The Ethics of Madness by Larry Niven

Author:Larry Niven [Niven, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 1967-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

MARCH, AD 2571, SHIP’S TIME

The ship flew itself, of course. All Doug had to do was take it below the plane of the Belt, leave it alone for a couple of weeks, then aim for Tau Ceti. The two weeks were misdirection. With the note he had left, they might convince the police that he was going off to nowhere and would never bother them again.

He kept busy watching for goldskin ships, Belt police; reading instruction booklets over and over; getting familiar with his machines. It wasn’t until he had passed Pluto’s orbit that he began to relax.

Nobody was after him as far as he could tell. Not that they could have done anything; you can’t stop a ship in space. You can only destroy it. But he was reassured. He had broken free of his long bondage. And now… the long wait. Tau Ceti was eleven point nine lightyears away. It would take less subjective time than that with the velocities he would eventually reach, but still…

He frowned. He hadn’t been in a doc in some time. It would be stupid to get sick and die just when vengeance was within his grasp.

He climbed into the doc tank and went to sleep.

The doc found it necessary to make drastic changes in his metabolism. Hooker felt very strange when he woke. The strangeness seemed to be in his thinking, and that made it horrible. He felt slow, stupid. He could no longer remember why he wanted to kill Greg. He remembered only that his lifelong friend had done him a great wrong.

He thought of turning back. But he couldn’t do that; he’d end in the organ banks for stealing this ship.

Should he try another colony world? It was a confusing question. His mind was full of confusing questions. But it was obvious that Mount Lookitthat was his best bet, regardless of what happened when he got there. Plateau was the only world of Man that did not impose the death penalty. If they decided he’d committed a crime, he’d get medical treatment.

His head buzzed. Perhaps he needed medical treatment. But the ship’s doc could do anything.

He went on.

And as the weeks passed, a strange thing happened. He remembered his grudge against Greg Loeffler, and he realized something that sent cold chills of rage through him. They’d booby-trapped the doc!

No, it was worse than that. Somehow, long ago, Greg Loeffler and his minions had managed to booby-trap every doc on Earth. For all of his life Hooker had been using the docs. And each time he did, the docs had made alterations in his mind and body to keep him docile.

What could he do? His very life depended on the doc!

It took him a few days to get over his sense of panic, or perhaps he merely got used to it. Then he went to work. There was a thick instruction booklet for repairing the doc. Hooker memorized it. When he felt he was ready, he began to disconnect things. It was difficult to decide what to cut out.

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