"Isn't there a storeroom of some kind around--where they might be
keeping radiation suits, for instance?"
"The ranch storehouse is the small square building just south of here.
I went through it this morning looking for a key to the lab. There
aren't any radiation suits there."
"You know what those suits look like?"
"Yes. I've worn them when taking part in attack drills."
"Would you recognize the lab key if you saw it?"
"Yes. Miguel showed me the one he usually carries with him." She got
up, went over to the mantle above the fireplace, took down a circular
wedge of metal, a half-inch thick, with smoothly beveled rim. She
handed it to Dowland. "The key is very similar to this one, but at
least three times as large."
Dowland hefted the object and shook his head. "Lady, by the weight of
it, this thing's metasteel. The stuff they use for bank vaults and
the hulls of battleships. And it looks as if the door to your uncles'
laboratory has an atomic lock because that's what this type of key is
made for. Do you know if the building's lined with steel inside?"
"It might be. Miguel told me that it had been extremely expensive to
build, that he had wanted to make sure no one could get into it while
he was away."
"If it's built of metasteel, he's done just that," Dowland said. "And
that makes it tough." He looked at the key in his hand. "What does this
key fit into?"
"I don't know. But I'm sure there's no other door on the ranch that has
an--an atomic lock. I found the key in Miguel's pocket this morning."
"Well, it's probably no good to us," Dowland said. "Now look, Miss
Trelawney. I'm carrying a protection gun that can be stepped up to
around six times the shock power of a heavy rifle slug. I'll try that
out at full charge on the lock to the lab, and then around the walls.
But if it's all metasteel, shooting at it won't get us anywhere. Then
we might make another search for that key. Or I could try getting down
off the mesa to get help."
Jill looked doubtful. "There's no easy way down off the mesa even in
daylight. And at night it would be worse."
Dowland said, "That part of it won't be too much of a problem. I
brought mountaineering equipment along this trip--planned to pick up a
Marco Polo ram and a few ewes--piton gun, clamp pitons, half-mile of
magnetic rope; the works. Question is, how much good will it do? I've
got a camp communicator, but it's grid-powered, and we don't know how
far the power failure extends around here at ground level. Is there
anyone down in the plain we could contact? They might have horses."
She shock her head. "I would have heard of that. You could wander
around there for weeks before you were seen."
Dowland was silent a moment. "Well," he said, "it should be worth a try
if we can't accomplish anything within another few hours. Judging from
my car's position when its power went off, it shouldn't really be more
than a ten-mile hike from the bottom of the mesa before I can start
using the communicator. But, of course, it will take up a lot of time.
So we'll see what we can do here first."
He slipped his jacket on. "You'd better stay with your uncle, Miss
Trelawney. I--"
He interrupted himself. An unearthly din had begun suddenly outside the
house--whistling squeals, then an angry ear-shattering noise somewhere
between a howl and a roar. The girl started, then smiled nervously.
Dowland asked, "What is _that_?"
"Miguel's pigs. I expect they're simply hungry. The feeding equipment
in the animal house isn't operating either, of course."
"Pigs? I've heard pigs make a racket, but never anything like that."
"These," said Jill, "are rather large. My uncle is interested in
experimental breeding. I understand the biggest tusker weighs nearly
two tons. They're alarming beasts. Miguel's the only one who can get
close to the boar."
* * * * *
Outside it was early evening, still light, but Dowland went first to
the wrecked grid-car to get a flashlight. He'd need it during the
night, might even need it immediately if he found he could force
an entry into the laboratory. In that case--if the building wasn't
metasteel after all--he probably would find no YM inside it. Which,
Dowland admitted to himself, would be entirely all right with him.
But he was reasonably certain it was there. The Overgovernment's
instructions about what to watch for remained annoyingly indefinite,
but uniformly they stressed the unusual, in particular when associated
with the disastrous. And so far, that described the situation here. The
large and uncomfortable question was what kind of disaster might be
about to erupt next.
There were other questions, somewhat too many of them at the moment.
But the one he wanted answered immediately concerned Jill Trelawney's
role. There was a guaranteed way of getting the information from her,
but he had to be sure she wasn't as innocent as she acted before
resorting to it. At the very least, he had to establish that the
activities in the laboratory constituted some serious violation of
Overgovernment law--even if not directly connected with YM--and that
the girl knew about it. Otherwise, the whole present pattern of the
Ym-400 search on Terra might become very obvious to all interested
parties.
