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Title: Rogue psi
Author: James H. Schmitz
Release date: November 27, 2023 [eBook #72245]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1962
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROGUE PSI ***
ROGUE PSI
By JAMES H. SCHMITZ
Illustrated by FINLAY
_How do you trap a man who has the entire world at his mercy?_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories August 1962
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Shortly after noon, a small side door in the faculty restaurant of
Cleaver University opened and a man and a woman stepped out into the
sunlight of the wide, empty court between the building and the massive
white wall opposite it which bordered Cleaver Spaceport. They came
unhurriedly across the court towards a transparent gate sealing a
tunnel passage in the wall.
As they reached the center of the court, a scanning device in the
wall fastened its attention on them, simultaneously checking through a
large store of previously registered human images and data associated
with these. The image approaching it on the left was that of a slender
girl above medium height, age twenty-six, with a burnished pile of
hair which varied from chestnut-brown to copper in the sun, eyes which
appeared to vary between blue and gray, and an air of composed
self-reliance. Her name, the scanner noted among other details, was
Arlene Marguerite Rolf. Her occupation: micromachinist. Her status: MAY
PASS.
Miss Rolf's companion was in his mid-thirties, big, raw-boned and
red-haired, with a formidably bulging forehead, eyes set deep under
rusty beetle-brows, and a slight but apparently habitual scowl. His
name was also on record: Dr. Frank Dean Harding. Occupation: marine
geologist. Status--
At that point, there was an odd momentary hesitancy or blurring in the
scanner's reactions, though not quite pronounced enough to alert its
check-mechanisms. Then it decided: MAY NOT PASS. A large sign appeared
promptly in brilliant red light on the glassy surface of the wall door.
WARNING--SOMATIC BARRIERS!
_Passage Permitted to Listed
Persons Only_
* * * * *
The man looked at the sign, remarked dourly, "The welcome mat's out
again! Wonder if the monitor in there can identify me as an individual."
"It probably can," Arlene said. "You've been here twice before--"
"Three times," Frank Harding corrected her. "The first occasion was
just after I learned you'd taken the veil. Almost two years now, isn't
it?" he asked.
"Very nearly. Anyway, you're registered in the university files, and
that's the first place that would be checked for an unlisted person who
showed up in this court."
Harding glanced over at her. "They're as careful as all that about
Lowry's project?"
"You bet they are," Arlene said. "If you weren't in my company, a
guard would have showed up by now to inform you you're approaching a
restricted area and ask you very politely what your business here was."
Harding grunted. "Big deal. Is someone assigned to follow you around
when you get off the project?"
She shrugged. "I doubt it. Why should they bother? I never leave the
university grounds, and any secrets should be safe with me here. I'm
not exactly the gabby type, and the people who know me seem to be
careful not to ask me questions about Ben Lowry or myself anyway." She
looked reflective. "You know, I do believe it's been almost six months
since anyone has so much as mentioned diex energy in my presence!"
"Isn't the job beginning to look a little old after all this time?"
Harding asked.
"Well," Arlene said, "working with Doctor Ben never gets to be boring,
but it _is_ a rather restrictive situation, of course. It'll come
to an end by and by."
Harding glanced at his watch, said, "Drop me a line when that
happens, Arlene. By that time, I might be able to afford an expert
micromachinist myself."
"In a dome at the bottom of some ocean basin?" Arlene laughed. "Sounds
cosy--but that wouldn't be much of an improvement on Cleaver Spaceport,
would it? Will you start back to the coast today?"
"If I can still make the afternoon flight." He took her arm. "Come on.
I'll see you through the somatic barrier first."
"Why? Do you think it might make a mistake about me and clamp down?"
"It's been known to happen," Harding said gloomily. "And from what I
hear, it's one of the less pleasant ways to get killed."
Arlene said comfortably, "There hasn't been an accident of that kind in
at least three or four years. The bugs have been very thoroughly worked
out of the things. I go in and out here several times a week." She took
a small key from her purse, fitted it into a lock at the side of the
transparent door, twisted it and withdrew it. The door slid sideways
for a distance of three feet and stopped. Arlene Rolf stepped through
the opening and turned to face Harding.
"There you are!" she said. "Barely a tingle! If it didn't want to pass
me, I'd be lying on the ground knotted up with cramps right now. 'By,
Frank! See you again in two or three months, maybe?"
Harding nodded. "Sooner if I can arrange it. Goodby, Arlene."
He stood watching the trim figure walk up the passage beyond the door.
As she came to its end, the door slid silently shut again. Arlene
looked back and waved at him, then disappeared around the corner.
Dr. Frank Harding thrust his hands into his pockets and started back
across the court, scowling absently at nothing.
* * * * *
The living room of the quarters assigned to Dr. Benjamin B. Lowry on
Cleaver Spaceport's security island was large and almost luxuriously
furnished. In pronounced contrast to the adjoining office and
work-rooms, it was also as a rule in a state of comfortable disorder.
An affinity appeared to exist between the complex and the man who
had occupied it for the past two years. Dr. Lowry, leading authority
in the rather new field of diex energy, was a large man of careless
and comfortable, if not downright slovenly personal habits, while a
fiendish precisionist at work.
He was slumped now in an armchair on the end of his spine, fingering
his lower lip and staring moodily at the viewphone field which formed
a pale-yellow rectangle across the living room's entire south wall,
projecting a few inches out into the room. Now and then, his gaze
shifted to a narrow, three-foot-long case of polished hardwood on
the table beside him. When the phone field turned clear white, Dr.
Lowry shoved a pair of rimless glasses back over his nose and sat up
expectantly. Then he frowned.
"Now look here, Weldon--!" he began.
Colors had played for an instant over the luminous rectangle of the
phone field, resolving themselves into a view of another room. A
short, sturdily built man sat at a desk there, wearing a neat business
suit. He smiled pleasantly out of the field at Dr. Lowry, said in a
casual voice, "Relax, Ben! As far as I'm concerned, this is a command
performance. Mr. Green just instructed me to let you know I'd be
sitting in when he took your call."
"Mr. Green did _what_?"
The man in the business suit said quickly, "He's coming in now, Ben!"
His hand moved on the desk, and he and the room about him faded to a
pale, colorless outline in the field. Superimposed on it appeared a
third room, from which a man who wore dark glasses looked out at Dr.
Lowry.
