Nolan, swearing incandescently, flung his heat-suit voucher at the
officer, grabbed the first suit in the rack and was in the main lock,
waiting for the inner door to close, before he put it on. He had
already sealed the suit and stepped out on the field when he noticed
what the excited hammering of the port official on the lock door should
have told him.
The suit had only a single oxygen tank in its clip--and the gauge
showed "empty"!
He hesitated only a moment. His eye caught a glimpse of the
_Dragonfly_, etched sharply against the black horizon by the field's
blazing floodlights. Its smooth lines were suddenly blurred and
indistinct. The grav-web was building up around it. In a moment it
would be gone!
"Damn!" yelled Nolan, to the sole detriment of his own eardrums.
Already the slight amount of air in his suit was nearly used up. But as
soon as the web reached full focus the _Dragonfly_ would blast off and
Woller would be beyond reach for a long time!
Nolan swore fervently, then sealed his writhing lips to save air. He
set off in a slow, heavy trot for the shimmering spaceship. He was
breathing pure carbon dioxide and staggering nicely by the time he
pushed his way through the thickening resistance of the grav-web to the
massive outer door of the lock.
His bulging eyes caught the lever that opened the lock, guarded by a
scoop-shaped streamshield. He yanked it blindly, saw the heavy panel
roll aside, stumbled in.
Some member of the crew must have been watching--someone with
compassion, unexpected enough in a ship of Woller's. The lock door
clanged shut behind him and clean air hissed in. Nolan tore frantically
at his faceplate and gulped deeply, dizzyingly.
The metal flooring shuddered. He felt an intolerable weight drag at his
water-weak body as the ship took off. He hadn't made it by much, at
that. A couple of seconds more and he would have been left.
"Boy!" Nolan gasped. "Somebody sure doesn't want me along on this ride."
The inner door was sliding open. Nolan stepped out into a well lit
corridor, almost colliding with the flabby bulk of the Venusian.
The mate glared at him darkly, the hand on his waist poised
suggestively above the butt of a pyro.
Before he could speak, Nolan said mildly, "You're a thieving louse. But
I'm on the ship, and I won't hold it against you. Only--don't try that
again."
The mate flushed. "The captain didn't want to take you," he mumbled. "I
was going to send your dough back soon's we touched ground."
"Sure," Nolan agreed. "Having my full name and address the way you do,
it'd be easy. Well, skip it. Where's my cabin?"
You wouldn't call it exactly hospitable, the way the mate stalled as
long as he could, obviously trying to cudgel his feeble Venusian brain
into some plan for getting rid of the unwanted passenger. But Nolan
finally got his cabin.
* * * * *
It was the smallest and worst on the ship, of course, but the ship was
a beauty. Nolan smiled in real appreciation when he saw the room. The
furniture was glow-tinted plastic; the bed was covered with Earth silk.
"Beat it," he told the mate, and watched the door close behind him.
Then he sat down to chart a course.
Woller might recognize him.
That was the first danger. True, Nolan had been reported dead and
Woller knew nothing to the contrary. It was only a miracle that Nolan
wasn't dead, in fact. Only the incredible chance of his being picked
up in midspace, where he floated helplessly, one shoulder brutally
pyro-scarred and half the air gone from his suit, had saved him then.
That had been one miracle, for even the ranging, avid patrol boats
hadn't been able to find him after his mad leap from a lock of the ship
that was carrying him to the Moon.
But that miracle had occurred. And the second miracle was that the
pleasure craft that saved him was piloted by a man who lived outside
the law but had an iron-clad code of honesty--who wouldn't turn Nolan
in for the bounty money on fugitives. Pete Petersen's scrawny shoulders
bore no wings, but he'd seemed like an angel to Nolan that desolate
day, when he'd seen the flare of Nolan's desperate signal rocket and
swung round in a wide arc to pick him up, eventually to take him to the
lawless safety of the Belt.
To everyone but Petersen, Steve Nolan was dead. And the little shots
of gray now running through Nolan's dark hair, the scar that crossed
one tanned cheek, gave him a new personality. He looked slender and
dangerous as a lunging rapier, and every bit as cold.
But Woller would have good cause to remember Nolan. Woller had sat
there in the courtroom, back on Earth. He'd sat there the whole
dragging week of the trial, with Nolan's eyes on him every minute. He
looked directly at Nolan, even while he was in the chair, telling the
lies that linked Nolan with the Junta--the secret, revolutionary group
of outer-planet malcontents that sought to overthrow Tri-planet Law's
peace and order.
Nolan's lips contorted savagely as he recalled that. A traitor! His
sole crime had been that he knew too much about Woller, his boss!
Woller had been clever about it. The law itself had removed Nolan,
a menace to his lawless schemes. When Nolan, on his own initiative,
had talked and bribed his way into seeing a confessed and condemned
saboteur of the Junta for an interview, he'd found to his sick
astonishment that the man was one he had seen in Woller's own office,
not two months before.
He'd been childishly simple about it, had confronted Woller and
demanded an explanation. Woller had put on his friendliest face and
promised one--later....
And then Woller had turned the dogs loose.
Within an hour Nolan was in jail for the bribery of the prison
officials. The next morning came the incredible indictment: Sabotage
for the Junta!
Nolan grimaced, recalled the careful, hideous network of lies and
forgeries, the distorted evidence, the perjuries. But he had been one
man, and Woller represented vast power.
Then abruptly there was a knock on the door. Jolted out of his
thoughts, Nolan started, then called: "Just a minute."
This was the moment--and he had no plan. His pyro slid out into his
hand. He broke it, stared at the twenty-four potent heat charges. They
would be plan enough for him, if he got a clear shot at Woller. But if
he should be disarmed, if Woller should suspect.
A moment later, the pyro hidden beneath his shirt again, he opened the
door. It was the Venusian second, as before.
"Captain wants to see you," he growled. "Come on."
The _Dragonfly_ was a single-deck craft, the captain's cabin located
topside of the deck and amidships. Nolan looked around curiously,
despite his internal tension, as he followed the Venusian along. The
plastic keel panel underfoot showed an infinity of stars. There was
one, large and bright, outstanding among the lesser stars. Nolan
recognized it--the Sun, parent star to the farflung planet they'd just
left. Now it was dim and feeble, but by the time they got within sight
of the Inner Worlds it would be a ravenous thing, reaching out to
destroy them with lethal radiations.