As he walked back to the crew's quarters, Warmack found he was a bit wobbly in the knees.  He wasn't cut out for this work, he'd botched it, and things were going downhill fast.  He still didn't know for sure that Victor Belden was Aaron Lamb, and even if he got another chance to search that cabin, and found the courage to do it, how could he get the foot locker open?  If there was evidence, it was probably in there.  And now Kinney was suspicious, and she'd tell Witherspoon about him.  As motherly as Captain Witherspoon might seem at times, he wasn't at all convinced she wasn't capable of booting a spy out the airlock.  And what if Belden wasn't the one?  Then Warmack had no clues at all to Lamb's identity--or rather, too many clues going in too many directions because everyone on this ship was strange.  The ship itself was strange, packed with five times the normal diagnostic equipment, and hiding a secret invention in its bowels.  Everything was strange, and Warmack was getting nowhere.  At this rate, even if he did make it back to Earth in one piece, he'd be lucky to get a job as a street sweeper.

     He glanced through the door as he passed the common room.  The Ambassador was staring keenly at an African violet.  Belden was reading one of the books from his suitcase.  Tevjik and Muggins were washing dishes, and Witherspoon was playing chess with Lewis.  Warmack wondered how they did it without a referee.

     His cabin had been searched.  As soon as he entered, he noticed some toilet articles on the dresser had been moved around, and the clothes in his open suitcase, which he had left messy, had been folded.  Lydia Kinney, it seemed, did not quite have the hang of spying either.  He sat down on the bed and laughed.

     After he'd showered and slathered himself with lotion, it was still too early for sleep, and he didn't feel like bandying secrets in the common room.  So he propped himself up on some pillows and watched the subspace from Earth for a while.  It was the usual drivel.  He played with the remote control, switching channels at random until he came across something of tolerable quality--a very old American Western--which provided the escape he needed.  After a while, his confusion and ill-ease subsided and he dozed off.

     It was a pricking in his arm that woke him.  He opened his eyes and saw Victor Belden dabbing a spot of blood off his arm with a cotton ball.  He smelled rubbing alcohol.

     "What the hell--!"  He started to get up, but the valet pushed him down, gently.

     "Better stay horizontal," Belden said.  "You're going to feel dizzy for a minute or two."

     It was so.  The room started to tilt and spin.  Warmack fought off an attack of nausea.  When he could talk safely, he said, "So you're Aaron Lamb.  Is it all right if I sit up now?  You're not going to shoot me or anything?"

     "Feel free."

     "That I don't."  Warmack sat up and rubbed his arm.  "What was that?"

     "Just something to put you in the mood to chat.  It has no bad aftereffects.  You won't even be hung over."  The other man pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed.  "So, how do you know my name?"

     Now was the time to turn the spy in to Captain Witherspoon.  Lamb probably hadn't found the plans to the foiler yet, but the way things were going, he might go on that killing spree any time.  Now, while Warmack was still physically able and not too deeply suspected by the smugglers, was the time to leap up and sprint for the Captain's cabin.  Now was the time, he told himself.  Now.  His muscled twitched a bit, but a gentle lassitude overrode his urge to get up.  "Oh, Intelligence told me," he said pleasantly.

     "Earth Intelligence?"

     "Yeah."  Warmack smiled.

     The spy looked confused.  I thought I knew all our boys.  Who the hell are you?"

     "Jasper Warmack."

     "Jasper--wait a minute.  I've heard of you.  An arms manufacturer.  No.  THE arms manufacturer."

     "Yeah."

     His face hardened.  "So, you're defecting."

     "No.  Intelligence sent me."  Warmack giggled.  "Don't you think it's funny that they call themselves that?"  His hands rubbed his thighs and then began slowly to scratch them.

     "Sometimes."  Lamb leaned forward earnestly.  When he dropped the Victor Belden persona, he didn't seem like a bad sort.  He had a square, likeable face.  "Now, let me get this straight.  You're the only reliable arms manufacturer on Earth.  Our government depends on you for its military strength."

     "Yeah.  They'd fall apart without me.  A year later they wouldn't need the Fringe to beat them; hell, Phobos Base could do it."

     "So I've read.  And I know you wouldn't lie or exaggerate, at the moment.  So, why did Intelligence send you on a dangerous mission for which you're obviously not qualified?  One that I've got well covered, anyway?"

