Chapter XXII

Halfway down the stairs in the Lancaster, Farradyne put out a hand and whispered, "Trouble."

"I don't hear anything."

"Someone's tinkering with something down below. See the dim light?"

"Oh," she nodded. Farradyne waved her back, and stole down the stairs and peeked cautiously around the corner. A man sat on the floor with his back to Farradyne, probing into one of the mysterious boxes with a long-handled tool.

He went back to Norma. "They're tuning up the drive."

"What do we do now?" she asked.

"Hide somewhere until that guy is finished."

"We can wait it out," said Norma thoughtfully. "Then if trouble comes at the last moment, I can slide out of here like a startled rabbit and draw the chase away from you."

"But I'm--"

"Stop being noble. You're not known to be here--you might get away with it. Besides--"

The sound of an engine cut them off. From not too far away came the rapid sing-song of triple voices, and, following the chant, the irritated voice of Carolyn Niles: "Stop that, you imbeciles. Speak Terran!"

"Why?" came the insolent reply.

"Because I don't want to get into the habit of speaking out of turn. I did it once and you know what happened."

"I merely asked when we were taking off."

"As soon as we get aboard."

"Okay. Okay."

Farradyne nudged Norma with his elbow and whispered, "The cargo hold. We're pincered!"

He led her to the cargo hold and helped her down the service ladder. He followed, closing the door behind him; then, before he snapped out the dim lights, he reached up and removed one of them, saying, "I don't think we'll have an inspection, but if we do, one lamp missing will make a shadow that might help."

Huddled down in the corner of wall and floor, they sat with their feet pulled up beneath them, not daring to say a word. They waited in the dark silence, listening, and occasionally tensing when someone clumped past the wall outside or near the cargo hatch above their heads. There were voices and calls and running feet from time to time, and then the humming sound of the belt-conveyor.

The hatch above was opened wide but the lights were not snapped on.

From the end of the loose-cargo conveyor came tumbling a shower of love lotus blossoms. They landed on the floor in a conical pile and kept on coming until both Farradyne and Norma were sitting shoulder deep in the flowers. The air filled with the thick, syrupy perfume. Farradyne felt a dizziness from the heady odor and wondered with horrified interest just what effect this completely unpredictable overdose of dope would have on Norma.

The shower of hellflowers came on and on, and Farradyne was forced to stand up because of their depth. Still they came, and he found himself swimming in them; it reminded him of treading in a haymow. The rain of blossoms ceased as the hold filled, and the lights went on briefly for an inspection.

Farradyne was propped neck deep, his head barely below the ceiling, and he felt quite safe from detection unless the inspectors put their heads down into the hatch to peer around the edges of the cylindrical cargo hold. He looked at Norma. She had scrabbled up a-top of the pile and was lying on her back with her arms thrown up over her head. Her eyes were closed, but as she drew in a deep breath, the lids went half-up and she looked over at Farradyne and smiled.

The hatch slammed down, and she said, huskily, "Such nice friends you have, Charles. This is--" Her voice trailed away.

* * * * *

Pressure came upsurging and Farradyne knew that the Lancaster was on its way to space and perhaps back home. In the midst of the take-off pressure she found his hand and drew it towards her, snuggled her face against his palm. Her free hand came over and touched his cheek, then ran back around his head. She pulled him forward until she could rest her head against his shoulder.

She kissed his cheek, a brief invitation; then he could feel the soft breath from her lips, parted an inch or so from his, waiting.

His voice was harsh, "Invite me to make love to you after we get this affair settled and find you a cure."

Her lips cut off his voice, soft and warm and vibrant. Her fingers ran through his hair and pressed his face to her. He struggled a bit; his hands closed on either side of her waist but instead of moving away, her body came forward against his.

Then, abruptly, the pressure of the drive went off and they floated free.

Their weight upon the cushion of flowers was released and the springiness of the hellblossoms thrust them up, hard, hurling them at the ceiling.

Norma's hands were dragged free of his head and, in clutching at him frantically, her fingernails raked his cheek slightly. The pressure he held against her waist thrust her away as soon as she lost her leverage. Her head hit the ceiling with a dull thunk. A sigh came from her lips--the sigh of an unconscious person.

The hold was filled with love lotus, floating free and spread apart by the tiny pressure of the ends of their leaves and petals; Farradyne fought them away frantically but only succeeded in digging himself deeper in the room.

