"It was handled beautifully," Faircloth was saying. "The timing was
perfect, and there's no question but that it will go across." He looked
up at Jean. "You're sure you got everything across to him when he
contacted you again?"
She nodded. Her face was still pale. "He turned me inside out. Cleaned
out everything I knew. I didn't resist. And then when we'd heard from
you he contacted me again, and I knew that we were right. He's been in
touch with me ever since. He'll be here soon."
Faircloth nodded to Roberts. "And you've arranged for the raids to
start up through New England?"
Roberts nodded. He looked slightly high. "Everything's under control.
Marino has a ship ready for takeoff, and we have guns up near Eagle
Rock to blast it down. Ain't many people around in northern Ontario.
The pictures will be rather bad, probably, but after all--field
conditions, you know.
"It will certainly look like the same sort of ship that landed out in
Iowa, and there won't be enough left when the blasting is over to tell
for sure whether the mangled mess that they drag out of it later is
man, Alien or oily rags. Those guns do a good job."
Something touched Faircloth's mind, lightly, like a quiet knock. He
swung around, his eyes wide. "He's here," he said, and then he saw that
Jean already knew. "Tell him to come up."
She nodded, and closed her eyes. Moments later they heard the footsteps
on the stairs, hesitant footsteps. Then the door swung open. They
stared at him for a moment, and then both men were wringing the man's
hand, offering him a glass, and he sank down on the cot they had
prepared for him, exhausted. "You must be dead," Paul said quietly.
"I am, I am," said the man. "Mind if I lie down?"
He was an ordinary looking man. He was slender, about thirty, and
very pale. A single-factor Psi-High had no distinguishing physical
characteristics; there really was no reason to expect a double-factor
psi-positive to look any different. But somehow they had half expected
a god-like creature, and he just looked like a frightened young man.
His face was mild and rather sad. But his eyes were clear and sharp,
and the mouth was in a grim line, as he sank back on the couch. "I was
afraid you'd never spot it," he said. "For a while it looked as though
the whole thing would backfire. I mean when Towne was planning the
shift in the Council and trying to force an election. I was afraid--and
in the midst of that, you started your cat-and-mouse game--"
Faircloth nodded. "We had no choice. We didn't know, and you didn't
dare reveal what you were doing at that point."
The man shook his head. "It was better this way, much better. I planned
to kill Towne and then let you capture me. Counting on you to work
the propaganda right. Then nobody would have known that the Alien was
killed before he even got started."
Faircloth smiled. "The computer even listed that as a possibility. Low
probability, but that was on the basis of what we knew. We hadn't even
considered it--yet every living Psi-High has known for a long time that
someday two Psi-Highs would have a child. We could only guess what the
child might be like."
The man looked up at them sadly. "The child would be lonely beyond
words," he said. "He would be able to hide, yes. He would be able to
slow down his psi-powers in order to appear like an ordinary Psi-High.
He could never have revealed it. Not even to his closest friends."
"And you knew that the real Alien had been killed?"
"Almost as soon as it happened. He died in agony. He had a powerful
mind. He broadcast so wildly that every Psi-High within a hundred miles
must have gotten a shower. I was in Des Moines, and got the whole
picture clear as a bell. Went down and picked the details out of the
farmer's brain. He was too frightened to tell what he had done, and
nobody paid too much attention to him anyway." He shifted wearily on
the cot. "The Alien must have been working so hard to maintain his
disguise that the farmer caught him short. I knew it, and I knew what I
had to do. I went ahead and did it."
"Of course Towne will fight," said Roberts later, when the man had
drifted off into a deep sleep. "He's clever, and resourceful. When
we 'rescue' him from Eagle Rock, he's going to know exactly what has
happened."
Jean Sanders laughed happily. "I'd like to see him," she said. "I'd
like to see him helpless just once."
Paul grinned. "You will. Things will be too far ahead of him by then.
And of course, there will be a physical and mental examination. It
will be a pity that the Alien left his mind in such a state of shock
and delusion but maybe after a few months of psychiatric treatment we
can find out the real reason why he hates Psi-Highs so much. And then,
perhaps, we'll have a powerful fighter on our side instead of against
us."
He looked around at the others, his face grave. "We can't afford
to have the world against us again, not ever. _That_ part of the
news broadcast was perfectly true. There _was_ an Alien. He _was_
telepathic. And there will be others coming--maybe in a year, maybe in
five, or ten, or a hundred--" He leaned back wearily in the relaxer.
"We cashed in on it, this time, but we mustn't forget the parts that
are true."
Jean smiled and put her arm around him. "They'll come, sometime--yes.
But when they come they'll find the Earth well guarded." Her eyes
drifted to the sleeping figure on the cot, and then came back to Paul's
and held them. "When they do come, there'll be others--like him--to
stop them."