by H. B. Fyfe
He crashed down upon his sore limb, letting out a groan at the impact. One of the runners dove headlong at him, batting at the pistol as he slid past on the polished floor. Gerson felt the weapon knocked out of his grasp. It rattled and scraped along the floor out of reach, but he kicked the one who had done it in the head.
Two of the Terrans were trying to hold him down, now. He got the knife from his mouth into his left hand, let a Terran see it, then bit him viciously on the wrist. The Terran let go, and Gerson found it simple to knee the remaining one in the groin. He rolled over to get a knee under him, pushed himself up with the fist gripping the knife, and saw Terrans running at him from all directions.
One of them had a broad, white bandage on his head. Gerson recognized him as the medical worker. The man carried a hypodermic syringe.
Unreasoning terror swept through Gerson. He knew that he must, at all costs, avoid that needle.
He whirled around to slash at the men coming up behind him. The nearest fell back warily.
“Put it away, Gerson,” he said. “We don’t want to hurt you, man! Why, you’re half dead on your feet.”
“What’s the matter?” asked another, more softly. “We can see that you’re not normal. What did those bastards do to you?”
Gerson looked from side to side, seeing them closing in but unable to spot an opening for a charge.
“Just listen to me a minute,” said the medical worker. He made the mistake of holding the hypodermic out of sight this time, too late. “Gerson, talk to me! Say something! Whatever the trouble is, we’ll help you.”
It was the only opening.
Gerson took a carefully hesitant step toward him, then another. He held up his damaged limb.
“Yes, your wrist is broken,” said the Terran. “I was going to put a cast on it for you, remember. Now, just relax, and we’ll take care of—”
He saw Gerson’s eyes and leaped back.
The knife swept up in a vicious arc that would have disemboweled him.
Without wasting the motion, Gerson slashed down and left at another as he plunged forward. The point grazed an up-flung arm, drawing a startled curse from the victim.
“Tackle him!” shouted one of the Terrans.
“Careful! He’s already hurt bad enough,” cautioned another.
Gerson tried to feint and throw his weight in the opposite direction, but his legs would not obey him. He recovered from the slip only to have one of the men push him from behind.
Someone clamped a tight hold on his left forearm as he staggered. A moment later they twisted the knife out of his grasp and bore him to the floor. He kicked ineffectively and then caught one of them by surprise with a butt.
The man recoiled, blood spurting already from his nose. He brought his fist around despite warning yells, and clipped Gerson on the temple.
“Hold him, dammit!” shouted someone. “Get that rope over here. Do you want to kill him? Just hold him still.”
“You try it,” invited one of those holding Gerson pinned.
“I think he’s weakening,” said another. “Watch out—he may be playing possum.”
The talk seemed to come from far away. Gerson felt them tie his ankles together. They hesitated about his hands; one was injured. One voice suggested tying his left wrist to the stairway railing, but it was decided that they could watch him well enough as long as he could not run. The weight lessened as those pinning him arose to look to their own bruises. Gerson was vaguely surprised to discover that all of them were off him. He still felt as if great weight were holding him pressed against the floor. He found it difficult to catch his breath.
They had taken the papers from his shirt, he noted. One of the Terrans passed them to a man in a dark uniform, who began to leaf through them worriedly.
A Terran came in through the front door.
“Have you got him?” the newcomer asked. “That helicopter is still floating around up there. I’ve been watching it for half an hour with the night glasses. They sure as hell are waiting for something.”
“And there isn’t anyone else in this neighborhood they could be interested in,” said a deeper voice. “Well, MacLean, what did you let him get his hands on from your secret file?”
Gerson rolled over very quietly and started to drag himself along the floor. He had actually moved a yard before they noticed him.
They were gentle about turning him on his back again. The discussion about the papers was dropped while the medical worker cut his shirt away from the bleeding wound in his side. Hushed comments were made, but Gerson paid no attention. He was concerned with the fact that one of the Terrans had planted a foot between his legs, above the rope around his ankles, so that he was quite securely anchored to the spot.
“Looks like a broken rib besides,” said the Terran examining him. “Do you think we could get him upstairs?”
“I’m no doctor,” said the deeper voice, “but even I can see you’d never make it in time.”
The voice came closer, though the vision in Gerson’s eyes was blurring.
“Tell me, boy, what happened? How did they make you do it? What do they want?”
“Gerson!” said the man in the dark uniform. “Did you know what you were after when you took these papers?”
He was a dark blur to Gerson, who felt as if the weight on his chest had been increased. His lips were dry. He thought it would be nice to have a little water, but could not find words to ask.
The deep voice was flinging a question at the dark blur.
“Why, no, sir,” said the Terran with the papers. “Nothing important at all. Just a few old shipping lists, a record of the planetary motions in this system that anybody could obtain, and an article on shortcuts to learning the Yoleenite language. I think I had the batch lying around the top of my desk.”
“Why did he take them?” someone asked.
“Damned if I know. You fellows had me scared to death. From what you said, I thought he must have pinched the deadly top secret code and my personal address book to boot!”
