“They could,” Dosker said, as he got unsteadily to his feet, “have taken us out permanently.” By that he, too, meant a detonating weapon. He turned toward the tri-stage entrance hatch, used for null-atmosphere penetration.
The hatch, its circular seal-controls spun from impulses emanating outside, swung open.
Three men, two of them riffraff with lasers, with the decayed eyes of those who had been bought, hamstrung, lost long ago, came first. And then a clear-faced elegant man who would never be bought because he was a great buyer in the market of men; he was a dealer, not produce for sale.
It was Theodoric Ferry, chairman of the board of Trails of Hoffman Limited. Ahead of him his two employees swung a vacuum-cleaner-like mechanism; it searched, buzzing and nosing, probing until its operators were satisfied; they nodded to Theodoric, who then addressed Rachmael.
“May I seat myself?”
After a startled pause Rachmael said, “Sure.”
“Sorry, Mr. Ferry,” Dosker said. “The only seat is taken.” He sat at the control console in such a way that his small body had expanded at its base to fill both bucket seats; his face was hard and hating.
Shrugging, the large, white-haired man said, “All right.” He eyed Dosker. “You’re Lies’ top pilot, aren’t you? Al Dosker . . . yes, I recognize you from the clips we’ve made of you. On your way to the Omphalos. But you don’t need Applebaum here to tell you where she is; we can tell you.” Theodoric Ferry dug into his cloak, brought out a small packet which he tossed to Al Dosker. “The locus of the dry-docks where Applebaum has got her.”
“Thanks, Mr. Ferry,” Dosker said with sarcasm so great that his voice was almost forged into incomprehensibility.
Theodoric said, “Now look, Dosker; you sit quietly and mind your own business. While I talk to Applebaum. I’ve never met him personally, but I knew his very-much-missed late father.” He extended his hand.
Dosker said, “If you shake with him, Rachmael, he’ll deposit a virus contamination that’ll produce liver toxicity within your system inside an hour.”
Glowering, Theodoric said to the Negro, “I asked you to stay in your place. A pun.” He then removed the membrane-like, up-to-now invisible glove of plastic which covered his hand. So Dosker had been right, Rachmael realized as he watched Theodoric carefully deposit the glove in the ship’s incinerating disposal-chute. “Anyhow,” Theodoric said, almost plaintively, “we could have squirted feral airborne bacteria around by now.”
“And taken out yourselves,” Dosker pointed out.
Theodoric shrugged. Then, speaking carefully to Rachmael he said, “I respect what you’re trying to do. Don’t laugh.”
“I was not,” Rachmael said, “laughing. Just surprised.”
“You want to keep functioning, after the economic collapse; you want to keep your legitimate creditors from attaching the few—actually sole—asset that Applebaum Enterprise still possesses—good for you, Rachmael. I’d have done the same. And you impressed Mat-son; that’s why he’s supplying you his only decent pilot.”
With a mild grin, Dosker reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarillos; at once the two decayed-eyed men accompanying Theodoric caught his arm, expertly manipulated it—the harmless pack of cigarillos fell to the floor of the ship.
One after another, the cigarillos were cut open by Theodoric’s men, inspected . . . the fifth one turned out to be hard; it did not yield to the sharp-bladed pocket knife, and, a moment later, a more complex analytical device showed the cigarillo to be a homeostatic cephalotropic dart.
“Whose Alpha-wave pattern?” Theodoric Ferry asked Dosker.
“Yours,” Dosker said tonelessly. He watched without affect as the two decayed-eyed but very expert employees of THL crushed the dart under heel, rendering it useless.
“Then you expected me,” Ferry said, looking a little nonplussed.
Dosker said, “Mr. Ferry, I always expect you.”
Returning once more to Rachmael, Theodoric Ferry said, “I admire you and I want to terminate this conflict between you and THL. We have an inventory of your assets. Here.” He extended a sheet toward Rachmael; at that, Rachmael turned toward Dosker for advice.
“Take it,”Dosker said.
Accepting the sheet, Rachmael scanned it. The inventory was accurate; these did constitute the slight totality of the remaining assets of Applebaum Enterprise. And—glaringly, as Ferry had said, the only item of any authentic value was the Omphalos herself, the great liner plus the repair and maintenance facilities on Luna which now, hive-like, surrounded and checked her as she waited futilely . . . he returned the inventory to Ferry, who, seeing his expression, nodded.
