Roberts shrugged. “Okay, I agree. But what does this add up to?”
Fail-cloth looked at him grimly. “Seems to me it adds up to one thing: we aren’t going to catch him in any dragnet. No matter how skillfully we lay it out. No matter how many Psi-Highs we have in on it, and no matter how well trained they are.”
“Then you’re saying that we aren’t going to get him, period.”
“Not quite. I think we can catch him if we go at it the right way. At least we might have a chance, with a different approach. Well have no way to evaluate it, at first, because of the nature of the approach, but in the end, we’ll either have the alien or we won’t, and I think there’s a better than even chance that we will. If we keep playing the game we played in Chicago, we’re going to lose every tune.”
“But what went wrong in Chicago?” Roberts cried.
“Nothing, except that we were whipped before we even started. Look at it this way. He’s outguessed us, consistently, every time, right from the start. And it’s not really surprising that he has. He doesn’t need a three-hour briefing and a road map to tell what’s going on around him. All he needs is a hint, the barest touch of a man’s mind, the slightest flicker of contact, and he already has enough of a headstart to figure out everything that’s going to happen from then on. Just like a chess game—you play along, and suddenly your opponent makes a move that reveals a whole complex gambit he’s been pursuing that you hadn’t even noticed before. But our alien friend spots the same gambit before the first move instead of after the tenth. We make a move, and he’s already ahead of us. By now he knows human minds can operate along fairly logical lines, he can figure out all the logical possibilities before they happen, and figure a defense for each possibility, and we just can’t trap him, Psi-Highs or no Psi-Highs.”
Roberts scowled at him. “Then what do you propose?”
Faircloth grinned. “That we change the ground rules on him without tipping him off. That we take all the evidence we have here, and feed it into a computer and let it meditate a while and plot out a supremely logical approach for us to follow in order to trap the creature on the basis of what we know about him now. Then, we take that supremely logical approach and change it a bit. This creature is assuming well follow a logical approach. What we need is a supremely illogical approach.”
VIII
The call they were expecting came through at last, at three o’clock one morning after they had almost given it up in despair.
It had been a long, heartbreaking wait. Time after time Faircloth had argued that they must have been very close in Chicago, closer than they realized. The alien must actually have been frightened, he insisted, because since Chicago there had been no sign, no clue to his whereabouts, no hint that he was even in existence any more. Yet Faircloth was certain that the contact was bound to come, sooner or later.
It was possible, of course, that the change in the search pattern had worried the alien. Logically, a dragnet should have been set up in Chicago, and the entrance-ways to all the large cities guarded carefully. That was what the computer had said. “Probability is strong that the alien desires to remain in a city, but evidence suggests that Chicago may not be the optimum location for him. Recommend heavy Security measures be taken in all surrounding cities of size as well as Chicago. Probability is four-plus high that the alien is seeking some specific information. Advise close control of all spaceports, air transit outlets and rolling-road escape-ways.”
And so forth. That was what the computer had said. Of course, the computer was not infallible, but its analysis and recommendations were utterly logical on the basis of the information given it.
Which was exactly the reason they were being carefully ignored.
It was a gamble, and no one was more aware of this than Faircloth. Reluctantly, Roberts pulled all Security personnel out of the Chicago area, Psi-High and otherwise, except for a small crew headed by Ted Marino, who were scattered throughout the city with orders to carefully avoid contact among themselves. A gamble, but it was not entirely guesswork that made Paul so certain that the alien, if left suddenly and completely alone, would try to make contact with a Psi-High mind sooner or later. Of course, that conclusion itself was the result of logical reasoning. No matter how they tried to remove logic from their approach, it crept in, it had to creep in. It was logical that a telepathically sensitive creature, visiting an alien planet in obvious secrecy, would seek to learn something about the segment of the population that might be able to expose his presence. He would seek signs of his own kind of mental capability. He might even have to; Paul knew all too well that a Psi-High mind cut off and isolated from any psi-contact soon was a sick mind. That was why Psi-Highs always settled in the cities, why they sought each other out with such fierce, desperate clannishness—a tendency which, in itself, had bred suspicion of Psi- Highs in the minds of psi-negatives. What psi-negatives couldn’t really comprehend was that with Psi-Highs it wasn’t a matter of choice. It was a desperate need. And Paul knew how overwhelming that need could be.
