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that you are deceiving me. If you are and can lead me to the ring, I would be very grateful. You could go
back to Earth in style and comfort. I think I could even promise a moderate annuity; we have special
funds for such purposes."
"I'm not likely to collect it unless they find the ring in the restaurant."
"Dear me! In that case I don't suppose either one of us will go back to Earth. No, sir, I think that in such
a case I would find it better to stay right here devoting my declining years to making your life
miserable."
He smiled. "I was joking I'm sure we'll find the ring, with your help. Now, Don, tell me what you did
with it." He put an arm around Don's shoulders in a fatherly fashion.
Don tried to shrug the arm off, found that he could not. Bankfield went on, "We could settle it quickly if I
had proper equipment at hand. Or I could do this " The arm around Don's shoulders dropped
suddenly; Bankfield seized Don's left little finger and bent it back sharply. Involuntarily Don grunted with
pain.
"Sorry! I don't like such methods. The operator, in an excess of zeal, frequently damages the client so
that no truth of any sort is forthcoming. No, Don, I think we will wait a few minutes while I get word to
the medical department sodium pentothal seems to be indicated. It will make you more cooperative,
don't you think?" Bankfield stepped again to the door. "Orderly! Put this one on ice. And send in that
Mathewson character."
Don was conducted outside the guardhouse and into a pen, a fenced enclosure used to receive
prisoners. It was some thirty feet wide and a hundred feet long; one of its longer sides was common with
the fence that ran around the entire camp, the other shut it off from the free world. The only entrance to it
lay through the guardhouse.
There were several dozen prisoners in the receiving pen, most of them civilian men, although Don saw a
number of women and quite a few officers of the Middle Guard and of the Ground Forces still in
uniform but disarmed.
He at once checked the faces of the women; none was Isobel. He had not expected to find her, yet
found himself vastly disappointed. His time was running out; he realized with panic that it was probably
only minutes until he would be held down, drug injected into his veins and be turned thereby into a
babbling child with no will to resist their questioning. He had never been subjected to narco-interrogation
but he knew quite well what the drug would do. Even deep-hypnotic suggestion could not protect against
it in the hands of a skilled operator.
Somehow he felt sure that Bankfield was skilled.
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He went to the far end of the pen, pointlessly, as a frightened animal will retreat to the back of a cage.
He stood there, staring up at the top of the fence several feet above his head. The fence was tight and
strong, proof against almost anything but a dragon, but one could get handholds in the mesh it could be
climbed. However, above the mesh were three single strands of wire; every ten feet or so on the lowest
strand was a little red sign a skull-and-crossbones and the words HIGH VOLTAGE.
Don glanced back over his shoulder. The everpresent fog, reinforced by smoke from the burning city,
almost obscured the guardhouse. The breeze had shifted and the smoke was getting thicker; he felt
reasonably sure that no one could see him but other prisoners.
He tried it, found that his shoes would not go into the mesh, kicked them off and tried again.
"Don't!" said a voice behind him.
Don looked back. A major of the Ground Forces, cap missing and one sleeve torn and bloody, stood
behind him. "Don't try it," the major said reasonably. "It will kill you quickly. I know; I supervised its
installation."
Don dropped to the ground. "Isn't there some way to switch it off?"
"Certainly outside." The officer grinned wryly. "I took care of that. A locked switch in the
guardhouse and another at the main distribution board in the city. Nowhere else." He coughed. "Pardon
me the smoke."
Don looked toward the burning city. "The distribution board back in the powerhouse," he said softly. "I
wonder "
"Eh?" The major followed his glance. "I don't know-I couldn't say. The powerhouse is fireproof."
A voice behind them in the mist shouted, "Harvey! Donald J. Harvey! Front and center!"
Don swarmed up the fence.
He hesitated just before touching the lowest of the three strands, flipped it with the back of his hand.
Nothing happened then he was over and falling. He hit badly, hurting a wrist, but scrambled to his feet
and ran.
There were shouts behind him; without stopping he risked a look over his shoulder. Someone else was
at the top of the fence. Even as he looked he heard the hiss of a beam. The figure jerked and contracted,
like a fly touched by flame.
The figure raised its head. Don heard the major's voice in a clear triumphant baritone: "Venus and
Freedom!" He fell back inside the fence.
XII - Wet Desert
Don plunged ahead, not knowing where he was going, not caring as long as it was away. Again he heard
the angry, deadly hissing; he cut to the left and ran faster, then cut back again beyond a clump of witch's
brooms. He pounded ahead, giving it all he had, with his breath like dry steam in his throat-then skidded
to a stop at water's edge.
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He stood still for a moment, looked and listened. Nothing to see but grey mist, nothing to hear but the
throbbing of his own heart. No, not quite nothing someone shouted in the distance and he heard the
sounds of booted feet crashing through the brush. It seemed to come from the right; he turned left and
trotted along the waterfront, his eyes open for a gondola, a skiff, anything that would float.
The bank curled back to the left; he followed it, then stopped as he realized that it was leading him to the
narrow neck of land that joined Main Island to East Spit. It was a cinch, he thought, that there would be
a guard at the bottleneck; it seemed to him that there had been one there when he and the other
dispossessed had been herded across it to the prison camp.
He listened yes, they were still behind him and flanking him. There was nothing in front of him but the
bank curving back to certain capture.
For a moment his face was contorted in an agony of frustration, then his features suddenly relaxed to
serenity and he stepped firmly into the water and walked away from the land.
Don could swim, in which respect he differed from most Venus colonials. On Venus no one ever swims;
there is no water fit to swim in. Venus has no moon to pile up tides; the solar tide disturbs her waters but
little. The waters never freeze, never approach the critical 4 C. which causes terrestrial lakes and
streams and ponds to turn over and "ventilate." The planet is almost free of weather in the boisterous
sense. Her waters lie placid on their surface and accumulate vileness underneath, by the year, by the
generation, by the eon.
Don walked straight out, trying not to think of the black and sulphurous muck he was treading in. The [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
