It was impossible, unbelievable--but frightened millions believed.
All experience and all psychological tests pointed to the complete,
robot-like reliability of the Woollies. The great race which had ruled
Saturn's moons before the Age of Man had, before its unexplained
extinction, bred its slave-creatures with superb skill, for vast
strength, for adaptability to the diverse environments of the
satellites--and for a perfect susceptibility to telepathic control.
But, if a Woolly had killed a man--
The Company had declared at once its intention of sending an
investigating commission to Phoebe; it did not request the interference
of the Colonial Government, and that, from the Company was equivalent
to a stern KEEP OUT in the face of the police and everyone else. But
before the corporation heads had recovered sufficiently to issue their
statement, the All-Planet News Syndicate had Leila Frey aboard the
_Zodiac_, traveling toward Phoebe at sixty miles a second.
Gedner took the girl's arm in one heavily-gloved hand and led her away
from the ship at a leisurely pace. Captain Manoly had already vanished
thankfully into the airlock of his vessel.
As if coming out of a trance, Leila made a sudden effort to shake her
arm from Gedner's grip. Failing, she walked on beside him in stiff
silence. It was the man who spoke, when they had almost reached the
largest of the lighted structures.
"So now your employers send you out after scoops," he remarked
thoughtfully.
"I just happened to be in the Subsystem, looking for general interest
stuff on the colonies," put in Leila quickly, almost defensively.
Gedner went on as if she had not spoken, and with like disregard for
the fact that every word was ringing also in the helmet phones of the
two other men plodding on behind.
"You've been doing well since you got rid of me. But I always knew you
had what it takes to get ahead, darling; you've never been anything but
a grasping, selfish, irresponsible little monster."
Leila wrenched herself away from him, as they paused at the airlock
door of the Company headquarters. "I assure you I haven't changed in
the least," she told him icily. "And neither have you. You're still
one huge hypertrophied ego. Nothing matters to you except being the
boss--Say!" She began to laugh, staccato. "Why, Paul, you've found the
one ideal place for yourself here, out of the whole System. A planet
little enough to make you feel as big as you want to, where you're
almost alone with a crew of subhuman things that don't know anything
but obedience...."
Her own words called back the jarring memory of what had brought her
here, and she stopped on an indrawn breath. Gedner had stared at her
in silence--she knew that of old as a sign that she had come near the
quick of his pride--and abruptly she was aware of the ghostly mass of
Big Bill, looming erect behind his master.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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