No, logically the alien would make contact with a human Psi-High, sooner or later. It would not be difficult to spot such a contact. The Psi-Highs were very few in number, only a couple of hundred scattered in small colonies in the larger cities of the North American States. With painstaking care each one had been contacted and warned, and those working in Security were staked out in the most likely places for the contact that they expected. The roads were left free, and the airports and spaceports were not checked. No dragnet- just an invisible network of human minds spread across the country, delicately tuned, waiting for the spark of contact.
Faircloth was asleep when the call finally came. He rolled groggily out of bed and snapped on the visiphone screen. Ted Marino’s face materialized eerily, a frightened, shaking Marino whose eyes were wide with horror, and whose hands jerked and jerked as he tried to control them. His voice was on the thin edge of hysteria. “He hit me, Paul. Just a little while ago. He hit me hard.”
Paul leaned forward, staring at the man’s face. He had expected contact. He had not expected this kind of contact. “Ted, are you hurt?”
“No, no. But let me tell you, I can’t take that again.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t just another Psi-High contacting you? It’s deadly important, Ted.”
Marino shook his head vehemently. “No, no, no. It couldn’t have been that. I know what normal Psi-High contact is like. This was—different. It was as if he’d opened up my skull and scooped out my brains.”
Faircloth nodded, trembling with excitement, “Did you try to fight him?”
“I tried. He had me wide open before I knew what had happened, but I tried. I—I think it puzzled him. It didn’t stop him at all, he just brushed it aside like cobwebs, but it puzzled him—” The man hesitated. “It was awful, Paul. I want to get this bird as badly as you, but I don’t know if I can stand another blast like that.”
“You aren’t going to have to,” Faircloth said. “You’ve done great, but your part in it is over now. Don’t write a report about what happened. Don’t even think about it. Get dressed and get on a plane out of there. Go to Florida, Rio, any place as long as its remote and out of touch. Use your expense account, and have yourself the time of your life.”
Marino’s eyes opened in amazement. “Are you crazy? I thought this was what we’ve been waiting for!”
“It is, but your part in the plan is over. Do what I say and don’t worry about it. When you’ve gotten a good rest come back to the Hoffman Center and take up your training with Dr. Abrams where you left off.” Paul flipped the switch and turned back to the room, exultant. He clapped his hands in glee, and began to pack his bag.
The chase was on, with a vengeance. But this time, the mouse was chasing the cat.
IX
Then, as if a dam had broken, the reports began streaming in Three more from Chicago, one from Cleveland, from a Psi High technician there who was not even remotely c
onnected with Security. From Pittsburgh, from New Philadelphia. Like a fearful ominous flood, reports of the alien’s contact swarmed in. Paul Faircloth and Jean Sanders plotted them, and waited, and got ready.
Their headquarters were in a small suite of rooms in a middle class residential hotel in the heavily built-up metropolitan area between Washington and Baltimore. Few Federal Security agents, Psi-High or otherwise, knew this; all most of the team had was a visiphone priority code number, and a special word-key for scrambling messages. Faircloth had insisted on this. Of all the agents posted and assigned, only Paul, Jean, and Roberts knew the true nature of the operation. Each of them worked out his own illogical details without even telling the other. The wisdom of such a procedure was graphically illustrated a dozen times over. The alien’s work, when he did it, was thorough. The operative in Pittsburgh had tried to fight back the alien’s telepathic overtures, as instructed, and suffered a burst of wrath that had left him blubbering in a corner for three days until a crew of Hoffman Center physicians located him and straightened him out with stimulants and glucose. More and more, the alien’s puzzlement and frustration and anger began to seep through in the contact reports, and Paul and Jean watched and nodded approvingly.
Meanwhile, other steps were taken. Three times, when they were certain the alien had left a locality, they ordered cleanup squads to raid his former quarters, quizzing neighbors, asking multitudes of idiotic questions, uncovering half a dozen descriptions and leads—all of which they assiduously ignored. They began stabbing erratically at locations where the alien had not yet been, raids carried out with a relentless- ness and singleness of mind that left the unfortunates who were questioned shaking in their boots. Even the agents themselves were confused as to the purpose of these raids, and were cheerfully allowed to remain confused. Still other tactics were pursued, a series of disjointed, uncoordinated, abortive and harassing procedures, as though the whole search had suddenly fallen into the hands of a madman. A rocket ship bound for Venus was delayed four days beyond an opposition, adding a half-million dollars to the cost of fueling it. A whole series of road blocks was thrown up between New York and New Philadelphia, virtually paralyzing commercial traffic between the cities for two days, for no coherent reason. An order went out, quite arbitrarily, to apprehend and search all passengers on the great St. Louis-New York rolling-roads route, and Robert Roberts put in a grueling week trying to soothe the ruffled feelings of businessmen who had been held up in transit, and companies whose products had spoiled when the swift-moving strips had been halted for the shakedown.
Rumors began to drift out, rumors that there was an alien from the stars at large, that Federal Security was waging a vast underground battle to capture him before the news broke out. Telecasts buzzed with “it was alleged” and “unconfirmed reports say.” The tension mounted daily. Bit by bit, carefully sifted crumbs of information were dropped into the minds of the Psi-Highs who were still in the alien’s path, and all around the alien’s path. Long hours were spent in the headquarters suite, planning and coordinating the pattern. But in the end, it was a pattern well chosen and worth the effort, for it was soon evident that the alien was heading for the great eastern metropolitan area which surrounded the capital city as though he were drawn to the lodestone rock.
No attempt was made to contact him; quite the contrary. All the alien’s overtures yielded him no response other than futile attempts at shielding; no analysis of any contact was even attempted, and this knowledge was planted so that the alien was sure to learn it. Warnings of traps were planted in his path, “secret” knowledge of closing dragnets and carefully devised Psi-High weapons to be used against him. Occasionally such warnings were followed by abortive raids, always either too early to meet him or too late, always carried out by psi-negative Security men who had no more idea what they were doing than the man in the moon. But one by one, key facts were planted, pointing always in one direction, and always the alien moved toward the headquarters area.
Paul Faircloth and Jean Sanders seldom left the hotel even for a few minutes. Their job was to keep the pattern moving, and to plot out their individual tactics quite apart from each other. It was wearing; as the tension mounted, both of them grew more haggard. Paul had not found time to shave in a week, and there were dark circles under the girl’s eyes. Much of the time she just sat, tense, listening, waiting; other times she helped him work as he fed data into the field computer squatting in the suite. But even in the tension and exhaustion of the work, neither of them could forget the simple, awful fact that Paul Faircloth had been identified as a Psi- High, and that somehow, they would have to rearrange all the plans they had had for the future.
Each morning they spread the reports out on the table before them. “Closer,” Paul said one day. “And it’s on his own volition. He hasn’t been pushed. In fact, he’s been left out in the cold and he doesn’t seem to like it.”
The girl nodded, and glanced at the papers. “He’s definitely trying to ask questions, now, when he contacts. Karns’ call last night showed that better than any other. And of course Karns didn’t know any answers.”
Faircloth nodded. “None of them know the answers. That’s the beauty of it. Try as he will, he doesn’t get anywhere.”
“Not yet.” The girl rose, walking across the room. “Paul, I’m afraid. We’re shooting in the dark. We don’t know what we’re fighting against.”
“Are you sorry you’re in on it?”
