«They're just turned around.»
«All right. What do we do with this item? Dump him out?»
My victim squirmed and said, «I didn't do anything!» I jabbed my thumb harder and he quieted.
«Oh, not a thing,» Dak agreed, keeping his eyes on the road. «All you did was try to cause a little crash — just enough to make Mr. Bonforte late for his appointment. If I had not noticed that you were slowing down to make it easy on yourself, you might have got away with it. No guts, eh?» He took a slight curve with the tires screaming and the gyro fighting to keep us upright. «What's the situation, Rog?»
«They've given up.»
«So.» Dak did not slacken speed; we must have been doing well over three hundred kilometers. «I wonder if they would try to bomb us with one of their own boys aboard? How about it, bub? Would they write you off as expendable?»
«I don't know what you're talking about! You're going to be in trouble over this!»
«Really? The word of four respectable people against your jailbird record? Or aren't you a transportee? Anyhow, Mr. Bonforte prefers to have me drive him — so naturally you were glad to do a favor for Mr. Bonforte.» We hit something about as big as a worm cast on that glassy road and my prisoner and I almost went through the roof.
«Mr. Bonforte!» My victim made it a swear word.
Dak was silent for several seconds. At last he said, «I don't think we ought to dump this one, Chief. I think we ought to let you off, then take him to a quiet place. I think he might talk if we urged him.»
The driver tried to get away. I tightened the pressure on his neck and jabbed him again with my thumb knuckle. A knuckle may not feel too much like the muzzle of a heater — but who wants to find out? He relaxed and said sullenly, «You don't dare give me the needle.»
«Heavens, no!» Dak answered in shocked tones. «That would be illegal. Penny girl, got a bobby pin?»
«Why, certainly, Dak.» She sounded puzzled and I was. She did not sound frightened, though, and I certainly was.
«Good. Bub, did you ever have a bobby pin shoved up under your fingernails? They say it will even break a hypnotic command not to talk. Works directly on the subconscious or something. Only trouble is that the patient makes the most unpleasant noises. So we are going to take you out in the dunes where you won't disturb anybody but sand scorpions. After you have talked — now here comes the nice part! After you talk we are going to turn you loose, not do anything, just let you walk back into town. But — listen carefully now! — if you are real nice and co-operative, you get a prize. We'll let you have your mask for the walk.»
Dak stopped talking; for a moment there was no sound but the keening of the thin Martian air past the roof. A human being can walk possibly two hundred yards on Mars without an oxygen mask, if he is in good condition. I believe I read of a case where a man walked almost half a mile before he died. I glanced at the trip meter and saw that we were about twenty-three kilometers from Goddard City.
The prisoner said slowly, «Honest, I don't know anything about it. I was just paid to crash the car.»
«We'll try to stimulate your memory.» The gates of the Martian city were just ahead of us; Dak started slowing the car. «Here's where you get out, Chief. Rog, better take your gun and relieve the Chief of our guest.»
«Right, Dak.» Rog moved up by me, jabbed the man in the ribs — again with a bare knuckle. I moved out of the way. Dak braked the car to a halt, stopping right in front of the gates.
«Four minutes to spare,» he said happily. «This is a nice car. I wish I owned it. Rog, ease up a touch and give me room.»
Clifton did so, Dak chopped the driver expertly on the side of his neck with the edge of his hand; the man went limp. «That will keep him quiet while you get clear. Can't have any unseemly disturbance under the eyes of the nest. Let's check time.»
We did so. I was about three and a half minutes ahead of the deadline. «You are to go in exactly on time, you understand? Not ahead, not behind, but on the dot.»
«That's right,» Clifton and I answered in chorus.
«Thirty seconds to walk up the ramp, maybe. What do you want to do with the three minutes you have left?»
I sighed. «Just get my nerve back.»
«Your nerve is all right. You didn't miss a trick back there. Cheer up, old son. Two hours from now you can head for home, with your pay burning holes in your pocket. We're on the last lap.»
«I hope so. It's been quite a strain. Uh, Dak?»
«Yes?»
«Come here a second.» I got out of the car, motioned him to come with me a short distance away. «What happens if I made a mistake — in there?»
«Eh?» Dak looked surprised, then laughed a little too heartily. «You won't make a mistake. Penny tells me you've got it down Jo-block perfect.»
«Yes, but suppose I slip?»
«You won't slip. I know how you feel; I felt the same way on my first solo grounding. But when it started, I was so busy doing it I didn't have time to do it wrong.»
Clifton called out, his voice thin in thin air, «Dak! Are you watching the time?»
«Gobs of time. Over a minute.»
«Mr. Bonforte!» It was Penny's voice. I turned and went back to the car. She got out and put out her hand. «Good luck, Mr. Bonforte.»
«Thanks, Penny.»
Rog shook hands and Dak clapped me on the shoulder. «Minus thirty-five seconds. Better start.»
I nodded and started up the ramp. It must have been within a second or two of the exact, appointed time when I reached the top, for the mighty gates rolled back as I came to them. I took a deep breath and cursed that damned air mask.
Then I took my stage.
It doesn't make any difference how many times you do it, that first walk on as the curtain goes up on the first night of any run is a breathcatcher and a heart-stopper. Sure, you know your sides. Sure, you've asked the manager to count the house. Sure, you've done it all before. No matter — when you first walk out there and know that all those eyes are on you, waiting for you to speak, waiting for you to do something — maybe even waiting for you to go up on your lines, brother, you feel it. This is why they have prompters.
I looked out and saw my audience and I wanted to run. I had stage fright for the first time in thirty years.
The siblings of the nest were spread out before me as far as I could see. There was an open lane in front of me, with thousands on each side, set close together as asparagus. I knew that the first thing I must do was slow-march down the center of that lane, clear to the far end, to the ramp leading down into the inner nest.
I could not move.
I said to myself. «Look, boy, you're John Joseph Bonforte. You've been here dozens of times before. These people are your friends. You're here because you want to be here — and because they want you here. So march down that aisle. Tum tum te tum! “Here comes the bride!”»
I began to feel like Bonforte again. I was Uncle Joe Bonforte, determined to do this thing perfectly — for the honor and welfare of my own people and my own planet — and for my friends the Martians. I took a deep breath and one step.
That deep breath saved me; it brought me that heavenly fragrance. Thousands on thousands of Martians packed close together — it smelled to me as if somebody had dropped and broken a whole case of Jungle Lust. The conviction that I smelled it was so strong that I involuntarily glanced back to see if Penny had followed me in. I could feel her handclasp warm in my palm.
I started limping down that aisle, trying to make it about the speed a Martian moves on his own planet. The crowd closed in behind me. Occasionally kids would get away from their elders and skitter out in front of me. By «kids» I mean post-fission Martians, half the mass and not much over half the height of an adult. They are never out of the nest and we are inclined to forget that there can be little Martians. It takes almost five years, after fission, for a Martian to regain his full size, have his brain fully restored, and get all of his memory back. During this transition he is an idiot studying to be a moron. The gene rearrangement and subsequent regeneration incident to conjugation and fission put him out of the running for a long time. One of Bonforte's spools was a lecture on the subject, accompanied by some not very good amateur stereo.