"And what about fixing up my reflexes?"
"A simple matter--inasmuch as we happen to be the ones who saw to it
that they deteriorated."
Kendall felt a jaw-muscle throb. The Martian's cool words confirmed
what the old drunk had told him; they had deliberately cooked up this
frame.
Das Shamra said, "This is Murro Lignus. He's our surgeon. He's the
man who--ah--surreptitiously placed the distorter in your body while
you slept at the spaceport last night. He comes and goes with great
stealth."
"You cold-blooded swine," Kendall said. "Okay. We'll be honest with
each other. I hate you, and you hate me--but I need you to ungimmick
me so I can go home, and you need me to help you hijack that dionate.
Okay."
"We understand each other, then," Das Shamra said.
"Take your gadget out of me and let me see the ship. I want to check it
over before I go up in it."
"Very well. Murro Lignus, apply the anesthetic and remove the
distorter."
Kendall shook his head. "No anesthetic. I want to watch this. I can't
trust you not to plant some other kind of gadget in me while I'm out."
The fat Martian shrugged. "As you wish. It will be a painful operation,
though."
"I'll take my chances on that," Kendall said.
* * * * *
The operation was hell. The Martian surgeon had slipped a
submicroscopic pellet near the base of Kendall's spine, making use of
one of the Martian super-anesthetics. Now there was no anesthetic in
use, as Murro Lignus probed for the distorter.
It was fifteen minutes of sheer agony. Finally the Martian murmured,
"It's over. You can get up."
Kendall felt bolts of pain shoot through him. Looking around at the
watching Martians, he thought, _You'll pay for this. All of you._
His brain felt clear. He knew the computer would now accept him and
restore his certificate. He toyed briefly with the idea of somehow
ducking out and getting back to the Space Service office, but he turned
that notion down. He wanted to do this up in style.
"We'll take you to the ship," Das Shamra said. "The plan is to lie in
wait off Phobos until the dionate ship shows up. Then you can follow
our instructions."
"You're the boss," Kendall said. "Until this caper is over, anyway.
Then I'm heading back to Earth and you can all rot so far as I care."
They took him far out of town, circled around the outlying districts
until he was pretty thoroughly confused, then brought him back. By now
it was night, and the twin moons were in the sky--tiny Phobos, only ten
miles in diameter, and Deimos, half her size.
The ship was a small, sleek job, some twenty years old. Where they got
it didn't seem evident; possibly they had blackmailed some other pilot
into surrendering it, possibly they had hijacked it in some fashion or
other.
He climbed aboard, followed by Das Shamra and his five henchmen.
"You'll have to weigh yourselves," he announced. "With all six of you
on board I'll have some tricky mass-calculations to do."
It took him a few hours to calculate the orbit, another hour to run a
routine check on the ship. It was in beautiful shape, ready to go.
"Strap down for blastoff," he said, when he was satisfied.
The Martians frowned in bewilderment. "We've never been in space," one
of them said. "We don't know how to get into the acceleration cradles."
Kendall showed them. Das Shamra lay closest to him, a blaster cradled
in his arms. "You're the only one who can move around now, Kendall. One
move out of place and I'll drill you."
"Sure you will," Kendall said. "And which one of you is going to pilot
the ship back down again? If you want to live, Das Shamra, keep that
blaster from going off."
He nestled down in the control webbing, and readied the ship for
blasting. A sharp thrill ran through him, as it always did as he
readied a ship for a leap into the great blackness. But there was a
special thrill this time. Only hours ago he had resigned himself to a
short, dreary few years of life remaining to him on barren Mars; now he
was behind the controls of a powerful ship again.
He touched the power stud. A reassuring throbbing shuddered through the
ship.
"We're about to blast off," he said. "Just relax, and it won't bother
you much. I'm going to put the ship in orbit around Phobos and then we
can wait for the dionate ship at leisure. Okay?"
"Good enough," Das Shamra grunted. The fat blueskin's face was beaded
with sweat. Obviously the Martians weren't looking forward to their
trip through space--but they were willing to put up with it for the
sake of the millions in dionate to be grabbed off Phobos.
Kendall grinned and jammed down the blastoff key. The ship sprang
skyward.
* * * * *
He had his back to a man with a gun. That didn't make him feel
happier. But the little ship bit a chunk out of the sky, climbed higher
and higher.
He heard a groan from behind him, but didn't turn around. He kept
himself bent over the controls, forced himself to remain conscious as
the acceleration mounted.
Three g's. Four. He yelled over his shoulder, "How you doin' back
there? Comfortable?"
There was no reply. He grinned and stepped up the acceleration. Seven
g's. Eight. The gravity was tearing at him like a demon's claws, but he
clung to consciousness.
A figure ran through his mind:
Mars--gravity, O.38. He could stand two-and-a-half times as much
acceleration as the blueskins behind him. His Earth-trained muscles,
used to responding to a much heavier grav, could handle eight g's
without too much strain. The Martians must be having fits.
Nine g's. Ten. He turned, looked back for the first time.
Reddish-brown blood trickled from Das Shamra's fleshy lips. The blaster
had long since fallen from his limp hand and lay on the spaceship's
deck. They were all unconscious--all of them, battered and beaten by
the sort of acceleration an Earthman was able to take with relative
ease.
Grinning savagely, Kendall boosted the thrust until he nearly blacked
out himself. Then he seized the controls and started to reverse the
ship.
Some time later, he landed it neatly outside the Space Service
headquarters. Taking a loving look at the Martians, with their
wrenched, distorted faces, he scooped up Das Shamra's blaster and
opened the hatch.
The computer technician he had fought with before came running out on
the landing field.
"What is the meaning of this? An unauthorized flight? Who are you?
Oh--Kendall!"
"Yes, Kendall," he said, leaning dizzily against the side of the ship.
Jerking his thumb over his shoulder, he said, "Get the Port Police
out here on the double. There are six very sick would-be smugglers
inside this ship. When you've got our green-faced blueskins packed
away, I want another date with that computer. I think I can get an okay
now--and I can't get back to Earth soon enough!"