“Well, I hope we don’t need much. But I think you can call in as many of our men as you need to. If things get too hot, list Jean and me as fugitives and throw out a dragnet for us. Because I think we’ll be working very much outside the law in another day or so.”
Roberts blinked at him. “Better tell me what you’re planning, Paul.”
“I think the less you know about it the better. Just one thing, though. You remember Eagle Rock? The place we built up in the Adirondacks that summer when we were in college? Put three men at a number where I can reach them, and give them the location of Eagle Rock. Then tell them to stand by with a fast jet scooter. Got that? And don’t let this leak, no matter what happens.”
“I wish you’d tell me—”
“We’re fighting for our lives now, Bob. And for every Psi- High in the country. I can’t tell you a thing more.”
Roberts nodded, then shrugged helplessly. “Eagle Rock,” he said. “You can count on it.”
Paul flipped the set off and winked at Jean. Together they settled back to wait for the alien to make his last contact.
XI
He struck at ten o’clock that evening, with a ferocity beyond their worst expectations.
They had known that he was near. The reports had come in, and they had plotted and calculated his pathway, and waited. It was only a matter of time. The carefully planted information built a tangled, devious circle with a single Psi- High individual in the center.
Jean Sanders.
It had to be Jean. Paul hated it, he wished it could be he, that somehow he could take the blow and shield her, but Jean Sanders was the only possible person to bait the trap. Her psi-powers had been developed carefully and painstakingly for years under the care of Dr. Reuben Abrams and his staff at the Hoffman Medical Center. A Psi-High individual was helpless to use his powers without training; just as a child was trained through long, grueling years to use his ordinary mental faculties of thought and perception and logic, a psi-positive mind required training to control its powers of extrasensory perception and psychokinetic control, if its powers were ever to be used.
Paul knew that all too well. He too was Psi-High, but he had not even known it for years. He had not realized, in his teens, when he had plagued and baited the two Psi-High boys in his high school class, that there might be a time factor in psi-positive development. Other Psi-Highs showed the signs of abnormal sensory apparatus at the age of one or three, or seven; invariably the schools spotted them, tested them, registered them, and sent them out into a life of fea and suspicion and hatred. They were considered freaks, the more dangerous because there was no physical identification that could be used to separate them from ordinary human beings. And certain men had recognized the power waiting for the man who took advantage of the people’s fears. Ambition is blinding; certain men could see the potential danger, real or imaginary, that might arise if Psi-High minds were to work their way into the government, into law or the judiciary. But Psi-High minds matured at different ages, and at different times. And some, like Paul Faircloth, slipped through the barrage of testing undetected, only to discover later that it really wasn’t the backs of the cards they Were reading at all, but the minds of their opponents that were holding the cards.
The faculty was feeble, in people like Paul. He could not read minds. He could not sort and integrate the confused tendrils of conscious and unconscious thought that broke like an endless stream from a human mind; he could not separate the reality of here-and-now thinking from the strands of fantasy and memory and supposition and frustration and desire and half-understanding and confusion that lay beneath the surface of those minds. He could detect falsehood and he could feel suspicion; he could sense love as he had never felt it before, and he could feel himself gripped in the helpless frustration of pity; he could savor excitement with a thousand tingling nerves, and he could sense the blackest depths of despair, but he could not sort them out into a coherent picture of the thoughts streaming from a human mind. It took a long hard training for a Psi-High mind to do that, and no shortcut had ever been found. Paul Faircloth could not do these things, and he knew he could not.
But Jean Sanders could. That was why she was waiting in the room with him when the alien struck.
She was walking across the room when it happened. She stopped suddenly, with a gasp. Even Paul caught the wave of fear and revulsion that swept from her mind. She stared for a moment, terrified, and then sank to the floor, gripping her head with her hands. Paul watched helplessly as she tried to fight back the powerful invasion, in spite of herself. “Please,” she gasped, white-faced. “Get me a pillow. Then- then listen—”
“Don’t fight him,” Paul whispered. “Let him in. Let him clear in. And then—jump on him. For all you’re worth, dig, dig deep.”
