Black Genesis

Chapter 1

Bright and early, Heller and Bang-Bang got off the subway at Empire Station. This morning Heller was wearing tailored gray flannel tennis slacks and a gray shirt with a white tennis sweater tied by its sleeves loosely around his neck. And he wore his inevitable red baseball cap and his spikes. He was carrying two heavy rucksacks evidently jammed with things I had no clue about.

Bang-Bang was something else. He had on some nondescript jeans and denim shirt. But on his head he wore an olive drab cap and across it in black was stencilled USMC.

They came up College Walk. Students were moving along, burdened with books, on their way to classes.

But Heller and Bang-Bang, much to my surprise, did not seem to be headed for a class. Heller striding along and Bang-Bang double-timing to catch up, they turned north past High Library and, threading their way around buildings, came almost to 120th Street. There was an expanse of lawn and a tree. Heller headed for the tree.

“All right, this is the command post. Synchronize your watch.”

“Right,” said Bang-Bang.

“Here is the schedule of plantings we took up last night in the suite.”

“Right.”

“Now, you’ve got to look at this from the viewpoint of timed fuses.”

“Right!”

What in Hells were they up to? Was Heller trying to get out of his promise to Babe by blowing up the school?

“You put them in undetectably.”

“Right.”

“And what happens if you don’t need an area mined anymore?”

“You pick them up undetectably,” said Bang-Bang. “It’s a secret operation. Run no risks of barrage.”

“Right,” said Heller. “Wait a minute. What does USMC mean?” Heller was looking at Bang-Bang’s cap.

“Christ! ‘United States Marine Corps’ of course!”

“Give it to me.”

“And leave myself under enemy fire with no moral support?”

Heller took it off his head. He removed his own baseball cap and put it on Bang-Bang. Of course, it was miles too big. Heller put the USMC cap on his own head. I couldn’t see it but it must have looked very funny.

“I can’t see,” said Bang-Bang. “How am I going to plant a sensitive—”

“You’re falling behind schedule,” said Heller. He handed Bang-Bang one of the rucksacks. Bang-Bang sprinted away, lugging the filled bag and trying to keep the cap off his eyes.

Heller took out a ground sheet. Voltarian by the Gods — one of those inch square ones that open up to ten square feet! The kind that change color to match the ground!

It blended with the grass color. Leave it to him to keep himself neat! Bah, these Fleet guys!

He took out a gas inflatable backrest. Voltarian! It puffed up. He upended the rucksack over the ground cloth. Books spilled all over the place!

Heller sat down comfortably against the backrest, pawed the books over and found one. Aha! If Babe only could see this! He was not going to class! He was playing hooky!

The book he had was English Literature for Advanced High-School Students as Passed by the American Medical Association. Book One. The Complete, Rewritten and Abridged Works of Charles Dickens. It was a quarter of an inch thick and had large type. Heller, in his customary show-off way, demolished it, turning the pages faster than I could see what the page numbers were. It took him about one minute. He turned the book over, seemingly puzzled that there was no more book there. Then he took out an erasable Voltarian pen — he’s always so NEAT, it really gets on your nerves! — and marked the date and the Voltarian mathematical symbol that means “equation completed pending next stage.”

He put the book aside and got another one, book two of the same series, The World’s One Hundred Greatest Novels Complete, Rewritten and Abridged. It was also a quarter of an inch thick with large type. It took him another whole minute. He marked the date and the Voltarian symbol.

There was no book three so he opened a notebook and wrote High-School English Literature. And then the Voltarian mathematical symbol for “operation complete.”

This must have made him feel good for he looked around. Most of the students were in classes, apparently, for there were only a couple of girls loafing along, maybe graduate students. They waved, he waved.

He found another book. It was English Literature I for First Year College as Passed by the American Medical Association. The Complete Significances You Should Get Out of Literature and What You Should Think About It. He demolished that.

I was getting so dizzy watching the screen blur with turning pages that it was with some horror that I realized the worst. He was writing in his notebook, First Three Years College English Literature and the same Voltarian math symbol: “equation completed pending next stage.”

I verified it twice on my watch. Only ten minutes had gone by!

Oh, I know disaster when I see it. (Bleep) him. When he went to get tutored on English literature he would just make a vulgar gesture with his thumb and say, “Yah, yah, yah!”

Bang-Bang came back. “I planted them.”

“What took you so long?”

“I had to stop by the college store and get another hat. I couldn’t work in your cap.” And he had on a tasselled, black mortarboard. He gave Heller back his baseball cap, lay down on the Voltarian ground sheet and promptly went to sleep.

Heller had started on journalism, an unlikely subject that had been on his grade sheet. The book was College Journalism First Year. Essential Basic Fairy Tales of Many Lands. I was glad to see that it was taking him longer. He wasn’t reading so fast. He seemed to be enjoying something, so I split the screen and still-framed the other one so I could read it. My Gods, it was the story of the lost continent of Atlantis!

He dawdled along and it took him a half hour to finish College Journalism. Then he saw that he was supposed to have written a sort of end-of-course paper. He got out his bigger notebook, the one he doodled in. He wrote,

Circulation today was boosted by the timely event of a continent vanishing. Publishers ecstatic.

The event was further heightened by a conflict of opinion by leading experts.

However, an unknown expert leaked to this paper-sources cannot be disclosed despite Supreme Court rulings — that all was not known about this event.

The unidentified expert, who shall be nameless, declared that this colony had been founded by an incursion from outer space under the command of that sterling revolutionary and nobleman of purpose and broad vision, none other than Prince Caucalsia from the province of Atalanta, planet of Manco.

Some of the survivors, who emigrated immediately to the Caucasus, which is behind the Iron Curtain and human beings can’t usually go there, were incarcerated by the KGB. Deportation soon followed and they arrived maybe in New York.

The public will be kept informed.

Heller punched Bang-Bang. “Read this.”

“Why me?” said Bang-Bang, groggy in what must have been a warm morning.

“Well, somebody has got to read it and pass it. It’s the end-of-course paper in Journalism. If nobody reads it and passes it, I can’t have the credit for it.”

Bang-Bang sat up. He read it with lip movement. “What’s this word incarcerated?”

“Put in the slammer,” said Heller.

“Oh, yeah. Hey, that’s a good word. ‘Incarcerpated.’ ”

“Well, do I pass?”

“Oh, hell, yes. Anybody that knows that many big words is a genius. Hey, I got to get going. Time for another line of charges!” Bang-Bang raced off, tassel of his mortarboard streaming in the wind.

Heller wrote, College Journalism. Passed with In-the-Field Citation.

Two more girls drifted by. They stopped to pass the time of day. “What’s your major?” one asked Heller.

“It was Journalism. But I just passed it with Battle Honors. What’s yours?”

“Advanced Criticism,” said one.

“See you around,” said Heller.

After a while, Bang-Bang came back. “First charges picked up. Second series laid.” He went back to sleep.

Frankly, they were driving me nuts! What were they doing? Why didn’t I hear some explosions as buildings went up?

Heller demolished a couple more subjects and passed himself in his notebook. Bang-Bang had come back again and was once again fast asleep.

Now Heller had gotten into high-school chemistry. But this time he was really tangled. I could tell. He was yawning and yawning. Tension! In fact, it was evidently too much for him for he laid it aside and picked up a text on high-school physics. He read for a while, yawning. Then he picked up the chemistry text again and began looking from it to the physics text.

“Hey,” he told the texts. “Agree amongst you on something, will you?”

A clear-cut case of animistic fixation, his habit of talking to things. No wonder he couldn’t understand clear-cut texts.

He finished up the chemistry including the college texts on it and then got going once more on physics. He kept going back earlier and looking again.

And then, I couldn’t believe it! He started to laugh. He always was sacrilegious. Little spurts of laughter kept erupting. And then he read some more and he laughed some more. And then he got to laughing harder and harder and rolled off the backrest and beat at the ground with his fists!

“What the hell is going on?” said Bang-Bang, waking up. “You reading comic books or something?”

Heller got control of himself and it was time he did! “It’s a text on primitive superstitions,” said Heller. “Look, it’s almost noon. Pick up those last charges and we’ll have some lunch.”

Ah, they were threatening the school! Demanding ransom?

Heller had everything gathered up and they went off and bought sandwiches and pop from a mobile lunch wagon.

“Operation right on schedule,” said Heller.

“We made our beachhead,” said Bang-Bang.

They enjoyed the view of girls as they strolled around. Heller bought a couple of papers. Then, “Time!” said Heller sternly. And Bang-Bang raced off again. When he came back, Heller had the command post all set up and Bang-Bang went to sleep.

