“Mr. Bixby didn’t tell me that, sir.”
Palmer’s eyes were quickly bright, stabbing into his. “You said that Bixby didn’t tell you any of this.”
“No, sir, he didn’t.”
Palmer made a gesture of impatience. “Then how in the world did you find out?”
Paul glanced cautiously at the three of them, at the captain hanging on his every word, at the puzzled and now angry Palmer, at the silent C.I.C. agent whose mind was on the brink of a dazzling leap.
“I read his thoughts, Mr. Palmer.”
Stillness. No physical movement, but . . . Paul sensed a change in the room, a subtle change on the part of one man. Conklin was regarding him stolidly, unblinking. Palmer was of the same mind and attitude as before, except for an increase in his anger. Evans decided the man was lying.
The F.B.I. agent said carefully, slowly, “No one has been introduced to you, Breen. How did you know my name?”
Paul answered him but he was looking at Conklin as he spoke. “I read yours, too.”
None of those four ever forgot the tableau in the captain’s office; not the captain, not even when he was eventually shifted to a godforsaken outpost on Kwajalein to get rid of him, not Palmer, not to the day he peacefully died in bed with his shoes off, not Conklin, not to that very moment a sentry’s bullet cut him down somewhere in the heart of Russia. Paul Breen never forgot it as he sat a prisoner on the third floor of the Maryland mansion, watching a succession of sunsets. His candid admission was the turning point in their four lives.
Evans snapped, “Now see here, Breen—”
Peter Conklin silenced the man a second time.
Palmer was on his feet, peering at him. “Are you trying to be funny, son?”
“No, sir.”
“Why do you say a thing like that?”
“Because it’s true.”
“I’m disappointed in you, Breen.”
Paul looked up into his face and said quietly, “Shall I tell you what you’re thinking, Mr. Palmer?”
“I think you’re making a fool of yourself.”
“Yes, sir, you do, and you also think I’m lying, but you can’t understand why I should be lying. At first you believed that I might be related in some way to the two gunmen and turned them in to collect a reward, but later evidence caused you to discard that belief. Then you thought that perhaps Bixby had told me the situation and given me instructions, only to discard that too when you realized Bixby couldn’t or wouldn’t do it. Finally you admitted that you simply didn’t understand it at all and asked your superior officer to be relieved. He refused and assigned you to the case for as long as it remained in the open file.
“Sir, you have a wife forty-six years old, who scolds you because you don’t change your socks often enough to please her; you have twin daughters who are twenty, and one of them is married to a man who continually pesters you to find him a job with the Bureau. Your private opinion of the man is that he couldn’t fill a job digging ditches.
You suffer from arthritis in the left knee and also have a large permanent blister on that heel; on bad days your limp is most pronounced and very annoying to you. You fear that the Bureau may retire you before the time—”
Palmer shouted at him. “Stop!”
“Yes, sir.”
Palmer backed away from him and sat down, eying Paul as he would an untamed beast caught in a rickety cage. He said nothing, sitting straight and strained in the stiff-backed office chair, breathing heavily.
Captain Evans was staring at the two of them, desperately attempting to believe what his eyes and ears had just reported, shoving away for the moment the nagging doubt in his mind that such a thing couldn’t be true.
“Breen,” he said, and looked around quickly to see if the C.I.C. agent intended to silence him a third time, “Breen, is that true? Can you really do that?”
Paul turned to the captain.
“Yes, sir, I’m afraid I can.”
“Now see here, you aren’t attempting a leg-pull to get yourself out of a bad fix?”
“Sir, shall I tell you about the fifteen tons of coal that were diverted to a relative’s house? Or what Lieutenant Miller’s wife said to you the night she found you in her kitchen? The WAC detachment posted a—”
“That will be all, Breen,” the captain said evenly. His face was an emotionless mask.
“Yes, sir.”
