"It must have been about midnight, I was working below. I heard a
rather strange noise up in the passengers' section and went up to find
out what was going on. I found Mr. Hughes coughing and sneezing in the
passageway, obviously in distress. I inspected him as best as I knew
how and we got out my Medicology and compared symptoms. I'll read this
section:
"'Coryosis, one of the nine allied infections which are frequently
grouped under the ambiguous term "Common Cold," is extremely contagious
but fatal only in cases of extreme sensitivity. Treatments consist of
isolation amounting to a formal quarantine, and frequent injections of
MacDonaldson's Formula 2, Ph-D3; Ra7. The patient is to be kept warm
at all times and must remain quiet.'
"So we went to his cabin and I slipped him a shot and he went to bed.
Now I'll read a bit more:
"'Contagion measures: Since the source of infection is a filterable
virus, care must be taken to remain outside of the twenty-foot range
of water droplets resulting from a cough or sneeze. All things touched
by the patient must be either sterilized or burned. It is suggested
that only one person tend the patient and that this person be immunized
with MacDonaldson's Formula at regular intervals. Visiting should be
discouraged, and if necessary must be carried on at a distance and
for a very few minutes only. The incubation period is very short; the
duration of coryosis is approximately fourteen days. It is, however,
possible for a re-infection to take place which often resembles the
initial infection, thus giving rise to the six-week cold.'
"There's more along this line but I think we have the picture well
enough," Farradyne concluded.
Professor Martin's face was grave. "What must we do?" he asked
anxiously.
"Nothing," said Farradyne firmly.
"But he shouldn't stay on Pluto."
"That is correct. Pluto is very cold, even with the Terra conversion
program going on. Mr. Hughes should be returned to Terra."
"But--"
Farradyne smiled. "I've got to make a freight pickup on Pluto for
Terra," he said quietly. "I'll take Mr. Hughes back home."
"That would be very considerate of you, Mr. Farradyne."
Farradyne shook his head in disclaimer. "It's only what any man would
do," he said. "What do we know about Mr. Hughes?"
Miss Tilden said, "Not very much, I'm afraid. Mr. Hughes teaches
Ancient History in Des Moines, Iowa. He joined us on Mercury, you know."
"No," said Farradyne, "I didn't know. I thought you were all together."
"Apparently Mr. Hughes was traveling alone until he heard of our
group," offered Professor Martin. "He was, he said, seeking a
reduced-rate trip to Pluto--as we were--when he noticed our flight-plan
filed on the bulletin board. He got in touch with me and offered to
join."
Farradyne nodded. "There's really plenty of time," he said. "No use
getting excited. I'll contact the Des Moines Board of Education
later--after we've made our landing and take-off, and are close enough
to Terra to make the radio effective. It'll save us some money that
way." The latter, he thought, would appeal to these people.
It was left that way. Farradyne did not assume for one moment that
Hughes was a complete fake. One of two ideas was certainly true: either
there was a real schoolteacher named Hughes who looked like the made-up
Brenner, or Brenner had been masquerading as Hughes and really taught
school in Des Moines when he was not peddling hellflowers.
There were more important things to be considered, too. Was there
another hellflower operator in the ship? Farradyne watched them all
like the proverbial hawk but he could see no evidence of another
hellflower man. He decided to take no chances; it would be very much
like the higher-ups in this racket to have put a second operator aboard
the Lancaster to take over in the case of Brenner's failure; the second
undercover man could escape as easily as could Brenner and in the same
way as soon it became evident that the Lancaster had been properly
sabotaged. To forestall this possibility, Farradyne built a small
photoelectric alarm and put it across the stairway that led from the
passengers' cabin to the below-deck section of the ship.
Some of Hughes' friends went with Farradyne to watch him tend the
stricken one. They stood in the doorway while Farradyne gave Hughes his
shot of marcoleptine out of an ampoule carefully labeled "MacDonaldson
Formula 2, Ph-D3; Ra7." There was no doubt in their faces; Farradyne
was a fine man, doing all he could to relieve the illness of another
man.
