"This is war," she said.
"Like hell it's war. This is backstabbing. But it'll be war as soon as
we can fight back."
"It is war," she repeated. "Let it go at that. The process should
not be unfamiliar to you; you've done it yourselves time and again.
First you weaken the enemy by undermining his resources, lowering his
resistance, by turning his efforts toward advancement against some
stumbling block. Then--"
"I presume that doping the women of a race is a right and honorable
practice?" sneered Farradyne.
"It is better than dropping a mercurite bomb. Face the fact, Charles.
We got to interstellar space first and met another people as racially
jealous as we are. We could have made a landing openly, but if we had,
the warfare you are threatening would have been here and done with
long ago and there would be nothing left of either of our people but
smouldering planets to mark the meeting place of two stellar peoples."
"You can say this knowing that no Solan has the barest notion of how
this doodad in the hold can permit us to travel faster than light?"
Carolyn looked at him with pity. "I'll tell you what would happen,"
she said. "You'd greet us with cheers and invite us in--long enough
to steal our warp-generator. You'd trade us your medical science for
our chemistry and your electronics for our gravities, and then you'd
meet us face to face to prove to yourselves that even though you got a
second-place start, you could move faster and hit harder than we could.
You'd carry your war to us, and we'd carry our war to you, and there
would be cause and effect and attack and retaliation with each blow a
bit more vicious until your people would be planting mercurite at the
same time we were. And then, as I say, the next interstellar race to
visit this section of the sky would find the radioactive remains of two
cultures. I know because our people come of the same stock."
He looked at her cynically. "Is that so? Where I come from it takes
three people to sing a trio, Carolyn. How do you explain that?"
"That's a recessive mutation."
"All right," he snapped. "So you've justified your own actions to
yourself."
"Of course. Everybody is self-justified."
"And you justify the doping of our race by calling it better than
meeting us face to face."
"Remember your own history. Even before the First Atomic War everybody
realized that warfare was a bankrupt measure to be undertaken after all
else had failed. You conducted your conflicts undercover, by boring
from within, by undermining the moral fiber and lowering resistance.
So, when your people have lost the ability to fight back, we'll move in
quietly and make an asset of you instead of a vicious enemy; ultimately
a ruined structure that must be rebuilt completely before it is of any
use to us."
"Got it all figured out, haven't you?" sneered Farradyne. "All except a
few of us who happen to catch on. Then what--if we don't exactly cotton
to the idea?"
There was a yelp from behind him and he turned just in time to
intercept Norma. She was advancing on Brenner with her acid-brush
poised. "Don't, Norma," he said gently, turning her aside.
"But you said--"
"Later." He gave her a gentle shove toward the side of the room and she
went reluctantly. "Brenner," he said sharply, "I want information."
"Ask," replied Brenner. "What can we lose?"
"Navigational data," said Farradyne, ignoring the question. "Where are
we and how fast does that gizmo run us?"
"I'd guess about six light years out from Sol. The warp generator
permits a top speed of about two light years per hour in Terran
figures. So go ahead and drive this can somewhere so we can get this
fool rigmarole over with. But take the dame aloft with you. I don't
want my face lettered like a washroom wall."
"Somehow it seems appropriate," chuckled Farradyne, but he took Norma
by the hand and led her up the stairs. She followed like an automaton
until they were out of sight, and then she came alive.
Visibly she relaxed. The granite set to her face faded and became soft.
Her lips curved gently and her eyes were animated. She walked briskly
across the control room, and turned down the outgoing gain before she
turned to face Farradyne.
"Charles, that was the hardest acting job I've ever done."
She snapped her acid bottle into one of the spring-containers so that
it wouldn't float all over the place under weightlessness and then she
went to the co-pilot's seat and dropped into it casually. She relaxed
with her head leaned back.
"How long after a sniff of hellflower does the effect last?" asked
Farradyne.
