Part 13

His aim was still bad, his outsweeping hand caught the leading edge of the door and he and it swung on the hinges until he came flat against the wall behind the door. He fought his body around and came out of the room feet first.

Catching at the handrail he stabilized his flight, then he took notice of his surroundings, expecting the whole enemy horde to come boiling out of their staterooms.

A door down the hall opened and a man came sailing out. He caught sight of Farradyne and launched himself at the spaceman. Farradyne met him with a slash of the pistol, which was parried by a block of the man's forearm against Farradyne's wrist. It stopped the enemy's flight but tore Farradyne's hold loose.

Farradyne recovered first, hauling himself erect just in time to let the other man peer down the barrel of the gun. "Hold it, friend," he snapped.

The enemy, about to kick himself forward, took a firm hold on the handrail behind him and retracted his feet from against the wall.

"You can't get away with it, Farradyne."

"I can try, Brenner. So happy to meet you again."

Warily he listened. There were no other sounds along the corridor, only the one he expected, and soon the little flag on the lock went in and the door opened. Carolyn Niles came out in pajamas and coat, her eyes blinking slightly. "What's the--" Then she gasped. "Charles!"

"Howdedo. Any more hiding in the dark, Carolyn?"

"How did you get here?"

"I walked," he said flatly. He turned to Brenner. "You stay there, schoolmaster. I'm scared to death and a bit touchy."

Brenner shook his head. "I know you're scared. I'm scared, too. Scared to move."

"Relax--but do it slowly. Now turn around and make it hand over hand toward the salon. You follow the gentleman," he said to Carolyn.

Farradyne followed them both, calling to Brenner that if he tried any tricks, Carolyn might get in the way of the shot intended for him. They went up the stairway, one, two, three, and floated into the salon, Farradyne making a bit of a time of it because of his full gun-hand. He hooked his legs around the guard rail and eyed them coldly.

"Carolyn, let's see how good a job you can do on Brenner's wrists with a chunk of this tape." He tossed the roll at her and she clutched wildly and missed.

"Go get it!"

Carolyn performed some intricate free-flight maneuvers before she caught the roll. Then she went to Brenner, who held his hands out behind him while she ran tape around the wrists.

"I'd be willing to bet that's a slipshod job," said Farradyne. "But it will probably hold until I can relax. Carolyn, coast over here and force yourself to sit in the straight chair."

Farradyne taped her to the chair by the wrists and the ankles and took a slight hitch in the hold-down strap. Then he added some security to Brenner's bond and taped the man to the legs of the divan at the ankles. With his hands behind him and the strap tight across the man's hips, Farradyne felt that Brenner would be thoroughly immobilized. He propped the still unconscious one up near Brenner and taped him similarly.

Then he took time to go below and collect the third from his cabin and bring him up. The man was struggling against the wide tape and glaring at Farradyne over the plaster on his lips. Farradyne hurled him backside first at the divan and followed him, to catch the man on the rebound from the divan. He taped him as he had taped the others, then he took a small flight to the bar, where he perched on top of it by hooking his feet around one of the bar stools.

"Aren't we a good-looking bunch?" he chuckled. "Shall we sing?"

"Stop it, Farradyne," snapped Brenner.

Farradyne's twisted smile faded. "We'll play this game according to my rules for awhile."

"How long do you think you'll be able--"

"Long enough. I'm running this show."

"You can't get away with it."

"You said that before. Convince me, Brenner."

"Why bother with you? I'm the one that counts."

"Cut it out," Farradyne said contemptuously. "I should think your position would feel a bit awkward for a conqueror."

"The sooner you free us, the--"

Farradyne laughed in one loud humorless bark. "So I'm still your prisoner?"

"In a way. You wouldn't care to die without telling what you know about us. You'll do anything to stay alive."

"You damn well bet! And I'll do anything to learn a bit more."

"You can't make me talk."

