"I heard you coughing and sneezing and I came to help and found you in severe pain. Good Old Samaritan Farradyne is going to take care of you and he will also lug you back to Terra. You wouldn't want to stay on Pluto where it's cold even despite the Terraconversion program. There's only one thing more. They'll want to see you even though it's only a peek in through the door, so you've got to look presentable."
Farradyne ran hot water into the lavatory and soaped a cloth. He slapped the hot cloth over Hughes' face and let the soap and water soak in. Then he began to scrub vigorously.
The caked blood came away from Hughes' face easily. And so did dark pigment: makeup. The dark-complected Hughes turned paler; the lines of his face faded as the reinforcing pigment washed away. Schoolteacher Hughes came off on the soapy washcloth.
"Brenner!" exploded Farradyne.
But the man on the bed was out cold. Farradyne cursed his enthusiasm with the marcoleptine, for his questions would fall on deaf ears and torture would hurt only numbed nerves. He would have to wait; but there would be plenty of time to pry certain answers out of Hughes-Brenner.
He left the doped man and went to his own stateroom and to bed. Oddly enough, he fell asleep immediately and slept dreamlessly until it was time to get up.
Warily he faced his passengers over the breakfast table, eyeing them one by one. He explained about Hughes—"heard him moaning in the night and found he had a nice case of coryosis. He's under treatment now and he'll probably be out colder than a mackerel for some time."
There was no response that Farradyne could put down as strange or odd. Either Hughes-Brenner had a confederate that was very cagey and capable of running a good ad lib, or the crook was operating alone. Farradyne felt that it was not impossible for the hellflower gang to have a second operator on his ship to take over if Brenner failed, perhaps unknown even to Brenner. But there was no evidence of such—no more than there had been evidence of Brenner until the disguise was removed—and so Farradyne decided to play cagey too.
He learned only one thing: the difference in attitude between himself and normal people. Where Farradyne would not have accepted a statement of sickness without taking a sample of Brenner's sputum or blood, these people believed it easily and complimented Farradyne on his willingness to help a fellow man. Farradyne carried this even farther by asking Professor Martin about 'Hughes' and his home.