The saboteur was well prepared. His suit was a high efficiency job
capable of maintaining a man alive for a long time in space. It had a
little radio for calling and a small and expensive chemical motor for
mild maneuvering, even though it would not be strong enough to permit
planetary landing. The man had friends, obviously, lying in wait out
there, who would pick him up.
A parcel of ice-cold-blooded murderers.
Farradyne saw the man through a red haze that clouded down over his
eyes. His evaluation of the act was made in a glance, and in the bare
instant that it took for Farradyne to see the man he got his feet in
motion. He plunged forward with a bellow that hurt his own ears.
10
The man whirled and sent a heavy-gloved hand back against Farradyne's
face glass. Farradyne lifted the file for a second swing and caught the
gleam of a heavy knife just as it swung upward at his face. The blade
jabbed at the face glass and blunted slightly before Farradyne's eyes,
splintering the glass and sending a shard or two against his cheek.
Farradyne's second swing caught a shoulder and sent the man staggering
back; the knife came up and the gleaming edge sliced close to
Farradyne's arm. The man stumbled and fell, and Farradyne came forward
to take advantage of the opportunity. The long lever used to handle
the radioactive control rod chopped against Farradyne's shins and cut
his feet out from under him; he landed on his face and the other man
kicked out with heavy space boots. The heels rammed Farradyne's helmet
hard down into his shoulders, and the top of his helmet hit the top of
Farradyne's head, stunning him.
The other scrambled forward and landed on Farradyne's back. He pulled
up and back on the fittings of Farradyne's helmet until the pilot's
spine ached with the tension. Then the man thrust forward and slammed
Farradyne's face down on the deck. The splintered safety glass cracked
further and there came the thin, high screech of air escaping through a
sharp-edged hole.
Farradyne lashed out and around just in time to parry a slash of the
knife. Blade met file in a glint of metal-spark and both weapons were
shocked out of the gloved hands to go skittering across the deck.
The man left Farradyne to scramble across the floor after his knife.
Farradyne jumped to his feet, took three fast steps and leaped,
coming down with both feet on the man's back. The other collapsed and
Farradyne fell, turning his right wrist underneath him. The other made
a kick that caught Farradyne in the side, turning him over. And as
Farradyne rolled, the bent hand touched metal and he came out of the
roll clutching a heavy pair of repair pliers. He could cut bolts with
them, and had.
He faced the killer, standing again; armed again, spaceman's pliers
against assassin's knife. He plunged forward and felt the knife bite
against his suit, he swung the pliers as a club and caught the killer's
upper arm; he opened the jaws and bit down, twisting and pulling.
A three-cornered tear ripped and came away with the point between the
jaws until the heavy outer cloth gave way. The knife came up and bit
through Farradyne's suit across the knuckles of the hand that held
the pliers. Farradyne kicked, sent the killer staggering and followed
him probing at the tear to get at the thin inner suit. The other man
struggled, hurled Farradyne back, but Farradyne staggered back with the
thin lining between the jaws of the pliers. The suit ripped and there
came a puff of white vapor as the air blew into the void.
The struggling killer stopped as though shocked by an electric current;
he stood there stiffly, his hands slowly falling to his sides, limp.
Farradyne took a step back, breathing hard. He could see now that his
head was not jerked back and forth behind the cracked glass. He peered,
in time to watch the froth of blood foam out of Hughes' nose.
Hughes! The math professor. The wise guy who had created the part of
dumb bunny by making sounds of knowing too much, who pretended to know
his way around in space.
Farradyne wondered whether Hughes had cried out in a polytonal
voice--then he hauled him into the air-break and slammed the door shut.
He felt for a pulse and found one fluttering; he turned him on his face
and pumped the ribs in, out, in, out, wondering whether he was wasting
his time.
Hughes groaned painfully. His groans echoed and reechoed in the tiny
space, but Farradyne could not hear more than the wreaking moan of a
man hurt very deeply. Hughes stirred and opened one eye. Then he closed
it again and sobbed under his breath. Farradyne checked the heart and
found it beating weakly; the pulse was not fluttering any more, and
the breath was coming naturally, even though the man's chest heaved
high and dropped low and there was a foghorn sound in the throat as he
gasped huge lungfuls of air.
Whatever, Hughes would give Farradyne no trouble for some time.
Farradyne carried the unconscious man to his stateroom and dropped
him on the bed. Then he went below and closed the little hatches,
reinserted the control rod, and wondered whether missing a few would
louse up his landing.
