Chapter XVIII

As Farradyne stood wondering what to do, a knuckle-on-metal rap came at the spacelock entrance and he turned to see Howard Clevis coming in. Clevis said nothing, for he had caught sight of Norma. He stopped stock still and looked her over from hair to heels. His face grew bitter and hard, and he turned away from her to face Farradyne.

"Farradyne, this isn't the contact you've managed to make?" The tone was heavy with scorn.

Farradyne shook his head sourly. "She's the one that got me started," he said. "But--"

"You've started," snapped Clevis angrily. "That's a real hellflower she's doping, you know."

"For God's sake listen!" yelled Farradyne.

"You listen to me!" yelled Clevis, louder than Farradyne.

Their voices rang up and down the corridors of the ship and Norma's eyes opened. She looked happily at Farradyne, but when she saw Clevis her eyes clouded.

"Howard," she said quietly.

"Why did you run away, Norma? Your folks--"

She shook her head slowly. "I know," she said. "There's even a reward out for me that Farradyne tried to collect. I couldn't sit around and watch my mother and father eating their hearts out. A son killed and a daughter ruined--both by hellflowers. So here I am again. For their sakes I wish I were dead--but that wouldn't cut the hide of a hellflower operator, would it, Howard?" Farradyne gulped.

Norma went on: "Charles, may I have my old room for the night? I gather that you two would like to talk business."

After she had gone, Farradyne said, "So you know her?"

"I knew her brother rather well," said Clevis quietly, "and I've known Norma for some time. I knew her before--before--" He shook his head as if to shake the thought away. "I gather that she thinks you are a hellflower runner."

"That's right. But what does she think you are?"

"She thinks I'm a stockbroker. A former client of Frank Hannon's. Where did you pick her up?"

Farradyne explained how Norma had announced his connection with the hellflower racket, and how Cahill had been killed; how he had been picked up by Carolyn Niles, and the subsequent sabotage by Edwin Brenner, and all the rest of it. At the end he spread out his hands and said, "This isn't all hard work and good management, Clevis. But here I am. And now I have a couple of questions that I'd like answered."

"Yes?"

"Carolyn Niles wore that hellflower for six or seven hours without turning a corpuscle. Norma Hannon proved that it was no gardenia. There's something fishy here, Clevis. Does medical history indicate any immunes to the love lotus?"

"Some. Not many. A few doctors have even gone so far as to claim that the hellflower is no more dangerous than tobacco."

Farradyne swore. "Not according to Norma Hannon it isn't," he said harshly.

* * * * *

Clevis eyed Farradyne carefully. "You're not a bit soft-headed over Norma Hannon, are you?"

"I doubt it," said Farradyne honestly. "She's a poor kid that got clipped, and it makes my blood boil. I want to bundle her up in my arms and tell her that it'll be all right, and I want to go out and rap a half-dozen scum-brained heads together for what they did to her. Normal, she'd be the kind of woman I could fall in love with, and I'm not denying it. But Norma Hannon is a real blank, and any man that married her would end up by trying to make her normal, and then what? Y'know, if you doped up enough women with hellflowers, the birth-rate would take a decline that would alarm a concrete statue."

"That's a hard thing to think about," nodded Clevis.

"Of course, I've never seen a woman just after she has taken her first sniff, so I don't know how long after it a woman's libido is still capable of being excited. But by the time they get to Norma's state, a love lotus only changes their scar-tissued emotional system to something barely normal whose only desire is to sniff the flower." Farradyne shook his head angrily. After a few moments' thought he went on, "Anyway, you might have a couple of ships follow me day-after-tomorrow morning. We're going out somewhere--destination unknown--to make a rendezvous with someone high-up in the business, I think. And no matter what, Clevis, I think it wise for your fellows to keep on my trail, because at least one faction of their gang is out to clip me hard. Sooner or later they'll be sending someone of large proportions to clobber me and then I'd like to have your gang move in fast."

"There's more to it than that," suggested Clevis.

"Well--"

"Go on."

"All right, I will. Remember the cock-and-bull story that nobody believed?"

"The three people in the control room of the Semiramide?"

"That. Well, Clevis, now I know that there was only one person in the control room."

"Oh? Look, Farradyne, you're not trying--"

"No, I'm not. This came by accident. I've heard the same kind of three-voiced cries--once when Cahill died, once when Brenner caught sight of Norma Hannon in bright sunlight. I've been wondering since whether it might be some sort of concocted language."

