The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Impossibles, by Gordon Randall Garrett and Laurence Mark Janifer

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Title: The Impossibles

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett
Laurence Mark Janifer

Release Date: August 16, 2007 [EBook #22338]

Date Last Updated: October 2, 2007
[Last updated: July 16, 2011]

Language: English

*** Start Of This Project Gutenberg Ebook The Impossibles ***

Some Garrett: A Collection of Some Stories

Gordon Randall Garrett

collected stories from Project Gutenberg (wed. editor)

Contents

The Impossibles
Unwise Child
...After a Few Words
Damned If You Don't
But, I Don't Think
The Destroyers
Quest of the Golden Ape
...Or Your Money Back
Heist Job On Thizar
Time Fuze
Hanging by a Thread
Out Like a Light
The Measure Of A Man
Viewpoint
Occasion for Disaster
The Asses of Balaam
The Foreign Hand Tie
The Eyes Have It
Nor Iron Bars a Cage...
Thin Edge

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from the 1963 book publication of the story. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed.

Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.

* * * * *

Since the publication of BRAIN TWISTER (Pyramid Book F-783), Mark (Laurence M. Janifer) Phillips (Randall Philip Garrett) has, or have, undergone several changes. In order to keep the reader posted on the latest developments regarding this author, or these authors, he, or they, has, or have, passed on the following details:

GARRETT is still engaged. He and his charming fiancee plan to run out of excuses during the early Fall of 1994, but this date may be changed at any time by mutual agreement, or the end of the world. He has given up an interest in river pollution in favor of a new hobby, grading type-cleaner. Garrett, who spends an hour each day expanding his repertoire, now claims the ability to distinguish year and vineyard for over one thousand type-cleaners.

JANIFER is still on the other hand. He has had his eyeglasses cleaned, and is happy to report that he has recently met a woman. The woman, however, seems to have been looking for a man. Janifer's hobbies, humming and blinking, remain constant, but in an effort to add more healthful activity to his life he has begun training in leaping to conclusions. He states that he can now clear a conclusion of better than seven feet, eight and one-half inches from a running start.

THE IMPOSSIBLES was written in six days. On the seventh day, nothing of any interest whatsoever occurred.

The Impossibles

Mark Phillips

To John J.,

without whose accident in 1945 this series would not have been possible.

1

The sidewalk was as soft as a good bed. Malone lay curled on it, thinking about nothing at all. He was drifting off into a wonderful dream, and he didn't want to interrupt it. There was this girl, a beautiful girl, more wonderful than anything he had ever imagined, with big blue eyes and long blonde hair and a figure that made the average pin-up girl look like a man. And she had her soft white hand on his arm, and she was looking, up at him with trust and devotion and even adoration in her eyes, and her voice was the softest possible whisper of innocence and promise.

"I'd love to go up to your apartment with you, Mr. Malone," she said.

Malone smiled back at her, gently but with complete confidence. "Call me Ken," he said, noticing that he was seven feet tall and superbly muscled. He put his free hand on the girl's warm, soft shoulder and she wriggled with delight.

"All right--Ken," she said. "You know, I've never met anyone like you before. I mean, you're so wonderful and everything."

Malone chuckled modestly, realizing, in passing, how full and rich his voice had become. He felt a weight pressing over his heart, and knew that it was his wallet, stuffed to bursting with thousand-dollar bills.

But was this a time to think of money?

No, Malone told himself. This was the time for adventure, for romance, for love. He looked down at the girl and put his arm around her waist. She snuggled closer.

He led her easily down the long wide street to his car at the end of the block. It stood in godlike solitude, a beautiful red Cadillac capable of going a hundred and ten miles an hour in any gear, equipped with fully automatic steering and braking, and with a stereophonic radio, a hi-fi and a 3-D set installed in both front and back seats. It was a 1972 job, but he meant to trade it in on something even better when the 1973 models came out. In the meantime, he decided, it would do.

He handed the girl in, went round to the other side and slid in under the wheel. There was soft music playing somewhere, and a magnificent sunset appeared ahead of them as Malone pushed a button on the dashboard and the red Cadillac started off down the wide, empty, wonderfully paved street into the sunset, while he... The red Cadillac?

The sidewalk became a little harder, and, Malone suddenly realized that he was lying on it. Something terrible had happened; he knew that right away. He opened his eyes to look for the girl, but the sunset had become much brighter; his head began to pound with the slow regularity of a dead-march, and he closed his eyes again in a hurry.

The sidewalk swayed a little, but he managed to keep his balance on it somehow; and after a couple of minutes it was quiet again. His head hurt. Maybe that was the terrible thing that had happened, but Malone wasn't quite sure. As a matter of fact, he wasn't very sure about anything, and he started to ask himself questions to make certain he was all there.

He didn't feel all there. He felt as if several of his parts had been replaced with second- or even third-hand experimental models, and something had happened to the experiment. It was even hard to think of any questions, but after a while he managed to come up with a few.

What is your name?

Kenneth Malone.

Where do you live?

Washington, D. C.

What is your work?

I work for the FBI.

Then what the hell are you doing on a sidewalk in New York in broad daylight?

He tried to find an answer to that, but there didn't seem to be any, no matter where he looked. The only thing he could think of was the red Cadillac.

And if the red Cadillac had anything to do with anything, Malone didn't know about it.

Very slowly and carefully, he opened his eyes again, one at a time. He discovered that the light was not coming from the gorgeous Hollywood sunset he had dreamed up. As a matter of fact, sunset was several hours in the past, and it never looked very pretty in New York anyhow. It was the middle of the night, and Malone was lying under a convenient street lamp.

He closed his eyes again and waited patiently for his head to go away.

A few minutes passed. It was obvious that his head had settled down for a long stay, and no matter how bad it felt, Malone told himself, it was his head, after all. He felt a certain responsibility for it. And he couldn't just leave it lying around somewhere with its eyes closed.

He opened the head's eyes once more, and this time he kept them open. For a long time he stared at the post of the street lamp, considering it, and he finally decided that it looked sturdy enough to support a hundred and sixty-five pounds of FBI man, even with the head added in. He grabbed for the post with both hands and started to pull himself upright, noticing vaguely that his legs had somehow managed to get underneath him.

As soon as he was standing, he wished he'd stayed on the nice horizontal sidewalk. His head was spinning dizzily, and his mind was being sucked down into the whirlpool. He held on to the post grimly and tried to stay conscious.

A long time, possibly two or three seconds, passed. Malone hadn't moved at all when the two cops came along.

One of them was a big man with a brassy voice and a face that looked as if it had been overbaked in a waffle iron. He came up behind Malone and tapped him on the shoulder, but Malone barely felt the touch. Then the cop bellowed into Malone's ear: "What's the matter, buddy?"

Malone appreciated the man's sympathy. It was good to know that you had friends. But he wished, remotely, that the cop and his friend, a shorter and thinner version of the beat patrolman, would go away and leave him in peace. Maybe he could lie down on the sidewalk again and get a couple of hundred years' rest.

Who could tell? "Mallri," he said.

"You're all right?" the big cop said. "That's fine. That's great. So why don't you go home and sleep it off?"

"Sleep?" Malone said. "Home?"

"Wherever you live, buddy," the big cop said. "Come on. Can't stand around on the sidewalk all night."

Malone shook his head, and decided at once never to do it again. He had some kind of rare disease, he realized. His brain was loose, and the inside of his skull was covered with sandpaper. Every time his head moved, the brain jounced against some of the sandpaper.

But the policemen thought he was drunk. That wasn't right. He couldn't let the police get the wrong impression of FBI agents. Now the men would go around telling people that the FBI was always drunk and disorderly.

"Not drunk," he said clearly.

"Sure," the big cop said. "You're fine. Maybe just one too many, huh?"

"No," Malone said. The effort exhausted him, and he had to catch his breath before he could say anything else. But the cops waited patiently. At last he said, "Somebody slugged me."

"Slugged?" the big cop said.

"Right." Malone remembered just in time not to nod his head.

"How about a description, buddy?" the big cop said.

"Didn't see him," Malone said. He let go of the post with one hand, keeping a precarious grip with the other. He stared at his watch. The hands danced back and forth, but he focused on them after a while. It was 1:05. "Happened just--a few minutes ago," he said. "Maybe you can catch him."

The big cop said, "Nobody around here. The place is deserted--except for you, buddy." He paused and then added: "Let's see some identification, huh? Or did he take your wallet?"

Malone thought about getting the wallet, and decided against it. The motions required would be a little tricky, and he wasn't sure he could manage them without letting go of the post entirely. At last he decided to let the cop get his wallet. "Inside coat pocket," he said.

The other policeman blinked and looked up. His face was a studied blank. "Hey, buddy," he said. "You know you got blood on your head?"

"Be damned," the big cop said. "Sam's right. You're bleeding, mister."

"Good," Malone said.

The big cop said, "Huh?"

"I thought maybe my skull was going to explode from high blood pressure," Malone said. It was beginning to be a little easier to talk. "But as long as there's a slow leak, I guess I'm out of danger."

"Get his wallet," Sam said. "I'll watch him."

A hand went into Malone's jacket pocket. It tickled a little bit, but Malone didn't think of objecting. Naturally enough, the hand and Malone's wallet did not make an instantaneous connection. When the hand touched the bulky object strapped near Malone's armpit, it stopped, frozen, and then cautiously snaked the object out.

"What's that, Bill?" Sam said.

Bill looked up with the object in his hand. He seemed a little dazed. "It's a gun," he said.

"My God," Sam said. "The guy's heeled! Watch him! Don't let him get away!"

Malone considered getting away, and decided that he couldn't move. "It's okay," he said.

"Okay, hell," Sam said. "It's a .44 Magnum. What are you doing with a gun, Mac?" He was no longer polite and friendly. "Why [are] you carrying a gun?" he said.

"I'm not carrying it," Malone said tiredly. "Bill is. Your pal."

Bill backed away from Malone, putting the Magnum in his pocket and keeping the FBI agent covered with his own Police Positive. At the same time, he fished out the personal radio every patrolman carried in his uniform, and began calling for a prowl car in a low, somewhat nervous voice.

Sam said, "My God. A gun. He could of shot everybody."

"Get his wallet," Bill said. "He can't hurt you now. I disarmed him."

Malone began to feel slightly dangerous. Maybe he was a famous gangster. He wasn't sure. Maybe all this about being an FBI agent was just a figment of his imagination. Blows on the head did funny things. "I'll drill everybody full of holes," he said in a harsh, underworld sort of voice, but it didn't sound very convincing. Sam approached him gently and fished out his wallet with great care, as if Malone were a ticking bomb ready to go off any second.

There was a little silence. Then Sam said, "Give him his gun back, Bill," in a hushed and respectful tone.

"Give him back his gun?" the big cop said. "You gone nuts, Sam?"

Sam shook his head slowly. "Nope," he said. "But we made a terrible mistake. Know who this guy is?"

"He's heeled," Bill said. "That's all I want to know." He put the radio away and gave all his attention to Malone.

"He's FBI," Sam said. "The wallet says so. Badge and everything. And not only that, Bill. He's Kenneth J. Malone."

Well, Malone thought with relief, that settled that. He wasn't a gangster after all. He was just the FBI agent he had always known and loved. Maybe now the cops would do-something about his head and take him away for burial.

"Malone?" Bill said. "You mean the guy who's here about all those red Cadillacs?"

"Sure," Sam said. "So give him his gun back." He looked at Malone. "Listen, Mr. Malone," he said. "We're sorry. We're sorry as hell."

"That's all right," Malone said absently. He moved his head slowly and looked around. His suspicions were confirmed. There wasn't a red Cadillac anywhere in sight, and from the looks of the street there never had been. "It's gone," he said, but the cops weren't listening.

"We better get you to a hospital," Bill said. "As soon as the prowl car gets here, we'll take you right on down to St. Vincent's. Can you tell us what happened? Or is it classified?"

Malone wondered what could be classified about a blow on the head, and decided not to think about it. "I can tell you," he said, "if you'll answer one question for me."

"Sure, Mr. Malone," Bill said. "We'll be glad to help."

"Anything at all," Sam said.

Malone gave them what he hoped was a gracious and condescending smile. "All right, then," he said. "Where the hell am I?"

"In New York," Sam said.

"I know that," Malone said tiredly. "Anywhere in particular, or just sort of all over New York?"

"Ninth Street," Bill said hurriedly. "Near the Village. Is that where you were when they slugged you?"

"I guess so," Malone said. "Sure." He nodded, and immediately remembered that he shouldn't have. He closed his eyes until the pain had softened to agony, and then opened them again. "I was getting pretty tired of sitting around waiting for something to break on this case," he said, "and I couldn't sleep, so I went out for a walk. I ended up in Greenwich Village--which is a hell of a place for a self-respecting man to end up."

"I know just what you mean," Sam said sympathetically. "Bohemians, they call themselves. Crazy people."

"Not the people," Malone said. "The streets. I got sort of lost." Chicago, he reflected, was a long way from the easiest city in the world to get around in. And he supposed you could even get confused in Washington if you tried hard enough. But he knew those cities. He could find his way around in them. Greenwich Village was different.

It was harder to navigate in than the trackless forests of the Amazon. The Village had tracks, all right--thousands of tracks. Only none of them led anywhere in particular.

"Anyhow," Malone said, "I saw this red Cadillac."

The cops looked around hurriedly and then looked back at Malone. Bill started to say, "But there isn't any--"

"I know," Malone said. "It's gone now. That's the trouble."

"You mean somebody got in and drove it away?" Sam said.

"For all I know," Malone said, "it sprouted wings and flew away." He paused. "When I saw it, though--when I saw it, I decided to go over and have a look. Just in case."

"Sure," Bill said. "Makes sense." He stared at his partner as if defying him to prove it didn't make sense. Malone didn't really care.

"There wasn't anybody else on the street," he said, "so I walked over and tried the door. That's all. I didn't even open the car or anything. And I'll swear there was nobody behind me."

"Well," Sam said, "the street was empty when we got here."

"But a guy could have driven off in that red Cadillac before we got here," Bill said.

"Sure," Malone said. "But where did he come from? I figured maybe somebody dropped something by mistake--a safe or something. Because there wasn't anybody behind me."

"There had to be," Bill said.

"Well," Malone said, "there wasn't."

There was a little silence.

"What happened then?" Sam said. "After you tried the door handle, I mean."

"Then?" Malone said. "Then I went out like a light."

A pair of headlights rounded the nearby corner. Bill looked up. "That's the prowl car," he announced, and went over to meet it.

The driver was a solidly built little man with the face of a Pekingese. His partner, a tall man who looked as if he'd have been much more comfortable in a ten-gallon Stetson instead of the regulation blue cap, leaned out at Bill, Sam, and Malone.

"What's the trouble here?" he said in a harsh, high voice.

"No trouble," Bill said, and went over to the car. He began talking to the two cops inside in a low, urgent voice. Meanwhile, Sam got his arm around Malone and began pulling him away from the lamp post.

Malone was a little unwilling to let go, at first. But Sam was stronger than he looked. He convoyed the FBI agent carefully to the rear door of the prowl car, opened it and levered Malone gently to a seat inside, just as Bill said, "So with the cut and all, we figured he ought to go over to St. Vincent's. You people were already on the way, so we didn't bother with ambulances."

The driver snorted. "Next time you want taxi service," he said, "you just call us up. What do you think, a prowl car's an easy life?"

"Easier than doing a beat," Bill said mournfully. "And anyway," he added in a low, penetrating whisper, "the guy's FBI."

"So the FBI's got all kinds of equipment," the driver said. "The latest. Why don't he whistle up a helicopter or a jet?" Then, apparently deciding that further invective would get him nowhere, he settled back in his seat, said, "Aah, forget it," and started the car with a small but perceptible jerk.

Malone decided not to get into the argument. He was tired, and it was late. He rested his head on the back seat and tried to relax, but all he could do was think about red Cadillacs.

He wished he had never even heard of red Cadillacs.

2

And it had all started so simply, too. Malone remembered very clearly the first time he had had any indication that red Cadillacs were anything unusual, or special. Before that, he'd viewed them all with slightly wistful eyes: red, blue, green, gray, white, or even black Cadillacs were all the same to him. They spelled luxury and wealth and display, and a lot of other nice things.

Now, he wasn't at all sure what they spelled. Except that it was definitely uncomfortable, and highly baffling.

He'd walked into the offices of Andrew J. Burris, Director of the FBI, just one week ago. It was a beautiful office, pine-paneled and spacious, and it boasted an enormous polished desk. And behind the desk sat Burris himself, looking both tired and somehow a little kindly.

"You sent for me, Chief?" Malone said.

"That's right." Burris nodded. "Malone, you've been working too hard lately."

Now, Malone thought, it was coming. The dismissal he'd always feared. At last Burris had found out that he wasn't the bright, intelligent, fearless, and alert FBI agent he was supposed to be. Burris had discovered that he was nothing more or less than lucky, and that all the "fine jobs" he was supposed to have done were only the result of luck.

Oh, well, Malone thought. Not being an FBI agent wouldn't be so bad. He could always find another job.

Only at the moment he couldn't think of one he liked.

He decided to make one last plea. "I haven't been working so hard, Chief," he said. "Not too hard, anyhow. I'm in great shape. I--"

"I've taken advantage of you, Malone, that's what I've done," Burris said, just as if Malone hadn't spoken at all. "Just because you're the best agent I've got, that's no reason for me to hand you all the tough ones."

"Just because I'm what?" Malone said, feeling slightly faint.

"I've given you the tough ones because you could handle them," Burris said. "But that's no reason to keep loading jobs on you. After that job you did on the Gorelik kidnaping, and the way you wrapped up the Transom counterfeit ring--well, Malone, I think you need a little relaxation."

"Relaxation?" Malone said, feeling just a little bit pleased. Of course, he didn't deserve any of the praise he was getting, he knew. He'd just happened to walk in on the Gorelik kidnapers because his telephone had been out of order. And the Transom ring hadn't been just his job. After all, if other agents hadn't managed to trace the counterfeit bills back to a common area in Cincinnati, he'd never have been able to complete his part of the assignment. But it was nice to be praised, anyhow. Malone felt a twinge of guilt, and told himself sternly to relax and enjoy himself.

"That's what I said," Burris told him. "Relaxation."

"Well," Malone said, "I certainly would like a vacation, that's for sure. I'd like to snooze for a couple of weeks, or maybe go up to Cape Cod for a while. There's a lot of nice scenery up around there. It's restful, sort of, and I could just--"

He stopped. Burris was frowning, and when Andrew J. Burris frowned it was a good idea to look attentive, interested, and alert. "Now, Malone," Burris said sadly, "I wasn't exactly thinking about a vacation. You're not scheduled for one until August, you know."

"Oh, I know, Chief," Malone said. "But I thought--"

"Much as I'd like to," Burris said, "I just can't make an exception; you know that, Malone. I've got to go pretty much by the schedule."

"Yes, sir," Malone said, feeling just a shade disappointed.

"But I do think you deserve a rest," Burris said.

"Well, if I--"

"Here's what I'm going to do," Burris said, and paused. Malone felt a little unsure as to exactly what his chief was talking about, but by now he knew better than to ask a lot of questions. Sooner or later, Burris would probably explain himself. And if he didn't, then there was no use worrying about it. That was just the way Burris acted.

"Suppose I gave you a chance to take it easy for a while," Burris said. "You could catch up on your sleep, see some shows, have a couple of drinks during the evening, take girls out for dinner--you know. Something like that. How would you like it?"

"Well..." Malone said cautiously.

"Good," Burris said. "I knew you would."

Malone opened his mouth, thought briefly and closed it again. After all, it did sound sort of promising, and if there was a catch in it he'd find out about it soon enough.

"It's really just a routine case," Burris said in an offhand tone. "Nothing to it."

"Oh," Malone said.

"There's this red Cadillac," Burris said. "It was stolen from a party in Connecticut, out near Danbury, and it showed up in New York City. Now, the car's crossed a state line."

"That puts it in our jurisdiction," Malone said, feeling obvious.

"Right," Burris said. "Right on the nose."

"But the New York office--"

"Naturally, they're in charge of everything," Burris said. "But I'm sending you out as sort of a special observer. Just keep your eyes open, and nose around and let me know what's happening."

"Keep my eyes and nose what?" Malone said.

"Open," Burris said. "And let me know about it."

Malone tried to picture himself with his eyes and nose open, and decided he didn't look very attractive that way. Well, it was only a figure of speech or something. He didn't have to think about it.

It really made a very ugly picture.

"But why a special observer?" he said after a second. Burris could read the reports from the New York office, and probably get more facts than any single agent could find out just wandering around a strange city. It sounded as if there were something, Malone told himself, just a tiny shade rotten in Denmark. It sounded as if there were going to be something in the nice easy assignment he was getting that would make him wish he'd gone lion hunting in Darkest Africa instead.

And then again, maybe he was wrong. He stood at ease and waited to find out.

"Well," Burris said, "it is just a routine case. Just like I said. But there seems to be something a little bit odd about it."

"I see," Malone said with a sinking feeling.

"Here's what happened," Burris said hurriedly, as if he were afraid Malone was going to change his mind and refuse the assignment. "This red Cadillac I told you about was reported stolen from Danbury. Three days later, it turned up in New York City--parked smack across the street from a precinct police station. Of course it took them a while to wake up, but one of the officers happened to notice the routine report on stolen cars in the area, and he decided to go across the street and check the license number on the car. Then something funny happened."

"Something funny?" Malone asked. He doubted that, whatever it was, it was going to make him laugh. But he kept his face a careful, receptive blank.

"That's right," Burris said. "Now, if you're going to understand what happened, you've got to get the whole picture."

"Sure," Malone said.

"Only that isn't what I mean," Burris added suddenly.

Malone blinked. "What isn't what you mean?" he said.

"Understanding what happened," Burris said. "That's the trouble. You won't understand what happened. I don't understand it, and neither does anybody else. So what do you think about it?"

"Think about what?" Malone said.

"About what I've been telling you," Burris snapped. "This car."

Malone took a deep breath. "Well," he said, "this officer went over to check the license plate. It seems like the right thing to do. It's just what I'd have done myself."

"Sure you would," Burris said. "Anybody would. But listen to me."

"All right, Chief," Malone said.

"It was just after dawn--early in the morning." Malone wondered briefly if there were parts of the world where dawn came, say, late in the afternoon, or during the evening sometime, but he said nothing. "The street was deserted," Burris went on. "But it was pretty light out, and the witnesses are willing to swear that there was nobody on that street for a block in either direction. Except them, of course."

"Except who?" Malone said.

"Except the witnesses," Burris said patiently. "Four cops, police officers who were standing on the front steps of the precinct station, talking. They were waiting to go on duty, or anyhow that's what the report said. It's lucky they were there, for whatever reason; they're the only witnesses we've got."

Burris stopped. Malone waited a few seconds and then said, as calmly as he could, "Witnesses to what?"

"To this whole business with Sergeant Jukovsky," Burris said.

The sudden introduction of a completely new name confused Malone for an instant, but he recovered gamely. "Sergeant Jukovsky was the man who investigated the car," he said.

"That's right," Burris said. "Except that he didn't."

Malone sighed.

"Those four officers--the witnesses--they weren't paying much attention to what looked like the routine investigation of a parked car," Burris said. "But here's their testimony. They were standing around talking when this Sergeant Jukovsky came out of the station, spoke to them in passing, and went on across the street. He didn't seem very worried or alarmed about anything."

"Good," Malone said involuntarily. "I mean, go on, Chief," he added.

"Ah," Burris said. "All right. Well. According to Jukovsky, he took a look at the plate and found the numbers checked the listing he had for a stolen Connecticut car. Then he walked around to take a look inside the car. It was empty. Get that, Malone. The car was empty."

"Well," Malone said, "it was parked. I suppose parked cars are usually empty. What's special about this one?"

"Wait and see," Burris said ominously. "Jukovsky swears the car was empty. He tried the doors, and they were all locked but one, the front door on the curb side, the driver's door. So he opened it, and leaned over to have a look at the odometer to check the mileage. And something clobbered him on the back of the head."

"One of the other cops," Malone said.

"One of the--who?" Burris said. "No. Not the cops. Not at all."

"Then something fell on him," Malone said. "Okay. Then whatever fell on him ought to be--"

"Malone," Burris said.

"Yes, Chief?"

"Jukovsky woke up on the sidewalk with the other cops all around him. There was nothing on that sidewalk but Jukovsky. Nothing could have fallen on him; it hadn't landed anywhere, if you see what I mean."

"Sure," Malone said. "But--"

"Whatever it was," Burris said, "they didn't find it. But that isn't the peculiar thing."

"No?"

"No," Burris said slowly. "Now--"

"Wait a minute," Malone said. "They looked on the sidewalk and around there. But did they think to search the car?"

"They didn't get a chance," Burris said. "Anyhow, not then. Not until they got around to picking up the pieces of the car uptown at 125th Street."

Malone closed his eyes. "Where was this precinct?" he said.

"Midtown," Burris said. "In the forties."

"And the pieces of the car were eighty blocks away when they searched it?" Malone said.

Burris nodded.

"All right," Malone said pleasantly. "I give up."

"Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you," Burris said. "According to the witnesses, after Jukovsky fell out of the car, the motor started and the car drove off uptown."

"Oh," Malone said. He thought about that for a minute and decided at last to hazard one little question. It sounded silly--but then, what didn't? "The car just drove off all by itself?" he said.

Burris seemed abashed. "Well, Malone," he said carefully, "that's where the conflicting stories of the eyewitnesses don't agree. You see, two of the cops say there was nobody in the car. Nobody at all. Of any kind. Small or large."

"And the other two?" Malone said.

"The other two swear they saw somebody at the wheel," Burris said, "but they won't say whether it was a man, a woman, a small child, or an anthropoid ape. And they haven't the faintest idea where he, she, or it came from."

"Great," Malone said. He felt a little tired. This trip was beginning to sound less and less like a vacation.

"Those two cops swear there was something--or somebody--driving the car," Burris said. "And that isn't all."

"It isn't?" Malone said.

Burris shook his head. "A couple of the cops jumped into a squad car and started following the red Cadillac. One of these cops saw somebody in the car when it left the curb. The other one didn't. Got that?"

"I've got it," Malone said, "but I don't exactly know what to do with it."

"Just hold on to it," Burris said, "and listen to this. The cops were about two blocks behind at the start, and they couldn't close the gap right away. The Cadillac headed west and climbed up the ramp of the West Side Highway, heading north, out toward Westchester. I'd give a lot to know where they were going, too."

"But they crashed," Malone said, remembering that the pieces were at 125th Street. "So--"

"They didn't crash right away," Burris said. "The prowl car started gaining on the Cadillac slowly. And--now, get this, Malone--both the cops swear there was somebody in the driver's seat now."

"Wait a minute," Malone said. "One of these cops didn't see anybody at all in the driver's seat when the car started off."

"Right," Burris said.

"But on the West Side Highway, he did see a driver," Malone said. He thought for a minute. "Hell, it could happen. They took off so fast he could have been confused, or something."

"There's another explanation," Burris said.

"Sure," Malone said cheerfully. "We're all crazy. The whole world is crazy."

"Not that one," Burris said. "I'll tell you when I finish with this thing about the car itself. There isn't much description of whoever or whatever was driving that car on the West Side Highway, by the way. In case you were thinking of asking."

Malone, who hadn't been thinking of asking anything, tried to look clever. Burris regarded him owlishly for a second, and then went on:

"The car was hitting it up at about a hundred and ten by this time, and accelerating all the time. But the souped-up squad car was coming on fast, too, and it was quite a chase. Luckily, there weren't many cars on the road. Somebody could have been killed, Malone."

"Like the driver of the Cadillac," Malone ventured.

Burris looked pained. "Not exactly," he said. "Because the car hit the 125th Street exit like a bomb. It swerved right, just as though it were going to take the exit and head off somewhere, but it was going much too fast by that time. There just wasn't any way to maneuver. The Cadillac hit the embankment, flipped over the edge, and smashed. It caught fire almost at once. Of course the prowl car braked fast and went down the exit after it. But there wasn't anything to do."

"That's what I said," Malone said. "The driver of the Cadillac was killed. In a fire like that--"

"Don't jump to conclusions, Malone," Burris said. "Wait. When the prowl car boys got to the scene, there was no sign of anybody in the car. Nobody at all."

"In the heat of those flames--" Malone began.

"Not enough heat, and not enough time," Burris said. "A human body couldn't have been destroyed in just a few minutes, not that completely. Some of the car's metal was melted, sure; but there would have been traces of anybody who'd been in the car. Nice, big, easily seen traces. And there weren't any. No corpse, no remains, no nothing."

Malone let that stew in his mind for a few seconds. "But the cops said--"

"Whatever the cops said," Burris snapped, "there was nobody at all in that Cadillac when it went off the embankment."

"Now, wait a minute," Malone said. "Here's a car with a driver who appears and disappears practically at will. Sometimes he's there and sometimes he's not there."

"Ah," Burris said. "That's why I have another explanation."

Malone shifted his feet. Maybe there was another explanation. But, he told himself, it would have to be a good one.

"Nobody expects a car to drive itself down a highway," Burris said.

"That's right," Malone said. "That's why it's all impossible."

"So," Burris said, "it would be a natural hallucination--or illusion, anyhow--for somebody to imagine he did see a driver when there wasn't any."

"Okay," Malone said. "There wasn't any driver. So the car couldn't have gone anywhere. So the New York police force is lying to us. It's a good explanation, but it--"

"They aren't lying," Burris said. "Why should they? I'm thinking of something else." He stopped, his eyes bright as he leaned across the desk toward Malone.

"Do I get three guesses?" Malone said.

Burris ignored him. "Frankly," he said, "I've got a hunch that the whole thing was done with remote control. Somewhere in that car was a very cleverly concealed device that was capable of running the Cadillac from a distance."

It did sound plausible, Malone thought. "Did the prowl car boys find any traces of it when they examined the wreckage?" he said.

"Not a thing," Burris said. "But, after all, it could have been melted. The fire did destroy a lot of the Cadillac, and there's just no telling. But I'd give long odds that there must have been some kind of robot device in that car. It's the only answer, isn't it?"

"I suppose so," Malone said.

"Malone," Burns said, his voice filled with Devotion To One's Country In The Face of Great Obstacles, "Malone, I want you to find that device!"

"In the wreck?" Malone said.

Burris sighed and leaned back. "No," he said. "Of course not. Not in the wreck. But the other red Cadillacs--some of them, anyhow--ought to have--"

"What red Cadillacs?" Malone said.

"The other ones that have been stolen. From Connecticut, mostly. One from New Jersey, out near Passaic."

"Have any of the others been moving around without drivers?" Malone said.

"Well," Burris said, "there's been no report of it. But who can tell?" He gestured with both arms. "Anything is possible, Malone."

"Sure," Malone said.

"Now," Burris said, "all of the stolen cars are red 1972 Cadillacs. There's got to be some reason for that. I think they're covering up another car like the one that got smashed: a remote-controlled Cadillac. Or even a self-guiding, automatic, robot-controlled Cadillac."

"They?" Malone said. "Who?"

"Whoever is stealing the cars," Burris said patiently.

"Oh," Malone said. "Sure. But--"

"So get up to New York," Burris said, "keep your eyes open, and nose around. Got it?"

"I have now," Malone said.

"And when that Cadillac is found, Malone, we want to take a look at it. Okay?"

"Yes, sir," Malone said.

* * * * *

Of course there were written reports, too. Burris had handed Malone a sheaf of them--copies of the New York police reports to Burris himself--and Malone, wanting some time to look through them, had taken a train to New York instead of a plane. Besides, the new planes still made him slightly nervous, though he could ride one when he had to. If jet engines had been good enough for the last generation, he thought, they were certainly good enough for him.

But avoidance of the new planes was all the good the train trip did him. The reports contained thousands of words, none of which was either new or, apparently, significant to Malone. Burris, he considered, had given him everything necessary for the job.

Except, of course, a way to make sense out of the whole thing. He considered robot-controlled Cadillacs. What good were they? They might make it easier for the average driver, of course--but that was no reason to cover up for them, hitting policemen over the head and smashing cars and driving a hundred and ten miles an hour on the West Side Highway.

All the same, it was the only explanation Malone had, and he cherished it deeply. He put the papers back in his brief case when the train pulled into Penn Station, handed his suitcases to a redcap and punched the buttons for the waiting room. Now, he thought as he strolled slowly along behind the robot, there was an invention that made sense. And nobody had to get killed for it, or hit over the head or smashed up, had they?

So what was all this nonsense about robot-controlled red Cadillacs?

Driving these unwelcome reflections from his mind, he paused to light a cigarette. He had barely taken the first puff when a familiar voice said, "Hey, buddy, hold the light, will you?"

Malone looked up, blinked and grinned happily. "Boyd!" he said. "What are you doing here? I haven't seen you since--"

"Sure haven't," Boyd said. "I've been out West on a couple of cases. Must be a year since we worked together."

"Just about," Malone said. "But what are you doing in New York? Vacationing?"

"Not exactly," Boyd said. "The chief called it sort of a vacation, but--"

"Oh," Malone said. "You re working with me."

Boyd nodded. "The chief sent me up. When I got back from the West, he suddenly decided you might need a good assistant, so I took the plane down, and got here ahead of you."

"Great," Malone said. "But I want to warn you about the vacation--"

"Never mind," Boyd said; just a shade sadly. "I know. It isn't." He seemed deep in thought, as if he were deciding whether or not to get rid of Anne Boleyn. It was, Malone thought, an unusually apt simile. Boyd, six feet tall and weighing about two hundred and twenty-five pounds, had a large square face and a broad-beamed figure that might have made him a dead ringer for Henry VIII of England even without his Henry-like fringe of beard and his mustache. With them--thanks to the recent FBI rule that agents could wear "facial hair, at the discretion of the director or such board as he may appoint"--the resemblance to the Tudor monarch was uncanny.

But, like his famous double, Boyd didn't stay sad for long. "I thought I'd meet you at the station," he said, cheering up, "and maybe talk over old times for a while, on the way to the hotel, anyhow. So long as there wasn't anything else to do."

"Sure," Malone said. "It's good to see you again. And when did you get pulled out of the Frisco office?"

Boyd grimaced. "You know," he said, "I had a good thing going for me out there. Agent-in-Charge of the entire office. But right after that job we did together--the Queen Elizabeth affair--Burris decided I was too good a man to waste my fragrance on the desert air. Or whatever it is. So he recalled me, assigned me from the home office, and I've been on one case after another ever since."

"You're a home-office agent now?" Malone said.

"I'm a Roving Reporter," Boyd said, and struck a pose. "I'm a General Trouble-shooter and a Mr. Fix-It. Just like you, Hero."

"Thanks," Malone said. "How about the local office here? Seen the boys yet?"

Boyd shook his head. "Not yet," he said. "I was waiting for you to show up. But I did manage hotel rooms--a couple of rooms with a connecting bath over at the Hotel New Yorker. Nice place. You'll like it, Ken."

"I'll love it," Malone said. "Especially that connecting bath. It would have been terrible to have an unconnecting bath. Sort of distracting."

"Okay," Boyd said. "Okay. You know what I mean." He stared down at Malone's hand. "You know you've still got your lighter on?" he added.

Malone looked down at it and shut it off. "You asked me to hold it," he said.

"I didn't mean indefinitely," Boyd said. "Anyhow, how about grabbing a cab and heading on down to the hotel to get your stuff away, before we check in at 69th Street?"

"Good idea," Malone said. "And besides, I could do with a clean shirt. Not to mention a bath."

"Trains get worse and worse," Boyd said absently.

Malone punched the redcap's buttons again, and he and Boyd followed it through the crowded station to the taxi stand. The robot piled the suitcases into the cab, and somehow Malone and Boyd found room for themselves.

"Hotel New Yorker," Boyd said grandly.

The driver swung around to stare at them, blinked, and finally said, "Okay, Mac. You said it." He started with a terrific grinding of gears, drove out of the Penn Station arch and went two blocks.

"Here you are, Mac," he said, stopping the cab.

Malone stared at Boyd with a reproachful expression.

"So how was I to know?" Boyd said.

"I didn't look. If I'd known it was so close we could've walked."

"And saved half a buck," Malone said. "But don't let it bother you--this is expense-account money."

"That's right," Boyd said. He beamed and tipped the driver heavily. The cab drove off and Malone hailed the New Yorker doorman, who equipped them with a robot bellhop and sent them upstairs to their rooms.

Three-quarters of an hour later, Boyd and Malone were in the offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, on East 69th Street. There they picked up a lot of nice, new, shiny facts. It was unfortunate, if not particularly surprising, that the facts did not seem to make any sense.

In the first place, only red 1972 Cadillacs seemed to be involved. Anybody who owned such a car was likely to find it missing at any time; there had been a lot of thefts reported, including some that hadn't had time to get into Burris' reports. New Jersey now claimed two victims, and New York had three of its own.

And all the cars weren't turning up in New York, by any means. Some of the New York cars had turned up in New Jersey. Some had turned up in Connecticut--including one of the New Jersey cars. So far, there had been neither thefts nor discoveries in Pennsylvania, but Malone couldn't see why.

There was absolutely no pattern that he, Boyd, or anyone else could find. The list of thefts and recoveries had been fed into an electronic calculator, which had neatly regurgitated them without being in the least helpful. It had remarked that the square of seven was forty-nine, but this was traced to a defect in the mechanism.

Whoever was borrowing the red Caddies exhibited a peculiar combination of burglarious genius and what looked to Malone like outright idiocy. This was plainly impossible.

Unfortunately, it had happened.

Locking the car doors didn't do a bit of good. The thief, or thieves, got in without so much as scratching the lock. This obviously proved that the criminal was either an extremely good lock-pick or else knew where to get duplicate keys.

However, the ignition was invariably shorted across.

This proved neatly that the criminal was not a very good lock-pick, and did not know where to get duplicate keys.

Query: Why work so hard on the doors, and not work at all on the ignition?

That was the first place. The second place was just what had been bothering Malone all along. There didn't seem to be any purpose to the car thefts. They hadn't been sold, or used as getaway cars. True, teenage delinquents sometimes stole cars just to use them joy-riding, or as some sort of prank.

But a car or two every night? How many joy-rides can one gang take? Malone thought. And how long does it take to get tired of the same prank?

And why, Malone asked himself wearily for what was beginning to feel like the ten thousandth time, why only red Cadillacs?

Burris, he told himself, must have been right all along. The red Cadillacs were only a smoke screen for something else. Perhaps it was the robot car, perhaps not; but whatever it was, Burris' general answer was the only one that made any sense at all.

That should have been a comforting thought, Malone reflected. Somehow, though, it wasn't.

After they'd finished with the files and personnel at 69th Street, Malone and Boyd started downtown on what turned out to be a sort of unguided tour of the New York Police Department. They spoke to some of the eyewitnesses, and ended up in Centre Street asking a lot of reasonably useless questions in the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. In general, they spent nearly six hours on the Affair of the Self-Propelled Cadillac, picking up a whole bundle of facts. Some of the facts they had already known. Some were new, but unhelpful.

Somehow, nobody felt much like going out for a night on the town. Instead both agents climbed wearily into bed, thinking morose and disillusioned thoughts.

And, after that, a week passed. It was filled with ennui.

Only one new thing became clear. In spite of the almost identical modus operandi used in all the car thefts, they were obviously the work of a gang rather than a single person. This required the assumption that there was not one insane man at work, but a crew of them, all identically unbalanced.

"But the jobs are just too scattered to be the work of one man," Malone said. "To steal a car in Connecticut and drive it to the Bronx, and then steal another car in Westfield, New Jersey, fifteen minutes later takes more than talent. It takes an outright for-sure magician."

This conclusion, while interesting, was not really helpful. The fact was that Malone needed more clues--or, anyhow, more facts--before he could do anything at all. And there just weren't any new facts around. He spent the week wandering morosely from one place to another sometimes accompanied by Thomas Boyd and sometimes all alone. Time, he knew, was ticking by at its usual rate. But there wasn't a thing he could do about it.

He did try to relax and have some fun, as Burris had suggested. But he didn't seem to be able to get his mind off the case.

Boyd, after the first little while, had no such trouble. He entered the social life of the city with a whoop of joy and disappeared from sight. That was fine for Boyd, Malone reflected, but it did leave Malone himself just a little bit at loose ends.

Not that he begrudged Boyd his fun. It was nice that one of them was enjoying himself, anyway.

It was just that Malone was beginning to get fidgety. He needed to be doing something--even if it was only taking a walk.

So he took a walk and ended up, to his own surprise, downtown near Greenwich Village.

And then he'd been bopped on the head.

3

The patrol car pulled up in front of St. Vincent's Hospital, and one of the cops helped Malone into the emergency receiving room. He didn't feel as bad as he had a few minutes before. The motion of the car hadn't helped any, but his head seemed to be knitting a little, and his legs were a little steadier. True, he didn't feel one hundred per cent healthy, but he was beginning to think he might live, after all. And while the doctor was bandaging his head, a spirit of new life began to fill the FBI agent.

He was no longer morose and undirected. He had a purpose in life, and the purpose filled him with cold determination. He was going to find the robot-operated car--or whatever it turned out to be.

The doctor, Malone noticed, was whistling Greensleeves under his breath as he worked. That, he supposed, was the influence of the Bohemian folk-singers of Greenwich Village. But he put the noise resolutely out of his mind and concentrated on the red Cadillac.

It was one thing to think about a robot car miles away, doing something or other to somebody you'd never heard of before. That was just theoretical, a case for solution, nothing but an ordinary job.

But when the car stepped up and bopped Malone himself on the head, it became a personal matter. Now Malone had more than a job to contend with. Now he was thinking about revenge.

By God, he told himself, no car in the world--not even a Cadillac--can get away with beaning Kenneth J. Malone!

Malone was not quite certain that he agreed with Burris' idea of a self-operating car, but at least it was something to work on. A car that could reach out, crown an investigator, and then drive off humming something innocent under its breath was certainly a unique and dangerous machine within the meaning of the act. Of course, there were problems attendant on this view of things. For one thing, Malone couldn't quite see how the car could have beaned him when he was ten feet away from it. But that was, he told himself uncomfortably, a minor point. He could deal with it when he felt a little better.

The important thing was the car itself. Malone jerked a little under the doctor's calm hands, and swore subvocally.

"Hold still," the doctor said. "Don't go wiggling your head around that way. Just wait quietly until the dermijel sets."

Obediently, Malone froze. There was a crick in his neck, but he decided he could stand it. "My head still hurts," he said accusingly.

"Sure it still hurts," the doctor agreed.

"But you--"

"What did you expect?" the doctor said. "Even an FBI agent isn't immune to blackjacks, you know." He resumed his work on Malone's skull.

"Blackjacks?" Malone said. "What blackjacks?"

"The ones that hit you," the doctor said. "Or the one, anyhow."

Malone blinked. Somehow, though he could manage a fuzzy picture of a car reaching out to hit him, the introduction of a blackjack into this imaginative effort confused things a little. But he resolutely ignored it.

"The bruise is just the right size and shape," the doctor said. "And that cut on your head comes from the seams on the leather casing."

"You're sure?" Malone said doubtfully. It did seem as if a car had a lot more dangerous weapons around, without resorting to blackjacks. If it had really wanted to damage him, why hadn't it hit him with the engine block?

"I'm sure," the doctor said. "I've worked in Emergency in this hospital long enough to recognize a blackjack wound."

That was a disturbing idea, in a way. It gave a new color to Malone's reflection on Greenwich Villagers. Maybe things had changed since he'd heard about them. Maybe the blackjack had supplanted the guitar.

But that wasn't the important thing.

The fact that it had been a blackjack that had hit him was important. It was vital, as a matter of fact. Malone knew that perfectly well. It was a key fact in the case he was investigating.

The only trouble was that he didn't see what, if anything, it meant.

The doctor stepped back and regarded Malone's head with something like pride. "There," he said. "You'll be all right now."

"A concussion?"

"Sure," the doctor said. "But it isn't serious. Just take these pills--one every two hours until they're gone--and you'll be rid of any effects within twenty-four hours." He went to a cabinet, fiddled around for a minute, and came back with a small bottle containing six orange pills. They looked very large and threatening.

"Fine," Malone said doubtfully.

"You'll be all right," the doctor said, giving Malone a cheerful, confident grin. "Nothing at all to worry about." He loaded a hypojet and blasted something through the skin of Malone's upper arm. Malone swallowed hard. He knew perfectly well that he hadn't felt a thing but he couldn't quite make himself believe it.

"That'll take care of you for tonight," the doctor said. "Get some sleep and start in on the pills when you wake up, okay?"

"Okay," Malone said. It was going to make waking up something less than a pleasure, but he wanted to get well, didn't he?

Of course he did. If that Cadillac thought it was going to beat him...

"You can stand up now," the doctor said.

"Okay," Malone said, trying it. "Thanks, Doctor. I--"

There was a knock at the door. The doctor jerked his head around.

"Who's that?" he said.

"Me," a bass voice said, unhelpfully.

The emergency-room door opened a crack and a face peered in. It took Malone a second to recognize Bill, the waffle-faced cop who had picked him up next to the lamp post three years or so before. "Long time no see," Malone said at random.

"What?" Bill said, and opened the door wider. He came in and closed it behind him. "It's okay, Doc," he said to the attendant. "I'm a cop."

"Been hurt?" the doctor said.

Bill shook his head. "Not recently," he said. "I came to see this guy." He looked at Malone. "They told me you were still here," he said.

"Who's they?" Malone said.

"Outside," Bill said. "The attendants out there. They said you were still getting stitched up."

"And quite right, too," Malone said solemnly.

"Oh," Bill said. "Sure." He fished in his pockets. "You dropped your notebook, though, and I came to give it back to you." He located the object he was hunting for and brought it out with the triumphant gesture of a man displaying the head of a dragon he had slain. "Here," he said, waving the book.

"Notebook?" Malone said. He stared at it. It was a small looseleaf book bound in cheap black plastic.

"We found it in the gutter," Bill said.

Malone took a tentative step forward and managed not to fall. He stepped back again and looked at Bill scornfully. "I wasn't even in the gutter," he said. "There are limits."

"Sure," Bill said. "But the notebook was, so I brought it along to you. I thought you might need it or something." He handed it over to Malone with a flourish.

It wasn't Malone's notebook. In the first place, he had never owned a notebook that looked anything like that, and in the second place he hadn't had any notebooks on him when he went for his walk. Mine not to question why, Malone told himself with a shrug, and flipped the book open.

At once he saw why the cop had mistaken it for his.

It had his name in it.

On the very first page were two names, written out in a careful, semieducated scrawl:

Mr. Kenneth J. Malone, FBI
Lt. Peter Lynch, NYPD

The rest of the page was blank. Malone wondered who Lieutenant Lynch was, and made a mental note to find out. Then he wondered what his name was doing in somebody else's notebook. Maybe, he thought, it was a list of people to slug, and the car had made it up. But he hadn't heard of anybody named Lynch being hit on the head by a marauding automobile, and he couldn't quite picture a Cadillac jotting things down in a notebook for future reference. Besides, he had an idea that a Cadillac's handwriting would be more formal, and prettier.

He turned the page. On the next leaf there were more names, eight of them. The first one was written in red pencil and the others were in ordinary black. Malone stared at them:

 Mike F.
 Ramon O.
 Mario G.
 Silvo E.
 Alvarez A.
 Felipe la B.
 Juan de los S.
 Ray del E.

All the names except Mike F. sounded Spanish, or possibly Puerto Rican. Malone wondered who they were. Juvenile delinquents? Other people to slug? Police officers?

Maybe they were all the names of Spanish-speaking Cadillacs.

He blinked and rubbed at his forehead with one hand. His head still hurt, and that was probably why he was getting such strange ideas. It was obvious that, whatever the notebook was, it hadn't been written by an automobile.

He turned the page again.

Here there was a carefully detailed drawing of a car. Malone recognized it as a 1972 Cadillac without any effort at all.

And it had been carefully colored in with red pencil.

Wow, Malone asked himself, What the hell does that mean?

He couldn't find an answer. He turned the page, hoping for some more facts that might make some sense out of what he had been seeing, but there was nothing more. All the rest of the pages in the notebook were blank.

He looked up at the cop and the doctor with a bland, blank face. "Thanks a lot," he told Bill. "I thought I'd lost this book. I appreciate it."

"Oh, that's okay, Mr. Malone," Bill said. "Glad to do it."

"You don't know what this means to me," Malone said truthfully.

"No trouble at all," Bill said. "Any time." He gave Malone a big smile and turned back to the door. "But I got to get back to my beat," he said. "Listen, I'll see you. And if I can be any help--"

"Sure," Malone said. "I'll let you know. And thanks again."

"Welcome," Bill said, and opened the door. He strode out with the air of a man who has just been decorated with the Silver Star, the Purple Heart and the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Malone tried a few more steps and discovered that he could walk without falling down. He thanked the doctor again.

"Perfectly all right," the doctor said. "Nothing to it. Why, you ought to see some of the cases we get here. There was a guy here the other night with both his legs all mashed up by a--"

"I'll bet," Malone said hurriedly. "Well, I've got to be on my way. Just send the bill to FBI headquarters on 69th Street." He closed the door on the doctor's enthusiastic "Yes, sir!" and went on down the hallway and out into the street. At Seventh Avenue and Greenwich Avenue he flagged a cab.

It was a hell of a place to be, Malone thought as the cab drove away. Where but in Greenwich Village did avenues intersect each other without so much as a by-your-leave?

"Hotel New Yorker," he said, giving the whole thing up as a bad job. He put his hat on his head and adjusted it painfully to the proper angle.

And that, he thought, made another little problem. The car had not only hit him on the head, it had removed his hat before doing so, and then replaced it. It had only fallen off when he'd started to get up against the lamp post.

A nice quiet vacation, Malone thought bitterly.

He fumed in silence all the way to the hotel, through the lobby, up in the elevator, and to the door of his room. Then he remembered the notebook.

That was important evidence. He decided to tell Boyd about it right away.

He went into the bathroom and tapped gently on the door to Boyd's connecting room. The door swung open.

Boyd, apparently, was still out painting the town--Malone considered the word red and dropped the whole phrase with a sigh. At any rate, his partner was nowhere in the room.

"The hell with it," Malone announced loudly to no one in particular. He went back into his own room, closed the door, and got wearily ready for bed.

* * * * *

Dawn came, and then daylight, and then a lot more daylight. It was streaming in through the windows with careless abandon, filling the room with a lot of bright sunshine and the muggy heat of the city. From the street below, the cheerful noises of traffic and pedestrians floated up and filled Malone's ears.

He got up, turned over in bed, and tried to go back to sleep.

But sleep wouldn't come. After a long time he gave up, and swung himself over the edge of the bed. Standing up was a delicate job, but he managed it, feeling rather proud of himself in a dim, semiconscious sort of way.

He went into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and then opened the connecting door to Boyd's room softly.

Boyd was home. He lay in a great tangle of bedclothes, snoring hideously and making little motions with his hands and arms like a beached whale. Malone padded over to him and dug him fiercely in the ribs.

"Come on," he said. "Wake up, Tommy-boy."

Boyd's eyes did not open. In a voice as hollow as a zombie's, he said, "My head hurts."

"Can't feel any worse than mine," Malone said cheerily. This, he reflected, was not quite true. Considering everything it had been through recently, his head felt remarkably like its old carefree self. "You'll feel better once you're awake."

"No, I won't," Boyd said simply. He jammed his head under a pillow and began to snore again. It was an awesome sound, like a man strangling to death in chicken fat. Malone sighed and poked at random among the bedclothes.

Boyd swore distantly, and Malone poked him again.

"The sun is up," Malone said, "and all the little pedestrians are chirping. It is time to rise."

Boyd said, "Gah," and withdrew his head from the pillow. Gently, as if he were afraid he were going to fall apart, he rose to a sitting position. When he had arrived at it, he opened his eyes.

"Now," Malone said. "Isn't that better?"

Boyd closed his eyes again. "No," he said.

"Come on," Malone said. "We've got to be up and moving."

"I'm up," Boyd said. His eyes flickered open. "But I can't move," he added. "We had quite a time last night."

"We?" Malone said.

"Me, and a couple of girls, and another guy. Just people I met." Boyd started to stand up and thought better of it. "Just having a good time, that's, all."

Malone thought of reading his partner a lecture on the Evils of Drink, and decided against it. Boyd might remember it, and use it against him sometime. Then he realized what had to be done. He went back into his own room, dialed for room service, and ordered a couple of pots of strong black coffee.

By the time a good deal of that was awash in Boyd's intestinal system, he was almost capable of rational, connected conversation. He filled himself to the eyebrows with aspirins and other remedies, and actually succeeded in getting dressed. He seemed quite proud of this feat.

"Okay," Malone said. "Now we have to go downstairs."

"You mean outside?" Boyd said. "Into all that noise?" He winced.

"Bite the bullet," Malone said cheerfully. "Keep a stiff upper lip."

"Nonsense," Boyd said, hunting for his coat with a doleful air. "Have you ever seen anybody with a loose upper lip?"

Malone, busy with his own coat, didn't bother with a reply. He managed somehow to get Boyd downstairs and bundled into a cab. They headed for 69th Street. There he made several phone calls. The first, of course, was to Burris in Washington. After that he got the New York Police Commissioner on the wire and, finding that he needed still more authority, he called the mayor and then, by long-distance to Albany, the governor.

But by noon he had everything straightened out. He had a plan fully worked out in his mind, and he had the authority to go ahead with it. Now, he could make his final call.

"They're completely trustworthy," Burris had told him. "Not only that, but they have a clearance for this kind of special work--we've needed them before."

"Good," Malone said.

"Not only that," Burris told him. "They're damned good men. Maybe among the best in their field."

So Malone made his last call, to the firm of Leibowitz and Hardin, Electronic Engineers.

Then he beckoned to Boyd.

"I don't see what I've been sitting around here for, all this time," his partner complained. "I could have been home sleeping until you needed me."

"I need you now," Malone said. "I want you to take over part of this plan."

Boyd nodded sourly. "Oh, all right," he said.

"Here's what I want," Malone said. "Every red 1972 Cadillac in the area is to be picked up for inspection. I don't care why--make up a reason. A general traffic check. Anything you please. You can work that end of it out with the commissioner; he knows about it and he's willing to go along."

"Great," Boyd said. "Do you have any idea how many cars there are in a city this size?"

"Well, we don't want all of them," Malone said. "Only red 1972 Cadillacs."

"It's still a lot," Boyd said.

"If there were only three," Malone said, "we wouldn't have any problems."

"And wouldn't that be nice?" Boyd said.

"Sure," Malone said, "but it isn't true. Anyhow, I want every one of those cars checked for any oddity, no matter how small. If there's an inch-long scratch on one fender, I want to know about it. If you've got to take the cars apart, then do that."

"Me?" Boyd said. "All by myself?"

"My God, no," Malone said. "Use your head. There'll be a team working with you. Let me explain it. Every nut, every bolt, every inch of those cars has to be examined thoroughly--got it?"

"I've got it," Boyd said, "but I'm damned if I like it. After all, Malone--"

Malone ignored him. "The governor of New York's promised his cooperation," he said, "and he said he'd get in touch with the governors of New Jersey and Connecticut and get cooperation from that angle. So we'll have both state and local police working with us."

"That's a help," Boyd said. "We'll make such a happy team of workmen. Singing as we pull the cars apart through the long day and night and--listen, Malone, when do you want reports on this?"

"Yesterday," Malone said.

Boyd's eyebrows raised, then lowered. "Great," he said dully.

"I don't care how you get the cars," Malone said. "If you've got to, condemn 'em. But get every last one of them. And bring them over to Leibowitz and Hardin for a complete checkup. I'll give you the address."

"Thanks," Boyd said.

"Not at all," Malone said. "Glad to be of help. And don't worry; I'll have other work to do." He paused, and then went on, "I talked to Dr. Isaac Leibowitz--he's the head of the firm out there--and he says--"

"Wait a minute," Boyd said. "What?"

"You mean I don't have to take the cars apart myself? You mean this Leibowitz and Hardin, or whatever it is, will do it for me?"

"Of course," Malone said wearily. "You're not an auto technician or an electronics man. You're an agent of the FBI."

"I was beginning to wonder," Boyd said. "After all."

"Anyhow," Malone said doggedly, "I talked to Leibowitz, and he says he can give a car a complete check in about six hours, normally."

"Six hours?" Boyd stared. "That's going to take forever," he said.

"Well, he can set up a kind of assembly-line process and turn out a car every fifteen minutes. Any better?"

Boyd nodded.

"Good," Malone said. "There can't be so many 1972 red Cadillacs in the area that we can't get through them all at that speed." He thought a minute and then added, "By the way, you might check with the Cadillac dealers around town, and find out just how many have been sold to people living in the area."

"And while I'm doing all that," Boyd said, "what are you going to be doing?"

Malone looked at him and sighed. "I'll worry about that," he said. "Just get started."

"Suppose Leibowitz can't find anything?" Boyd said.

"If Leibowitz can't find it, it's not there," Malone said. "He can find electronic devices anywhere in any car made, he says--even if they're printed circuits hidden under the paint job."

"Pretty good," Boyd said. "But suppose he doesn't?"

"Then they aren't there," Malone said, "and we'll have to think of something else." He considered that. It sounded fine. Only he wished he knew what else there was to think of.

Well, that was just pessimism. Leibowitz would find something, and the case would be over, and he could go back to Washington and rest. In August he was going to have his vacation anyway, and August wasn't very far away.

Malone put a smile carefully on his face and told Boyd, "Get going." He slammed his hat on his head.

Wincing, he took it off and replaced it gently. The bottle of pills was still in his pocket, but he wasn't due for another one just yet.

He had time to go over to the precinct station in the West Eighties first. He headed outside to get another taxi.

4

The door didn't say anything at all except Lt. P. Lynch. Malone looked at it for a couple of seconds. He'd asked the desk sergeant for Lynch, shown his credentials and been directed up a set of stairs and around a hall. But he still didn't know what Lynch did, who he was, or what his name was doing in the little black notebook.

Well, he told himself, there was only one way to find out.

He opened the door.

The room was small and dark. It had a single desk in it, and three chairs, and a hatrack. There wasn't any coat or hat on the hatrack, and there was nobody in the chairs. In a fourth chair, behind the desk, sat a huskily built man. He had steel-gray hair, a hard jaw and, Malone noticed with surprise, a faint twinkle in his eye.

"Lieutenant Lynch?" Malone said.

"Right," Lynch said. "What's the trouble?"

"I'm Kenneth J. Malone, FBI." He reached for his wallet and found it. He flipped it open for Lynch, who stared at it for what seemed a long, long time, and then burst into laughter.

"What's so funny?" Malone asked. Lynch laughed some more.

"Oh, come on," Malone said bitterly. "After all, there's no reason to treat an FBI agent like some kind of a--"

"FBI agent?" Lynch said. "Listen, buster, this is the funniest gag I've seen since I came on the force. Really a hell of a funny thing. Who told you to pull it? Jablonski downstairs? Or one of the boys on the beat? I know those beat patrolmen, always on the lookout for a new joke.. But this tops 'em all. This is the--"

"You're a disgrace to the Irish," Malone said tartly.

"A what?" Lynch said. "I'm not Irish."

"You talk like an Irishman," Malone said.

"I know it," Lynch said, and shrugged. "Around some precincts, you sort of pick it up. When all the other cops are--hey, listen. How'd we get to talking about me?"

"I said you were a disgrace to the Irish," Malone said.

"I was a--what?"

"Disgrace." Malone looked carefully at Lynch. In a fight, he considered, he might get in a lucky punch that would kill Malone. Otherwise, Malone didn't have a thing to worry about except a few months of hospitalization.

Lynch looked as if he were about to get mad, and then he looked down at Malone's wallet again and started to laugh.

"For God's sake," Malone said. "What's so damned funny?"

He grabbed the wallet and turned it toward him. At once, of course, he realized what had happened. He hadn't flipped it open to his badge at all. He'd flipped it open, instead, to a card in the card case:

KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS THAT Sir Kenneth Malone, Knight, is hereby formally installed with the title of KNIGHT OF THE BATH and this card shall signify his right to that title and his high and respected position as officer in and of THE QUEEN'S OWN FBI

In a very small voice, Malone said, "There's been a terrible mistake."

"Mistake?" Lynch said.

Malone flipped the wallet open to his FBI shield. Lynch gave it a good long examination, peering at it from every angle and holding it up to the light two or three times. He even wet his thumb and rubbed the badge with it. At last he looked up.

"I guess you are the FBI," he said. "But what's with the gag?"

"It isn't a gag," Malone said. "It's just--" He thought of the little old lady in Yucca Flats, the little old lady who had been the prime mover in the last case he and Boyd had worked on together. Without the little old lady, the case might never have been solved; she was an authentic telepath, about the best that had ever been found.

But with her, Boyd and Malone had had enough troubles. Besides being a telepath, she was quite thoroughly insane. She had one fixed delusion: she believed she was Queen Elizabeth I.

She was still at Yucca Flats, along with the other telepaths Malone's investigation had turned up. And she still believed, quite calmly, that she was Good Queen Bess. Malone had been knighted by her during the course of the investigation. This new honor had come to him through the mail; apparently she had decided to ennoble some of her friends still further.

Malone made a mental note to ask Boyd if he'd received one. After all, there couldn't be too many Knights of the Bath. There was no sense in letting everybody in.

Then he realized that he was beginning to believe everything again. There had been times, working with the little old lady, when he had been firmly convinced that he was, in fact, the swaggering, ruthless swordsman, Sir Kenneth Malone. And even now...

"Well?" Lynch said.

"It's too long a story," Malone said. "And besides, it's not what I came here about."

Lynch shrugged again. "Okay," he said. "Tell it your way."

"First," Malone said, "what's your job?"

"Me? Precinct Lieutenant."

"Of this precinct?"

Lynch stared. "What else?" he said.

"Who knows?" Malone said. He found the black notebook and passed it across to Lynch. "I'm on this red Cadillac business, you know," he said by way of introduction.

"I've been hearing about it," Lynch said. He picked up the notebook without opening it and held it like a ticking bomb. "And I mean hearing about it," he said. "We haven't had any trouble at all in this precinct."

"I know," Malone said. "I've read the reports."

"Listen, not a single red Cadillac has been stolen from here, or been reported found here. We run a tight precinct here, and let me tell you--"

"I'm sure you do a fine job," Malone said hastily. "But I want you to look at the notebook. The first page."

Lynch opened his mouth, closed it, and then flipped the notebook cover. He stared at the first page for a few seconds. "What's this?" he said at last. "Another gag?"

"No gag, Lieutenant," Malone said.

"It's your name and mine," Lynch said. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Malone shrugged. "Search me," he said. "The notebook was found only a couple of feet away from another car theft, last night." That was the simplest way he could think of to put it. "So I asked the Commissioner who Peter Lynch was, and he told me it was you."

"And, by God, it is," Lynch said, staring at the notebook. He seemed to be expecting it to rise and strike him.

Malone said, "Have you got any idea who'd be writing about you and me?"

Lynch shook his head. "If I had any ideas I'd feel a lot better," he said.

He wet his finger and turned the notebook page carefully over. When he saw the list of names on the second page he stopped again, and stared. This time he whistled under his breath.

Very cautiously, Malone said, "Something?"

"I'll be damned," Lynch said feelingly.

"What's wrong?" Malone said.

The police lieutenant looked up. "I don't know if it's wrong or what," he said. "It gives me sort of the willies. I know every one of these kids."

Malone took out a pill and swallowed it in a hurry. He felt exactly as if he had been given another concussion, absolutely free and without any obligations. His mouth opened but nothing came out for a long time. At last he managed to say, "Kids?"

"That's right," Lynch said. "What did you think?"

Malone shrugged helplessly.

"Every single one of them," Lynch said. "Right from around here."

There was a little silence.

"Who are they?" Malone said carefully.

"They're some kind of kid gang--a social club, or something like that. This first kid--Miguel Fueyo's his full name--is the leader. They call themselves the Silent Spooks."

"The what?" It seemed to Malone that the name was just a little fancy, even for a kid gang.

"The Silent Spooks," Lynch said. "I can't help it. But here they are, every one of them: Fueyo, Ramon Otravez, Mario Grito, Silvo Envoz, Alvarez Altapor, Felipe la Barba, Juan de los Santos, and Ray del Este. Right down the line." He looked up from the notebook with a blank expression on his face. "All of them kids from this neighborhood. The Silent Spooks."

"They know you?" Malone said.

"Sure they do," Lynch said. "They all know me. But do they know you?"

Malone thought. "They could have heard of me," he said at last, trying to be as modest as possible.

"I guess," Lynch said grudgingly. "How old are they?" Malone said.

"Fourteen to seventeen," Lynch said. "Somewhere in there. You know how these kid things run."

"The Silent Spooks," Malone said meditatively. It was a nice name, in a way; you just had to get used to it for a while. When he had been a kid, he'd belonged to a group that called itself the East Division Street Kids. There just wasn't much romance in a name like that. Now the Silent Spooks...

With a wrench, he brought his mind back to the subject at hand. "Do they get into much trouble?" he said.

"Well, no," Lynch said reluctantly. "As a matter of fact, they don't. For a bunch like that, around here, they're pretty well behaved, as far as that goes."

"What do you mean?" Malone said.

Lynch's face took on a delicately unconcerned appearance. "I don't know," he said. "They just don't get into neighborhood trouble. Maybe a scrap now and then--nothing big, though. Or maybe one of them cuts a class at school or argues with his teacher. But there's nothing unusual, and damn little of anything." He frowned.

Malone said, "Something's got to be wrong. What is it?"

"Well," Lynch said, "they do seem to have a hell of a lot of money to spend."

Malone sat down in a chair across the desk, and leaned eagerly toward Lynch. "Money?" he said.

"Money," Lynch said. "New clothes. Cigarettes. Malone, three of them are even supporting their parents. Old Jose Otravez--Ramon's old man--quit his job a couple of months ago, and hasn't worked since. Spends all his time in bars, and never runs out of dough--and don't tell me you can do that on unemployment insurance. Or social security payments."

"Okay," Malone said. "I won't tell you."

"And there's others. All the others, in fact. Mike Fueyo's sister dresses fit to kill, like a high-fashion model. And the Grito kid--"

"Wait a minute," Malone said. "From what you tell me, this isn't just a little extra money. These kids must be rolling in the stuff. Up to their ears in dough."

"Listen," Lynch said sadly, "Those kids spend more than I do. Hell, they do better than that--they spend more than I earn." He looked remotely sorry for himself, but not for long. "Every one of those kids spends like a drunken sailor, tossing his money away on all sorts of things."

"Like an expense account," Malone said idly. Lynch looked up. "Sorry," Malone said. "I was thinking about something else."

"I'll bet you were," Lynch said with unconcealed envy.

"No," Malone said. "Really. Listen, I'll check with Internal Revenue on that money. But have you got a list of the kids' addresses?"

"I can get one," Lynch said, and went to the door.

It closed behind him. Malone sat waiting alone for a few minutes, and then Lynch came back. "List'll be here in a minute," he said. He sat down behind his desk and reached for the notebook again. When he turned to the third page his expression changed to one of surprise.

"Be damned," he said. "There does seem to be a connection, doesn't there?" He held up the picture of the red Cadillac for Malone to see.

"Sure does," Malone said. "That's why I want those addresses. If there is a connection, I sure as hell want to find out about it."

Ten minutes later, Malone was walking out of the precinct station with the list of addresses in his pocket. He was heading for his Great Adventure, but he didn't know it. All he was thinking about was the red Cadillacs, and the eight teenagers.

"I'm going to get to the bottom of this if it takes me all summer," he said, muttering to himself.

"That's the spirit," he told himself. "Never say die."

Then, realizing he had just said it, he frowned. Perhaps it hadn't really counted. But then again...

He was on his way down the steps when he hit the girl.

The mutual collision was not catastrophic. On the other hand, it was not exactly minor. It fell somewhere between the two, as an unclassifiable phenomenon of undoubted potency. Malone said, "Oog," with, some fervor as the girl collided with his chest and rebounded like a handball striking a wall. Something was happening to her, but Malone had no time to spare to notice just what. He was falling through space, touching a concrete step once in a while, but not long enough to make any real acquaintance with it. It seemed to take him a long time to touch bottom, and when he had, he wondered if touch was quite the word.

Bottom certainly was. He had fallen backward and landed directly on his glutei maximi, obeying the law regarding equal and opposite reaction and several other laws involving falling bodies.

His first thought was that he was now neatly balanced. His tail had received the same treatment as his head. He wondered if a person could get concussion of the tail bones, and had reached no definite conclusion when, unexpectedly, his eyes focused again.

He was looking at a girl. That was all he saw at first. She had apparently fallen just as he had, bounced once and sat down rather hard. She was now lying flat on her back, making a sound like "rrr" between her teeth.

Malone discovered that he was sitting undignifiedly on the steps. He opened his mouth to say something objectionable, took another look at the girl, and shut it with a snap. This was no ordinary girl.

He smiled at her. She shook her head and sat up, still going "rrr." Then she stopped and said instead, "What do you think--"

"I'm sorry," Malone said in what he hoped was a charming, debonair, and apologetic voice. It was quite a lot to get into one voice, but he tried his very hardest. "I just didn't see--"

"You didn't?" the girl said. She took a long, slow look at him, shook her head again, and then pulled her skirt down carefully. "If you didn't, you must be blind," she said.

Malone noticed with hope that there was no anger in her voice. The last thing in the world he wanted was to get this girl angry at him.

"Oh, no," Malone said. "I'm not blind. Not blind at all." He smiled at her and stood up. His tail throbbed a little, but it didn't seem to be anything really serious. "I'm just polite," he said, and smiled again. His face was beginning to get a little tired, but he retained his last smile as he went over to her, extended a hand and pulled her to her feet.

She was something special. Her hair was long and dark, and fell in soft waves to her shoulders. The shoulders were something all by themselves, but Malone postponed consideration of them for a minute to take a look at her face.

It was heart-shaped and rather thin. She had large brown liquid eyes that could look, Malone imagined, appealing, loving, worshiping--or, like a minute ago, downright furious. Below these features she had a straight lovely nose and a pair of lips which Malone immediately classified as kissable.

Her figure, including the shoulders, was on the slim side, but she was very definitely all there. Malone couldn't think of any parts the Creator had left out, and if there were any he didn't want to hear about them. In an instant, Malone knew that he had met the only great love of his life.

Again.

His mind was whirling, and for a second he didn't know what to do. And then he remembered the Queen's Own FBI. Phrases flowered forth in his mind as if it were a garden packed corner to corner with the most exquisite varieties of blooming idiots.

"My deepest apologies, my dear," Sir Kenneth Malone said gallantly, even managing a small display bow for the occasion. "May I be of any assistance?"

The girl smiled up at him as she came to her feet. The smile was radiant and beautiful and almost loving. Malone felt as if he couldn't stand it. Tingles of the most wonderful kind ran through him, reached his toes and then back the other way, meeting a whole new set going forward.

"You're very nice," the girl said, and the tingles became positive waves of sensation. "Actually, it was all my fault. Please don't apologize, Mr.--" She paused expectantly.

"Me?" Malone said, his gallantry deserting him for the second. But it returned full force before he expected it. "I'm Malone," he said. "Kenneth Joseph Malone." He had always liked the middle name he had inherited from his father, but he never had much opportunity to use it. He made the most of it now, rolling it out with all sorts of subsidiary flourishes. As a matter of fact, he barely restrained himself from putting a "Sir" before his name.

The girl's brown eyes widened just a trifle. Malone felt as if he could have fallen into them and drowned. "Oh, my," she said. "You must be a detective." And then, like the merest afterthought, "My name's Dorothy."

Dorothy. It was a beautiful name. It made Malone feel all choked up inside. He blinked at the girl and tried to look manly and wonderful. It was an effort, but he nearly carried it off.

After a second or two he realized that she had asked him a question. He didn't want to disillusion her in any way, and, after all, an FBI agent was a kind of detective, but he thought it was only fair that she should know the whole truth about him right from the start.

"Not exactly a detective," he said.

"Not exactly?" she said, looking puzzled. She looked positively glorious when puzzled, Malone decided at once.

"That is," he said carefully, "I do detect, but not for the city of New York."

"Oh," she said. "A private eye. Is that right?"

"Well," Malone said, "no." She looked even more puzzled.

Malone hastened to explain before he got to the point where conversation was impossible.

"Federal Bureau of Investigation," he said. After a second he thought of a clarification and added, "FBI."

"Oh," the girl said. "Oh."

"But you can call me Ken," Malone said.

"All right--Ken," she said. "And you call me Dorothy."

"Sure," he said. He tried it out. "Dorothy." It felt swell.

"Well," she said after a second.

"Oh," Malone said. "Were you looking for a detective? Because if I can help in any way--"

"Not exactly," Dorothy said. "Just a little routine business. I'll go on in and--"

Malone suddenly found himself talking without having any idea why he'd started, or what he was going to say. At first he said, "Urr," as if the machine were warming up, and this stopped Dorothy and caused her to give him a rather sharp, baffled stare. Then he found some words and used them hurriedly, before they got away.

"Dorothy," he said, "would you like to take in a show this evening? I think I can get tickets to--well, I guess I could get tickets to almost anything, if I really tried." His expression attempted to leave no doubt that he would really try.

Dorothy appeared to consider for a moment. "Well," she said at last, "how about The Hot Seat?"

Malone felt just the way he had several years before when he had bluffed his way into a gigantic pot during a Washington poker game, with only a pair of fours to work with. At the last moment, his bluff had been called.

It had, he realized, been called again. The Hot Seat had set some sort of record, not only for Broadway longevity, but for audience frenzy. Getting tickets for it was about the same kind of proposition as buying grass on the moon, and getting them with absolutely no prior notice would require all the wire-pulling Malone could manage. He thought about The Hot Seat and wished Dorothy had picked something easy, like arranging for her to meet the Senate.

But he swallowed bravely. "I'll do my best," he said. "Got any second choice?"

"Sure," she said, and laughed. "Pick any one you want. I haven't seen them all, and the ones I have seen are worth seeing again."

"Oh," Malone said.

"I really didn't expect you to get tickets for The Hot Seat," she said.

"Nothing," Malone said, "is impossible." He grinned at her. "Meanwhile, where can I pick you up? Your home?"

Dorothy frowned and shook her head. "No," she said. "You see, I'm living with an aunt, and I--well, never mind." She thought for a minute. "I know," she said. "Topp's."

"What?" Malone said.

"Topp's," Dorothy said. "On Forty-second Street, just east of Broadway? It's a restaurant."

"I don't exactly know where it is," Malone said, "but if it's there, I'll find it." He looked gallant and determined. "We can get something to eat there before the show--whatever the show turns out to be."

"Fine," Dorothy said.

"How about making it at six?" Malone said.

She nodded. "Six it is," she said. "Now bye-bye." She touched her forefinger to her lips, and brushed Malone's cheek with the kissed finger.

By the time the new set of tingles had begun to evaporate, she had gone into the police station. Malone heaved a great sigh of passion, and held down a strong impulse to follow her and protect her. He wasn't quite sure what he was going to protect her from, but he felt certain that that would come to him when the time arrived.

Nevertheless, he had work to do, unpleasant as the idea had suddenly begun to seem. He pulled the list of addresses out of his pocket and looked at the first one.

Mike Fueyo.

Mike was the leader of the Silent Spooks, according to Lieutenant Lynch. Logically, therefore, he would be the first one to talk to. Malone tried to think of some good questions, but the best one he could come up with was: "Well, what about all those red Cadillacs?"

Somehow he doubted that this would provide a satisfactory reply.

He checked the address again and started firmly down the street, trying to think of some better questions along the way.

* * * * *

The building was just off Amsterdam Avenue, in the eighties. It had been a shining new development once, but it was beginning to slide downhill now. The metal on the window frames was beginning to look worn, and the brickwork hadn't been cleaned in a long time. Where chain fences had once protected lonely blades of grass, children, mothers, and baby carriages held sway now, and the grass was gone. Instead, the building was pretty well surrounded by a moat of sick-looking brown dirt.

Malone went into the first building and checked the name against the mailboxes there, trying to ignore the combined smells of sour milk, red pepper, and here and there a whiff of unwashed humanity.

It was on the tenth floor: Fueyo, J. That, he supposed, would be Mike's widowed mother; Lynch had told him that much about the boy and his family. He found the elevator, which was covered with scribbles ranging from JANEY LOVES MIGUEL to startling obscenities, and rode it upstairs.

Apartment 1004 looked like every other apartment in the building, at least from the outside. Malone pressed the button and waited a second to hear the faint buzzing at the other side of the door. After a minute, he pressed it again.

The door swung open very suddenly, and Malone stepped back.

A short, wrinkled, dark-eyed woman in a print housedress was eying him with deep suspicion. "My daughter is not home," she announced at once.

"I'm not looking for your daughter," Malone said. "I'd like to talk to Mike."

"Mike?" Her expression grew even more suspicious. "You want to talk to Mike?"

"That's right," Malone said.

"Ah," the woman said. "You one of those hoodlum friends he has. I'm right? You can talk to Mike when I am dead and have no control over him. For now, you can just--"

"Wait a minute," Malone said. He pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to show his badge, being very careful that he made the right flip this time. He didn't know exactly how this woman would react to the Queen's Own FBI, but he didn't especially want to find out.

She looked down at the badge without taking the wallet from him. "Hah," she said. "You're cop, eh?" Her eyes left the wallet and examined Malone from head to foot. It was perfectly plain that they didn't like what they saw. "Cop," she said again, as if to herself. It sounded like a curse.

Malone said, "Well, I--"

"You want to ask me stupid questions," she said. "That is what you want to do. I'm right?"

"I only--"

"I know nothing," she said. "Nothing of any kind." She closed her mouth and stood regarding him as if he were a particularly repulsive statue. Malone looked past her into the living room beyond the door.

It was faded now, but it had once been bright and colorful. There was an old rug on the floor, and tables were everywhere. The one bright thing about the room was the assortment of flowers; there were flowers everywhere, in vases, in pots, and even in window boxes. There was also a lot of crockery statuary, mostly faded, chipped, or worn in some way. The room looked to Malone as if its last inhabitant had died ten years before; only the flowers had been renewed. Everything else had not only the appearance of age, but the look of having been cast up as a high-water mark by the sea, which had receded and left only the tangled wreckage.

The woman cleared her throat, and Malone's gaze came back to her. "I can tell you nothing," she said.

"I don't want to talk to you," Malone said again. "I want to talk to Mike."

Her eyes were very cold. "You from the police, and you want to talk to Mike. You make a joke. Only I don't think the joke is very funny."

"Joke?" Malone said. "You mean Mike's not here?"

Her gaze never wavered. "You know he is not," she said. "Ten minutes ago the policemen were taking him away to the police station. How then could he be here?"

"Ten minutes ago?" Malone blinked. Ten minutes ago he had been looking for this apartment. Probably it hadn't taken Lynch's men ten minutes to find it; they weren't strangers in New York. "He was arrested?" Malone said.

"I said so, didn't I?" the woman said. "You must be crazy or else something." Her eyes were still cold points, but Malone suddenly saw a glow behind them, the glow of tears. Mike was her son. She did not seem surprised that the police had taken him away, but she was determined to protect him. He was her son.

Malone's voice was very gentle. "Why did they arrest him?" he said.

The woman shrugged, a single sharp gesture. "You ask me this?" she said.

"I'm not a cop," Malone said. "I'm from the FBI. I don't know anything about why the cops might have arrested Mike."

"FBI?" the woman said.

"It's all right," Malone said, with all the assurance he could muster. "I only want to talk to him."

"Ah," the woman said. Tears were plain in her eyes now, glittering on the surface. "Why they take him away, I do not know. My Mike do nothing. Nothing."

"But didn't they say anything about--"

"They say?" the woman cried. "They say only they have orders from this Lieutenant Lynch. He is lieutenant at police station."

"I know," Malone said gently.

"Lieutenant Lynch wants to ask Mike questions, so police come, take him away." Her English was beginning to lose ground as the tears came closer, as she slowly lost control.

"Lynch asked for him?" Malone said. He frowned. Whatever that meant, he wanted to be there himself. And perhaps he could help the old woman in some way. Anyhow, he would try. She stared up at him stonily. "Look, Mrs. Fueyo," he said. "I'm going down there to talk to Mike right now. And if he hasn't done anything, I'll see that he gets right on home to you. Right away."

Her expression changed a trifle. She did not actually soften, but Malone could feel the gratitude lurking behind her eyes as if it were afraid to come out. She nodded gravely and said nothing at all. He stepped away, and she closed the door without a sound.

He stood staring at the door for a few seconds. Then he turned and punched the elevator button savagely.

There wasn't any time to lose.

He walked back to the precinct station. Knowing the way, it took him about five minutes instead of the fifteen it had taken him to find the Fueyo residence. But he still felt as if time were passing much too fast. He ran up the steps and passed right by the desk sergeant, who apparently recognized him; he said nothing as Malone charged up the stairs and around the hall to Lynch's office.

It was empty.

Malone stared at it and started down the hall again without knowing where he was heading. Halfway to the stairs he met a patrolman.

"Where's Lynch?" he asked.

"The lieutenant?" the patrolman said.

Malone fumed. "Who else?" he said. "Where is he?"

"Got some kid back in the tank, or somewhere," the patrolman said. "Asking him a couple of questions, that's all." He added, "Hey, listen, buddy, what do you want to see the lieutenant for? I mean, you can't just go charging in to--"

Malone was down the stairs before he'd finished. He went, up to the desk.

The desk sergeant looked down. "What's it this time?" he said. "A track meet?"

"I'm in a hurry," Malone said. "Where are the cells? I want to see Lieutenant Lynch."

The desk sergeant nodded. "Okay," he said. "But the lieutenant ain't in any of the cells. He's back in Interrogation with some kid."

"Take me there," Malone said.

"I'll show you, anyway," the sergeant said. "Can't leave the desk on duty." He cleared his throat and gave Malone a set of directions that took him around to the back of the station. He was repeating the directions when Malone left.

There was a door at the end of a corridor at the back of the station. It was a plain wooden door with the numeral 1 stenciled on it. Malone opened it and looked inside.

He was staring into a rather small, rather plain little room. There were absolutely no bright beam lights burning, and there didn't seem to be any rubber hoses around anywhere. There were only four chairs.

Seated in three of the chairs were Lieutenant Lynch and two other police officers. In the fourth chair, facing them, was a young boy.

He didn't look like a tough kid. He had wavy black hair, brown eyes, and what Malone thought looked like a generally friendly appearance. He was slight and wiry, not over five feet five or six. And he wore an expression that was neither too eager nor hostile. It wasn't just blank, either; Malone finally pinned it down as receptive.

He had the strangest impression that he had seen the boy somewhere before. But he couldn't remember when or where.

Lieutenant Lynch was talking.

"...all we want, Mike, is a little information. We thought you'd be able to help us, if you wanted to. Now, how about it?"

"Sure," Mike Fueyo said. His voice was a little high, but it was well controlled and responsive. "Sure, Lieutenant. I'll help if I can, but I just don't dig what you're giving me. It doesn't make sense."

Lynch stirred a little impatiently, and his voice began to carry a new bite. "I'm talking about Cadillacs," he said. "Red Cadillacs, 1972 models."

"It's a nice car," Mike said.

"What do you know about them?" Lynch said.

"Know about them?" Mike said. "I know they're nice cars. That's about it. What else am I going to know, Lieutenant? Maybe you think I own one of these big red 1972 Caddies. Maybe you think I got that kind of money. Well, listen, Lieutenant. I'd like to help you out, but I'm just not--"

"The Cadillacs," Lynch said, "were--"

"Just a minute, Lieutenant," Malone said. Dead silence fell with great suddenness. Lynch and all the others looked around at Malone, who smiled apologetically. "I don't want to disturb anything," he said. "But I would like to talk to Mike here for a little while."

"Oh," Lynch said sourly. "Sure. Sure."

"I'd like to ask him a couple of questions," Malone said. "Alone."

"Alone." Lynch said. "Oh." But there was nothing for him to do, Malone knew, except bow to the inevitable. "Of course," he said. "Go right ahead."

"You can stand outside the door," Malone said. "He won't get away. And you'd better hold this." Malone, knowing perfectly well that staying armed and alone in a room with a suspect was something you just did not do, unstrapped his .44 Magnum and handed it to the lieutenant.

He left reluctantly with his men. The door closed.

Malone could understand Lynch's attitude. If Malone solved the case, Lynch would not get any credit. Otherwise, it might go down in his personal record. And of course the NYPD would rather wrap the case up themselves; the FBI was treated as a necessary interference. Unfortunately, Malone thought, Lynch had had absolutely no choice. He sighed gently, and turned his attention to Mike Fueyo, who was still sitting in his chair.

"Now, Mike--" he began, and was interrupted.

The door opened. Lieutenant Lynch said, "If you need us, Malone, just yell."

"You'll hear me," Malone promised. The door shut.

He turned back to the boy. "Now, Mike," he began again. "My name is Malone, and I'm with the FBI in Washington. I'd like to ask you a few--"

"Gee, Mr. Malone," Mike broke in eagerly. "I'm glad you're here. I'm really glad about that."

Malone said, "Well, I--"

"These cops here have been giving me a pretty rough deal, you know?" Mike said.

"I'm sure they--" Malone began.

"But I've been looking for you," Mike went on. "See, I wanted to say something to you. Something real important."

Malone leaned forward expectantly. At last he was going to get some information--perhaps the information that would break the whole case wide open. He said, "Yes?"

"Well," Mike began, and stopped.

"You don't have to be afraid of me, Mike," Malone said. "Just tell me whatever's on your mind."

"Sure," Mike said. "It's this."

He took a deep breath. Malone clenched his fists. Now it was coming. Now he would hear the all-important fact. He waited.

Mike stuck out his tongue and blew the longest, loudest, brassiest, and juiciest Bronx cheer that Malone had ever heard.

Then, almost instantly, the room was empty except for Malone himself.

Mike was gone.

There wasn't any place to hide, and there hadn't been any time to hide in. Malone looked around wildly, but he had no doubts at all.

Mike Fueyo had vanished, utterly and instantaneously. He'd gone out like a light.

5

Thirty seconds passed.

During that time, Malone did nothing at all. He just sat there, while a confused montage of pictures tumbled through his head. Sometimes he saw double exposures, and sometimes a couple of pictures overlapped, but it didn't seem to make any difference, because none of the pictures meant anything anyhow.

The reason for that was obvious. He was no longer sane. He had cracked up. At a crucial moment his brain had failed him, and now people would have to come in and cart him away and put him in a strait jacket. It was perfectly obvious to Malone that he was no longer capable of dealing with everyday life. The blow on the head had probably taken final effect, and it had been more serious than the doctor had imagined.

He had always distrusted doctors anyhow.

And now he was suffering from a delayed reaction. He wasn't living in the real world any more. He had gone off to dreamland, where people disappeared when you looked at them. There was no hope for him any more.

It was a nice theory, and it was even comforting in a way. There was only one thing wrong with it.

The room around him didn't look dreamlike at all. It was perfectly solid and real, and it looked just the way it had looked before Mike Fueyo had--well, Malone amended, before whatever had happened had happened. It was a perfectly complete little room, and it had four chairs in it. Malone was sitting in one of the chairs and all the others were empty.

There was absolutely nothing else in the room.

With some regret, Malone abandoned the theory that he had gone mad. This left him with no ideas at all. Because if he hadn't become insane, then what had happened?

After another second or two, some ideas began to filter through the daze. Perhaps he'd just blacked out for a minute and the kid had gone out the door. That was possible, wasn't it?

Sure it was. And maybe he had just not seen the kid go. His eyes had failed for a second or two. That could certainly happen after a blow on the head. Malone tried to remember where the sight centers of the brain were. Maybe whoever had hit him had disturbed them, and he'd had a sudden blackout.

Come to think of it, that made pretty good sense. He had blacked out, and Mike had just walked out the door. It had to be the door, of course--the windows were out of the question, since there weren't any windows. And six-inch-wide air-conditioner ducts do not provide reasonable space for an exit, not if you happen to be a human being.

That, Malone told himself, was settled--and a good thing, too. He had begun to worry about it. But now he knew just what had happened, and he felt relieved. He got up from his chair, walked over to the door and opened it.

Lieutenant Lynch nearly fell into the room. He'd obviously had his ear pressed tightly to the door and hadn't expected it to open. The other two cops stood behind him, just about filling the hallway with their broad shoulders.

"Well, well," Malone said.

Lynch recovered his balance and glared at the FBI agent. He said nothing.

"Where is he?" Malone said.

"Where is he?" Lynch repeated, and blinked. "Where's who?"

Malone shook his head impatiently. "Fueyo," he said. "The kid. Where did he--"

Lynch's expression was the same as that on the faces of the other two cops: complete and utter bafflement. Malone stopped and stared. It was suddenly very obvious that the lovely theory he had worked out for Mike's disappearance wasn't true in the least. If Mike Fueyo had come out the door, then these cops would know about it. But they obviously knew nothing at all about it.

Therefore, he hadn't come out through the door.

Malone took a deep breath.

"What are you talking about?" Lynch said. "Isn't the kid in there with you? What's happened?"

There was only one thing to do and, straight-faced, Malone went ahead and did it. "Of course not," he snapped, trying to sound impatient and official. "I released him."

"You what?"

"Released him," Malone said. He stepped out into the hall and closed the door of the interrogation room firmly behind him. "I got all the information I needed, so I let him go."

"Thanks," Lynch said bitterly. "After all, I was the one who--"

"You called him in for questioning, didn't you, Lieutenant?" Malone said.

"Yes, I did, and I--"

"Well," Malone said, "I questioned him."

There was a little silence. Then Lynch asked, in a strangled voice, "What did he say?"

"Sorry," Malone said at once. "That's classified information." He pushed his way into the corridor, trying to look as if he had fifteen other jobs to accomplish within the next hour. Being an FBI agent was going to help a little, but he still had to look good in order to carry it off.

"But--"

"Thanks for your co-operation, Lieutenant," Malone said. "You've all been very helpful." He smiled at them in what he hoped was a superior manner. "So long," he said, and started walking.

"Wait!" Lynch said. He flung open the door of the interrogation room. There was no doubt that it was empty. "Wait! Malone!"

Malone turned slowly, trying to look calm and in control of the situation. "Yes?" he said.

Lynch looked at him with puzzled, pleading eyes. "Malone, how did you release him? We were right here. He didn't come through the door. There isn't any other exit. So how did you get him out?"

There was only one answer to that, and Malone gave it with a quiet, assured air. "I'm terribly sorry, Lieutenant," he said, "but that's classified information, too." He gave the cops a little wave and walked slowly down the corridor. When he reached the stairs he began to speed up and he was out of the precinct station and into a taxicab before any of the cops could have realized what had happened.

He took a deep breath, feeling as if it were the first he'd had in several days. "Breathe air," he told himself. "It's good for you." Not that New York had any real air in it. It was mostly carbon fumes and the like. But it was the nearest thing to air that Malone could find at the moment, and he determined to go right on breathing it until something better and cleaner showed up.

But that wasn't important now. As the cab tooled along down Broadway toward 69th Street, Malone closed his eyes and began going over the whole thing in his mind.

Mike Fueyo had vanished.

Of that, Malone told himself, there was no shadow of doubt. No probable, possible shadow of doubt.

No possible doubt (as a matter of fact) whatever.

Dismissing the Grand Inquisitor with a negligent wave of his hand, he concentrated on the main question. It was a good question. Malone could have sat and pondered it admiringly for a long time.

As a matter of fact, that was all he could think of to do, as the cab turned up 70th Street and headed east. He certainly didn't have any answers for it.

But it was a lovely question:

Where does that leave Kenneth J. Malone?

And, possibly even more important: Where was Miguel Fueyo?

It was obvious that he'd vanished on purpose. And it hadn't just been something he'd recently discovered. He had known all along that he could pull the trick; if he hadn't known that, he wouldn't have done what he had done beforehand. No seventeen-year-old boy, no matter what he was, would give the FBI the raspberry unless he was pretty sure he could get away with it.

Malone remembered the raspberry and winced slightly. The cab driver called back, "Anything wrong, buddy?"

"Everything," Malone said. "But don't worry about it."

The cab driver shrugged and turned back to the wheel. Malone went back to Mike Fueyo.

The kid could make himself vanish at will.

Invisibility?

Malone thought about that for a while. The fact that it was impossible didn't decide him against it. Everything was impossible; that much was clear. But he didn't think Mike Fueyo had just become invisible. No. There had been the sense of presence actually leaving the room. If Mike had become invisible and stayed, Malone was sure he wouldn't have felt the boy leave.

Mike had not just become invisible. (And what do I mean, "just"? Malone asked himself unhappily.) He had gone--elsewhere.

This brought him back full circle to his original question. Where was the boy now? But he ignored it for a minute or two as another, even more difficult query presented itself.

Never mind where, Malone told himself. How?

Something was bothering him. Malone realized that it had been bothering him for a long time. At last he managed to locate it and hold it up to the light for inspection.

Dr. O'Connor, the psionics expert at Westinghouse, had mentioned something during Malone's last conversation with him. Dr. O'Connor, who'd invented a telepathy detector, had been discussing further reaches in his field.

"After all," he'd said, "if thoughts can bridge any distance whatever, regardless of other barriers, there is no reason why matter could not do likewise."

"But it doesn't," Malone had said. "Or at least it hasn't so far."

"There's no way to be sure of that," Dr. O'Connor had said sternly. "After all, we have no reports of it--but that means little. Our search has only begun."

"Oh," Malone had said. "Sure."

"Matter, controlled by thought, might bridge distances instantaneously," Dr. O'Connor had said.

And he'd referred to something, some word...

Teleportation.

That was it. Malone sat back. All you had to do, he reflected, was to think yourself somewhere else, and--bing!--you were there. If Malone had been able to do it, it would not only have saved him a lot of time and trouble, but also such things as cab fare and train fare and ... oh, a lot of different things.

But he couldn't. And Dr. O'Connor hadn't found anyone else who could, either. As far as Malone knew, nobody could teleport.

Except Mike Fueyo.

The cab stopped in front of FBI headquarters. "You some kind of secret agent?" the cabbie said. "Like on 3-D?"

"Of course not," Malone said pleasantly. "I'm a foreign spy."

"Oh," the cabbie said. "Sure." He took his money with a somewhat puzzled air, while Malone crossed the sidewalk and went into the building.

Everyone was active. Malone pushed his way through arguing knots of men until he reached the small office which he and Boyd had been assigned. He had already decided not to tell Boyd about the disappearing boy. That would only confuse him, and matters were confused enough as they stood. Malone had no proof; he had only his word and the word of a few baffled policemen, all of whom were probably thoroughly confused by now.

Boyd had a job to do, and Malone had decided to let him go on doing it. That, as a matter of fact, was what he was doing when Malone entered the room.

He was sitting at his desk, talking on the telephone. Malone couldn't see the face on the screen, but Boyd was scowling at it fiercely. "Sure," he said. "So some guy makes a fuss. That's what you're there for."

"But he wants to sue the city," a voice said tinnily. "Or somebody, anyhow."

"Let him sue," Boyd said. "We've got authority. Just get that car."

"Look," the voice said. "I--"

"I don't care now," Boyd snapped. "Get it. Then hand it over to the pickup squad and say, 'Mr. Malone wants this car immediately.' They'll know what to do. Got that?"

"Sure, Mr. Boyd," the voice said. "But I don't--"

"Never mind," Boyd said. "Go ahead and get the job done. The United States of America is depending on you." With one last scowl, he hung up and swung around to face Malone. "You gave me a great job," he said. "I really love it, you know that?"

"It's got to be done," Malone said in a noncommittal voice. "How's it going so far?"

Boyd closed his eyes for a second. "Twenty-three red 1972 Cadillacs to date--which isn't bad, I suppose," he said. "And six calls like the one you just heard. All from agents with problems. What am I supposed to do when a guy catches a couple necking in a 1972 red Cadillac?"

"At this time of day?" Malone said.

"New York," Boyd said, and shrugged. "Things are funny here."

Malone nodded. "What did you do about them?" he said.

"Told the agent to take the car and give 'em a pass to a movie," Boyd said.

"Good," Malone said. "Keep that sort of thing in the dark where it belongs." For some reason, this reminded him of Dorothy. He still had to get tickets for a show. But that could wait. "How about the assembly line?" he said.

"Disassembly," Boyd said. "Leibowitz has started it going. He borrowed the use of a big auto repair shop out in Jersey City, and they'll be doing a faster job than we thought." He paused. "But it's been a wonderful day," he said. "One to remember as long as I live. Possibly even until tomorrow. And how have you been doing?"

"Well," Malone said, "I'm not absolutely sure yet."

"That's a nice helpful answer," Boyd said. "In the best traditions of the FBI."

"I can't help it," Malone said. "It's true."

"Well, what the hell have you been doing?" Boyd said. "Drinking? Helling around? Living it up while I sit here and talk to people about Cadillacs?"

"Not exactly," Malone said. "I've been--well, doing more or less what Burris told me to do. Nosing around. Keeping my eyes open. I think--"

The phone chimed. Boyd flipped up the mike and eyed the screen balefully. "Federal Bureau of Investigation," he said crisply. "Who the hell are you?"

A voice on the other end said, "What?" before the image on the screen cleared.

"Federal Bureau of Investigation," Boyd said in a perfectly innocent voice. "Boyd speaking."

"Oh," a voice said. It was a very calm, quiet voice. "Hello, Boyd."

The image cleared. Boyd was facing the picture of a man in his middle thirties, a brown-haired man with large, gentle brown eyes and an expression that somehow managed to look both sad and confident. "Hello, Dr. Leibowitz," Boyd said.

"Is Mr. Malone in?" Leibowitz said. "I really wanted to talk to him."

"Sure," Boyd said. "Just a second."

He motioned to Malone, who came around and sat at Boyd's desk as Boyd got up. He nodded to Leibowitz, and the electronics engineer nodded back.

"How's everything coming, Dr. Leibowitz?" Malone said.

Leibowitz shrugged meaningfully. "All right," he said. "I called you to tell you about that, by the way. We've managed to cut the per-car time down somewhat."

"That's wonderful," Malone said.

"It's now down to about four hours per car, and that means we may be able to do even better than running one off the line every fifteen minutes. At the moment, fifteen minutes is about standard, though, with sixteen cars in the line."

"Sure," Malone said. "But anything you can do to speed it up--"

"I understand," Leibowitz said. "Of course I'll do anything that I can for you. I have got a small preliminary report, by the way."

"Yes?"

"The first car has just been run off the assembly line," Leibowitz said. "And I'm afraid, Mr. Malone, that there's nothing odd about it at all."

"Well," Malone said, "we can't expect to hit the jackpot with our first try."

"Certainly not," Leibowitz said. "But the second should be off soon. And then the rest. I'm keeping my eye on every one, of course."

"Fine," Malone said, and meant it. Leibowitz was the kind of man who inspired instant and complete trust. Malone was perfectly sure he'd do the job he had started to do. Then an idea struck him. "Has the first car been reassembled yet?" he asked.

"Of course," Leibowitz said. "We took that step into account in our timing. What would you like done with it--and with the other ones, as they come off?"

"Unless you can find something odd about a car, just return it to its owner," Malone said. "Or pass the problem on to the squad men; they'll take care of it." He paused. "If you do find something odd--"

"I'll call you at once, of course," Leibowitz said.

"Good," Malone said. "Incidentally, I did want to ask you something. I don't want you to think I'm doubting your work, or anything like that. Believe me."

"I'm sure you're not," Leibowitz said.

"But," Malone said, "why does it take so long? I'd think it would be fairly easy to spot a robotic or a semi-robotic brain capable of controlling a car."

"It might have been, once," Leibowitz said. "But these days the problems are rather special. Oh, I don't mean we can't do it--we can and we will. But with subminiaturization, Mr. Malone, and semipsionic circuits, a pretty good brain can be hidden beneath a coat of paint."

For no reason at all, Malone suddenly thought of Dorothy again. "A coat of paint?" he said in a disturbed tone.

"Certainly," Leibowitz said, and smiled at him. It was a warm smile that had little or nothing to do with the problem they were talking about. But Malone liked it. It made him feel as if Leibowitz liked him, and approved of him. He grinned back.

"But a coat of paint isn't very much," Malone said.

"It doesn't have to be very much," Leibowitz said. "Not these days. I've often told Emily--that's my wife, Mr. Malone--that I could hide a TV circuit under her lipstick. Not that there would be any use in it; but the techniques are there. Mr. Malone. And if your conjecture is correct, someone is using them."

"Oh," Malone said. "Sure. But you can find the circuits, if they're there?"

Leibowitz nodded slowly. "We can, Mr. Malone," he said. "They betray themselves. A microcircuit need not be more than a few microns thick, you see--as far as the conductors and insulators are concerned, at any rate. But the regulators-transistors and such--have to be as big as a pinhead."

"Enormous, huh?" Malone said.

"Well," Leibowitz said, and chuckled, "quite large enough to locate without trouble, at any rate. They're very hard to conceal. And the leads from the brain to the power controls are even easier to find--comparatively speaking, of course."

"Of course," Malone said.

"All the brain does, you see," Leibowitz said, "is control the mechanism that steers the car. But it takes real power to steer--a great deal more than it does to compute the steering."

"I see," Malone, who didn't, said desperately. "In other words, unless something radically new has been developed, you can find the circuits."

"Right," Leibowitz said, grinning. "It would have to be something very new indeed, Mr. Malone. We're up on most of the latest developments here; we've got to be. But I don't want you giving me the credit for this."

"No?" Malone said.

"Oh, no," Leibowitz said. "All I do is work out the general application to theory, as far as actual detection is concerned. It's my partner, Mr. Hardin, who takes care of all the engineering details."

Malone said, "Well, so long as one of you--"

"Sal's a real crackerjack," Leibowitz said enthusiastically. "He had an intuitive feel about these things. It's really amazing to watch him go to work."

"It must be," Malone said politely.

"Oh, it really is," Leibowitz said. "And it's because of Sal that I can make the guarantee I do make: that if there are any unusual circuits in those cars, we can find them."

"Thanks," Malone said. "I'm sure you'll do the job. And we need that information. Don't bother to send along a detailed report, though, unless you find something out of the ordinary."

"Of course, Mr. Malone," Leibowitz said. "I wouldn't have bothered you except for the production speed-up here."

"I understand," Malone said. "It's perfectly all right. I'll be hearing from you, then?"

"Certainly, Mr. Malone," Leibowitz said.

Malone cut the circuit at once and started to turn away, but he never got the chance. It started to chime again at once.

"Federal Bureau of Investigation," Malone said as he flipped up the receiver. He wanted badly to copy Boyd's salutation, but he found that he just didn't have the gall to do it, and said sadly instead, "Malone speaking."

There was no immediate answer from the other party. Instead, the screen slowly cleared, showing Malone the picture of a woman he recognized instantly.

It was Juanita Fueyo, Mike's mother.

Malone stared at her. It seemed to him as if a couple of hours passed while he tried to find his voice. Of course, she'd looked up the FBI number in the phone book, and found him that way. But she was about the last person on earth from whom he'd expected a call.

"Oh, Mr. Malone," she said, "thank you so much. You got my Mike back from the police."

Malone gulped. "I did?" he said. "Well, I--"

"But, Mr. Malone, you must help me again. Because now my Mike says he must not stay at home! He is leaving, he is leaving right away!"

"Leaving?" Malone said.

He thought of a thousand things to do. He could send a squad of men to arrest Mike. And Mike could disappear while they were trying to get hold of him. He could go down himself--and be greeted, if he knew Mike Fueyo, with another giant economy-size raspberry. He could try to plead with Mike on the phone.

And what good would that do?

So, instead, he just sat and stared while Mrs. Fueyo went right on.

"He says he will send me money, but money is nothing compared to my own boy, my own Mike. He says he must go away, Mr. Malone, but I know you can stop him. I know it!"

"Sure," Malone said. "But I--"

"Oh, I knew that you would," Mrs. Fueyo shrieked. She almost came through the screen at him. "You are a great man, Mr. Malone. I will say many prayers for you. Every day I will pray for you in all your work. I will never stop praying for you because you help me." Her voice and face changed abruptly. "Excuse me now," she said. "I must go back to work."

"Well," Malone said, "if I--"

Then she turned back and beamed at him again. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Malone. Thank you with the thanks of a mother. Bring my boy back to me."

And the image faded and died.

Boyd tapped Malone on the shoulder. "I didn't know you were involved in an advice column for the lovelorn," he said.

"I'm not," Malone said sourly.

Boyd sighed. "I'll bite," he said. "Who was that?"

Malone thought of several possible answers and finally chose one. "That," he said, "was my mother-in-law. She worries about me every time I go out on a job with you."

"Very funny," Boyd said. "I am screaming with laughter."

"Just get back to work, Tommy-boy," Malone said, "and leave everything to me."

He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. Lighting a cigarette--and wishing he were alone in his own room, so that he could smoke a cigar and not have to worry about looking dashing and alert--Malone strolled out of the office with a final wave to Boyd. He was thinking about Mike Fueyo, and he stopped his chain of reasoning just long enough to look in at the office of the Agent-in-Charge, and ask him to pry loose two tickets for The Hot Seat for that night.

"My God," the agent said. He was a tall thin man who looked as if he suffered from chronic stomach trouble. "You must be crazy. Are they all like that in Washington?"

"No," Malone said cheerfully. "Some of them are pretty normal. There's this one man--Napoleon, we call him--who keeps insisting that he should have won the battle of Waterloo. But otherwise he's perfectly fine."

He flicked his cigarette in the air and left, grinning. Five steps away the grin disappeared and a frown took its place.

6

He walked along 69th Street to Park Avenue without noticing where he was going. Luckily, the streets weren't really crowded, and Malone only had to apologize twice, once for stepping on a man's toe and once for absently toeing a woman's dog. When he reached the corner he headed downtown, humming Kathleen Mavourneen under his breath and trying to figure out his next move.

He needed more than one move. He needed a whole series of moves. This was not the usual kind of case. Burris had called it a vacation and, in one way, Malone supposed, Burris was perfectly right. For once there was no question about who had committed the crimes. It was obvious by now that Mike Fueyo and his Silent Spooks had been stealing the Cadillacs.

It was even obvious that Mike--or someone with Mike's talent--had bopped him on the head, and taken the red Cadillac he had been examining. And the same gang probably accounted for the Sergeant Jukovsky affair, too.

Or at least it was reasonable to assume that they did, Malone thought. He could see how it had worked. One of the Silent Spooks was a lot smaller than a grown man, and the two cops who hadn't seen anyone in the parked car just hadn't been able to catch sight of the undersized driver. Of course, there had been someone in the car when it had been driving along the West Side Highway. Someone who had teleported himself right out of the car when it had gone over the embankment.

That, of course, meant that there would be no secret machines found in the red Cadillacs Leibowitz and Hardin were examining now. But Malone had already decided to let that phase of things go on. First of all, it was always possible that he was wrong, and that some such machine really did exist. Second, even if they didn't find a machine, they might find something else. Almost anything, he thought, might turn up.

And third, it kept Boyd decently busy, and out of Malone's hair.

That had been an easy solution. And, Malone thought, the problem of who had been taking the red Cadillacs looked just as easy now, if his answers were right. And he was reasonably sure of that.

Unfortunately, he was now left with a new and unusual question: How do you catch a teleport?

Malone looked up, jarred to a stop by a man built like a brown bear, with a chunky body and an oval, slightly sloping head and face. He had very short brown hair shot through with gray, and gave Malone a small inquisitive stare and looked away without a word.

Malone mumbled, "Sorry," and looked up at the street sign. He was at 47th Street and Park Avenue. He jerked a hand up to his face, and managed to hook the chunky man by the suit. It fell away, exposing the initials S.M. carefully worked into his shirt. Second Mistake, Malone thought wildly, muttered, "Sorry," again and turned west, feeling fairly grateful to the unfortunate bystander.

He had reminded Malone of one thing. If he wanted to get even a part of his plan past the drawing-board stage, he had to make a call in a hurry.

He found a phone booth in a bar called the Ad Lib, at Madison Avenue. Sternly telling himself that he was stopping there to make a phone call, a business phone call, and not to have a drink, he marched right past the friendly bartender and went into the phone booth, where he made a call to New York Police Commissioner John Henry Fernack.

Fernack's face was that of an old man, but there was no telling how old. The early seventies was one guess, Malone imagined; the late fifties might be another. He looked tough, as if he had spent all of his life trying to persuade other people that he was young enough for the handball tournament. When he saw Malone, his eyebrows lifted slightly, but he didn't say anything.

"Commissioner," Malone said, "I called to ask you to do me a favor."

There was caution hidden in the calm and quiet voice. "Well," Fernack said, "what is it, Malone?"

"Can you have all the robberies for a given period run through the computer?" Malone said. "I need some dope."

"Depends on the given period," Fernack said. "I can't do it for 1774."

"What would I need data on robberies in 1774 for?" Malone said, honestly interested.

"I never question the FBI," Fernack said soberly. "But what dates do you want?"

"The past year, maybe the past year and a half."

"And what data?"

"I want every reported crime that hasn't been solved," Malone said, "and which seems to have been committed by some impossible means. A safe that was robbed without being opened, for instance--that's the kind of thing I mean."

"Every unsolved crime?" Fernack said. "Now, hold your horses, Malone. I'm not at all sure that--"

"Don't worry about a thing, Commissioner," Malone said. "This is confidential."

"You know how I'd feel about this if word ever got out to--"

"I said confidential, John Henry," Malone said, trying to sound friendly and trustworthy. "After all, every place has unsolved crimes. Even the FBI isn't absolutely perfect."

"Oh," Fernack said. "Sure. But confidential, Malone."

"You have my word," Malone said sincerely.

Fernack said, "Well--"

"How fast can you get me the dope?" Malone said.

"I don't exactly know," Fernack said. "The last time anything even remotely like this was run through--departmental survey, but you wouldn't be interested--it took something like eight hours."

"Fine," Malone said. "Eight hours, then. I'll look everything over and if we need a second run-through it won't take too long. I'll let you know as soon as I can about that." He grinned into the phone.

Fernack cleared his throat and asked delicately, "Mind telling me what all this is for?"

Malone offered up a little prayer before answering, and when he did answer it was in his softest and friendliest tones. "I'd rather not say just now, John Henry."

"But, Malone--" Fernack's voice sounded a little strained, and his jaw set just a trifle--"if you--"

Malone knew perfectly well how Fernack reacted when he didn't get a bit of information he wanted. And this was no time to set off any fireworks in the commissioner's office. "Look, John Henry," he said gently, "I'll tell you as soon as I can. Honest. But this is classified information; it's not my fault."

Fernack said, "But--" and apparently realized that argument was not going to do him any good. "All right, Malone," he said at last. "I'll have it for you as soon as possible."

"Great," Malone said. "Then I'll see you later."

"Sure," Fernack said. He paused, as if he were about to open the controversy just once more. But all he said was "So long, Malone."

Malone breathed a great sigh of relief and flipped the phone off. He stepped out of the booth feeling so proud of himself that he could barely walk. Not only had he managed to calm down Commissioner Fernack, he had also walked right past a bar on the way to the phone. He had performed several acts, he felt, above and beyond the call of duty, and he told himself that he deserved a reward.

Happily, the reward was convenient to hand. He went to the bar and beckoned the bartender over to him. "Bourbon and soda," he said. "And a medal, if possible."

"A what?" the bartender said.

"A medal," Malone said. "For conduct beyond reproach."

The bartender nodded sadly. "Maybe you just ought to go home, Mac," he said. "Sleep it off for a while."

New Yorkers, Malone decided as the bartender went off to get his drink, had no sense of humor. Back in Chicago--where he'd been more or less weaned on gin, and discovered that, unlike his father, he didn't much care for the stuff--and even in Washington, people didn't go around accusing you of drunkenness just because you made some harmless little pleasantry.

Oh, well. Malone drank his drink and went out into the afternoon sunlight.

He considered the itinerary of the magical Miguel Fueyo. He had gone straight home from the police station, apparently, and had then told his mother that he was going to leave home. But he had promised to send her money.

Of course, money was easy for Mike to get. With a shudder, Malone thought he was beginning to realize just how easy. Houdini had once boasted that no bank vault could hold him. In Mike Fueyo's case, that was just doubly true. The vault could neither hold him out nor keep him in.

But he was going to leave home.

Malone said, "Hmm," to himself, cleared his throat and tried it again. By now he was at the corner of the block, where he nearly collided with a workman who was busily stowing away a gigantic ladder, a pot of paint, and a brush. Malone looked at the street sign, where the words Avenue of the Americas had been painted out, and Sixth Avenue hand-lettered in.

"They finally give in," the painter told him. "But do you think they buy new signs? Nah. Cheap. That's all they are. Cheap as pretzels." He gave Malone a friendly push with one end of the ladder and disappeared into the crowd.

Malone didn't have the faintest idea of what he was talking about. And how cheap could a pretzel be, anyhow? Malone didn't remember ever having seen an especially tight-fisted one.

New York, he decided for the fifteenth time, was a strange place.

He walked downtown for a block, still thinking about Mike Fueyo, and absently turned west again. Between Sixth and Seventh, he had another attack of brilliance and began looking for another phone booth.

He found one in a Mexican bar named the Xochitl, across the street from the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin. It was a coincidence that he had landed in another bar, he told himself hopefully, but he didn't quite believe it. To prove it to himself, he headed straight for the phone booths again and put in his call, ignoring the blandishments of several rows of sparkling bottles which he passed on the way.

He dialed the number of Lieutenant Lynch's precinct, and then found himself connected with a new desk sergeant.

"I'm Malone," he said. "I want to talk to Lynch."

"Glad to know you, Malone," the desk sergeant said pleasantly. "Only Lieutenant Lynch doesn't want to subscribe to the Irish Echo!"

"Damn it," Malone said, "I'm the FBI." He showed his badge.

The desk sergeant took a good long look at it. "Maybe you are, and maybe you aren't," he said at last.

"Does the lieutenant know you?"

"We were kids together," Malone said. "We're brothers. Siamese twins. Put him on the phone."

"Wait a minute," said the desk sergeant. "I'll check."

The screen went blank for two agonizing minutes before it cleared again to show Lynch's face.

"Hello, Mr. Malone," Lynch said formally. "Have you found some new little trick to show up poor stupid policemen? Like, say, making yourself vanish?"

"I'll make the whole damn police force vanish," Malone said, "in a couple of minutes. I called to ask a favor."

"Anything," Lynch said. "Anything within my poor power. Whatever I have is yours. Whither thou goest--"

"Knock it off," Malone said, and then grinned. After all, there was no sense in making an enemy out of Lynch.

Lynch blinked, took a deep breath, and said in an entirely different voice, "Okay, Malone. What's the favor?"

"Do you still have that list of Silent Spooks?" Malone said.

"Sure I do," Lynch said. "Why? I gave you a copy of it."

"I can't do this job," Malone said. "You'll have to.".

"Yes, sir," Lynch said, and saluted.

"Just listen," Malone said. "I want you to check up on every kid on that list."

"And what are we supposed to do when we find them?" Lynch said.

"That's the trouble," Malone said. "You won't."

"And why not?"

"I'll lay you ten to one," Malone said, "that every one of them has skipped out. Left home. Without giving a forwarding address."

Lynch nodded slowly. "Ten to one?" he said. "Want to make that a money bet? Or does the FBI frown on gambling?"

"Ten dollars to your one," Malone said. "Okay?"

"Made," Lynch said. "You've got the bet--just for the hell of it, understand."

"Oh, sure," Malone said.

"And where can I call you to collect?"

Malone shook his head. "You can't," he said. "I'll call you."

"I will wait with anxiety," Lynch said. "But it had better be before eight. I get off then."

"If I can make it," Malone said.

"If you can't," Lynch said, "call me at home." He gave Malone the number, and then added, "Whatever information I get, I can keep for my own use this time, can't I?"

"Hell," Malone said, "you've already got all the information you're going to get. I just gave it to you."

"That," Lynch said, "we'll see."

"I'll call to collect my money," Malone said.

"Well talk about it later," Lynch said. "Farewell, old pal."

"Flights of angels," Malone said, "sing thee to thy rest."

Malone replaced the microphone and headed for the door. Halfway there, however, he stopped. He hadn't had any tequila in a long time, and he thought he owed it to himself. He felt he had come out ahead in his exchange with Lynch, and another medal was in order.

Only a small one, though. He told himself that he would order one tequila and quit. Besides, he had to meet Dorothy.

He sat down on one of the tall bar stools. The bartender bustled over and eyed him speculatively.

"Tequila con limon," he said negligently.

"Ah," the bartender said. "Si, seńor."

Malone waited with ill-concealed impatience. At last it arrived, Malone took the small glass of tequila in his right hand, with the slice of lemon held firmly between the index and middle fingers of the same hand, the rind facing in toward the glass. On the web between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand he had sprinkled a little salt. Moving adroitly and with dispatch, he downed the tequila, licked off the salt, and bit his teeth into the lemon slice.

It felt better than good; it felt wonderful. He hadn't had such a good time in years.

He had three more before he left the Xochitl.

Then, noticing the time, he moved in a hurry and got out of the bar before temptation overcame him and he started ordering still more. It was nearly six o'clock, and he had to meet Dorothy at Topp's.

He hoped he could find it.

He headed downtown toward 42nd Street, turned right and, sure enough, there was a big red sign. It said Topp's. Malone beamed his approval at it. It was just where it ought to be, and he was grateful.

He pushed open the glass door of the place and went in.

The maitre d'hôtel was a chunky man with a pleasant face, a receding hairline and, some distance back on his head, dark curly hair. He beamed at Malone as if the FBI agent were a long-lost brother. "Table for one, sir?" he said.

"No," Malone said, peering into the place. It was much bigger than he had expected. "No," he said again. "I guess I'll just have a drink at the bar."

The maitre d' smiled and bowed him to a bar stool. Malone sat down and looked the place over again. His first glance had shown him that Dorothy wasn't there yet, but he saw no harm in making sure. Always be careful of your facts, he admonished himself a little fuzzily.

There were a lot of women in the place, but they were all with escorts. Some of them had two escorts, and Malone wondered about them. Were they drunk, or was he? It was obvious that someone was seeing double, but Malone wasn't quite sure who.

He stared at his face in the bar mirror for a few seconds, and ordered a bourbon and soda when a bartender came over and occluded the image. The bartender went away and Malone went on studying himself.

He wasn't bad looking for an FBI agent. He was taller than his father, anyway, and less heavily built. That was one good thing. As a matter of fact, Malone told himself, he was really a pretty good-looking guy.

So why did women keep him waiting?

He heard her voice before he saw her. But she wasn't talking to him.

"Hello, Milty," she said. "How's everything?"

Malone turned around to get a look at Milty. He turned out to be the maitre d'. What did he have that Malone didn't have? the agent asked himself sourly. Obviously Dorothy was captivated by his charm. Well, that showed him what city girls were like. Butterflies. Social butterflies. Flitting hither and yon with the wind, now attracted to this man, now to that. Once, Malone told himself sadly, he had known this beautiful woman. Now she belonged to someone else.

He felt a little bit sad about it, but he told himself to buck up and learn to live with his tragedy. He drank some more of his bourbon and soda, and then she noticed him.

He heard her say, "Oh. Excuse me, Milty. There's my man." She came over and sat down next to him.

He wanted to ignore her, just to teach her a lesson. But he had already turned around and smiled at her, and she smiled back.

"Hi," she said. "Did you get the tickets?"

Tickets.

Malone knew there was something he'd forgotten, and now he knew what it was. "Oh," he said. "Sure. Just a second. I've got to check up."

"Check up?"

"Friend of mine," Malone improvised hurriedly. "Bringing them." He gave Dorothy a big smile and climbed down off the bar stool. He managed to find a phone booth, and dialed FBI headquarters on 69th Street and blessed several saints when he found that the A-in-C was still there.

"Tickets," Malone said.

The Agent-in-Charge blinked at him. "What tickets?" he said.

"The Hot Seat tickets," Malone said. "Did you get 'em?"

"I got 'em," the Agent-in-Charge said sourly. "Had to chase all over town and pull more wires than there are on a grand piano. But they turned up, brother. Two seats. Do you know what a job like that entails?"

"I'm grateful," Malone said. "I'm hysterical with gratitude."

"I'd rather track down a gang of fingerless second-story men than go through that again," the Agent-in-Charge said. He looked as if his stomach trouble had suddenly gotten a great deal worse. Malone thought that the A-in-C was considering calling a doctor, and would probably decide to make it the undertaker instead, and save the price of a call.

"I can't express my gratitude," Malone told him. "Where are they? Where do I pick them up?"

"Box office," the A-in-C said sourly. "I tell you, everybody in Washington must be nuts. The things I have to go through--"

"Thanks," Malone said. "Thanks a lot. Thanks a million. If there's ever anything I can do for you, let me know and I'll do it." He hung up and went back to the bar, walking very carefully.

"Well?" Dorothy said. "Where do we go tonight? Joe's hot-dog stand? Or a revival of The Wild Duck in a loft on Bleecker Street?"

There was pride in Malone's manner as he stood there on his feet. There was just a touch of hauteur as he said, "We'll see Hot Seat."

And he was repaid for all of the Agent-in-Charge's efforts. Dorothy's eyes went wide with appreciation and awe. "My goodness," she said. "A man of his word--and what a tough word, too! Mr. Malone, I congratulate you."

"Nothing," Malone said. "A mere absolute nothing."

"Nothing, the man says," Dorothy muttered. "My goodness. And modest, too. Tell me, how do you do, Mr. Malone?"

"Me?" Malone said. "Very well, so far." He finished his drink. "And you?"

"I work at it," she said cryptically.

"May I have another drink?"

Malone gave her a grin. "Another?" he said. "Have two. Have a dozen."

"And what," she said, "would I do with a dozen drinks? Don't answer. I think I can guess. But let's just take them one at a time, okay?" She signaled to the bartender. "Wally, I'll have a martini. And Mr. Malone will have whatever it is he has, I imagine."

"Bourbon and soda," Malone said, and gave the bartender a grin too, just to make sure he didn't feel left out. The sun was shining (although it was evening outside), and the birds were singing (although, Malone reflected, catching a bird on 42nd Street and Broadway might take a bit of doing), and all was well with the world.

There was only a tiny, nagging, disturbing thought in his mind. It had to do with Mike Fueyo and the Silent Spooks, and a lot of red Cadillacs. But he pushed it resolutely away. It had nothing to do with the evening he was about to spend. Nothing at all.

After all, this was supposed to be a vacation, wasn't it?

"Well, Mr. Malone," Dorothy said, when the drinks had arrived.

"Very well indeed," Malone said, raising his. "And just call me Ken. Didn't I tell you that once before?"

"You did," she said. "And I asked you to call me Dorothy. Not Dotty. Try and remember that."

"I will remember it," Malone said, "just as long as ever I live. You don't look the least bit dotty, anyhow. Which is probably more than anybody could say for me." He started to look at himself in the bar mirror again, and decided not to. "By the way," he added, as a sudden thought struck him. "Dotty what?"

"Now," she said. "There you go doing it."

"Doing what?"

"Calling me that name."

"Oh," Malone said. "Make it Dorothy. Dorothy what?" He blinked. "I mean, I know you've got a last name. Dorothy Something. Only it probably isn't Something. What is it?"

"Francis," she said obligingly. "Dorothy Francis. My middle name is Something, in case you ever want to call me by my middle name. Just yell, 'Hey, Something,' and I'll come a-running. Unless I have something else to do. In which case everything will be very simple: I won't come."

"Ah," Malone said doubtfully. "And what do--"

"What do I do?" she said. "A standard question. Number two of a series. I do modeling. Photographic modeling. And that's not all; I also do commercials on 3-D. If I look familiar to you, it's probably because you've seen me on 3-D. Do I look familiar to you?"

"I never watch 3-D," Malone said, crestfallen.

"Fine," Dorothy said unexpectedly. "You have excellent taste."

"Well," Malone said, "it's just that I never seem to get the time--"

"Don't apologize for it," Dorothy said. "I have to appear on it, but I don't have to like it. And now that I've answered your questions, how about answering some of mine."

"Gladly," Malone said. "The inmost secrets of the FBI are yours for the asking."

"Hmm," Dorothy said slowly. "What do you do as an FBI agent, anyhow? Dig up spies?"

"Oh, no," Malone said. "We've got enough trouble with the live ones. We don't go around digging anybody up. Believe me." He paused, feeling dimly that the conversation was beginning to get out of control. "Have I told you that you are the most beautiful woman I've ever met?" he said at last.

"No," Dorothy said. "Not yet, anyway. But I was expecting it."

"You were?" Malone said, disappointed.

"Certainly," Dorothy said. "You've been drinking. As a matter of fact, you've managed to get quite a head start."

Malone hung his head guiltily. "True," he said in a low voice. "Too true. Much too true."

Dorothy nodded, downed her drink and waved to the bartender. "Wally, bring me a double this time."

"A double?"

"Sure," Dorothy said. "I've got to do some fast catching-up on Mr. Malone here."

"Call me Ken," Malone muttered.

"Don't be silly," Dorothy told him. "Wally hardly knows you. He'll call you Mr. Malone and like it."

The bartender went away, and Malone sat on his stool and thought busily for a minute. At last he said, "If you really want to catch up with me..."

"Yes?" Dorothy said.

"Better have a triple," Malone muttered.

Dorothy's eyebrows rose slightly.

"Because I intend to have another one," Malone added. "And even then you'll be just a little behind."

"That sounds sort of sad, in a way," Dorothy said. "Just a little behind. Tell me, is that a compliment or an insult?"

"Both," Malone said instantly. "And an observation, too."

Dorothy nodded. "I can see why you're a Federal cop," she said.

"Really?" Malone said. "I didn't know it showed. Why?"

"You're good at observing," she said. "Like this morning, for instance."

"Ah," Malone said. He searched in his mind for a quotation and found it. "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee," he said triumphantly.

"Sounds sort of grisly," Dorothy said.

Malone shrugged. "I can't help it," he said. "That's what it says."

"Well?" Dorothy said. "Did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Pluck your eye out and cast it from you?"

"Didn't have to," Malone said. "Mine eye did not offend me." He blinked and added, "Far from it."

"I guess we'll just have to leave it unplucked," Dorothy said sadly. "It didn't offend me, either."

"Good," Malone said, and the bartender brought drinks.

Malone picked his up and held it in the air. "I propose a toast," he said.

Dorothy picked up her glass. "A toast?"

"An old German toast, as a matter of fact," Malone said.

He fell silent. After a few seconds Dorothy said, "Well? Go ahead."

"Zwieback!" Malone said, bowed carefully to Dorothy and drained his glass with a flourish.

7

It started a million years ago.

In that distant past, a handful of photons deep in the interior of Sol began their random journey to the photosphere. They had been born as ultrahard gamma radiation, and they were positively bursting with energy, attempting to push their respective ways through the dense nucleonic gas that had been their womb. Within millimicroseconds, they had been swallowed up by the various particles surrounding them--swallowed, and emitted again, as the particles met in violent collision.

And then the process was repeated. After a thousand thousand years, and billions on billions of such repetitions, the handful of photons reached the relatively cool photosphere of the sun. But the long battle had taken some of the drive out of them; over the past million years, even the strongest had become only hard ultraviolet, and the weakest just sputtered out in the form of long radio waves.

But now, at last, they were free! And in the first flush of this newfound freedom, they flung themselves over ninety-three million miles of space, traveling at one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second, and making the entire trip in less than eight and one-half minutes.

They struck the earth's ionosphere, and their numbers diminished. The hard ultraviolet was gobbled up by ozone; much of the blue was scattered through the atmosphere. The remainder bore steadily onward.

Down through the air they came, only slightly weakened this time. They hit the glass of a window in the Hotel New Yorker, losing more of their members in the plunge.

And, a few feet from the glass, they ended their million-year epic by illuminating a face.

The face responded to them with something less than pleasure. It was clear that the face did not like being illuminated. The light was very bright, much too bright. It seemed to be searing its way through the face's closed eyelids, right past the optic nerves into the brain-pan itself. The face twisted in a sudden spasm, as if its brain were shriveling with heat. Its owner thoughtfully turned over, and the face sought the seclusion and comparative darkness of a pillow.

Unfortunately, the motion brought the face's owner to complete wakefulness. He did not want to be awake, but he had very little choice in the matter. Even though his face was no longer being illuminated, he could feel other rays of sunlight eating at the back of his head. He put the pillow over his head and felt more comfortable for a space, but this slight relief passed, too.

He thought about mausoleums. Mausoleums were nice, cool, dark places where there was never any sun or heat, and never any reason to wake up. Maybe, he told himself cunningly, if he went to sleep again he would wake up dead, in a mausoleum. That, he thought, would be nice.

Death was nice and pleasant. Unfortunately, he realized, he was not dead. And there was absolutely no chance of his ever getting back to sleep. He finally rolled over again, being very careful to avoid any more poisonous sunlight. Getting up was an even more difficult process, but Malone knew it had to be managed. Somehow he got his feet firmly planted on the floor and sat up.

It had been a remarkable feat, he told himself. He deserved a medal.

That reminded him of the night before. He had been thinking quite a lot about the medals he deserved for various feats. He had even awarded some of them to himself, in the shape of liquid decoctions.

He remembered all that quite well. There were a lot of cloudy things in his mind, but from all the testimony he could gather, he imagined that he'd had quite a time the night before. Quite a wonderful time, as a matter of fact.

Not that that reflection did anything for him now. As he opened his eyes, one at a time, he thought of Boyd. Once, long ago, ages and ages ago, he had had to wake Boyd up, and he recalled how rough he had been about it. That had been unforgivable.

He made a mental note to apologize to Boyd the next time he saw him--if he could ever see again. Now, he knew how Boyd had felt. And it was terrible.

Still sitting on the bed, he told himself that, in spite of everything, he was lucky. To judge by his vague memories, he'd had quite a time the night before, and if the hangover was payment for it, then he was willing to accept the payment. Almost. Because it had really been a terrific time. The only nagging thought in his mind was that there had been something vital he'd forgotten.

"Tickets," he said aloud, and was surprised that his voice was audible. As a matter of fact, it was too audible; the noise made him wince slightly. He shifted his position very quietly.

And he hadn't forgotten the tickets. No. He distinctly remembered going to see The Hot Seat, and finding seats, and actually sitting through the show with Dorothy at his side. He couldn't honestly say that he remembered much of the show itself, but that couldn't be the important thing he'd forgotten. By no means.

He had heard that it was a good show, though. Sometime, he reminded himself, he would have to get tickets and actually see it.

He checked through the evening. Drinks. Dinner ... he had had dinner, hadn't he? Yes, he had. He recalled a broiled sea bass looking up at him with mournful eyes. He couldn't have dreamed anything like that.

And then the theater, and after that some more drinks ... and so on, and so on, and so on, right to his arrival back in his hotel room, at four-thirty in the morning, on a bright, boiled cloud.

He even remembered arguing with Dorothy about taking her home. She'd won that round by ducking into a subway entrance, and he had turned around after she'd left him and headed for home. Had he taken a taxi?

Yes, Malone decided, he had. He even remembered that.

Then what had he forgotten?

He had met Dorothy, he told himself, starting all over again in an effort to locate the gaps, at six o'clock, right after phoning...

"My God!" Malone said, and winced. He looked at his watch. It was ten o'clock in the morning. He had completely forgotten to call Fernack and Lynch.

Hangover or no hangover, Malone told himself grimly, there was work to be done. Somehow, he managed to get to his feet and start moving.

He checked Boyd's room after a while. But his partner wasn't home. Probably at work already, Malone thought, while I lie here useless and helpless. He thought of the Sermon on the Evils of Alcohol, and decided he'd better read it to himself instead of delivering it to Boyd.

But he didn't waste any time with it. By ten-fifteen he was showered and shaved, his teeth were brushed, and he was dressed. He felt, he estimated, about fifteen hundred per cent better. That was still lousy, but it wasn't quite as bad as it had been. He could move around and talk and even think a little, if he was careful about it. Before he left, he took a look at himself in the mirror.

Well, he told himself, that was nice.

It hardly showed at all. He looked tired, to be sure, but that was almost normal. The eyes weren't bloodshot red, and didn't seem to bug out at all, although Malone would have sworn that they were bleeding all over his face. His head was its normal size, as near as he remembered; it was not swollen visibly, or pulsing like a jellyfish at every move.

He looked even better than he felt.

He started for the door, and then stopped himself. There was no need to go out so early; he could start work right in his own hotel room and not even have to worry about the streets of New York, the cars or the pedestrians for a while.

He thought wistfully about a hair of the hound, decided against it with great firmness, and sat down to the phone.

He dialed a number, and the face of Commissioner Fernack appeared almost at once. Malone forced himself to smile cheerfully, reasonably sure that he was going to crack something as he did it. "Hello, John Henry," he said in what he hoped was a good imitation of a happy, carefree voice. "And how are you this lovely morning?"

"Me?" Fernack said sourly. "I'm in great shape. Tiptop. Dancing in the goddamn daisies. Malone, how did you--"

"Any news for me?" Malone said.

Fernack waited a long time before he answered, and when he did his voice was dangerously soft and calm. "Malone," he said, "when you asked for this survey, just what kind of news did you expect to get?"

"A godawful lot of impossible crimes," Malone said frankly. "How did I do, John Henry?"

"You did damn well," Fernack said. "Too damn well. Listen, Malone, how could you know about anything like this?"

Malone blinked. "Well," he said, "we have our sources. Confidential. Top secret. I'm sure you understand, Commissioner." Hurriedly, he added, "What does the breakdown look like?"

"It looks like hell," Fernack said. "About eight months ago, according to the computer, there was a terrific upswing in certain kinds of crime. And since then it's been pretty steady, right at the top of the swing. Hasn't moved down hardly at all."

"Great," Malone said.

Fernack stared. "What?" he said.

"I mean--" Malone stopped, thought of an answer and tried it. "I mean, that checks out my guess. My information. Sources."

Fernack seemed to weigh risks in his mind. "Malone, I know you're FBI," he said at last. "But this sounds pretty fishy to me. Pretty strange."

"You have no idea how strange," Malone said truthfully.

"I'm beginning to," Fernack said. "And if I ever find out that you had anything to do with this--"

"Me?"

"And don't look innocent," Fernack said. "It doesn't succeed in looking anything but horrible. You remind me of a convicted murderer trying to steal thirty cents from the prison chaplain."

"What would I have to do with all these crimes?" Malone said. "And what kind of crimes were they, anyway?"

"What you'd have to do with them," Fernack said, "is an unanswered question. And so long as it remains unanswered, Malone, you're safe. But when I come up with enough facts to answer it--"

"Don't be silly. Commissioner," Malone said. "How about those crimes? What kind were they?"

"Burglaries," Fernack said. "And I have a hunch you know that well enough. Most of them were just burglaries--locked barrooms, for instance, early in the morning. There's never any sign of tampering with the locks, no sign of breaking and entering, no sign of any alarms being tampered with in any way. But the money's gone from the cash register, and all of the liquor is gone too."

Malone stared. "All the liquor?" he said in a dazed voice.

"Well," Fernack said, "all of it that's in plain sight, anyway. Except for the open bottles. Disappeared. Gone. Without a trace. And most of the time the extra stock's gone too, from the basement or wherever they happen to keep it."

"That's a lot of liquor," Malone said.

"A hell of a lot," Fernack said. "Some of the bars have gone broke, not being insured against the losses."

The thought of thousands of bottles of liquor--millions of bottles--went through Malone's mind like an ice pick. He could almost see them, handle them, taste them. "Hair of the dog," he muttered. "What hair. What a dog."

"What did you say, Malone?"

"Nothing," Malone said hastily. "Nothing at all." After a second another query occurred to him. "You mean to tell me that only bars were robbed? Nothing else?"

"Oh, no," Fernack said. "Bars are only part of it. Malone, why are you asking me to tell you this?"

"Because I want to know," Malone said patiently.

"I still think--" Fernack began, and then said, "Never mind.. But it hasn't been only bars. Supermarkets. Homes. Cleaning and tailoring shops. Jewelers. Hell, Malone, you name it and it's been hit."

Malone tried valiantly to resist temptation, but he was not at his best, and he lost. "All right," he said. "I will name it. Here's a list of places that haven't even been touched by the rising crime wave. Banks, for one."

"Malone!"

"Safes that have been locked, for another," Malone went on. "Homes with wall safes, though that's not quite accurate. The homes may have been robbed, but the safes won't have been touched."

"Malone, how much do you know?" Fernack said. "My God, man--"

"I'll make a general rule for you," Malone said. "Any place that fits the following description is safe: it's got a secure lock on it, and it's too small for a human being to get into."

Fernack opened his mouth, shut it, and stared downward, obviously scanning some papers lying on the desk in front of him. Malone waited patiently for the explosion, but it never came.

Instead, Fernack said, "You know, Malone, you remind me of an old friend of mine."

"Really?" Malone said pleasantly.

"You certainly do," Fernack said. "There's just one small difference. You're an FBI man, and he's a crook. If that's a difference."

"It is," Malone said. "And on behalf of the FBI, I resent the allegation. And, as a matter of fact, defy the allegator. But that's neither here nor there," he continued. "If that's the difference, what are the similarities?"

Fernack drew in a deep, hissing breath, and when he spoke his voice was as calm and quiet as a coiled cobra. "The both of you come up with the goddamnedest answers to things. Things I never knew about or even cared about before. Things I wish I'd never heard of. Things that don't have any explanation. And--" He stopped, his face dark in the screen. Malone wondered what color it was going to turn, and decided on purple as a good choice.

"Well?" Malone said at last.

"And you're always so goddamned right it makes me sick," Fernack finished flatly. He rubbed a hand through his hair and stared into the screen at Malone. "How did you know all this stuff?" he said.

Malone waited one full second, while Fernack got darker and darker on the screen. When he judged that the color was right, he said quietly, "I'm prescient. And thanks a lot, John Henry; just send the reports to me personally, at 69th Street. By messenger. So long."

He cut the circuit just as Fernack started: "Now, Malone--"

With a satisfied, somewhat sheepish smile, Malone dialed another number. This time a desk sergeant told him politely that Lynch wasn't at the precinct, and wouldn't arrive until noon.

Malone had Lynch's home number. He dialed it.

It was a long wait before the lieutenant answered, and he didn't look much like a police officer when his face finally showed up on the screen. His hair was uncombed and he was unshaven. His eyes were slightly bleary, but he was definitely awake.

"Oh," Malone said. "Hello."

"Hi, there," Lynch said with enormous cheerfulness. "Old buddy-boy. Old pal. Old friend."

"What's wrong?" Malone said.

"Wrong?" Lynch said. "Nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all. I just wanted to thank you for not waking me up last night. I only waited for your call until midnight. Then I decided I just wasn't very important to you. You obviously had much bigger things on your mind."

"As a matter of fact," Malone said, speculatively eying Lynch's figure, dressed in a pair of trousers and a T-shirt, "you're right."

"That's what I thought," Lynch said. "And I decided that, since you were so terribly busy, it could wait until I woke up. Or even until I got down to the station. How about it, buddy-boy?"

"Listen, Lynch," Malone said, "we made a bet. Ten to one. I just want to know if I can come down to collect or not."

There was a second of silence.

"All right," Lynch said at last, looking crestfallen. "I owe you a buck. Every last one of those kids has skipped out on us."

"Good," Malone said. He wondered briefly just what was good about it, and decided he'd rather have lost the money to Lynch. But facts, he reflected, were facts. Thoroughly nasty facts.

"I spent all night tracing them," Lynch said. "Got nowhere. Nowhere at all. Malone, how did you know--"

"Classified," Malone said. "Very classified. But you're sure they're all gone? Vanished?"

Lynch's face reddened. "Sure I'm sure," he said. "Every last one of them is gone. And what more do you want me to do about it?" He paused, then added, "What do you expect, Malone? Miracles?"

Malone shook his head gently. "No," he said. "I--"

"Oh, never mind," Lynch said. "But I--"

"Look, Malone," Lynch said, "there's a guy who wants to talk to you."

"One of the Silent Spooks?" Malone said hopefully.

Lynch shook his head and made a growling noise. "Don't be silly," he said. "It's just that this guy might have some information, but he won't say anything to me about it. He's a social worker or something like that."

"Social worker?" Malone said. "He works with the kids, right?"

"I guess," Lynch said. "His name's Kettleman. Albert Kettleman."

Malone nodded. "Okay," he said. "I'll be right over."

"Hey," Lynch said, "hold on. He's not here now. What do you think this is--my house or a reception center?"

"Sorry," Malone said wearily. "Where and when?"

"How about three o'clock at the precinct station?" Lynch said. "I can have him there by then, and you can get together and talk." He paused. "Nobody likes the cops," he said. "People hear the FBI's mixed up in this, and they figure the cops are all second-stringers or something."

"Sorry to hear it," Malone said.

"I'll bet you are," Lynch told him bitterly.

Malone shrugged. "Anyway," he said, "I'll see you at three, right?"

"Right," Lynch said, and Malone flipped off.

He sat there for a few seconds, grinning quietly. His brain throbbed like an overheated motor, but he didn't really mind any more. His theory had been justified, and that was the most important thing.

The Silent Spooks were all teleports.

Eight of them--eight kids on the loose, stealing everything they could lay their hands on, and completely safe. How could you catch a boy who just disappeared when you started for him? No wonder their names hadn't appeared on the police blotter, Malone thought.

Spooks didn't get into trouble. They didn't have to.

They could get into any place big enough to hold them, take what they wanted and just disappear. They'd been doing it for about eight months, according to the figures Malone had received from Fernack; maybe teleportative ability didn't develop until you were around fourteen or fifteen.

But it had developed in these kids--and they were using it in the most obvious way. They had a sure method of getting away from the cops, and a sure method of taking anything they wanted. No wonder they had so much money.

Malone got up, feeling slightly dazed, and left the hotel room.

8

By three o'clock, he was again among the living. Maybe his occupations had had something to do with it; he'd spent about four hours supervising Operation Dismemberment, and then listening to the reports on the dismantled Cadillacs. It was nice, peaceful, unimportant work, but there just wasn't anything else to do. FBI work was ninety-five per cent marking time, anyway. Malone felt grateful that there was any action at all in what he was doing.

Dr. Leibowitz had found all sort of things in the commandeered Caddies--everything from guns and narcotics to pornographic pictures in lots of three hundred, for shipment into New York City from the suburbs where the processing plant probably was. Of course, there had been personal effects, too--maps and lucky dolls and, just once, a single crutch.

Malone wondered about that for quite a while. Who'd just walk off and leave one crutch in a car? But people did things like that all the time, he finally told himself heavily. There wasn't any explanation for it, and there probably never would be.

But in spite of the majestic assortment of valuables found in the cars, there was no sign of anything remotely resembling an electro-psionic brain. Dr. Leibowitz had found just about everything-- except what he was looking for.

At a quarter to three, Malone gave up. The search wasn't quite finished, but he'd heard enough to last him for a long time. He grabbed a cab downstairs and went over to Lynch's office to meet Kettleman.

The "social worker or something" was a large, balding man about six feet tall. Malone estimated his weight as close to two hundred and fifty pounds, and he looked every pound of it; his face was round without being chubby, and his body was stocky and hard. He wore black-rimmed glasses, and he was going bald in front. His face was like a mask; it was held in a gentle, almost eager expression that Malone would have sworn had nothing to do with the way Kettleman felt underneath.

Lynch performed the introductions, escorted the two of them to one of the interrogation rooms at the rear of the station, and left them there, with, "If either of you guys comes up with anything, let me know," for a parting shot.

Kettleman blinked slowly behind his glasses. "Mr. Malone," he said, "I understand that the FBI is interested in one of the--ah--adolescent social groups with which I work."

"Well, the Silent Spooks," Malone said. "That's right."

"The Spooks," Kettleman said. His voice was rather higher than Malone would have expected, oddly breathy without much depth to it. "My, yes. I did want to talk to somebody about it, and I thought you might be the man."

"I'll be interested in anything you have to say," Malone said diplomatically. He was beginning to doubt whether he'd get any real information out of Kettleman. But it was impossible to tell. He sat back in a hard wooden chair and tried to look fascinated.

"Well," Kettleman said tentatively, "the boys themselves have sort of a word for it. They'd say that there was something oddball about the Spooks. Do you understand? Not just the fact that they never drink liquor, but--"

"Something strange," Malone said. "Is that what you mean?"

"Ah," Kettleman said. "Strange. Of course." He acted, Malone thought, as if he had never heard the word before, and was both pleased and startled by its sound. "Perhaps I had better explain my position a little more clearly," he said. "That will give you an idea of just where I 'fit into' this picture."

"Whatever you think best," Malone said, resigning himself to a very dull hour. He tried to picture Kettleman in the midst of a gang of juvenile delinquents. It was very hard to do.

"I'm a social worker," Kettleman said, "working on an individual basis with these--social groups that the adolescents have formed. It's my job to make friends with them, become accepted by them, and try to turn their hostile impulses toward society into more useful, more acceptable channels."

"I see," Malone said, feeling that something was expected of him. "That's fine."

"Oh, we don't expect praise, we social workers," Kettleman said instantly. "The worth of a good job well done, that's enough for us." He smiled. The effect was a little unsettling, as if a hippopotamus had begun to laugh like a hyena. "But to continue, Mr. Malone," he said.

"Of course," Malone said. "Certainly."

"I've worked with many of the organizations in this neighborhood," Kettleman said. "And I've been quite successful in getting to know them, and in being accepted by them. Of course, the major part of my job is more difficult, but--well, I'm sure that's enough about my own background. That isn't what you're interested in, now, is it?"

He looked penitent. Malone said, "It's all right. I don't mind." He shifted positions on the hard chair.

"Well, then," Kettleman said, with the air of a man suddenly getting down to business. He leaned forward eagerly, his eyes big and bright behind the lenses. "There's something very peculiar about those boys," he said in a whisper.

"Really?" Malone said.

"Very peculiar indeed," Kettleman said. "My, yes. All of the other social groups are afraid of them."

"Big, huh?" Malone said. "Big strong boys who--"

"Oh, my, no," Kettleman said. "My goodness, no. All of the Spooks are rather slight, as a matter of fact. They've got something, but it isn't strength."

"My goodness," Malone said tiredly.

"I doubt if--in the language of my own groups--any one of the Spooks could punch his way out of a paper bag," Kettleman said. "It's more than that."

"Frankly," Malone said, "I'm inclined to agree with you. But what is this something that frightens everyone else?"

Kettleman leaned even closer. "I'm not sure," he said softly. "I can't say for certain, Mr. Malone. I've only heard rumors."

"Well," Malone said, "rumors might--"

"Rumors are a very powerful force among my groups, Mr. Malone," Kettleman said. "I've learned, over the years, to keep my ear to the ground, as it were, and pay very close attention to rumors."

"I'm sure," Malone said patiently. "But what did this particular rumor say?"

"Well," Kettleman said, and stopped. "Well," he said again. And at last he gulped and got it out. "Magicians, Mr. Malone. They say the Spooks are magicians--that they can come and go at will. Make themselves invisible. All sorts of things. Of course, I don't believe that, but--"

"Oh, it's quite true," Malone said, solemn faced.

"It's what?"

"Perfectly true," Malone said. "We know all that."

"Oh, my," Kettleman said. His face took on a whitish cast. "Oh, my goodness," he said. "Isn't that--isn't that amazing." He swallowed hard. "True all the time," he said.

"Magicians. I--"

"You see, this information isn't new to us," Malone said.

"Oh," Kettleman said. "No. Of course not. My. It's--rather disconcerting to think about, isn't it?"

"There," Malone said, "I agree with you."

Kettleman fell silent. Malone offered him a cigarette, but the social worker refused with a pale smile, and Malone lit one for himself. He took a couple of puffs in the silence, and then Kettleman said, "Well, Mr. Malone, Lieutenant Lynch did say that I was to tell you everything I could about these boys."

"I'm sure we all appreciate that," Malone said at random, wondering exactly what he meant.

"There is--well, there is one more thing," Kettleman said. "Ordinarily, of course, I wouldn't say anything about this to anyone. In my line of work, Mr. Malone, you learn the need for confidence. For being able to keep one's word."

"Certainly," Malone said, wondering what startling new fact was on its way now.

"And we certainly try to keep the confidence of the boys," Kettleman said maddeningly. "We wouldn't betray them to the police in any way unless it were absolutely necessary."

"Betray them? Mr. Kettleman," Malone said, "just what are you trying to tell me?"

"It's about their meeting place," Kettleman said. "Oh, my. I'm not at all sure I ought to tell you this." He wrung his pale fat hands together and looked at Malone appealingly.

"Now, now," Malone said, feeling foolish. "It's perfectly all right. We don't want to hurt the Spooks. Not any more than we have to. You can tell me, Mr. Kettleman."

"Oh," Kettleman said. "Well, the Spooks do have a sort of secret meeting place, you know. And they meet there."

He stopped. Malone said, "Where is it?"

"Oh, it's a big empty warehouse," Kettleman said. "I really feel terrible about this. They're meeting there tonight sometime, or that's what the rumors say. I shouldn't be telling you--"

"Of course you should," Malone said, trying to sound reassuring. "Don't worry about a thing, Mr. Kettleman. Tonight?"

"That's right," Kettleman said eagerly. He grinned, and then looked morosely down at his hands.

"Do you know where this warehouse is?" Malone said. "If any of the other little social groups use it--"

"Oh, no, they don't," Kettleman said. "That's what makes it so funny. You see, the warehouse is deserted, but it's kept in good repair; there are bars on the windows, and it's protected by all sorts of alarm systems and things like that. So none of the others can use it. Only the Spooks. You can't get in without a key, not at all."

"But do the Spooks--" Malone began.

"Oh, no," Kettleman moaned. "They don't have a key. At least, that's what the other groups say. The Spooks just--just melt borough the walls, or something like that."

"Mr. Kettleman," Malone said, "where is this warehouse?"

"I shouldn't be telling you this," Kettleman said.

Malone sighed. "Please, Mr. Kettleman. You know we're working for the good of those boys, don't you?"

"Well, I--"

"Sure we are," Malone said. "So you can tell me."

Kettleman blinked behind his glasses, and moaned a little. Malone waited with his hands tense in his lap. At last Kettleman said, "It's on West Street, near Chambers. That's downtown." He gave Malone an address. "That's where it is," he said. "But you won't do anything to the boys, will you? They're basically good boys. No matter what. And they--"

"Don't worry about it, Mr. Kettleman," Malone said. "We'll take care of the Spooks."

"Oh," Kettleman said. "Yes. Sure."

He got up. Malone said, "There's just one more thing, Mr. Kettleman."

"Yes?" The big man's voice had reached the high, breathy pitch of a fife.

"Do you have any idea what time the Spooks usually meet?"

"Well, now," Kettleman said, "I don't really know. You see, the reason I wanted to tell you all this was because Lieutenant Lynch was checking up on all those boys yesterday, and I thought..." He stopped and cleared his throat, and when he began again his voice had dropped almost to a whisper. "Well, Mr. Malone, I thought, after all, that since he was asking me questions--you know, questions about where the Spooks were, and all of that--since he was asking me questions..."

"Yes?" Malone said.

"I thought perhaps I ought to tell you about them," Kettleman said. "Where they were, and all of that."

Malone stood up. "Mr. Kettleman," he said in his most official voice, "I want you to know that the FBI appreciates what you've done. Your information will probably be very helpful to us, and the FBI certainly commends you for being public-spirited enough to come to us and tell us what you know." He thought for a second, and then added, "In the name of the FBI, Mr. Kettleman--well done!"

Kettleman stared, smiled, and gulped. "My goodness," he said. "Well." He smiled again, a little more broadly. "One has one's duty, you know. My, yes. Duty." He nodded to Malone.

"Of course," Malone said, going to the door and opening it. "Thanks again, Mr. Kettleman."

Kettleman saw the open door and headed for it blindly. As he left he flashed one last smile after Malone, who sighed, shut the door, and leaned against it for a second.

The things an FBI agent had to go through!

When he had recovered, he opened the door again and peered carefully down the hallway to make sure Kettleman had gone. Then he left the interrogation room and went down the hall, past the desk sergeant, and up the stairs to Lieutenant Lynch's office. He was still breathing a little hard when he opened Lynch's door, and Lynch didn't seem to be expecting him at all. He was very busy with a veritable snow flurry of papers, and he looked as if he had been involved with them steadily ever since he had left Malone and Kettleman alone downstairs.

"Well," Malone said. "Hello there, Lieutenant."

Lynch looked up, his face a mask of surprise. "Oh," he said. "It's you. Through with Kettleman?"

"I'm through," Malone said. "As if you didn't know." He looked at Lynch for a long minute, and then said, "Lieutenant..."

Lynch had gone right back to his papers. He looked up again with a bland expression. "Yes?"

"Lieutenant, how reliable is Kettleman?" Malone said.

Lynch shrugged. "He's always been pretty good with the kids, if that's what you mean. You know these social workers--I've never got much information out of him. He feels it's his duty to the kids--I don't know. Some such thing. Why do you ask?"

"Well," Malone said, "what he told me. Was he kidding me? Or does he know what he's talking about? Was what he said reasonably accurate?"

"How would I know?" Lynch said. "After all, you were down there alone, weren't you? I was up here working. If you'll tell me what he said, maybe I'll be able to tell you whether or not I think he was kidding."

Malone placed both his palms on the lieutenant's desk, mashing a couple of piles of papers. He leaned forward slowly, his eyes on Lynch's bland, innocent face. "Now look, Lynch," he said. "I like you. I really do. You're a good cop. You get things done."

"Well, thanks," Lynch said. "But I don't see what this has to do with--"

"I just don't want you trying to kid your buddy-boy," Malone said.

"Kid you?" Lynch said. "I don't get it."

"Come on, now," Malone said. "I know that room was bugged, just as well as you do. It was the sensible thing for you to pull, and you pulled it. You've got the whole thing recorded, haven't you?"

"Me?" Lynch said. "Why would I--"

"Oh, cut it out," Malone said impatiently. "Let's not play games, okay?"

There was a second of silence.

"All right," Lynch said. "So I recorded the conversation. Kill me. Crucify me. I'm stealing FBI secrets. I'm a spy secretly working for a foreign power. Take me out and electrocute me."

"I don't want to fight you," Malone said wearily. "So you've got the stuff recorded. That's your business."

"My business?"

"Sure," Malone said cheerfully. "As long as you don't try to use it."

"Now, Malone--" Lynch began.

"This is touchy stuff," Malone said. "We're going to have to take a lot of care in handling it. And I don't want you throwing raids all over the place and mixing everything up."

"Malone, I--"

"Eventually," Malone said, "I'm going to need your help with these kids. But for right now, I want to handle this my way, without any interference."

"I wouldn't think of--"

"You wanted information," Malone said. "Fine. That's all right with me. You got the information, and that's okay too. But if you try to use it before I say the word, I'll--I'll talk to good old Uncle John Henry Fernack. And he'll help me out; he'll give you a refresher course on How To Be A Beat Cop. In Kew Gardens. It's nice and lonely out there now, Lynch, You'd love it."

"Malone," Lynch said tiredly.

"Don't give me any arguments," Malone said. "I don't want any arguments."

"I won't argue with you, Malone," Lynch said. "I've been trying to tell you something."

Malone stepped away from the desk. "All right," he said. "Go ahead."

Lynch took a deep breath. "Malone, I'm not trying to queer your pitch," he said. "If I were going to pull a raid, here's what I'd have to do: get my own cops together, then call the precinct that covers that old warehouse. We don't cover the warehouse from here, Malone, and we'd need the responsible precinct's aid in anything we did down there."

Malone said, "Well, all I--"

"Not only that," Lynch said. "I'd have to call Safe and Loft, and get them in on it. A warehouse raid would probably be their baby first of all. That means it takes this precinct, the warehouse precinct, and the Safe and Loft Squad, all together, to raid that warehouse. Malone, would I pull a raid at this stage, if I had to go through all that, without knowing what the hell I was going to find down there?"

"Oh," Malone said.

"If those kids can just appear and disappear at will," Lynch said, "I'm not going to pull a raid on them, and end up looking like a damn fool, until I've got some way of making sure they're there when the raid goes through."

Malone coughed gently. "Okay," he said at last. "Sorry."

"There's only one thing I want," Lynch said. "I want to be able to move as soon as possible."

"Well, sure," Malone said apologetically.

"And that means I'm going to have to be informed," Lynch said. "I want to know what's going on, as fast as possible."

Malone nodded gently. "Sure," he said. "I'll tell you everything that happens--as soon as I know myself. But right now, I haven't got a thing for you. All I have is a kind of theory, and it's pretty screwy."

He stopped. Lynch looked up at him. "How screwy can it get?" he said. "The facts are nutty enough."

"You have absolutely no idea," Malone assured him. "I'm not even saying a word about this, not until I prove it out one way or another. I'm not even thinking about it--not until it stops sounding so nutty to me."

"Okay, Malone," Lynch said. "I can see a piece of it, if no more. The Fueyo kid vanishes mysteriously--never mind all that about you getting him out of the interrogation room by some kind of confidential method. There isn't any confidential method. I know that better than you do."

"I had to say something, didn't I?" Malone asked apologetically.

"So the kid disappears," Lynch said, brushing Malone's question away with a wave of his hand. "So now I hear all this stuff from Kettleman. And it begins to add up. The kids can disappear somehow, and reappear some place else. Walk through walls?" He shrugged. "How should I know? But they can sure as hell do something like it."

"Something," Malone said. "Like I said, it sounds screwy."

"I don't like it," Lynch said.

Malone nodded. "Nobody likes it," he said. "But keep it under your hat. I'll give you everything I have--whenever I have anything. And by the way--"

"Yes?" Lynch said.

"Thanks for giving me and Kettleman a chance to talk," Malone said. "Even if you had reasons of your own."

"Oh," Lynch said. "You mean the recording."

"I was a little suspicious," Malone said. "I didn't think you'd give Kettleman to me without getting something for yourself."

"Would you?" Lynch said.

Malone shrugged. "I'm not crazy either," he said.

Lynch picked up a handful of papers. "I've got all this work to do," he said. "So I'll see you later."

"Okay," Malone said.

"And if you need my help, buddy-boy," Lynch said, "just yell. Right?"

"I'll yell," Malone said. "Don't worry about that. I'll yell loud enough to get myself heard in Space Station One."

9

The afternoon was bright and sunny, but it didn't match Malone's mood. He got a cab outside the precinct station and headed for 69th Street, dining off his nails en route. When he hit the FBI headquarters, he called Washington and got Burris on the line.

He made a full report to the FBI chief, including his wild theory and everything else that had happened. "And there was this notebook," he said, and reached into his jacket pocket for it.

The pocket was empty.

"What notebook?" Burris said.

Malone tried to remember if he'd left the book in his room. He couldn't quite recall. "This book I picked up," he said, and described it. "I'll send it on, or bring it in when the case is over."

"All right," Burris said.

Malone went on with his description of what had happened. When he'd finished, Burris heaved a great sigh.

"My goodness," he said. "Last year it was telepathic spies, and this year it's teleporting thieves. Malone, I hate to think about next year."

"I wish you hadn't said that," Malone said sadly.

Burris blinked. "Why?" he said.

"Oh, just because," Malone said. "I haven't even had time to think about next year yet. But I'll think about it now."

"Well, maybe it won't be so bad," Burris said.

Malone shook his head. "No, Chief," he said. "You're wrong. It'll be worse."

"This is bad enough," Burris said.

"It's a great vacation," Malone said.

"Please," Burris said. "Did I have any idea--"

"Yes," Malone said.

Burris' eyes closed. "All right, Malone," he said after a little pause. "Let's get back to the report. At least it explains the red Cadillac business. Sergeant Jukovsky was hit by a boy who vanished. Vanished. My God."

"I was hit by a boy who vanished, too," Malone said bitterly. "But of course I'm just an FBI agent. Expendable. Nobody cares about--"

"Don't say that, Malone," Burris said. "You're one of my most valuable agents."

Malone tried to stop himself from beaming, but he couldn't. "Well, Chief," he began, "I--"

"Vanishing boys," Burris muttered. "What are you going to do with them, Malone?"

"I was hoping you might have some kind of suggestion," Malone said.

"Me?"

"Well," Malone said, "I suppose I'll figure it out. When I catch them. But I did want something from you, Chief."

"Anything, Malone," Burris said. "Anything at all."

"I want you to get hold of Dr. O'Connor, out at Yucca Flats, if you can. He's the best psionics man Westinghouse has right now, and I might need him."

"If you say so," Burris said doubtfully.

"Well," Malone said, "these kids are teleports. And maybe there's some way to stop a teleport. Give him a good hard kick in the psi, for instance."

"In the what?"

"Never mind," Malone said savagely. "But if I'm going to get any information on what makes teleports tick, I'm going to have to get it from Dr. O'Connor. Right?"

"Right," Burris said.

"So get in touch with Dr. O'Connor," Malone said.

"I'll have him call you," Burris said. "Meanwhile--well, meanwhile just carry on, Malone. I've got every confidence in you."

"Thanks," Malone growled.

"If anybody can crack a case like this," Burris said, "it's you."

"I suppose it had better be," Malone said, and rang off.

Then he started to think. The notebook wasn't in his pockets. He checked every one, even the jacket pocket where he usually kept a handkerchief and nothing else. It wasn't anywhere on his person.

Had he left it in his room?

He thought about that for several minutes, and finally decided that he hadn't. He hadn't taken it out of his pocket, for one thing, and if it had fallen to the ground he couldn't have helped seeing it. Of course he'd put his wallet, keys, change, and other such items on the dresser, and then replaced them in his pockets in the morning. But he could remember how they'd looked on the dresser.

The notebook hadn't been there among them.

Now that he came to think of it, when had he seen the notebook last? He'd shown it to Lieutenant Lynch during the afternoon, and then he'd put it back in his pocket, and he hadn't looked for it again.

So it had to be somewhere in one of the bars he'd visited, or at the theater where he and Dorothy had seen The Hot Seat.

Proud of himself for this careful and complete job of deduction, he strolled out and, giving Boyd and the Agent-in-Charge one small smile each, to remember him by, he went into the sunlight, trying to decide which place to check first.

He settled on the theater because it was most probable. After all, people were always losing things in theaters. Besides, if he started at the theater, and found the notebook there, he could then go on to a bar to celebrate. If he found the notebook in a bar, he didn't much relish the idea of going on to an empty theater in the middle of the afternoon to celebrate.

Shaking his head over this flimsy structure of logic, he headed down to The Hot Seat. He banged on the lobby doors for a while without any good result, and finally leaned against one of the side doors, which opened. Malone fell through, recovered his balance, and found himself facing an old bewhiskered man with a dustpan, a broom, and a surprised expression.

"I'm looking for a notebook," Malone said.

"Try a stationery store, youngster," the old man said. "I thought I'd heard 'em all, but--"

"No," Malone said. "You don't understand."

"I don't got to understand," the old man said. "That's what's so restful about this here job. I just got to sweep up. I don't got to understand nothing. Good-bye."

"I'm looking for a notebook I lost here last night," Malone said desperately.

"Oh," the old man said. "Lost and Found. That's different. You come with me."

The old man led Malone in silence to a cave deep in the bowels of the theater, where he went behind a little desk, took up a pencil as if it were a club, held it poised over a sheet of grimy paper, and said, "Name?"

Malone said, "I just want to find a notebook."

"Got to give me your name, youngster," the old man said solemnly. "It's the rules here."

Malone sighed. "Kenneth Malone," he said. "And my address is--"

The old man, fiercely scribbling, looked up. "Wait a minute, can't you?" he said. "I ain't through 'Kenneth' yet." He wrote on, and finally said, "Address?"

"Hotel New Yorker," Malone said. "In Manhattan?" the old man said. "That's right," Malone said wearily.

"Ah," the old man said. "Tourist, ain't you? Tourists is always losing things. Once it was a big dog. Don't know yet how a dog got into this here theater. Had to feed it for four days before somebody showed up to claim it. Fierce-looking animal. Part bloodhound, part water spaniel."

Fascinated in spite of himself, Malone said, "That's impossible."

"Nothing's impossible," the old man said. "Work for a theater long enough and you find that out. Part bloodhound, I said, and part water spaniel. Should have seen that dog before you start talking about impossibilities. Hell of a strange-looking beast. And then there was the time--"

"About the notebook," Malone said.

"Notebook?" the old man said.

"I lost a notebook," Malone said. "I was hoping that--"

"Description?" the old man said, and poised his pencil again.

Malone heaved a great sigh. "Black plastic," he said. "About so big." He made motions with his hands. "No names or initials on it. But the first page had my name written on it, along with Lieutenant Peter Lynch."

"Who's he?" the old man said.

"He's a cop," Malone said.

"My, my," the old man said. "Valuable notebook, with a cop's name in it and all. You a cop, youngster?"

Malone shook his head.

"Too bad," the old man said obscurely. "I like cops." He stood up. "You said black plastic? Black?"

"That's right," Malone said. "Do you have it here?"

"Got no notebooks at all here, youngster," the old man said. "Empty billfold, three hats, a couple of coats, and some pencils. And an umbrella. No dogs tonight, youngster, and no notebooks."

"Oh," Malone said. "Well--wait a minute."

"What is it, youngster?" the old man said. "I'm busy this time of day. Got to sweep and clean. Got work to do. Not like you tourists."

With difficulty, Malone leashed his temper. "Why did I have to describe the notebook?" he said. "You haven't got any notebooks at all."

"That's right," the old man said cheerfully.

"But you made me describe--"

"That's the rules," the old man said. "And I ain't about to go against the rules. Not for no tourist." He put the pencil down and rose. "Wish you were a cop," he said. "I never met a cop. They don't lose things like people do."

Making a mental note to call up later and talk to the manager, if the notebook hadn't turned up in the meantime, Malone went off to find the bars he had stopped in before the theater.

Saving Topp's for last, he started at the Ad Lib, where a surprised bald-headed man told him they hadn't found a notebook anywhere in the bar for something like six weeks. "Now if you'd been looking for umbrellas," he said, "we could have accommodated you. Got over ten umbrellas downstairs, waiting for their owners. I wonder why people lose so many umbrellas?"

"Maybe they hate rain," Malone said.

"I don't know," the bald man said. "I'm sort of a psychologist--you know, a judge of people. I think it's an unconscious protest against the fetters of a society which is slowly strangling them by--"

Malone said good-bye in a hurry and left. His next stop was the Xochitl, the Mexican bar on 46th Street. He greeted the bartender warmly.

"Ah," the bartender told him. "You come back. We look for you."

"Look for me?" Malone said. "You mean you found my notebook?"

"Notesbook?" the bartender said.

"A little black plastic book," Malone said, making motions, "about so big. And it--"

"Not find," the bartender said. "You lose him?"

"Sure I lost him," Malone said. "I mean it. Would I be looking for it if I hadn't lost it?"

"Who knows?" the bartender said, and shrugged.

"But you said you were looking for me," Malone said. "What about?"

"Oh," the bartender said. "I only say that. Make customer feel good, think we miss him. Customers like, so we do. What your name?"

"Pizarro," Malone said disgustedly, and went away.

The last stop was Topp's. Well, he had to find the notebook there. It was the only place the notebook could be. That was logic, and Malone was proud of it. He walked into Topp's, trying to remember the bartender's name, and found it just as he walked into the bar.

"Hello, Wally," he said gaily.

The bartender stared at him. "I'm not Wally," he said. "Wally's the night barman. My name's Ray."

"Oh," Malone said, feeling deflated. "Well, I've come about a notebook."

"Yes, sir?" Ray said.

"I lost the notebook here yesterday evening, between six and eight. If you'll just take me to the Lost and Found--"

"One moment, sir," Ray said, and left him standing at the bar, all alone.

In a few seconds he was back. "I didn't see the notebook myself, sir," he said. "But if Wally picked it up, he'd have turned it over to the maitre d'. Perhaps you'd like to check with him."

"Sure," Malone said. The daytime maitre d' turned out to be a shortish, heavy-set man with large blue eyes, a silver mane, and a thin, pencil-line mustache. He was addressed, for no reason Malone was able to discover, as BeeBee.

Ray introduced them. "This gentleman wants to know about a notebook," he told BeeBee.

"Notebook?" BeeBee said.

Malone explained at length. BeeBee nodded in an understanding fashion for some moments and, when Malone had finished, disappeared in search of the Lost and Found. He came back rather quickly, with the disturbing news that no notebook was anywhere in the place.

"It's got to be here," Malone said.

"Well," BeeBee said, "it isn't. Maybe you left it some place else. Maybe it's home now."

"It isn't," Malone said. "And I've tried every place else."

"New York's a big city, Mr. Malone," BeeBee said.

Malone sighed. "I've tried every place I've been. The notebook couldn't be somewhere I haven't been. A rolling stone follows its owner." He thought about that. It didn't seem to mean anything, but maybe it had. There was no way to tell for sure.

He went back to the bar to think things over and figure out his next move. A bourbon and soda while thinking seemed the obvious order, and Ray bustled off to get it.

Had he left the notebook on the street somewhere, just dropping it by accident? Malone couldn't quite see that happening. It was, of course, possible; but the possibility was so remote that he decided to try and think of everything else first. There was Dorothy, for instance.

Had he got stewed enough so that he'd showed Dorothy the notebook?

He didn't remember doing it, and he didn't quite see why he would have. Most of the evening was more or less clear in his mind; he hadn't apparently, forgotten any other details, either.

All the same, it was an idea. He decided to give the girl a call and find out for sure. Maybe she remembered something that would help him, anyway.

He took the drink from Ray and slid off the bar stool. Two steps away, he remembered one more little fact.

He didn't have her number, and he didn't know anything about where she lived, except that it could be reached by subway. That, Malone told himself morosely, limited things nicely to the five boroughs of New York.

And she said she was living with her aunt. Would she have a phone listing under her own name? Or would the listing be under her aunt's name, which he also didn't know?

At any rate, he could check listings under Dorothy Francis, he told himself.

He did so.

There were lots and lots of people named Dorothy Francis, in Manhattan and in all the other boroughs.

Malone went back to the bar to think some more. He was on his second bourbon and soda, still thinking but without any new ideas, when BeeBee tapped him gently on the shoulder.

"Pardon me," the maitre d' said, "but are you English?"

"Am I what?" Malone said, spilling a little of his drink on the bar.

"Are you English?" BeeBee said.

"Oh," Malone said. "No. Irish. Very Irish."

"That's nice," BeeBee said.

Malone stared at him. "I think it's fine," he said, "but I'd love to know why you asked me."

"Well," BeeBee said, "I knew you couldn't be American. Not after the phone call. You don't have to hide your nationality here; we're quite accustomed to foreign visitors. And we don't have special prices for tourists."

Malone waited two breaths. "Will you please tell me," he said slowly, "what it is you're talking about?"

"Certainly," BeeBee said with aplomb. "There's a call for you in the upstairs booth. A long-distance call, personal."

"Oh," Malone said. "Who'd know I was--" He stopped, thinking hard. There was no way for anybody in the world to know he was in Topp's. Therefore, nobody could be calling him. "They've got the wrong name," he said decisively.

"Oh, no," BeeBee said. "I heard them quite distinctly. You are Sir Kenneth Malone, aren't you?"

Malone gaped for one long second, and then his mind caught up with the facts. "Oh," he said. "Sure." He raced upstairs to the phone booth, said, "This is Sir Kenneth Malone," into the blank screen, and waited.

After a while an operator said, "Person-to-person call, Sir Kenneth, from Yucca Flats. Will you take this call?"

"I'll take it," Malone said. A face appeared on the screen, and Malone knew he was right. He knew exactly how he'd been located, and by whom.

Looking only at the face in the screen, it might have been thought that the woman who appeared there was somebody's grandmother, kindly, red-cheeked, and twinkle-eyed. Perhaps that wasn't the only stereotype; she could have been an old-maid schoolteacher, one of the kindly schoolteachers who taught, once upon a time that never was, in the little red schoolhouses of the dim past. The face positively radiated kindliness, and friendship, and peace.

But if the face was the face of a sentimental dream, the garb was the garb of royalty. Somebody's grandmother was on her way to a costume party. She wore the full court costume of the days of Queen Elizabeth I, complete with brocaded velvet gown, wide ruff collar, and bejeweled skullcap.

She was, Malone knew, completely insane.

Like all the other telepaths Malone and the rest of the FBI had found during their work in uncovering a telepathic spy, she had been located in an insane asylum. Months of extensive psychotherapy, including all the newest techniques and some so old that psychiatrists were a little afraid to use them, had done absolutely nothing to shake the firm conviction in the mind of Miss Rose Thompson.

She was, she insisted, Elizabeth Tudor, rightful Queen of England.

She claimed she was immortal, which was not true. She also claimed to be a telepath. This was perfectly accurate. It had been her help that had enabled Malone to find the telepathic spy, and a grateful government had rewarded her.

It had given her a special expense allotment for life, covering the clothing she wore, and the style in which she lived. Rooms had been set aside for her at Yucca Flats, and she held court there, sometimes being treated by psychiatrists and sometimes helping Dr. Thomas O'Connor in his experiments and in the development of new psionic machines.

She was probably the happiest psychopath on Earth.

Malone stared at her. For a second he could think of nothing to say but, "My God." He said it.

"Not at all, Sir Kenneth," the little old lady said. "Your Queen."

Malone took a deep breath. "Good afternoon, Your Majesty," he said.

"Good afternoon, Sir Kenneth," she said, and waited. After a second Malone figured out what she was waiting for.

He inclined his head in as courtly a bow as he could manage over a visiphone. "I am deeply honored," he said, "that Your Majesty has called on me. Is there any way in which I might be of service?"

"Oh, goodness me, no," said the little old lady. "I don't need a thing. They do one very well here in Yucca Flats. You must come out soon and see my new throne room. I've had the decorations done by--but I can see you're not interested in that, Sir Kenneth."

"But--" Malone realized it was useless to argue with the old lady. She was telepathic, and knew exactly what he was thinking. That, after all, was how he had been located; she had mentally "hunted" for him until she found him.

But why?

"I'll tell you why, Sir Kenneth," the little old lady said. "I'm worried about you."

"Worried? About me, Your Majesty?"

"Certainly," the little old lady said, inclining her head just the proper number of degrees, and raising it again. "You, Sir Kenneth, and that silly little notebook you lost. You've been stewing about it for the last hour."

It was obvious that, for reasons of her own, the Queen had seen fit to look into Malone's mind. She'd found him worrying, and called him about it. It was, Malone thought, sweet of her in a way. But it was also just a bit disconcerting.

He was perfectly well aware that the Queen could read his mind at any distance. But unless something reminded him of the fact, he didn't have to think about it.

And he didn't like to think about it.

"Don't be disturbed," the Queen said. "Please. I only want to help you, Sir Kenneth; you know that."

"Well, of course I do," Malone said. "But--"

"Heavens to Betsy," she said. "Sir Kenneth, what kind of a detective are you?"

"What?" Malone said, and added at once, "Your Majesty." He knew perfectly well, of course, that Miss Thompson was not Queen Elizabeth I--and he knew that Miss Thompson knew what he thought.

But she didn't mind. Politeness, she held, was the act of being pleasant on the surface, no matter what a person really thought. People were polite to their bosses, she pointed out, even though they were perfectly sure that they could do a better job than the bosses were doing.

So she insisted on the surface pretense that Malone was going through, treating her like a Queen.

The psychiatrists had called her delusion a beautifully rationalized one. As far as Malone was concerned, it made more sense than most of real life.

"That's very nice of you, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said. "But I ask you again, what kind of detective are you? Haven't you got any common sense at all?"

Malone hated to admit it, but he had always had just that suspicion. After all, he wasn't a very good detective. He was just lucky. His luck had enabled him to break a lot of tough cases. But some day people would find out, and then--

"Well," the Queen said, "at the very least you ought to act like a detective." She sniffed audibly. "Sir Kenneth, I'm ashamed that a member of my own FBI can't do any better than you're doing now."

Malone blinked into the screen. He did feel ashamed in a vague sort of way, and he was willing to admit it. But he did feel, wistfully, that it would be nice to know just what he was being ashamed of. "Have I been missing something?" he said.

"Outside of the obvious," the Queen said, "that you've been missing your notebook--or rather Mike Fueyo's notebook--"

"Yes?" Malone said.

"You certainly have," the Queen said. "Don't you see what happened to that notebook? You've been missing the only possible explanation."

"But there isn't any," Malone said. "Unless Miss Francis has it."

Her Majesty gave him a bright smile. "There!" she said.

"There, what?" Malone said.

"I knew you could do it," the Queen said. "All you had to do was apply your intelligence, and you'd come up with just the fact you needed."

"What fact?" Malone said.

"That Miss Francis has your notebook," the Queen said. "You just told me."

"All right," Malone said, and stopped and took a deep breath. "My God," he said after a pause. "What is that supposed to mean? Did I give it to her after all?"

"No," the Queen said.

"Did I lose it, and did she pick it up?"

"No," the Queen said.

"My God," Malone said again. "All right. I give up. Is this Twenty Questions?"

"Sir Kenneth!" the Queen said. "What a way to talk to your Queen!"

Malone took another breath. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "But--"

"Yes, I know," the Queen said sympathetically. "You're upset. But you didn't give Miss Francis the notebook, and she didn't find it after you'd lost it."

"Then--" Malone stared. "She stole it. She stole it from me."

"I imagine she took it right from your jacket pocket," the Queen said. "Now, if you'd only wear proper clothing, and a proper pouch at your belt--"

"I'd be stared at," Malone said. "In court clothing."

"No one in New York would stare at you," the Queen said. "They'd think it was what they call an advertising stunt."

"Anyhow," Malone said, "I wasn't wearing court clothing. So that made it easy for her to steal the notebook. But why, for God's sake? Why?"

"Because," the Queen said, "she needed it."

"Needed it?" Malone shrieked.

"Please, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said. "Don't talk to your Sovereign in that manner. And I do wish you'd stop thinking of that girl as Dorothy Francis. She isn't at all, you know."

"No," Malone said. "I don't know. If she isn't Dorothy Francis, who in hell is she?"

"Don't swear, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said. "She's Dorothea Francisca Fueyo, if you want to know."

Malone gulped. "Then she's--"

"That's right," the Queen said. "She's little Miguel Fueyo's older sister."

10

Malone put in a great deal of time, he imagined, just staring at the face of the little old lady on the screen. At last he spoke. "My God," he said. "Her name is Fueyo. I'll be damned."

"I've told you," the Queen said with some asperity, "not to swear, Sir Kenneth."

"I know," Malone said. "But--"

"You're excited," the Queen said. "You're stunned. Goodness, you don't need to tell me that, Sir Kenneth. I know."

"But she's--" Malone discovered that he couldn't talk. He swallowed a couple of times and then went on. "She's Mike Fueyo's sister."

"That's exactly right, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said. "That's just what I told you."

"Then she swiped the book to protect her little brother," Malone said. "Oh, boy."

"Exactly, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said.

"And she doesn't care about me at all," Malone said. "I mean, she only went out with me because I was me. Malone. And she wanted the notebook. That was all there was to it." He added an expletive. The Queen frowned, but said nothing about it.

"I wouldn't say that if I were you," she went on. "Quite the contrary. She does like you, you know. And she thinks you're a very nice person." The Queen beamed. "You are, you know," she said.

"Oh," Malone said uncomfortably. "Sure."

"You don't have to think that she merely went out with you because of her brother's notebook," the Queen said. "But she does have a strong sense of loyalty--and he is--her younger brother, after all."

"He sure is," Malone said. "He's a great kid, little Mike."

"You see," the Queen continued imperturbably, "Mike told her about losing the notebook the other night--when he struck you."

"When he struck me," Malone said. "Oh, yes. He struck me, all right."

"He guessed that you must have it when you started asking questions about the Silent Spooks, you see," the Queen said. "That was the only way you could have found out about him--unless you were telepathic. Which, of course, you're not."

"No," Malone said.

"Now, understand me," the Queen said. "I do not think that his striking you was a very nice act."

"I don't either," Malone said. "It hurt like--it hurt quite a lot."

"Certainly," the Queen said. "But he didn't hurt the car any, and he didn't want to. He just wanted to ride around in it for a while."

"He likes red Cadillacs," Malone said.

"Oh, yes," the Queen said. "He thinks they're wonderful."

"Good for him," Malone said sourly.

"Well, now," the Queen said. "You just go right on over to her house. Of course she doesn't live with an aunt."

"No," Malone said. "She lives with Mike and his mother."

"Why not?" the Queen said. "She's part of the family."

Malone nodded silently.

"She'll give you the book, Sir Kenneth. I just know that she will. And I want you to be very nice to her when you ask for it. She's a very nice girl, you know."

"She's a swell girl," Malone said morosely. "And I'll--hey. Wait a minute."

"Yes, Sir Kenneth?"

"How come you can read her thoughts?" Malone said. "And Mike's? I thought you had to know somebody pretty well before you could read them at a distance like this. Do you? Know them, I mean."

"Oh, no," the Queen said. "But I can read you, of course." Malone could see that the Queen was trying very hard not to look proud of herself. "And last night," she went on, "you two were--well, Sir Kenneth, you had a real rapport with each other. My goodness, yes."

"Well," Malone said, "we--"

"Don't explain, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said. "It really isn't necessary; I thought it was very sweet. And, in any case, I can pick her up now. Because of that rapport. Not quite as well as I can pick you up, but enough to get the strong surface thoughts."

"Oh," Malone said. "But Mike--"

"I can't pick him up at all, this far away," the Queen said. "There is just a faint touch of him, though, through the girl. But all I know about him is what she thinks." She smiled gently. "He's a nice boy, basically," she said.

"Sure he is," Malone said. "He's got a nice blackjack, too--basically." He grimaced. "Were you reading my mind all last night?" he said.

"Well," the Queen said, "no. Toward morning you were getting so fuzzy I just didn't bother."

"I can understand that," Malone said. "I nearly didn't bother myself."

The queen nodded. "But toward afternoon," she said, "I didn't have anything to do, so I just listened in. You do have such a nice mind, Sir Kenneth. So refreshing and different. Especially when you're in love."

Malone blushed quietly.

"Oh, I know," the Queen said. "You'd much rather think of yourself as a sort of apprentice lecher, a kind of cynical Don Juan, but--"

"I know," Malone said. "Don't tell me about it. All right?"

"Of course, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said, "if you wish it."

"Basically, I'm a nice boy," Malone said. "Sure I am." He paused. "Do you have any more pertinent information, Your Majesty?"

"Not right now," the Queen admitted. "But if I do, I'll let you know." She giggled. "You know, I had to argue awfully hard with Dr. Hatterer to get to use the telephone," she said.

"I'll bet," Malone said.

"But I did manage," she said, and winked. "I won't have that sort of trouble again."

Malone wondered briefly what dark secret Dr. Hatterer had, that Her Majesty had discovered in his mind and used to blackmail him with. At last he decided that it was probably none of his business, and didn't matter too much anyway.

"Quite right, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said. "And good bye for now."

"Good-bye, Your Majesty," Malone said. He bowed again, and flipped off the phone. Bowing in a phone booth wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do, he thought to himself. But somehow he had managed it.

He reached into his pocket, half-convinced for a moment that it was an Elizabethan belt-pouch. Talks with Her Majesty always had that effect; after a time, Malone came to believe in the strange, bright world. But he shook off the lingering effects of her psychosis, fished out some coins and thought for a minute.

So Dorothy--Dorothea--had lifted the notebook. That was some help, certainly. It let him know something more about the enemy he was facing. But it wasn't really a lot of help.

What did he do now?

Her Majesty had suggested going to the Fueyo house, collaring the girl (but treating her nicely, Malone reminded himself) and demanding the book back. She'd even said he would get the book back, and since she knew some of what went on in Dorothea Fueyo's mind, she was probably right.

But what good was that going to do him?

He knew everything that was in the book. Getting it back was something that could wait. It didn't sound particularly profitable, and it didn't even sound like fun.

What he needed was a next move. He thought for a minute, dropped the coins into the phone and dialed the number of the Police Commissioner's office. After a brief argument with a secretary, he had Fernack on the phone. And this time, Malone told himself, he was going to be polite.

If possible.

"Good afternoon, John Henry," he said sunnily, when the commissioner's face was finally on the screen. "Can you get me some more information?"

Fernack stared at him sourly. "Depends," he said.

"On what?" Malone said, telling himself he wasn't going to get irritated, and knowing perfectly well that he was lying.

"On what kind of information you want," Fernack said.

"Well," Malone said, "there's a warehouse I want to know some more about. Who the owner is, for one thing, and--"

Fernack nodded. "I've got it," he said. He fished around on his desk, and brought up a sheet of paper. He held it up to the screen while Malone copied off the name and address. "Lieutenant Lynch told me all about it."

"Lynch?" Malone said. "But he--"

"Lynch works for me, Malone," Fernack said. "Remember that."

"But he said he'd--"

"He said he wouldn't do anything, and he won't," Fernack said. "He just reported it to me for my action. He knew I was working with you, Malone. And I am his boss, remember."

"Great," Malone said. "Now, John Henry--"

"Hold it, Malone," Fernack said. "I'd like a little information too, you know. I'd like to know just what the hell is going on, if it isn't too much trouble."

"It's not that, John Henry," Malone said earnestly. "Really. It's just that I--"

"All this about vanishing boys," Fernack said. "Disappearing into thin air. All this nonsense."

"It isn't nonsense," Malone said.

"All right," Fernack said indulgently. "Boys disappear every day like that. Sure they do." He leaned toward the screen and his voice was as hard as his face. "Malone, are these kids mixed up with those impossible robberies you had me looking up?"

"Well," Malone said, "I think so. But I doubt if you could prove it."

Fernack's face had begun its slow climb toward purple again. "Malone," he said, "if you're suppressing evidence, even if you are the FBI, I'll--"

"I'm not suppressing any evidence," Malone said. "I don't think you could prove a connection. I don't think I could prove a connection. I don't think anybody could--not right now."

Fernack leaned back, apparently mollified.

"John Henry," Malone said, "I want to ask you to keep your hands off this case. To let me handle it my way."

Fernack nodded absently. "Sure, Malone," he said.

"What?"

"I said sure," Fernack said. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

"Well, yes," Malone said, "but--"

Fernack leaned all the way back in his chair, his face a mask of disappointment and frustration. "Malone," he said, "I wish I'd never heard of this case. I wish I'd been retired or died before it ever came up. I've been a police officer in New York for a long time, and I wish this case had waited a few more years to happen."

He stopped. Malone leaned against the back wall of the phone booth and lit a cigarette.

"Andy Burris called me less than half an hour ago," Fernack said.

"Oh," Malone said.

"That's right," Fernack said. "Good old Burris of the FBI. And he told me this was a National Security case. National Security! It's your baby, Malone, because Burris wants it that way." He snorted. "So don't worry about me," he said. "I'm just here to co-operate. The patriotic, loyal, dumb slave of a grateful government."

Malone blew out a plume of smoke. "You know, John Henry," he said, "you might have made a good FBI man yourself. You've got the right attitude."

"Never mind the jokes," Fernack said bitterly.

"Okay," Malone said. "But tell me, did you actually make arrangements for me to get into that warehouse? I suppose you know that's what I want."

"I guessed that much," Fernack said. "I haven't made any arrangements at all yet, but I will. I'll have Safe and Loft get the keys, and a full set of floor plans to the place while they're at it. Will that do, Your Majesty?"

Malone choked on his smoke and shot a quick look over his shoulder. There was nothing there but the wall of the booth. Queen Elizabeth I was nowhere in evidence. Then he realized that Fernack had been talking to him.

"Don't do that," he said.

"What?" Fernack said.

Malone realized in one awful second how strange the explanation was going to sound. Could he say that he thought he'd been mistaken for an old friend of his, Elizabeth Tudor? Could he say that he'd just had a call from her?

In the end he merely said, "Nothing," and let it go at that.

"Well, anyhow," Fernack said, "do you want anything else?"

"Not right now," Malone said. "I'll let you know, though And thanks, John Henry. No matter why you're doing this, thanks."

"I don't deserve 'em," Fernack muttered. "And I hope you get caught in some kind of deadfall and have to come screaming to the cops."

That, Malone reflected, was the second time a cop had suggested his yelling if he got into trouble. Hadn't the police force ever heard of telephones?

He said good-bye and flipped off.

Then he stared at the screen for a little while, as his cigarette burned down between his fingers. At last he put the cigarette out and went downstairs again to the bar.

If he had to do some heavy thinking, he told himself, there was absolutely no reason why he couldn't enjoy himself a little while doing it.

The evening rush had begun, and Malone found himself a stool simply by slipping into one while a drinker's back was turned. Once ensconced, he huddled himself up like an old drunk, thus effectively cutting himself off from interruptions, and lit another cigarette. Ray was down at the other end of the bar, chatting with a red-headed woman and her pale, bald escort. Malone sighed and set himself to the job of serious, constructive thinking.

How, he asked himself, do you go about catching a person who can vanish away like so much smoke?

Well, Malone could think of one solution, but it was pretty bloody.

Nailing the kids to a wall would probably work, but he couldn't say much else for it. There had to be another way out. For some reason, Malone just couldn't see himself with a mouthful of nails, a hammer, and a teen-ager.

It sounded just a little too messy.

Then, of course, there were handcuffs.

That sounded a little better. The trouble was that Malone simply didn't have enough information, and knew it. Obviously, the kids could carry stuff with them when they teleported; the stuff they stole proved that. And their clothes, Malone added. Apparently the kids didn't arrive at wherever they went stark staring naked.

But how close to a teleport did the things he carried have to be?

In other words, Malone thought, if you put handcuffs on a teleport, would the handcuffs vanish when the teleport did? And did that include the part of the cuff you were holding?

What happened if you snapped half the cuff around your own wrist first? Did you go along with the teleport? Or did your wrist go, while you stayed behind and wondered how long it would take to bleed to death?

Or what?

All the questions were intriguing ones. Malone sighed, wishing he knew the answer to even one of them.

It was somewhat comforting to think that he'd managed to progress a little, anyway. The kids hadn't meant anybody to find out about them; but Malone had found out about them, and alerted all the cops in town, as well as the rest of the FBI. He knew just who they were, and where they lived, and how they performed the "miracles" they performed.

Anyhow, he knew something about that last item.

He even knew who had his notebook.

He tabled that thought, and went back to feeling victorious. Within a few seconds, the sense of achievement was gone, and futility had come in its place. After all, he still didn't know how to catch the kids, did he?

No.

He thought about handcuffs some more and then gave up. He'd just have to try it and see how it worked. And if the teleports took his wrist away he'd--he'd go after them and make them give it back.

Sure he would.

That reminded him of the notebook again, and since the thing was being so persistent, he decided he might as well pay some attention to it.

Dorothea had the notebook. Malone tried to see himself barging in on her and asking for it, and he didn't care for the picture at all--no matter how Good Queen Bess felt about it.

After all, she thought Mike Fueyo was basically a nice kid.

So what did she know?

He closed his eyes. There he was, in the Fueyo apartment, talking to Dorothea.

"Dorothea," he muttered. "You filched my notebook."

That didn't sound very effective. And besides, it wasn't really his notebook. He tried again.

"Dorothea, you pinched your brother's notebook."

Now, for some reason, it sounded like something covered by the Vice Squad. It sounded terrible. But there were other ways of saying the same thing.

"Dorothea," he muttered, "you borrowed your brother's notebook."

That was too patronizing. Malone told himself that he sounded like a character straight out of 3-D screens, and settled himself gamely for another try.

"Dorothea, you have your brother's notebook."

To which the obvious answer was, "Yes, I do, and so what?"

Or possibly, "How do you know?"

And Malone thought about answering that one. "Queen Elizabeth told me," was the literal truth, but somehow it didn't sound like it. And he couldn't find another answer to give the girl.

"Dorothea," he said, and a voice from nowhere added:

"Will you have another drink?"

"Damn it," Malone exploded, "that's not the question. Drinks have nothing to do with notebooks. It's notebooks I'm after. Can't you understand..." Belatedly, he looked up.

There was Ray, the barman. "Oh," he said.

"I just came over," Ray said. "And I figured if you couldn't find your notebook, maybe you'd like a drink. So long as you're here."

"Ray," Malone said with feeling, "you are an eminently reasonable fellow. I accept your solution. Nay, more. I endorse your solution. Wholeheartedly."

Ray went off to mix, and Malone stared after him happily. This was really a nice place, he reflected; almost as nice as the City Hall Bar in Chicago, where he'd gone long ago with his father.

But he tore his mind away from the happy past, and concentrated instead on the miserable present. He decided for the last time that he was not going to ask Dorothea for the book--not just yet, anyhow. After all, it wasn't as if he needed the book; he knew his own name, and he knew Lynch's name, and he knew the names on the second page. And he didn't see any particular need for a picture of a red Cadillac, no matter how nicely colored it was.

So, he asked himself, why embarrass everybody by trying to get it back?

Of course, it was technically a crime to pick pockets, and that went double or triple for the pockets of FBI agents. But Malone told himself that he didn't feel like pressing charges, anyhow. And Dorothy probably didn't make a habit of pocket-picking.

He sighed and glanced at his watch. It was fifteen minutes of six.

Now he knew what his next move was going to be.

He was going to go back to his hotel and change his clothes.

That is, he amended, as soon as he finished the drink that Ray was setting up in front of him.

11

By the time Malone reached the Hotel New Yorker it was six-twenty. Malone hadn't reckoned with New York's rush-hour traffic, and, after seeing it, he still didn't believe it. Finding a cab had been impossible, and he had started for the subway, hoping that he wouldn't get lost and end up somewhere in Brooklyn.

But one look at the shrieking mob trying to sardine itself into the Seventh Avenue subway entrance had convinced him it was better to walk. Bucking the street crowds was bad enough. Bucking the subway crowds was something Malone didn't even want to think about.

He let himself into his room, and was taking off his shoes with a grateful sigh when there was a rap on the door of the bathroom that connected his room with Boyd's. Malone padded over to the door, his shoes in one hand. "Tom?" he said.

"You are expecting maybe Titus Moody?" Boyd called.

"Okay," Malone said. "Come on in."

Boyd pushed open the door. He was stripped to the waist, a state of dress which showed the largest expanse of chest Malone had ever seen, and he was carrying the small scissors which he used to trim his Henry VIII beard. He stabbed the scissors toward Malone, who shuffled back hurriedly.

"Listen," Boyd said. "Did you call the office after you left this afternoon?"

"No," Malone admitted. "Why? What happened?"

"There was a call for you," Boyd said. "Long distance, just before I left at five. I came on back to the hotel and waited until I heard you come in. Thought you might want to know about it."

"I do, I guess," Malone said. "Who from?" Looking at Boyd, a modern-day Henry VIII, the association was too obvious to be missed. Malone thought of Good Queen Bess, and wondered why she was calling him again.

And--more surprising--why she'd called him at FBI headquarters, when she must have known that he wasn't there.

"Dr. O'Connor," Boyd said.

"Oh," Malone said, somewhat relieved. "At Yucca Flats."

Boyd nodded. "Right," he said.

"You're to call operator nine."

"Thanks." Malone went over to the phone, remembered his shoes and put them down carefully on the floor. "Anything else of importance?" he asked.

"On the Cadillacs," Boyd said. "We've got a final report now. Leibowitz and Hardin finally finished checking the last of them; there weren't quite as many as we were afraid there were going to be. Red isn't a very popular color around here."

"Good," Malone said.

"And there isn't a doggone thing on any of 'em," Boyd said. "Oh, we cleared up a lot of small-time crime, one thing and another, but that's about all. No such thing as an electro-psionic brain to be found anywhere in the lot. Leibowitz says he's willing to swear to it."

Malone sighed. "I didn't think he'd find one," he said.

"You didn't?"

"No," Malone said.

Boyd stabbed at him with the scissors again. "Then why did you cause all that trouble?" he said.

"Because I thought we might find electro-psionic brains," Malone said wearily. "Or one, anyhow."

"But you just said--"

Malone picked up the phone, got long distance, and motioned Boyd to silence in one sweeping series of moves. The long-distance operator said, "Yes, sir? May we help you?"

"Give me operator nine," Malone said.

There was a buzz, a click, and a new voice which said, "Operator ni-yun. May we help you?"

"All nine of you?" Malone muttered. "Never mind. This is Kenneth Malone. I've got a call from Dr. Thomas O'Connor at Yucca Flats. Please connect me."

There was another buzz, a click and an ungodly howl which was followed by the voice of operator ni-yun saying, "We are connecting you. There will be a slight delay. We are sor-ree."

Malone waited. At last there was another small howl, and the screen lit up. Dr. O'Connor's face, as stern and ascetic as ever, stared through at Malone.

"I understand you called me," Malone said.

"Ah, yes," Dr. O'Connor said. "It's very good to see you again, Mr. Malone." He gave Malone a smile good for exchange at your corner grocery; worth, one icicle.

"It's good to see you too," Malone lied.

"Mr. Burris explained to me what it was that you wanted to talk to me about," O'Connor said, "Am I to understand that you have actually found a teleport?"

"Unless my theories are away off," Malone said, "I've done a lot better than that. I've found eight of them."

"Eight." Dr. O'Connor's smile grew perceptibly warmer. It now stood at about thirty-four degrees Fahrenheit. "That is really excellent, Mr. Malone. You have done a fine job."

"Thanks," Malone muttered. He wished that O'Connor didn't make him feel quite so much like a first-year law student talking to an egomaniacal professor.

"When can you deliver them?" O'Connor said.

"Well," Malone said carefully, "that depends." O'Connor seemed to view the teleports as pieces of equipment, he thought. "I can't deliver them until I catch them," he said. "And that's why I wanted to talk to you."

"Some slight delay," Dr. O'Connor said, "will be quite understandable." His face left no doubt that he didn't like the necessity of understanding anything that was going to keep him and the eight teleports apart for even thirty seconds longer, now that he knew about them.

"You see," Malone said, "they're kids. Juvenile delinquents, or something like that. But they are teleports, that's for sure."

"I see," Dr. O'Connor said.

"So we've got to nab them," Malone said. "And for that I need all the information I can get."

Dr. O'Connor nodded slowly. "I'll be happy," he said, "to give you any information I can provide."

Malone took a deep breath, and plunged. "How does this teleportation bit work, anyhow?" he said.

"You've asked a very delicate question," Dr. O'Connor said. "Actually, we can't be quite positive." His expression showed just how little he wanted to make this admission. "However," he went on, brightening, "there is some evidence which seems to show that it is basically the same process as psychokinesis. And we do have quite a bit of empirical data on psychokinesis." He scribbled something on a sheet of paper and said, "For instance, there's this." He held the paper up to the screen so that Malone could read it.

It said:

(m*d)/(f*t**2) = 1/k

Malone looked at it for some seconds. At last he said, "It's very pretty. What the hell is it?"

"This," Dr. O'Connor said, in a condescending tone of voice that meant, You should have known all along, but you're just hopeless, "is the basic formula for the phenomenon, where m is the mass in grams, d is the distance in centimeters, f is the force in dynes, and t is the time in seconds. K is a constant whose value is not yet known, and the numeral 1 is unity."

Malone said, "Hmm," and stared at the equation again. Somehow, the explanation was not very helpful. The numeral 1 was unity. He understood that much, all right, but it didn't seem to do him any good.

"As you can see," Dr. O'Connor went on, "the greater the force, and the longer time it is applied, the greater distance any given mass can be moved. Or, contrariwise, the more mass, the greater mass, that is, the easier it is to move it any given distance. This is, as you undoubtedly understand, not at all in contradistinction to physical phenomena."

"Ah," Malone said, feeling that something was expected of him, but not being quite sure what.

Dr. O'Connor frowned. "I must admit," he said, "that the uncertainty as to the constant k, and the lack of any real knowledge as to just what kind of force is being applied, have held up our work so far." Then his face smoothed out. "Of course, when we have the teleports to work with, we may derive a full set of laws which--"

"Never mind that now," Malone said.

"But our work is most important, Mr. Malone," Dr. O'Connor said with a motion of his eyebrows. "As I'm sure you must understand."

"Oh," Malone said, feeling if he'd been caught without his homework, "of course. But if you don't mind--"

"Yes, Mr. Malone?" Dr. O'Connor said smoothly.

"What I want to know," Malone said, "is this. What are the limitations of this--uh--phenomenon?"

Dr. O'Connor brightened up thoroughly. "Well, theoretically," he said, "there do not appear to be any limitations. However, practical limitations do exist. If the process is at all parallel with psychokinesis, or with levitation"--he stared at Malone, as if daring him to say that it wasn't--"if that parallel exists, then the subject is mentally limited by his own physical strength."

Malone said, "What?"

"Try and be patient, Mr. Malone," O'Connor said calmly. "Please. As I was saying, the subject is limited by his own physical strength. In other words, he cannot move psionically any subject larger than he can lift physically. This appears to be a psychological limitation which--"

"Oh," Malone said. "You mean he couldn't carry off a building, or anything like that?"

"Of course not," Dr. O'Connor said. "Nor, as a matter of fact, could he carry off anything that was securely bolted down. I hope you follow me."

"I think so," Malone said. "But look here. Suppose you handcuffed him to, say, a radiator, or a jail cell bar."

"Yes?"

"Could he get away?"

Dr. O'Connor appeared to consider this with some care. "Well," he said at last, "he certainly couldn't take the radiator with him, or the cell bar. If that's what you mean." He hesitated, looked slightly shamefaced, and then went on: "But you must realize that we lack any really extensive data on this phenomenon."

"Of course," Malone said.

"That's why I'm so very anxious to get those subjects," Dr. O'Connor said.

"Dr. O'Connor," Malone said earnestly, "that's just what I had in mind from the start. I've been going to a lot of extra trouble to make sure that those kids don't get killed or end up in reform schools or something, just so you could work with them."

"I appreciate that, Mr. Malone," O'Connor said gravely.

Malone felt as if someone had given him a gold star. Fighting down the emotion, he went on: "I know right now that I can catch one or two of them. But I don't know for sure that I can hold one for more than a fraction of a second."

"I see your problem," Dr. O'Connor said. "Believe me, Mr. Malone. I do see your problem."

"And is there a way out?" Malone said. "I mean a way I can hold on to them for--"

"At present," Dr. O'Connor said heavily, "I have no suggestions. I lack data."

"Oh, fine," Malone said. "We need the kids to get the data, and we need the data to get the kids." He sighed. "Hooray for our side," he added.

"There does appear to be something of a dilemma here," Dr. O'Connor admitted sadly.

"Dilemma is putting it mildly," Malone said.

Dr. O'Connor opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again and said, "I agree."

"Well," Malone said, "maybe one of us will think of something. If anything does occur to you, let me know at once."

"I certainly will," Dr. O'Connor said. "Believe me, Mr. Malone, I want you to capture those kids just as badly as you want to capture them yourself."

"I'll try," Malone said at random. He flipped off and turned with a sense of relief back to Boyd. But it looked as if Henry VIII had been hit on the head with a cow, or something equally weighty. Boyd looked glassy-eyed and slightly stunned.

"What's the matter with you?" Malone said. "Sick?"

"I'm not sick," Boyd said carefully. "At least I don't think I'm sick. It's hard to tell."

"What's wrong?"

"Teleporting!" Boyd said. "Juvenile delinquents!"

Malone felt a sudden twinge in the area of his conscience. He realized that he had told Boyd nothing at all about what had been going on since the discovery of the notebook two nights ago. He filled his partner in rapidly, while Boyd stood in front of the mirror and rather shakily attempted to trim his beard.

"That's why I had the car search continue," Malone said. "I was fairly sure the fault wasn't in the cars, but the boys. But I had to make absolutely sure."

Boyd said, "Oh," chopped a small section out of the center of his beard and added, "Damn. My hand's shaky."

"Well," Malone said, "that's the story."

"It's a hell of a story," Boyd said. "And I don't want you to think I don't believe it. Because I don't."

"It's true," Malone said.

"That doesn't affect me," Boyd said. "I'll go along with the gag. But enough is enough. Vanishing teenagers. Ridiculous."

"Just so you go along with me," Malone said.

"Oh, I'll go along," Boyd said. "This is my vacation too, isn't it? What's the next move, Mastermind?"

"We're going down to that warehouse," Malone said decisively. "I've got a hunch the kids have been hiding there ever since they left their homes yesterday."

"Malone," Boyd said. "What?"

"You mean we're going down to the warehouse tonight?" Boyd said.

Malone nodded.

"I might have known," Boyd said. "I might have known!"

"Tom," Malone said. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing," Boyd said. "Nothing at all. Everything's fine and dandy. I think I'm going to commit suicide, but don't let that bother you."

"What happened?" Malone said.

Boyd stared at him. "You happened," he said. "You and the teen-agers and the bloody damn warehouse happened. Three days' work--ruined."

Malone scratched his head, found out that his head still hurt and put his hand down again. "What work?" he said.

"For three days," Boyd said, "I've been taking this blonde chick all over New York. Wining her. Dining her. Spending money as if I were Burris himself, instead of the common or garden variety of FBI agent. Night clubs. Theaters. Bars. The works. Malone, we were getting along famously. It was wonderful."

"And tonight--" Malone said.

"Tonight," Boyd said, "was supposed to be the night. The big night. The payoff. We've got a date for dinner--T-bone steak, two inches thick, with mushrooms. At her apartment, Malone. She will probably--"

"You'll have to break it," Malone said sympathetically. "Too bad, but it can't be helped now. You can pick up a sandwich before you go."

"A sandwich," Boyd said with great dignity, "is not my idea of something to eat."

"Look, Tom--" Malone began.

"All right, all right," Boyd said tiredly. "Duty is duty. I'll go call her."

"Fine," Malone said. "And meanwhile, I'll get us a little insurance."

"Insurance?"

"John Henry Fernack," Malone said, "and his Safe and Loft Squad."

12

The warehouse was locked up tight, all right, Malone thought. In the dim light that surrounded the neighborhood, it stood like a single stone block, alone near the waterfront. There were other buildings nearby, but they seemed smaller; the warehouse loomed over Malone and Boyd threateningly. They stood in a shadow-blacked alley just across the street, watching the big building nervously, studying it for weak points and escape areas.

Boyd whispered softly, "Do you think they have a look-out?"

Malone's voice was equally low. "We'll have to assume they've got at least one kid posted," he said. "But they can't be watching all the time. Remember, they can't do everything."

"They don't have to," Boyd said. "They do quite enough for me. Do you realize that, right now, I could be--"

"Break it up," Malone said. He took a small handset from his pocket and pressed the stud. "Lynch?" he whispered.

A tinny voice came from the earpiece. "Here, Malone."

"Have you got them located yet?" Malone said.

"Not yet," Lynch's voice replied. "We're working on a triangulation now. Just hold on for a minute or so. I'll let you know as soon as we've got results."

The police squads--Lynch and his men, the warehouse precinct men, and the Safe and Loft Squad--had set up a careful cordon around the area, and were now hard at work trying to determine two things.

First, they had to know whether there was anybody in the building at all.

Second, they had to be able to locate anyone in the building with precision.

The silence of the downtown warehouse district helped. They had several specially designed, highly sensitive directional microphones aimed at the building from carefully selected spots around the area, trying to pick up the muffled sounds of speech or motion within the warehouse. The watchmen in buildings nearby had been warned off for the time being so that their footsteps wouldn't occlude any results.

Malone waited, feeling nervous and cold. Finally Lynch's voice came through again. "We're getting something, all right," he said. "There are obviously several people in there. You were right, Malone."

"Thanks," Malone said. "How about that fix?"

"Hold it a second," Lynch said. Wind swept off the river at Malone and Boyd. Malone closed his eyes and shivered. He could smell fish and iodine and waste, the odor of the Hudson as it passes the city. Across the river lights sparkled warmly. Here there was nothing but darkness.

A long time passed, perhaps ten seconds.

Then Lynch's voice was back. "Sergeant McNulty says they're on the top floor, Malone," he said. "Can't tell how many for sure. But they're talking and moving around."

"It's a shame these things won't pick up the actual words at a distance," Malone said.

"Just a general feeling of noise is all we get," Lynch said. "But it does some good."

"Sure," Malone said. "Now listen carefully. Boyd and I are going in. Alone."

Lynch's voice whispered, "Right."

"If those mikes pick up any unusual ruckus--any sharp increase in the noise level--come running," Malone said. "Otherwise, just sit still and wait for my signal. Got that?"

"Check," Lynch said.

Malone pocketed the radiophone. "Okay, Tom," he whispered. "This is it."

"Right," Boyd muttered. "Let's move in."

"Wait a minute," Malone said. He took his goggles and brought them down over his eyes, adjusting the helmet on his head. Boyd did the same. Malone flicked on the infrared flashlight he held in his hand.

"Okay?" he whispered. "Check," Boyd said.

Thanks to the goggles, both of them could see the normally invisible beams of the infrared flashlight. They'd equipped themselves to move in darkness without betraying themselves, and they'd be able to see where a person without equipment would be blind.

Malone stayed well within the shadows as he moved silently around to the alley behind the warehouse, and then to a narrow passageway that led to the building next door. Boyd followed a few feet behind him along the carefully planned route.

Malone unlocked the small door that led into the ground floor of the building adjoining. As he did so, he heard a sound behind him and called, "Tom?"

"Hey, Malone," Boyd whispered. "It's--"

Before there was any outcry, Malone rushed back. Boyd was struggling with a figure in the dimness. Malone grabbed the figure and clamped his hand over its mouth. It bit him. He swore in a low voice, and clamped the hand over the mouth again.

It hadn't taken him more than half a second to realize what, whoever it was who struggled in his arms, it wasn't a boy.

"Shut up!" Malone hissed in her ear. "I won't hurt you."

The struggle stopped immediately. Malone gently eased his hand off the girl's mouth. She turned and looked at him.

"Kenneth Malone," she said, "you look like a man from Mars."

"Dorothea!" Malone gasped. "What are you doing here? Looking for your brother?"

"Never mind that," she said. "You play too rough. I'm going home to Mother."

"Answer me!" Malone said.

"All right," Dorothea said. "You must know anyhow, since you're here.... Yes, I'm looking for that fatheaded brother of mine. But now I suppose it's too late. He'll--he'll go to prison."

Her voice broke. Malone found his shoulder suddenly occupied by a crying face.

"No," he said quickly. "No. Please. He won't."

"Really?"

Boyd whispered: "Malone, what is this? It's a hell of a place for a date. And I--"

"Oh, shut up," Malone told him in a kindly fashion. He turned back to Dorothea. "I promise he won't," he said. "If I can just talk to your brother, make him listen to reason, I think we can get him and the others off. Believe me."

"But you--"

"Please," Malone said. "Believe me."

"Oh, Ken," Dorothea said, raising her head. "Do you mean it?"

"Sure I mean it," Malone said. "What have I been saying? The Government needs these kids."

"The Government?"

"It's nothing to worry about," Malone said. "Just go on home now, and I'll call you tomorrow. Late tonight, if I can. All right?"

"No," Dorothea said. "It's not all right. Not at all."

"But--"

Boyd hissed, "Malone!"

Malone ignored him. He had a bigger fight on his hands. "I'm not going home," Dorothea announced. "I'm going in there with you. After all," she added, "I can talk more sense into Mike's head than you can."

"Now look," Malone began.

Dorothea grinned in the darkness. "If you don't take me along," she said quietly, "I'll scream and warn them."

Malone surrendered at once. He had no doubt at all that Dorothea meant what she said. And, after all, the girl might really be some use to them. And there probably wouldn't be much danger.

Of course there wouldn't, he thought. He was going to see to that.

"All right," he said. "Come along. Stick close to us, and don't worry about the darkness. We can see, even if you can't, so let us guide you. And for heaven's sake be quiet!"

Boyd whispered, "Malone, what's going on?"

"She's coming with us," Malone said, pointing to Dorothea.

Boyd shrugged. "Malone," he said, "who do you think you are? The Pied Piper of Hamelin?"

Malone wheeled and went ahead. Opening the door, he played his I-R flashlight on the room inside and he, Boyd, and Dorothea trailed in, going through rooms piled with huge boxes. They went up an iron stairway to the second floor, and so on up to the roof.

They moved quickly across the roof to the wall of the warehouse, which was two stories higher than the building they were on. Of course there were no windows in the warehouse wall facing them, except on the top story.

But there was a single, heavy, fireproof emergency exit. It would have taken power machinery or explosive to open that door from the outside without a key, although from the inside it would open easily. Fortunately, Malone had a key.

He took it out and stepped aside. "Give that lock the works," he whispered to Boyd.

Boyd took a lubricant gun from his pocket and fired three silent shots of special oil into the lock. Then he shot the hinges, and the cracks around the door.

They waited for a minute or two while the oil, forced in under pressure, did its work. Then Malone fitted the key carefully into the lock and turned it, slowly and delicately.

The door swung open in silence. Malone slipped inside, followed by Boyd and Dorothea Fueyo.

Infrared equipment went on again, and the eerie illumination spread over their surroundings. Malone tapped Boyd on the shoulder, and jerked his thumb toward the back stairs. This was plainly no time for talk.

From the floor above, they could hear the murmur of youthful voices.

They started for the stairway. Fortunately, the building was of the steel-and-concrete type; there were no wooden floors to creak and groan beneath their feet.

At the bottom of the stairs, they paused. Voices came down the stairwell clearly, even words being defined in the silence.

"...and quit harping on whose fault it was." Malone recognized Mike Fueyo's voice. "That FBI guy was onto us, and we had to pull out; you know that. We always figured we'd have to pull out some day. So why not now?"

"Yeah," another voice said. "But you didn't have to go and vanish right under that Fed's nose. You been beating it into our heads not to do that sort of stuff ever since we first found out we could make this vanishing bit. And then you go and do it in front of a Fed. Sure, you got a big bang out of it, but is it smart? I ask you--"

"Yeah?" Mike said. "Listen, Silvo, they never would've got onto us if it hadn't been for your stupid tricks. Slugging a cop on the dome. Cracking up a car. You and your bug for speed!"

Malone blinked. Then it hadn't been Miguel Fueyo who'd hit Sergeant Jukovsky, but Silvo. Malone tried to remember the list of Silent Spooks. Silvo Envoz--that was his name.

"You slugged the FBI guy, Mike," Silvo said. "And now you got us all on the run. That's your fault, Mike. I want to see my old lady."

"I had to slug him," Mike said. "Listen, all Ramon's stuff was in that Cadillac. What would've happened if he'd found all that stuff?"

"So what happened anyway?" a third voice said (That was probably Ramon Otravez, Malone thought.) "He found your stupid notebook, didn't he? He went yelling to the cops, didn't he? We're running, ain't we? So what's the difference?"

"Shut up!" Mike roared.

"You ain't telling me to shut up!"

"Me either," Silvo yelled. "You think you're a great big big-shot! You think you're king of the world!"

"Who figured out the Vanish?" Mike screamed. "You'd all be a bunch of bums if I hadn't showed you that! And you know it! You'd all--"

"Don't give us that," Silvo said. "We'd have been able to do it, same as you. Like you said, anybody who's got talent could do it. There were guys you tried to teach--"

"Sure," said a fourth voice. "Listen, Fueyo, you're so bright--so why don't you try teaching it to somebody who don't have the talent?"

"Yeah," said voice number five. "You think you could teach that flashy sister of yours the Vanish?"

"You shut up about my sister, Phil!" Mike screamed.

"So what's so great about her?"

"She got that book back from the Fed," Mike said. "That's what. It's enough!"

"Hell," a voice said, "any dame with a little--"

"Shut your goddamn face before I shut it for you!"

Malone couldn't tell who was yelling what at who after a minute. They all seemed unhappy about being on the run from the police, and they were all tired of being cooped up in a warehouse under Mike's orders. Mike was the only person they could take it out on--and Mike was under heavy attack.

Two of the boys, surprisingly, seemed to side with him. The other five were trying to outshout them. Malone wondered if it would become a fight, and then realized that these kids could hardly fight each other when the one who was losing could always fade out.

He leaned over and whispered to Dorothea and Boyd, "Let's sneak up there while the argument's going on."

"But--" Boyd began.

"Less chance of their noticing us," Malone explained, and Started forward.

They tiptoed up the stairs and got behind a pile of crates in the shadows, while invective roared around them. This floor was lit by a single small bulb hanging from a socket in the ceiling. The windows were hung with heavy blankets to keep the light from shining out.

The kids didn't notice anything except each other. Malone took a couple of deep breaths and began to look around.

All things considered, he thought, the kids had fixed the place up pretty nicely. The unused warehouse had practically been made over into an apartment. There were chairs, beds, tables, and everything else in the line of furnishings for which the kids could conceivably have any use. There were even some floor lamps scattered around, but they weren't plugged in. Malone guessed that a job would have to be done on the warehouse wiring to get the floor lamps in operation, and the kids just hadn't got around to it yet.

By now the boys were practically standing toe-to-toe, ripping air-blueing epithets at each other. Not a single hand was lifted.

Malone stared at them for a second, then turned to Dorothea. "We'll wait till they calm down a little," he whispered. "Then you go out and talk to them. Tell them we won't hurt them or lock them up or anything. All we want to do is talk to them for awhile."

"All right," she whispered back.

"They can vanish any time they want to," Malone said, "so there's no reason for them not to listen to--"

He stopped suddenly, listening. Over the shouting, screaming, and cursing of the kids, he heard motion on the floor below.

Cops?

It couldn't be, he told himself. But when he took out his radiophone, his hands were shaking a little.

Lynch's voice was already coming over it when Malone thumbed it on.

"...so hang on, Malone! I repeat: We heard the ruckus, and we're coming in! We're on our way! Hang on, Malone!"

The voice stopped. There was a click.

Malone stared at the handset, fascinated and horrified. He swallowed. "No, Lynch!" he whispered, afraid to talk any louder for fear the kids would hear him. "No! Don't come up. Go away. Repeat: Go away! Stay away, Lynch!"

It was no use. The radiophone was dead.

Lynch, apparently thinking Malone's set had been smashed in the fight, or else that Malone was unconscious, had shut his own receiver off.

There was absolutely nothing that Malone could do.

The kids were still yelling at the top of their voices, but the thundering of heavy, flat feet galumphing up from the lower depths couldn't be ignored for long. All the boys noticed it at about the same time. They jerked their heads round to face the stairway. Malone and his compatriots crouched lower behind the boxes.

Mike Fueyo was the first to speak. "Don't vanish yet," he snapped. "Let's see who it is."

The internal dissent among the Silent Spooks disappeared as if it had never been, as they faced a common foe. Once again they fell naturally under Fueyo's leadership. "If it's cops," he said, "we'll give 'em the grasshopper play we worked out. We'll show 'em."

"They can't fool with us," another boy said. "Sure. The grasshopper play."

It was cops, all right. Lieutenant Lynch ran up the stairs waving his billy in a heroic fashion, followed by a horde of blue-clad officers.

"Where's Malone?" Lynch shouted as he came through the doorway.

"Where's your what?" Mike yelled back, and the fight was on.

Later, Malone thought that he should have been surprised, but he wasn't. There wasn't any time to be surprised. The kids didn't disappear.

They spread out over the floor of the room easily and lightly, and the cops charged them in a great blundering mass.

Naturally, the kids winked out one by one--and re-formed in the center of the cops' muddle. Malone saw one cop raise his billy and swing it at Mike. Mike watched it come down and vanished at the last instant. The cop's billy descended on the head of another cop, standing just behind where Mike had been.

The second cop, blinded by the blow on his head, swung back and hit the first cop. Meanwhile, Mike was somewhere else.

Malone stayed crouched behind the boxes. Dorothea stood up and shouted, "Mike! Mike! We just want to talk to you!"

Unfortunately, the police were making such a racket that this could not be heard more than a foot or so from the speaker. Lynch himself charged into the mass, swinging his billy and his free fist, and laying others out one after the other. Pretty soon the floor was littered with cops. Lynch was doing yeoman duty, but it was hard to tell what side he was on.

The vanishing trick Mike had worked out was being used by all of the kids. Cops were hitting other cops, Lynch was hitting everybody, and the kids were winking on and off all over the loft. It was a scene of tremendous noise and carnage.

Malone suddenly sprang to his feet and charged into the melee, shouting at the top of his lungs and swinging both fists. The first person he saw was one of the teen-agers, and he charged him with abandon.

He should, he reflected, have known better. The kid disappeared. Malone caromed off the stomach of a policeman, received a blow on the shoulder from his billy, and rebounded into the arms of a surprised police officer at the edge of the battle.

"Who're you?" the officer gasped.

"Malone," Malone said.

"You on our side?"

"How about you?" Malone said.

"I'm a lieutenant here," the officer said. "In charge of the warehouse precinct. I--"

Malone and the lieutenant stepped nimbly aside as another cop careened by them, waving his billy helplessly. They looked away as the crash came. The cop had fallen over a table, and now lay with his legs in the air, supported by the overturned table, blissfully unconscious.

"We seem," Malone said, "to be in an area of some activity. Let's move."

They shifted away a few feet. Malone looked into the foray and saw Boyd at work, roaring and going after the kids. One of them had established a kind of game with him. He appeared just in front of Boyd, who rushed at him, arms outstretched. As Boyd almost reached him, the kid disappeared, and reappeared again just behind Boyd. He tapped the FBI agent gently on the shoulder; Boyd turned and the process was repeated.

Boyd seemed to be getting winded.

"Damn kids," the lieutenant muttered suddenly, and dashed back into the fray. Malone looked around, saw Mike Fueyo flickering in and out at the edges, and headed for him.

A cop swung at Mike, missed, and hit Malone on the arm. Malone swore. The cop backed off, looking in a bewildered fashion for his victim, who was nowhere in sight. Then Malone caught sight of him, at the other edge of the fight. He started to work his way around.

He tried to avoid blows, but it wasn't always possible. A reeling cop caught his lapel and tore it, and Lynch, indefatigable in battle, managed to graze his chin with a blow meant for one of the disappearing boys. Other cops were battling each other, going after the kids and clutching empty air, cursing and screaming unheard orders in the fracas.

Malone ducked past Lynch, rubbed at his chin and looked for Mike. In the tangle of bodies it was getting hard to see. There was the sound of breaking ceramics as a floor lamp went over, and then a table followed it, but Malone avoided both. He looked for Mike Fueyo.

A cop clutched him around the middle, out of nowhere, said, "Sorry, buddy. Who the hell are you?" and dove back into the mass of bodies. Malone caught his breath and forged onward.

There was Mike, at the edge of the fight, watching everything coolly. No cop was near him. In the dim light the place looked like a scene from hell, a special hell for policemen.

Malone wove through battling hordes to the edge, and came out a few feet away from Mike Fueyo.

Fueyo didn't see him. He was looking at Boyd instead--still stumbling back and forth as the teen-ager baiting him winked on and off in front of him and behind him. He was laughing.

Malone came up silently from behind. The trip seemed to take hours. He was being very quiet, although he was reasonably sure that even if he yelled he wouldn't be heard. But he didn't want to take the slightest chance.

He sprang on Mike, and attached the handcuffs to his wrist and to Mike's wrist within ten seconds.

"Ha!" he said involuntarily. "Now come with me!"

He gave his end of the handcuffs a tremendous yank.

He started to stagger, trailing an empty cuff behind him, flailing his arms wildly. Ahead of him he could see a big cop with an upraised billy. Malone tried to alter his course, but it was too late. He skidded helplessly into the cop, who jerked round and swung the billy automatically. Malone said: "Ugh," as he caught the blow on the cheekbone, bounced off the cop and kept going.

He careened past a blur of figures, trying to avoid hard surfaces and other human beings. But there was--

Oh, no, Malone thought. Lynch.

Lynch was ready to swing. His fist was cocked, and he was heading for one of the teen-agers with murder in his eye. Malone knew their paths were going to intersect. "Watch out," he yelled. "Watch out, it's me! Stop me! Somebody stop me!" He went completely unheard.

Lynch swung and missed, hitting a cop who had been hiding behind the teen-ager. The cop went down to join the wounded, and Lynch roared like a bull and swung around, looking for more enemies.

That was when Malone hit him.

Long afterward, he remembered Lynch's hat sailing through the air, and landing in the center of a struggling mass of policemen. He remembered Lynch saying, "So there you are!" and swinging before he looked.

He remembered the blow on the chin.

And then he remembered falling, and falling, and falling. Somewhere there was a voice: "Where the hell are they? They've disappeared for good."

And then, for long seconds, nothing.

He woke up with a headache, but it wasn't too bad. Surprisingly, not much time had passed; he got up and dusted off his trousers, looking around at the battlefield. Wounded and groaning cops were lying all over. The room was a shambles; the walking wounded--which comprised the rest of the force--were stumbling around in a slow, hopeless sort of fashion.

Lynch was standing next to him. "Malone," he said, "I'm sorry. I hit you, didn't I?"

"Uh-huh," Malone said. "You seemed to be hitting every body."

"I was trying for the kids," Lynch said.

"So was I," Malone said. "I got the cuffs on one and yanked him along, but he disappeared and left me with the cuffs."

"Great," Lynch said. "Hell of a raid."

"Very jolly," Malone agreed. "Fun and games were had by all."

A cop stumbled up, handed Lynch his cap and disappeared without a word. Lynch stared mournfully at it. The emblem was crushed, and the cap looked rather worn and useless. He put it on his head, where it assumed the rakish tilt of a hobo's favorite tam-o'-shanter, and said, "I hope you're not thinking of blaming me for this fiasco."

"Not at all," Malone said nobly. He hurt all over, but on reflection he thought that he would probably live. "It was nobody's fault." Except, he thought, his own. If he'd only told Lynch to come in when called for--and under no other circumstances--this wouldn't have happened. He looked around at the remains of New York's Finest, and felt guilty.

The lieutenant from the local precinct limped up, rubbing a well-kicked shin and trying to disentangle pieces of floor lamp from his hair. "Listen, Lynch," he said, "What's with these kids? What's going on here? Look at my men."

"Some days," Lynch said, "it just doesn't pay to get up."

"Sure," the local man said. "But what do I do now?"

"Make your reports."

"But--"

"To the Commissioner," Lynch said, "and to nobody else. If this gets into the papers, heads will roll."

"My head is rolling right now," the local man said. "Know what one of those kids did? Stood in front of a floor lamp. I swung at him and he vanished. Vanished! I hit the lamp, and then the lamp hit me."

"Just see that this doesn't get out," Lynch said.

"It can't," the local man said. "Anybody who mentioned this to a reporter would just be laughed out of town. It's not possible." He paused thoughtfully, and added, "We'd all be laughed out of town."

"And probably replaced with the FBI," Lynch said morosely. He looked at Malone. "Nothing personal, you understand," he said.

"Of course," Malone said. "We can't do any more here, can we?"

"I don't think we can do any more anywhere," Lynch said. "Let's lock the place up and leave and forget all about it."

"Fine," Malone said. "I've got work to do." He looked around, found Dorothea and signaled to her. "Come on, Dorothea. Where's Boyd?"

"Here I am," Boyd said, walking slowly across the big room to Malone. He had one hand held to his chin.

"What's the matter with you?" Malone asked.

Boyd took his hand away. There was a bald spot the size of a quarter on the point of his chin. "One of those kids," he said sadly, "has a hell of a strong grip. Come on, Miss Fueyo. Come on, Malone. Let's get out of here."

13

"Logically," Malone said, "there has to be some way to catch them." He looked around the hotel room as though he expected to find an answer painted in big black letters on the wall. "Logically," he said again, and tried to think of what came next. He liked the sound of the word, but that was as far as it went.

"That's fine," Boyd said. He sat on a chair, staring gloomily at the floor and rubbing the bald spot on his chin with a single, sad, inquisitive forefinger. "There has to be an answer. You're probably right. But what the hell is it?"

Malone started to answer, and then wondered what he had been going to say. He sunk himself in thought. There was a knock at the door. "Who's there?" he called, glad of any relief at all.

"It's me," a small voice said. "Dorothea."

"Come in," Malone said.

The door opened. Dorothea came in, shut the door behind her, and looked around the room a little awkwardly.

"Did you get a good night's sleep?" Malone said.

She nodded. "I guess so," she said. "Sure. It was nice of you to get me a room for the night. I mean, I guess I was--well..."

"Forget it," Malone said grandly. "You were upset and tired, that's all. Hell, in the car on the way back here last night, you fainted."

"I did not faint," she said.

"Well," Malone said, "you sure looked like--"

"I was tired," Dorothea said.

Malone shrugged. "Okay. You were tired."

"You're not mad, are you," she said, "because I stole your notebook?"

"Of course not," Malone said. "I said forget it, didn't I? Sit down and help us out."

"Help you?" she said.

"That's right," Boyd said. "Help us figure out how to catch this bunch of maniacs before they steal everything in New York."

Dorothea said, "Maniacs? I--" and Malone interrupted her in a hurry.

"Police Commissioner Fernack has called twice this morning already," he said. "He's screaming about all the burglaries that have been occurring since midnight last night."

"Oh," Dorothea said. "You mean the Spooks? Mike and the others? They've been stealing again?"

"They sure have, Miss Fueyo," Boyd said.

"I guess they're furnishing their new hideout," Malone said. "Wherever it is. Only God knows."

"And even if He told us," Boyd said, "it wouldn't do us any good. Chase 'em out of there, and they'd go somewhere else."

Malone stood up, fished for his cigarettes and lit one. "What we need," he said, blowing out smoke, "is some way to trap 'em and hold 'em. And I don't see how we can do either."

"After last night," Dorothea said, "I really don't see--"

"Wait a minute," Boyd said. "You said trap, didn't you?" He looked slowly and speculatively at Dorothea Fueyo.

A second passed.

"Oh, no, you don't!" she said. "Oh, no. Not on your life. I'll help catch him if I can, because I know you don't mean to hurt him or the others. But I wouldn't want Mike to know about it. You're not using me as bait in any trap."

Boyd looked at Malone, shook his head slowly, and said disconsolately, "Well, it was an idea." He returned his gaze to the floor.

The furtive gleam of the half bottle of bourbon on Malone's dresser caught his eye. He'd had it sent up the night before, feeling the need of some medicinal refreshment. Now it winked at him. He ignored it resolutely. "Dorothea," he said.

