"If I wait here awhile, perhaps the fish's strength will build up
again," George Hanlon had thought wearily. "Then it can carry me back
to shore."
So he continued concentrating on the job of keeping those muscles
closed around the wound in the amphibian's side, finding it required
full use of his mind to think of holding that constriction, and of
nothing else.
Only partially was that possible, of course. Humans are just not
constituted so they can think of only one thing for long periods of
time. "At least," he grimaced, "not this human."
For nearly an hour he and the fish lay there quietly, riding out the
waves, while he waited for the great mammal-thing to regain some of its
energy. He kept close watch of that mind, and knew it was gradually
feeling less pain, less anguish. He had sent it "calming" thoughts as
best he could, and they had taken effect. The panic was gone. It was
almost asleep, floating there.
Hanlon looked toward the cliff-top, but there were no longer figures
there he could see. Had the pursuers, thinking him dead, left? He
strained his ears for the sound of the trike motor.
"Maybe, though, they'd already gone before I thought to start
listening," he thought.
Finally he decided the fish was strong enough to take him to shore. His
own body felt so much more comfortable. Then he realized with a twinge
of panic that the reason was that while he had thrown his mind into
the healing of the fish his body had become numb with the cold. Now
he again became conscious of his various cuts and bruises, aching and
flaming from the action of the salt water.
Under his compulsion the fish swam slowly and with some difficulty back
toward the shore. When it finally got close to the wall of rock Hanlon
let his feet downward, hoping to be able to touch bottom. But the water
was far too deep there.
"I hate to do this to you, fellow, but you're my only hope for the
time being," Hanlon said feelingly to the great fish-thing, and made
it start swimming along the rocky wall. He kept his eyes constantly
looking ahead for a break in the escarpment, or for a bit of beach
where he could rest.
After a mile or so it seemed the cliff was getting lower, and Hanlon's
hopes rose a bit. Another couple of thousand yards, and he was sure of
it. It was sloping downward quite sharply toward sea-level. Also it
seemed, in the moonlight, that the rocky surface was getting rougher,
more climbable.
Finally they came to a place where the cliff was only about twenty
yards high--nor did it seem to get lower on ahead. Too, it looked
scalable. Hanlon stopped the fish and examined that facing carefully.
Yes, he decided at last, there were enough protuberances and cracks so
that it could be climbed.
_If_ he had strength enough.
"Well, gotta try sometime. And my poor fish is about all done." He made
it swim right up until he could reach out and get a firm grip in a
large crack.
"Goodbye, fellow. Thanks for saving my life. Hope you make out all
right," he told the great mammalian shark-thing. He released his hold
on its fin and his control from its mind. It turned and swam away,
still feebly.
Hanlon focused his attention on the task before him. Slowly and
painfully he climbed, hunting for handhold and foot rest.
He had known he was tired, but had not realized how weak he was. It
seemed he could never make even that short climb. His fingers, hands
and arms were numb with cold, his feet and legs unresponsive leaden
weights. But from the deeps of his subconscious and will, and his urge
to survival, he brought renewed strength and scrambled upward.
At last, utterly spent, he pulled himself over the edge, and lay
gasping and shivering on the top of the cliff.
He was almost ready to blank out, when a thought struck him, and he
struggled to retain consciousness. He could not just lie here and
sleep. Probably those goons would still be looking for him. He must get
away, somehow, somewhere.
Again he sent his mind outward, and felt whispers of thought quite
a little distance away across the meadow. He followed the strongest
of these, and found a mind quite powerful, and intelligent in an
animalistic way.
He followed that mind into the brain that housed it, and took control.
He made the animal, whatever it was, start swiftly toward him. While it
was coming he examined the mind more closely, and suddenly realized he
was inside the brain of an Estrellan _caval_.
These animals, which the Terrans thought of as horses, because they
could be ridden or trained to draw carriages, were about the size of a
Terran cow-pony. They were striped almost like a zebra, but the colors
were brown and yellow, rather than black and white. The animals were
quite vicious in the wild state, and none too tractable even when
trained. As usual with Estrellan animals, they were tailless, and had
heavy, sharp hooves, nearly twice the size of those of Earthly horses,
and snouts much like a roch's.
