"You may be right," he said mildly, "but I think you can take it that Hurwitz and his staff will be doing the very best they can. It often seems to me that—" He stopped talking as he realized that Maseba was no longer walking at his side.
The medic was standing about three meters back, watching a stockily built man in dark-grey civilian clothes who was walking in the direction of a bright yellow flycar parked near to the one they had just left.
"Hey, George!" Bruce shouted. "Are you with me?"
The car lifted into the air and headed off, gathering speed, in an easterly direction. Maseba turned, his expression troubled.
"Sorry. . . But there was something so familiar about that guy. I'm sure I should know him from somewhere."
Bruce shook his head, grinning. "What I prescribe for you, Doctor, is a few weeks' quiet leave."
"I might just take you up on that," Maseba said, falling into step beside him as they walked into Reception. "But not until the MacGuinness case is cleared up." -
They stepped into a waiting elevator and traveled fifteen floors down in silence.
"I'm pleased you know your way around this labyrinth," said Bruce. "I'm lost already." They left the elevator and walked through pastel-shaded corridors paved with resilient, sound-absorbing plastic.
"I should—I spent five years here," Maseba said. "That was before Hurwitz took over, of course." They rounded a corner and found themselves facing a pair of doors marked: INTENSIVE CARE SECTION-NO ADMITTANCE.
"Ah, here we are," Maseba said, thrusting his Medical Officer's key-card into the scanner.
Two white-uniformed orderlies were standing in the corridor beyond, talking beside a stretcher trolley. They stiffened to attention as the two officers approached.
Bruce followed Maseba as he walked straight on past the orderlies and pushed open the door of a ward.
"I thought I told—?" the voice of a harassed-looking young Medic Lieutenant died away as he recognized the intruder. "Oh, it's you, Commander."
"What's happening here?" demanded Maseba.
As far as Bruce was concerned the room appeared to be in a state of chaos. Three doctors were bending over the figure on the bed, while several orderlies hovered in the background, either watching or making adjustments to the batteries of electronic gadgetry that cluttered the floor and walls of the room.
"We re trying a revivification, sir, but I'm afraid the outlook isn't good—brain damage must be pretty far advanced," said the lieutenant.
"But that's impossible!" Maseba said. "The life-support system should be capable of keeping him going indefinitely. You would have had ample warning-"
"I know, sir," said the lieutenant unhappily. "But an unfortunate combination of circumstances. . . The heart-lung machine must have malfunctioned—we suspect a cerebral embolism—but matters were made worse by the fact that the monitoring system didn't give the alarm as it should have done..."
Maseba thrust past the lieutenant and joined the group around the pallid, bearded figure on the bed. Bruce, afflicted by the usual layman's feelings of helplessness under such circumstances, stood by watching as instruments and orders were passed back and forth.
Several minutes later, George Maseba, his face gleaming like wet ebony, threw a used hypodermic from him in a gesture of disgust. "There's nothing more we can do for him," he said, turning away from the bed. "Better report to the Surgeon General, Lieutenant."
"Yes, sir," said the young lieutenant unhappily. "I just can't understand it, sir. He was doing fine when Doctor Wernher was here—the whole system working perfectly. I thought at the—"
"Doctor.. .What was that name?" demanded Maseba sharply.
"Wernher, sir," said the lieutenant. "The aide who brought him down from the Admiral's office said he was the personal representative of Mr. Niebohr, president of the Excelsior Colonization Corporation. The
Surgeon General gave him clearance to examine the patient."
"I see. And who was present while he made that examination—you?"
"Why yes, sir..
"The whole time?"
"Well, sir, there was a call for me on Ward F. . ."
"All right, Lieutenant, carry on," Maseba said. He turned to Bruce. "Come on, Tom, there's nothing more we can do here."