If they weren’t blowing things up, and I had heard no explosions, this was about the strangest way to go to college I had ever seen. You’re supposed to go and sit down and listen to lectures and take notes and hurry to another class…

Heller was halfway through trigonometry when Bang-Bang said, “I’ll pick up the last series and lay the next. But then I got to go report to the Army and you’ll have to take over.”

Heller finished trigonometry and told it, “You sure go the long way round.” But he entered it in his notebook as passed.

Bang-Bang returned and dropped the rucksack he had been racing about with. “Well, here goes the pig into the mire. You got the watch now.”

Heller had gotten tired of studying, apparently, for he packed his books up. His watch winked at him in Voltarian figures that it was a bit after two. He opened up one of the papers he had bought.

He looked all through it. He couldn’t find a trace of what he was looking for: he kept muttering, “Grafferty? Grafferty?”

He opened up the second paper. He got clear back to the photo section before he found it. It was a picture of an indistinct fireman climbing down a ladder carrying an unrecognizable woman. The caption said:

Police Inspector Grafferty last night rescued Jean Matinee from a burning spaghetti parlor.

Heller told the paper, “Now that I am a passed-with-honors journalist, I can truly appreciate the grave responsibility of keeping the public informed.”

I heard that with some amusement. It just showed one how superficial he was. He had the purpose of the media all wrong! Its purpose, of course, is to keep the public misinformed! Only in that way can governments, and the people who own and use them, keep the public confused and milked! They trained us in such principles very well in the Apparatus schools.

And then an irritation of worry tinged my amusement. All this data he was getting, right or wrong, could be dangerous to me. It might accidentally make him think.

There was one field he mustn’t study. And that was the subject of espionage. I didn’t think it was taught in American public schools, even though I knew it was a required subject in Russian kindergartens so the children could spy on their parents. I knew that America often copied what the Russians did. I crossed my fingers. I hoped it wasn’t one of his required subjects. I tried to read some of the text titles that were spread around.

Heller went back to his studies. At 2:45 he packed up all his gear, hefted the two rucksacks and trotted off. He paused in a hall, watching a door.

Ah, now I was going to find out what they had been up to!

Students streamed out of the room. The professor came bustling out and went up the hall.

Heller walked into the empty classroom. He went straight to the lecture platform. He reached down into the wastebasket.

He pulled out a tape recorder!

He shut it off.

He put it in the rucksack.

Heller pulled out a small instant recording camera, stepped back and shot the diagrams on the blackboard.

He put the camera away.

He left the room.

He raced over to another building.

He stepped into an empty classroom. He went to the platform, took a different recorder out of the rucksack, verified that it was loaded with 120-minute tape, put it on “record,” placed it in the bottom of the wastebasket and threw some paper over it and then walked out of the room just as a couple of students were entering.

Outside, he leaned up against a building. He took the first recorder he had recovered, checked to make sure it had worked properly and removed the cassette. He marked the tape with date and subject, fastened the blackboard picture to it with a rubber band and put the package in a compartmented cassette box marked Advanced Chemistry. He checked the recorder battery charge, reloaded it with blank 120 tape and put it back in the rucksack.

Oh, the crook! He and Bang-Bang were simply recording all the lectures! He didn’t intend to go to a single class in that college!

Oh, I knew what he would do. He would speed-rig a playback machine as he had done with languages and zip a lecture through it in a minute or so at his leisure! Maybe even save them up and do the whole three months’ course in under an hour!

What dishonesty! Didn’t he know that the FBI arrested people for doing unauthorized recording? Or was that for copying and selling copyrighted material? I couldn’t remember. But anyway, it was an awful shock to me! He had a chance of getting through college in spite of Miss Simmons!

I had a momentary glimmer of hope. There might be quizzes. There might be lab periods. But then I sank into a deeper gloom. Heller had probably figured those out, too!

(Bleep) him, he was defeating the efforts to defeat him! My hand itched for a blastick! I had better quadruple any effort I was making to put an end to him!

Chapter 2

Rucksacks and all, Heller went for a run. He went west on 120th Street, south on Broadway, east on 114th Street, north on Amsterdam, circumnavigating the whole university. He was obviously trying to kill time. I hoped he would look out of place and maybe even get arrested for something, but there were lots of other joggers or people late for something.

At 3:45, he began to drift back to the job of picking up and planting recorders. Then he went back to the original “command post” and looked expectantly around for Bang-Bang. He muttered, “The Marines should have disengaged by now. Where are you, Bang-Bang?” No Bang-Bang.

Heller went for a run on a path in Morningside Park and then came back and picked up what seemed to be the last recorder of the day.

He returned to the “command post.” No Bang-Bang. His watch winked at him in Voltarian numbers that it was 5:10.

Heller found a shady place, spread his ground sheet again, reinflated his backrest and sat down. He didn’t study. He just kept watching for Bang-Bang. The shadows grew longer and longer. He looked at his watch oftener and oftener. Finally it was 5:40.

And here came something!

It was approaching down a path. It looked more like a mound of baggage with two legs than a person.

Towering and unsteady, the mountain came near Heller. It tipped over and crashed on the lawn. It avalanched for a few seconds longer and then there was Bang-Bang, standing amongst the debris. He was out of breath from the effort. He moved over and collapsed on the ground sheet.

“Well,” said Bang-Bang, “the engagement was bloody and prolonged. I will give you my battle report, Marines versus Army.” He composed himself. “You presented yourself on time to the standard Army confusion of ROTC induction. You signed the form as ‘J. Terrance Wister.’ You then presented yourself to the first obstacle of the obstacle course.

“As you were new to this ROTC, you had a physical examination. Now, you will be horrified to know that you have incipient cirrhosis of the liver from overindulgence in alcohol. I’m glad it wasn’t my physical. I have sixteen cases of Scotch left. So you were passed, providing you stop drinking.

“You then proceeded to the next obstacle. Uniforms and equipment. Those are them,” he indicated with a disdainful hand toward a pile of clothes. “The quartermaster insisted everything would be a perfect fit. But I’ll have to get them to an alterations tailor right away, get them taken in and let out to really fit me. I refuse to have you looking so sloppy! Even if it is the Army, there is just so much a Marine can take! So, you got over that obstacle.

“The next wasn’t so easy. You know what those (bleepards) did? They tried to issue me a defective M-l rifle! Now, you know and I know that a Marine can be socked a whole month’s pay if his piece is found defective. And (bleep) it, kid, its firing pin was sawed off! Yes! Sawed right off! They tried to argue with me and I bench stripped it right there down to the last screw! They said ROTC trainees weren’t allowed to have a firing pin. They said somebody might put a live round in the chamber and when they did inspection arms it might go off. And, boy, I let them have it. The dangerous thing is to have an inoperational weapon! You get charged, you can’t shoot! And I said, ‘What if you want to shoot some colonel in the back? How about that?’ And that stopped them. They couldn’t put the weapon back together and I refused to as I said it ought to be sent to the gunnery sergeant and repaired, and finally a Regular Army captain said he’d put in a request to allow you to have a non-defective M-l. So they’ll issue the rifle later but you got by that. All right so far, kid?”

“Perfectly reasonable,” said Heller. “Bad enough to have a chemical weapon already without its being defective. Must be an awful army.”

“Oh, it is, it is,” said Bang-Bang. “Dogfaces. Anyway, then you came to the swamp and no ropes to get over it so I had to make up your mind for you and I hope I did right.

“Some Regular Army lieutenant with glasses noticed it was your senior year and noticed in your prior military training at Saint Lee’s that you’d never indicated preference for branch of service. Well, I hedged. But he said the classroom work in your senior year depended on it and you had to choose. And so he handed me a long list.

“Well, kid, I knew you didn’t want to dig latrines, so the infantry is out. And I didn’t want some dumb army jerk pulling a lanyard on a 155 when your head was in the barrel, so the artillery is out. And these days, all tanks is good for is to get burned up in, so that’s out. I knew that you, like me, hated MPs, so that’s out. When I finished the list, it left only one thing. I hope you will like it. G-2.”

“What’s that?”

“Intelligence. Spies! It seemed to sort of fit my job right now — a Marine infiltrating the Army. So I knew it would make you feel good, too.”

I didn’t feel good. I reeled!

Bang-Bang got to the books and pamphlets in the mountain. They were marked Restricted and Confidential and Secret.

“Look at this one,” said Bang-Bang. “‘Codes, Ciphers and Cryptography.’ ‘How to Talk Secret.’ Look at these things. ‘How to Train Spies.’ ‘How to Sneak Somebody Back of the Enemy Lines to Poison the Water.’ ‘How to Seduce the Wife of the Enemy General and Get Her to Give You Tomorrow’s Battle Plans.’ Good, solid stuff! And look at the number of these manuals. Dozens! ‘How to Tail a Russian Agent.’ ‘How to Select Sensitive Targets to Destroy Industrial Capacity.’ Good, solid stuff, kid!”