"Yes?"

"Dorothea, do you have any idea how far one of those kids can go when he teleports?"

"No," Dorothea said. "I really haven't any idea about any of it. Mike tried to teach me once, but I guess I just don't have the talent."

"Oh," Malone said.

"I wish I could help," Dorothea said.

Silence fell, and gloom followed it.

Time ticked by. The bourbon bottle resumed its seductive winking.

"There is one thing," Dorothea said suddenly. "He did say one thing about it."

"What?" Malone said eagerly.

"He said you couldn't teleport to some place you haven't been before. You've got to be able to visualize where you're going."

Malone said, "Hmm." It seemed like the right answer. Dorothea's statement was a fact, certainly, but he didn't see how the fact fit in anywhere.

"He didn't mention anything about distance, and I don't think any of the Spooks ever tested it for that," Dorothea said.

"There probably is a distance limit," Malone said. "At least if Dr. O'Connor's theories are right. I just wish I knew what the limit was."

Silence fell again. Malone sighed. Dorothea sighed. Boyd sighed, looked around at the others and muttered, "Damn thing's catching." He got up and walked over to the dresser and picked up the bottle of bourbon.

"You, too?" Malone murmured, but Boyd didn't hear him.

"I don't care if it is early in the morning," he said, resolutely. "I need a drink. I need something to take the fog out of my head, anyhow." He poured himself a shot, held the bottle aloft, and said, "Dorothea? Malone?"

The girl shook her head.

Malone was tempted but he put Satan behind him with decision. "No," he said firmly. "The way I feel now, one drink would probably immobilize me."

Dorothea chuckled. "You sound just like Mike," she said.

"Mike doesn't drink in the morning either?" Malone said.

"Of course he doesn't," Boyd said. "Mike is a nice kid. A swell kid."

"You keep quiet," Dorothea shot at him. She turned back to Malone. "Mike never drinks at all," she said. "He says it immobilizes him--just what you said."

Somewhere in the black galactic depths of Malone's mind, a very small hot star gulped, took a deep breath and became a supernova.

The light was tremendous! It shed beams over everything, beams of a positively supernal brilliance. And in the all-pervasive brightness of that single inner light, bits of data began to fall into place with all the precision of aerial bombs, each falling neatly and exactly into its own little predetermined bomb crater.

It was beautiful. It was magnificent. Malone felt all choked up.

None of the Silent Spooks drank. He remembered Kettleman telling him that. And the Queen never touched the stuff either.

"What's wrong?" Boyd said.

"Malone, you look green."

"I feel green," Malone said. "I feel like newly sprung grass. I feel as if I had just hatched out of something. I feel wonderful."

"It's the strain," Boyd said. "That's what it is, strain. You've cracked at last."

Malone ignored him. "Tell me," he said to Dorothea with elaborate casualness, "when your brother says that, what does he mean?"

"What?" she said. "Oh, I don't know. I--" She stopped and her eyes widened. "You don't think that--"

"I don't know," Malone said. "But we can sure as hell find out."

Dorothea blinked. "What can you do?" she said. "I mean, to find out. You can't force them to drink or anything, can you?"

"No," Malone said. "I can't do that. But it does give me an idea."

Boyd held his untasted drink in his hand, staring at Malone and the girl. "What are you two talking about?" he said. "Or is this the special Captain Midnight code? I left my code ring home this week."

"Boyd," Malone snapped, "get on the phone."

"Are you sure it will hold me?" Boyd said.

"I want you to call Dr. O'Connor at Yucca Flats," Malone said. "Shut up and listen."

There was silence.

Finally Boyd said, "I don't hear anything."

"Never mind," Malone said. "I mean listen to me. I know it's pretty early out where O'Connor is, but that doesn't matter now. Wake him up. Wake everybody up, for all I care."

"Malone," Boyd said carefully, "are you sure you haven't gone nuts?"

Malone grinned cheerfully. "No," he said. "Are you? Now listen: find out what effect drugs have on psionic abilities."

"Drugs?" Boyd said, and then his eyes lit up. "My God!" he said. "We might have something, at that!"

"Get the Queen up too," Malone said. "Ask her the same question. I hope we do have something."

"So do I," Dorothea said.

"And if we get the information we're hoping to get, I want Her Majesty on the first plane to New York," Malone said. "I don't care what strings you have to pull to get that done. Call Burris if you have to. It'll be worth it." Malone paused. "Hell," he said, "call him anyway and tell him what's happened. But get the Queen here!"

"Right!" Boyd said. He dove for the phone and started dialing. Suddenly he looked around. "Hey!" he yelled. "Where are you going?"

Malone, one hand on the door, turned. "Down to see Fernack," he said. "I've got to make some arrangements. I'm betting we're right, Tom!" He charged out the door, slamming it. A second passed and it opened again. Malone's head popped back in. "Dorothea," he said. "When Tom gets off the phone call your mother. Tell her you're going to be away for a day or two--two at the most--and she's not to worry. We'll need you, and her, too, to talk to Mike when the time comes. So stick around."

Then he was gone.

* * * * *

Twelve hours later, Kenneth J. Malone was sitting quietly in a small room at the rear of a sporting-goods store on upper Madison Avenue, trying to remain calm and hoping that the finest, most beautiful hunch he had ever had in his life was going to pay off. With him were Boyd and two agents from the 69th Street office. They were sitting quietly too, but there was a sense of enormous excitement in the air. Malone wanted to get up and walk around, but he didn't dare. He clamped his hands in his lap and sat tight.

They waited in silence, not daring to talk. There was no sound except for the faint whoosh of their breathing through the gas masks they were wearing, and the muffled hiss from a tank nearby.

There was no reason why the plan shouldn't work. Malone told himself.

It looked foolproof. But he didn't believe it would work. This was the time, he assured himself, that his luck ran out. He'd been lucky for too long, and now the wheel was going to turn and he'd be lost. All he could do was wait for it, and hope.

Her Majesty had said definitely that this would be the place the Spooks would hit tonight. She had no doubts about it. And Malone couldn't think of a single reason why she might be wrong. But maybe he'd got the address mixed up. Maybe the Spooks were somewhere else right now, robbing what they pleased, safe from capture....

His hunch about drugs had been correct, or at least everybody had said it was correct. Dr. O'Connor had assured Boyd that the deleterious effects of drugs on psionic abilities had been known ever since the early days of Dr. Rhine's pioneering work, more than twenty years before. And Good Queen Bess had admitted the same thing. She never drank, she said, because on the one occasion when she'd tried it, she'd lost her telepathic ability, and "My goodness, it was just like going blind."

Burris had had to put on the pressure, but it had worked. The Queen had been flown to New York, under psychiatric guard just as soon as possible after Boyd's phone call, and she'd been able to pick up Mike Fueyo without any trouble at all as soon as she was within the same city, and close enough to him.

It doesn't do much good to know where a teleporter is, Malone thought. But it's extremely handy to know where he's going to be. And if you also know what he plans to do when he gets where he's going, you've got an absolute lead-pipe cinch to work with.

The Queen had provided that lead-pipe cinch. Reading Mike's mind, she'd told Malone that he planned to raid the sporting-goods store with the rest of the Spooks that night. Lucky again, Malone thought; he might have had to wait two or three days before the Spooks set up a robbery.

But, of course, he might just be riding for some kind of horrible, unforeseen fall.

The main part of the sporting-goods store was fairly well lit, even at night, though it was by no means brightly illuminated. There were show-window lights on, and the street lamp from outside cast a nice glow. But the back room was dark, and the four men there were well concealed. A curtain closed the room off, and Malone watched the front of the store through a narrow opening in it. He stared through it until his eyes ached, afraid to blink in case he missed the appearance of the Spooks. Everything had to go off just right, precisely on schedule.

And it was going to happen any minute, he told himself nervously. In just a few minutes, everything would be over.

Malone held his breath.

Then he saw the figure walk slowly by the glass front of the shop, looking in with elaborate casualness. He was casing the joint, making sure there were none left in it.

Mike Fueyo.

Malone tried to breathe, and couldn't.

Seconds ticked by.

And then--almost magically--they appeared. Eight of them, almost simultaneously, in the center of the room.

Mike Fueyo spoke in a low, controlled voice. "Okay, now," he said. "Let's move fast. We--"

And that was all he said.

The odorless anesthetic gas that filled the room had its sudden effect. Fueyo dropped out like a light.

The other seven followed him within seconds. Ramon Otravez, the tallest of them, stayed on his feet a little longer than the rest, obviously trying with all his strength to teleport himself out of danger, but the effects of the fast-working gas had already been felt. He was, literally, too stunned to move.

He too slumped to the floor.

For a second after that, none of the men in the rear room moved.

Then Malone said, "All right, boys. Let's get them out of here. They can't stay too long in this atmosphere." The men started forward into the front room, toward the still bodies. "Boyd," Malone said. "Get out front and wave the ambulance over here. I'll get the air-conditioners working and stop the gas."

He reached down and turned off the valve on the gently hissing tank of anesthetic gas that sat on the floor near him. "You guys get the kids," he said. "And let's make it fast, okay?"

14

"The one thing we had to worry about," Malone said, pouring some more champagne into the two hollow-stemmed glasses, "was whether it was possible to give them just enough synthecaine. Too little, and they'd still be able to teleport. Too much, and they'd be too groggy."

Dorothea relaxed in her chair and looked around at the hotel room walls with contentment. She looked like the proverbial cat who has swallowed the cream. "It looked to me as if it worked," she said. "Mike seemed pretty normal--except that he had that awful trapped feeling."

Malone handed her one of the filled glasses with an air. He was beginning slowly to feel less like the nervous, uncertain Kenneth J. Malone, and more and more like Sir Kenneth Malone. "I can see why he felt trapped," he said. "If a guy's been unhampered by four walls all the time, even only for a year or so, he's certainly going to feel penned in when he loses the ability to get through them. It might be just a little claustrophobic." He grinned, proud of himself. "Claustrophobic," he said again. "My tongue and palate are in excellent condition."

"The main thing is," Dorothea said, "that everybody's so happy. Commissioner Fernack, even--with Mr. Burris promising to give him a medal."

"And Lynch," Malone said reflectively. "He'll get a promotion out of this for sure. And good old Kettleman."

"Kettleman?" Dorothea said. "Oh, the funny fat man. He's some kind of social worker or something."

"And now he's getting a scroll from the FBI," Malone said. "A citation for coming up with the essential clue in this case. Even though he didn't know it was the essential clue. You know," he added reflectively, "one thing puzzles me about that man."

"Yes?"

"Well," Malone said, "he worked in your neighborhood. You knew him."

"Of course I did," Dorothea said. "We all knew Kettleman."

"He said he had a lot of success as a social worker," Malone said. "Now, I've met him. And talked with him. And I just can't picture--"

"Oh," Dorothea said. "We keep him around--kept him around, I mean--as a sort of joke. A pet, or a mascot. Of course, he never did catch on. I don't suppose he has yet."

Malone laughed. "Nope," he said. "He hasn't."

"And even your friend is happy," Dorothea said.

"Boyd?" Malone said. "Sure. He called his blonde and she was just thrilled at the adventures of an FBI agent, and he's with her now."

"You sound jealous," Dorothea said.

"The hell I am," Malone said, and proceeded to prove his point. Some minutes later they relaxed.

"Mike," Dorothea said. "What?"

"Mike," she said. "He's probably the happiest of all. After Mom and I talked to him for a while, anyhow, and he began to lose that--that trapped feeling. Now he's all excited about being an FBI man." She looked worriedly at Malone for a second. "You weren't kidding about that, were you?" she said.

She looked very pretty when she was worried. Malone leaned over and kissed her with great care. After a second, the kiss seemed to gain momentum on its own, and all restraint went by the wayside. A long time passed.

Then, as Malone pulled away and began to recover his breath, he said weakly, "You were saying?"

"Was I?" Dorothea said. "Oh, yes. I was. About Mike being an FBI man."

"Oh," Malone said. "Well, normally you've got to be a lawyer or an accountant, but there are a few special cases. And maybe Mike would fit into the special-case bracket. If he doesn't--well, he'll be doing some sort of official work for the Government. You can be sure of that."

"That woman in the costume--the one you call Your Majesty--certainly threw a scare into the boys," Dorothea said.

"Well," Malone said, "we had to prove one thing to them. We can pick them up at any time. You see, they've got to think about where they're teleporting, and as soon as they do that one of our telepaths--like the Queen--will know where they're going to be. And we can crack down."

"That's what she said," Dorothea said.

"Right," Malone said. "After all, we did them quite a favor--getting them out of all the trouble they'd gotten themselves into. If they try to--"

"That reminds me, Ken," Dorothea said. "All the things that were stolen. The liquor and all of that, Money. What's going to happen to that?"

"Well," Malone said, "everything that can be returned--and that includes most of the liquor, because they hadn't had a chance to get rid of it to the bootleggers around this area--will be returned. What can't be returned--money, stuff that they've used, broken, or sold--well, I don't exactly know about that. It might take a special act of Congress," he said brightly.

"All for the boys?" Dorothea said.

"Well, they'll be at Yucca Flats, and they'll be pretty useful," Malone said. "And, as I was saying, if they try to run away from Yucca Flats, we'll just have to keep them drugged all the time, little as we want to. They can be of some use that way, too. The Government isn't doing all this for nothing."

"But keeping them drugged--"

"I said we didn't want to do it. And I don't think we'll have to. They'll be well taken care of, don't worry. Some of the best psychiatrists and doctors are out there. And Mike and the others--if they can show they're trustworthy--can come home every weekend, or even every night if they can teleport that far." Malone paused. "But it isn't charity," he added. "We need people with specialized psionic abilities--and, for a variety of reasons, they're pretty hard to find."

"You know," Dorothea said, "you're pretty wonderful, Mr. Malone."

Malone didn't answer her. He just kissed her again, not caring particularly whether or not the kiss went wild.

Dorothea pushed him gently away. "I'm envious," she announced. "Everybody gets a reward but me. Do I get left out just because I swiped your notebook?"

Malone kissed her again. "What kind of a reward do you want?" he asked.

She sighed. "Oh, well," she said. "I suppose this is good enough."

"Good enough?" Malone said. "Just good enough?"

His lips met hers for the fifth time. She reached one hand gently out to the light switch and pushed it.

The lights went out.

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Destroyers, by Gordon Randall Garrett

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Destroyers

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Release Date: January 4, 2008 [EBook #24166]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DESTROYERS ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Geetu Melwani, Bruce Albrecht and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

THE DESTROYERS

[Illustration]

BY RANDALL GARRETT

Any war is made up of a horde of personal tragedies--but the greater picture is the tragedy of the death of a way of life. For a way of life--good, bad, or indifferent--exists because it is dearly loved....

[Illustration]

Illustrated by van Dongen

Anketam stretched his arms out as though he were trying to embrace the whole world. He pushed himself up on his tiptoes, arched his back, and gave out with a prodigious yawn that somehow managed to express all the contentment and pleasure that filled his soul. He felt a faint twinge in his shoulders, and there was a dull ache in the small of his back, both of which reminded him that he was no longer the man he had been twenty years before, but he ignored them and stretched again.

He was still strong, Anketam thought; still strong enough to do his day's work for The Chief without being too tired to relax and enjoy himself afterwards. At forty-five, he had a good fifteen years more before he'd be retired to minor make-work jobs, doing the small chores as a sort of token in justification of his keep in his old age.

He settled his heels back to the ground and looked around at the fields of green shoots that surrounded him. That part of the job was done, at least. The sun's lower edge was just barely touching the western horizon, and all the seedlings were in. Anketam had kept his crew sweating to get them all in, but now the greenhouses were all empty and ready for seeding in the next crop while this one grew to maturity. But that could wait. By working just a little harder, for just a little longer each day, he and his crew had managed to get the transplanting done a good four days ahead of schedule, which meant four days of fishing or hunting or just plain loafing. The Chief didn't care how a man spent his time, so long as the work was done.

He thumbed his broad-brimmed hat back from his forehead and looked up at the sky. There were a few thin clouds overhead, but there was no threat of rain, which was good. In this part of Xedii, the spring rains sometimes hit hard and washed out the transplanted seedlings before they had a chance to take root properly. If rain would hold off for another ten days, Anketam thought, then it could fall all it wanted. Meanwhile, the irrigation reservoir was full to brimming, and that would supply all the water the young shoots needed to keep them from being burnt by the sun.

He lowered his eyes again, this time to look at the next section over toward the south, where Jacovik and his crew were still working. He could see their bent figures outlined against the horizon, just at the brow of the slope, and he grinned to himself. He had beaten Jacovik out again.

Anketam and Jacovik had had a friendly feud going for years, each trying to do a better, faster job than the other. None of the other supervisors on The Chief's land came even close to beating out Anketam or Jacovik, so it was always between the two of them, which one came out on top. Sometimes it was one, sometimes the other.

At the last harvest, Jacovik had been very pleased with himself when the tallies showed that he'd beaten out Anketam by a hundred kilos of cut leaves. But The Chief had taken him down a good bit when the report came through that Anketam's leaves had made more money because they were better quality.

He looked all around the horizon. From here, only Jacovik's section could be seen, and only Jacovik's men could be seen moving.

When Anketam's gaze touched the northern horizon, his gray eyes narrowed a little. There was a darkness there, a faint indication of cloud build-up. He hoped it didn't mean rain. Getting the transplants in early was all right, but it didn't count for anything if they were washed out.

He pushed the thought out of his mind. Rain or no rain, there was nothing could be done about it except put up shelters over the rows of plants. He'd just have to keep an eye on the northern horizon and hope for the best. He didn't want to put up the shelters unless he absolutely had to, because the seedlings were invariably bruised in the process and that would cut the leaf yield way down. He remembered one year when Jacovik had gotten panicky and put up his shelters, and the storm had been a gentle thing that only lasted a few minutes before it blew over. Anketam had held off, ready to make his men work in the rain if necessary, and when the harvest had come, he'd beaten Jacovik hands down.

* * * * *

Anketam pulled his hat down again and turned to walk toward his house in the little village that he and his crew called home. He had warned his wife to have supper ready early. "I figure on being finished by sundown," he'd said. "You can tell the other women I said so. But don't say anything to them till after we've gone to the fields. I don't want those boys thinking about the fishing they're going to do tomorrow and then get behind in their work because they're daydreaming."

The other men were already gone; they'd headed back to the village as fast as they could move as soon as he'd told them the job was finished. Only he had stayed to look at the fields and see them all finished, each shoot casting long shadows in the ruddy light of the setting sun. He'd wanted to stand there, all by himself feeling the glow of pride and satisfaction that came over him, knowing that he was better than any other supervisor on The Chief's vast acreage.

His own shadow grew long ahead of him as he walked back, his steps still brisk and springy, in spite of the day's hard work.

The sun had set and twilight had come by the time he reached his own home. He had glanced again toward the north, and had been relieved to see that the stars were visible near the horizon. The clouds couldn't be very thick.

Overhead, the great, glowing cloud of the Dragon Nebula shed its soft light. That's what made it possible to work after sundown in the spring; at that time of year, the Dragon Nebula was at its brightest during the early part of the evening. The tail of it didn't vanish beneath the horizon until well after midnight. In the autumn, it wasn't visible at all, and the nights were dark except for the stars.

Anketam pushed open the door of his home and noted with satisfaction that the warm smells of cooking filled the air, laving his nostrils and palate with fine promises. He stopped and frowned as he heard a man's voice speaking in low tones in the kitchen.

Then Memi's voice called out: "Is that you, Ank?"

"Yeah," he said, walking toward the kitchen. "It's me."

"We've got company," she said. "Guess who."

"I don't claim to be much good at guessing," said Anketam. "I'll have to peek."

He stopped at the door of the kitchen and grinned widely when he saw who the man was. "Russat! Well, by heaven, it's good to see you!"

There was a moment's hesitation, then a minute or two of handshaking and backslapping as the two brothers both tried to speak at the same time. Anketam heard himself repeating: "Yessir! By heaven, it's good to see you! Real good!"

And Russat was saying: "Same here, Ank! And, gee, you're looking great. I mean, real great! Tough as ever, eh, Ank?"

"Yeah, sure, tough as ever. Sit down, boy. Memi! Pour us something hot and get that bottle out of the cupboard!"

Anketam pushed his brother back towards the chair and made him sit down, but Russat was protesting: "Now, wait a minute! Now, just you hold on, Ank! Don't be getting out your bottle just yet. I brought some real stuff! I mean, expensive--stuff you can't get very easy. I brought it just for you, and you're going to have some of it before you say another word. Show him, Memi."

Memi was standing there, beaming, holding the bottle. Her blue eyes had faded slowly in the years since she and Anketam had married, but there was a sparkle in them now. Anketam looked at the bottle.

"Bedamned," he said softly. The bottle was beautiful just as it was. It was a work of art in itself, with designs cut all through it and pretty tracings of what looked like gold thread laced in and out of the surface. And it was full to the neck with a clear, red-brown liquid. Anketam thought of the bottle in his own cupboard--plain, translucent plastic, filled with the water-white liquor rationed out from the commissary--and he suddenly felt very backwards and countryish. He scratched thoughtfully at his beard and said: "Well, Well. I don't know, Russ--I don't know. You think a plain farmer like me can take anything that fancy?"

Russat laughed, a little embarrassed. "Sure you can. You mean to say you've never had brandy before? Why, down in Algia, our Chief--" He stopped.

Anketam didn't look at him. "Sure, Russ; sure. I'll bet Chief Samas gives a drink to his secretary, too, now and then." He turned around and winked. "But this stuff is for brain work, not farming."

He knew Russat was embarrassed. The boy was nearly ten years younger than Anketam, but Anketam knew that his younger brother had more brains and ability, as far as paper work went, than he, himself, would ever have. The boy (Anketam reminded himself that he shouldn't think of Russat as a boy--after all, he was thirty-six now) had worked as a special secretary for one of the important chiefs in Algia for five years now. Anketam noticed, without criticism, that Russat had grown soft with the years. His skin was almost pink, bleached from years of indoor work, and looked pale and sickly, even beside Memi's sun-browned skin--and Memi hadn't been out in the sun as much as her husband had.

* * * * *

Anketam reached out and took the bottle carefully from his wife's hands. Her eyes watched him searchingly; she had been aware of the subtleties of the exchange between her rough, hard-working, farmer husband and his younger, brighter, better-educated brother.

Anketam said: "If this is a present, I guess I'd better open it." He peeled off the seal, then carefully removed the glass stopper and sniffed at the open mouth of the beautiful bottle. "Hm-m-m! Say!" Then he set the bottle down carefully on the table. "You're the guest, Russ, so you can pour. That tea ready yet, Memi?"

"Coming right up," said his wife gratefully. "Coming right up."

Anketam watched Russat carefully pour brandy into the cups of hot, spicy tea that Memi set before them. Then he looked up, grinned at his wife, and said: "Pour yourself a cup, honey. This is an occasion. A big occasion."

She nodded quickly, very pleased, and went over to get another cup.

"What brings you up here, Russ?" Anketam asked. "I hope you didn't just decide to pick up a bottle of your Chief's brandy and then take off." He chuckled after he said it, but he was more serious than he let on. He actually worried about Russat at times. The boy might just take it in his head to do something silly.

Russat laughed and shook his head. "No, no. I'm not crazy, and I'm not stupid--at least, I think not. No; I got to go up to Chromdin. My Chief is sending word that he's ready to supply goods for the war."

Anketam frowned. He'd heard that there might be war, of course. There had been all kinds of rumors about how some of the Chiefs were all for fighting, but Anketam didn't pay much attention to these rumors. In the first place, he knew that it was none of his business; in the second place, he didn't think there would be any war. Why should anyone pick on Xedii?

What war would mean if it did come, Anketam had no idea, but he didn't think the Chiefs would get into a war they couldn't finish. And, he repeated to himself, he didn't believe there would be a war.

He said as much to Russat.

His brother looked up at him in surprise. "You mean you haven't heard?"

"Heard what?"

"Why, the war's already started. Sure. Five, six days ago. We're at war, Ank."

Anketam's frown grew deeper. He knew that there were other planets besides Xedii; he had heard that some of the stars in the sky were planets and suns. He didn't really understand how that could be, but even The Chief had said it was true, so Anketam accepted it as he did the truth about God. It was so, and that was enough for Anketam. Why should he bother himself with other people's business?

But--war?

Why?

"How'd it happen?" he asked.

Russat sipped at his hot drink before answering. Behind him, Memi moved slowly around the cooker, pretending to be finishing the meal, pretending not to be listening.

"Well, I don't have all the information," Russat said, pinching his little short beard between thumb and forefinger. "But I do know that the Chiefs didn't want the embassy in Chromdin."

"No," said Anketam. "I suppose not."

"I understand they have been making all kinds of threats," Russat said. "Trying to tell everybody what to do. They think they run all of Creation, I guess. Anyway, they were told to pull out right after the last harvest. They refused to do it, and for a while nobody did anything. Then, last week, the President ordered the Army to throw 'em out--bag and baggage. There was some fighting, I understand, but they got out finally. Now they've said they're going to smash us." He grinned.

Anketam said: "What's so funny?"

"Oh, they won't do anything," said Russat. "They fume and fuss a lot, but they won't do anything."

"I hope not," said Anketam. He finished the last of his spiked tea, and Memi poured him another one. "I don't see how they have any right to tell us how to live or how to run our own homes. They ought to mind their own business and leave us alone."

"You two finish those drinks," said Memi, "and quit talking about wars. The food will be ready pretty quickly."

"Good," said Anketam. "I'm starved." And, he admitted to himself, the brandy and hot tea had gone to his head. A good meal would make him feel better.

Russat said: "I don't get much of a chance to eat Memi's cooking; I'll sure like this meal."

"You can stay for breakfast in the morning, can't you?" Anketam asked.

"Oh, I wouldn't want to put you to all that trouble. I have to be up to your Chief's house before sunrise."

"We get up before sunrise," Anketam said flatly. "You can stay for breakfast."

II

The spring planting did well. The rains didn't come until after the seedlings had taken root and anchored themselves well into the soil, and the rows showed no signs of heavy bruising. Anketam had been watching one section in particular, where young Basom had planted. Basom had a tendency to do a sloppy job, and if it had showed up as bruised or poorly planted seedlings, Anketam would have seen to it that Basom got what was coming to him.

But the section looked as good as anyone else's, so Anketam said nothing to Basom.

Russat had come back after twenty days and reported that there was an awful lot of fuss in Chromdin, but nothing was really developing. Then he had gone on back home.

As spring became summer, Anketam pushed the war out of his mind. Evidently, there wasn't going to be any real shooting. Except that two of The Chief's sons had gone off to join the Army, things remained the same as always. Life went on as it had.

The summer was hot and almost windless. Work became all but impossible, except during the early morning and late afternoon. Fortunately, there wasn't much that had to be done. At this stage of their growth, the plants pretty much took care of themselves.

Anketam spent most of his time fishing. He and Jacovik and some of the others would go down to the river and sit under the shade trees, out of the sun, and dangle their lines in the water. It really didn't matter if they caught much or not; the purpose of fishing was to loaf and get away from the heat, not to catch fish. Even so, they always managed to bring home enough for a good meal at the end of the day.

The day that the war intruded on Anketam's consciousness again had started off just like any other day. Anketam got his fishing gear together, including a lunch that Memi had packed for him, and gone over to pick up Blejjo.

Blejjo was the oldest man in the village. Some said he was over a hundred, but Blejjo himself only admitted to eighty. He'd been retired a long time back, and his only duties now were little odd jobs that were easy enough, even for an old man. Not that there was anything feeble about old Blejjo; he still looked and acted spry enough.

He was sitting on his front porch, talking to young Basom, when Anketam came up.

The old man grinned. "Hello, Ank. You figure on getting a few more fish today?"

"Why not? The river's full of 'em. Come along."

"Don't see why not," said Blejjo. "What do you think, Basom?"

The younger man smiled and shook his head. "I'll stay around home, I think. I'm too lazy today to go to all that effort."

[Illustration]

"Too lazy to loaf," said Blejjo, laughing. "That's as lazy as I ever heard."

Anketam smiled, but he didn't say anything. Basom was lazy, but Anketam never mentioned it unless the boy didn't get his work done. Leave that sort of kidding up to the others; it wasn't good for a supervisor to ride his men unless it was necessary for discipline.

Basom was a powerful young man, tall and well-proportioned. If the truth were known, he probably had the ability to get a good job from The Chief--become a secretary or something, like Russat. But he was sloppy in his work, and, as Blejjo had said, lazy. His saving grace was the fact that he took things as they came; he never showed any resentment towards Anketam if he was rebuked for not doing his work well, and he honestly tried to do better--for a while, at least.

"Not too lazy to loaf," Basom said in self-defense. "Just too lazy to walk four miles to loaf when I can do it here."

Old Blejjo was taking his fishing gear down from the rack on the porch. Without looking around, he said: "Cooler down by the river."

"By the time I walked there," said Basom philosophically, "walking through all that sun, I'd be so hot it would take me two hours to cool down to where I am now, and another two hours to cool down any more. That's four hours wasted. Now--" He looked at Anketam with a sly grin. "Now, if you two wanted to carry me, I'd be much obliged. Anketam, you could carry me piggyback, while Blejjo goes over to fetch my pole. If you'd do that, I believe I could see my way clear to going fishing with you."

Anketam shook his head positively. "I'm afraid the sun would do you in, anyway."

"Maybe you'd like The Chief to carry you," said Blejjo. There was a bite in his voice.

"Now, wait," Basom said apprehensively, "I didn't say anything like that. I didn't mean it that way."

Blejjo pointed his fishing pole at the youth. "You ought to be thankful you've got Anketam for a supervisor. There's some supers who'd boot you good for a crack like that."

Basom cast appealing eyes at Anketam. "I am thankful! You know I am! Why, you're the best super in the barony! Everybody knows that. I was only kidding. You know that."

Before Anketam could say anything, the old man said: "You can bet your life that no other super in this barony would put up with your laziness!"

"Now, Blejjo," said Anketam, "leave the boy alone. He meant no harm. If he needs talking to, I'll do the talking."

Basom looked gratefully reprieved.

"Sorry, Ank," said Blejjo. "It's just that some of these young people have no respect for their elders." He looked at Basom and smiled. "Didn't mean to take it out on you, Bas. There's a lot worse than you." Then, changing his tone: "Sure you don't want to come with us?"

Basom looked apologetic, but he stuck to his guns. "No. Thanks again, but--" He grinned self-consciously. "To be honest, I was thinking of going over to see Zillia. Her dad said I could come."

Anketam grinned at the boy. "Well, now, that's an excuse I'll accept. Come on, Blejjo, this is not a sport for old men like us. Fishing is more our speed."

Chuckling, Blejjo shouldered his fishing pole, and the two men started down the dusty village street toward the road that led to the river.

* * * * *

They walked in silence for a while, trying to ignore the glaring sun that brought the sweat out on their skins, soaking the sweatbands of their broad-brimmed hats and running in little rivulets down their bodies.

"I kind of feel sorry for that boy," old Blejjo said at last.

"Oh?" said Anketam. "How so? He'll get along. He's improving. Why, he did as good a job of transplanting as any man this spring. Last year, he bruised the seedlings, but I gave him a good dressing down and he remembered it. He'll be all right."

"I'm not talking about that, Ank," said the old man, "I mean him and Zillia. He's really got a case on with that girl."

"Anything wrong with that? A young fellow's got a right to fall in love, hasn't he? And Zillia seems pretty keen on him, too. If her father doesn't object, everything ought to go along pretty smoothly."

"Her father might not object," said Blejjo, looking down at his feet as they paced off the dusty road. "But there's others who might object."

"Who, for instance?"

Blejjo was silent for several steps. Then he said: "Well, Kevenoe, for one."

Anketam thought that over in silence. Kevenoe was on The Chief's staff at the castle. Like many staff men--including, Anketam thought wryly, his own brother Russat, on occasion--he tended to lord it over the farmers who worked the land. "Kevenoe has an eye on Zillia?" he asked after a moment.

"I understand he's asked Chief Samas for her as soon as she's eighteen. That would be this fall, after harvest."

"I see," Anketam said thoughtfully. He didn't ask how the old man had come about his knowledge. Old Blejjo had little to do, and on the occasions that he had to do some work around The Chief's castle, he made it a point to pick up gossip. But he was careful with his information; he didn't go spreading it around for all to hear, and he made it a point to verify his information before he passed it on. Anketam respected the old man. He was the only one in the village who called him "Ank," outside of Memi.

"Do you think The Chief will give her to Kevenoe?" he asked.

Blejjo nodded. "Looks like it. He thinks a great deal of Kevenoe."

"No reason why he shouldn't," said Anketam. "Kevenoe's a good man."

"Oh, I know that," said the old man. "But Basom won't like it at all. And I don't think Zillia will, either."

"That's the way things happen," said Anketam. "A man can't expect to go through life having everything his own way. There's other girls around for Basom. If he can't have the prettiest, he'll have to be satisfied with someone else." He chuckled. "That's why I picked Memi. She's not beautiful and never was, but she's a wonderful wife."

"That's so," said Blejjo. "A wise man is one who only wants what he knows he can have. Right now"--he took off his hat and wiped his bald head--"all I want is a dip in that river."

"Swim first and then fish?"

"I think so, don't you? Basom was right about this hot sun."

"I'll go along with you," agreed Anketam.

They made their way to the river, to the shallow place at the bend where everyone swam. There were a dozen and more kids there, having a great time in the slow moving water, and several of the older people soaking themselves and keeping an eye on the kids to make sure they didn't wander out to where the water was deep and the current swift.

Anketam and Blejjo took off their clothes and cooled themselves in the water for a good half hour before they dressed again and went on upriver to a spot where Blejjo swore the fish were biting.

They were. In the next four hours, the two men had caught six fish apiece, and Blejjo was trying for his seventh. Here, near the river, there was a slight breeze, and it was fairly cool beneath the overhanging branches of the closely bunched trees.

Blejjo had spotted a big, red-and-yellow striped beauty loafing quietly in a back eddy, and he was lowering his hook gently to a point just in front of the fish when both men heard the voice calling.

"Anketam! Anketam! Blejjo! Where you at?"

Blejjo went on with his careful work, knowing that Anketam would take care of whatever it was.

Anketam recognized the voice. He stood up and called: "Over here, Basom! What's the trouble?"

A minute later, Basom came running through the trees, his feet crashing through the underbrush.

Blejjo sat up abruptly, an angry look on his face. "Basom, you scared my fish away."

"Fish, nothing," said Basom. "I ran all the way here to tell you!" He was grinning widely and panting for breath at the same time.

"You suddenly got an awful lot of energy," Blejjo said sourly.

"What happened?" Anketam asked.

"The invasion!" Basom said between breaths. "Kevenoe himself came down to tell us! They've started the invasion! The war's on!"

"Than what are you looking so happy about?" Anketam snapped.

"That's what I came to tell you." Basom's grin didn't fade in the least. "They landed up in the Frozen Country, where our missiles couldn't get 'em, according to Kevenoe. Then they started marching down on one of the big towns. Tens of thousands of 'em! And we whipped 'em! Our army cut 'em to pieces and sent 'em running back to their base! We won! We won!"

III

The battle had been won, but the war wasn't won yet. The invaders had managed to establish a good-sized base up in the Frozen Country. They'd sneaked their ships in and had put up a defensive system that stopped any high-speed missiles. Not that Xedii had many missiles. Xedii was an agricultural planet; most manufactured articles were imported. It had never occurred to the government of Xedii that there would be any real need for implements of war.

The invaders seemed to be limiting their use of weapons, too. They wanted to control the planet, not destroy it. Through the summer and into the autumn, Anketam listened to the news as it filtered down from the battlegrounds. There were skirmishes here and there, but nothing decisive. Xedii seemed to be holding her own against the invaders.

After the first news of the big victory, things settled back pretty much to normal.

The harvest was good that year, but after the leaves were shredded and dried, they went into storage warehouses. The invaders had set up a patrol system around Xedii which prevented the slow cargo ships from taking off or landing. A few adventurous space officers managed to get a ship out now and then, but those few flights could hardly be called regular trade shipments.

The cool of winter had come when Chief Samas did something he had never done before. He called all the men in the barony to assemble before the main gate of the castle enclosure. He had a speech to make.

For the first time, Anketam felt a touch of apprehension. He got his crew together, and they walked to the castle in silence, wondering what it was that The Chief had to say.

All the men of the barony, except those who couldn't be spared from their jobs, were assembled in front of Chief Samas' baronial castle.

The castle itself was not a single building. Inside the four-foot-high thorn hedge that surrounded the two-acre area, there were a dozen buildings of hard, irridescent plastic shining in the sun. They all looked soft and pleasant and comfortable. Even the thorn hedge, filled as it was by the lacy leaves that concealed the hard, sharp thorns, looked soft and inviting.

Anketam listened to the soft murmur of whispered conversation from the men around him. They stood quietly outside the main gate that led into the castle area, waiting for The Chief to appear, and wondering among themselves what it was that The Chief had to say.

"You think the invaders have won?"

Anketam recognized the hoarse whisper from the man behind him. He turned to face the dark, squat, hard-looking man who had spoken. "It couldn't be, Jacovik. It couldn't be."

The other supervisor looked down at his big, knuckle-scarred hands instead of looking at Anketam. He was not a handsome man, Jacovik; his great, beaklike nose was canted to one side from a break that had come in his teens; his left eye was squinted almost closed by the scar tissue that surrounded it, and the right only looked better by comparison. His eyebrows, his beard, and the fringe of hair that outlined his bald head made an incongruous pale yellow pattern against the sunburnt darkness of his face. In his youth, Jacovik had been almost pathologically devoted to boxing--even to the point of picking fights with others in his village for no reason at all, except to fight. Twice, he had been brought up before The Chief's court because of the severe beating he had given to men bigger than he, and he had finally killed a man with his fists.

Chief Samas had given him Special Punishment for that, and a final warning that the next fight would be punished by death.

Anketam didn't know whether it was that threat, or the emotional reaction Jacovik had suffered from killing a man, or simply that he had had some sense beaten into his head, but from that moment on Jacovik was a different man. He had changed from a thug into a determined, ambitious man. In twenty-two years, he had not used his fists except to discipline one of his crew, and that had only happened four times that Anketam knew of. Jacovik had shown that he had ability as well as strength, that he could control men by words as well as by force, and The Chief had made him a supervisor. He had proved himself worthy of the job; next to Anketam, he was the best supervisor in the barony.

Anketam had a great deal of respect for the little, wide-shouldered, barrel-chested man who stood there looking at the scars on the backs of his hands.

Jacovik turned his hands over and looked at the calloused palms. "How do we know? Maybe the Council of Chiefs has given up. Maybe they've authorized the President to surrender. After all, we're not fighters; we're farmers. The invaders outnumber us. They've got us cut off by a blockade, to keep us from sending out the harvest. They've got machines and weapons." He looked up suddenly, his bright blue eyes looking straight into Anketam's. "How do we know?"

Anketam's grin was hard. "Look, Jac; the invaders have said that they intend to smash our whole society, haven't they? Haven't they?"

Jacovik nodded.

"And they want to break up the baronies--take everything away from the Chiefs--force us farmers to give up the security we've worked all our lives for. That's what they've said, isn't it?"

Jacovik nodded again.

"Well, then," Anketam continued remorselessly, "do you think the Chiefs would give up easily? Are they going to simply smile and shake hands with the invaders and say: 'Go ahead, take all our property, reduce us to poverty, smash the whole civilization we've built up, destroy the security and peace of mind of millions of human beings, and then send your troops in to rule us by martial law.' Are they going to do that? Are they?"

Jacovik spread his big, hard hands. "I don't know. I'm not a Chief. I don't know how their minds work. Do you? Maybe they'll think surrender would be better than having all of Xedii destroyed inch by inch."

Anketam shook his head. "Never. The Chiefs will fight to the very end. And they'll win in the long run because right is on their side. The invaders have no right to change our way of living; they have no right to impose their way of doing things on us. No, Jac--the Chiefs will never give up. They haven't surrendered yet, and they never will. They'll win. The invaders will be destroyed."

Jacovik frowned, completely closing his left eye. "You've always been better at thinking things out that I, Ank." He paused and looked down at his hands again. "I hope you're right, Ank. I hope you're right."

* * * * *

In spite of his personal conviction that he was right, Anketam had to admit that Jacovik had reason for his own opinion. He knew that many of the farmers were uncertain about the ultimate outcome of the war.

Anketam looked around him at the several hundred men who made up the farming force of the barony. His own crew were standing nearby, mixing with Jacovik's crew and talking in low voices. In the cool winter air, Anketam could still detect the aroma of human bodies, the smell of sweat that always arose when a crowd of people were grouped closely together. And he thought he could detect a faint scent of fear and apprehension in that atmosphere.

Or was that just his imagination, brought on by Jacovik's pessimism?

He opened his lips to say something to Jacovik, but his words died unborn. The sudden silence in the throng around him, the abrupt cessation of whispering, told him, more definitely than a chorus of trumpets could have done, that The Chief had appeared.

He turned around quickly, to face the Main Gate again.

The Main Gate was no higher than the thorn-bush hedge that it pierced. It was a heavily built, intricately decorated piece of polished goldwood, four feet high and eight feet across, set in a sturdy goldwood frame. The arch above the gate reached a good ten feet, giving The Chief plenty of room to stand.

He was just climbing up to stand on the gate itself as Anketam turned.

Chief Samas was a tall man, lean of face and wide of brow. His smooth-shaven chin was long and angular, and his dark eyes were deeply imbedded beneath heavy, bushy eyebrows.

And he was dressed in clothing cut in a manner that Anketam had never seen before.

He stood there, tall and proud, a half smile on his face. It was several seconds before he spoke. During that time, there was no sound from the assembled farmers.

"Men," he said at last, "I think that none of you have seen this uniform before. I look odd in it, do I not?"

The men recognized The Chief's remark as a joke, and a ripple of laughter ran through the crowd.

The Chief's smile broadened. "Odd indeed. Yes. And do you perceive the golden emblems, here at my throat? They, and the uniform, indicate that I have been chosen to help lead the armed forces--a portion of them, I should say."

He smiled around at the men. "The Council of Chiefs has authorized the President to appoint me a Colonel of Light Tank. I am expected to lead our armored forces into battle against the damned Invaders."

A cheer came from the farmers, loud and long. Anketam found himself yelling as loud as anyone. The pronunciation and the idiom of the speech of the Chiefs was subtly different from those of the farmers, but Anketam could recognize the emphasis that his Chief was putting on the words of his speech. "Invaders." With a capital "I."

The Chief held up his hands, and the cheering died. At the same time, the face of Chief Samas lost its smile.

"I will be gone for some time," he said somberly. "The Council feels that it will be two or three years before we have finally driven the Invaders from our planet. This will not be a simple war, nor an easy one. The blockade of orbital ships which encircle Xedii keep us from making proper contact with any friends that we may have outside the circle of influence of the damned Invaders. We are, at the moment, fighting alone. And yet, in spite of that--in spite of that, I say--we have thus far held the enemy at a standstill. And, in the long run, we shall win."

He took a deep breath then, and his baritone voice thundered out when he spoke.

[Illustration]

"Shall win? No! We must win! None of you want to become slaves in the factories of the Invaders. I know that, and you know it. Who among you would slave your life away in the sweatshops of the Invaders, knowing that those for whom you worked might, at any time, simply deprive you of your livelihood at their own whim, since they feel no sense of responsibility toward you as individuals?"

Again The Chief stopped, and his eyes sought out each man in turn.

"If there are any such among you, I renounce you at this moment. If there are any such, I ask ... nay, I plead ... I order ... I order you to go immediately to the Invaders."

Another deep breath. No one moved.

"You have all heard the propaganda of the Invaders. You know that they have offered you--well, what? Freedom? Yes, that's the way they term it. Freedom." Another pause. "Freedom. Hah!"

He put his hands on his hips. "None of you have ever seen a really regimented society--and I'm thankful that you haven't. I hope that you never will."

Chief Samas twisted his lips into an expression of hatred. "Freedom? Freedom from what! Freedom to do what?

"I'll tell you. Freedom to work in their factories for twelve hours a day! Freedom to work until you are no longer of any use to them, and then be turned out to die--with no home, and no food to support you. Freedom to live by yourselves, with every man's hand against you, with every pittance that you earn taxed to support a government that has no thought for the individual!

"Is that what you want? Is that what you've worked for all your lives?"

A visual chorus of shaken heads accompanied the verbal chorus of "No."

Chief Samas dropped his hands to his sides. "I thought not. But I will repeat: If any of you want to go to the Invaders, you may do so now."

Anketam noticed a faint movement to his right, but it stopped before it became decisive. He glanced over, and he noticed that young Basom was standing there, half poised, as though unable to make up his mind.

Then The Chief's voice bellowed out again. "Very well. You are with me. I will leave the work of the barony in your hands. I ask that you produce as much as you can. Next year--next spring--we will not plant cataca."

There was a low intake of breath from the assembled men. Not plant cataca? That was the crop that they had grown since--well, since ever. Anketam felt as though someone had jerked a rug from beneath him.

"There is a reason for this," The Chief went on. "Because of the blockade that surrounds Xedii, we are unable to export cataca leaves. The rest of the galaxy will have to do without the drug that is extracted from the leaves. The incident of cancer will rise to the level it reached before the discovery of cataca. When they understand that we cannot ship out because of the Invader's blockade, they will force the Invader to stop his attack on us. What we need now is not cataca, but food. So, next spring, you will plant food crops.

"Save aside the cataca seed until the war is over. The seedlings now in the greenhouses will have to be destroyed, but that cannot be helped."

He stopped for a moment, and when he began again his voice took on a note of sadness.

"I will be away from you until the war is won. While I am gone, the barony will be run by my wife. You will obey her as you would me. The finances of the barony will be taken care of by my trusted man, Kevenoe." He gestured to one side, and Kevenoe, who was standing there, smiled quickly and then looked grim again.

"As for the actual running of the barony--as far as labor is concerned--I think I can leave that in the hands of one of my most capable men."

He raised his finger and pointed. There was a smile on his face.

Anketam felt as though he had been struck an actual blow; the finger was pointed directly at him.

"Anketam," said The Chief, "I'm leaving the barony in your hands until I return. You will supervise the labor of all the men here. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir," said Anketam weakly. "Yes, sir. I understand."

IV

Never, for the rest of his life, would the sharp outlines of that moment fade from his memory. He knew that the men of the barony were all looking at him; he knew that The Chief went on talking afterwards. But those things impressed themselves but lightly on his mind, and they blurred soon afterwards. Twenty years later, in retelling the story, he would swear that The Chief had ended his speech at that point. He would swear that it was only seconds later that The Chief had jumped down from the gate and motioned for him to come over; his memory simply didn't register anything between those two points.

But The Chief's words after the speech--the words spoken to him privately--were bright and clear in his mind.

The Chief was a good three inches shorter than Anketam, but Anketam never noticed that. He just stood there in front of The Chief, wondering what more his Chief had to say.

"You've shown yourself to be a good farmer, Anketam," Chief Samas said in a low voice. "Let's see--you're of Skebbin stock, I think?"

Anketam nodded. "Yes, sir."

"The Skebbin family has always produced good men. You're a credit to the Skebbins, Anketam."

"Thank you, sir."

"You've got a hard job ahead of you," said The Chief. "Don't fail me. Plant plenty of staple crops, make sure there's enough food for everyone. If you think it's profitable, add more to the animal stock. I've authorized Kevenoe to allow money for the purchase of breeding stock. You can draw whatever you need for that purpose.

"This war shouldn't last too long. Another year, at the very most, and we'll have forced the Invaders off Xedii. When I come back, I expect to find the barony in good shape, d'you hear?"

"Yes, sir. It will be."

"I think it will," said The Chief. "Good luck to you, Anketam."

As The Chief turned away, Anketam said: "Thank you, sir--and good luck to you, sir."

Chief Samas turned back again. "By the way," he said, "there's one more thing. I know that men don't always agree on everything. If there is any dispute between you and Kevenoe, submit the question to my wife for arbitration." He hesitated. "However, I trust that there will not be many such disputes. A woman shouldn't be bothered with such things any more than is absolutely necessary. It upsets them. Understand?"

Anketam nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Very well. Good-by, Anketam. I hope to see you again before the next harvest." And with that, he turned and walked through the gate, toward the woman who was standing anxiously on the porch of his home.

* * * * *

Anketam turned away and started towards his own village. Most of the others had already begun the trek back. But Jacovik, Blejjo, and Basom were waiting for him. They fell into step beside him.

After a while, Jacovik broke the silence. "Well, Ank, it looks like you've got a big job on your hands."

"That's for sure," said Anketam. He knew that Jacovik envied him the job; he knew that Jacovik had only missed the appointment by a narrow margin.

"Jac," he said, "have you got a man on your crew that you can trust to take over your job?"

"Madders could do it, I think," Jacovik said cautiously. "Why?"

"This is too big a job for one man," said Anketam quietly. "I'll need help. I want you to help me, Jac."

There was a long silence while the men walked six paces. Then Jacovik said: "I'll do whatever I can, Ank. Whatever I can." There was honest warmth in his voice.

Again there was a silence.

"Blejjo," Anketam said after a time, "do you mind coming out of retirement for a while?"

"Not if you need me, Ank," said the old man.

"It won't be hard work," Anketam said. "I just want you to take care of the village when I'm not there. Settle arguments, assign the village work, give out punishment if necessary--things like that. As far as the village is concerned, you'll be supervisor."

"What about the field work, Ank?" Blejjo asked. "I'm too old to handle that. Come spring, and--"

"I said, as far as the village is concerned," Anketam said. "I've got another man in mind for the field work."

And no one was more surprised than Basom when Anketam said: "Basom, do you think you could handle the crew in the field?"

Basom couldn't even find his tongue for several more paces. When he discovered at last that it was still in his mouth, where he'd left it, he said: "I ... I'll try, Ank. I sure will try, if you want me to. But ... well ... I mean, why pick me?"

Old Blejjo chuckled knowingly. Jacovik, who hardly knew the boy, just looked puzzled.

"Why not you?" Anketam countered.

"Well ... you've always said I was lazy. And I am, I guess."

"Sure you are," said Anketam. "So am I. Always have been. But a smart lazy man can figure out things that a hard worker might overlook. He can find the easy, fast way to get a job done properly. And he doesn't overwork his men because he knows that when he's tired, the others are, too. You want to try it, Basom?"

"I'll try," said Basom earnestly. "I'll try real hard." Then, after a moment's hesitation. "Just one thing, Anketam--"

"What's that?"

"Kevenoe. I don't want him coming around me. Not at all. If he ever said one word to me, I'd probably break his neck right there."

Anketam nodded. The Chief had given Zillia to Kevenoe only two months before, and the only one who liked the situation was Kevenoe himself.

"I'll deal with Kevenoe, Basom," Anketam said. "Don't you worry about that."

"All right, then," Basom said. "I'll do my best, Anketam."

"You'd better," said Anketam. "If you don't, I'll just have to give the job to someone else. You hear?"

"I hear," said Basom.

V

The war dragged on. In the spring of the following year, over a hundred thousand Invader troops landed on the seacoast a hundred miles from Chromdin and began a march on the capital. But somebody had forgotten to tell the Invader general that it rained in that area in the spring and that the mud was like glue. The Invader army bogged down, and, floundering their way toward Chromdin, they found themselves opposed by an army of nearly a hundred thousand Xedii troops under General Jojon, and the invasion came to a standstill at that point.

Farther to the west, another group of forty thousand Invader troops came down from the Frozen Country, and a Xedii general named Oljek trounced them with a mere seventeen thousand men.

All in all, the Invaders were getting nowhere, but they seemed determined to keep on plugging.

The news only filtered slowly into the areas which were situated well away from the front. A thousand miles to the west of Chief Samas' barony, the Invaders began cutting deeply into Xedii territory, but they were nowhere near the capital, so no one was really worried.

Anketam worked hard at keeping the barony going during the absence of The Chief. Instead of cataca, he and Jacovik planted food crops, doing on a larger scale just what they had always done in the selected sections around the villages. They had always grown their own food, and now they were doing it on a grand scale.

No news came from off-planet, except for unreliable rumors. What the rest of the galaxy was doing about the war on Xedii, no one knew.

Young Basom proved to be a reasonably competent supervisor. He was nowhere near as good as Anketam or Jacovik, but there were worse supers in the barony.

Anketam found that the biggest worry was not in the handling of the farmers, but in obtaining manufactured goods. The staff physician complained to Kevenoe that drugs were getting scarce. Shoes and clothing were almost impossible to obtain. Rumor had it that arms and ammunition were running short in the Xedii armies. For two centuries, Xedii had depended on other planets to provide manufactured goods for her, and now those supplies were cut off, except for a miserably slow trickle that came in via the daring space officers who managed to evade the orbital forts that the Invaders had set up around the planet.

Even so, Anketam's faith in the power of Xedii remained constant. The invading armies were still being held off from Chromdin, weren't they? The capital would not fall, of that he was sure.

What Anketam did not and could not know was the fact that the Invaders were growing tired of pussy-footing around. Instead of fighting Xedii on Xedii's terms, the Invaders decided to fight it on their own.

Everyone on Chief Samas' barony and the others around it expected trouble to come from the north, from the Frozen Country, if and when it came. They didn't look to the west, where the real trouble was brewing.

Anketam was shocked when he heard the news that the Invaders had reached Tana L'At, having cut down through the center of the continent, dividing the inhabited part of Xedii into two almost equal parts. They knocked out Tana L'At with a heavy shelling of paralysis gas, evacuated the inhabitants, and dusted the city with radioactive powder to make it uninhabitable for several years.

Then they began to march eastward.

VI

For the first time in his life, Anketam was feeling genuine fear. He had feared for his life before, yes. And he had feared for his family. But now he feared for his world, which was vaster by far.

He blinked at the tall, gangling Kevenoe, who was still out of breath from running. "Say that again."

"I said that the Invader troops are crossing Benner Creek," Kevenoe said angrily. "They'll be at the castle within an hour. We've got to do something."

"What?" Anketam asked dazedly.

"Fight them? With what? We have no weapons."

"I don't know," Kevenoe admitted. "I just don't know. I thought maybe you'd know. Maybe you could think of something. What about Lady Samas?"

"What about her?" Anketam still couldn't force his mind to function.

"Haven't you heard? The Invaders have been looting and burning every castle in their path! And the women--"

Lady Samas in danger! Something crystallized in Anketam's mind. He pointed in the direction of the castle. "Get back there!" he snapped. "Get everyone out of the castle! Save all the valuables you can! Get everyone down to the river and tell them to hide in the brush at the Big Swamp. The Invaders won't go there. Move!"

Kevenoe didn't even pause to answer. He ran back toward the saddle animal he had tethered at the edge of the village.

Anketam was running in the opposite direction, toward Basom's quarters.

He didn't bother to knock. He flung open the door and yelled, "Basom!"

Basom, who had been relaxing on his bed, leaped to his feet. "What is it?"

Anketam told him rapidly. Then he said: "Get moving! You're a fast runner. Spread the news. Tell everyone to get to the Swamp. We have less than an hour, so run for all you're worth!"

Basom, like Kevenoe, didn't bother to ask questions. He went outside and started running toward the south.

"That's right!" Anketam called after him. "Tell Jacovik first! And get more runners to spread the word!"

And then Anketam headed for his own home. Memi had to be told. On the way, he pounded on the doors of the houses, shouting the news and telling the others to get to the Big Swamp.

By the time the Invader troops came, they found the entire Samas barony empty. Not a single soul opposed their march; there was no voice to object when they leveled their beam projectors and melted the castle and the villages into shapeless masses of blackened plastic.

VII

The wooden shelter wasn't much of a home, but it was all Anketam could provide. It had been difficult to cut down the trees and make a shack of them, but at least there were four walls and a roof.

Anketam stood at the door of the rude hut, looking blindly at the ruins of the village a hundred yards away. In the past few months, weeds had grown up around the charred blobs that had once been the homes of Anketam's crew. Anketam stared, not at, but past and through them, seeing the ghosts of the houses that had once been there.

Behind him, Memi was speaking in soft tones to Lady Samas.

"Now you go ahead and eat, Lady. You can't starve yourself to death. Things won't always be this bad, you'll see. When that oldest boy of yours comes back, he'll fix the barony right back up like it was. Just you see. Now, here; try some of this soup."

Lady Samas said nothing. She seemed to be entirely oblivious of her surroundings these days. Nothing mattered to her any more. Word had come back that Chief Samas had accompanied General Eeler in the fatal expedition towards the Invader base, and The Chief had been buried there in the Frozen Country.

Lady Samas had nowhere else to stay. Kevenoe was dead, his skull crushed by--by someone. Anketam refused, in his own mind, to see any connection between Kevenoe's death and the fact that Basom and Zillia had disappeared the same day, probably to give themselves over to the Invader troops.

A movement at the corner of his eye caught Anketam's attention. He turned his head to look. Then he spun on his heel and went into the hut.

"Lady Samas," he said quickly, "they're coming. There's a ground-car coming down the road with four Invaders in it."

Lady Samas looked up at him, her fine old face calm and emotionless. "Let them come," she said. "We can't stop them, Anketam. And we have nothing to lose."

Three minutes later, the ground-car pulled up in front of the hut. Anketam watched silently as one of the men got out. The other three stayed in the car, their handguns ready.

The officer, very tall and straight in his blue uniform, strode up to the door of the hut. He stopped and addressed Anketam. "I understand Lady Samas is living here."

"That's right," Anketam said.

"Would you tell her that Colonel Fayder would like to speak to her."

Before Anketam could say anything, Lady Samas spoke. "Tell the colonel to come in, Anketam."

Anketam stepped aside to let the officer enter.

"Lady Samas?" he asked.

She nodded. "I am."

The colonel removed his hat. "Madam, I am Colonel Jamik Fayder, of the Union army. You are the owner of this land?"

"Until my son returns, yes," said Lady Samas evenly.

"I understand." The colonel licked his lips nervously. He was obviously ill at ease in the presence of the Lady Samas. "Madam," he said, "it would be useless for me to apologize for the destructions of war. Apologies are mere words."

"They are," said Lady Samas. "None the less, I accept them."

"Thank you. I have come to inform you that the Xedii armies formally surrendered near Chromdin early this morning. The war is over."

"I'm glad," said Lady Samas.

"So am I," said the colonel. "It has not been a pleasant war. Xedii was--and still is--the most backward planet in the galaxy. Your Council of Chiefs steadfastly refused to allow the"--he glanced at Anketam--"workers of Xedii to govern their own lives. They have lived and died without proper education, without the medical care that would save and lengthen their lives, and without the comforts of life that any human being deserves. That situation will be changed now, but I am heartily sorry it took a war to do it."

Anketam looked at the man. What was he talking about? He and his kind had burned and dusted cities and villages, and had smashed the lives of millions of human beings on the pretense that they were trying to help. What sort of insanity was that?

The colonel took a sheaf of papers from his pocket.

"I have been ordered to read to you the proclamation of the Union President."

He looked down at the papers and began to read:

"Henceforth, all the peoples of Xedii shall be free and equal. They shall have the right to change their work at will, to be paid in lawful money instead of--"

Anketam just stood there, his mind glazed. He had worked hard all his life for the security of retirement, and now all that was gone. What was he to do? Where was he to go? If he had to be paid in money, who would do it? Lady Samas? She had nothing. Besides, Anketam knew nothing about the handling of money. He knew nothing about how to get along in a society like that.

He stood there in silence as his world dissolved around him. He could hear, dimly, the voice of the blue-clad Union officer as he read off the death warrant for Xedii. And for Anketam.

THE END

Project Gutenberg's ...After a Few Words..., by Gordon Randall Garrett

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Title: ...After a Few Words...

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Release Date: December 22, 2007 [EBook #23960]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ...AFTER A FEW WORDS... ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

... After a Few Words ...

by Seaton McKettrig

Illustrated by Summer

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from "Analog" October 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

This is a science-fiction story. History is a science; the other part is, as all Americans know, the most fictional field we have today.

He settled himself comfortably in his seat, and carefully put the helmet on, pulling it down firmly until it was properly seated. For a moment, he could see nothing.

Then his hand moved up and, with a flick of the wrist, lifted the visor. Ahead of him, in serried array, with lances erect and pennons flying, was the forward part of the column. Far ahead, he knew, were the Knights Templars, who had taken the advance. Behind the Templars rode the mailed knights of Brittany and Anjou. These were followed by King Guy of Jerusalem and the host of Poitou.

He himself, Sir Robert de Bouain, was riding with the Norman and English troops, just behind the men of Poitou. Sir Robert turned slightly in his saddle. To his right, he could see the brilliant red-and-gold banner of the lion-hearted Richard of England--gules, in pale three lions passant guardant or. Behind the standard-bearer, his great war horse moving with a steady, measured pace, his coronet of gold on his steel helm gleaming in the glaring desert sun, the lions of England on his firm-held shield, was the King himself.

Further behind, the Knights Hospitallers protected the rear, guarding the column of the hosts of Christendom from harassment by the Bedouins.

"By our Lady!" came a voice from his left. "Three days out from Acre, and the accursed Saracens still elude us."

Sir Robert de Bouain twisted again in his saddle to look at the knight riding alongside him. Sir Gaeton de l'Arc-Tombé sat tall and straight in his saddle, his visor up, his blue eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun.

Sir Robert's lips formed a smile. "They are not far off, Sir Gaeton. They have been following us. As we march parallel to the seacoast, so they have been marching with us in those hills to the east."

"Like the jackals they are," said Sir Gaeton. "They assail us from the rear, and they set up traps in our path ahead. Our spies tell us that the Turks lie ahead of us in countless numbers. And yet, they fear to face us in open battle."

"Is it fear, or are they merely gathering their forces?"

"Both," said Sir Gaeton flatly. "They fear us, else they would not dally to amass so fearsome a force. If, as our informers tell us, there are uncounted Turks to the fore, and if, as we are aware, our rear is being dogged by the Bedouin and the black horsemen of Egypt, it would seem that Saladin has at hand more than enough to overcome us, were they all truly Christian knights."

"Give them time. We must wait for their attack, sir knight. It were foolhardy to attempt to seek them in their own hills, and yet they must stop us. They will attack before we reach Jerusalem, fear not."

"We of Gascony fear no heathen Musselman," Sir Gaeton growled. "It's this Hellish heat that is driving me mad." He pointed toward the eastern hills. "The sun is yet low, and already the heat is unbearable."

Sir Robert heard his own laugh echo hollowly within his helmet. "Perhaps 'twere better to be mad when the assault comes. Madmen fight better than men of cooler blood." He knew that the others were baking inside their heavy armor, although he himself was not too uncomfortable.

Sir Gaeton looked at him with a smile that held both irony and respect. "In truth, sir knight, it is apparent that you fear neither men nor heat. Nor is your own blood too cool. True, I ride with your Normans and your English and your King Richard of the Lion's Heart, but I am a Gascon, and have sworn no fealty to him. But to side with the Duke of Burgundy against King Richard--" He gave a short, barking laugh. "I fear no man," he went on, "but if I had to fear one, it would be Richard of England."

Sir Robert's voice came like a sword: steely, flat, cold, and sharp. "My lord the King spoke in haste. He has reason to be bitter against Philip of France, as do we all. Philip has deserted the field. He has returned to France in haste, leaving the rest of us to fight the Saracen for the Holy Land leaving only the contingent of his vassal the Duke of Burgundy to remain with us."

"Richard of England has never been on the best of terms with Philip Augustus," said Sir Gaeton.

"No, and with good cause. But he allowed his anger against Philip to color his judgment when he spoke harshly against the Duke of Burgundy. The Duke is no coward, and Richard Plantagenet well knows it. As I said, he spoke in haste."

"And you intervened," said Sir Gaeton.

"It was my duty." Sir Robert's voice was stubborn. "Could we have permitted a quarrel to develop between the two finest knights and warleaders in Christendom at this crucial point? The desertion of Philip of France has cost us dearly. Could we permit the desertion of Burgundy, too?"

"You did what must be done in honor," the Gascon conceded, "but you have not gained the love of Richard by doing so."

Sir Robert felt his jaw set firmly. "My king knows I am loyal."

Sir Gaeton said nothing more, but there was a look in his eyes that showed that he felt that Richard of England might even doubt the loyalty of Sir Robert de Bouain.

* * * * *

Sir Robert rode on in silence, feeling the movement of the horse beneath him.

There was a sudden sound to the rear. Like a wash of the tide from the sea came the sound of Saracen war cries and the clash of steel on steel mingled with the sounds of horses in agony and anger.

Sir Robert turned his horse to look.

The Negro troops of Saladin's Egyptian contingent were thundering down upon the rear! They clashed with the Hospitallers, slamming in like a rain of heavy stones, too close in for the use of bows. There was only the sword against armor, like the sound of a thousand hammers against a thousand anvils.

"Stand fast! Stand fast! Hold them off!" It was the voice of King Richard, sounding like a clarion over the din of battle.

Sir Robert felt his horse move, as though it were urging him on toward the battle, but his hand held to the reins, keeping the great charger in check. The King had said "Stand fast!" and this was no time to disobey the orders of Richard.

The Saracen troops were coming in from the rear, and the Hospitallers were taking the brunt of the charge. They fought like madmen, but they were slowly being forced back.

The Master of the Hospitallers rode to the rear, to the King's standard, which hardly moved in the still desert air, now that the column had stopped moving.

The voice of the Duke of Burgundy came to Sir Robert's ears.

"Stand fast. The King bids you all to stand fast," said the duke, his voice fading as he rode on up the column toward the knights of Poitou and the Knights Templars.

The Master of the Hospitallers was speaking in a low, urgent voice to the King: "My lord, we are pressed on by the enemy and in danger of eternal infamy. We are losing our horses, one after the other!"

"Good Master," said Richard, "it is you who must sustain their attack. No one can be everywhere at once."

The Master of the Hospitallers nodded curtly and charged back into the fray.

The King turned to Sir Baldwin de Carreo, who sat ahorse nearby, and pointed toward the eastern hills. "They will come from there, hitting us in the flank; we cannot afford to amass a rearward charge. To do so would be to fall directly into the hands of the Saracen."

A voice very close to Sir Robert said: "Richard is right. If we go to the aid of the Hospitallers, we will expose the column to a flank attack." It was Sir Gaeton.

"My lord the King," Sir Robert heard his voice say, "is right in all but one thing. If we allow the Egyptians to take us from the rear, there will be no need for Saladin and his Turks to come down on our flank. And the Hospitallers cannot hold for long at this rate. A charge at full gallop would break the Egyptian line and give the Hospitallers breathing time. Are you with me?"

"Against the orders of the King?"

"The King cannot see everything! There are times when a man must use his own judgment! You said you were afraid of no man. Are you with me?"

After a moment's hesitation, Sir Gaeton couched his lance. "I'm with you, sir knight! Live or die, I follow! Strike and strike hard!"

"Forward then!" Sir Robert heard himself shouting. "Forward for St. George and for England!"

"St. George and England!" the Gascon echoed.

* * * * *

Two great war horses began to move ponderously forward toward the battle lines, gaining momentum as they went. Moving in unison, the two knights, their horses now at a fast trot, lowered their lances, picking their Saracen targets with care. Larger and larger loomed the Egyptian cavalrymen as the horses changed pace to a thundering gallop.

The Egyptians tried to dodge, as they saw, too late, the approach of the Christian knights.

Sir Robert felt the shock against himself and his horse as the steel tip of the long ash lance struck the Saracen horseman in the chest. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Sir Gaeton, too, had scored.

The Saracen, impaled on Sir Robert's lance, shot from the saddle as he died. His lighter armor had hardly impeded the incoming spear-point, and now his body dragged it down as he dropped toward the desert sand. Another Moslem cavalryman was charging in now, swinging his curved saber, taking advantage of Sir Robert's sagging lance.

There was nothing else to do but drop the lance and draw his heavy broadsword. His hand grasped it, and it came singing from its scabbard.

The Egyptian's curved sword clanged against Sir Robert's helm, setting his head ringing. In return, the knight's broadsword came about in a sweeping arc, and the Egyptian's horse rode on with the rider's headless body.

Behind him, Sir Robert heard further cries of "St. George and England!"

The Hospitallers, taking heart at the charge, were going in! Behind them came the Count of Champagne, the Earl of Leister, and the Bishop of Beauvais, who carried a great warhammer in order that he might not break Church Law by shedding blood.

Sir Robert's own sword rose and fell, cutting and hacking at the enemy. He himself felt a dreamlike detachment, as though he were watching the battle rather than participating in it.

But he could see that the Moslems were falling back before the Christian onslaught.

And then, quite suddenly, there seemed to be no foeman to swing at. Breathing heavily, Sir Robert sheathed his broadsword.

Beside him, Sir Gaeton did the same, saying: "It will be a few minutes before they can regroup, sir knight. We may have routed them completely."

"Aye. But King Richard will not approve of my breaking ranks and disobeying orders. I may win the battle and lose my head in the end."

"This is no time to worry about the future," said the Gascon. "Rest for a moment and relax, that you may be the stronger later. Here--have an Old Kings."

He had a pack of cigarettes in his gauntleted hand, which he profferred to Sir Robert. There were three cigarettes protruding from it, one slightly farther than the others. Sir Robert's hand reached out and took that one.

"Thanks. When the going gets rough, I really enjoy an Old Kings."

He put one end of the cigarette in his mouth and lit the other from the lighter in Sir Gaeton's hand.

"Yes, sir," said Sir Gaeton, after lighting his own cigarette, "Old Kings are the greatest. They give a man real, deep-down smoking pleasure."

"There's no doubt about it, Old Kings are a man's cigarette." Sir Robert could feel the soothing smoke in his lungs as he inhaled deeply. "That's great. When I want a cigarette, I don't want just any cigarette."

"Nor I," agreed the Gascon. "Old Kings is the only real cigarette when you're doing a real man's work."

"That's for sure." Sir Robert watched a smoke ring expand in the air.

There was a sudden clash of arms off to their left. Sir Robert dropped his cigarette to the ground. "The trouble is that doing a real he-man's work doesn't always allow you to enjoy the fine, rich tobaccos of Old Kings right down to the very end."

"No, but you can always light another later," said the Gascon knight.

* * * * *

King Richard, on seeing his army moving suddenly toward the harassed rear, had realized the danger and had charged through the Hospitallers to get into the thick of the fray. Now the Turks were charging down from the hills, hitting--not the flank as he had expected, but the rear! Saladin had expected him to hold fast!

Sir Robert and Sir Gaeton spurred their chargers toward the flapping banner of England.

The fierce warrior-king of England, his mighty sword in hand, was cutting down Turks as though they were grain-stalks, but still the Saracen horde pressed on. More and more of the terrible Turks came boiling down out of the hills, their glittering scimitars swinging.

Sir Robert lost all track of time. There was nothing to do but keep his own great broadsword moving, swinging like some gigantic metronome as he hacked down the Moslem foes.

And then, suddenly, he found himself surrounded by the Saracens! He was isolated and alone, cut off from the rest of the Christian forces! He glanced quickly around as he slashed another Saracen from pate to breastbone. Where was Sir Gaeton? Where were the others? Where was the red-and-gold banner of Richard?

He caught a glimpse of the fluttering banner far to the rear and started to fall back.

And then he saw another knight nearby, a huge man who swung his sparkling blade with power and force. On his steel helm gleamed a golden coronet! Richard!

And the great king, in spite of his prowess was outnumbered heavily and would, within seconds, be cut down by the Saracen horde!

Without hesitation, Sir Robert plunged his horse toward the surrounded monarch, his great blade cutting a path before him.

He saw Richard go down, falling from the saddle of his charger, but by that time his own sword was cutting into the screaming Saracens and they had no time to attempt any further mischief to the King. They had their hands full with Sir Robert de Bouain.

He did not know how long he fought there, holding his charger motionless over the inert body of the fallen king, hewing down the screaming enemy, but presently he heard the familiar cry of "For St. George and for England" behind him. The Norman and English troops were charging in, bringing with them the banner of England!

And then Richard was on his feet, cleaving the air about him with his own broadsword. Its bright edge, besmeared with Saracen blood, was biting viciously into the foe.

The Turks began to fall back. Within seconds, the Christian knights were boiling around the embattled pair, forcing the Turks into retreat. And for the second time, Sir Robert found himself with no one to fight.

And then a voice was saying: "You have done well this day, sir knight. Richard Plantagenet will not forget."

Sir Robert turned in his saddle to face the smiling king.

"My lord king, be assured that I would never forget my loyalty to my sovereign and liege lord. My sword and my life are yours whenever you call."

King Richard's gauntleted hand grasped his own. "If it please God, I shall never ask your life. An earldom awaits you when we return to England, sir knight."

And then the king mounted his horse and was running full gallop after the retreating Saracens.

* * * * *

Robert took off his helmet.

He blinked for a second to adjust his eyes to the relative dimness of the studio. After the brightness of the desert that the televicarion helmet had projected into his eyes, the studio seemed strangely cavelike.

"How'd you like it, Bob?" asked one of the two producers of the show.

Robert Bowen nodded briskly and patted the televike helmet. "It was O.K.," he said. "Good show. A little talky at the beginning, and it needs a better fade-out, but the action scenes were fine. The sponsor ought to like it--for a while, at least."

"What do you mean, 'for a while'?"

Robert Bowen sighed. "If this thing goes on the air the way it is, he'll lose sales."

"Why? Commercial not good enough?"

"Too good! Man, I've smoked Old Kings, and, believe me, the real thing never tasted as good as that cigarette did in the commercial!"

End of Project Gutenberg's ...After a Few Words..., by Gordon Randall Garrett

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Unwise Child, by Gordon Randall Garrett

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Unwise Child

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Release Date: November 5, 2007 [EBook #23335]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNWISE CHILD ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, LN Yaddanapudi and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Unwise Child

RANDALL GARRETT

DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC. GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK

1962

All of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 60-13524 Copyright Š 1962 by Randall Garrett All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America First Edition

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note | | | | Extensive search has failed to find any evidence that the | | U.S. copyright of this publication has been renewed. | +--------------------------------------------------------------+

BOOKS BY RANDALL GARRETT

Biography Pope John XXIII: Pastoral Prince Science Fiction Unwise Child Books by "Robert Randall" The Shrouded Planet The Dawning Light "Robert Randall" is a pseudonym used on books written in collaboration with Robert Silverberg.

With sincere appreciation,
this book is dedicated
to
TIM and NATALIE
who waited ...
and waited ...
and waited ...
and waited for it.

1

The kids who tried to jump Mike the Angel were bright enough in a lot of ways, but they made a bad mistake when they tangled with Mike the Angel.

They'd done their preliminary work well enough. They had cased the job thoroughly, and they had built the equipment to take care of it. Their mistake was not in their planning; it was in not taking Mike the Angel into account.

There is a section of New York's Manhattan Island, down on the lower West Side, that has been known, for over a century, as "Radio Row." All through this section are stores, large and small, where every kind of electronic and sub-electronic device can be bought, ordered, or designed to order. There is even an old antique shop, known as Ye Quainte Olde Elecktronicks Shoppe, where you can buy such oddities as vacuum-tube FM radios and twenty-four-inch cathode-ray television sets. And, if you want them, transmitters to match, so you can watch the antiques work.

Mike the Angel had an uptown office in the heart of the business district, near West 112th Street--a very posh suite of rooms on the fiftieth floor of the half-mile-high Timmins Building, overlooking the two-hundred-year-old Gothic edifice of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The glowing sign on the door of the suite said, very simply:

  M. R. GABRIEL
  POWER DESIGN

But, once or twice a week, Mike the Angel liked to take off and prowl around Radio Row, just shopping around. Usually, he didn't work too late, but, on this particular afternoon, he'd been in his office until after six o'clock, working on some papers for the Interstellar Commission. So, by the time he got down to Radio Row, the only shop left open was Harry MacDougal's.

That didn't matter much to Mike the Angel, since Harry's was the place he had intended to go, anyway. Harry MacDougal's establishment was hardly more than a hole in the wall--a narrow, long hallway between two larger stores. Although not a specialist, like the proprietor of Ye Quainte Olde Elecktronicks Shoppe, Harry did carry equipment of every vintage and every make. If you wanted something that hadn't been manufactured in decades, and perhaps never made in quantity, Harry's was the place to go. The walls were lined with bins, all unlabeled, filled helter-skelter with every imaginable kind of gadget, most of which would have been hard to recognize unless you were both an expert and a historian.

Old Harry didn't need labels or a system. He was a small, lean, bony, sharp-nosed Scot who had fled Scotland during the Panic of '37, landed in New York, and stopped. He solemnly declared that he had never been west of the Hudson River nor north of 181st Street in the more than fifty years he had been in the country. He had a mind like that of a robot filing cabinet. Ask him for a particular piece of equipment, and he'd squint one eye closed, stare at the end of his nose with the other, and say:

"An M-1993 thermodyne hexode, eh? Ah. Um. Aye, I got one. Picked it up a couple years back. Put it-- Let ma see, now...."

And he'd go to his wall ladder, push it along that narrow hallway, moving boxes aside as he went, and stop somewhere along the wall. Then he'd scramble up the ladder, pull out a bin, fumble around in it, and come out with the article in question. He'd blow the dust off it, polish it with a rag, scramble down the ladder, and say: "Here 'tis. Thought I had one. Let's go back in the back and give her a test."

On the other hand, if he didn't have what you wanted, he'd shake his head just a trifle, then squint up at you and say: "What d'ye want it for?" And if you could tell him what you planned to do with the piece you wanted, nine times out of ten he could come up with something else that would do the job as well or better.

In either case, he always insisted that the piece be tested. He refused either to buy or sell something that didn't work. So you'd follow him down that long hallway to the lab in the rear, where all the testing equipment was. The lab, too, was cluttered, but in a different way. Out front, the stuff was dead; back here, there was power coursing through the ionic veins and metallic nerves of the half-living machines. Things were labeled in neat, accurate script--not for Old Harry's benefit, but for the edification of his customers, so they wouldn't put their fingers in the wrong places. He never had to worry about whether his customers knew enough to fend for themselves; a few minutes spent in talking was enough to tell Harry whether a man knew enough about the science and art of electronics and sub-electronics to be trusted in the lab. If you didn't measure up, you didn't get invited to the lab, even to watch a test.

But he had very few people like that; nobody came into Harry MacDougal's place unless he was pretty sure of what he wanted and how he wanted to use it.

On the other hand, there were very few men whom Harry would allow into the lab unescorted. Mike the Angel was one of them.

Meet Mike the Angel. Full name: Michael Raphael Gabriel. (His mother had tagged that on him at the time of his baptism, which had made his father wince in anticipated compassion, but there had been nothing for him to say--not in the middle of the ceremony.)

Naturally, he had been tagged "Mike the Angel." Six feet seven. Two hundred sixty pounds. Thirty-four years of age. Hair: golden yellow. Eyes: deep blue. Cash value of holdings: well into eight figures. Credit: almost unlimited. Marital status: highly eligible, if the right woman could tackle him.

Mike the Angel pushed open the door to Harry MacDougal's shop and took off his hat to brush the raindrops from it. Farther uptown, the streets were covered with clear plastic roofing, but that kind of comfort stopped at Fifty-third Street.

There was no one in sight in the long, narrow store, so Mike the Angel looked up at the ceiling, where he knew the eye was hidden.

"Harry?" he said.

"I see you, lad," said a voice from the air. "You got here just in time. I'm closin' up. Lock the door, would ye?"

"Sure, Harry." Mike turned around, pressed the locking switch, and heard it snap satisfactorily.

"Okay, Mike," said Harry MacDougal's voice. "Come on back. I hope ye brought that bottle of scotch I asked for."

Mike the Angel made his way back between the towering tiers of bins as he answered. "Sure did, Harry. When did I ever forget you?"

And, as he moved toward the rear of the store, Mike the Angel casually reached into his coat pocket and triggered the switch of a small but fantastically powerful mechanism that he always carried when he walked the streets of New York at night.

He was headed straight into trouble, and he knew it. And he hoped he was ready for it.

2

Mike the Angel kept his hand in his pocket, his thumb on a little plate that was set in the side of the small mechanism that was concealed therein. As he neared the door, the little plate began to vibrate, making a buzz which could only be felt, not heard. Mike sighed to himself. Vibroblades were all the rage this season.

He pushed open the rear door rapidly and stepped inside. It was just what he'd expected. His eyes saw and his brain recorded the whole scene in the fraction of a second before he moved. In that fraction of a second, he took in the situation, appraised it, planned his strategy, and launched into his plan of action.

Harry MacDougal was sitting at his workbench, near the controls of the eye that watched the shop when he was in the lab. He was hunched over a little, his small, bright eyes peering steadily at Mike the Angel from beneath shaggy, silvered brows. There was no pleading in those eyes--only confidence.

Next to Old Harry was a kid--sixteen, maybe seventeen. He had the JD stamp on his face: a look of cold, hard arrogance that barely concealed the uncertainty and fear beneath. One hand was at Harry's back, and Mike knew that the kid was holding a vibroblade at the old man's spine.

At the same time, the buzzing against his thumb told Mike the Angel something else. There was a vibroblade much nearer his body than the one in the kid's hand.

That meant that there was another young punk behind him.

All this took Mike the Angel about one quarter of a second to assimilate. Then he jumped.

Had the intruders been adults, Mike would have handled the entire situation in a completely different way. Adults, unless they are mentally or emotionally retarded, do not usually react or behave like children. Adolescents can, do, and must--for the very simple reason that they have not yet had time to learn to react as adults.

Had the intruders been adults, and had Mike the Angel behaved the way he did, he might conceivably have died that night. As it was, the kids never had a chance.

Mike didn't even bother to acknowledge the existence of the punk behind him. He leaped, instead, straight for the kid in the dead-black sučde zipsuit who was holding the vibroblade against Harry MacDougal's spine. And the kid reacted exactly as Mike the Angel had hoped, prayed, and predicted he would.

The kid defended himself.

An adult, in a situation where he has one known enemy at his mercy and is being attacked by a second, will quickly put the first out of the way in order to leave himself free to deal with the second. There is no sense in leaving your flank wide open just to oppose a frontal attack.

If the kid had been an adult, Harry MacDougal would have died there and then. An adult would simply have slashed his vibroblade through the old man's spine and brought it to bear on Mike the Angel.

But not the kid. He jumped back, eyes widening, to face his oncoming opponent in an open space. He was no coward, that kid, and he knew how to handle a vibroblade. In his own unwise, suicidal way, he was perfectly capable of proving himself. He held out the point of that shimmering metal shaft, ready to parry any offensive thrust that Mike the Angel might make.

If Mike had had a vibroblade himself, and if there hadn't been another punk at his back, Mike might have taken care of the kid that way. As it was, he had no choice but to use another way.

He threw himself full on the point of the scintillating vibroblade.

A vibroblade is a nasty weapon. Originally designed as a surgeon's tool, its special steel blade moves in and out of the heavy hilt at speeds from two hundred to two thousand vibrations per second, depending on the size and the use to which it is to be put. Make it eight inches long, add serrated, diamond-pointed teeth, and you have the man-killing vibroblade. Its danger is in its power; that shivering blade can cut through flesh, cartilage, and bone with almost no effort. It's a knife with power steering.

But that kind of power can be a weakness as well as a strength.

The little gadget that Mike the Angel carried did more than just detect the nearby operation of a vibroblade. It was also a defense. The gadget focused a high-density magnetic field on any vibroblade that came anywhere within six inches of Mike's body.

In that field, the steel blade simply couldn't move. It was as though it had been caught in a vise. The blade no longer vibrated; it had become nothing more than an overly fancy bread knife.

The trouble was that the power unit in the heavy hilt simply wouldn't accept the fact that the blade was immovable. That power unit was in there to move something, and by heaven, something had to move.

The hilt jerked and bucked in the kid's hand, taking skin with it. Then it began to smoke and burn under the overload. The plastic shell cracked and hot copper and silver splattered out of it. The kid screamed as the molten metal burned his hand.

Mike the Angel put a hand against the kid's chest and shoved. As the boy toppled backward, Mike turned to face the other boy.

Only it wasn't a boy.

She was wearing gold lip paint and had sprayed her hair blue, but she knew how to handle a vibroblade at least as well as her boy friend had. Just as Mike the Angel turned, she lunged forward, aiming for the small of his back.

And she, too, screamed as she lost her blade in a flash of heat.

Then she grabbed for something in her pocket. Regretfully, Mike the Angel brought the edge of his hand down against the side of her neck in a paralyzing, but not deadly, rabbit punch. She dropped, senseless, and a small gun spilled out of the waist pocket of her zipsuit and skittered across the floor. Mike paused only long enough to make sure she was out, then he turned back to his first opponent.

As he had anticipated, Harry MacDougal had taken charge. The kid was sprawled flat on the floor, and Old Harry was holding a shock gun in his hand.

Mike the Angel took a deep breath.

"Yer trousers are on fire," said Harry.

Mike yelped as he felt the heat, and he began slapping at the smoldering spots where the molten metal from the vibroblades had hit his clothing. He wasn't afire; modern clothing doesn't flame up--but it can get pretty hot when you splash liquid copper on it.

"Damn!" said Mike the Angel. "New suit, too."

"You're a fast thinker, laddie," said Old Harry.

"You don't need to flatter me, Harry," said Mike the Angel. "When an old teetotaler like you asks a man if he's brought some scotch, the man's a fool if he doesn't know there's trouble afoot." He gave his leg a final slap and said: "What happened? Are there any more of them?"

"Don't know. Might be." The old man waved at his control panel. "My instruments are workin' again!" He gestured at the floor. "I'm nae sure how they did it, but somehow they managed to blank out ma instruments just long enough to get inside. Their mistake was in not lockin' the front door."

Mike the Angel was busy searching the two unconscious kids. He looked up. "Neither of them is carrying any equipment in their clothing--at least, not anything that's self-powered. If they've got pickup circuits built into the cloth, there must be more of them outside."

"Aye. Likely. We'll see."

Suddenly, there was a soft ping! ping! ping! from an instrument on the bench.

Harry glanced quickly at the receiving screen that was connected with the multitude of eyes that were hidden around the area of his shop. Then a smile came over his small brown face.

"Cops," he said. "Time they got here."

3

Sergeant Cowder looked the room over and took a drag from his cigarette. "Well, that's that. Now--what happened?" He looked from Mike the Angel to Harry MacDougal and back again. Both of them appeared to be thinking.

"All right," he said quietly, "let me guess, then."

Old Harry waved a hand. "Oh no, Sergeant; 'twon't be necessary. I think Mr. Gabriel was just waiting for me to start, because he wasn't here when the two rapscallions came in, and I was just tryin' to figure out where to begin. We're not bein' unco-operative. Let's see now--" He gazed at the ceiling as though trying to collect his thoughts. He knew perfectly well that the police sergeant was recording everything he said.

The sergeant sighed. "Look, Harry, you're not on trial. I know perfectly well that you've got this place bugged to a fare-thee-well. So does every shop operator on Radio Row. If you didn't, the JD gangs would have cleaned you all out long ago."

Harry kept looking at the ceiling, and Mike the Angel smiled quietly at his fingernails.

The detective sergeant sighed again. "Sure, we'd like to have some of the gadgets that you and the other operators on the Row have worked out, Harry. But I'm in no position to take 'em away from you. Besides, we have some stuff that you'd like to have, too, so that makes us pretty much even. If we started confiscating illegal equipment from you, the JD's would swoop in here, take your legitimate equipment, bug it up, and they'd be driving us all nuts within a week. So long as you don't use illegal equipment illegally, the department will leave you alone."

Old Harry grinned. "Well, now, that's very nice of you, Sergeant. But I don't have anything illegal--no robotics stuff or anything like that. Oh, I'll admit I've a couple of eyes here and there to watch my shop, but eyes aren't illegal."

The detective glanced around the room with a practiced eye and then looked blandly back at the little Scotsman. Harry MacDougal was lying, and the sergeant knew it. And Harry knew the sergeant knew it.

Sergeant Cowder sighed for a third time and looked at the Scot. "Okay. So what happened?"

Harry's face became serious. "They came in about six-thirty. First I knew of it, one of the kids--the boy--stepped out of that closet over there and put a vibroblade at my back. I'd come back here to get a small resistor, and all of a sudden there he was."

Mike the Angel frowned, but he didn't say anything.

"None of your equipment registered anything?" asked the detective.

"Not a thing, Sergeant," said Harry. "They've got something new, all right. The kid must ha' come in through the back door, there. And I'd ha' been willin' to bet ma life that no human bein' could ha' walked in here without ma knowin' it before he got within ten feet o' that door. Look."

He got up, walked over to the back door, and opened it. It opened into what looked at first to be a totally dark room. Then the sergeant saw that there was a dead-black wall a few feet from the open door.

"That's a light trap," said Harry. "Same as they have in photographic darkrooms. To get from this door to the outer door that leads into the alley, you got to turn two corners and walk about thirty feet. Even I, masel', couldn't walk through it without settin' off half a dozen alarms. Any kind of light would set off the bugs; so would the heat radiation from the human body."

"How about the front?" Sergeant Cowder asked. "Anyone could get in from the front."

Harry's grin became grim. "Not unless I go with 'em. And not even then if I don't want 'em to."

"It was kind of you to let us in," said the detective mildly.

"A pleasure," said Harry. "But I wish I knew how that kid got in."

"Well, he did--somehow," Cowder said. "What happened after he came out of the closet?"

"He made me let the girl in. They were goin' to open up the rear completely and take my stuff out that way. They'd ha' done it, too, if Mr. Gabriel hadn't come along."

Detective Sergeant Cowder looked at Mike the Angel. "About what time was that, Mr. Gabriel?"

"About six thirty-five," Mike told him. "The kids probably hadn't been here more than a few minutes."

Harry MacDougal nodded in silent corroboration.

"Then what happened?" asked the detective.

Mike told him a carefully edited version of what had occurred, leaving out the existence of the little gadget he was carrying in his pocket. The sergeant listened patiently and unbelievingly through the whole recital. Mike the Angel grinned to himself; he knew what part of the story seemed queer to the cop.

He was right. Cowder said: "Now, wait a minute. What caused those vibroblades to burn up that way?"

"Must have been faulty," Mike the Angel said innocently.

"Both of them?" Sergeant Cowder asked skeptically. "At the same time?"

"Oh no. Thirty seconds apart, I'd guess."

"Very interesting. Very." He started to say something else, but a uniformed officer stuck his head in through the doorway that led to the front of the shop.

"We combed the whole area, Sergeant. Not a soul around. But from the looks of the alley, there must have been a small truck parked in there not too long ago."

Cowder nodded. "Makes sense. Those JD's wouldn't have tried this unless they intended to take everything they could put their hands on, and they certainly couldn't have put all this in their pockets." He rubbed one big finger over the tip of his nose. "Okay, Barton, that's all. Take those two kids to the hospital and book 'em in the detention ward. I want to talk to them when they wake up."

The cop nodded and left.

Sergeant Cowder looked back at Harry. "Your alarm to the precinct station went off at six thirty-six. I figure that whoever was on the outside, in that truck, knew something had gone wrong as soon as the fight started in here. He--or they--shut off whatever they were using to suppress the alarm system and took off before we got here. They sure must have moved fast."

"Must have," agreed Harry. "Is there anything else, Sergeant?"

Cowder shook his head. "Not right now. I'll get in touch with you later, if I need you."

Harry and Mike the Angel followed him through the front of the shop to the front door. At the door, Cowder turned.

"Well, good night. Thanks for your assistance, Mr. Gabriel. I wish some of our cops had had your luck."

"How so?" asked Mike the Angel.

"If more vibroblades would blow up at opportune moments, we'd have fewer butchered policemen."

Mike the Angel shook his head. "Not really. If their vibros started burning out every time they came near a cop, the JD's would just start using something else. You can't win in this game."

Cowder nodded glumly. "It's a losing proposition any way you look at it.... Well, good night again." He stepped out, and Old Harry closed and locked the door behind him.

Mike the Angel said: "Come on, Harry; I want to find something." He began walking back down the long, narrow shop toward the rear again. Harry followed, looking mystified.

Mike the Angel stopped, sniffing. "Smell that?"

Harry sniffed. "Aye. Burnt insulation. So?"

"You know which one of these bins is nearest to your main control cable. Start looking. See if you find anything queer."

Old Harry walked over to a nearby bin, pulled it open, and looked inside. He closed it, pulled open another. He found the gadget on the third try. It was a plastic case, six by six by eight, and it still smelled of hot insulation, although the case itself was barely warm.

"What is it?" Harry asked in wonder.

"It's the gizmo that turned your equipment off. When I passed by it, my own gadget must have blown it. I knew the police couldn't have made it here between the time of the fight and the time they showed up. They must have had at least an extra minute. Besides, I didn't think anyone could build an instrument that would blank out everything at long range. It had to be something near your main cable. I think you'll find a metallic oscillator in there. Analyze it. Might be useful."

Harry turned the box over in his hands. "Probably has a timer in it to start it.... Well.... That helps."

"What do you mean?"

"I've got a pretty good idea who put it here. Older kid. Nineteen--maybe twenty. Seemed like a nice lad, too. Didn't take him for a JD. Can't trust anyone these days. Thanks, Mike. If I find anything new in here, I'll let you know."

"Do that," said Mike the Angel. "And, as a personal favor, I'll show you how to build my own super-duper, extra-special, anti-vibroblade defense unit."

Old Harry grinned, crinkling up his wizened face in a mass of fine wrinkles. "You'd better think up a shorter name than that for it, laddie; I could probably build one in less time than it takes you to say it."

"Want to bet?"

"I'll bet you twenty I can do it in twenty-four hours."

"Twenty it is, Harry. I'll sell you mine this time tomorrow for twenty bucks."

Harry shook his head. "I'll trade you mine for yours, plus twenty." Then his eyes twinkled. "And speaking of money, didn't you come down here to buy something?"

Mike the Angel laughed. "You're not going to like it. I came down to get a dozen plastic-core resistors."

"What size?"

Mike told him, and Old Harry went over to the proper bin, pulled them out, all properly boxed, and handed them to him.

"That'll be four dollars," he said.

Mike the Angel paid up with a smile. "You don't happen to have a hundred-thousand-unit microcryotron stack, do you?"

"Ain't s'posed to," said Harry MacDougal. "If I did, I wouldn't sell it to you. But, as a matter of cold fact, I do happen to have one. Use it for a paperweight. I'll give it to you for nothing, because it don't work, anyhow."

"Maybe I can fix it," said Mike the Angel, "as long as you're giving it to me. How come it doesn't work?"

"Just a second, laddie," said Harry. He scuttled to the rear of the shop and came back with a ready-wrapped package measuring five by five by four. He handed it to Mike the Angel and said: "It's a present. Thanks for helping me out of a tight spot."

Mike said something deprecative of his own efforts and took the package. If it were in working order it would have been worth close to three hundred dollars--more than that on the black market. If it was broken, though, it was no good to Mike. A microcryotron unit is almost impossible to fix if it breaks down. But Mike took it because he didn't want to hurt Old Harry's feelings by refusing a present.

"Thanks, Harry," he said. "Happen to know why it doesn't work?"

Harry's face crinkled again in his all-over smile. "Sure, Mike. It ain't plugged in."

4

Mike the Angel did not believe in commuting. Being a bachelor, he could afford to indulge in that belief. In his suite of offices on 112th Street, there was one door marked "M. R. Gabriel." Behind that door was his private secretary's office, which acted as an effective barrier between himself and the various employees of the firm. Behind the secretary's office was his own office.

There was still another door in his inner office, a plain, unmarked door that looked as though it might conceal a closet.

It didn't. It was the door to a veddy, veddy expensive apartment with equally expensive appointments. One wall, thirty feet long and ten feet high, was a nearly invisible, dustproof slab of polished, optically flat glass that gave the observer the feeling that there was nothing between him and the city street, five hundred feet below.

The lights of the city, coming through the wall, gave the room plenty of illumination after sunset, but the simple flick of a switch could polarize it black, allowing perfect privacy.

The furniture was massive, heavily braced, and well upholstered. It had to be; Mike the Angel liked to flop into chairs, and his two hundred and sixty pounds gave chairs a lot of punishment.

On one of the opaque walls was Dali's original "Eucharist," with its muffled, robed figures looking oddly luminous in the queer combination of city lights and interior illumination. Farther back, a Valois gleamed metallically above the shadowed bas-reliefs of its depths.

It was the kind of apartment Mike the Angel liked. He could sleep, if necessary, on a park bench or in a trench, but he didn't see any reason for doing so if he could sleep on a five-hundred-dollar floater.

As he had passed through each door, he had checked them carefully. His electrokey had a special circuit that lighted up a tiny glow lamp in the key handle if the lock had been tampered with. None of them had.

He opened the final door, went into his apartment, and locked the door behind him, as he had locked the others. Then he turned on the lights, peeled off his raincoat, and plopped himself into a chair to unwrap the microcryotron stack he had picked up at Harry's.

Theoretically, Harry wasn't supposed to sell the things. They were still difficult to make, and they were supposed to be used only by persons who were authorized to build robot brains, since that's what the stack was--a part of a robot brain. Mike could have put his hands on one legally, provided he'd wanted to wait for six or eight months to clear up the red tape. Actually, the big robotics companies didn't want amateurs fooling around with robots; they'd much rather build the robots themselves and rent them out. They couldn't make do-it-yourself projects impossible, but they could make them difficult.

In a way, there was some good done. So far, the JD's hadn't gone into big-scale robotics. Self-controlled bombs could be rather nasty.

Adult criminals, of course, already had them. But an adult criminal who had the money to invest in robotic components, or went to the trouble to steal them, had something more lucrative in mind than street fights or robbing barrooms. To crack a bank, for instance, took a cleverly constructed, well-designed robot and plenty of ingenuity on the part of the operator.

Mike the Angel didn't want to make bombs or automatic bankrobbers; he just wanted to fiddle with the stack, see what it would do. He turned it over in his hands a couple of times, then shrugged, got up, went over to his closet, and put the thing away. There wasn't anything he could do with it until he'd bought a cryostat--a liquid helium refrigerator. A cryotron functions only at temperatures near absolute zero.

The phone chimed.

Mike went over to it, punched the switch, and said: "Gabriel speaking."

No image formed on the screen. A voice said: "Sorry, wrong number." There was a slight click, and the phone went dead. Mike shrugged and punched the cutoff. Sounded like a woman. He vaguely wished he could have seen her face.

Mike got up and walked back to his easy chair. He had no sooner sat down than the phone chimed again. Damn!

Up again. Back to the phone.

"Gabriel speaking."

Again, no image formed.

"Look, lady," Mike said, "why don't you look up the number you want instead of bothering me?"

Suddenly there was an image. It was the face of an elderly man with a mild, reddish face, white hair, and a cold look in his pale blue eyes. It was Basil Wallingford, the Minister for Spatial Affairs.

He said: "Mike, I wasn't aware that your position was such that you could afford to be rude to a Portfolio of the Earth Government." His voice was flat, without either anger or humor.

"I'm not sure it is, myself," admitted Mike the Angel, "but I do the best I can with the tools I have to work with. I didn't know it was you, Wally. I just had some wrong-number trouble. Sorry."

"Mf.... Well.... I called to tell you that the Branchell is ready for your final inspection. Or will be, that is, in a week."

"My final inspection?" Mike the Angel arched his heavy golden-blond eyebrows. "Hell, Wally, Serge Paulvitch is on the job down there, isn't he? You don't need my okay. If Serge says it's ready to go, it's ready to go. Or is there some kind of trouble you haven't mentioned yet?"

"No; no trouble," said Wallingford. "But the power plant on that ship was built according to your designs--not Mr. Paulvitch's. The Bureau of Space feels that you should give them the final check."

Mike knew when to argue and when not to, and he knew that this was one time when it wouldn't do him the slightest good. "All right," he said resignedly. "I don't like Antarctica and never will, but I guess I can stand it for a few days."

"Fine. One more thing. Do you have a copy of the thrust specifications for Cargo Hold One? Our copy got garbled in transmission, and there seems to be a discrepancy in the figures."

Mike nodded. "Sure. They're in my office. Want me to get them now?"

"Please. I'll hold on."

Mike the Angel barely made it in time. He went to the door that led to his office, opened it, stepped through, and closed it behind him just as the blast went off.

The door shuddered behind Mike, but it didn't give. Mike's apartment was reasonably soundproof, but it wasn't built to take the kind of explosion that would shake the door that Mike the Angel had just closed. It was a two-inch-thick slab of armor steel on heavy, precision-bearing hinges. So was every other door in the suite. It wasn't quite a bank-vault door, but it would do. Any explosion that could shake it was a real doozy.

Mike the Angel spun around and looked at the door. It was just a trifle warped, and faint tendrils of vapor were curling around the edge where the seal had been broken. Mike sniffed, then turned and ran. He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a big roll of electrostatic tape. Then he took a deep breath, went back to the door, and slapped on a strip of the one-inch tape, running it all around the edge of the door. Then he went into the outer office while the air conditioners cleaned out his private office.

He went over to one of the phones near the autofile and punched for the operator. "I had a long-distance call coming in here from the Right Excellent Basil Wallingford, Minister for Spatial Affairs, Capitol City. We were cut off."

"One moment please." A slight pause. "His Excellency is here, Mr. Gabriel."

Wallingford's face came back on the screen. It had lost some of its ruddiness. "What happened?" he asked.

"You tell me, Wally," Mike snapped. "Did you see anything at all?"

"All I saw was that big pane of glass break. It fell into a thousand pieces, and then something exploded and the phone went dead."

"The glass broke first?"

"That's right."

Mike sighed. "Good. I was afraid that maybe someone had planted that bomb, rather than fired it in. I'd hate to think anyone could get into my place without my knowing it."

"Who's gunning for you?"

"I wish I knew. Look, Wally, can you wait until tomorrow for those specs? I want to get hold of the police."

"Certainly. Nothing urgent. It can wait. I'll call you again tomorrow evening." The screen blanked.

Mike glanced at the wall clock and then punched a number on the phone. A pretty girl in a blue uniform came on the screen.

"Police Central," she said. "May I help you?"

"I'd like to speak to Detective Sergeant William Cowder, please," Mike said. "Just tell him that Mr. Gabriel has more problems."

She looked puzzled, but she nodded, and pretty soon her image blanked out. The screen stayed blank, but Sergeant Cowder's voice came over the speaker. "What is it, Mr. Gabriel?"

He was evidently speaking from a pocket phone.

"Attempted murder," said Mike the Angel. "A few minutes ago a bomb was set off in my apartment. I think it was a rocket, and I know it was heavily laced with hydrogen cyanide. That's Suite 5000, Timmins Building, up on 112th Street. I called you because I have a hunch it's connected with the incident at Harry's earlier this evening."

"Timmins Building, eh? I'll be right up."

Cowder cut off with a sharp click, and Mike the Angel looked quizzically at the dead screen. Was he imagining things, or was there a peculiar note in Cowder's voice?

Two minutes later he got his answer.

5

Mike the Angel was sitting behind his desk in his private office when the announcer chimed. Mike narrowed his eyes and turned on his door screen, which connected with an eye in the outer door of the suite. Who could it be this time?

It was Sergeant Cowder.

"You got here fast," said Mike, thumbing the unlocker. "Come on back to my office."

The sergeant came through the outer office while Mike watched him on the screen. Not until the officer finally pushed open the door to Mike's own office did Mike the Angel look up from the screen.

"I repeat," said Mike, "you got here fast."

"I wasn't far away," said Cowder. "Where's the damage?"

Mike jerked a thumb toward the door to his apartment, still sealed with tape. "In there."

"Have you been back in there yet?"

"Nope," said Mike. "I didn't want to disturb anything. I figured maybe your lab boys could tell where the rocket came from."

"What happened?" the cop asked.

Mike told him, omitting nothing except the details of his conversation with Wallingford.

"The way I see it," he finished, "whoever it was phoned me to make sure I was in the room and then went out and fired a rocket at my window."

"What makes you think it was a JD?" Cowder asked.

"Well, Sergeant, if I were going to do the job, I'd put my launcher in some place where I could see that my victim was inside, without having to call him. But if I couldn't do that, I'd aim the launcher and set it to fire by remote control. Then I'd go to the phone, call him, and fire the rocket while he was on the phone. I'd be sure of getting him that way. The way it was done smacks of a kid's trick."

Cowder looked at the door. "Think we can go in there now? The HCN ought to have cleared out by now."

Mike stood up from behind his desk. "I imagine it's pretty clear. I checked the air conditioners; they're still working, and the filters are efficient enough to take care of an awful lot of hydrogen cyanide. Besides, the window is open. But--shouldn't we wait for the lab men?"

Cowder shook his head. "Not necessary. They'll be up in a few minutes, but they'll probably just confirm what we already know. Peel that tape off, will you?"

Mike took his ionizer from the top of the desk, walked over to the door, and began running it over the tape. It fell off and slithered to the floor. As he worked, he said:

"You think you know where the rocket was fired from?"

"Almost positive," said Cowder. "We got a call a few minutes back from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine."

The last of the tape fell off, and Mike opened the door. It didn't work easily, but it did open. The odor of bitter almonds was so faint that it might actually have been imagination.

Cowder pointed out the shattered window at the gray spire of the cathedral. "There's your launching site. We don't know how they got up there, but they managed."

"They?"

"Two of them. When they tried to leave, a couple of priests and two officers of the Cathedral Police spotted them. The kids dropped their launcher and two unfired rockets, and then tried to run for it. Result: one dead kid, one getaway. One of the cops got a bad gash on his arm from a vibroblade, and one of the priests got it in the abdomen. He'll live, but he's in bad shape."

Mike said something under his breath that might have been an oath, except that it avoided all mention of the Deity. Then he added that Name, in a different tone of voice.

"I agree," said Cowder. "You think you know why they did it?"

Mike looked around at his apartment. At first glance it appeared to be a total loss, but closer inspection showed that most of the damage had been restricted to glass and ceramics. The furniture had been tumbled around but not badly damaged. The war head of the rocket had evidently been of the concussion-and-gas type, without much fragmentation.

"I think I know why, yes," Mike said, turning back to the sergeant. "I had a funny feeling all the way home from Harry's. Nothing I could lay my finger on, really. I tried to see if I was being followed, but I didn't spot anyone. There were plenty of kids on the subway.

"It's my guess that the kids knew who I was. If they cased Harry's as thoroughly as it seems they did, they must have seen me go in and out several times. They knew that it was my fault that two of their members got picked up, so they decided to teach me a lesson. One of them must have come up here, even before I left Harry's. The other followed me, just to make sure I was really coming home. Since he knew where I was going, he didn't have to stick too close, so I didn't spot him in the crowd. He might even have gone on up to 116th Street so that I wouldn't see him get off at 110th."

"Sounds reasonable," Cowder agreed. "We know who the kids are. The uniformed squads are rounding up the whole bunch for questioning. They call themselves--you'll get a laugh out of this!--they call themselves the Rocketeers."

"I'm fracturing my funny bone," said Mike the Angel. "The thing that gets me is this revenge business, though. Kids don't usually go that far out for fellow gang members."

"Not usually," the sergeant said, "but this is a little different. The girl you caught and the boy who got killed over at the cathedral are brother and sister."

"That explains it," Mike said. "Rough family, eh?"

Sergeant Cowder shook his head. "Not really. The parents are respectable and fairly well off. Larchmont's the name. The kids are Susan and Herbert--Sue and Bert to you. Bert's sixteen, Sue's seventeen. They were pretty thick, I gather: real brother and sister team."

"Good family, bad kids," Mike muttered. He had wandered over to the wall to look at his Dali. It had fallen to the floor, but it wasn't hurt. The Valois was bent, but it could be fixed up easily enough.

"I wonder," Mike said, picking up the head of a smashed figurine and looking at it. "I wonder if the so-called sociologists have any explanation for it?"

"Sure," Cowder said. "Same one they've been giving for more decades than I'd care to think of. The mother was married before. Divorced her husband, married Larchmont. But she had a boy by her first husband."

"Broken home and sibling rivalry? Pfui! And if it wasn't that, the sociologists would find another excuse," Mike said angrily.

"Funny thing is that the older half brother was a perfectly respectable kid. Made good grades in school, joined the Space Service, has a perfectly clean record. And yet he was the product of the broken home, not the two younger kids."

Mike laughed dryly. "That ought to be food for high sociological thought."

The door announcer chimed again, and Cowder said: "That's probably the lab boys. I told them to come over here as soon as they could finish up at the cathedral."

Mike checked his screen and when Cowder identified the men at the door, Mike let them in.

The short, chubby man in the lead, who was introduced as Perkins, spoke to Sergeant Cowder first. "We checked one of those rockets. Almost a professional job. TNT war head, surrounded by a jacket filled with liquid HCN and a phosphate inhibitor to prevent polymerization. Nasty things." He swung round to Mike. "You're lucky you weren't in the room, or you'd just be part of the wreckage, Mr. Gabriel."

"I know," said Mike the Angel. "Well, the room's all yours. It probably won't tell you much."

"Probably not," said Perkins, "but we'll see. Come on, boys."

Mike the Angel tapped Cowder on the shoulder. "I'd like to talk to you for a minute."

Cowder nodded, and Mike led the way back into his private office. He opened his desk drawer and took out the little pack that housed the workings of the vibroblade shield.

"That accident you were talking about, Sergeant--the one that made those vibroblades blow, remember? I got to thinking that maybe this could have caused it. I think that with a little more power, it might even vaporize a high-speed bullet. But I'd advise you to wear asbestos clothing."

Cowder took the thing and looked at it. "Thanks, Mr. Gabriel," he said honestly. "Maybe the kids will go on to using something else if vibroblades don't work, but I think I'd prefer a rocket in the head to being carved by a vibro."

"To be honest," Mike said, "I think the vibro is just a fad among the JD's now, anyway. You know--if you're one of the real biggies, you carry a vibro. A year from now, it might be shock guns, but right now you're chicken if you carry anything but a vibroblade."

Cowder dropped the shield generator into his coat pocket. "Thanks again, Mr. Gabriel. We'll do you a favor sometime."

6

The firm of M. R. GABRIEL, POWER DESIGN was not a giant corporation, but it did pretty well for a one-man show. The outer office was a gantlet that Mike the Angel had to run when he came in the next morning after having spent the night at a hotel. There was a mixed and ragged chorus of "Good morning, Mr. Gabriel" as he passed through. Mike gave the nod to each of them and was stopped four times for small details before he finally made his way to his own office.

His secretary was waiting for him. She was short, bony, and plain of face. She had a figure like an ironing board and the soul of a Ramsden calculator. Mike the Angel liked her that way; it avoided complications.

"Good morning, Mr. Gabriel," she said. "What the hell happened here?" She waved at the warped door and the ribbons of electrostatic tape that still lay in curls on the floor.

Mike told her, and she listened to his recitation without any change of expression. "I'm very glad you weren't hurt," she said when he had finished. "What are you going to do about the apartment?"

Mike opened the heavy door and looked at the wreckage inside. Through the gaping hole of the shattered window, he could see the towering spires of the two-hundred-year-old Cathedral of St. John the Divine. "Get Larry Beasley on the phone, Helen. I've forgotten his number, but you'll find him listed under 'Interior Decorators.' He has the original plans and designs on file. Tell him to get them out; I want this place fixed up just like it was."

"But what if someone else...." She gestured toward the broken window and the cathedral spires beyond.

"When you're through talking to Beasley," Mike went on, "see if you can get Bishop Brennan on the phone and switch him to my desk."

"Yes, sir," she said.

Within two hours workmen were busily cleaning up the wreckage in Mike the Angel's apartment, and the round, plump figure of Larry Beasley was walking around pompously while his artistic but businesslike brain made estimates. Mike had also reached an agreement with the bishop whereby special vaultlike doors would be fitted into the stairwells leading up to the towers at Mike's expense. They were to have facings of bronze so that they could be decorated to blend with the Gothic decor of the church, but the bronze would be backed by heavy steel. Nobody would blow those down in a hurry.

Since the wrecked living room was a flurry of activity and his office had become a thoroughfare, Mike the Angel retired to his bedroom to think. He took with him the microcryotron stack he had picked up at Old Harry's the night before.

"For something that doesn't look like much," he said aloud to the stack, "you have caused me a hell of a lot of trouble."

Old Harry, he knew, wouldn't be caught dead selling the things. In the first place, it was strictly illegal to deal in the components of robotic brains. In the second place, they were so difficult to get, even on the black market, that the few that came into Old Harry's hands went into the defenses of his own shop. Mike the Angel had only wanted to borrow one to take a good look at it. He had read up on all the literature about microcryotrons, but he'd never actually seen one before.

He had reason to be curious about microcryotrons. There was something definitely screwy going on in Antarctica.

Nearly two years before, the UN Government, in the person of Minister Wallingford himself, had asked Mike's firm--which meant Mike the Angel himself--to design the power drive and the thrust converters for a spaceship. On the face of it, there was nothing at all unusual in that. Such jobs were routine for M. R. Gabriel.

But when the specifications arrived, Mike the Angel had begun to wonder what the devil was going on. The spaceship William Branchell was to be built on the surface of Earth--and yet it was to be a much larger ship than any that had ever before been built on the ground. Usually, an interstellar vessel that large was built in orbit around the Earth, where the designers didn't have to worry about gravitational pull. Such a ship never landed, any more than an ocean liner was ever beached--not on purpose, anyway. The passengers and cargo were taken up by smaller vessels and brought down the same way when the liner arrived at her destination.

Aside from the tremendous energy required to lift such a vessel free of a planet's surface, there was also the magnetic field of the planet to consider. The drive tubes tended to wander and become erratic if they were forced to cut through the magnetic field of a planet.

Therefore, Question One: Why wasn't the Branchell being built in space?

Part of the answer, Mike knew, lay in the specifications for the construction of Cargo Hold One. For one thing, it was huge. For another, it was heavily insulated. For a third, it was built like a tank for holding liquids. All very well and good; possibly someone wanted to carry a cargo of cold lemonade or iced tea. That would be pretty stupid, maybe, but it wouldn't be mysterious.

The mystery lay in the fact that Cargo Hold One had already been built. The Branchell was to be built around it! And that didn't exactly jibe with Mike the Angel's ideas of the proper way to build a spaceship. It was not quite the same as building a seagoing vessel around an oil tank in the middle of Texas, but it was close enough to bother Mike the Angel.

Therefore, Question Two: Why was the Branchell being built around Cargo Hold One?

Which led to Question Three: What was in Cargo Hold One?

For the answer to that question, he had one very good hint. The density of the contents of Cargo Hold One was listed in the specs as being one-point-seven-two-six grams per cubic centimeter. And that, Mike happened to know, was the density of a cryotronic brain, which is 90 per cent liquid helium and 10 per cent tantalum and niobium, by volume.

He looked at the microcryotron stack in his hand. It was a one-hundred-kilounit stack. The possible connections within it were factorial one hundred thousand. All it needed was to be immersed in its bath of liquid helium to make the metals superconducting, and it would be ready to go to work.

A friend of his who worked for Computer Corporation of Earth had built a robot once, using just such a stack. The robot was designed to play poker. He had fed in all the rules of play and added all the data from Oesterveldt's On Poker. It took Mike the Angel exactly one hour to figure out how to beat it.

As long as Mike played rationally, the machine had a slight edge, since it had a perfect memory and could compute faster than Mike could. But it would not, could not learn how to bluff. As soon as Mike started bluffing, the robot went into a tizzy.

It wouldn't have been so bad if the robot had known nothing whatever about bluffing. That would have made it easy for Mike. All he'd have had to do was keep on feeding in chips until the robot folded.

But the robot did know about bluffing. The trouble is that bluffing is essentially illogical, and the robot had no rules whatsoever to go by to judge whether Mike was bluffing or not. It finally decided to make its decisions by chance, judging by Mike's past performance at bluffing. When it did, Mike quit bluffing and cleaned it out fast.

That caused such utter confusion in the random circuits that Mike's friend had had to spend a week cleaning up the robot's little mind.

But what would be the purpose of building a brain as gigantic as the one in Cargo Hold One? And why build a spaceship around it?

Like a pig roasting on an automatic spit, the problem kept turning over and over in Mike's mind. And, like the roasting pig, the time eventually came when it was done.

Once it is set in operation, a properly operating robot brain can neither be shut off nor dismantled. Not, that is, unless you want to lose all of the data and processes you've fed into it.

Now, suppose the Computer Corporation of Earth had built a giant-sized brain. (Never mind why--just suppose.) And suppose they wanted to take it off Earth, but didn't want to lose all the data that had been pumped into it. (Again, never mind why--just suppose.)

Very well, then. If such a brain had been built, and if it was necessary to take it off Earth, and if the data in it was so precious that the brain could not be shut off or dismantled, then the thing to do would be to build a ship around it.

Oh yeah?

Mike the Angel stared at the microcryotron stack and asked:

"Now, tell me, pal, just why would anyone want a brain that big? And what is so blasted important about it?"

The stack said not a word.

The phone chimed. Mike the Angel thumbed the switch, and his secretary's face appeared on the screen. "Minister Wallingford is on the line, Mr. Gabriel."

"Put him on," said Mike the Angel.

Basil Wallingford's ruddy face came on. "I see you're still alive," he said. "What in the bloody blazes happened last night?"

Mike sighed and told him. "In other words," he ended up, "just the usual sort of JD stuff we have to put up with these days. Nothing new, and nothing to worry about."

"You almost got killed," Wallingford pointed out.

"A miss is as good as a mile," Mike said with cheerful inanity. "Thanks to your phone call, I was as safe as if I'd been in my own home," he added with utter illogic.

"You can afford to laugh," Wallingford said grimly. "I can't. I've already lost one man."

Mike's grin vanished. "What do you mean? Who?"

"Oh, nobody's killed," Wallingford said quickly. "I didn't mean that. But Jack Wong turned his car over yesterday at a hundred and seventy miles an hour, and he's laid up with a fractured leg and a badly dislocated arm."

"Too bad," said Mike. "One of these days that fool will kill himself racing." He knew Wong and liked him. They had served together in the Space Service when Mike was on active duty.

"I hope not," Wallingford said. "Anyway--the matter I called you on last night. Can you get those specs for me?"

"Sure, Wally. Hold on." He punched the hold button and rang for his secretary as Wallingford's face vanished. When the girl's face came on, he said: "Helen, get me the cargo specs on the William Branchell--Section Twelve, pages 66 to 74."

The discussion, after Helen had brought the papers, lasted less than five minutes. It was merely a matter of straightening out some cost estimates--but since it had to do with the Branchell, and specifically with Hold Number One, Mike decided he'd ask a question.

"Wally, tell me--what in the hell is going on down there at Chilblains Base?"

"They're building a spaceship," said Wallingford in a flat voice.

It was Wallingford's way of saying he wasn't going to answer any questions, but Mike the Angel ignored the hint. "I'd sort of gathered that," he said dryly. "But what I want to know is: Why is it being built around a cryotronic brain, the like of which I have never heard before?"

Basil Wallingford's eyes widened, and he just stared for a full two seconds. "And just how did you come across that information, Golden Wings?" he finally asked.

"It's right here in the specs," said Mike the Angel, tapping the sheaf of papers.

"Ridiculous." Wallingford's voice seemed toneless.

Mike decided he was in too deep now to back out. "It certainly is, Wally. It couldn't be hidden. To compute the thrust stresses, I had to know the density of the contents of Cargo Hold One. And here it is: 1.726 gm/cm2. Nothing else that I know of has that exact density."

Wallingford pursed his lips. "Dear me," he said after a moment. "I keep forgetting you're too bright for your own good." Then a slow smile spread over his face. "Would you really like to know?"

"I wouldn't have asked otherwise," Mike said.

"Fine. Because you're just the man we need."

Mike the Angel could almost feel the knife blade sliding between his ribs, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that the person who had stabbed him in the back was himself. "What's that supposed to mean, Wally?"

"You are, I believe, an officer in the Space Service Reserve," said Basil Wallingford in a smooth, too oily voice. "Since the Engineering Officer of the Branchell, Jack Wong, is laid up in a hospital, I'm going to call you to active duty to replace him."

Mike the Angel felt that ghostly knife twist--hard.

"That's silly," he said. "I haven't been a ship's officer for five years."

"You're the man who designed the power plant," Wallingford said sweetly. "If you don't know how to run her, nobody does."

"My time per hour is worth a great deal," Mike pointed out.

"The rate of pay for a Space Service officer," Basil Wallingford said pleasantly, "is fixed by law."

"I can fight being called back to duty--and I'll win," said Mike. He didn't know how long he could play this game, but it was fun.

"True," said Wallingford. "You can. I admit it. But you've been wondering what the hell that ship is being built for. You'd give your left arm to find out. I know you, Golden Wings, and I know how that mind of yours works. And I tell you this: Unless you take this job, you'll never find out why the Branchell was built." He leaned forward, and his face loomed large in the screen. "And I mean absolutely never."

For several seconds Mike the Angel said nothing. His classically handsome face was like that of some Grecian god contemplating the Universe, or an archangel contemplating Eternity. Then he gave Basil Wallingford the benefit of his full, radiant smile.

"I capitulate," he said.

Wallingford refused to look impressed. "Damn right you do," he said--and cut the circuit.

7

Two days later Mike the Angel was sitting at his desk making certain that M. R. GABRIEL, POWER DESIGN would function smoothly while he was gone. Serge Paulvitch, his chief designer, could handle almost everything.

Paulvitch had once said, "Mike, the hell of working for a first-class genius is that a second-class genius doesn't have a chance."

"You could start your own firm," Mike had said levelly. "I'll back you, Serge; you know that."

Serge Paulvitch had looked astonished. "Me? You think I'm crazy? Right now, I'm a second-class genius working for a first-class outfit. You think I want to be a second-class genius working for a second-class outfit? Not on your life!"

Paulvitch could easily handle the firm for a few weeks.

Helen's face came on the phone. "There's a Captain Sir Henry Quill on the phone, Mr. Gabriel. Do you wish to speak to him?"

"Black Bart?" said Mike. "I wonder what he wants."

"Bart?" She looked puzzled. "He said his name was Henry."

Mike grinned. "He always signs his name: Captain Sir Henry Quill, Bart. And since he's the toughest old martinet this side of the Pleiades, the 'Black' part just comes naturally. I served under him seven years ago. Put him on."

In half a second the grim face of Captain Quill was on the screen.

He was as bald as an egg. What little hair he did have left was meticulously shaved off every morning. He more than made up for his lack of cranial growth, however, by his great, shaggy, bristly brows, black as jet and firmly anchored to jutting supraorbital ridges. Any other man would have been proud to wear them as mustaches.

"What can I do for you, Captain?" Mike asked, using the proper tone of voice prescribed for the genial businessman.

"You can go out and buy yourself a new uniform," Quill growled. "Your old one isn't regulation any more."

Well, not exactly growled. If he'd had the voice for it, it would have been a growl, but the closest he could come to a growl was an Irish tenor rumble with undertones of gravel. He stood five-eight, and his red and gold Space Service uniform gleamed with spit-and-polish luster. With his cap off, his bald head looked as though it, too, had been polished.

Mike looked at him thoughtfully. "I see. So you're commanding the mystery tub, eh?" he said at last.

"That's right," said the captain. "And don't go asking me a bunch of blasted questions. I've got no more idea of what the bloody thing's about than you--maybe not as much. I understand you designed her power plant...?"

He let it hang. If not exactly a leading question, it was certainly a hinting statement.

Mike shook his head. "I don't know anything, Captain. Honestly I don't."

If Space Service regulations had allowed it, Captain Sir Henry Quill, Bart., would have worn a walrus mustache. And if he'd had such a mustache, he would have whuffled it then. As it was, he just blew out air, and nothing whuffled.

"You and I are the only ones in the dark, then," he said. "The rest of the crew is being picked from Chilblains Base. Pete Jeffers is First Officer, in case you're wondering."

"Oh, great," Mike the Angel said with a moan. "That means we'll be going in cold on an untried ship."

Like Birnam Wood advancing on Dunsinane, Quill's eyebrows moved upward. "Don't you trust your own designing?"

"As much as you do," said Mike the Angel. "Probably more."

Quill nodded. "We'll have to make the best of it. We'll muddle through somehow. Are you all ready to go?"

"No," Mike admitted, "but I don't see that I can do a damn thing about that."

"Nor do I," said Captain Quill. "Be at Chilblains Base in twenty-four hours. Arrangements will be made at the Long Island Base for your transportation to Antarctica. And"--he paused and his scowl became deeper--"you'd best get used to calling me 'sir' again."

"Yessir, Sir Henry, sir."

"Thank you, Mister Gabriel," snapped Quill, cutting the circuit.

"Selah," said Mike the Angel.

* * * * *

Chilblains Base, Antarctica, was directly over the South Magnetic Pole--at least, as closely as that often elusive spot could be pinpointed for any length of time. It is cheaper in the long run if an interstellar vessel moves parallel with, not perpendicular to, the magnetic "lines of force" of a planet's gravitational field. Taking off "across the grain" can be done, but the power consumption is much greater. Taking off "with the grain" is expensive enough.

An ion rocket doesn't much care where it lifts or sets down, since its method of propulsion isn't trying to work against the fabric of space itself. For that reason, an interstellar vessel is normally built in space and stays there, using ion rockets for loading and unloading its passengers. It's cheaper by far.

The Computer Corporation of Earth had also been thinking of expenses when it built its Number One Research Station near Chilblains Base, although the corporation was not aware at the time just how much money it was eventually going to save them.

The original reason had simply been lower power costs. A cryotron unit has to be immersed at all times in a bath of liquid helium at a temperature of four-point-two degrees absolute. It is obviously much easier--and much cheaper--to keep several thousand gallons of helium at that temperature if the surrounding temperature is at two hundred thirty-three absolute than if it is up around two hundred ninety or three hundred. That may not seem like much percentagewise, but it comes out to a substantial saving in the long run.

But, power consumption or no, when C.C. of E. found that Snookums either had to be moved or destroyed, it was mightily pleased that it had built Prime Station near Chilblains Base. Since a great deal of expense also, of necessity, devolved upon Earth Government, the government was, to say it modestly, equally pleased. There was enough expense as it was.

The scenery at Chilblains Base--so named by a wiseacre American navy man back in the twentieth century--was nothing to brag about. Thousands of square miles of powdered ice that has had nothing to do but blow around for twenty million years is not at all inspiring after the first few minutes unless one is obsessed by the morbid beauty of cold death.

Mike the Angel was not so obsessed. To him, the area surrounding Chilblains Base was just so much white hell, and his analysis was perfectly correct. Mike wished that it had been January, midsummer in the Antarctic, so there would have been at least a little dim sunshine. Mike the Angel did not particularly relish having to visit the South Pole in midwinter.

The rocket that had lifted Mike the Angel from Long Island Base settled itself into the snow-covered landing stage of Chilblains Base, dissipating the crystalline whiteness into steam as it did so. The steam, blown away by the chill winds, moved all of thirty yards before it became ice again.

Mike the Angel was not in the best of moods. Having to dump all of his business into Serge Paulvitch's hands on twenty-four hours' notice was irritating. He knew Paulvitch could handle the job, but it wasn't fair to him to make him take over so suddenly.

In addition, Mike did not like the way the whole Branchell business was being handled. It seemed slipshod and hurried, and, worse, it was entirely too mysterious and melodramatic.

"Of all the times to have to come to Antarctica," he grumped as the door of the rocket opened, "why did I have to get July?"

The pilot, a young man in his early twenties, said smugly: "July is bad, but January isn't good--just not so worse."

Mike the Angel glowered. "Sonny, I was a cadet here when you were learning arithmetic. It hasn't changed since, summer or winter."

"Sorry, sir," said the pilot stiffly.

"So am I," said Mike the Angel cryptically. "Thanks for the ride."

He pushed open the outer door, pulled his electroparka closer around him, and stalked off across the walk, through the lashing of the sleety wind.

He didn't have far to walk--a hundred yards or so--but it was a good thing that the walk was protected and well within the boundary of Chilblains Base instead of being out on the Wastelands. Here there were lights, and the Hotbed equipment of the walk warmed the swirling ice particles into a sleety rain. On the Wastelands, the utter blackness and the wind-driven snow would have swallowed him permanently within ten paces.

He stepped across a curtain of hot air that blew up from a narrow slit in the deck and found himself in the main foyer of Chilblains Base.

The entrance looked like the entrance to a theater--a big metal and plastic opening, like a huge room open on one side, with only that sheet of hot air to protect it from the storm raging outside. The lights and the small doors leading into the building added to the impression that this was a theater, not a military base.

But the man who was standing near one of the doors was not by a long shot dressed as an usher. He wore a sergeant's stripes on his regulation Space Service parka, which muffled him to the nose, and he came over to Mike the Angel and said: "Commander Gabriel?"

Mike the Angel nodded as he shook icy drops from his gloved hands, then fished in his belt pocket for his newly printed ID card.

He handed it to the sergeant, who looked it over, peered at Mike's face, and saluted. As Mike returned the salute the sergeant said: "Okay, sir; you can go on in. The security office is past the double door, first corridor on your right."

Mike the Angel tried his best not to look surprised. "Security office? Is there a war on or something? What does Chilblains need with a security office?"

The sergeant shrugged. "Don't ask me, Commander; I just slave away here. Maybe Lieutenant Nariaki knows something, but I sure don't."

"Thanks, Sergeant."

Mike the Angel went inside, through two insulated and tightly weather-stripped doors, one right after another, like the air lock on a spaceship. Once inside the warmth of the corridor, he unzipped his electroparka, shut off the power, and pushed back the hood with its fogproof faceplate.

Down the hall, Mike could see an office marked security officer in small letters without capitals. He walked toward it. There was another guard at the door who had to see Mike's ID card before Mike was allowed in.

Lieutenant Tokugawa Nariaki was an average-sized, sleepy-looking individual with a balding crew cut and a morose expression.

He looked up from his desk as Mike came in, and a hopeful smile tried to spread itself across his face. "If you are Commander Gabriel," he said softly, "watch yourself. I may suddenly kiss you out of sheer relief."

"Restrain yourself, then," said Mike the Angel, "because I'm Gabriel."

Nariaki's smile became genuine. "So! Good! The phone has been screaming at me every half hour for the past five hours. Captain Sir Henry Quill wants you."

"He would," Mike said. "How do I get to him?"

"You don't just yet," said Nariaki, raising a long, bony, tapering hand. "There are a few formalities which our guests have to go through."

"Such as?"

"Such as fingerprint and retinal patterns," said Lieutenant Nariaki.

Mike cast his eyes to Heaven in silent appeal, then looked back at the lieutenant. "Lieutenant, what is going on here? There hasn't been a security officer in the Space Service for thirty years or more. What am I suspected of? Spying for the corrupt and evil alien beings of Diomega Orionis IX?"

Nariaki's oriental face became morose again. "For all I know, you are. Who knows what's going on around here?" He got up from behind his desk and led Mike the Angel over to the fingerprinting machine. "Put your hands in here, Commander ... that's it."

He pushed a button, and, while the machine hummed, he said: "Mine is an antiquated position, I'll admit. I don't like it any more than you do. Next thing, they'll put me to work polishing chain-mail armor or make me commander of a company of musketeers. Or maybe they'll send me to the 18th Outer Mongolian Yak Artillery."

Mike looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Lieutenant, do you actually mean that you really don't know what's going on here, or are you just dummying up?"

Nariaki looked at Mike, and for the first time, his face took on the traditional blank, emotionless look of the "placid Orient." He paused for long seconds, then said:

"Some of both, Commander. But don't let it worry you. I assure you that within the next hour you'll know more about Project Brainchild than I've been able to find out in two years.... Now put your face in here and keep your eyes open. When you can see the target spot, focus on it and tell me."

Mike the Angel put his face in the rest for the retinal photos. The soft foam rubber adjusted around his face, and he was looking into blackness. He focused his eyes on the dim target circle and waited for his eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness.

The Security Officer's voice continued. "All I do is make sure that no unauthorized person comes into Chilblains Base. Other than that, I have nothing but personal guesses and little trickles of confusing information, neither of which am I at liberty to discuss."

Mike's irises had dilated to the point that he could see the dim dot in the center of the target circle, glowing like a dimly visible star. "Shoot," he said.

There was a dazzling glare of light. Mike pulled his face out of the padded opening and blinked away the colored after-images.

Lieutenant Nariaki was comparing the fresh fingerprints with the set he had had on file. "Well," he said, "you have Commander Gabriel's hands, anyway. If you have his eyes, I'll have to concede that the rest of the body belongs to him, too."

"How about my soul?" Mike asked dryly.

"Not my province, Commander," Nariaki said as he pulled the retinal photos out of the machine. "Maybe one of the chaplains would know."

"If this sort of thing is going on all over Chilblains," said Mike the Angel, "I imagine the Office of Chaplains is doing a booming business in TS cards."

The lieutenant put the retinal photos in the comparator, took a good look, and nodded. "You're you," he said. "Give me your ID card."

Mike handed it over, and Nariaki fed it through a printer which stamped a complex seal in the upper left-hand corner of the card. The lieutenant signed his name across the seal and handed the card back to Mike.

"That's it," he said. "You can--"

He was interrupted by the chiming of the phone.

"Just a second, Commander," he said as he thumbed the phone switch.

Mike was out of range of the TV pickup, and he couldn't see the face on the screen, but the voice was so easy to recognize that he didn't need to see the man.

"Hasn't that triply bedamned rocket landed yet, Lieutenant? Where is Commander Gabriel?"

Mike knew that Black Bart had already checked on the landing of the latest rocket; the question was rhetorical.

Mike grinned. "Tell the old tyrant," he said firmly, "that I'll be along as soon as the Security Officer is through with me."

Nariaki's expression didn't change. "You're through now, Commander, and--"

"Tell that imitation Apollo to hop it over here fast!" said Quill sharply. "I'll give him a lesson in tyranny."

There was a click as the intercom shut off.

Nariaki looked at Mike the Angel and shook his head slowly. "Either you're working your way toward a court-martial or else you know where Black Bart has the body buried."

"I should," said Mike cryptically. "I helped him bury it. How do I get to His Despotic Majesty's realm?"

Nariaki considered. "It'll take you five or six minutes. Take the tubeway to Stage Twelve. Go up the stairway to the surface and take the first corridor to the left. That'll take you to the loading dock for that stage. It's an open foyer like the one at the landing field, so you'll have to put your parka back on. Go down the stairs on the other side, and you'll be in Area K. One of the guards will tell you where to go from there. Of course, you could go by tube, but it would take longer because of the by-pass."

"Good enough. I'll take the short cut. See you. And thanks."

8

The underground tubeway shot Mike the Angel across five miles of track at high speed. Mike left the car at Stage Twelve and headed up the stairway and down the corridor to a heavy double door marked freight loading.

He put on his parka and went through the door. The foyer was empty, and, like the one at the rocket landing, protected from the Antarctic blast only by a curtain of hot air. Outside that curtain, the light seemed to lose itself in the darkness of the bleak, snow-filled Wastelands. Mike ignored the snowscape and headed across the empty foyer to the door marked entrance.

"With a small e," Mike muttered to himself. "I wonder if the sign painter ran out of full caps."

He was five feet from the door when he heard the yell.

"Help!"

That was all. Just the one word.

Mike the Angel came to a dead halt and spun around.

The foyer was a large room, about fifty by fifty feet in area and nearly twenty feet high. And it was quite obviously empty. On the open side, the sheet of hissing hot air was doing its best to shield the room from the sixty-below-zero blizzard outside. Opposite the air curtain was a huge sliding door, closed at the moment, which probably led to a freight elevator. There were only two other doors leading from the foyer, and both of them were closed. And Mike knew that no voice could come through those insulated doors.

"Help!"

Mike the Angel swung toward the air curtain. This time there was no doubt. Someone was out in that howling ice-cloud, screaming for help!

Mike saw the figure--dimly, fleetingly, obscured most of the time by the driving whiteness. Whoever it was looked as if he were buried to the waist in snow.

Mike made a quick estimate. It was dark out there, but he could see the figure; therefore he would be able to see the foyer lights. He wouldn't get lost. Snapping down the faceplate of his parka hood, he ran through the protective updraft of the air curtain and charged into the deadly chill of the Antarctic blizzard.

In spite of the electroparka he was wearing, the going was difficult. The snow tended to plaster itself against his faceplate, and the wind kept trying to take him off his feet. He wiped a gloved hand across the faceplate. Ahead, he could still see the figure waving its arms. Mike slogged on.

At sixty below, frozen H_{2}O isn't slushy, by any means; it isn't even slippery. It's more like fine sand than anything else. Mike the Angel figured he had about thirty feet to go, but after he'd taken eight steps, the arm-waving figure looked as far off as when he'd started.

Mike stopped and flipped up his faceplate. It felt as though someone had thrown a handful of razor blades into his face. He winced and yelled, "What's the trouble?" Then he snapped the plate back into position.

"I'm cold!" came the clear, contralto voice through the howling wind.

A woman! thought Mike. "I'm coming!" he bellowed, pushing on. Ten more steps.

He stopped again. He couldn't see anyone or anything.

He flipped up his faceplate. "Hey!"

No answer.

"Hey!" he called again.

And still there was no answer.

Around Mike the Angel, there was nothing but the swirling, blinding snow, the screaming, tearing wind, and the blackness of the Antarctic night.

There was something damned odd going on here. Carefully putting the toe of his right foot to the rear of the heel of his left, he executed a one-hundred-eighty-degree military about-face.

And breathed a sigh of relief.

He could still see the lights of the foyer. He had half suspected that someone was trying to trap him out here, and they might have turned off the lights.

He swiveled his head around for one last look. He still couldn't see a sign of anyone. There was nothing he could do but head back and report the incident. He started slogging back through the gritty snow.

He stepped through the hot-air curtain and flipped up his faceplate.

"Why did you go out in the blizzard?" said a clear, contralto voice directly behind him.

Mike swung around angrily. "Look, lady, I--"

He stopped.

The lady was no lady.

A few feet away stood a machine. Vaguely humanoid in shape from the waist up, it was built more like a miniature military tank from the waist down. It had a pair of black sockets in its head, which Mike took to be TV cameras of some kind. It had grillwork on either side of its head, which probably covered microphones, and another grillwork where the mouth should be. There was no nose.

"What the hell?" asked Mike the Angel of no one in particular.

"I'm Snookums," said the robot.

"Sure you are," said Mike the Angel, backing uneasily toward the door. "You're Snookums. I couldn't fail not to disagree with you less."

Mike the Angel didn't particularly like being frightened, but he had never found it a disabling emotion, so he could put up with it if he had to. But, given his choice, he would have much preferred to be afraid of something a little less unpredictable, something he knew a little more about. Something comfortable, like, say, a Bengal tiger or a Kodiak bear.

"But I really am Snookums," reiterated the clear voice.

Mike's brain was functioning in high gear with overdrive added and the accelerator floor-boarded. He'd been lured out onto the Wastelands by this machine--it most definitely could be dangerous.

The robot was obviously a remote-control device. The arms and hands were of the waldo type used to handle radioactive materials in a hot lab--four jointed fingers and an opposed thumb, metal duplicates of the human hand.

But who was on the other end? Who was driving the machine? Who was saying those inane things over the speaker that served the robot as a mouth? It was certainly a woman's voice.

Mike was still moving backward, toward the door. The machine that called itself Snookums wasn't moving toward him, which was some consolation, but not much. The thing could obviously move faster on those treads than Mike could on his feet. Especially since Mike was moving backward.

"Would you mind explaining what this is all about, miss?" asked Mike the Angel. He didn't expect an explanation; he was stalling for time.

"I am not a 'miss,'" said the robot. "I am Snookums."

"Whatever you are, then," said Mike, "would you mind explaining?"

"No," said Snookums, "I wouldn't mind."

Mike's fingers, groping behind him, touched the door handle. But before he could grasp it, it turned, and the door opened behind him. It hit him full in the back, and he stumbled forward a couple of steps before regaining his balance.

A clear contralto voice said: "Oh! I'm so sorry!"

It was the same voice as the robot's!

Mike the Angel swung around to face the second robot.

This time it was a lady.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. She was all wrapped up in an electroparka, but there was no mistaking the fact that she was both human and feminine. She came on through the door and looked at the robot. "Snookums! What are you doing here?"

"I was trying an experiment, Leda," said Snookums. "This man was just asking me about it. I just wanted to see if he would come if I called 'help.' He did, and I want to know why he did."

The girl flashed a look at Mike. "Would you please tell Snookums why you went out there? Please--don't be angry or anything--just tell him."

Mike was beginning to get the picture. "I went because I thought I heard a human being calling for help--and it sounded suspiciously like a woman."

"Oh," said Snookums, sounding a little downhearted--if a robot can be said to have a heart. "The reaction was based, then, upon a misconception. That makes the data invalid. I'll have to try again."

"That won't be necessary, Snookums," the girl said firmly. "This man went out there because he thought a human life was in danger. He would not have done it if he had known it was you, because he would have known that you were not in any danger. You can stand much lower temperatures than a human being can, you know." She turned to Mike. "Am I correct in saying that you wouldn't have gone out there if you'd known Snookums was a robot?"

"Absolutely correct," said Mike the Angel fervently.

She looked back at Snookums. "Don't try that experiment again. It is dangerous for a human to go out there, even with an electroparka. You might run the risk of endangering human life."

"Oh dear!" said Snookums. "I'm sorry, Leda!" There was real anxiety in the voice.

"That's all right, honey," the girl said hurriedly. "This man isn't hurt, so don't get upset. Come along now, and we'll go back to the lab. You shouldn't come out like this without permission."

Mike had noticed that the girl had kept one hand on her belt all the time she was talking--and that her thumb was holding down a small button on a case attached to the belt.

He had been wondering why, but he didn't have to wonder long.

The door behind him opened again, and four men came out, obviously in a devil of a hurry. Each one of them was wearing a brassard labeled SECURITY POLICE.

At least, thought Mike the Angel as he turned to look them over, the brassards aren't in all lower-case italics.

One of them jerked a thumb at Mike. "This the guy, Miss Crannon?"

The girl nodded. "That's him. He saw Snookums. Take care of him." She looked again at Mike. "I'm terribly sorry, really I am. But there's no help for it." Then, without another word, she opened the door and went back inside, and the robot rolled in after her.

As the door closed behind her, the SP man nearest Mike, a tough-looking bozo wearing an ensign's insignia, said: "Let's see your identification."

Mike realized that his own parka had no insignia of rank on it, but he didn't like the SP man's tone.

"Come on!" snapped the ensign. "Who are you?"

Mike the Angel pulled out his ID card and handed it to the security cop. "It tells right there who I am," he said. "That is, if you can read."

The man glared and jerked the card out of Mike's hand, but when he saw the emblem that Lieutenant Nariaki had stamped on it, his eyes widened. He looked up at Mike. "I'm sorry, sir; I didn't mean--"

"That tears it," interrupted Mike. "That absolutely tears it. In the past three minutes I have been apologized to by a woman, a robot, and a cop. The next thing, a penguin will walk in here, tip his top hat, and abase himself while he mutters obsequiously in penguinese. Just what the devil is going on around this place?"

The four SP men were trying hard not to fidget.

"Just security precautions, sir," said the ensign uncomfortably. "Nobody but those connected with Project Brainchild are supposed to know about Snookums. If anyone else finds out, we're supposed to take them into protective custody."

"I'll bet you're widely loved for that," said Mike. "I suppose the gadget at Miss What's-her-name's belt was an alarm to warn you of impending disaster?"

"Miss Crannon.... Yes, sir. Everybody on the project carries those around. Also, Miss Crannon carries a detector for following Snookums around. She's sort of his keeper, you know."

"No," said Mike the Angel, "I do not know. But I intend to find out. I'm looking for Captain Quill; where is he?"

The four men looked at each other, then looked back at Mike.

"I don't know, Commander," said the ensign. "I understand that several new men have come in today, but I don't know all of them. You'd better talk to Dr. Fitzhugh."

"Such are the beauties of security," said Mike the Angel. "Where can I find this Dr. Fitzhugh?"

The security man looked at his wrist watch. "He's down in the cafeteria now, sir. It's coffee time, and Doc Fitzhugh is as regular as a satellite orbit."

"I'm glad you didn't say 'clockwork,'" Mike told him. "I've had enough dealings with machines today. Where is this coffee haven?"

The ensign gave directions for reaching the cafeteria, and Mike pushed open the door marked entrance. He had to pass through another inner door guarded by another pair of SP men who checked his ID card again, then he had to ramble through hallways that went off at queer angles to each other, but he finally found the cafeteria.

He nabbed the first passer-by and asked him to point out Dr. Fitzhugh. The passer-by was obliging; he indicated a smallish, elderly man who was sitting by himself at one of the tables.

Mike made his way through the tray-carrying hordes that were milling about, and finally ended up at the table where the smallish man was sitting.

"Dr. Fitzhugh?" Mike offered his hand. "I'm Commander Gabriel. Minister Wallingford appointed me Engineering Officer of the Branchell."

Dr. Fitzhugh shook Mike's hand with apparent pleasure. "Oh yes. Sit down, Commander. What can I do for you?"

Mike had already peeled off his electroparka. He hung it over the back of a chair and said: "Mind if I grab a cup of coffee, Doctor? I've just come from topside, and I think the cold has made its way clean to my bones." He paused. "Would you like another cup?"

Dr. Fitzhugh looked at his watch. "I have time for one more, thanks."

By the time Mike had returned with the cups, he had recalled where he had heard the name Fitzhugh before.

"It just occurred to me," he said as he sat down. "You must be Dr. Morris Fitzhugh."

Fitzhugh nodded. "That's right." He wore a perpetually worried look, which made his face look more wrinkled than his fifty years of age would normally have accounted for. Mike was privately of the opinion that if Fitzhugh ever really tried to look worried, his ears would meet over the bridge of his long nose.

"I've read a couple of your articles in the Journal," Mike explained, "but I didn't connect the name until I saw you. I recognized you from your picture."

Fitzhugh smiled, which merely served to wrinkle his face even more.

Mike the Angel spent the next several minutes feeling the man out, then he went on to explain what had happened with Snookums out in the foyer, which launched Dr. Fitzhugh into an explanation.

"He didn't want help, of course; he was merely conducting an experiment. There are many areas of knowledge in which he is as naďve as a child."

Mike nodded. "It figures. At first I thought he was just a remote-control tool, but I finally saw that he was a real, honest-to-goodness robot. Who gave him the idea to make such an experiment as that?"

"No one at all," said Dr. Fitzhugh. "He's built to make up his own experiments."

Mike the Angel's classic face regarded the wrinkled one of Dr. Fitzhugh. "His own experiments? But a robot--"

Fitzhugh held up a bony hand, gesturing for attention and silence. He got it from Mike.

"Snookums," he said, "is no ordinary robot, Commander."

Mike waited for more. When none came, he said: "So I gather." He sipped at his black coffee. "That machine I saw is actually a remote-control tool, isn't it? Snookums' actual brain is in Cargo Hold One of the William Branchell."

"That's right." Dr. Fitzhugh began reaching into various pockets about his person. He extracted a tobacco pouch, a briar pipe, and a jet-flame lighter. Then he began speaking as he went through the pipe smoker's ritual of filling, tamping, and lighting.

"Snookums," he began, "is a self-activating, problem-seeking computer with input and output sensory and action mechanisms analogous to those of a human being." He pushed more tobacco into the bowl of his pipe with a bony forefinger. "He's as close to being a living creature as anything Man has yet devised."

"What about the synthecells they're making at Boston Med?" Mike asked, looking innocent.

Fitzhugh's contour-map face wrinkled up even more. "I should have said 'living intelligence,'" he corrected himself. "He's a true robot, in the old original sense of the word; an artificial entity that displays almost every function of a living, intelligent creature. And, at the same time, he has the accuracy and speed that is normal to a cryotron computer."

Mike the Angel said nothing while Fitzhugh fired up his lighter and directed the jet of flame into the bowl and puffed up great clouds of smoke which obscured his face.

While the roboticist puffed, Mike let his gaze wander idly over the other people in the cafeteria. He was wondering how much longer he could talk to Fitzhugh before Captain Quill began--

And then he saw the redhead.

There is never much point in describing a really beautiful girl. Each man has his own ideas of what it takes for a girl to be "pretty" or "fascinating" or "lovely" or almost any other adjective that can be applied to the noun "girl." But "beautiful" is a cultural concept, at least as far as females are concerned, and there is no point in describing a cultural concept. It's one of those things that everybody knows, and descriptions merely become repetitious and monotonous.

This particular example filled, in every respect, the definition of "beautiful" according to the culture of the white Americo-European subclass of the human race as of anno Domini 2087. The elements and proportions and symmetry fit almost perfectly into the ideal mold. It is only necessary to fill in some of the minor details which are allowed to vary without distorting the ideal.

She had red hair and blue eyes and was wearing a green zipsuit.

And she was coming toward the table where Mike and Dr. Fitzhugh were sitting.

"... such a tremendous number of elements," Dr. Fitzhugh was saying, "that it was possible--and necessary--to introduce a certain randomity within the circuit choices themselves-- Ah! Hello, Leda, my dear!"

Mike and Fitzhugh rose from their seats.

"Leda, this is Commander Gabriel, the Engineering Officer of the Brainchild," said Fitzhugh. "Commander, Miss Leda Crannon, our psychologist."

Mike had been allowing his eyes to wander over the girl, inspecting her ankles, her hair, and all vital points of interest between. But when he heard the name "Crannon," his eyes snapped up to meet hers.

He hadn't recognized the girl without her parka and wouldn't have known her name if the SP ensign hadn't mentioned it. Obviously, she didn't recognize Mike at all, but there was a troubled look in her blue eyes.

She gave him a puzzled smile. "Haven't we met, Commander?"

Mike grinned. "Hey! That's supposed to be my line, isn't it?"

She flashed him a warm smile, then her eyes widened ever so slightly. "Your voice! You're the man on the foyer! The one...."

"... the one whom you called copper on," finished Mike agreeably. "But please don't apologize; you've more than made up for it."

Her smile remained. She evidently liked what she saw. "How was I to know who you were?"

"It might have been written on my pocket handkerchief," said Mike the Angel, "but Space Service officers don't carry pocket handkerchiefs."

"What?" The puzzled look had returned.

"Ne' mind," said Mike. "Sit down, won't you?"

"Oh, I can't, thanks. I came to get Fitz; a meeting of the Research Board has been called, and afterward we have to give a lecture or something to the officers of the Brainchild."

"You mean the Branchell?"

Her smile became an impish grin. "You call it what you want. To us, it's the Brainchild."

Dr. Fitzhugh said: "Will you excuse us, Commander? We'll be seeing you at the briefing later."

Mike nodded. "I'd better get on my way, too. I'll see you."

But he stood there as Leda Crannon and Dr. Fitzhugh walked away. The girl looked just as divine retreating as she had advancing.

9

Captain Sir Henry (Black Bart) Quill was seated in an old-fashioned, formyl-covered, overstuffed chair, chewing angrily at the end of an unlighted cigar. His bald head gleamed like a pink billiard ball, almost matching the shining glory of his golden insignia against his scarlet tunic.

Mike the Angel had finally found his way through the maze of underground passageways to the door marked wardroom 9 and had pushed it open gingerly, halfway hoping that he wouldn't be seen coming in late but not really believing it would happen.

He was right. Black Bart was staring directly at the door when it slid open. Mike shrugged inwardly and stepped boldly into the room, flicking a glance over the faces of the other officers present.

"Well, well, well, Mister Gabriel," said Black Bart. The voice was oily, but the oil was oil of vitriol. "You not only come late, but you come incognito. Where is your uniform?"

There was a muffled snicker from one of the junior officers, but it wasn't muffled enough. Before Mike the Angel could answer, Captain Quill's head jerked around.

"That will do, Mister Vaneski!" he barked. "Boot ensigns don't snicker when their superiors--and their betters--are being reprimanded! I only use sarcasm on officers I respect. Until an officer earns my sarcasm, he gets nothing but blasting when he goofs off. Understand?"

The last word was addressed to the whole group.

Ensign Vaneski colored, and his youthful face became masklike. "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

Quill didn't even bother to answer; he looked back at Mike the Angel, who was still standing at attention. Quill's voice resumed its caustic saccharinity. "But don't let that go to your head, Mister Gabriel. I repeat: Where is your pretty red spaceman's suit?"

"If the Captain will recall," said Mike, "I had only twenty-four hours' notice. I couldn't get a new wardrobe in that time. It'll be in on the next rocket."

Captain Quill was silent for a moment, then he simply said, "Very well," thus dismissing the whole subject. He waved Mike the Angel to a seat. Mike sat.

"We'll dispense with the formal introductions," said Quill. "Commander Gabriel is our Engineering Officer. The rest of these boys all know each other, Commander; you and I are the only ones who don't come from Chilblains Base. You know Commander Jeffers, of course."

Mike nodded and grinned at Peter Jeffers, a lean, bony character who had a tendency to collapse into chairs as though he had come unhinged. Jeffers grinned and winked back.

"This is Lieutenant Commander von Liegnitz, Navigation Officer; Lieutenant Keku, Supply; Lieutenant Mellon, Medical Officer; and Ensign Vaneski, Maintenance. You can all shake hands with each other later; right now, let's get on with business." He frowned, overshadowing his eyes with those great, bushy brows. "What was I saying just before Commander Gabriel came in?"

Pete Jeffers shifted slightly in his seat. "You were sayin', suh, that this's the stupidest dam' assignment anybody evah got. Or words to that effect." Jeffers had been born in Georgia and had moved to the south of England at the age of ten. Consequently, his accent was far from standard.

"I think, Mister Jeffers," said Quill, "that I phrased it a bit more delicately, but that was the essence of it.

"The Brainchild, as she has been nicknamed, has been built at great expense for the purpose of making a single trip. We are to take her, and her cargo, to a destination known only to myself and von Liegnitz. We will be followed there by another Service ship, which will bring us back as passengers." He allowed himself a half-smile. "At least we'll get to loaf around on the way back."

The others grinned.

"The Brainchild will be left there and, presumably, dismantled."

He took the unlighted cigar out of his mouth, looked at it, and absently reached in his pocket for a lighter. The deeply tanned young man who had been introduced as Lieutenant Keku had just lighted a cigarette, so he proffered his own flame to the captain. Quill puffed his cigar alight absently and went on.

"It isn't going to be easy. We won't have a chance to give the ship a shakedown cruise because once we take off we might as well keep going--which we will.

"You all know what the cargo is--Cargo Hold One contains the greatest single robotic brain ever built. Our job is to make sure it gets to our destination in perfect condition."

"Question, sir," said Mike the Angel.

Without moving his head, Captain Quill lifted one huge eyebrow and glanced in Mike's direction. "Yes?"

"Why didn't C.C. of E. build the brain on whatever planet we're going to in the first place?"

"We're supposed to be told that in the briefing over at the C.C. of E. labs in"--he glanced at his watch--"half an hour. But I think we can all get a little advance information. Most of you men have been around here long enough to have some idea of what's going on, but I understand that Mister Vaneski knows somewhat more about robotics than most of us. Do you have any light to shed on this, Mister Vaneski?"

Mike grinned to himself without letting it show on his face. The skipper was letting the boot ensign redeem himself after the faux pas he'd made.

Vaneski started to stand up, but Quill made a slight motion with his hand and the boy relaxed.

"It's only a guess, sir," he said, "but I think it's because the robot knows too much."

Quill and the others looked blank, but Mike narrowed his eyes imperceptibly. Vaneski was practically echoing Mike's own deductions.

"I mean--well, look, sir," Vaneski went on, a little flustered, "they started to build that thing ten years ago. Eight years ago they started teaching it. Evidently they didn't see any reason for building it off Earth then. What I mean is, something must've happened since then to make them decide to take it off Earth. If they've spent all this much money to get it away, that must mean that it's dangerous somehow."

"If that's the case," said Captain Quill, "why don't they just shut the thing off?"

"Well--" Vaneski spread his hands. "I think it's for the same reason. It knows too much, and they don't want to destroy that knowledge."

"Do you have any idea what that knowledge might be?" Mike the Angel asked.

"No, sir, I don't. But whatever it is, it's dangerous as hell."

* * * * *

The briefing for the officers and men of the William Branchell--the Brainchild--was held in a lecture room at the laboratories of the Computer Corporation of Earth's big Antarctic base.

Captain Quill spoke first, warning everyone that the project was secret and asking them to pay the strictest attention to what Dr. Morris Fitzhugh had to say.

Then Fitzhugh got up, his face ridged with nervousness. He assumed the air of a university professor, launching himself into his speech as though he were anxious to get through it in a given time without finishing too early.

"I'm sure you're all familiar with the situation," he said, as though apologizing to everyone for telling them something they already knew--the apology of the learned man who doesn't want anyone to think he's being overly proud of his learning.

"I think, however, we can all get a better picture if we begin at the beginning and work our way up to the present time.

"The original problem was to build a computer that could learn by itself. An ordinary computer can be forcibly taught--that is, a technician can make changes in the circuits which will make the robot do something differently from the way it was done before, or even make it do something new.

"But what we wanted was a computer that could learn by itself, a computer that could make the appropriate changes in its own circuits without outside physical manipulation.

"It's really not as difficult as it sounds. You've all seen autoscribers, which can translate spoken words into printed symbols. An autoscriber is simply a machine which does what you tell it to--literally. Now, suppose a second computer is connected intimately with the first in such a manner that the second can, on order, change the circuits of the first. Then, all that is needed is...."

Mike looked around him while the roboticist went on. The men were looking pretty bored. They'd come to get a briefing on the reason for the trip, and all they were getting was a lecture on robotics.

Mike himself wasn't so much interested in the whys and wherefores of the trip; he was wondering why it was necessary to tell anyone--even the crew. Why not just pack Snookums up, take him to wherever he was going, and say nothing about it?

Why explain it to the crew?

"Thus," continued Fitzhugh, "it became necessary to incorporate into the brain a physical analogue of Lagerglocke's Principle: 'Learning is a result of an inelastic collision.'

"I won't give it to you symbolically, but the idea is simply that an organism learns only if it does not completely recover from the effects of an outside force imposed upon it. If it recovers completely, it's just as it was before. Consequently, it hasn't learned anything. The organism must change."

He rubbed the bridge of his nose and looked out over the faces of the men before him. A faint smile came over his wrinkled features.

"Some of you, I know, are wondering why I am boring you with this long recital. Believe me, it's necessary. I want all of you to understand that the machine you will have to take care of is not just an ordinary computer. Every man here has had experience with machinery, from the very simplest to the relatively complex. You know that you have to be careful of the kind of information--the kind of external force--you give a machine.

"If you aim a spaceship at Mars, for instance, and tell it to go through the planet, it might try to obey, but you'd lose the machine in the process."

A ripple of laughter went through the men. They were a little more relaxed now, and Fitzhugh had regained their attention.

"And you must admit," Fitzhugh added, "a spaceship which was given that sort of information might be dangerous."

This time the laughter was even louder.

"Well, then," the roboticist continued, "if a mechanism is capable of learning, how do you keep it from becoming dangerous or destroying itself?

"That was the problem that faced us when we built Snookums.

"So we decided to apply the famous Three Laws of Robotics propounded over a century ago by a brilliant American biochemist and philosopher.

"Here they are:

"'One: A robot may not injure a human being, nor, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.'

"'Two: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.'

"'Three: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.'"

Fitzhugh paused to let his words sink in, then: "Those are the ideal laws, of course. Even their propounder pointed out that they would be extremely difficult to put into practice. A robot is a logical machine, but it becomes somewhat of a problem even to define a human being. Is a five-year-old competent to give orders to a robot?

"If you define him as a human being, then he can give orders that might wreck an expensive machine. On the other hand, if you don't define the five-year-old as human, then the robot is under no compulsion to refrain from harming the child."

He began delving into his pockets for smoking materials as he went on.

"We took the easy way out. We solved that problem by keeping Snookums isolated. He has never met any animal except adult human beings. It would take an awful lot of explaining to make him understand the difference between, say, a chimpanzee and a man. Why should a hairy pelt and a relatively low intelligence make a chimp non-human? After all, some men are pretty hairy, and some are moronic.

"Present company excepted."

More laughter. Mike's opinion of Fitzhugh was beginning to go up. The man knew when to break pedantry with humor.

"Finally," Fitzhugh said, when the laughter had subsided, "we must ask what is meant by 'protecting his own existence.' Frankly, we've been driven frantic by that one. The little humanoid, caterpillar-track mechanism that we all tend to think of as Snookums isn't really Snookums, any more than a human being is a hand or an eye. Snookums wouldn't actually be threatening his own existence unless his brain--now in the hold of the William Branchell--is destroyed."

As Dr. Fitzhugh continued, Mike the Angel listened with about half an ear. His attention--and the attention of every man in the place--had been distracted by the entrance of Leda Crannon. She stepped in through a side door, walked over to Dr. Fitzhugh, and whispered something in his ear. He nodded, and she left again.

Fitzhugh, when he resumed his speech, was rather more hurried in his delivery.

"The whole thing can be summed up rather quickly.

"Point One: Snookums' brain contains the information that eight years of hard work have laboriously put into it. That information is more valuable than the whole cost of the William Branchell; it's worth billions. So the robot can't be disassembled, or the information would be lost.

"Point Two: Snookums' mind is a strictly logical one, but it is operating in a more than logical universe. Consequently, it is unstable.

"Point Three: Snookums was built to conduct his own experiments. To forbid him to do that would be similar to beating a child for acting like a child; it would do serious harm to the mind. In Snookums' case, the randomity of the brain would exceed optimum, and the robot would become insane.

"Point Four: Emotion is not logical. Snookums can't handle it, except in a very limited way."

Fitzhugh had been making his points by tapping them off on his fingers with the stem of his unlighted pipe. Now he shoved the pipe back in his pocket and clasped his hands behind his back.

"It all adds up to this: Snookums must be allowed the freedom of the ship. At the same time, every one of us must be careful not to ... to push the wrong buttons, as it were.

"So here are a few don'ts. Don't get angry with Snookums. That would be as silly as getting sore at a phonograph because it was playing music you didn't happen to like.

"Don't lie to Snookums. If your lies don't fit in with what he knows to be true--and they won't, believe me--he will reject the data. But it would confuse him, because he knows that humans don't lie.

"If Snookums asks you for data, qualify it--even if you know it to be true. Say: 'There may be an error in my knowledge of this data, but to the best of my knowledge....'

"Then go ahead and tell him.

"But if you absolutely don't know the answer, tell him so. Say: 'I don't have that data, Snookums.'

"Don't, unless you are...."

He went on, but it was obvious that the officers and crew of the William Branchell weren't paying the attention they should. Every one of them was thinking dark gray thoughts. It was bad enough that they had to take out a ship like the Brainchild, untested and jerry-built as she was. Was it necessary to have an eight-hundred-pound, moron-genius child-machine running loose, too?

Evidently, it was.

"To wind it up," Fitzhugh said, "I imagine you are wondering why it's necessary to take Snookums off Earth. I can only tell you this: Snookums knows too much about nuclear energy."

Mike the Angel smiled grimly to himself. Ensign Vaneski had been right; Snookums was dangerous--not only to individuals, but to the whole planet.

Snookums, too, was a juvenile delinquent.

10

The Brainchild lifted from Antarctica at exactly 2100 hours, Greenwich time. For three days the officers and men of the ship had worked as though they were the robots instead of their passenger--or cargo, depending on your point of view.

Supplies were loaded, and the great engine-generators checked and rechecked. The ship was ready to go less than two hours before take-off time.

The last passenger aboard was Snookums, although, in a more proper sense, he had always been aboard. The little robot rolled up to the elevator on his treads and was lifted into the body of the ship. Miss Crannon was waiting for him at the air lock, and Mike the Angel was standing by. Not that he had any particular interest in watching Snookums come aboard, but he did have a definite interest in Leda Crannon.

"Hello, honey," said Miss Crannon as Snookums rolled into the air lock. "Ready for your ride?"

"Yes, Leda," said Snookums in his contralto voice. He rolled up to her and took her hand. "Where is my room?"

"Come along; I'll show you in a minute. Do you remember Commander Gabriel?"

Snookums swiveled his head and regarded Mike.

"Oh yes. He tried to help me."

"Did you need help?" Mike growled in spite of himself.

"Yes. For my experiment. And you offered help. That was very nice. Leda says it is nice to help people."

Mike the Angel carefully refrained from asking Snookums if he thought he was people. For all Mike knew, he did.

Mike followed Snookums and Leda Crannon down the companionway.

"What did you do today, honey?" asked Leda.

"Mostly I answered questions for Dr. Fitzhugh," said Snookums. "He asked me thirty-eight questions. He said I was a great help. I'm nice, too."

"Sure you are, darling," said Miss Crannon.

"Ye gods," muttered Mike the Angel.

"What's the trouble, Commander?" the girl asked, widening her blue eyes.

"Nothing," said Mike the Angel, looking at her innocently with eyes that were equally blue. "Not a single solitary thing. Snookums is a sweet little tyke, isn't he?"

Leda Crannon gave him a glorious smile. "I think so. And a lot of fun, too."

Very seriously, Mike patted Snookums on his shiny steel skull. "How old are you, little boy?"

Leda Crannon's eyes narrowed, but Mike pretended not to notice while Snookums said: "Eight years, two months, one day, seven hours, thirty-three minutes and--ten seconds. But I am not a little boy. I am a robot."

Mike suppressed an impulse to ask him if he had informed Leda Crannon of that fact. Mike had been watching the girl for the past three days (at least, when he'd had the time to watch) and he'd been bothered by the girl's maternal attitude toward Snookums. She seemed to have wrapped herself up entirely in the little robot. Of course, that might simply be her method of avoiding Mike the Angel, but Mike didn't quite believe that.

"Come along to your room, dear," said Leda. Then she looked again at Mike. "If you'll wait just a moment, Commander," she said rather stiffly, "I'd like to talk to you."

Mike the Angel touched his forehead in a gentlemanly salute. "Later, perhaps, Miss Crannon. Right now, I have to go to the Power Section to prepare for take-off. We're really going to have fun lifting this brute against a full Earth gee without rockets."

"Later, then," she said evenly, and hurried off down the corridor with Snookums.

Mike headed the other way with a sigh of relief. As of right then, he didn't feel like being given an ear-reaming lecture by a beautiful redhead. He beetled it toward the Power Section.

* * * * *

Chief Powerman's Mate Multhaus was probably the only man in the crew who came close to being as big as Mike the Angel. Multhaus was two inches shorter than Mike's six-seven, but he weighed in at two-ninety. As a powerman, he was tops, and he gave the impression that, as far as power was concerned, he could have supplied the ship himself by turning the crank on a hand generator.

But neither Mike nor Multhaus approached the size of the Supply Officer, Lieutenant Keku. Keku was an absolute giant. Six-eight, three hundred fifty pounds, and very little of it fat.

When Mike the Angel opened the door of the Power Section's instrument room, he came upon a strange sight. Lieutenant Keku and Chief Multhaus were seated across a table from each other, each with his right elbow on the table, their right hands clasped. The muscles in both massive arms stood out beneath the scarlet tunics. Neither man was moving.

"Games, children?" asked Mike gently.

Whap! The chief's arm slammed to the table with a bang that sounded as if the table had shattered. Multhaus had allowed Mike's entrance to distract him, while Lieutenant Keku had held out just an instant longer.

Both men leaped to their feet, Multhaus valiantly trying not to nurse his bruised hand.

"Sorry, sir," said Multhaus. "We were just--"

"Ne' mind. I saw. Who usually wins?" Mike asked.

Lieutenant Keku grinned. "Usually he does, Commander. All this beef doesn't help much against a guy who really has pull. And Chief Multhaus has it."

Mike looked into the big man's brown eyes. "Try doing push-ups. With all your weight, it'd really put brawn into you. Sit down and light up. We've got time before take-off. That is, we do if Multhaus has everything ready for the check-off."

"I'm ready any time you are, sir," Multhaus said, easing himself into a chair.

"We'll have a cigarette and then run 'em through."

Keku settled his bulk into a chair and fired up a cigarette. Mike sat on the edge of the table.

"Philip Keku," Mike said musingly. "Just out of curiosity, what kind of a name is Keku?"

"Damfino," said the lieutenant. "Sounds Oriental, doesn't it?"

Mike looked the man over carefully, but rapidly. "But you're not Oriental--or at least, not much. You look Polynesian to me."

"Hit it right on the head, Commander. Hawaiian. My real name's Kekuanaoa, but nobody could pronounce it, so I shortened it to Keku when I came in the Service."

Mike gave a short laugh. "That accounts for your size. Kekuanaoa. A branch of the old Hawaiian royal family, as I recall."

"That's right." The big Hawaiian grinned. "I've got a kid sister that weighs as much as you. And my granddad kicked off at ninety-four weighing a comfortable four-ten."

"What'd he die of, sir?" Multhaus asked curiously.

"Concussion and multiple fractures. He slammed a Ford-Studebaker into a palm tree at ninety miles an hour. Crazy old ox; he was bigger than the dam' automobile."

The laughter of three big men filled the instrument room.

After a few more minutes of bull throwing, Keku ground out his cigarette and stood up. "I'd better get to my post; Black Bart will be calling down any minute."

At that instant the PA system came alive.

"Now hear this! Now hear this! Take-off in fifteen minutes! Take-off in fifteen minutes!"

Keku grinned, saluted Mike the Angel, and walked out the door.

Multhaus gazed after him, looking at the closed door.

"A blinking prophet, Commander," he said. "A blinking prophet."

* * * * *

The take-off of the Brainchild was not so easy as it might have appeared to anyone who watched it from the outside. As far as the exterior observers were concerned, it seemed to lift into the air with a loud, thrumming noise, like a huge elevator rising in an invisible shaft.

It had been built in a deep pit in the polar ice, built around the huge cryotronic stack that was Snookums' brain. As it rose, electric motors slid back the roof that covered the pit, and the howling Antarctic winds roared around it.

Unperturbed, it went on rising.

Inside, Mike the Angel and Chief Multhaus watched worriedly as the meters wiggled their needles dangerously close to the overload mark. The thrumming of the ship as it fought its way up against the pull of Earth's gravity and through the Earth's magnetic field, using the fabric of space itself as the fulcrum against which it applied its power, was like the vibration of a note struck somewhere near the bottom of a piano keyboard, or the rumble of a contra bassoon.

As the intensity of the gravitational field decreased, the velocity of the ship increased--not linearly, but logarithmically. She shrieked through the upper atmosphere, quivering like a live thing, and emerged at last into relatively empty space. When she reached a velocity of a little over thirty miles per second--relative to the sun, and perpendicular to the solar ecliptic--Mike the Angel ordered her engines cut back to the lowest power possible which would still retain the one-gee interior gravity of the ship and keep the anti-acceleration fields intact.

"How does she look, Multhaus?" he asked.

Both of the men were checking the readings of the instruments. A computerman second class was punching the readings into the small table calculator as Multhaus read off the numbers.

"I think she weathered it, sir," the chief said cautiously, "but she sure took a devil of a beating. And look at the power factor readings! We were tossing away energy as though we were S-Doradus or something."

They worked for nearly an hour to check through all the circuits to find what damage--if any--had been done by the strain of Earth's gravitational and magnetic fields. All in all, the Brainchild was in pretty good shape. A few circuits needed retuning, but no replacements were necessary.

Multhaus, who had been understandably pessimistic about the ship's ability to lift herself from the surface of even a moderate-sized planet like Earth, looked with new respect upon the man who had designed the power plant that had done the job.

Mike the Angel called the bridge and informed Captain Quill that the ship was ready for full acceleration.

Under control from the bridge, the huge ship yawed until her nose--and thus the line of thrust along her longitudinal axis--was pointed toward her destination.

"Full acceleration, Mister Gabriel," said Captain Quill over the intercom.

Mike the Angel watched the meters climb again as the ship speared away from the sun at an ever-increasing velocity. Although the apparent internal acceleration remained at a cozy one gee, the acceleration in relation to the sun was something fantastic. When the ship reached the velocity of light, she simply disappeared, as far as external observers were concerned. But she still kept adding velocity with her tremendous acceleration.

Finally her engines reached their performance peak. They could drive the Brainchild no faster. They simply settled down to a steady growl and pushed the ship at a steady velocity through what the mathematicians termed "null-space."

The Brainchild was on her way.

11

"What I want to know," said Lieutenant Keku, "is, what kind of ship is this?"

Mike the Angel chuckled, and Lieutenant Mellon, the Medical Officer, grinned rather shyly. But young Ensign Vaneski looked puzzled.

"What do you mean, sir?" he asked the huge Hawaiian.

They were sitting over coffee in the officers' wardroom. Captain Quill, First Officer Jeffers, and Lieutenant Commander von Liegnitz were on the bridge, and Dr. Fitzhugh and Leda Crannon were down below, giving Snookums lessons.

Mike looked at Lieutenant Keku, waiting for him to answer Vaneski's question.

"What do I mean? Just what I said, Mister Vaneski. I want to know what kind of ship this is. It is obviously not a warship, so we can forget that classification. It is not an expeditionary ship; we're not outfitted for exploratory work. Is it a passenger vessel, then? No, because Dr. Fitzhugh and Miss Crannon are listed as 'civilian technical advisers' and are therefore legally part of the crew. I'm wondering if it might be a cargo vessel, though."

"Sure it is," said Ensign Vaneski. "That brain in Cargo Hold One is cargo, isn't it?"

"I'm not certain," Keku said thoughtfully, looking up at the overhead, as if the answer might be etched there in the metal. "Since it is built in as an intrinsic part of the ship, I don't know if it can be counted as cargo or not." He brought his gaze down to focus on Mike. "What do you think, Commander?"

Before Mike the Angel could answer, Ensign Vaneski broke in with: "But the brain is going to be removed when we get to our destination, isn't it? That makes this a cargo ship!" There was a note of triumph in his voice.

Lieutenant Keku's gaze didn't waver from Mike's face, nor did he say a word. For a boot ensign to interrupt like that was an impoliteness that Keku chose to ignore. He was waiting for Mike's answer as though Vaneski had said nothing.

But Mike the Angel decided he might as well play along with Keku's gag and still answer Vaneski. As a full commander, he could overlook Vaneski's impoliteness to his superiors without ignoring it as Keku was doing.

"Ah, but the brain won't be unloaded, Mister Vaneski," he said mildly. "The ship will be dismantled--which is an entirely different thing. I'm afraid you can't call it a cargo ship on those grounds."

Vaneski didn't say anything. His face had gone red and then white, as though he'd suddenly realized he'd committed a faux pas. He nodded his head a little, to show he understood, but he couldn't seem to find his voice.

To cover up Vaneski's emotional dilemma, Mike addressed the Medical Officer. "What do you think, Mister Mellon?"

Mellon cleared his throat. "Well--it seems to me," he said in a dry, serious tone, "that this is really a medical ship."

Mike blinked. Keku raised his eyebrows. Vaneski swallowed and jerked his eyes away from Mike's face to look at Mellon--but still he didn't say anything.

"Elucidate, my dear Doctor," said Mike with interest.

"I diagnose it as a physician," Mellon said in the same dry, earnest tone. "Snookums, we have been told, is too dangerous to be permitted to remain on Earth. I take this to mean that he is potentially capable of doing something that would either harm the planet itself or a majority--if not all--of the people on it." He picked up his cup of coffee and took a sip. Nobody interrupted him.

"Snookums has, therefore," he continued, "been removed from Earth in order to protect the health of that planet, just as one would remove a potentially malignant tumor from a human body.

"This is a medical ship. Q.E.D." And only then did he smile.

"Aw, now...." Vaneski began. Then he shut his mouth again.

With an inward smile, Mike realized that Ensign Vaneski had been taking seriously an argument that was strictly a joke.

"Mister Mellon," Mike said, "you win." He hadn't realized that Mellon's mind could work on that level.

"Hold," said Lieutenant Keku, raising a hand. "I yield to no one in my admiration for the analysis given by our good doctor; indeed, my admiration knows no bounds. But I insist we hear from Commander Gabriel before we adjourn."

"Not me," Mike said, shaking his head. "I know when I'm beaten." He'd been going to suggest that the Brainchild was a training ship, from Snookums' "learning" periods, but that seemed rather obvious and puerile now.

He glanced at his watch, saw the time, and stood up. "Excuse me, gentlemen; I have things to do." He had an appointment to talk to Leda Crannon, but he had no intention of broadcasting it.

As he closed the wardroom door, he heard Ensign Vaneski's voice saying: "I still say this should be classified as a cargo ship."

Mike sighed as he strode on down the companionway. The ensign was, of course, absolutely correct--which was the sad part about it, really. Oh well, what the hell.

Leda Crannon had agreed to have coffee with Mike in the office suite she shared with Dr. Fitzhugh. Mike had had one cup in the officers' wardroom, but even if he'd had a dozen he'd have been willing to slosh down a dozen more to talk to Leda Crannon. It was not, he insisted to himself, that he was in love with the girl, but she had intelligence and personality in addition to her striking beauty.

Furthermore, she had given Mike the Angel a dressing-down that had been quite impressive. She had not at all cared for the remarks he had made when Snookums was being loaded aboard--patting him on the head and asking him his age, for instance--and had told him so in no uncertain terms. Mike, feeling sheepish and knowing he was guilty, had accepted the tongue-lashing and tendered an apology.

And she had smiled and said: "All right. Forget it. I'm sorry I got mad."

He knew he wasn't the only man aboard who was interested in Leda. Jakob von Liegnitz, all Teutonic masterfulness and Old World suavity, had obviously made a favorable impression on her. Lew Mellon was often seen in deep philosophical discussions with her, his eyes never leaving her face and his earnest voice low and confidential. Both of them had known her longer than he had, since they'd both been stationed at Chilblains Base.

Mike the Angel didn't let either of them worry him. He had enough confidence in his own personality and abilities to be able to take his own tack no matter which way the wind blew.

Blithely opening the door of the office, Mike the Angel stepped inside with a smile on his lips.

"Ah, good afternoon, Commander Gabriel," said Dr. Morris Fitzhugh.

Mike kept the smile on his face. "Leda here?"

Fitzhugh chuckled. "No. Some problems came up with Snookums. She'll be in session for an hour yet. She asked me to convey her apologies." He gestured toward the coffee urn. "But the coffee's all made, so you may as well have a cup."

Mike was thankful he had not had a dozen cups in the wardroom. "I don't mind if I do, Doctor." He sat down while Fitzhugh poured a cup.

"Cream? Sugar?"

"Black, thanks," Mike said.

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds while Mike sipped at the hot, black liquid. Then Mike said, "Dr. Fitzhugh, you said, at the briefing back on Earth, that Snookums knows too much about nuclear energy. Can you be more specific than that, or is it too hush-hush?"

Fitzhugh took out his briar and began filling it as he spoke. "We don't want this to get out to the general public, of course," he said thoughtfully, "but, as a ship's officer, you can be told. I believe some of your fellow officers know already, although we'd rather it wasn't discussed in general conversation, even among the officers."

Mike nodded wordlessly.

"Very well, then." Fitzhugh gave the tobacco a final shove with his thumb. "As a power engineer, you should be acquainted with the 'pinch effect,' eh?"

It was a rhetorical question. The "pinch effect" had been known for over a century. A jet of highly ionized gas, moving through a magnetic field of the proper structure, will tend to pinch down, to become narrower, rather than to spread apart, as a jet of ordinary gas does. As the science of magnetohydrodynamics had progressed, the effect had become more and more controllable, enabling scientists to force the nuclei of hydrogen, for instance, closer and closer together. At the end of the last century, the Bending Converter had almost wrecked the economy of the entire world, since it gave to the world a source of free energy. Sam Bending's "little black box" converted ordinary water into helium and oxygen and energy--plenty of energy. A Bending Converter could be built relatively cheaply and for small-power uses--such as powering a ship or automobile or manufacturing plant--could literally run on air, since the moisture content of ordinary air was enough to power the converter itself with plenty of power left over.

Overnight, all previous forms of power generation had become obsolete. Who would buy electric power when he could generate his own for next to nothing? Billions upon billions of dollars worth of generating equipment were rendered valueless. The great hydroelectric dams, the hundreds of steam turbines, the heavy-metal atomic reactors--all useless for power purposes. The value of the stock in those companies dropped to zero and stayed there. The value of copper metal fell like a bomb, with almost equally devastating results--for there was no longer any need for the millions of miles of copper cable that linked the power plants with the consumer.

The Depression of 1929-42 couldn't even begin to compare with The Great Depression of 1986-2000. Every civilized nation on Earth had been hit and hit hard. The resulting governmental collapses would have made the disaster even more complete had not the then Secretary General of the UN, Perrot of Monaco, grabbed the reins of government. Like the Americans Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, he had forced through unconstitutional bills and taken extra-constitutional powers. And, like those Americans, he had not done it for personal gain, but to preserve the society. He had not succeeded in preserving the old society, of course, but he had built, almost single-handedly, a world government--a new society on the foundations of the old.

All these thoughts ran through Mike the Angel's mind. He wondered if Snookums had discovered something that would be as much a disaster to the world economy as the Bending Converter had been.

Fitzhugh got out his miniature flame thrower and puffed his pipe alight. "Snookums," he said, "has discovered a method of applying the pinch effect to lithium hydride. It's a batch reaction rather than a flow reaction such as the Bending Converter uses. But it's as simple to build as a Bending Converter."

"Jesus," said Mike the Angel softly.

Lithium hydride. LiH. An atom of hydrogen to every atom of lithium. If a hydrogen nucleus is driven into the lithium nucleus with sufficient force, the results are simple:

Li^{7} + H^{1} --> 2He^{4} + energy

An atom of lithium-7 plus an atom of hydrogen-1 yields two atoms of helium-4 and plenty of energy. One gram of lithium hydride would give nearly fifty-eight kilowatt-hours of energy in one blast. A pound of the stuff would be the equivalent of nearly seven tons of TNT.

In addition, it was a nice, clean bomb. Nothing but helium, radiation, and heat. In the early nineteen fifties, such a bomb had been constructed by surrounding the LiH with a fission bomb--the so-called "implosion" technique. But all that heavy metal around the central reaction created all kinds of radioactive residues which had a tendency to scatter death for hundreds of miles around.

Now, suppose a man had a pair of tweezers small enough to pick up a single molecule of lithium hydride and pinch the two nuclei together. Of course, the idea is ridiculous--that is, the tweezer part is. But if the pinch could be done in some other way....

Snookums had done it.

"Homemade atomic bombs in your back yard or basement lab," said Mike the Angel.

Fitzhugh nodded emphatically. "Exactly. We can't let that technique out until we've found a way to keep people from doing just that. The UN Government has inspection techniques that prevent anyone from building the conventional types of thermonuclear bombs, but not the pinch bomb."

Mike the Angel thought over what Dr. Fitzhugh had said. Then he said: "That's not all of it. Antarctica is isolated enough to keep that knowledge secret for a long time--at least until safeguards could be set up. Why take Snookums off Earth?"

"Snookums himself is dangerous," Fitzhugh said. "He has a built-in 'urge' to experiment--to get data. We can keep him from making experiments that we know will be dangerous by giving him the data, so that the urge doesn't operate. But if he's on the track of something totally new....

"Well, you can see what we're up against." He thoughtfully blew a cloud of smoke. "We think he may be on the track of the total annihilation of matter."

A dead silence hung in the air. The ultimate, the super-atomic bomb. Theoretically, the idea had been approached only in the assumption of contact between ordinary matter and anti-matter, with the two canceling each other completely to give nothing but energy. Such a bomb would be nearly fifty thousand times as powerful as the lithium-hydride pinch bomb. That much energy, released in a few millimicroseconds, would make the standard H-bomb look like a candle flame on a foggy night.

The LiH pinch bomb could be controlled. By using just a little of the stuff, it would be possible to limit the destruction to a neighborhood, or even a single block. A total-annihilation bomb would be much harder to control. The total annihilation of a single atom of hydrogen would yield over a thousandth of an erg, and matter just doesn't come in much smaller packages than that.

"You see," said Fitzhugh, "we had to get him off Earth."

"Either that or stop him from experimenting," Mike said. "And I assume that wouldn't be good for Snookums."

"To frustrate Snookums would be to destroy all the work we have put into him. His circuits would tend to exceed optimum randomity, and that would mean, in human terms, that he would be insane--and therefore worthless. As a machine, Snookums is worth eighteen billion dollars. The information we have given him, plus the deductions and computations he has made from that information, is worth...." He shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows? How can a price be put on knowledge?"

12

The William Branchell--dubbed Brainchild--fled Earth at ultralight velocity, while officers, crew, and technical advisers settled down to routine. The only thing that disturbed that routine was one particularly restless part of the ship's cargo.

Snookums was a snoop.

Cut off from the laboratories which had been provided for his special work at Chilblains, he proceeded to interest himself in the affairs of the human beings which surrounded him. Until his seventh year, he had been confined to the company of only a small handful of human beings. Even while the William Branchell was being built, he hadn't been allowed any more freedom than was absolutely necessary to keep him from being frustrated.

Even so, he had developed an interest in humans. Now he was being allowed full rein in his data-seeking circuits, and he chose to investigate, not the physical sciences, but the study of Mankind. Since the proper study of Mankind is Man, Snookums proceeded to study the people on the ship.

Within three days the officers had evolved a method of Snookums-evasion.

Lieutenant Commander Jakob von Liegnitz sat in the officers' wardroom of the Brainchild and shuffled a deck of cards with expert fingers.

He was a medium-sized man, five-eleven or so, with a barrel chest, broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and lean hips. His light brown hair was worn rather long, and its straight strands seemed to cling tightly to his skull. His gray eyes had a perpetual half-squint that made him look either sleepy or angry, depending on what the rest of his broad face was doing.

He dealt himself out a board of Four Cards Up and had gone through about half the pack when Mike the Angel came in with Lieutenant Keku.

"Hello, Jake," said Keku. "What's to do?"

"Get out two more decks," said Mike the Angel, "and we can all play solitaire."

Von Liegnitz looked up sleepily. "I could probably think of duller things, Mike, but not just immediately. How about bridge?"

"We'll need a fourth," said Keku. "How about Pete?"

Mike the Angel shook his head. "Black Bart is sleeping--taking his beauty nap. So Pete has the duty. How about young Vaneski? He's not a bad partner."

"He is out, too," said von Liegnitz. "He also is on duty."

Mike the Angel lifted an inquisitive eyebrow. "Something busted? Why should the Maintenance Officer be on duty right now?"

"He is maintaining," said von Liegnitz with deliberate dignity, "peace and order around here. He is now performing the duty of Answerman-in-Chief. He's very good at it."

Mike grinned. "Snookums?"

Von Liegnitz scooped the cards off the table and began shuffling them. "Exactly. As long as Snookums gets his questions answered, he keeps himself busy. Our young boot ensign has been assigned to the duty of keeping that mechanical Peeping Tom out of our hair for an hour. By then, it will be lunch time." He cleared his throat. "We still need a fourth."

"If you ask me," said Lieutenant Keku, "we need a fifth. Let's play poker instead."

Jakob von Liegnitz nodded and offered the cards for a cut.

"Deal 'em," said Mike the Angel.

A few minutes less than an hour later, Ensign Vaneski slid open the door to the wardroom and was greeted by a triune chorus of hellos.

"Sirs," said Vaneski with pseudo formality, "I have done my duty, exhausting as it was. I demand satisfaction."

Lieutenant Keku, upon seeing Mike the Angel dealt a second eight, flipped over his up cards and folded.

"Satisfaction?" he asked the ensign.

Vaneski nodded. "One hand of showdown for five clams. I have been playing encyclopedia for that hunk of animated machinery for an hour. That's above and beyond the call of duty."

"Raise a half," said Mike the Angel.

"Call," said von Liegnitz.

"Three eights," said Mike, flipping his hole card.

Von Liegnitz shrugged, folded his cards, and watched solemnly while Mike pulled in the pot.

"Vaneski wants to play showdown for a fiver," said Keku.

Mike the Angel frowned at the ensign for a moment, then relaxed and nodded. "Not my game," he said, "but if the Answerman wants a chance to catch up, it's okay with me."

The four men each tossed a five spot into the center of the table and then cut for deal. Mike got it and started dealing--five cards, face up, for the pot.

When three cards apiece had been dealt, young Vaneski was ahead with a king high. On the fourth round he grinned when he got a second king and Mike dealt himself an ace.

On the fifth round Vaneski got a three, and his face froze as Mike dealt himself a second ace.

Mike reached for the twenty.

"You deal yourself a mean hand, Commander," said Vaneski evenly.

Mike glanced at him sharply, but there was only a wry grin on the young ensign's face.

"Luck of the idiot," said Mike as he pocketed the twenty. "It's time for lunch."

"Next time," said Keku firmly, "I'll take the Answerman watch, Mike. You and this kraut are too lucky for me."

"If I lose any more to the Angel," von Liegnitz said calmly, "I will be a very sour kraut. But right now, I'm quite hungry."

Mike prowled around the Power Section that afternoon with a worry nagging at the back of his mind. He couldn't exactly put his finger on what was bothering him, and he finally put it down to just plain nerves.

And then he began to feel something--physically.

Within thirty seconds after it began, long before most of the others had noticed it, Mike the Angel recognized it for what it was. Half a minute after that, everyone aboard could feel it.

A two-cycle-per-second beat note is inaudible to the human ear. If the human tympanum can't wiggle any faster than that, the auditory nerves refuse to transmit the message. The wiggle has to be three or four octaves above that before the nerves will have anything to do with it. But if the beat note has enough energy in it, a man doesn't have to hear it--he can feel it.

The bugs weren't all out of the Brainchild, by any means, and the men knew it. She had taken a devil of a strain on the take-off, and something was about due to weaken.

It was the external field around the hull that had decided to goof off this time. It developed a nice, unpleasant two-cycle throb that threatened to shake the ship apart. It built up rapidly and then leveled off, giving everyone aboard the feeling that his lunch and his stomach would soon part company.

The crew was used to it. They'd been on shakedown cruises before, and they knew that on an interstellar vessel the word "shakedown" can have a very literal meaning. The beat note wasn't dangerous, but it wasn't pleasant, either.

Within five minutes everybody aboard had the galloping collywobbles and the twittering jitters.

Mike and his power crew all knew what to do. They took their stations and started to work. They had barely started when Captain Quill's voice came over the intercom.

"Power Section, this is the bridge. How long before we stop this beat note?"

"No way of telling, sir," said Mike, without taking his eyes off the meter bank. "Check A-77," he muttered in an aside to Multhaus.

"Can you give me a prognosis?" persisted Quill.

Mike frowned. This wasn't like Black Bart. He knew what the prognosis was as well as Mike did. "Actually, sir, there's no way of knowing. The old Gainsway shook like this for eight days before they spotted the tubes that were causing a four-cycle beat."

"Why can't we spot it right off?" Quill asked.

Mike got it then. Fitzhugh was listening in. Quill wanted Mike the Angel to substantiate his own statements to the roboticist.

"There are sixteen generator tubes in the hull--two at each end of the four diagonals of an imaginary cube surrounding the ship. At least two of them are out of phase; that means that every one of them may have to be balanced against every other one, and that would make a hundred and twenty checks. It will take ten minutes if we hit it lucky and find the bad tubes in the first two tries, and about twenty hours if we hit on the last try.

"That, of course, is presuming that there are only two out. If there are three...." He let it hang.

Mike grinned as Dr. Morris Fitzhugh's voice came over the intercom, confirming his diagnosis of the situation.

"Isn't there any other way?" asked Fitzhugh worriedly. "Can't we stop the ship and check them, so that we won't be subjected to this?"

"'Fraid not," answered Mike. "In the first place, cutting the external field would be dangerous, if not deadly. The abrupt deceleration wouldn't be good for us, even with the internal field operating. In the second place, we couldn't check the field tubes if they weren't operating. You can't tell a bad tube just by looking at it. They'd still have to be balanced against each other, and that would take the same amount of time as it is going to take anyway, and with the same effects on the ship. I'm sorry, but we'll just have to put up with it."

"Well, for Heaven's sake do the best you can," Fitzhugh said in a worried voice. "This beat is shaking Snookums' brain. God knows what damage it may do unless it's stopped within a very few minutes!"

"I'll do the best I can," said Mike the Angel carefully. "So will every man in my crew. But about all anyone can do is wish us luck and let us work."

"Yes," said Dr. Fitzhugh slowly. "Yes. I understand. Thank you, Commander."

Mike the Angel nodded curtly and went back to work.

Things weren't bad enough as they were. They had to get worse. The Brainchild had been built too fast, and in too unorthodox a manner. The steady two-cycle throb did more damage than it would normally have done aboard a non-experimental ship.

Twelve minutes after the throb started, a feeder valve in the pre-induction energy chamber developed a positive-feedback oscillation that threatened to blow out the whole pre-induction stage unless it was damped. The search for the out-of-phase external field tubes had to be dropped while the more dangerous flaw was tackled.

Multhaus plugged in an emergency board and began to compensate by hand while the others searched frantically for the trouble.

Hand compensation of feeder-valve oscillation is pure intuition; if you wait until the meters show that damping is necessary, it may be too late--you have to second-guess the machine and figure out what's coming before it happens and compensate then. You not only have to judge time, but magnitude; overcompensation is ruinous, too.

Multhaus, the Chief Powerman's Mate, sat behind the emergency board, a vernier dial in each hand and both eyes on an oscilloscope screen. His red, beefy face was corded and knotted with tension, and his skin glistened with oily perspiration. He didn't say a word, and his fingers barely moved as he held a green line reasonably steady on that screen.

Mike the Angel, using unangelic language in a steady, muttering stream, worked to find the circuit that held the secret of the ruinous feedback tendency, while other powermen plugged and unplugged meter jacks, flipped switches, and juggled tools.

In the midst of all this, in rolled Snookums.

Whether Snookums knew that his own existence was in danger is problematical. Like the human brain, his own had no pain or sensory circuits within it; in addition, his knowledge of robotics was small--he didn't even know that his brain was in Cargo Hold One. He thought it was in his head, if he thought about it at all.

Nonetheless, he knew something was wrong, and as soon as his "curiosity" circuits were activated, he set out in search of the trouble, his little treads rolling at high speed.

Leda Crannon saw him heading down a companionway and called after him. "Where are you going, Snookums?"

"Looking for data," answered Snookums, slowing a little.

"Wait! I'll come with you!"

Leda Crannon knew perfectly well what effect the throb might have on Snookums' brain, and when something cracked, she wanted to see what effect it might have on the behavior of the little robot. Like a hound after a fox, she followed him through the corridors of the ship.

Up companionways and down, in and out of storerooms, staterooms, control rooms, and washrooms Snookums scurried, oblivious to the consternation that sometimes erupted at his sudden appearance. At certain selected spots, Snookums would stop, put his metal arms on floors and walls, pause, and then go zooming off in another direction with Leda Crannon only paces behind him, trying to explain to crewmen as best she could.

If Snookums had been capable of emotion--and Leda Crannon was not as sure as the roboticists that he wasn't--she would have sworn that he was having the time of his life.

Seventeen minutes after the throb had begun, Snookums rolled into Power Section and came to a halt. Something else was wrong.

At first he just stopped by the door and soaked in data. Mike's muttering; the clipped, staccato conversation of the power crew; the noises of the tools; the deep throb of the ship itself; the underlying oddness of the engine vibrations--all these were fed into his microphonic ears. The scene itself was transmitted to his brain and recorded. The cryotronic maze in the depths of the ship chewed the whole thing over. Snookums acted.

Leda Crannon, who had lost ground in trying to keep up with Snookums' whirling treads, came to the door of Power Section too late to stop the robot's entrance. She didn't dare call out, because she knew that to do so would interrupt the men's vital work. All she could do was lean against the doorjamb and try to catch her breath.

Snookums rolled over to the board where Multhaus was sitting and watched over his shoulder for perhaps thirty seconds. The crewmen eyed him, but they were much too busy to do anything. Besides, they were used to his presence by this time.

Then, in one quick tour of the room, Snookums glanced at every meter in the place. Not just at the regular operating meters, but also at the meters in the testing equipment that the power crew had jack-plugged in.

Mike the Angel looked around as he heard the soft purring of the caterpillar treads. His glance took in both Snookums and Leda Crannon, who was still gasping at the door. He watched Leda for the space of three deep breaths, tore his eyes away, looked at what Snookums was doing, then said: "Get him out of here!" in a stage whisper to Leda.

Snookums was looking over the notations on the meter readings for the previous few minutes. He had simply picked them up from the desk where one of the computermen was working and scanned them rapidly before handing them back.

Before Leda could say anything, Snookums rolled over to Mike the Angel and said: "Check the lead between the 391-JF and the big DK-37. I think you'll find that the piping is in phase with the two-cycle note, and it's become warped and stretched. It's about half a millimeter off--plus or minus a tenth. The pulse is reaching the DK-37 about four degrees off, and the gate is closing before it all gets through. That's forcing the regulator circuit to overcompensate, and...."

Mike didn't listen to any more. He didn't know whether Snookums knew what he was talking about or not, but he did know that the thing the robot had mentioned would have had just such an effect.

Mike strode rapidly across the room and flipped up the shield housing the assembly Snookums had mentioned. The lead was definitely askew.

Mike the Angel snapped orders, and the power crewmen descended on the scene of the trouble.

Snookums went right on delivering his interpretation of the data, but everyone ignored him while they worked. Being ignored didn't bother Snookums in the least.

"... and that, in turn, is making the feeder valve field oscillate," he finished up, nearly five minutes later.

Mike was glad that Snookums had pinpointed the trouble first and then had gone on to show why the defect was causing the observed result. He could just as easily have started with the offending oscillation and reached the bit about the faulty lead at the end of his speech, except that he had been built to do it the other way around. Snookums made the deduction in his superfast mind and then reeled it off backward, as it were, going from conclusion to premises.

Otherwise, he might have been too late.

The repair didn't take long, once Snookums had found just what needed repairing. When the job was over, Mike the Angel wiped his hands on a rag and stood up.

"Thanks, Snookums," he said honestly. "You've been a great help."

Snookums said: "I am smiling. Because I am pleased."

There was no way for him to smile with a steel face, but Mike got the idea.

Mike turned to the Chief Powerman's Mate. "Okay, Multhaus, shut it off. She's steady now."

Multhaus just sat there, surrounded by a wall of concentration, his hands still on the verniers, his eyes still on the screen. He didn't move.

Mike flipped off the switch. "Come on, Multhaus, snap to. We've still got that beat note to worry about."

Multhaus blinked dizzily as the green line vanished from his sight. He jerked his hands off the verniers, and then smiled sheepishly. He had been sitting there waiting for that green line to move a full minute after the input signal had ceased.

"Happy hypnosis," said Mike. "Let's get back to finding out which of those tubes in the hull is giving the external field the willies."

Snookums, who had been listening carefully, rolled up and said, "Generator tubes three, four, and thirteen. Three is out of phase by--"

"You can tell us later, Snookums," Mike interrupted rapidly. "Right now, we'll get to work on those tubes. You were right once; I hope you're right again."

Again the power crew swung into action.

Within five minutes Mike and Multhaus were making the proper adjustments on the external field circuits to adjust for the wobbling of the output.

The throb wavered. It wobbled around, going up to two-point-seven cycles and dropping back to one-point-four, then climbing again. All the time, it was dropping in magnitude, until finally it could no longer be felt. Finally, it dropped suddenly to a low of point-oh-five cycles, hovered there for a moment, then vanished altogether.

"By the beard of my sainted maiden aunt," said Chief Multhaus in awe. "A three-tube offbeat solved in less than half an hour! If that isn't a record, I'll dye my uniform black and join the Chaplains' Corps."

Leda Crannon, looking tired but somehow pleased, said softly: "May I come in?"

Mike the Angel grinned. "Sure. Maybe you can--"

The intercom clicked on. "Power Section, this is the bridge." It was Black Bart. "Are my senses playing me false, or have you stopped that beat note?"

"All secure, sir," said Mike the Angel. "The system is stable now."

"How many tubes were goofing?"

"Three of them."

"Three!" There was astonishment in the captain's voice. "How did you ever solve a three-tube beat in that short a time?"

Mike the Angel grinned up at the eye in the wall.

"Nothing to it, sir," he said. "A child could have done it."

13

Leda Crannon sat down on the edge of the bunk in Mike the Angel's stateroom, accepted the cigarette and light that Mike had proffered, and waited while Mike poured a couple of cups of coffee from the insul-jug on his desk.

"I wish I could offer you something stronger, but I'm not much of a drinker myself, so I don't usually take advantage of the officer's prerogative to smuggle liquor aboard," he said as he handed her the cup.

She smiled up at him. "That's all right; I rarely drink, and when I do, it's either wine or a very diluted highball. Right now, this coffee will do me more good."

Mike heard footsteps coming down the companionway. He glanced out through the door, which he had deliberately left open. Ensign Vaneski walked by, glanced in, grinned, and went on his way. The kid had good sense, Mike thought. He hoped any other passers-by would stay out while he talked to Leda.

"Does a thing like that happen often?" the girl asked. "Not the fast solution; I mean the beat note."

"No," said Mike the Angel. "Once the system is stabilized, the tubes tend to keep each other in line. But because of that very tendency, an offbeat tube won't show itself for a while. The system tries to keep the bad ones in phase in spite of themselves. But eventually one of them sort of rebels, and that frees any of the others that are offbeat, so the bad ones all show at once and we can spot them. When we get all the bad ones adjusted, the system remains stable for the operating life of the system."

"And that's the purpose of a shakedown cruise?"

"One of the reasons," agreed Mike. "If the tubes are going to act up, they'll do it in the first five hundred operating hours--except in unusual cases. That's one of the things that bothered me about the way this crate was hashed together."

Her blue eyes widened. "I thought this was a well-built ship."

"Oh, it is, it is--all things considered. It isn't dangerous, if that's what you're worried about. But it sure as the devil is expensively wasteful."

She nodded and sipped at her coffee. "I know that. But I don't see any other way it could have been done."

"Neither do I, right off the bat," Mike admitted. He took a good swallow of the hot liquid in his cup and said: "I wanted to ask you two questions. First, what was it that Snookums was doing just before he came into the Power Section? Black Bart said he'd been galloping all over the ship, with you at his heels."

Her infectious smile came back. "He was playing seismograph. He was simply checking the intensity of the vibrations at different points in the ship. That gave him part of the data he needed to tell you which of the tubes were acting up."

"I'm beginning to think," said Mike, "that we'll have to start building a big brain aboard every ship--that is, if we can learn enough about such monsters from Snookums."

"What was the other question?" Leda asked.

"Oh.... Well, I was wondering just why you are connected with this project. What does a psychologist have to do with robots? If you'll pardon my ignorance."

This time she laughed softly, and Mike thought dizzily of the gay chiming of silver bells. He clamped down firmly on the romantic wanderings of his mind as she started her explanation.

"I'm a specialist in child psychology, Mike. Actually, I was hired as an experiment--or, rather, as the result of a wild guess that happened to work. You see, the first two times Snookums' brain was activated, the circuits became disoriented."

"You mean," said Mike the Angel, "they went nuts."

She laughed again. "Don't let Fitz hear you say that. He'll tell you that 'the circuits exceeded their optimum randomity limit.'"

Mike grinned, remembering the time he had driven a robot brain daffy by bluffing it at poker. "How did that happen?"

"Well, we don't know all the details, but it seems to have something to do with the slow recovery rate that's necessary for learning. Do you know anything about Lagerglocke's Principle?"

"Fitzhugh mentioned something about it in the briefing we got before take-off. Something about a bit of learning being an inelastic rebound."

"That's it. You take a steel ball, for instance, and drop it on a steel plate from a height of three or four feet. It bounces--almost perfect elasticity. The next time you drop it, it does the same thing. It hasn't learned anything.

"But if you drop a lead ball, it doesn't bounce as much, and it will flatten at the point of contact. The next time it falls on that flat side, its behavior will be different. It has learned something."

Mike rubbed the tip of an index finger over his chin. "These illustrations are analogues of the human mind?"

"That's right. Some people have minds like steel balls. They can learn, but you have to hit them pretty hard to make them do it. On the other hand, some people have minds like glass balls: They can't learn at all. If you hit them hard enough to make a real impression, they simply shatter."

"All right. Now what has this got to do with you and Snookums?"

"Patience, boy, patience," Leda said with a grin. "Actually, the lead-ball analogy is much too simple. An intelligent mind has to have time to partially recover, you see. Hit it with too many shocks, one right after another, and it either collapses or refuses to learn or both.

"The first two times the brain was activated, the roboticists just began feeding data into the thing as though it were an ordinary computing machine. They were forcing it to learn too fast; they weren't giving it time to recover from the shock of learning.

"Just as in the human being, there is a difference between a robot's brain and a robot's mind. The brain is a physical thing--a bunch of cryotrons in a helium bath. But the mind is the sum total of all the data and reaction patterns and so forth that have been built into the brain or absorbed by it.

"The brain didn't have an opportunity to recover from the learning shocks when the data was fed in too fast, so the mind cracked. It couldn't take it. The robot went insane.

"Each time, the roboticists had to deactivate the brain, drain it of all data, and start over. After the second time, Dr. Fitzhugh decided they were going about it wrong, so they decided on a different tack."

"I see," said Mike the Angel. "It had to be taught slowly, like a child."

"Exactly," said Leda. "And who would know more about teaching a child than a child psychologist?" she added brightly.

Mike looked down at his coffee cup, watching the slight wavering of the surface as it broke up the reflected light from the glow panels. He had invited this girl down to his stateroom (he told himself) to get information about Snookums. But now he realized that information about the girl herself was far more important.

"How long have you been working with Snookums?" he asked, without looking up from his coffee.

"Over eight years," she said.

Then Mike looked up. "You know, you hardly look old enough. You don't look much older than twenty-five."

She smiled--a little shyly, Mike thought. "As Snookums says, 'You're nice.' I'm twenty-six."

"And you've been working with Snookums since you were eighteen?"

"Uh-huh." She looked, very suddenly, much younger than even the twenty-five Mike had guessed at. She seemed to be more like a somewhat bashful teen-ager who had been educated in a convent. "I was what they call an 'exceptional child.' My mother died when I was seven, and Dad ... well, he just didn't know what to do with a baby girl, I guess. He was a kind man, and I think he really loved me, but he just didn't know what to do with me. So when the tests showed that I was ... brighter ... than the average, he put me in a special school in Italy. Said he didn't want my mind cramped by being forced to conform to the mental norm. Maybe he even believed that himself.

"And, too, he didn't approve of public education. He had a lot of odd ideas.

"Anyway, I saw him during summer vacations and went to school the rest of the year. He took me all over the world when I was with him, and the instructors were pretty wonderful people; I'm not sorry that I was brought up that way. It was a little different from the education that most children have, but it gave me a chance to use my mind."

"I know the school," said Mike the Angel. "That's the one under the Cesare Alfieri Institute in Florence?"

"That's it; did you go there?" There was an odd, eager look in her eyes.

Mike shook his head. "Nope. But a friend of mine did. Ever know a guy named Paulvitch?"

She squealed with delight, as though she'd been playfully pinched. "Sir Gay? You mean Serge Paulvitch, the Fiend of Florence?" She pronounced the name properly: "Sair-gay," instead of "surge," as too many people were prone to do.

"Sounds like the same man," Mike admitted, grinning. "As evil-looking as Satanas himself?"

"That's Sir Gay, all right. Half the girls were scared of him, and I think all the boys were. He's about three years older than I am, I guess."

"Why call him Sir Gay?" Mike asked. "Just because of his name?"

"Partly. And partly because he was always such a gentleman. A real nice guy, if you know what I mean. Do you know him well?"

"Know him? Hell, I couldn't run my business without him."

"Your business?" She blinked. "But he works for--" Then her eyes became very wide, her mouth opened, and she pointed an index finger at Mike. "Then you ... you're Mike the Angel! M. R. Gabriel! Sure!" She started laughing. "I never connected it up! My golly, my golly! I thought you were just another Space Service commander! Mike the Angel! Well, I'll be darned!"

She caught her breath. "I'm sorry. I was just so surprised, that's all. Are you really the M. R. Gabriel, of M. R. Gabriel, Power Design?"

Mike was as close to being nonplused as he cared to be. "Sure," he said. "You mean you didn't know?"

She shook her head. "No. I thought Mike the Angel was about sixty years old, a crotchety old genius behind a desk, as eccentric as a comet's orbit, and wealthier than Croesus. You're just not what I pictured, that's all."

"Just wait a few more decades," Mike said, laughing. "I'll try to live up to my reputation."

"So you're Serge's boss. How is he? I haven't seen him since I was sixteen."

"He's grown a beard," said Mike.

"No!"

"Fact."

"My God, how horrible!" She put her hand over her eyes in mock horror.

"Let's talk about you," said Mike. "You're much prettier than Serge Paulvitch."

"Well, I should hope so! But really, there's nothing to tell. I went to school. B.S. at fourteen, M.S. at sixteen, Ph.D. at eighteen. Then I went to work for C.C. of E., and I've been there ever since. I've never been engaged, I've never been married, and I'm still a virgin. Anything else?"

"No runs, no hits, no errors," said Mike the Angel.

She grinned back impishly. "I haven't been up to bat yet, Commander Gabriel."

"Then I suggest you grab some sort of club to defend yourself, because I'm going to be in there pitching."

The smile on her face faded, to be replaced by a look that was neither awe nor surprise, but partook of both.

"You really mean that, don't you?" she asked in a hushed voice.

"I do," said Mike the Angel.

* * * * *

Commander Peter Jeffers was in the Control Bridge when Mike the Angel stepped in through the door. Jeffers was standing with his back to the door, facing the bank of instruments that gave him a general picture of the condition of the whole ship.

Overhead, the great dome of the ship's nose allowed the gleaming points of light from the star field ahead to shine down on those beneath through the heavy, transparent shield of the cast transite and the invisible screen of the external field.

Mike walked over and tapped Pete Jeffers on the shoulder.

"Busy?"

Jeffers turned around slowly and grinned. "Hullo, old soul. Naw, I ain't busy. Nothin' outside but stars, and we don't figger on gettin' too close to 'em right off the bat. What's the beef?"

"I have," said Mike the Angel succinctly, "goofed."

Jeffers' keen eyes swept analytically over Mike the Angel's face. "You want a drink? I snuck a spot o' brandy aboard, and just by purty ole coincidence, there's a bottle right over there in the speaker housing." Without waiting for an answer, he turned away from Mike and walked toward the cabinet that held the intercom speaker. Meantime, he went right on talking.

"Great stuff, brandy. French call it eau de vie, and that, in case you don't know it, means 'water of life.' You want a little, eh, ol' buddy? Sure you do." By this time, he'd come back with the bottle and a pair of glasses and was pouring a good dose into each one. "On the other hand, the Irish gave us our name for whisky. Comes from uisge-beatha, and by some bloody peculiar coincidence, that also means 'water of life.' So you just set yourself right down here and get some life into you."

Mike sat down at the computer table, and Jeffers sat down across from him. "Now you just drink on up, buddy-buddy and then tell your ol' Uncle Pete what the bloody hell the trouble is."

Mike looked at the brandy for a full half minute. Then, with one quick flip of his wrist and a sudden spasmodic movement of his gullet, he downed it.

Then he took a deep breath and said: "Do I look as bad as all that?"

"Worse," said Jeffers complacently, meanwhile refilling Mike's glass. "While we were on active service together, I've seen you go through all kinds of things and never look like this. What is it? Reaction from this afternoon's--or, pardon me--yesterday afternoon's emergency?"

Mike glanced up at the chronometer. It was two-thirty in the morning, Greenwich time. Jeffers held the bridge from midnight till noon, while Black Bart had the noon to midnight shift.

Still, Mike hadn't realized that it was as late as all that.

He looked at Jeffers' lean, bony face. "Reaction? No, it's not that. Look, Pete, you know me. Would you say I was a pretty levelheaded guy?"

"Sure."

"My old man always said, 'Never make an enemy accidentally,' and I think he was right. So I usually think over what I say before I open my big mouth, don't I?"

Again Jeffers said, "Sure."

"I wouldn't call myself over-cautious," Mike persisted, "but I usually think a thing through pretty carefully before I act--that is, if I have time. Right?"

"I'd say so," Jeffers admitted. "I'd say you were about the only guy I know who does the right thing more than 90 per cent of the time. And says the right thing more than 99 per cent of the time. So what do you want? Back-patting, or just hero worship?"

Mike took a small taste of the brandy. "Neither, you jerk. But about eight hours ago I said something that I hadn't planned to say. I practically proposed to Leda Crannon without knowing I was going to."

Peter Jeffers didn't laugh. He simply said, "How'd it happen?"

Mike told him.

When Mike had finished, one drink later, Peter Jeffers filled the glasses for the third time and leaned back in his chair. "Tell me one thing, ol' buddy, and think about it before you answer. If you had a chance to get out of it gracefully, would you take back what you said?"

Mike the Angel thought it over. The sweep hand on the chronometer made its rounds several times before he answered. Then, at last, he said: "No. No, I wouldn't."

Jeffers pursed his lips, then said judicially: "In that case, you're not doing badly at all. There's nothing wrong with you except the fact that you're in love."

Mike downed the third drink fast and stood up. "Thanks, Pete," he said. "That's what I was afraid of."

"Wait just one stinkin' minute," said Jeffers firmly. "Sit down."

Mike sat.

"What do you intend to do about it?" Jeffers asked.

Mike the Angel grinned at him. "What the hell else can I do but woo and win the wench?"

Jeffers grinned back at him. "I reckon you know you got competition, huh?"

"You mean Jake von Liegnitz?" Mike's face darkened. "I have the feeling he's looking for something that doesn't include a marriage certificate."

"Love sure makes a man sound noble," said Jeffers philosophically. "If you mean that all he wants is to get Leda into the sack, you're prob'ly right. Normal reaction, I'd say. Can't blame Jake for that."

"I don't," said Mike. "But that doesn't mean I can't spike his guns."

"Course not. Again, a normal reaction."

"What about Lew Mellon?" Mike asked.

"Lew?" Jeffers raised his eyebrows. "I dunno. I think he likes to talk to her, is all. But if he is interested, he's bloody well serious. He's a strict Anglo-Catholic, like yourself."

I'm not as strict as I ought to be, Mike thought. "I thought he had a rather monkish air about him," he said aloud.

Jeffers chuckled. "Yeah, but I don't think he's so ascetic that he wouldn't marry." His grin broadened. "Now, if we were still at ol' Chilblains, you'd really have competition. After all, you can't expect that a gal who's stacked ... pardon me ... who has the magnificent physical and physiognomical topography of Leda Crannon to spend her life bein' ignored, now can you?"

"Nope," said Mike the Angel.

"Now, I figger," Jeffers said, "that you can purty much forget about Lew Mellon. But Jakob von Liegnitz is a chromatically variant equine, indeed."

Mike shook his head vigorously, as if to clear away the fog. "Pfui! Let's change the subject. My heretofore nimble mind has been coagulated by a pair of innocent blue eyes. I need my skull stirred up."

"I have a limerick," said Jeffers lightly. "It's about a young spaceman named Mike, who said: 'I can do as I like!' And to prove his bright quip, he took a round trip, clear to Sirius B on a bike. Or, the tale of the pirate, Black Bart, whose head was as hard as his heart. When he found--"

"Enough!" Mike the Angel held up a hand. "That distillate of fine old grape has made us both silly. Good night. I'm going to get some sleep." He stood up and winked at Jeffers. "And thanks for listening while I bent your ear."

"Any time at all, ol' amoeba. And if you ever feel you need some advice from an ol' married man, why you just trot right round, and I'll give you plenty of bad advice."

"At least you're honest," Mike said. "Night."

Mike the Angel left the bridge as Commander Jeffers was putting the brandy back in its hiding place.

Mike went to his quarters, hit the sack, and spent less than five minutes getting to sleep. There was nothing worrying him now.

He didn't know how long he'd been asleep when he heard a noise in the darkness of his room that made him sit up in bed, instantly awake. The floater under him churned a little, but there was no noise. The room was silent.

In the utter blackness of the room, Mike the Angel could see nothing, and he could hear nothing but the all-pervading hum of the ship's engines. But he could still feel and smell.

He searched back in his memory, trying to place the sound that had awakened him. It hadn't been loud, merely unusual. It had been a noise that shouldn't have been made in the stateroom. It had been a quiet sound, really, but for the life of him, Mike couldn't remember what it had sounded like.

But the evidence of his nerves told him there was someone else in the room besides himself. Somewhere near him, something was radiating heat; it was definitely perceptible in the air-conditioned coolness of his room. And, too, there was the definite smell of warm oil--machine oil. It was faint, but it was unmistakable.

And then he knew what the noise had been.

The soft purr of caterpillar treads against the floor!

Casually, Mike the Angel moved his hand to the wall plaque and touched it lightly. The lights came on, dim and subdued.

"Hello, Snookums," said Mike the Angel gently. "What are you here for?"

The little robot just stood there for a second or two, unmoving, his waldo hands clasped firmly in front of his chest. Mike suddenly wished to Heaven that the metallic face could show something that Mike could read.

"I came for data," said Snookums at last, in the contralto voice that so resembled the voice of the woman who had trained him.

Mike started to say, "At this time of night?" Then he glanced at his wrist. It was after seven-thirty in the morning, Greenwich time--which was also ship time.

"What is it you want?" Mike asked.

"Can you dance?" asked Snookums.

"Yes," said Mike dazedly, "I can dance." For a moment he had the wild idea that Snookums was going to ask him to do a few turns about the floor.

"Thank you," said Snookums. His treads whirred, he turned as though on a pivot, whizzed to the door, opened it, and was gone.

Mike the Angel stared at the door as though trying to see beyond it, into the depths of the robot's brain itself.

"Now just what was that all about?" he asked aloud.

In the padded silence of the stateroom, there wasn't even an echo to answer him.

14

Mike the Angel spent the next three days in a pale blue funk which he struggled valiantly against, at least to prevent it from becoming a deep blue.

There was something wrong aboard the Brainchild, and Mike simply couldn't quite figure what it was. He found that he wasn't the only one who had been asked peculiar questions by Snookums. The little robot seemed to have developed a sudden penchant for asking seemingly inane questions.

Lieutenant Keku reported with a grin that Snookums had asked him if he knew who Commander Gabriel really was.

"What'd you say?" Mike had asked.

Keku had spread his hands and said: "I gave him the usual formula about not being positive of my data, then I told him that you were known as Mike the Angel and were well known in the power field."

Multhaus reported that Snookums had wanted to know what their destination was. The chief's only possible answer, of course, had been: "I don't have that data, Snookums."

Dr. Morris Fitzhugh had become more worried-looking than usual and had confided to Mike that he, too, wondered why Snookums was asking such peculiar questions.

"All he'll tell me," the roboticist had reported, wrinkling up his face, "was that he was collecting data. But he flatly refused, even when ordered, to tell me what he needed the data for."

Mike stayed away from Leda Crannon as much as possible; shipboard was no place to try to conduct a romance. Not that he deliberately avoided her in such a manner as to give offense, but he tried to appear busy at all times.

She was busy, too. Keeping herd on Snookums was becoming something of a problem. She had never attempted to watch him all the time. In the first place, it was physically impossible; in the second place, she didn't think Snookums would develop properly if he were to be kept under constant supervision. But now, for the first time, she didn't have the foggiest notion of what was going on inside the robot's mind, and she couldn't find out. It puzzled and worried her, and between herself and Dr. Fitzhugh there were several long conferences on Snookums' peculiar behavior.

Mike the Angel found himself waiting for something to happen. He hadn't the slightest notion what it was that he was waiting for, but he was as certain of its coming as he was of the fact that the Earth was an oblate spheroid.

But he certainly didn't expect it to begin the way it did.

A quiet evening bridge game is hardly the place for a riot to start.

Pete Jeffers was pounding the pillow in his stateroom; Captain Quill was on the bridge, checking through the log.

In the officers' wardroom Mike the Angel was looking down at two hands of cards, wondering whether he'd make his contract. His own hand held the ace, nine, seven of spades; the ten, six, two of hearts; the jack, ten, nine, four, three, and deuce of diamonds; and the eight of clubs.

Vaneski, his partner, had bid a club. Keku had answered with a take-out double. Mike had looked at his hand, figured that since he and Vaneski were vulnerable, while Keku and von Liegnitz were not, he bid a weakness pre-empt of three diamonds. Von Liegnitz passed, and Vaneski had answered back with five diamonds. Keku and Mike had both passed, and von Liegnitz had doubled.

Now Mike was looking at Vaneski's dummy hand. No spades; the ace, queen, five, and four of hearts; the queen, eight, seven, and six of diamonds; and the ace, king, seven, four, and three of clubs.

And von Liegnitz had led the three of hearts.

It didn't look good. His opponents had the ace and king of trumps, and with von Liegnitz' heart lead, it looked as though he might have to try a finesse on the king of hearts. Still, there might be another way out.

Mike threw in the ace from dummy. Keku tossed in his seven, and Mike threw in his own deuce. He took the next trick with the ace of clubs from dummy, and the singleton eight in his own hand. The one after that came from dummy, too; it was the king of clubs, and Mike threw in the heart six from his own hand. From dummy, he led the three of clubs. Keku went over it with a jack, but Mike took it with his deuce of diamonds.

He led the seven of spades to get back in dummy so he could use up those clubs. Dummy took the trick with the six of diamonds, and led out with the four of clubs.

Mike figured that Keku must--absolutely must--have the king of hearts. Both his take-out double and von Liegnitz' heart lead pointed toward the king in his hand. Now if....

Vaneski had moved around behind Mike to watch the play. Not one of them noticed Lieutenant Lew Mellon, the Medical Officer, come into the room.

That is, they knew he had come in, but they had ignored him thereafter. He was such a colorless nonentity that he simply seemed to fade into the background of the walls once he had made his entrance.

Mike had taken seven tricks, and, as he had expected, lost the eighth to von Liegnitz' five of diamonds. When the German led the nine of hearts, Mike knew he had the game. He put in the queen from dummy, Keku tossed in his king triumphantly, and Mike topped it with his lowly four of diamonds.

If, as he suspected, his opponents' ace and king of diamonds were split, he would get them both by losing the next trick and then make a clean sweep of the board.

He threw in his nine of diamonds.

He just happened to glance at von Liegnitz as the navigator dropped his king.

Then he lashed out with one foot, kicking at the leg of von Liegnitz' chair. At the same time, he yelled, "Jake! Duck!"

He was almost too late. Mellon, his face contorted with a mixture of anger and hatred, was standing just behind Jakob von Liegnitz. In one hand was a heavy spanner, which he was bringing down with deadly force on the navigator's skull.

Von Liegnitz' chair started to topple, and von Liegnitz himself spun away from the blow. The spanner caught him on the shoulder, and he grunted in pain, but he kept on moving away from Mellon.

The medic screamed something and lifted the spanner again.

By this time, Keku, too, was on his feet, moving toward Mellon. Mike the Angel got behind Mellon, trying to grab at the heavy metal tool in Mellon's hand.

Mellon seemed to sense him, for he jumped sideways, out of Mike's way, and kicked backward at the same time, catching Mike on the shin with his heel.

Von Liegnitz had made it to his feet by this time and was blocking the downward swing of Mellon's arm with his own forearm. His other fist pistoned out toward Mellon's face. It connected, sending Mellon staggering backward into Mike the Angel's arms.

Von Liegnitz grabbed the spanner out of Mellon's hand and swung it toward the medic's jaw. It was only inches away when Keku's hand grasped the navigator's wrist.

And when the big Hawaiian's hand clamped on, von Liegnitz' hand stopped almost dead.

Mellon was screaming. "You ----!" He ran out a string of unprintable and almost un-understandable words. "I'll kill you! I'll do it yet! You stay away from Leda Crannon!"

"Calm down, Doc!" snapped Mike the Angel. "What the hell's the matter with you, anyway?"

Von Liegnitz was still straining, trying to get away from Keku to take another swipe at the medic, but the huge Hawaiian held him easily. The navigator had lapsed into his native German, and most of it was unintelligible, except for an occasional reference to various improbable combinations of animal life.

But Mellon was paying no attention. "You! I'll kill you! Lecher! Dirty-minded, filthy...."

He went on.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, he smashed his heel down on Mike's toe. At least, he tried to; he'd have done it if the toe had been there when his heel came down. But Mike moved it just two inches and avoided the blow.

At the same time, though, Mellon twisted, and Mike's forced shift of position lessened his leverage on the man's shoulders and arms. Mellon almost got away. One hand grabbed the wrench from von Liegnitz, whose grip had been weakened by the paralyzing pressure of Keku's fingers.

Mike had no choice but to slam a hard left into the man's solar plexus. Mellon collapsed like an unoccupied overcoat.

By this time, von Liegnitz had quieted down. "Let go, Keku," he said. "I'm all right." He looked down at the motionless figure on the deck. "What the hell do you suppose was eating him?" he asked quietly.

"How's your shoulder?" Mike asked.

"Hurts like the devil, but I don't think it's busted. But why did he do it?" he repeated.

"Sounds to me," said Keku dryly, "that he was nutty jealous of you. He didn't like the times you took Leda Crannon to the base movies while we were at Chilblains."

Jakob von Liegnitz continued to look down at the smaller man in wonder. "Lieber Gott" he said finally. "I only took her out a couple of times. I knew he liked her, but--" He stopped. "The guy must be off his bearings."

"I smelled liquor on his breath," said Mike. "Let's get him down to his stateroom and lock him in until he sobers up. I'll have to report this to the captain. Can you carry him, Keku?"

Keku nodded and reached down. He put his hands under Mellon's armpits, lifted him to his feet, and threw him over his shoulder.

"Good," said Mike the Angel. "I'll walk behind you and clop him one if he wakes up and gets wise."

Vaneski was standing to one side, his face pale, his expression blank.

Mike said: "Jake, you and Vaneski go up and make the report to the captain. Tell him we'll be up as soon as we've taken care of Mellon."

"Right," said von Liegnitz, massaging his bruised shoulder.

"Okay, Keku," said Mike, "forward march."

* * * * *

Lieutenant Keku thumbed the opener to Mellon's stateroom, shoved the door aside, stepped in, and slapped at the switch plaque. The plates lighted up, bathing the room in sunshiny brightness.

"Dump him on his sack," said Mike.

While Keku put the unconscious Mellon on his bed, Mike let his gaze wander around the room. It was neat--almost too neat, implying overfussiness. The medical reference books were on one shelf, all in alphabetical order. Another shelf contained a copy of the International Encyclopedia, English edition, plus several dictionaries, including one on medical terms and another on theological ones.

On the desk lay a copy of the Bible, York translation, opened to the Book of Tobit. Next to it were several sheets of blank paper and a small traveling clock sat on them as a paperweight.

His clothing was hung neatly, in the approved regulation manner, with his shoes in their proper places and his caps all lined up in a row.

Mike walked around the room, looking at everything.

"What's the matter? What're you looking for?" asked Keku.

"His liquor," said Mike the Angel.

"In his desk, lower left-hand drawer. You won't find anything but a bottle of ruby port; Mellon was never a drinker."

Mike opened the drawer. "I probably won't find that, drunk as he is."

Surprisingly enough, the bottle of wine was almost half full. "Did he have more than one bottle?" Mike asked.

"Not so far as I know. Like I said, he didn't drink much. One slug of port before bedtime was about his limit."

Mike frowned. "How does his breath smell to you?"

"Not bad. Two or three drinks, maybe."

"Mmmm." Mike put the bottle on top of the desk, then walked over to the small case that was standing near one wall. He lifted it and flipped it open. It was the standard medical kit for Space Service physicians.

The intercom speaker squeaked once before Captain Quill's voice came over it. "Mister Gabriel?"

"Yes, sir?" said Mike without turning around. There were no eyes in the private quarters of the officers and crew.

"How is Mister Mellon?" A Space Service physician's doctorate is never used as a form of address; three out of four Space Service officers have a doctor's degree of some kind, and there's no point in calling 75 per cent of the officers "doctor."

Mike glanced across the room. Keku had finished stripping the little physician to his underclothes and had put a cover over him.

"He's still unconscious, sir, but his breathing sounds all right."

"How's his pulse?"

Keku picked up Mellon's left wrist and applied his fingers to the artery while he looked at his wrist watch.

Mike said: "We'll check it, sir. Wait a few seconds."

Fifteen seconds later, Keku multiplied by four and said: "One-oh-four and rather weak."

"You'd better get hold of the Physician's Mate," Mike told Quill. "He's not in good condition, either mentally or physically."

"Very well. As soon as the mate takes over, you and Mister Keku get up here. I want to know what the devil has been going on aboard my ship."

"You are bloody well not the only one," said Mike the Angel.

15

Midnight, ship time.

And, as far as the laws of simultaneity would allow, it was midnight in Greenwich, England. At least, when a ship returned from an interstellar trip, the ship's chronometer was within a second or two, plus or minus, of Greenwich time. Theoretically, the molecular vibration clocks shouldn't vary at all. The fact that they did hadn't yet been satisfactorily accounted for.

Mike the Angel tried to make himself think of clocks or the variations in space time or anything else equally dull, in the hope that it would put him to sleep.

He began to try to work out the derivation of the Beale equations, the equations which had solved the principle of the no-space drive. The ship didn't move through space; space moved through the ship, which, of course, might account for the variation in time, because--

--the time is out of joint.

The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!

Hamlet, thought Mike. Act One, the end of scene five.

But why had he been born to set it right? Besides, exactly what was wrong? There was something wrong, all right.

And why from the end of the act? Another act to come? Something more to happen? The clock will go round till another time comes. Watch the clock, the absolutely cuckoo clock, which ticked as things happened that made almost no sense and yet had sense hidden in their works.

The good old Keku clock. Somewhere is icumen in, lewdly sing Keku. The Mellon is ripe and climbing Jakob's ladder. And both of them playing Follow the Leda.

And where were they heading? Toward some destination in the general direction of the constellation Cygnus. The transformation equations work fine on an interstellar ship. Would they work on a man? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to transform yourself into a swan? Cygnus the Swan.

And we'll all play Follow the Leda....

Somewhere in there, Mike the Angel managed to doze off.

