Chapter XXIX

Farradyne struggled against his captors. He'd been as blind a fool as he always had been, to let them sit there together. "Let me up!" he stormed. "Let me up so we can escape--"

"Shut the hell up!"

Farradyne struggled.

There was a blasting roar that stunned them all; it shook the Lancaster viciously. The trickle-sound of water through the astrodome was covered by the ear-splitting thunder, but when the tumult died the trickle had become a full stream that came running down the control room stairway in a cataract.

There came another blast, closer still. The lights flickered as the shock of the ship snapped the relays back and forth. Carolyn cried, "Hurry!"

The enemy pilot, lame and cramped from hours of being taped, struggled up the stairs. A moment later, deep in the ship, relays and circuit breakers clicked home.

Farradyne roared, "You fools! Stop that guy aloft! Why do you think I sent Norma Ha--"

Morgan cuffed him backhanded and drove his head hard against the deck. His senses reeled and the sheer physical shock of the next burst made his head roll from side to side.

An upsurge of pressure told Farradyne that the enemy pilot had started to take off from the lake bottom. Flashes of bursting explosive winked at the ports; then the blasts came less shockingly loud as the Lancaster hiked into the open air.

Farradyne fought himself awake. "Let him escape and we--"

Carolyn's shrill laugh drowned his weak voice.

* * * * *

The radio went on, as accursedly unanswerable as always:

"Farradyne's spacecraft has been trapped and fired upon, and now has been flushed from cover. The criminal is hoping to flee through the most thorough sky-cover that has ever been assembled. He cannot hope to win through, ladies and gentlemen. I wish we had video here in the early morning light, so that you could see this vivid spectacle of the eternal battle between the forces of good and evil!

"But we'll all be there when Farradyne goes down to the death in flame he so richly deserves. Above him now are the jet bombers and above them are squadron upon squadron of Terran Space Guard ships, and above them lie the Interplanetary Space Guard to fire the final coup de grace if Farradyne can run this gauntlet of righteous wrath that far.

"His flare trail is dimmed by the pinpoints of flashing death that seek him out. On every side of me are ships spewing torpedoes, guided missiles with target-seeking radar in their sleek noses, that will end this reign of terror once they find their mark. It--"

The radio clicked audibly and a forceful voice came on:

"Attention! Attention all listeners! Attention Spacecraft Lancaster and Charles Farradyne! This is the office of The Secretary of Solar Defense, Undersecretary Marshall White speaking. All persons, whether official or unofficial, whether citizen or military, are hereby charged with the safety of Charles Farradyne and the Lancaster model Eighty One in Farradyne's possession. This is a 'Cease Fire' order. All persons are hereby ordered to offer Charles Farradyne whatever he may request in the nature of manpower, machinery, supplies, protection, and safe-conduct; so that he may deliver his spacecraft to the Terran Arsenal at Terra Haute, Indiana."

Morgan scowled at Farradyne.

Carolyn cried, "Friends in the high places!"

The undersecretary's voice went on: "Within the hour, Miss Norma Hannon, onetime associate of Howard Clevis, undercover agent attached to this office on free duty, has presented irrevocable evidence to show that the love-lotus operations have been part and parcel of an unsuspected plot against humanity by denizens of an extra-solar culture. Since Farradyne's spacecraft contains the only known device enabling matter to exceed the velocity of light, its delivery to the Arsenal is deemed Top Priority. All persons are charged--"

Farradyne shrugged himself out of the grip of the truckmen. "Get the hell aloft and grab that bastard running the ship!" he snarled at them.

* * * * *

The other enemy rushed forward. Roberts caught a hard fist on the jaw and reeled back. Farradyne chopped in a wide swing with the edge of his hand and sent the enemy back against the little bar in the salon. Morgan looked stunned, but he turned and started for the stairway at a dead run.

"So I couldn't get through?" asked Farradyne bitterly. "So I'm licked?"

Carolyn looked at him, but said nothing. The stillness outside was so marked that her silence was almost painful after the noise of the bombardment.

Then she shrugged. "You poor fool! You've just bought your own doom."

"So," said Farradyne, "by digging out the rats that gnaw at our roots we've toppled our tree?"

Carolyn nodded soberly. "We'd hoped to win you by stealth, but we're prepared. The starships are loaded with mercurite right now."

"I hate to start quoting Patrick Henry," snapped Farradyne. "So I'll just suggest that you think over the reason why they want me at the Arsenal."

She looked at him.

"We've always been handy with a screwdriver," he said. "Our race. And we know we couldn't copy this drive before the mercurite starts to fall. But there is enough time to load up my Lancaster and take it out." He roared with harsh laughter. "You didn't mind dying if you could take me with you. Well, maybe Solans won't mind dying if we can rid the universe of a bunch of lice, either."

"And what alternative do you offer?" she whispered, white-faced.

