“In what way?”
“One of the men who will be stopping over at this spaceport is carrying some of the altered Spaceoline on his person. Chemists in the Capellan system, which is outside the Federation, will analyze it and set up ways of synthesizing more. After that, it’s either fight the worst drug menace we’ve ever seen or suppress the matter by suppressing the source.”
“You mean Spaceoline.”
“Right. And if we suppress Spaceoline, we suppress space travel.”
I decided to put my finger on the point. “Which one of the three has it?”
Rog smiled nastily, “If we knew, would we need you? You’re to find out which of the three.”
“You’re calling on me for a lousy frisk job.”
“Touch the wrong one at the risk of a haircut down to the larynx. Every one of the three is a big man on his own planet. One is Edward Harponaster; one is Joaquin Lipsky; and one is Andiamo Ferrucci. Well?”
He was right. I’d heard of every one of them. Chances are you have, too; and not one was touchable without proof in advance, as you know. I said, “Would one of them touch a dirty deal like—”
“There are trillions involved,” said Rog, “which means any one of the three would. And one of them is, because Jack Hawk got that far before he was killed—”
“Jack Hawk’s dead?” For a minute, I forgot about the Galactic drug menace. For a minute, I nearly forgot about Flora.
“Right, and one of those guys arranged the killing. Now you find out which. You put the finger on the right one before 11:00 and there’s a promotion, a raise in pay, a pay-back for poor Jack Hawk, and a rescue of the Galaxy. You put the finger on the wrong one and there’ll be a nasty interstellar situation and you’ll be out on your ear and also on every black list from here to Antares and back.”
I said, “Suppose I don’t finger anybody?”
“That would be like fingering the wrong one as far as the Service is concerned.”
“I’ve got to finger someone but only the right one or my head’s handed to me.”
“In thin slices. You’re beginning to understand me, Max.”
In a long lifetime of looking ugly, Rog Crinton had never looked uglier. The only comfort I got out of staring at him was the realization that he was married, too, and that he lived with his wife at Marsport all year round. And does he deserve that. Maybe I’m hard on him, but he deserves it.
I put in a quick call to Flora, as soon as Rog was out of sight.
She said, “Well?”
I said, “Baby, honey, it’s something I can’t talk about, but I’ve got to do it, see? Now you hang on, I’ll get it over with if I have to swim the Grand Canal to the icecap in my underwear, see? If I have to claw Phobos out of the sky. If I have to cut myself in pieces and mail myself parcel post.”
“Gee,” she said, “if I thought I was going to have to wait—”
I winced. She just wasn’t the type to respond to poetry.
Actually, she was a simple creature of action—But after all, if I was going to be drifting through low-gravity in a sea of jasmine perfume with Flora, poetry-response is not the type of qualification I would consider most indispensable.
I said urgently, “Just hold on, Flora. I won’t be any time at all. I’ll make it up to you.”
I was annoyed, sure, but I wasn’t worried as yet. Rog hadn’t more than left me when I figured out exactly how I was going to tell the guilty man from the others.
It was easy. I should have called Rog back and told him, but there’s no law against wanting egg in your beer and oxygen in your air. It would take me five minutes and then off I would go to Flora; a little late, maybe, but with a promotion, a raise, and a slobbering kiss from the Service on each cheek.
You see, it’s like this. Big industrialists don’t go space-hopping much; they use trans-video reception. When they do go to some ultra-high interstellar conference, as these three were probably going, they take Spaceoline. For one thing, they don’t have enough hops under their belt to risk doing without. For another, Spaceoline is the expensive way of doing it and industrialists do things the expensive way. I know their psychology.
Now that would hold for two of them. The one who carried contraband, however, couldn’t risk Spaceoline—even to prevent space-sickness. Under Spaceoline influence, he could throw the drug away; or give it away; or talk gibberish about it. He would have to stay in control of himself.
It was as simple as that, so I waited.
The Antares Giant was on time and I waited with my leg muscles tense for a quick take-off as soon as I collared the murdering drug-toting rat and sped the two eminent captains of industry on their way.
They brought in Lipsky first. He had thick, ruddy lips, rounded jowls, very dark eyebrows, and graying hair. He just looked at me and sat down. Nothing. He was under Spaceoline.
I said, “Good evening, sir.”
He said, in a dreamy voice, “Surrealismus of Panamy hearts in three-quarter time for a cup of coffeedom of speech.”
That was Spaceoline all the way. The buttons in the human mind were set free-swing. Each syllable suggests the next in free association.
Andiamo Ferrucci came in next. Black mustache, long and waxed, olive complexion, pock-marked face. He took a seat in another chair, facing us.
I said, “Nice trip?”
He said, “Trip the light fantastic tock the clock is crowings on the bird.”
Lipsky said, “Bird to the wise guyed book to all places every body.”
I grinned. That left Harponaster. I had my needle gun neatly palmed out of sight and the magnetic coil ready to grip him.
And then Harponaster came in. He was thin, leathery, near-bald and rather younger than he seemed in his trimensional image. And he was Spaceolined to the gills.
I said, “Damn!”
Harponaster said, “Damyankee note speech to his last time I saw wood you say so.”
Ferrucci said, “Sow the seed the territory under dispute do well to come along long road to a nightingale.”
Lipsky said, “Gay lords hopping pong balls.”
I stared from one to the other as the nonsense ran down in shorter and shorter spurts and then silence.
I got the picture, all right. One of them was faking. He had thought ahead and realized that omitting the Spaceoline would be a giveaway. He might have bribed an official into injecting saline or dodged it some other way.
One of them must be faking. It wasn’t hard to fake the thing. Comedians on sub-etheric had a Spaceoline skit regularly. You’ve heard them.
I stared at them and got the first prickle at the base of my skull that said: What if you don’t finger the right one?
It was 8:30 and there was my job, my reputation, my head growing rickety upon my neck to be considered. I saved it all for later and thought of Flora. She wasn’t going to wait for me forever. For that matter, chances were she wouldn’t wait for half an hour.
I wondered. Could the faker keep up free association if nudged gently onto dangerous territory?
I said, “The floor’s covered with a nice solid rug” and ran the last two words together to make it “soli drug.”
Lipsky said, “Drug from underneath the dough re mi fa sol to be saved.”
Ferrucci said, “Saved and a haircut above the common herd something about younicorny as a harmonican the cheek by razor and shine.”
Harponaster said, “Shiner wind nor snow use trying to by four ever and effervescence and sensibilityter totter.”
Lipsky said, “Totters and rags.”
Ferrucci said, “Ragsactly.”
Harponaster said, “Actlymation.”
A few grunts and they ran down.
I tried again and I didn’t forget to be careful. They would remember everything I said afterward and what I said had to be harmless. I said, “This is a darned good space-line.”