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chucklehead? Who, he hastily added, had come near to criminally assaulting him, who had climbed
the. . . .
He turned to the little waiter and demanded: "Will she  Helena be on the orbital station with us
if we're all convicted?"
"Hmm no, I should think not. As a responsible person, she gets the supreme penalty."
Ross numbly asked after a long pause, "How? Nothing  painful?" It was hard to think of Helena
dangling grotesquely at a rope's end or jolting as she sat strapped in a large, ugly chair. But
there were things he had heard of which were horribly worse.
Bernie had been watching him. "I'm sorry," the little man said soberly. "It's up to the judge.
She's a foreigner, so they may consider that an extenuating circumstance and place some quick-
acting poison aboard for her to take. Otherwise it's slow starvation."
A faint, irrational hope had begun to dawn in Ross's mind. "Aboard what? Exactly how does it
work?"
"They'll put her aboard some hulk with the rockets disabled, fire it off into space and that's
that. I suppose they'll use the ship she came in   "
Ross was frantically searching his pockets. He had a stylus. "Got any paper?" he briskly demanded
of Bernie.
"Yes, but   ?" The waiter blankly passed over an order book. Ross sprawled on the floor and began
to scribble: "Never mind how or why this works. Do it. You saw me work the big fan-shaped computer
in the center room and you can do it too. Find the master star maps in the chart room. Look up the
co-ordinates of Halsey's System. Set these co-ordinates on the twenty-seven dials marked Proximate
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Mass. Take the readings on the windows above the dials and set them on the cursors of the
computer  " He scribbled furiously, from time to time forcing himself deliberately to slow down as
the writing became an unreadable scrawl. He filled the ruled fronts of the order pages and then
the backs perhaps ten thousand closely-written words, and not one of them wasted. Haarland's
precise instructions, mercilessly drilled into him, flowed out again.
He flung the stylus down at last and read through the book again, ignoring the gaping Bernie. It
was all there, as far as he could tell. Grant her a lot of luck and more brains than he privately
credited her with, and she had a fighting chance of winding up within radar range of Hal-
sey's Planet. GCA could take her down from there; an annoying ship-like object hanging on the
radarscopes would provoke a reconnaissance.
She knew absolutely nothing about F-T-L or the \yes-ley drive, but then neither did he. That fact
itself was no handicap.
He might rot on "Minerva," but some word might get back to Haarland. And so would the ship. And
Helena would not perish miserably in a drifting hulk.
Bernie saw the mysterious job was ended and dared to ask, "A letter?"
"No," Ross said jubilantly. "By God, if things break right they won't get her. It's like this  "
He happily began to explain that his F-T-L ship's rockets were onl^ auxiliaries for fine
maneuvering, but he counted on the court not knowing that. If he and Helena could persuade. ...
As he went on the look on Bernie's face changed very slowly from hope to pity to politely-
simulated interest. Correspondingly Ross's accounting became labored and faulty. The pauses became
longer and at last he broke off, filled with self-contempt at his folly. He said bitterly, "You
don't think it'll work."
"Oh, no!" Bernie protested with too much heartiness. "I could see she's awfully mechanically-
minded for a woman, even if it wouldn't be polite to say so. Sure it'll work, Ross. Sure!"
The hell it would.
At least he had disposed of a few hours. And perhaps some bungling setting would explode the ship,
or end a Wesley Jump in the heart of a white dwarf star sudden annihilation, whining Helena out of
existence before her body could realize that it had died, before the beginning of apprehension
could darken happy absorption with a task she thought would bring her to safety.
For that reason alone he had to carry the scheme through.
The courtroom was a chintzy place bright with spring flowers. Ross and Helena looked numbly at one
another
from opposite corners while the previous order of business was cleared from the docket. A wedding.
The judge, unexpectedly sweet-faced and slender though gray, obviously took such parts of her work
seriously. "Marylyn and Kent," she was saying earnestly to the happy couple, "I suppose you know
my reputation. I lecture people a bit before I tie the knot. Evidently it's not such a bad idea
because my marriages turn out well. Last week in Eleanor one of my girls was arrested and
reprimanded for gross infidelity and a couple of years ago right here in Novj Grad one of my boys
got five hundred lashes for nonsupport. Let's hope it did them some good, but the cases were
unusual. My people, I like to think, know their rights and responsibilities when they walk out of
my court, and I think the record bears me out.
"Marylyn, you have chosen to share part of your life with this man. You intend to bear his
children. This should not be because your animal appetites have overcome you and you can't win his
consent in any other way but because you know, down deep in your womanly heart, that you can make
him happy. Never forget this. If you should thoughtlessly conceive by some other man, don't tell
him. He would only brood. Be thrifty, Marylyn. I have seen more marriages broken up by finances
than any other reason. If your husband earns a hundred Eleanors a week, spend only that and no
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