The Company had declared at once its intention of sending an
investigating commission to Phoebe; it did not request the interference
of the Colonial Government, and that, from the Company was equivalent
to a stern KEEP OUT in the face of the police and everyone else. But
before the corporation heads had recovered sufficiently to issue their
statement, the All-Planet News Syndicate had Leila Frey aboard the
_Zodiac_, traveling toward Phoebe at sixty miles a second.
Gedner took the girl's arm in one heavily-gloved hand and led her away
from the ship at a leisurely pace. Captain Manoly had already vanished
thankfully into the airlock of his vessel.
As if coming out of a trance, Leila made a sudden effort to shake her
arm from Gedner's grip. Failing, she walked on beside him in stiff
silence. It was the man who spoke, when they had almost reached the
largest of the lighted structures.
"So now your employers send you out after scoops," he remarked
thoughtfully.
"I just happened to be in the Subsystem, looking for general interest
stuff on the colonies," put in Leila quickly, almost defensively.
Gedner went on as if she had not spoken, and with like disregard for
the fact that every word was ringing also in the helmet phones of the
two other men plodding on behind.
"You've been doing well since you got rid of me. But I always knew you
had what it takes to get ahead, darling; you've never been anything but
a grasping, selfish, irresponsible little monster."
Leila wrenched herself away from him, as they paused at the airlock
door of the Company headquarters. "I assure you I haven't changed in
the least," she told him icily. "And neither have you. You're still
one huge hypertrophied ego. Nothing matters to you except being the
boss--Say!" She began to laugh, staccato. "Why, Paul, you've found the
one ideal place for yourself here, out of the whole System. A planet
little enough to make you feel as big as you want to, where you're
almost alone with a crew of subhuman things that don't know anything
but obedience...."
Her own words called back the jarring memory of what had brought her
here, and she stopped on an indrawn breath. Gedner had stared at her
in silence--she knew that of old as a sign that she had come near the
quick of his pride--and abruptly she was aware of the ghostly mass of
Big Bill, looming erect behind his master.
Out on the landing strip blue lightning ripped through the noonday
dusk. The ground vibrated as the _Zodiac_ began to glide forward; the
rocky landscape stood out in harsh light and shadow, and the glare of
atomic flame silhouetted the misshapen figures of the two other men,
who had come up and were waiting.
Gedner operated the airlock mechanism, and they passed through; the
throbbing vibration underfoot rose to a higher pitch and died suddenly
as the space ship left the surface of the moon. In three days, Earth
time, it would return to pick Leila up on the return trip to Titan.
After the three men and the girl entered the giant Woolly. The thin
translucent lids descended again over his eyes as he rolled into the
brightly-lit room.
The room, Leila observed, was large and slovenly, arranged for both
business and relaxation, a scarred desk and file-cabinet keeping
company with a table, armchairs and a tired-looking couch. Walls and
ceilings were naked insulation; the iron floor was unswept of dust and
cigarette butts, and patched with rust. But it was a relief for her
to feel her great iron-soled shoes, like those of a medieval Russian
peasant, assert their magnetic grip. Without further ado, the girl
unfastened the bulky ballast belt about her slender waist, wriggled
out of the shoulder harness, and let what on Earth would have been a
thousand pounds of lead slide to the floor.
Gedner lounged against the table; he had raised the faceplate of his
helmet, and his features had the pallor which comes with a long stay on
the outer planets. He remarked lightly, "The Company would raise hell
if they knew you were here."
"That's not my worry," retorted Leila. "I'm on assignment from A.P."
"Maybe you'd like to interview Sam Chandler. He's right outside."
The girl recoiled from Gedner's easy smile. "No!" she said sharply, and
then added, "Later ... perhaps."
"The All-Planet people want the details, don't they?"
"For God's sake, Paul!" exploded Mark Paige. But his mouth twitched
beneath his hopelessly straggly little mustache as Gedner's gaze met
his.
"Shut up," said Gedner evenly. "Miss Frey and I are old friends. We
understand each other."
* * * * *
Leila said nothing, but her red lips were compressed to a thin line as
she fumbled with the air-tight zippers of her suit. As she wriggled
with difficulty out of the heavy garment, Gedner's hard black eyes
dwelt with pleasure on the white silk blouse and shorts she had donned
in the stuffy cabin aboard the rocket, on the soft curves of her
breasts and her slender legs.... And in the corner crouched Big Bill, a
great white-furred faceless thing with dull red eyes fixed unwinkingly
on the girl.
Leila sat down in one of the worn armchairs, but she failed to relax
from the tension, the nameless apprehension that had begun to grip
her when she first set foot on this little twilight moon. Her gaze
flicked from Gedner to Paige, who had picked up her discarded vacuum
suit and was arranging it meticulously on the hangers beside the
outer door, and from him to the third man, who, without even removing
his helmet, had bent over the desk and seemed to be absorbed in the
disordered papers atop it. The humming undertone of the air pump, which
had started automatically on the opening of the inner airlock door,
stopped suddenly as the room pressure reached normal, and left a heavy
silence....
She looked back to Gedner, leaning lazily against the battered table,
one thumb hooked into the belt that sagged awkwardly over his ballast
belt to support a holstered flame pistol. He smiled at her again, and
she had a panicky feeling of being alone with him in this bare room
millions of miles from civilization.