"Yes. But it has a smell like nothing on earth I know."
Lawrence, with the attitude of a scientist who knows and demands that everything should be in its place, opened a standard supply-cabinet and brought out, without looking, an ochre filter and a connected burner. He played the flames on the crystals and squinted through the glass carefully, turning it at sharp and precise angles. Finally he replaced the filter absently and incinerated the little heap of stuff on the table.
"One of the mysteries of the chemical world is solved," he said. "That stuff is thalenium chloride."
"Never heard of it."
"You're fortunate. It's the filthiest narcotic that ever cursed a race.
Fortunately, only the wealthiest can afford to take it. Seeing the setup required to manufacture it, that's understandable.
"Thalenium's supposed to be a solar element—unstable—made up in the sun's core. They named it after the Muse of Comedy, for some reason or other. I never came across an authentic case of thalenium poisoning, but it's supposed to cause hallucinations viler than anything imaginable to the normal mind. External manifestations are great spasms of laughter—hence, comedy and the comic muse."
Train stared at the innocent-appearing crystals. "And we have to handle it?"
"No danger, yet, I suppose, if we are careful."
Lawrence picked up a flask full of the narcotic with tongs. "Like this,"
he said, skillfully playing a stream of flame across its tapering spout. He set it down and quickly slipped a cap over the softened glass. "Then,"
he added, "you appear to spray it with this stuff." He squirted a film of heavy liquid on the cap. It set sharply, and letters and figures came out on it.
"Authentic thalenium chloride, c.p., 500 mm," he read. "Clever devil, World Research!"
They set to work, moving like machines, sealing the flasks in three sharp operations.
"There's no danger yet," observed Lawrence. "I don't know, and can't imagine, what the process of its actual manufacture may be, but we'll find that out later. If the stuff is prepared direct as the chloride, it might be fairly harmless, but if free metallic thalenium is used then there must be hell to pay among the workers."
"Then there's no point, as yet, in going on strike?"
"Certainly not. Everything's gravy so far. And of course, it's going to be gravy as long as we do our work faithfully, obediently, and not too intelligently. Thus, for example, it pays to make minor mistakes like this one." He took a sealed bottle firmly by the neck and snapped it against the edge of the table. It shattered and spilled over the floor.
"I get the idea. We case the joint for as long as we can, staying away from the dangerous operations. Then we escape?" He poured an acid over the salt on the floor; it bubbled and gave off thin wisps of vapor.
Lawrence scattered a neutralizing base over the acid. It became a white froth that he flushed down a floor-gutter. "I see," he remarked, returning to his work, "that we've been thinking along somewhat similar lines."
"I have a machine," said Train irrelevantly. "I developed it all by myself—no, I'm forgetting my girl friend, a very competent head for details—and if I get back to Earth and have two weeks to myself, along with reasonable equipment, I guarantee that I'll wipe World Research and all that's rotten in it off the face of the Earth and out of the cosmos, too."
"Sounds remarkable. What does it do?"
Train told him.
The chemist whistled. "Quite out of my field," he said. "It takes a physicist to dope out those things that really count."
"Independent Fourteen, they call it," said Train with a tight-drawn smile. "And I swear by every god in the firmament that nothing—
nothing—is going to keep me from getting back to Earth, setting up Independent Fourteen, and blowing World Research to hell!"
3
Train was lying half-awake on his cot when the door slammed shut.
"Hiya, Lawrence." The chemist bent over him. "Get up, Barney. It's happened."
Train sat up abruptly. "How do you know?" he snapped.
"I was just seeing the Oily Bird." That was the name they had given the infuriating man who greeted them on their arrival. "He says we've made good in the packaging department and we're going to be promoted. He still doesn't know that we are wise as to what is going on."
"Promoted, eh? What's that mean?"
"He said we were going into the production end of the concern. That we'd have to handle the stuff without tongs. Be exposed to sunlight.
And, at this distance, that's surely fatal in a short time."
"I didn't think it would come this quickly," said Train. "Then we'll have to dope something out—fast."
"Fast is the word. How about slugging a guard?"
"Too crude. Much too crude. They must have an elaborate system of passwords and countersigns; otherwise it would have been done successfully long ago. And Lord knows how many times it's failed!"
"Right," said the chemist. "We can't slug a guard. But maybe we can bribe one?"
"I doubt it. We know it hasn't succeeded. I suppose they make big money as such things go."
"Can we put psychological screws on one? Know any little tricks like suggesting hatred against the system he's working for?"
Train wrinkled his brow. "Yes, but they are good only after a long period of constant suggestion. We have to move at once. Lawrence, can you play sick?"
"As well as you. Why?"
"And do you remember the shape of the eyebrows on the guard we have this week?"
"Have you gone bats?" demanded the chemist, staring at Train angrily.
"This is no time to be playing jokes."
The scientist raised his hand. "This isn't a joke, or a game, either. Those eyebrows may mean our salvation."
Lawrence picked up a pencil and paper and sketched out what he remembered of their guard's face. "There," he said, thrusting it under Train's nose.
Train studied the drawing. "I think this is accurate," he mused. "If it is, we may be back on Earth in two weeks."
The guard knocked on the door, and there was no answer. Suspiciously he pushed it open and entered, half-expecting to be attacked. But he found one of the prisoners in bed with a sallow skin, breathing in shallow gulps.
"Lawrence is sick, I think," said Train.
"Yeah? Too bad. I'll call the medico."
"No," gasped the patient. "Not yet."
The guard turned to go. "I have to call him when anyone is sick. It might start an epidemic, otherwise."
"Can you wait just a minute?" asked Train. "I know how to handle him when he gets one of his attacks. It isn't anything contagious. Just mild conjunctivitis of the exegetical peritoneum."
"That a fact?" asked the guard. "How do you handle him?"
"Easy enough," said Train. "May I borrow your flashlight?"
"Sure!" The guard handed over a slim pencil-torch.
"Thank you." The scientist balanced the light on the broad back of a chair. "Won't you sit down?" he asked the guard. "This will take a few minutes."
"Sure." Their warder watched with interest as Train dimmed the lights of the cell and switched on the flashlight so that it cast a tiny spot of radiance on a gleaming water faucet. The guard stared at it, fascinated.
Train's voice sank to a whispering drone. "Concentrate on the light.
Block out every other thing but the light."
The guard shifted uneasily. This was a strange way to treat a sick man, and the light was shining right in his eyes. Perhaps he had better call the medico after all. He was half decided to do so, but he felt tired and the chair was comfortable. What was it Train was saying?
"By the time I have counted to twenty, you will be asleep. One…" The guard's eyes grew heavy. "Concentrate …block out everything but the light …everything but the light …seven …
The spot of light floated before the guard's face, distorting into strange shapes that shifted. He just barely heard Train drone "twelve" before he began to breathe deeply and hoarsely.