Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by James H. Schmitz

  There were other questions, somewhat too many of them at the moment. But the one he wanted answered immediately concerned Jill Trelawney’s role. There was a guaranteed way of getting the information from her, but he had to be sure she wasn’t as innocent as she acted before resorting to it. At the very least, he had to establish that the activities in the laboratory constituted some serious violation of Overgovernment law—even if not directly connected with YM—and that the girl knew about it. Otherwise, the whole present pattern of the Ym-400 search on Terra might become very obvious to all interested parties.

  He thought he had a method of forcing Jill’s hand. If she had guilty knowledge, she might consider a non-Terran animal trader, who’d just happened to drop in, literally, a convenient tool to use in this emergency. She wanted to get help, too, though not from the Solar Police Authority. The Trelawneys couldn’t possibly be alone in this thing.

  But she couldn’t, if guilty, take the chance of trying to make use of an Overgovernment cop. A policeman wouldn’t be here at this particular moment by accident. There was some risk in revealing himself—she might react too hastily—but not much risk, Dowland thought. From what he’d seen of her, she’d use her head. She’d make sure of him.

  The uproar from the animal building lessened as he went back across the slope to the entrance of the lab. Miguel’s beasts might have caught his footsteps, and started to listen to see if he was coming in. The outer door to the lab—a frame of the weather-proofed wood that covered the building—stood slightly open. Dowland pulled it back, looked for a moment at the slab of metasteel behind it, and at the circular depression in the slab which was the atomic lock.

  In character, so far. Three windows at the back of the house where he had left Jill Trelawney with Miguel overlooked the lab area. Guilty or not, she’d be watching him from behind one of those windows, though she mightn’t have come to any conclusions about him as yet. The reference to his “protection” gun had been a definite giveaway; he’d described an IPA police automatic, and that was a weapon civilians didn’t carry—or didn’t mention to strangers if they happened to carry them.

  But a Freeholder lady might not know about that.

  She couldn’t avoid noticing the implications of an IPA antiradiation field . . .

  DOWLAND moved thirty steps back from the door, took out his gun, and pressed a stud on the side of his belt. Immediately, a faint blue glow appeared about him. Not too pronounced a glow even on the darkening slope, but quite visible to anyone watching from one of the windows. He took a deep breath, sucking all in through the minor hampering effect of the field.

  The rest was a matter of carrying through with the act. He’d known from the instant of looking at the door that he was wasting his fire on metasteel. But he slammed a few shots into the five-inch target of the lock, then worked his way methodically about the building, watching the weatherproofing shatter away from an unmarred silvery surface beneath. The gun made very little noise, but Miguel’s hogs were screaming themselves hoarse again by the time he was finished.

  Dowland switched off the AR field, and went back to the house. When he came along the short entrance hall, she was waiting for him, standing half across the living room, hands clasped behind her back. She looked at him questioningly.

  “No luck, Dowland?”

  Dowland shook his head. “Not a bit.” He started to shrug the jacket from his shoulders, saw her dart the gun out from behind her, and turned his left hand slightly, squeezing down on the black elastic capsule he was holding between thumb and forefinger. Jill probably never noticed the motion, certainly did not see or feel the tiny needle that flashed from the capsule and buried itself in the front of her thigh. Shocked bewilderment showed for an instant on her face; then her knees gave way, the gun dropped from her hand. She went down slowly, turned over on her side on the thick carpet, and lay still.

  Well, Dowland thought, he had his proof . . .

  Jill Trelawney opened her eyes again about five minutes later. She made a brief effort to get out of the deep armchair in which she found herself, then gave that up. The dark blue eyes fastened on Dowland, standing before the chair. He saw alarm and anger in them; then a cold watchfulness.

  “What did you do?” she asked huskily.

  “I shot first,” Dowland said. “It seemed like a good idea.”

  Her glance shifted to Miguel on the couch across the room.

  “How long was I unconscious?”

  “Just a few minutes.”

  “And why . . .” She hesitated.

  “Why are you feeling so weak? You’ve absorbed a shot of a special little drug, Miss Trelawney. It does two things that are very useful under certain circumstances. One of them is that it keeps the recipient from carrying out any sudden or vigorous action. You might, for example, be able to get out of that chair if you tried hard enough.

  But you’d find yourself lying on the carpet then. Perhaps you’d be able too get up on your hands and knees. You might even start crawling from the room—but you’d do it very slowly.”

  DOWLAND paused. “And the other thing the drug does is to put the person into an agreeable frame of mind, even when he’d rather not be agreeable. He becomes entirely cooperative. For example, you’ll find yourself quite willing to answer questions I ask.”

  “So you are a police investigator,” she said evenly.

  “That’s right.” Dowland swung another chair around beside him, and sat down facing her. “Let’s not waste any more time, Miss Trelawney. Were you going to shoot me just now?” She looked briefly surprised. “No,” she said. “Not unless you forced me to it. I was going to disarm you and lock you in a cellar downstairs. You would have been safe there as long as was necessary.”

  “How long would that be?”

  “Until I get help.”

  “Help from whom?”