“Simmons!” shouted the deeper voice. “Are you getting this? Are you making a tape for Terra? Oh…right out, eh? Scrambled, I hope—it’s not the kind of thing to publicize to the galaxy.”
The mechanical voice boomed in the background. Gerson paid it no attention.
He felt the doctor’s hands touching the old injections and heard the man swearing. Whoever was holding his left arm was actually squeezing and stroking his hand. The taste of failure was in his mouth.
“That’s what they must have started with,” said the doctor. “In the end, they put an awful mental twist into him, poor guy.”
“I told you they were up to something,” said the dark blur. “Those little bastards had big ideas, but they won’t catch us napping with any more spies, conditioned or not! Now maybe they’ll read my reports on Terra.”
Gerson opened his mouth to breathe better. He rolled his head from side to side on the hard floor. Somewhere deep inside him, a little, silent voice was crying, frightened. He had failed and there would be no other chance.
The little voice took leave of its fear to laugh. They had not let him remember how to read.
And so he died, a tall, battered Terran lying on a hard floor and grinning faintly up at the men who had helped him die.
SIXTEEN
In the communications room of Department 99, Westervelt could actually hear people around him breathing, so hushed was the gathering. Someone was leaning on his shoulder, but he was reluctant to attract attention by moving.
Static sounds and the clicking and humming of various mechanisms about the room suddenly became unnaturally noticeable. Glancing this way and that, he discovered that the entire staff had drifted in during the transmission from Yoleen. There were at least two people behind him, to judge by the breathing and
the weight on his shoulder. So intense had been the excitement that he did not remember anyone but Smith arriving.
He saw better to the left than to the right, and became conscious of his eye again. Westervelt had drawn up his chair behind and to the left of the operator, and Smith had perched himself on the end of a table behind Joe. Beside the chief stood Simonetta, with Beryl behind her. Parrish was to Westervelt’s left, so he concluded that Lydman and Pauline must be behind him. The grip on his right shoulder felt small to be Lydman’s, but he could not see down at the necessary angle because of the puffiness under his eye.
The broad-shouldered, stocky man on the screen moved to the stairway and looked up straight into their eyes.
“Is this still going out to Terra, Simmons?” he asked.
He had dark hair with a crinkly wave in it, which permitted him to appear less disheveled than the men about him or standing over the body of Gerson. He pulled out a large white handkerchief to wipe the streaming perspiration from his face.
“Yes, sir,” answered the voice of the distant operator. “You’re looking right into the concealed pickup. I’ll switch the audio from Terra to the loud speaker system, and you can talk to them.”
Westervelt glanced at the other men in the embassy on Yoleen. Several of them obviously suffered from minor injuries. All of them wore expressions of tragedy.
One man in his shirtsleeves was standing with his shoulders against the base of the stairway, head thrown well back, trying to staunch the flow of blood from his nose. Another, with his back to the lens, knelt beside the body of Gerson. A couple of others, looking helpless, were lighting cigarettes.
“I suppose you saw the end of it,” the man on the stairs said.
Smith cleared his throat and leaned over Joe Rosenkrantz’s shoulder.
“We saw,” he answered. “I…is there any doubt that he’s dead?”
The man on the stairs looked to the group around the body. The doctor shook his bandaged head sadly.
“As much from strain and exhaustion as anything else,” he reported. “The man belonged in a hospital, but some uncanny conditioning drove him on. In the end, his heart gave out.”
The stocky man turned back to the lens.
“You heard that. Except for one man who didn’t know at the time what was going on, we did the best we could. I’m Delaney, by the way, in charge here.”
Smith identified himself, and agreed that Gerson had looked to be unmanageable.
“Do you think you can find out what they used?” he asked. “I gather that you never got anything out of him since the time you picked him up. Did that part of it go according to plan?”
“Oh, yes,” said Delaney. “We even got back the little torch we sent him, the way you plotted for us. It looked used, too; but now I’m wondering if they let him cut his way out.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” said Smith gloomily. “I’m afraid we didn’t look very bright on this one. We seem to have underestimated the Yoleenites badly. There isn’t too much information on them available here.”
“Nor here, to tell the truth,” said Delaney. “Which reminds me—our Captain MacLean has been after me for a long time to put more pressure on the D.I.R. about that. Could you duplicate your tape and send them a copy? It would save us another transmission, and you might like to add your own comments.”
Smith promised to have it done. He also offered, to soothe Captain MacLean, to send an extra copy to the Space Force.
There seemed to be nothing more to say. The scene on the screen blanked out, as the distant operator spoke to Rosenkrantz on audio only from his own shot-up office. Then it was over.
Westervelt, aware that the pressure on his shoulder was gone, looked around. Lydman had his arm about a shaken Pauline. The ex-spacer’s expression was blank, but the hardness of his eyes made the youth shiver. For a second, he thought he detected a slight resemblance to the man who had come bounding down the stairs on Yoleen, leaving crisscross trails of rocket smoke in the air.