The rest of the trip was uneventful. Farradyne was asked periodically
about Hughes' condition and he replied carefully and cheerfully, once
going so far as to remark with a slightly bitter laugh, "Hughes will
probably feel fit as a fiddle by the time I get back to Terra, and
he'll then hate me for lugging him home. But we couldn't leave him on
Pluto with that coryosis, could we?"
Since none of them cared to have a man coughing and sneezing in their
midst, they all agreed solemnly.
Then, inevitably, the trip wore to a close. Pluto loomed large in the
sky, and Farradyne went below to see Hughes-Brenner about an hour
before they were due to land.
11
Farradyne found Brenner awake but logy. "How do you feel?" he asked
Brenner.
"I feel dopy," admitted Brenner dully.
"Good. You've been a very sick man, Brenner. Or should I call you
Hughes? Which is your name?"
"What difference can it make?"
"I like to know these things," said Farradyne. "I seem to collect a
lot of information, one way and another, and I admit a lot of it is
useless, but I find it interesting. For instance, Brenner, can you make
that triple-tongued sound?"
"What triple-tongued sound?"
"Come off it, Brenner. You know what I'm talking about."
"Do I?"
"You do and I intend to find out," said Farradyne. He loaded his needle
and approached Brenner with it. "This is for the last time, Brenner.
And I've ideas on how to make a man talk--or sing a trio."
"You're a devil from hell," Brenner snarled.
"And you're an angel from heaven, ripping out the control rods to give
us the Long Ride? Brenner, I owe you a lot that I'm going to collect.
You'll wish you had died, Brenner. And you probably will die not long
after your friends find out that you've talked."
Brenner eyed Farradyne wearily. "You haven't won your bet yet," he
said. "And even if you do, there's the problem of extracting payment."
Farradyne shrugged. "You'll talk," he said flatly. Then he reached for
Brenner's arm, imprisoned it so that Brenner could not move without
dislocating the shoulder, and slid the needle home. "Just to be sure,"
he told the man, who was showing all the defiance that a man in a
weakened condition could display, "I gave you a slightly larger dose.
The Medicology says that this is accepted practice with marcoleptine,
when the patient is in some danger of an excitement-crisis."
He waited until Brenner's eyes closed and the breathing became deep
and regular. Then Farradyne left Brenner, went aloft and made contact
with Pluto Spaceport. He came down with one hand poised above the power
lever; at the first glimmer of any hanky-panky, Farradyne was going to
slam the power home and take off for space at full power. Questions
could be asked afterwards.
The landing was as good as any that Farradyne had ever made, but
he was almost a nervous wreck worrying about the possibility of a
recurrence of the Semiramide incident. He relaxed only after he had
peeked, unobserved, at Hughes, still doped, and then led the covey of
schoolteachers down the landing ramp.
It was a happy parting, with just the right tone of regret and a
large amount of congratulations as to his ability, helpfulness and
willingness to explain things to them that other pilots brushed away.
They shook his hand and Miss Carewe permitted him to kiss her cheek
and called him "Son" and Miss Tilden giggled and lifted her face for
a chaste peck. Mrs. Logan's lips were warm and soft but completely
uncooperative.
Then Professor Martin made an "ahem" in his throat and said, "Young
man, we've all decided that you should have something to show our
gratitude. Unfortunately it cannot be expensive or exotic although we
have all agreed that an appropriate gift should be both. So since we
cannot go to the high extreme that we all feel, we have decided that
the next best thing is something completely valueless except for its
sentiment."
He fumbled in his side pocket and brought out a small piece of slate,
broken from some outcropping, somewhere.
"On this slate we've signed our names with a sharp instrument. I hope
you like it, Charles."
Farradyne took the bit of slate. It said, "To Charles Farradyne, Pilot
First Class, in memory of a very pleasant flight." It was signed by all
of them.
"Thanks," he said, shortly. A lump hit his throat and his eyeballs
stung. He felt ashamed. He had been playing games and holding high
intrigue almost under their noses and they had responded with this very
simple gesture of sincerity: Pilot, First Class--with a forged license
and a record of hell-raising. "Thanks," he said again.
"It's signed by everybody but Mr. Hughes," said Professor Martin. "But
you can ask him to sign it before you leave him. He will be happy to, I
know."
