Revenge -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
"All Alpha City know," said the native, stepping aside as Haven peered
down through the utterly clear ice.
The body seemed very small and lonely and far away. It was there as it
had been there and as it always would be there and as it had haunted
Haven's sleep for fifteen years.
Haven probed his mind for ideas. There had to be something....
A heat blaster, he thought. I can go back to town and get a heat
blaster and melt it free again and then--
But the little native had to die. True, he was only one of millions who
had apparently seen the body, but he had taken Haven here, and if ever
he could be brought to a stellar confederacy court to testify, and if
it could be proved that the site of the mine, fifteen years ago, had
been galactic and not Centaurian territory, and if he could be made to
testify because, after all, he was not on Centauri and not subject to
the Centaurian mores, then Haven was finished.
Haven removed the hand-stunner from his furs and pointed it at the
native's back.
"Hold it, George! Don't move!"
He dropped the gun in his surprise. It was Louise's voice.
Runners slid whisperingly across the ice. A sled came up. Louise stood
in it, a stunner in her own hand. She looked at him as the sled came to
a stop. Her face was grim.
"Louise," Haven said accusingly. "You followed me from the hotel. But
why--why?"
"Because I had to find out what you had to find out. Because you told
me to be ruthless, George, remember? You always told me you had to be
ruthless to get anyplace. So I was ruthless too. I married you."
"Ruthless--marrying me? I don't understand."
"You never looked into my past, George. That suited me fine. Well, come
on. Get on this sled now! I'm taking you back to Alpha City. We're
getting in touch with the Galactic representative to see if you can be
indicted for Drexell Tolliver's murder."
"But you--"
Just then the small native came up with Haven's stunner. "You came
almost too late, Miss Tolliver," he said.
Tolliver, thought Haven. Tolliver! "Tolliver!" he shouted, and his
voice echoed from the ice hills and came back, boomingly, to him.
"Tolliver!"
And calmly, Louise told him: "I am Drexell Tolliver's daughter. You
fool, George. You fool. The others were here, but they never knew.
Not Vorhees, not MacCready, not any of them. Sure, they took your
money. They were curious, but why should they say no? You built the
whole thing up in your mind. It was your own private nightmare. You
never would have been found out if you hadn't come here. If you hadn't
dreamed up this reunion, if you hadn't married Drexell Tolliver's
daughter."
Haven heard her voice, but hardly heard the words. He began to run.
Soon he was running very fast. He did not look back. He heard the
bark of her stunner and saw the raw streaks of energy rip by him in
the night. Run, he thought. You have to run now. You never had to run
before, but you can do anything you have to do, can't you?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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