"Made it," he said. "Any trouble here?"
"No, just one revived for a little while to gab. He's dead now." The man was quiet in a pool of his own blood. "How do things look out there?"
"A lot of racket in the direction of the lock area. Must be fighting going on down there. I didn't see anyone at all near this end."
While he spoke, Terry bent over and moistened a strip of his clothing with one of the liquids. He held it to his nostrils for a moment and passed it to Underwood. Then he opened the return air vent and poured the contents of the other bottle into it. The highly volatile liquid quickly vaporized and passed to the fans of the central ventilating blowers, from which it passed into every chamber of the ship. Within ten minutes it had anesthetized every person aboard the ship except the two who had inhaled the antidote.
While they waited, Underwood stared thoughtfully at the dead Rennies. "I wonder how Jandro kills," he said. "Can there be any defense against such silent power? Have you thought of what that implies with relation to Jandro's people and the society they live in?"
Terry nodded. "I haven't thought much of anything else since I first saw him kill that guard in our stateroom. A civilization in which every member holds a silent, secret weapon over the head of his neighbor. It's incredible that it could exist."
"But it has existed and continues to exist, and I'll bet that Jandro is the first of his kind to use this power for generations."
"It certainly implies a stability and individual recognition of responsibility that has never existed among us. I doubt that it ever will."
"Someday it might."