There was a sound at the spacelock. "I'll sign it now!" said Hughes.
They all whirled. Hughes, eyes alight, the smile on his pale face
eager, came down the ramp with his suitcase in one hand.
"But you--" said Professor Martin.
Hughes laughed and his voice was hearty, "I kept telling Mr. Farradyne
that he was too heavy with the medicine." Hughes poked Farradyne
humorously on the shoulder. "Coryosis, Mr. Farradyne, is nowhere near
as violent an illness as you have been led to believe. Our ancestors
called it the common cold and most of them spent a few weeks each year
fighting one form or another, frequently several forms at the same
time. Sleep and isolation cured me. I'm quite all right now."
"You're certain?" Farradyne managed.
"I'll let any doctor on Pluto look down my throat," promised Hughes.
"And I'll go back with you if he doesn't say I'm fit. I'm a bit pale, I
admit, and I won't regain my color until we get back sunward, but I'm
telling you that I am quite cured of my brief encounter with coryosis."
The spaceport bus came to a stop at that moment and Hughes, pausing
to scratch his name on the plaque, thanked Farradyne for the thorough
medication that had kept him quiet, got on the bus, waved and was
whisked away.
Farradyne, stunned, could only wave like a reluctant schoolboy.
So Hughes-Brenner disappeared again, wandering away under the
protection of a group of honest, unsuspecting human beings who would
have been aghast at the first cry of villain against one of their
number.
Farradyne felt like a seven-year-old who had just been trapped into
admitting that he has been a naughty boy. But out of the maze of items
one thing was obvious.
Hughes or Brenner or whatever he called himself was a very
extraordinary man. He had been able to walk off the ship with his eyes
bright and his system hale, when he should have been flat on his spine
with a brainful of marcoleptine. And marcoleptine was one of the most
completely paralyzing drugs that had ever been synthesized. Hughes had
feigned his doped slumber and his helplessness because he had known
that Farradyne would not attempt to ask questions until he had Hughes
alone. He had also lulled Farradyne into thinking him drugged so that
he could come out nice and easy to join his fellow-travelers in such
a way as to turn Farradyne's own explanation against him. Then he had
walked away without a murmur of dissent from Farradyne who had no legal
right to raise a cry against him.
Hughes-Brenner was a very remarkable fellow.
Farradyne watched the truck bringing out his shipment of refined
thorium ore. Outpointed, outsmarted, outnumbered, the evidence he had
was so very meager. He sneered at himself. Evidence? It was more a mere
belief.
But what was a case history but snippets and bits of inconclusive
evidence that somehow fitted together like the sections of an
interlocking jigsaw puzzle? What did he have to fit together? A common
pattern of love lotus background. A man who died with a discordant
moan. A man who grunted in a polytone when surprised, and who could
take a paralyzing dose of marcoleptine and then walk out jauntily.
A family of apparently well-to-do formality with a proud place in
the community, and a girl who worked hand-in-glove with hellflower
manipulators but who obviously had never had her delicate nose near one
of the hellish things. Or maybe she was immune, as Hughes was immune to
marcoleptine? And did _she_ make multiple-toned sounds when she
was startled?
A few very remarkable people....
* * * * *
Farradyne took off for Newark with his cargo, still trying to think
the matter out. Two things were certain: Farradyne himself was afraid
to take a needleful of marcoleptine because he knew damned well that
he was not immune; Farradyne could not make a polytonal sound with his
vocal cords.
He sat in the salon, alone and quietly thinking, and finally realized
that he was completely isolated from everyone else in the solar system.
He could sing crazily or go to bed, and no one would know which he did.
He essayed a sound. It sounded like the croak of a Terran tree-frog. He
made the whimper of a cocker spaniel and succeeded in getting a cramp
in his throat trying to get down an octave below his normal register.
He hummed and he spoke in a falsetto that made his tongue ache way down
deep in back, and he tried humming and speaking and groaning at the
same time and the result of that was a toneless croak.
It struck him funny after a bit, and while he was laughing at himself,
he concocted a ludicrous picture of himself kissing Carolyn Niles, and
she responding in a three-toned moan.
