Space Station 1
officers? How many, beside the commander?"
"Eight, including the commander. His real name was Henry Hervet. Five
were executive officers, two were security guards. They're all dead
now."
Corriston's mouth went dry. "Including the one who sold out and helped
you?"
"Yes, Stockton was the first to die. He was dead before the others
tried to board this ship. I made sure of that. He was too greedy for
his own good."
"You got back the money you gave him, I suppose."
"Naturally. Money is of very little value to a dead man."
Corriston had gone very pale. There was dread in his eyes when he
asked: "And the real Commander Clement? What happened to him? Where is
he now?"
"Stockton told me that after a mask was made of his face he was
imprisoned somewhere on the Station," Henley said. "Clement and seven
others. Ramsey gave Hervet strict orders not to kill them. I don't
know where Clement is now, but I can make a pretty good guess. He has
probably been released and is in full command of the Station again."
Henley stood very still for a moment, very straight and still, and
Corriston could feel the gun nudging the small of his back again.
"I may as well tell you now that I'm going to have to lock you in,
Corriston," Henley said. "When I turn the key on this room your sole
responsibility will be right here with the controls. You'll have to
sleep and eat here, and I don't intend to bring you any fancy meals.
You'll hear a knock on the door three times a day. You'll get a tray
with some food on it.
"You'll have to decide for yourself how much sleep you can afford to
take. And remember this: I'll be keeping a careful check on every
navigational move you make. Not a too accurate check, perhaps, but I'll
know enough. If you throw the ship off course I'll find out about it,
and I'll want to know why. Be ready with your answers and make sure
they carry weight. Any more questions, Corriston?"
Corriston shook his head. "No. The quicker you get out of here the
better I'll feel."
"All right, I'll leave you now. It's naturally to my benefit to try to
see things from your point of view. And just in case you're worrying
about Helen Ramsey--don't. Nothing is going to happen to her, provided
you stay in line. If you want me don't hesitate to buzz. That's what
the intercom is for."
Corriston looked around once when Henley was on his way to the door.
The man hadn't turned away from him. He was backing toward the door,
his lips tight, his eyes mocking, coldly derisive.
"Did you think I'd give you a chance to catch me with my guard down,
Corriston? If you did, you're a bigger fool than I thought you. This
gun stays with me, and it's going to be centered on you every time I
open this door. Remember that, Lieutenant."
The journey to Mars was a long wait. It was a standing and a waiting,
with a hundred corrective power maneuvers to be checked at every hour
of the day and night. It was sleep without rest and rest without sleep,
and it was a battle against dizziness and the despair which can come to
a pilot when a panel starts flickering a red danger signal in the utter
loneliness of interplanetary space.
The ship was never too hot, never too cold, for the temperature was
kept stable by thermostat-controlled radiation shutters and the air
was kept pure with the aid of carbon filters. But to Corriston the air
conditioning system with all of its elaborate controls seemed only to
point up and emphasize the lack of stability elsewhere, both inside and
outside the ship.
There were so many things that could go wrong--tragically, dangerously,
fatally wrong. For no reason at all, for instance, a recently inspected
filter or gasket could go completely bad, and a "no juice" blow up
threaten. Or a magnetic guidance tape could jam and stop recording, and
the ship could deviate a hair's breadth from its prescribed path and
forget to swing completely back again.
Eventually a correction might be made, but if you failed to correct it
in time, that one tiny deviation could spell disaster. With every day
out there were more details to check, while obstacles mounted and it
was impossible ever to quite catch up with what you had to do, and go
on with complete confidence to the next task.
Worst of all, Corriston was denied all opportunity to see or speak to
the woman he loved.
* * * * *
The trip to Mars took fourteen days. And in all that time Corriston
did not once see Helen Ramsey. He saw only Henley, heard only the deep
drone of the engines, and at times, when he was close to despair, the
dull, steady beating of his own heart.
The door to his prison would open and a tray of food would be pushed
forward into the compartment. Then the door would close quietly again,
and he would be alone.
In some respects he was imprisoned in a way that was almost too
unbelievable for the human mind to grasp. The walls of his cell were
the constellations, the barriers to his freedom space itself.
The chartroom was a cell too, but it had no real confining power over
him. He could walk out of the chart room simply by unlocking the
viewport and swinging it wide open. He could walk out into the larger
prison of space--and die in five seconds with his lungs on fire.
On the thirteenth day Mars loomed out of the inscrutable darkness ahead
like some great accusing eye that had fastened itself on the ship with
a malignance all its own. It filled one-fifth of the viewport, rust-red
over most of its surface, but also pale blue in patches, a blue which
shaded off into a kaleidoscope of colors that seemed to hover chiefly
like the shifting, almost hueless cloudiness of a hot summer haze.
On the morning of the fifteenth day, the ship, decelerating under
sidethrusts from its powerful retardation rockets, cut off its engines
and, free-coasting through a landing ellipse of seventy degrees, landed
safely on Mars.
