The Frank Belknap Long Science Fiction Novel

by Frank Belknap Long

  Getting started took very little time. A great thankfulness came upon Corriston when he saw the smooth dark hull of the Mars ship looming high above him, a thousand foot long cylinder of inky blackness against a glimmering wilderness of stars.

  The ship was berthed securely beneath a towering network of telemetric aerials, on a completely circular launching platform that was like a saucer in reverse, with a contractable metal ramp leading up to the wide-open, brightly lighted boarding port at its base.

  There were steps on the ramp, but Corriston knew that when the structure was drawn back into the ship it would collapse like a house of cards, folded back upon itself.

  Helen Ramsey ascended first. Corriston made certain that she would by getting in the commander’s way with a convincing show of accidental clumsiness. He pretended to stumble as he began the ascent, to be all hands and feet.

  The commander swore softly and Corriston was quite sure that he had not been deceived. But there was very little that he could do about it under the circumstances. He had to let Ramsey’s daughter climb the ramp first and she was almost at the top before Corriston started up.

  Corriston was halfway to the top, and the commander and the impatient, tight-lipped executive officers were just starting up, when three tall figures emerged from the darkness at the base of the ramp.

  The attack took place so quickly that it was over almost before it started. The commander and the executive officers didn’t have a chance. One of the emerging men had a gun, and he shot the commander in the stomach with it at almost point-blank range.

  The commander sank down, clutching at his stomach, bent nearly double. Even from where Corriston was standing, he could see the blood trickling down his right leg. The terrible dark wetness directly over the wound was of course invisible, completely concealed by the commander’s tightly laced arms.

  The startled, badly frightened officers turned and tried to get away. But they didn’t get far. The man who had shot the commander picked them off like clay pigeons, one by one, as they fled.

  His two companions did not even seem to be armed. They just stood quietly watching the executive officers die. They died on the launching platform and on the smooth deck beyond, two of them simply dropping in their tracks, a third sprawling grotesquely, and the last staggering on for a few paces. There were four executive officers, and not one escaped. It was butchery, pure and simple, cruel, savage beyond belief.

  Helen Ramsey was already on the ship, and there was no possible way for him to get her off.

  The thought that he was himself in the deadliest kind of danger never even crossed his mind.

  The killer returned his gun to its holster very slowly and deliberately, and then he took it out again. It was a very strange gesture, when every passing second must have been of vital importance to him, but it revealed something very unusual about the man. He evidently liked to feel that he had completed one job and packaged it to his entire satisfaction, before going on to another.

  It was that more than anything else which jolted Corriston into complete awareness, and made it impossible for him to doubt the reality, the utter horror, of what had taken place. The killer had gestured to his companions, and he was coming up the ramp.

  He came slowly up the ramp, and for the first time Corriston saw his face. It was not a face that he would ever forget or ever want to forget. It was the face of the man he had grappled with in the dark and seen once in the light. But now his features were turned away. It was exactly the kind of face which Corriston had pictured him as having, except that it was just a little uglier looking. The slant of the cheekbones even crueler, harsher, the eyes more venomously narrowed, the mouth an uglier gash.

  “All right, Lieutenant,” he said, gesturing with the gun. “Go on ahead. Go on board. We’re going to need you to help pilot this ship to Mars.”

  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.”

  “I see,” Corriston said. “Ramsey was so vulnerable that any determined attack made upon him would have had a fair chance of succeeding. But you worked out a plan for striking at him in a wholly criminal way, through his daughter. Did the miners know that, Henley? Or did they just give you their backing in a general way? You probably seemed to them the kind of man who would go after Ramsey hammer and tongs.”

  “Suppose we just say they knew I’d find a way to make Ramsey meet all of our demands.” Henley smiled thinly. “The details they left to me.” He paused an instant, then went on: “Right after Helen Ramsey disappeared, I did some hard thinking. It occurred to me that she might be wearing a mask too. So I watched all of the women in the quarantine cage and when one of them slipped out I followed her.”

  “As simple as that!”

  “It wasn’t simple. The girl’s disappearance on the shuttle ship had me completely baffled at first. It wasn’t until we reached the Station that the mask possibility occurred to me.”

  “We talked about that once before, remember?”

  “You were lucky then, Corriston. I tried very hard to kill you, simply because I thought you knew more about Helen Ramsey’s disappearance than you actually did. In that dark cargo compartment, with time running out on me, I couldn’t think very clearly. Anything more you’d like to know?”

  “Yes. How many men did Ramsey succeed in substituting for the rightful 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.

  “Di
d 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.