“Let me see those.” And he got hold of one about blowing up trains. And then another about the art of infiltration. Heller started to laugh.

“Are you pleased, kid?”

“Fantastic,” said Heller.

“Oh, I’m glad you’re pleased, kid. I just thought I was being a little bit selfish. You see, it makes me feel less degraded.”

Bang-Bang recovered his USMC fatigue cap and put it on. Then he got an Army fatigue cap and put it on over it, hiding the Marine one.

Then Bang-Bang got down on all fours and crept to the other side of the tree and peered out with exaggerated care. He was clowning!

“Spies,” said Bang-Bang. “A Marine spying on the Army! Get it, kid?”

Heller was laughing. He was laughing very hard. But I knew he wasn’t laughing at the same thing Bang-Bang was.

Suddenly I knew how Izzy Epstein must have felt when the catastrophe he had dreaded struck. This Earth espionage technology was probably pretty crude. But it was espionage technology. It would make my job so much harder!

I hastily wrote another dispatch to the New York office repeating my earlier order to find Raht and Terb and promising torture along with extinction if they didn’t comply! Heller had to be stopped!

Chapter 3

About the only thing different about Friday was that they had a different command post and iced soft drinks in a bucket!

What a way to go to college! Lying around on the lawn, watching the girls go by. Well, it was Bang-Bang who did most of the girl watching. Heller was getting caught up on grammar school and high school and college. But Bang-Bang did enough girl watching for both of them. Still, what an idyllic scene. How pastoral! Disgusting!

Saturday, however, was different. Bang-Bang had disappeared somewhere, some muttering about drilling. But Heller reported to some hall and began to take “counselling examinations” to determine which subjects and what part of them he should be tutored on.

I had slept late and when I did the scan through, I simply ignored his rapid pen movements on the exams he was doing. He is always showing off. I sped straight through to an interview he was having with some assistant dean.

“Agnes,” the assistant dean was calling over his shoulder. “Are you sure that marking machine is in repair?”

A voice floated back. “Yes, Mr. Bosh. It has been flunking its quota all morning.”

Mr. Bosh, an intense-eyed young man, fiddled with the big stack of completed exam papers he had and then looked at Heller. “There must be some mistake here. Your grade transcript said these were all D average and these exams are A average.” A very severe glint came in his eye. “There is something unexplained here, Wister.”

“Sometimes students have been known to date the wrong somebody’s daughter,” said Heller.

Mr. Bosh sat up straight and then beamed. “Of course, of course. I should have thought of that. Happens all the time!”

Chuckling to himself, he bundled the exam papers up and marked them To be microfilmed for student’s file.

“Well, Wister, all I can say is, you’re off the hook. There are no weak spots here to be tutored, so we will simply mark that completed in your admission requirements. All right?”

“Thank you very much,” said Heller.

Mr. Bosh leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Tell me, just off the record, you didn’t knock her up, did you?”

Heller leaned over and whispered, “Well, I’m here for my senior year, aren’t I?”

Mr. Bosh went into howls of laughter. “I knew it, I knew it! Oh, priceless!” And with great camaraderie, he shook Heller’s hand and that was that.

There was something in Bosh’s attitude that irritated me. Possibly the way he was beaming at Heller. There was nothing that remarkable about Heller’s passing: he had had several days and several long evenings in the lobby to review those subjects and, to him, it must have been a sort of ethnological study of how some primitive might view these things. There was nothing remarkable at all about a postgraduate combat engineer of the Voltarian Fleet passing a few lousy kiddie subjects like perverted quantum mechanics. It made me quite cross, really. Spoiled my faith in these Earth people — not that I’d ever had any. Just riffraff.

I walked around the yard for a while. Two of the children were picking grapes and I accused them of eating more than they picked and after I’d gotten them crying real good, kicked them and felt better.

I called the taxi driver and wanted to know when the Hells he was going to complete delivery of Utanc and he told me it was all on schedule. That made me feel a lot better. Watching that (bleeper) Heller being whistled into his room every night by gorgeous women had been getting to me more than I had admitted. And that I never actually saw him doing anything with them made it even worse! One’s imagination runs riot sometimes!

Only the possible early arrival of Utanc gave me morale enough to go back and watch what was happening around Heller. But all he was doing was trotting around a track in a running suit, not even making good time. He stopped and watched a football squad being mustered up, apparently lost interest and resumed his running. How can anybody just run for a couple of hours? What do they think about?

I went outside again, and after a long delay in locating him, talked on the phone to the hospital contractor who said the earth-moving was almost finished, the water, electrical and sewage ready to place and he’d be into pouring foundations tomorrow. So I couldn’t find anything to rag him about beyond being at the building site working when I was trying to call him.

It was late evening, Turkish time, by now. There was a sort of fascination about watching Heller. I desperately longed for a time when I would see him curl up in a ball, preferably in agony, and die and yet, so long as I did not have the platen, he carried my life in his careless, brutal hands. So I hung on to the viewscreen and raced the strips forward to the present.

Heller was going down in the elevator. He was dressed in a casual dark suit but there was nothing casual about the way he was acting.

He rushed out of the elevator and burst into Vantagio’s office. “It’s here! It’s here! The car I want is here!”

Vantagio was in a tuxedo, apparently all ready for a Saturday night rush not yet started. “Well, it’s about time! Babe mentions it every day and ever since you spaghettied Grafferty she’s been insisting it be the best. Where is it? Out front or down in the garage?”

“Garage,” said Heller. “Come on!”

Vantagio needed no urging. He went rapidly out of his office, followed by Heller, and into the elevator they went and down to the garage.

“It better be a beauty,” said Vantagio. “I got to get this action completed so I can have some peace. Been over a week since Babe told me to buy you a lovely car!”

At the garage elevator exit, there stood Mortie Massacurovitch. Heller introduced him to Vantagio. “I been workin’ double shift,” said Mortie. “I couldn’t get here until this evening. But there she is!”

Standing in the middle of the vast pillared structure, surrounded by sleek limousines of the latest model, stood the old, shabby, paint-worn-off, cracked-window Really Red Cab of decades ago.

It looked like a piece of junk that had been shovelled in.

“Where’s the car?” said Vantagio.

“That’s the car,” said Heller.

“Oh, come off it, kid. A joke’s a joke but this is serious business. Babe will just about tear my head off if I don’t get you one.”

“Hey,” said Heller, “this is a great car!”

“This was built when they really built cabs!” said Mortie.

“Kid, this isn’t any joke? You mean you are really proposing I buy this piece of scrambled trash for you?”

“Hey,” said Mortie, “the company ain’t charging hardly anything!”

“I’m sure they wouldn’t dare!” said Vantagio. “You ought to give the buyer twenty-five smackers to get it towed to a junkyard!”

“Oh, come on,” said Mortie. “I’ll admit she don’t look like no limousine. But I had quite a time trying to get the company to agree to sell it. It’s sort of a keepsake.

Like old times. Tradition! Of course, you can’t keep it red or run it as a Really Red Cab in competition and you can’t have its taxi license — that’s expensive and stays with the company. But it’s a perfectly legal car and the title would be regular.”

Vantagio had looked inside. He backed off holding his nose. “Oh, my God.”

“It’s just the leather,” said Mortie. “They didn’t have vinyl in them days so it’s real leather. Of course, it’s kind of rotted and saturated a bit. But it’s real leather.”

“Please,” said Heller.

Vantagio said, “Babe would kill me. She would have me whipped for two or three hours and then kill me with her bare hands.”

“I got orders that you can have it cheap,” said Mortie. “One thousand dollars and that’s rock bottom.”

“Quit torturing me!” said Vantagio. “I got a tough night ahead. This is Saturday night and the UN is hotting up — in just two weeks it is reconvening! Kid, have you got any idea—”

“Five hundred,” said Mortie. “And that’s absolutely rock bottom.”

Vantagio tried to walk away. Heller got him by the arm. “Look, real quarter-inch steel fenders and body. Look, Vantagio, real bulletproof windows! See those stars in them? They stopped real bullets just a while ago.”

“Two hundred and fifty,” said Mortie. “And that’s rock rock bottom.”

“Kid,” said Vantagio, “please, for God’s sake, let me go upstairs and call the MGB agency, let them send over a red sports car.”

“This cab,” said Heller, “is a real beauty!”

“Kid, let me call the Mercedes-Benz agency.”

“No.”

