Question of Comfort Part 5

Light was unnecessary: I knew the right door. Because it started here, it would end here. Quickly, silently, I slipped inside the Venus room.

With peculiar relief, I realized Frank wasn't it: my nose led me right to the monster.

In an ecstatic, semistuporous state, smelling strongly of sulfur dioxide, he couldn't have been aware of me. Couldn't?

"It took you long enough." He didn't bother to turn from the rock he was huddled against.

"I had to be sure." I felt anything but the calm carried in my voice.

"No wonder the GG got the right answers, with you making initial starts.

Say, were you responsible for the cat that rolled at me?"

"An accident. Obviously, I wanted this room built as much as you."

Harry, now undisguised, languorously turned. "Your little trap didn't quite come off--a danger in fighting a superior intellect."

"No trap. I had a job to do; it's done."

"Job? Job?" Infuriated, leaping to his feet, he shouted, "Speak the native tongue, filth!"

"What's the use? Because of you, I'll never again have the chance. And you no longer have a native tongue."

"Who were those judges," he asked bitterly, "to declare _me_ an outcast?"

"Representatives of an outraged society." I almost lost my temper, thinking of this deviant's crimes. "You were lucky to get banishment instead of death."

He grinned. "So were you."

"True. I tried to find the proper place, where you'd have some chance."

He laughed openly. "I fixed the s.h.i.+p nicely."

"You don't understand at all--"

"I counted on your being a hero, trying to save us. So, I escaped."

"For three years only."

"What do you mean?"

"One of us won't leave here."

Harry frowned, then tried cunning. "Aren't you being silly? We are hopelessly marooned. Surely there are overriding considerations to your childish devotion to duty."

I shook my head. "This is too small a room for us. Even if I trusted you, I couldn't allow you at this naive young world."

Voices suddenly approached. "The GG?" Harry questioned.

"Didn't know they were coming." Desperately, I looked about, found an eroded ma.s.s. "Hide there; I'll get rid of them."

"You'd better--we have business." Possibly it was the only time I've agreed with him. Mel and Dex came in. I called, "Over here!"

Dex snapped his fingers. "_Knew_ it was Venus."

Mel wrinkled his nose. "Sulfur dioxide, too, like we figured. Soda pop, when I broke into that tender scene between you and Frank--that gave you necessary carbon dioxide, right, am I not?"

"Yes ... Why don't you guys leave me alone?" Beginning to falter in the heat, they dripped perspiration. "You could die in this chilly climate."

Dex said, "Listen for a second. We don't have to break up. Let's form a service organization, 'Problems, Inc.' or some equally stupid t.i.tle.

Very soon we could afford a private bedroom, like this, for you to stay in all the time--"

"Need only two or three nights in ten." Harry was moving restlessly. He wouldn't wait much longer. "Combination of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and sulfur under relatively high temperature is how I eat. Pills can subst.i.tute, but not for protracted periods. That's why I had to build this room. Couple of weeks, and I'll be in the pink; as pink as you, anyway."

Abruptly, I lay down, ignoring them. I had to make my friends go. Harry could literally have shredded them. Footsteps: the door closed; relief and loneliness joined me, but only for a moment.

His voice sliced the darkness: "I'm a man of honor, and must warn you.

If we fight, you'll lose. I escaped with far more pills than you; you're weaker."

I said sardonically, "With you stealing parts of my supply, that's probably the only truthful thing you've said!"

"I've been in here three nights, adjusting my metabolism ..."

He came at me then, not breaking his flow of speech. At home, I'd have been surprised at the dishonor. Instead, I was expecting it. He ran into my balled fist.

If we'd been home ... if, if, if, if, if. At full strength, I could have broken his neck with the blow. Now, he simply rolled back and fell.

Laughing, he attacked again. We were weak as babes, and fought like it.

Clumsily, slowly, we went through the motions.

He'd been right--he was a little stronger, and the relative difference began to tell. Soon I was falling from his blows.

Hands on my neck, he kneed me hard in the stomach. Violently ill, I felt the sulfur dioxide rush from my lungs.

I remembered one trick they'd taught at school, and I used it. Unable to break his hold, I managed to get my hands around his throat. We locked, each silent.

Silent until I felt my last reserves going, until the crooning of the Song of Eternity began. This couldn't happen, not to this planet. With all my strength, I gave one last squeeze--but it failed. From somewhere, light-years of light-years away, I heard Frank, realized I'd played the fool: she'd been working for the monster.

A blinding flash inside my head--and the Last Darkness descended.

The light hadn't been inside my head: it flooded the room. Dimly, I was aware of the injection, and immediately felt better. Harry was gone.

The GG, minus one, was gathered around. Mel said, "It was a dilute solution of cerium nitrate. We figured the percentage on the basis of the pill Frank swiped. Hope you aren't poisoned."

"No." My voice was weak, "Need it. Oxidizing agent for the sulfur."

"Harry's dead," Hazel frowned. "When we came in, you'd broken his neck, were crooning to yourself."

So _I_ had been crooning the Song of Eternity? "I'm a"--I felt silly--"a cop on a mission. I waited until whichever of you it was settled down here. That one had to be the criminal, to be done away with."