Four for Tomorrow Part 5

"I mean, sir, there are some as I wouldn't mind b.u.min'. Code or no Code. But not the way you do it, sir.

And I'd do it for free to those as have it coming."

"Huhl"

Corgo moved his one bishop.

"That's why my money is no good with you?"

"No, sir. That's not it, sir. Well maybe part . . . But only part. I just couldn't take pay for helping someone I- respected, admired."

"You use the past tense."

"Yessir. But I still think you got a raw deal, and what they did to the Drillen was wrong and bad and-evil- but you can't hate everybody for that, sir, because every- body didn't do it."

"They countenanced it, Emil-which is just as bad. I am able to hate them all for that alone. And people are all alike, all the same. I b.u.m without discrimination these days, because it doesn't really matter who. The guilt is equally distributed. Mankind is commonly cul- pable."

48."No, sir, begging your pardon, sir, but in a system as big as Interstel not everybody knows what everybody else is up to. There are those feeling the same way you do, and there are those as don't give a d.a.m.n, and those who just don't know a lot of what's going on, but who would do something about it if they knew, soon enough."

"It's your move, Emil."

"Yessir."

"You know, I wish you'd accepted a commission, Eroil.

You had the chance. You'd have been a good officer."

"No, sir. I'd not have been a good officer. I'm too easy- going. The men would've walked all over me."

"It's a pity. But it's always that way. You know? The good ones are too weak, too easy-going. Why is that?"

"Dunno, sir."

After a couple of moves: "You know, if I were to give it up-the burning, I mean -and just do some ordinary, decent smuggling with the Wallaby, it would be okay. With me. Now. I'm tired.

I'm so d.a.m.ned tired I'd just like to sleep-oh, four, five, six years, I think. Supposing I stopped the burning and 33 just s.h.i.+pped stuff here and there-would you sign on with me then?"

Td have to think about it. Cap."

"Do that, then. Please. I'd like to have you along."

"Yessir. Your move, sir."

It would not have happened that he'd have been found by his actions, because he did stop the burning; it would not have happened-because he was dead on ICI's books-that anyone would have been looking for him. It happened, though-because of a surfeit of xmili and good will on the part of the hunters.

On the eve of the breaking of the fellows.h.i.+p, nostalgia followed high spirits.

49.Bened.i.c.k had never had a friend before, you must re- member. Now he had three, and he was leaving them.

The Lynx had ingested much good food and drink, and the good company of simple, maimed people, whose neuroses were unvitiated with normal sophistication- and he had enjoyed this.

Sandor's sphere of human relations had been ex- panded by approximately a third, and he had slowly come to consider himself at least an honorary member of the vast flux which he had only known before as humanity, or Others.

So, in the library, drinking, and eating and talking, they returned to the hunt. Dead tigers are always the best kind.

Of course, it wasn't long before Bened.i.c.k picked up the heart, and held it as a connoisseur would an art ob- ject-gently, and with a certain mingling of awe and affection.

As they sat there, an odd sensation crept into the pudgy paranorm's stomach and rose slowly, like gas, un- til his eyes burned.

"I-I'm reading," he said.

"Of course"-the Lynx. '

"Yes"-Sandor.

"Really!"

"Naturally"-the Lynx. "He is on Disten, fifth world of Blake's System, in a native hut outside Landear-"

"No"-Sandor. "He is on Phillip's World, in Delles-by- the-Sea."

They laughed, the Lynx a deep rumble, Sandor a gasping chuckle, 34 "No," said Bened.i.c.k. "He is in transit, aboard the Wal- laby. He had just phased and his mind is still mainly awake. He is running a cargo of ambergris to the Tau Ceti system, fifth planet-Tholmen. After that he plans on vacationing in the Red River Valley of the third 50.planet-Cardiff. Along with the Drillen and the puppy, he has a crewman with him this time. I can't read any- thing but that it's a retired Guardsman."

"By the holy Light of the Great and Glorious Flame!"

"We know they never did find his s.h.i.+p. . . ."

". . . And his body was not recovered.-Could you be mistaken. Bened.i.c.k? Beading something, someone else . . . ?".

"No."

"What should we do. Lynx?"-Sandor.

"An unethical person might be inclined to forget it. It is a closed case. We have been paid and dismissed."

"True."

"But think of when he strikes again. . . ."

". . . It would be because of us, our failure."

"Yes."

". . . And many would die."

". . . And much machinery destroyed, and an insur- ance a.s.sociation defrauded."

"Yes."