When the caval came up to him, Hanlon saw it was a stallion, slightly
larger than average. From its mind he already knew it was a wild one,
not domesticated or broken to saddle or harness.
Nevertheless, he could control it, and made it stand quietly while he
climbed slowly and laboriously to his feet, and from there managed to
wriggle onto its back.
He knew he was due to faint in a few seconds, but kept his
consciousness long enough to impress on the animal's mind that it was
to take him back toward Stearra. He thought he knew the direction,
and he thought he could keep awake the one part of his mind that was
dissociated and in the caval. However, because he might blank out
completely, he instructed it to keep straight on the road to town.
He leaned down and threw his arms tightly about the caval's neck, then
with a sigh of thankfulness, let himself go. He had endured so much ...
he was so tired ... so ... tir....
* * * * *
Yandor and his men had finally come to the conclusion that Gor Anlo was
dead, out there in the ocean. They had been unable to see him for some
time. Yet they waited around for nearly half an hour, searching both
the waters and along the cliff. Finally, he said they might as well go
home. So all piled in their large trike and started back to the city.
But they had not quite reached his home when Yandor found a disturbing
thought persisting in his mind. He worried and puzzled over it for some
time, then issued sharp commands. Thus, when they arrived at his house,
two of the men hurried into the back yard, and soon came back with two
of the beasts Yandor kept caged there.
"What's up, chief?" one of the men asked as the tricycle sped back the
way they had just come.
"I ... I don't really know," the impresario said slowly. "I ... I have
a ... a sort of feeling ... that maybe we can find Anlo after all. We'd
better go back and look some more."
* * * * *
_For the watcher above knew Hanlon was not dead._
* * * * *
All of George Hanlon's mind must have become unconscious, for the next
thing he knew was when the caval suddenly reared to escape those who
were trying to stop it, and Hanlon's body was dumped unceremoniously to
the ground. The caval, released from its compulsion, took off across
the meadow at top speed.
Hanlon began to recover consciousness as rough hands slapped him awake.
He first noticed that the sun was rising, for its rays were shining
directly in his eyes. He blinked and turned his head away--and became
aware of his captors.
He saw Ino Yandor standing there, beside a large trike. Beside him was
one of his henchmen, holding the leashes of two straining _tamous_.
These cat-like beasts, somewhat like Terran black panthers save they
were a deep red in color, and had fangs much longer and sharper--and
no tails--Hanlon knew to be trackers _par excellence_--as good as
bloodhounds. Nor were they usually as fierce and blood-thirsty as they
seemed.
The third man was the one who was holding him.
"Well now," Yandor eyed him angrily, "you think you're pretty clever,
don't you?"
Hanlon shrugged. "Doesn't look like it, does it?"
"Who are you spying for?"
"Who says I was spying?"
"Don't try to quibble with me, Gor Anlo. I want answers, and correct
answers, or I'll let my pretty pets here take over, and see if you can
elude them."
"And after I get through answering you'll cinder me anyway," Hanlon
sneered. "Whatever gave you the idea I'd talk--if I had anything to
say, that is?"
The mobster holding him cuffed him. "Don't talk to Ino Yandor that way,
you phidi."
Hanlon turned his head and sneered into the man's face. "Watch who
you're calling a snake." He twisted suddenly, drove his heel backwards
into the man's shin, and pulled free. The fellow, even while yelping
with pain, started to draw a flamer when Yandor commanded sharply, "Let
him be. He can't outrun the tamous."
Hanlon spoke as though nothing had happened. "What gave you the idea
I've been doing anything like you said?" he asked in a conversational
tone. "What's this all about?"
"What were you doing, trying to look into--or get into--Adwal Irad's
house?"
"That the name of the guy that owns it? Just looking for anything
worthwhile I could pick up. Since you got me fired just because I drank
a little too much one night, I got to make a living someway."