He nodded, said in a briskly amiable manner, "Dr. Lowry, I received
your message just a minute ago. As Colonel Weldon undoubtedly has
informed you, I asked him to be present during this discussion. There
are certain things to be told you, and the arrangement will save time
all around.
"Now, doctor, as I understand it, the situation is this. Your work on
the project has advanced satisfactorily up to what has been designated
as the Fourth Stage. That is correct, isn't it?"
Dr. Lowry said stiffly, "That is correct, sir. Without the use of a
trained telepath it is unlikely that further significant advances can
be made. Colonel Weldon, however, has seen fit now to introduce certain
new and astonishing conditions. I find these completely unacceptable as
they stand and...."
"You're entirely justified, Dr. Lowry, in protesting against an
apparently arbitrary act of interference with the work you've carried
out so devotedly at the request of your government." One of Mr. Green's
better-known characteristics was his ability to interrupt without
leaving the impression of having done it. "Now, would it satisfy you
to know that Colonel Weldon has been acting throughout as my personal
deputy in connection with the project--and that I was aware of the
conditions you mention before they were made?"
* * * * *
Dr. Lowry hesitated, said, "I'm afraid not. As a matter of fact, I do
know Weldon well enough to take it for granted he wasn't simply being
arbitrary. I...."
"You feel," said Mr. Green, "that there are certain extraneous
considerations involved of which you should have been told?"
Lowry looked at him for a moment. "If the President of the United
States," he said drily, "already has made a final decision in the
matter, I shall have to accept it."
The image in the phone field said, "I haven't."
"Then," Lowry said, "I feel it would be desirable to let me judge
personally whether any such considerations are quite as extraneous as
they might appear to be to...."
"To anybody who didn't himself plan the diex thought projector,
supervise its construction in every detail, and carry out an extensive
series of preliminary experiments with it," Mr. Green concluded
for him. "Well, yes--you may be right about that, doctor. You are
necessarily more aware of the instrument's final potentialities than
anyone else could be at present." The image's mouth quirked in the
slightest of smiles. "In any event, we want to retain your ungrudging
co-operation, so Colonel Weldon is authorized herewith to tell you in
as much detail as you feel is necessary what the situation is. And he
will do it before any other steps are taken. Perhaps I should warn you
that what you learn may not add to your peace of mind. Now, does that
settle the matter to your satisfaction, Dr. Lowry?"
Lowry nodded. "Yes, sir, it does. Except for one detail."
"Yes, I see. Weldon, will you kindly cut yourself out of this circuit.
I'll call you back in a moment."
Colonel Weldon's room vanished from the phone field. Mr. Green went
over to a wall safe, opened it with his back to Dr. Lowry, closed it
again and turned holding up a small, brightly polished metal disk.
"I should appreciate it incidentally," he remarked, "if you would find
it convenient to supply me with several more of these devices."
"I'll be very glad to do it, sir," Dr. Lowry told him, "after I've been
released from my present assignment."
"Yes ... you take no more chances than we do." Mr. Green raised his
right hand, held the disk facing the phone field. After a moment,
the light in Dr. Lowry's living room darkened, turned to a rich, deep
purple, gradually lightened again.
Mr. Green took his hand down. "Are you convinced I'm the person I
appear to be?"
Lowry nodded. "Yes, sir, I am. To the best of my knowledge, there is no
way of duplicating that particular diex effect--as yet."
* * * * *
Arlene Rolf walked rapidly along the passage between the thick inner
and outer walls enclosing Cleaver Spaceport. There was no one in sight,
and the staccato clicking of her high heels on the light-green marblite
paving was the only sound. The area had the overall appearance of a
sun-baked, deserted fortress. She reached a double flight of shallow
stairs, went up and came out on a wide, bare platform level with the
top of the inner wall.
Cleaver Spaceport lay on her left, a twenty-mile rectangle of softly
gleaming marblite absolutely empty except for the narrow white spire
of a control tower near the far side. The spaceport's construction had
been begun the year Arlene was born, as part of the interplanetary
colonization program which a rash of disasters and chronically
insufficient funds meanwhile had brought to an almost complete
standstill. Cleaver port remained unfinished; no space-ship had yet
lifted from its surface or settled down to it.
Ahead and to Arlene's right, a mile and a half of green lawn stretched
away below the platform. Automatic tenders moved slowly across it,
about half of them haloed by the rhythmically circling rainbow sprays
of their sprinklers. In the two years since Arlene had first seen the
lawn, no human being had set foot there. At its far end was a cluster
of low, functional buildings. There were people in those buildings ...
but not very many people. It was the security island where Dr. Lowry
had built the diex projector.
Arlene crossed the platform, passed through the doorless entry of the
building beyond it, feeling the tingle of another somatic barrier as
she stepped into its shadow. At the end of the short hallway was a
narrow door with the words NONSPACE CONDUIT above it. Behind the door
was a small, dimly lit cube of a room. Miss Rolf went inside and sat
down on one of the six chairs spaced along the walls. After a moment,
the door slid quietly shut and the room went dark.
For a period of perhaps a dozen seconds, in complete blackness, Arlene
Rolf appeared to herself to have become an awareness so entirely
detached from her body that it could experience no physical sensation.
Then light reappeared in the room and sensation returned. She stood
up, smoothing down her skirt, and discovered smiling that she had been
holding her breath again. It happened each time she went through the
conduit, and no previous degree of determination to breathe normally
had any effect at all on that automatic reaction. The door opened and
she picked up her purse and went out into a hall which was large,
well-lit and quite different in every respect from the one by which she
had entered.
* * * * *
In the wall screen across the hall, the image of a uniformed man smiled
at her and said, "Dr. Lowry has asked that you go directly to the
laboratory on your return, Miss Rolf."
"Thank you, Max," she said. She had never seen Max or one of the
other project guards in person, though they must be somewhere in
the building. The screen went blank, and she went on down the long,
windowless hall, the sound of her steps on the thick carpeting again
the only break in the quiet. Now, she thought, it was a little like
being in an immaculately clean, well-tended but utterly vacant hotel.
* * * * *
Arlene pressed the buzzer beside the door to Dr. Lowry's quarters and
stood waiting. When the door opened, she started forwards then stopped
in surprise.
"Why, hello, Colonel Weldon," she said. "I didn't realize you would
be on the project today." Her gaze went questioningly past him to Dr.
Lowry who stood in the center of the room, hands shoved deep into his
trousers pockets.
