"Hello!" whispered a voice.
"Spike!" Battle whispered back. "What are you doing here?" He jerked a thumb at the illuminated ground glass of the door and the legend, Double-Action Kettlesnatcher Manufacturing Corp., Lenninger Underbottam, Pres.
"They told me where to find you."
"They?"
"Mr. Breen, of course. Who did you think?"
"But," expostulated the lieutenant, "I thought you hated him and his movement."
"Oh, that," said the girl casually. "It was just a whim. Are you going to knock him off?"
"Of course. But how did you get here?"
"Climbed one of the elevator shafts. The night watchman never saw me.
How did you make it?"
"I slugged the guard and used a service lift. Let's go."
Battle applied a clamp to the doorknob and wrenched it out like a turnip from muddy ground. The door swung open as his two Colts leaped into his hands. The fat man at the ornate desk rose with a cry of alarm and began to pump blood as Battle drilled him between the eyes.
"Okay. That's enough," said a voice. The lieutenant's guns were snatched from his hands with a jerk that left them stinging, and he gaped in alarm as he saw, standing across the room, an exact duplicate of the bleeding corpse on the floor.
"You Battle?" asked the duplicate, who was holding a big, elaborate sort of radio tube in his hand.
"Yes," said the lieutenant feebly. "My card—"
"Never mind that. Who's the dame?"
"Miss McSweeney. And you, sir, are—?"
"I'm Underbottam, Chief of Devil Take the Hindmost. You from Breen?"
"I was engaged by the doctor for a brief period," admitted Battle.
"However, our services were terminated—"
"Liar," snapped Underbottam. "And if they weren't, they will be in a minute or two. Lamp this!" He rattled the radio tube, and from its grid leaped a fiery radiance that impinged momentarily on the still-bleeding thing that Battle had shot down. The thing was consumed in one awful blast of heat. "End of a robot," said Underbottam, shaking the tube again. The flame died down, and there was nothing left of the corpse but a little fused lump of metal.
"Now, you going to work for me, Battle?"
"Why not?" shrugged the lieutenant.
"Okay. Your duties are as follows: Get Breen. I don't care how you get him, but get him soon. He posed for twenty years as a scientist without ever being apprehended. Well, I'm going to do some apprehending that'll make all previous apprehending look like no apprehension at all.
You with me?"
"Yes," said Battle, very much confused. "What's that thing you have?"
"Piggy-back heat ray. You transpose the air in its path into an unstable isotope which tends to carry all energy as heat. Then you shoot your juice, light or whatever along the isotopic path and you burn whatever's on the receiving end. You want a few?"
"No," said Battle. "I have my gats. What else have you got for offense and defense?"
Underbottam opened a cabinet and proudly waved an arm.
"Everything," he said. "Disintegrators, heat rays, bombs of every type.
And impenetrable shields of energy, massive and portable. What more do I need?"
"Just as I thought," mused the lieutenant. "You've solved half the problem. How about tactics? Who's going to use your weapons?"
"Nothing to that," declaimed Underbottam airily. "I just announce that I have the perfect social system. My army will sweep all before it.
Consider: Devil Take the Hindmost promises what every persons wants—pleasure, pure and simple. Or vicious and complex, if necessary. Pleasure will be compulsory; people will be so happy that they won't have time to fight or oppress or any of the other things that make the present world a caricature of a madhouse."
"What about hangovers?" unexpectedly asked Spike McSweeney.
Underbottam grunted. "My dear young lady," he said. "If you had a hangover, would you want to do anything except die? It's utterly automatic. Only puritans—damn them!—have time enough on their hands to make war. You see?"
"It sounds reasonable," confessed the girl.
"Now, Battle," said Underbottam. "What are your rates?"
"Twen—" began the lieutenant automatically. Then, remembering the ease with which he had made his last twenty thousand, he paused.
"Thir—" he began again. "Forty thousand," he said firmly, holding out his hand.
"Right," said Underbottam, handing him two bills. Battle scanned them hastily and stowed them away. "Come on," he said to Spike. "We have a job to do:'
The lieutenant courteously showed Spike a chair. "Sit down," he said firmly. "I'm going to unburden myself." Agitatedly Battle paced his room. "I don't know where in hell I'm at!" he yelled frantically. "All my life I've been a soldier. I know military science forward and backward, but I'm damned if I can make head or tail of this bloody mess. Two scientists, each at the other's throat, me hired by both of them to knock off the other—and incidentally, where do you stand?" He glared at the girl.
"Me?" she asked mildly. "I just got into this by accident. Breen manufactured me originally, but I got out of order and gave you that fantastic story about me being a steno at his office—I can hardly believe it was me!"
"What do you mean, manufactured you?" demanded Battle.
"I'm a robot, Lieutenant. Look." Calmly she took off her left arm and put it on again.
Battle collapsed into a chair. "Why didn't you tell me?" he groaned.
"You didn't ask me," she retorted with spirit. "And what's wrong with robots? I'm a very superior model, by the way—the Seduction Special, designed for diplomats, army officers (that must be why I sought you out), and legislators. Part of Sweetness and Light. Breen put a lot of work into me himself. I'm only good for about three years, but Breen expects the world to be his by then."
Battle sprang from his chair. "Well, this pretty much decides me, Spike.
I'm washed up. I'm through with Devil Take the Hindmost and Sweetness and Light both. I'm going back to Tannu-Tuva for the counterrevolution. Damn Breen, Underbottam and the rest of them!"
"That isn't right, Lieutenant," said the robot thoughtfully. "Undeterred, one or the other of them is bound to succeed. And that won't be nice for you. A world without war?"
"Awk!" grunted Battle. "You're right, Spike. Something has to be done.
But not by me. That heat ray—ugh!" He shuddered.
"Got any friends?" asked Spike.
"Yes," said Battle, looking at her hard. "How did you know?"
"I just guessed—" began the robot artlessly.
"Oh no you didn't," gritted the lieutenant. "I was just going to mention them. Can you read minds?"
"Yes," said the robot in a small voice. "I was built that way. Governor Burly—faugh! It was a mess."
"And—and you know all about me?" demanded Battle.
"Yes," she said. "I know you're forty-seven and not thirty-two. I know that you were busted from the Marines. And I know that your real name is—"
"That's enough," he said, white-faced.
"But," said the robot softly, "I love you anyway."
"What?" sputtered the lieutenant.
"And I know that you love me, too, even if I am—what I am."
Battle stared at her neat little body and her sweet little face. "Can you be kissed?" he asked at length.
"Of course, Lieutenant," she said. Then, demurely, "I told you I was a very superior model."
To expect a full meeting of the Saber Club would be to expect too much.
In the memory of the oldest living member, Major Breughel, who had been to the Netherlands Empire what Clive and Warren Hastings had been to the British, two thirds—nearly—had gathered from the far corners of the earth to observe the funeral services for a member who had been embroiled in a gang war and shot in the back. The then mayor of New York had been reelected for that reason.
At the present meeting, called by First Class Member Battle, about a quarter of the membership appeared.
There was Peasely, blooded in Tonkin, 1899. He had lost his left leg to the thigh with Kolchak in Siberia. Peasely was the bombardier of the Saber Club. With his curious half-lob he could place a Mills or potato masher or nitro bottle on a dime.