Part 7

Then he saw it, the long cylindrical hull touched by a pale glimmer of starlight, the circular, glowing ports, the massive, atomic-projectile launching turrets at its base. He saw it through the viewport, saw it past the commander's stiffening shoulders--an American war cruiser of formidable tonnage and armed with sufficient fire power to shatter a small moon.

All right, let the Big Dark contain it for a moment, poised out there, ready for any contingency. Right at the moment a scoundrel must be unmasked in a very stark way. Whatever trouble he had brought upon himself, he must be made to face it now without the mask.

Corriston unholstered his gun and walked toward the commander across the deck. He came up behind him and thrust the gun into the small of his back.

"Turn around," he ordered. "Don't make any other move. Just turn slowly and face me. I want to take a good look at your face."

If the commander was startled, he didn't show it. Perhaps the war cruiser had dealt him such a crushing blow that he was no longer capable of experiencing shock. Or his control may have been extraordinary. Corriston had no way of knowing and it didn't concern him too much.

He was chiefly interested in the commander's eyes. He had never before seen eyes quite so piercing in their stare or narrowed in quite such an ugly way.

The commander spoke almost instantly and his voice had a steel-cold rasp. "Well?" he said.

Just a few words--just the shortest possible question he could have asked.

Corriston said: "You're wearing a mask, aren't you, commander?"

The impostor's expression did not change, but his hand went instinctively to his throat.

"Remove your tie and unbutton your collar," Corriston said.

The man made another quick gesture with his hand in the direction of his throat. But it seemed involuntary, protective, for he did not touch his collar.

Corriston shifted his weapon a little, moving the barrel upward until it pressed very firmly against the commander's breastbone. He reached out and unbuttoned the commander's collar with his free hand, very quickly and expertly.

He was staring at the tiny hooks at the base of the mask when something happened which made him regret that he had not followed his original intention of instantly ripping the mask from the man's face.

The door opened and the three executive officers came into the control room. For an instant they seemed neither to see nor understand the situation. They must have seen Corriston, but the fact that he was wearing a guard's uniform may have given them the idea that he had every right to be there. The gun was concealed from view and the commander was standing very quietly by the viewport and quite obviously incapable of making any move, simply because the slightest move would have endangered his life.

So the executive officers went right on talking for an instant, half to themselves and half to the commander, just as if Corriston had not been present at all.

"If that cruiser lands, Ramsey's goose is cooked and ours is too," a tall officer said. "The instant that freighter crashed I knew they'd find out quickly enough how the ships had been carrying smuggled uranium. I knew that under pressure, half of our captains would talk ... and the crews, too. All the government would have to do is check and they'd find out that we're Ramsey's men, all of us. They might even now know about the masks."

"Why not about the masks?" another officer joined in. "Ramsey paid for the research that went into them, didn't he? Big tycoon ... fingers in a dozen pies. When the secret's out, and he puts them on the market, he'll make important money out of it. But we'll be in prison with just our own faces staring back at us from a steel wall."

"Don't worry about that. Ramsey won't profit from the manufacture of masks. He won't even profit from the false uranium clearance we gave him. If that cruiser is allowed to land he'll be in prison with us."

"Better think that over, Commander. You refused to let the Governmental Investigating Committee land. If a single soldier sets foot on the Station we're done for. It's not too late to do something about it. That cruiser can only berth by overtaking us. If we change our orbit fast and start blasting at them with our rear adjusting rockets they'll have to keep their distance?"

"Aren't you forgetting something? A single atomic warhead could blow the Station apart."

"We've got to risk that. They'll think a long time before they'll go that far. The Station's not expendible. If we change our orbit we can still make contact with the Mars ship that's due to berth in an hour. We've got to get back to Mars and whatever protection Ramsey can give us. We'll have his daughter with us. He'll be so glad to see her he'll go out on a limb to protect us."

"He'd go out on a limb anyway; He'd have to in order to save himself. But sure, we'll take the girl. No harm in that. He knows she's here and will be expecting her. He'll thank us for taking things so quickly in hand. If that crazy lieutenant had made his story public that cruiser would have been out there anyway--perhaps even sooner. They'd have wanted to know on Earth why anyone would want to harm Ramsey's daughter, something we don't know ourselves."

Corriston decided then that he'd kept silent long enough. He returned his gun to its holster, and walked up to the three executive officers, completely ignoring the commander.

He heard the commander threaten him in a low tone, heard him say words which would have caused some men to pause in fear. But Corriston did not turn.

