Chandler loped silently up the stairs to Koitska's suite.
Halfway up he tripped and sprawled, half stunning himself against the
stair rail. It had not been his own clumsiness, he was sure. Koitska
had caught at his mind again, but only feebly. Chandler did not wait.
Whatever was interfering with Koitska's control, some distraction or
malfunction of the coronet or whatever, Chandler could not bank on its
lasting.
The door was locked.
He found a heavy mahogany chair, with a back of solid carved wood. He
flung it onto his shoulders, grunting, and ran with it into the door,
a bull driven frantic, lunging out of its querencia to batter the wall
of the arena. The door splintered.
Chandler was gashed with long slivers of wood, but he was through the
door.
Koitska lay sprawled along his couch, eyes staring.
Alive or dead? Chandler did not wait to find out but sprang at him
hands outstreched. The staring eyes flickered; Chandler felt the pull
at his mind. But Koitska's strength was almost gone. The eyes glazed,
and Chandler was upon him. He ripped the coronet off and flung it
aside, and the huge bulk of Koitska swung paralytically off the couch
and fell to the floor.
The man was helpless. He lay breathing like a steam engine, one eye
pressed shut against the leg of a coffee table, the other looking up at
Chandler.
Chandler was panting almost as hard as the helpless mass at his feet.
He was safe for a moment. At the most for a moment, for at any time
one of the other execs might dart down out of the mind-world into the
real, looking at the scene through Chandler's eyes and surely deducing
what would be no more to his favor than the truth. He had to get away
from there. If he seemed busy in another room perhaps they would go
away again. Chandler turned his back on the paralyzed monster to flee.
It would be even better to try to lose himself in Honolulu--if he
could get that far--he did not in his own flesh know how to fly the
helicopter that was parked in the yard or he would try to get farther
still.
But as he turned he was caught.
* * * * *
Chandler turned to see Koitska lying there, and screamed.
His eyes were staring at Koitska. It was too late. He was possessed by
someone, he did not know whom. Though it made little enough difference,
he thought, watching his own hands reach out to touch the staring face.
His body straightened, his eyes looked around the room, he went to the
desk. "Love," he cried to himself, "what's the matter with Koitska?
Write, for God's sake!" And he took a pencil in his hand and was free.
He hesitated, then scribbled: _I don't know. I think he had a stroke.
Who are you?_
The other mind slipped tentatively into his, scanning the paper.
"Rosie, you idiot, who did you think?" he said furiously. "What have
you done?"
_Nothing_, he began instinctively, then scratched the word out.
Briskly and exactly he wrote: _He was going to kill me, but he had some
kind of an attack. I took his coronet away. I was going to run._
"Oh, you fool," he told himself shrilly a moment later. Chandler's
body knelt beside the wheezing fat lump, taking its pulse. The faint,
fitful throb meant nothing to Chandler; probably meant nothing to Rosie
either, for his body stood up, hesitated, shook its head. "You've done
it now," he sobbed, and was surprised to find he was weeping real
tears. "Oh, love, why? I could have taken care of Koitska--somehow--No,
maybe I couldn't," he said frantically, breaking down. "I don't know
what to do. Do you have any ideas--outside of running?"
It took him several seconds to write the one word, but it was really
all he could find to write. _No._
His lips twisted as his eyes read the word. "Well," he said
practically, "I guess that's the end, love. I mean, I give up."
He got up, turned around the room. "I don't know," he told himself
worriedly. "There might be a chance--if we could hush this up. I'd
better get a doctor. He'll have to use your body, so don't be surprised
if there's someone and it isn't me. Maybe he can pull Andrei through.
Maybe Andrei'll forgive you then--Or if he dies," Chandler's voice
schemed as his eyes stared at the rasping motionless hulk, "we can say
you broke down the door to _help_ him. Only you'll have to put his
coronet back on, so it won't look suspicious. Besides that will keep
anyone from occupying him. Do that, love. Hurry." And he was free.
Gingerly Chandler crossed the floor.
He did not like to touch the dying animal that wheezed before him,
liked even less to give it back the weapon that, if it had only a few
moments of sentience again, it would use to kill him. But the girl was
right. Without the helmet any wandering curi-himself.[1] The helmet
would shield him from--
[Footnote 1: Transcriber's note: As printed. Missing words, probably
printer error.]