But Lindeman struggled. Straw’s death had stunned him to silence for a moment but now as they were carried out, the little scientist raged back at Schuyler.
“You won’t get away with it forever, Schuyler! Sooner or later, someone else will go to Andromeda and the K’harn will tell them what they told us, and you’ll be all through.”
Evers desperately wished that Lindeman would shut up. Talk would do no good now, and might only get Sharr discovered. But Lindeman had reached the end of all self-control.
“All the dead out there, all the agony you’ve caused, you’ll pay for it, Schuyler, when—”
Schuyler’s voice cut across Lindeman’s raging. “Hold it,” he said sharply.
He spoke to the man controlling the Worker, for the Worker holding Evers and Lindeman suddenly stopped its clanking stride just outside the warehouse.
Schuyler came and looked up at the two captives. It seemed to Evers that there was an alert new expression on Schuyler’s face.
Schuyler said, “You say the K’harn told you what we’d done there? How could you understand their language?”
“We understood them,” Lindeman shouted. “We learned their language well enough to understand everything they told us of what you’d done there, damn you!”
Evers saw that Schuyler was paying no attention to the rest of Lindeman’s furious maledictions. The magnate seemed to be thinking fast and hard, looking up at the two of them.
He said suddenly to Alden, “Plans are changed. Take these two to the house.”
Alden hesitated. “But the warning we got about GC ships coming here after them! When they don’t find any bodies in that wreck, they’ll start searching here for these three.”
An uneasy stir ran through the men grouped around them in the starlight. It was obvious that the last thing they wanted was for GC to start investigating on Arkar.
“That’s easily taken care of,” snapped Schuyler. “Put the dead one in the wreck, fuse the fuel-bunkers, and blow it up. Make it look as though their ship blew when they crashed.”
Alden’s face cleared in relief. “Yes. Yes, that should do it.”
The man controlling the Worker touched his controls. The iron grip suddenly relaxed, dropping Evers and Lindeman to the ground.
When Evers scrambled to his feet, it was to find that he faced the guns of two tough-faced men, who stood carefully covering him and Lindeman.
Schuyler turned away, saying over his shoulder, “I don’t want these two hurt. Bring them along to the house.”
He got into a car and was driven away. One of the tough-faced men motioned Evers and Lindeman toward another car.
Evers looked back, as they went. Straw’s body had been carried out, and was being put in the back of a half-trac. The warehouse door was being locked again. He thought that Sharr was safe for the time being. She would surely be able to pick the lock again and get out when the GC ships arrived.
Evers and Lindeman got into the back seat of the car, and the two tough-faced men got into the front. One of the men drove and the other sat turned around, his gun covering the two prisoners. The car darted away across the spaceport. Through the window, Evers saw the half-trac hurrying away toward the forest.
Goodbye, Straw…
Their car went fast under the flaring krypton lights, past the docks. There was activity around the star-ships there — men hurrying, a couple of towering Workers clanking away with heavy loads, whistles and orders sounding from back in the dark. They raced past a Communic building with tall masts and radar-installations. Trees were ahead now — trees that were flowers of old Earth grown to incredible size on this chemically different planet. The car sped down a narrow road between daisies as tall as eucalyptus trees, scarlet poppies with blooms like great bowls, dandelion shrubbery that was ten feet high.
Evers was trying to figure it all out, and couldn’t. Why had Schuyler suddenly countermanded the order for their killing? He wanted something from them, that went without saying, but what?
The house loomed at the end of the road, bowered in gigantic peonies, roses, lilies, softly illuminated by concealed outside floodlights, as though Schuyler was proud of his house and wanted to see it by day and by night. Evers thought he had reason to be proud.
The greatest metals magnate in the galaxy had built of metal, boldly and imaginatively. The main mass of the house, curved and domed of roof, was of sheening chrome-steel, or a metal that looked like it. The heaviness of its mass was counterbalanced by dainty, fairy-like towers that rose smoothly from its sides, high enough to brush the giant flowers all around. The house could have been grotesque, but it was not. It was a dream of unreal beauty.
They got out of the car and the Earthmen with guns walked well behind them as they went up the wide copper steps. They went into a gleaming hallway, and then into a big room whose walls were all of tawny bronze, warm and welcoming, its casual furniture giving it an air of graciousness and comfort that Evers found not at all reassuring at this moment.
Schuyler was sitting down behind a desk. He motioned to chairs beside a little table. There was a bottle and glasses on the table.
“Have a drink,” said Schuyler. “You look as though you could use it.”
Lindeman paid no heed, but sat down and put his face in his hands. He said Straw’s name in a whisper.
Evers reached for the bottle. He didn’t think that refusing would hurt Schuyler any, and he did need the drink. He poured and drank a big one. As he sat the glass down he saw, back against the bronze wall, the two tough-faced men with the guns standing and watching them.
Schuyler said incisively, “It must be obvious to you that you’ve been spared because you can be useful to me.”
They said nothing, but Lindeman raised his head and looked at Schuyler with a weary hate. Schuyler got the look, and his plump face hardened slightly.
“Let’s understand each other,” he said. “You consider me a ruthless monster. I consider you fools. But we can deal. I can give you something you want — your lives.”
“And what do you want from us in exchange?” Evers demanded.
“Help,” said Schuyler promptly. “Help in dealing with a certain problem in our Andromeda operation.”
Lindeman started to speak and Schuyler said boredly, “Spare me your moral indignation. To me, what you call moral laws are just rules that other men have laid down. I play it all by my own rules.”
He went on, tapping with a gold pencil on the desk. “Two years ago, I first went to Andromeda. It was obvious that someone would go there soon, the inter-galactic drive was possible at any time. I decided to get there first without telling anyone, and see what I could pick up before the rush started. I was looking for rare metals. I found a lot more than that. I found the K’harn and their alien science. The value of that totally different science, its instruments and potentialities, was obvious.”
Evers nodded. “So you robbed them and killed those of them who objected.”
Schuyler shrugged. “Only when they tried resistance. Unfortunately for them, they hadn’t developed any war-weapons. Since that first trip, I’ve had cruisers working the fringe worlds of Andromeda, bringing back instruments of K’harn science that could be invaluable. The trouble is that they’re so alien in concept, my own technicians don’t understand them. It may take years for them to puzzle out those gadgets.”
He paused, then told Evers and Lindeman, “You say you learned the K’harn language. You must have spent a good bit of time with the K’harn, to do that.”
Evers thought he understood now. “We did,” he said. “They accepted us as friends, when they found we weren’t part of your outfit. But we do not know how to operate or explain K’harn scientific instruments, so I think you’re wasting your time.”