"Yeah, maybe," I said. "What if that's his normal speed? And who's
likely to get tired first? I'm dragging as of now."
"Well," Fitzgerald said, "we could get more people in and go at him in
shifts--or, well, what about tear gas or an anesthetic gas or--"
"Now, wait!" Browne snapped, unquestionably seizing command. "I'll
admit I started him on the run just now. Perhaps it was the wrong
approach. After all, he's done nothing wrong as far as we know. I--I
guess all of us--leaped to the illogical conclusion that he's out for
no good just because he's an alien. Sure, he's after _something_ or he
wouldn't be going from door to door posing as a census taker. The way
you talk, Jim, would seem to indicate you're not curious. Well, I am,
and I'm going to do everything in my power to find out what he's after.
"We've got to make him tell us. We can't deduce anything from the data
we have now. Sure, we know he has what you, Jim, say look like bona
fide credentials from the Census Bureau, but we also have right here I.
D. papers or something which show he's apparently from Alpha Centauri.
We know he speaks our language perfectly; ergo he either learned it
here first-hand or acquired it from someone else who had learned it
here.
"Whatever he's after, his approach certainly varies. He asked you a
lot of questions, Fitz, but, Jim, practically all he did in your house
was tell you your wife was pregnant with quintuplets. And whatever
his approach has been, he never seems to finish whatever he comes to
do. Something about you two--and from what you two have said, Kozulak
and Wohl--seems to have a most peculiar effect on him; you say he's
staggered out of every house he's entered only to recover again in a
matter of seconds.
"Just try to equate that!"
He stopped, pondering, and we didn't interrupt.
"Look," he said, "you two go upstairs. Take opposite sides of the
house and find him. Go slowly so that he won't be alarmed. Try to talk
with him, to persuade him we mean him no harm. If you find you can't
persuade him to come willingly, try to work him back to the passenger
shaft. I'll watch through the console--I've kinescopes in every
room--and I'll lock off one room at a time so that he can't reverse
himself. I won't activate the kinescopes until you're upstairs; he
might deactivate them if he weren't kept busy. Get him back to the
passenger shaft and I'll take over from there."
"But what--" Fitzgerald started.
Browne scowled and we went. Fitzgerald should have known better; there
are no buts when Browne gives orders.
* * * * *
We reached the second floor, floated off the up column into the foyer,
and separated.
Browne's first floor rooms are spacious, but most of those on the
second floor are not. I'd never been on the second floor before; I
found it a honeycomb of interconnected rooms of varying sizes and
shapes. I was apparently in Mrs. Browne's quarters; there were half a
dozen hobby rooms alone: a sewing room, a painting room, a sculpture
room, a writing room, others--And here was her spacious bedroom and on
its far side the alien was vainly trying to force one of its windows.
He turned as I entered, his curious eyes darting around for an avenue
of escape.
"Now, wait," I said as soothingly as I could. "We don't mean any harm.
I think we're justified in being curious as to why you're here. Who are
you anyway? What are you looking for and why?"
He shook his head as if bewildered and seemed suddenly to become
unsteady.
"One question at a time, please," he said, temporizingly. "Your school
system isn't exacting enough; you all think of too many things at once.
It shocks a mind trained to single subject concentration, especially
when one has been educated in telepathic reception."
He grinned at me as I mentally recalled his staggering moments of
seeming drunkenness.
One question at a time, he'd said. Well, I'd ask him the one that was
burning at the threshold of my mind. I said quickly:
"I realize that you probably read in my mind that my wife and I are
expecting quintuplets, but how did you know the rest--about the
division of sexes--or did you guess?"
"I'll have to explain," he said; then hesitated, seeming to debate
mentally with himself as to whether he should go on. Suddenly
he started to talk so fast that the words nearly blurred into
unrecognizability, like a 45 rpm record at 78.
"I am Hirm Sulay of Alpha Centauri Five," he burst. "My people have
warred with the race of Beta Centauri Three for fifty of your years.
We secretly bring our children here to protect them from sporadic
bombing, insuring their upbringing through placing them in orphanages
or directly into homes."
A horrible suspicion flamed in my mind. I'd tried vainly to account for
the multiple birth we were expecting. I cried at him: "Then my wife--"
and he said,
"She will have twin girls, Doc Gardiner tells me. We had planned to
have three newborn boys ready in the delivery room."
"Then Doc Gardiner--"
"He and his staff are all of my race," Hirm Sulay said. "I see how your
mind leaped when I said 'newborn boys.' Your UFO sightings frequently
describe a 'mother' ship. Considering the gravid women aboard I'd say
the description is quite apt."
* * * * *
For some reason anger flared in me, and I rushed at him. He blurred and
went around me and out the way I'd come. I raced after him and heard
Fitzgerald cry, "Oh, no you don't!" and machine-gun footfalls were
doubling back toward me.
I hurried on and he flashed at and by me, then turned back as he came
to a door Browne had remotely locked. Back at and past me again. I gave
chase.