Chapter 8

Unlike Jonathan Trilling, Commander Littlefield was the kind of man who was what he was in an uncomplicated way. You didn’t have to try to analyze why he impressed you as he did, because it was all there on display, right out in the open. He was big and robust looking, with a granite-firm jaw and the kind of features that take a long time to develop the lines of character that are etched into them, because a man who has his emotions well under control in his youth will pass into middle-age before you can tell from his expression just how much maturity and strength resides in him.

There are bland-faced lads who seem to have no lines of character at all in their countenances up to about the age of twenty-eight. But when you hear them talk you change your mind very quickly about them, and when they are forty-five the lines are all there, deeply-etched, and the mystery is explained. Commander Littlefield was that kind of man.

We had several very serious things to discuss, because five hours had passed since I’d sat facing him in the same chair and Helen Barclay had sat in another chair at right angles to a third chair, which he had drawn out from his desk and occupied for a full hour without a coffee break, his eyes searching her face as she talked. His stare was a kind of interrogation in itself, and it must have been hard for her to endure. I think it would have angered me a little, if I hadn’t suspected what was behind it.

Her story stood up very well and had the ring of truth and her eyes never wavered. But he was hoping they would, then he could detect in her eyes a flicker of hesitation, of evasiveness, which would give her away.

But he hadn’t. Her story had stood up almost too well ... because the truth always has a few flaws and inconsistencies in it. Memory is never a perfect enough mirror to permit anyone to avoid contradictions when they are doing their best to tell nothing but the truth, even under oath.

But she hadn’t seemed to be lying, and in the end I think she convinced him completely, because toward the end he stopped looking at her as if every word she said was impressing him unfavorably.

And now she was in the sick bay, recovering from shock, and I was back again for another talk with the Commander.

He began by saying: “I don’t know just how I should address you, Mr. Graham--sir. That silver hawk gives you a Colonization Board clearance that’s a little on the special side ... you’ll have to admit. The first man who wore it got a little angry when anyone addressed him as ‘General’ because that’s a strictly military title, and military titles haven’t been in common use for forty years. There’s not supposed to be any army anymore--on Earth or on Mars. But I’ve always sort of liked ‘General’ and that insignia is practically the equivalent of five stars.”

“I’m afraid I don’t like ‘General’ at all,” I said. “The title is ... Ralph.”

“Well ... suit yourself. Ralph. I’m a simple soldier at heart, I suppose--always will be, even though I hold the rank of Commander. You’re young enough to be my son, so that informal crap doesn’t go too much against the grain, if you’re that serious about it.”

“I’m serious about it,” I said. “And you’re not old enough to be my father. An older brother, perhaps. You can’t stretch it any further than that.”

“What do you mean I can’t? I’m an old man of forty-eight. Hair thinning, going a little to fat. My God, a Wendel Atomics or Endicott Fuel top executive couldn’t look any older, and they’ve got a head start on the rest of us. They start burning out at thirty-five.”

“There’s not an ounce of fat on you, as far as I can see,” I assured him.

“That’s going to handicap you on Mars, Ralph. Eyesight not what it should be in a five-star general. Look again, look closer. I’ve got a pot belly you’d notice, all right, if I didn’t exercise to keep it down.”

I’d skipped over his reference to Wendel Atomics and Endicott, maybe subconsciously, but it must have registered belatedly in a very pronounced way, because something in my expression turned him dead serious in an instant. No man ever speaks with complete levity about his age, but what there was of ironic amusement in his gray eyes vanished and his lips tightened.

“Well ... suppose we go over what we’ve got,” he said. “I’ll be grateful for any ideas, any suggestions you may care to make. I’ve found out something that’s going to give you a jolt. It may even rock you back on your heels, depending on how easily you can be rocked. But it will keep ... until we’ve discussed what she told us. What do you think of her story?”

“I believe it,” I said. I didn’t think it was necessary to elaborate.

“Well ... I’m afraid I do too, more’s the pity. If I thought she was lying I’d have more of a lever to pry what we don’t know loose.”

There was a thin sheet of paper covered with very fine handwriting on his desk. He picked it up and ran his eyes over it.

“I sort of summarized what she told us,” he said. “But there’s no sense in your reading this. I can summarize it even more briefly by skipping two-thirds of what I have here.”

“You might as well,” I told him. “She talked and we listened for at least twenty minutes. Then we both questioned her. In a question-and-answer session like that the vital points are apt to get a little blurred.”

“Well, we know she did something no one has ever done before--stowed away on a Mars’ ship. I’d have said it couldn’t be done ... and so would you, I’m sure, because you’re as familiar with the inspection routine as I am. You passed through it. No one could possibly get inside a Mars’ rocket without a Board clearance and a personal, ten-point identification check every step of the way. In other words, you can’t just ascend the launching pad, be whisked up to the passenger section and walk right in. There’s only one way you can get inside without passing the four inspection points, with machines X-raying you from head to toe.”

