VIII

It might not have worked on most men but these goons were not very

bright. The guard nodded, gulped and resumed his pacing. Dalgetty

walked on up the path toward the house.

A man at the door lifted his rifle. "Halt, there! I'll have to call

Mr. Bancroft first." The sentry went inside and thumbed an intercom

switch.

Dalgetty, poised in a nervous tautness that could explode into

physical strength, felt a clutch of fear. The whole thing was so

fiendishly uncertain--anything could happen.

Bancroft's voice drifted out. "That you, Elena? Good work, girl! How'd

you do it?" The warmth in his tone, under the excitement, made

Dalgetty wonder briefly just what the relationship between those two

had been.

"I'll tell you upstairs, Tom," she answered. "This is too big for

anyone else to hear. But keep the patrols going. There are more like

this creature around the island."

Dalgetty could imagine the primitive shudder in Thomas Bancroft,

instinct from ages when the night was prowling terror about a tiny

circle of fire. "All right. If you're sure he won't--"

"I've got him well covered."

"I'll send over half a dozen guards just the same. Hold it."

The men came running from barracks, where they must have been waiting

for a call to arms, and closed in. It was a ring of tight faces and

wary eyes and pointing guns. They feared him and the fear made them

deadly. Elena's countenance was wholly blank.

"Let's go," she said.

A man walked some feet ahead of the prisoner, casting glances behind

him all the time. There was one on either side, the rest were at the

rear. Elena walked among them, her weapon never wavering from his

back. They went down the long handsome corridor and stood on the

purring escalator. Dalgetty's eyes roved with a yearning in them--how

much longer, he wondered, would he be able to see anything at all?

The door to Bancroft's study was ajar and Tighe's voice drifted out.

It was a quiet drawl, unshaken despite the blow it must have been to

hear of Dalgetty's recapture. Apparently he was continuing a

conversation begun earlier:

"... science goes back a long way, actually. Francis Bacon speculated

about a genuine science of man. Poole did some work along those lines

as well as inventing the symbolic logic which was to be such a major

tool in solving the problem.

"In the last century a number of lines of attack were developed. There

was already the psychology of Freud and his successors, of course,

which gave the first real notion of human semantics. There were the

biological, chemical and physical approaches to man as a mechanism.

Comparative historians like Spengler, Pareto and Toynbee realized that

history did not merely happen but had some kind of pattern.

"Cybernetics developed such concepts as homeostasis and feedback,

concepts which were applicable to individual man and to society as a

whole. Games theory, the principle of least effort and Haeml's

generalized epistemology pointed toward basic laws and the analytical

approach.

"The new symbologies in logic and mathematics suggested

formulations--for the problem was no longer one of gathering data so

much as of finding a rigorous symbolism to handle them and indicate

new data. A great deal of the Institute's work has lain simply in

collecting and synthesizing all these earlier findings."

Dalgetty felt a rush of admiration. Trapped and helpless among enemies

made ruthless by ambition and fear, Michael Tighe could still play

with them. He must have been stalling for hours, staving off drugs

and torture by revealing first one thing and then another--but subtly,

so that his captors probably didn't realize he was only telling them

what they could find in any library.

* * * * *

The party entered a large room, furnished with wealth and taste, lined

with bookshelves. Dalgetty noticed an intricate Chinese chess set on

the desk. So Bancroft or Meade played chess--that was something they

had in common, at least, on this night of murder.

Tighe looked up from the armchair. A couple of guards stood behind

him, their arms folded, but he ignored them. "Hello, son," he

murmured. There was pain in his eyes. "Are you all right?"

Dalgetty nodded mutely. There was no way to signal the Englishman, no

way to let him hope.

Bancroft stepped over to the door and locked it. He gestured at the

guards, who spread themselves around the walls, their guns aimed

inward. He was shaking ever so faintly and his eyes glittered as with

fever. "Sit down," he said. "_There!_"

Dalgetty took the indicated armchair. It was deep and soft. It would

be hard to spring out of quickly. Elena took a seat opposite him,

poised on its edge, the tommy-gun in her lap. It was suddenly very

still in the room.

Bancroft went over to the desk and fumbled with a humidor. He didn't

look up. "So you caught him," he said.