Her eyes became huge, like the eyes of an animal frightened beyond hope, cornered, attacked and helpless to fight back. Her neck strained back, and her teeth clenched. The blood drained from her face as she began moaning. “I can’t, Paul—” she cried. “I—I can’t get in—”
“You’ve got to—” Frantically, Paul tried to thrust out with his mind, tried to dig through the mind-staggering wall of power he felt in the room. The alien was close, very close, and. the presence of his mind was almost overwhelming. Paul tried to break through. . Suddenly, he felt a pang of white heat sear through his brain, driving him back, a sharp, savage stroke that doubled him up, clasping his hands helplessly to his ears. Suddenly it was gone, as swiftly as it had come. He stood panting for a moment. Then he managed to stumble over to Jean. She was not responding; he listened, heard the slow pounding of her heart. He shook her, gently; her eyes flickered open, her face filled with horror and loathing.
“Oh, Paul, I got—I got so little—”
“What did you get?”
“Nothing—a picture or two, nothing more. Oh, he was so strong, I couldn’t make a dent—”
“What pictures?”
She sat up, panting. “Nothing—definite. Ben Towne—yes, there was something about him—just the flash of a mental picture, no rationale connected with it. And some papers, some sort of file—” She clasped her hands to her head. “He- he stripped me clean! I can’t—”
“Jeannie! There must have been something eke.” She looked up at him, a strange light in her eyes. “I don’t understand it,” she whispered. “He seemed to be trying to tell me something. There was a picture of a farm—yes, a farm. And a dog—And blood on a pair of pants—”
Paul sat back, staring at her stupidly. All at once, something flashed in his mind, an idea so incredible that he hardly dared to think of it. An instant later he was on his feet, staring at the girl.
“He was trying to tell you this?”
“Yes. Something.”
“And no mistaking the picture?”
“Never. It was clear as crystal.”
He began throwing clothes into a bag as the girl sat there, watching him in growing alarm. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll call you.”
“Paul—where—”
“It’s my show, now, Jeannie. You wait here, you’ll be all right. Rest, and say a prayer or two. Because I think I’ve got this alien pinned down for sure, this time.”
XII
It was an incredibly dangerous move, but it was utterly necessary. Paul found a visiphone booth in the rear of a station with no people around, and quickly threw an adapter across the lens of the pickup and spun a roll of tape info it. The tape started when the party at the other end flipped on the switch, and the conversation was brief. Paul gave the address of a roof garden apartment in Central Washington, and then disconnected. After removing the film, he dialed a number he had given Roberts a few hours before. Ted Marino’s face appeared, and Paul heaved a sigh of relief. “Sorry, Ted, but I’m afraid you’re back in the game. How many men do you have?”
“Two.”
“Both Psi-High?”
“Certainly.”
Paul nodded.
“All right, we’re beyond the law from now on. If you or the others want out, take off.”
Marino’s dark eyes sparked. “Roberts said this was the kill.”
“It’s not the kill you think. But it’s a kill, all right. Take the men to this address.” He gave the roof garden number. “Have a jet scooter there, and see that nobody spots it. Use Federal Security insignia. Sound off loud and clear if anything goes wrong. I’ll meet you there.”
He rang off, and soon was rising high above the city in his own jet scooter. In ten minutes he had reached the roof garden, and set the little ship gently down. He walked inside, and sat down in the darkness, and waited.
Moments later another jet scooter landed. Marino walked in with two men whom Paul remembered vaguely. He nodded to them, and they also sat down. Paul fingered the shocker in his pocket, his nerves screaming a thousand warnings in his ears.
