by Unknown
“I’ll come up behind you,” Samul decided. “I don’t want it to see me in case it reads me.”
“I get no impression of a telepathic mind,” Kelton offered.
“Perhaps it works on an on/off signal, active only when its masters contact it.”
“Could be.” The agent’s voice came more loudly. “It’s turned on Pala toward Apra.”
“Be right along.” Samul broke the contact and turned briskly toward the gardened lane the agent had mentioned. A sprinkling of elderly citizens, as always it seemed, were sitting on the shaded benches admiring the golden lucca trees and scarlet kashba lilies for which Gylan was famous. Perhaps, when he was old..
Or would the empire even exist at that time? Yes, if it passed the test, he reflected. He couldn’t help but feel that the test, somehow, was embodied in the tall, slender androids now stalking the city. They were extensions of their masters, certainly; but how mighty were their masters? That was the question.
Spotting the agent on Apra, he drew up behind him. A hundred or so paces ahead he saw the tall, slender figure whose features had become so indelibly engraved in his brain. It did have a curious gait, yet not so curious that it would attract attention unless one were to study it. “Mechanical” was the word that came to Samul’s mind.
He fell into step at the agent’s side. “Does it ever look back?”
“Never.” Kelton’s voice was grim. “It couldn’t care less about being followed.”
“Evasive tactics would be out of the question,” he reflected. “Its masters most likely realized that. It probably depends on protective coloration.”
“In that suit?”
“With the almost perfect duplication of the human body,” he explained. “Whoever made it apparently didn’t know how we dressed. Except for the space crews,” he added.
“Well, kids do dress that way sometimes.”
Samul eyed the android speculatively. “Try to contact it.”
“By the name Tommy?”
“Try Tommy One. We’ll go through the numbers.”
The agent’s expression didn’t change, but a moment later he murmured, “It answered.”
“What did it say?”
“Just the acknowledgment ‘Tommy One.’”
“Could you read anything else in its mind?”
“It was blank.” Kelton cast him a glance. “Ordinarily I would sense an undercurrent, what we call the echo of the subconscious, but it’s not present. I can’t recall such a deep sense of…nothingness.”
“It didn’t change pace or show any surprise when you called it,” he observed musingly.
“Would an android react?”
“It indicates the limitation of the duplication,” he replied. “At least they’re not our emotional or psychological blood brothers.”
“For which I can be thankful, I suppose.”
“Ask it who it’s in contact with,” Samul urged.
A long moment of silence ensued before Kelton said, “It doesn’t
respond.”
“Were you still in contact?”
Kelton nodded. “I called it by name, had it acknowledge before I asked. I had the same impression as before — a voice pasted on a blank background.”
“Try Tommy Two,” Samul instructed crisply. The agent stared ahead again. “Tommy Two responded,” he reported a few seconds later. “It sounded exactly like that thing ahead. It’s mind is just as blank. Directionally, it’s somewhere to the east of us.”
“Ask it the same question — who its masters are,” Samul ordered. He held scant hope of getting an answer.
“It won’t talk,” Kelton reported.
“Try Tommy Three.”
Within a few moments Samul knew the answer: There were five Tommies left, at least within the agent’s telepathic range. None would respond beyond acknowledging their call. Kelton reported that all the voices were stilted and mechanical; none displayed any thought patterns at the subconscious level.
“Machines through and through,” Kelton concluded. Suddenly he halted, his head cocked, then resumed his stride. “I sense someone.”
“Another android?”
Kelton shook his head. “A telepath, over near the library. It was just a touch, then it was gone.”
“What does that mean?”
“She sensed me.”
“She?”
“I’m positive.” Kelton’s face was studied. “A woman’s telepathic processes differ from a man’s. Don’t ask me in what way; I don’t know. It’s just one of the things we learn. An analogy might be the difference in voice.”
“Could it have been a random connection?”
“I don’t believe so. The touch was too specific, if I can use the word.”
“Specific?”
“Directed at me. The kind of scan I would use when trying to detect another telepath.” Kelton’s head jerked up. “The android’s turning.”
“Toward the library,” Samul murmured.
“It’ll skirt the front of it,” the agent predicted. “It keeps following the same path.”
“Can you probe for that other telepath?”
“I’m trying.” Kelton glanced at him. “They pretty quickly learn to block their minds. The only hope of locating them is when they’re trying to make another contact.”
“Keep your scanner out,” Samul warned.
“I’m sweeping. There’s nothing beyond the usual noise.”
“Noise?”
“Crowd thoughts,” the agent explained. “It’s like a rumble. You have to learn to focus, isolate one from the mob mind around it before it’s decipherable. It’s something like tuning a three-view.”
“How about the one that alerted you?”
“That’s strange.” Kelton frowned. “We must have been locked on the same channel.”
“The android?”
“It’s possible. I can’t explain it any other way.”
“Keep locked on it,” Samul urged. “Perhaps she’ll come in again.” They fell silent as they followed the slender figure along the broad walkway that skirted the front of the library. The android, its pace unchanging, looked neither to the right nor left. Samul unobtrusively watched the passersby; none of them paid Tommy One the slightest heed.
