by Jerry eBooks
“Really,” he said. “I suppose I have no business getting her up. There just isn’t any way of stopping the use of sex dope and the seven-day poison; they fit in too perfectly with the lusts of men. And in a universe of a billion planets who can ever find the underground factories where the damned brews are turned out?”
He saw that the old man was staring at him thoughtfully. Doc Gregg said:
“Why don’t you try hiring men secretaries?”
Blord shook his head. “Men who come to the Ridge Stars are too ambitious to be good employees of anybody. I’ve had two as secretaries. A fellow called Grierson who sold information about me to the Munar I mining people. The money he got he used to start himself up as an operator on one of the Gildal planets. The other man couldn’t bear the thought of all the money I was making, and tried to shoot me.
“You see,” he went on, frowning, “men regard themselves as my competitors; women do not. I’ve had women angry with me because it never even occurred to me to marry them. But no sensitive, intelligent woman—and Magrusson hires no others—has ever tried to do me damage. That may be a callous way of looking at it, but it’s the truth.”
His dark gaze played over the still form of Evana. “This is the first case of a girl being foisted on me with criminal intent. But it merely proves that my habit of hiring only secretaries fresh from Earth, because of their ingrained sense of loyalty, has been found out, and that I’d better investigate the powers behind the Fair Play Employment Agency.”
He broke off, smiled grimly. “So it’s Delaney, Gorder, Dallans, Cansy, Neek and, I have no doubt, the rest of the ninety-four competitors for the prize being offered for a new space drive, who are behind this attack. I knew I’d shock them when I entered the competition two weeks ago. After all the money they’ve spent on research, to have somebody enter who has a reputation for never losing—but I can say honestly this time my conscience is clear. I’m doing it entirely for the good of the Ridge Stars. Well”—he smiled again, wryly—“almost entirely.”
“What’s the dope on that space drive, anyway?” Doc Gregg said.
“My old infallible method,” Blord laughed. “I played bullish on human genius, and bear on human nature. You may not believe this, but my research laboratories didn’t do a stroke of work prior to a month or so ago. And yet we’ve got the winning drive.”
He saw that the old man was staring at him from shrewd gray eyes. “I’m not going to guess what you’re up to, young man. But it looks as if you’ve cut into a hornet’s nest. What about this kid? She’s got five days to live; any bets that they try to save her if she doesn’t deliver the goods?”
“I wouldn’t even bet they’d save her if she did.” Blord snapped. He scowled, said finally. “Damn it, I can’t carry the world on my shoulders. I feel sorry for her, but her only hope is for me to let my capture go through.
“The worst of it is, they’ll be waiting at the impregnable Castle of Pleasure on Delfi 1. It’s the only place where a bunch like that would trust themselves together. If I thought there was one chance in five, I might risk being the guest of the Skal thing, but not—”
He stopped. His eyes narrowed with the sudden thought that came. He grew aware finally that the old medico was looking at him with a grin. Doc Gregg said softly;
“What do you want me to do, son—set everything up as it was?”
“Yes,” said Blord slowly, “yes. It’s that damned instinct of mine for playing with fire. To begin with. I’ll need some preconditioning—”
Evana had a sense of faintness; that was all. Then she straightened; and there was Artur Blord still lighting the cigarette. She stared at him in fascination as he took a deep puff with evident enjoyment. She cringed inwardly as a startled expression leaped into his eyes.
He half-slid, half-fell to the floor and lay there face up, the ceiling light glowing down on hip closed eyes. In that quiet repose, the noble lines of his countenance seemed accentuated; all the sillier aspects of him, the volubility, the immense and casual indiscretions, the braggadocio faded and were lost in that pure physical tranquillity.
He looked like Adonis struck down by the killer boar, like a man already dead, needing only a coffin to seal him forever from life.
