SHAMBLES!
Heller stood up. He got out his hand blastgun and set it to maximum noise. He fired repeatedly into the air! No result! Then he saw through the hedge of tan uniforms that still sought to defend the prisoner that Hisst was crawling toward this end of the room. Heller went over the raised table in a headlong vault. He used his arms as though he was parting waves. The backs of the defending marines were to him. He grabbed down and got Hisst by the collar. He towed him free. He crawled under the table, dragging his burden behind him. Heller emerged back up on the dais. Hisst swung at him. Heller grabbed the man again in a paralyzing grip. He held him by the back of the collar. "I GOT HIM!" shouted Heller in that piercing Fleet voice. "HE DIDN'T GET AWAY!" A Homeview lighting man in a balcony hit him with a spot. The red uniform of Hisst was glaring bright. Eyes in the room turned from battle and swung to the dais. The twenty marines suddenly strung out in front of the split-level of the table, preventing further rush. "THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE!" shouted Heller. "BUT HE CAN'T ESCAPE AGAIN! I'VE GOT HIM!" A sigh of relief came from the embattled throats. The riot was over.
A marine major wound Hisst round and round with chains and then, at Heller's whispered direction, wound them around some more. He carted Hisst off to an upper balcony and put him there with electric daggers pointed at his throat, on display and out of the reach of the crowd. Army casualty teams were going through the hall, handling the injured and picking people up. Heller sat back down in his chair. A voice sounded just behind him. "You just got a sample of what will happen if you try to give Earth an easy ride." It was the Countess Krak. He turned. She had brought Hightee and the Master of Palace City. Heller went down the rear steps to them. He pulled their heads close to his and whispered some urgent instructions. The Master said, "That's awfully short notice!" "You better learn to open up your throttles, Master," said Hightee. "You're dealing with Jettero Heller. My brother wants it, he'll get it!" "I did NOT say I would not do it!" said the wizened old man. "Crown and I have already got a good working arrangement going. I love it." "That's better!" said Hightee. "We haven't got much time. COME ON!" They rushed off, the Countess with them. Heller sat back down in his chair and spent the next five minutes cursing Madison. These people were at overheat on the subject of planet Earth: "Mob hysteria" did not even begin to describe it. He had six proclamations to issue: he had not even completed two of them. The mop-up was still going on. It was all right. He needed the time. He became aware of somebody standing down below the raised end of the table. It was Bis. He was laughing. "That's the first time I knew athletics went with that post," he said. "Giving a reason for the riot and then solving it to stop it is the funniest gag I think I've ever seen. You're a wonder, Jet!" "You want this job, Bis?" "Good Heavens! What could possibly be wrong with it?" "Being expected to kill five billion people including friends is what's wrong with it. Here, I'll give you my tunic." "Oh, no! But I suddenly see what you mean. Can I help?" "Yes. Go up to that balcony and help that marine major prevent Hisst from doing anything else foolish. We're not through with him yet." A medical Army general approached Heller and gave him the casualty figures as though this were a battle, not a conference. Because electric daggers had been set to paralyze, only knockouts and minor injuries had resulted. The general went back to the table. Heller glanced up to where they had Hisst in chains on the balcony, then he surveyed the room. He trusted passions were spent enough for him to finish this second proclamation. He signalled for the cymbals and, when Ihey clashed, he said in a rush, "If you will vote now on the Hisst proclamation as outlined so far, we can conclude this second____________________
"