Lowry said wryly, "Come in, Arlene. This has been a surprise to me,
too, and not a pleasant one. On the basis of orders coming directly
from the top--which I have just confirmed, by the way--our schedule
here is to be subjected to drastic rearrangements. They include among
other matters our suspension as the actual operators of the projector."
"But why that?" she asked startled.
Dr. Lowry shrugged. "Ask Ferris. He just arrived by his personal
conduit. He's supposed to explain the matter to us."
Ferris Weldon, locking the door behind Arlene, said smilingly, "And
please do give me a chance to do just that now, both of you! Let's sit
down as a start. Naturally you're angry ... no one can blame you for
it. But I promise to show you the absolute necessity behind this move."
He waited until they were seated, then added, "One reason--though not
the only reason--for interrupting your work at this point is to avoid
exposing both of you to serious personal danger."
Dr. Lowry stared at him. "And what's that supposed to mean?"
"Ben," Ferris Weldon asked, "what was the stated goal of this project
when you undertook it?"
Lowry said stiffly, "To develop a diex-powered instrument which would
provide a means of reliable mental communication with any specific
individual on Earth."
Weldon shook his head. "No, it wasn't."
Arlene Rolf laughed shortly. "He's right, Ben." She looked at Weldon.
"The hypothetical goal of the project was an instrument which would
enable your department telepaths to make positive identification of a
hypothetical Public Enemy Number One ... the same being described as a
'rogue telepath' with assorted additional qualifications."
Weldon said, "That's a little different, isn't it? Do you recall the
other qualifications?"
"Is that important at the moment?" Miss Rolf asked. "Oh, well ...
this man is also a dangerous and improbably gifted hypnotist. Disturb
him with an ordinary telepathic probe or get physically within a
mile or so of him, and he can turn you mentally upside down, and
will do it in a flash if it suits his purpose. He's quite ruthless,
is supposed to have committed any number of murders. He might as
easily be some unknown as a man constantly in the public eye who is
keeping his abilities concealed.... He impersonates people.... He
is largely responsible for the fact that in a quarter of a century
the interplanetary colonization program literally hasn't got off the
ground...."
She added, "That's as much as I remember. There will be further details
in the files. Should I dig them out?"
"No," Ferris Weldon said. "You've covered most of it."
* * * * *
Dr. Lowry interrupted irritably, "What's the point of this rigmarole,
Weldon? You aren't assuming that either of us has taken your rogue
telepath seriously...."
"Why not?"
Lowry shrugged. "Because he is, of course, one of the government's
blandly obvious fictions. I've no objection to such fictions when
they serve to describe the essential nature of a problem without
revealing in so many words what the problem actually is. In this case,
the secrecy surrounding the project could have arisen largely from a
concern about the reaction in various quarters to an instrument which
might be turned into a thought-control device."
Weldon asked, "Do you believe that is the purpose of your projector?"
"If I'd believed it, I would have had nothing to do with it. I happen
to have considerable confidence in the essential integrity of our
government, if not always in its good sense. But not everyone shares
that feeling."
Ferris Weldon lit a cigarette, flicked out the match, said after a
moment, "But you didn't buy the fiction?"
"Of course not."
Weldon glanced at Miss Rolf. "You, Arlene?"
She looked uneasy. "I hadn't bought it, no. Perhaps I'm not so sure
now--you must have some reason for bringing up the matter here. But
several things wouldn't make sense. If...."
Dr. Lowry interrupted again. "Here's one question, Weldon. If there did
happen to be a rogue telepath around, what interest would he have in
sabotaging the colonization program?"
Weldon blew two perfect smoke rings, regarded their ascent with an air
of judicious approval. "After you've heard a little more you should be
able to answer that question yourself," he said. "It was precisely the
problems connected with the program that put us on the rogue's trail.
We didn't realize it at the time. Fourteen years ago.... Have you had
occasion to work with DEDCOM, Ben?"
Lowry made a snorting sound. "I've had a number of occasions ... and
made a point of passing them up! If the government is now basing its
conclusions on the fantastically unrealistic mishmash of suggestions
it's likely to get from a deducting computer...."
"Well," Ferris Weldon said deprecatingly, "the government doesn't trust
DEDCOM too far, of course. Still, the fact that it is strictly logical,
encyclopedically informed and not hampered by common sense has produced
surprisingly useful results from time to time.
"Now don't get indignant again, Ben! I assure you I'm not being
facetious. The fact is that sixteen years ago the charge that
interplanetary colonization was being sabotaged was frequently enough
raised. It had that appearance from the outside. Whatever could
go wrong had gone wrong. There'd been an unbelievable amount of
blundering."
* * * * *
"Nevertheless, all the available evidence indicated that no organized
sabotage was involved. There was plenty of voluble opposition to the
program, sometimes selfish, sometimes sincere. There were multiple
incidents of forgetfulness, bad timing, simple stupidity. After years
of false starts, the thing still appeared bogged down in a nightmare
of--in the main--honest errors. But expensive ones. The month-by-month
cost of continuing reached ridiculous proportions. Then came disasters
which wiped out lives by the hundreds. The program's staunchest
supporters began to get dubious, to change their minds.
"I couldn't say at the moment which genius in the Department of Special
Activities had the notion to feed the colonization problem to DEDCOM.
Anyway, it was done, and DEDCOM, after due checking and rumination, not
only stated decisively that it _was_ a matter of sabotage, after
all; it further provided us with a remarkably detailed description of
the saboteur...."
Arlene Rolf interrupted. "There had been only one saboteur?"
"Only one who knew what he was doing, yes."
"The rogue telepath?" Dr. Lowry asked.
"Who else?"
"Then if the department has had his description...."
"Why is he still at large?" Ferris Weldon asked, with a suggestion of
grim amusement. "Wait till you hear what it sounded like at the time,
Ben! I'll give it to you from memory.
"Arlene has mentioned some of the points. The saboteur, DEDCOM informed
us, was, first, a hypnotizing telepath. He could work on his victims
from a distance, force them into the decisions and actions he wanted,
leave them unaware that their minds had been tampered with, or that
anything at all was wrong.
"Next, he was an impersonator, to an extent beyond any ordinary meaning
of the word. DEDCOM concluded he must be able to match another human
being's appearance so closely that it would deceive his model's most
intimate associates. And with the use of these two talents our saboteur
had, in ten years, virtually wrecked the colonization program.