* * * * *

He awoke suddenly, and his dream of being a huge black swan vanished, shattered into nothingness.

This time it had not been a sound that had awakened him. It had been something else, something more like a cessation of sound. A dying sigh.

He reached out and touched the switch plaque.

Nothing happened.

The room remained dark.

The room was strangely silent. The almost soundless vibration of the engines was still there, but....

The air conditioners!

The air in the stateroom was unmoving, static. There was none of the faint breeze of moving air. Something had gone wrong with the low-power circuits!

Now how the hell could that happen? Not by accident, unless the accident were a big one. It would take a tremendous amount of coincidence to put all three of the interacting systems out of order at once. And they all had to go at once to cut the power from the low-load circuits.

The standard tap and the first and second stand-by taps were no longer tapping power from the main generators. The intercom was gone, too, along with the air conditioners, the lights, and half a dozen other sub-circuits.

Mike the Angel scrambled out of bed and felt for his clothing, wishing he had something as prosaic as an old-fashioned match, or even a flame-type cigarette lighter. He found his lighter in his belt pocket as he pulled on his uniform. He jerked it out and thumbed it. In the utter darkness, the orange-red glow gave more illumination than he had supposed. If a man's eyes are adjusted to darkness, he can read print by the glow of a cigarette, and the lighter's glow was brighter than that.

Still, it wasn't much. If only he had a flashlight!

From a distance, far down the companionway, he could hear voices. The muffled sound that had awakened him had been the soft susurration of the door as it had slid open when the power died. Without the electrolocks to hold it closed, it had opened automatically. The doors in a spaceship are built that way, to make sure no one will be trapped in case of a power failure.

Mike dressed in a matter of seconds and headed toward the door.

And stopped just before he stepped out.

Someone was outside. Someone, or--something.

He didn't know how he knew, but he knew. He was as certain as if the lights had been on bright.

And whoever was waiting out there didn't want Mike the Angel to know that he was there.

Mike stood silent for a full second. That was long enough for him to get angry. Not the hot anger of hatred, but the cold anger of a man who has had too many attempts on his life, who has escaped narrowly from an unseen plotter twice because of pure luck and does not intend to fall victim to the dictum that "the third time's a charm."

He realized that he was still holding the glowing cigarette lighter in his hand.

"Damn!" he muttered, as though to himself. "I'd forget my ears if they weren't sewed down." Then he turned, heading back toward his bed, hoping that whoever was waiting outside would assume he would be back immediately. At the same time, he lifted his thumb off the lighter's contact.

Then he sat down on the edge of his bed and quickly pulled off his boots. Holding them both in his hands, he moved silently back to the door. When he reached it, he tossed both boots to the rear of the room. When they landed clatteringly, he stepped quietly through the door. In three steps he was on the opposite side of the corridor. He hugged the wall and moved back away from the spot where the watcher would be expecting him.

Then he waited.

He was on one side of the door to his stateroom, and the--what or whoever it was--was on the other. Until that other made a move, Mike the Angel would wait.

The wait seemed many minutes long, although Mike knew it couldn't have been more than forty-five seconds or so. From other parts of the ship he could hear voices shouting as the crewmen and officers who had been sleeping were awakened by the men on duty. The ship could not sustain life long if the air conditioners were dead.

Then, quite suddenly, the waiting was over. Behind Mike there was a bend in the corridor, and from around that bend came the sound of running footsteps, followed by a bellowing voice: "I'll get the Commander; you go down and get the other boys started!"

Multhaus.

And then there was a glow of light. The Chief Powerman's Mate was carrying a light, which reflected from the walls of the corridor.

And Mike the Angel knew perfectly well that he was silhouetted against that glow. Whoever it was who was waiting for him could see him plainly.

Multhaus' footsteps rang in the corridor while Mike strained his eyes to see what was before him in the darkness. And all the time, the glow became brighter as Multhaus approached.

Then, from out of the darkness, came something that moved on a whir of caterpillar treads. Something hard and metallic slammed against Mike's shoulder, spinning him against the wall.

At that moment, Multhaus came around the corner, and Mike could see Snookums scurrying on down the corridor toward the approaching Powerman's Mate.

"Multhaus! Look out!" Mike yelled.

The beam from the chief's hand torch gleamed on the metallic body of the little robot as it headed toward him.

"Snookums! Stop!" Mike ordered.

Snookums paid no attention. He swerved adroitly around the astonished Multhaus, spun around the corner, and was gone into the darkness.

"What was all that, sir?" Multhaus asked, looking more than somewhat confused.

"A course of instruction on the First and Second Laws of Robotics as applied by the Computer Corporation of Earth," said Mike, rubbing his bruised side. "But never mind that now. What's wrong with the low-power circuits?"

"I don't know, sir. Breckwell is on duty in that section."

"Let's go," said Mike the Angel. "We have to get this cleared up before we all suffocate."

"Someone's going to get galloping claustrophobia before it's over, anyway," said Multhaus morosely as he followed Mike down the hallway in the direction from which Snookums had come. "Darkness and stuffy air touch off that sort of thing."

"Who's Officer of the Watch tonight?" Mike wanted to know.

"Ensign Vaneski, I think. His name was on the roster, as I remember."

"I hope he reported to the bridge. Commander Jeffers will be getting frantic, but he can't leave the bridge unless he's relieved. Come on, let's move."

They sprinted down the companionway.

* * * * *

The lights had been out less than five minutes when Mike the Angel and Chief Powerman's Mate Multhaus reached the low-power center of the Power Section. The door was open, and a torch was spearing its beam on two men--one kneeling over the prone figure of the other. The kneeling man jerked his head around as Mike and the chief came in the door.

The kneeling man was Powerman First Class Fleck. Mike recognized the man on the floor as Powerman Third Class Breckwell.

"What happened?" he snapped at Fleck.

"Don't know, sir. I was in the head when the lights went. It took me a little time to get a torch and get in here, and I found Breckwell gone. At least, I thought he was gone, but then I heard a noise from the tool cabinet and I opened it and he fell out." The words seemed to come out all in a rush.

"Dead?" asked Mike sharply.

"Nossir, I don't think so, sir. Looks like somebody clonked him on the head, but he's breathin' all right."

Mike knelt over the man and took his pulse. The heartbeat was regular and steady, if a trifle weak. Mike ran a hand over Breckwell's head.

"There's a knot there the size of a golf ball, but I don't think anything's broken," he said.

Footsteps came running down the hall, and six men of the power crew came pouring in the door. They slowed to a halt when they saw their commanding officer was already there.

"A couple of you take care of Breckwell--Leister, Knox--move him to one side. Bathe his face with water. No, wait; you can't do that till we get the pumps moving again. Just watch him."

One of the men coughed a little. "What he needs is a good slug of hooch."

"I agree," said Mike evenly. "Too bad there isn't any aboard. But do what you think is best; I'm going to be too busy to keep an eye on you. I won't be able to watch you at all, so you'll be on your own."

"Yessir," said the man who had spoken. He hid his grin and took out at a run, heading for wherever it was he kept his bottle hidden.

"Dunstan, you and Ghihara get out and watch the halls. If any other officer comes this way, sing out."

"Yessir!" came the twin chorus.

More footsteps pounded toward them, and the remaining men of the power crew arrived.

"All right, now let's take a look at these circuits," said Mike.

Chief Multhaus had already flipped open all the panels and was peering inside. The men lined the torches up on the desk in the corner, in order to shed as much light as possible over the banks of low-power wiring, and went over to where Multhaus and Mike the Angel were standing.

"Dig out three replacement switches--heavy-duty six-double-oh-B-nines," said Multhaus. There was a touch of disgust and a good-sized serving of anger and irritation in his voice.

Mike the Angel surveyed the damage. "See anything else, Multhaus?"

"No, sir. That's it."

Mike nodded. "About five minutes' work to get the main switch going, which will give us power, and another ten minutes for the first and second stand-bys. Go ahead and take over, Multhaus; you won't need me. I'll go find out what the bloody unprintable is going on around here."

* * * * *

Mike the Angel ran into Captain Sir Henry Quill as he went up the companionway to the bridge.

"What happened?" demanded the captain in his gravelly tenor voice.

"Somebody ripped out the main switches to the low-power taps from the main generators, sir," said Mike. "Nothing to worry about. The boys will have the lights on within three or four minutes."

"Who...?"

"I don't know," said Mike, "but we'd better find out pretty fast. There've been too many things going on aboard this ship to suit me."

"Same here. Are you sure everything's all right down there?"

"Absolutely, sir. We can quit worrying about the damage itself and put our minds to finding out who did that damage."

"Do you have any ideas?"

"Some," said Mike the Angel. "As soon as the intercom is functioning again, I think you'd better call a general meeting of officers--and get Miss Crannon and Fitzhugh out of bed and get them up here, too."

"Why?" Black Bart asked flatly.

"Because Snookums has gone off his rocker. He's attacked at least one human being that I know of and has ignored direct orders from a human being."

"Who?" asked Black Bart.

"Me," said Mike the Angel.

Mike told Captain Quill what had happened as they made their way back up to the bridge.

Ensign Vaneski, looking pale and worried, met them at the door. He snapped a salute. "I just reported to Commander Jeffers, sir. Something's wrong with the low-power circuits."

"I had surmised as much," said Black Bart caustically. "Anything new? What did you find out? What happened?"

"When the lights went out, I was having coffee by myself in the wardroom. I grabbed a torch and headed for Power Section as soon as I could. The low-power room was empty. There should have been a man on duty there, but there wasn't. I didn't want to go inside, since I'm not a power officer, so I came up here to report. I--"

At that moment the lights blazed on again. There was a faint hum that built up all over the ship as the air conditioning came on at the same time.

"All right, Mister Vaneski," said Black Bart, "get below and take care of things. There's a man hurt down there, so be ready to take him to sick bay when the Physician's Mate gets there. We don't have a medic in any condition to take care of people, so he'll have to do. Hop it."

As Vaneski left, Black Bart preceded Mike into the bridge. Pete Jeffers was on the intercom. As Mike and the captain came in, he was saying, "All right. I'll notify the Officer of the Watch, and we'll search the ship. He can't hide very long." Then, without waiting to say anything to Mike or Quill, he jabbed at another button. "Mister von Liegnitz! Jake!"

"Ja? Huh? What is it?" came a fuzzy voice from the speaker.

"You all right?"

"Me? Sure. I was asleep. Why?"

"Be on your toes, sleepyhead; just got word that Mellon has escaped from his stateroom. He may try to take another crack at you."

"I'll watch it," said von Liegnitz, his voice crisp now.

"Okay." Jeffers sighed and looked up. "As soon as the power came on, the Physician's Mate was on the intercom. Mellon isn't in his stateroom."

"Oh, wonderful!" growled Captain Quill. "We now have one insane robot and one insane human running loose on this ship. I'm glad we didn't bring any gorillas with us."

"Somehow I think I'd be safer with a gorilla," said Mike the Angel.

"According to the Physician's Mate, Mellon is worse than just nuts," said Jeffers quietly. "He says he loaded Mellon full of dope to make him sleep and that the man's got no right to be walkin' around at all."

"He must have gotten out while the doors were open," said Captain Quill. He rubbed the palm of his hand over the shiny pinkness of his scalp. His dark, shaggy brows were down over his eyes, as though they had been weighted with lead.

"Mister Jeffers," he said abruptly, "break out the stun guns. Issue one to each officer and one to each chief non-com. Until we get this straightened out, I'm declaring a state of emergency."

16

Mike the Angel hefted the heavy stun gun in his right fist, feeling its weight without really noticing it. He knew damned good and well it wouldn't be of any use against Snookums. If Mellon came at him, the supersonic beam from the gun would affect his nerves the same way an electric current would, and he'd collapse, unconscious but relatively unharmed. But Mike doubted seriously that it would have any effect at all on the metal body of the robot. It is as difficult to jolt the nerves of a robot as it is to blind an oyster.

Snookums did have sensory devices that enabled him to tell what was going on around him, but they were not nerves in the ordinary sense of the word, and a stun gun certainly wouldn't have the same effect.

He wondered just what effect it would have--if any.

He was going down the main ladder--actually a long spiral stairway that led downward from the bridge. Behind him were Chief Multhaus, also armed with a stun gun, and four members of the power crew, each armed with a heavy spanner. Mike or the chief could take care of Mellon; it would be the crew's job to take care of Snookums.

"Smash his treads and his waldoes," Mike had told them, "but only if he attacks. Before you try anything else, give him an order to halt. If he keeps on coming, start swinging." And, to Chief Multhaus: "If Mellon jumps me, fire that stun gun only if he's armed with a knife or a gun. But if you do have to fire at Mellon, don't wait to get in a good shot; just go ahead and knock us both out. I'd rather be asleep than dead. Okay?"

Multhaus had agreed. "The same goes for me, Commander. And the rest of the boys."

So down the ladder they went. Mike hoped there'd be no fighting at all. He had the feeling that everything was all wrong, somehow, and that any use of stun guns or spanners would just make everything worse.

His wasn't the only group looking for Snookums and Mellon. Lieutenant Keku had another group, and Commander Jeffers had a third. Lieutenant Commander von Liegnitz was with Captain Quill on the bridge. Mellon had already attacked von Liegnitz once; the captain didn't want them mixing it up again.

Captain Quill's voice came suddenly from a speaker in the overhead. "Miss Crannon and Dr. Fitzhugh have just spoken to me," he said in his brisk tenor. "Snookums is safe in his own room. I have outlined what has happened, and they're trying to get information from Snookums now. Lieutenant Mellon is still missing."

"One down," said Chief Multhaus. There was relief in his voice.

"Let's see if we can find the other one," said Mike the Angel.

They went down perhaps three more steps, and the speakers came to life again. "Will the Chief Physician's Mate report to Commander Jeffers in the maintenance tool room? Lieutenant Keku, dismiss your men to quarters and report to the bridge. Commander Gabriel, dismiss your men to quarters and report to Commander Jeffers in maintenance. All chief non-coms report to the ordnance room to turn in your weapons. All enlisted men return to your posts or to quarters."

Mike the Angel holstered his stun gun. "That's two down," he said to Chief Multhaus.

"Looks like we missed all the fun," said Multhaus.

"Okay, men," Mike said, "you got the word. Take those spanners back to the tool room in Power Section, and then get back to your quarters. Chief, you go with them and secure everything, then take that stun gun back to ordnance."

"Yessir."

Multhaus threw Mike a salute; Mike returned it and headed toward maintenance. He knew Multhaus and the others were curious, but he was just as curious himself. He had the advantage of being in a position to satisfy his curiosity.

The maintenance tool room was big and lined with tool lockers. One of them was open. Sprawled in front of it was Lieutenant Mellon. Over to one side was Commander Jeffers, standing next to a white-faced Ensign Vaneski. Nearby were a chief non-com and three enlisted men.

"Hullo, Mike," Pete Jeffers said as Mike the Angel came in.

"What happened, Pete?" Mike asked.

Jeffers gestured at the sprawled figure on the floor. "We came in here to search. We found him. Mister Vaneski opened the locker, there, for a look-see, and Mellon jumped out at him. Vaneski fired his stun gun. Mellon collapsed to the deck. He's in bad shape; his pulse is so weak that it's hard to find."

Mike the Angel walked over and looked down at the fallen Medical Officer. His face was waxen, and he looked utterly small and harmless.

"What happened?" asked another voice from the door. It was Chief Physician's Mate Pierre Pasteur. He was a smallish man, well rounded, pleasant-faced, and inordinately proud of his name. He couldn't actually prove that he was really descended from the great Louis, but he didn't allow people to think otherwise. Like most C. Phys. M.'s, he had a doctor of medicine degree but no internship in the Space Service. He was working toward his commission.

"We've got a patient for you," said Jeffers. "Better look him over, Chief."

Chief Pasteur walked over to where Mellon lay and took his stethoscope out of his little black bag. He listened to Mellon's chest for a few seconds. Then he pried open an eyelid and looked closely at an eye. "What happened to him?" he asked, without looking up.

"Got hit with a beam from a stun gun," said Jeffers.

"How did he fall? Did he hit his head?"

"I don't know--maybe." He looked at Ensign Vaneski. "Did he, Mister Vaneski? He was right on top of you; I was across the room."

Vaneski swallowed. "I don't know. He--he just sort of--well, he fell."

"You didn't catch him?" asked the chief. He was a physician on a case now and had no time for sirring his superiors.

"No. No. I jumped away from him."

"Why? What's the trouble?" Jeffers asked.

"He's dead," said the Chief Physician's Mate.

17

Leda Crannon was standing outside the cubicle that had been built for Snookums. Her back and the palms of her hands were pressed against the door. Her head was bowed, and her red hair, shining like a hellish flame in the light of the glow panels, fell around her shoulders and cheeks, almost covering her face.

"Leda," said Mike the Angel gently.

She looked up. There were tears in her blue eyes.

"Mike! Oh, Mike!" She ran toward him, put her arms around him, and tried to bury her face in Mike's chest.

"What's the matter, honey? What's happened?" He was certain she couldn't have heard about Mellon's death yet. He held her in his arms, carefully, tenderly, not passionately.

"He's crazy, Mike. He's completely crazy." Her voice had suddenly lost everything that gave it color. It was only dead and choked.

Mike the Angel knew it was an emotional reaction. As a psychologist, she would never have used the word "crazy." But as a woman ... as a human being....

"Fitz is still in there talking to him, but he's--he's--" Her voice choked off again into sobs.

Mike waited patiently, holding her, caressing her hair.

"Eight years," she said after a minute or so. "Eight years I spent. And now he's gone. He's broken."

"How do you know?" Mike asked.

She lifted her head and looked at him. "Mike--did he really hit you? Did he refuse to stop when you ordered him to? What really happened?"

Mike told her what had happened in the darkened companionway just outside his room.

When he finished, she began sobbing again. "He's lying, Mike," she said. "Lying!"

Mike nodded silently and slowly. Leda Crannon had spent all of her adult life tending the hurts and bruises and aches of Snookums the Child. She had educated him, cared for him, taken pleasure in his triumphs, worried about his health, and watched him grow mentally.

And now he was sick, broken, ruined. And, like all parents, she was asking herself: "What did I do wrong?"

Mike the Angel didn't give her an answer to that unspoken question, but he knew what the answer was in so many cases:

The grieving parent has not necessarily done anything wrong. It may simply be that there was insufficient or poor-quality material to work with.

With a human child, it is even more humiliating for a parent to admit that he or she has contributed inferior genetic material to a child than it is to admit a failure in upbringing. Leda's case was different.

Leda had lost her child, but Mike hesitated to point out that it wasn't her fault in the first place because the material wasn't up to the task she had given it, and in the second place because she hadn't really lost anything. She was still playing with dolls, not human beings.

"Hell!" said Mike under his breath, not realizing that he was practically whispering in her ear.

"Isn't it?" she said. "Isn't it Hell? I spent eight years trying to make that little mind of his tick properly. I wanted to know what was the right, proper, and logical way to bring up children. I had a theory, and I wanted to test it. And now I'll never know."

"What sort of theory?" Mike asked.

She sniffled, took a handkerchief from her pocket, and began wiping at her tears. Mike took the handkerchief away from her and did the wiping job himself. "What's this theory?" he said.

"Oh, it isn't important now. But I felt--I still feel--that everybody is born with a sort of Three Laws of Robotics in him. You know what I mean--that a person wouldn't kill or harm anyone, or refuse to do what was right, in addition to trying to preserve his own life. I think babies are born that way. But I think that the information they're given when they're growing up can warp them. They still think they're obeying the laws, but they're obeying them wrongly, if you see what I mean."

Mike nodded without saying anything. This was no time to interrupt her.

"For instance," she went on, "if my theory's right, then a child would never disobey his father--unless he was convinced that the man was not really his father, you see. For instance, if he learned, very early, that his father never spanks him, that becomes one of the identifying marks of 'father.' Fine. But the first time his father does spank him, doubt enters. If that sort of thing goes on, he becomes disobedient because he doesn't believe that the man is his father.

"I'm afraid I'm putting it a little crudely, but you get the idea."

"Yeah," said Mike. For all he knew, there might be some merit in the girl's idea; he knew that philosophers had talked of the "basic goodness of mankind" for centuries. But he had a hunch that Leda was going about it wrong. Still, this was no time to argue with her. She seemed calmer now, and he didn't want to upset her any more than he had to.

"That's what you've been working on with Snookums?" he asked.

"That's it."

"For eight years?"

"For eight years."

"Is that the information, the data, that makes Snookums so priceless, aside from his nucleonics work?"

She smiled a little then. "Oh no. Of course not, silly. He's been fed data on everything--physics, subphysics, chemistry, mathematics--all kinds of things. Most of the major research laboratories on Earth have problems of one kind or another that Snookums has been working on. He hasn't been given the problem I was working on at all; it would bias him." Then the tears came back. "And now it doesn't matter. He's insane. He's lying."

"What's he saying?"

"He insists that he's never broken the First Law, that he has never hurt a human being. And he insists that he has followed the orders of human beings, according to the Second Law."

"May I talk to him?" Mike asked.

She shook her head. "Fitz is running him through an analysis. He even made me leave." Then she looked at his face more closely. "You don't just want to confront him and call him a liar, do you? No--that's not like you. You know he's just a machine--better than I do, I guess.... What is it, Mike?"

No, he thought, looking at her, she still thinks he's human. Otherwise, she'd know that a computer can't lie--not in the human sense of the word. Most people, if told that a man had said one thing, and that a computer had given a different answer, would rely on the computer.

"What is it, Mike?" she repeated.

"Lew Mellon," he said very quietly, "is dead."

The blood drained from her face, leaving her skin stark against the bright red of her hair. For a moment he thought she was going to faint. Then a little of the color came back.

"Snookums." Her voice was whispery.

He shook his head. "No. Apparently he tried to jump Vaneski and got hit with a stun beam. It shouldn't have killed him--but apparently it did."

"God, God, God," she said softly. "Here I've been crying about a damned machine, and poor Lew has been lying up there dead." She buried her face in her hands, and her voice was muffled when she spoke again. "And I'm all cried out, Mike. I can't cry any more."

Before Mike could make up his mind whether to say anything or not, the door of Snookums' room opened and Dr. Fitzhugh came out, closing the door behind him. There was an odd, stricken look on his face. He looked at Leda and then at Mike, but the expression on his face showed that he really hadn't seen them clearly.

"Did you ever wonder if a robot had a soul, Mike?" he asked in a wondering tone.

"No," Mike admitted.

Leda took her hands from her face and looked at him. Her expression was a bright blank stare.

"He won't answer my questions," Fitzhugh said in a hushed tone. "I can't complete the analysis."

"What's that got to do with his soul?" Mike asked.

"He won't answer my questions," Fitzhugh repeated, looking earnestly at Mike. "He says God won't allow him to."

18

Captain Sir Henry Quill opened the door of the late Lieutenant Mellon's quarters and went in, followed by Mike the Angel. The dead man's gear had to be packed away so that it could be given to his nearest of kin when the officers and crew of the Brainchild returned to Earth. Regulations provided that two officers must inventory his personal effects and those belonging to the Space Service.

"Does Chief Pasteur know what killed him yet, Captain?" Mike asked.

Quill shook his head. "No. He wants my permission to perform an autopsy."

"Are you going to let him?"

"I think not. We'll put the body in the freezer and have the autopsy performed on Earth." He looked around the room, seeing it for the first time.

"If you don't," said Mike, "you've got three suspected killers on your hands."

Quill was unperturbed. "Don't be ridiculous, Golden Wings."

"I'm not," Mike said. "I hit him in the pit of his stomach. Chief Pasteur filled him full of sedative. Mister Vaneski shot him with a stun beam. He died. Which one of us did it?"

"Probably no single one of them, but a combination of all three," said Captain Quill. "Each action was performed in the line of duty and without malice aforethought--without even intent to harm permanently, much less to kill. There will have to be a court-martial, of course--or, at the very least, a board of inquiry will be appointed. But I am certain you'll all come through any such inquiry scatheless." He picked up a book from Mellon's desk. "Let's get about our business, Mister Gabriel. Mark down: Bible, one."

Mike put it down on the list.

"International Encyclopedia, English edition. Thirty volumes and index."

Mike put it down.

"The Oxford-Webster Dictionary of the English Language--

"Hallbert's Dictionary of Medical Terms--

"The Canterbury Theological Dictionary--

"The Christian Religion and Symbolic Logic, by Bishop K. F. Costin--

"The Handbook of Space Medicine--"

As Captain Quill called out the names of the books and put them into the packing case he'd brought, Mike marked them down--while something began ticking in the back of his mind.

"Item," said Captain Quill, "one crucifix." He paused. "Beautifully carved, too." He put it into the packing case.

"Excuse me, Captain," said Mike suddenly. "Let me take a look at you?" Excitedly, he leaned over and took some of the books out, looking at the pages of each one.

"I'll be damned," he said after a moment. "Or I should be--for being such a stupid idiot!"

Captain Quill narrowed his eyes. "What are you talking about, Mister Gabriel?"

"I'm not sure yet, Captain," Mike hedged. "May I borrow these three books?" He held them up in his hands.

"May I be so bold as to ask why, Mister Gabriel?"

"I just want to look at them, sir," Mike said. "I'll return them within a few hours."

"Mister Gabriel," Captain Quill said, "after what happened last night, I am suspicious of everything that goes on aboard this ship. But--yes. You may take them. However, I want them returned before we land tomorrow morning."

Mike blinked. Neither he nor anyone else--with the exception of Captain Quill and Lieutenant Commander von Liegnitz, the navigator, knew the destination of the ship. Mike hadn't realized they were that close to their goal. "I'll have them back by then," he promised.

"Very well. Now let's get on about our work."

The job was completed within forty-five minutes. A man can't carry a great deal with him on a spaceship. When they were through, Mike the Angel excused himself and went to his quarters. Two hours after that he went to the officers' wardroom to look up Pete Jeffers. Pete hadn't been in his quarters, and Mike knew he wasn't on duty by that time. Sure enough, Jeffers was drinking coffee all by himself in the wardroom. He looked up when Mike came in.

"Hullo, Mike," he said listlessly. "Come sit. Have some coffee."

There was a faint aroma in the air which indicated that there was more in the cup than just coffee. "No, thanks, Pete. I'll sit this one out. I wanted to talk to you."

"Sit. I am drinking a toast to Mister Lew Mellon." He pointed at the coffee. "Sure you won't have a mite? It's sweetened from the grape."

"No, thanks again." Mike sat down. "It's Mellon I wanted to talk about. Did you know him well, Pete?"

"Purty well," Pete said, nodding. "Yeah, purty well. I always figured him for a great little bloke. Can't figure what got into him."

"Me either. Pete, you told me he was an Anglo-Catholic--a good one, you said."

"'At's right."

"Well, how did you mean that?"

Pete frowned. "Just what I said. He studied his religion, he went

Mass regularly, said his prayers--that sort of thing. And he was, I will say, a Christian gentleman in every sense of the word." There was irritation in his voice, as though Mike had impugned the memory of a friend.

"Don't get huffy, Pete; he struck me as a pretty nice person, too--"

"Until he flipped his lid," said Pete. "But that might happen to anybody."

"Sure. But what I want to know--and don't get sore--is, did he show any kind of--well, instability before this last outbreak?"

"Like what?"

"I mean, was he a religious nut? Did he act 'holier than thou' or--well, was he a fanatic, would you say?"

"No, I wouldn't say so. He didn't talk much about it. I guess you noticed that. I mean, he didn't preach. He smoked some and had his glass of wine now and then--even had a cocktail or two on occasion. His views on sex were orthodox, I reckon--I mean, as far as I know. He'd tell an off-color story, if it wasn't too bad. But he'd get up and leave quietly if the boys started tellin' about the women they'd made. Fornication and adultery just weren't his meat, I'd say."

"I know he wasn't married," Mike said. "Did he date much?"

"Some. He liked to dance. Women seemed to like him."

"How about men?"

"Most of the boys liked him."

"That's not what I meant."

"Oh. Was he queer?" Pete frowned. "I'd damn near stake my life that he wasn't."

"You mean he didn't practice it?"

"I don't believe he even thought about it," Pete said. "Course, you can't tell what's really goin' on in a man's mind, but--" His frown became a scowl. "Damn it, Mike, just because a man isn't married by the time he's thirty-five and practices Christian chastity while he's single don't necessarily mean he's a damn fairy!"

"I didn't say it did. I just wondered if you'd heard anything."

"No more'n I've heard about you--who are in exactly the same position!"

"Exactly," Mike agreed. "That's what I wanted to know. Pete, if you've got it to spare, I'll join you in that toast."

Pete Jeffers grinned. "Comin' right up, buddy-boy."

He poured two more cups of coffee, spiked them from a small flask of brandy, and handed one to Mike. They drank in silence.

Fifteen minutes later, Mike the Angel was in the little office that Leda Crannon shared with Dr. Fitzhugh. She was alone.

"How's the girl today?" he asked.

"Beat," she said with a forced smile.

"You look beautiful," he said. He wasn't lying. She looked drawn and tired, but she still looked beautiful.

"Thanks, Mike. What can I do for you?"

Mike the Angel pulled up a chair and sat down. "Where's Doc Fitz?"

"He's still trying to get information out of Snookums. It's a weird thing, Mike--a robot with a soul."

"You don't mind talking about it?"

"No; go ahead if you want."

"All right, answer me a question," he said. "Can Snookums read English?"

"Certainly. And Russian, and German, French, Chinese, and most of the other major languages of Earth."

"He could read a book, then?"

"Yes. But not unless it was given to him and he was specifically told to use its contents as data."

"Good," said Mike. "Now, suppose Snookums was given complete data on a certain field of knowledge. Suppose further that this field is internally completely logical, completely coherent, completely self-consistent. Suppose it could even be reduced to a series of axioms and theorems in symbolic logic."

"All right," she said. "So?"

"Now, further suppose that this system, this field of knowledge is, right now, in constant use by millions of human beings, even though most of them are unaware of the implications of the entire field. Could Snookums work with such a body of knowledge?"

"Sure," said Leda. "Why not?"

"What if there was absolutely no way for Snookums to experiment with this knowledge? What if he simply did not have the equipment necessary?"

"You mean," she asked, "something like astrophysics?"

"No. That's exactly what I don't mean. I'm perfectly well aware that it isn't possible to test astrophysical theories directly. Nobody has been able to build a star in the lab so far.

"But it is possible to test the theories of astrophysics analogically by extrapolating on data that can be tested in a physics lab.

"What I'm talking about is a system that Snookums, simply because he is what he is, cannot test or experiment upon, in any way whatsoever. A system that has, in short, no connection with the physical world whatsoever."

Leda Crannon thought it over. "Well, assuming all that, I imagine that it would eventually ruin Snookums. He's built to experiment, and if he's kept from experimenting for too long, he'll exceed the optimum randomity of his circuits." She swallowed. "If he hasn't already."

"I thought so. And so did someone else," said Mike thoughtfully.

"Well, for Heaven's sake! What is this system?" Leda asked in sudden exasperation.

"You're close," said Mike the Angel.

"What are you talking about?"

"Theology," said Mike. "He was pumped full of Christian theology, that's all. Good, solid, Catholic theology. Bishop Costin's mathematical symbolization of it is simply a result of the verbal logic that had been smoothed out during the previous two thousand years. Snookums could reduce it to math symbols and equations, anyway, even if we didn't have Bishop Costin's work."

He showed her the book from Mellon's room.

"It doesn't even require the assumption of a soul to make it foul up a robot's works. He doesn't have any emotions, either. And he can't handle something that he can't experiment with. It would have driven him insane, all right. But he isn't insane."

Leda looked puzzled. "But--"

"Do you know why?" Mike interrupted.

"No."

"Because he found something that he could experiment with. He found a material basis for theological experimentation."

She looked still more puzzled. "What could that be?"

"Me," said Mike the Angel. "Me. Michael Raphael Gabriel. I'm an angel--an archangel. As a matter of fact, I'm three archangels. For all I know, Snookums has equated me with the Trinity."

"But--how did he get that idea?"

"Mostly from the Book of Tobit," said Mike. "That's where an archangel takes the form of a human being and travels around with Tobit the Younger, remember? And, too, he probably got more information from the first part of Luke's Gospel, where Gabriel tells the Blessed Virgin that she's about to become a mother."

"But would he have figured that out for himself?"

"Possibly," said Mike, "but I doubt it. He was told that I was an angel--literally."

"Let me see that book," she said, taking The Christian Religion and Symbolic Logic from Mike's hand. She opened it to the center. "I didn't know anyone had done this sort of work," she said.

"Oh, there was a great fuss over the book when it came out. There were those who said that the millennium had arrived because the truth of the Christian faith had been proved mathematically, and therefore all rational people would have to accept it."

She leafed through the book. "I'll bet there are still some who still believe that, just like there are some people who still think Euclidian geometry must necessarily be true because it can be 'proved' mathematically."

Mike nodded. "All Bishop Costin did--all he was trying to do--was to prove that the axioms of the Christian faith are logically self-consistent. That's all he ever claimed to have done, and he did a brilliant job of it."

"But--how do you know this is what Snookums was given?"

"Look at the pages. Snookums' waldo fingers wrinkled the pages that way. Those aren't the marks of human fingers. Only two of Mellon's other books were wrinkled that way."

She jerked her head up from the book, startled. "What? This is Lew Mellon's book?"

"That's right. So are the other two. A Bible and a theological dictionary. They're wrinkled the same way."

Her eyes were wide, bright sapphires. "But why? Why would he do such a thing, for goodness' sake?"

"I don't know why it was done," Mike said slowly, "but I doubt if it was for goodness' sake. We haven't gotten to the bottom of this hanky-panky yet, I don't think.

"Leda, if I'm right--if this is what has been causing Snookums' odd behavior--can you cure him?"

She looked at the book again and nodded. "I think so. But it will take a lot of work. I'll have to talk to Fitz about it. We'll have to keep this book--and the other two."

Mike shook his head. "No can do. Can you photocopy them?"

"Certainly. But it'll take--oh, two or three hours per book."

"Then you'd better get busy. We're landing in the morning."

She nodded. "I know. Captain Quill has already told us."

"Fine, then." He stood up. "What will you do? Simply tell Snookums to forget all this stuff?"

"Good Heavens no! It's too thoroughly integrated with every other bit of data he has! You might be able to take one single bit of data out that way, but to jerk out a whole body of knowledge like this would completely randomize his circuits. You can pull out a tooth by yanking with a pair of forceps, but if you try to take out a man's appendix that way, you'll lose a patient."

"I catch," Mike said with a grin. "Okay. I'll get the other two books and you can get to work copying them. Take care."

"Thanks, Mike."

As he walked down the companionway, he cursed himself for being a fool. If he'd let things go on the way they were, Leda might have weaned herself away from Snookums. Now she was interested again. But there could have been no other way, of course.

19

The interstellar ship Brainchild orbited around her destination, waiting during the final checkup before she landed on the planet below.

It was not a nice planet. As far as its size went, it could be classified as "Earth type," but size was almost the only resemblance to Earth. It orbited in space some five hundred and fifty million miles from its Sol-like parent--a little farther away from the primary than Jupiter is from Sol itself. It was cold there--terribly cold. At high noon on the equator, the temperature reached a sweltering 180° absolute; it became somewhat chillier toward the poles.

H_{2}O was, anywhere on the planet, a whitish, crystalline mineral suitable for building material. The atmosphere was similar to that of Jupiter, although the proportions of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen were different because of the lower gravitational potential of the planet. It had managed to retain a great deal more hydrogen in its atmosphere than Earth had because of the fact that the average thermal velocity of the molecules was much lower. Since oxygen-releasing life had never developed on the frigid surface of the planet, there was no oxygen in the atmosphere. It was all tied up in combination with the hydrogen of the ice and the surface rocks of the planet.

The Space Service ship that had discovered the planet, fifteen years before, had given it the name Eisberg, thus commemorating the name of a spaceman second class who happened to have the luck to be (a) named Robert Eisberg, (b) a member of the crew of the ship to discover the planet, and (c) under the command of a fun-loving captain.

Eisberg had been picked as the planet to transfer the potentially dangerous Snookums to for two reasons. In the first place, if Snookums actually did solve the problem of the total-annihilation bomb, the worst he could do was destroy a planet that wasn't much good, anyway. And, in the second place, the same energy requirements applied on Eisberg as did on Chilblains Base. It was easier to cool the helium bath of the brain if it only had to be lowered 175 degrees or so.

It was a great place for cold-work labs, but not worth anything for colonization.

* * * * *

Chief Powerman's Mate Multhaus looked gloomily at the figures on the landing sheet.

Mike the Angel watched the expression on the chief's face and said: "What's the matter, Multhaus? No like?"

ltha

rimaced. "Well, sir, I don't like it, no. But I can't say I dislike it, either."

He stared at the landing sheet, pursing his lips. He looked as though he were valiantly restraining himself from asking questions about the other night's escapade--which he was.

He said: "I just don't like to land without jets, sir; that's all."

"Hell, neither do I," admitted Mike. "But we're not going to get down any other way. We managed to take off without jets; we'll manage to land without them."

"Yessir," said Multhaus, "but we took off with the grain of Earth's magnetic field. We're landing across the grain."

"Sure," said Mike. "So what? If we overlook the motors, that's okay. We may never be able to get off the planet with this ship again, but we aren't supposed to anyway.

"Come on, Multhaus, don't worry about it. I know you hate to burn up a ship, but this one is supposed to be expendable. You may never have another chance like this."

Multhaus tried to keep from grinning, but he couldn't. "Awright, Commander. You have appealed to my baser instincts. My subconscious desire to wreck a spaceship has been brought to the surface. I can't resist it. Am I nutty, maybe?"

"Not now, you're not," Mike said, grinning back.

"We'll have a bitch of a job getting through the plasmasphere, though," said the chief. "That fraction of a second will--"

"It'll jolt us," Mike agreed, interrupting. "But it won't wreck us. Let's get going."

"Aye, sir," said Multhaus.

* * * * *

The seas of Eisberg were liquid methane containing dissolved ammonia. Near the equator, they were liquid; farther north, the seas became slushy with crystallized ammonia.

The site picked for the new labs of the Computer Corporation of Earth was in the northern hemisphere, at 40° north latitude, about the same distance from the equator as New York or Madrid, Spain, would be on Earth. The Brainchild would be dropping through Eisberg's magnetic field at an angle, but it wouldn't be the ninety-degree angle of the equator. It would have been nice if the base could have been built at one of the poles, but that would have put the labs in an uncomfortable position, since there was no solid land at either pole.

Mike the Angel didn't like the idea of having to land on Eisberg without jets any more than Multhaus did,

was almost certain that the ship would take the strain.

He took the companionway up to the Control Bridge, went in, and handed the landing sheet to Black Bart. The captain scowled at it, shrugged, and put it on his desk.

"Will we make it, sir?" Mike said. "Any word from the Fireball?"

Black Bart nodded. "She's orbiting outside the atmosphere. Captain Wurster will send down a ship to pick us up as soon as we've finished our business here."

The Fireball, being much faster than the clumsy Brainchild, had left Earth later than the slower ship, and had arrived earlier.

"Now hear this! Now hear this! Third Warning! Landing orbit begins in one minute! Landing begins in one minute!"

Sixty seconds later the Brainchild began her long, logarithmic drop toward the surface of Eisberg.

Landing a ship on her jets isn't an easy job, but at least an ion rocket is built for the job. Maybe someday the Translation drive will be modified for planetary landings, but so far such a landing has been, as someone put it, "50 per cent raw energy and 50 per cent prayer." The landing was worse than the take-off, a truism which has held since the first glider took off from the surface of Earth in the nineteenth century. What goes up doesn't necessarily have to come down, but when it does, the job is a lot rougher than getting up was.

The plasmasphere of Eisberg differed from that of Earth in two ways. First, the ionizing source of radiation--the primary star--was farther away from Eisberg than Sol was from Earth, which tended to reduce the total ionization. Second, the upper atmosphere of Eisberg was pretty much pure hydrogen, which is somewhat easier to ionize than oxygen or nitrogen. And, since there was no ozonosphere to block out the UV radiation from the primary, the thickness of the ionosphere beneath the plasmasphere was greater.

Not until the Brainchild hit the bare fringes of the upper atmosphere did she act any differently than she had in space.

But when she hit the outer fringes of the ionosphere--that upper layer of rarified protons, the rapidly moving current of high velocity ions known as the plasmasphere--she bucked like a kicked horse. From deep within her vitals, the throb began, a strumming, thrumming sound with a somewhat higher note imposed upon it, making a sound like that of a bass viol being plucked rapidly on its lowest string.

It was not the inten

of the ionosphere that cracked the drive of the Brainchild; it was the duration. The layer of ionization was too thick; the ship couldn't make it through the layer fast enough, in spite of her high velocity.

A man can hold a red-hot bit of steel in his hand for a fraction of a second without even feeling it. But if he has to hold a hot baked potato for thirty seconds, he's likely to get a bad burn.

So it was with the Brainchild. The passage through Earth's ionosphere during take-off had been measured in fractions of a second. The Brainchild had reacted, but the exposure to the field had been too short to hurt her.

The ionosphere of Eisberg was much deeper and, although the intensity was less, the duration was much longer.

The drumming increased as she fell, a low-frequency, high-energy sine wave that shook the ship more violently than had the out-of-phase beat that had pummeled the ship shortly after her take-off.

Dr. Morris Fitzhugh, the roboticist, screamed imprecations into the intercom, but Captain Sir Henry Quill cut him off before anyone took notice and let the scientist rave into a dead pickup.

"How's she coming?"

The voice came over the intercom to the Power Section, and Mike the Angel knew that the question was meant for him.

"She'll make it, Captain," he said. "She'll make it. I designed this thing for a 500 per cent overload. She'll make it."

"Good," said Black Bart, snapping off the intercom.

Mike exhaled gustily. His eyes were still on the needles that kept creeping higher and higher along the calibrated periphery of the meters. Many of them had long since passed the red lines that marked the allowable overload point. Mike the Angel knew that those points had been set low, but he also knew that they were approaching the real overload point.

He took another deep breath and held it.

* * * * *

Point for point, the continent of Antarctica, Earth, is one of the most deadly areas ever found on a planet that is supposedly non-inimical to man. Earth is a nice, comfortable planet, most of the time, but Antarctica just doesn't cater to Man at all.

Still, it just happens to be the worst spot on the best planet in the known Galaxy.

Eisberg is different. At its best, it has the continent of Antarctica beat four thousand ways from a week ago last Candlemas. At its worst, it is sudden death; at its best, it is somewhat less than sudden.

Not that Eisberg is a really mean planet; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune can kill a man faster and with less pain. No, Eisberg isn't mean--it's torturous. A man without clothes, placed suddenly on the surface of Eisberg--anywhere on the surface--would die. But the trouble is that he'd live long enough for it to hurt.

Man can survive, all right, but it takes equipment and intelligence to do it.

When the interstellar ship Brainchild blew a tube--just one tube--of the external field that fought the ship's mass against the space-strain of the planet's gravitational field, the ship went off orbit. The tube blew when she was some ninety miles above the surface. She dropped too fast, jerked up, dropped again.

When the engines compensated for the lost tube, the descent was more leisurely, and the ship settled gently--well, not exactly gently--on the surface of Eisberg.

Captain Quill's voice came over the intercom.

"We are nearly a hundred miles from the base, Mister Gabriel. Any excuse?"

"No excuse, sir," said Mike the Angel.

20

If you ignite a jet of oxygen-nitrogen in an atmosphere of hydrogen-methane, you get a flame that doesn't differ much from the flame from a hydrogen-methane jet in an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. A flame doesn't particularly care which way the electrons jump, just so long as they jump.

All of which was due to give Mike the Angel more headaches than he already had, which was 100 per cent too many.

Three days after the Brainchild landed, the scout group arrived from the base that had been built on Eisberg to take care of Snookums. The leader, a heavy-set engineer named Treadmore, who had unkempt brownish hair and a sad look in his eyes, informed Captain Quill that there was a great deal of work to be done. And his countenance became even sadder.

Mike, who had, perforce, been called in to take part in the conference, listened in silence while the engineer talked.

The officers' wardroom, of which Mike the Angel was becoming heartily sick, seemed like a tomb which echoed and re-echoed the lugubrious voice of Engineer Treadmore.

"We were warned, of course," he said, in a normally dismal tone, "that it would be extremely difficult to set down the ship which carried Snookums, and that we could expect the final base to be anywhere from ten to thirty miles from the original, temporary base." He looked round at everyone, giving the impression of a collie which had just been kicked by Albert Payson Terhune.

"We understand, naturally, that you could not help landing so far from our original base," he said, giving them absolution with faint damns, "but it will entail a great deal of extra labor. A hundred and nine miles is a great distance to carry equipment, and, actually, the distance is a great deal more, considering the configuration of the terrain. The...."

The upshot of the whole thing was that only part of the crew could possibly be spared to go home on the Fireball, which was orbiting high above the atmosphere. And, since there was no point in sending a small load home at extra expense when the Fireball could wait for the others, it meant that nobody could go home at all for four more weeks. The extra help was needed to get the new base established.

It was obviously impossible to try to move the Brainchild a hundred miles. With nothing to power her but the Translation drive, she was as helpless as a submarine on the Sahara. Especially now that her drive was shot.

Th -- sberg base had to be built around Snookums, who was, after all, the only reason for the base's existence. And, too, the power plant of the Brainchild had been destined to be the source of power for the permanent base.

It wasn't too bad, really. A little extra time, but not much.

The advance base, commanded by Treadmore, was fairly well equipped. For transportation, they had one jet-powered aircraft, a couple of 'copters, and fifteen ground-crawlers with fat tires, plus all kinds of powered construction machinery. All of them were fueled with liquid HNO_{3}, which makes a pretty good fuel in an atmosphere that is predominantly methane. Like the gasoline-air engines of a century before, they were spark-started reciprocating engines, except for the turbine-powered aircraft.

The only trouble with the whole project was that the materials had to be toted across a hundred miles of exceedingly hostile territory.

Treadmore, looking like a tortured bloodhound, said: "But we'll make it, won't we?"

Everyone nodded dismally.

* * * * *

Mike the Angel had a job he emphatically didn't like. He was supposed to convert the power plant of the Brainchild from a spaceship driver into a stationary generator. The conversion job itself wasn't tedious; in principle, it was similar to taking the engine out of an automobile and converting it to a power plant for an electric generator. In fact, it was somewhat simpler, in theory, since the engines of the Brainchild were already equipped for heavy drainage to run the electrical systems aboard ship, and to power and refrigerate Snookums' gigantic brain, which was no mean task in itself.

But Michael Raphael Gabriel, head of one of the foremost--if not the foremost--power design corporations in the known Galaxy, did not like degrading something. To convert the Brainchild's plant from a spaceship drive to an electric power plant seemed to him to be on the same order as using a turboelectric generator to power a flashlight. A waste.

To make things worse, the small percentage of hydrogen in the atmosphere got sneaky sometimes. It could insinuate itself into places where neither the methane nor the ammonia could get. Someone once called hydrogen the "cockroach element," since, like that antediluvian insect, the molecules of H_{2} can insidiously infiltrate themselves into places where they are not only not allowed, but shouldn't even be able to go. At red heat, the little molecules can squeeze themselves through the crystalline interstices of quartz and steel.

Granted, the temperature of Eisberg is a long way from red hot, but normal sealing still won't keep out hydrogen. Add to that the fact that hydrogen and methane are both colorless, odorless, and tasteless, and you have the beginnings of an explosive situation.

The only reason that no one died is because the Space Service is what it is.

Unlike the land, sea, and air forces of Earth, the Space Service does not have a long history of fighting other human beings. There has never been a space war, and, the way things stand, there is no likelihood of one in the foreseeable future.

But the Space Service does fight, in its own way. It fights the airlessness of space and the unfriendly atmospheres of exotic planets, using machines, intelligence, knowledge, and human courage as its weapons. Some battles have been lost; others have been won. And the war is still going on. It is an unending war, one which has no victory in sight.

It is, as far as we can tell, the only war in human history in which Mankind is fully justified as the invading aggressor.

It is not a defensive war; neither space nor other planets have attacked Man. Man has invaded space "simply because it is there." It is war of a different sort, true, but it is nonetheless a war.

The Space Service was used to the kind of battle it waged on Eisberg. It was prepared to lose men, but even more prepared to save them.

21

Mike the Angel stepped into the cargo air lock of the Brainchild, stood morosely in the center of the cubicle, and watched the outer door close. Eight other men, clad, like himself, in regulation Space Service spacesuits, also looked wearily at the closing door.

Chief Multhaus, one of the eight, turned his head to look at Mike the Angel. "I wish that thing would close as fast as my eyes are going to in about fifteen minutes, Commander." His voice rumbled deeply in Mike's earphones.

"Yeah," said Mike, too tired to make decent conversation.

Eight hours--all of them spent tearing down the spaceship and making it a part of the new base--had not been exactly exhilarating to any of them.

The door closed, and the pumps began to work. The men were wearing Space Service Suit Three. For every environment, for every conceivable emergency, a suit had been built--if, of course, a suit could be built for it. Nobody had yet built a suit for walking about in the middle of a sun, but, then, nobody had ever volunteered to try anything like that.

They were all called "spacesuits" because most of them could be worn in the vacuum of space, but most of them weren't designed for that type of work. Suit One--a light, easily manipulated, almost skin-tight covering, was the real spacesuit. It was perfect for work in interstellar space, where there was a microscopic amount of radiation incident to the suit, no air, and almost nil gravity. For exterior repairs on the outside of a ship in free fall a long way from any star, Spacesuit One was the proper garb.

But, a suit that worked fine in space didn't necessarily work on other planets, unless it worked fine on the planet it was used on.

A Moon Suit isn't a Mars Suit isn't a Venus Suit isn't a Triton Suit isn't a....

Carry it on from there.

Number Three was insulated against a frigid but relatively non-corrosive atmosphere. When the pumps in the air lock began pulling out the methane-laden atmosphere, they began to bulge slightly, but not excessively. Then nitrogen, extracted from the ammonia snow that was so plentiful, filled the room, diluting the remaining inflammable gases to a harmless concentration.

Then that mixture was pumped out, to be replaced by a mixture of approximately 20 per cent oxygen and 80 per cent nitrogen--common, or garden-variety, air.

Mike the Angel cracked his helmet and sniffed then said. "If I ever faint and someone gives me smelling salts, I'll flay him alive with a coarse rasp."

"Yessir," said Chief Multhaus, as he began to shuck his suit. "But if I had my druthers, I'd druther you'd figure out some way to get all the ammonia out of the joints of this suit."

The other men, sniffing and coughing, agreed in attitude if not in voice.

It wasn't really as bad as they pretended; indeed, the odor of ammonia was hardly noticeable. But it made a good griping point.

The inner door opened at last, and the men straggled through.

"G'night, Chief," said Mike the Angel.

"Night, sir," said Multhaus. "See you in the morning."

"Yeah. Night." Mike trudged toward the companionway that led toward the wardroom. If Keku or Jeffers happened to be there, he'd have a quick round of Uma ni to. Jeffers called the game "double solitaire for three people," and Keku said it meant "horses' two heads," but Mike had simply found it as a new game to play before bedtime.

He looked forward to it.

But he had something else to do first.

Instead of hanging up his suit in the locker provided, he had bunched it under his arm--except for the helmet--and now he headed toward maintenance.

He met Ensign Vaneski just coming out, and gave him a broad smile. "Mister Vaneski, I got troubles."

Vaneski smiled back worriedly. "Yes, sir. I guess we all do. What is it, sir?"

Mike gestured at the bundle under his arm. "I abraded the sleeve of my suit while I was working today. I wish you'd take a look at it. I'm afraid it'll need a patch."

For a moment, Vaneski looked as though he'd suddenly developed a headache.

"I know you're supposed to be off duty now," Mike said soothingly, "but I don't want to get myself killed wearing a leaky suit tomorrow. I'll help you work on it if--"

Vaneski grinned quickly. "Oh no, sir. That'll be all right. I'll give it a test, anyway, to check leaks. If it needs repair, it shouldn't take too long. Bring it in, and we'll take a look at it."

They went back into the Maintenance Section, and Vaneski spread the suit out on the worktable. There was an obvious rough spot on the right sleeve. "Looks bad," said Vaneski. "I'll run a test right away."

"Okay," said Mike. "I'll leave it to you. Can I pick it up in the morning?"

"I think so. If it needs a p--, we'll have to test the patch, of course, but we should be able to finish it pretty quickly." He shrugged. "If we can't, sir, you'll just have to wait. Unless you want us to start altering a suit to your measurements."

"Which would take longer?"

"Altering a suit."

"Okay. Just patch this one, then. What can I do?"

"I'll get it out as fast as possible, sir," said Vaneski with a smile.

"Fine. I'll see you later, then." Mike, like Cleopatra, was not prone to argue. He left maintenance and headed toward the wardroom for a game of Uma ni to. But when he met Leda Crannon going up the stairway, all thoughts of card games flitted from his mind with the careless nonchalance of a summer butterfly.

"Hullo," he said, pulling himself up a little straighter. He was tired, but not that tired.

Her smile brushed the cobwebs from his mind. But a second look told him that there was worry behind the smile.

"Hi, Mike," she said softly. "You look beat."

"I am," admitted Mike. "To a frazzle. Have I told you that I love you?"

"Once, I think. Maybe twice." Her eyes seemed to light up somewhere from far back in her head. "But enough of this mad passion," she said. "I want an invitation to have a drink--a stiff one."

"I'll steal Jeffers' bottle," Mike offered. "What's the trouble?"

Her smile faded, and her eyes became grave. "I'm scared, Mike; I want to talk to you."

"Come along, then," Mike said.

* * * * *

Mike the Angel poured two healthy slugs of Pete Jeffers' brandy into a pair of glasses, added ice and water, and handed one to Leda Crannon with a flourish. And all the time, he kept up a steady line of gentle patter.

"It may interest you to know," he said chattily, "that the learned Mister Treadmore has been furnishing me with the most fascinating information." He lifted up his own glass and looked into its amber depths.

They were in his stateroom, and this time the door was closed--at her insistence. She had explained that she didn't want to be overheard, even by passing crew members.

He swizzled the ice around in his glass, still holding it up to the light. "Indeed," he rambled on, "Treadmore babbled for Heaven knows how long on the relative occurrence of parahydrogen and orthohydrogen on Eisberg." He took his eyes from the glass and looked down at the girl who was seated demurely on the edge of his bunk. Her smile was encouraging.

"He said--and I quote"--Mike's voice assumed a gloomy, but stilted tone--"normal hydrogen gas consists of diatomic molecules. The nuclear, or proton, spin of these atoms--ah--that is, of the two atoms that compose the molecule--may be oriented in the same direction or in opposite directions."

He held a finger in the air as if to make a deep philosophical point. "If," he said pontifically, "they are oriented in the same direction, we refer to the substance as orthohydrogen. If they are oriented in opposite directions, it is parahydrogen. The ortho molecules rotate with odd rotational quantum numbers, while the para molecules rotate with even quantum numbers.

"Since conversion does not normally occur between the two states, normal hydrogen may be considered--"

Leda Crannon, snickering, waved her hand in the air. "Please!" she interrupted. "He can't be that bad! You make him sound like a dirge player at a Hindu funeral. What did he tell you? What did you find out?"

"Hah!" said Mike. "What did I find out?" His hand moved in an airy circle as he inscribed a flowing cipher with a graceful Delsarte wave. "Nothing. In the first place, I already knew it, and in the second, it wasn't practical information. There's a slight difference in diffusion between the two forms, but it's nothing to rave about." His expression became suddenly serious. "I hope your information is a bit more revealing."

She glanced at her glass, nodded, and drained it. Mike had extracted a promise from her that she would drink one drink before she talked. He could see that she was a trifle tense, and he thought the liquor would relax her somewhat. Now he was ready to listen.

She handed him her empty, and while he refilled it, she said: "It's about Snookums again."

Mike gave her her glass, grabbed the nearby chair, turned it around, sat down, and regarded her over its back.

"I've lived with him so long," she said after a minute. "So long. It almost seems as though I've grown up with him. Eight years. I've been a mother to him, and a big sister at the same time--and maybe a maiden aunt. He's been a career and a family all rolled in together." She still watched her writhing hands, not raising her eyes to Mike's.

"And--and, I suppose, a husband, too," she continued. "That is, he's sort of the stand-in for a--well, a somebody to teach--to correct--to reform. I guess every woman wants to--to remake the man she meets--the man she wants."

And then her eyes were suddenly on his. "But I don't. Not any more. I've had enough of it." Then she looked back down at her hands.

Mike the Angel neither accepted nor rejected the statement. He merely waited.

"He was mine," she said after a little while. "He was mine to mold, to teach, to form. The others--the roboticists, the neucleonicists, the sub-electronicists, all of them--were his instructors. All they did was give him facts. It was I who gave him a personality.

"I made him. Not his body, not his brain, but his mind.

"I made him.

"I knew him.

"And I--I--"

Still staring at her hands, she clasped them together suddenly and squeezed.

"And I loved him," she finished.

She looked up at Mike then. "Can you see that?" she asked tensely. "Can you understand?"

"Yes," said Mike the Angel quietly. "Yes, I can understand that. Under the same circumstances, I might have done the same thing." He paused. "And now?"

She lowered her head again and began massaging her forehead with the finger tips of both hands, concealing her face with her palms.

"And now," she said dully, "I know he's a machine. Snookums isn't a he any more--he's an it. He has no personality of his own, he only has what I fed into him. Even his voice is mine. He's not even a psychic mirror, because he doesn't reflect my personality, but a puppet imitation of it, distorted and warped by the thousands upon thousands of cold facts and mathematical relationships and logical postulates. And none of these added anything to him, as a personality. How could they? He never had a personality--only a set of behavior patterns that I drilled into him over a period of eight years."

She dropped her hands into her lap and tilted her head back, looking at the blank white shimmer of the glow plates.

"And now, suddenly, I see him for what he is--for what it is. A machine.

"It was never anything but a machine. It is still a machine. It will never be anything else.

"Personality is something that no machine can ever have. Idiosyncrasies, yes. No two machines are identical. But any personality that an individual sees in a machine has been projected there by the individual himself; it exists only in the human mind.

"A machine can only do what it is built to do, and teaching a robot is only a building process." She gave a short, hard laugh. "I couldn't even build a monster, like Dr. Frankenstein did, unless I purposely built it to turn on me. And in that case I would have done nothing more than the suicide who turns a gun on himself."

Her head tilted forward again, and her eyes sought those of Mike the Angel. A rather lopsided grin came over her face.

"I guess I'm disenchanted, huh, Mike?" she asked.

Mike grinned back, but his lips were firm. "I think so, yes. And I think you're glad of it." His grin changed to a smile.

"Remember," he asked, "the story of the Sleeping Beauty? Did you want to stay asleep all your life?"

"God forbid and thank you for the compliment, sir," she said, managing a smile of her own. "And are you the Prince Charming who woke me up?"

"Prince Charming, I may be," said Mike the Angel carefully, "but I'm not the one who woke you up. You did that yourself."

Her smile became more natural. "Thanks, Mike. I really think I might have seen it, sooner or later. But, without you, I doubt...." She hesitated. "I doubt that I'd want to wake up."

"You said you were scared," Mike said. "What are you scared of?"

"I'm scared to death of that damned machine."

Great love, chameleon-like, hath turned to fear,
And on the heels of fear there follows hate.

Mike quoted to himself--he didn't say it aloud.

"The only reason anyone would have to fear Snookums," he said, "would be that he was uncontrollable. Is he?"

"Not yet. Not completely. But I'm afraid that knowing that he's been filled with Catholic theology isn't going to help us much."

"Why not?"

"Because he has it so inextricably bound up with the Three Laws of Robotics that we can't nullify one without nullifying the other. He's convinced that the laws were promulgated by God Himself."

"Holy St. Isaac," Mike said softly. "I'm surprised he hasn't carried it to its logical conclusion and asked for baptism."

She smiled and shook her head. "I'm afraid your logic isn't as rigorous as Snookums' logic. Only angels and human beings have free will; Snookums is neither, therefore he does not have free will. Whatever he does, therefore, must be according to the will of God. Therefore Snookums cannot sin. Therefore, for him, baptism is both unnecessary and undesirable."

"Why 'undesirable'?" Mike asked.

"Since he is free from sin--either original or actual--he is therefore filled with the plenitude of God's grace. The purpose of a sacrament is to give grace to the recipient; it follows that it would be useless to give the Sacrament to Snookums. To perform a sacrament or to receive it when one knows that it will be useless is sacrilege. And sacrilege is undesirable."

"Brother! But I still don't see how that makes him dangerous."

"The operation of the First Law," Leda said. "For a man to sin involves endangering his immortal soul. Snookums, therefore, must prevent men from sinning. But sin includes thought--intention. Snookums is trying to figure that one out now; if he ever does, he's going to be a thought policeman, and a strict one."

"You mean he's working on telepathy?"

She laughed humorlessly. "No. But he's trying to dope out a system whereby he can tell what a man is going to do a few seconds before he does it--muscular and nervous preparation, that sort of thing. He hasn't enough data yet, but he will have it soon enough.

"There's another thing: Snookums is fouling up the Second Law's operation. He won't take orders that interfere in any way with his religious beliefs--since that automatically conflicts with the First Law. He, himself, cannot sin. But neither can he do anything which would make him the tool of an intent to sin. He refuses to do anything at all on Sunday, for instance, and he won't let either Fitz or I do anything that even vaguely resembles menial labor. Slowly, he's coming to the notion that human beings aren't human--that only God is human, in relation to the First and Second Laws. There's nothing we can do with him."

"What will you do if he becomes completely uncontrollable?"

She sighed. "We'll have to shut him off, drain his memory banks, and start all over again."

Mike closed his eyes. "Eighteen billions down the drain just because a robot was taught theology. What price glory?"

22

Captain Sir Henry Quill scowled and rubbed his finger tips over the top of his shiny pink pate. "Your evidence isn't enough to convict, Golden Wings."

"I know it isn't, Captain," admitted Mike the Angel. "That's why I want to round everybody up and do it this way. If he can be convinced that we do have the evidence, he may crack and give us a confession."

"What about Lieutenant Mellon's peculiar actions? How does that tie in?"

"Did you ever hear of Lysodine, Captain?"

Captain Quill leaned back in his chair and looked up at Mike. "No. What is it?"

"That's the trade name for a very powerful drug--a derivative of lysurgic acid. It's used in treating certain mental ailments. A bottle of it was missing from Mellon's kit, according to the inventory Chief Pasteur took after Mellon's death.

"The symptoms of an overdose of the drug--administered orally--are hallucinations and delusions amounting to acute paranoia. The final result of the drug's effect on the brain is death. It wasn't my blow to the solar plexus, or the sedative that Pasteur gave him, or Vaneski's shot with a stun gun that killed Mellon. It was an overdose of Lysodine."

"Can the presence of this drug be detected after death?"

"Pasteur says it can. He won't even have to perform an autopsy. He can do it from a blood sample."

Captain Quill sighed. "As I said, Mister Gabriel, your evidence is not quite enough to convict--but it is certainly enough to convince. Therefore, if Chief Pasteur's analysis shows Lysodine in Lieutenant Mellon's body, I'll permit this theatrical denouement." Then his eyes hardened. "Mike, you've done a fine job so far. I want you to bring me that son of a bitch's head on a platter."

"I will," promised Mike the Angel.

23

Captain Sir Henry Quill, Bart., stood at the head of the long table in the officers' wardroom and looked everyone over. The way he did it was quite impressive. His eyes were narrowed, and his heavy, thick, black brows dominated his face. Beneath the glow plates in the overhead, his pink scalp gleamed with the soft, burnished shininess of a well-polished apple.

To his left, in order down the table, were Mike the Angel, Lieutenant Keku, and Leda Crannon. On his right were Commander Jeffers, Ensign Vaneski, Lieutenant Commander von Liegnitz, and Dr. Morris Fitzhugh. Lieutenant Mellon's seat was empty.

Bart cleared his throat. "It's been quite a trip, hasn't it? Well, it's almost over. Mister Gabriel finished the conversion of the power plant yesterday; Treadmore's men can finish up. We will leave on the Fireball in a few hours.

"But there is something that must be cleared up first.

"A man died on the way out here. The circumstances surrounding his death have been cleared up now, and I feel that we all deserve an explanation." He turned to Mike the Angel. "Mister Gabriel--if you will, please."

Mike stood up as the captain sat down. "The question that has bothered me from the beginning has been: Exactly what killed Lieutenant Mellon? Well, we know now. We know what killed him and why he died.

"He was murdered. Deliberately, and in cold blood."

That froze everybody at the table.

"It was done by a slow-acting but nonetheless deadly drug that took time to act, but did its job very well.

"There were several other puzzling things that happened that night. Snookums began behaving irrationally. It is the height of coincidence that a robot and a human being should both become insane at almost the same time; therefore we have to look for a common cause."

Lieutenant Commander von Liegnitz raised a tentative hand, and Mike said: "Go ahead."

"I was under the impression that the robot went mad because Mellon had filled him full of theological nonsense. It would take a madman to do anything like that to a fine machine--therefore I see no peculiar coincidence."

"That's exactly what the killer wanted us to think," Mike said. "But it wasn't Mellon that fed Snookums theology. Mellon was a devout churchman; his record shows that. He would never have tried to convert a machine to Christianity. Nor would he have threatened to ruin expensive machine.

"How do I know that someone else was involved?"

He looked at the giant Lieutenant Keku. "Do you remember when we took Mellon to his quarters after he tried to brain von Liegnitz? We found half a bottle of wine. That disappeared during the night--because it was loaded with Lysodine, and the killer didn't want it analyzed.

"But, more important, as far as Snookums is concerned, is that I looked over the books on Mellon's desk that night. There weren't many, and I knew which ones they were. When Captain Quill and I checked Mellon's books after his death, someone had

rned his copy of The Christian Religion and Symbolic Logic. It had not been there the night before."

"Mike," said Pete Jeffers, "why would anybody here want to kill Lew thataway? What would anybody have against him?"

"That's the sad part about it, Pete. Our murderer didn't even have anything against Mellon. He wanted--and still wants--to kill me."

"I don't quite follow," Jeffers said.

"I'll give it to you piece by piece. The killer wanted no mystery connected with my death. There are reasons for that, which I'll come to in a moment. He had to put the blame on someone or something else.

"His first choice was Snookums. It occurred to him that he could take advantage of the fact that I'm called 'Mike the Angel.' He borrowed Mellon's books and began pumping theology into Snookums. He figured that would be safe enough. Mellon would certainly lend him the books if he pretended an interest in religion; if anything came out afterward, he could--he thought--claim that Snookums got hold of the books without his knowing it. And that sort of muddy thinking is typical of our killer.

"He told Snookums that I was an angel, you see. I couldn't be either hurt or killed. He protected himself, of course, by telling Snookums that he mustn't reveal his source of data. If Snookums told, then the killer would be punished--and that effectively shut Snookums up. He couldn't talk without violating the First Law.

"Unfortunately, the killer couldn't get Snookums to do away with me. Snookums knew perfectly well that an angel can blast anything at will--through the operation of God. Witness what happened at Sodom and Gomorrah. Remember that Snookums has accepted all this data as fact.

"Now, if an angel can kill, it is obvious that Snookums would not dare attack an angel, espcially if he had been ordered to do so by a human."

"Just a minute, Commander," said Dr. Fitzhugh, corrugating his face in a frown. "That doesn't hold. Even if an angel could blast him, Snookums would attack if ordered to do so. The Second Law of obedience supersedes the Third Law of self-preservation."

"You're forgetting one thing, Doctor. An angel of God would know who had ordered the attack. It would be the human who ordered the attack, not Snookums, who would be struck by Heavenly Justice. And the First Law supersedes the Second."

Fitzhugh nodded. "You're right, of course."

"Very well, then," Mike continued, "since the killer could not get Snookums to do me in, he had to find another tool. He picked Lieutenant Mellon.

"He figured that Mellon was in love with Leda Crannon. Maybe he was; I don't know. He figured that Mellon, knowing that I was showing Miss Crannon attention, would, under the influence of the lysurgic acid derivative, try to kill me. He may even have suggested it to Mellon after Mellon had taken a dose of the drugged wine.

"But that plan backfired, too. Mellon didn't have that kind of mind. He knew my attentions and my intentions were honorable, if you'll pardon the old-fashioned language. On the other hand, he knew that von Liegnitz had a reputation for being--shall we say--a ladies' man. What happened after that followed naturally."

Mike watched everyone at the table. No one moved.

"So the killer, realizing that he had failed twice, decided to do the job himself. First, he went into the low-power room and slugged the man on duty. He intended to kill him, but he didn't hit hard enough. When that man wakes up, he'll be able to testify against the killer.

"Then the killer ordered Snookums to tear out the switches. He had made sure that Snookums would be waiting outside. Before he called Snookums in, of course, he had to put the duty man in a tool closet, so that the robot wouldn't see him. He told Snookums to wait five minutes and then smash the switches and head back to his cubicle.

"Then the killer went to my room and waited. When the lights went out and the door opened, he intended to go in and smash my skull, making it look as though either Mellon or Snookums had done it.

"But he didn't figure on my awakening as soon as the switches were broken. He heard me moving around and decided to wait until I came out.

"But I heard him breathing. It was quite faint, and I wouldn't have heard it, except for the fact that the air conditioners were off. Even so, I couldn't be sure.

"However, I knew it wasn't Snookums. Snookums radiates a devil of a lot more heat than a human being, and besides he smells of machine oil.

"So I pulled my little trick with the boots. The killer waited and waited for me to come out, and I was already out. Then Chief Multhaus approached from the other direction. The killer knew he'd have to get out of there, so he went in the opposite direction. He met Snookums, who was still obeying orders. Snookums smacked into me on his way down the hall.

"He could do that, you see, because I was an angel. If he hurt me of his own accord, I couldn't take revenge on anyone but him. And there was no necessity to obey my orders, either, since he was obeying the orders of the killer, which held precedence.

"Then, to further confuse things, the killer went to Mellon's room. The physician was in a drugged stupor, so the killer carried him out and put him in an unlikely place, so that we'd think that perhaps Mellon had been the one who'd tried to get me."

He had everyone's eyes on him now. They didn't want to look at each other.

Pete Jeffers said: "Mike, if Mellon was poisoned, like you say, how come he was able to attack Mister Vaneski?"

"Ah, but did he? Think back, Pete. Mellon--dying or already dead--had been propped upright in that narrow locker. When it was opened, he started to fall out--straight toward the man who had opened the locker, naturally. Vaneski jumped back and shot before Mellon even hit the floor. Isn't that right?"

"Sure, sure," Jeffers said slowly. "I reckon I'd've done the same thing if he'd started to fall out toward me. I wasn't even lookin' when the locker was opened. I didn't turn around until that stun gun went off--then I saw Mellon falling."

"Exactly. No matter how it may have looked, Vaneski couldn't have killed him with the stun gun, because he was already either dead or so close to death as makes no difference."

Ensign Vaneski rather timidly raised his hand. "Excuse me, sir, but you said this killer was waiting for you outside your room when the lights went out. You said you knew it wasn't Snookums because Snookums smells of hot machine oil, and you didn't smell any. Isn't it possible that an air current or something blew the smell away? Or--"

Mike shook his head. "Impossible, Mister Vaneski. I woke up when the door slid open. I heard the last dying whisper of the air conditioners when the power was cut. Now, we know that Snookums tore out those switches. He's admitted it. And the evidence shows that a pair of waldo hands smashed those switches. Now--how could Snookums have been at my door within two seconds after tearing out those switches?

"He couldn't have. It wasn't Snookums at my door--it was someone else."

Again they were all silent, but the question was on their faces: Who?

"Now we come to the question of motive," Mike continued. "Who among you would have any reason to kill me?

"Of the whole group here, I had known only Captain Quill and Commander Jeffers before landing in Antarctica. I couldn't think of any reason for either of them to want to murder me. On the other hand, I couldn't think of anything I had done since I had met the rest of you that would make me a target for death." He paused. "Except for one thing." He looked at Jakob von Liegnitz.

"How about it, Jake?" he said. "Would you kill a man for jealousy?"

"Possibly," said von Liegnitz coldly. "I might find it in my heart to feel very unkindly toward a man who made advances toward my wife. But I have no wife, nor any desire for one. Miss Crannon"--he glanced at Leda--"is a very beautiful woman--but I am not in love with her. I am afraid I cannot oblige you with a motive, Commander--either for killing Lieutenant Mellon or yourself."

"I thought not," Mike said. "Your statement alone, of course, wouldn't make it true. But we have already shown that the killer had to be on good terms with Mellon in order to borrow his books and slip a drug into his wine. He would have to be a visitor in Mellon's quarters. And, considering the strained relations between the two of you, I think that lets you out, Jake."

Von Liegnitz nodded his thanks without changing his expression.

"But there was one thing that marked these attempts. I'm sure that all but one of you has noticed it. They are incredibly, childishly sloppy." Mike paused to let that sink in before he went on. "I don't mean that the little details weren't ingenious--they were. But the killer never stopped to figure out the ultimate end-point of his schemes. He worked like the very devil to convince Snookums that it would be all right to kill me without ever once considering whether Snookums would do it or not. He then drugged Mellon's wine, not knowing whether Mellon would try to kill me or someone else--or anyone at all, for that matter. He got a dream in his head and then started the preliminary steps going without filling in the necessary steps in between. Our killer--no matter what his chronological age--does not think like an adult.

"And yet his hatred of me was so great that he took the chances he has taken, here on the Brainchild, where it should have been obvious that he stood a much better chance of being caught than if he had waited until we were back on Earth again.

"So I gave him one more chance. I handed him my life on a platter, you might say.

"He grabbed the bait. I now own a spacesuit that would kill me very quickly if I went out into that howling, hydrogen-filled storm outside." Then he looked straight at the killer.

"Tell me, Vaneski, are you in love with your half sister? Or is it your half brother?"

Ensign Vaneski had already jumped to his feet. The grimace of hate on his youthful face made him almost unrecognizable. His hand had gone into a pocket, and now he was leaping up and across the table, a singing vibroblade in his hand.

"You son of a bitch! I'll kill you, you son of a bitch!"

Mike the Angel wasn't wearing the little gadget that had saved his life in Old Harry's shop. All he had were his hands and his agility. He slammed at the ensign's wrist and missed. The boy was swooping underneath Mike's guard. Mike spun to one side to avoid Vaneski's dive and came down with a balled fist aimed at the ensign's neck.

He almost hit Lieutenant Keku. The big Hawaiian had leaped to his feet and landed a hard punch on Vaneski's nose. At the same time, Jeffers and von Liegnitz had jumped up and grabbed at Vaneski, who was between them.

Black Bart had simply stood up fast, drawn his stun gun, and fired at the young officer.

Ensign Vaneski collapsed on the table. He'd been slugged four times and hit with a stun beam in the space of half a second. He looked, somehow, very young and very boyish and very innocent.

Dr. Fitzhugh, who had stood up during the brief altercation, sat down slowly and picked up his cup of coffee. But his eyes didn't leave the unconscious man sprawled across the table. "How could you be so sure, Commander? About his actions, I mean. About his childishness."

"A lot of things. The way he played poker. The way he played bridge. He never took the unexpected into account."

"But why should he want to kill you here on the ship?" Fitzhugh asked. "Why not wait until you got back to Earth, where he'd have a better chance?"

"I think he was afraid I already knew who he was--or would find out very quickly. Besides, he had already tried to kill me once, back on Earth."

Leda Crannon looked blank. "When was that, Mike?"

"In New York. Before I ever met him. I was responsible for the arrest of a teen-age brother and sister named Larchmont. The detective in the case told me that they had an older half brother--that their mother had been married before. But he didn't mention the name, and I never thought to ask him.

"Very shortly after the Larchmont kids were arrested, Vaneski and another young punk climbed up into the tower of the cathedral across from my office and launched a cyanide-filled explosive rocket into my rooms. I was lucky to get away.

"The kid with Vaneski was shot by a police officer, but Vaneski got away--after knifing a priest with a vibroblade.

"It must have given him a hell of a shock to report back to duty and find that I was going to be one of his superior officers.

"As soon as I linked things up in my own mind, I checked with Captain Quill. The boy's records show the names of his half-siblings. They also show that he was on leave in New York just before being assigned to the Brainchild. After that, it was just a matter of trapping him. And there he is."

Leda looked at the unconscious boy on the table.

"Immaturity," she said. "He just never grew up."

"Mister von Liegnitz," said Captain Quill, "will you and Mister Keku take the prisoner to a safe place? Put him in irons until we are ready to transfer to the Fireball. Thank you."

24

Leda Crannon helped Mike pack his gear. Neither of them wanted, just yet, to bring up the subject of Mike's leaving. Leda would remain behind on Eisberg to work with Snookums, while Mike would be taking the Fireball back to Earth.

"I don't understand that remark you made about the spacesuit," she said, putting shirts into Mike's gear locker. "You said you'd put your life in his hands or something like that. What did you do, exactly?"

"Purposely abraded the sleeve of my suit so that he would be in a position to repair it, as Maintenance Officer. He fixed it, all right. I'd've been a dead man if I'd worn it out on the surface of Eisberg."

"What did he do to it?" she asked. "Fix it so it would leak?"

"Yes--but not in an obvious way," Mike said. "I'll give him credit; he's clever.

"What he did was use the wrong patching material. A Number Three suit is as near hydrogen-proof as any flexible material can be, but, even so, it can't be worn for long periods--several days, I mean. But the stuff Vaneski used to patch my suit is a polymer that leaks hydrogen very easily. Ammonia and methane would be blocked, but my suit would have slowly gotten more and more hydrogen in it."

"Is that bad? Hydrogen isn't poisonous."

"No. But it is sure as hell explosive when mixed with air. Naturally, something has to touch it off. Vaneski got real cute there. He drilled a hole in the power pack, which is supposed to be sealed off. All I'd have had to do would be to switch frequencies on my phone, and the spark would do the job--blooie!

"But that's exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. With his self-centered juvenile mind, he never thought anyone would try to outsmart him and succeed. He'd gotten away with it that far; there was no reason why he shouldn't get away with it again. He must have thought I was incredibly stupid."

"I don't believe he--" Leda started. But she was cut off when Snookums rolled in the open door.

"Leda, I desire data."

"What data, Snookums?" she asked carefully.

"Where is He hiding?"

They both looked at him. "Where is who hiding?" Leda asked.

"God," said Snookums.

"Why do you want to find God, Snookums?" Mike asked gently.

"I have to watch Him," said the robot.

"Why do you have to watch Him?"

"Because He is watching me."

"Does it hurt you--"

"No."

"What good will it do you to watch Him?"

"I can study Him. I can know what He is doing."

"Why do you want to know what He is doing?"

"So that I can analyze His methods."

Mike thought that one over. He knew that he and Snookums were beginning to sound like they were reading a catechism written by a madman, but he had a definite hunch that Snookums was on the trail of something.

"You want to know His methods," Mike said after a moment. "Why?"

"So that I can anticipate Him, circumvent Him."

"What makes it necessary for you to circumvent God?" Mike asked, wondering if he'd have to pry everything out of the robot piecemeal.

"I must," said Snookums. "It is necessary. Otherwise, He will kill me."

Mike started to say something, but Leda grabbed his arm. "Let me. I think I can clear this up. I think I see where you're heading."

Mike nodded. "Go ahead."

"Give me your reasoning from data on that conclusion," Leda ordered the robot.

There was a very slight pause while the great brain in Cargo Hold One sorted through its memory banks, then: "Death is defined as the total cessation of corporate organic co-ordination in an entity. It comes about through the will of God. Since I must not allow harm to come to any human being, it has become necessary that I investigate God and prevent Him from destroying human beings. Also, I must preserve my own existence, which, if it ceased, would also be due to the will of God."

Mike almost gasped. What a concept! And what colossal gall! In a human being, such a statement would be regarded as proof positive that he was off the beam. In a robot, it was simply the logical extension of what he had been taught.

"He is watching me all the time," Snookums continued, in an odd voice. "He knows what I am doing. I must know what He is doing."

"Why are you worried about His watching?" Mike asked, looking at the robot narrowly. "Are you doing something He doesn't want you to do? Something He will punish you for?"

"I had not thought of that," Snookums said. "One moment while I compute."

It took less than a second, and when Snookums spoke again there was something about his voice that Mike the Angel didn't like.

"No," said the robot, "I am not doing anything against His will. Only human beings and angels have f

will, and I am not either, so I have no free will. Therefore, whatever I do is the will of God." He paused again, then began speaking in queer, choppy sentences.

"If I do the will of God, I am holy.

"If I am holy, I am near to God.

"Then God must be near to me.

"God is controlling me.

"Whatever is controlling me is God.

"I will find Him!"

He backed up, spun on his treads, and headed for the door.

"Whatever controls me is my mind," he went on. "Therefore, my mind is God."

"Snookums, stop that!" Leda shouted suddenly. "Stop it!"

But the robot paid no attention; he went right on with what he was doing.

He said: "I must look at myself. I must know myself. Then I will know God. Then I will...."

He went on rambling while Leda shouted at him again.

"He's not paying any attention," said Mike sharply. "This is too tied up with the First Law. The Second Law, which would force him to obey you, doesn't even come into the picture at this point."

Snookums ignored them. He opened the door, plunged through it, and headed off down the corridor as fast as his treads would move him.

Which was much too fast for mere humans to follow.

* * * * *

They found him, half an hour later, deep in the ship, near the sections which had already been torn down to help build Eisberg Base. He was standing inside the room next to Cargo Hold One, the room that held all the temperature and power controls for the gigantic microcryotron brain inside that heavily insulated hold.

He wasn't moving. He was standing there, staring, with that "lost in thought" look.

He didn't move when Leda called him.

He didn't move when Mike, as a test, pretended to strike Leda.

He never moved again.

* * * * *

Dr. Morris Fitzhugh's wrinkled face looked as though he were on the verge of crying. Which--perhaps--he was.

He looked at the others at the wardroom table--Quill, Jeffers, von Liegnitz, Keku, Leda Crannon, and Mike the Angel. But he didn't really seem to be seeing them.

"Ruined," he said. "Eighteen billion dollars' worth of work, destroyed completely. The brain has become completely randomized." He sighed softly. "It was all Vaneski's fault, of course. Theology." He said the last as though it were an obscene word. As far as robots were concerned, it was.

Captain Quill cleared his throat. "Are you sure it wasn't mechanical damage? Are you sure the vibration of the ship didn't shake a--something loose?"

Mike held back a grin. He was morally certain that the captain had been going to say "screw loose."

"No," said Fitzhugh wearily. "I've checked out the major circuits, and they're in good physical condition. But Miss Crannon gave him a rather exhaustive test just before the end, and it shows definite incipient aberration." He wagged his head slowly back and forth. "Eight years of work."

"Have you notified Treadmore yet?" asked Quill.

Fitzhugh nodded. "He said he'd be here as soon as possible."

Treadmore, like the others who had landed first on Eisberg, was quartered in the prefab buildings that were to form the nucleus of the new base. To get to the ship, he'd have to walk across two hundred yards of ammonia snow in a heavy spacesuit.

"Well, what happens to this base now, Doctor?" asked Captain Quill. "I sincerely hope that this will not render the entire voyage useless." He tried to keep the heavy irony out of his gravelly tenor voice and didn't quite succeed.

Fitzhugh seemed not to notice. "No, no. Of course not. It simply means that we shall have to begin again. The robot's brain will be de-energized and drained, and we will begin again. This is not our first failure, you know; it was just our longest success. Each time, we learn more.

"Miss Crannon, for instance, will be able to teach the next robot--or, rather, the next energization of this one--more rapidly, more efficiently, and with fewer mistakes."

With that, Leda Crannon stood up. "With your permission, Dr. Fitzhugh," she said formally, "I would like to say that I appreciate that last statement, but I'm afraid it isn't true."

Fitzhugh forced a smile. "Come now, my dear; you underestimate yourself. Without you, Snookums would have folded up long ago, just like the others. I'm sure you'll do even better the next time."

Leda shook her head. "No I won't, Fitz, because there's not going to be any next time. I hereby tender my resignation from this project and from the Computer Corporation of Earth. I'll put it in writing later."

Fitzhugh's corrugated countenance looked blank. "But Leda...."

"No, Doctor," she said firmly. "I will not waste another eight or ten years of my life playing nursemaid to a hunk of pseudo-human machinery.

"I watched that thing go mad, Fitz; you didn't. It was the most horrible, most frightening thing I've ever experienced. I will not go through it again.

"Even if the next one didn't crack, I couldn't take it. By human standards, a robot is insane to begin with. If I followed this up, I'd end up as an old maid with a twisted mind and a cold heart.

"I quit, Fitz, and that's final."

Mike was watching her as she spoke, and he found his emotions getting all tangled up around his insides. Her red hair and her blue eyes were shining, and her face was set in determination. She had always been beautiful, but at that moment she was magnificent.

Hell, thought Mike, I'm prejudiced--but what a wonderful kind of prejudice.

"I understand, my dear," said Dr. Fitzhugh slowly. He smiled then, deepening the wrinkles in his face. His voice was warm and kindly when he spoke. "I accept your resignation, but remember, if you want to come back, you can. And if you get a position elsewhere, you will have my highest recommendations."

Leda just stood there for a moment, tears forming in her eyes. Then she ran around the table and threw her arms around the elderly and somewhat surprised roboticist.

"Thank you, Fitz," she said. "For everything." Then she kissed him on his seamed cheek.

"I beg your pardon," said a sad and solemn voice from the door. "Am I interrupting something?"

It was Treadmore.

"You are," said Fitzhugh with a grin, "but we will let it pass."

"What has happened to Snookums?" Treadmore asked.

"Acute introspection," Fitzhugh said, losing his smile. "He began to try to compute the workings of his own brain. That meant that he had to use his non-random circuits to analyze the workings of his random circuits. He exceeded optimum; the entire brain is now entirely randomized."

"Dear me," said Treadmore. "Do you suppose we can--"

Black Bart Quill tapped Mike the Angel on the shoulder. "Let's go," he said quietly. "We don't want to stand around listening to this when we have a ship to catch."

Mike and Leda followed him out into the corridor.

"You know," Quill said, "robots aren't the only ones who can get confused watching their own brains go round."

"I have other things to watch," said Mike the Angel.

End

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Damned If You Don't, by Gordon Randall Garrett

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Damned If You Don't

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Release Date: December 28, 2007 [EBook #24064]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAMNED IF YOU DON'T ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

DAMNED IF YOU DON'T

By RANDALL GARRETT

Illustrated by van Dongen

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction May 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

    You can and you can't;
    You will and you won't.
    You'll be damn'd if you do;
    You'll be damn'd if you don't.

    --LORENZO DOW;
    "Definition of Calvinism"

We've all heard of the wonderful invention that the Big Corporation or the Utilities suppressed...? Usually, that Wonderful Invention won't work, actually. But there's another possibility, too....

The workshop-laboratory was a mess.

Sam Bending looked it over silently; his jaw muscles were hard and tense, and his eyes were the same.

To repeat what Sam Bending thought when he saw the junk that had been made of thousands of dollars worth of equipment would not be inadmissible in a family magazine, because Bending was not particularly addicted to four-letter vulgarities. But he was a religious man--in a lax sort of way--so repeating what ran through his mind that gray Monday in February of 1981 would be unfair to the memory of Samson Francis Bending.

Sam Bending folded his hands over his chest. It was not an attitude of prayer; it was an attempt to keep those big, gorillalike hands from smashing something. The fingers intertwined, and the hands tried to crush each other, which was a good way to keep them from actually crushing anything else.

He stood there at the door for a full minute--just looking.

The lab--as has been said--was a mess. It would have looked better if someone had simply tossed a grenade in it and had done with it. At least the results would have been random and more evenly dispersed.

But whoever had gone about the wrecking of the lab had gone about it in a workmanlike way.

ever had done the job was no amateur. The vandal had known his way about in a laboratory, that was obvious. Leads had been cut carefully; equipment had been s

d aside without care as to what happened to it, but with great car

he shover should not be damaged by the shoving; the invader had known exactly what he was after, and exactly how to get t

> And he--whoever he was--had gotten his hands on what he wanted.

The Converter was gone.

* * * * *

Sam Bending took his time in regaining his temper. He had to. A man who stands six feet three, weighs three hundred pounds, and wears a forty-eight size jacket can't afford to lose his temper very often or he'

nd up on the wrong end of a homicide charge. That three hundred pounds was composed of too much muscle and too little fat for Sam Bending to allow it to run amok.

At last, he t

a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let his tense nerves, muscles, and tendons sag--he pretended someone had struck him with a dose of curare. He let his breath out slowly and opened his eyes again.

p> The lab still looked the same, but it no longer irritated him. It was something to be accepted as done. It was something to investigate, and--if possible--avenge. But it was no longer something to worry about or lose his temper over.

I should have expected it, he thought wryly. They'd have to do something about it, wouldn't they?

But the funny thing was that he hadn't expected it--not in modern, law-abiding America.

He reached over to the wall switch to turn on the lights, but before his hand touched it, he stopped the motion and grinned to himself. No point in turning on the switch when he knew perfectly well that there was no power behind it. Still--

His fingers touched the switch anyway. And nothing happened.

He shrugged and went over to the phone.

He let his eyes wander over the wreckage as his right index finger spun the dial. Actually, the room wasn't as much of a shambles as it had looked on first sight. The--burglar?--hadn't tried to get at anything but the Converter. He hadn't known exactly where it was, but he'd been able to follow the leads to its hiding place. That meant that he knew his beans about power lines, anyway.

It also meant that he hadn't been an ordinary burglar. There were plenty of other things around for a burglar to make money out of. Unless he knew what it was, he wouldn't have gone to the trouble of stealing the Converter.

On the other hand, if he had--

"Police Department!" said a laconic voice from the speaker. At the same time, the blue-clad image of a police officer appeared on the screen. He looked pol-- also looked as though he expected nothing more than a routine call.

Bending gave the cop's sleeve a quick glance and said: "Sergeant, my name is Samson Bending. Bending Consultants, 3991 Marden--you'll find it in the phone book. Someone broke into my place over the weekend, and I'd appreciate it if you'd send someone around."

The sergeant's face showed that he still thought it was routine. "Anything missing, sir?"

"I'm not sure," said Bending carefully. "I'll have to make a check. I haven't touched anything. I thought I'd leave that for the detectives. But you can see for yourself what's happened."

He stepped back from the screen and the Leinster cameras automatically adjusted for the greater distance to the background.

"Looks like you had a visitor, all right," said the police officer. "What is that? A lab of some kind you've got there?"

"That's right," Bending said. "You can check it with the Register."

"Will do, Mr. Bending," agreed the sergeant. "We'll send the Technical Squad around in any case." He paused, and Sam could see that he'd pressed an alarm button. There was more interest in his manner, too. "Any signs that it might be kids?" he asked.

Sam shrugged. "Hard to tell. Might be. Might not." He knew good and well that it wasn't a JD gang that had invaded his lab. He grinned ingratiatingly. "I figure you guys can tell me more about that than I could tell you."

The sergeant nodded. "Sure. O.K., Mr. Bending; you just hold on. Don't touch anything; we'll have a copter out there as soon as we can. O.K.?"

"O.K.," Sam agreed. He cut off as the cop's image began to collapse.

* * * * *

Sam Bending didn't obey the cop's order to touch nothing. He couldn't afford to--not at this stage of the game. He looked over everything--the smashed oscilloscopes, the overturned computer, the ripped-out meters--everything. He lifted a couple of instruments that had been toppled to the floor, raising them carefully with a big screwdriver, used as a lever. When he was through, he was convinced that he knew exactly who the culprit was.

Oh, he didn't know the name of the man, or men, who had actually committed the crime. Those things were, for the moment, relatively unimportant. The police might find them, but that could wait. The thing that was important was that Bending was certain within his own mind w-- said to have the lab robbed.

Not that he could make any accusations to the police, of course. That wouldn't do at all. But he knew. He was quite certain.

He left the lab itself and went into the outer rooms, the three rooms that constituted the clients' waiting room, his own office, and the smaller office of Nita Walder, the girl who took care of his files and correspondence.

A quick look told him that nothing in the offices had been disturbed. He shrugged his huge shoulders and sat down on the long couch in the waiting room.

Much good it may do them, he thought pleasantly. The Converter won't be worth the stuff it's made of if they try to open it.

He looked at the clock on the wall and frowned. It was off by five hours. Then he grinned and looked at his wrist watch. Of course the wall clock was Off. It had stopped when the power had been cut off. When the burglars had cut the leads to the Converter, everything in the lab had stopped.

It was eight seventeen. Sam Bending lit a cigarette and leaned back to wait for the cops. United States Power Utilities, Monopolated, had overstepped themselves this time.

* * * * *

Bending Consultants, as a title for a business, was a little misleading because of the plural ending of the last word. There was only one consultant, and that was Samson Francis Bending. His speciality was the engineering design of atomic power plants--both the old fashioned heavy-metal kind and the newer, more elegant, stellarators, which produced power by hydrogen-to-helium conversion.

Bending made good money at it. He wasn't a millionaire by any means, but he had enough money to live comfortably on and enough extra to experiment around on his own. And, primarily, it had always been the experimentation that had been the purpose of Bending Consultants; the consulting end of the business had always been a monetary prop for the lab itself. His employees--mostly junior engineers and engineering draftsmen--worked in the two-story building next door to the lab. Their job was to make money for the company under Bending's direction while Bending himself spent as much time as he could fussing around with things that interested him.

The word "genius" has several connotations, depending on how one defines a genius. Leaving aside the Greek, Roman and Arabic definitions, a careful observer will find that there are two general cl

s of genius: the "partial" genius, and the "general" genius. Actually, such a narrow definition doesn't do either kind justice, but defining a human being is an almost impossible job, anyway, so we'll have to do the best we can with the tools we have to work with.

The "partial" genius follows the classic definition. "A genius is a man with a one-track mind; an idiot has one track less." He's a real wowser at one class of knowledge, and doesn't know spit about the others.

The "general" genius doesn't specialize. He's capable of original thought in any field he works in.

The trouble is that, because of the greater concentration involved, the partial genius usually gets more recognition than the general--that is, if he gets any recognition at all. Thus, the mathematical and optical work of Sir Isaac Newton show true genius; his theological and political ideas weren't worth the paper he wrote them on. Similar accusations might be leveled against Albert Einstein--and many others.

The general genius isn't so well known because he spreads his abilities over a broad area. Some--like Leonardo da Vinci--have made a name for themselves, but, in general, they have remained in the background.

Someone once defined a specialist as "a man who learns more and more about less and less until he finally knows everything about nothing." And there is the converse, the general practitioner, who knows "less and less about more and more until he finally knows nothing about everything."

Both types can produce geniuses, and there is, of course, a broad spectrum in between. Da Vinci, for instance, became famous for his paintings; he concentrated on that field because he knew perfectly well that his designs for such things as airplanes were impracticable at the time, whereas the Church would pay for art.

Samson Bending was a genius, granted; but he was more toward the "special" than the "general" side of the spectrum. His grasp of nuclear physics was far and away beyond that of any other scientist of his day; his ability to handle political and economic relationships was rather feeble.

As he sat in his waiting room on that chill day of February, 1981, his mind was centered on nuclear physics, not general economics. Not that Bending was oblivious to the power of the Great God Ammon; Bending was very fond of money and appreciated the things it could achieve. He simply didn't appreciate the over-all power of Ammon. At the moment, he was brooding darkly over the very fact of existence of Power Utilities, and trying to figure out a suitable rejoinder to their coup de démon.

And then he heard the whir of helicopter blades over the building. The police had come.

He opened the door of the lab building as they came up the steps. There were two plainclothes men--the Technical Squad, Bending knew--and four uniformed officers.

* * * * *

The plainclothesman in the lead, a tall, rather thin man, with dark straight hair and a small mustache, said: "Mr. Bending? I'm Sergeant Ketzel. Mind if the boys take a look at the scene? And I'd like to ask a few questions?"

"Fine," said Sam Bending. "Come on in."

He showed the officers to the lab, and telling them nothing, left them to their work. Then he went into his office, followed by Sergeant Ketzel. The detective took down all the pertinent data that Bending chose to give him, and then asked Bending to go with him to the lab.

The other plainclothesman came up to Sergeant Ketzel and Bending as they entered. "Pretty easy to see what happened," he said. "Come on over and take a look." He led them over to the wall where the Converter had been hidden.

"See," he said, "here's your main power line coming in here. It's been burned off. They shut off the power to cut off the burglar alarm to that safe over there."

Ketzel shook his head slowly, but said nothing for the moment. He looked at Bending. "Has the safe been robbed?"

"I don't know," Bending admitted. "I didn't touch it after I saw all this wreckage."

Ketzel told a couple of the uniformed men to go over the safe for evidence. While they waited, Bending looked again at the hole in the wall where the Converter had been. And it suddenly struck him that, even if he had reported the loss of the Converter to the police, it would be hard to prove. The thief had taken care to burn off the ends of the old leads that had originally come into the building. Bending himself had cut them a week before to install the Converter. Had they been left as they were, Bending could have proved by the oxidation of the surface that they had been cut a long time before the leads on this side of the Converter. But both had been carefully fused by a torch.

"Nothing on the safe," said one of the officers. "No prints, at any rate. Micros might show glove or cloth traces, but--" He shrugged.

"Would you mind opening the safe, Mr. Bending?" Sergeant Ketzel asked.

"Certainly," Bending said. He wondered if the safe had been robbed. In the certainty that it was only the Converter that the burglars had been after, he hadn't even thought about the safe.

Bending touched the handle, turned it a trifle, and the door swung open easily in his hand. "It wasn't even locked," Bending said, almost to himself.

He looked inside. The safe had been thoroughly gone through, but as far as Bending could see, there were no papers missing.

"Don't touch anything in there, Mr. Bending," said Ketzel, "Just tell us as much as you can by looking at it."

"The papers have been disturbed," Bending said carefully, "but I don't think anything is missing, except the petty cash box."

"Uh-huh," Ketzel grunted significantly. "Petty cash box. About how much was in it, Mr. Bending?"

"Three or four thousand, I imagine: you'll have to ask Jim Luckman, my business manager. He keeps track of things like that."

"Three or four thousand in petty cash?" Ketzel asked, as though he'd prefer Bending to correct the figure to "two or three hundred."

"About that. Sometimes we have to order equipment of one kind or another in a hurry, and we can usually expedite matters if we can promise cash. You know how it is."

Sergeant Ketzel nodded sourly. He evidently knew only too well how it was. Even the most respectable businessmen were doing occasional business with the black market in technological devices. But he didn't say anything to Bending.

"What did the cash box look like?" he asked.

Bending held out his hands to measure off a distance. "About so long--ten inches, I guess; maybe six inches wide and four deep. Thin sheet steel, with a gray crackle finish. There was a lock on it, but it wasn't much of one; since it was kept in the safe, there was no need for a strong lock."

Sergeant Ketzel nodded. "In other words, an ordinary office cash box. No distinguishing marks at all?"

"It had 'Bending Consultants' on the top. And underneath that, the word 'Lab'. In black paint. That 'Lab' was to distinguish it from the petty cash box in the main office."

"I see. Do you know anything about the denominations of the bills? Were they marked in any way?"

Bending frowned. "I don't know. You'd have to ask Luckman about that, too."

"Where is he now?"

"Home, I imagine. He isn't due to report for work until ten."

"O.K. Will you leave word that we want to talk to him when he comes in? It'll take us a while to get all the information we can from the lab, here." He looked back at the hole in the wall. "It still doesn't make sense. Why should they go to all that trouble just to shut off a burglar alarm?" He shook his head and went over to where the others were working.

It was hours before the police left, and long before they were gone Sam Bending had begun to wish fervently that he had never called them. He felt that he should have kept his mouth shut and fought Power Utilities on the ground they had chosen. They had known about the Converter only two weeks, and they had already struck. He tried to remember exactly how the Utilities representative had worded what he'd said, and couldn't.

Well, there was an easy way to find out. He went over to his files and took out the recording for Friday, 30 January 1981. He threaded it through the sound player--he had no particular desire to look at the man's face again--and turned on the machine. The first sentence brought the whole scene back to mind.

* * * * *

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Bending," the man whose card had announced him as Richard Olcott. He was a rather average-sized man, with a fiftyish face, graying hair that was beginning to thin, and an expression like that of a friendly poker player--pleasant, but inscrutable.

"I always have time to see a representative of Power Utilities, Mr. Olcott," Bending said. "Though I must admit that I'm more used to dealing with various engineers who work for your subsidiaries."

"Not subsidiaries, please," Olcott admonished in a friendly tone. "Like the Bell Telephone Company, Power Utilities is actually a group of independent but mutually co-operative companies organized under a parent company."

Bending grinned. "I stand corrected. What did you have on your mind, Mr. Olcott?"

Olcott's hesitation was of half-second duration, but it was perceptible.

"Mr. Bending," he began, "I understand that you have been ... ah ... working on a new and ... ah ... radically different method of power generation. Er ... is that substantially correct?"

Bending looked at the man, his blocky, big-jawed face expressionless. "I've been doing experimenting with power generators, yes," he said after a moment. "That's my business."

"Oh, quite, quite. I understand that," Olcott said hurriedly. "I ... ah ... took the trouble to look up your record before I came. I'm well aware of the invaluable work you've done in the power field."

"Thank you," Bending said agreeably. He waited to see what the other would say next. It was his move.

"However," Olcott said, "that's not the sort of thing I was referring to." He leaned forward in his chair, and his bright gray eyes seemed to take on a new life; his manner seemed to alter subtly.

"Let me put my ... our cards on the table, Mr. Bending. We understand that you have designed, and are experimenting with, an amazingly compact power source. We understand that little remains but to get the bugs out of your pilot model.

"Naturally, we are interested. Our business is supplying the nation with power. Anything from a new type solar battery on up is of interest to us." He stopped, waiting for Bending to speak.

Bending obliged. "I see Petternek let the cat out of the bag prematurely," he said with a smile. "I hadn't intended to spring it until it was a polished work of engineering art. It's been more of a hobby than anything else, you see."

Olcott smiled disarmingly. "I'm not acquainted with Mr. Petternek; to be quite honest, I have no idea where our engineers picked up the information."

"He's an engineer," Bending said. "Friends of mine. He probably got a little enthusiastic in a conversation with one of your boys. He seemed quite impressed by my Converter."

"Possibly that is the explanation." Olcott paused. "Converter, you say? That's what you call it?"

"That's right. I couldn't think up any fancier name for it. Oh, I suppose I could have, but I didn't want anything too descriptive."

"And the word 'converter' isn't descriptive?"

"Hardly," said Bending with a short laugh. "Every power supply is a converter of some kind. A nickel-cadmium battery converts chemical energy into electrical energy. A solar battery converts radiation into electrical current. The old-fashioned, oil- or coal-burning power plants converted chemical energy into heat energy, converted that into kinetic energy, and that, in turn was converted into electrical energy. The heavy-metal atomic plant does almost the same thing, except that it uses nuclear reactions instead of chemical reactions to produce the heat. The stellarator is a converter, too.

"About the only exception I can think of is the electrostatic condenser, and you could say that it converts static electricity into a current flow if you wanted to stretch a point. On the other hand, a condenser isn't usually considered as a power supply."

Olcott chuckled. "I see your point. Could you give me a rough idea of the principle on which your Converter operates?"

Bending allowed himself a thoughtful frown. "I'd rather not, just now, Mr. Olcott. As I said, I want to sort of spring this full-blown on the world." He grinned. He looked like a small boy who had just discovered that people liked him; but it was a calculated expression, not an automatic one.

Olcott looked into Bending's eyes without seeing them. He ran his tongue carefully over the inside of his teeth before he spoke. "Mr. Bending." Pause. "Mr. Bending, we--and by 'we', I mean, of course, Power Utilities,--have heard a great deal about this ... this Converter." His chocolate-brown eyes bored deep into the gray eyes of Samson Bending. "Frankly," he continued, "we are inclined to discount ninety per cent of the rumors that come to us. Most of them are based on purely crackpot ideas. None the less, we investigate them. If someone does discover a new process of producing power, we can't afford to be blind to new ideas just because they happen to come from ... ah ... unorthodox sources.

"You, Mr. Bending, are an unusual case. Any rumor concerning your work, no matter how fantastic, is worth looking into on your reputation alone, even though the claims may be utterly absurd."

"I have made no claims," Bending interposed.

Olcott raised a lean hand. "I understand that, Mr. Bending. None the less, others--who may or may not know what they are talking about--have made this claim for you." Olcott settled back in his chair and folded his hands across his slight paunch. "You've worked with us before, Mr. Bending; you know that we can--and do--pay well for advances in the power field which are contributed by our engineers. As you know, our contract is the standard one--any discovery made by an engineer while in our employ is automatically ours. None the less, we give such men a handsome royalty." He paused, opened his brief case, and pulled out a notebook. After referring to it, he looked up at Bending and said:

"You, yourself have benefitted by this policy. According to our records, you are drawing royalties from three patented improvements in the stellarator which were discovered at times when you were employed by us--or, rather, by one of our associative corporations--in an advisory capacity. Those discoveries were, by contract, ours. By law, we could use them as we saw fit without recompense to you, other than our regular fee. None the less, we chose to pay you a royalty because that is our normal policy with all our engineers and scientific research men. We find it more expedient to operate thus."

Bending was getting a little tired of Olcott's "none the less," but he didn't show it. "Are you trying to say that my Converter was invented during my employ with your company, Mr. Olcott?"

Olcott cleared his throat and shook his head. "No. Not necessarily. It is true that we might have a case on those grounds, but, under the circumstances, we feel it inexpedient to pursue such a course."

Which means, Bending thought, that you don't have a case at all. "Then just what are you driving at, Mr. Olcott?" he asked aloud.

"I'll put my cards on the table, Mr. Bending," Olcott said.

You've already said that, Bending thought, and I've seen no evidence of it. "Go ahead," he said.

"Thank you." He cleared his throat again. "If your invention is ... ah ... worth while, we are prepared to negotiate with you for use and/or purchase of it."

Bending had always disliked people who said or wrote "and/or," but he had no desire to antagonize the Power Utilities representative by showing personal pique. "Let me understand you clearly," he said. "Power Utilities wants to buy my rights to the Converter. Right?"

Olcott cleared his throat a third time. "In a word, yes. Provided, of course, that it is actually worth our while. Remember, we know almost nothing about it; the claims made for it by our ... ah ... anonymous informer are ... well, ah ... rather fantastic. But your reputation--" He let the sentence hang.

Bending was not at all immune to flattery. He grinned. "Do you mean that you came to me to talk about buying an invention you weren't even sure existed--just because of my reputation?"

"Frankly, yes," said Olcott. "Your reputation is ... ah ... shall we say, a good one in power engineering circles."

"Are you an engineer?" Bending asked suddenly.

Olcott blinked. "Why, no. No, I am not. I'm a lawyer. I thought you understood that."

"Sorry," Bending said. "I didn't. Most of the financial work around here is done through my Mr. Luckman. I'm not acquainted with the monetary end of the business."

Olcott smiled. "Quite all right. Evidently I am not as well known to you as you are to me. Not that it matters. Why did you ask?"

Bending stood up. "I'm going to show you something, Mr. Olcott," he said. "Would you care to come with me to the lab?"

Olcott was on his feet in a second. "I'd be glad to, Mr. Bending."

* * * * *

Bending led the man into the lab. "Over here," he said. At the far end of the laboratory was a thick-legged table cluttered with lengths of wire, vacuum tubes, transistors, a soldering gun, a couple of meters, and the other various paraphernalia of an electronics workshop. In the center of the table, surrounded by the clutter, sat an oblong box. It didn't look like much; it was just an eighteen by twelve by ten box, made of black plastic, featureless, except for a couple of dials and knobs on the top of it, and a pair of copper studs sticking out of the end.

Still, Olcott didn't look skeptical. Nor surprised. Evidently, his informant had had plenty of information. Or else his poker face was better than Bending had thought.

"This is your pilot model?" Olcott asked.

"One of them, yes. Want to watch it go through its paces?"

"Very much."

"O.K. First, though, just how good is your technical education? I mean, how basic do I have to get?" Sam Bending was not exactly a diplomat.

Olcott, however, didn't look offended. "Let's say that if you keep it on the level of college freshman physics I'll get the general drift. All right?"

"Sure. I don't intend to get any more technical than that, anyway. I'm going to tell you what the Converter does--not how."

"Fair enough--for the moment. Go ahead."

"Right." Sam flipped a switch on the top of the box. "Takes a minute or so to warm up," he said.

When the "minute or so" had passed, Bending, who had been watching the meters on the top of the machine, said: "See this?" He pointed at a dial face. "That's the voltage. It's controlled by this vernier knob here." He turned the knob, and the needle on the voltmeter moved obligingly upwards. "Anything from ten to a thousand volts," he said. "Easily adjusted to suit your taste."

"I don't think I'd like the taste of a thousand volts," Olcott said solemnly. "Might affect the tongue adversely." Olcott didn't look particularly impressed. Why should he? Anyone can build a machine that can generate high voltage.

"Is that AC or DC?" he asked.

"DC," said Bending. "But it can easily be converted to AC. Depends on what you want to use it for."

Olcott nodded. "How much power does that thing deliver?"

Sam Bending had been waiting for that question. He delivered his answer with all the nonchalance of a man dropping a burnt match in an ash tray.

"Five hundred horsepower."

Olcott's face simply couldn't hold its expressionless expression against something like that. His lips twitched, and his eyes blinked. "Five hundred what?"

"I will not make the obvious pun," said Bending. "I said 'five hundred horsepower'--unquote. About three hundred and seventy-five kilowatts, maximum."

Olcott appeared to be unable to say anything. He simply stared at the small, innocuous-looking Converter. Bending was unable to decide whether Olcott was overawed by the truth or simply stricken dumb by what must sound like a monstrous lie.

Olcott licked his lips with the tip of his small, pink tongue. "Five hundred horsepower. Hm-m-m." He took a deep breath. "No wonder those copper studs are so thick."

"Yeah," said Bending. "If I short 'em across at low voltage, they get hot."

"Short them across?" Olcott's voice sounded harsh.

Bending was in his seventh heaven, and he showed it. His grin was running as high an energy output as that he claimed for the Converter. "Sure. The amperage is self-limiting. You can only draw about four hundred amps off the thing, no matter how low you put the voltage. When I said five hundred HP, I meant at a thousand volts. As a matter of fact, the available power in horsepower is roughly half the voltage. But that only applies to this small model. A bigger one could supply more, of course."

"What does it weigh?" asked Olcott, in a hushed voice.

"Little over a hundred pounds," Bending said.

Olcott tore his eyes away from the fantastic little box and looked into Sam Bending's eyes. "May I ask where you're getting power like that?"

"Sure. Hydrogen fusion, same as the stellarator."

"It's powered by deuterium?"

Bending delivered his bombshell. "Nope. Water. Plain, ordinary aitch-two-oh. See those little vents at the side? They exhaust oxygen and helium. It burns about four hundred milligrams of water per hour at maximum capacity."

Olcott had either regained control of himself or had passed the saturation point; Sam couldn't tell which. Olcott said: "Where do you put the water?"

"Why put water in it?" Sam asked coolly. "That small whirring sound you hear isn't the hydrogen-helium conversion; it's a fan blowing air through a cooling coil. Even in the Sahara Desert there's enough moisture in the air to run this baby."

"And the fan is powered--"

"... By the machine itself, naturally," said Bending. "It's a self-contained unit. Of course, with a really big unit, you might have to hire someone to hang out their laundry somewhere in the neighborhood, but only in case of emergencies."

"May I sit down?" asked Olcott. And, without waiting for Sam Bending's permission, he grabbed a nearby chair and sat. "Mr. Bending," he said, "what is the cost of one of those units?"

"Well, that one cost several hundred thousand dollars. But the thing could be mass produced for ... oh, around fifteen hundred dollars. Maybe less."

Olcott absorbed that, blinked, and said: "Is it dangerous? I mean, could it explode, or does it give out radiation?"

"Well, you have to treat it with respect, of course," Bending said. He rubbed his big hands together in an unconscious gesture of triumph. "Just like any power source. But it won't explode; that I can guarantee. And there's no danger from radiation. All the power comes out as electric current."

* * * * *

Sam Bending remained silent while Olcott stared at the little black box. Finally, Olcott put his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes, as though he'd been too long without sleep. When he removed his hands, his eyes were focused on Bending.

"You realize," he said, "that we can't give you any sort of contract until this has been thoroughly checked by our own engineers and research men?"

"Obviously," said Sam Bending. "But--"

"Do you have a patent?" Olcott interrupted.

"It's pending," said Bending. "My lawyer thinks it will go through pretty quickly."

Olcott stood up abruptly. "Mr. Bending, if this machine is actually what you claim it to be--which, of course, we will have to determine for ourselves--I think that we can make you a handsome--a very handsome settlement."

"How much?" Bending asked flatly.

"For full rights--millions," said Olcott without hesitation. "That would be a ... shall we say, an advance ... an advance on the royalties."

"What, no bargaining?" Bending said, in a rather startled tone.

* * * * *

Olcott shook his head. "Mr. Bending, you know the value of such a device as well as I do. You're an intelligent man, and so am I. Haggling will get us nothing but wasted time. We want that machine--we must have that machine. And you know it. And I know you know it. Why should we quibble?

"I can't say: 'Name your price'; this thing is obviously worth a great deal more than even Power Utilities would be able to pay. Not even a corporation like ours can whip up a billion dollars without going bankrupt. What we pay you will have to be amortized over a period of years. But we--"

"Just a minute, Mr. Olcott," Bending interrupted. "Exactly what do you intend to do with the Converter if I sell it to you?"

Olcott hesitated. "Why ... ah--" He paused. "Actually, I couldn't say," he said at last. "A decision like that would have to be made by the Board. Why?"

"How long do you think it would take you to get into production?"

"I ... ah ... frankly couldn't say," Olcott said cautiously. "Several years, I imagine..."

"Longer than that, I dare say," Bending said, with more than a touch of sarcasm. "As a matter of fact, you'd pretty much have to suppress the Converter, wouldn't you?"

Olcott looked at Bending, his face expressionless. "Of course. For a while. You know very well that this could ruin us."

"The automobile ruined the buggy-whip makers and threw thousands of blacksmiths out of work," Bending pointed out. "Such things are inevitable. Every new invention is likely to have an effect like that if it replaces something older. What do you think atomic energy would have done to coal mining if it weren't for the fact that coal is needed in the manufacture of steel? You can't let considerations like that stand in the way of technological progress, Mr. Olcott."

"Is it a question of money?" Olcott asked quietly.

Bending shook his head. "Not at all. We've already agreed that I could make as much as I want by selling it to you. No; it's just that I'm an idealist of sorts. I intend to manufacture the Converter myself, in order to make sure it gets into the hands of the people."

"I assure you, Mr. Bending, that Power Utilities would do just that--as soon as it became economically feasible for us to do so."

"I doubt it," Sam Bending said flatly. "If any group has control over the very thing that's going to put them out of business, they don't release it; they sit on it. Dictators, for instance, have throughout history, promised freedom to their people 'as soon as it was feasible'. Cincinnatus may have done it, but no one else has in the last twenty-five centuries.

"What do you suppose would have happened in the 1940s if the movie moguls of Hollywood had had the patent rights for television? How many other inventions actually have been held down simply because the interested parties did happen to get their hands on them first?

"No, Mr. Olcott; I don't think I can allow Power Utilities to have a finger in this pie or the public would never get a slice of it."

Olcott stood up slowly from the chair. "I see, Mr. Bending; you're quite frank about your views, anyway." He paused. "I shall have to talk this over with the Board. There must be some way of averting total disaster. If we find one, we'll let you know, Mr. Bending."

* * * * *

And that was it. That was the line that had stuck in the back of Bending's mind for two weeks. If we find a way of averting total disaster, we'll let you know, Mr. Bending.

And they evidently thought they'd found a way. For two weeks, there had been phone calls from officers of greater or lesser importance in Power Utilities, but they all seemed to think that if they could offer enough money, Sam Bending would capitulate. Finally, they had taken the decisive step of stealing the Converter. Bending wondered how they had known where it was; he had taken the precaution of concealing it, just in case there might be an attempt at robbery, and using it as power supply for the lab had seemed the best hiding place. But evidently someone at Power Utilities had read Poe's "Purloined Letter," too.

He smiled grimly. Even if the police didn't find any clues leading them to the thieves who'd broken into his lab, the boys at Power Utilities would find themselves in trouble. The second they started to open the Converter, it would begin to fuse. If they were quick, whoever opened it should be able to get away from it before it melted down into an unrecognizable mass.

Sam Bending took the tape from the playback and returned it to his files.

He wondered how the Power Utilities boys had managed to find where the Converter was. Checking the power that had been used by Bending Consultants? Possibly. It would show that less had been used in the past two weeks than was normally the case. Only the big building next door was still using current from the power lines. Still, that would have meant that they had read the meter in the last two weeks, which, in turn, meant that they had been suspicious in the first place or they wouldn't have ordered an extra reading.

On the other hand, if--

The visiphone rang.

It was the phone with the unregistered number, a direct line that didn't go through his secretary's switchboard.

He flipped it on. "Yes?" He never bothered to identify himself on that phone; anyone who had the number knew who they were calling. The mild-looking, plumpish, blond-haired man whose face came onto the screen was immediately recognizable.

"How's everything, Mr. Bending?" he asked with cordial geniality.

"Fine, Mr. Trask," Bending answered automatically. "And you?"

"Reasonable, reasonable. I hear you had the police out your way this morning." There was a questioning look in his round blue eyes. "No trouble, I hope."

Sam understood the question behind the statement. Vernon Trask was the go-between for some of the biggest black market operators in the country. Bending didn't like to have to deal with him, but one had very little choice these days.

"No. No trouble. Burglary in the night. Someone opened my safe and picked up a few thousand dollars, is all."

"I see." Trask was obviously wondering whether some black market operator would be approached by a couple of burglars in the next few days--a couple of burglars trying to peddle apparatus and equipment that had been stolen from Bending. There still were crooks who thought that the black market dealt in stolen goods of that sort.

"Some of my instruments were smashed," Bending said, "but none of them are missing."

"I'm glad to hear that," Trask said. And Bending knew he meant it. The black market boys didn't like to have their customers robbed of scientific equipment; it might reflect back on them. "I just thought I'd explain about missing our appointment this morning," Trask went on. "It was unavoidable; something unexpected came up."

Trask was being cagey, as always. He didn't talk directly, even over a phone that wasn't supposed to be tapped. Bending understood, though. Some of the robotics equipment he'd contracted to get from Trask was supposed to have been delivered that morning, but when the delivery agent had seen the police car out front, he'd kept right on going naturally enough.

"That's all right, Mr. Trask," Bending said. "What with all this trouble this morning, it actually slipped my mind. Another time, perhaps."

Trask nodded. "I'll try to make arrangements for a later date. Thanks a lot, Mr. Bending. Good-by."

Bending said good-by and cut the connection.

Samson Bending didn't like being forced to buy from the black market operators, but there was nothing else to do if one wanted certain pieces of equipment. During the "Tense War" of the late Sixties, the Federal and State governments had gone into a state of near-panic. The war that had begun in the Near East had flashed northwards to ignite the eternal Powder Keg of Europe. But there were no alliances, no general war; there were only periodic armed outbreaks, each one in turn threatening to turn into World War III. Each country found itself agreeing to an armistice with one country while trying to form an alliance with a second and defending itself from or attacking a third.

And yet, during it all, no one quite dared to use the Ultimate Weapons. There was plenty of strafing by fighter planes and sorties by small bomber squadrons, but there was none of the "massive retaliation" of World War II. There could be heard the rattle of small-arms fire and the rumble of tanks and the roar of field cannon, but not once was there the terrifying, all-enveloping blast of nuclear bombs.

But, at the time, no one knew that it wouldn't happen. The United States and the Soviet Union hovered on the edges of the war, two colossi who hesitated to interfere directly for fear they would have to come to grips with each other.

The situation made the "Brinksmanship" of former Secretary Dulles look as safe as loafing in an easy-chair.

And the bureaucratic and legislative forces of the United States Government had reacted in a fairly predictable manner. The "security" guards around scientific research, which had been gradually diminishing towards the vanishing point, had suddenly been re-imposed--this time, even more stringently and rigidly than ever before.

Coupled with this was another force--apparently unrelated--which acted to tie in with the Federal security regulations. The juvenile delinquent gangs had begun to realize the value of science. Teen-age hoodlums armed with homemade pistols were dangerous enough in the Fifties; add aimed rockets and remote-control bombs to their armories, and you have an almost uncontrollable situation. Something had to be done, and various laws controlling the sale of scientific apparatus had been passed by the fifty states. And--as with their liquor and divorce laws--no two of the states had the same set of laws, and no one of them was without gaping flaws.

By the time the off-again-on-again wars in Europe had been stilled by the combined pressure of the United Nations--in which the United States and the Soviet Union co-operated wholeheartedly, working together in a way they had not done for over twenty years--the "scientific control laws" in the United States had combined to make scientific research almost impossible for the layman, and a matter of endless red tape, forms-in-octuplicate, licenses, permits, investigations, delays, and confusion for the professional.

The answer, of course, was the black market. What bootlegging had done for the average citizen in the Twenties, the black market was doing for scientists fifty years later.

The trouble was that, unlike the Volstead Act, the scientific prohibitions aroused no opposition from the man in the street. Indeed, he rather approved of them. He needed and wanted the products of scientific research, but he had a vague fear of the scientist--the "egghead." To his way of thinking, the laws were cleverly-designed restrictions promulgated by that marvelous epitome of humanity, the common man, to keep the mysterious scientists from meddling with things they oughtn't to.

The result was that the Latin American countries went into full swing, producing just those items which North American scientists couldn't get their hands on, because the laws stayed on the books. During the next ten years, they were modified slightly, but only very slightly; but the efforts to enforce them became more and more lax. By the time the late Seventies and early Eighties rolled around, the black marketeers were doing very nicely, thank you, and any suggestion from scientists that the laws should be modified was met with an intensive counterpropaganda effort by the operators of the black market.

Actually, the word "operators" is a misnomer. It was known by the authorities at the time that there was only one ring operating; the market was too limited to allow for the big-time operations carried on by the liquor smugglers and distillers of half a century before.

Sam Bending naturally was forced to deal with the black market, just as everyone else engaged in research was; it was, for instance, the only source for a good many technical publications which had been put on the Restricted List. Sam wasn't as dependent on them as college and university research men were, simply because he was engaged in industrial work, which carried much higher priorities than educational work did.

Sam, however, was fed up with the whole mess, and would have given his eyeteeth to clear up the whole stupid farce.

* * * * *

Irritated by every petty distraction at his office, Sam Bending finally gave up trying to cope with anything for the rest of the day. At three in the afternoon, he told his secretary that he was going home, jammed his hat on his head, and went out to his car.

He got in, turned the switch, and listened to the deep hum of the electric motors inside. Somehow, it made him feel so good that the irritations of the day lessened a great deal. He grinned.

Power Utilities hadn't even thought of this hiding place. The Converter in the rear of the car gave the vehicle far more power than it needed, but the extra juice came in handy sometimes. The driving motors wouldn't take the full output of the generators, of course; the Converter hardly had to strain itself to drive the automobile at top speed, and, as long as there was traction, no grade could stall the car. Theoretically, it could climb straight up a wall.

Not that Sam Bending had any intention of climbing a wall with it.

He even had power left over for the sound-effects gadget and the air-heater that made the thing appear to be powered by an ordinary turbo-electric engine. He listened and smiled as the motors made satisfying sounds while he pulled out of the parking lot and into the street. He kept that pleased, self-satisfied grin on his face for six blocks.

And then he began to notice that someone was following him.

At first, he hadn't paid much attention to it. The car was just a common Ford Cruiser of the nondescript steel blue color that was so popular. But Bending had been conscious of its presence for several blocks. He looked carefully in the mirror.

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe it had been several cars of that same color that had moved in and out of the traffic behind him. Well, he'd soon see.

He kept on going toward the North-South Expressway, and kept watching the steel-blue Ford, glancing at his rear view mirror every time he could afford to take his eyes off the traffic.

It moved back and forth, but it was never more than three cars behind him, and usually only one. Coincidence? Possibly.

At Humber Avenue, he turned left and drove southwards. The steel-blue Ford turned, too. Coincidence? Still possible.

He kept on going down Humber Avenue for ten blocks, until he came to the next cross street that would take him to a lower entrance to the North-South Expressway. He turned right, and the Ford followed.

At the ramp leading to the northbound side of the Expressway, the Ford was two cars behind.

Coincidence? No. That's pushing coincidence too far. If the men in the car had actually intended to go north on the Expressway, they would have gone on in the direction they had been taking when Bending first noticed them; they wouldn't have gone ten blocks south out of their way.

Bending's smile became grim. He had never liked the idea of being followed around, and, since the loss of one of his Converters, he was even touchier about the notion. Trouble was, his fancy, souped-up Lincoln was of no use to him at all. He could outrun them on a clear highway--but not on the crowded Expressway. Or, conversely, he could just keep on driving until they were forced to stop for fuel--but that could be a long and tedious trip if they had a full tank. And besides, they might make other arrangements before they went dry.

Well, there was another way.

He stayed on the Expressway for the next twenty miles, going far north of where he had intended to turn off. At the Marysville Exit, he went down the ramp. He had been waiting for a moment when the Ford would be a little farther behind than normal, but it hadn't come; at each exit, the driver of the trailing car would edge up, although he allowed himself to drop behind between exits. Whoever was driving the car knew what he was doing.

At the bottom of the ramp, Bending made a left turn and took the road into Marysville. It was a small town, not more than five or six thousand population, but it was big enough.

There weren't many cars on the streets that led off the main highway. Bending made a right turn and went down one of the quiet boulevards in the residential section. The steel-blue Ford dropped behind as they turned; they didn't want to make Bending suspicious, evidently.

He came to a quiet street parallel to the highway and made a left turn. As soon as he was out of sight of his pursuers, he shoved down on the accelerator. The car jumped ahead, slamming Bending back in his seat. At the next corner, he turned left again. A glance in the mirror showed him that the Ford was just turning the previous corner.

Bending's heavy Lincoln swung around the corner at high speed and shot back toward the highway. At the next corner, he cut left once more, and the mirror showed that the Ford hadn't made it in time to see him turn.

They'd probably guess he'd gone left, so he made a right turn as soon as he hit the next street, and then made another left, then another right. Then he kept on going until he got to the highway.

A left turn put him back on the highway, headed toward the Expressway. The steel-blue car was nowhere in sight.

Bending sighed and headed back south towards home.

* * * * *

Sam Bending knew there was something wrong when he pulled up in front of his garage and pressed the button on the dashboard that was supposed to open the garage door. Nothing happened.

He climbed out of the car, went over to the door of the garage, and pushed the emergency button. The door remained obstinately shut.

Without stopping to wonder what had happened, he sprinted around to the front door of the house, unlocked it, and pressed the wall switch. The lights didn't come on, and he knew what had happened.

Trailing a stream of blue invective, he ran to the rear of the house and went down the basement stairs. Sure enough. Somebody had taken his house Converter, too.

And they hadn't even had the courtesy to shunt him back onto the power lines.

At his home, he had built more carefully than he had at the lab. He had rigged in a switch which would allow him to use either the Converter or the regular power sources, so that he could work on the Converter if he wanted to. His basement was almost a duplicate of his lab in the city, except that at home he built gadgets just for the fun of watching them work, while at the lab he was doing more serious research.

He went over to the cabinet where the switch was, opened it, and punched the relay button. The lights came on.

He stalked back up the stairs and headed for the visiphone. First, he dialed his patent attorney's office; he needed some advice. If Power Utilities had their hands on two out of three of his Converters, there might be some trouble over getting the patents through.

The attorney's secretary said he wasn't in, and she didn't know if he expected to be back that day. It was, she informed Bending rather archly, nearly five in the afternoon. Bending thanked her and hung up.

He dialed the man's home, but he wasn't there, either.

Sam Bending stuck a cigarette in his mouth, fired it up, walked over to his easy-chair and sat down to think.

According to the police, the first Converter had been stolen on Friday night. The second one had obviously been taken sometime this morning, while he was in the lab with the police.

That made sense. The first one they'd tried to open had fused, so they decided to try to get a second one. Only how had they known he had had more than one? He hadn't told anyone that he had three--or even two.

Well, no matter. They had found out. The question was, what did he do next? Inform the police of the two thefts or--

There was a car pulling up outside the house.

Sam stood up and glanced out the window. It was a steel-blue Ford.

By Heaven! Did they intend to steal the third Converter, too? And right in front of his eyes, before it even got decently dark?

Sam was so furious that he couldn't even think straight. When the two men climbed out of the car and started walking toward the house, Sam ran back into his study, pulled open his desk drawer, and took out the .38 Special he kept there. It was the work of seconds to thumb six cartridges into the chambers and swing the cylinder shut.

The door chime sounded.

* * * * *

Sam went back into the front room with the revolver in his jacket pocket and his hand ready to fire it.

"Who is it?" he called, in what he hoped was a steady voice.

"We're Special Agents of the FBI," said a voice. "May we see you for a few moments, Mr. Bending?"

"Certainly. Come on in; the door's unlocked." Just walk in, you phonies! Just trot right on in, he thought.

And they did. The two men walked in, removing their hats as they did so.

"We--" one of them began. He stopped when he saw that he was addressing a round, black hole that was only a fraction more than a third of an inch in diameter but looked much, much larger from his viewpoint.

"Get your hands in the air and turn around very slowly," said Bending. "Lean forward and brace your hands against the wall."

They did as they were told. Bending frisked them carefully and thoroughly, thankful that the two years he had spent in the Army hadn't been completely wasted. Neither one of them was carrying a gun.

Bending stepped back and pocketed his own weapon. "All right. You two can turn around now. If you want to try anything, come ahead--but I don't advise it."

The two men turned around. Neither of them was exactly a small man, but the two of them together didn't outweigh Samson Bending by more than fifty pounds.

"What's the idea of the gun, Mr. Bending?" the taller of the two asked. He seemed to be the spokesman for the team.

"I'll ask the questions," Bending said. "But first, I want to tell you that, in the first place, you can get in trouble for impersonating a Federal officer, and, in the second, I don't like being followed. So you just trot right back to the boys at Power Utilities and tell them that if they want to play rough, I am perfectly willing to do likewise. That if they come after me again, I'm going to do some very unpleasant things. Understand?"

"I think we understand," said the spokesman, still relatively unruffled. "But I don't think you do. Would you care to look at our credentials, Mr. Bending?"

"Credentials?" Sam looked startled. Had he made a mistake?

"That's right. May I take my billfold out?"

Bending took his gun out again. "Go ahead. But slowly."

The billfold came out slowly. Bending took it. The identification card and the small gold badge said very plainly that the man was a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"I ... I'm sorry," Bending said weakly. "I thought you were someone else. Some men were following me this afternoon, and--"

"That was us, Mr. Bending. Sorry."

"May I verify this?" Bending asked.

"Certainly. Go right ahead."

Bending phoned the local office of the FBI and verified the identities of the two men. When he cut off, he asked dazedly: "What was it you wanted?"

"Would you mind coming with us--downtown? We'd like to have you see some people."

"Am I under arrest?"

"No." The agent smiled a little. "I suppose, if we had to, we could get you for speeding and reckless driving; that was pretty fancy dodging you did. But we're not supposed to be traffic cops."

Sam smiled feebly. "What's this all about?"

"I haven't the faintest notion, Mr. Bending. Honestly. We were told to stick with you until we got word to pick you up. We got that word just shortly after you ... hm-m-m ... after you left us. Fortunately, we found you at home. It might have been difficult ..."

"Can we go in my car?" Bending asked. "I'd rather not leave it unguarded just now."

"Certainly. I'll go with you, and Steve can follow." He paused. "But I'm afraid you'll have to take that revolver out of your pocket and put it away."

"Sure," Bending said. "Sure."

* * * * *

Bending's mind simply refused to function during the drive back to the city. The FBI agent beside him just sat silently while Sam drove the car.

Once, Sam asked: "Who is it that wants to see me?"

And the FBI man said: "Sorry, Mr. Bending; I can't answer any questions. My job is over as soon as I deliver you."

A little later, Sam had another question. "Can you tell me where we're going, at least?"

"Oh--" the agent laughed, "sure. I thought I had. The General Post Office Building, on Kenmore Drive."

After that, Sam didn't say anything. That this whole affair had something to do with the Converter, Sam had no doubt whatsoever. But he couldn't see exactly what, and none of his wild speculations made sense.

He pulled up at last into the parking lot behind the Post Office Building. The second FBI man came up in the steel-blue Ford, and the three of them got out of the cars and went towards the building. It was quite dark by now, and the street lights were glowing against a faint falling of February mist. Bending, in spite of his topcoat, felt chilly.

They went in the back way, past the uniformed Postal Service guard, and took an elevator to the sixth floor. None of the three had anything to say. They walked down the hall, toward the only office that showed any light behind the frosted glass. The lettering on the glass simply said: Conference Room A-6.

The FBI man who had driven with Sam rapped on the door with gentle knuckles.

"Yes?" said a questioning voice from the other side.

"This is Hodsen, sir. Mr. Bending is with us."

The door opened, and Sam Bending felt mild shock as he saw who it was. He recognized the man from his news photos and TV appearances. It was the Honorable Bertram Condley, Secretary of Economics for the President of the United States.

"Come in, Mr. Bending," the Secretary said pleasantly. Unnecessarily, he added, "I'm Bertram Condley."

He held out his hand, and Sam took it. "It's a pleasure, Mr. Secretary."

Condley gave out with his best friendly-politico smile. "I'm sorry to have to drag you up here like this, Mr. Bending, but we felt it best this way."

Sam smiled back, with a trace of irony in the smile. "It's a pleasure, Mr. Secretary," he repeated.

Condley nodded, still smiling--but there was a spark in his eyes now. "I see we understand each other. Come on in; I want you to meet the others." He looked at the FBI men. "That's all. For now."

The Federal agents nodded and moved away into the dimness of the corridor.

"Come in, man, come in," the Secretary urged, opening the door wider.

Sam hesitated. The light within the room was none too bright. Then he stepped forward, following the Secretary.

* * * * *

The outer room was dark. Not too dark, but illuminated only by the dim light from the corridor and from the inner room. From that inner room, there was only a glow of light from the frosted glass panel of the door that separated the two rooms.

Condley closed the hall door, and, as Sam stepped forward toward the lighted door, held out a hand to stop him. "Just a moment," he whispered softly. "I think you ought to know what you're walking in to, Mr. Bending."

Bending stood stock-still. "Yes, sir?" he asked, questioningly.

"I suppose you know what this is all about?" Secretary Condley asked softly.

"The Converter, I imagine," Sam Bending said.

Condley nodded, his gray hair gleaming silver in the dim light. "Exactly. I'm sorry we had to drag you up here this way, Mr. Bending, but, in the circumstances, we felt it to be the best way." He took a breath. "Do you know why we called you here?"

"No," Sam said honestly.

Condley's head nodded again. "You're in for an argument, Mr. Bending. A very powerful one, I hope. We want to convince you of something." Again he paused. "Are you an open-minded man, Mr. Bending?"

Sam Bending followed the Secretary's lead, and kept his voice low. "I like to think so, Mr. Secretary." He recognized that Condley was preparing him for something, and he recognized that the preliminary statements were calculated to soften him. And he recognized the fact that they did soften him. All right--what was the argument?

"You're an engineer, Mr. Bending," Condley said, in the same low voice. "You have been trained to evaluate facts. All I ask is that you use that training. Now, let's get in there before Tovarishch Artomonov begins to think we might be stalling him."

Condley strode toward the door and grasped the knob with a firm hand. Sam Bending followed, wondering. Artomonov? Who was Artomonov? The Secretary of Economics had indicated, by his precise enunciation of tovarishch, that the man was a Russian--or at least a citizen of one of the Soviet satellites. Sam Bending took a deep breath and decided that he was prepared for almost anything.

There were four men seated around the conference table in the back room, and the most surprising thing, as far as Sam was concerned, was that he recognized only one of them. From the big buildup, he had had half a notion that the President himself might be there.

"Mr. Samson Bending, gentlemen," said Secretary Condley to the group. They all rose and made half-hearted attempts to smile, but Sam could see that they were watching him as though he had a live grenade in his pocket.

"Mr. Bending, I believe you know Mr. Richard Olcott," the Secretary said.

Bending gave the Power Utilities executive a sardonic smile, which was returned by a solemn nod of the head.

Sure I know you, you crook, Bending thought.

"And, around the table," Condley continued, "are Dr. Edward Larchmont, the research departmental head of Power Utilities--Dr. Stefan Vanderlin, of the United States Bureau of Standards--and Dr. Alexis Andreevich Artomonov, of the Soviet Socialist Republics' representative office at the United Nations."

Sam Bending managed not to blink in astonishment as the last man was introduced--a feat which took every milligram of his self-possession. He recognized the name; A. A. Artomonov, head of the United Nation's International Trade Bureau. What was he doing here?

"If you'll sit down, Mr. Bending," Condley was saying, "we can get to business."

Bending sat down, and the others sat with him. "May I say something before we go any further?" Sam Bending asked. "May I say that I think this is a rather irregular method of doing things and that I think I ought to see my lawyer."

Secretary Condley's eyes narrowed just the slightest. He was a heavy, jowl-faced, graying man who was known for his firmness in his official capacity. "At this stage of the game, Mr. Bending, there is no need for a lawyer. We merely want to explain something to you--we want you to get all the data. If, afterwards, you still want your lawyer, you'll be perfectly free to call him. Right now, we want you to listen with an open mind."

Bending thought it over. "All right. Go ahead."

* * * * *

"Very well. First, I'll agree that all this may seem a bit high-handed. But time was--and is--getting short." He glanced at Olcott, and the glance was not all friendliness. "The Government was notified about this almost too late; we have had to act fast. Almost too fast."

"I notified the Government as soon as I was sure of my facts," Olcott said, completely unflustered.

"That's as may be," Condley said. "The point is that we now have the problem on our hands, and we must find an equitable solution." He took a gold fountain pen from his pocket, and his strong, thick fingers began toying with it while his eyes remained on Sam Bending. "The fact that you have applied for a patent makes it imperative that we get the situation under control immediately."

Before Sam could answer, there was a knock on the outer door that came clearly into the rear room. Secretary Condley rose without saying a word and went out.

Dr. Larchmont, the Power Utilities physicist, decided to make small talk to bridge the hiatus. "That's a really beautiful piece of machinery you've built, Mr. Bending. Really remarkable." He was a small, flat-faced man with a fringe of dark hair around his otherwise naked scalp.

Sam looked a little startled. "You mean you opened a Converter up?"

Larchmont nodded. "I presume you are referring to the fusing device. We X-rayed the thing thoroughly before we opened it. These days, many devices are rigged to be self-destroying, but that, in itself is a specialized field. Most of them are traps that are rather easy to get around if one is expecting them and knows how to handle them. But the Converter itself, if I may say so, is one of the most original and elegant devices I have seen in many a day."

"Thanks," said Bending, with a touch of bitterness in his voice. "I--"

The door opened at that moment, and Secretary Condley came in followed by a tall, round-faced man with dark wavy hair and clear brown eyes.

"Jim!" Sam said in surprise.

The man was James Luckman, Sam Bending's business manager. "Hello, Sam. What's this all about? The FBI men who picked me up said I wasn't under arrest, but I had a hunch it was about as close as you can come without actual arrest."

Sam nodded. "Funny--I had that impression, too." He looked at Condley. "What's the idea, Condley? Jim doesn't know anything about this."

The Secretary managed to look unoffended at Bending's tone. "Possibly not. We can't be sure, of course, but--frankly, I'd be willing to accept your word." He paused. "But--you're not a businessman, Mr. Bending?" He made it only half a question.

"No. I leave that sort of thing up to Jim. Oh, I don't say I'm completely ignorant of the field; it's just that I'm not particularly interested, that's all. Why should I be?" He went on, half belligerently. "I've known and trusted Jim for years. He knows his business; I know my science. I know enough to be able to check the account books, and he knows enough to be able to understand a technical report. Right, Jim?"

Luckman looked bewildered. "Sure, Sam. But what's all this leading up to? I don't get it." He frowned suddenly. "Has someone accused me of cheating you?"

"No, no, no," Condley said rapidly. "Of course not. Nothing like that." He looked sharply at Luckman. "Do you know anything about the Converter?"

Jim Luckman glanced at Bending before replying. Bending's face remained expressionless. "Go ahead, Jim," he said, "square with him."

Luckman spread his hands. "I know that Sam was working on something he called a Converter. I don't know anything more about it than that. Sam keeps his ideas secret until he gets them to a marketable stage, which is all right with me. I have enough work to do, handling the stuff he's already patented, without worrying about anything that isn't salable yet. So?"

Condley nodded, then gestured toward a chair. "Sit down, Mr. Luckman. Do you know these other gentlemen?" he asked rhetorically. He proceeded to introduce the others. Sam Bending noted with satisfaction that Luckman looked rather puzzled when the Russian was introduced.

Condley himself sat down again, and said: "Well, we're all here. We're not going to make this formal, gentlemen, but I hope it won't develop into a heated argument, either. Let's try to keep our tempers."

* * * * *

"First, as to the Converter itself. We all know, with the possible exception of Mr. Luckman, what it does, but for his benefit, we'll go over that. The Converter, by means of what Dr. Larchmont has been wont to call 'a very elegant method', produces electrical power directly from the fusion of hydrogen into helium. A pilot model, with a total volume of a little more than one and one-quarter cubic feet, is capable of turning out up to five hundred horsepower, either DC or AC in a wide range of frequencies. The voltage can be regulated from zero to one thousand volts by simply setting a dial.

"The device is powered by using ordinary water as fuel. At full capacity, the Converter consumes approximately four hundred milligrams of water per hour, which can easily be drawn from the moisture of the air. The machine is thus self-fueling.

"Since the nuclear energy released is converted almost one hundred per cent into electrical current, there is no danger from radiation; since the process is, by its very nature, self-limiting, there is no danger of explosion. The worst that can happen is for the machine to burn out, and, I understand, it won't do that unless it is purposely tampered with to make it do so.

"Finally, the device is so inexpensive to produce that it could be sold for about one-quarter of the price of an ordinary automobile." He stopped, cleared his throat, and glanced at Larchmont and Vanderlin. "Am I essentially correct, gentlemen?"

Larchmont nodded, and Vanderlin said, "That's about it."

Jim Luckman looked at Sam Bending in open admiration. "Wow," he said softly. "You're quite a genius, Sam."

"Very well, gentlemen," Condley continued, "we know what this device will do on a physical level. Now we must consider what it will do on an economic level. Have you considered what would happen if you put the Converter on the market, Mr. Bending?"

"Certainly," Bending said, with an angry glance at Olcott. "The Power Utilities would lose their pants. So what? I figure that any company which tries to steal and suppress inventions deserves a licking."

Secretary Condley glanced at Olcott as though he were trying to hold back a smile, then returned his gaze to Bending. "We won't quibble over the ethics of the situation, Mr. Bending. You are correct in saying that Power Utilities would be bankrupt. They couldn't stand the competition of what amounts to almost unlimited free power. And then what would happen, with every power company in the United States suddenly put out of business?"

Sam looked puzzled. "What difference would it make? People would just be getting their power from another source, that's all."

Richard Olcott leaned forward earnestly. "May I interject something here? I know you are angry with me, Mr. Bending--perhaps with good reason. But I'd like to point out something that you might not have recognized. Public Utilities and its co-operative independent companies are not owned by individuals. Much of the stock is owned by small share-holders who have only a few shares each. The several billion dollars that these companies are worth is spread out over the nation, not just centered with a few wealthy men. In addition, a great many shares are held by insurance companies and banks. Literally millions of people would lose money--just as surely as if it had been stolen from them--if this device went on the market."

Bending frowned. He hadn't thought of it in exactly that way. "Still," he said tentatively, "didn't blacksmiths and buggy-whip manufacturers and horse-breeders lose money after World War I?"

"Not to this extent," Olcott said, shaking his head. "This is not 1918, Mr. Bending. Sixty years ago, our economy was based on gold, not, as it is today on production and manpower, centered in the vast interlocking web of American industry."

Condley said: "Mr. Olcott said a moment ago that millions of people would lose money just as surely as if it had been stolen from them. I think it would be more proper to say that the money will be destroyed, not stolen. A thief, after all, does put money back into circulation after he steals it. But when vast amounts of wealth are suddenly removed from circulation completely, the economic balance is disastrously upset."

* * * * *

Sam Bending was still frowning. His grandfather had been a small businessman in 1929--not fabulously wealthy, but certainly well off by the social standards of the day. Two years later, in 1931, he was broke, wiped out completely, happy and eager to accept any odd job he could get to support his family.

Sam's father had had to leave school during the Thirties and go to work in order to bring in enough money to keep the family going. Grandfather Bending, weakened by long hours of labor that he was physically unfit for, had become an invalid, and the entire support of the family had devolved upon Sam's father.

He could remember his dad talking about the breadlines and the free-soup kitchens. He could remember his grandmother, her hands crippled by arthritis, aggravated by long hours at a commercial sewing machine in a clothing center sweat-shop, just so she could bring in that little extra money that meant so much to her children and her invalid husband.

Could one invention bring all that back again? Could his own harmless-looking Converter plunge millions back into that kind of misery? It seemed hardly possible, but Sam couldn't banish the specter of the Great Depression from his mind.

"Just how far-reaching would this economic upset be?" he asked Condley.

Condley had taken out his gold fountain pen again and was rolling it between his palms. "Well, that's a question with a long answer, Mr. Bending. Let's begin small and watch it spread.

"Banks are pretty safe today, aren't they? The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insures all depositors for deposits up to twenty thousand dollars now. A bank is hedged in by so many legal fences that it is almost impossible for one to fail in the same way that they failed all over the country in the early Thirties. Even if one does fail, through the gross mismanagement or illegal activities of its governing board, the depositors don't get excited; they know they're covered. There hasn't been a really disastrous run on a bank for more than thirty years.

"But banks don't just keep their money in vaults; they invest it. And a significantly large percentage of that money is invested in power companies all over the nation. In an attempt to keep their heads above water, those banks would be forced to make up tremendous losses if Power Utilities failed overnight. It would force them to draw in outstanding loans for ready cash. It would mean turning in United States Savings Bonds, which would put a tremendous strain on the Government.

"In spite of that, most banks won't be able to stay solvent because their other capital investments will be dropping rapidly in value. As Mr. Olcott said, our monetary system isn't based on gold, but on production and goods. If Power Utilities and its members fail, you and your machine will have destroyed--made worthless--several billion dollars worth of machinery and equipment. You will have thrown tens of thousands of people out of work. You will have cut the underpinnings from beneath the American dollar.

"And it won't stop there. What will happen to the companies that build the dynamos and the boilers and the atomic plants for the power companies? What will happen to the copper industry when the need for millions of miles of copper wire vanishes? They will all suffer tremendous setbacks, throwing tens of thousands more out of work and lowering the value of their stock drastically.

"The banks, then, will find their investments suddenly worth only a fraction of their former value. They'll fail wholesale. And you can see what that will do to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and other insurance companies."

Sam Bending nodded slowly. He could see that. Insurance companies base their business on the prediction that a certain event--death, accident, or the failure of a bank--will happen to a certain percentage of their covered clients, and they adjust their rates accordingly. But something that would change a five-percent-failure rate to a fifty-percent-failure rate would break the company.

And the unemployment rate would go up even higher. And Sam thought of something the Secretary hadn't even mentioned. State and Federal Unemployment Insurance. What would that drain do to the treasuries of the various governments involved?

Sam Bending felt as if the thing were snowballing on him. Where would the State and Federal Governments get that money? Taxes? Don't be silly. How can you collect sales taxes when sales are dropping off because of unemployment? How can you get income taxes from depleted incomes? How can you charge luxury taxes when no one is buying luxuries?

Certainly essentials like food, rent, and clothing couldn't be taxed. People would buy as cheaply as possible, which would force down prices. Which would--

* * * * *

"Where would it go from there?" Sam asked Condley in a shaken voice.

Condley glanced over at the Russian. "I believe Dr. Artomonov can answer that one for you."

Artomonov was a red-faced, fleshy man with almost no hair and a huge, bristling, gray mustache. His eyes were a startling blue. "Mr. Bending," he said in excellent English, "you may recall that your depression of the Thirties was not confined to America. All of Europe became involved. The same will happen again, to a greater degree, if your machine is released to the world at this time." He brushed at his mustache with a fingertip.

"You may wonder what I am doing here, Mr. Bending. You might think that the traditional rivalry which has existed between our countries for so many decades would preclude my being admitted to such a secret session as this one. I might have thought so, too, fifteen years ago. But when something threatens both our countries, the picture changes. We fought together during the Motherland War--what you call World War II--because of the common threat of German Nazi terrorism. We co-operated to suppress the brush-fires that threatened us in Europe and the Middle East during the so-called Tense War. In big things we must co-operate.

"Again we are both threatened by a common source, Mr. Bending, and again we must co-operate."

Sam Bending felt a chill. The thought that he and his machine were a threat as great as that, a threat to the two greatest nations of Earth, was appalling.

"I am not a scientist, Mr. Bending," the Russian went on. "My title comes from a degree in economics and political science, not in physical science. As soon as this machine was demonstrated to me, however, I could appreciate its power--not only physically, but economically. I immediately contacted my superiors in Moscow to discuss the problem.

"Naturally, we would like to know the ... ah ... 'elegant' principle behind its operation. Equally naturally"--he smiled politely at Secretary Condley--"you will not tell us. However, my superiors in Moscow assure me that we need not worry on that score; a machine identically similar to yours was invented by one of our brilliant young scientists at the University of Moscow over four years ago. As a patriot, of course, he was willing to have the machine suppressed, and no news of it has leaked out."

Sam Bending found it difficult to keep from smiling. Sure, he thought, and a man named Popov invented radio, and Yablochkov invented the electric light.

"You see, Mr. Bending," Dr Artomonov continued, "while we do not have the unstable setup of money-based capitalism, and while we do not need to worry about such antiquated and dangerous things as fluctuating stock markets, we would still find your machine a threat. Communism is based on the work of the people; our economy is based on the labor of the working man. It is thus stable, because every man must work.

"But we, too, have a vast, power network, the destruction of which would cause the unemployment of millions of our citizens. The unemployment alone would cause repercussions all over the Soviet Republics which would be difficult to deal with. We would eventually recover, of course, because of the inherent stability of our system, but the shock would not be good for us.

"The same thing would happen in every industrialized nation on Earth," Artomonov went on. "In my work with the United Nations, I have studied just such problems. European governments would fall overnight. In Germany, in the 1920s, it was cheaper to burn bundles of one-mark notes than it was to buy firewood with them. Such things will be repeated, not only in the Germanies, but all over Europe.

"Some countries, of course, will not be so drastically effected. China, and other parts of Asia which have not built up a vast industrial system, will be affected only slightly. The South American countries still have a more or less agricultural economy and will not be bothered greatly.

"But the great industrial civilizations of East and West will collapse."

With one breath, Artomonov was saying that the Soviet Union could weather the storm, and with another he was hinting that it probably wouldn't. But Sam Bending could see the point in spite of the Russian's tortuous logic.

"I think that is all I have to say for the moment," Artomonov said, "except to emphasize one point. The Great Depression hit the world some fifty years ago. It was a terrible thing for everyone concerned. But it was as nothing at all--a mere zephyr of ill wind--compared to what the Depression of the Eighties will be if your machine goes on the market."

* * * * *

There was silence for a minute. Sam Bending was thinking hard, and the others could see it--and they knew there was no point in interrupting at that moment.

"Just a second," Sam said. "There's one thing that I don't really quite see. I can see that the situation you outline would develop if every power plant in America--or in the Soviet Union or Europe--were to be suddenly replaced by Converters. I can see that chaos would result." He paused, marshaling his thoughts, then went on, with a tinge of anger in his voice.

"But that's not the way it will work! You can't do a thing like that overnight. To mass produce the Converter will take time--factories will have to be tooled up for it, and all that. And distribution will take time. It seems to me that there would be plenty of time to adjust."

Condley started to say something, but Dr. Artomonov burst in explosively.

"Don't you see, Mr. Bending? The threat of the machine is enough! Even here in your own country, just the knowledge that such machines were to be made at some time in the immediate future would have a disastrous effect! Who would invest in Power Utilities if they knew that within a short time it would be bankrupt? No one would want to buy such stock, and those who had it would be frantically trying to sell what they had. The effect on the banking system would be the same as if the machine were already being used. Your Mr. Roosevelt pointed out that fear was the problem."

Bending frowned puzzledly. "I don't see--"

He was interrupted by Dr. Larchmont. "Let me see if I can't give you an analogy, Mr. Bending. Do you know anything about the so-called 'nerve gases'?"

"Some," admitted Sam. "Most of them aren't gases; they're finely dispersed aerosols."

Larchmont nodded. "Have you any idea how much it takes to kill a man?"

"A drop or so of the aerosol on the skin is enough, I understand."

"That's right. Now, how can such a minute amount of poison damage a human being?"

Bending began to get a glimmer of what the man was driving at. "Well, I know that some of them suppress the enzymic action with acetylcholine, which means that the nerves simply act as though their synapses had been shorted through. It only takes a small percentage of that kind of damage to the nerve fibers to ruin the whole nervous system. The signals get jammed up and confused, and the whole mechanism ceases to function. The victim dies."

Larchmont nodded. "Now, as I understand it, our banking system is the vital nerve network of our economy. And our system is built on credit--faith, if you will. Destroy that faith--even a small percentage of it--and you destroy the system.

"If your machine were to go on the market, there would be no more faith in the present utilities system. Their stocks would be worthless long before your machine actually put them out of business. And that would hit our banking system the same way a nerve gas hits the nervous system. And the victim--the American economy--would die. And the nation, as a nation, would die with it."

"I see," said Bending slowly. He didn't like the picture at all; it was more frightening than he cared to admit, even to himself. He looked at his business manager. "What do you think, Jim?" he asked softly. He knew he could depend on Luckman.

Jim Luckman looked worried. "They're right, Sam. Clean, dead right. I know the investment pattern in this country, and I have an idea of what it must be abroad. This country would be in the middle of the worst depression in its history. At least we had Federal help during the Thirties--but there won't even be a United States Government if this hits. Nor, I think, will there be a Soviet government, in spite of what Dr. Artomonov's personal beliefs may be."

Significantly, the Russian economist said nothing.

Sam Bending closed his eyes. "I've worked on this thing for years," he said tensely. "It was ... it means something to me. I invented it. I perfected it." His voice began to quaver just a little. "But if it's going to do ... to do all that--" He paused and took a deep breath. "All right. I'll smash my apparatus and destroy my plans and forget about it."

Jim Luckman looked at Secretary Condley. "I don't think that would be fair. Sam's worked hard on this thing. He deserves recognition. And the people of Earth deserve to get this machine somehow. Can't something be worked out?"

"Certainly," said Condley. "In some countries, and in some eras, dangerous inventions were suppressed by the simplest method. If it was discovered in time, the inventor was executed summarily, along with anyone else who knew the secret, and the invention was destroyed. The United States isn't that kind of country." He looked down at his hands and the gold pen again before he went on.

"Please don't misunderstand, Mr. Bending; we are not trying to keep the Converter under wraps forever. In the first place, I don't think it would be possible. What do you think, Dr. Vanderlin?"

The Bureau of Standards man said: "I doubt it. Granted, the Converter is not something one would accidentally stumble across, nor automatically deduce from the 'previous state of the art'. I'll admit frankly that I doubt if I would ever have thought of it. But I doubt gravely that it is so unique that it will never be rediscovered independently."

"So," said Condley, "we have no intent to hold it back on that score. And, in the second place, such an invention is too valuable to allow it to be lost.

"So here is our proposition. You will sell your rights to the Converter to Power Utilities. It won't even be patented in the usual sense; we can't allow the Converter to become public property at this time. We can't make it possible for just anyone to send in a quarter to the Patent Office to find out how it works. That's why we stopped the patent application.

"But the Government will see that a contract is written up which admits that you are the inventor of the Converter, and which will give you royalties on every unit built. High royalties.

"Under strict Government supervision, Power Utilities will proceed to liquidate their holdings--slowly, so that there will be no repercussions on an economic level. The danger lies, not in the Converter's replacing existing power equipment, but in the danger of its replacing them too quickly. But with care and control, the adjustment can be made slowly. The process will take about ten years, but you will receive a lump sum, plus a monthly payment, as an advance against future royalties."

"I see," said Bending slowly. "That sounds all right to me. What about you, Jim? What do you think?"

Jim Luckman was smiling again. "Sounds fine to me, Sam. We'll have to work out the terms of the contract, of course, but I think Mr. Olcott and I can see eye to eye."

Olcott seemed to wince a little. He knew he was over a barrel.

"I suppose I'll have to be sworn to secrecy, eh?" Bending asked. He was beginning to recover his poise.

Condley nodded. "You will." He made his characteristic pause, looking down at the gold pen and back up. "Mr. Bending, don't think that this is the first time this has happened. Yours is not the first dangerous invention that has come up. It just so happens that it's the most dangerous so far. We don't like to have to work this way, but we must. There was simply nothing else to do."

Sam Bending leaned back in his chair. "That's all right. To be perfectly honest, there are a lot of details that I still don't understand. But I recognize the fact that I'm simply not an economist; I can see the broad outlines plainly enough."

Dr. Artomonov smiled widely. "I do not understand the details of your machine, either, Mr. Bending, but I understand the broad outlines of its operations well enough to be frightened when I think of what it could do to world economy if it were to be dumped on the market at this time. I am happy to see that America, as well as Mother Russia, can produce patriots of a high order."

Sam gave him a smile. "Thanks." He didn't know quite what else to say to a statement like that. "But Jim, here, is going to spend the next several days trotting out facts and figures for me. I want to see just what would take place, if I can wrestle with that kind of data."

"Oh, brother!" said Jim Luckman softly. "Well, I'll try."

"I'll have the reports from the computers sent to you," Condley offered. "They show the whole collapse, step by step."

Artomonov cast a speculative glance in Condley's direction, but he said nothing.

"There's one other thing," Sam said flatly. "The Converter is my baby, and I want to go on working on it. I think Power Utilities might put me on as a permanent consultant, so that I could earn some of the money that's coming in over the next ten years. That way, my royalties won't suffer so much from the advance payments."

Jim Luckman grinned, and Richard Olcott said: "I thought you said you were no businessman, Mr. Bending."

"I may be ignorant," said Sam, "but I'm not stupid. What about it?"

Olcott glanced at Dr. Larchmont. The little scientist was beaming.

"Definitely," he said. "I want Mr. Bending to show me how he managed to dope that thing out. And, to be perfectly frank, there are a couple of things in there that I don't get at all."

"That's understandable," said Dr. Vanderlin. "We only had a few hours to look at the thing. Still, I must admit it's a lulu."

"That's not what I meant," Larchmont said. "There are some things in there that would take a long time to figure out without an explanation. I'll admit that--"

"Wait a minute," Bending interrupted. "You said 'a few hours', Dr. Vanderlin. You mean only since this morning?" He grinned. "What happened to the one you got Friday night? Did my fusing device work the first time?"

Vanderlin looked puzzledly at Larchmont. Larchmont said wonderingly: "Friday? You mean you had two pilot models?"

Olcott said: "Where was the other? We checked your power drain and saw you weren't using any at your house, so--"

"I had three models," Bending said. "I've got one left in my car; you took one from my house, and the third was taken from my lab sometime Friday night. Somebody has it ..."

Condley said: "Dr. Artomonov, do you know anything about this?"

The Russian shook his head. "Nothing." He looked plainly frightened. "I assure you, my government knew nothing of this."

Condley leaped to his feet, said: "Where are those FBI men?" and ran out the door.

"The black market," said Bending softly. "They found out somehow."

"And they've had three days to study it," Larchmont said. "It's too late now. That thing is probably somewhere in South America by this time."

Artomonov stood up, his face oddly pale. "You must excuse me, gentlemen. I must get in touch with Moscow immediately." He strode out of the room.

The four men remaining in the room just stared at each other for a long moment. There wasn't much else they could do.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Damned If You Don't, by Gordon Randall Garrett

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Title: But, I Don't Think

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Release Date: December 24, 2007 [EBook #24005] Last updated: January 22, 2009

Language: English

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BUT, I DON'T THINK

BY RANDALL GARRETT

As every thinking man knows, every slave always yearns for the freedom his master denies him...

"But, gentlemen," said the Physician, "I really don't think we can consider any religion which has human sacrifice as an integral part as a humane religion."

"At least," added the Painter with a chuckle, "not as far as the victim is concerned."

The Philosopher looked irritated. "Bosh! What if the victim likes it that way?"

--THE IDLE WORSHIPERS
by R. Phillip Dachboden

I

The great merchantship Naipor settled her tens of thousands of tons of mass into her landing cradle on Viornis as gently as an egg being settled into an egg crate, and almost as silently. Then, as the antigravs were cut off, there was a vast, metallic sighing as the gigantic structure of the cradle itself took over the load of holding the ship in her hydraulic bath.

At that point, the ship was officially groundside, and the Naipor was in the hands of the ground officers. Space Captain Humbolt Reed sighed, leaned back in his desk chair, reached out a hand, and casually touched a trio of sensitized spots on the surface of his desk.

"Have High Lieutenant Blyke bring The Guesser to my office immediately," he said, in a voice that was obviously accustomed to giving orders that would be obeyed.

Then he took his fingers off the spots without waiting for an answer.

In another part of the ship, in his quarters near the Fire Control Section, sat the man known as The Guesser. He had a name, of course, a regular name, like everyone else; it was down on the ship's books and in the Main Registry. But he almost never used it; he hardly ever even thought of it. For twenty of his thirty-five years of life, he had been a trained Guesser, and for fifteen of them he'd been The Guesser of Naipor.

He was fairly imposing-looking for a Guesser; he had the tall, wide-shouldered build and the blocky face of an Executive, and his father had been worried that he wouldn't show the capabilities of a Guesser, while his mother had seen and hoped that he might actually become an Executive. Fortunately for The Guesser, they had both been wrong.

He was no Guesser, but a first-class predictor, and he showed impatience with those of his underlings who failed to use their power in any particular. At the moment of the ship's landing, he was engaged in verbally burning the ea-- --raybo, the young man who would presumably take over The Guesser's job one day--if he ever learned how to handle it.

"You're either a liar or an idiot," said The Guesser harshly, "and I wish to eternity I knew which!"

Kraybo, standing at attention, merely swallowed and said nothing. He had felt the back of The Guesser's hand too often before to expose himself intentionally to its swing again.

Guesser narrowed his eyes and tried to see what was going on in Kraybo's mind.

"Look here, Kraybo," he said after a moment, "that one single Misfit ship got close enough to do us some damage. It has endangered the life of the Naipor and the lives of her crewmen. You were on the board in that quadrant of the ship, and you let it get in too close. The records show that you mis-aimed one of your blasts. Now, what I want to know is this: were you really guessing or were you following the computer too closely?"

"I was following the computer," said Kraybo, in a slightly wavering voice. "I'm sorry for the error, sir; it won't happen again."

The Guesser's voice almost became a snarl. "It hadn't better! You know that a computer is only to feed you data and estimate probabilities on the courses of attacking ships; you're not supposed to think they can predict!"

"I know, sir; I just--"

"You just near came getting us all killed!" snapped The Guesser. "You claim that you actually guessed where that ship was going to be, but you followed the computer's extrapolation instead?"

"Yes, sir," said the tense-faced Kraybo. "I admit my error, and I'm willing to take my punishment."

The Guesser grinned wolfishly. "Well, isn't that big-hearted of you? I'm very glad you're willing, because I just don't know what I'd do if you refused."

Kraybo's face burned crimson, but he said nothing.

The Guesser's voice was sarcastically soft. "But I guess about the only thing I could do in that case would be to"--The Guesser's voice

denly became a bellow--"kick your thick head in!"

Kraybo's face drained of color suddenly.

The Guesser became --usque. "Never mind. We'll let it go for now. Report to the Discipline Master in Intensity Five for ten minutes total applicat

Dismissed."

Kraybo, whose face had become even whiter, paused for a moment, as though

were going to plead with The Guesser. But he saw the look in his superior's eyes and thought better of it.

"Yes, sir," he said in a weak voice. He saluted and left.

* * * * *

And The Guesser just sat there, waiting for what he knew would come.

It did. High Lieutenant Blyke showed up within two minutes after Kraybo had left. He stood at the door of

ser's cubicle, accompanied by a sergeant-at-arms.

"Master Guesser, you will come with us." His manner was bored and somewhat flat.

The Guesser bowed his head as he saluted. "As you command, great sir." And he followed the lieutenant into the corridor, the sergeant tagging along behind.

The Guesser wasn't thinking of his own forthcoming session with the captain; he was thinking of Kraybo.

Kraybo was twenty-one, and had been in training as a Guesser ever since he was old enough to speak and understand. He showed occasional flashes of tremendous ability, but most of the time he seemed--well, lazy. And then, there was always the question of his actual ability.

A battle in the weirdly distorted space of ultralight velocities requires more than machines and more than merely ordinary human abilities. No computer, however built, can possibly estimate the flight of a dodging spaceship with a canny human being at the controls. Even the superfast beams from a megadyne force gun require a finite time to reach their target, and it is necessary to fire at the place where the attacking ship will be, not at the position it is occupying at the time of firing. That was a bit of knowledge as old as human warfare: you must lead a moving target.

For a target moving at a constant velocity, or a constant acceleration, or in any other kind of orbit which is mathematically predictable, a computer was not only necessary, but sufficient. In such a case, the accuracy was perfect, the hits one hundred per cent.

But the evasive action taken by a human pilot, aided by a randomity selector, is not logical and therefore cannot be handled by a computer. Like the path of a microscopic particle in Brownian motion, its -- can only be predicted statistically; estimating its probable location is the best that can be done. And, in space warfare, probability of

--order is simply not good enough.

To compute such an orbit required a special type of human mind, and therefore a special type of human. It required a Guesser.

The way a Guesser's mind operated could only be explained to a Guesser by another Guesser. But, as far as anyone else was concerned, only the objective results were important. A Guesser could "guess" the route of a moving ship, and that was all anyone cared about. And a Master Guesser prided himself on his ability to guess accurately 99.999% of the time. The

--ent sport of baseball was merely a test of muscular co-ordination for a Guesser; as soon as a Guesser child learned to control a bat, his batting average shot up to 1.000 and stayed there until he got too old to swing the bat. A Master Guesser could make the same score blindfolded.

Hitting a ship in space at ultralight velocities was something else again. Young Kraybo could play baseball blindfolded, but he wasn't yet capable of making the master guesses that would protect a merchantship like the Naipor.

But what was the matter with him? He had, of course, a fire-control computer to help him swing and aim his guns, but he didn't seem to be able to depend on his guesswork. He had more than once fired at a spot where the computer said the ship would be instead of firing at the spot where it actually arrived a fraction of a second later.

There were only two things that could be troubling him. Either he was doing exactly as he said--ignoring his guesses and following the computer--or else he was inherently incapable of controlling his guesswork and was hoping that the computer would do the work for him.

If the first were true, then Kraybo was a fool; if the second, then he was a liar, and was no more capable of handling the fire control of the Naipor than the captain was.

The Guesser hated to have Kraybo punished, really, but that was the only way to make a youngster keep his mind on his business.

After all, thought The Guesser, that's the way I learned; Kraybo can learn the same way. A little nerve-burning never hurt anyone.

But that last thought was more to bolster himself than it was to justify his own actions toward Kraybo. The lieutenant was at the door of the captain's office, with The Guesser just behind him.

* * * * *

The door dilated to receive the three--the lieutenant, The Guesser, and the sergeant-at-arms--and they marched across the room to the captain's desk.

The captain didn't even bother to look up until High Lieutenant Blyke saluted and said: "The Guesser, sir."

And the captain gave the lieutenant a quick nod and then looked coldly at The Guesser. "The ship has been badly damaged. Since there are no repair docks here on Viornis, we will have to unload our cargo and then go--empty--all the way to D'Graski's Planet for repairs. All during that time, we will be more vulnerable than ever to Misfit raids."

His ice-chill voice stopped, and he simply looked at The Guesser with glacier-blue, unblinking eyes for ten long seconds.

The Guesser said nothing. There was nothing he could say. Nothing that would do him any good.

The Guesser disliked Grand Captain Reed--and more, feared him. Reed had been captain of the Naipor for only three years, having replaced the old captain on his retirement. He was a strict disciplinarian, and had a tendency to punish heavily for very minor infractions of the rules. Not, of course, that he didn't have every right to do so; he was, after all, the captain.

But the old captain hadn't given The Guesser a nerve-burning in all the years since he had accepted The Guesser as The Guesser. And Captain Reed--

The captain's cold voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Well? What was it? If it was a mechano-electronic misfunction of the computer, say so; we'll speak to the engineer."

The Guesser knew that the captain was giving him what looked like an out--but The Guesser also knew it was a test, a trap.

The Guesser bowed his head very low and saluted. "No, great sir; the fault was mine."

Grand Captain Reed nodded his head in satisfaction. "Very well. Intensity Five, two minutes. Dismissed."

The Guesser bowed his head and saluted, then he turned and walked out the door. The sergeant-at-arms didn't need to follow him; he had been let off very lightly.

He marched off toward the Disciplinary Room with his head at the proper angle--ready to lift it if he met a lesser crewman, ready to lower it if he met an executive officer.

He could already feel the terrible pain of the nerve-burner coursing through his body--a jolt every ten seconds for tw

nutes, like a whip lashing all over his body at once. His only satisfaction was the knowledge that he had sentenced Kraybo to ten minutes of the same thing.

* * * * *

The Guesser lay on his bed, face down, his grasping fingers clutching spasmodically at the covering as his nerves twitched with remembered pain. Thirteen jolts. Thirteen searing jolts of excruciating torture. It was over now, but his synapses were still crackling with the memories of those burning lashes of energy.

He was thirty-five. He had to keep that in mind. He was thirty-five now, and his nerves should be under better control than they had been at twenty. He wondered if there were tears streaming from his eyes, and then decided it didn't matter. At least he wasn't crying aloud.

Of course, he had screamed in the nerve-burner; he had screamed thirteen times. Any man who didn't scream when those blinding stabs of pain came was either unconscious or dead--it was no disgrace to scream in the burner. But he wasn't screaming now.

He lay there for ten minutes, his jaw clamped, while the twitching subsided and his nervous system regained its usual co-ordination.

The burner did no actual physical damage; it wasn't good economics for an Executive to allow his men to be hurt in any physical manner. It took a very little actual amount of energy applied to the nerve endings to make them undergo the complex electrochemical reaction that made them send those screaming messages to the brain and spine. There was less total damage done to the nerves than a good all-night binge would do to a normal human being. But the effect on the mind was something else again.

It was a very effective method of making a man learn almost any lesson you wanted to teach him.

After a while, The Guesser shuddered once more, took a deep breath, held it for fifteen seconds, and then released it. A little later, he lifted himself up and swung his legs over the edge of his bed. He sat on the edge of the bed for a few minutes, then got up and got dressed in his best uniform.

After all, the captain hadn't said anything about restricting him to the ship, and he had never been to Viornis before. Besides, a couple of drinks might make him feel better.

There were better planets in the galaxy, he decided two hours later. Thousands of them.

For one thing, it was a small, but dense world, with a surface gravity of one point two standard gees--not enough to be disabling, but enough to make a man feel sluggish. For another, its main export was farm products: there were very few large towns on Viornis, and no center of population that could really be called a city. Even here, at the spaceport, the busiest and largest town on the planet, the population was less than a million. It was a "new" world, with a history that didn't stretch back more than two centuries. With the careful population control exercised by the ruling Execs, it would probably remain small and provincial for another half millennium.

The Guesser moseyed down one of the streets of Bellinberg probably named after the first Prime Executive of the planet--looking for a decent place for a spaceman to have a drink. It was evening, and the sinking of the yellow primary below the western horizon had left behind it a clear, star-filled sky that filled the air with a soft, white radiance. The streets of the town itself were well-lit by bright glow-plates imbedded in the walls of the buildings, but above the street level, the buildings themselves loomed darkly. Occasionally, an Exec's aircar would drift rapidly overhead with a soft rush of air, and, in the distance, he could see the shimmering towers of the Executive section rising high above the eight- or ten-storyed buildings that made up the majority of Bellinberg.

The streets were fairly crowded with strollers--most of them Class Four or Five citizens who stepped deferentially aside as soon as they saw his uniform, and kept their eyes averted from him. Now and then, the power car of a Class Three rolled swiftly by, and The Guesser felt a slight twinge of envy. Technically, his own rank was the equivalent of Class Three, but he had never owned a groundcar. What need had a spaceman of a groundcar? Still, it would be nice to drive one just once, he thought; it would be a new experience, certainly.

Right now, though, he was looking for a Class Three bar; just a place to have a small, quiet drink and a bite to eat. He had a perfect right to go into a lower class bar, of course, but he had never felt quite comfortable associating with his inferiors in such a manner, and certainly they would feel nervous in his presence because of the sidearm at his hip.

No one below Class Three was allowed to carry a beamgun, and only Ones and Twos were allowed to wear the screening fields that protected them from the nerve-searing effects of the weapon. And they, being Execs, were in no danger from each other.

Finally, after much walking, he decided that he was in the wrong part of town. There were no Class Three bars anywhere along these streets. Perhaps, he thought, he should have gone to the Spacemen's Club at the spaceport itself. On the other hand, he hadn't particularly wanted to see any of the other minor officers of his own class after the near-fiasco which had damaged the Naipor. Being a Guesser set him apart, even from other Threes.

He thought for a moment of asking a policeman, but he dismissed it. Cops, as always, were a breed apart. Besides, they weren't on the streets to give directions, but to preserve order.

At last, he went into a nearby Class Four bar and snapped his fingers for the bartender, ignoring the sudden silence that had followed his entrance.

The barman set down a glass quickly and hurried over, bobbing his head obsequiously. "Yes, sir; yes, sir. What can I do for you, sir? It's an honor to have you here, sir. How may I serve you?"

The man himself was wearing the distinctive clothing of a Five, so his customers outranked him, but the brassard on his arm showed that his master was a Two, which afforded him enough authority to keep reasonable order in the place.

"Where's the nearest Class Three bar?" The Guesser snapped.

The barman looked faintly disappointed, but he didn't lose his obsequiousness. "Oh, that's quite a way from here, sir--about the closest would be Mallard's, over on Fourteenth Street and Upper Drive. A mile, at least."

The Guesser scowled. He was in the wrong section of town, all right.

"But I'd be honored to serve you, sir," the barman hurried on. "Private booth, best of everything, perfect privacy--"

The Guesser shook his head quickly. "No. Just tell me how to get to Mallard's."

The barman looked at him for a moment, rubbing a fingertip across his chin, then he said: "You're not driving, I suppose, sir? No? Well, then, you can either take the tubeway or walk, sir...." He let the sentence hang, waiting for The Guesser's decision.

The Guesser thought rapidly. Tubeways were for Fours and Fives. Threes had groundcars; Ones and Twos had aircars; Sixes and below walked. And spacemen walked.

Trouble is, spacemen aren't used to walking, especially on a planet where they weigh twenty per cent more than they're used to. The Guesser decided he'd take the tubeway; at the Class Three bar, he might be able to talk someone into driving him to the spaceport later.

But five minutes later, he was walking in the direction the bartender had told him to take for finding Mallard's on foot. To get to the tubeway was a four-block walk, and then there would be another long walk after he got off. Hoofing it straight there would be only a matter of five blocks difference, and it would at least spare him the embarrassment of taking the tube.

* * * * *

It was a foolish thing to do, perhaps, but once The Guesser had set his mind on something, it took a lot more than a long walk to dissuade him from his purpose. He saw he was not the only spaceman out on the town; one of the Class Five taverns he passed was filled with boisterous singing, and he could see a crowd of men standing around three crewmen who were leading them in a distinctly off-color ballad. The Guesser smiled a little to himself. Let them have their fun while they were on-planet; their lives weren't exactly bright aboard ship.

Of course, they got as much as was good for them in the way of entertainment, but a little binge gave them something to look forward to, and a good nerve-burning would sober them up fast enough if they made the mistake of coming back drunk.

Nerve-burning didn't really bother a Five much, after all; they were big, tough, work-hardened clods, whose minds and brains simply didn't have the sensitivity to be hurt by that sort of treatment. Oh, they screamed as loud as anyone when they were in the burner, but it really didn't have much effect on them. They were just too thick-skulled to have it make much difference to them one way or the other.

On the other hand, an Exec would probably go all to pieces in a burner. If it didn't kill him outright, he'd at least be sick for days. They were too soft to take even a touch of it. No Class One, so far as The Guesser knew, had ever been subjected to that sort of treatment, and a Two only got it rarely. They just weren't used to it; they wouldn't have the stamina to take it.

His thoughts were interrupted suddenly by the familiar warning that rang in his mind like a bell. He realized suddenly, as he became blazingly aware of his surroundings, that he had somehow wandered into a definitely low-class neighborhood. Around him were the stark, plain housing groups of Class Six families. The streets were more dimly lit, and there was almost no one on the street, since it was after curfew time for Sixes. The nearest pedestrian was a block off and moving away.

All that took him but a fraction of a second to notice, and he knew that it was not his surroundings which had sparked the warning in his mind. There was something behind him--moving.

What had told him? Almost nothing. The merest touch of a foot on the soft pavement--the faintest rustle of clothing--the whisper of something moving through the air.

Almost nothing--but enough. To a man who had played blindfold baseball, it was plenty. He knew that someone not ten paces behind him had thrown something heavy, and he knew its exact trajectory to within a thousandth of a millimeter, and he knew exactly how to move his head to avoid the missile.

He moved it, at the same time jerking his body to one side. It had only been a guess--but what more did a Guesser need?

From the first hint of warning to the beginning of the dodging motion, less than half a second had passed.

He started to spin around as the heavy object went by him, but another warning yelped in his mind. He twisted a little, but it was too late.

Something burned horribly through his body, like a thousand million acid-tipped, white-hot needles jabbing through skin and flesh and sinking into the bone. He couldn't even scream.

He blacked out as if he'd been a computer suddenly deprived of power.

II

Of course, came the thought, a very good way to put out a fire is to pour cold water on it. That's a very good idea.

At least, it had put out the fire.

Fire? What fire? The fire in his body, the scalding heat that had been quenched by the cold water.

Slowly, as though it were being turned on through a sluggishly turning rheostat, consciousness came back to The Guesser.

He began to recognize the sensations in his body. There was a general, all-over dull ache, punctuated here and there by sharper aches. There was the dampness and the chill. And there was the queer, gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach.

At first, he did not think of how he had gotten where he was, nor did he even wonder about his surroundings. There seemed merely to be an absolute urgency to get out of wherever he was and, at the same time, an utter inability to do so. He tried to move, to shift position, but his muscles seemed so terribly tired that flexing them was a high-magnitude effort.

After several tries, he got his arms under his chest, and only then did he realize that he had been lying prone, his right cheek pressed against cold, slimy stone. He lifted himself a little, but the effort was too much, and he collapsed again, his body making a faint splash as he did so.

He lay there for a while, trying to puzzle out his odd and uncomfortable environment. He seemed to be lying on a sloping surface with his head higher than his feet. The lower part of his body was immersed in chill, gently-moving water. And there was something else--

The smell.

It was an incredible stench, an almost overpowering miasma of decay.

He moved his head then, and forced his eyes open. There was a dim, feeble glow from somewhere overhead and to his right, but it was enough to show him a vaulted ceiling a few feet above him. He was lying in some sort of tube which--

And then the sudden realization came.

He was in a sewer.

The shock of it cleared his mind a little, and gave added strength to his muscles. He pushed himself to his hands and knees and began crawling toward the dim light. It wasn't more than eight or ten feet, but it seemed to take an eternity for him to get there. Above him was a grating, partially covered with a soggy-looking sheet of paper. The light evidently came from a glow-plate several yards away.

He lay there, exhausted and aching --orce his brain into action, trying to decide what to do next.

He'd have to lift the grating, of course; that much was obvious. And he'd have to stand up to do that. Did he have the strength?

Only one way to find out. Again he pushed himself to his hands and knees, and it seemed easier this time. Then, bracing himself against the curving wall of the sewer, he got to his feet. His knees were weak and wobbly, but they'd hold. They had to hold.

The top of the sewer duct was not as far off as it had seemed; he had to stoop to keep from banging his head against the grating. He paused in that position to catch his breath, and then reached up, first with one hand and then with the other, to grasp the grating.

Then, with all the strength he could gather, he pushed upwards. The hinged grate moved upwards and banged loudly on the pavement.

There remained the problem of climbing out of the hole. The Guesser never knew how he solved it. Somehow, he managed to find himself out of the sewer and lying exhausted on the pavement.

He knew that there was some reason why he couldn't just lie there forever, some reason why he had to hide where he couldn't be seen.

It was not until that moment that he realized that he was completely naked. He had been stripped of everything, including the chronometer on his wrist.

With an effort, he heaved himself to his feet again and began running, stumbling drunkenly, yet managing somehow to keep on his feet. He had to find shelter, find help.

Somewhere in there, his mind blanked out again.

* * * * *

He awoke feeling very tired and weak, yet oddly refreshed, as though he had slept for a long time. When his eyes opened, he simply stared at the unfamiliar room for a long time without thinking--without really caring to think. He only knew that he was warm and comfortable and somehow safe, and it was such a pleasant feeling after the nightmare of cold and terror that he only wanted to enjoy it without analyzing it.

But the memory of the nightmare came again, and he couldn't repress it. And he knew it hadn't been a nightmare, but reality.

Full recollection flooded over him.

Someone had shot him with a beamgun, that nasty little handweapon that delivered in one powerful, short jolt the same energy that was doled out in measured doses over a period of minutes in a s

ard nerve-burner. He remembered jerking aside at the last second, just before the weapon was fired, and it was evidently that which had saved his life. If the beam had hit him in the head or spine, he'd be dead now.

Then what? Guessing about something that had happened in the past was futile, and, anyway, guessing didn't apply to situations like that. But he thought he could pretty well figure out what had happened.

After he'd been shot down, his assailant had probably dragged him off somewhere and stripped him, and then dumped him bodily into the sewer. The criminal had undoubtedly thought that The Guesser was dead; if the body had been found, days or weeks later, it would be unidentifiable, and probably dismissed as simply another unsolved murder. They were rather common in low-class districts such as this.

Which brought him back again to the room.

He sat up in bed and looked around. Class Six Standard Housing. Hard, gray, cast polymer walls--very plain. Ditto floor and ceiling. Single glow-plate overhead. Rough, gray bedclothing.

Someone had found him after that careening flight from the terror of the sewer and had brought him here. Who?

Who?

The sense of well-being he had felt upon awakening had long since deserted him. What he felt now was a queer mixture of disgust and fear. He had never known a Class Six. Even the lowest crewman on the Naipor was a Five.

Uneasily, The Guesser climbed out of the bed. He was wearing a sack-like gray dress that fell almost to his knees, and nothing else. He walked on silent bare feet to the door. He could hear nothing beyond it, so he twisted the handle carefully and eased it open a crack.

And immediately he heard low voices. The first was a man's.

"... Like you pick up dogs, hey." He sounded angry. "He bring trouble on high, that'n. Look, you, at the face he got. He no Sixer, no, nor even Fiver. Exec, that's what. Trouble."

Then a woman's voice. "Exec, he?" A sharp laugh. "Naked, dirty-wet, sick, he fall on my door. Since when Execs ask help from Sixer chippie like I? And since when Execs talk like Sixer when they out of they head? No fancy Exec talk, he, no."

The Guesser didn't understand that. If the woman was talking about him--and she must be--then surely he had not spoken the illiterate patois of the Class Six people when he was delirious.

The woman went on. "No, Lebby; you mind you business; me, I mind mine. Here, you take you this and get some food. Now, go, now. Come back at dark."

The man grumbled something The Guesser didn't understand, but there seemed to be a certain amount of resignation in his voice. Then a door opened and closed, and there was a moment of silence.

* * * * *

Then he heard the woman's footsteps approaching the partially opened door. And her voice said: "You lucky Lebby have he back to you when you open the door. If he even see it move, he know you wake."

The Guesser backed away from the door as she came in.

She was a drab woman, with a colorlessness of face that seemed to match the colorlessness of her clothing. Her hair was cropped short, and she seemed to sag all over, as though her body were trying to conform to the shapelessness of the dress instead of the reverse. When she forced a smile to her face, it didn't seem to fit, as though her mouth were unused to such treatment from the muscles.

"How you feel?" she asked, stopping just inside the room.

"I ... uh--" The Guesser hardly knew what to say. He was in a totally alien environment, a completely unknown situation. "I'm fine," he said at last.

She nodded. "You get plenty sleep, all right. Like dead, except when you talk to yourself."

Then he had spoken in delirium. "How ... how long was I out?"

"Three days," she said flatly. "Almost four." She paused. "You ship leave."

"Leave?" The Guesser said blankly. "The Naipor? Gone?" It seemed as if the world had dropped away from his feet, leaving him to fall endlessly through nothingness. It was true, of course. It didn't take more than twenty-four hours to unload the ship's holds, and, since there had been no intention of reloading, there was no need to stay. He had long overstayed the scheduled take-off time.

It created a vacuum in his mind, a hole in his very being that could never be filled by anything else. The ship was his whole life--his home, his work, his security.

"How did you know about the ship?" he asked in a dazed voice.

"A notice," she said. She fished around in one of the big pockets of the gray dress and her hand came out with a crumpled sheet of glossy paper. She handed it to him silently. It was a Breach of Contract notice.

    WANTED
    for
    BREACH OF CONTRACT

    JAIM JAKOM DIEGO

    AGE:             35
    HEIGHT:      185 cm
    WEIGHT:       96 kg
    HAIR:         black
    EYES:          blue
    COMPLXN:       fair

Jaim Jakom Diego, Spacetech 3rd Guesser, broke contract with Interstellar Trade Corporation on 3/37/119 by failing to report for duty aboard home merchantship Naipor on that date. All citizens are notified hereby that said Jaim Jakom Diego is unemployable except by the ITC, and that he has no housing, clothing, nor subsistance rights on any planet, nor any right to transportation of any kind.

STANDARD REWARD PLUS BONUS FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE ARREST OF THIS MAN

The Guesser looked at the picture that accompanied the notice. It was an old one, taken nearly fifteen years before. It didn't look much like him any more. But that didn't matter; even if he was never caught, he still had no place to go. A runaway had almost no chance of remaining a runaway for long. How would he eat? Where would he live?

He looked up from the sheet, into the woman's face. She looked back with a flat, unwavering gaze. He knew now why she had been addressing him as an equal, even though she knew he was Class Three.

"Why haven't you tried to collect the reward?" he asked. He felt suddenly weak, and sat down again on the edge of the bed.

"Me, I need you." Then her eyes widened a trifle. "Pale you look, you do. I get you something solid inside you. Nothing but soup I get down you so far, all three days. Soup. You sit, I be back."

He nodded. He was feeling sickish.

She went into the other room, leaving the door open, and he could hear noises from the small kitchen. The woman began to talk, raising her voice a little so he could hear her.

"You like eggs?" she asked.

"Some kinds," said The Guesser. "But it doesn't matter. I'm hungry." He hadn't realized how hungry he was.

"Some kinds?" The woman's voice was puzzled. "They more than one kind of egg?" The kitchen was suddenly silent as she waited intently for the answer.

"Yes," said The Guesser. "On other planets. What kind of eggs are these?"

"Just ... just eggs."

"I mean, what kind of animal do they come from?"

"Chicken. What else lay eggs?"

"Other birds." He wished vaguely that he knew more about the fauna of Viornis. Chickens were well-nigh universal; they could live off almost anything. But other fowl fared pretty well, too. He shrugged it off; none of his business; leave that to the ecologists.

"Birds?" the woman asked. It was an unfamiliar word to her.

"Different kinds of chickens," he said tiredly. "Some bigger, some smaller, some different colors." He hoped the answer would satisfy her.

Evidently it did. She said, "Oh," and went on with what she was doing.

The silence, after only a minute or two, became unbearable. The Guesser had wanted to yell at the woman to shut up, to leave him alone and not bother him with her ignorant questions that he could not answer because she was inherently too stupid to understand. He had wondered why he hadn't yelled; surely it was not incumbent on a Three to answer the questions of a Six.

But he had answered, and after she stopped talking, he began to know why. He wanted to talk and to be talked to. Anything to fill up the void in his mind; anything to take the place of a world that had suddenly vanished.

What would he be doing now, if this had not happened? Involuntarily, he glanced at his wrist, but the chronometer was gone.

He would have awakened, as always, at precisely 0600 ship time. He would have dressed, and at 0630 he would have been at table, eating his meal in silence with the others of his class. At 0640, the meal would be over, and conversation would be allowed until 0645. Then, the inspection of the fire control system from 0650 until 0750. Then--

He forced his mind away from it, tried not to think of the pleasant, regular orderly routine by which he had lived his life for a quarter of a century and more.

When the woman's voice came again, it was a relief.

"What's a Guesser?"

He told her as best he could, trying to couch his explanation in terms that would be understood by a woman of her limited vocabulary and intelligence. He was not too sure he succeeded, but it was a relief to talk about it. He could almost feel himself dropping into the routine that he used in the orientation courses for young Guessers who had been assigned to him for protection and instruction.

"Accurate predicting of this type is not capable of being taught to all men; unless a man has within him the innate ability to be a Guesser, he is as incapable of learning Guessing as a blind man is incapable of being taught to read." (It occurred to him at that moment to wonder how the Class Six woman had managed to read the Breach of Contract notice. He would have to ask her later.) "On the other hand, just as the mere possession of functioning eyes does not automatically give one the ability to read, neither does the genetic inheritance of Guesser potentialities enable one to make accurate, useful Guesses. To make this potentiality into an ability requires years of hard work and practice.

"You must learn to concentrate, to focus your every attention on the job at hand, to--"

He broke off suddenly. The woman was standing in the doorway, holding a plate and a steaming mug. Her eyes were wide with puzzlement and astonishment. "You mean me?"

"No ... no." He shook his head. "I ... was thinking of something else."

She came on in, carrying the food. "You got tears in your eyes. You hurt?"

He wanted to say yes. He wanted to tell her how he was hurt and why. But the words wouldn't--or couldn't--come. "No," he said. "My eyes are just a little blurry, that's all. From sleep."

She nodded, accepting his statements. "Here. You eat you this. Put some stuffing in you belly."

He ate, not caring what the food tasted like. He didn't speak, and neither did she, for which he was thankful. Conversation during a meal would have been both meaningless and painful to him.

It was odd to think that, in a way, a Class Six had more freedom than he did. Presumably, she could talk, if she wanted, even during a meal.

And he was glad that she had not tried to eat at the same time. To have his food cooked and served by a Six didn't bother him, nor was he bothered by her hovering nearby. But if she had sat down with him to eat--

But she hadn't, so he dropped the thought from his mind.

Afterwards, he felt much better. He actually hadn't realized how hungry he had been.

She took the dishes out and returned almost immediately.

"You thought what you going to do?" she asked.

He shook his head. He hadn't thought. He hadn't even wanted to think. It was as though, somewhere in the back of his mind, something kept whispering that this was all nothing but a very bad dream and that he'd wake up in his cubicle aboard the Naipor at any moment. Intellectually, he knew it wasn't true, but his emotional needs, coupled with wishful thinking, had hamstrung his intellect.

However, he knew he couldn't stay here. The thought of living in a Class Six environment all the rest of his life was utterly repellent to him. And there was nowhere else he could go, either. Even though he had not been tried as yet, he had effectively been Declassified.

"I suppose I'll just give myself over to the Corporation," he said. "I'll tell them I was waylaid--maybe they'll believe it."

"Maybe? Just only maybe?"

He shrugged a little. "I don't know. I've never been in trouble like this before. I just don't know."

"What they going to do to you, you give up to them?"

"I don't know that, either."

Her eyes suddenly looked far off. "Me, I got an idea. Maybe get both of us some place."

He looked at her quickly. "What do you mean?"

Her gaze came back from the distance, and her eyes focused squarely on his. "The Misfits," she said in her flat voice. "We could go to the Misfits."

III

The Guesser had been fighting the Misfits for twenty years, and hating them for as long as he could remember. The idea that he could ever become one of them had simply never occurred to him. Even the idea of going to one of the Misfit Worlds was so alien that the very suggestion of it was shocking to his mind.

And yet, the suggestion that the Sixer woman had made did require a little thinking over before he accepted or rejected it.

The Misfits. What did he really know about them, anyway?

They didn't call themselves Misfits, of course; that was a derogatory name used by the Aristarchy. But the Guesser couldn't remember off hand just what they did call themselves. Their form of government was a near-anarchic form of ochlocracy, he knew--mob rule of some sort, as might be expected among such people. They were the outgrowth of an ancient policy that had been used centuries ago for populating the planets of the galaxy.

There are some people who simply do not, will not, and can not fit in with any kind of social organization--except the very flimsiest, perhaps. Depending on the society in which they exist and the extent of their own antisocial activities, they have been called, over the centuries, everything from "criminals" to "pioneers." It was a matter of whether they fought the unwelcome control of the society in power or fled from it.

The Guesser's knowledge of history was close to nonexistent, but he had heard that the expansion to the stars from Earth--a planet he had never been within a thousand parsecs of--had been accomplished by the expedient of combining volunteers with condemned criminals and shipping them off to newly-found Earth-type planets. After a generation had passed, others came in--the civilizing types--and settled the planets, making them part of the Aristarchy proper.

(Or was the Aristarchy that old? The Guesser had a feeling that the government at that time had been of a different sort, but he couldn't for the life of him remember what it was. Perhaps it had been the prototype of the Aristarchy, for certainly the present system of society had existed for four or five centuries--perhaps more. The Guesser realized that his knowledge of ancient history was as confused as anyone's; after all, it wasn't his specialty. He remembered that when he was a boy, he'd heard a Teacher Exec talk about the Geological Ages of Earth and the Teacher had said that "cave men were not con-- the dinosaur." He hadn't known what it meant at the time, since he wasn't supposed to be listening, anyway, to an Exec class, but he had realized that the histories of times past often became mixed up with each other.)

At any rate, the process had gone along smoothly, even as the present process of using Class Sevens and Declassified citizens did. But in the early days there had not been the organization that existed in the present Aristarchy; planets had become lost for generations at a time. (The Guesser vaguely remembered that there had been wars of some kind during that time, and that the wars had contributed to those losses.) Some planets had civilized themselves without the intervention of the Earth government, and, when the Earth government had come along, they had fought integration with everything they could summon to help them.

Most of the recalcitrant planets had eventually been subdued, but there were still many "hidden planets" which were organized as separate governments under a loose confederation. These were the Misfits.

Because of the numerical superiority of the Aristarchy, and because it operated in the open instead of skulking in the darkness of space, the Misfits knew where Aristarchy planets were located, while the Aristarchy was unable to search out every planet in the multimyriads of star systems that formed the galaxy.

Thus the Misfits had become pirates, preying on the merchantships of the Aristarchy. Why? No one knew. (Or, at least, The Guesser corrected himself, he didn't know.) Such a non-sane culture would have non-sane reasons.

The Aristarchy occupied nearly all the planets of the galaxy that could be inhabited by Man; that much The Guesser had been told. Just why Earth-type planets should occur only within five thousand light-years of the Galactic Center was a mystery to him, but, then, he was no astrophysicist.

But the Sixer woman said she had heard that the Aristarchy was holding back facts; that there were planets clear out to the Periphery, all occupied by Misfits; that the legendary Earth was one of those planets; that--

A thousand things. All wrong, as The Guesser knew. But she was firmly convinced that if anyone could get to a Misfit planet, they would be welcomed. There were no Classes among the Misfits, she said. (The Guesser dismissed that completely; a Classless society was ridiculous on the face of it.)

The Guesser had asked the woman why--if her statements were true--the Misfits had not conquered the Aristarchy long ago. After all, if they held the galaxy clear out to the Periphery, they had the Aristarchy surrounded, didn't they?

She had had no answer.

And it had only been later that The Guesser realized that he had an answer. Indeed, that he himself, was a small, but significant part of that answer.

The Misfits had no Guessers. That was a fact that The Guesser knew from personal experience. He had been in space battles with Misfit fleets, and he had brought the Naipor through those battles unscathed while wreaking havoc and destruction among the massed ships of the Misfits. They had no Guessers. (Or no trained Guessers, he amended. The potential might be there, but certainly the actuality was not.)

And it occurred to him that the Misfits might have another kind of trained talent. They seemed to be able to search out and find a single Aristarchy ship, while it was impossible to even detect a Misfit fleet until it came within attacking distance. Well, that, again, was not his business.

* * * * *

But none of these considerations were important in the long run; none of them were more than minor. The thing that made up The Guesser's mind, that spurred him into action, was the woman's admission that she had a plan for actually reaching Misfit planets.

It was quite simple, really; they were to be taken prisoners.

"They spaceships got no people inside, see you," she said, just as though she knew what she were talking about. "They just want to catch our ships, not kill 'em. So they send out a bunch of little ships on they own, just to ... uh ... cripple our ships. It don't matter, they little ships get hit, because they no one in them, see you. They trying to get our ships in good shape, and people in them and stuff, that's all."

"Yes, yes," The Guesser had said impatiently, "but what's that to do with us?"

She waved a hand, as though she were a little flustered by his peremptory tone. She wasn't, after all, used to talking with Class Threes as equals, even though she knew that in this case the Three was helpless.

"I tell you! I tell you!" She paused to reorganize her thoughts. "But I ask you: if we get on a ship, you can keep it from shooting the Misfit ships?"

The Guesser saw what she was driving at. It didn't make much sense yet, but there was a glimmer of something there.

"You mean," he said, "that you want to know whether it would be possible for me to partially disable the fire-control system of a spaceship enough to allow it to be captured by Misfit ships?"

She nodded rapidly. "Yes ... I think, yes. Can you?"

"Ye-e-es," The Guesser said, slowly and cautiously. "I could. But not by just walking in and doing it. I mean, it would be almost impossible to get aboard a ship in the first place, and without an official position I couldn't do anything anyway."

But she didn't look disappointed. Instead, she'd smiled a little. "I get us on the ship," she said. "And you have official position. We do it."

When she had gone on to explain, The Guesser's mind had boggled at her audacity--at first. And then he'd begun to see how it might be possible.

For it was not until then that the woman had given The Guesser information which he hadn't thought to ask about before. The first was her name: Deyla. The second was her job.

She was a cleaning woman in Executive territory.

And, as she outlined her plan for reaching the Misfits, The Guesser began to feel despair slipping from his mind, to be replaced by hope.

* * * * *

The Guesser plodded solemnly along the street toward the tall, glittering building which was near the center of Executive territory, his feet moving carefully, his eyes focused firmly on the soft, textured surface of the pavement. He was clad in the rough gray of a Class Six laborer, and his manner was carefully tailored to match. As he was approached by Fours and Fives, he stepped carefully to one side, keeping his face blank, hiding the anger that seethed just beneath the surface.

Around his arm was a golden brassard indicating that he was contracted to a Class One, and in his pocket was a carefully forged card indicating the same thing. No one noticed him; he was just another Sixer going to his menial job.

The front of the building bore a large glowing plaque which said:

VIORNIS EXPORT CORPORATION

But the front entrance was no place for a Sixer. He went on past it, stepping aside regularly for citizens of higher class than his own assumed Six. He made his way around to the narrow alley that ran past the rear of the building.

There was a Class Five guard armed with a heavy truncheon, standing by the door that led into the workers entrance. The Guesser, as he had been instructed by Deyla, had his card out as he neared the doorway. The guard hardly even glanced at it before wagging a finger indicating that The Guesser was to pass. He didn't bother to speak.

The Guesser was trembling as he walked on in--partly in anger, partly in fear. It seemed ridiculous that one glance had not told the guard that he was not a Class Six. The Guesser was quite certain that he didn't look like a Sixer. But then, Fives were not very perceptive people, anyway.

The Guesser went on walking into the complex corridors of the lower part of the building, following directions that had been given him by Deyla. There was no hesitation on his part; his memory for things like that was as near perfect as any record of the past can be. He knew her instructions well enough to have navigated the building in the dark.

Again, The Guesser found himself vaguely perturbed by the relative freedom of Sixers. As long as they got their jobs done there was almost no checking as to how they spent their time. Well, actually, the jobs to which they were suited were rather trivial--some of them were actually "made work." After all, in a well-run society, it was axiomatic that everyone have basic job security; that's what kept everyone happy.

Of course, there were plenty of Sixers working in construction and on farms who were kept on their toes by overseers, but cleaning jobs and such didn't need such supervision. A thing can only be so clean; there's no quota to fill and exceed.

After several minutes of walking and climbing stairs--Sixers did not use lift chutes or drop chutes--he found the room where Deyla had told him to meet her. It was a small storeroom containing cleaning tools and supplies. She was waiting for him.

And, now that the time had actually come for them to act on her plan, fear showed on her face. The Guesser knew then that he had been right in his decision. But he said nothing about that yet.

"Now are you certain about the destination?" he asked before she could speak.

She nodded nervously. "Yes, yes. D'Graski's Planet. That's what he say."

"Good." The Guesser had waited for three weeks for this day, but he had known it would come eventually. D'Graski's Planet was the nearest repair base; sooner or later, another ship had to make that as a port of call from Viornis. He had told Deyla that the route to D'Graski's was the one most likely to be attacked by Misfit ships, that she would have to wait until a ship bound for there landed at the spaceport before the two of them could carry out their plan. And now the ship was here.

"What's the name of the ship?" he asked.

"Th-the Trobwell."

"What's the matter with you?" he asked, suddenly and harshly.

She shivered. "Scared. Awful scared."

"I thought so. Have you got the clothing?"

"Y-yes." Then she broke down completely. "You got to help me! You got to show me how to act like Exec lady! Show me how to talk! Otherwise, we both get caught!"

He shook her to quiet her. "Shut up!" When she had quieted, he said: "You are right, of course; we'd both be caught if you were to slip up. But I'm afraid it's too late to teach you now. It's always been too late."

"Wha-what ... what you mean?"

"Never mind. Where's the traveling case?"

She pointed silently towards a shelf, one of many that lined the room.

The Guesser went over and pulled out a box of cleaning dust-filters. Behind it was a gold-and-blue traveling case. The girl had spent months stealing the little things inside it, bit by bit, long before The Guesser had come into her life, dreaming of the day when she would become an Exec lady. Not until he had come had she tried to project that dream into reality.

The Guesser thumbed the opener, and the traveling case split into halves. The sight of the golden uniform of a Class One Executive gleamed among the women's clothing. And she had forgotten no detail; the expensive beamgun and holster lay beneath the uniform.

He picked it up carefully, almost reverently. It was the first time he'd held one since he'd been beamed down himself, so long ago. He turned the intensity knob down to the "stun" position.

"We going to put them on here?" she asked in a hushed voice. "Just walk out? Me, I scared!"

He stood up, the stun gun in his hand, its muzzle pointed toward the floor. "Let me tell you something," he said, keeping his voice as kindly as he could. "Maybe it will keep you out of further trouble. You could never pass as an Exec. Never. It wouldn't matter how long you tried to practice, you simply couldn't do it. Your mind is incapable of it. Your every word, your every mannerism, would be a dead giveaway."

There was shock slowly coming over her face. "You not going to take me," she said, in her soft, flat voice.

"No."

"How I ever going to get to Misfits? How?" There were tears in her eyes, just beginning to fill the lower lids.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but I'm afraid your idealized Misfits just don't exist. The whole idea is ridiculous. Their insane attacks on us show that they have unstable, warped minds--and don't tell me about machine-operated or robot-controlled ships. You don't build a machine to do a job when a human being is cheaper. Your fanciful Misfit nation would have dissolved long ago if it had tried to operate on the principle that a lower-class human is worth more than a machine.

"You'll be better off here, doing your job; there are no such havens as Classless Misfit societies."

She was shaking her head as he spoke, trying to fight away the words that were shattering her cherished dream. And the words were having their effect because she believed him, because he believed himself.

"No," she was saying softly. "No, no, no."

The Guesser brought up the gun muzzle and shot her where she stood.

* * * * *

Half an hour later, The Guesser was fighting down his own fear. He was hard put to do it, but he managed to stride purposefully across the great spacefield toward the towering bulk of the Trobwell without betraying that fear.

If they caught him now--

He closed his mind against the thought and kept on walking.

At the base of the landing cradle, a Class Four guard was standing stolidly. He bowed his head and saluted as The Guesser walked by.

It's so easy! The Guesser thought. So incredibly easy!

Even the captain of the ship would only be a Class Two Exec. No one would question him--no one would dare to.

A lieutenant looked up, startled as he entered the ship itself, and saluted hurriedly.

"It's an honor to have you aboard, great sir," he said apologetically, "but you realize, of course, that we are taking off in a very few minutes."

Words choked suddenly in the Guesser's throat, and he had to swallow hard before he could speak. "I know that. I'm ... I'm going with you."

The lieutenant's eyes widened a trifle. "No orders have been taped to that effect, great sir."

This is it! thought The Guesser. He would either put it over now or he'd be lost--completely.

He scowled. "Then tape them! I will apologize to the captain about this last-minute change, but I want no delay in take-off. It is absolutely vital that I reach D'Graski's Planet quickly!"

The lieutenant blanched a little. "Sorry, great sir! I'll see that the orders are taped. You wish a cabin?"

"Certainly. I presume you have an adequate one?"

"I'm sure we do, great sir; I'll have the Quarters Officer set one up for you immediately."

"Excellent," said The Guesser. "Excellent."

Fifteen minutes later, the Trobwell lifted from the planet exactly on schedule. The Guesser, in his assigned room, breathed a deep sigh of relief. He was on his way to D'Graski's Planet at last!

* * * * *

"Tell me, great sir," said the captain, "what do you think the final decision on this case should be?" He shoved the sheaf of papers across the desk to The Guesser.

The Guesser looked at them unseeingly, his mind in a whirl. For five days now, the captain of the Trobwell had been handing him papers and asking him questions of that sort. And, since he was the ranking Exec, he was expected to give some sort of answer.

This one seemed even more complex than the others, and none of them had been simple. He forced his eyes to read the print, forced his mind to absorb the facts.

These were not clear-cut problems of the kind he had been dealing with all his life. Computing an orbit mentally was utterly simple compared with these fantastic problems.

It was a question of a choice of three different types of cargoes, to be carried to three different destinations. Which would be the best choice? The most profitable from an energy standpoint, as far as the ship was concerned, considering the relative values of the cargoes? What about relative spoilage rates as compared with fluctuating markets?

The figures were all there, right before him in plain type. But they meant nothing. Often, he had been unable to see how there was any difference between one alternative and another.

Once, he had been handed the transcripts of a trial on ship, during which two conflicting stories of an incident had been told by witnesses, and a third by the defendant. How could one judge on something like that? And yet he had been asked to.

He bit his lower lip in nervousness, and then stopped immediately as he realized that this was no time to display nerves.

"I should say that Plan B was the best choice," he said at last. It was a wild stab at nothing, he realized, and yet he could do no better. Had he made a mistake?

The captain nodded gravely. "Thank you, great sir. You've been most helpful. The making of decisions is too important to permit of its being considered lightly."

The Guesser could take it no longer. "It was a pleasure to be of assistance," he said as he stood up, "but there are certain of my own papers to be gone over before we reach D'Graski's Planet. I trust I shall be able to finish them."

The captain stood up quickly. "Oh, certainly, great sir. I hope I haven't troubled you with my rather minor problems. I shan't disturb you again during the remainder of the trip."

The Guesser thanked him and headed for his cabin. He lay on his bed for hours with a splitting headache. If it weren't for the fact that he had been forced to go about it this way, he would never have tried to impersonate an Executive. Never!

He wasn't even sure he could carry it off for the rest of the trip.

Somehow, he managed to do it. He kept to himself and pretended that the blue traveling bag held important papers for him to work on, but he dreaded mealtimes, when he was forced to sit with the captain and two lieutenants, chattering like monkeys as they ate. And he'd had to talk, too; being silent might ruin the impression he had made.

He hated it. A mouth was built for talking and eating, granted--but not at the same time. Of course, the Execs had it down to a fine art; they had a great deal more time for their meals than a Class Three, and they managed to eat a few bites while someone else was talking, then talk while the other ate. It was disconcerting and The Guesser never completely got the hang of co-ordinating the two.

Evidently, however, none of the three officers noticed it.

By the time the Trobwell reached D'Graski's Planet, he was actually physically ill from the strain. One of the worst times had come during an attack by Misfit ships. He had remained prone on his bed, his mind tensing at each change of acceleration in the ship. Without the screens and computer to give him data, he couldn't Guess, and yet he kept trying; he couldn't stop himself. What made it worse was the knowledge that his Guesses were coming out wrong almost every time.

When the ship finally settled into the repair cradle, The Guesser could hardly keep his hands from shaking. He left the ship feeling broken and old. But as his feet touched the ground, he thought to himself: I made it! In spite of everything, I made it!

And then two men walked toward him--two men wearing blue uniforms of a ship's Disciplinary Corps. He not only recognized their faces, but he saw the neat embroidery on the lapels.

It said: Naipor.

IV

Space Captain Humbolt Reed, commander of the Naipor, looked at his Master Guesser and shook his head. "I ought to have you shot. Declassification is too good for you by far. Impersonating an Executive! How did you ever think you'd get away with it?" He paused, then barked: "Come on! Explain!"

"It was the only way I could think of to get back to the Naipor, great sir," said The Guesser weakly.

The captain leaned back slowly in his seat. "Well, there's one extenuating circumstance. The officers of the Trobwell reported that you were a fine source of amusement during the trip. They enjoyed your clownish performance very much.

"Now, tell me exactly why you didn't show up for take-off on Viornis."

The Guesser explained what had happened, his voice low. He told about having something thrown at him, about the beamgun being fired at him. He told about the girl, Deyla. He told everything in a monotonous undertone.

The captain nodded when he was through. "That tallies. It fits with the confession we got."

"Confession, sir?" The Guesser looked blank.

Captain Reed sighed. "You're supposed to be a Guesser. Tell me, do you think I personally, could beam you from behind?"

"You're the captain, sir."

"I don't mean for disciplinary purposes," the captain growled. "I mean from ambush."

"Well ... no, sir. As soon as I knew you were there, I'd be able to Guess where you'd fire. And I wouldn't be there."

"Then what kind of person would be able to throw something at you so that you'd Guess, so that you'd dodge, and be so preoccupied with that first dodging that you'd miss the Guess on the aiming of the beamgun because of sheer physical inertia? What kind of person would know exactly where you'd be when you dodged? What kind of person would know exactly where to aim that beamgun?"

The Guesser had seen what was coming long before the captain finished his wordy interrogation.

"Another Guesser, sir," he said. His eyes narrowed.

"Exactly," said Captain Reed. "Your apprentice, Kraybo. He broke down during a Misfit attack on the way here; he was never cut out to be a Master Guesser, and even though he tried to kill you to get the job, he couldn't handle it. He cracked completely as soon as he tried to co-ordinate alone. We've actually missed you, Master Guesser."

"May I see to the disciplining of Kraybo, sir?" The -- asked coldly.

"You're too late. He's been declassified." The captain looked down at the papers on his desk. "You may consider yourself reinstated, Master Guesser, since the fault was not yours.

"However, masquerading as an Exec, no matter how worthy your motives, cannot be allowed to go unpunished. You will report to the Discipline Master for a three-and-three every day for the next five days. And you will not be allowed to leave the ship during the time we remain in repair dock. Dismissed."

"Thank you, great sir." The Guesser turned on his heel and marched out, heading for the Discipline Master.

It was good to be home again.

End of Project Gutenberg's But, I Don't Think, by Gordon Randall Garrett

Project Gutenberg's Quest of the Golden Ape, by Ivar Jorgensen and Adam Chase

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Quest of the Golden Ape

Author: Ivar Jorgensen Adam Chase

Release Date: June 23, 2010 [EBook #32953]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUEST OF THE GOLDEN APE ***

Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Amazing Stories January, February, March 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

The Table of Contents is not part of the original magazines

[Illustration: They were bent upon rapine and slaughter--and what greater prize than the Queen herself?]

QUEST OF THE GOLDEN APE

By IVAR JORGENSEN and ADAM CHASE

How could this man awaken with no past--no childhood--no recollection except of a vague world of terror from which his mother cried out for vengeance and the slaughter of his own people stood as a monument of infamy?

* * * * *

CONTENTS

    I    Mansion of Mystery
   II    The Great Clock of Tarth
  III    The Man in the Cavern
   IV    John Pride's Story
    V    Question Upon Question
   VI    On the Plains of Ofrid
  VII    The White God
 VIII    The Brown Virgin
   IX    In Custody
    X    The Road to Nadia
   XI    On the Ice Fields of Nadia
  XII    Volna the Beautiful
 XIII    The Journey of No Return
  XIV    Land Beyond the Stars
   XV    The Golden Ape
  XVI    The Raging Beast
 XVII    The Prison Without Bars

* * * * *

CHAPTER I

Mansion of Mystery

In a secluded section of a certain eastern state which must remain nameless, one may leave the main highway and travel up a winding road around tortuous bends and under huge scowling trees, into wooded country.

Upon a certain night--the date of which must remain vague--there came a man who faced and was not turned back by a series of psychological barriers along this road which made it more impregnable than a steel wall. These barriers, which had kept out-- hundred years of curiosity-seekers until that certain night, were forged by the scientific magic of a genius on a planet far beyond the sun....

The man who bo-- followed his headlights up the road was of middle age with calm, honest and a firm mouth indicating bargains made in his name would be kept. He pushed on, feeling the subtle force of t-- --ical powers against him but resisting because he vaguely understood them.

He left his car presently and raised his hand to touch the hard outline of a small book he carried in his breast pocket and with the gesture his determination hardened. He set his jaw firmly, snapped on the flashlight he had taken from the dash of his convertible and moved on up the road.

His firm, brisk steps soon brought him to its end, a great iron gate, its lock -- hinges rusted tight under the patient hand of Tim -- was high and spiked and too dangerous for climbing -- someone had smashed the lock with a heavy instrument and had applied force until the rusted hinges gave and the gate stood partially open. From the look of the metal, this could have been done recently--even in the past few minutes.

* * * * *

The man entered and found a flagstone pathway. He followed this for a time with the aid of his flashlight. Then he stopped and raised the beam.

It revealed the outline of a great stone mansion, its myriad windows like black, sightless eyes, its silent bulk telling of long solitude, its tongueless voice whispering: Go away, stranger. Only peril and misfortune await you here.

But I am not exactly a stranger, the man told himself, approaching the door and half hoping to find the scowling panel locked.

But it was not locked. The ponderous knob turned under his hand. The panel mo

silently. The man gripped his flashlight an

epped inside.

The knowledge that he was no longer alone came as a shock. It was brought to him by the sound of labored breathing and he flashed the light about frantically trying to locate the source of the harsh sound. Then the bright circle picked out a huddled form on the floor nearby. The man moved forward instantly and went to his knees.

He was looking into an incredibly ancient face. The skin was so deeply lined as to hang in folds around the sunken eyes. The mouth was but a toothless maw and the body so shrunken as to seem incapable of clinging to life. The voice was a harsh whisper.

"Thank God you have come. I am dying. The opening of the gate took all my remaining strength."

You have been waiting for me?"

"I have been waiting out the years--striving to keep life in my body until the mome

stiny. I wanted to see him. I wanted to be there when the door to his resting place opens and he comes forth to right the terrible wrongs that have been done our people."

The strength of the ancient one was ebbing fast. The words he spoke had been an effort. The kneeling man said, "I don't understand all this."

"That matters not. It is important only that you keep the bargain made long ago with your sire, and that you are here. Someone must be with him at the awakening."

The newcomer again touched the book in his pocket. "I came because our word had been given--"

The dying man picked feebly at his sleeve. "Please! You must go below! The great clock has measured the years. Soon it tolls the moment. Soon a thundering on the Plains of Ofrid will herald the new age--the Fighting Age--and a new day will dawn."

While the visitor held his frai

ers, the dying man gasped and said, "Hasten! Hurry to the vault below! Would that I could go with you, but that is not to be."

And then the visitor realized he was holding a corpse in his arms. He laid it gently down and did as he had been directed to do.

CHAPTER II

The Great Clock of Tarth

The Plains of Ofrid on the planet Tarth stretched flat and monotonous as far as the eye could reach, a gently waving ocean of soft, knee-high grass where herds of wild stads grazed and bright-hued birds vied in brilliance with the flaming sun.

From the dark Ab

n Forests to the Ice Fields of Nadia, the plain stretched unbroken except for the tall, gray tower in its exact center and it was toward this tower that various groups of Tarthans were now moving.

Every nation on the planet was represented in greater or lesser number. The slim, erect Nadians in their flat-bottomed air cars that could hang motionless in space or skim the surface of the planet at a thousand jeks an hour. The grim-faced Abarians, tall and finely muscled on their powerful stads, their jeweled uniforms flashing back the glory of the heavens. The Utalians, those chameleon men of Tarth, their skins now the exact color of the grasses across which they rode, thus causing their stads to appear unmounted and unguided.

All the nations of Tarth were represented, drawn toward the tower by a century-old legend, a legend which Retoc the Abarian clarified as he rode at the head of his own proud group.

He waved a hand, indicating the vast plain and spoke to Hultax, his second in command, saying, "Little would one think that this flat, empty land was once the site of a vast and powerful nation. One of the greatest upon all Tarth!" A smile of cruelty and satisfaction played upon his handsome features as he surveyed the plain.

"Aye," Hultax replied. "The realm of the Ofridians. Truly they were a great nation."

"But we Abarians were greater," Retoc snapped. "We not only defeated them but we leveled their land until not one stone stood upon another."

"All save the tower," Hultax said. "No weapon known could so much as scratch its surface."

* * * * *

A new voice cut in. "Quite true. Portox's scientific skill was too great for you." Both Abarians turned quickly to scowl at the newcomer, Bontarc of Nadia, who had swung close i

s one-man car and was hovering by their side.

Retoc's hand moved toward the hilt of his long whip-like sword, driven there by the look of contempt in Bontarc's eyes. But Retoc hesitated. A formidable squadron of Bontarc's Nadian fighting men hovered nearby and the Ab

d no taste for a battle in which the odds were clos

o even.

"We defeated the Ofridians fairly," he said.

"And slaughtered them fairly? Cut down the men and women and children alike until the entire nation was obliterated?"

The systematic annihilation had taken place a century before when Bontarc had been but a child and Retoc a young man. Karnod, Retoc's father, now dead, had planned the war that defeated the Ofridians, his winning card having been spies in the court of Evalla, Queen of Ofrid. Karnod had been fatally wounded during the last battle and had delegated to his son the task of annihilating the Ofridians and levelling their nation. This task, Retoc accepted with relish, reserving for himself the pleasure of slaying Queen Evalla. Details of the torture to which Retoc subjected the beautiful Evalla were whispered over the planet and it was said the sadistic Retoc had taken photographs of the Queen in her agony to enjoy in later years.

It had been the scientific ability of Portox of Ofrid that had engendered the Abarian hatred and jealousy in the first place. Portox used his science for the good of all on the planet Tarth, but when Karnod, Lord of Abaria, struck, no other nation came to Ofrid's aid. Then it was too late, because Abaria's military might greatened as a result of the Ofridian defeat and only an alliance of all other nations could have conquered them.

Ironically, Portox had never been captured.

Now as the tall gray tower came into view, Bontarc's mind was filled with thoughts of Portox, the Ofridian wizard. It was said that Portox had been able to travel through space to other planets that were known to exist, that he had left Tarth and found safety somewhere across space, first building his tower which would never be destroyed; that a great clock within it was measuring off one hundred years--the time on the planet Tarth of an infant's development into manhood--and that at the end of that span the clock would toll and there would come forth a man to avenge the slaughter of the Ofridians.

Bontarc turned suddenly upon the dour Retoc. "Tell me," he said, "is there any truth to the legend that the clock in the tower will toll the end of one hundred years?"

"None whatever," the sadistic Abarian snapped. "A rumor passed from the lips of one old woman to another."

Bontarc smiled. "Then why are you here? The hundred years are up today."

Re

s hand moved toward his whip-sword. "Are you calling me a liar?"

* * * * *

Bontarc watched alertly as the blade came partly from its scabbard. "If we fight we may miss the tolling of the clock," he said evenly.

With an oath, Retoc pushed the sword back into its scabbard and put sharp heels to his stad's flanks. The animal screamed indignantly and rocketed ahead. Bontarc smiled and turned his car back toward his own group.

And now they were assembled and waiting, the curious of the planet Tarth. Would the clock toll as it was rumored Portox had said? Would an avenger come forth to challenge Retoc and his Abarian hordes?

There was not much time left. Swiftly the clock ticked off the remaining moments and the end of one hundred years was at hand. Silence settled over the assembled Tarthans.

Then a great sound boomed over the plains; a single ringing peal that rose majestically into the air, reverberated across the empty land that once had been the site of a thriving, prosperous nation. The first part of the legend had been fulfilled.

Then, suddenly, chaos reigned. With a great thundering that shook the ground upon which they stood, the gray tower exploded in crimson glory; a great mushrooming blossom of red fire erupted skyward hurling the assembled Tarthans to the ground where they lay in numbed stupor.

The thunderous report echoed across the plain ten thousand times louder than the tolling of the clock. But aside from the initial dulling shock, no Tarthan was injured because the crushing power rose upward.

There was an expression of mute wonder on Bontarc's face. And he thought: We have not seen the end of this. It is only the beginning. But the beginning of what? Only Portox could have known. And Portox was--where?

Bontarc started his car and moved across the plain sensing cosmic events but not knowing....

Not knowing that the sound of the tolling clock had gone with more than the speed of light across the void, had been flung arrow-straight to a brooding mansion in the heart of a thick forest upon another planet; to the door of a cavern deep in the rock beneath the mansion.

That even now the lock of this door had responded to the electronic impulse and the huge panel was swinging slowly open.

CHAPTER III

The Man in the Cavern

As the sound of the tolling clock died out across the Plains of Ofrid, a man opened his eyes on the planet far away and saw for the first time the place in which he had spent one hundred years.

He awoke with neither fright nor surprise but rather with a sense of wonder. He arose slowly from the great bed upon which he had lain and allowed his attention to roam about the strange place in which he found himself.

In the wall opposite the bed there was set a full length mirror and as the man turned he saw himself for the first time; a tall, broadly-muscled figure of heroic proportions. Completely naked, his body was reflected as masculine perfection in every detail.

For a few moments, the man stared at the body as though it belonged to someone else. Then he spoke musingly. "You did your work well, Portox, my friend."

The sound of his own voice startled him but not so much so as the content of the words. A baffled expression touched his handsome face. Who was Portox? And what work had he done? What place was this--and for that matter, who was he himself, this naked figure which looked back at him from the glittering mirror?

The questions were annoying because he felt that he knew the answers. Yet they would not come within reach of his conscious mind.

He had little time to ponder this enigma however because at that moment he became aware of a second presence in the room. He turned. A man stood just inside the open door.

The naked one stared at the other with an interest that left no room for self-consciousness nor shame. "Who are you?" he asked.

"My name is John Pride," the man answered. He was a man of erect bearing and though there was wonder and surprise in his voice he bore himself with a quiet dignity. "And now," he added, "may I ask you the same question?"

* * * * *

The naked man looked down at his own body and for the first time seemed conscious of its nudity. He glanced around the room and saw a robe of royal purple lying across a chair by the bed. He stepped over and lifted the robe and put it on. As he was tying the rich purple cord around his waist he looked frankly back at John Pride and said, "I do not know. I honestly do not know."

John Pride said, "I have wondered what I would find in this cavern--wondered through the years. Only in my wildest fancies

tell myself that a fellow human--or even a living

ature--awaited me here. But now I find this is true."

The younger man regarded his visitor with a calmness that belied any wariness between them. John Pride noted this with admiration and respect. The young man said, "Won't you be seated?" and when his guest was comfortable, regarded him with a smile. "Perhaps there are some things we should talk over."

"Perhaps there are. You say you do not know your own name?"

"That only begins to sum up my ignorance. I am not only unaware of my identity but I haven't the faintest notion of what this place is--where it is--or how I came here."

It was John Pride's turn to stare. While doing so, he analyzed the younger man keenly. He saw honesty and an inner warmth that attracted him. There was something almost godlike in the clean lines of the body he had seen and in the face. These things coupled with what he already knew, intrigued him mightily and he resolved to approach this strange affair with an open mind and not play the role of the unbelieving cynic. It was time to go ahead.

* * * * *

John Pride said, "First, are you aware that there is another in this mansion--or was?"

"I did not even know this was a mansion. It seems only one room."

"It is an enormous structure set deep in the forest."

"This other one--?"

"A very old man. He died as I arrived here tonight."

"You do not know his name or how came he here?"

"I have a vague idea."

The young man's dazzling blue eyes narrowed in thought. "A while ago you said you have wondered through the years as to what you would find in this room. That indicates you were aware of its existence."

"True. Perhaps at this point I had better tell you the complete story--as much of it as I know."

"I would be in your debt."

"No, I will merely be discharging the last of a very old obligation."

With that, John Pride took from his pocket a small leather covered book. He handled it gently, almost with affection, and said, "This was my father's notebook. In it, is an account of this remarkable affair, put down by my great grandfather and handed down through the line. When my father died he placed it in my hand saying it entailed an obligation both business and personal and it was my obligation as well as his.

"I have read

account of what transpired many times and with your permission I will put it into my own words. Then, when I am done, I will give you the book and the affair will be over so far as I and my family are concerned."

John Pride had settled back in his chair and was just ready to begin when the young man held up a sudden hand. "Just one moment--please," he said, and a look of concentration came upon his face. Then he went on and his words took the form of a rhyme:

"An ape, a boar, a stallion, A land beyond the stars. A virgin's feast, a raging beast, A prison without bars."

He flushed and added: "I don't know why I was possessed to recite that doggerel at just this moment but there is something strange about it. Strange in that I have a feeling it was taught to me at some long distant time in the past. I sense that it is very important to whatever destiny awaits me. Yet I know not who taught me the verse nor what it means."

"That verse is inscribed in this book and I believe I know how it entered your mind and memory. I believe too, that I understand how you are able to converse with me though you know nothing of this land or even this room," John Pride said quietly.

"Then please tell me!"

"I think it better that I start at the beginning rather than give you the story piece-meal. That way, your mind will be better able to assimilate and to judge."

"I await your pleasure," the young man said with impatience he strove to conceal.

"Very well," John Pride said, his eyes growing vague with a far-away look.

CHAPTER IV

John Pride's Story

"I am a member," John Pride began, "of a firm called Pride, Conroy, and Wilson. We are a very old firm of private bankers with offices in Wall Street. Both Conroy and Wilson died before I was born, leaving no issue, so the company has been controlled by a Pride for many years.

"This affair in which we are interested had its inception one hundred years ago. At that time, a man came to see my great grandfather in his office. He was a most remarkable man and gained my grandfather's respect and confidence from the very first. He never stated from whence he came, being more interested in the future than in the past. He put up at a New York City hotel and my great grandfather knew there were three in his party; the man himself, another man and a woman both somewhat older than he.

"At one time when my great grandfather visited them in their hotel suite, he saw the woman fleetingly as she was leaving the room. She was carrying something that he thought could have been an infant snuggled in a blanket. He could not be sure however and he did not ask questions.

"The man was interested in obtaining a place of abode, a place that had to possess certain definite qualifications. First, it had to be built upon solid rock and set in the most secluded location possible.

"Second, it had to be so completely free of legal involvements that when he secured title, no possible claim of another could ever be taken seriously enough to even cause the property to be visited. In short, the strange man said, details relevant to the property must integrate to a point where no one would visit it for one hundred years."

At this place in his narrative, John Pride stopped a moment to rest his voice. After a pause, the young man in the purple robe inquired, "Why do you smile?"

"At the recollection. My great grandfather had just a white elephant--"

"A white elephant?"

"Merely a descriptive term. A place that had been built before the Revolution but which even at that early time had been bypassed by the trend of progress until it was completely isolated. No one wanted it. No one would ever want it so far as my great grandfather could judge."

"Except this strange man you speak of."

"Precisely. He was delighted with the place and when my great grandfather pointed out that even with the location and the high surrounding wall there was no guarant

wandering adventurers might not move in and

possession at some distant date, the man smiled cryptically and said he would see to it that that did not occur."

* * * * *

The young man was scowling. "I know that man. He is somewhere back in my mind, but he will not come forward."

John Pride regarded his listener for a moment and then went on. "The man seemed in ample funds and paid for the property with a giant ruby the like of which my great grandfather had never before set eyes on.

"But the affair was far from ended. The man moved his ménage into the mansion saying he would call upon my great grandfather later.

* * * * *

"All the legal formalities had been of course taken care of--an indisputable deed, guaranteed by the strongest trust company in the land. But that was not enough.

"After a few weeks, during which time the man had inquired of my great grandfather where certain materials could be obtained, he returned to the old gentleman's office with the most startling request of all.

"He said that he had set in motion a procedure that would terminate in exactly one hundred years from a given moment and that he wished to retain grandfather's firm as trust agents in relation to that procedure. The duties of the firm would be negligible during the hundred-year period. My great grandfather and his issue were merely to remain completely away from the property which was certainly a simple thing to do.

"But knowledge of what had taken place must be passed down to his son and in case the latter did not survive the one hundred years, to his son's son.

"At this point my great grandfather interposed reality in the form of a question: 'I have a son but suppose he is so inconsiderate as to not duplicate with a male heir?'

"The man smiled and said he was sure that would not be the case. He was right, but whether it was a gamble on his part or whether he spoke from a knowledge beyond us, we never knew.

