Part 6

He threw it aside and went in, his attention once more on the important business before him. He ran along the curved corridor--

And there, a figure in a spacesuit was quietly levering one of the control rods out of its slot and preparing to hurl it into the void.

* * * * *

Farradyne understood the whole act in one glance; it was the sort of thing that he would do if sabotage had been his intention. The single scuttleport had been opened first by hand. Then the saboteur had scuttled the stock of spare control rods, and since the Lancaster was reasonably new, there had been quite a batch of them. Furthermore they were long, unwieldly, heavy things that took time to handle. Naturally, this was the first act, because the next act would cause the ship's acceleration to rise. The rise in acceleration would make the rods too heavy to carry and would also cause investigation as soon as people became aware of the increasing pressure.

Then the working rods would be hurled out, leaving the ship heading hell-bent out of the galaxy at about eight gravities of acceleration. The passengers and crew would be helpless.

Maybe two or three rods had been scuttled already. The rest, functioning on the automatic, would be shoved in further to compensate; Farradyne could feel no change in the acceleration pressure. But once the working rods were all the way home, the removal of the next would cause the ship to take off, literally, with the throttle tied down. Farradyne was willing to bet the rest of his life that the safety-valve that furnished the water-mass to the pile was either welded open or damaged in such a way that supply could not be stopped.

Then--and Farradyne had to admire his precautions--the vandal would make his way to the escape hatch, hit the void, and let the helpless passengers go on and on and on.

The saboteur was well prepared. His suit was a high-efficiency job capable of maintaining a man alive for a long time in space. It had a little radio and a small and expensive chemical motor for mild maneuvering. The man had friends, obviously, lying in wait out there ahead, who would pick him up.

A passel of ice-cold-blooded murderers.

Farradyne saw the man through a red haze that clouded up over his eyes. His evaluation of the act was made in a glance, in the bare instant that it took for Farradyne to see the man and then get his feet in motion. He plunged forward with a bellow that hurt his own ears.

The airlessness kept the sound in; the killer was not aware of Farradyne until the heavy file crashed down on the top of his helmet, putting a half-inch dent in the steel.

XV

The man whirled and sent a heavy-gloved hand back against Farradyne's face-glass. Farradyne lifted the file for a second swing and caught the gleam of a heavy knife just as it swung upwards at his face. The blade jabbed at the face-glass and blunted slightly before Farradyne's eyes. The glass crazed, clouding Farradyne's vision.

Farradyne's second swing caught a shoulder-pad and sent the man staggering back; the knife came up again and the gleaming edge sliced space close to Farradyne's arm. The man stumbled and fell, and Farradyne moved forward. The long lever used to handle the radioactive control rod chopped against his shins and cut his feet out from under him; he landed on his face in position to let the other man kick out with heavy spaceboots. The heels rammed Farradyne's helmet hard down into the shoulders and the top of the helmet hit the top of Farradyne's head, stunning him slightly.

The other scrambled forward and landed on Farradyne's back. He pulled up and back on the fittings of Farradyne's helmet until the pilot's spine ached with the tension. Then the man thrust forward and slammed Farradyne's face down on the deck. The safety glass cracked further and there came the thin, high screech of air escaping through a sharp-edged hole.

Farradyne lashed out and around just in time to parry a slash of the knife. Blade met file in a glint of metal-spark and both weapons were shocked out of and gloved hands to go skittering across the deck.

The man left Farradyne to scrabble across the floor after his knife. Farradyne jumped to his feet, took three fast steps and leaped to come down with both feet on the man's back. The other collapsed and Farradyne fell, turning his right wrist painfully underneath him. The other made a kick that caught Farradyne in the side, turning him over. And as Farradyne rolled, his bent hand touched hard metal and he came up out of the roll clutching a heavy pair of spaceman's repair pliers.

He faced the killer, standing again, armed again; spaceman's pliers against assassin's knife. He plunged forward and felt the knife bite against his suit; he swung the pliers as a club and caught the killer's upper arm, then opened the jaws and bit down, twisting and pulling.

