He fought to ignore the pain, to see only the radio, to think only of the radio. He forced his legs to move against a rubbery resistance that was entangling them and dragging him down.
Finally, he put out his arm, and when his fingers were still six inches away from the ultrawave, Lucky knew that his endurance was at an end. Try as he might, he could drive his exhausted body no closer. It was all over. It was ended.
The Hilda was a scene of paralysis. Evans lay unconscious on his cot; Bigman was crumpled on the floor; and though Lucky remained stubbornly upright, his trembling fingertips were the only sign of life in him.
The cold voice in Lucky's mind sounded once again in its even, inexorable monotone: "You are helpless, but you will not lose consciousness as did your companions. You will suffer this pain until you decide to submerge your ship, tell us what we wish to know, and end your life. We can wait patiently. There is no way you can resist us. There is no way you can fight us. No bribe! No threat!"
Lucky, through the endless torture, felt a striving within his sluggish, pain-soaked mind, the stirring of something new.
No bribe? No threat?
No bribe?
Even through the misty semiconsciousness, the spark in his mind caught fire.
He abandoned the radio, turned his thoughts away, and instantly the curtain of pain lifted a fraction. Lucky took a faltering step away from the radio, and it lifted a bit more. He turned away completely.
Lucky tried not to think. He tried to act automatically and without foreplanning. They were concentrating on preventing his reaching the radio. They must not realize the other danger they faced. The pitiless enemy must not deduce his intentions and try to stop him. He would have to act quickly. They must not stop him.
They must not!
He had reached the first-aid wall chest and flung open its door. He could not see clearly, and he lost precious seconds in fumbling.
The voice said, "What is your decision?" and the fierceness of pain began to clamp down upon the young councilman once more.
Lucky had it-a squat jar of bluish silicone. His fingers groped through what seemed deadening cotton for the little catch that would shut off the paramagnetic microfield that held the jar's lid closed and airtight.
He scarcely felt the little nudge as one fingernail caught the catch. He scarcely saw the lid move to one side and fall off. He scarcely heard it hit the floor with the sound of metastic against metal. Fuzzily, he could see that the jar was open, and hazily, he lifted bis arm toward the trash ejector.
The pain had returned in all its fury.
His left arm had lifted the hinged opening of the ejector; his right arm tremblingly raised the precious jar to the six-inch opening.
His arm moved for an eternity. He could no longer see. A red haze covered everything.
He felt his arm and the jar it held strike the wall. He pushed, but it would move no farther. The fingers on his left hand inched down from where they held the opening of the trash ejector, and touched the jar.
He daren't drop it now. If he did, he would never in his life find the strength to pick it up again.
He had it in both hands, and together both hands pulled at it. It inched upward, while Lucky hovered closer and closer to the edge of unconsciousness.
A nd then the jar was gone!
A million miles away, it seemed, he could hear the whistle of compressed air, and he knew the jar had been ejected into the warm Venusian ocean.
For a moment the pain wavered and then, in one giant stroke, lifted completely.
Lucky righted himself carefully and stepped away from the wall. His face and body were drenched in perspiration, and his mind still reeled.
As fast as his still faltering steps could take him, he moved to the radio transmitter, and this time nothing stopped him.
Evans sat in a chair with his head buried in his arms. He had gulped thirstily at water and kept saying over and over again, "I don't remember a thing. I don't remember a thing."
Bigman, bare to the waist, was mopping at his head and chest with a damp cloth, and a shaky grin carne to his face. "I do. I remember everything. One minute I was standing there listening to you talking to the voice, Lucky, and then with no warning I was flat on the floor. I couldn't feel a thing, I couldn't turn my head, I couldn't even blink my eyes, but I could hear everything that was going on. I could hear the voice and what you said, Lucky. I saw you start for the radio…"
He puffed his breath out and shook his head.
"I never made it that first time, you know," said Lucky quietly.
"I couldn't tell. You passed out of my field of vision, and after that all I could do was lie there and wait to hear you start sending. Nothing happened, and I kept thinking they must have you, too. In my mind, I could see all three of us lying in living death. It was all over, and I couldn't nudge a thumbnail. It was all I could do just to breathe. Then you moved back past my eyes again, and I wanted to laugh and cry and yell all at tht same time, but all I could do was lie there. I could just about make you out, Lucky, clawing at the wall. I couldn't tell what on Venus you were doing, but a few minutes later it was all over. Wow!"
Evans said wearily, "And we're really heading back for Aphrodite now, Lucky? No mistake?"
"We're heading back unless the instruments are lying, and I don't think they are," said Lucky. "When we do get back and we can spare the time, we'll all of us get a little medical attention."
"Sleep!" insisted Bigman. "That's all I want. Just two days of solid sleep."
"You'll get that, too," said Lucky.
But Evans, more than the other two, was haunted by the experience. It showed quite plainly in the way he huddled in his own arms and slouched, almost cowered, in his chair. He said, "Aren't they interfering with us in any way at all any more?" There was the lightest emphasis on the word they.
"I can't guarantee that," said Lucky, "but the worst of the affair is over in a way. I reached the space station."
"You're sure? There's no mistake?"
"None at all. They even relayed me to Earth and I spoke to Conway directly. That part is settled."
"Then it's all settled," crowed Bigman joyously. "Earth is prepared. It knows the truth about the V-frogs."
Lucky smiled, but offered no comment.
Bigman said, "Just one thing, Lucky. Tell me what happened. How did you break their hold? Sands of Mars! What did you do?"
Lucky said, "Nothing that I ought not to have thought of long hi advance and saved us all a great deal of needless trouble. The voice told us that all they needed in life was to live and to think. You recall that, Bigman? It said later on that we had no way of threatening them and no way of bribing them? It was only at the last moment that I realized you and I knew better."
"I know better?" said Bigman blankly.
"Certainly you do. You found out two minutes after you saw your first V-frog, that life and thought is not all they need. I told you on the way to the surface that Venusian plants stored oxygen so that Venusian animals got their oxygen from their food and didn't have to breathe. In fact, I said, they probably get too much oxygen and that's why they're so fond of low-oxygen food like hydrocarbons. Like axle grease, for instance. Don't you remember?"
Bigman's eyes were widening. "Sure."
"Just think how they must crave hydrocarbon. It must be like the craving of a child for candy."
Bigman said once again, "Sure."
"Now the V-frogs had us under mental control, but to maintain us under such control, they had to concentrate. What I had to do was distract them, at least to distract those that were nearest the ship, and whose power over us was strongest. So I threw out the obvious thing."
"But what? Don't play cute, Lucky."