CHAPTER VII
THIEVES' HONOR
It was one of those moments when everything happens at once. For as the grav-seat dropped, Cheng whipped up his gun, firing at Mawson.
Veta Hall screamed.
Ross lunged across the room towards girl and slaver.
Somewhere outside, a blaster sang its twanging, metallic song of death.
Ross crashed into Veta and her captor. Driving his shoulder between them, he jerked the girl from Cheng's grip, even while he smashed a blow to the outlaw's midriff.
Cheng stared straight ahead—eyes bulged out, jaw hanging. His hands stayed at his sides.
Ross drew back a quick step, uncertainty written on his face.
Cheng swayed for a moment, first forward and then back.
The next instant a violent shudder, plainly visible, ran through him. His paragun clattered to the floor.
Another second and the smuggler himself half-turned and spilled forward on his face.
There was a hole in the small of his back where his spine had been—a hole well-nigh the size of a man's head, the sort of hole torn by a blaster-bolt.
Veta covered her face. Ross clenched his teeth.
Simultaneously, two men stepped into the doorway. One carried a short-barreled blaster, the other a paragun. Both wore grins of sadistic satisfaction.
Now, off to one side, Pike Mawson spoke again: "Good work, gentlemen, though a trifle close. If that beam Cheng triggered had sliced three inches lower, you'd have had to find a new employer."
Mawson moved a dial on his chair's control-plate. The grav-seat swept round in a smooth spiral and set down on the floor in front of Ross.
"Mr. Ross, I believe?" he murmured, eyes asparkle. His face was set in a peculiar way that made him appear on the verge of smiling.
Ross' features stayed wooden. "My name's Thigpen."
"It is?" The adjudicator chuckled, gestured. "Corrack, is this our old friend Tornelescu's helper, Lewis Thigpen?"
A snort from the man with the blaster. "Not even in the dark, he ain't Thigpen."
"You see, Ross?" Mawson spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "Corrack grew up in the same colony with Thigpen. He knows him intimately—drank kabat with him less than an Earth week ago, as a matter of fact. So there's really no point to your trying to continue the imposture."
Ross shrugged, not speaking.
Mawson said, "On the other side of it, I've succeeded in learning your real identity, though it cost me no small expense: you're Stewart Ross, and you hold the rank of special agent with Security. You're twenty-eight years old. You came from Earth, originally. Your most recent assignment was breaking up a theol ring on Titan. You've also dealt with the starak traffic, and with kabatol derivatives in the Uranian satellite system. Your luck has been so spectacular as to indicate real ability, and in consequence your superiors—even including the famous Commandant Padora—have marked you for special attention and advancement."
A pause. Mawson's fingers drummed on his chair-arm. "That's why I'm here, Ross: because I've learned your identity; because I know the kind of man you are."
"Oh?" Ross' tone was flat and noncommittal.
"Yes." The adjudicator gave strong positive emphasis to the word. He leaned forward. "You see, Ross, I overstepped myself on this life catalyst venture. Badly."
Ross' eyes narrowed, just a fraction.
"In any case," Mawson went on coolly, "I finally find myself in a position where I have no choice but to make a deal with you ... a very special sort of deal, one I wouldn't chance with anyone less reliable and trustworthy."
Ross frowned. "I don't follow you, Mawson."
It was the other's turn to shrug. "It's very simple really, Mr. Ross. My own age, the sense of years creeping upon me, prejudiced my judgment. So, thinking you were Thigpen, I sent Cheng to Venus to run you down." The adjudicator shook his head sadly. "It was an error, Mr. Ross—a grievous error. Guile's my forte; I never should have turned to violence."
"I'll agree with you there," Ross nodded, "but I still don't see how this concerns me."
"Don't bait me, Mr. Ross!" the other snapped back. "That first episode tipped my hand to Cheng, and to Veta Hall, and to Veta's brother, Sanford. The next thing I knew, even Zoltan Prenzz, Security's resident undercover agent on Japetus, was aware of what was going on.