He thought he had a method of forcing Jill's hand. If she had guilty
knowledge, she might consider a non-Terran animal trader, who'd just
happened to drop in, literally, a convenient tool to use in this
emergency. She wanted to get help, too, though not from the Solar
Police Authority. The Trelawneys couldn't possibly be alone in this
thing.
But she couldn't, if guilty, take the chance of trying to make use of
an Overgovernment cop. A policeman wouldn't be here at this particular
moment by accident. There was some risk in revealing himself--she might
react too hastily--but not much risk, Dowland thought. From what he'd
seen of her, she'd use her head. She'd make sure of him.
The uproar from the animal building lessened as he went back across the
slope to the entrance of the lab. Miguel's beasts might have caught
his footsteps, and started to listen to see if he was coming in. The
outer door to the lab--a frame of the weather-proofed wood that covered
the building--stood slightly open. Dowland pulled it back, looked
for a moment at the slab of metasteel behind it, and at the circular
depression in the slab which was the atomic lock.
In character, so far. Three windows at the back of the house where he
had left Jill Trelawney with Miguel overlooked the lab area. Guilty or
not, she'd be watching him from behind one of those windows, though she
mightn't have come to any conclusions about him as yet. The reference
to his "protection" gun had been a definite give-away; he'd described
an IPA police automatic, and that was a weapon civilians didn't
carry--or didn't mention to strangers if they happened to carry them.
But a Freeholder lady might not know about that.
She couldn't avoid noticing the implications of an IPA antiradiation
field....
* * * * *
Dowland moved thirty steps back from the door, took out his gun, and
pressed a stud on the side of his belt. Immediately, a faint blue glow
appeared about him. Not too pronounced a glow even on the darkening
slope, but quite visible to anyone watching from one of the windows.
He took a deep breath, sucking air in through the minor hampering
effect of the field.
The rest was a matter of carrying through with the act. He'd known from
the instant of looking at the door that he was wasting his fire on
metasteel. But he slammed a few shots into the five-inch target of the
lock, then worked his way methodically about the building, watching the
weatherproofing shatter away from an unmarred silvery surface beneath.
The gun made very little noise, but Miguel's hogs were screaming
themselves hoarse again by the time he was finished.
Dowland switched off the AR field, and went back to the house. When he
came along the short entrance hall, she was waiting for him, standing
half across the living room, hands clasped behind her back. She looked
at him questioningly.
"No luck, Dowland?"
Dowland shook his head. "Not a bit." He started to shrug the jacket
from his shoulders, saw her dart the gun out from behind her, and
turned his left hand slightly, squeezing down on the black elastic
capsule he was holding between thumb and forefinger. Jill probably
never noticed the motion, certainly did not see or feel the tiny needle
that flashed from the capsule and buried itself in the front of her
thigh. Shocked bewilderment showed for an instant on her face; then her
knees gave way, the gun dropped from her hand. She went down slowly,
turned over on her side on the thick carpet, and lay still.
Well, Dowland thought, he had his proof....
Jill Trelawney opened her eyes again about five minutes later. She
made a brief effort to get out of the deep armchair in which she found
herself, then gave that up. The dark blue eyes fastened on Dowland,
standing before the chair. He saw alarm and anger in them; then a cold
watchfulness.
"What did you do?" she asked huskily.
"I shot first," Dowland said. "It seemed like a good idea."
Her glance shifted to Miguel on the couch across the room.
"How long was I unconscious?"
"Just a few minutes."
"And why...." She hesitated.
"Why are you feeling so weak? You've absorbed a shot of a special
little drug, Miss Trelawney. It does two things that are very useful
under certain circumstances. One of them is that it keeps the recipient
from carrying out any sudden or vigorous action. You might, for
example, be able to get out of that chair if you tried hard enough.
But you'd find yourself lying on the carpet then. Perhaps you'd be able
to get up on your hands and knees. You might even start crawling from
the room--but you'd do it very slowly."
* * * * *
Dowland paused. "And the other thing the drug does is to put the
person into an agreeable frame of mind, even when he'd rather not be
agreeable. He becomes entirely cooperative. For example, you'll find
yourself quite willing to answer questions I ask."
"So you _are_ a police investigator," she said evenly.
"That's right." Dowland swung another chair around beside him, and sat
down facing her. "Let's not waste any more time, Miss Trelawney. Were
you going to shoot me just now?"
She looked briefly surprised.
"No," she said. "Not unless you forced me to it. I was going to disarm
you and lock you in a cellar downstairs. You would have been safe there
as long as was necessary."
"How long would that be?"
"Until I get help."
"Help from whom?"
