Masters Of The Vortex Part 7

Cloud scanned the lobby carefully. Were they attracting too much attention? They were not. They had had to pose for Telenews shots, of course-the Chickladorians in particular had been held in the spots for all of five minutes-but that was all. Like any other s.p.a.ce-port city, Mingia was used to outlandish forms of warm-blooded, oxygen-breathing life. Not counting his own group, he could see members of four different non-Tomin-gan races, two of which were completely strange to him. And Tommie, standing alone in front of one of the row of shop-windows comprising one wall of the lobby-and very close to a mirrored pillar-was intently studying a tobacconist's display of domestic and imported cigars.

'QX,' the Blaster said then. 'We aren't kicking up any fuss. Do your stuff, Vesta.'

The girl sauntered over to the mirror, licked her forefinger, and began to smooth an imaginary roughness out of one perfect eyebrow. Thus, palm covering mouth- 'He still hangs out here, Tommie?'

'He eats supper here every night, in the same private room.' Tommie did not move or turn her head; her voice could not be heard three feet away.

'When he comes in, take one good look at him and think "This is the one"-Nadine'll take over from there. Then sneak down to the chief's suite and join us.'

Vesta, with a final approving pat at her sleek head, sauntered on; past a display of belt pouches in which she was not interested, pausing before one of ultra-fancy candies in which she very definitely was, and back to her own group.

'On the green,' she reported.

'Then I'll go about my business of getting things lined up to blow out vortices. You, Thlaskin and Maluleme, just run around and play. Act innocent-you're just atmosphere for now. Nadine 82.and Vesta, go down to my suite-here's a key-and get your recorder and stuff ready. I'll see you later.'

Cloud came back, however, rather sooner than he had intended.

'I didn't get far-I'll have to take you along if I want to get any business done,' he explained to Vesta. 'Up to now, I've got along very nicely with English, Spanish, and s.p.a.ceal, but not here. We're a long ways from either Tellus or Vegia.'

'We are indeed. I don't know what they do use for an interstellar language here-I'll have to find out and see if I know it yet.' Vesta then switched to English. 'While we wait, do you mind if I zpeak at you in Englizh? And will you ztop me and correct, please, the errors I will make? My p.r.o.nunziazion is getting better, but I still have much trouble with your irregular verbs and p.r.o.nouns. I come, but I am not yet arrive.'

'I'll say you're better!' Cloud knew that she had been studying hard; studying with an intensity of concentration comparable only to that of a cat on duty at a mouse-hole; but he had expected no such progress as this. 'It's amazing-you have scarcely any more accent now in English than in Spanish. I'll be glad to coach you. What you just said was QX except for the last sentence. Idiomatically, you should have said "I'm coming along, but I'm not there yet",' and Cloud explained in detail. 'Now, for practice, brief me on this job we've got here.'

'Thankz a lot. Tommie's brother, whom we'll call Jim, runs a tobacco zhop here in town.' Cloud had had to explain what 'briefing' meant, and he corrected many slight errors which are not given here. 'A man who called himself "Number One" organized a Protective Azzoziazion. Anyone not joining, he zaid, would zuffer the conzequenzez of a looze atomic vortex in his power plant. When he zhowed he meant buzzinez by exploding one right where and when he zaid he would, many merchants joined and began to pay. Jim did not. Inztead, he ... I forget the idiom?'

' "Stalled." That means delayed, played for time.'

'Oh, yez. Jim ztalled, and Tommie went looking for help, knowing the government here thoroughly corrupt. Impozzible to alleviate intolerable zituazion.'

'What a vocabulary!' a vocabulary!'

'Iz wrong?' Vesta demanded.

'No, is right,' right,' Cloud a.s.sured her. 'I was complimenting you, Cloud a.s.sured her. 'I was complimenting you, 83.young lady-you'll be teaching me me English before this trip is over.' English before this trip is over.'

The cla.s.s in English Conversation went on until the Manar-kan warned its two partic.i.p.ants to get ready; that Tommiej having identified the gangster, had left the lobby, had joined her brother, and was bringing him with her.

'Is that safe, do you think?' Vesta asked.

'For now, before anything starts, yes.' Cloud replied. 'After tonight, no.'