". . . Because of us."

"Yes."

"So we should report if-Lynx.

"Yes."

"It is unfortunate. . . ."

"Yes."

". . . But it will be good to have worked together this final time."

"Yes. It will. Very."

"Tholmen, in Tau Ceti, and he just phased?"-Lynx.

"Yes."

"I'll call, and they'll be waiting for him in T.C."

35 "... I told you," said the weeping paranorm. "He wasn't ready to die."

Sandor smiled and raised his gla.s.s with his flesh-col- ored hand.

51.There was still some work to be done.

When the Wallaby hit Tau Ceti all h.e.l.l broke loose.

Three fully-manned Guards.h.i.+ps, like onto the Wallaby herself were waiting.

ICI had quarantined the entire system for three days.

There could be no mistaking the ebony toadstool when it appeared on the screen. No identiBcation was so- licited.

The tractor beams missed it the first time, however, and the Wallaby's new First Mate fired every weapon aboard the s.h.i.+p simultaneously, in all directions, as soon as the alarm sounded. This had been one of Corgo's small alterations in fire-control, because of the size of his oper- ations: no safety circuits; and it was a suicide-s.h.i.+p, if necessary: it was a lone wolf with no regard for any pack: one central control-touch it, and the Wallaby became a porcupine with laser-quills, stabbing into any- thing in every direction.

Corgo prepared to phase again, but it took him forty- three seconds to do so.

During that time he was struck twice by the surviving Guards.h.i.+p.

Then he was gone.

Time and Chance, which govern all things, and some- times like to pa.s.s themselves off as Destiny, then seized upon the Wallaby, the puppy, the Drillen, First Mate Emil, and the man without a heart.

Corgo had set no course when he had in-phased. There had been no time.

The two blasts from the Guards.h.i.+p had radically al- tered the Wallaby's course, and had burnt out twenty- three fast-phase projectors.

The Wallaby jumped blind, and with a broken leg.

Continuum-impact racked the crew. The hull repaired rents in its skin.

52.They continued for thirty-nine hours and twenty-three minutes, taking turns at sedation, watching for the first warning on the panel.

The Wallaby held together, though.

36 But where they had gotten to no one knew, least of all a weeping paranorm who had monitored the battle and all of Corgo's watches, despite the continuum-im- pact and a hangover.

But suddenly Bened.i.c.k knew fear: "He's about to phase-out. I'm going to have to drop him now."

"Why?"-the Lynx.

"Do you know where he is?"

"No, of course not!"

"Well, neither does he. Supposing he pops out in the middle of a sun, or in some atmosphere-moving at that speed?"

"Well, supposing he does? He dies."

"Exactly. Continuum-impact is bad enough. I've never been in a man's mind when he died-and I don't think I could take it. Sorry. I just won't do it. I think I might die myself if it happened. I'm so tired now. ... I'll just have to check him out later."

With that he collapsed and could not be roused.

So, Corgo's heart went back into its jar, and the jar went back into the lower right-hand drawer of Sandor's desk, and none of the hunters heard the words of Cor- go's answer to his First Mate after the phasing-out: "Where are we?-The Comp says the nearest thing is a little ping-pong ball of a world called Dombeck, not noted for anything. We'll have to put down there for repairs, somewhere off the beaten track. We need pro- jectors."

So they landed the Wallaby and banged on its hull as 53.the hunters slept, some five Jiundred forty-two miles away.

They were grinding out the projector sockets shortly after Sandor had been tucked into his bed.

They reinforced the hull in three places while the Lynx ate half a ham, three biscuits, two apples and a pear, and drank half a liter of Dombeck's best Mosel.

They rewired shorted circuits as Bened.i.c.k smiled and dreamt of Bright Bad Barby the Bouncing Baby, in the days of her youth.

And Corgo took the light-boat and headed for a town three hundred miles away, just as the pale sun of Dom- beck began to rise.

37 "He's here!" cried Bened.i.c.k,flinging wide the door to the Lynx's room and rus.h.i.+ng up to the bedside. "He's-"

Then he was unconscious, for the Lynx may not be ap- proached suddenly as he sleeps.

When he awakened five minutes later, he was lying on the bed and the entire household stood about him. There was a cold cloth on his forehead and his throat felt crushed.

"My brother," said the Lynx, "you should never ap- proach a sleeping man in such a manner."

"B-but he's here," said Bened.i.c.k, gagging. "Here on Dombeck! I don't even need Sandor to tell!"

"Art sure thou hast not imbibed too much?"