Part 7

Carolyn tucked the blossom in her hair and came into his arms, leaning back to look in his eyes. "I'm not afraid of you, Charles," she said in a low, throaty voice.

"No?"

Carolyn laughed at him and slipped out of his arms. She went to a tiny sideboard and waved an inquiring hand at a bottle of Farradyne's favorite liquor. He nodded. As she mixed their drinks, she said quietly, "Don't disappoint me, Charles."

"How?" he asked, wondering what she was driving at, and feeling that this had nothing to do with hellflowers.

She handed him the highball, and sipped at her own drink. "I think you know that my family is a long way from poverty. And I hope you'll forgive me if I point out that I know I am rather well equipped with physical charms. I also flatter myself that I have a mind large enough to absorb some of the interesting factors of this rather awesome universe."

"I will grant you the truth of all three."

"Thanks," she said, smiling at him over the top of her glass. "But the point is, Charles, that a girl with a bit of money in the top of her stocking--and a brain in her head--wonders whether the gentleman is interested only in the money, or in the shape of her stocking. She'd like to feel that the gentleman in question would still be interested if the shape of the stocking went a bit gauche with age, and the money disappeared."

Farradyne looked at her and wondered. Carolyn was a consummate actress. The hellflower was still in her hair, and Farradyne wanted very much to take his face in his hands and ponder this problem deeply: Carolyn Niles was the daughter of a hellflower operator, and, by all that was holy, at least her parents should have taught her how to recognize a hellflower at ninety paces in a dusky smoke-filled nightclub.

But he knew that he could not take the time to think this out now. He had to reply. He walked across the room and took Carolyn by the shoulders and shook her gently. "Let's leave it just that way," he said. "Sooner or later something will give me away--and then you'll know whether I'm after your body, your money, or your mind." Farradyne kissed her lightly. "Until you _know_, nothing I say will convince you of anything."

Farradyne still had her shoulders under his palms; Carolyn moved forward into his arms and rested herself against him. She put up her face for his kiss and held herself close against him. Then she said dreamily, "You're a nice sort of guy, Charles, and I'll be very happy to leave it that way. Maybe you'll be the one who stays."

* * * * *

Farradyne recoiled mentally and hoped that this instinctive reaction was not noticed. It was too easy to forget what Carolyn represented, when she went soft and sweet and eager. Inwardly he cursed himself and his all-too-easy ability to forget that this was not a personal conflict.

Then he relaxed and decided that if this was what he had to do to cut the hellblossom ring out of human culture, it was nice work if you could get it. The job would have been much less pleasant if Carolyn Niles had been a gawky, ugly duckling with buck teeth and a pasty complexion.

"Charles," she breathed, "take me out into the dark?"

He laughed lightly. "Whither?"

She leaned far back in his arms, arching her fine body. "I want to go to some dark and smoky gin-mill, and dance among the natives, to the throbbing of tomtoms!"

Farradyne led her towards the door. The hellflower she wore in her hair would do as much to her in a crowded nightery as it would if she were forced to spend the next four hours in a closed telephone booth. He wondered briefly whether he really wanted the damned thing to work; he would much prefer to have her come to him without it--

The he forced himself to remember that she wore this hellflower not because of his frustrated lust, but because he wanted Carolyn, alive and vivid and charming, to change into the lifeless and futureless woman that Norma Hannon was.

Their evening was a repetition of the evening on Mercury, except that on Terra it was dark outside. They danced, and there was a steak dinner at midnight, and there was Carolyn relaxed in his arms in the taxicab on the way back to her hotel.

He took her up to her room and she handed him her key. They went in, and Carolyn came into his arms again, soft and sweet. When he kissed her, her response was deep and passionate in a mature sort of way that Farradyne was not prepared for. It was not the mindless lust he had expected. The woman in his arms was all woman and there could be no mistaking the fact--but there was also the mysterious ability of the woman to know when to call a halt at the proper height of the lovemaking. She smiled a little, and put her hand on his chest.

"It's been wonderful again, Charles," she said quietly.

