"Don't worry what I'm planning. The less you know about it the better.
Just one thing, though. You remember Eagle Rock? The place we built up
on Timagami when we were in college? Put three men at a number where
I can reach them, and give them the location of Eagle Rock. Then tell
them to stand by with a fast jet scooter. Got that? And don't let
_this_ leak, no matter what happens."
"I wish you'd tell me--"
"We're fighting for our lives, now, Bob. And for every Psi-High in the
country. I won't tell you."
Roberts nodded, and doused his cigar. "Eagle Rock," he said. "You can
count on it."
Paul flipped the set off and sank back to wait for the Alien to make
contact.
* * * * *
He struck at ten o'clock that evening, with a ferocity beyond their
wildest expectations.
They had known that he was near. The reports had come in, and they had
plotted and calculated his pathway, and waited. It was only a matter of
time, and the carefully planted information built a tangled, devious
circle with a single Psi-High individual in the center.
Jean Sanders.
It had to be Jean. Paul hated it. He wished it could be him, that he
could somehow protect her, but Jean Sanders was the only possible
person to bait the trap. Her psi-powers had been developed carefully
and painstakingly for years under the care of Dr. Reuben Abrams and
his staff at the Hoffman Medical Center. A Psi-High individual was
helpless to use his powers without training. Just as a child was
trained through long, gruelling years to use the mental faculties
of thought, and perception, and logic, a psi-positive mind required
training to control its powers of perception and physical control, if
its powers were ever to be used.
Paul knew that all too well. He had the psi-positive factor, too. He
had not realized, in his teens, when he had plagued and baited the two
Psi-High boys in his high school class, that there might be a time
factor in psi-positive developement. Other Psi-Highs showed the signs
of abnormal sensory apparatus at the age of one, or three, or seven.
The schools caught them, tested them, registered them and sent them
out into a life of fear and suspicion and hatred. They were considered
freaks, the more dangerous because there was no physical identification
that could be used to separate them from ordinary human beings.
And certain men had seen the great power that stood waiting for the man
who took advantage of the people's fears. Ambition is blinding; certain
men could see the danger to the comfortable, careless wielding of power
if Psi-High minds were to work their way into government. But minds,
like Paul Faircloth's mind, matured at different ages, and at different
times. And some slipped through the barrage of testing, undetected,
only to discover later that it was not the backs of the cards they were
reading, but the mind of their opponent that held the cards.
The faculty was feeble in people like Paul. He could not read minds.
He could not sort and integrate the confused tendrils of conscious and
unconscious thought that broke like an endless stream from a human
mind; he could not separate the reality of here-and-now thinking from
the strands of fantasy, and memory, and supposition, and frustration,
and desire, and half-understanding, and confusion that lay beneath the
surface of those minds. He could detect falsehood and he could feel
suspicion; he could sense love as he had never felt it before, and he
could feel himself gripped in the helpless frustration of pity; he
could savor excitement with a thousand tingling nerves, and he could
sense the blackest depths of despair, but he could not sort them out to
make a coherent picture of the thoughts streaming from a human mind. It
took a lifetime of training of a Psi-High mind to do that.
But Jean Sanders could. That was why she was waiting in the room with
him when the Alien struck.
She was walking across the room when it happened. She stiffened,
screamed, and even Paul's untrained mind caught the impact of the wave
of fear and revulsion that swept from her mind. She sank to the floor,
and Paul stood by, watching helplessly as she twisted and writhed in
the blind agony of the powerful invasion. "Please," she choked, white
faced. "Get me a pillow. Then--then listen--"
"Don't fight him," Paul whispered. "Let him in. Let him clear in. And
then jump on him for all you're worth. Dig, dig deep--"
Her eyes became huge, like the eyes of an animal, frightened beyond
hope, cornered, attacked and helpless to fight back. Her neck strained
back, and her teeth clenched. The blood drained from her face as she
began moaning. "I can't, Paul--" she cried, "I--I can't get in--"
"You've got to--" Frantically Paul tried to thrust out with his mind,
tried to dig through the wall of immense power that was present in the
room. The Alien was close, very close, and the presence of his mind was
overwhelming. Paul tried to break through, and then suddenly he felt a
pang of white heat sear through his brain, driving him back, a sharp,
savage stroke that doubled him up, clasping his hands helplessly to his
ears as he fell and writhed on the floor in pain. And then suddenly it
was gone as swiftly as it had come. He lay panting for a moment. Then
he managed to crawl across the room to Jean. He sank his head to her
chest, heard the slow pounding of her heart. He shook her, gently; her
eyes flickered open, her face filled with horror and loathing. "Oh,
Paul, I got--I got so little--"
"What did you get, darling?"
