Part 4

He wasn't a specially big man, but he was large enough. He had deep black eyes under his brows, an aristocratic nose that had been broken, a slightly off-center mouth whose lower lip was tighter on one side than the other, and a firm jaw. His hair was black--almost as black as mine, and as short. He hadn't changed much.

His voice started in the pit of his stomach, and worked its way up. When he chuckled, the sound was almost operatic, deeper than I remembered it.

"Why shouldn't I kill you, Holcomb?" he said.

I climbed to my feet, and looked into those probing eyes. "Go ahead. Give me half a chance, and I'll kill you."

He laughed. "The old school tie," he said. His voice dropped an octave. "Relax, Holcomb. You're alive, for the time being. Come on, let's get some food."

He reached out and slapped me on the back.

Thorsten's mess hall was another pocket in the Asteroid. It was connected to the burrow I'd been in by a tunnel in the rock, and as we walked down it, I'd had a chance to get quick looks into branching corridors and other burrows that were machine shops, arsenals, ration dumps, and living quarters. Just before we turned into the mess hall, I caught a glimpse of an airlock hatch at the end of the tunnel. That was where Thorsten's ship had to be--and my own, too, unless I missed my guess.

As long as I had a functioning mind, I was going to use it. Automatically, a map of as much of the layout as I'd seen was filed away in my brain.

* * * * *

The mess hall must have been the largest single unit in the entire chain of burrows that honeycombed the Asteroid. It was lit by clamp-on units, like the rest of the place, but the lamps were spread a little farther apart, so it was darker. Even so, I could see that most of the space was filled with men sitting at the long mess tables.

"Quite a setup, isn't it, Holcomb?" Thorsten asked, leading me toward a table that was slightly set apart from the others.

"Looks like an improved standard TSN base," I said.

Thorsten chuckled again. He must have liked the sound of it.

"In many ways, that's more or less what it is," he said, sounding pleased.

We got to the table, and stopped.

All the other mess tables ran end to end from the far side of the burrow to this. Thorsten's table was set at right angles to the others, and a separate chair that was obviously his was placed so that he could look over all the other men. The table had a snow-fresh cloth on it, and was set in high-polish silver. Heavy napkins lay beside each of the places. I glanced down at the other tables. They were bare-boarded, but that wasn't going to make much difference to the men sitting at them.

But all of that took about half a minute's looking. What stopped my eye cold was Pat, dressed in an elaborate gown, seated at one end of Thorsten's table.

"Stop staring, Ash," Thorsten said, the laughter running under his words like the whisper of a river. "Let's not keep our hostess waiting."

"Hello, Pat," I said as I walked over to the chair that Thorsten indicated was mine. I was sitting next to her.

She half-smiled, but her eyes were uncertain. "Hello, Ash." She glanced quickly over toward Thorsten, who had reached his own chair.

Thorsten stopped next to the chair and laid his hand on its back. It was a signal.

"_Attention!_"

A paradeground voice near the door wiped out every other sound in the hall.

* * * * *

There were close to six hundred men in the mess hall. All of them were suddenly on their feet, snapping to, the sound of boots on rock thundering through the burrow. The men faced each other across the long tables, staring straight ahead.

The successive crashes of sound died out. I stood casually next to my place. Pat was the only seated person in the hall.

Thorsten stood where he was, his hand still on the chair, looking out over his men. The silence held.

"All right, men. Let's eat," Thorsten said casually. There was another roll of sound through the hall as six hundred men sat down and long platters of hot food were rushed out to them by table orderlies.

Thorsten and I sat down, and the three of us at the table faced each other.

"Enjoy the show?" I asked Thorsten. He came back with a peeved look.

It was my turn to chuckle, but I had enough sense to keep it inside. I was right back to not being sure of what to think, as far as Pat was concerned. How much of our affair had been pure bait, and how much of it did Harry know about?

