As Heller left he saw the Countess Krak at the end of the corridor. She was coming out of the cell that still held Utanc-Colonel Gaylov.
"Dear," said Heller, "your woman's intuition seems to have been right. The Apparatus has a plan on foot to use its own forces to smash this planet. Hisst is crazy insane."
"Then we've got to get off it right away," said the Countess. "We and you-know-who must not be here when they crack it up."
"And waste all the work I've been doing for a year?" said Heller. "This is a nice planet."
"Opinions differ," said the Countess Krak. "Psychology, psychiatry, perversions beyond belief and a population that doesn't even raise its voice when some nut like Rockecenter is ruining it. It's not worth saving, Jettero. We'd better get a move on."
"We've got time," said Faht Bey. "It will take more than three months for them to make the voyages and hit the place."
Heller shook his head. "How long ago did you stop the first freighter?"
"Oh, that's been about four weeks now," said Faht Bey.
"Then they will know for sure, within a couple weeks, that it didn't come back. But it was Bolz that triggered it. You haven't got three months. You may not even have five days."
"What are we going to do?" said Faht Bey. "When they find out we stopped the drugs, they'll slaughter us to a man and go right on with their invasion. We won't have anything left to stand on even if they miss us."
"Steady, steady," said Heller. "I admit this is quite a problem. We've got to make sure Prahd's patient is secure, we've got to move this base and we've got to safeguard this planet."
"What?" said the Countess Krak. "Try to stand off the whole Apparatus fighting force? Please, Jettero, please. Don't try to save this planet!"
"I'll come up with something," said Heller. "And make no mistake. Whatever else happens, I am going to make every effort to save this planet."
"Oh," said the Countess Krak in a voice of despair, looking at the set expression on Heller's face.
None of them knew that none of their estimates were correct. Just four days short of arriving, an Apparatus Death Battalion was approaching with orders to find any hostile influence at the base and destroy it. That happened to include, at that instant, every Voltarian on Earth excepting only the Blixo, its crew, Captain Bolz and Oh Dear. This was no major invasion, not yet, but it could be the preliminary of mass slaughter. Lombar would go crazy for revenge against the planet for getting in the way of his ambitions.
The wings of death hovered over Earth.
In the coolness of the patio at the villa, Jettero Heller paced up and down. His mood of grimness did not match the tinkle of the fountain.
For weeks the Countess Krak had been after him to give some serious thought to their plight but had made no penetration in his easygoing attitude. She was learning something about trying to live with a personality like his: with peril a constant companion, a combat engineer took joy in life when he could and tended to shrug off dangers he considered minor. But once he conceived that something should be done about a situation, his dedication to getting it handled was a little awe-inspiring.
She had thought he would simply shrug and leave the planet to its fate. His carefree attitude did not carry over into his suddenly confronted tasks.
She sat on the fountain's edge, hopeful that at any moment he would simply turn and say, "You're right. It is too much for us. We'll just put the Emperor in the tug and go someplace nobody ever heard of."
He turned all right. But he didn't say that. He said, "What do we know of Prince Mortiiy?"
She chilled. Calabar was writhing in the toils of raw, red war. What he inferred was even worse! But she said, managing a calm voice, "Nothing good, I'm afraid."
"Good, bad, what does it matter?" said Heller. "I need information."
He was asking her because she had lately been entertaining him with bits of Royal history she had read in the books Gris had left in her cell during her captivity. Suddenly she grasped an opportunity to discourage him from some mad course that could end in their destruction. He wouldn't believe her unless he saw it himself in print. "Wait right there," she said. "I'll get the books."
She returned in minutes with the latest supplement of the Compendium she could find. It was only a year old. She fluttered pages. There it was and she showed him, reading aloud:
MORTIIY, ex-Royal Prince. Proclaimed rebel Denied succession by Royal Proclamation. Banished from Royal family.
Mortiiy, the youngest of three Royal sons of Cling the Lofty and the late Empress Fohl, was considered so distant from succession in his youth that he was permitted to follow his chosen career as an officer of the Fleet. Graduated from the Royal Academy rather than Protocol School at Palace City.
Served with the Fleet with no very notable distinction: three times excused courts-martial; striking and, in one instance, killing an officer superior in rank; not tried due to Royal lineage. Much given to brawling.
At the age of seventy, some ten years ago, Mortiiy's oldest brother, heir to the throne, was killed in an air-limousine accident. As this left only one heir at Palace City, the Grand Council ordered Mortiiy to return from the Fleet and assume his princely duties, which he did.
For a time, Mortiiy behaved himself and supported his brother Glit, who had become the heir and of whom Mortiiy appeared very fond.
However, during a banquet Mortiiy, possibly stimulated with strong drink, took his father, Cling, to task on the outrageous accusation that Cling, not liking the eldest brother, had connived to have him murdered under the apparency of the air-limousine accident. Mortiiy advanced the weird theory that a technician had tampered
with the machine. His father, Cling, despite this grave provocation, did yet speak to him further and demanded that if this was true, the technician be produced. Alas for Mortiiy, he had killed the offender in a rage of grief over his brother's death.
Mortiiy was placed under house arrest for a considerable period, becoming very gloomy and surly, refusing to apologize.
When, five years ago, the heir to the throne, Glit, was found dead in his chambers after a short illness, two Lords approached the palace of Mortiiy to inform him that he was now the heir to the throne.
Instead of receiving the news graciously, Mortiiy flew into a rage, grievously injured both of them, raced to his father's palace, shot down the guards and gained audience.
Mortiiy accused Cling before the entire court of being a murderer of his own children, renounced any succession to "a throne drenched in family blood," fired a shot which narrowly missed Cling and then, killing several, seized an air-tank outside and made his escape.
Proclaimed now by Cling an outcast from the Royal family and with no right to succession to the throne, Mortiiy turned up at the Royal estates on Calabar. He subverted the guards and raised the standard of revolt. He was proclaimed a rebel by Cling.
His Majesty has been overheard to say that he would bestow vast estates upon the man who
brings in the head of Mortiiy, so deep has the insult rankled.
Due to ding's advanced age and the length of his reign, efforts have been made to find and choose an heir apparent. But those clearly eligible in direct line have passed away. Succession must be chosen by a conclave of Lords and the Grand Council.
"So you see, Jettero," said the Countess when she finished reading, "if you are thinking of taking His Majesty to Calabar and joining the rebel forces you'd seal his fate. Mortiiy would simply kill him."