Parr spent the morning of Tuesday, D-Day minus 28, in his hotel room,
reliving what seemed now to be the extremely narrow escape of the
previous morning. He imagined what he _might_ have done: assaulted the
Oholo mentally, or struck him down with the focus pistol when he tried
to leave the hotel. And having imagined the situations he proceeded to
explain to himself why, instead, he had fled.
At eleven o'clock, by prior arrangement, he reported to the Ship and
from it received the reassuring information that the now alerted
advancemen had been able to find no other Oholo.
At noon he went out to eat and then for an hour walked the streets,
studying the people and their city. Most particularly he listened for
accent, intonation. He was afraid to drop his mind shield to try for
telepathic contact with them.
A few minutes before three o'clock in the afternoon his cab drew up to
the warehouse. The air was hot and sour smelling and Parr was restless.
The realtor was waiting for him on the sidewalk. Parr nodded curtly.
The man bent clumsily and rattled keys at the lock.
"Here it is," Lucas said.
Parr walked into the warehouse.
It was an old building. Perhaps shabbier, dustier than he had expected.
The air was stale and faintly chilly with decay. Remnants of packing
crates, wrapping paper, labels and twine had been heaped in a greasy
pile in a far corner.
Parr sniffed suspiciously as his eyes darted around the room.
Across from him, above the rubbish, an electric box indicated that the
building had at one time been industrialized at least to the extent of
a few heavy power tools.
Parr walked to the stairway.
"I'll want someone to clean this mess up," he said curtly.
"Yes, sir," the realtor said.
"Tomorrow," Parr said.
"All right," the realtor said, consciously omitting the "Sir" as if to
reassert his own individuality.
Parr glanced at him. "I'll send you sufficient money to cover the fee."
Without waiting for an answer, he started up the stairway.
The upper two floors were in much the same condition as the first. From
the third there was a narrow flight of steps slanting to the roof. Parr
eyed it with disapproval.
"Narrow," he said.
"There's seldom any reason to go up there ... sir."
* * * * *
Parr went up. At the top of the flight, he forced back the door and
clambered into the shed which opened onto the roof. Parr dusted his
knees. He stepped outside, and the gravelly finish grated under his
shoes. The air smelled of warmed-over tar.
He tugged restlessly at his chin. It was a good, substantial roof. As
the listening post had reported. Good enough for pick-up and delivery.
He permitted himself a glimmer of satisfaction.
He heard movement behind him. Instinctively he whirled around,
his hand dipping toward his right coat pocket, the memory of the
Oholo--the vision of a composite Oholo face surprisingly like an Earth
face--flashed across his mind. The realtor's head bobbed into view, and
Parr relaxed his tense muscles.
"How is it up to here?"
Parr rumbled an annoyed and indistinct answer and turned once more to
the roof. When the realtor stood at his side, Parr said, "I want that
shed thing ripped off and a chute installed, next to the stairs. Have
it done tomorrow."
"I'm ..." the realtor began. But he looked at Parr's face and licked
his lips nervously. "Yes, sir;" he said after a moment. "Anything I can
do. Glad to oblige."
"That's what I thought," Parr said, and Lucas shifted uneasily.
Parr turned to the stairs. Going down he could see dust motes flicker
in the fading light at the dirty west windows.
Outside he watched the realtor lock the doors.
"Keep the keys," Parr said. "Send them to me at the Saint Paul Thursday
morning. At eight o'clock."
The realtor said, "... Yes, sir."
* * * * *
At six o'clock Parr was in his hotel, undressed, making preliminary
arrangements by telephone to hire a fleet of trucks. He had already
placed an advertisement for shipping clerks and common laborers in
_The Times_: interviews Thursday from ten to four at the Flower Street
warehouse.
After finishing with the truckers, he phoned four furniture companies
before he found one open. He ordered it to deliver a desk and two dozen
folding chairs to the Flower Street warehouse Thursday morning at
nine-thirty.
All the while the Oholo was in the back of his mind, now sharp with
sudden memory, now dull with continued awareness.
He checked the schedule the Ship had given him.
He took the comset, flicked it on. "Parr. I'm scheduling. I'll need a
packet of money along with the dummy bundle. Can you deliver them both
to the warehouse tomorrow night?"
"We can."
"Good," Parr said, swallowing, and there was perspiration on his upper
lip.
"Have you contacted the Oholo again?"
He felt his blood spurt. "Not yet," he said.
He waited.
Then: "Think you can handle him mentally?"
Parr glanced at the mirror, saw how taut his reflection was.
"I'm not very sure," he said.
"Well, physically, then?"
Parr let out his breath slowly. "I don't know."
"Try. Either way. Get rid of him. An Oholo could cause the invasion
trouble."
Parr plucked nervously at his leg. "If I'm not able to?"
The comset was silent for a moment. Then the impersonal voice said, "If
you are killed in the attempt, we will replace you." It paused for a
reply. Receiving none it continued: "Get what information you can, even
at the risk of exposure. It's too late now for them to mount a defense,
and they probably have no way to alert the natives. We want to know
what he's doing there, and if there are any more on the planet."
"All right," Parr said, and he realized, gratefully, that, to the Ship,
his voice would sound emotionless.
He dropped the comset. His hand was shaking.
Not so damned good. How to kill the Oholo?
* * * * *
He tried to steady his nerves by remembering other planets, other
times. He had faced danger before, and he was still alive. Except that
before the danger had never been an Oholo. He had been Occupation, not
Combat. He remembered the few captured Oholos he had seen. They died
slowly when they wanted to be stubborn.
Finally he crossed to the bed and stretched out naked, relaxing
slowly, knowing that the time had come to get what information he
could. Muscle by muscle he began to go limp.
