When, eventually, they awoke they found that they were back inside the boat. Their helmets had been removed, but not their suits. Panzen might be rather slow witted, thought Grimes, but he was capable of learning by experience; he must have remembered how they had almost been asphyxiated after their initial capture.
Grimes raised his body slowly to a sitting posture. Not far from him Una turned her head to look in his direction. She said, "Thank you for taking my helmet off, John."
He said, "I didn't take it off. Or mine either."
"But who . . . ?"
"Or what. There must be more than one of those little robots . . . ."
"Those little robots?"
"Like the one I shot. That mechanical spider. The thing had limbs and tentacles. Panzen's crew, I suppose. He has to have something to do the work while he takes life easily inside his brain case."
She said, "So he has ingress to this boat. Or his slaves do."
"Too right." Grimes had an uneasy vision of metal arthropods swarming all through the lifecraft while he and the girl lay unconscious. He scrambled to his feet, extended a hand to help Una. "I think we'd better have a general check up."
They took inventory. With one exception, the life support systems were untampered with. That exception was glaringly obvious. Whatever had taken off their helmets had also uncoupled and removed the air bottles, and there were no spare air bottles in their usual stowage in the storeroom. The pistols and ammunition were missing from the armory, and most of the tools from the workshop. The books were gone from their lockers in the control cabin.
Grimes broke out the medicinal brandy. At least Panzen's minions hadn't confiscated that. He poured two stiff slugs. He looked at Una glumly over the rim of his glass, muttered, "Cheers . . ."
"And what is there to be cheery about?" she demanded sourly.
"We're not dead."
"I suppose not." She sipped her drink. "You know, I went on a religious jag a standard year or so back. Believe it or not, I was actually a convert to Neo-Calvinism. You know it?"
"I've heard of the Neo-Calvinists," admitted Grimes.
"They're Fundamentalists," she told him. "Theirs is one of the real, old-time religions. They believe in an afterlife, with Heaven and Hell. They believe, too, that Hell is tailored to fit you. As a Neo-Calvinist you're supposed to visualize the worst possible way for you to be obliged to spend eternity. It's supposed to induce humility and all the rest of it."
"This is a morbid conversation," said Grimes.
She laughed mirthlessly. "Isn't it? And do you know what my private idea of Hell was?"
"I haven't a clue."
"You wouldn't. Well, as a policewoman I've been responsible for putting quite a few people behind bars. My private idea of Hell was for me to be a prisoner forever and ever." She took another gulp of brandy. "I'm beginning to wonder . . . Did we survive the blast that destroyed Delta Geminorum? It would make much more sense if we had been killed, wouldn't it?"
"But we're not dead."
"How do you know?" she asked.
"Well," he said slowly, "my idea of Hell is not quite comfortable accommodation shared with an attractive member of the opposite sex." He finished his drink, got up and moved around the small table. He lifted her from her chair, turned her so that she was facing him. Both of them, having removed their spacesuits, were now clad only in the long underwear. He could feel the soft pressure of her body against his, knew that she must be feeling his burgeoning hardness. He knew that she was responding, knew that it was only a matter of seconds before the longjohns would be discarded, before her morbid thoughts would be dispelled. His mouth was on hers, on her warm, moist, parted lips. His right hand, trapped between them, was yet free enough to seek and to find the tag of the fastener of her single garment, just below her throat. Just one swift tug, and . . . .
Suddenly she broke free, using both her hands to shove him away violently. Her longjohns were open to the crotch and she hastily pulled up the fastener, having trouble with her breasts as she did so.
"No," she said. "No!"
"But, Una . . . ."
"No."
He muttered something about absurd Neo-Calvinist ideas of morality.
She laughed bitterly. She told him, "I said that I was, once, a Neo-Calvinist. And it didn't last long. I am, still, a policewoman . . . ."
"A woman, just as I'm a man. The qualifications, policewoman and spaceman, don't matter."
"Let me finish, Buster. It has occurred to me, in my professional capacity, that this boat is probably well and truly bugged, that Panzen can not only hear everything we say, but see everything that we do. And after our unsuccessful attempt at escape he'll not be passing his time working out chess problems anymore." She paused for breath. "And, neither as a policewoman nor as a woman, do I feel like taking part in an exhibition fuck."
Grimes saw her point. He would not have used those words himself, still being prone to a certain prudery in speech if not in action. Nonetheless, he did not give up easily. He said, "But Panzen's not human."
"That makes it all the worse. To have intercourse while that artificial intelligence watches coldly, making notes probably, recording every muscular spasm, every gasp . . . No! I'd sooner do it in front of some impotent old man who would, at least, get an all too human kick out of watching us!"
He managed a laugh. "Now I'm almost a convert to Neo-Calvinism. Being in prison is your idea of Hell, being in a state of continual frustration may well be mine . . . ." And he thought, What if there is some truth in that crazy idea of hers? What if we were killed when Delta Geminorum blew up? After all, we should have been . . . . What if this is some sort of afterlife?
He returned to the table, poured himself another generous portion of brandy.
She said, "That doesn't help."
He retorted, "Doesn't it? But it does. It has just occurred to me that neither your private Hell nor mine would be provided with this quite excellent pain-deadener."
She said, "Then I'd better have some, while it lasts."
Grimes was the first to awaken. He did not feel at all well. After he had done all that he had to do in the boat's toilet facilities he felt a little stronger and decided that a hair of the dog that had bitten him might be an aid to full recovery.
The bottle on the table was empty.
There should have been four unopened bottles remaining in the storeroom. They were gone.