"Let's drop our masks, Charles."
"Masks? Look, Carolyn, I'd better clean up this glass."
"Sweep it up, then. But while you're cleaning up the mess we'll talk
seriously."
"About what?" He got a brush from the locker and a square of cardboard
from the bottom of a ream of paper, and started to collect the debris.
"What do you know about our language?"
"Damned little," Farradyne said bluntly, all pretense gone. Suddenly he
was trembling with rage that wanted release. "Frankly, I've had only a
suspicion, up to this moment."
"So I gave it away myself?"
"Yes, damn you--you gave it away!"
"What do you want of me?"
"What do I want of anybody?" he whispered in a voice that was almost
lost in cold fury. "I had four brutal years clipped out of my life by
a three-voiced party-unknown who wanted to commit suicide bad enough
to take thirty-three innocent victims along with her. They blamed it
on Hot-Rock Farradyne, the spur-wearing spaceman." His voice came
back, and he was half-roaring. "I've seen the results of love lotus!
A wrecked personality that might have been a brilliant and gracious
woman. I've seen a man plugged through the middle, to die at my feet.
And on top of that, I've seen a family prosper and calmly make its
place in society by dealing in the stinking things that bring ruin and
death! What do I want of you? Your lovely, flawless hide peeled alive
and spread out before a fireplace!"
She shrank from him; looked wildly at the stairway and then back into
his face as she realized there was not a place in the spacecraft where
she could hide.
He sneered at her fear. "I'm not going to commit violence on you," he
said. "It would only give you pleasure to know that violence was my
last resort." He looked at her closely. "What kind of person are you,
anyway?"
Carolyn drew herself together; somehow her self-confidence had
returned. "Why take your hatred out on me?" she asked.
"You?" he asked harshly. "Why shouldn't I? How in hell should I know
what slinky game you're playing? One of your kind was responsible for
the Semiramide affair, but who's to prove it? Am I the character that
started tossing the con-rods out of the Lancaster? What was your former
boy-friend doing on my ship? Setting me up for another kiss-off? Hell,
woman, you'll be asking me next not to take these things personally!"
"You shouldn't. They're the fortunes of war."
Farradyne roared, so loud that his voice echoed and re-echoed up and
down the ship: "Fortunes of war be god-damned!"
Then he stopped suddenly and looked at her again. "War?" he asked.
"Between who and whom or between what, and where?"
When she did not answer, he sat down and put one hand to his head.
Carolyn started to say, "Charles--" but he looked up and said, "Shut
the hell up and let me think!"
"But I--"
"You don't want me to think?" snapped Farradyne. "Shut up or I'll slap
you shut!"
* * * * *
He had enough evidence to make a shrewd guess if he could only sort out
the hodge-podge, and hang the material end to end. Some of it had to do
with combined suicide and wanton mass-murder in a wrecked spacecraft.
There were the Niles, who probably went to church on Sunday, belonged
to the Chamber of Commerce and the Ladies' Aid, and considered running
hellflowers a proper business. And daughter Carolyn, who wanted
marriage and a bunch of kids to bring up into the same hellish business
run so well by their grandfather.
And something important hinged around this triple-toned voice,
which now had been proven more than a hasty impression under stress
and excitement. Women who were immune to the solar system's most
devastating narcotic, and used their immunity to deal in the things
with safety, were bringing ruin to other women. It was a form of
warfare, and indicated an organization large and well-integrated;
capable of outmaneuvering capable men who had dedicated their lives to
stamping out the racket--and who died under the juggernaut instead of
destroying it.
Well, there it was.
No, there was more to be added. Brenner, who had tried to remove the
control rods of the reaction-pile, and who was immune to marcoleptine.
That was an odd-shaped piece of the jigsaw puzzle that suddenly dropped
into place with a click.
Farradyne tried to put himself in the position of Professor Martin,
who might have been a survivor if the Lancaster had foundered. Martin
might ask why someone had tried to kill him--just as Farradyne had
often asked himself why Party X had tried to kill Farradyne in the
Semiramide. The answer was that Martin would have been an innocent
victim in the second episode just as Farradyne had been in the first.
Party X had wrecked the Semiramide because there was someone aboard
with dangerous knowledge!
Farradyne came to one decision: there was a coldly-operating group of
persons who were themselves immune to drugs, and who were efficiently
undermining the rest of the human race by preying on weakness, lust,
and escapist factors that lie somewhere near the surface in the
strongest of human characters.
He raised his head and looked at Carolyn Niles.