I plunged on. "Legally, you cannot raise the dead. Legally, you can get no papers or status for the dead. Legally, you can't marry the dead! And the only evidence you have is that newspaper clipping – and it is not legal evidence!" What I wasn't telling him was that at the slightest hint that a Spiteos prisoner would be released to the world, that prisoner would be killed. In fact, Heller was lucky himself to know of Spiteos and still be alive: it was only permitted because Lombar had thought he would soon be gone to Blito-P3 and the Grand Council's familiarity with his name. He was luckier than he knew!

He was hesitating. If I could get him off this planet, he would never again be in a position to worry about the Countess Krak. I added a brilliant stroke.

"I am trained in these things and you are not," I said. "If you leave as soon as possible on this mission, I give you my solemn oath that when you return, I will help you in this. I will guide you through it. And without my help, you could not possibly free her and restore her to the world." It was a safe oath. He would never come back. I wondered why I was suddenly feeling sick at my stomach. The blow, probably.

He looked at me. He was perplexed, doubtful. He said, "I will think it over." I saw that that was all I could get. I still was afraid of him. My hand still gripped the butt of my gun.

I got out of there as quickly as I could! I had found myself defenseless in the face of death. It was terrifying!

Chapter 2

Outside, in the dimness of the hangar, I tried to move my arm. It was totally unresponsive. It would swing and dangle but the elbow and wrist would not bend at my command. The fingers would not flex. I felt I was done for!

Considerations that the mission was again stalled, that I was under threat of death from Lombar, that I could lose my paychecks and be cashiered and wind up as a gutter bum in Slum City were all acute enough. But they momentarily took second place to this arm.

One doesn't get personal care or disability in the Apparatus. When one is injured or becomes physically incapable of doing his job, that's it. He isn't retired. If he has held a security-sensitive post, he isn't dropped. He is simply shot in the head and the body dumped in any handy ditch.

The sensation of being hemmed in by a pack of wild beasts and having no chance of defending myself was pushing me toward panic. If I could not draw and fire a gun, I was at the total mercy of any Apparatus personnel I chanced to meet. I knew too many who would like to see me out of the way.

I disguised the disability as best I could and crept toward my airbus.

It was late afternoon, work in the area had slacked off, there were not many about.

My driver had apparently had a hard day running around on Heller's errands. Ske was sprawled out in the back, taking a nap. I stood there for a moment, looking at him through the open window. I was on the verge of opening the door and telling him to take me somewhere when a new thought stayed my left hand.

I had no money!

Obviously, I needed physical attention from a doctor. I vividly recalled the abrupt departure of the prostitute practitioner when he found I had no credits.

If Ske had been running errands, then he had money on him. With my left hand I silently opened the door. Without making the vehicle tilt, I leaned over him.

With practiced lightness I went through his uppermost two tunic pockets.

Luck!

My trained fingers drew out a ten-credit note!

I backed up, ready to leave.

"Wait a minute!" said Ske in a plaintive voice, "that ain't my money! It was the deposit on the comedy cop uniforms! I've got to return it to Officer Heller!" He was lying. He always lies. I hoped that he hadn't noticed my right arm was disabled. He might attack me. I backed away so that I was well clear of him.

My problem now was where to find a doctor. I must not get one that could report this disability. I was racking my wits about it when my attention was drawn to a transport spaceship.

A huge, wheeled gantry was standing outside the hangar, gripping the vessel in its launch claws. The tall ship rose about four hundred and fifty feet as it sat on its tail. It was black, old, dented and shabby. An Apparatus troop carrier! When they were fuelled or repaired or whatever else they did to them in the hangar, their gantries were pushed out into the leaving zone. This was usually done toward sunset: the ship's crew was brought from barracks and put aboard and were supposed to spend the night readying their craft for takeoff in the dawn.

This one was outward bound for some planet of the Confederacy. She would have about fifty crew. Before sunrise, anywhere from two to five thousand Apparatus guard troops would be paraded out there and then file aboard to be packed like corpses into the personnel racks for the voyage. That ship would be gone for months and, with luck, within those months I, too, would be gone.

They would have a health officer on board!

It was my best bet. I would get him to fix this arm and no one would be the wiser.

I approached the gantry. The monstrous vessel loomed above me. There was a guard at the personnel loading airlock, a bored specimen. He blocked my way.

"I must inspect the vessel prior to its departure," I said and fished with my left hand for my identoplate.

The guard didn't bother to look at it. I entered the airlock. The stink of an Apparatus vessel hit me. Getting it ready for a voyage didn't include washing its interior: weightlessness can bring nausea and this vessel probably had troop vomit left over from its maiden voyage centuries before.

When they stand in gantries, their passageways are vertical. I had to climb and it was difficult with only one hand to hold to the bars. And even this was complicated by the many switchovers caused by branching passages.

Any crew or ship officers' cubicles would be way up toward the nose. It was easy to get lost inside these gigantic, fat-bellied things. The direction arrows were mainly filthed into obscurity and the signs and labels could not be read. I struggled along and then was glad to hear a distant sound far above me.

It was a song. Far from getting the ship ready, some of the crew were sitting up there somewhere, probably in their eating room, indulging themselves in a singing weep.

There was the throb of a hand air organ. It was beginning the chords of a new song. Spacers, I have always maintained, are not normal people. And the spacers of the Apparatus are insane.

They were beginning a song called, "The Spacer's Lot." It is a dirge! Why do they always sing dirges before they start a voyage? Hangovers?

It didn't make me feel a bit better to be climbing to the sad, sad melancholy of that tune. I was struggling as it was! The lament echoed down as though sung in a tomb!

To planets of the dead, And stars that have no light, We cruise throughout this endless space, Encased in darkest night.

I missed a rung and almost fell two hundred feet.

The eyes that do not miss us, The hands without caress, The hardened hearts behind us, Spare no slightest warmth to bless.

I tried to hurry my ascent. The awful dirge was depressing me.

The Forces of the firmament, Enfold us as our home.

The lost, the damned, the outcast, Cruise darkest space alone.

I almost fell again. The echoing walls made the song more deep and awful. Maybe if I got there quick, they would shut up. I was feeling bad enough already.

Shun space, you groundbound creature!

Suck in your planet's breath!