There was stunned disbelief in the eyes of the three men facing him. He spoke quickly, knowing that he had only a moment before the commander would see that he was seized and restrained. He had to make sure that the three would hear him out, that the commander would not be instantly obeyed. Perhaps he couldn't make sure, but at least he could try.

"I'll make a bargain with you," he said. "I've done reckless things but I'm not a complete fool. You're going to prevent that cruiser from berthing and I won't be able to interfere. I'm just one man against several hundred. All three of you are armed. If I started shooting I'd get perhaps two of you--no more. Then you'd kill me. I haven't even the advantage of surprise. I gave that up because I can't believe you're complete fools either.

"First, I want to see Helen Ramsey. I want you to let me talk to her. And when the Mars' ship berths, I want to go to Mars with her. I've something to offer in return."

One of the officers stared at him, tightened his lips and stared harder. "Good God!" he muttered. "Good God! A bargain. You must be out of your mind. What could you possibly offer? If you had a gun trained on us--"

"A witness in your defense," Corriston said. "A witness who will stand up in court and swear that you did try to protect Helen Ramsey, that you saved her from a very great danger. You may think that you do not need a witness now, but before the year is out Ramsey will be on trial for his life. His wealth won't save him. They know too much about him now. That freighter explosion killed too many people. The public outcry will be too great.

"If you stay on Mars you'll be hunted down like wild animals. They'll get you in the end and you know it. You'll be brought back to Earth; you'll stand trial."

Corriston paused for the barest instant, knowing that the commander too was listening, knowing from the absence of sound and movement behind him that his words were being weighed. "I think you know that I would not break my word. I'll stand up in court and defend you under oath. I'll be speaking the simple truth. You _did_ save Helen Ramsey from a very great danger; you probably saved her life. That is sure to weigh in your favor with any impartial judge and jury. You won't get the death penalty; I can promise you that."

It was the commander who spoke first. He said, very quietly. "He's right, of course. Completely right."

One of the officers nodded. "There's no reason why we shouldn't let him talk to the girl. We can decide later whether we like his offer."

"We're going to like it," the commander said, coming around in front of Corriston. "He has more sense than I would have given him credit for."

"So have you, commander," Corriston said, and meant it.

The commander's eyes were still hostile, unfriendly, but the cold rage had gone out of them.

"All right," he said. "Let him see the girl now. Make sure a guard is stationed at the door. Keeping that cruiser from berthing won't be easy. They'll keep the Station under fire with small projectiles, even if they don't attack us with atomic warheads. They'll risk some damage just to throw a scare into us."

The officer next to Corriston nudged his arm. "All right," he said. "But remember this when you talk to her. She doesn't know the truth about us. She doesn't even know we're wearing masks. We'd like it better if you didn't say anything about it."

"Whether she knows it or not isn't too important," Corriston said. "I suppose you wouldn't care to tell me what you've done with Commander Clement and the other officers."

"No, we wouldn't care to tell you. Anything more?"

"I guess not," Corriston said. "Take me to her."

12

He was staring at her across a shadowed room, with the pale glimmer of a cabin viewport above her right shoulder, a very small port that looked like a full moon glimmering high in the sky through a sea of mist.

Her face was very white and she was staring back at him as if he had come suddenly out of nowhere.

She hesitated only an instant and then walked straight toward him, walked right up to him and touched him gently on the face.

"I'm so glad," she said.

She drew back then and looked at him and smiled. "I was afraid you were in trouble because of me," she said, "some terrible kind of trouble, and I couldn't help you at all. I kept blaming myself for everything foolish that I had ever done, going way back to the day when I broke my first doll, deliberately and spitefully, because I was a very headstrong little girl."

"I'm afraid I've always been pretty headstrong myself," Corriston said. "But being a boy, I naturally couldn't break dolls. I just wrecked the family's peace of mind."

"We all go through life with a great deal of foolish luggage," she said. "And sometimes you have an impulse to just drop everything--and run away."

"I can understand that," Corriston said. "But did you have to run away quite so fast? It's hard to believe it was for anybody's good, including your own."

"It might have been," she said. "It might have been for my good and then later, partly for your good. Please don't judge me too harshly before I've had a chance to tell you exactly what happened."

He reached out for her and kissed her even as she came into his arms. He had expected her to be angry, to withdraw, but instead she encircled his strong back with a surprising fierceness. When he released her, her eyes were shining.

"I'm glad you did that ... darling! Very glad. But we're still in trouble."