The Tomingans arrived; Vesta let them in and introduced Jim to Nadine and Cloud. The brother was taller, heavier, craggier than the sister; his cigar was longer, thicker, and blacker than hers. Otherwise, they were very much alike. Cloud waved them both into comfortable chairs, for there was no time for conversation. Nadine began to write; Vesta to record.

The Big Shot-Nadine took an instant to flash into Cloud's mind a very good picture of the fellow-was in his private room, but if a dinner were to be on the program it would be later. There were two men in the room; Number One and another man, whom he thought of and spoke to as 'Number Nine'. At present the affair was strictly business. Number Nine was handing money to Number One, who was making notes in a book. Twenty credits from Number Seventeen; 50 from No. 20; 25 from No. 26; 175 from No. 29; 19 credits-all he could raise- from No. 30; 125 from No. 31, and so on....

The gangsters thought that they were being very smart and cagey in using numbers instead of names, but neither had any idea of the power of a really good telepathic mind, or of that of a really good linguist. Each of those numbers meant something to either or to both of those men, and whatever it was-a name, a picture, a storefront or address, or a fleeting glimpse of personality pattern-Nadine seized and transmitted, either in shorthand or by force of mind, or both; and Vesta taped, in machine-gun-fast Spanish, every written word and every nuance of thought.

The list was long. At its end: 'Three more didn't pay up, huh? The same ones holding out as last time, and three more besides, huh?' This was Number One, thinking deeply. 'I don't like it ... Ninety Two, huh? I don't like it a bit-or him, either. I'll have to do something about him.'

84.'Yeah. Ninety Two. The others all give the same old tear-jerker that they didn't have it, that our a.s.sessments were too stiff for their take, and so on, but Ninety Two didn't, this time. He simply blew his top. He was hotter than the business end of a blow-torch.' Not much to Cloud's surprise, Nadine at this point poured into his mind the picture of excessively angry Jim. 'Not only he didn't fork over, he told me to tell you something.'

There was a long pause.

'Well, spill it!' Number One barked. 'What did he say?'

'Shall I give it to you straight boss, or maybe I better tone it down some?'

'Straight!'

'He said for you to go roast, for fourteen thousand years, in the hottest corner you can find of the hottest h.e.l.l of Telemachia, and take your Srizonified a.s.sociation with you. Take your membership papers and stick 'em. Blow his place up and be d.a.m.ned to you, he says. If you kill him in the blast he's left stuff in a deposit box that'll blow all the Srizonified crooked politicians and lawmen in the Fourth Continent off their perches and down onto their Srizonified b.u.t.ts. An' if you don't don't get him, he says, he'll come after you with blasters in both hands. Make it plain, he says, that it's get him, he says, he'll come after you with blasters in both hands. Make it plain, he says, that it's you you he'll be after-not me. That's exactly what he told me to tell you, boss.' he'll be after-not me. That's exactly what he told me to tell you, boss.'

'Me? ME?' Number One demanded. The towering rage, which he had been scarcely able to control, subsided into a warily intense speculation. 'How did he find out about me? me? Somebody'11 burn for this!' Somebody'11 burn for this!'

'I dunno, boss, but it looks like you said a mouthful about having to do something about him. We got to make an example of somebody, somebody, boss-or else-in my book it'd better be 92. He's organizing, sure as h.e.l.l, and if we don't knock him off it'll spread fast.' boss-or else-in my book it'd better be 92. He's organizing, sure as h.e.l.l, and if we don't knock him off it'll spread fast.'

'Hm ... m ... m. Yes, but just him personally, not his place. I'm not afraid of any evidence he can leave, of itself, but in connection with the other thing it might be bad. His place is too big; too centrally located. No matter what time of night it goes off it'll kill too many people and do too much damage. Yellow Castle might dump us instead of trying to ride out such a storm.' 'Yeah, they might, at that. Prob'ly would. And the do-gooders might get some of them Srizonified Lensmen in here besides. But an ordinary bomb would do the job.'

85.'No. Got to be a vortex. We promised 'em an atomic flare, so that's what it's got to be. It doesn't have to be 92, though. We can get away easy enough with killing a few people, so I'd say somebody in the outskirts-53 would be as good as any. So tell 53 his place gets it at midnight tomorrow night, and the fewer people in it the more will stay alive.'

'Check. And I'll take care of 92?'

'Of course. You don't have to be told every every move to make.' move to make.'