Farradyne rubbed his chin against the top of her head. Then Carolyn swirled out of his arms. "It's incredibly late again, too," she told him. "I'm going to come aboard your ship at seven tomorrow night so we can take off before the crack of dawn. This much I'll tell you and no more, now."

"But--"

"Easy, sweetheart, easy. Take it slow and lovely. Tomorrow night. Tonight I need my beauty sleep."

He eyed her, saying nothing, and she laughed happily. "Charles, do me a favor. Put this gardenia in the icebox for me. I'd like to wear it for you tomorrow. Please?"

Farradyne nodded. Dumbly he nodded. Had that character bilked him out of fifty dollars for a gardenia by calling it a love lotus? He watched Carolyn put the thing into its plastic box, he watched her tie it up in its original ribbon. She handed it to him, and then came into his arms again for one last caress.

"Go," she told him with a wistful smile after she let him out of her arms. "Go and dream about tomorrow night."

He went, half-propelled by her hands, his reluctance partly honest and partly curious. But he went.

* * * * *

Farradyne walked into his spacer feeling like a man who had put his last dollar on the turn of a card and lost. One moment he was on top of the world with everything going according to plan; the next, his world was kicked out from under him and he was dropped back into the mire of fumbling, helpless ignorance.

When he entered the salon of the Lancaster he stopped short, because the last peg had been pulled out of the creaky ladder of his success.

"What's the matter, Farradyne? Aren't you glad to see me?"

There was plenty the matter and he was not glad to see her. But she sat there as though she had every right to bedevil his life. Her eyes widened a bit and she came up out of her chair and towards him. "Farradyne," she said with more eagerness in her voice than he had ever heard before, "you've brought me a love lotus!"

Norma lifted the flower from its nest in the box, eyed it with relish, and then buried her nose deep in the center of the blossom and inhaled with a deep, shuddering sob. Her eyes closed, then opened slowly to look up at Farradyne from beneath half-closed lids.

Then, oddly, she relaxed. The tension went out of her body and she sank back against the cushions. Now Farradyne could see her face more clearly. Her features had lost their chiseled immobility and her eyes had lost the glassy stare. Her face became alive and mobile, and pleasant color flooded it. Her lips parted slightly and curved into normal lines.

The hand that held the flower lay idly on the seat beside her, the other hand lay palm up on the other side. She looked like a young girl that has just been kissed.

"Thanks, Farradyne," she said softly. She looked up at him with a mixture of impishness and friendliness. "You're a sort of nice guy, Farr--no, Charles. Probably a big lumbering bumble-puppy that doesn't really mean any harm."

Farradyne's mind at first refused to work on any but the single thought: Why didn't it work on Carolyn? Then he wondered whether Norma, so obviously normal now, would react to any gesture of affection, and absently he took a step towards her. He felt once again that flush of pity for her, and anger for the rotten devils who had done this to her; he wanted to comfort her. She had changed visibly from a hardened, lackluster woman whose beauty was stiff and unnatural, to a girl whose loveliness was vivid enough to shine through the hard facade of heavy makeup.

"Norma," he said.

She smiled at him warmly but shook her head. Her arms raised as she tucked the love lotus in the heavy hair over one ear. The gesture slimmed her waist and raised her breasts, and through the triangle of her arms he could see her eyes. They were sultry, but they rejected him as she shook her head slowly.

"No," she said, and Farradyne stopped. "You're a nice sort of idiot, Charles, and I've stopped hating you for the moment, but that doesn't mean that I want you to make love to me." The smell of the love lotus, identical to the heady perfume of a gardenia, permeated the room. Norma breathed it in, lifting her face as she inhaled and closing her eyes. "The smell of this is all I want."

She put her head back, and rested. A smile crossed her face, and Farradyne realized that she had dozed off in an ecstasy of relaxation. He wondered what to do next; his mind was torn between the desire to protect her by letting her sleep off the effects of the love lotus, and the certain knowledge that if he did, Norma would never leave him in time for his meeting with Carolyn Niles tomorrow night. And of the two, the latter was by far the more important.

XVIII

As Farradyne stood wondering what to do, a knuckle-on-metal rap came at the spacelock entrance and he turned to see Howard Clevis coming in. Clevis said nothing, for he had caught sight of Norma. He stopped stock still and looked her over from hair to heels. His face grew bitter and hard, and he turned away from her to face Farradyne.

