Chapter XII

Farradyne felt a muscle-loosening tingle of fear. His thinking mechanism stopped functioning. His mind buzzed with a frenetic insistence that he say something, but being so completely unprepared he could not say anything. And he dimly knew that his long speechlessness was as damning as any story he could have prepared after such a pause. Perhaps he would have been stunned short this way even if he had concocted some story on the offhand chance that someday the question might come up. But it had come like this, from an unexpected quarter and he was both shocked and unprepared.

Then it occurred to him that he need not say anything. The die had been cast and he stood accused, twice; once by the Niles Family and once by his own shocked reaction. He must act for the next moment, because the passed moment was irreparable. Farradyne laughed at his own simplicity--a brief scornful bark.

"What is funny?" asked Mr. Niles.

"It just occurred to me that you people are either innocent or guilty."

"Very sage," commented Niles, drily. "Now, what happened to Cahill?"

Farradyne leaned back, trying to relax. He took a sip of his martini, not that he wanted it, but to see if his hand were still trembling. It wasn't.

He said, "If you knew Cahill and his whereabouts, you also know quite a bit about me. You'll have heard that I was recognized in a bar on Ganymede by a woman named Norma Hannon, who is a love-lotus addict. She hated my guts because her brother was among those present when I had the accident in The Bog. She hung onto me for the emotional ride it gave her. I succeeded in locating the home of her parents and was going to take her home when I met Cahill. He came along. Then during the night, he made a pass at Norma, and she shot him for it. I put his body out through the scuttle port."

"Cahill was always a damned fool," nodded Niles. "He was a dame-crazy idiot and it served him right. Some men prefer money, power, or model railroads, Farradyne. Women are poison."

"I seem to have followed one of them like the little lamb," said Farradyne. "But I was picked up and brought here for a purpose, so let's get down to cases."

"You're a rather quick-on-the-trigger man, aren't you? What gives you to assume that this purpose was anything beyond finding out about Cahill?"

"Because you've tipped your hand," said Farradyne, feeling more at ease. "You could have accomplished the same thing by tipping the police and waiting for the case to be newscast. If Cahill admitted to hellblossom running, it was for a purpose, too, Niles."

"Please. _Mister_ Niles. I'm a bit your senior, Farradyne."

"All right. Mr. Niles. I've learned one thing so far: I can tell a love lotus operator from the rest of the system."

"How?" They all leaned forward eagerly.

"Because it is the real operators that take an amused view of my alleged machinations. They know the facts."

"Very sage. You are a bit brighter than you appeared a moment ago."

"May I ask why you let me cool my heels for almost a month before you hauled me in?" He looked at Carolyn with a wry smile. "I would make a mild bet that you weren't more than a few hundred feet from me all the while."

"You're a blind man, Farradyne," she said.

* * * * *

Mr. Niles smiled knowingly. "There are a lot of unexplained items in your past, Farradyne. We never could be too sure that you were not a Sandman. So we've been checking up on you and for that angle you are clean. Then comes the question of Cahill. It might be that you thought turning in a love-lotus operator would help to smoothe your lot in life, mayhap get you a bit of reward. So we waited. No Cahill. Cahill started to bring you here; he would have turned up either with you or without you. Unless he were dead. You would know the answer."

"No more than I've told you. Cahill came and made me a sort of sidelong offer."

"That much of it rings as true as the other. But there are still holes in your story."

Farradyne nodded. "Let's put it this way: There are ways of getting money and things. I found one way, which is an obvious fact. But I've been told time and again that the first entering wedge to a full confession is a willingness to talk. Do you follow me?"

"I do. But--"

Farradyne smiled. "I don't care to face it. Not in company, Mr. Niles." Farradyne's emphasis on the 'Mister' was heavy with sarcasm.

Niles looked at him piercingly. "You are a bit belligerent and a trifle sure of yourself. Close-mouthed and apparently able to get along. You'll be out on a lonely limb for some time, Farradyne, but we can use you."

"I can use the sugar," said Farradyne.

"Naturally. Anybody can use money. In fact everybody needs money, and so, Farradyne, what visible means of support have you?"

"I've a subcontract. Once each month I'm to lug a load of thorium refines from Pluto to Terra."

"It's a start but it isn't enough."

"I'll pick up more."

