"That's pretty good reason why they should not come back to shut up the witness," Jameson pointed out. "They don't care enough to bother."
"It's nothing of the sort. It's an argument against your supposition that Alderson's death should be their primary concern. I reckon they've a worry far bigger."
"Such as what?"
"Fear of being identified too soon. At this stage, they don't want to be recognized and pursued. They need time to do whatever they've come here to do."
"Since you're so well-informed," commented Jameson, ' Perhaps you can reveal their purpose in coming."
"God alone knows; but it's a dirty one. Why else should they try do it on the sly? An honest.motive warrants an open approach."
"You may be making the very same mistake that you've just tied onto me," said Jameson. "You're weighing them up in human terms. That's not a good way of judging alien purposes, is it?"
Harper sniffed his contempt. "In so far as their actions affect us, we must look at them from our own viewpoint. It may well be that they are justifiably rated as the greatest adventurers and biggest patriots in Venusian history. But if their loyal shenanigans are going to cost me a toenail, they're a trio of prize stinkers so far as I'm concerned."
"I agree with you there."
"All right. Now that old geezer at the filling station cannot possibly finger them for the murder of Alderson. The most he can do with respect to that is point suspiciously. His evidence wouldn't hang them in a month of Sundays" He leaned forward, gaze intent. "But what he can do is exactly what we're trying to get him to do right now. He can look at three pictures, give the nod and start the hunt. There's only one sure way to prevent him, and that is by closing his trap for keeps before it's too late."
"That's clear enough reasoning," said Jameson, "but it has one major flaw."
"What is it?"
"All the news.channels have publicized details of both the Alderson and Whittingham killings. Everyone from coast to coast knows that you're wanted for the latter, and suspected of the former. The three fugitives know that they fit in this picture and that, in any event, your witness's description of them would fit a thousand others. There's nothing whatever in the news to suggest the remotest likelihood of a witness being shown photographs dug out of confidential files in Washington. So why should they deduce that possibility?"'
"Because I shot down the Whittingham girl."
"I don't understand," confessed Jameson, frowning.
"Look, I've given you the facts as I saw them. They picked up that girl for some reason or other — probably because the opportunity presented itself, and they wanted to try their technique. Anyway, they turned her into another of their own kind. She ceased to be Jocelyn Whittingham, but continued to masquerade as such. Don't ask me how it was done because I don't know, and can't guess."
"Well?"
"The big question now is: were they able to learn and remember that girl's Earth-identity? Or was it something they failed to record — either because they viewed it as of no consequence, or because it — was incomprehensible to them?"
"Go on," Jameson encouraged.
"If they don't know her identity, the news of her death will mean nothing to them. It will look just like any other sordid murder, and they won't realize that they're linked with it in any way. But if they do know her identity—"
"For crime's sake, don't keep me in suspense," pleaded Jameson.
"The killing will get them onto their roller skates and going at top speed. They'll want to know why she was killed. They can see with half an eye that real knowledge of their presence will inevitably be linked with that space-expedition, and they'll be eager to find out whether there's time to break the linkage by cutting a couple of throats."
"Including yours."
"Yes. I'm the sacrificial goat. The news-channels have shouted my name and address all over the shop, and invited them to come and get me — if they can. It won't be a quick death, either."
"What makes you say that?"
"So far as I can guess, they've one weapon, and one only — but it's a formidable one. They can double as human beings, without possibility of detection except by some freak like myself. It's of the greatest importance to them to find out how I did it; they can't counter, a menace without knowing the nature of it. They will have to get the truth out of me in any way it can be done. Otherwise, there's no telling how many more people can tag them, or when the next moment will be their last. Their lives wouldn't be worth living."
"Telepaths aren't ten a penny," Jameson pointed out. "You've said so yourself."
"But they don't know that. They're left guessing, in circumstances where no guess is too farfetched. To them, it might well be that every red-haired human can smell them — and there are a deuce of a lot of redheads around. They've got to know how it's done."
"You're no carrot-top," said Jameson, "but if someday we find you lying around without your scalp we'll consider it fair evidence of your veracity."
"Thanks," conceded Harper. "You boys have a good time over my body. Enjoy a few hearty laughs, while there remains something to snicker about. Won't be long before you'll wish you were me!"
"You know I was only ribbing. I—"
He grabbed the phone before it had time to give a proper whirr, held it to his ear. Harper came to his feet, looking anticipatory.
"Same as before," Jameson told him, replacing the instrument and reaching for his hat. "They want us over at once. We might as well have stayed there in the first place."
"Something has broken," declared Harper, as they hustled outside and clambered into the car. "If those pics had proved to be duds, they'd have said so, with acid for sauce. They wouldn't drag us ten blocks merely to tell us the check proved a flop."
8. Conscripted
There were only two men waiting this time. One had stem, leathery features famous throughout the world: General Conway, tall, gray-haired, distinguished. The other one was Benfield, now decidedly grim.
