by Ipomoea
"Yes, but—" Venner started to complain. Joe grinned.
"I saw what the sun-stone did to Mr. Hutten. It did nothing to me at all. So I took a chance. I had to, anyway, in the end."
"You saved my life!" Louise said it with dramatic emphasis. "Joe, I'm all yours. Joe! Joe?"
"How the hell did you get in, anyway?" Venner demanded, ignoring her posturing entirely.
"That was a guess," Joe admitted, just as if she wasn't stroking his arm and shoulder. "There had to be machinery somewhere. There had to be a good reason why the villa was backed into the mountain. The tracer showed that you were somewhere inside the mountain, so the deduction was obvious. And it followed that there had to be air-shafts of some kind."
"Isn't he wonderful?" Louise demanded. "When he stood there like Ajax defying the lightnings, I thought we were all dead for sure. That man had us all tied in knots without even lifting a finger. And the pain!"
"I'll endorse that," Sam said, with feeling. "But what I still do not quite get is why you were immune. And what happened, anyway? Did the gadget backfire?"
"Something like that." Venner sighed. "It tells you in all the old magic books that it's dangerous to call up forces if you can't control them and use them. They have to go somewhere in the end. And they didn't work on Joe because they are on a level that he doesn't inhabit. Incidentally"—the old man turned to his impassive assistant, and there was a note in his voice that made them all pay attention—"these aliens knew a thing or two about the mind, Joe. More than we do. This place is a treasure trove of all sorts of information, and if Eklund could learn to read it, we can. And there might well be stuff here that will enable us to do something about you, boy. D'you want to think about that?"
Joe stood a moment in careful thought, then shrugged.
Tm quite content the way I am, sir. I can't see that having a personal ego sense would be any great gain to me."
"I love you just the way you are," Louise declared warmly.
"As far as I can see," Joe went on as if she hadn't spoken, "this awareness of being someone seems to be one of the chief causes of most of the distress and unhappiness in people."
"I'm not at all sure that you don't have a point there." Sam sighed ruefully. "There were moments, just now, when I wished I was somebody else, and somewhere else* too."
"You did all right, son!" Venner cracked a grin that must have hurt his bruises. "It took nerve to walk in here the way you did. Well, now, let's have a check around, shall we? There's a lot of ends to be tied off before we can relax. There can be no doubt about Eklund being dead, so we won't waste time on him. What about the other two?"
On inspection Brandt proved to have a burn-mark discoloration in the palm of his hand, and there was a similar scar on Corinne's breast—no traces of sun-stones—and both were quite dead.
"Hmm!" Venner clamped his jaw grimly. "I don't like that. He was raving mad when he shouted that death-wish, and the power was in full spate. 'Die, damn you'—and they died! I don't like it!"
"Are you suggesting he broadcast a death-wish to all and sundry?" Sam was aghast as the idea sank home.
"Well have to check it. Joe, how's the android creature?"
"Same as the others, sir. And I didn't hit him that hard."
"All right, let's get out of here and where I can find a phone. Come on!"
Long before they got as far as finding Eklund's phone the dreadful suspicion had received further support, was now almost a certainty. In the salon there was the dismal sight of all the lamp-standard slaves fallen and sprawled at random like so many collapsed dummies. All were dead. Out in the morning room, while Venner searched for the communication center, Sam found his way to the luxurious bathroom, and reported back.
"They're all dead in there too, Venner. This is awful!"
"It's even worse than you think!" Louise came back in from the balcony, her flippant humor quite gone for the moment. "As far as I can see from here, all the herd animals are dead too. And, presumably, the slave-staff who looked after them!"
Venner had the phone, was barking at the sleepy-eyed Jos6 Ramirez at the other end. "Get out all your feelers. I want to know about any reports of mysterious sudden deaths —you what?"
"I was about to tell you, sir. Already the radio news is coming in all about it. Here in the city several of the Brandt plant foremen and overseers have been found dead. Also from the spaceport, several customs men, and stewardesses—and more coming in all the time! What is it, sir, some kind of plague?"
"No, not that. It won't spread. Keep listening. I'll call you back soon."
Venner broke the link and shook his head, his voice growling in his throat as he said, "Would anybody care to take bets that this—plague—death-roll—will stretch to take in Zera? And Ophir?"
"And all the way back to Earth," Sam whispered, sinking into a couch as his knees gave way. "What are we going to do?"
"I'll tell you one of the very first things, Hutten. Did I say this place held a treasure house of information? Well, I take that back. This kind of information we can well do without. What one man can do, another can copy, and we don't want another Eklund. So I say this. We four, here, are the only ones who know about this place, and the damned aliens. I say we keep quiet about it, and, just as soon as ever we can, we fix up some way to blow the whole damned thing to hell and gone. Get rid of it forever. Anybody want to challenge that?"
Nobody did. His next suggestion was practical, and easy to follow.
"Best thing we can all do right now is take time out to clean up, eat, and think. Let's do that."
An hour later, when they were rested, refreshed and reasonably clean, with bright sunlight outdoors to help restore a sense of perspective, they gathered again to talk. Venner had been on the phone every fifteen minutes during the break, and the news had confirmed their worst suspicions.
"No doubt about it, Hutten. That crazy genius had every top man in all the key points right in his hand, and they are all dead. It's a mess. The three-planet system is a shambles!" The phone twittered at him. He came back within minutes looking savage.
"That puts the lid on it. Ramirez had an ethergram from Earth, for me. I asked to be kept informed of anything new about the Happy Sugar business. This is new. All known addicts, in all stages, just dropped dead—like that! The sooner this place goes up in a big boom with dust and smoke the better I will like it. But that won't be the end." He aimed his sharp eyes at Sam. "Hutten, you have a jumbo-sized job on your hands."
"Me?" Sam shrank back into his seat. "Why pick on me?"
"Because you are the only legitimate and genuine survivor of this system's financial empire. You are the logical man to take control. You are the only one entitled to do so."
Sam boggled at the thought. "But I couldn't! Me? Take control of the whole shoot?"
"You'll have to. And quick, too, otherwise you'll have financial collapse, anarchy, every get-rich-quick sharpie in the cosmos headed this way with his digging tools out-imagine! But you'll have help. Me, Joe, and Louise, here. And there'll be plenty of others, just as soon as I can send for them. All right?"
Sam looked at it, looked very hard for a hole to crawl through, but he couldn't find one. He cast an anxious eye over the tense faces watching him, and gulped, and gave in.
"All right, if you say so. But with help!"
"That's fine. You'll do all right, Hutten. Let's not waste time. Joe, you take that jet-plane and get back to Verdan City, bring some stuff to blast this place—enough to crumble the entire damned mountain. . . ."
As the pair of them strode off Louise got up, smiled, came and sat very close to Sam, putting her hand on his wrist.
"You helped save my life, too," she said. "Never mind that Joe. He's just a yes-man. Didn't I always say I intended to marry a millionaire?"
Sam managed a grin to match her humor, but shook his head. "You'd better stick with Joe. It looks as if I'm going to be too busy to have time for anything else at all!"
"Don't you believe it!" she retorted. "With a really good secretary to help him, no man is that busy. And I am very good. So good that before you know it I'll be indispensable. You'll see!"
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