"Dr. Egavine is a hypnotherapist of exceptional ability," Dasinger said.
"Leed Farous wasn't so far gone that the information couldn't be pried
out of him with an understanding use of drug hypnosis."
"Then why didn't others ..."
"Oh, it was attempted. But you'll remember," Dasinger said, "that I had
a little trouble getting close to you with an antihypnotic. The good
doctor got to Farous first, that's all. Instead of the few minutes he
spent on you, he could put in hour after hour conditioning Farous. Later
comers simply didn't stand a chance of getting through to him."
* * * * *
Duomart Mines was silent a moment, then asked, "Why did you two come out
to the Willata Fleet station and hire one of our ships? Your cruiser's a
lot slower than the Mooncat but it would have got you here."
Dasinger said, "Dr. Egavine slipped up on one point. One can hardly
blame him for it since interstellar navigation isn't in his line. The
reference points on the maps he had Farous make up for him turned out to
be meaningless when compared with Federation star charts. We needed the
opportunity to check them against your Fleet maps. They make sense
then."
"I see." Duomart gave him a sideways glance, remarked, "You know, the
way you've put it, the thing's still pretty fishy."
"In what manner?"
"Dr. Egavine finished off old Farous, didn't he?"
"He may have," Dasinger conceded. "It would be impossible to prove it
now. You can't force a man to testify against himself. It's true, of
course, that Farous died at a very convenient moment, from Dr. Egavine's
point of view."
"Well," she said, "a man like that wouldn't be satisfied with half a
salvage fee when he saw the chance to quietly make away with the entire
Dosey Asteroids haul."
"That could be," Dasinger said thoughtfully. "On the other hand, a man
who had committed an unprovable murder to obtain a legal claim to six
million credits might very well decide not to push his luck any farther.
You know the space salvage ruling that when a criminal act or criminal
intent can be shown in connection with an operation like this, the
guilty person automatically forfeits any claim he has to the fee."
"Yes, I know ... and of course," Miss Mines said, "you aren't
necessarily so lily white either. That's another possibility. And
there's still another one. You don't happen to be a Federation
detective, do you?"
Dasinger blinked. After a moment he said, "Not a bad guess. However, I
don't work for the Federation."
"Oh? For whom do you work?"
"At the moment, and indirectly, for the Dosey Asteroids Company."
"Insurance?"
"No. After Farous died, Dosey Asteroids employed a detective agency to
investigate the matter. I represent the agency."
"The agency collects on the salvage?"
"That's the agreement. We deliver the goods or get nothing."
"And Dr. Egavine?"
Dasinger shrugged. "If the doctor keeps his nose clean, he stays
entitled to half the salvage fee."
"What about the way he got the information from Farous?" she asked.
"From any professional viewpoint, that was highly unethical procedure.
But there's no evidence Egavine broke any laws."
Miss Mines studied him, her eyes bright and quizzical. "I had a feeling
about you," she said. "I ..."
A warning burr came from the tolerance indicator; the girl turned her
head quickly, said, "Cat's complaining ... looks like we're hitting the
first system stresses!" She slid back into the pilot seat. "Be with you
again in a while...."
* * * * *
When Dasinger returned presently to the control section Duomart sat at
ease in the pilot seat with coffee and a sandwich before her.
"How are the mutineers doing?" she asked.
"They ate with a good appetite, said nothing, and gave me no trouble,"
Dasinger said. "They still pretend they don't understand Federation
translingue. Dr. Egavine's a bit sulky. He wanted to be up front during
the prelanding period. I told him he could watch things through his
cabin communicator screen."
Miss Mines finished her sandwich, her eyes thoughtful. "I've been
wondering, you know ... how can you be sure Dr. Egavine told you the
truth about what he got from Leed Farous?"
Dasinger said, "I studied the recordings Dr. Egavine made of his
sessions with Farous in the hospital. He may have held back on a few
details, but the recordings were genuine enough."