Maseba maintained a stony silence as they walked back along the corridor toward the elevator. Bruce made no attempt to question him—he knew the signs of one of Maseba's constructive rages from way back. Sometimes he would go into one of these waking trances for maybe ten, fifteen minutes, not speaking until he had synthesized the whole problem in his mind.
"Back to base?" he said as they stepped out of the elevator on the Reception floor.
Maseba nodded.
They had been in the air some ten minutes when he spoke at last.
"Kurt Wernher," he said, his voice grating on the name. "I knew I'd seen him somewhere before. It must be all of fifteen years, but I couldn't miss that arrogant swagger and those eyes—like grey stones."
"Wernher?" Bruce glanced at his companion.
"The guy who boarded that yellow flycar just as we were walking into Reception," Maseba said.
"Then you did know him?"
"We were in pre-med together up in Montreal," Maseba said. "I often wondered what happened to—him."
"Personal representative of Niebohr—he must have . done well for himself," Bruce said.
"That figures. He would be where the loot was. Even as a lad he was always hustling. There was some trouble with the Dope Squad, I remember, but nothing was ever pinned on him."
Bruce eyed the seething, obvious rage on the face of his companion. "George—what really happened to MacGuinness?"
"He must have been in the way, poor bastard," Maseba said bitterly.
"In the way—of what?"
"I can't even begin to guess."
"Are you suggesting that Wernher murdered him?"
"You'd never prove it in court in a million years," Maseba said. "On the face of it MacGuinness was the victim of an unusual, but quite explicable, set of circumstances—a malfunction of the life-support system which would have been corrected if the monitor alarm hadn't failed at the same time. A million to one shot..."
"But you don't believe it was that way?"
"If Wernher was alone in that ward with MacGuinness for several minutes, he would have had time to fix a dozen such accidents," Maseba said. "A patient dependent on such a life-support system is completely vulnerable. The turn of a dial, a slight mechanical adjustment, an imbalance of pressure—any one of a thousand small things can kill him. Make no mistake about it, Wernher would know that."
Bruce found the whole concept deeply shocking. "But he's a doctor, George!"
"Now who's being mystical?" Maseba said. "What makes you think that doctors are any different from other human beings? I suppose you think that we're all bloody Florence Nightingales—devoted to relieving the ills of suffering humanity, and all that Hoop? I tell you something, friend: Doctors come in all shapes, sizes and colors—and with all kinds of motivations. Money, power, sex, vanity—you name it and there's some medic somewhere using that land of fuel."
"And Wernher?"
"The first four would fit like a glove, from what I recall of him."
"And you intend to let him get away with this?"
"Tom, don't be naive. There just isn't a darned thing I can do about it I already explained that," said Maseba patiently. "In my profession, a good way to drive yourself out of your skull is to start worrying over the kinds of things you can't do anything about"
"That's one way of looking at it," Tom Bruce said. "But I was trained in the Junius Carter school of tactics. We don't give up so easily."
"Using your head as a battering ram can be a mite painful at times," said Maseba, with the suggestion of a grin.
"That depends on the thickness of the head and the nature of the problem," Bruce said. "Let me put it to you this way—although there's apparently no way o
f proving it, we're pretty certain that Wernher deliberately killed MacGuinness, right?"
"I'd say so. But where does that get you?"
"It gets me hopping mad, and darned curious," Bruce said. "Both MacGuinness and Wernher are employees of Niebohr. MacGuinness was doing some kind of research on Orphelin Three, wasn't he?"
"Connected with fish, I believe."
"Uh-huh. . . And as chance would have it, he was the only survivor when the planet was blasted. Now why would Niebohr want him dead too?"
"Now just a minute—where do you get that too?" said Maseba. "You're implying that Bob Prince destroyed the Orphelin colony on orders from Niebohr?"
Bruce frowned. "No. . .that doesn't make any more sense than Henry Fong's idea that he bombed the planet because he had gone insane. I don't think Bob Prince was capable of committing such an act under any circumstances."
