He did a quick mental calculation, and realized anxiously: 'Good lord, we're already into that period!'
He switched to superfast time rate and went to the prison for a talk with Gourdy. After the shock effect of his abrupt materialization in the cell had passed – they talked.
...Agreement: retake the ship! Lesbee to be captain, Gourdy his chief lieutenant. To Lesbee, it was a dangerous but necessary compromise. One man could not capture a vessel by himself, and hold it.
He took Gourdy and his followers into the high time speed with him. They boarded the Molly D landing craft, carried out of the little vessel the contents of several packing cases,... then hid on a normal time basis inside those cases. So that when the craft took off that night it had aboard twenty unsuspected passengers.
Because of these activities, Lesbee did not see the evening papers that printed Hewitt's radioed protest on the arrest of Gourdy. Newspaper editorials supported Hewitt's position... Shortly before midnight, the Space Board yielded to the mounting opposition and promised to reconsider the matter at the next meeting a week hence.
But it was too late.
Back in the Hope of Man, Lesbee installed Gourdy and his men in a storeroom that would not normally be opened, and the equipment in it used, until a landing was made on an alien planet... It was agreed the group would remain quiet until all connection was severed between the interstellar vessel and the Molly D.
Technician Lesbee disconnected the wiring from the control room to the listening and scanning devices within the walls. He brought the men food and comforts: cots, blankets, games and books – there were a hundred thousand new books aboard.
When he was with Gourdy's group, and listened to their coarse humor, Lesbee felt uneasy. But each time, he fought off his doubts because there was no other solution.
Lesbee saw no difference between the decision of the Space Board to arrest and try Gourdy for murder, and the decision Gourdy had made to kill the two technicians and the scientist. By its action, the Space Board intended to pressure future space travelers into submitting to control of appointed kings. Gourdy's intent had been to frighten anyone who opposed his being king.
– No difference! Thus reasoned John Lesbee V. And his jaw tightened with the determination to carry through on his personal take-over plan.
While he waited for the Molly D to cast off, Lesbee watched what was happening on the ship -
Changes were occurring. Science had come aboard. Psychologists were lecturing. Sociologists traced the history of the ship for those who had been too close to the actuality to see its significance. The military aspect – which had been fastened onto the people virtually at the last minute when the voyage originally began – was replaced by a system worked out, not by military experts but by scientific people.
From a hidden point on a balcony overlooking the assembly room, Lesbee listened to a lecture by Hewitt on the difference between a scientific approach and other systems. Among other things, Hewitt said:
'Scientists are an amazing breed. On the one hand, they are conservative. But within the frame of their training, a group of scientists represent truth, integrity, order, sensitivity, and sensibility on the highest level...'
He compared the extreme difficulty of obtaining top scientists at the beginning of the voyage, with the ease he had had in obtaining any number of volunteers on this occasion. The reason: a ship returned from a voyage of over a hundred years represented a clear and immediate problem. Every aspect of that problem had aroused scientific interest and enthusiasm -
Lesbee watched the result of that enthusiasm. Humanitarian laws were codified. There were a police force, judges, a jury system. A captain, yes – Hewitt – but he became the administrator of the law through the system. He had his rights and duties...
Universal equal education was set up, with an administering board and teachers with personal rights and privileges...
Lesbee listened to Hewitt explain in another lecture why only on a ship could such a complete, perfect system be established. Outside force and technology, scientifically altruistic, could move in upon such a limited world as the Hope of Man and in a short time create a model system.
Hewitt explained that among nations on Earth there was no comparable altruistic outside force. Victors in wars, motivated by hatred and the need to control, degrade, despoil, and punish – were virtually the only outside forces human beings had ever known. The defeated knew their fate, held still for the disaster through fear, built up their own hatred, waited their chance -which usually came through the conniving of international politics.
Lesbee's first impulse was to consider Hewitt naive.
Hewitt didn't seem to be aware that, while the ship's inhabitants accepted their rights, there was already muttering against the duties.
And that the men were outraged by the attitude of the newcomers which implied that the women aboard had not been treated right.
Presently, Lesbee found himself wondering if Hewitt's apparent unawareness was not part of a skillful game, another way to power.
While all this was developing, the Molly D cast off.
For Lesbee, when he heard this, all the turmoil aboard the ship became as nothing.
The time had come for his take-over.
38
Lesbee had a strong impulse to go and see Tellier before he did anything.
But he recognized the desire as a weakness. He actually thought, 'Maybe I want him to talk me out of this.' He did not go.
For a few moments before he came down from high to even time, Lesbee stared at the twisted caricature figures of the Gourdy gang. It was an unhappy stare. He disliked this whole group. But unfortunately these were his only possible allies at this stage.
Most of these negative feelings were still strangely heavy on him a little later as he explained the situation to Gourdy. There were so many doubts – 'It's almost,' Lesbee thought, 'as if I consider what I'm about to do an outdated solution. Perhaps I've let all that scientific propaganda affect me.'
He reassured himself that Hewitt was simply another power seeker.
The faraway expression in Lesbee's eyes did not escape Gourdy.
It was the moment of carelessness he had been waiting for all these days. He glanced significantly at Harcourt, who, by instruction, had watched the two men alertly during their discussion.
Lesbee sighed. 'Better start the attack on the ship,' he thought, 'and get it over with.' His intention was to begin by disarming everybody aboard.
At that final instant he caught Harcourt's movement, and his fingers closed convulsively over the control device, squeezed it in a grip of iron.
It was the last thing he ever did.
The blow of energy from Harcourt's blaster caught him in the side of the head and upper shoulder.
Blackout!... death!... instantly.
Pressing the control button knocked him into another time ratio barely short of the ratio related to light-speed, about the same as Hewitt's original 973 to one.
There he lay as dead as any man would ever be.
Gourdy gazed down at the twisted body. In his sharp way, he had observed the one thing Lesbee did consistently in connection with his fantastic disappearing act: the putting of his hand in his pocket. There was no other repeated action.