Kenneth Bulmer (10 page)

Haffner
said,
a
slurriness to his voice that hadn't been
drunk from a bottle, "So the money is actually aboard this ship at this
moment! And, we too, are aboard with that money!"

"An
odd feeling, certainly." Randolph spoke quietly. "To know that around
you are three thousand human beings all looking forward to a holiday in space
and with them, all unknown, there lies this great sum of money." He smiled
up at Howland. "It makes you want to speak in whispers."

"Three thousand men and women,"
said Howland. "All settling down in a great steel box to hurtle through
the emptiness between the stars, not really in our own space-time continuum at
all, really; it puts a funny feeling down your spine."

Randolph
seized the point he assumed Howland had been making. "You mention our
space-time continuum. That reminds me of the trickiest part of the proceedings.
But I think Terence will cope. The space Navy gave him an expensive education
in these matters."

The
warning buzzer sounded and, as everyone did when
a
starship broke gravity, the three scientists went up to the observation
lounges. They were just three members of the throng aboard, all craning to wave
last farewells to their friends and relatives in the waving area, expecting a
pleasant trip, thrilling just a little to the excitement of faring forth into
space. The last solid connections with Earth fell away and for a heartbeat
Poseidon
poised. Then, smoothly and without a tremor she lifted. At once they
were in space.

The
sun glinted greenish through filters over the masked direct-view ports. Outside
those ports scourers were working overtime clearing away micrometeorites before
they could damage the surface. The stars speckled the whole view, solid,
encrusted, leaving not a single space to show black apart from those scattered
and mysterious dust clouds and dark nebulae. Randolph stood with his head
thrown back, just looking. Haffner, with a quick glance at Howland, took refuge
in a short nip from his bottle.

The silence in the
observation lounges was intense.

Then—flick—the
sun and stars disappeared. In their place sprang into being the eerie whorls
and chiaroscura vibrations in orange and pink, emerald and acquamarine blue,
of velvet black and pristine whiteness, all confused, running, never-still, of
the
other
space time continuum in which the ship would travel over a distance of
twenty fight years in three Earthly weeks.

"Whyewl"
said Howland, lowering his head. "That always gets me."

"I
agree," said a pleasant voice at his shoulder. "Some sight. Guess
we're really not cut out for the space travel stuff."

Howland
looked around in astonishment. Tim Warner, the journalist from the Daily
Galaxy, whom he had last seen in the Golden Cockerel at Lewistead, stood
smiling at him.

"Small galaxy, friend."

"Why-yes."

"You
seem surprised to see me. I'm a journalist. Have to get around between the
stars. But you—I should be surprised to see you here. Doctor Howland, isn't
it?"

"That's right. I'm just—on
holiday."

"Traveling
with the boss, too. Very nice. Well, come and have a drink."

"That," said
Willi Haffner, "is a sensible suggestion."

Howland
made the introductions on the way to the bar. Randolph, with his ability to
lose himself when he wanted to, vanished after shaking hands. He ran some risk,
at times, of being trampled underfoot.

"D'you
do a column for the Daily Galaxy, then, Mr. Warner?" asked Haffner. He got
on with people far more easily than did Howland.

"Nope.
I dig up the dirt and some underpaid subby does the literary masterminding. I
don't have the time."

"What takes you out
aboard
Poseidon?"
asked Howland.

"Well, now. There's a
story there—but I'm not telling."

Something
about Warner began to grate on Howland's nerves. The man seemed decent enough,
a trifle brash; but it took all sorts to make a galaxy. The video call set lit
up and from all the speakers scattered throughout the ship, an announcer said:
"The captain extends his compliments to all passengers and wishes you a
pleasant journey." Warner yawned, excused himself, explained he was tired
and trundled off.

"Seems
a decent bloke," commented Haffner and turned to the serious business of
the trip. Howland kept him down to a reasonable level of intake; but now he,
too, felt tired. Dinner would soon be served and he felt like a freshener
beforehand. He went up to his cabin—not, he had noticed with a smile, a
palatial suite like the one occupied by Randolph, and pushed open the door.

The
cabin was quiet and in darkness and he reached for the light switch. An odd
sensation of a breathing presence nearby touched him in the instant before his
fingertips brushed the switch. Then a heavy object crashed down on his head.
Sparks that hadn't come from the ship's fighting circuits blazed in his eyes.
He let out a surprised yell. He hadn't been knocked out; the blow had glanced
and that first involuntary movement had saved him from the full shock. The
second blow cracked agonizingly across his upraised arm.

The door slapped back and a
black bulk rushed past.

He
made a futile attempt to grasp the attacker; but the man had gone, feet ringing
down the corridor. Howland looked out and could see nothing under the strip
lights; and soon the footfalls were lost. The reaction hit him and he knew he
wouldn't be running after the man. He staggered across to the washbasin,
flicking on the pull light above it and doused his head. He felt sick. What in
galaxy was going on?

He thought of Mallow and Duffy Briggs and
Bamy Cain. But they were away with the others and not aboard here. Someone had
struck him. Probably a petty thief. But he still fled from the idea of
reporting the incident. It could easily be something deeper and more menacing.
. . . He'd see Randolph.

Willi
Haffner could have a-look at his head and deal with the bruise. And Willi
Haffner would also take the opportunity to make some funny crack about
Howland's brain.