“Alfa Romeo?”

“No.”

“Maserati. Now, there’s a good car. A real good car,” said Vantagio. “I can get one custom built. Custom built and bright red, kid. A convertible. I’ll fill it full of girls.”

“No,” said Heller.

“Oh, che il diavolo lo porti, kid, you’re going to get me killed! I wouldn’t even dare put that in this garage! It’s just an ancient wreck!”

“It’s an antique!” cried Mortie. “It ain’t no wreck! It’s a bona fide antique!”

Vantagio stared at him. Then he went on pacing.

Mortie pressed on. “You put that cab in the Atlantic City Antique Auto Parade and it’ll win a twenty-five thousand dollar prize. I guarantee it! Antique cars are the rage!”

Vantagio stopped pacing. “Wait. I’ve just had an idea. If we put that car in the Atlantic City Antique Auto Parade…”

“And filled it full of girls dressed in costumes of the 1920s,” prompted Heller.

“And put guys on the running boards holding submachine guns,” said Vantagio.

“And prohibition agents in 1920 costumes chasing it,” said Heller.

“And painted ‘The Corleone Cab Company’ on the doors,” cried Vantagio, “Babe would LOVE it! Tradition! And a million bucks’ worth of advertising! Right?”

“Right,” said Heller.

“Now, you have to do what I tell you, kid. Right?”

“Right.”

“Choose this as the car.”

“Like I was saying,” said Mortie. “The price is one thousand smackers.”

“Five hundred,” said Vantagio, “providing you can get it to this address. And I’ll buy its cab license later from your company.” He was scribbling on the back of a card, Jiffy-Spiffy Garage, Mike Mutazione, Newark, N.J.

“Can I drive it and monkey with the motor?” said Heller.

“Oh, hell, yes, kid. It’s your car. Just so long as you make it available for the parade and just as long as you let Mike Mutazione put it in new-car condition before you park it in here. You see, I can tell people it’s for the parade and the UN diplomats will be happy on cultural grounds. They love to see tribal customs preserved.”

A new voice was heard. “Hey, where’d this battle casualty come from?” It was Bang-Bang.

“That’s the car you’re going to drive,” said Heller.

“Don’t try to snow me under, kid,” said Bang-Bang. “I’ve had a tough day trying to teach the Army the difference between their left feet and their (bleep).”

“Look, Bang-Bang,” said Heller, pointing to a star in the glass.

“Hey, that’s a 7.62-mm NATO round. See, it dropped down into the ledge outside. Belgian FN? Italian Beretta? Flattened the hell out of it. Bulletproof glass!”

“And fenders. Quarter-inch steel,” said Heller.

Vantagio tapped Bang-Bang. “As long as you’re working for the kid, go over to Newark with this cabby and tell Mike what to do. Use the same material but replace everything! New bulletproof glass, new upholstery, beat the body out, paint the whole car orange and put ‘The Corleone Cab Company’ on the doors. Make it all look brand-new. Even the motor. Tell him to do it in a hurry so the kid can have his car.”

“I ain’t supposed to leave New York,” said Bang-Bang.

“It’s Saturday night,” said Vantagio.

“Oh, that’s right,” said Bang-Bang.

“I’ll go, too!” said Heller.

“No, you won’t,” said Vantagio. “It’s going to be a busy night and I want you in the lobby for a while. And I told two South American diplomats you’d be pleased to meet them. And there’s something else you got to do.”

Vantagio was signing papers that Mortie had been holding out. He counted five hundred into his palm.

Mortie and Bang-Bang jumped into the cab and with a roar, smoke and clatter were gone.

Vantagio and Heller got back into the elevator. “Now we got to go up,” said Vantagio, “and phone Babe and tell her what a great idea I had. No, on the other hand, you phone her from your suite and tell her you thought it up. Tradition is the key to her character, kid. And when you mix tradition and sentiment, it’s a winner every time. Old ‘Holy Joe’ got his start running hooch in cabs just like that!”

“You’re a wonder,” said Heller.

“Yes, you do what I tell you and you’ll be in the money every time. Just remember that, kid.”

I was baffled, utterly baffled. What was Heller doing with two cars? He already had that old Cadillac being specially rebuilt and didn’t seem to be in any rush for it, yet here was this cab being rushed through. For once, some sixth sense — which you can’t do without in the Apparatus — told me that this went beyond the Fleet toy fetish. I writhed. (Bleep) him, he was going too fast! Too fast! He could finish up and accomplish something and ruin me!

Chapter 4

Because I knew that on Sunday, coming right up, he was going to have his first Nature Appreciation class with Miss Simmons — who, I was sure, would do him in — I was not terribly interested in what happened to Heller the rest of that Saturday night and scanned him only lightly.

The two South American diplomats were completely unimportant. Vantagio brought them over to Heller and introduced them — they had names about a yard long. Heller was wearing a silk and mohair tuxedo with diamond cuff links and studs but these two South Americans put him to shame with black embroidery on their powder blue tuxedos and lace all over their chests: it heartened me to see Heller outdone.

They had an International Bank loan to build a lot of bridges and they’d heard Heller was a student engineer and they didn’t think the bridges would stand up. So they showed him some drawings and he told them to float both ends of the bridges so the earthquakes couldn’t affect them. He even drew them some little sketches to show their contracting firm. But I knew it was all silly — a bridge crosses water, you don’t stick its ends in the water. But South Americans are polite and they went away beaming. Riffraff.

The only other thing that happened was also disgusting. Stuffumo and the kris-wielding deputy delegate that Heller had unfairly disarmed sought him out where he sat behind some palm fronds — he sat there often as it half hid him from the door.

They had an ornate box and they were both holding on to it. Both speaking English in chorus, they stood in front of him and said, “Thank you for your mediation on the treaty subject of Harlotta. Our two countries have united to give you a token of appreciation. There has never been such peace.”

They opened up the box and there, in purple velvet, lay a Llama .45 caliber, large-frame automatic pistol finished in gold damascene and gold butt plates, with the coats of arms of their two countries intertwined with a heart. Some engraver had been working overtime at vast expense! It had extra magazines and fifty shells. It also had a back belt holster with a white dove of peace and Prince X engraved on it. Aside from the fact that it was all chased with gold instead of being black, it looked just like a gangster gun, an Army Colt .45.

Heller thanked them and they went away beaming.

It absolutely ruined my dawn sleep! The idea of getting a beautiful weapon like that for some petty, trifling, cheap trick! And he had obtained it unfairly, too! Masquerading under a false identity. “Prince X” indeed! He was just a Fleet combat engineer with middle-class origins like mine. I even outranked him! What an awful waste of a fine handgun!

So, as I say, I was really looking forward to Miss Simmons!

Around nine in the morning, New York time, the interference went off in his suite. But was he bustling out to go to his Sunday class? No! He was certainly taking a perverted angle on Nature Appreciation!

The first thing that came on the screen was the back of a girl’s neck. She was a brunette and she was evidently lying face down on the sofa, head to one side, arm trailing limply to the rug, the very picture of exhaustion.

Heller was stroking the back of her neck, sort of working at it with his thumbs. There was a silver pitcher on a nearby table and, in peripheral vision, I could see that he was wearing a white bathrobe and sitting on the edge of the couch above the half-naked girl.

“Oh,” she was groaning, “I think I’m going to die!”

Heller was working at the back of her neck with his thumbs. “There, there,” he said soothingly. “You’ll be all right, Myrtle.”

She groaned again. “Seventeen times is too many!”

“Can you lift your head now?” said Heller.

She tried and groaned. “I feel like I’ve been raped by an elephant.”

“I’m sorry,” said Heller.

Suddenly I understood. This monster had really been abusing this poor girl! And she was a pretty girl, too, as I could see, now that she had turned on her side.

“It is better, honey,” she said. “Jesus, I don’t want another night like that!”

Aha, so he was not as popular with these girls as I had thought!

She got up unsteadily, got hold of her robe as an afterthought and half-heartedly covered her nakedness.

“You go get a bath,” said Heller, “and a nice sleep and you’ll be fine.”

“Oh, Jesus, I hope so. Can I come back later?”

My Gods, I thought. He has effected a transference on this poor girl! Enslaved her into chronic masochism!

“I’ve got a Nature Appreciation class at one,” said Heller.

“I’ve had all the nature I can appreciate for the moment,” said Myrtle and stumbled, barefooted and half-clad from his room. The poor, abused creature.

Heller called down for some breakfast and while he was waiting, got on the phone. No wonder I couldn’t keep track of him. He was transacting business under the cover of the interference. Sneaky!

A kid came on.