A three-cornered patch ripped and came away between the jaws as the heavy outer cloth gave way. The knife came up and bit through Farradyne's suit across the knuckles of the hand that held the pliers. Farradyne kicked, sending the killer staggering, and followed him, probing at the tear to get at the thin inner suit beneath. The other man struggled, hurled Farradyne away; but when Farradyne staggered back, it was with the thin lining between the jaws of the spaceman's pliers. The other's suit ripped and there came a puff of white vapor as the air blew into the void.

The struggling killer stopped as though shocked by an electric current; he stood there stiffly, his hands slowly falling to his sides, limp. Farradyne took a step back, breathing heavily.

He could see, now that his head was not jerking back and forth behind the cracked glass. He peered, in time to watch the froth of blood foam out of Hughes' nose.

Hughes!

Farradyne wondered whether Hughes had cried out in a polytonal voice--

* * * * *

He hauled Hughes into the air-break and slammed the door shut. He valved air into the break and ripped Hughes' suit off. He felt for a pulse and found one fluttering; he turned Hughes on his face and pumped on the ribs in, out, in, out, wondering whether he was wasting his time.

Hughes groaned painfully. His voice echoed and re-echoed in the tiny air break, but Farradyne could not hear more than the groan of a man badly hurt. Hughes stirred and opened one eye halfway. Then he closed it again and moaned under his breath. Farradyne checked the heart and found it beating weakly; the pulse was not fluttering any more, and the breath was coming naturally, even though the man's chest heaved high and dropped low and there was a foghorn sound in the throat as he gasped huge lungfuls of air.

Hughes would give Farradyne no trouble for some time. He carried Hughes to his stateroom and stretched him on the bed. Then he went below and closed the little hatches and reinserted the control rod, wondering again whether missing a few would louse-up his landing.

He went to the control room and replaced the wiring torn out of the audible-alarm panel. The phalanx of warning lamps had winked out, and the clangor of danger did not sound.

Farradyne went back to Hughes' stateroom. "Can you hear me?" he demanded.

Hughes awakened slightly. He looked up, his eyes dim but aware.

"You're a back-biting s.o.b.," snapped Farradyne. "And I'd have let you die if it hadn't occurred to me that you might be good for some information. What makes, Hughes?"

"Wiseacre," came from Hughes' lips in a whisper.

"What's the game, Hughes?"

"I don't know what--you're talking--about."

"I can break all your fingers and slip a hot soldering iron under your armpits until you yelp loud and clear."

"You'd better kill me, then," breathed Hughes. "Because you aren't smart enough to hold me."

"No? Hughes, you're wrong." Farradyne continued to smile as he went into the medicine-bay and came up with an ampule and a hypodermic. He filled the needle deliberately, eyed the dose critically and adjusted the quantity by causing a droplet to ooze out of the needle until the plunger was exactly at the mark.

"This is a fine pain-killer," he said. "Marcoleptine. Know it, Hughes?"

Hughes began to mouth curses. Farradyne paid no more attention to the curses than if Hughes had been delivering benedictions. He caught the man's arm, quelled the resulting struggle easily and locked the arm in a cruel arm-bar between the elbow and the wrist beneath his arm-pit. Farradyne lifted, and Hughes came up from the bed slightly; the arm was both rigid and still because to move might break the arm. Hughes glared; Farradyne put on more pressure.

Then, as deliberately as he had measured out the dose, Farradyne slid the needle into Hughes' elbow, probed briefly for the vein and delivered the shot. He withdrew the needle quickly and swabbed the ooze of blood with cotton dipped in an astringent.

* * * * *

He dropped Hughes on the bed and sat down on the chair beside the bed and relaxed a bit.

"Marcoleptine," he said conversationally, "is a fine pain-killer--and habit-forming as hell. You'll blank out in a few moments, and when you come to it will be about this time tomorrow. You'll see me, because I'll be here with another healthy needle full of the stuff. By the time we get to Pluto, you'll be willing to sell your eyeballs for a jolt, Hughes."

Hughes' eyes were heavy-lidded, but beneath them pure hatred looked out.

