Her weeping was the only sound for several, long mo- ments. Then Lebel, with a strangely constricted throat, said, "You... you made a dead man talk?"
"Stay right there," said Ole Doc, "and you"ll hear about it." He brought up his recorder and promptly turned it on full blast.
"My spies tell me-I have not long to live because Lebel has plans against me. I should never have trusted him. They say he is going to cause the death of everyone in this entire system. I have watched him lately. It seems certain to me that a.s.sa.s.sination is near. I am going to take what precautions I can but he is a devil. I should never have hired him. He is plotting to overthrow everything I have done-"
"Want to hear more?" said Ole Doc.
It was very silent on the other side of the door. The bar hinges were very well oiled. The record kept on going and suddenly Ole Doc jerked the panel in and as quickly shut it again. The bars clanged in place.
Lebel sprawled ignominiously on the floor and Ole Doc"s heel was unkind in the side of his neck. He was a big man but a stamp like that knocks the largest flat and, sometimes, kills them quite dead.
Ole Doc leaned over and knocked Lebel out with his gun b.u.t.t before that unworthy could stir.
When Lebel tried to sit up he was so swathed with satin strips for binding that he could not stir. He was also chok- ing on a gag. He felt uncomfortable.
"Now," said Ole Doc with a gruesome grin, "let"s get down to cases. There is only one thing which could cause death in the fashion I have seen today and that is by extreme fear. Do you follow me?"
Lebel glugged and struggled. Ole Doc thoughtfully fingered the edge of a scalpel and cut off a neat lock of Lebel"s moustache.
"You are either flying over the planets or ground patrol- ling with some instrument to cause that fear," said Ole Doc.
"And that instrument is obvious to me. Why is it? Because the helmet you insisted I use had sound filters in it alive only in the upper range. Therefore it is a sonic weapon. It killed only a limited number of the people it was directed at, therefore it cannot be a common supersonic weapon.
That makes it subsonic, something new and impossible to trace as such.
"I don"t have to examine your broadcaster to know that it must be a ten to thirteen cycle note, below the range of human hearing. Sensing something which they could not locate or define, people were terrified by it, for nothing frightens like the unknown. It probably has a strength of about a hundred and fifty decibels, stronger would literally tear their eardrums and brains loose.
"It was on when I found that girl because enough of it got through to your guards and yourself to make you extremely nervous, even if you did know what it was, and you fell back to your basic fear of being a.s.sa.s.sinated. So you gave your weapon away.
"Glandular disruption in your targets often caused heart failure, adrenal poisoning and other fatal reactions all very solidly from fear, and there is no inquest when people are merely scared to death. The larger percentage of the populace is deserting or has deserted this system by means of pa.s.senger ships. You have probably helped finance that exodus as a public benefactor while your staff doctors ran about yelling news of a "disease"."
Lebel glugged and struggled, angry.
"Now as to why," said Ole Doc, slowly pa.s.sing the scalpel a reluctant inch away from Lebel"s jugular vein, "that is very, very simple. You want to knock off every living person or drive him away from the planets of this system. That will leave you and your guards alone in possession. You heard that the U.M.S. was deeded all the revenue of Fomalton. You discovered that after you had murdered Giotini. Any government you could fight. You were afraid to fight us in any but the strictly legal field.
"You depended upon the law of salvage which says that "any planet deserted by her populace shall become an object of salvage to whomever shall take possession." You thought you would have us there. You would own a rich planetary system by your own galactic t.i.tle, breaking Giotini"s deeds of ownership and "therefore his will.
"You got suspicious of me when you saw the law books in my kit. You were frightened by your own weapon which was even then turned on somewhere in the vicinity and you acted irrationally, scared by self-induced fear. Then you got to the palace and got calm and started to play the game out once more. But advisers got the better of you, probably because they were newly in from areas where your fine terror weapon was working and you became unbalanced enough to actually tackle a Soldier of Light.
"A long time ago a fellow you wouldn"t know named Shakespeare talked about "an engineer being hoist by his own petard". You have somebody on your staff who has done that, to himself and to you. I heard mention of a "Dr." Glendenning who is in your pay. He is probably no doctor but a renegade sound engineer. But let that pa.s.s.
When I take off this gag you are going to sing out to cease all activity and begin instant rescue of anyone left alive anywhere in this system. Understand?"
