A Coffin for Jacob by Edward W. Ludwig (crime books to read .TXT) 📗

as their focal point.

You idiot! The damned Martian kid! You should have known!

Light showered the room in a dazzling explosion. Ben, half blinded, realized that a broad circle of unshaded globes in the ceiling had been turned on.

The light washed away the room's strangeness and its air of brooding wickedness, revealing drab concrete walls and a debris-strewn floor.

Eyes blinked and squinted. There were swift, frightened movements and a chorus of angry murmurs. The patrons of the Blast Inn were like tatter-clad occupants of a house whose walls have been ripped away.

Ben Curtis twisted his lean body erect. His chair tumbled backward, falling.

The white-clad men charged, neuro-clubs upraised.

A woman screamed. The music ceased. The Martian orchestra slunk with feline stealth to a rear exit. Only the giant Venusians remained undisturbed. They stood unmoving, their staring eyes shifting lazily in Ben's direction.

"Curtis!" one of the policemen yelled. "You're covered! Hold it!"

Ben whirled away from the advancing police, made for the exit into which the musicians had disappeared.

A hissing sound traveled past his left ear, a sound like compressed air escaping from a container. A dime-sized section of the concrete wall ahead of him crumbled.

He stumbled forward. They were using deadly neuro-pistols now, not the mildly stunning neuro-clubs.

Another hiss passed his cheek. He was about twelve feet from the exit. Another second, his brain screamed. Just another second—

Or would the exits be guarded?

He heard the hiss.

It hit directly in the small of his back. There was no pain, just a slight pricking sensation, like the shallow jab of a needle.

He froze as if yanked to a stop by a noose. His body seemed to be growing, swelling into balloon proportions. He knew that the tiny needle had imbedded itself deep in his flesh, knew that the paralyzing mortocain was spreading like icy fire into every fiber and muscle of his body.

He staggered like a man of stone moving in slow motion. He'd have fifteen—maybe twenty—seconds before complete lethargy of mind and body overpowered him.

In the dark world beyond his fading consciousness, he heard a voice yell, "Turn on the damn lights!"

Then a pressure and a coldness were on his left hand. He realized that someone had seized it.

A soft feminine voice spoke to him. "You're wounded? They hit you?"

"Yes." His thick lips wouldn't let go of the word.

"You want to escape—even now?"

"Yes."

"You may die if you don't give yourself up."

"No, no."

He tried to stumble toward the exit.

"All right then. Not that way. Here, this way."

Heavy footsteps thudded toward them. A few yards away, a flashlight flicked on.

Hands were guiding him. He was aware of being pushed and pulled. A door closed behind him. The glare of the flashlight faded from his vision—if he still had vision.

"You're sure?" the voice persisted.

"I'm sure," Ben managed to say.

"I have no antidote. You may die."

His mind fought to comprehend. With the anti-paralysis injection, massage and rest, a man could recover from the effects of mortocain within half a day. Without treatment, the paralysis could spread to heart and lungs. It could become a paralysis of death. An effective weapon: the slightest wound compelled the average criminal to surrender at once.

"Anti ... anti ..." The words were as heavy as blobs of mercury forced from his throat. "No ... I'm sure ... sure."

He didn't hear the answer or anything else.

Ben Curtis had no precise sensation of awakening. Return to consciousness was an intangible evolution from a world of black nothingness to a dream-like state of awareness.

He felt the pressure of hands on his naked arms and shoulders, hands that massaged, manipulated, fought to restore circulation and sensitivity. He knew they were strong hands. Their strength seemed to transfer itself to his own body.

For a long time, he tried to open his eyes. His lids felt welded shut. But after a while, they opened. His world of darkness gave way to a translucent cloak of mist. A round, featureless shape hovered constantly above him—a face, he supposed.

He tried to talk. Although his lips moved slightly, the only sound was a deep, staccato grunting.

But he heard someone say, "Don't try to talk." It was the same gentle voice he'd heard in the Blast Inn. "Don't talk. Just lie still and rest. Everything'll be all right."

Everything all right, he thought dimly.

There were long periods of lethargy when he was aware of nothing. There were periods of light and of darkness. Gradually he grew aware of things. He realized that the soft rubber mouth of a spaceman's oxygen mask was clamped over his nose. He felt the heat of electric blankets swathed about his body. Occasionally a tube would be in his mouth and he would taste liquid food and feel a pleasant warmth in his stomach.

Always, it seemed, the face was above him, floating in the obscuring mist. Always, it seemed, the soft voice was echoing in his ears:

"Swallow this now. That's it. You must have food." Or, "Close your eyes. Don't strain. It won't be long. You're getting better."

Better, he'd think. Getting better....

At last, after one of the periods of lethargy, his eyes opened. The mist brightened, then dissolved.

He beheld the cracked, unpainted ceiling of a small room, its colorless walls broken with a single, round window. He saw the footboard of his aluminite bed and the outlines of his feet beneath a faded blanket.

Finally he saw the face and figure that stood at his side.

"You are better?" the kind voice asked.

The face was that of a girl probably somewhere between twenty-five and thirty. Her features, devoid of makeup, had an unhealthy-looking pallor, as if she hadn't used a sunlamp for many weeks. Yet, at the same time, her firm slim body suggested a solidity and a strength. Her straight brown hair was combed backward, tight upon her scalp, and drawn together in a knot at the nape of her neck.

"I—I am better," he murmured. His words were still slow and thick. "I am going to live?"

"You will live."

He thought for a moment. "How long have I been here?"

"Nine days."

"You took care of me?" He noted the deep, dark circles beneath her sleep-robbed eyes.

She nodded.

