How could a man tell the difference if all the reality of
Earth turned out to be a cosmic hoax? Suppose it turned out
that this was just a stage set for students of history?
* * * * *
When the sharp snap of a pistol shot came from the half-finished
building, Karnes wasn't anywhere near the sandpile that received the
slug. He was fifteen feet away, behind the much more reliable
protection of a neat stack of cement bags that provided cover all the
way to a window in the empty shell of brick and steel before him.
Three hundred yards behind him, the still-burning inferno of what had
been the Assembly Section of Carlson Spacecraft sent a reddish,
unevenly pulsating light over the surrounding territory, punctuating
the redness with intermittent flashes of blue-white from flaring
magnesium.
For an instant, Karnes let himself hope that the shot might be heard
at the scene of the blaze, but only for an instant. The roar of fire,
men, and machine would be too much for a little pop like that.
He moved quietly along the stacked cement bags, and eased himself over
the sill of the gaping window into the building. He was in a little
hallway. Somewhere ahead and to his left would be a door that would
lead into the main hallway where James Avery, alias James Harvey,
alias half-a-dozen other names, was waiting to take another pot-shot
at the sandpile.
The passageway was longer than he had thought, and he realized that he
might have been just a little careless in coming in through the
window. With the firelight at his back, he might make a pretty good
target from farther down the hall, or from any of the dark, empty
rooms that would someday be officers'.
Then he found it. The slight light from the main hallway came through
enough to show him where to turn.
Keeping in the darkness, Karnes' eyes surveyed the broad hallway for
several seconds before he spotted the movement near a stairway. After
he knew where to look, it was easy to make out the man's crouched
figure.
Karnes thought: _I can't call to him to surrender. I can't let him get
away. I can't sneak across that hall to stick my gun in his ribs. And,
above all, I cannot let him get away with that microfilm._
_Hell, there's only one thing I can do._
Karnes lifted his gun, aimed carefully at the figure, and fired.
* * * * *
Avery must have had a fairly tight grip on his own weapon, because
when Karnes' slug hit him, it went off once before his body spread
itself untidily across the freshly set cement. Then the gun fell out
of the dead hand and slid a few feet, spinning in silly little
circles.
Karnes approached the corpse cautiously, just in case it wasn't a
corpse, but it took only a moment to see that the caution had been
unnecessary. He knelt, rolled the body over, unfastened the pants,
pulled them down to the knees and stripped off the ribbon of adhesive
tape that he knew would be on the inside of the thigh. Underneath it
were four little squares of thin plastic.
As he looked at the precious microfilm in his hand, he sensed
something odd. If he had been equipped with the properly developed
muscles to do so, he would have pricked his ears. There was a soft
footstep behind him.
He spun around on his heel, his gun ready. There was another man
standing at the top of the shadowy stairway.
Karnes stood up slowly, his weapon still levelled.
"Come down from there slowly, with your hands in the air!"
The man didn't move immediately, and, although Karnes couldn't see his
face clearly in the shimmering shadows, he had the definite impression
that there was a grin on it. When the man did move, it was to turn
quickly and run down the upper hallway, with a shot ringing behind
him.
Karnes made the top of the stairway and sent another shot after the
fleeing man, whose outline was easily visible against the pre-dawn
light that was now beginning to come in through a window at the far
end of the hall.
The figure kept running, and Karnes went after him, firing twice more
as he ran.
_Who taught you to shoot, dead-eye?_ he thought, as the man continued
to run.
At the end of the hall, the man turned abruptly into one of the
offices-to-be, his pursuer only five yards behind him.
* * * * *
Afterwards, Karnes thought it over time after time, trying to find
some flaw or illusion in what he saw. But, much as he hated to believe
his own senses, he remained convinced.
The broad window shed enough light to see everything in the room, but
there wasn't much in it except for the slightly iridescent gray object
in the center.
It was an oblate spheroid, about seven feet high and eight or nine
feet through. As Karnes came through the door, he saw the man step
_through_ the seemingly solid material into the flattened globe.
Then globe, man and all, vanished. The room was empty.
Karnes checked his headlong rush into the room and peered around in
the early morning gloom. For a full minute his brain refused even to
attempt rationalizing what he had seen. He looked wildly around, but
there was no one there. Suddenly he felt very foolish.
_All right. So men can run into round gray things and vanish. Now use
a little sense and look around._
There was something else in the room. Karnes knelt and looked at the
little object that lay on the floor a few feet from where the gray
globe had been. A cigarette case; one of those flat, coat-pocket jobs
with a jet black enamel surface laid over tiny checked squares that
would be absolutely useless for picking up fingerprints. If there were
any prints, they'd be on the inside.
He started to pick it up and realized he must still be a bit confused;
his hands were full. His right held the heavy automatic, and between
the thumb and forefinger of his left were the four tiny sheets of
microfilm.
Karnes holstered the pistol, took an envelope from his pocket, put the
films in it, replaced the envelope, and picked up the cigarette case.
It was, he thought, a rather odd-looking affair. It--
"Awright, you. Stand up slow, with your hands where I can see 'em."
_Great God_, thought Karnes, I _didn't know they were holding a tea
party in this building_. He did as he was told.
There were two of them at the door, both wearing the uniform of
Carlson Spacecraft. Plant protection squad.
"Who are you, bud?" asked the heavy-jawed one who had spoken before.
"And whataya doin' here?"
Karnes, keeping his hands high, said: "Take my billfold out of my hip
pocket."
"Okay. But first get over against that wall and lean forward."
Evidently the man was either an ex-cop or a reader of detective
stories.
* * * * *
When Karnes had braced himself against the wall, the guard went
through his pockets, all of them, but he didn't take anything out
except the pistol and the billfold.
The card in the special case of the wallet changed the guard's manner
amazingly.
"Oh," he said softly. "Government, huh? Gee, I'm sorry, sir, but we
didn't know--"
Karnes straightened up, and put his hands down. The cigarette case
that had been in his right hand all along dropped into his coat
pocket.
"That's all right," he said. "Did you see the lad at the foot of the
stairs?"
"Sure. Jim Avery. Worked in Assembly. What happened to him?"
"He got in the way of the bullet. Resisting arrest. He's the jasper
that set off the little incendiaries that started that mess out there.
We've been watching him for months, now, but we didn't get word of
this cute stroke until too late."