'Just wanted to make sure, is all. What do I do in the big fireworks?' It was clear that the underling was intensely curious about the phenomenon, but his curiosity was not to be satisfied.

'Nothing,' his chief informed him flatly. 'That isn't your dish. Now we'll eat.'

Number One stopped talking, but he did not stop thinking; and Nadine could read, and Vesta could transcribe, thoughts as well as words.

'Besides, it's about time for 31 to earn some of the credits we're paying him,' was the grimly savage thought.

This thought was accompanied by a picture, which Nadine spread in full in Cloud's mind. A tall, lean, gray Tellurian was aiming a mechanism-the details of which were so vague that it could have been anything from a vest-pocket flash-pencil up to a half-track mobile projector-at a power-plant, which immediately and enthusiastically went out of control in a blind-ingly incandescent flare of raw energy.

Fairchild!

Cloud's mind raced. That vortex on Deka hadn't hadn't been accidental, then, even though there had been no evidence-no suspicion-even the Lensmen hadn't guessed that the radiation-ist had been anything other than a very minor cog in Graves' thionite-producing machine! n.o.body except Fairchild knew what he did or how he did it-the mob must have tried to find out, too, but he wouldn't give-but this stuff was very definitely for the future; not for now. been accidental, then, even though there had been no evidence-no suspicion-even the Lensmen hadn't guessed that the radiation-ist had been anything other than a very minor cog in Graves' thionite-producing machine! n.o.body except Fairchild knew what he did or how he did it-the mob must have tried to find out, too, but he wouldn't give-but this stuff was very definitely for the future; not for now.

'QX, girls. A nice job-thanks,' he said. 'Now Vesta, please tape the actual facts and the actual words of the interview- none of the pictures or guesses-in Middle Plateau Tomingan. Wherever possible, bracket real names and addresses with the code numbers. Tommie and Jim can help you on that.'

She did so.

When the came to that part of the transcription dealing with 86.Number Ninety Two, Jim stiffened and swelled with rage.

'Ask him if that's an accurate report,' Cloud directed.

'It's accurate enough as far as it goes,' Jim boomed. His voice, deeper and louder than Tommie's, and not nearly as musical, almost shook the walls. 'But he left out half of it. What I really told him would have burned all the tape off that recorder.'

'But they left in that ... that awful one, three times.' Tommie, tough as she was, was shocked. 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself.'

'Srizonified?' Cloud whispered to Vesta. 'It sounded bad, but not that hot. that hot. It it?' It it?'

'Yes, the hottest in the language. I never saw it in print, and heard it only once, and that was by accident. Like most such things, though, it doesn't translate-"descended from countless generations of dwellers in stinking, unflowering mud" is as close as I can come to it in Spanish.'

'QX. Finish up the tape and make two copies of it.'

When the copies were ready Cloud handed them to Tommie.

'Tell him to take one of these down to the Tomingan equivalent of the D.A.'s office the first thing in the morning,' he instructed Vesta. 'The other ought to go to a big law firm-an honest one, if she knows of any. Now ask Jim what he thinks he's going to do.'

'I'm going to get a pair of blasters and ...'

'Yeah?' Cloud's biting monosyllable, so ably translated by the Vegian, stopped him in mid-sentence. 'What chance do you thing you stand of getting home tonight in one piece? Your copter is probably mined right now, and they've undoubtedly made arrangements to blast you if you leave here any other way, even on foot. If you want to stay alive, though, I've got a suggestion to make.'

'You may be right, sir.' Jim's bl.u.s.ter died away as he began really to think. 'Do you see a way out?'

'Yes. Ordinary citizens don't wear armor here, any more than anywhere else, so ordinary gangsters don't use semi-portables. So, when you leave here, go to Tommie's room instead of out. They'll lay for you, of course, but while they're waiting Tommie will go to our ship and bring back my G-P armor. You put it on, walk out openly and take a ground-car-not a copter-to the ship. If they know armor they won't shoot at you, because you could shoot back. When you get to the ship go in, lock the port a copter-to the ship. If they know armor they won't shoot at you, because you could shoot back. When you get to the ship go in, lock the port 87.behind you, and stay there until I tell you to come out.'

Jim, influenced visibly by the pleasant possibility of shooting back, accepted the plan joyously; and, after making sure that there were no spies or spy-rays on watch, the two Tomingans left the room.

A few minutes later, with the same precaution, Vesta and the Manarkan went to their own rooms; but they were on hand again after breakfast next morning.

