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 into 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 breal every Psi-High on the wheel if for some reason you couldn’ 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 fre
aks,” Towne snarled. “You can’t stop it now.”
“We’ll 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, Hke 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 farmers 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 timeP”
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 youP”
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.”
Paul frowned. “If that were true, would we be working twenty-four hours a day to trap him? Use your head, man.
I know the rumors, but I can speak for the Psi-Highs, and I think Commissioner Roberts will back me up on this: the alien is menacing our very civilization. He’s struck out against one of our most beloved public servants, Secretary Ben Towne, in an attempt to undermine our government and prepare our planet for a full-scale invasion. There isn’t a Psi-High citizen in the country who will rest until the monster is caught, and until Secretary Towne has been returned safely to Washington.”
“But what about Towne’s anti-Psi legislation? He’s always hated Psi-Highs.”
“Nonsense. Towne has been a loyal servant of the North American people. He’s fought for what he thought was right, and has exposed himself to great dangers and personal vilification in order to do it. Sometimes he hasn’t seen the Psi-Highs’ side of things, but that’s not a matter for us to be vindictive about at a time like this.” He looked around the circle soberly. “The fact remains that he’s in the hands of a dangerous enemy, and it’s our job to save him if it can possibly be done.” He nodded, and stepped into the Security limousine. It honked its way through the crowd, then dipped down into the government tunnel that led to Central Washington and Capitol Hill.
Inside the car, Paul picked up a newspaper and peered at it eagerly. The full-color picture of
the President’s grave face stared out at him in 3-D, with photos of Robert Roberts and Ben Towne on either side. It was an old picture of Towne, almost a flattering picture. Paul grinned as he read the story rapidly:
Secretary Towne Kidnaped From Secret Meeting President Reveals Alien Telepath At Large
“The President of the North American States revealed tonight in a special press conference that Medical Affairs Secretary Benjamin Towne was kidnaped from a secret meeting with Federal Security agents last night in what was described as the first step in a plan for large-scale invasion of Earth by an alien race from another planet. The President reported that one alien, believed to be fully telepathic, has been at large in the country since his landing near Gutenberg, Iowa, last May 26th.
“The alien’s presence was first detected by a loyal Psi-High citizen of Des Moines, Iowa, and was reported immediately to the Federal Security Commission. Robert H. Roberts, Chief of Security, has been active in directing a nationwide dragnet to capture the alien.
“Secretary Towne left his home last night at 11:00 p.m. in response to a call allegedly from Commissioner Roberts. It is believed that the call was forged by the use of a dummy-film; the secretary was reported missing when he did not return home. The two aides who accompanied him apparently suffered severely from the encounter with the alien’s telepathic powers; their condition is reported satisfactory but they were unavailable for questioning at the Hoffman Medical Center this morning.
“The President commented on the excellent and selfless work of certain Psi-High citizens during the past months in the course of a manhunt that has been shrouded in secrecy. The alien’s telepathic powers invariably overcame the efforts of psi-negative individuals, but through the efforts of the Psi-Highs, Commissioner Roberts has expressed every hope of ending the search within days and securing Secretary Towne’s release. It is believed that Towne was kidnaped by the alien in order to obtain information regarding the extent of psi-development in our culture, prior to a large-scale invasion.
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