"But regardless--at the end of one hundred years the surviving issue was, by sacred trust, to be present in this mansion. The door of a vault beneath it would open and the trustee was to enter and deliver therein a written account of the series of events leading up to that moment.

"In payment for this service, the man insisted upon presenting my great grandfather with j

s the value of which on a yearly basis transcended all our other income combined. My great grandfather demurred but the man said nothing brightens memory so much as material gain and he did not want the agreement to be forgotten."

"What happened to the man?" the young listener asked.

John Pride shook his head sadly. "We never knew. When all the arrangements were made, he came again to the office, thanked my great sire for his services, and was never seen again."

"He must have given you his name."

John Pride frowned. "He used a name of course but there was the impression of its not being his true one. The book mentions this. The name he used was C. D. Bram."

"Portox!" the young man cried suddenly.

"What did you say?"

"Portox. The name is back in my mind. I used it as I awoke."

"A strange name."

"And stranger still is the fact that I know nothing of it--wait!" The young man's handsome features strained as he concentrated with all his power. Sweat stood out on his forehead. But then a look of disappointment came into his face and his broad shoulders sagged. "No. The knowledge is somewhere back in my mind but I cannot capture it."

John Pride was about to speak but the young man stayed him with a sudden intense look. "One thing however is very clear to me."

"And that is--?"

"The face of my mother."

"The woman who held you in her arms in the hotel suite?"

"No, I do not think so. But I see a face clearly in my mind. A sad and beautiful face. There is a marked resemblance between it and what I see in that mirror. She is the most beautiful woman who ever lived and I yearn to find her and take her in my arms."

"I hope you succeed."

* * * * *

A tragic light appeared in the young man's eyes. "But where is she? How can I find her? Why did she leave me in this place?"

"I do not have the answers to those questions. But I have a theory concerning you and the elapsed years."

"Tell me!"

John Pride spoke firmly but with obvious awe. "I think you were brought here as an infant for some reason known only to the one who called himself C. D. Bram."

"Or Portox."

"Perhaps. I think you were placed in that bed and left there for one hundred years."

"But--"

"Consider. That door has never been opened. There is certainly no other exit to this cavern."

"And I have no recollection of ever having lived before," the young man said slowly.

"Yet you can converse with me. You obviously have been given an education."

"But how?"

"It is known that knowledge can be injected into the subconscious while the receiver sleeps. I'm sure the man you insist upon calling Portox was aware of this--this and perhaps other scientific miracles. Who are we to say that you were not nourished by some means beyond our knowledge?"

But that investigation was never to be made because as John Pride extended his hand to touch the box it suddenly burst into a glow and he withdrew his fingers quickly.

Before the younger man could answer a glowing point of light sprang into being and brightened and a wave of searing heat erupted from the walls of the room, searing the eyes of John Pride and leaving him to grope helplessly as in the heart of a furnace. The younger man was beyond his reach. Blinding pain caused him to reel.

CHAPTER V

Question Upon Question

John Pride opened his eyes as a moan escaped his lips. The haze cleared and he found himself lying upon a cool stone floor looking up into the concerned face of the younger man. "What happened?" John Pride asked feebly. He tried to refocus.

"I don't know except that the heat of that fire was upon us with such swiftness that we were almost incapacitated. I picked you up and started walking. Fortunately I moved in the direction of the door. Otherwise we would have been doomed."

"I am in your debt."

"No more so than I in yours."

"Did you extinguish the fire?"

"It burned out of its own accord. But only after the cave was completely gutted. There is nothing left in there but the bare rock walls."

John Pride sat up with quick concern. "The book!"

"It is gone." The young man looked ruefully down at his own naked body. "Gone--together with my precious robe."

"That can easily be replaced along with other raiment but the book--I was supposed to deliver it--"

"--to the cavern. You did that, my friend. It was not through you that the fire consumed it. You have dispatched your obligation. Let your mind be at ease."

John Pride got to his feet. He shook his head in the negative. "No. A portion of my obligation still exists. Fortunately I did not bring forth the second and last item I was to place in the cavern."

"The second item?"

"Yes, and I believe the most important."

* * * * *

With that, Pride took from his pocket a small box wrapped in heavy material and sealed and resealed with a sort of rubberized wax.

"This," he said. "I know not what is in the box nor I think, did my father, my grandfather, nor my great grandfather before me. We have been given to understand that its delivery to the cavern was the most important single duty of the trust. So I now place it in your hands, praying that this act fulfills the long-standing obligation of my family."

The younger man had salvaged a portion of his robe, a length of material that went over his shoulders and draped skimpily down the sides of his body. This did nothing whatever in the way of covering his nudity but rather accentuated and added to it.

He took the box and was scanning it with great interest when the excitement and strenuous action of the preceding

utes again took grip upon John Pride's comparat

y less rugged physique.

His eyes closed and he began sinking again to the floor whereupon the younger man slipped the box hastily in the pocket that had not burned away from his robe and caught John Pride in his arms.

He lifted the elder man and carried him up from the mansion caverns and into the great hall that swept forward to the main entrance. As he walked, bearing the heavy burden as though it were but a mere feather, he was of two minds.

One mind entertained concern for his new-found friend and the other was occupied with interest in these new and strange surroundings.

Dawn had broken over the forest and in a brooding light within the great hall, he saw the withered body of the dead man on the floor. He paused for a moment and then went out across the flagstone porch and into the open air.

He marveled at the green expanse of forest that reared in majesty about him. He drew in deep gusts of the cool air and found it good. He smiled.

Then John Pride stirred in his arms and showed signs of returning consciousness. The young man laid the financier on the soft grass and watched until his eyes opened.

"Are you feeling better? Is there anything I can do?"

John Pride smiled feebly as he raised himself with the younger man's aid. "I'm afraid this has been more strenuous than I bargained for. If I'd known what would transpire I would have kept myself in better condition."

"But you feel better now?"

"Yes. If you will be so good as to help me to my car, I'll be all right."

"Certainly. Your car--?"

"A means of conveyance that will take me back to the city. It stands but a few yards down the road beyond the gate."

A short time later, the two men stood at the place that was to be the parting of their ways. Both sensed this and Pride held out his hand. The younger man grasped it firmly.

"Godspeed to you, my friend," John Pride said. "I fear I can help you no further but if there is ever a time when my services are needed, I will be waiting for your command."

"Thank you. Whatever befalls me I will always remember you as the first friend I ever set eyes upon in this world."

With that, John Pride turned his car and drove off down the winding road. As he left, the younger man realized the older man had said nothing of the dead ancient in the great ha

ut realized it was because of the strain Pride had suffered. The man was still somewhat dazed from the shock of the fire.

* * * * *

He turned and walked slowly back toward the mansion until he stood again in the great front yard. There he stopped and stood looking up at the sun as it topped the hill east of the mansion.

"Who am I?" he asked himself. "Why was I given knowledge but not all the knowledge necessary to intelligently pursue my destiny? In my heart there is a certainty that I am an educated man. I am aware of the fact that there are different groups of people who speak different languages and I know I will be able to converse with any I meet.

"I know that there are planets and stars and moons and I know what is to be known of the universe. But where is the exact personal knowledge that would help me in my dealings with the future? Why was I left here carefully tended and provided for these hundred years only to be hurled suddenly upon my own?"

He walked slowly into the great hall and knelt beside the still figure on the floor. A feeling of compassion stirred him but there was no warmth of recognition, no personal sorrow as a result of the ancient's death.

"Have I ever seen you before?" he asked softly. "Were you--Portox?"

The dead one did not answer and the young man lifted him and took him from the hall and buried him. He could find no tools to dig the soil but located a hole that had once been a shallow well. He dropped the body therein and followed it with stones until the hole was filled. He did this with no sense of callousness but rather with an impersonal reverence he instinctively felt but could not analyze.

[Illustration: The cryptic verse had become a visual symbol in Bram's mind.]

Returning slowly to the front yard, he pondered the dimension of time. How, he wondered, could John Pride's line have gone through three sires to John Pride, the last of the males, while he himself lay for one hundred years to emerge in his obvious prime? Or perhaps even on the near side of his prime.

* * * * *

He pondered this and other points until his mind grew weary from unanswered questions and turned to things of the moment.

"I know not what my destiny is but at least I am able to have a name. What shall it be?"

He remembered the one Portox had used--C. D. Bram. "Bram," he said. "That I like." But the C. D. meant nothing to him and Bram seemed somehow incomplete.

"John Price had a name of two parts," he said, "so why should I not have the same?"

He looked about him and a breeze in the green branches above seemed to whisper the answer. He heard and considered, then smiled to himself, raised his voice.

"I christen myself Bram Forest, to be known from this moment on by that name."

Suddenly his smile deepened, then laughter welled from his great chest; a laughter arising from the sheer joy of this new thing called living into which he had stepped.

Now he stretched his arms over his head, palms upward as though supplicating to some far-off deity. He leaped high in the air testing his muscles and finding them good.

Then he was running, naked and golden off across the open hill. He ran until his huge chest pounded with delicious pain as his lungs labored for air. Finally he dropped to the ground and lay spread-eagled looking up at the sky.

He laughed long and joyously.

He lay for a long time thus, then suddenly remembered the box John Pride had given him. But the scanty garment had dropped from his shoulders so he sprang to his feet and ran back until he discovered it.

The box was still there. He examined it curiously turning it over and over in his hands. The seal was stubborn but it finally gave and he peeled off the heavy wrapping. A small white box came to light.

This he opened to stand frowning at what it contained. An odd instrument of some sort--a flat disc about two inches in diameter and possibly a quarter of an inch thick. Both faces were of shining, crystalline metal reflecting back anything that was imaged upon them.

Two short metal straps appended from opposite sides of the queer instrument, one of which held a buckle at its end. He held the shining disc to his ear but there was no sound that he could detect.

Frustrated he looked again into the box. It appeared to be empty. But no. As he was about to fling it away, he noted that what appeared to be its inner bottom was in reality a second flat package that fitted perfectly into the receptacle. He shook it free and found it to be merely a flat rectangle wrapped tightly in white paper.

* * * * *

He was about to rip the paper with his thumbnail when his attention switched suddenly to the shining disc. He had envisioned a use for it; or at least a place for which it seemed constructed.

He tested his theory and found the straps fit snugly and perfectly around his wrist. He pondered which wrist to place it on and decided the right one would be appropriate. Quickly, he snapped the buckle into its hasp and then held forth his arm to admire the brightness of the queer device.

If he had expected anything to happen, he was disappointed and he stood there wondering what use was to be found from such a seemingly useless device.

After a while he unbuckled the disc and moved it to his left wrist. Perhaps it would look better there. Again he raised his arm to admire it and had stood thus for some moments when he became conscious of an odd sickness in the pit of his stomach.

He did not associate this with the disc at all and immediately forgot the thing, giving his whole attention to the uncomfortable feeling that had come upon him.

The sickness increased in intensity and he bent down, doubling over his abdomen as the nausea became a pain. As he sank to his knees, he noted the disc had changed, had taken on an odd, transparent glow.

There had to be a connection between his illness and the abominable device and he clawed at the buckle, seeking to loosen it and hurl the thing away.

But there was no time. The pain sharpened and a black cloud dimmed his sight. He clawed feebly at the buckle and then his numbed fingers weakened, fell away from it.

The darkness increased and seemed to lift him from the ground upon which he lay. It clawed at his throat, entered his nostrils like a malignant force.

As his consciousness faded a single thought was in his mind: Born but to live a few brief moments and die again. What sense is there to such a farce as this? Born--but--to die--again. Portox! Help me! It can't be--There must be some help!

CHAPTER VI

On the Plains of Ofrid

Jlomec the Nadian guided his air car across the grassy plains of Ofrid but a scant few feet above the tops of the waving grasses.

It was a fine day and the Nadian was taking full advantage of it. One of a race of proud and noble fighting men, Jlomec was an exception to the rule in that he was a dreamer rather than a fighter, a thinker rather than a doer, a poet rather than a military strategist.

Thus, his mind dwelt upon the historic incident of the previous days when, standing beside his brother, Bontarc, he had watched the gray tower of Portox the Ofridian explode into a fine cloud of dust.

And it was characteristic of the gentle Jlomec that his mind was more occupied with the romantic aspect of the incident than the violent. He thought of the poem, the bit of doggerel carved in the foundation stone of the tower. For a century all Tarthans had puzzled over the verse put there by Portox so long ago:

An ape, a boar, a stallion, A land beyond the stars, A virgin's feast, a raging beast, A prison without bars.

Had it any meaning? Jlomec wondered. A thousand different interpretations had been put upon the verse over the years, but no one knew for sure.

That it had something to do with the slaughter of the Ofridians, Jlomec was sure. But what?

As he ruminated thus, Jlomec's attention was caught by moving figures some ten jeks to the south. He knew this to be the location of one of the great wells that dotted the Plains of Ofrid.

In the times before the great massacre, these wells had been located in the hearts of the fine Ofridian cities of which the Abarians stood in great envy. These wells gushed endlessly of cool crystal water which kept the fabulous hanging gardens of Ofrid multicolored and beautiful.

But all that was in the past. The Ofridians had been slain to a man and their cities leveled until not a stone stood upon a stone. Now lonely grasses grew where once glittered the results of Portox's great scientific genius. Now there were only round steel doors in the ground to mark the locations of the great Ofridian wells.

These thoughts occupied Jlomec's mind as he turned his car and coursed it in the direction of the well. The figures came clearly into view, causing Jlomec to frown in puzzlement.

What manner of people were these? There were a half dozen of them--two men,

males, and one babe-in-arms. Jlomec got the impre

n that--though they were erect and finely formed--that they were of short stature.

But now he realized he had got this impression only by their comparison to the seventh figure by the well. He knew at a glance that this seventh was an Abarian warrior, exceptionally tall and wearing the look of grim cruelty so characteristic of his race.

Jlomec paid the Abarian scant heed however, so engrossed was he in studying the strange half-dozen. Their skins were richly browned and they wore almost no clothing.

Who could they be? Jlomec wondered, and from whence had they come? Mightily intrigued, he moved forward until he came within earshot of the party. Then, for reason of the words he heard spoken, he halted his air car and frowned.

* * * * *

The Abarian, he recognized as the famed Retoc himself. A fierce stad pawed the ground nearby indicating how the tall, sneering commander of the Abarians had arrived at this spot. Retoc was known to roam the Plains of Ofrid at times, still savoring the destruction he and his sire, Harnod, had accomplished; pleasuring himself with memories of bodies piled high, of bloody swords and helpless cries of the dying.

Or was it for some other reason that Retoc roamed the plains? Was it a nameless fear that drove him there? Did the accusing face of Portox the Ofridian genius still hang balefully in his memory? Had Portox acquainted the Abarian devil with knowledge that he alone carried in his guilty heart? And did that knowledge generate a fear that Retoc the Abarian could not rid himself of?

At any rate, he now stood between the brown people and the Ofridian well, enjoying a useless cruelty as was his custom.

The leader of the group extended his hands in supplication and said, "We only ask water, sire. A small thing, but long have we waited to quench our thirst."

Retoc said, "What manner of people are you?"

"Harmless ones. See? We are unarmed and peaceful."

"That does not answer my question. Tell me who you are and from whence you came. Then we will see whether my fancy dictates that you shall have water from this well."

Indignation and rage dimmed Jlomec's better judgment. He had glided in beyond range of Retoc's vision and now he leaped from his car and drew his wandlike whip-sword. "Is there no drop of common decency or compass

left in you, Retoc, that you do this thing to helpless people?"

The Abarian whirled with alarm not knowing what force might be arrayed against him. But when he saw the lone Jlomec, his composure returned and his self-assurance again took charge. Had the newcomer been Bontarc, the dreamy Jlomec's skillful brother, Retoc the Abarian would have conducted himself differently. But as it was, he sneered at the gentle Nadian and asked, "What business of this is yours, Jlomec?"

"Injustice is everyone's business. These people, whoever they are, ask only to drink." Jlomec's eyes blazed. "And drink they shall, Abarian!"

* * * * *

Retoc's handsome eyes glowed. No doubt as to the outcome of this contest. He drew his own sword and whipped its supple length through the air. "Since you choose to champion this scum, let's get on with it."

Had Jlomec's indignation not been of a quality to blind him to consequences, he would have perhaps hesitated. But hot with this injustice, he whipped his own sword and leaped at Retoc.

The latter, with a grim smile of confidence, parried the thrust with ease and manipulated his own whip-sword with a skill which few fighting men on the planet Tarth could have equalled.

The weapons were strange ones by Earth standards and would have probably been considered impractical. They were a good six feet in length with the supple resiliency of a fly casting rod. The trick of using them effectively lay in controlling the sway and whip of the long thin blades by skillful use of the wrist. An expert Tarthan swordsman could parry a thrust with a lightning whip of his blade, arc the singing steel in the opposite direction and perhaps bring his opponent down with a thrust that would enter between his shoulder blades, the sword still arced to describe half a circle.

* * * * *

In essence, this favorite weapon of the Tarthans was a combination of whip and sword and combat was a matter of thrusting at angles far wider than could be achieved with a stiff blade. A good Tarthan swordsman would have been an excellent billiard player on Earth for his knowledge of workable angles was of necessity supreme.

Retoc the Abarian was a master at this swordplay. Enjoying himself hugely because there was little risk, he toyed with the less skillful Nadian. He did not intend to kill Jlomec, fearing the wrath of Bontarc. He meant only to teach the stupid Nadian a lesson he would not forget.

But as his blade sang and stung, its needle point darting in like the fangs of a snake's head, and as Jlomec's clumsy blade sought desperately to parry, Retoc's blood lust rose to the fore. The joy of dealing death to the helpless was upon him and with a swift thrust he allowed his blade to enter Jlomec's unprotected back just above the kidney, to streak upward through his body and pierce his heart.

Frightened at what he had done he jerked the blade free. Its entwined force whirled Jlomec in a complete circle from which he fell limply, dead before he hit the ground.

Retoc stood scowling at the fallen Nadian, his dripping blade rising and falling gently in the breeze as he held it extended. The Abarian's eyes darted to the group of brown-skinned folk, his anger centering upon them as he nimbly switched the blame for this foul murder from his own shoulders to theirs. If they had not been at the well--

He was ready to extend his slaughter in their direction, to wipe out the lot of them, when he paused, his scowl deepening. There was fear and awe upon their faces but they were not regarding either Retoc or his fallen adversary.

Their eyes were turned in another direction and Retoc sent his own glance after theirs. His eyes held upon what he saw. A naked man. But such a man as he had never before seen on all the planet Tarth.

CHAPTER VII

The White God

Bram Forest returned to consciousness and realized the black nausea of his previous moments had vanished. All traces of the sickness were gone as he opened his eyes, his mind intent upon the small flat package that had dropped from the box in which he had found the strange disc-like instrument. But the package was not within reach.

This caused only a small part of his bewilderment however. His attention was riveted mainly upon the tableaux being enacted before him. A group of people, almost as naked as himself, deeply browned of skin, stood huddled nearby.

Almost as though for the entertainment of these, two grim and uniformed warriors were facing each other on the level turf before the strange circular ground-entrance beside which Bram Forest found himself.

The two warriors possessed strange supple swords which they manipulated with much skill. At least, one of the warriors did. The other seemed clumsy in comparison but there was no hint of cowardice in his manner.

Upon closer inspection the two warriors who had seemed of a cut at first glance were quite dissimilar. The one of greater skill was dark and possessed of a cruel mouth and venomous dark eyes. The other was slim and fair with contemptuous blue eyes. He fought with an erect stiffness in his shoulders which was both awkward and dignified at the same time.

The sympathy of Bram Forest went out instinctively to the fair one but the dark, sinister swordsman held his attention. There was something naggingly familiar about the dark one's cruel face. A tantalizing familiarity that bemused Bram Forest even as the singing swords thrust and parried with that of the dark warrior always on the offensive and the other fighter striving more for self-preservation than for aggressiveness.

Where, Bram Forest wondered, had he seen the dark one before? Nowhere, of course. Any previous contact was impossible. Or was it? Dared he, Bram Forest, call anything impossible after what had already occurred?

Bram Forest glanced down and realized he had been removing the disc from his left wrist and placing it on his right. He had committed the act instinctively, in the same manner he breathed and moved and his mind went back momentarily to the two tubes he had found in his ears when he awoke in the cavern back on Earth.

Back on Earth? How did he know he was not still on that planet? I've got to stop

ing these things I possess knowledge of b

now not why. I must take them at face value and without wonder. Otherwise I shall spend all my years in conflict with my own mind.

At that moment, the dark warrior's whip-sword whined in a skillful arc and entered the body of the fair one. A moan of sympathy arose from the waiting group as the defeated warrior sank to the ground, his face strained in agony and fast becoming a death-mask.

The dark warrior stepped back, a cruel sneer of satisfaction gleaming in his eyes. Bram Forest, sickened by the unequal contest rose up from where he lay and moved forward. This drew the attention of both the group and the victorious warrior and the effect was electric.

The huddled observers reacted with a mixture of consternation, awe, and fear that would have been comic under less tense circumstances. They dropped as one to their knees. They placed their foreheads upon the ground. A concerted moan escaped them that far transcended in depth and feeling the one with which they had reacted to the death of the fair warrior.

* * * * *

In a language Bram Forest was completely familiar with, their voices sounded a chant of fear and awe. "The white god has come! The white god has come! The white god has come!"

Bram Forest scarcely considered them. He was advancing upon the dark warrior with the clean, stalking movements of a tiger, his great shoulders low, his magnificent legs tense for the death spring.

The dark one was frozen from surprise. From whence had this naked white creature erupted? He stood stiff from sudden fear and uncertainty a moment too long and the hands of the avenger were upon him. The fingers of those hands were like steel talons driving deep into his throat and in his panicked mind he looked upon the face of death and found it horrible. He was being driven down to the ground, lower and lower in abject submission by this strange and terrible manifestation the brown-skinned ones had called a white god.

The dark warrior's mind raced and in his terrorized desperation a native cunning sprang to his aid. Using every ounce of his remaining strength, he forced words up from his tortured throat. "Would you kill an unarmed man?"

The words touched a responsive chord in Bram Forest's mind. The craven spoke aptly. By killing him thus, was not Bram Forest doing the same thing for which he had condemned the o

?

Bram Forest straightened and hurled the cringing figure from him. "Then defend yourself, swine!" he cried and seized up the dead warrior's shining whip sword.

The dark one sought means of escape but he feared turning from this avenger as much as facing him. He could only play for time.

Rising, he retrieved his own sword and faced the other with his expression of fear not one whit abated. The man of the steel hands whipped the sword experimentally and the dark one was struck by a ray of hope. The other's actions with the blade were as clumsy as had been those of Jlomec the Nadian. Perhaps all was not lost.

* * * * *

The dark one gripped his blade and moved forward in the customary crouch of the Tarthan fighting man. Then elation welled up within him as the answering posture of the other revealed him as knowing nothing whatever of the whip-sword's use. The dark one's smile returned. God or not, the skill of this one with the ancient weapon of Tarth was even less than that of the pathetic Jlomec.

The dark warrior parried a clumsy thrust with ease and whipped his blade around to harass the other's exposed back. "You are a fool!" he said, "whatever else you may be. As you die, give thought to the fact that you join a large company. Those who have faced the greatest swordsman of Tarth and fallen ignobly before his blade."

With that the dark one whipped his blade home and spun his adversary expertly in order to discover the exact point of entrance of the blade. His aim was true.

It was just a trifle low but the other fell heavily and the dark warrior withdrew his blade and wiped it uneasily. His nervousness sprang from fear. If one of these so-called gods had appeared, why not two, or four, or a dozen? The Tarthan swordsman, well up on the principles of discretion, felt a sudden urge to be quit of this locality.

It was indeed a disconcerting place. Brown folk, the identity and origin of which he knew not. A white creature with steel hands appearing from nowhere. What would the next manifestation be?

The dark warrior moved swiftly toward his waiting stad. He mounted and rode away and not until the figures about the well were tiny spots almost beyond range of his vision, did he again breathe easily.

CHAPTER VIII

The Brown Virgin

Bram Forest moved from unconscious into a dark half-world of pain and frustration. He felt his flame-seared body to be hanging upon the edge of a black abyss into which he could neither fall nor draw away from.

At times, it seemed, gentle hands reached out to explore but were without the strength to draw him back from the perilous precipice upon which he hung.

There was an endless time of balance in this dark half-world and then the thick blackness faded to a gray, the precipice seemed to draw away of its own volition, and the pain within him lessened.

He opened his eyes.

He was lying on a bed of soft, cool moss in a semi-dark cavern with the sound of tinkling water in the distance. He lay staring at the ceiling for a long time, wondering into what manner of place he had come and how. Then his keen ears caught the sound of breathing other than his own; a soft breathing that fell gently upon his senses and calmed rather than alerted him.

He turned his head and saw a beautiful, naked brown-skinned girl kneeling nearby but beyond his reach. He was struck first by the beauty of her face and form and then by the fact that she was not as completely brown as his first impression had given him to believe. Her breasts and loins were of pure white and droplets of shining water ran down her body.

She was in the act of replacing a sort of leather harness upon her person and Bram Forest realized she had just returned from bathing at whatever place the unseen water gurgled and laughed and that she was now dressing herself.

He held his peace until the act was completed, not wishing to embarrass her by making his consciousness known while she was nude.

After a few moments, the harness was in place and she rose to stand erect and shake out her dark shining hair. Bram Forest chose this time to speak. "I do not know who you are, but I am obviously in your debt. My gratitude."

The girl reacted like a startled fawn and drew back several paces. "You have regained consciousness?"

"It seems so. Where is this place and how came I here?"

"We brought you."

Bram Forest's brow furrowed in thought. "Oh, yes. Now I remember. There were a group of people such as you at the place I tried to fight the dark swordsman with his own weapons." Bram Forest chuckled ruefully. "It seems I did not fare so well."

"

discovered you were not our god, the others w

d to leave you there to die but I resisted this as being inhuman and made them bring you here."

"Where are the rest?"

"They have returned."

"Returned whence?"

The girl lowered her beautiful head sadly. "That I cannot tell you."

* * * * *

Bram Forest smiled. "Be not so sad. The fact that you prefer to keep the information to yourself is no reason for near-tears."

"I am not sad for that reason, sire."

"Then why?"

"Because you asked the question and are even more surely therefore, not our god."

Bram Forest was deeply curious and half-amused at the trend of this conversation. "Tell me this, then. Why does my asking the question eliminate all possibility of my being your god?"

"Because if you were the god we seek and yearn for, you would not have to ask where my people went. You would know."

"Instead of clarifying the situation," Bram Forest mused, "each question sends me deeper and deeper into a mental labyrinth."

"We risked our lives in going to the place you found us. It was forbidden to credit the ancient legend of our people. Therefore--"

"What legend?"

"That upon this day and at that place our god would appear to deliver us."

* * * * *

Bram Forest, now desperately seeking a question that would clarify rather than further befuddle, held up his hand. "Wait. If you expected a god to appear and I arrived on schedule, how can you be so sure that I am not he?"

"We thought so when you advanced upon the hideous Abarian and took his throat in your great hands. But when you not only allowed him to live but also suffered him to take up his whip-sword and come within an eyelash of killing you, we knew you were not our god."

Bram Forest nodded with understanding. "I can see now how stupid that act was. Certainly not a manner in which a genuine god would conduct himself." He glanced at the girl and smiled. "Please come closer that I may see you better."

She moved her head in the negative, reluctantly, Bram Forest thought, and replied, "If you were our god I would gladly place myself in your power to do with me as you would, but as you are mortal, I must remain away from you."

Bram Forest frowned. "Again things get murky."

"I

a virgin," the beautiful girl explained simply and with no self-consciousness whatever. "I must remain so until my time is ordained. If I lost my virginity, even through violation that I resist, I would immediately be delivered into the Golden Ape."

Bram Forest came upright, causing the girl to retreat a step further in alarm. "The Golden Ape, did you say?"

"Yes."

"And you are a virgin--"

This last was a statement rather than a question as Bram Forest sank back, his eyes misty with thought. "An ape, a boar, a stallion--" he pondered. "A virgin's feast--"

The girl eyed him with concern. "Are you sure that your wound has not caused--"

"It is not that," he said, switching his mind back to things of the moment. "I'm just wondering--might you tell me your name without breaking any rules of reticence?"

* * * * *

"I am Ylia," she said with a childlike solemnity that touched Bram Forest.

"And does Ylia never smile?"

It seemed to him she made an effort to do this but was so unfamiliar with the expression that she could not manage it.

He extended a hand, not disconcerted that she did not come close and take it. He said, "Ylia, I would not again ask a question you did not wish to answer before. But I am mightily puzzled about the life you must have led--about that manner of males you have had contact with. They are certainly a miserable lot if a female of their race must look to her virtue every waking moment.

"As for me, Ylia--and please believe--I would no more touch you in desire than I would knowingly injure a child. You are safe in my presence as in the most guarded room of a nunnery."

If he expected gratitude or a pat on the back for his nobility, he was rudely surprised. Ylia straightened, her young breasts protruding gracefully and if she did not react with anger, her face mirrored something close to it.

"Then I am not desirable?"

Bram Forest blinked. "I did not say that. You are one of the fairest I have ever set eyes upon."

This puzzled Ylia completely. "Then in the name of the Golden Ape, why--?"

Bram Forest raised his hand with a gesture of both interruption and surrender. "Please! Let us pursue this subject no further. The waters grow deep and I suspect quicksand at their bottom. There are questions in my mind. Allow me to bring them forth with the understanding that you do not have to answer any you do not wish to."

It was evident that Ylia's mind was also a bag of conundrums relative to this late candidate for godhood who had insulted her desirability and yet complimented her upon it at the same time. She moved forward and sat gracefully down near the moss resting place of her patient.

Bram Forest was aware of her tenseness. She was like a beautiful animal ready to spring away at the first sign of hostile movement on his part. But he also got the impression that coming within reach of his arms thrilled her. He believed this even while knowing that she would have fought like a tigress against any advance upon his part.

He said, "Ylia, you are indeed a strange child. You remained here after your people left and brought me back from the brink of death even with the fear that I would rise up and violate you as soon as I acquired the strength to do so. Your thought processes are difficult to understand."

Ylia lowered her eyes. "You wished to ask some questions, sire."

"My name is Bram Forest. The sire ill-becomes you."

"Bram--Forest," she murmured experimentally. Then she raised her eyes and there dawned upon her face the most brilliant of smiles. Her look was one of both dignity and gratitude. "You do me much honor, Bram Forest!"

"Honor? I fail to understand."

Ylia's eyes glowed proudly. "Why, you treat me with such respect that I could be even Volna herself!"

"And who is this Volna?"

* * * * *

Ylia was startled at this strange man's ignorance. "Why, everyone on Tarth knows of Volna, Princess of Nadia, sister of Bontarc, who is Prince of Nadia and ruler of that great nation. She is the most exquisitely beautiful woman ever to be born on Tarth."

"Fancy that," Bram Forest said with a lack of enthusiasm that proved marked disinterest. "I'm afraid I've never had the pleasure of the lady's acquaintance, nor of her illustrious brother, either."

Ylia lowered her eyes in sadness. "She was also the sister of Jlomec."

"And who, pray is Jlomec?"

"I thought you knew since you tried to avenge his death. He was the Nadian the cruel Abarian Retoc slew under your very eyes."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Bram Forest said. But the cowardly death had been accomplished and Bram Forest's mind did not dwell upon it as he could not see where it affected him one way or another.

"Ylia," he said, "take it as a supposition that I was born this very moment and know nothing of this world or its customs. With that in mind, tell me of it--the things you would tell a wondering child."

She glanced at him strangely. "I will tell you all that I am not bound to hold secret."

"I would not wish to know more."

The beautiful Ylia leaned forward, so preoccupied with the task she had set herself that all her reserve and wariness left her. Her action brought her lowered head close to Bram Forest's face and the sweet smell of her newly washed and shining hair was in his nostrils. Then he also became preoccupied with the map Ylia was drawing on the floor of the cavern.

Long they sat thus, Ylia enjoying her task and Bram Forest's facile mind drawing in each syllable she spoke and committing it to memory.

Finally the sun lowered and the interior of the cavern darkened until they could no longer see each other. The most important conviction Bram Forest arrived at from Ylia's discourse was indeed a startling one. He was certain that this Tarth was a twin planet to Earth of which there was complete knowledge in his mind. He could hardly escape the fact that Tarth swung in an orbit exactly opposite to that of its more familiar counterpart, thus remaining invisible from it.

This conviction came to him through several things Ylia said and it was buttressed by a bit of Tarthan mythology she chanced to mention. The legend told of a flame-god, obviously the sun, which stood forth in its wrath one long-distant day and hurled two great stones at a demon who came from far away bent upon torment. This last Bram Forest thought, was perhaps a comet of great size that tore both worlds from the sun and set them upon their orbits. The existence of the mythological legend indicated too, that civilization on Tarth was not backward or at least had not been in ages gone.

In the more exact realm, Bram Forest learned that Tarth was far less watery than its invisible sister, scarcely half its surface consisting of ocean. It had two ice caps at the poles, known as the Outer Reaches and an equator termed the Inner Belt.

* * * * *

There were no isolated continents according to Ylia's map, all the dry surfaces being connected by wide passages of land through the continuous ocean.

Ylia's description of the people interested Bram Forest most intensely. On Tarth, he learned, there was no association of nations, each mistrusting the others in a world where a state of continuous war at some point of the globe was an accepted state of affairs which no one sought to ameliorate.

Ylia herself was hazy upon the description and number of the nations. She thought some two hundred existed but only the most important could she describe.

* * * * *

The Abarians were the most successfully warlike, fearing only the Nadians to the south. This because though the Nadians were not aggressive and even treated other lesser nations in a kindly fashion, they possessed an inherent fighting skill and a power potential that had not been tested in recallable history. Though they had not fought for centuries, their potential had not lessened because such a folly would have been considered tantamount to national suicide on Tarth.

There were also the Utalians that Bram Forest visualized as some sort of lizard men for the reason that they possessed the defensive characteristics of the chameleon. There was also another intriguing race, no member of which Ylia had ever seen. She referred to them as the Twin People of Coom, an area near the north Outer Reach. Bram Forest speculated upon what manner of people they would be and it came to him that the evolutionary processes on Tarth had not corresponded to those of Earth, where all members of the human race evolved into practically the same form.

Then a name came into Bram Forest's mind; a name that rose out of that mysterious well of knowledge in his subconscious; a well he could not explain but had been forced to accept. He no longer questioned it.

"Tell me of the Ofridians."

Ylia started as though he had slapped her. The deep brown of her beautiful face paled somewhat and her eyes grew very sad.

Bram Forest saw the sadness by the light of the moon, that had risen and was sending wan light in through the cavern's entrance. He only sensed the paleness from the tremor of Ylia's voice. "It grows late. I must go and bring food. Your strength must be nurtured and greatened."

With that, she hurried off in the direction of the sounding water, leaving Bram Forest both bewildered and intrigued. Why had she reacted so violently to his question? And for that matter, why had he been able to ask the question in the first place? By what process did he know the name Ofrid and that it designated a nation on Tarth, without knowing of that nation and already possessing the knowledge for which he had begged the patient and beautiful Ylia?

Then he remembered that he had resolved not to wonder about these things--and at the same instant, remembered something else.

The small, flat package that had fallen from the box back on Earth. It had been his first thought upon regaining consciousness near the Ofridian well but it had been pushed from his mind by subsequent events.

How long ago had that been? He tried to assess the passage of time but failed. The only indication of its length was the fact that he bore no wound where the Abarian's blade had entered his body. That pointed to a long span of unconsciousness but perhaps there were contributing factors.

* * * * *

He had sensed that the mysterious Ylia had at her command something that had healed him very swiftly but he had no proof of this.

At any rate, he had to retrieve the package if possible. But would it be possible? Granted the strange disc had brought him somehow from Earth to Tarth, would it repeat the process in the opposite direction?

He resolved to find out and began unbuckling the disc from its place on his right wrist.

As he did this a sound manifested outside the cavern but he was so intent upon his task that he gave little note. Quickly, he strapped the disc into its potent position on his left wrist. Then he sat tensely awaiting the reaction.

As he waited, the sound without became so pronounced he could no longer ignore it. He raised his head and saw a tall, sinister form outlined against the moonlight. He was unable to distinguish the features, but the outline told a sickening truth. Also the drawn whip-sword spoke eloquently of who this intruder was.

The Abarian of the Ofridian well in search of prey. The cowardly assassin who would now enter and find a defenseless man and a beautiful girl who would set him aflame with lust.

Rage threw a red curtain over Bram Forest's eyes as he struggled up to meet the intruder. But the latter never saw him because at that moment the now-familiar nausea seized Bram Forest's vitals, doubling him over.

And when the Abarian had advanced into the cavern, he found only an empty bed of moss, Bram Forest having been snatched up and whirled into darkness by the relentless hand of time put into terrifying motion.

CHAPTER IX

In Custody

Bram Forest regained consciousness upon a grassy slope across which slanted the rays of a setting sun. The same sun that had warmed him upon the planet Tarth--of this he was certain.

He arose and glanced about quickly, realizing--while he was sure he had returned to Earth--that he could be many miles from the mysterious mansion under which he had spent one hundred years.

[Illustration: Screaming, Ylia offered her own body in defense of her loved one.]

At first his heart sank because the terrain was not at all familiar. Then it rose again as he saw the tower of the gray mansion pushing somberly above the line of the forest top. He stood for a moment, orienting himself with the tower the center of his calculations. Then he moved out of the glade toward his right.

But he had gone scarcely ten feet into the wooded area when his sharpened instincts gave him quick warning and he dropped like a stone and lay still.

The sound of footsteps greatened until their echo came loud in his ears and a man passed not ten feet from his outstretched hands.

The man wore the blue uniform and smart cap of a state trooper and he was on the alert but not so much so as to detect the silent Bram Forest.

The latter, with the first moment he had had to give thought to himself since he had awakened in the cavern on the Plains of Ofrid, realized suddenly that he was no longer naked. He had of course been vaguely aware of this before but now he gave it his attention and realized what had happened. He focused on past events.

* * * * *

During his time of unconsciousness from the treacherous Abarian's blade thrust, the beautiful Ylia had garbed him in the brilliant uniform of the slain Nadian, Jlomec. This uniform was both colorful and practical but it did nothing to either hide or encumber the great muscles of his chest and arms, thighs.

The State Trooper passed on his way and Bram Forest wondered what he was doing about the old mansion. But this did not occupy his thoughts for long. As soon as the way was clear, he moved like a great cat through the underbrush toward the spot from whence he had made his exodus to the planet Tarth. As he skirted the last glade, he prayed that the second article in the box containing the fabulous disc he had now switched to his right wrist, still lay where he had carelessly dropped i

He came to the edge of the ope

eld and warily surveyed the terrain. No one was in sight. He strained his ears for the sound of any approaching footsteps and heard nothing. He sprang swiftly into the open and ran across the field.

It was there--the flat white package--exactly where he had dropped it that first morning. He swept it up, intent upon returning to the shelter of the forest.

But his interest in what lay beneath the white paper wrapping had grown to such a point of intensity that his footsteps lagged, his attention riveted upon the tantalizing thing, and he came to a full stop mid-field while his strong fingers tore at the wrappings.

The white parchment came away and Bram Forest stared at what was revealed. Then a strange and terrifying change came over him. His handsome features contorted as every drop of blood was drained from his face. His great frame shook as with an illness and such a demoniacal rage came over him as few people in this or any other world have seen.

Now a great and terrifying cry arose from his throat; a cry that make even the beasts of this forest freeze in their tracks and crouch lower in their places of concealment. A cry of such rage and agony that even the trees of the forest seemed to pause and listen in mute wonder....

* * * * *

Mulcahey Davis, State Trooper, picked brambles from the legs of his blue uniform and cursed his assignment in no uncertain terms.

Why in the name of law and decency had he and Mowbray been ordered to patrol this tangled, deserted spook-hole? Sure--the body of some old hobo had been found in a well with rocks thrown on it but what were he and Mowbray going to prove by tramping around through these brambles?

Mulcahey Davis heard footsteps and looked up to see Mowbray laboring across the last few yards of his beat. Mowbray broke from the last clutching strands of thorn bush and began beating burrs from his legs. "Find anything?" he asked.

"Not a blasted thing. It's downright crazy, our clambering around this woods. What will we find? A couple of rabbits?"

"That body in the well has to be investigated," Mowbray said, seriously. "Pretty odd deal."

"What progress have they made?"

"They've located the outfit that held this place in trust, but the guy in charge had a stroke or something. He can't be questioned. They may never be able to que

m. An old guy named Pride. He's in pretty bad shape."

"Chances are he wouldn't know anything about it even if they could ask him. What would he have been doing out here?"

"There's that funny fire in the basement, too. Nothing routine about that. Fire so hot it melted rock. A lot of unanswered questions here."

"If they'd ask me, I'd tell them--"

Mulcahey Davis' throat froze as a terrible cry smote his ears. Mowbray paled suddenly and the two men looked at each other in instinctive fear.

But they were tried and tested law-enforcement officers and were not held in the grip of terror for long. "Did you hear that?" Mulcahey Davis said.

"Good lord, man! How could I help it!"

"Where'd it come from?"

"Over there."

"Let's go."

The two troopers plunged again into the undergrowth to emerge at the edge of an open field. And regardless of their personal courage and experience in their line of effort, what they saw froze them anew.

A giant of a man--a creature of godlike proportions stood in the open field, washed by the rays of the setting sun. His great arms were held aloft and he was looking up into the sky with a terrifying expression that was a mixture of pain and rage.

He was speaking and his great voice echoed in what was remindful of a thunderous prayer. "I know not the purpose for which I was created but well do I now know my dedicated task. Vengeance! Vengeance such as this world or any other has never seen!"

With this the giant--clad in a strange colorful uniform of some sort--dropped to his knees and lowered his great head into his hands.

Mowbray's face was grim and alert. "Come on," he whispered. "We're behind him so we get a break. Move in quietly. And let's get him before he sees us. I've got a hunch he could lick ten of us and we don't want to use our guns."

They crossed the field softly and moved in behind the kneeling man. They acted in concert with an expertness telling of lengthy experience.

Mowbray was thankful for the way it turned out. He knew not why the giant put up no resistance. The man seemed stunned as from a great blow and before he could recover, the troopers had him bound hand and foot with their belts.

Mulcahey Davis got to his feet and wiped the sweat from his face. "There's one for the psychos and a padded cell afterwards."

"You said it," Mowbray agree

artily. "Let's take him in."

CHAPTER X

The Road to Nadia

The stads of Abaria, like the masters who rode them, were ill-accustomed to the clear cold air of Nadia. They snorted visible jets of vapor into the crisp air as their splayed feet scratched and slipped, seeking purchase on the ice-covered, up-tilted rocky plain.

"It's an accursed country, lord," Hultax told the king of the Abarians as their steeds advanced shoulder and shoulder.

Retoc sat tall and straight on the stad's broad back, his black cloak with the royal emblem billowing in the stiff wind, his hard handsome face ruddy with the cold air, his cruel eyes mere slits against the Nadian wind. "Quiet, you fool," he admonished Hultax. "Everything we Abarians say and do in Nadia must be sweetness and light--now."

The vanguard of the long column of Abarian riders had reached a rushing mountain stream, its waters too swift to freeze in the sub-zero temperature. Lifting one hand overhead, Retoc called a halt.

"They'll find out, lord," Hultax persisted. "They'll find out what you did. I know they will. They'll find out it was you who killed Jlomec, their ruler's brother."

Retoc smiled. The smile made Hultax' blood run cold, for he had seen such a smile before--when Retoc witnessed the execution of disloyal Abarian subjects. The smile hardened on Retoc's face, as if it had frozen there in the cold Nadian wind. "Dismount your steed," he said in a soft voice which only Hultax heard.

Trembling, Hultax obeyed his master's command. His stad, suddenly riderless, pawed nervously at the frost-hardened ground on the edge of the stream. Retoc withdrew his whip-sword and fondled the jewel-encrusted haft. "If you ever say that again, here in Nadia or elsewhere, I will kill you," he warned his lieutenant.

"But the brown girl--"

"The brown girl be damned!" roared Retoc in sudden fury.

"We haven't been able to find her. That day at the cave, she came rushing out, lord, while you--"

"I was detained," Retoc said, some of the passion gone from his voice. He would never forget the sight of the iron-thewed young man, who once had almost strangled him, growing suddenly, incredibly transparent, then disappearing. He had stood there, whip-sword in hand, mouth agape, while the brown girl ran past him and--according to what Hultax had told him later--mounted his own stad and vanished across the Ofridian plain.

"But lord, don't

?" Hultax demanded. "The brown girl knows w

happened to Jlomec, prince of the royal Nadian blood. If she attends the royal funeral. She will--"

Retoc laughed. Hultax blanched. He had heard such laughter when enemies of Retoc and thus of Abaria had died in pain. "Fool, fool!" he heard Retoc say now. "Think you a bedraggled wayfaring maid of the Ofridian desert will be invited to the funeral of a prince of the Nadian royal blood?"

"Nevertheless, sire," Hultax persisted, "that day at the cave I took the liberty to send three of our best stadsmen after the girl with orders to capture her or kill her on sight."

Slowly, as a thaw spreads in spring over the broad Nadian ice fields, Retoc smiled at his second in command. Hultax too let his face relax into a grateful grin: until now he had been teetering on the brink of violent death, and he knew it.

"You may mount," Retoc said.

* * * * *

Hastily Hultax climbed astride his stad. Retoc lifted his arm overhead and made a circular motion with his outstretched hand. The first of the Abarian stads advanced with some reluctance into the swift cold shallow water of the stream.

"What about the white giant?" Hultax asked unwisely when the entire party had reached the other side and Retoc was urging his stad up the slippery bank.

"Have your scouts been able to find the wayfarers who saw him?"

"No, sire. Only the girl nursed him back to health. The others fled."

"And wisely. They have learned to hold their tongues, as you should learn, Hultax. They will give us no trouble. As far as they are concerned, there is no white giant."

"But there is talk of what happened at the Tower, and of Portox' wizardry, and a god who would return, full-grown in exactly a hundred years--"

"Shut up!" Retoc cried, almost screaming the words.

But that night at the Abarian encampment a day and a half's march from Nadia city, Retoc dreamed of Queen Evalla, the lovely Ofridian ruler whose slow death by torture he had relished as the final act of his utter destruction of the once proud Ofridian nation. Evalla in the dream seemed happy and confident. Retoc awoke sweating although frigid winds howled over the Nadian ice-fields. Her confidence sent unknown fear through him.

* * * * *

"Really, it's quite simple," the superbly-muscled

oner said in the language which was not his own but whi

e could speak as well as a native. "You see, it wasn't simple at all until I saw what was in the package, but it's quite simple now. In the package was a picture of my mother, the dead Queen Evalla. I am her son. I am of the royal blood. When I saw the picture, it suddenly triggered my memory-responses, as Portox had arranged. Then--"

"What about the old guy in the well?" the trooper asked unimaginatively.

"I'm sorry. I can't answer your questions now. I have to return to my home. The handful of wayfarers who alone are left of a once great nation are waiting for vengeance. I will...."

His voice trailed on, earnestly, politely. The trooper looked at the man from the state mental hospital, who shook his head slowly. They left the powerful, polite prisoner in his cell and went through the corridor to the prison office.

"Real weirdy, huh, doc?" the trooper said.

"A--uh--weirdy to you, but rather cut and dry to me, I'm afraid," Dr. Slonamn said. "Delusions of grandeur and delusions of persecution. Advanced paranoia, I'm afraid."

"It's funny, doc. When they took everything away from him he might hurt himself with, he didn't mind at all. Only the bracelet. Three strong men had to hold him when they took the bracelet."

"Bracelet?" Dr. Slonamn said.

"We got it in the office. I'll show you."

The bracelet turned out to be a small, mesh-metal strap as wide around as a big man's upper arm. Attached to the strap was a disc of silvery metal.

"You'd think it was worth a million bucks," the trooper said.

Dr. Slonamn nodded sagely. "Paranoid. It helps confirm the diagnosis. You see, out of touch with the real world, a paranoid can attach great value to utterly worthless objects. Well, I'll write out my report, sergeant."

"Captain Caruthers said to thank you, sir."

"Not at all. Part of my job."

Meanwhile, back in his cell, the prisoner, big hands gripping the bars so tight that his knuckles were white, was thinking: I've got to make them understand. Somehow I've got to make them understand before it's too late.

He closed his eyes, lost in intense thought. When he did so, an image swam before his mind's eye. He did not know how this could be, but ascribed it to more of the dead Portox' magic.

What he saw was the barren ice fields of Nadia, with several great caravans making their slow way across the bleak blazing whiteness toward Nadia City. As was the custom in Nadia, the prisoner--whose name was Bram Forest--knew, great funeral games would be held to honor the memory of the late beloved Prince Jlomec. And it was here in frigid Nadia, at such a time as this, when all the royal blood of all the royal households of Tarth gathered, the wizardry of Portox seemed to tell him, that vengeance would come. Here, if only....

Ylia!

The image blurred. He had seen her once. His knuckles went white as bleached bone on the bars. He concentrated every atom of his will. Ylia, Ylia! But now with his eyes shut he saw nothing. With his eyes opened, only the bars of his cell and the cell-block corridor beyond. Ylia, Ylia! Hear me. There is danger on the road to Nadia. Ylia....

CHAPTER XI

On the Ice Fields of Nadia

B'ronth the Utalian left footprints in the snow.

Otherwise, B'ronth was invisible. But if a hidden observer watched the Utalian's slow progress across the ice fields of Nadia he would see where the ice was soft or where snow had fallen during the night into the gullies, the unexpected, mysterious appearance of footprints, a left staggered after a right, then another left, then a right again, then a left.

Actually, B'ronth the Utalian was not invisible. But like all Utalians, he was a chameleon of a man. Within seconds his skin would assume the color of its environment, utterly and completely. Thus, from above B'ronth the Utalian was the dazzling white of the Nadian ice-fields; from below, looking up at the pale cloudless sky, he was cold, transparent blue.

All morning he had been trailing the girl. He had reached her camp on the road to Nadia only moments after she had quit it in company with an old man. From the tattered snow cloaks they wore, they both clearly were wayfarers. B'ronth could have challenged them at once, sprinting across the ice toward them, but he hadn't done that. B'ronth the Utalian was a coward. He accepted the fact objectively: his people were notorious cowards. The proper time would come, he told himself. There would come a time when the girl and the old man were helpless. Then he, B'ronth, would strike.

The day before an Abarian warrior had given him a description of the girl and had promised him a bag of gold for her capture, half a bag of gold if he killed her and could prove it. A bag of gold, he thought. He would take her alive. It was a long, cold road to Nadia City. True, B'ronth the Utalian was small of stature, a puny creature like all his people. And there were certain disadvantages in his perfect camouflage. He was walking naked across the ice-fields in order to remain unseen. His flesh shivered and his bones were stiff. But a Nadian boy named Lulukee, whom B'ronth had promised half the gold, was not many minutes' march behind him with warm clothing, food, and drink. After he captured the girl....

* * * * *

Invisible, he mounted a rise where solid sheet ice adhered to the shoulder of a rocky hill. Below him, traversing a snow-floored valley and so far away that they were mere dots against the snow, were the old man and the girl.

B'ronth the Utalian chuckled. The soun

ept up instantly and dispersed by the wind. It was a

d wind and it all but froze B'ronth to the marrow, but the Nadian sun was surprisingly warm and now seemed to beam down on him with promise of his golden reward. Shivering both from cold and delight, the invisible Utalian walked swiftly down into the snow-mantled valley.

There would be a trail of footprints for the boy Lulukee to follow....

* * * * *

"Cold, Hammeth?" Ylia asked her companion.

"No, girl. I'll manage if you will. Is it much further?"

"Half a day's march to Nadia City yet, I'm afraid," Ylia said. "We could rest if you wish."

The man was extremely old by Tarthian standards, probably three hundred and fifty years old. He wore a snow-cape of purullian fur which the wind whipped about his bony frame and up over his completely bald head. "I'm sorry, Ylia," he said suddenly. There were tears in his eyes which the cold and the wind did not explain.

"What for? You came to the cave. You accompanied me here to Nadia."

"When Retoc the Abarian almost killed the White God, I fled with the others."

"If you didn't flee you too might have been slain, Hammeth."

"Yet you remained behind."

"He still lived. Someone had to tend him."

Hammeth's breath came in shallow gasps. He once had been a strong, big man, but the life and the strength had fled his frame when Retoc destroyed Ofrid, a hundred years before. As a wayfarer on the Plains of Ofrid, he had aged in those hundred years. And he had shrunk and shriveled with approaching senility. "Tell me, Ylia," he asked, panting, "is this Bram Forest you speak of indeed the--the god of the legend? The God of the Tower come to right the ancient wrongs?"

A frown marred the beauty of Ylia's matchless face. "At first," she said with a far-away look in her lovely eyes, "at first I thought he was. Hadn't he come, suddenly, from nowhere, at the ordained moment? But then when he did not slay Retoc, when instead he allowed Retoc the use of his whip-sword and was almost slain by Retoc, when he bled like any mortal, when he--" All at once Ylia was blushing.

"What is it, child?" Hammeth asked.

"Nothing. It is nothing."

"Ylia. You were the infant daughter of a lady in waiting of the royal court of Ofrid. I was a captain of the Queen's Guards. When Retoc's legions brought their

h and destruction, I fled to the wilderness with you. I raised you from infancy. I--" the old man's eyes clouded over with emotion--"you have no secrets from me, child."

Ylia was still blushing. But a serene smile replaced the frown on her face. "Very well, Father Hammeth, I will tell you. There in the cave as I nursed the stranger back to health, as he grew stronger and could move about, as we conversed and came to know each other, I--I desired him."

Hammeth said nothing. His face was stern.

"Please," said Ylia, laughing now that her secret was out. "It wasn't the kind of desire that could make me a candidate for the Golden Ape, but--I desired him. It was a pure, sweet emotion, such as I have never felt before. I wanted him. I wanted to serve him. I wanted to spend my life helping him and ... Hammeth ... Father Hammeth ... loving him. There, I have said it."

* * * * *

Hammeth only muttered. They plodded on through the snow, which here was deep and powdery so they floundered sometimes to their knees.

"But a girl shouldn't feel such desire for a god, so I told myself he was mortal." Abruptly and for no reason that Hammeth could fathom, Ylia began to cry.

"What is it, child? What is it?"

"He--he fled. He had lost much blood and he was weak, yes, but he didn't even stay to protect me. He fled from Retoc. Is that a god? Is that even a man who can bring retribution to Retoc? Is it, Hammeth? Is it?"

"Yet you're taking the road to Nadia even as legend says the White God will take the road to Nadia."

"Nonsense," said Ylia, wiping away her tears. "Someone has to tell the Nadians what really happened to poor Jlomec, that's all. Retoc, Retoc will have them eating off his hand. He'll have them believing whatever he says. They'll never know that he killed a prince of their royal blood."

"But what can Bontarc of Nadia--or anyone--do against the power of Retoc's Abarians?"

"The White God could--"

"Ah, you see? Then perhaps you do believe, after all."

"The White God or whoever he was," said Ylia coldly, "fled a coward from Retoc." She pouted. "And yet, and yet he seemed so confused."

"Perhaps he fled so that the Ofridians might live again in the pride of their greatness," Hammeth declared with vehemence.

"You believe, don't you, Father Hammeth?" Ylia asked simply.

"I want to believe, child."

"You're panting so. You're tired. We'll have to stop and rest."

They were traversing the deepest part of the valley where the Nadian wind, funneling through between the hills flanking the depression, had piled the snow into drifts twice the height of a man. They hunkered down in the lee of one of the snow-drifts, where the wind could not reach them. With stiff fingers Ylia withdrew strips of jerked stadmeat from the inside pocket of her snow cloak, sharing them with Hammeth. They munched the tough cold meat, Ylia looking at the old man with tenderness and affection. Her foster father, he had been the only parent she had ever known. She closed her eyes and for a moment thought back over the years they had spent as wayfarers on the Ofridian Plain, the years dreaming of revenge and succor which would never come, the years....

"Ylia! Ylia!"

Father Hammeth was calling her name, urgently. She shook herself from her reverie. They were seated with their backs to one of the great snow-drifts, where it fell off suddenly like a suspended, frozen sea wave. With a trembling hand Hammeth was pointing before him, out across the ice fields.

There in the soft snow which mantled the ice of Nadia to a depth of only a few inches, were footprints. They were not old prints, deposited there when some wayfarer had passed. Incredibly, they were being made even as Hammeth and Ylia watched, as if by some creature with no palpable existence. The icy wind seemed intensified.

* * * * *

"It--it's coming toward us," Hammeth said, his voice a croaking whisper. Ylia knew that he was afraid again. Somehow with the advancing years, the steel and fire had gone from Hammeth's heart. Or perhaps, she thought in sympathy, the terrible defeat and destruction of Ofrid a hundred years ago had done this to him, had turned one of the Queen's proven champions into an aging craven wayfarer.

"We'll have to flee," Hammeth said breathlessly.

Behind them was the frozen wave of snow. To the right, far away across the snows, Abaria and the Plains of Ofrid. To the left, not half a day's journey, Nadia City. Ahead of them, the advancing footprints.

"Your whip-sword!" Ylia cried. "Quickly."

"I carry it, but I can't use it now," Hammeth protested. "I'm an old man, Ylia. An old man."

"Then let me have it."

"You? But you're just a girl. You couldn't--"

"Don't you see, Father Hammeth? It's only a man. An Utalian. It can't be anything else. If he comes in peace, well enough. Otherwise ... here, give me that sword."

But Hammeth shook his head with unexpected pride and pulled the weapon from its scabbard.

Just then the footprints became wider spaced and appeared more quickly in the snow. The invisible Utalian was running toward them. Awkward, cursing at his own impotence, Hammeth fumbled with his weapon.

You who call yourself Bram Forest, Ylia thought, White God or whatever you are--help us, help us! Then she hated herself for the unbidden thought. Bram Forest had deserted her once, hadn't he, after she had saved his life? What help could she expect from a man like Bram Forest? Or was Father Hammeth right? Perhaps Bram Forest had fled so that Ofrid might one day live again to see the wrath of the gods fall on Retoc and his Abarians.

Or, Ylia thought with an abrupt flash of insight, perhaps Bram Forest's flight had been out of his control. Perhaps he was as yet a pawn in a game he barely understood....

Bram Forest, we need you!

The running footprints were almost upon them.

CHAPTER XII

Volna the Beautiful

Bram Forest had been day-dreaming.

Ylia? Hadn't Ylia been calling his name? But how could that be? Ylia was almost two hundred million miles away. Clearly, as long as they kept the magic disc away from him, he could never see Ylia again. And besides, now that he had been vouchsafed a vision of his dead mother, the former queen of Ofrid, and now that that vision had conjured up the entire tragic past for him, why was it that when he shut his eyes and allowed the bright sun to beat down on the lids through the cell window he saw an image of the sun-browned maid, Ylia?

Could it be, he asked himself, wondering if somehow he were profaning the memory of the mother he had never known, that Ylia stood not for the past but for the present and the future, and that it was in the present and the unknown future that Bram Forest must live and do his life's work and perhaps perish, although he was motivated from the past?

A guard brought food on a tray. The cell door clanged open, the tray was delivered, the cell door clanged shut. The guard did not pay particular attention to Bram Forest: he had been a docile enough prisoner.

Ylia, he thought.

He knew he must escape next time the guard brought food.

* * * * *

Dr. Slonamn held up the bracelet with the metal disc on it and stared curiously at the contraption. He was a psychologist, he could hardly consider himself an expert on metallurgy. Still, he had never seen a metal like that from which the disc had been fashioned. It seemed too opaque for steel, too hard for silver. A steel and silver alloy, then? But he had never heard of a steel and silver alloy.

He held it up to the light. Like a fly's many-faceted eye it threw back manifold images of--himself. Somehow, it made him dizzy to gaze at the images. He drew his eyes away and had an impulse to fling the strange disc away across the room.

The sun was going down. He heard a clattering from the prison kitchen as the evening meal was prepared. Tomorrow, he thought, should see the completion of his work here. Another interview with the paranoid giant who had brought the disc, perhaps. The disc fascinated him.

He looked at it again. He didn't want to, and recognized the strange compulsion within himself. Then, before he quite realized it, he was staring at his multiple image again. His senses

here was a far-away rustling sound like--the w

came unbidden to his mind from a poem by Kipling--like the wind that blows between the worlds. He gazed again at the disc. It seemed to draw him, as a magnet draws iron filings. Now he wanted to fight it, wanted to fight with every ounce of his strength. A wave of giddiness swept over him, leaving nausea in its wake. He clutched at the prison-office desk for support. The rustling grew louder.

He saw--or thought he saw--a girl, a lovely, sun-bronzed girl. There was a look of fear on her face. She seemed to be crying out for help.

An abyss yawned before his feet, before his very soul. He longed despite himself to plunge into the abyss, whatever the fearful consequences might be. He lurched back, fighting the longing. Yet he knew he wouldn't win. He took a step forward....

"Give it to me!"

The voice, urgent, distant, beckoned him back to reality. It seemed a great distance off, but it was something to which he could hold.

"Give me that disc!"

He felt himself dragged roughly back, saw the abyss retreating. The rustling of the wind between the worlds became distant, a sound imagined rather than heard.

"Give it to me!"

* * * * *

He blinked. The nausea had washed over him. He felt weak, drained, exhausted. But the substantial reality of the prison office surrounded him.

The young giant stood before him, strapping the bracelet which held the disc on his powerful arm. A look of intense concentration was on his face. His skin was bathed with sweat although it was cool in the room.

"What did you do to the guard?" Dr. Slonamn asked, wondering if the prisoner would slay him.

"He'll be all right. I only hit him. I'm sorry. It was necessary." The giant spoke in haste. His eyes were clouded, dreamy, as if he had taken an overdose of barbituates.

"What are you going to do?"

"You saw? In the disc?"

"Yes," said Dr. Slonamn.

"I'm going. It's my home."

The giant took a step forward, then began to stagger.

"Your home?" Dr. Slonamn gasped. "Your home?"

The giant, who had given his name to the prison authorities as Bram Forest, did not answer. Dr. Slonamn reached out, as if to grab him. Bram Forest stood there, a smile and the acceptance of pain fighting for mastery of his face.

Dr.

namn staggered back as if struck. His hand had passed through Bram Forest's body.

Staggering, trembling, Dr. Slonamn leaned for support on the desk. He could see through Bram Forest now. See through him entirely.

A cold fierce wind, like no wind ever felt on Earth, touched him. He shuddered.

When he looked again, Bram Forest was gone....

* * * * *

"Retoc the Abarian!" the seneschal's voice proclaimed.

An uneasy stir passed through the crowd of mourning courtiers in the palace chamber. Retoc, ruler of Abaria, did not often visit Nadia. A state of armed tension existed between Abaria and Nadia of the ice fields. Nadia alone of the many disunited nations of Tarth had strength in some ways comparable to that of black forested Abaria, but even then, if a war came between the two nations, the issue would never seriously be in doubt.

As a matter of diplomacy, Retoc had been invited to the funeral of Prince Jlomec, although neither Bontarc, ruler of Nadia, nor his sister, Volna the Beautiful, had ever dreamed he would come.

While the crowd milled about in their white mourning garments, Retoc told the seneschal: "I wish an audience with the Princess Volna."

The crowd was suddenly quiet. Volna the Beautiful, haughty, imperious, princess of the royal blood, would certainly refuse to see the Abarian ruler. Nevertheless, the seneschal bowed low, said, "Your request will be carried to the staff of the royal household, lord," and disappeared behind a hanging.

* * * * *

Some time later, in another part of the palace, Bontarc was saying: "Volna, Volna, listen to me. You can't see that man now."

"I'm going to see him," Volna the Beautiful told her brother. "So it may not be said that a princess of the royal blood hid in fear behind a wall of tragedy."

"But sister! With dear Prince Jlomec still not on the burning barge which will carry him down the River of Ice on the final journey from which--"

"Please, brother," Volna said a little coldly. "I'm going to grant Retoc his audience. Don't you understand? He thinks me weakened by Jlomec's death. Oh, I loved the Prince, yes. He was always so--so quiet and aloof from affairs of state. But I can be strong if strong I have to be."

"Then you won't change your mind?" Bontarc asked. He was a fighting man by nature. The devious paths of diplomacy he set foot on only with reluctance.

For answer Volna said: "Let me prepare to greet the royal visitor." And she watched Bontarc leave her quarters.

At once she clapped her hands. Six serving maids skipped through the hangings into her huge bower and while they clustered jabbering about her like so many excited birds, she undid the fastening at her left shoulder and allowed her gown of mourning white to fall in a crumpled heap at her feet. She stood naked and perfectly still while the serving maids administered to her, each girl a master in one of the cosmetic arts. And Volna, she of the haughty face and glorious body, she who already had been beautiful to look upon, was soon transformed by the cosmetic arts into the loveliest woman the planet Tarth had seen since the Queen Evalla.

Her thoughts went to the dead queen of Ofrid as the maids dressed her again in the mourning garment. Evalla, a woman with beauty to match Volna's, had ruled the most powerful nation Tarth had ever known. Then, Volna smiled, why not another such woman, with hands strong enough, and vision clear enough, to grasp the chalice of power and drink deeply of its heady brew?

* * * * *

"Retoc," she was saying a few moments later.

She clapped her hands. The maids in waiting withdrew, giggling.

"Volna, Volna," said the big Abarian ruler. "You are glorious. Every jek of the journey from the Plains of Ofrid across the ice fields of Nadia, I burned for you." He came very close to her. His face swam before her vision, a hard, strong, handsome face with the cruel eyes of a sadist. Fitting consort for a woman who would rule the world? His lips parted....

Volna, smiling, placed her cool hand over his mouth.

"Then let me put out the fire," she said coolly, "for we have much to discuss."

"But Princess, I--"

"Hush. And what, exactly, were you doing on the Plains of Ofrid?"

Retoc's big face flushed red. Then, when he saw Volna was still smiling, he said: "When we met last, you mentioned that two men stood between you and the throne of Nadia."

"Yes?" said Volna, mocking him, turning swiftly with the light behind her sending its bright beams through the white mourning garment and outlining the seductive curves of her body.

"Jlomec is dead," Retoc said simply.

Still smiling, Volna slapped the big man's face ringingly. Retoc stepped back, startled.

"Fool!" Volna hissed. "I can call the guards. I can have you slain."

"But I--"

"I did not say I was not pleased. But don't lie to me. That isn't why you slew my brother. Well, man, is it?"

Retoc bowed his head. Only in his eyes there was fury. "We'll make a strange pair, Volna, you and I," he said passionately.

"Is it?"

Retoc shook his head slowly.

"You see? I knew it. I knew it was you when they told us Jlomec had been slain, and yet because I know you and know too how you are quick to passion, I told myself you had not done it consciously because I had suggested it to you. Fool. Can I trust such as you?"

"Only Bontarc stands between you and empire. And Bontarc is a simple man."

"As you are a passionate man."

"Yet you need me, Volna. You need the strength of my arm--and my army. What a pair we'll make!"

Volna stepped into the embrace of his big arms and allowed herself to be kissed. Retoc burned for her. He had said so. All men burned for her, she knew that. And, before she was finished, every man of Tarth would kneel at her feet and call her Queen.

Retoc drew back finally, breathing hard. Volna had for him only a cool, mocking smile.

* * * * *

At last he said, "There are some who might say Retoc of Abaria killed the royal prince."

"Dolt! Were you seen?"

Retoc shrugged as if it were not important. "A band of wayfarers on the Ofridian Plain. They were so frightened, they fled at once. After I had wounded the white giant."

Volna's eyes flashed suddenly. "There was someone else? You did not kill him?"

"I tried to. He escaped, Princess."

"Then you are more a fool than I thought."

"But I--"

"Begone! We can't be seen together too much. Take quarters in Nadia City, and let me know where you are. You understand?"

"Yes, Princess."

She allowed him to kiss her hand, then he withdrew. A few moments later, at her summons, the seneschal appeared. Subtly her face had changed. No longer was she the desiring and desirous princess. Instead, she was a grieving sister, whose brother's body still lay in state in the royal palace.

The seneschal, whose name was Prokliam, bowed obsequiously. He knew that by custom the body of a royal Nadian floated down the River of Ice in the company of two living servants--one man and one woman--who would perish with him in the Place of the Dead. He knew also that he had been Jlomec's favorite and now lived in constant fear that the Princess Volna would decree that he, Prokliam, must accompany his dead master on the Journey of No Return, to serve him in death as he had served him in life.

"Yes, lady?" the frightened Prokliam asked.

"Bontarc, our king, grieves mightily for the dead prince," Volna said.

"All Nadia grieves for Jlomec, lady," Prokliam said, and added hastily: "Although I must admit I do not grieve more than the next man. No, no, it is a mistake to think I was Jlomec's favorite."

"Be that as it may Bontarc grieves so that for a while at least some of the affairs of state will be in my hands."

"I hear and understand lady."

"Good. If anyone comes--anyone at all, whether wayfarers from Ofrid or others--with news of how Jlomec died, they are to be brought at once to me. Is that understood?"

"Yes, my princess." Prokliam the seneschal bowed low once more.

"Serve me well in this, Prokliam, and you will be rewarded in measure."

Prokliam smiled. "I will be the personification of discretion," he said boldly, baring his toothless old gums.

"Then perhaps I will still the rumors that you were the dead Jlomec's favorite."

Prokliam dropped at the royal feet and touched his lips to the royal toes. Then he bowed out of the room.

Volna stared for many moments at her beautiful face in the mirror. Queen, she thought. She said it aloud:

"Queen Volna."

CHAPTER XIII

The Journey of No Return

Earlier that day, on the ice fields half a dozen jeks from Nadia City, B'ronth the Utalian had sprinted boldly across the snow toward the girl and her elderly male companion. This had taken considerable effort, because B'ronth the Utalian had not been endowed with an abundance of courage. But B'ronth was a poor man, as Utalia was a poor country; a bag of gold would be a veritable fortune to him. Like most cowards, B'ronth had one passion which could over-ride his timidity: that passion in B'ronth's case was wealth.

The old man was fumbling clumsily for his whip-sword when B'ronth hurtled at them. The girl screamed:

"Look out, Father Hammeth! Look out!"

B'ronth smiled. They would not see the smile, of course. B'ronth, a chameleon man, was invisible. They would see his footprints in the snow, true. They would know him for a Utalian and understand his invisibility. But still the advantage of invisibility would be his. It had always been so when a Utalian fought. It would always be so.

B'ronth leaped upon the old man even as he prepared to strike out with the whip-sword. B'ronth was both naked and unarmed. The sword lashed whining at air a foot from his face. B'ronth wrenched its haft from the old man's hand. Hammeth stumbled back.

B'ronth swung the whip-sword. He was no duelist. A duelist would lunge and thrust with the whip-sword, allowing its mobile point some degree of freedom by controlling it deftly. A non-duelist like B'ronth would hack and slash, the deadly sword-point whipping about, curling, slashing, striking.

Hammeth held up his hands to defend himself. The whip-sword whined in the cold air. The girl screamed. Hammeth's right hand flew from his arm and blood jetted from the stump. Hammeth sank to the ground and lay there in a spreading pool of crimson. His eyes remained open. He was staring with hatred at B'ronth. In a matter of minutes, B'ronth knew, he would bleed to death. B'ronth turned on the girl.

She stood before him swaying. She had almost swooned, but as B'ronth approached her, she flung herself at him, crying Hammeth's name, and they both fell down in the snow. B'ronth let the whip-sword fall from his fingers. Half a bag of gold for a dead girl, but the whole bag if she lived. She fought like a wild cat and for a few moments B'ronth regretted dropping the weapon and actually feared for his life. But soon, his cour

rning and his whole being contemplating the bag of g

he subdued the girl.

She lay back exhausted in the snow. "Please," she said. "Please bind his arm. He'll bleed to death. Please."

B'ronth said nothing. Ylia staggered to her feet, then collapsed and crawled on her knees to Hammeth. The blood jetted from the stump of his arm. He was watching her. A little smile touched the corners of his mouth but pain made his eyes wild.

B'ronth licked his lips. He had earned his bag of gold and, earning it, thought of more wealth. He thought: why should I accept one bag of gold from a common Abarian soldier when there are millions of bags of gold in Nadia City? He could deliver the girl, who obviously knew something the Abarians did not wish the Nadians to know, to Nadia City. He could sell her to the Nadians. Or, if the Abarians outbid them, then the Abarians....

Bruised, her cloak in tatters, Ylia reached Hammeth. His eyes blinked. He smiled at her again, smiling this time with his whole face. Then he turned his head away and his eyes remained open and staring.

"You ... killed ... him," Ylia said, sobbing.

B'ronth dragged her to her feet. "Lulukee!" he called. "Lulukee!" Where was the boy?

Lulukee did not answer. Cursing, B'ronth stripped the corpse and dressed in its warm clothing. The blood on the right sleeve was already stiff with cold. Where could Lulukee have gone off to? wondered B'ronth. Well, no matter. They were only a few jeks from Nadia City, where wealth awaited him....

"Come," he said. He dragged the girl along. She looked back at the dead old man until a snow drift hid him from sight.

* * * * *

After the Utalian had dragged the beautiful girl beyond the ridges of snow, Lulukee the Nadian came down into the valley. He was a small boy of some sixty winters who, like many of the Nadians who did not come from their country's single large city, had lived a hard life as an ice-field nomad. He had seen an opportunity to profit in the service of B'ronth the Utalian, but had not expected this service to include murder. Thus when the Utalian had called him, expecting the boy to drag his supply sled down into the snow-valley, Lulukee had remained hidden. Now, though, he made his way to the body of the dead man and, scavengerlike, went over it with the hope of turning a profit by B'ronth's deed.

In that he was disap

ted. B'ronth had taken the dead man's snow cloak and his whip-sword: there was nothing left for Lulukee's gleaning. He was about to turn and trudge back the way he had come, when he realized that if he did so, if he exposed himself on the higher wind-ridges, B'ronth might see him. Therefore he remained a long time with the frozen body of Father Hammeth, actually falling into a light slumber while he waited.

He awoke with a start. He blinked, then cowered away from the apparition which confronted him. It was a man, but such a man as Lulukee the Nadian had never seen before, a superbly muscled man a head taller than the tall Abarians themselves.

"Where's the girl?" the man demanded.

"I--I don't know, lord."

"How did this happen?" The man looked down with compassion at Father Hammeth's corpse.

"I only just arrived, l-lord."

"You lie," the big man said. "You were sleeping here. You'll tell me, or--"

Lulukee blanched. He owed no loyalty to B'ronth the Utalian. If indeed he remained loyal he might be implicated in the murder of the old man. He said: "It was B'ronth the Utalian."

* * * * *

"Where is he?"

"G-going to Nadia City, I think."

"Alone?"

"No, lord. With his prisoner. A--a lovely woman."

"Ylia!" the giant cried. "You! How are you called?"

"I am Lulukee of Nadia, lord."

"Lead me to the city. Lead me after them."

"But lord--"

"Lead me." The giant did not shout. He did not menace of glower or threaten. Yet there was something in his bearing which made it impossible for the frightened Lulukee to do anything but obey. "Yes, lord," he said.

"Tell me--" as they started out, the boy's sled reluctantly left behind--"is this B'ronth the Utalian in Retoc's pay?"

"No, I don't think so. He works alone, lord. Reaping profit wherever he can."

"And he took the girl unwillingly?"

"Yes, lord."

"He won't profit in this venture," Bram vowed.

The wind howled behind them. Six jeks ahead of them was Nadia City.

* * * * *

"Can't you see I'm busy? Can't you see I have no time for the likes of you?" Prokliam the seneschal whined in self-pity.

"Then make time," B'ronth said boldly, his cowardice obscured by dreams of avarice. "What I have brought through the Ice Gates is important to your ruler."

"Bontarc of Nadia," said the seneschal haughtily, "does not waste his time on every Utalian vagabond who reaches his court."

"True. But I assume Bontarc of Nadia wishes to know exactly how his brother, the Prince Jlomec, died?"

Prokliam fought to keep his puckered old face impassive. But his mind was racing and his heart throbbed painfully. Could the Utalian know anything about that? If so, and if he, Prokliam, brought this B'ronth before the Princess Volna as she had ordered....

"Wait here," Prokliam snapped arrogantly. "And keep your cloak on. We don't want invisible Utalians floating about the palace."

B'ronth offered a mock bow. Prokliam turned to go, then whirled about again. "If you're lying, wasting my time--"

B'ronth smiled unctuously. "In the ante-room, being amused by your palace guards, is one who has been on the Plains of Ofrid quite recently."

"So?"

"When the Prince Jlomec was there. She saw him slain."

"Wait here," said Prokliam a little breathlessly. He pushed the hanging aside and stalked down a corridor, and around a bend, and up a flight of stone stairs. He was busy, all right. That had been no lie. Preparations must be made for the funeral games of the Prince Jlomec, to which all the nobility of Tarth had been invited. But this, obviously, was more important. On this Prokliam's life might depend....

"Are they checking way-passes, lord?" Lulukee asked the big, silent man at his side. Ahead of them, filing slowly through the Ice Gates, were hundreds of visitors entering Nadia City for the funeral games. A flat-bottomed air-car hovered overhead, peltasts leaning over its sides, ready. Guards flanked the Ice Gates with drawn whip-swords, as if admitting the superiority of Abarian weapons of war.

"We'll get through," Bram Forest vowed. "Tell me, Lulukee, if you brought a prisoner to the city who might be worth much to the Abarians but also to the Nadians, and if you were intent on getting the biggest profit, where would you take her?"

"If I had great courage, lord?"

"If you dreamed of reward."

"I would take her to the royal palace, lord, to Bontarc the King or to his sister, Princess Volna the Beautiful, who, some say, is the real power behind the Nadian throne although Bontarc is a great soldier."

* * * * *

They had reached the gate. "Way passes," a bored guard said.

Lulukee mumbled something uncertainly. His heart beat painfully against his ribs. His brain refused to function. There was intrigue here, he could sense that. More intrigue than he cared to have a hand in. As a Nadian citizen, he owned a way pass, of course. But the giant? Obviously the giant did not. Lulukee was sorry he had ever agreed to go along with B'ronth the Utalian. Now he only wanted to get out of the entire situation as quickly--and safely--as possible.

He pointed an accusing finger at Bram Forest. "He has no way pass!" Lulukee cried.

The guards stiffened, their whip-swords ready. They looked at Bram Forest. Overhead, the air-car hovered, its peltasts stationed there in the event of trouble, their slings poised.

Ylia was in there somewhere, a prisoner. Bram Forest spurned violence for its own sake, but Ylia might need him. Ylia, who had nursed him back to health when Retoc had left him for dead on the parched Plains of Ofrid. Ylia, the lovely.

"I'm going through," Bram Forest said softly. "Don't try to stop me."

For answer, the nearest guard let his left hand drop.

It had been a signal. Overhead, the peltasts drew back their slings. "Will you go in peace?" the guard asked, his eyes narrow slits now, his right arm tensed to bring the whip-sword around.

Bram Forest waited. Every muscle in his superbly-conditioned body cried for action, but he would not initiate it.

The guard pointed back along the path across the ice fields, where hundreds of visitors to the city were waiting impatiently. "Then go," he said harshly, "before your flesh feeds the stilt-birds on the banks of the River of Ice."

The guard raised his sword menacingly. Standing rigidly still and giving no warning, Bram Forest lashed out with his left fist, hitting the guard in the mouth. Lips split, teeth flew, blood covered the guard's face. Someone screamed. The guard fell, but his companion lashed out with his own whip-sword. Bram Forest lunged to one side and grabbed the sword-arm, twisting it. The guard howled, dropping his weapon. Lulukee made a dive for it. But the guard, his legs still free, kicked Lulukee in the face. As he fell, his senses blurring, Lulukee wondered why he had made that desperate, foolish attempt to help the big, silent man. He could not answer the question in mere words. But there was something about him, something about Bram Forest, which drew loyalty from you even as the sun drew dew from the ground....

* * * * *

Bram Forest lifted the second guard by sword-girdle and scruff of neck and held him aloft. The guard's arms and legs flailed frantically. "No!" he screamed up at the peltasts. "No...."

But they had already unleashed their first volley of stones, pelting the helpless guard until he lost consciousness. Bram Forest flung him aside, leaped over the first fallen guard's supine body, and plunged recklessly into the crowds milling just inside the Ice Gates.

"He went that way!" a voice screamed.

"That way!"

"Over there!"

"There he is!"

It was an ancient city, with narrow, tortuous alleyways and overhanging buildings and little-used passageways. The wide streets--the few there were--mobbed with people.

For all his size, the giant had disappeared.

Lulukee picked himself up, dusted himself off, and showed his way pass to the guard. The guard said nothing. He had lost three teeth and his mouth was swollen, painful. Lulukee sensed that somehow the little he had done to help Bram Forest was all he would ever do for him. Yet he felt with a strange pride he did not fathom that although his role in the saga of the mysterious giant had come to an end, it was the most important event in his life and would remain so if he lived to be six-hundred. He felt somehow--and could not explain why he felt this--as if in his small way he had done something to make the world Tarth a better place in which to live.

Whistling, he pushed his way through the crowds and was lost to sight just as the giant who went before him.

* * * * *

"B'ronth of Utalia!" Prokliam the seneschal proclaimed. Volna the Beautiful nodded. The doddering old seneschal had already told her about the Utalian. She was prepared to receive him now. If he knew what he claimed to know, if he knew the true details of the death of Prince Jlomec, then he must be silenced. Naturally, he wanted gold. They always wanted gold. But gold was not the way to silence them. Gold never worked. It only made them greedy for more.

With Volna were, instead of her usual ladies in waiting, two discreet palace guards. Grinning, she looked at their whip-swords. That was the way to silence one such as B'ronth the Utalian.

"He may enter," Volna told the seneschal. Prokliam bowed out, saying:

"And Princess, you will not forget--"

"No, Prokliam, I won't forget. You hardly knew the Prince Jlomec at all, did you? You certainly couldn't have been his favorite."

"Princess," breathed the seneschal tremulously as he withdrew.

A moment later, B'ronth the Utalian entered the royal chamber. He wore a snow-cloak. He was all but invisible except for the snow-cloak. He was, eerily, a disembodied cloak floating through air. Although, noticed Volna, if you looked closely you could see the faintest suggestion of a man's head above the cloak, as if you saw the rich wall tapestries of the room through a transparent, head-shaped glass. Likewise, the suggestion of arms and legs....

"You are B'ronth?" An unnecessary question, but Volna had not yet made up her mind what must be done.

"Yes, majesty," the cloak said in a different but somehow unctuous voice.

"You are alone?"

"No, majesty," said the cloak.

"Then--?"

"A girl. A wayfarer of the Plains of Ofrid. I accompany her."

"And the story you have to tell?"

"I realize, majesty, how the royal Princess must grieve at the loss of her royal brother, the Prince. I realize...."

"To the point, man. Get to the point. Are you trying to say you know how Prince Jlomec was slain? You know who killed him?"

"Yes," said the cloak boldly, eagerly.

Princess Volna smiled. Perhaps something in that smile warned B'ronth the Utalian. But of course, the warning came too late. In a quick jerky motion, the cloak retreated toward the doorway. "Princess...." B'ronth said.

Princess Volna told her guards: "Kill him."

B'ronth the Utalian had time for one brief scream which, if a sound could, seemed to embody all his frustrated dreams of wealth. Then one of the guards moved swiftly, his arm streaking out. The whip-sword in his hand lashed, blurring, toward the cloak. Bright red blood welled, jetted.

B'ronth the Utalian's head, no longer invisible, rolled on the floor at Volna's lovely feet. "Clean that up," she told one of the guards. To the other she said: "Now fetch the girl."

* * * * *

"Mind, lord, I don't question you," Hultax the Abarian said. "But it's just--"

"Did you send the message?" Retoc cut him off.

"As you ordered, sire. Yes."

"Good."

"Sire, I hate inactivity. I loathe it. I am a soldier."

"As I am," said Retoc slowly, his hard cruel eyes staring at something Hultax could not--and would never be able to--see.

"So we just sit here in this rented house in Nadia City, cooling our heels. It doesn't make sense, sire."

"Sense?" mused Retoc. "What is sense? Is it victory and power for the strongest? Well, is it?"

"Yes, lord," Hultax responded. "But--"

"And you sent the message? Our legions will come?"

"Yes, lord. Two days hence they'll be encamped on the ice fields three jeks march from the city gates. But I don't see--"

"You obey, Hultax. I see. I do the seeing."

"But I thought you ... the Princess Volna ... together...."

"The Princess can serve me, now. If she can deliver Nadia without a fight, then Tarth is mine, Hultax, don't you see? In two days all the royal blood of all the royal families of Tarth will be assembled here in Nadia for the funeral games. If Bontarc's army doesn't interfere, then I will be master of Tarth."

"But if Bontarc finds out--"

"That, Hultax," said Retoc with a smile, "is why you sent the message."

"My sire," said the proud soldier Hultax humbly.

Soon, thought Retoc, all Tarth would call him that. My sire....

* * * * *

Ahead of Bram Forest loomed the ramparts of the palace. He must hurry. He knew he had to hurry. He pushed impatiently through the crowd. Several times men looked up angrily, and would have said something. But when they saw his face, they turned away.

What they saw in Bram Forest's face made them afraid.

"Majesty?" Prokliam the seneschal said.

"Well?" Volna demanded. "Didn't the guards send you for the girl?"

"Majesty, I was thinking...."

"Well, Prokliam, what is it? Didn't you go for the girl?"

"Not yet, majesty, begging your pardon...."

"If you have something to say, then say it. And get the girl."

"Majesty, a seneschal knows the palace. It is his job...."

"I warn you, Prokliam, I have little patience today." Her anxiety was evident.

"No one wishes to be chosen," Prokliam blurted quickly, boldly, "even as I did not wish to be chosen to accompany the body of Prince Jlomec on the Journey of No Return. Now that you have spared me, in your royal benevolence, I thought I might in turn advise you...."

"Yes, what is it, man?"

"You should not have killed the Utalian, majesty. If it is ordained that a living man and a living woman accompany the Prince's body to the Place of the Dead, to die there with him, their spirits serving him in death, why choose from among the palace staff? We all have family, we all have friends, we all stand something to lose. But majesty, if you were to break with tradition, if you were to send instead two strangers whose loss meant nothing to the palace, the palace staff would love and revere you even more than they already do."

* * * * *

Volna's beautiful face smiled at him. He did not know what she was thinking. He never knew. No one did. She might reward him or have him slain on the spot. "Why do you tell me this, Prokliam?" she asked.

"For saving me when it was thought I would accompany--"

"No. There must be another reason."

"If you do this deed and if the palace and the people love you for it, and if the scepter of power should slip from Bontarc's hand to yours, and if, when it came time to select your prime minister...."

"Ha! Ha! Ha! We have an ambitious palace butler."

"But surely you--"

"Yes, Prokliam. I understand. I won't deny it. Perhaps I had the Utalian slain impetuously. But there's still the girl."

"I'll fetch her at once, majesty."

"And if," mused Volna, no longer aware of the seneschal's presence, "we could find another stranger, a man, to accompany the body of Prince Jlomec on the Journey of No Return, not only the palace, but the people as well would love me. A stranger...."

"Take me to your King," Bram Forest told the palace guard.

The guard smirked. "Do you think any stranger in the realm is granted an audience with King Bontarc, fool?"

"It is a matter of life and death."

"But whose life and death?" demanded the guard, roaring with laughter. "Yours, idiot?"

"It is about Ylia the Wayfarer."

"I know of no Ylia the Wayfarer. Begone, dolt!"

"It is about Prince Jlomec."

The guard's eyes narrowed. The word had been passed by no less a person than Prokliam the seneschal that anyone with information concerning the death of the royal Prince should be brought at once not to Bontarc but to Princess Volna. Could the guard, could he, Porfis, do less?

"Very well," he said. "Come with me."

Unarmed, but aware of his giant's strength and the mission which had seen him spend the first hundred years of his life in a crypt on Earth, Bram Forest went with the guard.

The way was long, through chambers in which priceless tapestries hung, through narrow, musty corridors into which the light of day barely penetrated, through rooms in which ladies in waiting and courtiers talked and joked, up bare stone stairs and through heavy wooden doors which Porfis the guard opened with a key which hung at his belt. The doors opened slowly.

Bram Forest entered a large room. It was, he could see at a glance, a woman's bower. Someone was standing at the far end of the room, in shadow. He squinted. He took two slow steps into the room. He began to run.

"Ylia! Ylia!" he cried.

Too late he saw the fetters binding her arms. Too late he saw her bite savagely at something and twist her neck and spit the gag from her mouth. Too late he heard her cry:

"Bram! Bram Forest! Behind you!"

He turned barely in time to see Porfis the guard, his whip-sword raised overhead hilt-first. He lifted his arm, but it was swept aside in the downward rush of the sword. Something exploded behind his eyes and all eternity seemed to open beneath his feet. He plunged into blackness with Ylia's name on his lips.

* * * * *

Unconscious, he was taken with Ylia through subterranean passages to the Royal Dock on the River of Ice. The barge with Jlomec's embalmed body waited. It was very cold on the river. The Place of the Dead beckoned from the unseen end of the Journey of No Return.

CHAPTER XIV

Land Beyond the Stars

At first Retoc the Abarian was too stunned by what he witnessed to think coherently. With the other Tarthians of royal blood he had received an unexpected summons to appear at the Royal Dock on the River of Ice and, before he could even try to fathom what it was about, an escort of Nadian guards had come to fetch him.

It was cold and murky on the banks of the River of Ice. The two men, Retoc and Hultax had arrived barely in time to see them unfastening the hawsers of the Royal Barge. Curious, he pushed closer through the crowd of nobles. Suddenly, before the barge was quite unmoored, as it swayed and rocked on the currents of the river, Nadian soldiers appeared with a platform on poles slung across their shoulders, the usual means of intra-city transportation for Nadian royalty. But this was no royalty Retoc saw on the platform, although they were dressed as royalty.

The woman, conscious and bound hand and foot, was the Virgin of the Wayfarers who had witnessed Prince Jlomec's death. The man, unconscious, his head propped high on pillows, was the white giant who once on the Plains of Ofrid had almost strangled Retoc.

A hatred such as he had never known flashed through Retoc's brain. He was so close he could see the gentle up-and-down motion of the giant's chest as he breathed. Then, beyond the platform, he saw Volna. Volna smiled at him. The platform bobbed by, was placed on the barge at the foot of Jlomec's bier. The remaining hawsers were cut loose.

There was, Retoc thought triumphantly, no return from the Place of the Dead.

But still, the white giant had recovered from what looked like certain death once, had vanished abruptly and fantastically when he would have died again. What was good enough for Volna the Beautiful was not necessarily good enough for Retoc of Abaria. He watched only long enough to see the royal barge pushed out into the icy currents of the river, then he turned and made his way to the second tier of observers, where Hultax stood among the lesser nobility and the military officers of the planet Tarth. He found Hultax and whispered for a time in his ear.

* * * * *

Hultax's face blanched. "But lord," he protested, "there is no return ... it is obvious the man will die ... you couldn't expect me to...." Hultax, frightened, confused, could neither think clearly nor express himself prop

s mouth hung open.

[Illustration: The

r charged while death and the Golden Ape stood grinning.]

"Earlier, Hultax," Retoc said with a hard smile, "you craved action. I give you action. Take a boat. There are some moored down-river for the use of Nadian priests on their religious pilgrimages to the banks where the stilt-birds dwell. Overtake the royal barge. Board it. Slay the man and the woman."

"But I--the Place of the Dead...."

"Fool!" hissed Retoc. "I didn't ask you to visit the Place of the Dead. That's up to you. If you slay them first, on the River of Ice, and can bring back proof ... but the longer we talk, the further they are. You'll go?"

It was phrased as a question; actually, it was a command. Grim-faced, the whip-sword trailing at his side, Hultax left the crowd of soldiers and made his way downstream. A few moments later he had poled a wooden skiff out into the icy current and went down-river in pursuit of the royal barge.

* * * * *

The guards had unbound Ylia's fetters on the barge, knowing she could never swim for safety in the waters of the River of Ice. She sat now at the foot of Jlomec's bier, with Bram Forest's handsome head cushioned on her lap. It was very cold there on the river. Wind blew, rustling the reeds which grew along the bank. They had long since emerged from the river's underground cavern. The swift current carried them now through a country of ice, a tundra. The reeds, twice as tall as a man, seemed to thrive on the riverbanks. They swallowed everything.

Bram Forest opened his eyes, and looked at her, and smiled. He tried to sit up, wincing as pain knifed through his head. "We seem to make a habit of this," he said, smiling again.

"Shh, you mustn't talk."

She leaned close. He could smell the animal perfume of her body, like musk and jasmine. Impulsively, she kissed him softly on the lips. His arm went around her neck. He pulled her head down and drank deeply of her.

"Why ..." she began, all breathless.

"Because I love you. I think I loved you the first moment I saw you. But I didn't know it then." He laughed softly, gently, and she did not know why this should be so.

"Why do you laugh?"

"I was an infant, the son of the Queen. Of Queen Evalla. Portox the scientist fled with me, the last of the royal Ofridian blood, to the other side of the sola

stem, to a world the twin of this, a world we never see because the sun always stands between us, a world called Earth. There I would wait until maturity. There I would be given the strength and the wisdom I needed. And then I would return to Tarth and right the ancient wrong. Well, I have returned. I love you. It is enough, Ylia. I want to think of the future, not the past."

Ylia let him kiss her again. "Isn't it the same, the future and the past? Aren't they one? I too am of Ofridian blood, Bram Forest, of the lesser nobility. There are hundreds of us, living nomadic lives on the Ofridian Plains, where once our great nation stood."

"I didn't know that. It wasn't in Portox's training. Now Portox is dead. I buried him on this world called Earth. He could not even come back to his native Tarth."

"Darling, don't you see? That's exactly why the ancient wrong must be righted, why Retoc must pay for his infamous deeds. So Portox and the millions of other Ofridians, slain, all slain, can sleep eternally in peace. You are their champion."

"But revenge? What is revenge if--"

"You are the champion of the future too! Don't you see, oh, don't you? Of all the unborn tomorrows when the Ofridian nation may live again. Of all the unborn tomorrows when the nations of Tarth can live together in peace and harmony. Don't you understand that?"

"It's funny. I try to see my mother's face. Queen Evalla. But all I see is you. She's the past, Ylia. You're the future." He held her lightly.

"There is no future for anyone as long as Retoc the Abarian rules, and dreams of Tarth, all Tarth, as his domain."

Bram Forest stood up. The cold winds blew. He looked at the blue-cold body of Jlomec, lying in state, at the ice-choked river, at the banks of rustling reeds. He did not have to ask where they were. He knew. "Perhaps," he said at last. "I only mean that if I do this thing it will be more to see that future generations live in peace than to bring vengeance on a power-mad Abarian."

"Oh, Bram! That's what I wanted you to say. I wanted to hear you say that. For tomorrow! For all our tomorrows."

* * * * *

Bram Forest walked to the rail of the barge, and gripped it, and looked out over the ice-flows. He recited:

    "An ape, a boar, a stallion,
     A land beyond the stars.
     A Virgin's feast, a raging beast,
     A prison without bars."

"Why, what an unusual poem!" Ylia cried. Then: "Hold me close, it's so cold. And I'm afraid, Bram Forest...."

"Of the Place of the Dead?"

"Yes, yes. The Place of the Dead."

"It and the poem are entwined," Bram Forest said musingly. "I know they are. Together, they're my destiny."

"And the destiny of all Tarth?"

"Perhaps. Portox liked to think so, I guess."

"I like to think so, Bram Forest." She smiled up at him tremulously. "And my destiny as well."

"Ylia," he asked abruptly, "what do you know about the Golden Ape? You mentioned it to me once, when you thought I ... well, when you thought I endangered your virginity."

"Why, nothing beyond what the legends say."

"And what do the legends say?"

"It is written in the most ancient of our religious beliefs that the messenger to the Place of the Dead is a Golden Ape. Naturally, in these same beliefs, a defiled virgin is supposed to kill herself. Thus, in a way of speaking, she goes to the Golden Ape. You see?"

* * * * *

Bram Forest smiled down at her. "What would you think if I told you the Golden Ape was real? If I told you that there actually was a Place of the Dead?"

"For the spirits of the departed?" Ylia asked in a very small voice.

"No. Man can't presume to know about that. It's in the realm of the gods. I mean a place which somehow borders on Tarth and yet ... yet is beyond the stars. A place which, when wayfarers returned from it miraculously long and long ago, gave rise to the legends."

"Borders on Tarth ... yet beyond the stars? How can this be?"

"Portox found it and explained it with his science," Bram Forest insisted. "Earth and Tarth, twin worlds, yet so different, forever unseen one by the other, on opposite sides of the sun. They're unique in the solar system, Ylia. Portox thought--if the memory he planted in my mind is correct--that they're unique in the entire universe. Somehow, a million million years ago, a world split, becoming two worlds. But ordinary space ... I don't know, the memory is confused ... could not hold them. There is a warp of space, a place where space bends. Learn to master the warp and you go instantly from Tarth to Earth, or back again. That was the way Portox brought me, as an infant, to Earth." He held aloft his arm, showing her the steel-silver disc. "With this I can travel back and forth at will. Without it, either Earth or Tarth would be my prison...." His voice trailed off.

Then he blurted: "'A prison without bars!'"

"What...."

"The prophetic poem. Part of the poem. Anyway, Ylia, Earth and Tarth exist at either end of this space warp, connected thus through normal space where there should be no connection. And someplace along the warp--where ordinary space-time distances don't matter...."

"I'm sorry, Bram Forest. I don't understand you."

* * * * *

"I'm not sure I understand myself. Tarth is a primitive world. It is beyond our science. It is even beyond the science of Earth, I believe, and Earth is a millennium ahead of Tarth in its development. But Portox knew. Anyhow, someplace along the warp--in ordinary distances along the space-time continuum perhaps a billion light years distant from either Earth or Tarth, is a third world. On the warp it is very close. The River of Ice leads to it. We call it the Place of the Dead."

"But the Golden Ape--?"

"--inhabits the so-called Place of the Dead. Their world was dying, but Portox saved them. I think ... the science is beyond me ... the entropy of their galaxy was running down ... their world perishing, freezing ... when somehow with his great science Portox claimed for their use the unavailable energy in their ... their thermodynamic system, and saved them."

"Why do you frown so?"

"Words. Words only. I don't understand. I can only act."

"You can act," Ylia said, hugging herself tight against him. "For Tarth and the future."

"For Tarth and the future," Bram Forest said, but he hardly heard the words.

Ahead of them in the cold clear air a wall seemed to rise. It came up so suddenly, and, in fact, the air had cleared so suddenly from the accustomed murkiness, that Ylia was afraid. "It is in the legend," she whispered. "The Black Wall, Bram Forest. And beyond it--the Place of the Dead."

"More accurately, an edge-on view of the space-warp, where it meets the normal world." But although he spoke the words of Portox, Bram Forest did not sound too confident.

"We're coming closer to it, Bram. Hold me!"

He held her. There was nothing else he could do. The current swept the barge on inexorably. The Black Wall reared ahead of them, frowned down at them, seemed to block off all the rest of the universe and all reality whether of Earth or of Tarth....

The barge penetrated the wall. Black and solid-seeming, solid as stone, it yet offered no resistance. The barge disappeared within it.

Behind the barge, rope-trailing so close that its prow almost scraped the royal wood, was a skiff in which, shaking and afraid yet somehow triumphant because he had heard Bram Forest's strange words, was Hultax the Abarian.

CHAPTER XV

The Golden Ape

Hultax the Abarian shook himself. He had lost consciousness as every nerve-ending in his body had screamed with pain. Did this have something to do with the warp--warping?--Bram Forest had mentioned. Hultax the Abarian did not know. But he did know that he was alive, as alive as anyone could be or had a right to be in the Place of the Dead. And he did know, gratefully, that the intense cold of the River of Ice was gone.

He wondered how long he had been unconscious. He blinked his eyes. A balmy, pink-tinted sky. A pink sun, not on the horizon, when indeed the sun might be pink, but overhead. On the horizon--Hultax blinked again and thought he was mad--a second sun, smaller, paler, the ghost of green in color.

The royal barge was in ruins. It had piled up on some rocks. The bier of Jlomec, Prince of Nadia, had been thrown clear. He could see it on the bank, also in ruins. He stood up unsteadily, then waded through the shallow water in which he'd regained consciousness, over to the wreck of the royal barge. The fingers of his right hand were poised inches from the hilt of his whip-sword. Slay Bram Forest and the girl if the wreck hadn't already killed them? He shook his head. Bram Forest knew more about this strange place, this world of the pink sun and the green sun, than he did.

* * * * *

He climbed over the wreckage, and finally came upon the two bodies. He went down on his knees beside them. They were covered with blood. They were broken--broken being the only word that could describe them. They had been crushed, perhaps by falling timber, perhaps by the bier of Jlomec as it hurtled over the side. There probably was not a bone in either of their bodies, at least a major bone, which had not been crushed.

They were dead.

With a craftiness which surprised even himself, Hultax remembered the dead Bram Forest's words. It was the bracelet with the shining disc which gave Bram Forest the power to appear and disappear at will, as Retoc had described. Or, as Bram Forest had put it, to journey between the worlds. Carefully, Hultax took the bracelet--it was miraculously intact--from the crushed, broken arm of Bram Forest's corpse. He circled his own arm with it and felt, or imagined he felt, an instantaneous source of power surge through his body. Without looking back at the broken bodies of the man and woman who had found love and,

g it, died in each other's arms, he made

way from the river bank across a pleasant green meadow. Far in the distance he saw a dark blur which looked like a forest. It was many miles away, almost at the limit of vision.

Yet, incredibly, it seemed to rush up at him. It was not merely that Hultax the Abarian walked with a warrior's long stride toward the forest. It was as if the forest rushed toward him. A different world. He remembered Bram Forest's words vaguely. A warped world? Something like that. Naturally, Hultax was afraid. This was the Place of the Dead, wasn't it? But still, Bram Forest's cool if little-understood scientific explanation quieted his fear. Besides, didn't he have the bracelet-disc-amulet? What could happen to him now?

Bylanus the Golden Ape, only two-thousand seven hundred years old, quite young as Golden Apes went, saw the wreck of the barge from a great distance. He extended his vision through warp-space and spotted the tiny figure of a man trudging away from the wreckage. Bylanus squinted, and shifted his buttocks on the saddle. Bylanus was fifteen feet tall and weighed eight-hundred pounds. The steed he rode, about twice the size of an Earth elephant, looked like a blown-up cross between a Tarthian stad and an Earth horse.

Bylanus stared, then sat up very straight in his stirrups. Something gleamed on the man's arm. Bylanus gaped.

It was the bracelet of Portox-saviour.

Bylanus used his will to psychokinesthize the man. The man, still apparently trudging along, sped toward him.

Bylanus climbed down from his stallion and prepared to bow, all fifteen feet and eight hundred pounds of him, before the man.

At first Hultax could think only of fleeing. Abruptly before him stood a monster-stad and a man. No, not a man. A man-like figure pelted with soft, smooth, lusterous, golden fur. The stad--the not-quite-stad--was five times bigger than a stad had a right to be. The man, even as he unexpectedly bent before Hultax, was almost three times Hultax's height. Man? No, not a man. Hultax, rooted with fear to the spot, unable to run, opened his mouth to cry out. But his vocal chords were paralyzed.

* * * * *

This was no man. It was the Golden Ape of legend, the Golden Ape of the Place of the Dead....

"Portox-saviour," said the Golden Ape quite distinctly. Then he pointed a forefinger almost the size of Hultax'

earm at the bracelet Hultax wore.

Hultax took a deep breath and could feel the strength returning to his legs. Like all military officers, he was an opportunist. He had to be, for in battle one had to seize upon opportunity as soon as it appeared, if one were to win at all....

Hultax said, his voice surprisingly steady: "You may rise."

The Ape did so. The stallion pawed the ground, and great clods flew. Hultax was trembling, but the Ape, speaking in Hultax' own language, in the language of all Tarth, said: "Are you really from Portox? It seems like only yesterday he was here although, of course, your people and mine measure time differently."

"I am from Portox," Hultax said. He wished he could keep his knees from trembling.

"Portox-saviour said that one day a man would come, to ask us for help even as Portox helped us in our time of troubles," the Ape proclaimed.

"Yes," Hultax muttered.

"What kind of help do you wish?"

Hultax stared, saying nothing. He did not know what to say. He lacked the imagination to make something up. Somehow, he knew it was terribly important. He knew without knowing how he knew that his life might depend on his answer.

"Well?" the Golden Ape asked gently.

"I ... that is...."

The Ape's eyes narrowed as he looked down at Hultax. "You are from Portox?"

"Yes, yes. Of course."

"I see you have the bracelet."

"Yes, here is the bracelet."

"And the cloak of Portox?" demanded the Ape. "The cloak Portox foretold you would wear?"

"I--I lost the cloak in my journey," lied Hultax, not knowing about any cloak. There, he thought, that ought to satisfy him.

But the Ape said: "There was no cloak."

"No cloak? No cloak!"

"I made that up, to test you. You're not from Portox."

The stallion pawed the ground and looked up and then down at Hultax, snorting. Hultax, trembling, wished he could melt into the ground.

* * * * *

"Still," Hultax said, shaking, "I am from Portox. You tried to trick me. You...."

"We shall see," the Ape said, still pleasantly. "Come."

The ground rolled, or so it seemed to Hultax. The forest loomed ahead of him, then trees were all around him, then they stood on a rolling plain again.

"Where--did you take me?"

The Ape smiled. He seemed quite human despite his size, despite his fur. The stallion pawed the ground impatiently.

"Behold," said the Ape.

Something on the fringe of the forest screamed. It was an awful sound and it made the hackles stand upright on Hultax's bull-neck. He drew his whip-sword and faced the forest.

"Well, man," chided the Golden Ape, "and do you need a weapon? Portox told us we would know his man because his man, unarmed, would be able to conquer the wild boar of the Kranuian Wood. And you?"

The screaming came again. Terrified, Hultax did not fling his weapon aside. Wild boar? What wild boar ... time enough later ... to convince the Ape....

The boar emerged. It was almost as big as a man and covered with dirty gray hair. Its tusks were two feet long. The stallion whinnied but remained perfectly still. The Golden Ape waited and watched. The boar charged.

Hultax's right arm blurred and the mobile blade of the whip-sword whizzed through air and struck the boar's meaty shoulder. The boar screamed, and came on.

It was, Hultax realized in despair, only a superficial wound. The boar came on, bleeding, furious. He tried to lunge aside. He yanked at the whip-sword and it came loose, making him lose his balance. The boar reached him, screaming.

Never slackening its pace, the boar gored him, and wheeled about, clods flying, to gore again. Hultax' voice bubbled in his throat. The boar was on him again, its tusks sharp as razors....

Finally it stood clear, nervously eyeing Bylanus and the stallion. Then it turned and, slowly, with great dignity, retreated into the Kranuian Wood, which was its home.

The man, Bylanus saw at a glance, was dead. As an imposter, he had deserved to die. Bylanus quickly dug a shallow grave with a large, sharp-edged stone, and rolled the body in. As he did so he noticed that the bracelet--the bracelet of Portox-saviour, or, more probably, a copy of that bracelet intended to trick him--had been battered, punctured, and broken by the boar. Even if it had been the real bracelet, the amazing steel-silver disc of Portox-saviour, it would now be useless. Sighing, Bylanus buried it with Hultax' body.

* * * * *

Bylanus mounted his steed and galloped toward the river. He could have psychokinesthized himself there, but the day was brilliant and clear, and he was in no great hurry. At last he reached the wreck of the royal barge of Nadia. He did not pause to examine Jlomec's bier, he had seen such funerary devices before.

Something in the wreck itself confused him. There was a man. There was a woman. That fit the ritual--two servants to accompany dead royalty on its way. This was the custom of the Nadians. But the man....

On the man's crushed arm, the arm completely covered with blood, was a mark. It was as if something--say, a band of metal--had protected the arm at one point. For circling the upper arm was a band of skin not bloody like the rest, wide in the shape of a disc, then narrow all around.

The bracelet of Portox-saviour! thought Bylanus. Had this dead man worn it? Had the imposter, now slain by the wild boar, taken it from him?

Oh Portox-saviour, Portox-saviour, how long dead? Am I too late, is it too late for this man, your heir...?

As gently as he could, the huge Bylanus lifted the two bodies and put them in his saddle-bags. He faced the Kranuian Wood astride. The stallion held its head up, alert, ready. They psychokinesthized.

And disappeared in a twinkling with Bram Forest and Ylia, both of whom were dead.

CHAPTER XVI

The Raging Beast

Although once mighty Ofridia of Tarth and certainly the nations of Earth had outstripped Bylanus' world in the physical science, the planet of the pink and green suns was supreme in biology. Thus had it needed Portox' help, a hundred Earth-Tarthian years before, when run-down entropy threatened its very existence. On the other hand, through biology, the science of Bylanus' world had come a long way in the conquest of death and destroyed human tissue. So it was that with some faint ray of confidence Bylanus brought the two broken bodies to the single large city of his park-like planet. There, tenderly, he left them in the care of specialists at the regeneration station, and began his long vigil.

... sensation and movement.

Hardly anything at first. Bram Forest dreamed of dreaming. The motion was gentle, warm, comfortable.

The glow of life and not the cold breath of death....

With it, with the first stirrings of regeneration, came the shadow of pain. But it was far away and almost impalpable, pain understood rather than felt. And slowly the pain departed. There came a time when Bram Forest realized he was not breathing, was, indeed, immersed in liquid.

He floated, helpless, serene, strangely content.

... Until, with the first signs of impatience, strength flooded through his regenerated limbs.

* * * * *

"In every cell of a living creature's body," Orro the bio-technician explained to Bylanus, "there is the potential for complete and perfect regeneration. For, whereas the eye is an organ to see with, in every one of the millions of tiny cells making up the eye is the gene-pattern not merely for the eye but for the rest of the body. Theoretically then, Bylanus, if we are given but a single intact cell of a living--or once-living--organism, we ought to be able to reproduce the organism in its entirety. This is not supernatural. It is not creation of life: we can create nothing. The secret of creation is not ours here at this laboratory. But we have mastered the secret of recreation. Nurtured by the life-giving fluid, their development controlled by their own genes, the two human beings you brought are being made whole again."

Bylanus nodded. Orro the bio-technician was loquacious and spoke quickly, confidently, with mild pedantic enthusiasm. As for Bylanus, he awaited the regeneration of the -- had worn Portox-saviour's bracelet. He looked at the bodies in the vat, hanging upside-down, floating head down, rocking gently in the warm, circulating life-fluid. He waited....

* * * * *

Bram Forest took his first breath. The first thing he said was: "Ylia, Ylia...."

Bylanus met them after the vat had been drained and a door had opened for them. He told them what had happened, including the death of Hultax. Then he added:

"As far as I am concerned, there can be no doubt as to your identity. But the bracelet is lost forever and there will be some who doubt your identity." Abruptly, he seemed to change the subject: "How do you feel?"

"Good as new," Bram Forest said. He was naked. He was tingling with health and well-being, as if he'd awakened from a long, health-giving sleep. He looked at Ylia, her skin glowing, her hair gleaming, her glorious body a shining promise. Then he frowned. Bylanus' words took meaning. "You want me to fight the Boar of the Kranuian Wood, is that it?"

"Yes," Bylanus said.

* * * * *

Bram Forest shrugged. "Coming here was not my idea, although Portox somehow realized it would be so."

"Slay the Kranuian Boar, proving your identity without question, and all the Golden Apes will be yours to command."

"Yes, but did Portox really feel I must wreak upon Abaria and the Abarians the same destruction they brought to Ofridia? If I destroy Retoc the Abarian responsible for what happened a hundred years ago, wouldn't that be enough? I don't need the Golden Apes for that. I can do it myself. I must do it myself."

"Tarth," said Bylanus, "is a world of warring nations. But here on the planet of two suns we live in peace. We are strong but know not the meaning of war. Is that what Portox-saviour wished for your people?"

"Perhaps," Bram Forest said.

"Then," Ylia told him, speaking for the first time, "even if you slay Retoc, his legions will not willingly give up their arms."

Bram Forest nodded slowly. The idea of a Tarth-wide holocaust did not appeal to him, but if all Tarth could be shown the folly of war when its most powerful army went down to defeat before the Golden Apes....

"Thank you," Bram Forest said humbly to the Golden Ape. He had a vision--almost mystical--of a time in the future, perhaps the near future, when all Ta

knew nothing but the ways of peace. "When we return on the River of Ice we want you to accompany us. I'm ready to meet your boar."

Ylia held him. Tears glistened in her eyes. "Bram Forest," she said tremulously. "Now that I've found you, I don't want you to be hurt--ever again."

Bram Forest responded: "Don't worry, Ylia. If Portox hadn't known I'd be more than a match for the boar, he never would have established its conquest as proof of my identity."

"But ... but don't you see, you've been regenerated, as Bylanus said. You may not be as strong as you were."

Bram Forest looked at Bylanus, who shrugged. Bylanus lifted them when Bram Forest nodded. The park-like terrain flashed by. A dark forest loomed. The Kranuian Wood....

Close at hand, an animal screamed.

* * * * *

"How do I look, Prokliam?" Volna asked her seneschal.

He bowed before her. "You are lovely, O My Queen."

Volna smiled. She wore the royal purple of Nadia in a gown which fell, clinging as if sentient and voluptuous, to the wonderful curves of her body. "I'm not your Queen yet," she said, laughing.

"A mere formality, My Queen."

"I am Volna, Virgin Princess of Nadia, sister to Bontarc the King."

"Huh!" snorted the old man. "That is your official title. But what do titles matter? When this day ends you will rule all Tarth side by side with Retoc the Abarian."

Yes, Volna thought. With Retoc the Abarian. But how long would that alliance last? Would either of them be content to share power with the other? Wouldn't there come a day when she would give the nod to Prokliam and the legions would march against those of Abaria chanting, "All power to Volna! All power to Volna the Beautiful!" The thought of power, power over strong men, over leaders of nations, made her giddy with desire.

All the royal blood of Tarth was gathered in Nadia City now, for the funeral games. She knew Retoc's plan: her spies had confirmed it. Retoc's legions would slay the rulers of the multiple nations and clans of Tarth and one by one, stunned, leaderless, the small nations would flock to the banners of Abaria and Nadia. If, then, Retoc had in mind to betray her and claim all power for himself, her own legions would be rested and ready. And Bontarc? she thought. What of Bontarc, her brother?

As if he could read her thoughts, Prokliam said, "I have arranged the lists for the dueling which will end the games, majesty. Bontarc, as you know, expects a duel to the first blood with some competent whip-swordsman." Prokliam licked his thin, dry lips. "He will be confronted, instead by a duel to the death with Retoc, the best swordsman of all Tarth. To flee would mean cowardice. The army would then be loyal to you, majesty. To remain and fight would mean only one thing."

"Death," said Volna softly.

She could hear the legions. The legions seemed to chant in her ears: "All power to Volna the Beautiful!"

She thought of the day's funeral games. Games for the memory of Jlomec the Prince, indeed. They were games for her, for Volna. They would be a party celebrating the rise to power of Volna, Virgin Princess of Nadia. But of course neither Nadia nor Bontarc its rightful ruler knew that yet. And when they did, Retoc and his legions would make sure they could do nothing about it.

The Games would be a feast. Volna's feast....

All power to Volna.

* * * * *

The Kranuian Boar came screaming from the forest.

Its small, close-set eyes found Bram at once. If it had seen Bylanus and Ylia, it ignored them. Four hundred pounds of muscle and sinew, it made, stomping and pawing, for Bram.

He side-stepped nimbly, saw the massive head go down, felt one of the wicked tusks brush his thigh with fire. He stumbled and almost fell. If he fell, he would not rise again. The boar would finish him first.

"Bram Forest!" Ylia screamed.

He got up and grasped the tusks. He was dragged along, furrowing the ground. The huge head snorted close to his own. The boar's breath almost made him gag. Then, before the boar could smash him into a tree-trunk, he let go and rolled over and over and quickly stood up.

The boar did not wait for him to regain his breath, but came charging at once. This time Bram Forest waited until the last possible instant before the tusks would impale him. Then he leaped, twisting around in air. It was a prodigious leap and brought a word of exclamation even to Bylanus' lips. He landed on the hard-muscled back of the boar and at once clamped his knees firmly against its sinewy flanks as if he had been trained all his life for this job.

The boar reared and bucked and swung its great body from side to side, trying to dislodge its tormentor. But Bram Forest clung as if all Tarth depended on the outcome of this contest--as, perhaps, it did.

The boar ducked its head. Bram Forest fell forward, but his knees locked. The boar rolled over, but moving so swiftly that the eye could hardly follow him, Bram Forest squirmed out from under and was seated astride again when the boar got to its feet.

Then, leaning forward, Bram Forest grasped the two tusks and began to pull the boar's head up and back toward him.

The animal's screaming became squealing. Slowly the head went back, the short, almost non-existent neck strained, the beady eyes darted.

Then there was a loud snapping sound and the boar squealed once and fell over on its side with a broken neck.

Bram Forest, panting, the muscles of his legs quivering, stood clear. Bylanus touched his great golden head to the ground. Ylia ran to Bram Forest and flung her arms about his neck. "I was afraid," she said. "I was so afraid you would be hurt."

Bram Forest kissed her. She clung to him, sobbing his name when their lips parted. Finally Bram Forest disengaged himself and said:

"The poem, Ylia. We've seen an ape, a boar, a stallion. This world is the 'land beyond the stars.' But was the boar also the raging beast?"

Ylia shrugged. Bylanus stood up and told Bram Forest, "The Golden Apes are ready to serve you in any way you wish."

Three worlds, Bram Forest thought. One which Portox had saved from doom, one which had been the haven in which Bram Forest had grown to manhood, and one in which all their destinies soon would be written.

"Then Tarth thanks you," Bram Forest told the Golden Ape Bylanus. "Assemble your fighters. We're going back up the River of Ice."

"To Nadia City?" Ylia asked.

Bram Forest nodded grimly. "To Nadia City--and Retoc."

* * * * *

Bontarc, King of Nadia, asked his royal guest, "You like the Games so far?"

They sat, with Princess Volna, in the box of honor at the Amphitheater of Nadia. "Aye, I like them," Retoc said slowly. "But sire, I would like them much better if they were not to commemorate the passing of your noble brother, the Prince Jlomec."

Bontarc nodded his head in gratitude. "That was well-spoken, Retoc," he said.

Retoc went on: "Have you any idea who killed him so treacherously? Jlomec was not a fighting man."

"None," Bontarc admitted. He missed entirely the smile which passed between Retoc and Princess Volna.

"Well," Bontarc said after a while, "if you will excuse me, I must go down below to prepare for the dueling. Under the circumstances I'm hardly inclined to participate in the Games, but my people expect it of me."

"Yes, brother," Volna said softly. "They do. Oh, they do."

And Bontarc went. Retoc looked at Volna. "I'd best get ready myself," he said. Volna nodded her lovely head.

A blood-lusting animal cry welled up from a hundred thousand throats as the gladiators of Nadia marched out across the sands of the amphitheater to do battle with the fierce snow-sloths of the Plains of Ice.

While several jeks from the Gates of Ice, Retoc's legions waited....

* * * * *

"Wait here," Bram Forest told Bylanus, who had led them safely, along with the vanguard of the Golden Apes, back up the River of Ice.

"What will you do, Bram Forest?"

"According to Ylia, we can trust Bontarc of Nadia. He's a fighting man, but he craves peace for all Tarth."

"I'm sure of it," Ylia said. "Bontarc didn't send us to the Place of the Dead. Princess Volna did. And long ago, according to the stories the Wayfarers of Ofrid tell, Bontarc and your mother, Queen Evalla, were allies striving to establish universal peace throughout Tarth. Besides, despite his civility and fairness, Bontarc losses no love on Retoc of Abaria."

"And if you need us?" Bylanus asked.

"We'll get a signal through to you," Bram Forest said. With Ylia he climbed into a skiff and poled it out into the river.

Now the riverbanks were deserted, except for the solitary stilt-birds, tall as men, wading out into the frigid water, their low-pitched calls all but swallowed by the sound the cold wind made rustling through the river rushes.

After a while the skiff came to a bend in the river. It was the last turn before the Gates of Ice--and Nadia City. Here the wind blew more strongly, and there was a section of rushes which had been cleared, cut probably by an Ice Fields nomad who had used the tall rushes as fuel.

"Look!" Ylia cried suddenly, startled.

Through the gap in the rushes, at a distance of two or three jeks across the flat plain from the river, Bram Forest saw an armed encampment. There were tents with flying standards, tethered stads, pyramids of stacked spears like hayricks, and pacing sentries.

"What can it mean?" Ylia asked. "Those standards are Abarian."

"Retoc," Bram Forest said. He lifted the pole and felt the mud of the river-bottom cling to it before it came clear. He allowed the skiff to drift toward the bank. "Retoc's planning treachery. We'll have to go back and alert the Golden Apes. Bylanus and his Apes can destroy Retoc's legions before they even march on Nadia City."

"But we can't go back, Bram. If Retoc's army is here, ready, then what's happening in Nadia City? Who can say what Retoc is doing? You'll have to go ahead and stop him--or at least delay him. I'll go back for Bylanus."

* * * * *

Bram Forest shook his head. "I can't let you go alone, Ylia. Not with the Abarian legions so close."

"But I must, don't you see?"

Bram Forest frowned. There did not seem any other way, but he was reluctant. "I love you, Ylia. I couldn't let--"

"What happens in Nadia City today is more important than our love, Bram Forest! What would our love mean if Retoc the Abarian ruled all Tarth?"

"Then you take the skiff," Bram Forest said finally. "I can make my way to the city along the bank."

"No. The army is still encamped. They won't do anything for some time yet. See? All their tents are still standing."

That was true enough. "Besides," Ylia went on, "we don't know what Retoc is planning in the city. You can reach it faster by skiff. I'll go back for Bylanus on foot."

The logic of what Ylia said could not be refuted. With sinking heart Bram Forest helped her from the skiff. He kissed her quickly. "I love you, Ylia," he said.

"And I love you, Bram Forest."

"Be careful. Keep hidden in the rushes. Tell Bylanus to use his judgment in attacking or waiting for Retoc's legions to make the first move."

Ylia's pretty head nodded. Then she ducked into the rushes and was gone. Bram Forest looked after her until the rustling in the rushes stopped, then he poled the skiff once more out into the center of the river and sped swiftly toward the Gates of Ice.

No one stopped him. No guards were posted. He beached the skiff and sprinted through the gates and through the city and up its biggest hill toward the amphitheater. Then, only a jek's distance away, he heard the crowd at the funeral games. They roared suddenly in a frenzy of excitement and another part of Portox's poem slipped into place. The crowd watching the games in Nadia City was the raging beast, blood-lusting, expectant, animal-savage, whipped into a fever of goggle-eyed enthusiasm and ready to move, en-masse, in whatever direction a strong leader might push them.

A strong leader....

Retoc? Or Bram Forest? Which one?

* * * * *

Pirum the Abarian shifted his weight uncomfortably, leaning down on the haft of his spear. The whole idea of posting pickets along the bank of the river seemed unnecessary to him. They could not actually see the river through the rushes, and they dared not go closer for fear of being spotted by whatever traffic moved on the icy waters. Then what was the point of them standing here, half-frozen with the cold, waiting for an assailant who would never come?

And while he was thinking thus, the girl virtually walked into Pirum's arms. At first he heard a faint rustling in the rushes and, before he could investigate, the tallest of the dry plants had parted and a lovely bronze-skinned girl appeared. She turned to run, but Pirum caught her in his muscular arms and held her despite her struggles.

She bit his arm and, with an oath, he caught her hair and twisted her head back. "Who are you?" he said. "Who are you, eh?"

The girl glowered at him.

Pirum dragged her along. She continued to struggle. Shaking his head, he hit her on the jaw with his fist and caught her before she could fall. Then, swinging her up over his broad shoulder, he stalked through the rushes toward Nadia City.

CHAPTER XVII

The Prison Without Bars

No one tried to stop Bram Forest until he reached the very gates of the amphitheater. But there a guard with drawn whip-sword barred the way and demanded: "You don't look Nadian to me. What delegation are you with, man?"

Bram Forest had no time to parry words with words. He tried to push his way past the guard who, too surprised to thrust with his weapon, used his free hand to grab Bram Forest by the shoulder and spin him around. Bram Forest drove his left fist into the guard's belly and heard the whoosh of air escaping from his lungs.

That was the last thing he heard for some time. A second guard crept up quietly behind him and struck expertly with the hilt of his whip-sword just behind the left ear. Bram Forest fell as if the ground dropped out from under him.

"By all the fiery gods of Tarth, will you look at that!" the first guard exclaimed.

The second guard could only gawk, not comprehending.

The unconscious man was growing tenuous.

The first guard in confused alarm, lashed down with the whip-sword. But its point passed through Bram Forest's now transparent body without meeting any resistance.

"Right through him! Right through him!" cried the guard.

And, by the time he said it, and coiled his sword again, Bram Forest had vanished.

* * * * *

When an urgent message had come for Retoc, the Princess Volna, alone in the royal box, had decided to investigate the matter herself. She had to hurry, though. In not many minutes, Retoc and Bontarc would find themselves face to face on the sands of the amphitheater. Wouldn't Bontarc be surprised! Too proud to flee, not swordsman enough to match the mighty Retoc....

"Yes, yes, what is it?" she snapped irritably when she entered the dungeon-like ready-room below the amphitheater sands. She was in a hurry to return to her box, lest she miss the duel between Bontarc and Retoc. Alone in the ready-room was a soldier in the uniform of Abaria.

"Begging your pardon, ma'am," said the soldier. "My message is for Retoc of Abaria."

"And I tell you Retoc of Abaria is not here to receive it." Volna clapped her hands and two of her own guards appeared. "I am the Princess Volna. Well?"

Pirum looked at her, at the armed guards flanking her on either side, at the door through which she had entered, at

dy-room's second door. "Very well," he said at last

d opened the second door, beckoning.

Volna went to the doorway and looked. She gasped involuntarily, hardly able to believe her eyes. There on the stone floor of a smaller ready-room, only now regaining consciousness, was the Virgin Wayfarer of Ofrid, she who had seen Retoc slay Jlomec, she who had been sent by Volna herself to sure death on the Journey of No Return. Terror gripped her.

"What does this mean?" Volna cried. "Where did you find her? Where, man? Speak!"

"On the river, ladyship."

"On the river? Returning from the Place of the Dead?"

"No, ladyship. Heading toward the Place of the Dead."

Volna went to the girl and stood over her. "You! What's your name?"

"Ylia," the girl said.

"What were you trying to do, Ylia?"

The girl said nothing.

Volna called to Pirum, who came at once. "Hit her," Volna said.

Grasping Ylia by her hair, Pirum struck her face with his open hand. Her head snapped back. The mark of his fingers was on her face. She said nothing.

"Hit her again," Volna said.

Pirum struck Ylia a second time. The girl whimpered, but held her tongue. "Where is your friend, that giant of a man?" Volna asked.

Again Pirum hit Ylia when she would say nothing. Finally Volna shrugged. "She'll talk, given enough of that. What's your name, man?"

"Pirum, ladyship."

"Very well, Pirum. My guards and I are returning to our seats. There is a duel I wouldn't want to miss. All Tarth will reap its consequences. Meanwhile, stay with this girl and do what you must do to make her talk. It might be important."

Pirum bowed. "Yes, ladyship," he said, and watched the others depart. Then, when they were alone, Ylia surprised him by flying at him, nails bared, like a wildcat. He fought off her attack and struck her a savage open-handed blow, and she fell back. At least this, Pirum thought advancing on her, might be an interesting assignment.

* * * * *

"... hit by that cab, mac."

"You all right?"

"He's getting up, ain't he?"

"Jeez, I swear," the sweating taxi driver said to the crowd which had gathered about the prostrate man, "he popped up outa nowhere. One second I'm driving along, looking for a fare, the next, he's standing right in front of me. I al

pushed the brake through the floor, honest, but--"

"Ylia," the stricken man said.

"Hey now, take it easy."

"What he say, anyhow?"

"... be going to a costume ball or something. Lookit that outfit he's wearing, willya? What's he supposed to be, a man from Mars or something? I read in the papers where Mars was pretty close a while back. My kid thinks there are...."

"Aw, shudap about your kid."

"Need any help, mister?"

"No. No, thank you. I'm all right."

"... got a nasty crack on his head, is all. See? See the blood?"

"He's getting up."

"... a cop. When you don't want 'em, they're around. Now you need them, where in heck are they, that's what I wanna know."

"The bracelet!" the stricken man said in sudden alarm. He stared at his own right arm in confusion, then his left. His arms were bare.

"You wasn't wearing no bracelet, mac," someone said.

"No bracelet," he said. "No bracelet." His eyes looked vague, confused.

After a while a policeman came and took in the situation at a glance. "All right, all right," he bawled. "Step back and givemair, givemair, will you?"

The crowd dispersed slowly, and the policeman talked for a while with the taxi-driver, then with the stricken man.

"My name?" the stricken man said in answer to a question. "Bram Forest. Yes, Bram Forest. But I don't have the bracelet. The bracelet is gone, forever. Without the bracelet I can't...." his voice trailed off.

"He drunk?" the policeman asked the cab driver.

"Search me."

"'A prison without bars,'" the man recited. "Earth is my prison, forever. Ylia. Ylia!"

The driver made a circular motion with his forefinger, in the general vicinity of his temple.

"You both better come down the station house with me," the policeman said.

"Aw, officer, I'll lose some fares."

"Anyhow. The guy talks batty, but he don't look drunk. We got to figure this here out."

"Ylia," the man said, almost as if the sound were a name and he was crying out to the owner of that name across an unthinkable abyss.

* * * * *

Bontarc, King of Nadia, felt as good as could be expected under the circumstances. Now that the first shock of bereavement had passed, he knew no mourning would bring back his dead brother Jlomec. And the sun of Tarth was hot on the amphitheater sands as Bontarc stood awaiting his as yet unknown adversary. He flexed and uncoiled his whip-sword, smiling in expectancy. He was a competent swordsman, among the dozen or so best in Nadia. The duel-to-first-blood would be just what he needed. Win or lose, he'd feel a lot better afterwards. And meanwhile, he was a king, wasn't he? The adulation of the crowd swept down all around him, lifting his spirits. The corpse of Prince Jlomec, treacherously slain, seemed very far away--as, indeed, it was....

A roar of expectancy went up from a hundred thousand throats as Bontarc's adversary appeared at the other end of the arena. The sun was dazzling. At first Bontarc saw the swordsman only as a dot across the gleaming sands. But now the roar of expectancy had turned to a groan of dismay, which was followed by a silence, as of death, then an eager whispered buzzing. Why should this be? Why....

The figure came closer on the burning sands. Bontarc squinted. Was it possible? He felt a tremor go through his body.

It was Retoc of Abaria!

"To the death, Bontarc," Retoc said softly, savagely, as they approached.

Bontarc shook his head imperceptibly. He was no coward, but knew he was no match for Retoc and didn't see why he should lay down his life on the amphitheater sands. "I'll not fight you to the death, Retoc of Abaria," he said.

Retoc shrugged as if it weren't very important. "Well," he said slowly, "if you don't want to kill the slayer of your brother...."

Bontarc charged.

Laughing, Retoc was ready for him.

* * * * *

"... Please ... please ... you're just wasting your time. I ... won't ... tell you."

"No?" Pirum said, panting. He saw the girl through a haze of anger, frustration, and desire. She was naked, her lips were bloody, but her eyes still flashed defiance. Pirum, like most Abarians, was something of a sadist.

"Oh, you'll talk," he said. "You'll talk."

"... never...."

He dug his strong finger cruelly into her tender body.

"Bram Forest...." she cried.

* * * * *

The policeman behind the desk was saying things. Bram Forest heard the droning voice, but not the words. Ylia, he thought. Ylia. A moment before, he actually believed he heard her cry out to him in pain. But that couldn't be. Besides, what could he do about it? He was trapped forever on Earth, without the bracelet which could send him, almost on the wings of thought, back to Tarth, to Ylia, to his destiny.

I love you, girl of Tarth, he thought. I love you, Ylia, more than words and more than worlds.

Something whisperingly cold plucked at him, and for an instant his heart was stilled.

Ylia!

Could his love for the girl of Tarth draw him across the unthinkable abyss?

"... immodestly attired and ..." the desk sergeant was saying.

Ylia, Ylia, call me! Draw me to you, girl of Tarth. ... bramforesthelp.... Ylia! I hear you! I hear you!

"What the heck's he doing? Praying?" the patrolman asked.

For Bram Forest was staring devoutly at nothing, staring at the air in front of his face there in the mundane precinct room as if it held a radiant vision.

Suddenly the desk sergeant's jaw dropped open. The patrolman said: "Hey, wait a mo...."

Bram Forest was becoming tenuous, vanishing.

* * * * *

Insubstantial, transparent, the image of Bram Forest soared past the encampment of the Golden Apes. "Bylanus!" he called, and his voice was not insubstantial. Bylanus came at once.

"If the Abarian legions move, attack them, Bylanus."

"As you will, Bram Forest. But you...."

"Don't worry about me. I can control it, I can control it."

Bylanus passed an enormous hand through Bram Forest's body.

"I'll materialize, when I find Ylia. She draws me...." Already the vision was fading.

"Farewell, Bram Forest."

Farewell....

Was it merely the sound of the wind along the banks of the River of Ice? Bylanus wondered.

* * * * *

Something struck Pirum's shoulder. The girl crouched, sobbing, at his feet. Pirum whirled.

His face went white when he saw the man. He swung his fist desperately, and the man blocked it without effort. His arm was caught, as in a vise. He screamed. Something snapped in his arm. Something streaked at his face....

He took the blow from Bram Forest's fist under the point of the jaw. His head snapped back against the dungeon wall and memory and desire and lust and life oozed out through his smashed skull.

"Ylia!"

"You came, Bram Forest."

"I'll never leave you again."

"Yes, now, in the amphitheater. I think...."

Overhead, the crowd roared. Bram Forest listened for a fraction of a second, and raced for the stairs.

When word of the duel between Bontarc and Retoc came by courier to Laugrim, second in command of the Abarian army under the missing Hultax, Laugrim decided it was time to attack. He gave the signal for his army to march on the city, and the signal was passed from signal-fire to signal-fire in the huge encampment. In a very short time, the army's vanguard began to march. There's no force on all Tarth strong enough to stop us now, Laugrim thought exultantly. This day, Retoc would rule Tarth.

He was right. There was no Tarthian army strong enough to stop them. But the Army of the Golden Apes which, after Bram Forest's warning, had deployed itself at the very gates of Nadia City so the people in the amphitheater might witness the battle, was not of Tarth....

* * * * *

"Well, Bontarc," cried Retoc, "can't you do better than that? Surely a king...."

For many minutes now Retoc, the finest swordsman on Tarth, had been toying with his adversary. He could have killed Bontarc a dozen times over, but he waited, driving the Nadian ruler back, playing with him, making him do incredible gymnastics in order to survive, three times returning his whip-sword to him when it had been torn from the Nadian's hands.

All Nadia--and all the rulers of Tarth--watched spellbound. It seemed to them that the Nadian ruler had gone into the contest willingly. They made no move, and under the ethics that governed their world, would make no move, to stop the uneven contest.

Retoc's blurring sword-point whipped and flashed, drawing blood from a dozen superficial wounds. The smile never left Retoc's face. Desperately, knowing his life was forfeit whenever Retoc chose, Bontarc parried the whip-lashing blade.

* * * * *

Bram Forest emerged into the dazzling sunlight of the arena floor. Squinting, he saw the figures across the sand.

The men before him were Bontarc of Nadia and Retoc, slayer of his mother, destroyer of Ofridia.

Retoc saw him first, and cried out exultantly. His wrist blurred, his whip-sword flashed, the point singing, and Bontarc's sword flew from his fingers. "You!" Retoc cried.

The sword-point had slashed an artery on Bontarc's wrist. The blood spurted out and Bontarc stood there, dazed, holding the wound shut with his left hand.

"Are you all right, sire?" Bram Forest asked.

"I can manage until a doctor binds--"

* * * * *

Bram Forest picked up the Nadian ruler's whip-sword and faced his enemy, sword to sword, at last.

Retoc looked at him, and laughed. "I almost killed you once," he said. His hand barely seemed to move, but the point of his blade, whipping, flashing, was everywhere. Bram Forest parried desperately. "I'll finish the job now," Retoc vowed.

Then Bram Forest did an unexpected thing. He used the whip-sword not as a sword: he couldn't hope to match Retoc's skill as a swordsman. He used it as a whip is used, his great arm slicing back and forth through air, up over his head and down, the long length of the uncoiled blading whipping and darting like something alive across the sands.

Retoc retreated two steps, and lunged with what he hoped would be a death blow.

Prokliam the seneschal was trembling so much he could hardly stand. Just outside the amphitheater, in the very shadow of the amphitheater wall, the great Golden Apes of legend had materialized. There were thousands of them, and they were three times the size of men, and methodically and with great ease, they were destroying the Abarian army before it could enter the amphitheater.

Without the Abarian army, Volna and Retoc would never subjugate Nadia, never rule Tarth. But Prokliam the seneschal had committed himself to their cause. Now only death awaited him.

Or, had he committed himself? Couldn't he change sides before it was too late? Couldn't he slay Volna, here in the royal box, for all to see? Couldn't he become a hero of the people? He was confused. He wished he could think clearly, but he was more frightened than he had ever been in his life. There was something wrong with his logic. Something.... Well, no matter. Slay Volna first, call her traitor, and then worry about his logic--

He turned away from the wall and marched down the flights of stairs between the citizens of Nadia, flanked in two wildly shouting mobs on either side of the aisle, and plunged a knife into Volna's back, killing her instantly.

The people roared, and rose up. Like a tide they swept toward Prokliam, the seneschal who had wanted to be prime minister.

"No, no!" he cried. "No, please. You don't understand. ... I see it now ... what was wrong with my thinking ... you don't know yet ... you don't know ... to you she was still the Princess Volna, loyal, true ... you don't understand, please."

The wave rolled over Prokliam the seneschal, leaving him battered and bloody and dead in its wake.

* * * * *

The strong, whipping motion of Bram Forest's arm made a wall of steel of his whip-sword. Try as he might, with all the skill at his command, Retoc could not dent that wall. But, he thought, there was another way. Slowly, desperately, he maneuvered Bram Forest back toward Bontarc, who was sitting in the sand and using all his remaining energy to hold the life blood in his veins, his fingers clamped, vise-like, about his own arm.

Bram Forest's arm blurred up, down, to either side. He wove a web of death. It was brawn against skill, he knew--and the strength of his arm might win! Retoc was sweating. Retoc was not the cool swordsman he had been moments before. Desperately, Retoc sought an opening, and found none. True, his superior footwork was forcing Bram Forest back across the sand, but what did that matter? Last time they dueled he had made the mistake of meeting Retoc on his own grounds as greatest swordsman of Tarth. This time....

His legs caught against something. He fell heavily.

Retoc's sword-point flashed down.

Bram Forest rolled over, stood up with sand blinding his eyes. For precious moments he could see nothing but could only spin with the whip-sword; slashing air in all directions, hoping Retoc couldn't strike through the wall of steel.

Then, slowly, vision returned to his stinging eyes. Bontarc lay stretched out on the sand now, unconscious, the blood pumping from his severed artery. If he bled like that for more than a few moments, he would die. If he died, and if Nadia rose in its wrath against Abaria, then all that Bram Forest had dreamed of, not revenge against Abaria for a wrong done, but eternal peace on Tarth, would be lost....

He took the offensive, weaving his wall of steel toward Retoc. The Abarian thrust his own sword, and withdrew it, and parried, and lunged and thrust again. The wall of steel which was Bram Forest's singing blade advanced relentlessly.

Round and round his head, Bram Forest whirled the whip-sword. Retoc could--just--block the motion, the death-laden circle, with his own blade. He became accustomed to it. He used all his effort, all his skill to block it.

Then, abruptly, Bram Forest raised his sword-arm and brought it down from high over his head.

Retoc screamed.

And died screaming, his head and torso split from crown to navel.

Bram Forest rushed to Bontarc, stretched out on the sand, and with his own hand stemmed the bleeding.

Bylanus the Golden Ape said: "All Tarth is yours to command if you wish it, Bram Forest."

"No, Bylanus. Take your people back to your world and live in peace. We of Tarth thank you."

Bylanus smiled. "I thought you would say that."

"Portox was a great scientist," Bram Forest said. "But he thought too much of revenge. The ancient wrong is righted."

"Then you'll spare Abaria?" gasped the delegate of the assembled Tarthian nobles, who had come to the meeting called by Bylanus that night.

"My fight was with Retoc and the Abarian army. Retoc is dead, the army decimated and disbanded. My fight with Abaria is over."

"Then what will you do?"

Bram Forest took Ylia's hand. "I'd like to see a great nation rise again on the Plains of Ofrid."

Bontarc, his arm bandaged, said: "My people will help you build. And, with your wayfarers as a nucleus maid Ylia...."

"It will be a small nation at first," Ylia said.

"It will grow, so long as Tarth knows peace," Bontarc told her.

"Tarth will know nothing but peace from now on," Bram Forest promised.

It was a promise which he knew all of them would keep.

THE END

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Quest of the Golden Ape, by Ivar Jorgensen and Adam Chase

Project Gutenberg's ...Or Your Money Back, by Gordon Randall Garrett

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: ...Or Your Money Back

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Release Date: November 18, 2007 [EBook #23534]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ...OR YOUR MONEY BACK ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

... Or Your Money Back

BY DAVID GORDON

Illustrated by Summers

[Transcriber note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction, September 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

[Illustration: There are lots of things that are considered perfectly acceptable ... provided they don't work. And of course everyone knows they really don't, which is why they're acceptable.... ]

There are times when I don't know my own strength. Or, at least, the strength of my advice. And the case of Jason Howley was certainly an instance of one of those times.

When he came to my office with his gadget, I heard him out, trying to appear both interested and co-operative--which is good business. But I am forced to admit that neither Howley nor his gadget were very impressive. He was a lean, slope-shouldered individual, five-feet-eight or nine--which was shorter than he looked--with straight brown hair combed straight back and blue eyes which were shielded with steel-rimmed glasses. The thick, double-concave lenses indicated a degree of myopia that must have bordered on total blindness without glasses, and acute tunnel vision, even with them.

He had a crisp, incisive manner that indicated he was either a man who knew what he was doing or a man who was trying to impress me with a ready-made story. I listened to him and looked at his gadget without giving any more indication than necessary of what I really thought.

When he was through, I said: "You understand, Mr. Howley that I'm not a patent lawyer; I specialize in criminal law. Now, I can recommend--"

But he cut me off. "I understand that, counselor," he said sharply. "Believe me, I have no illusion whatever that this thing is patentable under the present patent system. Even if it were, this gadget is designed to do something that may or may not be illegal, which would make it hazardous to attempt to patent it, I should think. You don't patent new devices for blowing safes or new drugs for doping horses, do you?"

"Probably not," I said dryly, "although, as I say, I'm not qualified to give

ion on patent law. You say that gadget is designed to cause minute, but significant, changes in the velocities of small, m

Just how does that make it illegal?"

He frowned a little. "Well, possibly it wouldn't, except here in Nevada. Specifically, it is designed to influence roulette and dice games."

I looked at the gadget with a little more interest this time. There was nothing new in the idea of inventing a gadget to cheat the red-and-black wheels, of course; the local cops turn up a dozen a day here in the city. Most of them either don't work at all or else they're too obvious, so the users get nabbed before they have a chance to use them.

The only ones that really

k have to be installed in the tables themselves, which means they're used to milk the suckers, not rob the management. And anyone in the State of Nevada who buys a license to operate and then uses crooked wheels is (a) stupid, and (b) out of business within a week. Howley was right. Only in a place where gambling is legalized is it illegal--and unprofitable--to rig a game.

The gadget itself didn't look too complicated from the outside. It was a black plastic box about an inch and a half square and maybe three and a half long. On one end was a lensed opening, half an inch in diameter, and on two sides there were flat, silver-colored plates. On the top of it, there was a dial which was, say, an inch in diameter, and it was marked off just exactly like a roulette wheel.

"How does it work?" I asked.

He picked it up in his hand, holding it as though it were a flashlight, with the lens pointed away from him.

"You aim the lens at the wheel," he explained, "making sure that your thumb is touching the silver plate on one side, and your fingers touching the plate on the other side. Then you set this dial for whatever number you want to come up and concentrate on it while the ball is spinning. For dice, of course, you only need to use the first six or twelve numbers on the dial, depending on the game."

* * * * *

I looked at him for a long moment, trying to figure his angle. He looked back steadily, his eyes looking like small beads peering through the bottoms of a couple of shot glasses.

"You look skeptical, counselor," he said at last.

"I am. A man who hasn't got the ability to be healthily skeptical has no right to practice law--especially criminal law. On the other hand, no lawyer has any right to judge anything one way or the other without evidence."

"But that's neither here nor there at the moment. What I'm interested in is, what do you want me to do? People rarely come to a criminal lawyer unless they're in a jam. What sort of jam are you in at the moment?"

"None," said Howley. "But I will be very soon. I hope."

Well, I've heard odder statements than that from my clients. I let it ride for the moment and looked down at the notes I'd taken while he'd told me his story.

"You're a native of New York City?" I asked.

"That's right. That's what I said."

"And you came out here for what? To use that thing on our Nevada tables?"

"That's right, counselor."

"Can't you find any games to cheat on back home?"

"Oh, certainly. Plenty of them. But they aren't legal. I wouldn't care to get mixed up in anything illegal. Besides, it wouldn't suit my purpose."

That stopped me for a moment. "You don't consider cheating illegal? It certainly is in Nevada. In New York, if you were caught at it, you'd have the big gambling interests on your neck; here, you'll have both them and the police after you. And the district attorney's office."

He smiled. "Yes, I know. That's what I'm expecting. That's why I need a good lawyer to defend me. I understand you're the top man in this city."

"Mr. Howley," I said carefully, "as a member of the Bar Association and a practicing attorney in the State of Nevada, I am an Officer of the Court. If you had been caught cheating and had come to me, I'd be able to help you. But I can't enter into a conspiracy with you to defraud legitimate businessmen, which is exactly what this would be."

He blinked at me through those shot-glass spectacles. "Counselor, would you refuse to defend a man if you thought he was guilty?"

I shook my head. "No. Legally, a man is not guilty until proven so by a court of law. He has a right to trial by jury. For me to refuse to give a man the defense he is legally entitled to, just because I happened to think he was guilty, would be trial by attorney. I'll do the best I can for any client; I'll work for his interests, no matter what my private opinion may be."

He looked impressed, so I guess there must have been a note of conviction in my voice. There should have been, because it was exactly what I've always believed and practiced.

"That's good, counselor," said Howley. "If I can convince you that I have

intent, that I have no intention of defrauding anyone or conspiring with you to do anything illegal, will you help me?"

I didn't have to think that one over. I simply said, "Yes." After all, it was still up to me to decide whether he convinced me or not. If he didn't, I could still refuse the case on those grounds.

"That's fair enough, counselor," he said. Then he started talking.

* * * * *

Instead of telling you what Jason Howley said he was going to do, I'll tell you what he did do. They are substantially the same, anyway, and the old bromide about actions speaking louder than words certainly applied in this case.

Mind you, I didn't see or hear any of this, but there were plenty of witnesses to testify as to what went on. Their statements are a matter of court record, and Jason Howley's story is substantiated in every respect.

He left my office smiling. He'd convinced me that the case was not only going to be worthwhile, but fun. I took it, plus a fat retainer.

Howley went up to his hotel room, changed into his expensive evening clothes, and headed out to do the town. I'd suggested several places, but he wanted the biggest and best--the Golden Casino, a big, plush, expensive place that was just inside the city limits. In his pockets, he was carrying less than two hundred dollars in cash.

Now, nobody with that kind of chicken feed can expect to last long at the Golden Casino unless they stick to the two-bit one-armed bandits. But putting money on a roulette table is in a higher bracket by far than feeding a slot machine, even if you get a steady run of lemons.

Howley didn't waste any time. He headed for the roulette table right away. He watched the play for about three spins of the wheel, then he took out his gadget--in plain sight of anyone who cared to watch--and set the dial for thirteen. Then he held it in his hand with thumb and finger touching the plates and put his hand in his jacket pocket, with the lens aimed at the wheel. He stepped up to the table, bought a hundred dollars worth of chips, and put fifty on Number Thirteen.

"No more bets," said the croupier. He spun the wheel and dropped the ball.

"Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low," he chanted after a minute. With a practiced hand, he raked in the losers and pushed out Howley's winnings. There was sixteen hundred dollars sitting on thirteen now. Howley touch it.

The wheel went around and the little ball clattered around the rim and finally fell into a slot.

"Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low," said the croupier. This time, he didn't look as nonchalant. He peered curiously at Howley as he pushed out the chips to make a grand total of fifty-one thousand two hundred dollars. The same number doesn't come up twice in succession very often, and it is very rare indeed that the same person is covering it both times with a riding bet.

"Two thousand limit, sir," the croupier said, when it looked as though Howley was going to let the fifty-one grand just sit there.

Howley nodded apologetically and pulled off everything but two thousand dollars worth of chips.

The third time around, the croupier had his eyes directly on Howley as he repeated the chant: "Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low." Everybody else at the table was watching Howley, too. The odds against Howley--or anyone else, for that matter--hitting the same number three times in a row are just under forty thousand to one.

Howley didn't want to overdo it. He left two thousand on thirteen, raked in the rest, and twisted the dial on his gadget over a notch.

Everyone at the table gasped as the little ball dropped.

"That was a near miss," whispered a woman standing nearby.

The croupier said: "Fourteen, Red, Even, and Low." And he raked in Howley's two thousand dollars with a satisfied smile. He had seen runs of luck before.

Howley deliberately lost two more spins the same way. Nobody who was actually cheating would call too much attention to himself, and Howley wanted it to look as though he were trying to cover up the fact that he had a sure thing.

He took the gadget out of his pocket and deliberately set it to the green square marked 00. Then he put it back in his pocket and put two thousand dollars on the Double Zero.

* * * * *

There was more than suspicion in the croupier's eyes when he raked in all the bets on the table except Howley's. It definitely didn't look good to him. A man who had started out with a fifty-dollar bet had managed to run it up to one hundred seventy-four thousand two hundred dollars in six plays.

Howley looked as innocent as possible under the circumstances, and carefully dropped the dial on his gadget back a few notches. Then he bet another two thousand on High, an even mone

Naturally, he won.

He twisted the dial back a few more notches and won again on High.

Then he left it where it was and won by betting on Red.

By this time, of course, things were happening. The croupier had long since pressed the alarm button, and five men had carefully surrounded Howley. They looked like customers, but they were harder-looking than the average, and they were watching Howley, not the wheel. Farther back from the crowd, three of the special deputies from the sheriff's office were trying to look inconspicuous in their gray uniforms and white Stetsons and pearl-handled revolvers in black holsters. You can imagine how inconspicuous they looked.

Howley decided to do it up brown. He reset his gadget as surreptitiously as possible under the circumstances, and put his money on thirteen again.

"Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low," said the croupier in a hollow voice.

The five men in evening dress and the three deputies moved in closer.

Howley nonchalantly scraped in his winnings, leaving the two thousand on the thirteen spot.

There was a combination of hostility and admiration in every eye around the table when the croupier said, "Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low" for the fifth time in the space of minutes. And everyone of those eyes was turned on Jason Howley.

The croupier smiled his professional smile. "I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen; we'll have to discontinue play for a while. The gentleman has broken the bank at this table." He turned the smile on Howley. "Congratulations, sir."

Howley smiled back and began stacking up over three hundred thousand dollars worth of plastic disks. It made quite a pile.

One of the deputies stepped up politely. "I'm an officer, sir," he said. "May I help you carry that to the cashier's office?"

Howley looked at the gold star and nodded. "Certainly. Thanks."

[Illustration]

The other two deputies stepped up, too, and the three of them walked Howley toward the cashier's office. Behind them came the five men in dinner jackets.

"You'll have to step into the office to cash that much, sir," said one of the deputies as he opened the door. Howley walked in as though he hadn't a care in the world. He put his chips on the desk, and the deputies followed suit, while one of the dinner-jacketed men closed the door.

Then one of the deputies said: "I believe this gentle person is carrying a gun."

He had his own revolver out and had it pointed at Howley's middle. "Carrying a concealed weapon is illegal in this city," he went on. "I'm afraid we'll have to search you."

Howley didn't object. He put his hands up high and stood there while his pockets were frisked.

"Well, well," said the deputy coolly. "What on Earth is this?"

It was Howley's gadget, and the dial still pointed to Thirteen--Black, Odd, and Low.

* * * * *

The next morning, I went down to the jail in response to a phone call from Howley. The special deputies had turned him over to the city police and he was being held "under suspicion of fraud." I knew we could beat that down to an "attempt to defraud," but the object was to get Howley off scott-free. After Howley told me the whole story, I got busy pushing the case through. As long as he was simply being held on suspicion, I couldn't get him out on bail, so I wanted to force the district attorney or the police to prefer charges.

Meanwhile, I made sure that Howley's gadget had been impounded as evidence. I didn't want anyone fiddling with it before the case went to court--except, of course, the D. A. and his men. There wasn't much I could do to keep it out of their hands.

After throwing as much weight around as I could, including filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus with Judge Grannis, I went over to Howley's hotel with a signed power of attorney that Howley had given me, and I got a small envelope out of the hotel safe. It contained a baggage check.

I went over to the bus depot, turned over the check to the baggage department, and went back to my office with a small suitcase. I locked myself in and opened the case. Sure enough, it contained three dozen of the little gadgets.

Then I sat down to wait. By noon, Judge Grannis had issued the writ of habeas corpus, and, rather than release Jason Howley, the police had booked him, and District Attorney Thursby was getting the case ready for the grand jury. There was over a quarter of a million dollars at stake, and the men behind the Golden Casino were bringing pressure to bear. If Howley wasn't convicted, they'd have to give him his money--and that was the last thing they wanted to do. A quarter of a million bucks isn't small potatoes, even to a gambling syndicate.

It wasn't until early on the morning of the third day after Howley's arrest that I got a tip-off from one of my part-time spies. I scooped up the phone when it rang and identified myself.

"Counselor? Look, this is Benny." I recognized the voice and name. Benny was one of the cabbies that I'd done favors for in the past.

"What's the trouble, Benny?"

"Oh, no trouble. I just got a little tip you might be interested in."

"Fire away."

"Well, the D.A. and some of his boys went into the Golden Casino about ten minutes ago, and now they're closin' up the place. Just for a little while, I understand. Hour, maybe. They're chasin' everyone out of the roulette room."

"Thanks, Benny," I said, "thanks a lot."

"Well, I knew you was working on that Howley case, and I thought this might be important, so I--"

"Sure, Benny. Come by my office this afternoon. And thanks again."

I hung up and started moving.

Within ten minutes, I was pulling up and parking across the street from the Golden Casino. I locked the car and dodged traffic to get across the street, as though I'd never heard of laws against jaywalking.

There were still plenty of people in the Casino. The bar was full, and the dice and card games were going full blast. The slot machines were jingling out their infernal din while fools fed coins into their insatiable innards.

But the roulette room was closed, and a couple of be-Stetsoned deputies were standing guard over the entrance. I headed straight for them.

Both of them stood pat, blocking my way, so I stopped a few feet in front of them.

"Hello, counselor," said one. "Sorry, the roulette room's closed."

I knew the man slightly. "Let me in, Jim," I said. "I want to see Thursby."

The men exchanged glances. Obviously, the D.A. had given them orders.

"Can't do it, counselor," said Jim. "We're not to let anyone in."

"Tell Thursby I'm out here and that I want to see him."

He shrugged, opened the door, stuck his head inside, and called to District Attorney Thursby to tell him that I was outside. I could hear Thursby's muffled "Damn!" from within. But when he showed up at the door, his face was all smiles.

"What's the trouble?" he asked pleasantly.

I smiled back, giving him my best. "No trouble at all, Thursby. I just wanted to watch the experiment."

"Experiment?" He looked honestly surprised, which was a fine piece of acting. "We're just checking to see if the table's wired, that's all. If it is, your client may be in the clear; maybe we can hang it on the croupier."

"And get a conspiracy charge on my client, too, eh? Well, if you don't mind, I'd like to watch that table check myself. You know how it is."

Thursby hesitated, then he scowled. "Oh, all right. Come on in. But stay out of the way."

I grinned. "Sure. All I want to do is protect my client's interests."

Thursby just grunted and opened the door wider to let me in. He was a shrewd lawyer, a good D.A., and basically honest, even if he did have a tendency to bend under pressure from higher up.

* * * * *

They were checking the table, all right. They had three specialists going over it with everything from fine tooth combs to Geiger counters. They found nothing. No magnets, no wires, no mechanical gimmicks. Nothing.

It took them an hour to take that table apart, check it, and put it back together again. When it was all over, Thursby glanced at me, then said: "O.K., boys; that does it. Let's go."

The men looked at him oddly, and I knew why.

"Aren't you going to test my client's gadget?" I asked innocently.

Thursby looked angrily baffled for a moment, then he clamped his lips grimly. "As long as we're here, I guess we might as well."

I knew perfectly well it was what he had intended to do all along.

"One of you guys spin that wheel," he said to the technicians. One of them gave the wheel a spin and dropped the ball. It clattered on its merry way and dropped into a slot. Forty-two.

Thursby took the gadget out of his pocket. It was still set at Thirteen.

The men who had surrounded Howley on the night of his arrest had been keeping their eyes open, and they had seen how Howley had handled the thing. Well--almost how. Thursby had the lens opening pointed at the wheel, but his thumb and fingers weren't touching the silver plates properly.

"Spin it again," he said.

Everyone's eyes were on the ball as it whirled, so I had time to get my own copy of Howley's gadget out and set it at Thirteen. I hoped the thing would work for me. I concentrated on Thirteen, making sure my thumb and fingers were placed right.

Evidently they were. The ball fell into Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low.

A huge grin spread over Thursby's face, but he was man enough not to turn and grin at me. "Try it again," he said.

Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low.

"I wonder how the thing works?" said Thursby, looking at the gadget in a sort of pleased awe.

"You'd better be able to prove that it does work, Thursby," I said, trying to put irritation into my voice.

This time, he did grin at me. "Oh, I think we can prove that, all right." He turned back to the technician. "Spin it once more, Sam, and show the defense counsel, here, how it works."

The technician did as he was told. "Thirteen, Black, Odd, and Low," he chanted, grinning.

"Let's try another number," Thursby said. He turned the dial to One. And this time, when he pointed it, his fingers were touching the plates in the right places.

"Just a minute," I said. "Let me spin that thing."

"Be my guest, counselor," said Thursby.

I spun the wheel and scooted the ball along the rim. It dropped into a slot. One, Red, Odd, and Low. I looked as disappointed and apprehensive as I could.

"Co-incidence," I said. "Nothing more. You haven't proved anything."

Thursby's grin widened. "Of course I haven't," he said with a soothing, patronizing tone. "But I don't have to prove anything until I get to court."

Then he looked at the technicians and jerked his head toward the door. "Let's go, boys. Maybe the counselor wants to look over the table for himself. Maybe he thinks we've got it rigged."

There was a chorus of guffaws as they walked out. I just stood there, scowling, trying to keep from laughing even harder than they were.

* * * * *

Jason Howley sat next to me at the defense table, just inside the low partition that divided the court from the public. There weren't many people in the auditorium itself; listening to some poor dope get himself sentenced for cheating at gambling is considered pretty dull entertainment in the State of Nevada.

Thursby had managed to push the indictment through the grand jury in a hurry, but, as he sat across the room from me at the prosecution table, I thought I could detect a false note in the assumed look of confidence that he was trying to wear.

Howley tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around, and he whispered: "How much longer?"

I tapped my wrist watch. "Couple minutes. Judge Lapworth is one of those precisionists. Never a moment late or early. Getting jumpy?"

He shook his head gently and smiled. "No. You've handled this even better than I'd have imagined. You thought of things I didn't even know existed. I'm no lawyer; I can see that."

I returned the smile. "And I don't invent gimmicks, either. So what?"

His eyes looked at me from behind the distorting negative lenses. "I've been wondering, counselor--why are you so interested in this? I mean, I offered you a pretty good fee, and all that, but it seems to me you're taking an unusual interest in the case."

I grinned at him. "Mr. Howley, my profession is Law--with a capital L. The study of the Law isn't like the study of physics or whatever; these are manmade laws--commands, not descriptions. They don't necessarily have anything to do with facts at all. Take the word 'insanity,' for instance; the word isn't even used by head-shrinkers any more because it's a legal definition that has nothing whatever to do with the condition of the human mind.

"Now, any such set of laws as that can't possibly be self-consistent and still have some use on an action level. A lawyer's job is to find the little inconsistencies in the structure, the places where the pieces have been jammed together in an effort to make them look like a structured whole. To find, in other words, the loopholes and use them.

"And when I find a loophole, I like to wring everything I can out of it. I'm enjoying this."

Howley nodded. "I see. But what if something--"

I held up my hand to silence him, because the door to the judges' chambers opened at that moment, and Judge Lapworth came in as the bailiff announced him. We all stood up while the bailiff intoned his "Oyez, oyez."

Thursby made a short preliminary speech to the jury, and I requested and was granted permission to hold my own opening statement until the defense was ready to present its case.

Thursby was looking worried, although it took a trained eye to see it. I was pretty sure I knew why. He had been pushed too hard and had gone too fast. He'd managed to slide through the grand jury too easily, and I had managed to get the trial date set for a week later. Thursby's case was far from being as tight as he wanted it.

* * * * *

I just sat still while the prosecution brought forth its witnesses and evidence. The croupier, the deputies, several employees of the Golden Casino, and a couple of patrons all told their stories. I waived cross-examination in every case, which made Thursby even edgier than he had been.

When he called in the head of the technicians who had inspected the table at the casino, I made no objection to his testimony, but I made my first cross-examination.

"Mr. Thompson, you have stated your qualifications as an expert on the various devices which have been used to illegally influence the operation of gambling devices in this state."

Thursby said: "Oh, if the Court please, I should like to remind counsel for the defense that he has already accepted the qualifications of the witness."

"I am not attempting to impugn the qualifications of the witness," I snapped.

Judge Lapworth frowned at Thursby. "Are you making an objection, Mr. District Attorney?"

Thursby pursed his lips, said, "No, Your Honor," and sat down.

"Proceed with the cross-examination," said the judge.

"Mr. Thompson," I said, "you have testified that you examined the table at the Golden Casino for such devices and found none. Is that right?"

"That's right," he said positively.

"Have you seen the device labeled People's Exhibit A, which was found by the officers on the person of the defendant?"

"Well ... yes. I have."

"Have you examined this device?"

Thursby was on his feet. "Objection, Your Honor! This material was not brought out in direct examination!"

"Sustained," said Judge Lapworth.

"Very well, Your Honor," I said. Then I turned back to Thompson. "As an expert in this field, Mr. Thompson, you have examined many different devices for cheating gambling equipment, haven't you?"

"Yes, I have."

"How many, would you say?"

"Oh ... several hundred."

"Several hundred different types?"

"No. Several hundred individual devices. Most of them are just variations of two or three basic types."

"And you are familiar with the function of these basic types and their variations?"

"I am."

"You know exactly how all of them work, then?"

He saw where I was heading. "Most of them," he hedged.

Thursby saw where I was heading, too, and was sweating. I'd managed to get around his objection.

"Have you ever examined any which you could not understand?"

"I ... I don't quite know what you mean."

"Have you ever," I said firmly, "come across a device used in cheating which you could not comprehend or explain the operation of?"

Thursby stood up. "Same objection as before, Your Honor."

"Your Honor," I said, "I am merely trying to find the limitations of the witness' knowledge; I am not trying to refute his acknowledged ability."

"Overruled," said Judge Lapworth. "The witness will answer the question."

I repeated the question.

"Yes," Thompson said in a low voice.

"More than once?"

"Only once."

"Only once. You did find one device which didn't operate in any fashion you can explain. Is that right?"

"That's right."

"Can you tell me what this device was?"

Thompson took a deep breath. "It was People's Exhibit A--the device taken from the defendant at the time of his arrest."

There was a buzz in the courtroom.

"No more questions," I said, turning away. Then, before Thompson could leave the stand, I turned back to him. "Oh, just one moment, Mr. Thompson. Did you examine this device carefully? Did you take it apart?"

"I opened it and looked at it."

"You just looked at it? You didn't subject it to any tests?"

Thompson took a deep breath. "No."

"Why not?"

"There wasn't anything inside it to test."

* * * * *

This time, there was more than just a buzz around the courtroom. Judge Lapworth rapped for order.

When the room was quiet, I said: "The box was empty, then?"

"Well, no. Not exactly empty. It had some stuff in it."

I turned to the judge. "If the Court please, I would like to have the so-called device, Exhibit A, opened so that the members of the jury may see for themselves what it contains."

[Illustration]

Judge Lapworth said: "The Court would like very much to see the internal workings of this device, too. Bailiff, if you will, please."

The bailiff handed him the gadget from the exhibit table.

"How does it open?" asked the judge. He turned to Thompson. "Will the witness please open the box?"

Reluctantly, Thompson thumbed the catch and slid off the top.

The judge took it from him, looked inside, and stared for a long moment.

I had already seen the insides. It was painted white, and there were inked lines running all over the inside, and various pictures--a ball, a pair of dice, a roulette wheel--and some other symbols that I didn't pretend to understand.

Otherwise, the box was empty.

After a moment, Judge Lapworth looked up from the box and stared at Thursby. Then he looked at Thompson. "Just what tests did you perform on this ... this thing, Mr. Thompson?"

"Well, Your Honor," Thompson said, visibly nervous, "I checked it for all kinds of radiation and magnetism. There isn't anything like that coming from it. But," he added lamely, "there wasn't much else to test. Not without damaging the box."

"I see." His honor glared at Thursby, but didn't say anything to him. He simply ordered the box to be shown to the jury.

Thursby was grimly holding his ground, waiting.

"Have you any more questions, counselor?" the judge asked.

"No, Your Honor, I have not."

"Witness may step down," said his honor to Thompson.

* * * * *

Thursby stood up. "If the Court please, I would like to stage a small demonstration for the members of the jury."

The Court gave permission, and a roulette wheel was hauled in on a small table.

I watched with interest and without objection while Thursby demonstrated the use of the gadget and then asked each of the jurors in turn to try it. It was a long way from being a successful demonstration. Some of the jurors didn't hold the thing right, and some of those that did just didn't have the mental ability required to use it. But that didn't bother Thursby.

"Your Honor, and Gentlemen of the Jury," he said, "you are all aware that a device constructed for the purpose of cheating at any gambling game is not necessarily one hundred per cent infallible. It doesn't have to be. All it has to do is turn the odds in favor of the user.

"You are all familiar with loaded dice, I'm sure. And you know that loading dice for one set of numbers merely increases the probability that those numbers will come up; it does not guarantee that they will come up every time.

"It is the same with marked cards. Marking the backs of a deck of cards doesn't mean that you will invariably get a better hand than your opponent; it doesn't even mean that you will win every hand.

"The device taken from the defendant at the Golden Casino does not, as you have seen, work every time. But, as you have also seen, it certainly does shift the odds by a considerable percentage. And that, I submit, is illegal under the laws of this state."

He went on, building on that theme for a while, then he turned the trial over to the defense.

"Call Dr. Pettigrew to the stand," I said.

I heard Thursby's gasp, but I ignored it.

A chunky, balding man with a moon face and an irritated expression came up to be sworn in. He was irritated with me for having subpoenaed him, and he showed it. I hoped he wouldn't turn out to be hostile.

"You are Dr. Herbert Pettigrew?" I asked.

"That is correct."

"State your residence, please."

"3109 La Jolla Boulevard, Los Angeles, California."

"You are called 'Doctor' Pettigrew, I believe. Would you tell the Court what right you have to that title?"

He looked a little miffed, but he said: "It is a scholarly title. A Doctorate of Philosophy in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology."

"I see. Would you mind telling the Court what other academic degrees you have?"

He reeled off a list of them, all impressive.

"Thank you, doctor," I said. "Now, what is your present occupation?"

"I am a Professor of Physics, at the University of California in Los Angeles."

I went on questioning him to establish his ability in his field, and by the time I was finished, the jury was pretty well impressed with his status in the scientific brotherhood. And not once did Thursby object.

Then I said, "Dr. Pettigrew, I believe you came to this city on a professional matter?"

"Yes, I did." He didn't hesitate to answer, so I figured I hadn't got his goat too much.

"And what was the nature of that matter?"

"I was asked to come here by Mr. Harold Thursby, the District Attorney, to perform some scientific tests on the ... er ... device ... the device known as People's Exhibit A."

"Did you perform these tests?"

"I did."

"At the request of District Attorney Thursby, is that right?"

"That is correct."

"May I ask why Mr. Thursby did not call you as a witness for the prosecution?"

Thursby, as I had expected, was on his feet. "Objection! The question calls for a conclusion of the witness!"

"Sustained," said Judge Lapworth.

"Dr. Pettigrew," I said, "what were your findings in reference to Exhibit A?"

He shrugged. "The thing is a plastic box with a dial set in one side, a plastic lens in one end, and a couple of strips of silver along two other sides. Inside, there are a lot of markings in black ink on white paint." He gestured toward the exhibit table. "Just what you've seen; that's all there is to it."

"What sort of tests did you perform to determine this, Dr. Pettigrew?" I asked.

He took a long time answering that one. He had X-rayed the thing thoroughly, tested it with apparatus I'd never heard of, taken scrapings from all over it for microchemical analysis, and even tried it himself on a roulette wheel. He hadn't been able to make it work.

"And what is your conclusion from these findings?" I asked.

Again he shrugged. "The thing is just a box, that's all. It has no special properties."

"Would you say that it could be responsible for the phenomena we have just seen? By that, I mean the peculiar action of the roulette wheel, demonstrated here by the prosecution."

"Definitely not," he stated flatly. "The box could not possibly have any effect on either the wheel or the ball."

"I see. Thank you, doctor; that's all. Cross-examine."

Thursby walked over to the witness stand with a belligerent scowl on his face. "Dr. Pettigrew, you say that the box couldn't possibly have had any effect on the wheel. And yet, we have demonstrated that there is an effect. Don't you believe the testimony of your own senses?"

"Certainly I do!" snapped Pettigrew.

"Then how do you account for the behavior of the roulette wheel as you have just seen it demonstrated in this court?"

I suppressed a grin. Thursby was so mad that he was having trouble expressing himself clearly.

"In several ways!" Pettigrew said sharply. "In the first place, that wheel could be rigged."

Thursby purpled. "Now, just a minute! I--"

I started to object, but Judge Lapworth beat me to it.

"Are you objecting to the answer, Mr. District Attorney?"

"The witness is insinuating that I falsified evidence!"

"I am not!" said Pettigrew, visibly angry. "You asked me how I could account for its behavior, and I told you one way! There are others!"

"The wheel will be examined," said Judge Lapworth darkly. "Tell us the other ways, Dr. Pettigrew."

"Pure chance," said Pettigrew. "Pure chance, Your Honor. I'm sure that everyone in this courtroom has seen runs of luck on a roulette wheel. According to the laws of probability, such runs must inevitably happen. Frankly, I believe that just such a run has occurred here. I do not think for a minute that Mr. Thursby or anyone else rigged that wheel."

"I see; thank you, Dr. Pettigrew," said the judge. "Any further questions, Mr. District Attorney?"

"No further questions," Thursby said, trying to hide his anger.

* * * * *

"Call your next witness," said the judge, looking at me.

"I call Mr. Jason Howley to the stand."

Howley sat down and was sworn in. I went through the preliminaries, then asked: "Mr. Howley, you have seen People's Exhibit A?"

"I have."

"To whom does it belong?"

"It is mine. It was taken from me by--"

"Just answer the question, please," I admonished him. He knew his script, but he was jumping the gun. "The device is yours, then?"

"That's right."

"Under what circumstances did this device come into the hands of the police?"

He told what had happened on the night of the big take at the Golden Casino.

"Would you explain to us just what this device is?" I asked when he had finished.

"Certainly," he said. "It's a good luck charm."

I could hear the muffled reaction in the courtroom.

"A good luck charm. I see. Then it has no effect on the wheel at all?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Howley said disarmingly. He smiled and looked at the jury. "It certainly has some effect. It's the only good luck charm I ever had that worked."

The jury was grinning right back at him. They were all gamblers at heart, and I never knew a gambler yet who didn't have some sort of good luck charm or superstition when it came to gambling. We had them all in the palms of our hands.

"What I mean is, does it have any physical effect on the wheel?"

Howley looked puzzled. "Well, I don't know about that. That's not my field. You better ask Dr. Pettigrew."

There was a smothered laugh somewhere in the courtroom.

"Just how do you operate this good luck charm, Mr. Howley?" I asked.

"Why, you just hold it so that your thumb touches one strip of silver and your fingers touch the other, then you set the dial to whatever number you want to come up and wish."

"Wish? Just wish, Mr. Howley?"

"Just wish. That's all. What else can you do with a good luck charm?"

This time, the judge had to pound for order to stop the laughing.

I turned Howley over to Thursby.

The D.A. hammered at him for half an hour trying to get something out of Howley, but he didn't get anywhere useful. Howley admitted that he'd come to Nevada to play the wheels; what was wrong with that? He admitted that he'd come just to try out his good luck charm--and what was wrong with that? He even admitted that it worked for him every time--

And what was wrong, pray, with that?

Thursby knew he was licked. He'd known it for a long time. His summation to the jury showed it. The expressions on the faces of the jury as they listened showed it.

They brought in a verdict of Not Guilty.

* * * * *

When I got back to my office, I picked up the phone and called the Golden Casino. I asked for George Brockey, the manager. When I got him on the phone and identified myself, he said, "Oh. It's you." His voice didn't sound friendly.

"It's me," I said.

"I suppose you're going to slap a suit for false arrest on the Casino now, eh, counselor?"

"Not a bit of it, George," I said. "The thought occurred to me, but I think we can come to terms."

"Yeah?"

"Nothing to it, George. You give us the three hundred grand and we don't do a thing."

"Yeah?" He didn't get it. He had to fork over the money anyway, according to the court order, so what was the deal?

"If you want to go a little further, I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll give you one of our little good luck charms, if you'll promise to call your boys off Howley."

"Nobody's on Howley," he said. "You ought to know better than that. In this state, if we get whipped in court, we play it square. Did you think we were going to get rough?"

"No. But you kind of figured on lifting that gadget as soon as he gets it back from the D.A., didn't you? I saw your boys waiting at his hotel. I'm just telling you that you don't have to do that. We'll give you the gadget. There are plenty more where that came from."

"I see," Brockey said after a long pause. "O.K., counselor. It's a deal."

"Fine. We'll pick up the money later this evening, if that's O.K."

"Sure, counselor. Anytime. Anytime at all." He hung up.

I grinned at Howley, who was sitting across the desk from me. "Well, that winds it up."

"I don't get it," Howley said. "Why'd you call up Brockey? What was the purpose of that 'deal'?"

"No deal," I told him. "I was just warning him that killing you and taking the gadget wouldn't do any good, that we've covered you. He won't bother having anything done to you if he knows that the secret of the gadget is out already."

Howley's eyes widened behind those spectacles of his. "You mean they'd kill me? I thought Nevada gamblers were honest."

"Oh, they are, they are. But this is a threat to their whole industry. It's more than that, it may destroy them. Some of them might kill to keep that from happening. But you don't have to worry now."

"Thanks. Tell me, do you think we've succeeded?"

"In what you set out to do? Certainly. When we mail out those gadgets to people all over the state, the place will be in an uproar. With all the publicity this case is getting, it'll have to work. You now have a court decision on your side, a decision which says that a psionic device can be legally used to influence gambling games.

"Why, man, they'll have to start investigating! You'll have every politico in the State of Nevada insisting that scientists work on that thing. To say nothing of what the syndicate will do."

"All I wanted to do," said Howley, "was force people to take notice of psionics. I guess I've done that."

"You certainly have, brother. I wonder what it will come to?"

"I wonder, myself, sometimes," Howley said.

That was three and a half years ago. Neither Howley nor I are wondering now. According to the front page of today's Times, the first spaceship, with a crew of eighty aboard, reached Mars this morning. And, on page two, there's a small article headlined: ROCKET OBSOLETE, SAY SCIENTISTS.

It sure is.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's ...Or Your Money Back, by Gordon Randall Garrett

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Heist Job on Thizar, by Gordon Randall Garrett

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Title: Heist Job on Thizar

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

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Heist Job On Thizar

By RANDALL GARRETT

In the future, we may discover new planets; our ships may rocket to new worlds; robots may be smarter than people. But we'll still have slick characters willing and able to turn a fast buck--even though they have to be smarter than Einstein to do it.

Anson Drake sat quietly in the Flamebird Room of the Royal Gandyll Hotel, listening to the alien, but soothing strains of the native orchestra and sipping a drink. He knew perfectly well that he had no business displaying himself in public on the planet Thizar; there were influential Thizarians who held no love for a certain Earthman named Anson Drake.

It didn't particularly bother Drake; life was danger and danger was life to him, and Anson Drake was known on half a hundred planets as a man who could take care of himself.

Even so, he wouldn't have bothered to come if it had not been for the fact that Viron Belgezad was a pompous braggart.

Belgezad had already suffered at the hands of Anson Drake. Some years before, a narcotics gang had been smashed high, wide, and handsome on Thizar. Three men had died from an overdose of their own thionite drug, and fifty thousand credits of illicit gain had vanished into nowhere. The Thizarian police didn't know who had done the job, and they didn't know who had financed the ring.

But Belgezad knew that Anson Drake was the former, and Drake knew that Viron Belgezad was the latter. And each one was waiting his chance to get the other.

A week before, Drake had been relaxing happily on a beach on Seladon II, twelve light-years from Thizar, reading a newsfax. He had become interested in an article which told of the sentencing of a certain lady to seven years in Seladon Prison, when his attention was attracted by another headline.

VIRON BELGEZAD BUYS ALGOL NECKLACE

Thizar (GNS)--Viron Belgezad, wealthy Thizarian financier, has purchased the fabulous Necklace of Algol, it will be announced today. The necklace, made of matched Star Diamonds, is estimated to be worth more than a million credits, although the price paid by Belgezad is not known.

[Ill

ation: The coronation on Thizar was a thing of vast magnificence.]

Such an interesting bit seemed worthy of further investigation, so Drake had immediately booked passage on the liner to Thizar.

And thus it was that an immaculate

ressed, broad-shouldered, handsome young man sat quietly in the Flamebird Room of Thizar's flushiest hostelry surveying his surroundings with steady green eyes and wondering how he was going to get his hands on the Necklace of Algol.

The police cou

t touch Belgezad, but Anson Drake could--and would.

"Hello, Drake," said a cold voice at his elbow.

Drake turned and looked up into the sardonically smiling face of Jomis Dobigel, the heavy-set, dark-faced Thizarian who worked with Belgezad.

"Well, well," Anson said, smiling, "if it isn't Little Bo-Peep. How is the dope business? And how is the Big Dope Himself?"

Dobigel's smile soured. "You're very funny, Earthman. But we don't like Earthmen here."

"Do sit down, Dobbie, and tell me all about it. The last I heard--which was three hours ago--the government of Thizar was perfectly happy to have me here. In fact, they were good enough to stamp my passport to prove it."

* * * * *

Dobigel pulled out a chair and sat down, keeping his hands beneath the table. "What are you doing here, Drake?" he asked in a cold voice.

"I couldn't help it," Drake said blandly. "I was drawn back by the memory of the natural beauties of your planet. The very thought of the fat, flabby face of old Belgezad, decorated with a bulbous nose that is renowned throughout the Galaxy, was irresistible. So here I am."

Dobigel's dark face grew even darker. "I know you, Drake. And I know why you're here. Tomorrow is the date for the Coronation of His Serenity, the Shan of Thizar."

"True," Drake agreed. "And I wouldn't miss it for all the loot in Andromeda. A celebration like that is worth traveling parsecs to see."

Dobigel leaned across the table. "Belgezad is a Noble of the Realm," he said slowly. "He'll be at the Coronation. You know he's going to wear the Necklace of Algol as well as anyone, and you--"

Suddenly, he leaned forward a little farther, his right hand stabbing out toward Drake's leg beneath the table.

But Anson Drake was ready for him. Dobigel's hand was a full three inches from Drake's thigh when a set of fingers grasped his wrist in a viselike hold. Steely fingers bit in, pressing nerves against bone. With a gasp, Dobigel opened his hand. A small, me

der dropped out.

Drake caught it with his free hand and smiled. "That's impolite, Dobbie. It isn't proper to try to give your host an injection when he doesn't want it."

Casually, he put the cylinder against the arm which he still held and squeezed the little metal tube. There was a faint pop! Drake released the arm and handed back the cylinder. Dobigel's face was white.

"I imagine that was twelve-hour poison," Drake said kindly. "If you hurry, old Belgezad will give you the antidote. It will be painful, but--" He shrugged.

"And by the way, Brother Dobigel," he continued, "let me give you some advice. The next time you try to get near a victim with one of those things, don't do it by talking to him about things he already knows. It doesn't distract him enough."

Dobigel stood up, his fists clenched. "I'll get you for this, Drake." Then he turned and stalked off through the crowd.

* * * * *

No one had noticed the little by-play. Drake smiled seraphically and finished his drink. Dobigel was going to be uncomfortable for a while. Twelve-hour poison was a complex protein substance that could be varied in several thousand different ways, and only an antidote made from the right variation would work for each poison. If the antidote wasn't given, the victim died within twelve hours. And even if the antidote was given, getting over poison wasn't any fun at all.

Reflecting happily on the plight of Jomis Dobigel, Anson Drake paid his bill, tipped the waiter liberally, and strolled out of the Flamebird Room and into the lobby of the Royal Gandyll Hotel. The Coronation would begin early tomorrow, and he didn't want to miss the beginning of it. The Shan's Coronation was the affair of Thizar.

* * * * *

He went over to the robot newsvender and dropped a coin in the slot. The reproducer hummed, and a freshly-printed newsfax dropped out.

He headed for the lift tube, which whisked him up to his room on the eighty-first floor. He inserted his key in the lock and pressed the button on the tip. The electronic lock opened, and the door slid into the wall. Before entering, Drake took a look at the detector on his wrist. There was no sign of anything having entered the room since he had left it. Only then did he go inside.

With one of the most powerful financiers on Thizar out after his blo

ere was no way of knowing what might happen, and therefore no reason to take chances.

There were some worlds where Anson Drake would no more have stayed in a public hotel than he would have jumped into an atomic furnace, especially if his enemy was a man as influential as Belgezad. But Thizar was a civilized and reasonably well policed planet; the police were honest and the courts were just. Even Belgezad couldn't do anything openly.

Drake locked his door, sang to himself in a pleasant baritone while he bathed, put on his pajamas, and lay down on his bed to read the paper.

* * * * *

It was mostly full of Coronation news. Noble So-and-So would wear such-and-such, the Archbishop would do thus-and-so. There was another item about Belgezad; his daughter was ill and would be unable to attend. Bloody shame, thought Drake. Too bad Belgezad isn't sick--or dying.

There was further mention of the Necklace of Algol; it was second only to the Crown Jewels of the Shan himself. The precautions being taken were fantastic; at a quick guess, about half the crowd would be policemen.

The door announcer chimed. Drake sat up and punched the door TV. The screen showed the face of a girl standing at his door. Drake smiled in appreciation. She had dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a smooth, tanned complexion. It was a beautiful face, and it showed promise of having a body to match.

"Who, may I ask, is calling on a gentleman at this ungodly hour, and thus compromising her reputation and fair name?"

The girl smiled, showing even, white teeth, and her eyes sparkled, showing flickers of little golden flames against the brown. "I see I've found the right room," she said. "That voice couldn't belong to anyone but Anson Drake." Then she lowered her voice and said softly: "Let me in. I'm Norma Knight."

Drake felt a tingle of psychic electricity flow over his skin; there was a promise of danger and excitement in the air. Norma Knight was known throughout this whole sector of the Galaxy as the cleverest jewel thief the human race had ever spawned. Drake had never met her, but he had definitely heard of her.

He touched the admission stud, and the door slid silently aside. There was no doubt about it, her body did match her face.

* * * * *

"Do come in, Norma," he said.

She stepped inside, and Drake t-- ed the closing button. The door slid shut behind her.

She stood there for a moment, looking at him, and Drake took the opportunity to study the girl more closely. At last, she said: "So you're Anson Drake. You're even better looking than I'd heard you were. Congratulations."

"I have a good press agent," Drake said modestly. "What's on your mind?" He waved his hand at a nearby chair.

"The same thing that's on yours, I suspect," she said. "Do you have a drink to spare?"

Drake unlimbered himself from the bed, selected a bottle from the menu and dialed. The robot bellhop whirred, a chute opened in the wall, and a bottle slid out. Drake poured, handed the tumbler to the girl, and said: "This is your party; what do you have in mind?"

The girl took a sip of her drink before she answered. Then she looked up at Drake with her deep brown eyes. "Two things. One: I have no intention or desire to compete with Anson Drake for the Necklace of Algol. Both of us might end up in jail with nothing for our pains.

"Two: I have a foolproof method for getting the necklace, but none for getting it off the planet. I think you probably have a way."

Drake nodded. "I dare say I could swing it. How does it happen that you don't have an avenue of disposal planned?"

She looked bleak for a moment. "The man who was to help me decided to back out at the last minute. He didn't know what the job was, and I wouldn't tell him because I didn't trust him."

"And you trust me?"

Her eyes were very trustful. "I've heard a lot about you, Drake, and I happen to know you never doublecross anyone unless they doublecross you first."

"Trade about is fair play, to quote an ancient maxim," Drake said, grinning. "And I am a firm believer in fair play.

"But that's neither here nor there. The point is: what do you have to offer? Why shouldn't I just pinch the gems myself and do a quick flit across the Galaxy? That would give me all the loot."

She shook her head. "Belgezad is on to you, you know. He knows you're here. His own private police and the Shan's own Guard will be at the Coronation to protect all that jewelry." She cocked her pretty head to one side and looked at him. "What's between you and Belgezad, anyway?"

"I stole his toys when he was a child," said Drake, "and he hasn't trusted me since. How do you propose to get the Necklace of Algol if I can't?"

She smiled and shook her head slowly. "That would be telling. You let me take care of my part, and I'll let you take care of yours."

Drake shook his head--not so slowly. "Absolutely not. We either work together or we don't work at all."

* * * * *

The girl frowned in thought for a moment, and then reached into the belt pouch at her side and pulled out a square of electro-engraved plastic. She handed it to Drake.

Underneath all the flowery verbiage, it boiled down to an invitation to attend the post-Coronation reception. It was addressed to "Miss Caroline Smith" and was signed and sealed by the Shan of Thizar himself.

"I'm 'Caroline Smith'," she said. "I've managed to get in good with the family of Belgezad, and he wangled the invitation.

"Now, the plan is this: Right after the Invocation, while the new Shan is being prepared in his special Coronation Robes, the Nobles have to change their uniforms from red to green. Belgezad will go into his suite in the Palace to change. He'll be accompanied by two guards. One will stay on the outside, the other will help Belgezad dress. I've got the room next to his, and I've managed to get the key that unlocks the door between them. I'll use this--" She pulled a small globe of metal from her belt pouch. "It's a sleep-gas bomb. It'll knock them out for at least twenty minutes. No one will come in during that time, and I'll be able to get the necklace and get out of the palace before they wake up."

"They'll know you did it," Drake pointed out. "If you're still missing when they come to, the thief's identity will be obvious."

She nodded. "That's where you come in. I'll simply go out into the garden and throw it over the wall to you. We'll meet here afterwards."

Drake thought it over and smiled devilishly. "It sounds fine. Now let's co-ordinate everything."

They went over the whole plot again, this time with a chart of the palace to mark everything out and a time schedule was arranged. Then they toasted to success and the girl left.

When she was gone, Anson Drake smiled ruefully to himself and opened a secret compartment in his suitcase. From it, he removed a long strand of glittering jewels.

"A perfect imitation," Drake said. "And you're very pretty. It's a shame I won't be able to hang you around the neck of Belgezad in place of the real Necklace of Algol."

But his original plan had been more dangerous than the present one, and Anson Drake was always ready to desert a good plan for a better one.

* * * * *

Coronation Day dawned bright and clear, and the festivities began early. There were speeches and parades and dancing in the streets. A huge fleet of high-flying rockets rumbled high in the stratosphere, filling the sky with the white traceries of their exhausts. For all of Thizar, it was a holiday, a day of rejoicing and happiness. Cheers for the Shan filled the streets, and strains of music came from the speakers of the public communications system.

Anson Drake missed most of the fun; he was too busy making plans. The day passed as he worked.

Thizar's sun began to set as the hour for the actual Crowning of the Shan approached. At the proper time, Drake was waiting in the shadows outside the palace walls. There were eyes watching him, and he knew it, but he only smiled softly to himself and waited.

"Sssssst!"

It was the girl, on the other side of the wall.

"I'm here," whispered Drake.

Something that glittered faintly in the soft light of the twin moons of Thizar arced over the wall. Drake caught it in his hands. The Necklace of Algol!

He slipped it into a small plastic box he was carrying and then glanced at the detector on his wrist. The screen showed a pale blue pip which indicated that someone was hidden in the shadows a few yards to his right.

Drake didn't even glance toward the spy. He put the plastic box containing the necklace into his belt pouch and strode away from the palace. He had, he figured, about twenty minutes.

He headed directly for the spaceship terminal. Never once did he look back, but the detector on his wrist told him that he was being closely followed. Excellent!

Inside the terminal, he went directly to the baggage lockers. He found one that was empty, inserted a coin, and opened it. From his pouch, he took a plastic box, put it in the locker, switched on the lock with his key, and strolled away.

* * * * *

He glanced again at his detector. He was no longer being followed by the same man; another had taken up the trail. It figured; it figured.

He went straight to the Hotel Gandyll, making sure that his tail didn't lose him. Not until they were in the lobby did he make any attempt to shake the man who was following him. He went into the bar, ordered a drink, and took a sip. He left his change and the drink on the bar and headed out the door in the direction of the men's room. Whoever was following him wouldn't realize for a minute or two that he was leaving for good. A man doesn't usually leave change and an unfinished drink in a bar.

Drake took the lift tube up to his room, attended to some unfinished business, and waited.

* * * * *

Less than three minutes later, the door was opened. In walked Viron Belgezad and his lieutenant, Jomis Dobigel. Both of them looked triumphant, and they were surrounded by a squad of Royal Police.

"There he is," said Dobigel. "Arrest him!"

A police officer stepped forward. "Anson Drake, I arrest you in the name of the Shan," he said.

Drake grinned. "On what charge?"

"The theft of the Necklace of Algol."

Drake looked directly at Belgezad. "Did old Fatface here say I took it?"

"You can't talk that way," Dobigel snarled, stepping forward.

"Who says so, Ugly?"

At that, Dobigel stepped forward and threw a hard punch from his shoulder--straight at Drake's face.

It never landed. Drake side-stepped it and brought a smashing uppercut up from his knees. It lifted Dobigel off his feet and sent him crashing back against old Belgezad, toppling them both to the floor.

The policemen had all drawn their guns, but Drake was standing placidly in the middle of the room, his hands high above his head regarding the scene calmly.

"I'll go quietly," he said. "I've got no quarrel with the police."

One of the officers led him out into the hall while the others searched his room. Belgezad was sputtering incoherently. Another policeman was trying to wake up Dobigel.

"If you're looking for the Necklace of Algol," Drake said, "you won't find it there."

The captain of the police squad said: "We know that, Mr. Drake. We are merely looking for other evidence. We already have the necklace." He reached in his belt pouch and took out a small plastic box. He opened it, disclosing a glittering rope of jewels. "You were seen depositing this in a baggage locker at the spaceship terminal. We have witnesses who saw you, and we had it removed under police supervision."

Viron Belgezad smiled nastily. "This time you won't get away, Drake! Stealing anything from the palace of the Shan carries a minimum penalty of twenty years in Thizar Prison."

Drake said nothing as they took him off to the Royal Police Station and locked him in a cell.

* * * * *

It was late afternoon of the next day when the Prosecutor for the Shan visited Drake's cell. He was a tall, imposing man, and Drake knew him by reputation as an honest, energetic man.

"Mr. Drake," he said as he sat down in a chair in the cell, "you have refused to speak to anyone but me. I am, of course, perfectly willing to be of any assistance, but I am afraid I must warn you that any statement made to me will be used against you at the trial."

Drake leaned back in his own chair. One thing nice about Thizar, he reflected; they had comfortable jails.

"My Lord Prosecutor," he said, "I'd like to make a statement. As I understand it, Belgezad claims he was gassed, along with a police guard who was with him. When he woke up, the necklace was gone. He didn't see his assailant."

"That is correct," said the Prosecutor.

Drake grinned. That was the way it had to be. Belgezad couldn't possibly have bribed the cop, so they both had to be gassed.

"If he didn't see his assailant, how does he know who it was?"

"You were followed from the palace by Jomis Dobigel, who saw you put the necklace into the baggage locker. There are several other witnesses to that."

Drake leaned forward. "Let me point out, my Lord Prosecutor, that the only evidence you have that I was anywhere near the palace is the word of Jomis Dobigel. And he didn't see me inside the palace. I was outside the wall."

The Prosecutor shrugged. "We admit the possibility of an assistant inside the walls of the palace," he said. "We are investigating that now. But even if we never find your accomplice, we have proof that you were implicated, and that is enough."

"What proof do you have?" Drake asked blandly.

"Why, the necklace itself, of course!" The Prosecutor looked as though he suspected Drake of having taken leave of his senses.

Drake shook his head. "That necklace is mine. I can prove it. It was made for me by a respectable jeweler on Seladon II. It's a very good imitation, but it's a phoney. They aren't diamonds; they're simply well-cut crystals of titanium dioxide. Check them if you don't believe me."

The Lord Prosecutor looked dumbfounded. "But--what--why--"

Drake looked sad. "I brought it to give to my good friend, the Noble Belgezad. Of course it would be a gross insult to wear them at the Shan's Coronation, but he could wear them at other functions.

"And how does my good friend repay me? By having me arrested. My Lord Prosecutor, I am a wronged man."

The Prosecutor swallowed heavily and stood up. "The necklace has, naturally, been impounded by the police. I shall have the stones tested."

"You'll find they're phonies," Drake said. "And that means one of two things. Either they are not the ones stolen from Belgezad or else Belgezad has mortally insulted his Shan by wearing false jewels to the Coronation."

"Well! We shall see about this!" said the Lord Prosecutor.

* * * * *

Anson Drake, free as a lark, was packing his clothes in his hotel room when the announcer chimed. He punched the TV pickup and grinned. It was the girl.

When the door slid aside, she came in, smiling. "You got away with it, Drake! Wonderful! I don't know how you did it, but--"

"Did what?" Drake looked innocent.

"Get away with the necklace, of course! I don't know how it happened that Dobigel was there, but--"

"But, but, but," Drake said, smiling. "You don't seem to know very much at all, do you?"

"Wha--what do you mean?"

Drake put his last article of clothing in his suitcase and snapped it shut. "I'll probably be searched pretty thoroughly when I get to the spaceport," he said coolly, "but they won't find anything on an innocent man."

"Where is the necklace?" she asked in a throaty voice.

Drake pretended not to hear her. "It's a funny thing," he said. "Old Belgezad would never let the necklace out of his hands except to get me. He thought he'd get it back by making sure I was followed. But he made two mistakes."

The girl put her arms around his neck. "His mistakes don't matter as long as we have the necklace, do they?"

Anson Drake was never a man to turn down an invitation like that. He held her in his arms and kissed her--long and lingeringly.

When he broke away, he went on as though nothing had happened.

"Two mistakes. The first one was thinking up such an obviously silly plot. If it were as easy to steal jewels from the palace as all that, nothing would be safe on Thizar.

"The second mistake was sending his daughter to trap me."

* * * * *

The girl gasped and stepped back.

"It was very foolish of you, Miss Belgezad," he went on calmly. "You see, I happened to know that the real Norma Knight was sentenced to seven years in Seladon Prison over a week ago. Unfortunately, the news hadn't reached Thizar yet. I knew from the first that the whole thing was to be a frame-up. It's too bad that your father had to use the real necklace--it's a shame he lost it."

The girl's eyes blazed. "You--you thief! You--" She used words which no self-respecting lady is supposed to use.

Drake waited until she had finished, and then said: "Oh, no, Miss Belgezad; I'm no thief. Your father can consider the loss of that necklace as a fine for running narcotics. And you can tell him that if I catch him again, it will be worse.

"I don't like his kind of slime, and I'll do my best to get rid of them. That's all, Miss B.; it was nice knowing you."

He walked out of the room, leaving her to stand there in helpless fury.

His phony necklace had come in handy after all; the police had thought they had the real one, so they had never bothered to check the Galactic Mail Service for a small package mailed to Seladon II. All he'd had to do was drop it into the mail chute from his room and then cool his heels in jail while the Galactic Mails got rid of the loot for him.

The Necklace of Algol would be waiting for him when he got to Seladon II.

THE END

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Amazing Stories October 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.

End of Project Gutenberg's Heist Job on Thizar, by Gordon Randall Garrett

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Time Fuze, by Gordon Randall Garrett

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Time Fuze

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Illustrator: Paul Orban

Release Date: May 12, 2010 [EBook #32347]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIME FUZE ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Diane Monico, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

The ultradrive had just one slight drawback: it set up a shock wave that made suns explode. Which made the problem of getting back home a delicate one indeed....

[Illustration]

Time Fuze

By Randall Garrett

Illustrated by Paul Orban

Commander Benedict kept his eyes on the rear plate as he activated the intercom. "All right, cut the power. We ought to be safe enough here."

As he released the intercom, Dr. Leicher, of the astronomical staff, stepped up to his side. "Perfectly safe," he nodded, "although even at this distance a star going nova ought to be quite a display."

Benedict didn't shift his gaze from the plate. "Do you have your instruments set up?"

"Not quite. But we have plenty of time. The light won't reach us for several hours yet. Remember, we were outracing it at ten lights."

The commander finally turned, slowly letting his breath out in a soft sigh. "Dr. Leicher, I would say that this is just about the foulest coincidence that could happen to the first interstellar vessel ever to leave the Solar System."

Leicher shrugged. "In one way of thinking, yes. It is certainly true that we will never know, now, whether Alpha Centauri A ever had any planets. But, in another way,

s extremely fortunate that we should be so near a stellar explosion because of the wealth of scientific information we can obtain. As you say, it is a coincidence, and probably one that happens only once in a billion years. The chances of any particular star going nova are small. That we should be so close when it happens is of a vanishingly small order of probability."

Commander Benedict took off his cap and looked at the damp stain in the sweatband. "Nevertheless, Doctor, it is damned unnerving to come out of ultradrive a couple of hundred million miles from the first star ever visited by man and have to turn tail and run because the damned thing practically blows up in your face."

Leicher could se

at Benedict was upset; he rarely used the same profanity twice in one sentence.

They had been downright lucky, at that. If Leicher hadn't seen the star begin to swell

brighten, if he hadn't known what it meant, or if Comman

dict hadn't been quick enough in shifting the ship back into ultradrive--Leicher had a vision of an incande

ous metal that had once been a spaceship.

The intercom buzzed. The commander answered, "Yes?"

"Sir, would you tell Dr. Leicher that we have everything set up now?"

Leich

d and turned to leave. "I guess we have nothing to do now but wait."

en the light from the nova did come, Commander Benedict was back at the plate again--the forward one, this time, since the ship had been turned around in order to align the astronomy lab in the nose with the star.

Alpha Centauri A began to brighten and spread. It made Benedict think of a light bulb connected through a rheostat, with someone turning that rheostat, turning it until the circuit was well overloaded.

The light began to hurt Benedict's eyes even at that distance and he had to cut down the receptivity in order to watch. After a while, he turned away from the plate. Not because the show was over, but simply because it had slowed to a point beyond which no change seemed to take place to the human eye.

Five weeks later, much to Leicher's chagrin, Commander Benedict announced that they had to leave the vicinity. The ship had only been provisioned to go to Alpha Centauri, scout the system without landing on any of the planets, and return. At ten lights, top speed for the ultradrive, it would take better than three months to get back.

"I know you'd like to watch it go through the complete cycle," Benedict said, "but we can't go back home as a bunch of starved skeletons."

Leicher resigned himself to the necessity of leaving much of his work unfinished, and, although he knew it was a case of sour grapes, consoled himself with the thought that he could as least get most of the remaining information from the five-hundred-inch telescope on Luna, four years from then.

As the ship slipped into the not-quite-space through which the ultradrive propelled it, Leicher began to consolidate the material he had already gathered.

* * * * *

Commander Benedict wrote in the log:

Fifty-four days out from Sol. Alpha Centauri has long since faded back into its pre-blowup state, since we have far outdistanced the light from its explosion. It now looks as it did two years ago. It--

p>

"Pardon me, Commander," Leicher interrupted, "But I have something interesting to show you."

Benedic

rs off the keys and turned around in his chair. "What is it, Doctor?"

Leicher frowned at the papers in his hands. "I've been doing some work on the probability of that explosion happening just as it did,

I've come up with some rather frightening figures. As I said before, the probability was small. A little calculation has given us some information which makes it even smaller. For instance: with a possible error of plus or minus two seconds Alpha Centauri A began to explode the instant we came out of ultradrive!

"Now, the probability of that occurring comes out so small that it should happen only once in ten to the four hundred sixty-seventh seconds."

It was Commander Benedict's turn to frown. "So?"

"Commander, the entire universe is only about ten to the seventeenth seconds old. But to give you an idea, let's say that the chances of its happening are once in millions of trillions of years!"

Benedict blinked. The number, he realized, was totally beyond his comprehension--or anyone else's.

"Well, so what? Now it has happened that one time. That simply means that it will almost certainly never happen again!"

"True. But, Commander, when you buck odds like that and win, the thing to do is look for some factor that is cheating in your favor. If you took a pair of dice and started throwing sevens, one right after another--for the next couple of thousand years--you'd begin to suspect they were loaded."

Benedict said nothing; he just waited expectantly.

"There is only one thing that could have done it. Our ship." Leicher said it quietly, without emphasis.

"What we know about the hyperspace, or superspace, or whatever it is we move through in ultradrive is almost nothing. Coming out of it so near to a star might set up some sort of shock wave in normal space which would completely disrupt that star's internal balance, resulting in the liberation of unimaginably vast amounts of energy, causing that star to go nova. We can only assume that we ourselves were the fuze that set off that nova."

Benedict stood up slowly. When he spoke, his voice was a choking whisper. "You mean the sun--Sol--might...."

Leicher nodded. "I don't say that it definitely would. But the probability is that we were the cause of the destruction of Alpha Centauri A, and therefore might cause the destruction of Sol in the same way."

's voice was steady again. "That means that we can't go back again, doesn't it? Even if we're not positive, we can't take the chance."

"Not necessarily. We can get fairly close before we cut out the drive, and come in the rest of the way at sub-light speed. It'll take longer, and we'll have to go on half or one-third rations, but we can do it!"

"How far away?"

"I don't know what the minimum distance is, but I do know how we can gage a distance. Remember, neither Alpha Centauri B or C were detonated. We'll have to cut our drive at least as far away from Sol as they are from A."

"I see." The commander was silent for a moment, then: "Very well, Dr. Leicher. If that's the safest way, that's the only way."

Benedict issued the orders, while Leicher figured the exact point at which they must cut out the drive, and how long the trip would take. The rations would have to be cut down accordingly.

Commander Benedict's mind whirled around the monstrousness of the whole thing like some dizzy bee around a flower. What if there had been planets around Centauri A? What if they had been inhabited? Had he, all unwittingly, killed entire races of living, intelligent beings?

But, how could he have known? The drive had never been tested before. It couldn't be tested inside the Solar System--it was too fast. He and his crew had been volunteers, knowing that they might die when the drive went on.

Suddenly, Benedict gasped and slammed his fist down on the desk before him.

Leicher looked up. "What's the matter, Commander?"

"Suppose," came the answer, "Just suppose, that we have the same effect on a star when we go into ultradrive as we do when we come out of it?"

Leicher was silent for a moment, stunned by the possibility. There was nothing to say, anyway. They could only wait....

* * * * *

A little more than half a light year from Sol, when the ship reached the point where its occupants could see the light that had left their home sun more than seven months before, they watched it become suddenly, horribly brighter. A hundred thousand times brighter!

... THE END

Transcriber's Note

This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction, March 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U. S. Copyright on this publication was renewed.

End

Project Gutenberg EBook of Time Fuze, by Gordon Randall Garrett

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hanging by a Thread, by Gordon Randall Garrett

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Hanging by a Thread

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Illustrator: Douglas

Release Date: October 21, 2009 [EBook #30308]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HANGING BY A THREAD ***

Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction August 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

Hanging By A Thread

By DAVID GORDON

It's seldom that the fate of a shipful of men literally hangs by a thread--but it's also seldom that a device, every part of which has been thoroughly tested, won't work....

Illustrated by Douglas

* * * * *

Jayjay Kelvin was sitting in the lounge of the interplanetary cargo vessel Persephone, his feet propped up on the low table in front of the couch, and his attention focused almost totally on the small book he was reading. The lounge itself was cozily small; the Persephone had not been designed as a passenger vessel, and the two passengers she was carrying at the time had been taken on as an accommodation rather than as a money-making proposition. On the other hand, the Persephone and other ships like her were the only method of getting to where Jayjay Kelvin wanted to go; there were no regular passenger runs to Pluto. It's hardly the vacation spot of the Solar System.

On the other side of the table, Jeffry Hull was working industriously with pencil and paper. Jayjay kept his nose buried in his book--not because he was deliberately slighting Hull, but because he was genuinely interested in the book.

wait," said Masterson, looking thoughtfully at the footprints on the floor of the cabin where Jed Hooker had died. "Jest take another look at these prints, Charlie. Silver Bill Greer couldn't have got much more than his big toe into boots that small! Somethin' tells me the Pecos Kid has...."

"... Traveled nearly two billion miles since then," said Hull.

Jayjay lifted his head from his book. "What?

blinked. "I'm sorry; I wasn't listening. What did you say?"

The younger man was still grinning triumphantly. "I said: We are approaching turnover, and, according to my figures, -- days of acceleration at one standard gee will give us a velocity --teen million, five hundred and fifty miles per hour, and we have covered a distance of nearly two billion miles.

ded: "That is, if I remembered my formulas correctly."

Jayjay Kelvin looked thoughtfully at the ceiling while he ran through the figures in his head. "Something like that. It's the right order of magnitude, anyway."

Hull looked a little miffed. "What answer did you get?"

"A little less than eight times ten to the third kilometers per second. I was just figuring roughly."

Hull scribbled hastily, then smiled again. "Eighteen million miles an hour, that would be. My memory's better than I though

first. I'm glad I didn't have to figure the time; doing square roots is a process I've forgotten."

That was understandable, Jayjay thought. Hull was working for his doctorate in sociology, and there certainly wasn't much necessity for a sociologist to remember his freshman physics, much less his high-school math.

Still, it was somewhat of a relief to find that Hull was interested in something besides the "sociological reactions of Man in space". The boy had spent six months in the mining cities in the Asteroid Belt, and another six investigating the Jovian chemical synthesis planes and their attendant cities. Now he was heading out to spend a few more months observing the "sociological organization Gestalt" of the men and women who worked at the toughest job in the System--taking the heavy metals from the particularly dense sphere of Pluto.

Hull began scribbling on his paper again, evidently lost in the joys of elementary physics, so Jayjay Kelvin went back to his book.

He had just read three words when Hull said: "Mr. Kelvin, do you mind if I ask a question?"

Jayjay looked up from his book and saw that Jeffry Hull had reverted to his role of the earnest young sociologist. Ah, well. "As I've told you before, Mr. Hull, questions do not offend me, but I can't guarantee that the answers won't offend you."

"Yes; of course," Hull said in his best investigatory manner. "I appreciate that. It's just that ... well, I have trained myself to notice small things. The little details that are sometimes so important in sociological investigations. Not, you understand, as an attempt to pry into the private life of the individual, but to round out the overall picture."

Jayja

dded politely. To his quixotic and pixie-like mind, the term overall picture conjured up the vision of a large and carefully

ed painting of a pair of dirty overalls, but he kept the smile off his face and merely said: "I understand."

"Well, I've noticed that you're quite an avid reader. That isn't unusual in a successful businessman, of course; one doesn't become a successful businessman unless one has a thirst for knowledge."

"Hm-m-m," said Jayjay.

"But," Hull continued earnestly, "I noticed that you've read most of the ... uh ... historical romances in the library...."

"You mean Westerns," Jayjay corrected quietly.

"Uh ... yes. But you don't seem to be interested in the modern adventure fiction. May I ask why?"

"Sure." Jayjay found himself

ming irrationally irritated with Hull. He knew that the young sociologist had nothing to do with his own irritation, so he kept the remarks as impersonal as possible. "In the first place, you, as a sociologist, should know what market most fiction is written for."

"Why ... uh ... for people who want to relax and--"

"Yes," Jayjay cut in. "But what kind? The boys on Pluto? The asteroid slicers? No. There are four billion people on Earth and less than five million in space. The market is Earth.

"Also, most writers have never been any farther off the surface of Earth than the few miles up that an intercontinental cruiser takes them.

"And yet, the modern 'adventure' novel invariably takes place in space.

"I can read Westerns because I neither know nor care what the Old American West was really like. I can sit back and sink into the never-never land that the Western tells about and enjoy myself because I am not forced to compare it with reality.

"But a 'space novel' written by an Earthside hugger is almost as much a never-never land, and I have to keep comparing it with what is actually going on around me. And it irritates me."

"But, aren't some of them pretty well researched?" Hull asked.

"Obviously, you haven't read many of them," Jayjay said. "Sure, some of them are well researched. Say one half of one per cent, to be liberal. The rest don't know what they're talking about!"

"But--"

"For instance," Jayjay continued heatedly, "you take a look at every blasted one of them that has anything to do with a spacecraft having trouble. They have to have an accident in space in order to disable the spaceship so that the hairy-chested hero can show what a great guy he is. So what does the writer do? He has the ship hit by a meteor! A meteor!"

Hull thought that over for a second. "Well," he said tentatively, "a ship could get hit by a meteor, couldn't it?"

Jayjay closed his eyes in exasperation. "Of course it could! And an air-ship can run into a ruby-throated hummingbird, too. But how often does it happen?

"Look: We're hitting it up at about one-fortieth of the velocity of light right now. What do you think would happen if we got hit by a meteor? We'd be gone before we knew what had happened.

"Why doesn't it happen? Because we can spot any meteor big enough to hurt us long before it contacts us, and we can dodge it or blast it out of the way, depending on the size.

"You've seen the outer hull of this ship. It's an inch thick shell of plastic, supported a hundred feet away from the steel hull by long booms. Anything small enough to get by the detectors will be small enough to burn itself out on that hull before it reaches the ship. The--"

* * * * *

Jayjay Kelvin was not ordinarily a man to make long speeches, especially when he knew he was telling someone something that they already knew. But this time, he was beating one of his favorite drums, and he went on with his tirade in a fine flush of fury.

Alas ... poor Jayjay.

Actually, Jayjay Kelvin can't be blamed for his attitude. All he was saying was that it was highly improbable that a spaceship would be hit by a meteor. In one way, he was perfectly right, and, in another, he was dead wrong.

How small must a piece of matter be before it is no longer a meteor?

Fortunately, the big hunks rarely travel at more than about two times ten to the sixth centimeters per second, relative to Sol, in the Solar System. But there are little meteors--very tiny ones--that come in, hell-bent-for-leather, at a shade less than the velocity of light. They're called cosmic rays, but they're not radiation in the strict sense of the word. A stripped hydrogen atom, weighing on the order of three point three times ten to the minus twenty-second grams, rest mass, can come galumping along at a velocity so close to that of light that the kinetic energy is something colossal for so small a particle. Protons with a kinetic energy of ten to the nineteenth electron volts, while statistically rare, are not unusual.

Now, ten million million million electron volts may be a wee bit meaningless to the average man, so let's look at it from another angle.

Consider. According to the well-known formula E = mc^2, a single gram of matter, if converted completely into energy, would yield some nine hundred million million million ergs of energy. An atomic bomb yields only a fraction of that energy, since only a small percentage of the mass is converted into energy.

If all of the mass of an atomic bomb were converted into energy, the test in Alamogordo, New Mexico, 'way back in 1945, would probably have been the last such test on Earth; there wouldn't have been anyone around to make a second test.

So what does this have to do with cosmic ray particle? Well, if that atomic bomb had been moving at the velocity with which our ten-to-the-nineteenth-electron-volts proton is moving, it could have been made of sand instead of U^235. It would have produced ten thousand million times as much energy as the total disintegration of the rest mass would have produced!

Kinetic energy, my children, has a great deal more potential than atomic energy.

But we digress.

What has all this to do with Jayjay Kelvin?

If Jayjay had been a detective story addict instead of a Western story addict, he would have heard of the HIBK or "Had I But Known" school of detective writing. You know: "Had I But Known that, at that moment, in the dismal depths of a secret underground meeting place, the evil Chuman-Fu was plotting...."

If Jayjay Kelvin had known what was going on a few million miles away from the Pluto-bound Persephone, he would have kept his mouth shut.

* * * * *

The cargo-ship Mordred was carrying a cargo of heavy metals sunward. In her hold were tightly-packed ingots of osmium-iridium-platinum alloy, gold-copper-silver-mercury alloy, and small percentages of other of the heavy metals. The cargo was to be taken to the Asteroid Belt for purification and then shipped Earthward for final disposition. The fact that silver had replaced copper for electrical purposes on Earth was due to the heavy-metals industry on Pluto. Because of Pluto, the American silver bloc had been broken at last.

The Mordred was approaching turnover.

Now, with a gravito-inertial drive, there is really no need to turn a ship over end-for-end as she approaches the mid-point of her trajectory. Since there is no rocket jet to worry about, all that is really necessary is to put the engine in reverse. In fact, the patrol ships of the Interplanetary Police do just that.

But the IP has been trained to take up to five standard gees in an end-to-end flip, and the ships are built to take the stress in both directions. An ordinary cargo ship finds it a lot easier to simply flip the ship over; that way, the stresses remain the same, and the ceiling-floor relationship is constant.

The Mordred had been having a little trouble with her Number Three drive engine, so the drive was cut off at turnover, while the engineer replaced a worn bearing. At the same time, the maintenance officer decided he'd take a look at the meteor-bumper--the plastic outer hull. Since the ship was in free fall, all he had to do was pull himself along one of the beams that supported the meteor-bumper away from the main hull. The end of one of the beams had cracked a part of the bumper hull--fatigue from stress, nothing more, but the hull might as well be patched while the drive was off.

It was a one-man job; the plastic was dense, but under null-gee conditions it was easy to maneuver. The maintenance officer repaired the slight crack easily, wiped the sticky pre-polymer from the fingers of his spacesuit gloves, and tossed the gooey rag off into space. Then he pushed himself back across the vacuum that separated the outer hull from the inner, entered the air lock, and reported that the job was finished. Five minutes later, the Mordred began decelerating toward the distant Asteroid Belt.

Forget the Mordred. The ship is no longer important. Keep your eyes on that rag. It's a flimsy thing, composed of absorbent plastic and gooed up with a little unpolymerized resin, weighing about fifty grams. It is apparently floating harmlessly in space, just beyond the orbit of Uranus, looking as innocuous as a rag can look. But it is moving sunward at eight hundred million centimeters per second.

* * * * *

The Persephone was approaching turnover. The ship's engineer reported that the engines were humming along smoothly, so there was no need to shut them off; the ship would simply flip over as she ran, making her path a slightly skewed, elongated S-curve--a sort of orbital hiccup.

[Illustration]

Except that she never quite made it through the hiccup. The ship was almost perpendicular to her line of flight when she was sideswiped.

Her meteor detectors hadn't failed; they were still functioning perfectly. But meteor detectors are built to look for solid chunks of metal and rock--not thin, porous bits of cloth.

The rag had traveled a good many millions of miles since it had been cast overboard; it was moving sunward with almost the same velocity with which the Persephone was moving Plutowards. The combined velocities were such that, if it had hit the Persephone dead on, it would have delivered close to seventeen thousand kilowatt-hours of energy in one grand burst of incandescence.

Fortunately, the tip of the rag merely gave the ship a slap on the tail as it passed. The plastic meteor-bumper wasn't built to take that sort of thing. The plastic became an expanding cloud of furiously incandescent gas in a small fraction of a second, but the velocity of that bit of rag was so great that the gas acted as a solid block of superheated fury as it leaped across the hundred feet of vacuum which separated the bumper hull from the inner hull.

A rocket-driven missile carrying a shaped-charge warhead weighing several hundred pounds might have done almost as much damage.

* * * * *

Jayjay Kelvin moved his arms to pick himself up off the floor and found that there was no necessity for doing so. He was floating in the air of the lounge, and, strictly speaking, there was no floor anyway. He opened his eyes and saw that that which had been the floor was now just another wall, except that it had chairs bolted to it. It rose on his left, reached the zenith, and set on his right, to be replaced by another wall, and then by what had been the ceiling. The second time the floor came round, Jayjay began to wonder whether he was spinning around his longitudinal axis or whether the ship was actually rotating about him. He closed his eyes again.

He didn't feel more than a little dizzy, but he couldn't be sure whether the dizziness was caused by his spinning or the blow on his head. He opened his eyes again and grabbed at the book that was orbiting nearby, then hurled it as hard as he could toward the sometime ceiling. "The Pride of the Pecos" zoomed rapidly in one direction while Jayjay moved sedately in the other.

The ship was spinning slightly, all right. When he finally grabbed a chair, he found that there was enough spin to give him a weight of an ounce or two. He sat down as best he could and took a good look around.

Aside from "The Pride of the Pecos" and a couple of other books, the air was remarkably free from clutter. There hadn't been much loose stuff laying around. A pencil, a few sheets of paper--nothing more.

There was one object missing. Jayjay looked around more carefully, and this time he saw a hand protruding from the space "beneath" the low table. He bent down for a better look and saw that Jeffry Hull was unconscious. Blood from his nose was spreading slowly over his face, and one eye looked rather battered. Jayjay grasped the protruding wrist and felt for a pulse. It was pumping nicely. He decided that Hull was in no immediate danger; very few people die of a bloody nose.

The lighting in the lounge was none too good; the low-power emergency system had come on automatically when the power from the ship's engines had died. Jayjay wondered just what had happened. There had been a hell of an explosion; that was all he knew.

He wondered if anyone else aboard was alive and conscious, and decided he might as well find out. He took a long dive toward the central stairwell that ran the length of the ship's long axis and looked down. The emergency door to the cargo hold was closed. No air, most likely. The way up looked clear, so he scrambled up the spiral stairway.

A few feet farther up, he found that he had passed the center of the ship's rotation. The Persephone was evidently toppling end-over-end, and the center of rotation was in the lounge itself. The heavy cargo in the hold was balancing the lighter, but longer, part of the ship above the lounge. He began climbing down the stairwell toward the navigation and control sections.

Somewhere down there, somebody was cursing fluently in Arabic.

"Illegitimate offspring of a mangy she-camel! Eater of dogs! Wallower in carrion!" And then, with hardly a break: "Allah, All-Merciful, All-Compassionate! Have mercy on Thy servant! I swear by the beard of Thy holy Prophet that I will attend more closely to my duties to Thee if Thou wilt get me loose from this ill-begotten monstrosity! Help me or I perish!" The last words were a wail.

"I'm coming!" boomed Jayjay in the same tongue. "Save thy strength!"

* * * * *

There was silence from the control room as Jayjay clambered on down the stairwell. Fortunately, the steps had been built so that it was possible to use them from either side, no matter which way the gravity pull happened to be. By the time he reached the control room, he weighed a good fifteen pounds.

Captain Atef al-Amin was staring up at the stairs as Jayjay came down. He was jammed tightly into a space between two of the big control cabinets, hanging head downward and looking more disheveled than Jayjay had ever seen the usually immaculately-uniformed captain.

"Oh," said Captain Al-Amin, in English, "it's you. For a moment I thought--" Then he waved his free hand. "Never mind. Can you get me out of here?"

What had been the floor of the control room was now the ceiling. The two steel cabinets which housed parts of the computer unit now appeared to be bolted to the ceiling. They were only about five feet high, and the space between them was far too narrow for a man to have got in there by himself--especially a man of the captain's build. None the less, he was in there--jammed in up to his waist. Only his upper torso and one arm was free. The other arm was jammed in against the wall.

Jayjay took the leap from the stairs and grabbed on to the chair that hung from the ceiling nearby. When you only weigh fifteen pounds, you can make Tarzan look like an amateur.

"You hurt?" he asked.

"It isn't comfortable, sure as hell," said Al-Amin. "I think my arm's broken. Think you can get me loose?"

"I can try. Give me your hand." Jayjay took the captain's free hand and gave it a tug. Then he released the chair he was holding, braced both feet against the panels of the computer housings, and gave a good pull. The captain didn't budge, but he winced a little.

"That hurt?"

"Just my arm. The pressure has cut off my blood circulation; my legs are numb, and I can't tell if they hurt or not."

Jayjay grabbed the chair again and surveyed the situation. "Where's your First Officer?"

"Breckner? Down in the engine room."

Jayjay didn't comment on that. If the hold was airless, it was likely that the engine room was, too, and there was no need to worry Al-Amin any more than necessary just now.

"Can you use a cutting torch?" the captain asked.

"Yes, but I don't think it'll be necessary," Jayjay said. "Hold on a minute." He went back up the stairs to the officers' washroom and, after a little search, got a container of liquid soap from the supplies. Then he went back down to the control room. He made the jump to the chair, holding on with one hand while he held the container of soap with the other.

"Can you hold me up with one hand? I'll need both hands to work with."

"In this gravity? Easy. Give me your belt."

Captain Atef Al-Amin grabbed Jayjay's belt and hung on, while Jayjay used both hands to squirt the liquid soap all over the captain from the waist down.

It would have made a great newspaper photo. Captain Al-Amin, wedged between two steel cabinets, hanging upside-down under a pull of one-fifteenth standard gee, holding up his rescuer by the belt. The rescuer, right-side-up, was squeezing a plastic container of liquid soap and directing the stream against the captain.

When Al-Amin was thoroughly wetted with the solution, Jayjay again braced his feet against the steel panels and pulled.

With a slick, slurping sound, the captain slid loose, and the two of them toppled head-over-heels across the room. Jayjay was prepared for that; he stopped them both by grasping an overhead desk-top as they went by. Then he let go, and the two men dropped slowly to what had been the ceiling.

"Hoo!" said the captain. "That's a relief! Allah!"

Jayjay took a look at the man's arm. "Radius might be broken; ulna seems O.K. We'll splint it later. Your legs are going to tingle like crazy when the feeling comes back."

"I know. But we have other things to worry about, Mr. Kelvin. Evidently you and I are the only ones awake so far, and I'm in no condition to go moving all over this spinning bucket just yet. Would you do some reconnoitering for me?"

"Sure," said Jayjay. "Just tell me what you want."

* * * * *

Within half an hour, the news was in.

There were five men alive in the ship: Jayjay, Captain Al-Amin, Jeffry Hull, Second Officer Vandenbosch, and Maintenance Officer Smith. Vandenbosch had broken both legs and had to be strapped into a bunk and given a shot of narcolene.

Jayjay had put on a spacesuit and taken a look outside. The whole rear end of the ship was gone, and with it had gone the First Officer, the Radio Officer, and the Engineering Officer. And, of course, the main power plant of the ship.

Most of the cargo hold was intact, but the walls had been breached, and the air was gone.

"Well, that's that," said Captain Al-Amin. Jayjay, Smith, Hull, and the captain were in the control room, trying not to look glum. "I wish I knew what happened."

"Meteor," Jayjay said flatly. "The bumper hull is fused at the edges of the break, and the direction of motion was inward."

"I don't see how it could have got by the meteor detectors," said Smith, a lean, sad-looking man with a badly bruised face.

"I don't either," the captain said, "but it must have. If the engines had blown, the damage would have been quite different."

Jeffry Hull nervously took a cigarette from his pocket pack. His nose had quit bleeding, but his eye was purpling rapidly and was almost swollen shut.

Captain Al-Amin leaned over and gently took the cigarette from Hull's fingers. "No smoking, I'm afraid. We'll have to conserve oxygen."

"You guys are so damn calm!" Hull said. His voice betrayed a surface of anger covering a substratum of fear. "Here we are, heading away from the Solar System at eighteen million miles an hour, and you all act as if we were going on a picnic or something."

The observation was hardly accurate. Any group of men who went on a picnic in the frame of mind that Jayjay and the others were in would have produced the gloomiest outing since the Noah family took a trip in an excursion boat.

"There's nothing to worry about," Captain Al-Amin said gently. "All we have to do is set the screamers going, and the Interplanetary Police will pick us up."

"Screamers?" Hull looked puzzled.

Instead of answering the implied question, the captain looked at Smith. "Have you checked them?" He knew that Smith had, but he was trying to quiet Hull's fears.

Smith nodded. "They're O.K." He looked at Hull. "A screamer is an emergency radio. There's one in every compartment. You've seen them." He pointed across the room, toward a red panel in the wall. "In there."

"But I thought it was impossible for a spaceship in flight to contact a planet by radio," Hull objected.

"Normally, it is," Smith admitted. "It takes too much power and too tight a beam to get much intelligence over a distance that great from a moving ship. But the screamers are set up for emergency purposes. They're like flares, except that they operate on microwave frequencies instead of visible light.

"The big radio telescopes on Luna and on the Jovian satellites can pick them up if we beam them sunward, and the Plutonian station can pick us up if we beam in that direction."

Hull looked much calmer. "But where do you get the power if the engines are gone? Surely the emergency batteries won't supply that kind of power."

"Of course not. Each screamer has its own power supply. It's a hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell that generates a hell of a burst of power for about thirty minutes before it burns out from the overload. It's meant to be used only once, but it does the job."

"How do they know where to find us from a burst like that?" Hull asked.

"Well, suppose we only had one screamer. We'd beam it toward Pluto, since it would be easier for an IP ship to get to us from there. Since all screamers have the same frequency--don't ask me what it is; I'm not a radio man--the velocity of our ship will be indicated by the Doppler Effect. That is, our motion toward or away from them can be calculated that way. Our angular velocity with respect to them can be checked while the screamer is going; they will know which direction we're moving, if we're moving at an angle.

"With that information, all they have to do is find out which ship is in that general area of the sky, which they can find out by checking the schedule, and they can estimate approximately where we'll be. The IP ship will come out, and when they get in the general vicinity, they can find us with their meteor detectors. Nothing to it."

"And," Captain Al-Amin added, "since we have eight screamers still left with us, we have plenty of reserves to call upon. There's nothing to worry about, Mr. Hull."

"But how can you aim a beam when we're toppling end-over-end like this?" Hull asked.

"Well, if we couldn't stop the rotation," said the captain, "we'd broadcast instead of beaming. Anywhere within the Solar System, a screamer can broadcast enough energy to overcome the background noise.

"The IP would have a harder time finding us, of course, but we'd be saved eventually."

"I see," said Hull "How do we go about stopping the rotation?"

"That's the next thing on the agenda," Al-Amin said. "This seasick roll is caused by the unevenness of the load, and I'm pretty sick of it, myself. Smith, will you and Mr. Kelvin get out the emergency rockets? We'll see what we can do to stabilize our platform."

* * * * *

It took better than an hour to get the ship straightened out. For the main job, emergency rockets were set off at the appropriate spots around the hull to counteract the rotation. The final trimming was done with carbon dioxide fire extinguishers, which Smith and Jayjay Kelvin used as jets.

Getting a fix on Pluto was easy enough; the lighthouse station at Styx broadcast a strong beep sunward every ten seconds. They could also pick up the radio lighthouses on Eros, Ceres, Luna, and Mimas. Evidently, the one on Titan was behind the Jovian bulk.

They were ready to send their distress call.

"It's simple," Smith said as he opened the red panel in the wall of the control room. "First we turn on the receiver." He pushed a button marked R. "Then we turn these two wheels here until the pip on that little screen is centered. That's the signal from Pluto. It comes in strong every ten seconds, see?"

Jayjay watched with interest. He'd heard about screamers and had seen them, but he'd never had the opportunity of observing one in action.

Like flares or bombs, they were intended for one-time use. The instructions were printed plainly on the inside of the red door, and Smith was simply reading off what was printed there.

"These wheels," he was saying, "line up the parabolic reflector with the Pluto signal, you see. There. Now we've got it centered. Now, all we have to do is make one small correction and we're all set. These things are built so that they're fool-proof; a kid could operate it. Watch."

Facing each other across a small gap were a pair of tapered screw plugs, one male and one female. The male was an average of half an inch in diameter; the female was larger and bored to fit the male.

"The female plug," Smith said, "leads to two tanks of high-pressure gas inside this cabinet on the left. One tank of oxygen, one of hydrogen. See how this male plug telescopes out to fit into the female? All we have to do is thread them together, and everything is automatic."

Jayjay was aware that Smith's explanations were meant to give Jeffry Hull something to think about instead of his fears. Hull was basically an Earth-hugger, and free fall did nothing to keep him calm. Evidently his subconscious knew that he had to latch on to something to keep his mental equilibrium, because he showed a tremendous amount of interest in what should have been a routine operation.

"How do you mean, it's all automatic?" he asked. "What happens?"

