Skylark DuQuesne

19. THE COUP

As the days had passed, more and more of the Skylarkers had come to ground in Seaton’s temporary home on the planet Ray-See-Nee; until many of them, especially Dorothy, were spending most of their nights there. On this particular evening they were all there.

Since the personal gravity-controls had been perfected long since, Dunark and Sitar were comfortable enough as far as gravity was concerned. The engineers, however, had not yet succeeded in incorporating really good ambient atmosphere temperature-controllers into them; wherefore he was swathed in wool and she wore her fabulous mink coat. They each wore two Osnomian machine pistols instead of one, and they sat a couple of feet apart — in instant readiness for any action that might become necessary.

Lotus and Shiro, a little closer together than the two Osnomians but not enough so to get into each other’s way, sat cross-legged on the floor. He was listening intently, while she wasn’t. Almost everything that was being said was going completely over her head.

Dorothy, Margaret, and Crane sat around a small table, fingering tall glasses in which ice-cubes tinkled faintly.

Seaton paced the floor, with his right hand in his breeches pocket and his left holding his pipe, which he brandished occasionally in the air to emphasize a point.

“Considering that we can’t do anything at all on unmuffled high-order stuff except when an ore-scow is here, masking our emanations,” Seaton was saying, “we haven’t done too bad. However, I wouldn’t wonder if we’d just about run out of time and we’re right between the devil and the deep blue sea. Mart, what’s your synthesis?”

Crane sipped his drink and cleared his throat. “You’re probably right in one respect, Dick. They apparently make a spectacle of these destructions of cities; not for the Chlorans’ amusement — I doubt very much if they enjoy or abhor anything, as we understand the term — but to keep the rest of the population of this world in line. Whether or not the quisling dictator of this world arranged for this city to be the next sacrifice, it is certain that we have interfered with the expected course of events to such an extent that the powers-that-be will at least investigate. But I can’t quite see the dilemma.”

“I can,” Dorothy said. “They have to have a grisly example, once every so often; and since this one didn’t develop on schedule maybe they’ll go crying to mama instead of trying to handle us themselves. You see, they may know more about us than we think they do.”

“That’s true, of course—” Crane began, but Seaton broke in.

“So I say it’s time to let Ree-Toe Prenk in on the whole deal and add him to our Council of War,” he declared, and talk went on.

They were still discussing the situation twenty minutes later, when someone tapped gently on the front door.

The Osnomians leaped to their feet, pistols in all four hands. The two Japanese leaped to their feet and stood poised, knees and elbows slightly flexed, ready for action. Forty-five-caliber automatics appeared in the hands of the three at the table, and Crane flipped his remote control helmet onto his head. Seaton, magnum in hand, snapped on the outside lights and peered out through the recently installed one-way glass of the door.

“Speak of the devil,” he said in relief. “It’s Hizzoner.” He opened the door wide and went on, “Come in, Your Honor. We were just talking about you.”

Prenk came in, his eyes bulging slightly at the sight of the arsenal of armament now being put back into holsters. They bulged still more as he looked at the Japanese, and he gulped as he stared fascinatedly at the green-skinned Osnomians.

“I knew, of course, within a couple of days,” Prenk said then, quietly, “that you who call yourself Ky-El Mokak were not confining your statements to the exact truth. No wilder could possibly have done what you were doing; but by that time I knew that you, whoever you were, were really on our side. I had no suspicion until this moment, however, that you were actually from another world. I thought that your speech to the miners was what you said it was going to be, ‘a shot in the arm of hope’ It now seems more than slightly possible that you were talking about the very matters I came here tonight to see you about. Certain supplies, you will remember!”

“I remember. I lied to you, yes. Wholesale and retail. But how else could I have made the approach, the mood you were in, without blowing everything higher than up?”

“Your technique was probably the best possible, I admit.”

“Okay. Yes, we’re from a galaxy so far away from here that you could barely find it with the biggest telescope this world ever had. Our business at the moment is to wipe out every Chloran in this region of space, but we can’t do it without — among other things — a lot more data than we now have. And we’ll need weeks of time, mostly elsewhere, for preparation.

