For a long, dazzling moment he had the impression that his entry was a complete surprise; and that he dominated the situation. None of the three people in the room was turned toward him. The man, Jeel, and the girl were standing, facing each other; the woman, Merla, sat in a deep chair, her fine profile to him, her golden head flung back.
It was she who, still without looking at him, sneered visibly — and spoke the words that ended his brief conviction of triumph. She said to the disguised girl:
“You certainly travel in low company, a stupid human being. Tell him to go away before he’s damaged.”
The girl said: “Leigh, I’m sorry I brought you into this. Every move you made in entering was heard, observed and dismissed before you could even adjust your mind to the scene.”
“Is his name Leigh?” said the woman sharply. “I thought I recognized him as he entered. He’s very like his photograph over his newspaper column.” Her voice grew strangely tense: “Jeel, a newspaper reporter!”
“We don’t need him now,” the man said. “We know who the Galactic Observer is.”
“Eh?” said Leigh; his mind fastened hard on those amazing words. “Who? How did you find out? What — “
“The information,” said the woman; and it struck him suddenly that the strange quality in her voice was eagerness, “will be of no use to you. Regardless of what happens to the girl, you’re staying.”
She glanced swiftly at the man, as if seeking his sanction. “Remember, Jeel, you promised.”.
It was all quite senseless, so meaningless that Leigh had no sense of personal danger. His mind scarcely more than passed the words; his eyes concentrated tautly on a reality that had, until that moment, escaped his awareness. He said softly:
“Just now you used the phrase, ‘Regardless of what happens to the girl.’ When I came in, you said, ‘Tell him to go away before he’s damaged.’ ”
Leigh smiled grimly: “I need hardly say this is a far cry from the threat of immediate death that hung over us a few seconds ago. And I have just now noticed the reason.
“A little while ago, I heard our pal, Jeel dare my little girl friend here to raise her gun. I notice now that she has it raised. My entrance did have an effect.” He addressed himself to the girl, finished swiftly:
“Shall we shoot — or withdraw?”
It was the man who answered: “I would advise withdrawal. I could still win, but I am not the heroic type who takes the risk of what might well be a close call.”
He added, in an aside to the woman: “Merla, we can always catch this man, Leigh, now that we know who he is.”
The girl said: “You first, Mr. Leigh.” And Leigh did not stop to argue.
Metal doors clanged behind him, as he charged along the tunnel. After a moment, he was aware of the girl running lightly beside him.
The strangely unreal, the unbelievably murderous little drama was over, finished as fantastically as it had begun.
4
Outside Constantine’s a gray light gathered around them. A twilight side street it was, and people hurried past them with the strange, anxious look of the late for supper. Night was falling.
Leigh stared at his companion; in the dimness of the deep dusk, she seemed all boy, slightly, lithely built, striding along boldly. He laughed a little, huskily, then more grimly:
“Just what was all that? Did we escape by the skin of our teeth? Or did we win? What made you think you could act like God, and give those tough eggs twelve hours to get out of the Solar System?”
The girl was silent after he had spoken. She walked just ahead of him, head bent into the gloom. Abruptly, she turned; she said:
“I hope you will have no nonsensical idea of telling what you’ve seen or heard.”
Leigh said: “This is the biggest story since — “
“Look” — the girl’s voice was pitying — “you’re not going to print a word because in about ten seconds you’ll see that no one in the world would believe the first paragraph.”
In the darkness, Leigh smiled tightly: “The mechanical psychologist will verify every syllable.”
“I came prepared for that, too!” said the vibrant voice. Her hand swung up, toward his face. Too late, he jerked back.
Light flared in his eyes, a dazzling, blinding force that exploded into his sensitive optic nerves with all the agonizing power of intolerable brightness. Leigh cursed aloud, wildly, and snatched forward toward his tormentor. His right hand grazed a shoulder. He lashed out violently with his left, and tantalizingly caught only the edge of a sleeve that instantly jerked away.
“You little devil!” he raged futilely. “You’ve blinded me.”
“You’ll be all right,” came the cool answer, “but you’ll find that the mechanical psychologist will report anything you say as the purest imagination. In view of your threat to publish, I had to do that. Now, give me my gun.”
The first glimmer of sight was returning. Leigh could see her body a dim, wavering shape in the night. In spite of the continuing pain, Leigh smiled grimly. He said softly:
“I’ve just now remembered you said this gun didn’t shoot bullets. Even the feel of it suggests that it’ll make an interesting proof of anything I say. So — “
His smile faded abruptly. For the girl stepped forward. The metal that jabbed into his ribs was so hardly thrust, it made him grunt.
“Give me that gun!”
“Like fun I will,” Leigh snapped. “You ungrateful little ruffian, how dare you treat me so shoddily after I saved your life? I ought to knock you one right on the jaw for — “
He stopped — stopped because with staggering suddenness the hard, hard realization struck that she meant it. This was no girl raised in a refined school, who wouldn’t dare to shoot, but a cold-blooded young creature, who had already proved the metalliclike fabric of which her courage was made.
