Chapter V

It was a sixty-hour trip from Ganymede to Mars. Each hour was a bit more trying than the one before.

Norma bedeviled him in every way she knew. She found fault with his cooking but refused to go near the galley herself. She objected to the brand of cigarettes he smoked. She made scathing remarks whenever he touched an instrument, reminding him of his presumed incompetence as a pilot. She scorned him for refusing to open his hold and bring her the love lotus she craved.

By the time Farradyne set the Lancaster Eighty-One down at Sun Lake City on Mars, he had almost arrived at the point where her voice was just so much noise.

He landed after the usual discussion of landing space and beacon route with Sun Lake Tower, and he found time to wonder whether the word about his affiliation had been spread yet. The Tower operator paid him no more attention than if he had been running in and out of that spaceport for years.

He pressed the button that opened the spacelock and ran out the landing ramp.

"This is it," he said flatly.

"This is what?"

"The end of the line."

"I'm staying."

"No, you're not."

"I'm staying, Farradyne. I like it here. You go on about your sordid business, and see that you get enough to spare a couple for me. For I'll be here when you get back."

The woman's eyes glinted with hatred and determination.

Farradyne swore. She had moved in on him unwanted and had ridden with him unwanted. If she wanted to, she could raise her voice and that would be it. One yelp and Farradyne would spend a long time explaining to all sorts of big brass why he was hauling a woman around the solar system against her wishes.

So grunting helplessly, Farradyne left her in the Lancaster and went to register at Operations. He was received blandly, just as he had been received on Ganymede. Then he headed into Sun Lake City to stall a bit. He went to a show, had a drink or two, prowled around a bookstore looking for something that might inform him about the love lotus, bought himself some clothing to augment his scant supply. He succeeded in forgetting about Norma Hannon for a solid four hours.

Then he remembered, and with the air of a man about to visit a dentist for a painful operation, Farradyne went reluctantly back to his ship.

* * * * *

The silence that met him was reassuring. Even if she had been sound asleep, the noise of his arrival would have awakened her so that she would come out to needle him some more. He looked the ship over carefully, satisfying himself that Norma Hannon was not present.

This was too good to miss.

He raced to the control room, punched savagely at the button that closed the spacelock, and fired up the communications radio.

"Lancaster Eighty-One calling Tower."

"Go ahead, Lancaster."

"Request take-off instructions. Course, Terra."

"Lancaster, is your passenger aboard?"

"Passenger?"

"Check Stateroom Eight, Lancaster. Your passenger informed us that she was going into town on an errand, that you were not to leave without her."

"Aye-firm. I will check." Farradyne grimaced at the closed microphone. Willfully marooning a passenger would get him into more trouble than trying to account for the presence of his guest. Norma had done a fine job of bolting the Lancaster to the landing block in her absence.

He waited fifty seconds. "Tower from Lancaster Eighty-One. I will wait. My passenger is not aboard."

"Lancaster. Hold-down Switches to Safety, Warm-Up Switches to Stand-By. Power Switches to Off. Open your port for visitor."

"Visitor, Tower?"

"Civilian requests conference about pick-up job, Lancaster. Are you free?"

"I am free for Terra, Tower."

"Prepare to receive visitor, Lancaster. Good luck on the job."

"Aye-firm. Over and off."

Farradyne went below and rode the bottom step of the landing ramp on its way out of the spacelock. He reached the ground with the arrival of a port jeep, which brought his visitor to him.

"You're Charles Farradyne? I'm Carl Brenner. I'm told you are free for Terra. Is that right?"

"That's right."

Brenner nodded. He looked around. The jeep was idling and making enough noise so that the driver, sitting in the machine, could not possibly hear anything that was being said. The driver was not even interested in them; something in the distance had caught his eye and he was giving it all his attention. Satisfied, Brenner leaned forward and in a low voice said: "Let me see what you've got."

Farradyne shook his head. "Who, me?" he asked, as though he did not know what Brenner was talking about.

"You. I'm in the market. If they're in good shape, we can make a deal."

Farradyne felt that this was as good a time to play cagey as any. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"No? I hardly think you're telling the truth, Farradyne."

Farradyne smiled broadly. "So I'm a liar?"

"I wouldn't say that."

"Look, Brenner, I don't know you from Adam's Off Ox. From somewhere, you've got the idea that I am a hellblossom runner and you want to get into the act. Well, in the first place I am not a runner, and in the second place you have about as much chance of getting into a closed racket with that open-faced act of yours as you have of filling a warehouse with heroin by asking the local cops where to buy it."

* * * * *

Brenner smiled. "I can see you're cagey," he said. "I don't blame you. In fact, I'd not have come out here asking like an open-faced fool if I hadn't been completely out of stock. I'm a bit desperate." He went into an inside pocket and came out with an envelope. "This is a credential or two," he said. "When you return this way, we can maybe do business. The usual way, you know. No questions asked--nor answered. And no witnesses. Okay?"

"I'll be back--maybe--mister--er, Brenner?"

"You get the idea."

"I'll--"

Farradyne's voice trailed away as he caught sight of the object that had held the interest of the jeep driver. It was Norma Hannon, who came around the fins of the Lancaster with the sun behind her.

Her errand had been shopping. The overworn cocktail dress was gone and in its place was a white silky number that did a lot of fetching things to her figure. She had also taken the complete course at some primp-mill. She was another woman; not even Farradyne, who had seen her in her worn clothing for days, could have been convinced that this sort of beautiful perfection was not Norma's usual appearance.

Farradyne was silent. But as Brenner caught sight of her coming around the sunlit tail of the Lancaster, and with enough sun shining through her to make the pulses jump, he made a throaty discord.

"Hello," she said brightly, as though she and Farradyne were close acquaintances, but in a tone that indicated that she was paid-passenger and he the driver of the spacer. "I've some packages being delivered in a bit. We'll wait, of course?"

Farradyne nodded dumbly.

Norma nodded coolly to Brenner and went up the ramp, displaying a yard of well-filled nylon stocking at every step.

The roar of the jeep's engine snapped Farradyne's attention back to Brenner--or where he had been standing. The jeep was taking Brenner away in a cloud of spaceport dust.

Farradyne shook his head. That was not the man he wanted. Call it close but no cigar. Farradyne did not want a man to buy love lotus, he wanted a seller, a character from the upper echelon.

* * * * *

With a sigh, Farradyne went into the Lancaster. Norma rose from the divan along the edge of the salon and whirled like a mannequin, her silken skirt floating. She stopped and let the silk wrap itself around her thighs. "Like it?" she asked.

"It's very neat," he said flatly. "But where did you get the wherewithal?"

"I figured you owed me something so I took it out of the locker in the control room. You left the key dangling in the lock?"

"What's the grand idea?" he asked.

"You're a cold-blooded bird, Farradyne. You don't give a hoot that you and your cowboy spacing killed my brother and that you and your kind made it possible for some wanton to dope me. I'm told that half-decent gangsters send flowers to a rival's funeral, but you wouldn't even part with a love lotus. So if you won't give me one, I'm going to force it out of you."

"But--"

"You get the idea," she said, smoothing down a non-existent wrinkle over one round hip. "But I'm honest. You've some change coming." She put her hand down in the space between her breasts and brought forth a small roll of bills which she handed to Farradyne. Dumbly, he took them.

They were warm and scented with woman and cologne, and would have been hard on Farradyne's blood-pressure if it had not been for the anticipatory glitter in Norma Hannon's eyes.

There was a small commotion at the spacelock. Farradyne looked to see three men coming in with fancy-wrapped boxes.

He groaned, and went aloft to the control room. Norma had run the gamut.