"Want to bet? I don't think I could squeeze anything out of you by torture, but I have a hunch you'll sing loud and long after you watch me take Carolyn's fingernails off with long-nosed pliers and listen to her stifled sobbing. An old-fashioned torture, but still effective."

Carolyn looked at Farradyne coldly. "Come to think of it, Charles, I don't think you have enough sadism to perform the operation on me."

Farradyne looked at her. He held enough dislike of what she stood for to do almost anything with cold deliberation, for he thought any pain was small retribution. But she was still a woman.

Carolyn sniffed cynically, and Farradyne realized that he had mumbled the last few words of his thoughts. "Just retribution, Charles, but have you the guts to collect your revenge?"

He looked down at her. "No, I haven't. But I've someone with me who might."

He took aim and sailed down the stairs. He soared around the stateroom corridor and ran full-tilt into a flurry of floating skirts. He hurled Norma from him and recoiled. When he caught himself again, he had one hand braced against the handrail and the pistol aimed at the middle of her stomach. She righted herself as he let out his breath and relaxed his gun-hand.

"Don't ever do that!" he said sharply.

She looked at the gun and her face went white with the realization of how close it had been. She looked at him searchingly as if seeking company for her fright. She apparently found it, for her face relaxed and she took a deep breath, let it out slowly. Then she fought the hem of her skirt down again and blushed.

Farradyne chuckled, "Go into Number Four and swipe a pair of Carolyn Niles' pajamas," he said. "They don't float. Then come up to the salon."

He turned and headed back slowly, stalling until he heard her return to the corridor.

He went first and helped her make the curve around the railing at the top. Solicitously, he steered her to the divan and fastened the seat strap.

Then he faced Carolyn and the rest. "Speaking of retribution," he said slowly. "I'd like you to meet a woman I know. Miss Norma Hannon. She's a hellflower addict. Whatever she does is basically your responsibility." He said directly to Carolyn, "You have me fairly well pegged. I couldn't do it. But I think that Miss Hannon might enjoy a bit of an emotional binge with the people who fed her the first hellflower and caused the death of her brother." Farradyne turned and sailed across the room to Norma's side. He reached out quietly and removed the love lotus from Norma's hair, then recrossed the room to hurl it into the disposal chute.

"Just sit there quietly until the effects of that thing wear off," he told her. "I'm going to take a tour of inspection of the gewgaw they installed in my ship. I'll be back when they decide to answer questions."

Farradyne dived down the stairway again. He had no idea how long it might take, especially after Norma had been literally sleeping in a smothering roomful of the things for hours. Probably long enough for them all to get the whim-whams just thinking about it, he concluded.

He conned every stateroom on his way down. He was reasonably certain that the ruckus would have awakened them all, but he wanted to make sure that no one in them was lying doggo until he could make his bid. They were all empty, so Farradyne went on down in the Lancaster, checking the supply rooms and the galley and workshop, the other cargo lock and the storage room. He looked into the inspection cubbies and the wiring hatches until he had covered every nook and cranny that was large enough to contain a human being.

The ship was clean.

He stopped once more to eye the four metal cases bolted to the floor and discovered that the gentleman who had occupied the place when he and Norma tried to hide had put nuts on the bolt ends and run the cables neatly below-deck so they no longer trailed. He went up, then, all the way.

"Any talk?" he asked brightly as he soared through the salon.

"Farradyne, you can't do this!" snapped Brenner.

"Who, me?" asked Farradyne, in mock surprise. "I'm not doing anything!"

Norma was still sitting in her seat on the divan. She had not changed position. But her face was losing its softness and her attention was no longer diverted easily. "I'm waiting," she told him as he passed upward to the control room.

Somehow, Farradyne believed, it would not be very long waiting.

20

Farradyne paid no attention to the oddness of the sky because it could tell him nothing and he had more interesting things to inspect. The little auxiliary panel was gone. The controls had been incorporated in the main panel, neatly and as if they had always been there; in such a way as to make any but a completely critical inspection pass them over. They blended with the other myriad controls, so that only the pilot of the ship would be able to find them.

