Groves then swung round to cover Nat Gardner. Dr. Flood crouched and fired wildly. Konklin came to life and kicked Flood in the groin. Flood, his face a sickly grey, retched violently.
"I was down in the reactors," Gardner said slowly. "He told me..." Anger suffused his features. "You son of a bitch!" he said thickly, and headed straight for McLean. McLean smashed at him with a length of pipe. All at once everyone was fighting desperately in a dusty inferno.
The women were screaming shrilly, milling back and forth and trying to drag their children and possessions to safety. For a moment the crazed shape of Janet Sibley emerged, a frenzied figure smashing at one of the Mexicans with a section of metal railing.
It was a long time before the fury began to die but gradually it spent itself. Finally the figures lay about the cargo hold, exhausted.
Jereti managed to struggle awkwardly to his feet. He hung to the wall, shuddering and plucking at his broken teeth.
"Butler's dead," Thompson said, his voice thin with horror. "He has no head." He began to giggle hysterically.
"Shut up!" Groves said sharply. "Anybody else dead?"
"I don't think so," Louise Tyler answered. "But a lot are hurt."
"The son of a bitch," Gardner repeated monotonously as he kicked at the unconscious form of Jack McLean, "came down and told me they took a fair vote."
Doctor Flood was a frightened blob of quivering flesh, his gold-tooth smile a leer of pain. "It was all Butler's idea," he stammered as Konklin approached him. "I went along with him like everybody else."
"You want to resign your position?" Konklin asked.
Flood agreed eagerly. "It was all Butler's idea. I never———"
"We'd better put a guard on the transmitter," Groves said, "so that nobody can put through a call to Neptune."
He stood pondering a moment, then moved slowly out of the cargo hold. A few minutes later he was back in the control bubble.
Chapter VII
Eleanor stevens appeared from the hall. "Verrick, this isn't Keith Pellig. Get Moore down here and make him talk. He's trying to injure Benteley; they had a fight."
Verrick's eyes widened. "This is Benteley? That goddamn Moore has no sense; this'll foul up things."
Benteley was beginning to recover some sanity. "Can this be fixed?" he muttered.
"He was out cold," Eleanor said in clipped tones. She had pulled on her slacks and sandals and had thrown a coat over her shoulders. "Get one of the lab doctors in here."
Moore appeared, shaken and afraid. "There's no harm done. I jumped the gun a little, that's all."
Benteley retreated from Moore and examined his alien hands and face. "Verrick," his voice said, thin and empty, "help me."
Verrick said gruffly: "It'll be all right. Here's the doctor now."
Herb Moore fluttered a few paces away, afraid to come near Verrick. At the desk Eleanor wearily lit a cigarette and stood smoking as the doctor inserted a needle into Benteley's arm and squashed the bulb. As darkness surrounded him, Benteley heard Verrick's heavy voice:
"You should have killed him or let him alone; not this kind of stuff. You think he's going to forget?"
A long way off Eleanor Stevens was talking.
"You know, Reese doesn't really understand what Pellig is. Have you noticed that?"
"He doesn't understand any kind of theory." Moore's reply was sullen and resentful.
"Why should he, when he can hire bright young men to understand it for him?"
"I suppose you mean me."
"Why are you with Reese? You don't like him. You don't get along with him."
"He has money to invest in my kind of work. Look, I took MacMillan's papers, all that research he did on robots. What came of his work? Just witless hulks, glorified vacuum cleaners, dumb-waiters. All he wanted was something big and strong to lift things, so that the labouring classes could lie down and sleep. MacMillan was pro-humanity."
There was the sound of people stirring, getting up and walking, the clink of a glass.
"The mix-up was your fault."
"Benteley will keep. He'll be there for good old Keith Pellig."
"You're not going to go over the implementation, not in your condition."
Moore's voice was full of outrage. "He's mine, isn't he?"
"He belongs to the world," Eleanor replied icily. "You're so wrapped up in your chess games that you can't see the danger you're putting us in. Every hour gives that fanatic a better chance of survival. If you hadn't gone berserk Cartwright might already be dead."
It was evening.
Benteley stirred. He sat up, surprised to find himself strong and clear-headed. The room was in semi-darkness. A single light gleamed, a glowing dot that he identified as Eleanor's cigarette. Moore sat beside her, moody and remote. Eleanor stood up quickly and turned on a table lamp.
"What time is it?" Benteley asked.
"Eight-thirty." She came to the bed, hands in her pockets. "How are you feeling?"
He swung his legs shakily to the floor. They had wrapped him in a standard nightrobe; his clothes were no- where in sight. "I'm hungry," he said. Suddenly he clenched his fists and struck wildly at his face.
"It's you," Eleanor said.
Benteley's legs wobbled under him. "I'm glad of that. It really happened?"
"It happened. It'll happen again, too. But next time you'll be prepared. You, and twenty-three other bright young men."
"Where are my clothes? I'm getting out of here."
Moore got up quickly. "You can't walk out. You discovered what Pellig is—do you think Verrick would turn you loose?"
"You're violating the Challenge rules." Benteley found his clothes in a cupboard and spread them out on the bed. "You can send only one assassin at a time. This thing of yours is rigged up to look like one, but——" Benteley unfastened his nightrobe and tossed it away. "This Pellig is nothing but a synthetic. He's a vehicle, you're going to slam a dozen high-grade minds into and head it for Batavia. Cartwright will be dead, you'll incinerate the Pellig-thing, and nobody'll know. You'll pay off your minds and send them back to their work. Like me."
Moore was amused. "I wish we could do that. As a matter of fact, we gave it a try. We jammed three personalities into Pellig at once. The result was chaos. Each took off in a different direction."
"Has Pellig any personality of his own?" Benteley asked, as he dressed. "What happens when all the minds are out of him?"
"He becomes what we call vegetable. He doesn't die, but he devolves to a primitive level of existence, a kind of twilight sleep."
"What kept him going last night at the party?"
"A bureaucrat from my lab. Pellig is a good medium: not too much distortion or refraction."
"When I was in it, I thought Pellig was there with me."
"I felt the same way," Eleanor agreed calmly. "The first time I tried it I thought there was a snake in my slacks. It's an illusion. When did you first feel it?"
"When I looked in the mirror."
"How do you think I felt? I don't think Moore should try women operators."
Moore resumed: "During the last few months we've tried dozens of people. Most of them crack. A couple of hours and they get a weird sort of claustrophobia. They want to get away, as Eleanor says, as if it's something slimy and dirty close to them." He shrugged. "I don't feel that way. I think he's beautiful."
"How many have you got?" Benteley asked.
"We've found a couple of dozen who can stand it. Your friend Davis is one. He has the right personality: placid, calm, easy-going."