"Without any further embellishments, DEDCOM's report of this malevolent
superman at loose in our society would have raised official eyebrows
everywhere...."
"In particular," Miss Rolf asked, "in the Department of Special
Activities?"
"In particular there," Weldon agreed. "The department's experience
made the emergence of any human supertalents worth worrying about seem
highly improbable. In any event, DEDCOM crowded its luck. It didn't
stop at that point. The problems besetting the colonization program
were, it stated, by no means the earliest evidence of a rogue telepath
in our midst. It listed a string of apparently somewhat comparable
situations stretching back through the past three hundred years, and
declared unequivocally that in each case the responsible agent had been
the same--our present saboteur."
* * * * *
Weldon paused, watched their expressions changing. A sardonic smile
touched the corners of his mouth.
"All right," Dr. Lowry said sourly after a moment, "to make the thing
even more unlikely, you're saying now that the rogue is immortal."
Weldon shook his head. "I didn't say it ... and neither, you notice,
did DEDCOM. The question of the rogue's actual life span, whatever it
may be, was no part of the matter it had been given to investigate. It
said only that in various ways he had been interfering with mankind's
progress for at least three centuries. But added to the rest of it,
that statement was quite enough."
"To accomplish what?"
"What do you think?" Weldon asked. "The report passed eventually
through the proper hands, was properly initialed, then filed with
DEDCOM's earlier abortions and forgotten. Special Activities
continued, by its more realistic standard investigative procedures, to
attempt to find out what had bogged down the colonization program. As
you're aware, the department didn't make much headway. And neither has
the program."
"The last is very apparent," Lowry said, looking puzzled. "But the fact
that you've failed to solve the problem seems a very poor reason to go
back now to the theory of a rogue telepath."
Weldon blew out a puff of smoke, said thoughtfully, "That wouldn't have
been too logical of us, I agree. But our failure wasn't the reason for
reviving DEDCOM's theory."
"Then what was your reason?" Irritation edged Lowry's voice again.
"The unexpected death, five years ago, of one of the world's
better-known political figures," Weldon said. "You would recognize the
name immediately if I mentioned it. But you will not recognize the
circumstances surrounding his death which I am about to relate to you,
because the report published at the time was a complete falsehood and
omitted everything which might have seemed out of the ordinary. The man
actually was the victim of murder. His corpse was found floating in
the Atlantic. That it should have been noticed at all was an unlikely
coincidence, but the body was fished out and identified. At that point,
the matter acquired some very improbable aspects because it was well
known that this man was still alive and in the best of health at his
home in New York.
"It could have been a case of mistaken identification, but it wasn't.
The corpse was the real thing. While this was being definitely
established, the man in New York quietly disappeared ... and now a
number of people began to take a different view of DEDCOM's long-buried
report of a hypnotizing telepath who could assume the identity of
another person convincingly enough to fool even close friends. It was
not conclusive evidence, but it did justify a serious inquiry which was
promptly attempted."
"Attempted?" Arlene Rolf asked. "What happened?"
* * * * *
"What happened," Weldon said, "was that the rogue declared war on us. A
limited war on the human race. A quiet, undercover war for a specific
purpose. And that was to choke off any kind of investigation that might
endanger him or hamper his activities. The rogue knew he had betrayed
himself; and if he hadn't known of it earlier, he learned now about
the report DEDCOM had made. Those were matters he couldn't undo. But
he could make it very clear that he wanted to be left undisturbed, and
that he had methods to enforce his wishes."
Dr. Lowry blinked. "What could one...."
"Ben," Ferris Weldon said, "if you'll look back, you'll recall that a
little less than five years ago we had ... packed into the space of a
few months ... a series of the grimmest public disasters on record.
These were not due to natural forces--to hurricanes, earthquakes,
floods or the like. No, each and every one of them involved, or
might have involved, a human agency. They were not inexplicable.
Individually, each could be explained only too well by human
incompetence, human lunacy or criminal purpose. But--a giant hotel
exploded, a city's water supply was poisoned, a liner ... yes, you
remember.
"Now, notice that the rogue did not strike directly at our
investigators. He did that on a later occasion and under different
circumstances, but not at the time. It indicated that in spite of his
immense natural advantages he did not regard himself as invulnerable.
And, of course, he had no need to assume personal risks. By the public
nonspace and air systems, he would move anywhere on earth within hours;
and wherever he went, any human being within the range of his mind
became a potential tool. He could order death at will and be at a safe
distance when the order was executed. Within ten weeks, he had Special
Activities on the ropes. The attempts to identify him were called off.
And the abnormal series of disasters promptly ended. The rogue had made
his point."
Arlene said soberly, "You say he attacked some of your investigators
later on. What was that about?"
* * * * *
"That was a year later," Weldon said. "A kind of stalemate had
developed. As you're aware, the few operating telepaths in the
government's employment are a daintily handled property. They're never
regarded as expendable. It was clear they weren't in the rogue's class,
so no immediate attempt was made to use them against him. But meanwhile
we'd assembled--almost entirely by inference--a much more detailed
picture of this opponent of mankind than DEDCOM had been able to
provide. He was a freak in every way. His ability to read other minds
and to affect them--an apparent blend of telepathy and irresistable
hypnosis--obviously was a much more powerful and definite tool than the
unreliable gropings of any ordinary telepath. But there was the curious
point that he appeared to be limited--very sharply limited--simply
by distance, which to most of our trained telepaths is a meaningless
factor, at least this side of interplanetary space. If one stayed
beyond his range, the rogue was personally harmless. And if he could be
identified from beyond his range, he also could be--and by that time
almost immediately would have been--destroyed by mechanical means,
without regard for any last-moment havoc he might cause.
"So the first security island was established, guarded against the
rogue's approach by atmospheric blocks and sophisticated somatic
barriers. Two government telepaths were brought to it and induced to
locate him mentally.
"It turned out to be another mistake. If our unfortunate prodigies
gained any information about the rogue, they didn't live long enough
to tell us what it was. Both committed suicide within seconds of each
other."
"The rogue had compelled them to do it?" Arlene asked.
"Of course."
"And was this followed," Dr. Lowry asked, "by another public disaster?"
"No," Weldon said. "The rogue may have considered that unnecessary.
After all, he'd made his point again. Sending the best of our tame
telepaths after him was like setting spaniels on a tiger. Ordinarily,
he could reach a telepath's mind only within his own range, like that
of any other person. But if they were obliging enough to make contact
with him, they would be instantly at his mercy, wherever he might be.