It was funny, Evana thought shakily, staring down at him, how she had really known all the time that she couldn’t possibly ever sacrifice anyone else to save herself. Funny how she had known, too, deep in her mind, that only the ultimate moment would bring her face to face with the reality.
Stunned, she sank down in her chair, and buried her face in her hands. After ten minutes Artur Blord stood up from the floor, and said gently:
“Thanks, Miss Travis. Your action in a crisis makes me very glad I decided to try to save you. But now, you’ve got to go through with it. Listen—”
It was about seven minutes later that Delaney’s men landed, and carried Blord aboard the spaceship. The girl went along without a word.
Blord, lying on a narrow bunk, felt the brief strain as the machine launched upward toward Delfi I.
The dark Castle of Pleasure stood on the Mountain of Eternal Night on the dead moon that was the companion planet of Delfi II. Remnant of a forgotten civilization, its scores of towers pierced the heavens like gigantic swords. No man had ever delved into all its labyrinthian depths, for men entered that antique place only by permission of the one living relict of its long-dead builders, by the permission of the Skal thing.
And it wasn’t just because men were being polite, either, Blord remembered grimly. Several secret attempts had been made by Ridge Star governments to smash the structure, to end a particularly hideous form of white-slave traffic. But atomic energy washed from the alien towers like water spraying over steel; the great doors remained impervious to energy blows of a billion horsepower; and patrol ships, commissioned to prevent orgy hunters from seeking the Castle’s unnatural pleasures, had a habit of disappearing, never to be heard from again.
And long ago the Skal thing had let it be known that the castle was a safe meeting place, at a price, for men who couldn’t otherwise trust themselves together. The great operators of the Ridge Stars held cautious test meetings and—
The ship was slowing. Blord grew tense as, somewhere ahead and outside, there was a rattle of metal, a dull roar that ended as swiftly as it began. The ship moved forward, then stopped again. The rattle of metal sounded once more, vibrantly, behind the ship this time.
They were, Blord thought tensely, inside the Castle; and he was committed irrevocably. He lay, eyes closed as tight as ever, but his body was quivering now. He hadn’t long to wait.
Something, a strange, slimy something slithered against his mind. He had expected it; the stories he had heard had even described what it was like, this mind reading by the Skal thing—but the actuality was stunning.
He lay struggling to suppress his horror, and keep his mind quiet, as a visualization transferred from the thing to him, a visualization of a long, scaly, reptile body crouching in some nether darkness, peering into his brain with a glee that had no human counterpart—the Skal projecting an image of itself, And the picture clung; the reptilian mind studied him, and finally sent a caressing, steely thought:
“You puzzle me, Artur Blord, for you are not in mental night, as you pretend. Yet you have come to my old abode, from which none can escape unless my clients will it. I shall watch the unfolding of the plan in your mind, and shall not betray it. But beware! No force of yours, whether by impulse of the agony of the moment or deep-seated will shall prevail.”
Blord made an intense effort, sent a thought straight at that nightmare image:
“I’ll pay you double, treble, what they are paying, if you help me in a crisis.”
Hideous laughter billowed soundlessly in his mind, and finally a satirical thought:
“Would you seduce the honor of my house? Know then that today and until further notice the chamber of torture and all its services belong to those who have it.
Such is my code. So it shall Ire ever.”
Blord snarled, “Go to hell, you damned thing.”
Almost, he said it aloud. But the mind, the image, was withdrawing, still giving vent to its unnatural laughter. Simultaneously—and that was what stopped his words—hands grabbed him out of the bunk. A voice said:
“Lay him on the gravitor roller. Tell Travis she’s got to stay aboard. The boss is going to keep her for a while as his girl friend.”
There was a hiss of air locks opening, then the gravitor began to move. It seemed to be rolling along a glass-smooth floor. The pressure of light on Blord’s eyelids shadowed noticeably; very carefully, and for the first time, he parted them ever so slightly.