“Let me talk to Mike Mutazione,” said Heller. And when the kid had put “papa” on the line, Heller said, “Sorry to bite into your Sunday, Mike. But did you get the cab?”

“Sure thing, kid. A beauty! Fix her up in no time!”

“Great. Now listen, Mike. I am sending you over a little bottle of stuff. I’ll write the full directions. But I want you to put it in the paint as an additive. That’s on the exterior body and in any of the signs you paint on it. It is easy. It just mixes into whatever paint you use. So when you get the motor and glass and body and upholstery work done, only use paint with this additive in it.”

“Makes it shinier?” said Mike.

“Something like that,” said Heller. “I’ll send the little vial over. It’ll be there by the time you’re ready.”

“Sure, kid, no trouble. The Caddy is doing fine. Bit of a holdup with the new engine but it’s on its way. So are the new alloy pistons. She’ll do 190 when we’re done.” Mike laughed. “You’ll have to keep the brakes on to keep her from taking off for the moon.”

“Take your time on it,” said Heller. “The cab I’d like yesterday.”

“You’ll get it, kid. Want to come over and go to Mass with us?”

“Today is my day for Nature Appreciation. Thanks just the same, Mike. Ciao.”

Mass? These (bleeped) Sicilians would be converting him to Christianity next!

His breakfast came, starting with a huge chocolate sundae. The waiter had no more than gone out the door when a gorgeous, slinky blonde came in.

“Hiya, Semantha,” said Heller. “Have some breakfast?”

She shook her head and sat down in a nearby chair. She indicated the door. “Myrtle was just in here, wasn’t she? Pretty boy, you’ve got to watch that Myrtle.”

Heller laughed.

“No, seriously, pretty boy. You’ve got to watch her. She’s full of wiles and tricks. I know her. Now, look, when she came in, did she do this?” Semantha loosened her robe. She didn’t have anything on under it! Was this Heller’s idea of nature appreciation?

She drew her legs to Heller’s right. “And then did she sit sideways like this?” She made sure no robe was covering her legs. “And then did she show you her naked thigh like this? And then trail her fingers along it and say that it was bruised and please look?

“Oh, you have to watch that Myrtle, pretty boy. After she’d done all that, did she stand up like this and let her robe fall off like so?

“And then did she say she had an ache in her left breast? And, typically Myrtle, hold it up like this and ask you to see if there was a bruise there?

“And then did she walk real close like this and ask you to really examine it to be sure?”

Heller was laughing. “Watch it, you’ll get ice cream on you!”

“And then,” said Semantha, “did she sort of walk around like this? Oh, you’ve got to watch her! And pick up her robe like this? And pretend she’d just noticed she was naked, like this, and trail her robe behind her like this and go into your bedroom, looking back at you like this? You watch that Myrtle, pretty boy!”

“The bed isn’t made,” said Heller.

He could see what she was doing now from the multiple reflecting mirrors in the bedroom. “Then,” continued Semantha, “did she poke at your bed like this? And then wonder if it was softer than hers and could she please get in it like this?”

Semantha had gotten in, but not under the covers. She was stretched out stark naked on the bed, legs apart. “And then did she stroke her body like this? Did she, pretty boy? She takes some watching, that Myrtle does! And then did she raise her arms toward you like this and move her hips around like that and tell you that she was feeling sort of empty and needed…”

“Semantha,” said Heller. “Get out of that bed and come in here.”

“Oh, pretty boy,” she pouted. “You’re going to make me stand up and hold that position while you…”

The interference came on. Well, I didn’t need to see any more. It was obvious that he was one of those weirdos that liked odd positions.

Why the Hells couldn’t that (bleeped) taxi driver rush up Utanc? I went out petulantly to call him. He didn’t know what he was putting me through. I tried for quite a while and couldn’t get him. I kicked around the yard and then had dinner.

Actually, I was outraged at Heller’s idea of preparing himself for a Nature Appreciation class. How he could go from his dark den of vice into the bright sunlit world without his conscience withering, I did not know. He was not fit to associate with the dear little children and the charming Miss Simmons in their coming outing. But I knew I could count on Miss Simmons! Heller would catch it! A firm character, Miss Simmons!

Chapter 5

The first Nature Appreciation class was apparently being held in the United Nations park between 42nd Street and 48th Street and bordering the East River-just a few blocks from where Heller lived.

It was a beautiful September afternoon: the grass and trees were green and the sky and water were blue. The enormous bulk of the Secretariat Building reared its white slab behind the General Assembly Building and the Conference Building.

Some of the class had already gathered, as scheduled, in front of the Statue of Peace. They were college kids, mostly in jeans and rough clothing; some wore glasses, some did not; some were fat and some were thin. Heller looked them over. None of them were talking to one another or to him: obviously, they were all mutual strangers.

Heller was wearing, I knew from the elevator mirrors, very tailored brushed jeans, his baseball cap and spikes. He must look,a bit out of place — neater and more expensively dressed aside from those two items, cap and shoes. He was also taller than the rest. And he carried a little brushed denim haversack while the rest had satchels or just big purses. It must make him stand out for an occasional eye flicked in his direction, especially the girls.

More class drifted up and now there were about thirty.

And here came Miss Simmons! She was marching with a purpose! She was wearing heavy hiking shoes and, despite the heat of the day, a heavy tweed skirt and jacket. She was carrying a walking stick that looked more like a club. Her brown hair was tightly swept back and imprisoned under a man’s shooting hat.

She came to a halt. She pushed her horn-rimmed glasses up on her forehead so she could see them. She looked them all over. When she came to Heller, she let go of the glasses and let them fall back on her nose. Ah, this was a good sign. I had confidence in Miss Simmons. If all else failed, this was the one who would stop Heller cold! And her opening words encouraged me greatly!

“Oh, there you are, Wister,” she said in front of the whole class. “How is the young Einstein today? Suffering from a swelled head? I hear you used more INFLUENCE yesterday to get out of further tutoring. Well, have no fear, you are not through the barbed wire yet, Wister. The war you so ferociously favor is barely begun!”

She raised her glasses again so she could see the class and proceeded to address them. “Good afternoon, tomorrow’s hope. I always start our Nature Appreciation itinerary here at the United Nations park. The United Nations was founded in 1945 to prevent the further escalation of WAR and atomic war in particular. This hope was then entombed here in these great white mausoleums.

“It is of historical significance that this part of Manhattan was once an area covered with slaughterhouses. It is a very apt and fitting fact.

“The UN, this dark grave of all man’s greatest hopes, has money, authority and POWER! Yet, I must call to your attention that, despite that, these greedy, self-seeking and egotistical MEN sit in these tombs all day every day, all year every year and do nothing but plot ways and means of avoiding their true duties, duties to which they were pledged by the most sacred vows!

“If these craven, base scoundrels had their way, they would blow up the whole world with thermonuclear fission and fusion! Wister, pay attention.” She lowered her glasses and scowled at him.

She raised her glasses and addressed the rest. “So, class, we start with a could-have-been, the United Nations. Everything you see alive throughout this course will soon be dead forever — destroyed by the vicious idleness, the indecision, the behind-the-scenes plotting and downright craven cowardice of the UN. Wister, what are you looking at?”

Heller said, “This grass is standing up pretty good despite the foot traffic. If they didn’t water it with chlorinated water, it would do better.”

“Pay attention, Wister,” said Miss Simmons, severely. “This is a class in nature appreciation, not the use of poison gas! Now, class, and I hope you are taking notes of the important data I am giving you. Do you see that group of men there? I want to call your attention to the smug, maddeningly blithe expressions on the faces of those UN people stalking about the park.”

Heller said, helpfully, “It says on their blue and gold caps and badges ‘American Legion Post 89, Des Moines, Iowa.’ Is that a member country?”

Miss Simmons quite rightly ignored him. “So you must note, class, and note with horror and indignation, the attitude of irresponsibility which prevails here. If these men would only do their duty… Wister, what are you looking at?”

“These leaves,” said Heller. “All in all, these trees are doing pretty good in all these oil fumes from the river. I think the soil is probably slightly demineralized, though.”

“Pay attention to your classwork!” snapped Miss Simmons. “Now, class, if the UN would ever do its duty,

we could end utterly and forever man’s lemming fixation on self-destruction.”

“What’s a lemming?” said a girl.

“They are hordes of horrible rats that go plunging in masses into the sea annually, committing mass suicide,” said Miss Simmons helpfully. “If it wished, in a single, soul-stirring surge, the UN could rise up with clarion voices and cry ‘DEATH TO THE CAPITALIST WARMONGERS’ Wister, what in the name of God are you looking at NOW?”

