Part 2

"The spin period for the asteroid! This stuff's likely to be available hundreds of places in the asteroid belt, wherever the spin period's in that range. Might have an endless supply because in its native habitat it reappears after the heating phase even though something in the human body destroys it permanently."

Now summaries were being pumped out more rapidly and Neilson was scanning them with unwonted speed. "Fleck dose too small for _any_ endocrine upset. None for musculature either. Gastro-intestinal negative. Bone Marrow negative. Ten minutes after entering the body this stuff dissolves completely into _lower_ elements! Physiologically non-habit-forming. Hartley, if this gives all the pleasure you claim it's the answer to our wildest prayers. I will try a fleck."

As soon as he inhaled the infinitesimal dosage he began grinning at the pair in speechless wonder. Hartley joined him and offered to set a bit up for Cramer.

"No," Cramer said, "I don't care what the analyzers say. You can't get something for nothing."

"This is beyond price," Neilson sighed contentedly. He moved to a wall mirror. "Not even a little retinal contraction. The dosage is so small the silicon base couldn't hurt you even if you took one an hour for the rest of your life. And there can't be any hangover."

"No law on the books against it and I don't think the public would tolerate a prohibition. This stuff is actually _good_ for you!" Hartley exulted.

"And we are the only ones on Earth who have it for at least the next few weeks!" He jotted down some calculations. "Figure a hundred thousand doses in the capsule and at least fifty dollars a microscopic flake slice, seventy-five dollars, more probably. Anybody can lay his hands on cryogenic capsules--they're all over the place. We'd only need a few dozen runners and I can get them easily enough. Are we in business, Hartley?"

"Let's give a free sample to your friends first."

"Fair enough, they're going to be among our best customers."

Cramer watched in horrified disgust as the others were summoned and willingly passed over into the fully-conscious ecstasy. But why the horror? Why the disgust? he demanded of himself. Why condemn something that even the Specimen Analyzer showed to be wholly beneficial? He couldn't find the tangible reason but that didn't matter; there had to be something wrong somewhere.

"Still not with it?" Hartley asked after a while.

"I'd just as soon not bother quite yet."

"Well, you do know what you're missing," shrugged the Captain. "My Probationary rights don't give the privilege to insist on this. As I told you, complaining to authority wouldn't change anything but now I'll give you the biggest reason why. Even in the highly unlikely case of their believing your story, they couldn't move against me because they'd know it wouldn't matter. First I'd see to it that word got out about germ-joy. There are hundreds of craft on the Mars run that can detour into the asteroid belt and pick up a supply once they know what to look for. Look at all the freighters that do a little bootlegging on the side now--there'd be no way to seal off that supply."

"I can see that," Cramer agreed. "I'm not interested in reforming anything. I just don't want to be personally involved."

"Perfectly all right," Hartley said thoughtfully. "Each man to his own tastes." Then he moved away to discuss business arrangements with his host.

_How do I get out of here?_ Cramer wondered. _And how do I get anybody to listen, to believe such a wild story from a Probationary? Or would it be best to string along with them and see what happens?_

* * * * *

Trying all the while to hide his anxiety, he struggled with a dozen problems that seemed to have no solution, that might not even deserve a solution if the stuff were as harmless as it had shown itself to be so far. For the present, he had to appear to be one of them; just before going in to dinner, he asked for a fleck and there was a patter of applause from everyone with jovial cries of "For he's a jolly good fellow!" and "Now you're talking!"

There was no denying the renewed sense of youthful cleanliness it gave him, as if every nerve of his body had been gently washed down to dawn of life freshness.

The main course consisted of yeast snow nectar laced with rare confectionery spices that broke evanescently on the palate and then subtly vanished to make way for the next clearly distinct sensation. Behind his own mask of laughter Cramer drowsily watched all the other chattering faces. After a while there only seemed to be the glitter of eyeballs and silver and perfectly-spaced teeth sinking into nectar, and he got up with the assistance of Hartley and Neilson to accompany them sleepily, oh so yawn-sleepily! away to another room....

