Chapter XIX

Carolyn's eyes were fastened on the telescope. There was a tiny signal-pip at extreme range on the long-range radar that controlled the telescope, but the object was still too far away. The range was closing slowly; they would meet somewhere out there three hundred million miles above Terra to the astronomical North.

Farradyne knew his instruments and his attention was therefore free to think of other matters. Very quietly he slipped a long fluorescent lamp from its terminals and stood it carefully on one end beside him. He balanced it exactly, and then took a couple of silent steps toward Carolyn before the tube lost its balance and fell to the floor with an ear-shattering explosion.

Carolyn Niles reacted like a person stabbed with a red-hot spear. Every muscle in her body tensed and she stood there for a full ten seconds as stiff as a figure of concrete, while the shock gripped her. Then, as she realized there was no real danger, Farradyne could see the relaxation of her body taking place, almost inch by inch. Her breasts began to fall in a shuddering exhalation. She made a wordless sound of relief--_and her voice was a quavering trill in three lilting tones_.

Farradyne's attention snapped into full awareness and he felt the thrill of exultation run through him.

Carolyn relaxed against a brace, holding one hand under her left breast and breathing heavily. "What on earth--?"

"Lamp fell out of its moorings," said Farradyne. "My fault. That's one of the pre-flight check-ups that I didn't have time to take this morning. Stay where you are and I'll clean up this mess of broken glassware."

"Do you mind if I sit down?"

"Park yourself in the pilot's seat," he said. "But be careful. Broken fluorescent tubing can be dangerous."

She nodded, and picked her way through the glass to the pilot's chair. She looked up at him and said, "You don't seem to have been startled at all."

"I had a few millionths of a second to get my nerves in readiness," he said. "I saw it come down." He laughed. "Someone told me once that when a person is excited he reverts to his native tongue."

Her eyes widened and her mouth started to open, but Farradyne went on talking as though he hadn't noticed. "I didn't think your native tongue was Upper Banshee!"

* * * * *

Her eyes half-closed and her mouth snapped from slackness back to self-control. "What did I say?" she asked.

"It sounded like 'I am slain to pieces,' but I don't know Upper Banshee very well."

"You're making fun of me," she complained.

"No, I'm not. Anybody can be scared right out of his skin when something like that happens."

"All right," she said, and her eyes were cold. "So you're not making fun of me. You've been playing a very serious game with me, haven't you?"

Farradyne blinked. "What makes you think--?"

"Let's drop our masks, Charles."

"Masks? Look, Carolyn, I'd better clean up this glass."

"Sweep it up, then. But while you're cleaning up the mess we'll talk seriously."

"About what?" He got a brush from the locker and a square of cardboard from the bottom of a ream of paper, and started to collect the debris.

"What do you know about our language?"

"Damned little," Farradyne said bluntly, all pretense gone. Suddenly he was trembling with rage that wanted release. "Frankly, I've had only a suspicion, up to this moment."

"So I gave it away myself?"

"Yes, damn you--you gave it away!"

"What do you want of me?"

"What do I want of anybody?" he whispered in a voice that was almost lost in cold fury. "I had four brutal years clipped out of my life by a three-voiced party-unknown who wanted to commit suicide bad enough to take thirty-three innocent victims along with her. They blamed it on Hot-Rock Farradyne, the spur-wearing spaceman." His voice came back, and he was half-roaring. "I've seen the results of love lotus! A wrecked personality that might have been a brilliant and gracious woman. I've seen a man plugged through the middle, to die at my feet. And on top of that, I've seen a family prosper and calmly make its place in society by dealing in the stinking things that bring ruin and death! What do I want of you? Your lovely, flawless hide peeled alive and spread out before a fireplace!"

She shrank from him; looked wildly at the stairway and then back into his face as she realized there was not a place in the spacecraft where she could hide.

He sneered at her fear. "I'm not going to commit violence on you," he said. "It would only give you pleasure to know that violence was my last resort." He looked at her closely. "What kind of person are you, anyway?"

Carolyn drew herself together; somehow her self-confidence had returned. "Why take your hatred out on me?" she asked.

"You?" he asked harshly. "Why shouldn't I? How in hell should I know what slinky game you're playing? One of your kind was responsible for the Semiramide affair, but who's to prove it? Am I the character that started tossing the con-rods out of the Lancaster? What was your former boy-friend doing on my ship? Setting me up for another kiss-off? Hell, woman, you'll be asking me next not to take these things personally!"

"You shouldn't. They're the fortunes of war."

Farradyne roared, so loud that his voice echoed and re-echoed up and down the ship: "Fortunes of war be god-damned!"

Then he stopped suddenly and looked at her again. "War?" he asked. "Between who and whom or between what, and where?"

