_It was Ted Benteley._
THIRTEEN
OUT IN dead space, beyond the known system, the creaking GM ore-carrier lumbered hesitantly along. In the control bubble Groves sat listening intently, his dark face rapt.
“The Flame Disc is still far away,” the vast presence murmured in his mind. “Don’t lose contact with my own ship.”
“You’re John Preston,” Groves said softly.
“I am very old,” the voice replied. “I have been here a long time.”
“A century and a half,” Groves said. “It’s hard to believe.”
“I have waited here. I knew you would be coming. My ship will hover nearby; you will probably pick up its mass from time to time. If everything goes correctly I’ll be able to guide you to the actual landing on the Disc.”
“Will you be there?” Groves asked. “Will you meet us?”
There was no answer. The voice had faded; he was alone.
Groves got unsteadily to his feet and called Konklin. A moment later both Konklin and Mary Uzich hurried into the control bubble. Jereti loped a few paces behind. “You heard him,” Groves said thickly.
“It was Preston,” Mary whispered.
“He must be old as hell,” Konklin said. “A little old man, waiting out here in space for us to come, waiting all these years . . .”
“I think we’ll get there,” Groves said. “Even if they managed to kill Cartwright, we’ll still reach the Disc.”
“What did Cartwright say?” Jereti asked Groves. “Did it perk him up to hear about Preston?”
Groves hesitated. “Cartwright was preoccupied.”
“But surely he—”
“He’s about to be murdered!” Groves savagely flicked on the manual controls. “He hasn’t got time to think about anything else.”
Nobody said anything for awhile. Finally Konklin asked, “Has there been any late news?”
“I can’t raise Batavia. Military black-out has completely screened out the ipvic lines. I picked up emergency troop movements from the inner planets toward Earth. Directorate wings heading home.”
“What’s that mean?” Jereti asked.
“Pellig has reached Batavia. And something has gone wrong. Cartwright must have his back to the wall. Somehow, the teep Corps must have failed.”
Wakeman shouted frantically. “Benteley! Listen to me! Moore has it rigged; you’re being tricked. _It’s not random.”_
It was hopeless. No sound carried. Without atmosphere his voice died in his helmet. Benteley’s thoughts radiated to him clear and distinct; but there was no way Wakeman could communicate back. He was boxed-in, baffled. The figure of Keith Pellig and the mind of Ted Benteley were only a few yards from him—and there was no way he could make contact.
Benteley’s thoughts were mixed. It’s Peter Wakeman, he was thinking. The teep I met in the lounge. He realized that he was in danger; he was aware of the nearby luminous resort balloon. Wakeman caught an image of Cartwright: the job of killing. And beneath that, Benteley’s deep aversion and doubt, his distrust of Verrick and his dislike of Herb Moore. Benteley was undecided. For an instant the thumb-gun wavered.
Wakeman scrambled down the ridge onto the level plain. With frantic haste he sketched vast crude letters in the ancient dust: “MOORE TRICKED YOU. NOT RANDOM.”
Benteley saw the words, and the vapid face of Keith Pellig hardened. Benteley’s thoughts congealed. _What the hell?_ He was thinking. Then he realized that Wakeman was teeping him, that a one-sided conversation was going on with himself as transmitter and the telepath as receiver. “Go on, Wakeman,” Benteley radiated harshly. “What do you mean, tricked?”
In Benteley’s mind, there was ironic amusement. He was seeing a telepath, an advanced mutant human, sketching clumsy figures in the dust like some primitive reduced to the most primal means of communication. Wakeman wrote desperately: “MOORE WILL KILL YOU AND CARTWRIGHT TOGETHER.”
Benteley’s mind radiated amazement. “What do you mean?” Then suspicion. “This is some kind of strategy. There must be other teeps coming.” His thumb-gun came quickly up . . .
“BOMB.” Wakeman, panting for breath, sought a new surface on which to write. But he had written enough. Benteley was filling in the details himself. A phantasmagoria of comprehension: vivid glimpses of his fight with Moore, his sexual relations with Moore’s mistress, Eleanor Stevens, Moore’s jealousy of him. It flashed through Benteley’s mind in bewildering procession, and he lowered the thumb-gun.
‘They’re seeing this,” Benteley thought. “All the operators at their screens. And Moore; he’s seeing it, too.”
