For three interminable days I sat around the old oxy-plant, eating
and sleeping and thinking, and the monotony of it got deadlier and
deadlier. I couldn't even switch on my communications equipment for the
news since Captain Giles and his lads might be making spot patrols,
and the localized radiation of my receiving unit would be enough to
pinpoint me.
I had a fair idea of what went on with Shanig, though. No homo can
operate after his fashion without making enemies, and the bigger his
business the more powerful his enemies. Vigilance becomes the price
of existence, financially speaking, and it was on that point that I
figured Shanig had over-reached himself.
All that was pure guesswork, of course, until the afternoon of the
third day. Then I had unexpected confirmation of it, brought by the
last person on Mars I dreamed of seeing.
I was in the _Annabelle's_ cabin with Cora when the helicar settled
in front of my makeshift hangar. I came out on the double with my
Quantrell ready, and saw Cheryl Trayne standing in the warehouse
entrance. The sun, hanging low on the desert's rim, outlined her
tantalizingly against a blaze of light and made her hair a shimmering
halo of burnished copper.
It was so wonderful to see her, but at the same time I was a little
disappointed. It had been a pleasant possibility that she might change
her mind about that Phobos trip, but to have her track me down like
this.
"How did you find me?" I demanded. "And who's with you?"
She gave me a child's trusting smile, a reversal of her old haughty
brush-off that gave me the devil of a jolt until I remembered Cora in
the _Annabelle's_ cabin. Cheryl was as deep under Cora's spell now as
she must have been under Joey's before--
"Never mind that," I said. "How did you get away from Shanig's smiley?
Is Shanig out of his trance, too?"
She looked puzzled, as if she were trying to remember something
tremendously important.
"I came alone," she said. "I traced you through Joey, after Mr. Shanig
sent Perry away with him. I remembered then how Joey always faced
toward the east when he was quiet. He used to crouch for hours in his
cage when no one was near him and stare in this direction. After he was
gone it came to me that he sensed another smiley somewhere was calling
to it. And if there was another smiley on Mars...."
"Then I had brought it and I'd be with it," I finished for her. "Neat
enough. I only hope no one else thought of it."
She gave me that trusting smile again, and my conscience dealt me a
sharp nudge. I went over and gave her a khiff root.
"Chew it," I said. "Never mind the taste. It'll make you as good as
new."
She took it obediently, and a couple of minutes later something like
horror chased the contentment out of her face. She stared at me, her
green eyes turning angry.
"You must have enjoyed seeing me like that," she said acidly. "It never
occurred to me that I'd fall under the other smiley's influence if I
found you or I'd never have--"
"You'd never have dared come at all," I said. "You'd have been afraid
I'd bring up that Phobos jaunt again, and you couldn't have said no
with Cora around."
She bit her lip in the way she had, and I could see her admitting
reluctantly that she might just possibly have misjudged me.
"All right, you found me," I said. "Now give. What happened? How did
Shanig get rid of Joey and why did you hunt me down if you're still
nursing a phobia against Phobos?"
* * * * *
"Shanig's underofficials at Solar Shipping rescued him," she said.
"They couldn't reach him at first because everyone they sent fell under
the smiley's influence. But they had to do something. Shanig was like
an irresponsible child, giving away company holdings as well as his
own. They were so frantic that--"
"I tried to warn him," I pointed out. "He turned cherub the instant
Perry arrived with Joey, didn't he? Word of it got around in nothing
flat and his competitors, his enemies, starting phonovising him right
and left. They must have stood in line at the telewrite stations to
take his holdings and Solar's. A couple of days of that must have
practically ruined him and Solar Shipping as well. How did they snap
him out of it?"
"They phonovised him to step out on his window balcony. When he came
out to the rail they knocked him off with a freeze gun and caught him
with a net in the street below. He almost went mad when he realized
what he had done."
I grinned for two reasons. I had been right and Shanig had lost his
shirt. It served him right.
"So Shanig is starting from scratch again. What line is he taking?"
For the first time she looked scared.
"A line you didn't anticipate. Solar's stockholders have ordered him
to recover what he gave away, and he's taking no chances on losing what
personal holdings he has left. He tried to eliminate Perry and me the
minute he snapped back to normal, and he'll have you erased as soon as
you're taken."
I stared at her. "That's going pretty far, even for Shanig. Why should
he beam us out?"
She gave me an exasperated look. "Because he's afraid you might force
Perry and me to swear that he tricked you on your contract release.
It didn't matter before when he was powerful enough to smother the
charge, but he's been so hard hit that he can't risk a reversal of that
contract now. Don't you see? If you brought suit for reparations and
won it would ruin him. The only way Shanig can make himself safe is to
eliminate you as claimant or to get rid of Perry and me as witnesses."
It was a deadly sort of logic. I had expected Shanig to yell foul but I
hadn't looked for a planet-wide homo hunt with myself as the quarry.
"It's up to us, then," I said. "We'll have to settle Shanig first or
he'll get us as sure as sin."
She didn't look so frightened now as embarrassed.
"That's why I came to you. We can keep out of Shanig's way, perhaps,
but poor Perry is trapped. Someone will have to get him out of that
horrible place before Shanig reaches him."