There were three seagulls lying along the concrete parapet. Their feet were stuck into black blobs of oil, pinning them to the concrete. Two were dead. The third, his feet stuck and his feathers saturated with oil, was still making feeble efforts to get free.

“Those birds,” said Wister. “They got into an oil slick.”

“And I suppose that will make it easier for you to trap them and blow them up with an atomic bomb! Ignore his antics, class. There is always some student who tries to get others to laugh.” A helicopter was coming down the river very low and the sound blotted her voice out.

Heller was putting on a pair of gloves from his kit. He went over and verified that the two motionless ones were actually dead. Then he went to the third one. It feebly tried to defend itself with its beak.

Kneeling, Heller got a small spray out of his haversack. By Gods, he skirted on the edges of real Code breaks: it said Solvent 564, Fleet Supply Base 14 right on it in Voltarian! I made a note of it. Somebody might notice!

He took out a redstar engineer’s rag and protected the bird’s eyes and air holes and rapidly sprayed its feathers. Of course, the oil vanished.

Then he unstuck its feet, wiped them off and sprayed them. He inspected the bird, found a couple of spots he had missed and handled those. He was always so maddeningly neat!

He took out a water bottle and filled the cap. The bird, head loose by now, started to strike, then thought better of it and took some water from the cap. The bird did it several times.

“You were dehydrated,” said Heller. “It’s the hot sun. Now take a few more sips.” What a fool. He was talking to it in Voltarian and it was an Earth bird!

Then he took out half a sandwich and broke it up and laid it on the grass. The bird stretched its wings, doubtless with some surprise. It was going to fly away but saw the sandwich and decided to have lunch first.

“Now, that’s a good bird,” said Heller. “You stay away from that black stuff. It’s oil, understand? Petroleum!”

The bird let out some kind of a squawk and went on eating the sandwich. I don’t know why it squawked. It couldn’t understand Voltarian.

Heller looked around. Of course, the Nature Appreciation class was gone. Heller listened intently. He heard nothing. He did a fast scout.

And then he was sniffing. What the Hells was he sniffing about?

He glanced back. The seagull was just taking off. It sailed by him and curved outward over the river and was gone.

Sniffing some more, Heller trotted ahead and was shortly in the reception center of the General Assembly Building, according to the signs. There was even an information sign but he didn’t approach it.

He seemed to find the place very curious. The light was coming through the walls from outside in a translucent effect. He went over to a wall and examined it to find out why, probably.

He went over into the Assembly Hall and there was the class.

Miss Simmons was lecturing. “…and here it is that the delegates could rise with one voice and in stentorian and noble tones denounce nuclear weapons forever. But alas, they do not. The men who occupy this place are silenced by their own fears. They cower…”

Heller was examining some marble.

The class trailed out on Miss Simmons’ heels and, with her still lecturing and totally ignoring the guide who seemed to have attached himself to the party, went into the Conference Building and were shortly in the gallery of a chamber labelled:

They gazed across the two hundred or so empty public seats — for, of course, nothing was in session and would not be for another couple of weeks — and Miss Simmons continued her lecture. “…And so we come at last to the lair of the powerful few who, even if the General Assembly did act, this fifteen-nation body would veto any sensible ban proposed. The five permanent members — United States, France, United Kingdom, Russia and China — each have the right to turn down, individually, the anguished pleas of all the peoples of the Earth! They block any effort anyone makes to outlaw nuclear power and disarm the world! Greed, lust for power, megalomania and paranoia cause these self-anointed few to surge onward and onward, closer and closer to the brink.”

Heller had been admiring the gold and blue hangings and a mural. But at her last words, he spoke sharply. “Who keeps preventing a solution?”

Miss Simmons spoke out with a clarion voice of her own. “The Russian traitors who have sold out the revolution and asserted themselves the tyrants of the proletariat! Who asked that question? It was a very good one!”

“Wister did,” said a girl.

“Oh, you again! Wister, stop disturbing the class!” Miss Simmons led them back outside.

Heller’s eyes lingered on a huge statue of a muscular figure that was putting a lot of effort into something.

Heller asked, “What is that statue doing?”

Miss Simmons said, “That is a Russian statue. It is a worker being forced to beat a plowshare into a sword. It personifies the betrayal of the proletariat.” She had looked back, moving her glasses off her eyes to see. “Ah, that was a good question, George.”

Wister was looking around to see who George was and so were the other students.

She had gathered them together under the Statue of Peace. “Now, today, students, was just a start, an effort to orient this course for you. But I will review why we started here, so pay very close attention.

“All that you will see in our future Sundays of Nature Appreciation is doomed by nuclear war. It will make it far more poignant for you, as you admire the beauties of nature, to realize, as you look at every blossom, every leaf, every delicate paw and each bit of soft, defenseless fur, to realize that it is about to be destroyed forever in the horror and holocaust of thermonuclear war!”

Oh, she was right there! If Heller didn’t win and a Voltar invasion got turned loose, those crude atomic bombs would seem like a picnic!

“So, class,” she went on, “if you do not yet feel, individually and collectively, the craving urge to instantly sign up with the Anti-Nuclear Protest Marchers, I assure you that you soon will — New York Tactical Police Force or no New York Tactical Police Force. Class dismissed. Wister, please remain behind.”

The students wandered off. Heller came up to Miss Simmons.

She lifted her glasses up to try to see him. “Wister, I am afraid your classwork is not improving. You were interrupting and disturbing the others. You were not paying attention!”

“I got everything you said,” protested Heller. “You said that if the UN couldn’t be made to function, the planet would destroy itself with thermonuclear weapons.”

“Weapons made by such as you, Wister. My words were far stronger. So you get an F for today. If your daily classwork is a bad average, you know, of course, that even a perfect, INFLUENCED, final examination won’t save you. And if you flunk this course, Wister, you won’t get your diploma and then nobody will listen to you and you’ll never get that coveted job of blowing up this planet. Small as it is, I do my bit for the cause, Wister. Good afternoon.” And she stalked off.

Heller sat down.

And how pleased I was! Miss Simmons had him stalled. What a marvelous, brilliant woman! Her straight hair and glasses hid the fact that she was also quite good looking. And even though she obviously hated men, I felt a great tenderness for her, a longing to hug her and tell her what a truly magnificent person she was!

My ally! At last I had found one to give me hope in my sea of chaos!

Oh, it did me good to see Heller just sitting there, staring at the grass.

The fate of empires lay in the delicate and beautiful hands of a woman. But this was not the first time in the age-long histories of planets. I prayed to the Gods that her grip on fate would remain tenacious and strong.

Chapter 6

Heller glanced at his watch and it winked 3:00 P.M. He glanced at the sky: there was a pattern of cloud to the north and a stir of wind.

He got up and, at a fast trot, began to cover the long blocks home.

Suddenly he stopped. Something had caught his eye up ahead. Miss Simmons was just disappearing down a subway stairs, way up ahead.

Heller glanced up and down the street. It was Sunday afternoon and there wasn’t anyone about. The usual midtown Sunday desertion. He trotted on. He seemed to be heading for the stairs. It came to me in a flash that maybe he was going to murder Miss Simmons! That is the first plan that would have occurred to me. Apparatus training is always uppermost.

But he passed on by the stairs.

A sharp voice from the bowels of the station! “No! Go away!”

Heller sprang over the rail and dropped onto the steps. He went down six at a time. He burst out onto the platform.

Miss Simmons was standing there, on the other side of the turnstile. A ragged wino was reeling back and forth in front of her. “Gimme a buck and I’ll go away!”

She raised her cane to strike at him. He easily grasped it and yanked it out of her hand. He threw it aside.

Heller yelled, “You, there!”

The drunk looked around. He stumbled and scrambled for a more distant exit stair and went through a steel revolving gate.

Heller fished out a token and went through the turnstile. He walked over to the cane and picked it up. He came back and handed it to Miss Simmons.

“Things are pretty deserted on Sunday,” he said. “It isn’t safe for you.”

“Wister,” said Miss Simmons with loathing.

“Maybe I should see you home,” said the insufferably polite and courteous Royal officer.

“I am perfectly safe, Wister,” said Miss Simmons, acidly. “All week I work cooped up. All week I am mobbed with students. Today the class was finished early and it is the first time in MONTHS I have a chance for a quiet walk alone. And who turns up? YOU!”

“I’m sorry,” said Heller. “I just don’t think it’s very safe for a woman to be walking around by herself in this city. Particularly today when there are so few people about. That man just now—”

“I have lived in New York for years, Wister. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Nothing will ever happen to me!”

“You ever walk around alone much?” said Heller.

“I don’t get a chance to, Wister. There are always students. Please leave me alone, Wister. I am going to have my walk in spite of you or anybody else. Go away somewhere and play with your atom bombs!”

