And at the end of the second week, the blue panel on his indicator flashed into glowing life. Kully Leopold had arrived, one day prematurely. The pattern was taking shape. Four out of five were present, scattered over the planet. Only Damon Archer, the anchor man on the team, was yet to be heard from, and he would be arriving in another week.
It was necessary that the team members spaced their arrivals. There was a regular pattern of coming and going between Lurion and Earth, just as there was between Earth and every other world of the civilized galaxy. The five team members would not be noticed if they entered Lurion one at a time.
And, since their landings were scheduled for five different spaceports on five different continents, it was unlikely that the sonic generator each one was carrying would cause much excitement, unless the customs officials at such widely separated points bothered to compare notes on strange devices.
Smee had arrived with a tourist group six months earlier. His generator had been accounted for as a souped-up camera, which it had been redesigned to resemble. Gardner’s generator had gone through customs as a jeweler’s apparatus. The others each had their alibis too. The Security planning had been excellent. Only the human factor in the plan was variable.
The day after Kully Leopold had landed, Deever Weegan called Gardner. The hotel management gave Weegan the number of Gardner’s private room visi-screen, and the call reached him there.
Gardner stared at the image in the screen, comparing the flinty face he saw with the photo of Weegan he had been shown back on Earth in Karnes’ office.
“You’re Gardner, aren’t you?”
“Right. Weegan?”
The man in the screen nodded. “Of course.”
Weegan had an ascetic look about him, Gardner thought. The man’s eyes were so stony they seemed almost to glitter; his cheekbones jutted sharply beneath each ear, and his thin, bloodless lips were set in an austere line. Gardner wondered if the inner man were as coldly bleak as the exterior.
Gardner said, “What’s on your mind, Weegan? You’re set up all right where you are, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then?”
“I’m simply checking.”
Gardner blinked. “Checking on me? ”
“Checking on the project in general,” Weegan said blandly. “I’m anxious for its success.”
Gardner gasped and went pale. He scowled into the visual pickup. Was Weegan out of his mind, talking of “the project” so loosely over a public communicator?
“The sale of gems is going well,” Gardner said icily, stressing each word. “I imagine we’ll all return to Earth as rich men.”
Weegan hesitated momentarily. He seemed to recognize the mistake he had made.
“Oh, of course,” he said. “Are the other members of the corporation prospering?”
“I believe so,” Gardner said. “Dudley and I were in contact the other day, and he said that vegetables were getting set for a rise. Also mining shares. Better check with your stockbroker about it. And Oscar told me his wife is better.” He glared tightly at Weegan. Catch wise, you idiot , he implored silently. Don’t ask a foolish question now .
“I’m glad to hear it,” Weegan said. Gardner let out his breath in relief. The other went on, “Well, we’ll be in touch again soon, won’t we?”
“In about a week, I think. Is that soon enough?”
“No, but it’ll have to do,” Weegan said. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”
“Right.”
Weegan broke the contact.
Gardner sat back and stared at the dying swirl of color on the screen for a moment, letting some of the blood seep back into his face, letting the butterflies in his stomach settle down into place.
The idiot , he thought.
Weegan had nearly collapsed the whole show. If Gardner hadn’t managed to shut the thin-faced man up in time, Weegan might easily have gone prattling right on, inquiring after Smee and Leopold and the not-yet arrived Archer, linking the five of them neatly in one breath. Weegan’s blunder might not have wrecked the project, but anything that tended to link the team was dangerous.
The deaths of five Security agents could be important to nobody but those agents. But if the Lurioni discovered what the generators were capable of doing, they wouldn’t be content merely to devise unpleasant deaths for the five plotters. They would plaster news of the conspiracy all over the known universe. Earth’s name would soon become something to spit at, a curse.
Naturally, Earth would deny that there was any official connection with the Five, but who would be naive enough to believe that? Five men don’t decide on their own initiative to destroy a planet.
Shuddering, Gardner cursed Weegan, cursed Karnes, cursed the computer whose inexorably clicking relays had gotten them into this unholy business in the first place. And a new thought occurred to him.
The computer, presumably, had had a hand in choosing the first, the unsuccessful team. Well, Gardner thought, the computer had been eighty percent wrong that time; only Smee, out of the five men who were sent out, had the stuff to survive.
So now another team had been despatched, of whom at least one—Weegan—had the possibly fatal flaw of failing to reason out the consequences of his words. And one other, at least—Gardner—was given to serious interior misgivings about the validity of the whole project.
That made at least two of the computer’s four new selections who weren’t perfectly fitted for the job; and Gardner hadn’t even met the other two, yet.
It wasn’t a very good score.
Suppose, Gardner asked himself, suppose the computer’s accuracy in making long-range predictions was equally miserable?
Suppose the computer was all cockeyed about the anticipated Lurioni invasion of Earth?
Suppose he was actually murdering a world that meant no harm? Or that could be redeemed by less violent means?
Sudden perspiration popped out all over him. He shivered for one dreadful moment, and then, just as suddenly, he was past the conflict-point and secure in his belief.
