"What triple-tongued sound?"
"Come off it, Brenner. You know what I'm talking about."
"Do I?"
"You do and I intend to find out," said Farradyne. He loaded his needle and approached Brenner with it. "This is for the last time, Brenner. And I've ideas on how to make a man talk—or sing a trio."
"You're a devil from hell," Brenner snarled.
"And you're an angel from heaven, ripping out the control rods to give us the Long Ride? Brenner, I owe you a lot that I'm going to collect. You'll wish you had died, Brenner. And you probably will die not long after your friends find out that you've talked."
Brenner eyed Farradyne wearily. "You haven't won your bet yet," he said. "And even if you do, there's the problem of extracting payment."
Farradyne shrugged. "You'll talk," he said flatly. Then he reached for Brenner's arm, imprisoned it so that Brenner could not move without dislocating the shoulder, and slid the needle home. "Just to be sure," he told the man, who was showing all the defiance that a man in a weakened condition could display, "I gave you a slightly larger dose. The Medicology says that this is accepted practice with marcoleptine, when the patient is in some danger of an excitement-crisis."
He waited until Brenner's eyes closed and the breathing became deep and regular. Then Farradyne left Brenner, went aloft and made contact with Pluto Spaceport. He came down with one hand poised above the power lever; at the first glimmer of any hanky-panky, Farradyne was going to slam the power home and take off for space at full power. Questions could be asked afterwards.
The landing was as good as any that Farradyne had ever made, but he was almost a nervous wreck worrying about the possibility of a recurrence of the Semiramide incident. He relaxed only after he had peeked, unobserved, at Hughes, still doped, and then led the covey of schoolteachers down the landing ramp.