Lebel mocked him with his eyes. Ole Doc shrugged and went for a hypo needle, dipped it in a bottle and came back.
Holding up the dripping point, very shiny and sharp, Ole Doc said, "This contains poison. It is a fine poison in that it deprives a man of his reason gradually. There is no known antidote, save one I carry."
He jabbed the needle through Lebel"s pants and drove the fiery liquid home. Lebel leaped and nearly broke the point off.
Ole Doc stood back with satisfaction. He went and filled the needle with another fluid. "This is the antidote. If not administered in ten minutes, you will be beyond all recovery."
With this cheerful news, Ole Doc went over to the window, humming a grim tune and stood there looking out a slit, needle upright and dripping.
Heels banging the floor brought him back. "Why," he said, "only one minute has gone by! Are you sure you want to give the order?"
Agony was registered on Lebel"s face. Ole Doc removed the gag.
"Guard!" howled Lebel. "This madman will kill me!
Recall all planes. Cease operations! Stop the agents! Res- cue whoever you can! Quick, quick!"
There was an instant"s hesitation outside the door but Lebel drove them to it again with renewed orders. "He
knows all about it. The patrols from Hub City will come!
Obey me!"
Bootbeats went away from there then and Ole Doc could relax. He could hear shouts outside the palace and turmoil within. They were carrying out orders but they were also running for their lives. They had played for their shares in a great empire and they had failed.
Ole Doc unloosed Lebel"s bonds while the generalissimo regarded him incredulously.
"Go ahead," said Ole Doc, "get up. I am not sure what is going to happen to you finally, not sure at all. But right now I am going to pay back something of what the people in these worlds have suffered. You"re a fine, big fighter.
You weren"t shot with anything more serious than yellow fever vaccine, the burningest shot I know. Now put up your fists!"
There was a renewed turmoil outside the palace gates.
It was occasioned by a big, golden ship clearly marked with the ray rods of pharmacy setting itself down with a smoking wham directly in the street. The vessel was charred here and there but serviceable still and about the maddest gypsum-metabolism slave in several galaxies pressed the grips on the main battery.
The palace gates caved in, the metal curling like matches turned to charcoal. The palace doors sizzled down into piles of slag and puddles of bra.s.s. A luckless company of guardsmen trying to get away from there rounded the turret at the courtyard"s end, got scorched by the flames and heat and made it away with the diverted guns taking their heels off as they ran.
Then Hippocrates, girded around like a pirate and bris- tling with rage, stepped down from the air lock and marched across the yard, walking tough enough to crack paving blocks. He jumped the glowing pools and stalked with horrible appet.i.te into the palace proper.
A guard, running away with a handful of jewellery with- out knowing of any place to run was suddenly hauled up by his belts, suspended two feet off the floor and banged into a pillar. The jewellery fell in a bright shower and rolled away. Hippocrates banged him again.
"Where is my master?" roared Hippocrates.
The guard didn"t answer fast enough, probably because he did not understand in the least what master was meant and was promptly banged so hard that he went into some
other realm, there to serve other men, no doubt. Hippoc- rates dropped him. He grabbed at a second and missed.
Then an ominous sound came to him, the thud of bodies in combat and the breaking of furniture and he plowed his way through a milling throng like a hot knife into b.u.t.ter and found himself outside the Giotini suite.
The door was barred. This was no problem. He blazed away at it at a range no human could have stood and had himself a hole in it in a thrice. He fished one hand through, found a bar and slammed the panels back.
There he stopped.
The bloodiest, messiest man it had ever been his fate to see was trying to crawl up from the floor. He was dripping blood from ma.s.sive contusions. He was dripping rags. He was blind with fair blows and staggering on the borders of beyond. His remaining teeth were set behind lips so puffed that they looked like pillows.
And Ole Doc, standing there with his broken fists still ready, said: "Get up! Get up and fight! Get up and fight!"
But Ole Doc wasn"t even looking at his adversary. He couldn"t see him.
Hippocrates reversed a blaster and was about to knock Lebel out with one smart blow when Lebel fell of his own accord and lay completely still.
Half an hour later, when Hippocrates had his master well healed up, the little slave turned to gather the re- mains of the equipment for a return to the ship. He picked up several items, rendered more or less secondhand by the combat and then laid them down, puzzled.