"We wait in the spacer," Farradyne replied, "and go back under water."
Roberts shrugged. "Hope we like the trip," he said. "I've never been in
a spacer before."
They went up the landing ramp and into the salon, to stop short as they
saw Carolyn and the other pair.
"Quite a collection you have here," said Morgan. "Is this Carolyn
Niles?"
"I am," replied Carolyn. "Aren't you going to do something about it?"
Morgan showed her his taped wrists. "Not in this garb," he said. "This
man-about-space has too many things his own way."
Farradyne smiled and left them. He went aloft and returned the
Lancaster to the lake. "Now," he said, "we'll wait it out."
Morgan shook his head. "With the net they've set up you'll never see
your girl or the truck again, or the hellflowers."
"Maybe I want it that way."
"Oh? Putting the finger on the bird you carted out of here?"
"Precisely."
"And how about the dame?"
Farradyne laughed. "In this cockeyed society of ours, even a
streetwalking slut can rip her dress open, point at a man, and
holler 'Rape' and half the community will start yelling 'lynch the
sonofabitch' without looking too hard at either of them. She'll get by,
but it may go hard with him."
With some amusement he saw two different expressions looking at him
silently. Morgan and Roberts were scornful, angry and ready at any
instant to do whatever they could to overcome him. Only the tape kept
them from trying. But on Carolyn's face was an expression of mingled
defeat and admiration. She knew as well as Farradyne that Brenner was
in for a rough time.
Farradyne relaxed. He lit a cigarette and mixed himself a highball.
Carolyn groaned and tried to flex the wrists that were secured to the
arms of the chair. Morgan growled at the sight of her helplessness and
asked if Farradyne had harmed her. Carolyn replied, "Not yet. I happen
to be immune to hellflowers."
"Scorpions," said Farradyne, pointedly, "are immune to their own
poison."
It made no difference. Morgan and Roberts still wanted to get free so
they could take him on in a rough and tumble, and Farradyne knew that
either one of them would be more than a match for him. Tooling a truck
was not hard in this day of mechanical and electrical aids to human
muscle, but manipulating furniture was something else again. Either one
of them was capable of bending him double and straightening him out
again afterwards.
He listened to them discuss him. It was amusing, in a way. The first
remark was made with a sly glance in his direction to see how he
reacted. As he merely smiled, their observations became bolder and
more damning. They wondered how and why his degradation had been so
complete. They considered his family for a number of generations of
inbreeding and illegitimacy.
In all of this he had to admire Carolyn's ability to dissemble even
while she was playing a losing battle. She was determined to carry on
high until the bitter end, and she added to the slander with a fine
regard for the well-turned phrase and amplified all the truckmen said.
They were working on his chances for a painful Hereafter when the
radio music faded again:
"And here is the latest news on Charles Farradyne. Within the past half
hour the area of search has been narrowed to a ten-mile circle by the
interception of a moving van laden with hellflowers. The arrest was
made by a state highway patrol with the aid of a woman who gave her
name as Norma Hannon.
"Miss Hannon was in a state of hysterical collapse after days of
imprisonment at the hands of the lotus ring, a brutal physical assault,
and threats of being forced into love lotus addiction. The driver
of the truck was carrying a license made out to Walter Morgan, but
information from the Bureau of Identification indicates that Morgan
is also known as Lewis Hughes, a prominent teacher of Ancient History
in a Des Moines school. During the struggle Miss Hannon succeeded in
rendering the alleged criminal unconscious by hitting him on the jaw
with her slipper, after which she taped--"
Farradyne chuckled. "You see?" he glowed.