Markus shook his head.
1970
RESIDENT WITCH
Kyth Interstellar, a detective agency, had a problem that not even their highly skilled operatives could handle—without Telzey, their Resident Witch!
I
Telzey checked in at the Morrahall Hotel in Orado City that evening, had an early dinner, and then locked herself in her room. The impression she’d left at Pehanron College was that she would be spending the night with her family. Her parents, on the other hand, naturally assumed she was at the college. She’d arranged with the ComWeb Service to have calls coming in at college, at home, or to her car, transferred to the hotel room—if the caller, having been informed that she was busy and much preferred not to be disturbed before morning, felt there was justification enough for intruding on her privacy.
The semifinals of the annual robochess district championship series had begun, and she was still well up among the players. There should be two or three crucial games tonight, very little sleep. She wanted all the seclusion she could get.
She got into a casual outfit, settled down at the set, dialed herself into the series. Five minutes later, she was fed an opening move, an easy-looking one. She countered breezily. Six moves on, she was perspiring and trying to squirm out of an infernally ingenious trap. Out of it, though not unscathed, just ahead of deadline, she half closed a rather nasty little trap of her own.
Time passed in blissful absorption.
Then the ComWeb rang.
Telzey started, frowned, glanced at the instrument. It rang again. She pushed the Time Out button on the set, looked at her watch, switched on the ComWeb. “Yes?”
“A caller requests override, Miss Amberdon,” the ComWeb told her. “Who is it?”
“The name is Wellan Dasinger.”
“All right.” Telzey clicked in nonvisual send, and Dasinger’s lean tanned face appeared in the screen. “I’m here,” she said. “Hello, Dasinger.”
“Hello, Telzey. Are we private?”
“As private as we can be,” she assured him. Dasinger was the head of Kyth Interstellar, a detective agency to which she’d given some assistance during the past year, and which in turn was on occasion very useful to her.
“I need information,” he said. “Quite urgently—in your special study area. I’d like to come out to Pehanron and talk to you. Immediately, if possible.” This was no reference to her law studies. Dasinger knew she was a psi; but neither he nor she referred to psi matters directly on a ComWeb. He added, “I realize it can’t be the most convenient hour for you.” Dasinger wasn’t given to overstatement. If he said a matter was quite urgent, it was as urgent as matters could get. Telzey depressed the Concede button on the robochess set, thereby taking herself out of the year’s series. The set clicked off. “The hour’s convenient, Dasinger,” she said. “So is the location.”
“Eh?”
“I’m not at the college. I took a room at the Morrahall for the night. You’re at the agency?”
“I am.” The Kyth offices were four city block complexes away. “Can I send someone over for you?”
“I’ll be down at the desk in five minutes,” Telzey told him.
She slipped into sportswear, fitted on a beret, slung her bag over her shoulder, and left the room.
There were three of them presently in Dasinger’s private conference room. The third one was a Kyth operator Telzey hadn’t met before, a big blond man named Corvin Wergard.
“What we want,” Dasinger was saying, “is a telepath, mind reader—the real thing. Someone absolutely dependable. Someone who will do a fast, precise job for a high fee, and won’t be too fussy about the exact legality of what he’s involved in or a reasonable amount of physical risk. Can you put us in contact with somebody like that? Some acquaintance?”
Telzey said hesitantly, “I don’t know. It wouldn’t be an acquaintance; but I may be able to find somebody like that for you.”
“We’ve tried the listed professionals,” Wergard told her. “Along with some unlisted ones who were recommended to us. Mind readers; people with telepathic devices. None of them would be any good here.”
Telzey nodded. No one like that was likely to be much good anywhere. The good ones stayed out of sight. She said, “It might depend on exactly what you want the telepath to do; why you want him to do it. I know it won’t be anything unethical, but he’ll want to be told more than that.”
