A day of nerve-twisting inactivity passed. Harris did not hear from
Carver, nor did any of the Medlins contact him. Once he checked Beth
Baldwin's room at the hotel, but no one answered the door, and when he
inquired at the desk he learned that she had moved out earlier in the
day, leaving no forwarding address. It figured. She had established
quarters in the hotel only long enough to come in touch with him, and,
that done, had left.
Regretfully Harris wished he had had a chance to try that biological
experiment with her, after all. Medlin though she was, his body was now
Terran-oriented, and it might have been an interesting experience.
Well, no chance for that now.
He ate alone, in the hotel restaurant, and kept close to his room all
day. Toward evening his signal-amplifier buzzed. He activated the
communicator and spoke briefly with Carver, who gave him an address and
ordered him to report there immediately.
It was a shabby, old-fashioned building far to the east, at the edge
of the river. He rode up eight stories in a gravshaft that vibrated so
badly he expected to be hurled back down at any moment, and made his
way down a poorly-lit dusty corridor to a weather-beaten door that gave
off the faint yellow glow that indicated a protection-field.
Harris felt the gentle tingling in his stomach that told him he was
getting a radionic scanning. Finally the door opened. Carver said to
him, "Come in."
There were four others in the room--a pudgy balding man named Reynolds,
a youthful smiling man who called himself Tompkins, a short, cold-eyed
man introduced as McDermott, and a lanky fellow who spoke his name
drawlingly as Patterson. As each of them in turn was introduced, he
gave the Darruui recognition signal.
"The other four of us are elsewhere in the eastern hemisphere of
Earth," Carver said. "But six should be enough to handle the situation."
Harris glanced at his five comrades. "What are you planning to do?"
"Attack the Medlins, of course. We'll have to wipe them out at once."
Harris nodded. Inwardly he felt troubled; it seemed to him now that the
Medlins had been strangely sincere in releasing him, though he knew
that that was preposterous. He said, "How?"
"They trust you. You're one of their agents, so far as they think."
"Right."
"You'll return to them and tell them you've disposed of me, as
instructed. Only you'll be bearing a subsonic on your body. Once you're
inside, you activate it and knock them out--you'll be shielded."
"And I kill them when they're unconscious?"
"Exactly," Carver said. "You can't be humane with Medlins. It's like
being humane with bloodsucking bats or with snakes."
The Darruui called McDermott said, "We'll wait outside until we get the
signal that you've done the job. If you need help, just let us know."
Harris moistened his lips and nodded. "It sounds all right."
Carver said, "Reynolds, insert the subsonic."
The bald man produced a small metal pellet the size of a tiny bead,
from which three tantalum filaments projected. He indicated to Harris
that he should roll up his trousers to the thigh.
Instead, Harris dropped them. Reynolds drew a scalpel from somewhere
and lifted the flap of nerveless flesh that served as trapdoor to the
network of devices underneath. With steady, unquivering fingers, he
affixed the bead to the minute wires already set in Harris' leg, and
closed the wound with nuplast.
Carver said, "You activate it by pressing against the left-hip neural
nexus. It's self-shielding for a distance of three feet around you, so
make sure none of your victims are any closer than that."
"It radiates a pretty potent subsonic," Reynolds said. "Guaranteed
knockout for a radius of forty feet."
"Suppose the Medlins are shielded against subsonics?" Harris asked.
Carver chuckled. "This is a variable-cycle transmitter. If they've
perfected anything that can shield against a random wave, we might as
well give up right now. But I'm inclined to doubt they have."
* * * * *
All very simple, Harris thought as he rode across town to the Medlin
headquarters. Simply walk in, smile politely, stun them all with the
subsonic, and boil their brains with your disruptor.
He paused outside the building, thinking.
Around him, Earthmen hurried to their homes. Night was falling. The
stars blanketed the sky, white flecks against dark cloth. Many of those
stars swore allegiance to Darruu. Others, to Medlin.
Which was right? Which wrong?
A block away, five fellow Darruui lurked, ready to come to his aid if
he had any trouble in killing the Medlins. He doubted that he would
have trouble, if the subsonic were as effective as Carver seemed to
think.
For forty Darruui years he had been trained to hate the Medlins. Now,
in a few minutes, he would be doing what was considered the noblest act
a Servant of the Spirit could perform--ridding the universe of a pack
of them. Yet he felt no sense of anticipated glory. It would simply be
murder, the murder of strangers.
He entered the building.
The Medlin headquarters were at the top of the building, in a large
penthouse loft. He rode up in the gravshaft and it seemed to him that
he could feel the pressure of the tiny subsonic generator in his thigh.
He knew that was just an illusion, but the presence of the metal bead
irritated him all the same.
He stood for a moment in a scanner field. A door flicked back suddenly,
out of sight, and a strange face peered at him--an Earthman face, on
the surface of things at least.
The Earthman beckoned him in.
"I'm Armin Moulton," he said in a deep voice. "You're Harris?"
"That's right."
"Beth is waiting to see you."
_The subsonic has a range of forty feet in any direction_, Harris
thought. _No one Should be closer to you than three feet._
He was shown into an inner room well furnished with drapes and
hangings. Beth stood in the middle of the room, smiling at him. She
wore thick, shapeless clothes, quite unlike the seductive garb she had
had on when Harris first collided with her.