"Then what really happened?" . "I don't know. . .yet," Bruce said. "But I'm sure as hell going to find out."
Chapter Twenty-four
It is no more reasonable to assume that all the processes involved in government should be exposed to the common gaze than to suppose it desirable that the human body should remain nude in all social situations. While it might prove interesting, even titillating in some cases, I can think of many instances when even the least prudish person might well be offended by such indiscriminate exposure.
The Wit and Wisdom of Henry Fong (p. 879)
Helen Lindstrom shook her head. "I think you're letting this tiling get out of proportion, Tom," she said. "Why not accept the evidence as it stands and admit that Bob Prince must have been responsible for the destruction of Orphelin Three?"
"Because it just doesn't fit in with the character of Prince as I know him," Bruce said vehemently. The two of them were sitting in the small lounge of his quarters at Melpond Base. Lindstrom had arrived some ten minutes earlier to collect her orders for the administration of the still-grounded Venturer Twelve.
"That may be where you're making your mistake,"
Helen said, turning the moisture-beaded glass of Campari and soda carefully between her long pale fingers. 'It seems to me that the Robert Prince you once knew may no longer exist. Life and circumstances change ^people. How can you honestly go on trying to kid yourself that working for Elkan Niebohr and married to that bitch Elsa would have no effect whatever on a man?"
"You'll be telling me next that you believe Fong's theory;"
"No, not really—and I don't think he does either," Helen said.
"Now what is that supposed to mean?" he said sharply.
She looked at him, a fond tolerance in her eyes. "You know, Tom—guys like you and Bob Prince— sometimes I wonder if you ever live in the world as it really is."
Bruce bit back an angry reply as the vidphone chimed. Walking across to the instrument, he pressed the connecting button. The moustachioed face of Delgado appeared. He was a senior operative of SCRUTATOR, a private intelligence agency of high reputation.
"Commander Bruce—can we talk?"
"Sure—go ahead."
"We've been checking on your boy Wernher," Delgado said. "Seems that before his landing from Theseus he was off Earth for approximately eight days, but so far nobody seems to know where. One thing for sure, he wasn't on Maxwell Two, where Theseus came from. Theseus is the only ship to have hit there in over three months."
"In that case he must have boarded her in transit to Earth."
Delgado nodded. "That's the way we figured it We followed up—discreetly of course—and found that when Theseus landed she was carrying more than her normal complement of lifeboats. A check showed that one of these had been used recently, and further examination made it obvious that the original ship's name had been removed and replaced by that of Theseus ."
Bruce felt a growing excitement At last he was getting somewhere. "Can you find out what that old name was?"
"We already have," Delgado said. "Does the name Medusa ring any bells with you?"
"By God it does I" exclaimed Bruce. "Have you located Wernher yet?"
Delgado frowned. "No—he seems to be lying pretty low. Nobody's seen him around for over twenty-four hours now. In fact, our last positive sighting seems to be when you and Maseba saw him leaving the Corps Infirmary."
"When you do find him, bring him in right away," Bruce said.
"On what charges?"
"Just bring him in—we'll figure the rest later," Bruce said.
"A cookie like this Wernher isn't going to crumble the minute you speak harshly to him. Maybe it would be better to hold off for a while and keep him under close surveillance."
"Bring him in!"
Delgado shrugged. "All right, Commander, you're the boss. I'll call you the moment we've got him."
"Do that." Bruce broke the connection and turned to Helen, a flush of triumph on his face. "We're really beginning to get somewhere at last." "You think that Wernher was aboard Medusa when she left on that last trip?" Helen asked.
"He must have been."
"And now he's back on Earth—but Prince and Medusa are where?"
"Wernher knows—he just has to."
"You're only guessing."
"Maybe so—but it makes a hell of a lot more sense to suppose that Wernher was the brains behind the Orphelin Three massacre than it does to pin the blame on Bob Prince."