  Angry red flared about Jill’s cheekbones. “This is incredible!” she said softly. “Help from Carter.”

  “Firebrand Carter?” Dowland asked.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s associated with your uncles?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who heads the group?”

  “Miguel and Carter head it together. They’re very close friends.”

  “And who else is in it—besides Paul and yourself?”

  She shook her head. “There must be quite a few people in it, but I don’t know their names. We feel it’s best if we know as little as possible about one another at present.”

  “I see. But they’re all Terran Freeholders?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “How did you happen to be told about Carter?”

  “In case of an emergency here, I’m to contact him on a tight-beam number.”

  “And just what,” Dowland asked, “have your uncles been doing here?”

  “Building a machine that will enable them to move back through time.”

  “With the help of Ym-400?”

  “Yes.”

  DOWLAND stared at her thoughtfully, feeling a little chilled. She believed it, of course; she was incapable of lying now. But he didn’t believe it. He’d heard that some Overgovernment scientists considered time-travel to be possible. It was a concept that simply had no reality for him.

  But he thought of the rumors about YM—and of Miguel found lying inexplicably outside the laboratory building. He asked carefully, “Have they completed the machine?”

  “Yes. They were making the first full-scale test of it this morning—and they must have been at least partly successful.”

  “Because of Miguel?”

  “Yes.”

  “You feel,” Dowland said, “that Miguel first went somewhere else—or somewhen else, let’s say—and then came back and wound up a little bit away from where he’d started?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any idea of how he was hurt?”

  The girl shook her head. “The grid-power failure shows there was an accident of some kind, of course. B
ut I can’t imagine what it was.”

  “What about Paul? Do you think he’s still in the lab?”

  “Not unless he’s also injured—or dead.”

  Dowland felt the chill again. “You think he may be in some other time at this moment?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that he’ll be back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you describe that machine?” he asked.

  “No. I’ve never seen the plans, and wouldn’t understand them if I did. And I’ve never been inside the lab.”

  “I see. Do you have any reason, aside from the way Miguel reappeared, to think that the test was a partial success?”

  “Yes. At three different times since this morning I’ve heard the sounds of a river flowing under the house.”

  “You heard what?” Dowland said.

  “A river flowing under the house. The noises were quite unmistakable. They lasted for about thirty minutes on each occasion.”

  “What would that indicate?” he asked.

  “Well, obviously . . . this time period and another one—the one in which that river flows—have drawn close to each other. But the contact is impermanent or imperfect at present.”

  “Is that the way the machine is supposed to operate?”

  “I don’t know how the machine is supposed to operate,” Jill Trelawney said. “But that’s what seems to have happened.” Dowland studied her face for a moment. “All right,” he said then, “let’s leave it for now. Who developed this machine?”

  “Miguel did. Paul helped, in the later stages. Others have helped with specific details—I don’t know who those other people were. But essentially it was Miguel’s project. He’s been working on it for almost twenty years.”

  And that simply couldn’t be true. Unless . . .

  “Miss Trelawney,” Dowland said, “do you know what Miguel’s I.Q. reading is?”

  “Of course. It’s 192.”

  “And Paul’s?”

  “189.” She smiled. “You’re going to ask whether they faked lower levels when they were tested by the university authorities. Yes, they did. This thing has been prepared for a long time, Dowland.”

  “What’s your own I.Q., Miss Trelawney?”

  “181.”

  HER dossier I.Q., based on records of her known activities and behavior, was an estimated 128. The Freeholders did seem to have planned very thoroughly for the success of this operation.

  “Do you know who hijacked the Ym-400?” Dowland asked. “Yes. Paul arranged for that.”

  “Have you seen the stuff yourself?”

  “I have. Two small cases of blue ingots. A very dark blue. Individually, the ingots appear to be quite heavy, though they aren’t very large.”

  That described exactly what the Overgovernment was looking for. Dowland asked, “How much of it is in the laboratory?”

  “It’s all there.”

  He felt his scalp crawling. “All of it! Haven’t your uncles heard that YM is an incredibly dangerous thing to play around with?”

  “Of course. But Miguel examined it very carefully after it was obtained. If reasonable precautions are taken, there is no way in which it can become dangerous. The conclusion was that the Overgovernment has spread rumors as a bluff, to try to prevent the YM from being used.”

  “What’s happened around here,” Dowland said, “might indicate it wasn’t a bluff.”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions, Dowland. A great many other things may have gone wrong.”

  “Perhaps. But an I.Q. of 136 keeps telling me that we’re in considerable danger at the moment.”

  Jill nodded. “That’s very probably true.”

  “Then how about giving me your full cooperation until we—you, I, your uncles—are all safely out of this?”

  “At the moment,” Jill observed, “I don’t appear to have a choice in the matter.”

  “I don’t mean that. The drug will wear off in a few hours. You’ll be able to move around freely again, and whether you cooperate or not will depend on you. How will you feel about it then?”

  “That depends,” Jill said, “on whether we have reached an agreement.”

  “Agreement about what?”

  “A price for your silence, and for any assistance you can give in keeping things quiet. You can, of course, set the price as high as you wish. Terra will meet it.”