"Granting that for a moment, just how would you use such a language?"

* * * * *

Farradyne eyed Clevis thoughtfully before he spoke. "I couldn't," he said. "You'd have to take some statement like 'I've been shot!' and break it down to utter the 'I've' in the upper register, the 'been' in the middle tones, and the 'shot' in the bass region."

"Make talking fast--but difficult."

"Make it impossible," said Farradyne pointedly, "for a human being with normal vocal chords."

"What are you trying to say?"

"Maybe it's another race, Clevis."

"A what?" exploded Clevis.

"Item: Carolyn Niles is immune to hellflower. Item: Brenner is immune to marcoleptine. Correlation: they're both hellflower operators."

"Based on a grunt and a cry and an exclamation ... you're asking a lot of me, although we've spent years following less tangible evidence than this."

"I'll add one more item. Where do hellflowers come from?"

"We don't know."

"But you have combed the system for them?"

"Hell, yes--but there are a lot of places that have never been explored. We can't cover all of them. So what's the next step?"

"Taking off with Carolyn Niles. During the next few days I'm going to startle her, and I hope she grunts in three notes. Then I'll have a nice tie-up."

"How so?"

"She has a hellflower-operator background. She'll have a three-noted cry. And she's immune to the damnable flowers her gang deals in."

"Okay, that's your game, Farradyne. But in the meantime what are you going to do about Norma?"

Farradyne eyed Clevis carefully. "You're going to drive her off in your car," he said. "Because one of the games I'm playing is nosey-nosey with Carolyn Niles, and there's going to be no addict cluttering up my spacer. Norma is a bundle of trouble when she's not relaxed with a snoot full of love lotus. She could louse-up the deal for fair if she stayed."

"But what do I do with her?"

Farradyne shrugged. "Take her to a sanatorium," he said. "That'll keep her out of everybody's hair, especially mine."

Clevis scowled. "I hate to put her in a sanatorium."

"What else can you do?" asked Farradyne, spreading his hands.

"Not much; but I feel that I owe her more than that kind of handling. Those sanatoriums are little better than jails, you know."

"So I've heard. But what can you do for people cursed with a disease that nobody knows how to cure?"

"Segregate 'em," sighed Clevis. "Well, let's see what we can do about carting her out of the ship and into my car. About the ships--you'll be followed at extreme military radar range, Farradyne. I won't be there, but you'll have very hard-boiled company watching you."

They went below and found Norma. She was sleeping, relaxed as a kitten, with one leg drawn up to uncover the other shapely leg. Her hands were outstretched over her head, her breathing regular and normal. The hellflower still cast its heady perfume through the room, and Norma was smiling in her sleep, probably dreaming some completely normal woman-type dream.

Farradyne plucked the flower from her hair. "This I'll need," he said quietly. Clevis nodded.

Farradyne stooped down, but Clevis waved him away. "I'll carry her." The Sandman picked Norma up gently. She sleepily protested, but put her arms around Clevis' neck and let herself be carried from the salon.

Watching from the port, Farradyne saw them leave. They looked like a happy party-couple, leaving after too many cocktails, with the girl dozing on her man's shoulder.

Farradyne grinned sourly and shrugged. Clevis had bought himself a bundle of trouble. When Norma really awakened, she would be without her love lotus and would be back to her former self. She would pick Clevis as a target for the only emotion she could really feel. Norma would hate Clevis for taking her away from the man she could really hate in spades. Redoubled. Farradyne shrugged again and went to bed.

* * * * *

Carolyn came aboard the next evening and her first request was for her "gardenia." She put it in her hair and stood there inviting Farradyne with her eyes. He kissed her briefly and waved her to a seat.

"Tired of me, Charles?"

"I've had no time to get used to you, let alone tired of you," he told her. "But I'm more than a trifle curious about this trip we'll be taking in the morning."

"Why not let it wait until then?"

Farradyne looked at her boldly, made no attempt to hide his careful appraisal of her figure and her face. She accepted his brazen eyeing, although she colored a bit. At last he said, "Let's admit it--there's nothing I'd rather do than spend the night making love. It's one of my favorite indoor sports. It's fun outdoors, too. But there are at least two things against it."

She frowned.

