I operate is my own business. And I don't like the word 'hire.' I'd
advise you not to use it again. Ramsey's uranium steal made every miner
on Mars decide straight off that I was the right man to lead them.
They're all in back of me, but they don't control me. I take orders
from no one."
"Maybe they wouldn't be in back of you if they knew what a scoundrel
you are," Corriston said.
"You may think whatever you please. I don't mind your calling me a
scoundrel if it will ease your mind. Just don't use the word 'hire.'"
"I don't see why you should object to it," Corriston went on
recklessly. "It protects you, in a way. It's a good word to hide
behind. If the colonists knew the truth about you, I don't think you'd
last very long."
"I'll last long enough to help you dig your own grave, Corriston,
if you keep on with that line of talk. You're the real lucky one. I
missed killing you on the Station because my aim was bad. You were an
unexpected complication and you were keeping me upset. I didn't like it
at all."
"Go ahead. I knew too much. Was that it?"
"Partly. I didn't know how much you knew or how much you'd guessed. But
you were in a position to start a lot of high-powered stuff that could
have interfered with my plans in a dozen ways. Now I happen to need
you--to a limited extent. But I'm warning you again. Don't trade on
your luck. Don't force me to kill you, Corriston."
"Perhaps I won't. Perhaps we can strike a compromise. As I see it,
there's no need for immediate violence. Suppose you take me just a
little more fully into your confidence. It can do you no harm now; and
there are a few things I'm still curious about."
"All right, Corriston. What is it you'd like to know?"
"How did you manage to stay concealed on the Station when Ramsey's
officers were in full command? You had considerable freedom of
movement, apparently, even if you had to move with caution."
"We had everything planned in advance," Henley said. "We got to one of
Ramsey's men with bribe money the miners raised, an executive officer
named Stockton. We made it worth his while. We had a carefully worked
out plan for smuggling Helen Ramsey off the shuttle ship and keeping
her hidden until the Mars ship arrived. Stockton had everything
prepared: a concealed compartment, food, made our problem more
complicated. Stockton helped us get out of the quarantine cage and kept
right on protecting us until we no longer needed him."
"Then you must have known about the masks. You must have known before
you arrived that Ramsey's men were in complete control of the Station."
"Sure we knew, long before Earth found out. We know exactly what had
taken place. You'd be surprised what a few carefully placed bribes can
do. We knew that Ramsey had laid himself wide open by substituting his
own men for the Station's commanding officers. We knew exactly how
vulnerable he was."
"I see," Corriston said. "Ramsey was so vulnerable that any determined
attack made upon him would have had a fair chance of succeeding. But
you worked out a plan for striking at him in a wholly criminal way,
through his daughter. Did the miners know that, Henley? Or did they
just give you their backing in a general way? You probably seemed to
them the kind of man who would go after Ramsey hammer and tongs."
"Suppose we just say they knew I'd find a way to make Ramsey meet
all of our demands." Henley smiled thinly. "The details they left to
me." He paused an instant, then went on: "Right after Helen Ramsey
disappeared, I did some hard thinking. It occurred to me that she might
be wearing a mask too. So I watched all of the women in the quarantine
cage and when one of them slipped out I followed her."
"As simple as that!"
"It wasn't simple. The girl's disappearance on the shuttle ship had me
completely baffled at first. It wasn't until we reached the Station
that the mask possibility occurred to me."
"We talked about that once before, remember?"
"You were lucky then, Corriston. I tried very hard to kill you, simply
because I thought you knew more about Helen Ramsey's disappearance than
you actually did. In that dark cargo compartment, with time running out
on me, I couldn't think very clearly. Anything more you'd like to know?"
"Yes. How many men did Ramsey succeed in substituting for the rightful
officers? How many, beside the commander?"
"Eight, including the commander. His real name was Henry Hervet. Five
were executive officers, two were security guards. They're all dead
now."
Corriston's mouth went dry. "Including the one who sold out and helped
you?"
"Yes, Stockton was the first to die. He was dead before the others
tried to board this ship. I made sure of that. He was too greedy for
his own good."
"You got back the money you gave him, I suppose."
"Naturally. Money is of very little value to a dead man."
