Nolan nodded, and the deadly weariness settled down over him again.
"I see your point, of course," he said slowly. "Tri-planet doesn't
come out here much and a man is reasonably safe from them. But you,
Woller--power's your life blood. And a man on the run can't have much
power. I know."
His finger curled on the trigger of the pyro and Woller, staring
avidly, desperately, whitened at the mouth. His lips moved as though
about to form words--
Nolan's trigger-sharp senses caught a hint of movement behind him.
_Fool!_ he thought desperately. _The door!_ He tried to hurl his body
aside, out of the way of the door that opened behind him. But he
couldn't do that and keep the pyro leveled on the two men at the desk.
He saw Woller, exultant hatred leaping into his purpled face, plunging
for a drawer of the desk; saw the door opening and someone stepping
through. Then, just as he was leveling the gun on Woller again,
he saw the flashing swing of the other man in the room. Forgotten
Vincennes--with a heavy nightstone paperweight held bludgeon-like in
his hand, leaping in at him. He had no chance even to try to turn. The
weight was coming down on the side of his head. All he could do was try
to roll with it.
But the momentum was immense and the heavy weight struck him down to
the floor, drove him headlong into unconsciousness....
* * * * *
Somebody was kicking him. Nolan groaned once, then compressed his lips
as he remembered where he was.
He opened his eyes and rolled over. The blubbery Venusian second
was standing over him, face sullen but eyes glinting with perverse
pleasure. He raised his heavy spaceman's boot again--
"Hold it," said Woller from the desk. They were still in the cabin.
Woller got up, came over, looking down at Nolan. His bearing was
confident again; he exuded an aura of brutal power.
"You should have killed me, Nolan," he said. "You only get the one
chance, you see."
Nolan silently pushed himself erect. His ribs were agonized where the
second had booted them, and a blinding throb in the skull reminded him
of the captain's blow. He was conscious that his armpit holster hung
light. The pyro was gone.
Vincennes had left. Only Woller and the Venusian second were in the
cabin with him. "My only doubt," Woller was saying, "is whether to
blast you now or save you for a little later, when I'll have more time."
"Sure," said Nolan tonelessly. "If you want my vote, it's for now. Get
it over with."
Woller nodded. "That would be much pleasanter for you. I think I'll
save you." He nodded slowly. Then, to the mate, "Take him below!"
Back down the corridor, the mocking stars still bright through
the crystal underfoot. Back and down, till they came to the gray
room, where the pulsing, whining generators spun their web of
anti-gravitational power.
"We don't have a brig," the mate apologized. "But I think this will
hold you in."
Eyes warily on Nolan, he circled him and opened a round metal door. It
was an unused storeroom, bare except for rows of vacant metal shelves.
"In you go," said the Venusian, and Nolan complied. The door slammed
behind him and was bolted.
There was a whine in the air, he noticed. The singing of the
grav-generators. It was not unpleasant ... at least, not unbearable,
he corrected himself. But how it persisted! It was constant as the
keening of a jammed frequency-modulator, high as the wail of a banshee.
He let his aching body slip to the floor, lay there without even trying
to think. He raised his head for a searching second, but there was
nothing to see. Bare walls, bare shelves.
He was helpless. His chance might come when the second let him out.
Till then, he would sleep.
When had he slept last? Save for the few minutes of unconsciousness, it
was easily thirty hours. He pillowed his head on his arm....
He moved his head uncomfortably, burrowed his ear deeper into his
biceps. That damned keening! He shifted restlessly, stopped his exposed
ear with his other hand. That movement racked the beaten ribs, but the
shrilling, soft and remorseless, kept on. It was enough to drive a man
mad! It was--
He sat bolt upright, eyes flaring angrily. That was what Woller had
planned!
It was torture--subtle, undramatic, simple. But pure, horrid torture.
Nolan's face was gray with strain. It was incredible that a sound,
a noise, could become a threat. He'd heard the same sound a million
times before, though never at such close range, or from such titanic
generators. But now--
He began trying to fill his mind with other things, but there was
no room for thought in a brain that was brimming with naked sound.
