Dimensiion X

by Jerry eBooks

  “The second thing,” said her tormentor curtly, “is another kind of precaution. It’s just possible that several days may pass before you will find the opportunity to accomplish my purpose, and that in the meantime the man whose secretary you are to become may want you to be his mistress. Now, it’s quite obvious we can’t have any prissy scruples on your part so—Hold her!”

  The second needle stabbed painfully into her arm just above the elbow. Above her, the man said:

  “O.K., take her out, drop her off near the hotel!”

  When the door had closed behind Evana, Delaney slowly took off his mask. He stood for a moment then, a dark brooding figure of a man. Gradually, his heavy face wreathed into a grim smile. He picked up an eldophone, and said:

  “Get me the president of the J.H. Gorder Atomic Power Co. on the planet Fasser IV. Tell him Delaney’s calling.”

  “One moment, sir,” the operator said.

  A minute passed, then a click sounded; and a very clear, strong voice said:

  “Gorder speaking. What’s on your mind, Delaney?”

  “All the initial moves against Artur Blord are now taken,” Delaney said. “Tell the others they can start arriving tomorrow morning at the Castle of Pleasure, and advise the Skal thing to prepare the torture chambers. Good-by.”

  Evana Travis read the letter that was in the package:

  By the time you read this, you will have opened the package I gave you. You will have noted that the package contains: (1) a cigarette case with cigarettes in it; (2) a necklace with a watchlike pendant; (3) a package of white pills; (4) a V-shaped copper device; (5) a syringe.

  The cigarettes are doped. If circumstances permit, you will try to give one of them to the man who will be your employer beginning tomorrow. The circumstances, however, must be that you and he are alone, and that he is not suspicious of you. The case ejects two cigarettes at a time; the outer one is doped, the inner one is not, always.

  The white pills constitute a second line of attack. They can be used to drug such things as water, coffee, liquor; also they crumble easily and can be sprinkled over meat sandwiches, giving the appearance of salt.

  The pendant is a radio device. As soon as Artur Blord, your future employer, is unconscious, unloosen the screw at the bottom and press the tiny bulb in the center. This will advise my men that you have taken the first step toward the accomplishment of our joint purpose.

  The V-shaped copper device is designed to short-circuit the alarm system which Mr. Blord has installed on the top floor of his headquarters, which is located at 686 Financial Avenue. In order to employ this device properly it is necessary to understand the arrangement of rooms in Mr. Blord’s penthouse.

  The penthouse is divided into four main sections: the office, two apartments and a roof garden. The office is made up of three room, an anteroom, secretary’s room and Mr. Blord’s private office. From Mr. Blord’s office a door leads to his personal eight-room apartment.

  From the secretary’s office there is an entrance to the other apartment, a small, four-room affair. This is where you will live, and I might say that the intimate implications of the arrangement are not misleading.

  Any unwillingness you may feel on the subject will be incentive to an early Successful conclusion of your mission. The greater danger from the poison should, however, restrain you from inopportune action.

  Both apartments have French doors which open onto the roof garden; and it is beside the French door of Mr. Blord’s apartment that you will find an ornate metal instrument with a slit in it. Slide the V-shaped device into this slit, point first, until the two translucent ends of the V light up.

  Now, press the bulb of the pendant again. My men will arrive within a few minutes. You must accompany them if you want your antidote and your reward. Afterward, I will transport you to any of the Ridge Star planets you desire. Obviously, for your own safety, you cannot remain on Delfi II.

  It is not necessary for you to know all the reasons for my actions. Suffice to say that Mr. Blord’s supercleverness has at last aroused the ire of the men who are actually building the Ridge Star civilization as distinct from Blord’s trick methods of getting a share of the profits.

  Item No. 5 in this package, the syringe, contains Nonchalant, a dose of which taken tomorrow morning will steady your nerves, keep color in your cheeks, no matter how great your inner nervousness. I advise you to take it every morning until you have accomplished your purpose.

  As soon as you have read this letter, go to the Fair Play Employment Agency, whose address is on the card I gave you. I warn you most earnestly there is no time to waste. Tomorrow the seven-day poison will only have six days to go. You’ve got to do what I want—or die!

  She slept badly. She did remember in the morning to inject a close of Nonchalant into the upper part of her arm. But through all the actions and thoughts and memories that flooded her mind ran one dominant strain of terror:

  She had to do what the masked man wanted, with utter will, with utter singleness of purpose. There wasn’t any alternative.

  The morning streets were packed, long wide boulevards of rushing human masses. Overhead streamed a countless swarm of airabouts. Number 686 Financial Avenue was a shining metal shaft of a building. It was narrow at the top, but at the bottom it spread over nine square blocks.

  Great avenues plowed through its base. Plane shafts crisscrossed its upper stories; and at about the fortieth story was a sign that shone in the sun:

  ARTUR BLORD HOLDING CO., LTD.

  Far back in Evana’s mind was the astounded thought that surely she wouldn’t be hired as secretary by a man who must have tens of thousands of employees craving promotion to such a high position.

  But the girl at the reception desk inside the first main entrance stared enviously at her agency card, and said:

  “Go straight up to the one hundred ninetieth floor. I’ll phone up to Mr. Magrusson.”