Corriston had gone very pale. There was dread in his eyes when he
asked: "And the real Commander Clement? What happened to him? Where is
he now?"
"Stockton told me that after a mask was made of his face he was
imprisoned somewhere on the Station," Henley said. "Clement and seven
others. Ramsey gave Hervet strict orders not to kill them. I don't
know where Clement is now, but I can make a pretty good guess. He has
probably been released and is in full command of the Station again."
Henley stood very still for a moment, very straight and still, and
Corriston could feel the gun nudging the small of his back again.
"I may as well tell you now that I'm going to have to lock you in,
Corriston," Henley said. "When I turn the key on this room your sole
responsibility will be right here with the controls. You'll have to
sleep and eat here, and I don't intend to bring you any fancy meals.
You'll hear a knock on the door three times a day. You'll get a tray
with some food on it.
"You'll have to decide for yourself how much sleep you can afford to
take. And remember this: I'll be keeping a careful check on every
navigational move you make. Not a too accurate check, perhaps, but I'll
know enough. If you throw the ship off course I'll find out about it,
and I'll want to know why. Be ready with your answers and make sure
they carry weight. Any more questions, Corriston?"
Corriston shook his head. "No. The quicker you get out of here the
better I'll feel."
"All right, I'll leave you now. It's naturally to my benefit to try to
see things from your point of view. And just in case you're worrying
about Helen Ramsey--don't. Nothing is going to happen to her, provided
you stay in line. If you want me don't hesitate to buzz. That's what
the intercom is for."
Corriston looked around once when Henley was on his way to the door.
The man hadn't turned away from him. He was backing toward the door,
his lips tight, his eyes mocking, coldly derisive.
"Did you think I'd give you a chance to catch me with my guard down,
Corriston? If you did, you're a bigger fool than I thought you. This
gun stays with me, and it's going to be centered on you every time I
open this door. Remember that, Lieutenant."
The journey to Mars was a long wait. It was a standing and a waiting,
with a hundred corrective power maneuvers to be checked at every hour
of the day and night. It was sleep without rest and rest without sleep,
and it was a battle against dizziness and the despair which can come to
a pilot when a panel starts flickering a red danger signal in the utter
loneliness of interplanetary space.
The ship was never too hot, never too cold, for the temperature was
kept stable by thermostat-controlled radiation shutters and the air
was kept pure with the aid of carbon filters. But to Corriston the air
conditioning system with all of its elaborate controls seemed only to
point up and emphasize the lack of stability elsewhere, both inside and
outside the ship.
There were so many things that could go wrong--tragically, dangerously,
fatally wrong. For no reason at all, for instance, a recently inspected
filter or gasket could go completely bad, and a "no juice" blow up
threaten. Or a magnetic guidance tape could jam and stop recording, and
the ship could deviate a hair's breadth from its prescribed path and
forget to swing completely back again.
Eventually a correction might be made, but if you failed to correct it
in time, that one tiny deviation could spell disaster. With every day
out there were more details to check, while obstacles mounted and it
was impossible ever to quite catch up with what you had to do, and go
on with complete confidence to the next task.
Worst of all, Corriston was denied all opportunity to see or speak to
the woman he loved.
* * * * *
The trip to Mars took fourteen days. And in all that time Corriston
did not once see Helen Ramsey. He saw only Henley, heard only the deep
drone of the engines, and at times, when he was close to despair, the
dull, steady beating of his own heart.
The door to his prison would open and a tray of food would be pushed
forward into the compartment. Then the door would close quietly again,
and he would be alone.
In some respects he was imprisoned in a way that was almost too
unbelievable for the human mind to grasp. The walls of his cell were
the constellations, the barriers to his freedom space itself.
The chartroom was a cell too, but it had no real confining power over
him. He could walk out of the chart room simply by unlocking the
viewport and swinging it wide open. He could walk out into the larger
prison of space--and die in five seconds with his lungs on fire.
On the thirteenth day Mars loomed out of the inscrutable darkness ahead
like some great accusing eye that had fastened itself on the ship with
a malignance all its own. It filled one-fifth of the viewport, rust-red
over most of its surface, but also pale blue in patches, a blue which
shaded off into a kaleidoscope of colors that seemed to hover chiefly
like the shifting, almost hueless cloudiness of a hot summer haze.
