The Girl, The Gold Watch And Everything Part 34

"Joseph and Charla don't know I got away from them yet. They were going to bring me and Wilma aboard tonight in packing cases."

"Are you sure you didn't save them half the trouble?"

"I don't think so. I think it's going to be all right. You see , I found out what they're after."

"You did?"

"And I haven't any good ideas about how I can solve a lot of these d.a.m.n legal problems, but I think I can get you off this boat."

"What is it? A handy dandy thought control machine? Or does it just melt big holes in the sides of boats?"

"You're sounding more like yourself."

"So I'm a little skeptical. Show me."

"It has, certain limitations, and I don't know how it works, and maybe I don't know how to get maximum use out of it yet. But I'll demonstrate it. It, it may frighten you, Betsy. It may frighten you quite badly because it, offends all reason. You'll try not to get hysterical if, it frightens you?"

"That's a luxury I don't think I can afford, Kirby Winter."

"All you need to know is the objective results."

"You mean it has something to do with that old, "

He stopped the flow of rational time, wondered whether he should get her used to it by degrees, then decided she was mentally strong enough to cope. He slowly pulled her rigid body out of the bunk, forced her over to a chair, leaned his weight on her thighs and pushed her down into it. Then he went over and stood by the door and picked time up where he had left it.

", watch?" she said. She gave a leap of violent surprise, turned deathly pale, shut her eyes tightly and opened them again and stared at him. "My word," she whispered. "I didn't know what to expect, but this is, " She frowned. "Did I black out somehow?"

"No time pa.s.sed at all. It was instantaneous."

"You moved me to here, and you to over there. What is the range?"

"Let's say it's about as far as I can carry a kitchen stove."

"You carried me somehow?"

"With difficulty."

"While time took time out?"

"Exactly."

"You could carry me past someone and they wouldn't notice?"

"No more than you would."

She nodded her head, quite slowly. "Your revered uncle, my friend, had quite an edge. An edge, in fact, so filled with interesting possibilities, it makes that twenty-seven million you gave away look like candy for the children. Why didn't he use it to, make himself king of the world? He could have managed it. Like a man with a rifle in the dawn of history."

"Maybe being king would have bored him. Being Santa Claus was more his style. Or maybe he had to keep what he had from being too obvious, or other men would have started looking in the same direction."

She nodded again. "Charla was convinced there was something to look for." She lost her thoughtful expression and stared across the room at him with a look of fearful intensity. "One thing we do know, Kirby Winter. A thing like that must never belong to my aunt. Never. She's bought every kind of immunity they sell, and she uses it all without mercy."

Suddenly there was a hurried sound in the corridor, a mutter of voices, and then a sound of heavy hammering.

Above the bunk there was a hiss and click of electronic circuits, and then Charla's voice came into the room, the low purring tones vastly amplified.

"My darlings!" she said. "How terribly fortunate I left that circuit open! And how glad I am we had the patience to listen. Dear Joseph even had the presence of mind to begin taping it after the first few words. We can play it back for clues, you know, but possibly we have enough. How did you put it, dear? A way to make time take time out. I have suddenly lost my respect for Omar Krepps. With that ability, he did very little with it, comparatively. While I'm talking I can't hear you, of course. That sound you must have heard was a timber being wedged between your door and the opposite side of the. corridor. Apparently your miracle will not melt prison walls. I hope not. So at least we have created an impa.s.se, have we not? And it will give us all time to think."

Kirby shuddered and looked at Betsy. Her eyes were closed and she was biting down on a bloodless lip. "I didn't know," she whispered. "I didn't know. But, knowing her, I should have guessed."

He went over to her and put his lips close to her ear. "All we have to do is get them to open that door."

"It is really quite amusing," Charla said, "that what I should have been looking for is actually that old gold watch you showed me, Kirby dear. The little telescope is a rather nice disarming touch. Really, I expected some sort of procedural thing, notes and formulae, something like that. But this really seems far more practical, a portable, useful, innocent-appearing device. What did you say, Joseph? Excuse me a moment, darlings."

"d.a.m.nedwitch," Betsysaid distinctly.

Charla spoke through the concealed speaker again. "Joseph has had a fruitful idea. We shall have a hole burnt in your steel door, darlings, just large enough for the watch, and then you can pa.s.s it out through the hole. Otherwise I think you might find things becoming highly unpleasant."

When the hiss of the circuit stopped, Kirby said, "Before I'll do that, Charla, I'll take the end of the chain and I'll slam it against the inside of this steel door until I'm d.a.m.ned well certain it's unusable, unidentifiable junk."

"Dog in the manger?" Charla asked.

"Precisely."

"You bluff well, Kirby."

"No bluff, Charla. I'm infected by a chronic disease called a sense of responsibility. I'm a very n.o.ble fellow. I'd rather destroy it than have you have it to use."

"n.o.bility confuses me," Charla said. "Isn't it the traditional disease of adolescence? Aren't you rather old for it, Kirby?"

"I'm having a delayed adolescence, Mrs. O'Rourke. But you can check it out, if you don't believe me. Cut the hole in the door. The minute the chunk falls out, I start battering this gizmo to bits."

There was no answer, no faint hiss that preceded each speech.

"You've got her worried," Betsy whispered.

"She should be worried," Kirby said in a normal tone. "I mean every d.a.m.n word of it. I can't get out of here. Okay. So n.o.body gets to use it."

Charla spoke again. "It would make me terribly angry, Kirby," she said with a tone of gentle regret. "I think both of you would have to die in the most unimaginable agony. You see, Betsy would have to share your heroics. And Miss Farnham. And Miss Beaumont. It's quite a heavy responsibility upon you, dear Kirby. I know it will trouble you."

When the hiss stopped Betsy asked in a thin and shaking voice, "What if he gives it to you, Charla?"

"Freedom, my dear. And a generous gift of money. I shan't be small about it."

He whispered to Betsy. "She won't want anybody around to tell what she has." Betsy sat quite still, then gave a nod of dreadful comprehension.

Charla laughed softly. "Or, if that seems to be too good to be true, I can at least promise something so quick and so painless you'll never know what happened. We have a lot of time for you to think it over, dears. No one will come aboard until we ask for clearance. So do talk it over for a bit."

"Charla?" Betsy called. "Charla!"