Rains could follow the man's thoughts as long as they were composed
in English. Alloted chemicals, Gowru smuggled everything out of the
plant that wasn't used and sold it to other firms. It should have been
profitable. "Why aren't you still with them?" Actually he knew the
answer. A new process had displaced the dyeman.
"I soon became foreman of the entire plant. I alone had charge of all
coloring. I was wildly prosperous, what with one thing and another. It
was my downfall."
"I don't understand." He did, but it was best to lead the man on, to
explore all possibilities.
"I drank," said Gowru. "I had money for it and I drank too much."
"And lost your ability?"
"It was not so simple," said Gowru. "No, my ability became stronger
than ever." He meditated briefly. "Picture me, the master dyeman
who alone colors all the material that passes through the plant. So
skillful am I, so beautiful the colors that the poorest cloth becomes
transfigured and commands premium prices.
"I arrive at work one morning and I am sick. I go into my secret mixing
room and lose my breakfast there. My head throbs. I raise it and look
at the chart. So much green, so much red and yellow, so much everything.
"The chemicals are there and I put them into the suitcase which the
management graciously allows me to take in and out of the factory. The
pipes which fill the various vats flow through this room. As I have
always done, I concentrate on the wanted colors, associating them with
the proper vats. But my head hurts, you understand. Alternately, it
grows large and small in defiance of the laws of physics."
Gowru Chandit paused to shake his head sorrowfully in remembrance of
that day. "I concentrate until all the vats are filled and then, as
usual, go to sleep. All day the automatic machinery hums. Yards pass
through the vats, bolt after bolt is dyed, dried and wound, and nobody
looks because this operation is automatic.
"Then, the manager comes to inspect production and rub his hands at the
profits that will accrue to him. He unwinds a sample, looks at it and
screams." Gowru stared mournfully at Rains. "Retroactive to that scream
I am fired."
"But why?"
Gowru loosened a fold of his turban and spread it out so the pattern
was visible. "I was projecting. Did you ever see such a headache
reproduced in full color? Not merely a headache, but also a hangover."
Rains moved the drink hastily away. He wanted to speak, but it might
be dangerous to open his mouth. The crisis passed. "Put it away!"
But Gowru had already refolded it so that the pattern was no longer
discernible. The cloth was an unpleasant souvenir.
* * * * *
Egan Rains was silent, studying the Hindu. The man was honest and
loyal, that much he could tell. But though he spoke English well, he
didn't think extensively in it and most of his thoughts were hidden in
a language Rains couldn't translate, mentally or otherwise. "Can you
teleport?" he asked.
"A mind carrier?" said Gowru. "No, I'm only a dyeman. I can do nothing
else."
He expected that; there weren't many who had multiple powers. "Do you
know anyone who can?"
"I have a friend who plays ping pong with it."
That was telekinetics, not teleportation, but it might be what he was
after. So far as the Rhine Institute knew, people with either ability
existed only in India. "How good is your friend?" he asked.
"At ping pong, very good. At tennis, poor. The ball is too heavy; he
can't move it fast enough."
Then that was a false lead. The person he wanted had to be much more
adept and powerful. Rains would have to look farther and Gowru would
have to help him. "Gowru, I'm an astronomer," he began.
The Hindu raised his eyebrows to express interest. "I've always had a
soft spot in my head for astronomy," he declared.
Evidently the idiom did change from country to country. "My colleagues
and I at Palomar have discovered a new comet," he went on. "It is a
strange comet, bigger than most, almost a tiny planet. The composition
is stranger still, mostly oxygen and water."
Gowru nodded sagely. "And you want me to color the water. That I can
do, any hue you want. But if there is much air and you want me to color
that too, you will have to be satisfied with a light tint, a pale blue
or green or pink."
"The color doesn't matter," said Rains gravely, and poured himself
another drink. "In seventeen years that comet is due to strike Earth."
The Hindu bowed his head. "I've had a feeling of doom since you
mentioned the comet," he said simply.
