"I can't possibly make it tonight." He pointed at his desk. It was
littered with correspondence, orders and contracts. "Give me one more
week, Lieutenant."
It was an order, not a request.
There was nothing to do but wait the third week. It was not, however,
uneventful. It was the week the accidents began to happen.
At 4:14 of a Tuesday afternoon, a man was admitted to a local hospital
with a perforated belly. Straight through, hide, guts and liver. A
newsman got hold of it and wrote a scare story about an attack with a
pellet gun that must shoot needles.
Before the edition was sold out the hospitals were loaded with
emergency cases. People with holes in them. Tiny little holes,
mostly, but holes that went right through them. Then dogs. Then
automobiles, trucks and busses. Holes in their radiators. Holes in
windshields that always went straight back, through seats and sometimes
passengers--right out through the rear end.
* * * * *
The city panicked. Then the county, state and nation. In two days, yes,
the whole nation!
At first everyone thought we were being attacked by some secret weapon.
By some miracle of statesmanship, the President of the United States
prevented a "massive retaliation" attack by the army upon our most
likely enemy--long enough for Intelligence to affirm that no enemy on
Earth was that mad at us.
Then all thoughts turned to extra-terrestrial space. A bombardment from
the sky? It was ridiculous to even consider, because none of the holes
that appeared in people and things came from above. The holes were
almost entirely in the horizontal plane.
Strangely enough during those first two days, nobody thought of the
Mystery i-Gun. No one but me.
Leo Baxter had disappeared into thin air, as completely as if he'd
turned to metal and crawled into the muzzle of one of his own "toys".
I had every known place he frequented staked out with a pair of
plain-clothesmen, but it was the morning of the second day of
accidents before I got a radio call from the squad car stationed near
the old Baxter home.
Leo had come home at last. He was a sad looking midget when I got
there. Obviously no sleep, unshaven, deep hollows under his eyes.
"I figured you'd be waiting for me, Lieutenant, but you know what?" he
demanded. "I don't give a damn! I kept waiting for them to figure out
the answer to these accidents and string me up. How come you didn't
tell anybody?"