“I sense her again,” the agent suddenly remarked. His voice was flat and expressionless. “There’s no doubt about it, she’s focused on Tommy One. There,
now she’s gone. She sensed me for sure.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She withdrew too suddenly.”
“Is she close by?”
“Very close.” The agent moved his head. “Somewhere on the plaza in front of the library.”
“Stay tuned,” Samul murmured. His eyes swept the square. Perhaps two dozen people were visible, most of them sitting on the benches along its borders.
“There, that girl,” Kelton said suddenly. “I got the touch again.”
“Girl?” Samul shifted his gaze.
“The youngster with the long dark hair and pink dress…”
Samul picked her out instantly. Thin, poorly dressed, she ostensibly — forcedly, he thought — was holding her face averted from them. “Are you certain? She’s just a child.”
“Dead certain,” the agent retorted grimly. “She’s blocked her mind completely. That’s a sure giveaway.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“By focusing my attention on her, I should be able to read her mind, but I can’t. And the only reason I can’t is because she’s closed her mind. Only a telepath can do that.”
“Could she be an android?”
“Not a chance,” Kelton declared. “She’s human, all right.”
Samul drew a microcamera from his pocket, enclosing it in his palm so that only the diminutive lens peeked out through the circle formed by his thumb and index finger. “I’m going to take pictures of her.”
He turned his steps along a path that would take him within
a few yards of the girl. As he drew closer, he noticed that she studiously averted her gaze from the android; and from Kelton, he reflected. But she didn’t appear conscious of his approach. Her slender face, in partial profile, held a taut, expectant look; yet strangely, there was also a faraway expression, as if she were completely oblivious to the world around her.
Activating the camera, he rotated his hand to get both a front and side view of her as he passed. She gave no indication of having observed him. A dozen paces beyond, he turned to rejoin the agent.
“Shall I grab her?” Kelton asked.
Samul smiled wryly. “I doubt very much that she’d talk.”
“She’s not registered.”
“How do you know?”
“There aren’t that many of them,” Kelton answered. “I know all the legitimate ones.”
“The girl’s a puzzle,” Samul commented. “How does she tie in with the androids? She’s certainly not an alien. Yet she has a strong interest in them.”
“So let’s grab her.”
“No.” Samul shook his head. “But it’s imperative that we establish her connections. I doubt very much that she’d cooperate if we were to take her into custody.”
“With drugs and hypnosis?”
“Perhaps she could close her mind to even that.” He glanced at the agent. “Is that possible?”
“Not to my knowledge, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“Meaning?”
“The power of the mind is an awesome thing,” Kelton answered reverently. “If some of the reports are true, telepathy is just the first act. The big drama is yet to come. I have the feeling that we’re nudging the threshold.”
“The beyond powers?”
“I believe in them,” he asserted. “I really do.”
“But we don’t know.”
“It’s that word ‘we’ that fools us,” be responded somberly. “Someone knows.”
Samul grimaced. “Let’s hope it’s not the aliens.” He patted his pocket. “With these photos, we can pick her up anytime.”
“We’re going to let her walk away?”
“She’ll be back,” Samul declared. “I have a strange feeling about that girl.”
“So have I,” Kelton responded sourly. “I’m the telepathic agent, so what did I get from her mind? Nothing. But I have the unholy feeling that she’s probed me from A to Z; both of us, when it comes to that.”
“But she was only in your mind for an instant,” he remonstrated. “Just a touch, you said.”
“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” Kelton returned wryly. “It didn’t take any longer.”
“Don’t worry, she won’t escape us,” Samul said. “She’s just a child.” He turned to glance back at the girl, then swung around. Gone! He scanned the plaza rapidly but saw no sign of her. Strange that she could vanish so quickly. When he turned back, the agent was eying him glumly.
“As I said,” Kelton intoned, “you have to grab them while you can.”
The film was hopelessly fogged!
Samul studied it through the viewer, trying to discern some pattern; there was none. The fog was of opaque density. It wasn’t a defect in the film or camera; the laboratory had assured him of that. It was the girl; he knew it.
Thin, long dark hair, finely chiseled facial bones, pink dress several sizes too large, worn sandals — he resurrected a picture of her in his mind. Although he hadn’t looked directly at her while passing, he had the impression of deep-blue eyes, a rather wan expression. A street urchin. But a street urchin who, in some strange way, was connected with the androids. A street urchin who could fog film! He’d never heard of such a thing.
Where did that leave him? He musingly pushed the viewer aside. An alien ship had landed six androids — androids who spoke the human tongue, who carried the retinal pattern of a child lost years before in deep space, who wore the uniform of the survey crews. They stalked the streets of Gylan.
But that would be an exercise in futility unless they possessed some means of getting information back to their masters. Telepathy, of course; it had to be. But telepathy directed to whom? One of the aliens, whoever or whatever they were, had to be in Gylan to receive it; or at least on the planet Makal. The alternative was that they could communicate telepathically between stars. He wasn’t prepared to believe that. Not yet.
