The Weapon Makers

by A. E. van Vogt

  In this case, they had indeed. Until this instant Hedrock had considered Neelan important because of the information he might have. He was impressed by the obviously tough fiber of the other’s character, but he had met so many hard and capable men in his long career that that quality of itself had not seemed of outstanding interest. The degree was. It changed his attitude. A man who knew atomic energy in the all embracing way it was taught at the great universities could practically name his own price if he went into industry. And if they ever found the interstellar drive he’d be of inestimable value. Accordingly, Neelan was a man to be cultivated. Hedrock began at once. He drew out of his pocket the slip of paper that had Kershaw’s last known address written on it. He handed it to Neelan with the remark, “That’s where we’re heading.”

  Neelan took the paper, and read it aloud, “Room 1874, Trellis Minor building—Good God!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’ve been there three times,” said Neelan. “I found the address in a suitcase my brother kept at the boarding house.”

  Hedrock could almost feel his search coming to a dead stop. Nevertheless, his comment went unerringly to the root of the other’s words, “Three times?” he said.

  “It’s a room,” Neelan said. “Every time I went there the door was locked. The building manager told me the rent had been paid ten years in advance, but that he hadn’t seen anyone there since the contract was signed. That was three years ago.”

  “But you didn’t go in?”

  “No, he wouldn’t let me, and I had no desire to get put in jail. And, besides, I don’t think I could have gotten in. The lock was a protected one.”

  Hedrock nodded thoughtfully. He had no intention of letting any lock stop him. But he could appreciate the obstacle that such devices presented to even the most determined men who lacked his facilities. There was another thought in his mind. Somewhere along here he would have to drop in at one of his apartments and don his “business” suit. It was desperately important that he protect himself, and yet, so long as the Weapon Shops could trace his movements he dared not slow his pace. In the final issue the half it would take to secure his own safety might make all the difference. Even a ten minute advantage in time could be decisive.

  The risks involved had to be taken.

  They came to where a hundred story building flashed up at them the sign: trellis major building. The wrongness of the name did not immediately strike Hedrock. He was only a few hundred yards above the stupendous structure when he saw the smaller, fifty story, spired monster that was the Trellis Minor Building. The sight jarred his memory. He recalled for the first time that Trellis Major and Minor were two meteors revolving around each other somewhere beyond Mars. The larger was contraterrene matter, the smaller terrene. They were being mined assiduously by a single company; and these massive buildings were but two by-products of the still un-ended treasure that flowed in a steady stream from that) remote region of solar space.

  Hedrock guided the carplane to a roof landing on the smaller building, and the two of them took an elevator down to the eighteenth floor. Hedrock needed only one glance at the outside of room 1874 to realize that it was indeed well protected. The door and its frame were of a steel-strong aluminum alloy. The lock was an electronic tube, and there was printing on it which read, “When tampered with, this lock mechanism flashes warnings in the office of the building manager, the local police station, and on all passing patrol planes.”

  The Weapon Shops had developed a dozen devices to circumvent such electronic circuits. The best one was the least complicated. It involved absolute faith in a curious characteristic of matter and energy. If a circuit was broken—or established—swiftly enough (the speeds involved were faster than light) the current would, in the former instance, continue to flow just as if there had been no break, and in the latter would establish a flow between two distant points in space just as if there was no distance. The phenomenon was no minor incident of science. The intricate matter transmitter that had made the Weapon Shops possible was based on it.

  Hedrock motioned Neelan back, and stepped close to the door. He used a different ring this time, and a glow of orange flame reflected for several feet from the point of contact. The light died into nothingness, and he shoved at the door. It opened with a faint squeal of its long unused hinges. Hedrock stepped across the threshold into an office twenty feet long by ten wide. There was a desk at one end, and several chairs as well as a small filing cabinet. In the corner beside the desk was a telestat, its plate blank and lifeless.

  The room was so bare, so obviously unlived in and unused that Hedrock walked forward a short distance and then stopped. Involuntarily, he turned to glance back at Neelan. The gambler was bending down beside the lock, studying it thoughtfully. He looked up at Hedrock, and shook his head wonderingly. “How did you do that?”

  It cost Hedrock a mental effort to realize that the other was referring to the way he had opened the door. He smiled, then said gravely, “I’m sorry, that’s a secret.” He added quickly, “Better come inside. We don’t want to rouse anyone’s suspicions.”

  Neelan straightened with alacrity, stepped into the room and closed the door. Hedrock said, “You take the desk, and I’ll examine the file cabinets. The faster we do this the better I’ll like it.”

  His own job was over in less than a minute. The file drawers were empty. He pushed the last one shut, and walked over to the desk. Neelan was peering into a bottom drawer, and Hedrock saw instantly that it was empty also. Neelan closed the drawer, and stood up.

  “That’s it,” he said. “What now?”

  Hedrock did not reply immediately. There were things that could still be done. There were probably new leads to be found in the terms of the lease under Which the room had been rented. A check-up could be made with the telestat company. What calls had been made from and to this office? Given time, he could probably re-establish a very solid trail.

