Chapter IV

Big Jupiter and tiny Ganymede were dwindling below by the time Farradyne was finished at the control panel. He was hungry and he was tired and so he was going to eat and hit the sack. He turned from the board and saw her.

Norma Hannon sat in the computer's chair behind the board. Her hands were folded calmly and her body was listless. Farradyne grunted uncertainly because he was absolutely ignorant of her attitude, except perhaps the feeling that she would enjoy bloody violence.

"Well?" he said.

"I caught the landing ramp as it came running in," she said quietly.

"Why?"

"You owe me a couple," she told him. "You're a lotus runner, you can give me one. Simple as that."

"How do you figure?"

"You killed my brother," she said. There was more vigor in her tone as the anger flared again.

"What makes you think--"

"Another thing," she interrupted, "I wanted to come along with you."

"Now see here--"

"Don't be stupid," she said sharply. "I've no passion for you. I'm a love-lotus addict, remember?"

"Then why--?"

"Don't you give a damn for the lives of the people you sell those things to? Run your dope and get your dough and skip before you have to see the ruin you bring." The flare of anger was with her and she wriggled in her chair with an animal relish that was close to ecstasy.

"But I can't--"

"Keep it up," she said. "You'll satisfy me, one way or another." She eyed him critically. "You can't win, Farradyne. I've had my love lotus, and all that is left of my feelings is heavy scar-tissue. Pleasure and surprise are too weak to cut through; only a burning anger or a deep hatred are strong enough to make me feel the thrill of a rising pulse. I can get a lift out of hating you, but if you kissed me it would leave me cold." She paused speculatively, "Now, would it? Come here and kiss me."

"Why?"

"Because I hate your guts, Farradyne. Of all the people in the solar system, I hate you the most. I can keep telling myself that you killed Frank, and that does it. And I add that you are a love-lotus runner and in some way part and parcel of this addiction of mine and that builds it up. Now if you came over and kissed me, I'd let you, and the very thought of being kissed and fondled by such a completely rotten reptile as Farradyne makes me seethe with pleasant anger." Farradyne recoiled.

"Afraid?" she jeered, wriggling again. "You know, as a last thrill I might kill you. But only as a last thrill, Farradyne. Because then the chance to hate you actively would be over and finished and there could be no more. So between hating your guts and getting an occasional hellflower from the man I hate, making me hate you even more, I can feel almost alive again."

* * * * *

Farradyne shook his head. This sort of talk was above and beyond him. No matter what he said or did it was the wrong thing, which made it right for Norma Hannon.

He did not know much about the love lotus, and that from hearsay. But it did not include this sort of illogical talk. Seeing this end-result actually made Farradyne feel better about the lot he had been cast in. If Clevis was the kind of man who boiled inwardly from a sense of outraged civic responsibility, Farradyne was beginning to feel somewhat the same.

He looked at Norma Hannon more critically. She had been a good looking woman not too long ago. She had probably laughed and danced and fended off wolves and planned on marriage and a gang of happy children in a pleasant home. Someone had cut her out of that future, and Farradyne felt that he wanted to get the man's neck between his hands and squeeze. He shook himself and wondered whether this addiction to hatred and violence were catching.

He said softly, "Who did it, Norma?"

Her eyes changed. "I loved him," she breathed in a voice that was both soft and heavy with another kind of anger than the violence she had shown just a moment before. This was the resentment against the past, while her previous flare of anger had been against the physical present. "I loved him," she repeated. "I loved the flat-brained animal, enough to lead him into the bedroom if that's what he wanted. But no, the imbecile thought that the only way I would unfreeze was with a hellflower. So he parted with a half-a-hundred dollars for one. He could have rented a hotel room for a ten dollar bill," she added sourly. "Or bought a marriage license and had me for the rest of his life for five."

"Why didn't you refuse it?" he asked. "Or didn't you know that it wasn't a gardenia?"

Norma looked up with eyes that started to blaze, but they died and she was listless again. "Maybe because people like to flirt with danger," she said. "Maybe because men and women don't really understand each other."

"That's the understatement of the century."

There was no flicker of amusement in her face. "Look at it this way," she said. "I did say I loved him. So naturally he wouldn't be the kind of man who would bring me a lotus. Or if he did I could wear it for the lift they bring without any danger, because any man worth loving would not take advantage of his sweetheart while she's unable to object. So I wore it and when I woke up after a real orgy instead of a mild emotional binge, I was on the road toward having no feelings left. I've been on that road ever since and I've come a long way."

She looked at him again. "So you see what you and your kind have done?" she demanded. Farradyne knew that she was whipping herself into a fury again. "I was a nice, healthy woman once, but now I'm a burned-out battery--a tired engine. It takes a spot of violence to make me feel anything. Or maybe a sniff from a lotus. Maybe by now it would take more than one."

"But I haven't any."

She bared her teeth at him. "You can afford to part with one stinking flower."

"I haven't--"

* * * * *

Norma leaped out of her chair and came across the room, her face distorted, her hands clawing at his face. Farradyne fought her away, and saw with dismay the look of animated pleasure on her twisted face. It was an unfair fight; Farradyne was trying to keep her from hurting him without being forced to hurt her, while she went at him with heel and fingernail and teeth.

He gave up. Taking a cold aim at the point of her jaw, Farradyne let her have it.

Norma recoiled a bit and her face glowed even more. He had not struck her hard enough because of his repugnance at hitting a woman. She came after him again, enjoying the physical violence, looking for more of the same. Farradyne gritted his teeth and let her have it, hard this time.

Norma collapsed with a suddenness that scared him. He caught her before she hit the metal floor and carried her to the salon where he placed her on the padded bench that ran along one wall. His knowledge of things medical was not high, but it was enough to let him know that she did not have a broken jaw. Of one thing there was no doubt: Norma was out colder than Farradyne had ever seen man or woman.

He carried her below, to one of the tiny staterooms.

He stood there, contemplating her and wondering what to do next. He would have been puzzled as to the next move even if Norma had been a completely normal person. As it was, Farradyne decided that no matter what he did it would be wrong. The cocktail dress would not stand much sleeping in before it came apart at the seams, but she would surely rave if he took it off to save it for tomorrow. If he left her in it, she would rave at him for letting her ruin the only thing she had to wear. He shrugged and slipped the hold-down strap across her waist and let it go at that.

Then he went to his own stateroom and locked the door against any more of this ruckus and confusion. He slept fitfully even though the locked door separated him from both amour and murder--either of which added up to the same end with Norma Hannon.