"So Farous passes out on a kwil jag," she said, "and he doesn't even
know they're making a landing. When he comes to, the scout's parked, the
Number Three drive is smashed, the lock is open, and not another soul is
aboard or in sight.
"Then he notices another wreck with its lock open, wanders over, sees a
few bones and stuff lying around inside, picks up a star hyacinth, and
learns from the ship's records that down in the hold under sixty feet of
water is a sealed compartment with a whole little crateful of the
stones...."
"That's the story," Dasinger agreed.
"In the Fleets," she remarked, "if we heard of a place where a couple of
ship's crews seemed to have vanished into thin air, we'd call it a
spooked world. And usually we'd keep away from it." She clamped her
lower lip lightly between her teeth for a moment. "Do you think Dr.
Egavine has considered the kwil angle?"
[Illustration]
Dasinger nodded. "I'm sure of it. Of course it's only a guess that the
kwil made a difference for Farous. The stuff has no known medical value
of any kind. But when the only known survivor of two crews happens to be
a kwil-eater, the point has to be considered."
"Nobody else on Handing's Scout took kwil," Duomart said. "I know that.
There aren't many in the Fleet who do." She hesitated. "You know,
Dasinger, perhaps I should try it again! Maybe if I took it straight
from the needle this time ..."
Dasinger shook his head. "If the little flake you nibbled made you feel
drowsy, even a quarter of a standard shot would put you out cold for an
hour or two. Kwil has that effect on a lot of people. Which is one
reason it isn't a very popular drug."
"What effect does it have on you?" she asked.
"Depends to some extent on the size of the dose. Sometimes it slows me
down physically and mentally. At other times there were no effects that
I could tell until the kwil wore off. Then I'd have hallucinations for a
while--that can be very distracting, of course, when there's something
you have to do. Those hangover hallucinations seem to be another fairly
common reaction."
He concluded, "Since you can't take the drug and stay awake, you'll
simply remain inside the locked ship. It will be better anyway to keep
the Mooncat well up in the air and ready to move most of the time we're
on the planet."
"What about Taunus and Calat?" she asked.
"They come out with us, of course. If kwil is what it takes to stay
healthy down there, I've enough to go around. And if it knocks them out,
it will keep them out of trouble."
* * * * *
"Looks like there's a firemaker down there!" Duomart's slim forefinger
indicated a point on the ground-view plate. "Column of smoke starting to
come up next to that big patch of trees!... Two point nine miles due
north and uphill of the wrecks."
From a wall screen Dr. Egavine's voice repeated sharply, "Smoke? Then
Leed Farous was not the only survivor!"
Duomart gave him a cool glance. "Might be a native animal that knows how
to make fire. They're not so unusual." She went on to Dasinger. "It
would take a hand detector to spot us where we are, but it does look
like a distress signal. If it's men from one of the wrecks, why haven't
they used the scout's other lifeboat?"
"Would the lifeboat still be intact?" Dasinger asked.
Duomart spun the ground-view plate back to the scout. "Look for
yourself," she said. "It _couldn't_ have been damaged in as light a
crash as that one was. Those tubs are built to stand a really solid
shaking up! And what else could have harmed it?"
"Farous may have put it out of commission before he left," Dasinger
said. "He wanted to come back from the Hub with an expedition to get the
hyacinths, so he wouldn't have cared for the idea of anyone else getting
away from the planet meanwhile." He looked over at the screen. "How
about it, doctor? Did Farous make any mention of that?"
Dr. Egavine seemed to hesitate an instant. "As a matter of fact, he did.
Farous was approximately a third of the way to the Hub when he realized
he might have made a mistake in not rendering the second lifeboat
unusable. But by then it was too late to turn back, and of course he was
almost certain there were no other survivors."
"So that lifeboat should still be in good condition?"
"It was in good condition when Farous left here."
"Well, whoever's down there simply may not know how to handle it."
Duomart shook her blond head decidedly. "That's out, too!" she said.
