Rice exploded. His eyes were hot in his young, sharp-cut face, hot and
black. "Good Lord, Sam, do you know who this is?"
Burnett scowled uneasily and said no.
"It's Lethla!" Rice retorted.
Burnett said, "Lethla?" And then: "Oh, yes! Kriere's majordomo. That
right?"
"Don't say it calm, Sam. Say it big. Say it big! If Lethla is here in
space, then Kriere's not far away from him!"
Burnett shrugged. More bodies, more people, more war. What the hell.
What the hell. He was tired. Talk about bodies and rulers to someone
else.
Rice grabbed him by the shoulders. "Snap out of it, Sam. Think!
Kriere--The All-Mighty--in our territory. His right hand man dead. That
means Kriere was in an accident, too!"
Sam opened his thin lips and the words fell out all by themselves.
"Look, Rice, you're new at this game. I've been at it ever since the
Venus-Earth mess started. It's been see-sawing back and forth since the
day you played hookey in the tenth grade, and I've been in the thick
of it. When there's nothing left but seared memories, I'll be prowling
through the void picking up warriors and taking them back to the good
green Earth. Grisly, yes, but it's routine.
"As for Kriere--if he's anywhere around, he's smart. Every precaution
is taken to protect that one."
"But Lethla! His body must mean something!"
"And if it does? Have we got guns aboard this morgue-ship? Are we a
battle-cuiser to go against him?"
"We'll radio for help?"
"Yeah? If there's a warship within our radio range, seven hundred
thousand miles, we'll get it. Unfortunately, the tide of battle has
swept out past Earth in a new war concerning Io. That's out, Rice."
Rice stood about three inches below Sam Burnett's six-foot-one. Jaw
hard and determined, he stared at Sam, a funny light in his eyes. His
fingers twitched all by themselves at his sides. His mouth twisted,
"You're one hell of a patriot, Sam Burnett!"
Burnett reached out with one long finger, tapped it quietly on Rice's
barrel-chest. "Haul a cargo of corpses for three thousand nights and
days and see how patriotic you feel. All those fine muscled lads
bloated and crushed by space pressures and heat-blasts. Fine lads who
start out smiling and get the smile burned off down to the bone--"
Burnett swallowed and didn't say anything more, but he closed his eyes.
He stood there, smelling the death-odor in the hot air of the ship,
hearing the chug-chug-chug of the blood pumps down below, and his own
heart waiting warm and heavy at the base of his throat.
"This is my last cargo, Rice. I can't take it any longer. And I don't
care much how I go back to earth. This Venusian here--what's his name?
Lethla. He's number ninety-eight. Shove me into shelf ninety-nine
beside him and get the hell home. That's how I feel!"
Rice was going to say something, but he didn't have time.
Lethla was alive.
He rose from the floor with slow, easy movements, almost like a dream.
He didn't say anything. The heat-blast in his white fingers did all the
necessary talking. It didn't say anything either, but Burnett knew what
language it would use if it had to.
Burnett swallowed hard. The body had looked funny. Too dead. Now he
knew why. Involuntarily, Burnett moved forward. Lethla moved like a
pale spider, flicking his fragile arm to cover Burnett, the gun in it
like a dead cold star.
Rice sucked in his breath. Burnett forced himself to take it easy. From
the corners of his eyes he saw Rice's expression go deep and tight,
biting lines into his sharp face.
Rice got it out, finally. "How'd you do it?" he demanded, bitterly.
"How'd you live in the void? It's impossible!"
A crazy thought came ramming down and exploded in Burnett's head. _You
never catch up with the war!_
But what if the war catches up with you?
What in hell would Lethla be wanting aboard a morgue ship?
* * * * *
Lethla half-crouched in the midst of the smell of death and the
chugging of blood-pumps below. In the silence he reached up with quick
fingers, tapped a tiny crystal stud upon the back of his head, and the
halves of a microscopically thin chrysalis parted transparently off
of his face. He shucked it off, trailing air-tendrils that had been
inserted, hidden in the uniform, ending in thin globules of oxygen.
He spoke. Triumph warmed his crystal-thin voice. "That's how I did it,
Earthman."
"Glassite!" said Rice. "A face-moulded mask of glassite!"
Lethla nodded. His milk-blue eyes dilated. "Very marvelously pared to
an unbreakable thickness of one-thirtieth of an inch; worn only on the
head. You have to look quickly to notice it, and, unfortunately, viewed
as you saw it, outside the ship, floating in the void, not discernible
at all."
Prickles of sweat appeared on Rice's face. He swore at the Venusian and
the Venusian laughed like some sort of stringed instrument, high and
quick.
Burnett laughed, too. Ironically. "First time in years a man ever came
aboard the Constellation alive. It's a welcome change."
Lethla showed his needle-like teeth. "I thought it might be. Where's
your radio?"
"Go find it!" snapped Rice, hotly.
"I will." One hand, blue-veined, on the ladder-rungs, Lethla paused.
"I know you're weaponless; Purple Cross regulations. And this air-lock
is safe. Don't move." Whispering, his naked feet padded white up the
ladder. Two long breaths later something crashed; metal and glass and
coils. The radio.
Burnett put his shoulder blades against the wall-metal, looking at his
feet. When he glanced up, Rice's fresh, animated face was spoiled by
the new bitterness in it.
Lethla came down. Like a breath of air on the rungs.