"As for the reason you're here, that's easy. I can almost quote the Spaceman's Guide to Diagnosis of Common Ailments. I think it's on Page two forty-four." Farradyne did not really remember, but he wanted to keep a drone of speech running to lull Hughes' mind--and also to help keep himself awake until Hughes blanked out under the marcoleptine. "Coryosis, one of the nine allied infections formerly grouped under the ambiguous term 'Common Cold,' is contagious but not fatal except in severe cases of extreme sensitivity. Treatment consists of isolation of the patient plus frequent intravenous injections of MacDonaldson's Formula 2,Ph-D3;Ra7. Nobody will want to spend much time with you for fear of infection themselves, which would be both hazardous to them and to you because of the danger of reinfection.

"I heard you coughing and sneezing and I came to help and found you in severe pain. Good Old Samaritan Farradyne is going to take care of you and he will also lug you back to Terra. You wouldn't want to stay on Pluto where it's cold even despite the Terraconversion program. There's only one thing more. They'll want to see you even though it's only a peek in through the door, so you've got to look presentable."

Farradyne ran hot water into the lavatory and soaped a cloth. He slapped the hot cloth over Hughes' face and let the soap and water soak in. Then he began to scrub vigorously.

The caked blood came away from Hughes' face easily. And so did dark pigment: makeup. The dark-complected Hughes turned paler; the lines of his face faded as the reinforcing pigment washed away. Schoolteacher Hughes came off on the soapy washcloth.

"Brenner!" exploded Farradyne.

* * * * *

But the man on the bed was out cold. Farradyne cursed his enthusiasm with the marcoleptine, for his questions would fall on deaf ears and torture would hurt only numbed nerves. He would have to wait; but there would be plenty of time to pry certain answers out of Hughes-Brenner.

He left the doped man and went to his own stateroom and to bed. Oddly enough, he fell asleep immediately and slept dreamlessly until it was time to get up.

Warily he faced his passengers over the breakfast table, eyeing them one by one. He explained about Hughes--"heard him moaning in the night and found he had a nice case of coryosis. He's under treatment now and he'll probably be out colder than a mackerel for some time."

There was no response that Farradyne could put down as strange or odd. Either Hughes-Brenner had a confederate that was very cagey and capable of running a good ad lib, or the crook was operating alone. Farradyne felt that it was not impossible for the hellflower gang to have a second operator on his ship to take over if Brenner failed, perhaps unknown even to Brenner. But there was no evidence of such--no more than there had been evidence of Brenner until the disguise was removed--and so Farradyne decided to play cagey too.

He learned only one thing: the difference in attitude between himself and normal people. Where Farradyne would not have accepted a statement of sickness without taking a sample of Brenner's sputum or blood, these people believed it easily and complimented Farradyne on his willingness to help a fellow man. Farradyne carried this even farther by asking Professor Martin about 'Hughes' and his home.

Hughes, according to Professor Martin, taught Ancient History in a school in Des Moines, Iowa, but none of them knew much about him because the teacher had joined them on Mercury not much before they had contracted for this trip.

Farradyne then buttered up the program by suggesting that he take Hughes back home to Terra, because a sick man would not find Pluto a pleasant place. There was relief in their eyes; good and as honest as they were, all of them were happy to be relieved of the responsibility of a sick comrade. Some of them went with him to peek through the door while Farradyne gave Hughes his medicine and they remarked on how pale he looked. He was also weak enough to be convincing and he went back to sleep as soon as the drug took hold.

Farradyne set a photoelectric alarm on the stairway below the passenger's section; but if Hughes-Brenner had any cohorts from the rest of the hellflower outfit aboard, they laid low. Farradyne kept Brenner under dope until Pluto was looming in the sky, and then went to him just before landing.

XVI

Farradyne poised the needle. "Ready for another jolt?" he asked. "Feel the craving yet, Brenner?"

Brenner grunted.

"Say it in that triple-voiced tongue of yours," snapped Farradyne. "Let me hear you sing, Brenner!"

"Go to hell. I don't know what you're talking about."

"No? I'm surprised ... you mean there's something I know that you don't know?" Farradyne loaded the hypodermic with slow deliberation, watching Brenner's eyes to see if there was any sign of longing for the drug. "Maybe I'll know more than I do now, pretty soon. I'm taking you off the dope as soon as we get rid of the customers, so they can't hear you screaming your lungs out for a jolt. You'll talk, all right. Put up the arm, Brenner. Quietly and nicely--or I'll break it off at the arm-pit and shove the needle into the other one."