     Warmack rolled over to scratch his buttocks, and sighed.  "I think Planetary Ordinance or Lowran-Kafti bribed somebody to get me out of their way.  But you don't have it covered.  After you transmit the plans to the foiler, I'm supposed to betray you to Captain Witherspoon."

     "What?"

     "After you transmit the--"

     "Don't say it again.  What are you trying to do, fake me out or--" Lamb caught himself.  "But you can't, of course.  You're telling me the simple truth.  My organization, my--friends, they want to get rid of me."  He looked away for a while.  "That's very hard to accept.  What reason did they give you?"

     "That you're getting paranoid and you're going to go off your rocker and go on a killing spree and poison all the spies and maybe a city or two."

     Lamb thought about that.  "Well, if I did think everybody was out to get me, would it really be fair to call it paranoia?  Don't answer.  Rhetorical question.  But the hell of it is, they haven't accused me of something like treason, that I could disprove.  Nobody in history was ever able to prove they weren't crazy."  His mouth twisted into a smile.  "Least of all someone in my line of work.  Poison all the spies and a city or two.  Jesus.  What do they base that on?  Have I been drooling on the floor or laughing maniacally in unwary moments?"

     "I heard something about some tests."

     "Those things!  If anybody checks out normal on those, he paid off the psychiatrist.  I've been framed."  The spy took a deep breath.  "There are guys in the department who hate me, but I never thought they'd go this far.  I guess you and I are in the same boat, Warmack."

     "It looks that way."  Warmack began to believe Aaron Lamb was not a psychotic killer after all.  Maybe he could be reasoned with.  Maybe they could both come out of this all right.  But somehow, Warmack didn't quite have the energy to make any suggestions.  He slumped down onto the pillows and stared at the TV screen.  There was still a Western on, though not the same one.  Some cowboys were cutting down a barbed-wire fence.  He watched the show for a few minutes, idly scratching his arms, while Aaron Lamb sat and thought.

     "Warmack," Lamb said finally.

     Warmack turned his head.  "Yes?"

     The spy looked a little sad, as though he had reached a decision he didn't like.  But he said, "What makes you tick, Warmack?  Why have you kept on working for our side when so many others have defected?"

     "Well, I like working with machines.  And I can make a good living building guns.  I can afford good food, an antigrav bed, a hot tub, a car, privacy--all the comforts.  I just like to be comfortable."

     "That's all you want out of life?  That's all you work for?  What about patriotism, loyalty, the promotion of the Terrestrial way of life throughout explored space?"

     "Nope."  Warmack shook his head.

     "You and I are not much alike," Lamb said.  "But this simplifies things.  Now, am I correct in supposing that you've been threatened with the loss of your--comforts--if you don't come back with my head on a platter, so to speak?"

     "Yeah.  I'll lose a vital contract and go out of business."

     "Then we'll give the damn fools what they've demanded of you, so my planet won't lose your services."

     Warmack scratched his side.

     "Why do you keep scratching?"

     "I itch."

     "Oh.  Now, I'd better fill you in on the situation.  Intelligence will be wanting you to bring back the plans to the mass detector foiler, but you won't be able to do that.  I'm sure it hasn't been invented yet."

     "It was used to smuggle aspirins to Earth."

     Lamb smiled.  "So they led us to believe.  A laboratory was set up on Witch's Tit to make it look as though they'd worked on the foiler there.  The Star Nymph landed with all her mass precisely accounted for, and rolled off ditto, and yet carried in about 250 kilos of contraband.  A mass detector foiler would seem the obvious explanation, as there was nothing in the incoming mass manifest that could have been spared--or so our boys thought--and everything loaded on and off the ship was measured by Customs, too.  Except the crew."

     "I remember being massed."

     "Sure, so was I.  But the way I figure it, there was a quick shuffle at the spaceport.  Customs naturally assumed the Star Nymph came in with a crew.  But in fact, its crew was waiting for it in a restroom at the port, or some such place.  I'd bet anything that Kinney, Muggins, and Tevjik equal the combined mass of the aspirin shipment."

     "How do you know they didn't come in on the ship?"  Warmack rubbed his cheeks and gently raked them with his nails.

     "You've examined the ship's systems.  You tell me, could the Star Nymph get along without the services of those three?"

     Warmack thought it over.  "Easily," he decided, "if it has the kind of computer that can replace a gravitist."

     "Might there be such a computer on board?"

     "I know where it is," Warmack said suddenly.  "I just didn't believe they could afford it."