  Dowland stared at her, somewhat astounded. It was as coldblooded an attempt at bargaining as he’d run into, considering the circumstances. And—considering an I.Q. of 181—it seemed rather unrealistic. “Miss Trelawney,” he said, “the only thing silence might get me is a twenty-year stretch in an IPA pen. I’m not quite that foolish.”

  “You’re also not aware of the true situation.”

  “All right,” Dowland said, “what is it?”

  “Miguel and Paul have earned the right to carry out the first of these tests. They may not complete it. But duplicates of their machine in the laboratory are concealed about the planet, waiting to be put into action by other teams of Freeholder scientists. You see? The tests will be continued until any problems connected with shifting back through time are recognized and overcome.”

  Dowland said, “Then why is the entire haul of YM stacked away in the laboratory here?”

  “Because that’s where it’s to be used at present. You still don’t understand the extent of this operation, Dowland. If we need more of the Overgovernment’s YM, we’ll simply take it. It can be done at any time. The only way the Overgovernment could really prevent future raids would be by destroying its supplies of YM-400. And it isn’t going to do that—at least not before we’ve obtained as much as we can use.”

  AS FAR as his own information went, she could be right, Dowland thought. He said, “So supposing some Freeholder scientists do succeed eventually in traveling back in time. What will that accomplish?”

  “Everything we want, of course,” Jill said. “There’ll be no more reason to conceal our activities—and we’ll have time. As much time as we need. Thirty or fifty years perhaps. Scientific centers and automatic factories will be set up in the past, and eventually the factories will be turning out weapons superior to anything the Overgovernment has. And then the weapons will come to the present—to this present, Dowland. Within a year from now, Terra will have become a heavily armed world—overnight. There’ll be no more talk then of forcing us to remain under Overgovernment rule. Or of making Terra another Open Planet . . .”

  Theoretically, Dowland could see that such a plan might work. With the time to do it in, and the resources of a world at the Freeholders’ disposal . . . and there would be nothing to keep them from taking back spaceships and mining the asteroids. For a moment, while Jill Trelawney was talking, she had made it sound almost plausible.

  Only for a moment. She was, of course, telling the truth as she knew it. They were up to something very dangerous—and very illegal—here, whatever it was, and they’d spread the time travel idea around among the lesser members of the group to help keep the real purpose concealed. He said, “Just how far back in time are they planning to go, Miss Trelawney?”

  “Six hundred thousand years. The period is regarded as particularly suitable for what is being planned.”

  Six hundred thousand years. Nothing half-hearted about the Freeholders, Dowland thought sardonically, even as to the size of the lies they put out. “When you waved me in here this evening,” he said. “I had the impression you were expecting someone else. Was I right?”

  “Yes. But I wasn’t waving you in, Dowland. I was attempting to wave you off. If you’d been the man I thought it was, you would have realized it . . . Have you considered my suggestion?”

  “About selling out to the Freeholders?”

  “If you wish to call it that.”

  “Miss Trelawney,” Dowland said amiably, “if I did sell out, would you admire me for it?” Her cheeks flushed. “No. You’d be despicable, of course.” Dowland nodded. “That’s one
thing we agree on. Now, just who was this man you were expecting, and just why were you expecting him?”

  The girl’s lips twisted reluctantly for a moment; then words broke out again. “Carter is to send a man to the ranch with some pieces of equipment. The equipment either was unloaded at Columbia spaceport this afternoon, or will be, early tomorrow morning. I thought you were the messenger. Strange grid-cars don’t come through this area more than once every few weeks. If you’d been the man, you would already have attempted to call our house communicator by the time I saw you . . .”

  “To make sure the coast was clear before coming in with oddlooking equipment.”

  “Yes. You would then have reported to Carter that there was no answer, which would have resulted in an immediate investigation. I was attempting to warn the messenger that he shouldn’t come closer, that something was seriously wrong here.” Dowland reflected, nodded. “That would have worked—if I’d been the man. And now it seems it’s a good thing I inquired about this, Miss Trelawney. Because the messenger actually may have arrived this evening, received no answer from the ranch, reported the fact, and gone away again—mightn’t he?”

  “Yes, that may have happened.” Her eyes were furious with frustration.

  “And what would Carter do then?”

  “He would rush a few squads of Troopers here to investigate.”

  “Hedgehopping,” Dowland nodded, “in approved Trooper style to avoid detection. They hit the power-failure area, and the first few cars crash. They report the matter. What would happen then, Miss Trelawney?”

  “Damn you, Dowland . . . They’d scout around Lion Mesa to see how close they could get by air. Carter would have horses and climbing equipment flown in to that point, and they’d continue on horseback.”

  THERE were other methods, Dowland thought. Parachutes, gliders—they could even try ditching a few cars on the mesa as he’d done. He considered, and mentally shook his head. Aside from the difficulties, the Troopers would be warned to avoid spectacular stunts in the vicinity of the mesa. They’d come exactly as she’d said. It was a completely unobtrusive form of approach, even for a large body of men, and it would still get them here fast.