Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell (29 page)

“It’s no business of ours,” she decided. “Let argumentative worlds fight it out between themselves.”

“That’s exactly how I was tempted to view the situation,” he admitted, “until I remembered how history shows that one darned thing leads to another. Look, Leina, it is only a matter of a short time before Earth decides it’s had more than enough and must hit back. If Earth can’t strike with finesse it will strike without finesse, roughly and toughly. Mars and Venus promptly become more riled than ever, get really hard. Tempers rise, each side’s boosted by the other’s. Restraints are thrown away one by one, then in bunches. Scruples are poured down the drain until some badly frightened crackpot on one side or the other plants a hydride bomb to show who’s boss. Your own imagination can take it from there.”

“It can,” she agreed without relish.

“Much as I dislike poking a finger into human affairs,” he went on, “I have an even stronger distaste for the notion of hiding under a mountain while the atmosphere flames and the world shudders all around and multimillion humans walk clean off the stage of life. Carson overoptimistically thinks I can do something about it, singlehanded. All the same, I’m willing to have a shot at it providing the opposition lets me live long enough. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

“Oh, dear!” Her fingers toyed together. “Why must these creatures be so stubborn and idiotic?” Without waiting for an answer, she asked, “What do you wish me to do, David?”

“Keep yourself from becoming involved,” he said. “I’ve come back to destroy a few papers, that’s all. There’s a chance they’ll catch up with me before I leave. In that event, you can perform one small service.”

“And that is—?”

“Look after my best suit for a little while.” He tapped his chest with much significance. “It fits me perfectly and it’s the only one I’ve got. I like it and don’t want to lose it.”

“David
!”Her mental impulse was sharp and immeasurably shocked. “Not that! You can’t do
that!
Not without permission. It is a fundamental violation. It isn’t ethical.”

“Neither is war. Neither is mass-suicide.”

“But—”

“Hush!” He raised a warning finger. “They are coming already. It didn’t take them long.” He glanced at the wall clock. “Not quite three hours since I left the Bureau. That’s what I call efficiency.” His gaze came back to her. “Do you sense their approach?”

She nodded and sat waiting in silence while Raven hurried away and dealt with his papers. He came back. Presently the door gongs chimed softly. Standing up, Leina hesitated a moment, glanced at the other. Raven responded with a careless shrug. She went to the door, opened it. Her manner was that of one deprived of initiative.

Five men were grouped by a bullet-shaped sportship four hundred yards from the house. Two more waited on her doorstep. All wore the black and silver uniform of security police.

The pair at the door were burly, leather-face specimens alike enough to be brothers. It was no more than type-similarity because inwardly they were different. The mind of one probed at Leina’s while the other’s did not. One was a telepath; the other something else. The sudden and fierce thrust of the first one’s mind temporarily prevented her examining the second one’s and thus identifying his peculiar talent, for perforce she countered the telepath by snapping her own mind shut. The other mentality immediately sensed the closure and recoiled.

“Another Tele,” he told his companion. “Just as well we came along in a bunch, isn’t it?” Not waiting for comment, he spoke to Leina vocally, “You can talk to me of your own free will.” He paused to enjoy a harsh chuckle, went on, “Or you can talk to my friend involuntarily, whichever you please. As you can see, we are police.”

Tartly she gave back, “You are nothing of the kind. A police officer would refer to another as his fellow officer and not as his friend. Neither would he utter implied threats before so much as stating his business.”

The second man, who had remained silent up to that point, now chipped in. “Rather talk to me, eh?” His eyes gained a strange, eerie light, growing like little moons. A hypno.

Ignoring him, she said to the first man, “What do you want?”

“Raven.”

“So?”

“He’s here,” he insisted, trying to peer over her shoulder. “We know he’s here.” “So?”

“We're going to take him along for questioning.”

Raven’s voice sounded from the room at back. “It is most kind and thoughtful of you, Leina, to try to detain the gentlemen. But it is futile. Please show them in.” She shivered slightly. Her face was a mirror of emotions as she stood aside and let them brush past her. They went in eagerly like steers galloping into the slaughterhouse. She knew what was coming. The doorknob in her hand grew colder and colder.

The invaders slowed up as they had entered the room. Their expressions became wary, they had small bluesteel guns in their hands, and they kept well apart as if suspecting their quarry of the ability to lay both of them at one swipe.

Not bothering to come to his feet, and obviously amused by their alertness, David Raven said as he picked their identities out of their minds, “Ah, Mr. Grayson and Mr. Steen. A telepath and a hypno—with a gang of other skewboys waiting outside. I am greatly honored.”

Grayson, the telepath, snapped at his companion, “Listen who’s calling us skewboys.” Making an impatient motion at Raven, he added, “All right, Brain-picker, on your feet and start walking.”

“To where?”

“You find out when you arrive.”

“So it seems,” agreed Raven drily. “The ultimate destination is not recorded in your mind, from which I conclude that you do not enjoy the confidence of your superiors.”