He saw himself floating from afar toward the asteroid, its rougher side glowing in the sun, the flatter one a sable blank. He moved slowly through a viscous atmosphere, one joint stickily shifting after the other. An enormous flake of whiteness settled on his face and he inhaled. To be _this_ happy, _this_ content! And again the movement around the surface as gradual as the turning of the asteroid itself. Over and over again, never an end to it, while another flake drifted inexorably toward his upturned face. And again that final happiness.

He swung imperceptibly, across the surface of his new home as it streamed in an arcing line along the invisible orbit of the asteroid belt. And always at the right interval another floating flake.

When the voices came to him they were hardly wanted and totally unneeded but, although he did not listen, he heard them and even identified their owners.

"He's hooked now," Hartley was saying.

"I guess so," Neilson answered. "But it's not physiological."

"Who cares about that? _Psychologically_ he's going to want the stuff from now on--any sensible person would. You know, we're actually doing him a favor, destroying his inhibitions against something so harmless."

"Which doesn't concern me one way or the other."

"Well, maybe it would have been neater just to get rid of him but Probationers have to report to HQ at the end of their punishment periods. If he doesn't go in today there'll be an investigation and, believe me, Neilson, they'd trace down my every movement and get an electronic hold on me that I couldn't shake. The whole thing would come out."

"A lot of good spilling our beans would do the government. Someone else would just bring in the happy germs."

"Yeah, but this next month's the time when _we_ make our killing. Hey, I think he's starting to wake up."

"No, prob--"

Neilson's answer mumbled itself away and he found himself floating across the flat face of the asteroid, waiting for the next huge flake to descend.

... And then he was really awake. He discovered that he was leaning against the back of a heavily-padded chair, alone in a guest bedroom. Approaching footsteps told him the pair was returning and he hastily shut his eyes. This had to be carefully managed.

"Ought to be waking up about now," said Neilson.

Cramer started stretching, then rubbed his lids and blinked at the light. "Give me a fleck," he pleaded. "Just a little bit."

The two of them nodded to one another and Hartley leaned forward. "Takes a little while to get it out of the freezer, Will."

"I want it now," he said petulantly.

Hartley gave his shoulder a comradely squeeze. "One of the gang now, eh? Come along and you'll get it. You have to report to HQ."

"I have five days Probationary." He got up and followed them a little unsteadily to the cryogenic freezer in another room.

"Five days are up," Hartley explained. "You've been doing a lot of sleeping, even were sleepy when you got up to eat."

"Don't understand."

"I'll tell you after you get our sniff."

"Yes, that's what I want now."

* * * * *

One tiny fleck came out on a holder the size of a fingernail paring. It was frightening how quickly they had developed techniques for handling the stuff.

"Take it fast!" Neilson shouted. "That germ colony's worth eighty dollars and it's breaking down fast. You won't get another."

Cramer leaned forward to quickly breath it in. By the time he exhaled it was already working its magic. He straightened up and smiled with hangdog gratitude. "Oh, that's good!"

"Had to get you used to it," Hartley said. "Only reason why we kept you sleepy--you'll thank us some day."

"Some day? I thank you _now_!"

Neilson gave him a friendly handshake but his eyes were coolly observant. "Okay," he nodded for Hartley's benefit.

Hartley glanced at his watch. "The stuff's all gone by now. They can't find a thing even if they do give you a checkup."

"But the silicon--"

"Not a trace," Neilson said. "This thing even breaks up on the atomic level, takes a little longer than the germ death but inside an hour no silicon."

"But the fission breakdown--"

"Don't ask me," Neilson shrugged, "it doesn't work that way. Must have something to do with the beautiful energy charge you get from germ-joy."

"Feeling clear-headed?" Hartley asked.

"Sure, I'll be right back for some more after I report."

He went out, grinning inwardly. They were right about one thing--it wasn't physiologically habit-forming. And he just did not have the kind of psychological defect for it to be habit-forming any other way.