“We agree, then,” Theodoric Ferry said. “Okay. Here’s what I propose, Applebaum. You can keep the Omphalos. I’ll instruct my legal staff to withdraw the writ to the UN courts demanding that the Omphalos be placed under a state of attachment.”
Dosker, startled, grunted; Rachmael stared at Ferry.
“What,” Rachmael said, then, “in return?”
“This. That the Omphalos never leave the Sol system. You can very readily develop a profitable operation transporting passengers and cargo between the nine planets and to Luna. Despite the fact—”
“Despite the fact,” Rachmael said, “that the Omphalos was built as an inter-stellar carrier, not inter-plan. It’s like using—”
“It’s that,” Ferry said, “or lose the Omphalos to us.”
“So Rachmael agrees”—Dosker spoke up—”not to take the Omphalos to Fomalhaut. The written agreement won’t mention any one particular star system, but it’s not Prox and not Alpha. Right, Ferry?”
After a pause Theodoric Ferry said, “Take it or leave it.”
Rachmael said, “Why, Mr. Ferry? What’s wrong at Whale’s Mouth? This deal—it proves I’m right.” That was obvious; he saw it, Dosker saw it—and Ferry must have known that in making it he was ratifying their intimations. Limit the Omphalos to the nine planets of the Sol system? And yet—the corporation Applebaum Enterprise, as Ferry said, would continue; it would live on as a legal, economic entity. And Ferry would see that the UN turned a certain amount, an acceptable quantity, of commerce its way. Rachmael would wave goodbye to Lies Incorporated, to first this small dark superior space pilot, and then, by extension, to Freya Holm, to Matson Glazer-Holliday, cut in effect himself off from the sole power which had chosen to back him.
“Go ahead,” Dosker said. “Accept the idea. After all, the deep-sleep components won’t arrive, but it won’t matter, because you’re not going into ‘tween system space anyhow.” He looked tired.
Theodoric Ferry said, “Your father, Rachmael; Maury would have done anything to keep the Omphalos. You know in two days we’ll have her—and once we do, there’s no chance you’ll ever get her back. Think about it.”
“I—know right now,” Rachmael said. Lord, if he and Dosker had managed to get the Omphalos out tonight, lost her in space where THL couldn’t find her . . . and yet that was already over; it had ended when the field had overcome the enormous futile thrust of the twin engines of Dosker’s Lies Incorporated ship: Trails of Hoffman had stepped in too soon. In time.
All along, Theodoric Ferry had pre-thought them; it was not a moral issue: it was a pragmatic one.
“I have legal forms drawn up,” Ferry said. “If you’ll come with me.” He nodded toward the hatch. “The law requires three witnesses. On the part of THL, we have those witnesses.” He smiled, because it was over and he knew it. Turning, he walked leisurely toward the hatch. The two decayed-eyed employees followed, both men relaxed . . . they passed into the open circularity of the hatch—
And then convulsed throughout, from scalp to foot, internally destroyed; as Rachmael, shocked and terrified, watched, he saw their neurological, musculature systems give out; he saw them, both men penetrated entirely, so that each became, horrifying him, flopping, quivering, malfunctioning—more than malfunctioning: each unit of their bodies fought with all other portions, so that the two heaps on the floor became warring sub-syndromes within themselves, as muscle strained against muscle, visceral apparatus against diaphragmatic strength, auricular and ventricular fibrillation; both men, unable to breathe, deprived even of blood circulation, staring, fighting within their bodies which were no longer true bodies . . .
Rachmael looked away.
“Cholinesterase-destroying gas,” Dosker said, behind him, and at that instant Rachmael became aware of the tube pressed to his own neck, a medical artifact which had injected into his blood stream its freight of atropine, the antidote to the vicious nerve gas of the notorious FMC Corporation, the original contractors for this, the most destructive of all anti-personnel weapons of the previous war.
“Thanks,” Rachmael said to Dosker, as he saw, now, the hatch swing shut; the Trails of Hoffman satellite, with its now inert field, was being detached—within it persons who were not THL employees pried it loose from Dosker’s flapple.
The dead man’s throttle signaling device—or rather null-signaling device—had done its job; Lies Incorporated experts had arrived and at this moment were systematically dismantling the THL equipment.
Philosophically, Theodoric Ferry stood with his hands in the pockets of his cloak, saying nothing, not even noticing the spasms of his two employees on the floor near him, as if, by deteriorating in response to the gas, they had somehow proved unworthy.