"You're a devil from hell."

"And you're an angel, ripping out the damper rods to take us to Heaven?" sneered Farradyne. "I owe you the works for that one. You'll get 'em! Feel any craving?"

"No!"

Farradyne waved the needle in front of Brenner's face. "Maybe I should think it over for a bit," he said.

"You wouldn't dare."

"No?"

"Look, Farradyne, no matter how smart you think you are, you won't get anything out of me. And you'll not stop me from leaving this ship when I want to leave."

"Trying to sidelong-urge me into slipping you your slug?" taunted Farradyne.

Brenner held up his arm. "Shoot me the sugar, Farradyne. I could hold out, but you couldn't afford to have me wide awake while we're on Pluto. I know that as well as you do."

"You're not too bad off so far," said Farradyne, slipping the needle into Brenner's arm. "But you're coming along. We'll find out how long your nonchalance lasts after we get rid of the school-folks."

"Just go away and let me sleep."

"Have a nice dream," said Farradyne. "Because your next one will be a wake-mare."

Farradyne waited until the eyelids closed heavily and Brenner's breathing became deep and regular. Then he left him to explain to the rest of the passengers that 'Hughes' was resting easily but that the lack of sunshine on Pluto would impair his recovery-time. Then Farradyne went aloft and into the landing pattern, one wary eye poised for danger.

The Lancaster came down easily, and while the landing was as good as any Farradyne had ever made, he was a jittering wreck from three hours in the chair worrying about a recurrence of the Semiramide affair.

He checked in; the spaceport bus snaked out to meet them as they came trooping down the landing ramp.

"All here?" called the driver.

"All that's coming," replied Farradyne.

"But the roster-count was--"

"Mr. Hughes has an attack of coryosis," offered Professor Martin. "He is going--"

"--to be a bit late, but here I am," said a voice behind them. They whirled to see Hughes-Brenner coming down the ramp, his bag packed, a smile on his face.

* * * * *

Brenner laughed and his voice was hearty. "I kept telling Mr. Farradyne that he was going a bit heavy on the rest-cure. I'm really quite all right." He slapped Farradyne on the shoulder. "Coryosis is not as dangerous as the books say it is," he said. "Certainly it is nothing to keep a good man flat on his back!"

"But--"

"Sleep and isolation did the job," chuckled Brenner. "And now I'll be happy to let any doctor on Pluto look down my throat. I'm a bit pale, I suppose, but I assure you I'm quite well again."

He climbed into the spaceport bus, still thanking Farradyne for the medication that had kept him quiet, and waved back gayly as the bus sped off across the Pluto Spaceport.

Brenner had become 'Hughes' again to his friends, and had disappeared under the protection of a group of people above reproach.

He was a very extraordinary gentleman, Farradyne thought glumly; he had been able to walk off the ship with his eyes bright and his system hale, when he should have been flat on his spine with a brain full of marcoleptine--one of the most completely paralyzing drugs that had ever been synthesized. He had feigned doped slumber and helplessness, then had walked away, knowing that Farradyne had not the legal right to raise a cry against him.

Hughes was a very remarkable fellow.

Farradyne watched the truck bringing out his shipment of refined thorium ore, with a sneer directed at himself. Outpointed and outsmarted--the evidence he had was very meager. Evidence? It was more of a belief than evidence.

What did he have to fit together? A common pattern of love-lotus background. A man who died with a discordant moan. A man who grunted in a polytonal when surprised by a woman, and who could take a paralyzing dose of marcoleptine and then walk out jauntily. An apparent well-to-do family with a proud place in the community, and a girl who worked hand-in-glove with love-lotus operators but who had never had her nose in one of the hellish things.

He sat bolt upright. Could Carolyn be immune to hellflower as Brenner was to marcoleptine? And did she make with three-toned cries when she was surprised?

The thought that he had been avoiding came back again. Obviously, since he himself was susceptible to marcoleptine and women like Norma were susceptible to hellflower perfume, and neither of them could sing a trio unaided, there must be two kinds of people!