He was in a dim tunnel gliding along faster than he had thought. A gleamy roof slid by, a dully lighted surface that seemed to emit a reflection of some remoter light rather than itself being a source.
Abruptly, the tunnel widened, opened up into a large round room. Blord had a swift picture of men shapes in semidarkness. The next instant the gravitor slowed; as it pulled to a stop, a man’s ironic voice said somewhere out of the darkness:
“Ah, our guest has arrived!”
Then: “Waken hint!”
Blord sat up. He had no desire to have the unpleasant revival drug injected into his system. These doped cigarettes were not expected to have a lasting effect, so his return to consciousness should not cause too much suspicion. A few doubts, however, wouldn’t matter.
He peered around him; then, “Good God!” he said.
He mustn’t overdo his surprise, he thought. A little frank bewilderment; and then—
He saw for the first time that a radium bulb, turned dead slow, lay on of protruded from the middle of the floor. A ghostly luminescence shed from it; and it was by that dim radiance that the blobs of men were visible.
The masks the men wore added an inhuman quality to the scene, that ended as the shape that had already spoken said:
“I don’t think we need delay, now that our guest is recovered. We are all busy men; and even the subtle joys of the Castle of Pleasure cannot long hold our various attentions.
“As you know, when the Galactic Co., believing its space drive patents made its position invincible, asked prohibitive rates and impossible preliminary fees to start an organized passenger and transport service in the Ridge Star system, our governments announced an open competition.
“They had purchased local rights to a drive vastly inferior to the superb Galactic drive, and asked competitors to put their research staffs to the task of improving it. All improvements were guaranteed to the companies that made them and, in the event of duplication, an equitable adjustment was promised.”
Now, Blord thought, now! “Pardon me,” he said in an intense voice. “But has anyone developed a drive that’s as much as one quarter as fast as the Galactic? If not, then every person in this meeting is cutting his financial throat.”
“What do you mean?” said a voice.
“Never mind what he means!” roared the man who was standing.
“Can’t you see he’s trying to start us arguing?”
“I mean,” Blord cut in swiftly, “that a property pays according to the speed with which produced goods are transferred to market. The only reason I entered the contest at all was when I heard of some of the ridiculously low speeds that—”
“SHUT UP!”
Blord shrugged, and smiled savagely. He had put over his first point. It was one that had undoubtedly occurred previously to them all, but it could stand stressing. The speaker was continuing:
“Two weeks ago, with a great fanfare, a very flourish of publicity, Artur Blord entered the competition. What had been a serious and expensive business enterprise became a circus. Such is the fantastic reputation of this man that the ninety-four companies which had spent billions of stellors on research were instantly laughingstocks, pitied by newspaper editorials, butts for fools, comedians, pranksters. And there is, of course, no doubt that Blord, knowing his fame, knew also that he could not afford a failure. Therefore, we assumed that he had the prize-winning drive; and, through the Skal, someone called the first meeting, where a plan was agreed upon, and I was selected by lot to carry it out.
“Our purpose is to obtain from Mr. Blord the secret of his drive, and to have him sign over to us all rights to his ship—”
“Is it possible,” Blord marveled, “that the great individualistic operators of the Ridge Stars have at last agreed to co-operate, even if it is only a division of spoils that is involved? However, I’m sorry, you’re all too late.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have already assigned my rights to the Delfi Government, to take effect in the event that I do not turn up at the contest, with the stipulation that a public utility be formed. As for getting the secret out of me, that’s impossible. Purely by accident I had myself counter-hypnotized today, and by some odd coincidence it was about this very matter. However—”
“WHAT?”
The shout was followed by a dead silence that developed into a restless shuffling of bodies. At last, however, a voice said softly:
“At least we can still kill him. At least we can prevent him from being a damned nuisance to us in the future.”
Here, beyond doubt, was death, unless—
Blord climbed slowly down from the gravitor. It struck him for the first time as his feet touched the hard floor that he was not, as he had always believed, a brave man. There was a weakness in his knees that made him feel wobbly.
