“I guess he did. And I liked him”.
The kid nodded. “And the murderer’s still at large. That makes it rough for the sixty odd passengers they’re holding in quarantine. How long do you think they’ll hold them in the Big Cage?”.
“As long as they can. They’ll keep them under close guard and increase their vigilance every time there’s a suspicious move in the cage. They’ll be screened perhaps a dozen times. But most of them are influential people. Most of them have booked passage on the Mars’ run liner that’s due here next week. They can’t hold them forever. They’d start pulling wires on Earth by short wave and there’d be a legislative uproar”.
“Suppose they refuse to let them send messages?” “They won’t refuse. I’m sure of that”.
The kid was thoughtful for a moment. Then he said: “Tell me more about Ramsey. Just what do you think is happening on Mars?”.
“No one knows exactly what is happening”, Corriston said. “But to the best of my knowledge the overall picture is pretty ugly. The original settlers have their backs to the wall with a vengeance. Now there are armed guards at their throats. Ramsey has taken over. He has resorted to legal trickery to freeze them out”.
“There are perhaps fifty important uranium claims on Mars and Ramsey has consolidated all of the holdings into a single major enterprise. To say that he’s cornered the market in uranium would be understating the case. He has taken possession by right of seizure, and the colonists can’t get to him. They’re living a hand-to-mouth existence while he lives in a heavily guarded stronghold behind three miles of electrified defenses”.
The lad nodded again. “Yes, that’s the picture when you unscramble it, I guess. But most of it is kept hidden from the general run of tourists”.
“Naturally. Ramsey has the power to keep it under wraps”.
“Do you think the colonists had anything to do with Clakey’s murder and Miss Ramsey’s disappearance? Or I guess I should say Henry Ewers’ murder”.
“Clakey, Ewers — his name doesn’t matter. I’m convinced that he was Miss Ramsey’s bodyguard”.
“But you haven’t answered my question”
“I can’t answer it with any certainty. Did the colonists hire a killer and book passage for him on the ship? It’s difficult to believe that the kind of men who colonized Mars would resort to murder”.
“But there are a few scoundrels in every large group of men. And what if they became so desperate they felt they had to fight fire with fire?”.
“Yes, I’d thought of that. It may be the answer”.
5
A HALF-HOUR later the kid was taken away and Corriston found himself completely alone. There are few events in human life more unnerving than the totally unexpected removal of a sympathetic listener when dark thoughts have taken possession of a man.
The kid wasn’t forcibly removed from the cell. He left without protesting and no rough hands were laid on him, no physical violence employed. But he was not at all eager to leave, and if the guards who came for him had eyed him less severely, his attitude might have been the opposite of complacent.
“Sorry, kid”, one of them said. “Your discharge has been postponed. Somebody on the psycho-staff wants to give you another test. I guess you didn’t interpret the ink blots right”.
He looked at Corriston and shook his head sympathetically. “It’s tough, I know. Once you’re here waiting to be released can wear you down. I shouldn’t be saying this, but it stands to reason it might even slow up your recovery a bit. It’s easy to blame the docs, but you’ve got to try to understand their side of it. They have to make sure”.
When the door clanged shut behind the kid, Corriston crossed to his cot, sat down, and cradled his head in his arms. The fact that he was still free to go outside and walk around the Station was no comfort at all. That kind of freedom could be worse than total confinement. He could never hope to escape from observation. The guards were under orders to watch him, and wherever he turned there’d be eyes boring into the back of his neck.
On Earth a man under surveillance could duck quickly into a side street, run and weave about, and emerge on a broad avenue in the midst of a crowd. He could walk calmly then for a block or two, and turn in at a bar. He could drown his troubles in drink.
There were bars on the Station, of course. But Corriston knew that if he tried to mingle with officers of his own rank on the upper levels, he’d quickly enough find himself drinking alone. He could picture the off-duty personnel edging quickly and resentfully away from him, as though he’d suddenly appeared in their midst with a big, yawning hole in his skull.
Suddenly utter weariness overcame Corriston. He loosened his belt, elevated his legs, and relaxed on the cot.
He was asleep almost before he could close his eyes. How long he slept he had no way of knowing. He only knew that he was awakened by a sound — the strangest sound a man could hear in space. It was as if a gnat or a mosquito had developed a sudden, avaricious liking for his blood-type and was determined to gorge itself to bursting at his expense.
The buzzing seemed to go on interminably as he hovered between sleeping and waking. On and on and on, with absolutely no letup. Then, abruptly, it ceased. There was a faint swishing sound and something solid thudded into the hardwood directly above him.
With a startled cry Corriston leapt from the cot, caught the iron edge of the bed-guard to keep from falling, and stared up in horror at the shining expanse of wall space overhead.
The cell was in almost total darkness. But from the barred window opposite, a faint glimmer of light penetrated in a diffuse arc, just enough light to enable him to make out the quivering stem of the barb.
It was a barb. This was so beyond any possibility of doubt. It had lodged in the hardwood scarcely a foot above his cot and it was still quivering.
Cold sweat broke out on Corriston’s palms as he realized how close death had come, and how almost miraculous had been his escape. Had he raised himself to slap at the “mosquito” the barb could just as easily have buried itself in his skull.
Corriston hesitated for an instant, his eyes on the barred window and the faint glow beyond. Then his gaze passed to the wall switch. He decided against switching on the light immediately. He stooped low and moved quickly to the window, taking care to keep his head well below the sill.
For a moment he listened, his every nerve alert. There was no stir of movement in the darkness beyond the sill, nothing at all to indicate that someone was crouching there.
Finally, with an almost foolhardy recklessness, he raised his head and stared out between the bars. He could see right across to the wall opposite. The wall was less than eight feet away, and the space between the wall and his cell appeared to be unoccupied. This did not surprise him.
It was utterly silly to think that a man intent on willful murder would have lingered for any great length of time in so narrow a space. After having shot his bolt, his immediate concern would have been to get away as quickly as possible.
No, definitely, the man was gone, and if he had more barbs to release he would choose another time and place.
Even then Corriston did not switch on the light. He had no particular desire to examine the wood-embedded barb in a bright light. He could see it clearly enough from where he stood. It was exactly like the barb which had sealed the lips of that blabbermouth Clakey.
Corriston went back to his cot and sat down. He told himself it would be highly dangerous to leave the cell and give the killer another chance. He had saved himself by refusing to slap a non-existent mosquito. But in the shadows of the Station there would be no mosquitoes — non-existent or otherwise. The killer would simply crouch in shadows, await his chance, and take careful aim.
What he had to do was find Miss Ramsey, and prove his sanity. If he stayed in the cell, the shadows would continue to deepen about him, would become intolerable, and perhaps even drive him to the verge of actual madness.