A train roared up, the doors opened. She turned her back upon him pointedly and entered a car.

Wister trotted down the train a few cars and, steadying an automatic door before it could close, got aboard. The train sped along.

I was trying to figure out what his angle was. He lived only a couple blocks away from the station they had just left. She was definitely in his road on his way to a diploma. It would be greatly to his benefit if she were disposed of. The Apparatus textbook handling would be to do just that. Had I found a real ally only to lose her?

The shuttle train pulled into Grand Central. Heller had his eye on Miss Simmons, seen through intervening car doors. She got out of the train.

Heller also went out of the door.

Miss Simmons probably did not see him. She was following directions which took her to the Lexington Avenue line. Heller followed at a distance.

She got to the Lexington Avenue IRT uptown platform. Then she walked way on up the platform to where the front end of the train would stop.

She stood there, leaning on her cane, waiting for the next express.

A young man in a red beret walked toward her. Heller started to move forward and then stopped. The young man was a clean-looking youth. He had on a white T-shirt and it said Volunteer Guard Patrol on it.

He spoke to Miss Simmons. “Miss,” he said politely, “you shouldn’t be riding the front cars or the back cars of a train, especially on Sunday. Ride in the center where there are more people. The gangs and muggers are out real heavy today.”

Miss Simmons turned her back on him. “Leave me alone!”

The volunteer guard drifted down the platform. He must have sensed Heller had seen the interplay. He said to Heller as he passed, “Rapes by the trainful and they never learn.”

An express roared in and came to a hissing halt with a roar and clang of doors opening. Miss Simmons got into the first car. Heller stepped in to the middle of the train. The doors slammed shut and they roared away, lurching and banging at high speed.

A tough-looking drunk sized up Heller. Heller took his engineer gloves out of his haversack and put them on. It was an effective gesture. The tough one promptly staggered down the swaying train to the next car back.

White tiles of stations flashed by, one after another. They rode and rode and rode, all at very high speed through the dark tunnels, the sound a pounding roar. At each infrequent stop, Heller would half rise to see if Miss Simmons was alighting, would see that she was not and would then sink back.

After a very long time, the signs on the tunnel poles said:

Miss Simmons got out. Heller waited until the last moment and then got out. Miss Simmons had vanished up a stairs.

Shortly, Heller emerged into daylight. Miss Simmons was striding along northward. He waited a bit. He looked at the sky. It was overcast. Wind was whipping stray bits of paper along roadways.

It was then I realized what he must be doing: he had probably read one of the G-2 manuals, the one about how to tail a Russian spy. He was simply practicing. He had not read any Apparatus manuals and so he would not be well enough trained to know that he should simply murder Miss Simmons. Having accounted for his actions, I felt much easier. Miss Simmons would be quite safe after all and I still had an ally.

Several picnickers were evidently going home, their hair blown about by the wind. Otherwise there was no traffic.

At least two hundred yards behind Miss Simmons, Heller followed along.

She went some distance. A sign pointed:

She turned in that direction, striding along in her heavy laced boots, swinging her cane, the perfect picture of a fashionable hiker in the European style.

She made some more turns. They were well into a kind of wilderness interlaced with infrequent bridle paths.

The wind was rising and trees were bowing. Some belated picnickers fled toward civilization. After that it was a deserted expanse of thickets and trees.

Heller was closer to her now but still thirty yards or more behind. Due to the twists and turns of the trail, he was usually masked from her. She was not looking back.

Ahead was a vale. The path went down into a long hollow and then turned up at the far end. It was a totally hidden area, surrounded by large trees.

Miss Simmons got a third of the way up the far slope. Heller stepped forward to go down the path.

Abruptly, from the undergrowth around her, six men sprang up!

One leaped agilely into the trail in front of her, a ragged white youth.

A black jumped into the trail behind her!

Two Hispanics and two more whites blocked her way to right and left!

Heller started to go down the trail toward them.

A harsh, cold voice said, “Hold it, sonny!”

Heller looked back to his left.

Emerged from a tree but still behind it stood an old gray-faced, unshaven bum. He was holding a double-barrelled shotgun trained on Heller. He was twenty feet away.

Another voice! “Just stop right there, kid!”

Heller looked back and to his right. Another man, a black, was standing there with a revolver pointed at him, thirty feet away. “We been waitin’ all afternoon for a setup like this, kid, so don’t make any sudden moves.”

The man with the shotgun said, “This is one time, sonny, when you don’t get a piece all to yourself. You can have some later, if there’s any left.”

Excited laughter was coming from the men around Miss Simmons. They were jumping up and down.

She struck at them with her stick!

A black grabbed it and yanked it out of her hand!

The others screeched with laughter and the one with the stick started to dance with it, waving it. The others started to dance around Miss Simmons.

Heller shouted in a strong voice, “Please don’t do this!”

The man with the shotgun said, “Take it easy, sonny. It’s just a gang rape. Some fun for a Sunday. Me and Joe is a little too (bleeped) out to do more than watch, so you just get smart and be like us and maybe we won’t have to kill you.”

“What kind of beasts are you on this planet?” shouted Heller.

“You got any money?” said the man with the revolver. “The big H comes high these days.”

The crowd around Miss Simmons was dashing in at her and dancing back. They were herding her into a flatter place more masked by trees. She was shouting at them to leave her alone.

Heller reached toward his haversack. “Hold it, sonny. Keep your hands in sight. This is a twelve-gauge and both barrels loaded in front of hair triggers. We can get his money later, Joe. Jesus,” he said indulgently, “look at those young devils.”

“Only the raving insane do things like that!” said Heller.

“What do you mean, insane?” challenged the man with the revolver. “Pete there taught ’em himself. He really knows his psychology. And every one of those kids got Grade A in psychology. How could they be insane? Jesus, would you look at how hard their (bleepers) are! Great stuff, hey, Pete?”

“Jesus, look at ’em,” chortled Pete.

Heller was backing up, I suddenly realized. Inch by slow inch he had been backing up. He was going to use a standard solution. He was going to run away! He was smarter than I thought.

The half-dozen whooping young men, getting wilder and wilder with excitement, had herded Miss Simmons into the flatter area. A Hispanic leaped in and grabbed off her hat!

Another leaped past her and hit at her hair. It came loose and showered around her shoulders.

“Yippee!” screamed a black. “Don’t she look wild!”

“Killing a bunch of hoodlums isn’t part of my job!” Heller said. Then he shouted, “Please quit this and get away while you still can!”

“The only ones likely to be killed is you and that (bleepch),” said Pete. He shouted down, “Jesus! Start stripping her! Show me some skin! Oh, man, does this beat Sunday TV.”

Two of them seized her coat, one from either side, and yanked it off her, danced away and threw it aside.

Two more dashed in past her flailing arms and tore at her shirt!

Heller was backing up, inch by inch.

“Blackie!” howled Joe down into the vale, “get behind her and get that bra off!”

“Ah,” sighed Pete in ecstasy.

“Pedrito!” howled Joe. “Get the skirt! The skirt, man! Yank it off her!”

As if in ultra-slow motion, Heller moved back further.

“Heat her up! Heat her up!” shouted Joe. “Grab her from behind and heat her up!”

“Get her down! Get her down!” howled Pete.

Miss Simmons’ foot lashed out at a man. He grabbed her shoe with a surging wrench, and tore it off her foot, laces and all. There was a crack.

Miss Simmons’ face contorted in agony. “My ankle!”

Pete said, “Oh, Jesus, I like it when they scream!”

Inch by inch, imperceptibly, Heller was backing up. The angle made by two tree trunks was closing. He was getting out of the shotgun’s field of fire. In a moment he would be able to escape. Smart.

Joe yelled, “Get her down! Get her on her back!”

Pete shouted, “Strip her total like I taught you!”

Joe let out a sigh. “Oh, wow! Look at that boy paw her!”

Miss Simmons’ voice rose to the tops of the trees. “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!”

A Hispanic was watching avidly as Miss Simmons cried, “My ankle is broken!”

Joe licked his lips as Miss Simmons’ scream lanced through the glade.

A wild-eyed white heard Pete’s shouted order, “Get her begging for it!” He darted forward.

Pete yelled, “Grab her legs!”

Joe jerked as Miss Simmons’ scream tore up from below.

“Let Whitey go first!” howled Pete. “The rest of you have got the (bleep)! Whitey first!”

Heller suddenly dived to the ground!

The shotgun blasted with a roar!

Heller was rolling to his left in a blur of motion.

A revolver shot racketed.

The man with the shotgun was trying to get around the tree which now blocked his aim. He pulled back.

