"Maybe I just met up with the right guy."
"Blackmail?"
"That's a nasty word, Cahill."
"Sure is. What did he do?"
"Let's call it malingering. Let's say he played rough at the wrong time
and might have to pay for it high at the present." Farradyne looked at
the ceiling. "And maybe that isn't it."
Cahill laughed. "Have it your way, Farradyne. Tell me, do we have
a lay-over at Denver or is it better if we take off immediately for
Mercury?"
"Cinnabar or Hell City?"
"Cinnabar, if it makes any difference."
"Mercury, Schmercury, I didn't know there was anything there but the
central heating plant for the solar system."
"Isn't much," admitted Cahill. "But enough. The--"
* * * * *
His voice trailed away as Norma's high heels came clicking up the
circular stairway back toward the salon. "I thought I'd have a
cigarette and a drink with company before I go to bed," she announced
in a tone of voice that Farradyne had not heard her use before. With
gracious deftness, she made three highballs of White Star Trail and
water and handed two of them to the men. She let her fingers linger
over Farradyne's very briefly, and over Cahill's longer. She lounged in
a chair across the room from them, all curves and softness, with only
that strange disinterested look in her eyes to give her away.
The evening had been a series of paradoxes; Norma's change from the
vixen to the lady of languid grace did not ring true. He had been
aware of her ability to reason coldly, brought about by her burned-out
emotional balance which was so dulled that her thinking was mechanical
and therefore inclined to be frightfully chilled logic. Norma had
claimed that she knew the emotions by name and definition; that once
she had felt them but now she only knew how they worked. Farradyne
found it hard to believe that she was so well schooled in her knowledge
that she could put on the act of having them when she obviously did not.
Yet it was only the blankness in her eyes that gave her away this
evening. Otherwise she might have been a very charming companion.
She did not even force herself upon them; when her cigarette and her
drink were gone, Norma excused herself quietly and went below.
"Me, too," said Cahill.
Farradyne led him down to a stateroom and waved him in. "See you in the
morning," he said. Cahill nodded his good-night and Farradyne went to
his own stateroom to think.
He hadn't done bad, he thought; he had been on the trail for less
than a hundred hours and already had a lead. Obviously the Semiramide
disaster was the tip-off; no Sandman would go that far to establish a
shady reputation.
Farradyne was prepared to go on as far as he had to. The idea of
actually running love lotus was not appealing, but the SAND office
had been fighting the things for a half century, watching helplessly
while the moral fibre of the race was being undermined, and somehow
it was far better to let a few more lives be wrecked by hellflowers
than to save a few and let the whole thing steamroller into monumental
destruction. Farradyne still had to duck a few people who might like
to nail his hide to a barn door, but sooner or later he would come out
on top and then he could look his fellow man in the eye and ask him to
forget one bad mistake.
Being on this first step eased his mind somewhat. He would be rid of
Norma tomorrow morning and on his way with Cahill. He went to sleep
easily for the first time since that meeting with Norma at Ganymede.
He dreamed a pleasant dream of freedom and success that ended with the
bark of a pistol.