All space was before him, hung with the many-colored lights of the
stars, intensely brilliant in the black nothing. It was incredibly
splendid, but it was too much like what he had looked at with his cold
unseeing eyes for fifty years. He looked down--down being relative to
where he was standing in the blister-window--and saw the whole Belt
swarming by under him like a drift of fireflies. He quivered inwardly
with a chill vertigo, and turned away.
Vernon was talking aloud. He had been talking for some time. He was
stretched out on a soft, deep lounge, smoking, pretending to sip from a
tall glass.
"So you see, Mr. Hyrst, we can help you a lot. It's not easy for a
Lazarite--for one of us--to get a job. I know. People have a--well, a
_feeling_. Now Mr. Bellaver--"
"Where is Shearing?" asked Hyrst. He came and stood in the center of the
room, with the soft lights in his eyes and the soft carpets under his
feet. His mind reached out, uneasy and restless, but it seemed to be
surrounded by a zone of fog that tangled and confused and deflected it.
He could not find Shearing.
"We've been here for hours," he said. "Where is he?"
"Probably talking a deal with Mr. Bellaver. I wouldn't worry. As I was
saying, Bellaver Incorporated is interested in men like you. We're the
largest builders of spacecraft in the System, and we can afford--"
"I know all about it," said Hyrst impatiently. "Old Quentin Bellaver
was busy swallowing up his rivals when I went through the door."
"Then," said Vernon imperturbably, "you should realize how much we can
do for you. Electronics is a vital branch--"
Hyrst moved erratically around the room, looking at things and not
really seeing them, hearing Vernon's voice but not understanding what it
said. He was growing more and more uneasy. It was as though someone was
calling to him, urgently, but just out of earshot. He kept straining,
with his ears and his mind, and Vernon's voice babbled on, and the
barrier was like a wall around his thoughts.
They had been aboard this ship for a long time now, and he had not seen
Shearing since they came through the hatch. It was not really a ship, of
course. It had no power of its own, depending on powerful tugs to tow
it. It was Walter Bellaver's floating pleasure-palace, and the damnedest
thing Hyrst had ever seen. Vernon said it could and often did accommodate
three or four hundred guests in the utmost luxury. There was nobody
aboard it now but Bellaver, Vernon, Hyrst and Shearing, the three very
accurate men, and perhaps a dozen others including stewards and the
crews of the tugs and Bellaver's yacht. It was named the _Happy Dream_,
and it was presently drifting in an excessively lonely orbit high above
the ecliptic, between nothing and nowhere.
Vernon had been with him almost constantly. He was getting tired of
Vernon. Vernon talked too much.
"Listen," he said. "You can stop selling Bellaver. I'm not looking for a
job. Where's Shearing?"
"Oh, forget Shearing," said Vernon, impatient in his turn. "You never
heard of him until a few days ago."
"He helped me."
"For reasons of his own."
"What's _your_ reason? And Bellaver's?"
"Mr. Bellaver is interested in all social problems. And I'm a Lazarite
myself, so naturally I have a sympathy for others like me." Vernon sat
up, putting his glass aside on a low table. He had drunk hardly any of
the contents.
"Shearing," he said, "is a member of a gang who some time ago stole a
particular property of Bellaver Incorporated. You're not involved in the
quarrel, Mr. Hyrst. I'd advise you, as a friend, to stay not involved."
Hyrst's mind and his ears were stretched and quivering, straining to
hear a cry for help just a little too far away.
"What kind of a property?" asked Hyrst.
Vernon shrugged. "The Bellavers have never said what kind, for fairly
obvious reasons."
"Something to do with ships?"
"I suppose so. It isn't important to me. Nor to you, Mr. Hyrst."
"Will you pour me a drink?" said Hyrst, pointing to the cellaret close
beside Vernon. "Yes, that's fine. How long ago?"
"What?" asked Vernon, measuring whisky into a glass.
"The theft," said Hyrst, and threw his mind suddenly against the
barrier. For one fleeting second he forced a crack in it. "Something
over fifty--", said Vernon, and let the glass fall. He spun around from
the cellaret and was halfway to his feet when Hyrst hit him. He hit him
three or four times before he would stay down, and three or four more
before he would lie quiet. Hyrst straightened up, breathing hard. His
lip was bleeding and he wiped it with the back of his hand. "That was a
little too big a job for _you_, Mr. Vernon," he said viciously. "Trying
to keep my mind blanked and under control for hours." He stuffed a
handkerchief into Vernon's mouth, and tied him up with his own
cummerbund, and shoved him out of sight behind an enormous bed. Then he
opened the door carefully, and went out.
