Kenneth Bulmer (14 page)

"For
twenty-four hours, exactly, those viruses will paralyze every man and woman
aboard—except us, who have been inoculated. We'll have to watch points."

"Don't worry, Peter." Randolph came
back, wiping his hands on a piece of rag, smiling. "Everything is going
wonderfully."

Larssen
slid into the communications seat. The ship's radio officer stood woodenly to
one side, under a gun muzzle. A rebel was bent, as though about to sit down.
Howland knew they'd stay as they'd frozen, and come out of it and continue the
movement, totally unaware that they'd been in the deep freeze for a whole
Terran day and night.

Ramsy
went methodically around the control room, working his^space Navy magic on
instruments and controls, turning the ship into a fit temporary-tomb to carry
three thousand unconscious men and women. He had, Howland knew, a tough job to
do. Howland only hoped that his nerves wouldn't foul up at thoughts of Stella.

Larssen,
at the radio console, looked up, his face breaking into a smile of triumph.

"There's
a ship out there all right! Terry's good and sharp on time. Must have been
trailing us just out of
Poseidon's
detection range. Trust Terry." He turned
up the volume.

A
voice rode on the carrier wave, booming loudly and authoritatively into the
control room.

"Good
work! We're coming alongside. Stand by the main air lock. Well have our weapons
ready, just in case, Marko. We don't want any slip-ups now."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

M
abko
I

The name rang like a gong in the tenseness of
the control room. Howland looked at Randolph. The little professor slowly
lifted one hand; the knuckles stood out whitely. Then he let the hand fall.

"The
Rebbos," Larssen said, looking up at Randolph, hand hard on the cutoff
switch. "What do I tell 'em, prof?"

Haffner laughed.

"Let
'em come aboard. As soon as they take a good snifter of our special air—we blow
Stella's whistle!"

"That's
no good, Willi—" Howland said, hating to have to say it.

Randolph
nodded vigorously. "You didn't think that problem through, Willi. If they
see people standing about frozen—well, what will they think? And they won't all
come through the airlock to be caught there in one body. And they'll leave men
aboard their ship."

Haffner's
smile faded. "What do we do then? Let them come aboard? Take everything?
Find out—"

Professor
Randolph gestured towards Sammy Larssen. "Give me the mike. Connect me up
with that Freedom Front ship out there."

Larssen
did as he was bid. The silence pierced acutely through the control room.

Then
that heavy, assured, hateful voice boomed from the speaker once again.

"Hurry
it up, Marko. We're nearly alongside. Turn on your screen and let's have a look
at the victory."

Randolph
flung a quick hand of negation; but Larssen had no intention of switching on
the screens. Randolph picked up the hand mike and stood for a moment, for all
the galaxy as if about to address an afternoon seminar.

"This
is starship
Poseidon.
You Rebbos out there had better give up
right away. It is senseless for you to try to struggle. A space Navy cruiser is
on her way here. Oh—and your man Marko is fast asleep."

Howland
couldn't help admiring the old prof. That little speech contained enough slang
terms—the use of the word Rebbo had been masterly—to deafen the impact of
Randolph's academic speech. Now to see if it would work.

The
voice from the speaker crackled now with all assurance gone, flat and dull,
deflated. Howland guessed that this unknown man had raced in from space
answering the first victory call Marko had sent, had sped in exultantly—to be
met with news of disaster. No answering exultance flared in Howland. If people
win, then people lose.

He
was aware of Randolph and the unknown Freedom Fronter exchanging words, bitter,
hurtful, cutting words. But Randolph played his hand admirably. No hesitation,
no weakness marred his performance. When the Rebel ship sheered off, making
full revolutions away out into the emptiness of space, everyone sagged with
relief—everyone except Randolph.

"See
if you can contact Terence," he told Larssen briskly. "That poor
devil of a rebel thinks he's just managing to escape from a space Navy ship.
He probably is determined to fight and die rather than be captured. I don't
want that pathetic bravado mixed up in our plans."

"Righto, prof," said Larssen.