"I know that. But we're in love, too. And you just promised to tell me what happened."

"Well, I guess I just ... just regressed."

"You what?"

"Regressed. You know, like when I was a headstrong little brat of a child. We all do that at times. You'll have to admit there was some excuse for me. You weren't born in a house with a hundred rooms, with servants always coming and going, and outside gardens with big red and yellow flowers where you couldn't even run and hide without being smothered, without being searched for and brought screaming and kicking back inside.

"You don't know what it means to know you haven't a father, only a stern, cold, black-coated man standing away off in the darkness somewhere and watching people bow down before him.

"You don't know what it means to be told: 'You're Stephen Ramsey's daughter. _Behave. Behave. Behave!_'"

"I scarcely ever saw my father. And when I did see him he was as cold as one of the slabs in the big mausoleum he took so much pride in, the big family mausoleum which only a Ramsey was permitted to visit. And yet I think he loved me in his own cold way. I think he still does."

She fell silent for a moment and then an overpowering need to tell Corriston more seemed to come upon her.

"I was never allowed to see young men, not even to go for a ride in the park. Anyone of them might be a fortune seeker, because no young man, even if he is madly in love with a girl, can quite shut his eyes to wealth as one additional reason for loving her.

"So I never saw any young men. I wasn't permitted to even go to a dance, or walk in the moonlight on a balcony. I wanted to go to dances, wanted at least one young man to kiss me damned hard."

"Sure you did," Corriston said. "I understand."

"I'm going to stop right there, darling. I could tell you what it means to be free to travel, anywhere, anywhere in the world and to see all of the white and shining cities, and to be intoxicated by beauty, and to know at the same time that you are not free, can never hope to be free as other people are free."

"And that's why you ran away."

"Yes, darling, yes, and because that bodyguard was a complete fool. He was just one of thirty bodyguards my father had hired to protect me, year after year. But he was the biggest fool of all. He drank too much and he talked too much. Finally I made up my mind that I would be better off if I went on to Mars alone. My father had told me I could come, the trip had been carefully planned down to the smallest detail. I was to travel incognito. I was to keep to myself until I arrived at the Station and no one was supposed to know I was even on the ship, not even the captain. I'm quite sure he didn't know. I think the invitation to his cabin was a complete fabrication. In fact, I'm sure it was. I think Clakey--his real name was Ewers--was just drunk enough to make up a crazy story like that to get me away from you.

"But I didn't want to get away from you, darling. I wanted to get away from him. I wanted to have a few days of complete freedom before I arrived on Mars, and perhaps after that for a day in the colony before I joined my father. I didn't care how angry he'd be when he saw me without a bodyguard, alone, wonderfully, gloriously alone and free for the first time in my life. I didn't want to be Helen Ramsey at all. I wanted to be somebody else and be completely free.

"So I went into the ladies room, darling, and I put on the strangest kind of mask."

"Yes," Corriston said. "I know."

"You know about the mask?"

"Please go on," Corriston said. "I'd rather you didn't ask me how I know that your father can take pride in at least one constructive achievement. The masks are extraordinary. I've seen one."

"But how? Where? I can't believe it. I--"

"Please," Corriston said. "It isn't too important. I made a necessary promise that I wouldn't tell you, not immediately. I'm asking you to trust me and go on."

"Well, I secured one of those very unusual masks. From the Gresham-Ramsey Laboratories, before we left Earth. I could go there anytime I wanted to. All of the research technicians there are quite old. One of them, Thomas Webb, is really quite handsome. I might have fallen in love with him if he had been forty years younger. He showed me just how to adjust the mask. But when I went into the ladies' lounge I had more than just a mask. I had a complete thin plastic change of clothing concealed under my dress. I didn't remove my dress, only reversed my clothing so that the plastic dress covered the one I'd been wearing."

Corriston said, "It was a very courageous thing for you to do."

"I'm glad you think so, darling. Because when I came out of the lounge and saw Ewers killed, I wasn't courageous at all. I became panic-stricken, terrified, beside myself with fear. I knew that my father had many dangerous enemies. I knew that I was in immediate, deadly danger. I _had_ to go on with the disguise then. I had to go right on being somebody else. I couldn't tell anyone. I couldn't even tell you. I had to let you think that in some strange, bewildering way I had gone into the lounge and disappeared.

