Part 3

I envied Charley his blissful oblivion but not the collision he must have sustained with his ham-handed friend. I tried to spot the emblem on the Martian's wrist band; I could have learned which Martian house he belonged to. But no luck. I don't think I was even greatly surprised to discover we had Martians on board.

"All right, Vechi," I said. "What's your game?" The explanations were a little overdue.

What _were_ Martians doing in the control room, Martians who obviously belonged to some powerful family? Why was Vechi hijacking an R.A. ship?

"This will become obvious shortly," Vechi said quietly. "I need the _Starfish_ because I am about to make a long journey, a journey which no authority on Mars will permit in the orthodox fashion." He looked tired but oddly relaxed and deeply happy; it was a tantalizing combination.

"You can't get away with it," I said. And I didn't know what he was trying to get away with.

"I think it possible." Vechi looked at Raeburn. Then he looked back at me. I was staring at the Martian. Standing by the door, with folded arms, oblique black eyes and inscrutable features he made the scene more than unreal.

Vechi waited for me to return his glance. He shrugged at Raeburn. "This is the human garbage you can try, and sentence, and imprison. His crime is greed. He wants money. He will sell anything for money. He is a contact man for the Andean Research Society on Earth. And they are curious about diranium. They pay well. When Raeburn is finished they will send someone else, and someone else. Their persistence is as great as their greed. They have no morality. Eventually, they will succeed, I have no doubt."

"You were in it with me!" Raeburn cried. "It was your plan to go to Ul!"

Vechi paid him no attention. "My crime is something else again," he said softly. "If it is a crime."

Vechi, clinging to the hand-grip, was a strangely intense figure in the compartment. I felt that he directed no ill will towards me. That he was even appealing to me in some way.

"Presently, Lasker," he said to me, "you will be able to judge my crime for yourself. It is no easy judgment to make.

"But I have no desire to bare myself before this obscene caricature of man!"

"Rocz!" he said sharply. He inclined his head to Raeburn.

The powerful Martian moved across the compartment. In the pale blue light Raeburn's vast brow glittered with perspiration. His lips twisted back in the ugliness of terror.

It was over as suddenly as his cry. And infinitely less painful. The Martian went back to his position by the door and I discovered that my breathing was normal again; Raeburn was only unconscious.

Vechi slid his gun back in his pocket. What need had he of it? Then he went to the compartment door and slid it open.

I should have known it was coming, but I didn't. I said, later, that I had suspected it, but I hadn't.

* * * * *

She came in. She was gold and violet and seemed to float in a cloud of silk. She was tiny and slender and her oblique dark eyes looked first at Vechi, and then at me. There was in her manner the shyness of deer and the brightness of birds. This, then, was Vechi's treasure. I could blame him for nothing.

I had not noticed Deborah. I was stunned; she was too. She looked like a bewitched child in the presence of a fairy. Who was, of course, Laapet.

The powerful Martian, Rocz, had dropped to one knee at her entrance, shielded his face with one hand, and kept his eyes fixed on us. I marveled at his restraint and the conditioning which kept him from staring with the rest of us. If I had kicked Charley into sensibility at that point our relations today might be better; he has never really forgiven me.

Laapet touched Deborah very gently--so that she came over to me, I rose to my feet and put my arm around Deborah; she was trembling.

"Oh, Steve," she whispered huskily.

Vechi took his eyes from Laapet and looked at us.

"There is something more valuable on Mars than diranium--to me," he said. "You have guessed, of course, at her identity. And you can understand, now, why we must make a long journey to be with each other."

I realized suddenly that we had been duped. That Laapet had used Deborah and me--and our faith in her honesty. It came as a greater shock than I imagined it would. The bubble had burst and these proud, untouchable people had become suspect and ugly with one lie. The disillusionment made me belligerent.

"She is Pundra Doh's wife," I said to Vechi.

"She is Pundra's concubine," Vechi said gently. "She will be my wife."

