I wrote down the Apparatus fundamental musts:
1. PREPARE A BASE BEFORE YOU ATTACK
2. HANDLE YOUR TROOPS BEFORE YOU ATTACK
3. PLAN BEFORE YOU ATTACK
188
L. RON HUBBARD
4. GATHER WEAPONS BEFORE YOU ATTACK
5. PINPOINT OBJECTIVES BEFORE YOU ATTACK
6. TIME EVERYTHING
I knew you had to do these things in exact order. Geniuses, long since, have worked these things out. If an organization such as the Apparatus has the prime duty of undermining a civilization, it must be thorough. One must make the maximum amount of trouble for the maximum number of people for the minimum number of reasons. That rule holds good for governments, for governmental organizations and for government officers and agents. Even on Earth, which is primitive about such things, the FBI and others adhere to these maxims totally. So I knew I was being wise.
So I took up number five first. That was the easy one. The primary objective was the Countess Krak. I knew that very well from long and bitter experience.
As to number one, I had my base in this hotel room.
As to number six, I looked at my watch and carefully noted the hour, minute and second and put them down.
Suddenly, I realized that I was not taking these in perfect order. I got a grip on myself. I should be working on number two, handling the troops.
The only troops was me. I fully realized that now. Bury and Torpedo and even Madison had failed me. I was entirely on my own.
What was the matter with the troops?
Venereal disease. What with goats and dogs and Torpedo, this was obviously the case. While there was no sign of it, in every text you read on military matters it is a problem. Good.
Determined to do things right this time, I let first things be first. Even when they were second on the list.
To handle the troops required rest. I carefully noted the time as required in number six and went to bed.
Bright and early I got up, brushed the cockroaches off my clothes and dressed.
Marching with bitter determination, I made my way to a phone kiosk in the lobby and looked up VD clinics. There was one close by. I made an appointment and was promptly there.
I was the first in and I got quick service. I laboriously filled out a card. A young doctor, without looking at it, sat down in the interview room where I had been placed. He said, "All this is in confidence. You can talk freely. What symptoms have you noticed?"
"None," I said. "It is simply inevitable."
"What have your contacts... you know... been?"
And here I could give him real information. "I have been in contact with a horrible blond woman, a fiend in human form, that treats life as if it were chaff. It is all her fault. She is five feet nine and a half inches tall. She hypnotizes everybody!"
"How long have these contacts continued?" he said solicitously.
I counted it up rapidly, using my fingers. The first time I had collided with the Countess Krak was in Spi-teos about half a year before Heller came along. She had murdered an agent who sought to grab at her sexually. "Thirteen months," I said.
"How do you know you got it from her?" he asked.
"She forced me into it," I said. "If it weren't for her I would never have had any association with dogs or goats or llamas from Peru."
He was shocked, as well he might be. He held up his hand. "Oh, I think we had better not even waste time on examinations. This sounds pretty desperate. Nurse! Bring the big tray quick!"
And thus began a treatment course which lasted the better part of ten days.
I endured it because it just showed all I had suffered at her hands.
First there were the antibiotic shots, seven kinds. Every one of them was agony. I hate needles!
Then I stoically endured a harrowing experience in which my body temperature was raised to 106 degrees while under medication.
Next, when I was able to get around again, I got neoarsphenamine-606. The doctor told me that it killed one in every ten thousand and I half expected to be the one. It would show people what she had put me through.
Finally, a bright day came. I had hardly any money left. I had lost many pounds. The doctor was reviewing the last series of tests.
"Null," he said. "You now do not have the faintest sign of anything. So the whole course has been very successful. You have been very lucky, really, since there are strains about today which do not respond to any cure at all. Now let me give you one solid piece of advice: Do not ever have any physical contact with that woman ever again. And terminate any association with her as soon as possible!"
I promised him earnestly to adhere to his advice. I would get on with my termination of the Countess Krak now, as soon as I was able to complete my program.
Gods, what that woman had put me through!
The next part of the campaign was "3. PLAN BEFORE YOU ATTACK."
Accurate planning requires data. Accordingly, I brushed the cockroaches off my viewers to see what the most horrible monster in the universe was up to now.
They were still in Virginia!
Heller and the two retired Greyhound bus drivers were sitting in the spring sunlight. Heller was in shorts, getting a suntan in a deck chair. The two drivers, with their collars open and caps on the backs of their heads, were drinking what looked like mint juleps and playing cards under an awning nearby. Loafing at my expense!
The land yacht and other motor home were parked in an L in a grassy field with their awnings out. The blue-misted mountains were plain in Heller's sight.
The roar of an approaching motor caused Heller to look up a forest road. It was the jeep, leaping all over the place with Bang-Bang at the wheel. The Countess Krak was in the front seat.
Suddenly I realized her viewer was blank. (Bleep)! That was because I had her activator-receiver and 831 Relayer here and I was probably four hundred miles or more away!
The jeep skidded to a halt. Heller rose and went over. He helped the Countess Krak out. She seemed tired. He led her over to a reclining deck chair. A stewardess came running up with a tray and cold drink.
The Countess Krak patted at her moist face with a
handkerchief and took the drink gratefully.
Heller sat down. "And how goes the training on young Rockecenter?"
"Well," she said, "I am making progress. I've got him so he'll bathe in water instead of mud. He's stopped making grunting noises and scratching his back against posts."
"Well, that's something anyway," said Heller. "But aren't you using a hypnohelmet? I should think you could do it with that pretty fast."
"I'm trying to train him so he doesn't become a robot," said the Countess. "So I have to preserve his basic personality. But so far, he won't do anything a pig won't do. He just plain won't sit at a table and let any other diner have anything to eat-he keeps pushing them away with his nose. At first I just thought it was early behavior environmental influence, but now I'm afraid I'm up against heredity-a family trait."
"Well, you're making progress. We could leave soon."
The Countess Krak frowned. "That's the trouble, really. He won't abandon his pigs."
"Oh, is that all?" said Heller. "Bang-Bang, come over here." Bang-Bang came over and hunkered down on the grass, nursing a tall Scotch and ice the stewardess must have given him. "Now, why don't I just have Bang-Bang here call Izzy and tell him to rent half a dozen pig trucks?"
"I'm afraid they're county pigs" said the Countess.
"Well, we could have Bang-Bang tell Izzy to just buy them. And we could also have Izzy buy a pig farm up near New York, maybe across the river in New Jersey. I smell pigs every time I go by there."
The Countess said, "Dear, that's a beautiful solution. But let's not bother poor Izzy: he gets so upset