When he reached Space Pioneer HQ he handed in his card at the Probationary desk. The Major in charge looked him up and down in stony silence, then suddenly barked, "Anything to say, Mister?"

"Yes sir. I want to register a complaint with General Chisholm personally."

"What!" His face turned beet red. "Look, soldier, we're not strictly GI in this outfit out of love of red tape. This is a dangerous service. You have to follow the chain of command every time." He entered a black mark on the card. "Tell your immediate superior."

"He's the one I'm complaining against, sir."

"Then go see the Inspector General!"

"The time lag, sir, it would take too long to reach General Chisholm."

The Major violently punched another mark on the card. "Wipe the grin off your face, Mister. What's so funny?"

"That's part of my complaint, sir. I've been drugged to joy."

"I really ought to call the General. You'd make a perfect punishment example."

"Just as long as I get to talk to the General, sir," he said, confidence in his success gone even if the evil stuff kept him feeling so good.

"Wait in the outside room." He reached for a phone. "Who's your immediate superior?"

"Scout Captain Hartley, sir." He went out and sat down on the edge of a chair. No, it wasn't going to work, he could just see it wasn't.

Then the Major was striding out and shouting, "Follow me, the General actually wants to break you in person!"

Cramer sighed and followed him up an escalator, then past two receptionists and two private secretaries. The Major pointed at a small door. "You go in on your own, soldier."

* * * * *

He turned the knob and stepped nervously into a room which was bare except for a glass-topped desk behind which General Chisholm was seated and a few wrought-iron chairs facing the desk. The General stared at him as if he weren't there but would materialize under prolonged scrutiny. "Sit down and tell me what this is all about," Chisholm said, raising one index finger from the desk.

Cramer sucked in his breath and the story came pouring out, faster and faster all the time as if he were racing against the moment when Chisholm would bark for silence and bring him crashing down. But the General said nothing, studying first one cuticle, then the speaker's face, then back to the next cuticle.

Suddenly he slammed on an intercom and said, "Get Dr. Jonas and tell him to bring a portable blood test rig."

"Then you _believe_ me, sir?" Cramer was too stunned to remain safely silent.

"Of course I don't, Mister, but there's too much smoke for no fire."

"The silicon trace may not show up now--"

A smile flashed up Chisholm's face, then disappeared. "Those are the chances you take when you tell sensational stories."

Cramer's heart sank once more. "Yes, sir."

The specialist arrived with his test machine rolling behind him like an obedient, lumbering mastiff. When he reached the center of the room he turned a dial on his signet ring and the machine stopped.

"This young warrant officer has given me an interesting account of his recent experiences which, he would have us believe, included being drugged into sleep and semi-sleep," said Chisholm. "I want you to test blood samples for silicon traces, in fact the whole gamut of tests."

Dr. Jonas' pointed chin sank toward his chest, then rose. "Yes, General Chisholm." He pulled up Cramer's left sleeve and applied a blood-sucker tube which clicked off drops until it reached fifty and stopped. The doctor set the fractionating apparatus on automatic and approached his superior's chair to say, "I hardly think a person could be sedated with a silicon compound, sir."

Chisholm gestured for Cramer to remain silent. "All right, while we're waiting for your machine to complete its run, here's a purely hypothetical problem. Imagine a silicon-based _bacteria_--"

"_What?_" Dr. Jonas exclaimed.

"I said a silicon-based bacteria. It raises human metabolism when absorbed into the blood stream in the form of a tiny frost flake, a flake whose very _atomic_ structure breaks down the elements scale without the explosive force of nuclear fission or any other kind of serious disruption."

"I'd say the whole thing's impossible, sir!"

"But let's just suppose it is not."

"Then I'd have to proceed on the assumption that the life cycle of the hypothetical form permits it to reach a high threshold of energy storage, part of which energy is smoothly released while the rest achieves a new balance as the silicon transmutes into elements of lesser weight."

"Sounds like a reasonable explanation for something unreasonable, doctor," he stiffly observed. "Your tests should be ready now."