"Depends. I could feel the euphoria fading shortly after you took
mine out of my hair. The odd part of it was that it seemed different,
somehow. I feel so odd. Dizzy and weak and somehow frightened. I'd like
to be held, gently, and caressed like a kitten." She sat up and half
turned to look over the back of the co-pilot's seat. "This is honest,
Charles. I know, I can feel it; it's true and it's good, Charles. Oh,
yes," she said in a matter-of-fact voice, "I remember everything. This
isn't an act, Charles. This is the real thing. I've seemed to regain my
feelings again. Actually, I can almost feel sorry for them, you know?"
Her voice ended on an upward note.
Farradyne looked at her. Bemused, he said, "Could it be the hair of the
dog?"
"Hair of the dog?" she repeated automatically.
"The one that bit you," he said. "You were in an awful overload dose,
Norma; maybe the overload burned the dross out, like fire cleansing a
wound. Maybe--"
Norma blushed. "You were very gentle," she said.
He realized what she meant. He recalled the stories he had heard of
sophisticates who took their hellflowers to heighten the emotional
thrill of a symphony or a dinner; of men who had enough love for
their women to let them plumb the depths of emotion without using the
exhilarant as the cold means to a crude end. He had been with her
through her emotional binge and he had seen her through it quietly.
The fact that he had not wanted her, in fact repulsed her, had helped.
She had not been burned by piling passion a-top a heightened emotional
response.
He looked into her eyes critically. They were alive and soft. Could it
be that an overdose of the same devilish stuff could cure the effects
of its own?
"How do you feel?" he asked gently.
"Weak, washed out, but I can go on and on," she said confidently. She
didn't look it, but maybe she could, he thought. Excitement would carry
a person through a lot of trials. He looked at her again and understood
that he was right. She would go on and on, until the strain was over
and then she would probably come completely unglued for some time.
Farradyne put out a hand and stroked her cheek. She sighed against
his hand and moved her head from side to side. She reached up and
pulled his face down to kiss him on the lips. It was brief but warmly
satisfying.
She laid back in the co-pilot's seat, relaxed. "It's all there again,"
she said dreamily. "That same fast pulse and the tingle--and the
rather interesting feeling of danger. I'm a woman again, Charles; just
a very little bit concerned about being marooned in a spacecraft with
you. Let's get back home where I can enjoy my feelings. Please?"
Farradyne gave her hand a squeeze. "Done!" he glowed. Silently he
wondered whether she were really cured. He looked at her, at the glow
in her eyes and at the blush on her face, and he hoped so.
He slipped over the back of the pilot's seat and pushed down hard on
the toggle bar. The weightlessness came, and the compressed springs of
their seats tossed them up against the restraining straps. From below
there came a moan, but beside him, Norma relaxed in full confidence and
watched him work the controls with interest.
Two light years an hour ... Farradyne ran the Lancaster for exactly
three hours and then cut the super-drive. Together they inspected the
heavens and found a brilliant yellow star on their quarter. Farradyne
turned the ship to face it and pushed the toggle up and down. The star
reappeared without change. He kept his eye to the point-of-flight
telescope and raised the toggle slowly. Sol changed color, racing
toward the blue and the violet first and then turning a dull red and
rising through the spectrum again until it became violet once more. It
went through another spectrum change and started to increase in size.
Whatever caused this phenomeonon could not be explained by Farradyne;
perhaps by no living Solan physicist until many years of research
brought forth a theory.
But regardless of the theories-to-come, Sol grew in size like a toy
balloon hitched to a high-pressure air line until its flare frightened
the pilot. He shoved the toggle down and Sol winked back into the
familiar disc of blinding sun, about the size as seen from Mars.
Farradyne oriented himself with his knowledge of common celestial
navigation, consulted the spaceman's ephemeris and pointed at a large
unwinking spot. "Home," he said.
Two light years an hour ... Farradyne went to the computer and made
some calculations. He returned, pointed the Lancaster at Terra and
flicked the toggle up and down, counting off a few seconds for drive.
Sol whiffled past, changing in color as its position changed in the
astrodome, and when Farradyne drove the toggle down, Terra was a
distant disc in the sky above them.
Farradyne turned the outgoing gain on the intercom. "Terra dead ahead,"
he called to the prisoners below. "Still want to bet?"