Sensing instant danger, Wakeman leaped up and ran clumsily at the Pellig figure. Gesturing excitedly, trying to shout across the airless void, he got within two feet before Benteley halted him with an ominous wave of his thumb-gun.
"Stay away from me," Benteley thought grimly. "I'm still not sure of you. You're working for Cartwright."
Wakeman scratched frantically: "PELLIG SET TO DETONATE WHEN CLOSE TO CARTWRIGHT. MOORE WILL SWITCH YOU IN BODY AT MOMENT."
"Does Verrick know?" Benteley demanded.
"YES."
"Eleanor Stevens?"
"YES."
Benteley's mind flashed anguish. "How do I know this is true? Prove it!"
"EXAMINE YOUR BODY. LOCATE POWER LEADS. TRACE CIRCUIT TO BOMB."
Benteley's fingers flew as he ripped at the synthetic chest. His mind flashed technical data as he found the main wiring that interlaced the body beneath the artificial layer of skin. He tore loose a whole section of material and probed deep in the humming circuit of the synthetic body, as Wakeman crouched a few feet away, heart frozen in his chest, clutching futilely for the good luck charm he had dropped in his office and never retrieved.
Benteley was wavering. The last clinging mist of loyalty to Verrick was rapidly fading. In its place hatred and disgust was forming. "So that's the way it's worked," he thought finally. An embryonic strategy flashed through his mind. "All right, Wakeman." His mind hardened. "I'm taking the body back. All the way to Farben."
Wakeman sagged. "Thank God," he said out loud.
Benteley leaped into activity. Realization that Moore was watching made his fingers a blur of motion as he inspected the reactor and jet controls, and then, without a sound, flashed the synthetic robot and ship up into the black sky, toward Earth.
The body had moved almost a quarter mile before Herb Moore sent the selector mechanism twitching. Shatteringly, without warning, Ted Benteley found himself sitting in his chair at Farben, surrounded by his protective ring.
On the miniature screen before him, the Pellig body hurtled back downward toward the moon-face in a wide arc. It located the suddenly scampering figure of Peter Wakeman and directed its thumb-gun. Wakeman saw what was coming. He stopped running and stood, oddly calm and dignified, as the synthetic body dropped low, spun, and then incinerated him. Moore was in control again.
Benteley struggled up from his protective ring. He tore loose the wires than ran under his skin, his tongue, into his armpits and ears. In an instant he was at the door of the cubicle, reaching for the heavy steel handle.
The door was sealed.
He had expected it. Back at the humming banks of machinery, he tore loose a handful of relays. A flashing pop as the main power cables shorted, sending up acrid fumes and throwing the meters to a dead halt. The door fell open, its lock inoperative. Benteley raced down the hall toward Moore's central lab. On the way he crashed into a lounging Hill guard. Benteley knocked him down and grabbed the man's Popper. He turned the corner and plunged into the lab.
Moore lay limp and motionless within his own protective ring. Around him a group of his technicians were working on the second synthetic body, already partly 'assembled in the fluid baths suspended over the work-tables. None of the technicians was armed.
Circling the lab was a honeycomb of chambers, small cubicles in which men sat at screens, eyes fixed intently, bodies supported by identical equipment. A momentary vision of mirror duplications of his own cube, the other operators, and then Benteley broke away. He waved the fluttering technicians back and glanced briefly into Moore's screen. The body hadn't reached the resort balloon; he was in time.
Benteley killed the limp, unprotesting body of Herb Moore.
The effect on the Pellig body was instantaneous. It gave a convulsive leap that carried it in a spinning trajectory off the Lunar surface. The body whirled and darted grotesquely, a crazed thing dancing a furious rhythm of death. Somewhere along the line, as the body swooped and soared, it managed to pull itself out and level off. Moore led the body upward, arced it in a vast sweeping circle, and then shot off for deep space.
On the screen, the Lunar surface receded. It dwindled and became a ball. Then a dot. Then it was gone.
The lab doors burst open. Verrick and Eleanor Stevens entered quickly. "What did you do?" Verrick demanded hoarsely. "He's gone crazy; he's heading away from..." He saw the lifeless body of Herb Moore. "So that's it," he said softly.
Benteley got out of the lab—fast. Verrick didn't try to stop him; he stood aimlessly fumbling at Moore's corpse, his massive face slack and vacant, numbed with shock.
Down the descent ramp Benteley raced. Reaching the ground, he plunged out onto the dark late-evening street As a group of Farben personnel streamed hesitantly out after him, he entered the illuminated taxi yard and hailed one of the parked urbtrans ships.
"Where to, sir or madam?" the MacMillan driver asked, as it slid back its doors and gunned its turbines.
"To Bremen," Benteley gasped. He snapped his seat-straps in place and quickly slotted his neck against the take-off impact. "And make it fast."
The MacMillan's metallic voice sounded in agreement as it operated its jet portions. The small high-speed ship which was its mechanical body shot swiftly into the sky, and Farben fell behind.
"Set me down at the big interplan field," Benteley ordered. "Do you know any interplan flight schedules?"
"No, but I can hook you up to an information circuit."
"Forget it," Benteley said. He wondered briefly how much of his conversation with Wakeman had been picked up by the balance of the Corps. Whether he liked it or not, Luna was the only place he stood a chance of safety. All nine planets were now Hill-operated death traps: Verrick would never rest until he had paid him back. But there was no telling what reception he would get from the Directorate. He might be shot on sight as one of Verrick's agents. On the other hand, he might be regarded as Cartwright's savior.
_Where was the synthetic body going?_
"Here's the field, sir or madam," the driver said to him. The taxi was settling down at the public parking lot.
The field was manned by Hill personnel. Benteley could see intercon liners and interplan transports resting here and there, and great hordes of people. Among the people Hill guards moved around keeping order. Suddenly Benteley changed his mind.
"Don't set down. Head back up."
"You name it, sir or madam." The ship obediently rose.
"Isn't there a military field around someplace?"
"The Directorate maintains a small military repair field at Narvik. You want to go there? It's forbidden for non-military ships to set down in that area. I'll have to drop you over the side."
"Fine," Benteley said. "That sounds like exactly what I want."
Leon Cartwright was fully awake when the Corpsman came running to his quarters. "How far away is he?" Cart-wright asked. Even with the injection of sodium pentathol he had slept only a few hours.
"Pretty close, I suppose."
"Peter Wakeman is dead," the Corpsman said.
Cartwright got quickly to his feet. "Who killed him?"
"The assassin."
"Then he's here." Cartwright yanked out his hand weapon. "What kind of defense can we put up? How did he find me? What happened to the network at Batavia?"
Rita O'Neill entered the room, white-faced and quiet. "The Corps broke down completely. Pellig forced his way directly to the inner fortress and found you were gone."
Cartwright glanced briefly at her, then back at the Corpsman. "What happened to your people?"