Free Pohlstars by Frederik Pohl Page A

May and her son. What could I do to prevent it? I ruminated a thousand plans. I could confront Dougie with my suspicions and warn him that he was being watched-foolish idea! The one thing you could not do to Dougie d'Agasto was frighten him off. I could warn May. I could tell her what I believed and beg her to leave him. But that was almost as foolish. If she had been willing to listen, she would never have married the creature in the first place. The best plan was the one that I rejected most positively and at once. I could, I thought out of my anger and despair, do to Dougie himself what I feared he would do to May.
    But I could not stoop so low, though for many years I have wished I had.
    And while I was stewing over whether to call May, and what to say to her if I did, I got a call from her. She looked troubled and very weary, but she was trying to sound happy. "Good news, Jason," she cried, though her eyes made liars of her words. "Dougie says we won't have to worry about that-that letter problem, anymore. He says he is certain of it. He has gone to get documentary proof, and he'll bring it to you. But she added, although I could see that it cost her, "But you're the one who has to decide if the proof is enough, Jay. I'll abide by whatever you decide.
    And two days later, before dawn, Dougie's plane screamed in. It woke me from my sleep. By the time I got to the landing strip he was gone, the pilot waiting by the ship to pass on his instructions for me. Mr. d'Agasto had had the deck crew take his materials down to the scavenging deck. Mr. d'Agasto would wait for me there. Mr. d'Agasto asked that I join him at once.
    Mr. d'Agasto was getting on my nerves. Why the scavenging deck? It was not much more than a sewer head- when we built lips around the oaty-boats, we could no longer throw our garbage over the side, so there was a well that opened out under the hull. It was a tiny, dirty chamber down near the waterline, not a place where anyone went for choice. I didn't like Dougie's choice of a place, I didn't like getting orders from him-most of all, of course, I didn't like Dougie himself. But I went. And all the way down on the hoist, and all across the wide, hissing, rumbling of the boat's workings as the tram carried me through the low-pressure turbine decks, I was wondering if this was a scheme of Dougie's to kill me and dump me down the scavenging well. I had not forgotten what he was.
    I also had not forgotten some of the other things Betsy had told me. They were not useful things. They were what she thought were sexually stimulating things. They had to do with Dougie's tastes: How he liked to do that, she said showing me that and also this, demonstrating this , and most of all he likes to do these others... But some of those others I would not allow at all, and my stomach turned as the images formed in my mind of what went on between Dougie and my May in their private hours. So I did not want to see the man at all. And if it was his plan to kill me-well, then at least I would never again be troubled with these poisonous thoughts.
    He did not have any such plans, it turned out.
    He was alone in the scavenging chamber. It reeked, for he had opened the main access hatch and the oily, warm water was only a few meters below, with all its leftover stinks. Dougie had a great packing ease at his feet, and he was smoking a joint to combat the stench. "Close the door, he ordered.
    I did as I was told. Dougie could see that I was ill at ease. It amused him. "This won't take long, he promised. "Help me open the box.
    I did that, too, very obedient to his instructions. The box was very heavy, and there was waterproof sacking around it, a metal container nearly two meters long. It was sealed and locked. "You take good care of your documents, I panted as I lifted one corner so that Dougie could unlock the strapping.
    He laughed-I did not then know why. It took him some time to get the lid open- The lid of the coffin.
A terrible