"Farradyne, this isn't the contact you've managed to make?" The tone was heavy with scorn.

Farradyne shook his head sourly. "She's the one that got me started," he said. "But--"

"You've started," snapped Clevis angrily. "That's a real hellflower she's doping, you know."

"For God's sake listen!" yelled Farradyne.

"You listen to me!" yelled Clevis, louder than Farradyne.

Their voices rang up and down the corridors of the ship and Norma's eyes opened. She looked happily at Farradyne, but when she saw Clevis her eyes clouded.

"Howard," she said quietly.

"Why did you run away, Norma? Your folks--"

She shook her head slowly. "I know," she said. "There's even a reward out for me that Farradyne tried to collect. I couldn't sit around and watch my mother and father eating their hearts out. A son killed and a daughter ruined--both by hellflowers. So here I am again. For their sakes I wish I were dead--but that wouldn't cut the hide of a hellflower operator, would it, Howard?" Farradyne gulped.

Norma went on: "Charles, may I have my old room for the night? I gather that you two would like to talk business."

After she had gone, Farradyne said, "So you know her?"

"I knew her brother rather well," said Clevis quietly, "and I've known Norma for some time. I knew her before--before--" He shook his head as if to shake the thought away. "I gather that she thinks you are a hellflower runner."

"That's right. But what does she think you are?"

"She thinks I'm a stockbroker. A former client of Frank Hannon's. Where did you pick her up?"

Farradyne explained how Norma had announced his connection with the hellflower racket, and how Cahill had been killed; how he had been picked up by Carolyn Niles, and the subsequent sabotage by Edwin Brenner, and all the rest of it. At the end he spread out his hands and said, "This isn't all hard work and good management, Clevis. But here I am. And now I have a couple of questions that I'd like answered."

"Yes?"

"Carolyn Niles wore that hellflower for six or seven hours without turning a corpuscle. Norma Hannon proved that it was no gardenia. There's something fishy here, Clevis. Does medical history indicate any immunes to the love lotus?"

"Some. Not many. A few doctors have even gone so far as to claim that the hellflower is no more dangerous than tobacco."

Farradyne swore. "Not according to Norma Hannon it isn't," he said harshly.

* * * * *

Clevis eyed Farradyne carefully. "You're not a bit soft-headed over Norma Hannon, are you?"

"I doubt it," said Farradyne honestly. "She's a poor kid that got clipped, and it makes my blood boil. I want to bundle her up in my arms and tell her that it'll be all right, and I want to go out and rap a half-dozen scum-brained heads together for what they did to her. Normal, she'd be the kind of woman I could fall in love with, and I'm not denying it. But Norma Hannon is a real blank, and any man that married her would end up by trying to make her normal, and then what? Y'know, if you doped up enough women with hellflowers, the birth-rate would take a decline that would alarm a concrete statue."

"That's a hard thing to think about," nodded Clevis.

"Of course, I've never seen a woman just after she has taken her first sniff, so I don't know how long after it a woman's libido is still capable of being excited. But by the time they get to Norma's state, a love lotus only changes their scar-tissued emotional system to something barely normal whose only desire is to sniff the flower." Farradyne shook his head angrily. After a few moments' thought he went on, "Anyway, you might have a couple of ships follow me day-after-tomorrow morning. We're going out somewhere--destination unknown--to make a rendezvous with someone high-up in the business, I think. And no matter what, Clevis, I think it wise for your fellows to keep on my trail, because at least one faction of their gang is out to clip me hard. Sooner or later they'll be sending someone of large proportions to clobber me and then I'd like to have your gang move in fast."

"There's more to it than that," suggested Clevis.

"Well--"

"Go on."

"All right, I will. Remember the cock-and-bull story that nobody believed?"

"The three people in the control room of the Semiramide?"

"That. Well, Clevis, now I know that there was only one person in the control room."

"Oh? Look, Farradyne, you're not trying--"

"No, I'm not. This came by accident. I've heard the same kind of three-voiced cries--once when Cahill died, once when Brenner caught sight of Norma Hannon in bright sunlight. I've been wondering since whether it might be some sort of concocted language."

