He began with his fingers. He lay face down, and his eyes refused to focus. Best to find out what his fingers could tell him. They touched something soft and smooth and yielding. When he pressed down, what his fingers touched gave way. He pressed harder, and groaned again as his shoulder muscles worked. Deliberately he shut oS the noise, went on pressing until he could sit up. He was lying on a bed. It was familiar to him. Wearily his brain told him it was the bed in his cabin on Naxos's yacht. He looked round, slowly, carefully, wary of the great ache in his neck that throbbed and shuddered like a gong. Pia Busoni sat in the chair by the dressing table. She still wore the costume of the night before, and fear crawled slyly, obscenely across her face.
Craig said; "I'd better have a drink. Is there a drink?" She made no move. "Scotch," Craig said. "You'll have to fetch it. I can't . . ." His hands slipped, and he almost fell, then pushed himself up again. The girl moved cautiously across the room, poured him a drink, put it in his hand. Craig sipped once, then again. The whiskey burned into his consciousness.
"Naxos's party," he said. "I was on the roof. And you were going to scream."
Pia shook her head.
"Yes you were," said Craig. "I remember. I saw you. Did they kill him?" She made no answer. "Pia, for God's sake. It's important."
"No," said Pia. "He's alive. They brought you back
here."
"Hey," said Craig. "I'm having some luck for once."
His body somehow managed to stand, and he lurched over to the door. As he reached for the handle, he said, "Who hit me? How did Naxos get me away?"
"He didn't," said Pia. The door was locked. "You're a prisoner, Craig."
"You too?" She nodded.
"Why?" the fear came back again. "Because you yelled?"
"I didn't," said Pia. "I wasn't there." "But I saw you—"
"No," she said. "Not me. Another girl. I never left the
ship."
"No mole," said Craig. "I remember. She didn't have a mole on her shoulder."
'This girl went as me—she was somebody who had to meet Naxos—talk business with him. She and Naxos met, and agreed to whatever it is. Then she came back to the ship—and brought a man with her. A big man dressed like an executioner."
"Was he the one who hit me?"
"I think so," said Pia. "Craig, what's going to happen to me? What will they do?"
Craig went back to the bed, and sat down.
"We'll find out in time—both of us," he said, and gestured to her to come to his side. She hesitated, and he signed to her again, his hps shaped the word "please." She came to him and he whispered in her ear: "This room will be wired. They'll be listening to us. They want to know we're scared."
The girl gasped, and then began to cry, softly, almost timidly.
Craig"s arms came round her, comforting her with the warmth and strength of his body, and gradually her tears flowed more easily, her body leaned into his, as if the mere touch of him were enough to make her safe. Her mouth found his at last, and she kissed him with a frantic and despairing passion. Craig gasped as pain seared again across his neck, and his hands tightened on the ohve softness of her flesh, but at last he pushed her away.
"They'll come for us soon," he said. "Do you want them to find us like this?"
She shrugged.
"Does it matter?" she asked. "We're going to die anyway."
"Maybe," said Craig. "But it won't be easy. I won't die easy." He thought of Grierson and Andrews. If they were still free he had a chance.
There was a sound by the door, and Craig moved away from the girl, on his feet, ready. The door swung open, and Theseus stood in its frame, a Biretta like a toy in his massive fist. He looked from Pia to Craig, and he seemed far from happy.
"Women," he said. "I told you there'd be trouble. Come on. The boss wants to see you." Craig moved forward. "But no trouble, huh?"
"No trouble," said Craig, and looked at Pia.
"She'll be all right," Theseus said. "Just don't start anything."
They moved in procession, Pia first, then Craig, to Naxos's stateroom. There was another sailor on guard outside, and he opened the door at once; the three went inside.
The inside of the room was like a court, with a great table for the judges—Naxos in the center, Dyton-Blease on his left, and a woman on his right. The woman was dark, superb, with a proud beak of a nose, and a red and splendid mouth. She wore the robes of a Tuareg princess. Naxos and Dyton-Blease looked rested and refreshed in cool clean suits. Pia and Craig, as they stood facing the table, were aware of the crumpled squalor of their costumes, the dirt, the lack of dignity that all prisoners possess, because they are prisoners. Naxos said: "We're on to you, Craig."
Craig said nothing. "We know all about what you are going to do." Craig stood there, looking at him, the face a cold mask, asking nothing, giving nothing. "Well?" Naxos said.
Craig continued to look at him, a look beyond hatred, beyond rage. These people were going to hurt him soon, and his body and mind tightened to cope with this, only this. There was no room even for pity for the girl who stood beside him.
"I'll talk to him," said Dyton-Blease, and still Craig didn't look. This was what he wanted—the big man coming at him, and perhaps making one mistake. If he did, Craig would kill him. There was little possibility of it, but it might happen, and if it did, it might give him a chance for a while.
"Okay," said Naxos. "Make him talk."
The big man rose then, slow, precise, smooth, and menacing. The woman in the blue and red robes said: "No. Sit down." Dyton-Blease hesitated, not understanding that a woman should give orders, and the woman said again: "Sit down. We talk first. Later you can amuse yourself, after Naxos and I have signed."
Dyton-Blease sat, his eyes not leaving Craig's and Craig laughed at him, a jeering bellow of barroom laughter that whipped the big man's face scarlet.
Craig said in Arabic. "You, tamer of men, do you want me to crawl for you so that I shall not be beaten?"
Dyton-Blease flushed darker. "Theseus," he yelled.
The bos'n moved in on Craig then, and Craig turned, fast. One arm extended, the edge of the hand flat and deadly as an ax, the other clenched into a fist, an object of muscle and will that could smash through a wooden door. Theseus hesitated, stopped out of range, his gun on Craig.
Naxos said: "Take him, why don't you?" Theseus hesitated. "Go on," Naxos said, "you can eat him."
Theseus shook his head. "I can try," he said. "He'd kill me."
Dyton-Blease said: "It's really a very amusing situation. We unmask the villain, bring him to justice, point guns at him, and are frightened to death."
"Mister, you should be," Theseus said.
"Look," said Naxos. "Let's cut out the crap. We know why you're here, Craig—to kill me. You had it all set up right,
didn't you? If Dyton-Blease here hadn't stopped you, you'd have shot me. You had that cupola opened, right? And you had a swell excuse for getting away with it—trying to keep me alive.
"Well, it won't work. I know you want me dead so that you can set up a new oil agreement through Flip. You think I don't know you hired that steward to feed her heroin? But I do know it. I even found the stuff in your suitcase, when I searched your room. I know why you had him murdered too, because we were on to him. You were afraid he would squeal."