Simmons, Miss—A teacher at Empire University who has promised Jettero Heller she will flunk him out of school.
Smith, John—An alias that Soltan Gris uses as a Delbert John Rockecenter employee.
Space Code—See Code Break.
Spiteos—The secret mountain fortress and prison run by the Apparatus on Voltar where the Countess Krak and Jettero Heller had been imprisoned.
Stabb, Captain—Leader of the Antimanco crew that piloted Tug One.
Stinger—A flexible whip about eighteen inches long with an electric jolt in its tip-lash.
Sultan Bey—The Turkish name Soltan Gris assumes in Afyon, Turkey.
Swindle and Crouch—Law firm that represents Delbert John Rockecenter's interests.
Tavilnasty, Jimmy "The Gutter"—Hit man for the Corleone family until killed by Gunsalmo Silva.
Tayl, Widow—Nymphomaniac on Voltar. She had a small hospital that Soltan Gris used when he had Prahd Bittlestiffender implant Jettero Heller with Bugging Gear.
Terb—Apparatus agent on Earth who, with Raht, was assigned by Lombar Hisst to help Soltan Gris sabotage Jettero Heller's mission.
Too-Too—Nickname for Twolah. He and Oh Dear were forced by Soltan Gris to get information on Voltar and courier it secretly back to him on Earth.
Tug One—The spaceship used by Jettero Heller to travel the 22 1/2 light-years to Earth. Heller renamed it the Prince Caucalsia.
Twolah—See Too-Too.
Utanc—A belly dancer that Soltan Gris bought to be his concubine slave.
Vantagio—Manager of the Gracious Palms, the elegant whorehouse operated by the Corleone Family, across the street from the United Nations.
Voltar—Home planet and seat of the 110-world Confederacy that was established 125,000 years ago. Voltar is ruled by the Emperor through the Grand Council in accordance with the Invasion Timetable.
Whiz Kid—Nickname given to Jettero Heller by J. Walter Madison. In addition, Madison has another person acting as Heller's "double" to get publicity without Heller's consent. The phony "Whiz Kid" has buckteeth, a protruding jaw and wears glasses. He looks nothing like Heller.
Wister, Jerome Terrance—Name that Jettero Heller is using on Earth.
World United Charities Mercy and Benevolent Hospital—Cover name for business that Soltan Gris set up in Afyon under Prahd Bittlestiffender to alter the faces and fingerprints of gangsters for exorbitant fees.
Zanco—Cellological equipment and supplies company on Voltar.
451, Section—See Section 451.
831 Relayer—See Bugging Gear.
PART TWENTY-NINE
To My Lord Turn, Justiciary of the Royal Courts and Prison, Government City, Planet Voltar, Voltar Confederacy
Your Lordship, Sir!
I, Soltan Gris, Grade XI, General Services Officer, former Secondary Executive of the Coordinated Information Apparatus, Voltar Confederacy (All Hail His Majesty Cling the Lofty and His Noble Dominions), hereby humbly submit the fourth volume of my confession regarding MISSION EARTH.
This volume has been the most difficult to relate and I must warn you beforehand that it will take a strong constitution to read. The crimes that I have openly and willingly confessed up to this point pale by comparison. The screams and blood are as vivid as if they were now.
That I would be put into the pinched position I am about to describe in this volume is now, looking back, beyond all comprehension.
I am not to blame for what I did. I was driven to it by Jettero Heller. The man is dangerous and the sooner he is found, arrested and killed, the better. I speak not only from experience but from my study of Freud and Bugs Bunny which makes me as expert as any Earth psychiatrist.
Heller's violence is a sexual outlet. He is a classical example of a suppressed Oedipal-id in conflict with a sublimated father-ego fixation.
Look at this brilliant psychiatric analysis:
1. Heller lived at the Gracious Palms whorehouse across from the United Nations. And what does the UN have out in front? Flagpoles. And everyone knows what flagpoles mean. Freud is never wrong.
2. Babe Corleone's Mafia family ran the Gracious Palms. At six-foot-six, she is hardly a "babe." She is a widow and yet "Babe" became Heller's surrogate Earth mother. That's the source of his Oedipal fixation.