Lurion was an abysmal world. It was a hateful, cold-blooded, nasty place.
It was the sort of world on which you didn’t turn your back on anyone. And even then, rear-view vision was a useful precaution.
Unquestionably, the planet was beyond any redemption.
For the first time in an uncomfortably large number of days, Gardner was able to smile, confident that the computer was right, that he was right, and that the job he was doing was right.
And then he heard Lori Marks’ voice outside in the corridor, calling to him, and his newly-found complacency was shattered in an instant.
She knocked softly. “Roy? Roy, do you mind if I come in?”
“Just a minute, Lori. I’ll have to unseal the door.” Sweat started to course down Gardner’s body again. This was going to be the test of his resolve, coming up now. This was the first time she had ever come to his room.
He breathed on the door seal and it curled into a ball. A moment later he was smiling at Lori, and she was smiling back.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“Not at all. I was just wondering if I ought to go down and find out if you were around.”
She was holding some typewritten sheets in her hand. Gardner glanced inquiringly at them. She held them forward and said, “I’ve been typing up my notes on that horrid dance we saw, and I’ve just finished. I wondered if you would care to check them through for accuracy.”
“Be happy to,” Gardner said. What else could he have told her?
But he could see easily that she hadn’t come up to his room simply for the purpose of letting him verify her anthropological observations. She was wearing a clinging, low-cut synthilk blouse that seemed more calculated toward a session of biology, not anthropology. There was something keenly expectant about her manner. And, for the first time since he had known her, she was wearing perfume. It was a subtle, musky flavor that had an alien scent about it.
>
He closed the door behind her. She made herself at home immediately, sitting down in the chair next to the bed. She looked around the room with evident interest, and flushed guiltily when Gardner let her know by a glance that he was watching her.
She said apologetically as she handed him the typed sheaf of notes, “I hope you won’t have too much trouble with the spelling. My machine is out of kilter, and I had to rent one of the local voice-writers. It’s good and efficient, but phonetically it’s a nightmare.”
“I’ll manage,” Gardner said.
The first page was headed, Notes Toward an Analysis of the Sadistic Element in Lurioni Entertainment Forms . Gardner skimmed through the first paragraph or two of her notes, and allowed himself to appear to be reading the rest. Actually, his mind was occupied with the making of decisions and the formulating of a plan.
This relationship had to be brought to a crux at once. She had made the overt gesture, with this flimsy and transparent maneuver to get inside his room. The display of cleavage, the dab of perfume—all these, he knew, were calculated to force him to a point of commitment toward her.
Well, the time had come to settle the matter. If he delayed any further, he would be knowingly jeopardizing the success of the mission.
By the time he had finished his cursory scanning of the notes, he had made up his mind. The break would have to be complete and absolute.
“Well?” she asked. “No comment?”
Jolted back to consideration of the notes, he smiled weakly and said, “Ah … hmm. Nice and accurate, I’d say.” His eyes leaped over the blocks of words and paragraphs, searching for something he could seize on and criticize. “I think it’s a bit lacking in real sparkle,” he went on. “You don’t fully convey the nastiness of the situation. Get me?”
She nodded. “I thought so too, when I read them back. Got any suggestions?”
“Focus it more sharply on the people watching the thing. Not us, but the others, the Lurioni patrons, the ones busy empathizing with the dancers. There’s practically a psychic bond there. The killing, when it comes, is participated in vicariously by the whole audience. That’s the really nasty part of the business.”
“You’re right,” she said. “I’ll add that when I’m preparing my submission.”
Rising, she wandered around the room, and paused to peer curiously at the sonic generator, which Gardner had never bothered to hide, since the total effectiveness of a doorseal made furtiveness unnecessary.
“What’s this gadget?” she asked.
Gardner sucked in his breath sharply. “That’s … that’s a thing I use in testing jewels. It enables me to make sure they’re genuine.”
“Oh? Would you show me how it works?” she asked innocently. “I’d be terribly interested.”
Gardner’s face drooped. “It uses up a lot of power,” he said. “Anyway, it’s after working hours I’d just as soon not bother, unless you insist.”
She shrugged. “I guess it isn’t all that important, if it would mean a bother.”
“I’ll let you see how it works some other time,” Gardner said, relieved. It was not for a moment that he realized the grim double-meaning of his words.
But Lori had already lost interest in the sonic generator. She crossed the room and boldly sat down on the bed next to him.
Gardner no longer had any doubt. Her intention in coming up here was almost embarrassingly obvious. Gardner felt a fleeting sense of guilt about what he was going to do, but banished the sensation. There was to be no more guilt about this.
As she snuggled close to him he edged away, forcing himself to ignore her warmth and softness.
“Roy, don’t always keep running away from me,” she murmured.
Gardner moved away still further, then stood up and said in a brittle voice, “Would it be too melodramatic, Lori, if I said I had something very important to tell you?”
“No, of course not, Roy. Tell me anything you want.” Her eyes were half-closed and a little dreamy. Gardner took a deep breath.
“I’m married,” he said.
It was a flat lie.