We took the hint; the attempt wasn't repeated. Our other telepaths have
remained in the seclusion of security islands, and so far the rogue has
showed no interest in getting at them there."
Weldon stubbed his cigarette out carefully in the ashtray beside him,
added, "You see now, I think, why we feel it is necessary to take
extreme precautions in the further handling of your diex projector."
* * * * *
There was silence for some seconds. Then Dr. Lowry said, "Yes, that
much has become obvious." He paused, pursing his lips doubtfully, his
eyes absent. "All right," he went on. "This has been rather disturbing
information, Ferris. But let's look at the thing now.
"We've found that diex energy can be employed to augment the effects
of the class of processes commonly referred to as telepathic. The
projector operates on that theory. By using it, ordinary mortals
like Arlene and myself can duplicate some of the results reportedly
achieved by the best-trained telepaths. However, we are restricted in
several ways by our personal limitations. We need the location devices
to direct the supporting energy to the points of the globe where the
experiments are to be carried out. And so far we have not been able to
'read the mind'--to use that very general term--of anyone with whom we
are not at least casually acquainted."
Weldon nodded. "I'm aware of that."
"Very well," Lowry said. "The other advantage of the projector over
unaided natural telepathy is its dependability. It works as well today
as it did yesterday or last week. Until a natural telepath actually has
been tested on these instruments, we can't be certain that the diex
field will be equally useful to him. But let's assume that it is and
that he employs the projector to locate the rogue. It should be very
easy for him to do that. But won't that simply--in your phrasing--put
him at the rogue's mercy again?"
Weldon hesitated, said, "We think not, Ben. A specialist in these
matters could tell you in a good deal more detail about the functional
organization in the mind of a natural telepath. But essentially they
all retain unconscious safeguards and resistances which limit their
telepathic ability but serve to protect them against negative effects.
The difference between them and ourselves on that point appears to be
mainly one of degree."
Lowry said, "I think I see. The theory is that such protective
processes would be correspondingly strengthened by employing the diex
field...."
"That's it," Weldon said. "To carry the analogue I was using a little
farther, we might again be sending a spaniel against a tiger. But the
spaniel--backed up by the projector--would now be approximately tiger
size ... and tiger-strong. We must assume that the rogue would be far
more skilled and deadly in an actual mental struggle, but there should
be no struggle. Our telepath's business would be simply to locate his
man, identify him, and break away again. During the very few seconds
required for that, the diex field should permit him to hold off the
rogue's assault."
Dr. Lowry shook his head. "You can't be sure of it, Ferris!" he said.
"You can't be sure of it at all."
Weldon smiled. "No, we can't. We don't really know what would happen.
But neither, you see, does the rogue."
Lowry said hesitantly, "I'm afraid I don't follow you."
"Ben," Weldon said, "we don't expect your diex projector will ever be
put to the use we've been discussing just now. That isn't its purpose."
Lowry looked dumfounded. "Then what is its purpose?"
* * * * *
Arlene Rolf's face had gone pale. "Doctor Ben," she said, "I believe
Colonel Weldon is implying that the rogue already knows about the diex
projector and what might be attempted with it."
Weldon nodded. "Of course, he knows about it. How many secrets do you
think can be kept from a creature who can tap the minds of anybody
he encounters? You can take it for granted that he's maintained
information sources in every department of the government since the day
we became aware of his existence. He knows we're out to get him. And he
isn't stupid enough to allow things here to develop to the point where
one of our telepaths is actually placed in front of that projector. He
can't be sure of what the outcome would be. After all, it might ...
very easily ... be fatal to him."
Lowry began, "Then I don't...." He checked himself, gave Arlene Rolf a
bewildered look. "Are _you_ still with this madman, Arlene?"
Her smile was twisted. "I'm afraid so! If I am, I don't like the
situation at all. Colonel Weldon, have you people planned to use the
diex projector as a trap for the rogue?"
"As bait for a trap," Weldon said. "Ben, put yourself in the rogue's
place. He regards this entire planet as his property. But now the
livestock is aware of him and is restless. On the technological side it
is also becoming more clever by the decade--dangerously clever. He can
still keep us in our place here, and so far he's succeeded in blocking
a major exodus into the solar system where his power would vanish. But
can he continue indefinitely? And can he find any enjoyment in being
the lord of all Earth when he has to be constantly on guard now against
our efforts to get rid of him? He's blocked our first thrusts and
showed us that he can make it a very costly business to harass him too
seriously. But the situation is as unsatisfactory to him as to us. He
needs much more effective methods of control than were required in the
past to bring us back to heel."
Lowry said, "And the diex projector...."
Weldon nodded. "Of course! The diex projector is the perfect solution
to the rogue's problems. The security islands which so far have been
our principle form of defense would become meaningless. He could reach
any human mind on Earth directly and immediately. Future plots to
overthrow him would stand no chance of success.
"The rogue has shown no scientific ability of his own, and the handful
of other men who might be capable at present of constructing a similar
instrument have been placed beyond his reach. So he has permitted the
development of the projector to continue here, though he could, of
course, have put an abrupt stop to it in a number of ways. But you may
be sure that he intends to bring the diex projector into his possession
before it actually can be used against him."
Arlene said, "And he's assumed to know that the projector is now
operational, aside from any faults that might still show up in the
tests?"
"Yes," Weldon said.
She went on, "Does the fact that I was allowed to leave the project
several times a week--actually whenever I felt like it--have something
to do with that?"
* * * * *
Weldon said, "We believe that the rogue has taken advantage rather
regularly of that arrangement. After all, there was no more dependable
way of informing himself of the exact state of affairs on the project
than...."
"Than by picking my mind?"
Weldon hesitated, said, "There's no denying that we have placed you
both in danger, Arlene. Under the circumstances, we can offer no
apology for that. It was a matter of simple necessity."
"I wasn't expecting an apology, Colonel Weldon." Her face was white.
"But I'm wondering what the rogue is supposed to attempt now."
"To get possession of the projector?" Weldon hesitated again. "We
don't know that exactly. We believe we have considered every possible
approach, and whichever he selects, we're prepared to trap him in the
process of carrying it out."
Dr. Lowry said, "But he must suspect that you intend to trap him!"