"You're the one who carried me when I was shot?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Suddenly he began to cough. Breath came hard. She held the oxygen mask in readiness. He shook his head, not wanting it.

"Why?" he asked again.

"It would be a long story. Perhaps I'll tell you tomorrow."

A new thought, cloaked in sudden fear, entered his murky consciousness. "Tell me, will—will I be well again? Will I be able to walk?"

He lay back then, panting, exhausted.

"You have nothing to worry about," the girl said softly. Her cool hand touched his hot forehead. "Rest. We'll talk later."

His eyes closed and breath came easier. He slept.

When he next awoke, his gaze turned first to the window. There was light outside, but he had no way of knowing if this was morning, noon or afternoon—or on what planet.

He saw no white-domed buildings of Hoover City, no formal lines of green-treed parks, no streams of buzzing gyro-cars. There was only a translucent and infinite whiteness. It was as if the window were set on the edge of the Universe overlooking a solemn, silent and matterless void.

The girl entered the room.

"Hi," she said, smiling. The dark half-moons under her eyes were less prominent. Her face was relaxed.

She increased the pressure in his rubberex pillows and helped him rise to a sitting position.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Venus."

"We're not in Hoover City?"

"No."

He looked at her, wondering. "You won't tell me?"

"Not yet. Later, perhaps."

"Then how did you get me here? How did we escape from the Inn?"

She shrugged. "We have friends who can be bribed. A hiding place in the city, the use of a small desert-taxi, a pass to leave the city—these can be had for a price."

"You'll tell me your name?"

"Maggie."

"Why did you save me?"

Her eyes twinkled mischievously. "Because you're a good astrogator."

His own eyes widened. "How did you know that?"

She sat on a plain chair beside his bed. "I know everything about you, Lieutenant Curtis."

"How did you learn my name? I destroyed all my papers—"

"I know that you're twenty-four. Born July 10, 1971. Orphaned at four, you attended Boys Town in the Catskills till you were 19. You graduated from the Academy at White Sands last June with a major in Astrogation. Your rating for the five-year period was 3.8—the second highest in a class of fifty-seven. Your only low mark in the five years was a 3.2 in History of Martian Civilization. Want me to go on?"

Fascinated, Ben nodded.

"You were accepted as junior astrogation officer aboard the Odyssey. You did well on your flight from Roswell to Luna City. In a barroom fight in Luna City, you struck and killed a man named Arthur Cobb, a pre-fab salesman. You've been charged with second degree murder and escape. A reward of 5,000 credits has been offered for your capture. You came to Hoover City in the hope of finding a renegade group of spacemen who operate beyond Mars. You were looking for them in the Blast Inn."

He gaped incredulously, struggling to rise from his pillows. "I—don't get it."

"There are ways of finding out what we want to know. As I told you, we have many friends."

He fell back into his pillows, breathing hard. She rose quickly.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have told you yet. I felt so happy because you're alive. Rest now. We'll talk again soon."

"Maggie, you—you said I'd live. You didn't say I'd be able to walk again."

She lowered her gaze. "I hope you'll be able to."

"But you don't think I will, do you?"

"I don't know. We'll try walking tomorrow. Don't think about it now. Rest."

He tried to relax, but his mind was a vortex of conjecture.

"Just one more question," he almost whispered.

"Yes?"

"The man I killed—did he have a wife?"

She hesitated. He thought, Damn it, of all the questions, why did I ask that?

Finally she said, "He had a wife."

"Children?"

"Two. I don't know their ages."

She left the room.

He sank into the softness of his bed. As he turned over on his side, his gaze fell upon an object on a bureau in a far corner of the room.

He sat straight up, his chest heaving.

The object was a tri-dimensional photo of a rock-faced man in a merchant spaceman's uniform. He was a giant of a man with a neatly trimmed red beard!

Ben stared at the photo for a long time. At length, he slipped into restless sleep. Images of faces and echoes of words spun through his brain.

The dead man returned to him. Bloodied lips cursed at him. Glassy eyes accused him. Somewhere were two lost children crying in the night.

And towering above him was a red-bearded man whose great hands reached down and beckoned to him. Ben crawled through the night on hands and knees, his legs numb and useless. The crying of the children was a chilling wail in his ears.

His head rose and turned to the red-bearded man. His pleading voice screamed out to him in a thick, harsh cackle. Yet even as he screamed, the giant disappeared, to be replaced by white-booted feet stomping relentlessly toward him.

He awoke still screaming....

A night without darkness passed. Ben lay waiting for Maggie's return, a question already formed in his mind.

She came and at once he asked, "Who is the man with the red beard?"

She smiled. "I was right then when I gave you that thumbnail biog. You were looking for him, weren't you?"

"Who is he?"

She sat on the chair beside him.

"My husband," she said softly.

He began to understand. "And your husband needs an astrogator? That's why you saved me?"

"We need all the good men we can get."

"Where is he?"

She cocked her head in mock suspicion. "Somewhere between Mercury and Pluto. He's building a new base for us—and a home for me. When his ship returns, I'll be going to him."

"Why aren't you with him now?"

"He said unexplored space is no place for a woman. So I've been studying criminal reports and photos from the Interplanetary Bureau of Investigation and trying to find recruits like yourself. You know how we operate?"

He told her the tales he'd heard.

She nodded. "There are quite a few of us now—about a thousand—and a dozen ships. Our base used to be here on Venus, down toward the Pole. The dome we're in now was designed and built by us a few years ago after we got pushed off Mars. We lost a few men in the construction, but with almost every advance in space, someone dies."

"Venus is getting too civilized. We're moving out and this dome is only a temporary base when we have cases like yours. The new base—I might as