Chapter 14

The silence in the chart room was like the hush that comes over a desert when hurricane winds have died down, or like the stillness of a rocky coast when waves have ceased to pound, and dangerous rocks stand out with all of their saw-edged teeth exposed.

It was extraordinary how, at the point of a gun, a man could think and act almost automatically, and postpone making any decision at all. It wasn’t cowardice; Corriston was quite sure of that. He felt only anger, deep, relentless, all-consuming. Sweat oozed in droplets from his brow, but it was the heat and the tension which made his skin stream with moisture. There was no immediate fear in him at all.

He’d kept fear at bay by refusing to let his mind leap ahead. Only the gun at his back mattered, and just why it should have mattered so much was the only thing that puzzled him.

It did not occur to him that what some men dread most is the fear of dying too abruptly, without foreknowledge and with just a second’s glimpse of something cold and deadly before the final blackout. A gun had that kind of power.

The man with the gun had asked Corriston a great many questions, urgently practical questions that dealt with cold statistics concerning zero-gravity, solar radiation, space drift and the length of time it would take to reach Mars if a single pilot took full advantage of the automatic controls and never allowed himself to become reckless.

Corriston had replied to the best of his ability and knowledge, and the other had accepted his answers with a quiet grunt of satisfaction. It was only after that, when the silence had lengthened almost unendurably between them, that the more personal questions came.

The killer jabbed the gun more firmly against Corriston’s spine and asked in a cold, flat voice: “Do you know who I am, Corriston? Have you any idea?”

Corriston stared out the viewport for a moment without replying, his face deathly pale. “I don’t know your name,” he said. “Probably that’s not too important. I do know that you’re a cold-blooded murderer, and that killing gives you pleasure. I am very tired. I wish you wouldn’t question me any more.”

“Do you think you can pilot this ship to Mars, tired as you are?”

Corriston nodded.

The pressure of the gun barrel diminished. “I am very glad--for your sake. I suppose I might as well tell you my name. It’s Henley, Richard Henley. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other before this trip is ended, but you’ll find that I’m not a particularly talkative man. When I have something important to say, though, I won’t leave you in any doubt as to what I want done. Right now I must warn you that I would just as soon kill you as not.”

“You’re lying,” Corriston said. “If you killed me now you’d never get to Mars. You need me and you know it.”

“Corriston.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t assume too much. There are practical advantages in keeping you alive but a wrong move on your part could outweigh them. I’d have a fair chance of getting to Mars without your help. I know more than you think about spatial navigation. And the automatic controls are far from unreliable. Without them it would take at least five men to pilot a ship this size to Mars. With their aid a single experienced pilot should be able to accomplish it. I’m pretty sure you’ve had enough officer training school to qualify as a pilot. A ship’s inspection officer has to be able to navigate a ship; I’ve checked on that. But you’re certainly no expert, and if you force my hand I’ll take my chance with the auto-controls and my own limited knowledge.”

“You’ll be taking a chance, all right,” Corriston said. “What would you do if the observation glass started showing small pits in the hull from a very large shower of micro-meteorites? Can the auto-controls stop those pits from spreading? I’ve seen a ship stippled all over in less than ten minutes. The meteor guards won’t deflect micro-meteorites, and you’ve got to alter your velocity and angle of drive and a lot of other things fast. And what happens when your instruments start showing light spectra peculiarities that can’t be measured in angstroms? Just a little oddity like that can force you to change your course, but the auto-pilot won’t know a thing about it.

“And when you hit the Martian atmosphere and start firing against the direction of motion, how much good do you think limited knowledge will do you? Remember, nearly all of the journey will have been made in free fall, and in free fall the auto-controls are fairly efficient. But the instant you hit the atmosphere the slightest miscalculation in the utilization of your fuel reserves can lead to absolute disaster. I don’t know what makes you tick, of course. You may get a distorted kind of pleasure from thinking of yourself as a man marked for death, the same kind of pleasure you get from killing people.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Henley drew in his breath sharply and said: “Are you threatening me, Corriston?”

“Just warning you,” Corriston said.

“I don’t take kindly to warnings, Corriston. If you’re not careful I’ll put a bullet right through you.”

“Do the men who hired you know how you operate, Henley?”

It was a stab in the dark, but it brought a quick, enraged reply. “How I operate is my own business. And I don’t like the word ‘hire.’ I’d advise you not to use it again. Ramsey’s uranium steal made every miner on Mars decide straight off that I was the right man to lead them. They’re all in back of me, but they don’t control me. I take orders from no one.”

“Maybe they wouldn’t be in back of you if they knew what a scoundrel you are,” Corriston said.

“You may think whatever you please. I don’t mind your calling me a scoundrel if it will ease your mind. Just don’t use the word ‘hire.’”

“I don’t see why you should object to it,” Corriston went on recklessly. “It protects you, in a way. It’s a good word to hide behind. If the colonists knew the truth about you, I don’t think you’d last very long.”

“I’ll last long enough to help you dig your own grave, Corriston, if you keep on with that line of talk. You’re the real lucky one. I missed killing you on the Station because my aim was bad. You were an unexpected complication and you were keeping me upset. I didn’t like it at all.”

“Go ahead. I knew too much. Was that it?”

“Partly. I didn’t know how much you knew or how much you’d guessed. But you were in a position to start a lot of high-powered stuff that could have interfered with my plans in a dozen ways. Now I happen to need you--to a limited extent. But I’m warning you again. Don’t trade on your luck. Don’t force me to kill you, Corriston.”

“Perhaps I won’t. Perhaps we can strike a compromise. As I see it, there’s no need for immediate violence. Suppose you take me just a little more fully into your confidence. It can do you no harm now; and there are a few things I’m still curious about.”

“All right, Corriston. What is it you’d like to know?”

“How did you manage to stay concealed on the Station when Ramsey’s officers were in full command? You had considerable freedom of movement, apparently, even if you had to move with caution.”

“We had everything planned in advance,” Henley said. “We got to one of Ramsey’s men with bribe money the miners raised, an executive officer named Stockton. We made it worth his while. We had a carefully worked out plan for smuggling Helen Ramsey off the shuttle ship and keeping her hidden until the Mars ship arrived. Stockton had everything prepared: a concealed compartment, food, made our problem more complicated. Stockton helped us get out of the quarantine cage and kept right on protecting us until we no longer needed him.”

“Then you must have known about the masks. You must have known before you arrived that Ramsey’s men were in complete control of the Station.”

“Sure we knew, long before Earth found out. We know exactly what had taken place. You’d be surprised what a few carefully placed bribes can do. We knew that Ramsey had laid himself wide open by substituting his own men for the Station’s commanding officers. We knew exactly how vulnerable he was.”