The silence descended on them again. Paul glanced around, quite uncomfortable to be the target of their eyes, and found each of the three studying him, weighing him and not liking what they saw. He found speculation, anger and open hatred. His gaze finally settled on Peter Conklin who was watching him with speculation—and nothing else.
Like the two others, Conklin didn’t approve of the revelation, but there was no anger or hatred in his mind. The C.I.C. agent still sat in the position he had maintained throughout the interview, the tips of his fingers placed together and coming to a point beneath his chin. He had seldom moved and had not spoken a word since Breen entered the door.
Paul returned his stare.
Conklin spoke suddenly. There was neither friendliness nor hostility in his voice. “You need not prove yourself to me, Mr. Breen. I require no personal demonstration, and I do not care to have my mental privacies paraded for view. Instead, let me say that until I find evidence to the contrary, I shall believe you.”
Paul smiled at him. “Yes, sir.”
“How long has this been going on?” There were no particular tonal qualities to Conklin’s voice; like the man himself and his mode of dress, there was nothing to cause him to stand out in a crowd.
“All my life I suppose, sir. I wasn’t aware of it until I was thirteen—that night in Chicago.”
“Who else knows of it?”
“No one, sir. I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“I commend you. Do you realize what it will mean?”
“How do you mean, sir?”
“Never mind; I see that you haven’t. We have something of a problem here.”
Paul said nothing. Palmer turned in his chair to speak to Conklin and there was a new note in his voice.
“What are you getting at?”
“Mr. Breen’s peculiar talent must not continue to be wasted here.”
Palmer stared at the agent. “Mr. Breen?”
Conklin nodded. “Are you not yet aware of a change in relative values? Of a bizarre shift of command in view of that particular talent?”
“Well . . .” Palmer hesitated. “I guess he can’t stay here on the post.”
Conklin allowed himself only the briefest of glances at the captain. “Obviously.”
“What are you going to do with him?”
“Washington.”
“Washington?” Palmer considered that. “Your outfit or mine?”
“Mine.”
“Well now, I don’t know. He’s been our problem for the last eleven years.”
“He is in uniform now.” Conklin inspected the summer tans Paul was wearing. “Our jurisdiction.”
Palmer shook his head. “That won’t set so well, I’m thinking. The office will raise hell.”
“Let them take it to the top. I’m going to claim jurisdiction until he’s taken away from me.” He turned quickly to Paul. “With your permission, Mr. Breen.”
“Permission!” Captain Evans displayed the shock. “He’s an enlisted man.”
Conklin tapped the tips of his fingers on his chin, the briefest trace of a mocking smile on his lips. “I’m afraid you aren’t an overly imaginative man, Captain. Whether we approve or not, a change in status occurred a few moments ago.” He was still looking at Paul. “There remains in my mind some doubt as to who is the actual master here.”
“Are you serious, sir?”
“I am. I believe our present situation to be analogous to that of the Neanderthal and the Cro-Magnon. I am trying to avoid a similar mistake.” He turned back to Paul. “Mr. Breen, I would like you to
return to Washington with me. I want to present you to my superior officers.”
Paul said, “Yes, sir.”
Captain Evans cut in. “See here, I can put through orders transferring him to Washington. I can arrange the transportation and . . .” He stopped talking, taken aback at the expression on Conklin’s face.
“You will be kind enough to arrange the transportation, Captain. On tonight’s train, if it can be managed. Secure a double bedroom or a drawing room. Will you look after it now?”
Evans was on his feet and moving toward the door. “At once, sir.”
“And, Captain . . .”
“Yes, sir?”
“Not one word of what has transpired here is to pass your lips. You are not to mention the subject even to your wife.” Again the agent’s grim expression underlined his words.
Evans said quietly, “Yes, sir,” and went out. After a moment the outer door opened and closed.
The old stillness settled over the room. Paul found the two agents continually watching him, continually studying, probing, guessing, and to be the object of their steady scrutiny was vastly uncomfortable. Doubly uncomfortable, for behind their piercing eyes their minds were repeating the examination of him; their thoughts clearly said what their eyes could not and their lips would not. In varying degrees they accepted him for what he was, and yet they had not time to learn that all their thoughts were open to him. They would not or could not say what they were thinking, still not fully realizing that they may as well say it.
