So here I had a real gold mine. I read and read those textbooks. Like Bugs Bunny does, the psychologist teaches you how to get around everybody.
It is really due to this extensive study that I owe my remarkable ability to handle people.
I was diffident about writing this down in this work for two reasons: people will think I am a nut; and it is really the trade secret on which I operate in the Apparatus on Voltar. Even primitives have secret wisdoms.
So when I saw that Turkish girl, I knew exactly what had happened: I was experiencing "psychogenic hallucination based on fulfillment-denial." From this, I naturally understood that I wanted to get the Hells out of here. It came as a flash.
However, although I now had the proper label and understood it completely, I still sat there thinking from time to time I was at the Turkish base on Earth and even reached out a time or two to take some of the cakes the girl had put on the desk.
This got me to wondering how I would cope with all the paper stamping I would have to do when I was on Earth. And this led me to wonder how the bales of forms would get to Earth and back. I couldn't imagine them coming as heavily abused freight. Bawtch would have a fit if the corners were wrinkled.
Then, as the day crept on and I got hungrier and thirstier and any hopes of eating seemed postponed at least a year until I could draw pay again – unless I lost my paychecks, which would make it five years and maybe never – I got more and more worried.
On Blito-P3, I would be cut off absolutely. I would not be able to snoop around. I would have no master console to steal time at. My fantasy of being on Earth in peaceful plenty began to have a dark core of not knowing what the Hells was going on on Voltar.
I considered what Bugs Bunny would have done in a similar circumstance. He would have approved of the caper of the toilet escape route I had just ordered. But, although my memory is superb, I could not remember a single strip that solved this uninformed situation except one where he takes a telescope on a platform he has gotten onto and, by means of many curves and levers, looks in on somebody who was chasing him in a police car. I obviously had no telescope that long.
Surmounting my hunger, I made a supreme effort and, being well endowed with wits, suddenly solved it.
Endow was the crossroads of information between the Apparatus and the Grand Council. Lombar had to take up everything with Endow. Endow had a weakness: pretty boys!
I got out my blackmail folders, local office.
I pushed buzzers. I got one to work and very shortly I had two of the Section 451 clerks in there looking slightly amused and tolerant.
These two boys were nicknamed "Too-Too" and "Oh Dear." Their real names are Twolah and Odur. They were from Endow's home planet, Mistin. They were promising children, doted upon by their separate mothers, spoiled rotten and totally dominated. They had entered the University of Mistin with high marks and had proceeded upon brilliant scholastic careers. They were excellent students. They fell in love, one with an elderly male professor of cellology, the other with the dean of males. They were caught. They were expelled. They were ruined. They were eminently fitted for my purpose: they were very pretty. I would shortly wipe the amusement from their girlish faces.
"You, Twolah, and you, Odur, have just been promoted." They liked that but were wary.
"By the powers vested in me as Section Chief, you two are appointed alternate couriers to Blito-P3. At intervals comparable to the time it takes to make a round trip to Blito-P3, you will relieve each other. One of you will bring me all the paper I have to sign and return. Then the other will do so." They looked uneasy. I have something of a reputation in the office. They knew this was not all. Three months of travel, followed by three months layoff, even though space travel in a freighter is not that comfortable, was a bit of a plum.
"On your off-time at home," I said, "you will take messages to Endow personally. Any kind of a message from here you can dream up. And you will hang around for answers. And you will pretty yourselves up and display yourselves so that each one of you, by turns, becomes his beloved. And you will pump him for all current news about Blito-P3 and bring it to me." Too-Too minced coyly, "And what if Lord Endow refuses to slip into the trap?"
"I don't think he will refuse. Because you are each of you going to make sure that he doesn't. Have you ever heard of a magic mailing?" It is tradecraft. They were trained as spies but not in the higher levels of the art. "I will explain," I said.
"I am sure you will," lisped Oh Dear.
"A magic mailing is a message or order which is held in place in a postal chute. It sticks there in the chute for a determined time, in this case three months. A separate card with a frequency stamped on it has to be mailed past it before the stick expires. If it is, the magic mail stays unmailed another three months. But if at any time the renewing card isn't mailed, the magic mail drops into the post and gets delivered." They were getting white. Pretty. But white.
"Each time you deliver a batch of forms to me on Blito-P3, you will also deliver allthe news there is on the subject from the Apparatus, the Grand Council, Endow and Lombar Hisst. IF I consider you are not making it up, that you are really diligent in doing your espionage job in your off-period here, I will give you a receipt with a frequency and you can mail it. It will hold up the magic mail." They were whiter and not prettier.
"Who is the magic mail to be addressed to?" said Too-Too.
"Whom does it concern?" faltered Oh Dear.
"The magic mail will be addressed to the Commander of the Knife Section on Mistin. You understand that it won't ever be delivered if you thoroughly do your jobs." They got that, so I plowed on. Psychology is a wonderful thing. "You both love your mothers, don't you?" I knew this because there are exact states and phases in all boys and males. It says so right in the Earth textbooks. First they are oral passive, then they are oral erotic, then they are anal passive after which they become anal erotic. This is followed by what is called "latency" and finally, genitalia is arrived at. So these two boys were fixated in the development stage of anal erotic. Mothers change diapers. So, of course, it follows as day and night that they loved their mothers.
"You wouldn't order our mothers murdered?"said Too-Too, incredulous.
I flipped the Knife Section knife from its sheaf behind my neck and threw it into the floor between their feet where it stuck, quivering. This, I knew by the texts, added the phallic symbol. They fell into each other's arms and wept.
I called Bawtch and had him shoo them out. They were both crying so hard that even Bawtch was impressed. He stood for a full minute in the door just looking at me. I can tell when people are impressed.
Later, I was much braced up. Psychology is a wonderful thing. No wonder the governments on Earth will use nothing else!
Well, one thing had gone right today.
I reached for some of the food the dancing girl had left on the desk but it wasn't there again.
Chapter 5
At midnight, lying on my desk in the darkened office, I was rudely awakened by the noisy entrance of a visitor. It was a Manco Devil. I knew right away he was from Manco because, over there, their Devils are not the ordinary woods Devils so common to other planets. Manco Devils have horns and long tails which end in a spike and they are a dark, flaming red.