Mission: Earth "Villainy Victorious"

"Mortiiy is not a madman," said Heller.

"He'll do until one comes along," said the Countess. "He is no longer in line for the succession. The whole fighting force of the Apparatus, as we heard when we were on Voltar, is engaged in a full-scale attack to wipe him out."

Heller did not answer her. Instead he went to see Captain Bolz, who was sitting in his ship under heavy guard.

Bolz looked up the instant Heller appeared. "No sense talking to me," he said. "I'm not going to join the (bleeped) Fleet and neither will my crew. We're sensible people. We belong in the Apparatus and we are going to stay there!"

"I am sure," said Heller, "that, with your smug­gling, you find it far too profitable. But I'm not asking you to join. All I'm asking you to do is take back a cargo to Voltar."

"WHAT?" said Bolz. "So all this talk about no more drugs was just wind."

"It will take several days to get your cargo here from New York, so if you will promise to sit quietly and give no trouble, you can go home with it and you won't be in any trouble at all."

"That's fair," said Bolz.

Heller went immediately to Faht Bey's office. He put in a long-distance call to the president of I. G. Barben and you could almost see the sweat spurting back out of the phone when the man realized who he was talking to.

"Now hear me carefully," said Heller. "I want a ton of tablets made. They will be composed of 50 percent antihistamine and 50 percent methadone. They will be shaped and packaged and marked as amphetamines and you will get them to the airport in Afyon, Turkey, by jet within four days."

"A ton?"

"Correct," said Heller. "See to it."

The antihistamine, he knew from his studies, would give a semblance of reaction like amphetamines; the methadone would counteract heroin. If Lombar ran out of drugs, let the Lords withdraw more easily with that. He doubted anyone would detect the difference. It bought time.

He wrote a despatch to Bolz telling him to be on the lookout for it, load it up when it came and go home. And he wrote the despatch with an ink that would fade to nothing in a couple of days.

He found Faht Bey. "How many freighters do you have that will operate?"

"We got the old ones ru

"Good. That's enough. Disassemble the base and load it and all perso

"It will take days," said Faht Bey.

"I hope not," said Heller. "If we do this right and we are quick, we can save this planet."

There seemed, suddenly, to be a thousand details to what had looked like a simple undertaking. Family co

The New York office had to be shut down and its perso

Heller found out from Prahd that there was now a lot of trained Earth staff, including doctors, and that made up Heller's mind. He phoned Mudur Zengin at the Piastre National Bank.

"Make up papers," Heller said, "transferring amounts which have been scheduled for 'company maintenance, Afyon' over to 'hospital and disease-eradication use.' Make them up so they stay in effect pending any cancellation from me."

"That's an awful lot of money for health," said Zengin.

"We're earmarking a good chunk of it for drug rehabilitation," said Heller.

"That's a big job," said Zengin.

"Right. Maybe we can undo some of the damage that's been done. Would it be asking too much to fly the papers down here?"

"Not at all," said Zengin. "I'll come myself."

Krak got hold of Heller. "That Russian spy colonel is still sitting there in his cell. You were holding him in case they needed more when they tried Gris. Remember?"

"Well, he hasn't got a country anymore," said Hel­ler. "He can't be very dangerous. Put a hypnohelmet on him and suppress his memory of the base and let him go."

"It's not that simple," said the Countess. "There's the two little boys he corrupted. They're caving in, nobody can do a thing with them. I had an idea. France has been exporting an awful lot of drugs."

"What's that got to do with Colonel Gaylov?" said Heller. "He was also exporting heroin. From here. To keep the international KGB network ru

"Well, those that commit crimes like that," said the Countess Krak, "will often turn completely around and campaign against such deeds. What I want to do is send Colonel Gaylov to France with the two little boys."

"You must be awfully mad at France. They'd corrupt the whole nation!"

"No, I don't think so," said the Countess. "You see, I've been talking to the colonel and he's absolutely spi

"Of what?"

"To show up in France and use the old KGB network to convince everybody he's the reincarnation of Joan of Arc. I didn't even touch the helmet. He's sure he can be the greatest Joan of Arc that ever lived!"

Heller gave her a sizable draft on the Grabbe-Manhattan Bank in Paris, to be paid out to Gaylov, month by month for years.

When she put him and the two boys on the plane the following morning, there was a holy gleam in ex-Utanc's eye. Standing there in a silver travelling gown, he/she said, "You are an angel and I bless the day I met you. I can in truth say that I was visited by the Lord of Hosts on high. France is about to become the holiest and most drugless place on Earth." And they were gone.

Handling Babe was not quite as happy an occasion for Heller.

He got her on the phone and said, "Mrs. Corleone, I'm terribly sorry to have to cancel out on the wedding you had pla

Babe, startled, said, "She's left you?"

"Oh, no," said Heller. "It's just that things got pretty urgent."

"Oh, I get it. You're going to pull a fast justice of the peace before those nine months and the stork catches up with you. Well, all right, son, Mama understands. Just don't forget to name the baby Giuseppe after 'Holy Joe' if it's a boy, or Alma Maria after me if it's a girl. And get that beautiful countess into bed and resting as soon as you're hitched and you leave her alone until she delivers. You hear me now, Jerome, and don't interrupt. You're not doing me out of a grandchild, do you hear?"

"Yes, Mrs. Corleone."

"And can this 'Mrs. Corleone' stuff. You can't soft-soap your own mother. Get that girl to the justice of the peace quick, you hear me?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"All right, then. And come back when the coast is clear and she can be seen in public again. You're a dear

boy, Jerome, but you sure as hell take a lot of guidance. Keep your nose clean, kid." There was an audible sniff. "I got to run off now, something's in my eyes. Bye-bye, son."

Heller's own eyes, as he hung up, were wet. He doubted that he would ever see her again.

Regulations required that an installation on a foreign planet could not be abandoned without being destroyed. There were many reasons for this: included amongst them was the misuse of such a base for piracy and smug­gling.

Jettero Heller, as a competent combat engineer, did a competent job of setting it up. He used metal-disintegrator mines. These, inserted near co