On the morning of the fifteenth day, the ship, decelerating under
sidethrusts from its powerful retardation rockets, cut off its engines
and, free-coasting through a landing ellipse of seventy degrees, landed
safely on Mars.
It landed in the open desert, twenty miles from Ramsey's citadel,
and eighty-seven miles from the first Martian colony. But Corriston
received no praise at all for his navigational skill.
Five minutes after the engines ceased to throb a blow on the head
felled him, a brutal blow from behind.
"Tie him up," Henley said. "We're not killing him, not just yet."
"But I don't see why--" a cold voice started to protest.
"Damn you, Stone, I know what I'm doing. Keep your thoughts to
yourself."
15
Corriston sat very straight and still in the darkness, his back against
cold metal, his eyes on the distant glow of the heating lamp. He could
see the lamp through a wide panel opening in the bulkhead directly
opposite him. Wherever his eyes fell there was the glimmer of light on
metal. But the warmth of the lamp would have left him close to freezing
had it not been supplemented by the heating units inside his heavy
clothing.
He didn't know how he was going to free himself. His hands were
securely handcuffed and the sharp metal was biting into his flesh.
Turning and twisting about did him no good at all.
He didn't know how he was going to free himself, but he refused to give
up hope. There had to be a way.
You could begin on one of your captors, on a human being with a great
deal to lose or gain. You could try to penetrate his armor, sound out
his human weaknesses. Or you could set to work on the handcuffs at your
wrists, struggling in an almost hopeless attempt to draw your hands
through them in some way or get them unlocked without a key.
He decided to try the first way. He raised his voice. "Stone?" he
called out. "Can you hear me?"
There ensued a silence. Then Stone's voice came back loud and clear.
"Sure, I can hear you. What do you want?"
"I'd like to talk to you," Corriston said.
"About what?"
"About you. What are you getting out of this? You've nothing to lose by
being frank with me. Henley would never believe anything I might say."
"You're right about that," Stone said. "But why should I talk to you?
I'll tell you something that may surprise you. Keeping you alive was
Henley's idea. He figured we might need you. He figured that if Ramsey
wouldn't listen to us he might listen to you--a Space Station officer.
He figured we might need you to convince Ramsey we're not bluffing.
Someone who _knows_ we're not bluffing. Someone who knows we'd kill his
daughter before we gave him a third chance to make up his mind and hand
over the dough."
"A _third_ chance? I thought--"
"You think too much, Corriston. I'll spell it out for you. Henley is on
his way now to give Ramsey his first chance. He may succeed or he may
not. If he doesn't succeed he'll come back and take you to the fortress
with him. That will be Ramsey's second chance. He won't get a third."
"I see," Corriston said. "But I asked you a question you didn't answer.
How much do you stand to get out of this? What is your split, your
percentage? Don't tell me; I'll guess. Henley is promising you fifteen
or twenty thousand dollars. But how much ransom do you think he'll get
from Ramsey? Two million, at least. Possibly twenty million. Does that
kind of split satisfy you, Stone? Remember, when that ransom is paid,
every law enforcement agency on Earth goes into operation. It starts
off in a quiet suite of offices, with just one owl-faced little guy
shuffling some papers.
"It starts off that way, but in the space of one hour you're a man
marked for destruction. The military goes into action. From Earth
to Mars your photograph is televised. Ten thousand trained experts
are thrown into the operation. You've suddenly become important, an
accessory to the kidnapping of the wealthiest girl on Earth.
"How does that set with you, Stone? They'll get you in the end. No,
I'll qualify that. They'll get you unless Ramsey gives you a split of
at least a million dollars. With a million dollars you'd have a one in
five chance of covering your tracks, of hiding out indefinitely. But
Ramsey won't give you anything like that kind of a split. You know that
as well as I do. He'll have to cover his own tracks and he'll need all
of the two million--or twenty million--for himself. Or most of it.
"I'm not telling you anything you don't know. Your real interest lies
in preventing that kidnapping before it's too late. He's getting ready
to double-cross you, Stone. It was in the back of his mind all the
time. He's looking out only for himself."
"I don't think so," Stone said. "My split, since you brought the matter
up, is half a million. He's demanding six million in ransom. That's
twelve times what I'm getting and what Jim Saddler is getting. But I've
no complaints. He organized and planned everything.
