Gavin regarded the girl somberly. "I'm not making fun of him." His
voice was grim. "This girl he murdered--Paula--she might be a person to
cultivate."
"My star, you're cold. You're not even human!" Nadia started off, but
Gavin laid hold of her arm.
"What happened to Trev, that Martian who sold out to X?"
Nadia faced him again, biting her lip. "Cabot killed him," she replied
in a whisper. "His body has been thrown out the disposal chute."
"Who is this mysterious Mr. X?"
"I don't know! I don't know, I tell you!" She wrenched away, fled down
the passage.
Gavin watched her until she was out of sight. Nadia had accompanied
Cabot that day in Trev's office. The record on Captain Cabot in the
T.I.S. file was brief but illuminating. _Antecedents unknown. Master of
the slave ship, Nova, Venusian registry. Suspected in connection with
disappearance of two women: Paula duBois, a Terran of French descent;
Aastra, a Martian girl of the house of Cor._
Gavin whistled softly. It wasn't hard to imagine others. A modern
bluebeard. Only Cabot didn't hang them in a closet; he threw them out a
disposal chute.
* * * * *
Villanowski's face was gray with fatigue when Gavin finally relieved
him. The chief was a slight homely man with the quick darting movements
of an old maid. His hair was iron gray, untrimmed, rumpled.
He said wearily to Gavin, "We're going on regular watches after all.
The second has her leg in a cast. We've rigged a special chair for her."
Gavin nodded. "What's the little death, Mr. Villanowski? I've been
hearing more about it, but no one seems inclined to explain."
The chief engineer passed his hand before his blood-shot eyes.
"That requires considerable explanation, Mr. Murdock. I'm too tired
to attempt it at the moment. Later." He gave Gavin the course and
acceleration, adding that Miss Wilde, the second assistant-engineer,
would relieve him and disappeared up the ladder.
With the one exception of Nadia Petrovna, the dossier of every man and
woman aboard the _Nova_ in the T.I.S. secret file was complete. Gavin
almost knew them by heart. John Villanowski was a Terran of Polish
descent. A scientist of interplanetary fame, he had held the chair of
astrophysics at New Yale for a while. He had been instrumental in
the development of the meteor deflector, the robot astrogator, and a
radical improvement of the scanner.
General Atomic, though, had stolen all three of his discoveries.
Villanowski had sued. False evidence had been trumped against him;
his reputation had been blackened. Then General Atomic had used its
influence to force him to resign from the university.
The injustice of his disgrace had wrought a shocking change in
Villanowski. From a pleasant savant he became an anti-social, a
dangerous man. He had fled to Venus where he had dropped from sight for
a while, turning up again as chief engineer of the slaver, _Nova_.
Any startling development of the _Nova's_ space drive, Gavin reasoned,
would be due to Villanowski.