The House that Stood Still

by A. E. van Vogt

  “Yes.”

  Stephens studied the man. He was disappointed. He did not doubt what Howland was saying. But it seemed hard to believe that Howland had actually been trapped into such a situation. Was it possible he had merely been tricked into believing that he had committed murder? If so, the final explanation would have to wait.

  He walked with Howland to the outside door. He said, “I’ll come in to see you tomorrow. We can talk this over.”

  Howland nodded. There were lines of strain in his face. “Christ,” he said, “I’m glad to get out of that room. What’s the matter with those people?”

  It was a question Stephens did not attempt to answer. His mind was already on the greater danger. In a tense voice he asked, “Where have you got the police spotted?”

  Howland said, “You don’t think I was fool enough to bring the police in on this?”

  “What!”

  With an effort Stephens controlled his dismay. He had a flashing mind-picture of the time it would take to organize a police force large enough to patrol the grounds. And he realized it would be too slow.

  He watched Howland go down the steps, and swiftly he walked across the terrace, and stepped down into the first patio area. He whistled softly. And waited.

  A figure moved out of the shadows. The shadowy shape whispered, “Riggs!” Then it shoved a slip of paper into Stephens’ hand, and retreated into the darkness.

  Stephens hurried back toward the front door. As he came opposite a window, he hastily read the note that the detective had given him. It said:

  All set.

  Stephens crumpled the note, put it in his pocket, and walked back into the living room.

  Outside, the small man adjusted his mask of Riggs’ face. And moved slowly towards one of the patio doors.

  XXII

  Several people had joined the group during his absence. They sat or stood now in that oak-paneled room with its line of French doors running the length of the spacious patio. All the doors but one were closed.

  Stephens counted twelve men and six women in the room, other than himself. And they were all looking at him.

  Ignoring them, he walked rapidly over to the mind reader. She shook her head, and said, “The menace seemed to grow a while ago, but it’s faded again. I can see more clearly now what you’re afraid of. I don’t sense anything like that.”

  Stephens glanced at Mistra. “How many people are there in the House?”

  “Forty.”

  “Who’s missing?” Tensely. “Didn’t you say there were forty-one in town?”

  “I included Peeley,” she said simply.

  Stephens started to turn away. Then he faced her again. “They’re all here this minute?”

  It was Triselle who answered that. “No, Tezla went out to search the yards twenty minutes ago.”

  The question and the answer had been loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. Now, there was silence. Briefly, Stephens was drawn from his own inner tension. Here were eighteen immortals. He studied them curiously. In spite of their expensive clothing, the men were a motley lot. Fate had taken no trouble to select impressive types. Without exception, however, the women were good looking. It seemed to suggest why they had been chosen.

  Possibly, each person was going over in his or her mind the associations each had had with the grim little Indian. Stephens waited till they began to stir, then said, “I saw a picture. It included Peeley and a man about Tezla’s size, but it didn’t look like him.”

  He broke off savagely: “Damn those perfect masks of yours! They make it possible for anyone to be anyone. I saw Tezla twice. Did I see him as he is, or was that a mask?”

  “A mask!” It was Tannahill.

  Stephens swore aloud. “Is he an Indian?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a pause. “This picture you saw,” said Tannahill. “When was it taken?”

  “About two thousand years ago,” Stephens replied.

  Tannahill twisted about, and said in a clipped tone of command: “Search the grounds! Guard every door! Bring him in here if he’s around. We’ll settle this thing right now.”

  “Wait!”

  Stephens’ voice cut sharply across the room, and stopped in mid-stride men who were heading towards the doors. Tannahill turned, and faced him; and now the difference between the man who had lost his memory and the man who had recovered it was noticeable. It showed in the lips and in the eyes. The eyes of Tanequila the Bold peered forth through tensed eyelids. His lips were compressed into a thin line.

  He said, “Stephens, what the hell do you mean, giving orders?”

  Stephens said, “The moment any of those doors open—that will be the signal for an agent of mine to toss element 167 onto one of the marble patios or onto the terrace, or even into the house itself!”

  Stephens went on quickly, “There is no reason for alarm—if we have properly identified our man. Now, I’m going to suggest how he should be handled—”

  “We’ll handle him in our own way,” said Tannahill in an arrogant tone, “according to our constitution.”

  “You’ll handle him,” said Stephens, “as I suggest—and, my friend, I might as well inform you that your reign of absolute power is over. I have in my brief case more than fifty copies of an authorization—which you will sign—converting this house into a Foundation, and we will as a group form the board of directors. I’ve named you first chairman, but I’ve included my own name on the board.”

  He went on grimly, “You’d better start signing, because I won’t call my agent inside here till there’s a copy available for every member of the group. Somebody get out those documents!”

  It was Mistra who secured them. Her eyes glinted as she brought them to a table near Tannahill, who glanced at them angrily, and seemed about to speak. Stephens cut him off:

  “Quick, man! Ask your mind-reader if I’m not telling the truth. I have got element 167. There is an agent outside ready to do exactly as I’ve said.”

  “Triselle!” It was Mistra. “Is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  Tannahill snarled, “But why didn’t you warn us? What the hell do you mean—”

  “Because he means well,” said the woman quietly. “And you don’t think I was going to interfere with him while he was searching so desperately for the person among us who—”

  Stephens interrupted, “We’ve got to let Tezla off easily. Think of all the years he’s been carrying the burden of a conviction that, as the survivor of the first group in the house, he was its rightful owner. Now, he’s out in the open. The tension is bound to fade.”