He motioned to a waiting orderly, who stepped forward and poured wine into the crystal goblets beside our plates. Thorsten reached forward and picked his up. "A toast, Holcomb!" The black eyes bored into mine. I picked up my glass.

Thorsten turned toward Pat and raised his glass. I looked at her. Her face was pale, and her eyes were oddly urgent. She couldn't seem to take them off Thorsten's face.

"To my wife!" Thorsten said, and drained his glass.

I drank out of my own. It was good Burgundy--cold and dry in my mouth, and warm as it came down my throat. I set the glass gently down. If Thorsten was expecting me to react, he was disappointed.

But he was laughing, the sound echoing through the burrow, none of the men paying any attention to it. I looked at Pat.

"Another toast!" Thorsten's glass had been refilled.

"To Ash Holcomb--hired gun and angel of death!" He was laughing at me, and at Pat. He knew, or guessed, and death was lightly hidden by his laughter.

* * * * *

"_Don't do it, Holcomb!_"

Thorsten's voice was ice. I looked at my hands. They were hooked into talons, and I realized that there wasn't a muscle in my body that wasn't tensed and ready to cannon me across the table. I could even hear the snarl rumbling at the base of my throat.

I looked to the side. A man with an open holster flap was standing there, his eyes locked on me.

"Do what, Harry," I asked casually, "propose another toast?"

He looked uncertain for a moment. Then the smile and the laugh came on, and Thorsten was Thorsten again. He didn't know about the chained lightning that was running in my arteries instead of blood. He was a dead man as he sat there, and he didn't know it. In a way, that was funny enough to me to keep waiting.

"A toast? It certainly is a night for toasts, isn't it?" Thorsten murmured.

Pat hadn't moved, and stopped looking at him. I didn't know if she'd looked at me when I was ready to go for Thorsten's throat--but I didn't think so. Now she smiled. I wonder how much it cost her because her lower lip was gray where she'd had it between her teeth.

I had my glass refilled. I nodded toward Pat--and gave Thorsten the Academy toast. "Here's to space, and the Academy. To stars, to the men that walk them, and to the flaming ships that fly."

I looked at Thorsten for the first time since I'd raised my glass, and it was my turn to laugh.

He was gray, and somehow smaller in his thronelike chair. He stared across the table at me, and then let his eyes fall. Hesitantly, he spread the fingers of his hand, and looked at the pale circle where the ring had been.

And, incredibly, he laughed.

"Score one for the opposition," he chuckled. "Nice going, Ash."

I laughed with him, keeping it on a casual plane. I'd done what I wanted to--hit him where he lived. Now, if I could give the conversation a nudge in just the right direction, I might be able to start him talking about his plans. I was that much closer to an outside chance to do something about them.

"What happened, Harry?" I asked. "How'd you get from the TSN into being the top man in the Belt?"

He bit. While Pat and I sat there, Pat nervously shifting her glance from him to me, and me not daring to look at her because of the things I'd say to myself, he told his story. The orderlies brought our dinner, putting dishes down and taking them away as he talked between mouthfuls.

"They don't talk much about me, I guess," he began. "It's a pretty ordinary story, anyway. I was in the war, with my own squadron. We ran into some bad luck, combined with a set of orders that got mixed up. I lost my men. I lost a leg, too."

He leaned down and slapped his right thigh. It rang with metal. "I didn't enjoy that. While I was in the hospital, they brought charges against me. I wasn't given time to prepare an adequate defense, and they threw several paragraphs of the book at me. I was dropped a rank in grade, and slated for duty at a procurement office. I got my break, then. The Marties, under Kull, hit the Moon at practically that time."

I remembered that. They'd gotten a toehold and established a forward base, and Earth had started getting hit with atomic missiles.

"All of a sudden, anybody who could walk or be carried into a ship was tossed into a raggle-taggle fleet the TSN dredged up. That included me."

He grinned, "Only they made two mistakes. The first one was in thinking I still owed Earth any kind of a debt. The second was the bigger one--they gave me a crew raked out of every brig and detention barracks in the fleet. I guess they didn't think I was fit to command anything else."