Alone and lost in his own thoughts, Farradyne slipped deeper and deeper
into his daydream, until he answered her throaty little sound with an
audible reply.
"I love you," he said, straining at his vocal cords. It sounded like an
over-age choir boy whose voice was not ready to stay in one key yet.
Soprano and baritone and tenor sounded the words, but they came out in
sequence instead of all at once. A bit sing-songy, like Chinese.
The sound, at discordant odds with the smooth, pleasant daydream,
jarred Farradyne's mind into wakefulness. The chances were that if he
had been able to create a three-toned reply he might have gone on with
the pleasant reverie. But now aware, Farradyne tried it again.
"I love you," he said aloud. He was not particularly aware of the
meaning of the words, they had just been appropriate to the dream. If
Farradyne had been daydreaming about dinner he probably would have been
trying the strange triple tone on, "Please pass the mashed potatoes."
He tried it again. What Farradyne wanted to do was to say "I" in _F_;
"Love" in _A Natural_; and "You" in _E Flat_, which would have been a
nice chord in _B Flat Minor_ and somehow appropriate to the context of
the words. "I hate you" would have been just as likely.
Old Brenner-Hughes might have said, "That's very neat!" when he had
seen Norma Hannon with the sun shining through her skirt. Or its
equivalent, all coming out in one surprised grunt.
Carrying this line of thought still farther, Farradyne considered
the original saboteur, who might have said, "That takes care of you,
Farradyne," as he clobbered the relays in the Semiramide. And Mike
Cahill, who might have cried, "I've been shot!" or more probably
something completely unprintable.
Farradyne sat bolt upright. As a countersign to tell another hellflower
operator your own identity it was a fine job. But could a whole
language be constructed out of this three-tongued hodgepodge?
Or was his entire trend of thought based upon the ultimate hope of
discovering something that would absolve him from the responsibility
of the wreck of the Semiramide? Actually, what did he have to go on?
An exclamation, a surprised grunt, a death cry. Absolutely nothing but
his own suspicion. That plus the fact that Farradyne's ship had been
subjected to some intercepted sabotage, by a hellflower operator, who
had made a sound that might have been polytonal.
If nothing else, the fact that the dope-running gang was trying to clip
him was enough for Farradyne to seek Clevis' help. He went down into
the hold and started to wash the ends of the thorium drums.
Then he spent a lot of time tinkering with a little semi-circle of soft
plastic material across the opening of which he stretched two, thin,
flat strips of hard-surfaced waterproofed paper. As a boy, Farradyne
had been bilked out of fifty cents for a gadget advertised in a cheap
magazine that purported to give the user the powers of ventriloquism.
It hadn't enabled Farradyne to throw his voice into a trunk but it had
made a rather interesting bird call. Such a gimmick now might enable
him to make a multiple tone.
Farradyne spent the remaining time of his trip from Pluto to Terra
building the gizmo and practising with it until he could make a very
odd moaning cry in three notes. Meanwhile he wondered whether Carolyn
Niles would actually be on Terra to meet him.
12
Farradyne wondered how soon the fuss would start once the drums of
refined thorium went under some hidden beams of ultra-violet light.
He watched the drums being trundled off, and they disappeared, and
Farradyne waited and watched until it was evening in that part of New
Jersey, but no one came on the double-run to ask him leading questions.
He took off about nine o'clock, finally, and made the looping run from
New Jersey to Los Angeles in time to get him there just about dusk.
He checked into the control tower.
"Regular listing?" asked the registration clerk, looking at the license
without turning an eyebrow.
"No, I've a charter run," said Farradyne.
"Then why register here?"
Farradyne thought fast. "This is one of those things," he said. "A
darned good hope but no down payment. I was told to land here this
evening and if nothing had changed while I was on the run to Pluto and
back, I could have a rider to Mercury. But if this passenger does not
show up, I want to be registered for anything heading Mercury-ward.
I'll be going there in two days anyway, but I'd rather go loaded."
"Reasonable. Tell you what, Farradyne, I'll make yours a tentative
listing. If your passenger doesn't show by tomorrow morning, you'll go
up on the board as having registered tonight."
