“You think I———”
His great fists knotted.
John Star stepped aside, whipped out his proton gun.
“Stop!
I’m just obeying orders.”
“Well———” The big hands opened and closed convulsively.
Hal Samdu looked at the menacing needle, and John Star saw simple contempt of danger in his eyes.
But he stopped.
“Well———” he repeated. “If it isn’t your fault—I’ll go.”
The third man, Giles Habibula, did not open the door when John Star knocked, but merely called out for him to enter.
The massive, blue-nosed sentry of the day before, he was now sitting, comfortably unbuttoned, before a table burdened with dishes and bottles.
“Ah, come in, lad, come in,” he wheezed again.
“I was just eating a mortal taste of lunch before I go to bed.
A blessed hard night we had, waiting for trouble in the cold.
“But draw up, lad, and have a bite with me.
We got new supplies on the Scorpion.
An agreeable change from these mortal synthetic rations.
Baked ham, and preserved candied yams, and some ripe old Dutch cheese—but look it over for yourself, lad.”
He nodded at the table, which, John Star thought, bore food enough for six hungry men.
“No, thank you.
I’ve come———”
“If you won’t eat, you’ll surely drink.
We’re mortal fortunate, lad, in the matter of drink.
A wine cellar left full when the fort was abandoned in the old days.
Aged precious well—the best wine, I dare say, in the System.
A full cellar—when I found it.
Ah———”
“I must tell you that I’ve orders to place you under arrest.”
“Arrest?
Why, lad, old Giles Habibula has done no mortal harm to anybody.
Not here on Mars, anyhow.”
“Captain Otan has been murdered.
You are to be questioned.”
“You aren’t jesting with poor old Giles, lad?”
“Of course not.”
“Murdered!”
He shook his head. “I told him he should drink with me.
He lived a Spartan life, lad. Ah, it must be terrible to be cut off so!
But you don’t think I did it, lad?”
“Not I, surely.
But my orders are to lock you in the cells.”
“Those old dungeons are mortal cold and musty, lad.”
“My orders———”
“I’ll go with you, lad.
Keep your hand away from that proton gun.
Old Giles Habibula wouldn’t make trouble for anybody.”
“Come.”
“May I eat a bite first, lad? And finish my wine?”
John Star somehow liked old Giles Habibula, for all his grossness.
So he sat and watched until the dishes were clean and the three bottles empty. And then they went together to the dungeons.