"I'll be honest with you. That doesn't mean a damn thing to me. I'm no
good when it comes to taking a risk like that, but does that mean he's
better than I am? Do you think I'd string along with him if I believed
that for a moment?
"Hell, no. I'm using him, don't you see? I'm letting him take the big
gamble, and I stay in the background ... doing practically nothing. So
if I clear a half million, what have I to complain about?"
"Nothing, I suppose," Corriston said.
"You're damned right. But I don't think I like the way you said that.
There's something in your voice that I don't like."
"That's too bad," Corriston said.
"Maybe you think I don't mean what I said. Is that it?"
Corriston tightened his lips. He could hear Stone's footsteps coming
toward him through the darkness. They were heavy steps, advancing
slowly, with a slight shuffling sound. They paused twice and then came
on again, and the silence between pauses seemed almost crushingly thick.
Corriston suddenly realized that he knew almost nothing about Stone.
He had taken the man pretty much for granted, a killer's accomplice
without much personality, a sullen-faced scoundrel who was good at
obeying orders and standing ready to silence anyone Henley disliked
with a well-placed kick in the head.
But what if he did have personality after all? Suppose there were
hidden depths in him, a hidden reservoir of malice which he kept
concealed until he felt a mad impulse to start laughing or bragging or
proving to someone he disliked that he was as potentially dangerous as
Henley--perhaps even more dangerous. And suppose he decided to back
up his boasting with a quick knife thrust or a gun blast at almost
point-blank range?
It wasn't a pleasant thought, and the flicker of a match between
Stone's cupped hands did nothing to dispel Corriston's uneasiness. The
small, bright flame brought Stone's features into sharp relief for an
instant. The lips had an ugly set to them, and the eyes were slitted,
gleaming. He was making no effort to keep his hate from showing, and
the instant the match went out he lit another.
He seemed to be advancing slowly on purpose, as if aware that his
stealth and deliberation had begun to un-nerve Corriston. Corriston
felt himself stiffening, moving more closely back against the wall.
Breathing quickly, he told himself that he hadn't much time, that he
must be careful not to overreach himself.
There was another moment of silence, of stillness, while the shuffling
ceased. Then Stone was very close in the darkness, his hands cupped
about a third match, a mocking smile on his lips.
It was a blunder on his part. Before he could move again Corriston was
upon him.
There are times when a handcuffed man is at a disadvantage in a
furiously waged and uncertain struggle, but Corriston suffered no
disadvantage. For ten minutes he had been reminding himself that a blow
along the side of the neck, just under the jaw, could paralyze and even
kill if it were delivered with sufficient force.
A sharp, flat-of-the-hand blow could do it. But handcuffs were better,
and Corriston lashed out now with his manacled wrists upraised, so
that the handcuffs grazed Stone's neck twice lightly and then almost
splintered his jawbone with a rotor-blade violence.
The blow not only stunned Stone, it lifted him clear of the deck. He
staggered forward and fell heavily, his breath leaving his lungs in an
agonizing sob.
Corriston leaned back against the wall again for an instant, breathing
heavily. Then he knelt beside Stone and went through his pockets
until he found the handcuff key. It was difficult. He had to do a lot
of awkward fumbling with his fingers, and even with the key in his
possession, getting the cuffs off was far from easy. But somehow he
managed it, perhaps because he had unusually flexible fingers and knew
that if he failed, Stone would see to it that he got no second chance
this side of eternity.
He stood very straight and still in the darkness, his eyes focused on
Stone's white face. There was no need for him to strike a match. He had
taken from Stone not only the key, but a small pocket flashlight which
Stone had apparently preferred not to use.
There was something else he had taken from Stone--his gun. He held the
weapon now, very firmly centered on Stone, while he waited for him to
come to.
Ordinarily he wouldn't have cared if Stone had never opened his
eyes again; but now he had to wait and see. The ship was so large
that to explore it compartment by compartment until he found the one
in which Helen Ramsey was being held prisoner would be dangerously
time-consuming. So, if Stone recovered consciousness within fifteen or
twenty minutes and could tell him, so much the better.
