Mack Reynolds: Amazon Planet

“Who killed her?”

Teucer took a deep breath. “Evidently, you did.”

“Make more sense, and fast. You’re right on the edge. On the very edge.”

“Look at the shooter.”

Ronny stared down at it. It was an H-Gun. It was his own H-Gun, last seen, dismantled, in his supposed tool kit.

Teucer said, “Tuned to your coordinates, and controlled from the Octagon. Nobody else in the system can use it without blowing themselves up. Except possibly some other Section G agent, fully acquainted with the gismo.”

Ronny looked at him for a long moment. “Who are you working under?” he said finally.

“Supervisor Lee Chang Ghu. And you?”

“Sid Jakes.”

Teucer said, “I thought I made you, there at Heliopolis Street, but I didn’t have time for identification. What happened to you there? I thought you were following me.”

“I got hung up. I didn’t have much of an idea of what was going on at that time.”

“I could see you didn’t,” Teucer said.

“Have you got your badge?”

The slightly built man reached into his belt and brought forth a wallet. He flicked it open. There was a badge inside that gleamed silver when he touched it with his finger, and read simply, Matt Halloday, Section G, Bureau of Investigation .

“Where’s yours?” Teucer said.

“I didn’t dare bring it,” Ronny said. “We knew how thoroughly I’d be searched when they found it was a man wanting to land on Amazonia, rather than the girl the visa was issued to. My name’s Bronston.”

“I’ve heard about the work you did on Phyrgia,” Matt Halloday nodded.

Podner Bates had gone into the bedroom and returned now with a sheet which he draped over the dead girl. He looked at the others. “What are you two talking about?”

They ignored him.

Ronny said, “What’s this about me killing…my wife?”

“Your wife !” the other Section G operative blurted, but then went on. “When I got here, on the off-chance I might find you with this Patricia O’Gara, Minythyia was like that. A few minutes to live. I’ve seen H-Gun wounds before…so have you. The gun was on the floor beside her. What happens when she’s found and the hippolytes’ people come in? You’ll get the credit.”

“But why…!”

Halloday looked around the small apartment. “I wish there was a drink around this place.”

“I’ll go round up a bottle,” Podner Bates said.

Ronny looked at him. “Like curd, you will. You stay here with us. We’re going to need some answers, and quickly.”

The actor looked him in the eye. “I’m on your side, gentlemen. I was a friend of Minythyia’s. It was she who brought me into this game, this masquerade. I know neither of you killed her. I don’t know who possibly could have. There is no crime on Amazonia. This is unprecedented.”

“No crime!” Ronny blurted his rage.

Podner looked at him, shaking his head. “Unless you count crime deeds performed by mentally upset persons. We deal with such, of course, in our hospitals. We have no police, no criminal courts, no jails.” He added bitterly. “And no need of them save when we are invaded by strangers from over-space.”

Ronny turned to Matt Halloday. “I’m surprised we didn’t know about each other’s presence here on Amazonia. What’s your assignment?”

“To track down a defecter. A Section G operative who decided to leave the service.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“He didn’t bother to go through the usual process of submitting to memorywash, and to turn in such items as his Model H shooter, his badge and his communicator.”

Ronny Bronston waited for more.

Halloday said, “He’d been stationed on Palermo. He must have gotten together with some of the old Maffeo outfit, remnants of the administration we were instrumental in overthrowing.”

“I worked on that,” Ronny nodded.

“I know you did. At any rate, the boys evidently struck upon the biggest attempted romp in the history of crime. They weren’t interested in anything short of taking over a whole planet, an advanced one at that. Why, next to these stutes, Ghengis Khan, Tamerlane and Alexander were all cloddies.”

He went on. “You see, somehow or other they’d hit upon the true nature of this planet, Amazonia. They must have decided it was a plum just waiting for the picking. A whole world…all but defenseless.”

Ronny had some questions, then and there, but he didn’t interrupt.

“The Maffeo gang couldn’t have swung it themselves, but with the aid of Damon Kane—”

“Who?”

“Our Section G turncoat. With his help they figured it all out. They had a small spacescout, hidden away from the days when they dominated Palermo. That enabled them to transfer their forces from Palermo to Amazonia. Later on, it was also used to bring Alfredo Verrocchio back from Earth, where you had met him.”

“Alfredo Verrocchio?” Ronny scowled.

“You knew him as Sarpedon. Supposedly a citizen of Amazonia. You and Zeke talked about him.”

“Sarpedon! He disappeared.”

The other Section G operative nodded. “That was all part of the plot they were building up against Amazonia’s government, in the eyes of the Bureau of Investigation. It looked as though the Amazonian Embassy to United Planets must have done away with him. Actually, he was simply picked up by their spacescout and brought back here again.”

Ronny said slowly, “His fling had been that all males were being exploited here, and that United Planets should intervene.”

Podner Bates laughed sourly at that.

Halloday went on. “I’m not sure of details, of course. The part that interested me was getting Damon Kane before he could spill too much of the inside workings of Section G. I was far too late, of course. The very essence of their scheme involved such secrets.”

“I still don’t quite get it,” Ronny said.

“Damon and Alfredo Verrocchio and their gang were working on the old saying that there is as much wealth to be made in the collapse of a civilization as there is in the building. And they were working on Kane’s knowledge that when Section G comes upon a world that is supposedly being held back by some restrictive governmental, religious or socieconomic system, it takes secret steps to overthrow such a government. Once again, I don’t know all the details, but their basic plan was to organize their outfit which they dubbed the Sons of Liberty, and project it as a farflung, militant organization, capable and desirous of taking over the reins of government once the Hippolyte on Paphlagonia and the Myrine in Lybia had been overthrown. Actually, they really had only a handful of malcontents, romantics and crackpots.”

Ronny said, “How many members are there in this supposed revolutionary movement?”

“I don’t know. But I doubt if there’s more than a couple of thousand on both continents.”

Podner said in puzzlement, “This is all new to me. I’ve never even heard of the Sons of Liberty.”

Matt Halloday looked at him. “I doubt if many have. They wouldn’t even approach someone, unless they already knew he was a misfit who couldn’t have made the grade under any sane social system. But you would have heard of them, all right, if, through the workings of Section G, they had taken over all news media, the Tri-Di, vi-ziophone and all other methods of communication. How much of a fight could Hippolyte’s outfit have put up against such a coup?”

The actor shook his head. “None. Practically none. I told you we haven’t any police—except, of course, traffic officials, that sort of thing.”

Ronny said, “How many are there of this Maffeo gang which Damon Kane leads?”