“That’ll do it for a while,” she decided. “I suppose you’ll be too busy to take any time today, but you’ll have to get that sewed up not later than tomorrow forenoon.”
“I’ll do that. Thanks a million, lady; it feels a lot better already,” and Seaton bent over to pick up his shirt and undershirt. .
“But you can’t wear those bloody rags!” she protested, then went on, ” — But I don’t know of anything else around here that you can wear, at that.”
Seaton grinned. “No quandary — I’ll go the way I am. Costume or the lack of it isn’t important at the moment.”
He glanced at his watch and was surprised to see how very few minutes had elapsed.
“Shall I go now, sir?”
“Not yet.” Seaton was used to making fast decisions, and they were usually right. He made one now. “I take it you were that ape’s confidential secretary.”
“Yes, sir, I was.”
“So you know more about the actual workings of the department than he does and can run it as well. To make a snap judgment, can run it better than he has been running it.”
“Much better, sir,” she said, flatly. “I’ve covered up for his drunken blunderings twice in the last two months. He passed the buck to me and I took it. A few lashes are much better than what he revels in doing to people; especially since he can’t touch me now. He knows that after taking his floggings I’d go under hypnosis and tell everything I know about him if he tried to lay a finger on me.”
“Lashes? Floggings? I see.” Seaton’s face hardened. “Okay, you’re it.” He took a badge out of his pocket, slid its slip out of its holder, and handed the slip to Kay-Lee. “Type on this your name and his rating and title and turn your recorder on.”
She did so. He glanced at the slip, replaced it in its holder, and pinned the badge in place just above the girl’s boldly outstanding left breast. “I, Ky-El Mokak, acting for and with the authority of Premier Ree-Toe Prenk, hereby make you, Kay-Lee Barlo, an Exalted of the Twenty-Sixth and appoint you Head of the Department of Public Works. I hereby charge you, Your Exalted, to so operate your department as to prevent, not to cause, the destruction of persons and of property by those enemies of all mankind the Chlorans.” He stepped to the desk; cut the recorder off.
For the first time, the girl’s taut self-control was broken. “Do you mean I can actually clean this pig-sty up?” she demanded, tears welling into her eyes. “That you actually want me to clean it up?”
“Just that. You’ll be briefed at a meeting of the new department heads late this afternoon. In the meantime start your house-cleaning as soon as you like after your people get back from lunch; and I don’t have to tell you how to act. Have you got or can you get a good hand-gun?”
“Yes, sir; there’s a very good one — his — in his desk. I was trying to get up nerve enough to ask for it.”
“It’s yours as of now. Can you use it? That’s probably a foolish question.”
“I’ll say I can use it! I made Pistol Expert One when I was eleven and I’ve been improving ever since.”
“Fine!” He glanced again at his watch. “Go get it, be sure it’s loaded, buckle it on and wear it. Show your badge, play the recording and lay down the law. If there’s any argument, shoot to kill. We aren’t fooling.” He glanced at the prisoner. “He’ll be out of your way. I’m taking him downstairs pretty soon to answer some questions.”
“I — I thank you, sir. I can’t tell you how much. But you — I mean… well, I—” the girl was a study in mixed emotions. Her nostrils flared and her whole body was tense with the beyond-imagining thrill of what had just occurred;. but at the same time she was so acutely embarrassed that she could scarcely talk. “I want to tell you, sir, that I wasn’t trying to curry…” She broke off in confusion and gulped twice.
“Curry? I know you weren’t. You aren’t the toadying type. That’s one reason you got it — but just a second.”
He looked again at his watch and did not put it down; but in a few seconds raised the ring to his lips and asked, “Are you there, Ree-Toe?”
“Here, Ky-El,” the tiny ring-voice said.
“Mission accomplished, including selection and installation of department head.”
“Splendid! Are you hurt?”
“Not badly. Scratch across my back. How’re we doing?”
“Better even than expected. The Premier is dead, I don’t know yet exactly how. All your people are all right except for some not-too-serious wounds. Ours, only ten dead reported so far. The army came over to a man. You have earned a world’s thanks this day, Ky-El, and its eternal gratitude.”
Seaton blushed. “Skip it, chief. Any change in schedule?”
“None.”
“Okay. Off.” Seaton, lowering his hand to his side, turned to Kay-Lee.
She, who had not quite been able to believe all along that all this was actually happening to her, was staring at him in wide-eyed awe. “You are a biggie!” she gasped. “A great big biggie, Your Exalted, to talk to the Premier himself like that! So this unbelievable appointment will stick!”
“It will stick. Definitely. So chin high and don’t spare the horses, Your Exalted; and I’ll see you at the meeting. Until then, so-long.”
Seaton cut his prisoner loose and half-led, half-dragged him, gibbering and begging, out of the room. Almost Seaton regretted it was over; the work on Ray-See-Nee had been pleasurable, as well as useful.
But — now he had his base of operations, unknown to the Chlorans, on a planet they thought safely their own. Now he could go on with his campaign against them. Seaton was well aware that the universe held other enemies than the Chlorans, but his motto was one thing at a time.
However, it is instructive now to see just what two of those inimical forces were up to at this one — one which knew it was in trouble… and one which did not!
20. DUQUESNE AND FENACHROME
BEFORE the world of the Fenachrone was destroyed by Civilization’s superatomic bombs it was a larger world than Earth, and a denser, and with a surface gravity very much higher. It was a world of steaming jungle; of warm and reeking fog; of tepid, sullenly steaming water; of fantastically lush vegetation unknown to Earthly botany.
Wind there was none, nor sunshine. Very seldom was the sun of that reeking world visible at all through the omnipresent fog, and then only as a pale, wan disk; and what of its atmosphere was not fog was hot and humid and sulphurously stinking air.
And as varied the worlds, so varied the people. The Fenachrone, while basically humanoid, were repulsively and monstrously short, wide and thick. They were immensely strong physically, and their mentalities were as monstrous as their civilization was many thousands of years older than that of Earth; their science was equal to ours in most respects and ahead of it in some.
Most monstrous of all the facets of Fenachrone existence, however, was their basic philosophy of life. Might was right. Power was not only the greatest good; it was the only good. The Fenachrone were the MASTER RACE, whose unquestionable destiny it was to be the unquestionable masters of the entire space-time continuum — of the summated totality of the Cosmic All.
For many thousands of years nothing had happened to shake any Fenachrone’s rock-solid conviction of the destiny of their race. Progress along the Master-Race line had been uninterrupted. In fact, it had never been successfully opposed. The Fenachrone had already wiped out, without really extending themselves, all the other civilizations within a hundred parsecs or so of their solar system. But up to the time of Emperor Fenor no ruler of the Fenachrone had become convinced that the time had come to set the Day of Conquest — the day upon which the Big Push was to begin.