Short Fiction by Poul Anderson (free ebook novel .txt) 📕

“Well, we don’t put on kid gloves for traitors.”

“That’s not what I mean, sir,” said the doctor. “There are limits to pain beyond which further treatment simply doesn’t register. Also, I’m a little suspicious about this man’s heart. It has a murmur, and questioning puts a terrific strain on it. You wouldn’t want him to die on your hands, would you, sir?”

“Mmmm⁠—no. What do you advise?”

“Just a few days in the hospital, with treatment and rest. It’ll also have a psychological effect as he thinks of what’s waiting for him.”

Harris considered for a moment. “All right. I’ve got enough other things to do anyway.”

“Very good, sir. You won’t regret this.”

Lancaster heard the footsteps retreat into silence. Presently the doctor came around to stand facing him. He was a short, curly-haired man of undistinguished appearance. For a moment they locked eyes, then Lancaster closed his. He wanted to tell the doctor to go away, but it wasn’t worth the trouble.

Later he was put on a stretcher and carried down endless halls to another cell. This one had a hospital look about it, somehow, and the air was sharp with the smell of antiseptics. The doctor came when he was installed in bed and took his arm and slipped a needle into it. “Sleepy time,” he said.

Lancaster drifted away again.

When he woke up, he felt darkness and movement. He looked around, wondering if he had gone blind, and the breath moaned out between his bruised lips. A hand was laid on his shoulder and a voice spoke out of the black.

“It’s okay, fella. Take it easy. There’ll be no more questions.”

It was the doctor’s voice, and the doctor looked nothing at all like Charon, but still Lancaster wondered if he weren’t being ferried over the river of death. There was a thrumming all about him, and he heard a low keening of wind. “Where are we going?” he mumbled.

“Away. You’re in a stratorocket now. Just take it easy.”

Lancaster fell asleep after awhile.

Beyond that there was a drugged, confused period where he was only dimly aware of moving and trying to talk. Shadows floated across his vision, shadows telling him something he couldn’t quite grasp. He followed obediently enough. Full clarity came eventually, and he was lying in a bunk looking up at a metal ceiling. The shivering pulse of rockets trembled in his body. A spaceship?

A spaceship!

He sat up, heart thudding, and looked wildly around. “Hey!” he cried.

The remembered figure of Berg came through the door. “Hullo, Allen,” he said. “How’re you feeling?”

“I⁠—you⁠—” Lancaster sank weakly back to his pillow. He grew aware that he was thoroughly bandaged, splinted, and braced, and that there was no more pain. Not much, anyway.

“I feel fine,” he said.

“Good, good. The doc says you’ll be okay.” Berg sat down on the edge of the bunk. “I can’t stay here long, but the hell with it. We’ll be at the station soon. You deserve to know some things, such as that you’ve been rescued.”

“Well, that’s obvious,” said Lancaster.

“By us. The rebels. The underground. Subversive characters.”

“That’s obvious too. And thanks⁠—” The word was so ridiculously inadequate that Lancaster had to laugh.

“I suppose you’ve guessed most of it already,” said Berg. “We needed a scientist of your caliber for our project. One thing we’re desperately short of is technical personnel, since the only real education in such lines is to be had on Earth and most graduates find comfortable berths in the existing society. Like you, for instance. So we played a trick on you. We used part of our organization⁠—yes, we have a big one, and it’s pretty smart and powerful too⁠—to convince you this was a government job of top secrecy. More damn things can be done in the name of Security⁠—” Berg clicked his tongue. “Everybody you saw at the station was more or less playacting, of course. The whole thing was set up to fool you. We might not have gotten away with it if we’d used some other person, more shrewd about such things, but we’d studied you and knew you for an amiable, unsuspicious guy, too wrapped up in your own work to go witch-smelling.”

“I guessed that much,” admitted Lancaster. “After I’d been in the cells for awhile. Your way of living and thinking was so different from anything like⁠—”

“Yeah. I’m sorry as hell about that, Allen. We thought you could just return to ordinary life, but somehow⁠—through one of those accidents or malices inevitable in a state where every man spies on his neighbor⁠—you were hauled in. We knew of it at once⁠—yes, we’ve even infiltrated the secret police⁠—and decided to do something about it. Quite apart from the danger of your betraying what you knew⁠—we could have eliminated that by quietly murdering you⁠—there was the fact that we’d gotten you into this and did owe you something. We managed to get Dr. Pappas transferred to the inquisitory where you were being held. He drugged you, producing a remarkably corpse-like figure, and smuggled you out as simply another one who’d died under questioning. I used my Security papers to get the body for special autopsy instead of the usual immediate cremation. Then we simply drove till we reached the stratorocket we’d arranged to have ready, and you were flown to our spaceboat, and now you’re on the way back to the station. You were kept under drugs most of the way to help you rest⁠—they’d knocked you around quite a bit in the inquisitory. So⁠—” Berg shrugged. “Pappas can’t go back to Earth now, of course, but we can always use a medic in space, and it was well worth the trouble to rescue you.”

“I’m honored,” said Lancaster.

“I still feel like hell about what happened to you, though.”

“It’s all right. I can’t say I enjoyed it, but now that I’ve learned some hard facts⁠—oh, well, forget the painful nature of the lesson. I’ll be okay. And I’m going home!”

Jessup supported Lancaster as they entered the