"So!" rumbled General Conway, fixing Harper with a cold eye. "You are the mind-reader?"
"Putting it that way makes me seem like a vaudeville act," said Harper, far from overawed.
"Quite probably," agreed the general, thinking it wasn't so far removed, either. He examined the other carefully, from the shoes up, letting his gaze linger longest on a pair of thick and exceedingly hairy wrists. His mental diagnosis was not flattering: it determined the subject to be a powerful and presumably intelligent man, who would have the misfortune to look like an ape when in officer's uniform. Too broad, squat and hirsute to fit the part of a captain or colonel.
Harper said informatively, "That's nothing; you ought to see me naked. I resemble a curly rug. Hence the word rugged."
The general stiffened authoritatively. Jameson looked appalled. Benfield was too preoccupied to have any reaction.
"If you know what is in my mind, there's little need to speak," declared General Conway. "What does it tell you?"
"An awful ruckus has started," replied Harper, without hesitation. "And I'm certified sane."
The other nodded. "Your witness has confirmed that the men in that car were the same three who set out for Venus about eighteen months ago. The F.B.I, is following their trail forward and backward, and already has found two more witnesses who say the same." He rested on a table-edge, folded his arms, gazed steadily at his listener. "This is a most serious business."
"It'll get worse," Harper promised, "if that is any consolation."
"This is a poor time for levity," reproved the general. "We are treating the matter with the importance it deserves. All forces of law and order in the west are combining in an effort to trace that Thunderbug back to its starting-point, in the hope that the ship may be located in that area. A forward trace is also being made, despite the fact that it's likely to prove futile, the machine having been abandoned by this time."
"Neither the ship nor the car matters very much. It's those three rampaging—"
"Good enough," approved Harper. "So this is where I go out."
"On the contrary, this is where you stay in. We have you, and we intend to keep you. There's a war on, and you're drafted."
"Then I apply for indeterminate leave forthwith."
"Permission denied," snapped Conway, too concerned even to smile. He walked around the table, sat down behind it, let' his fingers tap restlessly on its surface. "The air forces are out in full strength scouting for that ship. Every civilian plane that can be mustered is under orders to assist. We have confiscated the bodies of that girl and the trooper, and handed them over to scientists for special examination. Everything that can be done has been or soon will be done. The issue of the moment is that of how to deal with you."
"Me?"
"Yes. There are a lot of questions that must he answered. Have you any explanation of your telepathic power? Can you say how it originated?"
"No."
"It just happened?"
"So far as I can recall, I was born that way."
"H'm!" Conway was dissatisfied. "We are making exhaustive search into the backgrounds of your parents and grandparents. If possible, we must discover the reason why you are what you are."
"Personally," remarked Harper, "I couldn't care less about the reason. It has never interested me."
"It interests us. We must determine, as soon as we can, whether any more of your kind may be hanging around and, if so, in what number. Also, whether there is any positive method of finding them and conscripting them until this crisis is over."
"After which, they in turn will be treated from the crisis viewpoint," thrust Harper. "And your big problem will be how to put them out of hum's way until such time as they may be needed again."
"Now see here—"
"I know what you're thinking, and you cannot conceal it from me. I know that authority is squatting on the horns of a large and sharp-pointed dilemma. A telepath is a menace to those in power, but a protection against foes such as we are facing right now. You cannot destroy the menace without depriving yourselves of the protection. You cannot ensure mental privacy except at the prospective price of mental slavery. You're in a first-class jam that doesn't really exist because it's purely imaginary, and born of the conditioning of non-telepathic minds."
Conway made no attempt to dispute this vigorous revealing of his thoughts. He sat in silence, his cold attention on Harper, and spoke only when he had finished.
"And what makes you say that there is no such quandary?"
"Because all the irrational bigots swarming on this cockeyed world invariably jump to the conclusion that anyone radically different from themselves must be bad. It inflates badly shrivelled egos to look at things that way. Every man his own paragon of virtue and goodness." He glowered at General Conway and said with ire, "A telepath has a code of ethics fully as good as anyone else's, and perhaps a damn-sight better because he has to beat off more temptation. I don't listen unless circumstances make it necessary. I don't hear unless I'm shouted at."
The other was blunt enough to appreciate straight talk; he was openly impressed. Leaning back in his chair, Conway surveyed Harper afresh.
"We've done a great deal of checking on you already. You heard Trooper Alderson from a distance of approximately six hundred yards. Without listening, I presume?"
"I heard his death-cry. On the neural band, it's as effective as a scream; I couldn't help hearing."
"You have helped nail a number of wanted criminals, and it is now obvious how you did it. But you never listen?"
"Guilt yells across the street. Fear bellows like an angry bull."
"Is there anything that broadcasts on a level sufficiently muted to escape your attention?"
"Yes — ordinary, everyday, innocent thoughts."
"You do not listen to those?"
