THIEVES' HONOR
It was one of those moments when everything happens at once. For as the
grav-seat dropped, Cheng whipped up his gun, firing at Mawson.
Veta Hall screamed.
Ross lunged across the room towards girl and slaver.
Somewhere outside, a blaster sang its twanging, metallic song of death.
Ross crashed into Veta and her captor. Driving his shoulder between
them, he jerked the girl from Cheng's grip, even while he smashed a
blow to the outlaw's midriff.
Cheng stared straight ahead--eyes bulged out, jaw hanging. His hands
stayed at his sides.
Ross drew back a quick step, uncertainty written on his face.
Cheng swayed for a moment, first forward and then back.
The next instant a violent shudder, plainly visible, ran through him.
His paragun clattered to the floor.
Another second and the smuggler himself half-turned and spilled forward
on his face.
There was a hole in the small of his back where his spine had been--a
hole well-nigh the size of a man's head, the sort of hole torn by a
blaster-bolt.
Veta covered her face. Ross clenched his teeth.
Simultaneously, two men stepped into the doorway. One carried a
short-barreled blaster, the other a paragun. Both wore grins of
sadistic satisfaction.
Now, off to one side, Pike Mawson spoke again: "Good work, gentlemen,
though a trifle close. If that beam Cheng triggered had sliced three
inches lower, you'd have had to find a new employer."
Mawson moved a dial on his chair's control-plate. The grav-seat swept
round in a smooth spiral and set down on the floor in front of Ross.
"Mr. Ross, I believe?" he murmured, eyes asparkle. His face was set in
a peculiar way that made him appear on the verge of smiling.
Ross' features stayed wooden. "My name's Thigpen."
"It is?" The adjudicator chuckled, gestured. "Corrack, is this our old
friend Tornelescu's helper, Lewis Thigpen?"
A snort from the man with the blaster. "Not even in the dark, he ain't
Thigpen."
"You see, Ross?" Mawson spread his hands in a helpless gesture.
"Corrack grew up in the same colony with Thigpen. He knows him
intimately--drank kabat with him less than an Earth week ago, as a
matter of fact. So there's really no point to your trying to continue
the imposture."
Ross shrugged, not speaking.
Mawson said, "On the other side of it, I've succeeded in learning your
real identity, though it cost me no small expense: you're Stewart
Ross, and you hold the rank of special agent with Security. You're
twenty-eight years old. You came from Earth, originally. Your most
recent assignment was breaking up a theol ring on Titan. You've
also dealt with the starak traffic, and with kabatol derivatives in
the Uranian satellite system. Your luck has been so spectacular as
to indicate real ability, and in consequence your superiors--even
including the famous Commandant Padora--have marked you for special
attention and advancement."
A pause. Mawson's fingers drummed on his chair-arm. "That's why I'm
here, Ross: because I've learned your identity; because I know the kind
of man you are."
"Oh?" Ross' tone was flat and noncommittal.
"Yes." The adjudicator gave strong positive emphasis to the word. He
leaned forward. "You see, Ross, I overstepped myself on this life
catalyst venture. Badly."
Ross' eyes narrowed, just a fraction.
"In any case," Mawson went on coolly, "I finally find myself in a
position where I have no choice but to make a deal with you ... a very
special sort of deal, one I wouldn't chance with anyone less reliable
and trustworthy."
Ross frowned. "I don't follow you, Mawson."
It was the other's turn to shrug. "It's very simple really, Mr.
Ross. My own age, the sense of years creeping upon me, prejudiced my
judgment. So, thinking you were Thigpen, I sent Cheng to Venus to run
you down." The adjudicator shook his head sadly. "It was an error, Mr.
Ross--a grievous error. Guile's my forte; I never should have turned
to violence."
"I'll agree with you there," Ross nodded, "but I still don't see how
this concerns me."
"Don't bait me, Mr. Ross!" the other snapped back. "That first episode
tipped my hand to Cheng, and to Veta Hall, and to Veta's brother,
Sanford. The next thing I knew, even Zoltan Prenzz, Security's resident
undercover agent on Japetus, was aware of what was going on.