"Thanks," said Farradyne. He took the opened license back and slid a
finger into an inside slip-pocket. "Got a picture here you might be
interested in. A portrait of one of our early presidents."
"I'm a bit of a collector," said the clerk.
"Well, in that case, you can have it for the favor. I just keep it
around for a curiosity."
The clerk pocketed the bill easily and Farradyne went over to the
mail-listing window. "Anything for Charles Farradyne?"
"Expecting something?"
"At least one, a payment voucher from Eastern Atomic. Come yet?"
The mail clerk disappeared; came back with one envelope. "Nothing from
Eastern Atomic," he said. "But here's a letter for Charles Farradyne,
Pilot of ship's registry Six-Eight-Three, a Lancaster Eighty-One. That
must be yours."
"It's mine. But keep an eye peeled for a landwire payment voucher,
will you? I had to leave Newark before it was ready and the guy at
the shipping office said he'd notify the company that the stuff was
received at port, and that I'd be in Los Angeles. Okay?"
"Aye-firm."
The letter was from Carolyn. A brief note telling him that she would be
ready for the trip on the morning of the fifth. This suited Farradyne;
he had been afraid that Carolyn might be waiting at the spaceport for
him, and that they'd be taking off before Clevis had a chance to find
out about the washed drum-ends.
She also suggested as a postscript that she might possibly be at her
hotel and free about nine any evening, and there was some reference to
her being a bit squeamish about the dark. Farradyne was half-inclined
to believe her. Carolyn Niles lived on Mercury--a planet that knew no
night.
He looked at his watch, he had a couple of idle hours left. He started
to wander the streets of Los Angeles, wondering just how a man went
about buying a hellflower. He had done that before, but that was on
Mercury where such things might be more difficult to find. There were
two places in America where, for generations, a man could get anything
he had enough money to buy and knew where to look. He was in one; the
other was three thousand miles across the continent, in New York. All
that remained was the problem of finding out where to look.
Farradyne had to admit he had a difficulty. He was in a position
similar to a teetotaler in a prohibition area who suddenly decides to
buy a drink and cannot, from lack of experience, locate a speakeasy.
And dope, which had been with the human race ever since the first
caveman took a bite out of a bit of saw-toothed weed, and was sold on
the street by peddlers, was singularly hidden from the clutch of a man
who just casually wanted to collect a packet.
So Farradyne spent some time wandering. He went into a florist shop and
tried to buy a corsage. He could buy a corsage for a few dollars, but
not for fifty. At least, for fifty he could get nothing smaller than a
garland.
In one place Farradyne tried his tonal throat gadget. The florist eyed
him curiously and asked him if he had something wrong with his throat.
And then, about fifteen minutes before he reached Carolyn's hotel a man
sidled up alongside him and said, "Say, Jack, lookin' for somethin'?"
"Who isn't?"
"Might be able to fix you up, Jack. Got five?"
Farradyne knew that this was not the price, so he looked at his watch
and said, "I've got fifteen."
"Won't take that long. Try the stand in the Essex Lounge."
Farradyne blinked. The Essex was no more than six years old, right
in the middle of the city, and considered one of the plush joints of
Terra. Selling hellflowers at the Essex was like selling the things on
the steps of the Terran Capitol Building.
"Yeah?" he asked sourly.
"Yeah. Tell 'em Lovejoy sent you to pick up his flowers. Cost you
fifty, Jack. Willin' to pay?"
"I've got it; and I'm willing."
"See ya, Jack."
The character sidled away, leaving a slight scent of decaying cloth
mingled with a faint fragrance of gardenia. It was, according to
Farradyne's standards, one god-awful mixture.
Farradyne went to the Essex and into the florist shop. A girl who was
undeniably beautiful came forward. Farradyne smiled knowingly.
"I'm a friend of Mr. Lovejoy," he said. "He asked me to stop by and
pick up his corsage."
"Of course." The girl disappeared and returned with a transparent
plastic box containing a gardenia--or a love lotus. "That will be five
dollars," she said with a piercing look at Farradyne.
Farradyne took a fifty out of his wallet and handed it to her. She rang
up five on the register, and Farradyne walked out, wondering if anybody
ever considered that Mr. Lovejoy must have a number of peculiar habits
and rather easy-going friends that could be imposed upon.
