“I don’t think so”, Stone said. “My split, since you brought the matter up, is half a million. He’s demanding six million in ransom. That’s twelve times what I’m getting and what Jim Saddler is getting. But I’ve no complaints. He organized and planned everything”.
“I’ll be honest with you. That doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. I’m no good when it comes to taking a risk like that, but does that mean he’s better than I am? Do you think I’d string along with him if I believed that for a moment?”.
“Hell, no. I’m using him, don’t you see? I’m letting him take the big gamble, and I stay in the background... doing practically nothing. So if I clear a half million, what have I to complain about?”.
“Nothing, I suppose”, Corriston said.
“You’re damned right. But I don’t think I like the way you said that. There’s something in your voice that I don’t like”.
“That’s too bad”, Corriston said.
“Maybe you think I don’t mean what I said. Is that it?”.
Corriston tightened his lips. He could hear Stone’s footsteps coming toward him through the darkness. They were heavy steps, advancing slowly, with a slight shuffling sound. They paused twice and then came on again, and the silence between pauses seemed almost crushingly thick.
Corriston suddenly realized that he knew almost nothing about Stone. He had taken the man pretty much for granted, a killer’s accomplice without much personality, a sullen-faced scoundrel who was good at obeying orders and standing ready to silence anyone Henley disliked with a well-placed kick in the head.
But what if he did have personality after all? Suppose there were hidden depths in him, a hidden reservoir of malice which he kept concealed until he felt a mad impulse to start laughing or bragging or proving to someone he disliked that he was as potentially dangerous as Henley — perhaps even more dangerous. And suppose he decided to back up his boasting with a quick knife thrust or a gun blast at almost point-blank range?
It wasn’t a pleasant thought, and the flicker of a match between Stone’s cupped hands did nothing to dispel Corriston’s uneasiness. The small, bright flame brought Stone’s features into sharp relief for an instant. The lips had an ugly set to them, and the eyes were slitted, gleaming. He was making no effort to keep his hate from showing, and the instant the match went out he lit another.
He seemed to be advancing slowly on purpose, as if aware that his stealth and deliberation had begun to unnerve Corriston. Corriston felt himself stiffening, moving more closely back against the wall. Breathing quickly, he told himself that he hadn’t much time, that he must be careful not to overreach himself.
There was another moment of silence, of stillness, while the shuffling ceased. Then Stone was very close in the darkness, his hands cupped about a third match, a mocking smile on his lips.
It was a blunder on his part. Before he could move again Corriston was upon him.
There are times when a handcuffed man is at a disadvantage in a furiously waged and uncertain struggle, but Corriston suffered no disadvantage. For ten minutes he had been reminding himself that a blow along the side of the neck, just under the jaw, could paralyze and even kill if it were delivered with sufficient force.
A sharp, flat-of-the-hand blow could do it. But handcuffs were better, and Corriston lashed out now with his manacled wrists upraised, so that the handcuffs grazed Stone’s neck twice lightly and then almost splintered his jawbone with a rotor-blade violence.
The blow not only stunned Stone, it lifted him clear of the deck. He staggered forward and fell heavily, his breath leaving his lungs in an agonizing sob.
Corriston leaned back against the wall again for an instant, breathing heavily. Then he knelt beside Stone and went through his pockets until he found the handcuff key. It was difficult. He had to do a lot of awkward fumbling with his fingers, and even with the key in his possession, getting the cuffs off was far from easy. But somehow he managed it, perhaps because he had unusually flexible fingers and knew that if he failed, Stone would see to it that he got no second chance this side of eternity.
He stood very straight and still in the darkness, his eyes focused on Stone’s white face. There was no need for him to strike a match. He had taken from Stone not only the key, but a small pocket flashlight which Stone had apparently preferred not to use.
There was something else he had taken from Stone — his gun. He held the weapon now, very firmly centered on Stone, while he waited for him to come to.
Ordinarily he wouldn’t have cared if Stone had never opened his eyes again; but now he had to wait and see. The ship was so large that to explore it compartment by compartment until he found the one in which Helen Ramsey was being held prisoner would be dangerously time-consuming. So, if Stone recovered consciousness within fifteen or twenty minutes and could tell him, so much the better.
If not, better wait and see. He waited, shifting his gun only a little from weariness as the minutes dragged on, wondering if he had not made a mistake in waiting at all.
Finally Stone stirred and groaned. Corriston bent and shook him by the shoulders. He took firm hold of his shoulders and shook him vigorously, feeling no pity for him at all.
He got the truth out of him by threatening him with violence, by threatening to kill him if he kept anything back. Stone kept nothing back. Just remembering the blow that had felled him, loosened his tongue. But the gun helped too, the gun wedged so closely against his ribs under his heart that he feared that if he breathed too heavily he would breathe his last.
“I won’t lie to you”, he said desperately, pleadingly. “You haven’t a chance. There’s a photo-electric alarm system outside the compartment, and Jim Saddler is sitting just inside the door. He has a gun trained on her. His orders are to shoot her dead if anyone so much as attempts to get inside that door”.
“Meaning me?”.
“It means you, Lieutenant. I’m not lying; I swear it. You won’t stand a chance. Henley will be coming back in a few hours now. You’d better get out while you’re still in one piece:”
Corriston was tempted to hurl Stone back against the wall and shout at him: “It doesn’t matter whether I go out of here in one piece or dead on a stretcher. She’s the only thing I care about”.
But he caught himself just in time. Stone thought in the most primitive imaginable terms. You couldn’t go to a Stone Age man and say: “My own skin doesn’t mean a goddam thing to me. I’m in love. If she dies I die. Can’t you understand that? If she dies, my life will be over”.
He said instead: “All right. I guess it means I’ve got to get help”.
“You’ll never get help”. Stone said, summoning from some defiant depths within himself a little courage. “The colony is eighty-seven miles from here. You couldn’t cross the desert on foot. No one could cross it on foot, not when the temperature drops at night to fifty below. But you’d better not stay. He’d better head for Ramsey’s citadel. That’s your only chance. It’s only twenty miles from here”.
Let him think that, a voice within Corriston warned. Let him think that I’ll head for the citadel. Otherwise he may attempt to get word to Ramsey somehow. I can tie him up and leave him in a state of shock, but if he thinks I’m heading for the colony, even a state of shock may not stop him. Saddler may come down here looking for him. Once he’s freed, if he thinks I’m heading for the Colony...
Corriston said: “Damn you, Stone, I ought to kill you. I ought to put a bullet through your heart right now. I don’t know why I can’t. It’s a weakness in me”.
“I’d kill you, Corriston, if I had the chance. But I’m glad you have that kind of a weakness”.