"That meant I had to kill him. So, I sent one of my men to inject him with a dose of the catalyst—a dose from a bad batch my people found in Tornelescu's laboratory when they cut his throat and made off with the formula to begin with.
"But violence breeds violence. Veta Hall's starak-crazy brother stole the bad batch, thinking it was good, proposing to sell it to Astrell.
"I sent my man to get it back. Also, I ordered him to kill Hall, because Hall would have talked in order to get starak.
"Unfortunately, though, Hall managed to pass on my address here before he died. At which point, you came and killed my man, and Astrell died of acute catabolic poisoning, and my people attended to that cutthroat Cheng." Once more, Mawson spread his hands in the familiar gesture. "Well, Mr. Ross, I believe that brings us up to date."
"Does it?" Ross clipped. "It seems to me you've left out the most important part: the place where I come in."
"For my part, I thought I was being almost too obvious," the adjudicator came back. "My difficulty is that as a result of all this bloodletting, my own tracks have been uncovered. I'm told on reliable authority that Security's already closing in on me. I'll be fortunate if they don't arrest me before dawn."
Ross frowned. "So—?"
"So, as I said before, I need your help."
Ross shook his head. "I still don't see it."
"Then you're a bigger fool than I thought!" Mawson beat his grav-seat's arm in sudden fury. "Don't you understand? When my people brought me Tornelescu's notes, his formulae, I'd have sworn I had the whole universe in my grasp.
"Only then it turned out that all Tornelescu's data was in an arbitrary code: one figure, one symbol, was substituted for another. Consequently, I might as well not have had the papers.
"That's why I sent Cheng after you, when I thought that you were Thigpen: Tornelescu's notes mentioned that Thigpen had the code. It was a precaution they took, so that neither of them could betray the other."
"So?" Ross repeated.
"There's still a way out. That is, if you'll just help me." Mawson squirmed in his seat. Of a sudden his eyes were bright and feverish. "Look, Ross, here's how we'll work it: in your role of Security agent, you arrest me. I'll even go so far as to confess to murdering old Tornelescu.
"However, I'll also claim that Sanford Hall stole the papers from me. Consequently, I've no idea whatever where they are or what they say.
"I'll be convicted of killing. They'll send me off to Venus Barracks. In a Martian month the case will be past history.
"That's where you come in, Ross: right then. My conviction will be another feather in your cap. No one would think of suspecting you of anything, let alone denying you full access to Security's files on the case.
"So, you go into those files and dig through them till you find the code. For all I know, it may even be in your property rooms here in Calor City. Because if Lewis Thigpen's dead—and he must be, or you wouldn't have dared to use his name—then all his things will likely be there.
"Then, when you find the code, contact me. I'll tell you where I've hidden the formula: that's how much I trust you.
"You make up a batch of the catalyst. You put it out to the old men, the men of power."
"I'll be free of Venus Barracks in a week. After that—who knows? What limit can there be, when we've eternal life ourselves, plus the privilege of peddling it to others in hundred-year doses?"
The adjudicator was shaking by the time he finished. Twin spots of color marked his cheek bones. His hands moved ceaselessly, without respite.
The silence echoed.
Mawson's hands stopped moving. He straightened in his seat.
"Mr. Ross," he said softly, "I'm afraid I judged you too well. You're indeed a man of honor—so much so that even a lie to save your life sticks in your craw. So I'll put our business on a different level." A pause, heavy with tension. "Mr. Ross, count on it: if you don't carry through to the letter the plan I've outlined, both you and Veta Hall will die, by the most unpleasant mode a fine creative imagination can devise."
Ross seemed to stand a trifle straighter. "I thought that was coming," he nodded slowly. And then: "Fair enough. I'll do all I can to locate Thigpen's things."
"I thought you'd see it my way," Adjudicator Mawson murmured smoothly. He gestured to the two men who still stood in the doorway. "Now that I'm a prisoner, gentlemen, you'd best get out of here. Take the girl with you. You know where to keep her."
