Measure for a Loner | Page 3

me back to pilot the Evening Star. That's why I holed in there."
"I can't accept your story," I lied cheerfully. "Nobody is going to maroon himself on an island for three years because of a wild possibility like that."
Meyverik smiled and his sureness swelled out until it almost jabbed me in the stomach.
"I took a broad gamble," he said, "but it hit the wire, didn't it?"
I didn't reply, but he had his answer.
Instead I scanned the report Madison had given me from Intelligence concerning the man's unorthodox behavior.
Meyverik had quit his post-graduate studies and passed by the secured job that had been waiting for him eighteen months in a genial government office to barricade himself in an old shelter on Seal Island. It was hard to know what to make of it. He had brought impressive stores of food with him, books, sound and vision tapes but not telephone or television. For the next three years he had had no contact with humanity at all.
And he said he had planned it all.
"Sure," he drawled. "I knew the government was looking for somebody to steer the interstellar ship that's been gossip for decades. That job," he said distinctly, "is one I would give a lot to settle into."
I looked at him across my unlittered brand new desk and accepted his irritating blond masculinity, disliked him, admired him, and continued to examine him to decide on my final evaluation.
"You've given three years already," I said, examining the sheets of the report with which I was thoroughly familiar.
He twitched. He didn't like that, not spending three years. It was spendthrift, even if a good buy. He was planning on winding up somewhere important and to do it he had to invest his years properly.
"You are trying to make me believe you deliberately extrapolated the government's need for a man who could stand being alone for long periods, and then tried to phoney up references for the work by staying on that island?"
"I don't like that word 'phoney'," Meyverik growled.
"No? You name your word for it."
Meyverik unhinged to his full height.
"It was proof," he said. "A test."
"A man can't test himself."
"A lot you know," the big blond snorted.
"I know," I told him drily. "A man who isn't a hopeless maniac depressive can't consciously create a test for himself that he knows he will fail. You proved you could stay alone on an island, buster. You didn't prove you could stay alone in a spaceship out in the middle of infinity for three years. Why didn't you rent a conventional rocket and try looking at some of our local space? It all looks much the same."
Meyverik sat down.
"I don't know why I didn't do that," he whispered.
* * * * *
Probably for the first time since he had got clever enough to beat up his big brother Meyverik was doubting himself, just a little, for just a time.
I don't know whether it was good or bad for him--contemporary psychology isn't in my line--but I knew I couldn't trust a cocky kid.
But I had to find out if he could still hit the target uncocked.
* * * * *
Stan Johnson was our second lonely man, remember, General?
He was stubborn.
I questioned him for a half hour the first day, two hours the second and on the third I turned him over to Madison.
Then as I was having my lunch I suddenly thought of something and made steps back to my office.
I got there just in time to grab Madison's bony wrist.
The thing in his fist was silver and sharp, a hypodermic needle. Johnson's forearm was tanned below the torn pastel sleeve. Two sad-faced young men were holding him politely by the shoulders in the canvas chair. Johnson met my glance expressionlessly.
I tugged on Madison's arm sharply.
"What's in that damned sticker?"
"Polypenthium." Madison's face was as blank as Johnson's--only his body seemed at once tired and taut.
"What's it for?" I rasped.
"You're the psychologist," he said sharply.
I met his eyes and held on but it was impossible to stare him down.
"I don't know about physical methods, I told you. I've been dealing with people in books, films, tapes all my life, not living men up till now, can't you absorb that?"
"Apparently I've had more experience with these things than you then, Doctor. Shall I proceed?"
"You shall not," I cried omnisciently. "I know enough to understand we can't get the results the government wants by drugs. You going to put that away?"
Madison nodded once.
"All right," he said.
I unshackled my fingers and he put the shiny needle away in its case, in his suitcoat pocket.
"You understand, Thorn," he said, "that the general won't like this."
I turned around and looked at him.
"Did he order you to drug Johnson?"
The government agent shook his head.
"I didn't think so." I was beginning to understand government operations.