He grinned. "Pat was in a Wasp unit attached to the base. I took her along."

* * * * *

He waved his hand at the men in the mess hall. "Some of my original crew are still with me. I simply headed for the Belt, and sat out the war. The boys didn't mind one bit. We had plenty of stores, and they knew nobody would bother us while there were more important things going on. Afterwards--well, we've done all right."

He had. Some of the freight lines bribed him. Some didn't.

Uncounted millions in rare minerals were scattered among the tumbling rocks of the Belt, but nobody dared to mine them. He'd given refuge to the stragglers from Mars' broken navies, and built a kingdom on blood and loot.

"I know what I'm called on Earth," he said. "I'm a butcher, a brigand--all the names there are. Even another fighting man, like you, Holcomb, thinks I'm a renegade and a traitor to humanity for throwing in with the Marties. Well, they're blind, Holcomb!"

His open palm came cracking down on the table. "They can't see that Earth is rotten to the very marrow in its mis-shapen bones, that any system that would do to a man what it did to me is based on stupid bungling! The war--Holcomb, you were in that, you know it was the most useless piece of imperialism the System has ever seen."

He was staring intently into my face. I did him the favor of keeping my expression blank, but if he expected me to nod, he was going to wait a long time. I couldn't help thinking of Mort Weidmann. Mort left an arm on Mars; he wasn't bitter about that, and he didn't think it had been a useless war. It had been the Marties for System bosses or us, and they wouldn't have been gentle overlords.

But Thorsten was going on, and now he'd gotten to the part I wanted to know.

"There's got to be a change, Holcomb. Humanity isn't fit to go out to the stars the way it is. It's not ready for the hyperspatial drive.

"It's not going to get it."

I was beginning to understand. Most important, I could finally understand what was wrong with Thorsten. I could see the Messiah complex building up in front of my eyes. The laugh--the easy, chuckling, self-assured laugh--the laugh of a man who was never wrong, and knew it.

"I've got the drive, Holcomb, and I'm going to use it. _I'll_ be the standard-bearer of the human race among the stars. There won't be any fumbling and bumbling--no bureaucrats, Holcomb, no splinter groups, no special interests, no lobbies."

The dream was like a banner in his eyes.

"Nobody but you, right?" I said.

"Right!" the palm went down on the table again. The wine was beginning to loosen him up. His voice was losing the first fine edge of control.

* * * * *

And I finally understood about Pat. She was looking at Thorsten, and the same dream was plain on her face. That was all she saw--that, and the man. She couldn't see the gray rockets bellowing above the burning cities.

"_Have_ you got the drive?"

"Damn right! Those technicians I lifted from Titan are working on your ship now. Then a test flight, and after that, a whole fleet--my fleet, equipped with the drive and ready for the jump.

"There's a planet out there, Holcomb. The Titan Project found it. A planet, Holcomb! Earth-type! Do you think I'd let those idiots on _Earth_ have it!"

That locked it up. He was completely paranoid.

Pat was still looking at him, lost in the dream. She couldn't be bought, and she couldn't be taken. But she could be in love. Maybe, as a man, I stacked higher up with her than Thorsten did--but I couldn't rival the Dream.

"Seems to me a thing like that will take more supplies than generations of intercepting freight would give you. Where'll you get your equipment?" I asked.

I'd timed it right. A lot of Burgundy had gone down, followed by Sauterne and Chablis.

"That's where my Martian--friends come in," he said. Pat leaned forward. This was a part she'd never heard before, an answer to a question nobody but an old hand at expeditionary forces would ask.

"The Marties think they're going to get the System back, some day." He laughed. "They've been trying to persuade me to help them for a long time, now. Well, I'm going to. After my fleet has the drive. We'll invade Earth, then. The TSN won't be able to stand up to us--not when torps start coming out of nowhere. Picture it--all of Earth, busy fighting us off, all its attention on the invasion, and on nothing else. Then, when the fighting's going nicely, my men and I will raid a few choice supply dumps I've had spotted for a long time. We'll load up on equipment and supplies, and take off, leaving some badly disconcerted Marties to finish their little revolt any way they want to--with no Earth for them to conquer!"