The man with the paragun stepped back. But the other, the one called Corrack, didn't move.
Sharply, Mawson said, "Corrack! You heard me!"
"Sure, I heard you," the blaster-man agreed. He grinned, the same sadistic grin that had marked him when he first stepped into the doorway. "Only maybe there's something you don't know."
"Something I don't know—?" Mawson frowned. "Speak up, Corrack! What is it?"
The other's grin broadened. "It's this starbo," he explained, gesturing to Ross. "It's his clothes."
"His clothes—?" Mawson stared. "Well, what about them?"
"Nothing," smirked Corrack. "Nothing at all—except they're the outfit Thigpen was wearing when I had that drink with him last week!"
Mawson's head snapped round as if on veloid bearings. "Rack you, Ross—!"
But his tone belied his words, for there was wild jubilation in it. Pounding the air of his flying chair, he cried, "Search him, Corrack! Search him! See if he's got a writer!"
Wordless, the blaster-man obeyed ... delivered the instrument to Mawson.
Fingers shaking, the adjudicator manipulated the upper end of the carved shaft.
The cap lifted off. A glistening ampule dropped into his hand.
Mawson threw back his head and laughed—peal after peal, hysterical with sheer delight.
Then, sobering, he snatched the aeroderm injector from the table where Astrell had dropped it. Fitting in the ampule, he held the jet against his arm-vein.
"There were some interesting details in Tornelescu's notes, Ross," he announced in a voice that rang with exaltation. "One of them was that Thigpen always carried an ampule of the perfected catalyst in his writer."
He pressed the injector's plunger. The ampule's contents sprayed into his arm.
After that, it was like the time with Astrell, except that Mawson was male, not female.
And, that the process stopped at the proper point, instead of going on into catabolic disaster.
Young now, in the prime of life, glowing with health except for his crippled legs, the adjudicator leaned back in his grav-seat. A slow smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
"You understand, don't you, that this changes our situation somewhat, Mr. Ross?" he inquired.
"I understand," Ross answered curtly.
"Good." The other rubbed his hands and chuckled. "As a matter of fact, as I see it, I no longer have any need for your services. Changed as I am, young again, I'll have no trouble hiding till I myself can find or buy Thigpen's code." A pause. "That transforms you, Mr. Ross. It transforms you from an asset to a liability, by my bookkeeping."
Ross didn't answer.
"The same holds for Miss Hall," the adjudicator went on. "Before, she constituted an excellent pawn. Now, she's only a dangerous witness."
Abruptly, he turned to the man with the paragun. "You, my friend! Take this injector"—he touched the aeroderm unit—"and two ampules from the black case. Spray one into each of our friends, here."
Ross went rigid. A horrified cry burst from Veta's throat.
Tightly, Ross said, "Look, Mawson, it's all right to kill me if you want to; I signed on with Security because I had a taste for trouble.
"With Veta, it's different. She's done nothing, hurt no one. She'll keep quiet—"
"Hurry it up, gentlemen," Mawson ordered his aides. "I want no accidents to halt us now."
"Back, you!" snarled Corrack, covering Ross with his blaster.
His companion advanced on Veta.
Wild-eyed with panic, she retreated before him ... clear to the wall ... on around the room ... almost to the door now; almost to Corrack.
Whirling, then, she leaped at the blaster-man from behind—clutching at his arm, knocking up his weapon.
"Stewart—" she screamed. "Run Stewart; run! Get away! Call Security—"
Ross lunged. But it was towards her, struggling with Corrack; not the door.
Only then purple light pulsed past his head, so close that his eyes went out of focus. He staggered, tripped, pitched to his knees.
... And there, off to one side, grav-seat already rising, sat Mawson. His teeth were bared, and he held his paragun poised and ready.
Ross started to rise.
Mawson triggered another ray.
Whirling, Ross plunged through the doorway and ran for his life.