* * * * *
There was nobody in the corridor. This was wide and ornate, with doors
opening off it, and nothing to show what was behind them or which way to
go. Hyrst stood still a minute, getting control of himself. The barrier
no longer obscured his mind. He let it rove, finding that every time he
did that it was easier, and the images clearer. He heard Shearing again,
as he had heard him in that one second when Vernon's guard had faltered.
His face became set and ugly. He began to move toward the stern of the
_Happy Dream_.
Heavy metal-cloth curtains closed this end of the corridor. Beyond them
was a ballroom in which only one dim light now burned, a vastness of
black polished floors and crystal windows looking upon space. Hyrst's
footsteps were hushed and swallowed up in whispering echoes. He made his
way across to another set of curtains, edged between them with infinite
caution, and found himself in the upper aisle of an amphitheater.
It was pitch dark where he was, and he stood perfectly still, exploring
with his mind. He could not see any guards. The rows of empty seats were
arranged in circles around a central pit, large enough for any
entertainment Mr. Bellaver might decide to give. The pit was brilliantly
lighted, and from somewhere lower down came the intermittent sound of
voices.
Also from the pit came Shearing's cries. Hyrst began to tremble with
outrage and anger, and his still-uncertain mental control faltered
dangerously. Then from out of nowhere, a voice spoke in his mind, and he
saw the face of the woman he had seen twice before, the woman Shearing
served.
"Careful," she said. "There is a Lazarite with Bellaver. His attention
is all on Shearing, but you must keep your mind shielded. I'll help
you."
Hyrst whispered. "Thanks." He felt calm now, alert and capable. He crept
along the dark aisle, toward the pit.
Mr. Bellaver's theater lacked nothing. The large circular stage area was
fitted with upper and lower electro-magnets for the use of acrobats and
dancers with null-grav specialties. They could perform without
disturbing the regular grav-field of the _Happy Dream_, thus keeping the
guests comfortable, and by skillful manipulation of the magnetic fields
more spectacular stunts were possible than in ordinary no-gravity.
Shearing was in the pit, between the upper and lower magnets. He wore an
acrobat's metal attraction-harness, strapped on over his clothes. When
Hyrst looked over the rail he was hanging at the central point of
weightlessness, where everything in a man floats free and his senses are
lost in a dreadful vertigo unless he has been conditioned over a long
period of time to get used to it. Shearing had not been conditioned.
"Careful," said the woman's warning voice in his mind. "His life depends
on you. No, don't try to make contact with him! The Lazarite would sense
you--"
Shearing began a slow ascension toward the upper magnet as the current
was increased, from some unseen control board. He moved convulsively
turning horizontally around the axis of his own middle like a toy spun
on a string. His back was uppermost, and Hyrst could not see his face.
"Bellaver and the Lazarite," said the woman quietly, "are trying to
learn from Shearing where our ship is. He has been able so far to keep
his mind shielded. He is--a very brave man. But you'll have to hurry.
He's near the breaking point."
Shearing was now almost level with Hyrst, suspended over that open pit,
looking down, a long way.
"You'll have to be quick, Hyrst. Please. Please get him out of there
before we have to kill him."
The current in the magnet was cut and Shearing fell, with a long
neighing scream.
* * * * *
Hyrst looked down. The repelling force of the lower magnet cushioned the
fall, and the upper magnet took hold, hard. Shearing stopped about three
feet above the stage floor and started slowly to rise again. He seemed
to be crying. Hyrst turned and ran back to the top of the aisle. Halfway
around the circle he found steps and went tearing down them. On the next
level--there were three--he saw two men leaning over the broad rail,
watching Shearing.
"Yes, there they are. You must find a weapon--"
Hyrst looked around, blinking like a mole in the dark. Seats, nothing
but seats. Ornamentation, but all solid. Small metal cylinder, set in a
wall niche. Chemical extinguisher. Yes. Compact and heavy. He took it.
"Hurry. He's almost through--"
The two men were tense and hungry, eager as wolves. One was the
Lazarite, a grey man, old and seamed with living and none of it good.
The other was Bellaver, and he was young. He was tall and fresh-faced,
impeccably shaven, impeccably dressed, the keen, clean, public-spirited
executive.
"I can give you more if you want it, Shearing," Bellaver said, his
fingers ready on a control-plate set into the broad rail. "How about
it?"
"Shut up, Bellaver," whispered the Lazarite aloud. "I've almost got it.
Almost--" His face was agonized with concentration.