"Why on earth should I bother? Do you try to sort out every spoken word from the continual hum of conversation around you in a restaurant? Does a busy telephone operator take time off to absorb the babble going through her switchboard? If I went around trying to pick up everything that's going on, I'd have qualified for a straitjacket ten years ago. Continual, ceaseless mental yap can torture a telepath unless he closes his mind to it."
By now, Conway was three-quarters convinced. His mind had made considerable readjustment. He resumed his table-tapping, cast an inquiring glance at Benfield and Jameson. They immediately put on the blank expressions of impartial onlookers, not qualified to make decisions.
"I understand," continued Conway, "that to date you have not encountered another telepath?"
"No," agreed Harper regretfully.
"But if two of you passed by.without listening, neither of you would become aware of the other's existence?"
"I suppose so; but I couldn't swear to it. If we radiate more powerfully than the average human—"
"Yes, but your lack of contact is no proof of your uniqueness? For all we know to the contrary there may be fifty or a hundred telepaths in this very city?"
"I think it most unlikely, but wouldn't define it as impossible."
"What is your effective range?" asked Conway.
"About eight hundred yards. It varies from time to time. On rare occasions, I have received at three times that distance. Other times it drops to a hundred or less."
"Do you know the cause of such variation? Is it due to the nature of surroundings, blanking by big buildings, or anything similar?"
"I could not say for sure, not having subjected the matter to systematic test. Surroundings make no difference and that's all I'm certain about."
"But you have a theory?" Conway pressed.
"Yes," admitted Harper. "I suspect that on any given occasion, my range is determined by the amplitude of the other person's radiations. The more powerfully he broadcasts, the greater the distance over which I can pick him up. The weaker, the less distance. As I've said, it would require scientific tests to establish the truth or falsity of that notion."
"Are you willing to undergo such tests?"
"I am not," declared Harper.
"Why not?"
"The immediate problem is not that of what to do about telepaths; it's what to do about invading Venusians. Nobody is going to use me for a guinea pig."
"Don't view it in that light, Mr. Harper," Conway soothed. "We appreciate to the full the excellent part you have played. The trouble is that we're not satisfied. We want more of you. We want all you can give. In fact, we need it so badly that we demand it as of right."
"What do you require of me?"
"All the information we can get out of you now, and perhaps some action later."
"Go ahead. Let no man say Wade Harper was unable to suffer."
Conway signed to Benfield. "Switch on that tape-recorder." He returned his attention to Harper. "This one is of the utmost importance; I want you to answer it with the greatest clarity you can command. What impelled you to shoot Jocelyn Whittingham?"
"That's a tough question," Harper replied. "I cannot translate it into terms you understand; it's like trying to describe a rose to a man blind from birth."
"Never mind. Do your best."
"All right. It was somewhat like this: you're in your wife's bedroom. You notice a new and pretty jewel box on her dressing table. Full of curiosity, you open it. The thing contains a live whip snake. The snake sees you the same instant. It leaps out. Despite the shock, you act fast. You swipe it in mid-air, knock it to the floor, crush it under heel. That's how it was."
&nb
sp; "I see." Conway stared at him thoughtfully, then asked, "Can't you express it in a manner more in keeping with what actually happened?"
"She started up the steps. I knew she might be the girl I was seeking. I made a stab at her mind for the sole purpose of identifying her. The moment I touched, I realized what I had touched. At the same moment—"
"What did you touch?" inquired Conway.
"Something not human; I cannot describe it more accurately. I planted a telepathic hand fairly and squarely on the mental field of a non-human entity. At the same instant, it felt my touch. That was additional confirmation, if any were needed, because no normal human being can sense a telepathic probe. I realized several things in that split second: First, she didn't know whence the probe had come. She had no directional sense such as I possess. But she correctly assumed that it came from me, because I was in plain sight and already racing toward her."
"She did not know it was you?" repeated Conway. "You mean, she was in no way telepathic herself?"
"I hadn't any evidence of it. There was only that abnormal sensitivity which, I suppose, has been developed as a defense-mechanism somewhere else. She did know, beyond all doubt, that suddenly and without warning, a strange and dangerous mind had lifted her mask and seen beneath. She gave out a panicky thought that she must get away, she must warn the others that they're not as well-hidden as they think, that they can be exposed."
"A-a-ah!" Conway displayed hopefulness. "So she knew the precise location of these others? She knew how to get into touch with them?"
"If so," Harper, "her mind did not admit it. Things were moving fast. We were both thunderstruck by the encounter. Her mind was yelling, 'Escape, escape, escape!' while mine ordered imperatively, 'Stop her, stop, stop… kill, kill!' I shot her down without any compunctions whatsoever. I'd quite forgotten that she was a girl, or had been a girl. For the moment she was something else, something that had to be laid good and cold. I gave her the magazine right through the head. I heard the alien mentality cease sizzling and fade to nothingness. That showed it could die."
"Then you went away, without making further examination?"
Three to Conquer Page 7
