The Best of by John Wyndham Read Free Book Online Page B

a definite answer. My suggestion is that he should accept the offer with the object of seeing that the Nuntia is lost. The details I can leave to him...
    Drakin went on to elaborate his plan. Directly the Nuntia had left, Metallic Industries would begin work on a spaceflyer of their own. As soon as possible she would follow Venus. Meanwhile I, having settled the Nuntia, would await her arrival.
    In the unlikely event of the planet being found inhabited I was to get on good terms with the natives and endeavour to influence them against I.C. When the second ship arrived I was to be taken off and brought back to Earth while a party of M.I. men remained to survey and annex territory. On my return I would be sufficiently rewarded to make me rich for life.
    "You will be doing a great work for us," he concluded, "and we do not forget our servants." He looked me straight in the eye as he said it. "Will you do it?.
    I hesitated. "I would like a day or so to think it over...
    "Of course. That is only natural. But there is not a great deal of time to spare—will you let me have your answer by this time tomorrow? It will give us a chance to make other arrangements in case you refuse...
    "Yes, sir. That will do...
    With that I left them. As to their further deliberations I can only guess. And my guesses are bitter.
    Beyond an idea that it would appear better not to be too eager, I had no reason for putting off my answer. Already I had determined to go—and to wreck the Nuntia. I had waited many years to get in a blow at I.C., and now was my chance.
    Ever since the death of my parents I had set my mind on injuring them. Not only had they killed my father by their negligence in the matter of unshielded rays but they had stolen his inventions and robbed him by prolonged litigation.
    Enough, you say, to make a man swear revenge. But it was not all. I had to see my mother die in poverty when a few hundred dollars would have saved her life—and all our dollars had gone in fighting I.C.
    After that I changed my name, got a job with I.C. and worked —hard. Mine was not going to be a paltry revenge. I was going to work up until I was in a responsible position, one from which my blows could really hurt them.
    I had allied myself with Metallic Industries because this was their biggest rival and now I was given a chance to wreck the ship to which they had pinned such faith. I could have done that alone but it would have meant exile for the rest of my life. Now M.I. had smoothed the way by offering me passage home.
    Yes, I was going to do it. The Nuntia should make one trip and no more.
    But I'd like to know just what it was they decided in the Board Room after I left.
MURDERS IN SPACE
    The Nuntia was two weeks in space but nobody was very happy about it.
    In those two weeks the party of nine on board had been reduced to seven and the reduction had not had a good effect upon our morale. As far as I could tell there was no tangible suspicion afoot—just a feeling that all was not well.
    Among the hands it was rumoured that Hammer and Drafte had gone crazy before they killed themselves. But why had they gone crazy? That was what worried the rest. Was it something to do with conditions in space—some subtle, unsuspected emanation? Would we all go crazy? When you are cut off from your kind you get strange fancies. Imagination gets overheated and you become too credulous. That is what used to happen to sailors on their long voyages in the old windjammers. They began to attribute the deaths to uncanny malign influences in a way which would never have occurred to them on Earth. It gave me some amusement at the time.
    First had been Dale Hammer, the second navigator. Young, a bit wild at home, perhaps, but brilliant at his job, he was proud and overjoyed that he had been chosen for this voyage. He had gone off duty in a cheerful frame of mind.
    A few hours later he had been found dead in his bunk with a bottle of tablets by his side: one had to take