It landed in the open desert, twenty miles from Ramsey's citadel,
and eighty-seven miles from the first Martian colony. But Corriston
received no praise at all for his navigational skill.
Five minutes after the engines ceased to throb a blow on the head
felled him, a brutal blow from behind.
"Tie him up," Henley said. "We're not killing him, not just yet."
"But I don't see why--" a cold voice started to protest.
"Damn you, Stone, I know what I'm doing. Keep your thoughts to
yourself."
15
Corriston sat very straight and still in the darkness, his back against
cold metal, his eyes on the distant glow of the heating lamp. He could
see the lamp through a wide panel opening in the bulkhead directly
opposite him. Wherever his eyes fell there was the glimmer of light on
metal. But the warmth of the lamp would have left him close to freezing
had it not been supplemented by the heating units inside his heavy
clothing.
He didn't know how he was going to free himself. His hands were
securely handcuffed and the sharp metal was biting into his flesh.
Turning and twisting about did him no good at all.
He didn't know how he was going to free himself, but he refused to give
up hope. There had to be a way.
You could begin on one of your captors, on a human being with a great
deal to lose or gain. You could try to penetrate his armor, sound out
his human weaknesses. Or you could set to work on the handcuffs at your
wrists, struggling in an almost hopeless attempt to draw your hands
through them in some way or get them unlocked without a key.
He decided to try the first way. He raised his voice. "Stone?" he
called out. "Can you hear me?"
There ensued a silence. Then Stone's voice came back loud and clear.
"Sure, I can hear you. What do you want?"
"I'd like to talk to you," Corriston said.
"About what?"
"About you. What are you getting out of this? You've nothing to lose by
being frank with me. Henley would never believe anything I might say."
"You're right about that," Stone said. "But why should I talk to you?
I'll tell you something that may surprise you. Keeping you alive was
Henley's idea. He figured we might need you. He figured that if Ramsey
wouldn't listen to us he might listen to you--a Space Station officer.
He figured we might need you to convince Ramsey we're not bluffing.
Someone who _knows_ we're not bluffing. Someone who knows we'd kill his
daughter before we gave him a third chance to make up his mind and hand
over the dough."
"A _third_ chance? I thought--"
"You think too much, Corriston. I'll spell it out for you. Henley is on
his way now to give Ramsey his first chance. He may succeed or he may
not. If he doesn't succeed he'll come back and take you to the fortress
with him. That will be Ramsey's second chance. He won't get a third."
"I see," Corriston said. "But I asked you a question you didn't answer.
How much do you stand to get out of this? What is your split, your
percentage? Don't tell me; I'll guess. Henley is promising you fifteen
or twenty thousand dollars. But how much ransom do you think he'll get
from Ramsey? Two million, at least. Possibly twenty million. Does that
kind of split satisfy you, Stone? Remember, when that ransom is paid,
every law enforcement agency on Earth goes into operation. It starts
off in a quiet suite of offices, with just one owl-faced little guy
shuffling some papers.
"It starts off that way, but in the space of one hour you're a man
marked for destruction. The military goes into action. From Earth
to Mars your photograph is televised. Ten thousand trained experts
are thrown into the operation. You've suddenly become important, an
accessory to the kidnapping of the wealthiest girl on Earth.
"How does that set with you, Stone? They'll get you in the end. No,
I'll qualify that. They'll get you unless Ramsey gives you a split of
at least a million dollars. With a million dollars you'd have a one in
five chance of covering your tracks, of hiding out indefinitely. But
Ramsey won't give you anything like that kind of a split. You know that
as well as I do. He'll have to cover his own tracks and he'll need all
of the two million--or twenty million--for himself. Or most of it.
"I'm not telling you anything you don't know. Your real interest lies
in preventing that kidnapping before it's too late. He's getting ready
to double-cross you, Stone. It was in the back of his mind all the
time. He's looking out only for himself."
"I don't think so," Stone said. "My split, since you brought the matter
up, is half a million. He's demanding six million in ransom. That's
twelve times what I'm getting and what Jim Saddler is getting. But I've
no complaints. He organized and planned everything.
"I'll be honest with you. That doesn't mean a damn thing to me. I'm no
good when it comes to taking a risk like that, but does that mean he's
better than I am? Do you think I'd string along with him if I believed
that for a moment?
"Hell, no. I'm using him, don't you see? I'm letting him take the big
gamble, and I stay in the background ... doing practically nothing. So
if I clear a half million, what have I to complain about?"
"Nothing, I suppose," Corriston said.
"You're damned right. But I don't think I like the way you said that.
There's something in your voice that I don't like."
"That's too bad," Corriston said.
"Maybe you think I don't mean what I said. Is that it?"
Corriston tightened his lips. He could hear Stone's footsteps coming
toward him through the darkness. They were heavy steps, advancing
slowly, with a slight shuffling sound. They paused twice and then came
on again, and the silence between pauses seemed almost crushingly thick.
Corriston suddenly realized that he knew almost nothing about Stone.
He had taken the man pretty much for granted, a killer's accomplice