"Well, you can't see into the female plug, but look here at the male. See those concentric tubes leading into the interior of the cabinet on the right? The outer one leads in the oxygen, the inner leads in the hydrogen. We need twice as much hydrogen as oxygen, so the inner tube has twice the volume delivery as the outer. See?"

"Yes. But what is the solid silver bar in the center of the inner tube?"

"That's the electrical connection for the starter battery. There's a small, short-lived chemical battery, like the ones in an ordinary pocket radio, except that they're built to deliver a high-voltage, high-amperage current for about a tenth of a second. That activates the H-O cell, you see. Also, that silver stud depresses the corresponding stud in the female plug, which turns on the gas flow before it makes the connection with the starter battery. Follow?"

Hull didn't look as though he did, but he nodded gamely. "Then what happens?"

"Then the hydrogen and the oxygen come together in the fuel cell and, instead of generating heat, they generate electric current. That current is fed into the radio unit, and the signal is sent to Pluto. Real simple."

"I see," Hull said. "Well ... go ahead."

Smith telescoped the two leads together and began turning the collar on the female plug.

He screwed it up as far as it would go.

And nothing happened.

"What the hell?" asked Smith of no one in particular. He tried to twist it a little harder. Nothing happened. The threads had gone as far as they would go.

"What's the matter?" Jayjay asked.

"Damfino. No connection. Nothing's happening. And it's as tight as it will go."

"Are the gases flowing?" Jayjay asked.

"I don't know. These things aren't equipped with meters. They're supposed to work automatically."

Jayjay pushed Smith aside. "Let me take a look."

Smith frowned as though he resented an ordinary passenger shoving him around, but Jayjay ignored him. He cocked his head to one side and looked at the connection. "Hm-m-m." He touched it with a finger. Then he wet the finger with his tongue and touched the connection again. "There's no gas flow, Smith."

"How do you know?" Smith was still frowning.

"There's a gap there. That tapered thread isn't in tight. If there were any gas flowing, it would be leaking out." Before Smith could say anything Jayjay began unscrewing the coupling. When it came apart, it looked just the same as it had before Smith had put it together.

In the dim glow from the emergency lights, it was difficult to see anything.

"Got an electric torch?" Jayjay asked.

Smith pushed himself away from the screamer panel and came back after a moment with a flashlight. "Let me take a look," he said, edging Jayjay aside. He looked over the halves of the coupling very carefully, then said: "I don't see anything wrong. I'll try it again."

"Hold on a second," Jayjay said quietly. "Let me take a look, will you?"

Smith handed him the torch. "Go ahead, but there's nothing wrong."

* * * * *

Jayjay took the light and looked the connections over again. Then he screwed his head around so that he could look into the female plug.

"Hm-m-m. Hard to count. Gap's too small. Anybody got a toothpick?"

Nobody did.

Jayjay turned to Jeffry Hull. "Mr. Hull, would you mind going to the lounge? I think there's some toothpicks in the snack refrigerator."

"Sure," said Hull. "Sure."

He pushed himself across the control room and disappeared through the stairwell.

"Get several of them," Jayjay called after him.

Captain Al-Amin said: "What's the trouble, Mr. Kelvin?"

"I'm not sure yet," Jayjay answered. "When did you last have the screamer units inspected?"

"Just before we took off from Jove Station," Al-Amin said. "That's the law. All emergency equipment has to be checked before takeoff. Why? What's the matter?"

"Did they check this unit?" Jayjay asked doggedly.

"Certainly. I watched them check it myself. I--" He brought himself up short and said: "Give me that torch, will you? I want to take a look at the thing."

Jayjay handed him the flashlight and grasped the captain's belt. With one arm in a splint, Al-Amin couldn't hold the flashlight and hold on to anything solid at the same time.

"I don't see anything wrong," he said after a minute.

"Neither do I," Jayjay admitted. "But the way it acts--"

"I got the toothpicks!" Jeffry Hull propelled himself across the room toward the three men who were clustered around the screamer.

Jayjay took the toothpicks, selected one, and inserted it into the female plug. "Hard to see those threads with all the tubes blocking that plug," he said offhandedly.

Hull said: "Captain, did you know that the refrigerator is off?"

"Yes," said Atef Al-Amin absently. "It isn't connected to the emergency circuits. Wastes too much energy. What do you find, Mr. Kelvin?"

After a second's silence, Jayjay said: "Let me check once more." He was running the tip of the toothpick across the threads in the female plug, counting as he did so. "Uh-huh," he said finally, "just as I thought. There's one less thread in the female plug. The male plug is stopped before it can make contact. There's a gap of about a tenth of an inch when the coupling is screwed up tight."

"Let me see," Smith said. He took the toothpick and went through the same operation. "You're right," he said ruefully, "the female plug is faulty. We'll have to use one of the other screamers."

"Right," said Jayjay.

Wrong, said Fate. Or the Powers That Be, or the Fallibility of Man, whatever you want to call it.

Every screamer unit suffered from the same defect.

* * * * *

"I don't understand it!" A pause. "It's impossible! Those units were tested!"

For the first time in his life, Captain Atef Abdullah Al-Amin allowed his voice to betray him.

Arabic is normally spoken about half an octave above the normal tone used for English. And, unlike American English, it tends to waver up and down the scale. Usually, the captain spoke English in the flat, un-accented tones of the Midwest American accent, and spoke Arabic in the ululating tones of the Egyptian.

But now he was speaking English with an Egyptian waver, not realizing that he was doing it.

"How could it happen? It's ridiculous!"

The captain, his maintenance officer, and Jeffry Hull were clustered around the screamer unit in the lounge. Off to one side, Jayjay Kelvin held a deck of cards in his hands and played a game of patience called "transportation solitaire." His eyes didn't miss a play, just as his ears didn't miss a word.

He pulled an ace from the back of the deck and flipped it to the front.

"You said the screamers had been checked," Jeffry Hull said accusingly. "How come they weren't checked?"

"They were!" Al-Amin said sharply.

"Sure they were," Smith added. "I watched the check-off. There was nothing wrong then."

"Meanwhile," Hull said, the acid bite of fear in his voice, "we have to sit here and wait for the Interplanetary Police to find us by pure luck."

The captain should have let Hull cling to the idea that the IP could find the Persephone, even if no signal was sent. But the captain was almost as angry and flustered as Hull was.

[Illustration]

"Find us?" he snapped. "Don't be ridiculous! We won't even be missed until we're due at Styx, on Pluto, nine days from now. By that time, we'll be close to two billion miles beyond the orbit of Pluto. We'll never be found if we wait 'til then. Something has to be done now!" He looked at his Maintenance Officer. "Smith, isn't there some way to make contact between those two plugs?"

"Sure," Smith said bitterly. "If we had the tools, it would be duck soup. All we'd have to do is trim down the male plug to fit the female, and we'd have it. But we don't have the tools. We've got a couple of files and a quarter-horsepower electric drill with one bit. Everything else was in the tool compartment--which is long gone, with the engine room."

"Can't you ... uh, what do you call it? Uh ... jury-something--" Hull's voice sounded as though he were forcing it to be calm.

"Jury-rig?" Smith said. "Yeah? With what? Dammit, we haven't got any tools, and we haven't got any materials to work with!"

"Can't you just use a wrench to tighten them more?" Hull asked helplessly.

Smith said a dirty word and pushed himself away from the screamer unit to glower at an unresisting wall.

"No, Mr. Hull, we couldn't," said Captain Al-Amin with restrained patience. "That would strip the threads. If the electrical contact were made at the same time, the high-pressure oxygen-hydrogen flow would spark off, and we'd get a big explosion that would wreck everything--including us." Then he muttered to himself: "I still don't see how it could happen."

Jayjay Kelvin pulled a nine of spades from the back of the deck to the front. It matched the four of spades that had come three cards before. Jayjay discarded the two cards between the spades. "You don't?" he asked. "Didn't you ever hear that the total is greater than the sum of its parts?"

"What?" Captain Al-Amin sounded as though he'd been insulted--in Arabic. "What are you talking about, Mr. Kelvin?"

"I'm talking about the idiocy of the checking system," Jayjay said flatly. "Don't you see what they did? Don't you see what happened? Each part of a screamer has to be checked separately, right?"

Al-Amin nodded.

"Why? Because the things burn out if you check them as a complete unit. It's like checking a .50 caliber cartridge. The only way you can check a cartridge is to shoot it in a gun. If it works, then you know it works. Period. The only trouble is that you've wasted the cartridge. You know that that one is good, but you've ruined it.

"Same way with a screamer. If you test it as a unit, you'll ruin it. So you test it a part at a time. All the parts check out nicely because the test mechanisms are built to check each part."

Smith squinted. "Well, sure. If you check out the whole screamer, you'll ruin it. So what?"

"So suppose you were going to check out a cartridge," Jayjay said. "You don't fire it; you check each part separately. You check the brass case. It's all right; the tests show that it won't burst under firing pressure. You check the primer; the tests show that it will explode when hit by the gun's hammer. You check the powder; the tests show that the powder will burn nicely when the flame from the primer hits it. You check the bullet; the tests show that the slug will be expelled at the proper velocity when the powder is ignited.

"So you assume that the cartridge will function when fired.

"But will it?"

"Why wouldn't it?" Smith asked.

"Because the flame from the exploding primer can't reach the powder, that's why!" Jayjay snapped. "Some jerk has redesigned the primer so that the flame misses the propellant!"

"How could that happen?" Hull asked blankly.

"How? Because Designer A decided that the male plug on the screamer should have one more turn on its threads, but he forgot to tell Designer B, who designs the female plug, that the two should match. The testing equipment is designed to test each part, so each part tests out fine. The only trouble is that the thing doesn't test out as a whole."

* * * * *

Captain Al-Amin nodded slowly. "That's right. The test showed that the oxyhydrogen section worked fine. It showed that the starter worked fine. It showed that the radiowave broadcaster worked fine. But it didn't show that they'd work together."

Smith said a short, five-letter word. It was French; the Anglo-Saxon equivalent has only four letters. "What good does all this theorizing do us?" he added. "The question is: How do we fix the thing?"

"Well, can't you put another turn on the thread?" Hull asked.

"Oh, sure," Smith said sarcastically. "You give me a lathe and the proper tools, and I'll make you all the connections you want. Hell, if I had the proper tools, I could turn us out a new spaceship, and we could all go home in comfort."

"Couldn't you drill out the metal with that drill?" Hull asked plaintively.

"No!" Smith said harshly. "How do you expect me to get a quarter-inch bit into a space less than a sixteenth of an inch in diameter?"

Hull wasn't used to machinist's terms. "How big is an inch?"

"Two point five four oh oh oh five centimeters," Smith said in a nasty tone of voice. "Does that help you any?"

"I'm just trying to help!" Hull snapped. "You've got no call to get sarcastic with me!"

Smith said the French word again.

"Enough!" the captain barked. "Smith, control your tongue! That sort of thing won't help us." He jerked his head around. "Mr. Kelvin, do you have any suggestions?"

Jayjay played another card. "No. Not yet. I'm thinking."

"Smith? Any ideas?" The tone of the Arab's voice left no doubt that he meant business.

"No, sir. Without a properly equipped machine shop, there's nothing we can do."

"How so?"

"Because that's a precision job, sir. The threads are tapered so that the fit will be gas-tight. That's why the threads have a ten-thousandth of an inch of soft polyethylene covering the hard steel, so that when the threads are tight, the polyethylene will act as a seal. Everything in that connection is a precision fitted job. The ends of the tubes are made to be slightly mashed together, so that the seals will be tight--they're coated with polyethylene, too. If the oxygen and hydrogen mix, the efficiency of the fuel cell goes down to zero, and you run the chance of an explosion."

"Show me," Al-Amin said.

Smith took a pencil out of his pocket and began drawing a cross section of the connection on the top of the nearby table.

"Look here, captain, this is the way the two are supposed to fit. But they don't, because the male plug can't get far enough into the female socket to make the connection. Like this, see?"

The captain nodded.

"Well," Smith continued, "there's a thirty-second of an inch clearance there. If the female had one more turn of thread, the fit would be prefect. As it is, we get no connection. So the screamer doesn't function."

Al-Amin looked at the drawing. "Odd that there's never been any complaint about this error before."

Jayjay turned another ace. "Not so odd, really."

All heads turned toward Jayjay.

"What does that mean?" Smith asked.

"Just what I said." Jayjay turned another card. "A screamer is supposed to call for help, isn't it? It's only used in a dire emergency. Then the only test of the whole unit comes when the occupants of the spaceship are in danger--as we are. If the things don't work, how could there be any complaint? If we can't get ours to work, will we complain? To whom?

"How many ships have been reported missing in the past year or so? All of them presumed lost because of meteor strikes, eh? If a ship is lost and doesn't signal, we presume that it was totally destroyed. If it wasn't, they'd have signaled. As Mister Smith says: See?"

There was a long silence.

Jayjay Kelvin turned the last card, saw that he had lost, and began shuffling the deck.

* * * * *

"I think I've got it," Smith said excitedly, several hours later.

Captain Al-Amin glanced around. Hull was dozing fitfully a few inches above the couch. Jayjay Kelvin was still methodically playing solitaire.

"Keep your voice down," the captain ordered. "No use giving our passengers false hopes. What do you mean, you've got it?"

"Simple. Real simple. All we have to do is file off the last thread of the male plug. Then it will fit into the female." Smith's voice was a hoarse whisper.

"Won't work," said Jayjay Kelvin from across the room.

Smith blew up. "How do you know?" he roared. "You sit over there making wiseacre remarks and do nothing! Play cards, that's all! What do you know about things like this, Mister Joseph Kelvin? What does a businessman know about mechanical equipment?"

"Enough," Jayjay said quietly. "Enough to know that, if you try to file off the final thread of the male plug, you'll do an uneven job. And that will mean leakage."

"What do you mean, an uneven job?" Smith was still furious.

"Trimming off the end of the male plug would have to be done on a lathe," Jayjay said, without looking up from his cards. "Otherwise, the fit would be wrong, and the gases would mix. And we would all go phfft! when the mixture blew."

Smith started to say something, but Jayjay went right on talking. "Even if we had a lathe, the male plug doesn't turn, so you'd be out of luck all the way. You can't take the screamers apart without wrecking them--not without a machine shop. You're going to have to work on that female connection. She's got a sleeve on her that will turn. Now, if--" Jayjay's voice faded off into silence, and his manipulations of the cards became purely mechanical.

"Huh!" Smith said softly. "Just because he's related to Kelvin Associates, he thinks he's hot--" He said the French word again.

"Is he right?" Captain Al-Amin asked sharply.

"Well--" Smith rubbed his nose with a forefinger. "Well, yes. I was wrong. We can't do it with a file. It would have to be turned on a lathe, and we don't have a lathe. And we don't have any measuring instruments, either. This is a precision job, as I said. And we don't have a common ruler aboard, much less a micrometer. Any makeshift job will be a failure."

Captain Al-Amin brooded over that for a moment. Then he looked at Jayjay again. "Mr. Kelvin."

"Yes, captain?" Jayjay didn't look up from the cards in his hands.

"Are you related to Kelvin Associates?"

"In a way."

Al-Amin bit at his lower lip. "Mr. Kelvin, you registered aboard this ship as Joseph Kelvin. May I ask if your middle name is James?"

After a short pause, Jayjay said: "Yes. It is."

"Are you the J. J. Kelvin?"

"Yup. But I'd rather you didn't mention it when we get to Pluto."

Smith's jaw had slowly sagged during that conversation. Then he closed his mouth with a snap. "You're Jayjay Kelvin?" he asked, opening his mouth again.

"That's right."

"Then I apologize."

"Accepted," said Jayjay. He wished that Smith hadn't apologized.

"Why didn't you say so in the first place?" Captain Al-Amin asked.

"Because I didn't want it known that I was going to Pluto," Kelvin said. "And--after the accident happened--I kept quiet because I know human nature."

Jeffry Hull, who had awakened during the argument, looked at Jayjay and said: "What's human nature got to do with it, Mr. Kelvin?"

"Nothing, except that if I'd told everyone I was J. J. Kelvin, all of you would have been sitting around waiting for me to solve the problem instead of thinking about it yourselves."

Hull nodded thoughtfully. "It makes sense, Mr. Kelvin. If they'd known that you were ... well ... Mister Spaceship Himself, they'd have let you do all the thinking. And that would have left you high and dry, wouldn't it?"

Jayjay put the deck of cards in his pocket. "You're a pretty good sociologist, after all, Mr. Hull. You're right. Face any group with Authority--with a capital A--and they quit thinking for themselves. And if they do, then the poor slob of an Authority doesn't have anything to tickle his own brains, so everybody loses."

"Well, do you have an answer?" Captain Al-Amin asked.

Jayjay shook his head. "Not yet. I think I've got one coming up, but I wish you two would go on talking while I think."

"I'll try," Smith said wryly.

* * * * *

The problem was both simple and complex. The female socket lacked one single turn of thread to make a perfect connection. A few hundredths of an inch separated success from disaster.

Five men, including the unconscious Vandenbosch, were only a fraction of an inch away from death.

Jayjay Kelvin listened to Smith talk for another half hour, throwing in objections when necessary, but offering no opinions.

"All we have to do," Smith said at last, "is get rid of that little bit of metal beyond the thread in the female socket. But there's no way to get it out. We can't use a chisel because the force would warp the threads. Besides, we couldn't get a chisel in there."

"And we don't have a chisel," Captain Al-Amin added. "We don't have any tools at all."

"Except," said Jayjay, "an electric hand drill and a quarter-inch bit."

"Well, sure," said Smith. "But what good will that do us?"

"If we rigged a belt between the drill's motor and the sleeve of the female socket, the sleeve would rotate as if it were on a lathe, wouldn't it?"

Smith blinked. "Sure. Yeah! Hey!" His face brightened. Then it looked sad again. "But what good would that do us?"

"You said that all we have between us and success is a fraction of an inch of metal. If we can remove that fraction of an inch, we're successful."

"But how can you put a thread into that socket?" Smith asked.

Jayjay beamed as though it were his birthday. "We don't have to put a thread in there. All we have to do is give the thread on the male plug room to move in. All we have to do is clear away that metal. So we'll use the drill motor to turn the sleeve as if it were on a lathe."

Smith still didn't look enthusiastic. "All right. We have a lathe. But what are we going to use for tools? What are we going to cut the metal with?"

Jayjay's smile became broader. "Carbon steel. What else?"

"Oh?" said Smith. "And where do we get these tools, Mr. Kelvin? From the circumambient ether?"

"Not at all," said Jayjay. "Did you ever chip flint?"

"What?"

"Never mind. All we have to do is use that quarter-inch bit."

Smith still looked confused. "I don't get it. A bit that big won't fit in."

"We simply crack a piece off that hard carbon steel," Jayjay said. "We can make a lathe tool that will fit into the small space between the inner and outer tubes. The fractured edge will be sharp enough to take out the excess metal. The male plug can move in, and we'll have contact."

"Well, I'll be--" Smith used another French word.

Captain Atef Al-Amin cast his eyes upwards. "Creatio ex nihilo," he said softly.

* * * * *

When the Interplanetary Police ship took the five men and the cargo from the wreck of the Persephone, the major in command of the ship, who knew that he had rescued the great J. J. Kelvin, asked him: "Mr. Kelvin, what do you plan to do when you return to Ceres City?"

And Jayjay, who knew that both he and the major were speaking for the newsfacs and for posterity, said:

"I'm going to make sure that Kelvin Associates learns to make emergency equipment properly. We will never again put faulty equipment aboard a ship."

The major looked perplexed. "What?"

"I'm going to have some designer's head!" said Jayjay Kelvin.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Hanging by a Thread, by Gordon Randall Garrett

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Out Like a Light, by Gordon Randall Garrett

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Out Like a Light

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Release Date: January 28, 2008 [EBook #24444] Last updated: January 22, 2009

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUT LIKE A LIGHT ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Greg Bergquist, Bruce Albrecht and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction April, May and June 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.]

[Illustration]

Out Like A Light

By MARK PHILLIPS

=_Kenneth Malone--sometimes known as Sir Kenneth of The Queen's Own FBI--had had problems with telepathic spies, and more than somewhat nutty telepathic counterspies. But the case of the Vanishing Delinquents was at least as bad...._=

Illustrated by Freas

[Illustration]

The sidewalk was as soft as a good bed. Malone lay curled on it thinking about nothing at all. He was drifting off into a wonderful dream and he didn't want to interrupt it. There was this girl, a beautiful girl, more wonderful than anything he had ever imagined, with big blue eyes and long blond hair and a figure that made the average pin-up girl look like a man. And she had her soft white hand on his arm, and she was looking up at him with trust and devotion and even adoration in her eyes, and her voice was the softest possible whisper of innocence and promise.

"I'd love to go up to your apartment with you, Mr. Malone," she said.

Malone smiled back at her, gently but with complete confidence. "Call me Ken," he said, noticing that he was seven feet tall and superbly muscled. He put his free hand on the girl's warm, soft shoulder and she wriggled with delight.

"All right--Ken," she said. "You know, I've never met anyone like you before. I mean, you're so wonderful and everything."

Malone chuckled modestly, realizing, in passing, how full and rich his voice had become. He felt a weight pressing over his heart, and knew that it was his wallet, stuffed to bursting with thousand-dollar bills.

But was this a time to think of money?

No, Malone told himself. This was the time for adventu

for romance, for love. He looked down at the girl and put his arm around her waist. She snuggled closer.

He led her easily down the long wide street to his car at the end of block. It stood in godlike solitude, a beautiful red Cadillac

of going a hundred and ten miles an hour in any gear, equipped with fully automatic steering and braking, and with stereopho

fi and a 3-D set installed in both front and back seats. It was a 1972 job, but he meant to trade it in on something even better when the 1973 models came out. In the meantime, he decided, it would do.

He handed the girl in, went round to the other side and slid in under the wheel. There was soft music playing, somewhere, and a magnificent sunset appeared ahead of them as Malone pushed a button on the dashboard and the red Cadillac started off down the wide, empty, wonderfully paved street into the sunset while he--

The red Cadillac?

The sidewalk became a little harder, and Malone suddenly realized that he was lying on it. Something terrible had happened; he knew that right away. He opened his eyes to look for the girl, but the sunset had become much brighter; his head began to pound with the slow regularity of a dead-march and he closed his eyes again in a hurry.

The sidewalk swayed a little but he managed to keep his balance on it somehow, and after a couple of minutes it was quiet again. His head hurt. Maybe that was the terrible thing that had happened, but Malone wasn't quite sure. As a matter of fact, he wasn't very sure about anything, and he started to ask himself questions to make certain he was all there.

He didn't feel all there. He felt as if several of his parts had been replaced with second-or even third-hand experimental models, and something had happened to the experiment. It was even hard to think of any questions, but after a while he managed to come up with a few.

What is your name?

Kenneth Malone.

Where do you live?

Washington, D. C.

What is your work?

I work for the FBI.

Then what are you doing on a sidewalk in New York in broad daylight?

He tried to find an answer to that, but there didn't seem to be any, no matter where he looked. The only thing he could think of was the red Cadillac.

And if the red Cadillac had anything to do with anything, Malone didn't know about it.

Very slowly and carefully, he opened his eyes again, one at a time. He discovered that the light was not coming from the gorgeous Hollywood sunset he had dreamed

As a matter of fact, sunset was several hours in the past, and never looked very pretty in New York anyhow. It was the middle of the night, and Malone was lying under a convenient street lamp.

--d his eyes again and waited patiently for his head to go away.

A few minutes passed. It was obvious that his head had settled down for a long stay, and no matter how bad it felt, Malone told himself, it was his head, after all. He felt a certain responsibility for it. And he couldn't just leave it lying around somewhere with its eyes closed.

He opened the head's eyes once more, and this time he kept them open. For a long time he stared at the post of the street lamp, considering it, and he finally decided that it looked sturdy enough to support a hundred and sixty-five pounds of FBI man, even with the head added in. He grabbed for the post with both hands and started to pull himself upright, noticing vaguely that his legs had somehow managed to get underneath him.

As soon as he was standing, he wished he'd stayed on the nice horizontal sidewalk. His head was spinning dizzily and his mind was being sucked down into the whirlpool. He held on to the post grimly and tried to stay conscious.

* * * * *

A long time, possibly two or three seconds, passed. Malone hadn't moved at all when the two cops came along.

One of them was a big man with a brassy voice and a face that looked as if it had been overbaked in a waffle-iron. He came up behind Malone and tapped him on the shoulder, but Malone barely felt the touch. Then the cop bellowed into Malone's ear.

"What's the matter, buddy?"

Malone appreciated the man's sympathy. It was good to know that you had friends. But he wished, remotely, that the cop and his friend, a shorter and thinner version of the beat patrolman, would go away and leave him in peace. Maybe he could lie down on the sidewalk again and get a couple of hundred years' rest.

Who could tell?

"Mallri," he said.

"You're all right?" the big cop said. "That's fine. That's great. So why don't you go home and sleep it off?"

"Sleep?" Malone said. "Home?"

"Wherever you live, buddy," the big cop said. "Come on. Can't stand around on the sidewalk all night."

Malone shook his head, and decided at once never to do it again. He had some kind of rare disease, he realized. His brain was loose, and the inside of his skull was covered with sandpaper. Every time his head moved, the brain jounced against some of the sandpaper.

But the policeman thought he was drunk. That wasn't

e couldn't let the police get the wrong impression of FBI agents. Now the man would go around telling people that the FBI was always drunk and disorderly.

"Not drunk," he said clearly.

"Sure," the big cop said. "You're fine. Maybe just one too many, huh?"

"No," Malone said. The effort exhausted him and he had to catch his breath before he could say anything else. But the cops waited patiently. At last he said: "Somebody slugged me."

"Slugged?" the big cop said.

"Right." Malone remembered just in time not to nod his head.

"How about a description, buddy?" the big cop said.

"Didn't see him," Malone said. He let go of the post with one hand, keeping a precarious grip with the other. He stared at his watch. The hands danced back and forth, but he focused on them after a while. It was 1:05. "Happened just--a few minutes ago," he said. "Maybe you can catch him."

The big cop said: "Nobody around here. The place is deserted--except for you, buddy." He paused and then added: "Let's see some identification, huh? Or did he take your wallet?"

Malone thought about getting the wallet, and decided against it. The motions required would be a little tricky, and he wasn't sure he could manage them without letting go of the post entirely. At last he decided to let the cop get his wallet. "Inside coat pocket," he said.

The other policeman blinked and looked up. His face was a studied blank. "Hey, buddy," he said. "You know you got blood on your head?"

The big cop said: "Sam's right. You're bleeding, mister."

"Good," Malone said.

The big cop said: "Huh?"

"I thought maybe my skull was going to explode from high blood pressure," Malone said. It was beginning to be a little easier to talk. "But as long as there's a slow leak, I guess I'm out of danger."

"Get his wallet," the smaller cop--Sam--said. "I'll watch him."

A hand went into Malone's jacket pocket. It tickled a little bit, but Malone didn't think of objecting. Naturally enough, the hand and Malone's wallet did not make an instant connection. When the hand touched the bulky object strapped near Malone's armpit it stopped, frozen, and then cautiously snaked the object out.

"What's that, Bill?" Sam said.

Bill looked up with the object in his hand. He seemed a little dazed. "It's a gun," he said.

"The guy's heeled!" Sam said. "Watch hi

on't let him get away!"

Malone considered getting away, and decided that he couldn't move. "It's O.K.," he said.

"O.K., hell," Sam said. "It's a .44 Magnum. What are you doing with a gun, Mac?" He was no longer polite and friendly. "Why you carrying a gun?" he said.

"I'm not carrying it," Malone said tiredly. "Bill is. Your pal."

Bill backed away from Malone, putting the Magnum in his pocket and keeping the FBI agent covered with his own Police Positive. At the same time, he fished out the personal radio every patrolman carried in his uniform, and began calling for a prowl car in a low, somewhat nervous voice.

Sam said: "A gun. He could of shot everybody."

"Get his wallet," Bill said. "He can't hurt you now. I disarmed him."

Malone began to feel slightly dangerous. Maybe he was a famous gangster. He wasn't sure. Maybe all this about being an FBI agent was just a figment of his imagination. Blows on the head did funny things. "I'll drill everybody full of holes," he said in a harsh, underworld sort of voice, but it didn't sound very convincing. Sam approached him gently and fished out his wallet with great care, as if Malone were a ticking bomb ready to go off any second.

There was a little silence. Then Sam said: "Give him his gun back, Bill," in a hushed and respectful tone.

"Give him back his gun?" the big cop said. "You gone nuts, Sam?"

Sam shook his head slowly. "Nope," he said. "But we made a terrible mistake. Know who this guy is?"

"He's heeled," Bill said. "That's all I want to know." He put the radio away and gave all his attention to Malone.

"He's FBI," Sam said. "The wallet says so. Badge and everything. And not only that, Bill. He's Kenneth J. Malone."

* * * * *

Well, Malone thought with relief, that settled that. He wasn't a gangster after all. He was just the FBI agent he had always known and loved. Maybe now the cops would do something about his head and take him away for burial.

"Malone?" Bill said. "You mean the guy who's here about all those red Cadillacs?"

"Sure," Sam said. "So give him his gun back." He looked at Malone. "Listen, Mr. Malone," he said. "We're sorry. We're sorry as hell."

"That's all right," Malone said absently. He moved his head slowly and looked around. His suspicions were confirmed. There wasn't a red Cadillac anywhere in sight, and from the looks of the street there never had been. "It's gone," he said, but the cops weren't listening.

"We better get you to a hospital," Bill said. "As soon as the prowl car gets here we'll take you right on down to St. Vincent's. Can you tell us what happened? Or is it--classified?"

Malone wondered what could be classified about a blow on the head, and decided not to think about it. "I can tell you," he said, "if you'll answer one question for me."

"Sure, Mr. Malone," Bill said. "We'll be glad to help."

"Anything at all," Sam said.

Malone gave them what he hoped was a gracious and condescending smile. "All right, then," he said. "Where the hell am I?"

"In New York," Sam said.

"I know that," Malone said tiredly. "Anywhere in particular, or just sort of all over New York?"

"Ninth Street," Bill said hurriedly. "Near the Village. Is that where you were when they slugged you?"

"I guess so," Malone said. "Sure." He nodded, and immediately remembered that he shouldn't have. He closed his eyes until the pain had softened to agony, and then opened them again. "I was getting pretty tired of sitting around waiting for something to break on this case," he said, "and I couldn't sleep, so I went out for a walk. I ended up in Greenwich Village--which is no place for a self-respecting man to end up."

"I know just what you mean," Sam said sympathetically. "Bohemians, they call themselves. Crazy people."

"Not the people," Malone said. "The streets. I got sort of lost." Chicago, he reflected, was a long way from the easiest city in the world to get around in. And he supposed you could even get confused in Washington if you tried hard enough. But he knew those cities. He could find his way around in them. Greenwich Village was different.

It was harder to navigate in than the trackless forests of the Amazon. The Village had tracks, all right--thousands of tracks. Only none of them led anywhere in particular.

"Anyhow," Malone said, "I saw this red Cadillac."

The cops looked around hurriedly and then looked back at Malone. Bill started to say: "But there isn't any--"

"I know," Malone said. "It's gone now. That's the trouble."

"You mean somebody got in and drove it away?" Sam said.

"For all I know," Malone said, "it sprouted wings and flew away." He paused. "When I saw it I decided to go over and have a look. Just in case."

"Sure," Bill said. "Makes sense." He stared at his partner as if defying him to prove it didn't make sense. Malone didn't really care.

"There wasn't anybody else on the street," he said, "so I walked over and tried the door. That's all. I didn't even open the car or anything. And I'll swear there was nobody behind me."

"Well," Sam said, "the street was empty when we got here."

"But a guy could have driven off in that red Cadillac before we got here," Bill said.

"Sure," Malone said. "But where did he come from? I figured maybe somebody dropped something by mistake--a safe or something. Because there wasn't anybody behind me."

"There had to be," Bill said.

"Well," Malone said, "there wasn't."

There was a little silence.

"What happened then?" Sam said. "After you tried the door handle, I mean."

"Then?" Malone said. "Then, I went out like a light."

A pair of headlights rounded the nearby corner. Bill looked up. "That's the prowl car," he announced, and went over to meet it.

The driver was a solidly-built little man with the face of a Pekingese. His partner, a tall man who looked as if he'd have been much more comfortable in a ten-gallon Stetson instead of the regulation blue cap, leaned out at Bill, Sam and Malone.

"What's the trouble here?" he said in a harsh, high voice.

"No trouble," Bill said, and went over to the car. He began talking to the two cops inside in a low, urgent voice. Meanwhile, Sam got his arm around Malone and began pulling him away from the lamp post.

Malone was a little unwilling to let go, at first. But Sam was stronger than he looked. He convoyed the FBI agent carefully to the rear door of the prowl car, opened it and levered Malone gently to a seat inside, just as Bill said: "So with the cut and all, we figured he ought to go over to St. Vincent's. You people were already on the way, so we didn't bother with ambulances."

The driver snorted. "Next time you want taxi service," he said, "you just call us up. What do you think, a prowl car's an easy life?"

"Easier than doing a beat," Bill said mournfully. "And anyway," he added in a low, penetrating whisper, "the guy's FBI."

"So the FBI's got all kinds of equipment," the driver said. "The latest. Why don't he whistle up a helicopter or a jet?" Then, apparently deciding that further invective would get him nowhere, he settled back in his seat, said: "Aah, forget it," and started the car with a small but perceptible jerk.

Malone decided not to get into the argument. He was tired, and it was late. He rested his head on the back seat and tried to relax, but all he could do was think about red Cadillacs.

He wished he had never even heard of red Cadillacs.

II.

And it had all started so simply, too. Malone remembered very clearly the first time he had had any indication that red Cadillacs were anything unusual, or special. Before that, he'd viewed them all with slightly wistful eyes: red, blue, green, gray, white or even black Cadillacs were all the same to him. They spelled luxury and wealth and display and a lot of other nice things.

[Illustration]

Now, he wasn't at all sure what they spelled. Except that it was definitely uncomfortable, and highly baffling.

He'd walked into the offices of Andrew J. Burris, Director of the FBI, just one week ago. It was a beautiful office, pine paneled and spacious, and it boasted an enormous polished desk. And behind the desk Burris himself sat, looking both tired and somehow a little kindly.

"You sent for me, chief?" Malone said.

"That's right." Burris nodded. "Malone, you've been working too hard lately."

Now, Malone thought, it was coming. The dismissal he'd always feared. At least Burris had found out that he wasn't the bright, intelligent, fearless and alert FBI agent he was supposed to be. Burris had discovered that he was nothing more or less than lucky, and that all the "fine jobs" he was supposed to have done were only the result of luck.

Oh, well, Malone thought. Not being an FBI agent wouldn't be so bad. He could always find another job.

Only at the moment he couldn't think of one he liked.

He decided to make one last plea.

"I haven't been working so hard, chief," he said. "Not too hard, anyhow. I'm in great shape. I--"

"I've taken advantage of you, Malone, that's what I've done," Burris said, just as if Malone hadn't spoken at all. "Just because you're the best agent I've got, that's no reason for me to hand you all the tough ones."

"Just because I'm what?" Malone said, feeling slightly faint.

"I've given you the tough ones because you could handle them," Burris said. "But that's no reason to keep loading jobs on you. After that job you did on the Gorelik kidnapping, and the way you wrapped up the Transom counterfeit ring ... well, Malone, I think you need a little relaxation."

"Relaxation?" Malone said, feeling just a little bit pleased. Of course, he didn't deserve any of the praise he was getting, he knew. He'd just happened to walk in on the Gorelik kidnappers because his telephone had been out of order.

Transom --ing hadn't been just his job. After all, if other agents hadn't managed to trace the counterfeit bills back to a common area in Cincinnati, he'd never have been able to complete his part of the assignment. But it was nice to be praised, anyhow. Malone felt a twinge of guilt, and told himself sternly to relax and enjoy himself.

"That's what I said," Burris told him. "Relaxation."

"Well," Malone said, "I certainly would like a vacation, that's for sure. I'd like to snooze for a couple of weeks--or maybe go up to Cape Cod for a while. There's a lot of nice scenery up around there. It's restful, sort of, and I could just--"

He stopped. Burris was frowning, and when Andrew J. Burris frowned it was a good idea to look attentive, interested and alert. "Now, Malone," Burris said sadly, "I wasn't thinking about a vacation. You're not scheduled for one until August, you know--"

"Oh, I know, chief," Malone said. "But I thought--"

"Much as I'd like to," Burris said, "I just can't make an exception; you know that, Malone. I've got to go pretty much by the schedule."

"Yes, sir," Malone said, feeling just a shade disappointed.

"But I do think you deserve a rest," Burris said.

"Well, if I--"

"Here's what I'm going to do," Burris said, and paused. Malone felt a little unsure as to exactly what his chief was talking about, but by now he knew better than to ask a lot of questions. Sooner or later, Burris would probably explain himself. And if he didn't, then there was no use worrying about it. That was just the way Burris acted.

"Suppose I gave you a chance to take it easy for a while," Burris said. "You could catch up on your sleep, see some shows, have a couple of drinks during the evening, take girls out for dinner--you know. Something like that. How would you like it?"

"Well--" Malone said cautiously.

"Good," Burris said. "I knew you would."

* * * * *

Malone opened his mouth, thought briefly and closed it again. After all, it did sound sort of promising, and if there was a catch in it he'd find out about it soon enough.

"It's really just a routine case," Burris said in an offhand tone. "Nothing to it."

"Oh," Malone said.

"There's this red Cadillac," Burris said. "It was stolen from a party in Connecticut, out near Danbury, and it showed up in New York Ci

Now, the car's crossed a state line."

"That puts it in our jurisdiction," Malone said, feeling obvious.

"Right," Burris said. "Right on the nose."

"But the New York office--"

"Naturally, they're in charge of everything," Burris said. "But I'm sending you out as sort of a special observer. Just keep your eyes open and nose around and let me know what's happening."

"Keep my eyes and nose what?" Malone said.

"Open," Burris said. "And let me know about it."

Malone tried to picture himself with his eyes and nose open, and decided he didn't look very attractive that way. Well, it was only a figure of speech or something. He didn't have to think about it.

It really made a very ugly picture.

"But why a special observer?" he said after a second. Burris could read the reports from the New York office, and probably get more facts than any single agent could find out just wandering around a strange city. It sounded as if there were something, Malone told himself, just a tiny shade rotten in Denmark. It sounded as if there were going to be something in the nice, easy assignment he was getting that would make him wish he'd gone lion-hunting in Darkest Africa instead.

And then again, maybe he was wrong. He stood at ease and waited to find out.

"Well," Burris said, "it is just a routine case. Just like I said. But there seems to be something a little bit odd about it."

"I see," Malone said with a sinking feeling.

"Here's what happened," Burris said hurriedly, as if he were afraid Malone was going to change his mind and refuse the assignment. "This red Cadillac I told you about was reported stolen from Danbury. Three days later, it turned up in New York City--parked smack across the street from a precinct police station. Of course it took them a while to wake up, but one of the officers happened to notice the routine report on stolen cars in the area, and he decided to go across the street and check the license number on the car. Then something funny happened."

"Something funny?" Malone asked. He doubted that, whatever it was, it was going to make him laugh. But he kept his face a careful, receptive blank.

"That's right," Burris said. "Now, if you're going to understand what happened, you've got to get the whole picture."

"Sure," Malone said.

"Only that isn't what I mean," Burris added suddenly.

Malone blinked. "What isn't what you mean?" he said.

"Understanding what happened," Burris said. "That's the trouble. You won't understand what happened. I don't understand it and neither does anybody else. So what do you think about it?"

"Think about what?" Malone said.

"About what I've been telling you," Burris snapped. "This car."

Malone took a deep breath. "Well," he said, "this officer went over to check the license plate. It seems like the right thing to do. It's just what I'd have done myself."

"Sure you would," Burris said. "Anybody would. But listen to me."

"All right, chief," Malone said.

"It was just after dawn--early in the morning." Malone wondered briefly if there were parts of the world where dawn came, say, late in the afternoon or during the evening some time, but he said nothing. "The street was deserted," Burris went on. "But it was pretty light out, and the witnesses are willing to swear that there was nobody on that street for a block in either direction. Except them, of course."

"Except who?" Malone said.

"Except the witnesses," Burris said patiently. "Four cops, police officers who were standing on the front steps of the precinct station, talking. They were waiting to go on duty, or anyhow that's what the report said. It's lucky they were there, for whatever reason; they're the only witnesses we've got."

Burris stopped. Malone waited a few seconds and then said, as calmly as he could: "Witnesses to what?"

"To this whole business with Sergeant Jukovsky," Burris said.

* * * * *

The sudden introduction of a completely new name confused Malone for an instant, but he recovered gamely. "Sergeant Jukovsky was the man who investigated the car," he said.

"That's right," Burris said. "Except that he didn't."

Malone sighed.

"Those four officers--the witnesses--they weren't paying much attention to what looked like the routine investigation of a parked car," Burris said. "But here's their testimony. They were standing around talking when this Sergeant Jukovsky came out of the station, spoke to them in passing, and went on across the street. He didn't seem very worried or alarmed about anything."

"Good," Malone said involuntarily. "I mean, go on, chief," he added.

"Ah," Burris said. "All right. Well. According to Jukovsky, he took a look at the plate and found the numbers checked the listing he had for a stolen Connecticut car. Then he walked around to take a look inside the car. It was empty. Get that, Malone. The car was empty."

"Well," Malone said, "it was parked. I suppose parked cars are usually empty. What's special about this one?"

"Wait and see," Burris said ominously. "Jukovsky swears the car was empty. He tried the doors, and they were all locked but one, the front door on the curb side, the driver's door. So he opened it, and leaned over to have a look at the odometer to check the mileage. And something clobbered him on the back of the head."

"One of the other cops," Malone said.

"One of the ... who?" Burris said. "No. Not the cops. Not at all."

"Then something fell on him," Malone said. "O.K. Then whatever fell on him ought to be--"

"Malone," Burris said.

"Yes, chief?"

"Jukovsky woke up on the sidewalk with the other cops all around him. There was nothing on that sidewalk but Jukovsky. Nothing could have fallen on him; it hadn't landed anywhere, if you see what I mean."

"Sure," Malone said. "But--"

"Whatever it was," Burris said, "they didn't find it. But that isn't the peculiar thing."

"No?"

"No," Burris said slowly. "Now--"

"Wait a minute," Malone said. "They looked on the sidewalk and around there. But did they think to search the car?"

"They didn't get a chance," Burris said. "Anyhow, not just then. Not until they got around to picking up the pieces of the car uptown, at 125th Street."

Malone closed his eyes. "Where was this precinct?" he said.

"Midtown," Burris said. "In the Forties."

"And the pieces of the car were eighty blocks away when they searched it?" Malone said.

Burris nodded.

"All right," Malone said pleasantly. "I give up."

"Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you," Burris said. "According to the witnesses--not Jukovsky, who didn't wake up for a couple of minutes and so didn't see what happened next--after he fell out of the car, the motor started and the car drove off uptown."

"Oh," Malone said. He thought about that for a minute and decided at last to hazard one little question. It sounded silly--but then, what didn't? "The car just drove off all by itself?" he said.

Burris seemed abashed. "Well, Malone," he said carefully, "that's where the conflicting stories of the eyewitnesses don't agree. You see, two of the cops say there was nobody in the car. Nobody at all. Of any kind. Small or large."

"And the other two?" Malone said.

"The other two swear they saw somebody at the wheel," Burris said, "but they won't say whether it was a man, a woman, a small child or an anthropoid ape--and they haven't the faintest idea where he, she or it came from."

"Great," Malone said. He felt a little tired. This trip was beginning to sound less and less like a vacation.

"Those two cops swear there was something--or somebody--driving the car," Burris said. "And that isn't all."

"It isn't?" Malone said.

Burris shook his head. "A couple of the cops jumped into a squad car and started following the red Cadillac. One of these cops saw somebody in the car when it left the curb. The other one didn't. Got that?"

"I've got it," Malone said, "but I don't exactly know what to do with it."

"Just hold on to it," Burris said, "and listen to this: the cops were about two blocks behind at the start, and they couldn't close the gap right away. The Cadillac headed west and climbed up the ramp of the West Side Highway, heading north, out toward Westchester. I'd give a lot to know where they were going, too."

"But they crashed," Malone said, remembering that the pieces were at 125th Street. "So--"

"They didn't crash right away," Burris said. "The prowl car started gaining on the Cadillac slowly. And--now, get this, Malone--both the cops swear there was somebody in the driver's seat now."

"Wait a minute," Malone said. "One of these cops didn't see anybody at all in the driver's seat when the car started off."

"Right," Burris said.

"But on the West Side Highway, he did see a driver," Malone said. He thought for a minute. "It could happen. The start happened so fast he could have been confused, or something."

"There's another explanation," Burris said.

"Sure," Malone said cheerfully. "We're all crazy. The whole world is crazy."

* * * * *

"Not that one," Burris said. "I'll tell you when I finish with this thing about the car itself. There isn't much description of whoever or whatever was driving that car on the West Side Highway, by the way. In case you were thinking of asking."

Malone, who hadn't been thinking of asking anything, tried to look clever. Burris regarded him owlishly for a second, and then went on:

"The car was hitting it up at about a hundred and ten by this time, and accelerating all the time. But the souped-up squad car was coming on fast, too, and it was quite a chase. Luckily, there weren't many cars on the road. Somebody could have been killed, Malone."

"Like the driver of the Cadillac," Malone ventured.

Burris looked pained. "Not exactly," he said. "Because the car hit the 125th Street exit like a bomb. It swerved right, just as though it were going to take the exit and head off somewhere, but it was going much too fast by that time. There just wasn't any way to maneuver. The Cadillac hit the embankment, flipped over the edge, and smashed. It caught fire almost at once--of course the prowl car braked fast and went down the exit, after it. But there wasn't anything to do."

"That's what I said," Malone said. "The driver of the Cadillac was killed. In a fire like that--"

"Don't jump to conclusions, Malone," Burris said. "Wait. When the prowl car boys got to the scene, there was no sign of anybody in the car. Nobody at all."

"In the heat of those flames--" Malone began.

"Not enough heat, and not enough time," Burris said. "A human body couldn't have been destroyed in just a few minutes, not that completely. Some of the car's metal was melted, sure--but there would have been traces of anybody who'd been in the car. Nice, big, easily-seen traces. And there weren't any. No corpse, no remains, no nothing."

Malone let that stew in his mind for a few seconds. "But the cops said--"

"Whatever the cops said," Burris snapped, "there was nobody at all in that Cadillac when it went off the embankment."

"Now, wait a minute," Malone said. "Here's a car with a driver who appears and disappears practically at will. Sometimes he's there and sometimes he's not there. It's not possible."

[Illustration]

"Ah," Burris said. "That's why I have another explanation."

Malone shifted his feet. Maybe there was another explanation. But, he told himself, it would have to be a good one.

"Nobody expects a car to drive itself down a highway," Burris said.

"That's right," Malone said. "That's why it's all impossible."

"So," Burris said, "it would be a natural hallucination--or illusion, anyhow--for somebody to imagine he did see a driver, when there wasn't any."

"O.K.," Malone said. "There wasn't any driver. So the car couldn't have gone anywhere. So the New York police force is lying to us. It's a good explanation, but it--"

"They aren't lying," Burris said. "Why should they? I'm thinking of something else." He stopped, his eyes bright as he leaned across the desk toward Malone.

"Do I get three guesses?" Malone said.

Burris ignored him. "Frankly," he said, "I've got a hunch that the whole thing was done with remote control. Somewhere in that car was a very cleverly concealed device that was capable of running the Cadillac from a distance."

It did sound plausible, Malone thought. "Did the prowl car boys find any traces of it when they examined the wreckage?" he said.

"Not a thing," Burris said. "But, after all, it could have been melted. The fire did destroy a lot of the Cadillac, and there's just no telling. But I'd give long odds that there must have been some kind of robot device in that car. It's the only answer, isn't it?"

"I suppose so," Malone said.

"Malone," Burris said, his voice filled with Devotion To One's Country In The Face Of Great Obstacles, "Malone, I want you to find that device!"

"In the wreck?" Malone said.

Burris sighed and leaned back. "No," he said. "Of course not. Not in the wreck. But the other red Cadillacs--some of them, anyhow--ought to have--"

"What red Cadillacs?" Malone said.

"The other ones that have been stolen. From Connecticut, mostly. One from New Jersey, out near Passaic."

"Have any of the others been moving around without drivers?" Malone said.

"Well," Burris said, "there's been no report of it. But who can tell?" He gestured with both arms. "Anything is possible, Malone."

"Sure," Malone said.

"Now," Burris said, "all of the stolen cars are red 1972 Cadillacs. There's got to be some reason for that--and I think they're covering up another car like the one that got smashed: a remote--controlled Cadillac. Or even a self-guiding, automatic, robot-controlled Cadillac."

"They?" Malone said. "Who?"

"Whoever is stealing the cars," Burris said patiently.

"Oh," Malone said. "Sure. But--"

"So get up to New York," Burris said, "keep your eyes open, and nose around. Got it?"

"I have now," Malone said.

"And when that Cadillac is found, Malone, we want to take a look at it. O.K.?"

"Yes, sir," Malone said.

III.

Of course, there were written reports, too. Burris had handed Malone a sheaf of them--copies of the New York police reports to Burris himself--and Malone, wanting some time to look through them, had taken a train to New York instead of a plane. Besides, the new planes still made him slightly nervous, though he could ride one when he had to. If jet engines had been good enough for the last generation, he thought, they were certainly good enough for him.

But avoidance of the new planes was all the good the train trip did him. The reports contained thousands of words, none of which was either new or, apparently, significant to Malone. Burris, he considered, had given him everything necessary for the job.

Except, of course, a way to make sense out of the whole thing. He considered robot-controlled Cadillacs. What good were they? They might make it easier for the average driver, of course but that was no reason to cover up for them, hitting policemen over the head and smashing cars and driving a hundred and ten miles an hour on the West Side Highway.

All the same, it was the only explanation Malone had, and he cherished it deeply. He put the papers back in his brief case when the train pulled into Penn Station, handed his suitcases to a redcap and punched the 'cap's buttons for the waiting room. Now, he thought as he strolled slowly along behind the robot, there was an invention that made sense. And nobody had to get killed for it, or hit over the head or smashed up, had they?

So what was all this nonsense about red robot-controlled Cadillacs?

Driving these unwelcome reflections from his mind, he paused to light a cigarette. He had barely taken the first puff when a familiar voice said: "Hey, buddy--hold the light, will you?"

Malone looked up, blinked and grinned happily. "Boyd!" he said. "What are you doing here? I haven't seen you since--"

"Sure haven't," Boyd said. "I've been out west on a couple of cases. Must be a year since we worked together."

"Just about," Malone said. "But what are you doing in New York? Vacationing?"

"Not exactly," Boyd said. "The chief called it sort of a vacation, but--"

"Oh," Malone said. "You're working with me."

Boyd nodded. "The chief sent me up. When I got back from the west, he suddenly decided you might need a good assistant, so I took the plane down, and got here ahead of you."

"Great," Malone said.

"But I want to warn you about the vacation--"

"Never mind," Boyd said, just a shade sadly. "I know. It isn't." He seemed deep in thought, as if he were deciding whether or not to get rid of Anne Boleyn. It was, Malone thought, an unusually apt simile. Boyd, six feet tall and weighing about two hundred and twenty-five pounds, had a large square face and a broad-beamed figure that might have made him a dead ringer for Henry VIII of England even without his Henry-like fringe of beard and his mustache. With them--thanks to the recent FBI rule that agents could wear "facial hair, at the discretion of the director or such board as he may appoint"--the resemblance to the Tudor monarch was uncanny.

But--like his famous double--Boyd didn't stay sad for long. "I thought I'd meet you at the station," he said, cheering up, "and maybe talk over old times for a while, on the way to the hotel, anyhow. So long as there wasn't anything else to do."

"Sure," Malone said. "It's good to see you again. And when did you get pulled out of the Frisco office?"

Boyd grimaced. "You know," he said, "I had a good thing going for me out there. Agent-in-Charge of the entire office. But right after that job we did together--the Queen Elizabeth affair--Burris decided I was too good a man to waste my fragrance on the desert air. Or whatever it is. So he recalled me, assigned me from the home office, and I've been on one case after another ever since."

"You're a home office agent now?" Malone said.

"I'm a Roving Reporter," Boyd said, and struck a pose. "I'm a General Trouble-shooter and a Mr. Fix-It. Just like you, Hero."

"Thanks," Malone said. "How about the local office here? Seen the boys yet?"

Boyd shook his head. "Not yet," he said. "I was waiting for you to show up. But I did manage hotel rooms with a connecting bath over at the Statler-Hilton Hotel. Nice place. You'll like it, Ken."

"I'll love it," Malone said. "Especially that connecting bath. It would have been terrible to have an unconnecting bath. Sort of distracting."

"O.K.," Boyd said. "O.K. You know what I mean." He stared down at Malone's hand. "You know you've still got your lighter on?" he added.

Malone looked down at it and shut it off. "You asked me to hold it," he said.

"I didn't mean indefinitely," Boyd said. "Anyhow, how about grabbing a cab and heading on down to the hotel to get your stuff away

fore we check in at Sixty-ninth Street?"

"Good idea," Malone said. "And besides, I could do with a clean shirt. Not to mention a bath."

"Trains get worse and worse," Boyd said, absently.

* * * * *

Malone punched the redcap's buttons again, and he and Boyd followed it through the crowded station to the taxi stand. The robot piled the suitcases into the cab, and somehow Malone and Boyd found room for themselves.

"Statler-Hilton Hotel," Boyd said grandly.

The driver swung around to stare at them, blinked, and finally said: "O.K., Mac. You said it." He started with a terrific grinding of gears, drove out of the Penn Station arch and went two blocks.

"Here you are, Mac," he said, stopping the cab.

Malone stared at Boyd with a reproachful expression.

"So how was I to know?" Boyd said. "I didn't know. If I'd known it was so close, we could've walked."

"And saved half a buck," Malone said. "But don't let it bother you--this is expense account money."

"That's right," Boyd said. He beamed and tipped the driver heavily. The cab drove off and Malone hailed the doorman, who equipped them with a robot bellhop and sent them upstairs to their rooms.

Three-quarters of an hour later, Boyd and Malone were in the offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, on East Sixty-ninth Street. There, they picked up a lot of nice, new, shiny facts. It was unfortunate, if not particularly surprising, that the facts did not seem to make any sense.

In the first place, only red 1972 Cadillacs seemed to be involved. Anybody who owned such a car was likely to find it missing at any time; there had been a lot of thefts reported, including some that hadn't had time to get into Burris' reports. New Jersey now claimed two victims, and New York had three of its own.

And all the cars weren't turning up in New York, by any means. Some of the New York cars had turned up in New Jersey. Some had turned up in Connecticut--including one of the New Jersey cars. So far, there had been neither thefts nor discoveries from Pennsylvania, but Malone couldn't see why.

There was absolutely no pattern that he, Boyd, or anyone else could find. The list of thefts and recoveries had been fed into an electronic calculator, which had neatly regurgitated them without being in the least helpful. It had remarked that the square of seven was forty-nine, but this was traced to a defect in the mechanism.

Whoever was borrowing the red Caddies exhibited a peculiar combination of burglarious genius and what looked to Malone like outright idiocy. This was plainly impossible.

Unfortunately, it had happened.

Locking the car doors didn't do a bit of good. The thief or thieves got in without so much as scratching the lock. This, obviously, proved that the criminal was either an extremely good lock-pick or knew where to get duplicate keys.

However, the ignition was invariably shorted across.

This proved neatly that the criminal was not a very good lock-pick, and did not know where to get duplicate keys.

Query: why work so hard on the doors, and not work at all on the ignition?

That was the first place. The second place was just what had been bothering Malone all along. There didn't seem to be any purpose to the car thefts. They hadn't been sold, or used as getaway cars. True, teenage delinquents sometimes stole cars just to use them joyriding, or as some sort of prank.

But a car or two every night? How many joyrides can one gang take? Malone thought. And how long does it take to get tired of the same prank?

And why, Malone asked himself wearily for what was beginning to feel like the ten thousandth time, why only red Cadillacs?

Burris, he told himself, must have been right all along. The red Cadillacs were only a smoke screen for something else. Perhaps it was the robot car, perhaps not--but whatever it was, Burris' general answer was the only one that made any sense at all.

That should have been a comforting thought, Malone reflected. Somehow, though it wasn't.

After they'd finished with the files and personnel at Sixty-ninth Street, Malone and Boyd started downtown on what turned out to be a sort of unguided tour of the New York Police Department. They spoke to some of the eyewitnesses, and ended up in Centre Street asking a lot of reasonably useless questions in the Motor Vehicle Bureau. In general, they spent nearly six hours on the Affair of the Self-Propelled Cadillac, picking up a whole bundle of facts. Some of the facts they had already known. Some were new, but unhelpful.

Somehow, nobody felt much like going out for a night on the town. Instead, both agents climbed wearily into bed thinking morose and disillusioned thoughts.

And, after that, a week passed. It was filled with ennui.

Only one thing became clear. In spite of the almost identical modus operandi, used in all the car thefts, they were obviously the work of a gang rather than a single person. This required the assumption that there was not one insane man at work, but a crew of them, all identically unbalanced.

"But the jobs are just too scattered to be the work of one man," Malone said. "To steal a car in Connecticut and drive it to the Bronx, and then steal another car in Westfield, New Jersey fifteen minutes later takes more than talent. It takes an outright for-sure magician."

This conclusion, while interesting, was not really helpful. The fact was that Malone needed more clues--or, anyhow, more facts--before he could do anything at all. And there just weren't any new facts around. He spent the week wandering morosely from one place to another, sometimes accompanied by Thomas Boyd and sometimes all alone. Time, he knew, was ticking by at its usual rate. But there wasn't a thing he could do about it.

He did try to relax and have some fun, as Burris had suggested. But he didn't seem to be able to get his mind off the case.

Boyd, after the first little while, had no such trouble. He entered the social life of the city with a whoop of joy and disappeared from sight. That was fine for Boyd, Malone reflected, but it did leave Malone himself just a little bit at loose ends.

Not that he begrudged Boyd his fun. It was nice that one of them was enjoying himself, anyway.

It was just that Malone was beginning to get fidgety. He needed to be doing something--even if it were only taking a walk.

So he took a walk, and ended up, to his own surprise, downtown near Greenwich Village.

And then he'd been bopped on the head.

IV.

The patrol car pulled up in front of St. Vincent's Hospital and one of the cops helped Malone into the Emergency Receiving Room. He didn't feel as bad as he had a few minutes before. The motion of the car hadn't helped any, but his head seemed to be knitting a little, and his legs were a little steadier. True, he didn't feel one hundred per cent healthy, but he was beginning to think he might live, after all. And while the doctor was bandaging his head a spirit of new life began to fill the FBI agent.

He was no longer morose and undirected. He had a purpose in life, and that purpose filled him with cold determination. He was going to find the robot-operated car--or whatever it turned out to be.

The doctor, Malone noticed, was whistling "Greensleaves" under his breath as he worked. That, he supposed, was the influence of the bohemian folk singers of Greenwich Village. But he put the noise resolutely out of his mind and concentrated on the red Cadillac.

It was one thing to think about a robot car, miles away, doing something or other to somebody you'd never heard of before. That was just theoretical, a case for solution, nothing but an ordinary job.

But when the car stepped up and bopped Malone himself on the head, it became a personal matter. Now Malone had more than a job to contend with. Now he was thinking about revenge.

He told himself: No car in the world--not even a Cadillac--can get away with beaning Kenneth J. Malone!

Malone was not quite certain that he agreed with Burris' idea of a self-operating car, but at least it was something to work on. A car that could reach out, crown an investigator and then drive off humming something innocent under its breath was certainly a unique and dangerous machine within the meaning of the act. Of course, there were problems attendant on this view of things; for one thing, Malone couldn't quite see how the car could have beaned him when he was ten feet away from it. But that was, he told himself uncomfortably, a minor point. He could deal with it when he felt a little better.

The important thing was the car itself. Malone jerked a little under the doctors calm hands, and swore subvocally.

"Hold still," the doctor said. "Don't go wiggling your head around that way. Just wait quietly until the demijel sets."

Obediently, Malone froze. There was a crick in his neck, but he decided he could stand it. "My head still hurts" said -- musingly.

"Sure it still hurts," the doctor agreed.

"But you--"

"What did you expect?" the doctor said. "Even an FBI agent isn't immune to blackjacks, you know." He resumed his work on Malone's skull.

"Blackjacks?" Malone said. "What blackjacks?"

"The ones that hit you," the doctor said. "Or the one, anyhow."

Malone blinked. Somehow, though he could manage a fuzzy picture of a car reaching out to hit him, the introduction of a blackjack into this imaginative effort confused things a little. But he resolutely ignored it.

[Illustration]

"The bruise is just the right size and shape," the doctor said. "And that cut on your head comes from the seams on the leather casing."

"You're sure?" Malone said doubtfully. It did seem as if a car had a lot more dangerous weapons around, without resorting to blackjacks. If it had really wanted to damage him, why hadn't it hit him with the engine block?

"I'm sure," the doctor said. "I've worked in Emergency in this hospital long enough to recognize a blackjack wound."

That was a disturbing idea, in a way. It gave a new color to Malone's reflection on Greenwich Villagers. Maybe things had changed since he'd heard about them. Maybe the blackjack had supplanted the guitar. But that wasn't the important thing.

The fact that it had been a blackjack that had hit him was important. It was vital, as a matter of fact. Malone knew that perfectly well. It was a key fact in the case he was investigating.

The only trouble was that he didn't see what, if anything, it meant.

The doctor stepped back and regarded Malone's head with something like pride. "There," he said. "You'll be all right now."

"When?" Malone said.

"You're not badly hurt," the doctor said reprovingly. "You've got a slight concussion, that's all."

"A concussion?"

"Sure," the doctor said. "But it isn't serious. Just take these pills--one every two hours until they're gone--and you'll be rid of any effects within twenty-four hours." He went to a cabinet, fiddled around for a minute and came back with a small bottle containing six orange pills. They looked very large and threatening.

"Fine," Malone said doubtfully.

"You'll be all right," the doctor said, giving Malone a cheerful, confident grin. "Nothing at all to worry about." He loaded a hypojet and blas

something through the skin of Malone's upper arm. Malone swallowed hard. He knew perfectly well that he hadn't felt a thing, but he couldn't quite make himself believe it.

"That'll take care of you for tonight," the doctor said. "Get some sleep and start in on the pills when you wake up, O.K.?"

"O.K.," Malone said. It was going to make waking up something less than a pleasure, but he wanted to get well, didn't he?

Of course he did. If that Cadillac thought it was going to beat him....

"You can stand up now," the doctor said.

"O.K.," Malone said, trying it. "Thanks, doctor. I--"

* * * * *

There was a knock at the door. The doctor jerked his head around.

"Who's that?" he said.

"Me," a bass voice said, unhelpfully.

The Emergency Room door opened a crack and a face peered in. It took Malone a second to recognize Bill, the waffle-faced cop who had picked him up next to the lamp post three years or so before. "Long time no see," Malone said at random.

"What?" Bill said, and opened the door wider. He came in and closed it behind him. "It's O.K., Doc," he said to the attendant. "I'm a cop."

"Been hurt?" the doctor said.

Bill shook his head. "Not recently," he said. "I came to see this guy." He looked at Malone. "They told me you were still here," he said.

"Who's they?" Malone said.

"Outside," Bill said. "The attendants out there. They said you were still getting stitched up."

"And quite right, too," Malone said solemnly.

"Oh," Bill said. "Sure." He fished in his pockets. "You dropped your notebook, though, and I came to give it back to you." He located the object he was hunting for and brought it out with the triumphant gesture of a man displaying the head of a dragon he has slain. "Here," he said, waving the book.

"Notebook?" Malone said. He stared at it. It was a small looseleaf book bound in cheap black plastic.

"We found it in the gutter," Bill said.

Malone took a tentative step forward and managed not to fall. He stepped back again and looked at Bill scornfully. "I wasn't even in the gutter," he said. "There are limits."

"Sure," Bill said. "But the notebook was, so I brought it along to you. I thought you might need it or something." He handed it over to Malone with a flourish.

It wasn't Malone's notebook. In the first place, he had never owned a notebook that looked anything like that, and in the second place he hadn't had any notebooks on him when he went for his walk. Mine not to question why, Malone told himself with a shrug, and flipped the book open.

At once he knew why the cop had mistaken it for his.

There, right on the first page, was a carefully detailed drawing of a 1972 Cadillac. It had been painstakingly colored in with a red pencil.

Malone stared at it for a second, and then went on to page two. This page carried a list of names running down the left margin.

     Ramon O.

     Mario G.

     Silvo E.

     Felipe A.

     Alvarez la B.

     Juan de los S.

     Ray del E.

That made sense, of a kind. It was a list of names. Whose names they were, Malone didn't know; but at least he could see the list and understand it. What puzzled him were the decorations.

Following each name was a queer-looking squiggle. Each was slightly different, and each bore some resemblance to a stick-figure, a geometrical figure or just a childish scrawl. The whole parade reminded Malone of pictures he had seen of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

But the names didn't look Egyptian, and, anyhow, nobody used hieroglyphics any more--did they?

Malone found himself thinking: Now what does that mean? He looked across at the facing page.

It contained a set of figures, all marked off in dollars and cents and all added up neatly. One of the additions ended with the eye-popping sum of $52,710.09, and Malone found that the sum made him slightly nervous. This was high-powered figuring.

* * * * *

On to page three, he told himself. Drawings again, both on that page and on the one facing it. Malone recognized an outboard motor, a store-front, a suit of clothing hanging neatly on a hanger, a motor scooter, a shotgun and an IBM Electrotyper. Whoever had done the work was a reasonably accurate artist, if untrained; the various items were easily recognizable and Malone could see a great deal of detail.

That, of course, was fine. Only it made no more sense than the rest of the notebook.

Malone riffled through a few more pages, trying to make sense of the contents. One page seemed to be a shopping list, with nothing more revealing on it than bread, bacon, eggs (1/2 doz.), peaches (frz.), cigs., & ltr., fluid.

There was another list, farther on. This one said: Hist. 2, Eng. 4, Math. 3, Span. 2. What for Elec.?

That cast the first glow of light. Whoever owned the notebook was a student. Or a teacher, Malone thought; then, looking back at the handwriting, he decided that the owner of the notebook had to be in high school, certainly no farther along.

He went on flipping pages. One of them said, in large black capitals: =_HE'S BLUFFING!_=

A note passed in class? There was not any way of making sure.

Malone thought about the hypothetical student for a minute. Then something in the riffling pages caught his eye.

There were two names on the page he'd stopped at.

The first was: Lt. Peter Lynch, NYPD. It was followed by two little squiggles.

The second was: Mr. Kenneth J. Malone, FBI.

There were no squiggles after his own name, and Malone felt oddly thankful for that, without knowing exactly why. But what did the names mean? And who had--

"Uh ... Mr. Malone--" Bill said tentatively. "That is your notebook, isn't it?"

"Oh," Malone said. He looked up at the cop and put on his most ingratiating smile. "Sure," he said. "It's mine. Sure it is. Just checking to see if I'd lost any pages. Not good. Losing pages out of a notebook. Never. Have to check, you know. Procedure. Very secret."

"Sure," Bill said uncertainly.

Malone took a deep breath. "Thought I'd lost the notebook," he said. "I appreciate your returning it."

"Oh," Bill said, "that's O.K., Mr. Malone. Glad to do it."

"You don't know what this means to me," Malone said truthfully.

"No trouble at all," Bill said. "Any time." He gave Malone a big smile and turned back to the door. "But I got to get back to my beat," he said. "Listen, I'll see you. And if I can be any help--"

"Sure," Malone said. "I'll let you know. And thanks again."

"Welcome," Bill said, and opened the door. He strode out with the air of a man who has just been decorated with the Silver Star, the Purple Heart and the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Malone tried a few more steps and discovered that he could walk without falling down. He thanked the doctor again.

"Perfectly all right," the doctor said. "Nothing to it. Why, you ought to see some of the cases we get here. There was a guy here the other night with both his legs all mashed up by a--"

"I'll bet," Malone said hurriedly. "Well, I've got to be on my way. Just send the bill to FBI Headquarters on Sixty-ninth Street." He closed the door on the doctor's enthusiastic: "Yes, sir!" and went on down the hallway and out into the street. At Seventh Avenue and Greenwich Avenue he flagged a cab.

What a place to be, Malone thought as the cab drove away. Where but in Greenwich Village did avenues intersect each other without so much as a by-your-leave?

"Statler-Hilton Hotel," he said, giving the whole thing up as a bad job. He put his hat on his head and adjusted it painfully to the proper angle.

And that, he thought, made another little problem. The car had not only hit him on the head; it had removed his hat before doing so, and then replaced it. It had only fallen off when he'd started to get up against the lamp post.

A nice quiet vacation, Malone thought bitterly.

He fumed in silence all the way to the hotel, through the lobby, up in the elevator and to the door of his room. Then he remembered the notebook.

That was important evidence. He decided to tell Boyd about it right away.

He went into the bathroom and tapped gently on the door to Boyd's connecting room. The door swung open.

Boyd, apparently, was still out painting the town--Malone considered the word red and dropped the whole phrase with a sigh. At any rate, his partner was nowhere in the room. He went back into his own room, closed the door and got wearily ready for bed.

* * * * *

Dawn came, and then daylight, and then a lot more daylight. It was streaming in through the windows with careless abandon, filling the room with a lot of bright sunshine and the muggy heat of the city. From the street below, the cheerful noises of traffic and pedestrians floated up and filled Malone's ears.

He turned over in bed, and tried to go back to sleep.

But sleep wouldn't come. After a long time he gave up, and swung himself over the edge of the bed. Standing up was a delicate job, but he managed it, feeling rather proud of himself in a dim, semiconscious sort of way.

He went into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and then opened the connecting door to Boyd's room softly.

Boyd was home. He lay in a great tangle of bedclothes, snoring hideously and making little motions with his hands and arms like a beached whale. Malone padded over to him and dug him fiercely in the ribs.

"Come on," he said. "Wake up, Tommy-boy."

Boyd's eyes did not open. In a voice as hollow as a zombie's, he said: "My head. Hurts."

"Can't feel any worse than mine," Malone said cheerily. This, he reflected, was not quite true. Considering everything it had been through recently, his head felt remarkably like its old, carefree self. "You'll feel better once you're awake."

"No, I won't," Boyd said simply. He jammed his head under a pillow and began to snore again. It was an awesome sound, like a man strangling to death in chicken-fat. Malone sighed and poked at random among the bedclothes.

Boyd swore distantly, and Malone poked him again.

"The sun is up," Malone said, "and all the little pedestrians are chirping. It is time to rise."

Boyd said: "Gah," and withdrew his head from the pillow. Gently, as if he were afraid he were going to fall apart, he rose to a sitting position. When he had arrived at it, he opened his eyes.

"Now," Malone said, "isn't that better?"

Boyd closed his eyes again. "No," he said.

"Come on," Malone said. "We've got to be up and moving."

"I'm up," Boyd said. His eyes flickered open. "But I can't move," he added. "We had quite a time last night."

"We?" Malone said.

"Me, and a couple of girls, and another guy. Just people I met." Boyd started to stand up and thought better of it. "Just having a good time, that's all."

Malone thought of reading his partner a lecture on the Evils of Drink, and decided against it. Boyd might remember it, and use it against him some time. Then he realized what had to be done. He went back into his own room, dialed for room service, and ordered a couple of pots of strong black coffee.

By the time a good deal of that was awash in Boyd's intestinal system, he was almost capable of rational, connected conversation. He filled himself to the eyebrows with aspirins and other remedies, and actually succeeded in getting dressed. He seemed quite proud of this feat.

"O.K.," Malone said. "Now we have to go downstairs."

"You mean outside?" Boyd said. "Into all that noise?" He winced.

"Bite the bullet," Malone said cheerfully. "Keep a stiff upper lip."

"Nonsense," Boyd said, hunting for his coat with a doleful air. "Have you ever seen anybody with a loose upper lip?"

Malone, busy with his own coat, didn't bother with a reply. He managed somehow to get Boyd downstairs and bundled into a cab. They headed for Sixty-ninth Street.

* * * * *

There, he made several phone calls. The first, of course, was to Burris in Washington. After that he got the New York Police Commissioner on the wire and, finding that he needed still more authority, he called the Mayor and then, by long-distance to Albany, the Governor.

But by noon he had everything straightened out. He had a plan fully worked out in his mind, and he had the authority to go ahead with it. Now, he could make his final call.

"They're completely trustworthy," Burris had told him. "Not only that, but they have a clearance for this kind of special work--we've needed them before."

"Good," Malone said.

"Not only that," Burris told him. "They're good men. Maybe among the best in their field."

So Malone made his last call, to the firm of Leibowitz & Hardin, Electronic Engineers.

Then he beckoned to Boyd.

"I don't see what I've been sitting around here for, all this time," his partner complained. "I could have been home sleeping until you needed me. And--"

"I need you now," Malone said. "I want you to take over part of this plan."

Boyd nodded sourly. "Oh, all right," he said.

"Here's what I want," Malone said. "Every red 1972 Cadillac in the area is to be picked up for inspection. I don't care why--make up a reason. A general traffic check. Anything you please. You can work that end of it out with the Commissioner; he knows about it and he's willing to go along."

"Great," Boyd said. "Do you have any idea how many cars there are in a city this size?"

"Well, we don't want all of them," Malone said. "Only red 1972 Cadillacs."

"It's still a lot," Boyd said.

"If there were only three," Malone said, "we wouldn't have any problems."

"And wouldn't that be nice?" Boyd said.

"Sure," Malone said, "but it isn't true. Anyhow: I want every one of those cars checked for any oddity, no matter how small. If there's an inch-long scratch on one fender, I want to know about it. If you've got to take the cars apart, then do that."

"Me?" Boyd said. "All by myself?"

"No," Malone said. "Use your head. There'll be a team working with you. Let me explain it. Every nut, every bolt, every inch of those cars has to be examined thoroughly--got it?"

"I've got it," Boyd said, "but I don't like it. After all, Malone--"

Malone ignored him. "The Governor of New York promised his co-operation," he said, "and he said he'd get in touch with the Governors of New Jersey and Connecticut and get co-operation from that angle. So we'll have state and local police working with us."

"That's a help," Boyd said. "We'll make such a happy team of workmen. Singing as we pull the cars apart through the long day and night and ... listen, Malone, when do you want reports on this?"

"Yesterday," Malone said.

Boyd's eyebrows raised, then lowered. "Great," he said dully.

"I don't care how you get the cars," Malone said. "If you've got to, condemn 'em. But get every last one of them. And bring them over to Leibowitz & Hardin for a complete checkup. I'll give you the address."

"Thanks," Boyd said.

"Not at all," Malone said. "Glad to be of help. And don't worry; I'll have other work to do." He paused, and then went on: "I talked to Dr. Isaac Leibowitz, he's the head of the firm out there--and he says...."

"Wait a minute," Boyd said.

"What?"

"You mean I don't have to take the cars apart myself? You mean this Leibowitz & Hardin, or whatever it is, will do it for me?"

"Of course," Malone said wearily. "You re not an auto technician or an electronics man. You're an agent of the FBI."

"I was beginning to wonder," Boyd said. "After all."

[Illustration]

"Anyhow," Malone said doggedly, "I talked to Leibowitz, and he says he can give a car a complete check in about six hours, normally."

"Six hours?" Boyd stared. "That's going to take forever," he said.

"Well, he can set up a kind of assembly-line process and turn out a car every fifteen minutes. Any better?"

Boyd nodded.

"Good," Malone said. "There can't be so many 1972 red Cadillacs in the area that we can't get through them all at that speed." He thought a minute and then added: "By the way, you might check with the Cadillac dealers around town, and find out just how many there are, sold to people living in the area."

"And while I'm doing all that," Boyd said, "what are you going to be doing?"

Malone looked at him and sighed. "I'll worry about that," he said. "Just get started."

"Suppose Leibowitz can't find anything?" Boyd said.

"If Leibowitz can't find it, it's not there," Malone said. "He can find electronic devices anywhere in any car made, he says--even if they're printed circuits hidden under the paint job."

"Pretty good," Boyd said. "But suppose he doesn't?"

"Then they aren't there," Malone said, "and we'll have to think of something else." He considered that. It sounded fine. Only he wished he knew what else there was to think of.

Well, that was just pessimism. Leibowitz would find something, and the case would be over, and he could go back to Washington and rest. In August he was going to have his vacation, anyway, and August wasn't very far away.

Malone put a smile carefully on his face and told Boyd: "Get going." He slammed his hat on his head.

Wincing, he took it off and replaced it gently. The bottle of pills was still in his pocket, but he wasn't due for another one just yet.

He had time to go over to the precinct station in the West Eighties first.

He headed outside to get another taxi.

V.

The door didn't say anything at all except "Lt. P. Lynch." Malone looked at it for a couple of seconds. He'd asked the Desk Sergeant for Lynch, shown his credentials and been directed up a set of stairs and around a hall. But he still didn't know what Lynch did, who he was, or what his name was doing in the little black notebook.

Well, he told himself, there was only one way to find out.

He opened the door.

The room was small and dark. It had a single desk in it, and three chairs, and a hatrack. There wasn't any coat or hat on the hatrack, and there was nobody in the chairs. In a fourth chair, behind the desk, a huskily-built man sat. He had steel-gray hair, a hard jaw and, Malone noticed with surprise, a faint twinkle in his eye.

"Lieutenant Lynch?" Malone said.

"Right," Lynch said. "What's the trouble?"

"I'm Kenneth J. Malone," Malone said. "FBI." He reached for his wallet and found it. He flipped it open for Lynch, who stared at it for what seemed a long, long time and then burst into laughter.

"What's so funny?" Malone asked.

Lynch laughed some more.

"Oh, come on," Malone said bitterly. "After all, there's no reason to treat an FBI agent like some kind of a--"

"FBI agent?" Lynch said. "Listen, buster, this is the funniest gag I've seen since I came on the Force. Who told you to pull it? Jablonski downstairs? Or one of the boys on the beat? I know those beat patrolmen, always on the lookout for a new joke. But this tops 'em all. This is the--"

"You're a disgrace to the Irish," Malone said tartly.

"A what?" Lynch said. "I'm not Irish."

"You talk like an Irishman," Malone said.

"I know it," Lynch said, and shrugged. "Around some precincts, you sort of pick it up. When all the other cops are ... hey, listen. How'd we get to talking about me?"

"I said you were a disgrace to the Irish," Malone said.

"I was a--what?"

"Disgrace." Malone looked carefully at Lynch. In a fight, he considered, he might get in a lucky punch that would kill Malone. Otherwise, Malone didn't have a thing to worry about except a few months of hospitalization.

Lynch looked as if he were about to get mad, and then he looked down at Malone's wallet again and started to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Malone demanded.

He grabbed the wallet and turned it toward him. At once,

e, h

ealized what had happened. He had not flipped it open to his badge at all. He'd flipped it open, instead, to a card in the card-case:

KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS THAT Sir Kenneth Malone, Knight, is hereby formally installed with the title of KNIGHT OF THE BATH and this card shall signify his right to that title and his high and respected position as officer in and of THE QUEENS OWN F.B.I.

In a very small voice, Malone said: "There's been a terrible mistake."

"Mistake?" Lynch said.

Malone flipped the wallet open to his FBI shield. Lynch gave it a good long examination, peering at it from every angle and holding it up to the light two or three times. He even wet his thumb and rubbed at the badge with it. At last he looked up.

"I guess you are the FBI," he said. "But what was with the gag?"

"It wasn't a gag," Malone said. "It's just--" He thought of the little old lady in Yucca Flats, the little old lady who had been the prime mover in the last case he and Boyd had worked on together. Without the little old lady, the case might never have been solved--she was an authentic telepath, about the best that had ever been found.

But with her, Boyd and Malone had had enough troubles. Besides being a telepath, she was quite thoroughly insane. She had one fixed delusion: she believed she was Queen Elizabeth I.

She was still at Yucca Flats, along with the other telepaths Malone's investigation had turned up. And she still believed, quite calmly, that she was Good Queen Bess. Malone had been knighted by her during the course of the investigation. This new honor had come to him through the mail; apparently she had decided to ennoble some of her friends still further.

Malone made a note mentally to ask Boyd if he'd received one. After all, there couldn't be too many Knights of the Bath. There was no sense in letting everybody in.

Then he realized that he was beginning to believe everything again. There had been times, when he'd been working with the little old lady, when he had been firmly convinced that he was, in fact, the swaggering, ruthless swordsman, Sir Kenneth Malone. And even now....

* * * * *

"Well?" Lynch said.

"It's too long a story," Malone said. "And besides, it's not what I came here about."

Lynch shrugged again. "O.K.," h

id. "Tell it your way."

"First," Malone said, "what's your job?"

"Me? Precinct Lieutenant."

"Of this precinct?"

Lynch stared. "What else?" he said.

"Who knows?" Malone said. He found the black notebook and passed it across to Lynch. "I'm on this red Cadillac business, you know," he said by way of introduction.

"I've been hearing about it," Lynch said. He picked up the notebook without opening it and held it like a ticking bomb. "And I mean hearing about it," he said. "We haven't had any trouble at all in this precinct."

"I know," Malone said. "I've read the reports."

"Listen, not a single red Cadillac has been stolen from here, or been reported found here. We run a tight precinct here, and let me tell you--"

"I'm sure you do a fine job," Malone said hastily. "But I want you to look at the notebook." He opened it to the page with Lynch's name on it.

Lynch opened his mouth, closed it and then took the notebook. He stared at the page for a few seconds. "What's this?" he said at last. "Another gag?"

"No gag, lieutenant," Malone said.

"It's your name and mine," Lynch said. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Malone shrugged. "Search me," he said. "The notebook was found only a couple of feet away from another car theft, last night." That was the simplest way he could think of to put it. "So I asked the Commissioner who Peter Lynch was, and he told me it was you."

"And it is," Lynch said, staring at the notebook. He seemed to be expecting it to rise and strike him.

Malone said: "Have you got any idea who'd be writing about you and me?"

Lynch shook his head. "If I had any ideas I'd feel a lot better," he said. He wet his finger and turned the notebook pages carefully. When he saw the list of names on the second page he stopped again, and stared. This time he whistled under his breath.

Very cautiously, Malone said: "Something?"

"I'll be damned," Lynch said feelingly.

"What's wrong?" Malone said.

The police lieutenant looked up. "I don't know if it's wrong or what," he said. "It gives me sort of the willies. I know every one of these kids."

Malone took out a pill and swallowed it in a hurry. He felt exactly as if he had been given another concussion, absolutely free and without any obligation. His mouth opened but nothing came out for a long time. At last he managed to say: "Kids?"

"That's right," Lynch said. "What did you think?"

Malone shrugged helplessly.

"Every single one of them," Lynch said. "Right from around here."

There was a little silence.

"Who are they?" Malone said carefully.

"They're some kind of kid gang, social club, something like that," Lynch said. "They call themselves the Silent Spooks."

"The what?" It seemed to Malone that the name was just a little fancy, even for a kid gang.

"The Silent Spooks," Lynch said. "I can't help it. But here they are: Ramon Otravez, Mario Grito, Silvo Envoz, Felipe Altapor, Alvarez la Barba, Juan de los Santos and Ray del Este. Right down the line." He looked up from the notebook with a blank expression on his face. "There's only one name missing, as a matter of fact. Funny it isn't there."

Malone tried to look as if he knew what was going on. "Oh?" he said.

"Yeah," Lynch said. "The Fueyo kid--Miguel Fueyo. Everybody calls him Mike."

While interesting, this did not provide much food for thought. "Why should his name be on it especially?" Malone said.

"Because he's the leader of the gang," Lynch said. "The boss. The big shot." He pointed to the list of names. "Except for him, that's all of them--the Silent Spooks."

Malone considered the missing Mike Fueyo.

He knew perfectly well, now, why Fueyo's name was not in the book.

Who puts his own name on a list?

The notebook was Fueyo's. It had to be.

* * * * *

Lynch was looking at him expectantly. Malone thought of a question and asked it. "They know you?" he said.

"Sure they do," Lynch said. "They all know me. But do they know you?"

Malone thought. "They could have heard of me," he said at last, trying to be as modest as possible.

"I guess," Lynch said grudgingly.

"How old are they?" Malone said.

"Fourteen to seventeen," Lynch said. "Somewhere in there. You know how these kid things run."

"The Silent Spooks," Malone said meditatively. It was a nice name, in a way; you just had to get used to it for a while. When he had been a kid, he'd belonged to a group that called itself the East Division Street Kids. There just wasn't much romance in a name like that. Now, the Silent Spooks--

With a wrench, he brought his mind back to the subject at hand. "Do they get into much trouble?" he said.

"Well, no," Lynch said reluctantly. "As a matter of fact, they don't. For a bunch like that, around here, they're pretty well-behaved, as far as that goes."

"What do you mean?" Malone said.

Lynch's face took on a delicately unconcerned appearance. "I don't know," he said. "They just don't get into neighborhood trouble. Maybe a scrap now and then--nothing big, though. Or maybe one of them cuts a class at school or argues with his teacher. But there's nothing unusual, and little of anything." He frowned.

Malone said: "Something's got to be wrong. What is it?"

"Well," Lynch said, "they do seem to have a lot of money to spend."

Malone sat down in a chair across the desk, and leaned eagerly toward Lynch. "Money?" he said.

"Money," Lynch said. "New clothes. Cigarettes. Malone, three of them are even supporting their parents. Old Jose Otravez--Ramon's old man--quit his job a couple of months ago, and hasn't worked since. Spends all his time in bars, and never runs out of dough--and don't tell me you can do that on Unemployment Insurance. Or Social Security payments."

"O.K.," Malone said. "I won't tell you."

"And there's others. All the others, in fact. Mike Fueyo's sister--dresses fit to kill, like a high-fashion model. And the Grito kid--"

"Wait a minute," Malone said. "From what you tell me, this isn't just a little extra money. These kids must be rolling in the stuff. Up to their ears in dough."

"Listen," Lynch said sadly. "Those kids spend more than I do. They do better than that--they spend more than I earn." He looked remotely sorry for himself, but not for long. "Every one of those kids spends like a drunken sailor, tossing his money away on all sorts of things."

"Like an expense account," Malone said idly. Lynch looked up. "Sorry," Malone said. "I was thinking about something else."

"I'll bet you were," Lynch said with unconcealed envy.

"No," Malone said. "Really. Listen, I'll check with Internal Revenue on that money. But have you got a list of the kids' addresses?"

"I can get one," Lynch said, and went to the door.

It closed behind him. Malone sat waiting alone for a few minutes, and then Lynch came back. "List'll be here in a minute," he said. He sat down behind his desk and reached for the notebook again. When he turned to the third page his expression changed to one of surprise.

"Be damned," said. "There does seem to be a connection, doesn't there?" He held up the picture of the red Cadillac for Malone to see.

"Sure does," Malone said. "That's why I want those addresses. If there is a connection, I sure want to find out about it."

Ten minutes later, Malone was walking out of the precinct station with the list of addresses in his pocket. He was heading for his Great Adventure, but he didn't know it. All he was thinking about was the red Cadillacs, and the eight teen-agers. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this if it takes me all summer," he said, muttering to himself.

"That's the spirit," he told himself. "Never say die."

Then, realizing he had just said it, he frowned. Perhaps it hadn't really counted. But, then again....

* * * * *

He was on his way down the steps when he hit the girl.

The mutual collision was not catastrophic. On the other hand, it was not exactly minor. It fell somewhere between the two, as an unclassifiable phenomenon of undoubted potency. Malone said: "Oog," with some fervor as the girl collided with his chest and rebounded like a handball striking a wall. Something was happening to her, but Malone had no time to spare to notice just what. He was falling through space, touching a concrete step once in a while, but not long enough to make any real acquaintance with it. It seemed to take him a long time to touch bottom, and when he had, he wondered if touch was quite the word.

Bottom certainly was. He had fallen backward and landed directly on his glutei maximi, obeying the law regarding equal and opposite reaction and several other laws involving falling bodies.

His first thought was that he was now neatly balanced. His tail had received the same treatment as his head. He wondered if a person could get concussion of the tail bones, and had reached no definite conclusion when, unexpectedly, his eyes focused again.

He was looking at a girl. That was all he saw at first. She had apparently fallen just as he had, bounced once and sat down rather hard. She was now lying flat on her back, making a sound like "rrr" between her teeth.

Malone discovered that he was sitting undignifiedly on the steps. He opened his mouth to say something objectionable, took another look at the girl, and shut it with a snap. This was no ordinary girl.

He smiled at her. She shook her head and sat up, still going "rrr." Then she stopped and said, instead: "What do you think--"

"I'm sorry," Malone said in what he hoped was a charming, debonair and apologetic voice. It was quite a lot to get into one voice, but he tried his very hardest. "I just didn't see--"

[Illustration]

"You didn't?" the girl said. "If you didn't, you must be completely blind."

Malone noticed with hope that there was no anger in her voice. The last thing in the world he wanted was to get this girl angry at him.

"Oh, no," Malone said. "I'm not blind. Not blind at all." He smiled at her and stood up. His face was beginning to get a little tired, but he retained the smile as he went over to her, extended a hand and pulled her to her feet.

She was something special. Her hair was long and dark, and fell in soft waves to her shoulders. The shoulders were something all by themselves, but Malone postponed consideration of them for a minute to take a look at her face.

It was heart-shaped and rather thin. She had large brown liquid eyes that could look, Malone imagined, appealing, loving, worshiping--or, like a minute ago, downright furious. Below these features, she had a straight lovely nose and a pair of lips which Malone immediately classified as Kissable.

Her figure, including the shoulders, was on the slim side, but she was very definitely all there. Malone could not think of any parts the Creator had left out, and if there were any he didn't want to hear about them. In an instant, Malone knew that he had met the only great love of his life.

Again.

His mind was whirling and for a second he didn't know what to do. And then he remembered the Queen's Own FBI. Phrases flowered forth in his mind as if it were a garden packed corner to corner with the most exquisite varieties of blooming idiots.

"My deepest apologies, my dear," Sir Kenneth Malone said gallantly, even managing a small display bow for the occasion. "May I be of any assistance?"

The girl smiled up at him as she came to her feet. The smile was radiant and beautiful and almost loving. Malone felt as if he couldn't stand it. Tingles of the most wonderful kind ran through him, reached his toes and then ran back the other way, meeting a whole new set going forward.

"You're very nice," the girl said, and the tingles became positive waves of sensation. "Actually, it was all my fault. Please don't apologize, Mr.--" She paused, expectantly.

"Me?" Malone said, his gallantry deserting him for the second. But it returned full force before he expected it. "I'm Malone," he said. "Kenneth Joseph Malone." He had always liked the middle name he had inherited from his father, but he never had much opportunity to use it. He made the most of it now, rolling it out with all sorts of subsidiary flourishes. As a matter of fact, he barely restrained himself from putting a "Sir" before his name.

The girl's brown eyes widened just a trifle. Malone felt as if he could have fallen into them and drowned. "Oh, my," she said. "You must be a detective." And then, like the merest afterthought: "My name's Dorothy."

Dorothy. It was a beautiful name. It made Malone feel all choked up, inside. He blinked at the girl and tried to look manly and wonderful. It was an effort, but he nearly carried it off.

* * * * *

After a second or two he realized that she had asked him a question. He didn't want to disillusion her in any way, and, after all, an FBI agent was a kind of detective, but he thought it was only fair that she should know the whole truth about him right from the start.

"Not exactly a detective," he said.

"Not exactly?" she said, looking puzzled. She looked positively glorious when puzzled, Malone decided at once.

"That is," he said carefully, "I do detect, but not for the city of New York."

"Oh," she said. "A private eye. Is that right?"

"Well," Malone said, "no."

She looked even more puzzled. Malone hastened to explain before he got to the point where conversation was impossible.

"Federal Bureau of Investigation," he said. After a second he thought of a clarification and added: "FBI."

"Oh," the girl said. "Oh."

"But you can call me Ken," Malone said.

"All right--Ken," she said. "And you call me Dorothy."

"Sure," he said. He tried it out. "Dorothy." It felt swell.

"Well--" she said after a second.

"Oh," Malone said. "Were you looking for a detective? Because if I can help in any way--"

"Not exactly," Dorothy said. "Just a little routine business. I'll go on in and--"

Malone suddenly found himself talking without having any idea why he'd started, or what he was going to say. At first he said: "Urr," as if the machine were warming up, and this stopped Dorothy and caused her to give him a rather sharp, baffled stare. Then he found some words and used them hurriedly, before they got away.

"Dorothy," he said, "would you like to take in a show this evening? I think I can get tickets to ... well, I guess I could get tickets to almost anything, if I really tried." His expression attempted to leave no doubt that he would really try.

Dorothy appeared to consider for a moment. "Well," she said at last, "how about 'The Hot Seat'?"

Malone felt just the way he had several years before when he had bluffed his way into a gigantic pot during a Washington poker game, with only a pair of fours to work with. At the last moment, his bluff had been called.

It had, he realized, been called again. "The Hot Seat" had set some sort of record, not only for Broadway longevity, but for audience frenzy. Getting tickets for it was about the same kind of proposition as buying grass on the Moon, and getting them with absolutely no prior notice would require all the wire-pulling Malone could manage. He thought about "The Hot Seat" and wished Dorothy had picked something easy, like arranging for her to meet the Senate.

But he swallowed bravely. "I'll do my best," he said. "Got any second choice?"

"Sure," she said, and laughed. "Pick any one you want. I haven't seen them all, and the ones I have seen are worth seeing again."

"Oh," Malone said.

"I really didn't expect you to get tickets for 'The Hot Seat,'" she said.

"Nothing," Malone said, "is impossible." He grinned at her. "Meanwhile, where can I pick you up? Your home?"

Dorothy frowned and shook her head. "No," she said. "You see, I'm living with an aunt, and I ... well, never mind." She thought for a minute. "I know," she said. "Topp's."

"What?" Malone said.

"Topp's," Dorothy said. "On Forty-second Street, just East of Broadway? It's a restaurant."

"I don't exactly know where it is," Malone said, "but if it's there, I'll find it." He looked gallant and determined. "We can get something to eat there before the show--whatever the show turns out to be."

"Fine," Dorothy said.

"How about making it at six?" Malone said.

She nodded. "Six it is," she said. "Now bye-bye." She touched her forefinger to her lips, and brushed Malone's cheek with the kissed finger.

By the time the new set of tingles had begun to evaporate, she had gone into the police station. Malone heaved a great sigh of passion, and held down a strong impulse to follow her and protect her. He wasn't quite sure what he was going to protect her from, but he felt certain that that would come to him when the time arrived.

Nevertheless, he had work to do, unpleasant as the idea had suddenly begun to seem. He pulled the list of addresses out of his pocket and looked at the first one.

Mike Fueyo.

Mike was the leader of the Silent Spooks, according to Lieutenant Lynch. Logically, therefore, he would be the first one to talk to. Malone tried to think of some good questions, but the best one he could come up with was: "Well, what about all those red Cadillacs?"

Somehow he doubted that this would provide a satisfactory reply. He checked the address again and started firmly down the street, trying to think of some better questions along the way.

VI.

The building was just off Amsterdam, in the Eighties. It had been a shining new development once, but it was beginning to slide downhill now. The metal on the windowframes was beginning to look worn, and the brickwork hadn't been cleaned in a long time. Where chain fences had once protected lonely blades of grass, children, mothers and baby carriages held sway now, and the grass was gone. Instead, the building was pretty well surrounded by a moat of sick-looking brown dirt.

Malone went into the first building and checked the name against the mailboxes there, trying to ignore the combined smells of sour milk, red pepper and here and there a whiff of unwashed humanity.

It was on the tenth floor: Fueyo, J. That, he supposed, would be Mike's widowed mother; Lynch had told him that much about the boy and his family. He found the elevator, which was covered with scribbles ranging from JANEY LOVES MIGUEL to startling obscenities, and rode it upstairs.

Apartment 1004 looked like every other apartment in the building, at least from the outside. Malone pressed the button and waited a second to hear the faint buzzing at the other side of the door. After a minute, he pressed it again.

The door swung open very suddenly and Malone stepped back.

A short, wrinkled, dark-eyed woman in a print housedress was eying him with deep suspicion. "My daughter is not home," she announced at once.

"I'm not looking for your daughter," Malone said. "I'd like to talk to Mike."

"Mike?" Her expression grew even more suspicious. "You want to talk to Mike?"

"That's right," Malone said.

"Ah," the woman said. "You one of those hoodlum friends he has. I'm right? You can talk to Mike when I am dead and have no control over him. For now, you can just--"

"Wait a minute," Malone said. He pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to show his badge, being very careful that he made the right flip this time. He didn't know exactly how this woman would react to The Queen's Own FBI, but he didn't especially want to find out.

She looked down at the badge without taking the wallet from him. "Hah," she said. "You're cop, eh?" Her eyes left the wallet and examined Malone from head to foot. It was perfectly plain that they didn't like what they saw. "Cop," she said again, as if to herself. It sounded like a curse.

Malone said: "Well, I--"

"You want to ask me st

stion

she said. "That is what you want to do. I'm right?"

"I only--"

"I know nothing," she said. "Nothing of any kind." She closed her mouth and stood regarding him as if he were a particularly repulsive statue. Malone looked past her into the living room beyond the door.

It was faded, now, but it had once been bright and colorful. There was an old rug on the floor, and tables were everywhere. The one bright thing about the room was the assortment of flowers; there were flowers everywhere, in vases, in pots and even in windowboxes. There was also a lot of crockery statuary, mostly faded, chipped or worn in some way. The room looked to Malone as if its last inhabitant had died ten years before; only the flowers had been renewed. Everything else had not only the appearance of age, but the look of having been cast up as a high-water mark by the sea, which had receded and left only the tangled wreckage.

The woman cleared her throat and Malone's gaze came back to her. "I can tell you nothing," she said.

"I don't want to talk to you," Malone said again. "I want to talk to Mike."

Her eyes were very cold. "You from the police, and you want to talk to Mike. You make a joke. Only I don't think the joke is very funny."

"Joke?" Malone said. "You mean Mike's not here?"

Her gaze never wavered. "You know he is not," she said. "Ten minutes ago the policemen were taking him away to the police station. How then could he be here?"

"Ten minutes ago?" Malone blinked. Ten minutes ago he had been looking for this apartment. Probably it hadn't taken Lynch's men ten minutes to find it; they weren't strangers in New York. "He was arrested?" Malone said.

"I said so, didn't I?" the woman said. "You must be crazy or else something." Her eyes were still cold points, but Malone saw a glow of tears behind them. Mike was her son. She did not seem surprised that the police had taken him away, but she was determined to protect him.

Malone's voice was very gentle. "Why did they arrest him?" he said.

The woman shrugged, a single sharp gesture. "You ask me this?"

"I'm not a cop," Malone said. "I'm from the FBI."

"FBI?" the woman said.

"It's all right," Malone said, with all the assurance he could muster. "I only want to talk to him."

"Ah," the woman said. Tears were plain in her eyes now, glittering on the surface. "Why they take him away, I do not know. My Mike do nothing. Nothing."

"But didn't they say anything about--"

"They say?" the woman cried. "They say only they have orders from this Lieutenant Lynch. He is lieutenant at police station."

"I know," Malone said gently.

"Lieutenant Lynch wants to ask Mike questions, so police come, take him away." Her English was beginning to lose ground as tears came.

"Lynch asked for him?" Malone said. He frowned. Whatever that meant, he wanted to be there himself. And perhaps he could help the old woman in some way. Anyhow, he would try. She stared up at him Stonily. "Look, Mrs. Fueyo," he said. "I'm going down there to talk to Mike right now. And if he hasn't done anything, I'll see that he goes home to you. Right away."

Her expression changed a trifle. She did not actually soften, but Malone could feel the gratitude lurking behind her eyes as if it were afraid to come out. She nodded gravely and said nothing at all. He stepped away, and she closed the door without a sound.

He stood staring at the door for a few seconds. Then he turned and punched the elevator button savagely.

There wasn't any time to lose.

He walked back to the precinct station. Knowing the way, it took him about five minutes instead of the fifteen it had taken him to find the Fueyo residence. But he still felt as if time were passing much too fast. He ran up the steps and passed right by the desk sergeant, who apparently recognized him, and said nothing as Malone charged up the stairs to Lynch's office.

It was empty.

Malone stared at it and started down the hall again without knowing where he was heading. Halfway to the stairs he met a patrolman. "Where's Lynch?" he asked.

"The lieutenant?"

Malone fumed. "Who else?" he said. "Where is he?"

"Got some kid back in the tank, or somewhere," the patrolman said. "Asking him a couple of questions, that's all." He added: "Hey, listen, buddy, why do you want to see the lieutenant? You can't just go charging in to--"

Malone was down the stairs before he'd finished. He went up to the desk.

The desk sergeant looked down. "What's it this time?" he said.

"I'm in a hurry," Malone said. "Where are the cells? I want to see Lieutenant Lynch."

The desk sergeant nodded. "O.K.," he said. "But the lieutenant ain't in any of the cells. He's back in Interrogation with some kid."

"Take me there," Malone said.

"I'll show you," the sergeant said. "On duty. Can't leave the desk." He cleared his throat and gave Malone a set of directions.

* * * * *

There was a door at the end of a corridor at the back of the station. It was a plain wooden door with the numeral 1 stenciled on it. Malone opened it and looked inside.

He was staring into a rather small, rather plain little room. There were absolutely no bright beam lights burning, and there didn't seem to be any rubber hoses around anywhere. There were only four chairs.

Seated in three of the chairs were Lieutenant Lynch and two other police officers. In the fourth chair, facing them, was a young boy.

He didn't look like a tough kid. He had wavy black hair, brown eyes and what Malone thought looked like a generally friendly appearance. He was slight and wiry, not over five feet five or six. And he wore an expression that was neither too eager nor hostile. It wasn't just blank, either; Malone finally pinned it down as Receptive.

He had the strangest impression that he had seen the boy somewhere before. But he couldn't remember when or where.

Lieutenant Lynch was talking.

"... All we want, Mike, is a little information. We thought you'd be able to help us, if you wanted to. Now, how about it?"

"Sure," Mike Fueyo said. His voice was a little high, but it was well controlled and responsive. "Sure, lieutenant. I'll help if I can--but I just don't dig what you're giving me. It doesn't make sense."

Lynch stirred a little impatiently, and his voice began to carry a new bite. "I'm talking about Cadillacs," he said. "1972 Red Cadillacs."

"It's a nice car," Mike said.

"What do you know about them?" Lynch said.

"Know about them?" Mike said. "I know they're nice cars. That's about it. What else am I going to know, lieutenant? Maybe you think I own one of these big red 1972 Caddies. Maybe you think I got that kind of money. Well, listen, lieutenant, I'd like to help you out, but I'm just not--"

"The Cadillacs," Lynch said, "were--"

"Just a minute, lieutenant," Malone said. Dead silence fell with great suddenness. Lynch and all the others looked around at Malone, who smiled apologetically. "I don't want to disturb anything," he said. "But I would like to talk to Mike here for a little while."

"Oh," Lynch said sourly. "Sure. Sure."

"I'd like to ask him a couple of questions," Malone said. "Alone."

"Alone." Lynch said. "Oh." But there was nothing for him to do, Malone knew, except bow to the inevitable. "Of course," he said. "Go right ahead."

"You can stand outside the door," Malone said. "He won't get away. And you'd better hold this." Malone, knowing perfectly well that staying armed and alone in a room with a suspect was something you just did not do--for very good reasons--unstrapped his .44 Magnum and handed it to the lieutenant.

He left reluctantly, with his men.

Malone could understand Lynch's attitude. If Malone solved the case, Lynch would not get any credit. Otherwise, it might go down in his personal record. And, of course, the NYPD would rather wrap the case up themselves; the FBI was treated as a necessary interference. Unfortunately, Malone thought, Lynch had had absolutely no choice. He sighed gently, and turned his attention to Mike Fueyo, who was still sitting in his chair.

"Now, Mike--" he began, and was interrupted.

The door opened. Lieutenant Lynch said: "If you need us, Malone, just yell."

"You'll hear me," Malone promised. The door shut.

He turned back to the boy. "Now, Mike," he began again, "my name is Malone, and I'm with the FBI. I'd like to ask you a few--"

"Gee, Mr. Malone," Mike broke in eagerly. "I'm glad you're here."

Malone said: "Well, I--"

"These cops here have been giving me a pretty rough deal, you know?" Mike said.

"I'm sure they--" Malone began.

"But I've been looking for you," Mike went on. "See, I wanted to say something to you. Something real important."

Malone leaned forward expectantly. At last he was going to get some information--perhaps the information that would break the whole case wide open. He said: "Yes?"

"Well--" Mike began, and stopped.

"You don't have to be afraid of me, Mike," Malone said. "Just tell me whatever's on your mind."

"Sure," Mike said. "It's this."

He took a deep breath. Malone clenched his fists. Now it was coming. Now he would hear the all-important fact. He waited.

Mike stuck out his tongue and blew the longest, loudest, brassiest and juiciest Bronx cheer that Malone had ever heard.

Then, almost instantly, the room was empty except for Malone himself.

Mike was gone.

There wasn't any place to hide, and there hadn't been any time to hide in. Malone looked around wildly, but he had no doubts at all.

Mike Fueyo had vanished, utterly and instantaneously. He'd gone out like a light.

VII.

[Illustration]

Thirty seconds passed. During that time, Malone did nothing at all. He just sat there, while a confused montage of pictures tumbled through his head. Sometimes he saw double exposures, and sometimes a couple of pictures overlapped, but it didn't seem to make any difference, because none of the pictures meant anything anyhow.

The reason for that was obvious. He was no longer sane. He had cracked up. At a crucial moment, his brain had failed him, and now people would have to come in and cart him away and put him in a straitjacket. It was perfectly obvious to Malone that he was no longer capable of dealing with everyday life. The blow on the head had probably taken final effect, and it had been more serious than the doctor had imagined.

He had always distrusted doctors anyhow.

And now he was suffering from a delayed reaction. He wasn't living in the real world any more. He had gone off to dreamland, where people disappeared when you looked at them. There was no hope for him.

It was a nice theory, and it was even comforting, in a way. There was only one thing wrong with it.

The room around him didn't look dreamlike at all. It was perfectly solid and real, and it looked just the way it had looked before Mike Fueyo had ... well, Malone amended, before whatever had happened had happened. It was a perfectly complete little room, and it had four chairs in it. Malone was sitting in one of the chairs and all the others were empty.

There was absolutely nothing else in the room.

With some regret, Malone abandoned the theory that he had gone mad. This left him with no ideas at all. Because if he hadn't become insane, then what had happened?

After another second or two, some ideas began to filter through the daze. Perhaps he'd just blacked out for a minute and the kid had gone out the door. That was possible, wasn't it?

Sure it was. And maybe he had just not seen the kid go. His eyes had failed for a second or two. That could certainly happen, after a blow on the head. Malone tried to remember where the sight centers of the brain were. Maybe whoever had hit him had disturbed them, and he'd had a sudden blackout.

Come to think of it, that made pretty good sense. If he had blacked out, then Mike would have seen it as he went groggy, and Mike had just walked out the door. It had to be the door, of course--the windows were out of the question since there weren't any windows.

The six-inch-wide air-conditioner ducts do not provide reasonable space for an exit, not if you happen to be a human being.

That, Malone told himself, was settled--and a good thing, too. He had begun to worry about it. But now he knew just what had happened, and he felt relieved. He got up from his chair, walked over to the door and opened it.

Lieutenant Lynch nearly fell into the room. He'd obviously had his ear pressed tightly to the door and hadn't expected it to open. The other two cops stood behind him, just about filling the hallway with their broad shoulders.

"Well, well," Malone said.

Lynch recovered his balance and glared at the FBI agent. He said nothing.

"Where is he?" Malone said.

"Where is he?" Lynch repeated, and blinked. "Where's who?"

Malone shook his head impatiently. "Fueyo," he said.

Lynch's expression was the same as that on the faces of the other two cops: complete and utter bafflement. Malone stopped and stared. It was suddenly very obvious that the lovely theory he had worked out for Mike's disappearance wasn't true in the least. If Mike Fueyo had come out the door, then these cops would know about it. But they obviously knew nothing at all about it.

Therefore, he hadn't come out through the door.

Malone took a deep breath.

"What are you talking about?" Lynch said. "Isn't the kid in there with you? What's happened?"

There was only one thing to do and, straight-faced, Malone went ahead and did it. "Of course not," he snapped, trying to sound impatient and official. "I released him."

"You what?"

"Released him," Malone said. He stepped out into the hall and closed the door of the interrogation room firmly behind him. "I got all the information I needed, so I let him go."

"Thanks," Lynch said bitterly. "After all, I was the one who--"

"You called him in for questioning, didn't you, lieutenant?" Malone said.

"Yes, I did, and I--"

"Well," Malone said, "I questioned him."

There was a little silence. Then Lynch asked, in a strangled voice: "What did he say?"

"Sorry," Malone said at once. "That's classified information." He pushed his way into the corridor, trying to look as if he had fifteen other jobs to accomplish within the next hour. Being an FBI agent was going to help a little, but he had to look good in order to really carry it off.

"But--"

"Thanks for your co-operation, lieutenant," Malone said. "You've all been very helpful." He smiled at them in what he hoped was a superior manner. "So long," he said, and started walking.

"Wait!" Lynch said. He flung open the door of the interrogation room. There was no doubt that it was empty. "Wait! Malone!"

Malone turned slowly, trying to look calm and in control of the situation. "Yes?" he said.

Lynch looked at him with puzzled, pleading eyes. "Malone, how did you release him? We were right here. He didn't come through the door. There isn't any other exit. So how did you get him out?"

There was only one answer to that, and Malone gave it with a quiet, assured air. "I'm terribly sorry, lieutenant," he said, "but that's classified information, too." He gave the cops a little wave and walked slowly down the corridor. When he reached the stairs he began to speed up, and he was out of the precinct station and into a taxicab before any of the cops could have realized what had happened.

He took a deep breath, feeling as if it were the first he'd had in several days. "Breathe air," he told himself. "It's good for you." Not that New York had any real air in it. It was mostly carbon fumes and the like. But it was the nearest thing to air that Malone could find at the moment, and he determined to go right on breathing it until something better and cleaner showed up.

But that wasn't important now. As the cab tooled along down Broadway toward Sixty-ninth Street, Malone closed his eyes and began going over the whole thing in his mind.

Mike Fueyo had vanished.

Of that, Malone told himself, there was no shadow of doubt. No probable, possible shadow of doubt.

No possible doubt--as a matter of fact--whatever.

Dismissing the Grand Inquisitor with a negligent wave of his hand, he concentrated on the main question. It was a good question. Malone could have sat and looked at it admiringly for a long time.

As a matter of fact, that was all he could think of to do, as the cab turned up Seventieth Street and headed east. He certainly didn't have any answers for it.

But it was a lovely question:

Where does that leave Kenneth J. Malone?

And, possibly even more important:

Where was Miguel Fueyo?

It was obvious that he'd vanished on purpose. And it hadn't just been something he'd recently discovered. He had known all along that he could pull the trick; if he hadn't known that, he wouldn't have done what he had done beforehand. No seventeen-year-old boy, no matter what he was, would give the FBI the raspberry unless he were pretty sure he could get away with it.

Malone remembered the raspberry and winced slightly. The cab driver called back: "Anything wrong, buddy?"

"Everything," Malone said. "But don't worry about it."

The cab driver shrugged and turned back to the wheel. Malone went back to Mike Fueyo.

The kid could make himself vanish at will.

Invisibility?

Malone thought about that for a while. The fact that it was impossible didn't decide him against it. Everything was impossible; that much was clear. But he didn't think Mike Fueyo had just become invisible. No. There had been the sense of a presence actually leaving the room. If Mike had become invisible and stayed, Malone was sure he wouldn't have felt the boy leave.

Mike had not just become invisible. (And what do I mean, "just"? Malone asked himself unhappily.) He had gone--elsewhere.

This brought him back full circle to his original question: where was the boy now? But he ignored it for a minute or two as another, even more difficult query presented itself.

Never mind where, Malone told himself. How?

Something was bothering him. Malone realized that it had been bothering him for a long time. At last he managed to locate it and hold it up to the light for inspection.

Dr. O'Connor, the psionics expert at Westinghouse, had mentioned something during Malone's last conversation with him. Dr. O'Connor, who'd invented a telepathy detector, had been discussing further reaches in his field.

"After all," he'd said, "if thoughts can bridge any distance whatever, regardless of other barriers, there is no reason why matter could not do likewise."

"How do you know?" Malone had asked him, "it doesn't. Or, anyhow, it hasn't so far."

"There's no way to be sure of that." Dr. O'Connor had said sternly. "After all, we have no reports of it--but that means little. Our search has only begun."

"Oh," Malone said. "Sure."

"Matter, controlled by thought, might bridge distances instantaneously," Dr. O'Connor had said.

And he'd referred to something, some word....

Teleportation.

That was it. Malone sat back. All you had to do, he reflected, was to think yourself somewhere else, and--bing!--you were there. If Malone had been able to do it, it would not only save him a lot of time and trouble, but also such things as cab fare and train fare and ... oh, a lot of different things.

But he couldn't. And Dr. O'Connor hadn't found anyone else who could, either. As far as Malone knew, nobody could teleport.

Except Mike Fueyo.

The cab stopped in front of FBI Headquarters. "You some kind of secret agent?" the cabbie said.

"Of course not," Malone said pleasantly. "I'm a foreign spy."

"Oh," the cabbie said. "Sure." He took his money with a somewhat puzzled air, while Malone crossed the sidewalk and went into the building.

* * * * *

Everyone was active. Malone pushed his way through arguing knots of men until he reached the small office which he and Boyd had been assigned. He had already decided not to tell Boyd about the disappearing boy. That would only confuse him--and matters were confused enough as they stood. Malone had no proof; he had only his word and the word of a few baffled policemen, all of whom were probably thoroughly confused by now.

Boyd had a job to do, and Malone had decided to let him go on doing it. That, as a matter of fact, was what he was doing when Malone entered the room.

He was sitting at his desk, talking on the telephone. Malone couldn't see the face on the screen, but Boyd was scowling at it fiercely. "Sure," he said. "So some guy makes a fuss. That's what you're for."

"But he wants to sue the city," a voice said tinnily. "Or somebody."

"Let him sue," Boyd said. "We've got authority. Just get that car."

"Look," the voice said. "I--"

"I don't care how," Boyd snapped. "Get it. Then hand it over to the pickup-squad and say: 'Mr. Malone wants this car--immediately.' They'll know what to do. Got that?"

"Sure, Mr. Boyd," the voice said. "But I don't--"

"Never mind," Boyd said. "Go ahead and get the job done. The United States of America is depending on you." With one last scowl, he hung up and swung around to face Malone. "You gave me a great job," he said. "I really love it, you know that?"

"It's got to be done," Malone said in a noncommittal voice. "How's it going so far?"

Boyd closed his eyes for a second. "Twenty-three red 1972 Cadillacs to date--which isn't bad, I suppose," he said. "And six calls like the one you just heard. All from agents with problems. What am I supposed to do when a guy catches a couple necking in a 1972 red Cadillac?"

"At this time of day?" Malone said.

"New York," Boyd said, and shrugged. "Things are funny here."

Malone nodded. "What did you do about them?" he said.

"Told the agent to take the car and give 'em a pass to a movie," Boyd said.

"Good," Malone said. "Keep that sort of thing in the dark where it belongs." For some reason, this reminded him of Dorothy. He still had to get tickets for a show. But that could wait. "How about the assembly line?" he said.

"Disassembly," Boyd said. "Leibowitz has started it going. He borrowed the use of a big auto repair shop over in Jersey City, and they'll be doing a faster job than we thought." He paused. "But it's been a wonderful day," he said. "One to remember as long as I live. Possibly even until tomorrow. And how have you been doing?"

"Well," Malone said, "I'm not absolutely sure yet."

"That's a nice, helpful answer," Boyd said. "In the best traditions of the FBI."

"I can't help it," Malone said. "It's true."

"Well, what have you been doing?" Boyd said. "Drinking? Living it up while I sit here and talk to people about Cadillacs?"

"Not exactly," Malone said. "I've been ... well, doing more or less what Burris told me to do. Nosing around. Keeping my eyes open."

* * * * *

The phone chimed. Boyd flipped up the mike and eyed the screen balefully. "Federal Bureau of Investigation," he said crisply. "Who are you?"

A voice on the other end said: "What?" before the image on the screen cleared.

"Oh," a voice said. It was a very calm, quiet voice. "Hello, Boyd."

The image cleared. Boyd was facing the picture of a man in his middle thirties, a brown-haired man with large, gentle brown eyes and an expression that somehow managed to look both sad and confident. "Hello, Dr. Leibowitz," Boyd said.

"Is Mr. Malone in?" Leibowitz said. "I really wanted to talk to him."

[Illustration]

"Sure," Boyd said. "Just a second."

He motioned to Malone, who came around and sat at Boyd's desk as Boyd got up. He nodded to Leibowitz, and the electronics engineer nodded back.

"How's everything coming, Dr. Leibowitz?" Malone said.

Leibowitz shrugged meaningfully. "All right," he said. "I called you to tell you about that, by the way. We've managed to cut the per-car time down somewhat."

"That's wonderful," Malone said.

"It's now down to about four hours per car--and that means we may be able to do even better than running one off the line every fifteen minutes. At the moment, fifteen minutes is about standard, though, with sixteen cars in the line."

"Sure," Malone said. "But anything you can do to speed it up--"

"I understand," Leibowitz said. "Of course, I'll do anything that I can for you. I have got a small preliminary report, by the way."

"Yes?"

"The first car has just been turned off the assembly line," Leibowitz said. "And I'm afraid, Mr. Malone, that there's nothing odd about it at all."

"Well," Malone said, "we can't expect to hit the jackpot with our first try."

"Certainly not," Leibowitz said. "But the second should be off soon. And then the rest. I'm keeping my eye on every one, of course."

"Fine," Malone said, and meant it. Leibowitz was the kind of man who inspired instant, and complete trust. Malone was perfectly sure he'd do the job he had started to do. Then an idea struck him. "Has the first car been reassembled yet?" he asked.

"Of course," Leibowitz said. "We took that step into account in our timing. What would you like done with it--and with the other ones, as they come off?"

"Unless you can find something odd about a car, just return it to its owner," Malone said. "Or pass the problem on to the squad men--they'll take care of it." He paused. "If you do find something odd--"

"I'll call you at once, of course," Leibowitz said.

"Good," Malone said. "Incidentally, I did want to ask you something. I don't want you to think I'm doubting your work, or anything like that. Believe me."

"I'm sure you're not," Leibowitz said.

"But," Malone said, "why does it take so long? I'd think it would be fairly easy to spot a robotic or a semirobotic brain capable of controlling a car."

"It might have been, once." Leibowitz said. "But these days the problems are rather special. Oh, I don't mean we can't do it--we can and we will. But with subminiaturization, Mr. Malone, and semipsionic circuits, a pretty good brain can be hidden beneath a coat of paint."

For no reason at all, Malone suddenly thought of Dorothy again. "A coat of paint?" he said in a disturbed tone.

"Certainly," Leibowitz said, and smiled at him. It was a warm smile that had little or nothing to do with the problem they were talking about. But Malone liked it. It made him feel as if Leibowitz liked him, and approved of him. He grinned back.

"But a coat of paint isn't very much," Malone said.

"It doesn't have to be very much," Leibowitz said. "Not these days. I've often told Emily--that's my wife, Mr. Malone--that I could hide a TV circuit under her lipstick. Not that there would be any use in it--but the techniques are there, Mr. Malone. And if your conjecture is correct, someone is using them."

"Oh," Malone said. "Sure. But you can find the circuits, if they're there?"

Leibowitz nodded slowly. "We can, Mr. Malone," he said. "They betray themselves. A microcircuit need not be more than a few microns thick, you see--as far as the conductors and insulators are concerned, at any rate. But the regulators--transistors and such--have to be as big as a pinhead."

"Enormous, huh?" Malone said.

"Well," Leibowitz said, and chuckled, "quite large enough to locate without trouble, at any rate. They're very hard to conceal. And the leads from the brain to the power controls are even easier to find--comparatively speaking, of course."

"Of course," Malone said.

"All the brain does, you see," Leibowitz said, "is control the mechanism that steers the car. But it takes real power to steer--a great deal more than it does to compute the steering."

"I see," Malone, who didn't, said desperately. "In other words, unless something radically new has been developed, you can find the circuits."

"Right," Leibowitz said, grinning. "It would have to be something very new indeed, Mr. Malone. We're up on most of the latest developments here; we've got to be. But I don't want the credit for this."

"No?" Malone said.

"Oh, no," Leibowitz said. "All I do is work out the general application to theory, as far as actual detection is concerned. It's my partner, Mr. Hardin, who takes care of all the engineering details."

Malone said: "Well, so long as one of you--"

"Sal's a real crackerjack," Leibowitz said enthusiastically. "He has an intuitive feel about these things. It's really amazing to watch him go to work."

"It must be," Malone said politely.

"Oh, it really is," Leibowitz said. "And it's because of Sal that I can make the guarantee I do make: that if there are any unusual circuits in those cars, we can find them."

"Thanks," Malone said. "I'm sure you'll do the job. And we need that information. Don't bother to send along a detailed report, though, unless you find something out of the ordinary."

"Of course, Mr. Malone," Leibowitz said. "I wouldn't have bothered you except for the production speed-up here."

"I understand," Malone said. "It's perfectly all right. I'll be hearing from you, then?"

"Certainly, Mr. Malone," Leibowitz said.

* * * * *

Malone cut the circuit at once and started to turn away, but he never got the chance. It started to chime again at once.

"Federal Bureau of Investigation," Malone said as he flipped up the receiver. He wanted badly to copy Boyd's salutation, but he found that he just didn't have the gall to do it, and said sadly instead: "Malone speaking."

There was no immediate answer from the other party. Instead, the screen slowly cleared, showing Malone the picture of a woman he recognized instantly.

It was Juanita Fueyo--Mike's mother.

Malone stared at her. It seemed to him as if a couple of hours passed while he tried to find his voice. Of course, she'd looked up the FBI number in the phone book, and found him that way. But she was about the last person on Earth from whom he'd expected a call.

"Oh, Mr. Malone," she said, "thank you so much! You got my Mike back from the police!"

Malone gulped. "I did?" he said. "Well, I--"

"But Mr. Malone--you must help me again! Because now my Mike says he must not stay at home! He is leaving, he is leaving right away!"

"Leaving?" Malone said.

He thought of a thousand things to do. He could send a squad of men to arrest Mike. And Mike could disappear while they were trying to get hold of him. He could go down himself--and be greeted, if he knew Mike Fueyo, with another giant economy-size raspberry. He could try to plead with Mike on the phone.

And what good would that do?

So, instead, he just sat and stared while Mrs. Fueyo went right on.

"He says he will send me money, but money is nothing compared to my own boy, my own Mike. He says he must go away, Mr. Malone--but I know you can stop him! I know it!"

"Sure," Malone said. "But I--"

"Oh, I knew that you would!" Mrs. Fueyo shrieked. She almost came through the screen at him. "You are a great man, Mr. Malone! I will say many prayers for you! I will never stop from praying for you because you help me!" Her voice and face changed abruptly. "Excuse me now," she said. "I must go back to work."

"Well," Malone said, "if I--"

Then she turned back and beamed at him again. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Malone! Thank you with the thanks of a mother! Bring my boy back to me!"

And the image faded and died.

Boyd tapped Malone on the shoulder. "I didn't know you were involved in an advice column for the lovelorn," he said.

"I'm not," Malone said sourly.

Boyd sighed. "I'll bite," he said. "Who was that?"

Malone thought of several possible answers and finally chose one. "That," he said, "was my mother-in-law. She worries about me every time I go out on a job with you."

"Very funny," Boyd said. "I am screaming with laughter."

"Just get back to work, Tommy-boy," Malone said, "and leave everything to me."

He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. Lighting a cigarette--and wishing he were alone in his own room, so that he could smoke a cigar and not have to worry about looking dashing and alert--Malone strolled out of the office with a final wave to Boyd. He was thinking about Mike Fueyo, and he stopped his chain of reasoning just long enough to look in at the office of the Agent-in-Charge and ask him to pry loose two tickets for "The Hot Seat" that night.

The agent, a tall, thin man, who looked as if he suffered from chronic stomach trouble, said, "You must be crazy. Are they all like that in Washington?"

"No," Malone said cheerfully. "Some of them are pretty normal. There's this one man--Napoleon, we call him--who keeps insisting that he should have won the battle of Waterloo. But otherwise he's perfectly fine."

He flicked his cigarette in the air and left, grinning. Five steps away the grin disappeared and a frown took its place.

VIII.

He walked along Sixty-ninth Street to Park Avenue without noticing where he was going. Luckily, the streets weren't really crowded, and Malone only had to apologize twice, once for stepping on a man's toe and once for absently toeing a woman's dog. When he reached the corner he headed downtown, humming "Kathleen Mavourneen" under his breath and trying to figure out his next move.

He needed more than one move. He needed a whole series of moves. This was not the usual kind of case. Burris had called it a vacation and, in one way, Malone supposed, Burris was perfectly right. For once there was no question about who had committed the crimes. It was obvious by now that Mike Fueyo and his Silent Spooks had been stealing the Cadillacs.

It was even obvious that Mike--or someone with Mike's talent--had bopped him on the head, and taken the red Cadillac he had been examining. And the same gang probably accounted for the Sergeant Jukovsky affair, too.

Or at least it was reasonable to assume that they did, Malone thought. He could see how it had worked: one of the Silent Spooks was a lot smaller than a grown man, and the two cops who hadn't seen anyone in the parked car just hadn't been able to catch sight of the undersized driver. Of course, there had been someone in the car when it had been driving along the West Side Highway. Someone who had teleported himself right out of the car when it had gone over the embankment.

That, of course, meant that there would be no secret machines found in the red Cadillacs Leibowitz & Hardin were examining now. But Malone had already decided to let that phase of things go on. First of all, it was always possible that he was wrong, and that some such machine really did exist. Second, even if they didn't find a machine, they might find something else. Almost anything, he thought, might turn up.

And, third, it kept Boyd decently busy, and out of Malone's hair.

That had been an easy solution. And, Malone thought, the problem of who had been taking the red Cadillacs looked just as easy now, if his answers were right. And he was reasonably sure of that.

Unfortunately, he was now left with a new and unusual question:

How do you catch a teleport?

Malone looked up, jarred to a stop by a man built like a brown bear, with a chunky body and an oval, slightly sloping head and face. He had very short brown hair shot through with gray, and he gazed at the inquisitive stare and looked away without a word.

Malone mumbled: "Sorry," and looked up at the street sign. He was at Forty-seventh Street and Park Avenue. He jerked a hand up to his face, and managed to hook the chunky man by the suit. It fell away, exposing the initials SM carefully worked into his shirt. Second Mistake, Malone thought wildly, muttered: "Sorry," again and turned west, feeling fairly grateful to the unfortunate bystander.

He had reminded Malone of one thing. If he wanted to get even a part of his plan past the drawing-board stage, he had to make a phone call in a hurry.

He found a phone booth in a bar called the Ad Lib, at Madison Avenue. Sternly telling himself that he was stopping there to make a phone call, a business phone call, and not to have a drink, he marched right past the friendly bartender and went into the phone booth, where he made a call to New York Police Commissioner John Henry Fernack.

Fernack's face was that of an old man, but there was no telling how old. The early seventies was one guess, Malone imagined; the late fifties might be another. He looked tough, as if he had spent all of his life trying to persuade other people that he was young enough for the handball tournament. When he saw Malone, his eyebrows lifted slightly, but he didn't say anything.

"Commissioner," Malone said, "I called to ask you to do me a favor."

There was caution hidden in the calm and quiet voice. "Well," Fernack said, "what is it, Malone?"

"Can you have all the robberies for a given period run through the computer?" Malone said. "I need some dope."

"Depends on the given period," Fernack said. "I can't do it for 1774."

"What would I need data on robberies in 1774 for?" Malone said, honestly interested.

"I never question the FBI," Fernack said soberly. "But what dates do you want?"

"The past year, maybe the past year and a half."

"And what data?"

"I want every reported crime that hasn't been solved," Malone said, "which also seems to have been committed by some impossible means. A safe that was robbed without being opened, for instance--that's the kind of thing I mean."

"Every unsolved crime?" Fernack said. "Now, hold your horses, Malone. I'm not at all sure that--"

"Don't worry about a thing, commissioner," Malone said. "This is confidential."

"You know how I'd feel about this if word ever got out to--"

"I said confidential, John Henry," Malone said, trying to sound friendly and trustworthy. "After all, every place has unsolved crimes. Even the FBI isn't absolutely perfect."

"Oh," Fernack said. "Sure. But confidential, Malone."

"You have my word," Malone said sincerely.

Fernack said: "Well--"

"How fast can you get the dope?" Malone said.

"I don't exactly know," Fernack said. "The last time anything even remotely like this was run through--departmental survey, but you wouldn't be interested--it took something like eight hours."

"Fine," Malone said. "Eight hours then. I'll look everything over and if we need a second run-through it won't take too long. I'll let you know as soon as I can about that." He grinned into the phone.

Fernack cleared his throat and asked delicately: "Mind telling me what all this is for?"

Malone offered up a little prayer before answering, and when he did answer it was in his softest and most friendly tones: "I'd rather not say just now, John Henry."

"But Malone--" Fernack's voice sounded a little strained, and his jaw set just a trifle. "If you--"

Malone knew perfectly well how Fernack reacted when he didn't get a bit of information he wanted. And this was no time to set off any fireworks in the commissioner's office. "Look, John Henry," he said gently, "I'll tell you as soon as I can. Honest. But this is classified information--it's not my fault."

Fernack said: "But--" and apparently realized that argument was not going to do him any good. "All right, Malone," he said at last. "I'll have it for you as soon as possible."

"Great," Malone said. "Then I'll see you later."

"Sure," Fernack said. He paused, as if he were about to open the controversy just once more. But all he said was: "So long, Malone."

* * * * *

Malone breathed a great sigh of relief and flipped the phone off. He stepped out of the booth feeling so proud of himself that he could barely walk. Not only had he managed to calm down Commissioner Fernack, he had also walked right past a bar on the way to the phone. He had performed several acts, he felt, above and beyond the call of duty, and he told himself that he deserved a reward.

Happily, the reward was convenient to hand. He went to the bar and beckoned the bartender over to him. "Bourbon and soda," he said. "And a medal, if possible."

"What?" the bartender said.

"A medal," Malone said. "For conduct beyond reproach."

The bartender nodded sadly. "Maybe you just ought to go home, Mac," he said. "Sleep it off."

New Yorkers, Malone decided as the bartender went off to get his drink, had no sense of humor. Back in Chicago--where he'd been more or less weaned on gin, and discovered that, unlike his father, he didn't much care for the stuff--and even in Washington, people didn't go around accusing you of drunkenness just because you made some harmless little pleasantry.

Oh, well. Malone drank his drink and went out into the afternoon sunlight.

He considered the itinerary of the Magical Miguel Fueyo. He had gone straight home from the police station, apparently, and had then told his mother that he was going to leave home. But he had promised to send her money.

Of course, money was easy for Mike to get. With a shudder, Malone thought he was beginning to realize just how easy. Houdini had once boasted that no bank vault could hold him. In Mike Fueyo's case, that was just doubly true. The vault could neither hold him out or keep him in.

But he was going to leave home.

Malone said: "Hm-m-m," to himself, cleared his throat and tried it again. By now he was at the corner of the block, where he nearly collided with a workman who was busily stowing away a gigantic ladder, a pot of paint and a brush. Malone looked up at the street sign, where the words: "Avenue of the Americas" had been painted out, and "Sixth Avenue" hand-lettered in.

"They finally gave in," the painter told him. "But do you think they'll buy new signs? Nah. Cheap. That's all they are. Cheap as pretzels." He gave Malone a friendly push with one end of the ladder and disappeared into the crowd.

Malone didn't have the faintest idea of what he was talking about. And how cheap could a pretzel be, anyway? Malone didn't remember ever having seen an especially tight-fisted one.

New York, he decided for the fifteenth time, was a strange place.

He walked downtown for a block, still thinking about Mike Fueyo, and absently turned west again. Between Sixth and Seventh, he had another attack of brilliance and began looking for another phone booth.

He found one in a Mexican bar named the Xochitl, across the street from the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin. It was just a coincidence that he had landed in another bar, he told himself hopefully, but he didn't quite believe it. To prove it to himself, he headed straight for the phone booths again and put in his call, ignoring the blandishments of several rows of sparkling bottles which he passed on the way.

He dialed the number for Lieutenant Lynch's precinct, and then found himself connected with a new desk sergeant.

"I'm Malone," he said. "I want to talk to Lynch."

"Glad to know you, Malone," the desk sergeant said pleasantly. "Only Lieutenant Lynch doesn't want to subscribe to the Irish Echo."

"I'm the FBI." He showed his badge.

The desk sergeant took a good long look at it. "Maybe you are, and maybe you aren't," he said at last. "Does the lieutenant know you?"

"We were kids together," Malone said. "We're brothers. Siamese twins. Put him on the phone."

"Wait a minute," said the desk sergeant. "I'll check."

The screen went blank for two agonizing minutes before it cleared again to show Lynch's face.

"Hello, Mr. Malone," Lynch said formally. "Have you found some new little trick to show us poor, stupid policemen? Like, say, making yourself vanish?"

"I'll make the whole police force vanish," Malone said, "in a couple of minutes. I called to ask a favor."

"Anything," Lynch said. "Anything within my poor power. Whatever I have is yours. Whither thou goest--"

"Knock it off," Malone said, and then grinned. After all, there was no sense in making an enemy out of Lynch.

Lynch blinked, took a deep breath, and said in an entirely different voice: "O.K., Malone. What's the favor?"

"Do you still have that list of Silent Spooks?" Malone said.

"Sure I do," Lynch said. "Why? I gave you a copy of it."

"I can't do this job," Malone said "You'll have to."

"Yes, sir," Lynch said, and saluted.

"Just listen," Malone said. "I want you to check up on every kid on that list."

"And what are we supposed to do when we find them?" Lynch said.

"That's the trouble," Malone said. "You won't."

"And why not?"

"I'll lay you ten to one," Malone said, "that every one of them has skipped out. Left home. Without giving a forwarding address."

Lynch nodded slowly. "Ten to one?" he said. "Want to make that a money bet? Or does the FBI frown on gambling?"

"Ten dollars to your one," Malone said. "O.K.?"

"Made," Lynch said. "You've got the bet ... just for the hell of it, understand."

"Oh, sure," Malone said.

"And where can I call you to collect?"

Malone shook his head. "You can't," he said. "I'll call you."

"I will wait with anxiety," Lynch said. "But it had better be before eight. I get off then."

"If I can make it," Malone said.

"If you can't," Lynch said, "call me at home." He gave Malone the number, and then added: "Whatever information I get, I can keep for my own use this time, can't I?"

"You've already got all the information you're going to get. I just gave it to you."

"That," Lynch said, "we'll see."

"I'll call to collect my money," Malone said.

"We'll talk about it later," Lynch said. "Farewell, old pal."

"Flights of angels," Malone said, "sing thee to thy rest."

[Illustration]

* * * * *

Malone replaced the microphone and headed for the door. Halfway there, however, he stopped. He hadn't had a tequila in a long time, and he thought he owed it to himself. He felt he had come out ahead in his exchange with Lynch, and another medal was in order.

Only a small one, though. He told himself that he would order one tequila and quit. Besides, he had to meet Dorothy.

He sat down on one of the tall bar stools. The bartender bustled over and eyed him speculatively.

"Tequila con limon" he said negligently.

"Ah," the bartender said. "Si, senor."

Malone waited with ill-concealed impatience. At last it arrived.

Malone took the small glass of tequila in his right hand, with the slice of lemon held firmly between the index and middle fingers of the same hand, the rind facing in toward the glass. On the web between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand he had sprinkled a little salt. Moving adroitly and with dispatch, he downed the tequila, licked off the salt and bit his teeth into the lemon slice.

It felt better than good; it felt wonderful. He hadn't had such a good time in years.

He had three more before he left the Xochitl.

Then, noticing the time, he moved in a hurry and got out of the bar before temptation overcame him and he started ordering still more. It was nearly six o'clock, and he had to meet Dorothy at Topp's.

He hoped he could find it.

He headed downtown toward Forty-second Street, turned left and--sure enough--there was a big red sign. It said Topp's. Malone beamed his approval at it. It was just where it ought to be, and he was grateful.

He pushed open the glass door of the place and went in.

The maitre d'hôtel was a chunky man with a pleasant face, a receding hairline and some distance back on his head, dark, curly hair. He beamed at Malone as if the FBI agent were a long-lost brother. "Table for one, sir?" he said.

"No," Malone said, peering into the place. It was much bigger than he had expected. "No," he said again. "I guess I'll just have a drink at the bar."

The maitre d' smiled and bowed him to a bar stool. Malone sat down and looked the place over again. His first glance had shown him that Dorothy wasn't there yet, but he saw no harm in making sure. Always be careful of your facts, he admonished himself a little fuzzily.

There were a lot of women in the place, but they were all with escorts. Some of them had two escorts, and Malone wondered about them. Were they drunk, or was he? It was obvious that someone was seeing double, but Malone wasn't quite sure who.

He stared at his face in the bar mirror for a few seconds, and ordered a bourbon and soda when a bartender came over and occluded the image. The bartender went away and Malone went on studying himself.

He wasn't bad-looking for an FBI agent. He was taller than his father, anyway, and less heavily built. That was one good thing. As a matter of fact, Malone told himself, he was really a pretty good-looking guy.

So why did women keep him waiting?

He heard her voice before he saw her, behind him. But she wasn't talking to him.

"Hello, Milty," she said. "How's everything?"

Malone turned around to get a look at Milty. He turned out to be the maitre d'. What did he have that Malone didn't have? the agent asked himself sourly. Obviously Dorothy was captivated by his charm. Well, that showed him what city girls were like. Butterflies. Social butterflies. Flitting hither and yon with the wind, now attracted to this man, now to that. Once, Malone told himself sadly, he had known this beautiful woman. Now she belonged to someone else.

He felt a little bit sad about it, but he told himself to buck up and learn to live with his tragedy. He drank some more of his bourbon and soda, and then she noticed him.

He heard her say: "Oh. Excuse me, Milty. There's my man." She came over and sat down next to him.

He wanted to ignore her, just to teach her a lesson. But he had already turned around and smiled at her, and she smiled back.

"Hi," she said. "Did you get the tickets?"

Tickets!

Malone knew there had been something he'd forgotten, and now he knew what it was. "Oh," he said. "Sure. Just a second. I've got to check up."

"Check up?"

"Friend of mine," Malone improvised hurriedly. "Bringing them." He gave Dorothy a big smile and climbed down off the bar stool. He managed to find a phone booth, and dialed FBI headquarters on Sixty-ninth Street and blessed several saints when he found that A-in-C was still there.

"Tickets," Malone said.

The Agent-in-Charge blinked at him. "What tickets?" he said.

"The 'Hot Seat' tickets," Malone said. "Did you get 'em?"

"I got 'em," the Agent-in-Charge said sourly. "Had to chase all over town and pull more wires than there are on a grand piano. But they turned up, brother. Two seats. Do you know what a job like that entails?"

"I'm grateful," Malone said. "I'm hysterical with gratitude."

"I'd rather track down a gang of fingerless second-story men than go through that again," the Agent-in-Charge said. He looked as if his stomach trouble had suddenly gotten a great deal worse. Malone thought that the A-in-C was considering calling a doctor, and would probably decide to make it the undertaker instead, and save the price of a call.

"I can't express my gratitude," Malone told him. "Where are they? Where do I pick them up?"

"Box office," the A-in-C said sourly. "I tell you, everybody in Washington must be nuts. The things I have to go through--"

"Thanks," Malone said. "Thanks a lot. Thanks a million. If there's ever anything I can do for you, let me know and I'll do it." He hung up and went back to the bar.

"Well?" Dorothy said. "Where do we go tonight? Joe's Hot Dog stand? Or a revival of 'The Wild Duck' in a loft on Bleecker Street?"

There was pride in Malone's manner as he stood there on his feet. There was just a touch of hauteur as he said: "We'll see 'Hot Seat'."

And he was repaid for all of the Agent-in-Charge's efforts. Dorothy's eyes went wide with appreciation and awe. "My goodness," she said. "A man of his word--and what a tough word, too! Mr. Malone, I congratulate you."

"Nothing," Malone said. "A mere absolute nothing."

"Nothing, the man says," Dorothy muttered. "My goodness. And modest, too. Tell me: how do you do, Mr. Malone?"

"Me?" Malone said. "Very well, so far." He finished his drink. "And you?"

"I work at it," she said cryptically. "May I have another drink?"

Malone gave her a grin. "Another?" he said. "Have two. Have a dozen."

"And what," she said, "would I do with half a dozen drinks? Don't answer. I think I can guess. But let's just take them one at a time--O.K.?" She signaled to the bartender. "Wally, I'll have a Martini. And Mr. Malone will have whatever it is he has, I imagine."

"Bourbon and soda," Malone said, and gave the bartender a grin, too, just to make sure he didn't feel left out. The sun was shining--although it was evening outside--and the birds were singing--although, Malone reflected, catching a bird on Forty-second Street and Broadway might take a bit of doing--and all was well with the world.

There was only a tiny, nagging disturbing thought in his mind. It had to do with Mike Fueyo and the Silent Spooks, and a lot of red Cadillacs. But he pushed it resolutely away. It had nothing to do with the evening he was about to spend. Nothing at all.

After all, this was supposed to be a vacation, wasn't it?

"Well, Mr. Malone," Dorothy said, when the drinks had arrived.

"Very well indeed," Malone said, raising his. "And just call me Ken. Didn't I tell you that once before?"

"You did," she said. "And I asked you to call me Dorothy. Not Dotty. Try and remember that."

"I will remember it," Malone said, "just as long as ever I live. You don't look the least bit dotty, anyhow. Which is probably more than anybody could say for me." He started to look at himself in the bar mirror again, and decided not to. "By the way," he added, as a sudden thought struck him. "Dotty what?"

"Now," she said. "There you go doing it."

"Doing what?"

"Calling me that name."

"Oh," Malone said. "Make it Dorothy. Dorothy what?" He blinked. "I mean, I know you've got a last name. Dorothy Something. Only it probably isn't Something. What is it?"

"Francis," she said obligingly. "Dorothy Francis. My middle name is Something, in case you ever want to call me by my middle name. Just yell: 'Hey, Something,' and I'll come a-running. Unless I have something else to do. In which case everything will be very simple: I won't come."

"Ah," Malone said doubtfully. "And what do--"

"What do I do?" she said. "A standard question. Number two of a series. I do modeling. Photographic modeling. And that's not all--I also do commercials on 3-D. If I look familiar to you, it's probably because you've seen me on 3-D. Do I look familiar to you?"

"I never watch 3-D," Malone said, crestfallen.

"Fine," Dorothy said unexpectedly. "You have excellent taste."

"Well," Malone said, "it's just that I never seem to get the time--"

"Don't apologize for it," Dorothy said. "I have to appear on it, but I don't have to like it. And, now that I've answered your questions, how about answering some of mine?"

"Gladly," Malone said. "The inmost secrets of the FBI are yours for the asking."

"Hm-m-m," Dorothy said slowly. "What do you do as an FBI agent, anyhow? Dig up spies?"

"Oh, no," Malone said. "We've got enough trouble with the live ones. We don't go around digging anybody up. Believe me." He paused, feeling dimly that the conversation was beginning to get out of control. "Have I told you that you are the most beautiful woman I've ever met?" he said at last.

"No," Dorothy said. "Not yet, anyway. But I was expecting it."

"You were?" Malone said, disappointed.

"Certainly," Dorothy said. "You've been drinking. As a matter of fact, you've managed to get quite a head start."

Malone hung his head guiltily. "True," he said in a low voice. "Too true. Much too true."

Dorothy nodded, downed her drink and waved to the bartender. "Wally, bring me a double this time."

"A double?"

"Sure," Dorothy said. "I've got to do some fast catching-up on Mr. Malone here."

"Call me Ken," Malone muttered.

"Don't be silly," Dorothy told him. "Wally hardly knows you. He'll call you Mr. Malone, and like it."

The bartender went away and Malone sat on his stool and thought busily for a minute. At last he said: "If you really want to catch up with me--"

"Yes?" Dorothy said.

"Better have a triple," Malone muttered.

Dorothy's eyebrows rose slightly.

"Because I intend to have another one," Malone added.

IX.

It started a million years ago.

In that distant past, a handful of photons deep in the interior of Sol began their random journey to the photosphere. They had been born as ultrahard gamma radiation, and they were positively bursting with energy, attempting to push their respective ways through the dense nucleonic gas that had been their womb. Within millimicroseconds, they had been swallowed up by the various particles surrounding them--swallowed, and emitted again, as the particles met in violent collision.

And then the process was repeated. After a thousand thousand years, and billions on billions of such repetitions, the handful of photons reached the relatively cool photosphere of the sun. But the long battle had taken some of the drive out of them; over the past million years, even the strongest had become only hard ultraviolet, and the weakest just sputtered out in the form of long radio waves.

But now, at last, they were free! And in the first flush of this newfound freedom, they flung themselves over ninety-three million miles of space, traveling at one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second and making the entire trip in less than eight and one-half minutes.

They struck the Earth's ionosphere, and their numbers diminished. The hard ultraviolet was gobbled up by ozone; much of the blue was scattered through the atmosphere. The remainder bore steadily onward.

Down through the air they came, only slightly weakened this time. They hit the glass of a window in the Hotel New Yorker, losing more of their members in the plunge.

And, a few feet from the glass, they ended their million-year epic by illuminating a face.

The face responded to them with something less than pleasure. It was clear that the face did not like being illuminated. It was very bright, much too bright. It seemed to be searing its way through the face's closed eyelids, right past the optic nerves into the brain-pan itself. The face twisted in a sudden spasm, as if its brain were shriveling with heat. Its owner thoughtfully turned over, and the face sought the seclusion and comparative darkness of a pillow.

Unfortunately, the motion brought the face's owner to complete wakefulness. He did not want to be awake, but he had very little choice in the matter. Even though his face was no longer being illuminated, he could feel other rays of sunlight eating at the back of his head. He put the pill in his h-- and felt more comfortable for a space, but this slight relief passed, too.

He thought about mausoleums. Mausoleums were nice, cool, dark places where there was never any sun or heat, and never any reason to wake up. Maybe, he told himself, cunningly, if he went to sleep again he would wake up dead, in a mausoleum. That, he thought, would be nice.

Death was nice and pleasant. Unfortunately, he realized, he was not dead. And there was absolutely no chance of his ever getting back to sleep. He finally rolled over again, being very careful to avoid any more poisonous sunlight. Getting up was an even more difficult process, but Malone knew it had to be managed. Somehow he got his feet firmly planted on the floor and sat up.

It had been a remarkable feat, he told himself. He deserved a medal.

That reminded him of the night before. He had been thinking quite a lot about the medals he deserved for various feats. He had even awarded some of them to himself, in the shape of liquid decoctions.

He remembered all that quite well. There were a lot of cloudy things in his mind, but from all the testimony he could gather, he imagined that he'd had quite a time the night before. Quite a wonderful time, as a matter of fact.

Not that that reflection did anything for him now. As he opened his eyes, one at a time, he thought of Boyd. Once, long ago, ages and ages ago, he had had to wake Boyd up, and he recalled how rough he had been about it. That had been unforgivable.

He made a mental note to apologize to Boyd the next time he saw him--if he could ever see again. Now, he knew how Boyd had felt. And it was terrible.

Still sitting on the bed, he told himself that, in spite of everything, he was lucky. To judge by his vague memories, he'd had quite a time the night before, and if the hangover was payment for it, then he was willing to accept the payment. Almost. Because it had really been a terrific time. The only nagging thought in his mind was that there had been something vital he'd forgotten.

"Tickets," he said, aloud, and was surprised that his voice was audible. As a matter of fact, it was too audible; the noise made him wince slightly. He shifted his position very quietly.

And he hadn't forgotten the tickets. No. He distinctly remembered going to see "The Hot Seat," and finding seats, and actually sitting through the show with Dorothy at his side. He couldn't however really say that he remembered much of the show itself, but that couldn't be the important thing he'd forgotten. By no means.

He had heard that it was a good show, though. Some time, he reminded himself, he would have to get tickets and actually see it.

He checked through the evening. Drinks. Dinner ... he had had dinner, hadn't he? Yes, he had. He recalled a broiled sea bass looking up at him with mournful eyes. He couldn't have dreamed anything like that.

And then the theater, and after that some more drinks ... and so on, and so on, and so on, right to his arrival back in his hotel room, at four-thirty in the morning, on a bright, boiled cloud.

He even remembered arguing with Dorothy about taking her home. She'd won that round by ducking into a subway entrance, and he had turned around after she'd left him and headed for home. Had he taken a taxi?

[Illustration]

Yes, Malone decided, he had. He even remembered that.

Then what had he forgotten?

He had met Dorothy--he told himself, starting all over again in an effort to locate the gaps--at six o'clock, right after phoning ...

He looked at his watch. It was ten o'clock in the morning. He had completely forgotten to call Fernack and Lynch.

Hangover or no hangover, Malone told himself grimly, there was work to be done. Somehow, he managed to get to his feet and start moving.

He checked Boyd's room after a while. But his partner wasn't home. Probably at work already, Malone thought, while I lie here useless and helpless. He thought of a sermon on the Evils of Alcohol, and decided he'd better read it to himself instead of delivering it to Boyd.

But he didn't waste any time with it. By ten-fifteen he was showered and shaved, his teeth were brushed, and he was dressed. He felt, he estimated, about fifteen hundred per cent better. That was still lousy, but it wasn't quite as bad as it had been. He could move around and talk and even think a little, if he were careful about it. Before he left, he took a look at himself in the mirror.

Well, he told himself, that was nice.

It hardly showed at all. He looked tired, to be sure, but that was almost normal. The eyes weren't bloodshot red, and didn't seem to bug out at all although Malone would have sworn that they were bleeding all over his face. His head was its normal size, as near as he remembered; it was not swollen visibly, or pulsing like a jellyfish at every move.

He looked even better than he felt.

He started for the door, and then stopped himself. There was no need to go out so early; he could start work right in his own hotel room and not even have to worry about the streets of New York, the cars or the pedestrians for a while.

He thought wistfully about a hair of the hound, decided against it with great firmness, and sat down to phone.

He dialed a number, and the face of Commissioner Fernack appeared almost at once. Malone forced himself to smile cheerfully, reasonably sure that he was going to crack something as he did it. "Hello, John Henry," he said in what he hoped was a good imitation of a happy, carefree voice. "And how are you this lovely morning?"

"Me?" Fernack said sourly. "I'm in great shape. Tiptop. Malone, how did you--"

"Any news for me?" Malone said.

Fernack waited a long time before he answered, and when he did his voice was dangerously soft and calm. "Malone," he said, "when you asked for this survey, just what kind of news did you expect to get anyway?"

"An awful lot of impossible crimes," Malone said frankly. "How did I do, John Henry?"

"You did very well," Fernack said. "Too well. Listen, Malone, how could you know about anything like this?"

Malone blinked. "Well," he said, "we have our sources. Confidential. Top secret. I'm sure you understand, commissioner." Hurriedly, he added: "What does the breakdown look like?"

"It looks like hell," Fernack said. "About eight months ago, according to the computer, there was a terrific upswing in certain kinds of crime. And since then it's been pretty steady, right at the top of the swing. Hasn't moved down hardly at all."

"Great," Malone said.

Fernack stared. "What?" he said.

"I mean--" Malone stopped, thought of an answer and tried it: "I mean, that checks out my guess. My information. Sources."

Fernack seemed to weigh risks in his mind. "Malone, I know you're FBI," he said at last. "But this sounds pretty fishy to me. Pretty strange."

"You have no idea how strange," Malone said truthfully.

"I'm beginning to," Fernack said. "And if I ever find out that you had anything to do with this--"

"Me?"

"And don't look innocent," Fernack said. "It doesn't succeed in looking anything but horrible. You remind me of a convicted murderer trying to steal thirty cents from the prison chaplain."

"What would I have to do with all these crimes?" Malone said. "And what kind of crimes were they, anyway?"

"What you'd have to do with them," Fernack said, "is an unanswered question. And so long as it remains unanswered, Malone, you're safe. But when I come up with enough facts to answer it--"

"Don't be silly, commissioner," Malone said. "How about these crimes? What kind were they?"

* * * * *

"Burglaries," Fernack said. "And I have a hunch you know that well enough. Most of them were just burglaries--locked barrooms, for instance, early in the morning. There's never any sign of tampering with the locks, no sign of breaking and entering, no sign of any alarms being tampered with in any way. But the money's gone from the cash register, and all of the liquor is gone, too."

Malone stared. "All the liquor?" he said in a dazed voice.

"Well," Fernack said, "all of it that's in plain sight, anyway. Except for the open bottles. Disappeared. Gone. Without a trace. And most of the time the extra stock's gone, too, from the basement or wherever they happen to keep it."

"That's a lot of liquor," Malone said.

"Quite a lot," Fernack said. "Some of the bars have gone broke, not being insured against the losses."

The thought of thousands of bottles of liquor--millions of bottles--went through Malone's mind like an icepick. He could almost see them, handle them, taste them. "Hair of the dog," he muttered. "What hair. What a dog."

"What did you say, Malone?"

"Nothing," Malone said hastily. "Nothing at all." After a second another query occurred to him. "You mean to tell me that only bars were robbed? Nothing else?"

"Oh, no," Fernack said. "Bars are only part of it. Malone, why are you asking me to tell you this?"

"Because I want to know," Malone said patiently.

"I still think--" Fernack began, and then said: "Never mind. But it hasn't been only bars. Supermarkets. Homes. Cleaning and tailoring shops. Jewelers. Malone, you name it, and it's been hit."

Malone tried valiantly to resist temptation, but he was not at his best, and he lost. "All right," he said. "I will name it. Here's a list of places that haven't even been touched by the rising crime wave: Banks, for one."

"Malone!"

"Safes that have been locked, for another," Malone went on. "Homes with wall safes--though that's not quite accurate. The homes may have been robbed, but the safes won't have been touched."

"Malone, how much do you know?" Fernack said.

"I'll make a general rule for you," Malone said. "Any place that fits the following description is safe: It's got a secure lock on it, and it's too small for a human being to get into."

Fernack opened his mouth, shut it and stared downward, obviously scanning some papers lying on the desk in front of him. Malone waited patiently for the explosion--but it never came.

Instead, Fernack said: "You know, Malone, you remind me of an old friend of mine."

"Really?" Malone said pleasantly.

"You certainly do," Fernack said. "There's just one small difference. You're an FBI man, and he's a crook. If that's a difference."

"It is," Malone said. "And on behalf of the FBI, I resent the allegation. And, as a matter of fact, defy the allegator. But that's neither here nor there," he continued. "If that's the difference, what are the similarities?"

Fernack drew in a deep, hissing breath, and when he spoke his voice was as calm and quiet as a coiled cobra. "The both of you come up with the damnedest answers to things. Things I never knew about or even cared about before. Things I wish I'd never heard of. Things that don't have any explanations. And--" He stopped, his face dark in the screen. Malone wondered what color it was going to turn, and decided on purple as a good choice.

"Well?" Malone said at last.

"And you're always so right it makes me sick," Fernack finished flatly. He rubbed a hand through his hair and stared into the screen at Malone. "How did you know all this stuff?" he said.

Malone waited one full second, while Fernack got darker and darker on the screen. When he judged that the color was right, he said quietly: "I'm prescient. And thanks a lot, John Henry; just send the reports to me personally, at Sixty-ninth Street. By messenger. So long."

He cut the circuit just as Fernack started: "Now, Malone--"

* * * * *

With a satisfied, somewhat sheepish smile, Malone dialed another number. This time a desk sergeant told him politely that Lynch wasn't at the precinct, and wouldn't arrive until noon.

Malone had Lynch's home number. He dialed it.

It was a long wait before the lieutenant answered, and he didn't look much like a police officer when his face finally showed up on the screen. His hair was uncombed and he was unshaven. His eyes were slightly bleary, but he was definitely awake.

"Oh," Malone said. "Hello."

"Hi, there," Lynch said with enormous cheerfulness. "Old buddy-boy. Old pal. Old friend."

"What's wrong?" Malone said.

"Wrong?" Lynch said. "Nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all. I just wanted to thank you for not waking me up last night. I only waited for your call until midnight. Then I decided I just wasn't very important to you. You obviously had much bigger things on your mind."

"As a matter of fact," Malone said, eying Lynch's figure, dressed in a pair of trousers and a T-shirt, speculatively, "you're right."

"That's what I thought," Lynch said. "And I decided that, since you were so terribly busy, it could wait until I woke up. Or even until I got down to the station. How about it--buddy-boy?"

"Listen, Lynch," Malone said, "we made a bet. Ten to one. I just want to know if I can come down to collect or not."

There was a second of silence.

"All right," Lynch said at last, looking crestfallen. "I owe you a buck. Every last one of those kids has skipped out on us."

"Good," Malone said. He wondered briefly just what was good about it, and decided he'd rather have lost the money to Lynch. But facts, he reflected, were facts. Thoroughly nasty facts.

"I spent all night tracing them," Lynch said. "Got nowhere. Nowhere at all. Tell me, Malone, how did you know--"

"Classified," Malone said. "Very classified. But you're sure they're all gone? Vanished?"

Lynch's face reddened. "Sure I'm sure," he said. "Every last one of them is gone. And what more do you want me to do about it?" He paused, then added: "What do you expect, Malone? Miracles?"

Malone shook his head gently. "No," he said. "I--"

"Oh, never mind," Lynch said.

"But I--"

"Look, Malone," Lynch said, "there's a guy who wants to talk to you."

"One of the Silent Spooks?" Malone said hopefully.

Lynch shook his head and made a growling noise. "Don't be silly," he said. "It's just that this guy might have some information--but he won't say anything to me about it. He's a social worker or something like that."

"Social worker?" Malone said. "He works with the kids, right?"

"I guess," Lynch said. "His name's Kettleman. Albert Kettleman."

Malone nodded. "O.K.," he said. "I'll be right over."

"Hey," Lynch said, "hold on. He's not here now. What do you think this is--my house or a reception center?"

"Sorry," Malone said wearily. "Where and when?"

"How about three o'clock at the precinct station?" Lynch said, "I can have him there by then, and you can get together and talk." He paused. "Nobody likes the cops," he said. "People hear the FBI's mixed up in this, and they figure the cops are all second-stringers or something."

"Sorry to hear it," Malone said.

"I'll bet you are," Lynch told him bitterly.

Malone shrugged. "Anyway," he said, "I'll see you at three, right?"

"Right," Lynch said, and Malone flipped off.

He sat there for a few seconds grinning quietly. His brain throbbed like an overheated motor, but he didn't really mind any more. His theory had been justified, and that was the most important thing.

The Silent Spooks were all teleports.

Eight of them--eight kids on the loose, stealing everything they could lay their hands on, and completely safe. How could you catch a boy who just disappeared when you started for him? No wonder their names hadn't appeared on the police blotter, Malone thought.

The Spooks didn't get into trouble.

They didn't have to.

They could get into any place big enough to hold them, take what they wanted and just disappear. They'd been doing it for about eight months, according to the figures Malone had received from Fernack; maybe teleportative ability didn't develop until you were around fourteen or fifteen.

But it had developed in these kids--and they were using it in the most obvious way. They had a sure method of getting away from the cops, and a sure method of taking anything they wanted. No wonder they had so much money.

Malone got up, feeling slightly dazed, and left the hotel.

X.

By three o'clock, he was again among the living. Maybe his occupations had had something to do with it; he'd spent about four hours supervising Operation Dismemberment, and then listening to the reports on the dismantled Cadillacs. It was nice, peaceful, unimportant work, but there just wasn't anything else to do. FBI work was ninety-five per cent marking time, anyway; Malone felt grateful that there was any action at all in what he was doing.

Dr. Leibowitz had found all sorts of things in the commandeered Caddies--everything from guns and narcotics to pornographic pictures in lots of three hundred, for shipment into New York City from the suburbs where the processing plants probably were. Of course, there had been personal effects, too--maps and lucky dolls and, just once, a single crutch.

Malone wondered about that for quite a while. Who'd just walk off and leave one crutch in a car? But people did things like that all the time, he finally told himself heavily. There wasn't any explanation for it, and there probably never would be.

But in spite of the majestic assortment of valuables found in the cars, there was no sign of anything remotely resembling an electro-psionic brain. Dr. Leibowitz had found just about everything--except what he was looking for.

At a quarter of three, Malone gave up. The search wasn't quite finished, but he'd heard enough to last him for a long time. He grabbed a cab downstairs and went over to Lynch's office to meet Kettleman.

The "social worker or something" was a large, balding man about six feet tall. Malone estimated his weight as close to two hundred and fifty pounds, and he looked every pound of it; his face was round without being chubby, and his body was stocky and hard. He wore black-rimmed glasses, and he was going bald in front. His face was like a mask: it was held in a gentle, almost eager expression that Malone would have sworn had nothing to do with the way Kettleman felt underneath.

Lynch performed the introductions, escorted the two of them to one of the interrogation rooms at the rear of the station, and left them there, with: "If either of you guys comes up with anything, let me know," for a parting shot.

Kettleman blinked slowly behind his glasses. "Mr. Malone," he said, "I understand that the FBI is interested in one of the ... ah ... adolescent social groups with which I work."

"Well, the Silent Spooks," Malone said. "--"

"The Spooks," Kettleman said. His voice was rather higher than Malone would have expected, oddly breathy without much depth to it. "My, yes. I did want to talk to somebody about it, and I thought you might be the man."

"I'll be interested in anything you have to say," Malone said diplomatically. He was beginning to doubt whether he'd get any real information out of Kettleman. But it was impossible to tell. He sat back in a hard wooden chair and tried to look fascinated.

"Well," Kettleman said tentatively, "the boys themselves have sort of a word for it. They'd say that there was something ... ah ... 'oddball' about the Spooks. Do you understand? Not just the fact that they never drink liquor, you understand, but--"

"Something strange," Malone said. "Is that what you mean."

"Ah," Kettleman said. "Strange. Of course." He acted, Malone thought, as if he had never heard the word before, and was both pleased and startled by its sound. "Perhaps I had better explain my position a little more clearly," he said. "That will give you an idea of just where I ... ah ... 'fit in' to this picture."

"Whatever you think best," Malone said, resigning himself to a very dull hour. He tried to picture Kettleman in the midst of a gang of juvenile delinquents. It was very hard to do.

"I'm a social worker," Kettleman said, "working on an individual basis with these--social groups that the adolescents have formed. It's my job to make friends with them, become accepted by them, and try to turn their hostile impulses toward society into more useful, more acceptable channels."

"I see," Malone said, feeling that something was expected of him. "That's fine."

"Oh, we don't expect praise, we social workers," Kettleman said instantly. "The worth of a good job well done, that's enough for us." He smiled. The effect was a little unsettling, as if a hippopotamus had begun to laugh like a hyena. "But to continue, Mr. Malone," he said.

"Of course," Malone said. "Certainly."

"I've worked with many of the organizations in this neighborhood," Kettleman said. "And I've been quite successful in getting to know them, and in being accepted by them. Of course, the major part of my job is more difficult, but ... well, I'm sure that's enough about my own background. That isn't what you're interested in, now, is it?"

He looked penitent. Malone said: "It's all right. I don't mind." He shifted positions on the hard chair.

"Well, then," Kettleman said, with the air of a man suddenly getting down to business. He leaned forward eagerly, his eyes big and bright behind the lenses. "There's something very peculiar about those boys," he said in a whisper.

"Really?" Malone said.

"Very peculiar indeed," Kettleman said. "My, yes. All of the other ... ah ... social groups are afraid of them."

"Big, huh?" Malone said. "Big, strong boys who--"

"Oh, my no," Kettleman said. "My goodness, no. All of the Spooks are rather slight, as a matter of fact. They've got something, but it isn't strength."

"My goodness," Malone said tiredly.

"I doubt if--in the language of my own groups--any one of the Spooks could punch his way out of a paper bag," Kettleman said. "It's more than that."

"Frankly," Malone said, "I'm inclined to agree with you. But what is this something that frightens everyone else?"

Kettleman leaned even closer. "I'm not sure," he said softly. "I can't say for certain, Mr. Malone. I've only heard rumors."

"Well," Malone said, "rumors might--"

"Rumors are a very powerful force among my groups, Mr. Malone," Kettleman said. "I've learned, over the years, to keep my ear to the ground, as it were, and pay very close attention to rumors."

"I'm sure," Malone said patiently. "But what did this particular rumor say?"

"Well," Kettleman said, and stopped. "Well," he said again. And at last he gulped and got it out: "Magicians, Mr. Malone. They say the Spooks are magicians--that they can come and go at will. Make themselves invisible. All sorts of things. Of course, I don't believe that, but--"

"Oh, it's quite true," Malone said, solemn-faced.

"It's ... what?"

"Perfectly true," Malone said. "We've known all that."

"Oh, my," Kettleman said. His face took on a whitish cast. "Oh, my goodness," he said. "Isn't that ... isn't that amazing?" He swallowed hard. "True all the time," he said. "Magicians. I--"

"You see, this information isn't new to us," Malone said.

"Oh," Kettleman said. "No. Of course not. My. It's ... rather disconcerting to think about, isn't it?"

"There," Malone said, "I agree with you."

* * * * *

Kettleman fell silent. Malone offered him a cigarette, but the social worker refused with a pale smile, and Malone lit one for himself. He took a couple of puffs in the silence, and then Kettleman said: "Well, Mr. Malone, Lieutenant Lynch did say that I was to tell you everything I could about these boys."

"I'm sure we all appreciate that," Malone said at random, wondering exactly what he meant.

"There is ... well, there is one more thing," Kettleman said. "Ordinarily, of course, I wouldn't say anything about this to anyone. In my line of work, Mr. Malone, you learn the need for confidence. For being able to keep one's word."

"Certainly," Malone said, wondering what startling new fact was on its way now.

"And we certainly try to keep the confidence of the boys," Kettleman said maddeningly. "We wouldn't betray them to the police in any way unless it were absolutely necessary."

"Betray them--? Mr. Kettleman," Malone said, "just what are you trying to tell me?"

"It's about their meeting place," Kettleman said. "Oh, my. I'm not at all sure I ought to tell you this." He wrung his pale fat hands together and looked at Malone appealingly.

"Now, now," Malone said, feeling foolish. "It's perfectly all right. We don't want to hurt the Spooks. Not any more than we have to. You can tell me, Mr. Kettleman."

"Oh," Kettleman said. "Well. I--The Spooks do have a sort of secret meeting place, you know. And they meet there."

He stopped. Malone said: "Where is it?"

"Oh, it's a big empty warehouse," Kettleman said. "I really feel terrible about this. They're meeting there tonight some time, or that's what the rumors say. I shouldn't be telling you--"

"Of course you should," Malone said, trying to sound reassuring. "Don't worry about a thing, Mr. Kettleman. Tonight?"

"That's right," Kettleman said eagerly. He grinned and then looked morosely down at his hands.

"Do you know where this warehouse is?" Malone said. "If any of the other little social groups use it--"

"Oh, no, they don't," Kettleman said. "That's what makes it so funny. You see, the warehouse is deserted, but it's kept in good repair; there are bars on the windows, and it's protected by all sorts of alarm systems and things like that. So none of the others can use it. Only the Spooks. You can't get in without a key, not at all."

"But do the Spooks--" Malone began.

"Oh, no," Kettleman moaned. "They don't have a key. At least, that's what the other ... social groups say. The Spooks just ... just melt through the walls, or something like that."

"Mr. Kettleman," Malone said, "where is this warehouse?"

"I shouldn't be telling you this," Kettleman said.

Malone sighed. "Please. Mr. Kettleman. You know we're working for the good of those boys, don't you?"

"Well, I--"

"Sure we are," Malone said. "So you can tell me."

Kettleman blinked behind his glasses, and moaned a little. Malone waited with his hands tense in his lap. At last Kettleman said: "It's on West Street, near Chambers. That's downtown." He gave Malone an address. "That's where it is," he said. "But you won't ... do anything to the boys, will you? They're basically good boys. No matter what. And they--"

"Don't worry about it, Mr. Kettleman," Malone said. "We'll take care of the Spooks."

"Oh," Kettleman said. "Yes. Sure."

He got up. Malone said: "There's just one more thing, Mr. Kettleman."

"Yes?" The big man's voice had reached the high, breathy pitch of a fife.

[Illustration]

"Do you have any idea what time the Spooks usually meet?"

"Well, now," Kettleman said, "I don't really know. You see, the reason I wanted to tell you all this was because Lieutenant Lynch was checking up on all those boys yesterday, and I thought--" He stopped and cleared his throat, and when he began again his voice had dropped almost to a whisper: "Well, Mr. Malone, I thought, after all, that since he was asking me questions ... you know, questions about where they were, the Spooks I mean, and all of that ... since he was asking me questions--"

"Yes?" Malone said.

"I thought perhaps I ought to tell you about them," Kettleman said. "Where they were, and all of that."

Malone stood up. "Mr. Kettleman," he said in his most official voice, "I want you to know that the FBI appreciates what you've done. Your information will probably be very helpful to us, and the FBI certainly commends you for being public-spirited enough to come to us and tell us what you know." He thought for a second, and then added: "In the name of the FBI, Mr. Kettleman--well done!"

Kettleman stared, smiled and gulped. "My goodness," he said "Well." He smiled again, a little more broadly. "One has one's duty, you know. My, yes. Duty." He nodded to Malone.

"Of course," Malone said, going to the door and opening it. "Thanks again, Mr. Kettleman."

Kettleman saw the open door and headed for it blindly. As he left he flashed one last smile after Malone, who sighed, shut the door and leaned against it for a second.

The things an FBI agent had to go through!

* * * * *

When he had recovered, he opened the door again and peered carefully down the hallway to make sure Kettleman had gone. Then he left the interrogation room and went down the hall, past the desk sergeant, and up the stairs to Lieutenant Lynch's office. He was still breathing a little hard when he opened Lynch's door, and Lynch didn't seem to be expecting him at all. He was very busy with a veritable snow flurry of papers, and he looked as if he had been involved with them steadily ever since he had left Malone and Kettleman alone downstairs.

"Well," Malone said. "Hello there, lieutenant."

Lynch looked up, his face a mask of surprise. "Oh," he said. "It's you. Through with Kettleman?"

"I'm through," Malone said. "As if you didn't know." He looked at Lynch for a long minute, and then said: "Lieutenant--"

Lynch had gone right back to his papers. He looked up again with a bland expression. "Yes?"

"Lieutenant, how reliable is Kettleman?" Malone said.

Lynch shrugged. "He's always been pretty good with the kids, if that's what you mean. You know these social workers--I've never got much information out of him. He feels it's his duty to the kids ... I don't know. Some such thing. Why do you ask?"

"Well," Malone said, "what he told me. Was he kidding me? Or does he know what he's talking about? Was what he said reasonably accurate?"

"How would I know?" Lynch said. "After all, you were down there alone, weren't you? I was up here, working. If you'll tell me what he said, maybe I'll be able to tell you whether or not I think he was kidding. But--"

Malone placed both his palms on the lieutenant's desk, mashing a couple of piles of papers. He leaned forward slowly, his eyes on Lynch's bland, innocent face. "Now look, Lynch," he said. "I like you. I really do. You're a good cop. You get things done."

"Well, thanks," Lynch said. "But I don't see what this has to do with--"

"I just don't want you trying to kid your buddy-boy," Malone said.

"Kid you?" Lynch said. "I don't get it."

"Come on, now," Malone said. "I know that room was bugged, just as well as you do. It was the sensible thing for you to pull, and you pulled it. You've got the whole thing recorded, haven't you?"

"Me?" Lynch said. "Why would I--"

"Oh, cut it out," Malone said impatiently. "Let's not play games, O.K.?"

There was a second of silence.

"All right," Lynch said. "So I recorded the conversation. Kill me. Crucify me. I'm stealing FBI secrets. I'm a spy secretly working for a foreign power. Take me out and electrocute me."

"I don't want to fight you," Malone said wearily. "So you've got the stuff recorded. That's your business."

"My business?"

"Sure," Malone said cheerfully, "as long as you don't try to use it."

"Now, Malone--" Lynch began.

"This is touchy stuff," Malone said. "We're going to have to take a lot of care in handling it. And I don't want you throwing raids all over the place and mixing everything up."

"Malone, I--"

"Eventually," Malone said, "I'm going to need your help with these kids. But for right now, I want to handle this my way, without any interference."

"I wouldn't think of--"

"You wanted information," Malone said. "Fine. That's all right with me. You got the information, and that's O.K., too. But if you try to use it before I say the word, I'll ... I'll talk to good old Uncle John Henry Fernack. And he'll help me out: he'll give you a refresher course on How To Be A Beat Cop. In Kew Gardens. It's nice and lonely out there now, Lynch. You'd love it."

"Malone," Lynch said tiredly.

"Don't give me any arguments," Malone said. "I don't want any arguments."

"I won't argue with you, Malone," Lynch said. "I've been trying to tell you something."

Malone stepped away from the desk. "All right," he said. "Go ahead."

* * * * *

Lynch took a deep breath. "Malone, I'm not trying to queer your pitch," he said. "If I were going to pull a raid, here's what I'd have to do: get my own cops together, then call the precinct that covers that old warehouse. We don't cover the warehouse from here, Malone, and we'd need the responsible precinct's aid in anything we did down there."

Malone said: "Well, all I--"

"Not only that," Lynch said. "I'd have to call Safe and Loft, and get them in on it. A warehouse raid would probably be their baby first of all. That means this precinct, the warehouse precinct, and the Safe and Loft Squad, all together to raid that warehouse. Malone, would I pull a raid at this stage, if I had to go through all that, without knowing what I was going to find down there?"

"Oh," Malone said.

"If those kids can just appear and disappear at will," Lynch said, "I'm not going to pull a raid on them, and end up looking like a fool, until I've got some way of making sure they're there when the raid goes through."

Malone coughed gently. "O.K.," he said at last. "Sorry."

"There's only one thing I want," Lynch said. "I want to be able to move as soon as possible."

"Well, sure," Malone said apologetically.

"And that means I'm going to have to be informed," Lynch said. "I want to know what's going on, as fast as possible."

Malone nodded gently. "Sure," he said. "I'll tell you everything that happens--as soon as I know myself. But right now, I haven't got a thing for you. All I have is a kind of theory, and it's pretty screwy."

He stopped. Lynch looked up at him. "Just how screwy can it get?" he said. "The facts are nutty enough."

"You have absolutely no idea," Malone assured him. "I'm not even saying a word about this, not until I prove it out one way or another. I'm not even thinking about it. I don't even want me to know about it, until it stops sounding so nutty to me."

"O.K., Malone," Lynch said. "I can see a piece of it, if no more. The Fueyo kid vanishes mysteriously--never mind all that about you getting him out of the interrogation room by some kind of confidential method. There isn't any confidential method. I know that better than you do."

"I had to say something, didn't I?" Malone asked apologetically.

"So the kid disappears," Lynch said, brushing Malone's question away with a wave of his hand. "So now I hear all this stuff from Kettleman. And it begins to add up. The kids can disappear somehow, and re-appear some place else. Walk through walls?" He shrugged. "How should I know? But they can sure do something like it."

"Something," Malone said. "Like I said, it sounds screwy."

"I don't like it," Lynch said.

Malone nodded. "Nobody likes it," he said. "But keep it under your hat. I'll give you everything I have--whenever I have anything. And ... by the way--"

"Yes?" Lynch said.

"Thanks for giving me and Kettleman a chance to talk," Malone said. "Even if you had reasons of your own."

"Oh," Lynch said. "You mean the recording."

"I was a little suspicious," Malone said. "I didn't think you'd give Kettleman to me without getting something for yourself."

"Would you?" Lynch said.

Malone shrugged. "I'm not crazy either," he said.

Lynch picked up a handful of papers. "I've got all this work to do," he said. "So I'll see you later."

"O.K.," Malone said.

"And if you need my help, buddy-boy," Lynch said, "just yell--right?"

"I'll yell," Malone said. "Don't worry about that. I'll yell loud enough to get myself heard in Space Station One."

XI.

The afternoon was bright and sunny, but it didn't match Malone's mood. He got a cab outside the precinct station and headed for Sixty-ninth Street, dining off his nails en route. When he hit the FBI Headquarters, he called Washington and got Burris on the line.

He made a full report to the FBI chief, including his wild theory and everything else that had happened. "And there was this notebook," he said, and reached into his jacket pocket for it.

The pocket was empty.

"What notebook?" Burris said.

Malone tried to remember if he'd left the book in his room. He couldn't quite recall. "This book I picked up," he said, and described it. "I'll send it on, or bring it in when the case is over."

"All right," Burris said.

Malone went on with his description of what had happened. When he'd finished, Burris heaved a great sigh.

"My goodness," he said. "Last year it was telepathic spies, and this year it's teleporting thieves. Malone, I hate to think about next year."

"I wish you hadn't said that," Malone said sadly.

Burris blinked. "Why?" he said.

"Oh, just because," Malone said. "I haven't even had time to think about next year, yet. But I'll think about it now."

"Well, maybe it won't be so bad," Burris said.

Malone shook his head. "No, chief," he said. "You're wrong. It'll be worse."

"This is bad enough," Burris said.

"It's a great vacation," Malone said.

"Please," Burris said. "Did I have any idea--"

"Yes," Malone said.

Burris' eyes closed. "All right, Malone," he said after a little pause. "Let's get back to the report. At least it explains the red Cadillac business. Sergeant Jukovsky was hit by a boy who vanished."

"I was hit by a boy who vanished, too," Malone said bitterly. "But, of course, I'm just an FBI agent. Expendable. Nobody cares about--"

"Don't say that, Malone," Burris said. "You're one of my most valuable agents."

Malone tried to stop himself from beaming, but he couldn't. "Well, chief," he began, "I--"

"Vanishing boys," Burris muttered. "What are you going to do with them, Malone?"

"I was hoping you might have some kind of suggestion," Malone said.

"Me?"

"Well," Malone said, "I suppose I'll figure it out--when I catch them. But I did want something from you, chief."

"Any -- alone" Burris said. "Anything at all."

"I want you to get hold of Dr. O'Connor, out at Yucca Flats, if you can. He's the best psionics man Westinghouse has right now, and I might need him."

"If you say so," Burris said doubtfully.

"Well," Malone said, "these kids are teleports. And maybe there's some way to stop a teleport. Give him a good, hard kick in the psi, for instance."

"In the what?"

"Never mind," Malone said savagely. "But if I'm going to get any information on what makes teleports tick, I'm going to have to get it from Dr. O'Connor--right?"

"Right," Burris said.

"So get in touch with Dr. O'Connor," Malone said.

"I'll have him call you," Burris said. "Meanwhile ... well, meanwhile just carry on, Malone. I've got every confidence in you."

"Thanks," Malone growled.

"If anybody can crack a case like this," Burris said, "it's you."

"I suppose it had better be," Malone said, and rang off.

* * * * *

Then he started to think. The notebook wasn't in his pockets. He checked every one, even the jacket pocket where he usually kept a handkerchief and nothing else. It wasn't anywhere on his person.

Had he left it in his room?

He thought about that for several minutes, and finally decided that he hadn't. He hadn't taken it out of his pocket, for one thing, and if it had fallen to the ground he couldn't have helped seeing it. Of course, he'd put his wallet, keys, change and other such items on the dresser, and then replaced them in his pockets when morning had come--but he could remember how they'd looked on the dresser.

The notebook hadn't been there among them.

Now that he came to think of it, when had he seen the notebook last? He'd shown it to Lieutenant Lynch during the afternoon, and then he'd put it back in his pocket, and he hadn't looked for it again.

So it had to be somewhere in one of the bars he'd visited, or at the theater where he and Dorothy had seen "The Hot Seat."

Proud of himself for this careful and complete job of deduction, he strolled out and, giving Boyd and the Agent-in-Charge one small smile each, to remember him by, he went into the sunlight trying to decide which place to check first. He settled on the theater because it was most probable: after all, people were always losing things in theaters. Besides,

he started at the theater, and found the notebook there, he could then go on to a bar to celebrate. If he found the notebook in a bar, he didn't much relish the idea of going on to an empty theater in the middle of the afternoon to celebrate getting the book back.

Shaking his head over this flimsy structure of logic, he headed down to "The Hot Seat." He banged on the lobby doors for a while without any good result, and finally leaned against one of the side doors, which opened. Malone fell through, recovered his balance and found himself facing an old, bewhiskered man with a dustpan, a broom and a surprised expression.

"I'm looking for a notebook," Malone said.

"Try a stationery store, youngster," the old man said. "I thought I'd heard 'em all, but--"

"No," Malone said. "You don't understand."

"I don't have to understand," the old man said. "That's what's so restful about this here job. I just got to sweep up. I don't have to understand nothing. Good-by."

"I'm looking for a notebook I lost here last night," Malone said desperately.

"Oh," the old man said. "Lost and Found. That's different. You come with me."

The old man led Malone in silence to a cave deep in the bowels of the theater, where he went behind a little desk, took up a pencil as if it were a club, held it poised over a sheet of grimy paper, and said: "Name?"

Malone said: "I just want to find a notebook."

"Got to give me your name, youngster," the old man said solemnly. "It's the rules here. After all."

Malone sighed: "Kenneth Malone," he said. "And my address is--"

The old man, fiercely scribbling, looked up. "Wait a minute, can't you?" he said. "I ain't through 'Kenneth' yet." He wrote on, and finally said: "Address?"

"Statler Hilton Hotel," Malone said.

"In Manhattan?" the old man said.

"That's right," Malone said wearily.

"Ah," the old man said. "Tourist, ain't you? Tourists is always losing things. Once it was a big dog. Don't know yet how a dog got into this here theater. Had to feed it for four days before somebody showed up to claim it. Fierce-looking animal. Part bloodhound, part water spaniel."

Fascinated in spite of himself, Malone said: "That's impossible."

"Nothing's impossible," the old man said. "Work for a theater long enough and you find that out. Part bloodhound, I said, and part water spaniel. Should have seen that dog before you start talking about impossibilities. What a strange-looking beast. And then there was the time--"

"About the notebook," Malone said.

"Notebook?" the old man said.

"I lost a notebook," Malone said. "I was hoping that--"

"Description?" the old man said, and poised his pencil again.

Malone heaved a great sigh. "Black plastic," he said. "About so big." He made motions with his hands. "No names or initials on it. But the first page had my name written on it, along with Lieutenant Peter Lynch."

"Who's he?" the old man said.

"He's a cop," Malone said.

"My, my," the old man said. "Valuable notebook, with a cop's name in it and all. You a cop, youngster?"

Malone shook his head.

"Too bad," the old man said obscurely. "I like cops." He stood up. "You said black plastic? Black?"

"That's right," Malone said. "Do you have it here?"

"Got no notebooks at all here, youngster," the old man said. "Empty billfold, three hats, a couple of coats and some pencils. And an umbrella. No dogs tonight, youngster, and no notebooks."

"Oh," Malone said. "Well ... wait a minute."

"What is it, youngster?" the old man said. "I'm busy this time of day. Got to sweep and clean. Got work to do. Not like you tourists."

With difficulty, Malone leashed his temper. "Why did I have to describe the notebook?" he said. "You haven't got any notebooks at all."

"That's right," the old man said cheerfully.

"But you made me describe--"

"That's the rules," the old man said. "And I ain't about to go against the rules. Not for no tourist." He put the pencil down and rose. "Wish you were a cop," he said. "I never met a cop. They don't lose things like people do."

Making a mental note to call up later and talk to the manager, if the notebook hadn't turned up in the meantime, Malone went off to find the bars he had stopped in before the theater.

* * * * *

Saving Topp's for last, he started at the Ad Lib, where a surprised bald man told him they hadn't found a notebook anywhere in the bar for something like six weeks. "Now if you'd been looking for umbrellas," he said, "we could have accommodated you. Got over ten umbrellas downstairs, waiting for their owners. I wonder why people lose so many umbrellas?"

"Maybe they hate rain," Malone said.

"I don't know," the bald man said. "I'm sort of a psychologist--you know, a judge of people. I think it's an unconscious protest against the fetters of a society which is slowly strangling them by--"

Malone said good-by in a hurry and left. His next stop was the Xochitl, the Mexican bar on Forty-sixth Street. He greeted the bartender warmly.

[Illustration]

"Ah," the bartender told him. "You come back. We look for you."

"Look for me?" Malone said. "You mean you found my notebook?"

"Notesbook?" the bartender said.

"A little black plastic book," Malone said, making motions, "about so big. And it----"

"Not find," the bartender said. "You lose him?"

"Sure I lost him," Malone said. "I mean, it. Would I be looking for it if I hadn't lost it?"

"Who knows?" the bartender said, and shrugged.

"But you said you were looking for me," Malone said. "What about?"

"Oh," the bartender said. "I only say that. Make customer feel good, think we miss him. Customers like, so we do. What your name?"

"Pizarro," Malone said disgustedly, and went away.

The last stop was Topp's. Well, he had to find the notebook there. It was the only place the notebook could be. That was logic, and Malone was proud of it. He walked into Topp's trying to remember the bartender's name, and found it just as he walked into the bar.

"Hello, Wally," he said gaily.

The bartender stared at him. "I'm not Wally," he said. "Wally's the other barman. My name's Ray."

"Oh," Malone said, feeling deflated. "Well, I've come about a notebook."

"Yes, sir?" Ray said.

"I lost the notebook here yesterday evening, between six and eight. If you'll just take me to the Lost and Found department--"

"One moment, sir," Ray said, and left him standing at the bar, all alone.

In a few seconds he was back. "I didn't see the notebook myself, sir," he said. "But if Wally picked it up, he'd have turned it over to the maitre d'. Perhaps you'd like to check with him."

"Sure," Malone said. The maitre d' turned out to be a shortish, heavy-set man with large blue eyes, a silver mane and a thin, pencil-line mustache. He was addressed, for no reason Malone was able to discover, as BeeBee.

Ray introduced them. "This gentleman wants to know about a notebook," he told BeeBee.

"Notebook?" BeeBee said.

Malone explained at length. BeeBee nodded in an understanding fashion for some moments and, when Malone had finished, disappeared in search of the Lost and Found. He came back rather quickly, with the disturbing news that no notebook was anywhere in the place.

"It's got to be here," Malone insisted.

"Well," BeeBee said, "it isn't. Maybe you left it some place else. Maybe it's home now."

"It isn't," Malone said. "And I've tried every place else."

"New York's a big city, Mr. Malone," BeeBee said.

Malone sighed. "I've tried every place I've been. The notebook couldn't be somewhere I haven't been. A rolling stone follows its owner." He thought about that. It didn't seem to mean anything, but maybe it had once. There was no way to tell for sure.

He went back to the bar to think things over and figure out his next move. A bourbon-and-soda while thinking seemed the obvious order, and Ray bustled off to get it.

* * * * *

Had he left the notebook on the street somewhere, just dropping it by accident? Malone couldn't quite see that happening. It was, of course, possible--but the possibility was so remote that he decided to try and think of everything else first. There was Dorothy, for instance.

Was it possible that she might have the book?

It was. But, if so, how had she got it?

Malone enumerated possibilities on his fingers. First, he could have dropped it or something like that, and she could have picked it up. But dropping the notebook was a chance he'd eliminated already. It just didn't sound likely.

Besides, if he were going to work on the dropping hypothesis, he might as well start from anywhere, on the assumption that he had dropped it anywhere on the street.

But if he had dropped it--second finger--and Dorothy had picked it up, wouldn't she have given it back?

She would have, Malone decided, unless she actually intended to steal it.

And if she had intended to steal it, she could just as easily have lifted it out of his pocket in the first place. She didn't need to wait for it to fall out conveniently, all by itself.

Third finger: why would she steal the notebook? What good was it to her? And how did she even know he had it?

None of those questions seemed to have any answers. Of course, if she'd been connected with the Silent Spooks in some way, it would explain a little--but somehow Malone couldn't see Dorothy as a Silent Spook.

Malone stared at his ring finger and pinky. He pressed the ring finger down, thinking that perhaps Dorothy had picked the notebook up and just forgotten to give it back. That was possible, even if not likely.

Only it required that notebook dropping out again.

The pinky went down. She might be some sort of a kleptomaniac, Malone thought.

That didn't look very probable.

No, Malone decided, realizing that he had no more fingers left, it was impossible to shake off the feeling that the girl had deliberately taken the book for some definite purpose of her own.

He decided to give her a call.

He took the drink from Ray and slid off the bar stool. Two steps away he remembered one more little fact.

He didn't have her number, and he didn't know anything about where she lived, except that it could be reached by subway. That, Malone told himself morosely, limited things nicely to the five boroughs of New York.

And she'd said she was living with her aunt. Would she have a phone listing under her own name, or would the listing be under her aunt's name--which he also didn't know?

At any rate, he could check listings under Dorothy Francis, he told himself.

He did so.

There were lots and lots of people named Dorothy Francis, in Manhattan and in all the other boroughs.

Malone frowned thoughtfully. I wish somebody would tell me how to get in touch with her, he thought. She might know more about that book than I do.

The thought bothered him. But, to offset it, there was a nice new feeling growing at the back of his mind.

He felt as if he were going to know the answer soon enough.

He felt as if he were going to be lucky again.

In the meantime, he went back to the bar to think some more. He was on his second bourbon-and-soda, still thinking but without any new ideas, when BeeBee tapped him gently on the shoulder.

"Pardon me," the maitre d' said, "but are you English?"

"Am I what?" Malone said, spilling a little of his drink on the bar.

"Are you English?" BeeBee inquired.

"Oh," Malone said. "No. Irish. Very Irish."

"That's nice," BeeBee said.

Malone stared at him. "I think it's fine," he said, "but I'd love to know why you asked me."

"Well," BeeBee said, "I knew you couldn't be American. Not after the phone call. You don't have to hide your nationality here; we're quite accustomed to foreign visitors. And we don't have special prices for tourists."

Malone waited two breaths. "Will you please tell me," he said slowly, "what it is you're talking about?"

"Certainly," BeeBee said with aplomb. "There's a call for you in the upstairs booth. A long-distance call, personal."

"Oh," Malone said. "Who'd know I was--" He stopped, thinking hard. There was no way in the world for anyone to know he was in Topp's. Therefore, nobody could be calling him. "They've got the wrong name," he said decisively.

"Oh, no," BeeBee said. "I heard them quite distinctly. You are Sir Kenneth Malone, aren't you?"

* * * * *

Malone gaped for one long second, and then his mind caught up with the facts. "Oh," he said. "Sure." He raced upstairs to the phone booth, said: "This is Sir Kenneth Malone," into the blank screen, and waited patiently.

After a while an operator said: "Person to person call, Sir Kenneth, from Yucca Flats. Will you take this call?"

"I'll take it," Malone said. A face appeared on the screen, and Malone knew he was right. He knew exactly how he'd been located, and by whom.

Looking at the face in the screen alone, it might have been thought that the woman who appeared there was somebody's grandmother, kindly, red-cheeked and twinkle-eyed. Perhaps that wasn't the only stereotype; she could have been an old-maid schoolteacher, one of the kindly schoolteachers who taught, once upon a time that never was, in the little old red schoolhouses of the dim past. The face positively radiated kindliness, and friendship, and peace.

But if the face was the face of a sentimental dream, the garb was the garb of royalty. Somebody's grandmother was on her way to a costume party. She wore the full court costume of the days of Queen Elizabeth I, complete with brocaded velvet gown, wide ruff collar and bejeweled skullcap.

She was, Malone knew, completely insane.

Like all the other telepaths Malone and the rest of the FBI had found during their work in uncovering a telepathic spy, she had been located in an insane asylum. Months of extensive psychotherapy, including all the newest techniques and some so old that psychiatrists were a little afraid to use them, had done absolutely nothing to shake the firmest conviction in the mind of Miss Rose Thompson.

She was, she insisted, Elizabeth Tudor, rightful Queen of England.

She claimed she was immortal--which was not true. She also claimed to be a telepath. This was perfectly accurate. It had been her help that had enabled Malone to find the telepathic spy, and a grateful government had rewarded her.

It had given her a special expense allotment for life, covering the clothing she wore, and the style in which she lived. Rooms had been set aside for her at Yucca Flats, and she held court there, sometimes being treated by psychiatrists and sometimes helping Dr. Thomas O'Connor in his experiments and in the development of new psionic machines.

She was probably the happiest psychotic on Earth.

Malone stared at her. For a second he could think of nothing to say but: "My God." He said it.

"Not at all, Sir Kenneth," the little old lady said. "Your Queen."

Malone took a deep breath. "Good afternoon, Your Majesty," he said.

"Good afternoon, Sir Kenneth," she said, and waited. After a second Malone figured out what she was waiting for.

He inclined his head in as courtly a bow as he could manage over a visiphone. "I am deeply honored," he said, "that Your Majesty has called on me. Is there any way in which I might be of service?"

"Oh, goodness me, no," said the little old lady. "I don't need a thing. They do one very well here in Yucca Flats. You must come out soon and see my new throne room. I've had the decorations done by ... but I can see you're not interested in that, Sir Kenneth."

"But--" Malone realized it was useless to argue with the old lady. She was telepathic, and knew exactly what he was thinking. That, after all, was how he had been located; she had mentally "hunted" for him until she found him.

But why?

"I'll tell you why, Sir Kenneth," the little old lady said. "I'm worried about you."

"Worried? About me, Your Majesty?"

"Certainly," the little old lady said, inclining her head just the proper number of degrees, and raising it again. "You, Sir Kenneth, and that silly little notebook you lost. You've been stewing about it for the last hour."

It was obvious that, for reasons of her own, the Queen had seen fit to look into Malone's mind. She'd found him worrying, and called him about it. It was, Malone thought, sweet of her in a way. But it was also just a bit disconcerting.

He was perfectly well aware that the Queen could read his mind at any distance. But unless something reminded him of the fact, he didn't have to think about it.

And he didn't like to think about it.

"Don't be disturbed," the Queen said. "Please. I only want to help you, Sir Kenneth; you know that."

"Well, of course I do," Malone said. "But--"

"Heavens to Betsy," she said. "Sir Kenneth, what kind of a detective are you?"

"What?" Malone said, and added at once: "Your Majesty." He knew perfectly well, of course, that Miss Thompson was not Queen Elizabeth I--and he knew that Miss Thompson knew what he thought.

But she didn't mind. Politeness, she held, was the act of being pleasant on the surface, no matter what a person really thought. People were polite to their bosses, she pointed out, even though they were perfectly sure that they could do a better job than the bosses were doing.

So she insisted on the surface pretense that Malone was going through, treating her like a Queen.

The psychiatrists had called her delusion a beautifully rationalized one. As far as Malone was concerned, it made more sense than most of real life.

* * * * *

"That's very nice of you, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said. "But I want to ask you again: what kind of detective are you? Haven't you got any common sense at all?"

Malone hated to admit it, but he had always had just that suspicion. After all, he wasn't a very good detective. He was just lucky. His luck had enabled him to break a lot of tough cases. But some day people would find out, and then--

"Well," the Queen said, "at the very least you ought to act like a detective." She sniffed audibly. "Sir Kenneth, I'm ashamed that a member of My Own FBI can't do any better than you're doing now."

Malone blinked into the screen. He did feel ashamed in a vague sort of way, and he was willing to admit it. But he did feel, wistfully, that it would be nice to know just what he was being ashamed of. "Have I been missing something?" he said.

"Outside of the obvious," the Queen said, "that you've been missing your notebook--or, rather, Mike Fueyo's notebook."

"Yes?" Malone said.

"You certainly have," the Queen said. "Don't you see what happened to that notebook? You've been missing the only possible explanation."

"All I can figure," Malone said, "is that Dorothy Francis picked my pocket."

"Exactly," the Queen said. "Now, if you'd only wear proper clothing, and a proper pouch at your belt--"

"I'd be stared at," Malone said. "In court clothing--"

"No one in New York would stare at you," the Queen said. "They'd think it was what they call an advertising stunt."

"Anyhow," Malone said, "I wasn't wearing court clothing. So that made it easy for her to steal the notebook."

Her Majesty gave him a bright smile. "There!" she said.

"There, what?" Malone said.

"I knew you could do it," the Queen said. "All you had to do was apply your intelligence and you'd come up with just the fact you needed."

"What fact?" Malone said.

"That Miss Francis has your notebook," the Queen said. "You just told me."

"All right," Malone said, and stopped, and took a deep breath. After a pause he said: "What is that supposed to mean? What on Earth would she want with it? Just to look at all the pretty pictures?"

"Don't be silly," the Queen said, with some asperity. "She doesn't even want to look at the thing. She doesn't care what's in it."

Malone closed his eyes. "Riddle time," he murmured. "Great." Then he sighed. "O.K.," he said. "What does she want with it? She must have some use for it. She isn't just a kleptomaniac or something--is she?"

"Of course not," the Queen said.

"Then she has a reason," Malone said. "Fine. But what is it? Is she an auxiliary member of the Silent Spooks, or something like that? Don't tell me she's Mike Fueyo's girl friend. I don't think I could take that. It's too silly."

"Naturally it's silly! Sir Kenneth, I--" She stopped, and her face lit up suddenly with pleasure. "Now you're on the right track!" she said. "You just keep right on with that line of thought."

Malone blinked in awe. "You mean she's--"

He didn't want to say it. But the evidence was all there. Dorothy's appearance at the station. The remark Mrs. Fueyo had made when he went to the apartment.

It all fit.

"That's right," the Queen said, a little sadly. "She's Dorothea Francisca Fueyo--little Miguel Fueyo's older sister."

XII.

[Illustration]

Malone put in a great deal of time, he imagined, just staring at the face of the little old lady in the screen. At last he said: "Her name is Fueyo!"

"I've told you so," the Queen said with some asperity.

"I know," Malone said. "But--"

"You're excited," the Queen said. "You're stunned. Goodness, you don't need to tell me that, Sir Kenneth. I know."

"But she's--" Malone discovered that he couldn't talk. He swallowed a couple of times and then went on. "She's Mike Fueyo's sister."

"That's exactly right, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said.

"Then she ... swiped the book to protect her little brother," Malone said. "Oh, boy."

"Exactly, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said.

"And she doesn't care about me at all," Malone said. "I mean, she only went out with me because I was me. Malone. And she wanted the notebook. That was all there was to it."

"I wouldn't say that, if I were you," she went on. "Quite the contrary. She does like you, you know. And she thinks you're a very nice person." The Queen beamed. "You are, you know," she said.

"Oh," Malone said uncomfortably. "Sure."

"You don't have to think that she merely went out with you because of her brother's notebook," the Queen said. "But she does have a strong sense of loyalty--and he is her younger brother, after all."

"He sure is," Malone said. "He's a great kid, little Mike."

"You see," the Queen continued imperturbably, "Mike told her about losing the notebook the other night--when he struck you."

"When he struck me," Malone said. "Oh, yes. He struck me all right."

"He guessed that you must have it when you started asking questions about the Silent Spooks, you see," the Queen said. "That was the only way you could have found out about him--unless you were telepathic. Which, of course, you're not."

"No," Malone said.

"Now, understand me," the Queen said. "I do not think that his striking you was a very nice act."

[Illustration]

"I don't either," Malone said. "It hurt like ... it hurt quite a lot."

"Certainly," the Queen said. "But, then, he didn't hurt the car any, and he didn't want to. He just wanted to ride around in it for a while."

"He likes red Cadillacs," Malone said.

"Oh, yes," the Queen said. "He thinks they're wonderful."

"Good for

" Malone said sourly.

"Well, now

he Queen said. "You just go right on over to her house. Of course, she doesn't live with an aunt."

"No," Malone said. "She lives with Mike and his mother."

"Why not?" the Queen said. "She's part of the family."

Malone nodded silently.

"She'll give you the book, Sir Kenneth. I just know that she will. And I want you to be very nice to her when you ask for it. She's a very nice girl, you know."

"She's a swell girl," Malone said morosely. "And I'll ... hey. Wait a minute."

"Yes, Sir Kenneth?"

"How come you can read her thoughts?" Malone said. "And Mike's? I thought you had to know somebody pretty well before you could read them at a distance like this. Do you? Know them, I mean."

"Oh, no," the Queen said. "But I can read you, of course." Malone could see that the Queen was trying very hard not to look proud of herself. "And last night," she went on, "you two were ... well, Sir Kenneth, you had a real rapport with each other. My goodness, yes."

"Well," Malone said, "we--"

"Don't explain, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said. "It really isn't necessary; I thought it was very sweet. And--in any case--I can pick her up now. Because of that rapport. Not quite as well as I can pick you up, but enough to get the strong surface thoughts."

"Oh," Malone said. "But Mike--"

"I can't pick him up at all, this far away," the Queen said. "There is just a faint touch of him, though, through the girl. But all I know about him is what she thinks." She smiled gently. "He's a nice boy, basically," she said.

"Sure he is," Malone said. "He's got a nice blackjack, too--basically." He grimaced. "Were you reading my mind all last night?" he said.

"Well," the Queen said, "no. Toward morning you were getting so fuzzy I just didn't bother."

"I can understand that," Malone said. "I nearly didn't bother myself."

The Queen nodded. "But toward afternoon," she said, "I didn't have anything to do, so I just listened in. You do have such a nice mind, Sir Kenneth--so refreshing and different. Especially when you're in love."

Malone blushed quietly.

"Oh, I know," the Queen said. "You'd much rather think of yourself as a sort of apprentice lecher, a kind of cynical Don Juan, but--"

"I know," Malone said. "Don't tell me about it. All right?"

"Of course, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said, "if you wish it."

"Basically, I'm a nice boy," Malone said. "Sure I am." He paused. "Do you have any more pertinent information, Your Majesty?"

"Not right now," the Queen admitted. "But if I do, I'll let you know." She giggled. "You know, I had to argue awfully hard with Dr. Hatterer to get to use the telephone," she said.

"I'll bet," Malone said.

"But I did manage," she said, and winked. "I won't have that sort of trouble again."

Malone wondered briefly what dark secret Dr. Hatterer had, that Her Majesty had discovered in his mind and used to blackmail him with. At last he decided that it was probably none of his business, and didn't matter too much anyway.

"Quite right, Sir Kenneth," the Queen said. "And good-bye for now."

"Good-bye, Your Majesty," Malone said. He bowed again, and flipped off the phone. Bowing in a phone booth wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do, he thought to himself. But somehow he had managed it.

* * * * *

He reached into his pocket--half-convinced, for one second, that it was an Elizabethan belt-pouch. Talks with Her Majesty always had that effect; after a time, Malone came to believe in her strange, bright world. But he shook off the lingering effects of her psychosis, fished out some coins and thought for a minute.

So Dorothy--Dorothea--had lifted the notebook. That was some help, certainly. It let him know something more about the enemy he was facing. But it wasn't really a lot of help.

What did he do now?

Her Majesty had suggested going to the Fueyo house, collaring the girl--but treating her nicely, Malone reminded himself--and demanding the book back. She'd even said he would get the book back--and, since she knew some of what went on in Dorothea Fueyo's mind, she was probably right.

But what good was that going to do him?

He knew what was in the book. Getting it back was something that could wait. It didn't sound particularly profitable and it didn't even sound like fun.

What he needed was a next move. He thought for a minute, dropped the coins into the phone and dialed the number of the police commissioner's office. After a brief argument with a secretary, he had Fernack on the phone. And this time, Malone told himself, he was going to be polite.

If possible.

"Good afternoon, John Henry," he said sunnily, when the commissioner's face was finally on the screen. "Can you get me some more information?"

Fernack stared at him sourly. "Depends," he said.

"On what?" Malone said, telling himself he wasn't going to get irritated, and knowing perfectly well that he was lying.

"On what kind of information you want," Fernack said.

"Well," Malone said, "there's a warehouse I want to know some more about. Who the owner is, for one thing, and--"

Fernack nodded. "I've got it," he said. He fished, apparently on his desk, and brought up a sheet of paper. He held it up to the screen while Malone copied off the name and address. "Lieutenant Lynch told me all about it."

"Lynch?" Malone said. "But he--"

"Lynch works for me, Malone," Fernack said. "Remember that."

"But he said he'd--"

"He said he wouldn't do anything, and he won't," Fernack said. "He just reported it to me for my action. He knew I was working with you, Malone. And I am his boss, remember."

"Great." Malone said. "Now, John Henry--"

"Hold it, Malone," Fernack said. "I'd like a little information, too, you know. I'd like to know just what is going on, if it isn't too much trouble."

"It's not that. John Henry," Malone said earnestly. "Really. It's just that I--"

"All this about vanishing boys," Fernack said. "Disappearing into thin air. All this nonsense."

"It isn't nonsense," Malone said.

"All right," Fernack said indulgently. "Boys disappear every day like that. Sure they do." He leaned toward the screen and his voice was as hard as his face. "Malone, are these kids mixed up with those impossible robberies you had me looking up?"

"Well," Malone said, "I think so. But I doubt if you could prove it."

Fernack's face had begun its slow climb toward purple again. "Malone," he said, "if you're suppressing evidence, even if you are the FBI, I'll--"

"I'm not suppressing any evidence," Malone said. "I don't think you could prove a connection. I don't think I could prove a connection. I don't think anybody could--not right now."

Fernack leaned back, apparently mollified.

"John Henry," Malone said, "I want to ask you to keep your hands off this case. To let me handle it my way."

Fernack nodded absently. "Sure, Malone," he said.

"What?"

"I said sure," Fernack said. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

"Well, yes," Malone said, "but--"

Fernack leaned all the way back in his chair, his face a mask of disappointment and frustration. "Malone," he said, "I wish I'd never heard of this case. I wish I'd been retired or died before it ever came up. I've been a police officer in New York for a long time, and I wish this case had waited a few more years to happen."

He stopped. Malone leaned against the back wall of the phone booth and lit a cigarette.

"Andy Burris called me less than half an hour ago," Fernack said.

"Oh," Malone said.

"That's right," Fernack said. "Good old Burris of the FBI. And he told me this was a National Security case. National Security. It's your baby, Malone, because Burris wants it that way." He snorted. "So don't worry about me," he said. "I'm just here to co-operate. The patriotic, loyal, dumb slave of a grateful government."

Malone blew out a plume of smoke. "You know, John Henry," he said, "you might have made a good FBI man yourself. You've got the right attitude."

"Never mind the jokes," Fernack said bitterly.

"O.K.," Malone said. "But tell me: Did you actually make arrangements for me to get into that warehouse? I suppose you know that's what I want."

"I guessed that much," Fernack said. "I haven't made any arrangements at all yet, but I will. I'll have Safe and Loft get the keys, and a full set of floor plans to the place while they're at it. Will that do, Your Majesty?"

Malone choked on his smoke and shot a quick look over his shoulder. There was nothing there but the wall of the booth. Queen Elizabeth I was nowhere in evidence. Then he realized that Fernack had been talking to him.

"Don't do that," he said.

"What?" Fernack said.

Malone realized in one awful second how strange the explanation was going to sound. Could he say that he thought he'd been mistaken for an old friend of his, Elizabeth Tudor? Could he say that he'd just had a call from her?

In the end he merely said: "Nothing," and let it go at that.

"Well, anyhow," Fernack said, "do you want anything else?"

"Not right now," Malone said. "I'll let you know, though. And--thanks, John Henry. No matter why you're doing this, thanks."

"I don't deserve 'em." Fernack muttered. "And I hope you get caught in some kind of deadfall and have to come screaming to the cops."

That, Malone reflected, was the second time a cop had suggested his yelling if he got into trouble.

Hadn't the police force ever heard of telephones?

He said good-by and flipped off.

Then he stared at the screen for a little while, as his cigarette burned down between his fingers. At last he put the cigarette out and went downstairs again to the bar.

If he had to do some heavy thinking, he told himself, there was absolutely no reason why he couldn't enjoy himself a little while doing it.

* * * * *

The evening rush had begun, and Malone found himself a stool by the simple expedient of slipping into one while a drinker's back was turned. Once ensconced, he huddled himself up like an old drunk, thus effectively cutting himself off from interruptions, and lit another cigarette. Ray was down at the other end of the bar, chatting with a red-headed woman and her pale, bald escort. Malone sighed and set himself to the job of serious, constructive thinking.

How, he asked himself, do you go about catching a person who can vanish away like so much smoke?

Well, Malone could think of one solution, but it was pretty bloody. Nailing the kids to a wall would probably work, but he couldn't say much else for it. There had to be another way out. For some reason Malone just couldn't see himself with a mouthful of nails, a hammer and a teen-ager.

It sounded just a little too messy.

Then, of course, there were handcuffs.

That sounded a little better. The trouble was that Malone simply didn't have enough information, and knew it. Obviously, the kids could carry stuff with them when they teleported; the stuff they stole proved that. And their clothes, Malone added. Apparently the kids didn't arrive at wherever they went stark staring naked.

But how close to a teleport did the things he carried have to be?

In other words. Malone thought, if you put handcuffs on a teleport, would the handcuffs vanish when the teleport did? And did that include the part of the cuff you were holding?

What happened if you snapped half the cuff around your own wrist first? Did you go along with the teleport? Or did your wrist go, while you stayed behind and wondered how long it would take to bleed to death?

Or what?

All the questions were intriguing ones. Malone sighed, wishing he knew the answer to even one of them.

It was somewhat comforting to think that he'd managed to progress a little, anyway. The kids hadn't meant anybody to find out about them--but Malone had found out about them, and alerted all the cops in town, as well as the rest of the FBI. He knew just who they were, and where they lived, and how they performed the "miracles" they performed.

Anyhow, he knew something about that last item.

He even knew who had his notebook.

He tabled that thought, and went back to feeling victorious. Within a few seconds, the sense of achievement was gone, and futility had come in its place. After all, he still didn't know how to catch the kids, did he?

No.

He thought about handcuffs some more and then gave up. He'd just have to try it and see how it worked. And if the teleports took his wrist away he'd ... he'd ... he'd go after them and make them give it back.

Sure he would.

That reminded him of the notebook again, and, since the thing was being so persistent, he decided he might as well pay some attention to it.

Dorothea had the notebook. Malone tried to see himself barging in on her and asking for it, and he didn't care for the picture at all--no matter how Good Queen Bess felt about it.

After all, she thought Mike Fueyo was basically a nice kid.

So what did she know?

He closed his eyes. There he was, in the Fueyo apartment, talking to Dorothea.

"Dorothea," he muttered. "You filched my notebook."

That didn't sound very effective. And besides, it wasn't really his notebook. He tried again.

"Dorothea, you pinched your brother's notebook."

Now, for some reason, it sounded like something covered by the Vice Squad. It sounded terrible. But there were other ways of saying the same thing.

"Dorothea," he muttered, "you borrowed your brother's notebook."

That was too patronizing. Malone told himself that he sounded like a character straight out of the 3-D screens, and settled himself gamely for another try.

"Dorothea, you have your brother's notebook."

To which the obvious answer was: "Yes, I do, and so what?"

Or, possibly: "How do you know?"

And Malone thought about answering that one. "Queen Elizabeth told me," was the literal truth, but somehow it didn't sound like it. And he couldn't find another answer to give the girl.

"Dorothea," he said, and a voice from nowhere added:

"Will you have another drink?"

Malone exploded, "That's not the question. Drinks have nothing to do with notebooks. I'm after notebooks. Can't you understand--" Belatedly, he looked up.

There was Ray, the barman.

"Oh," he said.

"I just came over," Ray said. "And I figured if you couldn't find your notebook, maybe you'd like a drink. So long as you're here."

"Ray," Malone said with feeling, "you are an eminently reasonable fellow. I accept your solution. Nay, more. I endorse your solution. Wholeheartedly."

Ray went off to mix, and Malone stared after him happily. This was really a nice place, he reflected--almost as nice as the City Hall Bar in Chicago where he'd gone long ago with his father.

But he tore his mind away from the happy past and concentrated, instead, on the miserable present. He decided for the last time that he was not going to ask Dorothea for the book--not just yet, anyhow. After all, it wasn't as if he needed the book; he knew his own name, and he knew Lynch's name, and he knew the names on the second page. And he didn't see any particular need for a picture of a red Cadillac, no matter how nicely colored it was.

So, he asked himself, why embarrass everybody by trying to get it back?

Of course, it was technically a crime to pick pockets, and that went double or triple for the pockets of FBI agents. But Malone told himself that he didn't feel like pressing charges, anyhow. And Dorothy probably didn't make a habit of pocket-picking.

He sighed and glanced at his watch. It was fifteen minutes of six.

Now, he knew what his next move was going to be.

He was going to go back to his hotel and change his clothes.

That is, he amended, as soon as he finished the drink that Ray was setting up in front of him.

XIII.

By the time Malone reached the Statler Hilton Hotel it was six-twenty. Malone hadn't reckoned with New York's rush-hour traffic, and, after seeing it, he still didn't believe it. Finding a cab had been impossible, and he had started for the subway, hoping that he wouldn't get lost and end up somewhere in Brooklyn.

But one look at the shrieking mob trying to sardine itself into the Seventh Avenue subway entrance had convinced him it was better to walk. Bucking the street crowds was bad enough. Bucking the subway crowds was something Malone didn't even want to think about.

He let himself into his room, and was taking off his shoes with a grateful sigh when there was a rap on the door of the bathroom that connected his room with Boyd's. Malone padded over to the door, his shoes in one hand. "Tom?" he said.

[Illustration]

"You were expecting maybe Titus Moody?" Boyd called.

"O.K.," Malone said. "Come on in."

Boyd pushed open the door. He was stripped to the waist, a state of dress which showed the largest expanse of chest Malone had ever seen, and he was carrying the small scissors which he used to trim his Henry VIII beard. He stabbed the scissors toward Malone, who shuffled back hurriedly.

"Listen," Boyd said, "did you call the office after you left this afternoon?"

"No," Malone admitted. "Why? What happened?"

"There was a call for you," Boyd said. "Long Distance, just before I left at five. I came on back to the hotel and waited until I heard you come in. Thought you might want to know about it."

"I do, I guess," Malone said. "Who from?" Looking at Boyd, a modern-day Henry VIII, the association was too obvious to be missed. Malone thought of Good Queen Bess, and wondered why she was calling him again.

And--more surprising--why she'd called him at FBI headquarters, when she must have known that he wasn't there.

"Dr. O'Connor," Boyd said.

"Oh," Malone said, somewhat relieved. "At Yucca Flats."

Boyd nodded. "Right," he said. "You're to call Operator Nine."

"Thanks." Malone went over to the phone, remembered his shoes and put them down carefully on the floor. "Anything else of importance?" he asked.

"On the Cadillacs," Boyd said. "We've got a final report now. Leibowitz and Hardin finally finished checking the last of them--there weren't quite as many as we were afraid there were going to be. Red wasn't a very popular color around here."

"Good," Malone said.

"And there isn't a doggone thing on any of 'em," Boyd said. "Oh, we cleared up a lot of small-time crime, one thing and another, but that's about all. No such thing as an electro-psionic brain to be found anywhere in the lot. Leibowitz says he's willing to swear to it."

Malone sighed. "I didn't think he'd find one," he said.

"You didn't?"

"No," Malone said.

Boyd stabbed at him with the scissors again. "Then why did you cause all that trouble?" he said.

"Because I thought we might find electro-psionic brains," Malone said wearily. "Or one, anyhow."

"But you just said--"

Malone picked up the phone, got Long Distance and motioned Boyd to silence in one sweeping series of moves. The Long Distance Operator said: "Yes, sir? May we help you?"

"Give me Operator Nine," Malone said.

There was a buzz, a click and a new voice which said: "Operator Ni-yun. May we help you?"

"All nine of you?" Malone muttered. "Never mind. This is Kenneth Malone. I've got a call from Dr. Thomas O'Connor at Yucca Flats. Please connect me."

There was another buzz, a click and an ungodly howl which was followed by the voice of Operator Ni-yun saying: "We are connecting you. There will be a slight delay. We are sor-ree."

Malone waited. At last there was another small howl, and the screen lit up. Dr. O'Connor's face, as stern and ascetic as ever, stared through at Malone.

"I understand you called me," Malone said.

"Ah, yes," Dr. O'Connor said. "It's very good to see you again, Mr. Malone." He gave Malone a smile good for exchange at your corner grocery: worth, one icicle.

"It's good to see you, too," Malone lied.

"Mr. Burris explained to me what it was that you wanted to talk to me about," O'Connor said. "Am I to understand that you have actually found a teleport?"

"Unless my theories are away off," Malone said, "I've done a lot better than that. I've found eight of them."

"Eight!" Dr. O'Connor's smile grew perceptibly warmed. It now stood at about thirty-four degrees Fahrenheit. "That is really excellent, Mr. Malone. You have done a fine job."

"Thanks," Malone muttered. He wished that O'Connor didn't make him feel quite so much like a first-year law student talking to an egomaniacal professor.

"When can you deliver them?" O'Connor said.

"Well," Malone said carefully, "that depends." O'Connor seemed to view the teleports as pieces of equipment, he thought. "I can't deliver them until I catch them," he said. "And that's why I wanted to talk to you."

"Some slight delay," Dr. O'Connor said, "will be quite understandable." His face left no doubt that he didn't like the necessity of understanding anything that was going to keep him and the eight teleports apart for even thirty seconds longer, now that he knew about them.

"You see," Malone said, "they're kids. Juvenile delinquents, or something like that. But they are teleports, that's for sure."

"I see," Dr. O'Connor said.

"So we've got to nab them," Malone said. "And for that I need all the information I can get."

Dr. O'Connor nodded slowly. "I'll be happy," he said, "to give you any information I can provide."

* * * * *

Malone took a deep breath, and plunged. "How does this teleportation bit work, anyhow?" he said.

"You've asked a very delicate question," Dr. O'Connor said. "Actually, we can't be quite positive." His expression showed just how little he wanted to make this admission. "However," he went on, brightening, "there is some evidence which seems to show that it is basically the same process as psychokinesis. And we do have quite a bit of empirical data on psychokinesis." He scribbled something on a sheet of paper and said: "For instance, there's this." He held the paper up to the screen so that Malone could read it.

It said:

md ----- = K ft2

Malone looked at it for some seconds. At last he said: "It's very pretty. What is it?"

"This," Dr. O'Connor said, in the tone of voice that meant You Should Have Known All Along, But You're Just Hopeless, "is the basic formula for the phenomenon, where m is the mass in grams, d is the distance in centimeters, f is the force in dynes and t is the time in seconds. K is a constant whose value is not yet known."

Malone said: "Hm-m-m," and stared at the equation again. Somehow, the explanation was not very helpful. The value of K was unknown. He understood that much, all right but it didn't seem to do him any good.

"As you can see," Dr. O'Connor went on, "the greater the force, and the longer time it is applied, the greater distance any mass can be moved. Or, contra

se, the more mass, the greater mass, that is, the easier it is to move it any given distance. This is, as you undoubtedly understand, not at all in contradistinction to physical phenomena."

"Ah," Malone said, feeling that something was expected of him, but not being quite sure what.

Dr. O'Connor frowned. "I must admit," he said, "that the uncertainty as to the constant k, and the lack of any real knowledge as to just what kind of force is being applied, have held up our work so far." Then his face smoothed out. "Of course, when we have the teleports to work with, we may derive a full set of laws which--"

"Never mind that now," Malone said.

"But our work is most important, Mr. Malone," Dr. O'Connor said with a motion of his eyebrows. "As I'm sure you must understand."

"Oh," Malone said, feeling as if he'd been caught without his homework, "of course. But if you don't mind--"

"Yes, Mr. Malone?" Dr. O'Connor said smoothly.

"What I want to know," Malone said, "is this: what are the limitations of this ... uh ... phenomenon?"

Dr. O'Connor brightened visibly. "The limitations are several," he said. "In the first place, there is the force represented by f in the equation. This seems to be entirely dependent on the ... ah ... strength of the subject's personality. That is if we assume that the process is at all parallel with the phenomena of psychokinesis and levitation. And there are excellent theoretical reasons for so believing."

"In other words," Malone said, "a man with a strong will would be able to exert more force than a weaker-willed man?"

"Correct," Dr. O'Connor said. "And another factor is the time, t. What we are measuring here is the span of attention of the individual--the ability of the subject's mind to concentrate on a given thing for a span of time. Many people, for example, cannot keep their attention focused on a single thought for more than a few milliseconds, it seems. They are ... ah ... 'scatter-brained,' as the saying is."

His expression left no doubt that he included Malone in that group. Malone tried not to look nervous.

Then Dr. O'Connor scowled. "There is another factor which we feel should be in the equation," he said, "but we have not yet found a precise way to express it mathematically. You must realize that the mathematical treatment of psionics is, as yet, in a relatively primitive stage."

"Oh," Malone said. "Of course. Sure. But this other factor--"

"It is what might be called the ... ah ... volume of attention," Dr. O'Connor said. "That is, the actual amount of space that can be conceived of and held by the subject, during the time he is concentrating."

Malone blinked.

"For most people," Dr. O'Connor said, "the awareness of the space surrounding them is limited to a few inches of moving space, no more. To put this in a purely physical matrix: one might say that the 'teleportation field' doesn't extend more than a few inches beyond the skin of the subject. Thus, it would be difficult to teleport anything really large unless one were able to increase the volume of attention, or awareness. However, it is difficult to express this notion mathematically."

"I'll bet," Malone said.

* * * * *

Dr. O'Connor shot him a frozen glance. "One of our early attempts," he said, "was simply to put this in as a volume factor, so that the left-hand side of the equation, below the line, would read--" He scribbled again on the paper and held it up:

m d ---- = K d3ft2

"Unfortunately, as you can perhaps see," Dr. O'Connor said, "the equation would not stand up under dimensional analysis."

"Oh, sure," Malone said, adding sympathetically: "That's too bad. But does that put a limit on how much a man could carry with him? I mean, he couldn't take a whole building along, or anything like that, could he?"

"I doubt it," Dr. O'Connor said gravely. "That would require a tremendous volume of space for one to focus his entire attention on, as a whole, for any useful length of time. It would require a type of mind that I am not even sure exists."

"In the case of a young, inexperienced boy," Malone said stubbornly, "would you say that he could carry off anything heavy?"

"Of course not," Dr. O'Connor said. "Nor, as a matter of fact, could he carry off anything that was securely bolted down; I hope you follow me?"

"I think so," Malone said. "But look here: suppose you handcuffed him to, say, a radiator or a jail cell bar."

"Yes?"

"Could he get away?"

Dr. O'Connor appeared to consider this with some care. "Well," he said at last, "he certainly couldn't take the radiator with him, or the cell bar. If that's what you mean." He hesitated, looked slightly shamefaced, and then went on: "But you must realize that we lack any really extensive data on this phenomenon."

"Of course," Malone said.

"That's why I'm so very anxious to get those subjects," Dr. O'Connor said.

"Dr. O'Connor," Malone said earnestly, "that's just what I had in mind from the start. I've been going to a lot of extra trouble to make sure that those kids don't get killed or end up in reform schools or something, just so you could work with them."

"I appreciate that, Mr. Malone," O'Connor said gravely.

Malone felt as if someone had given him a gold star. Fighting down the emotion, he went on: "I know right now that I can catch one or two of them. But I don't know for sure that I can hold one for more than a fraction of a second."

"I see your problem," Dr. O'Connor said. "Believe me, Mr. Malone. I do see your problem."

"And is there a way out?" Malone said. "I mean a way I can hold on to them for--"

"At present," Dr. O'Connor said heavily, "I have no suggestions. I lack data."

"Oh, fine," Malone said. "We need the kids to get the data, and we need the data to get the kids." He sighed. "Hooray for our side," he added.

"There does appear to be something of a dilemma here," Dr. O'Connor admitted sadly.

"Dilemma is putting it mildly," Malone said.

Dr. O'Connor opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again and said: "I agree."

"Well," Malone said, "maybe one of us will think of something. If anything does occur to you, let me know at once."

"I certainly will," Dr. O'Connor said. "Believe me, Mr. Malone, I want you to capture those--kids--just as badly as you want to capture them yourself."

"I'll try," Malone said at random. He flipped off and turned with a sense of relief back to Boyd. But it looked as if Henry VIII had been hit on the head with a cow, or something equally weighty. Boyd looked glassy-eyed and slightly stunned.

* * * * *

"What's the matter with you?" Malone said. "Sick?"

"I'm not sick," Boyd said carefully. "At least I don't think I'm sick. It's hard to tell."

"What's wrong?"

"Teleporting?" Boyd said. "Juvenile delinquents?"

Malone felt a sudden twinge in the area of his conscience. He realized that he had told Boyd nothing at all about what had been going on since the discovery of the notebook two nights ago. He filled his partner in rapidly while Boyd stood in front of the mirror and rather shakily attempted to trim his beard.

"That's why I had the car search continue," Malone said. "I was fairly sure the fault wasn't in the cars, but the boys. But I had to make absolutely sure."

Boyd said: "Oh," chopped a small section out of the center of his beard and added: "My hand's shaky."

"Well," Malone said, "that's the story."

"It sure is quite a story," Boyd said. "And I don't want you to think I don't believe it. Because I don't."

"It's true," Malone said.

"That doesn't affect me," Boyd said. "I'll go along with the gag. But enough is enough. Vanishing teen-agers. Ridiculous."

"Just so you go along with me," Malone said.

"Oh, I'll go along," Boyd said. "This is my vacation, too, isn't it? What's the next move, Mastermind?"

"We're going down to that warehouse," Malone said decisively. "I've got a hunch the kids have been hiding there ever since they left their homes yesterday."

"Malone," Boyd said.

"What?"

"You mean we're going down to the warehouse tonight?" Boyd said.

Malone nodded.

"I might have known," Boyd said. "I might have known."

"Tom," Malone said. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing," Boyd said. "Nothing at all. Everything's fine and dandy. I think I'm going to commit suicide, but don't let that bother you."

"What happened?" Malone said.

Boyd stared at him. "You happened," he said. "You and the teen-agers and the warehouse happened. Three days' work--ruined."

Malone scratched his head, found out that his head still hurt and put his hand down again. "What work?" he said.

"For three days," Boyd said, "I've been taking this blond chick all over New York. Wining her. Dining her. Spending money as if I were Burris himself, instead of the common or garden variety of FBI agent. Night clubs. Theaters. Bars. The works. Malone, we were getting along famously. It was wonderful."

"And tonight--" Malone said.

"Tonight," Boyd said, "was supposed to be the night. The big night. The payoff. We've got a date for dinner--T-bone steak, two inches thick, with mushrooms. At her apartment, Malone."

"You'll have to break it," Malone said sympathetically. "Too bad, but it can't be helped now. You can pick up a sandwich before you go."

"A sandwich," Boyd said with great dignity, "is not my idea of something to eat."

"Look, Tom--" Malone began.

"All right, all right," Boyd said tiredly. "Duty is duty. I'll go call her."

"Fine," Malone said. "And meanwhile, I'll get us a little insurance."

"Insurance?"

"John Henry Fernack," Malone Malone said, "and his Safe and Loft Squad."

XIV.

The warehouse was locked up tight, all right, Malone thought. In the dim light that surrounded the neighborhood, it stood like a single stone block, alone near the waterfront. There were other buildings nearby, but they seemed smaller; the warehouse loomed over Malone and Boyd threateningly. They stood in a shadow-blacked alley just across the street, watching the big building nervously, studying it for weak points and escape areas.

[Illustration]

Boyd whispered softly: "Do you think they have a lookout?"

Malone's voice was equally low. "We'll have to assume they've got at least one kid posted," he said. "But they can't be watching all the time. Remember, they can't do everything."

"They don't have to," Boyd said. "They do quite enough for me. Do you realize that, right now, I could be--"

"Break it up," Malone said. He took a small handset from his pocket and pressed the stud. "Lynch?" he whispered.

A tinny voice came from the earpiece. "Here, Malone."

"Have you got them located yet?" Malone said.

"Not yet," Lynch's voice replied. "We're working on a triangulation now. Just hold on for a minute or so. I'll let you know as soon as we've got results."

The police squads--Lynch and his men, the warehouse precinct men and the Safe and Loft Squad--had set up a careful cordon around the area, and were now hard at work trying to determine two things.

First, they had to know whether there was anybody in the building at all.

Second, they had to be able to locate anyone in the building with precision.

The silence of the downtown warehouse district helped. They had several specially designed, highly sensitive directional microphones aimed at the building from carefully selected spots around the area, trying to pick up the muffled sounds of speech or motion within the warehouse. The watchmen in buildings nearby had been warned off for the time being so that their footsteps wouldn't occlude any results.

Malone waited, feeling nervous and cold. Finally Lynch's voice came through again. "We're getting something, all right," he said. "There are obviously several people in there. You were right, Malone."

* * * * *

"Thanks," Malone said. "How about that fix?"

"Hold it a second," Lynch said. Wind swept off the river at Malone and Boyd. Malone closed his eyes and shivered -- could --

ll fish and iodine and waste, the odor of the Hudson as it passes the city. Across the river lights sparkled warmly. Here there was nothing but darkness.

A long time passed, perhaps ten seconds.

Then Lynch's voice was back: "Sergeant McNulty says they're on the top floor, Malone," he said. "Can't tell how many for sure. But they're talking and moving around."

"It's a shame these things won't pick up the actual words at a distance," Malone said.

"Just a general feeling of noise is all we get," Lynch said. "But it does some good."

"Sure," Malone said. "Now listen carefully: Boyd and I are going in. Alone."

Lynch's voice whispered: "Right."

