.
•
•
for acclaim . . . so I show you my best work, sir, in
hopes when you return to that position of importance
your assassin's garb tells me you possess, you will drop
the good words about poor Tedus Nur, in the darkness
below New Chicago."
His face was beaming .with supplication and a sort of
beatific need the likes of which J uanito had never
encountered. But the dwarf had said something Something most important. He had said that Juanito was to be helped, and they had not told the dwarf that Juanita's
mission was all the puppet work it had become. They had
told no one, obviously, for in that way only could they
keep it secret from Juanito. They had told Grice that he
played a greater part in the conspiracy. And perhaps they
had not even told him-perhaps he had spied out the information on his own.
But whatever the case, Juanito was now in the lap of
the information he needed, and he was safe, completely
safe, altogether in the driver's seat.
The dwarf had his instructions, and he had to carry
DOOMSMAN
them out Now Juanito would learn where his father was
to be found.
"What is it you wish to show me, Nor?" a new tone of
authority suffused Juanita's voice. ''Will it lead me to
Eskalyo?"
The dwarf's ridiculous head bobbed up and down on
the spindly, nearly nonexistent neck, and he chuckled to
himself. He threw a flat palm toward the whimpering girl,
chained to the floor, and said, "This girl will tell us, sir.
"I have had her in my Chambers for three months
now, sir. She was sent to me from Ciudad Rosario--I'm
sure they have told you about Ciudad Rosario. A petty
monarchy somewhere in Argentina. She is one of the
household maids or something there, we have never been
quite able to find out what her position was. She was
found in the town of Corientes," he mouthed and mispronounced the name fearfully, "that's on the Argentine-
Paraguay border-"
"I know where it is, Nur," Juanito interrupted. "Well,
what has she said, if she is from Eskalyo's duchy?"
The dwarf looked frightened then, and sheepish.
"N-nothing, Mr. Jackh."
Juanito seized his opportunity.
"Nothing?"
The dwarf nodded dumbly, frightened at the authority
in Juanita's tones.
"A good word, is it? A good word with my superiors,
is that what you want, you slug!" The dwarf's face darkened, and he cringed down and back in a confusion of anger and fear. "I'll give you many words. But none
good. What manner of inefficiency is that, you've had a
woman here for three months-" The period three
months rang true; that was just about the time Juanito
had asked for transfer to the Hi Guard, "-and she has
not yet spilled her data. You are to be congratulated,
Tedus Nur, really congrat-"
.
The little dwarf sprang forward then. But not at Juanita. He ripped a fearful cry from his chest and threw himself at the girl. In a moment he was over her, the
blacksnake bullwhip ripping the air, the sparks splattering
out against the green, glowing walls. Then the whip
arched down and struck her naked flesh, and the �
DOOMSMAN
was a small, stifled thing, all the more terrible for its heaviness and sharpness and shortness.
Even as Juanito started forward, the dwarf struck
again and a third time, so quickly Juanito barely' saw the
movement of the heavily corded arms. Where the lash
dug in, great wide stripes of blue-black welts erupted, and
blood surged up into the troughs like water in a pod.
Juanito caught the dwarfs arm as the third blow landed, and he ripped the bullwhip from his hands, lifting the little maniac and throwing him bodily against the wall.
Tedus Nur struck the wall and fell on his face. The girl
cried no longer; she was unconscious, her hands doubled
into futile little fists.
Juanito took the whip in his left hand, and saved his
right hand for the dwarf. He was intent on beating the executioner as he had beaten the girl, but sanity returned quickly, and the assassin's sharp mind stopped him.
"Fool!" he snapped at Tedus Nur, who was shaking his
head in confusion and pain. "Would you kill the oile person who can lead me to the man I seek? AmericaState needs her alive
more than you need her pain! Get
.
•
•
out of here!"
The dwarf stood up shakily, clinging to the wall which
would not support him He fell again. Enflamed with rage
.
at the dwarfs treatment of the girl, Juanito stepped to the
little man and dragged him bodily to his feet. Juanito
thrust the shank of the whip into the dwarf's hand, and
propelled him from the cell.
As an afterthought he called the executioner back.
"Here! You, Nur. Give me your keys to these chains. I
will try some of the methods of persuasion used at the
School. They are less flamboyant, but I'm sure they will
give me the answers I seek." He took the plate of
lectro-keys offered subserviently by the midget, and said,
"Go to your office and wait for me." Then, "And have a
jetcopter waiting, I may have to return to the School at
once. Do you understand?"
The midget's face was drained of everything by the
fear method. His eyes were lusterless and he nodded his
grotesque head jerkily, like a child.
