No. With Tayne unconscious or dead, it would make little difference. His presence aboard the ship was apparently only for the satisfaction of protocol. Placed aboard it alone, Doug reasoned, he would have been as well secured a prisoner as had he been accompanied by a guard of one hundred men. It was not Tayne, but the autorobot guiding the ship that was his jailer. Yet, Tayne had not removed his sword....
Doug watched the white mass of Venus as it receded with torturing slowness in the screen, let it half-hypnotize him. There was something stirring uneasily somewhere far back in his brain—something, something—but it did not matter. Nothing at all mattered now. The race—the great, hopeless race he had planned for freedom had never even begun!
They had denied him even that satisfaction. Yes, he could attack Tayne, and Tayne would kill him. But that would not be a fight. It would be simply the choice of suicide, at the hands of the man who would derive the most satisfaction from being its prime instrument. The man who already signed the death warrants for Mike and Terry....
And Dot. Dot, after some awful agony would see him again perhaps, but she would see with uncomprehending eyes, hear with unrecognizing ears. If she lived through what they did to her, she would no longer be Dot at all.
Dully, he could hear Tayne's words in a background that was a thousand miles away. "Reconciled and steady as she blasts. This is QT to Control, C-Limit check—trajectory secure. Out."
And again, there was something far back in Doug's brain, struggling harder....
Then even as Tayne turned toward him from the dial consoles, it burst into the forefront of his mind like a flare in the darkness. Twelve hundred Kemps at three hundred milliamperes, sir.... Genemotor, type A-26-F modified.... Sergeant! The neuro-tablets at once.... Commandments Four, Part 3, Sub-section 12 as amended ... all space craft shall be robot-controlled and shall fly predetermined trajectories, save (1) when bearing members of the Science Council and/or their certified representatives, to whom manual operation and navigation at will is singularly permissible, or (2) when insurmountable emergency shall occur....
And suddenly, Doug's brain vaulted from the lethargy of hopelessness and it was again at his command, a sharp, poised weapon of battle. For Tayne knew! Yet he would die before he would tell—unless, somehow....
"Such confidence, Quadrate Tayne! Admirable! But you would look so much more fit for your role with your sword in your hand, not in your scabbard!"
Tayne reddened. "If it were not for my orders, Blair—"