Paul saw something in Conklin’s mind and was on the verge of speaking, when caution gripped him. If he had used caution he wouldn’t now be in this position—and although it might be a late time to start, still it was a beginning. So he held his silence, saying nothing, confident that Conklin would voice that thought sooner or later.
It came almost at once.
“Mr. Breen, I can’t help feeling sorry for you.”
Paul knew why, but for the sake of pretense and to spare the man’s feelings, he asked, “Why, sir?”
“Because your captain inadvertently gave you a taste of what is to come. Because in the eyes of those who will know you, you are going to be the most hated man in the world. I’m sorry for you, Mr. Breen. It is an unenviable position.”
V.
The train moved eastward through the cloudy night, stopping seldom, whistling often, and intermittently throwing long streamers of fiery soot and smoke back along the cars and the right-of-way. Paul sat with his chin in his hand and his forehead pressed against the window, watching the dark and back-rushing country. Little towns rocketed by, no more than minute clusters of dull light around a station or an express office, and sometimes there were other thin strings of lights reaching away into the blackness. When the train sped across a highway there would be flashing red warnings that momentarily lit up the interior of the bedroom, turning his face a dull crimson. Occasionally a pair of headlights, yellow-white by comparison, would be waiting on the highway and their flaring cones would illuminate the room, streak across the face against the window.
Ray Palmer slept soundly in the topmost Pullman bed on the other side of the room, enjoying his dreams. Below him, Peter Conklin reclined on the lower bed, but he was not asleep. The degree of mental activity exuding from the two agents was marked; it revealed the difference between a state of sleep and one of wakeful awareness. Conklin was worried, fascinated and repelled by turns; he was in a feverish state of mind—speculating, calculating, planning. Belatedly he was becoming aware of the fabulous treasure he had uncovered, of the full and invaluable richness of it.
With Breen at his side he could walk through the streets of Washington or New York, searching out those aliens now in this country bent on sabotage. He could go through the workshops and laboratories of hundreds of factories and secret experimenting centers, fingering the traitors, the malingerers, the enemies. He could stand in the customs sheds, catching them as they left their ships; he could wait at the airports, arresting them as they disembarked. With Breen he could move among the crowds still attending the gala Washington social events, picking out the foreigners and the pseudo friends intent on harming the nation, discovering the embassy personnel who were actually undercover agents. And if they’d only let him take Breen to London . . .!
The car wheels rumbled hollowly across a bridge.
Conklin rolled over on his side and found Paul’s brooding silhouette against the window.
“Can’t sleep?”
“No, sir.”
“Neither can I. Upset by all this?”
“Some—yes, sir. I keep thinking.”
“I believe I know what you mean.” Conklin peered through the window. “Where are we, do you know?”
“Indiana, I think. We’re going too fast to read the signs. I saw Vincennes a long way back there.”
The three of them had left the military post in an uncomfortable silence, late that afternoon. Captain Evans had provided a staff car and the driver; he wasn’t sorry to see them go. After several hours of almost unbroken silence (of silence to all but Paul), the driver had delivered them to the Union Station in Saint Louis, and they sat down to await the opening of the train. Departure time was near midnight. They boarded the train and Palmer asked the porter to make up three of the beds; he was in the upper bed and falling asleep before they pulled out of the station. After a while Conklin locked the door, partially undressed and stretched out on the lower. Paul seated himself on the foot of his bed, watching their train snake its way through the cluttered yards and along the riverbank to the open country. He was still there hours later, face to the glass.
There had been some relief when Palmer fell asleep; at least the agent stopped thinking about him, dissecting him. But he was sorely puzzled by some of the strange things the man in the lower bed was mulling—why, for instance, should Conklin wish he had been found some months earlier? What difference did it make when he was discovered—in April or early May before Germany’s surrender, or now in the middle of July? Paul could discern no good reason for the concern.