"Wrong," said Rains. "No doom. In seventeen years we'll have rockets
that can meet it out in space. We'll load hydrogen bombs into rockets
and blow the comet into fine crystals. But the orbit of the particles
will still intersect that of Earth, and it will fall as rain."
Gowru searched his memory for a foreign concept. "Forty days and forty
nights?"
"I don't know how long," said Rains wearily. "But whatever happens, the
water level of the oceans will rise--from fifty to three hundred feet
is the present estimate. After we study it longer we'll know exactly.
The land area will shrink, but that alone isn't disastrous. Forewarned,
not many lives would be lost. Most people will have time to move to
higher ground.
"However, there's another aspect. Air is also present in the comet and
will be added to our atmosphere. The earth will grow warmer and the
higher latitudes will become habitable. Perhaps we'll gain almost as
much living space as we lose."
"Then let's rejoice," said Gowru, reaching for the bottle. "It's not
every comet which is so considerate."
Rains replenished his own glass. "It's not an occasion for rejoicing.
We've calculated that, with the additional atmosphere and moisture,
astronomy will become extinct. Cloud covered, the planet will be much
like Venus. No one will be able to see the stars." He didn't mention
that a few of the highest mountains would still rise above the clouds.
He didn't because those mountains were in India and that country would
then have a monopoly on the science.
Gowru wrinkled his face in pleasure at the whisky and then assumed
a properly doleful expression. "I see. In seventeen years you'll be
unemployed." He added consolingly. "Maybe they'll give you a pension."
Rains' vision was growing a little fuzzy, but his intellectual goals
had not changed. "It's not the pension," he said irritably. "I intend
to save astronomy."
"It's not reasonable to be so obstinate when the heavens decree
otherwise," declared Gowru. "You should cultivate an interest in other
things. Girls are a nice hobby."
Rains muttered something about girls and Gowru interrupted.
"Good. We can start with girls and there's no telling where we'll end.
I'm a guide and I can help in such matters. How many do you want?"
"I've only a normal--"
* * * * *
Again Gowru interrupted. "I was afraid of that--only a normal interest
in girls. You should moderate your desires. I can't help you with so
many." He shook his head sadly. "Let's get back to astronomy."
"I expect to," said Rains coldly. "As I was saying, at Palomar we have
the giant telescope--"
"The big inch," said Gowru fondly.
"You're thinking of something else," said Rains. "In addition to the
big telescope we have a secret instrument not duplicated nor imagined
elsewhere--a psiscope." Thoughtfully he poured the remaining whisky
into his glass.
"Don't ask me how it works. It's designed for use by people of psi
powers, of which I'm one. It's incredibly powerful and accurate. With
it we've learned things that other astronomers won't know for several
years. The data on the comet is one example."
He raised the glass and let the liquid trickle down his throat. "We've
also learned things that astronomers with conventional instruments will
never find out--that there are teleports in India."
Gowru struggled with himself, and decided to hoard the whisky in his
glass. He sipped delicately at it. "I could have told you that and I
don't have a psiscope. But how did you find out?"
"Imagine the comet swinging nearer the sun. Under the terrific
radiation, the frozen ball of water melts and the atmosphere expands.
In our psiscope, clearly illuminated, is an object no one else can see
at that distance. It is a peculiar object, man made, and found only
in one place on Earth." He paused. "At present we don't have a rocket
capable of going to the moon. And yet this object was transported much
farther. Therefore, it had to be teleported there."
"Logical," agreed Gowru. "What was this object?"
"I can tell you the city from which it came; you'll have to know
anyway--Benares. But my colleagues and I have decided we can't tell
anyone what it was we saw on the comet."
"Benares," mused the Hindu. "I know the city well. I was there last
year looking for work."
"With your help," said Rains, "we intend to contact this teleport."
"Who's we?"
"My colleagues and I at Palomar."
"And also your government?"
"Our government doesn't enter into this. We couldn't convince them if
we tried since they don't believe in psi powers. No, this is solely
our problem. We're financed in part by the Rhine Institute and we have
other funds which were diverted for the purpose."