“I know,” I said. “It was a damn clever stunt.”

“It was more than a stunt. It was an achievement on the creative genius level. It took planning and foresight. And ... luck. A great deal of luck. But that doesn’t detract from the brilliance of it. She found out that we were installing a new cybernetic robot, to replace one that had developed electronic fatigue and had to be removed for repairs and a long rest. And she knew that we wouldn’t X-ray a robot or subject it to any of the usual tests. It would just be wheeled right in.”

Littlefield paused an instant, then went on. “She knew there was plenty of room inside a cybernetic robot that large, between the tiers of memory banks and all the other gadgetry, for the carrying out of what she had in mind--a stowaway gamble that was almost sure to succeed. She provided for her comfort during the long trip in half-dozen ingenious ways, as we know, and made sure that the food concentrates she took along were high in essential proteins.

“She knew, of course, that she couldn’t stay inside the robot without coming out at all. She’d have to emerge occasionally, if only to ease the psychological strain. But she used good judgment and only emerged when she was absolutely sure that it would be safe.”

“But once she didn’t,” I said.

“Once she didn’t. Once she felt she couldn’t stand the tensions that were building up in her any longer and she took a chance and came out when she wasn’t sure the Chart Room would be deserted. You told me you thought it was never left unguarded. Well ... that isn’t strictly true. There’s a built-in security alert system in all of the robots and we can risk leaving it unguarded for a few minutes, when every member of the crew is needed elsewhere, to take care of some particularly troublesome space headache. That’s what we call the small and seldom very serious emergencies which are always arising in a sky ship this large.”

“But if she heard someone moving about ... she must have been crazy to emerge,” I said.

“That’s just it. She wasn’t sure she heard anyone. In fact, she was almost sure it would be safe to emerge. She’d learned to trust her instincts, and the silence was almost unbroken. Just once she thought she heard a slight sound, but she put it down to the tension that was building up in her. She felt she had to emerge.”

“And he caught her,” I said, nodding. “And was more enraged than he had any right to be. His fury was maniacal. If you’d seen the look on his face and the way he was twisting her wrist you’d have been sure as I was that he was quite capable of killing her. And that’s the most puzzling part of it. We can’t explain it--and neither can she. That’s the one part of her story I was afraid you wouldn’t believe.”

“I didn’t for a moment,” Littlefield said. “I was sure she was lying ... until the look of bewilderment in her eyes convinced me she was telling the truth.”

“You didn’t want to talk about him until you’d examined the body,” I said. “I guess I got a little angry when you were so damned insistent on that point. I was just about to--well, use that silver bird to make you change your mind. That used to be called ‘pulling rank’ on someone you respect and who has every right to tell you off. Since you like to play soldier--and I mean that in a complimentary way--you’re free to go ahead and tell me off now, if you want to.”

“Hell no. You had every right to press me. I just felt a little guilty and ashamed, I guess--to think that I’d let a crewman come aboard this sky ship who had managed in some way to deceive the Board. I was pretty sure, even then, that his clearance papers must have been forged, but I wanted a chance to examine the body before I committed myself, one way or the other.”

“I guess I’d have done the same,” I said

“Yes ... Well, I’d have gone right down to the Chart Room and examined the body before I listened to what she had to say ... if you hadn’t given me some very sound advice. If we questioned her while she was in a keyed up state we’d have a better chance of getting at the truth.”

I’d almost tripped over that one myself, so I didn’t rate the compliment he was paying me. But it was too minor to make me feel conscience-bound to disillusion him.

“You saw me click the officer-section communicator on and talk into it for a minute or two,” he went on. “I ordered a double guard posted in the Chart Room, but I told them not to touch the body until I had a chance to get down there myself. It’s just as well I did, because something was found on the body I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to see.”

He was smiling a little and I wondered why, until he exploded the bombshell--the thing he’d said would rock me back on my heels.

“He’d deceived the Board with a vengeance, apparently. There was a sealed envelope on him and when I tore it open there was a card in it. It wasn’t a Board clearance card. It was a Wendel Atomics private police card and it identified him as the kind of secret agent you’d trade in for a snake if you had to have something poisonous on board and were given a free choice in the matter. The Wendel police are little better than hired killers--although perhaps a few of them are generous-minded enough to feel that when you’ve beaten a man insensible it’s going a little too far to put a bullet in him as well. And the Wendel secret agents are the worst sadists of the lot. They’re hand-picked for shrewdness and when you get intelligence along with brutality there’s no refinement of cruelty that won’t be resorted to when the going gets rough.”