Slowly, very slowly, he dissolved his mind shield. When it was
completely gone he began to inch out, to flutter out, concentrating
with all his power a stream of receptive thought on the Oholo
frequencies high up and uncomfortably shrill.
He located the mind, far away, and he began to skirt in toward it, his
own mind trembling in anticipation of the blow if he were detected.
He inched closer trying to make himself completely non-transmitive.
He could feel seepage around the beam, and he shunted it to a lower
frequency, holding it there, suppressed. The effort blunted his full
concentration and when he finally began to get Oholo thoughts they were
blurred. He picked up a scrap here, a scrap there, his body tense.
When he relaxed at last, forming his shield solidly, he was weak. He
held the shield desperately, chinking it against a possible attack.
None came. The Oholo was still completely unsuspecting, completely
lulled by the security of its environment.
Feeling a sense of elation and a new confidence, Parr went to the
comset. "Parr. Oholo report."
"Go ahead."
Parr concentrated on the wording, filling in the blank spots with his
imagination. Suddenly he was conscious of an inadequacy, something
elusive that he should be able to add. He wrinkled his face, annoyed.
But the uncertainty refused to resolve itself into words. "His name is
Lauri. He's here on a mission having to do with the natives. I got no
details, but it doesn't directly concern us, I'm sure of that. There
appear to be several more on the planet. They seem to avoid cities,
which accounts for the fact that advancemen haven't reported them." For
a moment, he almost placed his thoughts on the elusiveness, but again
it escaped him. He paused, puzzled.
"We'll have the advancemen warned. This may be damned inconvenient,
Parr. If there are many of them."
"I couldn't get the exact number without exploring his mind. If I'd
done that, I might not have been able to report afterwards."
"Go on."
"He's leaving the city in a few days. You still want ... me to try to
kill him?"
"Yes."
The Oholo, Parr could not help remembering, had as strong a mind as he
had ever encountered.
* * * * *
Wednesday morning Parr walked to the Biltmore, not hurrying, not
anxious to face a free and dangerous Oholo.
At the side of the hotel he risked contact. A shutter movement of
thought told him the quarry was still inside the building.
He crossed Olive at Fifth with the light and angled right into
Pershing Square. He located a seat from which he could observe the
entrance of the Biltmore. For one moment he considered mental assault;
but remembering how strong the mind was he faced he discarded that
course.
He waited. He walked around the Square. The morning seemed endless.
Finally he risked another shutter of thought.
The Oholo was still there.
Noon.
He ate in a drugstore across the street.
Still there.
As the afternoon wore on, the weariness of waiting left his body and
the success of the shutter contact inflamed him with confidence. He
could cross the street, enter the hotel, seek out the room. But he
delayed--without admitting to himself that he was still afraid.
The gloom in the air was pre-sunset, city gloom, nostalgic. He
consciously dilated his pupils to accommodate the fading light, unaware
now of the scurry of people on the sidewalks and the roar of the city
cloaking for night amusement. Neon lights came on like cheap fire, out
of the darkness, infinitely lonely.
He shifted uncomfortably. He stood up. He could wait no longer.
Then a man and woman emerged from the hotel. And he tensed. A wisp of
thought, unsuspicious, floated to him on mental laughter.
The Oholo, Lauri.
He shielded his mind even tighter, scarcely thinking.
He began to amble in the direction the couple were taking, keeping to
the opposite side of the street.
At Sixth they turned toward him, waited through the yellow for the
green light. They crossed.
He paused studying a Community Chest sign, his hearts pounding
uncertainly. He felt a curious little probe of thought that was
delicate and apologetic, as if reluctant to intrude upon anyone's
privacy. It passed him by undetecting.
* * * * *
The man bent toward the girl, a pert blonde, and laughed in answer to
something she had said. Parr watched them go by and then at a short
distance swung in behind them. He touched the focus weapon in his right
hand pocket, a crystal-like disk with one side tapering to a central
point. It was a short-range weapon, palm aimed, fired with an equally
exerted pressure on the lateral sides.
Even with his mind closed Parr could catch ripples of Oholo thought:
amusement, sympathy, appreciation. For a moment he was afraid that he
had been mistaken somehow, for again there was the elusiveness, an
unreality he could not account for in terms of the situation.
Parr narrowed the gap between himself and his prey.
And they turned a corner. Parr crossed the street, drew still closer,
in time to hear the girl say, laughing, "... slumming once before I go
back."
The crowd thickened and Parr found himself sidestepping passers-by. He
was almost near enough, and his hand was moist on the focus gun.
The couple turned into a cellar night club. Parr swore to himself.
Taking a nervous breath, he descended the steps. He nodded to the
bouncer-doorman who was leaning idly against the wall.
He stepped into the night club. He saw the man help the girl to a table.
Parr brought out his hand. His eyes were suddenly hot and beady with
excitement.
On the far side of the room he saw the black lettered sign, "MEN." He
would, in crossing to it, pass directly by the Oholo's table.
As he began to move forward a woman stumbled unsteadily against him,
knocking him off balance.
"Whynacha watch where ye're goin', ya ...," she began shrilly, but,
with his left hand, he brushed her out of his way. She took a half step
backwards, undecided.
He turned to glare at her and under his gaze she looked away and tugged
nervously at her dress.
Parr walked swiftly toward the rest room, his every energy concentrated
on his mind shield.
As he passed the table, the girl shuffled uneasily on the chair.
Without breaking stride, Parr fired the focus gun into the man's back.
He was clear of the tables when he heard, from behind, the initial
surprised, "Oh!"
He had one hand on the door marked "MEN" when he felt the confusion
in his mind. Automatically, he pushed open the door. A puzzling
realization that something was wrong....
He turned left, from the narrow corridor into the rest room proper.
And he went down to his hands and knees on the filthy tile, writhing in
agony.