He smiled. "You've made affectionate noises, but also a few statements regarding your previous affections that lead me to believe you would not applaud me if I slung you over one shoulder and carried you down to your stateroom for a spot of seduction. Second, the way to get ahead is to marry the boss' daughter, not make a mistress of her. Gentlemen do not take kindly to daughters' lovers. So we've got to think of something like chess or tiddledy-winks for the next few hours, because I haven't enough ice in these hardened arteries to keep my hands off you otherwise."

She leaned back and laughed. "That's the nicest compliment I've ever had--in a backhanded way," she said.

"Then behave, Carolyn. Turn off the lure unless you really want the man you're luring."

The laugh was still in her voice when she asked, "But how can I behave myself when you've given me a love lotus, Charles?"

Farradyne's mind raced in a tight circle. He cursed his impulse to find out whether Carolyn were immune, because it had now led him into the problem of trying to square it with his role of a young and ambitious man who felt deep regard for her. He parried for time:

"Love lotus?"

"A real one."

"But you--I--you wore it all last night! It can't be."

"It is."

Farradyne felt almost certain that Carolyn did not know of Norma's visit, which had verified the hellflower's potency. "How can you tell?" he asked blankly. "You did not react, and I--"

"I'm immune," she said flatly. "Why did you give it to me, Charles?"

"I bought it for a gardenia, Carolyn. Hell, I can't tell 'em apart."

"It's a genuine love lotus. How much did you pay for it?"

Farradyne almost felt a glow of cheer. He fumbled in his pocket and came up with the cash register receipt. "The usual five dollars," he said.

"Someone must have been trying to start another addict," she said in a hard tone.

He looked at her. "But why did you wear it?" he asked.

"I wore it because I know I'm immune and I wanted to see how you reacted. If it was for the usual reason, I was going to lead you on and then send you packing." She looked up at him shyly. "I didn't want it to be for the usual reason, Charles, but I was confused."

"But how do you tell them apart?"

"That I'll not tell you until tomorrow."

Farradyne shrugged. "Okay," he said, taking the love lotus out of her hair and tossing it down the disposal chute. "So what'll it be? Chess, or tiddledy-winks?"

"Astronomy," she said with a smile. "We can see no stars from where I live on Mercury, you know."

He followed her up to the control room and stood behind her as she peered through the spotting telescope. She leaned back against him and rubbed her cheek against his chin.

"None of that, woman," he said sternly.

She turned in his arms and melted against him. He held her close for a bit and then turned her around again to the telescope. "Remember my creaking blood pressure, Carolyn."

Astronomy is a pleasant hobby. It took Farradyne's mind away from the problem at hand, although the problem was inclined to lean back in his arms frequently while he was readjusting the setting wheels; or to rub his ear with her chin while he squinted through the finder to locate another celestial view.

At midnight, Farradyne showed her to her stateroom--and kissed her good night at the door.

He went to bed congratulating himself that he had succeeded in playing the tender, high-minded, thoughtful lover.

* * * * *

At six a.m., Farradyne checked out for space, still wondering where they were going. Tower signed him off with a few crude remarks about damned yawning people in the morning, and cited himself as a man finishing a hard night's work. Then contact was closed and Farradyne was free of the board.

He had two choices.

He could either wake her up because he wanted to be near her, or he could let her sleep because he did not want to disturb her. He chose the second and went down to the galley and had a heavy breakfast. Afterwards he loafed in the salon, trying to plan his future.

She appeared about ten o'clock and reproached him for not calling her. Then she asked, "Where are we?"

"About a half million miles out," he said after a moment's thought. "But the important thing is that we're on our way but your pilot doesn't know where he's going."

"Can you strike a line between Terra and Polaris at a distance of three hundred million miles?"

"Duck soup," replied Farradyne. "But how fast?"

"Zero with respect to Terra at three hundred million."

"Let's go up and start computing," he suggested. "I'll construct you some grub after we get the first approximation and get the ship on the preliminary correction course."

He led her up to the course computer in the control room, where she added the time of rendezvous to the rest of the figures. He plunked at the keyboard steadily for a minute, then sat back while the calculator machine went through the program of arithmetical operations for which it was designed. He took the punched paper strip from the machine and fed it into the autopilot, and then said, "Now we'll go below and eat."

"You haven't been waiting for me, have you?"

He nodded, hoping that he looked a bit lovesick.

"You shouldn't have."

She led him below and eyed the dirty dishes with womanly amusement. "You're a sweet sort of liar, Charles," she said, turning and coming into his arms.

He returned her kiss, thinking: "_these are the dames that try men's souls_."