"Yes," replied Elena. "After he caught me first."

"How did you--turn the tables?" Bancroft took out a cigar and bit the

end off savagely. "What happened?"

"I was in a cave, resting," she said tonelessly. "He rose out of the

water and grabbed me. He'd been hiding underneath longer than anybody

would have thought possible. He forced me out to a rock in the bay

there--you know it? We hid till sundown, when he opened up on your men

on that beach. He killed them all.

"I'd been tied but I'd managed to rub the strips loose. It was just a

piece off his shirt he tied me with. While he was shooting I grabbed a

stone and clipped him behind the ear. I dragged him to shore while he

was still out, took one of the guns lying there and marched him here."

"Good work." Bancroft inhaled raggedly. "I'll see that you get a

proper bonus for this, Elena. But what else? You said...."

"Yes." Her gaze was steady on him. "We talked, out there in the bay.

He wanted to convince me I should help him. Tom--he isn't human."

"Eh?" Bancroft's heavy form jerked. With an effort he steadied

himself. "What do you mean?"

"That muscular strength and speed, and telepathy. He can see in the

dark and hold his breath longer than any man. No, he isn't human."

Bancroft looked at Dalgetty's motionless form. The prisoner's eyes

clashed with his and it was he who looked away again. "A telepath, did

you say?"

"Yes," she answered. "Do you want to prove it, Dalgetty?"

There was stillness in the room. After a moment Dalgetty spoke. "You

were thinking, Bancroft, 'All right, damn you, can you read my mind?

Go ahead and try it and you'll know what I'm thinking about you.' The

rest was obscenities."

"A guess," said Bancroft. There was sweat on his cheeks. "Just a good

guess. Try again."

Another pause, then, "'Ten, nine, seven, A, B, M, Z, Z ...' Shall I

keep on?" Dalgetty asked quietly.

"No," muttered Bancroft. "No, that's enough. What are you?"

"He told me," put in Elena. "You're going to have trouble believing

it. I'm not sure if I believe it myself. But he's from another star."

Bancroft opened his lips and shut them again. The massive head shook

in denial.

"He is--from Tau Ceti," said Elena. "They're way beyond us. It's the

thing people have been speculating about for the last hundred years."

"Longer, my girl," said Tighe. There was no emotion in his face or

voice save a dry humor, but Dalgetty knew what a flame must suddenly

be leaping up inside him. "Read Voltaire's _Micromegas_."

"I've read such fiction," said Bancroft harshly. "Who hasn't? All

right, why are they here, what do they want?"

"You could say," spoke Dalgetty, "that we favor the Institute."

"But you've been raised from childhood...."

"Oh yes. My people have been on Earth a long time. Many of them are

born here. Our first spaceship arrived in Nineteen Sixty-five." He

leaned forward in the chair. "I expected Casimir to be reasonable and

help me rescue Dr. Tighe. Since she hasn't done so I must appeal to

your own common sense. We have crews on Earth. We know where all our

people are at any given time. If necessary I can die to preserve the

secret of our presence but in that case you will die too, Bancroft.

The island will be bombed."

"I...." The chief looked out the window into the enormity of night.

"You can't expect me to--to accept this as if...."

"I've some things to tell you which may change your mind," said

Dalgetty. "They will certainly prove my story. Send your men out

though. This is only for your ears."

"And have you jump me!" snapped Bancroft.

"Casimir can stay," said Dalgetty, "and anyone else you are absolutely

certain can keep a secret and control his own greed."

Bancroft paced once around the room. His eyes flickered back and forth

over the watching men. Frightened faces, bewildered faces, ambitious

faces--it was a hard decision and Dalgetty knew grimly that his life

rested on his and Elena's estimate of Thomas Bancroft's character.

"All right! Humphrey, Zimmermann, O'Brien, stay in here. If that bird

moves shoot him. The rest of you wait just outside." They filed out.

The door closed behind them. The three guards left posted themselves

with smooth efficiency, one at the window and one at either adjoining

wall. There was a long quiet.

Elena had to improvise the scheme and think it at Dalgetty. He nodded.

Bancroft planted himself before the chair, legs spread wide as if

braced for a blow, fists on hips.