  He broke off. “Tannahill—start signing. Don’t forget, we’ve still got to catch him. We’ve still got to persuade him.”

  The owner of the Grand House hesitated a moment longer. Then abruptly drew out a pen, and began to scrawl his signature.

  Stephens handed the copies first to the men. When ten had been signed, when he had one in his own breast pocket, he went to the door and called Riggs. As the little detective entered, men began to stream out into the grounds.

  “Well, sir,” said Riggs, “I see we’re getting action. What’s the latest?”

  Stephens said, “Let me have that capsule you’ve got.”

  Riggs handed it over promptly, and Stephens walked over and gave it to Mistra. “Tezla will have some of this element from your secret laboratories, of course,” he said. “As I analyze his plan, his sole purpose in having me go aboard the ship—”

  “Ship?” said Mistra.

  Stephens ignored her. Now, that the documents were being signed, he intended to tell them about the ship that had come from the stars twenty centuries before. But that was for later. At the moment, he went on:

  “—purpose in having me go aboard the ship was to find out if the robot brain was still in operation.”

  “Robot brain? Allison, what are you talking about?”

  “If it were,” said Stephens, “then all he had to do was de
stroy the house, whereupon the robot brain would have to deal with him. There wouldn’t be any further use for it to hope—”

  He grew aware that Triselle had come up beside them. The telepath said, ‘That little man who just went out into the hall—who is he?”

  Stephens half-turned. “Don’t worry about Riggs,” he said. “If anyone is all right, it’s—”

  He stopped. He had a curious, sinking sensation. He had had the impression that Tannahill had contacted the detective haphazardly out of a Los Angeles telephone book.

  But Tannahill had not actually said that. Stephens remembered the scene with sudden clarity. He said in a . choked voice, “What do you get from his mind?”

  The mind reader said, “Placid thoughts. He’s a little worried. If he’s disguising a determination to destroy the house, it’s a wonderful job.”

  Stephens went over to Tannahill, who said, “I don’t remember the period very well. I recall we were in the bar together, and he bought me a drink—”

  “But did you phone him first?”

  “Phone him—no, of course not.”

  Stephens glanced at the door that led to the hall. Riggs was not in sight. “He’ll go down into the museum!” Stephens thought in agony, “release his own element 167 and go down into the tunnel to force the robot—”

  He hurried to the hall door, slowed as he reached it, and walked casually out into the gleaming hall. Riggs was nowhere in sight.

  Stephens ran all the way to the steps, and started down them. He was moving cautiously now, careful not to make any sounds.

  The glass door at the bottom was open. Through it, Stephens could see Riggs lifting the lid of one of the display cases.

  Stephens snatched from his own pocket the small tube he had taken from the robot ship. With his fingers firmly hooked into the release key, he stepped across the threshold.

  “Oh, Riggs!” he said.

  The man turned with a terrible casualness. “I was just admiring this Toltec art object,” he said. “Very interesting.”

  It was an odd time to be appreciating art. Stephens said, “Riggs—Tezla—you can still save your life. You can’t win now. Give up!”

  There was a long silence. The little man turned and looked directly at him. “Stephens,” he croaked, “you and I can rule the world!”

  “Not without the Grand House. Close off that element!”

  “We don’t need the house—don’t you see? We’ve got the robot ship. We can get from it all the information we need. Once the others are out of the way, it’ll have to—”

  A vague, bluish glow was coming from the display case. Stephens said in a piercing tone: “Shut it off! Quick!”

  “It would cost me my hand now. Stephens, listen!”

  “It’s your hand or your life! Hurry! I’ve got element 221 right here. There’s nothing in all the world like it. Chemically, it will unite with your 167 to—”

  His finger squeezed the release even as he tossed the tube straight at Riggs. The needle beam from the weapon in Riggs’ hand missed him, because he ducked, turned and raced up the steps.

  The room behind him shuddered. A bluish haze of smoke billowed up the steps.

  * * *

  “. . . Do you, Mistra Lanett, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

  “I do.” Her voice was steady . . .

  Afterwards, in her car, she said to Stephens, “I felt odd. Do you realize that this is the first time I’ve ever been married?’’

  Stephens said nothing. He was thinking of the robot-ship buried under the Grand House. Soon, it would be resuming its long-delayed journey. And there was an idea in his mind; it made him breathless to think of it: Why shouldn’t Mistra and he go along?

  “Personally,” Mistra said, almost irrelevantly, “I want a girl. Boys are all right but—”

  Stephens sighed. These women with their home and children notions. Here was the vastest imaginable world of adventure beckoning, and she was intent on procreation. When they reached his house, he carried in her bags, and parted his lips to bring up the subject of such a cosmic journey—and closed them again. His dream of adventure was lost, temporarily at least, in the softness of her gaze. There were more worlds in the greenness of her eyes than he could possibly imagine in the universe.

  In bed a little later, as their lips and bodies met, he presently pulled away slightly, and said, “How do you know you can have a child?”

  “Why do you think I selected today for our wedding?” said Mistra Stephens. “I’m just entering my fertile period. And do you know something—”

  “No—what?”

  “We’re not going to get dressed, or, if it’s possible, leave this bed until I’m pregnant. I’ve got centuries of pent-up motherhood inside me, and I’m ready to explode into a dozen children. Maybe—” she said hopefully— “as a starter, I’ll have quintuplets, all girls.”

  “Three girls and two boys,” he said as his lips found hers again. Their eagerness denied their immortality and he was aware that forever could wait.

  END

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prolog

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII