“That must be it,” Rezab said, “We know the limitations of the normal mind. No natural mind could simulate ditis like he did to escape from the clutches of—.”
So they knew about that!
“And he couldn’t operate on himself,” Josef said dryly. “That means—”
Larre saw the two men gaze at each other, their eyes troubled.
“It means that he’s not our only threat,” Rezab said. “If we killed him we might lose a chance to find and eliminate a greater danger than he presents.”
Larre knew a moment of panic. Whatever else happened they must never get to Gramp through him.
“Keep him here for another hour and I’ll find out all you want to know,” said Josef.
“There are more things under heaven and earth, Horatio,” Larre murmured under his breath. He closed his eyes and concentrated deeply. When he opened them he was standing on the sidewalk in front of the club! The mind reading and teleportation, as usual, had left him weak and spent. One knee threatened to buckle as he walked hurriedly away. He hoped they wouldn’t understand how he had done it.
* * * *
Back in his room Larre changed clothes quietly: changed into a suit which he had never worn.
Standing before a full length mirror in his lave he studied his features quizzically. Slowly the skin on the bridge of his nose drew back, shortening it into a slight pug, and forming several wrinkles at the base of the forehead. Other wrinkles formed crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. His mouth lengthened and drooped slightly at the ends. A moment later his wavy hair began to straighten and soon lay flat against his head. Finally, his spine curved, shortening his height by a full inch.
When he walked into the lobby of the Hotel Lowry he had added twenty years to his age.
He paid a week’s rent at the desk and rode the elevator to the eighty-first floor. In his room he relaxed for the first time that night. He ate the meal which he had ordered sent up, and then slept soundly, for ten hours.
* * * *
Larre awoke to the slow throbbing of his intuition. Faint but steady. He lay quietly and let his mind spread out a fine net of seeking tentative web. Nothing!
When he was certain that the danger was not imminent, he dismissed the feeling and turned to his more immediate problem. He had to find out more about Rezab and the men associated with him.
Vaguely he recalled an item about Warner which he had read in Rezab’s thoughts. It had been a fleeting impression which told him nothing. Where did the Director figure in this set-up? Lacking any other leads, Larre decided, he’d better investigate that immediately.
This would probably be his last chance for leisurely investigation. The next time he clashed with the Disciples he would have to have all possible data collected and be prepared to move fast. Fighting them was likely to be quite a job for one man.
Before he left his room Larre mentally photographed every object in it. If they searched it while he was gone, he would read signs of it when he returned.
Larre wrote his second examination under the name of Otto G. Rudd. Once again he faced the Director.
“I’m happy to say—,” while Warner talked, the probing tentacle quested. In the Director’s mind he found only shallowness: He was mentally a small man concerned with petty graft, money, and position.
When Warner asked for his bribe a flood of information poured forth. He paid off to Gorman, Police Commissioner. Gorman was under the domination of—Mobob. The Disciples were under Mobob. The Disciples controlled the country. They owned the Companies and ran the government, either by direct office holding or by influence. And through the machinations of these men, the people suffered. They were tied up in graft, extorted by monopolies, and moved like pawns by this selfish tyranny.
Once, as though half forgotten, a new name entered: Pariseau. Pariseau seemed to be synonymous with Mobob. And, just before the end of the interview, the perma-phone whispered. As he answered the Director wondered if it would be Josef!
* * * *
When Larre left the Civil Service building he did not go down to the ground walks but rode the outside perambulator on the second level. It carried him along at a slow, window-shopping rate of speed.
He needed to concentrate, he decided. To solve the problem of safety as well as how to whip the Disciples. He had to bring together all the various threads of the enigma: To form them into one solid whole, to be weighed and considered.
He came to the front of a large pastel blue GAMES PALACE, blazing with the lighted words, “Come in with a tib. Walk out a millionaire!
To give himself the relaxation necessary to clear thought, he decided to go in and try one of the Bank games. Sometimes he could do his best thinking while playing.
The place thronged with players and spectators. These people did not take their games casually. Rather, a tension gripped both the men and women grouped about the boards. The players were grim and intent on their scores. Facial expressions only, betraying the emotions of the onlookers.
Larre stepped over to one of the vacant alleys, dropped his tib into the coin slot, and placed the five fingers of his right hand into the holes of the black measurement board. When he had an adjustment which he considered satisfactory, he squeezed and a regulation sixteen pound Bank bowling ball dropped into the waiting rack.
Sighting carefully down the left fork of the prone Y, Larre released the ball. It travelled swiftly down the alley and into the main stem of the Y. Bounding off the hard rubber backboard of the base, at a slight angle, it came rolling back up the runway. It entered the right fork of the Y and knocked down three of the ten plastic pins standing there.
Soon the spirit of the game gripped him and he was oblivious to all else about him. His tib had bought the customary ten frames of game count. The automatic score keeper gave him a count in each square totaling the number of pins he was able to knock down in three balls. If he succeeded in knocking down all the pins in two attempts, he received a count of ten and was given an additional free frame. Knocking all the pins down with one ball entitled him to two free frames.
