That was an exaggeration, but there was enough truth to it to impress all who were there. Hands were yanking at his collar which had been tightly bound about his neck in the fight against the Martian cold. They shuffled him into a seat and put in a call for Hennes.
Hennes arrived in ten minutes, hopping off a scooter and approaching with a look that was compounded of annoyance and anger. There were no visible signs of any relief at the safe return of a man in his employ.
He barked, "What's this all about, Williams?"
David lifted his eyes and said coolly, "I was lost."
"Oh, is that what you call it? Gone for two days and you were just lost. How did you manage it?"
"I thought I'd take a walk and I walked too far."
"You thought you needed a breath of air, so you've been walking through two Martian nights? Do you expect me to believe that?"
"Are any sand-cars missing?"
One of the farmboys interposed hastily as Hennes reddened further. "He's knocked out, Mr. Hennes. He was out in the dust storm."
Hennes said, "Don't be a fool. If he were out in the dust storm, he wouldn't be sitting here alive."
"Well, I know," the farmboy said, "but look at Mm."
Hennes looked at him. The redness of his exposed neck and shoulders was a fact that could not be easily argued away.
He said, "Were you in the storm?"
"I'm afraid so," said David.
"How did you get through?"
"There was a man," said David. "A man in smoke and light. The dust didn't bother him. He called himself the Space Ranger."
The men were gathering close. Hennes turned on them furiously, his plump face working.
"Get the Space out of here!" he yelled. "Back to your work. And you, Jonnitel, get a sand-car out here."
It was nearly an hour before the hot bath he craved was allowed David. Hennes permitted no one else to approach him. Over and over again, as he paced the floor of his private office, he would stop in midstride, whirl in sudden fury, and demand of David, "What about this Space Ranger? Where did you meet him? What did he say? What did he do? What's this smoke and light you speak of?"
To all of wliich David would only shake his head slightly and say, "I took a walk. I got lost. A man calling himself the Space Ranger brought me back."
Hennes gave up eventually. The dome doctor took charge. David got his hot bath. His body was anointed with creams and injected with the proper hormones. He could not avoid the injection of Soporite as well. He was asleep almost before the needle was withdrawn.
He woke to find himself between clean, cool sheets in the sick bay. The reddening of the skin had subsided considerably. They would be at him again, he knew, but he would have to fight them off but a little while longer.
He was sure he had the answer to the food-poisoning mystery now; almost the whole answer. He needed only a missing piece or two, and, of course, legal proof.
He heard the light footstep beyond the head of his bed and stiffened slightly. Was it going to begin again so soon? But it was only Benson who moved into his line of vision. Benson, with his plump lips pursed, his thin hair in disarray, his whole face a picture of worry. He carried something that looked like an old-fashioned clumsy gun.
He said, "Williams, are you awake?"
David said, "You see I am."
Benson passed the back of his hand across a perspiring forehead. "They don't know I'm here. I shouldn't be, I suppose."
"Why not?"
"Hennes is convinced you're involved with this food poisoning. He's been raving to Makian and my- self about It. He claims you've been out somewhere and have nothing to say about it now other than ridiculous stories. Despite anything I can do, I'm afraid you're in terrible trouble."
"Despite anything you can do? You don't believe Hennes's theory about my complicity in all this?"
Benson leaned forward, and David could feel his breath warm on his face as he whispered, "No, I don't. I don't because I think your story is true. That's why I've come here. I must ask you about this creature you speak of, the one you claim was covered with smoke and light. Are you sure it wasn't a hallucination, Williams?"
"I saw him," said David.
"How do you know he was human? Did he speak English?"
"He didn't speak, but he was shaped like a human." David's eyes fastened upon Benson. "Do you think it was a Martian?"
"Ah"-Benson's lips drew back in a spasmodic smile-"you remember my theory. Yes, I think it was a Martian. Think, man, think! They're coming out in the open now and every piece of information may be vital. We have so little time."
"Why so little time?" David raised himself to one elbow.
"Of course you don't know what's happened since you've been gone, but frankly, Williams, we are all of us in despair now." He held up the gun-like affair in his hand and said bitterly, "Do you know what this is?"
"I've seen you with it before."
"It's my sampling harpoon; it's my own invention. I take it with me when I'm at the storage bins in the city. It shoots a little hollow pellet attached to it by a metal-mesh cord into a bin of, let us say, grain. At a certain time after shooting an opening appears in the front of the pellet long enough to allow the hollow within to become packed with grain. After that the pellet closes again. I drag it back and empty out the random sample it has accumulated. By varying the time after shooting in which the pellet opens, samples can be taken at various depths in the bin."
David said, "That's ingenious, but why are you carrying it now?"
"Because I'm wondering if I oughtn't to throw it into the disposal unit after I leave you. It was my only weapon for fighting the poisoners. It has done me no good so far, and can certainly do me no good In the future."
"What has happened?" David seized the other's shoulder and gripped it hard. "Tell me."
Benson winced at the pain. He said, "Every member of the farming syndicates has received a new letter from whoever is behind the poisoning. There's no doubt that the letters and the poisonings are caused by the same men, or rather, entities. The letters admit it now."
"What do they say?"
Benson shrugged. "What difference do the details make? What it amounts to is a demand for complete surrender on our part or the food-poisoning attacks will be multiplied a thousandfold. I believe it can and will be done, and if that happens, Earth and Mars, the whole system, in fact, will panic."
He rose to Ms feet. ''I've told Makian and Hennes that I believe you, that your Space Ranger is the clue to the whole thing, but they won't believe me. Hennes, 1 think, even suspects that I'm in it with you."
He seemed absorbed in his own wrongs. David said, "How long do we have Benson?"
"Two days. No, that was yesterday. We have thirty-six hours now."
Thirty-six hours!
David would have to work quickly. Very quickly. But maybe there would yet be time. Without knowing it Benson had given him the missing piece to the mystery.
13. The Council Takes Over
He said, "I don't want Hennes catching me. We've had-words."
"What about Makian? He's on our side, isn't he?"
"I don't know. He stands to be ruined by day after tomorrow. I don't think he has enough spine left to stand up to the fellow. Look, I'd better go. If you think of anything, anything at all, get it to me somehow, will you?"
He held out a hand. David took it briefly, and then Benson was gone.
David sat up in bed. His own uneasiness had grown since he had awakened. His clothes were thrown over a chair at the other end of the room. His boots stood upright by the side of the bed. He had not dared inspect them in Benson's presence; had scarcely dared look at them.
Perhaps, he thought pessimistically, they had not tampered with them. A farmboy's hip boots are inviolate. Stealing from a farmboy's hip boots, next to stealing his sand-car in the open desert, was the unforgivable crime. Even in death, a farmboy's boots were buried with him, with the contents unremoved.