He hadn’t seen the boat’s hull this time, of course; no rosy cloud had existed to silhouette its blackness. Nor did he see the scooter until it was almost upon him. That jet was very thin, since it need only drive a few hundred pounds of mass on which two spacesuited men sat. They were little more than a highlight and a shadow. Diaz’s pulse filled the silence. «Hallo!» he called in his helmet mike. «Hallo, yonder!»
They didn’t reply. The scooter matched velocities a few yards off. One man tossed a line with a luminous bulb at the end. Diaz caught it and made fast. The line was drawn taut. Scooter and raft bumped together and began gently rotating.
Diaz recognized those helmets.
He snatched for a sidearm he didn’t have. A Unasian sprang to one side, lifeline unreeling. His companion stayed mounted, a chucker gun cradled in his arms. The sun rose blindingly over the raft edge.
There was nothing to be done. Yet. Diaz fought down a physical nausea of defeat, «raised» his hands and let them hang free. The other man came behind him and deftly wired his wrists together. Both Unasians spent a few minutes inspecting the raft. The man with the gun tuned in on the American band. «You make very clever salvage, sir,» he said.
«Thank you,» Diaz whispered.
«Come, please.» He was lashed to the carrier rack. Weight tugged at him as the scooter accelerated.
They took an hour or more to rendezvous. Diaz had time to adjust his emotions. The first horror passed into numbness; then he identified a sneaking relief, that he would get a reasonably comfortable vacation from war until the next prisoner exchange; and then he remembered the new doctrine, which applied to all commissioned officers on whom there had been time to operate.
I may never get the chance, he thought frantically. They told me not to waste myself on anything less than a cruiser; my chromosomes and several million dollars spent in training me make me that valuable to the country, at least. I may go straight to Pallas, or wherever their handiest prison base is, in a lousy scoutboat or cargo ship.
But I may get a chance to strike a blow that’ll hurt. Have I got the guts? I hope so. No, I don’t even know if I hope it. This is a cold place to die.
The feeling passed. Emotional control, drilled into him at the Academy and practiced at every refresher course, took over. It was essentially psychosomatic, a matter of using conditioned reflexes to bring muscles and nerves and glands back toward normal. If the fear symptoms, tension, tachycardia, sweat, decreased salivation, and the rest, were alleviated, then fear itself was. Far down under the surface, a four-year-old named Martin woke from nightmare and screamed for his mother, who did not come; but Diaz grew able to ignore him.
The boat became visible, black across star clouds. No, not a boat. A small ship… abnormally large jets and light guns, a modified Panyushkin… what had the enemy been up to in his asteroid shipyards? Some kind of courier vessel, maybe. Recognition signals must be flashing back and forth. The scooter passed smoothly through a lock that closed again behind it. Air was pumped in, and Diaz went blind as frost condensed on his helmet. Several men assisted him out of the armor. They hadn’t quite finished when an alarm rang, engines droned, and weight came back. The ship was starting off at about half a gee.
Short bodies in green uniforms surrounded Diaz. Their immaculate appearance reminded him of his own unshaven filthiness, how much he ached, and how sandy his brain felt. «Well,» he mumbled, «where’s your interrogation officer?»
«You go more high, Captain,» answered a man with colonel’s insignia. «Forgive us we do not attend your needs at once, but he says very important.»
Diaz bowed to the courtesy, remembering what had been planted in his arm and feeling rather a bastard. Though it looked as if he wouldn’t have occasion to use the thing. Dazed by relief and weariness, he let himself be escorted along corridors and tubes until he stood before a door marked with great black Cyrillic warnings and guarded by two soldiers. Which was almost unheard of aboard a spaceship, he thought joltingly.
There was a teleye above the door. Diaz barely glanced at it. Whoever sat within the cabin must be staring through it, at him. He tried to straighten his shoulders. «Martin Diaz,» he croaked, «Captain, USAC, serial number—»
Someone yelled from the loudspeaker beside the pickup. Diaz half understood. He whirled about. His will gathered itself and surged. He began to think the impulses that would destroy the ship. A guard tackled him. A rifle butt came down on his head. And that was that.
They told him forty-eight hours passed while he was in sickbay. «I wouldn’t know,» he said dully. «Nor care.» But he was again in good physical shape. Only a bandage sheathing his lower right arm, beneath the insigneless uniform given him, revealed that surgeons had been at work. His mind was sharply aware of its environment—muscle play beneath his skin, pastel bulkheads and cold fluorescence, faint machine-quiver underfoot, gusts from ventilator grilles, odors of foreign cooking, and always the men, with alien faces and carefully expressionless voices, who had caught him.
At least he suffered no abuse. They might have been justified in resenting his attempt to kill them. Some would call it treacherous. But they gave him the treatment due an officer and, except for supplying his needs, left him alone in his tiny bunk cubicle. Which was worse, in some respects, than punishment. Diaz was actually glad when he was at last summoned for an interview.
They brought him to the guarded door and gestured him through. It closed behind him.
For a moment Diaz noticed only the suite itself. Even a fleet commander didn’t get such space and comfort. The ship had long ceased accelerating, but spin provided a reasonable weight. The suite was constructed within a rotatable shell, so that the same deck was «down» as when the jets were in operation. Diaz stood on a Persian carpet, looking past low-legged furniture to a pair of arched doorways. One revealed a bedroom, lined with microspools—ye gods, there must be ten thousand volumes! The other showed part of an office, a desk, and a great enigmatic control panel and—
The man seated beneath the Monet reproduction got up and made a slight bow. He was tall for a Unasian, with a lean mobile face whose eyes were startlingly blue against a skin as white as a Swedish girl’s. His undress uniform was neat but carelessly worn. No rank insignia were visible, for a gray hood, almost a coif, covered his head and fell over the shoulders.
«Good day, Captain Diaz,» he said, speaking English with little accent. «Permit me to introduce myself: General Leo Ilyitch Rostock, Cosmonautical Service of the People of United Asia.»
Diaz went through the rituals automatically. Most of him was preoccupied with how quiet this place was, how vastly quiet… But the layout was serene. Rostock must be fantastically important if his comfort rated this much mass. Diaz’s gaze flickered to the other man’s waist. Rostock bore a sidearm. More to the point, though, one loud holler would doubtless be picked up by the teleye mike and bring in the guards from outside.
Diaz tried to relax. If they haven’t kicked my teeth in so far, they don’t plan to. I’m going to live. But he couldn’t believe that. Not here, in the presence of this hooded man. Still more so, in this drawing room. Its existence beyond Mars was too eerie. «No, sir, I have no complaints,» he heard himself saying. «You run a good ship. My compliments.»
«Thank you.» Rostock had a charming, almost boyish smile. «Although this is not my ship, actually. Colonel Sumoro commands the Ho Chi Minh. I shall convey your appreciation to him.»
«You may not be called the captain,» Diaz said bluntly, «but the vessel is obviously your instrument.»