“Oh, no!” She turned around, her face stricken. “It’s not that. It’s just—” His mind was suddenly filled with shadows, impressions struggling to get through, impressions that would make the use of words ridiculous. “Oh, Paul, I’m afraid for you, for both of us. If anything should happen—”
“Nothing’s going to happen.”
“But what about us? If something goes wrong—Roberts knows about you—”
“I’d rather Roberts knew than Ben Towne.”
The girl’s eyes were wide with fright. She seemed so small and helpless. “But we shouldn’t be together! Oh, Paul, why did Roberts have to find out? Why did anyone have to find out?” And then she was sobbing in his arms, and he held her close, trying to comfort her.
“Jeannie,” he murmured. “This just doesn’t do any good.”
“But it’s so unfair! Why shouldn’t I be allowed to marry you if I want to?”
“You know why as well as I do. Because people are afraid of us. There’s nothing we can do about it, that’s just the way people are. They’re always afraid of people who seem to threaten the way things have always been. So they passed the laws, and they think they’re right.”
“Ben Towne thinks they’re right!” she burst out scornfully. Her tears were hot on his cheek.
“Towne pushed the laws through, but he couldn’t have done it alone. People are afraid of someone carrying a single psi-positive gene, like you and me. What would they do if the gene were doubled? How could we tell what our children would be like? Look, Jeannie, think! You’re just now learning how to use your psi-powers, and look what you’re doing! You can almost get through to me, and I’ve had no formal training at all. I’ve been underground, just training myself as best I could. You’ve almost reached your limit. Dr. Abrams says you’ll have almost complete control in five years, and I could too, with the proper training. What would our children be like, with the psi-factor on both sides?”
“Well, what would be wrong with it?” The girl was fighting back the tears. “Are we such monsters? Have we done anything so terrible that we have to be caged like animals and kept under control like criminals?”
Paul shook his head. “People fear anything different, and they only know what they’ve been told. Ben Towne has been a vicious enemy, and enough people believe him to give him tremendous power. And there’s not one thing we can do about it.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at her face with it. “It doesn’t even pay to think about it, right now. We’ve got a job to do, J
eannie. It might be the most important thing the Psi-Highs have ever tried to do. We can’t flop on this job.”
“But Towne will just turn it against us.”
“Not if we work it right, he won’t. And I’ve got a hunch that we’re working it right.”
X
When it seemed that the strike-point could only be hours away, the visiphone buzzed and Roberts’ worried face appeared on the screen.
“Paul,” he said sharply, “there are some bad rumors around. I think we’re in trouble.”
Paul cursed. “What kind of rumors?”
“AH kinds,” said Roberts sourly. “They’re saying the hunt for the alien is a fraud, that nobody is doing anything at all about it. There were a couple of out-and-out charges that Psi-Highs are teaming up with the alien to make an attempt on the government.”
“Moon of Mars, can’t somebody put the lid on that man?”
“That wasn’t even Towne’s work. It was some Isolationist senator on One of their propaganda shows. There’s talk that the Liberals are purposely blocking an investigation of the Hoffman Center and their Psi-High program, and the President is out on a limb now that might break off any minute. I think Ben Towne is planning a direct confrontation, and that means we’re running out of time. You know that Congress hasn’t been joined into two solid political parties for over two hundred years, but it’s beginning to happen now, and it could be a bloody battle. If Towne can get the Civil Rights Party to swing their votes away from the President, it could force a general election.”
“Who’s the leader of the Civil Rights men?” Faircloth’s voice was sharp.
“That’s just the thing. It has been Mike Veriday. His son is a Psi-High, but his political stock has taken an awful nosedive since this rumor campaign started. The polls have got him trailing Kingsley from Kentucky by thirteen percent and losing ground fast. Now Kingsley, it seems, is in some unpleasant financial trouble, and some of Towne’s old cronies in the Senate have offered to clear him of some nasty charges if he plays along.” He paused for a long moment. “We haven’t got much time, Paul.”
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