"She doesn't appear to be personally involved in any piratical schemes,"
Dasinger said. "Otherwise they wouldn't have bugged her cabin and the
control rooms. If we dangle a few star hyacinths before her eyes, she
should be willing to fly us back. If she balks, I think I can handle the
Mooncat well enough to get us there."
Dr. Egavine tugged pensively at his ear lobe. "I see." His hand moved on
toward his right coat lapel. "What do you think of ..."
"Mind watching this for a moment, doctor?" Dasinger interrupted. He
nodded at his own hand lying on the table before him.
"Watch...?" Egavine began questioningly. Then his eyes went wide with
alarm.
Dasinger's hand had turned suddenly sideways from the wrist, turned up
again. There was a small gun in the hand now, its stubby muzzle
pointing up steadily at Egavine's chest.
"Dasinger! What does ..."
"Neat trick, eh?" Dasinger commented. "Sleeve gun. Now keep quiet and
hold everything just as it is. If you move or Quist over there moves
before I tell you to, you've had it, doctor!"
* * * * *
He reached across the table with his left hand, slipped it beneath
Egavine's right coat lapel, tugged sharply at something in there, and
brought out a flat black pouch with a tiny spray needle projecting from
it. He dropped the pouch in his pocket, said, "Keep your seat, doctor,"
stood up and went over to Quist. Quist darted an anxious glance at his
employer, and made a whimpering sound in his throat.
"You're not getting hurt," Dasinger told him. "Just put your hands on
top of your head and stand still. Now let's take a look at the thing you
started to pull from your pocket a moment ago ... Electric stunsap, eh?
That wasn't very nice of you, Quist! Let's see what else--
"Good Lord, Egavine," he announced presently, "your boy's a regular
armory! Two blasters, a pencil-beam, a knife, and the sap ... All right,
Quist. Go over and sit down with the doctor." He watched the little man
move dejectedly to the table, then fitted the assorted lethal devices
carefully into one of his coat pockets, brought the pouch he had taken
from Egavine out of the other pocket.
"Now, doctor," he said, "let's talk. I'm unhappy about this. I
discovered you were carrying this thing around before we left Mezmiali,
and I had a sample of its contents analyzed. I was told it's a hypnotic
with an almost instantaneous effect both at skin contact and when
inhaled. Care to comment?"
"I do indeed!" Egavine said frigidly. "I have no intention of denying
that the instrument is a hypnotic spray. As you know, I dislike guns and
similar weapons, and we are engaged in a matter in which the need to
defend myself against a personal attack might arise. Your assumption,
however, that I intended to employ the spray on you just now is simply
ridiculous!"
"I might be chuckling myself," Dasinger said, "if Quist hadn't had the
sap halfway out of his pocket as soon as you reached for your lapel. If
I'd ducked from the spray, I'd have backed into the sap, right? There's
a little too much at stake here, doctor. You may be telling the truth,
but just in case you're nourishing unfriendly ideas--and that's what it
looks like to me--I'm taking a few precautions."
Dr. Egavine stared at him, his mouth set in a thin, bitter line. Then
he asked, "What kind of precautions?"
Dasinger said, "I'll keep the hypnotic and Quist's bag of dirty tricks
until we land. You might need those things on the planet but you don't
need them on shipboard. You and I'll go up to the control section now to
give Miss Mines her final flight directions. After that, you and Quist
stay in this cabin with the door locked until the ship has set down. I
don't want to have anything else to worry about while we're making the
approach. If my suspicions turn out to be unjustified, I'll apologize
... after we're all safely back in the Hub."
* * * * *
"What was your partner looking so sour about?" Duomart Mines inquired a
little later, her eyes on the flight screens. "Have a quarrel with him?"
Dasinger, standing in the entry to the little control cabin across from
her, shrugged his shoulders.
"Not exactly," he said. "Egavine tried to use a hypno spray on me."
"Hypno spray?" the young woman asked.
"A chemical which induces an instantaneous hypnotic trance in people.
Leaves them wide open to suggestion. Medical hypnotists make a lot of
use of it. So do criminals."
She turned away from the control console to look at him. "Why would your
partner want to hypnotize you?"
"I don't know," Dasinger said. "He hasn't admitted that he intended to
do it."
"Is he a criminal?"
"I wouldn't say he isn't," Dasinger observed judiciously, "but I
couldn't prove it."
Duomart puckered her lips, staring at him thoughtfully. "What about
yourself?" she asked.
"No, Miss Mines, I have a very high regard for the law. I'm a simple
businessman."
"A simple businessman who flies his own cruiser four weeks out from the
Hub into I-Fleet territory?"
"That's the kind of business I'm in," Dasinger explained. "I own a
charter ship company."
"I see," she said. "Well, you two make an odd pair of partners...."
"I suppose we do. Incidentally, has there been any occasion when you and
Dr. Egavine--or you and Dr. Egavine and his servant--were alone
somewhere in the ship together? For example, except when we came up here
to give you further flight instructions, did he ever enter the control
room?"