  And at the one hundred ninetieth floor, a plump, middle-aged man was waiting in the hallway. He rubbed his hands together unctuously.

  “I must verify one thing,” he said. “You did arrive yesterday on that freighter from Earth? And this is your first job, not only on Delfi, but on any planet other than Earth?”

  So it was her recent Earth origin that gave her such a startling preference. Evana drew a deep breath. “I swear it!” she said.

  The man smiled at her. His pale-blue eyes watering. “Good. We’ll check that thoroughly, of course. But now, go straight up to the penthouse floor, and make yourself at home. Mr. Blord is expected shortly. Until he comes, you may familiarize yourself with the room arrangements. Everything on that floor is in your charge as of this moment. You may examine anything you please that isn’t locked, and call me for any information you may require.”

  He went off down the hall and disappeared through a door that banged.

  The silence of being alone brought no peace. Having an entire floor to herself only made her thoughts the more vivid; their dark continuity suffered neither the restraint of interruption nor the easement of hope.

  All normal reaction was overshadowed by the menacing words Magrusson had spoken: “Mr. Blord is expected shortly.”

  The strain of that had no relation to anything she had ever endured.

  Exploration did provide a brief surcease. But even there her preknowledge of the room arrangements canceled the full effect. For the description in the letter was exact. Seeing the reality simply filled in details.

  Her office was a large denlike room with books, a filing system, a desk equipped with automatic Recorders, and there were several mechanical contrivances scattered along the walls that she barely glanced at.

  Evana made a swift circuit of the private office beyond. It was a larger version of the secretary’s room, but without the filing system. She did not go into the eight-room apartment of Artur Blord, simply glanced in, long enough to see the green foliage of the roof garden through the living-room windows.

&
nbsp; The shaky thought came that she ought to make sure there was such an energy device to cut the alarm system as the letter had stated. But—Mr. Blord is expected shortly.

  She withdrew to the secretary’s office. Slowly, her nerve crept back, but she made no immediate attempt at further exploration. She began an elaborate examination of the mechanical filing system, but it seemed to yield nothing except detailed information about the geography, in the science sense of the word, of hundreds of planets.

  She found herself frowning over the facts that came out, myriad facts about metals, forests, gems, valuable soils and estimates of value that seemed to have no relation to the money estimates that were also given. There was a field of chromium on the planet Tanchion IV, value: one hundred billion stellors; value: “Just plain slogging. Let somebody else do it all.”

  The two-value system extended everywhere. For a forest on Tragona VII, the first value was: All treasure wood; priceless. The second valuation said: “Dennis Kray is operator. Hard, cruel, brilliant. Should be interesting if I ever get around to it.”

  Her appetite and her watch registered two o’clock simultaneously on her startled consciousness. The hunger was distracting, a pressing force that grew with the thought of it. Twice, she started toward the door that led to the four-room apartment—her apartment now—and each time stopped herself with a shudder of repulsion that she couldn’t explain immediately.

  Gradually, she realized what it was. There would be food all right in the kitchen of that apartment, but there would also be reminders of its previous occupant, the last secretary-mistress who was now gone into some unexplained discard. She couldn’t go into that room.

  Phone Magrusson, she thought, and shivered a negation because—suppose the plump creature tried to forestall his boss, and made a pass at her. Her enslaved brain would instantly put her at his mercy.

  So long as the effect of the drug lasted she was any man’s woman.

  It was three o’clock before she recognized the fury of her thoughts for the madness it was—drew herself willfully back from the dark abyss, and went into the apartment.

  It was a woman’s living room that greeted her eyes and a woman’s bedroom. Pastel colors made a muted pattern of gorgeousness. Everywhere were frills, knicknacks, fluffy comforts, extras from store departments that men would never think of visiting.

  And one thing was overwhelmingly clear: It had been furnished without regard for money. After she had satisfied the first ravening impulses of her hunger. Evana sat frowning at the place. She would change the curtains, she thought, and the horrible, modern bed in the bedroom would go out. She had always dreamed of having a really costly canopied four poster and—

  She caught her mind in its gyrations—and sat appalled. Shame came, then weariness. She thought at last hopelessly: What an incredible organ the human brain was. Given time, it accepted anything.

  She stood up, and it was then for the first time that she saw the photograph. It was standing on the mantelpiece of the atomic fireplace: and she knew instantly that she was looking at the eidolon of Artur Blord.

  It was the fine, sensitive countenance of a man of about thirty. If there had ever been Norwegian blood in his racial stock, it didn’t show now. The lean face with its thin, aristocratic nose, its strong chin and firm lips was English even to the curve of the cheeks, the tilt of the eyebrows.

  His appearance disturbed her; not that it could make any difference. She had to carry out her purpose—but her mind went back to what the captain of the space freighter had said about the big financial and industrial operators in this part of the Galaxy. Strange to think the man had even mentioned Artur Blord as the greatest of them all because—what was it the commander had said?—the others exploited men, and Blord exploited them.