"And what of her poor children in Ul?"

"They are Pundra's children. Under the system she is a communal mother. They are with their true mother in Ul."

"She lied," I said obstinately. I had been deceived into sympathy. She had used a powerful and terrible weapon and I remembered the ancient proverb, "God deliver us from the lies of honest men."

But Vechi perceived my disillusionment and all of its meaning. "Yes," he said. "It is necessary for others to lie before they can live by our code."

"You can't blame her duplicity on us," I said.

"Only in so far as we are not acceptable to the people who live in truth. And those who would live with us must break into truth. As she has been forced to do--to protect our secret. It has not been easy for her."

"Steve, Steve, can't you see that it must have been terrible for her?" I looked at Deborah.

"Yes, I suppose it must have been. But--how could you have met?"

"It happened three years ago," Vechi told us. "There was an accident in the desert. Laapet's driver had been killed in an explosion in her machine. I came along quite by chance and I helped her. It was not difficult to fall in love with her."

I watched the man unbelievingly. For three years he, too, had practised deceit. He had deliberately permitted rumor to distort his purpose and character and reputation. And during those three years, his frequent and mysterious trips--were they to see Laapet? I asked him.

"No," he said, "I have been building a place of refuge for us. We could not stay here, and where could we be at ease on Earth?"

"And that is why you are taking the _Starfish_, to make the trip?"

"I am borrowing it," Vechi said. "Rocz and the pilot will return it once we have reached our destination."

Deborah moved within my arm. Her voice was deep with sympathy for them. "They are going to Venus, Steve, with this story. As a gentleman," he went on, "you can respect a trust."

"You have my word," I said. "But what's the good of telling me if you don't want the story told?"

"Some day," he smiled, "it will occur to you that the time has come to tell this story, when people will not be at all interested in its implications. Though they should be."

I did not understand him, then. But I agreed. "And what will you do with us?"

"Send you down in an 'egg.' The space-raft will hold the four of you. Once we are over Faleeng we'll release it."

"And just how will I explain the disappearance of the _Starfish_?"

"I don't think there will be any trouble," Vechi smiled. "You can tell them you caught Vechi and Raeburn in a diranium conspiracy, that Vechi pulled a double-cross and got away. It will explain the pilots Raeburn slugged back in Marsport, too. It will do for popular consumption; they expect something like this of me anyway."

"You still don't mind being called a rat?" I said.

Vechi drew Laapet closer to him. "No," he said.

"But why did you drag Raeburn in on this?"

"He's my peace offering to the ambassador, and to Pundra. There's a complete file on Raeburn in my office in Marsport. The ambassador and Pundra will arrive at a diplomatic understanding about the rest, I'm sure. It won't get out that I left with Laapet."

A buzzer sounded in the _Starfish_. "That'll be Faleeng," Vechi said.

Rocz carried Raeburn, and then Charley into the "egg." They were still unconscious.

Before we got in Deborah impulsively took Laapet's hands in hers.

"I hope you make out, Vechi," I said.

Some of the strain shucked off him. "Thanks, pal," he smiled and while I was shaking hands with him I realized I admired him tremendously. But I did not envy him.

When the door to the "egg" had screwed shut, I turned to Deborah. We were almost alone--Charley and Raeburn were beyond reach. I took her in my arms and I kissed her.

"I've caught it, too," I said. "I don't want to live on Venus--but will you set up housekeeping with me someplace less strenuous?"

"Oh, Steve," she whispered in that husky voice that belonged to me as of then, "what else would I rather do?"

She took some more pictures, though, when we finally got to Ul, and I used them. But not the story about Vechi and Laapet. Not until now--now that the Martian diplomat has learned double talk, and his wife pours tea and smiles for the news cameras. They aren't untouchable any more.

Which is the point I like to make, whenever I can. Though Vechi is right--nobody is particularly interested. If anything, they're much more comfortable now that the Martians are--different.

More like us.

And it's _our_ fault.