'You know, of course, that you have no evidence admissible in even an honest court,' Nadine began. 'You knew it when you changed your mind about having a Tomingan voice, not Vesta's, on those tapes.'

'Yes. Communicator-taps are out-violation of privacy.'

'Exactly. And telepathy is worse. Any attempt to introduce telepathic testimony, on almost any non-telephathic world, does more harm than good. So, beyond establishing the fact of guilt in your own mind-a fact already self-evident, since such outrages can happen only when both courts and police are corrupt from top to bottom-I fail to see what you hope to gain.'

'Wouldn't a Tomingan Lensman be interested?'

'There are none. There never have been any.'

'Well, then, I'll take it up myself, with..."

Cloud stopped in mid-thought. With whom? He could talk to Phil Strong, certainly, but he wouldn't get anywhere. He knew, as well as Nadine did, that the Galactic Patrol would not interfere with purely local politics unless something of inter-systemic scope was involved. The Galactic Council held, and probably rightly, that any people got the kind of local government they deserved. He certainly couldn't expect the Patrol to over-ride planetary sovereignty in regard to a thing that hadn't happened yet! ! He wrenched his mind away.

'Having any trouble following her, Nadine?' he asked.

'No. She's just leaving the fast-way now; going into his office.'

Thus, through Nadine, Cloud accompanied Tommie into the office of the District Attorney, saw her tender the spool of tape, heard her explain in stormy language what it was.

'How did you get hold of it?' the D.A. demanded.

'How do you suppose?' Tommie shot back. 'Do we have to come down to City Hall and take out a license to hang an ear onto such a stinking crumb, such a notorious mobster and general all-round heel as Number One is? Public Enemy Num- 88.ber One, it ought to be!'

'No, I wouldn't say that you would,' the politician soothed. He had been thinking fast. Til run this tape as soon as I can take a minute alone in my chambers, and I promise you full and fast action. They've gone too far, this time. Just what, specifically, do you want me to do?'

'I'm no lawyer, so I don't know who does what, but I want this Protective a.s.sociation junked and I want those murderers arrested. Today.'

'Some of these matters lie outside the province of this office, but I can and will take initiatory steps. No one will be harmed, I a.s.sure you.'

Apparently satisfied, Tommie left the D.A.'s office, but Nadine did not leave the D.A.'s mind. This was what the Blaster was after!

Sure enough, as soon as Tommie was out of sight, the official dashed into his private office and called Number One.

'One, they hung an ear on you last night!' he exclaimed, as soon as connection was made. 'How come you didn't...'

'Horsefeathers!' the gangster snarled. 'Who d'ya think you're kidding?'

'But they did! I've got a copy of it right here.'

'Play it!'

The tape was played, and it was very clear that it was in no Tomingan's voice.

'No, it wasn't an ear,' the D.A. admitted.

'And I was blocked against spy-rays,' said Number One, 'so it must have been a snooper. A snooper with a voice. Manarkans are snoopers, but they can't talk. Most snoopers can't ... except maybe Ordoviks. There were a couple of them around last night. Can Ordoviks talk? And Chickladorians-are they snoopers?"

'I don't know.'

'I don't know either, but I'll find out, and when I do I'll go gunning.'

Tommie came back to Cloud's room and her serenity, skin-deep at best, vanished completely as the new tape was played.

'Condemn and blast that lying, slimy, two-faced, double-crossing snake!' she roared. Til call out the ...'

'You won't either-pipe down!' Cloud ordered, sharply. 'Mob rule never settled anything. That's what you expected, isn't it?'

89.'Well... more or less, I suppose ... yes.'

'QX We got something something to work on now, but we need more, and we've got only today to get it Who's the crookedest judge in town-the one most apt to be in on this kind of deal?' to work on now, but we need more, and we've got only today to get it Who's the crookedest judge in town-the one most apt to be in on this kind of deal?'

'Trellis. High Judge Rose Trellis of the Enchanting ...'

'Skip the embellishments. Take both of these tapes to Judge Trellis and insist insist on seeing him at once.' on seeing him at once.'

'It isn't a him-she's a her.'

'Her, then. Make it snappy. And don't blow up if she gives you the brush-off. We're after data. And on your way back, pick up that newspaper editor and bring him along.'

90.

9: Trouble on Tominga