This damned dim room, he thought shakily. He tried to picture it as it must have been when the Skal things were a young and vibrantly alive race and—
And couldn’t! There was only himself here in this hell hole. He said aloud, grimly:
“You seem to have me, gentlemen. But I would say that you should think twice before you kill me. When I get into traps like this, I am usually prepared to make almost any kind of deal.”
“The rat’s beginning to squeal,” somebody sneered from the dimness.
Blord shrugged. In such circumstances insults did not begin to touch him.
“When I eat humble pie, I eat all of it,” he said coolly. “Now, as I understand it, the two main complaints against me are that I have endangered research investments and that I have made you all the subject of ridicule. It seems to me that if everyone’s investment is guaranteed and the ridicule is turned on me, you gain—”
Somebody exploded. “Is this a man talking or a louse?”
There was a general murmur of disgust; and Blord felt the tensity of contempt that was suddenly out there. In spite of himself he flushed. He knew the codes that governed these far-flung frontiers of space; and he could suddenly visualize how his words, as he was uttering them, would later be broadcast to shame him. The dark picture put sharpness into his tone, as he snapped:
“Hear my proposition at least. It’s to your advantage.”
“Oh, sure,” said a scathing voice. “Let’s hear his proposition. Our stomachs are turned now. The worst shock is over.”
Blord felt a quaver of irritation, intense irritation. They were all crazy, these men who used sex-dope on innocent women, seven-day poison, murder and straight robbery as instruments of their will, to feel so strongly about an apparent show of cowardice. With an effort he fought down his anger. The code was there. It existed. He hadn’t figured it into his plan, but the very starkness of their feelings on the subject made everything easier.
“My ship,” he began, “will win the race. It has attained a speed just under eighty-one percent of a Galactic liner. If anyone can equal that, just let him speak now, and I’ll go quietly to the slaughterhouse. Well?”
After a moment, he went on more sardonically, “I am prepared to make the following offer, to he drawn up immediately, signed and sealed:
“That a joint stock company be formed with an issue of two hundred shares. Of these, fifty shall belong to me. One share each shall be assigned to eac
h of ninety-three of the ninety-four companies, on the condition that they sign over all their patent rights to the new firm.
“The other fifty-seven shares shall be turned over to Selden Delaney, who will operate the company under the Kallear Regulations.
“I must be released immediately after the signing.
“Evana Travis shall be given the antidote and turned over to me unharmed immediately.
“Anyone or group may launch all the ridiculing propaganda they care to against me.
“The whole agreement is nullified unless I am alive at the time of the contest, and it goes into effect only if my ship does in fact win the prize.”
A man shouted, “This will ruin you, Blord. The lowest riffraff will despise you after we get through publicizing how much dirt you’ve eaten.”
It was several hours later that his spaceship flashed down to pick Blord up. And it was then, as he was stepping out of one of the dim tunnels of the Castle into the bright interior of the machine, that he felt the unwholesome touching against his mind that was the thought of the Skal thing:
“Well done, Artur Blord. How they will howl when their ridicule recoils upon them. Your ingenuity has given an unexpected titillation to my old bones. To show my appreciation for such an intellectual delicacy, you may call upon me at any time for one favor. Good luck.”
The slimy mind withdrew into its night.
“But what is your plan?” Evana asked blankly later, as the ship hurtled through space. “You said you had one. But all I can see is that you’re going to lose your reputation, and you’ve signed away seventy-five percent of your rights to the winning space drive. If that’s your idea of victory—And why did you give that terrible Delaney the lion’s share?”
She looked genuinely bewildered. Blord stared at her thoughtfully, said finally:
“Don’t forget that I didn’t have a space drive three weeks ago. And don’t forget, either, that I’m a twenty-five percent man, generally speaking. I can’t be bothered with the details of an operation. What mainly interests me was that there should be a fast transport system.