“But before we go too deeply into that you must meet my associates. People, this is His Honor Ree-Toe Prenk; what you might call the Mayor of the City of Ty-Ko-Ma of the Planet Ray-See-Nee. You know all about him. ReeToe, this is Hi-Fi Mokak, my wife — Lo-Test and Hi-Test Crane, husband and wife—” and he went on with two more pairs of coined names.

“Hi-Fi indeed!” Dorothy snorted, under her breath, in English. “Just you wait ’til I get you alone tonight, you egregious clown!”

“Wha’d’ya mean ‘clown’?” he retorted. “Try your hand sometime at inventing seven names on the spur of the moment!”

Seaton then put on a headset, slipped one over Prenk’s head, and said in thought:

“This is what is left — the rest, you might say — of our mobile base the Skylark of Valeron.”

and went on to show him and to describe to him the Great Brain, the immense tank-chart of the entire First Universe, the tremendous driving engines and even more tremendous engines of offense and of defense.

Prenk was held spellbound and speechless, for this “residue,” hundreds of kilometers in diameter and hundreds of millions of tons in weight, was so utterly beyond any artificial structure Prenk had ever imagined that he simply could not grasp its magnitude at all.

And when Seaton went on to show him a full mental picture of what that base had been before the battle with the Chlorans and what it would have to be before they could begin to move against the Chlorans — the one-thousand kilometer control-circles, the thousands of cubic kilometers of solidly packed offensive and defensive gear, the scores of fantastically braced and buttressed layers of inoson that composed the worldlet’s outer skin — he was so strongly affected as to be speechless in fact.

“I… I see. That is… a little, maybe… ” he stammered, then subsided into silence.

“Yes, it is a bit big to get used to all at once,” Seaton agreed. “It needs a lot of work. Some we’re doing; some of it can’t be done anywhere near here; but we don’t want to leave without being reasonably sure that you and your people will be alive when we get back. So we want a lot of information from you.”

“I’ll be glad to tell you everything I know or can find out.,”

“Thanks. Ideas, first. How much do you think the quisling Big Shots actually know? What do you think they’ll do about it? What do you think His Magnificence the Dictator will do? And what should we do about what he thinks he’s going to do? In a few days we’ll want all the information you can get — facts, names, dates, places, times, and personnel. Also one sample copy of each and every item of equipment desired; with numbers wanted and times and places of delivery. Brother Prenk, you have the floor.”

“One advantage of a small town and a group like ours,” Prenk said, slowly, “is that everybody knows everybody else’s business. Thus, we all knew who the spies were, but the people were all so low in their minds that they simply did not care whether they lived or died. We had done our best and had failed; most of us had given up hope completely. Now, however, the few remaining spies have been locked up and are under control. They and the overseers are still reporting, but—” he smiled wolfishly — “they are saying precisely and only what I tell them to say. This condition can’t last very long; but, after what you just showed me, I’m pretty sure I can make it last long enough. We have organized a really efficient force of guerrilla fighters and our plans for the capital are…”

A couple of weeks later, then, three hundred fifty-eight highly trained men and one highly trained woman set out.

A woman? Yes. Dorothy had protested vigorously.

“But Sitar! You aren’t going, surely? Surely you’re staying home?”

“Staying home!” the green girl had blazed. “The First Wife of a prince of Osnome goes with her prince wherever he goes. She fights beside him, at need she dies beside him. Would you have him die fighting and me live an hour? I’d blow myself to bits!”

“My God!” Dorothy had gasped, and had stared, appalled.

“That’s right,” Seaton had told her. “Their ethics, mores and customs differ more than somewhat from ours, you know.” And nothing more had been said about Sitar being a member of the Expeditionary Force.

