"Flick," said the captain, "deliver this fellow to the Royal Palace and make sure Lombar Hisst gets to see him. It's urgent." And he gave the driver the copy of an order.
"Wait," said Madison in alarm to Captain Slash. "Aren't you going to accompany me?"
"Why?" said the Apparatus officer. "You're rated 'harmless.'"
"Well, all right," said Madison, "but I apparently am not coming back here. I will need my baggage, particularly a portable typewriter to do my work with."
"Oh, is that what that funny machine is?" said Slash. "I wondered when I vetted your gear for weapons two days ago. Pretty clumsy. I think you'll find now that you can use both a pen and a vocoscriber. But quit worrying. Flick put it all in the back of the airbus while you were signing out. So good-bye and good fortune and don't ever get on my list in a professional capacity." He laughed. Then he turned to the driver and said, "Get a move on, Flick. The chief is chewing his short hairs off to see this guy."
Madison promptly got his second shock. He expected the car to roll along the ground. Instead, it leaped into the air like an express elevator. It scared him half to death. The thing couldn't possibly fly-it didn't have wings!
When he had swallowed his stomach, they were levelled out and joining a traffic lane at a height of what must be ten thousand feet. A strange city, all swirls, lay over to his right, about the size of three New Yorks. "What town is that?" he asked the driver.
"The fancy name is Ardaucus," said Flick. "But everybody calls it Slum City. That's Government City ahead and to the north."
They turned to the southwest and flew over a range of mountains as high as the Rockies, and all before them lay a vast expanse of desert. Mile-high dancing dust devils were purple and tan in the sun, weird as a chorus line of crazy giants. Madison hoped they weren't live beings of some alien race that dined on airplanes that had no wings.
It started him worrying about this powerful being he was supposed to see. He would venture a question.
"Who is this chief I am supposed to see?"
Flick glanced back at him and then looked at the card he had been handed. "Apparently you're an Earth-man, whatever that is. And we're in the air so we can't be overheard. The chief's name is Lombar Hisst. Today he controls the Confederacy, all 110 planets of it. Confidentially, he's an egotistical (bleepard). Crazy as a gyro with a nick in the rim. You better watch your step if you're really going to see him. He bites off the arms and legs of babies just for kicks."
"Thank you," said Madison. But he thought to himself, sounds just like Rockecenter: bad image with the help and everything.
They were going at a frightening speed. A couple hundred miles of the awfullest desert he had ever seen had reeled off below. To crash in that would be fatal. And this driver seemed to be more interested in trying to light a strange cigarette with a lighter that threw a laser beam instead of a flame. The air was bumpy and he kept missing.
"Are you going to be my driver now?" he asked Flick.
"Unless the chief throws you into that thing," said Flick, pointing to their right.
On the horizon stood a huge black castle, fronted by a camp that must contain thousands of men.
"That's Spiteos. The camp is called Camp Endurance on the maps but the real name is Camp Kill. If the Apparatus gets unhappy with you, they send you there to be thrown into that chasm. It's a mile deep. You're in the Apparatus now. By the way, what was your crime?"
"I haven't committed any crimes!" said Madison.
"Oh, space gas!" said Flick. "If I'm going to have to drive for you, we might as well open our coats. I was one of the best thieves on Calabar until I got caught and sentenced to death and the Apparatus grabbed me. And here I been ever since. You must have done something."
Madison thought fast. He did not want a bad image with his driver. "I failed to finish a job," he said. And then he knew for sure that this strange planet was rattling him: he had told somebody the truth. He better watch it!
The driver laughed. "Well, if you don't cut their throats when you get a chance, they'll catch up with you sooner or later. I think you and me will get along just great."
Heavens, the fellow had catalogued him as a murderer! Hastily he changed the subject. "What are those mountains over there to our right? I can't even see their tops."
"Them's the Blike Mountains. Fifty thousand feet. We can't fly over them. Not in this junk heap. Where we're headed is right down there."
The driver was pointing.
NOTHING!
No, it was a sort of greenish mist.
They were diving so fast toward that mist he knew they would crash! Oh, to come this far and not even have an obituary:
Madison dead...
Then suddenly he was nauseated. It was a strange feeling. So this was how it was to die. Maybe the shock of the crash was so awful he had started for heaven at once.
No, he was going through a gate!
Round buildings were glittering on every hand, bathed in a greenish light. What strange structures! They had round staircases, jewels everywhere. Huge, expansive grounds with enormous, lifelike statues painted in natural colors. The giants were surrounded by round pools and flower beds. A glittering sign pointed across a grassy circle. It said Royal Chambers.
SUDDENLY HE SAW TEENIE!
She was in a sackcloth dress, filthy with mud from head to foot. Her ponytail was undone.
Oh, he knew she'd come a cropper. Here she was a slave. Two old gnarled men were beside her, also grubbing away. An Apparatus guard with what must be a rifle was standing by.
She had an implement in her hand. Madison's car was skidding along five feet off the ground and it went close by her. She was just standing up, placing her muddy palm against her obviously aching back. SHE SAW HIM!
Then he was by her. Oh, she must have done something awful, to assign her to filthy manual labor. The knight-errant rose in him. "Never mind, Teenie," he whispered, "I'll rescue you if I can."
They stopped in front of a huge, jewelled building with twin curving stairs you could have marched a regiment down.
Two tough-looking officers in black rushed up.
"Delivering J. Walter Madison," said Flick.
"In the name of seven Devils," said one, "where have you been? The old (bleep) is tearing his toenails out waiting for you! Get the Hells up those stairs! Guard, guard! Shove this guy through to the chief, triple pace!"
Hefty hands seized Madison on either arm and propelled him up the stairs and into a corridor at a dead run.
The fatal moment had arrived. J. Walter Madison was about to meet Lombar Hisst.
I have dwelt upon it at length, for it was a moment which would mean much to Voltar's history and Jettero Heller. And, dear reader, I assure you, not for the good of either!
On every hand the pomp of millennia rose: the golden ropes curved in intricate patterns along jewelled friezes depicting parades and battles down the ages; the glowering eyes of long-dead monarchs frowned at Madison as he went along the curving hall. The consciousness reached him that he was dealing with power ensconced in the awesome traditions of history far longer than man, on Earth, had even known how to use an axe of stone.
He was rushed at length into a huge circular room, jewelled and glittering. It was the antechamber of the Emperor's sleeping quarters.
On the other side of it, a huge desk, carved from a single block of onyx, seemed to be barring a door. All around the desk, machines and equipment had been set up to make an impromptu office.
At the desk sat a huge man, rather swarthy, an odd sheen on his skin. He was dressed in a scarlet uniform, corded round with gold. His eyes had a crazy light.