3. Heller's infantile behavior was confirmed when J. Walter Madison, that master of PR (public relations—another brilliant Earth idea), was hired to immortalize him. He called Heller the Whiz Kid. The choice of name is indisputable proof.
4. Heller was using a platen code to write reports back to Voltar. A platen is a sheet with holes. You lay it over the document and the code words can be seen and the actual message read through the holes. This is further proof of his sexual aggression. (It's also his underhanded way of antagonizing me. He knows I can't forge his reports without the platen and that I can't kill him until I find it. It's typical of his aggressive nature.)
5. Heller's right-hand man was Bang-Bang, an ex-marine, member of the Corleone family and an expert not only with explosives but guns. Guns are merely phallic symbols to the sublimated super-ego, but Bang-Bang's name is proof enough of Heller's sexual problems.
6. Heller had set up corporate offices that were run by that anti-IRS anarchist, Izzy Epstein. The offices were in the Empire State Building and everyone knows what the shape of that building means. Further psychiatric fact.
7. Heller bought and then converted a large Cadillac to a Voltarian fuel system. He clearly chose that car because of the two "l's" in "Cadillac." Like the UN flagpoles, they are clearly phallic symbols. (And take note that Heller's name also has two "l's," perhaps my most brilliant Freudian analysis and final proof that his criminal nature has a sexual origin.)
Conclusion: Heller is the source of my problems and should be killed with slow torture.
This is an example of how Earth psychiatry and psychology work. It never fails me. I used it to keep riffraff in line like those two bumbling Apparatus agents Raht and Terb.
I also used it on that crazy hit man Gunsalmo Silva when I found that he had been hired to guard Utanc, my one true love. As a wild desert flower from the Kara Kum desert, she would need protection—but not Silva. So I cleverly convinced him to go kill the Director of the CIA, a suicide mission if there ever was one. Then I brought Utanc with me to the United States. That is how you use psychology for your benefit.
The trip to the U.S. was quite beneficial. Besides obtaining my phony federal credentials, I met "the Man" himself, Delbert J. Rockecenter. He and his attorney Bury were most grateful that I had alerted them to Heller's plan to produce a cheap, non-polluting fuel. (After all, as Rockecenter goes, so goes the plan of Lombar Hisst to move up from head of the Apparatus to Emperor.)
Due to my invaluable contribution, I was sworn in and had my chest invisibly tattooed by Miss Peace as a Rockecenter Family "Spi," her clever way to code the word so no one else could understand it. Wonderful girl.
Bury introduced me to PR. To stop Heller, he hired Madison, otherwise known as J. Warbler Madman.
Heller had brought a small Voltarian element converter that was capable of producing fuel from virtually any source. He wanted to demonstrate it in his Cadillac in a thousand-lap endurance race at the Spreeport Speedway. Well, J. Warbler got to work.
Madison created a "double" for Heller and called him the Whiz Kid and while Heller prepared for the race, J. Warbler was getting one front-page story after another, with the bogus Whiz Kid challenging racing drivers around the world. He put the Whiz Kid on TV talk shows attacking the oil companies. He got spot ads, skywriting, radio news. The buildup for the race was the biggest thing to hit the media in ages.
Heller couldn't figure out why all the newspapers, radios and TV stations were claiming to have interviewed him. He was working on the Caddy. Besides, with the jutting jaw, buckteeth and glasses, this "Whiz Kid" didn't even look like Heller!
Little did he know the rules of PR! Madison didn't need his consent. And truth had nothing to do with it. The standard that Madison worked on was "Do whatever would make the front page." So he simply created and cranked out one story after another while Heller shrugged and went about his work in a garage beyond Spreeport.
Heller didn't stand a chance. First, Madison got the race converted to a Demolition Derby and Combined Endurance Run with a dozen and a half killers, all screaming for Heller's blood. Second, Lombar had earlier sabotaged the Voltarian element converter that Heller was using as a carburetor. It had only a few hours left, too few for him to finish the race.
But to really make sure Heller was stopped, I followed the advice my Apparatus professors used to give: if you want a job done right, give it to someone else.
I hired a couple of snipers, armed them with silenced, telescopically equipped rifles and dressed them in white to blend in with the snow that had been falling steadily for three days. I rented a van with a nice heater, got myself a good spot on a knoll overlooking the Spree-port Speedway on Long Island, set the buzzer on Heller's viewer to wake me when he rose and settled down for the night.