He had never had any notions about the superiority of man over woman; and he felt none now. Without a single word, almost hastily, he handed the weapon over. The girl took it, and said coldly:
“You seem to be laboring under the illusion that your entry into the spaceship enabled me to raise my weapon. You’re quite mistaken. What you did do was to provide me with the opportunity to let them think that that was the situation, and that they dominated it. But I assure you, that is the extent of your assistance, almost valueless.”
Leigh laughed out loud, a pitying, ridiculing laugh.
“In my admittedly short life,” he said laconically, “I’ve learned to recognize a quality of personality and magnetism in human beings. You’ve got it, a lot of it, but not a fraction of what either of those two had, particularly the man. He was terrible. He was absolutely the most abnormally magnetic human being I’ve ever run across. Lady, I can only guess what all this is about, but I’d advise you” — Leigh paused, then finished slashingly - “you and all the other Kluggs to stay away from that couple.
“Personally, I’m going to get the police in on this, and there’s going to be a raid on Private 3. I didn’t like that odd threat that they could capture me any time. Why me — “
He broke off hastily: “Hey, where are you going? I want to know your name. I want to know what made you think you could order those two around. Who did you think you were?”
He said no more, his whole effort concentrated on running. He could see her for a moment, a hazy, boyish figure against a dim corner light. Then she was around the corner.
His only point of contact with all this; and if she got away — Sweating, he rounded the corner; and at first the street seemed dark arid empty of life. Then he saw the car.
A normal-looking, high-hooded coupe, long, low-built, that began to move forward noiselessly and — quite normally.
It became abnormal. It lifted. Amazingly, it lifted from the ground. He had a swift glimpse of white rubber wheels folding out of sight. Streamlined, almost cigar-shaped n
ow, the spaceship that had been a car darted at a steep angle into the sky.
Instantly it was gone.
Above Leigh, the gathering night towered, a strange, bright blue. In spite of the brilliant lights of the city glaring into the sky, one or two stars showed. He stared up at them, empty inside, thinking: “It was like a dream. Those — Dreeghs — coming out of space — bloodsuckers, vampires.”
Suddenly hungry, he bought a chocolate from a sidewalk stand, and stood munching it.
He began to feel better. He walked over to a nearby wall socket, and plugged in his wrist radio.
“Jim,” he said. “I’ve got some stuff, not for publication, but maybe we can get some police action on it. Then I want you to have a mechanical psychologist sent to my hotel room. There must be some memory that can be salvaged from my brain — “
He went on briskly. His sense of inadequacy waned notably. Reporter Leigh was himself again.
5
The little glistening balls of the mechanical psychologist were whirring faster, faster. They became a single, glowing circle in the darkness. And not till then did the first, delicious whiff of psycho-gas touch his nostrils. He felt himself drifting, slipping — A voice began to speak in the dim distance, so far away that not a word came through. There was only the sound, the faint, curious sound, and the feeling, stronger every instant, that he would soon be able to hear the fascinating things it seemed to be saying.
The longing to hear, to become a part of the swelling, murmuring sound drew his whole being in little rhythmical, wavelike surges. And still the promise of meaning was unfulfilled.
Other, private thoughts ended utterly. Only the mindless chant remained, and the pleasing gas holding him so close to sleep, its flow nevertheless so delicately adjusted that his mind hovered minute after minute on the ultimate abyss of consciousness.
He lay, finally, still partially awake, but even the voice was merging now into blackness. It clung for a while, a gentle, friendly, melodious sound in the remote background of his brain, becoming more remote with each passing instant. He slept, a deep, hypnotic sleep, as the machine purred on — When Leigh opened his eyes, the bedroom was dark except for the floor lamp beside a corner chair. It illuminated the darkly dressed woman who sat there, all except her face, which was in shadow above the circle of light.
He must have moved, for the shadowed head suddenly looked up from some sheets of typewriter-size paper. The voice of Merla, the Dreegh, said:
“The girl did a very good job of erasing your subconscious memories. There’s only one possible clue to her identity and — “
Her words went on, but his brain jangled them to senselessness in that first horrible shock of recognition. It was too much, too much fear in too short a time. For a brief, terrible moment, he was like a child, and strange, cunning, intense thoughts of escape came:
If he could slide to the side of the bed, away from where she was sitting, and run for the bathroom door — “Surely, Mr. Leigh,” the woman’s voice reached toward him, “you know better than to try anything foolish. And, surely, if I had intended to kill you, I would have done it much more easily while you were asleep.”
Leigh lay very still, gathering his mind back into his head, licking dry lips. Her words were utterly unreassuring. “What — do — you — want?” he managed finally.
“Information!” Laconically. “What was that girl?”
“I don’t know.” He stared into the half gloom, where her face was. His eyes were more accustomed to the light now, and he could catch the faint, golden glint of her hair. “I thought — you knew.”
He went on more swiftly: “I thought you knew the Galactic Observer; and that implied the girl could be identified any time.”
He had the impression she was smiling. She said:
“Our statement to that effect was designed to throw both you and the girl off guard, and constituted the partial victory we snatched from what had become an impossible situation.”
