me severely. "That is notyour chair! This," and she swept her hand toward the small ensemble of two chairs and the table, "has been set up for Jettero!" Then she softened, made some minute arrangements in the position of the table and adjusted some books and a language machine. And then she patted the chair.
She was all mellow again when she walked over to the area where I was picking myself up. But there was a bit of calculation in her eyes, too.
"I've just remembered, Soltan, that you'll be going back to Blito-P3, too. You're Jettero's handler, aren't you?" Well, she could figure that out from the language courses I'd laid out and that I was making Heller's appointments. I mumbled something about this being the case.
"And you're in full charge of preparing him and running some mission he is on?" I nodded.
She smiled. She has very beautiful white teeth. I was very conscious of those teeth. She gently took my arm-ignoring my flinch – and guided me over to a bench and sat me down on it.
"You need a language brushup," she said.
I tried to get up nerve to tell her my English and Italian and Turkish and half a dozen other languages were in perfect shape. But my mouth didn't seem to want to talk. Too dry.
She walked sedately over to the racks and got down a hypnohelmet and came over to me with it. I offered no slightest resistance. After all, I'd spent weeks in these things. She patted my head comfortingly and then slid the helmet over it. From her coverall pocket she took a recorded strip.
"It's just a little accent check," she said, smiling gently.
She slid the strip into the slot and turned the helmet on.
There was the familiar buzz. I was out like a turned off glowplate.
I came to. I was a trifle surprised to see that a half hour had gone by. She was piling some books onto the table and neating up the chair some more. She saw I was out of it. She picked up a book and came over.
When the helmet was unstrapped and off, she patted me on the head again. "Now," she said, "read this and we'll see how your accent is. First, Virginian." I thought this was pretty silly. There was nothing wrong with my accent in commercial English. She sensed resistance. "Now, Jettero will be talking Virginian. It's a city or something, isn't it? On some planet named 'Earth.' And you must be able to understand him. Read." And she pointed her finger at the page.
I read aloud, Obedience is the mother of success, the wife of safety.
Then, The fear of some divine and supreme powers keeps men in obedience.
She clapped her hands like a child. "Oh, that is very good, Soltan. You read it in perfect Virginian." I wondered how in Hells she knew it was perfect "Virginian." Had she been studying English?
She pointed her finger down the page, "Now, Soltan, read this in New England." I read, speaking a bit nasally, He who takes his orders gladly, escapes the bitterest part of slavery – doing what one does not want to do.
"Ah, splendid, splendid, Soltan!" She yanked the book away. "Truly perfect New England." Now, I myself had not been able to notice any real difference. I had imitated what they call "Americans" before and you just speak through your nose. I felt sort of funny.
A slam-bang opening of the main door halted any further conversation. The Countess Krak went flying off in that direction. I got up and went over to see what this was all about.
What? It was one of Snelz's guards with a big package for her. I was in time to catch a flash of the labeclass="underline" something about, "To a dazzling star." She took the package. She seemed confused. Upset. Embarrassed. "For me?"she asked.
"That's what he said, Countess." In a sort of a daze she put it on her desk and tore it open. Then she just stood there, staring down. At length she said, "Ooooo!" and put her hand to her breast. She was cooing!
I got into a position so I could see what it was. A bomb? So she could break out?
She lifted something up. She ran over to a mirror and held it against her. She said, "Oooo!" and ran back to the package and got something else and then ran to the mirror. . . .
The card slipped off. It was signed "Jet." Oh, my Gods! He was giving her clothes! Now giving an unmarried woman clothes means just one thing: a pass! Trouble, I thought, you have my address!
The package, when it all got sorted out, contained threeskintight, elastic cover suits, the very latest fashion. One was shimmering black, one was bright scarlet and one was gleaming silver. Each had a matching pair of elastic ankle boots with small flowers on them and each had a matching headband with flowers to match the boots. Extremely feminine stuff. For the Countess Krak?
I got it. All he had heard of my dissertation on her, possibly, was that she had no clothes!
(Bleep) him. And (bleep) Snelz! The platoon commander must have sent a guardsman all the way to the city at dawn. Heller, sleeping so peacefully when I left, must have been right behind me out that door!
She was waltzing around in the center of the room, holding the silver one against her.
Then she rushed back to the desk and found his card and pressed it to her chest.
I looked at my watch. Ouch, were we overdue for instruction this morning! I started to hurry out.
"No, no!" cried the Countess Krak. "Give me twenty minutes before you bring him down. I have to bathe again and get dressed!" Right that moment I got a horrible premonition that all this was going to wind up in catastrophe. I do wish now I had learned to obey my hunches. They were right!
Chapter 2
In my room I found Jettero Heller lounging in an easy chair, eyes half-closed, idle beyond belief. The furthest thing from his mind appeared to be Mission Earth. Some supplementary reading I had given him lay in a neglected pile. Soft but plaintive music was coming over the Homeviewer and some female singer was on the screen. Love songs!
Now if there is anything that hurts my sensitive ears it is a high-pitched, echo orchestra and the quavering, sobbing soprano of a love balladess. Furthermore, they paint their faces black for "unrequited love" and by means of tubes beside their eyes they shed red tears-tears of blood. And the melodies are all down scale: And so faded my glow Into the sorrow That took me in tow To the deep pits of woe And with my last breath I'll still cry for death And grave clothes to use as my trousseau.