“Did you see that?” exclaimed John. “A pneumatic carrier. I’ll bet it goes directly to the records department. And the frog will fit it!”
The frog jumped to the desk. John and Martha examined the repository. There appeared no control by which the destination of the carrier could be changed. That meant the tube led to a single location. It was worth gambling that it went to the records section.
The lid was closed, of course. With a partial vacuum inside it probably took some pressure to open. The frog moved directly beneath the small lid fitting beneath the flare that served as a handle. It jumped. The lid opened momentarily and snapped shut, flinging the frog in a wild tumble across the desk.
John righted the frog and looked about for other means to get in. Martha said, “It’s got to be higher. Those books—”
A row of books stood erect at the back of the desk. The frog jumped to the top of them and wedged between the wall and a book. A hard kick sent the book tumbling to the desk. The frog then backed against the thick book and gave a series of short quick pushes. That put it just under the edge of the lid.
On top of the book the frog approached the lid and grasped the flare-tip in its teeth. Slowly, John caused the twin muscles to contract. The lid raised. “Now all we need is six more sets of muscles,” said John.
“A backflip,” said Martha. “It’ll work.”
He considered the maneuver, estimating the power of the spring and the suction on the lid, the speed of its snapping shut.
Suddenly he released and contracted the jumping muscles sharply. The lid opened a fraction farther than before. The frog turned a quick somersault and landed in the mouth of the tube. The lid slammed shut. The body of the frog filled the area of the tube nicely. It plummeted through the blind maze with the speed of a dropped rock.
CHAPTER X
More Trouble Coming
JOHN was forced to relax contact during that plunge. The wild gyrations, and the vision of helpless falling caused vertigo that made him sick, Martha remained out completely but he cut in at short intervals. He sensed the increasing speed of that plunge through darkness but nothing could, be done to slow its dangerous velocity.
If he could have maneuvered it to press against the side with the jumper muscles—but there was no maneuvering that blob of artificial flesh in such a spinning dive.
Abruptly then, there was motionlessness. He, wondered if he still had vision after that crushing halt. He made full contact. There seemed to be no damage.
He was looking at the sides of the receiving basket into which the frog had fallen. Beyond that there was a girl librarian. Her back was to the frog but she was in the act of turning around.
The frog leaped to the floor and scurried to the farthest corner of the wall beneath the desk. From there John could see the feet of half a dozen library operators. He heard the voice of one of the girls.
“I was sure I heard another carrier drop out of the lab tube, a moment ago. Did any of you pick it up?”
“There could be no more than one. I heard Delaney say that he expected only two brains this shift.”
“I must be dreaming.” The girl leaned on the desk and returned to her work. “I wish I knew how to find the information they want on the original Metaral Mine installation. Sixty years ago they didn’t file this stuff worth a hoot.”
Martha joined John. “Can we get to the indexes now?”
“I don’t see how. Let’s watch a minute to see how they operate.”
From beneath the table they watched the legs of the girl as she shifted weight from one foot to the other in irritation and indecision.
Try Al Demming, John thought. If he could only get one of them to open the indexes for him. The frog could not operate the machines even if no one were present to interfere.
The girl shifted and stood erect. “What did you say, Louise?”
“Nothing.”
“I thought I heard somebody talking to me. This thing is driving me crazy.”
He’d better cut that out, John thought. He had let the impulse of his thought get through to the frog. It had been strong enough to impress the girl.
“Why not?” said Martha suddenly. “Let me try.”
The girl was tired. A low-level impressed suggestion could seem like her own idea. Gently Martha let the impressions of her mind flow outward through the telepathic synapses of the frog.
Albert Demming—try Albert Demming—Dr. Albert Demming—
At the lowest possible level of neural activity she repeated the name over and over again. The girl remained standing there, punching the manual indexes on the table. She shifted her weight and twisted one foot, then the other. It seemed useless but Martha dared not increase the intensity of the suggestion.
She was on the verge of abandoning the effort when the girl turned and walked slowly toward the chair before her position at the index panel. The frog shifted to one side to be in line with the screen.
The girl seemed to hesitate in wonder as if she had forgotten something. Try Dr. Albert Demming—
Her fingers began to type slowly but without hesitation. An index number appeared. She blanked it and punched the number on the keyboard.
Almost instantly a sheet of information appeared on the screen. John and Martha grasped the name—Al’s. There might not be time to read it all; they scanned swiftly to the last line: Experimental, Secret, 93 C.
“Right here in the building!” John exclaimed.
They had scarcely caught the information when the girl blanked the machine with an irritated swipe of her hand.
“I don’t know what made me do a fool thing like that.”
“What?”
“Oh, I just looked up some crazy name that didn’t have anything to do with my problem. That’s the third stupid thing I’ve done in the last hour. I’m going out.”
John felt Martha’s probing telepathic call searching upward and outward through the mass of walls and furnishings of the building. Al—Al—can you hear me?
“Wait,” said John. “Wait until we can move the frog near him. We don’t know what kind of circumstances he may be in. It might be better not to call.”
