She said unsteadily, “I was asleep. I awakened when I heard a scream somewhere and then a blaster-shot. I heard doors banging. Sometimes there were shots and—other noises. Then I heard men running. They came along the corridor my cabin was on, banging open doors as they came. Two cabins away there was a fat man. They kicked open his door and I heard him say, ‘What’s the matter? What’s happening?’ And there was a blaster-shot and he cried out—terribly. They opened the door next to mine. I stood—paralyzed. I couldn’t believe—And then somebody fired a blaster down the corridor. It hit one of the men who’d been opening doors—almost in front of mine.” She swallowed. “They fired at the man who’d shot at them. They rushed toward him. Wh-when they came back, the man who’d been shot in front of my door had crawled blindly a little way. So they skipped my door without knowing it. Down the corridor a woman peered out. I heard her asking anxiously what was the matter, and a blaster fired and—that was all. They went on. To other levels. And there were other shots, some far away.”
Her voice stopped abruptly. She made a gesture.
“That—that’s all…”
Scott said, “But somebody found you later.”
“Y-yes. It was—Chenery.” Her throat sounded dry. “I think—anybody else would have killed me. But he found me and he was—upset. He told me he hadn’t meant for the buoy to be taken that way. He was apologetic. Apologetic! He explained that he’d meant to call for the crewmen, one by one, and make prisoners of them, not kill them. Then he’d meant to capture the passengers the same way. He seemed quite miserable about it! They’d have told afterward, he said, that it was a beautifully handled robbery, the cleverest, biggest trick ever done! You see the Golconda Ship—”
“He didn’t expect to take it without fighting!” said Scott.
“But he did! He’d planned to have a banquet ready for the Golconda Ship’s crew, to celebrate their return. He’d lead them to tables set with luxuries they’d have missed—”
“The Golconda Ship didn’t carry regular crew’s rations,” said Scott sardonically. “Every man aboard’s a multi-millionaire. They wouldn’t have missed any luxuries!”
“He thought,” said Janet, “that they’d stuff themselves. And there’d be—knockout drops, and they’d wake up to find the Golconda Ship gone, and the passenger-prisoners would tell them how they’d been fooled. Chenery was terribly proud of that plan! He’d have been known as pulling off the biggest robbery in the smartest way in all history. But Bugsy took over.”
“Chenery’s idea wasn’t practical,” said Scott. “It wouldn’t have worked.”
“Anyhow—now he’ll be known as a butcher. And he said he’d save my life, or try to, so I could explain that he’d only meant the robbery to be the smartest and cleverest ever.”
She added helplessly, “I thought he was crazy! P-people killed and he talking like that … But he did keep the others from—harming me. He told them I was a nurse and two of them were—wounded. I’d cure them, he said. So I’ve pretended to be a nurse. I have kept them alive. Maybe.”
“Two wounded,” said Scott. “Their men, of course. But there was some fighting. That’s good.”
He rubbed his chin. His expression was wry. Now he began to see something like a complete picture of what the situation in the buoy was—at least the part which made least sense and was the kind that gave the Patrol so many unpleasant problems. It helped to solve them, too, because planetary police and the Patrol together knew that most crimes weren’t committed for money. The professional criminal did not practice his profession to get rich. Chenery had the motivation of many members of his craft. He wanted to be known as a genius.
With half of humanity envying the Golconda Ship’s crew, and the other half trying to guess their secret, Chenery had planned a robbery which would be not only the most stupendous one known, but one in which he would outsmart all the rest of the human race. His vanity wouldn’t be satisfied with the Golconda Ship’s treasure. He craved to be admired for his cleverness. So he had really wanted to have as many witnesses as possible, to relate how clever he’d been and how brilliantly he’d worked out his plan.
Scott shrugged. Chenery’s ambition had cost lives. It was silliness, but still the fact. Similar silliness has caused wars and cost lives throughout all history. It was still highly likely that Scott’s own life would be among those lost in this affair, and it was no comfort at all to reflect that Chenery himself would eventually be killed through the essential silliness of crime as a profession.
The control room was silent. The checkpoint’s identifying signal, though, still went out to emptiness in every direction. It continued to call upon all passing ships to report. It would record their reportings. As Scott moved restlessly about the control room a tape-spool on the wall began to turn. A ship had come and gone, out somewhere, and the whine recorded was its log. Perhaps a dozen to three dozen ships passed Checkpoint Lambda daily, but very few opened communication directly.
Footsteps. The control door opened. Scott turned, aware of Janet’s fright. Chenery came in. He looked less scared, less uneasy. He had color in his cheeks again.
“Ho-ya!” he said cheerily. “I talked to Bugsy, Lieutenant! Things look better. Bugsy’s agreeable. He’ll listen. We’re goin’ to have lunch together!”
It was preposterous. Scott almost did not believe his ears. Chenery turned exuberantly to Janet, “You’ll fix it, Janet? We got to work things out. You’ll fix something to eat, and Bugsy and the Lieutenant and me, we’ll have lunch together and talk things over reasonable. We’ll cook up some kinda businesslike deal.”
Scott listened unbelievingly. When he’d forced himself aboard the space buoy, it had been with a reasonable expectation of being killed. There’d be some hesitation, to be sure, because then the liner still lay nearby and could spoil the whole intended robbery. But he’d been used to test the intended deception of the Golconda Ship’s crew. Now Chenery was aware that he knew of the purpose of the buoy’s seizure, and more than guessed at the way it was done. And that meant that for Chenery’s and Bugsy’s safety, and that of every other living man on the ship, Scott had to be killed sooner or later.
On the face of it, then, to lunch with men who intended to kill him was out of all reason. Chenery spoke of a deal to be arranged over a businessman-like luncheon table: Only Chenery would think of such a thing. He might have some incredible proposal in mind that would salvage some part of what he’d lost. And that, naturally, would be the splendid gratification of his vanity. He might have contrived some trick to gain information; perhaps a bargain for Janet’s and Scott’s escape. But there were too many murders in the past, and too many more in prospect, to make any bargain plausible.
“Lunch, eh?” he said drily. “Why not?” Chenery grandly led the way out of the control room. If he hadn’t gone first, Scott would have put him there. But they went, and three of them, down to the next level below.
They found Bugsy in the lobby of what looked like a hotel. He was seated in an elaborately upholstered chair and smoking a very black cigar. Where Chenery was short and plump, Bugsy was short and square. He was hard-featured, as a man needs to be when he has more blaster-men than specialists among his followers. He regarded them coldly from under thick eyebrows.
“Here’s the Lieutenant, Bugsy,” said Chenery brightly.
Bugsy said, “Huh!”
He waved a hand at chairs nearby. Scott held one for Janet. This was a situation so near to lunacy that Scott still felt that it was unreal. He was Patrol, and ignoring the past he was obligated to prevent the monster crime now in plain prospect. Chenery was the one who’d found out the destination of the Golconda Ship. Janet was a passenger who knew too much, destined to join the other murdered passengers. Bugsy was the man who’d been recruited by Chenery to make up the force of blaster-men needed for the capture of the checkpoint and the following seizure of the Golconda Ship. And Bugsy was now the man who decided things because he had the most men with the most blasters on the spot.