Now for the cell itself. It was pretty large, as it was designed to hold about fifteen prisoners. So these stone ledges would have to go. Crobe would have to be forced to study, so in their place I would put tables and shelves for books.
Crobe's sanitation was awful so I designed sprayers and a drain so the whole area could be washed down simply by tripping a remote button, only the bookshelves shutting automatically.
As long as I was designing, I also put in a toilet and running water, though I suspected Crobe would never touch it. However, he could not complain to the Voltar sanitation department that he had been left without facilities.
I then put in a bed. And that was the masterpiece. If Crobe got too active and went raging around, the next time he lay down, clamps would shut and hold him in bed until somebody could come in and gas him.
It was a true masterpiece, as I have said. I looked at it proudly.
"It's going to take about a week to build," said the construction superintendent.
I blinked. What was I going to do with Crobe for a week?
I could not bring myself to change a single line of the plan. "Four days," I said.
"Four days and an additional ten thousand lira," he said.
I groaned. No, I couldn't possibly change this plan. It was too good. Well, who cared. I could always draw more lira.
"Go ahead," I said. "Only start at once."
I dragged Crobe into one of the many unoccupied cells. I pushed him onto a ledge. I laid my weapons handy.
And, amidst the buzzing of drills and the clang of metal in the cell block, for the next four days I stayed right there and guarded Crobe.
Oh, the arduousness of duty in the Apparatus!
All he did for four whole days was lie in his lashings and glare.
Oh, was I glad when at last I could pay the construction superintendent his remaining money for a completed job. I almost parted with the lira with joy.
Four days of glares had gotten me down.
Getting four guards to stand with blastrifles pointed at the still-cocooned Doctor Crobe's head, I worked rapidly.
I got a huge case of spacecraft emergency rations– who knew how long he would be in there mucking about-and threw it into the middle of the cell floor.
Reviewing his language equipment, I made sure it was adequate to teach even an idiot English. I put it on the cell table.
Then, as I had before, I realized there still might be inadequate incentive for him to learn the language. He had exhibited interest in the first two texts. Accordingly, I unearthed whatever I could spare on the subjects of psychology and psychiatry. It was pretty juicy stuff. It included Governmental Psychology, all about man being a lousy, stinking, (bleeping) animal that was so depraved and writhing with unconscious passions he was totally incapable of rational thought and had to be policed with clubs at every turn; Irrational Psychiatry, all about how to cure people by killing them; Psychology of Women, or How to Trick Your Wife and Mistress into Getting into the Bed of Your Best Friend; Child Psychology, all about the techniques of turning children into perverts; The Psychiatrist on the Couch, giving seventy-seven unusual ways to engage in sex with animals; Dr. Kutzman's famous text, Psychiatric Neurosurgery, all about how to end every possible brain function; and Psychiatric Stew, which authoritatively told one what to do with people when they have been turned into vegetables by the latest techniques approved by the Food and Drug Administration. I included lots of other even more vital texts, all standard and accepted material of the professions. They could not fail to entice Crobe into reading English like mad.
I checked the cell carefully. There was no possible way to get out or to get in and there was no way anyone outside it could speak with anyone in it, and vice versa.
I went back, and with the guards standing ready, I burned the knot apart with a small disintegrator and began to unwind the safety line off his head. I got down to his mouth.
Crobe said, "I'll have the law on you for this!"
I was utterly amazed! Here I had saved his life. I had even become a claimant for him and put my own life at risk.
Then I understood: Crobe might be a doctor but he didn't know anything about law. He did not know, for instance, that I could now kill him without his thereafter being able to sue me. Further, if he knew so little about law, he didn't know ranks or how important I was. I recognized that I had better get a book and show him before I unwrapped anything else.
There was a crew library near to hand. I went in. I looked. There was a long shelf utterly covered with dust. Nobody had looked at these books for decades. I blew and when I was through coughing I read the titles.
It was all one series of volumes! More than forty of them, very thick. The title of the set was Voltar Confederacy Combined Compendium Complete, including Space Codes, Penal Codes, Domestic Codes, Royal Proclamations, Royal Orders, Royal Procedures, Royal Precedence, Royal Successions Complete with Tables and Biographies, Court Customs, Court History, Royal Land Grants, Rights of Aristocracy, Planetary Districts of 110 Planets, Local Laws, Local Customs, Aristocratic Privileges and Various Other Matters. Impressive!
I realized it would scare Crobe half to death. I promptly put the whole set on a cart and wheeled it to the new cell and stuffed it into the shelves. Why engage in chitchat? Let him find his own reasons he was being so ungrateful!
I went back to get Crobe. He was glaring so hard, I decided not to take a chance of completing the unwrap there. I dumped him on a cart and rolled it into the cell.
I said, "You will get out of here when you know English and decide to obey my orders!"
I picked up the loose end of the safety line and gave it a hefty yank.
He spun like a top!
Right across the floor.
His body even hummed, it was turning so fast.
I kicked the cart out of the cell.
I locked up the cell door.
I slammed the new armor-steel corridor door.
I spun the combination.
Only I knew that combination. Nobody could get in. Crobe couldn't get out.
My sigh of relief came with a gusty rush. In due time, if I needed it, I had a secret weapon I could send against Heller. At the least sign of resurgence or success in the U. S., I would launch the deadly Crobe.
Until then, he was safe and I was safe.
I looked in through the port. He had untangled himself. He was staring at the bookshelves. And just as I had hoped, his interest quickened. He was picking up Psychiatric Stew.
With a gay and jaunty step, I went upon my way.
Life had taken a new and pleasant upturn once again.
After a marvelous breakfast served by Karagoz and a waiter, who crossed the floor only on their knees, it occurred to me that I had better check up on Heller and Krak just to make sure they were still failing.
With a pitcher of hot sira, I leaned back in a comfortable chair and watched the two viewers.
Heller was doing a whole bunch of figures at his desk in New York. All sorts of equations, mostly chemical. No threat there: he could do equations until the sky fell in and it wouldn't disturb the planet in the least.
I became interested in what the Countess Krak was doing. She was in the secretary boudoir and the door to the office itself was closed. The place was all festooned with cupids prancing around the wallpaper. But that wasn't what she was looking at directly. It was the cat.
She was down on her knees and she was teaching him to do backflips. He was working very hard to get them just right.
"Elegance is the watchword, Mister Calico," she was saying. "Now let's do it again. Saunter along-one, two, three, four-without a care in the world. Then FLIP! Takes the audience by surprise. Now here we go again: one, two, three, four..."