  That was the trouble. Time was the one thing he didn’t have. Once more, standing there, he was amazed that the Weapon Shops had not caught up to him long before this, In the days when he had been head of the coordination department, he’d have had his facts about Kershaw within minutes of the first notification from the council. It seemed incredible that his successor, the able and brilliant No-man trainee, John Hale, was not equally successful. Whatever the meaning of the delay, it couldn’t possibly last much longer. The sooner he departed the better.

  He turned and started for the door. And stopped. Because if he left now where else would he go? Slowly, then, he straightened and faced the room again. Perhaps his search hadn’t been quite thorough enough. Perhaps in his anxiety he had overlooked the obvious.

  He would remain and find out.

  At first there was nothing. As his gaze moved from the window behind the desk, he rejected each object in turn: the desk with its empty drawers; the filing cabinet, also empty; the chairs, the room itself, barren except for a minimum of furniture and no mechanisms except a telestat. He paused there, “Telestat,” he said out loud. “Why, of course.”

  He started towards it, and then stopped as he grew aware of Neelan’s eyes following him questioningly. “Quick,” he said, “against the wall.” He motioned to the area behind the ’stat. “I don’t think he should see you.”

  “Who?” said Neelan. But he must have been convinced, for he walked to the indicated position.

  Hedrock switched on the ’stat. He was furious at himself for not having made the test on entering the room. For years he had lived in the Weapon Shop world of channeled ’stats, ’stats that were connected only in series, ’stats that did not have dial systems, and he had lived in his own secret world of private, building-to-building ’stats. And therefore his slow understanding of the possibilities of this ’stat was almost a form of suicide.

  A minute passed, and the plate remained blank. Two minutes—was that a sound? He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed to be coming from the speaker
, a padded movement as of—that was it—footsteps. They stopped abruptly, and there was silence. Hedrock tried to visualize a man staring uncertainly down at it undecided about answering it. The third minute went by. The sense of defeat began to weigh on him, for these were priceless minutes that were passing.

  At the end of five minutes, a man’s harsh voice said, “Yes, what is it?”

  The thrill of that reached clear down to Hedrock’s toes. He had his story prepared, but before he could reply the voice spoke again, more sharply, “Are you answering the ad? They told me it couldn’t go in till tomorrow. Why didn’t they ring me up and tell me they’d be able to get it in today?”

  He sounded furious, and once more he failed to wait for a reply. “Are you an atomic engineer?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Hedrock.

  It was easy to say. The swift, way the other had jumped to a false conclusion made it as simple as that to change the story he had organized. His intention had been to pass himself off as Dan Neelan and explain that he had found the address of this office in his brother’s personal effects. He had had in mind to be callous about his brother’s death, and take the attitude that his interest was in the estate. It had seemed reasonable to him, and still seemed so, that the reaction to such a frank account would be highly significant. It would either show friendly awareness of Gil Neelan’s brother—in which case he’d tone down the callousness—or unfriendly awareness. And if there was no recognition at all, that also would have a meaning.

  He waited, but not for long this time. “You must,” said the voice from the telestat, “be wondering the why of this queer method of employment.”

  Hedrock felt vaguely sorry for the man. The other was so sharply conscious of the queerness of his own actions that he took it for granted that everyone else was conscious of them also. The best method of dealing with such a projection was to play along with it. “I did wonder,” he said, “but I don’t really give a damn.”

  The man laughed, not too pleasantly. “Glad to hear that. I’ve got a job here that’ll take just about two months; and I’ll pay you eight hundred credits a week, and no questions asked. How's that?”

  More and more curious, Hedrock thought. It was a moment when caution would seem reasonable. He said slowly, “What is it you want me to do?”

  “Just What the ad said. Repair atomic motors. Well—” Peremptorily “—what do you say?”

  Hedrock asked the question, “Where do I report?”

  There was silence. “Not so fast,” the answer came at last. “I’m not going to hand out a lot of information, and then you not take the job. You realize that I’m paying you twice the going rate? Are you interested?”

  “It’s just the kind of job I’m looking for,” said Hedrock.

  He felt remote from the illegality that seemed to lie behind the other’s carefulness. Even Neelan’s problem was only incidental. There would be details of murder to investigate, but he who had watched generations of human beings die could never be too concerned with a few more dead men. His purposes were on a different level.

  The voice was saying, “Five blocks north along 131st Street. Then about nine blocks east to 1997 232nd Avenue, Center.

  It’s a tall, narrow, grayish building. You can’t miss it. Ring the bell, and wait for an answer. Get that?”

  Hedrock wrote the precious address down swiftly. “Got it,” he said finally. “When shall I report?”

  “Right away.” The voice was threatening. “Understand me, I don’t want you rushing off somewhere else. If you want this job you’ll come over by public carplane, and I know just how long it will take, so don’t try to fool me. I expect you over here in about ten minutes.”

  Hedrock thought, “My God. Am I never going to get back to my apartment?”

  Aloud he said, “I’ll be there.”

  He waited. The ’stat plate remained blank. Evidently, the other man was not interested in seeing what the applicant looked like. Abruptly, there was a click, and he knew that the connection had been broken.

  The interview was over.

