“Give Haalvordhen a hand,” I urged the crewman. “I’ve done—this dozens of times!” I might as well have saved my breath. The crewman came and assured himself that my straps and tubes and cushions were meticulously tightened. He took what seemed to me a long time, and used his hands somewhat excessively, I lay under the heavy Garensen equipment, too inwardly furious to even give him the satisfaction of protest.
It was far too long before he finally straightened and moved toward Haalvordhen’s skyhook. He gave the alien’s outer straps only a perfunctory tug or two, and then turned his head to grin at me with a totally uncalled—for—familiarity.
“Blastoff in ninety seconds,” he said, and wriggled himself rapidly out through the hook. Haalvordhen exploded in a flood of Samarran which I could not follow. The vehemence of his voice, however, was better than a dictionary. For some strange reason I found myself sharing his fury. The unfairness of the whole procedure was shameful. The Theradin had paid passage money, and deserved in any case the prescribed minimum of decent attention.
I said forthrightly, “Never mind the fool, Haalvordhen. Are you strapped down all right?”
“I don’t know,” he replied despairingly. “The equipment is unfamiliar—”
“Look—” I hesitated, but in common decency I had to make the gesture. “If I examine carefully my own Garensens, can you read my mind and see how they should be adjusted?”
He mouthed, “I’ll try,” and immediately I fixed my gaze steadily on the apparatus. After a moment, I felt a curious sensation. It was something like the faint, sickening feeling of being touched and pushed about, against my will, by a distasteful stranger. I tried to control the surge of almost physical revulsion. No wonder that humans kept as far as possible from the telepathic races. . .
And then I saw—did I see, I wondered, or was it a direct telepathic interference with my perceptions?—a second image superimpose itself on the Garensens into which I was strapped. And the realization was so disturbing that I forgot the discomfort of the mental rapport completely.
“You aren’t nearly fastened in,” I warned. “You haven’t begun to fasten the suction tubes—oh, damn the man. He must have seen in common humanity—” I broke off abruptly, and fumbled in grim desperation with my own straps. “I think there’s just time—”
But there wasn’t. With appalling suddenness a violent clamor—the final warning—hit my ears. I clenched my teeth and urged frantically: “Hang on! Here we go!”
And then the blast hit us! Under the sudden sickening pressure I felt my lungs collapse, and struggled to remain upright, choking for breath. I heard a queer, gagging grunt from the alien, and it was far more disturbing than a human scream would have been.
Then the second Shockwave struck with such violence that I screamed aloud in completely human terror. Screamed—and blacked out.
I wasn’t unconscious very long. I’d never collapsed during takeoff before, and my first fuzzy emotion when I felt the touch of familiar things around me again was one of embarrassment. What had happened? Then, almost simultaneously, I became reassuringly aware that we were in free fall and that the crewman who had warned us to alert ourselves was stretched out on the empty air near my skyhook. He looked worried.
“Are you all right, Miss Vargas?” he asked, solicitously. “The blastoff wasn’t any rougher than usual—”
“I’m all right,” I assured him woozily. My shoulders jerked and the Garensens shrieked as I pressed upward, undoing the apparatus with tremulous fingers. “What about the Theradin?” I asked urgently. “His Garensens weren’t fastened. You barely glanced at them.”
The crewman spoke slowly and steadily, with a deliberation I could not mistake. “Just a minute, Miss Vargas,” he said. “Have you forgotten? I spent every moment of the time I was in here fastening the Theradin’s belts and pressure equipment.” He gave me a hand to assist me up, but I shook it off so fiercely that I flung myself against the padding on the opposite side of the cabin. I caught apprehensively at a handhold, and looked down at the Theradin.
Haalvordhen lay flattened beneath the complex apparatus. His peaked pixie face was shrunken and ghastly, and his mouth looked badly bruised. I bent closer, then jerked upright with a violence that sent me cascading back across the cabin, almost into the arms of the crewman.
“You must have fixed those belts just now,” I said accusingly. “They were not fastened before blastoff! It’s malicious criminal negligence, and if Haalvordhen dies—” The crewman gave me a slow, contemptuous smile. “It’s my word against yours, sister,” he reminded me.
“In common decency, in common humanity—” I found that my voice was hoarse and shaking, and could not go on. The crewman said humorlessly, “I should think you’d be glad if the geek died in blastoff. You’re awfully concerned about the geek—and you know how that sounds?”
I caught the frame of the skyhook and anchored myself against it. I was almost too faint to speak. “What were you trying to do?” I brought out at last. “Murder the Theradin?”
The crewman’s baleful gaze did not shift from my face. “Suppose you close your mouth,” he said, without malice, but with an even inflection that was far more frightening. “If you don’t, we may have to close it for you. I don’t think much of humans who fraternize with geeks.”
I opened and shut my mouth several times before I could force myself to reply. All I finally said was, “You know, of course, that I intend to speak to the captain?”
“Suit yourself.” He turned and strode contemptuously toward the door. “We’d have been doing you a favor if the geek had died in blastoff. But, as I say, suit yourself. I think your geek’s alive, anyhow. They’re hard to kill.”
I clutched the skyhook, unable to move, while he dragged his body through the sphincter lock and it contracted behind him.
Well, I thought bleakly, I had known what I would be letting myself in for when I’d made the arrangement. And since I was already committed, I might as well see if Haalvordhen were alive or dead. Resolutely I bent over his skyhook, angling sharply to brace myself in free—fall.
He wasn’t dead. While I looked I saw the bruised and bleeding “hands” flutter spasmodically. Then, abruptly, the alien made a queer, rasping noise. I felt helpless and for some reason I was stirred to compassion.
I bent and laid a hesitant hand on the Garensen apparatus which was now neatly and expertly fastened. I was bitter about the fact that for the first time hi my life I had lost consciousness! Had I not done so the crewman could not have so adroitly covered his negligence. But it was important to remember that the circumstance would not have helped Haalvordhen much either.
“Your feelings do you nothing but credit!” The reedy flat voice was almost a whisper. “If I may trespass once more on your kindness—can you unfasten these instruments again?”
I bent to comply, asking helplessly as I did so, “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Very far from all right,” the alien mouthed, slowly and without expression.
I had the feeling that he resented being compelled to speak aloud, but I didn’t think I could stand that telepath touch again. The alien’s flat, slitted eyes watched me while I carefully unfastened the suction tubes and cushioning devices.
At this distance I could see that the eyes had lost their color, and that the raw “hands” were flaccid and limp. There were also heavily discolored patches about the alien’s throat and head. He pronounced, with a terribly thick effort: “I should have—been drugged. Now it’s too late. Argha mad—” the words trailed off into blurred Samarran, but the discolored patch in his neck still throbbed sharply, and the hands twitched in an agony which, being dumb, seemed the more fearful.
I clung to the skyhook, dismayed at the intensity of my own emotion.