If the first surmise were true, who was the agent? The girl? It was inconceivable. Or was it? Nothing was inconceivable. Nothing at all. Not in this galaxy or any other, he reflected. The power of the body was limited, but not that of the mind. Kelton had stated that emphatically.
He walked to the window, gazing unseeingly at the pinkish-gray sky. In the short time since he’d left Kelton, his field agents had located the remaining four androids. The photos of Tommy Six and the distinctive space uniforms had made it simple enough. He wasn’t surprised that they were stationed at key points around the city, at least from the information-gathering standpoint. All, like Tommy One, displayed the same blankness of mind. He felt certain that they were keyed to answer but to a single master.
What lay ahead? Clearly the masters of the androids came from a superior civilization — superior, at least, in the technology of mass-producing robots. But a civilization was more than a technical structure. It was art,
music, literature, drama; it was economics, sociology, psychology. And it was law; above all it was law. How did the aliens weigh when measured against those criteria?
Or was he taking the sophisticated view? Perhaps the real question concerned the number of warheads they possessed and their ability and willingness to deliver them. The thought wasn’t reassuring.
His desk buzzer sounded, and he flipped a switch, watching the wall screen. It remained blank.
“Mr. Smith, please.” The voice of a young girl came over the communicator. It was, he noted, low and apprehensive.
“Mr. Smith speaking,” he answered. “You’re holding a handkerchief over the visiscreen.” As he spoke, he pressed two buttons: one to record the conversation, the other to alert his secretary to trace the call. He had scant doubt but that it was the girl Kelton had identified as a telepath. So she had read his mind! The agent had been right on that score.
“The machines come from Wenda,” the girlish voice whispered hurriedly. “That’s the second planet of Aura Rawn.”
“Machines?” He feigned ignorance while groping with his thoughts.
“The machines you call the Tommies,” she explained.
“Where is Aura Rawn?”
“It’s across the Ebon Deeps, an emerald star.” She added worriedly, “I don’t know its exact location.”
“Who is this speaking?”
“I…can’t tell you, Mr. Smith.”
He tried a kindly tone. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I think you should know,” she replied more firmly.
“About the machines?”
“And Wenda. There’s a boy there named Danny June.” Her voice grew distressed. “Somebody has to go get him, Mr. Smith. I’m afraid he’s in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“With the people who make the machines,” she answered breathlessly.
“Do they live there?”
“One of them does. His name is Zandro.”
“Just one?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. He mentioned something about the Ikus…”
“Ikus?” he cut in.
“They’re just voices. That’s all he knows.”
“What do they do?”
“They’re…telepathic,” she answered guardedly.
“How do you know all this?”
“I can’t tell you, Mr. Smith. But you have to get Danny.”
Sensing that she was preparing to cut the connection, he said, “Tell me one other thing.”
“What is it?” she asked hesitantly.
“How do you fog film?” The speaker suddenly crackled and went dead. He stared musingly at it be
fore buzzing his secretary. Jotting down a few notes, he leaned back. Contemplating the pinkish-gray sky through the windows, he put the facts in order. The call had come from a public booth on the Street of the Shopkeepers. The girl was aware of the nature of the androids, probably was in touch with them. She knew something of their masters; and she was in touch with Danny June.
Danny June was alive! Or was he? Would the aliens allow him to live once the androids had been completed? It seemed unlikely, yet the girl had been so certain. She knew! Danny was alive!
Samul marveled. Scarcely more than a child at the time, Danny somehow had escaped the disaster which had overtaken the Golden Ram, had fallen into
alien hands. Now androids of him were gathering information to use against the empire. How could they return the information to that distant world? He had chased that answer before.
He began evolving a theory. At first it seemed utterly fantastic, then not so fantastic. The girl was telepathic; so were Danny and the androids. The androids had been made in Danny’s image, now were sending information back, not to the aliens but to Danny. The boy, then, was the heart of the system, at least on the receiving end.
Could telepathy carry over such vast distances? It was inconceivable; but then so was much in the Universe. Nature was rampant with the inconceivable.
The girl? Somehow she had tapped into the system, had contacted Danny through the androids. In that sense she was the key, for the androids were but mindless links. He had to find the girl, through her contact Danny June; or whatever it was that lived under the name of Danny June.
He reported to Sol Houston. “I’ll pick up the girl right away,” he finished.
“Do you believe she’ll cooperate?”
“I feel certain she will, or would were it not for her fear of the registration laws.”
“We’ll waive them in her case,” the Overlord responded promptly.
“Could you?” Samul asked dubiously.
“In an emergency, yes.”
“Her main fear is what might happen to the boy.” He stared into the hard gray eyes on the screen. “I feel it’s imperative that we send a cruiser to Wenda, bring him back.”
Sol Houston shook his head. “That’s out of the question. The Regent Administrator won’t permit it. He’s scared stiff.”