Broom paid and got out, watching the cab slide hurriedly off and vanish into the dark. He stood briefly letting the cool wind play against his ruddy cheeks and ruffle his beard. He was smiling.
This was a warehouse district.
The mighty buildings towered like mountains into the night sky, where stars showed in the narrow purple cracks above. Luminous light-bands glowed on the curbs. Broom kept well away from them as he walked toward 96th.
As he expected, Cheever was standing there, shivering in spite of his heavy overcoat. He turned, startled, at sight of Broom, and then recognition came into his face.
“You’re—”
“Give me your coat.”
“You were in the bar with me. Are you from—is it about Marla? I don’t understand this—”
Broom peeled the coat from the other’s shoulders and donned it himself. It was too small. Seams ripped. Nevertheless he struggled into it.
CHEEVER was watching him.
“What about Marla?”
“Go home,” Broom said.
“But—no, listen! How do I know you’re the man I was to meet? They said they’d pick me up. That meant a car.”
And a car was coming. Its dimmed lights showed in the distance. Broom carefully gauged distance and threw his fist against Cheever’s jaw. Cheever collapsed. Broom dragged him into the shadows and left him. Then, donning the other man’s hat, he pulled it low over his eyes, hid his beard in his overcoat lapels, and stepped to the curb.
The car was a convertible flying model, big, dark and sleek. It pulled up, and Broom felt keen eyes on him.
“Cheever,” he said.
“Alone?”
The voice was hard, metallic, and toneless.
“Yes.”
“Get in.”
A door gaped. Broom’s eyes were adjusting themselves to the dark. Two men were in the rear compartment, and one in the driver’s seat. Big men—and light glinted on their guns, stray beams reflected from the curb glowstrip.
Broom bent his head and entered. The two men moved aside on the seat to make room for him. He sat down, his hands, hidden by the coat, feeling for gun and knife.
The car slid forward, went antigravity, and zoomed upward.
The man at Broom’s left said, “Let’s take a look at you. And frisk him, Jerry, while you’re at it.”
“What for?” Jerry said.
He doubled up with a coughing moan as the silent electrogun blasted through the heavy fabric of the overcoat. Broom knew where to aim. The charge angled up through the man’s ribs and found his heart. He died instantly.
The other man—
The knife was held in Broom’s left hand, his thumb pressed firmly over the hilt’s top, and he drove it up, in a deep, slicing thrust, at the man’s belly. The blazing cold shock of agony choked the victim before he could scream. And, as he tried to breathe, the sharp blade plunged again, and he died.
The aircar was above the buildings now, heading west. The pilot turned his head, peered through the gloom, and opened his mouth. He didn’t close it.
He kicked out, setting the ship to automatic control, and went for his gun, writhing swiftly in his seat. Broom was still holding his electropistol. Instead of firing, he gun-whipped the other. The cartilege of the pilot’s nose ripped; blood streamed from his face; he was smashed back against the windslip transparent panel.
That gave Broom time to carry the fight into his opponent’s territory. He was leaning over the back of the front seat when the pilot, shaking his head and cursing thickly, lifted his hand to aim the gun. Broom’s knife came down, cutting across the other’s arm midway between elbow and wrist.
The man screamed.
BROOM caught the gun as it fell.
His face had not changed. He listened impassively to oaths that changed gradually to gasping pleas.
“—God, I’ll bled to death! Gimme a chance! You cut my arm off—”
“Where is Marla Cheever?” Broom said.
“—my arm! Jeez, you can’t—you can’t—”
Broom caught the wounded arm and twisted. His blue eyes had an unpleasant, withdrawn glitter.
When the man had stopped screaming, he asked again, “Where is Marla Cheever?”
There was the sound of harsh breathing. “I—I don’t know. No—don’t! Don’t! It’s the truth! I was supposed to televise Nichols—”
“Who is Nichols?”
“I don’t know. He never shows his face on the visor screen. I—I—”
“Take me to him.”
“But—I don’t know where he is!”
“Find out.”