Prenk’s guerrillas had infiltrated the capital city by ones and twos; no group ever larger than two. Each one wore the costume of an easily recognizable class of citizen. They were apparently artisans and workmen, soldiers, sailors, clerks, businessmen, tycoons of industry. Nor were the watches they all wore on their wrists any more alike than were their costumes — except in one respect. They all told the same time, to the tenth of a split second, and they all were kept in sync by pulses from a tiny power-pack that had been hidden in a tree in the outskirts of the city.

At time zero minus thirty minutes, three hundred fifty-nine persons began to enter into and to distribute themselves throughout an immense building that resembled a palace or a cathedral much more than the capitol building even of a world.

At time zero minus four seconds all those persons, who had in the meantime been doing inconspicuous this and innocuous that, changed direction toward or began to walk toward or kept on walking toward their objectives.

At time zero on the tick, three hundred fifty-nine knives came out of concealment and that exact number of persons fell.

Some of the guerrillas remained on guard where their victims lay. Others went into various offices on various businesses. On the top-most floor four innocent-looking visitors blasted open the steel door of Communications and shot the four operators then on duty. The leader of the four invaders stepped up to the master-control desk, shoved a body aside, flipped three or four switches, and said:

“Your attention, please! These programs have been interrupted to announce that former Premier Da-Bay Saien and his sycophants have been executed for high treason.

Premier Ree-Toe Prenk and his loyalists are now the government. Business is to go on as usual; no new orders will be issued except as they become necessary. That is all.

Scheduled programs will now be resumed.”

It was not as easy everywhere, however, as that announcement indicated. By the very nature of things, the information secured by the counterspies was incomplete and sometimes, especially in fine detail, was wrong. Thus, when Seaton took his post on the fifteenth floor, standing before and admiring a heroic-size bronze statue of a woman strangling a boa constrictor whose coils enveloped half her height, he saw that there were four guards, instead of the two he had expected to find, at the door of the office that was his objective. But he couldn’t — wouldn’t — call for help. They hadn’t had man-power enough to carry spares. He’d trip the S O S if necessary, but not until it became absolutely necessary — but that office had to be put out of business by time zero plus fifteen seconds. He’d just have to act twice as fast, was all.

Cursing silently the fact that his magnum was not to be used during the first few silent seconds of the engagement, he watched the four men constantly out of the corners of his eyes, planning every detail of his campaign, altering those details constantly as the guards changed ever so slightly their positions and postures. He could get three of them, he was sure, before any one of them could fire; but he’d have to be lucky as well as fast to get the fourth in time — and if the ape had time to take any kind of aim at all it would be very ungood.

On the tick of zero time Seaton shed his businessman’s cloak and took off. Literally. His knife swept through the throat of the nearest guard before that luckless wight had moved a muscle. He kicked the second, who was bending over at the moment, on and through the temple with the steel-lined toe of one highly special sure-grip fighting shoe.

He stabbed the third, whose throat was protected at that instant by an upflung left arm, through the left side of the rib-cage, twisting his blade as he pulled it out.

Ultra-fast as Seaton had been, the fourth guard had had time to lift his weapon, but he had not had time to aim it, or even to point it properly. He fired in panic, before his gun was pointed even waist-high. If Seaton had stayed upright the bullet would have missed him completely. But he didn’t. He ducked and sidestepped and twisted — and the heavy slug tore a long and savage wound across the left side of his back.

One shot was all the fellow got, of course. Seaton kicked the door open and leaped into the room, magnum high and ready. The noise of that one shot might have torn it, but good.

“Freeze, everybody!” he rasped, and everyone in the big room froze. “One move of any finger toward any button and I blast. This office is closed temporarily. Leave the building, all of you; right now and fast. Just as you are. Come back in here after lunch for business as usual. Scram!”

The office force — some nonchalantly, some wonderingly, some staring at Seaton in surprise — “scrammed” obediently. All, that is, except one girl who came last; the girl who had been sitting at an executive-type desk beside the door of the inner office. She was a fairly tall girl; with hazel eyes and with dark brown hair arranged in up-to-the-second “sunburst” style. Her close-fitting white nylon upper garment and her even tighter fire-engine-red tights displayed a figure that could not be described as being merely adequate.

