The Invaders Plan

Chapter 9

Physically bugging someone so that even he does not know it is not a simple project, particularly when that someone is knowledgeable about wavelengths. But Heller was stupid on the subject of espionage. Complicating the project was the fact that I was determined that not only Heller would remain ignorant of it: no one anywhere would know of it except myself. I wanted no intruders on my private line!

However, my considerable skill as an Apparatus officer could surmount the huge obstacles. In my present mood I was confident I could get it done.

What I needed now was a secret operating room. Hovering at ten thousand feet above the traffic lanes of Government City, I considered it. Then I remembered the Widow Tayl.

Early in my days with the Apparatus, I had been serving on the night watch desk, a routine posting for new officers. A call had come in from the Domestic Police Execution Center to the effect that they had a criminal who was begging to be put in contact with the Apparatus. They sometimes do this, hoping that, instead of being executed, they will be transferred to an Apparatus regiment under a false identity. Purely routine.

I had gone over, somewhat bored, to find a scrawny, quivering wretch in the Awaiting Execution cell block, grovelling around, pleading not to be exterminated. He had been picked up while attempting to burglarize the residence of the Pausch Hills Chief of Police! It was such a stupid act that I didn't think even the Apparatus would want him, but I interviewed him anyway. I told him he was too stupid and he tried to prove to me that he wasn't: that he had done some smart things in his day. So I demanded that he convince me.

It seems that two or three years before he had been robbing an estate on the outskirts of Pausch Hills and, elbow-deep in the silverware, he found himself challenged by a small female holding a big gun. But to his amazement, she didn't call the bluebottles. She seemed glad to see him. She even had him sit down and have some bubblebrew to quiet his nerves.

Apparently she had wanted to be a widow for a long time. Her husband was a retired and invalid industrialist and she was a young female who was the last of a long string of demised wives.

Rather than reside in a hospital where he belonged, her aged but filthy rich husband had caused to be built a small structure on the back edge of the property – actually, a complete hospital in miniature. And there he invalided along in company with a doctor and a communications system that ran all the staff of the main house. No one could move anywhere on the property without him knowing about it or supervising it from his sickbed.

The aged husband had another twenty years to go and his present wife wasn't getting any younger. So she looked on this fresh-caught burglar as something sent from the heavens.

She wanted her husband murdered.

So they arranged that she would go on a visit to her mother's, this scrawny burglar nut would enter the miniature hospital, make it look like a burglary, murder the husband convincingly and she would pay him five hundred credits.

It had all gone off as pla

The stupid fool had gotten no blackmail evidence on her. He didn't have any evidence now. So it was pretty useless.

I was clever, however. I had him write it all down in confession form. Then I went and got it stamped as a deathbed confession and told the guards to run him through the garbage shredder on schedule at dawn. He was too stupid even for the Apparatus.

It wasn't enough to extort money with, but the paper was worth something. I didn't even turn it in as, with his death, all his records were destroyed anyway. One idle day I had gone to see the Widow Tayl.

It was a nice, five-acre suburban estate with a large house up front and way back in some trees was this fully equipped miniature hospital. She was preserving it, a sign on the gate said, in memorium to her dear departed spouse.

I should have been warned when a young man burst out the side door and sped away on his speedwheel when I, in uniform, knocked at the front.

The Widow Tayl heard me out, was glad to be reassured that I really was her friend, told me the place was always at my disposal and tried to get me into the bedroom. No fear there. Just lust. I stayed away from the place.

But now I had a use for it and shortly my driver landed in the back yard target. And there in the trees sat the miniature hospital. And there was the Widow Tayl, scantily dressed, by her swimming bath, deelighted! to see me.

She started to spring up.

The corner of her robe was caught under the chair leg.

The robe fluttered to the pool edge.

I turned brick red.

The Widow Tayl's hand fished for the robe and got it back. A sybarite statue at the edge of the heart-shaped pool was leering as water poured from his mouth. He looked like he had seen all this before.

She had her robe back on now, laughing prettily as she adjusted it.

The Widow Tayl was not bad-looking: she was about thirty-five, a blond with smoky blue eyes. Her lips were too slack. She had two big warts on her face. Under the robe her breasts could be seen as far too sagging, but there was nothing slack in the way her eyes were now devouring me.

She bade me sit down by the side of the heart-shaped pool and a servant who was smirking brought a tray of drinks.

I explained, while we sipped sparklewater, that I had been bribed – she would understand that – to perform a service for a Lord whose name must not be mentioned.

He had a son who HATED women and there would be no heirs unless something was done. Oh, she surely could understand that something had to be done about that!And I explained that a secret doctor was going to perform a secret operation on this secret young man that would alter his attitude toward women. She thought this was an emphatically patriotic action and the place was, as always, at my disposal.

That wasn't all that was at my disposal. We inspected the three rooms of the "hospital." We paused by the bed where her late husband had had his throat so expertly cut.

"You must lie down and see how soft it is," said the Widow Tayl.

I felt my hair shoot up with alarm as I heard her continue. "You will never find a bed so serviceable!" Her naked foot was hooked behind my heel as I tried to go backwards.

Tayl's robe hit the floor.

My right boot hit the far wall and fell with a thud.

A standing lamp began to reel.

A table of instruments was shaking and every instrument on it clattered.

The lamp crashed on the floor.

The double window blew open inward with a terrific blast of wind.

The outer door looked solid. I got to it and put my hand on it to steady myself. I was totally shot.

The sybarite looked like he was laughing as he sprayed out water into the pool.

You have to be careful who you blackmail.

An hour later, flying away from the place, though jaded, I was still cheerful. I had my objective. It even had its potentials: supposing Heller got tangled with the Widow Tayl, Krak discovered it and killed Heller. Lovely thought.

The driver had not failed to notice my disarrayed clothes. He said, "Is that the route I'm going to get rich on? Or did you pay her in counterfeits?" My, he was insolent these days. Couldn't he admit, even to himself, that my personal charm and good looks had anything to do with it? "But she looks like she'd grab anything," he went on.

"Land near a bookstore!" I ordered. I had to keep my mind concentrated on this project. It was intricate.