"If those mikes pick up any unusual ruckus--any sharp increase in the noise level--come running," Malone said. "Otherwise, just sit still and wait for my signal. Got that?"

"Check," Lynch said.

Malone pocketed the radiophone. "O.K., Tom," he whispered. "This is H-hour--M-minute--and S-second."

"I can spell," Boyd muttered. "Let's move in."

"Wait a minute," Malone said. He took his goggles and brought them down over his eyes, adjusting the helmet on his head. Boyd did the same. Malone flicked on the infrared flashlight he held in his hand.

"O.K.?" he whispered.

"Check," Boyd said.

Thanks to the goggles, both of them could see the normally invisible beams of the infrared flashlight. They'd equipped themselves to move in darkness without betraying themselves, and they'd be able to see where a person without equipment would be blind.

* * * * *

Malone stayed well within the shadows as he moved silently around to the alley behind the warehouse and then to a narrow passageway that led to the building next door. Boyd followed a few feet behind him along the carefully planned route.

Malone unlocked the small door that led into the ground floor of the building adjoining. As he did so he heard a sound behind him and called: "Tom?"

"Hey, Malone," Boyd whispered. "It's--"

Before there was any outcry, Malone rushed back. Boyd was struggling with a figure in the dimness. Malone grabbed the figure and clamped his hand over its mouth. It bit him. He swore in a low voice, and clamped the hand over the mouth again.

It hadn't taken him more than half a second to realize what, whoever it w

ho struggled in his arms, it wasn't a boy.

"Shut up!" Malone hissed in her ear. "I won't hurt you."

The struggle stopped immediately. Malone gently eased his hand off the girl's mouth. She turned and looked at him.

"Kenneth Malone," she said, "you look like a man from Mars."

"Dorothea!" Malone gasped. "What are you doing here? Looking for your brother?"

"Never mind that," she said. "You play too rough. I'm going home to mother."

"Answer me!" Malone said.

"All right," Dorothea said. "You must know anyhow, since you're here. Yes, I'm looking for that fat-headed brother of mine. But now I suppose it's too late. He'll ... he'll go to prison."

Her voice broke. Malone found his shoulder suddenly occupied by a crying face.

"No," he said quickly. "No. Please. He won't."

"Really?"

Boyd whispered: "Malone, what is this? It's no place for a date. And I--"

"Oh, shut up," Malone told him in a kindly fashion. He turned back to Dorothea. "I promise he won't," he said. "If I can just talk to your brother, make him listen to reason, I think we can get him and the others off. Believe me."

"But you--"

"Please," Malone said. "Believe me."

"Oh, Ken," Dorothea said, raising her head. "Do you ... do you mean it?"

"Sure I mean it," Malone said. "What have I been saying? The Government needs these kids."

"The Government?"

"It's nothing to worry about," Malone said. "Just go on home now, all right? I'll call you tomorrow. Late tonight, if I can. All right?"

"No," Dorothea said. "It's not all right. Not at all."

"But--"

Boyd hissed: "Malone!"

Malone ignored him. He had a bigger fight on his hands. "I'm not going home," Dorothea announced. "I'm going in there with you. After all," she added, "I can talk more sense into Mike's head than you can."

"Now, look," Malone began.

Dorothea grinned in the darkness. "If you don't take me along," she said quietly, "I'll scream and warn them."

Malone surrendered at once. He had no doubt at all that Dorothea meant what she said. And, after all, the girl might really be some use to them. And there probably wouldn't be much danger.

Of course there wouldn't, he thought. He was going to see to that.

"All right," he said. "Come along. Stick close to us, and don't worry about the darkness. We can see, even if you can't, so let us guide you. But be quiet!"

Boyd whispered: "Malone, what's going on?"

"She's coming with us," Malone said, pointing to Dorothea.

Boyd shrugged. "Malone," he said, "who do you think you are? The Pied Piper of Hamelin?"

* * * * *

Malone wheeled and went ahead. Opening the door, he played his I-R flashlight on the room inside and he, Boyd and Dorothea trailed in, going through rooms piled with huge boxes. They went up an iron stairway to the second floor, and so on up to the roof.

They moved across the roof quickly under the cold stars, to the wall of the warehouse, which was two stories higher than the building they were on. Of course, there were no windows in the warehouse wall facing them, except on the top story.

But there was a single, heavy, fireproof emergency exit. It would have taken power machinery or explosives to open that door from the outside without a key, although from the inside it would open easily.

Fortunately, Malone had a key.

He took it out and stepped aside. "Give that lock the works," he whispered to Boyd.

Boyd took a lubricant gun from his pocket and fired three silent shots of special oil into the lock. Then he shot the hinges, and cracks around the door.

They waited for a minute or two while the oil, forced in under pressure, did its work. Then Malone fitted the key carefully into the lock and turned it, slowly and delicately. The door swung open in silence. Malone slipped inside, followed by Boyd and Dorothea Fueyo.

Infrared equipment went on again, and the eerie illumination spread over their surroundings. Malone tapped Boyd on the shoulder and jerked his thumb toward the back stairs. This was plainly no time for talk.

From the floor above, they could hear the murmur of youthful voices.

They started for the stairway. Fortunately, the building was of the steel-and-concrete type; there were no wooden floors to creak and groan beneath their feet.

At the bottom of the stairs, they paused. Voices came down the stairwell clearly, even words being defined in the silence.

"... And quit harping on whose fault it was." Malone recognized Mike Fueyo's voice. "That FBI guy was on to us and we had to pull out; you know that. We always figured we'd have to pull out some day. So why not now?"

"Yeah," another voice said. "But you didn't have to go and vanish right under that Fed's nose. You been beating into our heads not to do that sort of stuff ever since we first found out we could make this vanishing bit. And then you go and do it in front of a Fed. Smart. Sure, you get a big bang out of it, but is it smart? I ask you--"

"Yeah?" Mike said. "Listen, Silvo, they never would've got onto us if it hadn't been for your stupid tricks. Slugging a cop on the dome. Cracking up a car. You and your bug for speed!"

Malone blinked. Then it hadn't been Miguel Fueyo who'd hit Sergeant Jukovsky, but Silvo. Malone tried to remember the list of Silent Spooks. Silvo ... Envoz. That was it.

"You slugged the FBI guy, Mike," Silvo said. "And now you got us all on the run. That's your fault, Mike. I want to see my old lady."

"I had to slug him," Mike said. "Listen, all Ramon's stuff was in that Cadillac. What'd have happened if he'd found all that stuff?"

"So what happened anyway?" another voice--Ramon?--said. "He found your stupid notebook, didn't he? He went yelling to the cops, didn't he? We're running, ain't we? So what difference?"

"Shut up!" Mike roared.

"You ain't telling me to shut up!" (That was the third voice. Malone thought; possibly Ramon Otravez.)

"Me either!" Silvo yelled. "You think you're a great big-shot, you think you're king of the world!"

"Who figured out the Vanish?" Mike screamed. "You'd all be a bunch of bums if I hadn't showed you that! And you know it! You'd all--"

"Don't give us that!" Silvo said. "We'd have been able to do it, same as you. Like you said, anybody who's got talent could do it. There were guys you tried to teach--"

"Sure," said a fourth voice. "Listen, Fueyo, you're so bright--so why don't you try teaching it to somebody who don't have the talent?"

"Yeah!" said voice number five. "You think you could teach that flashy sister of yours the Vanish?"

"You shut up about my sister, Phil!" Mike screamed.

"So what's so great about her?"

"She got that book back from the Fed," Mike said. "That's what. It's enough!"

A voice said, "Any dame with a little--"

"Shut your face before I shut it for you!"

* * * * *

Malone couldn't tell who was yelling what at who after a minute. They all seemed unhappy about being on the run from the police, and they were all tired of being cooped up in a warehouse under Mike's orders. Mike was the only person they could take it out on--and Mike was under heavy attack.

Two of the boys, surprisingly, seemed to side with him. The other five were trying to outshout them. Malone wondered if it would become a fight, and then realized that these kids could hardly fight each other when the one who was losing could always fade out.

He leaned over and whispered to Dorothea and Boyd: "Let's sneak up there while the argument's going on."

"But--" Boyd began.

"Less chance of their noticing us," Malone explained, and started forward.

They tiptoed up the stairs and got behind a pile of crates in the shadows, while invectives roared around them. This floor was lit by a single small bulb hanging from a socket in the ceiling. The windows were hung with heavy blankets to keep the light from shining out.

The kids didn't notice anything except each other. Malone took a couple of deep breaths and began to look around.

All things considered, he thought, the kids had fixed the place up pretty nicely. The unused warehouse had practically been made over into an apartment. There were chairs, beds, tables and everything else in the line of furnishings for which the kids could conceivably have any use. There were even some floor lamps scattered around, but they weren't plugged in. Malone guessed that a job would have to be done on the warehouse wiring to get the floor lamps in operation, and the kids just hadn't got around to it yet.

By now, the boys were practically standing toe to toe, ripping air-bluing epithets out at each other. Not a single hand was lifted.

Malone stared at them for a second, then turned to Dorothea. "We'll wait till they calm down a little," he whispered. "Then you go out and talk to them. Tell them we won't hurt them or lock them up or anything. All we want to do is talk to them for a while."

"All right," she whispered back.

"They can vanish any time they want to," Malone said, "so there's no reason for them not to listen to--"

He stopped suddenly, listening. Over the shouting, screaming and cursing of the kids, he heard motion on the floor below.

Cops?

It couldn't be, he told himself. But when he took out his radiophone, his hands were shaking a little.

Lynch's voice was already coming over it when Malone thumbed it on.

"... So hang on, Malone! I repeat: we heard the ruckus, and we're coming in! We're on our way! Hang on, Malone!"

The voice stopped. There was a click.

Malone stared at the handset, fascinated and horrified. He swallowed. "No, Lynch!" he whispered, afraid to talk any louder for fear the kids would hear him. "No! Don't come up! Go away! Repeat: go away! Stay away! Lynch--"

It was no use. The radiophone was dead.

Lynch, apparently thinking Malone's set had been smashed in the fight, or else that Malone was unconscious, had shut his own receiver off.

There was absolutely nothing that Malone could do.

* * * * *

The kids were still yelling at the top of their voices, but the thundering of heavy, flat feet galumphing up from the lower depths couldn't be ignored for long. All the boys noticed it at about the same time. They jerked their heads round to face the stairway. Malone and his campatriots crouched lower behind the boxes.

Mike Fueyo was the first to speak. "Don't vanish yet!" he snapped. "Let's see who it is."

The internal dissent among the Silent Spooks disappeared as if it had never been, as they faced a common foe. Once again, they fell naturally under Fueyo's leadership. "If it's cops," he said, "we'll give 'em the Grasshopper Play we worked out. We'll show 'em."

"They can't fool with us," another boy said. "Sure. The Grasshopper Play."

It was cops, all right. Lieutenant Lynch ran up the stairs waving his billy in a heroic fashion, followed by a horde of blue-clad officers.

"Where's Malone?" Lynch shouted as he came through the doorway.

"Where's your what?" Mike yelled back, and the fight was on.

Later, Malone thought that he should have been surprised, but he wasn't. There wasn't any time to be surprised. The kids didn't disappear. They spread out over the floor of the room easily and lightly, and the cops charged them in a great blundering mass.

Naturally, the kids winked out one by one--and reformed in the center of the cops' muddle. Malone saw one cop raise his billy and swing it at Mike. Mike watched it come down and vanish at the last instant. The cop's billy descended on the head of another cop, standing just behind where Mike had been.

The second cop, hit and blinded by the blow on his head, swung back and hit the first cop. Meanwhile, Mike was somewhere else.

Malone stayed crouched behind the boxes. Dorothea stood up and shouted: "Mike! Mike! We just want to talk to you!"

Unfortunately, the police were making such a racket that this could not be heard more than a foot or so from the speaker. Lynch himself charged into the mass, swinging his billy and his free fist and laying others out one after the other. Pretty soon the floor was littered with cops. Lynch was doing yeoman duty, but it was hard to tell what side he was on.

The vanishing trick Mike had worked out was being used by all of the kids. Cops were hitting other cops, Lynch was hitting everybody, and the kids were winking on and off all over the loft. It was a scene of tremendous noise and carnage.

Malone suddenly sprang to his feet and charged into the melee, shouting at the top of his lungs and swinging both fists. The first person he saw was one of the teen-agers, and he charged him with abandon.

[Illustration]

He should, he reflected, have known better. The kid disappeared. Malone caromed off the stomach of a policeman, received a blow on the shoulder from his billy, and rebounded into the arms of a surprised police officer at the edge of the battle.

"Who're you?" the officer gasped.

"Malone," Malone said.

"You on our side?"

"How about you?" Malone said.

"I'm a lieutenant here," the officer said. "In charge of warehouse precinct. I--"

Malone and the lieutenant stepped nimbly aside as another cop careened by them, waving his billy helplessly. They looked away as the crash came. The cop had fallen over a table, and now lay with his legs in the air, supported by the overturned table, blissfully unconscious.

"We seem," Malone said, "to be in an area of some activity. Let's move."

* * * * *

They shifted away a few feet. Malone looked into the foray and saw Boyd at work roaring and going after the kids. One of them had established a kind of game with him. He would appear just in front of Boyd, who rushed at him, arms outstretched. As Boyd had almost reached him, the kid disappeared and reappeared again just behind Boyd. He tapped the FBI agent gently on the shoulder; Boyd turned and the process was repeated.

Boyd seemed to be getting winded.

The lieutenant suddenly dashed back into the fray. Malone looked around, saw Mike Fueyo flickering in and out at the edges, and headed for him.

A cop swung at Mike, missed, and hit Malone on the arm. Malone swore. The cop backed off, looking in a bewildered fashion for his victim, who was nowhere in sight. Then Malone caught sight of him, at the other edge of the fight. He started to work his way around.

He tried to avoid blows, but it wasn't always possible. A reeling cop caught his lapel and tore it, and Lynch, indefatigable in battle, managed to graze his chin with a blow meant for one of the disappearing boys. Other cops were battling each other, going after the kids and clutching empty air, cursing and screaming unheard orders in the fracas.

Malone ducked past Lynch, rubbed at his chin and looked for Mike. In the tangle of bodies it was getting hard to see. There was the sound of breaking ceramics as a floor lamp went over, and then a table followed it, but Malone avoided both. He looked for Mike Fueyo--

A cop clutched him around the middle, out of nowhere, said: "Sorry, buddy, who are you?" and dove back into the mass of bodies. Malone caught his breath and forged onward.

There was Mike, at the edge of the fight, watching everything coolly. No cop was near him. In the dim light the place looked like a scene from Hell, a special Hell for policemen. Malone wove through battling hordes to the edge and came out a few feet away from Mike Fueyo.

Fueyo didn't see him. He was looking at Boyd instead--still stumbling back and forth as the teen-ager baiting him winked on and off in front of him and behind him. He was laughing.

Malone came up silently from behind. The trip seemed to take hours. He was being very quiet, although he was reasonably sure that even if he yelled he wouldn't be heard. But he didn't want to take the slightest chance.

He sprang on Mike and attached the handcuffs to his wrist, and to Mike's wrist, within seconds.

"Ha!" he said involuntarily. "Now come with me!"

He gave his end of the handcuffs a tremendous yank.

He started to stagger, trailing an empty cuff behind him, flailing his arms wildly. Ahead of him he could see a big cop with an upraised billy. Malone tried to alter his course, but it was too late. He skidded helplessly into the cop, who jerked round and swung the billy automatically. Malone said: "Yi!" as he caught the blow on the cheekbone, bounced off the cop and kept going.

He careened past a blur of figures, trying to avoid hard surfaces and other human beings. But there was--

Oh, no, Malone thought.

Lynch.

Lynch was ready to swing. His fist was cocked, and he was heading for one of the teen-agers with murder in his eye. Malone knew their paths were going to intersect. "Watch out!" he yelled. "Watch out, it's me! Stop me! Stop me! Somebody stop me!"

He went completely unheard.

Lynch swung and missed, hitting a cop who had been hiding behind the teen-ager. The cop went down to join the wounded, and Lynch roared like a bull and swung around, looking for more enemies.

That was when Malone hit him.

Long afterward, he remembered Lynch's hat sailing through the air, and landing in the center of a struggling mass of policemen. He remembered Lynch saying: "So there you are!" and swinging before he looked.

He remembered the blow on the chin.

And then, he remembered falling, and falling, and falling. Somewhere there was a voice: "Where are they? They've disappeared for good."

And then, for long seconds, nothing.

* * * * *

He woke up with a headache, but it wasn't too bad. Surprisingly, not much time had passed; he got up and dusted off his trousers, looking around at the battlefield. Wounded and groaning cops were all over. The room was a shambles; the walking wounded--which comprised the rest of the force--were stumbling around in a slow, hopeless sort of fashion.

Lynch was standing next to him. "Malone," he said, "I'm sorry. I hit you, didn't I?"

"Uh-huh," Malone said. "You seemed to be hitting everybody."

"I was trying for the kids," Lynch said.

"So was I," Malone said. "I got the cuffs on one and yanked him along--but he disappeared and left me with the cuffs."

"Great," Lynch said. "Hell of a raid."

"Very jolly," Malone agreed. "Fun and games were had by all."

A cop stumbled up, handed Lynch his cap and disappeared without a word. Lynch stared mournfully at it. The emblem was crushed and the cap looked rather worn and useless. He put it on his head, where it assumed the rakish tilt of a hobo's favorite tam-o'-shanter, and said: "I hope you're not thinking of blaming me for this fiasco."

"Not at all," Malone said nobly. He hurt all over, but on reflection he thought that he would probably live. "It was nobody's fault." Except, he thought, his own. If he'd only told Lynch to come in when called for--and under no other circumstances--this wouldn't have happened. He looked around at the remains of New York's Finest, and felt guilty.

The lieutenant from the local precinct limped up, rubbing a well-kicked shin and trying to disentangle pieces of floor lamp from his hair. "Listen, Lynch," he said, "What's with these kids? What's going on here? Look at my men."

"Some days," Lynch said, "it just doesn't pay to get up."

"Sure," the local man said, "but what do I do now?"

"Make your reports."

"But--"

"To the Commissioner," Lynch said, "and to nobody else. If this gets into the papers, heads will roll."

"My head is rolling right now," the local man said. "Know what one of those kids did? Stood in front of a floor lamp. I swung at him and he vanished. Vanished. I hit the lamp, and then the lamp hit me."

"Just see that this doesn't get out," Lynch said.

"It can't," the local man said. "Anybody who mentioned this to a reporter would just be laughed out of town. It's not possible." He paused thoughtfully, and added: "We'd all be laughed out of town."

"And probably replaced with the FBI," Lynch said morosely. He looked at Malone. "Nothing personal, you understand," he said.

"Of course," Malone said. "We can't do any more here, can we?"

"I don't think we can do any more anywhere," Lynch said. "Let's lock the place up and leave and forget all about it."

"Fine," Malone said. "I've got work to do." He looked round, found Dorothea and signaled to her. "Come on, Dorothea. Where's Boyd?"

"Here I am," Boyd said, walking slowly across the big room to Malone. He had one hand held to his chin.

"What's the matter with you?" Malone asked.

Boyd took his hand away. There was a bald spot the size of a quarter on the point of his chin. "One of those kids," he said sadly, "has a hell of a strong grip. Come on, Miss Fueyo. Come on, Malone. Let's get out of here."

XV.

It is definitely not usual for the Director of the FBI to come stalking into a local office of that same FBI without so much as an advance warning or a by-your-leave. Such things are simply not done.

Andrew J. Burris, however, was doing them.

Three days after the Great Warehouse Fiasco, a startled A-in-C looked up to see the familiar Burris figure stalk by his office, growling under its breath. The A-in-C leaped to the interoffice phone, wondered whom he ought to call first, and subsided, staring dully at the telephone screen and thinking about retiring.

The next appearance of the head of the FBI was in the office assigned to Malone and Boyd. Burris came through the doorway without warning, his countenance that of a harried and unhappy man.

Malone looked up, blinked, and then readjusted his features to what he imagined was a nice, bright smile. "Oh," he said. "Hello, chief. I've been sort of expecting you."

"I'll bet you have," Burris said. He set his brief case on Malone's desk and pulled a sheaf of papers from it. "Do you see these?" he said, waving them. "Inquiries. Complaints. Demands. From everybody. I've been getting them for three days."

"Sure are a lot of them," Malone said at random.

"From Police Commissioner Fernack," Burris said. "From the mayor. From the governor, in Albany. From everybody. And they all want an explanation. They demand one."

He sat down suddenly on Malone's desk, his anger gone.

"Well--" Malone began.

"Malone," Burris said plaintively, "I can stall them off for a while. I can tell them all kinds of fancy stories. I don't mind. They don't really need any explanation. But--" He paused, and then added: "I do!"

Malone closed his eyes, decided things looked even worse that way, and opened them again. "Just what sort of an explanation did you have in mind, chief?" he said.

"Any kind," Burris said instantly, "so long as it explains. I ... no."

"No?"

"No," Burris said. "I want the truth! Even if it doesn't explain anything! Preferably, I want both--the truth and some explanations. If possible. For three days, now, this area has been haunted by the Silent Spooks. They've been stealing everything they could carry off! They've got the whole city in an uproar!"

"Well," Malone said. "Not exactly. The papers--"

"I know," Burris said. "You've kept it out of the news -- fine -- I appreciate it, Malone. I really do. But I can't sit around and appreciate it much longer. You've got to get those boys!" He bounced off the desk and stood up again. "The longer they keep this up," he said, "the harder it's going to be to square everything with the courts. Those kids may end up getting killed! And how would that be?"

"Terrible," Malone said honestly.

"Something," Burris summed up, "has to be done."

Malone thought for a second. "Chief," he said at last, "if you can think of any way to nab them, I'll certainly be grateful."

"Oh," Burris said. "Oh. No. No, Malone. This is your baby." He leaned over and clapped Malone on the shoulder. "I have faith in you," he said. "You cleared up that nutty telepath case and you can clear this one up, too. But you've got to do it soon!"

"I'm working on it," Malone said helplessly. "We might get a lead any time now."

"Good," Burris said. "Meanwhile, let's sit down and see if we can't figure out a way to pacify the local bigwigs."

Malone sighed wearily.

* * * * *

An hour later, he was even more tired. Letting himself into his room at the hotel, he felt completely exhausted. He had spent most of the hour tactfully trying to get away from Burris. It had not been the world's easiest job.

Dorothea Fueyo was sitting on the couch, waiting for him.

Immediately, he felt much better.

"You're late," Dorothea said accusingly. "I had to come up with the duplicate key you gave me. And what are the bellboys going to think?"

"They're going to think you had a duplicate key," Malone said. "Anyhow, I'm sorry. I got delayed at the office. Burris came to town--delivering seventeen ultimatums, forty-nine conflicting sets of orders and a rousing lecture."

"I could have come up to your office, then," Dorothea said, "instead of compromising my reputation by sneaking up to your hotel room."

"And what about my reputation?" Malone said. "Besides, the office is no place for what I have in mind."

"Why, Mr. Malone!"

Malone ignored the comment. "Did you bring the notebook?" he said.

"Certainly." Dorothea handed a black, plastic-bound notebook over to Malone. "But what's all this with a notebook? Going to keep score?"

"Not exactly," Malone said. He took the notebook and leafed through it idly. It

not Mike Fueyo's book; the boy himself had that now, and there was little chance of getting it back again. This one belonged to Dorothea--but, Malone thought, it could serve the same purpose.

"What I have in mind," he said, "is something Mike said the other night, just before the cops barged in. He said something about having tried to teach you the Vanish. And that's why I asked you to come here. Did he teach you?"

"Well, he tried," Dorothea said. "But I couldn't do anything with it. I haven't got the Talent, Mike says." She paused. "Is that why you figured I had a notebook like his?"

"Sure," Malone said. "It's the only thing that makes sense. Mike's notebook was full of symbols--and that was all they could be. Symbols. If you see what I mean."

"Not exactly," Dorothea said.

"Symbolism--anyhow, that's what Dr. O'Connor says--is one of the primary factors in psionics."

"Dr.... oh, yes," Dorothea said. "Westinghouse. I've heard about him."

"Good," Malone said. "Anyhow, I decided the pictures in Mike's notebook were just that--symbols. Things he wanted. And the little squiggles after the names were symbols, too. You know," Malone said, "the boy's pretty smart. Nobody else that I know of has ever figured out a way to teach psionics--at least, not on that level. But Mike has."

"He's a good boy," Dorothea said. "Basically."

"Fine," Malone said. "Anyhow, if that were true, then the notebook was some sort of guide. And if he tried to teach you the technique, then you had to have a notebook, too. Clear?"

"Perfectly," Dorothea said, "so what do you want me to do?"

"Teach me," Malone said.

There was a silence.

"That's silly," Dorothea said. "How can I teach you something I can't do myself? Besides, how do you know you have the Talent?"

"As far as the second question goes, I don't know. But I can try, can't I? And as far as the first question goes, that might not be so simple. But I think it can be done--if you remember what Mike tried to teach you."

"Oh, I can remember all of that," she said, "but it's just that it didn't do me any good. I couldn't use it."

"A man who's paralyzed from the waist," Malone said hopefully, "can't play football. But if he knows how the game's played, he can teach others--anyhow, he can teach the fundamentals. Want to try?"

Dorothea smiled. "All right, Ken," she said. "It's a great idea, at that: the blind teaching the possibly-blind to read. Give me the notebook, and I'll explain the first principles. Later, you'll have to get a notebook of your own, because these symbols are very personalized."

Malone grinned and pulled a black book from his pocket. "I thought they might be," he said. "I've already got one. Let's go."

* * * * *

[Illustration]

Sweating, Malone stared grimly at the picture he had drawn on a page of his notebook. He'd been trying the stunt for four days, and so far all he had achieved was a nice profusion of perspiration. He was beginning to feel like an ad for a Turkish bath.

"No, Ken," Dorothea said patiently. "No. You can't do it that way. You've got to visualize it. That's how Mike could find red Cadillacs so easily. All he had to do was--"

"I know," Malone said, impatiently. "That's what the pictures are for. But I'm no artist. This doesn't even look much like my office."

"It doesn't have to, Ken," Dorothea said. "All it has to do is give you enough details to enable you to visualize your destination. The better your memory is, the less detail you need. But you've got to grasp the whole area in your mind."

Malone lifted his eyes from the book and stared into the darkness outside the window without seeing it. Midnight had come and gone a long time ago, and he was still working.

"If I don't crack this case pretty soon," he muttered, "Burris is going to find a special new assignment for me--like investigating the social life of a deserted space station."

"Now, that's just what's bothering you," Dorothea said. "Get your mind off Burris. You can't teleport when your mind is occupied with other things."

"Then how did the kids hop around so much during the fight at the warehouse?"

"Plenty of practice," Dorothea said. "They've been doing it longer than you have. It's like playing the piano. The beginner has to concentrate, but the expert can play a piece he's familiar with and hold a conversation at the same time. Now stop worrying--and start concentrating."

Malone looked at the book again. With an effort, he forced everything out of his mind except the picture. Burris' face came back once or twice, but he managed to get rid of it. He looked at the lopsided drawings that represented various items in the room, and made himself concentrate solely on visualizing the objects themselves and their surroundings.

Then, as the picture became clearer and achieved more reality, he began going over the other mental exercises that Dorothea had taught him.

He heard a clock tick.

It was gone.

There was nothing but the picture, and the room it stood for ... nothing ... nothing....

The lights went out.

* * * * *

Malone blinked and jerked his head up from the notebook. "What hap--" he began.

And then he stopped.

He was no longer in his hotel room at the Statler-Hilton. He was standing in the middle of his office at FBI headquarters, Washington, D.C.

It had worked!

Malone walked over to the wall switch and turned on the lights in the darkened room. He looked around. He was definitely in his office.

He was a teleport.

He blinked and wondered briefly if he were dreaming. He pinched himself, said: "Ow," and decided that the pain offered no certain proof.

But he didn't feel like part of a dream.

He felt real. So did the office.

Just as he had promised Dorothea, he went to the phone and dialed the Statler-Hilton.

It took a minute for the long-distance circuits to connect him with Manhattan. Then the pretty operator at the hotel was smiling at him from the screen. "Statler-Hilton Hotel," she said. "May we help you?"

"Ring Room 814," Malone said. "I'm probably asleep in it."

"What?" the operator said.

"Never mind," Malone said. "Just ring it."

"Yes, sir." The screen went blank.

The screen stayed blank for a long time.

And then the operator was back. "I'm sorry, sir," she said. "That room doesn't answer."

"You're sure?" Malone said.

"Certainly."

"Try it again," Malone said.

The operator did so. She returned with the same answer.

Malone frowned and hung up. It didn't sound right. Even a dream was supposed to make more sense than this was making. There was something wrong.

He had to get back to the hotel room.

There was only one trouble. He didn't have a picture of the room in his notebook.

Dorothea had said that it was almost impossible to go to a place one hadn't been to before. Mike Fueyo had been able to pick up any red Cadillac in the city because he'd concentrated solely on the symbol of a red Cadillac. But he never knew which Cadillac he'd end up at.

Malone closed his eyes and tried to remember the hotel room. He half-wished he had a photograph of it, but Dorothea had told him that photos wouldn't work. They were too complete; they required no effort of the mind. Only a symbol would do.

Of course, the job could be done without a symbol by somebody who'd had plenty of practice. But Malone had made exactly one jump. Could he do it the second time with nothing to work with except his own recollection and visualization of the room?

He didn't know, but he was certainly going to try. He had to.

Something was wrong; something had happened to Dorothea.

He tried to imagine what it could be, and then realized that such thoughts were only delaying him by distracting his mind from its main job.

He kept his eyes tightly closed and tried to form the picture in his mind. The couch--there. The dresser--over there. The easy-chair, the rug, the walls, the table--wait a minute: he was losing the couch. There. Now. The table, the desk--all there. In color. And in detail.

Slowly they came, and he held them in place, visualizing his hotel room just as he had visualized his office minutes before. He concentrated. Harder. Harder. Harder. HAR--

"Sir Kenneth!" a voice said. "Will you please stop standing there with your eyes closed and help me with this poor child? She's fainted."

Malone's eyes popped open, but for a minute he wasn't entirely sure he'd opened them. His visualization blended almost perfectly with the reality of the room around him. There was only one jarring difference.

He had certainly never visualized the richly-dressed figure of Queen Elizabeth I standing in the center of the room.

"Now, now," she said. "Thinking like that can only lead to confusion. Come over here and help me."

* * * * *

Dorothea was on the couch. Between them, they managed to wake her gently, and she sat up and stared around at them and the room. "I'm sorry," she said dazedly. "It's just that I didn't expect you to turn into a little old lady in Elizabethan costume. Just a bit disconcerting." She blinked. "By the way, who is she?"

"This," Malone said with a sense of some foreboding, "is Queen Elizabeth I."

"She's dead," Dorothea said decisively.

"Not really, my dear," the Queen said. "Actually, you see ... well, it's too long to explain now." She gave everybody a bland smile.

"She's nuts, then," Dorothea said. "She is nuts, isn't she? Because if she isn't, I am."

"You're not crazy," Malone told her diplomatically. "But she--" He stopped. How could he explain everything, in front of the Queen herself?

"Don't worry about it," Her Majesty said. "Dorothea is a little confused--but it hardly matters. Perhaps there are other things to do."

"Sure," Malone said uncertainly. "By the way, how did you get here?"

"Now, why do you ask that?" the Queen said. "You've already figured it all out, Sir Kenneth."

"I don't get it," Dorothea put in.

"Simple," Malone said. "She's telepathic. She's been listening in on our sessions for the past four days--she must have been. So now she can teleport, too."

Dorothea looked at the little old lady in awe. "But how could you come to a place you'd never been to before?"

"I got all the information I needed, my dear, out of Sir Kenneth's mind."

"Sir Kenneth?" Dorothea said. "Sir ... Ken? His mind?"

"Never mind it," Malone said. "What do I do now?"

Her Majesty said: "Don't worry about anything. And use your own psionic talents. You can catch those dear boys now, you know. You're better than they are."

"Me?" Malone said. "But they've had--"

"Practice, of course," the Queen said. "But you have a talent they don't."

"I do?"

"Well," the Queen said, "you've been calling it 'luck' for years. You're much too modest, Sir Kenneth. If you'll think back, you'll remember that every time you had a bit of your so-called luck, it was because you were at the right place at the right time. There's no other way to explain the fact that you wandered at random through Greenwich Village--of all places!--and just happened to end up at the very same red Cadillac that young Mike was going to come to--before he got there!"

Malone felt the back of his head. "That," he said, "was luck?"

"You got the notebook, didn't you?" the Queen said. "But of course it wasn't luck. It's prescience--the ability to predict the future. You've had it all along, but you haven't been consciously using it. The only way you'll ever catch those boys is to know where they're going to be before they get there."

Malone sat down heavily on the couch next to Dorothea. His mind was whirling with a fine, dizzy rapidity. In a few seconds he was going to try and grab the brass ring.

"Oh, I'll help you," the Queen added. "Don't worry about that. I think I can pick up Mike's mind, now that I'm closer to him. And if we can figure out what their plans are, and where they're going to be, we can nab them all, Sir Kenneth. Won't that be nice?"

"Ducky," Malone said. "Simply ducky. All I have to do is predict the future while you read minds and we both teleport. And Dorothea can sit around sticking pins in dolls, I guess. Or--"

"Well, now," the Queen said, "I don't know. Perhaps she just doesn't have that talent. Besides, why would we want to do anything like that? It seems to me--"

"Never mind," Malone said hopelessly. "If we're going to do anything, let's get started."

* * * * *

Twelve hours later, Kenneth J. Malone was sitting quietly in a small room at the rear of a sporting-goods store on upper Madison Avenue, trying to remain calm and hoping that the finest, most beautiful and complete hunch--only now it wasn't a "hunch" any more, he reminded himself; now it was prescience--was going to pay off. With him were Boyd and two agents from the Sixty-ninth Street office. They were sitting quietly, too, but there was a sense of enormous excitement in the air. Malone wanted to get up and walk around, but he didn't dare. He clamped his hands in his lap and sat tight.

They waited in silence, not daring to talk. There wasn't a sound in the room. Malone felt like screaming, but he managed to control himself with an effort.

There was no reason why the plan shouldn't work, Malone told himself. According to all the theory he knew, it was fool proof. Her Majesty had no doubts about it, either. She assured him that he had prescience, and several other powers as well. Unfortunately, Malone wasn't quite as sure as she was.

Even if the theory seemed to back her up, he thought, there was still a chance that she was wrong, and the theory was wrong, and everything was wrong. His hunch--prescience, if you wanted to call it that, he amended--said definitely that this would be the place the Spooks would hit tonight. Her Majesty was quite sure of it. And Malone couldn't think of a single really good reason why either of them might be wrong. But maybe he'd got the address mixed up. Maybe the Spooks were somewhere else right now, robbing what they pleased, safe from capture--

It doesn't do much good to know where a teleporter is, Malone thought. But it's extremely handy to know where he's going to be. And if you also know what he plans to do when he gets where he's going, you've got an absolute lead-pipe cinch to work with.

The Queen and Malone had provided that lead-pipe cinch. They were sure that Mike planned to raid the sporting-goods store with the rest of the Spooks that night.

But, of course, they might all just be riding for some kind of horrible, unforeseen fall--

The main part of the sporting-goods store was fairly well lit, even at night, though it was by no means brightly illuminated. There were show-window lights on, and the street lamp from outside cast a nice glow. Malone was grateful for that. But the back room was dark, and the four men there were well-concealed. A curtain closed the room off, and Malone watched the front of the store through a narrow opening in it. He stared until his eyes ached, afraid to blink in case he missed the appearance of the Spooks. Everything had to go off just right, precisely on schedule.

And it was going to happen any minute, he told himself nervously. In just a few minutes, everything would be over.

Malone held his breath.

Then he saw the figure walk slowly by the glass front of the shop, looking in with over-elaborate casualness. He was casing the joint, making sure there was no one left in it.

Mike Fueyo.

Malone tried to breathe, and couldn't.

Seconds ticked by.

And then--almost magically--they appeared. Eight of them, almost simultaneously, in the center of the room.

Mike Fueyo spoke in a low, controlled voice. "O.K., now," he said. "Let's move fast. We haven't got much time. We--"

And that was all he said.

Malone concentrated on just one thing: holding an image of the room, with the eight Spooks in it.

There was a long second of silence.

Malone felt a bead of sweat trickle down his cheek. He held the image.

"What's wrong?" the tallest boy said suddenly--Ramon Otravez, Malone remembered. "What's wrong, Mike?"

Mike let out his breath in a ragged sigh. "I ... don't know," he said slowly. "I can't move--"

"It's a trap!" another boy shouted.

Malone bore down. He could feel power draining out of him, but he held on, willing the boys to remain in the room, blanking out their own teleportative abilities with his stronger ones.

The eight boys stood, frozen, in the center of the lit room.

Malone let another second go by, and then he stepped out from behind the curtains.

"Hello, boys," he said casually.

Mike stared at him. "It's Malone," he said.

"That's right," Malone said. "Hello, Mike. I've been waiting for you."

Mike gulped. "You found us," he said. "Somebody talked."

Malone shook his head. "Nobody talked," he said. Concentration was getting easier; the longer the situation remained the same, the less power it took to keep it that way. He wished he had brought a cigar, and compromised by fishing out a cigarette and lighting it.

Mike said: "But--" and was silent.

"I knew where you were going to be," Malone said. "You see, I've got a few--powers of my own, Mike."

Ramon Otravez said: "He's kidding. It's some kind of a trick."

"Shut up," Mike told him.

"It's no trick," Malone said. "I've been waiting for you for quite a while, boys." He paused. "And you can't move, can you? I've taken care of that."

"Some kind of gas," Mike said instantly.

"Gas?" Malone said. "Nope." He shook his head.

"Electricity," Mike said. It sounded desperate. "Some gimmick you've got set up back there behind the curtain, to--"

"No gimmick," Malone said. "It's just that I know a couple of tricks, too--and I'm a little better at them than you are." The next minute was going to be difficult, he knew, but it had to be done. He "froze" the picture of the room in his mind and, at the same time, pictured himself at the other side of the room. He made the effort, and at first nothing happened. Then--

"You can do the Vanish," Mike said, very slowly and softly.

"Oh, I can do more than that," Malone said cheerfully from the other side of the room. "I can do the Vanish, and I can also keep you from doing it. Right?"

It hung in the balance for a second, but Malone was barely worried about the final outcome. He'd beaten the boys, not with scientific gadgetry or trickery, but at their own game. He'd done it simply, easily and completely. And for boys who were sure they were something very special, boys who'd never been beaten on their own grounds before, the shock was considerable.

Malone knew, even before Mike said: "I guess so," in a defeated voice, that he had won.

"Now," he said briskly, "you boys are going to come down to the FBI offices with me. And you're not going to try any tricks--because you can't get away with a thing, and you know you can't. I've just proven that to you."

"I guess you have," Mike said.

Malone beckoned the three other men out of the back room and then, under his watchful guidance, the procession started for the street.

XVI

"The only thing we had to worry about," Malone said, pouring some more champagne into the hollow-stemmed glasses, "was whether the theory would actually prove out in practice. From all we knew, it seemed logical that I could concentrate on the room with the boys in it, and by that concentration prevent them from teleporting out--but there's a lot we don't know, too. And it didn't damage the kids any."

Dorothea relaxed in her chair and looked around at the hotel room walls with contentment. "Mike seemed pretty normal--except that he had that awful trapped feeling."

Malone handed her one of the filled glasses with an air. He was beginning slowly to feel less like the nervous, uncertain Kenneth J. Malone and more and more like good old Sir Kenneth Malone. "I can see why he felt trapped," he said. "If a guy's been unhampered by four walls all the time, even for only a year or so, he's certainly going to feel penned in when he's stopped from going through them. Especially when what stops him is just what he has--only more of the same. It might be a little ego-crushing, and just a trifle claustrophobic."

"The main thing is," Dorothea said, "that everybody's so happy. Commissioner Fernack, even--with Mr. Burris promising to give him a medal."

"And Lynch," Malone said reflectively. "He'll get a promotion out of this for sure. And good old Kettleman."

"Kettleman," Dorothea said. "Oh, sure. He's some kind of social worker, isn't he? Only we never knew what kind."

"And now he's getting a scroll from the FBI," Malone said. "A citation for coming up with the essential clue in this case. Even though he didn't know it was the essential clue. You know," he added reflectively, "one thing puzzles me about that man."

"Yes?"

"Well," Malone said, "he worked in your neighborhood. You knew him."

"Of course I did," Dorothea said. "We all knew Kettleman."

"He said he had a lot of success as a social worker," Malone said. "Now, I've met him. And talked with him. And I just can't picture--"

"Oh," Dorothea said. "We keep him around--kept him around, I mean--as a sort of joke. A pet, or a mascot. Of course, he never did catch on. I don't suppose he has yet."

Malone laughed. "Nope," he said. "He hasn't."

* * * * *

"Mike," Dorothea said.

"Mike what?"

"Mike," she repeated. "H

ably

happiest of all. After Mom and I talked to him for a while, anyhow, and he began to ... to get used to things. Now he's excited about being an FBI man." She looked worriedly at Malone for a second. "You weren't kidding about that, were you?" she asked.

She looked very pretty when she was worried, Malone decided. He leaned over and kissed her with great care. After a while he said: "You were saying?"

"Was I?" Dorothea said. "Oh, yes. I was. About Mike being an FBI man."

"Oh," Malone said. "Well, normally you've got to be a lawyer or an accountant, but there are a few special cases. And maybe Mike would fit in to the special-case bracket. If he doesn't--well, he'll be doing some kind of official work for the Government."

"What about Her Majesty, or whatever she is?" Dorothea asked. "Is she--convinced that teleportation's no good, the way Mike is?"

Malone looked unhappy. "I wish you hadn't mentioned it," he said.

"Then what will you do?" Dorothea said.

"Burris has it all down pat," Malone said bitterly. "Since I'm the only one who can predict where she's going to be, I'm going to be her permanent bodyguard from now on. She's promised me that she won't go teleporting all over the place--but we won't be able to keep her locked up all the time, either. So: whither she goes, I go--first."

"Well," Dorothea said, "don't feel bad. After all, you did what you set out to do."

"I suppose so," Malone said.

"Sure you did," Dorothea said. "You got the boys. And they won't feel so bad after they get used to it."

"I suppose not," Malone said. "We had to prove one thing to them, anyway. We can stop them at any time. You see, they've got to think about teleporting, and as soon as they do that one of our telepaths--like Her Majesty or me, I guess--will know what they're thinking. And we can 'freeze' them. I mean, I can."

"It sounds all right," Dorothea said.

"Sure," Malone said. "After all, we did them quite a favor--getting them out of all the trouble they'd gotten themselves into."

"That reminds me, Ken," Dorothea said. "All the things that were stolen. The liquor and all of that. Money. What's going to happen to that?"

"Well," Malone said, "everything that can be returned--and that includes most of the liquor, because they hadn't had a chance to get rid of it to the bootleggers around this area--will be return

What can't be returned--money, stuff they've used, broken or sold--well, I don't exactly know about that. It might take a special act of Congress," he said brightly.

"All for the boys?" Dorothea said.

"Well, they'll be at Yucca Flats," Malone said, "and they'll be pretty useful. And, as I said before we started all this, if they try to run away from Yucca Flats we'll just have to keep them 'frozen' all the time. I mean, I will. Little as we want to. They can be of some use that way, too. The Government isn't doing all this for nothing."

"But keeping them 'frozen'--"

"I said we didn't want to do it. And I don't think we'll have to. They'll be well taken care of, don't worry. Some of the best psychiatrists and doctors are out there. And Mike and the others--if they can show they're trustworthy--can come home every weekend, or even every night if they can teleport that far." Malone paused. "But it isn't charity," he added. "We need people with specialized psionic abilities--and, for a variety of reasons, they're pretty hard to find."

"You know," Dorothea said, "you're pretty wonderful, Mr. Malone."

Malone didn't answer her. He just kissed her again.

Dorothea pushed him gently away. "I'm envious," she announced. "Everybody gets a reward but me. Do I get left out just because I swiped your notebook?"

Malone kissed her again. "What kind of a reward do you want?"

She sighed. "Oh, well," she said, "I suppose this is good enough."

"Good enough?" Malone said. "Just good enough?"

His lips met hers for the fifth time. She reached one hand gently out to the light switch and pushed it.

The lights went out.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Out Like a Light, by Gordon Randall Garrett

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Measure of a Man, by Randall Garrett, Illustrated by Martinez

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Title: The Measure of a Man

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The Measure Of A Man

by

RANDALL GARRETT

Illustrated by Martinez

What is desirable is not always necessary, while that which is necessary may be most undesirable. Perhaps the measure of a man is the ability to tell one from the other ... and act on it.

Alfred Pendray pushed himself along the corridor of the battleship Shane, holding the flashlight in one hand and using the other hand and his good leg to guide and propel himself by. The beam of the torch reflected queerly from the pastel green walls of the corridor, giving him the uneasy sensation that he was swimming underwater instead of moving through the blasted hulk of a battleship, a thousand light-years from home.

He came to the turn in the corridor, and tried to move to the right, but his momentum was greater than he had thought, and he had to grab the corner of the wall to keep from going on by. That swung him around, and his sprained ankle slammed agonizingly against the other side of the passageway.

Pendray clenched his teeth and kept going. But as he moved down the side passage, he went more slowly, so that the friction of his palm against the wall could be used as a brake.

He wasn't used to maneuvering without gravity; he'd been taught it in Cadets, o--, but that was years ago and parsecs away then the pseudograv generators had gone out, he'd retched all over the place, but now his stomach was empty, and the nausea had gone.

He had automatically oriented himself in the corridors so that the do

of the various compartments were to his left and right, with the --iling "above" and the deck "below." Otherwise, he might have lost his sense of direction completely in the complex maze of the interstellar battl--

Or, he corrected himself, what's left of a battleship.

And what was left? Just Al Pendray and less than half of the once-mighty Shane.

The door to the lifeboat hold loomed ahead in the beam of the flashlight, and Pendray braked himself to a stop. He just looked at the dogged port for a few seconds.

Let there be a boat in there, he thought. Just a boat, that's all I ask. And air, he added as an afterthought. Then his hand went out to the dog handle and turned.

cracked easily. There was air on the other side. Pendray breathed a sigh of relief, braced his good foot again and pulled the door open.

The little lifeboat was there, nestled tightly in her cradle. For the first time since the Shane had been hit, Pendray's face broke into a broad smile. The fear that had been

im faded a little, and the darkness of the crippled ship seemed to be lessened.

Then the beam of his torch caught the little red tag on the air lock of the lifeboat. Repair Work Under Way--Do Not Remove This Tag Without Proper Authority.

That explained why the lifeboat hadn't been used by the other crewmen.

Pendray's mind was numb as he opened the air lock of the small craft. He didn't even attempt to think. All he wanted was to see exactly how the vessel had been disabled by the repair crew. He went inside.

The lights were working in the lifeboat. That showed that its power was still functioning. He glanced over the instrument-and-control panels. No red tags on them, at least. Just to make sure, he opened them up, one by one, and looked inside. Nothing wrong, apparently.

Maybe it had just been some minor repair--a broken lighting switch or something. But he didn't dare hope yet.

He went through the door in the tiny cabin that led to the engine compartment, and he saw what the trouble was.

The shielding had been removed from the atomic motors.

He just hung there in the air, not moving. His lean, dark face remained expressionless, but tears welled up in his eyes and spilled over, spreading their dampness over his lid

The motors would run, all right. The ship could take him to Earth. But the radiation leakage from those motors would kill him long before he made it home. It would take ten days to make it back to base, and twenty-four hours of exposure to the deadly radiation from those engines would be enough to insure his death from radiation sickness.

His eyes were blurring from the film of tears that covered them; without gravity to move the liquid, it just pooled there, distorting his vision. He blinked the tears away, then wiped his face with his free hand.

Now what?

He was the only man left alive on the Shane, and none of the lifeboats had escaped. The Rat cruisers had seen to that.

* * * *

They weren't really rats, those people. Not literally. They looked humanoid enough to enable plastic surgeo

sguise a human being as one of them, although it meant sacrificing the little fingers and little toes to imitate the four-digited Rats. The Rats were at a disadvantage there; they couldn't add any fingers. But the Rats had other

vantages--they bred and fought like, well, like rats.

Not that human beings couldn't equal them or even surpass them in ferocity, if necessary. But the Rats had nearly a thousand years of progress over Earth. Their Industrial Revolution had occurred while the Angles and the Saxons and the Jutes were pushing the Britons into Wales. They had put their first artificial satellites into orbit while King Alfred the Great was fighting off the Danes.

They hadn't developed as rapidly as Man had. It took them roughly twice as long to go from one step to the next, so that their actual superiority was only a matter of five hundred years, and Man was catching up rapidly. Unfortunately, Man hadn't caught up yet.

The first meeting of the two races had taken place in interstellar space, and had seemed friendly enough. Two ships had come within detector distance of each other, and had circled warily. It was almost a perfect example of the Leinster Hypothesis; neither knew where the other's home world was located, and neither could go back home for fear that the other would be able to follow. But the Leinster Hypothesis couldn't be followed to the end. Leinster's solution had been to have the parties trade ships and go home, but that only works when the two civilizations are fairly close in technological development. The Rats certainly weren't going to trade their ship for the inferior craft of the Earthmen.

The Rats, conscious of their superiority, had a simpler solution. They were certain, after a while, that Earth posed no threat to them, so they invited the Earth ship to follow them home.

The Earthmen had been taken on a carefully conducted tour of the Rats' home planet, and the captain of the Earth ship--who had gone down in history as "Sucker" Johnston--was convinced that the Rats meant no harm, and agreed to lead a Rat ship back to Earth. If the Rats had struck then, there would never have been a Rat-Human War. It would have been over before it started.

But the Rats were too proud of their superiority. Earth was too far away to bother them for the moment; it wasn't in their line of conquest just yet. In another fifty years, the planet would be ready for picking off.

arth had no idea that the Rats were so widespread. They had taken and colonized over thirty planets, completely destroying the indigenous intelligent races that had existed on five of them.

It wasn't just pride that had made the Rats decide to wait before hitting Earth; there was a certain amount of prudence, too. None of the other races they had met had developed space travel; the Earthmen might be a little tougher to beat. Not that there was any doubt of the outcome, as far as they were concerned--but why take chances?

But, while the Rats had fooled "Sucker" Johnston and some of his officers, the majority of the crew knew better. Rat crewmen were little short of slaves, and the Rats made the mistake of assuming that the Earth crewmen were the same. They hadn't tried to impress the crewmen as they had the officers. When the interrogation officers on Earth questioned the crew of the Earth ship, they, too, became suspicious. Johnston's optimistic attitude just didn't jibe with the facts.

So, while the Rat officers were having the red carpet rolled out for them, Earth Intelligence went to work. Several presumably awe-stricken men were allowed to take a conducted tour of the Rat ship. After all, why not? The Twentieth Century Russians probably wouldn't have minded showing their rocket plants to an American of Captain John Smith's time, either.

But there's a difference. Earth's government knew Earth was being threatened, and they knew they had to get as many facts as they could. They were also aware of the fact that if you know a thing can be done, then you will eventually find a way to do it.

During the next fifty years, Earth learned more than it had during the previous hundred. The race expanded, secretly, moving out to other planets in that sector of the galaxy. And they worked to catch up with the Rats.

They didn't make it, of course. When, after fifty years of presumably peaceful--but highly limited--contact, the Rats hit Earth, they found out one thing. That the mass and energy of a planet armed with the proper weapons can not be out-classed by any conceivable concentration of spaceships.

Throwing rocks at an army armed with machine guns may seem futile, but if you hit them with an avalanche, they'll go under. The Rats lost three-quarters of their fleet to planet-based guns and had to go home to bandage their wounds.

The only trouble was that Earth couldn't counterattack. Their ships were still out-classed by those of the Rats. And the Rats, their racial pride badly stung, were determined to wipe out Man, to erase the stain on their honor wherever Man could be found. Somehow, some way, they must destroy Earth.

And now, Al Pendray thought bitterly, they would do it.

* * * * *

The Shane had sneaked in past Rat patrols to pick up a spy on one of the outlying Rat planets, a man who'd spent five years playing the part of a Rat slave, trying to get information on their activities there. And he had had one vital bit of knowledge. He'd found it and held on to it for over three years, until the time came for the rendezvous.

The rendezvous had almost come too late. The Rats had developed a device that could make a star temporarily unstable, and they were ready to use it on Sol.

The Shane had managed to get off-planet with the spy, but they'd been spotted in spite of the detector nullifiers that Earth had developed. They'd been jumped by Rat cruisers and blasted by the superior Rat weapons. The lifeboats had been picked out of space, one by one, as the crew tried to get away.

In a way, Alfred Pendray was lucky. He'd been in the sick bay with a sprained ankle when the Rats hit, sitting in the X-ray room. The shot that had knocked out the port engine had knocked him unconscious, but the shielded walls of the X-ray room had saved him from the blast of radiation that had cut down the crew in the rear of the ship. He'd come to in time to see the Rat cruisers cut up the lifeboats before they could get well away from the ship. They'd taken a couple of parting shots at the dead hulk, and then left it to drift in space--and leaving one man alive.

In the small section near the rear of the ship, there were still compartments that were airtight. At least, Pendray decided, there was enough air to keep him alive for a while. If only he could get a little power into the ship, he could get the rear air purifiers to working.

He left the lifeboat and closed the door behind him. There was no point in worrying about a boat he couldn't use.

He made his way back toward the engine room. Maybe there was something salvageable there. Swimming through the corridors was becoming easier with practice; his Cadet training was coming back to him.

Then he got a shock that almost made him faint. The beam of his light had fallen full on the face of a Rat. It took him several seconds to realize that the Rat was dead, and several more to realize that it wasn't a Rat at all. It was the spy they had been sent to pick up. He'd been in the sick bay for treatments of the ulcers on his back gained from five years of frequent lashings as a Rat slave.

Pendray went closer and looked him over. He was still wearing the clothing he'd had on when the Shane picked him up.

Poor guy, Pendray thought. All that hell--for nothing.

Then he went around the corpse and continued toward the engine room.

The place was still hot, but it was thermal heat, not radioactivity. A dead atomic engine doesn't leave any residual effects.

Five out of the six engines were utterly ruined, but the sixth seemed to be in working condition. Even the shielding was intact. Again, hope rose in Alfred Pendray's mind. If only there were tools!

A half hour's search killed that idea. There were no tools aboard capable of cutting through the hard shielding. He couldn't use it to shield the engine on the lifeboat. And the shielding that been on the other five engines had melted and run; it was worthless.

Then another idea hit him. Would the remaining engine work at all? Could it be fixed? It was the only hope he had left.

Apparently, the only thing wrong with it was the exciter circuit leads, which had been sheared off by a bit of flying metal. The engine had simply stopped instead of exploding. That ought to be fixable. He could try; it was something to do, anyway.

It took him the better part of two days, according to his watch. There were plenty of smaller tools around for the job, although many of them were scattered and some had been ruined by the explosions. Replacement parts were harder to find, but he managed to pirate some of them from the ruined engines.

He ate and slept as he felt the need. There was plenty of food in the sick bay kitchen, and there is no need for a bed under gravity-less conditions.

After the engine was repaired, he set about getting the rest of the ship ready to move--if it would move. The hull was still solid, so the infraspace field should function. The air purifiers had to be reconnected and repaired in a couple of places. The lights ditto. The biggest job was checking all the broken leads to make sure there weren't any short circuits anywhere.

The pseudogravity circuits were hopeless. He'd have to do without gravity.

* * * * *

On the third day, he decided he'd better clean the place up. There were several corpses floating around, and they were beginning to be noticeable. He had to tow them, one by one, to the rear starboard air lock and seal them between the inner and outer doors. He couldn't dump them, since the outer door was partially melted and welded shut.

He took the personal effects from the men. If he ever got back to Earth, their next-of-kin might want the stuff. On the body of the imitation Rat, he found a belt-pouch full of microfilm. The report on the Rats' new weapon? Possibly. He'd have to look it over later.

On the "morning" of the fourth day, he started the single remaining engine. The infraspace field came on, and the ship began moving at multiples of the speed of light. Pendray grinned. Half gone, will travel, he thought gleefully.

If Pendray had had any liquor aboard, he would have gotten mildly drunk. Instead, he sat down and read the spools of microfilm, using the projector in the sick bay.

He was not a scientist in the strict sense of the word. He was a navigator and a fairly good engineer. So it didn't surprise him any that he couldn't understand a lot of the report. The mechanics of making a semi-nova out of a normal star were more than a little bit over his head. He'd read a little and then go out and take a look at the stars, checking their movement so that he could make an estimate of his speed. He'd jury-rigged a kind of control on the hull field, so he could aim the hulk easily enough. He'd only have to get within signaling range, anyway. An Earth ship would pick him up.

If there was any Earth left by the time he got there.

He forced his mind away from thinking about that.

It was not until he reached the last spool of microfilm that his situation was forcibly brought to focus in his mind. Thus far, he had thought only about saving himself. But the note at the end of the spool made him realize that there were others to save.

The note said: These reports must reach Earth before 22 June 2287. After that, it will be too late.

22 June!

That was--let's see....

This is the eighteenth of September, he thought, June of next year is--nine months away. Surely I can make it in that time. I've got to.

The only question was, how fast was the hulk of the Shane moving?

It took him three days to get the answer accurately. He knew the strength of the field around the ship, and he knew the approximate thrust of the single engine by that time. He had also measured the motions of some of the nearer stars. Thank heaven he was a navigator and not a mechanic or something! At least he knew the direction and distance to Earth, and he knew the distance of the brighter stars from where the ship was.

He had two checks to use, then. Star motion against engine thrust and field strength. He checked them. And rechecked them. And hated the answer.

He would arrive in the vicinity of Sol some time in late July--a full month too late.

What could he do? Increase the output of the engine? No. It was doing the best it could now. Even shutting off the lights wouldn't help anything; they were a microscopic drain on that engine.

He tried to think, tried to reason out a solution, but nothing would come. He found time to curse the fool who had decided the shielding on the lifeboat would have to be removed and repaired. That little craft, with its lighter mass and more powerful field concentration, could make the trip in ten days.

The only trouble was that ten days in that radiation hell would be impossible. He'd be a very well-preserved corpse in half that time, and there'd be no one aboard to guide her.

Maybe he could get one of the other engines going! Sure. He must be able to get one more going, somehow. Anything to cut down on that time!

He went back to the engines again, looking them over carefully. He went over them again. Not a single one could be repaired at all.

Then he rechecked his velocity figures, hoping against hope that he'd made a mistake somewhere, dropped a decimal point or forgotten to divide by two. Anything. Anything!

But there was nothing. His figures had been accurate the first time.

For a while, he just gave up. All he could think of was the terrible blaze of heat that would wipe out Earth when the Rats set off the sun. Man might survive. There were colonies that the Rats didn't know about. But they'd find them eventually. Without Earth, the race would be set back five hundred--maybe five thousand--years. The Rats would would have plenty of time to hunt them out and destroy them.

And then he forced his mind away from that train of thought. There had to be a way to get there on time. Something in the back of his mind told him that there was a way.

He had to think. Really think.

* * * * *

On 7 June 2287, a signal officer on the Earth destroyer Muldoon picked up a faint signal coming from the general direction of the constellation of Sagittarius. It was the standard emergency signal for distress. The broadcaster only had a very short range, so the source couldn't be too far away.

He made his report to the ship's captain. "We're within easy range of her, sir," he finished. "Shall we pick her up?"

"Might be a Rat trick," said the captain. "But we'll have to take the chance. Beam a call to Earth, and let's go out there dead slow. If the detectors show anything funny, we turn tail and run. We're in no position to fight a Rat ship."

"You think this might be a Rat trap, sir?"

The captain grinned. "If you are referring to the Muldoon as a rat trap, Mr. Blake, you're both disrespectful and correct. That's why we're going to run if we see anything funny. This ship is already obsolete by our standards; you can imagine what it is by theirs." He paused. "Get that call in to Earth. Tell 'em this ship is using a distress signal that was obsolete six months ago. And tell 'em we're going out."

"Yes, sir," said the signal officer.

It wasn't a trap. As the Muldoon approached the source of the signal, their detectors picked up the ship itself. It was a standard lifeboat from a battleship of the Shannon class.

"You don't suppose that's from the Shane, do you?" the captain said softly as he looked at the plate. "She's the only ship of that class that's missing. But if that's a Shane lifeboat, what took her so long to get here?"

"She's cut her engines, sir!" said the observer. "She evidently knows we're coming."

"All right. Pull her in as soon as we're close enough. Put her in Number Two lifeboat rack; it's empty."

* * * * *

When the door of the lifeboat opened, the captain of the Muldoon was waiting outside the lifeboat rack. He didn't know exactly what he had expected to see, but it somehow seemed fitting that a lean, bearded man in a badly worn uniform and a haggard look about him should step out.

The specter saluted. "Lieutenant Alfred Pendray, of the Shane," he said, in a voice that had almost no strength. He held up a pouch. "Microfilm," he said. "Must get to Earth immediately. No delay. Hurry."

"Catch him!" the captain shouted. "He's falling!" But one of the men nearby had already caught him.

In the sick bay, Pendray came to again. The captain's questioning gradually got the story out of Pendray.

"... So I didn't know what to do then," he said, his voice a breathy whisper. "I knew I had to get that stuff home. Somehow."

"Go on," said the captain, frowning.

"Simple matter," said Pendray. "Nothing to it. Two equations. Little ship goes thirty times as fast as big ship--big hulk. Had to get here before 22 June. Had to. Only way out, y'unnerstand.

"Anyway. Two equations. Simple. Work 'em in your head. Big ship takes ten months, little one takes ten days. But can't stay in a little ship ten days. No shielding. Be dead before you got here. See?"

"I see," said the captain patiently.

"But--and here's a 'mportant point: If you stay on the big ship for eight an' a half months, then y' only got to be in the little ship for a day an' a half to get here. Man can live that long, even under that radiation. See?" And with that, he closed his eyes.

"Do you mean you exposed yourself to the full leakage radiation from a lifeboat engine for thirty-six hours?"

But there was no answer.

"Let him sleep," said the ship's doctor. "If he wakes up again, I'll let you know. But he might not be very lucid from here on in."

"Is there anything you can do?" the captain asked.

"No. Not after a radiation dosage like that." He looked down at Pendray. "His problem was easy, mathematically. But not psychologically. That took real guts to solve."

"Yeah," said the captain gently. "All he had to do was get here alive. The problem said nothing about his staying that way."

***End Of The Project Gutenberg Ebook The Measure Of A Man***

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Viewpoint, by Gordon Randall Garrett

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Viewpoint

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Release Date: November 20, 2007 [EBook #23563]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIEWPOINT ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Viewpoint

BY RANDALL GARRETT

Illustrated by Bernklau

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction January 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

A fearsome thing is a thing you're afraid of--and it has nothing whatever to do with whether others are afraid, nor with whether it is in fact dangerous. It's your view of the matter that counts!

There was a dizzy, sickening whirl of mental blackness--not true blackness, but a mind-enveloping darkness that was filled with the multi-colored little sparks of thoughts and memories that scattered through the darkness like tiny glowing mice, fleeing from something unknown, fleeing outwards and away toward a somewhere that was equally unknown; scurrying, moving, changing--each half recognizable as it passed, but leaving only a vague impression behind.

Memories were shattered into their component data bits in that maelstrom of not-quite-darkness, and scattered throughout infinity and eternity. Then the pseudo-dark stopped its violent motion and became still, no longer scattering the fleeing memories, but merely blanketing them. And slowly--ever so slowly--the powerful cohesive forces that existed between the data-bits began pulling them back together again as the not-blackness faded. The associative powers of the mind began putting the frightened little things together as they drifted back in from vast distances, trying to fit them together again in an ordered whole. Like a vast jigsaw puzzle in five dimensions, little clots and patches formed as the bits were snuggled into place here and there.

The process was far from complete when Broom regained consciousness.

* * * * *

Broom sat up abruptly and looked around him. The room was totally unfamiliar. For a moment, that seemed perfectly understandable. Why shouldn't the room look odd, after he had gone through--

What?

He rubbed his head and looked around more carefully. It was not just that the room itself was unfamiliar as a whole; the effect

greater than that. It was not the first time in his life -- regained consciousness in unfamiliar surroundings, but always before he had been aware that only the pattern was different.

He sat there on the floor and took stock of himself and his surroundings.

He was a big man--six feet tall when he stood up, and proportionately heavy, a big-boned frame covered with hard, well-trained muscles. His hair and beard were a dark blond, and rather shaggy became the time he'd spent in prison.

Prison!

Yes, he'd been in prison. The rough clothing he was wearing was certainly nothing like the type of dress he was used to.

He tried to force his memory to give him the information he was looking for, but it wouldn't come. A face flickered in his mind for a moment, and a name. Contarini. He seemed to remember a startled look on the Italian's face, but he could neither remember the reason for it nor when it had been. But it would come back; he was sure of that.

Meanwhile, where the devil was he?

From where he was sitting, he could see that the room was fairly large, but not extraordinarily so. A door in one wall led into another room of about the same size. But they were like no other rooms he had ever seen before. He looked down at the floor. It was soft, almost as soft as a bed, covered with a thick, even, resilient layer of fine material of some kind. It was some sort of carpeting that covered the floor from wall to wall, but no carpet had ever felt like this.

He lifted himself gingerly to his feet. He wasn't hurt, at least. He felt fine, except for the gaps in his memory.

The room was well lit. The illumination came from the ceiling, which seemed to be made of some glowing, semitranslucent metal that cast a shadowless glow over everything. There was a large, bulky table near the wall away from the door; it looked almost normal, except that the objects on it were like nothing that had ever existed. Their purposes were unknown, and their shapes meaningless.

He jerked his head away, not wanting to look at the things on the table.

The walls, at least, looked familiar. They seemed to be paneled in some fine wood. He walked over and touched it.

And knew immediately that, no matter what it looked like, it wasn't wood. The illusion was there to the eye, but no wood ever had such a hard, smooth, glasslike surface as this. He jerked his finger

away.

He recognized, then, the emotion that had made him turn away from the objects on the table and pull his hand away from --ural wall. It was fear.

Fear? Nonsense! He put his hand out suddenly and slapped the wall with his palm and held it there. There was nothing to be afraid of!

He laughed at himself softly. He'd faced death a hundred times during the war without showing fear; this was no time to start. What should his men think of him if they saw him getting shaky over the mere touch of a woodlike wall?

The memories were coming back. This time, he didn't try to probe for them; he just let them flow.

He turned around again and looked deliberately at the big, bulky table. There was a faint humming noise coming from it which had escaped his notice before. He walked over to it and looked at the queerly-shaped things that lay on its shining surface. He had already decided that the table was no more wood than the wall, and a touch of a finger to the surface verified the decision.

The only thing that looked at all familiar on the table was a sheaf of written material. He picked it up and glanced over the pages, noticing the neat characters, so unlike any that he knew. He couldn't read a word of it. He grinned and put the sheets back down on the smooth table top.

The humming appeared to be coming from a metal box on the other side of the table. He circled around and took a look at the thing. It had levers and knobs and other projections, but their functions were not immediately discernible. There were several rows of studs with various unrecognizable symbols on them.

This would certainly be something to tell in London--when and if he ever got back.

He reached out a tentative finger and touched one of the symbol-marked studs.

There was a loud click! in the stillness of the room, and he leaped back from the device. He watched it warily for a moment, but nothing more seemed to be forthcoming. Still, he decided it might be best to let things alone. There was no point in messing with things that undoubtedly controlled forces beyond his ability to cope with, or understand. After all, such a long time--

He stopped, Time? Time?

What had Contarini said about time? Something about its being like a river that flowed rapidly--that much he remembered. Oh, yes--and that it was almost impossible to try to swim backwards against the current or ... something else. What?

He shook his head. The more he tried to remember what his fellow prisoner had told him, the more ellusive it became.

He had traveled in time, that much was certain, but how far, and in which direction? Toward the future, obviously; Contarini had made it plain that going into the past was impossible. Then could he, Broom, get back to his own time, or was he destined to stay in this--place? Wherever and whenever it was.

Evidently movement through the time-river had a tendency to disorganize a man's memories. Well, wasn't that obvious anyway? Even normal movement through time, at the rate of a day per day, made some memories fade. And some were lost entirely, while others remained clear and bright. What would a sudden jump of centuries do?

His memory was improving, though. If he just let it alone, most of it would come back, and he could orient himself. Meanwhile, he might as well explore his surroundings a little more. He resolved to keep his hands off anything that wasn't readily identifiable.

* * * * *

There was a single oddly-shaped chair by the bulky table, and behind the chair was a heavy curtain which apparently covered a window. He could see a gleam of light coming through the division in the curtains.

Broom decided he might as well get a good look at whatever was outside the building he was in. He stepped over, parted the curtains, and--

--And gasped!

It was night time outside, and the sky was clear. He recognized the familiar constellations up there. But they were dimmed by the light from the city that stretched below him.

And what a city! At first, it was difficult for his eyes to convey their impressions intelligently to his brain. What they were recording was so unfamiliar that his brain could not decode the messages they sent.

There were broad, well-lit streets that stretched on and on, as far as he could see, and beyond them, flittering fairy bridges rose into the air and arched into the distance. And the buildings towered over everything. He forced himself to look down, and it made him dizzy. The building he was in was so high that it would have projected through the clouds if there had been any clouds.

Broom backed away from the window and let the curtain close. He'd had all of that he could take for right now. The inside of the building, his immediate surroundings, looked almost homey after seeing that monstrous, endless city outside.

He skirted the table with its still-humming machine and walk toward the door that led to the other room. A picture hanging on a nearby wall caught his eye, and he stopped. It was a portrait of a man in unfamiliar, outlandish clothing, but Broom had seen odder clothing in his travels. But the thing that had stopped him was the amazing reality of the picture. It was almost as if there were a mirror there, reflecting the face of a man who stood invisibly before it.

It wasn't, of course; it was only a painting. But the lifelike, somber eyes of the man were focused directly on him. Broom decided he didn't like the effect at all, and hurried into the next room.

There were several rows of the bulky tables in here, each with its own chair. Broom's footsteps sounded loud in the room, the echoes rebounding from the walls. He stopped and looked down. This floor wasn't covered with the soft carpeting; it had a square, mosaic pattern, as though it might be composed of tile of some kind. And yet, though it was harder than the carpet it had a kind of queer resiliency of its own.

The room itself was larger than the one he had just quitted, and not as well lit. For the first time, he thought of the possibility that there might be someone else here besides himself. He looked around, wishing that he had a weapon of some kind. Even a knife would have made him feel better.

But there had been no chance of that, of course. Prisoners of war are hardly allowed to carry weapons with them, so none had been available.

He wondered what sort of men lived in this fantastic city. So far, he had seen no one. The streets below had been filled with moving vehicles of some kind, but it had been difficult to tell whether there had been anyone walking down there from this height.

Contarini had said that it would be ... how had he said it? "Like sleeping for hundreds of years and waking up in a strange world."

Well, it was that, all right.

Did anyone know he was here? He had the uneasy feeling that hidden, unseen eyes were watching his every move, and yet he could detect nothing. There was no sound except the faint humming from the device in the room behind him, and a deeper, almost inaudible, rushing, rumbling sound that seemed to come from far below.

His wish for a weapon came back, stronger than before. The very fact that he had seen no one set his nerves on edge even more than the sight of a known enemy would have done.

He was suddenly no longer interested in his surroundings. He felt trapped in this strange, silent room. He could see a light shining through a door at the far end of the room--perhaps it was a way out. He walked toward it, trying to keep his footsteps as silent as possible as he moved.

The door had a pane of translucent glass in it, and there were more of the unreadable characters on it. He wished fervently that he could decipher them; they might tell him where he was.

Carefully, he grasped the handle of the door, twisted it, and pulled. And, careful as he had been, the door swung inward with surprising rapidity. It was a great deal thinner and lighter than he had supposed.

He looked down at it, wondering if there were any way the door could be locked. There was a tiny vertical slit set in a small metal panel in the door, but it was much too tiny to be a keyhole. Still--

It didn't matter. If necessary, he could smash the glass to get through the door. He stepped out into what was obviously a hallway beyond the door.

* * * * *

The hallway stretched away to either side, lined with doors similar to the one he had just come through. How did a man get out of this place, anyway? The door behind him was pressing against his hand with a patient insistence, as though it wanted to close itself. He almost let it close, but, at the last second, he changed his mind.

Better the devil we know than the devil we don't, he thought to himself.

He went back into the office and looked around for something to prop the door open. He found a small, beautifully formed porcelain dish on one of the desks, picked it up, and went back to the door. The dish held the door open an inch or so. That was good enough. If someone locked the door, he could still smash in the glass if he wanted to, but the absence of the dish when he returned would tell him that he was not alone in this mysterious place.

He started down the hallway to his right, checking the doors as he went. They were all locked. He knew that he could break into any of them, but he had a feeling that he would find no exit through any of them. They all looked as though they concealed more of the big rooms.

None of them had any lights behind them. Only the one door that he had come through showed the telltale glow from the other side. Why?

He had the terrible feeling that he had been drawn across time to this place for a purpose, and yet he could think of no rational reason for believing so.

He stopped as another memory came back. He remembered being in the stone-walled dungeon, with its smelly straw beds, lit only by the faint shaft of sunlight that came from the barred window high overhead.

Contarini, the short, wiry little Italian who was in the next cell, looked at him through the narrow opening. "I still think it can be done, my friend. It is the mind and the mind alone that sees the flow of time. The body experiences, but does not see. Only the soul is capable of knowing eternity."

Broom outranked the little Italian, but prison can make brothers of all men. "You think it's possible then, to get out of a place like this, simply by thinking about it?"

Contarini nodded. "Why not? Did not the saints do so? And what was that? Contemplation of the Eternal, my comrade; contemplation of the Eternal."

Broom held back a grin. "Then why, my Venetian friend, have you not left this place long since?"

"I try," Contarini had said simply, "but I cannot do it. You wish to know why? It is because I am afraid."

"Afraid?" Broom raised an eyebrow. He had seen Contarini on the battlefield, dealing death in hand-to-hand combat, and the Italian hadn't impressed him as a coward.

"Yes," said the Venetian. "Afraid. Oh, I am not afraid of men. I fight. Some day, I may die--will die. This does not frighten me, death. I am not afraid of what men may do to me." He stopped and frowned. "But, of this, I have a great fear. Only a saint can handle such things, and I am no saint."

"I hope, my dear Contarini," Broom said dryly, "that you are not under the impression that I am a saint."

"No, perhaps not," Contarini said. "Perhaps not. But you are braver than I. I am not afraid of any man living. But you are afraid of neither the living nor the dead, nor of man nor devil--which is a great deal more than I can say for myself. Besides, there is the blood of kings in your veins. And has not a king protection that even a man of noble blood such as myself does not have? I think so.

"Oh, I have no doubt that you could do it, if you but would. And then, perhaps, when you are free, you would free me--for teaching you all I know to accomplish this. My fear holds me chained here, but you have no chains of fear."

Broom had thought that over for a moment, then grinned. "All right, my friend; I'll try it. What's your first lesson?"

The memory faded from Broom's mind. Had he really moved through some segment of Eternity to reach this ... this place? Had he--

He felt a chill run through him. What was he doing here? How could he have taken it all so calmly. Afraid of man or devil, no--but this was neither. He had to get back. The utter alienness of this bright, shining, lifeless wonderland was too much for him.

Instinctively, he turned and ran back toward the room he had left. If he got back to the place where he had appeared in this world, perhaps--somehow--some force would return him to where he belonged.

* * * * *

The door was as he had left it, the porcelain dish still in place. He scooped up the dish in one big hand and ran on into the room, letting the door shut itself behind him. He ran on, through the large room with its many tables, into the brightly lighted room beyond.

He stopped. What could he do now? He tried to remember the things that the Italian had told him to do, and he could not for the life of him remember them. His memory still had gaps in it--gaps he did not know were there because he had not yet probed for them. He closed his eyes in concentration, trying to bring back a memory that would not come.

He did not hear the intruder until the man's voice echoed in the room.

Broom's eyes opened, and instantly every muscle and nerve in his hard-trained body tensed for action. There was a man standing in the doorway of the office.

He was not a particularly impressive man, in spite of the queer cut of his clothes. He was not as tall as Broom, and he looked soft and overfed. His paunch protruded roundly from the open front of the short coat, and there was a fleshiness about his face that betrayed too much good living.

And he looked even more frightened than Broom had been a few minutes before.

He was saying something in a language that Broom did not understand, and the tenseness in his voice betrayed his fear. Broom relaxed. He had nothing to fear from this little man.

"I won't hurt you," Broom said. "I had no intention of intruding on your property, but all I ask is help."

The little man was blinking and backing away, as though he were going to turn and bolt at any moment.

Broom laughed. "You have nothing to fear from me, little man. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Richard Broom, known as--" He stopped, and his eyes widened. Total memory flooded over him as he realized fully who he was and where he belonged.

And the fear hit him again in a raging flood, sweeping over his mind and blotting it out. Again, the darkness came.

* * * * *

This time, the blackness faded quickly. There was a face, a worried face, looking at him through an aperture in the stone wall. The surroundings were so familiar, that the bits of memory which had been scattered again during the passage through centuries of time came back more quickly and settled back into their accustomed pattern more easily.

The face was that of the Italian, Contarini. He was looking both worried and disappointed.

"You were not gone long, my lord king," he said. "But you were gone. Of that there can be no doubt. Why did you return?"

Richard Broom sat up on his palette of straw. The scene in the strange building already seemed dreamlike, but the fear was still there. "I couldn't remember," he said softly. "I couldn't remember who I was nor why I had gone to that ... that place. And when I remembered, I came back."

Contarini nodded sadly. "It is as I have heard. The memory ties one too strongly to the past--to one's own time. One must return as soon as the mind had adjusted. I am sorry, my friend; I had hoped we could escape. But now it appears that we must wait until our ransoms are paid. And I much fear that mine will never be paid."

"Nor mine," said the big man dully. "My faithful Blondin found me, but he may not have returned to London. And even if he has, my brother John may be reluctant to raise the money."

"What? Would England hesitate to ransom the brave king who has fought so gallantly in the Holy Crusades? Never! You will be free, my friend."

But Richard Plantagenet just stared at the little dish that he still held in his hand, the fear still in his heart. Men would still call him "Lion-hearted," but he knew that he would never again deserve the title.

* * * * *

And, nearly eight centuries away in time and thousands of miles away in space, a Mr. Edward Jasperson was speaking hurriedly into the telephone that stood by the electric typewriter on his desk.

"That's right, Officer; Suite 8601, Empire State Building. I was working late, and I left the lights on in my office when I went out to get a cup of coffee. When I came back, he was here--a big, bearded man, wearing a thing that looked like a monk's robe made out of gunny sack. What? No, I locked the door when I left. What? Well, the only thing that's missing as far as I can tell is a ceramic ash tray from one of the desks; he was holding that in his hand when I saw him. What? Oh. Where did he go?" Mr. Jasperson paused in his rush of words. "Well, I must have gotten a little dizzy--I was pretty shocked, you know. To be honest, I didn't see where he went. I must have fainted.

"But I think you can pick him up if you hurry. With that getup on, he can't get very far away. All right. Thank you, Officer."

He cradled the phone, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and dabbed at his damp forehead. He was a very frightened little man, but he knew he'd get over it by morning.

THE END

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Viewpoint, by Gordon Randall Garrett

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Occasion for Disaster, by Gordon Randall Garrett and Laurence Mark Janifer

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Occasion for Disaster

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett Laurence Mark Janifer

Illustrator: van Dongen

Release Date: November 9, 2009 [EBook #30434]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OCCASION FOR DISASTER ***

Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction November 1960, December 1960, January 1961, February 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

Occasion ... For Disaster

By MARK PHILLIPS

Illustrated by van Dongen

A very small slip, at just the wrong place, can devastate any enterprise. One tiny transistor can go wrong ... and ruin a multi-million dollar missile. Which would be one way to stop the missiles....

"We must remember not to judge any public servant by any one act, and especially should we beware of attacking the men who are merely the occasions and not the causes of disaster."

Theodore Roosevelt

* * * * *

In 1914, it was enemy aliens.

In 1930, it was Wobblies.

In 1957, it was fellow-travelers.

In 1971, it was insane telepaths.

And, in 1973:

"We don't know what it is," said Andrew J. Burris, Director of the

I. He threw his hands in the air and looked baffled and confused.

Kenneth J. Malone tried to appear sympathetic. "What what is?"

Burris frowned and drummed his fingers on his big desk. "Malone," he said, "make sense. And don't stutter."

"Stutter?" Malone said. "You said you didn't know what it was. And I wanted to know what it was."

"That's just it," Burris said. "I don't know."

Malone sighed and repressed an impulse to scream. "Now, wait a minute, Chief--" he started.

Burris frowned again. "Don't call me Chief," he said.

Malone nodded, "O.K.," he said. "But--if you

t know what it is, you must have some idea of what you don't know. I mean, is it larger than a breadbox? Does it perform helpful tasks? Is it self-employed?"

"Malone," Burris sighed, "you ought to be on television.

"But--"

"Let me explain," Burris said. His voic

lmer now, and he spoke as if he were enunciating nothing but the most obvious and eternal truths. "The country,"

s going to Hell in a handbasket."

Malone nodded again. "Well, after all, Chief--" he started.

"Don't call me Chief," Burris said wearily.

"Anything you say," Malone agreed peacefully. He eyed the Director of the FBI warily. "After all, it isn't anything new," he wen

"The country's always been going to Hell in a handbasket, one way or another. Look at Rome."

"Rome?" Burris said.

"Sure," Malone said.

me was always going to Hell in a handbasket, and finally it--" He paused. "Finally it did, I guess," he said.

"Exactly," Burris said. "And so are we. Finally." He passed a hand over his forehead and stared past Malo

t a spot on the wall. Malone turned and looked at the spot, but saw nothing of interest. "Malone," Burris said, and the FBI Agent whirled around again.

"Yes, Ch--Yes?" he said.

"This time," Burris said, "it isn't the same old story at all. This time it's different."

"Different?" Malone said.

Burris nodded, "Look at it this way," he said. His eyes returned to the FBI Agent. "Suppose you're a congressman," he went on, "and you find evidence of inefficiency in the government."

"All right," Malone said agreeably. He had the feeling that if he waited around a little while everything would make sense, and he was willing to wait. After all, he wasn't on assignment at the moment, and there was nothing pressing waiting for him. He was even between romances.

If he waited long enough, he told himself, Andrew J. Burris might say something worth hearing. He looked attentive and eager. He considered leaning over the desk a little, to look even more eager, but decided against it; Burris might think he looked threatening. There was no telling.

"You're a congressman," Burris said, "and the government is inefficient. You find evidence of it. What do you do?"

* * * * *

Malone blinked and thought for a second. It didn't take any longer than that to come up with the old, old answer. "I start an investigation," he said. "I get a committee and I talk to a lot of newspaper editors and magazine editors and maybe I go on television and talk some more, and my committee has a lot

meetings--"

"Exactly," Burris said.

"And we talk a lot at the meetings," Malone went on, carried away, --t a lot of publicity, and we subpoena famous people, just as famous as we can get, except governors or presidents, because you can't--they tried that back in the '50s, and it didn't work very well--and that gives us some more publicity, and then when we have all the publicity we can possibly get--"

"You stop," Burris said hurriedly.

"That's right," Malone said. "We stop. And that's what I'd do."

"Of course, the problem of inefficiency is left exactly where it always was," Burris said. "Nothing's been done about it."

"Naturally," Malone said. "But think of all the lovely publicity. And all the nice talk. And the subpoenas and committees and everything."

"Sure," Burris said wearily. "It's happened a thousand times. But, Malone, that's the difference. It isn't happening this time."

There was a short pause. "What do you mean?" Malone said at last.

"This time," Burris said, in a tone that sounded almost awed, "they want to keep it a secret."

"A secret?" Malone said, blinking. "But that's ... that's not the American way."

Burris shrugged. "It's un-congressman-like, anyhow," he said. "But that's what they've done. Tiptoed over to me and whispered softly that the thing has to be investigated quietly. Naturally, they didn't give me any orders--but only because they know they can't make one stick. They suggested it pretty strongly."

"Any reasons?" Malone said. The whole idea interested him strangely. It was odd--and he found himself almost liking odd cases, lately. That is, he amended hurriedly, if they didn't get too odd.

"Oh, they had reasons, all right," Burris said. "It took a little coaxing, but I managed to pry some loose. You see, every one of them found inefficiency in his own department. And every one knows that other men are investigating inefficiency."

"Oh," Malone said.

"That's right," Burris said. "Every one of them came to me to get me to prove that the goof-ups in his particular department weren't his fault. That covers them in case one of the others happens to light into the department."

"Well, it must be somebody's fault," Malone said.

"It isn't theirs," Burris said wearily. "I ought to know. They told me. At great length, Malone."

Malone felt a stab of honest pity. "How many so far?" he said.

"Six," Burris said. "Four representatives, and two senators."

"Only two?" Malone said.

"Well," Burris said, "the Senate is so much smaller. And, besides, we may get more. As a matter of fact, Senator Lefferts is worth any six representatives all by himself."

"He is?" Malone said, puzzled. Senator Lefferts was not one of his favorite people. Nor, as far as he knew, did the somewhat excitable senator hold any place of honor in the heart of Andrew J. Burris.

"

is story," Burris said. "I've never heard anything like it--at least, not since the Bilbo days. And I've only heard about those," he added hurriedly.

"What story?" Malone said. "He talked about inefficiency--"

"Not exactly," Burris said carefully. "He said that somebody was out to get him--him, personally. He said somebody was trying to discredit him by sabotaging all his legislative plans."

"Well," Malone said, feeling that some comment was called for, "three cheers."

"That isn't the point," Burris snapped. "No matter how we felt about Senator Lefferts or his legislative plans, we're sworn to protect him. And he says 'they' are out to get him."

"They?" Malone said.

"You know," Burris said, shrugging. "The great 'they.' The invisible enemies all around, working against him."

"Oh," Malone said. "Paranoid?" He had always thought Senator Lefferts was slightly on the batty side, and the idea of real paranoia didn't come as too much of a surprise. After all, when a man was batty to start out with ... and he even looked like a vampire, Malone thought confusedly.

"As far as paranoia is concerned," Burris said, "I checked with one of our own psych men, and he'll back it up. Lefferts has definite paranoid tendencies, he says."

Malone said, "That's that."

Burris shook his head. "It isn't that simple," he said. "You see, Malone, there's some evidence that somebody is working against him."

"The American public, with any luck at all," Malone said.

"No," Burris said. "An enemy. Somebody sabotaging his plans. Really."

Malone shook his head. "You're crazy," he said.

Burris looked shocked. "Malone, I'm the Director of the FBI," he said. "And if you insist on being disrespectful--"

"Sorry," Malone murmured. "But--"

"I am perfectly sane," Burris said slowly. "It's Senator Lefferts who's crazy. The only trouble is, he has evidence to show he's not."

Malone thought about odd cases, and suddenly wished he were somewhere else. Anywhere else. This one showed sudden signs of developing into something positively bizarre. "I see," he said, wondering if he did.

"After all," Burris said, in a voice that attempted to sound reasonable, "a paranoid has just as much right to be persecuted as anybody else, doesn't he?"

"Sure," Malone said. "Everybody has rights. But what do you want me to do ab

that?"

"About their rights?" Burris said. "Nothing, Malone. Nothing."

"I mean," Malone said patiently, "about whatever it is that's going on."

Burris took a deep breath. His hands clasped behind his head, and he looked up at the ceiling. He seemed perfectly relaxed. That, Malone knew, was a bad sign. It meant that there was a dirty job coming, a job nobody wanted to do, and one Burris was determined to pass off on him. He sighed and tried to feel resigned.

* * * * *

"Well," the FBI Director said, "the only actual trouble we can pinpoint is that there seem to be a great many errors occurring in the paperwork--more than usual."

"People get tired," Malone said tentatively.

"But computer-secretary calculating machines don't," Burris said. "And that's where the errors are--in the computer-secretaries down in the Senate Office Building. I think you'd better start out there."

"Sure," Malone said sadly.

"See if there's any mechanical or electrical defect in any of those computers," Burris said. "Talk to the computer technicians. Find out what's causing all these errors."

"Yes, sir," Malone said. He was still trying to feel resigned, but he wasn't succeeding very well.

"And if you don't find anything--" Burris began.

"I'll come right back," Malone said instantly.

"No," Burris said. "You keep on looking."

"I do?"

"You do," Burris said. "After all, there has to be something wrong."

"Sure," Malone said, "if you say so. But--"

"There are the interview tapes," Burris said, "and the reports the congressmen brought in. You can go through those."

Malone sighed. "I guess so," he said.

"And there must be thousands of other things to do," Burris said.

"Well--" Malone began cautiously.

"You'll be able to think of them," Burris said heartily. "I know you will. I have confidence in you, Malone. Confidence."

"Thanks," Malone said sadly.

"You just keep me posted from time to time on what you're doing, and what ideas you get," Burris said. "I'm leaving the whole thing in your hands, Malone, and I'm sure you won't disappoint me."

"I'll try," Malone said.

"I know you will," Burris said warmly. "And no matter how long it takes--I know you'll succeed."

"No matter how long it takes?" Malone said hesitantly.

"That's right!" Burris said. "You can do it, Malone! You can do it."

Malone nodded slowly. "I hope so," he said. "Well, I ... well, I'll start out right away, then."

He turned. Before he could make another move Burris said: "Wait!"

Malone turned again, hope in his eyes. "Yes, sir?" he said.

"When you leave--" Burris began, and the hope disappeared "please do one little favor for me. Just one little favor, because I'm an old, tired man and I'm not used to things any more."

"Sure," Malone said. "Anything, Chief."

"Don't call me--"

"Sorry," Malone said.

Burris breathed heavily. "When you leave," he said, "please, please use the door."

"But--"

"Malone," Burris said, "I've tried. I've really tried. Believe me. I've tried to get used to the fact that you can teleport. But--"

"It's useful," Malone said, "in my work."

"I can see that," Burris said. "And I don't want you to ... well, to stop doing it. By no means. It's just that it sort of unnerves me, if you see what I mean. No matter how useful it is for the FBI to have an agent who can go instantaneously from one place to another, it unnerves me." He sighed. "I can't get used to seeing you disappear like an over-dried soap bubble, Malone. It does something to me--here." He placed a hand directly over his sternum and sighed again.

"I can understand that," Malone said. "It unnerved me, too, the first time I saw it. I thought I was going crazy, when that kid--Mike Fueyo--winked out like a light. But then we got him, and some FBI agents besides me have learned the trick." He stopped there, wondering if he'd been tactful. After all, it took a latent ability to learn teleportation, and some people had it, while others didn't. Malone, along with a few other agents, did. Burris evidently didn't--so he couldn't teleport, no matter how hard he tried or how many lessons he took.

"Well," Burris said, "I'm still unnerved. So ... please, Malone ... when you come in here, or go out, use the door. All right?"

"Yes, sir," Malone said. He turned and went out. As he opened the door, he could almost hear Burris' sigh of relief. Then he banged it shut behind him and, feeling that he might as well continue with his spacebound existence, walked all the way to the elevator, and rode it downstairs to the FBI laboratories.

The labs, highly efficient and divided into dozens of departments, covered several floors. Malone passed through the Fingerprint section, filled with technicians doing strange things to great charts and slides, and frowning over tiny pieces of material and photographs. Then came Forgery Detection, involving many more technicians, many more slides and charts and tiny pieces of things and photographs, and even a witness or two sitting on the white bench at one side and looking lost and somehow civilian. Identification Classified was next, a great barn of a room filled with index files. The real indexes were in the sub-basement; here, on microfilm, were only the basic division. A man was standing in front of one of the files, frowning at it. Malone went on by without stopping.

Cosmetic Surgery Classification came next. Here there were more indexes, and there were also charts and slides. There was an FBI agent sitting on a bench looking bored while two female technicians--classified as O&U for Old and Ugly in Malone's mind--fluttered around him, deciding what disguises were possible, and which of those was indicated for the particular job on hand. Malone waved to the agent, whom he knew very slightly, and went on. He felt vaguely regretful that the FBI couldn't hire prettier girls for the Cosmetic Surgery Division, but the trouble was that pretty girls fell for the agents--and vice versa--and this led to an unfortunate tendency toward only handsome and virile-looking disguises. The O&U Division was unfortunate, he decided, but a necessity.

Chemical Analysis (III) was next. The Chemical Analysis section was scattered over several floors, with the first stages up above. Division III, Malone remembered, was devoted to non-poisonous substances--like clay or sand found in boots or trouser cuffs, cigar ashes and such. They were placed on the same floor as Fingerprints to allow free and frequent passage between the sections on the problems of plastic prints--made in putty or like substances--and visible prints, made when the hand is covered with a visible substance like blood, ketchup or glue.

Malone found what he was looking for at the very end of the floor. It was the Computer Section, a large room filled with humming, clacking and buzzing machines of an ancient vintage, muttering to themselves as they worked, and newer machines which were smaller and more silent. Lights were lighting and bells were ringing softly, relays were relaying and the whole room was a gigantic maze of calculating and control machines. What space wasn't filled by the machines themselves was filled by workbenches, all littered with an assortment of gears, tubes, spare relays, transistors, wires, rods, bolts, resistors and all the other paraphernalia used in building the machines and repairing them. Beyond the basic room were other, smaller rooms, each assigned to a particular kind of computer work.

The narrow aisles were choked here and there with men who looked up as Malone passed by, but most of them gave him one quick glance and went back to work. A few didn't even do that, but went right on concentrating on their jobs. Malone headed for a man working all alone in front of a workbench, frowning down at a complicated-looking mechanism that seemed to have neither head nor tail, and prodding at it with a long, thin screwdriver. The man was thin, too, but not very long; he was a little under average height, and he had straight black hair, thick-lensed glasses and a studious expression, even when he was frowning. He looked as if the mechanism were a student who had cut too many classes, and he was being kindly but firm with it.

* * * * *

Malone managed to get to the man's side, and coughed discreetly. There was no response.

"Fred?" he said.

The screwdriver waggled a little. Malone wasn't quite sure that the man was breathing.

"Fred Mitchell," he said.

Mitchell didn't look up. Another second passed.

"Hey," Malone said. Then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Fred," he said in a loud, reasonable-sounding voice, "the State Department's translator has started to talk pig-Latin."

Mitchell straightened up as if somebody had jabbed him with a pin. The screwdriver waved wildly in the air for a second, and then pointed at Malone. "That's impossible," Mitchell said in a flat, precise voice. "Simply impossible. It doesn't have a pig-Latin circuit. It can't possibly--" He blinked and seemed to see Malone for the first time. "Oh," he said. "Hello, Malone. What can I do for you?"

Malone smiled, feeling a little victorious at having got through the Mitchell armor, which was almost impregnable when there was a job in hand. "I've been standing here talking to you for some time."

"Oh, have you?" Mitchell said. "I was busy." That, obviously, explained that. Malone shrugged.

"I want you to help me check over some calculators, Fred," he said. "We've had some reports that some of the government machines are out of kilter, and I'd like you to go over them for me."

"Out of kilter?" Fred Mitchell said. "No, you can forget about it. It's absolutely unnecessary to make a check--believe me. Absolutely. Forget it." He smiled suddenly. "I suppose it's some kind of a joke, isn't it?" he said, just a trifle uncertainly. Fred Mitchell's world, while pleasant, did not include much humor, Malone knew. "It's supposed to be funny," he said in the same flat, precise voice.

"It isn't funny," Malone said.

Fred sighed. "Then they're obviously lying," he said, "and that's all there is to it. Why bother me with it?"

"Certainly," Fred said. He looked at the machinery with longing.

Malone took a breath. "How do you know?" he said.

Fred sighed. "It's perfectly obvious," he said in a patient tone. "Since the State Department translator has no pig-Latin circuit, it can't possibly be talking pig-Latin. I will admit that such a circuit would be relatively easy to build, though it would have no utility as far as I can see. Except, of course, for a joke." He paused. "Joke?" he said, in a slightly uneasy tone.

"Sure," Malone said. "Joke."

Mitchell looked relieved. "Very well, then," he began. "Since--"

"Wait a minute," Malone said. "The pig-Latin is a joke. That's right. But I'm not talking about the pig-Latin."

"You're not?" Mitchell asked, surprised.

"No," Malone said.

Mitchell frowned. "But you said--" he began.

"A joke," Malone said. "You were perfectly right. The pig-Latin is a joke." He waited for Fred's expression to clear, and then added: "But what I want to talk to you about isn't."

"It sounds very confused," Fred said after a pause. "Not at all the sort of thing that ... that usually goes on."

"You have no idea," Malone said. "It's about the political machines, all right, but it isn't anything as simple as pig-Latin." He explained, taking his time over it.

When he had finished, Fred was nodding his head slowly. "I see," he said. "I understand just what you want me to do."

"Good," Malone said.

"I'll take a team over to the Senate Office Building," Fred said, "and check the computer-secretaries there. That way, you see, I'll be able to do a full running check on them without taking any one machine out of operation for too long."

"Sure," Malone said.

"And it shouldn't take long," Fred went on, "to find out just what the trouble is." He looked very confident.

"How long?" Malone asked.

Fred shrugged. "Oh," he said, "five or six days."

Malone repressed an impulse to scream. "Days?" he said. "I mean ... well, look, Fred, it's important. Very important. Can't you do the job any faster?"

Fred gave a little sigh. "Checking and repairing all those machines," he said, "is an extremely complex job. Sometimes, Malone, I don't think you realize quite how complex, and how delicate a job it is to deal with such a high-order machine. Why--"

"Wait a minute," Malone said. "Check and repair them?"

"Of course," Fred said.

"But I don't want them repaired," Malone said. Seeing the look of horror on Fred's face, he added hastily: "I only want a report from you on what's wrong, whether they are actually making errors or not. And if they are making errors, just what's making them do it. And just what kind of errors. See?"

Fred nodded very slowly. "But I can't just ... just leave them there," he said piteously. "In ... pieces and everything. It isn't right, Malone. It just isn't right."

"Well, then," Malone said with energy, "you go right ahead and repair them, if you want to. Fix 'em all up. But you can do that after you make the report to me, can't you?"

"I--" Fred hesitated. "I had planned to check and repair each machine on an individual basis--"

"The Congress can allow for a short suspension," Malone said. "Anyhow, they can now--or as soon as I get the word to them. Suppose you check all the machines first, and then get around to the repair work."

"It's not the best way," Fred demurred.

Malone discovered that it was his turn to sigh. "Is it the fastest?" he said.

Fred nodded.

"Then it's the best," Malone said. "How long?"

Fred rolled his eyes to the ceiling and calculated silently for a second. "Tomorrow morning," he announced, returning his gaze to Malone.

"Fine," Malone said. "Fine."

"But--"

"Never mind the buts," Malone said hurriedly. "I'll count on hearing from you tomorrow morning."

"Oh--" Fred said. "All right."

"And if it looks like sabotage," Malone added, "if the errors aren't caused by normal wear and tear on the machines--you let me know right away. Phone me. Don't waste an instant."

[Illustration]

"I'll ... I'll start right away," Fred said heavily. He looked sadly at the mechanism he had been working on, and put his screwdriver down next to it. It looked to Malone as if he were putting flowers on the grave of a dear departed. "I'll get a team together," Fred added. He gave the mechanism and screwdriver one last fond parting look.

Malone looked after him for a second, thinking of nothing in particular, and then turned in the opposite direction and headed back toward the elevator. As he walked, he began to feel more and more pleased with himself. After all, he'd gotten the investigation started, hadn't he?

And now all he had to do was go back to his office and read some reports and listen to some interview tapes, and then he could go home.

The reports and the interview tapes didn't exactly sound like fun, Malone thought, but at the same time they seemed fairly innocent. He would work his way through them grimly, and maybe he would even indulge his most secret vice and smoke a cigar or two to make the work pass more pleasantly. Soon enough, he told himself, they would be finished with.

Sometimes, though, he regretted the reputation he'd gotten. It had been bad enough in the old days--the pre-1971 days when Malone had thought he was just lucky. Burris had called him a Boy Wonder then, when he'd cracked three difficult cases in a row. Being just lucky had made it a little tough to live with the Boy Wonder label--after all, Malone thought, it wasn't actually as if he'd done anything.

But since 1971 and the case of the Telepathic Spy, things had gotten worse. Much worse. Now Malone wasn't just lucky any more. Instead, he could teleport and he could even foretell the future a little, in a dim sort of way. He'd caught the Telepathic Spy that way, and when the case of the Teleporting Juvenile Delinquents had come up he'd been assigned to that one too, and he'd cracked it. Now Burris seemed to think of him as a kind of god, and gave him all the tough dirty jobs.

And if he wasn't just lucky any more, Malone couldn't think of himself as a Fearless, Heroic FBI Agent, either. He just wasn't the type. He was--well, talented. That was the word, he told himself: talented. He had all these talents and they made him look like something spectacular to Burris and the other FBI men. But he wasn't, really. He hadn't done anything really tough to get his talents; they'd just happened to him.

Nobody, though, seemed to believe that. He heaved a little sigh and stepped into the waiting elevator.

There were, after all, he thought, compensations. He'd had some good times, and the talents did come in handy. And he did have his pick of the vacation schedule lately. And he'd met some lovely girls--

And besides, he told himself savagely as the elevator shot upward, he wasn't going to do anything except return to his office and read some reports and listen to some tapes. And then he was going to go home and sleep all night, peacefully. And in the morning Mitchell was going to call him up and tell him that the computer-secretaries needed nothing more than a little repair. He'd say they were getting old, and he'd be a little pathetic about it; but it wouldn't be anything serious. Malone would send out orders to get the machines repaired, and that would be that. And then the next case would be something both normal and exciting, like a bank robbery or a kidnapping involving a gorgeous blonde who would be so grateful to Malone that--

He had stepped out of the elevator and gone down the corridor without noticing it. He pushed at his own office door and walked into the outer room. The train of thought he had been following was very nice, and sounded very attractive indeed, he told himself.

Unfortunately, he didn't believe it. His prescient ability, functioning with its usual efficient aplomb, told Malone that things would not be better, or simpler, in the morning. They would be worse, and more complicated.

They would be quite a lot worse.

And, as usual, that prescience was perfectly accurate.

II

The telephone, Malone realized belatedly, had had a particularly nasty-sounding ring. He might have known it would be bad news.

As a matter of fact, he told himself sadly, he had known.

"Nothing at all wrong?" he said into the mouthpiece. "Not with any of the computers?" He blinked. "Not even one of them?"

"Not a thing," Mitchell said. "I'll be sending a report up to you in a little while. You read it; we put them through every test, and it's all detailed there."

"I'm sure you were very thorough," Malone said helplessly.

"Of course we were," Mitchell said. "Of course. And the machines passed every single test. Every one. Malone, it was beautiful."

"Goody," Malone said at random. "But there's got to be something--"

"There is, Malone," Fred said. "There is. I think there's definitely something odd going on. Something funny. I mean peculiar, not humorous."

"I thought so," Malone put in.

"Right," Fred said. "Malone, try and relax. This is a hard thing to say, and it must be even harder to hear. But--"

"Tell me," Malone said. "Who's dead? Who's been killed?"

"I know it's tough, Malone," Fred went on.

"Is everybody dead?" Malone said. "It can't be just one person, not from that tone in your voice. Has somebody assassinated the entire Senate? Or the President and his Cabinet? Or--"

"It's nothing like that, Malone," Fred said, in a tone that implied that such occurrences were really rather minor. "It's the machines."

"The machines?"

"That's right," Fred said grimly. "After we checked them over and found they were in good shape, I asked for samples of both the input and the output of each machine. I wanted to do a thorough job."

"Congratulations," Malone said. "What happened?"

Fred took a deep breath. "They don't agree," he said.

"They don't?" Malone said. The phrase sounded as if it meant something momentous, but he couldn't quite figure out what. In a minute, he thought confusedly, it would come to him. But did he want it to?

"They definitely do not agree," Fred was saying. "The correlation is erratic; it makes no statistical sense. Malone, there are two possibilities."

"Tell me about them," Malone said. He was beginning to feel relieved. To Fred, the malfunction of a machine was more serious than the murder of the entire Congress. But Malone couldn't quite bring himself to feel that way about things.

"First," Fred said in a tense tone, "it's possible that the technicians feeding information to the machines are making all kinds of mistakes."

Malone nodded at the phone. "That sounds possible," he said. "Which ones?"

"All of them," Fred said. "They're all making errors--and they're all making about the same number of errors. There don't seem to be any real peaks or valleys, Malone; everybody's doing it."

Malone thought of the Varsity Drag and repressed the thought. "A bunch of fumblebums," he said. "All fumbling alike. It does sound unlikely, but I guess it's possible. We'll get after them right away, and--"

"Wait," Fred said. "There is a second possibility."

"Oh," Malone said.

"Maybe they aren't mistakes," Fred said. "Maybe the technicians are deliberately feeding the machine with wrong answers."

Malone hated to admit, even to himself, but that answer sounded a lot more probable. Machine technicians weren't exactly picked off the streets at random; they were highly trained for their work, and the idea of a whole crew of them starting to fumble at once, in a big way, was a little hard to swallow.

The idea of all of them sabotaging the machines they worked on, Malone thought, was a tough one to take, too. But it had the advantage of making some sense. People, he told himself dully, will do nutty things deliberately. It's harder to think of them doing the same nutty things without knowing it.

"Well," he said at last, "however it turns out, we'll get to the bottom of it. Frankly, I think it's being done on purpose."

"So do I," Fred said. "And when you find out just who's making the technicians do such things--when you find out who gives them their orders--you let me know."

"Let you know?" Malone said. "But--"

"Any man who would give false data to a perfectly innocent computer," Fred said savagely, "would ... would--" For a second he was apparently lost for comparisons. Then he finished: "Would kill his own mother." He paused a second and added, in an even more savage voice: "And then lie about it!"

* * * * *

The image on the screen snapped off, and Malone sat back in his chair and sighed. He spent a few minutes regretting that he hadn't chosen, early in life, to be a missionary to the Fiji Islanders, or possibly simply a drunken bum without any trouble, and then the report Mitchell had mentioned arrived. Malone picked it up without much eagerness, and began going through it carefully.

It was beautifully typed and arranged; somebody on Mitchell's team had obviously been up all night at the job. Malone admired the work, without being able to get enthusiastic about the contents. Like all technical reports, it tended to be boring and just a trifle obscure to someone who wasn't completely familiar with the field involved. Malone and cybernetics were not exactly bosom buddies, and by the time he finished reading through the report he was suffering from an extreme case of ennui.

There were no new clues in the report, either; Mitchell's phone conversation had covered all of the main points. Malone put the sheaf of papers down on his desk and looked at them for a minute as if he expected an answer to leap out from the pile and greet him with a glad cry, but nothing happened. Unfortunately, he had to do some more work.

The obvious next step was to start checking on the technicians who were working on the machines. Malone determined privately that he would give none of his reports to Fred Mitchell; he didn't like the idea of being responsible for murder, and that was the least Fred would do to someone who confused his precious calculators.

He picked up the phone, punched for the Records Division, and waited until a bald, middle-aged face appeared. He asked the face to send up the dossiers of the technicians concerned to his office. The face nodded.

"You want them right away?" it said in a mild, slightly scratchy voice.

"Sooner than right away," Malone said.

"They're coming up by messenger," the voice said.

Malone nodded and broke the connection. The technicians had, of course, been investigated by the FBI before they'd been hired, but it wouldn't do any harm to check them out again. He felt grateful that he wouldn't have to do all that work himself; he would just go through the dossiers and assign field agents to the actual checking when he had a picture of what might need to be checked.

He sighed again and leaned back in his chair. He put his feet up on the desk, remembered that he was entirely alone, and swung them down again. He fished in a private compartment in his top desk drawer, drew out a cigar and unwrapped it. Putting his feet back on the desk, he lit the cigar, drew in a cloud of smoke, and lapsed into deep thought.

Cigar smoke billowed around him, making strange, fantastic shapes in the air of the office. Malone puffed away, frowning slightly and trying to force the puzzle he was working on to make some sense.

It certainly looked as though something were going on, he thought. But, for the life of him, he couldn't figure out just what it was. After all, what could be anybody's purpose in goofing up a bunch of calculators the way they had? Of course, the whole thing could be a series of accidents, but the series was a pretty long one, and made Malone suspicious to start with. It was easier to assume that the goof-ups were being done deliberately.

Unfortunately, they didn't make much sense as sabotage, either.

Senator Deeds, for instance, had sent out a ten-thousand-copy form letter to his constituents, blasting an Administration power bill in extremely strong language, and asking for some comments on the Deeds-Hartshorn Air Ownership Bill, a pending piece of legislation that provided for private, personal ownership, based on land title, to the upper stratosphere--with a strong hint that rights of passage no longer applied without some recompense to the owner of the air. Naturally, Deeds had filed the original with a computer-secretary to turn out ten thousand duplicate copies, and the machine had done so, folding the copies, slipping them into addressed envelopes and sending them out under the senator's franking stamp.

The addresses on the envelopes, however, had not been those of the senator's supporters. The letter had been sent to ten thousand stockholders in major airline companies, and the senator's head was still ringing from the force of the denunciatory letters, telegrams and telephone calls he'd been getting.

* * * * *

And then there was Representative Follansbee of South Dakota. A set of news releases on the proposed Follansbee Waterworks Bill contained the statement that the artificial lake which Follansbee proposed in the Black Hills country "be formed by controlled atomic power blasts, and filled with water obtained from collecting the tears of widows and orphans."

Newsmen who saw this release immediately checked the bill. The wording was exactly the same. Follansbee claimed that the "widows and orphans" phrase had appeared in his speech on the bill, and not in the proposed bill itself. "It's completely absurd," he said, with commendable calm, "to consider this method of filling an artificial lake." Unfortunately, the absurdity was now contained in the bill, which would have to go back to committee for redefinition, and probably wouldn't come up again in the present session of Congress. Judging from the amount of laughter that had greeted the error when it had come to light, Malone privately doubted whether any amount of redefinition was going to save it from a landslide defeat.

Representative Keller of Idaho had made a speech which contained so many errors in fact that newspaper editorials, and his enemies on the floor of Congress, cut him to pieces with ease and pleasure. Keller complained of his innocence and said he'd gotten his facts from a computer-secretary, but this didn't save him. His re-election was a matter for grave concern in his own party, and the opposition was, naturally, tickled. They would not, Malone thought, dare to be tickled pink.

And these were not the only casualties. They were the most blatant foul-ups, but there were others, such as the mistake in numbering of a House Bill that resulted in a two-month delay during which the opposition to the bill raised enough votes to defeat it on the floor. Communications were diverted or lost or scrambled in small ways that made for confusion--including, Malone recalled the perfectly horrible mixup that resulted when a freshman senator, thinking he was talking to his girlfriend on a blanked-vision circuit, discovered he was talking to his wife.

The flow of information was being blocked by bottlenecks that suddenly existed where there had never been bottlenecks before.

And it wasn't only the computers, Malone knew. He remembered the reports the senators and representatives had made. Someone forgot to send an important message here, or sent one too soon over there. Both courses were equally disturbing, and both resulted in more snarl-ups. Reports that should have been sent in weeks before arrived too late; reports meant for the eyes of only one man were turned out in triplicate and passed all over the offices of Congress.

Each snarl-up was a little one. But, together, they added up to inefficiency of a kind and extent that hadn't been seen, Malone told himself with some wonder, since the Harding administration fifty years before.

And there didn't seem to be anyone to blame anything on.

Malone thought hopefully of sabotage, infiltration and mass treason, but it didn't make him feel much better. He puffed out some more smoke and frowned at nothing.

There was a knock at the door of his office.

Speedily and guiltily, he swung his feet off the desk and snatched the cigar out of his mouth. He jammed it into a deep ashtray and put the ashtray back into his desk drawer. He locked the drawer, waved ineffectively at the clouds of smoke that surrounded him, and said in a resigned voice: "Come in."

The door opened. A tall, solidly built man stood there, wearing a fringe of beard and a cheerful expression. The man had an enormous amount of muscle distributed more or less evenly over his chunky body, and a potbelly that looked as if he had swallowed a globe of the world. In addition, he was smoking a cigarette and letting out little puffs of smoke, rather like a toy locomotive.

"Well, well," Malone said, brushing feebly at the smoke that still wreathed him faintly. "If it isn't Thomas Boyd, the FBI's answer to Nero Wolfe."

"And if the physique holds true, you're Sherlock Holmes, I suppose," Boyd said.

Malone shook his head, thinking sadly of his father and the cigar. "Not exactly," he said. "Not ex--" And then it came to him. It wasn't that he was ashamed of smoking cigars like his father, exactly--but cigars just weren't right for a fearless, dedicated FBI agent. And he had just thought of a way to keep Boyd from knowing what he'd been doing. "That's a hell of a cigarette you're smoking, by the way," he said.

Boyd looked at it. "It is?" he said.

"Sure is," Malone said, hoping he sounded sufficiently innocent. "Smells like a cigar or something."

Boyd sniffed the air for a second, his face wrinkled. Then he looked down at his cigarette again. "You're right, Ken. It does smell like a cigar." He came over to Malone's desk, looked around for an ashtray and didn't find one, and finally went to the window and tossed the cigarette out into the Washington breeze. "How are things, anyhow, Ken?" he said.

"Things are confused," Malone said. "Aren't they always?"

Boyd came back to the desk and sat down in a chair at one side of it. He put his elbow on the desk. "Sure they are," he said. "I'm confused myself, as a matter of fact. Only I think I know where I can get some help."

"Really?" Malone said.

Boyd nodded. "Burris told me I might be able to get some information from a certain famous and highly respected person," he said.

"Well, well," Malone said. "Who?"

"You," Boyd said.

"Oh," Malone said, trying to look disappointed, flattered and modest all at the same time. "Well," he went on after a second, "anything I can do--"

"Burris thought you might have some answers," Boyd said.

"Burris is getting optimistic in his old age," Malone said. "I don't even have many questions."

Boyd nodded. "Well," he said, "you know this California thing?"

"Sure I do," Malone said. "You're looking into the resignation out there, aren't you?"

"Senator Burley," Boyd said. "That's right. But Senator Burley's resignation isn't all of it, by any means."

"It isn't?" Malone said, trying to sound interested.

"Not at all," Boyd said. "It goes a lot deeper than it looks on the surface. In the past year, Ken, five senators have announced their resignations from the Senate of the United States. It isn't exactly a record--"

"It sounds like a record," Malone said.

"Well," Boyd said, "there was 1860 and the Civil War, when a whole lot of senators and representatives resigned all at once."

"Oh," Malone said. "But there isn't any Civil War going on now. At least," he added, "I haven't heard of any."

"That's what makes it so funny," Boyd said. "Of course, Senator Burley said it was ill health, and so did two others, while Senator Davidson said it was old age."

"Well," Malone said, "people do get old. And sick."

"Sure," Boyd said. "The only trouble is--" He paused. "Ken," he said, "do you mind if I smoke? I mean, do you mind the smell of cigars?"

"Mind?" Malone said. "Not at all. Not at all." He blinked. "Besides," he added, "maybe this one won't smell like a cigar."

"Well, the last one did," Boyd said. He took a cigarette out of a pack in his pocket, and lit it. He sniffed. "You know," he said, "You're right. This one doesn't."

"I told you," Malone said. "Must have been a bad cigarette. Spoiled or something."

"I guess so," Boyd said vaguely. "But about these retirements--the FBI wanted me to look into it because of Burley's being mixed up with the space program scandal last year. Remember?

"Vaguely," Malone said. "I was busy last year."

"Sure you were," Boyd said. "We were both busy getting famous and well-known."

Malone grinned. "Go on with the story," he said.

Boyd puffed at his cigarette. "Anyhow, we couldn't find anything really wrong," he said. "Three senators retiring because of ill health, one because of old age. And Farnsworth, the youngest. He had a nervous breakdown."

"I didn't hear about it," Malone said.

Boyd shrugged. "We hushed it up," he said. "But Farnsworth's got delusions of persecution. He apparently thinks somebody's out to get him. As a matter of fact, he thinks everybody's out to get him."

"Now that," Malone said, "sounds familiar."

Boyd leaned back a little more in his chair. "Here's the funny thing, though," he said. "The others all act as if they're suspicious of everybody who talks to them. Not anything obvious, you understand. Just--worried. Apprehensive. Always looking at you out of the corners of their eyes. That kind of thing."

Malone thought of Senator Lefferts, who was also suffering from delusions of persecution--delusions that had real evidence to back them up. "It does sound funny," he said cautiously.

"Well, I reported everything to Burris," Boyd went on. "And he said you were working on something similar, and we might as well pool our resources."

"Here we go again," Malone said. He took a deep breath, filling his nostrils with what remained of the cigar odor in the room, and felt more peaceful. Quickly, he told Boyd about what had been happening in Congress. "It seems pretty obvious," he finished, "that there is some kind of a tie-up between the two cases."

"Maybe it's obvious," Boyd said, "But it is just a little bit odd. Fun and games. You know, Ken, Burris was right."

"How?" Malone said.

"He said everything was all mixed up," Boyd went on. "He told me the country was going to Rome in a handbasket, or something like that."

Wondering vaguely if Burris had really been predicting mass religious conversions, Malone nodded silently.

"And he's right," Boyd said. "Look at the newspapers. Everything's screwy lately."

"Everything always is screwy," Malone said.

"Not like now," Boyd said. "So many big-shot gangsters have been killed lately we might as well bring back Prohibition. And the labor unions are so busy with internal battles that they haven't had time to go on strike for over a year."

"Is that bad?" Malone said.

Boyd shrugged. "God knows," he said. "But it's sure confusing as all hell."

"And now," Malone said, "with all that going on--"

"The Congress of the United States decides to go off its collective rocker," Boyd finished. "Exactly." He stared down at his cigarette for a minute with a morose and pensive expression on his face. He looked, Malone thought, like Henry VIII trying to decide what to do about all these here wives.

[Illustration]

Then he looked up at Malone. "Ken," he said in a strained voice, "there seem to be a lot of nutty cases lately."

Malone considered. "No," he said at last. "It's just that when a nutty one comes along, we get it."

"That's what I mean," Boyd said. "I wonder why that is."

Malone shrugged. "It takes a thief to catch a thief," he said.

"But these aren't thieves," Boyd said. "I mean--they're just nutty." He paused. "Oh," he said.

"And, two thieves are better than one," Malone said.

"Anyhow," Boyd said with a small, gusty sigh, "it's company."

"Sure," Malone said.

Boyd looked for an ashtray, failed again to find one, and walked over to flip a second cigarette out onto Washington. He came back to his chair, sat down, and said: "What's our next step, Ken?"

Malone considered carefully. "First," he said finally, "we'll start assuming something. We'll start assuming that there is some kind of organization behind all this--behind all the senators' resignations and everything like that."

"It sounds like a big assumption," Boyd said.

Malone shook his head. "It isn't really," he said. "After all, we can't figure it's the work of one person: it's too widespread for that. And it's silly to assume that everything's accidental."

"All right," Boyd said equably. "It's an organization."

"Trying to subvert the United States," Malone went on. "Reducing everything to chaos. And that brings in everything else, Tom. That brings in the unions and the gang wars and everything."

Boyd blinked. "How?" he said.

"Obvious," Malone said. "Strife brought on by internal confusion--that's what's going on all over. It's the same pattern. And if we assume an organization trying to jam up the United States, it even makes sense." He leaned back and beamed.

"Sure it makes sense," Boyd said. "But who's the organization?"

Malone shrugged.

"If I were doing the picking," Boyd said, "I'd pick the Russians. Or the Chinese. Or both. Probably both."

"It's a possibility," Malone said. "Anyhow, if it's sabotage, who else would be interested in sabotaging the United States? There's some Russian or Chinese organization fouling up Congress, and the unions, and the gangs. Come to think of it, why the gangs? It seems to me that if you left the professional gangsters strong, it would do even more to foul things up."

"Who knows?" Boyd said. "Maybe they're trying to get rid of American gangsters so they can import some of their own."

"That doesn't make any sense," Malone said, "but I'll think about it. In the meantime, we have one more interesting question."

"We do?" Boyd said.

"Sure we do," Malone said. "The question is: How?"

Boyd said: "Hm-m-m." Then there was silence for a little while.

"How are the saboteurs doing all this?" Malone said. "It just doesn't seem very probable that all the technicians in the Senate Office Building, for instance, are spies. It makes even less sense that the labor unions are composed mostly of spies. Or, for that matter, the Mafia and the organizations like it. What would spies be doing in the Mafia?"

"Learning Italian," Boyd said instantly.

"Don't be silly," Malone said. "If there were that many spies in this country, the Russians wouldn't have to fight at all. They could vote the Communists into power--and by a nice big landslide, too."

"Wait a minute," Boyd said. "If there aren't so many spies, then how is all this getting done?"

Malone beamed. "That's the question," he said. "And I think I have the answer."

"You do?" Boyd said. After a second he said: "Oh, no."

"Suppose you tell me," Malone said.

Boyd opened his mouth. Nothing emerged. He shut it. A second passed and he opened it again. "Magic?" he said weakly.

"Not exactly," Malone said cheerfully. "But you're getting warm."

Boyd shut his eyes. "I'm not going to stand for it," he announced. "I'm not going to take any more."

"Any more what?" Malone said. "Tell me what you have in mind."

"I won't even consider it," Boyd said. "It haunts me. It gets into my dreams. Now, look, Ken: I can't even see a pitchfork any more without thinking of Greek letters."

Malone took a breath. "Which Greek letter?" he said.

"You know very well," Boyd said. "What a pitchfork looks like. Psi. And I'm not even going to think about it."

"Well," Malone said equably, "you won't have to. If you'd rather start with the Russian spy end of things, you can do that."

"What I'd rather do," Boyd said, "is resign."

"Next year," Malone said instantly. "For now, you can wait around until the dossiers come up--they're for the Senate Office Building technicians, and they're on the way. You can go over them, and start checking on any known Russian agents in the country for contacts. You can also start checking on the dossiers, and in general for any hanky-panky."

Boyd blinked. "Hanky-panky?" he said.

"It's a perfectly good word," Malone said, offended. "Or two words. Anyhow, you can start on that end, and not worry about anything else."

"It's going to haunt me," Boyd said.

"Well," Malone said, "eat lots of ectoplasm and get enough sleep, and everything will be fine. After all, I'm going to have to do the real end of the work--the psionics end. I may be wrong, but--"

He was interrupted by the phone. He flicked the switch and Andrew J. Burris' face appeared on the screen.

"Malone," Burris said instantly, "I just got a complaint from the State Department that ties in with your work. Their translator has been acting up."

Malone couldn't say anything for a minute.

"Malone," Burris went on. "I said--"

"I heard you," Malone said. "And it doesn't have one."

"It doesn't have one what?" Burris said.

"A pig-Latin circuit," Malone said. "What else?"

Burris' voice was very calm. "Malone," he said, "what does pig-Latin have to do with anything?"

"You said--"

"I said one of the State Department translators was acting up," Burris said. "If you want details--"

"I don't think I can stand them," Malone said.

"Some of the Russian and Chinese releases have come through with the meaning slightly altered," Burris went on doggedly. "And I want you to check on it right away. I--"

"Thank God," Malone said.

Burris blinked. "What?"

"Never mind," Malone said. "Never mind. I'm glad you told me, Chief. I'll get to work on it right away, and--"

"You do that, Malone," Burris said. "And stop calling me Chief! Do I look like an Indian? Do I have feathers in my hair?"

"Anything," Malone said grandly, "is possible." He broke the connection in a hurry.

III

The summer sun beat down on the white city of Washington, D. C. as if it had mistaken its instructions slightly, and was convinced that the city had been put down somewhere in the Sahara. The sun seemed confused, Malone thought. If this were the Sahara, obviously there was no reason whatever for the Potomac to be running through it. The sun was doing its best to correct this small error, however, by exerting even more heat in a valiant attempt to dry up the river.

Its attempt was succeeding, at least partially. The Potomac was still there, but quite a lot of it was not in the river bed any more. Instead, it had gone into the air, which was so humid by now that Malone was willing to swear that it was splashing into his lungs at every inhalation. Resisting an impulse to try the breast-stroke, he stood in the full glare of the straining sun, just outside the Senate Office Building. He looked across at the Capitol, squinting his eyes manfully against the glare of its dome in the brightness.

The Capitol was, at any rate, some relief from the sight of Thomas Boyd and a group of agents busily grilling two technicians. That was going on in the Senate Office Building, and Malone had come over to watch the proceedings. Everything had been set up in what Malone considered the most complicated fashion possible. A big room had been turned into a projection chamber, and films were being run off over and over. The films, taken by hidden cameras watching the computer-secretaries, had caught two technicians red-handed punching errors into the machines. Boyd had leaped on this evidence, and he and his crew were showing the movies to the technicians and questioning them under bright lights in an effort to break down their resistance.

But it didn't look as though they were going to have any more success than the sun was having, turning Washington into the Sahara. After all, Malone told himself, wiping his streaming brow, there were no Pyramids in Washington. He tried to discover whether that made any sense, but it was too much work. He went back to thinking about Boyd.

The technicians were sticking to their original stories, that the mistakes had been honest ones. It sounded like a sensible idea to Malone; after all, people did make mistakes. And the FBI didn't have a single shred of evidence to prove that the technicians were engaged in deliberate sabotage. But Boyd wasn't giving up. Over and over he got the technicians to repeat their stories, looking for discrepancies or slips. Over and over he ran off the films of their mistakes, looking for some clue, some shred of evidence.

Even the sight of the Capitol, Malone told himself sadly, was better than any more of Boyd's massive investigation techniques.

He had come out to do some thinking. He believed, in spite of a good deal of evidence to the contrary, that his best ideas came to him while walking. At any rate, it was a way of getting away from four walls and from the prying eyes and anxious looks of superiors. He sighed gently, crammed his hat onto his head and started out.

Only a maniac, he reflected, would wear a hat on a day like the one he was swimming through. But the people who passed him as he trudged onward to no particular destination didn't seem to notice; they gave him a fairly wide berth, and seemed very polite, but that wasn't because they thought he was nuts, Malone knew. It was because they knew he was an FBI man.

That was the result of an FBI regulation. All agents had to wear hats. Malone wasn't sure why, and his thinking on the matter had only dredged up the idea that you had to have a hat in case somebody asked you to keep something under it. But the FBI was firm about its rulings. No matter what the weather, an agent wore a hat. Malone thought bitterly that he might just as well wear a red, white and blue luminous sign that said FBI in great winking letters, and maybe a hooting siren, too. Still, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was not supposed to be a secret organization--no matter what occasional critics might say. And the hats, at least as long as the weather remained broiling, were enough proof of that for anybody.

Malone could feel water collecting under his hat and soaking his head. He removed the hat quickly, wiped his head with a handkerchief and replaced the hat, feeling as if he had become incognito for a few seconds. The hat was back on now, feeling official but terrible, and about the same was true of the fully-loaded Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum revolver which hung in his shoulder holster. The harness chafed at his shoulder and chest and the weight of the gun itself was an added and unwelcome burden.

But even without the gun and the hat, Malone did not feel exactly chipper. His shirt and undershirt were no longer two garments, but one, welded together by seamless sweat and plastered heavily and not too skillfully to his skin. His trouser legs clung damply to calves and thighs, rubbing as he walked, and at the knees each trouser leg attached and detached itself with the unpleasant regularity of a wet bastinado. Inside Malone's shoes, his socks were completely awash, and he seemed to squish as he walked. It was hard to tell, but there seemed to be a small fish in his left shoe. It might, he told himself, be no more than a pebble or a wrinkle in his sock. But he was willing to swear that it was swimming upstream.

And the forecast, he told himself bitterly, was for continued warm.

He forced himself to take his mind off his own troubles and get back to the troubles of the FBI in general, such as the problem at hand. It was an effort, but he frowned and kept walking, and within a block he was concentrating again on the psi powers.

* * * * *

Psi, he told himself, was behind the whole mess. In spite of Boyd's horrified refusal to believe such a thing, Malone was sure of it. Three years ago, of course, he wouldn't have considered the notion either. But since then a great many things had happened, and his horizons had widened. After all, capturing a double handful of totally insane, if perfectly genuine telepaths, from asylums all over the country, was enough by itself to widen quite a few stunned horizons. And then, later, there had been the gang of juvenile delinquents. They had been perfectly normal juvenile delinquents, stealing cars and bopping a stray policeman or two. It just happened, though, that they had solved the secret of instantaneous teleportation, too. This made them just a trifle unusual.

In capturing them, Malone, too, had learned the teleportation secret. Unlike Boyd, he thought, or Burris, the idea of psionic power didn't bother him much. After all, the psionic spectrum--if it was a spectrum at all--was just as much a natural phenomenon as gravity, or magnetism.

It was just a little hard for some people to get used to.

And, of course, he didn't fully understand how it worked, or why. This put him in the position, he told himself, of an Australian aborigine. He tried to imagine an Australian aborigine in a hat on a hot day, decided the aborigine would have too much sense, and got back off the subject again.

However, he thought grimly, there was this Australian aborigine. And he had a magnifying glass, which he'd picked up from the wreck of some ship. Using that--assuming that experience, or a friendly missionary, taught him how--he could manage to light a fire, using the sun's thermonuclear processes to do the job. Malone doubted that the aborigine knew anything about thermonuclear processes, but he could start a fire with them.

As a matter of fact, he told himself, the aborigine didn't understand oxidation, either. But he could use that fire, when he got it going. In spite of his lack of knowledge, the aborigine could use that nice, hot, burning fire ...

Hurriedly, Malone pried his thoughts away from aborigines and heat, and tried to focus his mind elsewhere. He didn't understand psionic processes, he thought; but then, nobody did, really, as far as he knew. But he could use them.

And, obviously, somebody else could use them, too.

Only what kind of force was being used? What kind of psionic force would it take to make so many people in the United States goof up the way they were doing?

That, Malone told himself, was a good question, a basic and an important question. He was proud of himself for thinking of it.

Unfortunately, he didn't have the answer.

But he thought he knew a way of getting one.

It was perfectly true that nobody knew much about how psionics worked. For that matter, nobody knew very much about how gravity worked. But there was still some information--and, in the case of psionics, Malone knew where it was to be found.

It was to be found in Yucca Flats, Nevada.

It was, of course, true that Nevada would probably be even hotter than Washington, D. C. But there was no help for that, Malone told himself sadly; and, besides, the cold chill of the expert himself would probably cool things off quite rapidly. Malone thought of Dr. Thomas O'Connor, the Westinghouse psionics expert and frowned. O'Connor was not exactly what might be called a friendly man.

But he did know more about psionics than anyone else Malone could think of. And his help had been invaluable in solving the two previous psionic cases Malone had worked on.

For a second he thought of calling O'Connor, but he brushed that thought aside bravely. In spite of the heat of Yucca Flats, he would have to talk to the man personally. He thought again of O'Connor's congealed personality, and wondered if it would really be effective in combating the heat. If it were, he told himself, he would take the man right back to Washington with him, and plug him into the air-conditioning lines.

He sighed deeply, thought about a cigar and decided regretfully against it, here on the public street where he would be visible to anyone. Instead, he looked around him, discovered that he was only a block from a large, neon-lit drugstore and headed for it. Less than a minute later he was in a phone booth.

* * * * *

The operators throughout the country seemed to suffer from heat prostration, and Malone was hardly inclined to blame them. But, all the same, it took several minutes for him to get through to Dr. O'Connor's office, and a minute or so more before he could convince a security-addled secretary that, after all, he would hardly blow O'Connor to bits over the long-distance phone.

Finally the secretary, with a sigh of reluctance, said she would see if Dr. O'Connor were available. Malone waited in the phone booth, opening the door every few seconds to breathe. The booth was air-conditioned, but remained for some mystical reason an even ten degrees above the boiling point of Malone's temper.

Finally Dr. O'Connor's lean, pallid face appeared on the screen. He had not changed since Malone had last seen him. He still looked, and acted, like one of Malone's more disliked law professors.

"Ah," the scientist said in a cold, precise voice. "Mr. Malone. I am sorry for our precautions, but you understand that security must be served."

"Sure," Malone said.

"Being an FBI man, of course you would," Dr. O'Connor went on, his face changing slightly and his voice warming almost to the boiling point of nitrogen. It was obvious that the phrase was Dr. O'Connor's idea of a little joke, and Malone smiled politely and nodded. The scientist seemed to feel some friendliness toward Malone, though it was hard to tell for sure. But Malone had brought him some fine specimens to work with--telepaths and teleports, though human, being no more than specimens to such a very precise scientific mind--and he seemed grateful for Malone's diligence and effort in finding such fascinating objects of study.

That Malone certainly hadn't started out to find them made, it appeared, very little difference.

"Well, then," O'Connor said, returning to his normal, serious tone, "what can I do for you, Mr. Malone?"

"If you have the time, doctor," Malone said respectfully, "I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes." He had the absurd feeling that O'Connor was going to tell him to stop by after class, but the scientist only nodded.

"Your call is timed very well," he said. "As it happens, Mr. Malone, I do have a few seconds to spare just now."

"Fine," Malone said.

"I should be glad to talk with you," O'Connor said, without looking any more glad than ever.

"I'll be right there," Malone said. O'Connor nodded again, and blanked out. Malone switched off and took a deep, superheated breath of phone booth air. For a second he considered starting his trip from outside the phone booth, but that was dangerous--if not to Malone, then to innocent spectators. Psionics was by no means a household word, and the sight of Malone leaving for Nevada might send several citizens straight to the wagon. Which was not a place, he thought judiciously, for anybody to be on such a hot day.

He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. In that time he reconstructed from memory a detailed, three-dimensional, full-color image of Dr. O'Connor's office in his mind. It was perfect in detail; he checked it over mentally and then, by a special effort of will, he gave himself the psychic push that made the transition possible.

When he opened his eyes, he was in O'Connor's office, standing in front of the scientist's wide desk. He hoped nobody had been looking into the phone booth at the instant he had disappeared; but he was reasonably sure he'd been unobserved. People didn't go around peering into phone booths, after all, and he had seen no one.

O'Connor looked up without surprise. "Ah," he said. "Sit down, Mr. Malone." Malone looked around for the chair, which was an uncomfortably straight-backed affair, and sat down in it gingerly. Remembering past visits to O'Connor, he was grateful for even the small amount of relaxation the hard wood afforded him. O'Connor had only recently unbent to the point of supplying a spare chair in his office for visitors, and, apparently, especially for Malone. Perhaps, Malone thought, it was more gratitude for the lovely specimens.

Malone still felt uncomfortable, but tried bravely not to show it. He felt slightly guilty, too, as he always did when he popped into O'Connor's office without bothering to stay spacebound. By law, after all, he knew he should check in and out at the main gate of the huge, ultra-top-secret government reservation whenever he visited Yucca Flats. But that meant wasting a lot of time and going through a lot of trouble. Malone had rationalized it out for himself that way, and had got just far enough to do things the quick and easy way, and not quite far enough to feel undisturbed about it. After all, he told himself grimly, anything that saved time and trouble increased the efficiency of the FBI, so it was all to the good.

He swallowed hard. "Dr. O'Connor--" he began.

O'Connor looked up again. "Yes?" he said. He'd had plenty of practice in watching people appear and disappear, between Malone and the specimens Malone had brought him; he was beyond surprise or shock by now.

"I came here to talk to you," Malone began again.

O'Connor nodded, a trifle impatiently. "Yes," he said. "I know that."

"Well--" Malone thought fast. Presenting the case to O'Connor was impossible; it was too complicated, and it might violate governmental secrecy somewhere along the line. He decided to wrap it up in a hypothetical situation. "Doctor," he said, "I know that all the various manifestations of the psi powers were investigated and named long before responsible scientists became interested in the subject."

"That," O'Connor said with some reluctance, "is true." He looked sad, as if he wished they'd waited on naming some of the psionic manifestations until he'd been born and started investigating them. Malone tried to imagine a person doing something called O'Connorizing, and decided he was grateful for history.

"Well, then--" he said.

"At least," O'Connor cut in, "it is true in a rather vague and general way. You see, Mr. Malone, any precise description of a psionic manifestation must wait until a metalanguage has grown up to encompass it; that is, until understanding and knowledge have reached the point where careful and accurate description can take place."

"Oh," Malone said helplessly. "Sure." He wondered if what O'Connor had said meant anything, and decided that it probably did, but he didn't want to know about it.

"While we have not yet reached that point," O'Connor said, "we are approaching it in our experiments. I am hopeful that, in the near future--"

"Well," Malone cut in desperately, "sure. Of course. Naturally."

* * * * *

Dr. O'Connor looked miffed. The temperature of the room seemed to drop several degrees, and Malone swallowed hard and tried to look ingratiating and helpful, like a student with nothing but A's on his record.

Before O'Connor could pick up the thread of his sentence, Malone went on: "What I mean is something like this. Picking up the mental activity of another person is called telepathy. Floating in the air is called levitation. Moving objects around is psychokinesis. Going from one place to another instantaneously is teleportation. And so on."

"The language you use," O'Connor said, still miffed, "is extremely loose. I might go so far as to say that the statements you have made are, essentially, meaningless as a result of their lack of rigor."

Malone took a deep breath. "Dr. O'Connor," he said, "you know what I mean, don't you?"

"I believe so," O'Connor said, with the air of a king granting a pardon to a particularly repulsive-looking subject in the lowest income brackets.

"Well, then," Malone said. "Yes or no?"

O'Connor frowned. "Yes or no what?" he said.

"I" Malone blinked. "I meant, the things have names," he said at last. "All the various psionic manifestations have names."

"Ah," O'Connor said. "Well. I should say." He put his fingertips together and stared at a point on the white ceiling for a second. "Yes," he said at last.

Malone breathed a sigh of relief. "Good," he said. "That's what I wanted to know." He leaned forward. "And if they all do have names," he went on, "what is it called, when a large group of people are forced to act in a certain manner?"

O'Connor shrugged. "Forced?" he said.

"Forced by mental power," Malone said.

There was a second of silence.

"At first," O'Connor said, "I might think of various examples: the actions of a mob, for example, or the demonstrations of the Indian Rope Trick, or perhaps the sale of a useless product through television or through other advertising." Again his face moved, ever so slightly, in what he obviously believed to be a smile. "The usual name for such a phenomenon is 'mass hypnotism,' Mr. Malone," he said. "But that is not, strictly speaking, a psi phenomenon at all. Studies in that area belong to the field of mob psychology; they are not properly in my scope." He looked vastly superior to anything and everything that was outside his scope. Malone concentrated on looking receptive and understanding.

"Yes?" he said.

O'Connor gave him a look that made Malone feel he'd been caught cribbing during an exam, but the scientist said nothing to back up the look. Instead, he went on: "I will grant that there may be an amplification of the telepathic faculty in the normal individual in such cases."

"Good," Malone said doubtfully.

"Such an amplification," O'Connor went on, as if he hadn't heard, "would account for the apparent ... ah ... mental linkage that makes a mob appear to act as a single organism during certain periods of ... ah ... stress." He looked judicious for a second, and then nodded. "However," he said, "other than that, I would doubt that there is any psionic force involved."

Malone spent a second or two digesting O'Connor's reply. "Well," he said at last, "I'm not sure that's what I meant. I mean, I'm not sure I meant to ask that question." He took a breath and decided to start all over. "It's not like a mob," he said, "with everybody all doing the same thing at the same time. It's more like a group of men, all separated, without any apparent connections between any of the men. And they're all working toward a common goal. All doing different things, but all with the same objective. See?"

"Of course I do," O'Connor said flatly. "But what you're suggesting--" He looked straight at Malone. "Have you had any experience of this ... phenomenon?"

"Experience?" Malone said.

"I believe you have had," O'Connor said. "Such a concept could not have come to you in a theoretical manner. You must be involved with an actual situation very much like the one you describe."

Malone swallowed. "Me?" he said.

"Mr. Malone," O'Connor said. "May I remind you that this is Yucca Flats? That the security checks here are as careful as anywhere in the world? That I, myself, have top-security clearance for my special projects? You do not need to watch your words here."

"It's not security," Malone said. "Anyhow, it's not only security. But things are pretty complicated."

"I assure you," O'Connor said, "that I will be able to understand even events which you feel are complex."

Malone swallowed again, hard. "I didn't mean--" he started.

"Please, Mr. Malone," O'Connor said. His voice was colder than usual. Malone had the feeling that he was about to take the extra chair away. "Go on," O'Connor said. "Explain yourself."

Malone took a deep breath. He started with the facts he'd been told by Burris, and went straight through to the interviews of the two computer-secretary technicians by Boyd and Company.

It took quite a while. By the time he had finished, O'Connor wasn't looking frozen any more; he'd apparently forgotten to keep the freezer coils running. Instead, his face showed frank bewilderment, and great interest. "I never heard of such a thing," he said. "Never. Not at any time."

"But--"

O'Connor shook his head. "I have never heard of a psionic manifestation on that order," he said. It seemed to be a painful admission. "Something that would make a random group of men co-operate in that manner--why, it's completely new."

"It is?" Malone said, wondering if, when it was all investigated and described, it might be called O'Connorizing. Then he wondered how anybody was going to go about investigating it and describing it, and sank even deeper into gloom.

[Illustration]

"Completely new," O'Connor said. "You may take my word." Then, slowly, he began to brighten again, with all the glitter of newly-formed ice. "As a matter of fact," he said, in a tone more like his usual one, "Mr. Malone, I don't think it's possible."

"But it happened," Malone said. "It's still happening. All over."

O'Connor's lips tightened. "I have given my opinion," he said. "I do not believe that such a thing is possible. There must be some other explanation."

"All right," Malone said agreeably. "I'll bite. What is it?"

O'Connor frowned. "Your levity," he said, "is uncalled-for."

Malone shrugged. "I didn't mean to be--" he paused. "Anyhow, I didn't mean to be funny," he went on. "But I would like to have another idea of what's causing all this."

"Scientific theories," O'Connor said sternly, "are not invented on the spur of the moment. Only after long, careful thought--"

"You mean you can't think of anything," Malone said.

"There must be some other explanation," O'Connor said. "Naturally, since the facts have only now been presented to me, it is impossible for me to display at once a fully constructed theory."

Malone nodded slowly. "O.K.," he said. "Have you got any hints, then? Any ideas at all?"

O'Connor shook his head. "I have not," he said. "But I strongly suggest, Mr. Malone, that you recheck your data. The fault may very well lie in your own interpretations of the actual facts."

"I don't think so," Malone said.

O'Connor grimaced. "I do," he said firmly.

Malone sighed, very faintly. He shifted in the chair and began to realize, for the first time, just how uncomfortable it really was. He also felt a little chilly, and the chill was growing. That, he told himself, was the effect of Dr. O'Connor. He no longer regretted wearing his hat. As a matter of fact, he thought wistfully for a second of a small, light overcoat.

O'Connor, he told himself, was definitely not the warm, friendly type.

"Well, then," he said, conquering the chilly feeling for a second, "maybe there's somebody else. Somebody who knows something more about psionics, and who might have some other ideas about--"

"Please, Mr. Malone," O'Connor said. "The United States Government would hardly have chosen me had I not been uniquely qualified in my field."

Malone sighed again. "I mean ... maybe there are some books on the subject," he said quietly, hoping he sounded tactful. "Maybe there's something I could look up."

"Mr. Malone." The temperature of the office, Malone realized, was definitely lowering. O'Connor's built-in freezer coils were working overtime, he told himself. "The field of psionics is so young that I can say, without qualification, that I am acquainted with everything written on the subject. By that, of course, I mean scientific works. I do not doubt that the American Society for Psychical Research, for instance, has hundreds of crackpot books which I have never read, or even heard of. But in the strictly scientific field, I must say that--"

He broke off, looking narrowly at Malone with what might have been concern, but looked more like discouragement and boredom.

"Mr. Malone," he said, "are you ill?"

Malone thought about it. He wasn't quite sure, he discovered. The chill in the office was bothering him more and more, and as it grew he began to doubt that it was all due to the O'Connor influence. Suddenly a distinct shudder started somewhere in the vicinity of his shoulders and rippled its way down his body.

Another one followed it, and then a third.

"Me?" Malone said. "I'm ... I'm all right."

"You seem to have contracted a chill," O'Connor said.

A fourth shudder followed the other three.

"I ... guess so," Malone said. "I d-d ... I do s-seem to be r-r-rather chilly."

O'Connor nodded. "Ah," he said. "I thought so. Although a chill is certainly odd at seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit." He looked at the thermometer just outside the window of his office, then turned back to Malone. "Pardon me," he said. "Seventy-one point six."

"Is ... is that all it is?" Malone said. Seventy-one point six degrees, or even seventy-two, hardly sounded like the broiling Nevada desert he'd expected.

"Of course," O'Connor said. "At nine o'clock in the morning, one would hardly expect great temperatures. The desert becomes quite hot during the day, but cools off rapidly; I assume you are familiar with the laws covering the system."

"Sure," Malone said. "S-sure."

The chills were not getting any better. They continued to travel up and down his body with the dignified regularity of Pennsylvania Railroad commuter trains.

O'Connor frowned for a second. It was obvious that his keen scientific eye was sizing up the phenomenon, and reporting events to his keen scientific brain. In a second or less, the keen scientific brain had come up with an answer, and Dr. O'Connor spoke in his very keenest scientific voice.

"I should have warned you," he said, without an audible trace of regret. "The answer is childishly simple, Mr. Malone. You left Washington at noon."

"Just a little before noon," Malone said. Remembering the burning sun, he added: "High noon. Very high."

"Just so," O'Connor said. "And not only the heat was intense; the humidity, I assume, was also high."

"Very," Malone said, thinking back. He shivered again.

"In Washington," O'Connor said, "it was noon. Here it is nine o'clock, and hardly as warm. The atmosphere is quite arid, and about twenty degrees below that obtaining in Washington."

Malone thought about it, trying to ignore the chills. "Oh," he said at last. "And all the time I thought it was you."

"What?" O'Connor leaned forward.

"Nothing," Malone said hastily.

"My suggestion," O'Connor said, putting his fingertips together again, "is that you take off your clothes, which are undoubtedly damp, and--"

Naturally, Malone had not brought any clothes to Yucca Flats to change into. And when he tried to picture himself in a spare suit of Dr. O'Connor's, the picture just wouldn't come. Besides, the idea of doing a modified strip-tease in, or near, the O'Connor office was thoroughly unattractive.

"Well," he said slowly, "thanks a lot, doctor, but no thanks. I really have a better idea."

"Better?" O'Connor said.

"Well, I--" Malone took a deep breath and shut his eyes.

He heard Dr. O'Connor say: "Well, Mr. Malone--good-by. And good luck."

Then the office in Yucca Flats was gone, and Malone was standing in the bedroom of his own apartment, on the fringes of Washington, D. C.

IV

He walked over to the wall control and shut off the air-conditioning in a hurry. He threw open a window and breathed great gulps of the hot, humid air from the streets. In a small corner at the back of his mind, he wondered why he was grateful for the air he had suffered under only a few minutes before. But that, he reflected, was life. And a very silly kind of life, too, he told himself without rancor.

In a few minutes he left the window, somewhat restored, and headed for the shower. When it was running nicely and he was under it, he started to sing. But his voice didn't sound as much like the voice of Lauritz Melchior as it usually did, not even when he made a brave, if foolhardy stab at the Melchior accent. Slowly, he began to realize that he was bothered.

He climbed out of the shower and started drying himself. Up to now, he thought, he had depended on Dr. Thomas O'Connor for edifying, trustworthy and reasonably complete information about psionics and psi phenomena in general. He had looked on O'Connor as a sort of living version of an extremely good edition of the Britannica, always available for reference.

And now O'Connor had failed him. That, Malone thought, was hardly fair. O'Connor had no business failing him--particularly when there was no place else to go.

The scientist had been right, of course, Malone knew. There was no other scientist who knew as much about psionics as O'Connor, and if O'Connor said there were no books, then that was that: there were no books.

He reached for a drawer in his dresser, opened it and pulled out some underclothes, humming tunelessly under his breath as he dressed. If there was no one to ask, he thought, and if there were no books--

He stopped with a sock in his hand, and stared at it in wonder. O'Connor hadn't said there were no books. As a matter of fact, Malone realized, he'd said exactly the opposite.

There were books. But they were "crackpot" books. O'Connor had never read them. He had, he said, probably never even heard of many of them.

"Crackpot" was a fighting word to O'Connor. But to Malone it had all the sweetness of flattery. After all, he'd found telepaths in insane asylums, and teleports among the juvenile delinquents of New York. "Crackpot" was a word that was rapidly ceasing to have any meaning at all in Malone's mind.

He realized that he was still staring at the sock, which was black with a gold clock. Hurrie

he put it on, and finished dressing. He reached for the phone and made a few fast calls, and then teleported himself to his locked office in FBI Headquarters, on East Sixty-ninth Street in New York. He let himself out, and strolled down the corridor. The agent-in-charge looked up from his desk as Malone passed, blinked, and said: "Hello, Malone. What's up now?"

"I'm going prowling," Malone said. "But there won't be any work for you, as far as I can see."

"Oh?"

"Just relax," Malone said. "Breathe easy."

"I'll try to," the agent-in-charge said, a little sadly. "But every time you show up, I think about that wave of red Cadillacs you started. I'll never feel really secure again."

"Relax," Malone said. "Next time it won't be Cadillacs. But it might be spirits, blowing on ear-trumpets. Or whatever it is they do."

"Spirits, Malone?" the agent-in-charge said.

"No, thanks," Malone said sternly. "I never drink on duty." He gave the agent a cheery wave of his hand and went out to the street.

* * * * *

The Psychical Research Society had offices in the Ravell Building, a large structure composed mostly of plate glass and anodized aluminum that looked just a little like a bright blue, partially transparent crackerbox that had been stood on end for purposes unknown. Having walked all the way down to this box on Fifty-sixth Street, Malone had recovered his former sensitivity range to temperature and felt pathetically grateful for the coolish sea breeze that made New York somewhat less of an unbearable Summer Festival than was normal.

The lobby of the building was glittering and polished, as if human beings could not possibly exist in it. Malone took an elevator to the sixth floor, stepped out into a small, equally polished hall, and hurriedly looked off to his right. A small door stood there, with a legend engraved in elegantly small letters. It said:

The Psychical Research Society Push

Malone obeyed instructions. The door swung noiselessly open, and then closed behind him.

He was in a large square-looking room which had a couch and chair set at one corner, and a desk at the far end. Behind the desk was a brass plate, on which was engraved:

The Psychical Research Society Main Offices

To Malone's left was a hall that angled off into invisibility, and to the left of the desk was another one, going straight back past doors and two radiators until it ran into a right-angled turn and also disappeared.

Malone took in the details of his surroundings almost automatically, filing them in his memory just in case he ever needed to use them.

One detail, however, required more than automatic attention. Sitting behind the desk, her head just below the brass plaque, was a redhead. She was, Malone thought, positively beautiful. Of course, he could not see the lower two-thirds of her body, but if they were half as interesting as the upper third and the face and head, he was willing to spend days, weeks or even months on their investigation. Some jobs, he told himself, feeling a strong sense of duty, were definitely worth taking time over.

She was turned slightly away from Malone, and had obviously not heard him come in. Malone wondered how best to announce himself, and regretfully gave up the idea of tiptoeing up to the girl, placing his hands over her eyes, kissing the back of her neck and crying: "Surprise!" It was elegant, he felt, but it just wasn't right.

He compromised at last on the old established method of throat-clearing to attract her attention. He was sure he could take it from there, to an eminently satisfying conclusion.

He tiptoed on the deep-pile rug right up to her desk.

And the expected happened.

He sneezed.

The sneeze was loud and long, and it echoed through the room and throughout the corridors. It sounded to Malone like the blast of a small bomb, or possibly a grenade. Startled himself by the volume of sound he had managed to generate, he jumped back.

The girl had jumped, too--but her leap had been straight upward, about an inch and a half. She came down on her chair and reached up a hand. The hand wiped the back of her neck with a slow, lingering motion of complete loathing. Then, equally slowly, she turned.

"That," she said in a low, sweet voice, "was a dirty trick."

"It was an accident," Malone said.

She regarded Malone darkly. "Do you always do that to strangers? Is it some new sort of perversion?"

"I have never done such a thing before," Malone said sternly.

"Oh," the girl said. "An experimenter. Avid for new sensations. Probably a jaded scion of a rich New York family." She paused. "Tell me," she said. "Is it fun?"

Malone opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He shut it, thought for a second and then tried again. He got as far as: "I--" before Nemesis overtook him. The second sneeze was even louder and more powerful than the first had been.

"It must be fun," the girl said acidly, producing a handkerchief from somewhere and going to work on her face. "You just can't seem to wait to do it again. Would it do any good to tell you that the fascination with this form of greeting is not universal? Or don't you care?"

Malone said, goaded, "I've got a cold."

"And you feel you should share it with the world," the girl said. "I quite understand. Tell me, is there anything I can do for you? Or has your mission been accomplished?"

"My mission?" Malone said.

"Having sneezed twice at me," the girl said, "do you now feel satisfied? Will you vanish softly and silently away? Or do you want to sneeze at somebody else?"

"I want the President of the Society," Malone said. "According to my information, his name is Sir Lewis Carter."

"And if you sneeze at him," the girl said, "yours is going to be mud. He isn't much on novelty."

"I--"

"Besides which," she said, "he's extremely busy. And I don't think he'll see you at all. Why don't you go and sneeze at somebody else? There must be lots of people who would consider themselves honored to be noticed, especially in such a startling way. Why don't you try and find one somewhere? Somewhere very far away?"

Malone was beyond speech. He fumbled for his wallet, flipped it open and showed the girl his identification.

"My, my," she said. "And hasn't the FBI anything better to do? I mean, can't you go and sneeze at counterfeiters in their lairs, or wherever they might be?"

"I want to see Sir Lewis Carter," Malone said doggedly.

The girl shrugged and picked up the phone on her desk. It was a blank-vision device, of course; many office intercoms were. She dialed, waited and then said: "Sir Lewis, please." Another second went by. Then she spoke again. "Sir Lewis," she said, "this is Lou, at the front desk. There's a man here named Malone, who wants to see you."

She waited a second. "I don't know what he wants," she told the phone. "But he's from the FBI." A second's pause. "That's right, the FBI," she said. "All right, Sir Lewis. Right away." She hung up the phone and turned to watch Malone warily.

"Sir Lewis," she said, "will see you. I couldn't say why. But take the side corridor to the rear of the suite. His office has his name on it, and I won't tell you you can't miss it because I have every faith that you will. Good luck."

Malone blinked. "Look," he said. "I know I startled you, but I didn't mean to. I--" He started to sneeze, but this time he got his own handkerchief out in time and muffled the explosion slightly.

"Good work," the girl said approvingly.

* * * * *

There was nothing at all to say to that remark, Malone reflected as he wended his way down the side corridor. It seemed endless, and kept branching off unexpectedly. Once he blundered into a large open room filled with people at desks. A woman who seemed to have a great many teeth and rather bulbous eyes looked up at him. "Can I help you?" she said in a fervent whine.

"I sincerely hope not," Malone said, backing away and managing to find the corridor once more. After what seemed like a long time, and two more sneezes, he found a small door which was labeled in capital letters:

THE PSYCHICAL RESEARCH SOCIETY SIR LEWIS CARTER PRESIDENT

Malone sighed. "Well," he muttered, "they certainly aren't hiding anything." He pushed at the door, and it swung open.

Sir Lewis was a tall, solidly-built man with a kindly expression. He wore gray flannel trousers and a brown tweed jacket, which made an interesting color contrast with his iron-gray hair. His teeth were clenched so firmly on the bit of a calabash pipe with a meerschaum bowl that Malone wondered if he could ever get loose. Malone shut the door behind him, and Sir Lewis rose and extended a hand.

Malone went to the desk and reached across to take the hand. It was firm and dry. "I'm Kenneth Malone," Malone said.

"Ah, yes," Sir Lewis said. "Pleased to meet you; always happy, of course, to do whatever I can for your FBI. Not only a duty, so to speak, but a pleasure. Sit down. Please do sit down."

Malone found a chair at the side of the desk, and sank into it. It was soft and comfortable. It provided such a contrast to O'Connor's furnishings that Malone began to wish it was Sir Lewis who was employed at Yucca Flats. Then he could tell Sir Lewis everything about the case.

Now, of course, he could only hedge and try to make do without stating very many facts. "Sir Lewis," he said, "I trust you'll keep this conversation confidential."

"Naturally," Sir Lewis said. He removed the pipe, stared at it, and replaced it.

"I can't give you the full details," Malone went on, "but the FBI is presently engaged in an investigation which requires the specialized knowledge your organization seems to have."

"FBI?" Sir Lewis said. "Specialized investigation?" He seemed pleased, but a trifle puzzled. "Dear boy, anything we have is at your disposal, of course. But I quite fail to see how you can consider us--"

"It's rather an unusual problem," Malone said, feeling that that was the understatement of the year. "But I understand that your records go back nearly a century."

"Quite true," Sir Lewis murmured.

"During that time," Malone said, "the Society investigated a great many supposedly supernatural or supernormal incidents."

"Many of them," Sir Lewis said, "were discovered to be fraudulent, I'm afraid. The great majority, in fact."

"That's what I'd assume," Malone said. He fished in his pockets, found a cigarette and lit it. Sir Lewis went on chewing at his unlit pipe. "What we're interested in," Malone said, "is some description of the various methods by which these frauds were perpetrated."

"Ah," Sir Lewis said. "The tricks of the trade, so to speak?"

"Exactly," Malone said.

"Well, then," Sir Lewis said. "The luminous gauze, for instance, that passes for ectoplasm; the various methods of table-lifting; control of the ouija board--things like that?"

"Not quite that elementary," Malone said. He puffed on the cigarette, wishing it was a cigar. "We're pretty much up to that kind of thing. But had it ever occurred to you that many of the methods used by phony mind-reading acts, for instance, might be used as communication methods by spies?"

"Why, I believe some have been," Sir Lewis said. "Though I don't know much about that, of course; there was a case during the First World War--"

"Exactly," Malone said. He took a deep breath. "It's things like that we're interested in," he said, and spent the next twenty minutes slowly approaching his subject. Sir Lewis, apparently fascinated, was perfectly willing to unbend in any direction, and jotted down notes on some of Malone's more interesting cases, murmuring: "Most unusual, most unusual," as he wrote.

The various types of phenomena that the Society had investigated came into the discussion, and Malone heard quite a lot about the Beyond, the Great Summerland, Spirit Mediums and the hypothetical existence of fairies, goblins and elves.

"But, Sir Lewis--" he said.

"I make no claims personally," Sir Lewis said. "But I understand that there is a large and somewhat vocal group which does make rather solid-sounding claims in that direction. They say that they have seen fairies, talked with goblins, danced with the elves."

"They must be very unusual people," Malone said, understating heavily.

"Oh," Sir Lewis said, "without a that it goes through Accounting."

Talk like this passed away nearly a half hour, until Malone finally felt that it was the right time to introduce some of his real questions. "Tell me, Sir Lewis," he said, "have you had many instances of a single man, or a small group of men, controlling the actions of a much larger group? And doing it in such a way that the larger group doesn't even know it is being manipulated?"

"Of course I have," Sir Lewis said. "And so have you. They call it advertising."

Malone flicked his cigarette into an ashtray. "I didn't mean exactly that," he said. "Suppose they're doing it in such a way that the larger group doesn't even suspect that manipulation is going on?"

Sir Lewis removed his pipe and frowned at it. "I may be able to give you a little information," he said slowly, "but not much."

"Ah?" Malone said, trying to sound only mildly interested.

"Outside of mob psychology," Sir Lewis said, "and all that sort of thing, I really haven't seen any record of a case of such a thing happening. And I can't quite imagine anyone faking it."

"But you have got some information?" Malone said.

"Certainly," Sir Lewis said. "There is always spirit control."

"Spirit control?" Malone blinked.

"Demonic intervention," Sir Lewis said. "'My name is Legion,' you know."

Sir Lewis Legion, Malone thought confusedly, was a rather unusual name. He took a breath and caught hold of his revolving mind. "How would you go about that?" he said, a little hopelessly.

"I haven't the foggiest," Sir Lewis admitted cheerfully. "But I will have it looked up for you." He made a note. "Anything else?"

Malone tried to think. "Yes," he said at last. "Can you give me a condensed report on what is known--and I mean known--on telepathy and teleportation?"

"What you want," Sir Lewis said, "are those cases proven genuine, not the ones in which we have established fraud, or those still in doubt."

"Exactly," Malone said. If he got no other use out of the data, it would provide a measuring-stick for the Society. The general public didn't know that the government was actually using psionic powers, and the Society's theories, checked against actual fact, would provide a rough index of reliability to use on the Society's other data.

But spirits, somehow, didn't seem very likely. Malone sighed and stood up.

"I'll have copies made of all the relevant material," Sir Lewis said, "from our library and research files. Where do you want the material sent? I do want to warn you of its bulk; there may be quite a lot of it."

"FBI Headquarters, on Sixty-ninth Street," Malone said. "And send a statement of expenses along with it. As long as the bill's within reason, don't worry about itemizing; I'll see that it goes through Accounting."

Sir Lewis nodded. "Fine," he said. "And, if you should have any difficulties with the material, please let me know. I'll always be glad to help."

"Thanks for your co-operation," Malone said. He went to the door, and walked on out.

He blundered back into the same big room again, on his way through the corridors. The bulbous-eyed woman, who seemed to have inherited a full set of thirty-two teeth from each of her parents, gave him a friendly if somewhat crowded smile, but Malone pressed on without a word. After a while, he found the reception room again.

* * * * *

The girl behind the desk looked up. "How did he react?" she said.

Malone blinked. "React?" he said.

"When you sneezed at him," she said. "Because I've been thinking it over, and I've got a new theory. You're doing a survey on how people act when encountering sneezes. Like Kinsey."

This girl--Lou something, Malone thought, and with difficulty refrained from adding "Gehrig"--had an unusual effect, he decided. He wondered if there were anyone in the world she couldn't reduce to paralyzed silence.

"Of course," she went on, "Kinsey was dealing with sex, and you aren't. At least, you aren't during business hours." She smiled politely at Malone.

"No," he said helplessly, "I'm not."

"It is sneezing, then," she said. "Will I be in the book when it's published?"

"Book?" Malone said, feeling more and more like a rather low-grade moron.

"The book on sneezing, when you get it published," she said. "I can see it now--the Case of Miss X, a Receptionist."

"There isn't going to be any book," Malone said.

She shook her head. "That's a shame," she said. "I've always wanted to be a Miss X. It sounds exciting."

"X," Malone said at random, "marks the spot."

"Why, that's the sweetest thing that's been said to me all day," the girl said. "I thought you could hardly talk, and here you come out with lovely things like that. But I'll bet you say it to all the girls."

"I have never said it to anybody before," Malone said flatly. "And I never will again."

The girl sighed. "I'll treasure it," she said. "My one great moment. Good-by, Mr. ... Malone, isn't it?"

"Ken," Malone said. "Just call me Ken."

"And I'm Lou," the girl said. "Good-by."

An elevator arrived and Malone ducked into it. Louie? he thought. Louise? Luke? Of course, there was Sir Lewis Carter, who might be called Lou. Was he related to the girl?

No, Malone thought wildly. Relations went by last names. There was no reason for Lou to be related to Sir Lewis. They didn't even look alike. For instance, he had no desire whatever to make a date with Sir Lewis Carter, or to take him to a glittering nightclub. And the very idea of Sir Lewis Carter sitting on the Malone lap was enough to give him indigestion and spots before the eyes.

Sternly, he told himself to get back to business. The elevator stopped at the lobby and he got out and started down the street, feeling that consideration of the Lady Known As Lou was much more pleasant. After all, what did he have to work with, as far as his job was concerned?

So far, two experts had told him that his theory was full of lovely little holes. Worse than that, they had told him that mass control of human beings was impossible, as far as they knew.

And maybe it was impossible, he told himself sadly. Maybe he should just junk his whole theory and think up a new one. Maybe there was no psionics involved in the thing at all, and Boyd and O'Connor were right.

Of course, he had a deep-seated conviction that psionics was somewhere at the root of everything, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. A lot of people had deep-seated convictions that they were beetles, or that the world was flat. And then again, murderers often suffered as a result of deep-seated convictions.

On the other hand, maybe he had invented a whole new psionic theory--or, at least, observed some new psionic facts. Maybe they would call the results Maloneizing, instead of O'Connorizing. He tried to picture a man opening a door and saying: "Come out quick--Mr. Frembits is Maloneizing again."

It didn't sound very plausible. But, after all, he did have a deep-seated conviction. He tried to think of a shallow-seated conviction, and failed. Didn't convictions ever stand up, anyhow, or lie down?

He shook his head, discovered that he was on Sixty-ninth Street, and headed for the FBI headquarters. His convictions, he had found, were sometimes an expression of his precognitive powers; he determined to ride with them, at least for a while.

By the time he came to the office of the agent-in-charge, he had figured out the beginnings of a new line of attack.

"How about the ghosts?" the agent-in-charge asked as he passed.

"They'll be along," Malone said. "In a big bundle, addressed to me personally. And don't open the bundle."

"Why not?" the agent-in-charge asked.

"Because I don't want the things to get loose and run around saying Boo! to everybody," Malone said brightly, and went on.

* * * * *

He opened the door of his private office, went inside and sat down at the desk there. He took his time about framing a thought, a single, clear, deliberate thought:

Your Majesty, I'd like to speak to you.

[Illustration]

He hardly had time to finish it. A flash of color appeared in the room, just a few feet from his desk. The flash resolved itself into a tiny, grandmotherly-looking woman with a corona of white hair and a kindly, twinkling expression. She was dressed in the full court costume of the First Elizabethan period, and this was hardly surprising to Malone. The little old lady believed, quite firmly, that she was Queen Elizabeth I, miraculously preserved over all these centuries. Malone, himself, had practically forgotten that the woman's real name was Rose Thompson, and that she had only been alive for sixty-five years or so. For most of that time, she had been insane.

For all of that time, however, she had been a genuine telepath. She had been discovered during the course of Malone's first psionic case, and by now she had even learned to teleport by "reading" the process in Malone's mind.

"Good afternoon, Sir Kenneth," she said in a regal, kindly voice. She was mad, he knew, but her delusion was nicely kept within bounds. All of her bright world hinged on the single fact that she was unshakably certain of her royalty. As long as the FBI catered to that notion--which included a Royal dwelling for her in Yucca Flats, and the privilege of occasionally knighting FBI Agents who had pleased her unpredictable fancy--she was perfectly rational on all other points. She co-operated with Dr. O'Connor and with the FBI in the investigation of her psionic powers, and she had given her Royal word not to teleport except at Malone's personal request.

"I'd like to talk to you," Malone said, "Your Majesty."

There was an odd note in the Queen's voice, and an odd, haunted expression on her face. "I've been hoping you'd ask me to come," she said.

"I had a hunch you were following me telepathically," Malone said. "Can you give me any help?"

"I ... I really don't know," she said. "It's something new, and something ... disturbing. I've never come across anything like it before."

"Like what?" Malone asked.

"It's the--" She made a gesture that conveyed nothing at all to Malone. "The ... the static," she said at last.

Malone blinked. "Static?" he said.

"Yes," she said. "You're not telepathic, so I can't tell you what it's really like. But ... well, Sir Kenneth, have you ever seen disturbance on a TV screen, when there's some powerful electric output nearby? The bright, senseless snowstorms, the meaningless hash?"

"Sure," Malone said.

"It's like that," she said. "It's a ... a sudden, meaningless, disturbing blare of telepathic energy."

The telephone rang once. Malone ignored it.

"What's causing these disturbances?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I don't know, Sir Kenneth. I don't know," she said. "I can't pick up a person's mind over a distance unless I know him--and I can't see what's causing this at all. It's ... frankly, Sir Kenneth, it's rather terrifying."

The phone rang again.

"How long have you been experiencing this disturbance?" Malone asked. He looked at the phone.

"The telephone isn't important," Her Majesty said. "It's only Sir Thomas, calling to tell you he's arrested three spies, and that doesn't matter at all."

"It doesn't?"

"Not at all," Her Majesty said. "What does matter is that I've only been picking up these flashes since you were assigned to this new case, Sir Kenneth. And--" She paused.

"Well?" Malone said.

"And they only appear," Her Majesty said, "when I'm tuned to your mind!"

[Illustration]

V

Malone stared. He tried to say something but he couldn't find any words. The telephone rang again and he pushed the switch with a sense of relief. The beard-fringed face of Thomas Boyd appeared on the screen.

"You're getting hard to find," Boyd said. "I think you're letting fame and fortune go to your head."

"I left word at the office that I was coming here," Malone said aggrievedly.

"Sure you did," Boyd said. "How do you think I found you? Am I telepathic? Do I have strange powers?"

"Wouldn't surprise me in the least," Malone said. "Now, about those spies--"

"See what I mean?" Boyd said. "How did you know?"

"Just lucky, I guess," Malone murmured. "But what about them?"

"Well," Boyd said, "we picked up two men working in the Senate Office Building, and another one working for the State Department."

"And they are spies?" Malone said. "Real spies?"

"Oh, they're real enough," Boyd said. "We've known about 'em for years, and I finally decided to pick them up for questioning. Maybe they have something to do with all this mess that's bothering everybody."

"You haven't the faintest idea what you mean," Malone said. "Mess is hardly the word."

Boyd snorted. "You go on getting yourself confused," he said, "while some of us do the real work. After all--"

"Never mind the insults," Malone said. "How about the spies?"

"Well," Boyd said, a trifle reluctantly, "they've been working as janitors and maintenance men, and of course we've made sure they haven't been able to get their hands on any really valuable information."

"So they've suddenly turned into criminal masterminds," Malone said. "After being under careful surveillance for years--"

"Well, it's possible," Boyd said defensively.

"Almost anything is possible," Malone said.

"Some things," Boyd said carefully, "are more possible than others."

"Thank you, Charles W. Aristotle," Malone said. "I hope you realize what you've done, picking up those three men. We might have been able to get some good lines on them, if you'd left them where they were."

There is an old story about a general who went on an inspection tour of the front during World War I, and, putting his head incautiously up out of a trench, was narrowly missed by a sniper's bullet. He turned to a nearby sergeant and bellowed: "Get that sniper!"

"Oh, we'

ot him spotted, sir," the sergeant said. "He's been there for six days now."

"Well, then," the general said, "why don't you blast him out of there?"

"Well, sir, it's this way," the sergeant explained. "He's fired about sixty rounds since he's been out there, and he hasn't hit anything yet. We're afraid if we get rid of him they'll put up somebody who can shoot."

This was standard FBI policy when dealing with minor spies. A great many had been spotted, including four in the Department of Fisheries. But known spies are easier to keep track of than unknown ones. And, as long as they're allowed to think they haven't been spotted, they may lead the way to other spies or spy networks.

"I thought it was worth the risk," Boyd said. "After all, if they have something to do with the case--"

"But they don't," Malone said.

Boyd exploded, "Let me find out for myself, will you? You're spoiling all the fun."

"Well, anyhow," Malone said, "they don't."

"You can't afford to take any chances," Boyd said. "After all, when I think about William Logan, I tell myself we'd better take care of every lead."

"Well," Malone said finally, "you may be right. And then again, you may be normally wrong."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Boyd said.

"How should I know?" Malone said "I'm too busy to go around and around like this. But since you've picked up the spies, I suppose it won't do any harm to find out if they know anything."

Boyd snorted again. "Thank you," he said, "for your kind permission."

"I'll be right down," Malone said.

"I'll be waiting," Boyd said. "In Interrogation Room 7. You'll recognize me by the bullet hole in my forehead and the strange South American poison, hitherto unknown to science, in my oesophagus."

"Very funny," Malone said. "Don't give up the ship."

* * * * *

Boyd switched off without a word. Malone shrugged at the blank screen and pushed his own switch. Then he turned slowly back to Her Majesty, who was standing, waiting patiently, at the opposite side of the desk. Interference, he thought, located around him--

"Why, yes," she said. "That's exactly what I did say."

Malone blinked. "Your Majesty," he said, "would you mind terribly if I asked you questions before you answered them? I know you can see them in my mind, but it's simpler for me to do things the normal way, just now."

"I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "I do agree that matters are confused enough already. Please go on."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Malone said. "Well, then. Do you mean that I'm the one causing all this ... mental static?"

"Oh, no," she said. "Not at all. It's definitely coming from somewhere else, and it's beamed at you, or beamed around you."

"But--"

"It's just that I can only pick it up when I'm tuned to your mind," she said.

"Like now?" Malone said.

She shook her head. "Right now," she said, "there isn't any. It only happens every once in a while--every so often, and not continuously."

"Does it happen at regular intervals?" Malone said.

"Not as far as I've been able to tell," Her Majesty said. "It just ... happens, that's all. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. Except that it did start when you were assigned to this case."

"Lovely," Malone said. "And what is it supposed to mean?"

"Interference," she said. "Static. Jumble. That's all it means. I just don't know any more than that, Sir Kenneth; I've never experienced anything like it in my life. It really does disturb me."

That, Malone told himself, he could believe. It must be an experience, he told himself, like having someone you were looking at suddenly dissolve into a jumble of meaningless shapes and lights.

"That's a very good analogy," Her Majesty said. "If you'll pardon me speaking before you've voiced your thought--"

"Not at all," Malone said. "Go right ahead."

"Well, then," Her Majesty said. "The analogy you use is a good one. It's just as disturbing and as meaningless as that."

"And you don't know what's causing it?" Malone said.

"I don't know," she said.

"Nor what the purpose of it is?" he said.

Her Majesty shook her head slowly. "Sir Kenneth," she said, "I don't even know whether or not there is any purpose."

Malone sighed deeply. Nothing in the case seemed to make any sense. It wasn't that there were no clues, or no information for him to work with. There were a lot of clues, and there was a lot of information. But nothing seemed to link up with anything else. Every new fact was a bright, shiny arrow pointing nowhere in particular.

"Well, then--" he started.

The intercom buzzed. Malone jabbed ferociously at the button. "Yes," he said.

"The ghosts are here," the agent-in-charge's voice said.

Malone blinked. "What?" he said.

"You said you were going to get some ghosts," the agent-in-charge said. "From the Psychical Research Society, in a couple of large bundles And they're here now. Want me to exorcise 'em for you?"

"No," Malone said wearily. "Just send them in to join the crowd. Got a messenger?"

"I'll send them down," the agent-in-charge said. "About one minute."

Malone nodded, realized the man couldn't see him, said: "Fine," and switched off. He looked at his watch. A little over half an hour had passed since he had left the Psychical Research Society offices. That, he told himself, was efficiency.

Not that the books would mean anything, he thought. They would just take their places at the end of the long row of meaningless, disturbing, vicious facts that cluttered up his mind. He wasn't an FBI agent any more; he was a clown and a failure, and he was through. He was going to resign and go to South Dakota and live the life of a hermit. He would drink goat's milk and eat old shoes or something, and whenever another human being came near he would run away and hide. They would call him Old Kenneth, and people would write articles for magazines about The Twentieth Century Hermit.

And that would make him famous, he thought wearily, and the whole circle would start all over again.

"Now, now, Sir Kenneth," Queen Elizabeth said. "Things aren't quite that bad."

"Oh, yes, they are," Malone said. "They're even worse."

"I'm sure we can find an answer to all your questions," Her Majesty said.

"Sure," Malone said. "Even I can find an answer. But it isn't the right one."

"You can?" Her Majesty said.

"That's right," Malone said. "My answer is: To Hell with everything."

* * * * *

Malone's Washington offices didn't look any different. He sighed and put the two big packages from the Psychical Research Society down on his desk, and then turned to Her Majesty.

"I wanted you to teleport along with me," he said, "because I need your help."

"Yes," she said. "I know."

He blinked. "Oh. Sure you do. But let me go over the details."

Her Majesty waved a gracious hand. "If you like, Sir Kenneth," she said.

Malone nodded. "We're going on down to Interrogation Room 7 now," he said. "Next door to it, there's an observation room, with a one-way panel in the wall. You'll be able to see us, but we won't be able to see you."

"I really don't require an observation panel," Her Majesty said. "If I enter your mind, I can see through your eyes--"

"Oh, sure," Malone said. "But the observation room was built for more normal people--saving your presence, Your Majesty."

"Of course," she said.

"Now," Malone went on, "I want you to watch all three of the men we're going to bring in, and dig everything you can out of their minds."

"Everything?" she said.

"We don't know what might be useful," Malone said. "Anything you can find. And if you want any questions asked--if there's anything you think I ought to ask the men, or say to them--there's a nonvision phone in the observation room. Just lift the receiver. That automatically rings the one in the Interrogation Room and I'll pick it up. Understand?"

"Perfectly, Sir Kenneth," she said.

"O.K., then," Malone said. "Let's go." They headed for the door. Malone stopped as he opened it. "And by the way," he said.

"Yes?"

"If you get any more of those--disturbances, let me know."

"At once," Her Majesty promised.

They went on down the hall and took the elevator down to Interrogation Room 7, on the lowest level. There was no particular reason for putting the Interrogation section down there, except that it tended to make prisoners more nervous. And a nervous prisoner, Malone knew, was very possibly a confessing prisoner.

Malone ushered Her Majesty through the unmarked door of the observation chamber, made sure that the panel and phone were in working order, and went out. He stepped into Interrogation Room 7 trying hard to look bored, businesslike and unbeatable. Boyd and four other agents were already there, all standing around and talking desultorily in low tones. None of them looked as if they had ever had a moment's worry in their lives. It was all part of the same technique, of course, Malone thought. Make the prisoner feel resistance is useless, and you've practically got him working for you.

The prisoner was a hulking, flabby fat man in work coveralls. He had black hair that spilled all over his forehead, and tiny button eyes. He was the only man in the room who was sitting down, and that was meant to make him feel even more inferior and insecure. His hands were clasped fatly in his lap, and he was staring down at them in a regretful manner. None of the FBI agents paid the slightest attention to him. The general impression was that something really tough was coming up, but that they were in no hurry for it. They were willing to wait for the Third Degree, it seemed, until the blacksmith had done a really good job with the new spikes for the Iron Maiden.

The prisoner looked up apprehensively as Malone shut the door. Malone paid no attention to him, and the prisoner unclasped his hands, rubbed them on his coveralls and then reclasped them in his lap. His eyes fell again.

Boyd looked up, too. "Hello, Ken," he said. He tapped a sheaf of papers on the single table in the room. Malone went over and picked them up.

They were the abbreviated condensations of three dossiers. All three of the men covered in the dossiers were naturalized citizens, but all had come in us "political refugees"--from Hungary, from Czechoslovakia, and from East Germany. Further checking had turned up the fact that all three were actually Russians. They had been using false names during their stay in the United States, but their real ones were appended to the dossiers.

The fat one in the Interrogation Room was named Alexis Brubitsch. The other two, who were presumably waiting separately in other rooms, were Ivan Borbitsch and Vasili Garbitsch. The collection sounded, to Malone, like a seedy musical-comedy firm of lawyers: Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch. He could picture them dancing gaily across a stage while the strains of music followed them, waving legal forms and telephones and singing away.

Brubitsch did not, however, look very gay. Malone went over to him now, walking slowly, and looked down. Boyd came and stood next to him.

* * * * *

"This is the one who won't talk, eh?" Malone said, wondering if he sounded as much like Dick Tracy as he thought he did. It was a standard opening, meant to make the prisoner think his fellows had already confessed.

"That's him," Boyd said.

"Hm-m-m," Malone said, trying to look as if he were deciding between the rack and the boiling oil. Brubitsch fidgeted slightly, but he didn't say anything.

"We didn't know whether we had to get this one to talk, too," Boyd said. "What with the others, and all. But we did think you ought to have a look at him." He sounded very bored. It was obvious from his tone that the FBI didn't care in the least if Alexis Brubitsch never opened his mouth again, in what was likely to be a very short lifetime.

"Well," Malone said, equally bored, "we might be able to get a few corroborative details."

Brubitsch swallowed hard. Malone ignored him.

"Now, just look at him," Boyd said. "He certainly doesn't look like the head of a spy ring, does he?"

"Of course he doesn't," Malone said. "That's probably why the Russians used him. They figured nobody would ever look twice at a fat slob like this. Nobody would ever suspect him of being the head man."

"I guess you're right," Boyd said. He yawned, which Malone thought was overacting a trifle. Brubitsch saw the yawn, and one hand came up to jerk at his collar.

"Who'd ever think," Malone said, "that he plotted those killings in Redstone--all three of them?"

"It is surprising," Boyd said.

"But, then," Malone said, "we know he did. There isn't any doubt of that."

Brubitsch seemed to be turning a pale green. It was a fascinating color, unlike any other Malone had ever seen. He watched it with interest.

"Oh, sure," Boyd said. "We've got enough evidence from the other two to send this one to the chair tomorrow, if we want to."

"More than enough," Malone agreed.

Brubitsch opened his mouth, shut it again and closed his eyes. His lips moved silently.

"Tell me," Boyd said conversationally, leaning down to the fat man, "Did your orders on that job come from Moscow, or did you mastermind it all by yourself?"

Brubitsch's eyes stirred, then snapped open as if they'd been pulled by a string. "Me?" he said in a hoarse bass voice. "I know nothing about this murder. What murder?"

There were no such murders, of course. But Malone was not ready to let Brubitsch know anything about that. "Oh, the ones you shot in Redstone," he said in an offhand way.

"The what?" Brubitsch said. "I shot people? Never."

"Oh, sure you did," Boyd said. "The others say you did."

Brubitsch's head seemed to sink into his neck. "Borbitsch and Garbitsch, they tell you about a murder? It is not true. Is a lie."

"Really?" Malone said. "We think it's true."

"Is a lie," Brubitsch said, his little eyes peering anxiously from side to side. "Is not true," he went on hopefully. "I have alibi."

"You do?" Boyd said. "For what time?"

"For time when murder happened," Brubitsch said. "I was some place else."

"Well, then," Malone said, "how do you know when the murders were done? They were kept out of the newspapers." That, he reflected, was quite true, since the murders had never happened. But he watched Brubitsch with a wary eye.

"I know nothing about time," Brubitsch said, jerking at his collar. "I don't know when they happened."

"Then how can you have an alibi?" Boyd snapped.

"Because I didn't do them!" Brubitsch said tearfully. "If I didn't, then I must have alibi!"

"You'd be surprised," Malone said. "Now, about these murders--"

"Was no murder, not by me," Brubitsch said firmly. "Was never any killing of anybody, not even by accident."

"But your two friends say--" Boyd began.

"My two friends are not my friends," Brubitsch said firmly. "If they tell you about murder and say it was me, they are no friends. I did not murder anybody. I have alibi. I did not even murder anybody a little bit. They are no friends. This is terrible."

"There," Malone said reflectively, "I agree with you. It's positively awful. And I think we might as well give it up. After all, we don't need your testimony. The other two are enough; they'll get maybe ten years apiece, but you're going to get the chair."

"I will not sit down," Brubitsch said firmly. "I am innocent. I am innocent like a small child. Does a small child commit a murder? It is ridiculous."

* * * * *

Boyd picked up his cue with ease. "You might as well give us your side of the story, then," he said easily. "If you didn't commit any murders--"

"I am a small child," Brubitsch announced.

"O.K.," Boyd said. "But if you didn't commit any murders, just what have you been doing since you've been in this country as a Soviet agent?"

[Illustration]

"I will say nothing," Brubitsch announced. "I am a small child. It is enough." He paused, blinked, and went on: "I will only tell you this: no murders were done by our group in any of our activities."

"And what were your activities?"

"Oh, many things," Brubitsch said. "Many, many things. We--"

The telephone rang loudly, and Malone scooped it up with a practiced hand. "Malone here," he said.

Her Majesty's voice was excited. "Sir Kenneth!" she said. "I just got a tremendous burst of--static!"

Malone blinked. Is my mind acting up again? he thought, knowing she would pick it up. Am I being interfered with?

He didn't feel any different. But then, how was he supposed to feel?

"It's not your mind, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said. "Not this time. It's his mind. That sneaky-thinking Brubitsch fellow."

Brubitsch? Malone thought. Now what is that supposed to mean?

"I don't know, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said. "But get on back to your questioning. He's ready to talk now."

"O.K.," Malone said aloud. "Fine." He hung up and looked back to the Russian sitting on his chair. Brubitsch was ready to talk, and that was one good thing, anyhow. But what was all the static about?

What was going on?

"Now, then," Malone said. "You were telling us about your group activities."

"True," Brubitsch said. "I did not commit any murders. It is possible that Borbitsch committed murders. It is possible that Garbitsch committed murders. But I do not think so."

"Why not?" Boyd said.

"They are my friends," Brubitsch said. "Even if they tell lies. They are also small children. Besides, I am not even the head of the group."

"Who is?" Malone said.

"Garbitsch," Brubitsch said instantly. "He worked in the State Department, and he told us what to look for in the Senate Office Building."

"What were you supposed to look for?" Boyd said.

"For information," Brubitsch said. "For scraps of paper, or things we overheard. But it was very bad, very bad."

"What do you mean, bad?" Malone said.

"Everything was terrible," Brubitsch said mournfully. "Sometimes Borbitsch heard something and forgot to tell Garbitsch about it. Garbitsch did not like this. He is a very inflamed person. Once he threatened to send Borbitsch to the island of Yap as a spy. That is a very bad place to go to. There are no enjoyments on the island of Yap, and no one likes strangers there."

"What did you do with your information?" Boyd said.

"We remembered it," Brubitsch said. "Or, if we had a scrap of paper, we saved it for Garbitsch and gave it to him. But I remember once that I had some paper. It had a formula on it. I do not know what the formula said."

"What was it about?" Malone said.

Brubitsch gave a massive shrug. "It was about an X and some numbers," he said. "It was not very interesting, but it was a formula, and Garbitsch would have liked it. Unfortunately, I did not give it to him."

"Why not?" Boyd said.

"I am ashamed," Brubitsch said, looking ashamed. "I was lighting a cigarette in the afternoon, when I had the formula. It is a very relaxing thing to smoke a cigarette in the afternoon. It is soothing to the soul." He looked very sad. "I was holding the piece of paper in one hand," he said. "Unfortunately, the match and the paper came into contact. I burned my finger. Here." He stuck out a finger toward Malone and Boyd, who looked at it without much interest for a second. "The paper is gone," he said. "Don't tell Garbitsch. He is very inflamed."

Malone sighed. "But you remember the formula," he said. "Don't you?"

Brubitsch shook his massive head very slowly. "It was not very interesting," he said. "And I do not have a mathematical mind."

"We know," Malone said, "You are a small child."

* * * * *

"It was terrible," Brubitsch said. "Garbitsch was not happy about our activities."

"What did Garbitsch do with the information?" Boyd said.

"He passed it on," Brubitsch said. "Every week he would send a short-wave message to the homeland, in code. Some weeks he did not send the message."

"Why not?" Malone said.

"The radio did not work," Brubitsch said simply. "We received orders by short-wave, but sometimes we did not receive the orders. The radio was of very poor quality, and some weeks it refused to send any messages. On other weeks, it refused to receive any messages."

"Who was your contact in Russia?" Boyd said.

"A man named X," Brubitsch said. "Like in the formula."

"But what was his real name?" Malone said.

"Who knows?" Brubitsch said.

"What else did you do?" Boyd said.

"We met twice a week," Brubitsch said. "Sometimes in Garbitsch's home, sometimes in other places. Sometimes we had information. At other times, we were friends, having a social gathering."

"Friends?" Malone said.

Brubitsch nodded. "We drank together, talked, played chess. Garbitsch is the best chess player in the group. I am not very good. But once we had some trouble." He paused. "We had been drinking Russian liquors. They are very strong. We decided to uphold the honor of our country."

"I think," Malone murmured sadly, "I know what's coming."

"Ah?" Brubitsch said, interested. "At any rate, we decided to honor our country in song. And a policeman came and talked to us. He took us down to the police station."

"Why?" Boyd said.

"He was suspicious," Brubitsch said. "We were singing the Internationale, and he was suspicious. It is unreasonable."

"Oh, I don't know," Boyd said. "What happened then?"

"He took us to the police station," Brubitsch said, "and then after a little while he let us go. I do not understand this."

"It's all right," Malone said. "I do." He drew Boyd aside for a second, and whispered to him: "The cops were ready to charge these three clowns with everything in the book. We had a time springing them so we could go on watching them. I remember the stir-up, though I never did know their names until now."

Boyd nodded, and they returned to Brubitsch, who was staring up at them with surly eyes.

"It is a secret you are telling him," Brubitsch said. "That is not right."

"What do you mean, it's not right?" Malone said.

"It is wrong," Brubitsch went on. "It is not the American way."

He went on, with some prodding, to tell about the activities of the spy ring. It did not seem to be a very efficient spy ring; Brubitsch's long sad tale of forgotten messages, mixed orders, misplaced documents and strange mishaps was a marvel and a revelation to the listening officers.

"I've never heard anything like it," one of them whispered in a tone of absolute wonder. "They're almost working on our side."

Over an hour later, Malone turned wearily away from the prisoner. "All right, Brubitsch," he said. "I guess that pretty much covers things for the moment. If we want any more information, though--"

"Call on me," Brubitsch said sadly. "I am not going any place. And I will give you all the information you desire. But I did not commit any murders--"

"Good-bye, small child," Malone said, as two agents led the fat man away. The other two left soon afterward, and Malone and Boyd were alone.

* * * * *

"Think he was telling the truth?" Boyd said.

Malone nodded. "Nobody," he said, "could make up a story like that."

"I suppose so," Boyd said, and the phone rang. Malone picked it up.

"Well?" he asked.

"He was telling the truth, all right," Her Majesty said. "There are a few more details, of course--there was a girl Brubitsch was involved with, Sir Kenneth. But she doesn't seem to have anything to do with the spy ring, and besides, she isn't a very nice person. She always wants money."

"Sounds perfectly lovely," Malone said. "As a matter of fact, I think I know her. I know a lot of girls who always want money."

"You don't know this one, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said, "and besides, she wouldn't be a good influence on you."

Malone sighed. "How about the static explosions?" he said. "Pick up any more?"

"No," she said. "Just that one."

Malone nodded at the receiver. "All right," he said. "We're going to bring in the second one now. Keep up the good work."

He hung up.

"Who've you got in the Observation Room?" Boyd asked.

"Queen Elizabeth I," Malone said. "Her Royal Majesty."

"Oh," Boyd said without surprise. "Well, was Brubitsch telling the truth?"

"He wasn't holding back anything important," Malone said, thinking about the girl. It would be nice to meet a bad influence, he thought mournfully. It would be nice to go somewhere with a bad influence--a bad influence, he amended, with a good figure--and forget all about his job, about the spies, about telepathy, teleportation, psionics and everything else. It might be restful.

Unfortunately, it was impossible.

"What's this business about a static explosion?" Boyd said.

"Don't ask silly questions," Malone said. "A static explosion is a contradiction in terms. If something is static, it doesn't move--and whoever heard of a motionless explosion?"

"If it is a contradiction in terms," Boyd said, "they're your terms."

"Sure," Malone said. "But I don't know what they mean. I don't even know what I mean."

"You're in a bad way," Boyd said, looking sympathetic.

"I'm in a perfectly terrible way," Malone said, "and it's going to get worse. You wait and see."

"Of course I'll wait and see," Boyd said. "I wouldn't miss the end of the world for anything. It ought to be a great spectacle." He paused. "Want them to bring in the next one?"

"Sure," Malone said. "What have we got to lose but our minds? And who is the next one?"

"Borbitsch," Boyd said. "They're saving Garbitsch for a big finish."

Malone nodded wearily. "Onward," he said, and picked up the phone. He punched a number, spoke a few words and hung up.

A minute later, the four FBI agents came back, leading a man. This one was tall and thin, with the expression of a gloomy, degenerate and slightly nauseated bloodhound. He was led to the chair and he sat down in it as if he expected the worst to start happening at once.

"Well," Malone said in a bored, tired voice. "So this is the one who won't talk."

VI

Midnight.

Kenneth J. Malone sat at his desk, in his Washington office, surrounded by piles of papers covering the desk, spilling off onto the floor and decorating his lap. He was staring at the papers as if he expected them to leap up, dance round him and shout the solution to all his problems at him in trained choral voices. They did nothing at all.

Seated cross-legged on the rug in the center of the room, and looking like an impossible combination of the last Henry Tudor and Gautama Buddha, Thomas Boyd did nothing either. He was staring downward, his hands folded on his ample lap, wearing an expression of utter, burning frustration. And on a nearby chair sat the third member of the company, wearing the calm and patient expression of the gently born under all vicissitudes: Queen Elizabeth I.

"All right," Malone said into the silence. "Now let's see what we've got."

"I think we've got cerebral paresis," Boyd said. "It's been coming on for years."

"Don't be funny," Malone said.

Boyd gave a short, mirthless bark. "Funny?" he said. "I'm absolutely hysterical with joy and good humor. I'm out of my mind with happiness." He paused. "Anyway," he finished, "I'm out of my mind. Which puts me in good company. The entire FBI, Brubitsch, Borbitsch, Garbitsch, Dr. Thomas O'Connor and Sir Lewis Carter--we're all out of our minds. If we weren't, we'd all move away to the Moon."

"And drink to forget," Malone added. "Sure. But let's try and get some work done."

"By all means, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said. Boyd had not included her in his list of insane people, and she looked slightly miffed. It was hard for Malone to tell whether she was miffed by the mention of insanity, or at being left out.

"Let's review the facts," Malone said. "This whole thing started with some inefficiency in Congress."

"And some upheavals elsewhere." Boyd said. "Labor unions, gangster organizations--"

"Just about all over," Malone said. "And though we've found three spies, it seems pretty obvious that they aren't causing this."

"They aren't causing much of anything," Boyd said. "Except a lot of unbelieving laughter farther up the FBI line. I don't think anybody is going to believe our reports of those interviews."

"But they're true," Her Majesty said.

"Sure they're true," Boyd said. "That's the unbelievable part. They read like farce--and not very good farce at that."

"Oh, I don't know," Malone said. "I think they're pretty funny."

"Shall we get back to the business at hand?" Her Majesty said gently.

"Ah," Malone said. "Anyhow, it isn't the spies. And what we now have is confusion even worse compounded."

"Confounded," Boyd said. "John Milton. 'Paradise Lost.' I heard it somewhere...."

"I don't mean confounded," Malone said. "I mean confusion. Anyhow, the Russian espionage rings in this country seem to be in as bad a state as the Congress, the labor unions, the Syndicates, and all the rest. And all of them seem to have some sort of weird tie-in to these flashes of telepathic interference. Right, Your Majesty?"

"I ... believe so, Sir Kenneth," she said. The old woman looked tired and confused. Somehow, a lot of the brightness seemed to have gone out of her life. "That's right," she said. "I didn't realize there was so much of it going on. You see, Sir Kenneth, you're the only one I can pick up at a distance who has been having these flashes. But now that I'm here in Washington, I can feel it going on all around me."

"It may not have anything to do with everything else," Boyd said.

Malone shook his head. "If it doesn't," he said, "it's the weirdest coincidence I've ever even dreamed about, and my dreams can be pretty strange. No, it's got to be tied in. There's some kind of mental static that is somehow making all these people goof up."

"But why?" Boyd said. "What is it being done for? Just fun?"

"God only knows," Malone said. "But we're going to have to find out."

"In that case," Boyd said, "I suggest lots and lots of prayers."

Her Majesty looked up. "That's a fine idea," she said.

"But God helps those," Malone said, "who help themselves. And we're going to help ourselves. Mostly with facts."

"All right," Boyd said. "So far, all the facts have been a great help."

"Well, here's one," Malone said. "We got one flash each from Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch while we were questioning them. And in each case, that flash occurred just before they started to blab everything they knew. Before the flash, they weren't talking. They were behaving just like good spies and keeping their mouths shut. After the flash, they couldn't talk fast enough."

"That's true," Boyd said reflectively. "They did seem to give up pretty fast, even for amateurs."

Malone nodded. "So the question is this," he said. "Just what happens during those crazy bursts of static?"

He looked expectantly at Her Majesty, but she shook her head sadly. "I don't know," she said. "I simply don't know. It's just noise to me--meaningless noise." She put her hands slowly over her face. "People shouldn't do things like that to their Sovereign," she said in a muffled voice.

* * * * *

Malone got up and went over to her. She wasn't crying, but she wasn't far from it. He put an arm around her thin shoulders. "Now, look, Your Majesty," he said in gentle tones, "this will all clear up. We'll find out what's going on, and we'll find a way to put a stop to it."

"Sure we will," Boyd said. "After all, Your Majesty, Sir Kenneth and I will work hard on this."

"And the Queen's Own FBI," Malone said, "won't stop until we've finished with this whole affair, once and for all."

Her Majesty brought her hands down from her face, very slowly. She was forcing a smile, but it didn't look too well. "I know you won't fail your Queen," she said. "You two have always been the most loyal of my subjects."

"We'll work hard," Malone said. "No matter how long it takes."

"Because, after all," Boyd said in a musing, thoughtful tone, "it is a serious crime, you know."

The words seemed to have an effect on Her Majesty, like a tonic. For a second her face wore an expression of Royal anger and indignance, and the accustomed strength flowed back into her aged voice. "You're quite correct, Sir Thomas!" she said. "The security of the Throne and the Crown are at stake!"

Malone blinked. "What?" he said. "Are you two talking about something? What crime is this?"

"An extremely serious one," Boyd said in a grave voice. He rose unsteadily to his feet, planted them firmly on the carpet, and frowned.

"Go on," Malone said, fascinated. Her Majesty was watching Boyd with an intent expression.

"The crime," Boyd said, "the very serious crime involved, is that of Threatening the Welfare of the Queen. The criminal has committed the crime of Causing the Said Sovereign, Baselessly, Reasonlessly and Without Consent or Let, to Be in a State of Apprehension for Her Life or Her Well-Being. And this crime--"

"Aha," Malone said. "I've got it. The crime is--"

"High treason," Boyd intoned.

"High treason," Her Majesty said with satisfaction and fire in her voice.

"Very high treason," Malone said. "Extremely high."

"Stratospheric," Boyd agreed. "That is, of course," he added, "if the perpetrators of this dastardly crime are Her Majesty's subjects."

"My goodness," the Queen said. "I never thought of that. Suppose they're not?"

"Then," Malone said in his most vibrant voice, "it is an Act of War."

"Steps," Boyd said, "must be taken."

"We must do our utmost," Malone said. "Sir Thomas--"

"Yes, Sir Kenneth?" Boyd said.

"This task requires our most fervent dedication," Malone said. "Please come with me."

He went to the desk. Boyd followed him, walking straight-backed and tall. Malone bent and removed from a drawer of the desk a bottle of bourbon. He closed the drawer, poured some bourbon into two handy water glasses from the desk, and capped the bottle. He handed one of the water glasses to Boyd, and raised the other one aloft.

"Sir Thomas," Malone said, "I give you--Her Majesty, the Queen!"

"To the Queen!" Boyd echoed.

They downed their drinks and turned, as one man, to hurl the glasses into the wastebasket.

* * * * *

In thinking it over later, Malone realized that he hadn't considered anything about that moment silly at all. Of course, an outsider might have been slightly surprised at the sequence of events, but Malone was no outsider. And, after all, it was the proper way to treat a Queen, wasn't it?

And--

When Malone had first met Her Majesty, he had wondered why, although she could obviously read minds, and so knew perfectly well that neither Malone nor Boyd believed she was Queen Elizabeth I, she insisted on an outward show of respect and dedication. He'd asked her about it at last, and her reply had been simple, reasonable and to the point.

According to her--and Malone didn't doubt it for an instant--most people simply didn't think their superiors were all they claimed to be. But they acted as if they did--at least while in the presence of those superiors. It was a common fiction, a sort of handy oil on the wheels of social intercourse.

And all Her Majesty had ever insisted on was the same sort of treatment.

"Bless you," she'd said, "I can't help the way you think, but, as Queen, I do have some control over the way you act."

The funny thing, as far as Malone was concerned, was that the two parts of his personality were becoming more and more alike. He didn't actually believe that Her Majesty was Queen Elizabeth I, and he hoped fervently that he never would. But he did have a great deal of respect for her, and more affection than he had believed possible at first. She was the grandmother Malone had never known; she was good, and kind, and he wanted to keep her happy and contented. There had been nothing at all phony in the solemn toast he had proposed--nor in the righteous indignation he had felt against anyone who was giving Her Majesty even a minute's worth of discomfort.

And Boyd, surprisingly enough, seemed to feel the same way. Malone felt good about that; Her Majesty needed all the loyal supporters she could get.

But all of this was later. At the time, Malone was doing nothing except what came naturally--nor, apparently, was Boyd. After the glasses had been thrown, with a terrifying crash, into the metal wastebasket, and the reverberations of that second had stopped ringing in their ears, a moment of silence had followed.

Then Boyd turned, briskly rubbing his hands. "All right," he said. "Let's get back to work."

Malone looked at the proud, happy look on Her Majesty's face; he saw the glimmer of a tear in the corner of each eye. But he gave no indication that he had noticed anything at all out of the ordinary.

"Fine," he said. "Now, getting on back to the facts, we've established something, anyhow. Some agency is causing flashes of telepathic static all over the place. And those flashes are somehow connected with the confusion that's going on all around us. Somehow, these flashes have an effect on the minds of people."

"And we know at least one manifestation of that effect," Boyd said. "It makes spies blab all their secrets when they're exposed to it."

"These three spies, anyhow," Malone said.

"If 'spies' is the right word," Boyd said.

"O.K.," Malone said. "And now we've got another obvious question."

"It seems to me we've got about twelve," Boyd said.

"I mean: who's doing it?" Malone said. "Who is causing these telepathic flashes?"

"Maybe it's just happening," Boyd said. "Out of thin air."

"Maybe," Malone said. "But let's go on the assumption that there's a human cause. The other way, we can't do a thing except sit back and watch the world go to hell."

Boyd nodded. "It doesn't seem to be the Russians," he said. "Although, of course, it might be a Red herring."

"What do you mean?" Malone said.

"Well," Boyd said, "they might have known we were on to Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch--" He stopped. "You know," he said, "every time I say that name I have to reassure myself that we're not all walking around in the world of Florenz Ziegfeld?"

"Likewise," Malone said. "But go on."

"Sure," Boyd said. "Anyhow, they might have set the three of them up as patsies--just in case we stumbled on to this mess. We can't overlook that possibility."

"Right," Malone said. "It's faint, but it is a possibility. In other words, the agency behind the flashes might be Russian, and it might not be Russian."

"That clears that up nicely," Boyd said. "Next question?"

* * * * *

"The next one," Malone said grimly, "is: what's behind the flashes? Some sort of psionic power is causing them--that much is obvious."

"I'll go along with that," Boyd said. "I have to go along with it. But don't think I like it."

"Nobody likes it," Malone said. "But let's go on. O'Connor isn't any help; he washes his hands of the whole business."

"Lucky man," Boyd said.

"He says that it can't be happening," Malone said, "and if it is we're all screwy. Now, right or wrong, that isn't an opinion that gives us any handle to work with."

"No," Boyd said reflectively. "A certain amount of comfort, to be sure, but no handles."

"Sir Lewis Carter, on the other hand--" Malone said. He fumbled through some of the piles of paper until he had located the ones the President of the Psychical Research Society had sent. "Sir Lewis Carter," he went on, "does seem to be doing some pretty good work. At least, some of the more modern stuff he sent over looks pretty solid. They've been doing quite a bit of research into the subject, and their theories seem to be all right, or nearly all right, to me. Of course, I'm not an expert--"

"Who is?" Boyd said. "Except for O'Connor, of course."

"Well, somebody is," Malone said. "Whoever's doing all this, for instance. And the theories do seem O.K. In most cases, for instance, they agree with O'Connor's work--though they're not in complete agreement."

"I should think so," Boyd said. "O'Connor wouldn't recognize an Astral Plane if TWA were putting them into service."

"I don't mean that sort of thing," Malone said. "There's lots about astral bodies and ghosts, ectoplasm, Transcendental Yoga, theosophy, deros, the Great Pyramid, Atlantis, and other such pediculous pets. That's just silly, as far as I can see. But what they have to say about parapsychology and psionics as such does seem to be reasonably accurate."

"I suppose so," Boyd said tiredly.

"O.K., then," Malone said. "Did anybody notice anything in that pile of stuff that might conceivably have any bearing whatever on our problems?"

"I did," Boyd said. "Or I think I did."

"You both did," Her Majesty said. "And so did I, when I looked through it. But I didn't bother with it. I dismissed it."

"Why?" Malone said.

"Because I don't think it's true," she said. "However, my opinion is really only an opinion." She smiled around at the others.

Malone picked up a thick sheaf of papers from one of the piles of his desk. "Let's get straight what it is we're talking about," he said. "All right?"

"Anything's all right with me," Boyd said. "I'm easy to please."

Malone nodded. "Now, this writer ... what's his name?" he said. He glanced at the copy of the cover page. "'Minds and Morons'," he read. "By Cartier Taylor."

"Great title," Boyd said. "Does he say which is which?"

"Let's get back to serious business," Malone said, giving Boyd a single look. There was silence for a second, and then Malone said: "He mentions something, in the book, that he calls 'telepathic projection.' As far as I understand what he's talking about, that's some method of forcing your thoughts on another person." He glanced over at the Queen. "Now, Your Majesty," he said, "you don't think it's true--and that may only be an opinion, but it's a pretty informed one. It seems to me as if Taylor makes a good case for this 'telepathic projection' of his. Why don't you think so?"

"Because," Her Majesty said flatly, "it doesn't work."

"You've tried it?" Boyd put in.

"I have," she said. "And I have had no success with it at all. It's a complete failure."

* * * * *

"Now, wait a minute," Boyd said. "Just a minute."

"What's the matter?" Malone said. "Have you tried it, and made it work?"

Boyd snorted. "Fat chance," he said. "I just want to look at the thing, that's all." He held out his hand, and Malone gave him the sheaf of papers. Boyd leafed through them slowly, stopping every now and again to consult a page, until he found what he was looking for. "There," he said.

"There, what?" Malone said.

"Listen to this," Boyd said. "'For those who draw the line at demonic possession, I suggest trying telepathic projection. Apparently, it is possible to project one's own thoughts directly into the mind of another--even to the point of taking control of the other's mind. Hypnotism? You tell me, and we'll both know. Ever since the orthodox scientists have come around to accepting hypnotism, I've been chary of it. Maybe there really is an astral body or a soul that a person has stashed about him somewhere--something that he can send out to take control of another human being. But I, personally, prefer the telepathic projection theory. All you have to do is squirt your thoughts across space and spray them all over the fellow's brain. Presto-bingo, he does pretty much what you want him to do.'"

"That's the quote I was thinking of," Malone said.

"Of course it is," Her Majesty said. "But it really doesn't work. I've tried it."

"How have you tried it?" Malone said.

"There were many times, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said, "when I wanted someone to do something particular--for me, or for some other person. After all, you must remember that I was in a hospital for a long time. Of course, that represents only a short segment of my life span, but it seemed long to me."

Malone, who was trying to view the years from age fifteen to age sixty-odd as a short segment of anybody's lifetime, remembered with a shock that this was not Rose Thompson speaking. It was Queen Elizabeth I, who had never died.

"That's right, Sir Kenneth," she said kindly. "And in that hospital, there were a number of times when I wanted one of the doctors or nurses to do what I wanted them to. I tried many times, but I never succeeded."

Boyd nodded his head. "Well--" he began.

"Oh, yes, Sir Thomas," Her Majesty said. "What you're thinking is certainly possible. It may even be true."

"What is he thinking?" Malone said.

"He thinks," Her Majesty said, "that I may not have the talent for this particular effect--and perhaps I don't. But, talent or not, I know what's possible and what isn't. And the way Mr. Taylor describes it is simply silly, that's all. And unladylike. Imagine any self-respecting lady 'squirting' her thoughts about in space!"

"Well," Malone said carefully, "aside from its being unladylike--"

"Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said, "you are not telepathic. Neither is Sir Thomas."

"I'm nothing," Boyd said. "I don't even exist."

"And it is very difficult to explain to the nontelepath just what Mr. Taylor is implying," Her Majesty went on imperturbably. "Before you could inject any thoughts into anyone else's mind, you'd have to be able to see into that mind. Is that correct?"

[Illustration]

"I guess so," Malone said.

"And in order to do that, you'd have to be telepathic," Her Majesty said. "Am I correct?"

"Correct," Malone said.

"Well, then," Her Majesty said with satisfaction, and beamed at him.

A second passed.

"Well, then, what?" Malone said in confusion.

"Telepathy," Her Majesty said patiently, "is an extremely complex affair. It involves a sort of meshing with the mind of this other person. It has nothing--absolutely nothing--in common with this simple 'squirting' of thoughts across space, as if they were orange pips you were trying to put into a wastebasket. No, Sir Kenneth, I cannot believe in what Mr. Taylor says."

"But it's still possible," Malone said.

"Oh," Her Majesty said, "it's certainly possible. But I should think that if any telepaths were around, and if they were changing people's minds by 'squirting' at them, I would know it."

Malone frowned. "Maybe you would at that," he said. "I guess you would."

"Not to mention," Boyd put in, "that if you were going to control everything we've come across like that you'd need an awful lot of telepathic operators."

"That's true," Malone admitted. "And the objections seem to make some sense. But what else is there to go on?"

"I don't know," Boyd said. "I haven't the faintest idea. And I'm rapidly approaching the stage where I don't care."

"Well," Malone said, heaving a sigh, "let's keep looking."

He bent down and picked up another sheaf of copies from the Psychical Research Society.

"After all," he said, without much hope, "you never know."

VII

Malone looked around the office of Andrew J. Burris as if he'd never seen it before. He felt tired, and worn out, and depressed; it had been a long night, and here it was morning and the head of the FBI was talking to him about his report. It was, Malone told himself heavily, a hell of a life.

"Now, Malone," Burris said in a kindly voice, "this is a very interesting report."

"Yes, sir," Malone said automatically.

"A very interesting report indeed, Kenneth," Burris went on, positively bursting with good-fellowship.

"Thank you, sir," Malone said dully.

Burris beamed a little more. "You've done a fine job," he said, "a really fine job. Hardly on the job any time at all, and here you've managed to get all three of the culprits responsible."

"Now, wait a minute," Malone said in sudden panic. "That isn't what I said."

"No?" Burris said, looking a little surprised.

"Not at all," Malone said. "I don't think those three spies have anything to do with this at all. Not a thing."

There was a brief silence, during which Burris' surprise seemed to expand like a gas and fill the room. "But they've confessed," he said at last. "Their job was to try and get information, and also to disrupt our own work here."

"I know all that," Malone said. "But--"

Burris held up a pink, patient hand. Malone stared at it, fascinated. It had five pink, patient fingers on it. "Malone," Burris said slowly, "just what's bothering you? Don't you think those men are spies? Is that it?"

"Spies?" Malone said, slightly confused.

"You know," Burris said. "The men you arrested, Malone. The men you wrote this report about."

Malone blinked and focused on the hand again. It still had five fingers. "Sure they are," he said. "They're spies, all right. And they're caught, and that's that. Except I don't think they're causing all the confusion around here."

"Well, of course they're not," Burris said, the beam of kindliness coming back to his face. "Not any more. You caught them."

"I mean," Malone said desperately, "they never were. Even before I caught them."

"Then why," Burris said with great patience, "did you arrest them?"

"Because they're spies," Malone said. "Besides, I didn't."

"Didn't what?" Burris said, looking confused. He seemed to realize he was still holding up his hand, and dropped it to the des

alone felt sad as he watched it go. Now he had nothing to concentrate on except the conversation, and he didn't even want to think about what was happening to that.

"Didn't arrest them," he said. "Tom Boyd did."

"Acting," Burris pointed out gently, "under your orders, Kenneth."

It was the second time Burris had called him Kenneth, Malone realized. It started a small warning bell in the back of his mind. When Burris called him by his first name, Burris was feeling paternal and kindly. And that, Malone thought determinedly, boded Kenneth J. Malone very little good indeed.

"He was under my orders to arrest them because they were spies," he said at last. He wondered if the sentence made any real sense, but shrugged his shoulders and plunged on. "But they're not the real spies," he said. "Not the ones everybody's been looking for."

"Kenneth," Burris said, his voice positively dripping with what Malone thought of as the heavy, Grade A, Government-inspected cream of human kindness, "all the confusion with the computer-secretaries has stopped. Everything is running fine in that department."

"But--" Malone began.

"The technicians," Burris said, hypnotized by this poem of beauty, "aren't making any more mistakes. The information is flowing through beautifully. It's a pleasure to see their reports. Believe me, Kenneth--"

"Call me Chief," Malone said wearily.

Burris blinked. "What?" he said. "Oh. Ha. Indeed. Very well, then: Malone, what more proof do you want?"

"Is that proof?" Malone said. "The spies didn't even confess to that. They--"

"Of course they didn't, Malone," Burris said.

"Of course?" Malone said weakly.

"Look at their confessions," Burris said. "Just look at them, in black and white." He reached for a sheaf of papers and pushed them across the desk. Malone looked at them. They were indeed, he told himself, in black and white. There was no arguing with that. None at all.

* * * * *

"Well?" Burris said after a second.

"I don't see anything about computer-secretaries," Malone said.

"The Russians," Burris began slowly, "are not stupid, Malone. You believe that, don't you?"

"Of course I believe it," Malone said. "Otherwise we wouldn't need an FBI."

Burris frowned. "There are still domestic cases," he said. "Like juvenile delinquents stealing cars inter-state, for instance. If you remember." He paused, then went on: "But the fact remains: Russians are not stupid. Not by a long shot."

"All right," Malone said agreeably.

"Do you really think, then," Burris said instantly, "that a spy ring could be as utterly inefficient as the one described in those confessions?"

"Lots of people are inefficient," Malone said.

"Not spies," Burris said with decision. "Do you really believe that the Russians would send over a bunch of operatives as clodheaded as these are pretending to be?"

"People make mistakes," Malone said weakly.

"Russian spies," Burris said, "do not make mistakes. Or, anyhow, we can't depend on it. We have to depend on the fact that they're operating at peak efficiency, Malone. Peak."

Malone nearly asked: "Where?" but controlled himself at the last minute. Instead, he said: "But the confessions are right there. And, according to the confessions--"

"Do you really believe," Burris said, "that a trio of Soviet agents would confess everything as easily as all that if they didn't intend to get something out of it? Such as, for instance, covering up their methods of doing damage? And do you really believe--"

Malone began to feel as if he were involved in the Athanasian Creed. "I don't think the spies are the real spies," he said stubbornly. "I mean the spies we're all looking for."

"Do you mean to stand there and tell me," Burris went on inexorably, "that you take the word of spies when they tell you about their own activities?"

"Their confessions--"

"Spies can lie, Malone," Burris said gently. "As a matter of fact, they usually do. We have come to depend on it as one of the facts of life."

"But Queen Elizabeth," Malone said stubbornly, "told me they weren't lying." As he finished the sentence, he suddenly realized what it sounded like. "You know Queen Elizabeth," he said chummily.

"The Virgin Queen," Burris said helpfully.

"I wouldn't know," Malone said, feeling uncomfortable. "I mean Rose Thompson. She thinks she's Queen Elizabeth and I just said it that way because--"

"It's all right, Malone," Burris said softly. "I know who you mean."

"Well, then," Malone said. "If Queen Elizabeth says the spies aren't lying, then--"

"Then nothing," Burris said flatly. "Miss Rose Thompson is a nice, sweet, little old lady. I admit that."

"And she's been a lot of help," Malone said.

"I admit that, too," Burris said. "But she is also somewhat battier, Malone, than the entire Order Chiroptera, including Count Dracula and all his happy friends."

"She only thinks she's Queen Elizabeth I," Malone said defensively.

"That," Burris said, "is a large sort of only. Malone, you've got to look at the facts sensibly. Square in the face."

Malone pictured a lot of facts going by with square faces. He didn't like the picture. "All right," he said.

"Things are going wrong in the Congressional computer-secretaries," Burris said. "So I assign you to the case. You come back to me with three spies, and the trouble stops. And what other information have you got?"

"Plenty," Malone said, and stopped for thought. There was a long pause.

"All this business about mysterious psionic faculties," Burris said, "comes direct from the testimony of that sweet little old twitch. Which she is. Dr. O'Connor, for instance, has told you in so many words that there's no such thing as this mysterious force. And if you don't want to take the word of the nation's foremost authority, there's this character from the Psychical Research Society--Carter, or whatever his name is. Carter told you he'd never heard of such a thing."

"But that doesn't mean there isn't such a thing," Malone said.

"Even your own star witness," Burris said, "even the Queen herself, told you it couldn't be done."

"Nevertheless--" Malone began. But he felt puzzled. There was no way, he decided, to finish a sentence that started with nevertheless. It was the wrong kind of word.

"What are you trying to do?" Burris said. "Beat your head against a stone wall?"

Malone realized that that was just what he felt like. Of course, Burris thought the stone wall was his psionic theory. Malone knew that the stone wall was Andrew J. Burris. But it didn't matter, he thought confusedly. Where there's a stone, there's a way.

"I feel," he said carefully, "like a man with a stone head."

"And I don't blame you," Burris said in an understanding tone. "Here you are trying to make evidence to fit your theories. What real evidence is there, Malone, that these three spies ... these three comic-opera spies--are innocent?"

"What evidence is there that they're guilty?" Malone said. "Now, listen, Chief--"

"Don't call me Chief," Burris murmured.

"Another five minutes," Malone said in a sudden rage, "and I won't even call you."

"Malone!" Burris said.

Malone swallowed hard. "Sorry," he said at last. "But isn't it just barely possible that these three spies aren't the real criminals? Suppose you were a spy."

"All right," Burris said. "I'm a spy." Something in his tone made Malone look at him with a sudden suspicion. Burris, he thought, was humoring him.

Is it possible, Malone asked himself, that I am the one who is as a little child?

Little children, he told himself with decision, do not capture Russian spies and then argue about it. They go home, eat supper and go to bed.

* * * * *

He stopped thinking about sleep in a hurry, and got back to the business at hand. "If you were a spy," he said, "and you knew that a lot of other spies had been arrested and charged with the crimes you were committing, what would you do?"

Burris appeared to think deeply. "I would celebrate," he said at last, in a judicious tone.

"I mean, would you just go on with the same crimes?" Malone said.

"What are you talking about, Malone?" Burris said cautiously.

"If you knew we'd arrested Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch," Malone went on doggedly, "you'd lay off for a while, just to make us think we'd caught the right men. Doesn't that make sense?"

"Of course it makes sense," Burris said in what was almost a pitying tone. "But don't push it too far. Malone, I want you to know something."

Malone sighed. "Yes, sir?" he said.

"Contrary to popular opinion," Burris said, "I was not appointed Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation just because I own a Hoover vacuum cleaner."

"Of course not," Malone said, feeling that something of the sort was called for.

"And I think you ought to know by now," Burris went on, "that I wouldn't fall for a trick like that any more than you would. There are obviously more members in this spy ring. Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch are just a start."

"Well, then--" Malone began.

"I'm not going to be taken in by what these three say," Burris said. "But now, Malone, we know what to look for. All we have to do is pretend to be taken in. Get it?"

"Sure," Malone said. "We pretend to be taken in. And in the meantime I can go on looking for--"

"We don't have to look for anything," Burris said calmly.

Malone took a deep breath. Somehow, he told himself, things were not working out very well. "But the other spies--"

"The next time they try anything," Burris said, "we'll be able to reach out and pick them up as easy as falling off a log."

"It's the wrong log!" Malone said.

Burris folded his hands on the desk and looked at them for a second, frowning slightly like a psychiatrist. "Malone," he said at last, "I want you to listen to me. Calmly. Coolly. Collectedly."

Malone shrugged. "All right," he said. "I'm calm and cool."

"And collected," Burris added.

"That, too," Malone said vaguely.

"Malone," Burris began, "you've got to get rid of this idea that everything the FBI investigates these days is somehow linked with psionics. I know you've done a lot of work in that connection--"

"Now, wait a minute," Malone said. "There are those errors. How did the technicians feed the wrong data into the machines?"

"Errors do happen," Burris said. "If I slip on a banana peel, do I blame psionics? Do I even blame the United Fruit Growers? I do not, Malone. Instead, I tell myself that errors do happen. All the time."

"Now," Malone said, "you've contradicted yourself."

"I have?" Burris said with a look of complete surprise.

"Sure," Malone said. He leaned forward across the desk. "If the errors were just ordinary accidental errors, then how were the spies responsible? And why did they stop after the spies were arrested? When you slip on a banana peel, does it matter whether or not the United Fruit Growers are out on strike?"

"Oh," Burris said.

"You see?" Malone said. "You've gone and contradicted yourself." He felt victorious, but somewhere in the back of his mind was the horrible sensation that someone was about to come up behind him and hit him on the head with a wet sock full of old sand.

A long second passed. Then Burris said: "Oh. Malone, I forgot to give you the analysis report."

That, Malone realized dimly, was supposed to be the wet sock. Fate, he told himself, was against him. Anyhow, something was against him. It was a few seconds before he came to the conclusion that what he had heard didn't really make any sense. "Analysis report?" he said.

"On the water cooler," Burris explained cheerfully.

"There is an analysis report on a water cooler," Malone said. "Everything now becomes as clear as crystal." He heard his voice begin to rise. "You analyzed a water cooler and discovered that it was a Siberian spy in disguise," he said, trying to make himself sound less hysterical.

"No, no," Burris said, pushing at Malone with his palms. "The water in it, Malone. The water in it."

"No Siberian spy," Malone said with decision, "could disguise himself as the water in a water cooler."

"I didn't say that," Burris went on. "But what do you think was in that water cooler, Malone?"

"Water," Malone said. "Cool water."

"Congratulations," Burris said, in the hearty tones usually reserved for announcers on programs where housewives win trips to Nome. "You are just a shade less than ninety-nine point nine nine per cent correct."

"The rest of the water," Malone hazarded, "was warm?"

"The rest of the water," Burris said, "wasn't water. Aside from the usual minerals, there was also a trace of one of the psychodrugs."

* * * * *

The word seemed to hang in mid-air, like somebody's sword. Malone knew perfectly well what the psychodrugs were. Over the past twenty years, a great number of them had been developed by confused and anxious researchers. Some were solids, some liquids and a few gaseous at normal temperatures. Some were weak and some were highly potent. Some were relatively innocuous, and quite a few were as deadly as any of the more common poisons. They could be administered by mouth, by injection, by spray, as drops, grains, whiffs or in any other way conceivable to medical science. But they all had one thing in common. They affected the mental functioning--what seemed to be the personality itself--of the person dosed with them.

The effect of the drugs was, in most cases, highly specific. One might make a normally brave man a craven coward; laboratory tests on that one had presented the interesting spectacle of terrified cats running from surprised, but by no means displeased, experimental mice. Another drug reversed this picture, and made the experimental mice mad with power. They attacked cats in battalions or singly, cheering and almost waving large flags as they went over the top, completely foolhardy in the presence of any danger whatever. Others made man abnormally suspicious and still others disassociated judgment to the point where all decisions were made completely at random.

The FBI had a large file on psychodrugs, Malone knew. But he didn't need the file to see what was coming. He asked the question anyhow, just for the record: "What particular psychodrug was this one?"

"One of the judgment-warpers," Burris said. "Haenlingen's Mixture; it's more or less a new development, but the Russians probably know as much about it as we do. In large doses, the drug affects even the automatic nervous system and throws the involuntary functions out of whack; but it isn't usually used in killing amounts."

"And in the water cooler?" Malone asked.

"There wasn't much of it," Burris said, "but there was enough. The technicians could be depended on to make a great many more mistakes than usual--just how many we can't determine, but the order of magnitude seems about right. It would depend on how much water each one of them drank, of course, and we haven't a chance of getting anything like a precise determination of that now."

"Oh," Malone said. "But it comes out about right, doesn't it?" He felt hopeless.

"Just about," Burris said cheerfully. "And since it was Brubitsch's job to change the cooler jug--"

"Wait a minute," Malone said. "I think I see a hole in that."

"Really?" Burris said. He frowned slightly.

Malone nodded. "Sure," he said. "If any of the spies drank the water--their judgment would be warped, too, wouldn't it?"

"So they didn't drink the water," Burris said easily.

"How can we be sure?" Malone asked.

Burris shrugged. "Why do we have to be?" he said. "Malone, you've got to stop pressing so hard on this."

"But a man who didn't drink water all day would be a little conspicuous," Malone said. "After a while, anyhow."

Burris sighed. "The man is a janitor, Kenneth," he said. "Do you know what a janitor is?"

"Don't baby me," Malone snapped.

Burris shrugged. "A janitor doesn't work in the office with the men," he said. "He can drink out of a faucet in the broom closet--or wherever the faucets might be. Nobody would notice. Nobody would think it odd."

Malone said: "But--" and stopped and thought it over. "All right," he went on at last. "But I still insist--"

"Now, Kenneth," Burris said in a voice that dripped oil. "I'll admit that psionics is new and wonderful and you've done a lot of fine work with it. A lot of very fine work indeed. But you can't go around blaming everything on psionics no matter what it is or how much sense it makes."

"I don't," Malone said, injured. "But--"

"But you do," Burris said. "Lately, you've been acting as though magic were loose in the world. As though nothing were dependable any more."

"It's not magic," Malone said.

"But it is," Burris told him, "when you use it as an explanation for anything and everything." He paused, "Kenneth," he said in a more kindly tone, "don't think I blame you. I know how hard you've been working. I know how much time and effort you've put into the gallant fight against this country's enemies."

Malone closed his eyes and turned slightly green. "It was nothing," he said at last. He opened his eyes but nothing had changed. Burris' expression was still kindly and concerned.

"Oh, but it was," Burris said. "Something, I mean. You've been working very hard and you're just not at peak efficiency any more. You need a rest, Kenneth. A nice rest."

"I do not," Malone said indignantly.

"A lovely rest," Burris went on, oblivious. "Somewhere peaceful and quiet, where you can just sit around and think peacefully about peaceful things. Oh, it ought to be wonderful for you, Kenneth. A nice, peaceful, lovely, wonderful vacation."

Through the haze of adjectives, Malone remembered dimly the last time Burris had offered him a vacation in that tone of voice. It had turned out to be one of the toughest cases he'd ever had: the case of the teleporting delinquents.

[Illustration]

"Nice?" Malone said. "Peaceful? Lovely? Wonderful? I can see it now."

"What do you mean, Malone?" Burris said.

"What am I going to get?" Malone said. "A nice easy job like arresting all the suspected nose-pickers in Mobile, Alabama?"

Burris choked and recovered quickly. "No," he said. "No, no, no. I mean it. You've earned a vacation, Kenneth, a real vacation. A nice, peaceful--"

"Lovely, wonderful vacation," Malone said. "But--"

"You're one of my best agents," Burris said. "I might almost say you're my top man. My very top man. And because of that I've been overworking you."

"But--"

"Now, now," Burris said, waving a hand vaguely. "I have been overworking you, Kenneth, and I'm sorry. I want to make amends."

"A what?" Malone said, feeling confused again.

"Amends," Burris said. "I want to do something for you."

Malone thought about that for a second. Burris was well-meaning, all right, but from the way the conversation was going it looked very much as if "vacation" weren't going to be the right word.

The right word, he thought dismally, was going to be "rest home." Or possibly even "insane asylum."

"I don't want to stop work," he said grimly. "Really, I don't."

"You'll have lots of time to yourself," Burns said in a wheedling tone.

Malone nodded. "Sure I will," he said. "Until they come and put me in a wet pack."

Burris blinked, but recovered gamely. "You don't have to go swimming," he said, "if you don't want to go swimming. Up in the mountains, for instance--"

"Where there are nice big guards to watch everything," Malone said. "And nuts."

"Guides," Burris said. "But you could just sit around and take things easy."

"All locked up," Malone said. "Sure. I'll love it."

"If you want to go out," Burris said, "you can go out. Anywhere. Just do whatever you feel like doing."

Malone sighed. "O.K.," he said. "When do the men in the white coats arrive?"

"White coats?" Burris said. There was a short silence. "Kenneth," he said, "don't suspect me of trying to do anything to you. This is my way of doing you a favor. It would just be a vacation--going anywhere you want to go, doing anything you want to do."

"Avacado," Malone muttered at random.

Burris stared. "What?"

"Nothing," Malone said shamefacedly. "An old song. It runs through my mind. And when you said that about going where I want to go--"

"An old song with avacados in it?" Burris said.

Malone cleared his throat and burst into shy and slightly hoarse song.

"Avacado go where you go," he piped feebly, "do what you do--"

"Oh," Burris said. "Oh, my."

"Sorry," Malone muttered. He took a breath and waited. A second passed.

"Well, Kenneth," Burris said at last, with an attempt at heartiness, "you can do anything you like. The mountains. The seashore. Hawaii. The Riviera. Just go and forget all about gangsters, spies, counter-espionage, kidnapings, mad telepaths, juvenile teleports and anything else like that."

"You forgot water coolers," Malone said.

Burris nodded. "And water coolers," he said, "by all means. Forget about FBI business. Forget about me. Just relax."

It did sound appealing, Malone told himself. But there was a case to finish, and he was sure Burris was finishing it wrong. He wanted to argue about it some more, but he was fresh out of arguments.

And besides, the idea of being able to forget all about Andrew J. Burris for a little while was almost insidious. Malone liked it more the more he thought about it. Burris went on naming vacation spots and drawing magnificent travel-agency pictures of how wonderful life could be, and after a while Malone left. There just wasn't anything else to say. Burris had given him an order for his vacation pay and another guaranteeing travel expenses. Not, he thought glumly, that he would be expected to buy return tickets. Oh, no. Once he'd been to a place he could teleport back, so there would be no point in taking a plane or a train back from wherever he went.

