Kendall turned toward the man named Miller, and for the first time
saw his face clearly. In the darkness outside, he hadn't had a really
good look at the man, and since he'd been in the Secretary's study, he
hadn't paid any attention to the men who stood behind him. But as he
faced the pudgy little man, he realized that the face was definitely
familiar. He struggled to recall where he had seen the man before.
"In here, fellow," the squat man said, jostling Stone into what was
probably the library. Keeping the gun trained on him with one hand,
Miller lit a cigarette with the other, and a cloud of bluish smoke
curled upward.
Stone watched him. Suddenly, he remembered the face. The little man
was the same one who had bumped into him in the spaceport terminal,
just outside the Customs Room! He knew now what had happened to his ID
booklet. The fat little man was a pickpocket.
_And if he was working for the Secretary_--
Stone sucked in his breath sharply. This involved more than mere
ignorance about Rastolian customs; this was a conspiracy to wipe out
the colony of Earthmen up there!
He glanced at the clock on the wall. Not much time left. Overhead, he
heard the gentle whirring of a police helicopter. They weren't wasting
a moment in getting him clamped away where he couldn't do any harm.
He glanced up at the noise, and Miller automatically glanced up too.
Kendall's hand shot out, enclosing the squat man's gun hand in a
vice-like grip. Miller started to yell, but his antagonist's fist
smashed into his mouth before he could say anything. Miller dropped to
the floor.
Kendall picked up the gun, shoved it into his pocket, and threw the
little man easily over his shoulder. Then he headed for the French
windows that opened onto the balcony.
The police copter was landing on the roof as Kendall dropped from the
balcony and sprinted silently across the lawn. He ran to the garage,
opened the door to one of the Secretary's cars, and dumped Miller in
the back seat. It was but the work of a moment to short through the
starting switch. The hum of the turboelectric engine was completely
drowned out by the whirring of the copter blades above.
Without turning on the headlights, Kendall rolled the car out into the
street and drove toward an aircab stand. He was several blocks from the
Secretary's house before he turned on the headlights.
* * * * *
He parked the Secretary's car in a darkened alley a block away from the
aircab office. As he drew back the handbrake, he heard Miller groan
faintly in the back.
"Quiet, friend," he said soothingly, and tapped him lightly on the head
with the butt of the gun. Rapidly he went through the fat little man's
pockets, tossing out cards of all different sorts before finding what
he was looking for. Sure enough, there was his ID booklet.
The picture was starting to take shape now, with everything falling
into place except the answer to the big question: _Why?_
Why was the Secretary so anxious to see Stone out of the way? What was
the whole business about? He didn't know.
He pocketed the ID booklet. It wouldn't help him now, not with the
police after him for breaking away from the spaceport, and maybe a
kidnapping charge on top of that.
Glancing at Miller to make sure he'd be out for a while to come, Stone
got out of the car and walked the block to the aircab office. It was
easy to rent one of them. All he had to do was show the bored clerk his
ID booklet, and sign for the cab.
"Remember," the clerk cautioned, "you can't take off inside the city
limits. You'll have to drive outside Mojave first."
"I know," Kendall said as he shoved the bills across the counter.
"Thanks."
He drove the aircar back to where he had left Miller in the Secretary's
car, and transferred the unconscious man to the rear seat of the
aircab. He looked around; no one in sight. _Good_, he thought. Then, in
direct violation of the law, he lifted the aircar and headed into the
night sky. The moon was bright overhead; the time was running short.
The Governor's palace was over a hundred and fifty miles away. Stone
figured he'd make it with very little time to spare. He set the
autopilot, and reached back with one big hand to pick up Miller by his
lapels.
"Wake up, Miller!"
The fat man shook his head groggily and opened one eye. He groaned.
Stone slapped him across the face, just hard enough to sting. "Come on,
damn you, wake up!"
"Lemme alone," Miller murmured. A sharp blow with an open hand brought
him to some attention. "Leggo."
Stone shook him until his head wobbled. "Get up and look alive. I want
to talk to you."
"I ain't sayin' nothin'," Miller said sullenly. "I don't know nothin',
and I can't tell you a thing."
A few seconds' quick persuasion and he had changed his mind. "All
right!" he yelled. "All right! I ain't got anything to lose, anyhow,
unless you want to get me for pickin' your pocket."
"I won't prosecute you if you talk," Kendall promised.
"Okay," Miller grunted. "You won't live to use the information anyway."
He sat up and rubbed his jaw. "The Secretary owns a lot of stock in
the colony that's making antivirotic drugs on Vescalor IX. He wanted
to put Rastol III out of commission so that the drugs would have to
be bought from Vescalor IX. So he framed this alien Galth and had him
sentenced to the execution chamber. He knew what would happen if the
Government executed a Rastolian."
Stone pounded his fist against the seat. "Don't the lives of a thousand
innocent people mean anything to him?"
"I never asked him, mister."
