Incredulity flooded her face and slowly drained away. "You! Yes, you
could be Newlin. But you're working here. A famous man like you. Why?"
Newlin laughed easily. "It's very simple. I need money. If I can last
through till morning, I'll have it. Now I'll ask the questions. You
answer them. What do you want? Why me?"
A variety of expressions flowed over her mobile features.
"But--you could leave?" she faltered.
"I could, but I won't. This isn't charity night, kid. So go home and
come back another time. Tomorrow."
"Tomorrow won't do. Maybe I've chosen the wrong man, but there's no time
for second chances. I wanted a man with courage, a man used to living
dangerously and going his own way, a man who wouldn't ask questions and
would do anything for money. You sounded like something out of the old
books; a rogue; a rebel."
Newlin sighed. Did it show so much? From the gutter that spawned him, he
had fought and gouged and elbowed his way up. To him all men were
enemies. As a spacebum, he had explored the raw, expanding frontiers as
Man surged from planet to planet. As a hunted outlaw he had existed
perilously on the twilight fringes of civilization. Ruthless and savage,
a thief and despoiler, a criminal and adventurer, he had found his way
back to Earth, Mars, Venus and wrested a niche of sorts within the
citadels he had attempted to overthrow. Despite the brittle amnesty, he
knew that authority awaited only a single slip to deal with him
according to their views. But in the bitterness of ultimate
disillusions, he had found the fountainhead as lacking in civilization
and sanity as its furthest ripples. He longed, now, only for the final
gesture of rejection. Escape....
"I had expected more of Newlin," said the girl.
* * * * *
His reply was a short, bitter laugh. "So had I. My character is as
corrupt as the rest of mankind. Poverty is undignified and degrading; it
poisons virtue and debases the outlook. Without money a man cannot claim
his birthright of freedom; getting money he loses his independence and
his character."
"You think money would make you free?" the girl asked.
"Not of itself." Newlin scowled. "With money, a free man can be free; a
slave with money is still a slave. Perhaps I want to learn for myself
which I am. I want enough to pay for a spaceship, the best to be had. A
one-man ship in which I can escape this madhouse and venture
alone--beyond Pluto. Such a plan requires money, so I work in the
Spacebell. Between wages, tips, graft and my winnings, I may have half
enough, by dawn. If I live that long."
The girl nodded, then spoke contemptuously, "I can pay very generously.
You can set your own price. Enough even for your spaceship. But what do
you expect to find--beyond Pluto?"
"Myself, first. After that, who knows? This solar system is a vast
pesthouse. I am contaminated by fools, moneygrubbers, sheep and the
corrupt authorities that rule them. What else I find isn't important if
I find myself. Even death."
Newlin's eyes burned with a hot glare of fanaticism. Dread sprang into
the girl's heart. Always with these people there was this fear, this
panic-desire to escape, always an urge to destruction coupled with eery
mysticism, compulsions, conflicts--and always the final delusion of
personal sanity in the atmosphere of chaos. Some of Newlin's words found
echo in herself, but she checked a momentary sympathy. The system was
mad, true--but how sane was Newlin? How sane and trustworthy? He could
be a dangerous tool in her unskilled, frightened hands.
She had chosen him on the basis of his reputation. From his police
record, and other documents. A capable man, courageous and self-reliant,
ingenious, but a person of tensions and conflicts, a man of violence,
unpredictable, torn by contradictory impulses, a savage but not without
kindness and generosity. For her purposes, he might do as well as any
other. At worst a man, cast in heroic mold. Quickly, but not without
revulsions and reservations, she made her fateful decision.
"For a man of your talents," she said, "the task should be simple. I
want you to break into a building and bring me something. There is
danger you would not understand. If you fail, death for both of us. For
success, you set the price. Are you interested?"
Newlin laughed cynically. "You promise the moon if I can steal it for
you, nothing if I can't?"
"No such shrewd bargaining," the girl murmured uneasily. "But name the
amount you hoped to make here. I will match it now--and double it if you
accomplish my errand."
"Fair enough," said Newlin. "But keep your money. I'll case the job
first. Pay me later--if I don't change my mind again."
Ducking behind the bar, he shed his apron and buzzed for the stand-in
bartender. Ed Careld forsook his interminable game of Martian chess and
appeared to take over.
"Seems quiet," he said. "What's up?"
"Nothing," Newlin told him. "Private business. I may not be back. Keep
an eye on Table Three."
Careld nodded, eyed the gamblers at Table Three dubiously. He tied his
apron carefully and sidled toward the table to oversee the situation and
clamp down a lid if necessary. Table Three picked that moment to erupt
in profane violence. Three languages splashed pungently in dispute which
passed quickly to a climax of crisscrossed heat-beam brilliance.
Marksmanship was poor; both the fat Martian and his adversary from
Ganymede survived, and only two questionable kibitzers blazed into
sudden oblivion. Careld swept up the corpses into neat piles of ash,
then tried to warn the combatants against further displays of short
temper.
* * * * *
He died in an outburst of majority resentment, punctuated by heat-beams.
Newlin returned behind the counter and buzzed for Careld's stand-in.
Then clutching the girl's arm, he left the place, dragging her along.
The street was dim, silent, deserted. "Where to?" asked Newlin.
Her quick nod indicated direction.
"Walking distance?" he persisted. "Inside the city? If not, I'll have to
get protection suits from a public locker."
"Just inside. Monta Park."