"Well now, I hope you don't expect me to believe that. I know who you
are, and my patience is at an end. Do you tell me who you are working
for, and what you're after, or do I let the tamous loose?"
"I've got nothing to ..." Hanlon began, but the man who had been
holding him suddenly interrupted.
"Look, Yandor, at the man's ear!"
"Yes, and his feet," the other pointed downward.
They all stared closely, and Hanlon wondered as he saw their eyes
widen. Then, with a start, he remembered kicking off his oversized
shoes, and now he noticed that the dye had come off his hands. He
guessed with sickening certainty that the long immersion in the
salt-water had also loosened the plastic ears and nose, and that at
least one of them had fallen off.
"By Zappa," Yandor stepped closer. "One of his ears is very small ..."
he reached out quickly and tugged at the other. Loosened at it was, it
came off easily in his hand.
"An alien," Yandor exclaimed, and then "your skin--it's not like ours."
"His nose seems false, too," the third man said.
Knowing his imposture was over, Hanlon himself pulled off the plastic
overlay and disclosed his nose in its original size and shape.
"Yes, I'm a Terran. What're you going to do about it?"
"Loose the tamous!" Yandor snapped, and the man dropped the leashes he
held.
But Hanlon had read that command in the impresario's mind even before
he uttered it, and had already taken over the minds of the two beasts.
They were well equipped by nature to be deadly, even if that was not
their true nature.
The female whirled, and jumped on the man who had been holding them.
The male made two quick leaps, and was on the other gunman. Both men
were borne backwards, and in seconds the great cat-things had torn out
their throats.
"You should have remembered I'm the world's greatest animal trainer,"
Hanlon said evenly.
Yandor shrank back, sure he was next. "You fiend!" he cried, then his
inherent cowardice showed and he threw himself on his knees. "Don't let
them kill me," he pleaded in agonized tones. "I'll do anything--I'll
give you everything I have. Only please, please keep those awful beasts
away from me."
Hanlon hated a cowardly bully. Also, much as he detested killing or
maiming, he had learned not to let it get him down too much in this
work when it was necessary. But with such an unprincipled killer and
abject wretch as the one before him, he felt no such compunction. He
looked contemptuously down at the thing grovelling at his feet in a
very paroxysm of fear.
Disgusted, Hanlon turned away, climbed into the motor-trike in which
Yandor and his men had come here, and started its engine. As he drove
away he impressed a command on those now-slavering beasts, who began
bellying toward the helpless Yandor. But Hanlon could not repress a
shudder of revulsion at what he felt forced to do.
After a half mile or so of driving, however, the weariness, the pain
and chill struck him, and he nearly fainted again. He struggled to
keep himself conscious so he could get back home--a matter of vital
necessity now that he was not disguised.
When he finally came to the more populated part of the city, in
which people were beginning to be seen outside the houses and on the
streets, he had himself fairly well under control. He kept his head
down and made himself as inconspicuous as possible while driving at
the highest allowable speed toward his rooming house. There he jumped
from the car almost before it stopped, and ran in. He passed several of
his neighbors in the hallways, but held his hank before his face and
ignored their stares of surprise at his condition as he raced to his
room.
Once inside, he locked the door, then breathed a sigh of deep relief.
He began stripping off his wet and bedraggled clothes, thankful, as he
remembered the loss of his shoes, that he had an extra pair of those
specially-made ones.
When he saw that much of the hair so meticulously glued onto his body
was also coming loose, he thankfully ripped the rest of it from him,
then went in and turned on the shower--really only a stream of water
from the end of a pipe. For nearly a quarter of an hour he stood under
it, revelling in the first feeling of real cleanliness he had known
since leaving Simonides, relieved as the warm water washed the salt
from his wounds and pores.
Finally, having treated his burns and bruises, he put on a dressing
gown to partially cover his nakedness, and sank into his comfortable
chair. Then he let his mind review the happenings of the past night.
Hanlon was once more in a cockily jaunty mood. He had taken some
terrific risks, had been in almost-fatal jeopardy several times,
had had adventures and escapes no one would believe if he tried to
tell them--except some of the few S S men who knew about his special
talents, and dad, of course....
