While I plotted the courses of hundreds of chunks of meteor iron to search out safe holes through the intercepting meteor group my thoughts whispered gleefully, "All you have to do is pretend you don't know anything and maybe Resnick will be grateful and leave you alone."
Later, trying to get some sleep, I tried to think what could be done. Could I come right out and ask Markham about that bruise? Suppose I did, and he told me Resnick had done it, and I used that as an excuse to toss Resnick in the brig? Then the men would throw Markham's reputation in my face and claim it was a cowardly lie; and if I didn't release Resnick it would mean an official investigation at North Marsport—on the first leg of my first command. Suppose he told me and I did nothing. Then he would know I was afraid of Resnick!
I didn't sleep much. I didn't get much sleep for several days. Coupled with my guilt feeling, my hate for myself, was a growing feeling that striking my orderly was the first step in Resnick's plan to get at me, smoke me into the open where he could find an opportunity to expose me.
It was obvious how Resnick had gotten to Markham. It had to be when Markham went to the kitchen to bring my meals, and it had to be with the knowledge of the cook, which meant that Resnick already ruled the crew openly, behind the scenes.
There was no danger of mutiny or any of the claptrap of fiction, of course. Resnick was no fool, and had no insane ambitions other than that of feeding his streak of sadism.
A few days later I noticed a small spot of blood on the back of Markham's shirt. I said nothing, but that evening after I had dismissed him and he had gone to his room I took a small flat metal mirror and slid it under his door just far enough to peek in and watch him undress, and I saw the welts across his back.
Worse, I saw him crying. He shook with silent sobs while tears streamed from his eyes, and hopelessness and discouragement and friendlessness held possession of him.
At that moment I knew with absolute conviction that the court-martial had been right. He was a coward and would never be anything else. But at the same moment, I suddenly understood him. It was something he couldn't help.
I lay in the darkness of my own cubicle, a dull anger growing within me, turning me into a slightly irrational being.
There was, I suppose, a sort of self-flagellation to it. A psychiatrist would possibly diagnose it as that, anyway. In my own mind I was responsible for everything Resnick did to David Markham, which meant that by "punishing" Resnick I was punishing myself. When you descend to such levels of pure and obsessing emotional thinking, logic gets mixed up quite a bit.