A violent waving of hands from the rear of the hall was accompanied by a protesting blast of shouts from there. Heller peered, then he sighed. "Yes, Noble Stuffy," he called. "What now?" Noble Arthrite Stuffy, a white bandage across his forehead now, surged once again up to a blank space at the conference table. "Crown, Your Lordship, sir," he said, "just half an hour ago, during the treatment of casualties, we received wonderful news. It greatly influences the sentence of Lombar Hisst." Oh, no, thought Heller. But he said, "Tell me so we can get on with this." "By use of our reporters and our newssheet-building security guards, we have had the great good luck to run down and apprehend the so-called Doctor Crobe! We have him right outside. With your permission we will bring him in." "What," said Heller, "does this have to do with Hisst?" Noble Stuffy took that for assent and, at his signal, six watchmen brought in Crobe. He was no less a funny-looking creature than he had always been: his too-long arms, his too-long legs, his too-long nose as always made him look like a weird bird. But there was something even stranger now: instead of a crumpled captive, he was striding around like he owned the place. Before he could be stopped, he seized a chair at the table, sat down, crossed his arms and announced, "I am in charge! Take off your clothes!" The audience gasped. Heller looked more closely. Those weird eyes! Crobe was either high on some drug or insane-probably both! "We have traced this man," said Noble Stuffy. "He was once employed by the government as a cellologist and was arrested for criminal misuse of cellology. He was condemned to death. He is a nonperson. Hisst used him to manufacture abominable freaks as was earlier revealed. But this was not the end of his career. He was shipped to the planet Blito-P3 and there studied psy-chology and psychiatry. He became an expert practitioner of these subjects and then was used by Madison for his unspeakable projects in the field of PR. It is our understanding that on the planet Earth, psychology, psychiatry and PR are inseparable." "That is all very interesting," said Heller. "But please, Noble Stuffy, I wish to complete this second proclamation." "And so do I," said Stuffy. "With the indulgence of this conference, as an influential member of the publishing world, I wish to propose that Crobe also be assigned to the Confederacy Asylum. And as he is a psychiatrist, supposedly expert in the treatment of the insane, I propose that Lombar Hisst be given to Crobe as a patient." The audience gasped. Then it began to please them. Heller unexpectedly blew up. Always an opponent of inhuman measures, he stood up and pointed a finger straight at Stuffy. "You have no idea of what you are proposing! Psychiatrists use tortures you have never even heard of! They drug their patients and send huge jolts of electricity through their brains to destroy nerve responses! And that isn't all! At a whim, they take a steel probe, push it under the eyelids and scramble the prefron-tal lobes! They have no intention of curing anyone: they are simply making it impossible for the victim to get well. Ever! AND THEY KNOW IT! "Psychiatrists say they do not believe in the soul but they work to destroy any soul a man may have. AND THEY KNOW THEY ARE DOING IT! "I will not tolerate such an inhuman practice on anyone! Not even Hisst!" Then he realized suddenly that he was worsening the cause of Earth. Abruptly he stopped speaking. At the lower level of the table near him, he heard a Domestic Police general whisper to his aide, "See, Earth is so horrible even a seasoned officer cannot abide it!" Heller stared at the backfeed monitors. He had also horrified the crowds. Silently, he cursed. He had, without intending to, injured his chances of creating a better atmosphere for Earth. But he was stubborn and he had his own principles. He sat down. "I will only tolerate this proposal if you modify it. Lombar Hisst will be sent to the asylum and so will Crobe. But they are to be placed in adjacent cells. They are to be held incommunicado: no one may speak to either of them, ever. I will NOT let psychiatry loose in the Confederacy Asylum!" "But Crobe can talk to Hisst?" Stuffy persisted. "Yes, but not touch him," said Heller. "I get Your Lordship's point about not loosing psychiatry in the Confederacy Asylum," said Stuffy. "It would be a disaster. But so long as Crobe is permitted to 'treat' Hisst verbally, I am satisfied. I cannot possibly imagine a worse fate. Thank you." Heller asked the table for assent and received it. He turned to the clerk and helped him complete the second proclamation. Then he sent it on its voyage for the additional signatures above the Emperor's. At his signal, a group of Domestic Police took charge of Crobe. The man stood. He shouted, "You are all suffering from penis envy!" He was still shouting it as he was led away. Another group of "bluebottles" approached the balcony. Lombar Hisst was on his knees there. He was vomiting. The bluebottles gave the marine major a receipt. They slid Hisst into a black sack, put him on a stretcher and bore him away. The proclamation, this time, since who should sign had been sorted out, made the round of the table quite quickly. Heller got it back. He looked at it. Two down, four to go.