panting behind him. Holland. Holland betteringhis promised three minutes--and with a forbidden disarmer in his hand.Guiltily, Jason felt the weight of the disarmer he had himself secretedunder his armpit.
Then there wasn't time for thinking or feeling, only for running downthe dazzling half-mile inside the Fane to the Tiara. Up ahead, thedifferent-white shape was motionless in front of it. Oddly, a dark,vertical line appeared from the top to what would be the waist of theshape. And for the instant it took the Tiara to vanish inside, Jason sawclearly in the radiant light the profile of Lonnie's unmistakable face.Saw Lonnie's eyes swivel in the direction of the thundering echoes oftheir footfalls in the silence of the Fane. Saw Lonnie turn toward them,the dark line disappearing from waist to top as if it had never been.
Once more the different-whiteness moved. Toward them. Edging for theback wall to skirt around them; one limb-shape fumbling in the palm ofthe other.
"No you don't!" McGillis, ahead of Jason, yelled, his howl drowned inthe smacking crack of his pistol.
There seemed to be a waver in the different-whiteness. A small black dotappeared against it; hung briefly, apparently unsupported, in the air;then the undistorted bullet dropped inertly to the floor.
"You _still_ won't!" McGillis hurled himself, shoulders low and legsdriving, at the shape. Two feet from it, he rebounded sharply, trod onthe rolling bullet, went down, his head splatting dully against themarble floor.
Holland grunted. Crouched to leap. Thrust his disarmer high, ready tosnap into line.
"Hold it!" Jason commanded. Silently, eyelids barely separated to endurethe dazzle, he stared at the different-whiteness that confronted him. "Imade it this time, Lonnie," he called. "Caught up with you-- No!" Hisarm flung out, startling him with the feel of his disarmer now oddly inhis hand.
"Don't move!"
The white-within-white's limb-shapes moved up, the hand-ends one overthe other. Through the minute spaces the overlapping fingers left,glimpses of a thin dark line appeared. The hood was open a trifle atmouth level, and from the opening Lonnie's voice emerged, siftingthrough the protecting screen of gloves. "You can't see me! You_can't_!"
"No? Take one step sideways. Just _one_! Stop!"
The different-whiteness had moved, and Holland had moved with it;crouching now, alertly motionless, in his new position. Jason changedthe angle of his own facing. "Now do you think we can't see you?"
"But ... but how!"
"Your albedo is showing," Jason chuckled harshly. "You never would takethe trouble to learn the _how_ of anything, Lonnie. Sure, your damneddisguise is the same color as the marble. Maybe even exactly the same.But the material is different, and the surface texture; it doesn't havethe same degree or quality of reflectivity to incident light that marbledoes!
"Eighty years ago, even the commercial photographers knew aboutalbedo--one of 'em made a picture of a cat, white on white. I told youabout the reflectivity in your stereo cube. But you wouldn't listen,Lonnie, would you?" Jason let out a bursting peal of laughter. "_So youtripped over your own albedo!_"
Through the dying echoes of his own laughter, Jason caught Lonnie'sharsh whisper. "You haven't got me, copper!"
* * * * *
The black line marking the opening in the grid suit disappeared. Thebarely-discernible limb-shapes dropped, one hand-end again fumbling atthe rheostat in the palm of the other.
"I'll get him, Chief!" Holland was in action, his disarmer snapping downinto aim.
"No!" Jason roared. "Holland, don't!"
Too late. Under the pressure of Holland's finger, the disarmer'sinvisible ion-stream tightened to the thread-thin lethal intensity,leaped out against the suit's grid. Then the disarmer was luminous evenin the dazzle; even through the flesh of Holland's fist. Hollandscreamed and squirmed and dropped. Part of him--the part that wasn'tburned away--reached the floor.
The stench of carbonized flesh scoured Jason's nostrils. Stupidly, hestared down at the headless, shoulderless, armless torso; black ...sooty ... against the snowy gleam of the floor; conscious of thesidelong, round-about approach of the different-white figure. He'dfailed again. Lonnie, in that damned suit, was impervious.
Slowly, he raised his eyes from the thing on the floor to the thingapproaching. One consolation, he himself wouldn't go on living afterthis. With grim frustration, he raised his arm in a final, fruitlessgesture and hurled the useless disarmer at the shape of Lonnie.
It halted, dead, in mid-air, a yard away from the shape-thing. Droppedstraight down, clanging against the floor.
A quiver as of mirth appeared to shake the different-whiteness. Itstooped. One hand-end fumbled at the palmed rheostat, then dropped topick up the disarmer. Fumbled again at the rheostat while the figurestraightened up to point the glistening projector at Jason's belly.
The dark opening in the hood appeared again.
Lonnie's voice chortled, "Told you I'd use whatever you tried to smearyou with. Goodbye, Jasey ..."
The dark line was gone. The disarmer, turned to lethal potential,settled in the shape's hand-end and began to spout. Jason went stiff.Every muscle of his body clenching to withstand obliteration.
He waited for it. Tight ... except his eyes that, in spite ofthemselves, opened.
Caught within the field, the full power of the disarmer poured itselfinto the suit. The suit's capacity absorbed it. Almost. Then turned thecombined energies on itself.
With the smell of frying organic matter, slowly the grid-coverallsappeared in dazzling radiance within the dazzle of the Fane's lights;glowed in it; red--then white--hot. Whiter than the light itself--far,far lighter than any reflected rays could make it.
Inside the all-encompassing, roasting grid of the melting suit,Lonnie writhed. Faintly, as the suit failed, his screams camethrough--momentarily. Then they were gone as the fused, molten heapsubsided lower ... lower ... began to trickle across the dazzling,ice-white marble of the floor.
Afterward, had Jason known anything at all about Lonnie's Philosophy,he'd have immediately supplied another "rule"; making a foursome out ofthe "Triple Ethic": "If you do it yourself, make sure you know _what_you're doing."
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Planet Stories_ September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
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