Chapter VIII

Farradyne took the Lancaster up and set the course to Terra. As soon as he could spare time to think of anything but handling the ship, he began to wonder about Norma and Mike Cahill. She had not been visible when they arrived, but no doubt by now she had made her presence known. It bothered him a bit because he was as certain as a man can be that Cahill was a hellflower operator, and he did not want the man to get cold feet because Farradyne was connected with an addict, if even for a short hop.

So as soon as he could leave the board, Farradyne went down into the salon.

They had met. Norma, for the first time in her trip with Farradyne, was presiding over the dining table. She was wearing a slinky, sea-green hostess gown that scarcely existed above the waist and was slit on both sides to just below the knees. Her white, bare legs twinkled as she walked and almost forced the eye to follow them. She was giving Cahill all the benefit of her physical beauty, and Cahill was enjoying it. Farradyne had a hunch that Norma was about to start slipping him the old jealousy-routine. He wondered about his reaction. He was extremely wary of Norma, but he did feel a sort of responsibility for her. She might make him jealous, but it would not be the jealousy of passion or desire, but the jealous concern that stems from a desire to protect.

Norma's lissome figure vanished toward the galley, and Cahill wagged a forefinger at Farradyne.

"That dame's a blank," he said in a low voice.

"I know. She's not my woman, Cahill."

"Maybe not, but it sure looks like it from a distance. What are you doing with her?"

"Delivering her to her parents in Denver."

"That all?"

Farradyne nodded. "She latched onto me on Ganymede; she's the dame that made the loud announcement of my being a hellflower runner."

"Maybe she'll be right sooner or later. But you get rid of her, see?"

Farradyne nodded vigorously. "That I'll do. She's been hell on high heels to have around the joint."

"Looks like she might be fun."

"She hates my guts."

Cahill nodded. "Probably. They usually end up in a case of anger and violence. Tough."

Norma came back with a tray and set food on the table. They ate in silence, with Norma still giving Cahill the full power of her charm. Cahill seemed to enjoy her advances, although he accepted them with a calloused, self-assured smile. Once dinner was finished, Norma jumped up and began to clear the table. This act annoyed Farradyne because he could not account for it, and the only thing that seemed to fit the case was the possibility that Norma was acting as she did to soften his wariness of her; but she was carrying the thing too far.

* * * * *

As she left again, Farradyne turned to Cahill and asked, "How can a man tell a love lotus from a gardenia?"

"That takes experience. You'll learn."

"The thing that stops me," said Farradyne, "is that the Sandmen have been trying to stamp out the things for about forty years and they can't even tell where they come from."

"They'll never find out," said Cahill. "Maybe you won't either."

"But I--"

"Better you shouldn't. Just enjoy living off the edges. It's safer that way."

"Where are we going after we leave Denver?"

"I'm not too sure we're going anywhere."

"But--"

"I'm none too sure of you, Farradyne. You've some holes to fill in." Cahill lit a cigarette and leaned back, letting the smoke trickle through his nostrils. "I don't mind talking to you this way because it would be your word against mine if you happen to be a Sandman. Some of your tale rings true. The rest sticks, hard."

"For instance?"

"Well, let's suppose you are a Sandman. Humans are a hard-boiled lot, but somehow I can't see killing thirty-three people just to establish a bad reputation. So that tends to clear your book. As to the chance of your laying low for four years until the mess blew over, I might buy that except for the place. A guy who can ultimately turn up with enough oil to grease his way into a reinstated license and a Lancaster Eighty-One isn't likely to spend four interim years living in a fungus-field."

"Maybe I hit it rich?"

Cahill laughed roughly. "Dug up a platinum-plated toadstool?"

"Maybe I just met up with the right guy."

"Blackmail?"

"That's a nasty word, Cahill."

"Sure is. What did he do?"

"Let's call it malingering. Let's say he played rough at the wrong time and might have to pay for it high at the present." Farradyne looked at the ceiling. "And maybe that isn't it."

Cahill laughed. "Have it your way, Farradyne. Tell me, do we have a lay-over at Denver or is it better if we take off immediately for Mercury?"

"Cinnabar or Hell City?"

"Cinnabar, if it makes any difference."

"Mercury, Schmercury, I didn't know there was anything there but the central heating plant for the solar system."

"Isn't much," admitted Cahill. "But enough. The--"

* * * * *

His voice trailed away as Norma's high heels came clicking up the circular stairway back toward the salon. "I thought I'd have a cigarette and a drink with company before I go to bed," she announced in a tone of voice that Farradyne had not heard her use before. With gracious deftness, she made three highballs of White Star Trail and water and handed two of them to the men. She let her fingers linger over Farradyne's very briefly, and over Cahill's longer. She lounged in a chair across the room from them, all curves and softness, with only that strange disinterested look in her eyes to give her away.

The evening had been a series of paradoxes; Norma's change from the vixen to the lady of languid grace did not ring true. He had been aware of her ability to reason coldly, brought about by her burned-out emotional balance which was so dulled that her thinking was mechanical and therefore inclined to be frightfully chilled logic. Norma had claimed that she knew the emotions by name and definition; that once she had felt them but now she only knew how they worked. Farradyne found it hard to believe that she was so well schooled in her knowledge that she could put on the act of having them when she obviously did not.

Yet it was only the blankness in her eyes that gave her away this evening. Otherwise she might have been a very charming companion.

She did not even force herself upon them; when her cigarette and her drink were gone, Norma excused herself quietly and went below.

"Me, too," said Cahill.

Farradyne led him down to a stateroom and waved him in. "See you in the morning," he said. Cahill nodded his good-night and Farradyne went to his own stateroom to think.

He hadn't done bad, he thought; he had been on the trail for less than a hundred hours and already had a lead. Obviously the Semiramide disaster was the tip-off; no Sandman would go that far to establish a shady reputation.

Farradyne was prepared to go on as far as he had to. The idea of actually running love lotus was not appealing, but the SAND office had been fighting the things for a half century, watching helplessly while the moral fibre of the race was being undermined, and somehow it was far better to let a few more lives be wrecked by hellflowers than to save a few and let the whole thing steamroller into monumental destruction. Farradyne still had to duck a few people who might like to nail his hide to a barn door, but sooner or later he would come out on top and then he could look his fellow man in the eye and ask him to forget one bad mistake.

Being on this first step eased his mind somewhat. He would be rid of Norma tomorrow morning and on his way with Cahill. He went to sleep easily for the first time since that meeting with Norma at Ganymede.

He dreamed a pleasant dream of freedom and success that ended with the bark of a pistol.