"_Now!_"
The woman's voiceless cry in his mind sent Hyrst forward. His hand swung
up and then down in a crashing arc, elongated by the heavy cylinder. The
Lazarite fell without a sound. He fell across Bellaver, pushing him back
from the control-plate, and lay over his feet, bleeding gently into the
thick pile of the carpet. Bellaver's mouth and eyes opened wide. He
looked at the Lazarite and then at Hyrst. He leaped backward, away from
the encumbrance at his ankles, making the first hoarse effort at a shout
for help. Hyrst did not give him time to finish it. The first row of
seats caught Bellaver and threw him, and Hyrst swung the cylinder again.
Bellaver collapsed.
"Was I in time?" Hyrst asked of the woman, in his mind. He thought she
was crying when she answered, "Yes." He smiled. He stepped over the
Lazarite and went to the control-plate and began to work with it until
he had Shearing safely on the floor of the stage. Then he cut the power
and ran down another flight of steps to the bottom level. His mind was
able to range free now. He could not sense anyone close at hand.
Bellaver seemed to have sent underlings elsewhere in the _Happy Dream_
while he worked on Shearing. It was nothing for which a man would seek
witnesses. Hyrst vaulted the rail onto the stage and dragged Shearing
away from the magnet. He felt uncomfortable in all that glare of light.
He hauled and grunted until he got Shearing over the rail into the dark.
Then he wrestled the harness off him. Shearing sobbed feebly, and
retched.
"Can you stand up?" said Hyrst. "Hey. Shearing." He shook him, hard.
"Stand up."
He got Shearing up, a one-hundred-and-ninety pound rag doll draped over
his shoulders. He began to walk him out of the theater. "Are you still
there?" he asked of the woman.
The answer came into his mind swiftly. "Yes. I'll help you watch. Do you
see where the skiff is?"
It was in a pod under the belly of the _Happy Dream_. "I see it," said
Hyrst.
"Take that. Bellaver's yacht is faster, but you'd need the crew. The
skiff you can handle yourself."
* * * * *
He walked Shearing into a fore-and-aft corridor. Shearing's feet were
beginning to move of their own accord, and he had stopped retching. But
his eyes were still blank and he staggered aimlessly. Hyrst's nerves
were prickling with a mixture of fierce satisfaction and fear. Far above
in the lush suite he felt Vernon stir and come to. There were men
somewhere closer, quite close. He forced his mind to see. Two of the
very accurate men who had been with Vernon were playing cards with two
others who were apparently stewards. The third one lolled in a chair,
smoking. All five were in a lounge just around the corner of a
transverse corridor. The door was open.
Without realizing that he had done so, Hyrst took control of Shearing's
mind. "Steady, now. We're going past that corner without a sound. You
hear me, Shearing? Not a sound."
Shearing's eyes flickered vaguely. He frowned, and his step became
steadier. The floor of the corridor was covered in a tough resilient
plastic that deadened footsteps. They passed the corner. The men
continued to play cards. Hyrst sent up a derisive insult to Vernon and
told Shearing to hurry a little. The stair leading down into the pod was
just ahead, ten yards, five--
A man appeared in the corridor ahead, coming from some storeroom with a
rack of plastic bottles in his hand.
"You'll have to run now," came the woman's thought, coolly. "Don't
panic. You can still make it."
The man with the bottles yelled. He began to run toward Hyrst and
Shearing, dropping the rack to leave his hands free. In the loungeroom
behind them the card-party broke up. Hyrst took Shearing by the arm and
clamped down even tighter on his mind, giving him a single command. They
ran together, fast.
The men from the lounge poured out into the main corridor. Their voices
were confused and very loud. Ahead, the man who had been bringing the
bottles was now between Hyrst and the stair. He was a brown, hard man
who looked like a pilot. He said, "You better stop," and then he
grappled with Hyrst and Shearing. The three of them spun around in a
clumsy dance, Shearing moving like an automaton. Hyrst and the pilot
flailing away with their fists, and then the pilot fell back hard on the
seat of his pants, with the blood bursting out of his nose and his eyes
glazing. Hyrst raced for the stair, propelling Shearing. They tumbled
down it with a shot from a bee-gun buzzing over their heads. It was a
short stair with a double-hatch door at the bottom. They fell through
it, and Hyrst slammed it shut almost on the toes of a man coming down
the stair behind them. The automatic lock took hold. Hyrst told
Shearing, "You can stop now."
A few minutes later, from the great swag belly of the _Happy Dream_, a
small space-skiff shot away and was quickly lost in the star-shot
immensity above the Belt.