"That meant I had to kill him. So, I sent one of my men to inject him
with a dose of the catalyst--a dose from a bad batch my people found in
Tornelescu's laboratory when they cut his throat and made off with the
formula to begin with.
"But violence breeds violence. Veta Hall's starak-crazy brother stole
the bad batch, thinking it was good, proposing to sell it to Astrell.
"I sent my man to get it back. Also, I ordered him to kill Hall,
because Hall would have talked in order to get starak.
"Unfortunately, though, Hall managed to pass on my address here before
he died. At which point, you came and killed my man, and Astrell died
of acute catabolic poisoning, and my people attended to that cutthroat
Cheng." Once more, Mawson spread his hands in the familiar gesture.
"Well, Mr. Ross, I believe that brings us up to date."
"Does it?" Ross clipped. "It seems to me you've left out the most
important part: the place where I come in."
"For my part, I thought I was being almost too obvious," the
adjudicator came back. "My difficulty is that as a result of all this
bloodletting, my own tracks have been uncovered. I'm told on reliable
authority that Security's already closing in on me. I'll be fortunate
if they don't arrest me before dawn."
Ross frowned. "So--?"
"So, as I said before, I need your help."
* * * * *
Ross shook his head. "I still don't see it."
"Then you're a bigger fool than I thought!" Mawson beat his grav-seat's
arm in sudden fury. "Don't you understand? When my people brought
me Tornelescu's notes, his formulae, I'd have sworn I had the whole
universe in my grasp.
"Only then it turned out that all Tornelescu's data was in an
arbitrary code: one figure, one symbol, was substituted for another.
Consequently, I might as well not have had the papers.
"That's why I sent Cheng after you, when I thought that you were
Thigpen: Tornelescu's notes mentioned that Thigpen had the code. It
was a precaution they took, so that neither of them could betray the
other."
"So?" Ross repeated.
"There's still a way out. That is, if you'll just help me." Mawson
squirmed in his seat. Of a sudden his eyes were bright and feverish.
"Look, Ross, here's how we'll work it: in your role of Security agent,
you arrest me. I'll even go so far as to confess to murdering old
Tornelescu.
"However, I'll also claim that Sanford Hall stole the papers from me.
Consequently, I've no idea whatever where they are or what they say.
"I'll be convicted of killing. They'll send me off to Venus Barracks.
In a Martian month the case will be past history.
"That's where you come in, Ross: right then. My conviction will be
another feather in your cap. No one would think of suspecting you of
anything, let alone denying you full access to Security's files on the
case.
"So, you go into those files and dig through them till you find the
code. For all I know, it may even be in your property rooms here in
Calor City. Because if Lewis Thigpen's dead--and he must be, or you
wouldn't have dared to use his name--then all his things will likely be
there.
"Then, when you find the code, contact me. I'll tell you where I've
hidden the formula: that's how much I trust you.
"You make up a batch of the catalyst. You put it out to the old men,
the men of power."
"I'll be free of Venus Barracks in a week. After that--who knows?
What limit can there be, when we've eternal life ourselves, plus the
privilege of peddling it to others in hundred-year doses?"
The adjudicator was shaking by the time he finished. Twin spots of
color marked his cheek bones. His hands moved ceaselessly, without
respite.
The silence echoed.
Mawson's hands stopped moving. He straightened in his seat.
"Mr. Ross," he said softly, "I'm afraid I judged you too well. You're
indeed a man of honor--so much so that even a lie to save your life
sticks in your craw. So I'll put our business on a different level." A
pause, heavy with tension. "Mr. Ross, count on it: if you don't carry
through to the letter the plan I've outlined, both you and Veta Hall
will die, by the most unpleasant mode a fine creative imagination can
devise."
Ross seemed to stand a trifle straighter. "I thought that was coming,"
he nodded slowly. And then: "Fair enough. I'll do all I can to locate
Thigpen's things."
"I thought you'd see it my way," Adjudicator Mawson murmured smoothly.