“I have a wife and family back on Terra,” he continued, “and it happens that I’m very devoted to them. And before our relation gets any more awkward than it’s already become, Lori, I feel you ought to know that I’m very much in love with my wife.”
The girl looked steamrollered. The blow had fallen on her with crushing impact. The dreaminess vanished from her eyes, to be replaced with a catlike look of insult and injury.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said softly. “For my sake, not yours.”
“I understand. If … if circumstances had been otherwise, Lori, well … maybe … you know what I’m trying to say. But as it is …”
Go on , he thought savagely, sound fumbling and shame-faced and sincere. If you’re going to lie to this kid, at least do a convincing job of it .
She stood up, facing him steadily, making the task easier for him. Impulsively, he gripped her hand tightly. He had never felt like such a heel in his life.
He told her, “I don’t think we ought to see each other any more. I’m only going to be on Lurion another week, and it would be easier for both of us.”
“Of course, Roy.” Her eyes had the glitter that told of tears just barely being held in check, but there was a surprising curtness in her voice that both pleased and puzzled him. He had feared that she might go to pieces completely at the news that he was “married” but he hadn’t expected her to come up with this sudden reserve of strength.
“Good-by,” he said.
“So long, Roy. And, I’m sorry if I misunderstood things.”
She picked up her notes, smiled bleakly at him, and left. She closed the door quietly behind her. Moving mechanically, Gardner replaced the doorseal, then stared unseeingly at the dirty black streaks against the dingy green of the walls.
It was easier now, he thought. There had been a clean break. When the time came to act, he wouldn’t be entangled in the bands of a personal relationship.
If he could only manage to keep out of her way for the next week.
Suddenly the yellow panel of his indicator band pinged into brightness. Gardner looked at it dazedly for a moment, not understanding.
The yellow could mean only one thing. Damon Archer was on Lurion, the fifth man in the chain. And he was a week ahead of schedule.
Tensely, Gardner took down the khall bottle he now kept on his dresser, and poured himself a drink with quivering hands. If Archer were here, and the indicator band testified that he was, then Lurion’s remaining time could be numbered in hours, not in days.
But why was Archer here so early?
Chapter Ten
Drink in hand, Gardner walked to the window. He had a fairly good view. He stared out over the city. A garish kaleidoscope of lights and colors greeted his eye, so brilliant that it quite obscured the light of the three tiny moons above.
The instructions engraved on his memory now sprang vividly to life. He could practically hear Karnes intoning, “ When all five members of the team have made their duly scheduled arrivals, you shall proceed at once to place the destruction plan into operation. Any delay at this point may result in failure. ”
Gardner frowned. “… their duly scheduled arrivals. ” But Archer was a week ahead of schedule. It implied some alteration in the plan. He could not act until …
The visi-screen chimed three times, interrupting his stream of thought. It was the signal for a long-distance communication.
Gardner set his drink down carefully out of the range of the visual pickup and, pulling himself hurriedly together, activated the set.
Colors swirled aimlessly for a moment, a random stream of reds and yellows and blues. Quickly, they coalesced into a face.
It was Smee.
“Yes?” Gardner asked.
The balding operative smiled apologetically. The smile was a little lopsided, as though Smee had been drinking heavily and lost con
trol of his facial muscles.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you, Mr. Gardner.”
“No … no. What’s on your mind?”
Smee’s eyes were little dark beads. “I suppose you’re aware,” he said, “that your friend has arrived on Lurion?”
“Yes, I know that,” Gardner snapped impatiently. “He got here early. What of it?”
The impatience in Smee’s face was suddenly mirrored by the sharpness of his tones. “Six months is a long time, Mister Gardner. Now that your friend is here, when do we—”
“Soon, Smee. You’ll get the word.”
“ When? ”
“I’m not sure,” Gardner said. “There may be some last-minute instructions from the home company, and I don’t want to close the deal in haste. Got that?”
Smee sighed heavily. “You’re the boss. But I can’t take much more of this.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
“Okay, then,” Smee said. “Let’s see that the deal does get closed, Gardner. And let’s not have to wait too long, either.”
He broke the contact.
Nerves jangled, Gardner snatched at his drink and took a healthy gulp. Then he turned away, wincing as the fiery drink hit his stomach.
He couldn’t blame Smee at all for being impatient. The little man had been living on Lurion for six months, which was a hellishly long time for anyone, particularly if you were someone waiting patiently for a chance to destroy the planet. Smee’s only thought at this moment had to be that the team was now complete.
It was an understandable attitude. But Gardner couldn’t work that way. For one reason or another, Archer had arrived on Lurion early; and, until Gardner knew the reason for the change in schedule, he couldn’t give the blowup order. For all he knew, Archer was carrying a stay of execution for Lurion. He had to wait till he heard from him.
And then what do I do? Gardner wondered.
If there were no reprieve, it would be up to him at last to give the order to activate the sonic generators.
Gardner finished the drink and set the glass down. Then, acting with methodical precision, he corked the half-full bottle on the table, carried it to the disposal chute, sighed regretfully, and let it drop.