The Other End of Time by Frederik Pohl

Author:Frederik Pohl [Pohl, Frederik]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780312856441
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 1996-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Pat

Pat didn't think she had screamed when that fist poked through the wall, but she must have-must have made some sort of noise, anyway, enough so that a sleeper or two woke and saw something going on.

Then their questions woke the rest. "It was the wristlet, wasn't it?" she demanded. "You took it off Dopey's body!"

He admitted it with a nod. "I had one of those glass buttons, too," he said. "Did you know they glow in the dark? Under my coat I could see it easily; and the bracelet looked like metal, but it was soft. Rubbery. It slipped right off when I pulled at it."

Rosaleen was looking at him curiously. "What did you think you were going to do with them?" She had wakened totally and quickly, as though there were no difference between sleeping and waking for her; Pat wondered if that was what it was like to be old.

Dannerman shrugged. "I didn't know. It occurred to me that maybe they were a sort of key to the wall, so I tried that out-"

"Didn't work, did it?" Jimmy Lin growled. "Now you've got them even madder at us."

That was more than Pat could stand-this from one of the men who had actually killed the first Dopey!

But, surprisingly, it was Martin who came to Dannerman's defense.

"You are wrong, Lin," Martin said heavily. "He was quite correct. It is the duty of a prisoner of war to try to escape, by any means possible." He hesitated, then added, "I beg your pardon, Dannerman. You are not as useless as I thought. Now I think I will go back to sleep."

The entertainment was obviously over, so, more slowly, Jimmy and Rosaleen Artzybachova followed his example. Dannerman sat awake, leaning against the wall with his eyes half closed. After an indecisive moment Pat sat down next to him. He raised his head to look at her. "Are we friends again?" he asked hopefully.

Pat considered. "Well," she said, "not active enemies, anyway. Right now I'm a lot madder at Martin than I am at you."

"So is it all right if I say something?" When she nodded he cleared his throat and added, "I want to apologize. I'm sorry about lying to you and all. Will you believe me when 1 say I never wanted to do anything to harm you?"

She thought about that for a moment, then shrugged. "We'd have to get into a definition of what 'harm'

means, wouldn't we?"

"Well, I mean personal harm. I admit what I was doing might have kept you from making a lot of money, maybe-"

"Damn straight it might. Important money. Money I needed, as a matter of fact; my second divorce came pretty close to cleaning me out." She thought about that might-have-been money, then relented.

"Let's let it drop. Tell me, though. How'd you get into the spy business in the first place?"

"You mean, how did a nice guy like me get into a racket like that?" He grinned. "It just happened. I was in protsy in college, I told you that.

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