There was a small meter, calibrated arbitrarily in three sectors of colors. The needle stood high in the middle of the blue region. Below the meter was a cross-bar toggle switch and on either side of the toggle were flat buttons set flush with the panel, blue to the right and red to the left. The wiring was concealed, Farradyne found by looking under the panel that it had been neatly inserted into the main bundle of cables and wires as though it had been installed with the Lancaster's construction.

He considered the installation carefully.

In the history of warfare, Farradyne had heard of no one installing a device that would blow up a whole equipment if the operator used the wrong combination. In fact, designers worked hard to make such equipment fool-proof because they knew how rattled a man can get in the heat of battle. The worst he could do was probably the blowing of a fuse if he tampered with it. On the other hand....

So much for that, he thought, and went on to the next matter: destruction charges.

Big prime movers like battlecraft and stationary installations seldom fell into the hands of an enemy in any condition to be reused. Either the big stuff was shot to hell before the enemy captured it and was therefore unfunctional, or there was time for the crew to render the big stuff useless long before the installation was abandoned. There were booby-traps, of course, but these were usually improvised on the spot, or at least installed from a stock closet at the time of possible capture. No thinking nation would ever install a booby-trap permanently because of the possibility of the operator punching the wrong button.

Self-destruction devices were another item. These came shortly after the Military discovered the electron, and at a time when there were basic new designs of equipment the function of which it had been necessary to keep secret from the enemy. Countless pieces of apparatus had been equipped with self-destruction charges heavy enough to addle the insides of the gear, and possibly bulge the case a bit. But a man could sit on one of them while the charge went off and the most he would get would be a sharp kick in the pants.

But such destruction charges were controlled from a separate panel. There could be no mistake or error; no one could hit the wrong button. Destruction must be performed with deliberation.

And so Farradyne eyed the new installation calmly. It might hold a self-destruction charge, but the probabilities of having the control handy enough to be used in the heat of excitement were remote, especially since such a condition would leave a ship and crew marooned in the depths of interstellar space to die because someone's finger slipped. Farradyne was even certain that not much could happen if he tinkered with the toggle, so long as they were in deep space by some light years distant from anything large and hard.

He took the toggle bar in his right hand and pulled. It did not pull so he pushed. It did not push. He turned the cross-bar slightly and exerted effort. The bar moved downward in a wide arc and as it moved, the seat of the chair slammed upwards against the seat of his pants, and all of a sudden up was up and down was down, and the stars were all in their right places. The toggle came to a stop and the accelerometer read one gravity. The needle on the meter still read halfway into the blue.

Farradyne chuckled aloud. He had it now. If the traffic lights flared blue-green for "GO" and red-orange for "STOP" he had this combination as well. Start your spacecraft and punch the blue button for start. That was the beginning and the warm-up and nothing could happen until the meter read into the blue section of its scale. Then the toggle controlled the action of whatever generator of force was used, more or less as the toggle was advanced or depressed. The equipment stayed in readiness all the time. The red button was undoubtedly the cut-off button to close the gear down once the flight was completed.

It was as simple as that. Farradyne had spent many an hour in spacemen's bars up and down the solar system in spacemen's happy arguments regarding the complexities of exotic equipment, so he could theorize on both sides. The pro side was a matter of insisting that electromechanical principles were universal and therefore an alien bit of gear would function in a recognizable manner. The con side considered the fruitless arguments that something new might be discovered or that the evolution of instruments from the original principles would follow the normal dexterity of the alien life-form involved. But Farradyne knew that buttons are buttons and therefore meant to be pushed, not pulled; and similarly, D'Arsonval had invented the same kind of galvanometer as Ugthrybb, on Vega, with a moving coil between the poles of a magnet, and just because one race was right-handed and the other left, the principle did not change.

Then, being of a practical frame of mind, Farradyne forgot the subject and began to wonder about his position and what he was going to do about it. He squinted into the point-of-drive telescope and caught sight of a tiny yellow star on the cross-hairs. That must be Sol, distant, small, and far weaker than Sol as seen from Pluto. It was a true stellar point from here.