If the bomber cars didn't stop Heller, a .30-06 Accelerator bullet, travelling at 4,080 feet per second, would.
As I bedded down for the night, I was smiling.
Heller was doomed!
Chapter 1
Heller's viewer buzzed me awake. It was not yet 4:00 A.M.! He must be nervous to be up so early even on this fateful Saturday. Then I realized that the highways to the Spreeport Speedway would be choked with crowds and snowplows and cars. Heller would want a head start.
I had spent the night parked on a hill overlooking the speedway. Despite the freezing outside temperature, the heater had kept the van comfortable. To see how Heller was faring, I pulled up the viewer. Thanks to Voltarian technology, those bugs planted next to his optic and audio nerves would transmit in any temperature.
He was in a motel room. Being Jettero Heller, he spin-brushed his teeth and dressed very neatly in warm, red racing clothes. He threw his kit together. And then, pulling a snow-mask across his face, he went outside. It was a blizzard. You could hardly see thirty feet through the motel parking-lot lights.
He was evidently using the front end of his semi for transportation, for there was no trailer attached to its kingplate, or "fifth wheel." The tractor sat there in its huge metal bulk, exhaust stacks rearing in the air like factory chimneys. The nameplate said Peterbilt. From the size of its cab I guessed it must be one of the five-hundred-horsepower diesel jobs they sometimes, by themselves, use in races. Then I discarded the idea he was going to use it in the race today. It wouldn't be allowed.
He walked around it. Every one of the ten huge wheels wore big chains. They'd be needed the way that snow was falling and drifting through the dark.
He stepped up on a fuel tank step, then onto a higher ledge and unlocked the door. As he opened it and the lights went on, I was amazed: the interior looked like a Fleet spaceship! All upholstered, chromed beyond belief, even a stereo!
He put a key in a lock and hit the starter. It roared into life. He cut down the revs and then turned on the heaters and de-icers.
Opening a seat, he took out a medium-sized ball peen hammer. He dropped out of the cab, went around to the headlights and delicately chipped away the sheets of ice that covered them. Then he tossed the hammer back on the seat, closed the door and trotted off on foot toward a roadside cafe, leaving the diesel to warm, I guessed. He entered and stamped the snow off his feet and I saw he was wearing his baseball spikes. He must be expecting trouble.
There weren't many in the cafe and he got his ham and eggs and coffee quickly. He also bought a huge bag of hamburgers and a gallon of coffee in a thermos with a spigot. Nobody paid any attention to him, though the talk seemed to be of the race and "Whiz Kid" came up several times.
When he paid his check, the cashier said, "You think that Whiz Kid will win?"
"I sure hope so," said Heller.
He trotted back to his tractor, swung up and in and was away. Without its trailer, the big Peterbilt plowed through drifts like they were nothing. He passed a snow-plow on the road.
The big tractor was now going down side roads and I realized his motel had been further east than Spree-port. During a momentary lull in the storm, I could see the roads were jammed between the Speedway and New York, being kept open by all the snowplows on Long Island, I supposed. New Yorkers evidently thought the race was worth freezing to death over. It sure was cold. Hours of darkness remained, yet still the people came.
But there was nobody where Heller was driving. His garages were beyond Spreeport and on the border of the recreation parks. Shortly, the garages appeared ahead in his lights, only dimly seen in the heavily falling snow.
Well before he got to them, Heller turned the Peterbilt tractor around. He dropped a window and began to back toward the garage front that I knew from past observation held the trailer with the Caddy on it.
He was leaning out, looking back. He was within a couple yards of the upswing-type metal door, leaving space to get it open.
Suddenly a flick of movement caught his eye. He flinched his head back inside the cab.
A tall, thin figure in a khaki parka leaped to the fuel tank step, sprang to the upper ledge and thrust a gun into Heller's face!
More sounds. To Heller's right! Someone was clawing at the other door!
It happened so quickly, then, I could hardly follow. Heller must have reached sideways for the ball peen hammer on the seat.
Heller threw up his left hand and hit the gun wrist! The gun flew out of the mitten.
The ball peen in Heller's right hand came straight across and buried itself in the assailant's skull!