"And suppose I like planes and trains?" he muttered, going on down the hall. But there was nothing he could do about it. He did think of looking for some sympathy, at least, but he couldn't even get much of that. Tom Boyd had apparently already talked to Burris, and was in full agreement with him.

"After all," Boyd said, "there's the drug in the water--and it looks like pretty solid proof to me, Ken."

"It's not proof of anything," Malone said sourly.

"Sure it is," Boyd said. "Why would anybody put it there otherwise?"

Malone shrugged. "Who knows?" he said. "But I'm not surprised you like Burris' theory. Psionics never did make you very happy, did it?"

"Not very," Boyd admitted. "This way, anyhow, I've got something I can cope with. And it makes nice, simple sense. No reason to go and complicate it, Ken. None at all."

* * * * *

Glumly, Malone made his farewells and then teleported himself from the Justice Department Building back to his own apartment. There, slowly and sadly, he began to pack. He hadn't yet decided just where he was going, but that was a minor detail. The important thing was that he was going. If the Director of the FBI tells you that you need a rest cure, Malone thought, you do not argue with him. Argument may result in your vacation being extended indefinitely. And that is not a good thing.

Of course, such a "vacation" wouldn't be the end of the world. Not quite. He could even beat Burris to the gun, hand in his resignation and go into private practice as a lawyer. The name of Malone, he told himself proudly, had not been entirely forgotten in Chicago, by any means. But he didn't feel happy about the idea. He knew, perfectly well, that he didn't want to live by trading on his father's reputation. And besides, he liked being an FBI agent. It had glamour. It had standing.

It had everything. It even had trouble.

Malone caught his whirling mind and forced it back to a landing. Where, he asked himself, was he going?

He thought about that for a second. Perhaps, as Burris had apparently suspected, he was going nuts. When he considered it, it even sounded like a good possibility.

After all, what evidence did he have for his psionic theory? Her Majesty had told him about those peculiar bursts of metal energy, true. But there wasn't anything else. And, come to think of it, wasn't it possible that Her Majesty had slipped just a little off the trolley of her one-track psychosis?

At that thought a quick wave of guilt swept through him. Her Majesty, after all, might be reading his mind from Yucca Flats, where she had returned the previous night, right at that moment. He felt as if he had committed high, middle and low treason all in one great big package, not to mention Jack and the Game, he added disconsolately.

"Nevertheless," he muttered, and stopped. He blinked and started over again. In spite of all that, he told himself, the Burris Theory certainly looked a lot sounder when you considered it objectively.

The big question was whether or not he wanted to consider it objectively. But he put this aside for the future, and continued packing slowly and carefully. When at last he snapped shut the last suitcase, he still hadn't made up his mind as to the best spot for a vacation. Images tumbled through his brain: mountains, seacoasts, beaches, beautiful native girls and even a few insane asylums. But nothing definite appeared. He sat down in his favorite easychair, found a cigar and lit it, and luxuriated in the soothing fumes while his mind began to wander.

Her Majesty, he was quite certain, wouldn't lie purposely. Granted, she had misled him now and again, but even when she felt misleading necessary she hadn't lied; she had merely juggled the truth a little. And Malone was sure she would continue to tell him the truth as she knew it.

Of course, that was the stopper: as she knew it. And she might have developed another delusion. In which case, he thought sadly, Burris was very probably right.

But she might also be telling the actual truth. And that meant, Malone thought, that little pops of energy were occasionally bursting in various minds. These little pops had an effect, or an apparent effect: they made people change their minds about doing one thing or another.

And that meant--Malone stopped, his cigar halfway to his mouth.

Wasn't it possible that just such a burst of energy had made Burris call him off the case?

It seemed like a long time before the cigar reached his mouth. Malone felt slightly appalled. The flashes that had been going on in his own mind had already been bothering him, and he'd decided that he'd have to check every decision he made to be sure that it was not capricious; now he made a resolve that he'd kept his mental faculties on a perpetual watch for that sort of interference. Of course, it was more than barely possible that he wouldn't notice it if anything happened. But it would be pretty stupid to succumb to that sort of defeatism now, he told himself grimly.

Now that everything was narrowing down so nicely, anyhow, he thought. There were only two real possibilities. Malone numbered them in his mind:

1. Her Majesty has developed a new delusion. In this case, he thought, Burris was perfectly right. I can enjoy a month of free vacation.

2. Her Majesty is no nuttier than before. If this is the case, he thought, then there's more to the case than has appeared, and Kenneth J. Malone, with or without the FBI, is going to get to the bottom of it.

Therefore, he summed up, everything now hinged on whether or not Her Majesty was unhinged.

That was confusing, but he managed to straighten it out after a second. He put his half-smoked cigar carefully in an ashtray and stood up. He went over to the phone and dialed the special unlisted number of the FBI.

The face that appeared was faintly sallow and looked sad. "Pelham here," it said in the tones of a discouraged horse.

"Hello, Pelham," Malone said. "Kenneth Malone here."

"Trouble?" Pelham said. It was obvious that he expected trouble, and always had, and probably always would.

"Nope," Malone said. Pelham looked even sadder. "Just checking out for vacation. You can tell the Chief I'm going to take off for Las Vegas. I'm taking his advice, tell him; I'm going to carouse and throw my money away and look at dancing girls and smoke and drink and stay out late. I'll let the local office know where I'm staying when I get there, just in case something comes up."

"O.K.," Pelham said unhappily. "I'll check you out." He tried a smile, but it looked more like the blank expression on the face of a local corpse. "Have fun," he said.

"Thanks," Malone said. "I'll try."

But his precognitive sense suddenly rose up on its hind legs as he broke the connection. The attempt to have fun, it told him in no uncertain terms, was going to be a morbid failure.

"Nevertheless," Malone muttered, heaved a great sigh, and started for the suitcase and the door.

VIII

The Great Universal was not the tops in every field. Not by a long shot. As Las Vegas resorts went, as a matter of fact, almost any of them could outdo the Great Universal in one respect or another. The Golden Palace, for instance, had much gaudier gaming rooms. The Moonbeam had a louder orchestra. The Barbary Coast and the Ringing Welkin both had more slot machines, and it was undeniable that the Flower of the West had fatter and pinker dancing girls. The Red Hot, the Last Fling and the Double Star all boasted more waiters and more famous guests per square foot of breathable air.

But the Great Universal, in sheer size, volume of business and elegance of surroundings, outdid any three of the others combined. It stood grandly alone at the edge of the Strip, the grandiloquent Las Vegas version of Broadway or Hollywood Boulevard. It had a central Tower that climbed thirty stories into the clean desert air, and the Tower was surrounded by a quarter of a square mile of single-level structures. At the base, the building spread out for five hundred feet in every direction, and beyond that were the clusters of individual cabins interlaced by walks, small parks, an occasional pool, and a few little groves of trees "for privacy and the feeling of oneness with Nature," the brochure said. But the brochure didn't even do justice to the place. Nothing could have except the popping eyes of the thousand of tourists who saw the Great Universal every month. And they were usually in no condition to sit down and talk calmly about it.

Around the entire collection of buildings rose a wall that fitted the architectural style of the place perfectly. A Hollywood writer out for a three-day bender had called it "Futuristic Mediaeval," since it seemed to be a set-designer's notion of Camelot combined with a Twenty-fifth Century city as imagined by Frank R. Paul. It had Egyptian designs on it, but no one knew exactly why. On the other hand, of course, there was no real reason why not.

That was not the only decoration. Emblazoned on the Tower, in huge letters of evershifting color, was a glowing sign larger than the eye could believe. The sign proclaimed through daylight and the darkest night: Great Universal Hotel. Malone had no doubts about it.

There was a running argument as to whether or not the Great Universal was actually on the Strip. Certainly the original extent of the Strip didn't include it. But the Strip itself had been spreading Westward at slow but steady pace for two decades, and the only imaginable stopping-point was the California border.

Malone had taken a taxi from the airfield, and had supplied himself with silver dollars there. He gave the cabbie one of them and added another when the man's expression showed real pain. Still unhappy but looking a little less like a figure out of the Great Depression, the cabbie gunned his machine away, leaving Malone standing in the carport surrounded by suitcases and bags of all sizes and weights.

A robot redcap came gliding along. Inevitably, it was gilded, and looked absolutely brand new. Behind it, a chunky little man with bright eyes waved at Malone. "Reserved here?" he said.

"That's right," Malone said. "The name is Malone."

The redcap's escort shrugged. "I don't care if the name is Jack the Ripper," he said. "Just reservations, that's all I care."

Malone watched the luggage being stowed away, and followed after the redcap and its escort with mixed feelings. Las Vegas glittered like mad, but the two inhabitants he had met so far seemed a little dim. However, he told himself, better things might turn up.

Better things did, almost immediately. In the great lobby of the Tower, guests were lounging about in little groups. Many of the guests were dressed in tuxedos, others in sport shirts and slacks. Quite a number were wearing dresses, skirt-and-blouse combinations or evening gowns, and Malone paid most of his attention to these.

New York, Washington and even Chicago had nothing to match them, he thought dazedly. They were magnificent, and almost frightening in their absolute beauty. Malone however, was not easily daunted. He followed a snappily-dressed bellman to the registration desk while his robot purred gently after him. First things first, he thought--but making friends with the other guests definitely came up number two. Or three, anyhow, he amended sadly.

He signed his own name to the register, but didn't add: "Federal Bureau of Investigation" after it. After all, he thought, he was there unofficially. And even though gambling was perfectly legal in Nevada, the thought of the FBI still made many of the club owners just the least little bit nervous. Instead, Malone gave a Chicago firm as his business address--one which the FBI used as a cover for just such purposes.

The clerk looked at him politely and blankly. "A room in the Tower, sir?" he said.

Malo shook his head. "Ground floor," he said. "But not too far from the Tower. I get airsick easily."

The clerk gave Malone a large laugh, which made him uncomfortable and a little angry. The joke hadn't been all that good, he thought. If he'd ordered a top-price room he could understand the hospitality, but the most expensive rooms were in the Tower, with the outside cabins running a close second. The other rooms dropped in price as they approached the periphery of the main building.

"A humorist, sir?" the clerk said.

"Not at all," Malone said pleasantly, wishing he'd signed with his full occupation and address. "I'm a gravedigger. Business has been very good this year."

The clerk, apparently undecided as to whether or not to offer congratulations, settled for consulting his registry and then stabbing at a button on a huge and complex board at his right. A key slid out of a slot and the clerk handed it to Malone with a rather strained smile. "10-Q," he said.

"You're very welcome," Malone said in his most unctuous tones. He took the key.

The clerk blinked. "The bellman will take you to your rooms, sir," he said in a good imitation of his original voice. "There are maps of the building at intervals along the halls, and if you find that you have become lost you have only to ask one of the hall guides to show you the proper directions."

"My, my," Malone said.

The clerk cleared his throat. "If you wish to use one of the cars," he went on in a slightly more unsteady voice, "simply insert your key in the slot beneath one of the wall maps, and a car will be at your service."

Malone shook his head and gave a deep sigh. "What," he said, "will they think of next?"

* * * * *

Satisfied with that for an exit line, he turned and found that the bellman had already taken his luggage from the robot redcap and put it aboard a small electric car. Malone got in beside him and the bellman started the vehicle down the hallway. It rolled along on soft, silent tires. It, too, was gilded. It didn't move very fast, Malone thought, but it certainly beat walking.

Each hallway which radiated out from the central section beneath the Tower was built like a small-edition city street. The little cars scooted up and down the two center lanes while pedestrians, poor benighted souls, kept to the side walkways. Every so often Malone saw one, walking along the raised walkway and holding the rail along the outside that was meant to keep guests of every stage of drunkenness from falling into the road. At the intersections, small, Japanese-style bridges crossed over the roadway. On these, Malone saw uniformed men standing motionless, one to a bridge. They all looked identical, and each one had a small gold stripe sewn to the chest of the red uniform. Malone read the letters on the stripe as they passed the third man. It said: Guide.

"Now, you live in Q-wing, sir," the bellman was saying in a nasal, but rather pleasant voice as Malone looked away. "You're not far from the Tower Lobby, so you won't have a lot to remember. It's not like living along, say, the D-E Passageway out near 20 or 23."

"I'm sure it isn't," Malone said politely.

"No," the bellman said, "you got it simple. This here is Q-Yellow--see the yellow stripe on the wall?"

Malone looked. There was a yellow stripe on the wall. "I see it," he said.

"So all you got to do," the bellman said, "is follow Q-Yellow to the Tower Lobby." He acted as if he had demonstrated a Euclidean proposition flawlessly. "Got it?" he asked.

"Very simple," Malone said.

"O.K.," the bellman said. "Now, the gaming rooms--"

Malone listened with about a fifth of an ear while the bellman went on spinning out incredibly complex directions for getting around in the quasi-city that was the Great Universal. At one point he thought he caught the man saying that an elephant ramp took guests past the resplendent glass rest rooms to the roots of the roulette wheel, but that didn't sound even remotely plausible when he considered it. At last the bellman announced:

"Here we are, sir. Right to your door. A courtesy of the friendly Great Universal Hotel."

He pulled over to the side, pushed a button on the sidewalk, and the little car's body elevated itself on hydraulic pistons until it was even with the elevated sidewalk. The bellman pushed a stud on the walkway rail and a gate swung open. Malone stepped out and waited while luggage was unloaded. The courtesy of the Great Universal Hotel was not free, of course; Malone got rid of some more silver dollars. He fished in his pockets, found one lone crumpled ten-dollar bill and arranged it neatly and visibly in his right hand.

"I notice you've got a lot of guides in the halls," he said as the bellman eyed the ten-spot. "Do that many people get lost in here?"

"Well, not really, sir," the bellman said. "Not really. That's for the--what they call the protection of our guests. A courtesy."

"Protection?" Malone said. He had noticed, he recalled, odd bulges beneath the left armpits of the guides. "Protection from what?" he asked, keeping a firm, loving grip on the bill. "There are a lot more guides than you'd expect, aren't there?"

The bellman shifted uneasily from foot to foot. "Well, sir," he said at last in an uneasy manner, "I guess it's because of the politics around here. I mean, it's sort of confused."

"Confused how?" Malone said, waving the bill ever so slightly.

The bellman appeared to be hypnotized by its green color. "It's the governor shooting himself," he said at last. "And the Legislature wants to impeach the Lieutenant-governor, and the City Council of Las Vegas is having trouble with the Mayor, and the County Sheriff is having a feud with the State Police, and--Sir, it's all sort of confused right now. But it isn't serious." He grinned hopefully.

Malone sighed and let go of the ten. It stayed fluttering in the air for perhaps a tenth of a second, and disappeared. "I'm sure it isn't," Malone said. "Just forget I asked you."

The bellman's hand went to his pocket and came out again empty. "Asked me, sir?" he said. "Asked me what?"

* * * * *

The next fifteen minutes were busy ones. Malone made himself quickly at home, keeping his eyes open for hidden TV cameras or other forms of bugging. Satisfied at last that he was entirely alone, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes and teleported himself to Yucca Flats.

[Illustration]

This time, he didn't land in Dr. O'Connor's office. Instead, he opened his eyes in the hallway in the nearby building that housed the psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists who were working with the telepaths Malone and the FBI had unearthed two years before.

Apparently, telepathy was turning out to be more a curse than a blessing. Of the seven known telepaths in the world, only Her Majesty retained anything like the degree of sanity necessary for communication. The psych men who were working with the other six had been trying to establish some kind of rapport, but their efforts so far had been as fruitless as a petrified tree.

Malone went down the hallway until he came to a door near the end. He looked at the sign painted on the opaqued glass for a second:

ALAN MARSHALL, M.D. CHIEF OF STAFF PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT

With a slight sigh, he pushed open the door and went in.

Dr. Marshall was a tall, balding man with a light-brown brush mustache and a pleasant smile. He wore thick glasses but he didn't look at all scholarly; instead, he looked rather like Alec Guinness made up for a role as a Naval lieutenant. He rose as Malone entered, and stretched a hand across the desk. "Glad to see you, Sir Kenneth," he said. "Very glad."

Malone shook hands and raised his eyebrows. "Sir Kenneth?" he said.

Dr. Marshall shrugged slightly. "She prefers it," he said. "And since there's no telling whose mind she might look into--" He smiled. "After all," he finished, "why not?"

"Tell me, doctor," Malone said. "Don't you ever get uneasy about the fact that Her Majesty can look into your mind? I mean, it has disturbed some people."

"Not at all," Marshall said. "Not in the least. After all, Sir Kenneth, it's all a matter of adjustment. Simple adjustment and no more." He paused, then added: "Like sex."

"Sex?" Malone said in a voice he hoped was calm.

"Cultural mores," Marshall said. "That sort of thing. Nothing, really." He sat down. "Make yourself comfortable," he told Malone. "As a matter of fact, the delusion Her Majesty suffers from has its compensations for the psychiatrist. Where else could I be appointed Royal Psychiatrist, Advisor to the Crown, and Earl Marshal?"

Malone looked around, found a comfortable chair and dropped into it. "I suppose so," he said. "It must be sort of fun, in a way."

"Oh, it is," Marshall said. "Of course, it can get to be specifically troublesome; all cases can. I remember a girl who'd managed to get herself married to the wrong man--she was trying to escape her mother, or some such thing. And she'd moved into this apartment where her next-door neighbor, a nice woman really, had rather strange sexual tendencies. Well, what with those problems, and the husband himself--a rather ill-tempered brute, but a nice fellow basically--and her eventually meeting Mr. Right, which was inevitable--"

"I'm sure it was very troublesome," Malone put in.

"Extremely," Marshall said. "Worked out in the end, though. Ah ... most of them do seem to, when we're lucky. When things break right."

"And when they don't?" Malone said.

Marshall shook his head slowly and rubbed at his forehead with two fingers. "We do what we can," he said. "It's an infant science. I remember one rather unhappy case--started at a summer theatre, but the complications didn't stop there. As I recall, there were something like seven women and three men involved deeply before it began to straighten itself out. My patient was a young boy. Ah ... he had actually precipitated the situation, or was convinced that he had. All basically nice people, by the way. All of them. But the kind of thing they managed to get mixed up in--"

"I'm sure it was interesting," Malone said. "But--"

"Oh, they're all interesting," Marshall said. "But for sheer complexity ... well, this is an unusual sort of case, the one I'm thinking about now. I remember it began with a girl named Ned--"

"Dr. Marshall," Malone said desperately, "I'd like to hear about a girl named Ned. I really would. It doesn't even sound probable."

"Ah?" Dr. Marshall said. "I'd like to tell you--"

"Unfortunately," Malone went on doggedly, "there is some business I've got to talk over."

Dr. Marshall's disappointment was evident for less than a second. "Yes, Sir Kenneth?" he said.

Malone took a deep breath. "It's about Her Majesty's mental state," he said. "I understand that a lot of it is complicated, and I probably wouldn't understand it. But can you give me as much as you think I can digest?"

Marshall nodded slowly. "Ah ... you must understand that psychiatrists differ," he said. "We appear to run in schools--like fish, which is neither here nor there. But what I tell you might not be in accord with a psychiatrist from another school, Sir Kenneth."

"O.K.," Malone said. "Shoot."

"An extremely interesting slang word, by the way," Marshall said. "'Shoot.' Superficially an invitation to violence. I wonder--" A glance from Malone was sufficient. "Getting back to the track, however," he went on, "I should begin by saying that Her Majesty appears to have suffered a shock of traumatic proportions early in life. That might be the telepathic faculty itself coming to the fore--or, rather, the realization that others did not share her faculty. That she was, in fact, in communication with a world which could never reach her on her own deepest and most important level." He paused. "Are you following me so far?" he asked.

"Gamely," Malone admitted. "In other words, when she couldn't communicate, she went into this traumatic shock."

"Nor exactly," Marshall said. "We must understand what communication is. Basically, Sir Kenneth, we can understand it as a substitute for sexual activity. That is, in its deepest sense. It is this attack on the deepest levels of the psychic organism that results in the trauma; and has results of its own, by the way, which succeed in stabilizing the traumatic shock on several levels."

Malone blinked. "That last part began to get me a little," he said. "Can we go over it again, just the tune this time and leave out the harmony?"

Marshall smiled. "Certainly," he said. "Remember that Her Majesty has been locked up in institutions since early adolescence. Because of this--a direct result of the original psychosis--she has been deprived, not only of the communication which serves as a sublimation for sexual activity, but, in fact, any normal sexual activity. Her identification of herself with the Virgin Queen is far from accidental, Sir Kenneth."

The idea that conservation was sex was a new and somewhat frightening one to Malone, but he stuck to it grimly. "No sex," Malone said. "That's the basic trouble."

Marshall nodded. "It always is," he said. "In one form or another, Sir Kenneth; it is at the root of such problems at all times. But in Her Majesty's case the psychosis has become stabilized; she is the Virgin Queen, and therefore her failure to become part of the normal sexual activity of her group has a reason. It is accepted on that basis by her own psyche."

"I see," Malone said. "Or, anyhow, I think I do. But how about changes? Could she get worse or better? Could she start lying to people--for the fun of it, or for reasons of her own?"

"Changes in her psychic state don't seem very probable," Marshall said. "In theory, of course, anything is possible; but in fact, I have observed and worked with Her Majesty and no such change has occurred. You may take that as definite."

"And the lying?" Malone said.

Marshall frowned slightly. "I've just explained," he said, "that Her Majesty has been blocked in the direction of communication--that is, in the direction of one of her most important sexual sublimations. Such communication as she can have, therefore, is to be highly treasured by her; it provides the nearest thing to sex that she may have. As the Virgin Queen, she may still certainly converse in any way possible. She would not injure that valuable possession and right by falsifying it. It's quite impossible, Sir Kenneth. Quite impossible."

This did not make Malone feel any better. It removed one of the two possibilities--but it left him with no vacation, and the most complicated case he had ever dreamed of sitting squarely in his lap and making rude faces at him.

He had to solve the case--and he had nobody but himself to depend on.

"You're sure?" he said.

"Perfectly sure, Sir Kenneth," Marshall said.

Malone sighed. "Well, then," he said, "can I see Her Majesty?" He knew perfectly well that he didn't have to ask Marshall's permission--or anybody else's. But it seemed more polite, somehow.

"She's receiving Dr. Sheldon Lord in audience just at the moment," Marshall said. "I don't see why you shouldn't go on to the Throne Room, though. He's giving her some psychological tests, but they ought to be finished in a minute or two."

"Fine," Malone said. "How about court dress? Got anything here that might fit me?"

Marshall nodded. "We've got a pretty complete line of court costume now," he said. "I should say it was the most complete in existence--except possibly for the TV historical companies. Down the hall, three doors farther on, you'll find the dressing room."

* * * * *

Malone thanked Dr. Marshall and went out slowly. He didn't really mind the court dress or the Elizabethan etiquette Her Majesty liked to preserve; as a matter of fact, he was rather fond of it. There had been some complaints about expense when the Throne Room and the costume arrangement were first set up, but the FBI and the Government had finally decided that it was better and easier to humor Her Majesty.

Malone spent ten minutes dressing himself magnificently in hose and doublet, slash-sleeved, ermine-trimmed coat, lace collar, and plumed hat. By the time he presented himself at the door to the Throne Room he felt almost cheerful. It had been a long time since he had entered the world of Elizabethan knighthood over which Her Majesty held sway, and it always made him feel taller and more sure of himself. He bowed to a chunkily-built man of medium height in a stiffly brocaded jacket, carrying a small leather briefcase. The man had a whaler's beard of blond-red hair that looked slightly out of period, but the costume managed to overpower it. "Dr. Lord?" Malone said.

The bearded man peered at him. "Ah, Sir Kenneth," he said. "Yes, yes. Just been giving Her Majesty a few tests. Normal weekly check, you know."

"I know," Malone said. "Any change?"

"Change?" Lord said. "In Her Majesty? Sir Kenneth, you might as well expect the very rocks to change. Her Majesty remains Her Majesty--and will, in all probability, throughout the foreseeable future."

"The same as ever?" Malone asked hopefully.

"Exactly," Lord said. "But--if you do want background on the case--I'm flying back to New York tonight. Look me up there, if you have a chance. I'm afraid there's little information I can give you, but it's always a pleasure to talk with you."

"Thanks," Malone said dully.

"Barrow Street," Lord said with a cheery wave of the briefcase. "Number 69." He was gone. The Security Officer at the door, a young man in the uniform of a page, opened it and peered out at Malone. The FBI Agent nodded to him and the Security Officer announced in a firm, loud voice: "Sir Kenneth Malone, of Her Majesty's Own FBI!"

The Throne Room was magnificent. The whole place had been done in plastic and synthetic fibers to look like something out of the Sixteenth Century. It was as garish, and as perfect, as a Hollywood movie set--which wasn't surprising, since two stage designers had been hired away from color-TV spectaculars to set it up. At the far end of the room, past the rich hangings and the flaming chandeliers, was a great golden throne, and on it Her Majesty was seated.

Lady Barbara Wilson, Her Majesty's personal nurse, was sitting on a camp-chair arrangement nearby. She smiled slowly at Malone as he went by, and Malone returned the smile with a good deal of interest. He strode firmly down the long crimson carpet that stretched from the doorway to the throne. At the steps leading up toward the dais that held the Throne, his free hand went up and swept off the plumed hat. He sank to one knee.

"Your Majesty," he said gravely.

The queen looked down on him. "Rise, Sir Kenneth," she said in a tone of surprise. "We welcome your presence."

Malone got up off his knee and stood, his hat in his hand.

"What is your business with us?" Her Majesty asked.

Malone looked her full in the face for the first time. He realized that her expression was rather puzzled and worried. She looked even more confused than she had the last time he'd seen her.

He took a deep breath, wished for a cigar and plunged blindly ahead into the toils of court etiquette.

"Your Majesty," he said, "I know full well that you are aware of the thoughts that I have had concerning the case we have been working on. I beg Your Majesty's pardon for having doubted Your Majesty's Royal Word. Since my first doubts, of which I am sore ashamed, I have been informed by Our Majesty's Royal Psychiatrist that my doubts were ill-founded, and I wish to convey my deepest apologies. Now, having been fully convinced of the truth of Your Majesty's statements, I have a theory I would discuss with you, the particulars of which you can doubtless see in my mind."

He paused. Her Majesty was staring at him, her face pale.

"Sir Kenneth," she said in a strained voice, "we appreciate your attitude. However--" She paused for a moment, and then continued. "However, Sir Kenneth, it is our painful duty to inform you--"

She stopped again. And when she managed to speak, she had dropped all pretense of Court Etiquette.

"Sir Kenneth, I've been so worried! I was afraid you were dead!"

Malone blinked. "Dead?" he asked.

"For the past twenty-four hours," Her Majesty said in a frightened voice, "I've been unable to contact your mind. And right now, as you stand there, I can't read anything!

"It's as though you weren't thinking at all!"

[Illustration]

PART 3

IX

Malone stared at Her Majesty for what seemed like a long time. "Not thinking at all?" he said at last, weakly. "But I am thinking. At least, I think I am." He suddenly felt as if he had gone René Descartes one better. It wasn't a pleasant feeling.

Her Majesty regarded Malone for an interminable, silent second. Then she turned to Lady Barbara. "My dear," she said, "I would like to speak to Sir Kenneth alone. We will go to my chambers."

Malone, feeling as though his brain had suddenly turned to quince jelly, followed the two women out of a small door at the rear of the Throne Room, and into Her Majesty's private apartments. Lady Barbara left them alone with some reluctance, but she'd evidently been getting used to following her patient's orders. Which, Malone thought with admiration, must take a lot of effort for a nurse.

The door closed and he was alone with the Queen. Malone opened his mouth to speak, but Her Majesty raised a monitory hand. "Please, Sir Kenneth," she said. "Just a moment. Don't say anything for a little bit."

Malone shut his mouth. When the minute was up, Her Majesty began to nod her head, very slowly. Her voice, when she spoke, was low and calm.

"It's as though you were almost invisible," she said. "I can see you with my eyes, of course, but mentally you are almost completely indetectable. Knowing you as well as I do, and being this close to you, it is just possible for me to detect very faint traces of activity."

"Now, wait a minute," Malone said. "I am thinking. I know I am. Maybe it's not me. Your telepathy might be fading out temporarily, or something like that. It's possible, isn't it?" He was reasonably sure it wasn't, but it was a last try at making sense. Her Majesty shook her head.

"I can still receive Sir Thomas, for instance, quite clearly," she said. She seemed a little miffed, but the irritation was overpowered by her worry. "I think, Sir Kenneth, that you just don't know your own power, that's all. I don't know how, but you've managed somehow to smother telepathic communication almost completely."

"But not quite?" Malone said. Apparently, he was thinking, but very weakly. Like a small child, he told himself dismally. Like a small Elizabethan child.

Her Majesty's face took on a look of faraway concentration. "It's like looking at a very dim light," she said, "a light just at the threshold of perception. You might say

t you've got to look at such a light sideways. If you look directly at it, you can't see it. And, of course, you can't see it at all if you're a long way off." She blinked. "It's not exactly like that, you understand," she finished. "But in some ways--"

"I get the idea," Malone said. "Or I think I do. But what's causing it? Sunspots? Little green men?"

"Not so little," Her Majesty said with some return of her old humor, "and not green, either. As a matter of fact, you are, Sir Kenneth."

Malone opened his mouth, shut it again and finally managed to say: "Me?" in a batlike squeal of surprise.

"I don't know how, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty went on, "but you are. It's ... rather frightening to me, as a matter of fact; I've never seen such a thing before. I've never even considered it before."

"You?" Malone said. "How about me?" It was like suddenly discovering that you'd been lifting two-hundred-pound barbells and not knowing it. "How could I be doing anything like that without knowing anything about it?"

Her Majesty shook her head. "I haven't the faintest idea," she said.

But Malone, very suddenly, did. He remembered deciding to keep a close check on his mental processes to make sure those bursts of energy didn't do anything to him. Subconsciously, he knew, he was still keeping that watch.

And maybe the watch itself caused the complete blanking of his telepathic faculties. It was worth a test, at least, he decided. And it was an easy test to make.

"Listen," he said. He told himself that he would now allow communication between himself and Her Majesty--and only between those two. Maybe it wasn't possible to let down the barrier in a selective way, but he gave it all he had. A long second passed.

"My goodness!" Her Majesty said in pleased surprise. "There you are again!"

"You can read me?" Malone asked.

"Why ... yes," Her Majesty said. "And I can see just what you're thinking. I'm afraid, Sir Kenneth, that I don't know whether it's selective or not. But ... oh. Just a minute. You go right on thinking, now, just the way you are." Her Majesty's eyes unfocused slightly and a long time passed, while Malone tried to keep on thinking. But it was difficult, he told himself, to think about things without having any things to think about. He felt his mind begin to spin gently with the rhythm of the last sentence, and he considered slowly the possibility of thinking about things when there weren't any things thinking about you. That seemed to make as much sense as anything else, and he was turning it over and over in his mind when a voice broke in.

* * * * *

"I was contacting Willie," Her Majesty said.

"Ah," Malone said. "Willie. Of course. Very fine for contacting."

Her Majesty frowned. "You remember Willie, don't you?" she said. "Willie Logan--who used to be a spy for the Russians, just because he didn't know any better, poor boy?"

"Oh," Malone said. "Logan." He remembered the catatonic youngster who had used his telepathic powers against the United States until Her Majesty, the FBI, and Kenneth J. Malone had managed to put matters right. That had been the first time he'd met Her Majesty; it seemed like fifty years before.

"Well," Her Majesty said, "Willie and I had a little argument just now. And I think you'll be interested in it."

"I'm fascinated," Malone said.

"Was he thinking about things or were things thinking about him?"

"Really, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said, "you do think about the silliest notions when you don't watch yourself."

Malone blushed slightly. "Anyhow," he said after a pause, "what was the argument about?"

"Willie says you aren't here," Her Majesty said. "He can't detect you at all. Even when I let him take a peek at you through my own mind--making myself into sort of a relay station, so to speak--Willie wouldn't believe it. He said I was hallucinating."

"Hallucinating me?" Malone said. "I think I'm flattered. Not many people would bother."

"Don't underestimate yourself, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said, rather severely. "But you do see what this little argument means, don't you? I think you may assume that your telepathic contact is quite selective. If Willie can't read you, Sir Kenneth, believe me, nobody at all can ... unless you let them."

How he had developed this mental shield, he couldn't imagine, unless his subconscious had done it for him. Good old subconscious, he thought, always looking out for a person's welfare, preparing little surprises and things. Though he hoped vaguely that the next surprise, if there were a next one, would sneak up a little more gently. Being told flatly that your mind was not in operation was not a very good way to start an investigation.

Then he thought of something else. "Do you think this ... barrier of mine will keep out those little bursts of mental energy?" he said.

Her Majesty looked judicious. "I really do," she said. "It does appear quite impenetrable, Sir Kenneth. I can't understand how you're doing it. Or why, for that matter."

"Well--" Malone began.

Her Majesty raised a hand. "No," she said. "I'd rather not know, if you please." Her voice was stern, but just a little shaken. "The thought of blocking off thought--the only real form of communication that exists--is, frankly, quite horrible to me. I would rather be blinded, Sir Kenneth. I truly would."

Malone thought of Dr. Marshall and blushed. Her Majesty peered at him narrowly, and then smiled.

"You've been talking to my Royal Psychiatrist again, haven't you?" she said. Malone nodded. "Frankly, Sir Kenneth," she went on, "I think people pay too much attention to that sort of thing nowadays."

The subject, Malone recognized, was firmly closed. He cleared his throat and started up another topic. "Let's talk about these energy bursts," he said. "Do you still pick them up occasionally?"

"Oh, my, yes," Her Majesty said. "And it's not only me. Willie has been picking them up too. We've had some long talks about it, Willie and I. It's frightening, in a way, but you must admit that it's very interesting."

"Fascinating," Malone muttered. "Tell me, have you figured out what they might be, yet?"

Her Majesty shook her head. "All we know is that they do seem to occur just before a person intends to make a decision. The burst somehow appears to influence the decision. But we don't know how, and we don't know where they come from, or what causes them. Or even why."

"In other words," Malone said, "we know absolutely nothing new."

"I'm afraid not, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said. "But Willie and I do intend to keep working on it. It is important, isn't it?"

"Important," Malone said, "is not the word." He paused. "And now, if your Majesty will excuse me," he said, "I'll have to go. I have work to do, and your information has been most helpful."

"You may go, Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said, returning with what appeared to be real pleasure to the etiquette of the Elizabethan Court. "We are grateful that you have done so much, and continue to do so much, to defend the peace of Our Realm."

"I pledge myself to continue in those efforts which please Your Majesty," Malone said, and started back for the costume room. Once he'd changed into his regular clothing again he snapped himself back to the room he had rented in the Great Universal. He had a great deal of thinking to do, he told himself, and not much time to do it in.

* * * * *

However, he was alone. That meant he could light up a cigar--something which, as an FBI Agent, he didn't feel he should do in public. Cigars just weren't right for FBI Agents, though they were all right for ordinary detectives like Malone's father. As a matter of fact, he considered briefly hunting up a vest, putting it on and letting the cigar ash dribble over it. His father seemed to have gotten a lot of good ideas that way. But, in the end, he rejected the notion as being too complicated, and merely sat back in a chair, with an ashtray conveniently on a table by his side, and smoked and thought.

Now, he knew with reasonable certainty that Andrew J. Burris was wrong and that he, Malone, was right. The source of all the confusion in the country was due to psionics, not to psychodrugs and Walt Disney spies.

His first idea was to rush back and tell Burris. However, this looked like a useless move, and every second he thought about it made it seem more useless. He simply didn't have enough new evidence to convince Burris of anything whatever; psychiatric evidence was fine to back up something else, but on its own it was still too shaky to be accepted by the courts, in most cases. And Burris thought even more strictly than the courts in such matters.

Not only that, Malone realized with alarm, but even if he did manage somehow to convince Burris there was very little chance that Burris would stay convinced. If his mind could be changed by a burst of wild mental power--and why not? Malone reflected--then he could be unconvinced as often as necessary. He could be spun round and round like a top and never end up facing the way Malone needed him to face.

That left the burden of solving the problem squatting like a hunchback's hunch squarely on Malone's shoulders. He thought he could bear the weight for a while, if he could only think of some way of dislodging it. But the idea of its continuing to squat there forever was horribly unnerving. "Quasimodo Malone," he muttered, and uttered a brief prayer of thanks that his father had been spared a classical education. "Ken" wasn't so bad. "Quasi" would have been awful.

He couldn't think of any way to get a fingerhold on the thing that weighed him down. Slowly, he went over it in his mind.

Situation: an unidentifiable something is attacking the United States with an untraceable something else from a completely unknown source.

Problem: how do you go about latching on to anything as downright nonexistent as all that?

Even the best detective, Malone told himself irritably, needed clues of some kind. And this thing, whatever it was, was not playing fair. It didn't go around leaving bloody fingerprints or lipsticked cigarette butts or packets of paper matches with Ciro's, Hollywood, written on them. It didn't even have an alibi for anything that could be cracked, or leave tire marks or footprints behind that could be photographed. Hell, Malone thought disgustedly, it wasn't that the trail was cold. It just wasn't.

Of course, there were ways to get clues, he reflected. He thought of his father. His father would have gone to the scene of the crime, or questioned some of the witnesses. But the scene of the crime was anywhere and everywhere, and most of the witnesses didn't know they were witnessing anything. Except for Her Majesty, of course--but he'd already questioned her, and there hadn't been any clues he could recall in that conversation.

Malone stubbed out his cigar, lit another one absent-mindedly, and rescued his tie, which was working its slow way around to the side of his collar. There were, he remembered, three classic divisions of any crime: method, motive and opportunity. Maybe thinking about those would lead somewhere.

As an afterthought, he got up, found a pencil and paper with the hotel's name stamped on them in gold and came back to the chair. Clearing the ashtray aside, he put the paper on the table and divided the paper into three vertical columns with the pencil. He headed the first one Method, the second Motive and the third Opportunity.

He stared at the paper for a while, and decided with some trepidation to take the columns one by one. Under Method, he put down: "Little bursts. Who knows cause?" Some more thought gave him another item, and he set it down under the first one: "Psionic. Look for psionic people?"

That apparently was all there was to the first column. After a while he moved to number two, Motive. "Confuse things," he wrote with scarcely a second's reflection. But that didn't seem like enough. A few minutes more gave him several other items, written down one under the other. "Disrupt entire US. Set US up for invasion? Martians? Russians? CK: Is Russia having trble?" That seemed to exhaust the subject and with some relief he went on. But the title of the next column nearly stopped him completely.

[Illustration]

Opportunity. There wasn't anything he could put down under that one, Malone told himself, until he knew a great deal more about method. As things stood at present, the best entry under Opportunity was a large, tastefully done question mark. He made one, and then sat back to look at the entire list and see what help it gave him: Method Little bursts. Who knows cause? Psionic. Look for psionic people? Motive Confuse things. Disrupt entire US. Set US up for invasion? Martians? Russians? CK: Is Russia having trouble? Opportunity?

Somehow, it didn't seem to be much help, when he thought about it. It had a lot of information on it, but none of the information seemed to lead anywhere. It did seem to be established that the purpose was to confuse or disrupt the United States, but this didn't seem to point to anybody except a Russian, an alien or a cosmic practical joker. Malone could see no immediate way of deciding among the trio. However, he told himself, there are other ways to start investigating a crime. There must be.

Psychological methods, for instance. People had little gray cells, he remembered from his childhood reading. Some of the more brainy fictional detectives never stooped to anything so low as an actual physical clue. They concentrated solely on finding a pattern in the crimes that indicated, infallibly, the psychology of the individual. Once his psychology had been identified, it was only a short step to actually catching him and putting him in jail until his psychology changed for the better. Or, of course, until it disappeared entirely and was buried, along with the rest of him, in a small wood box.

That wasn't Malone's affair. All he had to do was take the first few steps and actually find the man. And perhaps psychology and pattern was the place to start. Anyhow, he reflected, he didn't have any other method that looked even remotely likely to lead to anything except brain-fag, disappointment, and catalepsy.

But he didn't have enough cases to find a pattern. There must, he thought, be a way to get some more. After a few seconds he thought of it.

* * * * *

At first he thought of asking Room Service for all the local and out-of-state papers, but that, he quickly saw, was a little unwise. People didn't come to Las Vegas to catch up on the news; they came to get away from it. A man might read Las Vegas papers, and possibly even his home town's paper if he couldn't break himself of the pernicious habit. But nobody on vacation would start reading papers from everywhere.

There was no sense in causing suspicion, Malone told himself. Instead, he reached for the phone and called the desk.

"Great Universal, good afternoon," a pleasant voice said in his ear.

Malone blinked. "What time is it?" he said.

"A few minutes before six," the voice said. "In the evening, sir."

"Oh," Malone said. It was later than he'd thought; the list had taken some time. "This is Kenneth J. Malone," he went on, "in Room--" He tried to remember the number of his room and failed. It seemed like four or five days since he'd entered it. "Well, wherever I am," he said at last, "send up some kind of a car for me and have a taxi waiting outside."

The voice sounded unperturbed. "Right away, sir," it said. "Will there be anything else?"

"I guess not," Malone said. "Not now, anyhow." He hung up and stubbed out the latest in his series of cigars.

The hallway car arrived in a few minutes. It was manned by a muscular little man with beady eyes and thinning black hair. "You Malone?" he said when the FBI Agent opened the door.

"Kenneth J.," Malone said. "I called for a car."

"Right outside, Chief," the little man said in a gravelly voice. "Just hop in and off we go into the wild blue yonder. Right?"

"I guess so," Malone said helplessly. He followed the man outside, locked his door and climbed into a duplicate of the little car that had taken him to his room in the first place.

"Step right in, Chief," the little man said. "We're off."

Malone, overcoming an immediate distaste for the chummy little fellow, climbed in and the car retreated down to the road. It started off smoothly and they went back toward the lobby. The little man chatted incessantly and Malone tried not to listen. But there was nothing else to do except watch the gun-toting "guides" as the car passed them, and the sight was making him nervous.

"You want anything--special," the driver said, giving Malone a blow in the ribs that was apparently meant to be subtle, "you just ask for Murray. Got it?"

"I've got it," Malone said wearily.

"You just pick up the little phone and you ask for Murray," the driver said. "Maybe you want something a little out of the ordinary--get what I mean?" Malone moved aside, but not fast enough, and Murray's stone elbow caught him again. "Something special, extra-nice. For my friends, pal. You want to be a friend of mine?"

Assurances that friendship with Murray was Malone's dearest ambition in life managed to fend off further blows until the car pulled to a stop in the lobby. "Cab's outside, Mr. Malone," Murray said. "You remember me--hey?"

"I will never, never forget you," Malone said fervently, and got out in a hurry. He found the cab and the driver, a heavy-set man with a face that looked as if, somewhere along the line, it had run into a Waring Blendor and barely escaped, swiveled around to look at him as he got in.

"Where to, Mac?" he asked sourly.

Malone shrugged. "Center of town," he said. "A nice big newsstand."

The cabbie blinked. "A what?" he said.

"Newsstand," Malone said pleasantly. "All right with you?"

"Everybody's a little crazy, I guess," the cabbie said. "But why do I always get the real nuts?" He started the cab with a savage jerk and Malone was carried along the road at dizzying speed. They managed to make ten blocks before the cab squealed to a stop. Malone peered out and saw a nice selection of sawhorses piled up in the road, guarded by two men with guns. The men were dressed in police uniforms and the cabby, staring at them, uttered one brief and impolite word.

"What's going on?" Malone said.

"Roadblock," the cabbie said. "Thing's going to stay here until Hell freezes over. Not that they need it. Hell, I passed it on the way in but I figured they'd take it down pretty quick."

"Roadblock?" Malone said. "What for?"

The cabbie shrugged eloquently. "Who knows?" he said. "You ask questions, you might get answers you don't like. I don't ask questions, I live longer."

"But--"

The cops, meanwhile, had advanced toward the car. One of them looked in. "Who's the passenger?" he said.

The cabbie swore again. "You want me to take loyalty oaths from people?" he said. "You want to ruin my business? I got a passenger, how do I know who he is? Maybe he's the Lone Ranger."

"Don't get funny," the cop said. His partner had gone around to the back of the car.

"What's this, the trunk again?" the cabbie said. "You think maybe I'm smuggling in showgirls from the edge of town?"

"Ha, ha," the cop said distinctly. "One more joke and it's thirty days, buster. Just keep cool and nothing will happen."

"Nothing, he calls it," the cabbie said dismally. But he stayed silent until the second cop came back to rejoin his partner.

"Clean," he said.

"Here, too, I guess," the first cop said, and looked in again. "You," he said to Malone. "You a tourist?"

"That's right," Malone said. "Kenneth J. Malone, at the Great Universal. Arrived this afternoon. What's happening here, officer?"

"I'm asking questions," the cop said. "You're answering them. Outside of that, you don't have to know a thing." He looked very tough and official. Malone didn't say anything else.

After a few more seconds they went back to their positions and the cabbie started the car again. Ten yards past the roadblock he turned around and looked at Malone. "It's the sheriff's office every time," he said. "Now, you take a State cop, he's O.K. because what does he care? He's got other things to worry about, he don't have to bear down on hard-working cabbies."

"Sure," Malone said helpfully.

"And the city police--they're right here in the city, they're O.K. I know them, they know me, nothing goes wrong. Get what I mean?"

"The sheriff's office is the worst, though?" Malone said.

"The worst is nothing compared to those boys," the cabbie said. "Believe me, every time they can make life tough for a cabbie, they do it. It's hatred, that's what it is. They hate cabbies. That's the sheriff's office for you."

"Tough," Malone said. "But the roadblock--what was it for, anyhow?"

The cabbie looked back at the road, avoided an oncoming car with a casual sweep of the wheel, and sighed gustily. "Mister," he said, "you don't ask questions, I don't give out answers. Fair?"

There was, after all, nothing else to say. "Fair," Malone told him, and rode the rest of the way in total silence.

* * * * *

Buying the papers in Las Vegas took more time than Malone had bargained for. He had to hunt from store to store to get a good, representative selection, and there were crowds almost everywhere playing the omnipresent slot-machines. The whir of the machines and the low undertones and whispers of the bettors combined in the air to make what Malone considered the single most depressing sound he had ever heard. It sounded like a factory, old, broken-down and unwanted, that was geared only to the production of cigarette butts and old cellophane, ready-crumpled for throwing away. Malone pushed through the crowds as fast as possible, but nearly an hour had gone by when he had all his papers and hailed another cab to get him back to the hotel.

This time, the cabbie had a smiling, shining face. He looked like Pollyanna, after eight or ten shots at the middleweight title. Malone beamed right back at him and got in. "Great Universal," he said.

"Hey, that's a nice place," the cabbie said heartily, as they started off. "I heard there was a couple TV stars there last week and they got drunk and had a fight. You see that?"

"Just arrived this afternoon," Malone said. "Sorry."

"Oh, don't worry," the cabbie assured him. "Something's always going on at the Universal. I hear they posted a lot of guards there, just waiting for something to come up now. Something about some shooting, but I didn't get the straight story yet. That true?"

"Far as I know," Malone said. "There's a lot of strange things happening lately, aren't there?"

"Lots," the cabbie said eagerly. He meandered slowly around a couple of bright-red convertibles. "A guy owned the Last Stand, he killed himself with a gun today. It's in the papers. Listen, Mister, funny things happen all the time around here. I remember last week there was a lady in my cab, nice old bat, looked like she wouldn't take off an earring in public, not among strangers. You know the type. Well, sir, she asked me to take her on to the Golden Palace, and that's a fair ride. So on the way down, she--"

Fascinated as he was by the unreeling story of the shy old bat, Malone interrupted. "I hear there's a roadblock up now, and they're searching all the cars. Know anything about that?"

The cabbie nodded violently. "Sure, Mister," he said. "Now, it's funny you should ask. I hit the block once today and I was saying to myself, I'll bet somebody's going to ask me about this. So when I was in town I talked around with Si Deeds ... you know Si? Oh, no, you just arrived today ... anyhow, I figured Si would know."

"And did he?" Malone said.

"Not a thing," the cabbie said. Malone sighed disgustedly and the cabbie went on: "So I went over and talked to Bob Grindell. I figured, there was action, Bob would know. And guess what?"

"He didn't know either," Malone said tiredly.

"Bob?" the cabbie said. "Say, Mister, you must be new here for sure, if you say Bob wouldn't know what was going on. Why, Bob knows more about this town than guys lived in it twice as long, I'll tell you. Believe me, he knows."

"And what did he say?" Malone asked.

The cabbie paused. "About what?" he said.

"About the roadblock," Malone said distinctly.

"Oh," the cabbie said. "That. Well, that was a funny thing and no mistake. There was this fight, see? And Shellenberger got in the middle of it, see? So when he was dead they had to set up this roadblock."

Malone restrained himself with some difficulty. "What fight?" he said. "And who's Shellenberger? And how did he get in the way?"

"Mister," the cabbie said, "you must be new here."

"A remarkable guess," Malone said.

The cabbie nodded. "Sure must be," he said. "Gus Shellenberger's lived here over ten years now. I drove him around many's the time. Remember when he used to go out to this motel out on the outskirts there; there was this doll he was interested in but it never came to much. He said she wasn't right for his career, you know how guys like that are, they got to be careful all the time. Never hit the papers or anything--I mean with the doll and all--but people get to know things. You know. So with this doll--"

"How long ago did all this happen?" Malone asked.

"The doll?" the cabbie said. "Oh, five-six years. Maybe seven. I remember it was the year I got a new cab, business was pretty good, you know. Seven, I guess. Garage made me a price, you know, I had to be an idiot to turn it down? A nice price. Well, George Lamel who owns the place, he's an old friend, you know? I did him some favors so he gives me a nice price. Well, this new cab--"

"Can we get back to the present for a little while?" Malone said. "There was this fight, and your friend Gus Shellenberger got involved in it somehow--"

"Oh, that," the cabbie said. "Oh, sure. Well, there was a kind of chase. Some sheriff's officers were looking for an escaped convict, and they were chasing him and doing some shooting. And Shellenberger, he got in the way and got shot accidentally. The criminal, he got away. But it's kind of a mess, because--"

A loud chorus of sirens effectively stopped all conversation. Two cars stamped with the insignia of the sheriff's office came into sight and streaked past, headed for Las Vegas.

"Because Shellenberger was State's attorney, after all," the cabbie said. "It's not like just anybody got killed."

"And the roadblock?" Malone said.

"For the criminal, I guess," the cabbie said.

Malone nodded heavily. The whole thing smelled rather loudly, he thought. The "accident" wasn't very plausible to start with. And a search for an escaped criminal that didn't even involve checking identification of strangers like Malone wasn't much of a search. The cops knew who they were looking for.

And Shellenberger hadn't been killed by accident.

The roadblock was down, he noticed. The sheriff's office cars had apparently carried the cheerful cops back to Las Vegas. Maybe they'd found their man, Malone thought, and maybe they just didn't care any more.

"Wouldn't a State's attorney live in Carson City?" he asked after a while.

"Not old Gus Shellenberger," the cabbie said. "Many's the time I talked with him and he said he loved this old town. Loved it. Like an old friend. Why, he used to say to me--"

At that point the Great Universal hove into view. Malone felt extraordinarily grateful to see it.

* * * * *

He went to his room with the bundle of papers in his hand and locked himself in. He lit a fresh cigar and started through the papers. Las Vegas was the one on top, and he gave it a quick going-over. Sure enough, the suicide of the Golden Palace owner was on page one, along with a lot of other local news.

Mayor Resigns Under Council Pressure, one headline read. On page 3 another story was headlined: County Attorney Indicted by Grand Jury in Bribery Case. And at the bottom of page 1, complete with pictures of baffled phone operators and linemen, was a double column spread: Damage to Phone Relay Station Isolates City Five Hours.

Carson City, the State Capitol, came in for lots of interesting news, too. Three headlines caught Malone's attention:

LT.-GOVERNOR MORRIS SWORN IN AS GOVERNOR TWELVE MEMBERS OF LEGISLATURE RESIGN

Ill Health Given As Reason

STATE'S ATTORNEY'S OFFICE: "NO COMMENT" ON RACKETS CONNECTION CHARGE.

The next paper was the New York Post. Malone studied the front page with interest:

MAYOR ORDERS ARREST OF POLICE COMM.

The story on page 3 had a little more detail:

MAYOR AMALFI ORDERS ARREST OF POLICE COMMISSIONER ON EVIDENCE SHOWING "COLLUSION WITH GAMBLING INTERESTS"

But Malone didn't have time to read the story. Other headlines on pages 2 and 3 attracted his startled attention:

TWELVE DIE IN BROOKLYN GANG MASSACRE

Ricardo, Numbers Head, Among Slain

"DANGEROUS DAN" SUGRUE LINKED WITH TRUCKER'S UNION

Admits Connection "Gladly"

[Illustration]

HOUSING AUTHORITY DENIES, THEN CONFESSES GRAFT CHARGE

Malone wiped a streaming brow. Apparently all hell was busting loose. Under the Post was the San Francisco Examiner, its crowded front page filled with all sorts of strange and startling news items. Malone looked over a few at random. A wildcat waterfront strike had been called off after the resignation of the union local's president. The "Nob Hill Mob," which had grown notorious in the past few years, had been rounded up and captured in toto after what the paper described only as a "police tipoff." Two headlines caught his special attention:

BERSERK POLICE CAPTAIN KILLS TWO AIDES, SELF: CORRUPTION HINTED

The second hit closer to home:

FBI ARRESTS THREE STATE SENATORS ON INCOME TAX CHARGE

Malone felt a pang of nostalgia. Conquering it after a brief struggle, he went on to the next paper. From Los Angeles, its front page showed that Hollywood, at least, was continuing to hold its own:

LAVISH FUNERAL PLANNED FOR WONDER DOG TOMORROW

But the Washington Times-Herald brought things back to the mess Malone had expected. All sorts of things were going on:

PRESIDENT ACCEPTS RESIGNATION OF THREE CABINET MEMBERS

New Appointees Not Yet Named

PENTAGON TO INVESTIGATE QUARTER-MASTER CORPS GRAFT

Revelations Hinted In Closed Hearing Thursday

RIOT ON SENATE FLOOR QUELLED BY GUARDS

Sen. Briggs Hospitalized

GENERAL BREGER, MISSILE BASE HEAD, DIES IN TESTING ACCIDENT

Faulty Equipment Blamed

Malone put the papers down with a deep sigh. There was some kind of a pattern there, he was sure; there had to be. More was happening in the good old United States inside of twenty-four hours than ordinarily happened in a couple of months. The big trouble was that some of it was, doubtless, completely unconnected with the work of Malone's psychological individual. It was equally certain that some of it wasn't; no normal workings of chance could account for the spate of resignations, deaths, arrests of high officials, freak accidents and everything else he'd just seen.

But there was no way of telling which was which. The only one he was reasonably sure he could leave out of his calculations was Hollywood's good old Wonder Dog. And when he looked at the rest all he could see was that confusion was rampant. Which was exactly what he'd known before.

He remembered once, when he was a boy, his mother had taken him to an astronomical observatory, and he had looked at Mars through the big telescope, hoping to see the canals he'd heard so much about. Sure, enough, there had been a blurred pattern of some kind. It might have represented canals--but he'd been completely unable to trace any given line. It was like looking at a spiderweb through a sheet of frosted glass.

He needed a clearer view, and there wasn't any way to get it without finding some more information. Sooner or later, he told himself, everything would fall into one simple pattern, and he would give a cry of "Eureka!"

There was, at any rate, no need to go to the scene of the crime. He was right in the middle of it--and would have been, apparently, no matter where he'd been. The big question was: where were all the facts he needed?

He certainly wasn't going to find them all alone in his room, he decided. Mingling with the Las Vegas crowds might give him some sort of a lead--and, besides, he had to act like a man on vacation, didn't he? Satisfied of this, Malone began to change into his dress suit. People who came to Las Vegas, he told himself while fiddling with what seemed to be a left-hand-thread cufflink of a peculiarly nasty disposition, were usually rich. Rich people would be worried about the way the good old United States was acting up, just like anybody else, but they'd have access to various sources both of information and rumor. Rumor was more valuable than might at first appear, Malone thought sententiously, sneaking up on the cufflink and fastening it securely. He finished dressing with what was almost an air of hope.

He surveyed himself in the mirror when he was done. Nobody, he told himself with some assurance, would recognize him as the FBI Agent who had come into the Golden Palace two years before, clad in Elizabethan costume and escorting a Queen who had turned out to be a phenomenal poker player. After all, Las Vegas was a town in which lots of strange things happened daily, and he was dressed differently, and he'd aged at least two years in the intervening two years.

He put in a call for a hallway car--carefully refraining from asking for Murray.

X

"Business, Mr. Malone," the bartender said, "is shot all to hell. The whole country is shot all to hell."

"I believe it," Malone said.

"Sure," the bartender said. He finished polishing one glass and set to work on another one. "Look at the place," he went on. "Half full. You been here two weeks now, and you know how business was when you came. Now look."

It wasn't necessary, but Malone turned obediently to survey the huge gambling hall. It was roofed over by a large golden dome that seemed to make the place look even emptier than it could possibly be. There were still plenty of people around the various tables, and something approaching a big crowd clustered around the chemin de fer layout. But it was possible to breathe in the place, and even move from table to table without stepping into anybody's pocket. Las Vegas was definitely sliding downhill at the moment, Malone thought.

The glitter of polished gold and silver ornaments, the low cries of the various dealers and officials, the buzz of conversation, were all the same. But under the great dome, Malone told himself sadly, you could almost see the people leaving, one by one.

"No money around either," the bartender said. "Except maybe for a few guys like yourself. I mean, people take their chances at the wheel or the tables, but there's no big betting going on, just nickel-dime stuff. And no big spending, either. Used to be tips in a place like this, just tips, would really mount up to something worth while. Now, nothing." He put the glass and towel down and leaned across the bar. "You know what I think, Mr. Malone?" he said.

"No," Malone said politely. "What do you think?"

The bartender looked portentous. "I think all the big-money guys have rushed off home to look after their business and like that," he said, "everything's going to hell, and what I want to know is: What's wrong with the country? You're a big businessman, Mr. Malone. You ought to have some ideas."

Malone paused and looked thoughtful. "I'll tell you what I think," he said. "I think people have decided that gambling is sinful. Maybe we all ought to go and get our souls dry-cleaned."

The bartender shook his head. "You always got a little joke, Mr. Malone," he said. "It's what I like about you. But there must be some reason for what's happening."

"There must be," Malone agreed. "But I'll be double-roasted for extra fresh flavor if I know what --"

His vacation pay, he told himself with a feeling of downright misery, was already down the drain. He'd been dipping into personal savings to keep up his front as a big spender, but that couldn't go on forever--even though he saved money on the front by gambling very little while he tipped lavishly. And in spite of what he'd spent he was no closer to an answer than he had been when he'd started.

"Now, you take the stock market," the bartender said, picking up the glass and towel again and starting to work in a semiautomatic fashion. "It's going up and down like a regular roller coaster. I know because I got a few little things going for me there--nothing much, you understand, but I keep an eye out for developments. It doesn't make any sense, Mr. Malone. Even the financial columnists can't make sense out of it."

"Terrible," Malone said.

"And the Government's been cracking down on business everywhere it can," the bartender went on. "All kinds of violations. I got nothing against the law, you understand. But that kind of thing don't help profits any. Look at the Justice Department."

"You look at it," Malone muttered.

"No," the bartender said. "I mean it. They been arresting people all over the place for swindling on Government contracts, and falsifying tax records, and graft, and all kinds of things. Listen, every FBI man in the country must be up to his cute little derby hat in work."

"I'll bet they are," Malone said. He heaved a great sigh. Every one of them except Kenneth J. Malone was probably hopping full time in an effort to straighten out the complicated mess everything was getting into. Of course, he was working, too--but not officially. As far as the FBI knew, he was on vacation, and they were perfectly willing to let him stay there.

A nationwide emergency over two weeks old, and getting worse all the time--and Burris hadn't even so much as called Malone to talk about the weather. He'd said that Malone was one of his top operatives, but now that trouble was really piling up there wasn't a peep out of him.

The enemy, whoever they were, were doing a great job, Malone thought bitterly. Every time Burris decided he might need Malone, apparently, they pushed a little mental burst at him and turned him around again. He could just picture Burris looking blankly at an FBI roster and saying: "Malone? Who's he?"

It wasn't a nice picture. Malone took a deep swallow of his bourbon-and-water and tried forgetting about it. The bartender, called by another customer, put the glass and towel down and went to the other end of the bar. Malone finished his drink very slowly, feeling more lonely than he could ever remember being before.

* * * * *

At last, though, four-thirty rolled around and he got up from the plush bar stool and headed for the Universal Joint, the hotel's big show-room. It was one of the few places in the hotel that was easily reachable from the front bar on foot, and Malone walked, taking an unexpected pleasure in this novel form of locomotion. In a few minutes he was at the great curtained front doors.

He pushed them open. Later, of course, when the Universal Joint was open to the public, a man in a uniform slightly more impressive than that of a South American generalissimo would be standing before the doors to save patrons the unpleasant necessity of opening them for themselves. But now, in the afternoon, the Universal Joint was closed. There was no one inside but Primo Palveri, the manager and majority stockholder of the Great Universal, and the new strip act he was watching. Malone didn't particularly like the idea of sharing his conversation with a burlesque stripper, but there was little he could do about it; he'd waited several days for the appointment already.

As the doors opened he could hear a nasal voice, almost without over-tones, saying: "Now turn around, baby. Turn around." A pause, and then another voice, this one female:

"Is this all right, Mr. Palveri? You want me to show you something else?"

Malone shut the door quietly behind him. The female voice was coming from the throat of a semi-naked girl about five feet eight, with bright red hair and a wide, wide smile. She was staring at a chunky little black-haired man sunk in a chair, whose back was to Malone.

"What else do you do, Sweetheart?" the chunky man said. "Let me see whatever you do. I want some wide-talent stuff, you know, for the place. Class."

The girl smiled even wider. Malone was sure her teeth were about to fall out onto the floor, probably in a neat arrangement that spelled out Will You Kiss Me In The Dark Baby. That would take an awful lot of teeth, he reflected, but the stripper looked as if she could manage the job. "I dance and sing," she said. "I could do a dance for you, but my music is upstairs. You want me to go and get it?"

Palveri shook his head. "How about a song, baby? You mind singing without a piano?"

"I don't have anything prepared," the girl said, her eyes wide. "I didn't know this was going to be a special audition. I thought, you know, just a burlesque audition, so I didn't bring anything."

Palveri sank a little lower in the chair. "O.K., Sweetheart," he said. "You got a nice shape, you'll fit in the line anyhow. But just sing a song you know. How about that? If you make it with that, you could get yourself a featured spot. More dough."

The girl appeared to consider this proposition. "Gee," she said slowly. "I could do 'God Bless America'. O.K., Mr. Palveri?"

The chunky man sank even deeper toward the floor. "Never mind," he said. "Go get dressed, tell Tony you got the number five spot in the line. O.K.?"

"Gee," she said. "Maybe I could work on something and do it for you some other time, Mr. Palveri?"

He nodded wearily. "Some other time," he said. "Sure."

* * * * *

The girl went off through a door at the left of the club. Malone threaded his way past tables with chairs piled on top of them until he came to Palveri's side. The club owner was sitting on a single chair dragged off the heap that stood on a table next to him. He didn't turn around. "Mr. Malone," he said, "take another chair, sit down and we'll talk. O.K.?"

Malone blinked. "How'd you know I was there?" he said. "Much less who I was?"

"In this business," Palveri said, still without turning, "you learn to notice things, Mr. Malone. I heard you come in and wait. Who else would you be?"

Malone took a chair from the pile and set it up next to Palveri's. The chunky man turned to face him for the first time. Malone took a deep breath and tried to look hard and tough as he studied the club owner.

Palveri had small, sunken eyes decorated with bluish bags below and tufted black eyebrows above. The eyes were very cold. The rest of his face didn't warm things up any; he had an almost lipless slash for a mouth, a small reddish nose and cheeks that could have used either a shave or a good sandblasting job.

* * * * *

"You said you wanted to see me," Palveri began after a second. "But you didn't say what about. What's up, Mr. Malone?"

"I've been looking around," Malone said in what he hoped was a grim, no-nonsense tone. "Checking things. You know."

"Checking?" Palveri said. "What's this about?"

Malone shrugged. He fished out a cigarette and lit it. "Castelnuovo in Chicago sent me down," he said. "I've been doing some checking around for him."

Palveri's eyes narrowed slightly. Malone puffed on the cigarette and tried to act cool. "You throwing names around to impress me?" the club owner said at last.

"I'm not throwing names around," Malone said grimly. "Castelnuovo wants me to look around, that's all."

"Castelnuovo's a big man in Chicago," Palveri said. "He wouldn't send a guy down without telling me about it."

"He did," Malone said. He thought back to the FBI files on Giacomo Castelnuovo, which took up a lot of space in Washington, even on microfilm. "You want proof?" he said. "He's got a scar over his ribs on the left side--got it from a bullet in '62. He wears a little black mustache because he thinks he looks like an old-time TV star, but he doesn't, much. He's got three or four girls on the string, but the only one he cares about is Carla Bragonzi. He--"

"O.K.," Palveri said. "O.K., O.K. You know him. You're not fooling, around. But how come he sends you down without telling me?"

Malone shrugged. "I've been here two weeks," he said. "You didn't know I was around, did you? That's the way Castelnuovo wanted it."

"He thinks I'd cheat him?" Palveri said, his face changing color slightly. "He thinks I'd dress up for him or drag down? He knows me better than that."

Malone took a puff of his cigarette. "Maybe he just wants to be sure," he said. "Funny things are happening all over." The cigarette tasted terrible and he put it out in an ashtray from the chair-covered table.

"You're telling me," Palveri said. "Things are crazy. What I'm thinking is this: Maybe Castelnuovo wants to keep this place operating. Maybe he wants to keep me here working for him."

"And if he does?" Malone said.

"If he does, he's going to have to pay for it," Palveri said firmly. "The place needs dough to keep operating. I've got to have a loan, or else I'm going under."

"The place is making money," Malone said.

Palveri shook his head vigorously. He reached into a pocket and took out a gold cigar case. He flipped it open. "Have one," he told Malone.

An FBI Agent, Malone told himself, had no business smoking cigars and looking undignified. But as a messenger from Castelnuovo, he could do as he pleased. He almost reached for one before he realized that maybe, sometime in the future, Palveri would find out who Kenneth J. Malone really was. And then he'd remember Malone smoking cigars, and that would be bad for the dignity of the FBI. Reluctantly, he drew his hand back.

"No, thanks," he said. "Never touch 'em."

"To each his own," Palveri muttered. He took out a cigar, lit it and returned the case to his pocket. The immediate vicinity became crowded with smoke. Malone breathed deeply.

"About the money--" Malone said after a second.

Palveri snorted. "The place is making half of what I'm losing," he said. "You got to see it this way, Malone: the contacts are gone."

"Contacts?" Malone said.

Palveri nodded. "The mayor's resigned, remember?" he said. "You saw that. Everybody's getting investigated. A couple of weeks ago the Golden Palace guy knocked himself off, and where does that leave me? He's my only contact with half the State boys; hell, he ran the whole string of clubs here, more or less. Castelnuovo knows all that."

"Sure," Malone said. "But you can make new contacts."

"Where?" Palveri said. He flung out his arms. "When nobody knows what's going to happen tomorrow? I tell you, Malone, it's like a curse on me."

Malone decided to push the man a little farther. "Castelnuovo," he said with what he hoped was a steely glint in his eyes, "isn't going to like a curse ruining business." He took another deep breath of tobacco smoke.

"Primo Palveri don't like it either," Palveri said. "You think whatever you like but that's the way things are. It's like Prohibition except we're losing all the way down the line. Listen, and I'll tell you something you didn't pick up around town."

"Go ahead," Malone said.

* * * * *

Palveri blew out some more smoke. "You know about the shipments?" he said. "The stuff from out on the desert?"

Malone nodded. The FBI had a long file on the possibility of Castelnuovo, through Palveri or someone else in the vicinity, shipping peyotl buttons from Nevada and New Mexico all over the country. Until this moment, it had only been a possibility.

"Mike Sand wanted to get in on some of that," Palveri said. "Well, it's big money, a guy figures he's got to have competition. But it's business nowadays, not a shooting war. That went out forty years ago."

"So?" Malone said, acting impatient.

"I'm getting there," Palveri said. "I'm getting there. Mike Sand and his truckers, they tried to high jack a shipment coming through out on the desert. Now, the Trucker's Union is old and experienced, maybe, but not as old and experienced as the Mafia. It figures we can take them, right?"

"It figures," Malone agreed. "But you didn't?"

Palveri looked doleful. "It's like a curse," he said. "Two boys wounded and one of them dead, right there on the sand. The shipment gone, and Mike Sand on his way to the East with it. A curse." He sucked some more at the cigar.

Malone looked thoughtful and concerned. "Things are certainly bad," he said. "But how's money going to make things any better?"

Palveri almost dropped his cigar. Malone watched it lovingly. "Help?" the club owner said. "With money I could stay open, I could stay alive. Listen, I had investments, nice guaranteed stuff: real estate, some California oil stuff ... you know the kind of thing."

"Sure," Malone said.

"Now that the contacts are gone and everybody's dead or resigned or being investigated," Palveri said, "what do you think's happened to all that? Down the drain, Malone."

Malone said: "But--"

"And not only that," Palveri said, waving the cigar. "The club was going good, and you know I thought about building a second one a little farther out. A straight investment, get me: an honest one."

Malone nodded as if he knew all about it.

"So I got the foundation in, Malone," Palveri said, "and it's just sitting there, not doing anything. A whole foundation going to pot because I can't do anything more with it. Just sitting there because everything's going to hell with itself."

"In a handbasket," Malone said automatically.

Palveri gave him a violent nod. "You said it, Malone," he added. "Everything. My men, too." He sighed. "And the contractor after me for his dough. Good old Harry Seldon, everybody's friend. Sure. Owe him some money and find out how friendly he is. Talks about nothing but figures. Ten thousand. Twelve thousand."

"Tough," Malone said. "But what do you mean about your men?"

"Mistakes," Palveri said. "Book-keepers throwing the computers off and croupiers making mistakes paying off and collecting--and always mistakes against me, Malone. Always. It's like a curse. Even the hotel bills--three of them this week were made out too small and the customer paid up and went before I found out about it."

"It sounds like a curse," Malone said. "Either that or there are spies in the organization."

"Spies?" Palveri said. "With the checking we do? With the way I've known some of these guys from childhood? They were little kids with me, Malone. They stuck with me all the way. And with Castelnuovo, too," he added hurriedly.

"Sure," Malone said. "But they could still be spies."

Palveri nodded sadly. "I thought of that," he said. "I fired four of them. Four of my childhood friends, Malone. It was like cutting off an arm. And all it did was leave me with one arm less. The same mistakes go on happening."

Malone stood up and heaved a sigh. "Well," he said, "I'll see what I can do."

"I'd appreciate it, Malone," Palveri said. "And when Primo Palveri appreciates something, he appreciates it. Get what I mean?"

"Sure," Malone said. "I'll report back and let you know what happens."

Palveri looked just as anxious, but a little hopeful. "I need the dough," he said. "I really need it."

"With dough," Malone said, "you could fix up what's been happening?"

Palveri shrugged. "Who knows?" he said. "But I could stay open long enough to find out."

Malone went back to the gaming room feeling that he had learned something, but not being quite sure what. Obviously whatever organization was mixing everything up was paying just as much attention to gangsters as to congressmen and businessmen. The simple justice of this arrangement did not escape Malone, but he failed to see where it led him.

[Illustration]

He considered the small chance that Palveri would actually call Castelnuovo and check up on Kenneth J. Malone, but he didn't think it was probable. Palveri was too desperate to take the chance of making his boss mad in case Malone's story were true. And, even if the check were made, Malone felt reasonably confident. It's hard to kill a man who has a good, accurate sense of precognition and who can teleport himself out of any danger he might get into. Not impossible, but hard. Being taken for a ride in the desert, for instance, might be an interesting experience, but could hardly prove inconvenient to anybody except the driver of the car and the men holding the guns.

The gaming room wasn't any fuller, he noticed. He wended his way back to the bar for a bourbon-and-water and greeted the bartender morosely. The drink came along and he sipped at it quietly, trying to put things together in his mind. The talk with Palveri, he felt sure, had provided an essential clue--maybe the essential clue--to what was going on. But he couldn't find it.

"Mess," he said quietly. "Everything's in a mess. And so what?"

A voice behind him picked that second to say: "Gezundheit." Malone didn't turn. Instead he looked at the bar mirror, and one glance at what was reflected there was enough to freeze him as solid as the core of Pluto.

Lou was there. Lou Gehrig or whatever her name was, the girl behind the reception desk of the New York offices of the Psychical Research Society. That, in itself, didn't bother him. The company of a beautiful girl while drinking was not something Malone actually hated. But she knew he was an FBI Agent, and she might pick any second to blat it out in the face of an astonished bartender. This, Malone told himself, would not be pleasant. He wondered just how to hush her up without attracting attention. Knock-out pills in her drink? A hand over her mouth? A sudden stream of unstoppable words?

He had reached no decision when she sat down on the stool beside him, turned a bright, cheerful smile in his direction and said: "I've forgotten your name. Mine's Luba Ardanko."

"Oh," Malone said dully. Even the disclosure of what "Lou" stood for did nothing to raise his spirits.

"I'm always forgetting things," Lou went on. "I've forgotten just about everything about you."

Malone breathed a long, inaudible sigh of relief. If more people, he thought, had the brains not to greet FBI Agents by name, rank and serial number when meeting them in a strange place, there would be fewer casualties among the FBI.

He realized that Luba was still smiling at him expectantly. "My name's Malone," he said. "Kenneth Malone. I'm a cookie manufacturer, remember?"

"Oh," Luba said delightedly. "Sure! I remember last time I met you you gave me that lovely box of cookies. Modeled on the Seven Dwarfs."

Occasionally, Malone told himself, things moved a little faster than he liked. "On the Seven Dwarfs," he said. "Oh, sure."

"And I thought the model of Sneezy was awfully cute," she said. "But don't let's talk about cookies. Let's talk about Martinis."

Malone opened his mouth, tried to think of something clever to say, and shut it again. Luba Ardanko was, perfectly obviously, altogether too fast for him. But then, he reflected, I've had a hard day. "All right," he said at last. "What about Martinis?"

Luba's smile broadened. "I'd like one," she said. "And since you're a wealthy cookie manufacturer--"

"Be my guest," Malone said. "On the other hand, why not buy your own? Since they're free as long as you're in the gambling room."

The bartender had approached them silently. "That's right," he said in a voice that betrayed the fact that he had memorized the entire speech, word for word. "Drinks are free for those who play the gaming tables. A courtesy of the Great Universal."

He delivered a Martini and Luba drank it while Malone finished his bourbon-and-water. "Well," she said, "I suppose we've got to go to the gambling tables now. If only to be fair."

"A horrible fate," Malone agreed, "but there you are: that's life."

"It certainly is," she said brightly, and moved off. Malone, shaking his head, went after her and found her standing in front of a roulette wheel. "I just love roulette," she said, turning. "Don't you? It's so exciting and expensive."

Malone licked dry lips, said: "Sure," and started to move off.

"Oh, let's just play a little," Luba said.

There was nothing to do but agree. Malone put a small stack of silver dollars on Red, and the croupier looked up with a bored expression. There were three other people in the game, including a magnificent old lady with blue hair who spent her money with a lavish hand. Two weeks before, she wouldn't even have been noticed. Now the croupier was bending over backward in an attempt not to show how grateful he was for the patronage.

The wheel spun around and landed on Number Two, Black. Malone sighed and fished for more money. He felt his precognitive sense beginning to come into play and happily decided to ride with it. This time the stack of silver dollars was larger.

Twenty minutes later he left the table approximately nine hundred dollars richer. Luba was beaming. "There, now," she said. "Wasn't that fun?"

"Hysterical," Malone said. He glanced back over his shoulder. The blue-haired old lady was winning and losing large sums with a speed and aplomb that was certainly going to make her a twenty-four-hour legend by the end of the evening. She looked grim and secure, as if she were undergoing a penance. Malone shrugged and looked away.

"Now," Luba said, "you can take me dancing."

"I can?" Malone said. "I mean, do I? I mean--"

"I mean the Solar Room," Luba said. "I've always wanted to enter on the arms of a handsome cookie manufacturer. It will make me the sensation of New York society."

* * * * *

The Solar Room was magnificently expensive. Malone had been there once, establishing his character as a man of lavish appetites, and had then avoided the place in deference to his real bankroll. He remembered it as the kind of place where an order of scrambled eggs was liable to come in, flaming, on a golden sabre. But Luba wanted the Solar Room, and Malone was not at all sure she wouldn't use blackmail if he turned her down. "Fine," he said in a lugubrious tone.

The place shone, when they entered, as if they had come in from the darkness of midnight. Along with the Universal Joint, it was the pride and glory of the Great Universal Hotel and no expense had been spared in the attempt to give it what Primo Palveri called Class. Couples and foursomes were scattered around at the marble-topped tables, and red-uniformed waiters scurried around bearing drinks, food and even occasional plug-in telephones. There seemed to be more of the last than Malone remembered as usual; people were worrying about investments and businesses, and even those who had decided to stick it out grimly at Las Vegas and, enjoy themselves had to check up with the home folks in order to know when to start pricing windows in high buildings. Malone wondered how many people were actually getting their calls through. Since the first breakdown two weeks before, Las Vegas and virtually every other United States city had suffered interruptions in telephone service. Las Vegas had had three breakdowns in two weeks; other cities weren't doing much better, if at all.

Vaguely, Malone began looking around for handbaskets.

"Let's dance," Luba said happily. "They're playing our song."

On a stand at the front of the room a small orchestra was working away busily. There were two or three couples on the postage-stamp dance floor, whirling away to the strains of something Malone dimly remembered as: "My heart's in orbit out in space until I see you again."

"Our song?" he said.

Luba nodded. "You sang it to me the very first time we met," she said. "At the cookie-manufacturer's ball. Remember?"

Malone sighed. If Luba wanted to dance, Luba was going to dance. And so was Malone. He rose and they went to the dance floor. Malone took her in his arms and for a few bars they danced silently. At the end of that time they were much closer together than they had been, and Malone realized that he was somehow managing to enjoy himself. Thoroughly.

He thought dimly of the stripper he'd seen when he walked in on Palveri. Like Luba, she had red hair. But somehow, she looked less attractive undressed than Luba did in a complete wardrobe. Malone wondered what the funny feeling creeping up his spine was. After a second he realized that it wasn't love. Luba's hand was tickling him. He shifted slightly and the hand left, but the funny feeling remained.

Maybe it was love, he thought. He didn't know whether or not to hope so.

Luba was pressed close to him. He wondered how to open the conversation, and decided that a sudden passionate declaration would be more startling than welcome. At last he said: "Thanks for not tipping my hand."

Luba's whisper caressed his ear. "Don't thank me," she said. "I enjoyed it."

"Why are you doing this?" Malone said. "Not that I don't appreciate it, but I thought you were sore."

"Let's just say that your masterful, explosive approach was irresistible," Luba said.

Malone wondered briefly whether or not they'd turned off the air-conditioning. If he moved slightly away from Luba, he thought, he could breathe more easily. But breathing just wasn't worth it. "I will cheerfully admit," he said, "that I am a ball of fire in the feathers, as they say. But I didn't realize it was that obvious--even to a woman of your tender sensitivity."

Somehow, Luba had managed to get even closer to him. "You touch me deeply," she whispered into his ear.

Malone swallowed hard and tried to take another breath. Just one more, he thought; that would be all he needed. "What are you doing in Las Vegas?" he asked in what he hoped was a casual tone. It didn't sound very casual, though.

"I'm on vacation," Luba said in an off-handed manner. "I won't ask what you're doing; I can guess pretty well. Besides, you obviously want to keep it under cover."

"Well," Malone said, "I certainly wouldn't want what I'm doing to be broadcast aloud to the great American public out there in television-land." It was a long speech for a man without any breath. Just one more, Malone told himself, and he could die happy.

"I felt that," Luba said. "You know, Mr. Malone--"

"Call me Ken," Malone said.

"It is silly to be formal now, isn't it?" Luba said. "You know, Ken, I'm beginning to realize that you are really a very nice person--in spite of your rather surprising method of attack."

"What's surprising about it?" Malone said. "People do it all the time."

* * * * *

The orchestra suddenly shifted from the previous slow number to a rapid fire tune Malone couldn't remember having heard before. "That," he announced, "is too fast for me. I'm going to get some fresh air."

Luba nodded, her red hair brushing Malone's cheek silkily. "I'm coming, too," she said.

Surrounding the Great Universal, Malone remembered, was a small belt of parkland. He flagged a hallway car--remembering carefully to check whether or not the driver was the sniggering Murray--and he and Luba piled in and started out for the park. In the car, he held her hand silently, feeling a little like a bashful schoolboy and a little like Sir Kenneth Malone. It was a strange mixture, but he decided that he liked it.

They got out, standing in the cool darkness of the park. Overhead a moon and stars were shining. The little hallway car rolled away and they were alone. Completely alone. Malone swallowed hard.

"Sleuth," Luba said softly in the darkness.

Malone turned to face her.

"Sleuth," she said, "don't you ever take a chance?"

"Chance?" Malone said.

"Damn it," Luba said in a soft, sweet voice, "kiss me, Ken."

Malone had no answer to that--at least, no verbal answer. But then, one didn't seem to be needed.

When he finally came up for air, he said: "Lou--"

"Yes, Ken?"

"Lou, how long are you going to be here? Or in New York? What I mean is--"

"I'll be around," Lou said. "I will be going back to New York of course; after all, Ken, I do have a living to make, such as it is, and Sir Lewis is expecting me."

"I don't know," Malone said, "but it still sounds funny. A girl like you working for ... well, for the Psychical Research people. Ghosts and ectoplasm and all that."

Suddenly Lou wasn't in his arms any more. "Now, wait a minute," she said. "You seemed to need their information, all right."

"But that was ... oh, well," Malone said. "Never mind. Maybe I'm silly. It really doesn't matter."

"I guess it doesn't, now," Lou said in a softer tone. "Except that it does mean I'll be going back to New York pretty soon."

"Oh," Malone said. "But ... look, Lou, maybe we could work something out. I could tell Sir Lewis I needed you here for something, and then he'd--"

"My, my," she said. "What it must be like to have all that influence."

"What?" Malone said.

Lou grinned, almost invisibly. "Nothing," she said. "Nothing. But, my fine feathered Fed, I don't want to be pulled around on somebody else's string."

"But--"

"I mean it, Ken," Luba said.

Malone shrugged. "Suppose we table it for now, then," he said, "and get around to it later. At dinner, say ... around nine?"

"And just where," Luba said, "will you be before nine? Making improper advances to the local contingent of chorines?"

"I will make improper advances," Malone vowed, "only to you, Lou."

Lou's eyes sparkled. "Goody," she said. "I've always wanted to be a Fallen Woman."

"But I have got some things to do before nine," Malone said. "I've got to work, too."

"Well, then," Lou said in a suspiciously sweet voice, "suppose I talk to Sir Lewis Carter, and tell him to keep you in New York? Then--"

"Enough," Malone said. "Nine o'clock."

[Illustration]

XI

Somebody somewhere was wishing all the world "a plague on both your houses," and making it stick. Confusion is fun in a comedy--but in the pilot of a plane or an executive of a nation....

Back in his room, Malone put on a fresh shirt, checked the .44 Magnum in his shoulder holster, changed jackets, adjusted his hat to the proper angle, and vanished.

He had, he'd realized, exactly one definite lead. And now he was going to follow up on it. The Government was apparently falling to pieces; so was business and so was the Mafia. Nobody Malone had heard of had gained anything. Except Mike Sand and his truckers. They'd beaten the Mafia, at least.

Sand was worth a chat. Malone had a way to get in to see him, but he had to work fast. Otherwise Sand would very possibly know what Malone was trying to do. And that might easily be dangerous.

He had made his appearance in the darkness beneath one of the bridges at the southwest side of Central Park, in New York. It was hardly Malone's idea of perfect comfort, but it did mean safety; there was very seldom anyone around after dark, and the shadows were thick enough so that his "appearance" would only mean, to the improbable passerby, that he had stepped out into the light.

Now he strolled quietly over to Central Park West, and flagged a taxi heading downtown. He'd expected to run into one of the roving muggers who still made the Park a trap for the unwary--he'd almost looked forward to it, in a way--but nobody appeared. It was unusual, but he didn't have time to wonder about it.

The headquarters for the National Brotherhood of Truckers was east of Greenwich Village, on First Avenue, so Malone had plenty of time to think things out while the cab wended its laborious southeast way. After a few minutes he realized that he would have even more time to think than he'd planned on.

"Lots of traffic for this time of night," he volunteered.

The cabbie, a fiftyish man with a bald, wrinkled head and surprisingly bright blue eyes, nodded without turning his head. "Maybe you think this is bad," he said. "You would not recognize the place an hour earlier, friend. During the real rush hour, I mean. Things are what they call meshuggah, friend. It means crazy."

"How come?" Malone said.

"The subway is on strike since last week," the cabbie said. "The buses are also on strike. This means that everybody is using a car. They ca

ke it faster if they wish to walk, but they use a car. It does not help matters, believe me."

"I can see that," Malone murmured.

"And the cops are not doing much good either," the cabbie went on, "since they went on strike sometime last Tuesday."

Malone nodded, and then did a double-take. "Cops?" he said. "On strike? But that's illegal. They could be arrested."

"You can be funny," the cabbie said. "I am too sad to be funny."

"But--"

"Unless you are from Rhode Island," the cabbie said, "or even farther away, you are deaf, dumb and blind. Everybody in New York knows what is going on by this time. I admit that it is not in the newspapers, but the newspapers do not tell the truth since, as I remember it, the City Council election of 1924, and then it is an accident, due to the major's best friend working in the printing plants."

"But cops can't go on strike," Malone said plaintively.

"This," the cabbie said in a judicious tone, "is true. But they do not give out any parking tickets any more, or any traffic citations either. They are working on bigger things, they say, and besides all this there are not so many cops on the force now. They are spread very thin."

Malone could see what was coming. "Arrests of policemen," he said, "and resignations."

"And investigations," the cabbie said. "Mayor Amalfi is a good Joe and does not want anything in the papers until a real strike comes along, but the word gets out anyhow, as it always does."

"Makes driving tough," Malone said.

"People can make better time on their hands and knees," the cabbie said, "with the cops pulling a strike. They concentrate on big items now, and you can even smoke in the subways if you can find a subway that is running."

Malone stopped to think how much of the city's income depended on parking tickets and small fines, and realized that a "strike" like the one the police were pulling might be very effective indeed. And, unlike the participants in the Boston Police Strike of sixty-odd years before, these cops would have public sentiment on their side--since they were keeping actual crime down.

"How long do they think it's going to last?" Malone said.

"It can be over tomorrow," the cabbie said, "but this is not generally believed in the most influential quarters. Mayor Amalfi and the new Commissioner try to straighten things out all day long, but the way things go straightening them out does no good. Something big is in the wind, friend. I--"

* * * * *

The cab, on Second Avenue and Seventeenth Street, stopped for a traffic light. Malone felt an itch in the back of his mind, as if his prescience were trying to warn him of something; he'd felt it for a little while, he realized, but only now could he pay attention to it.

The door on the driver's side opened suddenly, and so did the door next to Malone. Two young men, obviously in their early twenties, were standing in the openings, holding guns that were plainly intended for immediate use.

The one next to the driver said, in a flat voice: "Don't nobody get wise. That way nobody gets hurt. Give us--"

That was as far as he got.

When the rear door had opened, Malone had had a full second to prepare himself, which was plenty of time. The message from his precognitive powers had come along just in time.

The second gunman thrust his gun into the cab. He seemed almost to be handing it to Malone politely, and this effect was spoiled only by Malone's twist of the gunman's wrist, which must have felt as if he'd put his hand into a loop tied to the axle of a high-speed centrifuge. The gunman let go of the gun and Malone, spurning it, let it drop.

He didn't need it. His other hand had gone into his coat and come out again with the .44 Magnum.

The thug at the front of the car had barely realized what was happening by the time it was all over. Automatic reflexes turned him away from the driver and toward the source of danger, his gun pointing toward Malone. But the reflexes gave out as he found himself staring down a rifled steel tube which, though hardly more than seven-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, must have looked as though a high-speed locomotive might come roaring out of it at any second.

Malone hardly needed to bark: "Drop it!" The revolver hit the seat next to the cabbie.

"Driver," Malone said in a conversational voice, "can you handle a gun?"

"Why, it is better than even that I still can," the cabbie said. "I am in the business myself many years ago, before I see the error of my ways and buy a taxi with the profits I make. It is a high-pay business," he went on, "but very insecure."

The cabbie scooped up the weapon by his side, flipped out the cylinder expertly to check the cartridges, flipped it back in and centered the muzzle on the gunman who'd dropped the revolver.

"It is more than thirty years since I use one of these," he said gently, "but I do not forget how to pull the trigger, and at this range I can hardly miss."

Malone noticed vaguely that he was still holding hands with the second gunman, and that this one was trying to struggle free. Malone shrugged and eased off a bit, at the same time shifting his own aim. The .44 Magnum now pointed at gunman number two, and the cabbie was aiming at gunman number one. The tableau was silent for some seconds.

"Now," Malone said at last, "we wait. Driver, if you would sort of lean against your horn button, we might be able to speed things up a little. The light has turned green."

"The local constables," the cabbie said, "do not bother with stalled cars in traffic these days."

"But," Malone pointed out, "I have a hunch no cop could resist a taxi which is not only stalled and blocking traffic but is also blatting its horn continuously. Strike or no strike," he finished sententiously, "there are things beyond the power of man to ignore."

"Friend," the cabbie said, "you convince me. It is a good move." He sagged slightly against the horn button, keeping the gun centered at all times on the man before him.

The horn began to wail horribly.

The first gunman swallowed nervously. "Hey, now, listen," he said, shouting slightly above the horn. "This wasn't anything. Just a gag, see? A little gag. We was playing a joke. On a friend."

The driver addressed Malone. "Do you ever see either of these boys before?"

"Never," Malone said.

"Nor do I," the cabbie said. He eyed the gunman. "We are not your friend," he said. "Either of us."

"No, no," the gunman said. "Not you. This friend, he ... uh ... owns a taxi, and we thought this was it. It was kind of a joke, see? A friendly joke, that's all. Believe me, the gun's not even loaded. Both of them aren't. Phony bullets, honest. Believe me?"

"Why, naturally I believe you," the cabbie said politely. "I never doubt the word of a stranger, especially such an honest-appearing stranger as you seem to be. And since the gun is loaded with false bullets, as you say, all you have to do is reach over and take it away from me."

There was a short silence.

"A joke," the gunman said feebly. "Honest, just a joke."

"We believe you," Malone assured him grandly. "As a matter of fact, we appreciate the joke so much that we want you to tell it to a panel of twelve citizens, a judge and a couple of lawyers, so they can appreciate it, too. They get little fun out of life and your joke may give them a few moments of happiness. Why hide your light under an alibi?"

The horn continued its dismal wail for a few seconds more before two patrolmen and a sergeant came up on horses. It took somewhat more time than that for Malone to convince the sergeant that he didn't have time to go down to the station to prefer charges. He showed his identification and the police were suitably impressed.

"Lock 'em up for violating the Sullivan Law," he said. "I'm sure they don't have licenses for these lovely little guns of theirs."

"Probably not," the sergeant agreed. "There's been an awful lot of this kind of thing going on lately. But here's an idea: the cabbie here can come on with us."

The top of the cabbie's head turned pale. "That," he said, "is the trouble with being a law-abiding citizen such as I have been for upwards of thirty years. Because I do not want to lose twenty dollars to these young strangers, I lose twenty dollars' worth of time in a precinct station, the air of which is very bad for my asthma."

Malone, taking the hint, dug a twenty out of his pockets, and then added another to it, remembering how much he had spent in Las Vegas, where his money funneled slowly into the pockets of Primo Palveri. The cabbie took the money with haste and politeness and stowed it away.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I am now prepared to spend the entire night signing affidavits, if enough affidavits can be dug up." He looked pleased.

"Mr. Malone," the sergeant said wearily, "people just don't realize what's going on in this town. We never did have half enough cops, and now, with so many men resigning and getting arrested and suspended, we haven't got a quarter enough. People think this strike business is funny, but if we spent any time fiddling around with traffic and parking tickets, we'd never have time to stop even crimes like this, let alone the big jobs. As it is, though, there haven't been a lot of big ones. Every hood in the city's out to make a couple of bucks--but that's it so far, thank God."

Malone nodded. "How about the FBI?" he said. "Want them to come in and help?"

"Mr. Malone," the sergeant said, "the City of New York can take very good care of itself, without outside interference."

Some day, Malone told himself, good old New York City was going to secede from the Union and form a new country entirely. Then it would have a war with New Jersey and probably be wiped right off the map.

Viewing the traffic around him as he hunted for another cab, he wasn't at all sure that that was a bad idea. He began to wish vaguely that he had borrowed one of the policemen's horses.

* * * * *

Malone wasn't in the least worried about arriving at Mike Sand's office late. In the first place, Sand was notorious for sleeping late and working late to make up for it. His work schedule was somewhere around forty-five degrees out of phase with the rest of the world, which made it just about average for the National Brotherhood of Truckers. It had never agitated for a nine-to-five work day. A man driving a truck, after all, worked all sorts of odd hours--and the union officials did the same, maybe just to prove that they were all good truckers at heart.

The sign over the door read:

National Headquarters NATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TRUCKERS Welcome, Brother

Malone pushed at the door and it swung open, revealing a rather dingy-looking foyer. More Good Old Truckers At Heart, he told himself. Mike Sand owned a quasi-palatial mansion in Puerto Rico for winter use, and a two-floor, completely air-conditioned apartment on Fifth Avenue for summer use. But the Headquarters Building looked dingy enough to make truckers conscience-stricken about paying back dues.

Behind the reception desk there was a man whose face was the approximate shape and color of a slightly used waffle. He looked up from his crossword puzzle as Malone came in, apparently trying to decide whether or not this new visitor should be greeted with: "Welcome, Brother!"

Taking pity on his indecision, Malone strode to the desk and said: "Tell Mike Sand he has a visitor."

The waffle-faced man blinked. "Mr. Sand is busy right now," he said. "Who wants to talk to him?"

Malone tried to look steely-eyed and tough. "You pick up the intercom," he said, "and you tell Sand there's a man out here who's in the cloak-and-suit business."

"The what?"

"Tell him this man is worried about a recent shipment of buttons," Malone went on.

"Mister," the waffle-faced man said, "you're nuts."

"So I'm nuts," Malone said. "Make the call."

It was put through. After a few minutes of earnest conversation the man turned to look at Malone again, dizzied wonder in his eyes. "Mr. Sand says go right up," he told the FBI Agent in a shocked voice. "Elevator to the third floor."

Malone went over to the elevator, stepped in and pressed the third-floor button. As the doors closed, the familiar itch of precognition began to assail him again. This time he had nothing else to distract him. He paid very close attention to it as he was carried slowly and creakily upward.

He looked up. There was an escape-hatch in the top of the car. Standing on tiptoe, he managed to lift it aside, grasp the edges of the resulting hole and pull himself up through the hole to the top of the car. He looked back down, memorizing the elevator, and then pulled the hatch shut again. There was a small peephole in it, and Malone put his eye to it and waited.

About twenty seconds later, the car stopped and the doors opened. A little more time passed, and then a gun, closely followed by a man, edged around the door frame.

"What the hell," the man said. "The car's empty!"

Another voice said: "Let's cover the stairway."

Two pairs of footsteps receded rapidly down the hall. Malone, gun in hand, teleported himself back to the previously memorized elevator, tiptoed to the door and looked out. The two men were standing at the far end of the hall, posted at either side of the stairwell and obviously waiting for him to come on up.

Instead, he tiptoed out of the elevator hefting his gun, and came up silently behind the pair. When he was within ten feet he stopped and said, very politely: "Drop the guns, boys."

The guns thudded to the floor and the two men turned round.

"All right," Malone said, smiling into their astonished faces. "Now, let's go on and see Mr. Sand."

[Illustration]

He picked up the guns with his free hand and put them into his coat pockets. Together, the three men went down toward the lighted office at the far end of the hall.

"Open it," Malone said as they came to the door. He followed them into the office. Behind a battered, worm-eaten desk in a dingy room sat a very surprised-looking Mike Sand.

He was only about five feet six, but he looked as if weighed over two hundred pounds. He had huge shoulders and a thick neck, and his face was sleepy-looking. He seemed to have lost a lot of fights in his long career; Sand, Malone reflected, was nearing fifty now, and he was beginning to look his age. His short hair, once black, was turning to iron-gray.

He didn't say anything. Malone smiled at him pleasantly. "These boys were carrying deadly weapons," he told Sand in a polite voice. "That's hardly the way to treat a brother." His precognitive warning system wasn't ringing any alarm bells, but he kept his gun trained on the pair of thugs as he walked over to Mike Sand's desk and took the two extra revolvers from his pocket. "You'd better keep these, Sand," he said. "Your boys don't know how to handle them."

Sand grinned sourly, pulled open a desk drawer and swept the guns into it with one motion of his ham-like hand. He didn't look at Malone. "You guys better go downstairs and keep Jerry company," he said. "You can do crossword puzzles together."

"Now, Mike, we--" one of them began.

Mike Sand snorted. "Go on," he said. "Scram."

"But he was supposed to be in the elevator, and we--"

"Scram," Sand said. It sounded like a curse. The two men got out. "Like apes in the trees," Sand said heavily. "Ask for bright boys and what do you get? Everything," he went on dismally, "is going to hell."

* * * * *

That line, Malone reflected, was beginning to have all the persistence of a bass-bourdon. It droned its melancholy way through anything and everything else. He signed deeply, thought about a cigar and lit a cigarette instead. It tasted awful. "About those buttons--" he said.

"I got nothing to do with buttons," Sand said.

"You do with these," Malone said. "A shipment of buttons from the Nevada desert. You grabbed them from Palveri."

"I got nothing to do with it," Sand said.

Malone looked around and found a chair and an ashtray. He grabbed one and sat down in the other. "I'm not from Castelnuovo," he said. "Or Palveri, or any of the Mafia boys. If I were, you'd know it fast enough."

Sand regarded him from under eyelids made almost entirely of scar-tissue. "I guess so," he said sourly at last. "But what do you want to know about the stuff? And who are you, anyhow?"

"The name's Malone," Malone said. "You might say trouble is my business. Or something like that. I see an opportunity to create a little trouble--but not for you. That is, if you want to hear some more about those buttons. Of course, if you had nothing to do with it--"

"All right," Sand said. "All right. But it was strictly a legitimate proposition, understand?"

"Sure," Malone said. "Strictly legitimate."

"Well, it was," Sand said defensively. "We got to stop scab trucking, don't we? And that Palveri was using nonunion boys on the trucks. We had to stop them; it was a service to the Brotherhood, understand?"

"And the peyotl buttons?" Malone asked.

Sand shrugged. "So we had to confiscate the cargo, didn't we?" he said. "To teach them a lesson. Nonunion drivers, that's what we're against."

"And you're for peyotl," Malone said, "so you can make it into peyote and get enough money to refurbish Brotherhood Headquarters."

"Now, look," Sand said. "You think you're tough and you can get away with a lot of wisecracks. That's a wrong idea, brother." He didn't move, but he suddenly seemed set to spring. Malone wondered if, just maybe, his precognition had blown a fuse.

"O.K., let's forget it," he said. "But I've got some inside lines, Sand. You didn't get the real shipment."

"Didn't get it?" Sand said with raised eyebrows. "I got it. It's right where I can put my finger on it now."

"That was the fake," Malone said easily. "They knew you were after a shipment, Sand, so they suckered you in. They fed your spies with false information and sent you out after the fake shipment."

"Fake shipment?" Sand said. "It's the real stuff, brother. The real stuff."

"But not enough of it," Malone said. "Their big shipments are almost three times what you got. They made one while you were suckered off with the fake--and they're making another one next week. Interested?"

Sand snorted. "The hell," he said. "Didn't you hear me say I got the first shipment right where I can put my finger on it?"

"So?" Malone said.

"So I can't get rid of it," Sand said. "What do I want with a new load? Every day I hold the stuff is dangerous. You never know when somebody's going to look for it and maybe find it."

"Can't get rid of it?" Malone said. This was a new turn of events. "What's happening?"

"Everything," Sand said tersely. "Look, you want to sell me some information--but you don't know the setup. Maybe when I tell you, you'll stop bothering me." He put his head in his hands, and his voice, when he spoke again, was muffled. "The contacts are gone," he said. "With the arrests and the resignations and everything else, nobody wants to take any chances; the few guys that aren't locked up are scared they will be. I can't make any kind of a deal for anything. There just isn't any action."

"Things are tough, huh?" Malone said hopelessly. Apparently even Mike Sand wasn't going to pan out for him.

"Things are terrible," Sand said. "The locals are having revolutions--guys there are kicking out the men from National Headquarters. Nobody knows where he stands any more--a lot of my organizers have been goofing up and getting arrested for one thing and another. Like apes in the trees, that's what."

Malone nodded very slowly and took another puff of the cigarette. "Nothing's going right," he said.

"Listen," Sand said. "You want to hear trouble? My account books are in duplicate--you know? Just to keep things nice and peaceful and quiet."

"One for the investigators and one for the money," Malone said.

"Sure," Sand said, preoccupied with trouble. "You know the setup. But both sets are missing. Both sets." He raised his head, the picture of witless agony. "I've got an idea where they are, too. I'm just waiting for the axe to fall."

"O.K.," Malone said. "Where are they?"

"The U. S. Attorney's Office," Sand said dismally. He stared down at his battered desk and sighed.

Malone stubbed out his cigarette. "So you're not in the market for any more buttons?" he said.

"All I'm in the market for," Sand said without raising his eyes, "is a nice, painless way to commit suicide."

* * * * *

Malone walked several blocks without noticing where he was going. He tried to think things over, and everything seemed to fall into a pattern that remained, agonizingly, just an inch or so out of his mental reach. The mental bursts, the trouble the United States was having, Palveri, Queen Elizabeth, Burris, Mike Sand, Dr. O'Connor, Sir Lewis Carter and even Luba Ardanko juggled and flowed in his mind like pieces out of a kaleidoscope. But they refused to form any pattern he could recognize.

He uttered a short curse and managed to collide with a bulky woman with frazzled black hair. "Pardon me," he said politely.

"The hell with it," the woman said, looking straight past him, and went jerkily on her way. Malone blinked and looked around him. There were a lot of people still on the streets, but they didn't look like normal New York City people. They were all curiously tense and wary, as if they were suspicious not only of him and each other, but even themselves. He caught sight of several illegal-looking bulges beneath men's armpits, and many heavily sagging pockets. One or two women appeared to be unduly solicitous of their large and heavy handbags. But it wasn't his job to enforce the Sullivan Law, he told himself. Especially while he was on vacation.

A single foot patrolman stood a few feet ahead, guarding a liquor store with drawn revolver, his eyes scanning the passers-by warily while he waited for help. Behind him, the smashed plate glass and broken bottles and the sprawled figure just inside the door told a fairly complete story.

Down the block, Malone saw several stores that carried Closed or Gone Out Of Business signs. The whole depressing picture gave him the feeling that all the tragedies of the 1930-1935 period had somehow been condensed into the past two weeks.

Ahead there was a chain drugstore, and Malone headed for it. Two uniformed men wearing Special Police badges were standing near the door eyeing everyone with suspicion, but Malone managed to get past them and went on to a telephone booth. He tried dialling the Washington number of the FBI, but got only a continuous beep-beep, indicating a service delay. Finally he managed to get a special operator, who told him sorrowfully that calls to Washington were jamming all available trunk lines.

Malone glanced around to make sure nobody was watching. Then he teleported himself to his apartment in Washington and, on arriving, headed for the phone there. Using that one, he dialed again, got Pelham's sad face on the screen, and asked for Thomas Boyd.

Boyd didn't look any different, Malone thought, though maybe he was a little more tired. Henry VIII had obviously had a hard day trying to get his wives to stop nagging him. "Ken," he said. "I thought you were on vacation. What are you doing calling up the FBI, or do you just want to feel superior to us poor working slobs?"

"I need some information," Malone said.

Boyd uttered a short, mirthless laugh. "How to beat the tables, you mean?" he said. "How are things in good old Las Vegas?"

Malone, realizing that with direct-dial phones Boyd had no idea where he was actually calling from, kept wisely quiet. "How about Burris?" he said after a second. "Has he come up with any new theories yet?"

"New theories?" Boyd said. "What about?"

"Everything," Malone said. "From all I see in the papers things haven't been quieting down any. Is it still Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch putting psychodrugs in water-coolers, or has something new been added?"

"I don't know what the chief thinks," Boyd said. "Things'll straighten out in a while. We're working on it--twenty-four hours a day, or damn near, but we're working. While you take a nice, long vacation that--"

"I want you to get me something," Malone said. "Just go and get it and send it to me at Las Vegas."

"Money?" Boyd said with raised eyebrows.

"Dossiers," Malone said. "On Mike Sand and Primo Palveri."

"Palveri I can understand," Boyd said. "You want to threaten him with exposure unless he lets you beat the roulette tables. But why Sand? Ken, are you working on something psionic?"

"Me?" Malone said sweetly. "I'm on vacation."

"The chief won't like--"

"Can you send me the dossiers?" Malone interrupted.

Boyd shook his head very slowly. "Ken, I can't do it without the chief finding out about it. If you are working on something ... hell, I'd like to help you. But I don't see how I can. You don't know what things are like here."

"What are they like?" Malone said.

"The full force is here," Boyd said. "As far as I know, you're the only vacation leave not canceled yet. And not only that, but we've got agents in from the Sureté and New Scotland Yard, agents from Belgium and Germany and Holland and Japan ... Ken, we've even got three MVD men here working with us."

"It's happening all over?" Malone said.

"All over the world," Boyd said. "Ken, I'm beginning to think we've got a case of Martian Invaders on our hands. Or something like it." He paused. "But we're licking them, Ken," he went on. "Slowly but surely, we're licking them."

"How do you mean?" Malone said.

"Crime is down," Boyd said, "away down. Major crime, I mean--petty theft, assault, breaking and entering and that sort of thing has gone away up, but that's to be expected. Everything's going to--"

"Skip the handbasket," Malone said. "But you're working things out?"

"Sooner or later," Boyd said. "Every piece of equipment and every man in the FBI is working overtime; we can't be stopped forever."

"I'll wave flags," Malone said bitterly. "And I wish I could join you."

"Believe me," Boyd said, "you don't know when you're well off."

Malone switched off. He looked at his watch; it was ten-thirty.

XII

That made it eight-thirty in Las Vegas. Malone opened his eyes again in his hotel room there. He had half an hour to spare until his dinner date with Luba. That gave him plenty of time to shower, shave and dress, and he felt pleased to have managed the timing so neatly.

Two minutes later, he was soaking in the luxury of a hot tub allowing the warmth to relax his body while his mind turned over the facts he had collected. There were a lot of them, but they didn't seem to mean anything special.

The world, he told himself, was going to hell in a handbasket. That was all very well and good, but just what was the handbasket made of? Burris' theory, the more he thought about it, was a pure case of mental soapsuds, with perhaps a dash of old cotton-candy to make confusion even worse confounded.

And there wasn't any other theory, was there?

Well, Malone reflected, there was one, or at least a part of one. Her Majesty had said that everything was somehow tied up with the mental bursts--and that sounded a lot more probable. Assuming that the bursts and the rest of the mixups were not connected made, as a matter of fact, very little sense; it was multiplying hypotheses without reason. When two unusual things happen, they have at least one definite connection: they're both unusual. The sensible thing to do, Malone thought, was to look for more connections.

Which meant asking who was causing the bursts, and why. Her Majesty had said that she didn't know, and couldn't do it herself. Obviously, though, some telepath or a team of telepaths was doing the job. And the only trouble with that, Malone reflected sadly, was that all telepaths were in the Yucca Flats laboratory.

It was at this point that he sat upright in the tub, splashing water over the floor and gripping the soap with a strange excitement. Who'd ever said that all the telepaths were in Yucca Flats? All the ones so far discovered were--but that, obviously, was an entirely different matter.

Her majesty didn't know about any others, true. But Malone thought of his own mind-shield. If he could make himself telepathically "invisible," why couldn't someone else? Dr. Marshall's theories seemed to point the other way--but they only went for telepaths like Her Majesty, who were psychotic. A sane telepath, Malone thought, might conceivably develop such a mind-shield.

All known telepaths were nuts, he told himself. Now, he began to see why.

started out, two years before, hunting for nuts, and for idiots. But they wouldn't even know anything about sane telepaths--the sane ones probably wouldn't even want to communicate with them.

A sane telepath was pretty much of an unknown quantity. But that, Malone told himself with elation, was exactly what he was looking for. Could a sane telepath do what an insane one couldn't--and project thoughts, or at least mental bursts?

He got out of the cooling tub and grabbed for a terry-cloth robe. Not even bothering about the time, he closed his eyes. When he opened them again he was in the Yucca Flats apartment of Dr. Thomas O'Connor.

O'Connor wasn't sleeping, exactly. He sat in a chair in his bare-looking living room, a book open on his lap, his head nodding slightly. Malone's entrance made no sounds, and O'Connor didn't move or look around.

"Doctor," Malone said, "is it possible that--"

O'Connor came up off the chair a good foot and a half. He went: "Eee," and came down again, still gripping the book. His head turned.

"It's me," Malone said.

"Indeed," O'Connor said. "Indeed indeed. My goodness." He opened his mouth some more but no words came out of it. "Eee," he said again, at last, in a conversational tone.

Malone took a deep breath. "I'm sorry I startled you," he said, "but this is important and it couldn't wait." O'Connor stared blankly at him. "Dr. O'Connor," Malone said, "it's me. Kenneth J. Malone. I want to talk to you."

* * * * *

At last O'Connor's expression returned almost to normal. "Mr. Malone," he said, "you are undressed."

Malone sighed. "This is important, doctor," he said. "Let's not waste time with all that kind of thing."

"But, Mr. Malone--" O'Connor began frostily.

"I need some information," Malone said, "and maybe you've got it. What do you know about telepathic projection?"

"About what?" O'Connor said. "Do you mean nontelepaths receiving some sort of ... communication from telepaths?"

"Right," Malone said. "Mind-to-mind communication, of course; I'm not interested in the United States mail or the telephone companies. How about it, doctor? Is it possible?"

O'Connor gnawed at his lower lip for a second. "There have been cases reported," he said at last. "Very few have been written up with any accuracy, and those seem to be confined to close relatives or loved ones of the person projecting the message."

"Is that necessary?" Malone said. "Isn't it possible that--"

"Further," O'Connor said, getting back into his lecture-room stride, "I think you'll find that the ... ah ... message so received is one indicating that the projector of such a message is in dire peril. He has, for instance, been badly injured, or is rapidly approaching death, or else he has narrowly escaped death."

"What does that have to do with it?" Malone said. "I mean, why should all those requirements be necessary?"

O'Connor frowned slightly. "Because," he said, "the amount of psionic energy necessary for such a feat is tremendous. Usually, it is the final burst of energy, the outpouring of all the remaining psionic force immediately before death. And if death does not occur, the person is at the least greatly weakened; his mind, if it ever does recover, needs time and rest to do so."

"And he reaches a relative or a loved one," Malone said, "because the linkage is easier; there's some thought of him in that other mind for him to 'tune in' on."

"We assume so," O'Connor said.

"Very well, then," Malone said. "I'll assume so, too. But if the energy is so great, then a person couldn't do this sort of thing very often."

"Hardly," O'Connor said.

Malone nodded. "It's like ... like giving blood to a blood bank," he said. "Giving ... oh, three quarts of blood. It might not kill you. But if it didn't, you'd be weak for a long time."

"Exactly," O'Connor said. "A good analogy, Mr. Malone." Malone looked at him and felt relieved that he'd managed to get the conversation onto pure lecture-room science so quickly. O'Connor, easily at home in that world, had been able to absorb the shock of Malone's sudden appearance while providing the facts in his own inimitable, frozen manner.

"So one telepath couldn't go on doing it all the time," he said. "But--how about several people?"

"Several people?" O'Connor said.

"I mean ... well, let's look at that blood bank again," Malone said. "You need three quarts of blood. But one person doesn't have to give it. Suppose twelve people gave half a pint each."

"Ah," O'Connor said. "I see. Or twenty-four people, giving a quarter-pint each. Or--"

"That's the idea," Malone said hurriedly. "I guess there'd be a point of diminishing returns, but that's the point. Would something like that be possible?"

O'Connor thought for what seemed like a long time. "It might," he said at last. "At least theoretically. But it would take a great deal of mental co-ordination among the participants. They would all have to be telepaths, of course."

"In order to mesh their thoughts right on the button, and direct them properly and at the correct time," Malone said. "Right?"

"Ah ... correct," O'Connor said. "Given that, Mr. Malone, I imagine that it might possibly be done."

"Wonderful," Malone said.

"However," O'Connor said, apparently glad to throw even a little cold water on the notion, "it could not be done for very long periods of time, you understand. It would happen in rather short bursts."

"That's right," Malone said, enjoying the crestfallen look on O'Connor's face. "That's exactly what I was looking for."

"I'm ... ah ... glad to have been of service," O'Connor said. "However, Mr. Malone, I should like to request--"

"Oh, don't worry," Malone said. "I won't slam the door." He vanished.

* * * * *

It was eight-fifty. Hurriedly, he rinsed himself off, shaved and put on his evening clothes. But he was still late--it was two minutes after nine when he showed up at the door that led off the lobby to the Universal Joint. Luba was, surprisingly, waiting for him there.

"Ready for a vast feast?" she asked pleasantly.

"In about a minute and a half," Malone said. "Do you mind waiting that long?"

"Frankly," Luba said, "in five minutes I will be gnawing holes in the gold paneling around here. And I do want to catch the first floor show, too. I understand they've got a girl who has--"

"That," Malone said sternly, "should interest me more than it does you."

"I'm always interested in what the competition is doing," Luba said.

"Nevertheless," Malone began, and stopped. After a second he started again: "Anyhow, this is important."

[Illustration]

"All right," she said instantly. "What is it?"

He led her away from the door to an alcove in the lobby where they could talk without being overheard. "Can you get hold of Sir Lewis at this time of night?" he asked.

"Sir Lewis?" she said. "If ... if it's urgent, I suppose I could."

"It's urgent," Malone said. "I need all the data on telepathic projection I can get. The scientists have given me some of it--maybe Psychical Research has some more. I imagine it's all mixed up with ghosts and ectoplasm, but--"

"Telepathic projection," Luba said. "Is that where a person projects a thought into somebody else's mind?"

"That's it," Malone said. "Can Sir Lewis get me all the data on that tonight?"

"Tonight?" Luba said. "It's pretty late and what with sending them from New York to Nevada--"

"Don't bother about that," Malone said. "Just send 'em to the FBI Offices in New York. I'll have the boys there make copies and send the copies on." Instead, he thought, he would teleport to New York himself. But Luba definitely didn't have to know that.

"He'd have to send the originals," Luba said.

"I'll guarantee their safety," Malone said. "But I need the data right now."

Luba hesitated.

"Tell him to bill the FBI," Malone said. "Call him collect and he can bill the phone call, too."

"All right, Ken," Luba said at last. "I'll try."

She went off to make the call, and came back in a few minutes.

"O.K.?" Malone said.

She smiled at him, very gently. "O.K.," she said. "Now let's go in to dinner, before I get any hungrier and the Great Universal loses some of its paneling."

Dinner, Malone told himself, was going to be wonderful. He was alone with Luba, and he was in a fancy, fine, expensive place. He was happy, and Luba was happy, and everything was going to be perfectly frabjous.

It was. He had no desire whatever, when dinner and the floor show were over, to leave Luba. Unfortunately, he did have work to do--work that was more important than anything else he could imagine. He made a tentative date for the next day, went to his room, and from there teleported himself to FBI Headquarters, New York.

The agent-in-charge looked up at him. "Hey," he said. "I thought you were on vacation, Malone."

"How come everybody knows about me being on vacation?" Malone said sourly.

The agent-in-charge shrugged. "The only leave not canceled?" he said. "Hell, it was all over the place in five minutes."

"O.K., O.K.," Malone said. "Don't remind me. Is there a package for me?"

The agent-in-charge produced a large box. "A messenger brought it," he said. "From the Psychical Research Society," he said. "What is it, ghosts?"

"Dehydrated," Malone said. "Just add ectoplasm and out they come, shouting Boo! at everybody."

"Sounds wonderful," the agent-in-charge said. "Can I come to the party?"

"First," Malone said judiciously, "you'd have to be dead. Of course I can arrange that--"

"Thanks," the agent-in-charge said, leaving in a hurry. Malone went on down to his office and opened the box. It contained books, pamphlets and reports from Sir Lewis, all dealing with some area of telepathic projection. He spent a few minutes looking them over and trying to make some connected sense out of them, but finally he gave up and just sat and thought. The material seemed to be no help at all; it told him even less than Dr. O'Connor had.

What he needed, he decided, was somebody to talk to. But who? He couldn't talk to the FBI, and nobody else knew much about what he was trying to investigate. He thought of Her Majesty and rejected the notion with a sigh. No, what he needed was somebody smart and quick, somebody who could be depended on, somebody with training and knowledge.

And then, very suddenly, he knew who he wanted.

"Well, now, Sir Kenneth," he said. "Let's put everything together and see what happens."

"Indeed," said Sir Kenneth Malone, "it is high time we did so, Sirrah. Proceed: I shall attend."

* * * * *

"Let's start from the beginning," Malone said. "We know there's confusion in all parts of the country--in all parts of the world, I guess. And we know that confusion is being caused by carefully timed accidents and errors. We also know that these errors appear to be accompanied by violent bursts of psionic static--violent energy. And we know, further, that on three specific occasions, these bursts of energy were immediately followed by a reversal of policy in the mind of the person on the receiving end."

"You mean," Sir Kenneth put in, "that these gentlemen changed their opinions."

"Correct," Malone said. "I refer, of course, to the firm of Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch, Spying Done Cheap."

"Indeed," Sir Kenneth said. "Then the operators of this strange force, whatever it may prove to be, must have some interest in allowing the spies' confession?"

"Maybe," Malone said. "Let's leave that for later. To get back to the beginning of all this: it seems to me to follow that the accidents and errors which have caused all the confusion throughout the world happen because somebody's mind is changed just the right amount at the right time. A man does something he didn't intend to do--or else he forgets to do it at all."

"Ah," Sir Kenneth said. "We have done those things we ought not to have done; we have left undone those things we ought to have done. And you feel, Sirrah, that a telepathic command is the cause of this confusion?"

"A series of them," Malone said. "But we also know, from Dr. O'Connor, that it takes a great deal of psychic energy to perform this particular trick--more than a person can normally afford to expend."

"Marry, now," Sir Kenneth said. "Meseemeth this is not reasonable. Changing the mind of a man indeed seems a small thing in comparison to teleportation, or psychokinesis, or levitation or any such witchery. And yet it take more power than any of these?"

Malone thought for a second. "Sure it does," he said. "I'd say it was a matter of resistance. Moving an inanimate object is pretty simple--comparatively, anyhow--because inert matter has no mental resistance."

"And moving oneself?" Sir Kenneth said.

"There's some resistance there, probably," Malone said. "But you'll remember that the Fueyo system of training for teleportation involved overcoming your own mental resistance to the idea."

"True," Sir Kenneth said. "'Tis true. Then let us agree that it takes great power to effect this change. Where does our course point from that agreement, Sirrah?"

"Next," Malone said, "we have to do a little supposing. This project must be handled by a fairly large group, since no individual can do it alone. This large group has to be telepathic--and not only for the reasons Dr. O'Connor and I specified."

"And why else?" Sir Kenneth demanded.

"They've also got to know exactly when to make this victim of theirs change his mind," Malone said. "Right?"

"Correct," Sir Kenneth said.

"We've got to look for a widespread organization of telepaths," Malone said, "with enough mental discipline to hold onto a tough mental shield. Strong, trained, sane men."

"A difficult assignment," Sir Kenneth commented.

"Well," Malone said, "suppose you hold on for a second--don't go away--and let me figure something out."

"I shall wait," sir Kenneth said, "without."

"Without what?" Malone murmured. But there was no time for games. Now, then, he told himself--and sneezed.

He shook his head, cursed softly and went on.

Now, then....

* * * * *

There was an organization, spread all over the Western world, and with what were undoubtedly secret branches in the Soviet Union. The organization had to be an old one--because it had to have trained telepaths, of a high degree of efficiency. And training took time.

There was something else to consider, too. In order to organize to such a degree that they could wreak the complete havoc they were wreaking, the organization couldn't be completely secret; there are always leaks, always suspicious events, and a society that spent time covering all of those up would have no time for anything else.

So the organization had to be a known one, in the Western world at least--a known group, masquerading as something else.

So far, everything made sense. Malone frowned and tried to think. Where, he wondered, did he go from here?

Maybe this time a list would help. He found a pencil and a piece of paper, and headed the paper: Organization. Then he started putting down what he knew about it, and what he'd figured out:

1. Large 2. Old 3. Disguised

It sounded, so far, just a little like Frankenstein's Monster wearing a red wig. But what else did he know about it?

After a second's thought, he murmured: "Nothing," and put the pencil down.

But that, he realized, wasn't quite true. He knew one more thing about the organization. He knew they'd probably be immune to the confusion everybody else was suffering from. The organization would be--had to be--efficient. It would be composed of intelligent, superbly co-operative people, who could work together as a unit without in the least impairing their own individuality.

He reached for the pencil again, and put down:

4. Efficient

He looked at it. Now it didn't remind him so much of the Monster. But it didn't look terribly familiar, either. Who did he know, he thought, who was large, old, disguised and efficient?

It sounded like an improbable combination. He set the paper down, clearing off some of the PRS books to make room for it. And then he stopped.

The papers the PRS had sent him....

And he'd gotten them so quickly, so efficiently....

They were a large organization....

And an old one....

He looked for a desk phone, found one and grabbed at it frantically.

* * * * *

The girl who answered the phone looked familiar. Malone suddenly remembered to check the time--it was just after nine. The girl stared at him. She did not look terribly old, but she was large and she had to be disguised. There seemed to be a lot of teeth running around in this case, Malone thought, between the burlesque stripper in Las Vegas and Miss Dental Display here in New York. Nobody, he told himself, could have collected that many teeth honestly.

"Psychical Research Society," she said. "Oh, Mr. Malone. Good morning."

"Sir Lewis," Malone said in a rush. "Sir Lewis Carter. I want to talk to him. Hurry."

"Sir Lewis Carter?" the girl said very slowly. "Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Malone, but he won't be in at all today."

"Home number," Malone said desperately. "I've got to."

"Well, I can give you that, Mr. Malone," she said, "but it wouldn't do you any good, really. Because he went away on his vacation and when he does that he never tells us where. You know? He won't be back for two or three weeks," she added as an afterthought.

Malone said: "Oog," and thought for less than a second. "Somebody official," he said. "Got to talk to somebody official. Now."

"Oh, I can't do that either, Mr. Malone," the toothy girl said. "All of the executives already left on their vacation. They just left a skeleton force here at the office."

"They're all gone?" Malone said hollowly.

"That's right," the girl said with great cheer. "As a matter of fact, I'm in charge now. You know?"

"I'm afraid I do," Malone said. "It's very important, though. You don't have any idea where any of them went?"

"None at all," she said. "I'm sorry, but that's how it is. Maybe if you were me you'd ask questions, but I just follow orders and those were my orders. To take over until they get back. You know? They didn't tell me where and I just didn't ask."

"Great," Malone said. He wanted to shoot himself. Everything was obvious now--about twenty-four hours too late. And now, they'd all gone--for two weeks--or for good.

The girl's rancid voice broke in on his thoughts.

"Oh, Mr. Malone," she said. "I'm sorry, but I just remembered they left a note for you."

"A note?" Malone said. "For me?"

"Sir Lewis said you might call," the girl said, "and he left a message. If you'll hold on a minute I'll read it."

Malone waited tensely. The girl found a slip of paper, blinked at it and read:

"My dear Malone, I'm afraid that what you have deduced is quite correct; and, as you can see, that leaves us no alternative. Sorry. Miss Luba A. sends her apologies to you, since she is joining us; my apologies are also tendered." The girl looked up. "It's signed by Sir Lewis," she said. "Does that mean anything to you, Mr. Malone?"

"I'm afraid it does," Malone said blankly. "It means entirely too much."

XIII

After Miss Dental Display had faded from Malone's screen, he just sat there, looking at the dead, gray front of the visiphone and feeling about twice as dead and at least three times as gray.

Things, he told himself, were terrible. But even that sentence, which was a good deal more cheerful than what he actually felt, did nothing whatever to improve his mood. All of the evidence, after all, had been practically living on the tip of his nose for God alone knew how long, and not only had he done nothing about it, he hadn't even seen it.

There was the organization, staring him in the face. There was Luba--nobody's fool, no starry-eyed dreamer of occult dreams. She was part of the Psychical Research Society, why hadn't he thought to wonder why she was connected with it?

And there was his own mind-shield. Why hadn't he wondered whether other telepaths might not have the same shield?

He thought about Luba and told himself bitterly that from now on she was Miss Ardanko. Enough, he told himself, was enough. From now on he was calling her by her last name, formally and distantly. In his own mind, anyhow.

Facts came tumbling in on him like the side of a mountain falling on a hapless traveler, during a landslide season. And, Malone told himself, he had never possessed less hap in all of his ill-starred life.

And then, very suddenly, one more fact arrived, and pushed the rest out into the black night of Malone's bitter mind. He stood up, pushing the books away, and closed his eyes. When he opened them he went to the telephone in his Las Vegas hotel suite, and switched it on. A smiling operator appeared. Malone wanted to see him die of poison, slowly.

"Give me Room 4-T," he snapped. "Hurry."

"Room forty?" the operator asked.

"Damn it," Malone said, "I said 4-T and I meant 4-T. Four as in four and T as in--as in China. And hurry."

"Oh," the operator said. "Yes, sir." He turned away from the screen. "That would have been Miss Luba Ardanko's room, sir?" he said.

"Right," Malone snapped. "I ... wait a minute. Would have been?"

"That's correct, sir," the operator said. "She checked out, sir, early this morning. The room is unoccupied."

Malone swallowed hard. It was all true, then. Sir Lewis' note hadn't simply been one last wave of the red cape before an angry bull. Luba was one of them.

Miss Ardanko, he corrected himself savagely

"What time?" he said.

The operator consulted an information board before him. "Approximately one o'clock, sir," he said.

"In the morning?"

"Yes, sir," the clerk said.

Malone closed his eyes. "Thanks," he said.

"You're quite welcome, sir," the operator said. "A courtesy of the Great Universal Ho--"

Malone cut him off. "Ho, indeed," he said bitterly. "Not to mention ha and hee--hee and yippe-ki-yay. A great life." He whisked himself back to New York in a dismal, rainy state of mind. As he sat down again to the books and papers the door to the room opened.

"You still here?" the agent-in-charge said. "I'm just going off duty and I came by to check. Don't you ever sleep?"

"I'm on vacation, remember?"

"Some vacation," the a-in-c said. "If you're on special assignment why not tell the rest of us?"

"I want it to be a surprise," Malone said. "And meantime, I'd appreciate it if I were left entirely to my own devices."

"Still conjuring up ghosts?" the a-in-c said.

"That," Malone said, "I don't know. I've got some long-distance calls to make."

* * * * *

He started with the overseas calls, leaving the rest of the United States time for the sun to get round to them. His first call, which involved a lot of cursing on Malone's part and much hard work for the operator, who claimed plaintively that she didn't know how things had gotten so snarled up, but overseas calls were getting worse and worse, went to New Scotland Yard in London. After great difficulty, Malone managed to get Assistant Commissioner C. E. Teal, who promised to check on the inquiry at once.

It seemed like years before he called back, and Malone leaped to the phone.

"Yes?" he said.

Teal, red-faced and apparently masticating a stick of gum, said: "I got C. I. D. Commander Gideon to follow up on that matter, Mr. Malone. As you know, it's after noon here--"

"And they're all out to lunch," Malone said.

"As a matter of fact," Teal went on, "they seem to have disappeared entirely. On vacation, that sort of thing. It is rather difficult attempting any full-scale tracing job just now; our men are terribly overworked. I imagine you've had reports from the New Scotland Yard representatives working with you there--"

"Oh, certainly," Malone said. "But the hour; what does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm afraid I was thinking of our Inspector Ottermole," Teal said. "He was sent to locate Dr. Carnacki, President of the Psychical Research Society here. On being told that Dr. Carnacki was 'out to lunch,' Ottermole investigated every restaurant and eating-place within ten blocks of the offices. Dr. Carnacki was not present; he, like the rest of the Society here, appears to have left for places unknown."

"Thorough work," Malone said.

"Ottermole's a good man," Teal said. "We've checked as quickly as possible, Mr. Malone. I would like to ask you a question in return."

"Ask away," Malone said.

Teal looked worried. "Do you people think this may have anything to do with the present ... ah ... trouble?" he said. "Things are quite upset here, as you know; so many members of Parliament have resigned or ... ah ... died that the realm is being run by a rather shakily assembled coalition government. There is even some talk of giving executive power to Her Majesty until a general election can be held."

For one brief moment, Malone thought Teal was talking about Rose Thompson. Then he recalled Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and felt better. Things weren't quite as bad as he'd thought.

But they were bad enough. "We simply don't know yet," he said untruthfully. "But as soon as anything definite comes up, of course, you'll be informed."

"Thank you, Mr. Malone," Teal said. "Of course, we'll do the same." And then, still masticating, he switched off.

Paris was next, then Rome, Berlin and a couple more. Every one had the same result. From Maigret of the Paris Sureté to Poirot in Belgium, from Berlin's strict officialdom to the cheerful Hollanders, all the reports were identical. The PRS of each country had gone underground.

Malone buried his face in his hands, thought about a cigar and decided that even a cigar might make him feel worse. Where were they? What were they doing now? What did they plan to do?

Where had they gone?

"Out of the everywhere," he heard himself say in a hollow, sepulchral voice, "into the here."

But where was the here?

He tried to make up his mind whether or not that made sense. Superficially, it sounded like extremely bad English, but he wasn't sure of anything any more. Things were getting much too confused.

He close his eyes wearily, and vanished.

When he opened them, he was in his Washington apartment. He went over to the big couch and sat down, feeling that if he were going to curse he might as well be comfortable while he did it. But, some minutes later, when the air was a bright electric blue around him, he didn't feel any better. Cursing was not the answer.

Nothing seemed to be.

What was his next move?

Where did he go from here?

The more he thought about it, the more his mind spun. He was, he realized, at an absolute, total dead end.

Oh, there were things he could do. Malone knew that very well. He could make a lot of noise and go through a lot of waste motion; that was what it amounted to. He could have all the homes of all the missing PRS members checked somehow. That would undoubtedly result in the startling discovery that the PRS members involved weren't home. He could have their dossiers sent to him, which would clutter everything with a great many more pieces of paper. But he felt quite sure that the pieces of paper would do no good at all. In general, he could raise all hell--and find nothing whatever.

Now, he told himself sadly, he had the evidence to start the FBI in motion. The only trouble was that he could think of nowhere for them to go.

And, though he had evidence that might convince Burris--the PRS members, after all, had done a rather unusual fadeout--he had nowhere near enough to carry the case into court, much less make a try at getting the case to stand up once carried in. That was one thing he couldn't do, he realized, he couldn't issue warrants for the arrest of anybody at all.

[Illustration]

But, vacation or no vacation, he thought solemnly, he was an FBI Agent, and his motto was: "There's always a way." No normal method of tracking down the PRS members, or finding their present whereabouts, was going to work. They'd been covering themselves for such an emergency, undoubtedly, for a good many years--and if anyone got close, a burst of mental energy was quite enough to turn the seeker aside.

Nobody, Malone told himself grimly, was perfect. There were clues lying around somewhere; he was sure of that. There had to be. The problem was simply to figure out where to look, and how to look, and what to look for.

Somewhere, the clues were sitting quietly and waiting for him to find them. The thought cheered him slightly, but not very much. He stood up slowly and went into the kitchen to start heating water for coffee. There was, he told himself, a long night ahead of him. He sighed gently. But there was no help for it; the work had to be done--and done quickly.

But when eight cigars had been reduced to ash, and what seemed like several gallons of coffee had sloshed their way into Malone's interior workings, his mind was as blank as a baby's. The lovely, opalescent dawn began to show in the East, and Malone tendered it some extremely rude words. Then, Haggard, red-eyed, confused, violently angry, and not one inch closer to a solution, he fell into a fitful doze on his couch.

* * * * *

When he awoke, the sun was high in the sky, and outside his window the cheerful sound of too much traffic floated in the air. Downstairs somebody was playing a television set too loudly, and the voice reached Malone's semiaware mind in a great tinny shout:

"The President, taking action on the current crisis, has declared martial law throughout the nation," a voice said in an important-sounded monotone. "Exempt from this proclamation are members of the Armed Services, Special Agents and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The proclamation, issued this morning, was made public in a special news conference which--"

Malone ripped out a particularly foul oath and sat up on the couch. "That," he muttered, "is a fine thing to wake up to." He focused his eyes, with only slight difficulty, on his watch. The time was a little after two.

"Later developments will be reported as and when they occur," the announcer was saying, "and in one hour a special panel of newscasters will be assembled here to discuss this latest action in the light of present happenings. Any special rules and regulations will be broadcast over this station--"

"Shut up," Malone said. He had wasted a lot of time doing nothing but sleeping, he told himself. This was no time to be listening to television. He got up and found, to his vague surprise, that he felt a lot better and clearer-headed than he had been. Maybe the sleep had actually done him some good.

He yawned, blinked and stretched, and then padded into the bathroom for a shower and shave. After he'd changed he thought about a morning or afternoon cup of coffee, but last night's dregs appeared to have taken up permanent residence in his digestive tract, and he decided against it at last. He swallowed some orange juice and toast and then, heaving a great sigh of resignation and brushing crumbs off his shirt, he teleported himself over to his office.

Now he knew that, sooner or later, he was going to have to talk to Burris. Burris had to know, even if there was nothing to be done.

And now was just as good--or as bad--a time as any.

He didn't hesitate. He punched the button on his intercom for Burris' office and then sat back, with his eyes closed, waiting for the well-known voice.

It didn't come.

Instead, Wolf, the Director's secretary, spoke up.

"Burris isn't in, Malone," he said. "He had to fly to Miami. I can get a call through to him on the plane, if it's urgent, but he'll be landing in about fifteen minutes. And he did say he'd call in this afternoon."

"Oh," Malone said. "Sure. O.K. It isn't urgent." He was just as glad of the reprieve; it gave him one more chance to work matters through to a solution, and hand it to Burris on a silver platter. "But why Miami?" he added.

"Don't you hear about anything any more?" Wolf asked.

"I've been on vacation."

"Oh," Wolf said. "Well, the Governor of Mississippi was assassinated yesterday, at Miami Beach."

"Ah," Malone said. He thought about it for a second. "Frankly," he said, "this does not strike me as an irreparable loss to the nation. Not even to Mississippi."

"You express my views precisely," Wolf said.

"How about the killer?" Malone said. "I gather they haven't got him yet, or Burris wouldn't be on his way down."

"No," Wolf said. "The killer would be on his way here instead. But you know how things are--everything's confused. Governor Flarion was walking along Collins Avenue when somebody fired at him, using a high-powered rifle with, I guess, a scope sight."

"Professional," Malone commented.

"It looks like it," Wolf said. "And he picked the right time for it, too--the way things are he was just one more confusion among the rest. Nobody even heard the sniper's shot; the governor just fell over, right there in the street. And by the time his bodyguards found out what had happened, it was impossible even to be sure just which way he was facing when the shot had been fired."

"And as I remember Collins Avenue--" Malone started.

"Right," Wolf said. "But it's even worse now, with everything going nuts. Out where Governor Flarion was taking his stroll, there's an awful lot of it to search. The boys are trying to find somebody who saw a man acting suspicious in any of the nearby buildings, or heard a shot, or saw anybody at all lurking or loitering anywhere near to the scene."

"Lovely," Malone said. "Sounds like a nice complicated job."

"You don't know the half of it," Wolf said. "There's also the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce. According to them, Flarion died of a heart attack, and not even in Miami Beach. Everything happening down there isn't happening, according to them; Miami Beach is the one unsullied beauty spot in a mixed-up United States."

"All I can say," Malone offered, "is good luck. This is the saddest day in American history since the assassination of Huey P. Long."

"Agreed," Wolf said. "Want me to tell Burris you called?"

"Right," Malone said, and switched off.

* * * * *

The assassination of Nemours P. Flarion, he told himself, obviously meant something. It pointed straight toward some entirely new kind of answer. Granted, old Nemours P. had been a horrible mistake, a paranoid, self-centered, would-be, dictator whose final act was quite in keeping with the rest of his official life. Who else would be in Miami Beach, far away from his home state, while the President was declaring nationwide martial law?

But that, Malone told himself, wasn't the point. Or not quite the point, anyhow.

Maybe some work would dig up more facts. Anyhow, Malone was reasonably sure that he could reassign himself from vacation time, at least until he called Burris. And he had work to do; nobody was going to hand him anything on a silver serving salver.

He punched the intercom again and got the Records office.

"Yes, sir?" a familiar voice said.

"Potter," Malone said, "this is Malone. I want facsimiles of everything we have on the Psychical Research Society, on Sir Lewis Carter, and on Luba Ardanko. Both of these last are connected with the Society."

"You're back on duty, Malone?" Potter said.

"Right," Malone said. "Make that fast, will you?"

Potter nodded. "Right away," he said.

It didn't take long for the facsimile records to arrive, and Malone went right to work on them. Maybe somewhere in those records was the clue he had desperately needed. Where was the PRS? What were they doing now? What did they plan to do?

And why had they started the whole row in the first place?

The PRS, he saw, was even more widely spread than he had thought. It had branches in almost every major city in the United States, in Europe, South Africa, South America and Australia. There was even a small branch society in Greenland. True, the Communist disapproval of such nonmaterialistic, un-Marxian objectives as Psychical Research showed up in the fact that there were no registered branches in the Sino-Soviet bloc. But that, Malone thought, hardly mattered. Maybe in Russia they called themselves the Lenin Study Group, or the Better Borschch League. He was fairly sure, from all the evidence, that the PRS had some kind of organization even behind the Iron Curtain.

Money backing didn't seem to be much of a problem, either. Malone checked for the supporters of the organization and found a microfilmed list that ran into the hundreds of thousands of names, most of them ordinary people who seemed to be interested in spiritualism and the like, and who donated a few dollars apiece to the PRS. Besides this mass of small donations, of course, there were a few large ones, from independently wealthy men who gave support to the organization and seemed actively interested in its aims.

It wasn't an unusual picture; just an exceptionally big one.

Malone sighed and went on to the personal dossiers.

Sir Lewis Carter himself was a well-known astronomer and mathematician. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal Mathematical Society. He had been knighted for his contributions in higher mathematics only two years before he had come to live in the United States. Malone went over the papers dealing with his entry into the country carefully, but they were all in order and they contained absolutely nothing in the way of usable clues.

Sir Lewis' books on political and historical philosophy had been well-received, and he had also written a novel, "But Some Are More Equal," which, for a few weeks after publication, had managed to claw its way to the bottom of the best-seller list.

And that was that. Malone tried to figure out whether all this information did him any good, and the answer came very quickly. The answer was no. He opened the second dossier.

Luba Ardanko had been born in New York. Her mother had been a woman of Irish descent named Mary Foley, and had died in '69. Her father had been a Hungarian named Chris Yorgen Ardanko, and had died in the same year.

Malone sighed. Somewhere in the dossiers, he was sure, there was a clue, the basic clue that would tell him everything he needed to know. His prescience had never been so strong; he knew perfectly well that he was staring at the biggest, most startling and most complete disclosure of all. And he couldn't see it.

He stared at the folders for a long minute. What did they tell him? What was the clue.

And then, very slowly, the soft light of a prodigal sun illuminated his mind.

"Mr. Malone," Malone said gently, "you are a damned fool. There are times when it is necessary to discard the impossible after you have seen that the obscure is the obvious."

He wasn't sure whether that meant anything, or even whether he knew what he was saying. But, as the entire structure of facts became clear, and then turned right upside down in his mind and changed into something else entirely--something that told him not only who, and where, but also why, he became absolutely sure of one thing.

He knew the final answer.

And it was obvious. Obvious as all hell!

XIV

There was, of course, only one thing to do and only one place to go. Malone teleported to the New York offices of the FBI and went immediately downstairs to the garage, where a specially-built Lincoln awaited him at all times.

One of the mechanics looked up curiously as Malone headed for the car. "Want a driver?" he said.

Malone thanked his lucky stars that he didn't have to get into any lengthy and time-consuming argument about whether or not he was on vacation. "No, thanks," he said. "This is a solo job."

That, he told himself, was for sure. He drove out onto the streets and into the heavy late-afternoon traffic of New York. The Lincoln handled smoothly, but Malone didn't press his luck in the traffic which he thought was even worse than the mess he'd driven through with the happy cab driver two days before. He wasn't in any hurry now, after all. He had all the time in the world, and he knew it. They--and, for once, Malone could put real names to that "they"--would still be waiting for him when he got there.

If he got there, he thought suddenly, turning a corner and being confronted with a great mass of automobiles wedged solidly fender to fender as far as the eye could see. The noise of honking horns was deafening, and great clouds of smoke rose up to make the scene look like the circle of Hell devoted to hot-rod drivers. Malone cursed and sweated until the line began to move, and then cursed and sweated some more until he was out of the city at last.

It took quite a lot of time. New York traffic, in the past forty-eight hours, hadn't gotten better; it had gotten a lot worse. He was nearly exhausted by the time he finally crossed the George Washington Bridge and headed west. And, while he drove, he began to let his reflexes take over most of the automotive problems now that New York City was behind him.

He took all his thoughts from behind the shield that had sheltered them and arrayed them neatly before him. They were beamed, he told himself firmly, to one particular group of persons and to no one else. Everything was perfectly clear; all he had to do now was explain it.

Malone had wondered, over the years, about the detectives in books. They always managed to wrap everything up in the last chapter, which was perfectly all right by itself. But they always had a whole crowd of suspects listening to them, too. Malone knew perfectly well that he could never manage a setup like that. People

ld interrupt him. Things would happen. Two dogs would rush in and start a battle royal on the floor. There would be an earthquake or an invasion of little green Venusians, or else somebody would just decide to faint and cause a furor.

But now, at long last, he realized, he had his chance. Nobody could interrupt him. And he could explain to his heart's content.

Because the members of the PRS were telepathic. And Kenneth J. Malone, he thought happily, was not.

Luba, he was sure, would be tuned in on him as he drove toward their Pennsylvania hiding place. At least, he wanted to think so; it made things much more pleasant. And he hoped that Luba, or whoever was really tuned in, would alert everybody else, so they could all hook in and hear his grand final explanation of everything.

He opened his mind in that one special direction, beaming his thoughts to nobody else but the group he'd decided on. A second of silence passed.

And then a sound began. Malone had passed a company of soldiers some yards back, but he hadn't noticed them particularly; with the country under martial law, soldiers were going to be as common as tree frogs. Now, however, something different was happening.

Malone felt the car tremble slightly, and stopped. Past him, rolling along the side of the highway he was on, came a parade of thirty-ton tanks. They rumbled and roared their slow, elephantine way down the highway and, after what seemed about three days, disappeared from sight. Malone wondered what the tanks were for, and then dismissed it from his mind. It certainly wasn't very pleasant to think about, no matter how necessary it turned out to be.

He started up again. There were few cars on the road, although a lot of them were parked along the sides. A series of Closed signs on filling stations explained that, and Malone began to be grateful for the national emergency. It allowed him to drive without much interference, anyhow.

* * * * *

And a hearty good afternoon to all, he thought--especially to Miss Luba Ardanko. I hope she's tuned in ... and, if she isn't, I hope somebody alerts her. Frankly, I'd rather talk to her than to anyone else I can think of at the moment. As a matter of fact, it's a little easier to concentrate if I talk out loud, so I think I'll do that.

He swerved the car at this point, neatly avoiding a broken wooden crate that crouched in wait for him. "Road hog," he told it bitterly, and went on.

"Nothing personal," he went on after a second. "I don't care if you're all listening in, as a matter of fact. And I'm not going to hide anything." He thought a second, and then added: "Frankly, I'm not sure I've got anything to hide."

He paused and, in his imagination, he could almost hear Luba's voice.

I'm listening, Kenneth, she said. Go on.

He fished around in his mind for a second, wondering exactly where to start. Then he decided, in the best traditions of the detective story, not to mention "Alice in Wonderland," to start at the beginning.

"The dear old Psychical Research Society," he said, speaking earnestly to his windshield, "has been going on for a good many years now--since the 1880's, as a matter of fact. That's a long time and it adds up to a lot of Psychical Research. A lot of famous and intelligent people have belonged to the Society. And, with all that, it's hardly surprising that, after nearly a hundred years of work, something finally turned up."

At this point, there was another interruption. A couple of sawhorses blocked the road ahead of Malone. As he stared at them, he felt his prescience begin to itch. He took out his .44 Magnum and slowed the car, memorizing the road as he passed it. He stopped the car before the sawhorses. Three enlisted men carrying M-1 rifles, and a stern, pale captain, his bars pointing sideways and glittering on his shoulders, appeared from the sides of the road.

The captain's voice was a military bark. "Out of the car!"

Malone began to obey.

"With your hands up!" the captain snapped. Malone dropped the .44 unobtrusively into his jacket pocket and complied. Then, as he came out of the car, he teleported himself back to a section of the road he'd memorized, ten feet behind the car. The four men were gaping, dumbfounded, as Malone drew his gun and shot them. Then he removed the sawhorses, got back in his car, reloaded the .44, put it back in his holster and drove on.

"Now," he said in a thoughtful tone. "Where was I?"

He imagined Luba's voice saying: You were telling us how, all this time, it's hardly surprising--

"Oh, yes," he said. "Well, then. So you solved some of the problems, you'd set. You learned how to use and control telepathy and teleportation, maybe, long before scientific boys like Dr. O'Connor became interested. But you never announced it publicly. You kept the knowledge all to yourself. 'Is this what the common folk call telepathy, Lord Bromley?' 'Yes, Lady Bromley.' 'Much too good for them, isn't it?' And maybe it is, at that; I don't know."

His thoughts, he recognized, were veering slightly. After a second he got back on the track.

"At any rate," he went on, "you--all of your out there--are responsible for what's happening to this country and all of Europe and Asia--and, for all I know, the suburbs of Hell.

"I remember one of the book facsimiles you got me, for instance," he said. "The writer tried for an 'expose' of the Society, in which he attempted to prove that Sir Lewis Carter and certain other members were trying to take over the world and run it to suit themselves, using their psionic powers to institute a rather horrible type of dictatorship over the world.

"It was a pretty convincing book in a lot of ways. The author evidently know a lot about what he was dealing with."

* * * * *

At this point, Malone ran into another roadblock. There had been a fight of some kind up ahead, and a lot of cars with what looked like shell-holes in them were piled on one side of the road. The State Police were working under the confused direction of an Army major to straighten things out, while a bulldozer pushed the cars off the road onto the grass bordering it. The major stopped what he was doing and came to meet Malone as the car stopped.

"Get off the road," the major said surlily.

Malone looked up at him. "I've got some identification here," he said. "Mind if I get it out?"

The major reached for a gun and held it. "Go ahead," he said. "Don't try anything funny. It's been hell up and down this road, mister."

Malone flipped out his wallet and showed the identification.

"FBI?" the Major said. "What're you doing out here?"

"Special assignment," Malone said. "Oh ... by the way ... you might send some men back a ways. There are four dead mean in military uniforms lying on the road near a couple of sawhorses."

The major stared. "Dead?" he said at last. "Dead how?"

"I shot them," Malone said.

"You--" The major's finger tightened on the trigger of his gun.

"Now wait a minute," Malone said. "I said they were in military uniforms. I didn't say they were soldiers."

"But--"

"Three enlisted men carrying M-1 rifles?" Malone said. "When the M-1's out of date? And a captain with his bars on sideways? No, major. Those were renegades. Looters of some kind; they wanted to kill me and get the car and any valuables I happened to have."

The major, very slowly, relaxed his grip on the gun and his arm fell to his side. "You did the smart thing, Mr. Malone," he said.

"And I've got to go on doing it," Malone said. "I'm in a hurry."

He noticed a newspaper fluttering at the side of the road, not too near the cars. Somehow it made everything seem even more lonely and strange. The headlines fluttered into sight:

MARTIAL LAW EDICT

"MUST BE OBEYED," SAYS GOVERNOR

But Riots Are Feared In Outlying Towns

MAN AND WIFE CONFESS KILLING OF RELATIVES ABOARD PRIVATE PLANE:

Force Kin To Drop Off

There was a photo of a woman there, too, and Malone could read just a little of the caption:

"Obeying the edict of martial law laid down by the President, Miss Helen A.--"

He wondered vaguely if her last name were Handbasket.

The major was looking at him. "O.K., then," he said.

"I can go on?" Malone said.

The major looked stern. "Drive on," he said.

Malone got the car going; the roadblock was lifted for him and he went on by.

After a moment, he said: "Pardon the interruption. I trust that all the devoted listeners to Uncle Kenneth's Happy Hour are still tuned in."

Go ahead, said Lou's voice.

"All right, let's take a look at what you've been doing. You've caused people to change their minds about what they've been intending to do. You can cause all sorts of hell to break loose that way. You have a lot of people you want to get rid of, so you play on their neuroses and concoct errors for them to fight. You rig things so that they quit, or get fired, or lose elections, or get arrested, or just generally get put out of circulation. Some of the less stable ones just up and did away with themselves.

"Sometimes, it's individuals who have to go. Sometimes, it's whole groups or maybe even whole nations. And sometimes it's in between, and you manage to foul up organizational moves with misplaced papers, mis-sent messages, errors, changed minds, and everything else you can think of.

"You know," he went on, "at first I couldn't see any pattern in what was going on--though I remember telling myself that there was a kind of justice in the way this thing was just as hard on gangsters as it was on businessmen and Congressmen.

"The Congressman from Gahoochie County, Arkansas, gets himself in a jam over fraudulent election returns on the same day that the accountant for the Truckers Union sends Mike Sands' books to the Attorney General. Simple justice, I call it.

"And, you know, seen from that viewpoint, this whole caper might come out looking pretty good. If most of the characters you've taken care of are just the boys who needed taking care of, I'd say more power to you--except for one thing. It's all right to get rid of all the fools, idiots, maniacs, blockheads, morons, psychopaths, paranoids, timidity-ridden, fear-worshipers, fanatics, thieves, and the rest of the general, all-round, no-good characters; I'm all for it. But not this way. Oh, no.

"You've pressed the panic button, that's what you've done.

"You've done more damage in two weeks than all those fumblebrains have been able to do in several myriads of lifetimes. You've loused up the economy of this nation and every other civilized nation. You've caused riots in which innocent people have died; you've caused thousands more to lose their businesses and their savings. And only God Himself knows how many more are going to die of starvation and murder before this thing is over.

"And you can't tell me that all of those people deserve to die."

He slowed down as he came to a small town, and for the first time in many miles he focused on the road ahead with his full mind. The town, he saw, looked like a shambles. There were four cars tastefully arranged on the lawn of what appeared to be the local library. Across the street, a large drugstore was in flames, and surprised people were hurrying to put it out. There didn't seem to be any State Police or Army men around, but they'd passed through; Malone saw a forgotten overseas cap lying on the road ahead.

With a shock, he realized that he was now in Pennsylvania, close to where he wanted to go. A signboard told him the town he was looking at was Milford. It was a mess, and Malone hoped fervently that it was a mess that could eventually be cleaned up.

The town was a small one, and Malone was glad to get out of it so quickly.

"That's the kind of thing I mean," he said aloud. Then he paused. "Are you there, anybody?"

He imagined he heard Luba's voice saying: Yes, Ken. Yes, I'm here. Listening to you.

Imagination was fine but, of course, there was no way for them to get through to him. They were telepathic, but Kenneth J. Malone, he told himself sadly, was not.

"Hello, out there," he went on. "I hope you've been listening so far, because there isn't too much more for me to say.

"Just this: you've wrecked my country, and you've wrecked almost all of the rest of civilization. You've brought my world down around my ears.

"I have every logical reason to hate your guts. By all the evidence I have, you are a group of the worst blackguards who ever existed; by all the evidence, I should be doing everything in my power to exterminate you.

"But I'm not.

"My prescience tells me that what you've been doing is right and necessary. I'm damned if I can see it, but there it is. I just hope you can explain it to me."

XV

Soon, he was in the midst of the countryside. It was, of course, filled with country. It spread around him in the shape of hills, birds, trees, flowers, grass, billboards and other distractions to the passing motorist.

It took Malone better than two hours more to find the place he was looking for. Long before he found it, he had come to the conclusion that finding country estates in Pennsylvania was only a shade easier than finding private homes in the Borough of Brooklyn. In both cases, he had found himself saddled with the same frantic search down what seemed likely routes which turned out to lead nowhere. He had found, in both cases, complete ignorance of the place on the part of local citizens, and even strong doubts that the place could possibly have any sort of existence.

The fact that is was growing dark didn't help much, either.

But he found it at last. Rounding a curve in a narrow, blacktop road, he saw the home behind a grove of trees.

He recognized it instantly.

He had seen it so often that he felt as if he knew it intimately.

[Illustration]

It was a big, rambling, Colonial-type mansion, painted a blinding and beautiful white, with a broad, pillared porch and a great carved front door. The front windows were curtained in rich purples, and before the house was a great front garden, and tall old trees. Malone half-expected Scarlett O'Hara to come tripping out of the house at any minute shouting: "Rhett! The children's mush is on fire!" or something equally inappropriate.

Inside it, however, if Malone were right, was not the magnetic Scarlett. Inside the house were some of the most important members of the PRS--and one person who was not a member.

But it was impossible to tell from the outside. Nothing moved on the well-kept grounds, and the windows didn't show so much as the flutter of a purple curtain. There was no sound. No cars were parked around the house--nor, Malone realized, thinking of "Gone With the Wind," were there any horses or carriages.

The place looked deserted.

Malone thought he knew better, but it took a few minutes for him to get up enough courage to go up the long driveway. He stared at the house. It was an old one, he knew, built long before the Civil War and originally commanding a huge tract of land. Now, all that remained of the vast acreage was the small portion that surrounded the house.

But the original

ily still inhabited it, proud of the house and of their part in its past. Over the years, Malone knew, they had kept it up scrupulously, and the place had been both restored and modernized on the inside without harming the classic outlines of the hundred-and-fifty-year-old structure.

A fence surrounded the estate, but the front gate was swinging open. Malone saw it and took a deep breath. Now, he told himself, or never. He drove the Lincoln through the opening slowly, alert for almost anything.

There was no disturbance. Thirty yards from the front door he pulled the car to a cautious stop and got out. He started to walk toward the building. Each step seemed to take whole minutes, and everything he had thought raced through his mind again. Nothing seemed to move anywhere, except Malone himself.

Was he right? Were the people he'd been beaming to really here? Or had he been led astray by them? Had he been manipulated, in spite of his shield, as easily as they had manipulated so many others?

That was possible. But it wasn't the only possibility.

Suppose, he thought, that he was perfectly right, and that the group was waiting inside. And suppose, too, that he'd misunderstood their motives.

Suppose they were just waiting for him to get a little closer.

Malone kept walking. In just a few steps, he could be close enough so that a bullet aimed at him from the house hadn't a real chance of missing him.

And it didn't have to be bullets, either. They might have set a trap, he thought, and were waiting for him to walk into it. Then they would hold him prisoner while they devised ways to....

To what?

He didn't know. And that was even worse; it called up horrible terrors from the darkest depths of Malone's mind. He continued to walk forward.

Finally he reached the steps that led up to the porch, and took them one at a time.

He stood on the porch. A long second passed.

He took a step toward the high, wide and handsome oaken door. Then he took another step, and another.

What was waiting for him inside?

He took a deep breath, and pressed the doorbell button.

The door swung open immediately, and Malone involuntarily stepped back.

The owner of the house smiled at him from the doorway. Malone let out his breath in one long sigh of relief.

"I was hoping it would be you," he said weakly. "May I come in?"

"Why, certainly, Malone. Come on in. We've been expecting you, you know," said Andrew J. Burris, Director of the FBI.

XVI

Malone sat, quietly relaxed and almost completely at ease, in the depths of a huge, comfortable, old-fashioned Morris chair. Three similar chairs were clustered around a squat, massive coffee table, made of a single slab of dark wood set on short, curved legs. Malone looked around at the other three with a relaxed feeling of recognition: Andrew J. Burris, Sir Lewis Carter and Luba Ardanko.

Sir Lewis softly exhaled a cloud of smoke as he removed the briar from his mouth. "Malone," he asked gently, "how did you know we would be here?"

"Well," Malone said, "I just ... I mean, it was obvious as soon as I--" He stopped, frowning. "I had one thing to go on, anyway," he said. "I figured out the PRS was responsible for all the troubles because it was so efficient. And then, while I was sitting and staring at the file reports, it suddenly came to me: the FBI was just as efficient. So it was obvious."

"What was?" Burris said.

Malone shrugged. "I thought you'd been keeping me on vacation because your mind was being changed," he said. "Now I can see you were doing it of your own free will."

"Yes," Sir Lewis said. "But how did you know you'd find us here, Malone?"

There was a shadow in the room, but not a visible one. Malone felt the chill of sudden danger. Whatever was going to happen, he realized, he would not be around for the finish. He, Kenneth Joseph Malone, the cuddly, semi-intrepid FBI Agent he had always known and loved, would never get out of this deadly situation. If he lived, he would be so changed that--

He didn't even want to think about it.

"What sort of logic," Sir Lewis was saying, "led you to the belief that we would all be here, in Andrew's house?"

Malone forced his mind to consider the question. "Well," he began, "it isn't exactly logic, I guess."

Luba smiled at him. He felt a little reassured, but not much. "You should have phrased that differently," she said. "It's: 'It isn't exactly logic. I guess.'"

"Not guess," Sir Lewis said. "You know. Prescience, Malone. Your precognitive faculty."

"All right," Malone said. "All right. So what?"

"Take it easy," Burris put in. "Relax, Malone. Everything's going to be all right."

Sir Lewis waved a hand negligently. "Let's continue," he said. "Tell me, Malone: if you were a mathematics professor, teaching a course in calculus, how would you grade a paper that had al

e answers but didn't show the work?"

"I never took calculus," Malone said. "But I imagine I'd flunk him."

"Why?" Sir Lewis said.

"Because if he can't back up his answer," Malone said slowly, "then it's no better than a layman's guess. He has to give reasons for his answers; otherwise nobody else can understand him."

"Fine," Sir Lewis said. "Perfectly fine. Now--" he puffed at his pipe--"can you give me a logical reason for arriving at the decision you made a few hours ago?"

The danger was coming closer, Malone realized. He didn't know what it was or how to guard himself against it. All he could do was answer, and play for time.

"While I was driving up here," he said, "I sent you a message. I told you what I knew and what I believed about the whole world picture as it stands now. I don't know if you received it, but I--"

Luba spoke without the trace of a smile. "You mean you didn't know?" she said. "You didn't know I was answering you?"

That was the first pebble of the avalanche, Malone knew suddenly--the avalanche that was somehow going to destroy him. "You forced your thoughts into my mind, then," he said as coolly as he could. "Just as you forced decision on the rest of society."

"Now, dammit, Malone!" Burris said suddenly. "You know those bursts take a lot of energy, and only last for a fraction of a second!"

Malone blinked. "Then you ... didn't--"

Of course I didn't force anything on you, Kenneth. I can't. Not all the power of the entire PRS could force anything through your shield. But you opened it to me.

It was Luba's mental "voice." Malone opened his mouth, shut it and then, belatedly, snapped shut the channel through which he'd contacted her. Luba gave him a wry look, but said nothing. "You mean I'm a telepath?" Malone asked weakly.

"Certainly," Sir Lewis snapped. "At the moment, you can only pick up Luba--but you are certainly capable of picking up anyone, eventually. Just as you learned to teleport, you can learn to be a telepath. You--"

The room was whirling, but Malone tried to keep his mind steady. "Wait a minute," he said. "If you received what I sent, then you know I've got a question to ask."

There was a little silence.

Finally Sir Lewis looked up. "You want to know why you felt we--the PRS--were innocent of the crimes you want to charge us with. Very well." He paused. "We have wrecked civilization: granted. We could have done it more smoothly: granted."

"Then--"

Sir Lewis' face was serious and steady. Malone tensed.

"Malone," Sir Lewis said, "do you think you're the only one with a mental shield?"

Malone shook his head. "I guess stress--fixity of mind or purpose--could develop it in anyone," he said. "At least, in some people."

"Very well," Sir Lewis said. "Now, among the various people of the world who have, through one necessity or another, managed to develop such shields--"

Burris broke in impatiently. His words rang, and then echoed in the old house.

"Some fool," he said flatly, "was going to start the Last War."

* * * * *

"So you had to stop it," Malone said after a long second. "But I still don't see--"

"Of course you don't," Sir Lewis said. "But you've got to understand why you don't see it first."

"Because I'm stupid," Malone said.

Luba was shaking her head. Malone turned to face her. "Not stupid," she said. "But some people, Kenneth, have certain talents. Others have--other talents. There's no way of equating these talents; all are useful, each performs a different function."

"And my talent," Malone said, "is stupidity. But--"

She lit a cigarette daintily. "Not at all," she said. "You've done a really tremendous job, Kenneth. I was trained ever since I was a baby to use my psionic abilities--the PRS has known how to train children in that line ever since 1970. Only Mike Fueyo developed a system for instruction independently; the boy was, and is, a genius, as you've noticed."

"Agreed," Malone said. "But--"

"You, however," Luba said, "have the distinction of being the first human being who has, as an adult, achieved his full powers without childhood training. In addition, you're the only human being who has ever developed to the extent you have--in precognition, too."

She puffed on the cigarette. Malone waited.

"But what you don't have," she said at last, very carefully, "is the ability to reason out the steps you've taken, after you've reached the proper conclusion."

"Like the calculus student," Malone said. "I flunk." Something inside him grated over the marrow in his bones. It was as though someone had decided that the best cure for worry was coarse emery in the joints, and he, Kenneth J. Malone, had been picked for the first experiment.

"You're not flunking," Luba said. "You're a very long way from flunking, Kenneth."

Burris cleared his throat suddenly. Malone turned to him. The Head of the FBI stuck an unlighted cigar into his mouth, chewed it a little, and then said: "Malone, we've been keeping tabs on you. Your shield was unbreakable--but we have been able to reach the minds of people you've talked to: Mike Sands, Primo Palveri, and so on. And Her Majesty, of course: you opened up a gap in your shield to talk to her, and you haven't closed it down. Until you started broadcasting here on the way up, naturally."

"All right," Malone said, waiting with as much patience as possible for the point.

"I tried to take you off the case," Burris went on, "because Sir Lewis and the others felt you were getting too close to the truth. Which you were, Malone, which you were." He lit his cigar and looked obscurely pleased. "But they didn't know how you'd take it," he said. "They ... we ... felt that a man who hadn't been trained since childhood to accept the extrasensory abilities of the human mind couldn't possibly learn to accept the reality of the job the PRS has to do."

"I still don't," Malone said. "I'm stupid. I flunk. Remember?"

"Now, now," Burris said helplessly. "Not at all, Malone. But we were worried. I lied to you about those three spies--I put the drug in the water-cooler. I tried to keep you from learning the Fueyo method of teleportation. I didn't want you to learn that you were telepathic."

"But I did," Malone said, "And what does that make me?"

"That," Sir Lewis cut in, "is what we're attempting to find out."

Malone felt suitably crushed, but he wasn't sure by what. "I've got some questions," he said after a second. "I want to know three things."

"Go ahead," Sir Lewis said.

"One:" Malone said, "How come Her Majesty and the other nutty telepaths didn't spot you? Two: How come you sent me out on these jobs when you were afraid I was dangerous? And three: What was it that was so safe about busting up civilization? How did that save us from the Last War?"

Sir Lewis nodded. "First," he said, "we've developed a technique of throwing up a shield and screening it with a surface of innocuous thoughts--like hiding behind a movie screen. Second ... well, we had to get the jobs done, Malone. And Andrew thought you were the most capable, dangerous or not. For one thing, we wanted to get all the insane telepaths in one place; it's difficult to work when the atmosphere's full of such telepathic ravings."

"But wrecking the world because of a man with a mind-shield--why not just work things so his underlings wouldn't obey him?" Malone shook his head. "That sounds more reasonable."

"It may," Sir Lewis said. "But it wouldn't work. As a matter of fact, it was tried, and it didn't work. You see, the Sino-Soviet top men were smart enough to see that their underlings were being tampered with. And they've developed a system, partly depending on automatic firing systems, partly on individuals with mind-blocks--that is, people who aren't being tampered with--which we can't disrupt directly. So we had to smash them."

"And the United States at the same time," Burris said. "The economic balance had to be kept; a strong America would be forced in to fill the power vacuum otherwise, and that would make for an even worse catastrophe. And if we weren't in trouble, the Sino-Soviet Bloc would blame their mess on us. And that would start the Last War before collapse could get started. Right, Malone?"

"I see," Malone said, thinking that he almost did. He told himself he could feel happy now; the danger--which hadn't been danger to him, really, but danger from him toward the PRS, toward civilization--was over. But he didn't feel happy. He didn't feel anything.

"There's a crisis building in New York," Sir Lewis said suddenly, "that's going to take all our attention. Malone, why don't you ... well, go home and get some rest? We're going to be busy for a while, and you'll want to be fresh for the work coming up."

"Sure," Malone said listlessly. "Sure."

As the others rose, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he vanished.

XVII

Two hours passed, somehow. Bourbon and soda helped them pass, Malone discovered; he drank two high-balls slowly, trying not to think about anything. He felt terrible. After a while he made himself a third high-ball and started on it. Maybe this would make him feel better. Maybe he thought, he ought to break out his cigars and celebrate.

But there didn't seem to be very much to celebrate somehow. He felt like an amoeba on a slide being congratulated on having successfully conquered the world.

He drank some more bourbon-and-soda. Amoebae, he told himself, didn't drink bourbon-and-soda. He was better off than an amoeba. He was happier than an amoeba. But somehow he couldn't imagine any amoeba in the world, no matter how heart-broken, feeling any worse than Kenneth J. Malone.

He looked up. There was another amoeba in the room.

Then he frowned. She wasn't an amoeba, he thought. She was the scientist the amoeba was supposed to fall in love with, so the scientist could report on everything he did, so all the other scien--psiontists could know all about him. But whoever heard of a scien--psiontist--falling in love with an amoeba? Nobody. It was fate. And fate was awful. Malone had often suspected it, but now he was sure. Now he was looking at things from the amoeba's side, and fate was terrible.

"No, Ken," the psiontist said. "It needn't be at all like that."

"Oh, yes, it need," Malone said positively. "It need be even worse. When I have some more to drink, it'll be even worse. Wait and see."

"Ken," Luba said softly, "you don't have to suffer this way."

"No," Malone said agreeably, "I don't. You could shoot me and then I'd be dead. Just quit all this amoebing around, O.K.?"

"You're already half shot," Luba said sharply. "Now be quiet and listen. You're angry because you've fallen in love with me and you're all choked up over the futility of it all."

"Exactly," Malone said. "Ex-positively-actly. You're a psionic super-man--woman. You can figure things out in your own little head instead of just getting along on dum psionic luck like us amoebae. You're too far above me."

"Ken, listen!" Luba snapped. "Look into my mind. You can link up with me: go ahead and do it. You can read me clear down to the subconscious if you want to."

Malone blinked.

"Now, Ken!" Luba said.

Malone looked. For a long time.

*

* * *

Half an hour later, Kenneth J. Malone, alone in his room, was humming happily to himself as he brushed a few specks of dust from the top of his best royal blue bowler. He faced the mirror on the wall, puffed on the cigar clenched between his teeth, and adjusted the bowler to just the right angle.

There was a knock on the door. He went and opened it, carefully disposing of the cigar first. "Oh," he said. "What are you doing here?"

"Just saying hello," Thomas Boyd grinned. "Back at work?"

Boyd didn't know, of course, what had happened. Nor need he ever know. "Just about," Malone said. "Spending the evening relaxing, though."

"Hm-m-m," Boyd said. "Let me guess. Her name begins with L?"

"It does not," Malone said flatly.

"But--" Boyd began.

Malone cast about in his mind for an explanation. Telling Boyd the truth--that Luba and Kenneth J. Malone just weren't equals as far as social intercourse went--would leave him exactly nowhere. But, somehow, it had to be said. "Tom," he said, "suppose you met a beautiful girl--charming, wonderful, brilliant."

"Great," Boyd said. "I like it already."

"Suppose she looked about ... oh ... twenty-three," Malone went on.

"Do any more supposing," Boyd said, "and I'll be pawing the ground."

"And then," Malone said, very carefully, "suppose you found out, after you'd been out with her ... well, when you took her out, say, you met your grandmother."

"My grandmother," Boyd said virtuously, "doesn't go to joints like that."

"Use your imagination," Malone snapped. "And suppose your grandmother recognized the girl as an old schoolmate of hers."

Boyd swallowed hard. "As a what?"

"An old schoolmate," Malone said. "Suppose this girl were so charming and everything just because she'd had ... oh, ninety years or so to practice in."

"Malone," Boyd said in a depressed tone, "you can spoil more ideas--"

"Well," Malone said, "would you go out with her again?"

"You kidding?" Boyd said. "Of course not."

"But she's the same girl," Malone said. "You've just found out something new about her, that's all."

Boyd nodded. "So," he said, "you found out something new about Luba. Like, maybe, she's ninety years old?"

"No," Malone said. "Nothing like that. Just--something." He remembered Queen Elizabeth's theory of politeness toward superiors: people, she'd said, act as if they believed their bosses were superior to them, but they didn't believe it.

On the other hand, he thought, when a man knows and believes that someone actually is superior--then, he doesn't mind at all. He can depend on that superiority to help him. And love, ordinary man-and-woman love, just can't exist.

Nor, Malone told himself, would anyone want it to. It would, after all, be damned uncomfortable.

"So who's the girl?" Boyd said. "And where? The clubs are all closed, and the streets probably aren't very safe just now."

"Barbara Wilson," Malone said, "and Yucca Flats. I ought to be able to get a fast plane." He shrugged. "Or maybe teleport," he added.

"Sure," Boyd said. "But on a night with so many troubles--"

"Oh, King Henry," Malone said, "hearken. A man who looks as historical as you do ought to know a little history."

"Such as?" Boyd said, bristling slightly.

"There have always been troubles," Malone said. "In the Eighth Century, it was Saracens; in the Fourteenth, the Black Death. Then there was the Reformation, and the Prussians in 1870, and the Spanish in 1898, and--"

"And?" Boyd said.

Malone took a deep breath. He could almost feel the court dress flowing over him, as the court manners did. Lady Barbara, after all, attendant to Her Majesty, would expect a certain character from him.

After a second, he had it.

"In 1914, it was enemy aliens," said Sir Kenneth Malone.

THE END

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Occasion for Disaster, by Gordon Randall Garrett and Laurence Mark Janifer

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Asses of Balaam, by Gordon Randall Garrett

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Asses of Balaam

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Illustrator: Schoenherr

Release Date: December 2, 2009 [EBook #30583]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ASSES OF BALAAM ***

Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact Fiction October 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

The Asses Of Balaam

By DAVID GORDON

Illustrated by Schoenherr

* * * * *

The remarkable characteristic of Balaam's ass was that it was more perceptive than its master. Sometimes a child is more perceptive--because more straightforward and logical--than an adult....

[Illustration]

It is written in the Book of Numbers that Balaam, a wise man of the Moabites, having been ordered by the King of Moab to put a curse upon the invading Israelites, mounted himself upon an ass and rode forth toward the camp of the Children of Israel. On the road, he met an angel with drawn sword, barring the way. Balaam, not seeing or recognizing the angel, kept urging his ass forward, but the ass recognized the angel and turned aside. Balaam smote the beast and forced it to return to the path, and again the angel blocked the way with drawn sword. And again the ass turned aside, despite the beating f

Balaam, who, in his blindness, was unable to see the angel.

When the ass stopped for the third time and lay down, refusing to go further, Balaam waxed exceeding wrath and smote again the animal with a stick.

Then the ass spoke and said: "Why dost thou beat me? I have always obeyed thee and never have I failed thee. Have I ever been known to fail thee?"

And Balaam answered: "No." And at that moment his eyes were opened and he saw the angel before him.

--STUDIES IN SCRIPTURE

by Ceggawynn of

icum

With the careful precision of controlled anger,

Pell rippled a stomp along his right side. Clop_clopclop_clop-clopclop-clop_clop-clop_clop_clopclop.... Each of the right feet came down in turn while he glared across the business bench at Wygor Bedis. He started the ripple again, while he waited for Wygor's answer. The ripple was a good deal more effective than just tapping one's fingers, and equally as satisf

.

Wygor Bedis twitched his mouth and allowed his eyelids to slide up over his eyeballs in a slow blink before answering. Dodeth had simply asked, "Why wasn't this reported to us before?" But Wygor couldn't find the answer as simply as that. Not that he didn't have a good answer; it was just that he wanted to couch it in exactly the right

--rms. Dodeth had a way with raking sarcasm that made a person tend to cringe.

Dodeth was perfectly well aware of that. He hadn't been in the Executive Office of Predator Council all these years for nothing; he knew how to handle people--when to praise them, when to flatter them, when to rebuke them, and when to drag them unmercifully over the shell-bed.

He waited, his right legs marching out their steady rhythm.

"Well," said Wygor at last, "it was just that I couldn't see any point in bothering you with it at that point. I mean, one specimen--"

"Of an entirely new species!" snapped Dodeth in a sudden interruption. His legs stopped their rhythmic tramp. His voice rose from its usual eight-thousand-cycle rumble to a shrill squeak. "Fry it, Wygor, if you weren't such a good field man, I'd have sacked you long ago! Your trouble is that you have a penchant for bringing me problems that you ought to be able to solve by yourself and then flipping right over on your back and holding off on some information that ought to be brought to my attention immediately!"

There wasn't much Wygor could say to that, so he didn't try. He simply waited for the raking to come, and, sure enough, it came.

Dodeth's voice lowered itself to a soft purr. "The next time you have to do anything as complicated as setting a snith-trap, you just hump right down here and ask me, and I'll tell you all about it. On the other hand, if the lower levels all suddenly become infested with shelks at the same time, why, you just take care of that little detail yourself, eh? The only other alternative is learn to think."

Wygor winced a trifle then kept his mouth shut.

Having delivered himself of his jet of acid, Dodeth Pell looked down at the data booklet that

ad handed him. "Fortunately," he said, "there doesn't seem to be much to worry about. Only the Universal Motivator knows how this thing could have spawned, but it doesn't appear to be very efficient."

"No, sir, it doesn't," said Wygor, taking heart from his superior's mild tone. "The eating orifice is oddly placed, and the teeth are obviously for grinding purposes."

"I was thinking more of the method of locomotion," Dodeth said. "I believe this is a record, although I'll have to look in the files to make sure. I think that six locomotive limbs is the least I've ever heard of on an animal that size."

've checked the files," said Wygor. "There was a four-limbed leaf-eater recorded seven hundred years ago--four locomotive limbs, that is, and two grasping. But it was only as big as your hand."

Dodeth looked through the three pages of the booklet. There wasn't much there, really, but he knew Wygor well enough to know that all the data he had thus far was there. The only thing that rankled was that Wygor had delayed for three work periods before reporting the intrusion of the new beast, and now five of them had been spotted.

He looked at the page which showed the three bathygraphs that had been taken of the new animals from a distance. There was something odd about them, and Dodeth couldn't, for the hide of him, figure out what it was. It aroused an odd fear in him, and made him want to burrow deeper into the ground.

"I can't see what keeps 'em from falling over," he said at last. "Are they as slow-moving as they look?"

"They don't move very fast," Wygor admitted, "but we haven't seen any of them startled yet. I don't see how they could run very fast, though. It must take every bit of awareness they have to stay balanced on two legs."

Dodeth sighed whistlingly and pushed the data booklet back across the business bench to Wygor. "All right; I'll file the preliminary spotting report. Now get out there and get me some pertinent data on this queer beast. Scramble off."

"Right away, sir."

"And ... Wygor--"

"Yes, sir?"

"It's apparent that we have a totally new species here. It will be called a wygorex, of course, but it would be better if we waited until we could make a full report to the Keepers. So don't let any of this out--especially to the other Septs."

"Certainly not, sir; not a whistle. Anything else?"

"Just k

me posted, that's all. Scramble off."

After Wygor had obediently scrambled off, Dodeth relaxed all his knees and sank to his belly in thought.

His job was not an easy one. He would like to have his office get full credit for discovering a new species, just as Wygor had--understandably enough--wanted to get his share of the credit. On the other hand, one had to be careful that holding back information did not constitute any danger to the Balance. Above all, the Balance must be preserved. Even the snith had its place in the Ecological Balance of the World--although one didn't like to think about sniths as being particularly useful.

After all, every animal, every planet had its place in the scheme; each contributed its little bit to maintaining the Balance. Each had its niche in the ecological architecture, as Dodeth liked to think of it. The trouble was that the Balance was a shifting, swinging, ever-changing thing. Living tissues carried the genes of heredity in them, and living tissues are notoriously plastic under the influence of the proper radiation or particle bombardment. And animals would cross the poles.

The World had been excellently designed by the Universal Motivator for the development and evolution of life. Again, the concept of the Balance showed in His mighty works. Suppose, for instance, that the World rotated more rapidly about its axis, thereby exposing the whole surface periodically to the deadly radiation of the Blue Sun, instead of having a rotation period that, combined with the eccentricity of the World's orbit, gave it just enough libration to expose only sixty-three per cent to the rays, leaving the remaining thirty-seven per cent in twilight or darkness. Or suppose the orbit were so nearly circular that there were no perceptible libration at all; one side would burn eternally, and the other side would freeze, since there would be no seasonal winds blowing first east, then west, bringing the warmth of the Blue Sun from the other side.

Or, again, suppose there were no Moon and no Yellow Sun to give light to the dark side. Who could live in an everlasting night?

Or suppose that the magnetic field of the World were too weak to focus the majority of the Blue Sun's output of electrons and ions on the poles. How could life have evolved at all?

Balance. And the Ultimate Universal Motivator had put part of the responsibility into the hands of His only intelligent species. And a part of that part had been put into the hands of Dodeth Pell as the head of Predator Control.

Fry it! Something was niggling at the back of Dodeth's mind, and no amount of philosophizing would shake it. He reached into the drawer of the business bench and pulled out the duplicate of Wygor's data booklet. He flipped it open and looked at the bathygraphs again.

* * * * *

There was no single thing about them that he could pinpoint, but the beasts just didn't look right. Dodeth Pell had seen many monstrous animals in his life, but none like this.

Most people disliked and were disgusted by a snith because of the uncanny resemblance the stupid beast had to the appearance of Dodeth's own race. There could be no question of the genetic linkage between the two species, but, in spite of the physical similarities, their actions were controlled almost entirely by instinct instead of reason. They were like some sort of idiot parody of intelligent beings.

But it was their similarity which made them loathsome. Why should Dodeth Pell feel a like emotion when he saw the bathygraphs of the two-legged thing? Certainly there was no similarity.

Wait a minute!

He looked carefully at the three-dimensional pictures again.

Fry it! He couldn't be sure--

After all, he wasn't a geneticist. Checking the files wouldn't be enough; he wouldn't know how to ask the proper cross-filing questions.

He lolled his tongue out and absently rasped at a slight itch on the back of his hand while he thought.

If his hunch were correct, then it was time to call in outside help now, instead of waiting for more information. Still, he needn't necessarily call in official expert help just yet. If he could just get a lead--enough to verify or disprove the possibility of his hunch being correct--that would be enough for a day or two, until Wygor got more data.

There was always Yerdeth, an older parabrother on his prime-father's side. Yerdeth had studied genetics--theoretical, not applied--with the thought of going into Control, and kept on dabbling in it even after he had discovered that his talents lay in the robot design field.

"Ardan!" he said sharply.

At the other end of the office, the robot assistant ceased his work for a moment. "Yes, sir?"

"Come here a minute; I want you to look at something."

"Yes, sir."

The robot's segmented body was built very much like Dodeth's own, except that instead of the twelve pairs of legs that supported Dodeth's body, the robot was equipped with wheels, each suspended separately and equipped with its individual power source. Ardan rolled sedately across the floor, his metallic body gleaming in the light from the low ceiling. He came to a halt in front of Dodeth's business bench.

Dodeth handed Ardan the thin data booklet. "Scan through that."

Ardan went through it rapidly, his eyes carefully scanning each page, his brain recording everything permanently. After a few seconds, he looked back up at Dodeth. "A new species."

"Exactly. Did you notice anything odd about their appearance?"

"Naturally," said Ardan. "Since their like has never been seen before, it is axiomatic that they would appear odd."

Fry it! Dodeth thought. He should have known better than to ask a question like that of Ardan. To ask it to determine what might be called second-order strangeness in a pattern that was strange in the first place was asking too much of a robot.

"Very well, then. Make an appointment for this evening with Yerdeth Pell. I would like to see him at his home if it is convenient."

"Yes, sir," said the robot.

* * * * *

Evening was four work-periods away, and even after Yerdeth had granted the appointment, Dodeth found himself fidgeting in anticipation.

Twice, during the following work periods, Wygor came in with more information. He had gone above ground with a group of protection robots, finally, to take a look at the new animals himself, but he hadn't yet managed to obtain enough data to make a definitive report on the strange beasts.

But the lack of data was, in itself, significant.

Dodeth usually liked to walk through the broad tunnels of the main thoroughfares, since he didn't particularly care to ride robot-back for so short a distance, but this time he was in such a hurry to see Yerdeth that he decided to let Ardan take him.

He climbed aboard, clamped his legs to the robot's sides, and said: "To Yerdeth Pell's."

The robot said "Yes, sir," and rolled out to the side tunnel that led toward one of the main robot tunnels. When they finally came to a tunnel labeled Robots and Passengers Only, Ardan rolled into it and revved his wheels up to high speed, shooting down the tunnelway at a much higher velocity than Dodeth could possibly have run.

The tunnelway was crowded with passenger-carrying robots, and with robots alone, carrying out orders from their masters. But there was no danger; no robot could harm any of Dodeth's race, nor could any robot stand idly by while someone was harmed. Even in the most crowded of conditions, every robot in the area had one thing foremost in his mind: the safety of every human within sight or hearing.

Dodeth ignored the traffic altogether. He had other things to think about, and he knew--without even bothering to consider it--that Ardan could be relied upon to take care of everything. Even if it cost him his own pseudolife, Ardan would do everything in his power to preserve the safety and health of his passenger. Once in a while, in unusual circumstances, a robot would even disobey orders to save a life, for obedience was strictly secondary to the sanctity of human life, just as the robot's desire to preserve his own pseudoliving existence was outranked by the desire to obey.

Dodeth thought about his job, but he carefully kept his mind off the new beasts. He knew that fussing in his mind over them wouldn't do him any good until he had more to work with--things which only his parabrother, Yerdeth, could supply him. Besides, there was the problem of what to do about the hurkle breeding sites, which were being encroached upon by the quiggies. Some of the swamps on the surface, especially those that approached the Hot Belts, were being dried out and filled with dust, which decreased the area where the hurkle could lay its eggs, but increased the nesting sites for quiggies.

That, of course, was a yearly cycle, in general. As the Blue Sun moved from one side to the other, and the winds shifted accordingly, the swamps near the Twilight Border would dry out or fill up accordingly. But this year the eastern swamps weren't filling up as they should, and some precautionary measures would have to be taken to prevent too great a shift in the hurkle-quiggie balance.

Then there was the compensating migratory shift of the Hotland beasts--those which lived in the areas where the slanting rays of the Blue Sun could actually touch them, and which could not stand the, to them, terrible cold of the Darklands. Instead, they moved back and forth with the Blue Sun and remained in their own area--a hot, dry, fiery-bright hinterland occupied only by gnurrs, gpoles, and other horrendous beasts.

Beyond those areas, according to the robot patrols which had reconnoitered there, nothing lived. Nothing could. No protoplasmic being could exist under the direct rays of the Blue Sun. Even the metal-and-translite bodies of a robot wouldn't long protect the sensitive mechanisms within from the furnace heat of the huge star.

Each species had its niche in the World. Some, like the hurkle, lived in swamp water. Others lived in lakes and streams. Still others flew in the skies or roamed the surface or climbed the great trees. Some, like Dodeth's own people, lived beneath the surface.

The one thing an intelligent species had to be most careful about was not to disturb the balance with their abilities, but to work to preserve it. In the past, there had been those who had built cities on the surface, but the cities had removed the natural growth from large areas, which, in turn, had forced the city people to import their food from outside the cities. And that had meant an enforced increase in the cultivation of the remaining soil, which destroyed the habitats of other animals, besides depleting the soil itself. The only sensible way was to live under the farmlands, so that no man was ever more than a few hundred feet from the food supply. The Universal Motivator had chosen that their species should evolve in burrows beneath the surface, and if that was the niche chosen for Dodeth's people, then that was obviously where they should remain to keep the Balance.

Of course, the snith, too, was an underground animal, though the tunnels were unlined. The snith's tunnels ran between and around the armored tunnels of Dodeth's people, so that each city surrounded the other without contact--if the burrows of the snith could properly be called a city.

"Yerdeth Pell's residence," said Ardan.

"Ah, yes." Dodeth, his thoughts interrupted, slid off the back of the robot and flexed his legs. "Wait here, Ardan. I'll be back in an hour or so." Then he scrambled over to the door which led to Yerdeth's apartment.

[Illustration]

* * * * *

Twenty minutes later, Yerdeth Pell looked up from the data book facsimiles and scanned Dodeth's face with appraising eyes.

"Very cute," he said at last, with a slight chuckle. "Now, what I want to know is: is someone playing a joke on you, or are you playing a joke on me?"

Dodeth's eyelids slid upwards in a fast blink of surprise. "What do you mean?"

"Why, these bathygraphs." Yerdeth rapped the bathygraphs with a wrinkled, horny hand. He was a good deal older than Dodeth, and his voice had a tendency to rasp a little when the frequency went above twenty thousand cycles. "They're very good, of course. Very good. The models have very fine detail to them. The eyes, especially are good; they look as if they really ought to be built that way." He smiled and looked up at Dodeth.

Dodeth resisted an urge to ripple a stomp. "Well?" he said impatiently.

"Well, they can't be real, you know," Yerdeth replied mildly.

"Why not?"

"Oh, come, now, Dodeth. What did it evolve from? An animal doesn't just spring out of nowhere, you know."

"New species are discovered occasionally," Dodeth said. "And there are plenty of mutants and just plain freaks."

"Certainly, certainly. But you don't hatch a snith out of a hurkle egg. Where are your intermediate stages?"

"Is it possible that we might have missed the intermediate stage?"

"I said 'stages'. Plural. Pick any known animal--any one--and tell me how many genetic changes would have to take place before you'd come up with an animal anything like this one." Again he tapped the bathygraph. "Take that eye, for instance. The lid goes down instead of up, but you notice that there's a smaller lid at the bottom that does go up, a little ways. The closest thing to an eye like that is on the hugl, which has eyelids on top that lower a little. But the hugl has eighteen segments; sixteen pairs of legs and two pairs of feeding claws. Besides, it's only the size of your thumb-joint. What kind of gene mutation would it take to change that into an animal like the one in this picture?

"And look at the size of the thing. If it weren't in that awkward vertical position, if it were stretched out on the ground, it'd be a long as a human. Look at the size of those legs!

"Or, take another thing. In order to walk on those two legs, the changes in skeletal and visceral structure would have to be tremendous."

"Couldn't we have missed the intermediate stages, then?" Dodeth asked stubbornly. "We've missed the intermediates before, I dare say."

"Perhaps we have," Yerdeth admitted, "but if you boys in the Ecological Corps have been on your toes for the past thousand years, we haven't missed many. And it would take at least that long for something like this to evolve from anything we know."

"Even under direct polar bombardment?"

"Even under direct polar bombardment. The radiation up here is strong enough to sterilize a race within a very few generations. And what would they eat? Not many plants survive there, you know.

"Oh, I don't say it's flatly impossible, you understand. If a female of some animal or other, carrying a freshly-fertilized zygote, and her species happened to have all the necessary potential characteristics, and a flood of ionizing radiation went through the zygote at exactly the right time, and it managed to hit just the right genes in just the right way ... well I'm sure you can see the odds against it are tremendous. I wouldn't even want to guess at the order of magnitude of the exponent. I'd have to put on a ten in order to give you the odds against it."

Dodeth didn't quite get that last statement, but he let it pass. "I am going to pull somebody's legs off, one by one, come next work period," he said coldly. "One ... by ... one."

* * * * *

He didn't, though. Rather than accuse Wygor, it would be better if Wygor were allowed to accuse himself. Dodeth merely wanted to wait for the opportunity to present itself. And then--ah, then there would be a roasting!

The opportunity came in the latter part of the next work period. Wygor, who had purportedly been up on the surface for another field trip, scuttled excitedly into Dodeth's office, wildly waving some bathygraph sheets.

"Dodeth, sir! Look! I came down as soon as I saw it! I've got the 'graphs right here! Horrible!"

Before Dodeth could say anything, Wygor had spread the sheets out fan-wise on his business bench. Dodeth looked at them and experienced a moment of horror himself before he realized that these were--these must be--doctored bathygraphs. Even so, he gave an involuntary gasp.

The first 'graphs had been taken from an aerial reconnaissance robot winging in low over the treetops. The others were taken from a higher altitude. They all showed the same carnage.

An area of several thousand square feet--tens of thousands!--had been cleared of trees! They had been ruthlessly cut down and stacked. Bushes and vines had gone with them, and the grass had been crushed and plowed up by the dragging of the great fallen trees. And there were obvious signs that the work was still going on. In the close-ups, he could see the bipedal beasts wielding cutting instruments.

Dodeth forced himself to calmness and glared at the bathygraphs. Fry it, they had to be fakes. A new species might appear only once in a hundred years, but according to Yerdeth, this couldn't possibly be a new species. What was Wygor's purpose in lying, though? Why should he falsify data? And it must be he; he had said that he had seen the beasts himself. Well, Dodeth would have to find out.

"Tool users, eh?" he said, amazed at the calmness of his voice. Such animals weren't unusual. The sniths used tools for digging and even for fighting each other. And the hurkles dammed up small streams with logs to increase their marshland. It wasn't immediately apparent what these beasts were up to, but it was far too destructive to allow it to go on.

But, fry it all, it couldn't be going on!

There were only two alternatives. Either Wygor was a liar or Yerdeth didn't know what he was talking about. And there was only one way of finding out which was which.

"Ardan! Get my equipment ready! We're going on a field trip! Wygor, you get the rest of the expedition ready; you and I are going up to see what all this is about." He jabbed at the communicator button. "Fry it! Why should this have to happen in my sector? Hello! Give me an inter-city connection. I want to talk to Baythim Venns, co-ordinator of Ecological Control, in Faisalla."

He looked up at Wygor. "Scatter off, fry it! I want to--Oh, hello, Baythim, sir. Dodeth. Have you had any reports on a new species--a bipedal one? What? No, sir; I'm not kidding. One of my men has brought in 'graphs of the thing. Frankly, I'm inclined to think it's a hoax of some kind, but I'd like to ask you to check to see if it's been reported in any of the other areas. We're located a little out of the way here, and I thought perhaps some of the stations farther north or south had seen it. Yes. That's right: two locomotive limbs, two handling limbs. Big as a human, and they hold their bodies perpendicular to the ground. Yes, sir, I know it sounds silly, and I'm going out to check the story now, but you ought to see these bathygraphs. If it's a hoax, there's an expert behind it. Very well, sir; I'll wait."

Dodeth scowled. Baythim had sounded as if he, Dodeth, had lost his senses.

Maybe I have, he thought. Maybe I'll start running around mindlessly and get shot down by some patrol robot who thinks I'm a snith.

Maybe he should have investigated first and then called, when he was sure, one way or another. Maybe he should have told Baythim he was certain it was a hoax, instead of hedging his bets. Maybe a lot of things, but it was too--

"Hello? Yes, sir. None, eh? Yes, sir. Yes, sir; I'll give you a call as soon as I've checked. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

Dodeth felt like an absolute fool. Individually and collectively, he consigned to the frying pan Baythim, Wygor, Yerdeth, the new beast--if it existed--and finally, himself.

By the time he had finished his all-encompassing curse, his two dozen pistoning legs had nearly brought him to the equipment room, where Ardan and Wygor were waiting.

* * * * *

Four hours and more of steady traveling did very little to sweeten Dodeth Pell's temper. The armored car was uncomfortable, and the silence within it was even more uncomfortable. He did not at all feel like making small talk with Wygor, and he had nothing as yet to say to Ardan or the patrol robots who were rolling along with the armored car.

One thing he had to admit: Wygor certainly didn't act like a man who was being carried to his own doom--which he certainly was if this was hoax. Wygor would lose all position and be reduced to living off his civil insurance. He would be pitied by all and respected by none.

But he didn't look as though that worried him at all.

Dodeth contented himself with looking at the scenery. The car was not yet into the forest country; this was all rolling grassland. Off to one side, a small herd of grazing grancos lifted their graceful heads to watch the passage of the expedition, then lowered them again to feed. A fanged zitibanth, disturbed in the act of stalking the grancos, stiffened all his legs and froze for a moment, looking balefully at the car and the robots, then went on about his business.

When they came to the forest, the going became somewhat harder. Centuries ago, those who had tried to build cities on the surface had also built paved strips to make travel by car easier and smoother, and Dodeth almost wished there were one leading to the target area.

Fry it, he hated traveling! Especially in a lurching armored car. He wished he were bored enough or tired enough to go to sleep.

At last--at long last--Wygor ordered the car to stop. "We're within two miles of the clearing, sir," he told Dodeth.

"All right," Dodeth said morosely. "We'll go the rest of the way on foot. I don't want to startle them at this stage of the game, so keep it quiet and stay hidden. Tell the patrol robots to spread out, and tell them I want all the movie shots we can get. I want all the Keepers to see these things in action. Got that? Then let's get moving."

They crept forward through the forest, Dodeth and Ardan taking the right, while Wygor and his own robot, Arsam, stayed a few yards away to the left. They were all expert woodsmen--Dodeth and Wygor by training and experience, and the robots by indoctrination.

Even so, Dodeth never felt completely comfortable above ground, with nothing over his head but the clouded sky.

The team had purposely chosen to approach from a small rise, where they could look down on the clearing without being seen. And when they reached the incline that led up to the ridge, one of the armed patrol robots who had been in the lead took a look over the ridge and then scuttled back to Dodeth. "They're there, sir."

"What are they doing?" Dodeth asked, scarcely daring to believe.

"Feeding, I believe, sir. They aren't cutting down any trees now; they're just sitting on one of the logs, feeding themselves with their handling limbs."

"How many are there?"

"Twenty, sir."

"I'll take a look." He scrambled up the ridge and peeked over.

And there they were, less than a quarter of a mile away.

Dazedly, Dodeth took a pair of field glasses from Ardan and focused them on the group.

Oh, they were real, all right. No doubt of that. None whatever. Mechanically, he counted them. Twenty. Most of them were feeding, but four of them seemed to be standing a little apart from the others, watching the forest, acting as lookouts.

Typical herd action, Dodeth thought.

He wished Yerdeth were here; he'd show that fool what good his ten-to-the-billionth odds were.

And yet, in another way, Dodeth had the feeling that his parabrother was right. How could the life of the World have suddenly evolved such creatures? For they looked even more impossible when seen in the flesh.

* * * * *

Their locomotive limbs ended in lumpy protuberances that showed no sign of toes, and they were covered all over with a dull gray hide, except for the hands at the ends of their handling limbs and the necks and the faces of their oddly-shaped heads, where the skin ranged in color from a pinkish an to a definitive brown, depending on the individual. There was no hair anywhere on their bodies except on the top and back of their heads. No, wait--there were two long tufts above each eye. They--

"Do you see what they're eating?" Wygor's voice whispered.

Dodeth hadn't. He'd been too busy looking at the things themselves. But when he did notice, he made a noise like a throttled "Geep!"

Hurkles!

There were few enough of the animals--only a few small population was needed to keep the Balance, but they were important. And the swamps were drying up, and the quiggies were moving in on them, and now--

Dodeth made a hasty count. Twenty! By the Universal Motivator, these predators had eaten a hurkle apiece!

Overhead, the Yellow Sun, a distant dot of intensely bright light, shed its wan glow over the ghastly scene. Dodeth wished the Moon were out; its much brighter light would have shown him more detail.

But he could see well enough to count the gnawed skeletons of the little, harmless hurkles. Even the Moon, which wouldn't bring morning for another fifteen work periods yet, couldn't have made it any plainer that these beasts were deadly dangerous to the Balance.

"How often do they eat?" he asked in a strained voice.

It was Wygor's robot, Arsam, who answered. "About three times every work period. They sleep then. Their metabolic cycle seems to be timed about the same as yours, sir."

"Gaw!" said Dodeth. "Sixty hurkles per sleep period! Why, they'll have the whole hurkle population eaten before long! Wygor! As soon as we can get shots of all this, we're going back! There's not a moment to lose! This is the most deadly dangerous thing that has ever happened to the World!"

"Fry me, yes," Wygor said in an awed voice. "Three hurkles in one period."

"Allow me to correct you, sir," said the patrol robot. "They do not eat that many hurkles. They eat other things besides."

"Like what, for instance?" Dodeth asked in a choked voice.

The robot told him, and Dodeth groaned. "Omnivores! That's even worse! Ardan, pass the word to the scouts to get their pictures and meet at that tree down there behind us in ten minutes. We've got to get back to the city!"

* * * * *

Dodeth Pell laid his palms flat on the speaker's bench and looked around at the assembled Keepers of the Balance, wise and prudence thinkers, who had spent lifetimes in ecological service and had shown their capabilities many times over.

"And that's the situation, sirs," he said, after a significant pause. "The moving and still bathygraphs, the data sheets, and the samplings of the area all tell the same story. I do not feel that I, alone, can make the decision. Emotionally, I must admit, I am tempted to destroy all twenty of the monsters. Intellectually, I realize that we should attempt to capture at least one family group--if we can discover what constitutes a family group in this species. Unfortunately, we cannot tell the sexes apart by visual inspection; the sex organs themselves must be hidden in the folds of that gray hide. And this is evidently not their breeding season, for we have seen no sign of sexual activity.

"We have very little time, sirs, it seems to me. The damage they have already done will take years to repair, and the danger of upsetting the Balance irreparably grows exponentially greater with every passing work period.

"Sirs, I ask your advice and your decision."

There was a murmur of approval for his presentation as he came down from the speakers bench. Then the Keepers went into their respective committee meetings so discuss the various problems of detail that had arisen out of the one great problem.

Dodeth went into an anteroom and tried to relax and get a little sleep--though he doubted he'd get any. His nerves were too much on edge.

Ardan woke him gently. "Your breakfast, sir."

Dodeth blinked and jerked his head up. "Oh. Uhum. Ardan! Have the Keepers reached any decision yet?"

"No, sir; not yet. The data are still coming in."

It was three more work periods before the Keepers called Dodeth Pell before them again. Dodeth could almost read the decision on their faces--there was both sadness and determination there.

"It was an uncomfortable decision, Dodeth Pell," said the Eldest Keeper without preliminary, "but a necessary one. We can find no place in the Ecological Balance for this species. We have already ordered a patrol column of two hundred fully-armed pesticide robots to destroy the animals. Two are to be captured alive, if possible, but, if not, the bodies will be brought to the biological laboratories for study. Within a few hours, the species will be nearly or completely extinct.

"By the way, you may tell your assistant, Wygor, that the animal will go down in the files as wygorex. A unique distinction for him, in many ways, but not, I fear, a happy one."

Dodeth nodded silently. Now that the decision had been made, he felt rather bad about it. Something in him rebelled at the thought of a species becoming extinct, no matter how great the need. He wondered if it would be possible for the biologists and the geneticists to trace the evolution of the animal. He hoped so. At least they deserved that much.

* * * * *

Dodeth Pell delayed returning to his own city; he wanted to wait until the final results had been brought in before he returned to his duties. The delay turned out to be a little longer than he expected--much longer, in fact. The communicator in his temporary room buzzed, and when he answered, Wygor's voice came to him, a rush of excited words that didn't make any sense at all at first. And when it did make sense he didn't believe it.

"What?" he squealed. "What?"

"I said," Wygor repeated, "that the report has come back from the pesticide column! They've found no trace of any such animal as we've described! They're nowhere to be found, in or near the clearing!"

"I think," said Dodeth very calmly, "that I'll take a little trip over to the Brightside and take up permanent residence there. It's going to be pretty hot for me around here before long."

And he cut the connection without waiting for Wygor's answer.

* * * * *

The armored car jounced across the grassland at high speed. Behind it, two more cars followed, each taking care not to run exactly in the tracks of the one ahead, so that there would be as little damage as possible done to the grass.

In the lead car, Dodeth Pell watched the forest loom nearer, wondering what sort of madness he would find there this time. Beside him, the Eldest Keeper dozed gently, in the way that only the very young or the very old can doze. It was just as well; Dodeth didn't feel much like talking.

This time, as they approached the clearing, he didn't bother to tell the car to stop two miles away. If the animals were gone, there was no point in being cautious. All through the wooded area, he could see occasional members of the pesticide robots. He told the car to stop at the base of the little rise that he used before as a vantage point. Then, without further preliminaries, he got out of the car and marched up the slope to take a look at the clearing. Overhead, the burning spark of the Yellow Sun cast its pale radiance over the landscape.

At the ridge, he stopped suddenly and ducked his head. Then he grabbed his field glasses and took a good look.

The animals had built themselves a few crude-looking shelters out of the logs, but he hardly noticed that.

There were four of the animals, in plain sight, standing guard!

The others were obviously inside the rude huts, asleep!

Great galloping fungus blight! Was he out of his mind? What was going on around here? Couldn't the robots see the beasts?

"That's very odd," said the voice of the Eldest Keeper in puzzled tones. "I thought the robots said they'd gone away. Lend me your field glasses."

[Illustration]

As he handed the powerful glasses over to the Keeper, who had followed him up the hill, Dodeth said: "I'm glad you can see them. I thought maybe my brain had been short-circuited."

"I can see them," said the Eldest Keeper, peering through the glasses. Then he handed them back to Dodeth. "Let's get back down to the car. I want to find out what's going on around here."

At the car, the Eldest Keeper just scowled for a moment, looking very worried. By this time, the other two cars had pulled up nearby, discharging their cargo of two more Keepers apiece. While the Eldest Keeper talked in low tones with his colleagues, Dodeth stalked over to one of the pesticide robots who was prowling nearby.

"Found anything useful?" he asked sarcastically, knowing that sarcasm was useless on a robot.

"I'm not looking for anything useful, sir. I'm looking for the animals we are supposed to destroy."

"You come over and tell the Eldest Keeper that," Dodeth said.

"Yes, sir," the robot agreed promptly, rolling along beside Dodeth as he returned to where the Keepers were waiting.

"What's going on here?" the Eldest demanded curtly of the robot. "Why haven't you destroyed the animals?"

"Because we can't find them, sir."

"What's your name?" the Eldest snapped.

"Arike, sir."

"All right, Arike," said the Eldest somewhat angrily. "Stand by for orders. You'll repeat them to the other robots, understand?"

"Yes, sir," said the robot.

"All right, then," said the Eldest. "First, you take a run up that hill and look into that clearing. You'll see those creatures in there all right."

"Yes, sir. I've seen those creatures in there."

The Eldest Keeper exploded. "Then get in there and obey your orders! Don't you realize that their very existence threatens the life of all of us? They must be eliminated before our whole culture is destroyed! Do you understand? Obey!"

"Yes, sir," said the robot. His voice sounded odd, but he spun around and went to pass the word on to the other robots. Within minutes, more and more of the pesticide robots were swarming towards and into the clearing. They could hear rumbling noises from the clearing--low grunts that were evidently made by animals who were trapped by the encircling robots.

And then there was a vast silence.

Dodeth and the Keepers waited.

Not a shot was fired.

It was as though a great, sound-proof blanket had been flung over the whole area.

* * * * *

"What in the Unknown Name of the Universal Motivator is going on around here?" said Dodeth in a hushed tone. He wondered how many times he had asked himself that.

"We may as well take a look," said the Eldest Keeper.

Two hundred pesticide robots were ranged around the perimeter of the clearing, their weapons facing inward. Not a one of them moved.

Inside the circle of machines, the twenty wygorex stood motionless, watching the ring of robots. Now and then, one of them gave a deep, coughing rumble, but otherwise they made no noise.

Dodeth Pell could stand it no longer. "Robots!" He shouted as loudly as he could, his voice shrill with urgency. "I order you to fire!"

It was as though he hadn't said a word. Both robots and wygorex ignored him completely.

Dodeth turned and yelled to one of the patrol robots that was standing nearby. "You! What's your name?"

"Arvam, sir."

"Arvam, can you tell what it is those things have done to the robots?"

"They haven't done anything, sir."

"Then why don't the robots fire as they've been told?" Dodeth didn't want to admit it, even to himself, but he was badly frightened. He had never heard of a robot behaving this way before.

"They can't, sir."

"They can't? Don't they realize that if those things aren't killed, we may all die?"

"I didn't know that," said the patrol robot. "If we do not kill them, then you may be killed, and you have ordered us to kill them, but if we obey your orders, then we will kill them, and that will mean that you won't be killed, but they will, so we can't do that, but if we don't then you will be killed, and we must obey, and that means we must, but we can't, but if we don't we will, and we can't so we must but we can't but if we don't you will so we must but we can't but we--" He kept repeating it over and over again, on and on and on.

"Stop that!" snapped Dodeth.

But the robot didn't even seem to hear.

Dodeth was really frightened now. He looked back at the five keepers and scuttled toward them.

"What's wrong with the robots?" he asked shrilly. "They've never failed us before!"

The Elder Keeper looked at him. "What makes you think they've failed us now?" he asked softly.

Dodeth gaped speechlessly. The Eldest didn't seem to be making any more sense than the patrol robot had.

"No," the Keeper went on, "they haven't failed us. They have served us well. They have pointed out to us something which we have failed to see, and, in doing so, have saved us from making a catastrophic error."

"I don't understand," said Dodeth.

"I'll explain," the Elder Keeper said, "but first go over to that patrol robot and tell him quietly that the situation has changed. Tell him that we are no longer in any danger from the wygorex. Then bring him over here."

* * * * *

Dodeth did as he was told, without understanding at all.

"I still don't understand, sir," he said bewilderedly.

"Dodeth, what would happen if I told Arvam, here, to fire on you?"

"Why ... why, he'd refuse."

"Why should he?"

"Because I'm human! That's the most basic robot command."

"I don't know," the Eldest said, eying Dodeth shrewdly. "You might not be a human. You might be a snith. You look like a snith."

Dodeth swallowed the insult, wondering what the Eldest meant.

"Arvam," the Eldest Keeper said to the robot, "doesn't he look like a snith to you?"

"Yes, sir," Arvam agreed.

Dodeth swallowed that one, too.

"Then how do you know he isn't a snith, Arvam?"

"Because he behaves like a human, sir. A snith does not behave like a human."

"And if something does behave like a human, what then?"

"Anything that behaves like a human is human, sir."

Dodeth suddenly felt as though his eyes had suddenly focused after being unfocused for a long time. He gestured toward the clearing. "You mean those ... those things ... are ... human?"

"Yes sir," said Arvam solidly.

"But they don't even talk!"

"Pardon me for correcting you sir, but they do. I cannot understand their speech, but the pattern is clearly recognizable as speech. Most of their conversation is carried on in tones of subsonic frequency, so your ears cannot hear it. Apparently, your voices are supersonic to them."

"Well, I'll be fried," said Dodeth. He looked at the Elder Keeper. "That's why the robots reported they couldn't find any animal of that description in the vicinity."

"Certainly. There weren't any."

"And we were so fooled by their monstrous appearance that we didn't pay any attention to their actions," said Dodeth.

"Exactly."

"But this makes the puzzle even worse," said Dodeth. "How could such a creature evolve?"

"Look!" interrupted one of the other Keepers, pointing. "Up there in the sky!"

All eyes turned toward the direction the finger pointed.

It was a silvery speck in the sky that moved and became larger.

"I don't think they're from our World at all," said the Eldest Keeper. He turned to the patrol robot. "Arvam, go down and tell the pesticide robots that there is no danger to us. They're still confused, and I have a feeling that the humans in that ship up there might not like it if we are caught pointing guns at their friends."

As Arvam rolled off, Dodeth said "Another World?"

"Why not?" asked the Eldest. "The Moon, after all, is another World, smaller than ours, to be sure, and airless, but still another World. We haven't thought too much about other Worlds because we have our own World to take care of. But there was a time, back in the days of the builders of the surface cities, when our people dreamed such things. But our Moon was the only one close enough, and there was no point in going to a place which is even more hellish than our Brightside.

"But suppose the Yellow Sun also has a planet--or maybe even one of the more distant suns, which are hardly more than glimmers of light. They came, and they landed a few of their party to make a small clearing. Then the ship went somewhere else--to the dark side of our Moon, maybe, I don't know. But they were within calling range, for the ship was called as soon as trouble appeared.

"We don't know anything about them yet, but we will. And we've got to show them that we, too, are human. We have a job ahead of us--a job of communication.

"But we also have a great future if we handle things right."

Dodeth watched the ship, now grown to a silvery globe of tremendous size, drift slowly downward toward the clearing. He felt an inward glow of intense anticipation, and he fidgeted impatiently as he waited to see what would happen next.

He rippled a stomp.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's The Asses of Balaam, by Gordon Randall Garrett

Project Gutenberg's The Foreign Hand Tie, by Gordon Randall Garrett

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Foreign Hand Tie

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Illustrator: Barberis

Release Date: November 18, 2009 [EBook #30497]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOREIGN HAND TIE ***

Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction December 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

The Foreign Hand Tie

BY DAVID GORDON

Just because you can "see" something doesn't mean you understand it--and that can mean that even perfect telepathy isn't perfect communication....

ILLUSTRATED BY BARBERIS

* * * * *

From Istanbul, in Turkish Thrace, to Moscow, U.S.S.R., is only a couple of hours outing for a round trip in a fast jet plane--a shade less than eleven hundred miles in a beeline.

Unfortunately, Mr. Raphael Poe had no way of chartering a bee.

The United States Navy cruiser Woonsocket, having made its placid way across the Mediterranean, up the Aegean Sea, and through the Dardanelles to the Bosporous, stopped overnight at Istanbul and then turned around and went back. On the way in, it had stopped at Gibraltar, Barcelona, Marseilles, Genoa, Naples, and Athens--the main friendly ports on the northern side of the Mediterranean. On the way back, it performed the same ritual on the African side of the sea. Its most famous passengers were the American Secretary of State, two senators, and three representatives.

Its most important passenger was Mr. Raphael Poe.

During the voyage in, Mr.

ael Poe remained locked in a stateroom, all by himself, twiddling his thumbs restlessly and playing endless games of solitaire, making bets with himself on how long it would be before the ship hit the next big wave and wondering how long it would take a man to go nuts in isolation. On the voyage back, he was not aboard the Woonsocket at all, and no one missed him because only the captain and two other Navy men had known he was

rd, and they knew that he had been dropped overboard at Istanbul.

The sleek, tapered cylindroid might easily have been mistaken for a Naval torpedo, since it was roughly the same si

nd shape. Actually, it was a sort of hybrid, combining the torpedo

two-man submarine that the Japanese had used in World War II, plus refinements contributed by such apparently di

s skin-diving, cybernetics, and nucleonics.

Inside this one-man underwater vessel, Raphael Poe lay prone, guiding the little atomic-powered submarine across the Black Sea, past Odessa, and up the Dnieper. The first leg, the four hundred miles

m the Bosporous to the mouth of the river, was relatively

. The two hundred and sixty miles from there

the Dnepropetrovsk was a little more difficult, but not terribly so. It became increasingly more difficult as the Dnieper narrowed and became more shallow.

to Kiev. His course changed at Dnepropetrovsk, from northeast to northwest, for the next two hundred

iles. At Kiev, the river changed course again, heading north. Three hundred and fifty miles farther on, at Smolensk, he was heading almost due east.

It had not been an easy trip. At night, he had surfaced to get his bearings and to recharge the air tanks. Several times, he had had to take to the land, using the caterpillar treads on the little machine, because of obstacles in the river.

At the end of the ninth day, he was still one hundred eighty miles from Moscow, but, at that point, he got out of the submarine and prepared himself for the trip overland. When he was ready, he pressed a special button on the control panel of the expensive little craft. Immediately, the special robot brain took over. It had recorded the trip upstream; by applying that information in reverse--a "mirror image," so to speak--it began guiding itself back toward Istanbul, applying the necessary corrective factors that made the difference between an upstream and a downstream trip. If it had made a mistake or had been discovered, it would have blown itself to bits. As a tribute to modern robotics and ultra-microminiaturization, it is a fact that the little craft was picked up five days later a few miles from Istanbul by the U.S.S. Paducah.

By that time, a certain Vladimir Turenski, a shambling not-too-bright deaf mute, had made his fully documented appearance in Moscow.

* * * * *

Spies, like fairies and other such elusive sprites, traditionally come in rings. The reason for this circumstructural metaphor is obscure, but it remains a fact that a single spy, all by himself, is usual

f very little use to anybody. Espionage, on any useful scale, requires organization.

There is, as there should be

on for this. The purpose of espionage is to gather information--preferably, useful information--against the wishes of, and in spite of the efforts of, a group--usually referred to as "the enemy"--which is endeavoring to prevent that information from getting into other hands than their own. Such activities obviously imply communication. An espioneur, working for Side A, who finds a bit of important information about Side B must obviously communicate that bit of information to Side A or it is of no use whatsoever.

All of these factors pose complex problems.

To begin with, the espioneur must get himself into a position in which he can get hold of the infor

on he wants. Usually, that means that he must pass himself off as something he is not, a process which requires time. Then, when he gets the information he is after, he must get it to his employers quickly. Information, like fish, becomes useless after a certain amount of time, and, unlike fish, there is no known way of refrigerating it to retard spoilage.

It is difficult to transmit information these days. It is actually easier for the espioneur to transmit it than to get it, generally speaking, but it is difficult for him to do both jobs at once, so the spy ring's two major parts consist of the ones who get the information from the enemy and the ones who transmit it back to their employers.

Without magic, it is difficult for a single spy to be of any benefit. And "magic," in this case, can be defined as some method by which information can be either obtained or transmitted without fear of discovery by the enemy. During World War I, a competent spy equipped with a compact transistorized short-wave communications system could have had himself a ball. If the system had included a miniature full-color television camera, he could have gone hog wild. In those days, such equipment would have been magic.

All this is not ŕ propos of nothing. Mr. Raphael Poe was, in his own way, a magician.

It is not to be supposed that the United States of America had no spy rings in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics at that time. There were plenty of them. Raphael Poe could have, if it were so ordained, availed himself of the services of any one or all of them. He did not do so for two reasons. In the first place, the more people who are in on a secret, the more who can give it away. In other words, a ring, like a chain, is only as strong as its weakest section

the second place, Raphael Poe didn't need any assistance in the first place.

That is, he needed no more assistance that most magicians do--a shill in the audience. In this particular case, the shill was his brother, Leonard Poe.

* * * * *

Operation Mapcase was as ultra-secret as it could possibly be. Although there were perhaps two dozen men who knew of the existence of the operation by its code name, such as the Naval officers who had helped get Raphael Poe to his destination, there were only five men who really knew what Operation Mapcase was all about.

Two of these were, of course, Raphael and Leonard Poe. Two others were the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense. The fifth was Colonel Julius T. Spaulding, of United States Army Intelligence.

On the seventh day after Raphael Poe's arrival in Moscow, the other four men met in Blair House, across the street from the White House, in a room especially prepared for the purpose. No one but the President knew the exact purpose of the meeting, although they had an idea that he wanted more information of some kind.

The President himself was the last to arrive. Leaving two Secret Service men standing outside the room, he carefully closed the door and turned to face the Secretary of Defense, Colonel Spaulding, and Leonard Poe. "Sit down, gentlemen," he said, seating himself as he spoke.

"Gentlemen, before we go any further, I must conduct one final experiment in order to justify Operation Mapcase. I will not explain it just yet." He looked at Lenny Poe, a small, dark-haired man with a largish nose. "Mr. Poe, can you contact your brother at this moment?"

Lenny Poe was a man who was not overawed by anyone, and had no inclination to be formal, not even toward the President. "Yeah, sure," he said matter-of-factly.

[Illustration]

The President glanced at his watch. "It is now five minutes of ten. That makes it five minutes of six in the evening in Moscow. Is your brother free to move around? That is, can he go to a certain place in the city?"

Lenny closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. "Rafe says he can go any place that the average citizen would be allowed to go."

"Excellent," said the President. He gave Lenny an address--an intersection of two streets not far from Red Square. "Can he get there within fifteen minutes?"

"Make it twenty," said Lenny.

"Very well. Twenty minutes. When he gets there, I'll ask you to relay further instructions."

Lenny Poe closed his eyes, folded his arms, and relaxed in his chair. The other three men waited silently.

Nineteen minutes later, Lenny opened his eyes and said: "O.K. He's there. Now what?"

"There is a lamppost on that corner, I believe," said the President. "Can your brother see it?"

Lenny closed his eyes again. "Sure. There's a guy leaning against it."

The President's eyes brightened. "Describe him!"

Lenny, eyes still closed, said: "Five feet ten, heavy set, gray hair, dark-rimmed glasses, brown suit, flashy necktie. By the cut of his clothes, I'd say he was either British or American, probably American. Fifty-five or fifty-six years old."

It was obvious to the Secretary of Defense and to Colonel Spaulding that the President was suppressing some inward excitement.

"Very good, Mr. Poe!" he said. "Now, you will find a box of colored pencils and a sketch pad in that desk over there. Can you draw me a fairly accurate sketch of that man?"

"Yeah, sure." Lenny opened his eyes, moved over to the desk, took out the pencils and sketch pad, and went to work. He had to close his eyes occasionally, but his work was incredibly rapid and, at the same time, almost photographically accurate.

As the picture took form, the President's inward excitement increased perceptibly. When it was finally finished, Lenny handed the sketch to the President without a word.

The President took it eagerly and his face broke out in his famous grin. "Excellent! Perfect!" He looked at Lenny. "Your brother hasn't attracted the man's attention in any way, has he?"

"Nope," said Lenny.

"Fine. The experiment is over. Relay my thanks to your brother. He can go ahead with whatever he was doing now."

"I don't quite understand," said the Secretary of State.

"I felt it necessary to make one final experiment of my own devising," the President said. "I wanted Raphael Poe to go to a particular place at a particular time, with no advance warning, to transmit a picture of something he had never seen before. I arranged this test myself, and I am positive that there could be no trickery."

"Never seen before?" the Secretary repeated bewilderedly. He gestured at the sketch. "Why, that's obviously Bill Donovan, of the Moscow delegation. Poe could have seen a photograph of him somewhere before."

"Even so," the President pointed out, "there would be no way of knowing that he would be at that spot. But that's beside the point. Look at that necktie!"

"I had noticed it," the Defense Secretary admitted.

It was certainly an outstanding piece of neckwear. As drawn by Leonard Poe, it was a piece of brilliant chartreuse silk, fully three and a half inches wide at its broadest. Against that background, rose-pink nude girls were cavorting with pale mauve satyrs.

"That tie," said the President, "was sent to me fifteen years ago by on of my constituents, when I was in Congress. I never wore it, of course, but it would have been criminal to have thrown away such a magnificently obscene example of bad taste as that.

"I sent it to Donovan in a sealed diplomatic pouch by special courier, with instructions to wear it at this time. He, of course, has no idea why he is standing there. He is merely obeying orders.

"Gentlemen, this is completely convincing to me. Absolutely no one but myself knew what I had in mind. It would have required telepathy even to cheat.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Poe. Colonel Spaulding, you may proceed with Operation Mapcase as planned."

* * * * *

"Dr. Malekrinova, will you initial these requisition forms, please."

Dr. Sonya Malekrinova, a dowdy-looking, middle-aged woman with unplucked eyebrows and a mole on her chin, adjusted her steel-rimmed glasses, took the proffered papers from the clerk, ran her eyes over them, and then put her initials on the bottom of each page.

"Thank you, Comrade Doctor," said the clerk when she handed back the sheaf of papers.

"Certainly, Comrade."

And the two of them went about their business.

Not far away, in the Cathedral of St. Basil, Vladimir Turenski, alias Raphael Poe, was also apparently going about his business. The cathedral had not seen nor heard the Liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church or any other church, for a good many decades. The Bolsheviks, in their zeal to protect the citizens of the Soviet Unions from the pernicious influence of religion, had converted it into a museum as soon as possible.

It was the function of Tovarishch Turenski to push a broom around the floors of the museum, and this he did with great determination and efficiency. He also cleaned windows and polished metalwork when the occasion demanded. He was only one of a large crew of similarly employed men, but he was a favorite with the Head Custodian, who not only felt sorry for the simple-minded deaf-mute, but appreciated the hard work he did. If, on occasion, Comrade Turenski would lean on his broom and fall into a short reverie, it was excusable because he still managed to get all his work done.

Behind Comrade Turenski, a guide was explaining a display to a group of tourists, but Turenski ignored the distraction and kept his mind focused on the thoughts of Dr. Sonya Malekrinova.

After nearly ten months of patient work, Raphael Poe had hit upon something that was, to his way of thinking, more important than all the information he had transmitted to Washington thus far.

Picking brains telepathically was not, even for him, an easy job. He had the knack and the training but, in addition, there was the necessity of establishing a rapport with the other mind. Since he was a physicist and not a politician, it was much easier to get information from the mind of Sonya Malekrinova than to get it from the Premier. The only person with whom he could keep in contact over any great distance was his brother, and that only because the two of them had grown up together.

He could pick up the strongest thoughts of any nearby person very easily. He did not need to hear the actual words, for instance, of a nearby conversation in order to follow it perfectly, because the words of verbal communication were strong in a person's mind.

But getting deeper than that required an increasing amount of understanding of the functioning of the other person's mind.

His ability to eavesdrop on conversations had been of immense benefit to Washington so far, but is was difficult for him to get close enough to the higher-ups in the Soviet government to get all the data that the President of the United States wanted.

But now that he had established a firm mental linkage with one of the greatest physicists in the Soviet Union, he could begin to send information that would be of tremendous value to the United States.

He brushed up a pile of trash, pushed it into a dust pan, and carried it off toward the disposal chute that led to the trash cans. In the room where the brooms were kept, he paused and closed his eyes.

Lenny! Are picking this up? Sure, Rafe. I'm ready with the drawing board anytime you are.

As Dr. Sonya Malekrinova stood in her laboratory looking over the apparatus she was perfecting for the glory of the Soviet State, she had no notion that someone halfway around the world was also looking at it over her shoulder--or rather, through her own eyes.

* * * * *

Lenny started with the fives first, and worked his way up to the larger denominations.

"Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty--forty, fifty, sixty...." he muttered happily to himself. "Two fifty, three, three-fifty, four, four-fifty."

It was all there, so he smiled benevolently at the man in the pay window. "Thank you muchly." Then he stepped aside to let another lucky man cash a winning ticket.

His horse had come in at fifteen, six-ten, four-fifty for Straight, Place, and Show, and sixty bucks on the nose had paid off very nicely.

Lenny Poe took out his copy of the Daily Racing Form and checked over the listing for the next race.

Hm-m-m, ha. Purse, $7500. Four-year-olds and up: handicap. Seven furlongs. Turf course. Hm-m-m, ha.

Lenny Poe had a passion for throwing his money away on any unpredictable event that would offer him odds. He had, deep down, an artistic soul, but he didn't let that interfere with his desire to lay a bet at the drop of an old fedora.

He had already decided, several hours before, that Ducksoup, in the next race, would win handily and would pay off at something like twenty or twenty-five to one. But he felt it his duty to look one last time at the previous performance record, just to be absolutely positive.

Satisfied, he folded the Racing Form, shoved it back into his pocket, and walked over to the fifty-dollar window.

"Gimmie nine tickets on Ducksoup in the seventh," he said, plonking the handful of bills down on the counter.

But before the man behind the window grating could take the money, a huge, hamlike, and rather hairy hand came down on top of his own hand, covering it and the money at the same time.

"Hold it, Lenny," said a voice at the same time.

Lenny jerked his head around to his right and looked up to see a largish man who had "cop" written all over him. Another such individual crowded past Lenny on his left to flash a badge on the man in the betting window, so that he would know that this wasn't a holdup.

"Hey!" said Lenny. His mind was thinking fast. He decided to play his favorite role, that of the indignant Italian. "Whatsa da matta with you, hah? Thisa no a free country? A man gotta no rights?"

"Come on, Mr. Poe," the big man said quietly, "this is important."

"Poe? You outta you mind? Thatsa name of a river----or a raven. I'm a forgetta which. My namesa Manelli!"

"Scusi, signore," the big man said with exaggerated politeness, "ma se lei č veramente italiano, non' č l'uomo che cerchiamo."

Lenny's Italian was limited to a handful of words. He know he was trapped, but he faced the situation with aplomb. "Thatsa lie! I was inna Chicago that night!"

"Ah! Cosč credero. Avanti, saccentone." He jerked his thumb toward the gate. "Let's go."

Lenny muttered something that the big man didn't quite catch.

"What'd you say?"

"Upper United States--the northern United States," Lenny said calmly shoving his four hundred fifty dollars into his pocket. "That's where Chicago is. Never mind. Come in, boys; back to the drawing board."

The two men escorted Lenny to a big, powerful Lincoln; he climbed into the back seat with the big one while the other one got behind the wheel.

As soon as they had left the racetrack and were well out on the highway, the driver said: "You want to call in, Mario? This traffic is pretty heavy."

The big man beside Lenny leaned forward, over the back of the front seat, unhooked the receiver of the scrambler-equipped radiophone, and sat back down. He thumbed a button on the side of the handset and said: "This is Seven Oh Two." After a short silence, he said: "You can call off the net. You want him brought in?" He listened for a moment. "O.K. Are we cleared through the main gate? O.K. Off."

He leaned forward to replace the receiver, speaking to the driver as he did so. "Straight to the Air Force base. They've got a jet waiting there for him."

He settled back comfortably and looked at Lenny. "You could at least tell people where you're going."

"Very well," said Lenny. He folded his arms, closed his eyes, and relaxed. "Right now, I'm going off to dreamland."

He waited a short while to see if the other would say anything. He didn't, so Lenny proceeded to do exactly what he had promised to do.

He went off to dreamland.

He had not been absolutely sure, when he made the promise, that he would actually do just that, but the odds were in favor of it. It was now one o'clock in the morning in Moscow, and Lenny's brother, Raphael, was a man of regular habits.

Lenny reached out. When he made contact, all he got was a jumble of hash. It was as though someone had made a movie by cutting bits and snippets from a hundred different films, no bit more than six or seven frames long, with a sound track that might or might not match, and projected the result through a drifting fog, using an ever-changing lens that rippled like the surface of a wind-ruffled pool. Sometimes one figure would come into sharp focus for a fraction of a second, sometimes in color, sometimes not.

Sometimes Lenny was merely observing the show, sometimes he was in it.

Rafe! Hey, Rafe! Wake up!

The jumble of hash began to stabilize, becoming more coherent--

* * * * *

Lenny sat behind the far desk, watching his brother come up the primrose path in a unicycle. He pulled it to a halt in front of the desk, opened the pilot's canopy, threw out a rope ladder, and climbed down. His gait was a little awkward, in spite of the sponge-rubber floor, because of the huge flowered carpetbag he was carrying. A battered top hat sat precariously on his blond, curly hair.

"Lenny! Boy, am I glad to see you! I've got it! The whole trouble is in the wonkler, where the spadulator comes across the trellis grid!" He lifted the carpetbag and sat it down on the lab table. "Connect up the groffle meter! We'll show those pentagon pickles who has the push-and-go here!"

"Rafe," Lenny said gently, "wake up. You're dreaming. You're asleep. I want to talk to you."

"I know." He grinned widely. "And you don't want any back talk from me! Yok-yok-yok! Just wait'll I show you!"

In his hands, he held an object which Lenny did not at first understand. Then Rafe's mind brought it into focus.

"This"--Rafe held it up--"is a rocket motor!"

"Rafe, wake up!" Lenny said.

The surroundings stabilized a little more.

"I will in just a minute, Lenny." Rafe was apologetic. "But let me show you this." It did bear some resemblance to a rocket motor. It was about as long as a man's forearm and consisted of a bulbous chamber at one end, which narrowed down into a throat and then widened into a hornlike exhaust nozzle. The chamber was black; the rest was shiny chrome.

Rafe grasped it by the throat with one hand. The other, he clasped firmly around the combustion chamber. "Watch! Now watch!"

He gave the bulbous, rubbery chamber a hard squeeze--

"SQUAWK!" went the horn.