* * * * *

Dr. Jonas looked satisfied as he pulled the tape from the machine. "No silicon." He stopped, frowning. "But there is indication of massive barbiturate dosages. This man _has_ been drugged! There shouldn't be any lasting damage--he's a healthy specimen all right--but whoever did this wasn't worrying about his welfare, General."

"Thank you, Dr. Jonas, you may go now." He casually leaned back in his chair. "This is Top Secret for the present. I will be consulting you later on this matter."

"Yes, sir."

But as soon as Jonas and his equipment were gone the General sprang into frantic action. "You're under arrest, Mister."

"Sir!"

"_Protective_ arrest--although it won't be announced that way. No time for explanations right now. Give me the precise reading and time for that asteroid."

When he had the information he activated a keyboard at one side of his desk which fed the orrery computer several miles away. A few seconds after he punched in the data, the reply came back with the exact present location of the asteroid. He immediately threw a switch which lowered the lights and simultaneously splashed a map of the solar system on all of one blank wall. The map carried the caption _Pioneer Logistic_ and showed a dozen labelled points scattered throughout the system's inner and median reaches. A few were moving very slowly while others appeared to be at rest.

After a minute's careful scrutiny the General leaped to his feet, muttering, "Good, good, Hazelton can get there in four hours." Starting his sender, he brought on Message Center and commanded: "Get me Admiral Hazelton on the _Star-Seeker_. Top Priority Instant Action Field Officer Line."

Cramer, accustomed to slower transmission channels, was startled by the speed with which Hazelton's voice came into the room. "Standing by, General."

"Admiral, have your daily code book handy?"

"Right here."

"Put her on today's complete garble in precisely ten seconds." He set his own coder and waited. "Okay. Hazelton, are you receiving me clearly?"

"Perfectly, Chisholm."

"All right, now nobody else can follow what I'm going to tell you. Immediately shift course for 325.83.21 in asteroid quadrant, subsection 38." A protesting squawk came hurtling across space. "First give your people my orders, then I'm going to tell you why."

Cramer gaped as he heard his superior start to repeat his story. The General _must_ have believed it!

Ten minutes later Hazelton broke in with a final "Oh, my God!" For a while only his heavy breathing could be heard, then he said, "Chisholm, if there's anything to this it's the worst social catastrophe of the century!"

"I know it. Contact me as soon as you have a sample analyzed. You should be able to manage in six hours or so--this line'll be open at all times from now on. Off."

Chisholm came back to the desk and looked steadily at Cramer. "You sure have me going far out on a prestige limb."

"I never expected anybody to believe me, sir," he replied, all gratitude.

"I still don't but we can't take any chances. I know something has to be going on. You see, Captain Hartley resigned from the service yesterday."

"But he's still under your command for three months, isn't he?"

"No, he's a free agent. He entered a Categorical Resignation. That means he's giving up all benefits accruing to a man of 25 years standing but his resignation is immediately effective."

"You could still arrange for his arrest through the civil channels."

"I doubt whether any continental president would care for that idea, I know I don't. Your former Captain's a very shrewd man, he knew we'd see how helpless we are--I only hope that you're lying through your teeth!"

"If I don't return soon, General Chisholm, he'll suspect something."

"Again, it doesn't matter very much." He sat down and rubbed his chin. "If we let you go back, do you think he'd let you see how they're organizing their operation? True, it would be more convenient for him if, for a few more days, we wouldn't be investigating him--that's why he took the chance of letting you report back here and avoided the Probationary hunt. To his way of thinking, chances are that you'll want further dosages and keep quiet. But why should we expose you further to that stuff when the possible sacrifice involved won't give us any more information?"

"Then you're just going to surrender the point, let him realize you know and won't do anything about it?"

"Not exactly. The best we can do is keep him uncertain about you. Officially, you've been arrested for insubordinate behavior by a martinet General who's decided to make a horrible example of you. Someone looking like you is going to be seen entering a punishment craft heading for a monotony run to check the automatic satellites around Uranus. That's the stupid best we can do--we're over a barrel." His sharp eyes suddenly dug into Cramer's. "You'll be in isolation quarters for the next few hours. I only hope that you'll deserve to stay there, that your story is all malicious nonsense!"