"_What?_" It ripped out of me. Pat was sitting there, her mouth open too, the same stunned question written on her face.

Thorsten laughed his omnipotent laugh again.

"Certainly! Didn't you know, Holcomb? Ordinarily, of course, a hyperspatial ship will take off from a planet on standard atomic drive, and cut to her hyperspatial engines when it's out in deep space. But it's possible to take off directly into hyperspace--the only trouble being that the warp changes a hundred cubic miles of adjacent mass to C-T matter."

"Seetee! You mean contraterrene?" That was Pat, tense-faced.

I couldn't say anything. I sat there, staring at Thorsten--calm, laughing, deliberate bringer of death to a world and its billions.

Because C-T atoms, in contact with normal matter, reacted violently. A hundred cubic miles, detonating instantaneously, would leave a ring of dust where Earth and Moon now swung.

"There will be no cancer of humanity in space!" Thorsten declared.

I jumped for him.

One slug caught my shoulder. The other plowed through the muscles of my back. I lay bleeding among the broken glass and dishes on the table. Thorsten swung a rabbit punch at my head, and laughed.

VIII

The cell was small, dark, and damp. There were stitches across my back, under tape, and a traction splint and bandages on my shoulder. Let's forget pain. Pain.... _Let's forget it! Forget it!_

I lay on my belly. I'd been on my belly for most of a week. And for most of a week, I'd thought of how it would be to dig my fingernails into my side, rip loose the phony skin over my ribs, and fire that one shot into Thorsten's guts.

All I needed was a chance. Here in the cell, in a corridor somewhere, alone with him, surrounded by his men, chance of life or no--that wasn't what counted. I wasn't sane myself, anymore. There were two people in the Universe--Thorsten and me--and room for one!

A chance. Lord God, a chance!

But all I had was dampness and darkness.

I was fed twice a day--or something like it. It was almost time for my next meal, but that wasn't the important time. It was the helpless week behind me, the week in which Thorsten's kidnaped technicians had had time to assemble the ship's engines. The test flight was due, and after that the production of engines for the other ships in Thorsten's fleet. If I was going to do anything, I had to do it now.

I dragged myself up the side of the cell, leaving meat from my fingers on the rough stone. I staggered over to the wall beside the door and waited.

Time went by--hours or minutes--and a sound of feet came down the tunnel leading to my cell.

I couldn't use my back muscles, but I tensed them now, feeling stitches give way.

Tumblers clicked, and the door was opened.

I kicked it shut and sprang, wrapping my hands around a dimly seen throat, a thin and soft neck.

"Ash!" Pat's voice was half-choked under my grip.

"Pat!" I opened my hands, and she stumbled free. But not for long, because an instant later she was pressed against me again, her mouth over mine.

* * * * *

We stood together in the darkness and in hunger. Finally, she moved her lips away.

"Ash, Ash, you can stand!" She was sobbing with relief.

"Yeah--I'm on my feet."

"Can you fight?"

"Nothing bigger than you," I said. "What's going on?"

"He's crazy, Ash. That plan of his--I'd never heard it before. All he told me was that he was going to take humanity out to the stars--he said he didn't trust Earth government to do it."

"Yeah. I know. For that dream, I would have done what you did, too."

"I didn't love him, Ash. He--I don't know, he _was_ his dream, somehow, and in spite of it all, he was a better, stronger man than anyone I ever knew. Except you, Ash."

That was good enough. That was good enough to give her everything I had or could get. And that made my spot even worse. It wasn't just she that was going to get hurt--but she was the most important one of them all.

I couldn't even stay with her, here in the cell.

But she knew that too, and there was more to her coming here than that.

