"It should be an easy decision, Bellaver," he said. "After all, suppose
I am lying. What have you got to lose but Vernon? And with his record,
that isn't much."
"Hold him," said Bellaver. "All right, Hyrst. I'll do it. But I'll tell
you now. If you lie to me, there won't be any re-awakening in another
fifty years. This will be for good."
"Fair enough," said Hyrst. "I'm putting my gun away. I'm coming in."
He walked quickly through the snow toward the tower.
CHAPTER X
On the bridge of his yacht, Bellaver turned to Hyrst and said,
"I've done what you wanted. Now find me that starship."
Hyrst nodded. "Take off."
The rockets roared and thundered, and the swift yacht leaped quivering
into the sky.
Hyrst sat quietly in his recoil chair. He felt a different man, changed
entirely in the last few days. Much had happened in those days.
Bellaver had got busy on the radio even before his yacht left Titan, and
the story of the Lazarites had burst like a nova upon the Solar System.
Already there were instances of suspected Lazarites being mobbed by
their neighbors, and Government was frantically concerning itself with
all the new, far-reaching implications of the Humane Penalty.
Close on the heels of this bomb-shell had come Vernon's angry
accusations against Bellaver, delivered as soon as he was given to the
authorities on Mars. During the twenty Martian hours necessary for
formal charge and the taking of depositions, and while Bellaver's yacht
was being refueled, Vernon's story of the starship went out on all the
interworld circuits. And it had been as Christina had said. The whole
Solar System was frantic to have the Lazarites caught and stopped, and
every man in space became a self-appointed searcher for the hidden
starship. Bellaver, letting his lawyers worry about Vernon's
accusations, had already laid formal claim to that ship, based on the
value of the stolen Titanite.
"Where?" demanded Bellaver now, in a fury of impatience. "Where?"
"Wait," said Hyrst. "There are too many watching, ready to follow you.
They know what you're after. Wait till we're clear of Mars."
He sat in his chair, looking into space. His drive was all gone, and the
anger that had fed it. Somewhere his son and his two daughters were
drawing their first free breaths relieved of a burden they should never
have had to carry. They knew now that he was innocent, and they could
think of him now without bitterness, speak his name without hate. He had
done what he had set out to do, and he was finished. He knew what was
ahead of him, but he was too tired to care.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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