     "There's plenty of money on the Fringe, except in the governments.  I suspect this expedition is a private venture, and they've just brought along the Ambassador as camouflage.  Haven't had a chance to question him properly yet.  But the point is, this whole business, the aspirin shipment and everything, was a show put on for the benefit of System Intelligence to convince us there was no point in looking for three people.  They looked familiar, but I might never have figured it out except that they didn't know a thing about chess, and then suddenly it all fell into place and I recognized them through the superficial changes in their appearance.  I've been on their case, on and off, for four months.  Do you know who they are?"  He answered himself triumphantly.  Mattie Kopeck, specialist in impossible particles.  Timothy Friday, specialist in non-temporal physics.  And Alexander Sand, specialist in ethereal fields.  The three defectors whom we feared COULD invent the mass detector foiler, if they ever got the chance.  I kept telling everyone they hadn't been smuggled off-planet yet, and I was right.  The other nine missing scientists must still be on Earth somewhere, waiting to be taken out as soon as the foiler is developed.  When I saw you play chess, I thought you must be one of those nine, but I couldn't figure out which one.  Then tonight when I saw your cowlick sticking up out of my shower stall, I was really baffled.  I couldn't figure out whether you were a defector, or a spy working for them.  But I knew--or thought I knew--that they were onto me."

     "They are.  I wasn't the only one in the shower stall."

     "Really?  No matter.  It seems I've made my move before they got around to making theirs.  No doubt they're keeping an eye on things through the monitors tonight, but those are easy to avoid, and there aren't any hidden ones.  I checked."

     Warmack scratched his neck.

     "I hope you're not having an allergic reaction to the drug I used," Lamb said.  "Stop that, my friend--you're scratching the skin raw.  That's better.  Now, here's my plan.  Kopeck, Friday, and Sand have to be returned to Earth, preferably unharmed.  And it has to be done by you, so you'll get that contract and say in business and keep the Earth strong."

     "What about you?"

     "I'm expendable.  I'd let you turn me in to the smugglers, as Intelligence planned--" He shook his head sadly.  "--except that we've got to take over the ship and turn her around.  Plans to a machine could be transmitted across subspace, but three scientists can't.  So we'll go back, and you'll turn me in there."

     "Will they kill you?"

     "Damned if I know.  I thought I understood those guys, but tonight I've found out differently.  Odds are they'll kill me, but then again, maybe they'll lock me up or let me go or give me a raise.  That isn't important.  The security of the Earth is important."

     "How are you going to take over the ship?"

     "Not I--we.  Dr. Kopeck is nominal chief of security so she presumably has access to all the monitors and probably a gun, plus, if this ship is standard, she can probably dose the vent system with sleep gas.  And then there's Witherspoon.  She bunks just off the bridge.  I haven't had a chance to look around up there, but I'm sure she has defenses of some sort.  And excepting me, she's far and away the toughest customer on board.  The way I see it, Kopeck and Witherspoon have to be knocked out simultaneously.  So I need your help, Warmack."

     "Would I have to stand up?"

     Lamb smiled gently.  "Yes, but you'll be able to do that when the time comes."  He pulled a fat paperback book from his shirt pocket, opened it, and took out a hypodermic syringe.  "You'll be able to do everything, in fact.  I've never met a more ideal subject for this drug.  There's nothing in you to resist it."  He straightened out Warmack's right arm and pushed away the left hand, which was scratching it.  "This won't hurt."

     "Ow."

     "Well, not much.  Now we'll wait for it to take effect."

     "What will it do?"

     "Nothing to harm you.  It'll just make you very agreeable for a while, that's all."

     "I've always been agreeable."

     "So it seems."  Lamb shook his head.  "But I just can't quite believe--well, never mind.  Relax and let the drug spread.  I understand it's quite pleasant."

     Warmack lay passively on the bed, watching the moving images on the television without real interest. There was a shoot-out in progress.

     "Warmack," Lamb said presently.

     "Yes?"

     "The little finger on your left hand is completely insensitive to pain."

     "Oh."

     "Break it for me, please."

     "Okay."  Warmack took hold of the finger and bent it back.

     "Stop!  Cancel that suggestion.  You're ready.  Now, here is what you must do.  It's very simple."  He placed a syringe on Warmack's palm.  "Go and find Dr. Kopeck--she's probably in her room.  Be sure you're not seen by any monitors along the way.  When you find her, say whatever is necessary in order to get close enough to give her this shot.  It will make her sleep.  If anything goes wrong--" He tucked a small dart gun into Warmack's pocket "--use the gun instead.  It will put her to sleep, too.  Then all you have to do is wait.  I'll be along after I've taken care of Witherspoon.  Do you understand?"