"But Prince was still in command of Medusa Helen pointed out, "You can't ignore that fact. If the attack was launched from Medusa he must have known about it."
Bruce turned in the act of pouring himself another scotch on the rocks. "Sure, provided the missile was launched from Medusa."
Helen frowned. "How's that? You just lost me."
"You remember that team of geologists and engineers Prince said he dropped off on Orphelin Four?"
"Yes. Prince went to pick them up just before he headed Medusa out of the Orphelin system."
"I expect that, like me, you assumed that he had landed them directly onto the planetary surface?"
"Naturally..."
"Not really, when you come to consider it," Bruce said. "In fact, it would be a costly exercise in time, fuel, and effort for a ship like Medusa. Those geologists—if that's what they really were—could have gone in under their own power, using some small craft that had been transported to the Orphelin system aboard Medusa
"A scout ship, for instance?" Helen said.
"Sure, why not? Medusa's hold could- take six at least."
"Supposing you're right—what then?"
"Surely it's obvious," Bruce said. "A scout ship would be quite capable of carrying a Dekapod missile, and there would be no way that Prince could know of its existence unless he actually went aboard looking for it He would just drop the scout off— Wernher would be in charge of it, of course—and head on towards Balomain, completely unaware of what was going to happen."
"You really are determined that Bob Prince should come out of this thing white as snow, aren't you?" Helen said. "But even if we agree on your assumption that Wernher was the one who actually delivered the missile, there are still a lot of things that need explaining. For a starter—why was the Orphelin Three colony destroyed, and on whose orders?"
"The answer to that just has to be Elkan Niebohr," Bruce said unhappily. "But at the moment I must confess I just can't begin to imagine why. Orphelin Three was Niebohr's baby, his pride and joy— the finest single property on the books of Excelsior. It just doesn't make sense."
"Neither does the disappearance of Prince and Medusa," Helen said. "If he's as completely innocent as you maintain he is, why would he run away?"
Bruce shook his head. "I don't think we're going to know any of those answers until we find Wernher."
"And maybe not even then, if he's as tough a proposition as your friend Delgado appears to believe," Helen said.
He was working over the draft of his script when Miss Dalgethy called to say that Elsa was in the outer office. "All right—send her in," he said, thrusting
the loose sheets into a drawer of his desk.
He looked up with pleasure as she walked towards him across , the thick purple lawn of the carpet. She was wearing a deep emerald town suit of some metallic, glittering material, with matching shoes and shoulder bag.
"Hallo, baby," he said, smiling indulgently. "You look like something right off the front page of Fashion Flair."
"You say the nicest things," she said, placing a wet kiss on the top of his bald head before perching on the edge of the desk like a bright, beautiful bird. "Poppa..."
Her use of the "little girl" tone that she customarily employed to make some outrageous request alerted him.
"I'm lonesome, Poppa," she said. "When will Bob be coming back?"
So that was it. . . He sighed inwardly, thinking that he would never really understand the female mind.
"Baby, I explained to you already," he said patiently. 'It's best for the time being, at least, that he should keep out of the way."
"But why?"
"Now Elsa, you're not that dumb," he said. 'If he were to come back now he would have to answer Bruce's charges that he disobeyed orders in an emergency situation."
"I don't see how that can be. The President hasn't even announced the existence of such a situation." "Not yet—but he won t be able to hold off much longer."
"I can't figure it," Elsa said. "Bob must have known what he was risking when he ran out on Bruce. Why didn't he just sit there and play it cool?"
"Maybe he thought that Brace's investigations were getting a bit too near the truth."
She frowned. "Now just a minute, Poppa. Are you suggesting that Bob knew the truth himself?"
He shook his head, smiling. "You know, baby— sometimes I think you take this belief in Robert Prince's pristine innocence a bit far. He isn't really that naive. Ill admit he didn't like the idea at first, but in the long run he saw that it was a matter of survival for all of us."
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