"Ash--they've finished assembling the drive in your ship. They've finished repairs on her bow, too. They're going to run the tests in a few hours. Everybody's sleeping, except for the maintenance crew, and they're scattered through the base. Ash--I think we can get out of here. If we don't run into any guards, we can make it to the airlock. There'll be a few suits in a locker there. We can make a run for the ship." Her voice was urgent, and full of hope, and bitterness for the desertion of a dream--a sick, tainted dream, but her dream for so many years at Thorsten's side.

And I knew, for the first time in weeks, that Earth had a chance. I knew, too, that Pat and I....

I could have kissed her then. But I had to be a damned fool. I didn't.

The tunnels and corridors were empty. The machine shops and storage rooms were dark, and the doors to the bunkrooms were closed. We reached the airlock.

All I had to do now was to get into a spacesuit and open the lock. The ship lay beyond it.

Then I heard Harry's laugh!

He stood behind us, holding a slim handgun.

"Running out, people?" he asked. "Bribing that orderly wasn't bright, Pat. He not only gets to keep his money, but he gets a promotion from me. That's the way I operate--that's my justice."

Pat and I had turned half-way around, watching him carefully.

"Justice!" Pat flared. "Worry some more about Earth. Worry about the Universe. Teach them your justice!"

Again the laughter. "I will, Pat."

But the laughter broke.

"Pat--you're my wife. You know my dream--you shared it. Why did you do it?"

"Yes, she knows your sick dream, Harry," I said.

"Shut up, Ash;" he said quietly. "Don't die with your mouth open."

He fired, but I was on the floor of the tunnel.

"Ash!" That was Pat's voice, but I was rolling, and tearing at my side.

"Get back, Pat!" Thorsten shouted. I was up on my knees, the singleshot gun in my hand. I charged forward.

He brought up his gun. The noise had awakened everybody in hearing distance. Doors were opening, men were running.

I pointed the slim tube at his belly and jammed my thumb down on the firing stud.

He screamed, cupping his hand over the smoking hole I had punched in his stomach. His knees bent, and he sank backwards, toppling, finally, as he lost his balance. He opened his mouth, choking, and blood welled over his chin.

One last shred of laughter bubbled up through his throat.

And someone, down at the other end of the tunnel, fired at us. He missed me as I crouched over Thorsten's body.

"Ash--"

I had Thorsten's gun in my hand, but I didn't fire back. I spun around, and looked at Pat, crushed back against the tunnel wall.

"Pat!"

She slid down the wall, and huddled on the floor.

"Pat!" I bent down beside her. It was bad.

Her voice was thick. "How long have I got?"

"Five minutes--maybe ten." I knew I was lying. It was less.

"Ash ... you heard what he said. I was in a Wasp unit. Space was my dream, too. Always."

I wanted to tell her I knew, now--knew a lot of things. But there was no use in holding a dying woman, kissing her, and caressing her tumbled hair for one last time. No use at all, when a world depended on not taking time for those things.

I put Thorsten's gun in her hand. "Can you still shoot, Pat?"

Her fingers tightened on the butt, and her eyes met mine just once more before she turned her head.

She was a beauty to watch. Sprawled on the tunnel floor, not looking at anything but targets over the notch of her sights, calm and skilled while she covered my retreat as her heartbeats slowed. She cauterized the tunnel, weaving a fan of death that marched down the corridor, encompassing and moving beyond huddled and broken men.

I clamped on my suit helmet and spun the airlock controls. I snapped one quick look back at her. Then the airlock hatch thudded shut behind me. In a moment, I was on the surface of the Asteroid and running for the ship.

IX

Earth lies ahead of me, green and safe. The muted atomics behind me have brought me back from beyond Venus, where the split-second jump into hyperspace threw me.

Let Mort Weidmann have his farther stars--or anyone else who cares to try. I've had all I want from the new drive.

* * * * *

I gave Pat a funeral pyre. And now the lonely Asteroids have a star of their own.