     "Yeah."

     "And stop scratching.  You're making me itch.  All right, let's get going."

     Warmack got off the bed and walked out.  He heard Lamb going in the other direction.

     He hardly noticed where he was going as he plodded down the corridor to the ladder.  He itched in six places at once.  He ducked under a monitor, which wasn't turned on anyway, and started down the ladder.  Lamb had told him not to scratch and for a while he didn't, but by the time he'd climbed down two levels, he had to.  He stopped and scratched his entire body and even rubbed his back against the ladder, but he felt no better.  He could no longer remember when the discomfort had started.  It seemed to have been with him for an eternity.  He had probably spent more of his life scratching than he had spent filling out forms.  It had taken on all the inevitability, the philosophic certainty, of death and taxes.  It ruled his life.

     He stood in the main corridor of the third level, and had to remind himself what he was doing here.  The needle.  Lydia Kinney/Mattie Kopeck.  Wait for Lamb, then back to Earth.  Back to the nice apartment and the antigrav bed.  If anything goes wrong, use the gun instead.

     He started down the corridor, scratching his buttocks.  He felt a bit foggy, but the itch told him what he had to do.  It prodded him forward.  The needle.  The gun.  The itch.  Lydia/Mattie.  Earth.

     The itch was getting worse.  He stopped and scratched again.  He wasn't supposed to scratch, but he ITCHED, damn it!  Everywhere!  He sat down, took his shoes off, and scratched the soles of his feet and between his toes.  He scratched his crotch.  He took off his pants and shorts and scratched it better.  Then he took off his shirt and scratched his armpits.  He rubbed his back against a piece of machinery.  He scratched one leg with the toenails of the other foot.  Nothing helped.  He felt like he had five hundred mosquito bites.  He made an inarticulate sound of misery and frustration, and staggered down the corridor.

     It was impossible to concentrate on walking.  The itch was driving him crazy.  Scratching had no effect whatever.  Lotion didn't help.  Anaesthetic didn't help.  Hot tubs didn't help. Cold showers didn't help.  Antigrav beds didn't help.  Doing things to the itch didn't help; leaving it alone didn't help; thinking about it didn't help; not thinking about it didn't help; working didn't help; staying home didn't help; all the money on Earth didn't help; if anything goes wrong use the gun.  Everything was wrong.  He clawed at his chest and realized the gun was missing, along with his shirt.  He staggered another step, collapsed into a seat, pounded his fists and screamed.

     The sound of his voice was consumed by the roar of the Foeburster.  Its five great barrels spoke five words of gigantic, overpowering, explosive, shattering RELEASE.

     Warmack blinked.  The report of the rocket launcher came echoing back from distant parts of the ship, and his head rang like a bell, yet he felt a strange internal silence.  Before he could quite put his finger on why that was, a door banged and Lydia Kinney/Mattie Kopeck rushed out of her cabin with half her hair in curlers.  From the way she loomed over him, he realized he was lying on the floor.

     "Warmack!" she said.  "What the hell--" She turned white.  "Your legs!"

     "Oh," said Warmack, looking down.  "That's all right."

     "Don't panic.  What can I--I'll call Captain Witherspoon on the intercom.  She's as good as a doctor.  Stay right there!"

     "No, wait!  Tell her Lamb--Belden, I mean--is coming to her cabin to take over the ship.  He has drugs, all kinds, and a pistol, and maybe a dart gun.  Tell her he's tricky."

     Kopeck ran back into her cabin.  Warmack heard her frantic voice on the intercom.  He was interested in what would happen between Lamb and Witherspoon, but he was more interested in the sudden knowledge that he didn't itch anymore.  His broken legs didn't hurt yet; he supposed he was in shock.  But that wasn't why he didn't itch.  He knew why he didn't itch.

     She came out of her cabin again.  "It's all over," she said, dropping to her knees beside him.  "When the rocket launcher went off, the Captain woke up, just as Belden was about to give her a shot of something.  She knocked him out.  She's tying him up now.  Warmack, are you in pain?  Stupid question."

     "No, I'm all right.  It'll hurt later, I guess.  But Lydia--Mattie--I'm free of it."

     "Of Belden?"

     "I got rid of it.  I'm free."

     "Sure.  She gazed critically at his eyes.  "Did Belden give you some sort of drug?"

