Distant Planet: SF Boxed Set (Illustrated Edition). Leigh Brackett

      He caught the quick glint of tears in her eyes and was appalled. Tears for him? From Susan Hawtree?

      "That's why I went with you that night," she whispered. "I thought I could take you from her. I thought I could make you be what you ought to be—oh, damn you, Lloyd, I should never have come here!"

      She jumped up and walked rapidly away from the table. He followed her, with his eyes and his mouth both wide open and something very strange happening inside him.

      One thing sure. She was no plant.

      "Susan."

      "Don't you have to get aboard, or something?"

      "Yes, but—Susan, ride down with me, I want to talk to you."

      "There's nothing to talk about."

      But she went to the stairwalk with him, and rode down, her face turned away and her head held so high she seemed to tower over him.

      "Susan," he said. "Do you think—could you give me—"

      No, that's not the gambit. But what do you say—Susan, I'm a changed man. Susan, wait for me?

      The stairwalk slid them gently off onto a very long platform. There was a crowd on it, sorting itself into the endless lines of purple monorail taxis that moved along both sides.

      "Susan."

      "Good-bye, Lloyd."

      "No, wait a minute. Please. I don't know quite how—"

      Suddenly they were not alone. A young couple had joined them. The color of their skin had changed from pale green to a warm burnt orange, and their clothing was different, but Durham recognized them without difficulty. A hard object prodded him in the side, and the young man, smiling, said to him, "Get into that cab." The young woman, also smiling, said to Susan Hawtree, "Don't scream. Keep perfectly quiet."

      Susan's face went white. She looked at Durham, and Durham said to the young man, "Let her go, she has nothing to do with this!"

      "Get in the cab," said the young man. "Both of you."

      "I think," said Susan, "we'd better do it."

      They got in. The doors closed automatically behind them. The young man, with his free hand, took out a ticket and laid it in the scanner slot, with the code number of the ship's docking area uppermost. The taxi clicked, hummed, and took off smoothly.

      Durham saw the ticket as the young man removed it from the scanner. It was a passage to Nanta Dik aboard the freighter Margaretta K.

      IV

      The monorails came out onto the surface in bunches like very massive cables and then began to branch out, the separate "wires" of the cables eventually spreading into a network that covered the entire moon. The taxi picked up speed, clicking over points as it swerved and swung, feeling its way onto the one clear track that led where its scanner had told it to go. Durham was aware obliquely of other monorail taxis in uncountable numbers going like the devil in all directions, and of other types of machines moving below on the surface, and of mobile cranes that walked like buildings, and of a horizon filled with the upthrust noses of great ships like the towers of some fantastic city. Beside him Susan Hawtree sat, rigid and quivering, and before him on the opposite seat were the two young people with the guns.

      Durham said, in a voice thick with anger and fright, "Why did you have to drag her into it?"

      The man shrugged. "She is perhaps part of the conspiracy. In any case, she would have made an alarm."

      "What do you mean, conspiracy? I'm going home to Earth. She came to say good-bye—" Durham leaned forward. "You're the same two bastards from last night. What do you—"

      "Please," said the man, contemptuously. He gestured with the gun. "You will both sit still with your hands behind your heads. So, Wanbecq-ai will search you. If either one should attempt to interfere, the other will suffer for it."

      The wiry young woman did her work swiftly and efficiently. "No weapons," she said. "Hai! Wanbecq, look here!" She began to gabble in a strange tongue, pointing to Durham's passport and ticket, and then to Susan's ID card. Wanbecq's narrow eyes narrowed still further.

      "So," he said to Durham. "Your name has changed since yesterday, Mr. Watson. And for one who returns to Sol III, you choose a long way around."

      Susan stared hard at Durham. "What's he talking about?"

      "Never mind. Listen, you—Wanbecq, is that your name? Miss Hawtree has nothing to do with any of this. Her father—"

      "Is a part of the embassy which sent you out," said Wanbecq, flicking Susan's ID card with his finger. "Do not expect me to believe foolishness, Mr. Watson-Durham." He spoke rapidly to Wanbecq-ai. She nodded, and they both turned to Susan.

      "Obviously you were sent with instructions for Mr. Durham. Will you tell us now what they were?"

      Susan's face was such a blank of amazement that Durham would have laughed if the situation had not been so extremely unfunny.

      "Nobody sent me with anything. Nobody even knows I came. Lloyd, are these people crazy? Are you crazy? What's going on here?"

      He said, "I'm not sure myself. But I think there are only two possibilities. One, your father is a scoundrel. Two, he's a fool being used by scoundrels. Take your pick. In either case, I'm the goat."

      Her white cheeks turned absolutely crimson. She tried twice to say something to Durham. Then she turned and said to the Wanbecqs, "I've had enough of this. Let me out."

      They merely glanced at her and went on talking.

      "You might as well relax," said Durham to her, in colloquial English, hoping the Wanbecqs could not understand it. "I'm sorry you got into this, and I'll try to get you out, but don't do anything silly."

      She called him a name she had never learned in the Embassy drawing rooms. There was a manual switch recessed in the body of the taxi, high up, and sealed in with a special plastic. It said EMERGENCY on it. Susan took off her shoe and swung.

      The plastic shattered. Susan dropped the shoe and grabbed for the switch. Wanbecq yelled. Wanbecq-ai leaped headlong for Susan and bore her back onto the seat. She was using her gun flatwise in her hand, solely as a club. Susan let out one furious wail.

      And Durham, moving more by instinct than by conscious thought, grabbed Wanbecq-ai's uplifted arm and pulled her over squalling onto his lap.

      Wanbecq started forward from the opposite seat.

      "Don't," said Durham. He had Wanbecq-ai's wrist in one hand and her neck in the other, and he was not being gentle. Wanbecq-ai covered him, and the two of them together covered Susan. Wanbecq stood with his knees bent for a spring, his gun flicking back and forth uncertainly. Wanbecq-ai had stopped squalling. Her face was turning dark. Susan huddled where she was, half stunned. Durham shifted his grip on Wanbecq-ai's arm and got the gun into his own hand.

      "Now," he said to Wanbecq. "Drop it."

      Wanbecq dropped it.

      Durham scrabbled it in with his heel until it was between his own feet. Then he heaved Wanbecq-ai forcibly at her husband. It was like heaving a rag doll, and while Wanbecq was dealing with her Durham managed to pick up the other gun.

      Susan lifted her head. She looked around with glassy eyes and then, with single-minded persistence, she got up.

      Durham said sharply, "Sit down!"

      Susan reached up for the emergency.

      Durham smacked her across the stomach with the back of his left hand, not daring to take his eyes off the Wanbecqs. She doubled over it and sat down again. Durham said, "All right now, damn it, all of you—sit still!"

      * * * * *

      The taxi sped on its humming rail, farther and farther