That’s crazy! he thought the next instant, and he lost the resemblance.
He blinked, fingered his tender eye, and looked around at the others. Everyone was subdued, staring at the blank and quiet receiver or at the floor. Westervelt was surprised to see that Beryl was crying. She raised a forefinger to scrub the tears from her cheek.
Hesitantly, Westervelt took the neatly folded handkerchief from his breast pocket and held it out.
Beryl scrubbed the other cheek, looked at the handkerchief without raising her eyes to his, and accepted it. She blotted her eyes, examined the cloth, and whispered, “Sorry, Willie. I think I got make-up on it.”
Smith stirred uncomfortably at the whisper. He stood up and spoke one short word with a depth of emotion. Then he kicked the leg of the table to relieve his feelings.
Rosenkrantz swiveled around in his chair, waiting to see if any other calls were to be made. Smith took a deep breath.
“You’ll make copies of the tape when you can, Joe?”
“Sure,” said the operator, sympathetically.
“Well,” said Lydman, at the rear of the group, “that’s another one lost. Tomorrow we’ll open a permanent file on Yoleen, as Pete suggests.”
“Yes, I imagine they’ll give us more business,” agreed Parrish.
Lydman growled.
“I’ll give them the business next time!” he threatened. “Well, that kind of damps the pile for tonight. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m in no mood now to be clever.”
Smith straightened up abruptly.
“Now…now…wait a minute!” he spluttered. “I mean, we all feel pretty low, naturally. Still, this wasn’t the main…serious as this was, we were trying to push on this other case, to get a start anyway.”
Here we go again, thought Westervelt. Shall I try to trip him up if anything happens, or shall I just get out of the way?
He recalled the man in the embassy on Yoleen, holding a stained handkerchief to his bloody nose, and measured the size of his own with the tip of a forefinger. On the other hand, if there should be a melee, it would certainly cover a little item like a puffy eye. He wondered if he would have the guts to poke out his head at the proper instant, and was rather afraid that he would.
Parrish was murmuring about sticking to the job in hand, trying to support Smith without arousing the antagonism of an open argument. Lydman seemed unconvinced.
“Why don’t we all have a round of coffee?” suggested Simonetta. “If we can just sit down a few minutes and pull ourselves together—”
Smith looked at her gratefully.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s the least we can do, Bob. This was a shock to us all, but the girls felt it more. I don’t believe any of them wants to hit the street all shaken up like this. Right Si?”
“I would like to sit down somewhere,” said Simonetta.
“Here!” exclaimed Westervelt, leaping up. He had forgotten that he had been rooted to the chair since before the others had crept into the room during the transmission from Yoleen.
“Never mind, Willie,” Simonetta said. “I didn’t mean I was collapsing. Come on, Beryl, let’s see if there’s any coffee or tea left.”
“Wait for me,” said Pauline. “I’ve got to take this phone off the outside line anyway.”
Smith stepped forward to plant one hand behind Lydman’s shoulder blade.
“I could use a martini, myself,” he called after the girls. “How about the rest of you? Pete? Willie?”
Parrish seconded the motion, Westervelt said he would be right along, and trailed them slowly to the door. He paused to look back, and he and Joe exchanged brow-mopping gestures.
The rest of them were trouping along the corridor without much talk. He ambled along until the men, bringing up the rear, had turned the corner. Then he ducke
d into the library.
He fingered his eye again. Either it was a trifle less sore or he was getting used to it. He still hesitated to face an office full of people and good lighting.
“There must be something around here to read.” he muttered.
He walked over to a stack of current magazines. Most of them were technical in nature; but several dealt with world and galactic news. He took a few to a seat at the long table and began to leaf through one.
It must have been about fifteen minutes later that Simonetta showed up, bearing a sealed cup of tea and one of coffee.
“So that’s where you are!” she said. “I was taking something to Joe, and thought maybe I’d find you along the way.”
Westervelt deduced that she had phoned the operator.
“You can have the coffee,” she said, setting it beside his magazine. “Joe said he’d rather have tea this time around.”
Westervelt looked up. Simonetta saw his eye and pursed her lips.
“Well!”
“How does it look?” asked Westervelt glumly.
“Kind of pretty. If I remember the ones my brothers used to bring home, it will be ravishingly beautiful by tomorrow!”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” said Westervelt.
Simonetta laughed. She set the tea aside and pulled out a chair.
“I don’t think it’s really that bad, Willie,” she told him. “I was only fooling.”
“It shows though, huh?”
“Oh…yes…it shows.”
“That’s what I like about you, Si,” said Westervelt. “You don’t ask nasty, embarrassing questions like how it happened or which door closed on me.”
Following which he told her nearly the whole story, leaving out only the true origin of the quarrel. He suspected that Simonetta could put two and two together, but he meant to tell nobody about the start of it.
“Ah, Willie,” she said with a grin at the conclusion, “if you had to fall for a blonde, why couldn’t you pick little Pauline?”
