chamber's loaded," he cautioned.
"I never saw one like this," Parker said. "Foreign?"
"I think so. I don't know anything about it; it belongs to a friend ofmine, who loaned it to me. I think the action's German, or Czech; therest of it's a custom job, by some West Coast gunmaker. It's chamberedfor some ultra-velocity wildcat load."
The rifle passed from hand to hand; the three men examined it in turn,commenting admiringly.
"You find anything, Mr. Lee?" the sergeant asked, handing it back.
"Not a trace." The man called Lee slung the rifle and began to dumpthe ashes from his pipe. "I was along the top of this ridge for abouta mile on either side of the gap, and down the other side as far asHindman's Run; I didn't find any tracks, or any indication of whereit had made a kill."
The game protector nodded, turning to Sergeant Haines.
"There's no use us going any farther," he said. "Ten to one, it followedthat line of woods back of Strawmyer's, and crossed over to the otherridge. I think our best bet would be the hollow at the head of Lowrie'sRun. What do you think?"
The sergeant agreed. The man called Richard Lee began to refill his pipemethodically.
"I think I shall stay here for a while, but I believe you're right.Lowrie's Run, or across Lowrie's Gap into Coon Valley," he said.
* * * * *
After Parker and the State policemen had gone, the man whom they hadaddressed as Richard Lee returned to his log and sat smoking, his rifleacross his knees. From time to time, he glanced at his wrist watch andraised his head to listen. At length, faint in the distance, he heardthe sound of a motor starting.
Instantly, he was on his feet. From the end of the hollow log on whichhe had been sitting, he produced a canvas musette-bag. Walking brisklyto a patch of damp ground beside the little stream, he leaned the rifleagainst a tree and opened the bag. First, he took out a pair of glovesof some greenish, rubberlike substance, and put them on, drawing thelong gauntlets up over his coat sleeves. Then he produced a bottle andunscrewed the cap. Being careful to avoid splashing his clothes, hewent about, pouring a clear liquid upon the ground in several places.Where he poured, white vapors rose, and twigs and grass grumbled intobrownish dust. After he had replaced the cap and returned the bottle tothe bag, he waited for a few minutes, then took a spatula from themusette and dug where he had poured the fluid, prying loose four black,irregular-shaped lumps of matter, which he carried to the running waterand washed carefully, before wrapping them and putting them in the bag,along with the gloves. Then he slung bag and rifle and started down thetrail to where he had parked the jeep.
Half an hour later, after driving through the little farming village ofRutter's Fort, he pulled into the barnyard of a rundown farm and backedthrough the open doors of the barn. He closed the double doors behindhim, and barred them from within. Then he went to the rear wall of thebarn, which was much closer the front than the outside dimensions of thebarn would have indicated.
He took from his pocket a black object like an automatic pencil.Hunting over the rough plank wall, he found a small hole and insertedthe pointed end of the pseudo-pencil, pressing on the other end. For aninstant, nothing happened. Then a ten-foot-square section of the wallreceded two feet and slid noiselessly to one side. The section whichhad slid inward had been built of three-inch steel, masked by a thincovering of boards; the wall around it was two-foot concrete, similarlycamouflaged. He stepped quickly inside.
Fumbling at the right side of the opening, he found a switch and flickedit. Instantly, the massive steel plate slid back into place with a soft,oily click. As it did, lights came on within the hidden room,disclosing a great semiglobe of some fine metallic mesh, thirty feet indiameter and fifteen in height. There was a sliding door at one side ofthis; the man called Richard Lee opened and entered through it, closingit behind him. Then he turned to the center of the hollow dome, wherean armchair was placed in front of a small desk below a large instrumentpanel. The gauges and dials on the panel, and the levers and switchesand buttons on the desk control board, were all lettered and numberedwith characters not of the Roman alphabet or the Arabic notation, and,within instant reach of the occupant of the chair, a pistollike weaponlay on the desk. It had a conventional index-finger trigger and ahand-fit grip, but, instead of a tubular barrel, two slender parallelmetal rods extended about four inches forward of the receiver, joinedtogether at what would correspond to the muzzle by a streamlined knobof some light blue ceramic or plastic substance.