  Quickly, he used one of his rings to insure that the telestat would not be used by anyone else—and turned as Neelan came forward. He was smiling, a lithely built man, almost as tall, almost as big as Hedrock himself. “Good work,” he said. “That was a smooth job. What was that address again? Ninety-seven what street?”

  Hedrock said, “Let’s get out of here.”

  His mind worked swiftly as they walked rapidly to the elevator. He had been wondering what he was going to do with Neelan. The man was valuable and might prove to be a wonderful ally for a normally lone operator like himself. But it was too soon to take him into confidence. Besides, there wasn’t time to make the detailed story out of it that would be necessary to gain Neelan’s support.

  As their elevator raced towards the roof, Hedrock said, “My idea is that you go back to the Linwood shop and pick up your mail, while I go and see the unpleasant individual I talked to. Afterwards rent a room at the Hotel Isher—I’ll call you there. That way we’ll do both jobs in half the time.”

  There was more to it than that. The sooner Neelan returned to the Weapon Shop the greater the likelihood that he would get there before the Weapon Shop search team. And if he waited in a hotel instead of his room, it would take just so much longer for any searchers to locate him. His failure to remember the address the voice had given made sending him considerably less dangerous.

  Neelan was speaking. “You can drop me off at the first pub-’ lie carplane platform. But what about that address?”

  “I’ll write it for you as soon as we get on my ship,” said Hedrock.

  They were on the roof now, and he had a moment of terrible tension as several carplanes swooped down and landed with a rush. But the men and women who climbed out of them paid no attention to the two men heading for the carplane on the north runway.

  As soon as they were up in the air, Hedrock saw the flashing sign of a carplane platform. He dived towards it, and simultaneously pulled a slip of paper towards him, and wrote, “97 131st Street.” A moment later they were on the pavement. He folded the paper, and gave it to Neelan as the latter climbed out of the carplane. They shook hands.

  “Good luck,” said Neelan.

  “Don’t go back to your brother’s room,” said Hedrock.

  He hurried back to the control chair, closed the door, and instants later manipulated his machine above the traffic. Through the rear view plate of the control board, he watched Neelan climb aboard a public carplane. It was impossible to tell whether he was aware that he had been given the wrong address.

  The Weapon Shop experts could use associative techniques to get the real one out of him, of course. He undoubtedly remembered it on some level of awareness. But it would take time to persuade him to cooperate, and time to induce the necessary associations. Hedrock actually had no objection to ‘ the Shops having the information. As he guided his machine slowly towards the address given him by the voice, he wrote another, longer note, with the real address on it. This one he placed in an envelope. On the envelope he wrote: Peter Cadron, The Meteor Corporation, Hotel Ganeel, Imperial City—Deliver noon mail, the 6th. That was tomorrow.

  Under normal circumstances he would have been working with the Shops. Their purposes were basically his also, and it was unfortunate that the entire council had allowed itself to be frightened by one man, himself. But they had, and the emotion might conceivably interfere with their efficiency. Their very slowness in following up the Kershaw lead seemed to prove that their action had already endangered their cause. Hedrock had no doubts about what he was doing;, In a crisis he trusted himself. Other people were skilful and brave, but they lacked his vast experience, and his willingness to take prolonged risks.

  It was possible that he was the only one as yet who really believed that this was one of the great crises of the critical reign of Innelda Isher. In the final issue a few minutes might make all the difference between suc
cess or failure. No one was better equipped than he to make those minutes count.

  His plane crossed 232nd Avenue, Center, and he brought it down in a carplane parking area on 233rd. He walked swiftly to the nearest corner, and mailed his letter, and then, satisfied, proceeded on to his destination. It was, he saw by his watch, exactly eleven minutes since he had talked to his prospective employer. Not too long.

  So that was the building! Hedrock continued walking, but he studied it with a frown. It was an ungainly structure in that it was out of proportion, much too long for its width. Like a great, gray dull needle it poked into the lowering sky three, four hundred feet, a curiously sinister construction. There was no sign outside it to indicate what went on inside, simply a narrow walk leading from the sidewalk to a single, unimposing door that was level with the street. As he rang the doorbell, he tried to visualize Gilbert Neelan walking along this street on the day of his death, striding forward up to the door and disappearing forever. The mental picture did not seem complete, and he was still considering it when the now familiar harsh voice said from a hidden speaker above the door:

  “You took your time about arriving.”

  Hedrock said steadily, “I came straight here.”

  There was a brief silence. Hedrock imagined the man measuring in his mind the distance from the Trellis Minor Building. The result seemed to be satisfactory, for he spoke again:

  “Just a minute.”

  The door began to open. Hedrock saw a wide, high alcoves just how high he couldn’t make out from where he was standing. He forgot the alcove as he found himself staring at a thick, partly open door made of dark, mottled metal. The entire inner wall, in which the big door was set, was smoothly wrought in the same metal. Hedrock stepped through the outer door, and paused as he realized what the over-all unnatural effect was. The inner wall was Fursching steel, the structural alloy that was used exclusively for the superhard shells of spaceships.

  The strange building was a hangar for a spaceship. And the ship was in.