Another revolver shot sounded and a spurt of dirt leaped near Heller’s head.

Heller was rolling further.

A sudden glimpse of a tree. The shotgun man lunged!

Heller’s hands shot out and grabbed the shotgun.

The man screamed, flailing back a broken hand.

Bark leaped from the tree! The racket of a revolver shot!

A sight down the shotgun barrel at the revolver man!

The buck of the shotgun!

The revolver man’s chest spurted red and he flew backwards.

The shotgun man trying to get up!

The swinging blur of the stock. The crack as the stock shattered. The shotgun man didn’t have a face! Just red flesh and bone splinters!

Heller sprang out into the path.

The group around the girl were spread out, facing up the path, crouched and alert.

A white youth yelled, “It’s just one guy! Kill him!”

A black and a Hispanic rushed forward.

A switchblade flashed.

The other four spread out so they could encircle.

Heller’s foot struck the switchblade hand. The knife flew. The man screamed!

A man seen between two others. He had a gun.

Heller’s foot extended like a battering ram. The man’s gun arm crumpled!

A whirl. Another knife! A foot up against the hand. The knife flew into the air!

Heller spun on one foot, the other extended like a scythe. The flat of the foot tore the man’s whole face off!

Gods! Spikes! This was why Heller was wearing spikes!

A knife blade glittering. It slashed down on Heller’s arm and bit.

A foot up toward the wielder. A down kick! The whole chest of the knife wielder ripped open!

Arms seizing Heller from behind. A darting back of Heller’s head, his own arms rising and casting off the grip. He spun!

Spikes stamped against a thigh and, ripping downward, that foot hit the ground. The other foot coming upward.

The whole throat of the man torn out!

A blur of three men trying to get at Heller.

A woolly head. A spiked foot driving at it. The grind of steel into bones!

A Hispanic face. The blur of a foot kick. The whole side of the head coming off.

A man’s heels. He was running, trying to get away.

A rush. A horizontal thrust of two spiked feet. They hit the man in the back. He went down in a skid of leaves. Heller landed upright. Man’s head two feet below the spikes. Down came Heller. The soles were held in a V. They stripped the skin, ears and two huge slabs of skull off the head.

Silence.

Heller started checking them. Five were dead, ripped to pieces. The sixth had his whole chest open. Veins and arteries were pumping.

The man came to. He screamed. He collapsed. The body went into the final twitches of the death agonies.

Heller went up the hill. Both Pete and Joe were very dead.

He walked back down, surveying the scene. It looked like a slaughterhouse. Blood was all over and leaves were churned into red mud.

I was terrified. I had never had an inkling as to why he was wearing spikes. But I knew now. In a primitive land where other weapons were not legal, he had been walking around on his! Supposing I had not known this! I myself might have been a target! Oh, I would stay a long distance away from this Heller if I ever had to talk to him. He was dangerous!

Miss Simmons, clothes torn, was lying there where they had left her at the first shot.

She was propped on an elbow. She was staring at Heller with wide, round eyes.

He went over to her. He tried to get her to lie back. It must have moved her leg. She screamed in agony! She passed out.

Heller examined her leg. The ankle was a compound fracture with a splinter of bone extending from it.

He got a knife out of his haversack, picked up a broken tree branch and quickly made a splint. He padded the ankle with wads of Kleenex he took from her purse and then taped the splints on with engineer tape.

He tried to get her torn clothes together. He got her into her coat. She was still out cold. He found her glasses and put them in her purse and then tied the purse around her neck.

He gave the churned ground an inspection. His spike tracks were everywhere.

Heller looked down at his baseball shoes. They were coated with blood and fragments of bone and flesh.

He did a tour of the dead men. He chose one of them and took the shoes off the corpse. He took off his baseball shoes and put them on the dead man’s feet. Then he pulled on those of the dead man.

It was a bad sign. He had already been reading G-2 manuals, obviously. As I feared, it was likely to make my work that much harder!

After a bit of search, he found Miss Simmons’ stick. He went over the scene again — and a gory scene it was, there under the darkening sky, wind now tugging at the hair and clothing of the dead.

He picked up Miss Simmons and looked around again to make sure there was nothing left, apparently. Then he looked up the hill to where the shotgun man still lay, partially in view.

“I wish you’d listened,” he said. “I’m not here to punish anybody.” He looked down at Miss Simmons’ face. She was out cold. Then he looked up at the scudding sky and in Voltarian said, “Is this planet inhabited by a Godsless people? Has some strange idea poisoned them to make them think they have no souls? That there is no hereafter?”

Well, that was Heller. Stupid and theatrical. It served his best interests to just dump Miss Simmons and shove one of those abandoned switchblades into her. You could tell he was not Apparatus trained, so maybe G-2 wasn’t going to do me as much harm as I had thought.

Yes. Stupid. He seemed to be casting about for compass directions. Then he began to move swiftly westward and south through thickets and trees, trotting along in a way that seemed to hold Miss Simmons level.

Eventually he emerged from what must have been a vast expanse of parkland. He was soon on some streets.

After quite a distance, a sign loomed ahead in the dusk:

He bought tokens and the person behind the glass didn’t even look at him. He put two tokens in the gate.

He was shortly on a train. It roared along. There were hardly any people aboard. A security guard walked by. Despite the bloody trouser cuffs, the torn clothes on the girl and the splinted ankle, the guard did not even pause as he passed.

Empire Subway Station was there on the white tiles. Heller got off.

Carrying Miss Simmons with no bounce, he moved smoothly along. He was on College Walk. He turned south on Amsterdam Avenue and halted at a door marked:

There were no lights on.

He went across Amsterdam Avenue and walked into what must have been the emergency ward of a hospital.

He waited a bit and a nurse passing through the waiting room saw him and came over.

“Accident,” she said. “Sit right there.”

She went off. She came back pushing a wheeled stretcher and patted it.

Heller put Miss Simmons down on it.

The nurse threw a blanket over her and tugged a strap tight over her chest.

The nurse led Heller over to a counter. She got out some forms. “Name?”

“She’s Miss Simmons,” said Heller. “Empire faculty. You can get the details out of her purse, probably. I’m just a student.”

The nurse got Miss Simmons’ purse and dug out insurance cards and so on.

A young intern came down the hall and looked at Miss Simmons. “Shock,” he said. “She’s in shock.”

“Broken ankle,” said Heller. “Compound fracture.”

“You got a slashed arm,” said the young intern. He was lifting Heller’s sleeve. “Needs handling. Looks like a switchblade wound. Student?”

“Yes,” said Heller.

“We’ll fix it up for you.”

Miss Simmons came to and started to scream.

Another nurse came along with a tray and a hypodermic syringe. The intern got hold of Miss Simmons’ arm. The nurse put a rubber tube around the arm. Miss Simmons was threshing about and the nurse couldn’t control the arm long enough to get the needle in.

“That isn’t heroin is it?” said Heller. “I don’t think she’s on horse.”

“Morf,” said the intern. “The purest medical morf. Calm her down.”

Miss Simmons was lunging against the strap. She had her other arm loose. She was pointing at Heller. “Get him away from me!” She struggled to draw backwards. “Get away from me, you murderer!”

The intern and the nurse managed to hold her still. The nurse got the needle into a vein.

Miss Simmons was glaring at Heller and screaming.

“You murderer! You sadist!”

The intern said, “Now, now, you’ll feel better in a moment.”

“Get him away from me!” screamed Miss Simmons. “He’s just like I thought!”

“There, there,” said the nurse.

“Grab him!” screamed Miss Simmons. “I saw him murder eight men in cold blood!”

“Nurse,” said the intern, “mark that she’s to be placed in an observation ward.”

She threshed further. “You’ve got to believe me! I saw him kick eight men to death!”

“Nurse,” said the intern, “change that to psychiatric observation ward.”

The morphine must have been biting. She lay back. Suddenly she raised her head and looked venomously at Heller. “I knew it! I knew it all the time! You’re a savage killer! When I get well and out of here, I’m going to devote my life to making certain that you FAIL!”

Oh, I was so relieved. I had been afraid all this time that she would be grateful to Heller for his preventing them from raping her, giving her the (bleep) and probably killing her for kicks. But she was true blue to the end.

The grimness was still on her face as she went under the full effects of the morphine and fell back.

I did some rapid calculation. She would not be able to continue as teacher of that course this semester but she certainly would be his teacher again in late winter and the spring. She had ample time to flunk him. Or — oh, joy — hang him sooner with a murder rap!

Bless her crazy, crooked and ungrateful heart!

How wonderful it was to feel I had a real friend!

And even if they put her under psychiatric care, that would change nothing. It never does.