"Nothing. A picture or two, nothing more. Oh, he was so strong, I
couldn't make a dent--"
"What pictures?"
She sat up, her breath coming in gasps. "Nothing definite. Ben
Towne--yes, there was something about him--just the flash of a mental
picture, no rationality connected with it. And some papers, some sort
of file--" She clasped her hands to her head. "He--he stripped me
clean! I can't--"
"Jeannie! There must have been something else--"
She looked up at him, a strange light in her eyes. "I don't understand
it," she whispered. "There was a picture of a farm--yes, a farm, and a
dog, and blood on a pair of pants--"
Paul sat back, staring at her stupidly. And then, suddenly, a light
flashed on in his mind, a flash so incredible that he hardly dared
think of it. In an instant he was on his feet, the blood pounding in
his throat. He began throwing clothes into a bag as the girl sat there,
watching him dully, in growing alarm. "Stay here," he said. "I'll call
you--"
"Paul--where--"
"It's my show, now, darling. Wait, rest, you'll be all right. Rest, and
say a prayer or two. Because I've got this Alien nailed for sure this
time."
* * * * *
It was incredibly dangerous and utterly necessary. Paul found a
visiphone booth in the rear of a station where there were few people,
and quickly threw an adapter across the camera, and spun a roll of
film in. The film started when the party at the other end flipped on
the switch. The conversation was brief. Paul gave the address of a
roof-garden apartment in Central Washington, and then disconnected.
After removing the film, he reconnected with a number he had given
Roberts a few hours before. Ted Marino's face appeared, and Paul heaved
a sigh of relief. "How many men do you have, Ted?"
"Two."
"All Psi-High?"
"Certainly."
Paul nodded. "All right, we're beyond the law from now on, Ted. If you
or any of the rest want out, take off."
Marino's dark eyes sparkled. "Roberts said this is the kill," he said.
"It's not the kill you think. But it's a kill, all right. Take the men
to this address." He gave the roof-garden number. "Have a jet scooter
there, and see that nobody spots it. Use Security insignia. Send out a
bleeper if anything goes wrong. I'll be there."
He rang off, and moments later was rising high above the city in his
own scooter. In ten minutes he had reached the roof-garden, and settled
the little ship down gently on its gyros. He walked inside and sat down
in the darkness, and waited.
He heard another jet scooter land. Marino walked in with two other
men Paul remembered vaguely. He nodded to them, and they also sat
down. Paul fingered the shocker in his pocket, his nerves screaming a
thousand warnings in his ears.
The guard robot on the ground floor bleeped sharply. Paul reached for
the lock-release switch, and heard the elevator start to whine. He
unlocked the door and left it ajar, then motioned to one of the men.
"Cover the hallway, and back them up when they come. Don't be surprised
at who it is."
The man disappeared down the hall. Paul sat quietly, and then heard the
elevator open. There were footsteps, and a tapping sound. The footsteps
stopped at the door.
"Come on in," he called sharply. "Bob'll be with you in just a minute."
The door swung open and Senatorial Councilman Ben Towne walked into the
room, followed by two tight-faced men. One of the men had a hand in his
jacket pocket. Towne blinked at Faircloth, and his grin began to fade
into alarm. "Who in the hell are you?"
"One of Roberts' men."
"Roberts said you had the Alien," Towne snarled. His green eyes peered
around the room.
Marino swung on the man to the right, bringing him down with a blow to
the temple. Paul slapped Towne's cane to the floor, and pounced on the
other guard like a cat. The Councilman staggered against the door jamb,
trying desperately to reach his cane. Moments later the guards were
helpless, and Paul and Marino dragged Towne out to the middle of the
room. "The files," Paul said sharply. "Where do you keep them?"
Towne's breath came heavily. "You damned snakes can't get away with
this--"
"The files, Councilman."
His eyes went around the room fearfully. "The boys know where they
are," he said finally, his voice so low it was hardly audible.
"Any duplicates?"
"Not of the files you want."
Paul nodded to the two men. "Take them down and get the files. Then
turn the men and files over to Roberts. Tell him to see that the men
forget all about this." He turned back to Towne. "You're taking a
little ride."
"When this hits the papers it'll be the end of the road for you
freaks," Towne snarled. "You can't stop it now--"
"We'll see," said Faircloth. "Now shut up and get moving."
They left the cane in the room. Paul helped Marino load him aboard the
jet scooter. "Take him up to Eagle Rock. Keep him there. Dismantle
the engine, if you have to, to keep him there. I'll be there in a few
hours."