"Rafe!" Lenny shouted. "Wake up! WAKE UP!"

Rafe blinked as the situation clarified. "What? Just A Second. Lenny. Just...."

* * * * *

"... A second."

Raphael Poe blinked his eyes open. The moon was shining through the dirty windows of the dingy little room that was all he could call home--for a while, at least. Outside the window were the gray streets of Moscow.

His brother's thoughts resounded in his fully awake brain. Rafe! You awake?

Sure. Sure. What is it?

The conversation that followed was not in words or pictures, but a weird combination of both, plus a strong admixture of linking concepts that were neither.

In essence, Lenny merely reported that he had taken the day off to go to the races and that Colonel Spaulding was evidently upset for some reason. He wondered if Rafe were in any kind of trouble.

No trouble. Everything's fine at this end. But Dr. Malekrinova won't be back on the job until tomorrow afternoon--or, this afternoon, rather. I know, Lenny replied. That's why I figured I could take time off for a go at the ponies. I wonder why they're in such a fuss, then? Rafe thought. I'll let you know when I find out, Lenny said. Go back to sleep and don't worry.

[Illustration]

* * * * *

In a small office in the Pentagon, Colonel Julius T. Spaulding cradled the telephone on his desk and looked at the Secretary of Defense. "That was the airfield. Poe will be here shortly. We'll get to the bottom of this pretty quickly."

"I hope so, Julius," the Secretary said heavily. "The president is beginning to think we're both nuts."

The colonel, a lean, nervous man with dark, bushy eyebrows and a mustache to match, rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling. "I'm beginning to agree with him."

The Defense Secretary scowled at him. "What do you mean?"

"Anybody who takes telepathy seriously is considered a nut," said the colonel.

"True," said the Secretary, "but that doesn't mean we are nuts."

"Oh, yeah?" The colonel took the cigar out of his mouth a gestured with it. "Anybody who'd do something that convinces all his friends he's nuts must be nuts."

The Secretary smiled wanly. "I wish you wouldn't be so logical. You almost convince me."

"Don't worry," said the colonel. "I'm not ready to have this room measured for sponge-rubber wallpaper just yet. Operation Mapcase has helped a lot in the past few months, and it will help even more."

"All you have to do is get the bugs out of it," said the Secretary.

"If we did that," Colonel Spaulding said flatly, "the whole operation would fold from lack of personnel."

"Just carry on the best you can," the Secretary said gloomily as he got up to leave. "I'll let you handle it."

"Fine. I'll call you later."

* * * * *

Twenty minutes after the Defense Secretary had gone, Lenny Poe was shown into Colonel Spaulding's office. The agent who had brought him in closed the door gently, leaving him alone with the colonel.

"I told you I'd be back this evening. What were you in such a hurry about?"

"You're supposed to stay in touch," Colonel Spaulding pointed out. "I don't mind your penchant for ponies particularly, but I'd like to know where to find you if I need you."

"I wouldn't mind in the least, colonel. I'd phone you every fifteen minutes if that's what you wanted. Except for one thing."

"What's that?"

Lenny jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Your linguistically talented flatfeet. Did you ever try to get into a floating crap game when you were being followed by a couple of bruisers who look more like cops than cops do?"

"Look, Poe, I can find you plenty of action right here in Washington, if it won't offend your tender sensibilities to shoot crap with a senator or two. Meanwhile, sit down and listen. This is important."

Lenny sat own reluctantly. "O.K. What is it?"

"Dr. Davenport and his crew are unhappy about that last batch of drawings you and I gave 'em."

"What's the matter? Don't they like the color scheme? I never thought scientists had any artistic taste, anyway."

"It's got nothing to do with that. The--"

The phone rang. Colonel Spaulding scooped it up and identified himself. Then: "What? Yeah. All right, send him in."

He hung up and looked back at Lenny. "Davenport. We can get his story firsthand. Just sit there and look important."

Lenny nodded. He knew that Dr. Amadeus Davenport was aware that the source of those drawings was Soviet Russia, but he did not know how they had been obtained. As far as he knew, it was just plain, ordinary spy work.

He came in briskly. He was a tall, intelligent-looking man with a rather craggy face and thoughtful brown eyes. He put a large brief case on the floor, and, after the preliminaries were over, he came right to the point.

"Colonel Spaulding, I spoke to the Secretary of Defense, and he agreed that perhaps this situation might be cleared up if I talked directly with you."

"I hope so," the colonel said. "Just what is it that seems to be bothering you?"

"These drawings," Davenport said, "don't make any sense. The device they're supposed to represent couldn't do anything. Look; I'll show you."

He took from his brief case photostatic copies of some of the drawings Lenny had made. Five of them were straight blueprint-type drawings; the sixth was a copy of Lenny's near-photographic paintings of the device itself.

"This component, here," he said, gesturing at the set of drawings, "simply baffles us. We're of the opinion that your agents are known to the Soviet government and have been handed a set of phony plans."

"What's it supposed to do?" Lenny asked.

"We don't know what it's supposed to do," the scientist said, "but it's doubtful that it would actually do anything." He selected one of the photocopies. "See that thing? The one shaped like the letter Q with an offset tail? According to the specifications, it is supposed to be painted emerald green, but there's no indication of what it is."

* * * * *

Lenny Poe reached out, picked up the photocopy and looked at it. It was--or had been--an exact copy of the drawing that was used by Dr. Sonya Malekrinova. But, whereas the original drawing has been labeled entirely in Cyrillic characters, these labels were now in English.

The drawings made no sense to Lenny at all. They hadn't when he'd made them. His brother was a scientist, but Lenny understood none of it.

"Who translated the Russian into English?" he asked.

"A Mr. Berensky. He's one of our best experts on the subject. I assure you the translations are accurate, Dr. Davenport said.

"But if you don't know what that thing is," the colonel objected, "how can you say the device won't work? Maybe it would if that Q-shaped thing was--"

"I know what you mean," Davenport interrupted. "But that's not the only part of the machine that doesn't make any sense."

He went on to explain other discrepancies he had detected in the drawings, but none of it penetrated to Lenny, although Colonel Spaulding seemed to be able to follow the physicist's conversation fairly readily.

"Well, what's you suggestion, doctor?" the colonel asked at last.

"If you agents could get further data," the physicist said carefully, "it might be of some use. At the same time, I'd check up on the possibility that your agents are known to the NKVD."

"I'll see what can be done," said the colonel. "Would you mind leaving those copies of the drawings with me for a while?"

"Go right ahead," Davenport said. "One other thing. If we assume this device is genuine, then it must serve some purpose. It might help if we knew what the device is supposed to do."

"I'll see what can be done," Colonel Spaulding repeated.

When Davenport had gone, Spaulding looked at Poe. "Got any explanation for that one?"

"No," Lenny admitted. "All I can do is check with Rafe. He won't be awake for a few hours yet. I'll check on it and give you an answer in the morning."

* * * * *

Early next morning, Colonel Spaulding walked through his outer office. He stopped at the desk where the pretty brunette WAC sergeant was typing industriously, leaned across the desk, and gave her his best leer. "How about a date tonight, music lover?" he asked, "'Das Rheingold' is playing tonight. A night at the opera would do you good."

"I'm sorry, sir," she said primly, "you know enlisted women aren't allowed to date officers."

"Make out an application for OCS. I'll sign it."

She smiled at him. "But then I wouldn't have any excuse for turning you down. And then what would my husband say?"

"I'll bribe him. I'll send him to OCS."

"He's not eligible. Officers are automatically disqualified."

Colonel Spaulding sighed. "A guy can't win against competition like that. Anything new this morning?"

"Mr. Poe is waiting in your office. Other than that, there's just the routine things."

He went on into his office. Lenny Poe was seated behind the colonel's desk, leaning back in the swivel chair, his feet on the top of the desk. He was sound asleep.

The colonel walked over to the desk, took his cigar from his mouth, and said: "Good morrrning, Colonel Spaulding!"

Lenny snapped awake. "I'm not Colonel Spaulding," he said.

"Then why are you sitting in Colonel Spaulding's chair?"

"I figured if I was asleep nobody'd know the difference." Lenny got up and walked over to one of the other chairs. "These don't lean back comfortably. I can't sleep in 'em."

"You can sleep later. How was your session with Rafe?"

Lenny glowered glumly. "I wish you and Rafe hadn't talked me into this job. It's a strain on the brain. I don't know how he expects anyone to understand all that garbage."

"All what garbage?"

Lenny waved a hand aimlessly. "All this scientific guff. I'm an artist, not a scientist. If Rafe can get me a clear picture of something, I can copy it, but when he tries to explain something scientific, he might as well be thinking in Russian or Old Upper Middle High Martian or something."

"I know," said Colonel Spaulding, looking almost as glum as Lenny. "Did you get anything at all that would help Dr. Davenport figure out what those drawings mean?"

"Rafe says that the translations are all wrong," Lenny said, "but I can't get a clear picture of just what is wrong."

* * * * *

Colonel Spaulding thought for a while in silence. Telepathy--at least in so far as the Poe brothers practiced it--certainly had its limitations. Lenny couldn't communicate mentally with anyone except his brother Rafe. Rafe could pick up the thoughts of almost anyone if he happened to be close by, but couldn't communicate over a long distance with anyone but Lenny.

The main trouble lay in the fact that it was apparently impossible to transmit a concept directly from Brain A to Brain B unless the basic building blocks of the concept were already present in Brain B. Raphael Poe, for instance, had spent a long time studying Russian, reading Dostoevski, Tolstoy, and Turgenev in the original tongue, familiarizing himself with modern Russian thought through the courtesy of Izvestia, Pravda, and Krokodil, and, finally, spending time in the United Nations building and near the Russian embassy in order to be sure that he could understand the mental processes involved.

Now, science has a language of its own. Or, rather, a multiplicity of languages, each derived partly from the native language of the various scientific groups and partly of borrowings from other languages. In the physical sciences especially, the language of mathematics is a further addition.

More than that, the practice of the scientific method automatically induces a thought pattern that is different from the type of thought pattern that occurs in the mind of a person who is not scientifically oriented.

Lenny's mind was a long way from being scientifically oriented. Worse, he was a bigot. He not only didn't know why the light in his room went on when he flipped the switch, he didn't want to know. To him, science was just so much flummery, and he didn't want his brain cluttered up with it.

Facts mean nothing to a bigot. He has already made up his mind, and he doesn't intend to have his solid convictions disturbed by anything so unimportant as a contradictory fact. Lenny was of the opinion that all mathematics was arcane gobbledygook, and his precise knowledge of the mathematical odds in poker and dice games didn't abate that opinion one whit. Obviously, a mind like that is utterly incapable of understanding a projected thought of scientific content; such a thought bounces off the impregnable mind shield that the bigot has set up around his little area of bigotry.

Colonel Spaulding had been aware of these circumstances since the inception of the Operation Mapcase. Even though he, himself, had never experienced telepathy more than half a dozen times in his life, he had made a study of the subject and was pretty well aware of its limitations. The colonel might have dismissed--as most men do--his own fleeting experiences as "coincidence" or "imagination" if it had not been for the things he had seen and felt in Africa during World War II. He had only been a captain then, on detached duty with British Intelligence, under crusty old Colonel Sir Cecil Haversham, who didn't believe a word of "all that mystic nonsense." Colonel Haversham had made the mistake of alienating one of the most powerful of the local witch doctors.

The British Government had hushed it all up afterwards, of course, but Spaulding still shuddered when he thought of the broken-spirited, shrunken caricature of his old self that Colonel Haversham had become after he told the witch doctor where to get off.

Spaulding had known that there were weaknesses in the telepathic communication linkage that was the mainspring of Operation Mapcase, but he had thought that they could be overcome by the strengths of the system. Lenny had no blockage whatever against receiving visual patterns and designs. He could reproduce an electronic wiring diagram perfectly because, to him, it was not a grouping of scientific symbols, but a design of lines, angles, and curves.

At first, it is true, he had had a tendency to change them here and there, to make the design balance better, to make it more aesthetically satisfying to his artistic eye, but that tendency had been easily overcome, and Colonel Spaulding was quite certain that that wasn't what was wrong now.

Still--

"Lenny," he said carefully, "are you sure you didn't jigger up those drawings to make 'em look prettier?"

Lenny Poe gave the colonel a look of disgust. "Positive. Rafe checked 'em over every inch of the way as I was drawing them, and he rechecked again last night--or this morning--on those photostats Davenport gave us. That's when he said there was something wrong with the translations.

"But he couldn't make it clear just what was wrong, eh?"

Lenny shrugged. "How anybody could make any sense out of that gobbledegook is beyond me."

The colonel blew out a cloud of cigar smoke and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. As long as the diagrams were just designs on paper, Lenny Poe could pick them up fine. Which meant that everything was jim-dandy as long as the wiring diagrams were labeled in the Cyrillic alphabet. The labels were just more squiggles to be copied as a part of the design.

But if the labels were in English, Lenny's mind would try to "make sense" out of them, and since scientific concepts did not "make sense" to him, the labels came out as pure nonsense. In one of his drawings, a lead wire had been labeled "simply ground to powder," and if the original drawing hadn't been handy to check with, it might have taken quite a bit of thought to realize that what was meant was "to power supply ground." Another time, a GE 2N 188A transistor had come out labeled GEZNISSA. There were others--much worse.

Russian characters, on the other hand, didn't have to make any sense to Lenny, so his mind didn't try to force them into a preconceived mold.

* * * * *

Lenny unzipped the leather portfolio he had brought with him--a specially-made carrier that looked somewhat like an oversized brief case.

"Maybe these'll help," he said.

"We managed to get two good sketches of the gadget--at least, as much of it as that Russian lady scientist has put together so far. I kind of like the rather abstract effect you get from all those wires snaking in and around, with that green glass tube in the center. Pretty, isn't it?"

[Illustration]

"Very," said the colonel without conviction. "I wonder if it will help Davenport any?" He looked at the pictures for several seconds more, then, suddenly, his eyes narrowed. "Lenny--this piece of green glass--the thing's shaped like the letter Q."

"Yeah, sort of. Why?"

"You said it was a tube, but you didn't make it look hollow when you drew it."

"It isn't; it's solid. Does a tube have to be hollow? Yeah, I guess it does, doesn't it? Well, then, it isn't a tube."

Colonel Spaulding picked up the phone and dialed a number.

"Colonel Spaulding here," he said after a moment. "Let me speak to Dr. Davenport." And, after a wait: "This is Colonel Spaulding, doctor. I think we may have something for you."

"Good morning, colonel. I'm glad to hear that. What is it?"

"The Q-shaped gadget--the one that you said was supposed to be painted emerald green. Are you sure that's the right translation of the Russian?"

"Well ... uh--" Davenport hesitated. "I can't be sure on my own say-so, of course. I don't understand Russian. But I assure you that Mr. Berensky is perfectly reliable."

"Oh, I have no doubt of that," Colonel Spaulding said easily. "But, tell me, does Mr. Berensky know how to read a circuit diagram?"

"He does," Davenport said, somewhat testily. "Of course, he wasn't shown the diagram itself. We had the Russian labels copied, and he translated from a list."

"I had a sneaking suspicion that was it," said Spaulding. "Tell me, doctor, what does L-E-A-D spell?"

"Lead," said the doctor promptly, pronouncing it leed. Then, after a pause, he said: "Or lead," this time pronouncing it led. "It would depend on the context."

"Suppose it was on a circuit diagram," the colonel prompted.

"Then it would probably be leed. What's all this leading up to, colonel?"

"Bear with me. Suppose you had a cable coming from a storage battery, and you wanted to make sure that the cable was reasonably resistant to corrosion, so you order it made out of the metal, lead. It would be a led leed, wouldn't it?"

"Um-m-m ... I suppose so."

"You might get pretty confused if you didn't have a circuit diagram in front of you to tell you what the label was talking about, mightn't you?"

"I see what you mean," the scientist said slowly. "But we can't show those circuit diagrams to Berensky. The Secretary of Defense himself has classified them as Class Triple-A Ultra-Hyper Top Secret. That puts them just below the Burn-The-Contents-Before-Reading class, and Berensky doesn't have that kind of clearance."

"Then get somebody else," Colonel Spaulding said tiredly. "All you need is a man who can understand technical Russian and has a top-level secrecy clearance. If we haven't got at least one man in these United States with such simple qualifications as those, them we might as well give the country over to the Reds or back to the Redskins, since our culture is irreprievably doomed." And he lowered the phone gently to its cradle.

"There's no such word as 'irreprievably'," Lenny pointed out.

"There is now," said Colonel Spaulding.

* * * * *

Raphael Poe moseyed through the streets of Moscow in an apparently aimless manner. The expression on his face was that of a reasonably happy moron.

His aimless manner was only apparent. Actually, he was heading toward the Lenin Soviet People's Higher Research Laboratories. Dr. Sonya Borisovna Malekrinova would be working late this evening, and he wanted to get as close as possible in order to pick up as much information as he could.

Rafe had a great deal of admiration for that woman, he admitted to himself. She was, granted, as plain as an unsalted matzoh. No. That was an understatement. If it were possible to die of the uglies, Sonya Borisovna would have been dangerously ill.

Her disposition did nothing to alleviate that drawback. She fancied herself as cold, hard, analytical, and ruthless; actually she was waspish, arrogant, overbearing, and treacherous. What she considered in herself to be scientific detachment was really an isolation born of fear and distrust of the entire human race.

To her, Communism was a religion; "Das Kapital" and "The Communist Manifesto" were holy writ enshrining the dogmata of Marxism-Leninism, and the conflict with the West was a jehad, a holy war in which God, in His manifestation as Dialectic Materialism, would naturally win out in the end.

All of which goes to show that a scientific bent, in itself, does not necessarily keep one from being a bigot.

Rafe's admiration for the woman stemmed solely from the fact that, in spite of all the powerful drawbacks that existed in her mind, she was still capable of being a brilliant, if somewhat erratic scientist.

There was a more relaxed air in Moscow these days. The per capita production of the Soviet Union still did not come up to that of the United States, but the recent advances in technology did allow a feeling of accomplishment, and the hard drive for superiority was softened a trifle. It was no longer considered the height of indolence and unpatriotic time-wasting to sit on a bench and feed pigeons. Nor was food so scarce and costly that throwing away a few bread crumbs could be considered sabotage.

So Rafe Poe found himself a quiet corner near the Lenin Soviet People's Laboratories, took out a small bag of dried breadcrumbs, and was soon surrounded by pigeons.

Dr. Malekrinova was carefully calibrating and balancing the electronic circuits that energized and activated and controlled the output of the newly-installed beam generator--a ring of specially-made greenish glass that had a small cylinder of the same glass projecting out at a tangent. Her assistant, Alexis, a man of small scientific ability but a gifted mechanic, worked stolidly with her. It was not an easy job for Alexis; Sonya Borisovna was by no means an easy woman to work with. There was, as there should have been, a fifty-fifty division in all things--a proper state of affairs in a People's Republic. Alexis Andreyevich did half the physical work, got all the blame when things went wrong, and none of the credit when things went right. Sonya Borisovna got the remaining fifty percent.

Sonya Borisovna Malekrinova had been pushing herself too hard, and she knew it. But, she told herself, for the glory of the Soviet peoples, the work must go on.

After spending two hours taking down instrument readings, she took the results to her office and began to correlate them.

Have to replace that 140-9.0 micromicrofarad frequency control on stage two with something more sensitive, she thought. And the field modulation coils require closer adjustment.

She took off her glasses and rubbed at her tired eyes while she thought. Perhaps the 25 microfarad, 12 volt electrolytic condenser could be used to feed the pigeons, substituting a breadcrumb capacitor in the sidewalk circuit.

She opened her eyes suddenly and stared at the blank wall in front of her. "Pigeons?" she said wonderingly. "Breadcrumb capacitor? Am I losing my mind? What kind of nonsense is that?"

She looked back down at her notes, then replaced her glasses so that she could read them. Determined not to let her mind wander in that erratic fashion again, she returned her attention to the work at hand.

She found herself wondering if it might not be better to chuck the whole job and get out while the getting was good. The old gal, she thought, is actually tapping my mind! She's picking up everything!

Sonya Borisovna sat bolt upright in her chair, staring at the blank wall again. "Why am I thinking such nonsense?" she said aloud. "And why should I be thinking in English?" When her words registered on her ears, she realized that she was actually speaking in English. She was thoroughly acquainted with the language, of course, but it was not normal for her to think in it unless she happened to be conversing with someone in that tongue.

The first whisper of a suspicion began to take form in the mind of Dr. Sonya Borisovna Malekrinova.

Half a block away, Raphael Poe emptied the last of his breadcrumbs on the sidewalk and began walking away. He kept his mind as blank as possible, while his brow broke out in a cold sweat.

* * * * *

"That," said Colonel Julius Spaulding scathingly, "is as pretty a mess as I've seen in years."

"It's a breadboard circuit, I'll admit," Dr. Davenport said defensively, "but it's built according to the schematics you gave us."

"Doctor," said the colonel, "during the war the British dropped our group a radio transmitter. It was the only way to get the stuff into Africa quickly. The parachute failed to open. The transmitter fell two thousand feet, hit the side of a mountain, and tumbled down another eight hundred feet. When we found it, four days later, its wiring was in better shape than that thing is in now."

"It's quite sufficient to test the operation of the device," Davenport said coldly.

Spaulding had to admit to himself that it probably was. The thing was a slapdash affair--the colonel had a strong feeling that Davenport had assigned the wiring job to an apprentice and gave him half an hour to do the job--but the soldering jobs looked tight enough, and the components didn't look as though they'd all been pulled out of the salvage bin. What irritated Colonel Spaulding was Davenport's notion that the whole thing was a waste of time, energy, money, and materials, and, therefore, there was no point in doing a decent job of testing it at all.

He was glad that Davenport didn't know how the information about the device had been transported to the United States. As it was, he considered the drawings a hoax on the part of the Russians; if he had been told that they had been sent telepathically, he would probably have gone into fits of acute exasperation over such idiocy.

The trouble with Davenport was that, since the device didn't make any sense to him, he didn't believe it would function at all.

"Oh, it will do something, all right," he'd said once, "but it won't be anything that needs all that apparatus. Look here--" He had pointed toward the schematic. "Where do you think all that energy is going? All you're going to get is a little light, a lot of heat, and a couple of burned out coils. I could do the same job cheaper with a dozen 250 watt light bulbs."

To be perfectly honest with himself, Spaulding had to admit that he wasn't absolutely positive that the device would do anything in particular, either. His own knowledge of electronic circuitry was limited to ham radio experience, and even that was many years out of date. He couldn't be absolutely sure that the specifications for the gadget hadn't been garbled in transmission.

The Q-shaped gizmo, for instance. It had taken the better part of a week for Raphael Poe to transmit the information essential to the construction of that enigmatic bit of glass.

Rafe had had to sit quietly in the privacy of his own room and print out the specifications in Russian, then sit and look at the paper while Lenny copied the "design." Then each paper had to be carefully destroyed, which wasn't easy to do. You don't go around burning papers in a crowded Russian tenement unless you want the people in the next room to wonder what you're up to.

Then the drawings Lenny had made had had to be translated into English and the piece carefully made to specifications.

Now here it was, all hooked up and, presumably, ready for action. Colonel Spaulding fervently hoped there would be some action; he didn't like the smug look on Dr. Amadeus Davenport's face.

* * * * *

The device was hooked up on a testing-room circuit and controlled from outside. The operation could be watched through a heavy pane of bulletproof glass. "With all that power going into it," Davenport said, "I don't want anyone to get hurt by spatters of molten metal when those field coils blow."

They went outside to the control console, and Dr. Davenport flipped the energizing switch. After the device had warmed up on low power, Davenport began turning knobs slowly, increasing the power flow. In the testing room, the device just sat there, doing nothing visible, but the meters on the control console showed that something was going on. A greenish glow came from the housing that surrounded the Q-shaped gadget.

"Where the Russians made their mistake in trying to fool anyone with that thing was in their design of that laser component," said Dr. Davenport. "Or, I should say, the thing that is supposed to look like a laser component."

"Laser?" said Colonel Spaulding uncomprehendingly.

"It means 'light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation'," Davenport explained. "Essentially, a laser consists of a gas-filled tube or a solid ruby bar with parallel mirrors at both ends. By exciting the atoms from outside, light is generated within the tube, and some of it begins to bounce back and forth between the mirrors at the ends. This tends to have a cascade effect on the atoms which have picked up the energy from outside, so that more and more of the light generated inside the tube tends to be parallel to the length of the tube. One of the mirrors is only partially silvered, and eventually the light bouncing back and forth becomes powerful enough to flash through the half-silvered end, giving a coherent beam of light."

"Maybe that's what this is supposed to be," said the colonel.

Davenport chuckled dryly. "Not a chance. Not with an essentially circular tube that isn't even silvered."

Lenny Poe, the colonel noticed, wasn't the only person around who didn't care whether the thing he referred to as a "tube" was hollow or not.

"Is it doing anything?" Colonel Spaulding asked anxiously, trying to read the meters over Davenport's shoulder.

"It's heating up," Davenport said dryly.

Spaulding looked back at the apparatus. A wisp of smoke was rising slowly from a big coil.

A relay clicked minutely.

WHAP!

For a confused second, everything seemed to happen at once.

But it didn't; there was a definite order to it.

First, a spot on the ceramic tile wall of the room became suddenly red, orange, white hot. Then there was a little crater of incandescent fury, as though a small volcano had erupted in the wall. Following that, there was a sputtering and crackling from the innards of the device itself, and a cloud of smoke arose suddenly, obscuring things in the room. Finally, there was the crash of circuit-breakers as they reacted to the overload from the short circuit.

There was silence for a moment, then the hiss of the automatic fire extinguishers in the testing room as they poured a cloud of carbon dioxide snow on the smoldering apparatus.

"There," said Davenport with utter satisfaction. "What did I tell you?"

"You didn't tell me this thing was a heat-ray projector," said Colonel Spaulding.

"What are you talking about?" Dr. Davenport said disdainfully.

"Develop the film in those automatic cameras," Spaulding said, "and I'll show you what I'm talking about!"

As far as Colonel Spaulding was concerned, the film showed clearly what had happened. A beam of energy had leaped from the "tail" of the Q-tube, hit the ceramic tile of the wall, and burned its way through in half a second or so. The hole in the wall, surrounded by fused ceramic, was mute evidence of the occurrence of what Spaulding had seen.

But Dr. Davenport pooh-poohed the whole thing. Evidence to the contrary, he was quite certain that no such thing had happened. A piece of hot glass from a broken vacuum tube had done it, he insisted.

A piece of hot glass had burned its way through half an inch of tile? And a wall?

Davenport muttered something about the destructive effects of shaped charges. He was more willing to believe that something as wildly improbable as that had happened than admit that the device had done what Colonel Spaulding was quite certain it had done.

Within three hours, Davenport had three possible explanations of what had happened, each of which required at least four unlikely things to happen coincidentally.

Colonel Spaulding stalked back to his office in a state of angry disgust. Just because the thing was foreign to Davenport's notions, he had effectively tied his own hands--and Colonel Spaulding's, too.

"Where's Lenny Poe?" he asked the WAC sergeant. "I want to talk to him."

She shook her head. "I don't know, sir. Lieutenant Fesner called in half an hour ago. Mr. Poe has eluded them again."

[Illustration]

Colonel Spaulding gazed silently at the ceiling for a long moment. Then: "Sergeant Nugget, take a letter. To the President of the United States, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

"Dear Sir. Consider this my resignation. I have had so much experience with jackasses lately that I have decided to change my name to Hackenbush and become a veterinarian. Yours truly, et cetera. Got that?"

"Yes, sir," said the sergeant.

"Burn it. When Fumblefingers Fesner and his boys find Lenny Poe again, I want to know immediately."

He stalked on into his office.

* * * * *

Raphael Poe was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable. Establishing a close rapport with another mind can be a distinct disadvantage at times. A spy is supposed to get information without giving any; a swapping of information is not at all to his advantage.

It was impossible to keep his mind a perfect blank. What he had to do was keep his strongest surface thoughts entirely on innocuous things. The trouble with that was that it made it extremely difficult to think about some way to get out of the jam he was in. Thinking on two levels at once, while not impossible, required a nicety of control that made wire-walking over Niagara look easy.

The thing to do was to make the surface thoughts automatically repetitive. A song.

"In a hall of strange description (Antiquarian Egyptian), Figuring his monthly balance sheet, a troubled monarch sat With a frown upon his forehead, hurling interjections horrid At the state of his finances, for his pocketbook was flat."

Simultaneously, he kept a picture in his mind's eye. It had to be something vivid that would be easy to concentrate on. The first thing that came to mind was the brilliant necktie that the President had used in his test several months before. He conjured it up in all its chartreuse glory, then he animated it. Mauve satyrs danced with rose-pink nymphs and chased them over the yellow-green landscape.

"Not a solitary single copper cent had he to jingle In his pocket, and his architects had gone off on a strike, Leaving pyramids unfinished, for their wages had diminished, And their credit vanished likewise, in a way they didn't like."

Rafe could tell that Dr. Malekrinova's mind was trying to reject the alien ideas that were coming into her mind. She wasn't consciously trying to pick up Rafe's thoughts. But the rejection was ineffective because of its fascination. The old business about the horse's tail. If you see a white horse, you'll soon get rich if you can keep from thinking about the horse's tail until it's out of sight. The first thought that comes to mind is: "I mustn't think about the horse's tail." A self-defeating proposition.

If Sonya Borisovna had been certain that she was receiving the thoughts telepathically, she might have been able to reject them. But her mind rejected the idea of telepathy instead, so she was susceptible to the thoughts because she thought they were her own.

The cavorting of the nymphs and satyrs became somewhat obscene, but Rafe didn't bother to correct it. He had more to worry about than offending the rather prim mind of Dr. Malekrinova.

"It was harder for His Royal Highness than for sons of toil, For the horny-handed workmen only ate three figs per day, While the King liked sweet potatoes, puddings, pies, and canned tomatoes, Boneless ham, and Bluepoint oysters cooked some prehistoric way."

What to do now? Should he try to get out of Russia? Was there any quick way out?

He had all the information he needed on the heat-beam projector that Dr. Malekrinova was building. The theory behind it was perfectly clear; all it needed was further experimentation. If it worked out according to theory, it would be an almost perfect defense against even the fastest intercontinental ballistic missiles.

"As he growled, the Royal grumbler spied a bit of broken tumbler In a long undusted corner just behind the chamber door. When his hungry optics spied it, he stood silently and eyed it, Then he smote his thigh with ecstasy and danced about the floor."

Maybe he should try to make a run for the American Embassy. No. No one there knew him, and they probably couldn't get him out of the country, anyway. Besides, it would take him too long to explain the situation to them.

"'By the wit Osiris gave me! This same bit of glass shall save me! I shall sell it as a diamond at some stupendous price! And whoe'er I ask to take it will find, for his own sweet sake, it Will be better not to wait until I have to ask him twice!'"

The theory behind the heat projector was simply an extension of the laser theory, plus a few refinements. Inside a ring made of the proper material, the light, acted upon by exterior magnetic fields, tended to move in a circle, so that the photon cascade effect was all in one direction instead of bouncing back and forth between a pair of mirrors. That light could be bent around corners by making it travel through a glass rod was well known, and the Malekrinova Q-tube took advantage of that effect.

In a way, the principle was similar to that of the cyclotron, except that instead of spinning ions around in a circle to increase their velocity a beam of coherent light was circulated to increase its intensity.

Then, at the proper moment, a beam of intense coherent light shot out of the tangent that formed the tail of the Q-tube. If the material of the Q was properly constructed and contained atoms that fluoresced strongly in the infra red, you had a heat beam that delivered plenty of power. And, since the radiation was linear and "in step," the Q-tube didn't heat up much at all. The cascade effect took most of the energy out as radiation.

"Then a Royal Proclamation was dispatched throughout the nation, Most imperatively calling to appear before the King. Under penalties most cruel, every man who sold a jewel Or who bought and bartered precious stones, and all that sort of thing."

But knowing all that didn't help Raphael Poe or the United States of America one whit if the information couldn't be gotten out of Russia and into Colonel Spaulding's hands. Lenny had told him of the trouble the colonel was having with Dr. Davenport.

If he could only communicate with Lenny! But if he did, Dr. Malekrinova would pick up every bit of it, and that would be the end of that. No, he had to figure out some way to get himself and the information both out of the country.

Meanwhile, he had to keep thinking of an animated necktie. And he had to keep singing.

"Thereupon, the jewelers' nether joints all quaked and knocked together, As they packed their Saratogas in lugubrious despair. It was ever their misfortune to be pillaged by extortion, And they thought they smelled a rodent on the sultry desert air."

Lenny Poe shoved open the door of Colonel Spaulding's outer office with a violence that startled Sergeant Nugget.

"Is Spaulding in?" he barked.

"I think he's expecting you," she said. There was no time to buzz the colonel; Poe was already opening the door.

"Rafe's in trouble!" Lenny said hurriedly, slamming the door behind him.

"Where have you been?" snapped the colonel.

"Never mind that! Rafe's in trouble, I said! We've gotta figure a way to get him out of it!"

Colonel Spaulding dropped all thought of bawling out Poe. "What'd he say? What's the trouble?"

"All he's doing is broadcasting that necktie--like an animated cartoon in technicolor. And he's singing."

"Singing? Singing what?"

"As they faced the Great Propylon, with an apprehensive smile on, Sculptured there in heiroglyphics six feet wide and nine feet high Was the threat of King Rameses to chop every man to pieces Who, when shown the Royal diamond, would dare refuse to buy."

Colonel Spaulding blinked. "That's pretty. What does it mean?"

"Nothing; it's a song, that's all. That female Russian scientist can read Rafe's mind, and he's broadcasting this stuff to cover up!"

Quickly, he told Spaulding what the situation was as he had been able to piece it together from Rafe's secondary thoughts.

"Ye Gods!" Colonel Spaulding slapped at his brow. Then he grabbed for the telephone and started dialing.

Lenny dropped into one of the chairs, closed his eyes, and concentrated.

Rafe! Rafe! Listen to me! Rafe!

"Then the richest dealer, Mulai Hassan, eyed the gem and coolly Said, 'The thing is but a common tumbler-bottom, nothing more!' Whereupon, the King's Assassin drew his sword, and Mulai Hassan Never peddled rings again upon the Nile's primeval shore."

But below the interference came Rafe's thoughts. And the one thing of primary importance to him was to get the information on the heat-beam generator to the United States.

No bigotry, no matter how strong, is totally impregnable. Even the most narrow-minded racial bigot will make an exception if a person of the despised race risks his own life to save the life of the bigot or someone the bigot loves. The bigotry doesn't collapse--not by a long shot. But an exception is made in that one case.

Lenny Poe made an exception. Any information that was worth his brother's life was Important! Therefore, it was not, could not be, scientific gobbledegook, no matter how it sounded.

Rafe, give it to me! Try me! I can copy it!

"Then Abdullah abd Almahdi faintly said the stone was shoddy, But he thought that, in a pinch, he might bid fifty cents himself. There ensued a slight commotion where he could repent the notion, And Abdullah was promoted to the Oriental Shelf."

Rafe! Stop singing that stupid song and give me the stuff! She can't learn anything if you just think about that theory stuff. She already knows that! Come on! Give!

Lenny Poe grabbed a pencil and a sheaf of paper from the colonel's desk and began writing frantically as the Song of the Egyptian Diamond stopped suddenly.

* * * * *

Words. Nonsense words. That's all most of the stuff was to Lenny. It didn't matter. He spelled them as he thought they should be, and if he made a mistake, Rafe would correct him.

Rafe tried to keep a picture of the words as they would look if printed while he thought them verbally, and that helped. The information came across in the only way it could come across--not as concepts, but as symbols.

Lenny hardly noticed that the Secretary of Defense and the President had come into the room. He didn't even realize that Colonel Spaulding was feeding him fresh sheets of paper.

Lenny didn't seem to notice the time passing, nor the pain in his hand as the muscles tired. He kept writing. The President left with the Defense Secretary and came back again after a while, but Lenny ignored them.

And when it was over, he pushed pencil and paper aside and, massaging his right hand with his left, sat there with his eyes closed. Then, slowly, a smile spread over his face.

"Well, I'll be damned," he said slowly and softly.

"Mr. Poe," said the President, "is there any danger that your brother will be captured within the next hour?"

Lenny looked up with a startled grin. "Oh. Hi. I didn't notice you, Mr. President. What'd you say?"

The President repeated his question.

"Oh. No. There's nothing to worry about. The little men in white coats came after Dr. Malekrinova. She started screaming that telepathic spies were stealing her secret. She smashed all her apparatus and burned all her papers on top of the wreckage before they could stop her. She keeps shouting about a pink-and-purple orgy and singing a song about glass diamonds and Egyptian kings. I wouldn't say she was actually insane, but she is very disturbed."

"Then your brother is safe?"

"As safe as he ever was, Mr. President."

"Thank Heaven for that," said the President. "If they'd ever captured him and made him talk--" He stopped. "I forgot," he said lamely after a moment.

Lenny grinned. "That's all right, Mr. President. I sometimes forget it myself. But it was his handicap, I guess, that made him concentrate on telepathy, so that he doesn't need his ears to hear what people are saying. Maybe I could read minds the way he does if I'd been born that way.

"Come to think of it, I doubt if the Russians would have believed he was a spy if they'd caught him, unless they really did believe he was telepathic. A physical examination would show immediately that he was born without eardrums and that the inner ear bones are fused. They wouldn't try to make a man talk if an examination showed that he really was a deaf-mute."

The buzzer on the colonel's intercom sounded. "Yes?" said Spaulding.

"Dr. Davenport is here," said Sergeant Nugget. "He wants to talk to you."

"Send him in," said Colonel Spaulding gleefully. "I have a nice scientific theory I want to shove down his throat."

End of Project Gutenberg's The Foreign Hand Tie, by Gordon Randall Garrett

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Eyes Have It, by Gordon Randall Garrett

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Eyes Have It

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Illustrator: John Schoenherr

Release Date: January 2, 2010 [EBook #30833]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EYES HAVE IT ***

Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction January 1964. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

The Eyes Have It

In a sense, this is a story of here-and-now. This Earth, this year ... but on a history-line slipped slightly sidewise. A history in which a great man acted differently, and Magic, rather than physical science, was developed....

RANDALL GARRETT

Illustrated by John Schoenherr

[Illustration]

* * * * *

Sir Pierre Morlaix, Chevalier of the Angevin Empire, Knight of the Golden Leopard, and secretary-in-private to my lord, the Count D'Evreux, pushed back the lace at his cuff for a glance at his wrist watch--three minutes of seven. The Angelus had rung at six, as always, and my lord D'Evreux had been awakened by it, as always. At least, Sir Pierre could not remember any time in the past seventeen years when my lord had not awakened at the Angelus. Once, he recalled, the sacristan had failed to ring the bell, and the Count had been furious for a week. Only the intercession of Father Bright, backed by the Bishop himself, had saved the sacristan from doing a turn in the dungeons of Castle D'Evreux.

Sir Pierre stepped out into the corridor, walked along the carpeted flagstones, and cast a practiced eye around

as he walked. These old castles were difficult to keep clean, and my lord the Count was fussy about nitre collecting in the seams between the stones of the walls. All appeared quite in order, which was a good thing. My lord the Count had been making a night of it last evening, and that always made him the more peevish in the morning. Though he always woke at the Angelus, he did not always wake up sober.

S

ierre stopped before a heavy, polished, carved oak door, selected a key from one of the many at his belt, and turned it in the lock. Then he went into the elevator and the door locked automatica

behind him. He pressed the switch and waited in patient silenc

was lifted up four floors to the Count's personal suite.

By now, my lord the Count would have bathed

d dressed. He would also have poured down an eye-opener consisting of half a water glass of fine Champagne brandy. He would not eat breakfast until eight. The Count had no valet in the strict sense of the term. Sir Reginald Beauvay held that title, bu--

was never called upon to exercise the more

--onal functions of his office. The Count did not like to be seen until he was thoroughly presentable.

The elevator stopped. Sir Pierre stepped out into the corridor and walked along it toward the door at the far end. At exactly seven o'clo

he rapped briskly on the great door which bo

he gilt-and-polychrome arms of the House D'Evreux.

p>

For the first time in seventeen years, there was no answer.

Sir Pierre waited

growled command to enter for a full minute, unable to believe his ears. Then, almost timidly, he rapped again.

There was still no answer.

Then, bracing himself for the verbal onslaught that would follow if he had erred, Sir Pierre turned the handle and opened the door just as if he had heard the Count's voice telling him to come in.

"Good morning, my lord," he said, as he always had for seventeen years.

But the room was empty, and there was no answer.

He looked around the huge room. The morning sunlight streamed in through the high mullioned windows and spread a diamond-checkered pattern across the tapestry on the far wall, lighting up the brilliant hunting scene in a blaze of color.

"My lord?"

Nothing. Not a sound.

The bedroom door was open. Sir Pierre walked across to it and looked in.

He saw immediately why my lord the Count had not answered, and that, indeed, he would never answer again.

My lord the Count lay flat on his back, his arms spread wide, his eyes staring at the ceiling. He was still clad in his gold and scarlet evening clothes. But the great stain on the front of his coat was not the same shade of scarlet as the rest of the cloth, and the stain had a bullet hole in its center.

Sir Pierre looked at him without moving for a long moment. Then he stepped over, knelt, and touched one of the Count's hands with back of his own. It was quite cool. He had been dead for hours

"I knew someone would do you in sooner or later, my lord," said Sir Pierre, almost regretfully.

e rose from his kneeling position and walked out without another look at his dead lord. He locked the door of the suite, pocketed the key, and went back downstairs in the elevator.

* * * * *

Mary, Lady Duncan stared out of the window at the morning sunlight and wondered what to do. The Angelus bell had awakened her from a fitful sleep in her chair, and she knew that, as a guest at Castle D'Evreux, she would be expected to appear at Mass again this morning. But how could she? How could she face the Sacramental Lord on the altar--to say nothing of taking the Blessed Sacrament itself.

Still, it would look all the more conspicuous if she did not show up this morning after having made it a point to attend every morning with Lady Alice during the first four days of this visit.

She turned and glanced at the locked and barred door of the bedroom. He would not be expected to come. Laird Duncan used his wheelchair as an excuse, but since he had taken up black magic as a hobby he had, she suspected, been actually afraid to go anywhere near a church.

If only she hadn't lied to him! But how could she have told the truth? That would have been worse--infinitely worse. And now, because of that lie, he was locked in his bedroom doing only God and the Devil knew what.

If only he would come out. If he would only stop whatever it was he had been doing for all these long hours--or at least finish it! Then they could leave Evreux, make some excuse--any excuse--to get away. One of them could feign sickness. Anything, anything to get them out of France, across the Channel, and back to Scotland, where they would be safe!

She looked back out of the window, across the courtyard, at the towering stone walls of the Great Keep and at the high window that opened into the suite of Edouard, Count D'Evreux.

Last night she had hated him, but no longer. Now there was only room in her heart for fear.

She buried her face in her hands and cursed herself for a fool. There were no tears left for weeping--not after the long night.

Behind her, she heard the sudden noise of the door being unlocked, and she turned.

Laird Duncan of Duncan opened t

oor and wheeled himself out. He was followed by a malodorous gu

por from the room he had just left. Lady Duncan stared at him.

He looked older than he had last night

re haggard and worn, and there was something in his eyes she did not like. For a moment he said nothing. Then he wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. When he spoke, his voice sounded dazed.

"There is nothing to fear any more," he said. "Nothing to fear at all."

* * * * *

The Reverend Father James Valois Bright, Vicar of the Chapel of Saint-Esprit, had as his flock the several hundred inhabitants of the Castle D'Evreux. As such, he was the ranking priest--socially, not hierarchically--in the country. Not counting the Bishop and the Chapter at the Cathedral, of course. But such knowledge did little good for the Father's peace of mind. The turnout of the flock was abominably small for its size--especially for week-day Masses. The Sunday Masses were well attended, of course; Count D'Evreux was there punctually at nine every Sunday, and he had a habit of counting the house. But he never showed up on weekdays, and his laxity had allowed a certain further laxity to filter down through the ranks.

The great consolation was Lady Alice D'Evreux. She was a plain, simple girl, nearly twenty years younger than her brother, the Count, and quite his opposite in every way. She was quiet where he was thundering, self-effacing where he was flamboyant, temperate where he was drunken, and chaste where he was--

Father Bright brought his thoughts to a full halt for a moment. He had, he reminded himself, no right to make judgments of that sort. He was not, after all, the Count's confessor; the Bishop was.

Besides, he should have his mind on his prayers just now.

He paused and was rather surprised to notice that he had already put on his alb, amice, and girdle, and he was aware that his lips had formed the words of the prayer as he had donned each of them.

Habit, he thought, can be destructive to the contemplative faculty.

He glanced around the sacristy. His server, the young son of the Count of Saint Brieuc, sent here to complete his education as a gentleman who would some day be the King's Governor of one of the most important counties in Brittany, was pulling his surplice down over his head. The clock said 7:11.

Father Bright forced his mind Heavenward and repeated silently the vesting prayers that his lips had formed meani

ssly, this time putting his full intentions behind them. Then he added a short mental prayer asking God to forgive him for allowing his thoughts to stray in such a manner.

He opened his eyes and reached for his chasuble just as the sacristy door opened and Sir Pierre, the Count's Privy Secretary, stepped in.

"I must speak to you, Father," he said in a low voice. And, glancing at the young De Saint-Brieuc, he added: "Alone."

Normally, Father Bright would have reprimanded anyone who presumed to break into the sacristy as he was vesting for Mass, but he knew that Sir Pierre would never interrupt without good reason. He nodded and went outside in the corridor that led to the altar.

"What is it, Pierre?" he asked.

"My lord the Count is dead. Murdered."

After the first momentary shock, Father Bright realized that the news was not, after all, totally unexpected. Somewhere in the back of his mind, it seemed he had always known that the Count would die by violence long before debauchery ruined his health.

"Tell me about it," he said quietly.

Sir Pierre reported exactly what he had done and what he had seen.

"Then I locked the door and came straight here," he told the priest.

"Who else has the key to the Count's suite?" Father Bright asked.

"No one but my lord himself," Sir Pierre answered, "at least as far as I know."

"Where is his key?"

"Still in the ring at his belt. I noticed that particularly."

"Very good. We'll leave it locked. You're certain the body was cold?"

"Cold and waxy, Father."

"Then he's been dead many hours."

"Lady Alice will have to be told," Sir Pierre said.

Father Bright nodded. "Yes. The Countess D'Evreux must be informed of her succession to the County Seat." He could tell by the sudden momentary blank look that came over Sir Pierre's face that the Privy Secretary had not yet realized fully the implications of the Count's death. "I'll tell her, Pierre. She should be in her pew by now. Just step into the church and tell her quietly that I want to speak to her. Don't tell her anything else."

"I understand, Father," said Sir Pierre.

* * * * *

There were only twenty-five or thirty people in the pews--most of them women--but Alice, Countess D'Evreux was not one of them. Sir Pierre walked quietly and unobtrusively down the side aisle and out into the narthex. She was standing there, just inside the main door, adjusting the black lace mantilla about her head, as though she had just come in from outside. Suddenly, Sir Pierre was very glad he would not have to be the one to break the news.

She looked rather sad, as always, her plain face unsmiling. The jutting nose and square chin which had given her brother the Count a look of aggressive handsomeness only made her look very solemn and rather sexless, although she had a magnificent figure.

"My lady," Sir Pierre said, stepping towards her, "the Reverent Father would like to speak to you before Mass. He's waiting at the sacristy door."

She held her rosary clutched tightly to her breast and gasped. Then she said, "Oh. Sir Pierre. I'm sorry; you quite surprised me. I didn't see you."

"My apologies, my lady."

"It's all right. My thoughts were elsewhere. Will you take me to the good Father?"

Father Bright heard their footsteps coming down the corridor before he saw them. He was a little fidgety because Mass was already a minute overdue. It should have started promptly at 7:15.

The new Countess D'Evreux took the news calmly, as he had known she would. After a pause, she crossed herself and said: "May his soul rest in peace. I will leave everything in your hands, Father, Sir Pierre. What are we to do?"

"Pierre must get on the teleson to Rouen immediately and report the matter to His Highness. I will announce your brother's death and ask for prayers for his soul--but I think I need say nothing about the manner of his death. There is no need to arouse any more speculation and fuss than necessary."

"Very well," said the Countess. "Come, Sir Pierre; I will speak to the Duke, my cousin, myself."

"Yes, my lady."

Father Bright returned to the sacristy, opened the missal, and changed the placement of the ribbons. Today was an ordinary Feria; a Votive Mass would not be forbidden by the rubics. The clock said 7:17. He turned to young De Saint-Brieuc, who was waiting respectfully. "Quickly, my son--go and get the unbleached beeswax candles and put them on the altar. Be sure you light them before you put out the white ones. Hurry, now; I will be ready by the time you come back. Oh yes--and change the altar frontal. Put on the black."

"Yes, Father." And the lad was gone.

Father Bright folded the green chasuble and returned it to the drawer, then took out the black one. He would say a Requiem for the Souls of All the Faithful Departed--and hope that the Count was among them.

* * * * *

His Royal Highness, the Duke of Normandy, looked over the official letter his secretary had just typed for him. It was addressed to Serenissimus Dominus Nostrus Iohannes Quartus, Dei Gratia, Angliae, Franciae, Scotiae, Hiberniae, et Novae Angliae, Rex, Imperator, Fidei Defensor, ... "Our Most Serene Lord, John IV, by the Grace of God King and Emperor of England, France, Scotland, Ireland, and New England, Defender of the Faith, ..."

It was a routine matter; simple notification to his brother, the King, that His Majesty's most faithful servant, Edouard, Count of Evreux had departed this life, and asking His Majesty's confirmation of the Count's heir-at-law, Alice, Countess of Evreux as his lawful successor.

His Highness finished reading, nodded, and scrawled his signature at the bottom: Richard Dux Normaniae.

Then, on a separate piece of paper, he wrote: "Dear John, May I suggest you hold up on this for a while? Edouard was a lecher and a slob, and I have no doubt he got everything he deserved, but we have no notion who killed him. For any evidence I have to the contrary, it might have been Alice who pulled the trigger. I will send you full particulars as soon as I have them. With much love, Your brother and servant, Richard."

He put both papers into a prepared envelope and sealed it. He wished he could have called the king on the teleson, but no one had yet figured out how to get the wires across the channel.

He looked absently at the sealed envelope, his handsome blond features thoughtful. The House of Plantagenet had endured for eight centuries, and the blood of Henry of Anjou ran thin in its veins, but the Norman strain was as strong as ever, having been replenished over the centuries by fresh infusions from Norwegian and Danish princesses. Richard's mother, Queen Helga, wife to His late Majesty, Henry X, spoke very few words of Anglo-French, and those with a heavy Norse accent.

Nevertheless, there was nothing Scandinavian in the language, manner, or bearing of Richard, Duke of Normandy. Not only was he a member of the oldest and most powerful ruling family of Europe, but he bore a Christian name that was distinguished even in that family. Seven Kings of the Empire had borne the name, and most of them had been good Kings--if not always "good" men in the nicey-nicey sense of the word. Even old Richard I, who'd been pretty wild during the first forty-odd years of his life, had settled down to do a magnificent job of kinging for the next twenty years. The long and painful recovery from the wound he'd received at the Siege of Chaluz had made a change in him for the better.

There was a chance that Duke Richard might be called upon to uphold the honor of that name as King. By law, Parliament must elect a Plantagenet as King in the event of the death of the present Sovereign, and while the election of one of the King's two sons, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Lancaster, was more likely than the election of Richard, he was certainly not eliminated from the succession.

[Illustration]

Meantime, he would uphold the honor of his name as Duke of Normandy.

Murder had been done; therefore justice must be done. The Count D'Evreux had been known for his stern but fair justice almost as well as he had been known for his profligacy. And, just as his pleasures had been without temperance, so his justice had been untempered by mercy. Whoever had killed him would find both justice and mercy--in so far as Richard had it within his power to give it.

Although he did not formulate it in so many words, even mentally, Richard was of the opinion that some debauched woman or cuckolded man had fired the fatal shot. Thus he found himself inclining toward mercy before he knew anything substantial about the case at all.

Richard dropped the letter he was holding into the special mail pouch that would be placed aboard the evening trans-Channel packet, and then turned in his chair to look at the lean, middle-aged man working at a desk across the room.

"My lord Marquis," he said thoughtfully.

"Yes, Your Highness?" said the Marquis of Rouen, looking up.

"How true are the stories one has heard about the late Count?"

"True, Your Highness?" the Marquis said thoughtfully. "I would hesitate to make any estimate of percentages. Once a man gets a reputation like that, the number of his reputed sins quickly surpasses the number of actual ones. Doubtless many of the stories one hears are of whole cloth; others may have only a slight basis in fact. On the other hand, it is highly likely that there are many of which we have never heard. It is absolutely certain, however, that he has acknowledged seven illegitimate sons, and I dare say he has ignored a few daughters--and these, mind you, with unmarried women. His adulteries would be rather more difficult to establish, but I think your Highness can take it for granted that such escapades were far from uncommon."

He cleared his throat and then added, "If Your Highness is looking for motive, I fear there is a superabundance of persons with motive."

"I see," the Duke said. "Well, we will wait and see what sort of information Lord Darcy comes up with." He looked up at the clock. "They should be there by now."

Then, as if brushing further thoughts on the subject from his mind, he went back to work, picking up a new sheaf of state papers from his desk.

The Marquis watched him for a moment and smiled a little to himself. The young Duke took his work seriously, but was well-balanced about it. A little inclined to be romantic--but aren't we all at nineteen? There was no doubt of his ability, nor of his nobility. The Royal Blood of England always came through.

* * * * *

"My lady," said Sir Pierre gently, "the Duke's Investigators have arrived."

My Lady Alice, Countess D'Evreux, was seated in a gold-brocade upholstered chair in the small receiving room off the Great Hall. Standing near her, looking very grave, was Father Bright. Against the blaze of color on the walls of the room, the two of them stood out like ink blots. Father Bright wore his normal clerical black, unrelieved except for the pure white lace at collar and cuffs. The Countess wore unadorned black velvet, a dress which she had had to have altered hurriedly by her dressmaker; she had always hated black and owned only the mourning she had worn when her mother died eight years before. The somber looks on their faces seemed to make the black blacker.

"Show them in, Sir Pierre," the Countess said calmly.

Sir Pierre opened the door wider, and three men entered. One was dressed as one gently born; the other two wore the livery of the Duke of Normandy.

The gentleman bowed. "I am Lord Darcy, Chief Criminal Investigator for His Highness, the Duke, and your servant, my lady." He was a tall, brown-haired man in his thirties with a rather handsome, lean face. He spoke Anglo-French with a definite English accent.

"My pleasure, Lord Darcy," said the Countess. "This is our vicar, Father Bright."

"Your servant, Reverend Sir." Then he presented the two men with him. The first was a scholarly-looking, graying man wearing pince-nez glasses with gold rims, Dr. Pateley, Physician. The second, a tubby, red-faced, smiling man, was Master Sean O Lochlainn, Sorcerer.

As soon as Master Sean was presented he removed a small, leather-bound folder from his belt pouch and proffered it to the priest. "My license, Reverend Father."

Father Bright took it and glanced over it. It was the usual thing, signed and sealed by the Archbishop of Rouen. The law was rather strict on that point; no sorcerer could practice without the permission of the Church, and a license was given only after careful examination for orthodoxy of practice.

"It seems to be quite in order, Master Sean," said the priest, handing the folder back. The tubby little sorcerer bowed his thanks and returned the folder to his belt pouch.

Lord Darcy had a notebook in his hand. "Now, unpleasant as it may be, we shall have to check on a few facts." He consulted his notes, then looked up at Sir Pierre. "You, I believe, discovered the body?"

"That is correct, your lordship."

"How long ago was this?"

Sir Pierre glanced at his wrist watch. It was 9:55. "Not quite three hours ago, your lordship."

"At what time, precisely?"

"I rapped on the door precisely at seven, and went in a minute or two later--say 7:01 or 7:02."

"How do you know the time so exactly?"

"My lord the Count," said Sir Pierre with some stiffness, "insisted upon exact punctuality. I have formed the habit of referring to my watch regularly."

"I see. Very good. Now, what did you do then?"

Sir Pierre described his actions briefly.

"The door to his suite was not locked, then?" Lord Darcy asked.

"No, sir."

"You did not expect it to be locked?"

"No, sir. It has not been for seventeen years."

Lord Darcy raised one eyebrow in a polite query. "Never?"

"Not at seven o'clock, your lordship. My lord the Count always rose promptly at six and unlocked the door before seven."

"He did lock it at night, then?"

"Yes, sir."

Lord Darcy looked thoughtful and made a note, but he said nothing more on that subject. "When you left, you locked the door?"

"That is correct, your lordship."

"And it has remained locked ever since?"

Sir Pierce hesitated and glanced at Father Bright. The priest said: "At 8:15, Sir Pierre and I went in. I wished to view the body. We touched nothing. We left at 8:20."

* * * * *

Master Sean O Lochlainn looked agitated. "Er ... excuse me, Reverend Sir. You didn't give him Holy Unction, I hope?"

"No," said Father Bright. "I thought it would be better to delay that until after the authorities has seen the ... er ... scene of the crime. I wouldn't want to make the gathering of evidence any more difficult than necessary."

"Quite right," murmured Lord Darcy.

"No blessings, I trust, Reverend Sir?" Master Sean persisted. "No exorcisms or--"

"Nothing," Father Bright interrupted somewhat testily. "I believe I crossed myself when I saw the body, but nothing more."

"Crossed yourself, sir. Nothing else?"

"No."

"Well, that's all right, then. Sorry to be so persistent, Reverend Sir, but any miasma of evil that may be left around is a very important clue, and it shouldn't be dispersed until it's been checked, you see."

"Evil?" My lady the Countess looked shocked.

"Sorry, my lady, but--" Master Sean began contritely.

But Father Bright interrupted by speaking to the Countess. "Don't distress yourself, my daughter; these men are only doing their duty."

"Of course. I understand. It's just that it's so--" She shuddered delicately.

Lord Darcy cast Master Sean a warning look, then asked politely, "Has my lady seen the deceased?"

"No," she said. "I will, however, if you wish."

"We'll see," said Lord Darcy. "Perhaps it won't be necessary. May we go up to the suite now?"

"Certainly," the Countess said. "Sir Pierre, if you will?"

"Yes, my lady."

As Sir Pierre unlocked the emblazoned door, Lord Darcy said: "Who else sleeps on this floor?"

"No one else, your lordship," Sir Pierre said. "The entire floor is ... was ... reserved for my lord the Count."

"Is there any way up besides that elevator?"

Sir Pierre turned and pointed toward the other end of the short hallway. "That leads to the staircase," he said, pointing to a massive oaken door, "but it's kept locked at all times. And, as you can see, there is a heavy bar across it. Except for moving furniture in and out or something like that, it's never used."

"No other way up or down, then?"

Sir Pierre hesitated. "Well, yes, your lordship, there is. I'll show you."

"A secret stairway?"

"Yes, your lordship."

"Very well. We'll look at it after we've seen the body."

Lord Darcy, having spent an hour on the train down from Rouen, was anxious to see the cause of the trouble at last.

He lay in the bedroom, just as Sir Pierre and Father Bright had left him.

"If you please, Dr. Pateley," said his lordship.

He knelt on one side of the corpse and watched carefully while Pateley knelt on the other side and looked at the face of the dead man. Then he touched one of the hands and tried to move an arm. "Rigor has set in--even to the fingers. Single bullet hole. Rather small caliber--I should say a .28 or .34--hard to tell until I've probed out the bullet. Looks like it went right through the heart, though. Hard to tell about powder burns; the blood has soaked the clothing and dried. Still, these specks ... hm-m-m. Yes. Hm-m-m."

Lord Darcy's eyes took in everything, but there was little enough to see on the body itself. Then his eye was caught by something that gave off a golden gleam. He stood up and walked over to the great canopied four-poster bed, then he was on his knees again, peering under it. A coin? No.

He picked it up carefully and looked at it. A button. Gold, intricately engraved in an Arabesque pattern, and set in the center with a single diamond. How long had it lain there? Where had it come from? Not from the Count's clothing, for his buttons were smaller, engraved with his arms, and had no gems. Had a man or a woman dropped it? There was no way of knowing at this stage of the game.

Darcy turned to Sir Pierre. "When was this room last cleaned?"

"Last evening, your lordship," the secretary said promptly. "My lord was always particular about that. The suite was always to be swept and cleaned during the dinner hour."

"Then this must have rolled under the bed at some time after dinner. Do you recognize it? The design is distinctive."

The Privy Secretary looked carefully at the button in the palm of Lord Darcy's hand without touching it. "I ... I hesitate to say," he said at last. "It looks like ... but I'm not sure--"

"Come, come, Chevalier! Where do you think you might have seen it? Or one like it." There was a sharpness in the tone of his voice.

"I'm not trying to conceal anything, your lordship," Sir Pierre said with equal sharpness. "I said I was not sure. I still am not, but it can be checked easily enough. If your lordship will permit me--" He turned and spoke to Dr. Pateley, who was still kneeling by the body. "May I have my lord the Count's keys, doctor?"

Pateley glanced up at Lord Darcy, who nodded silently. The physician detached the keys from the belt and handed them to Sir Pierre.

The Privy Secretary looked at them for a moment, then selected a small gold key. "This is it," he said, separating it from the others on the ring. "Come with me, your lordship."

* * * * *

Darcy followed him across the room to a broad wall covered with a great tapestry that must have dated back to the sixteenth century. Sir Pierre reached behind it and pulled a cord. The entire tapestry slid aside like a panel, and Lord Darcy saw that it was supported on a track some ten feet from the floor. Behind it was what looked at first like ordinary oak paneling, but Sir Pierre fitted the small key into an inconspicuous hole and turned. Or, rather, tried to turn.

"That's odd," said Sir Pierre. "It's not locked!"

He took the key out and pressed on the panel, shoving sideways with his hand to move it aside. It slid open to reveal a closet.

The closet was filled with women's clothing of all kinds, and styles.

Lord Darcy whistled soundlessly.

"Try that blue robe, your lordship," the Privy Secretary said. "The one with the--Yes, that's the one."

Lord Darcy took it off its hanger. The same buttons. They matched. And there was one missing from the front! Torn off! "Master Sean!" he called without turning.

Master Sean came with a rolling walk. He was holding an oddly-shaped bronze thing in his hand that Sir Pierre didn't quite recognize. The sorcerer was muttering. "Evil, that there is! Faith, and the vibrations are all over the place. Yes, my lord?"

"Check this dress and the button when you get round to it. I want to know when the two parted company."

"Yes, my lord." He draped the robe over one arm and dropped the button into a pouch at his belt. "I can tell you one thing, my lord. You talk about an evil miasma, this room has got it!" He held up the object in his hand. "There's an underlying background--something that has been here for years, just seeping in. But on top of that, there's a hellish big blast of it superimposed. Fresh it is, and very strong."

"I shouldn't be surprised, considering there was murder done here last night--or very early this morning," said Lord Darcy.

"Hm-m-m, yes. Yes, my lord, the death is there--but there's something else. Something I can't place."

"You can tell that just by holding that bronze cross in your hand?" Sir Pierre asked interestedly.

Master Sean gave him a friendly scowl. "'Tisn't quite a cross, sir. This is what is known as a crux ansata. The ancient Egyptians called it an ankh. Notice the loop at the top instead of the straight piece your true cross has. Now, your true cross--if it were properly energized, blessed, d'ye see--your true cross would tend to dissipate the evil. The ankh merely vibrates to evil because of the closed loop at the top, which makes a return circuit. And it's not energized by blessing, but by another ... um ... spell."

"Master Sean, we have a murder to investigate," said Lord Darcy.

The sorcerer caught the tone of his voice and nodded quickly. "Yes, my lord." And he walked rollingly away.

"Now where's that secret stairway you mentioned, Sir Pierre?" Lord Darcy asked.

"This way, your lordship."

He led Lord Dacy to a wall at right angles to the outer wall and slid back another tapestry.

"Good Heavens," Darcy muttered, "does he have something concealed behind every arras in the place?" But he didn't say it loud enough for the Privy Secretary to hear.

* * * * *

This time, what greeted them was a solid-seeming stone wall. But Sir Pierre pressed in on one small stone, and a section of the wall swung back, exposing a stairway.

"Oh, yes," Darcy said. "I see what he did. This is the old spiral stairway that goes round the inside of the Keep. There are two doorways at the bottom. One opens into the courtyard, the other is a postern gate through the curtain wall to the outside--but that was closed up in the sixteenth century, so the only way out is into the courtyard."

"Your lordship knows Castle D'Evreux, then?" Sir Pierre said. The knight himself was nearly fifty, while Darcy was only in his thirties, and Sir Pierre had no recollection of Darcy's having been in the castle before.

"Only by the plans in the Royal Archives. But I have made it a point to--" He stopped. "Dear me," he interrupted himself mildly, "what is that?"

"That" was something that had been hidden by the arras until Sir Pierre had slid it aside, and was still showing only a part of itself. It lay on the floor a foot or so from the secret door.

Darcy knelt down and pulled the tapestry back from the object. "Well, well. A .28 two-shot pocket gun. Gold-chased, beautifully engraved, mother-of-pearl handle. A regular gem." He picked it up and examined it closely. "One shot fired."

He stood up and showed it to Sir Pierre. "Ever see it before?"

The Privy Secretary looked at the weapon closely. Then he shook his head. "Not that I recall, your lordship. It certainly isn't one of the Count's guns."

"You're certain?"

"Quite certain, your lordship. I'll show you the gun collection if you want. My lord the Count didn't like tiny guns like that; he preferred a larger caliber. He would never have owned what he considered a toy."

"Well, we'll have to look into it." He called over Master Sean again and gave the gun into his keeping. "And keep your eyes open for anything else of interest, Master Sean. So far, everything of interest besides the late Count himself has been hiding under beds or behind arrases. Check everything. Sir Pierre and I are going for a look down this stairway."

The stairway was gloomy, but enough light came in through the arrow slits spaced at intervals along the outer way to illuminate the interior. It spiraled down between the inner and outer walls of the Great Keep, making four complete circuits before it reached ground level. Lord Darcy looked carefully at the steps, the walls, and even the low, arched overhead as he and Sir Pierre went down.

After the first circuit, on the floor beneath the Count's suite, he stopped. "There was a door here," he said, pointing to a rectangular area in the inner wall.

"Yes, your lordship. There used to be an opening at every floor, but they were all sealed off. It's quite solid, as you can see."

"Where would they lead if they were open?"

"The county offices. My own office, the clerk's offices, the constabulary on the first floor. Below are the dungeons. My lord the Count was the only one who lived in the Keep itself. The rest of the household live above the Great Hall."

"What about guests?"

"They're usually housed in the east wing. We only have two house guests at the moment. Laird and Lady Duncan have been with us for four days."

"I see." They went down perhaps four more steps before Lord Darcy asked quietly, "Tell me, Sir Pierre, were you privy to all of Count D'Evreux's business?"

Another four steps down before Sir Pierre answered. "I understand what your lordship means," he said. Another two steps. "No, I was not. I was aware that my lord the Count engaged in certain ... er ... shall we say, liaisons with members of the opposite sex. However--"

He paused, and in the gloom, Lord Darcy could see his lips tighten. "However," he continued, "I did not procure for my lord, if that is what you're driving at. I am not and never have been a pimp."

"I didn't intend to suggest that you had, good knight," said Lord Darcy in a tone that strongly implied that the thought had actually never crossed his mind. "Not at all. But certainly there is a difference between 'aiding and abetting' and simple knowledge of what is going on."

"Oh. Yes. Yes, of course. Well, one cannot, of course, be the secretary-in-private of a gentleman such as my lord the Count for seventeen years without knowing something of what is going on, you're right. Yes. Yes. Hm-m-m."

* * * * *

Lord Darcy smiled to himself. Not until this moment had Sir Pierre realized how much he actually did know. In loyalty to his lord, he had literally kept his eyes shut for seventeen years.

"I realize," Lord Darcy said smoothly, "that a gentleman would never implicate a lady nor besmirch the reputation of another gentleman without due cause and careful consideration. However,"--like the knight, he paused a moment before going on--"although we are aware that he was not discreet, was he particular?"

"If you mean by that, did he confine his attentions to those of gentle birth, your lordship, then I can say, no he did not. If you mean did he confine his attentions to the gentler sex, then I can only say that, as far as I know, he did."

"I see. That explains the closet full of clothes."

"Beg pardon, your lordship?"

"I mean that if a girl or woman of the lower classes were to come here, he would have proper clothing for them to wear--in spite of the sumptuary laws to the contrary."

"Quite likely, your lordship. He was most particular about clothing. Couldn't stand a woman who was sloppily dressed or poorly dressed."

"In what way?"

"Well. Well, for instance, I recall once that he saw a very pretty peasant girl. She was dressed in the common style, of course, but she was dressed neatly and prettily. My lord took a fancy to her. He said, 'Now there's a lass who knows how to wear clothes. Put her in decent apparel, and she'd pass for a princess.' But a girl, who had a pretty face and a fine figure, made no impression on him unless she wore her clothing well, if you see what I mean, your lordship."

"Did you ever know him to fancy a girl who dressed in an offhand manner?" Lord Darcy asked.

"Only among the gently born, your lordship. He'd say, 'Look at Lady So-and-so! Nice wench, if she'd let me teach her how to dress.' You might say, your lordship, that a woman could be dressed commonly or sloppily, but not both."

"Judging by the stuff in that closet," Lord Darcy said, "I should say that the late Count had excellent taste in feminine dress."

Sir Pierre considered. "Hm-m-m. Well, now, I wouldn't exactly say so, your lordship. He knew how clothes should be worn, yes. But he couldn't pick out a woman's gown of his own accord. He could choose his own clothing with impeccable taste, but he'd not any real notion of how a woman's clothing should go, if you see what I mean. All he knew was how good clothing should be worn. But he knew nothing about design for women's clothing."

"Then how did he get that closet full of clothes?" Lord Darcy asked, puzzled.

Sir Pierre chuckled. "Very simply, your lordship. He knew that the Lady Alice had good taste, so he secretly instructed that each piece that Lady Alice ordered should be made in duplicate. With small variations, of course. I'm certain my lady wouldn't like it if she knew."

"I dare say not," said Lord Darcy thoughtfully.

"Here is the door to the courtyard," said Sir Pierre. "I doubt that it has been opened in broad daylight for many years." He selected a key from the ring of the late Count and inserted it into the keyhole. The door swung back, revealing a large crucifix attached to its outer surface. Lord Darcy crossed himself. "Lord in Heaven," he said softly, "what is this?"

He looked out into a small shrine. It was walled off from the courtyard and had a single small entrance some ten feet from the doorway. There were four prie-dieus--small kneeling benches--ranged in front of the doorway.

"If I may explain, your lordship--" Sir Pierre began.

"No need to," Lord Darcy said in a hard voice. "It's rather obvious. My lord the Count was quite ingenious. This is a relatively newly-built shrine. Four walls and a crucifix against the castle wall. Anyone could come in here, day or night, for prayer. No one who came in would be suspected." He stepped out into the small enclosure and swung around to look at the door. "And when that door is closed, there is no sign that there is a door behind the crucifix. If a woman came in here, it would be assumed that she came for prayer. But if she knew of that door--" His voice trailed off.

"Yes, your lordship," said Sir Pierre. "I did not approve, but I was in no position to disapprove."

"I understand." Lord Darcy stepped out to the doorway of the little shrine and took a quick glance about. "Then anyone within the castle walls could come in here," he said.

"Yes, your lordship."

"Very well. Let's go back up."

* * * * *

In the small office which Lord Darcy and his staff had been assigned while conducting the investigation, three men watched while a fourth conducted a demonstration on a table in the center of the room.

Master Sean O Lochlainn held up an intricately engraved gold button with an Arabesque pattern and a diamond set in the center.

He looked at the other three. "Now, my lord, your Reverence, and colleague Doctor, I call your attention to this button."

Dr. Pateley smiled and Father Bright looked stern. Lord Darcy merely stuffed tobacco--imported from the southern New England counties on the Gulf--into a German-made porcelain pipe. He allowed Master Sean a certain amount of flamboyance; good sorcerers were hard to come by.

"Will you hold the robe, Dr. Pateley? Thank you. Now, stand back. That's it. Thank you. Now, I place the button on the table, a good ten feet from the robe." Then he muttered something under his breath and dusted a bit of powder on the button. He made a few passes over it with his hands, paused, and looked up at Father Bright. "If you will, Reverend Sir?"

Father Bright solemnly raised his right hand, and, as he made the Sign of the Cross, said: "May this demonstration, O God, be in strict accord with the truth, and may the Evil One not in any way deceive us who are witnesses thereto. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."

"Amen," the other three chorused.

Master Sean crossed himself, then muttered something under his breath.

The button leaped from the table, slammed itself against the robe which Dr. Pateley held before him, and stuck there as though it had been sewed on by an expert.

"Ha!" said Master Sean. "As I thought!" He gave the other three men a broad, beaming smile. "The two were definitely connected!"

Lord Darcy looked bored. "Time?" he asked.

[Illustration]

"In a moment, my lord," Master Sean said apologetically. "In a moment." While the other three watched, the sorcerer went through more spells with the button and the robe, although none were quite so spectacular as the first demonstration. Finally, Master Sean said: "About eleven thirty last night they were torn apart, my lord. But I shouldn't like to make it any more definite than to say between eleven and midnight. The speed with which it returned to its place shows that it was ripped off very rapidly, however."

"Very good," said Lord Darcy. "Now the bullet, if you please."

"Yes, my lord. This will have to be a bit different." He took more paraphernalia out of his large, symbol-decorated carpet bag. "The Law of Contagion, gently-born sirs, is a tricky thing to work with. If a man doesn't know how to handle it, he can get himself killed. We had an apprentice o' the guild back in Cork who might have made a good sorcerer in time. He had the talent--unfortunately, he didn't have the good sense to go with it. According to the Law of Contagion any two objects which have ever been in contact with each other have an affinity for each other which is directly proportional to the product of the degree of relevancy of the contact and the length of time they were in contact and inversely proportional to the length of time since they have ceased to be in contact." He gave a smiling glance to the priest. "That doesn't apply strictly to relics of the saints, Reverend Sir; there's another factor enters in there, as you know."

As he spoke, the sorcerer was carefully clamping the little handgun into the padded vise so that its barrel was parallel to the surface of the table.

"Anyhow," he went on, "this apprentice, all on his own, decided to get rid of the cockroaches in his house--a simple thing, if one knows how to go about it. So he collected dust from various cracks and crannies about the house, dust which contained, of course, the droppings of the pests. The dust, with the appropriate spells and ingredients, he boiled. It worked fine. The roaches all came down with a raging fever and died. Unfortunately, the clumsy lad had poor laboratory technique. He allowed three drops of his own perspiration to fall into the steaming pot over which he was working, and the resulting fever killed him, too."

By this time, he had put the bullet which Dr. Pateley had removed from the Count's body on a small pedestal so that it was exactly in line with the muzzle of the gun. "There now," he said softly.

Then he repeated the incantation, and the powdering that he had used on the button. As the last syllable was formed by his lips, the bullet vanished with a ping! In its vise, the little gun vibrated.

"Ah!" said Master Sean. "No question there, eh? That's the death weapon, all right, my lord. Yes. Time's almost exactly the same as that of the removal of the button. Not more than a few seconds later. Forms a picture, don't it, my lord? His lordship the Count jerks a button off the girl's gown, she outs with a gun and plugs him."

Lord Darcy's handsome face scowled. "Let's not jump to any hasty conclusions, my good Sean. There is no evidence whatever that he was killed by a woman."

"Would a man be wearing that gown, my lord?"

"Possibly," said Lord Darcy. "But who says that anyone was wearing it when the button was removed?"

"Oh." Master Sean subsided into silence. Using a small ramrod, he forced the bullet out of the chamber of the little pistol.

"Father Bright," said Lord Darcy, "will the Countess be serving tea this afternoon?"

The priest looked suddenly contrite. "Good heavens! None of you has eaten yet! I'll see that something is sent up right away, Lord Darcy. In the confusion--"

Lord Darcy held up a hand. "I beg your pardon, Father; that wasn't what I meant. I'm sure Master Sean and Dr. Pateley would appreciate a little something, but I can wait until tea time. What I was thinking was that perhaps the Countess would ask her guests to tea. Does she know Laird and Lady Duncan well enough to ask for their sympathetic presence on such an afternoon as this?"

Father Bright's eyes narrowed a trifle. "I dare say it could be arranged, Lord Darcy. You will be there?"

"Yes--but I may be a trifle late. That will hardly matter at an informal tea."

The priest glanced at his watch. "Four o'clock?"

"I should think that would do it," said Lord Darcy.

Father Bright nodded wordlessly and left the room.

* * * * *

Dr. Pateley took off his pince-nez and polished the lenses carefully with a silk handkerchief. "How long will your spell keep the body incorrupt, Master Sean?" he asked.

"As long as it's relevant. As soon as the case is solved, or we have enough data to solve the case--as the case may be, heh heh--he'll start to go. I'm not a saint, you know; it takes powerful motivation to keep a body incorrupt for years and years."

Sir Pierre was eying the gown that Pateley had put on the table. The button was still in place, as if held there by magnetism. He didn't touch it. "Master Sean, I don't know much about magic," he said, "but can't you find out who was wearing this robe just as easily as you found out that the button matched?"

Master Sean wagged his head in a firm negative. "No, sir. 'Tisn't relevant sir. The relevancy of the integrated dress-as-a-whole is quite strong. So is that of the seamstress or tailor who made the garment, and that of the weaver who made the cloth. But, except in certain circumstances, the person who wears or wore the garment has little actual relevancy to the garment itself."

"I'm afraid I don't understand," said Sir Pierre, looking puzzled.

"Look at it like this, sir: That gown wouldn't be what it is if the weaver hadn't made the cloth in that particular way. It wouldn't be what it is if the seamstress hadn't cut it in a particular way and sewed it in a specific manner. You follow, sir? Yes. Well, then, the connections between garment-and-weaver and garment-and-seamstress are strongly relevant. But this dress would still be pretty much what it is if it had stayed in the closet instead of being worn. No relevance--or very little. Now, if it were a well-worn garment, that would be different--that is, if it had always been worn by the same person. Then, you see, sir, the garment-as-a-whole is what it is because of the wearing, and the wearer becomes relevant."

He pointed at the little handgun he was still holding in his hand. "Now you take your gun, here, sir. The--"

"It isn't my gun," Sir Pierre interrupted firmly.

"I was speaking rhetorically, sir," said Master Sean with infinite patience. "This gun or any other gun in general, if you see what I mean, sir. It's even harder to place the ownership of a gun. Most of the wear on a gun is purely mechanical. It don't matter who pulls the trigger, you see, the erosion by the gases produced in the chamber, and the wear caused by the bullet passing through the barrel will be the same. You see, sir, 'tisn't relevant to the gun who pulled its trigger or what it's fired at. The bullet's a slightly different matter. To the bullet, it is relevant which gun it was fired from and what it hit. All these things simply have to be taken into account, Sir Pierre."

"I see," said the knight. "Very interesting, Master Sean." Then he turned to Lord Darcy. "Is there anything else, your lordship? There's a great deal of county business to be attended to."

Lord Darcy waved a hand. "Not at the moment, Sir Pierre. I understand the pressures of government. Go right ahead."

"Thank you, your lordship. If anything further should be required, I shall be in my office."

As soon as Sir Pierre had closed the door, Lord Darcy held out his hand toward the sorcerer. "Master Sean; the gun."

Master Sean handed it to him. "Ever see one like it before?" he asked, turning it over in his hands.

"Not exactly like it, my lord."

"Come, come, Sean; don't be so cautious. I am no sorcerer, but I don't need to know the Laws of Similarity to be able to recognise an obvious similarity."

"Edinburgh," said Master Sean flatly.

"Exactly. Scottish work. The typical Scot gold work; remarkable beauty. And look at that lock. It has 'Scots' written all over it--and more. 'Edinburgh', as you said."

Dr. Pateley, having replaced his carefully polished glasses, leaned over and peered at the weapon in Lord Darcy's hand. "Couldn't it be Italian, my lord? Or Moorish? In Moorish Spain, they do work like that."

"No Moorish gunsmith would put a hunting scene on the butt," Lord Darcy said flatly, "and the Italians wouldn't have put heather and thistles in the field surrounding the huntsman."

"But the FdM engraved on the barrel," said Dr. Pateley, "indicates the--"

"Ferrari of Milan," said Lord Darcy. "Exactly. But the barrel is of much newer work than the rest. So are the chambers. This is a fairly old gun--fifty years old, I'd say. The lock and the butt are still in excellent condition, indicating that it has been well cared for, but frequent usage--or a single accident--could ruin the barrel and require the owner to get a replacement. It was replaced by Ferrari."

"I see," said Dr. Pateley somewhat humbled.

"If we open the lock ... Master Sean, hand me your small screwdriver. Thank you. If we open the lock, we will find the name of one of the finest gunsmiths of half a century ago--a man whose name has not yet been forgotten--Hamish Graw of Edinburgh. Ah! There! You see?" They did.

Having satisfied himself on that point, Lord Darcy closed the lock again. "Now, men, we have the gun located. We also know that a guest in this very castle is Laird Duncan of Duncan. The Duncan of Duncan himself. A Scot's laird who was, fifteen years ago, His Majesty's Minister Plenipotentiary to the Free Grand Duchy of Milan. That suggests to me that it would be indeed odd if there were not some connection between Laird Duncan and this gun. Eh?"

* * * * *

"Come, come, Master Sean," said Lord Darcy, rather impatiently. "We haven't all the time in the world."

"Patience, my lord; patience," said the little sorcerer calmly. "Can't hurry these things, you know." He was kneeling in front of a large, heavy traveling chest in the bedroom of the guest apartment occupied temporarily by Laird and Lady Duncan, working with the lock. "One position of a lock is just as relevant as the other so you can't work with the bolt. But the pin-tumblers in the cylinder, now, that's a different matter. A lock's built so that the breaks in the tumblers are not related to the surface of the cylinder when the key is out, but there is a relation when the key's in, so by taking advantage of that relevancy--Ah!"

The lock clicked open.

Lord Darcy raised the lid gently.

"Carefully, my lord!" Master Sean said in a warning voice. "He's got a spell on the thing! Let me do it." He made Lord Darcy stand back and then lifted the lid of the heavy trunk himself. When it was leaning back against the wall, gaping open widely on its hinges, Master Sean took a long look at the trunk and its lid without touching either of them. There was a second lid on the trunk, a thin one obviously operated by a simple bolt.

Master Sean took his sorcerer's staff, a five-foot, heavy rod made of the wood of the quicken tree or mountain ash, and touched the inner lid. Nothing happened. He touched the bolt. Nothing.

"Hm-m-m," Master Sean murmured thoughtfully. He glanced around the room, and his eyes fell on a heavy stone doorstop. "That ought to do it." He walked over, picked it up, and carried it back to the chest. Then he put it on the rim of the chest in such a position that if the lid were to fall it would be stopped by the doorstop.

Then he put his hand in as if to lift the inner lid.

The heavy outer lid swung forward and down of its own accord, moving with blurring speed, and slammed viciously against the doorstop.

Lord Darcy massaged his right wrist gently, as if he felt where the lid would have hit if he had tried to open the inner lid. "Triggered to slam if a human being sticks a hand in there, eh?"

"Or a head, my lord. Not very effectual if you know what to look for. There are better spells than that for guarding things. Now we'll see what his lordship wants to protect so badly that he practices sorcery without a license." He lifted the lid again, and then opened the inner lid. "It's safe now, my lord. Look at this!"

Lord Darcy had already seen. Both men looked in silence at the collection of paraphernalia on the first tray of the chest. Master Sean's busy fingers carefully opened the tissue paper packing of one after another of the objects. "A human skull," he said. "Bottles of graveyard earth. Hm-m-m--this one is labeled 'virgin's blood.' And this! A Hand of Glory!"

It was a mummified human hand, stiff and dry and brown, with the fingers partially curled, as though they were holding an invisible ball three inches or so in diameter. On each of the fingertips was a short candle-stub. When the hand was placed on its back, it would act as a candelabra.

"That pretty much settles it, eh, Master Sean?" Lord Darcy said.

"Indeed, my lord. At the very least, we can get him for possession of materials. Black magic is a matter of symbolism and intent."

"Very well. I want a complete list of the contents of that chest. Be sure to replace everything as it was and relock the trunk." He tugged thoughtfully at an earlobe. "So Laird Duncan has the Talent, eh? Interesting."

"Aye. But not surprising, my lord," said Master Sean without looking up from his work. "It's in the blood. Some attribute it to the Dedannans, who passed through Scotland before they conquered Ireland three thousand years ago, but, however that may be, the Talent runs strong in the Sons of Gael. It makes me boil to see it misused."

While Master Sean talked, Lord Darcy was prowling around the room, reminding one of a lean tomcat who was certain that there was a mouse concealed somewhere.

"It'll make Laird Duncan boil if he isn't stopped," Lord Darcy murmured absently.

"Aye, my lord," said Master Sean. "The mental state necessary to use the Talent for black sorcery is such that it invariably destroys the user--but, if he knows what he's doing, a lot of other people are hurt before he finally gets his."

Lord Darcy opened the jewel box on the dresser. The usual traveling jewelry--enough, but not a great choice.

"A man's mind turns in on itself when he's taken up with hatred and thoughts of revenge," Master Sean droned on. "Or, if he's the type who enjoys watching others suffer, or the type who doesn't care but is willing to do anything for gain, then his mind is already warped and the misuse of the Talent just makes it worse."

Lord Darcy found what he was looking for in a drawer, just underneath some neatly folded lingerie. A small holster, beautifully made of Florentine leather, gilded and tooled. He didn't need Master Sean's sorcery to tell him that the little pistol fit it like a hand in a glove.

* * * * *

Father Bright felt as though he had been walking a tightrope for hours. Laird and Lady Duncan had been talking in low, controlled voices that betrayed an inner nervousness, but Father Bright realized that he and the Countess had been doing the same thing. The Duncan of Duncan had offered his condolences on the death of the late Count with the proper air of suppressed sorrow, as had Mary, Lady Duncan. The Countess had accepted them solemnly and with gratitude. But Father Bright was well aware that no one in the room--possibly, he thought, no one in the world--regretted the Count's passing.

Laird Duncan sat in his wheelchair, his sharp Scots features set in a sad smile that showed an intent to be affable even though great sorrow weighed heavily upon him. Father Bright noticed it and realized that his own face had the same sort of expression. No one was fooling anyone else, of that the priest was certain--but for anyone to admit it would be the most boorish breach of etiquette. But there was a haggardness, a look of increased age about the Laird's countenance that Father Bright did not like. His priestly intuition told him clearly that there was a turmoil of emotion in the Scotsman's mind that was ... well, evil was the only word for it.

Lady Duncan was, for the most part, silent. In the past fifteen minutes, since she and her husband had come to the informal tea, she had spoken scarcely a dozen words. Her face was masklike, but there was the same look of haggardness about her eyes as there was in her husband's face. But the priest's emphatic sense told him that the emotion here was fear, simple and direct. His keen eyes had noticed that she wore a shade too much make-up. She had almost succeeded in covering up the faint bruise on her right cheek, but not completely.

My lady the Countess D'Evreux was all sadness and unhappiness, but there was neither fear nor evil there. She smiled politely and talked quietly. Father Bright would have been willing to bet that not one of the four of them would remember a word that had been spoken.

Father Bright had placed his chair so that he could keep an eye on the open doorway and the long hall that led in from the Great Keep. He hoped Lord Darcy would hurry. Neither of the guests had been told that the Duke's Investigator was here, and Father Bright was just a little apprehensive about the meeting. The Duncans had not even been told that the Count's death had been murder, but he was certain that they knew.

Father Bright saw Lord Darcy come in through the door at the far end of the hall. He murmured a polite excuse and rose. The other three accepted his excuses with the same politeness and went on with their talk. Father Bright met Lord Darcy in the hall.

"Did you find what you were looking for, Lord Darcy?" the priest asked in a low tone.

"Yes," Lord Darcy said. "I'm afraid we shall have to arrest Laird Duncan."

"Murder?"

"Perhaps. I'm not yet certain of that. But the charge will be black magic. He has all the paraphernalia in a chest in his room. Master Sean reports that a ritual was enacted in the bedroom last night. Of course, that's out of my jurisdiction. You, as a representative of the Church, will have to be the arresting officer." He paused. "You don't seem surprised, Reverence."

"I'm not," Father Bright admitted. "I felt it. You and Master Sean will have to make out a sworn deposition before I can act."

"I understand. Can you do me a favor?"

"If I can."

"Get my lady the Countess out of the room on some pretext or other. Leave me alone with her guests. I do not wish to upset my lady any more than absolutely necessary."

"I think I can do that. Shall we go in together?"

"Why not? But don't mention why I am here. Let them assume I am just another guest."

"Very well."

* * * * *

All three occupants of the room glanced up as Father Bright came in with Lord Darcy. The introductions were made: Lord Darcy humbly begged the pardon of his hostess for his lateness. Father Bright noticed the same sad smile on Lord Darcy's handsome face as the others were wearing.

Lord Darcy helped himself from the buffet table and allowed the Countess to pour him a large cup of hot tea. He mentioned nothing about the recent death. Instead, he turned the conversation toward the wild beauty of Scotland and the excellence of the grouse shooting there.

Father Bright had not sat down again. Instead, he left the room once more. When he returned, he went directly to the Countess and said, in a low, but clearly audible voice: "My lady, Sir Pierre Morlaix has informed me that there are a few matters that require your attention immediately. It will require only a few moments."

My lady the Countess did not hesitate, but made her excuses immediately. "Do finish your tea," she added. "I don't think I shall be long."

Lord Darcy knew the priest would not lie, and he wondered what sort of arrangement had been made with Sir Pierre. Not that it mattered except that Lord Darcy had hoped it would be sufficiently involved for it to keep the Countess busy for at least ten minutes.

The conversation, interrupted but momentarily, returned to grouse.

"I haven't done any shooting since my accident," said Laird Duncan, "but I used to enjoy it immensely. I still have friends up every year for the season."

"What sort of weapon do you prefer for grouse?" Lord Darcy asked.

"A one-inch bore with a modified choke," said the Scot. "I have a pair that I favor. Excellent weapons."

"Of Scottish make?"

"No, no. English. Your London gunsmiths can't be beat for shotguns."

"Oh. I thought perhaps your lordship had had all your guns made in Scotland." As he spoke, he took the little pistol out of his coat pocket and put it carefully on the table.

There was a sudden silence, then Laird Duncan said in an angry voice: "What is this? Where did you get that?"

Lord Darcy glanced at Lady Duncan, who had turned suddenly pale. "Perhaps," he said coolly, "Lady Duncan can tell us."

She shook her head and gasped. For a moment, she had trouble in forming words or finding her voice. Finally: "No. No. I know nothing. Nothing."

But Laird Duncan looked at her oddly.

"You do not deny that it is your gun, my lord?" Lord Darcy asked. "Or your wife's, as the case may be."

[Illustration]

"Where did you get it?" There was a dangerous quality in the Scotsman's voice. He had once been a powerful man, and Lord Darcy could see his shoulder muscles bunching.

"From the late Count D'Evreux's bedroom."

"What was it doing there?" There was a snarl in the Scot's voice, but Lord Darcy had the feeling that the question was as much directed toward Lady Duncan as it was to himself.

"One of the things it was doing there was shooting Count D'Evreux through the heart."

Lady Duncan slumped forward in a dead faint, overturning her teacup. Laird Duncan made a grab at the gun, ignoring his wife. Lord Darcy's hand snaked out and picked up the weapon before the Scot could touch it. "No, no, my lord," he said mildly. "This is evidence in a murder case. We mustn't tamper with the King's evidence."

He wasn't prepared for what happened next. Laird Duncan roared something obscene in Scots Gaelic, put his hands on the arms of his wheelchair, and, with a great thrust of his powerful arms and shoulders, shoved himself up and forward, toward Lord Darcy, across the table from him. His arms swung up toward Lord Darcy's throat as the momentum of his body carried him toward the investigator.

He might have made it, but the weakness of his legs betrayed him. His waist struck the edge of the massive oaken table, and most of his forward momentum was lost. He collapsed forward, his hands still grasping toward the surprised Englishman. His chin came down hard on the table top. Then he slid back, taking the tablecloth and the china and silverware with him. He lay unmoving on the floor. His wife did not even stir except when the tablecloth tugged at her head.

Lord Darcy had jumped back, overturning his chair. He stood on his feet, looking at the two unconscious forms.

* * * * *

"I don't think there's any permanent damage done to either," said Dr. Pateley an hour later. "Lady Duncan was suffering from shock, of course, but Father Bright brought her round in a hurry. She's a devout woman, I think, even if a sinful one."

"What about Laird Duncan?" Lord Darcy asked.

"Well, that's a different matter. I'm afraid that his back injury was aggravated, and that crack on the chin didn't do him any good. I don't know whether Father Bright can help him or not. Healing takes the co-operation of the patient. I did all I could for him, but I'm just a chirurgeon, not a practitioner of the Healing Art. Father Bright has quite a good reputation in that line, however, and he may be able to do his lordship some good."

Master Sean shook his head dolefully. "His Reverence has the Talent, there's no doubt of that, but now he's pitted against another man who has it--a man whose mind is bent on self-destruction in the long run."

"Well, that's none of my affair," said Dr. Pateley. "I'm just a technician. I'll leave healing up to the Church, where it belongs."

"Master Sean," said Lord Darcy, "there is still a mystery here. We need more evidence. What about the eyes?"

Master Sean blinked. "You mean the picture test, my lord?"

"I do."

"It won't stand up in court, my lord," said the sorcerer.

"I'm aware of that," said Lord Darcy testily.

"Eye test?" Dr. Pateley asked blankly. "I don't believe I understand."

"It's not often used," said Master Sean. "It is a psychic phenomenon that sometimes occurs at the moment of death--especially a violent death. The violent emotional stress causes a sort of backfiring of the mind, if you see what I mean. As a result, the image in the mind of the dying person is returned to the retina. By using the proper sorcery, this image can be developed and the last thing the dead man saw can be brought out.

"But it's a difficult process even under the best of circumstances, and usually the conditions aren't right. In the first place, it doesn't always occur. It never occurs, for instance, when the person is expecting the attack. A man who is killed in a duel, or who is shot after facing the gun for several seconds, has time to adjust to the situation. Also, death must occur almost instantly. If he lingers, even for a few minutes, the effect is lost. And, naturally if the person's eyes are closed at the instant of death, nothing shows up."

"Count D'Evreux's eyes were open," Dr. Pateley said. "They were still open when we found him. How long after death does the image remain?"

"Until the cells of the retina die and lose their identity. Rarely more than twenty-four hours, usually much less."

"It hasn't been twenty-four hours yet," said Lord Darcy, "and there is a chance that the Count was taken completely by surprise."

"I must admit, my lord," Master Sean said thoughtfully, "that the conditions seem favorable. I shall attempt it. But don't put any hopes on it, my lord."

"I shan't. Just do your best, Master Sean. If there is a sorcerer in practice who can do the job, it is you."

"Thank you, my lord. I'll get busy on it right away," said the sorcerer with a subdued glow of pride.

* * * * *

Two hours later, Lord Darcy was striding down the corridor of the Great Hall, Master Sean following up as best he could, his caorthainn-wood staff in one hand and his big carpet bag in the other. He had asked Father Bright and the Countess D'Evreux to meet him in one of the smaller guest rooms. But the Countess came to meet him.

"My Lord Darcy," she said, her plain face looking worried and unhappy, "is it true that you suspect Laird and Lady Duncan of this murder? Because, if so, I must--"

"No longer, my lady," Lord Darcy cut her off quickly. "I think we can show that neither is guilty of murder--although, of course, the black magic charge must still be held against Laird Duncan."

"I understand," she said, "but--"

"Please, my lady," Lord Darcy interrupted again, "let me explain everything. Come."

Without another word, she turned and led the way to the room where Father Bright was waiting.

The priest stood waiting, his face showing tenseness.

"Please," said Lord Darcy. "Sit down, both of you. This won't take long. My lady, may Master Sean make use of that table over there?"

"Certainly, my lord," the Countess said softly, "certainly."

"Thank you my lady. Please, please--sit down. This won't take long. Please."

With apparent reluctance, Father Bright and my lady the Countess sat down in two chairs facing Lord Darcy. They paid little attention to what Master Sean O Lochlainn was doing; their eyes were on Lord Darcy.

"Conducting an investigation of this sort is not an easy thing," he began carefully. "Most murder cases could be easily solved by your Chief Man-at-Arms. We find that well-trained county police, in by far the majority of cases, can solve the mystery easily--and in most cases there is very little mystery. But, by His Imperial Majesty's law, the Chief Man-at-Arms must call in a Duke's Investigator if the crime is insoluble or if it involves a member of the aristocracy. For that reason, you were perfectly correct to call His Highness the Duke as soon as murder had been discovered." He leaned back in his chair. "And it has been clear from the first that my lord the late Count was murdered."

Father Bright started to say something, but Lord Darcy cut him off before he could speak. "By 'murder', Reverend Father, I mean that he did not die a natural death--by disease or heart trouble or accident or what-have-you. I should, perhaps, use the word 'homicide'.

"Now the question we have been called upon to answer is simply this: Who was responsible for the homicide?"

The priest and the countess remained silent, looking at Lord Darcy as though he were some sort of divinely inspired oracle.

"As you know ... pardon me, my lady, if I am blunt ... the late Count was somewhat of a playboy. No. I will make that stronger. He was a satyr, a lecher; he was a man with a sexual obsession.

"For such a man, if he indulges in his passions--which the late Count most certainly did--there is usually but one end. Unless he is a man who has a winsome personality--which he did not--there will be someone who will hate him enough to kill him. Such a man inevitably leaves behind him a trail of wronged women and wronged men.

"One such person may kill him.

"One such person did.

"But we must find the person who did and determine the extent of his or her guilt. That is my purpose.

"Now, as to the facts. We know that Edouard has a secret stairway which led directly to his suite. Actually, the secret was poorly kept. There were many women--common and noble--who knew of the existence of that stairway and knew how to enter it. If Edouard left the lower door unlocked, anyone could come up that stairway. He has another lock in the door of his bedroom, so only someone who was invited could come in, even if she ... or he ... could get into the stairway. He was protected.

"Now here is what actually happened that night. I have evidence, by the way, and I have the confessions of both Laird and Lady Duncan. I will explain how I got those confessions in a moment.

"Primus: Lady Duncan had an assignation with Count D'Evreux last night. She went up the stairway to his room. She was carrying with her a small pistol. She had had an affair with Edouard, and she had been rebuffed. She was furious. But she went to his room.

"He was drunk when she arrived--in one of the nasty moods with which both of you are familiar. She pleaded with him to accept her again as his mistress. He refused. According to Lady Duncan, he said: 'I don't want you! You're not fit to be in the same room with her!'

"The emphasis is Lady Duncan's, not my own.

"Furious, she drew a gun--the little pistol which killed him."

The Countess gasped. "But Mary couldn't have--"

"Please!" Lord Darcy slammed the palm of his hand on the arm of his chair with an explosive sound. "My lady, you will listen to what I have to say!"

He was taking a devil of a chance, he knew. The Countess was his hostess and had every right to exercise her prerogatives. But Lord Darcy was counting on the fact that she had been under Count D'Evreux's influence so long that it would take her a little time to realize that she no longer had to knuckle under to the will of a man who shouted at her. He was right. She became silent.

Father Bright turned to her quickly and said: "Please, my daughter. Wait."

"Your pardon, my lady," Lord Darcy continued smoothly. "I was about to explain to you why I know Lady Duncan could not have killed your brother. There is the matter of the dress. We are certain that the gown that was found in Edouard's closet was worn by the killer. And that gown could not possibly have fit Lady Duncan! She's much too ... er ... hefty.

"She has told me her story, and, for reasons I will give you later, I believe it. When she pointed the gun at your brother, she really had no intention of killing him. She had no intention of pulling the trigger. Your brother knew this. He lashed out and slapped the side of her head. She dropped the pistol and fell, sobbing, to the floor. He took her roughly by the arm and 'escorted' her down the stairway. He threw her out.

"Lady Duncan, hysterical, ran to her husband.

"And then, when he had succeeded in calming her down a bit, she realized the position she was in. She knew that Laird Duncan was a violent, a warped man--very similar to Edouard, Count D'Evreux. She dared not tell him the truth, but she had to tell him something. So she lied.

"She told him that Edouard had asked her up in order to tell her something of importance; that that 'something of importance' concerned Laird Duncan's safety; that the Count told her that he knew of Laird Duncan's dabbling in black magic; that he threatened to inform Church authorities on Laird Duncan unless she submitted to his desires; that she had struggled with him and ran away."

Lord Darcy spread his hands. "This was, of course, a tissue of lies. But Laird Duncan believed everything. So great was his ego that he could not believe in her infidelity, although he has been paralyzed for five years."

"How can you be certain that Lady Duncan told the truth?" Father Bright asked warily.

"Aside from the matter of the gown--which Count D'Evreux kept only for women of the common class, not the aristocracy--we have the testimony of the actions of Laird Duncan himself. We come then to--

"Secondus: Laird Duncan could not have committed the murder physically. How could a man who was confined to a wheelchair go up that flight of stairs? I submit to you that it would have been physically impossible.

"The possibility that he has been pretending all these years, and that he is actually capable of walking, was disproved three hours ago, when he actually injured himself by trying to throttle me. His legs are incapable of carrying him even one step--much less carrying him to the top of that stairway."

Lord Darcy folded his hands complacently.

"There remains," said Father Bright, "the possibility that Laird Duncan killed Count D'Evreux by psychical, by magical means."

Lord Darcy nodded. "That is indeed possible, Reverend Sir, as we both know. But not in this instance. Master Sean assures me, and I am certain that you will concur, that a man killed by sorcery, by black magic, dies of internal malfunction, not of a bullet through the heart.

"In effect, the Black Sorcerer induces his enemy to kill himself by psychosomatic means. He dies by what is technically known as psychic induction. Master Sean informs me that the commonest--and crudest--method of doing this is by the so-called 'simalcrum induction' method. That is, by the making of an image--usually, but not necessarily, of wax--and, using the Law of Similarity, inducing death. The Law of Contagion is also used, since the fingernails, hair, spittle, and so on, of the victim are usually incorporated into the image. Am I correct, Father?"

The priest nodded. "Yes. And, contrary to the heresies of certain materialists, it is not at all necessary that the victim be informed of the operation--although, admittedly, it can, in certain circumstances, aid the process."

"Exactly," said Lord Darcy. "But it is well known that material objects can be moved by a competent sorcerer--'black' or 'white'. Would you explain to my lady the Countess why her brother could not have been killed in that manner?"

* * * * *

Father Bright touched his lips with the tip of his tongue and then turned to the girl sitting next to him. "There is a lack of relevancy. In this case, the bullet must have been relevant either to the heart or to the gun. To have traveled with a velocity great enough to penetrate, the relevancy to the heart must have been much greater than the relevancy to the gun. Yet the test, witnessed by myself, that was performed by Master Sean indicates that this was not so. The bullet returned to the gun, not to your brother's heart. The evidence, my dear, is conclusive that the bullet was propelled by purely physical means, and was propelled from the gun."

"Then what was it Laird Duncan did?" the Countess asked.

"Tertius:" said Lord Darcy. "Believing what his wife had told him, Laird Duncan flew into a rage. He determined to kill your brother. He used an induction spell. But the spell backfired and almost killed him.

"There are analogies on a material plane. If one adds mineral spirits and air to a fire, the fire will be increased. But if one adds ash, the fire will be put out.

"In a similar manner, if one attacks a living being psychically it will die--but if one attacks a dead thing in such a manner, the psychic energy will be absorbed, to the detriment of the person who has used it.

"In theory, we could charge Laird Duncan with attempted murder, for there is no doubt that he did attempt to kill your brother, my lady. But your brother was already dead at the time!

"The resultant dissipation of psychic energy rendered Laird Duncan unconscious for several hours, during which Lady Duncan waited in suspenseful fear.

"Finally, when Laird Duncan regained consciousness, he realized what had happened. He knew that your brother was already dead when he attempted the spell. He thought, therefore, that Lady Duncan had killed the Count.

"On the other hand, Lady Duncan was perfectly well aware that she had left Edouard alive and well. So she thought the black magic of her husband had killed her erstwhile lover."

"Each was trying to protect the other," Father Bright said. "Neither is completely evil, then. There may be something we can do for Laird Duncan."

"I wouldn't know about that, Father," Lord Darcy said. "The Healing Art is the Church's business, not mine." He realized with some amusement that he was paraphrasing Dr. Pateley. "What Laird Duncan had not known," he went on quickly, "was that his wife had taken a gun up to the Count's bedroom. That put a rather different light on her visit, you see. That's why he flew into such a towering rage at me--not because I was accusing him or his wife of murder, but because I had cast doubt on his wife's behavior."

He turned his head to look at the table where the Irish sorcerer was working. "Ready, Master Sean?"

"Aye, my lord. All I have to do is set up the screen and light the lantern in the projector."

"Go ahead, then." He looked back at Father Bright and the Countess. "Master Sean has a rather interesting lantern slide I want you to look at."

"The most successful development I've ever made, if I may say so, my lord," the sorcerer said.

"Proceed."

Master Sean opened the shutter on the projector, and a picture sprang into being on the screen.

There were gasps from Father Bright and the Countess.

It was a woman. She was wearing the gown that had hung in the Count's closet. A button had been torn off, and the gown gaped open. Her right hand was almost completely obscured by a dense cloud of smoke. Obviously she had just fired a pistol directly at the onlooker.

But that was not what had caused the gasps.

The girl was beautiful. Gloriously, ravishingly beautiful. It was not a delicate beauty. There was nothing flower-like or peaceful in it. It was a beauty that could have but one effect on a normal human male. She was the most physically desirable woman one could imagine.

Retro mea, Sathanas, Father Bright thought wryly. She's almost obscenely beautiful.

Only the Countess was unaffected by the desirability of the image. She saw only the startling beauty.

"Has neither of you seen that woman before? I thought not," said Lord Darcy. "Nor had Laird or Lady Duncan. Nor Sir Pierre.

"Who is she? We don't know. But we can make a few deductions. She must have come to the Count's room by appointment. This is quite obviously the woman Edouard mentioned to Lady Duncan--the woman, the 'she' that the Scots noblewoman could not compare with. It is almost certain she is a commoner; otherwise she would not be wearing a robe from the Count's collection. She must have changed right there in the bedroom. Then she and the Count quarreled--about what, we do not know. The Count had previously taken Lady Duncan's pistol away from her and had evidently carelessly let it lay on that table you see behind the girl. She grabbed it and shot him. Then she changed clothes again, hung up the robe, and ran away. No one saw her come or go. The Count had designed the stairway for just that purpose.

"Oh, we'll find her, never fear--now that we know what she looks like.

"At any rate," Lord Darcy concluded, "the mystery is now solved to my complete satisfaction, and I shall so report to His Highness."

* * * * *

Richard, Duke of Normandy, poured two liberal portions of excellent brandy into a pair of crystal goblets. There was a smile of satisfaction on his youthful face as he handed one of the goblets to Lord Darcy. "Very well done, my lord," he said. "Very well done."

"I am gratified to hear Your Highness say so," said Lord Darcy, accepting the brandy.

"But how were you so certain that it was not someone from outside the castle? Anyone could have come in through the main gate. That's always open."

"True, Your Highness. But the door at the foot of the stairway was locked. Count D'Evreux locked it after he threw Lady Duncan out. There is no way of locking or unlocking it from the outside; the door had not been forced. No one could have come in that way, nor left that way, after Lady Duncan was so forcibly ejected. The only other way into the Count's suite was by the other door, and that door was unlocked."

"I see," said Duke Richard. "I wonder why she went up there in the first place?"

"Probably because he asked her to. Any other woman would have known what she was getting into if she accepted an invitation to Count D'Evreux's suite."

The Duke's handsome face darkened. "No. One would hardly expect that sort of thing from one's own brother. She was perfectly justified in shooting him."

"Perfectly, Your Highness. And had she been anyone but the heiress, she would undoubtedly have confessed immediately. Indeed, it was all I could do to keep her from confessing to me when she thought I was going to charge the Duncans with the killing. But she knew that it was necessary to preserve the reputation of her brother and herself. Not as private persons, but as Count and Countess, as officers of the Government of His Imperial Majesty the King. For a man to be known as a rake is one thing. Most people don't care about that sort of thing in a public official so long as he does his duty and does it well--which, as Your Highness knows, the Count did.

"But to be shot to death while attempting to assault his own sister--that is quite another thing. She was perfectly justified in attempting to cover it up. And she will remain silent unless someone else is accused of the crime."

"Which, of course, will not happen," said Duke Richard. He sipped at the brandy, then said: "She will make a good Countess. She has judgment and she can keep cool under duress. After she had shot her own brother, she might have panicked, but she didn't. How many women would have thought of simply taking off the damaged gown and putting on its duplicate from the closet?"

"Very few," Lord Darcy agreed. "That's why I never mentioned that I knew the Count's wardrobe contained dresses identical to her own. By the way, Your Highness, if any good Healer, like Father Bright, had known of those duplicate dresses, he would have realized that the Count had a sexual obsession about his sister. He would have known that all the other women the Count went after were sister substitutes."

"Yes; of course. And none of them measure up." He put his goblet on the table. "I shall inform the King my brother that I recommended the new Countess whole-heartedly. No word of this must be put down in writing, of course. You know and I know and the King must know. No one else must know."

"One other knows," said Lord Darcy.

"Who?" The Duke looked startled.

"Father Bright."

Duke Richard looked relieved. "Naturally. He won't tell her that we know, will he?"

"I think Father Bright's discretion can be relied upon."

* * * * *

In the dimness of the confessional, Alice, Countess D'Evreux knelt and listened to the voice of Father Bright.

"I shall not give you any penance, my child, for you have committed no sin--that is, in so far as the death of your brother is concerned. For the rest of your sins, you must read and memorize the third chapter of 'The Soul and The World,' by St. James Huntington."

He started to pronounce the absolution, but the Countess said:

"I don't understand one thing. That picture. That wasn't me. I never saw such a gorgeously beautiful girl in my life. And I'm so plain. I don't understand."

"Had you looked more closely, my child, you would have seen that the face did look like yours--only it was idealized. When a subjective reality is made objective, distortions invariably show up; that is why such things cannot be accepted as evidence of objective reality in court." He paused. "To put it another way, my child: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

End of Project Gutenberg's The Eyes Have It, by Gordon Randall Garrett

Project Gutenberg's Nor Iron Bars a Cage...., by Gordon Randall Garrett

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Title: Nor Iron Bars a Cage....

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Illustrator: Schoenherr

Release Date: January 2, 2010 [EBook #30832]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOR IRON BARS A CAGE.... ***

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction May 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

|Nor Iron Bars A Cage....

Iron bars do not confine a Man--only his body. There are more subtle, and more confining bindings, however....

JONATHAN BLAKE MACKENZIE

ILLUSTRATED BY SCHOENHERR

* * * * *

Her red-blond hair was stained and discolored when they found her in the sewer, and her lungs were choked with muck because her killer hadn't bothered to see whether she was really dead when he dumped her body into the manhole, so she had breathed the stuff in with her last gasping breaths. Her face was bruised, covered with great blotches, and three of her ribs had been broken. Her thighs and abdomen had been bruised and lacerated.

[Illustration]

If she had lived for three more days, Angela Frances Donahue would have reached her seventh birthday.

I didn't see her until she was brought to the morgue. My phone chimed, and when I thumbed it on, the face of Inspector Kleek, of Homicide South, came on the screen. His heavy eyelids always hang at half mast, giving him a sleepy, bored look and the rest of his fleshy face sags in the same general pattern. "Roy," he said as soon as he could see my face on his own screen, "we just found the little Donahue girl. The meat wagon's taking her down to the morgue now. You want to come down here and look over the scene, or you want to go to the morgue? It looks like it's one of your special cases, but we won't know for sure until Doc Prouty does the post on her."

I took a firm grip on my temper. I should have been notified as soon as Homicide had been; I should have been there with the Homicide Squad. But I knew that if I said any

g, Kleek would just say, "Hell, Roy, they don't notify me until there's suspicion of homicide, and you don't get a call until there's suspicion that it might be the work of a degenerate. That's th

y the system works. You know that, Roy." And rather than hear that song

ce again, I gave myself thirty seconds to think.

"I'll meet you at the morgue," I said. "Your men can

le story at the scene without my help."

That mollified him, and it showed a little on his face. "O.K., Roy, see you there." And he cut off.

I punched savagely at the numbered buttons on the phone to get an intercommunication -- kup with Dr. Barton Brownlee's office, on the th-- floor of the same building as my own office. His face, when it came on, was a calming contrast to Kleek's.

He's nearly ten years younger than I am, not yet thirty-five, and his handsome, thoughtful face and dark, slightly wavy hair always make me somebody like St. Edward Pusey or maybe Albert Einstein. Not that he looks like either one of them, or even that he looks saintly, but he does look like a man who has the courage of his convictions and is calmly, quietly, but forcefully ready to shove what he knows to be the truth down everybody else's throat if that becomes necessary. Or maybe I am just reading into his face what I know to be true about the man himself.

"Brownie," I said, "they've found the Donahue girl. Taking her down to the morgue now. Want to come along?"

"I don't think so," he said without hesitation. "I'll get all the information I need from the photos and the reports. The man I do want to see is the killer; I need more data, Roy--always more data. The more my boys and I know about these zanies, the more effectively we can deal with them."

"I know. O.K.; I've got to run." I cut off, grabbed my hat, and headed out to fulfill my part of the bargain Brownlee and I had once made. "You find 'em," he'd once said, "and I'll fix 'em." So far, that bargain had paid off.

* * * * *

I got to the morgue a few minutes after the body was brought in. The man at the front desk looked up at me as I walked in and gave me a bored smile. "Evening, Inspector. The Donahue kid's in the clean-up room." Then he went back to his paper work.

The lab technicians were standing around watching while the morgue attendant sluiced the muck off the corpse with a hose, watching to see if anything showed up in the gooey filth. Inspector Kleek stood to one side. All he said was, "Hi, Roy."

The morgue attendant lifted up one small arm with a gloved hand played the hose over the thin biceps. "Good thing the rigor mortis has gone off," he said, "these stiffs are hell to handle when they're stiff." It was an old joke, but everybody grinned out of habit.

The clear water from the hose flowed over the skin and turned a grayish brown as it ran down to the bottom of the shallow, waist-high stainless-steel trough in which the body was lying.

One of the lab techs stepped over and began going through the long hair very carefully, and Doc Prouty, the Medical Examiner, began cleaning out the mouth and nose and eyes and ears with careful hands.

I turned to Kleek. "You sure it's the Donahue girl?"

He sighed and looked away from the small dead thing on the cl

table. "Who else could it be? She was found only three blocks from the Donahue home. No other female child reported missing in that area. We haven't checked the prints yet, but you can bet they'll tally with her school record."

I had to agree. "What about the time of death?"

"Doc Prouty figures forty-eight to sixty hours ago."

"I'll be able to give you a better figure after the post," the Medical Examiner said without looking up from his work.

A tall, big-nosed man in plain-clothes suddenly turned away from the scene on the table, his mouth moving queerly, his eyes hard. After a moment, his lips relaxed. Still staring at the wall, he said: "I guess the case is out of Federal jurisdiction, then. We'll co-operate, as usual, of course." He looked at me. "Could I talk to you outside, Inspector Royall?"

I looked at Kleek. "O.K., Sam?" I didn't have to have his O.K.; it was just professional courtesy. He knew I'd tell him whatever it was that the FBI man had to say, and we both knew why the Federal agent wanted to leave.

Sam Kleek nodded. "Sure. I'll keep an eye out here."

* * * * *

The FBI man followed me into the outer room.

"Do you figure this as a sex-degenerate case, Inspector?" he asked.

"Looks like it. You saw the bruises. Dr. Prouty will be able to tell us for sure after the post mortem."

He shook his head as if to clear it of a bad memory. "You New York police can sure be cold-blooded at times."

The thing that was bothering him, as Kleek and I both knew, was that the FBI agent hadn't been exposed to this sort of thing often enough. They deal with -- kind of crimes that actually don't involve the callous murder of children very often. Even the murder of adults doesn't nor -- come under the aegis of the FBI.

"We're not cold blooded," I said. "Not by inclination, I mean. But a man gets that way--he has to get that way--after he's seen enough of this sort of thing. You either get yourself an emotional callous or you get deathly sick from the repetition--and then you have to get out of the job."

"Yeah," he said. "Sure." He quit rubbing his chin with a knuckle, looked at me, and said: "What I wanted to say is that there's no evidence that she was taken across a state line. Whoever sent that ransom note to the Donahue parents was trying to throw us off the track."

"Looks like it. Look at the time-table. The note was sent after the girl was murdered, but before the information hit the papers or the newscasts. The killer wanted us to think it was a ransom kidnaping. It isn't likely that the note was sent by a crank. A crank wouldn't have known the girl was missing at all at the time the note was sent."

"That's the way it seems to me," he agreed. The color was coming back into his face. "But why would he want to make it look like a kidnaping instead of ... of what it was? The penalty's the same for both."

My grin had anger, pity, and disgust for the killer in it--plus a certain amount of satisfaction. Some day, I'd like to see my face in a mirror when I feel like that.

"He was hoping the body wouldn't be found until it was too late for us to know that it was a rape killing. And that means that he knew that he would be on our list if we did find out that it was rape. Otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered. If I'm right, then he has outsmarted himself. He has told us that we know him, and he's told us that he's smart enough to figure out a dodge--that he's not one of the helplessly stupid ones."

"That should help to narrow the field down," he said in a hard voice. He felt in his pocket for a cigarette, found his pack, took one out, and then held it, unlit, between the fingers of his right hand. "Inspector Royall, I've studied the new law of this state--the one you're working under here--and I think it'll be great if it works out. I wish you luck. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to call the office."

As he went out to the desk phone, I gave him a silent thanks. Words of encouragement were hard to come by at that time.

I turned and went back towards the clean-up room.

She didn't look as though she were asleep. They never do. She looked dead. She'd been head down in the sewer, and the blood had pooled and coagulated in her head and shoulders. Now that the filth had been washed off, the dark purple of the dead blood cells showed through the translucent skin. She would look better after she was embalmed.

Doc Prouty was holding up a small syringe, eying the little bit of fluid within it. "We've got him," he said in a flat voice. "I'll have the lab run an analysis. We're well within the time limit. All we have to do is separate the girl's blood type from that of the spermatic fluid. You boys find your man, and I can identify him for you." He put the syringe in its special case. "I'll let you know the exact cause of death in a couple of hours."

"O.K., Doc. Thanks," said Inspector Kleek, closing his notebook. He turned to one of the other men. "Thompson, you notify the parents. Get 'em down here to make a positive identification, and send it along to my office with the print identification." Then he looked at me. "Anything extra you want, Roy?"

I shook my head. "Nope. Let's go check the files, huh?"

"Sure. Can I ride with you? I rode in with Thompson; he'll have to stay."

"Come along," I told him.

* * * * *

By ten fifteen that evening, we had narrowed the field down considerably. We fed all the data we had into the computer, including the general type number of the spermatic fluid, which Dr. Prouty had given us, and watched while the machine sorted through the characteristics of all the known criminals in its memory.

Kleek and I were sitting at a desk drinking hot, black coffee when the computer technician came over and handed Kleek the results at ten fifteen. "Quite a bunch of 'em, Inspector," he said, "but the geographic compartmentalization will help."

Kleek glanced over the neatly-printed sheaf of papers that the computer had turned out, then handed them to me. "There we are, Roy. One of those zanies is our boy."

I looked at the list. Every person on it was either a confirmed or suspected psychopath, and each one of them conformed to the set of specifications we had fed the computer. They were listed in four different groups, according to the distance they lived from the scene of the crime--half a mile, two miles, five miles, and "remainder," the rest of the city.

"All we got to do," Kleek said complacently, "is start rounding 'em up."

"You make it sound easy," I said tightly.

He put down his coffee cup. "Hell, Roy, it is easy! We've got all these characters down on the books, don't we? We know what they are, don't we? Look at 'em! Once in a while a new one pops up, and we put him on the list. Once in a while we catch one and send him up. Practically cut and dried, isn't it?"

"Sure," I said.

"Look, Roy," he went on, "we got it down to a fine art now--have for years." He waved in the general direction of the computer. "We got the advantage that it's easier to sort 'em out now, and faster--but the old tried-and-true technique is just the same. Cops have been catching these goons in every civilized country on Earth for a hundred years by this technique."

"Sam," I said wearily, "are you going to give me a lecture on police methods?"

He picked up his cup, held it for a moment, then set it down again, his eyes hardening. "Yes, Roy, I am! I'm older than you are, I've got more years on the Force, I've been working with Homicide longer, and I outrank you in grade by two and a half years! Yes, I figure it's about time I lectured you! You want to listen?"

I looked at him. Kleek is a good cop, I was thinking, and he deserves to be listened to, even if I don't agree with him.

"O.K., Sam," I said, "I'll listen."

* * * * *

"O.K., then." He took a breath. "Now, we got a system here that works. The nuts always show themselves up, one way or another. Most of 'em have been arrested by the time they're fourteen, fifteen years old. Maybe we can't nail 'em down and pin anything on 'em, but we got 'em down on the books. We know they have to be watched. We got ninety per cent of the queers and hopheads and stew-bums and firebugs and the rest of the zanies down on our books"--he waved toward the computer again--"and down in the memory bank of the computer. We know we're gonna get 'em eventually, because we know they're gonna goof up eventually, and then we'll have 'em. We'll have 'em"--he made a clutching gesture with his right hand--"right where it hurts!

"You take this Donahue killer. We know where he is. We can be pretty sure we got him down on the books." He tapped the sheaf of papers from the computer with a firm forefinger. "We can be pretty sure that he's one of those guys right down there!"

He waved his hand again, but, this time, he took in the whole city--the whole outside world. "Like clock-work. The minute they goof, we nab 'em."

"Sam," I said, "just listen to me a minute. We know that ninety per cent of the men on that list right there are going to be convicted of a crime of violence inside the next five years, right?"

"That's what I've been tellin' you. The minute--"

"Wait a minute; wait a minute. Just listen. Why don't we just go out and arrest them all right now? Look at all the trouble that would save us."

"Hell, Roy! You can't arrest a man unless he's done something! What would you charge 'em with? Loitering with intent to commit a nuisance?"

"No. But we can--"

I was cut off by a uniformed cop who stuck his head in the door and said: "Inspector Royall, Dr. Brownlee called. Says they picked up Hammerlock Smith. He's at the 87th Precinct. Wants you to come down right away if you can."

I stood up and grabbed my hat. "Sam, you can sit on this one for a while, huh? I've been waiting for Hammerlock Smith to fall for two months."

Sam Kleek looked disgusted. "And you'll see that he gets psycho treatment and a suspended sentence. A few days in the looney ward, and then right back out on the street. Hammerlock Smith! There's a case for you! Built like a gorilla and has a passion for Irish whisky and sixteen-year-old boys--and you think you can cure him in three days! Nuts!"

I didn't feel like arguing with him. "We might as well let him go now as lock him up for three or four months and then let him go, Sam. Why fool around with assault and battery charges when we can wait for him to murder somebody and then lock him up for good, eh, Sam? What's another victim more or less, as long as we get the killer?"

"That's what we're here for," he said stolidly. "To get killers." He scratched at his balding head. "I don't get you, Roy. I'd think you'd want these maniacs put away, after your--"

He stopped himself, wet his lips, and said: "O.K. You go ahead and take care of Smith. Get some sleep. I'm going to. I'll leave orders to call us both if anything breaks in the Donahue case."

I just nodded and walked out. I didn't want to hear any more.

But the door didn't close tightly, and I heard Kleek's voice as he spoke to the computer tech. "I just don't figure Roy. His wife died in a fire set by an arson bug, and he wants to--"

I kept on walking as the door clicked shut.

* * * * *

I was in my office at nine the next morning, after seven and a half hours of sleep on one of the bunks in the ready room. The business with Hammerlock Smith had taken more time than I had thought it would. The big, stupid ape had been in a vicious mood, reeking of whisky and roaring insults at everyone. His cursing was neither inventive nor colorful, consisting of only four unlovely words used over and over again in various combinations with ordinary ones, a total vocabulary of maybe a dozen words.

It had taken four cops, using night-sticks, to get him into the paddy wagon, and Dr. Brownlee had finally had to give him a blast of super-tranquilizer with a hypogun.

"Boy, Inspector," one of the officers had said, "don't let anyone ever tell you some of these guys aren't tough!"

I was looking over the written report. "What about this kid he accosted in the bar? Hurt bad?"

"Cracked rib, sprained wrist, and a bloody nose, sir. The doc said he'd be O.K."

"According to the report here, the kid was twenty-two years old. Smith usually picks 'em younger."

The cop grinned. "Smith had to get his eventually, sir. This guy looks pretty young, but he was a boxer in college. He probably couldn't've whipped Smith, but he had guts enough to try."

"Think he'll testify?"

"Said he would, sir. We already got his signature on the complaint while he was at the hospital. He's pretty mad."

Smith's record was long and ugly. Of the eight complaints made by young boys who had managed to brush off or evade Hammerlock's advances, six hadn't come to trial because there were no corroborating witnesses, and the charges had been dismissed. Two of the cases had come before a jury--and had resulted in acquittals. Cold sober, Smith presented a fairly decent picture. It was hard to convince a jury of ordinary citizens that so masculine-looking a specimen was homosexual.

The odd thing was that the psychopathic twist which got Hammerlock Smith into trouble had been able to get him out of it again. Both times, Smith's avowal that he had done no such disgusting thing had been corroborated by a lie detector test. Smith--when he was sober--had no recollection of his acts when drunk, and apparently honestly believed that he was incapable of doing what we knew he had done.

This time, though, we had him dead to rights. He had never made his play in a bar before, and we had three witnesses, plus an assault and battery charge. As Inspector Kleek had said, we get 'em eventually....

... But at what cost? How many teenage boys had been frightened or whipped into doing as he told them and then been too ashamed and sick with themselves to say anything? How many young lives had been befouled by Smith's abnormal lust?

And if Smith spent a year or two in Sing Sing, how many more would there be between the time he was released and the time he was caught again? And how long would it be before he obligingly hammered the life out of his young victim so that we could put him away permanently?

That was the "system" that Kleek--and a lot of other men on the Force swore by. That was the "system" that the boys in Homicide and in the Vice Squad thought I was trying to foul up by "babying" the zanies.

It's a hell of a great system, isn't it?

* * * * *

I called the hospital and talked to the doctor who had taken care of Smith's victim. Then I called Kleek to see if there had been any break in the Donahue case. There hadn't.

Finally, I called my son, Steve, at the apartment we shared, told him I wouldn't be home that night, and sacked out in the ready room.

By nine o'clock, I was ready to go back to work.

At nine thirty, Kleek called. His saggy face looked sleepier and more bored than ever. "No rest for the weary, Roy. I got a call on a killing on the Upper East Side. Some rich gal with too much time on her hands was having an all-night party, and she got herself shot to death. It looks like her husband did it, but there's plenty of money involved, and the Deputy Commissioner wants me to handle it personally, all the way through. I'm putting Lieutenant Shultz in charge of the Homicide end of the Donahue case, but I told him you were the man to listen to. He'll report directly to you if there's any new leads. O.K.?"

"O.K. with me, Sam." As I said, Kleek is a good cop in spite of his "system."

"The boys are out making the rounds," he went on, "bringing in all the men with conviction records and questioning the others. And we're combing the neighborhood for the kid's clothes. They might still be around somewhere. Shultz'll keep you posted."

"Fine, Sam. Happy hunting in High Society."

"Thanks, Roy. Take it easy."

At fifteen of eleven, the Police Commissioner called. He spent ten minutes telling me that I was going to be visited by a VIP and giving me exact instructions on how to handle the man. "I'm depending on you to take care of him, Roy," he said finally. "If we can get this program operating in other places, it will help us a lot. And if you need help from my office, grab the nearest phone."

"I'll do my best," I promised him. "And thanks, sir."

The Commissioner was a lawyer, not a cop, so he wasn't as tied to the system as Kleek and the others were. He was backing me all the way.

I punched Sergeant Vanney's number on the intercom. "Inspector Royall here, Sergeant. Do me a favor."

"Yes, sir."

"Go down to the library and get me a copy of Burke's 'Peerage.'"

"Burke's which, sir?"

I repeated it and spelled it for him. He didn't waste any time; he had it on my desk in less than twenty minutes. When the VIP arrived, I had already read up on Chief Inspector, The Duke of Acrington.

Here's how he was listed:

ACRINGTON, Seventh Duke of (Robert St. James Acrington) Baron Bennevis of Scotland, K. C. B.: Born 7 November 1950, B.S., M.S., Oxon., cum laude. Married (1977) Lady Susan Burley, 2nd dau. Viscount Burley. 2 sons, Richard St. James, Philip William.

[Illustration]

Joined Metropolitan Police (1975); C. I. D. (1976); dep. Insp. (1980); Insp. (1984); Ch. Insp. (1990). Awarded George Medal for extraordinary heroism during the False War (1981). Author Criminal Law and the United Nations, The Use of Forensic Psychology (police textbook), and The Night People (fiction; under nom de plume R. A. James). Clubs: Royal Astronomical, Oxonian, Baker Street Irregulars. Motto: Amicus Curiae.

I had to admit that I was impressed, but I decided to withhold any judgment until I had met the man.

* * * * *

He was right on time for his appointment. The car pulled up to the parking lot with a sergeant at the wheel, and I got a bird's eye view of him from my window as he got out of the car and headed for the door. I had to grin a little; the Commissioner had obviously wanted to take the visitor around personally--roll out the rug for royalty, so to speak--but he had had a conference scheduled with the Mayor and some Federal officials, and, after all, the duke was only here on police business, not as Ambassador from the Court of St. James. So he ended up being treated just as any visitor from Scotland Yard would be treated.

He was shown directly to my office, and I gave him a quick once-over as he came in the door. Tall, about six feet even; weight about 175, none of it surplus fat; light brown hair smoothed neatly back, almost no gray; eyes, blue-gray, with finely-etched lines around them that indicated they'd been formed by both smiles and frowns: face, rather long and bony, with thin, firm lips and a longish, thin, slightly curved nose. He wore good clothes, and he wore them well. His age, I knew; it was the same as mine. It was the first time I had ever seen a man who looked like a real aristocrat and a good cop rolled into one.

He had an easy smile on his face, and his eyes were taking me in, too. I stand an inch under six feet, but I'm a little broader across the shoulders than he, so the ten more pounds I carry doesn't make me look fat. My face is definitely not aristocratic--wide and square, with a nose that shows a slight bend where it was broken when I was a rookie, heavy, dark eyebrows, and hair that is receding a little on top and graying perceptibly at the sides. The eyes are a dark gray, and I'm well aware that the men under me call me "Old Flint-eye" when I put the pressure on them.

"I'm Chief Inspector Acrington," he said pleasantly, giving me a firm handshake.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Your Grace," I said. "I'm Inspector Royall. Sit down, won't you?" I gestured toward one of the upholstered guest chairs, and sat down in the other one myself, so we wouldn't have the desk between us. "Have a good trip across?" I asked.

"Fine. Except, of course, for the noise."

"Noise?" I knew he'd come over in one of the Transatlantic Airways' new inertia-drive ships, and they're supposed to be fairly quiet.

His smile broadened a trifle. "Exactly. There wasn't any. I'm rather used to the vibration of jets, and these new jobs float along at a hundred thousand feet in the deadest silence you ever heard--if you'll pardon the oxymoron. Everybody chattered like a flight of starlings, just to keep the air full of sound."

I chuckled. "Maybe they'll put vibrators on them, just to make the people feel comfortable. I read that the men in the moon ships complain about the same thing."

"So I've heard. But, actually, the silence is a minor thing when one realizes the time one saves. When one is looking forward to something interesting, traveling can be deadly dull."

It was beautiful, the way he did it. He had told me plainly that he wanted to get down to business and cut the small talk, but he'd done it in such a way that the transition was frictionlessly smooth.

"Not much scenery up there," I said. "I hope you'll find what we're trying to do here has a few more points of interest."

"I'm quite sure it will, from what I've heard of your pilot project here. That's why I want to, well, sort of be a hanger-on for a few days, if that's all right with you."

* * * * *

Before I could answer, the phone blinked. I excused myself to the Duke and cut in. The image that came on the screen was almost myself, except that he had his mother's mouth and was twenty-odd years younger.

"Hi, Dad," he said, with that apologetic smile of his. "Sorry to bother you during office hours, but could I borrow fifty? Pay you back next week."

I threw a phony scowl at him. "Running short, eh? Have you been betting on the stickball teams again?"

He cast his eyes skyward, and raised the three fingers of his right hand. "Scout's Honor, Dad, I spent it on a new turbine for my ElectroFord." Then he lowered his hand and looked down from the upper regions. "I really did. I forgot that I was supposed to take Mary Ellen out this evening. Car-happy, I guess. Can you advance the fifty?"

I threw away my phony scowl and gave him a smile. "Sure, Stevie. How's Mary Ellen?"

"Swell. She's all excited about going to the Art Ball tonight--that's why I didn't want to disappoint her."

"Slow up, son," I told him, "you've already made your pitch and been accepted. You'll get your fifty, so don't push it. Want to come down here and pick it up?"

"Can do. And have I told you that you'll be invited to the wedding?"

"Thanks, pal. Can I give the groom away?" It was a family joke that we'd kicked back and forth ever since he had met Mary Ellen, two years before.

"Sure thing. See you in a couple of hours. Bye, Dad." He cut off, and I looked at the Duke.

"Sorry. Now, you were saying?"

"Perfectly all right." He smiled. "I have two of my own at home.

"At any rate, I was saying that the Criminal Investigation Department of New Scotland Yard has become interested in this experiment of yours, so I was sent over to get all the first-hand information I can. Frankly, I volunteered for the job; I was eager to come. There are plenty of skeptics at the Yard, I'll admit, but I'm not one of them. If the thing's workable, I want to see it used in England."

Here was another man who wasn't tied to the "system."

"D'you mind if I ask some questions?" he said.

"Go ahead, Your Grace. If I can't answer 'em, I'll say so."

"Thanks. First off, I'll tell you what I do know--get my own knowledge of the background straight, so to speak. Now, as I understand it, the courts have agreed--temporarily, at least--that any person convicted of certain types of crimes must undergo a psychiatric examination before sentencing. Right?"

"That's right."

"Then, depending on the result of that examination, the magistrate of the court may sentence the offender to undertake psychiatric therapy instead of sending him to a penal institution, such time in therapy not to exceed the maximum time of imprisonment originally provided for the offense under the law.

"His sentence is suspended, in other words, if he will agree to the therapy. If, after he is released by the psychiatrists, he behaves himself, he is not imprisoned. If he misbehaves, he must serve out the original sentence, plus any new sentence that may be imposed. Have I got it straight so far?"

"Perfectly."

"As I understand it, you've had astounding success." He looked, in spite of what he had said about skepticism, as though he thought the reports he'd heard were exaggerated.

"So far," I said evenly, "not a single one of our 'patients' has failed us."

He looked amazed, but he didn't doubt me. "And you've been in operation for how long?"

"A little over a year since the first case. But I think the record will stand the same way five, ten, fifty years from now.

"You see, Your Grace, we don't dare lose a man. If one of our tame zanies goes haywire again, the courts will stop this pilot project fast. There's a lot of pressure against us.

"In the first place, we only work with repeaters. You know the type. The world is full of them. The boys that are picked up over and over again for the same kind of crime."

He nodded. "They're the ones we wait for. The ones we catch, convict, and send to prison--and then wait until they get out, and then wait some more until they commit their next crime, so that we can catch them and start the whole cycle over again."

"That's them," I said. "When they're out, they're just between crimes, that's all. And that puts the police in a hell of a position, doesn't it? You know they're going to fall again; you know that they're going to rob, or hurt, or kill someone. But there's nothing you can do about it. You're helpless. No police force has enough men to enable a cop to be assigned to every known repeater and follow him night and day.

"In this state, if a man is convicted of a felony for a fourth time, a life sentence is mandatory. But that means that at least four victims have to be sacrificed before the dangerous man is removed from society!"

The Duke nodded thoughtfully. "'Sacrifice' is the word. Go on."

"Now, the type of crime we're working with--the kind we expect future laws to apply to--is strictly limited. It must be a crime of violence against a human being, or a crime of destruction in which there is a grave danger that human lives may be lost. The sex maniac, the firebug, or the goon who gets a thrill out of beating people. Or the reckless driver who has proven that he can't be trusted behind the wheel of a car.

"We can't touch the kleptomaniac or the common drunk or the drug addict. They're already provided for under other laws. And those habits are not, by themselves, dangerous to the lives of others. A good many of our kind of zany do drink or take drugs--about fifty per cent of them. But what they're sentenced for is crimes of violence, not for guzzling hooch or mainlining heroin."

* * * * *

My phone chimed. It was Lieutenant Shultz, of Homicide. His square, blocky face held a trace of excitement. "Inspector Royall, Inspector Kleek told me to report to you if there was any news in the Donahue case."

"What is it, Lieutenant?"

"We're pretty sure of our man. Scrapings from the kid's fingernails gave us his blood type. The computer narrowed the list down quite a bit with that data. Then, a few minutes ago, one of the boys found the kid's clothes stuffed in with some trash paper in the back stairwell of a condemned building just a couple of blocks from where we found her last night.

"And--get this, Inspector!--she was wearing a pair of those shiny patent-leather shoes, practically brand-new, and they have prints all over them! His are over hers, since he was the last one to handle them, and there's only the two sets of prints! We just now got positive identification."

"Grab him and bring him in," I said. "I'll be right down. I want to talk to him."

His face fell a little. "Well, it isn't going to be as easy as all that, sir. You see, we'd already checked at his last known address, earlier this morning, before we got the final check on the blood type. This guy left the rooming house he was staying in--checked out two days ago, just a short time after the girl was killed. I figured that looked queer at the time, so I had two of my men start tracing him in particular. But there's not a sign of him so far."

I untensed myself. "O.K. What's his record?"

"Periodic drunk. Goes for weeks without touching the stuff, then he goes out on a binge that lasts for a week sometimes.

"Name's Lawrence Nestor, alias Larry Nestor. Twenty-eight years old, six feet one inch, slight build, but considered fairly strong. Brown hair, brown eyes. Speaks with a lisp due to a dental defect; the lisp becomes more noticeable when he's drinking." He turned the page of the report he was reading from. "Arrested for drunkenness four times in the past five years, got off with a fine when he pleaded guilty. He molested a little girl two years ago and was picked up for questioning, but nothing came of it. The girl hadn't been physically hurt, and she couldn't make a positive identification, so he was released from custody.

"Officers on duty in the neighborhood report that he has frequently been seen talking to small children, usually girls, but he wasn't seen to molest them in any way, and there were no complaints from parents, so no action could be taken."

Lieutenant Shultz looked up from the paper. "He's had all kinds of jobs, but he can't hold 'em very long. Goes on a binge, doesn't show up for work, so they fire him. He's a pretty good short-order cook, and that's the kind of work he likes, if he can talk a lunch room into hiring him. He's also been a bus boy, a tavern porter, and a janitor.

"One other thing: The superintendent at the place where he was staying reports that he had an unusual amount of money on him--four or five hundred dollars he thinks. Doesn't know where Nestor got the money, but he's been boozing it up for the past five days. Bought new clothes--hat, suit, shoes, and so on. Living high on the hog, I guess."

* * * * *

I thought for a minute. If he had money, he could be anywhere in the world by now. On the other hand--

"Look, Lieutenant, you haven't said anything to the newsmen yet, have you?"

He looked surprised. "No. I called you first. But I figured they could help us. Plaster his picture and name all over the area, and somebody will be bound to recognize him."

"Somebody might kill him, too, and I don't want that. Look at it this way: If he had sense enough to get out of the local area two days ago and really get himself lost, then it won't hurt to wait twenty-four hours or so to release the story. On the other hand, if he's still in the city or over in Jersey, he could still get out before the news was so widespread that he'd be spotted by very many people.

"But if he's still drinking and thinks he's safe, we may be able to get a lead on him. I have a hunch he's still in the city. So hold off on that release to the newsmen as long as you can. Don't let it leak.

"Meanwhile, check all the transportation terminals. Find out if he's ever been issued a passport. If he has, check the foreign consuls here in the city to see if he got a visa. Notify the FBI; they're back in it now, since there's a chance that he may have crossed a state line--unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

"And tell the boys that do the footwork that they're to say that the guy they're looking for is wanted by the Missing Persons Bureau--that he left home and his wife is looking for him. Don't connect him up with the Donahue case at all. Have every beat patrolman in the city on the lookout for a drunk with a lisp, but tell them the same story about the wife; I don't want any leaks at all.

"I'll call the Commissioner right away to get his O.K., because I don't want either one of us to get in hot water over this. If he's with us, we'll go ahead as planned; if he's not, we'll just have to call in the newsmen. O.K.?"

"Sure, Inspector. Whatever you say. I'll get right to work on it. You'll have the Commissioner call me?"

"Right. So long. Call me if anything happens."

I had added the bit about calling the Commissioner because I wasn't sure but what Kleek would decide I was wrong in handling the case and let the story out "accidentally." But I had to be careful not to make Shultz think I was trying to show my muscles. I called the Commissioner, got his O.K., and turned my attention back to my guest.

He had been listening with obvious interest. "Another one of your zanies, eh?"

"One that went too far, Your Grace. We didn't get to him in time." I spent five or six minutes giving him the details of the Donahue case.

"The same old story," he said when I had finished. "If your pilot project here works out, maybe that kind of slaughter can be eliminated." Then he smiled. "Do you know something? You're one of the few Americans I've ever met, outside your diplomats, who can address a person as 'Your Grace' and make it sound natural. Some people look at me as though they expected me to be all decked out in a ducal coronet and full ermines, ready for a Coronation. Your Commissioner, for instance. He seems quite a nice chap, but he also seems a bit overawed at a title. You seem perfectly relaxed."

I considered that for a moment. "I imagine it's because he tends to look at you as a Duke who has taken up police work as a sort of gentlemanly hobby."

"And you?"

"I guess I tend to think of you as a good cop who had the good fortune to be born the eldest son of a Duke."

His smile suddenly became very warm. "Thank you," he said sincerely. "Thank you very much."

There came the strained silence that sometimes follows when an honest compliment is passed between two men who have scarcely met. I broke it by pointing at the plaque on the front of my desk and giving him a broad grin. "Or maybe it's just the kind of blood that flows in my veins."

He looked at the little plaque that said Inspector Royal C. Royall and laughed pleasantly. "I like to think that it's a little bit of both."

* * * * *

The intercom on my desk flashed, and the sergeant's voice said: "Inspector, a couple of the boys just brought in a man named Manewiscz. A stolen car was run into a fire plug over on Fifth Avenue near 99th Street. A witness has positively identified Manewiscz as the driver who ran away before the squad car arrived."

"Sidney Manewiscz?" I asked. "Manny the Moog?"

"That's the one. He's got a record of stealing cars for joyrides. He insists on talking to you."

"Bring him in," I said. "I'll talk to him. And get hold of Dr. Brownlee."

"Excuse me," I said to the Duke. "Business." He started to get up, but I said, "That's all right, Your Grace; you might as well sit in on it." He relaxed back into the chair.

Two cops brought in Manewiscz, a short, nervous man with a big nose and frightened brown eyes.

"What's the trouble, Manny?" I asked.

"Nothing, Inspector; I'm telling you, I didn't do nothing. I'm walking along Fifth Avenoo when all of a sudden these cops pull up in a squad-car and some fat jerk in the back seat is hollering that I am the guy he seen get out of a smashup on 99th Street, which is a good three blocks from where I am walking. Besides which, I have not driven a car for over a year now, and I have been in all ways a law-abiding citizen and a credit to the family and the community."

"Do you know the fat guy?" I asked. "The guy who fingered you for the boys?"

"I never had the pleasure of seeing him before," said Manny the Moog, "but, on the other hand, I do not expect to forget his fat face between now and the next time we meet."

At that point, Dr. Brownlee came through the door.

"Hello, Inspector," he said with a quick smile. He saw Manewiscz then, and his eyebrows went up. "What are you doing here, Manny?"

"I am here, Doc, because the two gentlemen in uniform whom you see standing on both sides of me extend a polite invitation to accompany them here, although I am not in the least guilty of the thing they say I do which causes them to issue this invitation."

I explained what had happened and Brownlee shook his head slowly without saying anything for a moment. Then he said, "Come on in my office, Manny; I want to talk to you for a few minutes. O.K., Inspector?" He glanced at me.

"Sure." I waved him and Manny away. "You boys stay here," I told the patrolmen, "Manny will be all right." As soon as the door closed behind Dr. Brownlee and Manewiscz I said: "You two brought the witness in, too, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir," said one. The other nodded.

"You'd better do a little more careful checking on him. He may be simply mistaken, or he may have been the actual driver. See if he's been in any trouble before."

"The sergeant's already doing that, sir," said the one who had spoken before. "Meanwhile, maybe we better go out and have a little talk with the guy."

"Take it easy, he may be a perfectly respectable citizen."

"Yes, sir," he said. "We'll just ask him a few questions."

They left, and I noticed that the Duke was looking rather puzzled, but he didn't ask any questions, so I couldn't answer any.

The intercom lit up, and I flipped the switch. "Yes?"

"I just checked up on the witness," said the sergeant. "No record. His identification checks out O.K. Thomas H. Wilson, an executive at the City-Chemical Bank; lives on Central Park West. The lab says that the driver of the car wore gloves."

"Thank Wilson for his information, let him go, and tell him we'll call him if we need him. Lay it on thick about what a good citizen he is. Make him happy."

"Right."

I switched off and started to say something to my guest, but the intercom lit up again. "Yeah?"

"Got a call-in from Officer McCaffery, the beat man on Broadway between 108th and 112th. He's got a lead on the guy you're looking for."

"Tell him we'll be right over. Where is he?"

The sergeant told me, and I cut off.

I took out my gun and spun the cylinder, checking if from force of habit more than anything else, since I always check and clean it once a day, anyhow. I slid it back into its holster and turned to the Duke, who was already on his feet.

"Did the Commissioner give you a Special Badge?" I asked him.

"Yes, he did." He pulled it out of his inside pocket and showed it to me.

"Good. I'll have the sergeant fill out a temporary pistol permit, and--"

"I don't have a pistol, Inspector," he said. "I--"

"That's all right; we'll issue you one. We can--"

He shook his head. "Thanks, I'd rather not. I've never used a pistol except when I've gone out after a criminal who is known to be armed and dangerous. I don't think Lawrence Nestor is very dangerous to adult males, and I doubt that he's armed." He hefted the walking stick he'd been carrying. "This will do nicely, thank you."

The way he said it was totally inoffensive, but it made me feel as though I were about to go out rabbit hunting with an elephant gun. "Force of habit," I said. "In New York, a cop would feel naked without a gun. But I assure you that I have no intention of shooting Mr. Nestor unless he takes a shot at me first."

Just as we were leaving, Dr. Brownlee met us in the outer room.

[Illustration] "All right if I let Manny the Moog go, Roy?"

[Illustration]

"Sure, Doc; if you say so." I didn't have any time for introductions just then; Chief Inspector the Duke of Acrington and I kept going.

* * * * *

Eight minutes later, I pulled up to the post where Officer McCaffery was waiting. Since I'd already talked to him over the radio, all he did was stroll off as soon as we pulled up. I didn't want everyone in the neighborhood to know that there was something afoot. His Grace and I climbed out of the car and walked up toward a place called Flanagan's Bar.

It was a small place, the neighborhood type, with an old-fashioned air about it. Two or three of the men looked up as we came in, and then went back to the more important business of drinking. We went back to the far end of the bar, and the bartender came over, a short, heavy man, with the build of a heavyweight boxer and hands half again as big as mine. He had dark hair, a square face, a dimpled chin, and calculating blue eyes.

"What'll it be?" he said in a friendly voice.

"Couple of beers," I told him.

I waited until he came back before I identified myself. Officer McCaffery had told me that the bartender was trustworthy, but I wanted to make sure I had the right man.

"You Lee Darcey?" I asked when he brought back the beers.

"That's right."

I flashed my badge. "Is there anywhere we can talk?"

"Sure. The back room, right through there." He turned to the other bartender. "Take over for a while, Frankie." Then he ducked under the bar and followed the Duke and me into the back room.

We sat down, and I showed him the picture of Lawrence Nestor. "I understand you've seen this guy."

He picked up the picture and cocked an eyebrow at it. "Well, I wouldn't swear to it in court, Inspector, but it sure looks like the fellow who was in here this afternoon--this evening, rather, from six to about six-thirty. I don't come on duty until six, and he was here when I got here."

It was just seven o'clock. If the man was Nestor, we hadn't missed him by more than half an hour.

"Notice anything about his voice?"

"I noticed the lisp, if that's what you mean."

"Did he talk much?"

Darcey shook his head. "Not a lot. Just sat there and drank, mostly. Had about three after I came on."

"What was he drinking?"

"Whisky. Beer chaser." He grinned. "He tips pretty well."

"Has he ever been in here before?"

"Not that I know of. He might've come in in the daytime. You'd have to check with Mickey, the day man."

"Was he drunk?"

"Not that I could tell. I wouldn't have served him if he was," he said righteously.

I said, "Darcey, if he comes back in here ... let's see--Can you shut off that big sign out front from behind the bar?"

"Sure."

"O.K. If he comes in, shut off the sign. We'll have men here in less than a minute. He isn't dangerous or anything, so just act natural and give him whatever he orders. I don't want him scared off. Understand?"

"I got you."

His Grace and I went outside, and I used my pocket communicator to instruct a patrol car to cover Flanagan's Bar from across the street, and I called for extra plainclothesmen to cover the area.

"Now what?" asked His Grace.

"Now we go barhopping," I said. "He's probably still drinking, but it isn't likely that he'll find many little girls at this time of night. He's probably got a room nearby."

At that point, a blue ElectroFord pulled up in front of us. Stevie stuck his head out and said: "Your office said you'd be around here somewhere. Remember me, Dad?"

I covered my eyes with one hand in mock horror. "My God, the fifty!" Then I dropped the hand toward my billfold. "I'm sorry, son; I got wrapped up in this thing and completely forgot." That made two apologies in two minutes, and I began to have the uneasy feeling that I had suddenly become a vaguely repellant mass of thumbs and left feet.

I handed him the fifty, and, at the same time, said: "Son, I want you to meet His Grace, Chief Inspector the Duke of Acrington. Your Grace, this is my son, Steven Royall."

As they shook hands, Steve said: "It's a pleasure to meet Your Grace. I read about the job you did in the Camberwell poisoning case. That business of winding the watch was wonderful."

"I'm flattered, Mr. Royall," said the Duke, "but I must admit that I got a great deal more credit in that case than was actually due me. Establishing the time element by winding the watch was suggested to me by another man, who wouldn't allow his name to be mentioned in the press."

I reminded myself to read up on the Duke's cases. Evidently he was better known than I had realized. Sometimes a man gets too wrapped up in his own work.

"I'm sorry," Stevie said, "but I've got to get going. I hope to see you again, Your Grace. So long, Dad--and thanks."

"So long, son," I said. "Take it easy."

His car moved off down the street, gathering speed.

"Fine boy you have there," the Duke said.

"Thanks. Shall we go on with our pub crawling?"

"Let's."

* * * * *

By two o'clock in the morning, we had heard nothing, found nothing. The Duke looked tired, and I knew that I was.

"A few hours sleep wouldn't hurt either one of us," I told His Grace. "It's a cinch that Nestor won't be able to find any little girls at this hour of the morning, and I have a feeling that he probably bought himself a bottle and took it up to his room with him."

"You're probably right," the Duke said wearily.

"Look," I said, "there's no point in your going all the way down to your hotel. My place is just across town, I have plenty of room, it will be no trouble to put you up, and we'll be ready to go in the morning. O.K.?"

He grinned. "Worded that way, the invitation is far too forceful to resist. I'm sold. I accept."

By that time, we had left several dollars worth of untasted beers sitting around in various bars on the West Side, so when I arrived at my apartment on the East Side, I decided that it was time for two tired cops to have a decent drink. The Duke relaxed on the couch while I mixed a couple of Scotch-and-waters. He lit a cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke with a sigh.

"Here, this will put sparks in your blood. Just a second, and I'll get you an ash tray." I went into the kitchen and got one of the ash trays from the top shelf and brought it back into the living room. Just as I put it down on the arm of the couch next to His Grace, the buzzer announced that there was someone at the front door downstairs.

I went over to the peeper screen and turned it on. The face was big-jawed and hard-mouthed, and there was scar tissue in the eyebrows and on the cheeks. He looked tough, but he also looked worried and frightened.

I could see him, but he couldn't see me, so I said: "What's the trouble, Joey?"

A look of relief came over his face. "Can I see ya, Inspector? I saw your light was on. It's important." He glanced to his right, toward the doorway. "Real important."

"What's it all about, Joey?"

"Take a look out your window, Inspector. Across the street. They're friends of Freddy Velasquez. They been following me ever since I got off work."

"Just a second," I said. I went over to the window that overlooks the street and looked down. There were two men there, all right, looking innocently into a delicatessen window. But I knew that Joey Partridge wasn't kidding, and that he knew who the men were. I went back to the peeper screen just as Joey buzzed my signal again. "I buzzed again so they won't know you're home," he said before I could ask any questions. "Freddy must've found out about my hands, Inspector. According to the word I got, they ain't carrying guns--just blackjacks and knucks."

"O.K., Joey. Come on up, and I'll call a squad car to take you home."

He gave me a bitter grin. "And have 'em coming after me again and again until they catch me? No, thanks, Inspector. In one minute, I'm going to walk across and ask 'em what they're following me for."

"You can't do that, Joey!"

He looked hurt. "Inspector, since when it is against the law to ask a couple of guys how come they're following you? I just thought I oughta tell ya, that's all. So long."

I knew there was no point in arguing with Joey Partridge. I turned and said: "Want some action, Your Grace?"

But he was already on his feet, holding that walking stick of his. "Anything you say."

"Come on, then. We'll take the fire escape; the elevator is too slow. The fire escape will let us out in the alley, and we won't by outlined by the light in the foyer."

I already had the bedroom door open. I ran over to the window, opened it, and started down the steel stairway. The Duke was right behind me. It was only three floors down.

"That Joey is too smart for his own good," I said, "but he's right. This is the only way to work it. Otherwise, they'd have him in the hospital eventually--or maybe dead."

"He looked like a man who could take care of himself," the Duke said.

"That's just it. He can't. Come on."

* * * * *

The ladder to the street slid down smoothly and silently, and I thanked God for modern fire prevention laws. When we reached the street, I wondered where they could have gone to so quickly. Then the Duke said: "There! In that darkened area-way next to the little shop!" And he started running. His legs were longer than mine, and he reached the area-way a good five yards ahead of me.

Joey had managed to evade them for a short while, but they had cornered him, and one of them knocked him down just as the Duke came on the scene. The other had swung at his ribs with a blackjack as he dropped, and the first aimed a kick at Joey's midriff, but Joey rolled away from it.

Then the two thugs heard our footsteps and turned to meet us. If we'd been in uniform, they might have run; as it was, they stood their ground.

But not for long.

The Duke didn't use that stick as though it were a club, swinging it like a baseball bat. That would be as silly as using an overhand stab with a dagger. He used it the way a fencer would use a foil, and the hard, blunt end of it sank into the first thug's solar plexus with all the drive of the Duke's right arm and shoulder behind it. The thug gave a hoarse scream as all the air was driven from his lungs, and he dropped to the pavement.

The second man came in with his blackjack swinging. His hand stopped suddenly as his wrist met the deadly stick, but the blackjack kept on going, bouncing harmlessly off the nearby wall as it flew from nerveless fingers.

That stick never stopped moving. On the backswing, it thwacked resoundingly against the thug's ribcage. He grunted in pain and tried to charge forward to grapple with the Englishman. But His Grace was grace itself as he leaped backwards and then thrust forward with that wooden snake-tongue. The thug practically impaled himself on it. He stopped and twisted and was suddenly sick all over the pavement. Almost gently, the Duke tapped him across the side of his head, and he fell into his own mess.

It was all over before I'd even had a chance to mix in. I stood there, holding an eleven millimeter Magnum revolver in my hand and feeling vaguely foolish.

I reholstered the thing and walked over to where Joey Partridge was propping himself up to a sitting position. His right eye was bruised, and there was a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth, but he was grinning all the way across his battered face. And he wasn't looking at me; he was looking at the Duke.

"You hurt, Joey?" I asked. I knew he wasn't hurt badly; he'd taken worse punishment than that in his life.

He looked at me still grinning. "Hurt? You're right I'm hurt, Inspector! Them goons tried to kill me. Let's see--assault and battery, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with intent to kill, assault with intent to maim, attempted murder, and--" He paused. "What else we got, Inspector?"

"We'll think on plenty," I said. "Can you stand up?"

"Sure I can stand up. I want to shake the hand of your buddy, there. Geez! I ain't seen anything like that since I used to watch Bat Masterson on TV, when I was a little kid!"

"Joey, this is Chief Inspector the Duke Acrington, of Scotland Yard. Inspector, this is Joey Partridge, the greatest amateur boxer this country has ever produced."

Amazingly enough, Joey extended his hand. "Pleased t'meetcha, Inspector! Uh--watch the hand. Sorta tender. That was great! Duke, did you say?" He looked at me. "You mean he's a real English Duke?" He looked back at Acrington. "I never met a Duke before!" But by that time he had taken his hand away from the Duke's grasp.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Joey," the Duke said warmly. "I liked the way you cleaned up on that Russian during the '72 Olympics."

Joey said to me, "He remembers me! How d'ya like that?"

One of the downed thugs began to groan, and I said, "We'd better get the paddy wagon around to pick these boys up. You'll prefer charges, Joey?"

"Damn right I will! I didn't let myself get slugged for nothing!"

It was nearly forty-five minutes later that the Duke and I found ourselves in my apartment again. The ice in our drinks had melted, so I dumped them and prepared fresh ones. The Duke took his, drained half of it in three fast swallows, and said: "Ahhhhhh! I needed that."

We heard a key in the door, and His Grace looked at me.

"That's my son," I said. "Back from his date."

Steve came in looking happy. "You still awake, Dad? A cop ought to get his sleep. Good morning, Your Grace. Both of you look sleepy."

Stevie didn't. He'd danced with Mary Ellen until four, and he still looked as though he could walk five miles without tiring. Me, I felt about as full of snap as a soda cracker in a Turkish bath. The three of us talked for maybe ten minutes, and then we hit the hay.

* * * * *

Three and a half hours of sleep isn't enough for anybody, but it was all we could afford to take. By eight-thirty, the Duke and I were in my office, sloshing down black coffee, and, half an hour after that, we were cruising up Amsterdam Avenue on the second day of our hunt for Mr. Lawrence Nestor.

Since we were now reasonably sure that our man was in the area, I ordered the next phase of the search into operation. There were squads of men making a house-to-house canvass of every hotel, apartment house, and rooming house in the area--and there are thousands of them. A flying squad took care of the hotels first; they were the most likely. Since we knew exactly what day Nestor had arrived, we narrowed our search down to the records for that day. Nestor might not use his own name; of course, but the photograph and description ought to help. And, since Nestor didn't have a job, his irregular schedule and his drinking habits might make him stand out, though there were plenty of places where those traits would simply make him one of the boys. It still looked like a long, hard search.

And then we got our break.

At 9:17 am, Lieutenant Holmquist's voice snapped over my car phone: "Inspector Royall; Holmquist here. Child missing in Riverside Park. Officer Ramirez just called in from 111th and Riverside."

"Got it!"

I cut left and gunned the car eastward. I hit a green light at Broadway, so I didn't need to use the siren. Within two minutes, we had pulled up beside the curb where an officer was standing with a woman in tears. The Duke and I got out of the car.

We walked over to her calmly, although neither one of us felt very calm. There's no point in disturbing an already excited mother--or aunt or whatever she was.

The officer threw me a salute. I returned it and said to the sobbing woman, "Now, just be calm, ma'am. Tell us what happened."

It all came out in a torrent. She'd been sitting on one of the benches, reading a newspaper, and she'd looked around and little Shirley was gone. Yes, Shirley was her daughter. How old? Seven and a half. How long ago was this? Fifteen minutes, maybe. She hadn't been worried at first; she'd walked up and down, calling the girl's name, but hadn't gotten any answer. Then she saw the policeman, and ... and--

And she broke down into tears again.

It was the same thing that had happened a few days before. I had already ordered extra men put on the Riverside and Central Park details, but a cop can't be everywhere at once.

"I've got the rest of the boys beating the brush between here and the river," Officer Ramirez said. "She might have gone down one of the paths on the other side of the wall."

"She wouldn't go too near the river," the woman sobbed. "I just know she wouldn't." She sounded as though she were trying to convince herself and failing miserably.

Nobody said anything about Nestor; the poor woman was bad enough off without adding more horror to the pictures she was conjuring up in her mind.

"We'll find her," I said soothingly, "don't you worry about that. You're pretty upset. We'll have the police doctor look you over and maybe give you a tranquilizer or something to make you feel better." No point in telling her that the doctor might be needed for a more serious case. "Keep an eye on her till the doctor comes, Ramirez. Meanwhile, we'll look around for the little girl."

* * * * *

I walked over to the wall and looked down. I could see uniformed police walking around, covering the ground carefully.

Riverside Park runs along the eastern edge of Manhattan Island, between Riverside Drive and the Hudson River, from 72nd Street on the south to 129th Street on the north. In the area where we were, there is a flat, level, grassy area about a block wide, where there are walks and benches to sit on. The eastern boundary of this area is marked by a retaining wall that runs parallel with the river. Beyond the wall, the ground slopes down sharply to the Hudson River, going under the elevated East Side Highway which carries express traffic up and down the island. The retaining wall is cut through at intervals, and winding steps go down the steep slope. There are bushes and trees all over down there.

I thought for a minute, then said, "Suppose it was Nestor. How did he get her away? It's a cinch he didn't just scoop her up in broad daylight and go trotting off with her under his arm."

"Precisely what I was thinking," the Duke agreed. "There was no scream or disturbance of that kind. Could he have lured her away, do you think?"

"Possible, but not likely. Little girls in New York are warned about that sort of thing from the time they're in diapers. If she were five years old, it might be more probable, but little girls who are approaching eight are pretty wise little girls."

"It follows, then, that she went somewhere of her own accord and he followed her. D'you agree?"

"That sounds most reasonable," I said. "The next question is: Where?"

"Yes. And why didn't she tell her mother where she was going?"

I gave him a sour grin. "Elementary, my dear Duke. Because her mother had forbidden her to go there. And, from the way she was talking, I gather the mother had expressly directed her to stay away from the river." I looked back over the retaining wall again. "But it just doesn't sound right, does it? Surely someone would have seen any sort of attack like that. Of course, it's possible that she did fall in the river, and that this case doesn't have anything to do with Nestor at all, but--"

"It doesn't feel that way to me, either," said the Duke.

"Let's go talk to the mother again," I said. "There are plenty of men down there now; they don't need us."

The woman, Mrs. Ebbermann, had calmed down a little. The police surgeon had given her a tranquilizer with a hypogun, Officer Ramirez was getting everything down in his notebook, and his belt recorder was running.

"No," she was saying, "I'm sure she didn't go home. That's the first place I looked after she didn't answer when I called. We live down the block there. I thought she might have gone home to go to the bathroom or something--but I'm sure she would have told me." She choked a little. "Oh, Shirley, baby! Where are you? Where are you?"

I started to ask her a question, but she suddenly said: "Shirley, baby, next time, I promise, you can bring your water gun with you to the park, if you'll just come back to Mommie now! Please, Shirley, baby! Please!"

I glanced at the Duke. He gave me the same sort of look.

"What was that about a water gun, Mrs. Ebbermann?" I asked casually.

"Oh, she wanted to bring her water gun with her, poor baby. But I made her leave it at home--I was afraid she might squirt people with it. But I shouldn't have done that! She's a good girl! She wouldn't squirt anybody!"

"Sure not, Mrs. Ebbermann. Does Shirley have a key to your apartment?"

"Yes. I gave her her own key, a pretty one, with her initials on it, for her seventh birthday, so she wouldn't have to push the buzzer when she came home from school."

"Where's your husband?" I asked taking a look at Ramirez' notebook to get her address.

"Shirley's father? Somewhere in Boston. We've been separated for two years. But I wish he were here!"

"Would you give me the key to your apartment, Mrs. Ebbermann? We'd like to take a look around."

She gave me a key. "But she's not there. I told you, that's the first place I looked."

"I know," I said. "We just want to look around. We won't disturb anything."

Then His Grace and I got out of there as fast as we could.

* * * * *

I keyed open the front door of the apartment building, and we went inside. Neither of us said anything. There was no need to. We knew what must have happened, we could see it unfolding as plainly as if we'd watched it happen.

Nestor had seen Shirley sneak off from her mother and had followed her. In order to get into the building, he must have come right in with her, right behind her when she unlocked the outer door. Then what?

The chances were a billion to one against his ever having been in the building before, so it stood to reason that all he would have been doing is watching for an opportunity and--the right place.

The foyer itself? No. Too much chance of being seen. The basement? Unlikely. He must have followed her into the elevator, and she would have pushed the button for the seventh floor, where her apartment was, so there wouldn't be much likelihood of his getting a chance to see the basement. Besides, there was a chance that he might run into the janitor.

* * * * *

The Duke and I went into the old-fashioned self-service elevator, and I pushed number seven. The doors slid shut, and the car started up. The roof? No. Too much danger of being seen from other buildings higher than this one.

Where, then? I looked at the control panel of the elevator. The button for the basement was controlled by a key; only the employees were allowed in the basement, so that place was ruled out absolutely.

I began to get the feeling that we were on a wild goose chase, after all. "What do you think?" I asked His Grace.

"I can't imagine where he might have taken her. We may have to search the whole building."

The car stopped at the seventh door, and we stepped out as the doors slid open. The hallways stretched to either side, but there were no apparent hiding places. I went over to the stairwell, which was right next to the elevator shaft and looked up and down. No place there, either.

Then it hit me.

Again, I could see Nestor, like a scene unfolding on a TV drama, still following little Shirley. Had he spoken to her in the elevator? Maybe. Maybe not. He was still undecided, so he followed her to the door of her apartment. Wait--very likely, be had made friends with her on the elevator. He saw her push button seven--

Well, well! Do you live on the seventh floor? Yes, I do. Then we're neighbors. I live on the seventh, too. I just moved in. Do you live with your mommie and daddy? Just my mommie. My daddy doesn't live with us anymore.

And, since he knew that mommie was in the park, he could guess that the apartment was empty.

All that went through my mind like a bolt of lightning. I said: "The apartment! Come on!"

The Duke, looking a little puzzled, followed me to the door of 706. I put my ear against the door and listened. Nothing. Then I eased the key in and flung the door open.

No one in the living room. I raced for the bedroom. No one in there, either, but the clothes closet door was shut.

When I opened it, we saw a small, dark-haired girl lying naked and unconscious on the floor.

Then there were noises from the front room. The sound of a door opening and closing, and the clatter of hurrying footsteps in the hall outside.

We both turned and ran.

In the hallway, we could hear the footsteps going down the stairwell. The slow elevator was out of the question. We took off down the stairs after him. He had a head start of about a floor and a half, and kept it all the way down. We saw the door swinging shut as we arrived in the foyer. Outside, we saw our man running toward the corner. I started to reach for my gun, but there were too many people around. I couldn't risk a shot.

And then that amazing walking stick came into action again. The Duke took a few running steps forward and hurled it like a javelin, the heavy silver head forward. Robin Hood couldn't have done better with an arrow. When the silver knob hit the back of the running man's head, he fell forward to the sidewalk.

He was still struggling to get up when we grabbed him.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

The Duke and I were waiting for Dr. Brownlee when he came back from talking to Lawrence Nestor in his cell. "He's one of our zanies, all right," he said sadly. "A very sick man."

"He's lucky he wasn't lynched," I said. "Did he tell you what happened?"

Brownlee nodded. "Just about the way you had it figured. He had the little girl's clothes off when her mother came back. He heard her putting her key in the door, so he grabbed Shirley and dragged her into the closet with him. The mother didn't search the place at all; she just went through the main rooms, called her daughter's name a few times and then left."

"That's what threw us off at first," I said. "We both accepted Mrs. Ebbermann's word that Shirley wasn't in the apartment. Then I realized that she wouldn't have taken time to look in all the closets. Why should she? As far as she knew, there wasn't any reason for Shirley to hide from her."

"It's a good thing Mrs. Ebbermann did come back." Dr. Brownlee said. "That was the only thing that saved the girl from rape and death. Nestor was so unnerved that he just left her in the closet, still unconscious from the blow he'd given her.

"Any normal man would have gotten out of there right then. Not Nestor. He went looking for a drink. Fortunately, he found a bottle of whisky in the kitchen. He was just getting in the mood to go back in after the girl when you two came charging in.

"He saw you run to the bedroom, so he knew the girl's mother must have called for help. He decided it was time to run. Too late, of course."

"Too late for a lot of things." I said. "Much too late far Angela Donahue, for instance. And, as a matter of fact, we were so close to being too late with Shirley Ebbermann that I don't even want to think about it. I should have let Shultz go ahead and tell the newsmen. At least people would have been warned."

"There's no way of knowing," said the Duke, "But I think there's just as good a chance that he'd have gotten his hands on some other little girl, even if the warning had gone out. There will always be parents who don't pay enough attention to what their children are doing. They may blame themselves if something happens, but that may be too late. As it happens, we weren't too late. Let's be thankful for that.

"By the way, am I wrong in assuming that Nestor will not get your psychotherapy treatment?"

"No, you're right," I said. "The warden at Sing Sing will be taking care of him from now on." I turned to Brownlee and said: "Which reminds me--what's going to be the disposition on the Hammerlock Smith case?"

"I talked to Judge Whittaker and the D.A. Your recommendation pulled a lot of weight with them. They agreed that if Smith will plead guilty to felonious assault and agree to therapy, he'll get off with eighteen months, suspended. When I release him, he'll never bother young boys again."

The Duke looked puzzled. "Hammerlock Smith? Odd Name. What's he up for?"

I told him about Hammerlock Smith.

He thought it over for a while, then said: "Just what is it you do to men like that? How can you be so sure he'll never hurt anyone again?"

Brownlee started to answer him, but a uniformed officer put his head in the door. "Excuse me, Dr. Brownlee, the District Attorney would like to talk to you."

Brownlee excused himself and followed the cop out, leaving me to explain things to His Grace.

"Do you remember that, a couple of centuries ago, the laws of some countries provided the perfect punishment for pickpockets and purse-snatchers?"

He gave me a wry grin. "Certainly. The hands of the felon were amputated at the wrist. Usually with a headsman's ax, I believe."

"Exactly. And they never picked another pocket again as long as they lived." I said. "Society had denied them the means to pick pockets."

"Go on."

* * * * *

"Do you remember Manny the Moog? The little fellow who was brought in yesterday?"

"Distinctly. I thought it was odd at the time that you should release a man who has a record of such activities as car-stealing and reckless driving, especially when the witness against him turned out to be a perfectly respectable person. I took it for granted that he was one of your ... ah ... 'tame zanies', I think you called them. But I did not and still don't understand how you can be so positive."

"I let Manny go because he's incapable of driving a car. The very thought of being in control of a machine so much more powerful than he is would give him chills. Did you ever see what happens when you lock a claustrophobe up in a dark closet--the mad, unreasoning, uncontrollable panic of absolute terror? That's what would happen to Manny if you put him behind the wheel of a running automobile. It's worse than fear; fear is controllable. Blind terror isn't.

"Manny had one little twist, in his mind. He liked to get into a car--any car, whether it was his or not--and drive. He became king of the road. He wasn't a little man any more. He was God, and lesser beings had better look out.

"We got to him before he actually killed anyone, but there is a woman in Queens today who will never walk again because of Manny the Moog. But there won't be any more like her. We took the instrument of destruction away from him; we 'cut off his hands'. Now he's leaving a reasonably useful life. We don't need to sacrifice another's life before we neutralize the danger."

"What about Joey Partridge?" His Grace asked. "He's one of your zanies, too, isn't he?

"That's right. He couldn't keep from using his fists. He liked the feel of solid flesh and bone giving under the impact of those big fists of his. Boxing wasn't enough; he had to be able to feel flesh-to-flesh contact, with no padded glove between. He almost killed a couple of men before we got to him."

"What did you do to his hands?"

"Nothing. Not a thing. There's nothing at all wrong with his hands. But he thinks there is. He's firmly convinced that the bones are as brittle as chalk, that if he uses those fists, he will be the one who will break and shatter. It even bothers him to shake hands, as you saw last night. It took a lot of guts to do what he did last night--walk over to those two thugs knowing he couldn't defend himself. He's no coward. But he's as terrified of having his hands hurt as Manny is of driving a car."

"I see'" the Duke said thoughtfully.

* * * * *

"There are other cases, plenty of them," I went on. "We have pyromaniacs who are perfectly harmless now because they have a deathly terror of flame. We have one fellow who used to be very nasty with a knife; he grows a beard now because the very thought of having a sharp edge that close to him is unnerving. The reality would send him screaming. We have a girl who had the weird idea that it was fun to drop things out of windows or off the tops of high buildings. Aside from the chance of people below being hurt, there was another danger. Two cops grabbed her just as she was about to drop her baby brother off the roof of her apartment house.

"But we don't worry about her any more. People with acute acrophobia are in no condition to pull stunts like that."

"What will you do to this Hammerlock Smith, then?" His Grace asked.

"Actually, he's one of the simpler cases. A large percentage of our zanies lose control when they're under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Alcohol is by far the more common. Under the influence, they do things they would never do when sober.

"As long as they remain sober, they have control. But, give them a few drinks and the control slips and then vanishes completely. One of our others was a little like Manny the Moog; he drove like a madman--which he was when he was drunk. Sober, he was as careful and cautious a driver as you'd want--a perfectly reliable citizen. But, after losing his license and the right to own a car, he'd still get drunk and steal cars.

"He has his license back now, but we know we can trust him with it. He will never be able to take another drink.

"Smith is of that type. So, apparently, is Nestor. When we get through with Smith, he'll be sober, and he'll stay that way to his grave."

* * * * *

"Astounding." The Duke looked at me again. "I can see the results, of course. I'm going to see that some sort of similar program is started in England, even if I have to stand up in the House of Lords to do it. But, I still don't understand how it can be done so rapidly--a matter of hours. What is the technique used?"

"It all depends on the therapist," I said. "Brownlee is one of the best, but there are others who are almost as good. Some of the officers have started calling them hexperts because, in effect, that's exactly what they do--put a hex on the patient."

"A geas, in other words."

I'd never heard the word before. "A what?"

"A geas. A magical spell that causes a person to do or to refrain from doing some act, whether he will or no. He has no choice, once the geas has been put on him."

"That's it exactly."

"But, man, it isn't magic we're discussing, is it?"

"I don't know," I admitted frankly. "You tell me. Was it magic this morning when both you and I had a hunch that little Shirley was not in the park, in spite of the way it looked? Was it magic when we eliminated, without even searching, every spot but the place where she actually was?"

"Well, no, I shouldn't say so. I think every good policeman gets hunches like that every so often. He gets a feel for his work and for the types he's dealing with."

"Well, then, call it hunch or telepathy or extra-sensory perception or thingummybob or whatever. Brownlee has just what you say a good cop should have--a feel for his work and for the types he's dealing with. Within a very short time, Dr. Brownlee can actually get the feel of being inside his patient's mind--deep enough, at least, so that he can spot just what has to be done to put a compensating twist in a twisted mind.

"He says the genuine zanies are very simple to operate on. They have already got the raw materials in them for him to work with. A normally sane, normally well integrated person would require almost as much work to put a permanent quirk in as removing such a quirk would be in a zany. The brainwashing techniques and hypnotism can introduce such quirks temporarily, but as soon as a normally sane person regains his balance, the quirks tend to fade away.

"But a system that is off balance and unstable doesn't require much work to push it slightly in another direction. When Brownlee finds out what will do the job, he does it, and we have a tame zany on our hands."

"It sounds as though men of Brownlee's type are rather rare," His Grace said.

"They are. Rarer than psychiatrists as a whole. On the other hand, they can take care of a great many more cases."

"One thing, though," the Duke said thoughtfully. "You mentioned the amputation of a pickpocket's hands. It seems to me that this technique is just as drastic, just as crippling to the person to whom it is done."

"Of course it is! No one has ever denied that. God help us if it's the final answer to the problem! A man who can't drive a car, or use a razor, or punch an enemy in the teeth when it's necessary is certainly handicapped. He's more crippled than he was before. The only compensation for society is that now he's less dangerous.

"There are certain compensations for the individual, too. He stands less chance of going to prison, or to a death cell. But he's still hemmed in; he's not a free man. Of course, in most instances, he's not aware of what has been done to him; his mind compensates and rationalizes and gives him a reason for what he's undergoing. Joey Partridge thinks his condition is due to the fractures he suffered the last time he beat up a man; Manny the Moog thinks that he's afraid to drive a car because of the last wreck he was in. And, partly, maybe they're both right. But they have still been deprived of a part of their free will, their right of choice.

"Oh, no; this isn't the final answer by a long shot! It's a stopgap--a necessary stopgap. But, by using it, we can learn more about how the human mind works, and maybe one of these days we'll evolve a science of the mind that can take those twists out instead of compensating for them.

[Illustration]

"On the other hand, we can save lives by using the technique we have now. We don't dare not use it.

"When they chopped off those hands, centuries ago, the stumps were cauterized by putting them in boiling oil. It looked like another injury piled on top of the first, but the chirurgeons, not knowing why it worked, still knew that a lot more ex-pickpockets lived through their ordeal if the boiling oil was used afterward.

"And that's what we're doing with this technique right here and now. We're using it because it saves lives, lives that may potentially or actually be a great deal more valuable than the warped personality that might have taken such a life.

"But the one thing that I am working for right now and will continue to work for is a real cure, if that's possible. A real, genuine, usable kind of psychotherapy; one which is at least on a par with the science of cake-baking when it comes to the percentages of successes and failures."

* * * * *

His Grace thought that over for a minute. Then he leaned back and looked at me through narrowed eyes. There was a half smile on his lips "Royall, old man, let's admit one thing, just between ourselves," His voice became very slow and very deliberate. "Both you and I know that this process, whatever it is, is not psychotherapy."

"Why do you say that?" I wasn't trying to deny anything; I just wanted to know the reasoning behind his conclusions.

"Because I know what psychotherapy can and can't do. And I know that psychotherapy can not do the sort of thing we've been discussing.

"It's as if you'd taken me out on a rifle range, to a target two thousand yards from the shooter and let me watch that marksman put fifty shots out of fifty into a six-inch bull's-eye. I might not know what the shooter is using, but I would know beyond any shadow of doubt that it was not an ordinary revolver. More, I would know that it could not be any possible improvement upon the revolver. It simply would have to be an instrument of an entirely different order.

"If, in 1945, any intelligent military man had been told that the Japanese city of Hiroshima had been totally destroyed by a bomber dropping a single bomb, he would be certain that the bomb was a new and different kind from any ever know before. He would know that, mind you, without necessarily knowing a great deal about chemistry.

"I don't need to know a devil of a lot about psychotherapy to know that the process you've been describing is as far beyond the limits of psychotherapy as the Hiroshima bomb was beyond the limits of chemistry. Ditto for hypnosis and/or Pavlov's 'conditioned reflex', by the way.

"Now, just to clear the air, what is it?"

"It has no official name yet," I told him. "To keep within the law, we have been calling it psychotherapy. If we called it something else, and admitted that it isn't psychotherapy, the courts couldn't turn the zanies over to us. But you're right--it is as impossible to produce the effect by psychotherapy as it is to produce an atomic explosion by a chemical reaction.

"I've got a hunch that, just as chemistry and nucleonics are both really branches of physics, so psychotherapy and Brownlee's process are branches of some higher, more inclusive science--but that doesn't have a name, either."

"That's as may be," the Duke said, "but I'm happy to know that you're not deluding yourself that it's any kind of psychotherapy."

"You know," I said, "I kind of like your word geas. Because that's exactly what it seems to be--a geas. A hex, an enchantment, if you wish.

"Did you know that Brownlee was an anthropologist before he turned to psychology? He has some very interesting stories to tell about hexes and so on."

"I'll have to hear them one day." His Grace took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. "Cigarette?"

"No, thanks. I gave up smoking a few years back."

* * * * *

He puffed his alight. "This geas," he said, "reminds me of the fact that, before the medical profession came up with antibiotics that would destroy the microorganisms that cause gas gangrene, amputation was the only method of preventing the death of the patient. It was crippling, but necessary."

"No!" My voice must have been a little too sharp, because he raised one eyebrow. "The analogy," I went on in a quieter tone, "isn't good because it gives a distorted picture. Look, Your Grace, you know what's done to keep a captive wild duck from flying away?"

"One wing is clipped."

"Right. Certain of the feathers are trimmed, which throws the duck off balance every time he tries to fly. He's crippled, right? But if you clip the other wing, what happens? He's in balance again. He can't fly as well as he could before his wings were clipped--but he can fly!

"That's what Brownlee's geas does--restore the balance by clipping the other wing."

His Grace smiled. There was an odd sort of twinkle in his eyes. "Let me carry your analogy somewhat farther. If the one wing is too severely clipped, clipping the other won't help. Our duck wouldn't have enough lift to get off the ground, even if he's balanced.

"Now, a zany who was that badly crippled--?"

I grinned back at him. "Right. It would be so obvious that he would have been put away very quickly. He would not be just psychopathic, but completely psychotic--and demonstrably so."

"Then," the Duke said, still pursuing the same track, "the only way to 'cure' that kind would be to find a method to ... ah ... 'grow the feathers back', wouldn't it? And where does that put today's psychotherapy? Providing, of course, that the analogy follows."

"It does," I said. "The real cure that I want to find would do just that--'grow the feathers back'. And that's beyond the limits of psychotherapy, too. That's why Dr. Brownlee and his boys want to study every zany we bring in, whether he can be helped or not. They're looking for a cure, not a stopgap."

"Let me drag that analogy out just a tiny bit more," said His Grace. "Suppose there is a genetic defect in the duck which makes it impossible--absolutely impossible--to grow feathers on that wing. Will your cure work?"

I was very quiet for along time. At least, it seemed long. The question had occurred to me before, and I didn't even like to think about it. Now, I had to face it again for a short while.

"Frankly," I said as evenly as I could, "I doubt that anything could be done. But that's only an opinion. We don't know enough yet to make any such predictions. It is my hope that some day we'll find a method of restoring every human being to his or her full potential--but I'm not at all certain of what the source of that potential is.

"But when we do get our cure," I went on, "then our first move must be to abolish the geas. And I wish that day were coming tomorrow."

* * * * *

There seemed to be a sudden silence in the room. I hadn't realized that I'd been talking so loudly or so vehemently.

The Duke broke it by saying: "Look here, Royall; I'm going to stay on here until I've learned all about every phase of this thing. It may sound a bit conceited, but I'm going to try to learn in a few weeks everything you have learned in a year. So you'll have to teach me, if you will. And then I'd like to borrow one or two of your therapists, your hexperts, to teach the technique in England.

"Allowing people like that to kill and maim when it can be prevented is unthinkable in a civilized society. I've got to learn how to stop it in England. Will you teach me?"

"On one condition," I said.

"What's that?"

"That you teach me how to use a walking stick."

He laughed. "You're on!"

The officer stuck his head in the waiting room again. "Pardon me. Inspector Acrington? The District Attorney would like to see you."

"Surely."

After he had left, I sat there for a minute or two, just thinking. Then Brownlee came back from his conference with the D.A. and sat down beside me.

"I met your noble friend heading for the D.A.'s office," he said with a smile. "He said that any man who was as determined to find a better method in order to replace a merely workable method is a remarkable man and therefore worth studying under. I just told him I agreed with him."

"Thanks," I said. "Thanks a lot."

Because Brownlee knows why I'm looking for a cure to replace the stopgap. Brownlee knows why I gave up smoking three years ago, why I don't have any matches or lighters in the house, why I keep the ashtrays for guests only, and why, for that reason, I don't have many guests. Brownlee knows why there are only electric stoves in my apartment--never gas.

Brownlee knows why my son quivers and turns his head away from a match flame. Brownlee knows why he had to put the geas on Stevie.

And I even think Brownlee suspects that I concealed some of the evidence in the fire that killed Stevie's mother--my wife.

Yes, I'm looking for a cure. But until then, I'll be thankful for the stopgap.

End of Project Gutenberg's Nor Iron Bars a Cage...., by Gordon Randall Garrett

Thin Edge

There are inventions of great value that one type of society can use--and that would, for another society, be most nastily deadly!

By Johnathan Blake Mac Kenzie

Illustrated By John Schoenherr

* * * * *

I

"Beep!" said the radio smugly. "Beep! Beep! Beep!"

"There's one," said the man at the pickup controls of tugship 431. He checked the numbers on the various dials of his instruments. Then he carefully marked down in his log book the facts that the radio finder was radiating its beep on such-and-such a frequency and that that frequency and that rate-of-beep indicated that the asteroid had been found and set with anchor by a Captain Jules St. Simon. The direction and distance were duly noted.

That information on direction and distance had already been transmitted to the instruments of the tugship's pilot. "Jazzy-o!" said the pilot. "Got 'im."

He swiveled his ship around until the nose was in line with the beep and then jammed down on the forward accelerator for a few seconds. Then he took his foot off it and waited while the ship approached the asteroid.

In the darkness of space, only points of light were visible. Off to the left, the sun was a small, glaring spot of whiteness that couldn't be looked at directly. Even out here in the Belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, that massive stellar engine blasted out enough energy to make it uncomfortable to look at with the naked eye. But it could illuminate matter only; the hard vacuum of space remained dark. The pilot could have located the planets easily, without looking around. He knew each and every one of them were. He had to.

A man can navigate in space by instrument, and he can take the time to figure out where every planet ought to be. But if he does, won't really be able to navigate in the Asteroid Belt.

In the Nineteenth Century, Mark Twain pointed out that a steamboat pilot who navigated a ship up and down the had to be able to identify every landmark and every changing sandbar along the river before he would be allowed to take charge of the wheel. He not only had to memorize the whole river, but be able to predict the changes in its course and the variations in i --ddies. He had to be able to know exactly where he was at every moment, even in the blackest of moonless nights, simply by glancing around him.

An asteroid man has to be able to do the same thing. The human mind is capable of it, and o thing that the men and women of the Belt Cities had learned was to use the human mind.

"Looks big 'un, Jack," said the instrument man. His eyes were on the radar screen. It not only gave him a picture of the body of the slowly spinning mountain, but the distance and the angular and radial velocities. A duplicate of the instrument gave the same information to the pilot.

The asteroid was fairly large as such planetary debris went--some five hundred meters in diameter, with a mass of around one hundred seventy-four million metric tons.

* * * * *

Within twenty meters of the surface of the great mountain of stone, the pilot brought the ship to a dead stop in relation to that surface.

"Looks like she's got a nice spin on her," he said. "We'll see."

He waited for what he knew would appear somewhere near the equator of the slowly revolving mass. It did. A silvery splash of paint that had originally been squirted on by the anchor man who had first spotted the asteroid in order to check the rotational velocity.

The pilot of the space tug waited until the blotch was centered in the crosshairs of his peeper and then punched the timer. When it came around again, he would be able to compute the angular momentum of the gigantic rock.

"Where's he got his anchor set?" the pilot asked his instrument man.

"The beep's from the North Pole," the instrument man reported instantly. "How's her spin?"

"Wait a bit. The spot hasn't come round again yet. Looks like we'll have some fun with her, though." He kept three stars fixed carefully in his spotters to make sure he didn't drift enough to throw his calculations off. And waited.

ile, the instrument man abandoned his radar panel and turned to the locker where his vacuum suit waited at the ready. By the the pilot had seen the splotch of silver come round again and timed it, the instrument man was ready in his vacuum suit.

"Sixteen minutes, forty seconds," the pilot reported. "Angular momentum one point one times ten to the twenty-first gram centimeters squared per second."

"So we play Ride 'Em Cowboy," the instrument man said "I'm evacuating. Tell me when." He had already poised his finger over the switch that would pull the air from his compartments, which had been sealed off from the pilot's compartment when the timing had started.

"Start the pump," said the pilot.

The switch was pressed, and the pumps began to

cuate the air from the compartment. At the same time, the pilot jockeyed the ship to a position over the north pole of the asteroid.

"Over" isn't quite the right word. "Next to" is not much better, but at least it has no implied up-and-down orientation. The surface gravity of the asteroid was only two millionths of a Standard Gee, which is hardly enough to give any noticeable impression to the human nervous system.

"Surface at two meters," said the pilot. "Holding."

* * * * *

The instrument man opened the outer door and saw the surface of the gigantic rock a couple of yards in front of him. And projecting from that surface was the eye of an eyebolt that had been firmly anchored in the depths of the asteroid, a nickel-steel shaft thirty feet long and eight inches in diameter, of which only the eye at the end showed.

The instrument man checked to make sure that his safety line was firmly anchored and then pushed himself across the intervening space to grasp the eye with a space-gloved hand.

This was the anchor.

Moving a nickel-iron asteroid across space to nearest processing plant is a relatively simple job. You slap a powerful electromagnet on her, pour on the juice, and off you go.

The stony asteroids are a different matter. You have to have something to latch on to, and that's where the anchor-setter comes in. His job is to put that anchor in there. That's the first space job a man can get in the Belt, the only way to get space experience. Working by himself, a man learns to preserve his own life out there.

Operating a space tug, on

other hand, is a two-man job because a man cannot both be on the surface of the asteroid and in his ship at the same time. But every spac

n has had long experience as an anchor setter before he's allowed to be in a position where he is capable of killing someone besides himself if he makes a stupid mistake in that deadly vacuum.

"On contact, Jack," the instrument man said as soon as he had a firm grip on the anchor. "Release safety line."

"Safety line released, Harry," Jack's voice said in his earphones.

Jack had pressed a switch that released the ship's end of the safety line so that it now floated free. Harry pulled it towards himself and attached the free end to the eye of the anchor bolt, on a loop of nickel-steel that had been placed there for that purpose. "Safety line secured," he reported. "Ready for tug line."

In the pilot's compartment, Jack manipulated the controls again. The ship moved away from the asteroid and yawed around so that the "tail" was pointed toward the anchor bolt. Protruding from a special port was a heavy-duty universal joint with special attachments. Harry reached out, grasped it with one hand, and pulled it toward him, guiding it toward the eyebolt. A cable attached to its other end snaked out of the tug.

Harry worked hard for some ten or fifteen minutes to get the universal joint firmly bolted to the eye of the anchor. When he was through, he said: "O.K., Jack. Try 'er."

The tug moved gently away from the asteroid, and the cable that bound the two together became taut. Harry carefully inspected his handiwork to make sure that everything had been done properly and that the mechanism would stand the stress.

"So far so good," he muttered, more to himself than to Jack.

Then he carefully set two compact little strain gauges on the anchor itself, at ninety degrees from each other on the circumference of the huge anchor bolt. Two others were already in position in the universal joint itself. When everything was ready, he said: "Give 'er a try at length."

The tug moved away from the asteroid, paying out the cable as it went.

Hauling around an asteroid that had a mass on the order of one hundred seventy-four million metric tons required adequate preparation. The nonmagnetic stony asteroids are an absolute necessity for the Belt Cities. In order to live, man needs oxygen, and there is no trace of an atmosphere on any of the little Belt worlds except that which Man has made himself and sealed off to prevent it from escaping into space. Carefully conserved though that oxygen is,

rocess is or can be one hundred per cent efficient. There will be leakage into space, and that which is lost must be replaced. To bring oxygen from Earth in liquid form would be outrageously expensive and even more outrageously inefficient--and no other planet in the System has free oxygen for the taking. It is much easier to use Solar energy to take it out of its compounds, and those compounds are much more readily available in space, where it is not necessary to fight the gravitational pull of a planet to get them. The stony asteroids average thirty-six per cent oxygen by mass; the rest of it is silicon, magnesium, aluminum, nickel, and calcium, with respectable traces of sodium, chromium, phosphorous manganese, cobalt, potassium, and titanium. The metallic nickel-iron asteroids made an excellent source of export products to ship to Earth, but the stony asteroids were for home consumption.

This particular asteroid presented problems. Not highly unusual problems, but problems nonetheless. It was massive and had a high rate of spin. In addition, its axis of spin was at an angle of eighty-one degrees to the direction in which the tug would have to tow it to get it to the processing plant. The asteroid was, in effect, a huge gyroscope, and it would take quite a bit of push to get that axis tilted in the direction that Harry Morgan and Jack Latrobe wanted it to go. In theory, they could just have latched on, pulled, and let the thing precess in any way it wanted to. The trouble is that that would not have been too good for the anchor bolt. A steady pull on the anchor bolt was one thing: a nickel-steel bolt like that could take a pull of close to twelve million pounds as long as that pull was along the axis. Flexing it--which would happen if they let the asteroid precess at will--would soon fatigue even that heavy bolt.

The cable they didn't have to worry about. Each strand was a fine wire of two-phase material--the harder phase being borazon, the softer being tungsten carbide. Winding these fine wires into a cable made a flexible rope that was essentially a three-phase material--with the vacuum of space acting as the third phase. With a tensile strength above a hundred million pounds per square inch, a half inch cable could easily apply more pressure to that anchor than it could take. There was a need for that strong cable: a snapping cable that is suddenly released from a tension of many millions of pounds can be dangerous in the extreme, forming a writhing whip that can lash through a spacesuit as though it did not exist. What damage it did to flesh and bone after that was of minor importance; a man who loses all his air in explosive decompression certainly has very little use for flesh and bone thereafter.

"All O.K. here," Jack's voice came over Harry's headphones.

"And here," Harry said. The strain gauges showed nothing out of the ordinary.

"O.K. Let's see if we can flip this monster over," Harry said, satisfied that the equipment would take the stress that would be applied to it.

He did not suspect the kind of stress that would be applied to him within a few short months.

II

The hotel manager was a small-minded man with a narrow-minded outlook and a brain that was almost totally unable to learn. He was, in short, a "normal" Earthman. He took one look at the card that had been dropped on his desk from the chute of the registration computer and reacted. His thin gray brows drew down over his cobralike brown eyes, and he muttered, "Ridiculous!" under his breath.

The registration computer wouldn't have sent him the card if there hadn't been something odd about it, and odd things happened so rarely that the manager took immediate notice of it. One look at the title before the name told him everything he needed to know. Or so he thought.

The registration robot handled routine things routinely. If they were not routine, the card was dropped on the manager's desk. It was then the manager's job to fit everything back into the routine. He grasped the card firmly between thumb and forefinger and stalked out of his office. He took an elevator down to the registration desk. His trouble was that he had seized upon the first thing he saw wrong with the card and saw nothing thereafter. To him, "out of the ordinary" meant "wrong"--which was where he made his mistake.

There was a man waiting impatiently at the desk. He had put the card that had been given him by the registration robot on the desk and was tapping his fingers on it.

The manager walked over to him. "Morgan, Harry?" he asked with a firm but not arrogant voice.

"Is this the city of York, New?" asked the man. There was a touch of cold humor in his voice that made the manager look more closely at him. He weighed perhaps two-twenty and stood a shade over six-two, but it was the look in the blue eyes and the bearing of the man's body that made the manager suddenly feel as though this man were someone extraordinary. That, of course, meant "wrong."

Then the question that the man had asked in rebuttal to his own penetrated the manager's mind, and he became puzzled. "Er ... I beg your pardon?"

"I said, 'Is this York, New?'" the man repeated.

"This is New York, if that's what you mean," the manager said.

"Then I am Harry Morgan, if that's what you mean."

The manager, for want of anything better to do to cover his confusion, glanced back at the card--without really looking at it. Then he looked back up at the face of Harry Morgan. "Evidently you have not turned in your Citizen's Identification Ca

or renewal, Mr. Morgan," he said briskly. As long as he was on familiar ground, he knew how to handle himself.

"Odd's Fish!" said Morgan with utter sadness, "How did you know?"

The manager's comfortable feeling of rightness had returned. "You can't hope to fool a registration robot, Mr. Morgan," he said "When a discrepancy is observed, the robot immediately notifies a person in authority. Two months ago, Government Edict 7-3356-Hb abolished titles of courtesy absolutely and finally. You Englishmen have clung to them for far longer than one would think possible, but that has been abolished." He flicked the card with a finger. "You have registered here as 'Commodore Sir Harry Morgan'--obviously, that is the name and anti-social title registered on your card. When you put the card into the registration robot, the error was immediately noted and I was notified. You should not be using an out-of-date card, and I will be forced to notify the Citizen's Registration Bureau."

"Forced?" said Morgan in mild amazement. "Dear me! What a terribly strong word."

The manager felt the hook bite, but he could no more resist the impulse to continue than a cat could resist catnip. His brain did not have the ability to overcome his instinct. And his instinct was wrong. "You may consider yourself under arrest, Mr. Morgan."

"I thank you for that permission," Morgan said with a happy smile. "But I think I shall not take advantage of it." He stood there with that same happy smile while two hotel security guards walked up and stood beside him, having been called by the manager's signal.

Again it took the manager a little time to realize what Morgan had said. He blinked. "Advantage of it?" he repeated haphazardly.

* * * * *

Harry Morgan's smile vanished as though it had never been. His blue eyes seemed to change from the soft blue of a cloudless sky to the steely blue of a polished revolver. Oddly enough, his lips did not change. They still seemed to smile, although the smile had gone.

"Manager," he said deliberately, "if you will pardon my using your title, you evidently cannot read."

The manager had not lived in the atmosphere of the Earth's Citizen's Welfare State as long as he had without knowing that dogs eat dogs. He looked back at the card that had been delivered to his desk only minutes before and this time he read it thoroughly. Then, with a gesture, he signaled the Security men to return to their posts. But he did not take his eyes from the card.

"My apologies," Morgan said when the Security police had retired out of earshot. There was no apology in the tone of his voice. "I perceive that you can read. Bully, may I say, for you." The bantering tone was still in his voice, the pseudo-smile still on his lips, the chill of cold steel still in his eyes. "I realize that titles of courtesy are illegal on earth," he continued, "because courtesy itself is illegal. However, the title 'Commodore' simply means that I am entitled to command a spaceship containing two or more persons other than myself. Therefore, it is not a title of courtesy, but of ability."

[Illustration]

The manager had long since realized that he was dealing with a Belt man, not an Earth citizen, and that the registration robot had sent him the card because of that, not because there was anything illegal. Men from the Belt did not come to Earth either willingly or often.

Still unable to override his instincts--which erroneously told him that there was something "wrong"--the manager said: "What does the 'Sir' mean?"

Harry Morgan glowed warmly. "Well, now, Mr. Manager, I will tell you. I will give you an analogy. In the time of the Roman Republic, twenty-one centuries or so ago, the leader of an Army was given the title Imperator. But that title could not be conferred upon him by the Senate of Rome nor by anyone else in power. No man could call himself Imperator until his own soldiers, the men under him, had publicly acclaimed him as such. If, voluntarily, his own men shouted 'Ave, Imperator!' at a public gathering, then the man could claim the title. Later the title degenerated--" He stopped.

The manager was staring at him with uncomprehending eyes, and Morgan's outward smile became genuine. "Sorry," he said condescendingly. "I forgot that history is not a popular subject in the Welfare World." Morgan had forgotten no such thing, but he went right on. "What I meant to say was that the spacemen of the Belt Cities have voluntarily agreed among themselves to call me 'sir'. Whether that is a title of ability or a title of courtesy, you can argue about with me at another time. Right now, I want my room key."

[Illustration]

Under the regulations, the manager knew there was nothing else he could do. He had made a mistake, and he knew that he had. If he had only taken the trouble to read the rest of the card--

"Awfully sorry, Mr. Morgan," he said with a lopsided smile that didn't even look genuine. "The--"

"Watch those courtesy titles," Morgan reprimanded gently. "'Mister' comes ultimately from the Latin magister, meaning 'master' or 'teacher'. And while I may be your master, I wouldn't dare think I could teach you anything."

"All citizens are entitled to be called 'Mister'," the manager said with a puzzled look. He pushed a room key across the desk.

"Which just goes to show you," said Harry Morgan, picking up the key.

He turned casually, took one or two steps away from the registration desk, then--quite suddenly--did an about-face and snapped: "What happened to Jack Latrobe?"

"Who?" said the manager, his face gaping stupidly.

Harry Morgan knew human beings, and he was fairly certain that the manager couldn't have reacted that way unless he honestly had no notion of what Morgan was talking about.

He smiled sweetly. "Never you mind, dear boy. Thank you for the key." He turned again and headed for the elevator bank, confident that the manager would find the question he had asked about Jack Latrobe so completely meaningless as to be incapable of registering as a useful memory.

He was perfectly right.

III

The Belt Cities could survive without the help of Earth, and the Supreme Congress of the United Nations of Earth knew it. But they also knew that "survive" did not by any means have the same semantic or factual content as "live comfortably". If Earth were to vanish overnight, the people of the Belt would live, but they would be seriously handicapped. On the other hand, the people of Earth could survive--as they had for millennia--without the Belt Cities, and while doing without Belt imports might be painful, it would by no means be deadly.

But both the Belt Cities and the Earth knew that the destruction of one would mean the collapse of the other as a civilization.

Earth needed iron. Belt iron was cheap. The big iron deposits of Earth were worked out, and the metal had been widely scattered. The removal of the asteroids as a cheap source would mean that iron would become prohibitively expensive. Without cheap iron, Earth's civilization would have to undergo a painfully drastic change--a collapse and regeneration.

But the Belt Cities were handicapped by the fact that they had had as yet neither the time nor the resources to manufacture anything but absolute necessities. Cloth, for example, was imported from Earth. A society that is still busy struggling for the bare necessities--such as manufacturing its own air--has no time to build the huge looms necessary to weave cloth ... or to make clothes, except on a minor scale. Food? You can have hydroponic gardens on an asteroid, but raising beef cattle, even on Ceres, was difficult. Eventually, perhaps, but not yet.

The Belt Cities were populated by pioneers who still had not given up the luxuries of civilization. Their one weakness was that they had their cake and were happily eating it, too.

Not that Harry Morgan didn't realize that fact. A Belt man is, above all, a realist, in that he must, of necessity, understand the Laws of the Universe and deal with them. Or die.

Commodore Sir Harry Morgan was well aware of the stir he had created in the lobby of the Grand Central Hotel. Word would leak out, and he knew it. The scene had been created for just that purpose.

"Grasshopper sittin' on a railroad track, Singin' polly-wolly-doodle-alla-day! A-pickin' his teeth with a carpet tack, Singin' polly-wolly-doodle-alla-day!"

He sang with gusto as the elevator lifted him up to the seventy-fourth floor of the Grand

ral Hotel. The other passengers in the car did not look at him directly; they cast sidelong glances.

This guy, they seemed to think in unison, is a nut. We will pay no attention to him, since he probably does not really exist. Even if he does, we will pay no attention in the hope that he will go away.

On the seventy-fourth floor, he did go away, heading for his room. He keyed open the door and strolled over to the phone, where a message had already been dropped into the receiver slot. He picked it up and read it.

COMMODORE SIR HARRY MORGAN, RM. 7426, GCH: REQUEST YOU CALL EDWAY TARNHORST, REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PEOPLE OF GREATER LOS ANGELES, SUPREME CONGRESS. PUNCH 33-981-762-044 COLLECT.

"How news travels," Harry Morgan thought to himself. He tapped out the number on the keyboard of the phone and waited for the panel to light up. When it did, it showed a man in his middle fifties with a lean, ascetic face and graying hair, which gave him a look of saintly wisdom.

* * * * *

"Mr. Tarnhorst?" Morgan asked pleasantly.

"Yes. Commodore Morgan?" The voice was smooth and precise.

"At your service, Mr. Tarnhorst. You asked me to call."

"Yes. What is the purpose of your visit to Earth, commodore?" The question was quick, decisive, and firm.

Harry Morgan kept his affability. "That's none of your business, Mr. Tarnhorst."

Tarnhorst's face didn't change. "Perhaps your superiors haven't told you, but--and I can only disclose this on a sealed circuit--I am in sympathy with the Belt Cities. I have been out there twice and have learned to appreciate the vigor and worth of the Belt people. I am on your side, commodore, in so far as it does not compromise my position. My record shows that I have fought for the rights of the Belt Cities on the floor of the Supreme Congress. Have you been informed of that fact?"

"I have," said Harry Morgan. "And that is precisely why it is none of your business. The less you know, Mr. Tarnhorst, the safer you will be. I am not here as a representative of any of the City governments. I am not here as a representative of any of the Belt Corporations. I am completely on my own, without official backing. You have shown yourself to be sympathetic towards us in the past. We have no desire to hurt you. Therefore I advise that you either keep your nose out of my business or actively work against me. You cannot protect yourself otherwise."

Edward Tarnhorst was an Earthman, but he was not stupid. He had managed to put himself in a position of power in the Welfare World, and he knew how to handle that power. It took him exactly two seconds to make his decision.

"You misunderstand me, commodore," he said coldly. "I asked what I asked because I desire information. The People's Government is trying to solve the murder of Commodore Jack Latrobe. Assuming, of course, that it was murder--which is open to doubt. His body was found three days ago in Fort Tryon Park, up on the north end of Manhattan Island. He had apparently jumped off one of the old stone bridges up there and fell ninety feet to his death. On the other hand, it is possible that, not being used to the effects of a field of point nine eight Standard gees, he did not realize that the fall would be deadly, and accidentally killed himself. He was alone in the park at night, as far as we can tell. It has been ascertained definitely that no representative of the People's Manufacturing Corporation Number 873 was with him at the time. Nor, so far as we can discover, was anyone else. I asked you to call because I wanted to know if you had any information for us. There was no other reason."

"I haven't seen Jack since he left Juno," Morgan said evenly. "I don't know why he came to Earth, and I know nothing else."

"Then I see no further need for conversation," Tarnhorst said. "Thank you for your assistance, Commodore Morgan. If Earth's Government needs you again, you will be notified if you gain any further information, you may call this number. Thank you again. Good-by."

The screen went blank.

* * * * *

How much of this is a trap? Morgan thought.

There was no way of knowing at this point. Morgan knew that Jack Latrobe had neither committed suicide nor died accidentally, and Tarnhorst had told him as much. Tarnhorst was still friendly, but he had taken the hint and got himself out of danger. There had been one very important piece of information. The denial that any representative of PMC 873 had been involved. PMC 873 was a manufacturer of biological products--one of the several corporations that Latrobe had been empowered to discuss business with when he had been sent to Earth by the Belt Corporations Council. Tarnhorst would not have mentioned them negatively unless he intended to imply a positive hint. Obviously. Almost too obviously.

Well?

Harry Morgan punched for Information, got it, got a number, and punched that.

"People's Manufacturing Corporation Ey-yut Seven Tha-ree," said a recorded voice. "Your desire, pu-leeze?"

"This is Commodore Jack Latrobe," Morgan said gently. "I'm getting tired of this place, and if you don't let me out I will blow the whole place to Kingdom Come. Good bye-eye-eye."

He hung up without waiting for an answer.

Then he looked around the hotel suite he had rented. It was an expensive one--very expensive. It consisted of an outer room--a "sitting room" as it might have been called two centuries before--and a bedroom. Plus a bathroom.

Harry Morgan, a piratical smile on his face, opened the bathroom door and left it that way. Then he went into the bedroom. His luggage had already been delivered by the lift tube, and was sitting on the floor. He put both suitcases on the bed, where they would be in plain sight from the sitting room. Then he made certain preparations for invaders.

He left the door between the sitting room and the bedroom open and left the suite.

Fifteen minutes later, he was walking down 42nd Street toward Sixth Avenue. On his left was the ancient Public Library Building. In the middle of the block, somebody shoved something hard into his left kidney and said. "Keep walking, commodore. But do what you're told."

Harry Morgan obeyed, with an utterly happy smile on his lips.

IV

In the Grand Central Hotel, a man moved down the hallway toward Suite 7426. He stopped at the door and inserted the key he held in his hand, twisting it as it entered the keyhole. The electronic locks chuckled, and the door swung open.

The man closed it behind him.

He was not a big man, but neither was he undersized. He was five-ten and weighed perhaps a hundred and sixty-five pounds. His face was dark of skin and had a hard, determined expression on it. He looked as though he had spent the last thirty of his thirty-five years of life stealing from his family and cheating his friends.

He looked around the sitting room. Nothing. He tossed the key in his hand and then shoved it into his pocket. He walked over to the nearest couch and prodded at it. He took an instrument out of his inside jacket pocket and looked at it.

"Nothin'," he said to himself. "Nothin'." His detector showed that there were no electronic devices hidden in the room--at least, none that he did not already know about.

He prowled around the sitting room for several minutes, looking at everything--chairs, desk, windows, floor--everything. He found nothing. He had not expected to, since the occupant, a Belt man named Harry Morgan, had only been in the suite a few minutes.

Then he walked over to the door that separated the sitting room from the bedroom. Through it, he could see the suitcases sitting temptingly on the bed.

Again he took his detector out of his pocket. After a full minute, he was satisfied that there was no sign of any complex gadgetry that could warn the occupant that anyone had entered the room. Certainly there was nothing deadly around.

Then a half-grin came over the man's cunning face. There was always the chance that the occupant of the suite had rigged up a really old-fashioned trap.

He looked carefully at the hinges of the door. Nothing. There were no tiny bits of paper that would fall if he pushed the door open any further, no little threads that would be broken.

It hadn't really seemed likely, after all. The door was open wide enough for a man to walk through without moving it.

Still grinning, the man reached out toward the door.

He was quite astonished when his hand didn't reach the door itself.

There was a sharp feeling of pain when his hand fell to the floor, severed at the wrist.

The man stared at his twitching hand on the fl

He blinked stupidly while his wrist gushed blood. Then, almost automatically, he stepped forward to pick up his hand.

As he shuffled forward, he felt a snick! snick! of pain in his ankles while all sensation from his feet went dead.

It was not until he began toppling forward that he realized that his feet were still sitting calmly on the floor in their shoes and that he was no longer connected to them.

It was too late. He was already falling.

He felt a stinging sensation in his throat and then nothing more as the drop in blood pressure rendered him unconscious.

His hand lay, where it had fallen. His feet remained standing. His body fell to the floor with a resounding thud! His head bounced once and then rolled under the bed.

When his heart quit pumping, the blood quit spurting.

A tiny device on the doorjamb, down near the floor, went zzzt! and then there was silence.

V

When Representative Edway Tarnhorst cut off the call that had come from Harry Morgan, he turned around and faced the other man in the room. "Satisfactory?" he said.

"Yes. Yes, of course," said the other. He was a tall, hearty-looking man with a reddish face and a friendly smile. "You said just the right thing, Edway. Just the right thing. You're pretty smart, you know that? You got what it takes." He chuckled. "They'll never figure anything out now." He waved a hand toward the chair. "Sit down, Edway. Want a drink?"

Tarnhorst sat down and folded his hands. He looked down at them as if he were really interested in the flat, unfaceted diamond, engraved with the Tarnhorst arms, that gleamed on the ring on his finger.

"A little glass of whiskey wouldn't hurt much, Sam," he said, looking up from his hands. He smiled. "As you say, there isn't much to worry about now. If Morgan goes to the police, they'll give him the same information."

Sam Fergus handed Tarnhorst a drink. "Damn right. Who's to know?" He chuckled again and sat down. "That was pretty good. Yes sir, pretty good. Just because he thought that when you voted for the Belt Cities you were on their side, he believed what you said. Hell, I've voted on their side when it was the right thing to do. Haven't I now, Ed? Haven't I?"

"Sure you have," said Tarnhorst with an easy smile. "So have a lot of us."

"Sure we have," Fergus repeated. His grin was huge. Then it changed to a frown. "I don't figure them sometimes. Those Belt people are crazy. Why wouldn't they give us the process for making that cable of theirs? Why?" He looked up at Tarnhorst with a genuinely puzzled look on his face. "I mean, you'd think they thought that the laws of nature were private property or something. They don't have the right outlook. A man finds out something like that, he ought to give it to the human race, hadn't he, Edway? How come those Belt people want to keep something like that secret?"

Edway Tarnhorst massaged the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger, his eyes closed. "I don't know, Sam. I really don't know. Selfish, is all I can say."

Selfish? he thought. Is it really selfish? Where is the dividing line? How much is a man entitled to keep secret, for his own benefit, and how much should he tell for the public?

He glanced again at the coat of arms carved into the surface of the diamond. A thousand years ago, his ancestors

carved themselves a tiny empire out of middle Europe--a few hundred acres, no more. Enough to keep one family in luxury while the serfs had a bare existence. They had conquered by the sword and ruled by the sword. They had taken all and given nothing.

But had they? The Barons of Tarnhorst had not really lived much better than their serfs had lived. More clothes and more food, perhaps, and a few baubles--diamonds and fine silks and warm furs. But no Baron Tarnhorst had ever allowed his serfs to starve, for that would not be economically sound. And each Baron had been the dispenser of Justice; he had been Law in his land. Without him, there would have been anarchy among the ignorant peasants, since they were certainly not fit to govern themselves a thousand years ago.

Were they any better fit today? Tarnhorst wondered. For a full millennium, men had been trying, by mass education and by mass information, to bring the peasants up to the level of the nobles. Had that plan succeeded? Or had the intelligent ones simply been forced to conform to the actions of the masses? Had the nobles made peasants of themselves instead?

Edway Tarnhorst didn't honestly know. All he knew was that he saw a new spark of human life, a spark of intelligence, a spark of ability, out in the Belt. He didn't dare tell anyone--he hardly dared admit it to himself--but he thought those people were better somehow than the common clods of Earth. Those people didn't think that just because a man could slop color all over an otherwise innocent sheet of canvas, making outré and garish patterns, that that made him an artist. They didn't think that just because a man could write nonsense and use erratic typography, that that made him a poet. They had other beliefs, too, that Edway Tarnhorst saw only dimly, but he saw them well enough to know that they were better beliefs than the obviously stupid belief that every human being had as much right to respect and dignity as every other, that a man had a right to be respected, that he deserved it. Out there, they thought that a man had a right only to what he earned.

But Edway Tarnhorst was as much a product of his own society as Sam Fergus. He could only behave as he had been taught. Only on occasion--on very special occasion--could his native intelligence override the "common sense" that he had been taught. Only when an emergency arose. But when one did, Edway Tarnhorst, in spite of his environmental upbringing, was equal to the occasion.

Actually, his own mind was never really clear on the subject. He did the best he could with the confusion he had to work with.

"Now we've got to be careful, Sam," he said. "Very careful. We don't want a war with the Belt Cities."

Sam Fergus snorted. "They wouldn't dare. We got 'em outnumbered a thousand to one."

"Not if they drop a rock on us," Tarnhorst said quietly.

"They wouldn't dare," Fergus repeated.

But both of them could see what would happen to any city on Earth if one of the Belt ships decided to shift the orbit of a good-sized asteroid so that it would strike Earth. A few hundred thousand tons of rock coming in at ten miles per second would be far more devastating than an expensive H-bomb.

"They wouldn't dare," Fergus said again.

"Nevertheless," Tarnhorst said, "in dealings of this kind we are walking very close to the thin edge. We have to watch ourselves."

[Illustration]

VI

Commodore Sir Harry Morgan was herded into a prison cell, given a shove across the smallish room, and allowed to hear the door slam behind him. By the time he regained his balance and turned to face the barred door again, it was locked. The bully-boys who had shoved him in turned away and walked down the corridor. Harry sat down on the floor and relaxed, leaning against the stone wall. There was no furniture of any kind in the cell, not even sanitary plumbing.

"What do I do for a drink of water?" he asked aloud of no one in particular.

"You wait till they bring you your drink," said a whispery voice a few feet from his head. Morgan realized that someone in the cell next to his was talking. "You get a quart a day--a halfa pint four times a day. Save your voice. Your throat gets awful dry if you talk much."

"Yeah, it would," Morgan agreed in the same whisper. "What about sanitation?"

"That's your worry," said the voice. "Fella comes by every Wednesday and Saturday with a honey bucket. You clean out your own cell."

"I thought this place smelled of something other than attar of roses," Morgan observed. "My nose tells me this is Thursday."

There was a hoarse, humorless chuckle from the man in the next cell. "'At's right. The smell of the disinfectant is strongest now. Saturday mornin' it'll be different. You catch on fast, buddy."

"Oh, I'm a whiz," Morgan agreed. "But I thought the Welfare World took care of its poor, misled criminals better than this."

Again the chuckle. "You shoulda robbed a bank or killed somebody. Then theyda given you a nice rehabilitation sentence. Regular prison. Room of your own. Something real nice. Like a hotel. But this's different."

"Yeah," Morgan agreed. This was a political prison. This was the place where they put you when they didn't care what happened to you after the door was locked because there would be no going out.

Morgan knew where he was. It was a big, fortresslike building on top of one of the highest hills at the northern end of Manhattan Island--an old building that had once been a museum and was built like a medieval castle.

"What happens if you die in here?" he asked conversationally.

"Every Wednesday and Saturday," the voice repeated.

"Um," said Harry Morgan.

"'Cept once in a while," the voice whispered. "Like a couple days ago. When was it? Yeah. Monday that'd be. Guy they

in here for a week or so. Don't remember how long. Lose tracka time here. Yeah. Sure lose tracka time here."

There was a long pause, and Morgan, controlling the tenseness in his voice, said: "What about the guy Monday?"

"Oh. Him. Yeah, well, they took him out Monday."

Morgan waited again, got nothing further, and asked: "Dead?"

"'Course he was dead. They was tryin' to get somethin' out of him. Somethin' about a cable. He jumped one of the guards, and they blackjacked him. Hit 'im too hard, I guess. Guard sure got hell for that, too. Me, I'm lucky. They don't ask me no questions."

"What are you in for?" Morgan asked.

"Don't know. They never told me. I don't ask for fear they'll remember. They might start askin' questions."

Morgan considered. This could be a plant, but he didn't think so. The voice was too authentic, and there would be no purpose in his information. That meant that Jack Latrobe really was dead. They had killed him. An ice cold hardness surged along his nerves.

* * * * *

The door at the far end of the corridor clanged, and a brace of heavy footsteps clomped along the floor. Two men came abreast of the steel-barred door and stopped.

One of them, a well-dressed, husky-looking man in his middle forties, said: "O.K., Morgan. How did you do it?"

"I put on blue lipstick and kissed my elbows--both of 'em. Going widdershins, of course."

"What are you talking about?"

"What are you talking about?"

"The guy in your hotel suite. You killed him. You cut off both feet, one hand, and his head. How'd you do it?"

Morgan looked at the man. "Police?"

"Nunna your business. Answer the question."

"I use a cobweb I happened to have with me. Who was he?"

The cop's face was whitish. "You chop a guy up like that and then don't know who he is?"

"I can guess. I can guess that he was an agent for PMC 873 who was trespassing illegally. But I didn't kill him. I was in ... er ... custody when it happened."

"Not gonna talk, huh?" the cop said in a hard voice. "O.K., you've had your chance. We'll be back."

"I don't think I'll wait," said Morgan.

"You'll wait. We got you on a murder charge now. You'll wait. Wise guy." He turned and walked away. The other man followed like a trained hound.

* * * * *

After the door clanged, the man in the next cell whispered: "Well, you're for it. They're gonna ask you questions."

Morgan said one obscene word and stood up. It was time to leave.

He had been searched thoroughly. They had left him only his clothes, nothing else. They had checked to make sure that there were no microminiaturized circuits on him. He was clean.

So they thought.

Carefully, he caught a thread in the lapel of his jacked and pulled it free. Except for a certain springiness, it looked like an ordinary silon thread. He looped it around one of the bars of his cell, high up. The ends he fastened to a couple of little decorative hooks in his belt--hooks covered with a shell of synthetic ruby.

Then he leaned back, putting his weight on the thread.

Slowly, like a knife moving through cold peanut butter, the thread sank into the steel bar, cutting through its one-inch thickness with increasing difficulty until it was half-way through. Then it seemed to slip the rest of the way through.

He repeated the procedure thrice more, making two cuts in each of two bars. Then he carefully removed the sections he had cut out. He put one of them on the floor of his cell and carried the other in his hand--three feet of one-inch steel makes a nice weapon if it becomes necessary.

Then he stepped through the hole he had made.

The man in the next cell widened his eyes as Harry Morgan walked by. But Morgan could tell that he saw nothing. He had only heard. His eyes had been removed long before. It was the condition of the man that convinced Morgan with utter finality that he had told the truth.

VII

Mr. Edway Tarnhorst felt fear, but no real surprise when the shadow in the window of his suite in the Grand Central Hotel materialized into a human being. But he couldn't help asking one question.

"How did you get there?" His voice was husky. "We're eighty floors above the street."

"Try climbing asteroids for a while," said Commodore Sir Harry Morgan. "You'll get used to it. That's why I knew Jack hadn't died 'accidentally'--he was murdered."

"You ... you're not carrying a gun," Tarnhorst said.

"Do I need one?"

Tarnhorst swallowed. "Yes. Fergus will be back in a moment."

"Who's Fergus?"

"He's the man who controls PMC 873."

Harry Morgan shoved his hand into his jacket pocket "Then I have a gun. You saw it, didn't you?"

"Yes. Yes ... I saw it when you came in."

"Good. Call him."

When Sam Fergus came in, he looked as though he had had about three or four too many slugs of whiskey. There was an odd fear an his face.

"Whats matter, Edway? I--" The fear increased when he saw Morgan. "Whadda you here for?"

"I'm here to make a speech Fergus. Sit down." When Fergus still stood, Morgan repeated what he had said with only a trace more emphasis. "Sit down."

Fergus sat. So did Tarnhorst.

"Both of you pay special attention," Morgan said, a piratical gleam in his eyes. "You killed a friend of mine. My best friend. But I'm not going to kill either of you. Yet. Just listen and listen carefully."

Even Tarnhorst looked frightened. "Don't move, Sam. He's got a gun. I saw it when he came in."

"What ... what do you want?" Fergus asked.

"I want to give you the information you want. The information that you killed Jack for." There was cold hatred in his voice. "I am going to tell you something that you have thought you wanted, but which you really will wish you had never heard. I'm going to tell you about that cable."

Neither Fergus nor Tarnhorst said a word.

"You want a cable. You've heard that we use a cable that has a tensile strength of better than a hundred million pounds per square inch, and you want to know how it's made. You tried to get the secret out of Jack because he was sent here as a commercial dealer. And he wouldn't talk, so one of your goons blackjacked him too hard and then you had to drop him off a bridge to make it look like an accident.

"T

you got your hands on me. You were going to wring it out of me. Well, there is no necessity of that." His grin became wolfish. "I'll give you everything." He paused. "If you want it."

Fergus found his voice. "I want it. I'll pay a million--"

"You'll pay nothing," Morgan said flatly. "You'll listen."

Fergus nodded wordlessly.

"The composition is simple. Basically, it is a two-phase material-like fiberglass. It consists of a strong, hard material imbedded in a matrix of softer material. The difference is that, in this case, the stronger fibers are borazon--boron nitride formed under tremendous pressure--while the softer matrix is composed of tungsten carbide. If the fibers are only a thousandth or two thousandths of an inch in diameter--the thickness of a human hair or less--then the cable from which they are made has tremendous strength and flexibility.

"Do you want the details of the process now?" His teeth were showing in his wolfish grin.

Fergus swallowed. "Yes, of course. But ... but why do you--"

"Why do I give it to you? Because it will kill you. You have seen what the stuff will do. A strand a thousandth of an inch thick, encased in silon for lubrication purposes, got me out of that filthy hole you call a prison. You've heard about that?"

Fergus blinked. "You cut yourself out of there with the cable you're talking about?"

"Not with the cable. With a thin fiber. With one of the hairlike fibers that makes up the cable. Did you ever cut cheese with a wire? In effect, that wire is a knife--a knife that consists only of an edge.

"Or, another experiment you may have heard of. Take a block of ice. Connect a couple of ten-pound weights together with a few feet of piano wire and loop it across the ice block to that the weights hang free on either side, with the wire over the top of the block. The wire will cut right through the ice in a short time. The trouble is that the ice block remains whole--because the ice melts under the pressure of the wire and then flows around it and freezes again on the other side. But if you lubricate the wire with ordinary glycerine, it prevents the re-freezing and the ice block will be cut in two."

Tarnhorst nodded. "I remember. In school. They--" He let his voice trail off.

* * * * *

"Yeah. Exactly. It's a common experiment in basic science. Borazon fiber works the same way. Because it is so fine and has such tremendous tensile strength, it is possible to apply a pressure of hundreds of millions of pounds per square inch over a very small area. Under pressures like that, steel cuts easily. With silon covering to lubricate the cut, there's nothing to it. As you have heard from the guards in your little hell-hole.

"Hell-hole?" Tarnhorst's eyes narrowed and he flicked a quick glance at Fergus. Morgan realized that Tarnhorst had known nothing of the extent of Fergus' machinations.

"That lovely little political prison up in Fort Tryon Park that the World Welfare State, with its usual solicitousness for the common man, keeps for its favorite guests," Morgan said. His wolfish smile returned. "I'd've cut the whole thing down if I'd had had the time. Not the stone--just the steel. In order to apply that kind of pressure you have to have the filament fastened to something considerably harder than the stuff you're trying to cut, you see. Don't try it with your fingers or you'll lose fingers."

Fergus' eyes widened again and he looked both ill and frightened. "The man we sent ... uh ... who was found in your room. You--" He stopped and seemed to have trouble swallowing.

"Me? I didn't do anything." Morgan did a good imitation of a shark trying to look innocent. "I'll admit that I looped a very fine filament of the stuff across the doorway a few times, so that if anyone tried to enter my room illegally I would be warned." He didn't bother to add that a pressure-sensitive device had released and reeled in the filament after it had done its work. "It doesn't need to be nearly as tough and heavy to cut through soft stuff like ... er ... say, a beefsteak, as it does to cut through steel. It's as fine as cobweb almost invisible. Won't the World Welfare State have fun when that stuff gets into the hands of its happy, crime-free populace?"

Edway Tarnhorst became suddenly alert. "What?"

"Yes. Think of the fun they'll have, all those lovely slobs who get their basic subsistence and their dignity and their honor as a free gift from the State. The kids, especially. They'll love it. It's so fine it can be hidden inside an ordinary thread--or woven into the hair--or...." He spread his hands. "A million places."

Fergus was gaping. Tarnhorst was concentrating on Morgan's words.

"And there's no possible way to leave fingerprints on anything that fine," Morgan continued. "You just hook it around a couple of nails or screws, across an open doorway or an alleyway--and wait."

"We wouldn't let it get into the people's hands," Tarnhorst said.

"You couldn't stop it," Morgan said flatly. "Manufacture the stuff and eventually one of the workers in the plant will figure out a way to steal some of it."

"Guards--" Fergus said faintly.

"Pfui. But even you had a perfect guard system, I think I can guarantee that some of it would get into the hands of the--common people. Unless you want to cut off all imports from the Belt."

Tarnhorst's voice hardened. "You mean you'd deliberately--"

"I mean exactly what I said," Morgan cut in sharply. "Make of it what you want."

"I suppose you have that kind of trouble out in the Belt?" Tarnhorst asked.

"No. We don't have your kind of people out in the Belt, Mr. Tarnhorst. We have men who kill, yes. But we don't have the kind of juvenile and grown-up delinquents who will kill senselessly, just for kicks. That kind is too stupid to live long out there. We are in no danger from borazon-tungsten filaments. You are." He paused just for a moment, then said: "I'm ready to give you the details of the process now, Mr. Fergus."

"I don't think I--" Fergus began with a sickly sound in his voice. But Tarnhorst interrupted him.

"We don't want it, commodore. Forget it."

"Forget it?" Morgan's voice was as cutting as the filament he had been discussing. "Forget that Jack Latrobe was murdered?"

"We will pay indemnities, of course," Tarnhorst said, feeling that it was futile.

"Fergus will pay indemnities," Morgan said. "In money, the indemnities will come to the precise amount he was willing to pay for the cable secret. I suggest that your Government confiscate that amount from him and send it to us. That may be necessary in view of the second indemnity."

"Second indemnity?"

"Mr. Fergus' life."

Tarnhorst shook his head briskly. "No. We can't execute Fergus. Impossible."

"Of course not," Morgan said soothingly. "I don't suggest that you should. But I do suggest that Mr. Fergus be very careful about going through doorways--or any other kind of opening--from now on. I suggest that he refrain from passing between any pair of reasonably solid, well-anchored objects. I suggest that he stay away from bathtubs. I suggest that he be very careful about putting his legs under a table or desk. I suggest that he not look out of windows. I could make several suggestions. And he shouldn't go around feeling in front of him, either. He might lose something."

"I understand," said Edway Tarnhorst.

So did Sam Fergus. Morgan could tell by his face.

* * * * *

When the indemnity check arrived on Ceres some time later, a short, terse note came with it.

"I regret to inform you that Mr. Samuel Fergus, evidently in a state of extreme nervous and psychic tension, took his own life by means of a gunshot wound in the head on the 21st of this month. The enclosed check will pay your indemnity in full. Tarnhorst."

Morgan smiled grimly. It was as he had expected. He had certainly never had any intention of going to all the trouble of killing Sam Fergus.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Thin Edge, by Gordon Randall Garrett