Gowru sighed. No matter which way he tilted it, there wasn't another
drop in his glass. "What are you going to do with this teleport after
you find him?"
"Persuade him to come to the United States. We'll get him out of India
some way." The country wouldn't take kindly to an attempt to smuggle
out one of their mentalists, but it could be done.
"What good will that do?" questioned Gowru. "Even the most experienced
teleport can't change the path of the comet. It's too big to move."
"He won't have to move it," said Rains. "We've positive proof that he
did transport a--uh--large object to the comet. He did it once and he
can do it again, except this time it will be a hydrogen bomb."
"I thought so," said the Hindu disgustedly. "I don't want any part of
it. Where will you get that hydrogen bomb except from your government?
Let them develop their own teleports, or approach our country through
proper diplomatic channels."
"You're not thinking," said Rains. "With a teleport working for us we
don't ask the army for a hydrogen bomb. One minute they have it safely
hidden, and the next instant it's inside the comet. Let the military
boys worry about how it got away and where it went.
"You see, the comet's been captured by the sun and moves in a very
eccentric orbit just inside Jupiter. If we vaporize it now, it will
lose most of its mass to those two bodies. There'll be little left to
fall on Earth." He nodded approvingly to himself. The plan would be
effective, if he found the teleport.
* * * * *
Gowru's eyes expanded, enlarged by his own inner fires. "Let's drink to
it," he said, extending his glass.
Rains sighed. As a secret agent he needed an analytically clear mind
at all times. But he also had to have someone who understood India
better than any American could, someone who would work with him
wholeheartedly. It wouldn't pay to offend such a person. He opened a
bottle, and later, still another....
The train wound through the provinces and cities en route--Bangalore,
Jubbulpore, Jetadore, finally arriving at Benares. They could have gone
more conveniently by air, every sensible Indian did, but presumably it
was worth something to maintain the pose of tourist and guide.
From the window of his hotel Rains could see the Ganges, a muddy,
sluggish river still, but an improvement over what it had been thirty
years before. More sanitary too; burial customs could not be completely
changed in a generation, but the three phoenix barges anchored off
shore automatically disposed of the bodies to the satisfaction of all
but the most fanatic.
Southward were the spires of a rather shabby building he could
identify from photographs, the Rhine Institute of the Ganges. Its
value was dubious, of missionary rather than research caliber. In
the heart of the mentalist country, it had little prestige and not
much more patronage. It was questionable who spied most on the
other, the American staff or the supposed native converts. Each side
took precautions, but there were startlingly few devices which were
effective against an accomplished telepath.
Still, mechanical devices partly reduced the advantages of the
Indians. Chewing gum parked in the right places often concealed
ingenious mechanisms, and even the birds which were regularly fed at
the Institute sometimes swallowed grain-sized instruments which were
carried impartially to all the public buildings of the city.
This didn't concern Rains. The Rhine Institute of the Ganges could
solve its own problems or fail to do so. But somewhere in Benares there
was a teleport. Where?
The regular reports--coded, scrambled, shielded, unshielded,
unscrambled, decoded--had mentioned great mentalist activity, but
hadn't been able to pin it down. Fakirs and holy men abounded; there
were at least a dozen telepaths in the city better than Rains, not to
mention clairvoyants.
Communication from the Institute had always been erratic,
understandable in view of the hazards. Rains had not seen a report from
this branch in three months. Perhaps in the interim they had uncovered
more information. He would have to find out. "Gowru," he asked, "are
there many fogs in Benares?"
The Hindu wrinkled his face in thought. "I've been here when there
were. Not now though; wrong time of the year."
That was not good. Rains didn't want to expose himself, but he had to
get in touch with the director of the Institute.
"If you want a fog, I'll get you one," said Gowru.
Rains glanced up. The Hindu was a queer fellow. Rains had dismissed the
talk of coloring the comet's atmosphere as drunken boasting, but what
if it wasn't?
"Can you actually create fog?" he asked doubtfully.
"Sure. Want a sample?"
* * * * *
Perhaps he should, but too many fogs at this time would be suspicious.