Weldon nodded. "He does, naturally. But he's under a parallel
disadvantage there--he can't be certain what the traps are. You don't
realize yet how elaborate our precautionary measures have been." Weldon
indicated the small door in the wall beyond Dr. Lowry. "The reason I
use only that private conduit to come here is that I haven't stepped
off a security island for almost three years! The same has been true
of anyone else who had information we had to keep from the rogue ...
including incidentally Mr. Green, whose occasional 'public appearances'
during this critical period have been elaborately staged fakes. We
communicate only by viewphone; in fact, none of us even knows just
where the others are. There is almost no chance that he can do more
than guess at the exact nature of our plans."
"And with all that," Lowry said slowly, "you expect he will still go
ahead and make a bid for the projector?"
"He will because he must!" Weldon said. "His only alternative
would be to destroy this security island with everything on it at
the last moment. And that is very unlikely. The rogue's actions
show that in spite of his current troubles with us he has a vast
contempt for ordinary human beings. Without that feeling, he would
never have permitted the diex projector to be completed. So he will
come for it--very warily, taking every precaution, but confident of
out-maneuvering us at the end."
Arlene asked, "And isn't it possible that he will do just that?"
There was a barely perceptible pause before Weldon replied. "Yes,"
he said then, "it's possible. It's a small chance--perhaps only a
theoretical one. But we're not omniscient, and we may not know quite as
much about him as we think. It remains possible."
"Then why take even that risk?" Arlene asked. "Wouldn't it be better
to destroy the projector now--to leave things as they are--rather
than offer him a weapon which would reduce us all to helpless chattels
again?"
Weldon shook his head. "Arlene, we can't leave things as they are!
Neither can the rogue. You know that really--even though you refuse to
admit it to yourself at the moment."
"I ... what do you mean?"
* * * * *
"This year," Weldon said patiently, "we have the diex projector. What
will we have five years from now when diex energy has been more fully
explored? When the other fields of knowledge that have been opened
in recent years begin to expand? We could, perhaps, slow down those
processes. We can't stop them. And, at any point, other unpredictable
weapons may emerge ... weapons we might use against the rogue, or that
he might use against us.
"No, for both sides the time to act is now, unless we're willing to
leave the future to chance. We aren't; and the rogue isn't. We've
challenged him to determine whether he or mankind will control this
planet, and he's accepted the challenge. It amounts to that. And it's
very likely that the outcome will have become apparent not many hours
from now."
Arlene shook her head but said nothing. Dr. Lowry asked, "Ferris,
exactly what is _our_ role in this situation supposed to be?"
"For the next few hours," Weldon said, "you'll be instructing me in the
practical details of operating the projector. I've studied your reports
very carefully, of course, and I could handle it after a fashion
without such help. But that isn't good enough. Because--as the rogue
knows very well--we aren't bluffing in the least in this. We're forcing
him to take action. If he doesn't"--Weldon nodded at the polished
hardwood box on the table before Dr. Lowry--"one of our telepaths
presently _will_ be placed before that instrument of yours, and
the rogue will face the possibility of being flushed into view. And
there is no point on the globe at this moment which is more than a few
minutes' flight away from one of our strike groups.
"So he'll take action ... at the latest as soon as the order is given
to move our telepath to the Cleaver Project. But you two won't be here
when it happens. You're not needed for that part, and while we've been
talking, the main project conduit has been shunted from our university
exit here to a security island outside the area. You'll move there
directly from the project as soon as you finish checking me out, and
you will remain there until Operation Rogue is concluded.
"And now let's get busy! I think it would be best, Ben, if I assumed
Arlene's usual role for a start ... secondary operator ... and let you
go through the regular pattern of contacts while I look on. What do you
say?"
* * * * *
Arlene Rolf had taken a chair well back from the table where the two
men sat before the diex projector. She realized it had been an attempt
to dissociate herself--emotionally as well as physically--from what was
being done there, and that the attempt hadn't been at all successful.
Her usual composure, based on the awareness of being able to adjust
herself efficiently to the necessities of any emergency, was simply
gone. The story of the rogue had been sprung on them too abruptly at
this last moment. Her mind accepted the concept but hadn't really
assimilated it yet. Listening to what Weldon had said, wanting to
remain judiciously skeptical but finding herself increasingly unable to
disbelieve him--that had been like a slow, continuous shock. She wasn't
yet over it. Her thoughts wouldn't follow the lines she set them on but
veered off almost incoherently every minute or two. For the first time
in her adult life she was badly frightened--made stupid with fear--and
finding it something she seemed unable to control at will.
Her gaze shifted back helplessly to the table and to the dull-blue
concave viewplate which was the diex projector's central section.
Unfolded from its case, the projector was a beautiful machine of spider
web angularities lifting from the flat silver slab of its generator
to the plate. The blurred shiftings of color and light in the center
of the plate were next to meaningless without the diex goggles Dr.
Lowry and Weldon had fitted over their heads; but Arlene was familiar
enough with the routine test patterns to follow their progress without
listening closely to what was said....
She wanted the testing to stop. She felt it was dangerous. Hadn't
Weldon said they still couldn't be sure of the actual extent of the
rogue's abilities? And mightn't the projector be luring their minds out
now into the enemy's territory, drawing his attention to what was being
done in this room? There had been seconds when an uncanny certainty
had come to her that she could sense the rogue's presence, that he
already was cynically aware of what they were attempting, and only
biding his time before he interfered. That might be--almost certainly
was--superstitious imagining, but the conviction had been strong.
Strong enough to leave her trembling.
But there was, of course, exactly nothing she could do or say now to
keep them from going on. She remained silent.
So far it had been routine. A standard warm-up. They'd touched
Vanderlin in Melbourne, Marie Faber in Seattle. The wash of colors in
the viewplate was the reflection of individual sensory impressions
riding the diex field. There had been no verbalizing or conscious
response from the contacted subjects. That would come later. Dr.
Lowry's face was turned momentarily sideways to her, the conical grey
lenses of the goggles protruding from beneath his forehead like staring
insect eyes.
* * * * *
She realized he must have said something to Weldon just now which she
hadn't heard. Weldon's head was nodding in agreement. Dr. Lowry shifted
back to the table, said, "Botucato, Brazil--an untried location. How
the pinpointing of these random samplings is brought about is of
course...." His voice dropped to an indistinct murmur as he reached out
to the projector again.
Arlene roused herself with an effort partly out of her foggy fears.