Then he looked through the point-of-departure periscope and automatically cut the drive so that the flare would not blind him.

Behind was the constellation of Lyra and on the cross-hairs was another star of no particular consequence. No more important than Sol. He got out the Spaceman's Star Catalog and opened it to Lyra. Among the listings were a number of the F, G, and K classifications, and one of them, about twenty-seven light years from Sol was listed for the right position in the constellation. Farradyne grunted; it meant nothing to him. It was merely Lyra.

The sound of a whimper cut into his thought and he remembered the possibilities of the scene in the salon. He waited. He snapped on the intercom and listened, wondering whether he could sit there and let Norma go to work on Carolyn. Man's inhumanity to man was a pale and insignificant affair compared to the animal ferocity of a woman about to settle up a long-standing account with another woman.

"Charles, come down here and take this madwoman away!" cried Carolyn.

Farradyne sauntered down the stairs. Norma stood before the bound Carolyn. Her eyes were glassy, her face cold. In one hand she held a small bottle of acid from Farradyne's workshop, in the other a small, pointed brush. As he came down the stairs, Norma dipped the brush in the acid and approached Carolyn, holding the brush as she would a pencil.

Farradyne held her hand. "Wait!" he said.

Norma looked at him with a trace of anger in her eyes. "Don't stop me," she said. "I'm going to write 'Hellflower' across that alabaster forehead--among other words."

Farradyne shuddered. His imagination had stopped working at the point of removing fingernails and applying lighted cigarettes to the skin. Now it leaped forward again and he could see the outcome of this assault upon the woman's pride and beauty. A formerly flawless skin covered with scar-tissue lettering of accusals, viciousness and probably lewdness.

"Take her away!" said Carolyn. "There is no point in this."

"Why not? Or are you ready to talk?"

"I'll talk. I'll talk because you will never get a chance to use it."

"You talk and I'll take my chances on that. Give me the works."

Norma struggled a bit. "Please, Farradyne?"

"Maybe later," he said soothingly. "Sit down now, and wait."

Angrily, Norma turned and headed for the divan.

He turned to Carolyn. "What the hell is going on and why?"

"This is war," she said.

"Like hell it's war. This is backstabbing. But it'll be war as soon as we can fight back."

"It is war," she repeated. "Let it go at that. The process should not be unfamiliar to you; you've done it yourselves time and again. First you weaken the enemy by undermining his resources, lowering his resistance, by turning his efforts toward advancement against some stumbling block. Then--"

"I presume that doping the women of a race is a right and honorable practice?" sneered Farradyne.

"It is better than dropping a mercurite bomb. Face the fact, Charles. We got to interstellar space first and met another people as racially jealous as we are. We could have made a landing openly, but if we had, the warfare you are threatening would have been here and done with long ago and there would be nothing left of either of our people but smouldering planets to mark the meeting place of two stellar peoples."

"You can say this knowing that no Solan has the barest notion of how this doodad in the hold can permit us to travel faster than light?"

Carolyn looked at him with pity. "I'll tell you what would happen," she said. "You'd greet us with cheers and invite us in--long enough to steal our warp-generator. You'd trade us your medical science for our chemistry and your electronics for our gravities, and then you'd meet us face to face to prove to yourselves that even though you got a second-place start, you could move faster and hit harder than we could. You'd carry your war to us, and we'd carry our war to you, and there would be cause and effect and attack and retaliation with each blow a bit more vicious until your people would be planting mercurite at the same time we were. And then, as I say, the next interstellar race to visit this section of the sky would find the radioactive remains of two cultures. I know because our people come of the same stock."

He looked at her cynically. "Is that so? Where I come from it takes three people to sing a trio, Carolyn. How do you explain that?"

"That's a recessive mutation."

"All right," he snapped. "So you've justified your own actions to yourself."

"Of course. Everybody is self-justified."

