thick growth of gray whiskers, stubbling the man's chin and cheeks, Caine noticed, and the man's eyes were not sad any more. They appeared to burn, like his wife's. He grinned at Caine and it was a humorless grin, his teeth set tightly together. "You're lucky, Caine," he said. "I set it instead of cutting it off."

Caine watched the grinning stubbled face. He felt a shudder trembling through his body, and the sweat on his face turned cold. I'm not Nic Caine, he thought. Surely not. I'm just a frightened, chilled man with no guts or reason. I am a rubber puppet, that's who I am. Pull the strings, Mr. Puppet Master.

"Get up," said Fairchild.

"That's right," Caine mumbled, smiling crazily.

He pushed himself up and stood swaying in the cabin of the broken ship. He looked around, his eyes suddenly fierce. "Is this twisted wreck my pretty silver ship?" he asked loudly. "Oh, no!" he said, and tried to kick at a splintered panel.

He felt himself pitching forward, and he caught out his good hand, steadying himself. The drug, the pain, he thought deep in his brain, my damned arm.

But he was like two people, watching each other, shifting back and forth from one identity to another. Rational, irrational, laughing, crying.

He looked at the woman. She was huddling near the rear of the cabin. Blood spilled in a thin line down the side of her face from a cut above her eyes. "We'll never get out," she said. Her voice was a high-pitched sound with no change of tone in it. "We'll never get out."

"Why don't you dance for us?" Caine said, blinking with the brightness of his suggestion.

"Move, Caine," the man said, prodding Caine's back. "She'll dance when I give her the gem."

Caine crawled slowly out of the cabin. The undercarriage had been smashed, and the cabin was level with the ground. It was like going into a sea of vapor when he got out of the ship.

How long? he thought, looking at his splintered arm. How long would the drug hang onto his brain? This was not himself. This was a weak spinning scarecrow who was drunk on dope.

Then the pain smashed into his awareness. It disappeared as suddenly. He was in agony, then there was only the foolish whirling of his brain. He turned slowly, like a limp mannequin, searching the blankness of the mist.

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