Overhead the pari-mutuel board posted the high scores for the entire city and the amounts paid for besting each score. High for the last twenty-four hour period was 271 and paid four hundred six dalls. High for the week, 302, paid fifteen hundred two dalls. On up to the all-time record high of 990, the bettering of which paid one million dalls!
The thought that the poorest man could win a million dalls with the investment of a mere tib was too compelling a lure for many men to resist. This it was that bred the fever in the players, and supported the thousands of PALACES throughout the city.
By the eighth frame Larre had mastered the mathematics of the alley and was playing with cold logical precision.
Not until he had run up ten strikes in succession did he become aware that he had an audience, intent, fascinated at his run. This would never do. The last thing he wanted was to attract attention. His eager watchers sighed when he blew the next frame. He rolled one more strike, three spares, and went out of the game on the next open frame.
His total of 287 gave him the new high for the day and he collected his pool which had grown to four hundred twenty-one dalls.
Not wanting to attract attention by too hasty a departure, he stepped into an adjoining barber shop for a haircut. He sat in one of the empty chairs and the clipper case settled down softly about his head. He deposited his dall, pressed the type-24 button, and the automatics began their operation.
All this while his subconscious mind had been doing its unfelt, undirected analyzing. Three minutes after he sat down his hair-cut was complete and so, also, was one part of the work of his subconscious. He knew the identity of Mobob!
* * * *
Larre returned to his room to find that nothing had been moved.
Stepping to the electrical directory he dialed M-o-b-o-b. He received the whining “no such person” signal.
Pariseau, the directory infor
med him, had disappeared twenty years before and had not been heard from since. He was presumed to be dead. He had been a brilliant brain surgeon, and renowned for his studies of the mind. This confirmed his earlier conclusion as to who Mobob was. He now had the WHO. He wished he knew the WHY.
That left two possibilities to investigate Gorman and Josef.
But first he must find out what it was that troubled his intuition. All day the warning had throbbed, like a dull toothache. To disregard it further would be folly.
While he let water run into his tub, he stripped. Slowly. Keeping relaxed. Gingerly he inched his way into the steaming bath. Finally he lay immersed to the muscular slope of the shoulders where they joined the neck. His muscles lost all tenseness, his mind forgot its problems and rested, as free of thought and extraneous impressions as it is possible for the vital organ to be.
Now a steady soundless ticking registered. His life force beat and ebbed in tune with the soundless melody itself. He followed the continuous wave of ticks out of his room, through the walls of the building, until it was lost in the distance. He had solved its riddle!
Some variation of a radar beam had been attuned to the pattern of his pulse emanations and it followed him wherever he went. It must have been set in concordance with him when he was at the club.
A new respect for the Disciples had come with the discovery. For a moment he knew uncertainty.
He quickly shrugged off the feeling. He’d have to return to the club. Only there could he throw the beam out of pattern. This must be done at any cost. If the Disciples knew where he was at all times, he would be practically powerless.
With the resolution to return came a feeling of joy. The kind of joy men feel when about to join in battle with the enemy. Some trepidation, yes, but joy that the uncertainty and waiting would be over.
The realization came that now he would get somewhere. They didn’t—couldn’t—suspect his full powers. He could play them while they tried to play him, and unearth the rest of the unholy Disciples. It would do no good to eliminate one or two if the others remained unknown.
* * * *
The inscrutable Josef greeted him impassively on his return to the club. How he wished he could read that man’s mind.
“Is Mr. Rezab here, Josef?”
“Not at the present moment, Mr. King. However, he told me to expect you.”
“He did?”
“Yes sir. He asked me to have you wait in one of the private rooms. He is due any minute.”
They walked up three steps and through a mirrored dining room. A beautiful red haired organist played softly on an organ harp.
Once in the private conference room Josef led him to an over-stuffed chair and left. Larre settled back comfortably but kept every sense keen. He did not have long to wait before they closed with him in another conflict of wits.
His first intimation of alarm came with the realization that the chair in which he sat was no ordinary chair. At first he was not quite sure what was wrong about it. Then his tense, expectant body felt a series of thin minute vibrations. Tiny muscles in the follicles of his epidermis caused the downy hairs on his arms to straighten.
His sensitive fingers examined the fabric in the chair. He thought he could feel fine wires, deeply buried. He tried to move the chair but it was bolted to the floor.
He lifted the lumiline lamp on the end table at his elbow and found a second, smaller wire following the electric outlet.
Larre wondered what their game was this time. He’d play along with them for awhile to find out.
Directly ahead of him a tinted screen reflected the light into thousands of little splashes of color, and at the same time gave back his own image, handsome but mottled by the lights and too strained for his own satisfaction.
Only he would have spotted it: Two of the pin-pricks of light never changed!
Quickly he shifted to a new ecology of sensation. From behind the screen he received three impressions: Josef. Rezab. And a machine, that made the lights, which was studying him.