Instead of passing him as the others had done she stopped, held out both hands in indication of having nothing except peaceable intentions, and peered around his left side. Then, bringing her eyes back to his, she said, “You’re bleeding terribly, sir. It doesn’t seem to be very deep entrance and exit holes in your shirt are only four or five inches apart — but you’re losing an awful lot of blood. Won’t you let me give you first aid? I’m a quite competent nurse, sir.”

“What?” Seaton demanded, but whatever he had intended to add to that one word was forestalled by a bellow of wrath from behind the just-opening door of the inner office.

“Kay-Lee! You shirking slut! How much more of this do you think you can get away with? When I buzz you you jump or I’ll cut your bloody—” The man broke off sharply and goggled at what he saw. He was a pasty-faced, paunchy man of forty; very evidently self-indulgent and as evidently completely at a loss at the moment.

“Come in, Bay-Lay Boyn,” Seaton said. “Slowly, if you don’t want your brains to decorate the ceiling. Did you ever see a man shot in the head with a magnum pistol?”

The man gulped and licked his lips. The girl broke the very short silence. “Whatever you do to that poisonous slob, sir, I hope it’s nothing trivial. I’d love to see his brains spattered all over the ceiling and I’d never let them be washed off. I’d look up at them week after week and gloat.”

“Kay-Lee dear, you don’t mean that! You can’t mean it!” the man implored. “Do something! Please do something! I’ll double your salary — I’ll make you a First — I’ll give you a diamond necklace — I’ll—”

“You’ll shut your filthy lying mouth, Your Exalted,” she said — quietly, but with an icily venomous contempt that made Seaton stare. “I’ve taken all the raps for you I’m ever going to.” She turned to Seaton. “Please believe, sir, that no matter who your people are or what you do, any possible change will be for the better. And I remind you — if you don’t want to fall flat on your face from weakness you’ll let me dress that wound.”

“I wouldn’t wonder,” Seaton admitted. “Blood’s running down into my shoes already and it’s beginning to hurt like the devil. So get your kit. But before you start on me we’ll use some three-inch bandage to lash that ape’s hands around that pillar there.”

That done, Seaton peeled to the waist and the girl went expertly to work. She sprayed the nasty-looking wound, which was almost but not quite a deep but open groove, with antiseptic and with coagulant. She-cross-taped its ragged edges together with blood-proof adhesive tape. She sponged most of the liquid blood off of his back. She sprinkled half a can of curative-antispetic powder; she taped on thick pads of sterile gauze. She wrapped — and taped into place — roll after roll of three-inch bandage around his body and up over his shoulder and around his neck. Then she stood back and examined her handiwork, eyes narrowed in concentration.

“That’ll do it for a while,” she decided. “I suppose you’ll be too busy to take any time today, but you’ll have to get that sewed up not later than tomorrow forenoon.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks a million, lady; it feels a lot better already,” and Seaton bent over to pick up his shirt and undershirt. .

“But you can’t wear those bloody rags!” she protested, then went on, ” — But I don’t know of anything else around here that you can wear, at that.”

Seaton grinned. “No quandary — I’ll go the way I am. Costume or the lack of it isn’t important at the moment.”

He glanced at his watch and was surprised to see how very few minutes had elapsed.

“Shall I go now, sir?”

“Not yet.” Seaton was used to making fast decisions, and they were usually right. He made one now. “I take it you were that ape’s confidential secretary.”

“Yes, sir, I was.”

“So you know more about the actual workings of the department than he does and can run it as well. To make a snap judgment, can run it better than he has been running it.”

“Much better, sir,” she said, flatly. “I’ve covered up for his drunken blunderings twice in the last two months. He passed the buck to me and I took it. A few lashes are much better than what he revels in doing to people; especially since he can’t touch me now. He knows that after taking his floggings I’d go under hypnosis and tell everything I know about him if he tried to lay a finger on me.”

