Chapter V

He was late for his date with Ciel, of course. He glanced at his chrono as he entered the Stardust Cafe by the front door and saw that he was twenty minutes late. However, this time he was certain Ciel wouldn't complain too vigorously.

Again the askarins were playing, and once more the green-skinned Venusian girls were doing their writhing, spasmodic, aphrodisiacal dance. It was remarkable how they could achieve such an effect of utter abandon and yet keep their faces blank and frozen. He looked around the rest of the room swiftly. Not so crowded tonight, and people were generally quieter. There were no overs.e.xed s.p.a.cemen clawing after the dancers on the floor.

Ciel was again in a rear booth, in the same corner of the room she had chosen before. She had spotted him now; she was looking his way. She lifted a white-gloved hand and waved.

He smiled and headed for her. He forced his smile, and made himself forget the p.r.i.c.kling of his wrists and the feeling of bristling fur along his spine. And he held his smile all the way across the room.

_Why, h.e.l.lo, darling, fancy seeing you here; no, nothing's wrong, nothing at all, why on earth would you think anything was wrong?_

"Hi, baby," was all he actually said.

"I'm--I'm glad you're here, d.i.c.k." Her eyes didn't show much. They roved over his face a little too much perhaps, but otherwise they seemed simply as large and dark as ever. He noticed that the meth gla.s.s in front of her was empty.

Grinning, he sat down. "This is a big moment. This is almost too much for me to handle. Maybe that's what I need--a good slug of meth."

"No."

"No?"

"Let's not waste time. Let's go out on the terrace. I want you to kiss me."

"Best offer I've had all evening." He rose again. "Where's the terrace?"

"Through that door. There's a dining room there that's closed at night.

You go through the dining room and out to the terrace."

"Okay."

He took her arm and led her in and out of tables, across the room. They moved swiftly through the quiet, nearly dark dining room, and after that through a pair of window-doors. They were on the terrace then, a flagstoned s.p.a.ce with a low wall. It overlooked the scattered lights of World City's topside area and some distance beyond they could see the river, a blue-silver ribbon in the moonlight.

They stopped at the wall. She turned toward him. He looked down at her, at her pale face and deep, dark eyes. He smelled her perfume and he felt her live warmth near him and coming nearer. He saw her eyes close, her lips part just slightly, and each lip glistening, faintly moist....

He was wondering when it would happen. He was wondering when he would be struck.

As he wondered that he suddenly discovered he wasn't on the terrace any more.

He looked about him in some surprise. It was nearly dark. He was in a room; he could sense the walls about him. He heard a curious, high-pitched metallic voice--and recognized it.

"_Pell? Are you awake now?_"

It had happened then, just as he had expected. Someone had thrown a freezer on him there in the patio, and during his complete unconsciousness he'd been taken here, wherever this was. He sighed. The least they could have done would have been to let him finish kissing Ciel.

As calmly as he could he said to the four blank walls, "I'm awake."

Soft glowlights came on gradually and he saw that the room about him was fairly small--twenty by fifteen, roughly--and very plain. It contained a bed and a few odd pieces of furniture, all apparently of good quality.

There was a door in one wall. He tried the door. Locked. He went back to the middle of the room.

"Chief," he said to the blank walls, "what's this all about? Is it some kind of a joke?"

The metallic voice chuckled. It belonged to Eustace J. Larkin, Chief, Central Investigation Bureau, and even filtered like this it was somewhat prim and precise. "No, d.i.c.k, it's not a joke, I'm afraid. I'm surprised you haven't guessed what it's all about. Or at least had one of your brilliant hunches." There was sarcasm in this last.

"Where's Ciel?" Pell asked.

"Right here with me. In the next room. Here--listen."

Ciel's voice said, "Don't worry, darling, we'll explain everything. And when it's all over it will be for the best. You'll see that it will."

"All right, everybody," said Pell, half-belligerently, "what's the big idea?"

"Big idea is right," Larkin's voice came back. "The biggest that ever hit the human race. And as Ciel says we'll explain it all in a moment.

But first I'd like your word that you won't be foolish and make any kind of a struggle. If you'll promise that you can come in the other room here and we can all talk face to face."

Pell frowned. "I don't know--I'm not so sure I can honestly promise that."

"Suit yourself, then. A few minutes from now it won't make any difference anyway."

"Will you stop being so d.a.m.ned mysterious and tell me what it's all about?"

Larkin's voice laughed. "Very well. I haven't had much chance to tell about it, frankly. And I think you'll agree we've rather neatly kept our parts under cover--until you got dangerously close to the answer, anyway."

"Until I got close?"

"Certainly. Doc Wilc.o.x's office on the moon was perhaps our one weakness in the whole set-up. How you managed to stumble on to that, I'll never know--your luck must have been with you."

"It wasn't luck, Larkin, it was a hunch."

"Still believe in hunches, eh? Well, we won't argue the point. At any rate you wouldn't have found the enzyme any place else but there."

"Oh, so the enzyme does have something to do with it."

"Everything. Here--suppose I let Doctor Nebel explain it to you. He developed it, after all."

Pell lifted his eyebrows in surprise and Dr. Walter Nebel's sibilant voice came through the hidden speakers. "I think you should know how it works, Mr. Pell. You may know that a certain part of the brain called Rossi's area is, to put it figuratively, the hypnotic center. The cut-off of the adrenal cortex, so to speak. In ordinary hypnosis the function of that area is dulled by overexercising the motor senses. By that method the intensity of hypnosis is widely variable and never really one hundred per cent effective. My compound, however, brings about complete and absolute cut-off. Any post-hypnotic suggestion given under those circ.u.mstances takes permanently and deeply. It can only be removed by further post-hypnosis under the same treatment, negating the original command."

Pell stared at the blank walls. "Go on," he said in a soft, tense voice.

"What's the rest?"

Larkin spoke again. "Suppose we briefly examine a little history as a kind of introduction to this matter. The human race, since the beginning of recorded time, has failed to achieve real peace and stability, right?

Every time there has been a chance for cooperative effort--for total agreement--certain selfish interests have spoiled it. There have been times, however, when certain groups--states or combinations of states--came close to permanent peace and prosperity. The Napoleonic era was one. Hitler two hundred years ago almost brought it about. The only reason they failed was that they didn't achieve their goal--_complete_ conquest."

_Did Pell hear correctly? Was there a faint simmering of madness in that metallic voice now?_ In the words there was madness, surely....