He gestured to the two men who still stood in the doorway. "Now that
I'm a prisoner, gentlemen, you'd best get out of here. Take the girl
with you. You know where to keep her."
The man with the paragun stepped back. But the other, the one called
Corrack, didn't move.
Sharply, Mawson said, "Corrack! You heard me!"
"Sure, I heard you," the blaster-man agreed. He grinned, the same
sadistic grin that had marked him when he first stepped into the
doorway. "Only maybe there's something you don't know."
"Something I don't know--?" Mawson frowned. "Speak up, Corrack! What is
it?"
The other's grin broadened. "It's this starbo," he explained, gesturing
to Ross. "It's his clothes."
"His clothes--?" Mawson stared. "Well, what about them?"
"Nothing," smirked Corrack. "Nothing at all--_except they're the outfit
Thigpen was wearing when I had that drink with him last week_!"
Mawson's head snapped round as if on veloid bearings. "Rack you,
Ross--!"
But his tone belied his words, for there was wild jubilation in it.
Pounding the air of his flying chair, he cried, "Search him, Corrack!
Search him! See if he's got a writer!"
Wordless, the blaster-man obeyed ... delivered the instrument to Mawson.
* * * * *
Fingers shaking, the adjudicator manipulated the upper end of the
carved shaft.
The cap lifted off. A glistening ampule dropped into his hand.
Mawson threw back his head and laughed--peal after peal, hysterical
with sheer delight.
Then, sobering, he snatched the aeroderm injector from the table where
Astrell had dropped it. Fitting in the ampule, he held the jet against
his arm-vein.
"There were some interesting details in Tornelescu's notes, Ross,"
he announced in a voice that rang with exaltation. "One of them was
that Thigpen always carried an ampule of the perfected catalyst in his
writer."
He pressed the injector's plunger. The ampule's contents sprayed into
his arm.
After that, it was like the time with Astrell, except that Mawson was
male, not female.
And, that the process stopped at the proper point, instead of going on
into catabolic disaster.
Young now, in the prime of life, glowing with health except for his
crippled legs, the adjudicator leaned back in his grav-seat. A slow
smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
"You understand, don't you, that this changes our situation somewhat,
Mr. Ross?" he inquired.
"I understand," Ross answered curtly.
"Good." The other rubbed his hands and chuckled. "As a matter of fact,
as I see it, I no longer have any need for your services. Changed as
I am, young again, I'll have no trouble hiding till I myself can find
or buy Thigpen's code." A pause. "That transforms you, Mr. Ross. It
transforms you from an asset to a liability, by my bookkeeping."
Ross didn't answer.
"The same holds for Miss Hall," the adjudicator went on. "Before, she
constituted an excellent pawn. Now, she's only a dangerous witness."
Abruptly, he turned to the man with the paragun. "You, my friend! Take
this injector"--he touched the aeroderm unit--"and two ampules from the
black case. Spray one into each of our friends, here."
Ross went rigid. A horrified cry burst from Veta's throat.
Tightly, Ross said, "Look, Mawson, it's all right to kill me if you
want to; I signed on with Security because I had a taste for trouble.
"With Veta, it's different. She's done nothing, hurt no one. She'll
keep quiet--"
"Hurry it up, gentlemen," Mawson ordered his aides. "I want no
accidents to halt us now."
"Back, you!" snarled Corrack, covering Ross with his blaster.
His companion advanced on Veta.
Wild-eyed with panic, she retreated before him ... clear to the
wall ... on around the room ... almost to the door now; almost to
Corrack.
Whirling, then, she leaped at the blaster-man from behind--clutching at
his arm, knocking up his weapon.
"Stewart--" she screamed. "Run Stewart; run! Get away! Call Security--"
Ross lunged. But it was towards her, struggling with Corrack; not the
door.
Only then purple light pulsed past his head, so close that his eyes
went out of focus. He staggered, tripped, pitched to his knees.
... And there, off to one side, grav-seat already rising, sat Mawson.
His teeth were bared, and he held his paragun poised and ready.
Ross started to rise.
Mawson triggered another ray.
Whirling, Ross plunged through the doorway and ran for his life.