“You mean—because of the experimental lab?”
“Yes.”
HE felt the chill of fear within her again, mingled with bitterness and rising hate that threatened her single-minded drive.
“We can get out when they change shifts,” he suggested. “Most of the girls ought to be out at one time. There’s probably a tube that goes direct to the lab.”
It came eventually. They saw girls scurrying out the doorway. A single attendant was left to watch over the index machines. They waited until she was at the far end and made a try.
The tube in which the frog arrived was only one of a long series, labeled with their destinations. They found the one leading to the experimental laboratory in the center of the long row.
The operator was returning. The frog looked about and shoved a stack of papers beneath the opening. They slid askew but there was no time to improve the base on which the frog stood. With the experience of the previous maneuver behind him, John quickly repeated it. The cover slammed shut. His last vision was of the operator slowly turning about. He glimpsed her face but her eyes—he didn’t believe they had been upon the frog.
Prepared for the violent drop into the receiving hopper the frog leaped instantly to the floor at the end of the plunge and scurried for the nearest dark corner.
They had made it, John thought. Before him, in the center of the laboratory, were the familiar pedestals of equipment which supported and fed cybernetic brains. There were four of them. He scanned the surfaces of the platinum boxes as well as possible from the hiding place.
Al was there.
He could not guess why Martha’s brother had been brought here but he was here and alive. The meters on the panel and the visual check tubes showed the flow of vital fluids through the arteries of his brain.
Martha saw it, too
. “Al—” she cried, “this is Martha. Martha and John. Can you hear me, Al?”
There was no response. Only the dead silence that had always led to the belief that the brains were dead.
“Al!”
They could hear the faint clatter of instruments wielded by two technicians at the distant end of the laboratory. Martha brought the frog dangerously out of hiding, placed it directly beside the pedestal where it could look up at the platinum box. Her signal was like a scream.
“Al—answer me! Can’t you hear me? What have they done to you?”
Only silence and motionlessness marked the machinery and the brain before them. Then they heard the scuffing feet of the technicians. The frog-hopped swiftly back to hiding.
“They’ve killed him!” Martha sobbed. “You were right—we’ll find a way to strike back at them.”
In his turn now John calmed the blind rage in her. For himself he had gone beyond it. There was no rage in him now. His sole function was to destroy that which surrounded them. Rage could not accomplish it but rage had initiated it. Now clear cold reason would carry it through.
The blank wall that faced them now seemed vast and terrifying and unyielding. With Al dead they had lost his help and understanding and the one human contact that he had offered originally. John wondered about the two technicians Kit had mentioned. Perhaps they knew enough of his work and could serve as the needed human contacts.
There was Kit herself, of course, but she lacked the training and authority that had been Al’s. With the frogs detected and marked for extermination John felt powerless to move.
An opening door at the other end of the room drew their attention. A somewhat stooped white haired man in a soiled laboratory coat entered. He spoke briefly to the two technicians and they went out, leaving him alone in the laboratory.
“That’s Dr. Seymour Jurgens,” Martha said. “Al introduced me to him once.”
“I know. He has done great scientific work. How can he be Chairman of the Institute Board—directly responsible for the death of Jerry and Al—of you and me?”
Dr. Jurgens walked slowly from the other end of the room. He approached the mass of equipment surrounding the brain of Al. Motionless for a long time he looked at the platinum box in silent speculation.
THEN, as if making up his mind suddenly, he went to a nearby bench and picked up a small object, half the size of his fist, which John and Martha had not noticed until now. He held it in his hand and looked down at it. He spoke toward it.
“This is your final chance; Al,” he said. “I know that you are watching me and listening to me. If you refuse to answer I will be forced to turn off the nutrient flow.”
“John—what does it mean?” Martha cried, “Do you think he’s found a way to communicate with the brains? But Al can’t be alive or he would have answered us.”
“I don’t know. Wait.”
“You will not have another chance, Al.” Dr. Jurgens’ face was flushed with rage as he gripped the instrument in his hand impotently. His fist clenched as if he would vent his anger upon the helpless brain.
Then he moved toward the instrument panel that controlled the nutrient flow. His hand touched the switch that would turn off the pumps.
“Stop!” Martha cried. “Stop it—you murderer!”
Sick at Martha’s impulsive betrayal of their position, John waited for Jurgens’ move. Al might be dead, and now their own abilities were revealed to the cyberneticists.
“I couldn’t help it,” Martha said. “What if Al isn’t dead? He wouldn’t be acting that way if he were, would he?”
“It’s all right, darling,” John murmured. “We ought to get the frog out someway before he finds it. It would be better for them to go on thinking the frogs are some interplanetary pest.”
For what seemed a full minute Dr. Jurgens stood motionless with his hand on the switch. Then slowly he turned and moved back, watching the machinery and the box and glancing about the room speculatively. He went to the bench and bent over the small instrument he’d carried in his hand.
“Tell me quickly,” he said. “Tell me—can you hear me? Is it telepathy you use? Is my message strong enough to hear?”