"And you justify the doping of our race by calling it better than meeting us face to face."

"Remember your own history. Even before the First Atomic War everybody realized that warfare was a bankrupt measure to be undertaken after all else had failed. You conducted your conflicts undercover, by boring from within, by undermining the moral fiber and lowering resistance. So, when your people have lost the ability to fight back, we'll move in quietly and make an asset of you instead of a vicious enemy; ultimately a ruined structure that must be rebuilt completely before it is of any use to us."

"Got it all figured out, haven't you?" sneered Farradyne. "All except a few of us who happen to catch on. Then what--if we don't exactly cotton to the idea?"

There was a yelp from behind him and he turned just in time to intercept Norma. She was advancing on Brenner with her acid-brush poised. "Don't, Norma," he said gently, turning her aside.

"But you said--"

"Later." He gave her a gentle shove toward the side of the room and she went reluctantly. "Brenner," he said sharply, "I want information."

"Ask," replied Brenner. "What can we lose?"

"Navigational data," said Farradyne, ignoring the question. "Where are we and how fast does that gizmo run us?"

"I'd guess about six light years out from Sol. The warp generator permits a top speed of about two light years per hour in Terran figures. So go ahead and drive this can somewhere so we can get this fool rigmarole over with. But take the dame aloft with you. I don't want my face lettered like a washroom wall."

"Somehow it seems appropriate," chuckled Farradyne, but he took Norma by the hand and led her up the stairs. She followed like an automaton until they were out of sight, and then she came alive.

Visibly she relaxed. The granite set to her face faded and became soft. Her lips curved gently and her eyes were animated. She walked briskly across the control room, and turned down the outgoing gain before she turned to face Farradyne.

"Charles, that was the hardest acting job I've ever done."

She snapped her acid bottle into one of the spring-containers so that it wouldn't float all over the place under weightlessness and then she went to the co-pilot's seat and dropped into it casually. She relaxed with her head leaned back.

"How long after a sniff of hellflower does the effect last?" asked Farradyne.

"Depends. I could feel the euphoria fading shortly after you took mine out of my hair. The odd part of it was that it seemed different, somehow. I feel so odd. Dizzy and weak and somehow frightened. I'd like to be held, gently, and caressed like a kitten." She sat up and half turned to look over the back of the co-pilot's seat. "This is honest, Charles. I know, I can feel it; it's true and it's good, Charles. Oh, yes," she said in a matter-of-fact voice, "I remember everything. This isn't an act, Charles. This is the real thing. I've seemed to regain my feelings again. Actually, I can almost feel sorry for them, you know?" Her voice ended on an upward note.

Farradyne looked at her. Bemused, he said, "Could it be the hair of the dog?"

"Hair of the dog?" she repeated automatically.

"The one that bit you," he said. "You were in an awful overload dose, Norma; maybe the overload burned the dross out, like fire cleansing a wound. Maybe--"

Norma blushed. "You were very gentle," she said.

He realized what she meant. He recalled the stories he had heard of sophisticates who took their hellflowers to heighten the emotional thrill of a symphony or a dinner; of men who had enough love for their women to let them plumb the depths of emotion without using the exhilarant as the cold means to a crude end. He had been with her through her emotional binge and he had seen her through it quietly. The fact that he had not wanted her, in fact repulsed her, had helped. She had not been burned by piling passion a-top a heightened emotional response.

He looked into her eyes critically. They were alive and soft. Could it be that an overdose of the same devilish stuff could cure the effects of its own?

"How do you feel?" he asked gently.

"Weak, washed out, but I can go on and on," she said confidently. She didn't look it, but maybe she could, he thought. Excitement would carry a person through a lot of trials. He looked at her again and understood that he was right. She would go on and on, until the strain was over and then she would probably come completely unglued for some time.

Farradyne put out a hand and stroked her cheek. She sighed against his hand and moved her head from side to side. She reached up and pulled his face down to kiss him on the lips. It was brief but warmly satisfying.