Dasinger said, “It may concern a murder already carried out, or a murder that’s still to come. If it’s the last, we want to prevent it. Unfortunately, there’s very little time. Would you like to see the file on the case? It’s a short one.”
Telzey would. It was brought to her.
The file was headed; “Selk Marine Equipment.” Which was a company registered on Cobril, the water world eighteen hours from Orado. The brothers Noal and Larien Selk owned the company, Larien having been involved in it for only the past six years. For the past four years, however, he alone had been active in the management. Noal, who’d founded the company, had been traveling about the Hub during that time, maintaining a casual connection with the business.
A week ago, Noal had contacted the Kyth agency’s branch on Cobril. He’d returned unexpectedly, found indications that Larien was syphoning off company funds, and apparently investing them in underworld enterprises on Orado. He wanted the agency to start tracing the money on Orado, stated he would arrive there in a few days with the evidence he’d accumulated.
He hadn’t arrived. Two days ago, Hishee Selk, Larien’s wife, appeared at the agency’s Cobril branch. She said Larien had implied to her that Noal had tried to make trouble for him and would pay for it. From his hints, she believed Larien had arranged to have Noal kidnapped and intended to murder him. She wanted the agency to find Noal in time to save his life.
The Selk file ended there. Visual and voice recordings of the three principals were included. Telzey studied the images, listened to the voices. There wasn’t much obvious physical resemblance between the brothers. Larien was young, athletically built, strikingly handsome, had an engaging smile. Noal, evidently the older by a good many years, seemed a washed-out personality—slight, stooped, colorless. Hishee was a slender blonde with slanted black eyes and a cowed look. Her voice matched the look; it was low and uncertain. Telzey went through that recording again, ignoring Hishee’s words, absorbing the voice tones.
She closed the file then. “Where’s the rest of it?”
“The rest of it,” said Dasinger, “is officially none of the Kyth agency’s business at the moment. Hence it isn’t in the agency files.”
“Oh?”
“You know a place called Joca Village, near Great Alzar?”
She nodded. “I’ve been there.”
“Larien Selk acquired an estate in the Village three months ago,” Dasinger said. “It’s at the northeast end, an isolated cliffside section overlooking the sea. We know Larien is there at present. And we’ve found out that Noal Selk was in fact kidnapped by professionals and turned over to Larien’s people. The probability is that he’s now in Larien’s place in Joca Village. If they try to move him out of there, he’ll be in our hands. But that’s the only good prospect of getting him back alive we have so far. Larien has been given no reason to believe anyone is looking for his brother, or that anyone but Hishee has begun to suspect Noal is missing. That’s our immediate advantage. We can’t afford to give it up.”
Telzey nodded, beginning to understand. Joca Village was an ultra-exclusive residential area, heavily guarded. If you weren’t a resident, or hadn’t been issued a pass by a resident, you didn’t get in. Passes were carefully checked at the single entrance and had to be confirmed. Overhead screens barred an aerial approach. She said, “And you can’t go to the authorities until you have him back.”
“No,” Dasinger said. “If we did, we’d never get him back. We might be able to pin murder on Larien Selk later, though that’s by no means certain. In any case, it isn’t wha
t we’re after.” He hesitated, said questioningly after a moment, “Telzey?”
Telzey blinked languidly.
“Telzey—” Dasinger broke off, watching her. Wergard glanced at him. Dasinger made a quick negating motion with his hand. Wergard shifted his attention back to Telzey.
“I heard you,” Telzey said some seconds later. “You have Hishee Selk here in the agency, don’t you?”
Wergard looked startled. Dasinger said, “Yes, we do.”
“It was her voice mainly,” Telzey said. “I picked her up on that.” She looked at Wergard. “Wergard can’t really believe this kind of thing is real.”
“I’m trying to suspend my doubts,” Wergard said. “Bringing in a mind reader wasn’t my idea. But we could use one only too well here.”
Dasinger said, “All right to go on now, Telzey?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I was gone for only a moment. Now I’m making contact, and Hishee looks wide open. She’s very easy!” She straightened up in her chair. “Just what do you want your mind reader to do?”