When she did not answer, he sat down and put one hand to his head. Carolyn started to say, "Charles--" but he looked up and said, "Shut the hell up and let me think!"

"But I--"

"You don't want me to think?" snapped Farradyne. "Shut up or I'll slap you shut!"

* * * * *

He had enough evidence to make a shrewd guess if he could only sort out the hodge-podge, and hang the material end to end. Some of it had to do with combined suicide and wanton mass-murder in a wrecked spacecraft. There were the Niles, who probably went to church on Sunday, belonged to the Chamber of Commerce and the Ladies' Aid, and considered running hellflowers a proper business. And daughter Carolyn, who wanted marriage and a bunch of kids to bring up into the same hellish business run so well by their grandfather.

And something important hinged around this triple-toned voice, which now had been proven more than a hasty impression under stress and excitement. Women who were immune to the solar system's most devastating narcotic, and used their immunity to deal in the things with safety, were bringing ruin to other women. It was a form of warfare, and indicated an organization large and well-integrated; capable of outmaneuvering capable men who had dedicated their lives to stamping out the racket--and who died under the juggernaut instead of destroying it.

Well, there it was.

No, there was more to be added. Brenner, who had tried to remove the control rods of the reaction-pile, and who was immune to marcoleptine. That was an odd-shaped piece of the jigsaw puzzle that suddenly dropped into place with a click.

Farradyne tried to put himself in the position of Professor Martin, who might have been a survivor if the Lancaster had foundered. Martin might ask why someone had tried to kill him--just as Farradyne had often asked himself why Party X had tried to kill Farradyne in the Semiramide. The answer was that Martin would have been an innocent victim in the second episode just as Farradyne had been in the first. Party X had wrecked the Semiramide because there was someone aboard with dangerous knowledge!

Farradyne came to one decision: there was a coldly-operating group of persons who were themselves immune to drugs, and who were efficiently undermining the rest of the human race by preying on weakness, lust, and escapist factors that lie somewhere near the surface in the strongest of human characters.

He raised his head and looked at Carolyn Niles.

She faced him squarely and asked, "Have you got it figured out?"

"I think so," he said coldly. "There are a couple of gaps yet which you can fill in."

Carolyn shook her head in a superior manner. "You didn't just _discover_ this thing, you know," she said calmly. "You were shown most of it deliberately."

"Indeed?" His voice was sarcastic.

"We knew that someone high up and undercover had furnished you with a spacecraft and a forged license, hoping that your reputation would establish you as a racketeer. He used you efficiently, and so we merely used you more efficiently. There are two ends to a fishline, Charles, and we caught Howard Clevis on the wrong end of the line, so to speak. We also--"

"You caught Clevis?"

"As soon as we knew who your contact was we pulled him in. So if you're expecting a flight of military spacecraft to come racing up in time to intercept the rendezvous ship out there, forget it. The military is still on the landing blocks at the spaceport."

* * * * *

Farradyne whirled and peered into the radar. The single pip was close and closing the range swiftly, but there was nothing else on the 'scope. It was a huge ship, if the size of the radar response meant anything, and Farradyne peered into the coupled telescope.

Nothing like it could ever have been built in secret anywhere among the habitable planets of the solar system. The size of it was such that the purchase of the metal alone would have created some notice, and the rest of the project would require the resources of a planet to feed it and the men that built it.

Farradyne turned away from the telescope.

"Baby, what a sucker you played me for!" he jeered. "So I was to be your lover, your husband? Together, hand in hand, we go to cement the first interstellar union. The mating of a jackass and a triple-tongued canary, that the fruit of such union will be half-ass and bird-brained! Well, if it's war your gang wants, we'll give it to 'em!"

Farradyne strode across the room toward the controls, and as he came, Carolyn's hand moved swiftly, catching up the microphone and bringing it to her mouth. She cried a singy-songy rhythm into the mike. It reminded Farradyne of an exotic trio chanting a ritual celebration.

He slapped the microphone out of her hand. It hurtled out to the end of its cord and jerked free, crashing against the far wall and leaving the cord-ends dangling open like a raw sore.

He caught her by the hair and lifted her out of the seat and hurled her across the room. She fell and went rolling in a tumble of arms and legs until she came up hard against the wall beside the microphone. She scooped it up and hurled it at Farradyne's head; he caught it in one hand and dropped it to the floor.

He dropped into the seat and hit the levers with both hands. The Lancaster surged upwards, throwing Carolyn back to the floor in a painful heap. The acceleration rose to three gravities and then to four.

"This trick we take," he gloated.

Carolyn moaned; it sounded like attempted laughter.

He looked into the radarscope and saw that despite his four gravities of acceleration the monstrous spacecraft was matching him and closing the range.