Angry red flared about Jill's cheekbones. "This is incredible!" she
said softly. "Help from Carter."
"Firebrand Carter?" Dowland asked.
"Yes."
"He's associated with your uncles?"
"Yes."
"Who heads the group?"
"Miguel and Carter head it together. They're very close friends."
"And who else is in it--besides Paul and yourself?"
She shook her head. "There must be quite a few people in it, but I
don't know their names. We feel it's best if we know as little as
possible about one another at present."
"I see. But they're all Terran Freeholders?"
"Yes, of course."
"How did you happen to be told about Carter?"
"In case of an emergency here, I'm to contact him on a tight-beam
number."
"And just what," Dowland asked, "have your uncles been doing here?"
"Building a machine that will enable them to move back through time."
"With the help of Ym-400?"
"Yes."
* * * * *
Dowland stared at her thoughtfully, feeling a little chilled. She
believed it, of course; she was incapable of lying now. But he didn't
believe it. He'd heard that some Overgovernment scientists considered
time-travel to be possible. It was a concept that simply had no reality
for him.
But he thought of the rumors about YM--and of Miguel found lying
inexplicably outside the laboratory building. He asked carefully, "Have
they completed the machine?"
"Yes. They were making the first full-scale test of it this
morning--and they must have been at least partly successful."
"Because of Miguel?"
"Yes."
"You feel," Dowland said, "that Miguel first went somewhere else--or
somewhen else, let's say--and then came back and wound up a little bit
away from where he'd started?"
"Yes."
"Any idea of how he was hurt?"
The girl shook her head. "The grid-power failure shows there was an
accident of some kind, of course. But I can't imagine what it was."
"What about Paul? Do you think he's still in the lab?"
"Not unless he's also injured--or dead."
Dowland felt the chill again. "You think he may be in some other time
at this moment?"
"Yes."
"And that he'll be back?"
"Yes."
"Can you describe that machine?" he asked.
"No. I've never seen the plans, and wouldn't understand them if I did.
And I've never been inside the lab."
"I see. Do you have any reason, aside from the way Miguel reappeared,
to think that the test was a partial success?"
"Yes. At three different times since this morning I've heard the sounds
of a river flowing under the house."
"You heard what?" Dowland said.
"A river flowing under the house. The noises were quite unmistakable.
They lasted for about thirty minutes on each occasion."
"What would that indicate?" he asked.
"Well, obviously ... this time period and another one--the one in which
that river flows--have drawn close to each other. But the contact is
impermanent or imperfect at present."
"Is that the way the machine is supposed to operate?"
"I don't know how the machine is supposed to operate," Jill Trelawney
said. "But that's what seems to have happened."
Dowland studied her face for a moment. "All right," he said then,
"let's leave it for now. Who developed this machine?"
"Miguel did. Paul helped, in the later stages. Others have helped
with specific details--I don't know who those other people were. But
essentially it was Miguel's project. He's been working on it for almost
twenty years."
And that simply couldn't be true. Unless....
"Miss Trelawney," Dowland said, "do you know what Miguel's I.Q. reading
is?"
"Of course. It's 192."
"And Paul's?"
"189." She smiled. "You're going to ask whether they faked lower levels
when they were tested by the university authorities. Yes, they did.
This thing has been prepared for a long time, Dowland."
"What's your own I.Q., Miss Trelawney?"
"181."
* * * * *
Her dossier I.Q., based on records of her known activities and
behavior, was an estimated 128. The Freeholders did seem to have
planned very thoroughly for the success of this operation.
"Do you know who hijacked the Ym-400?" Dowland asked.
"Yes. Paul arranged for that."
"Have you seen the stuff yourself?"
"I have. Two small cases of blue ingots. A very dark blue.
Individually, the ingots appear to be quite heavy, though they aren't
very large."
That described exactly what the Overgovernment was looking for.
Dowland asked, "How much of it is in the laboratory?"
"It's all there."
He felt his scalp crawling. "All of it! Haven't your uncles heard that
YM is an incredibly dangerous thing to play around with?"
"Of course. But Miguel examined it very carefully after it was
obtained. If reasonable precautions are taken, there is no way in
which it _can_ become dangerous. The conclusion was that the
Overgovernment has spread rumors as a bluff, to try to prevent the YM
from being used."
"What's happened around here," Dowland said, "might indicate it wasn't
a bluff."
"You're jumping to conclusions, Dowland. A great many other things may
have gone wrong."
"Perhaps. But an I.Q. of 136 keeps telling me that we're in
considerable danger at the moment."