There were others in the room. Harris recognized the other Medlin,
Coburn, and the giant named Wrynn who claimed to be a super-Earthman.
There was another woman of Wrynn's size in the room, a great golden
creature nearly a foot taller than Harris, and two people of normal
size who were probably Medlins.
"Well?" Beth asked.
In a tight voice Harris said, "He's dead. I've just come from there."
"How did you carry it out?"
"Disruptor," Harris said. "It was--unpleasant. For me as well as him."
He was quivering with tension. He made no attempt to conceal it, since
a man who had just killed his direct superior might be expected to show
some signs of extreme tension.
"Eight to go," Coburn said. "And four are in another hemisphere."
"Who are these people?" Harris asked.
Beth introduced them. The two normal-sized ones were disguised Medlins;
the giant girl was Wrynn's wife, a super-woman. Harris frowned
thoughtfully. There were a hundred Medlin agents on Earth. Four of
them were right in this room, and it was reasonable to expect that two
or three more might be within the forty-foot range of the concealed
subsonic.
Not a bad haul at all. Harris began to tremble.
Beth said, "I suppose you don't even know who and where the other
Darruui are yourself, do you?"
Harris shook his head. "I've only been on Earth a couple of days, you
know. There wasn't time to make contact with anyone but Carver. I have
no idea how to do so."
He stared levelly at her. The expression on her face was unreadable;
it was impossible to tell whether she believed he had actually killed
Carver.
"Things have happened fast to you, haven't they?" she said. She
drew a tridim photo from a case and handed it to Harris. "This is
your next victim. He goes under the name of Reynolds here. He's the
second-in-command; first-in-command now, since Carver's dead."
Harris studied the photo. It showed the face of the bald-headed man who
had inserted the subsonic beneath the skin of his thigh.
Tension mounted in him. He felt the faint _rasp rasp rasp_ in his
stomach that was the agreed-upon code; Carver, waiting nearby, wanted
to know if he were having any trouble.
Casually Harris kneaded his side, activating the transmitter. The
signal he sent out told Carver that nothing had happened yet, that
everything was all right.
* * * * *
He handed the photo back to Beth.
"I'll take care of him," he said.
_I press the neural nexus in the left hip and render them unconscious.
Then I kill them with the disruptor and leave._
_Very simple._
He looked at Beth and thought that in a few minutes she would lie
dead, along with Coburn and the other two Medlins and these giants who
claimed to be Earthmen. He tensed. His hand stole toward his hip.
Beth said, "It must have been a terrible nervous strain, killing him.
You look very disturbed."
"You've overturned all the values of my life," Harris said glibly.
"That can shake a man up."
"You didn't think I'd succeed!" Beth said triumphantly to Coburn. To
Harris she explained, "Coburn didn't think you could be trusted."
"I can't," Harris said bluntly.
He activated the concealed subsonic.
The first waves of inaudible sound rippled out, ignoring false flesh
and striking through to the Medlin core beneath. Protected by his
three-foot shield, Harris nevertheless felt sick to the stomach, rocked
by the reverberating sound-waves that poured from the pellet embedded
in his thigh.
Coburn was reaching for his weapon, but he never got to it. His arm
drooped slackly; he slumped over. Beth dropped. The other two Medlins
fell. Still the subsonic waves poured forth.
To his surprise Harris saw that the two giants still remained on their
feet and semi-conscious, if groggy. _It must be because they're so
big_, he thought. _It takes longer for the subsonic to knock them out._
Wrynn was sagging now. His wife reeled under the impact of the
noiseless waves and slipped to the floor, followed a moment later by
her husband.
The office was silent.
Harris pressed his side again, signalling the _all clear_ to the five
Darruui outside. Six unconscious forms lay awkwardly on the floor.
He found the switch that opened the door, pulled it down, and peered
out into the hall. Three figures lay outside, unconscious. A fourth was
running toward them from the far end of the long hall, shouting, "What
happened? What's going on?"
Harris stared at him. The Medlin ran into the forty-foot zone and
recoiled visibly; he staggered forward a few steps and fell, joining
his comrades on the thick velvet carpet.
Ten of them, Harris thought.
He drew the disruptor.
It lay in his palm, small, deadly. The trigger was a thin strand of
metal; he needed only to flip off the guard, press the trigger back,
and watch the Medlins die. But his hand was shaking. He did not fire.
A silent voice said, _You could not be trusted after all. You were a
traitor. But_ we _had to let the test go at least this far, for the
sake of_ our _consciences_.
"Who said that?"
_I did._
"Where are you? I don't see you."
_In this room_, came the reply. _Put down the gun, Harris-Khiilom. No,
don't try to signal your friends. Just let the gun fall._
As if it had been wrenched from his hand, the gun dropped from his
fingers, bounced a few inches, and lay still.
_Shut off the subsonic_, came the quiet command. _I find it unpleasant._
Obediently Harris deactivated the instrument. His mind was held in some
strange stasis; he had no private volitional control.
"Who are you?"
_A member of that super-race whose existence you refused to accept._
Harris looked at Wrynn and his wife. Both were unconscious. "Wrynn?" he
said. "How can your mind function if you're unconscious?"