* * * * *

Niles leaned back and put the tips of his fingers together pontifically. "One of the hardest jobs in this business is to justify your standard of living. The financial rewards are large and the hours involved are small. It is patent that a man who has not been granted a large inheritance, or perhaps stumbled on a lucrative asteroid, cannot live in a semi-royal manner without having to work in a semi-royal fury. One of the great risks in this business is the accepting of a recruit whose appearance causes discussion. The day when a man can build a fifty thousand dollar home on a five thousand dollar salary without causing more than a raised eyebrow is gone. If a man has a large income, he must appear busy enough to warrant it--or at least provide a reasonable facsimile."

"This I can understand."

"For a job like this," Niles went on, "we prefer the natural-born spaceman, with sand in his shoes or space-dust in his eyes. Because the man with a bad case of wanderlust always looks busy even when he is idling. You seem to be that sort, but we can never tell until it's tried. Unless, of course, you turn out to be woman-crazy."

"I'm a normal-enough male," said Farradyne. "I'll remind you that Cahill was the guy who tried and failed."

"How normal are you? We'd have less liking for a misogynist than for a satyr here."

Farradyne smiled serenely. "I had enough sense to keep my hands off Norma Hannon, but I have enough red blood to come home with Carolyn. That good enough?"

Niles thought a moment. "Could be. Anyway, we'll find out. We'll try it and see. Now, when do you go to Pluto?"

"I've some schoolteachers to haul out there tomorrow."

"Good. Gives you a good background, without much labor. Now, when you land on Terra, you'll not post your ship because you have already contracted for a job. Carolyn will be there on a business trip and will have chartered your ship for a hauling job back to Mercury. During this trip you will get some more details on how you are to operate. This much I will tell you now, Farradyne: you'll be an inbetweener. Advancement may come fast or slow, depending on you. You'll get the details later; as for now, however--" Niles leaned back in his chair and smiled. "Farradyne, you met my daughter in a cocktail lounge and several people heard the two of you planning an evening together. So you will go dancing and dining and from this moment on you will be Charles and I will be Mister Niles and we'll have no nonsense, understand?"

Farradyne nodded.

"Good. Now, let's have another martini while Carolyn dresses for dinner."

Niles poured. Carolyn disappeared. Mrs. Niles leaned forward slightly and asked, "Charles, why did you become a spaceman?"

* * * * *

Farradyne blinked. His impulse was to ask in turn why they had become hellflower operators. He stifled the impulse because there was something strangely odd about this set-up. Her question was quite normal to the background she appeared to fill as matron of a happy, successful family.

The aura of respectability extended far, to include the home and its spacious grounds, so that Farradyne burned with resentment at the social structure whereby he, who had committed no more than a few misdemeanors, should be less cultured, less successful, less poised than this family of low-grade vultures. If anything, the attitude of Mrs. Niles shocked him more than the acts of her husband. Men were the part of the race that played the rough games and ran up the score while women occupied one of two positions: they were either patterned after Farradyne's mother or they were slatterns and sluts who looked as well as acted the part. It offended Farradyne's sense of proportion that Mrs. Niles was gracious and well-bred instead of being loud and cheap.

Farradyne labeled it a form of hypocrisy and yearned to pull the pedestal out from under them and dump them into the mud where they all damn well belonged.

Farradyne matured a bit in those few moments of thinking. He had often wondered why a clever man like Clevis would work at a dangerous, thankless job in complete anonymity when he could have put his efforts into business and probably emerge wealthy and famous. He began to understand the personal gratification that could be his in working to rid the human race of its parasites. In Niles' own words, some men like money and some want power and others build model railroads; neither money nor power were god to Farradyne, who had always been restlessly happy with just enough money and power to exchange for the fun and games to be found in being alive.

Farradyne was just discovering the threshold of a new outlet for his wealth of nervous energy, and he looked forward to it eagerly.

Blandly, he started to outline a semi-humorous tale of his life and adventures to Mrs. Niles, exaggerating his own early fumblings in a casual way. She listened with amused interest, just as any mother might use in hearing the background of a young man who was interested in a daughter.

But in the back of Farradyne's mind was the niggling fear that he would not be able to act the part of convincing suitor to the girl whose background, attitude, and character he detested. He knew that a man can lie in his teeth and play the role of spy convincingly, but he believed that the truth of his feelings would be evident when it came to making love to the enemy.

And then Carolyn came down the stairs in a white strapless evening dress and Farradyne changed his mind. It was going to be extremely easy for him to put his personal attitudes in a small compartment of his mind and slam the door.

"You've got to dress too, Charles," she said in a soft voice. It was low and intimate, unlike a woman of her type.

He nodded and got up.

Carolyn tucked her hand under his elbow and gave a little squeeze; the last image of Norma Hannon's lackluster eyes faded out of his mind and Farradyne became the man his role so urgently demanded.