The man with the handsome immobile face deposited his rifle and musetteon the floor beside the chair and sat down. First, he picked up thepistollike weapon and checked it, and then he examined the manyinstruments on the panel in front of him. Finally, he flicked a switchon the control board.
At once, a small humming began, from some point overhead. It wavered andshrilled and mounted in intensity, and then fell to a steady monotone.The dome about him flickered with a queer, cold iridescence, and slowlyvanished. The hidden room vanished, and he was looking into the shadowyinterior of a deserted barn. The barn vanished; blue sky appeared above,streaked with wisps of high cirrus cloud. The autumn landscape flickeredunreally. Buildings appeared and vanished, and other buildings came andwent in a twinkling. All around him, half-seen shapes moved briefly anddisappeared.
Once, the figure of a man appeared, inside the circle of the dome. Hehad an angry, brutal face, and he wore a black tunic piped with silver,and black breeches, and polished black boots, and there was an insignia,composed of a cross and thunderbolt, on his cap. He held an automaticpistol in his hand.
Instantly, the man at the desk snatched up his own weapon and thumbedoff the safety, but before he could lift and aim it, the intruderstumbled and passed outside the force-field which surrounded the chairand instruments.
For a while, there were fires raging outside, and for a while, theman at the desk was surrounded by a great hall, with a high, vaultedceiling, through which figures flitted and vanished. For a while,there were vistas of deep forests, always set in the same backgroundof mountains and always under the same blue cirrus-laced sky. Therewas an interval of flickering blue-white light, of unbearableintensity. Then the man at the desk was surrounded by the interiorof vast industrial works. The moving figures around him slowed, andbecame more distinct. For an instant, the man in the chair grinned ashe found himself looking into a big washroom, where a tall blond girlwas taking a shower bath, and a pert little redhead was vigorouslydrying herself with a towel. The dome grew visible, coruscating withmany-colored lights and then the humming died and the dome became acold and inert mesh of fine white metal. A green light above flashedon and off slowly.
He stabbed a button and flipped a switch, then got to his feet,picking up his rifle and musette and fumbling under his shirt fora small mesh bag, from which he took an inch-wide disk of blue plastic.Unlocking a container on the instrument panel, he removed a small rollof solidograph-film, which he stowed in his bag. Then he slid open thedoor and emerged into his own dimension of space-time.
Outside was a wide hallway, with a pale green floor, paler greenwalls, and a ceiling of greenish off-white. A big hole had been cut toaccommodate the dome, and across the hallway a desk had been set up,and at it sat a clerk in a pale blue tunic, who was just taking theaudio-plugs of a music-box out of his ears. A couple of policemen ingreen uniforms, with ultrasonic paralyzers dangling by thongs from theirleft wrists and bolstered sigma-ray needlers like the one on the deskinside the dome, were kidding with some girls in vivid orange andscarlet and green smocks. One of these, in bright green, was a duplicateof the one he had seen rubbing herself down with a towel.
"Here comes your boss-man," one of the girls told the cops, as heapproached. They both turned and saluted casually. The man who hadlately been using the name of Richard Lee responded to their greetingand went to the desk. The policemen grasped their paralyzers, drewtheir needlers, and hurried into the dome.
Taking the disk of blue plast
ic from his packet, he handed it to theclerk at the desk, who dropped it into a slot in the voder in frontof him. Instantly, a mechanical voice responded:
"Verkan Vall, blue-seal noble, hereditary Mavrad of Nerros. SpecialChief's Assistant, Paratime Police, special assignment. Subject to noorders below those of Tortha Karf, Chief of Paratime Police. To be givenall courtesies and co-operation within the Paratime Transposition Codeand the Police Powers Code. Further particulars?"
The clerk pressed the "no"-button. The blue sigil fell out therelease-slot and was handed back to its bearer, who was drawing uphis left sleeve.
"You'll want to be sure I'm _your_ Verkan Vall, I suppose?" he said,extending his arm.
"Yes, quite, sir."
The clerk touched his arm with a small instrument which swabbed it withantiseptic, drew a minute blood-sample, and
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