Chapter II

Kerry went on up. When he rapped at the door of Room 407, he was still breathless from climbing and it occurred to him, perhaps tardily, that he might be walking into a trap. But he put up his hand notwithstanding and knocked once loudly, determined to end the mystery as quickly as possible.

“Who is it?” called a muffled voice from within the room.

“It’s Kerry Donalson--”

“Come in.”

Kerry pushed the door open, and then stepped back in consternation. The room was in total darkness.

The unseen voice arrested his retreat. “Wait! Don’t go. It’s me, Kerry--”

“Ben!” Kerry moved quickly toward the sound, forgetting all caution. No one could have imitated that peculiar nasal inflection, even though the timbre of the voice itself had changed almost beyond recognition.

“Don’t put on the lights just yet,” Ben Thrusher warned from the darkness. “I don’t want to frighten you off before you know it’s really me. Remember Lavender Hall--the Marshall twins, Nancy and Norma, and that old porch swing? How’s Ruthie? How’s my godson, little Phil? The baby--Judith, wasn’t it? --must be almost ten years old now.”

Kerry found that his own voice was husky. “Okay, you’ve convinced me. Now can I put some lights on?”

Ben coughed and his voice grew steadier. “Go ahead. Only--I’ve changed a lot, Kerry.” Kerry found the light switch by the door, and managed to flick it upward. A wide swath of light flooded the room. Kerry’s breath caught in his throat and he hardly recognized his own voice whispering hoarsely in the darkness.

“For God’s sake, Ben! I--I didn’t know--”

The thing on the bed stretched its mouth in a grimace that ought to have been a smile, but wasn’t. The skull was hairless, the face swollen; the lips a festering, toothless sore. The hands were wrapped in bandages that bulged out, awkward and useless, below the split sleeves of flannel pajamas.

Ben Thrusher moved his head slowly from side to side.

“Radiation burns,” he said, steadily. “It doesn’t hurt much at this stage, Kerry. But now you know why I wanted you to recognize me first in the dark.”

“My God,” Kerry murmured, and it was a prayer. “We--we thought you were dead eight years ago. Did the Pharigs--”

“Pharigs!” Kerry was horrified to see Ben’s toothless mouth twist into a wide, tormented smile. “I might have known you’d say that--”

“But how--how did it happen? Ben, have you seen a doctor?”

“No. When I came here I was still recognizably myself in a dim light. A doctor would have reported to the Army, to make sure I’d die in a cell and never get a chance to say what I’ve got to say.”

Kerry started, feeling suddenly convinced that Ben’s mind had been unhinged by suffering. But his eyes--mere slits in angry flesh--met Kerry’s with a steady calm.

“I’m not insane, Kerry. If you don’t believe me, call an ambulance. Or to save trouble--call the Night Police. The outcome would be the same. You’d never see or hear of me again. They’d hold me incommunicado and my death would not be long delayed. If you’re in mortal terror of the dictatorship, I can die all right without your help! Only I thought you had courage enough from the old days. The courage to be an honest newspaperman and tell the public the truth.”

“Sure,” Kerry soothed. “But first we’ve got to get you to a hospital, old fellow. I won’t let them lock you up.”

* * * * *

Again the slow, tormented smile. “Stop humoring me, Kerry.” One of the bandaged hands moved, clumsily tugging at Kerry’s arm in an absurd but heartbreaking gesture of reassurance. “The doctors couldn’t do much. I’ve had it, Kerry. They’d just make sure I didn’t talk--”

Carefully Kerry lowered himself toward the bed. Ben winced, warding him away with a clumsy forward movement of his shoulders. In tight-lipped concern Kerry drew up a chair, and leaned forward.

“Why should they do a thing like that?” he asked.

“I’m _trying_ to tell you!” The raw flesh around Ben’s mouth contracted in a spasm that could have been agony--or anger. “I’ll give you a story that will shake the world!”

“If he can print it,” said a tight voice behind them. Lew Fallon came in, shutting the door carefully behind him.

Instantly Ben twisted on the bed, in a convulsive movement of pain and fear. “What does he mean? Kerry, tell me. I must know. Can you print it? Do we still have a free press?”

“What the devil--” Kerry remembered that Ben was a very sick man, and compassionately amended his tone. “Of course we have a free press. Why not? Where have you been, to ask that?”

Ben Thrusher said, his voice muffled, “I’ve been on the moon.”

In three incredulous strides Kerry was across the room, uncradling the telephone.

Lew Fallon took a catlike step toward him. “What are you going to do?” he demanded.

Kerry let the dial spin back. “I’m going to call a doctor,” he said. “Ben needs help.”

Lew Fallon wrenched the receiver from his hand. “Oh, no you’re not,” he said, his voice defiant.

As Kerry broke away the bandaged man on the bed stirred. “Let him alone, Lew,” Ben pleaded. Then, more quietly: “Kerry, you idiot, come over here and listen to me. I’m not going to be able to talk much longer. My throat’s giving me hell. I haven’t the time nor the strength to spend hours softening you up and trying to convince you. You’ve got to trust me, Kerry! I haven’t got many words left and I’ll be damned if I’ll waste them--” His voice thinned and he lay back, his face ashen. There were dark stains on the rumpled pillow.