“Will you tell me something?” he asked suddenly.
Conklin seemed startled, wondering why he should ask. “Certainly. If I can.”
“I didn’t understand your remark about Neanderthals. Will you explain that?”
“I’d be glad to. Are you at all familiar with the subject?” Paul nodded hesitantly. “I seem to remember reading something about it—or them, in school, but it’s rather hazy now. Ape men, I think.”
“Homo neanderthalensis,” Conklin supplied. “They were a race of almost-men, prehistoric cave dwellers who lived in Europe tens of thousands of years ago. Commonly agreed upon as our Paleolithic ancestors. They came just before modern man, gave way to modern man.” (Paul caught a sudden, unhappy thought-picture.) “The Cro-Magnon was the beginning of today’s modern man; they were a tall and straight race of people where the Neanderthal was bent or stooped. There is a school of thought which holds that the Neanderthal and the Cro-Magnon cultures overlapped briefly, violently. One must spring from the other of course, but this particular school believes the overlapping and the subsequent cleaving were violent. Extremely violent. In short, that the two fought each other and the newer Cro-Magnon killed off the Neanderthal.”
Paul sat still, saying nothing, learning much more than Conklin put into words.
“If this theory is true, it may well be understood. The Neanderthal would be envious, jealous of the better man living alongside him. And that other man would likely be contemptuous of the clumsy beast who shared his world. Envy and jealousy readily become hate. The Neanderthal would find himself outwitted in every contest and perhaps actually going hungry because of the other’s superior hunting skill. He had brute strength, but that is poor match for wits, skill and knowledge. He lost. The Cro-Magnon replaced him on earth and he vanished—utterly.
“I regard that replacement as natural, for had it not occurred perhaps we wouldn’t be here today
and something else would be in our place. I believe that natural scientific laws govern the universe and all within it, and that evolution is inevitable. What we understand, we label. What we half understand or do not understand at all, we call ‘Mother Nature’ and try to accept it. Mother Nature arranged for the superior Cro-Magnon to replace the stumbling Neanderthal, and so we evolved, the human race today. I’m sure you follow me.”
“Yes, sir. That’s why Captain Evans disliked me.”
“Hated you would be more correct. I doubt that I could explain to him what I have just explained to you, but the parallel is obvious. Will you forgive me a frankness . . .?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you. Unless you are an accidental freak, I suspect your appearance here is but a hint of things to come. I am afraid the earth is about to witness still another struggle between the old and the new, between common man and advanced man. It isn’t a happy prospect.”
“But, Mr. Conklin, I don’t intend—”
“No, perhaps not,” Conklin agreed. “Not now, not yet. But do we know what ten or twenty years will bring? Do we know that you are the only one?”
Paul had never considered that. The possibility that there might be others like him was stunning.
“I only wish you were more mature,” the C.I.C. agent went on. “I am aware that you consider twenty-four to be a ripe old age; I thought the same when I was twenty-four. But I fear that you lack the maturity to grasp all this, that you lack the reasoning ability to see where it may lead. Still with frankness, I believe that an older man in your place would never have permitted his discovery.”
“But I’d like to help,” Paul declared.
“Help what?” Conklin asked flatly.
Paul gestured, then wisely said nothing.
Ragged strings of weak light sprang up about them, and poor houses that habitually haunt the outskirts of any city along the railroad right-of-way. The scene gave way to rainswept streets and a greater concentration of light, and then the cloudy sky reflected the neon glow of the city. The train slowed and at brilliantly illuminated street crossings Paul could see the rain falling, could see the madly swinging windshield wipers on the waiting automobiles. The red lights flashed in his face. His window was on the lee side of the car and dry. Far away he caught a glimpse of another river and then the train was picking its careful way through the railyards, through a maze of freight cars and chugging switch engines and men with lanterns.
Wild Talent Page 5