At Carolyn's hotel a few minutes later, the desk clerk informed him
that Miss Niles was expecting him and he should go right up.
Carolyn greeted him warmly, took him by the hand and drew him into the
hotel room. Once the door was closed she came into his arms and kissed
him, not too fervently, but very pleasantly, with her body pressing
his briefly. Then she moved out of his arms and accepted the flower.
"Lovely," she said.
She opened it and breathed the fragrance deeply. She held the white
flower at arm's length, admiring its beauty. Then she held it to her
nose and took a deep breath, letting the fragrance fill her lungs.
Farradyne's mind did a flip-flop. First he felt like a louse, as she
smiled at him over the edge of the flower and then took another sniff
of the fifty-dollar blossom. "Maybe," she said archly, "I shouldn't do
this."
Well, she was immune--or she wasn't. Could be that it wasn't
even a hellblossom. But she should know. He hoped his smile was
honest-looking. "You are stuck already," he grinned wolfishly.
Carolyn took another luxuriant breath and tucked the blossom in her
hair. She came into his arms and kissed him sweetly. Then she relaxed,
leaning back in his arms to look into his eyes. "I'm not afraid of you,
Charles," she said in a low, throaty voice.
"No?"
She laughed at him and then turned out of his arms. She went to a tiny
sideboard and waved a hand at glasses and a bottle of Farradyne's
favorite liquor. He nodded, and she mixed. "Don't disappoint me,
Charles," she said.
"How?" he asked, wondering what she was driving at, and feeling that
this had nothing to do with hellflowers.
She handed him the highball.
She sipped at her drink and flirted with him over the top of the glass
for a moment. "I don't think anybody will call me overinflated if I
admit for a moment that my family is a long way from poverty; if, for
an instant, I admit that I know that I am very well equipped with
physical charm. I also flatter myself that I have a mind large enough
to absorb some of the interesting factors of this rather awesomely
beautiful universe."
"I will grant you the truth of all three."
"Thanks," she said with a sly-looking smile. "But the point
is, Charles, that a girl with a bit of money in the top of her
stocking--and a brain in her head--wonders whether the gentleman is
interested in the money, or the shape of her stocking. She is more
interested in having the man want her for the aforementioned brain, I
think. She'd like to feel that the gentleman in question would still be
interested if the shape of the stocking changed for the worst with age
and the money disappeared."
Farradyne looked at her and wondered again what she was and what she
was after. If nothing else, Carolyn was a consummate actress. He wanted
very much to take his face in his hands and ponder this problem deeply,
but there was no time. He had to reply at once or have the appearance
of a man who must make a careful answer. He walked across the room
and took Carolyn by the shoulders and shook her gently. He bent down
and kissed her and he found that the warm and eager response was back
again, even though he touched her only with his lips and his hands on
her warm shoulders.
"Let's leave it just that way," he told her. "Sooner or later something
will give me away--and then you will know whether I am after your
body, your money or your mind." Farradyne kissed her again, and again
lightly. "Until you know, nothing I say will convince you of anything."
Farradyne still had her shoulders under his palms; Carolyn moved
forward into his arms and rested against him. She put up her face for
his kiss, and held herself against him, close. Then she said dreamily,
"You're a nice sort of guy, Charles, and I'll be very happy to leave it
that way. Maybe you'll be the one who stays."
Farradyne recoiled mentally and hoped that his instinctive revulsion
was not noticed. It was too easy to forget what Carolyn represented
when Carolyn went soft and sweet and eager. He wanted to be a male
Mata Hari; he wanted to lure her on, to caress her into breathless
acquiescence and then walk out with a cold smile to show his contempt.
Then he relaxed--and hoped that the muscles of his body had not
undergone the change that his mind had--and decided if this were part
of the game he had to play to cut the hellblossom-hellflower-love lotus
ring out of the human culture, it was nice work. He recalled reading in
history, as a child, another, but mild drug, marijuana, had multiple
names.... His job would have been infinitely more difficult if Carolyn
had been a gawky ugly duckling with buck teeth and a pasty complexion.
"Charles," she breathed, "take me out into the dark?"