[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine December 1960.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
A Konv cylinder was the key to space--but
there was one power it could not match!
They lived in a small house beside the little Wolf river in Wisconsin.
Once it had been a summer cottage owned by a rich man from Chicago.
The rich man died. His heirs sold it. Now it was well insulated and
Mrs. Jamieson and her son were very comfortable, even in the coldest
winter. During the summer they rented a few row boats to vacationing
fishermen, and she had built a few overnight cabins beside the road.
They were able to make ends meet.
Her neighbors knew nothing of the money she had brought with her to
Wisconsin. They didn't even know that she was not a native. She never
spoke of it, except at first, when Earl was a boy of seven and they had
just come there to live. Then she only said that she came from the
East. She knew the names of eastern Wisconsin towns, and small facts
about them; it lent an air of authenticity to her claim of being a
native. Actually her previous residence was Bangkok, Siam, where the
Agents had killed her husband.
That was back in '07, on the eve of his departure for Alpha Centaurus;
but she never spoke of this; and she was very careful not to move from
place to place except by the conventional methods of travel.
Also, she wore her hair long, almost to the shoulders. People said,
"There goes one of the old-fashioned ones. That hair-do was popular
back in the sixties." They did not suspect that she did this only to
cover the thin, pencil-line scar, evidence that a small cylinder lay
under her skin behind the ear.
For Mrs. Jamieson was one of the Konvs.
Her husband had been one of the small group who developed this tiny
instrument. Not the inventor--_his_ name was Stinson, and the effects
produced by it were known as the Stinson Effect. In appearance
it resembled a small semi-conductor device. Analysis by the best
scientific minds proved it to be a semi-conductor.
Yet it held the power to move a body instantly from one point in space
to any other point. Each unit was custom built, keyed to operate only
by the thought pattern of the particular individual.
Several times in the past seven years Mrs. Jamieson had seen other
Konvs, and had been tempted to identify herself and say, "Here I am.
You are one of them; so am I. Come, and we'll talk. We'll talk about
Stinson and Benjamin, who helped them all get away. And Doctor Straus.
And my husband, E. Mason Jamieson, who never got away because those
filthy, unspeakable Agents shot him in the back, there in that coffee
shop in Bangkok, Siam."
* * * * *
Once, in the second year after her husband's death, an Agent came and
stayed in one of her cabins.
She learned that he was an Agent completely by accident. While cleaning
the cabin one morning his badge fell out of a shirt pocket. She stood
still, staring at the horror of it there on the floor, the shirt in
her hands, all the loneliness returning in a black wave of hate and
frustration.
That night she soundlessly lifted the screen from the window over his
bed and shot him with a .22 rifle.
She threw the weapon into the river. It helped very little. He was one
Agent, only one out of all the thousands of Agents all over Earth;
while her husband had been one of twenty-eight persons. She decided
then that her efforts would be too ineffective. The odds were wrong.
She would wait until her son, Earl, was grown.
Together they would seek revenge. He did not have the cylinder--not
yet. But he would. The Konvs took care of their own.
Her husband had been one of the first, and they would not forget. One
day the boy would disappear for a few hours. When he returned the small
patch of gauze would be behind his ear. She would shield him until the
opening healed. Then no one would ever know, because now they could do
it without leaving the tell-tale scar. Then they would seek revenge.
Later they would go to Alpha Centaurus, where a life free from Agents
could be lived.
It happened to Earl one hot summer day when he was fourteen. Mrs.
Jamieson was working in her kitchen; Earl supposedly was swimming with
his friends in the river. Suddenly he appeared before her, completely
nude. At sight of his mother his face paled and he began to shake
violently, so that she was forced to slap him to prevent hysteria. She
looked behind his ear.
It was there.
"Mom!" he cried. "Mom!"
He went to the window and looked out toward the river, where his
friends were still swimming in the river, with great noise and delight.
Apparently they did not miss him. Mrs. Jamieson handed him a pair of
trousers. "Here, get yourself dressed. Then we'll talk."
* * * * *
He started for his room, but she stopped him. "No, do it right here.
You may as well get used to it now."
"Get used to what?"
"To people seeing you nude."
"What?"
"Never mind. What happened just now?"
"I was swimming in the river, and a man came down to the river. His
hair was all white, and his eyes looked like ... well, I never saw eyes
like his before. He asked who was Earl Jamieson, and I said I was. Then
he said, 'Come with me.' I went with him. I don't know why. It seemed
the right thing. He took me to a car and there was another man in it,
that looked like the first one only he was bigger. We went to a house,
not far away and went inside. And that's all I can remember until I
woke up. I was on a table, sort of. A high table. There was a light
over it. It was all strange, and the two men stood there talking in
some language I don't know."
Earl ran his hand through his hair, shaking his head. "I don't remember
clearly, I guess. I was looking around the room and I remember thinking
how scared I was, and how nice it would be to be here with you. And
then I was here."
Earl faced the window, looking out, then turned quickly back. "What is
it?" he asked, desperately. "What happened to me?"
"Better put your trousers on," Mrs. Jamieson said. "It's something very
unusual and terrible to think of at first, but really wonderful."
"But what happened? What is this patch behind my ear?"
Suddenly his face paled and he stopped in the act of getting into his
trousers. "Guess I know now. They made me a Konv."
"Well, don't take on so. You'll get used to it."
"But they shouldn't have! They didn't even ask me!"
He started for the door, but she called him back. "No, don't run away
from it now. This is the time to face it. There are two sides to every
story, you know. You hear only one side in school--their side. There is
also _our_ side."
He turned back, a dawning comprehension showing in his eyes. "That's
right, you're one, too. That is why you killed that Agent in the third
cabin."