"Granting that for a moment, just how would you use such a language?"

* * * * *

Farradyne eyed Clevis thoughtfully before he spoke. "I couldn't," he said. "You'd have to take some statement like 'I've been shot!' and break it down to utter the 'I've' in the upper register, the 'been' in the middle tones, and the 'shot' in the bass region."

"Make talking fast--but difficult."

"Make it impossible," said Farradyne pointedly, "for a human being with normal vocal chords."

"What are you trying to say?"

"Maybe it's another race, Clevis."

"A what?" exploded Clevis.

"Item: Carolyn Niles is immune to hellflower. Item: Brenner is immune to marcoleptine. Correlation: they're both hellflower operators."

"Based on a grunt and a cry and an exclamation ... you're asking a lot of me, although we've spent years following less tangible evidence than this."

"I'll add one more item. Where do hellflowers come from?"

"We don't know."

"But you have combed the system for them?"

"Hell, yes--but there are a lot of places that have never been explored. We can't cover all of them. So what's the next step?"

"Taking off with Carolyn Niles. During the next few days I'm going to startle her, and I hope she grunts in three notes. Then I'll have a nice tie-up."

"How so?"

"She has a hellflower-operator background. She'll have a three-noted cry. And she's immune to the damnable flowers her gang deals in."

"Okay, that's your game, Farradyne. But in the meantime what are you going to do about Norma?"

Farradyne eyed Clevis carefully. "You're going to drive her off in your car," he said. "Because one of the games I'm playing is nosey-nosey with Carolyn Niles, and there's going to be no addict cluttering up my spacer. Norma is a bundle of trouble when she's not relaxed with a snoot full of love lotus. She could louse-up the deal for fair if she stayed."

"But what do I do with her?"

Farradyne shrugged. "Take her to a sanatorium," he said. "That'll keep her out of everybody's hair, especially mine."

Clevis scowled. "I hate to put her in a sanatorium."

"What else can you do?" asked Farradyne, spreading his hands.

"Not much; but I feel that I owe her more than that kind of handling. Those sanatoriums are little better than jails, you know."

"So I've heard. But what can you do for people cursed with a disease that nobody knows how to cure?"

"Segregate 'em," sighed Clevis. "Well, let's see what we can do about carting her out of the ship and into my car. About the ships--you'll be followed at extreme military radar range, Farradyne. I won't be there, but you'll have very hard-boiled company watching you."

They went below and found Norma. She was sleeping, relaxed as a kitten, with one leg drawn up to uncover the other shapely leg. Her hands were outstretched over her head, her breathing regular and normal. The hellflower still cast its heady perfume through the room, and Norma was smiling in her sleep, probably dreaming some completely normal woman-type dream.

Farradyne plucked the flower from her hair. "This I'll need," he said quietly. Clevis nodded.

Farradyne stooped down, but Clevis waved him away. "I'll carry her." The Sandman picked Norma up gently. She sleepily protested, but put her arms around Clevis' neck and let herself be carried from the salon.

Watching from the port, Farradyne saw them leave. They looked like a happy party-couple, leaving after too many cocktails, with the girl dozing on her man's shoulder.

Farradyne grinned sourly and shrugged. Clevis had bought himself a bundle of trouble. When Norma really awakened, she would be without her love lotus and would be back to her former self. She would pick Clevis as a target for the only emotion she could really feel. Norma would hate Clevis for taking her away from the man she could really hate in spades. Redoubled. Farradyne shrugged again and went to bed.

* * * * *

Carolyn came aboard the next evening and her first request was for her "gardenia." She put it in her hair and stood there inviting Farradyne with her eyes. He kissed her briefly and waved her to a seat.

"Tired of me, Charles?"

"I've had no time to get used to you, let alone tired of you," he told her. "But I'm more than a trifle curious about this trip we'll be taking in the morning."

"Why not let it wait until then?"

Farradyne looked at her boldly, made no attempt to hide his careful appraisal of her figure and her face. She accepted his brazen eyeing, although she colored a bit. At last he said, "Let's admit it--there's nothing I'd rather do than spend the night making love. It's one of my favorite indoor sports. It's fun outdoors, too. But there are at least two things against it."