Stone started to lash out angrily at Miller, then pulled back the fist.
"Then Galth didn't kill the Earthman?"
"Nope. Penowski did. The tall guy who was with me in the Secretary's
place."
Kendall reached out one hand and clamped it tightly on the small man's
shoulder. Miller winced. "You're going to tell the Governor your
story," Stone said. "Every word."
Miller shook his head. "Oh, no. You can slap me around all you want,
but I ain't gonna get myself in hot water that way. No, sir, brother.
If the--LOOK OUT!"
Stone whirled and saw an aircar approaching, dropping down on his tail.
A white-hot beam flashed from it, blistering the paint on Stone's ship.
* * * * *
Luckily, it was difficult for the other man to aim. The aircars were
flying at close to three hundred miles an hour.
He snapped off the switch of the autopilot and sent the little aircar
into a high, screaming climb. Another beam flashed by.
Kendall spun the ship into a back loop and barrel-rolled, bringing him
in on the tail of the other aircar. But the other driver was cagey; he
went into a hard right turn and tried to come up under Stone's vehicle.
Stone could see that the other aircraft definitely was not a
police craft. An official car would have externally-mounted,
automatically-controlled guns that would have shot Stone out of
the skies with the first blast. No; this was a highly unofficial,
extra-legal affair.
Another beam sizzled by so close that it gouged a spot out of the side
of the ship. Stone reached down, groping for the gun he'd taken from
Miller. It had been lying on the seat beside him, but it was gone now.
Stone cursed. It must have slid to the floor when he spun the ship
around.
"Never mind, Stone," Miller said coldly. "I got the gun now."
Kendall said nothing. He didn't even have time to curse. He was too
busy trying to avoid the white-hot blasts from the other aircar. He
sent the ship into a power dive and shoved in on the throttle. He
didn't know if the little car would take what he was going to give it,
but it was his only chance. If he survived--well, that was fine. If he
didn't, the last hope of the little colony was dead.
"You'll kill us!" yelled Miller. He put the gun against Kendall's neck.
"Stop it! You'll kill us!"
"Shut up and put that gun away, Miller," Stone snapped without moving
his head. "If you shoot me, we'll both die. This is the only way we can
keep your pals from murdering both of us."
Miller said nothing, but the cold pressure of the muzzle left Stone's
neck.
Suddenly, Kendall heaved back on the control wheel, pulling the aircar
out of its dive. He hung on grimly as the centrifugal force of the
pullout dragged the blood from his brain. Then he blacked out.
When consciousness returned, the sturdy little aircar was climbing
skyward. Stone glanced around. Miller was still unconscious, lying
slumped in a rotund heap down at the floor of the aircab. Stone hauled
him up, applied a hard punch to the jaw to make sure he'd stay that
way, and let him sag back down. Then he grabbed the gun from the
unconscious man's lap.
The other aircar was about half a mile away, heading toward him.
Evidently the other pilot had blacked out, too. Overhead the moon
glittered brightly. The night was wearing along. And when the sun's
rays trickled over the horizon--
Holding on to the wheel with his right hand, Kendall opened the window
a tiny bit and stuck his left hand out. The blast of air that tore past
almost ripped the gun from his hand.
He gripped it harder, until the knuckles whitened, and turned the ship
to face his assailant. A chill wind blew through the cabin. Sighting
the pistol by instinct alone, he squeezed the trigger.
The blue-white beam speared out, burning off part of the control
surfaces of the other car. It shuddered and spun, and then began to
spiral downward.
Kendall Stone closed the window, grasped the controls, and pointed the
aircar toward the Governor's palace.
* * * * *
The Governor yawned sleepily as Kendall Stone finished his story. He
glanced at Miller, who was pinioned securely between two burly Security
Guards.
"Well?"
"It's true," the fat man said.
"Oh?" Stone asked. "Why the sudden nobility, Miller?"
"It's not nobility," Miller said. "They came after your ship knowing
I was in it--and that didn't keep them from shooting me down. Why
shouldn't I turn them in, if it'll save my own skin?"
"You should have known," Kendall said, "that people like those two
wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice you. They'd already planned to kill a
whole colony, you know."
The Governor, who had watched the whole interchange of conversation
rather impatiently, smiled grimly. "Mr. Stone, I think we all owe you
an apology. This has been a gross miscarriage of justice." He was wide
awake now. He turned to one of the guards.
"Fallon, get the Warden on the phone right away. Tell him the sentence
of death on Galth of Rastol has been commuted. Tell him that the real
murderer will be punished."
The guard returned a moment later.
"Well?" the Governor demanded.
"They were just leading him into the death cell when the message
arrived," the guard said. "They've returned him to confinement pending
the written pardon."
Kendall Stone sank down limply on a chair.
He glanced at his watch. 0545.
Outside the window, the first rays of dawn were breaking through the
murky night. He thought of his family awakening light years away. The
sun would be coming up too on Rastol....