  She must have slept for she wakened with a start, and saw that it was pitch dark. Brief panic came, and ended as, through the living-room windows, she saw a great moon come out from behind a dark cloud; its gleam poured through the glass and suffused the room with pale beauty.

  She went to the windows and stared up at it, a globe of light ten times as big as Earth’s satellite. Memory came that the educational talks on the space freighter had proved it wasn’t a moon at all, but a dead companion planet as big as Delfi II; and that once, long before man came, there had been life on it—of which obscene remnants remained.

  Evana’s mind withdrew slowly from the moon, came back to her own situation. Funny how she had wakened with such a jerk as if—

  Bzzzz! The sound made her jump. And then she stood as stiff as stone as a strong, clear man’s voice said from a mechanical:

  “Miss Travis, didn’t you hear my first ring? I’m calling from my office, and I’d like you to come here as soon as you can.”

  “I,” Artur Blord was saying an hour later, “like new cities, new planets. They’re soulless. They have no culture, no institutions with hardening of the arteries, nobody going around yelling for prohibition of this, that and the other. If a man’s got a religion—and who hasn’t?—he’s not scheming to force it down somebody else’s throat—Just a minute, here’s something. Grab your recorder! Get this tight. It’s for your private information!”

  Evana grabbed. For an hour she had felt herself the center of a cyclone. A dozen times already she had feverishly manipulated her recorder to take dictation at a breath-taking speed. Her new employer dictated as he talked, apparently without thought or—she made the mental note—discretion.

  For minutes on end, utterly without restraint, he had discussed vast projects on which he was engaged, switching from one business to another with bewildering rapidity; and always the only qualification was: “This is for your private information!”

  He said now: “It’s just a small note this time. Always spell out the name of our company in small letters, but put the word ‘limited’ in capitals. There have been some darned funny court rulings on that limited business on the Ridge Star planets. For instance, once it was held that using small letters made the word ‘limited’ appear insignificant beside a really grand sounding company name. Abbreviating it puts you out of court so fast you won’t even know what hit your bank roll. There’s some people will tell you that this is an age of science, but they’re wrong—”

  It took a moment for Evana to realize that he had changed the subject. She blinked, then adjusted, as Blord rambled on at speed:

  “They’re wrong because the great developments today are not in science, but in the use of discovered science. People are constantly amazed that I have no science degrees. I’m really the lucky one. I couldn’t tell you the electronic structure of more than half a dozen atomettes, or the composition of half a dozen chemical compounds. But I know something far better than that: I know what those things do, and what their relation is to human beings and human progress. I consider myself a sort of super-co-ordinator.”

  It was his boasting that ended all her fear. There was, of course, the possibility that he was talking about himself and his merits in a perfectly objective fashion, and it even seemed probable that he’d be nice in a conceited sort of way if she ever got to know him. But the weights that were on her mind didn’t leave room for immediate interest in any man or woman.

  There was only her necessary purpose. And, thank God, he was so utterly guileless and unsuspicious. In a minute now, she’d bring out her cigarettes and—what was he saying? Cigarettes! Would she have a cigarette?

  Evana felt briefly startled; then: “I have my own, thank you,” she said.

  On Blord’s desk the needle attached to the chair in which the girl sat was jumping like a full-grown Yadr. Doped cigarettes, he thought cynically. And to think he’d been fishing around for an hour expecting something infinitely more subtle.

  He had known the moment the girl entered his office that something was wrong. All the thousands of hours he had spent training himself to be what he was concentrated into the first glance he gave her, and revealed that she was mentally nervous without
any of the physical by-products. That meant—dosed with Nonchalant at a hundred stellors a gram. Would an immigrant have that kind of money? Not normally.

  The rest was merely a matter of trying to find out who was behind her. And yet all the names he mentioned scarcely stirred the needle. Either she didn’t know—or the time had come for more direct action.

  “Earth cigarettes!” he said eagerly. “Would you mind letting me have one? I sometimes long for them.”

  He walked around his desk, over to her. The girl manipulated the ejector and brought forth two cigarettes. She took the inner one, then held the other out to him. He took it without question.

  She accepted the light he offered. He walked back to his chair as if forgetting his own cigarette, and sat idly holding it between his fingers. The needle, he saw grimly, was hovering around its zenith.

  He smiled finally, put the cigarette to his lips, picked up the lighter, stared for a moment at its flame—and with his foot pressed the lever that activated the energy of the chair in. which the girl sat.

  She crumpled like a child falling to sleep.

  “—listen, Doc,” he was saying into his phone a few minutes later, “I know it’s past two, but I want you up here immediately. I’ve got a girl whom I want examined physically and mentally, the full hypnotism treatment if necessary. I want her in such a keyed-up condition that she’ll be able to look at pictorial records of all the big operators I have had anything to do with the past year, and be able to recognize them even if she only saw them previously with masks on. I’ve got to find out who’s gunning for me . . . You’re coming? O.K. Make it fast.”

  It took about an hour for the tests, but at last the picture came clear. Doc Gregg dimmed the strong lights that had blazed for so long at the girl’s unconscious body; and Blord staring silently, savagely, down at her thought:

  “She looks like a tired youngster caught by weariness far from her bed.” He laughed finally, curtly.