"I knew her brother rather well," said Clevis quietly, "and I've known
Norma for some time. I knew her before--before--" He shook his head
as if to shake the thought away. "I gather that she thinks you are a
hellflower runner."
"That's right. But what does she think you are?"
"She thinks I'm a stockbroker. A former client of Frank Hannon's. Where
did you pick her up?"
Farradyne explained how Norma had announced his connection with the
hellflower racket, and how Cahill had been killed; how he had been
picked up by Carolyn Niles, and the subsequent sabotage by Edwin
Brenner, and all the rest of it. At the end he spread out his hands and
said, "This isn't all hard work and good management, Clevis. But here I
am. And now I have a couple of questions that I'd like answered."
"Yes?"
"Carolyn Niles wore that hellflower for six or seven hours without
turning a corpuscle. Norma Hannon proved that it was no gardenia.
There's something fishy here, Clevis. Does medical history indicate any
immunes to the love lotus?"
"Some. Not many. A few doctors have even gone so far as to claim that
the hellflower is no more dangerous than tobacco."
Farradyne swore. "Not according to Norma Hannon it isn't," he said
harshly.
* * * * *
Clevis eyed Farradyne carefully. "You're not a bit soft-headed over
Norma Hannon, are you?"
"I doubt it," said Farradyne honestly. "She's a poor kid that got
clipped, and it makes my blood boil. I want to bundle her up in my
arms and tell her that it'll be all right, and I want to go out and
rap a half-dozen scum-brained heads together for what they did to her.
Normal, she'd be the kind of woman I could fall in love with, and I'm
not denying it. But Norma Hannon is a real blank, and any man that
married her would end up by trying to make her normal, and then what?
Y'know, if you doped up enough women with hellflowers, the birth-rate
would take a decline that would alarm a concrete statue."
"That's a hard thing to think about," nodded Clevis.
"Of course, I've never seen a woman just after she has taken her
first sniff, so I don't know how long after it a woman's libido is
still capable of being excited. But by the time they get to Norma's
state, a love lotus only changes their scar-tissued emotional system
to something barely normal whose only desire is to sniff the flower."
Farradyne shook his head angrily. After a few moments' thought
he went on, "Anyway, you might have a couple of ships follow me
day-after-tomorrow morning. We're going out somewhere--destination
unknown--to make a rendezvous with someone high-up in the business, I
think. And no matter what, Clevis, I think it wise for your fellows to
keep on my trail, because at least one faction of their gang is out
to clip me hard. Sooner or later they'll be sending someone of large
proportions to clobber me and then I'd like to have your gang move in
fast."
"There's more to it than that," suggested Clevis.
"Well--"
"Go on."
"All right, I will. Remember the cock-and-bull story that nobody
believed?"
"The three people in the control room of the Semiramide?"
"That. Well, Clevis, now I know that there was only one person in the
control room."
"Oh? Look, Farradyne, you're not trying--"
"No, I'm not. This came by accident. I've heard the same kind of
three-voiced cries--once when Cahill died, once when Brenner caught
sight of Norma Hannon in bright sunlight. I've been wondering since
whether it might be some sort of concocted language."
"Granting that for a moment, just how would you use such a language?"
* * * * *
Farradyne eyed Clevis thoughtfully before he spoke. "I couldn't," he
said. "You'd have to take some statement like 'I've been shot!' and
break it down to utter the 'I've' in the upper register, the 'been' in
the middle tones, and the 'shot' in the bass region."
"Make talking fast--but difficult."
"Make it impossible," said Farradyne pointedly, "for a human being with
normal vocal chords."
"What are you trying to say?"
"Maybe it's another race, Clevis."
"A what?" exploded Clevis.
"Item: Carolyn Niles is immune to hellflower. Item: Brenner is immune
to marcoleptine. Correlation: they're both hellflower operators."
"Based on a grunt and a cry and an exclamation ... you're asking a lot
of me, although we've spent years following less tangible evidence than
this."
"I'll add one more item. Where do hellflowers come from?"
"We don't know."
"But you have combed the system for them?"
"Hell, yes--but there are a lot of places that have never been
explored. We can't cover all of them. So what's the next step?"
"Taking off with Carolyn Niles. During the next few days I'm going to
startle her, and I hope she grunts in three notes. Then I'll have a
nice tie-up."
"How so?"
"She has a hellflower-operator background. She'll have a three-noted
cry. And she's immune to the damnable flowers her gang deals in."
"Okay, that's your game, Farradyne. But in the meantime what are you
going to do about Norma?"
Farradyne eyed Clevis carefully. "You're going to drive her off in your
car," he said. "Because one of the games I'm playing is nosey-nosey
with Carolyn Niles, and there's going to be no addict cluttering up my
spacer. Norma is a bundle of trouble when she's not relaxed with a
snoot full of love lotus. She could louse-up the deal for fair if she
stayed."
"But what do I do with her?"
Farradyne shrugged. "Take her to a sanatorium," he said. "That'll keep
her out of everybody's hair, especially mine."