The carrycase thudded to the floor; it didn't bounce, but if it had,
the appearance of Karrin's atom pistol would have shaded the second
thud. Rhiannon planted his legs like standards.
"I ain't going to fly you anyplace," he said, "an' I ain't gonna let
you go either. I--don't know why--I--can't--won't--"
At that moment a door rolled open at the far end of 52, and the tall,
wary shapes of Patrolmen blinked through the rectangle of light into
the dark pool of the Bed. They made directly for the still lighted
office.
Silently, silently! Karrin had to reach to do it. He reached high,
standing on tiptoe, and brought the butt of his gun down on Rhiannon's
head. The giant made a sound like a baffled ape and took a forward
step. His outflinging leg struck the floor without sensation and
buckled. The gun went up and came down twice again.
Rhiannon felt a cloth-ripping pain in his head. Static crackled and
slammed into his brain. It swelled louder and more penetrating; then
muffled down to lengthening drumrolls.
The nebula beckoned him from his straight path back to Polaris. He
circled it carefully, although there wasn't any sign of danger. It
wasn't a very interesting nebula. He wheeled Karrin's boat once again
toward Polaris and his three-headed friends. Sergeant Atoms sat alertly
at his side.
Then suddenly, terrifying, the boat pulled away from under their feet
and left them cold and lonely in airlessness. The sweet stars began
to blink out in clusters; the celestial static dimmed down into the
silence of infinite sleep.
From somewhere in this dying universe came a cold and wet nose. It
sniffed anxiously at his face and red-matted hair.
A whine. Another louder whine; and a scratch of claws on concrete.
Rhiannon opened his eyes.
There were walls and the concrete floor and the hovering, shadowed
cradles. There was the crouching figure of Karrin, seen from below and
distorted, framed briefly in the door. There was a mud-colored shadow
that sniffed and whined and gave its tail little hesitant twitches.
Then Rhiannon's eyes blinded and closed; he found himself back in that
fearful, dimming universe. The distant sparking of the space-boat's
jets--a few stars to shape the emptiness.
Rhiannon's last desperate, melting thought was: Atoms!--Atoms--we gotta
catch up to that boat!--come on--we--gotta get back in that--boat--
The scratching claws went away. The last star was lost and the velvet
blackness, without entity, was complete.
* * * * *
Karrin faded as quietly as a cat out the door and hurried into his
boat, darted forward to the control-cabin and slammed down a lever.
With a rumble the ground-ramp folded in and the hatch sealed itself
shut. He leaned against a port and shielded his eyes from the interior
glare.
The noise had attracted the Patrolmen. They boiled through the far
door and came streaking across the field, their guns spitting tight
green flame.
Karrin thumbed his nose at them and laughed. A moment later the boat
was clawing its way toward Llarn's stratosphere.
He set the spectro for the tiny moon and turned away to relax on
the bunk. His "yacht" embodied principles developed by his own
technicians--armament and locomotive potentials unknown to the
Patrol--and he knew that he was safe from them. He regretted, however,
that the hyper-space drive was useless for such short distances, for
with it he might have reached his destination in less than a second.
But with it also, at such a range, came the danger of overshooting,
nailing himself and the boat a mile into the ground, and so he used the
regular blasts and was thankful for his advanced shields. The Patrol
might spot him, tail him--but that was all.
Smiling, he stretched out on the bunk, reached for a book, and settled
himself for the twenty hour trip.
Beneath the bunk, curled in the warm darkness, Sergeant Atoms had
settled himself for the trip long ago, for his master's dying
thought-command had been an urgent and overpowering one, and this
space-boat had been pictured and pointed out as clearly from its
fellows as had been the "firing button" among the myriad devices on
the dummy control board. An obedient but sleepy Atoms had entered the
boat almost at Karrin's heels; unheard and unseen in the confusion of
rumbling hatches and charging Patrolmen; very eager to get back to his
interrupted dream-chase. With all his famous quiet and quiescence--he
slept.
After a while Karrin yawned. The cabin seemed stuffy. He looked up from
his book and his eyes happened to fall on the oxygen gauge. He felt a
momentary chill. As there had been no time to recharge, it was very
fortunate that there had been no need: Rhiannon wasn't coming along.
"Almost empty," he breathed. "I'll barely make it." He put the book
aside, turned over, and went to sleep.
Hours later, when the oxy-alarm clanged empty, he roused, sweat-soaked
and gasping, to the realization that Rhiannon, in a manner of speaking,
had come along after all....
* * * * *
Lt. Dhene of the Rebels glanced out his office window, eyes resting
puzzledly on the space-boat that sat silently where it had been brought
down by the landing field's tractor-beams. He frowned, then continued
writing his report:
"What would seem to have happened is this: Karrin, with a depleted
store of oxygen and unaware of the animal's presence, undertook to
flee here to escape the Patrol (see Rep. 151 and recordings of Patrol
broadcasts M16, 17, N2), and in midpassage discovered the dog which
must have somehow contrived to remain out of sight until that time. By
then it was too late, for the tanks were empty and the oxygen in the
body of the boat was not sufficient to last the trip. He could not turn
back, and that he knew we would not risk sending a boat to pick him up
is evinced by the fact that he did not call upon us to do so.
"I believe it likely that Karrin debated killing the dog as well as
himself, but decided vengefully that the animal--indirectly the cause
of his destruction--should suffer the agony of asphyxiation. Therefore
he shot only himself (see enclosed microshots, showing interior of boat
with corpse exactly as found after boat, due to erratic behavior, was
beamed onto field as safety measure). The dog, however--"
Lieutenant Dhene looked up and grinned at the stern-wagging Atoms,
working noisily over a _garn_ steak beside the desk.
"--the dog, being very small and somewhat addicted to inactivity,
survived the trip and led us a merry chase before his final capture. I
request that we be allowed to adopt him as a mascot--"
Dhene chewed at his pencil, then laid it on the desk and clapped his
hands.
"Here, boy," he growled, "you've given me a crazy kind of report to
write up. Come here and give us a hand!--come on, speak! What's the
story?"
Sergeant Atoms eyed him for a moment, growled softly, and returned to
the steak.