It was almost like trying to awake from a heavy, uncomfortable
sleep. But now there was also some feeling of relief--and angry
self-contempt--because obviously while she had been giving in to her
emotional reactions, nothing disastrous had in fact occurred! At the
table, they'd moved on several steps in the standard testing procedure.
She hadn't even been aware of it. She was behaving like a fool!
The sensory color patterns were gone from the viewplate, and now as she
looked, the green-patterned white field of the projector's location map
appeared there instead. She watched Dr. Lowry's practiced fingers spin
the coordinating dials, and layer after layer of the map came surging
into view, each a magnified section of the preceding one. There was a
faint click. Lowry released the dials, murmured something again, ended
more audibly, "... twenty-mile radius." The viewplate had gone blank,
but Arlene continued to watch it.
The projector was directed now towards a twenty-mile circle at ground
level somewhere in Brazil. None of their established contacts were
in that area. Nevertheless, something quite definite was occuring.
Dr. Lowry had not expected to learn much more about this particular
process until a disciplined telepathic mind was operating through the
instrument--and perhaps not too much more then. But in some manner the
diex energy was now probing the area, and presently it would touch a
human mind--sometimes a succession of them, sometimes only one. It was
always the lightest of contacts. The subjects remained patently unaware
of any unusual experience, and the only thing reflected from them was
the familiar generalized flux of sensory impressions--
* * * * *
Arlene Rolf realized she was standing just inside the open records
vault of Dr. Lowry's office, with a bundle of files in her arms. On the
floor about her was a tumbled disorder of other files, of scattered
papers, tapes. She dropped the bundle on the litter, turned back to
the door. And only then, with a churning rush of hot terror, came the
thought, _What am I doing here? What happened?_
She saw Dr. Lowry appear in the vault door with another pile of papers.
He tossed them in carelessly, turned back into the office without
glancing in her direction. Arlene found herself walking out after him,
her legs carrying her along in dreamlike independence of her will.
Lowry was now upending the contents of a drawer to the top of his desk.
She tried to scream his name. There was no sound. She saw his face
for an instant. He looked thoughtful, absorbed in what he was doing,
nothing else....
Then she was walking through the living room, carrying something--the
next instant, it seemed, she'd reentered Lowry's office. Nightmarishly,
it continued. Blank lapses of awareness followed moments in which her
mind swayed in wild terrors while her body moved about, machinelike
and competent, piling material from workshop and file cabinets
helter-skelter into the records vault. It might have been going on for
only three or four minutes or for an hour; her memory was enclosed in
splinters of time and reality. But there were moments, too, when her
thoughts became lucid and memory returned ... Colonel Weldon's broad
back as he disappeared through the narrow door in the living room wall
into the private conduit entry, the strap of the diex projector case in
his right hand; then the door closing behind him. Before that had been
an instant when something blazed red in the projector's viewplate on
the table, and she'd wondered why neither of the two men sitting before
it made any comment--
Then suddenly, in one of the lucid moments, there was time for the
stunned thought to form: _So the rogue caught us all!_ Weldon's
self-confidence and courage, Dr. Lowry's dedicated skill, her own
reluctance to be committed to this matter ... nothing had made the
slightest difference. In his own time, the rogue had come quietly
through every defense and seized their minds. Weldon was on his way to
him now, carrying the diex projector.
And she and Dr. Lowry? They'd been ordered by the rogue to dispose of
every scrap of information dealing with the projector's construction,
of course! They were doing it. And after they had finished--then what?
Arlene thought she knew when she saw Dr. Lowry close the vault, and
unlock and plunge the destruct button beside the door. Everything in
there would be annihilated now in ravening white fire. But the two
minds which knew the secrets of the projector--
* * * * *
She must have made a violent effort to escape, almost over-riding the
rogue's compulsions. For she found herself in the living room, not ten
feet from the door that opened into the outer halls where help might
still have been found. But it was as far as she could go; she was
already turning away from the door, starting back across the room with
the quick, graceful automaton stride over which she had no control. And
terror surged up in her again.
As she approached the far wall, she saw Dr. Lowry come out of the
passage from the office, smiling absently, blinking at the floor
through his glasses. He turned without looking up and walked behind her
towards the closed narrow door before Colonel Weldon's nonspace conduit
entry.
So it wasn't to be death, Arlene thought, but personal slavery. The
rogue still had use for them. They were to follow where Weldon had
gone....
Her hand tugged at the door. It wouldn't open.
She wrenched at it violently, savagely, formless panic pounding through
her. After a moment, Dr. Lowry began to mutter uneasily, then reached
out to help her.
The room seemed suddenly to explode; and for an instant Arlene Rolf
felt her mind disintegrating in raging torrents of white light.
* * * * *
She had been looking drowsily for some moments at the lanky, red-headed
man who stood, faced away, half across the room before any sort of
conscious understanding returned. Then, immediately, everything was
there. She went stiff with shock.
Dr. Lowry's living room ... she in this chair and Dr. Lowry stretched
out on the couch. He'd seemed asleep. And standing above him, looking
down at him, the familiar raw-boned, big figure of Frank Harding. Dr.
Frank Harding who had walked up to the Cleaver Spaceport entry with her
today, told her he'd be flying back to the coast.
Frank Harding, the....
Arlene slipped quietly out of the chair, moved across the room behind
Harding's back, watching him. When he began to turn, she darted off
towards the open hall entry.
She heard him make a startled exclamation, come pounding after her.
He caught her at the entry, swung her around, holding her wrists. He
stared down at her from under the bristling red brows. "What the devil
did you think you were doing?"
"You....!" Arlene gasped frantically. "You--" What checked her was
first the surprise, then the dawning understanding in his face. She
stammered, almost dizzy with relief, "I ... I thought you must be...."
Harding shook his head, relaxed his grip on her wrists.
"But I'm not, of course," he said quietly.
"No ... you're not! You wouldn't have had to ... chase me if you were,
would you?" Her eyes went round in renewed dismay. "But I don't ... he
has the diex projector now!"
Harding shook his head again and took her arm. "No, he doesn't! Now
just try to relax a bit, Arlene. We did trap him, you know. It cost
quite a few more lives at the end, but we did. So let's go over and sit
down. I brought some whisky along ... figured you two should be able to
use a little after everything you've been through."
Arlene sat on the edge of a chair, watching him pour out a glass. A
reaction had set in; she felt very weak and shaky now, and she seemed
unable to comprehend entirely that the rogue had been caught.
She said, "So you were in on this operation too?"
