Thurdan said, “Who issued orders authorizing you to take prisoners, Bentley?”
“Why, nobody, sir. I thought—”
“You thought! In the future, just don’t attempt to think, Bentley. Leave that to me. It doesn’t look good on you. Starhaven isn’t a jail. We don’t want prisoners here. You understand that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Next time you happen to capture a ship, jettison any SP man you find aboard.”
“Yes, sir.”
Thurdan broke contact, whirled, and stared at Mantell. “Johnny, there’s a bunch of SP men outside the office. Have them killed. Then report back to me.”
He said it in a cool, even tone of voice. There was none of the anger in it that he had displayed when talking to the unfortunate Bentley.
“Have them killed.” Just like that.
“What are you waiting for, Mantell?”
The room was very silent. “Killing’s a little out of my line, Ben. I’m a research man. I can’t murder a group of innocent SP men, just because you don’t—”
Thurdan’s fist came up faster than Mantell’s eyes could flicker. Fireworks exploded in his head, then he crashed hard into the wall. He heard Myra gasp. He realized Thurdan had opened the fist at the last second and had merely slapped him. But even so, he felt as if he had been poleaxed.
His head rocked. He wobbled unsteadily away from the wall, making sure he was keeping well out of firing range of those fists.
Thurdan said, “I thought you were loyal, Johnny. I gave you an order. You stopped to argue. That doesn’t go on Starhaven. I told you about that. See that you remember it from now on.”
Mantell nodded. His jaw throbbed fiercely where Thurdan had slapped him.
“Yes, Ben.”
“Make sure you mean it! Now get out of here and dispose of those SP men. Come back here when you’ve done the job. That’s an order!”
His voice had regained the cool, level quality of his normal conversation by the time he finished speaking. There was nothing insane or paranoiac about Ben Thurdan, Mantell saw. Thurdan was simply the boss, and aimed to keep things that way.
Behind him, Myra was looking expressionlessly out the window.
“Okay, Ben,” Mantell said hoarsely. “I’ll take care of it right away.”
Chapter XIII
Mantell stepped out into the anteroom where four pale SP men waited, standing stiffly at attention, guarded by Thurdan’s private corpsmen. The corpsmen recognized him and nodded curtly.
“Thurdan wants these men put out of the way,” Man-tell said, in a dry, harsh voice.
The head corpsman said, “Locked up, you mean?”
“No. Killed. Destroyed.”
“But Bentley said—”
“Those are orders!” Mantell scowled. “Thurdan just gave Bentley the devil because he brought in these prisoners,” he said. He glanced at the SP men, who were registering as little emotion as possible. “Come on. Take them down the hall. We can shove them down the disposal unit there.”
Mantell shuddered inwardly at his own calmness. But this was Ben Thurdan’s way. This was Starhaven.
The corpsmen pushed the four SP captives roughly along, down the brightly lighted hall toward the empty room at the end of the corridor. They were herded inside.
“Okay, Mantell,” the corpsman said. “You’re in charge. Which one goes first?”
As Mantell hesitated, a tall SP man stared at him strangely and said to the corpsman, “Just a second. Did you say Mantell?”
“Yeah.”
Mantell moistened his lips. Perhaps the fellow was from Mulciber, and knew about him. “Johnny Mantell?” he went on.
“That’s me,” Mantell snapped. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I thought I recognized you,” said the SP man casually. “I’m Carter, Fourteenth Earth Platoon. What the hell are you doing in this outfit? And on Thurdan’s side? When I knew you you were a lot different.”
“I—” He stopped. “What do you mean, you knew me? Where?”
“In the Patrol, of course!”
“You’re crazy!”
“It was five years ago, when we were serving in the Syrtis Insurrection.” The way he said it, it sounded like self-evident truth. “You couldn’t have forgotten that so soon, Johnny!”
“What are you trying to get away with?” Mantell asked roughly. “Five years ago I was a stumblebum on Mulciber. Seven years ago I was doing the same thing. Also one year ago. I don’t know who you are or what you’re trying to pull, but I never was in the Patrol. For the last seven years I’ve been running away from the SP —until I wound up on Starhaven.”
The SP man was shaking his head incredulously. “They must have done something to you. Same name, same face—it has to be you!”
Mantell realized he was shaking with uneasiness. “You’re just stalling for time,” he said. He glanced at the corpsman leader. “Ledru, get going with this job.”
“Sure, Mantell.”
The Patrolman who had given his name as Carter was staring at him aghast, then looked at the disposal unit. “You’re just going to shove us down that thing? Alive? But we’re Patrolmen, Johnny! Just like you!”
Those last three words rocked Mantell. He knew the reputation of the Patrol well enough, knew they would pull any kind of trick at all to achieve their ends. That was why Thurdan didn’t want them kept prisoners; SP men on Starhaven would be potentially dangerous, behind bars or not.
But there was something in the Patrolman’s tone that rang of sincerity.
Impossible! Those seven stark years on Mulciber burned vividly in Mantell’s memory—too vividly for them to have been only dreams.
“Is the disposal ready?” he asked in a stony voice.
Ledru nodded. He signaled to his men and they grabbed one of the SP boys.
The one named Carter said, “You must be out of your head, Mantell, to do this. They did something to you.”
“Shut up,” Mantell said. He looked at the cold-faced corpsman chief. He thought: They say I committed murder on Mulciber. I say I didn’t, but they found it on my psychprobe charts. Even if I did, it was in a fight—it was manslaughter, nothing worse. This is cold-blooded murder!
But Thurdan must be watching, he thought. “Ledru,” he said, pointing at Carter, “put this one down the hole first.”
“Sure.”
At Ledru’s gesture the corpsmen released the man they held and moved toward Carter.
Suddenly the strange thing that had happened to Mantell three times already on Starhaven happened a-gain. He experienced that feeling of unreality, the conviction that all his past life was a mere hallucination. It came bursting up within him. He swayed.
Sweat poured down his body. The floor seemed to melt.
The corpsmen were dragging the struggling Carter toward the open disposal hatch, and Mantell knew he couldn’t watch, that he had to get out of the room and get away from this thing that was happening.
He turned and ran to the door. He threw it open and lunged blindly out into the hall.
From behind him he heard a prolonged cry of sheer terror, as the last SP man hurtled through the disposal trap, out into endless space.
Then there was only silence that seemed deafeningly loud. . . .
Unreasoningly, Mantell started to run up the corridor, the hollow sounds of his own footsteps seeming to pursue him. At last out of breath, lungs gasping, he leaned against the cool, yielding wall to rest. Ahead of him, the bright, straight corridor stretched endlessly until walls, floor and ceding seemed to meet together in the far distance.