"The room, sir, is 1212," the clerk said. "Would you like me to
accompany you--"
"No thanks," Fredericks breathed. "I'll find it myself." The man was
too easy to find, he thought savagely. It ought to be tough to find
him--but it's easy.
Remotely, that idea bothered him. But what difference did it make,
after all? He had all the protection in the world. He had all the
protection he was going to need. And all the time to fire one shot.
Doing it blindfolded was going to be tough, but not insuperably tough.
Fredericks had spent a week practicing, and he could locate a fly by
sound within two inches, nineteen times out of twenty. That, he
thought, was going to be good enough.
Upstairs, the Psi Operative thought so, too.
There had to be a way out, he told himself desperately.
But he couldn't find it.
He couldn't even come close.
* * * * *
On the way to Room 1212, he flipped on the shield, the mask, the
binder field. Now let the superman try something, he thought wildly.
Now let him try his tricks! He attached the blindfold as he got off
the elevator. He could see Room 1212, three doors down the corridor,
twenty steps--and then the blindfold was on. From now on he worked in
the dark.
He felt the skeleton key in his palm and flipped the shield off for a
second; then the key was in the lock, the shield back on, protecting
him. The door opened slowly.
He heard it shut behind him. Then there was silence. He drew his gun.
"Go ahead," a muffled voice said from his right. "Go ahead and try
something, Fredericks."
He whirled and almost fired--but voices could be thrown. He listened
again. There was silence ... not quite silence ... a movement ... a
rustle--
Breathing was faint but unmistakable. It gave him a new direction.
Breathing couldn't be faked.
He pictured the Psi Operative, in one flash of imagination, trying to
get through the shield, sweating as he strained helplessly against the
force shield, the binder field, the mask, the blindfold--oh, there was
no way out for the poor superman, no way at all.
And Psi Operatives didn't carry weapons or anything else. They
depended on their powers, and that was all.
And he'd neutralized those powers.
The breathing gave him the direction. He turned again, bringing the
gun up, and fired six shots without a second's break between them.
There was a sound like a gasp, and then nothing.
Nothing at all.
Grinning wildly, Fredericks whipped off the blindfold and switched off
his shield in one triumphant motion. There, on the floor--
There, on the floor, was a nice gray rug with nobody at all lying dead
on top of it. In the half-second it took Fredericks to see that, the
Psi Operative moved. Fredericks tossed the empty gun at him and
missed; the man was coming too fast. He guarded his face but the Psi
Operative didn't go for the face. Instead his hands went swinging up
and out and _back_.
The sides of the palms landed neatly on the twin junctions of
Fredericks' arms and shoulders. Fredericks let out a shriek as his
arms turned to acutely painful stone, and the Psi Operative stepped
back and moved again in one blinding motion. This time the solar
plexus was the target for one balled fist.
And then, of course, it was all over.
* * * * *
"Of course it was simple," Donegan said. "Anyone could have thought of
it--and I knew you would."
"All the same," the Psi Operative said, "I nearly didn't."
Donegan nodded. "If you hadn't," he said, "we'd stationed a man
downstairs who'd memorized your room. He could have done the job,
too."
The Operative blinked. "Who?" he said.
"Desk clerk," Donegan said.
"Why didn't you tell me--"
"Now, use your head," Donegan said. "If you'd known you were all
right, you'd never have thought of the answer. You had to prove you
could do it--prove it to yourself as well as to me."
"But--"
"And you had to prove you could beat him on his grounds, too, as well
as yours," Donegan went on. "You had to take him, not only with psi
forces, but with the only weapons a Psi Operative is allowed to
carry."
"Fists," the Operative said. "Sure Judo and Karate are standard
subjects--every Operative has to know them. What's so tough about
that?"
"Nothing," Donegan said. "Nothing at all--except for Fredericks. He's
been beaten on your ground, and on his own. Now he _knows_ he's
licked. Standard operating procedure."
"I guess so," the Operative said.
"And after all," Donegan said, "now that you're going up a grade--"
"Now that I'm what?"
"That," Donegan said, "was your promotion test, friend. And you
passed."
There was a second of absolute silence. Then the Operative said: "And
it was all so simple."
"Sure," Donegan said. "Simple enough so that you get a promotion out
of it--and Fredericks gets sixty days for attempted assault."
"Not ADW--assault with a deadly weapon--because we've got to keep up
the myth," the Operative said. "Psi Operatives are untouchable. No
such thing as a deadly weapon for a Psi Operative."
"Which is nonsense," Donegan said, "but necessary nonsense. I wonder
if Fredericks will ever figure out how you got him."
"I wonder," the Operative said. "He'll know about karate, of course."
"Karate's hand-to-hand fighting." Donegan said. "That was _his_ field.
No, I mean _our_ field. Psi."
"It makes a nice puzzle for him, doesn't it?" the Operative said, and
grinned. "After all, I didn't touch him--couldn't, in any way. He'd
shielded himself perfectly from any telekinetic force--and I had no
weapons. I couldn't even get to him barehanded because of his shield
and the binder field. He had me located--no tomfoolery about that. He
fired six shots at me, point-blank at can't-miss range."
"But you got him," Donegan said.
"Sure," the Operative said. "Simplest thing in the world."
"All you had to do--" Donegan began.
"All I had to do," the Operative finished for him, "was use my mind to
move the bullets--as he fired them."
[Illustration]
* * * * *