“We want a little talk with you, Relke, my lad,” came Larkin’s rich, deceptively affable baritone.
“Sorry, Lark, it’s late and I—” He tried to sidestep them, but they danced in and locked arms with him, one on each side.
“Like Lark told you, we want a little talk,” grunted Kunz.
“Sure, Harv—but not right now. Drop by my bunk tank when you’re off shift. I been in this straight jacket for seven hours. It doesn’t smell exactly fresh in here.”
“Then, Sonny, you should learn to control yourself in your suit,” said Larkin, his voice all mellifluent with, smiles and avuncular pedagoguery. “Let’s take him, Harv.”
They caught him in a double armlock, hoisted him off the ground, and started carrying him toward a low lava ridge that lay a hundred yards to the south of the tower. He could not kick effectively because of the stiffness of the suit. He wrenched one hand free and fumbled at the channel selector of his suit radio. Larkin jerked his stub antenna free from its mounting before Relke could put in a call for help.
“Tch tch tch,” said Larkin, waggling his head.
They carried him across the ridge and set him on his feet again, out of sight of the camp. “Sit down, Sonny. We have seeeerious matters to discuss with you.”
Relke heard him faintly, even without the antenna, but he saw no reason to acknowledge. When he failed to answer, Kunz produced a set of jumper wires from his knee pocket and clipped their suit audio circuits into a three-way intercom, disconnecting the plate lead from an r.f. stage to insure privacy.
“You guys give me a pain in the hump,” growled the lineman. “What do you want this time? You know damn well a dead radio is against safety rules.”
“It is? You ever hear of such a rule, Kunz?”
“Naah. Or maybe I did, at that. It’s to make things easy for work spies, psych checkers, and time-and-motion men, ain’t that it?”
“Yeah. You a psych checker or a time-and-motion man, Relke?”
“Hell, you guys known damn well I’m not—”
“Then what are you stalling about?” Larkin’s baritone lost its mellowness and became an ominous growl. “You came nosing around, asking questions about the Party. So we let you in on it. We took you to a cell meeting. You said you wanted to join. So we let you in on two more meetings. Then you chickened out. We don’t like that, Relke. It smells. It smells like a dirty informing rat!”
“I’m no damn informer!”
“Then why did you welsh?”
“I didn’t welsh. I never said I’d join. You asked me if I was in favor of getting the Schneider-Volkov Act repealed. I said ‘yes.’ I still say ‘yes.’ That doesn’t mean I want to join the Party.”
“Why not, Relke?”
“Well, there’s the fifty bucks, for one thing.”
“Wh-a-a-at! One shift’s wages? Hell, if that’s all that’s stopping you—Kunz, let’s pay his fifty bucks for him, okay?”
“Sure. We’ll pay your way in, Relke. I don’t hold it against a man if he’s a natural born tightwad.”
“Yeah,” said Larkin. “All you gotta do is sign up, Sonny. Fifty bucks, hell—that’s less than union dues. If you can call that yellow-bellied obscenity a union. Now how about it, Relke?”
Behind the dark lenses of his glare goggles, Relke’s eyes scanned the ground for a weapon. He spotted a jagged shard of volcanic glass and edged toward it.
“Well, Relke?”
“No deal.”
“Why not?”
“That’s easy. I plan on getting back to Earth someday. Conspiracy to commit mutiny rates the death penalty.”
“Hear what he said, Lark? He calls it mutiny.”
“Yeah. Teacher’s little monitor.”
“C’mere, informer.”
They approached him slowly, wearing tight smiles. Relke dived for the shard of glass. The jumper wires jerked tight and broke loose, throwing them off balance for a moment. He came up with the glass shard in one fist and backed away. They stopped. The weapon was as good as a gun. A slit suit was the ultimate threat. Relke tore the dangling wires loose from his radio and backed toward the top of the ridge. They watched him somberly, not speaking. Larkin waved the lineman’s stub antenna and looked at him questioningly. Relke held out a glove and waited for him to toss it. Larkin threw it over his shoulder in the opposite direction. They turned their backs on him. He loped on back toward the gravy train, knowing that the showdown had been no more than postponed. Next time would be worse. They meant to incriminate him, as a kind of insurance against his informing. He had no desire to be incriminated, nor to inform—but try to make them believe that.
Before entering the clean-up tank, he stopped to glance up at the heavens between Arcturus and Serpens. The creeping spot of light had vanished—or moved far from where he had seen it. He did not pause to search. He checked his urine bottle in the airlock, connected his hoses to the wall valves, and blew the barn-smell out of his suit. The blast of fresh air was like icy wine in his throat. He enjoyed it for a moment, then went inside the tank for a bath.
Novotny was waiting for him in the B-shift line crew’s bunkroom. The small pusher looked sore. He stopped pacing when Relke entered.
“Hi, Joe.”
Novotny didn’t answer. He watched while Relke stowed his gear, got out an electric razor, and went to the wall mirror to grind off the blond bristles.
“Where you been?” Novotny grunted.
“On the line where you saw me. I jacked that last span up tighter than you told me. I had to let her back down a little. Made me late getting in.”
The pusher’s big hand hit him like a club between the shoulder blades, grabbed a handful of coverall, and jerked him roughly around. The razor fell to the end of the cord. Novotny let go in back and grabbed a handful in front. He shoved the lineman back against the wall, Relke gaped at him blankly.
“Don’t give me that wide blue-eyed dumb stare, you sonofabitch!” the pusher snapped. “I saw you go over the hill with Kunz and Larkin.”
Relke’s Adam’s apple did a quick genuflection. “If you saw me go, you musta seen how I went.”
Novotny shook him. “What’d they want with you?” he barked.
“Nothing.”
Joe’s eyes turned to dark slits. “Relke, I told you, I told the rest of my men. I told you what I’d do to any sonofabitch on my team that got mixed up with the Party. Pappy don’t allow that crap. Now shall I do it to you here, or do you want to go down to the dayroom?”
“Honest, Joe, I’m not mixed up in it. I got interested in what Larkin had to say—back maybe six months ago. But I never signed up. I never even meant to.”
“Six months? Was that about the time you got your Dear John letter from Fran?”
“Right after that, Joe.”
“Well, that figures. So what’s Larkin after you about now?”
“I guess he wonders why I asked questions but never joined.”
“I don’t want your guesses. What did he say out there, and what did you say to him?”
“He wanted to know why I didn’t sign up, that’s all.”
“And you told him what?”
“No deal.”
“So?”
“So, I came on back and took a shower.”
Novotny stared at him for a few seconds. “You’re lying,” he grunted, but released him anyway. “OK, Relke, but you better listen to this. You’re a good lineman. You’ve stayed out of trouble. You get along with the rest of the team. If you got out of line in some other way, I’d figure it was about time you let off some steam. I’d stick up for you. But get mixed up with the Party—and I’ll stomp you. When I’m through stomping you, I’ll report you off my team. Understand?”