“Ah-h! Uh . . . okay. Okay. I’ll try. Only don’t—”
Broom watched the car slant down toward a rooftop. His victim got out, nursing his arm, from which blood was still flowing. It was dark up here, the distant lights of the downtown district a flaming corona against the sky. Once the rocket-jets of a space ship made a comet streak up from the horizon.
The pilot led the way down a staircase, unlocked a door, and let Broom into a small apartment. Broom pointed to the televisor against the wall.
“I’ll bleed to death! For God’s sake—”
Broom yanked the man into the bathroom, ripped down a curtain, and improvised a tourniquet. He used cold water to swab blood roughly from the man’s face.
“Get Nichols.”
THE pilot dragged himself to the televisor and spun a number. The screen lit up, but no face showed on it. A clipped voice said, “Well?”
“This is—Macklin. I—I’ve got to see you—”
“Impossible. Where’s Cheever?” Macklin flashed a glance of terrified appeal at Broom. The televisor said, “somebody’s there with you. What’s happened? You’re bleeding—”
Quick suspicion showed in the precise voice. Broom watched the screen suddenly fade into dull blankness. He pushed Macklin aside and called Hiram Gale, at the laboratories. “Gale?”
“Here. How is it?”
“Trace this number.” Broom gave it.
“All right. I’ll call you back. Where are you? Uptown seven—eh? Right; I’ve got it. Hang on.” Broom and Macklin waited. The pilot was shaking. He fumbled out a cigarette, but couldn’t light it. Broom didn’t offer to help.
Presently the visor hummed again. Gale said, “Got it. Apartment four, eighty-three Upper Parkway. Phil Hammond owns the penthouse in that building. That what you want?”
“Yes,” Broom said. He turned away, picked up Macklin by the
scruff of the neck, and dragged him up to the roof. The air-car was still there.
“Eighty-three Upper Parkway. Go there.”
Macklin opened his mouth and closed it again. He got silently into the pilot’s seat and sent the ship slanting up. Broom, beside him, fondled his beard with a bloodstained hand. The pale blue eyes were quite expressionless.
They landed in a parking-lot not far from their destination. The attendant was busy elsewhere, and Macklin turned to his companion with a questioning glance.
“You’ll let me go now?”
For answer Broom’s huge hand closed on the pilot’s throat. After a time he let go, climbed out of the car, and walked quietly toward the street. There was a movable way here. He seated himself on one of the benches and let the strip carry him along.
He got off a few blocks away, at 83 Upper Parkway. A visiplate was set above the door, and Broom rang the buzzer numbered four. The plate lighted. Nichols’ familiar clipped tones said, “Who is it?”
“Cheever.”
“You’re not Cheever.”
“Cheever sent me.”
There was a pause. “Oh. You’re alone, I see. All right, come in.” Broom obeyed. Along the hall a door was opening. He pushed through it, thrusting back a small, ferret-faced man. Almost absently, almost without looking, Broom sank his knife into the man’s body between clavicle and neck.
ACROSS the room was someone at a desk, arranging vials and syringes on a napkin before him.
He was almost as big as Broom, but an albino, white-haired and with pale, pinkish eyes.
Standing beside him was a squat, ugly fellow resembling a hairless gorilla. He was reaching for his gun when Broom put an electro-charge through his heart. The man at the desk ducked down and was hidden from sight.
Broom crossed the room in two jumps and heaved the desk over. A weapon glinted in his opponent’s hand. The man was momentarily held down by the heavy desk, but his gun was swinging around to aim point-blank at Broom.
Broom smashed his foot down on that menacing hand. The man screamed and let go. Broom pulled the desk away, sat on the other man’s chest, and laid the point of his knife against the pulsing throat.
“Where is Marla Cheever?” he said.
“I—I don’t know what you’re—” Broom smashed his open hand down, hard, on the other’s face. After that, it wasn’t a face any more. Broom’s big palm kept the albino from yelling.
“Where is Marla Cheever?”
The man gasped something thickly. Broom removed his improvised gag.