If not, better wait and see. He waited, shifting his gun only a little
from weariness as the minutes dragged on, wondering if he had not made
a mistake in waiting at all.
Finally Stone stirred and groaned. Corriston bent and shook him by the
shoulders. He took firm hold of his shoulders and shook him vigorously,
feeling no pity for him at all.
He got the truth out of him by threatening him with violence, by
threatening to kill him if he kept anything back. Stone kept nothing
back. Just remembering the blow that had felled him, loosened his
tongue. But the gun helped too, the gun wedged so closely against his
ribs under his heart that he feared that if he breathed too heavily he
would breathe his last.
"I won't lie to you," he said desperately, pleadingly. "You haven't a
chance. There's a photoelectric alarm system outside the compartment,
and Jim Saddler is sitting just inside the door. He has a gun trained
on her. His orders are to shoot her dead if anyone so much as attempts
to get inside that door."
"Meaning me?"
"It means you, Lieutenant. I'm not lying; I swear it. You won't stand a
chance. Henley will be coming back in a few hours now. You'd better get
out while you're still in one piece."
Corriston was tempted to hurl Stone back against the wall and shout at
him: "It doesn't matter whether I go out of here in one piece or dead
on a stretcher. She's the only thing I care about."
But he caught himself just in time. Stone thought in the most
primitive imaginable terms. You couldn't go to a Stone Age man and say:
"My own skin doesn't mean a goddam thing to me. I'm in love. If she
dies I die. Can't you understand that? If she dies, my life will be
over."
He said instead: "All right. I guess it means I've got to get help."
"You'll never get help," Stone said, summoning from some defiant depths
within himself a little courage. "The colony is eighty-seven miles from
here. You couldn't cross the desert on foot. No one could cross it on
foot, not when the temperature drops at night to fifty below. But you'd
better not stay. He'd better head for Ramsey's citadel. That's your
only chance. It's only twenty miles from here."
_Let him think that_, a voice within Corriston warned. Let him think
that I'll head for the citadel. Otherwise he may attempt to get word to
Ramsey somehow. I can tie him up and leave him in a state of shock, but
if he thinks I'm heading for the colony, even a state of shock may not
stop him. Saddler may come down here looking for him. Once he's freed,
if he thinks I'm heading for the Colony....
Corriston said: "Damn you, Stone, I ought to kill you. I ought to put a
bullet through your heart right now. I don't know why I can't. It's a
weakness in me."
"I'd kill _you_, Corriston, if _I_ had the chance. But I'm glad you
have that kind of a weakness."
Corriston stared at him incredulously. "You're certainly outspoken. You
were pleading for your life a moment ago--going soft, as you'd put it.
Now you're talking realistically, analyzing your own motivations and
mine."
"I'm not quite as dumb as you think me, Corriston."
"All right. Let's say you're not dumb. Few people are, when it comes to
a matter of life or death. That's beside the point right now. I've got
to tie you up. Where can I find some rope?"
"It would be much simpler to lock me in a vacant compartment."
"All right. Then I'll lock you in one of the compartments. You can
pick your own compartment. I'd advise you not to waste my time. Pick
your own compartment and I'll slide the bolt fast on the outside."
Stone showed no disposition to put up an argument. Corriston kept the
gun pressed into the small of his back and he seemed to realize that
his life hung by a thread.
They found a compartment that was small and dark, and into it Stone
walked at gunpoint, offering no protest, and answering the questions
Corriston put to him readily enough.
"You'll find all the equipment you need at the end of this passageway,"
Stone said. "Activate the third door on your left. Anything else you'd
like to know?"
Corriston shook his head. He walked out of the compartment backwards,
keeping his gun trained on Stone until he was in the corridor. Then he
swung the door shut and shot the bolt home.
He had no trouble at all in finding the equipment he knew he'd need,
thanks to Stone's generosity. Stone could afford to be generous, he
reflected bitterly. The Henley combine still held all of the trump
cards.
He cursed the time it took him to equip himself for a near-suicidal
crossing of eighty-seven miles of Martian desert. He would travel on
foot, after nightfall, and in freezing cold. The compartment in which
he labored was a basal compartment, and set in the massive bulkhead,
against which he leaned with his bootstraps still unlaced, was an
airlock opening directly on the Martian plain.