He shook his head, "If you say you can deliver, I believe you. The only
question is, can you cover most of the city?"
"The whole northern part of India," Gowru assured him.
"That much won't be necessary. How long can you hold it?"
"Depends on the wind," said his guide, extending his thumb and
forefinger and rubbing them together delicately. "Air's slippery stuff.
It fades. I'll have to concentrate."
Rains sighed. He'd learned that when Gowru concentrated he had to be
diluted. He set out a bottle....
Rains walked along the bank of the Ganges and glanced at his watch. An
hour to sunset. The fog was due at any moment. The Institute was a few
blocks away, but he had memorized a map of the area and would be able
to get there no matter what happened.
He adjusted his tie in a mirror. No one behind him, but he didn't think
they'd be that crude about it here. He practised shutting off his
thoughts. His defense was adequate in America, but he wasn't sure how
effective it would be against a first rate Indian mentalist.
He went into a curio shop and picked up a small bronze statue of a
four-armed god. He was about to pay for it when the woman behind the
counter shrieked. He glanced up at her. She was merely a few feet away,
but he could scarcely see her through the thick black smoke that curled
through the room.
"Fire!" screamed the woman and ran out.
He hurried to the door and then thought of the statue in his hands. It
wouldn't do to get involved in a petty theft charge. He ran back to the
counter and laid the money down. On second thought he left the statue
there too and stumbled out of the shop.
The street was jammed. Storekeepers stood on the curb and shouted, and
out of the buildings thick smoke came pouring. Rains sniffed. It looked
like smoke but had no smell. He thought he knew what it was. This was
the fog Gowru had said he would create.
It was a good fog but it was placed wrong--inside buildings instead of
filling the free air overhead. It had the opposite effect from what
he wanted. He had expected to approach the Institute through dim and
shrouded streets. As it was, he had to elbow people into the gutter in
order to move. Fire sirens wailed in a dozen directions and spotting
copters took to the air and started circling around.
"Gowru!" he thought sharply, but either the distance was too great or
his thoughts were swallowed up by the multitude around him. Contact was
impossible.
He'd have to do the best he could; confusion might cover him. A fire
truck skidded to a stop beside him and frantic firemen coupled the
hoses and went to work. Drenched and swearing Rains fought his way down
the street.
As abruptly as it began, the smoke stopped. At least the drunken Gowru
had had enough sense to look out the window. Or maybe the sirens had
brought him around. Rains shuddered; he could almost see the contents
of the bottle diminishing as Gowru apprised himself of the mistake.
He was a block or so from the Institute and the streets were still
crowded. Some people had re-entered the stores as soon as the
smoke-like stuff stopped pouring out. Others, more fearful, remained
outside.
They didn't remain outside long. Overhead, in the sunset sky,
an ominous cloud formed. It descended rapidly upon the city.
Apprehensively, Rains watched the copters disappear into the dense
cloud, and then decided against worrying about them. Radar equipped,
they could trace their way through anything.
* * * * *
Shopkeepers gazed at the sky, shuddered, and hurried inside. They
closed windows and doors and bolted them. The reason escaped him until
he observed firemen clambering into trucks which roared away as fast as
they had come. They wore masks, all of them. It was gas they feared.
The fool was compounding the mistake. A quiet, ordinary fog which
gathered inconspicuously in the hollows and low places and gradually
engulfed the city was what he wanted. This sort of thing was hardly
what he had specified.
There was no help for it, and as long as he had the streets to himself
he might as well go ahead. Before he reached the Institute the fog fell
on him with an almost physical impact. Streetlights winked on briefly
and were snuffed out as the fog descended lower, still burning but not
discernible at street level.
He shuffled slowly along, touching buildings. This kept him from
getting completely lost. There was no one following him physically, he
was sure of that. They could still keep track of him mentally and he
wouldn't be aware of it, but he doubted that anyone was interested in
him at a time like this. They'd be too concerned with the fog.
The dyeman was good--too good.
