He went on in quiet earnest, "I am about to put into action a plan
of great personal importance to me and I must warn you against any
opposition. I have no desire to injure you or your colleagues. But
there must be no interference."
I listened to Vechi and I watched, fascinated. The man with the gun
in his hands was a different personality. The superficial oiliness
had washed off clean, revealing, surprisingly, a man I felt I could
like. I was less and less sure of his objective. Raeburn was obviously
thunderstruck by the turn of events.
Vechi's hard, tanned face was grim. He was a determined man. He got
up lightly and his arm reached for a hand-grip on the side of the
compartment. The gun covered us. "We are almost at Faleeng," he said to
me. "There we part company."
I thought about that; I was agreeable. But I also thought about Charley
and how he was making out, if at all. And about Deborah. And last,
but not least, about Madame Pundra. Vechi was obviously planning to
herd Deborah and Charley into the "press box" as they returned to the
compartment.
"Why Faleeng?" I asked. "The diranium is at Ul."
He grinned in genuine amusement. "That is very true," he agreed. "But I
am not interested in diranium."
Raeburn made a peculiar sound and Vechi looked at him with contempt.
"Raeburn is, however. I'm afraid I'm going to be a great disappointment
to him."
I began to feel something of Raeburn's incredulity. If Vechi wasn't
going for diranium what in hell was he going for? I opened my mouth to
say something like that when the door to the compartment slid back.
I jumped to my feet and would probably have tried something asinine if
Vechi hadn't waved me back with his gun. "He's all right," he said.
Charley, our hero, was being carried in on the powerful shoulders of a
Martian serf. The Martian, in an ill-fitting R.A. uniform, was one of
the semi-slave groups, strong, brutish, and low on the Martian scale of
evolution. He put Charley down very gently at Vechi's command.
* * * * *
I envied Charley his blissful oblivion but not the collision he must
have sustained with his ham-handed friend. I tried to spot the emblem
on the Martian's wrist band; I could have learned which Martian house
he belonged to. But no luck. I don't think I was even greatly surprised
to discover we had Martians on board.
"All right, Vechi," I said. "What's your game?" The explanations were a
little overdue.
What _were_ Martians doing in the control room, Martians who obviously
belonged to some powerful family? Why was Vechi hijacking an R.A. ship?
"This will become obvious shortly," Vechi said quietly. "I need the
_Starfish_ because I am about to make a long journey, a journey
which no authority on Mars will permit in the orthodox fashion." He
looked tired but oddly relaxed and deeply happy; it was a tantalizing
combination.
"You can't get away with it," I said. And I didn't know what he was
trying to get away with.
"I think it possible." Vechi looked at Raeburn. Then he looked back at
me. I was staring at the Martian. Standing by the door, with folded
arms, oblique black eyes and inscrutable features he made the scene
more than unreal.
Vechi waited for me to return his glance. He shrugged at Raeburn. "This
is the human garbage you can try, and sentence, and imprison. His
crime is greed. He wants money. He will sell anything for money. He is
a contact man for the Andean Research Society on Earth. And they are
curious about diranium. They pay well. When Raeburn is finished they
will send someone else, and someone else. Their persistence is as great
as their greed. They have no morality. Eventually, they will succeed,
I have no doubt."
"You were in it with me!" Raeburn cried. "It was your plan to go to Ul!"
Vechi paid him no attention. "My crime is something else again," he
said softly. "If it is a crime."
Vechi, clinging to the hand-grip, was a strangely intense figure in the
compartment. I felt that he directed no ill will towards me. That he
was even appealing to me in some way.
"Presently, Lasker," he said to me, "you will be able to judge my crime
for yourself. It is no easy judgment to make.
"But I have no desire to bare myself before this obscene caricature of
man!"
"Rocz!" he said sharply. He inclined his head to Raeburn.
The powerful Martian moved across the compartment. In the pale blue
light Raeburn's vast brow glittered with perspiration. His lips twisted
back in the ugliness of terror.
It was over as suddenly as his cry. And infinitely less painful. The
Martian went back to his position by the door and I discovered that my
breathing was normal again; Raeburn was only unconscious.
Vechi slid his gun back in his pocket. What need had he of it? Then he
went to the compartment door and slid it open.
I should have known it was coming, but I didn't. I said, later, that I
had suspected it, but I hadn't.
* * * * *
She came in. She was gold and violet and seemed to float in a cloud of
silk. She was tiny and slender and her oblique dark eyes looked first
at Vechi, and then at me. There was in her manner the shyness of deer
and the brightness of birds. This, then, was Vechi's treasure. I could
blame him for nothing.
I had not noticed Deborah. I was stunned; she was too. She looked like
a bewitched child in the presence of a fairy. Who was, of course,
Laapet.
The powerful Martian, Rocz, had dropped to one knee at her entrance,
shielded his face with one hand, and kept his eyes fixed on us. I
marveled at his restraint and the conditioning which kept him from
staring with the rest of us. If I had kicked Charley into sensibility
at that point our relations today might be better; he has never really
forgiven me.
