Next Door, Next World Part 5

"No, thanks. I'd rather hear about Carolyn."

"Coffee won't take a minute. I was just making some fresh in the kitchen."

Lance shrugged. "Well, O.K., if you've already got it ready."

Mrs. Sagen's mouth managed a fleeting smile; then she disappeared through a swinging door. Lance sat down in a wrought-iron chair. Finding it not comfortable, he sprang back to his feet and paced the floor.

There sure was something wrong about the colonel's house. Something very oddly wrong. But he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Suddenly, his quickened hearing caught the faint murmur of a human voice. Was it Carolyn? The talk seemed to be issuing from the kitchen--where her mother had gone. Lance tiptoed across the room, pushed the door slightly open.

Mrs. Sagen was on the phone. Her voice was excited; she was obviously straining to keep it at a low level. "I'm telling you, he's here! Right in our living room. And he insists I know somebody named Carolyn ...

Yes, that's right. But do hurry ... Please. He's acting much odder than the others did."

Lance had eavesdropped enough. He turned away, glided rapidly out the front door and into the night.

Where should he go next? The jeep would serve to hustle him around the base for a while--but eventually he would be chased down and recaptured.

And as for crashing any of the exit gates and thus attaining to greater freedom, he knew they would all be barricaded and heavily manned by now.

Lance was still burning over Mrs. Sagen's double-cross. Did he want coffee? she had asked. _Coffee!_ his mind repeated, disgusted. What he needed was something stronger. A good stiff drink.

That was it! The Officers Club. Casey would be on duty at this hour.

Lance would ask him to mix him a double for old times' sake. Then, he'd meekly surrender and quietly go crazy in his cell, until the headshrinker came and confirmed it for real.

The pilot got back in the jeep and drove on. When he reached the Club, he wheeled the vehicle around to a rear entrance where bushes made the grounds shadier. Parking, he got out, strolled into the building as sneakily as if he'd been an inspector-general paying a surprise call from out of s.p.a.ce Service Headquarters.

Few officers lounged about. Most were at tables and engrossed in their own imbibing. Lance strode up to the bar, perched himself on a high stool. Casey, whose hair was red as a Martian desert, was rinsing gla.s.ses. He stopped at his task and came over, wiping the counter with a wet towel. "What'll it be, major?"

"One of your Specials, Casey, my friend."

"Beg pardon?"

"You know--one of your Casey Specials. Where you start off with half a gla.s.s of Irish whisky, add a dash or two of absinthe, a drop of--"

"I don't stock no absinthe, major." Casey's freckled face was abruptly hostile. "You know that. It's against regulations."

Lance fought down a tremor. Everybody was in on it. Everybody. He compromised for a minute: "Give me a slug of Teacher's on the rocks, then."

Casey measured out the drink for him.

Lance downed it. His hand gripped the edge of the bar. "Casey, do you know me?"

He watched Casey study him. The thick reddish eyebrows knit. "It's a pretty big base, major. Lots of faces. Sometimes, I kind of forget the names."

Lance's blood pressure gave a spurt. "I'm Major Lance Cooper! h.e.l.l, you've rung up my chits often enough!"

And his mind added: _How could you forget?_

"Major." Casey's eyes narrowed, while the uneasy suspicion in them grew.

"We don't have no chit system at this club."

Lance's head felt like it would explode. He could take no more.

"You're lying!" he shouted. His big hands reached over the mahogany counter and shook the bartender like a squawk-box that had refused to function properly. "Tell me you're lying in your teeth. If you don't, I'll push them down your throat--"

Suddenly, Lance sensed people behind him. A firm hand clamped down heavily on his shoulder.

The pilot stretched his neck around. What now? His hands did not relax their murderous grip on his victim.

The arresting party had entered the club quietly. Now, they were ganged up around him: Colonel Sagen, his two aides, a fourth man Lance recognized as Major Carmody, the base legal officer--and a fifth man too, who wore the insignia of the s.p.a.ce Surgeon-General's Department. A psychiatrist.

"Better come peacefully, major," rasped Colonel Sagen. "You've been 'cleared' for an explanation--and if you're smart, you'll listen to the spiel and play ball."

The way it was said made Lance feel he could trust the Old Man for that long. Anyhow, what choice did he have?

"It's about time," Lance sighed. He set Casey down, to the latter's greatly exhaled relief. "Only how come all the suspense?"

"It was very necessary," broke in Major Carmody.

"Was it? Well, you had me about to crack--if that was your object. Now then, would any of you mind easing my worries about Carolyn. She's O.K., isn't she?"

His glance shifted from one to the other.

"Isn't she?"

n.o.body would reply--neither Colonel Sagen, nor any of the officers bunched-up around him.

Sweat suddenly broke out on Lance's brow. The chilly feeling went through him that if and when an answer was provided him, he wasn't particularly going to like it.

Not in the slightest.

Shortly afterwards, Lance was driven across the base by his captors and escorted into his commanding officer's private office. The two aides were dismissed, but the psychiatrist-officer, who also wore eagles on his shoulders, and Major Carmody remained.

Colonel Sagen seated himself behind his desk.

"Major," he began, clearing his throat, "you imagine me to have a daughter. You're positive of it. You even visualize her so well, that you remember something about how you were going to marry her."

"You're not going to talk me out of anything on that score," Lance shot back.

"Perhaps, we don't intend to. Colonel Nordsen, here," Sagen indicated the psychiatrist, "has flown in from HQ to chat with you. He can explain the technical aspects of the phenomenon that has thrown you better than I can. I'd advise you to listen to him. He's just what you need."

"Just what I need? What else do you intend to do? Hypnotize me, so you can erase all my past?"

The colonel scowled. "Look here, major. You co-operate and learn to keep your mouth shut, we may be able to restore you to duty. But if not ...

well, what happens then will be entirely up to Nordsen. It could mean a padded cell. The development of hypers.p.a.ce exploration has to go on, whatever happens to you."