“This won’t get you anywhere, damn you! If Cheever wants his daughter alive, he’ll do what we want! And he’ll pay for what you’ve done!”
“Where is Marla Cheever?”
The albino coughed blood. “Tough guy—eh? Marla’s safe. But she won’t be unless you. . . . Let me up!” Broom stepped back and let Nichols rise. Holding a red handkerchief to his mouth, the man said, “You can’t get Marla this way. If Cheever wants his daughter tortured—”
Broom’s blue eyes showed sudden, merciless laughter. He shot out his hand, swung Nichols around, and bent the albino’s up behind his back. Nichols squealed, but Broom’s palm instantly stifled his cry.
“Torture,” Broom said. “Yes.”
“—uh—break my arm ah-h!”
“Where is Marla Cheever?”
The sweat of agony dripped from the albino’s forehead. And there was stark, disbelieving amazement mixed with the pain in his expression. He gasped, “You—didn’t hear me—I said—we’d torture—the girl—”
“No,” Broom said. “You. Where is she?”
NICHOLS held out for a while Broom was merciless. The albino could talk glibly about torture, but he himself had never experienced it.
Ten minutes later, his arm broken, his lips bitten through, he pulled himself to the televisor and called a number.
“Nichols?”
Nothing showed on the screen.
“Y-yes. Let the girl go. Let her go!”
“Something wrong? Did Cheever—”
Broom moved gently. Nichols winced. His voice broke with hysteria.
“Cheever did what we wanted! Let her go, d’you hear? Right now!”
“All right, if you say so. Quick work, eh?”
Broom broke the connection. Nichols staggered to a chair and sat down, making hoarse, animal sounds. Broom watched him impassively. “Who pays you?” he asked finally. “Hammond. Phil Hammond. I—I’ll testify in court—”
“No,” Broom said. “Wait.”
A half hour later he televized Hiram Gale. The little scientist was grinning triumphantly.
“Broom? She’s back. Just showed up. They let her go.”
“Yes. Cheever?”
“He’s here, too. A guard found him on the street, slugged unconscious. What now?”
“Wait,” Broom said.
Nichols looked up. The big bearded man was leveling a gun at him.
Nichols gasped and tried to fling himself aside. “Don’t,” he shrilled. “I’ll testify—I’ll sign a confession—”
“Why?” Broom asked.
“You can’t kill me—like this—”
“Why not?”
He shot Nichols neatly through the head. Then he left the apartment and took the pneumo-lift to the penthouse. A butler met him at the door, staring, astonished, at the great blood-stained figure.
“Sir?”
“Hammond.”
“If you’ll wait—”
Broom laid his fist against the butler’s jaw. He stepped over the man’s prone body and called, “Hammond!”
“In here,” a voice said from beyond an open door.
THE penthouse was big and luxurious. The city’s lights gleamed like a fantastic firefly garden through the great windows. Hammond was in an oak-paneled room, a gray, quiet little man drinking brandy and puffing at an ancient pipe. Tapestries of Bayonne and Gobelin hung from the walls. Antique armor and arms were here and there, hauberks, swords, maces, misericordias, and the like. Underfoot the carpet was a rich, deep Bokhara.
Hammond looked at the big man on the threshold.
“I don’t know you,” he said.
“No.”
“What do you want?”
“I am fighting for Cheever,” Broom said, “—and for some others.”
The gray eyebrows rose. Hammond sighed.
“By your appearance, you seem to have befallen among thieves. You are—wait. I remember. You are one of Hiram Gale’s assistants. He hired you a few weeks ago.
Broom nodded.
“I see. And some—thugs—have tried to persuade you to give up your job? Is that it? Well, why do you come here?”
“To stop you.”
Hammond chuckled. “That’s been tried, my friend. It’s impossible. I’m fairly rich, and fairly powerful. What do you expect to accomplish?”
“Your death,” Broom said.
There was a pause.
“Don’t be a fool,” Hammond said shortly. “You’re not insane. That’s no way to settle matters—”
“It is your way.”
“Proof. Proof, my good man. Show me one iota of legal proof—” Broom lifted his gun. Hammond’s pipe fell from his mouth. His hand shook as he put down the brandy napoleon.