"Complete surrender," he snarled. "Complete surrender!" And then he recalled the history he had been forced to learn as a schoolboy: history, a subject of dry dates and dry events, a factual symposium of war and war and war--of conflict and hatred and death. Then had come the realization of Peace, which started to turn the course of history from attack and reprisal, and war and defeat, and victor and vanquished. A just peace, started in the Twentieth Century, which ended oppression and subjection.

Farradyne looked at Carolyn with a cynical smile. "We demand unconditional surrender," he said bitterly. "Then we move in and number off your people. With a careful tally of our own losses, we choose a similar number from a fish-bowl. So many men to be cold-bloodedly murdered. So many virgins to be ravished. So many wives left without husbands, and so many husbands left without wives. Children to such-and-such a number left homeless, and a certain quantity made to stand in the street so that automobiles can run them down." His voice rose to a roar. "Damn it, woman, do you think we're vultures? You've pushed us around for fifty years, but now you know damned well that we have what it takes to kick back." His voice fell back to normal, even lower, as he said, "It's me asking you, now. What'll you have?"

She looked at him. "What am I?" she asked, just as quietly as he. "A species of louse to be pinched out, or an adversary vanquished? An un-victorious warrior?"

"You're what you want to be."

Carolyn turned and went up the stairs to the control room where Morgan was standing behind the pilot with a strong hammerlock closed tight. Farradyne was close behind her.

"I'll be the defeated warrior," she said. She uttered three words in her native sing-song and the man in the pilot's chair stopped struggling. She went to the radio and picked up the microphone and started to broadcast.

It was a long series of staccato sounds that were sometimes musical and just as often discordant, as the tones rose and fell seemingly without pattern. Then she turned to face Farradyne.

"You win. Again you win," she told him. "Somehow you always do, and maybe--maybe--I'm glad it's over!"

Tears spilled down her cheeks as she stumbled away from him.

* * * * *

Farradyne looked down at the face, as pale and wan as the hospital sheets. Her eyes opened slowly and saw him. Her smile was genuine, but far from robust. Farradyne squeezed her hand gently and said, "Relax, Norma. It's all over."

"You're sure?"

"As sure as any man can be. There's been a batch of meetings and conferences, and lots and lots of gold braid and striped trousers. I got strictly left behind when the top-level boys moved in. So now all you have to do is get well."

Her eyes were large and hurt-animal luminous. "I know. It's not the excitement. It's the cure. I had to hang on to my nervous system too long after being freed, they tell me. It's left me washed-out--but I'll be all right, Charles."

"Good. You've got to be."

"You talk," she said. "I'm--tell me what happened?"

"First thing, they sat on the guys that were in the Lancaster with Carolyn and among them they discovered a space engineer. They held them as hostages against my return, and several of us went to Lyra with Carolyn as interpreter. We made 'em cough up Clevis and about thirty-five other boys who'd been too smart for them to let free. It's all been concluded nicely. I have my license back for honest, and just between you and me, I have enough contracts already to make a mint of moola out of the interstellar business. I can buy more spacers soon, and then I can let someone else go a-spacing. Maybe I'd like to retire, honey--"

She looked up at him and smiled. "Is that a proposal of marriage?"

He nodded.

Norma pulled him down and gave him her lips. Then as he stood up again, he saw that her eyes were filled with tears.

"Norma--?" he said plaintively.

"Charles, it wouldn't work."

"But--"

Norma smiled gently through her tears. "Not that, Charles," she said. "You were thinking about Frank, and the years of hate. Since then I've come to know you and admire you, but I can't really love you. I--"

He saw something glow momentarily in her eyes and he waited patiently.

"Howard is a strong man," she said simply. "He used Frank, and then he used me, and finally he used you. And hellflowers took me away from Howard, and then they took Howard. And you brought me back and now you've brought Howard back to me, and--"

Farradyne interrupted her: "Be happy, baby!" He bent down and kissed her. Then he turned on his heel and left the room. He paused long enough in the corridor to shake the vacuum out of his feelings and then went down to the waiting room.

"Howard? She's awake and feeling fit, even though weak. A bit of the sight and touch of you would work wonders. She wants you."

* * * * *

Clevis nodded and started for the door. Farradyne caught him by the arm and turned him around. "Look," he said with a crookedly amused grin, "I want to be second-best man."

"Any damned day in the week, Charley," said Howard Clevis.

Farradyne sat down in a chair and waited. He lit a cigarette and blew smoke at his toes. Somehow he felt disappointed in himself; he should have been despondent instead of content.

And then the plume of smoke curled around a pair of slender ankles and Farradyne realized what his unfinished business was.

The waiting room resounded gently with a delicate musical chord, operatic in quality like a trio of angel, hoyden, and devil singing a bacchanal. He smiled and looked up at her. "Any damned day in the week," he promised, getting to his feet.

Against his face, softly, Carolyn laughed. "But you don't even know my name!"

"I'll find out," he promised. "Later."