Space Station 1
It was difficult to believe that the man had been lying. Despite his
hatred and denials he _had_ offered Corriston a deal: "_Tell me where
the girl is and I may not kill you._" The deal part had been a lie, of
course. He would have gone on and attempted to kill Corriston anyway.
But his plea for information, that tentative, cunning feeler in the
dark had seemed genuine.
What had been the man's purpose in killing Clakey? Why had Clakey been
murdered in the general passenger cabin, in plain view of the other
passengers? Because the killer had seen the girl go into the lounge and
thought she was still there? And because he wanted free and instant
access to her, with Clakey out of the way? It was the only answer that
made sense.
The killer must have known that Clakey was in Ramsey's employ and had
been guarding Ramsey's daughter. Why then had he been unable to take
advantage of his crime in any way? Apparently neither he nor a possible
confederate had succeeded in what almost certainly had been a pattern
of violence directed at Ramsey through his daughter--a plan obviously
worked out in advance, ready to be put into operation the instant a
promising opportunity presented itself.
Into Corriston's mind flashed an ugly picture of the girl pinioned by
strong arms and with a handkerchief pressed to her face. She had ceased
to struggle and was being spirited quickly away. The picture became
even more intolerable when he saw her held captive in a cabin difficult
to locate, at the mercy of men without compassion.
But for some reason he'd never cease to be thankful for, it hadn't
happened that way. Something had gone wrong with the plan, and the
killer didn't even know when and why and how she had vanished. Sharing
Corriston's frustration, he had been struggling simply to save himself,
to keep Corriston from identifying and exposing him. The fury he'd
displayed was not difficult to understand.
Corriston found himself becoming more confident again, less dominated
by despair. The change in his mood surprised him but he seized upon
it gratefully and started building on it. There was only one logical
next move. He must find the captain quickly and enlist his help. He
must take the master of the ship fully into his confidence. With every
gift of persuasion at his command, he must make the captain see how the
danger of Ramsey's daughter was mounting and would continue to mount
with every minute that she remained unfound.
He still felt dizzy, and his head was aching a little, but he moved
quickly through the darkness, his faculties heightened by an intensity
of purpose which enabled him to find the companionway without colliding
with obstacles or taking a wrong turn. Up the stairway he climbed,
still clutching the knife, prepared for a possible second encounter
with its original owner.
An attempt to regain the knife by trickery and stealth would not have
surprised him. In fact, it was not at all difficult for him to picture
a silent form flattened against the stair-rail, waiting for just the
right moment to come hurtling toward him out of the darkness. For a
moment, as he ascended, the strain became almost unendurable. Then the
darkness dissolved above him, and he was advancing toward the captain's
cabin through the narrow passageway which he had spanned with his arms
spread wide.
He did not stop to span it this time. He emerged into the cabin and
stood for an instant blinking in the sudden light. The cabin was still
deserted. It was anybody's guess where the captain had gone or when he
would be returning, and Corriston decided not to wait. He walked to the
door, opened it and stepped out into the general passenger cabin.
No one saw him immediately. There were several passengers fairly close
to him, but they were being attentive for the moment to the words and
gestures of a tall, dignified looking man with observant brown eyes,
a ruddy complexion, and gold braid on his shoulders. The tall man was
Captain John Sanders.
"I'd be a hypocrite and a liar if I said there was no justification
for alarm," Sanders was saying, in a voice loud enough to carry to
where Corriston was standing. "Strict regulations prescribe that sort
of thing. But it's no way for a captain to keep the respect of his
passengers."
Corriston felt himself stepping forward before he even thought about
it. But he halted abruptly when the captain said: "There's a murderer
on the loose aboard this ship. You may as well accept that fact right
now. Each of you has to be on his guard. It's only right and proper
that you should keep your eyes and ears open, and _stay_ worried. If
you do, our chances of catching up with him before the ship berths
should be reasonably good."
The captain paused, then went on quickly: "We'll get him eventually.
You can be sure of that. He'll never get past the inspection each of
you will have to undergo when we reach the Station. But if we catch him
before we reach the Station, you'll be spared an investigative ordeal
distinctly on the rugged side."
Corriston was suddenly aware that he was being stared at. Everyone was
staring at him.
"My God!" the Captain cried out, staring the hardest of all. "Where did
you get that wound? Who attacked you? And what were you doing in my
cabin?"
Corriston walked up to the Captain and said in a voice that trembled
a little. "May I talk to you privately, sir? What I have to say won't
take long."
"Why not?" Sanders demanded. "That uniform you're wearing makes it
mandatory. All right, come back into my cabin."
They went back into the cabin. The captain shut the door and turned to
face Corriston with a shocked concern in his stare.
"You've had it rough, Lieutenant. I can see that."
"Plenty rough," Corriston conceded. "But it's not myself I'm worried
about."
"Did you know that a man has just been murdered?"
"I know," Corriston said.
"With a poisoned barb. A Martian barb. It's a plant found only on Mars.