Maintaining a sharp external vigilance, he concentrated on the lights. First one blinked out. Then the other.
Shortly afterward Rezab walked into the room.
“Sorry to be late, Larre.”
“The apologies are all mine, for not waiting to be invited before coming.” Larre determined to play along with Rezab’s simulated friendliness.
“Not at all. You’re always welcome here.”
“Thank you.” Larre admired the man’s coolness.
“I’m going to lay my cards on the table, Larre,” said Rezab. “We want you on our side. Also, we want your, shall we say—mentor?”
“Why?”
“You’re both too potentially dangerous for us to allow you not to be on our side.”
“What if I refuse?”
“You’d be foolhardy.” Rezab’s voice had not raised the slightest, but it echoed the strength and relentlessness behind it. “Besides, we have much to offer you. Position. Money. Just name your price.”
“How would I know that I could trust you?”
“I’ll prove it to you in any way you ask.”
“Start by telling me about yourself,” Larre tested him. “And who is Mobob?”
“Mobob,” said Rezab, “is, or was, our non-titular head. His real name was Pariseau. At the time of his disappearance, twenty years ago, he was the head of National Medical University.”
“What was his connection with you?”
“We, the Disciples, I believe we’re known as, were selected students of his. He trained us to run the country. After our training we were each operated on by him. He inserted stainless plates in our brains. These plates cut off all our baser emotions; our jealousy, hatred, fear, and,” here his voice again took on its ruthless tinge, “misdirected compassion. I believe he made us as nearly perfect governing instruments as is humanly possible.”
“What were you doing, a short while ago, behind that screen?” asked Larre. For just a moment he was afraid that he had given away one of his hidden abilities.
Rezab hesitated for a moment, but seemed to miss the allusion as he replied, “I believe my answer to that question will prove my sincerity. We were trying to read your mind with a secret machine recorder. We weren’t too successful because of its limitations. We can only ask it questions while it is in operation. It blinks a green light for YES, and a red light for NO. Also, you shorted it too quickly.” They had figured that part out with amazing speed and certainty.
“Incidentally,” continued Rezab, “your handling of that machine is a good demonstration of why we want you with us.”
Strangely enough, Larre saw that Rezab, himself, believed what he was saying, except for one thing: Death loomed for him and for Gramp. Death for him immediately if he did not agree. Behind the curtain on the wall he sensed that Josef aimed a pistol at his heart.
“Give me a minute to think,” said Larre.
He concentrated on the radar beam that covered him and efficiently propelled an explosive charge along its waves that burned out every wire in its case.
He teleported to the sidewalk in front of the club. Fervently he wished that he were not limited to so short a range.
As he walked quickly up the block, he realized that a man walked directly behind him. His heart beat faster as a second man joined the first. Ahead walked a third. Across the street were several more. This time they had been prepared for him.
When the first spasm of fear gripped his stomach he was pleased that it was not a restricting fear, or one of panic. Rather it acted as an alarm which gave a greater sharpness to his nerves; brought more blood to his muscles, readying them for conflict or for flight. His reflexes would all be faster because of that fear.
In two quick teleports he placed two city blocks between him and the lodge. He was not surprised to find men around him each time. They surrounded him but made no attempt to stop or harm him.
In the streets mobiles cruised slowly,
and overhead he saw lights where others hovered. The chase was on! Could he lose them? The teleports took up too much energy to be used much more.
At the first L station he entered a brown-car with the blue streak that designated high lane traffic. Two men followed him into the vehicle.
As the omnibus rose into the thousand yard lane, Larre walked up into the next to the top compartment and seated himself in the middle of a center row of seats. His two shadows took up positions four rows back.
On either side of the brown-car Larre could see the orange lights of mobiles which flanked the public vehicle and kept pace with it. The net was still tight.
Out of his eidetic memory Larre drew the map of the city. The next L Station was situated side by side with the hub of one of the pneumatic tube “wheels”. There would be his chance.
The brown-car reached its station, descended to the ground, and discharged a dozen passengers. It rose back into its traffic lane and headed for the next station. As it left the light and entered the darkness of the night, Larre rose and started for the upper, open deck. From the corner of his eye he saw his two pursuers rise and follow him.
When he was out of their sight on the stairway, he ran. He did not stop on the upper deck, but vaulted over the railing and into the darkness.
For over eight hundred feet he fell at the normal speed of a dropping object. One hundred and twelve feet from the ground his body substance registered its trained metastasis and it began to fight gravity. Thirty-two feet later his velocity had been cut in half. Sixteen feet from the ground it had been halved again. His speed steadily decreased.
He landed running. A quick dash of two hundred yards brought him to the pneumatic tube station. He dropped a two-tib coin into the fare box, entered a waiting tube, and sank down into a deeply cushioned seat.
The door of the capsule locked shut and they were off. Larre flattened against the cushions. As his seat slid slowly backward, its base plunger, riding through a metal container of thick oil with a small escape outlet, absorbed most of the force of the initial momentum.
The 19th Golden Age of Science Fiction Page 33