I looked into her eyes until I thought I was passing out. I clenched my
hands. "An accident. Hit him too hard. I'm no killer, I--"
"But you did kill him, and you've killed before...."
"In self defense, sure," I said. "But out there in the Asteroids, you
have to--"
She said, "I understand. Now, you'll do some things for us. You
won't ask questions because you wouldn't understand; later, you may
understand without asking."
I felt like the commonest kind of crook. "So you saved my life," I
said, "just so you'd have a sucker to pull some kind of a job for you.
Now I suppose if I don't want to do what you say, you'll threaten to
turn me over to the Solar authorities for shipment back to the Martian
cops!"
She flushed a little. "Wait," she said, "until you find out the truth,
then I'm sure you'll _want_ to help us. I'm sure you want to save Earth
and its billions of people from death."
* * * * *
I shrugged. "What'd Earth ever do for me? What's it ever done for any
of the poor guys dying from cosmic-rays and getting killed because
there aren't any laws out there? It takes our metal for precious
atomician work, and what does it give us in return? A few lousy
credits, and a sign saying 'Keep out--no admission'. The devil with
Earth."
"You must help us," the man said very softly and yet very forcefully.
"You mean I've got no choice, is that it?"
The girl raised her eyebrows. "There would be no sense in your making a
choice now; you can't understand, so no choice would be valid. It would
be only blind emotionalism."
"I see." I was mad. I could handle this cruiser myself. I'd been
kidnapped by people who considered me nothing more than a robot they
were going to use. I swung my feet around, got them planted solidly
down on the mesh grid flooring.
I got my hands down on either side of me so I could move fast and hard.
"I see. Well, I'm not playing sucker for anybody."
I could hear the soft whispering of space against the platinum lined
skin of the cruiser. Her eyes burned into me. I felt helpless and very
much alone. But the devil with them I thought.
So I jumped straight for the aristocratic gent, and swung a long stiff
right for his jaw. He faded into the air. I yelled wildly as he seemed
to drift away like smoke, and into nothingness. I turned and there he
was over in the corner of the cabin.
[Illustration: I jumped straight for the aristocratic gent, and swung a
long stiff right to his jaw. He faded into the air....]
His eyes shot sparks, but he wasn't mad; he just looked grim. "You
may cause us trouble when we cushion in," he said softly. "So I think
you had better go back to sleep." He moved toward me. I tried to move
my arms and legs, but I suddenly found that I couldn't move anything.
"And perhaps it will be better if you have no more resistance to our
suggestions after we reach earth."
His eyes seemed to expand out and out and out. It was like I was
falling into a widening black pool.
"And," I heard his distant voice say, "that is the way it will be.
Until you can make free choice of your own, you will have to agree
with us completely. Subconsciously you know we are right; some time you
will know it with your full consciousness."
They had it all right, whatever it was. But not as much as their
friends. They had as much of the greater power as you can have, and
still be bounded by Third-Plane reality.
It was mental power. Mind-energy they called paraphysical. Nothing
trite, like I'd seen the quack women along the North Canal pull with
mass hypnotism; this was something big and way beyond me.