Laapet touched Deborah very gently--so that she came over to me, I rose
to my feet and put my arm around Deborah; she was trembling.
"Oh, Steve," she whispered huskily.
Vechi took his eyes from Laapet and looked at us.
"There is something more valuable on Mars than diranium--to me," he
said. "You have guessed, of course, at her identity. And you can
understand, now, why we must make a long journey to be with each other."
I realized suddenly that we had been duped. That Laapet had used
Deborah and me--and our faith in her honesty. It came as a greater
shock than I imagined it would. The bubble had burst and these proud,
untouchable people had become suspect and ugly with one lie. The
disillusionment made me belligerent.
"She is Pundra Doh's wife," I said to Vechi.
"She is Pundra's concubine," Vechi said gently. "She will be my wife."
"And what of her poor children in Ul?"
"They are Pundra's children. Under the system she is a communal mother.
They are with their true mother in Ul."
"She lied," I said obstinately. I had been deceived into sympathy. She
had used a powerful and terrible weapon and I remembered the ancient
proverb, "God deliver us from the lies of honest men."
But Vechi perceived my disillusionment and all of its meaning. "Yes,"
he said. "It is necessary for others to lie before they can live by our
code."
"You can't blame her duplicity on us," I said.
"Only in so far as we are not acceptable to the people who live in
truth. And those who would live with us must break into truth. As she
has been forced to do--to protect our secret. It has not been easy for
her."
"Steve, Steve, can't you see that it must have been terrible for her?"
I looked at Deborah.
"Yes, I suppose it must have been. But--how could you have met?"
"It happened three years ago," Vechi told us. "There was an accident
in the desert. Laapet's driver had been killed in an explosion in her
machine. I came along quite by chance and I helped her. It was not
difficult to fall in love with her."
I watched the man unbelievingly. For three years he, too, had practised
deceit. He had deliberately permitted rumor to distort his purpose and
character and reputation. And during those three years, his frequent
and mysterious trips--were they to see Laapet? I asked him.
"No," he said, "I have been building a place of refuge for us. We could
not stay here, and where could we be at ease on Earth?"
"And that is why you are taking the _Starfish_, to make the trip?"
"I am borrowing it," Vechi said. "Rocz and the pilot will return it
once we have reached our destination."
Deborah moved within my arm. Her voice was deep with sympathy for them.
"They are going to Venus, Steve, with this story. As a gentleman," he
went on, "you can respect a trust."
"You have my word," I said. "But what's the good of telling me if you
don't want the story told?"
"Some day," he smiled, "it will occur to you that the time has come
to tell this story, when people will not be at all interested in its
implications. Though they should be."
I did not understand him, then. But I agreed. "And what will you do
with us?"
"Send you down in an 'egg.' The space-raft will hold the four of you.
Once we are over Faleeng we'll release it."
"And just how will I explain the disappearance of the _Starfish_?"
"I don't think there will be any trouble," Vechi smiled. "You can tell
them you caught Vechi and Raeburn in a diranium conspiracy, that Vechi
pulled a double-cross and got away. It will explain the pilots Raeburn
slugged back in Marsport, too. It will do for popular consumption; they
expect something like this of me anyway."
"You still don't mind being called a rat?" I said.
Vechi drew Laapet closer to him. "No," he said.
"But why did you drag Raeburn in on this?"
"He's my peace offering to the ambassador, and to Pundra. There's a
complete file on Raeburn in my office in Marsport. The ambassador and
Pundra will arrive at a diplomatic understanding about the rest, I'm
sure. It won't get out that I left with Laapet."
A buzzer sounded in the _Starfish_. "That'll be Faleeng," Vechi said.
Rocz carried Raeburn, and then Charley into the "egg." They were still
unconscious.
Before we got in Deborah impulsively took Laapet's hands in hers.
"I hope you make out, Vechi," I said.
Some of the strain shucked off him. "Thanks, pal," he smiled and while
I was shaking hands with him I realized I admired him tremendously. But
I did not envy him.
When the door to the "egg" had screwed shut, I turned to Deborah. We
were almost alone--Charley and Raeburn were beyond reach. I took her
in my arms and I kissed her.
"I've caught it, too," I said. "I don't want to live on Venus--but will
you set up housekeeping with me someplace less strenuous?"
"Oh, Steve," she whispered in that husky voice that belonged to me as
of then, "what else would I rather do?"
She took some more pictures, though, when we finally got to Ul, and I
used them. But not the story about Vechi and Laapet. Not until now--now
that the Martian diplomat has learned double talk, and his wife pours
tea and smiles for the news cameras. They aren't untouchable any more.
Which is the point I like to make, whenever I can. Though Vechi is
right--nobody is particularly interested. If anything, they're much
more comfortable now that the Martians are--different.
More like us.
And it's _our_ fault.