Chapter 5

Ed Royse didn't know whether he'd made it in time or not. First he'd rushed in to find Julie, terribly whip-marked, and then the smoke and crackling sounds from the basement door had drawn his attention. The key was still in the lock. He had rushed down the steps, squinting against the flames and coughing in the eddying smoke, and bellowed out his rage and horror when he found Iinda. Now, having brought her up and slammed the door in an effort to contain the flames, he kept darting glances at her silent, fire-blackened form lying on the floor where he'd had to lay her.

First he called the hospital. Yes, they'd rush an ambulance. Then, grinding his teeth, Ed called his brother-and-partner, Dan.

Swiftly Ed told him what he'd found. "Julie's not too

bad. In a few days, with plenty of medication on the whipmarks, she'll be fine and wishing she weren't marked up so she could get some more of the same. But Linda. . . ." He shook his head sickly. "The place is afire, Dan. She's been burned, badly burned. I've called an ambulance. But... if she isn't dead ... if she doesn't die ... she .. . she'll be better off. God, she'll be scarred." "Ed . . ."

"Dan, I want those people. They're from Mars, that's all I know. I'm going after them. The business is in your hands, little brother, until I get back. You and the accountant handle things."

"Hey, wait a minute, Ed! Call the poiicel All you have to do is get those two held up at the spaceport..."

"I said I want them, Dan! 111 be gone awhile; Mars is over a month's trip. But Til be back, don't worry. But NOT until I, personally, have got those two, and made them suffer. Goodbye, Dan."

"Ed . . ."

Ed blanked the screen and turned to check Linda. His feeling was one of utter, horrible helplessness. He didn't know what the two had done before, but they had left her locked in the basement to die, to be burned alive. He had carried her up, but now he was afraid to touch her. Maybe they had succeeded. If they hadn't... she'd be better off dead.

"So are they," he muttered grimly, kneeling between Julie and Linda. He wouldn't allow Julie to look at the other girl, but merely asked her quiet questions while he stroked her trembling head. Eventually he heard the siren.

The ambulance arrived outside and disgorged its swift, superefficient attendants. They, too, made gasping

exclamations at the ghastly things the fire had done to Linda and her beauty. But they went swiftly to work examing the still body.

"She's alive" one of them said, and Ed considered jumping to the girl, pressing his gun against her head, and pulling the trigger. Surely she'd be better off dead.

"God," another said. "But . . . Doc Sill's been wanting to try the combination of new treatments . . . here's his opportunity."

Another of the medmen was squatting beside Julie, giving her an exodermic injection: anesthetic plus antiseptic plus anti-infectant.

Ed quietly left the basement before anyone could ask him questions. Julie could tell them later. He had places to go. There'd be no returning to the apartment, no packing, no last minute arrangements or conference with Dan and the girls and the accountant. That was done. Dan could handle it, and he would. Or else. Nothing had ever taken hold of Ed this way: he had to do this himself. He'd track them to the ends of the universe if necessary.

He thought furiously after he'd put his car on autopilot and was whipping toward the spaceport. Mars. Just another frontier, now, but different from all the others in man's history. There had been no original owners to murder and crowd out in order to steal their land. There was one big spaceport, a couple of minor ones, privately owned, and one major city, Urbanova, along with a scattering of small towns and camps. And, of course, the Terran League fleetbase.

The people were a mixed bag, colonists and businessmen and miners and their descendants, along with the families of fleet personnel. But they called themselves Martians, and they were making noises,

some of them, about independence from the League. Which was ridiculous; nothing like that would happen for many, many years.

From Julie he'd got the meager information: descriptions of a man called Sime and a woman called Ray or Raye. Maybe they were false names, maybe not. That was one of the things he'd have to find out. Sime ... Simon, maybe? And Ray or Raye... well, he had no idea what her name might be. He'd seen her, though. He'd recognize her in a crowd of a million, he was sure. Just the thought of that glowing soldering iron in her hand and of the horror of Linda's body made him shudder.

I'll get them. And it will be old-time personal justice, even if I get psycho-conditioned for it. I'll make them suffer. Just don't let anything silly happen to them. Don't let them have an accident, or get caught. Save them for me!

It was obvious what they'd been doing. He knew about the blue laws on both settled planets, Mars and Venus. The two had decided to make a rush trip down to Earth, make a sadistic movie to end all sadistic movies, and probably splice in sound, dialogue, and a fucking scene later. Back on Mars, they'd make a fortune with their one illegal film—much more illegal than anyone would ever know! Those people up there would marvel at the awful realism of the film.

If they ever saw it. Ed Royse intended to see that they did not

Luck was not with him, though, as he arrived at the sprawling spaceport.

He knew that trail of flame leaping up toward the stars had to be the Marsliner. And on board it—his

quarry, surely. He left the car on the heliport roof and hurried through the terminal to the flight desk. A little lying about his "sister," with a precise description of Ray, a brief description of her "husband" with a description of Simon, a sad face and some talk about their dying brother—and the clerk broke down and broke the rules. Yes. That couple had just left, and he was terribly sorry. The trip would take just over six weeks. And another ship would not be leaving for Mars for three weeks.

Ed strode back through the terminal, oblivious to the humanity that moved all about him, oblivious to the female glances in his direction, attracted by his big frame and roughly good-looking face. He took his car out to the edge of the field, to where a half dozen signs proclaimed the existence of a half dozen small and privately owned cargo ships. These babies took on Marsbound cargo without asking questions, and they charged one hell of a price. And they got it. Many of the cargoes they carried were illegal, or could not, for one reason or another, be shipped out on a big commercial liner. The hot rodders carried contraband, often, and because a lot of it needed to get through, despite laws and rules, the government pretended the hot rodders didn't exist.

"Yeah, jack," a walrus-mustached man told him, inhaling deeply on a maryjane cigar, "there's a ship leaving in about two shakes. Slot five, the Sybil, Bill and Sonya Galagher's ship."

"I know 'em!" Ed ran.

They had been contractées several times, Bill and Sonya. They were an interesting couple, both short, both very fair, both AC-DC. They were something to see

when they went into sexual action. Ed hoped they were as good in space. He'd get on that ship, no matter what it took.

It took a lifetime pass to his girls, two thousand bucks, and his agreement to (1) abide by their no-clothes rule when in space and (2) tell no one, but no one, how he'd got to Mars or what the ship had handled.

"What are you hauling, Bill?'*

Bill shrugged, pocketing Ed's two thousand. "I dunno. Sealed cargo, non-RA."

Ed nodded. Bill had agreed to transport a sealed cargo, without knowing what it was—other than that it was not radioactive. Drugs, maybe. Maybe something so prosaic as clothing, luxury stuff or ... movies? It didn't matter to Ed. He climbed aboard with the husband-wife hot rodder team, and within fifteen minutes the ship, most of its space given over to cargo, was sweeping away from Earth and out toward the star-studded blackness of infinity.