She frowned.

He smiled. "You've made affectionate noises, but also a few statements regarding your previous affections that lead me to believe you would not applaud me if I slung you over one shoulder and carried you down to your stateroom for a spot of seduction. Second, the way to get ahead is to marry the boss' daughter, not make a mistress of her. Gentlemen do not take kindly to daughters' lovers. So we've got to think of something like chess or tiddledy-winks for the next few hours, because I haven't enough ice in these hardened arteries to keep my hands off you otherwise."

She leaned back and laughed. "That's the nicest compliment I've ever had--in a backhanded way," she said.

"Then behave, Carolyn. Turn off the lure unless you really want the man you're luring."

The laugh was still in her voice when she asked, "But how can I behave myself when you've given me a love lotus, Charles?"

Farradyne's mind raced in a tight circle. He cursed his impulse to find out whether Carolyn were immune, because it had now led him into the problem of trying to square it with his role of a young and ambitious man who felt deep regard for her. He parried for time:

"Love lotus?"

"A real one."

"But you--I--you wore it all last night! It can't be."

"It is."

Farradyne felt almost certain that Carolyn did not know of Norma's visit, which had verified the hellflower's potency. "How can you tell?" he asked blankly. "You did not react, and I--"

"I'm immune," she said flatly. "Why did you give it to me, Charles?"

"I bought it for a gardenia, Carolyn. Hell, I can't tell 'em apart."

"It's a genuine love lotus. How much did you pay for it?"

Farradyne almost felt a glow of cheer. He fumbled in his pocket and came up with the cash register receipt. "The usual five dollars," he said.

"Someone must have been trying to start another addict," she said in a hard tone.

He looked at her. "But why did you wear it?" he asked.

"I wore it because I know I'm immune and I wanted to see how you reacted. If it was for the usual reason, I was going to lead you on and then send you packing." She looked up at him shyly. "I didn't want it to be for the usual reason, Charles, but I was confused."

"But how do you tell them apart?"

"That I'll not tell you until tomorrow."

Farradyne shrugged. "Okay," he said, taking the love lotus out of her hair and tossing it down the disposal chute. "So what'll it be? Chess, or tiddledy-winks?"

"Astronomy," she said with a smile. "We can see no stars from where I live on Mercury, you know."

He followed her up to the control room and stood behind her as she peered through the spotting telescope. She leaned back against him and rubbed her cheek against his chin.

"None of that, woman," he said sternly.

She turned in his arms and melted against him. He held her close for a bit and then turned her around again to the telescope. "Remember my creaking blood pressure, Carolyn."

Astronomy is a pleasant hobby. It took Farradyne's mind away from the problem at hand, although the problem was inclined to lean back in his arms frequently while he was readjusting the setting wheels; or to rub his ear with her chin while he squinted through the finder to locate another celestial view.

At midnight, Farradyne showed her to her stateroom--and kissed her good night at the door.

He went to bed congratulating himself that he had succeeded in playing the tender, high-minded, thoughtful lover.

* * * * *

At six a.m., Farradyne checked out for space, still wondering where they were going. Tower signed him off with a few crude remarks about damned yawning people in the morning, and cited himself as a man finishing a hard night's work. Then contact was closed and Farradyne was free of the board.

He had two choices.

He could either wake her up because he wanted to be near her, or he could let her sleep because he did not want to disturb her. He chose the second and went down to the galley and had a heavy breakfast. Afterwards he loafed in the salon, trying to plan his future.

She appeared about ten o'clock and reproached him for not calling her. Then she asked, "Where are we?"

"About a half million miles out," he said after a moment's thought. "But the important thing is that we're on our way but your pilot doesn't know where he's going."

"Can you strike a line between Terra and Polaris at a distance of three hundred million miles?"

"Duck soup," replied Farradyne. "But how fast?"

"Zero with respect to Terra at three hundred million."

"Let's go up and start computing," he suggested. "I'll construct you some grub after we get the first approximation and get the ship on the preliminary correction course."