Snatches of school-days poetry, long columns of multiplication
tables--They jumbled in his brain. The lines ran together and muddled,
were drowned out by the wail of the generators. He gave up and sat
there, forcing himself to be still, while the sound hovered in the
atmosphere all around him, his jaw muscles taut enough to bite through
steel, a great pulse pounding in his temples....
Flesh could stand only so much. After a while--he didn't know when--he
was mercifully unconscious.
* * * * *
A volcano erupted under him and awoke. His whole body was a mass of
flame now, head throbbing like the jets of a twenty-ton freight skid,
chest and ribs as sore as though they were flayed. A sickening weight
held him crushed against the metal floor.
The roaring from without was the sound of the rockets, loud enough to
drown out the whine that had nearly killed him. The ship was landing.
And at once there was a gentle jar, then a dizzying vertigo as the
grav-web was cut off abruptly. The rockets died down and were silent.
Everything was silent. The change was fantastic, a dream. Nolan, lying
there, thought the silence was the finest thing he had ever heard.
It didn't last. There were footsteps outside, and the Venusian second
mate entered. "On your feet," he said curtly. "The boss is ready for
you."
Nolan stood up cautiously. His feet were shaky, but he could use
them. He stepped over the rounded sill and followed the Venusian's
directions. There were men in the corridor, some of them in heat
suits. Nolan wondered where they were. Neptune was on the other side
of the sun--could they be as far in as Uranus? How long had he been
unconscious!
"Get moving," repeated the second, and Nolan moved.
The blessed stillness! He was grinning to himself as he walked along
the corridor, listening for the lethal whine that wasn't there any
more. When they got to where Woller, space-suited and bloated, was
directing a crew of men in the moving of a bulky object, Woller noted
the grin. He was not pleased.
"Enjoying yourself, Nolan?" he asked, unsmiling. "That will have to
stop."
A grin stayed on Nolan's face, but it was not the same one. It was a
savage threat. Woller looked at it, and looked hastily away.
"Stand him over in the corner," he said to the Venusian second. "I'll
attend to him right away. Business first."
The second jerked a thumb at the corner formed by the airlock door and
the wall of the corridor. Nolan looked in the direction indicated, and
a sudden tic in his brows showed a thought that had come to him. The
red signal light winked out as he watched; the inner door had closed.
He stared through the transparency at what was beyond. Darkness was
all he could see--darkness, and the light-dotted outline of buildings
in the distance. Just beyond the lock was something that looked like a
skid, with men's figures around it. His forehead puckered, and his eyes
returned to the signal light, now dark--
The Venusian second watched Nolan limp slowly over to the indicated
position. His eyes narrowed. "Hey, what's the matter?" he asked surlily.
Nolan shook his head. "Something in my shoe," he said. He halted and
balanced himself on one foot, poking into the offending footgear. "A
button, I guess," he said as drew out, concealed, something that he
knew quite well was _not_ a button.
He breathed a silent prayer, and it was answered. The Venusian grunted
and turned away. Nolan walked quickly over to the wall, by the lock
light, turned and stood surveying the scene without interest. His hands
apparently were linked idly behind him--but behind his back they were
moving swiftly, dexterously. A _clink_ of glass sounded, and Nolan
winced as a sharp sliver cut his thumb. Then he stood motionless,
waiting.
The men were shock-wrapping a long, casket-like object. To judge by the
care they were using, the contents were delicate and the handling would
be rough, Nolan noted absently. Explosives, perhaps?
The last loop of elastic webbing went around it, and the Venusian
second pulled it taut. "All right," he grunted. "Take it away."
"Lock!" bawled Woller as the men picked up the bundle. That was Nolan's
signal.
As slowly as he could manage he stepped idly away from the lock, away
from the signal light, hugging the wall.
A deckhand, not troubling to look at the warning light across the
corridor--Nolan mentally thanked his gods--touched the release that
opened the lock door. And--
Ravenous flame lashed out from the wall.