"And speak to no one about this, is that clear?"
Juanito jabbed a finger at the midget, and thrust him
OOOMSMAN
away without bothering to find out the answer. There
could be only one answer. The midget was conditioned,
as everyone in AmericaState was conditioned, to do what
be was told by a superior representative of the America
State officialdom.
The midget was gone, and Juanito turned to look at
the girl. Yes, she was Ciudad Rosario. For somewhere
along the commingled gene-lines, one of Eskalyo's peoples
had mated with the flame-haired folk of Ireland, and
down those lines had come the opportunity, which had
ended in this girl. Her eyes were the only part of her Juanito could not see, for they were closed, but even under the coating of filth and blood and deep cuts that swathed
her young body, there was no question of her attractiveness. Perhaps not beautiful in the exotic sense of the word, but fair in the traditional sense of fair. Lovely to
behold
even in this pit of evil and death.
•
•
•
Juanito pleged silently to attend to Tedus Nur before
he left the Chambers.
He crouched beside the girl, who was deeply lost in unconsciousness, and slowly began to unlock the chains that held her to the scummy floor. Rats ran for their holes at
the sounds of the chains dropping away. A sound in the
walls was the tap-tapping of another prisoner somewhere
down the line.
The assassin lifted the girl's upper body into his arms,
and slid her up against his chest. She was quite light; they
had
obviously been starving her, in addition to the torture-and whatever extra pleasures Tedus Nur had practiced on her. He swung her legs up, and carried her out of the cell, into the great waiting room.
The girl's auburn hair hung down in great waves, and
her head was thrown back across Juanito's arm, so the
arch of her neck was taut and smooth. He looked at her
face, and it was a sweet face, despite what the last three
months had done to her. Her body showed the signs of
wasting; there were fleshy, fat-lines about her thighs and
hips and waist where she had lost weight and the skin had
left fat deposits. Yet her figure was still surprisingly feminine, and not too thin to be called starved.
He laid her down on one of the great benches for which
there seemed to be no purpose, and looked around for
DOOMSMAN
something to drape over her. There was nothing. The
great hall was empty.
Juanita dug in the linings of his pouch and came up
with a water spot. He took the tiny expansible plastic
container in his hand, and rubbed his palms together
rapidly; the water spot expanded with the friction, and
combined its elements.
In a few minutes he had a plastic bag :filled with pure
water, that tasted lightly of chlorine.
He broke off the drink tip and inserted it between her
lips. At first the water ran down her face and onto her
chest, but then she began sipping lightly. In a moment
she was hacking and choking strangely, and her eyes flew
open.
Yes, they were green, as Juanita had supposed.
She looked at him, and said nothing. He brought the
drink tip to her lips again and she drank greedily. When
she had had her fill, he drained the last of the water himself, and threw the bag away.
"Thank you," she said softly. There was a world of
suffering in the words, and her eyes wen� frosted over.
Juanita nodded. He let his face assume an expression
of sympathy and deep interest. What the instructor of expressions at the School had called "a look to generate confidence in the subject." It worked, of course.
Juanita had no interest in this girl whatsoever. She was
merely another step to Eskalyo, and as such, he would
play her for her worth, and then pass on. He was going to
Ciudad Rosario if it killed every link in the chain; but he
was going. That was the way of an assassin.
"If I carry you part of the way, do you think you could
walk the rest, up those stairs?" he waved a hand at the
huge staircase around the comer at the end of the great
hall.
She looked at him warily. "Who are you?"
Juanita had to take a chance. "I'm Eskalyo's son," he
replied levelly. "I was in the School for assassins when I
was probed, and found out. I've been trying for a long
time to get back to my father."
Her eyes had widened steadily as he spoke till now
they were huge with incredulity. "You're lying," she
breathed,
DOOMSMAN
Juanito forged ahead. "Listen to me. What I say is
truth, but whether you believe me or not, I don't care.
I've killed men to get this far, and I'm not afraid to continue doing it. But I'm going to get to my father, if I have to kill everyone in the world
everyone in this
•
.
•
damned AmericaState. Do you understand me?"
She did not answer. More, she refused to answer; her
silence was an electric thing; it defied words; it defied
him, and in so doing-by mere silence-she infuriated
him.
"Did the dwarf torture you?"
Again, silence. Then, slowly, an infinitesimal nod. A
nod that embodied a great deal of strength despite horror.
"What he did was as nothing to what I will do to you,
if you don't take me to my father." The words were soft
as ashes, spaced as nails in flesh.
Her face drew down in a knot of determination; she
was not going to reveal any more to Juanita than she had
to Tedus Nur.