He went up to the control room and replaced the wiring torn out of the
audible-alarm system. The phalanx of warning lamps had winked out and
the clangor of the alarm did not come.
Farradyne went back to Hughes; the man was in a semicoma.
"Can you hear me?" demanded Farradyne.
Hughes roused slightly and looked at Farradyne through heavy eyes,
mumbling unintelligibly.
"You dirty louse!" fumed Farradyne. "I'd have let you die if it hadn't
occurred to me that you might be good for some information. What makes,
Hughes? Or should we have an accident below?"
Hughes mumbled something that sounded like defiance.
"Think your friends will give you a raise for this fumble?" jeered
Farradyne.
Hughes roused a bit more and looked at Farradyne more directly. "Smart
guy," he said in a toneless voice, "you can't--"
Farradyne smiled cynically. "Yes, I can and I have," he snapped. Then
he leaned down and put his face close to Hughes' and said carefully,
"Hughes, sing me a trio."
Hughes' control was good. His eyes widened only a sliver and the catch
in his breath was faint; anybody not watching for these signs of sudden
alarm would not have noticed anything amiss. Then the eyes dimmed again
and Hughes said, weakly, "Sing nothing."
"What's your pitch, Hughes?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"The hell you don't," said Farradyne harshly. "And if you won't talk
without it, I can make you yelp real loud. First I break all your
fingers, one by one, and then your toes, and then if you're still
playing stupid, there's always the trick of slipping a soldering iron
under your armpit and then plugging it in. Between the time the current
goes on and the time you really start to feel it burn should be long
enough to make a lot of gab."
Hughes looked at Farradyne directly. "You'd better kill me," he said
flatly. "Because you can't hold me."
"I'll make you a bet," sneered Farradyne. "I'll bet that I can hang
onto you, and if I do, you'll pay off by talking. Even-steven, Hughes."
Farradyne went to his small medicine chest and came back with a
hypodermic, which he loaded with deliberation. He made a dramatic scene
out of pushing the plunger, watching the droplet form on the end of the
needle and then adjusting that dose against the scale on the side of
the cylinder.
"Marcoleptine," he said conversationally. "A fine pain-killer, Hughes.
Just the thing a man would do to help a very ill comrade. It'll keep
you quiet until we can discuss the situation without having your
screams disturbing the passengers. Slip me your arm, old man. This
won't hurt much."
Hughes mouthed a curse, but Farradyne paid no more attention to the
man's objections than he would have to the objections of a child.
Farradyne caught Hughes' wrist and brought the man's hand up under his
armpit, then braced his forearm under Hughes' elbow. Then he lifted an
arm-bar, which raised Hughes' shoulder from the cot; Farradyne slid the
needle into the elbow easily with his free arm, probed for the vein and
discharged the hypodermic.
"I wonder," mused Farradyne aloud, "whether marcoleptine is really
non-habit-forming." He sat there on the edge of the bed watching Hughes
very carefully. Hughes struggled to keep his eyes wide, fighting off
the narcotic. But then the eyelids grew heavier and started to close.
In a weakened, drugged voice, Hughes mumbled, "Easier to slip
under--now--can't do anything--will ..." and he was gone. His breathing
grew regular and his body was completely flaccid. Farradyne waited
until Hughes was well under the dope and then he stopped watching the
man critically and began to plan his next move.
Hughes was going to be a sick man. Therefore the marks of battle should
not be visible to his companions when they wanted to look in on the
ill professor. Farradyne got a washcloth, soaped it well and went to
work. He let the hot cloth soak into Hughes' face for a minute or two
massaging the face under the cloth with agile fingers. Then he began to
scrub.
The caked blood came away. And so did some dark pigment that stained
the cloth. The dark-complected Hughes lightened in color; the lines in
his face seemed to become less deep as the shadowing pigment was washed
away. Schoolteacher Hughes came off into Farradyne's washcloth and what
was left was the would-be hellflower trader, Brenner.
"Brenner," breathed Farradyne in astonishment.
But the dope had taken effect and Brenner was out cold. Farradyne
bemoaned his enthusiasm for doping the man because questions would
fall on deaf ears. Then Farradyne took a more rational view. There
would be plenty of time to question the hellflower operator after the
schoolteachers left. Meanwhile, Brenner would be kept doped, quiet and
nailed-down for the duration. He left Brenner and went to his own bed
where--to his surprise--he went to sleep at once instead of lying awake
with the myriad questions in his mind....
He carried his book on Medicology with him to the breakfast table the
following morning, and at the questioning looks, Farradyne made his
announcement, "We have a sick man aboard. Hughes."