Sensing instant danger, Wakeman leaped up and ran clumsily at the Pellig figure. Gesturing excitedly, trying to shout across the airless void, he got within two feet before Benteley halted him with an ominous wave of his thumb-gun.
“Stay away from me,” Benteley thought grimly. “I’m still not sure of you. You’re working for Cartwright.”
Wakeman scratched frantically: “PELLIG SET TO DETONATE WHEN CLOSE TO CARTWRIGHT. MOORE WILL SWITCH YOU IN BODY AT MOMENT.”
“Does Verrick know?” Benteley demanded.
“YES.”
“Eleanor Stevens?”
“YES.”
Benteley’s mind flashed anguish. “How do I know this is true? Prove it!”
“EXAMINE YOUR BODY. LOCATE POWER LEADS. TRACE CIRCUIT TO BOMB.”
Benteley’s fingers flew as he ripped at the synthetic chest. His mind flashed technical data as he found the main wiring that interlaced the body beneath the artificial layer of skin. He tore loose a whole section of material and probed deep in the humming circuit of the synthetic body, as Wakeman crouched a few feet away, heart frozen in his chest, clutching futilely for the good luck charm he had dropped in his office and never retrieved.
Benteley was wavering. The last clinging mist of loyalty to Verrick was rapidly fading. In its place hatred and disgust was forming. “So that’s the way it’s worked,” he thought finally. An embryonic strategy flashed through his mind. “All right, Wakeman.” His mind hardened. “I’m taking the body back. All the way to Farben.”
Wakeman sagged. “Thank God,” he said out loud.
Benteley leaped into activity. Realization that Moore was watching made his fingers a blur of motion as he inspected the reactor and jet controls, and then, without a sound, flashed the synthetic robot and ship up into the black sky, toward Earth.
The body had moved almost a quarter mile before Herb Moore sent the selector mechanism twitching. Shatteringly, without warning, Ted Benteley found himself sitting in his chair at Farben, surrounded by his protective ring.
On the miniature screen before him, the Pellig body hurtled back downward toward the moon-face in a wide arc. It located the suddenly scampering figure of Peter Wakeman and directed its thumb-gun. Wakeman saw what was coming. He stopped running and stood, oddly calm and dignified, as the synthetic body dropped low, spun, and then incinerated him. Moore was in control again.
Benteley struggled up from his protective ring. He tore loose the wires than ran under his skin, his tongue, into his armpits and ears. In an instant he was at the door of the cubicle, reaching for the heavy steel handle.
The door was sealed.
He had expected it. Back at the humming banks of machinery, he tore loose a handful of relays. A flashing pop as the main power cables shorted, sending up acrid fumes and throwing the meters to a dead halt. The door fell open, its lock inoperative. Benteley raced down the hall toward Moore’s central lab. On the way he crashed into a lounging Hill guard. Benteley knocked him down and grabbed the man’s Popper. He turned the corner and plunged into the lab.
Moore lay limp and motionless within his own protective ring. Around him a group of his technicians were working on the second synthetic body, already partly ‘assembled in the fluid baths suspended over the work-tables. None of the technicians was armed.
Circling the lab was a honeycomb of chambers, small cubicles in which men sat at screens, eyes fixed intently, bodies supported by identical equipment. A momentary vision of mirror duplications of his own cube, the other operators, and then Benteley broke away. He waved the fluttering technicians back and glanced briefly into Moore’s screen. The body hadn’t reached the resort balloon; he was in time.
Benteley killed the limp, unprotesting body of Herb Moore.
The effect on the Pellig body was instantaneous. It gave a convulsive leap that carried it in a spinning trajectory off the Lunar surface. The body whirled and darted grotesquely, a crazed thing dancing a furious rhythm of death. Somewhere along the line, as the body swooped and soared, it managed to pull itself out and level off. Moore led the body upward, arced it in a vast sweeping circle, and then shot off for deep space.
On the screen, the Lunar surface receded. It dwindled and became a ball. Then a dot. Then it was gone.
The lab doors burst open. Verrick and Eleanor Stevens entered quickly. “What did you do?” Verrick demanded hoarsely. “He’s gone crazy; he’s heading away from . . .” He saw the lifeless body of Herb Moore. “So that’s it,” he said softly.
Benteley got out of the lab—fast. Verrick didn’t try to stop him; he stood aimlessly fumbling at Moore’s corpse, his massive face slack and vacant, numbed with shock.