Hull Burrel looked heavily at the immovable door. 'Neat,' he said. 'They've got us nicely cooped up, and any time they decide to execute us, all they have to do is use the remote control to open the outer door of this lock.' There was a manual control as well, almost suicidally handy. They carefully avoided leaning on it.
Gordon shook his head. 'They won't do that. You heard Shorr Kan tell them that Cyn Cryver wants us alive.'
'Yes, I heard him,' said Hull. 'I also know we're the only living beings who can tell the truth about how he got away from Aar. Of course, if he's really on our side, that's not important. But if he isn't... I don't think he'd want Cyn Cryver to hear it. Because of course the H'Harn would move in and examine him. I think he'd just blow us out into space and say we did it ourselves, two loyal Empire men choosing death before dishonor.' Hull's face was set and very hard. 'Do you honestly believe Shorr Kan is on your side, John Gordon?'
'Yes. Not out of nobility, but because we're his own best chance.'
Hull remained standing for a time, frowning at Gordon. Then he sat down on the floor and leaned wearily against the bulkhead. 'I wish,' he said, 'I had your simple faith.'
17
The cruiser throbbed and hummed, flying through the Marches at highest speed. To Gordon, prisoned with the Antarian in the lock, it seemed to have been flying thus for interminable period. Several times the inner door had been opened and a scant ration of food and water thrust in to them by armed and careful men. But nothing else had happened, and they had not seen Shorr Kan again.
Gordon began increasingly to share Hull Burrel's skepticism about the reliability of Shorr Kan as an ally. So much so, that each time he heard the sound of a lock door opening he looked quickly at the outer one to see if this was not the moment that Hull had predicted, when they two would be catapulted on a blast of decompressed air into space and eternal silence. So far, it had always been the inner door that opened.
So far.
Agonized worry about Lianna and his own gnawing sense of guilt added to Gordon's personal torment.
'Gordon, I understand, but will you please shut
Gordon's own temper flared, but he refrained from uttering the words that came to his tongue. Instead he shut his jaw hard and went and sat with his back against the wall of the lock chamber... a posture that had now become practically permanent... and thought what the hell of a man of action he had turned out to be.
A thin, almost undetectable odor roused him from his brooding. It was pungent, unfamiliar, and it had to be coming into the lock from the air-vent connected with the main life-support system of the ship.
Gordon jumped up and approached the vent and sniffed. And that was the last thing he remembered before he fell on his face on the hard deck and never even felt the impact.
He awoke vaguely to a thin hissing noise and the sensation of being shaken. Somebody was calling his name.
'Gordon! Gordon, wake up!'
The somebody sounded urgent. There was a tickling in Gordon's nostrils. He shook his head and coughed, trying to get away from it, and the effort caused him to open his eyes.
Shorr Kan was bending over him, holding a small tube that hissed and tickled as it released gas into Gordon's mouth and nose.
'Oxygen,' said Shorr Kan. 'It should clear the cobwebs. You've got to come out of it, Gordon. I need you.'
Gordon still felt remarkably stupid, but his mind was beginning to function again.
'Gas... from the air duct,' he mumbled. 'Knocked me out...'
Shorr Kan nodded. 'Yes. Numb-gas. I managed to slip some canisters of it out of the ship's armory and drop them into the main air-supply of the life-support system.'
Gordon stumbled up to his feet, hanging on to Shorr Kan for support. 'The officers... the crew... ?'
'Out like lights,' said Shorr Kan, grinning. 'Of course, I thoughtfully put on a spacesuit beforehand, and then vented and replaced the air supply before I took it off. Feeling better?'
'I'm all right.'
'Good The officers and crew are sleeping like babies, but they won't sleep much longer. I need your help to secure them, and I need Hull to pilot the ship while we're doing it. I've got the cruiser on automatic now, but the Marches are a risky place for that.'
He went over to Hull, who was still sprawled unconscious on the deck, and held the oxygen tube under his nose. Then he looked up at Gordon and showed his teeth in a smile.
'Didn't I tell you I'd get you free?'
'You did.' Gordon shook his head, which ached blindingly. 'And you have. I congratulate you. The only trouble is, my head is going to fall off from being saved.'
When Hull Burrel opened his eyes and saw Shorr Kan bending over him, his reaction was almost comically instinctive. He blinked once, and then put up his big hands and closed them around Shorr Kan's throat. But he was still weak as a kitten. Shorr Kan slapped his hands away and stood up.
'A grateful pair you two are,' he said.
Gordon helped the Antarian to his feet, speaking urgently as he did so, explaining. He wasn't sure how much Hull understood until he said, 'The ship's on autopilot, and you're needed in the bridge.'
First and last a spaceman, Hull pulled himself together by main force, forgetting everything else.
'On auto-pilot? Here in the Marches?' he thrust Gordon aside and went with violent, if unsteady, haste out of the lock and down the companionway to the bridge.
Shorr Kan took a roll of tough wire from stores, and then he and Gordon set to work securing the officers and men.
Obd Doll, who lay in his own small cabin, was the last of them, and when they had him bound Shorr Kan looked thoughtfully down at him.
'I think I'll bring him round now with oxygen,' he said. 'He'd know the schedule that Cyn Cryver and Narath Teyn have set up for the attack on Fomalhaut, and that's something we've got to know.'
'What,' said Gordon, 'if he won't talk?'
Shorr Kan smiled. 'I think I can persuade him. You go on up to the bridge. You're the high-minded type and you'd only get in my way.'
Gordon hesitated. It sounded like torture to him. But he thought of Lianna and what could be going to happen to her, and hardened his heart. He turned and went out of the cabin.
When he entered the bridge, Hull Burrel spoke without turning from the controls.
'I've laid as direct a course as possible for Fomalhaut. It'll take us too close to Teyn for comfort.'
Gordon peered at the viewplate. The little cruiser was edging along the coast of a gigantic cloud of glowing dust, whose minute particles were so excited by the radiation of the stars drowned in it that it looked like a great mass of flame.
To Gordon, it seemed that the ship was merely crawling. He tried to contain his impatience. He also tried not to think of what Shorr Kan was doing.
After a while Shorr Kan came into the bridge. He took one look at Gordon's face and said seriously, 'Could you hear the cries all the way up here?'
Gordon started for the door. 'What did you do to him?'
Shorr Kan caught his arm. 'I wouldn't go down there, Gordon. Not unless you...'
'Not unless I what?'
Shorr Kan's brows went up and his eyes laughed at Gordon. 'Unless you want to be frightfully disappointed. Obd Doll has nothing worse the matter with him than a severe case of fright.'
'You mean,' said Gordon skeptically, 'that he talked just because you threatened him?'
Shorr Kan nodded. 'He did. You see the value of a reputation of ruthlessness. He believed I'd do exactly what I said I would, and so he told me all he knew without my having to do it. We'd soon find out if he lied, so I think he