The body sickness was still upon Leigh, but the desperate fear that had produced it was fading before the implications of her confession of weakness, the realization that these Dreeghs were not so superhuman as he had thought. Relief was followed by caution. Careful, he warned himself, it wouldn’t be wise to underestimate. But he couldn’t help saying:
“So you weren’t so smart. And I’d like to point out that even your so-called snatching of victory from defeat was not so well done. Your husband’s statement that you could pick me up any time could easily have spoiled the picking.”
The woman’s voice was cool, faintly contemptuous. “If you knew anything of psychology, you would realize that the vague phrasing of the threat actually lulled you. Certainly, you failed to take even minimum precautions. And the girl has definitely not made any effort to protect you.”
The suggestion of deliberately subtle tactics brought to Leigh a twinge of returning alarm. Deep, deep inside him was the thought: What ending did the Dreegh woman plan for this strange meeting?
“You realize, of course,” the Dreegh said softly, “that you will either be of value to us alive — or dead. There are no easy alternatives. I would advise alertness and utmost sincerity in your cooperation. You are in this affair without limit.”
So that was the plan. A thin bead of perspiration trickled down Leigh’s cheek. And his fingers trembled as he reached for a cigarette on the table beside the bed.
He was shakily lighting the cigarette when his gaze fastened on the window. That brought a faint shock, for it was raining, a furious rain that hammered soundlessly against the noise-proof glass.
He pictured the bleak, empty streets, their brilliance dulled by the black, rain-filled night; and, strangely, the mind picture unnerved him.
Deserted streets — deserted Leigh. For he was deserted here; all the friends he had, scattered over the great reaches of the earth, couldn’t add one ounce of strength, or bring one real ray of hope to him in this darkened room, against this woman who sat so calmly under the light, studying him from shadowed eyes.
With a sharp effort, Leigh steadied himself. He said: “I gather that’s my psychograph report you have in your hand. What does it say?”
“Very disappointing.” Her voice seemed far away. “There’s a warning in it about your diet. It seems your meals are irregular.”
She was playing with him. The heavy attempt at humor made her seem more inhuman, not less; for, somehow, the words clashed unbearably with the reality of her; the dark immensity of space across which she had come, the unnatural lusts that had brought her and the man to this literally unprotected Earth.
Leigh shivered. Then he thought fiercely: “Damn it, I’m scaring myself. So long as she stays in her chair, she can’t pull the vampire on me.”
The harder thought came that it was no use being frightened. He’d better simply be himself, and await events. Aloud, he said:
“If there’s nothing in the psychograph, then I’m afraid I can’t help you. You might as well leave. Your presence isn’t making me any happier.”
In a dim way, he hoped she’d laugh. But she didn’t. She sat there, her eyes glinting dully out of the gloom. At last, she said:
“We’ll go through this report together. I think we can safely omit the references to your health as being irrelevant. But there are a number of factors that I want developed. Who is Professor Ungarn?”
“A scientist.” Leigh spoke frankly. “He invented this system of mechanical hypnosis, and he was called in when the dead bodies were found because the killings seemed to have been done by perverts.”
“Have you any knowledge of his physical appearance?”
“I’ve never seen him,” Leigh said more slowly. “He never gives interviews, and his photograph is not available now. I’ve heard stories, but — “
He hesitated. It wasn’t, he thought frowning, as if he was giving what was not general kno
wledge. What was the woman getting at, anyway? Ungarn — “These stories,” she said, “do they give the impression that he’s a man of inordinate magnetic force, but with lines of mental suffering etched in his face, and a sort of resignation?”
“Resignation to what?” Leigh exclaimed sharply. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. I’ve only seen photographs, and they show a fine, rather sensitive, tired face.”
She said: “There would be more information in any library?”
“Or in the Planetarian Service morgue,” Leigh said, and could have bitten off his tongue for that bit of gratuitous information.
“Morgue?” said the woman.
Leigh explained, but his voice was trembling with self-rage. For seconds now the feeling had been growing on him: Was it possible this devilish woman was on the right track? And getting damaging answers out of him because he dared not stop and organize for lying.
Even as savage anxiety came, he had an incongruous sense of the unfairness of the abnormally swift way she had solved the Observer’s identity because, damn it, damn it, it could be Professor Ungarn.
Ungarn, the mystery scientist, great inventor in a dozen highly complicated, widely separated fields; and there was that mysterious meteorite home near one of Jupiter’s moons and he had a daughter, named Patricia. Good heavens, Patrick — Patricia — His shaky stream of thoughts ended, as the woman said:
“Can you have your office send the information to your recorder here?”
“Y-yes!” His reluctance was so obvious that the woman bent into the light. For a moment, her golden hair glittered; her pale-blue eyes glowed at him in a strangely humorless, satanic amusement.
“Ah!” she said, “you think so, too?”
She laughed, an odd, musical laugh — odd in that it was at once so curt and so pleasant. The laugh ended abruptly, unnaturally, on a high note. And then — although he had not seen her move — there was a metal thing in her hand, pointing at him. Her voice came at him, with a brittle, jarring command:
“You will climb out of the bed, operate the recorder, and naturally you will do nothing, say nothing but what is necessary.”
Adventures in Time and Space Page 79