We have him stretched out on a table in the sick bay now. But he isn't
sick; he's a corpse. Tell me something, Lieutenant, did you just tangle
with the man who did it?"
"I think so," Corriston said. "In fact, I'd stake my commission on it."
"I see. Well, you'd better tell me about it. Tell me everything."
Corriston told him.
The captain was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "But we've
no Miss Ramsey on the passenger list. And I certainly didn't invite
her to drink a toast with me in my cabin. Are you sure of your facts,
Lieutenant?"
Corriston's jaw fell open. He stared at the captain in stunned
disbelief. "Of course I'm sure. Why should I lie to you?"
"How should I know? It's unfair to ask me that. If Ramsey's daughter
was on this ship, you can rest assured I'd have known about it. After
all, Lieutenant--"
"But she _was_ on board and you _didn't_ know. Isn't that obvious?
Look, she was traveling incognito. The trip to the Station takes only
five hours. Perhaps in so short a trip--"
"No 'perhaps' about it. I'd have known."
"But she _is_ on board, I tell you. I talked to her. I talked to
Clakey. Don't make me go over the whole thing again. We've got to find
her. Ramsey's enemies would stop at nothing. I'm afraid to think of
what they might do to his daughter!"
"Nothing will happen to his daughter. She's on Earth right this minute
in her father's house, as safe as any girl that wealthy can ever be.
Lieutenant, listen to me. I've got a great deal of respect for that
uniform you're wearing. Don't make me lose it. When you come to me with
a story like that--"
"All right. You don't believe me. Will you check the passenger list,
just to be sure?"
"I'll do more than that, Lieutenant. I'll assemble all of the
passengers and check them off personally. I'll give you an opportunity
to look them over while I'm doing it. Later you can ask them as many
questions as you wish. There'll be a murderer among them, but that
shouldn't disturb you too much. You've already met. Perhaps you can
identify him for us. Ask each of the men who made a non-existent Miss
Ramsey disappear and the one who turns pale will be our man."
Suddenly the captain reddened. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant, I didn't mean
to be sarcastic. But a murder on my ship naturally upsets me. I'll be
completely frank with you. There's a very remote possibility that Miss
Ramsey actually _is_ on board without my knowledge. She hasn't had much
publicity. I believe I've only seen one photograph of her, one taken
several years ago. But you've got to remember that a captain is usually
the first to get wind of such things. It comes to him by a kind of
grapevine. She's a golden girl--actually the goldenest golden girl on
Earth."
4
Now Corriston was in a steel-walled cell and the captain's voice seemed
only a far-off echo sympathizing with him.
And it was an echo, for the captain was gone and he would probably
never see him again. It was all very simple--that part of it--all very
clear. The captain had faithfully kept his word. The captain hadn't let
him down. But any man can end up a prisoner when everyone disbelieves
him and he has no way of proving that he is telling the truth.
It was hard to believe that a day and a night had passed, and that
the Captain _had_ kept his word and gone ahead with the roll call. It
was even harder to believe that he, Corriston, was no longer on the
ship, but in a sanity cell on the Space Station, and that the ship was
traveling back toward Earth.
He shut his eyes, and the events of the past thirty hours unrolled
before him with a nightmare clarity, and yet with all of the monstrous
distortions which a nightmare must of necessity evoke.
Darkness and time and space. And closer at hand the frowns of
forthright, honest men appalled by mental abnormality in a new recruit,
an officer with a steel-lock determination to keep the truth securely
guarded and safe from all distortion.
There had come the tap on his shoulder and a stern voice saying: "You'd
better come with us, Lieutenant." He had just told the captain the
whole horrible story. He had not been believed.
"Tell me about it," said the recruit in the bunk opposite Corriston.
"It will help you to talk. Remember, we're not prisoners. We mustn't
think of ourselves as prisoners. We can go out and exercise. We can
walk around the Station for a half-hour or so. We've only got to
promise we'll come back and lock ourselves in. They trust us. It could
happen to anyone.
"Space-shock. Not a fancy word at all. I'm getting over it; you've a
certain distance to go. Or so they say. But we're still in very much
the same boat and talking always helps. Talk to me, Lieutenant, the way
you did last night."
Corriston looked at the pale youth opposite him. He had close-cropped
hair and friendly blue eyes, and he seemed a likeable enough lad.
He was Corriston's junior by several years. But there was an aura
of neuroticism about him that made Corriston uneasy. But hell, why
shouldn't he get it off his chest. Talking just _might_ help.
"It's true," Corriston said. "Every word of it."
"I believe you, Lieutenant. But quite obviously _they_ didn't. Why
not strike a compromise. Say I'm one-tenth wrong in believing you and
they're nine-tenths right in not believing you. That means there may be
some little quirk in what happened to you that doesn't quite fit into
the normal pattern. Put that down to space-shock--a mild case of it.
I'm not saying you have it, but you could have it."
The kid was grinning now, and Corriston had to like him.
"Okay," he said. "You can believe this or not. The captain lined all
of the passengers up and checked them off by their cabin numbers. I
_didn't_ see her. Do you understand? She just wasn't there! I thought