the book discouraged in its captains.
They might lose a carrier in this kind of operation, maybe more than one, come
jolting in too close, take each other out The odds were in favor of its
happening. They rode Mazian’s Luck… that it would not. That was their edge, that
they would do what no one sane could do, and shock aided them.
The schematics appeared, one after the other. They argued, for the most part
listened and accepted, for there was little to which they wished to object. They
shared a meal, returned to the briefing room, argued the last round.
“One day for rest,” Mazian said. “We go at maindawn, day after tomorrow. Set it
up in comp; check and doublecheck.”
They nodded, parted company, each to his own ship, and there was a peculiar
flavor to the parting as well… that when next they met, they would be fewer.
“See you in hell,” Chenel muttered, and Porey grinned.
A day to get it all into comp; and the appointment was waiting.
Chapter Five
« ^ »
Cyteen Station: Security area: 9/14/52
Ayres awoke, not sure what had wakened him in the quiet of their apartments.
Marsh had gotten back… the latest fright they had had, when he failed to rejoin
them after recreation. Tension afflicted Ayres. He realized that for some time
he had slept tense, for his shoulders hurt and his hands were clenched, and he
lay still now with sweat gathered on his face, not sure what had caused it
The war of nerves had not ceased. Azov had what he wanted, a message calling
Mazian in. They quibbled now over some points of secondary agreements, for the
future of Pell, which Jacoby professed to hand to Union. They had their
recreation time, that much, but they were detained in conferences, harassed by
petty tactics the same as before. It was as if all his appeal to Azov had only
aggravated the situation, for Azov was not accessible for the last five days…
gone, the lesser authorities insisted, and the difficulties raised for them now
had the taint of malice.
Someone was astir outside. Soft footsteps. The door slid back unannounced.
Dias’s silhouette leaned into it. “Segust,” she said. “Come. You must come. It’s
Marsh.”
He rose and reached for his robe, then followed Dias. Karl Bela was stirring him
from his room likewise, next door to him. Marsh’s room was across the sitting
room, next to Dias’s, and the door was open.
Marsh hung, gently turning, by his belt looped from a hook which had held a
movable light. The face was horrible. Ayres froze an instant, then dragged back
the chair which had slid on its track, climbed up, and tried to get the body
down. They had no knife, had nothing with which they might cut the belt. It was
imbedded in Marsh’s throat and he could not get it free and support the body at
once. Bela and Dias tried to help, holding the knees, but that was no good.
“We’ve got to call security,” Dias said.
Ayres climbed down from the chair, hard-breathing, stared at them.
“I might have stopped him,” Dias said. “I was still awake. I heard the moving
about, a great deal of noise. Then strange sounds. When they had stopped so
suddenly and so long—I finally got up to see.”
Ayres shook his head, looked at Bela then stalked out to the sitting room and
the com panel by the door, punched through a request to security. “One of us is
dead,” he said. “Put me through to someone in charge.”
“Request will be relayed,” the answer came back. “Security is on its way.”
The contact went dead, no more informative than usual. Ayres sat down, head in
hands, tried not to think of Marsh’s horrible corpse slowly spinning in the next
compartment. It had been coming; he had feared worse, that Marsh would break
down in his tormentors’ hands. A brave man after his own fashion, he had not
broken. Ayres tried earnestly to believe that he had not.
Or guilt, perhaps? Remorse might have driven him to suicide.
Dias and Bela sat down nearby, waited with him, faces stark and somber, hair