"Our Fleet lifeboats all came off an old Grand Commerce liner which was
up for scrap eighty, ninety years ago. They're designed so any fool can
tell what to do, and the navigational settings are completely automatic.
Of course if it _is_ a native firemaker--with mighty keen eyesight--down
there, that could be different! A creature like that mightn't think of
going near the scout. Should I start easing the Cat in towards the
smoke, Dasinger?"
"Yes. We'll have to find out what the signal means before we try to
approach the wrecks. Doctor, are you satisfied now that Miss Mines's
outworld biotic check was correct?"
"The analysis appears to be fairly accurate," Dr. Egavine acknowledged,
"and all detectable trouble sources are covered by the selected Fleet
serum."
* * * * *
Dasinger said, "We'll prepare for an immediate landing then. There'll be
less than an hour of daylight left on the ground, but the night's so
short we'll disregard that factor." He switched off the connection to
Egavine's cabin, turned to Duomart. "Now our wrist communicators, you
say, have a five-mile range?"
"A little over five."
"Then," Dasinger said, "we'll keep you and the Cat stationed at an exact
five-mile altitude ninety-five per cent of the time we spend on the
planet. If the Spy arrives while you're up there, how much time will we
have to clear out?"
She shrugged. "That depends of course on how they arrive. My detectors
can pick the Spy up in space before their detectors can make out the Cat
against the planet. If we spot them as they're heading in, we'll have
around fifteen minutes.
"But if they show up on the horizon in atmosphere, or surface her out of
subspace, that's something else. If I don't move instantly then, they'll
have me bracketed ... and BLOOIE!"
Dasinger said, "Then those are the possibilities you'll have to watch
for. Think you could draw the Spy far enough away in a chase to be able
to come back for us?"
"They wouldn't follow me that far," Duomart said. "They know the Cat can
outrun them easily once she's really stretched out, so if they can't
nail her in the first few minutes they'll come back to look around for
what we were interested in here." She added, "And if I _don't_ let the
Cat go all out but just keep a little ahead of them, they'll know that
I'm trying to draw them away from something."
Dasinger nodded. "In that case we'll each be on our own, and your job
will be to keep right on going and get the information as quickly as
possible to the Kyth detective agency in Orado. The agency will take the
matter from there."
* * * * *
Miss Mines looked at him. "Aren't you sort of likely to be dead before
the agency can do anything about the situation?"
"I'll try to avoid it," Dasinger said. "Now, we've assumed the worst as
far as the Spy is concerned. But things might also go wrong downstairs.
Say I lose control of the group, or we all get hit down there by
whatever hit the previous landing parties and it turns out that kwil's
no good for it. It's understood that in any such event you again head
the Cat immediately for the Hub and get the word to the agency. Right?"
Duomart nodded.
He brought a flat case of medical hypodermics out of his pocket, and
opened it.
"Going to take your shot of kwil before we land?" Miss Mines asked.
"No. I want you to keep one of these needles on hand, at least until we
find out what the problem is. It'll knock you out if you have to take
it, but it might also keep you alive. I'm waiting myself to see if it's
necessary to go on kwil. The hallucinations I get from the stuff
afterwards could hit me while we're in the middle of some critical
activity or other, and that mightn't be so good." He closed the case
again, put it away. "I think we've covered everything. If you'll check
the view plate, something--or somebody--has come out from under the
trees near the column of smoke. And unless I'm mistaken it's a human
being."
Duomart slipped the kwil needle he'd given her into a drawer of the
instrument console. "I don't think you're mistaken," she said. "I've
been watching him for the last thirty seconds."
"It is a man?"
"Pretty sure of it. He moves like one."
Dasinger stood up. "I'll go talk with Egavine then. I had a job in mind
for him and his hypno sprays if we happened to run into human
survivors."
"Shall I put the ship down next to this one?"
"No. Land around five hundred yards to the north, in the middle of that
big stretch of open ground. That should keep us out of ambushes. Better
keep clear of the airspace immediately around the wrecks as you go
down."