Kerry returned to the bed, and sat down. He said, “Do you mean the Pharigs have a prison base on--our moon?”

“No, not the Pharigs!” Ben spoke with a flare of furious energy, then sank back helplessly, pressing one of his useless hands against his throat.

Lew Fallon brought him a glass of water from a pitcher on the bureau, and Kerry supported him while he drank it, in great greedy swallows. Kerry could feel the fever heat in the man’s skin.

He pleaded, “Ben, if you’re afraid to go to a hospital, let me take you home to Ruthie. I know a doctor who can be trusted--”

“Ruthie!” Ben’s eyes brightened in momentary warm gratefulness. Then he shook his head. “Thanks, Kerry. But I’ve no intention of making it difficult for her. I’ve only a day or two left. It’s just that--I didn’t want to crawl in a hole and die like a rat without a word to anybody.”

His eyes closed and Kerry thought for a moment that he had fainted. He arose, and began to tiptoe across the room. Maybe he could persuade Lew Fallon to some logical course of action.

But at the first step, Ben’s eyes opened. “Come back here, Kerry, and sit down!” he said, raising himself with an effort. “I’m not dead yet! The Army men picked up Chapman, and--_I’m_ supposed to have died in the crash.” His voice held a brief trace of its old vigor, and he put a completely steady hand to his ruined face.

“There was faulty radiation shielding in our ship. It was privately built, but you’d be surprised if I told you who financed it. We didn’t have proper facilities to test it. Quite as important, we weren’t fit to stand acceleration. That takes young men--tough, experienced test pilots. Fallon died when we took off. I made it--there and back. But Chapman and I won’t live to be heroes. How about it, Kerry? Is the story worth it?”

“Good God,” Kerry said simply. For a moment, his eagerness to get all of the facts outweighed even his concern over Ben’s desperate condition. A dozen urgent questions trembled on his tongue, but he resolutely suppressed his curiosity.

“I still say you’d be better off at my house,” he said.

Lew Fallon crossed the room to stand beside him. “I’m afraid he’s right,” he said. “There’s an alert out on the Night Police frequency. I was listening just now. I knew it was a mistake to call you at the newspaper building.”

Ben said in a barely audible whisper, “I don’t want to get you in trouble if I can help it, Kerry. Or you either, Lew--”

Fallon made a reckless gesture of repudiation. “Trouble’s what I’m looking for! This was a free country once! They owe me something for all the years I thought my Dad was dead--”

Ben Thrusher sank back against the pillows, his body racked by coughs. When the spasm quieted he muttered, “Remember, Kerry doesn’t know, and we’ve no time now to explain. Can you get us out of here?”

“I guess so--if Mister Donalson isn’t afraid to take a few risks,” Fallon said bitterly.

Kerry turned on him angrily. “Knock it off, will you? I’m here. Isn’t that enough?”

Like many men who lead fairly dull lives and only daydream about adventure, Kerry resented its intrusion into everyday life, and felt almost personally indignant about what seemed like heroics on young Fallon’s part. Still, in some obscure corner of his brain, he _knew_ that Ben was neither raving nor a madman.

Fallon had slipped out of the room, and Ben now lay with his eyes closed. But Kerry, seeing the swollen lids flicker, guessed that the dying man was only avoiding questions. It was vitally necessary for him to hoard his small strength, but a furious impatience nagged at Kerry, and he paced the room restlessly until young Fallon reappeared.

Over his arm the youth carried a huge, loose raincoat. He said to Kerry, “The place is all locked up for curfew. But there’s a service door. If we get caught, leave everything to me.” He went to the bed and drew back the blankets.

“Do you think you can walk, Ben?” he asked, his voice tight with concern.

Kerry gasped with horror. Ben’s feet were swollen to nearly three times their normal size. Fallon produced an enormous pair of carpet-slippers, slit them at toe and heel, and knelt to put them on the useless feet.

Ben forced himself painfully to a sitting position, and just as he did so Lew broke into Kerry’s frozen dismay with a rasping, “Come and help me, Mr. Donalson. Can’t you see we’ll have to carry him?”

They bundled the raincoat over Ben’s pajamas, lifting and supporting him. Ben crossed the room in a shambling walk, dragging himself along between Lew and Kerry as if the men were living crutches. Although he did not say a word, Kerry felt him wince and heard the harsh catch of breath each time he set one of the swollen feet to the ground. They could only guess at his pain.

Somehow they got him into a small service elevator and rested, breathing harshly--Ben was a large and heavy man--while it made a creaky and slow descent.

The back door opened on a narrow areaway, lying deserted in a brilliant vapor-light which brightened its every ugly crevice from the building to the curb. They hoisted Ben bodily into the front seat of a small, war-model electric automobile, and Kerry climbed in after him.

The big man sagged on Kerry’s shoulder. Kerry looked curiously at Fallon as the youngster climbed into the driver’s seat.

As if sensing his apprehensive scrutiny Fallon explained, “We’ll take a chance on the law of averages. How many Night Police are in the city? They can’t check every street, and they usually concentrate on deserted spots.”