Then they realized that he had not spoken with his lips but only in his thoughts. He was trying to reach them by the same pathway that Martha had called out to him.
“John,” said Martha helplessly.
John remained silent. The message came from Dr. Jurgens again. “Believe me,” he said urgently. “I have done what I had to do. I cannot speak orally. Every laboratory is wired with watch circuits. I want to help you but I cannot betray myself by speaking.”
He continued to lean over the bench as if studying the instrument, but even his back seemed to convey the impression of tension that was within him.
“Shall we answer?” said Martha.
“Yes. He knows of us. He may be lying, trying to trap us, but we’ll have to take that chance.”
“He is lying! Get out, you fools! Stay as far away from here as you can.”
It was the voice of Al. Martha’s spirit seemed to crumple with relief. “Why didn’t you answer?” she cried. “We thought you were dead.”
“Get away from here!” Al repeated savagely. “If you can do anything to help the mass of cybernetic brains, do it. I’m helpless. They’ve got me trapped here for experiments they hope will betray you all. Don’t ever try to contact me again!”
“Al,” said Dr. Jurgens. “Will you believe me if I tell you that at this moment an agent of the Institute is on his way to attack your wife, Katherine? It is to be made to appear a suicide after he destroys all your records.
“Whoever the rest of you are, whose voices I hear, can you do anything? Do you have power to intervene? I cannot. If you can make contact with those who can, do it quickly.”
“Kit!” Al cried out in despair.
To John’s mind came the instant memory of the crushed body of Jerry Randolph, the image of a malignant countenance, of a figure hunched over a wheel, driving murderously around a curve.
How had he forgotten that Kit too, with her knowledge and the papers of Al, was an enemy the Institute could not overlook?
CHAPTER XI
Attack
JOHN connected almost instantly with one of the frogs left with Kit. It was in the house, in Al’s study.
Against the far wall Kit cowered in terror beside Al’s desk. In front of her was the massive figure of a man who advanced with menace in every line of his body. John couldn’t see the man’s face. He didn’t need to. He heard his voice. And he cursed again his own stupidity in leaving Kit unwarned and unprotected.
“You sent copies of your husband’s papers to Jerry Randolph,” the man was saying. “I want the originals and all other records of his. They disappeared from his office at the Institute.”
“No, I don’t have them!” Kit tried to back farther into the corner.
“Get them, Kit,” said John suddenly. “Get them and give them to him. They don’t matter any more.”
A sudden start of surprise showed in her eyes. She glanced frantically about the room to find the unseen frog from which the words had come.
“Careful,” John warned. “Don’t let him know.”
But the assassin had mistaken her wild glance. “Don’t try to run, please. I don’t want you to earn yourself any marks or bruises.”
“I’ll get them,” she said in a hurried whisper. “All my husband’s papers are in the bedroom—in the cabinet there. The key is one—five—three—eight, frequency A.”
“Thank you. That makes it much easier. You will lead the way please.”
She crept along the wall, keeping her eyes on the intruder. As he turned slowly, watching her with cruel amusement, John and Martha saw his face. They had not been mistaken. It was the same man who had forced their car over the cliff, who had killed Jerry Randolph.
John backed the frog out of sight as Kit led the way through the door. He followed c
autiously with it as they went toward the cabinet in the bedroom. The man opened the electronic lock according to Kit’s instructions. He took out the sheaf of papers that lay on a shelf. After a moment’s glance he stuffed them in his pocket.
With a swift motion then he grasped Kit’s arm and twisted her onto the bed. He bound her tightly with a sheet almost before she could cry out. He gagged her mouth.
“I hope I didn’t make any bruises,” he said. “This has to look just a little bit like a suicide—not that the police will investigate too closely but there are certain forms that have to be gone through. I’ll need a sample of your handwriting now.”
He walked back to the cabinet from which he had taken the papers. Martha was crying with rage and despair. “John, can’t we get help to her somehow? Can’t we send the frogs?”
“Neighbors are too far away. The frogs can’t use a phone. There’s not any way to call out.”
“We can’t just watch him kill her!”
“No—let me handle the frog. Make no attempt at control. Now!”
The frog crossed the room in a long leap. Instantly John knew he had made a mistake. The man saw the gray streak of motion out of the corner of his eye and turned in astonishment. He shifted to one side but the frog struck his face.
The razor like teeth caught in the flesh and raked a long, deep furrow but John released the jaws and let the frog tumble to the floor.
It righted and turned and leaped again. But the killer had already reached to his hip. His hand shot out with a long blade. He impaled the frog in mid-air.
Kit gave a muffled sob. The man looked at her sharply and then back at the quivering lump on his knife.
“This is what is supposed to be a pest from interstellar traffic, isn’t it?”
Kit stared at the frog with terrified eyes as he slowly drew the blade out of it.
He turned it over in his fingers. Only a thin, watery fluid oozed out of the wound. “I wonder how much you know of these,” he murmured.
THE knife had not destroyed the telepathic or vision faculties of the frog but it had cut the elementary muscle structure that gave it mobility. Helplessly John and Martha looked into the face of the attacker.
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