     "He did, yes.  But it's GONE.  I'm FREE."

     "You've been free since we left Earth this morning."

     "No, you don't understand.  I was working with them.  I was going to help him take you back to Earth.  But it was all closing in and picking at me and I couldn't stand it anymore and I killed it."

     "Warmack, you should try to rest."

     "I shot it, I got rid of it."

     "Yes, you did.  It will die, and we'll all be glad.  Even the Earthies, after a while.  Now I think you'd better try and wind down, pal.  The Captain will be along pretty soon with something to make you feel better."

     "That reminds me.  There's something I have to do."

     "What?"

     "Bend closer."

     Mattie Kopeck leaned down toward him, smiling.  Her lips puckered.  He reached up and gently inserted the needle into her arm.

     After that, his legs started to hurt, and then he had an unclear notion of voices in the room, and Captain Witherspoon's homely face bending over him with a look of concern.

     His next moment of clear awareness found him lying in a bed, looking at two enormous white casts suspended from a steel-tube framework down at the end of the bed.  His legs hurt.  Taking inventory, he discovered sore spots all over his body where he had scratched the skin raw.  And contrary to Lamb's promise, he had a terrible hangover.  But maybe that was from whatever it was Witherspoon had given him.

     Hearing voices in the next room, he cleared his throat and inquired loudly, "Hey, is aspirin legal here?"

     The Captain came in, smiling, following by Kopeck and Tevjik--or rather, Sand.  "Yes, it's legal here," she said.  "Be a nice girl, Mattie, and get him some.  Well, son, you popped out of the anaesthetic a lot quicker than I expected."

     "Can't you take this stuff off my legs?  I hate being confined."

     "In twenty days, when we touch down on Witch's Tit--on our retros, thank god--there'll be a doctor waiting with a shot of bone stimulant, and you'll be on your feet an hour later.  Till then, you're stuck in traction.  Sorry.  I'm going to miss your help with the ship."

     "What did you do with Lamb?"

     "The spy?  Is that his name?  He's tied up.  We're keeping a guard on him, if you can call Lewis a guard.  He won't tell us anything.  He'll stand trial on Witch's Tit.  Maybe he'll get traded back to Earth."

     "I know a little about him.  I'll fill you in later.  Was the Ambassador drugged?"

     "Do you think he always has mashed potatoes on his chicken?  He's sleeping it off.  It wasn't necessary to drug the poor guy--we would have hired Belden anyway.  Lamb, I mean.  My employers expected to be infiltrated on this trip.  We were going to lock him up today, as soon as we were out of striking range from Earth."

     "Were you going to lock me up, too?"

     "Of course not!  We knew who you were.  We've been expecting you to defect for a long time.  It was damned inconvenient for Andy Pedilla that you didn't give us a little more warning.  After he's finished baking his buns on Fiji, he's going to have to go and hide out with the remaining defectors until we get a workable mass detector foiler."

     "I've been wanting to ask you, why is there a rocket launcher on this ship?  You must know it isn't a practical defense."

     "We needed another crew position so we'd have a place to put Mattie.  The Foeburster happened to be a bargain and it gave me an idea, so I bought it and made her chief of security.  A ship with a chief of security ought to be armed, right?  Sorry about the mis-installation.  It's not my type of gun."

     Mattie Kopeck came in with two aspirin and a glass of water.

     "Don't drink too much," said the Captain.  "Remember you're in bedpan city for the rest of the trip."   She glanced at her watch.  "Gotta go.  I'm teaching Friday how to play chess."

     Warmack waited until the door closed behind her.  "Dr. Kopeck," he said.

     "Mattie."

     "Then you can call me Jass.  Mattie, about last night--"

     "The hypo?  You weren't responsible.  I got a great night's sleep and didn't even wake up with a hangover.  No apology necessary."

     "Yeah, I'm glad.  But I'm sure I remember telling you that I was working for Earth.  It sounds like you didn't mention that to Witherspoon."

     "I didn't mention it because it isn't true.  You had to do what that man said because of some drug, but you still broke your own legs to warn us."

     "No, no, that was just a side effect.  I had to fire the gun, for myself.  I needed its voice."  He smiled.  "Didn't you hear the words come ringing out when the gun went off, Mattie?"

     "No.  What did it say?"

     Warmack leaned his head back and closed his eyes.  He did not perceptibly alter his gentle smile, but suddenly his un-memorable face was worth remembering.  "I... want... to... be... free!"