He glanced around. "Uh-huh.... Dome at the bottom of an ocean basin
wasn't at all a bad headquarters under the circumstances. What put you
and Dr. Ben to sleep was light-shock." He handed her the glass.
"Light-shock?" Arlene repeated.
"Something new," Harding said. "Developed--in another security island
project--for the specific purpose of resolving hypnotic compulsions,
including the very heavy type implanted by the rogue. He doesn't seem
to have been aware of that project, or else he regarded it as one of
our less important efforts which he could afford to ignore for the
present. Anyway, light-shock does do the job, and very cleanly, though
it knocks the patient out for a while in the process. That side effect
isn't too desirable, but so far it's been impossible to avoid."
"I see," Arlene said. She took a cautious swallow of the whisky and set
the glass down as her eyes began to water.
* * * * *
Frank Harding leaned back against the table and folded his arms. He
scowled thoughtfully down at her.
"We managed to get two persons who were suspected of being the rogue's
unconscious stooges to the island," he said, "and tried light-shock out
on them. It worked and didn't harm them, so we decided to use it here.
Lowry will wake up in another hour at the latest and be none the worse.
Of course, neither of you will remember what happened while the rogue
had you under control, but...."
"You're quite wrong about that," Arlene told him. "I don't remember
all of it, but I'm still very much aware of perhaps half of what
happened--though I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer to forget it. It was
like an extremely unpleasant nightmare."
Harding looked surprised. "That's very curious! The other cases
reported complete amnesia. Perhaps you...."
"You've been under a heavy strain yourself, haven't you, Frank?" she
asked.
He hesitated. "I? What makes you think so?"
"You're being rather gabby. It isn't like you."
Harding grunted. "I suppose you're right. This thing's been tense
enough. _He_ may have enjoyed it--except naturally at the very
end. Playing cat and mouse with the whole human race! Well, the mice
turned out to be a little too much for him, after all. But of course
nothing was certain until that last moment."
"Because none of you could be sure of anyone else?"
"That was it mainly. This was one operation where actually nobody
_could_ be in charge completely or completely trusted. There were
overlaps for everything, and no one knew what all of them were. When
Weldon came here today, he turned on a pocket transmitter so that
everything that went on while he was being instructed in the use of the
diex projector would be monitored outside.
"Outside was also a globe-scanner which duplicated the activities of
the one attached to the projector. We could tell at any moment to which
section of Earth the projector's diex field had been directed. That was
one of the overlapping precautions. It sounded like a standard check
run. There was a little more conversation between Lowry and Weldon
than was normal when you were the assistant operator, but that could
be expected. There were pauses while the projector was shut down and
preparations for the next experiment were made. Normal again. Then,
during one of the pauses, we got the signal that someone had just
entered Weldon's private nonspace conduit over there from this end.
That was _not_ normal, and the conduit was immediately sealed off
at both exits. One more overlapping precaution, you see ... and that
just happened to be the one that paid off!"
Arlene frowned. "But what did...."
"Well," Harding said, "there were still a number of questions to
be answered, of course. They had to be answered fast and correctly
or the game could be lost. Nobody expected the rogue to show up in
person at the Cleaver Project. The whole security island could have
been destroyed in an instant; we knew he was aware of that. But he'd
obviously made a move of some kind--and we had to assume that the diex
projector was now suspended in the conduit.
* * * * *
"But who, or what, was in there with it? The project guards had been
withdrawn. There'd been only the three of you on the island. The
rogue could have had access to all three at some time or other; and
his compulsions--until we found a way to treat them--were good for a
lifetime. Any of you might have carried that projector into the conduit
to deliver it to him. Or all three might be involved, acting together.
If that was the case, the conduit would have to be re-opened because
the game had to continue. It was the rogue we wanted, not his tools....
"And there _was_ the other possibility. You and Dr. Ben are among
the rather few human beings on Earth we could be sure were not the
rogue, not one of his impersonations. If he'd been capable of building
a diex projector, he wouldn't have had to steal one. Colonel Weldon
had been with Special Activities for a long time. But he could be an
impersonation. In other words, the rogue."
Arlene felt her face go white. "He was!" she said.
"Eh? How do you know?"
"I didn't realize it, but ... no, go ahead. I'd rather tell you later."
"What didn't you realize?" Harding persisted.
Arlene said, "I experienced some of his feelings ... after he was
inside the conduit. He knew he'd been trapped!" Her hands were shaking.
"I thought they were my own ... that I...." Her voice began to falter.
"Let it go," Harding said, watching her. "It can't have been pleasant."
She shook her head. "I assure you it wasn't!"
"So he could reach you from nonspace!" Harding said. "That was
something we didn't know. We suspected we still didn't have the whole
picture about the rogue. But he didn't know everything either. He
thought his escape route from the project and away through the conduit
system was clear. It was a very bold move. If he'd reached any point on
Earth where we weren't waiting to destroy him from a distance, he would
have needed only a minute or two with the projector to win all the way.
Well, that failed. And a very short time later, we knew we had the
rogue in the conduit."
"How did you find that out?"
Harding said, "The duplicate global scanner I told you about. After
all, the rogue _could_ have been Weldon. Aside from you two, he
could have been almost anyone involved in the operation. He might have
been masquerading as one of our own telepaths! Every location point
the diex field turned to during that 'test run' came under instant
investigation. We were looking for occurrences which might indicate the
rogue had been handling the diex projector.
"The first reports didn't start to come in until after the Weldon
imitation had taken the projector into the conduit. But then, in a few
minutes, we had plenty! They showed the rogue had tested the projector,
knew he could handle it, knew he'd reestablished himself as king of the
world--and this time for good! And then he walked off into the conduit
with his wonderful stolen weapon...."
Arlene said, "He was trying to get Dr. Ben and me to open the project
exit for him again. We couldn't, of course. I never imagined anyone
could experience the terror he felt."
"There was some reason for it," Harding said. "Physical action
is impossible in nonspace, so he couldn't use the projector. He
was helpless while he was in the conduit. And he knew we couldn't
compromise when we let him out.
"We switched the conduit exit to a point eight hundred feet above the
surface of Cleaver Interplanetary Spaceport--the project he's kept us
from completing for the past twenty-odd years--and opened it there. We
still weren't completely certain, you know, that the rogue mightn't
turn out to be a genuine superman who would whisk himself away and out
of our reach just before he hit the marblite paving.
"But he wasn't...."
THE END
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