Carolyn faced him, "You poor simpleton," she said, "you've just sealed
your own doom."
Farradyne shrugged. "Sometimes it's better to kill the dog than let the
fleas multiply. It saves the rest of the dogs."
"Do you realize what you're doing? You're giving up! You're admitting--"
"Oh, shut up, Carolyn. What's your alternative? To surrender quietly
and let your rapacious gang walk in? Of course we can't win. But you
can't win either because we're going to deprive you of victory. When
the next galactic race comes this way they'll find a couple of glowing
monuments to a culture that preferred death to slavery."
"But you couldn't possibly--"
"Oh yes, I can. That's why we're heading for the arsenal now. I'll get
my load of mercurite there, and deliver it to your system while you and
your gang are ruining ours. I call it retribution."
"You don't offer any alternative, either," she whispered.
"Complete surrender," he suggested.
"And you know what that would mean."
Farradyne looked at her. It was an impasse and he knew it as well as
she did. The law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is only
good when there is a higher authority to see that it goes no further.
When there is no just authority to pass judgment, the loss of an eye
is revenged with interest, and the anger and resentment and desire for
counter-revenge grow and pyramid until nations and planets and solar
systems are involved in punitive wars that leave both sides weak and
broken. Primitive and ruinous it was. But then, so was all revenge.
It need not be ruinous. There could be a better way to pride, to
personal or national integrity. It had been done before in the middle
of the Twentieth Century and it had been the start of a consolidated
Terra. For there is personal pride in knowing that you have let your
defeated enemy live; in letting your defeated enemy know that you feel
strong and secure enough to hold his efforts in contempt.
Farradyne looked at Carolyn. "Surrender," he suggested to her. "Then
we'll move in quietly and count off your people. We've lost many of
ours, so we'll just tally off so many men to be murdered in cold blood.
So many virgins to be ravished. So many wives to be left without
husbands and so many husbands left without wives. Children left
homeless to such and such a number." His voice rose. "So much hunger;
so much pestilence; so much famine; so much death. What in the hell do
you think we are, Carolyn, a race of God damned vultures?"
"What do you want me to do?" she whimpered. "You're in the driver's
seat."
"No, I'm not!" yelled Farradyne. "And I'm not going to be held
responsible for anything that wasn't my idea in the first place. Your
outfit started this and now if your outfit does not care for the
end-game, it's for you to say. Now--do we drop mercurite?"
She searched his face and saw nothing but hard determination. She
shook her arm from Roberts' clutch and walked to the radio. Into the
microphone she began to singsong. She went on for some time; staccato,
musical now and discordant then, her triple-tongued voice rising and
falling as she spoke rapidly.
Then she turned from the radio. "You win," she said. "Somehow you
always win. And maybe--maybe I'm glad it's all over!"
Tears welled in her eyes and she turned away from them to stumble down
the stairway blindly.
23
Farradyne looked down at the white face, almost as pale as the hospital
sheets. Norma looked up at him, her face wan and her smile weak but
genuine. He reached down and pressed her hand gently. "Relax, Norma,
it's all over and done with."
"You're sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. Dr. Fawcett told me this morning that you were
obviously on your way to a cure."
"I'm feeling fine," she said. "I'm weak, but I do feel better. This is
just from the strain. I held my nerves together too long and it's left
me sort of washed out. But I'll be all right."
"You've got to be," he said seriously. "This is all too good to miss."
"What's happened? Charles, you talk. I'm--"
"Sure. Well, you never saw so much gold-braid and striped-trousers
a-space before in your life. After I set the Lancaster down at Terre
Haute, they came aboard and sat on two of the guys for hostages against
my return, and a bunch of us went to Lyra Three Fifty Seven with
Carolyn as interpreter. We made 'em cough up Clevis and about a hundred
other bright guys who'd been too smart for 'em. They--the gold-braid
and striped-trouser set--moved in and they've been conferring ever
since. Seems as how I guessed right; both sides seem to think that
there's been enough strife, and that more can be gained by pooling
our efforts. Anyway, it's out of my hands now and I'm just a spaceman
again."
Farradyne took a deep breath and chuckled. "I've my license back, clear
and honest. There's nothing too good for Farradyne, former bona fide
louse. I've also got enough interstellar shipping contracts to set me
up in rare style. Within a year I'll own a whole fleet and then I can
retire and pay someone else to go a-spacing. Does that sound good,
honey?"
Norma looked up at him out of soft eyes. "Is this a proposal of
marriage?"
"In the first degree," he said.
Norma pulled him down and gave him her lips. They were soft and warm
and pleasantly affectionate, as they had been on the road in Wisconsin.
Then she let him go and he stood up. He saw her eyes fill with tears.
"Norma?" he said.
"Charles, it wouldn't work."
"But--"
She smiled gently. "It's not that, Charles," she said slowly. "I'm not
thinking about Frank and the years of hate. Since then I've come to
know you and admire you, but you see, I don't really love you, Charles.
I--"
He saw something in her eyes and understood; he hoped she would not get
involved in any long discussion and, to forestall it, he asked, "It's
Howard?"
She nodded. "I loved him before Frank--" Her eyes glowed a bit and were
dry again. "Howard is a strong man, Charles. He used Frank, and then he
used me, and then he used you. And the hellflowers took Frank, and then
they took me from Howard and finally they took Howard, too. But you've
brought them all back but Frank. To me, Charles, and I've got--"
He bent down and stopped the flow of words with his lips. "Be happy,
baby," he said against her cheek. "I'll finish it all up in fine style."
Farradyne left the room quickly. In the corridor he paused long enough
to shake the growing vacuum away, and then he went down to the waiting
room....
"Howard? She's awake and feeling fine, although she's still weak as a
kitten. A bit of the sight and touch of you would work wonders, Howard.
She wants you."
Clevis got up and gripped Farradyne's hand hard. "You're quite a guy,
Charles," he said.
"I want to be second-best man, Howard."
"Any damned day in the week," replied Clevis. He left and Farradyne was
alone.
Farradyne sat down and lit a cigarette. He blew smoke at his toes and
wondered at himself. He should have been feeling despondent. Instead,
he felt a peculiarly satisfying glow of contentment. He couldn't win
everything; somehow this single loss was meant to be and it was right
that he should not have Norma.
And then the plume of smoke curled around a pair of slender ankles and
Farradyne realized that his loss of Norma was not a loss at all; the
slight vacuum filled full as Farradyne knew where his last piece of
unfinished business was.
The waiting room resounded with a gentle musical chord. It was operatic
in quality; angel, hoyden and devil singing bacchanal. He smiled and
looked up at her.
"Any damned day in the week," he promised, getting to his feet.
Against his face, Carolyn laughed softly. "But you can't even pronounce
my name."
"I'll get along," he said. "We'll figure out something."
Arm in arm they went out into the bright sunshine.
* * * * *
Once He had Been a Star Master--Now He Dealt in Soul-Shattering Ruin....
Farradyne had committed the one unpardonable error a Space Master could
make. He didn't die along with the other 32 passengers when his ship
smashed into the Bog on Venus.
They broke him--exiled him to the rotting fungus fields of Venus.
Now his only desire in existence was to return to the cool, gleaming
sea of deep space.
And there was a way--only one. But he would have to become the vilest
parasite in the universe--peddler of a poison that stripped the spirit,
before it consumed the body....
A PYRAMID BOOK 60¢
Cover: J. Gaughan
Printed in U.S.A.