Chapter 23

Captain Sir Henry Quill, Bart., stood at the head of the long table in the officers’ wardroom and looked everyone over. The way he did it was quite impressive. His eyes were narrowed, and his heavy, thick, black brows dominated his face. Beneath the glow plates in the overhead, his pink scalp gleamed with the soft, burnished shininess of a well-polished apple.

To his left, in order down the table, were Mike the Angel, Lieutenant Keku, and Leda Crannon. On his right were Commander Jeffers, Ensign Vaneski, Lieutenant Commander von Liegnitz, and Dr. Morris Fitzhugh. Lieutenant Mellon’s seat was empty.

Black Bart cleared his throat. “It’s been quite a trip, hasn’t it? Well, it’s almost over. Mister Gabriel finished the conversion of the power plant yesterday; Treadmore’s men can finish up. We will leave on the Fireball in a few hours.

“But there is something that must be cleared up first.

“A man died on the way out here. The circumstances surrounding his death have been cleared up now, and I feel that we all deserve an explanation.” He turned to Mike the Angel. “Mister Gabriel--if you will, please.”

Mike stood up as the captain sat down. “The question that has bothered me from the beginning has been: Exactly what killed Lieutenant Mellon? Well, we know now. We know what killed him and why he died.

“He was murdered. Deliberately, and in cold blood.”

That froze everybody at the table.

“It was done by a slow-acting but nonetheless deadly drug that took time to act, but did its job very well.

“There were several other puzzling things that happened that night. Snookums began behaving irrationally. It is the height of coincidence that a robot and a human being should both become insane at almost the same time; therefore we have to look for a common cause.”

Lieutenant Commander von Liegnitz raised a tentative hand, and Mike said: “Go ahead.”

“I was under the impression that the robot went mad because Mellon had filled him full of theological nonsense. It would take a madman to do anything like that to a fine machine--therefore I see no peculiar coincidence.”

“That’s exactly what the killer wanted us to think,” Mike said. “But it wasn’t Mellon that fed Snookums theology. Mellon was a devout churchman; his record shows that. He would never have tried to convert a machine to Christianity. Nor would he have tried to ruin an expensive machine.

“How do I know that someone else was involved?”

He looked at the giant Lieutenant Keku. “Do you remember when we took Mellon to his quarters after he tried to brain von Liegnitz? We found half a bottle of wine. That disappeared during the night--because it was loaded with Lysodine, and the killer didn’t want it analyzed.

“But, more important, as far as Snookums is concerned, is that I looked over the books on Mellon’s desk that night. There weren’t many, and I knew which ones they were. When Captain Quill and I checked Mellon’s books after his death, someone had returned his copy of _The Christian Religion and Symbolic Logic_. It had not been there the night before.”

“Mike,” said Pete Jeffers, “why would anybody here want to kill Lew thataway? What would anybody have against him?”

“That’s the sad part about it, Pete. Our murderer didn’t even have anything against Mellon. He wanted--and still wants--to kill me.”

“I don’t quite follow,” Jeffers said.

“I’ll give it to you piece by piece. The killer wanted no mystery connected with my death. There are reasons for that, which I’ll come to in a moment. He had to put the blame on someone or something else.

“His first choice was Snookums. It occurred to him that he could take advantage of the fact that I’m called ‘Mike the Angel.’ He borrowed Mellon’s books and began pumping theology into Snookums. He figured that would be safe enough. Mellon would certainly lend him the books if he pretended an interest in religion; if anything came out afterward, he could--he thought--claim that Snookums got hold of the books without his knowing it. And that sort of muddy thinking is typical of our killer.

“He told Snookums that I was an angel, you see. I couldn’t be either hurt or killed. He protected himself, of course, by telling Snookums that he mustn’t reveal his source of data. If Snookums told, then the killer would be punished--and that effectively shut Snookums up. He couldn’t talk without violating the First Law.

“Unfortunately, the killer couldn’t get Snookums to do away with me. Snookums knew perfectly well that an angel can blast anything at will--through the operation of God. Witness what happened at Sodom and Gomorrah. Remember that Snookums has accepted all this data as fact.

“Now, if an angel can kill, it is obvious that Snookums would not dare attack an angel, especially if he had been ordered to do so by a human.”

“Just a minute, Commander,” said Dr. Fitzhugh, corrugating his face in a frown. “That doesn’t hold. Even if an angel could blast him, Snookums would attack if ordered to do so. The Second Law of obedience supersedes the Third Law of self-preservation.”

“You’re forgetting one thing, Doctor. An angel of God would know who had ordered the attack. It would be the human who ordered the attack, not Snookums, who would be struck by Heavenly Justice. And the First Law supersedes the Second.”

Fitzhugh nodded. “You’re right, of course.”

“Very well, then,” Mike continued, “since the killer could not get Snookums to do me in, he had to find another tool. He picked Lieutenant Mellon.

“He figured that Mellon was in love with Leda Crannon. Maybe he was; I don’t know. He figured that Mellon, knowing that I was showing Miss Crannon attention, would, under the influence of the lysurgic acid derivative, try to kill me. He may even have suggested it to Mellon after Mellon had taken a dose of the drugged wine.

“But that plan backfired, too. Mellon didn’t have that kind of mind. He knew my attentions and my intentions were honorable, if you’ll pardon the old-fashioned language. On the other hand, he knew that von Liegnitz had a reputation for being--shall we say--a ladies’ man. What happened after that followed naturally.”

Mike watched everyone at the table. No one moved.

“So the killer, realizing that he had failed twice, decided to do the job himself. First, he went into the low-power room and slugged the man on duty. He intended to kill him, but he didn’t hit hard enough. When that man wakes up, he’ll be able to testify against the killer.

“Then the killer ordered Snookums to tear out the switches. He had made sure that Snookums would be waiting outside. Before he called Snookums in, of course, he had to put the duty man in a tool closet, so that the robot wouldn’t see him. He told Snookums to wait five minutes and then smash the switches and head back to his cubicle.

“Then the killer went to my room and waited. When the lights went out and the door opened, he intended to go in and smash my skull, making it look as though either Mellon or Snookums had done it.

“But he didn’t figure on my awakening as soon as the switches were broken. He heard me moving around and decided to wait until I came out.

“But I heard him breathing. It was quite faint, and I wouldn’t have heard it, except for the fact that the air conditioners were off. Even so, I couldn’t be sure.

“However, I knew it wasn’t Snookums. Snookums radiates a devil of a lot more heat than a human being, and besides he smells of machine oil.

“So I pulled my little trick with the boots. The killer waited and waited for me to come out, and I was already out. Then Chief Multhaus approached from the other direction. The killer knew he’d have to get out of there, so he went in the opposite direction. He met Snookums, who was still obeying orders. Snookums smacked into me on his way down the hall.

“He could do that, you see, because I was an angel. If he hurt me of his own accord, I couldn’t take revenge on anyone but him. And there was no necessity to obey my orders, either, since he was obeying the orders of the killer, which held precedence.

“Then, to further confuse things, the killer went to Mellon’s room. The physician was in a drugged stupor, so the killer carried him out and put him in an unlikely place, so that we’d think that perhaps Mellon had been the one who’d tried to get me.”