XVII

Farradyne wondered how soon the fuss would start once the drums of refined thorium ore went under some hidden beam of ultra violet light. He watched the drums being trundled off and disappearing. He watched and waited until it was evening, but no one came on the double-run to ask him leading questions.

He finally took off about nine o'clock, and made the looping run from New Jersey to Los Angeles in time to get there just about dusk.

He checked into the control Tower at seven o'clock, and went over to the mail-listing window. "Anything for Charles Farradyne?"

"Expecting something?"

"At least one. A payment voucher from Eastern Atomic. Come yet?"

The mail clerk disappeared; came back with one envelope. "Nothing from Eastern Atomic," he said. "But here's a letter for Charles Farradyne, Pilot of ship's registry Six-Eight-Three, a Lancaster Eighty-One. That must be yours."

"It's mine. But keep an eye peeled for a landwire payment voucher, will you? I had to leave Newark before it was ready and the guy at the shipping office said he'd notify the company that the stuff was received at the 'port, and that I'd be in Los Angeles. Okay?"

"Aye-firm."

The letter was from Carolyn; a brief note telling him that she would be ready for the trip on the morning of the fifth. This suited Farradyne; he had been afraid that Carolyn might be waiting at the spaceport for him, and that they'd be taking off before Clevis had a chance to find out about the unwashed drum-ends.

She also suggested in a postscript that she would be in her hotel and free any evening after nine o'clock. Farradyne looked at his watch and decided what to do with the intervening two hours: he was going to buy a love lotus, to check on the question of her immunity.

On this problem Farradyne had to admit a lack of experience. He wandered for some time, entering one florist-shop after another and getting nowhere. He could buy a gardenia for five, but the fifty he offered for a 'Corsage' could only buy something resembling the garland they put on Kentucky Derby Winners.

And then as his two hours were about gone, a seedy-looking character sidled up alongside and said, "Lookin' for somepin', Jack?"

"Who isn't?"

"Might be able to fix y' up, Jack. Got a few?"

Farradyne looked at his watch. "I've got fifteen," he said.

"Won't take that long. Just try the stand in the Essex, and tell 'em Lovejoy sent you to pick up his corsage. Cost ya half a yard, Jack. Got it?"

"Got it."

The character slipped away leaving a faint aroma of decaying cloth and a trace of gardenia, making what Farradyne considered a God-awful mixture. Farradyne did not look to see where he went, but started for the Essex immediately.

The flower-shop attendant was a dark, handsome woman in a low-cut dinner dress. She gave Farradyne a mechanical smile as he entered.

"I'm a friend of Mr. Lovejoy," said Farradyne significantly. "He said he'll be late, and asked me if I'd stop by and pick up his corsage on my way."

"Oh. Of course. Just one moment." She disappeared for a few minutes and came back with a fancy transparent box containing a gardenia--or a love lotus. "That will be five dollars, sir," she said.

Farradyne took a fifty from his wallet and handed it to her. The girl rang up five on the register but put the whole fifty in the till.

A few minutes later, the desk clerk at Carolyn's hotel informed him that Miss Niles was expecting a Mr. Farradyne and he should go right up to Room Seven Twenty-Three.

* * * * *

Carolyn greeted him warmly, took him by the hand and drew him into the room. Once the door was closed she came into his arms and kissed him, not too fervently but very pleasantly, with her body pressing his for a long moment. Then she moved out of his arms and accepted the flower. "Lovely," she breathed.

She opened the box and held the white flower at arms' length, admiring its beauty. Then she held it to her nose and took a deep breath, letting the fragrance fill her lungs.

Farradyne's mind did a flip-flop. First he felt like a louse--and he felt that it was only what she and her kind did to other women, and it was damn well good enough for her. She smiled at him over the edge of the blossom, still breathing in its fragrance.

"Maybe," she said archly, "I shouldn't dare do this."

The badinage was the same as it had been a couple of weeks ago, but at that time both of them knew the blossom was pure gardenia. Now Farradyne knew that it was not, and this knowledge made him wary. He hoped his smile was honest-looking. "You're hooked already," he grinned wolfishly.