Hughes, according to Professor Martin, taught Ancient History in a school in Des Moines, Iowa, but none of them knew much about him because the teacher had joined them on Mercury not much before they had contracted for this trip.
Farradyne then buttered up the program by suggesting that he take Hughes back home to Terra, because a sick man would not find Pluto a pleasant place. There was relief in their eyes; good and as honest as they were, all of them were happy to be relieved of the responsibility of a sick comrade. Some of them went with him to peek through the door while Farradyne gave Hughes his medicine and they remarked on how pale he looked. He was also weak enough to be convincing and he went back to sleep as soon as the drug took hold.
Farradyne set a photoelectric alarm on the stairway below the passenger's section; but if Hughes-Brenner had any cohorts from the rest of the hellflower outfit aboard, they laid low. Farradyne kept Brenner under dope until Pluto was looming in the sky, and then went to him just before landing.
XVI
Farradyne poised the needle. "Ready for another jolt?" he asked. "Feel the craving yet, Brenner?"
Brenner grunted.
"Say it in that triple-voiced tongue of yours," snapped Farradyne. "Let me hear you sing, Brenner!"
"Go to hell. I don't know what you're talking about."
"No? I'm surprised ... you mean there's something I know that you don't know?" Farradyne loaded the hypodermic with slow deliberation, watching Brenner's eyes to see if there was any sign of longing for the drug. "Maybe I'll know more than I do now, pretty soon. I'm taking you off the dope as soon as we get rid of the customers, so they can't hear you screaming your lungs out for a jolt. You'll talk, all right. Put up the arm, Brenner. Quietly and nicely—or I'll break it off at the arm-pit and shove the needle into the other one."