The Invaders Plan Read Online Free PDF Page A

sat a while, silent. I still did not dare to ask anything.
    "I feel it in my gut it will be taken up at the next meeting of the Grand Council," he muttered at length.
    Lombar slumped for minutes, shaking his head. "It will upset their Invasion Timetable. Yes, I'm sure they will think that." After a long time he roused himself. "Well, we've got to prepare ourselves. I'll put the screws on Endow,* my lordly and asinine superior. Yes, that's what I'll do. Sometimes the 'Lord of the Exterior' has his uses. I don't think I'll have to bring up his last private meeting with that pretty spaceman. No, it won't take that. But I'll have it ready. I put the photographs someplace." He got up to find them and did so. But his moving around had brought me to his attention again.
    With sudden ferocity, he snarled, "You're going to that meeting too! Do you realize, (bleep) you, that you may have upset the whole thing?" I was tired enough to be incautious. I was also tired of not knowing what this was all about. I managed to speak. "Could you please tell me what's happening?" That did it. He loomed over me. He was shouting.
    * The name has been changed. There never was an Endow on the Grand Council. The so-called Apparatus was not under the Exterior Division. – Publishers "They'll read that report! They'll be certain their Invasion Timetable has been upset! Two years ago I told you to be alert and to block and change every report the Patrol Service turned in on Blito-P3. Earth, you idiot, Earth!" He grabbed me by the tunic lapels and lifted me out of the chair. He was really shouting now. "You let one get through!" He was shaking me so hard the room blurred.
    "You have threatened our timetable! To Hells with theirs! You've probably wrecked the entire basic plan of the Apparatus! You're going to suffer for this!" And he hit me across the face with the stinger. Yes, I understood now. We of the Apparatus were in trouble. And particularly Lombar Hisst!
Chapter 6
    It was three nervous days before the Grand Council met and Lombar Hisst made us suffer every moment of it. From minute to minute the Apparatus central staff did not know if they would be tortured, shot or tortured and shot. Nor whether it would be done by Lombar Hisst now or the Imperial Government later.
    The Chief Executive of the Coordinated Information Apparatus would go into hours of gloom and then suddenly burst out of it like a rocket and tear people apart or rush off to have another interview with Endow, Lord of the Exterior.
    Endow even came personally to the office once. I had seen him from a distance but up close I was very unimpressed. He was in his dotage and always had a nurse with him to mop the slobbers from his chin. He was only about half Lombar's size and very fat. He could be very clear for a bit but then he would drift off and vaporize, completely out of it. He had been chosen for his post as a remote relation of the late Emperor's third wife and had been retained when Cling the Lofty had ascended the throne. Endow's appetite for pretty young men was notorious and he was generally regarded with disguised contempt. I can say this now that I am out of his reach. Only Lombar's desires and organization kept Endow in power. On this visit, he pottered around the office while Lombar bullied him. I almost felt sorry for the old man when Lombar showed him some photos of recent executions. The old fellow almost fainted and I wondered what he would have done if Lombar had produced the latest pictures of his peccadillos with the pretty young spaceman. But he promised he would do his part and remember his lines.
    At last the day of the Grand Council meeting arrived. We set out well before dawn, Endow and his nurse, Lombar, two Apparatus clerks and myself in Endow's air limousine.
    Now I know you may find this hard to believe, but I had never before been to Palace City. The Academy Cadet Corps goes there every year to march in review. The newest class members are always introduced