He stopped at a doorway, pressing his face close to the glass to read
the sign on it. It was the Institute, but he didn't intend to enter.
He stepped back from the door and squeezed behind a statue. He was as
close to the director as he could expect to get without being observed
by the spies on the staff. Telepathically he located the director's
office and whispered, also telepathically. There was no reply.
It took him a minute to determine why--the director was asleep.
It was better that way. The man wouldn't know he had come, taken
the information and left. He stirred around in the sleeping mind,
delicately so as not to awaken him. Then he had the information.
Gommaf was the man he wanted. Rains grinned to himself. Gommaf was the
teleport, or knew who the teleport was--he couldn't be sure which. That
was all he needed.
He wriggled out from behind the statue and walked quickly away. The fog
wasn't as intense as it had been, though it slowed him considerably.
Gowru must be getting tired. Streetlights were burning faintly overhead.
The fog changed color as he went along, an indiscreet slip. There was
a slight brown tinge to it that wasn't altogether pleasant. He walked
faster and his stomach felt upset.
Gowru was playing with the fog; that was the only interpretation Rains
could place on it. Colors shifted through the spectrum. He wished the
Hindu would stop it. A queasy, dirty violet didn't inspire confidence
in his own digestive system.
In the midst of all that violet, a low-flying biliously pink cloud
came toward him. He turned his head and gulped, but it didn't help
appreciably. In the direction he now faced there was a vile green fog
shape. It looked something like an appendix, but it was much larger.
He was wrong. Gowru Chandit was not playing--this was for keeps. A
valuable man, no doubt of it, but he drank too fast and couldn't
control his reactions.
As he looked, the appendix shape writhed slowly and glowed. Other fog
forms began materializing convulsively around him, not all of them
bearing morphological resemblance to human organs, but not necessarily
of more pleasing appearance because of that. And the colors--Rains
closed his eyes but the damnable fluorescence seemed to penetrate.
The river was nearby, for which he was thankful. He staggered to it,
lay down on the embankment, and retched feebly. The Ganges below
became less sanitary for a time. There were certain disadvantages to
psi powers, he reflected. This was the first time he had reacted to
another's nausea.
Later, he made it back to his quarters.
* * * * *
The boat slid swiftly and smoothly past the cremation barges anchored
in the river. The design of the barges was distinctive, two long
cylindrical pontoons connected fore and aft by beams which curved above
the surface of the water. In the middle of each pontoon was a squat
affair resembling a searchlight, each of which was focused inward
toward the open space at the center of the barge. Upstream was a long
line of small wooden rafts. One at a time they were allowed to float
between the pontoons. The searchlights flashed and the beams crossed in
the center. The raft burst into flame, water boiled for an instant, and
the corpse was utterly consumed. The barge was ready for the next body.
Rains glanced at the mechanism. No matter where he saw it, he'd always
be able to identify it. One of them was much newer than the others.
This was significant.
Gowru was scowling, so Rains refrained from mentioning the barges.
There were many religions in India, now more than ever, and each had
its own burial customs. Some rituals were offensive to other sects and
he saw no need to antagonize his guide over such a trivial matter.
They were both silent as the boat pulled up to the civic center pier.
Government offices and allied functions were situated together in an
annex outside the city proper; a sensible solution in a city as ancient
as Benares, but one which Rains did not particularly like. There were
just too many policemen and security officers around. He shrugged. That
was probably the least of his problems.
They mingled with the crowd, sightseers and officeworkers, that
rushed off the ship. In a few minutes they were in the center of the
government city. Police everywhere, but Rains didn't let that bother
him. Presently they came to an impressive building and he stood on the
sidewalk and pretended to admire it.
There were heavily barred windows and guards at the entrance. "Here it
is," he said softly. "We could walk in."
"This is just Gojmaf," grunted Gowru. "Mere journeymen. You want the
Guild of Master Mystics Mentalists and Fakirs--Gommaf."
Rains sighed; he'd not been as fortunate as he'd thought in contacting
the sleeping director's mind. He'd not gotten the name of the teleport,
but the organization to which that person probably belonged.