Eventually he found the service ladder and clung to it, waving himself a breathing-space by pushing the floating blossoms back.

Norma's inert hand touched him limply.

Farradyne toyed with the idea of reviving her but gave it up instantly; let her sleep it off. He gave the hand a push and she floated from him in the dark.

The exertion had called upon his reserves and he drank in lungfuls of air that was sticky and cloying. It made him dizzy again. He scrabbled up the ladder and found the hatch, and opened it cautiously. It was as dark outside as it was inside. Farradyne pushed the hatch up more and put his face in the clean air and took a deep breath. Then, because he felt better, he climbed out of the hold and floated free in the air above the hatch. He grabbed a handrail and closed the hatch carefully with a breathed, "You like 'em, Baby, you breathe 'em until I get back!"

* * * * *

He sat in midair with one hand hooked around the rail and tried to think of what to do next.

After a while he prowled the cargo-hold level, floating along the circular corridor, knowing that it was not the safest thing to do, but preferring almost anything to a return to the hold.

An hour passed, and Farradyne was growing bolder by the moment. He had covered the entire lower level of his Lancaster and had stopped above his former hiding place, speculating.

He decided, and went floating upward through the ship until he came to the stateroom level. He floated around the corridor, noticing that the little flags that indicated that the door was locked from the inside were all down except one. One of his 'guests' did not trust his fellow-travellers. He wondered how many rooms, and which ones, contained the rest of the enemy gang.

He floated on upstairs to the salon and almost ruined his silent flight by trying to put on the brakes. On the divan lay a man, restrained by the hold-down safety-strap, sound asleep.

Farradyne floated over, and taking hold of the strap to keep himself from flying free with the motion, he deepened the man's slumber with a vicious chop of his hand.

He floated into the control room, where the silent and distant stars watched. Some of them were moving down, while the rest stood as immobile as he had always known them. He would have liked to stay and watch the effects of traveling faster than light, for the sky directly above was very strange in color and in constellation, but he had a job to finish.

He took a roll of two inch adhesive tape from the medical supplies and taped the unconscious man's wrists and ankles, and slapped on a length that covered the mouth. Then he went down to his own quarters and opened the door slowly.

A second man slept there; Farradyne slugged him and applied tape effectively and quickly.

That made two.

* * * * *

He considered the situation carefully. So long as his batting average stayed at one thousand percent he was in fine shape. The ship ran itself; there was nothing to watch; and so the crew did what all spacemen do: sleep. If he could catch them one by one--

He opened Stateroom One. It was empty.

That put a different light on things. Maybe this was not a fully-loaded transport. Maybe it was just like the average cargo-haul with only a couple of passengers.

He opened Stateroom Two and found it empty.

That sort of proved it. He opened Stateroom Three and found a man asleep in the bunk. He was stirring as Farradyne scanned the room, and he moved just as Farradyne launched himself across the cabin. Haste ruined his aim and his down-slashing hand clipped the enemy on the skull instead of hitting him alongside the ear. The man grunted and swung out blindly, hitting Farradyne and moving him up and away. Farradyne caught the upright of the bunk and stayed his free flight, levered himself around and swung again.

The enemy parried the blow and then let out a triple-tone roar. Farradyne pulled himself down and around, then kicked out with both feet, catching the enemy in the face and chest. The force drove the enemy deep into the mattress, from which he rebounded to fold up over the hold-down strap and flop up and down, limp, an inert mass caught between two springs. The same force drove Farradyne toward the open door.

His aim was still bad; his outsweeping hand caught the leading edge of the door and he and it swung on the hinges until he came flat against the wall behind the door. Then he fought his body around and came out of the stateroom feet first.

He caught at the handrail and stabilized his flight, then took notice of his surroundings.

A door down the hall opened and a man came sailing out. He caught sight of Farradyne and launched himself down the hall at the spaceman. Farradyne met him with a slash, which was parried by a block of the man's forearm against Farradyne's wrist. It stopped the enemy's flight, and tore Farradyne's hold loose.

Farradyne let the enemy peer down the barrel of his gun. "Hold it," he snapped.

The enemy, about to kick himself forward, took a firm hold on the handrail behind him and retracted his feet from against the wall.

"You can't get away with it, Farradyne."

Farradyne smiled grimly. "I can try, Brenner. So happy to meet you again."