The Head stared. He did not fire. He stared.
"I crashed my way into your crummy Hospital singlehanded, twice! I came through walls and void mist and sleepy gas and mercy bullets to rescue that damn woman, and when I got her loose, she punched me in the gut and folded me up like a flower! So go ahead and look!"
Castro looked and looked.
And finally Matt realized that he should have fired.
Castro swiveled his head from side to side in a negative motion. But his eyes never left Matt. And slowly, slowly, as if he were knee deep in hardening cement, he moved one slow step forward.
Abruptly Matt realized what was happening. "Don't look away," he said hastily. "Look at me." The Head was close enough now, and Matt reached out and pushed the barrel of the mercy-gun aside, still striving to hold Castro's eyes. "Keep looking."
They stared eye to eye. Above his bulky false nose, Castro's eyes were remarkable: all white and black, all whites and huge, expanded pupils, with practically no iris showing. His jaw hung loose under the snowy handlebar moustache. He was melting; the perspiration ran in slow streams into his collar. Like a man in an ecstasy of fear, or awe, or worship... he stared.
Contract the pupils of eyes not your own, and you got psychic invisibility. Expand them, and you got... what? Fascination?
For damn sure, he had the Head's complete attention. Matt drew back his fist, cocked it-and couldn't follow through. It would have been like attacking a cripple. Castro was a cripple: one of his arms was in a sling.
There was shouting from down the corridor, from the direction Polly had taken.
The Head moved another gluey step forward.
Too many enemies, before and behind. Matt slapped the gun out of Castro's hand, then turned and ran.
As he dropped through the door to the coffin room, he saw the Head still looking after him, still held in the strange spell. Then he pushed the door closed above him.
Polly cut the last of the bar away, and the control board came alight. She ran her eyes quickly over the lighted dials, then once more, slowly.
According to the control board, the fusion drive was as cold as Pluto's caves.
Polly whistled between her teeth. It was no malfunction of the board. The several dials checked each other too well. Someone had decided to black out the colony regions.
She couldn't start the drive from here. And she'd never reach the fusion room; she'd locked herself in with a vengeance.
If only this had been the Arthur Clarke! Castro would never dare cut power to the crew. The Clark's fusion plant must be going full blast.
Well, now, she thought in growing excitement. She slid out onto the ladder. There might be a way to reach the Clarke.
Jesus Pietro felt a hand shaking his shoulder. He turned and found Major Jansen. "What is it?"
"We've flooded the Planck with gas, sir. Everyone who wasn't warned should be unconscious, unless he's behind doors. I wish there weren't so many filters floating around, though. Whoever we're after has had too good a chance to pick one up."
"Good," said Jesus Pietro. He couldn't concentrate. He wanted to be alone, to think... no, he didn't want to be alone... "Carry on," he said. "Try the coffin room. He may be in there."
"He isn't. Or if he is, there's more than one traitor. Somebody's in the flight control room, welded in. It's a good thing the fusion plant is off."
"Get him out. But try the coffin room, too."
Major Jansen moved off in the direction of all the commotion. Jesus Pietro wondered what he'd find when he finally looked in the coffin room. Had Keller's ghost really gone in there, or had he faded out while running up the corridor? Jesus Pietro wasn't sure.
But he was sure of the ghost.
He would never in his life forget those eyes. Those binding, blinding, paralyzing eyes. They would haunt him the rest of his life--however many minutes that might be. For surely the ghost didn't intend to let him go now.
His handphone rang. Jesus Pietro picked it off his belt and said, "The Head."
"Sir, we're getting some very strange reports," said the voice of Miss Lauessen. "A large number of cars are converging on the Hospital. Someone claiming to represent the Council is accusing you of treason."
"Me? Of treason?"
"Yes, sir." Miss Lauessen sounded strange. And she kept calling him Sir.
"What grounds?"
"Shall I find out, sir?"
"Yes. And order them to land outside the defense perimeter. If they don't, set patrol cars on them. It's obviously the Sons of Earth." He clicked off and immediately thought, But where did they all come from? And where did they get the cars?
And he thought, Keller?
His handphone buzzed.
Miss Lauessen's voice had turned plaintive--almost querulous. "Sir, the fleet of cars is led by Millard Parlette. He accuses you of malfeasance and treason, and he orders you to give yourself up for trial."
"He's gone insane." Jesus Pietro tried to think. It was all coming at once. Was this why Keller had appeared to him, shown himself at last? No mysterious symbols, this time; no invisible breaking of fingers. Keller's eyes... "Try to land the old man without hurting him. The other cars too. Order them to set their cars on autopilot. Tell them they won't be hurt. Give them one minute; then knock them out with sonics."
"I hesitate to remind you, sir, but Millard Parlette is your superior officer. Will you give yourself up?"
Then Jesus Pietro remembered that Miss Lauessen was almost pure crew. Did her veins carry Parlette blood? It was reputedly easy to come by. He said the only thing he could.
"No."
The phone cut off, cut him off from the Hospital switchboard and from the world outside.
He'd gone off half-cocked, and be knew it. Somehow Polly's blow in the belly had made him want to die. He'd stumbled out into the corridor to be captured.
Not this time. He scooped up the remaining sonic and started for the ladder. This time he'd know just what he was doing when he went through that door.
But why go through it at all? The thought stopped him at the foot of the ladder. If Polly was going to blow the drive--
No, she'd never get that far. And she'd had all the rescuing she was entitled to. It was time to think about escape. He looked up at the exit--and shivered.
Some escape hatch. The moment he poked his head out there, somebody would shoot at it. He had to see his enemy to use the "luck," and he couldn't see in all directions at once.
Yet, this room was no place to stand off a siege. All anyone would have to do would be to fire mercy-needles down toward the floor. If he looked before he fired, the "luck" would get him; but that statement applied to an ordinary sonic stunner. And so he wouldn't look.
He had to get out.
But Castro's nose piece. It meant Implementation was using gas. The corridor must be already full of it.
Too many things to think about! Matt cursed and began going through a guard's pockets. The guard stirred and tried to strangle Matt with limp fingers. Matt played the sonic over them both, then finished his search. Neither guard had a gas filter.
Matt looked up at the door. He could chance it, of course, but if there was gas in the corridor, only that airtight door was protecting him now. It had to be airtight, of course.
Get to another room? There were the doors leading to what must be bedrooms. But they were halfway up the walls and too far from the ladder.
And there, just under the exit, was a small door placed where any good apartment would have a coat closet. He might be able to reach it.
It wasn't a coat closet, of course. It held two spacesuits.
And it wasn't easy to reach. Matt had to lean far out from the ladder to turn the knob, let the door fall open, and then jump for the opening. Leaving the cubbyhole would be just as bad when the time came.