The guard robot on the ground floor bleeped sharply. Paul reached for the lock release switch, and heard the elevator start to whine. He unlocked the door and left it ajar, then motioned to one of the men. “Cover the hallway, and back them up when they come. Don’t be worried about who it is.”
The man disappeared down the hall. Paul sat quietly; he heard the elevator open. There were footsteps, and tapping sounds. The footsteps stopped at the door.
“Come on in,” Paul called out. “Bob’ll be here in just a minute.”
The door swung open, and Secretary Benjamin Towne walked into the room, followed by two tight-faced men. One of the men had a hand in his jacket pocket. Towne blinked at Faircloth, and his grin began to fade into alarm. “Who in hell are you?”
“One of Roberts’ men.”
“Roberts said you had the alien here,” Towne snarled. His green eyes peered around the room.
Marino swung on the man to the right, bringing him down with one short blow. Paul slapped Towne’s cane to the floor, and pounced on the other guard like a cat. The secretary staggered against the door jamb, cursing a steady stream. Moments later the bodyguards were helpless, and Paul and Marino were dragging Towne out to the middle of the room. “The files,” Paul said sharply. “Where do you keep them?”
“What files?”
“The private files you’ve been keeping, Mr. Secretary. The blackmail files, the personal dossiers you’ve compiled or every registered Psi-High in existence. Your backstop, Mr Secretary—the files you planned to use to personally break every Psi-High on the wheel if for some reason you couldn’t beat them down legally. All right, I want those files. Now.”
Towne’s eyes were deadly; his breath came heavily. “You freaks will never get away with this.”
“The files, Mr. Secretary.”
Towne’s eyes went around the room fearfully. “The boys know where they are,” he said finally, his voice so low it was hardly audible.
“Any duplicates?”
“Not of the files you want.”
Paul nodded to Towne’s men. “Take these thugs down and revive them,” he told Marino. “And get the files. Then turn the boys over to Roberts. Tell him that they’re to be held in maximum security until this is over.” He turned back to Ben Towne. “As for you, you’re taking a little ride.”
“When this hits the papers, it’ll be the end of the road for you freaks,” Towne snarled. “You can’t stop it now.”
“Well see,” said Faircloth. “Now shut up and get moving.”
They left the cane in the room. Paul helped Marino load the man aboard the jet scooter. “Take him up to Eagle Rock. Keep him there. Dismantle the engine, if you have to, but keep him there. I’ll join you in a few hours.”
Marino nodded. “Should I report to Roberts?”
“Don’t bother. Roberts would have a stroke. I trapped Towne into coming over here by using a dummy visiphone tape of Roberts, which will put him in enough hot water as it is.”
“And where are you going?”
“West, for a few hours. I’ve got a visit to make. I’ve got to see a man about a dog.”
XIII
The farmer blinked across the table at him, red-eyed and suspicious. “I don’t know what you want,” he was saying, querulously. “I didn’t ask for no trouble with your Federal men. They asked me all them questions, and I told them—”
“That’s right,” said Faircloth. “I’m just rechecking. You were the first human being the alien contacted, as far as we can tell. The ship landed on your property, didn’t it?”
The farmer nodded. “Over by the river. Scrub oak and elms standing over there, on the bluff. Haven’t never cleared it because it’d be too rocky to farm.”
“All right, all right,” said Faircloth sharply. “I want you to tell me what happened that night.”
The farmer’s eyes flitted to Faircloth’s face, and back down to the table. “I already told you twenty times,” he whined. “Why pick on me? I couldn’t help it he happened to stop here. Heard him on the porch about ten o’clock at night. I was just gettin’ ready for bed. And he said he was travelin’ through and wanted something to eat. We don’t see strangers around here very often, mister—” He looked up at Faircloth fearfully. “I—I looked at him, and he seemed all right to me. My eyes was tired, like I said, I couldn’t see him too well, but he come in, and ate. Didn’t want to bed him down, but he said he had to make on for Des Moines anyway.”