"I knew you wouldn't really believe that, not for a moment. But I didn't know what you'd think. I _could_ have told you, I suppose, but I was afraid it would only make the danger greater, might transfer some of the danger to you. And I didn't know you'd go straight to the captain and get yourself into trouble. There were rumors on the Station that you'd been confined, put under guard. But they were only rumors. I felt I had to see you, talk to you. I was half out of my mind with anxiety. I bribed one of the guards to let me out of the quarantine cage and went in search of you.

"I searched everywhere, followed passageways at random, got lost in a maze of machinery."

"And someone followed you," Corriston said. "He followed you and tore the mask from your face."

She looked at him with wide, startled eyes. "How did you know?"

"I was there," Corriston said. "You fainted and I took you into my arms--for the very first time. You didn't know that, did you?"

"How could I have known? If what you say is true, I--"

Helen Ramsey did not complete what she had started to say. Had she done so she might not have been thrown so abruptly off-balance by the suddenly lurching deck; she would have moved closer to Corriston and could have seized hold of his shoulders for support.

She did not fall, but she nearly did, and the lurch sent her tottering all the way to the opposite wall. Corriston saw her collide with the wall and sink to her knees. At the same instant his own knees collapsed.

He was lying sprawled out on the deck, too startled and shaken to go immediately to her aid, when the second lurch came. It spun him about, and then he was sliding. He couldn't seem to stop the sliding. He went all the way to the opposite wall too.

For a brief instant they were together again, locked in a desperate embrace, their legs higher than their heads. Then the deck righted itself and the bombardment began.

It was a terrifying thing to have to listen to, and Corriston preferred to listen to it on his feet. Slowly he arose and helped his companion up, holding her in so tight a grip that it seemed to them that they had been welded together and could never part.

He was glad that he could be completely sure of one thing. It wasn't a nuclear bombardment--not yet. The cruiser was merely shelling the Station. When the cruiser launched an atomic warhead he'd know about it--rather, he wouldn't know. The fact that he was still alive and aware of what was going on told him a great deal about the nature of the bombardment.

"What is it?" Helen Ramsey whispered. "Do you know?"

"We're the catspaw in a naval attack," Corriston said. "The commander took a very great risk."

It was incredible, but right at the moment he felt himself to be in the scoundrel's corner. He didn't want the Station to be blown apart in the great empty spaces between the planets any more than the commander did.

When Corriston reached the viewport and stared out, the cruiser was following the Station far off to the side, in an obvious effort to outmaneuver it by maintaining a parallel rather than a directly pursuing course. But it was not escaping the swiftly turning Station's stern rocket jets. Blinding bursts of incandescence spiraled toward it through the void, and once or twice scored direct hits.

He saw the cruiser shudder throughout its length, and then draw back, almost as if it were endowed with life and had nerves and arteries that could be ripped apart.

There _were_ mechanical arteries that could easily enough be ripped. For an instant Corriston stared with a strange kind of detachment, freed from the terrible tension and uncertainty by his absolute absorption in the battle itself, freed from the almost mind-numbing sense of participating in a struggle that could end in utter disaster for Station and cruiser alike. He knew that if the cruiser maneuvered in too close, the puffs of flame from the Station's jets could turn into superheated gases roaring through space, destroying everything in their path.

The Station, too, was only a pulsebeat from fiery annihilation. And a pulsebeat could be terrifyingly brief. But the decision had been made and there could be no turning back.

Aboard the cruiser the decision had certainly come from very high up. Corriston turned the thought slowly over in his mind, still in the grip of his strange detachment. Just what did "very high up" mean?

It meant--it had to mean--a conflict of personalities, the hot-headedness or stubbornness or glory-seeking that went with every decision made by strong-willed men.

Aboard the cruiser someone had acted. After consultation? On just an impulse? In blind rage because the Station had ignored a warning that had been repeated twice?

There was no way of knowing. But on the cruiser men were dying. That was important too. Just how reckless had the decision been?

In space, military science has never been an exact science. Sonic echoes alone can kill, and in a pressurized compartment blowups happen. Jet-supports can be placed at the best of all possible angles and still fly off into space. Compressed air shot out of pressure vents can turn bone and flesh into soft oozing jelly.

The cruiser was changing its course again. It had failed, in a maneuver, twice repeated, to draw close at almost right angles to the Station, and had taken terrible punishment from below, above and straight ahead.

But the cruiser was still firing. And Corriston not only saw the bursts of flame, he felt the blasts in his eardrums, his brain and the soles of his feet. And suddenly he saw flames darting out directly beneath him, and knew that the Station was on fire.