But it wasn't quite enough for the bloodthirsty desire for vengeance
that the Normals held for the Controllers. There had to be more.
Following Earth in its orbit around the sun, trailing it by some
ninety-three million miles, were a group of tiny asteroids, occupying
what is known as the Trojan position. They were invisible from Earth,
being made of dark rock and none of them being more than fifteen feet in
diameter. But they had been a source of trouble in some of the early
expeditions to Mars, and had been carefully charted by the Space
Commission.
Now a use had been found for them. A man in a spacesuit could easily be
chained to one of them. With him was a small, sun-powered engine and
tanks of liquified food concentrates and oxygen. Kept under the
influence of hibernene, and kept cool by the chill of space, a man could
spend the rest of his life there--unmoving, unknowing, uncaring, dead as
far as he and the rest of Mankind were concerned--his slight bodily
needs tended automatically by machine.
It was a punishment that satisfied both sides of the life-or-death
argument.
Houston shook off the bleak, black feeling of terrible chill that had
crept over him and pushed his way into the UN Police building.
* * * * *
The thirteenth floor housed the Psychodeviant Division. As he stood in
the rising elevator, Houston wondered wryly if the number 13 was good
luck or bad in this case.
He stepped out of the elevator and headed for the Division Chief's
office.
Division Chief Reinhardt was a heavy-set, balding man, built like a
professional wrestler. His cold blue eyes gleamed from beneath shaggy,
overhanging brows, and his face was almost expressionless except for a
faint scowl that crossed it from time to time. In spite of the fact that
a Canadian education had wiped out all but the barest trace of German
accent, his Prussian training, of the old Junkers school, was still
evident. He demanded--and got--precision and obedience from his
subordinates, although he had no use for the strictly military viewpoint
of obsequiousness towards one's superiors.
He was sitting behind his desk, scowling slightly at some papers on it
when Houston stepped in.
"You wanted me to report straight to you, Mr. Reinhardt?"
Reinhardt looked up, his heavy face becoming expressionless. "Ah,
Houston. Yes; sit down. You did a fine job on that London affair; that's
what I call coming through at the last moment."
"How so?"
"Your orders to return," he said, "were cut before you found your man.
We have a much more important case for you than some petty pilfering
Controller. We are after much more dangerous game."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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