So Juanita did something to her.
It bothered him to have her break up that way, but
when cooperation cannot be obtained through coercive
means, the assassin is trained to bring it about through
the next most direct. The case had called for insistence,
and even a bit of callousness, and Juanita's training had
responded promptly. When he had revived her the second
time, she was prepared to believe anything he said;
should he have assured her he was the Director of
AmericaState, she would have nodded and accepted him
with a curtsey. But all he wanted was a direction to
Eskalyo and Ciudad Rosario.
"You can't get there without me," she assured him, her
spirit broken, but her position the same as before. "There
are things about the route no one knows outside of the
monarchy. Alld there are checkpoints. You'll have to take
me back with you if you want to get there alive."
Juanita drew his vibro-blade from its slide sheath and
held it under her nose. Immature bravado rang in his
voice as he snapped, "I've been looking for my father for
OOOMSMAN
around. Don't tell me what I have to do."
The girl sucked in breath raggedly, and she slumped
her shoulders. "All right. All right." Weariness rose and
fell like a tide in her voice. "If you don't believe me, then
try and get there yourself. I'm willing to take you; you
say you are who you are, and I'm too--too tired' to
argue, but I can't change it when I say that without me
you won't get in."
Juanito considered. He recognized his own adolescence
in threatening her so openly with the blade. He sheathed
it again, and nodded his agreement. "All right. If you
aren't lying, I'll have to chance it. There's a copter waiting upside, I hope. Just follow my lead, and pretend what I do is the way it is. Don't cross me or we'll both die."
The look in her eyes said she did not care if either of
them died, but she would cooperate. Juanita felt a vague
restlessness in his stomach; things were moving along, he
was getting where he wanted to get-or was he?
"Let's go."
He helped her to her feet, and she refused when he
offered to carry her. She walked ahead of him, across the
hall and around the comer, then up the stairs. She carried
herself proudly, though she was covered with filth and
slime and despite the fact that she was completely without
clothing. Her nudity did not seem to disturb her, and she
held herself high, though the weariness and despair in her
claimed that regal carriage as they climbed. Juanito was
finally forced to carry her the last hundred feet of steps.
When they entered Nor's office, the girl was feigning
unconsciousness.
Juanito snapped, "She has more information than I'm
able to dredge up here. I'm taking her back to the School
where I can use more advanced m�thods on her. Do you
have the copter ready?"
&nb
sp; Tedus Nur was smoking a cigar. It looked like a huge
green protuberance, thrust from his gnomelike face. He
arched his thick eyebrows in amusement at Juanita's
words. "Oh?" and "Is that so?" and "Oh, to be sure, to
be sure, sir," he mumbled and gibed as Juanita spoke.
His tones were ridicule, his movements insulting.
DOOMSMAN
"Welll I want to take my prisoner, now," Juanito used
the same tones of authority as before.
But this time Tedus Nur laughed. His laugh was
compounded of gut-rumbling and spittle and the cigar
bobbing up and down between his fleshy lips. "You smell
bad, assassin. You smell very bad; you smell to me like
an old fish! An old one, Mister Lland Jackh!" he mustered himself on his throne of pillows and burst into riotous laughter. "Smell bad, smell bad, you smell so bad to me. You don't even smell like what you're supposed to be,
assassin!"
Juanito moved toward the door. The dwarf rose off his
pillows. "Oh no!"
Somehow, the dwarf's mind had snapped. Despite his
instructions from SecuritySeek, Tedus Nur had lost his
senses, and was trying to stop the assassin from getting to
Eskalyo.
Juanito whispered sharp words to the girl and she
dropped from his arms as Juanito drew his vibro-blade.
The blade sang in the air as the assassin threw it overhand. It imbedded itself in the dwarfs throat, and carried him back against the wall with its impact. A fountain of
blood gushed forth from the little man's throat and he
had just a second to utter a sharp, piglike squeal.
Only a second lapsed before he died, open-eyed, and
clutching his cigar. Then the curtains at the other side of
the room parted, and Juanito found himself staring at the
bell muzzle of a ten-thread disrupter, on a tripod mount,
with three prison guards-ChiTroop guards-tending it.
He had but a split instant to glean the situation and understand what was going on:
Juanito threw himself forward, even as the gunner depressed the automatic fire stud. Juanita prayed the girl was out of the line of fire as he assumed she was. He was
in mid-air as the ten-thread bolt spread blue beneath his
legs. He sailed over the muzzle of the deadly weapon and
crashed into the three ChiTroopers; They were bowled
backward by the impact of his body, and the disruptor
was knocked sidewise. Its blue beam crackled and spurted