Professor
Randolph's small stature had never before seemed so supremely unimportant. He
radiated confidence. He gave orders briskly and surely, not hesitating,
instilling the same dynamic enthusiasm in his associates—accomplices, rather,
as Howland could not help thinking.

But
even Howland felt touched by that brilliance of optimism from Randolph.

"I have never had a penchant for
mendacity," said

Randolph.
"But I flatter myself that scientific method applies in this field, also.
In other words—"

"In other words, professor,"
interrupted Willi Haffner, smiling. "When you lie, lie big!"

"Everything can now run smoothly, once
again." Randolph looked around. "Someone had better see how Stella
is getting along—"

"I'll go," said Howland instantly.
He needed movement,

A
ghostly, eerie journey took him through the silent undead to Stella. She sat on
the platform, dressed in her best, holding the whistle in one hand and a scrap
of yellow paper in the other.

She was crying.

"My great moment," she said between
sobs. "Everyone hanging on what I did, what I said. I was the center of it
all—and then I had to blow that beastly whistle and everyone just went—went
cold on me!"

And Howland had to laugh.

He
reached across and took away the whistle and the ticket, put
Doth
into his pocket.

"Just
thank another of the miracles of micro-biology, Stella. Cheer up. These poor
suckers breathed in a virus—we all did. When you blew that subsonic whistle the
virus was activated and paralyzed them. They'll stay as they are and twenty-fours
later they'll wake up and not notice that anything has happened. I inoculated
you against that effect— and you didn't have a scar, remember?"

She
sniffed. "I remember. And you needn't laugh at me. I've been running about
like a crazy woman trying to do all the things the prof wanted—but you should
try it, too." Together they went among the silent motionless throng,
tidying up a host of minor accidents.

"Don't
worry, Stella," called Howland, suddenly not disliking the girl any more.
"You'll have your big moment when they all wake up."

When
at last Mallow arrived in the tiny spaceship hired for a short period with the
last of Professor Randolph's extended resources, the conscious human beings
aboard
Poseidon
were clustered about the entrance to the
strong room amidst a clutter of ex-Rebel cutting equipment, sizing up the
magnitude of the task confronting them.

Ramsy and Larssen left to adjust speeds and
vectors; those left felt the metallic vibration through the fabric of the ship
as airlocks met. Ramsy returned with Mallow, Briggs, Cain and Xwang in tow.
Randolph had told them not to bother about their own safe-cracking gear; but
Mallow had had it brought, anyway. Colonel Troisdorff stalked in with that
invisible monocle blindingly bright.

When he heard about Tim Warner, Troisdorff
laughed in his sardonic way. "I've heard of Warner. Used to be a smart
operator. Well, let's get to it."

Everyone
else, too, had that impatient, thrusting, bubbling desire to open up the strong
room and remove its contents. Howland moved to one side, stood moodily watching
as the ex-space Navy men set about their tasks.

Mallow
was exuberant. "Don't bother to be too fussy," he told his men.
"After all, the rebels did all this, didn't they? And—we're not aboard,
are we? How could we be, right in the middle of the great draw!" He
laughed, nastily. The sound jarred Howland's brain.

Looking
at him, at his weak, handsome, confident face, Howland thought of Fingers
Kirkup. Well.

The ex-space Navy men knew how to use the
rebels' cutting equipment. And here Colonel Troisdorff came into his own. He
knew all about the strong rooms aboard spaceships—after all, wasn't part of a
Marine's job to guard the afterdeck from the dregs of the fo'c'sle? Under his
supercilious direction the men set to work. Mallow chuckled with satisfaction.

Giving
some garbled excuse, Howland left the busy technicians and walked quickly away
from the strong room area, went through the control room with a single compassionate
glance for Helen, climbed stairs and descended escalators until once again he
reached the Grand Salon.

The
deathly hush disturbed him. He walked along between the rows of tables and
chairs, between the ranks of upright stiff, silent people. This was a foretaste
of what came to everyone in the end. These motionless people might awake after
twenty-four hours, resume where they had left off, never know they had lost
those hours from their lives, for the conspirators would alter all recording equipment
before they left—but Howland knew. He saw this trance all around him as some
small reminder that at the last only one single thing in all the galaxy was
definite, positive and finally inescapable.

