“It’s a very long gamble. I hope you realize that”.
“It’s either that or no gamble at all. And we’ve got to gamble. We’re holding at least two high cards and a joker. Henley has had the ground shot right out from under him. He’s completely alone, and the only thing he has left to gamble with is his nearness to Ramsey, his ability to terrify Ramsey by making him believe that his daughter’s life is still in danger. Ramsey has to be told that Helen has been freed, has to be warned in time, before he does anything foolish”.
“Don’t you see? With that threat hanging over him, Ramsey would never let us get within fifty yards of the Citadel, let alone walk through the gates. And if Henley finds out that we’ve got Helen, he’ll know that he has nothing left to gamble with except that desperate bluff. And he may doubt his ability to win with a bluff. That would be the worst tragedy of all. He may turn on Ramsey in blind rage, and kill him. He gets a horrible, pathological pleasure out of killing. I’ve told you how he went berserk on the Station”.
Drever nodded, and, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, the look of stubborn opposition was gone from his eyes.
“I guess you’re right, Lieutenant. You can’t always tell how the cards will fall”.
“You can never tell”, Corriston said. “And there are some games where the important moves can only be made by just one player, and he usually has to be something of a reckless fool”.
22
CORRISTON left the tractor a hundred and seventy yards from the gate, well hidden behind a hundred foot dune. The other tractors had come to a halt a much greater distance from the Citadel, and were spread out across the desert in a slightly uneven, double line.
He walked slowly forward across the rust-red sand, with a feeling in his bones that he was going to be lucky. Yet he knew that he’d have to be convincing, or he wouldn’t stand a chance. If there was more than one guard at the gate he might never get inside. With luck he might be able to convince two guards — even three — but never four or five, for you couldn’t forge words into persuasive enough weapons to disarm the suspicion of that many observant men. Not the kind of men who would be guarding Ramsey, at any rate.
The massiveness of the fortified gate shook his confidence a little as he drew near to it. It was at least fifty feet in height, a solid oblong of inches-thick steel with a desert-mirroring surface. He could see his own reflection as he advanced, but it did nothing to reassure him.
He knew what he’d have to do, of course. Walk right up to the gate and trust to luck that he could find some way of announcing his presence without getting himself killed. How did you gain entrance to an impregnable fortress? Surely there had to be some way by which a man could gain admittance without being instantly shot down as a hostile intruder.
He was surprised by the simplicity of the answer. There was no need for him to press a bell or a buzzer, to manipulate a mechanism of any sort. There was not even any need for him to proclaim his arrival by shouting.
The gate swung inward without a sound, and in the shadows cast by its moving bulk two figures silently materialized. They were guards, heavily armed, one tall with shaggy brows and piercing dark eyes, the other a wiry little man with reddish hair, his expression peculiarly bland and noncommittal.
It was the little man who said: “All right, come inside. We’ve been expecting you”.
It was impossible, but true. There was nothing threatening in the way the words were uttered, just calm acceptance, just the matter-of-fact indifference of a man who has a duty to perform and doesn’t care what happens afterwards.
But it would have perhaps been better if Corriston had not moved so quickly forward, for almost instantly the second guard barred his passage and laid a firm hand on his arm.
“Hold on. Just a minute”, the tall guard said. “You’re Peter Stone, aren’t you?”.
With a quick pretense of anger Corriston jerked his arm free and looked the guard up and down. “Naturally I’m Stone. Who in hell did you think I was”.
“Sorry”, the guard said, shrugging. “Don’t take it out on me. I just had to be sure”.
“Well, you’re sure now. I guess you know why I’m here”. The guard nodded. “Ramsey just phoned down about you. Your friend is with him now. See that big gray building, the one on the left with the shuttered windows? There’s a guard stationed at the door, but he won’t stop you. He has his orders. Climb two flights of stairs and go down the long corridor on the third floor. Ramsey and your friend are in the last room on the left”.
Corriston drew a deep breath, wondering if the guard had noticed the tightening of his facial muscles. He turned away from the gate slowly, staring out over the interior of the fortress, letting his emotions of the moment take complete possession of him.
He had entered as if by magic a world apart, a small, shutin world of massive magnificence, of undreamed of material power and wealth. There were five buildings within the encircling wall of the fortress, each monumental in architectural sweep. Each was a citadel alone and apart, monuments to man’s creative genius erected by one man with a determination to make himself unique.
It was a folly almost beyond belief, a terrifying distortion of human creativeness that could lead only to ultimate disaster and defeat.
But greedy and cruel and ruthless as Ramsey undoubtedly was, there still burned in him a little of the spark that had created Athens in white marble. Had it not been so, he could not have even commissioned men of creative genius to transport to Mars the materials for such a project and have taken pleasure in its completion.
“Your friend got here two hours ago”, the tall guard said. “They’ve been talking ever since. He came down to the gate once and said we should let you in, you and another man. Saddler, I think his name was. I see he’s not with you”.
“No, Saddler is not with me”, Corriston said.
“What happened to him?”.
“The big gray building with the shuttered windows, you said. If the guard tries to stop me, what do I say”.
“I told you he had his orders”.
Corriston looked up at the massive gate swinging shut behind him. For good or ill, he was, completely trapped, completely at the mercy of the armed guards inside the citadel.
They hadn’t taken his gun away from him, but, nevertheless, he was trapped. What chance would one armed man have against seventy-five or a hundred guards? They were keeping out of sight, all but the two at the gate. But at any moment they could converge upon him and shoot him down. They could choose their own moment, precisely as a research medical man could choose his own moment to experiment upon a laboratory animal, knowing that the creature was safe in its cage and couldn’t possibly get away.
Corriston’s lips tightened and from a shadowed comer of his mind came a determination to brush all that aside, to ignore it completely. The guards at the gate might very well be telling the truth. It stood to reason that Ramsey would have remained secretive about his daughter. Kidnappers do not like to have their ransom demands discussed too openly. If Ramsey had been a complete fool he would have gone down to the gate and taken the guards completely into his confidence, but Corriston could not believe that Ramsey was that much of a fool.
In all probability Henley had threatened Ramsey and provoked him almost beyond endurance. There had arisen the questions of how the ransom was to be paid, the girl set free.
Damn it, Corriston thought, the thing for me to do now is to go straight toward that building and straight up the stairs to the third floor and straight down the corridor until I’m confronting Ramsey face to face. I’m Peter. Stone. I’m one of the two men who helped Henley kidnap the girl and I’ve come to help Henley convince Ramsey. I’ve come to help him really put the screws on Ramsey. I can improvise from that point on”.