Part 10 (2/2)

”Help! M'aidez! I've got a little girl dying! Help!”

Suddenly it sprang up in front of my eyes-great s.h.i.+ny domes, tall towers, radio telescopes, a giant Schmidt camera. I staggered toward it. ”May Day!”

An enormous lock opened and a crawler came toward me. A voice in my phones said, ”We're coming. Stay where you are. Over and out.”

A crawler stopped near me. A man got out, came over and touched helmets. I gasped: ”Help me get her inside.”

I got back: ”You've given me trouble, bub. I don't like people who give me trouble.” A bigger, fatter man got out behind him.

The smaller man raised a thing like a camera and aimed it at me. That was the last I knew.

Chapter 7.

I don't know if they took us all that weary way back in the crawler, or if Wormface sent a s.h.i.+p. I woke up being slapped and was inside, lying down. The skinny one was slapping me-the man the fat one called ”Tim.” I tried to fight back and found that I couldn't. I was in a straitjacket thing that held me as snugly as a wrapped mummy. I let out a yelp.

Skinny grabbed my hair, jerked my head up, tried to put a big capsule into my mouth.

I tried to bite him.

He slapped me harder and offered me the capsule again. His expression didn't change-it stayed mean.

I heard: ”Take it, boy,” and turned my eyes. The fat one was on the other side. ”Better swallow it,” he said. ”You got five bad days ahead.”

I took it. Not because of the advice but because a hand held my nose and another popped the pill into my mouth when I gasped. Fatty held a cup of water for me to wash it down; I didn't resist that, I needed it.

Skinny stuck a hypodermic needle big enough for a horse into my shoulder. I told him what I thought of him, using words I hardly ever use. The skinny one could have been deaf; the fat one chuckled. I rolled my eyes at him. ”You, too,” I added weakly. ”Squared.”

Fatty clucked reprovingly. ”You ought to be glad we saved your life.” He added, ”Though it wasn't my idea, you strike me as a sorry team. He wanted you alive.”

”Shaddap,” Skinny said. ”Strap his head.”

”Let him break his neck. We better fix our ourselves. He won't wait.” But he started to obey.

Skinny glanced at his watch. ”Four minutes.”

The fat one hastily tightened a strap across my forehead, then both moved very fast, swallowing capsules, giving each other hypos. I watched as best I could.

I was back in the s.h.i.+p. The ceiling glowed the same way, the walls looked the same. It was the room the two men used; their beds were on each side and I was strapped to a soft couch between them.

Each hurriedly got on his bed, began zipping up a tight wrapping like a sleeping bag. Each strapped his head in place before completing the process. I was not interested in them. ”Hey! What did you do with Peewee?”

The fat man chuckled. ”Hear that, Tim? That's a good one.”

”Shaddap.”

”You-” I was about to sum up Fatty's character but my thoughts got fuzzy and my tongue was thick. Besides, I wanted to ask about the Mother Thing, too.

I did not get out another word. Suddenly I was incredibly heavy and the couch was rock hard.

For a long, long time I wasn't awake or truly asleep. At first I couldn't feel anything but that terrible weight, then I hurt all over and wanted to scream. I didn't have the strength for it.

Slowly the pain went away and I stopped feeling anything. I wasn't a body-just me, no attachments. I dreamed a lot and none of it made sense; I seemed to be stuck in a comic book, the sort P.T.A. meetings pa.s.s resolutions against, and the baddies were way ahead no matter what I did.

Once the couch gave a twisting lurch and suddenly I had a body, one that was dizzy. After a few ages I realized vaguely that I had gone through a skew-flip turn-over. I had known, during lucid moments, that I was going somewhere, very fast, at terribly high acceleration. I decided solemnly that we must be halfway and tried to figure out how long two times eternity was. It kept coming out eighty-five cents plus sales tax; the cash register rang ”NO SALE” and I would start over.

Fats was undoing my head strap. It stuck and skin came away. ”Rise and s.h.i.+ne, bub. Time's awastin'.”

A croak was all I managed. The skinny one was unwrapping me. My legs sagged apart and hurt. ”Get up!”

I tried and didn't make it. Skinny grabbed one of my legs and started to knead it.

I screamed.

”Here, lemme do that,” said Fatty. ”I used to be a trainer.”

Fats did know something about it. I gasped when his thumbs dug into my calves and he stopped. ”Too rough?” I couldn't answer. He went on ma.s.saging me and said almost jovially, ”Five days at eight gravities ain't no joy ride. But you'll be okay. Got the needle, Tim?”

The skinny one jabbed me in my left thigh. I hardly felt it. Fats pulled me to a sitting position and handed me a cup. I thought it was water; it wasn't and I choked and sprayed. Fats waited, then gave it to me again. ”Drink some, this time.” I did.

”Okay, up on your feet. Vacation is over.”

The floor swayed and I had to grab him until it stopped. ”Where are we?” I said hoa.r.s.ely.

Fats grinned, as if he knew an enormously funny joke. ”Pluto, of course. Lovely place, Pluto. A summer resort.”

”Shaddap. Get him moving.”

”Shake it up, kid. You don't want to keep him waiting.”

Pluto! It couldn't be; n.o.body could get that far. Why, they hadn't even attempted Jupiter's moons yet. Pluto was so much farther that.

My brain wasn't working. The experience just past had shaken me so badly that I couldn't accept the fact that the experience itself proved that I was wrong.

But Pluto!

I wasn't given time to wonder; we got into s.p.a.ce suits. Although I hadn't known, Oscar was there, and I was so glad to see him that I forgot everything else. He hadn't been racked, just tossed on the floor. I bent down (discovering charley horses in every muscle) and checked him. He didn't seem hurt.

”Get in it,” Fats ordered. ”Quit fiddlin'.”

”All right,” I answered almost cheerfully. Then I hesitated. ”Say-I haven't any air.”

”Take another look,” said Fats. I looked. Charged oxy-helium bottles were on the backpack. ”Although,” he continued, ”if we didn't have orders from him, I wouldn't give you a whiff of Limburger. You made us for two bottles-and a rock hammer-and a line that cost four ninety-five, earthside. Sometime,” he stated without rancor, ”I'm gonna take it out of your hide.”

”Shaddap,” said Skinny. ”Get going.”

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