Aboard
Poseidon
the tempo quickened as dinner was served, an observable heightening of
excitement bringing with it the feeling of warmer air and brighter lights and
gayer conversation. A ritual meal, this first dinner, with all the trimmings,
to be followed by the first of the dances and shows and parties that would
occupy the relaxing passengers until they made planetfall. There they would
disembark whilst the ship made the lonely—and profitable-runs to Santa Cruz
Two and Amir Bey Nine.

Peter
Howland walked into that mood of gaiety and light-heartedness nursing a wounded
head and a foul temper. Haffner had patched him up and made the expected quip
about Howland's brain.

He couldn't trust Willi Haffner, could he?
The old soak, willing to sell his immortal soul for the price of a drink—no,
unthinkable. But Howland couldn't last much longer with this intolerable load
of guilt festering in him. He'd pushed the moral implications of what he was
intending to do out of mind for day after day of that bleak winter. Thou shalt
not steal. Black and white. Try as he would to tell himself that the money
rightly belonged to the people of the galaxy, that it should be spent on better
things than war and killing, with all this logic hammering at his tired brain
he kept coming back, again and again, to the central fact. They were going to
steal money. And there was
a
murder
in it; that alone should spell out for him the mores of the project.

And now there was this,
this attack on himself.

As before he pushed the problem aside. And he
admitted that the fear Mallow had engendered in him would effectively shut his
mouth. He'd rather steal and remain alive than be honest and dead. So much for
his notions of honor.

After
dinner—a meal he did not enjoy and food he could not describe—he went back to
the bar. Warner was there, full of the joys of life. Howland evaded him, evaded
the Ramsys, too, and sought another of the many bars aboard.

All
about him beautiful women in priceless jewelry and furs and silken-sheen gowns
perfumed the air. Elegant men in full evening dress circulated, smoking cigars
the price of
a
working man's daily wage. Gaiety and
laughter, a loosening of tight-reined inhibitions, an abandoning from the
cares and planet-bound worries to the full free sense of liberty found only
between the stars—all these circumscribed How-land's horizons as he prowled
moodily.

Some
zephyr of shock brushed
him
as he saw Stella and Colin Ramsy laughing and
animated at a small table beneath the subdued glitter of artificial
chandeliers. He'd avoided them just now, walked away; had these two, also, been
given instructions to spy on him?

Colin Ramsy, glass in hand, spotted him and
walked past to the bar. Howland turned his back on him.

"Has
the prof given the word yet? I'd like to know as soon as possible?"

The
words did not disturb the air. Half turning, Howland said, "Not yet. I
expect it'll be at least a week out."

"Oh, well, I can last. This is
life." Ramsy raised his glass appreciatively. "The prof didn't stint
on advance pay, I'll say that for him."

Stella called Ramsy then, and the man went
across at once, beaming. Feeling deflated and ready to join the suicides' club,
Howland packed it in for the night. He checked his cabin before going in.
Nothing. Well, what did he expect—more mayhem?

His
last thought before sliding into sleep was that if any more mayhem did happen
to him, he'd meet violence with violence for a change, see how that system
worked.

Two
days later Randolph called a conference in his suite. The conspirators
gathered, guardedly, cautiously, making their way along as though chance alone
brought them here. "There can be no real risk at this late stage," Randolph
said. "But I want no one aboard remembering coincidences, of certain
people being seen too much together, for no good reason, after
Poseidon
makes planetfall and they unbatten the hatches onto an empty
strong-room."

"There are so many people aboard,"
Stella said. "I'm sure no one will even see more than a tenth of the
passengers. I'm continually meeting new people around."

"That may be true, my dear,"
Randolph beamed across at her. "But I think we're all agreed we take no
needless risks. Right, then. This ship night we put phase-one into
operation."

Ramsy perked up.
"That's me, then, prof."

"Yes,
Ramsy. We'll release the required quantities from our cabins; but you'll have
to show Peter and Willi the ducting. I must impress on you the absolute
necessity of covering every portion of the ship. We must not miss a single
space."

"That's
all right. The ducting reaches everywhere. Willi would understand that; it's
like the oxygen-bearing blood stream of the human body—and brain."

"I
think the parallel is reasonably exact," said Haffner in his heavy way.
"The air must go everywhere, I agree. And our little viruses will go with
it."

So that ship night—a period of eight or nine
hours when lighting was subdued—the three gathered in Haimer's cabin. They took
the innocuous looking travel bags and then, with thumping hearts, followed
Ramsy as he led them to the first objective.

Here
extended a small corridor leading athwartships some way off the beaten track.
Ramsy reached into his travel bag, brought out a nozzle, securely capped. He
put the nozzle against a grilled opening low down in the corridor wall, removed
the cap, and began to pump the bag like a bellows. The others stood casually
about twenty feet apart from him, watching, ready to give the alarm.

Into
that ducting, silent, unseen, deadly, billions of viruses wafted, to circulate
along piping, through pumping machinery, slipping through filters with the
ease of a microorganism. They were not just ordinary, normally deadly viruses;
no—they had been specially educated for their task, trained like killer dogs.

In a
few moments the job was done. Ramsy replaced the nozzle in the bag after
capping it, walked nonchalantly along toward Howland. As he reached him a
crewman in impeccable white uniform passed with a polite, "Good night,
sir."