"All right," he said. "What do you want to tell me?"

"You've caught me," said Dalgetty, "so I'm prepared to bargain for my

life and Dr. Tighe's freedom. Let me show you--" He made a move as if

to rise.

"Stay where you are!" snapped Bancroft, and three guns swiveled around

to point at the prisoner. Elena backed away until she stood beside the

one near the desk.

"As you will." Dalgetty leaned back again, casually shoving his chair

a couple of feet. He was now facing the window and, as far as he could

tell, sitting exactly on a line between the man there and the man at

the farther wall. "The Union of Tau Ceti is interested in seeing that

the right kind of civilizations develop on other planets. You could be

of value to us, Thomas Bancroft, if you can be persuaded to our side,

and the rewards are considerable." His glance went for a moment to the

girl and she nodded imperceptibly. "For example...."

The power rushed up in him. Elena clubbed her gun butt and struck the

man next to her behind the ear. In the fractional second before the

others could understand and react Dalgetty was moving.

The impetus which launched him from the chair sent that heavy padded

piece of furniture sliding across the floor to hit the man behind him

with a muffled thud. His left fist took Bancroft on the jaw as he went

by. The guard at the window had no time to swing his gun back from

Elena and squeeze trigger before Dalgetty's hand was on his throat.

His neck snapped.

Elena stood over her victim even as he toppled and aimed at the man

across the room. The armchair had knocked his rifle aside. "Drop that

or I shoot," she said.

Dalgetty snatched up a gun for himself, leveling it at the door. He

more than half expected those outside to come rushing in, expected

hell would explode. But the thick oak panels must have choked off

sound.

Slowly, the man behind the chair let his rifle fall to the floor. His

mouth was stretched wide with supernatural fear.

"My God!" Dr. Tighe's long form was erect, shaking, his calm broken

into horror. "Simon, the risk...."

"We didn't have anything to lose, did we?" Dalgetty's voice was thick

but the abnormal energy was receding from him. He felt a surge of

weariness and knew that soon the payment must be made for the way he

had abused his body. He looked down at the corpse before him. "I

didn't mean to do that," he whispered.

Tighe collected himself with an effort of disciplined will and stepped

over to Bancroft. "He's alive, at least," he said. "Oh my God, Simon!

You could have been killed so easily."

"I may yet. We aren't out of the woods by any means. Find something to

tie these two others up with, will you, Dad?"

The Englishman nodded. Elena's slugged guard was stirring and

groaning. Tighe bound and gagged him with strips torn from his tunic.

Under the submachine-gun the other submitted meekly enough. Dalgetty

rolled them behind a sofa with the one he had slain.

Bancroft was wakening too. Dalgetty located a flask of bourbon and

gave it to him. Clearing eyes looked up with the same terror. "Now

what?" mumbled Bancroft. "You can't get away--"

"We can damn well try. If it had come to fighting with the rest of

your gang we'd have used you as a hostage but now there's a neater

way. On your feet! Here, straighten your tunic, comb your hair. Okay,

you'll do just as you're told, because if anything goes wrong we'll

have nothing at all to lose by shooting you." Dalgetty rapped out his

orders.

* * * * *

Bancroft looked at Elena and there was more than physical hurt in his

eyes. "Why did you do it?"

"FBI," she said.

He shook his head, still stunned, and shuffled over to the desk

visiphone and called the hangar. "I've got to get to the mainland in a

hurry. Have the speedster ready in ten minutes. No, just the regular

pilot, nobody else. I'll have Dalgetty with me but it's okay. He's on

our side now."

They went out the door. Elena cradled her tommy-gun under one arm.

"You can go back to the barracks, boys," said Bancroft wearily to the

men outside. "It's all been settled."

A quarter hour later Bancroft's private jet was in the air. Five

minutes after that he and the pilot were bound and locked in a rear

compartment. Michael Tighe took the controls. "This boat has legs," he

said. "Nothing can catch us between here and California."

"All right." Dalgetty's tones were flat with exhaustion. "I'm going

back to rest, Dad." Briefly his hand rested on the older man's

shoulder. "It's good to have you back," he said.

"Thank you, son," said Michael Tighe. "I can't tell you how wonderful

it is to be free again."