“Lashes? Floggings? I see.” Seaton’s face hardened. “Okay, you’re it.” He took a badge out of his pocket, slid its slip out of its holder, and handed the slip to Kay-Lee. “Type on this your name and his rating and title and turn your recorder on.”

She did so. He glanced at the slip, replaced it in its holder, and pinned the badge in place just above the girl’s boldly outstanding left breast. “I, Ky-El Mokak, acting for and with the authority of Premier Ree-Toe Prenk, hereby make you, Kay-Lee Barlo, an Exalted of the Twenty-Sixth and appoint you Head of the Department of Public Works. I hereby charge you, Your Exalted, to so operate your department as to prevent, not to cause, the destruction of persons and of property by those enemies of all mankind the Chlorans.” He stepped to the desk; cut the recorder off.

For the first time, the girl’s taut self-control was broken. “Do you mean I can actually clean this pig-sty up?” she demanded, tears welling into her eyes. “That you actually want me to clean it up?”

“Just that. You’ll be briefed at a meeting of the new department heads late this afternoon. In the meantime start your house-cleaning as soon as you like after your people get back from lunch; and I don’t have to tell you how to act. Have you got or can you get a good hand-gun?”

“Yes, sir; there’s a very good one — his — in his desk. I was trying to get up nerve enough to ask for it.”

“It’s yours as of now. Can you use it? That’s probably a foolish question.”

“I’ll say I can use it! I made Pistol Expert One when I was eleven and I’ve been improving ever since.”

“Fine!” He glanced again at his watch. “Go get it, be sure it’s loaded, buckle it on and wear it. Show your badge, play the recording and lay down the law. If there’s any argument, shoot to kill. We aren’t fooling.” He glanced at the prisoner. “He’ll be out of your way. I’m taking him downstairs pretty soon to answer some questions.”

“I — I thank you, sir. I can’t tell you how much. But you — I mean… well, I—” the girl was a study in mixed emotions. Her nostrils flared and her whole body was tense with the beyond-imagining thrill of what had just occurred;. but at the same time she was so acutely embarrassed that she could scarcely talk. “I want to tell you, sir, that I wasn’t trying to curry…” She broke off in confusion and gulped twice.

“Curry? I know you weren’t. You aren’t the toadying type. That’s one reason you got it — but just a second.”

He looked again at his watch and did not put it down; but in a few seconds raised the ring to his lips and asked, “Are you there, Ree-Toe?”

“Here, Ky-El,” the tiny ring-voice said.

“Mission accomplished, including selection and installation of department head.”

“Splendid! Are you hurt?”

“Not badly. Scratch across my back. How’re we doing?”

“Better even than expected. The Premier is dead, I don’t know yet exactly how. All your people are all right except for some not-too-serious wounds. Ours, only ten dead reported so far. The army came over to a man. You have earned a world’s thanks this day, Ky-El, and its eternal gratitude.”

Seaton blushed. “Skip it, chief. Any change in schedule?”

“None.”

“Okay. Off.” Seaton, lowering his hand to his side, turned to Kay-Lee.

She, who had not quite been able to believe all along that all this was actually happening to her, was staring at him in wide-eyed awe. “You are a biggie!” she gasped. “A great big biggie, Your Exalted, to talk to the Premier himself like that! So this unbelievable appointment will stick!”

“It will stick. Definitely. So chin high and don’t spare the horses, Your Exalted; and I’ll see you at the meeting. Until then, so-long.”

Seaton cut his prisoner loose and half-led, half-dragged him, gibbering and begging, out of the room. Almost Seaton regretted it was over; the work on Ray-See-Nee had been pleasurable, as well as useful.

But — now he had his base of operations, unknown to the Chlorans, on a planet they thought safely their own. Now he could go on with his campaign against them. Seaton was well aware that the universe held other enemies than the Chlorans, but his motto was one thing at a time.

However, it is instructive now to see just what two of those inimical forces were up to at this one — one which knew it was in trouble… and one which did not!