He
lifted a woman's arm, lying twisted awkwardly down the back of her chair,
brought it around to lie comfortably on the table. He pushed a portly gentleman
more securely into his seat. He picked up a fallen handbag. Stella and her
helpers from Mallow's small ship had already been around replacing lengths of
grey ash with new selfigs that would bum into life at the first draw. Pipe
smokers too had been taken care of.
Poseidon
carried
three thousand passengers; but they had twenty-four hours to do their work in.
And they'd do it; Randolph would see to that. No single trace of this lost
day's doings must come to light.

He thought of Helen Chase. And he thought of
Terence Mallow. He knew, now, what he would do.

Back
at the strong room door the cutting crew was hard at it, like gnomes before
some heathen idol fire. Mallow smoked and cursed. "Anyway," he said,
belligerently as soon as Howland appeared. "That fool Fingers did squeal,
after all. It was a great pity we didn't get to him before."

"What
the deuce do you mean, Terence?" Randolph eyed his nephew with all the
bounce in him still undismayed by this revelation. Howland felt tension snap
back into the warmed air, an almost tangible miasma, glaring at him from the
narrow smiling eyes of Mallow and the blunt savaged faces of Duffy Brigs and
Barny Cain.

"I said, Terence, what
the deuce do you mean?"

"Nothing
that concerns you, uncle. Just leave my boys to open up this strong room.
That's all."

"But I demand an answer!" Randolph
took
a
step forward and stared up, bulging his
frog's-eyes. "Are you telling me you did have a hand in the death of
Kirkup?"

Colonel
Erwin Troisdorff turned around from where he was crouched down by the
electronic lock combination, a bluely-gleaming steel gem in the . grey steel
expanse of armored door, and said, "D'you people mind giving me a chance?
Your cutting crew is getting nowhere with that Rebbo's equipment. If you'll all
go and fight somewhere else I might be able to open this thing up. Go onl
Move!"

Mallow swung furiously on him, face congested
at the marine's tone. Randolph, smarter than his nephew, said, "A good
idea, colonel. I apologize for my nephew's behavior. Terence—come with me.
Leave the colonel to open it up."

That
tension in the air had not been eased. Everyone moved back, leaving Troisdorff
a clear field. Randolph said, "Now, Terence, perhaps you will kindly
explain."

"With
pleasure, uncle." Mallow had reasserted control over himself. He was
cocky, dead sure of himself. "As soon as the cash is out we'll ship it
aboard our craft and leave. But, uncle, you didn't really think we were going
to do all this and then, back on Earth, tamely hand over the money to you, did
you?" He laughed, a laugh echoed by Briggs and Cain. "Why, uncle, I'm
surprised. And you, with your scientific training, too."

Sudden
clarity hit Randolph. Clarity and much else. He felt stripped, helpless, and
very, very small. For the first time in years he bowed under the whole awful
stigma of his size, despair fell on him with the crushing weight of defeat. He
looked about, groping, one hand outstretched. Willi Haflner was backed up
against the wall beside him, puzzled and truculent.

"What's
going on here?" demanded Haffner. "You can't mean that, Mallow . .
." His head peered this way and that, like a bull under a goad.

"You
just keep quiet and don't interfere," said Mallow. "You clever clever
scientists make me sick!"

Randolph,
out of his misery, tried to come back, tried to assert bis old dominance.
"I'd appreciate it, Terence, if you would keep your supposedly funny remarks
to yourself. They do not amuse me." He glared at his nephew, all the
famous Randolph bite in his face and stance, and his spirit a husk within him.
"You are ceasing to amuse me, too, Terence. My sister, I am sorry to say,
appears to have made
a
mistake with her son as with her
husband—"

Mallow's
face went mean. He stepped forward, his gun flat in his palm, ready to come
down in
a
raking, slashing blow. Without doubt he was
going to strike his uncle.