Dasinger said to Wergard, “What Telzey means is that, having seen what Hishee Selk looks like, and having heard her voice, she gained an impression of Hishee’s personality. She then sensed a similar impression around here, found a connection to the personality associated with it, and is now feeling her way into Hishee’s mind. Approximately correct, Telzey?”
“Very close.” For a nonpsi, Dasinger did, in fact, have a good understanding of psi processes.
“Now as to your question,” he went on. “When Larien Selk bought the place in Joca Village, he had it equipped with security devices, installed by Banance Protective Systems, a very good outfit. During the past week, Banance added a few touches—mainly a Brisell pack and its handler. At the same time, the Colmer Detective Agency in Great Alzar was employed to provide round-the-clock guards, five to a shift, stationed directly at the house, behind the pack. However, we’ve obtained copies of the Banance security diagrams which show the setup on the grounds. And, of course, there are various ways of handling guards.”
“You mean you can get into Joca Village and into the house?”
“Very likely. One of the residents is an agency client and has supplied us with Village passes. Getting on the Selk estate and into the house without alerting security presents problems, but shouldn’t be too difficult. Everything is set up to do it now, two or three hours after nightfall at Joca Village. It’s after we’re inside the house that the matter becomes really ticklish.” Wergard said, “It’s a one-shot operation. If we start it, it has to come off. We can’t back away, and try again. Either Noal will be safe before his brother realizes somebody is trying to rescue him, or he’ll have disappeared for good.” Telzey considered. It was easy enough to dispose of a human being instantly and tracelessly. “And you don’t know Noal’s in the house?” she said.
“No,” Dasinger said. “There’s a strong probability he’s there. If we can’t do better, we’ll have to act on that probability tonight, because every hour or delay puts his life—if he’s still alive—in greater danger. If he isn’t there, Larien is the one person in the house who’s sure to know where he is. But picking up Larien isn’t likely to do Noal any good. He’s bound to have taken precautions against that, and again Noal, wherever he is, will simply vanish, along with any evidence pointing to him. So we come back to the mind reader—somebody who can tell us from Larien’s mind exactly where Noal is and what we can do about it, before Larien knows we’re in the house.”
“Yes, I see,” Telzey said. “But there’re a number of things I don’t understand here. Why does Larien—” She broke off, looked reflective a moment, nodded. “I can get that faster from Hishee now! It’s all she’s thinking about.”
II
Larien Selk, legally and biologically Noal’s junior by twenty-five years, was, in the actual chronology of events, the older brother. He’d been conceived first by three years. The parents were engaged in building up a business and didn’t want to be burdened with progeny taxes. The Larien-to-be went to an embryonic suspense vault. When Noal was conceived, the family could more readily afford a child, and the mother decided she preferred giving natural birth to one.
So Noal was born. His parents had no real wish for a second child. They kept postponing a decision about the nameless embryo they’d stored away, and in the end seemed almost to have forgotten it. It wasn’t until they’d died that Noal, going through old records, found a reference to his abandoned sibling. Somewhat shocked by his parents’ indifference, he had Larien brought to term. When his brother grew old enough to understand the situation, Noal explained how he’d come to take his place.
Larien never forgave him. Noal, a shrewd enough man in other respects, remained unaware of the fact. He saw to it that Larien had the best of everything—very nearly whatever Larien wanted. When he came of age, Noal made him a partner in the company he’d founded and developed. Which put Larien in a position to begin moving against his brother.
Hishee was his first move. Hishee was to have married Noal. She was very young, but she was fond of him and a formal agreement wasn’t far away. Then Larien turned his attention on Hishee, and the formal agreement was never reached. Hishee fell violently in love.
Noal accepted it. He loved them both; they were near the same age. But he found it necessary to detach himself from them. He waited until they married, then turned the effective management of the company over to Larien, and began traveling.
