Chapter XVI

Farradyne poised the needle. "Ready for another jolt?" he asked. "Feel the craving yet, Brenner?"

Brenner grunted.

"Say it in that triple-voiced tongue of yours," snapped Farradyne. "Let me hear you sing, Brenner!"

"Go to hell. I don't know what you're talking about."

"No? I'm surprised ... you mean there's something I know that you don't know?" Farradyne loaded the hypodermic with slow deliberation, watching Brenner's eyes to see if there was any sign of longing for the drug. "Maybe I'll know more than I do now, pretty soon. I'm taking you off the dope as soon as we get rid of the customers, so they can't hear you screaming your lungs out for a jolt. You'll talk, all right. Put up the arm, Brenner. Quietly and nicely--or I'll break it off at the arm-pit and shove the needle into the other one."

"You're a devil from hell."

"And you're an angel, ripping out the damper rods to take us to Heaven?" sneered Farradyne. "I owe you the works for that one. You'll get 'em! Feel any craving?"

"No!"

Farradyne waved the needle in front of Brenner's face. "Maybe I should think it over for a bit," he said.

"You wouldn't dare."

"No?"

"Look, Farradyne, no matter how smart you think you are, you won't get anything out of me. And you'll not stop me from leaving this ship when I want to leave."

"Trying to sidelong-urge me into slipping you your slug?" taunted Farradyne.

Brenner held up his arm. "Shoot me the sugar, Farradyne. I could hold out, but you couldn't afford to have me wide awake while we're on Pluto. I know that as well as you do."

"You're not too bad off so far," said Farradyne, slipping the needle into Brenner's arm. "But you're coming along. We'll find out how long your nonchalance lasts after we get rid of the school-folks."

"Just go away and let me sleep."

"Have a nice dream," said Farradyne. "Because your next one will be a wake-mare."

Farradyne waited until the eyelids closed heavily and Brenner's breathing became deep and regular. Then he left him to explain to the rest of the passengers that 'Hughes' was resting easily but that the lack of sunshine on Pluto would impair his recovery-time. Then Farradyne went aloft and into the landing pattern, one wary eye poised for danger.

The Lancaster came down easily, and while the landing was as good as any Farradyne had ever made, he was a jittering wreck from three hours in the chair worrying about a recurrence of the Semiramide affair.

He checked in; the spaceport bus snaked out to meet them as they came trooping down the landing ramp.

"All here?" called the driver.

"All that's coming," replied Farradyne.

"But the roster-count was--"

"Mr. Hughes has an attack of coryosis," offered Professor Martin. "He is going--"

"--to be a bit late, but here I am," said a voice behind them. They whirled to see Hughes-Brenner coming down the ramp, his bag packed, a smile on his face.

* * * * *

Brenner laughed and his voice was hearty. "I kept telling Mr. Farradyne that he was going a bit heavy on the rest-cure. I'm really quite all right." He slapped Farradyne on the shoulder. "Coryosis is not as dangerous as the books say it is," he said. "Certainly it is nothing to keep a good man flat on his back!"

"But--"

"Sleep and isolation did the job," chuckled Brenner. "And now I'll be happy to let any doctor on Pluto look down my throat. I'm a bit pale, I suppose, but I assure you I'm quite well again."

He climbed into the spaceport bus, still thanking Farradyne for the medication that had kept him quiet, and waved back gayly as the bus sped off across the Pluto Spaceport.

Brenner had become 'Hughes' again to his friends, and had disappeared under the protection of a group of people above reproach.

He was a very extraordinary gentleman, Farradyne thought glumly; he had been able to walk off the ship with his eyes bright and his system hale, when he should have been flat on his spine with a brain full of marcoleptine--one of the most completely paralyzing drugs that had ever been synthesized. He had feigned doped slumber and helplessness, then had walked away, knowing that Farradyne had not the legal right to raise a cry against him.

Hughes was a very remarkable fellow.

Farradyne watched the truck bringing out his shipment of refined thorium ore, with a sneer directed at himself. Outpointed and outsmarted--the evidence he had was very meager. Evidence? It was more of a belief than evidence.

What did he have to fit together? A common pattern of love-lotus background. A man who died with a discordant moan. A man who grunted in a polytonal when surprised by a woman, and who could take a paralyzing dose of marcoleptine and then walk out jauntily. An apparent well-to-do family with a proud place in the community, and a girl who worked hand-in-glove with love-lotus operators but who had never had her nose in one of the hellish things.

He sat bolt upright. Could Carolyn be immune to hellflower as Brenner was to marcoleptine? And did she make with three-toned cries when she was surprised?

The thought that he had been avoiding came back again. Obviously, since he himself was susceptible to marcoleptine and women like Norma were susceptible to hellflower perfume, and neither of them could sing a trio unaided, there must be two kinds of people!