"He's supposed to meet a Soviet agent tonight, and he's afraid he'll
be caught. He doesn't know what happened to the first three, and he
won't know what will happen to Number Four tonight.
"We'll keep him around as long as he's useful. He's not a Bohr or a
Pauli or a Fermi, but he--"
MacHeath stopped himself suddenly and came to a dead halt.
"My God," he said softly, "that's _it_."
His hunch had hatched.
After a moment, he said: "Harry is getting back from the target end of
the tube now, Bill. He can't pick me up, so beetle it down to the tool
room, get him, and get up to the workshop fast. If I'm not there,
wait; I have a little prying to do."
[Illustration]
"Can do," said Griffin. He went toward the elevator at an easy lope.
David MacHeath went in the opposite direction.
* * * * *
When MacHeath returned to the workshop which he had been assigned,
Bill Griffin and Harry Benbow were waiting for him. Beside the
big-muscled Griffin, Harry Benbow looked even thinner than he was. He
was a good six-two, which made him a head taller than Griffin, but,
unlike many tall, lean men, Benbow had no tendency to slouch; he stood
tall and straight, reminding MacHeath of a poplar tree towering
proudly over the countryside. Benbow was one of those rare American
Negroes whose skin was actually as close to being "black" as human
pigmentation will allow. His eyes were like disks of obsidian set in
spheres of white porcelain, which gave an odd contrast-similarity
effect when compared with Griffin's china-blue eyes.
If the average man had wanted to pick two human beings who were
"opposites," he could hardly have made a better choice than Benbow and
the short, thickly-built, blond-haired, pink-skinned Bill Griffin. But
the average man would be so struck by the differences that he would
never notice that the similarities were vastly more important.
"You look as if you'd just been kissed by Miss America," Harry said as
MacHeath came through the door.
"Better than that," MacHeath said. "We've got work to do."
"What's the pitch?" Griffin wanted to know.
"Well, in the first place, I'm afraid Dr. Konrad Bern is no longer of
any use to the Redford Project. We're going to have to arrest him as
an unregistered agent of the Soviet Government."
"It's just as well," said Harry Benbow gently. "His research hasn't
done us any good and it hasn't done the Soviets any good. The poor
guy's been on edge ever since he got here. All the pale hide around
this place stirs up every nerve in him."
"What got you onto this?" Griffin asked MacHeath.
"A hunch first," MacHeath said. "Then I got data to back it up. But,
first ... Harry, how'd you know about Bern's reactions? He keeps those
prejudices of his down pretty deep; I didn't think you could go that
far."
"I didn't have to. He spent half an hour talking to me this morning.
He was so happy to see a fellow human being--according to his
definition of human being--that he was as easy to read as if _you_
were doing the reading."
MacHeath nodded. "I hate to throw him to the wolves, but he's got to
go."
"What was the snooping you said you had to do?" Griffin asked.
"Dates. Times. Briefly, I found that the run of accidents has been
building up to a peak. At first, it was just small meters that went
wrong. Then bigger, more complex stuff. And, finally, the Monster
went. See the pattern?"
The other men nodded.
"You're the therapist," Griffin said. "What do you suggest?"
"Shock treatment," said David MacHeath.
* * * * *
Just how Dr. Konrad Bern got wind of the fact that a squad of FBI men
had come to the project to arrest him that evening is something that
MacHeath didn't know until later. He was busy at the time, ignoring
anything but what he was interested in. It always fascinated him to
watch the mind of a psychokinetic expert at work. He couldn't do the
trick himself, and he was always amazed at the ability of anyone who
could.
It was like watching a pianist play a particularly difficult concerto.
A person can watch a pianist, see every move he is making, and why he
is making it. But being able to see what is going on doesn't mean that
one can duplicate the action. MacHeath was in the same position.
Telepathically, he could observe the play of emotions that ran through
a psychokinetic's mind--the combinations of avid desire and the utter
loathing which, playing one against another, could move a brick, a
book, or a Buick if the mind was powerful enough. But he couldn't do
it himself, no matter how carefully he tried to follow the raging
emotions that acted as two opposing jaws of a pair of tongs to lift
and move the object.
And so engrossed was he with the process that he did not notice that
Konrad Bern had eluded the FBI. He was unaware of what had happened
until one of the Federal agents rapped loudly on the workshop door.
Almost instantly, MacHeath picked up the information from the agent's
mind. He glanced at Griffin and Benbow. "You two can handle it. Be
careful you don't overdo it."