* * * * *

Cramer was escorted to a small cell where there were no audio-visuals, only old-fashioned printed books. He picked up a few of them, stared at the title pages without knowing what he was reading, then began to pace his cell.

What if they didn't find a germ sample? After all, nobody had ever spotted the stuff before.

No, they knew what to look for now and that made a difference.

But maybe it didn't in this case.

And what made them feel so helpless? What gave Hartley that much of an advantage over a General of the Space Deeps?

Nothing added up and it seemed he had been shuffling the crazy pieces for a week when they came to take him back to Chisholm's office. The clock, though, told him only eight hours had passed.

Another man was in Chisholm's office now and he recognized him as soon as he came in--Shelby Johnson, President of North America. The newcomer nodded grimly as they were introduced to each other.

"President Johnson is here incognito, came by a private entrance," Chisholm explained. "You're not to mention this anywhere."

"A real mess!" Johnson exclaimed. "But at least there was someone decent enough to give us forewarning. This stuff's supposed to be so effective, no hangover, no known damage to the system--why didn't you go along with Hartley's reasoning?"

"There has to be some bad long-range effect, nothing comes that cheap."

"I only hope you're right." Johnson's grey eyes seemed to be focussed far off. "Otherwise the social damage will be terrible."

"_Everything_ you told me has been confirmed," said Chisholm. "Scouts had no trouble finding a batch and the tests confirm that it's seemingly harmless, breaks down completely."

"Then why don't you arrest Hartley?"

"That would just spread knowledge of this even faster. He's probably seen to it that will happen and can hold it over our heads."

"Counter the thing with a propaganda offensive, highlighting the evils."

"What evils? Young man," the President broke in, "Who's going to be scared off from something that sounds so harmless? Two things are working against us--the supply's easily replenishable _and_ testing equipment's much too common for us to put over any white lies."

"Still hard for you to understand, isn't it?" Chisholm sighed. "Cramer, a terribly big percentage of the population has become passive and bored, just looking for some easy diversion. We have all we can do just to keep this social cancer from spreading without germ-joy. _With_ it, matters can get out of hand. And I don't care how automated and wealthy a society is it can't get by if we develop _that_ big a burden of non-thinking freeloaders."

"General Chisholm isn't wholeheartedly with the plan I've adopted but--"

"But I haven't a thing better to suggest, Mr. President," the General conceded.

"Who does? Well, the plan for the next few weeks is this, to keep very close surveillance of Hartley's activities without openly conceding we know what he's up to. We have to hope that some defect will show up in a user even though the first report says no one sees how it can happen."

Cramer protested. "You're going to let him get away with it!"

"For the present," President Johnson nodded. "We're not interested in punishing a particular man. We have to give him all the joy-rope he needs and hope that he, as the longest-run user, suffers the consequences."

"I could keep taking it myself if you need a guinea pig."

"The rasher section of the public will supply enough guinea pigs," said the General. "You'll stay here at HQ, looking over all the reports that come in, Mr. Cramer, maybe your experience will help somewhere along the line. If, after a few weeks, nothing shows up, we will crack down on Hartley anyway."

"Not that it will do much good," said the President. "But we, too, need our moments of purely personal satisfaction."

* * * * *

The following day Cramer was given a robot-run suite high in HQ Tower. His human contacts were restricted to a few total security clears who occasionally brought him messages too delicate for transmission on the building's internal net. Inured to the isolation-training of the spacenaut, he was not disturbed by the lack of company.

But within two days a message arrived that did disturb him. The _Star-Seeker_, returning with its precious capsules of asteroid bacteria, was still a week from Earth base and already one scout who had somehow sampled germ-joy was under forcible restraint for trying to get additional dosages. Medical analysis showed no physiological addiction but it did indicate some purely psychological craving triggered by merely one dose. The scout was not moved by the warnings of the frost flake's possible danger since there was no binding proof of it.