The Gommaf building was on another street and wasn't easily located,
but they found it. They sat at a sidewalk cafe and inspected it from
a distance. It was not a pretentious structure and there were neither
bars nor guards.
The absence of visible security measures was disturbing. It suggested
several possibilities: that there was nothing of value inside, that
Gommaf had complete confidence in the ordinary police patrol, or that
they relied on other means of protection. The last seemed likely.
It was a local organization and Rains had never heard of it. That was
not strange. There was much about India that had never reached the
Western world. There were records inside, the records of a teleport,
and he had to get to them.
He couldn't just walk in; somewhere there was a master telepath on
duty. Rains had confidence in his own ability, but he saw no point in
overmatching himself. "What do you know about Gommaf?" he asked.
His guide looked at the tea with less than delight. "It's fairly new,"
he said slowly, searching his memory. "Organized about ten years
ago, I believe. There was competition at first. Some of the mystics,
mentalists and fakirs thought they were outside the orbit of ordinary
trade unionism. They formed a rival organization and tried to eliminate
Gommaf's chief organizer, a man called Handas Bvandeghat. They found
him one morning while he was practising yoga, and of course he refused
to interrupt his spiritual contemplation. They riddled him with machine
gun bullets."
Rains nodded. "But they couldn't kill the idea. Handas Bvandeghat
became a martyr and the organization went on in spite of, or because
of, his death." It was a familiar story.
"Who said he died? Handas Bvandeghat is president of Gommaf."
"But they machine gunned him!"
"Sure, they shot him. But he's a fakir, still makes a living letting
people drive spikes through his body. What's a few bullets to him?"
Gowru swallowed the tea and made a face. "Of course, there were some
physical consequences. Even today Bvandeghat has trouble keeping food
on his stomach." Gowru wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Holes," he added.
* * * * *
It was not such a familiar story after all, but it did emphasize the
difficulties. An organization headed by such a character would be
tough. The telepath to spot intruders, which had previously been merely
a possibility, became a certainty. An approach to the front entrance
was inadvisable.
But the comet was still hurtling through space and the only man who
could avert the collision was the teleport. Rains had to contact him.
He produced a map and consulted with his guide. After some discussion
they evolved a plan.
"If we come through the rear it's your opinion the telepath won't
detect us?" Gowru murmured, obviously doubtful.
"It's worth trying," said Rains, folding the map. "Behind the Gommaf
building is an electric fence and behind that is open country, mostly
swamp. Normally the swamp is considered impassable, but there is a
way through it. The telepath has to concentrate mentally just as you
do visually. He'll be expecting trouble from the front. I sneak in
from the rear, examine the records, and get out again before it occurs
to him that I've been there. After that I still have to contact the
teleport, but once I know who he is, that's easy."
"Why not rent a copter and set it down in the middle of the swamp? It
will save a lot of walking."
"It would, but it would also inform Gommaf that we're up to something.
No, we'll just have to walk." Rains stuffed the map into his pocket.
"Are there any shrines on the road to the city?"
Gowru Chandit shrugged. "There are shrines anywhere in India except
straight up."
Rains nodded with great satisfaction. There'd be one there too when the
hydrogen bomb exploded inside the comet. A bright flaring shrine to
astronomy.
The road was paved but dusty. There were other tourists walking toward
the city so Egan Rains and Gowru were by no means conspicuous. At some
distance from the civic center they stopped at a wayside temple. They
entered and examined the strange but not notable architecture, the
intricate but not always esthetically pleasing carved walls. When they
were not observed they slipped through a side door and hurried to the
rear where they plunged into the light underbrush. In half an hour they
were at the edge of an open plain. No one followed them.
After some discussion they decided to skirt the plain, and started out,
keeping well within the shadow of the trees which separated plain from
adjacent swampland. They circled back toward the civic center, toward
the narrow spot of firm ground that reached nearly to the electric
fence behind Gommaf. In the middle of the afternoon they rested and ate
some of the food they had brought with them.
"Psst!" said Gowru, waving his great hand.