_Dad!_ He had almost forgotten his father's predicament in the
excitement of the night. Now, as he considered and concentrated on this
problem, Hanlon began to realize--dimly, sketchily, and much against
his will--that things were not at all right as he had felt for the
moment.
He tried to dodge that flickering thought, but it persisted, grew
stronger, would not be denied. He finally was forced to consider
it more thoroughly. And slowly it dawned upon him that he had not
_won_--he had lost. He had smeared up the works, but good. His campaign
was done, finished, kaput. He had put his foot in it, clear up to the
sacro-iliac.
Worse than that--far worse--he had undoubtedly gummed up this whole
Estrellan business. Not only was his own work undone, but now the
natives would know that the Terrans were here, just as that propaganda
machine had said. Now it would be practically impossible to make
them believe that the Terrans were _not_ responsible for their crime
wave--and all the other things said about them.
"Me and my big swelled head," he castigated himself furiously. "I
oughtta be horse-whipped."
Almost he cried. His body was by turns ice-cold and feverish. He
cringed mentally and physically.
Was there any way--any possible way--he could redeem himself? Could
he publicly admit that he and he alone was to blame, that he was here
entirely on his own initiative, because he wanted to see Estrella join
the family of nations?
No, that was absurd. He wouldn't be believed. No one in their right
mind would ever conceive that a young man like him would do such a
thing without some backing--undoubtedly full Federation backing.
He would have to resign from the secret service. Or--he gasped--were
its members allowed to resign? Admiral Rogers had said it was for life,
once he got in.
"But he didn't guarantee how long my life would last," Hanlon grimaced.
Well, he drew himself up proudly, there was a way. He was not afraid to
die.
"Whoa, now, wait a minute. Let's think this out. Death's no answer."
For a new idea had just struck him. He forced the worry, the fear,
the ... the self-pity ... from his mind, and settled down to consider
this new concept. Maybe it wasn't as bad as he had thought, after all.
"Yandor and his goons were the only ones who knew I was a Terran, and
they're dead," he thought. "So they can't tell on me. And no one else
knows it. Maybe I can go ahead, just as I was."
He rose to get dressed. There was still his father's imprisonment to
be taken care of--if possible. Hanlon was sure now that it was in that
little stone house back of Irad's mansion that the admiral was being
held prisoner.
A casual glance in the glass, and he was suddenly conscious of his
appearance. Hey, he couldn't go out like this, in broad daylight. Not
looking like a Terran.
Swiftly he considered the possibilities. He would have to disguise
himself again enough to escape notice on the street. But he was no
cosmetician ... even if he had the dyes, the plastics....
He sank into his chair again, and thought seriously. But even while he
was trying to think and plan, his worn, tired body--exhausted as it had
never been before, and depleted of all strength--could bear no more.
Without even realizing it, he sank parsecs deep into profound slumber.
Sometime during the day, without his knowing it, he must have gotten
up and lain down on the bed, for it was there he finally awoke. The
room was dark; only a small ray of light came in obliquely through the
window, from a distant street-light.
He got up, wincing at his lameness and stiffness. He went through some
calesthenics to take the soreness from his body, then washed, dressed,
and prepared and ate something. He hunted through his duffel bag and
found a pair of gloves to cover his hands. Before putting them on,
however, he wound a scarf about his head and face, covering most of it
except his eyes. He pulled his hat well down, then put on the gloves.
Leaving his room, he went inconspicuously along the darkest parts of
the streets until he came to the market place, and a certain stall that
specialized in theatrical costumes and make-up. It was the same place
where he had bought that roch-mask.
Walking purposefully, as though he had legitimate business there, he
went to the rear of the shop. It was not too hard to break in and crawl
inside. There, using his utmost care not to be discovered, he hunted
about among the shelves until he found some facial putty, skin dyes,
and other articles he needed. He left a couple of gold pentas on the
counter in payment.
Then, just as cautiously, he retraced his way to his rooms.