Faircloth watched the man’s eyes. “Details, Mr. Bettendorf. You’ve skipped a few things, haven’t you? I have your original statement here, filed by our field agent” He pulled out a sheaf of papers and scanned them in the dim kitchen light “Says something about your dog barking—”
The farmer’s face went white. “Anything wrong with that? I reckon the dog did bark. I don’t remember.”
“And you went to open the door, and the stranger was there on the porch, eh?”
The farmer nodded his head eagerly. “I told you everything.”
“And you brought him in, and fed him, and then sent him on his way?”
“That’s right, just like I said.”
“You’re a liar,” said Faircloth. He eyed the man coldly. “Try the story over again.”
The farmer jolted to his feet, his eyes feverish. “I done just like I said, you can’t call me no liar! I heard the dog barking—”
“And you opened the door, and saw the stranger there.” Faircloth’s voice was sharp. “So then what? Step by step. Minute by minute. I mean it, mister, I want the truth.”
“I—I looked at him—”
“With just the porch light on?”
“That’s right, just like I just showed you—”
“And what did the stranger say?”
“He said, ‘I’m a traveler, and I’d like something to eat.’ ”
“And what did his voice sound like?”
The farmer faltered. “It was funny-like gravel in a tin can. A funny kind of a voice—”
“And where was the dog all this time?”
The farmer blanched. “He—he was somewhere outside. He saw it was all right—”
“Where’s the dog now?”
“I sold him. I mean he ran away. You can’t keep a dog forever, mister.”
Faircloth’s face was very close to the old man’s. “The stranger was out on the porch, and you talked to him, and let him come in. And then what happened?”
“I—he sat down at the table, I think—I—I—”
“You went over to get some food from the stove, didn’t you?”
“Yes, yes, that’s right—”
“And then you saw blood on his pants, didn’t you? And you remembered hearing your dog give a yelp, out there in the yard, didn’t you? And that stranger had blood all over his pants and boots, didn’t he?”
The farmer’s eyes were wide with fear, and he was shaking his head helplessly. “No—no—”
And so you took that shotgun off the rack over there and you shot him, didn’t you?”
And then the old man’s face was in his hands
, and he was bending over the table, crying like a baby—huge, fearful sobs racking his bony shoulders. “He killed my dog,” he choked out. “He killed my Brownie, gave him a kick that split his head wide open. He didn’t have to do that to poor old Brownie, did he? I knew he was a bad one when he did that. Yes, I shot him, right through the chest. Buried him down by the river, what was left of him.”
XIV
The news broke to the nation that night, and the country went into a panic unequalled since the days of the Chinese Confrontation. Paul Faircloth spent an hour on the visiphone from Des Moines, talking to Robert Roberts, going over the whole business, from beginning to end, while the Security chief stared at him as though he were demented. Finally Roberts put a call through to the President. Half an hour later, while Faircloth was making his way back to Washington, Roberts was in top-secret conference with the Senate leaders and the Cabinet and finally with the President himself. At last the carefully prepared news broke. It was an official White House news conference, and it was barely over when the radios and TVs were carrying the announcement.
Faircloth brought his plane down in Washington. He saw the crowd swarming across the landing strip before he could get unstrapped. A dozen flashbulbs popped, and between him and the Security limousine was a tight circle of reporters.
“How long has the alien been at large, Mr. Faircloth?” one of them asked.
“Sorry. The chief will have to answer that.”
“Is there any doubt that he’s telepathic?”
“No doubt whatsoever. I know that from personal experience. It’s the only way he could move freely in the population.”
“How was he first detected?”
Paul smiled to himself. “The President told you that, didn’t he? A Psi-High citizen spotted him in Des Moines. The Psi-Highs have been on his trail ever since.”
One of the reporters was tugging at his arm. “There’s been a lot of rumor about some kind of—well, conspiracy between the alien invader and the Psi-Highs in this country.”
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