“Wait,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “You’re crazy. This isn’t—justice—”
“Justice?” Broom hesitated. His gaze swept around the room. Coming to a decision, he pocketed his electro-gun, stepped to a wall, and tore down two great swords. One of these he tossed toward Hammond. It fell ringing at the gray man’s feet. “Here is justice,” Broom said. Hammond licked dry lips. “You can’t do this,” he said. “You can’t come into my home and—and—”
“Trial by battle,” Broom said. “Take up your sword.”
“I won’t. You won’t kill an unarmed man!”
“A coward is not a man.” Hammond’s frantic eyes flicked about, searching. Broom stood leaning on his sword. Abruptly the gray man swooped down, snatched up his weapon, and drove in a vicious, below-guard thrust at Broom’s belly.
Broom parried the blow. His own blade swept around, flaming like living light, singing like a harp. The look of blank, disbelieving astonishment was still on Hammond’s face when the gray man’s head leaped from his shoulders in a spouting fountain of scarlet.
Broom wiped his sword carefully, replaced it on the wall, and let himself out of the apartment.
HIRAM GALE and Cheever were in the physicist’s laboratory. Gale was making adjustments on a cubical device, complicated and esoteric, and flinging occasional remarks over his shoulder as he worked.
“All right,” he said. “So Hammond was found dead a couple of hours ago. What about it?”
“His head was cut off!” Cheever said, white-lipped. “In this day and age—”
“A crime wave, eh? I’ve heard other reports, too. You got your daughter back, didn’t you?”
“Yes. And Pm grateful to this man Broom for that. But Hiram—it’s savage, uncivilized, inhuman!”
“So was Hammond’s organization. He went back to the twentieth century for his tactics. But he made a big mistake.” Gale turned a helix, checking it with a micrometer.
“Eh? What was that?”
“His thugs weren’t so tough. They had a veneer of savagery overlying a core of civilization. It was simply a problem of finding someone tougher than they were. Such criminals can’t be fought except on th
eir own ground, Jay. The world must learn that. Hammond expected we’d give in—or fight him in the courts. He counted on that. He didn’t count on an opponent a lot tougher and quicker on the draw than his own men. He didn’t count on a man who was savage to the core.”
“A—a murderer!”
Gale shook his head solemnly. “You must learn. The world must learn, too. Men like Hammond must be wiped out. Yes, Broom is a murderer, but he came from a place where murder was natural—where standards of ethics were quite different from ours. In Hammond’s organization he saw something he understood—something he knew how to fight—and so he did it, in his own way. The way that worked, when steel could cut through red tape.”
The cubical device lighted; a pale cloud grew within it. Gale called sharply.
Richard Broom appeared through a distant doorway. He had not troubled to change his clothing or remove bloodstains. Beard bristling, he hurried toward the two men, blue eyes alight.
“Is it finished, Gale?”
“Yes. You have my gratitude. You have won a crusade for us.”
Broom laughed. “This a crusade? These puny fools? Faith, they were nothing. But for the rest, I like not wizardry, and I like not this strange world of yours. I would as soon be in my prison again, held by the Duke, as learn your altered tongue and your curious weapons. A sword is best, after all. But—well, you asked my aid, and now you have had it. So God be with you.”
He gripped Gale’s hand. The scientist, hobbling on his crutches, turned to the machine and swung a lever. The cloud within the cubicle thinned.
Beyond, dimly glimpsed, were stone walls hung with tapestries. All was cloudy and dark. It is hard to see into the past. . . .
But Broom, with a flashing smile for Gale, stepped through and was gone. The mist thickened again and faded. Then where the vision had been was nothing.
Gale met Cheever’s wide eyes, and laughed a little.
“You’ve guessed it, Jay. A time machine. I told you I was fooling with more than one gadget. . . . I picked Broom out of the past weeks ago, and asked his help. It took a while to train him to cope with modern civilization—but he had his own standards of ethics, and they were the right ones to use against Hammond.”
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