Kathy said, 'Help me, Mr Ackerman. The Lilistar—' She ceased, because the grayman had broken the connection with a swift movement of his hand. Shrugging, she hung up.
'Mrs Sweetscent,' the grayman said, 'I'd like to introduce Mr Roger Corning to you.' He made a motion and into the apartment, from the hall, came a 'Starman dressed in an ordinary business suit, a briefcase under his arm. 'Mr Corning, this is Kathy Sweetscent, Dr Sweetscent's wife.'
'Who are you?' Kathy said.
'Someone who can get you off the hook, dear,' Corning said pleasantly. 'May we sit down in your living room and discuss this?'
Going into the kitchen, she twisted the knobs for soft-boiled eggs, toast, and coffee without cream. There's no JJ-180 in this apt. Unless you put it here yourself during the night.' The food was ready; she carried it to the table on its throwaway tray and seated herself. The smell of the coffee vanquished the remnants of fear and bewilderment in her; she felt capable again and not so intimidated.
Corning said, 'We have a permanent photographic sequence of your evening at 45 Avila Street. From the moment you followed Bruce Himmel up the stairs and inside. Your initial words were, "Hello, Bruce. It looks as if this is an all-TF&D—"'
'Not quite,' Kathy said. 'I called him Brucie. I always call him Brucie because he's so hebephrenic and dumb.' She drank her coffee, her hand steady as it held the throwaway cup. 'Does your photographic sequence prove what was in the capsules we took, Mr Gorning?'
'Corning,' he corrected good-naturedly. 'No, Katherine, it doesn't. But the testimony of two of the other participants Hoes Or will when it's entered under oath before a military tribunal.' He explained. This falls outside the jurisdiction of vour civilian courts. We ourselves will handle all details of the prosecution.'
'Why is that?' she inquired.
'JJ-180 can only be acquired from the enemy. Therefore your use of it – and we can establish this before our tribunal – constitutes intercourse with the enemy. In time of war the tribunal's demand naturally would be death.' To the gray-uniformed policeman Corning said, 'Do you have Mr Plout's deposition with you?'
'It's in the 'copter.' The grayman started toward the door.
'I thought there was something subhuman about Chris Plout,' Kathy said. 'Now I'm meditating about the others ... who else last night had a subhuman quality? Hastings? No. Simon Ild? No, he—'
'All this can be avoided,' Corning said.
'But I don't want to avoid it,' Kathy said. 'Mr Ackerman heard me on the vidphone; TF&D will send an attorney. Mr Ackerman is a friend of Secretary Molinari; I don't think—'
'We can kill you, Kathy,' Corning said. 'By nightfall. The tribunal can meet this morning; it's all arranged.'
After a time – she had ceased eating – Kathy said, 'Why? I'm that important? What is there in JJ-180? I—' She hesitated. 'What I tried last night didn't do so very much.' All at once she wished like hell that Eric had not left. This wouldn't have happened with him here, she realized. They would have been afraid.
Soundlessly, she began to cry; she sat hunched over at her Plate, tears sliding down her cheeks and dropping to disappear. She did not even try to cover her face; she put her hand to her orehead, rested leaning against her arm, saying nothing.—it, she thought.
Your position,' Corning said, 'is serious but not hopeless; there's a difference. We can work out something... that's why I'm here. Stop crying and sit up straight and listen to me and I'll try to explain.' He unzipped his briefcase.
'I know,' Kathy said. 'You want me to spy on Marm Hastings. You're after him because he advocated signing a separate peace with the reegs that time on TV. Jesus, you've infiltrated this whole planet. Nobody's safe.' She got up, groaned with despair, went to the bedroom for a handkerchief, still sniffling.
'Would you watch Hastings for us?' Corning said, when she returned.
'No.' She shook her head. Better to be dead, she thought.
'It's not Hastings,' the uniformed Lilistar policeman said.
Corning said, 'We want your husband. We'd like you to follow him to Cheyenne and take up where you left off. Bed and board, I think the Terran phrase is. As soon as it possibly can be arranged.'
She stared at him. 'I can't.'
'Why can't you?'
'We broke up. He left me.' She could not understand why, if they knew everything else, they didn't know that.
'Resolutions of that type in a marriage,' Corning said, as if speaking with the weary wisdom of an infinity of ages, 'can always be reduced to the status of a temporary misunderstand-ing. We'll take you to one of our psychologists – we have several excellent ones in residence here on this planet – and he'll brief you on the techniques to use in healing this rift with Eric. Don't worry, Kathy; we know what went on here last night. Actually it works out to our advantage; it gives us an opportunity to talk with you alone.'
'No.' She shook her head. 'We'll never be back together. I don't want to be with Eric. No psychologist, even one of yours, can change that. I hate Eric and I hate all this crap you're mixed up in. I hate you 'Starmen, and everyone on Terra feels the same way – I wish you'd get off the planet, I wish we'd never gotten into the war.' Impotently, with frenzy, she glared at him.
'Cool off, Kathy.' Corning remained unruffled.
'God, I wish Virgil were here; he's not afraid of you – he's one of the few people on Terra—'
'No one on Terra,' Corning said absently, 'has that status. It's time you faced reality; we could, you know, take you to Lilistar, instead of killing you ... had you thought about that, Kathy?'
'Oh God.' She shuddered. Don't take me to Lilistar, she said to herself, praying in silence. At least let me stay here on Terra with people I know. I'll go back to Eric; I'll beg him to take me back. 'Listen,' she said aloud. 'I'm not worrying about Eric. It isn't what you might do to him that frightens me.' It's myself, she thought.
'We know that, Kathy,' Corning said, nodding. 'So this really ought to please you, when you examine it without distracting emotion. By the way...' Dipping into the briefcase, Corning brought out a handful of capsules; he laid one on the kitchen table and the capsule rolled off and fell on the floor. 'No offense meant, Kathy, but—' He shrugged. 'It is addictive. From even one exposure, such as you indulged yourself in at 45 Avila Street last night. And Chris Plout isn't going to get you any more.' Picking up the capsule of JJ-180 which had fallen to the kitchen floor, he held it out to Kathy.
'It couldn't be,' she said faintly, declining. 'After just one try. I've taken dozens of drugs before and never—' She regarded him then. 'You bastards,' she said. 'I don't believe it and anyhow, even if it is true, I can get unaddicted – there're clinics.'
'Not for JJ-180.' Returning the capsule to his briefcase. Corning added casually, 'We can free you of your addiction, not here but at a clinic in our own system ... perhaps later we can arrange this. Or you can stay on it and we can supply you for the rest of your life. Which won't be long.'
'Even to break a drug habit,' Kathy said, 'I wouldn't go to Lilistar. I'll go to the reegs; it's their drug – you said so. They must know more about it than you do if they invented it.' Turning her back to Corning, she walked to the living room closet and got her coat. 'I'm going to work. Good-by.' She opened the door to the hall. Neither 'Starman made a move to halt her.