Larien set out casually to break Hishee. He did an unhurried thorough job it, gradually, over the months, eroding her self-esteem and courage in a considered variety of ways. He brought her to heel, continued to reduce her. By the time Noal Selk came back to Cobril, Hishee was too afraid of Larien, too shaken in herself, to give her brother-in-law any indication of what had happened.
But Noal saw it. Larien had wanted him to see it, which was a mistake. Larien wasn’t quite as well covered in his manipulation of the company’s assets as he’d believed.
Noal, alerted to Larien’s qualities, became also aware of that. He made a quiet investigation. It led him presently to the Kyth detective agency.
Then he disappeared.
Dasinger said dryly, “We’d put you on the Kyth payroll any time, Telzey! It took us some hours to extract half that information from Hishee. The rest of it checks. If Larien thinks it’s safe, he’ll see Noal broken completely before he dies. No doubt he’s made ingenious arrangements for that. He’s an ingenious young man. But the time we have for action remains narrowly limited.”
“He doesn’t know Hishee’s gone?” Telzey asked.
“Not yet. We have that well covered. We had to take her out of the situation; she’d be in immediate danger now. But it’s an additional reason for avoiding delay. If Larien begins to suspect she had courage enough left to try to save Noal, he’ll destroy the evidence. He should be able to get away with it legally, and he knows it.”
Telzey was silent a moment. There were some obscure old laws against witchcraft, left deliberately unchanged, very rarely applied. Aside from that, the Federation was officially unaware of the existence of psis; a psi’s testimony was meaningless. Legally then, it was probable enough that Larien Selk could get away with the murder of his brother. She doubted he’d survive Noal long; the private agencies had their own cold rules. But, as Dasinger had said, that wasn’t what they were after.
She said, “Why do you want to plant the telepath in the house? If he’s good enough, he should be able to tap Larien’s mind from somewhere outside Joca Village, though it probably would take a little longer.”
Wergard said, “One of the Banance security devices is what’s known technically as a psi-block. It covers the outer walls of the house. Larien shares some of the public superstitions about the prevalence of efficient mind-reading instruments. Presumably the block would also stop a human telepath.”
She nodded. “Yes, they do.”
“When he’s o
utside one of his psi-blocked structures, he wears a mind shield,” Wergard said. “A detachable type. If we’d known about this a little earlier, we might have had an opportunity to pick him up and relieve him of it. But it’s too late now.”
“Definitely too late,” Dasinger agreed. “If you think you can find us a telepath who’s more than a hit-and-miss operator, we’d take a chance on waiting another day, if necessary, to bring him in on it. But it would be taking a chance. If you can’t get one, we’ll select a different approach and move tonight.”
Telzey said, “A telepath wouldn’t be much good to you if Larien happens to be probe-immune. About one in eight people are.”
“Seven to one are good odds in the circumstances,” Dasinger said. “Very good odds. We’ll risk that.”
“They’re better than seven to one,” Telzey told him. “Probe-immunes usually don’t know that’s what they are, but they usually don’t worry about having their minds read either. They feel safe.” She rubbed her nose, frowning. “A Psychology Service psi could do the job for you, and I can try getting one. But I don’t think they’ll help. They won’t lift a finger in ordinary crime cases.”
Dasinger shook his head. “I can’t risk becoming involved with them here anyway. Technically it’s an illegal operation. The Kyth agency won’t be conducting it unless we come up with evidence that justifies the illegality. I resigned yesterday, and Wergard and some others got fired. We’ll be acting as private citizens. But that’s also only a technicality, and the Service is unpredictable. I don’t know what view they’d take of it. We might have them blocking us instead of helping. Can you find someone else?”
She nodded. “I can get you a telepath. Just one. The other psis I know won’t touch it. They don’t need the fee, and they don’t want to reveal themselves—particularly not in something that’s illegal.”
“Who’s the one?” Wergard asked.
Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 208