Mitch was silent.
Karlsen’s red-rimmed eyes fastened on him. “She’s been brainwashed, Poet. It can be done with some permanence, you know, when advantage is taken of the subject’s natural tendencies. I suppose she’s never thought too much of me. There were political reasons for her to consent to our marriage . . . she screams when the doctors even mention my name. They tell me it’s possible that horrible things were done to her by some man-shaped machine made to look like me. Other people are tolerable, to a degree. But it’s you she wants to be alone with, you she needs.”
“She cried out when I left her, but—me?”
“The natural tendency, you see. For her to . . . love . . . the man who saved her. The machines set her mind to fasten all the joy of rescue upon the first male human face she saw. The doctors assure me such things can be done. They’ve given her drugs, but even in sleep the instruments show her nightmares, her pain, and she cries out for you. What do you feel toward her?”
“Sir, I’ll do anything I can. What do you want of me?”
“I want you to stop her suffering, what else?” Karlsen’s voice rose to a ragged shout. “Stay alone with her, stop her pain if you can!”
He got himself under a kind of control.” Go on. The doctors will take you in. Your gear will be brought over from the Solar Spot.”
Mitch stood up. Any words he could think of sounded in his mind like sickening attempts at humor. He nodded, and hurried out.
“This is your last chance to join us,” said the Venerian, Salvador, looking up and down the dim corridors of this remote outer part of the flagship. “Our patience is worn, and we will strike soon. With the De Dulcin woman in her present condition, Nogara’s brother is doubly unfit to command.”
The Venerian must be carrying a pocket spy-jammer; a multisonic whine was setting Hemphill’s teeth on edge. And so was the Venerian.
“Karlsen is vital to the human cause whether we like him or not,” Hemphill said, his own patience about gone, but his voice still calm and reasonable. “Don’t you see to what lengths the berserkers have gone to get at him? They sacrificed a perfectly good machine just to deliver his brainwashed woman here, to attack him psychologically.”
“Well. If that is true they have succeeded. If Karlsen had any value before, now he will be able to think of nothing but his woman and the Martian.”
Hemphill sighed. “Remember, he refused to hurry the fleet to Atsog to try to save her. He hasn’t failed yet. Until he does, you and the others must give up this plotting against him.”
Salvador backed away a step, and spat on the deck in rage. A calculated display, thought Hemphill.
“Look to yourself, Earthman!” Salvador hissed. “Karlsen’s days are numbered, and the days of those who support him too willingly!” He spun around and walked away.
“Wait!” Hemphill called, quietly. The Venerian stopped and turned, with an air of arrogant reluctance. Hemphill shot him through the heart with a laser pistol. The weapon made a splitting, crackling noise in atmosphere.
Hemphill prodded the dying man with his toe, making sure no second shot was needed. “You were good at talking,” he mused aloud. “But too devious to lead the fight against the damned machines.”
He bent to quickly search the body, and stood up elated. He had found a list of officers’ names. Some few were underlined, and some, including his own, followed by a question mark. Another paper bore a scribbled compilation of the units under command of certain Venerian officers. There were a few more notes; altogether, plenty of evidence for the arrest of the hard-core plotters. It might tend to split the fleet, but—
Hemphill looked up sharply, then relaxed. The man approaching was one of his own, whom he had stationed nearby.
“We’ll take these to the High Commander at once.” Hemphill waved the papers. “There’ll be just time to clean out the traitors and reorganize command before we face battle.”
Yet he delayed for another moment, staring down at Salvador’s corpse. The plotter had been overconfident and inept, but still dangerous. Did some sort of luck operate to protect Karlsen? Karlsen himself did not match Hemphill’s ideal of a war leader; he was not as ruthless as machinery or as cold as metal. Yet the damned machines made great sacrifices to attack him.
Hemphill shrugged, and hurried on his way.
“Mitch, I do love you. I know what the doctors say it is, but what do they really know about me?”
Christina de Dulcin, wearing a simple blue robe and turbanlike headdress, now reclined on a luxurious acceleration couch, in what was nominally the sleeping room of the High Commander’s quarters. Karlsen had never occupied the place, preferring a small cabin.
Mitchell Spain sat three feet from her, afraid to so much as touch her hand, afraid of what he might do, and what she might do. They were alone, and he felt sure they were unwatched. The Lady Christina had even demanded assurances against spy devices and Karlsen had sent his pledge. Besides, what kind of ship would have spy devices built into its highest officers’ quarters?
A situation for bedroom farce, but not when you had to live through it. The man outside, taking the strain, had more than two hundred ships dependent on him now, and many human planets would be lifeless in five years if the coming battle failed.
“What do you really know about me, Chris?” he asked.
“I know you mean life itself to me. Oh, Mitch, I have no time now to be coy, and mannered, and every millimeter a lady. I’ve been all those things. And—once—I would have married a man like Karlsen, for political reasons. But all that was before Atsog.”
Her voice dropped on the last word, and her hand on her robe made a convulsive grasping gesture. He had to lean forward and take it.
“Chris, Atsog is in the past, now.”
“Atsog will never be over, completely over, for me. I keep remembering more and more of it. Mitch, the machines made us watch while they skinned General Bradin alive. I saw that. I can’t bother with silly things like politics anymore, life is too short for them. And I no longer fear anything, except driving you away . . . ”
He felt pity, and lust, and half a dozen other maddening things.
“Karlsen’s a good man,” he said finally.
She repressed a shudder. “I suppose,” she said in a controlled voice. “But Mitch, what do you feel for me? Tell the truth—if you don’t love me now, I can hope you will, in time.” She smiled faintly, and raised a hand. “When my silly hair grows back.”
“Your silly hair.” His voice almost broke. He reached to touch her face, then pulled his fingers back as from a flame. “Chris, you’re his girl, and too much depends on him.”
“I was never his.”
“Still . . . I can’t lie to you, Chris; maybe I can’t tell you the truth, either, about how I feel. The battle’s coming, everything’s up in the air, paralyzed. No one can plan . . . ” He made an awkward, uncertain gesture.
“Mitch.” Her voice was understanding. “This is terrible for you, isn’t it? Don’t worry, I’ll do nothing to make it worse. Will you call the doctor? As long as I know you’re somewhere near, I think I can rest, now.”
Karlsen studied Salvador’s papers in silence for some minutes, like a man pondering a chess problem. He did not seem greatly surprised.
“I have a few dependable men standing ready,” Hemphill finally volunteered. “We can quickly—arrest—the leaders of this plot.”
The blue eyes searched him. “Commander, was Salvador’s killing truly necessary?”
“I thought so,” said Hemphill blandly. “He was reaching for his own weapon.”
Karlsen glanced once more at the papers and reached a decision.
“Commander Hemphill, I want you to pick four ships, and scout the far edge of the Stone Place nebula. We don’t want to push beyond it without knowing where the enemy is, and give him a chance to get between us and Sol. Use caution—to learn the general location of the bulk of his fleet is enough.”
“Very well.” Hemphill nodded. The reconnaisance made sense; and if Karlsen wanted to get Hemphill out of the way, and deal with his human opponents by his own methods, well, let him. Those methods often seemed soft-headed to Hemphill, but they seemed to work for Karlsen. If the damned machines for some reason found