“Neither do you,” Grayson retorted. “Take the weight off your tail. We can’t stand here all day.”

“Oh, well.” Coming erect, Raven stretched himself, yawned. His gaze rested on Steen, the hypno, as he inquired, “What’s eating you, Squinty? Never found anyone so fascinating before?”

Maintaining the openly curious stare with which he had fixed Raven from the very start, Steen responded, “When there’s any fascinating to be done
I’ll
do it!” He carried on with, “I’m wondering what all the excitement is about. You haven’t got four arms and two heads. What’s supposed to make you so marvelous?”

“He isn’t so marvelous,” Grayson interrupted with impatience. “Seems to me that headquarters has been stirred up by an exaggerated rumor. I know what he’s got and it isn’t so much.”

“You do?” asked Raven, looking at him.

“Yes, you’re merely a new breed of telepath. You can still probe other minds even when your own is closed. Unlike the rest of us, you don’t have to open your own before you can snoop into others. It’s a nice trick and a useful one.” He sniffed his disdain. “But as an interesting variation it’s not big enough to worry two planets.”

“Then what
are
you worrying about?” Raven pressed. “Having learned the worst you’ve learned the lot. Now leave me to ponder with pleasure over the sins of my youth.”

“We’ve been ordered to bring you in for questioning. That is to say, in one piece. So we’re bringing you.” Grayson’s contempt grew more evident. “We’re dragging back the tiger even though it smells to me of kitten.”

“And by whom will I be questioned, the Big Chief or some no-account underling?”

“That’s no affair of mine,” said Grayson. “All you’ve got to do is come along and provide the answers.”

“Leina, please fetch me my hat and bag.” Raven threw an open and meaningful wink to where she stood silently in the doorway.

“No you don’t,” Grayson rasped at her, naturally not liking the wind. “You stay put.” He turned to Raven. “Go fetch them yourself.” Then to Steen. “You go with him. I’ll keep an eye on the large lady. Do your stuff on him if he so much as clicks his teeth.”

The pair walked stolidly into the adjoining room, Raven leading and Steen close behind. Steen’s eyes already were glowing with power that was better than bullets. Squatting on one arm of a pneumaseat, Grayson rested his gun-hand on a knee, eyed Leina speculatively.

“Another mental oyster, aren’t you?” Grayson said. “Anyway, if you’re hoping he’ll manage to pull a fast one on Steen you can save your brain the strain of thought. He’ll never do it between now and Christmas.”

Offering no comment, she continued to gaze expressionlessly at the wall, showing no hint of apprehension.

“Any telepath can outwit and outmaneuver any hypno at a distance because he can read intentions and has space in which to get out from under.” Grayson gave it with the authority of personal experience. “But close up he hasn’t the chance of a celluloid cat. The hypno is the winnah every time. I know! Many’s the lousy hypno trick I’ve had played on me, especially after a session with a few quarts of Venusian mountain dew.’’

She did not respond. Her generous features were blank, impassive as she strove to listen through and beyond his chatter. Grayson made a swift and vicious thrust at her mind, hoping to catch it unaware, and struck nothing but an impenetrable shield. She had resisted him without effort and continued listening, listening. A faint almost unhearable scuffle sounded in the other room and was followed by the merest whisper of a gasp.

Grayson swiveled round on one heel, looking like one who suspects himself of failing to hear something he should have heard. “Besides, there’s me here with this gun and there’s a tough bunch waiting outside.” He glanced at the other room’s door, became restless. “All the same, they’re slow in there.”

“Not a chance,” she murmured, barely loud enough for him to catch. “Close up there’s not a chance.”

Something about her face, her eyes, or the tone of her voice aroused his suppressed suspicions, created vague alarm. His lips thinned and he motioned to her with his gun.

“Move, Buxom. Walk in there slowly two paces ahead of me. We'll see what’s keeping them.”

Leina got up, bracing herself a moment on the arm of the pneumaseat. Reluctantly she turned to face the door, her eyes lowered as if to delay the vision of what lay behind the door or at any second might come through it.

Steen came through it, rubbing his chin and grinning with self-satisfaction. He was alone.

“He tried to be funny,” announced Steen, addressing Grayson and pointedly ignoring Leina. “I had a notion he was going to do just that. Result: he’s stiffer than a tombstone. We'll need a long board to carry him away.”

“Hah!” Grayson relaxed, let the gun droop as the other continued toward him. Triumphantly he said to Leina, “What did I tell you? He was a dope to try it close up. Some people will never learn!”

“Yes,” agreed Steen, coming nearer, nearer. “He was a dope.” He stopped face to face with Grayson, looking straight at him, gaze level with gaze. “Not a chance, close up!” His eyes were brilliant and very large.

Grayson’s fingers twitched, loosened. The gun dropped from them, thumped upon the carpet. His mouth opened and shut. Faint words came out, uttered with difficulty.

“Steen . . . what the heck . . . are . . .
doing?”

The eyes swelled enormously, became monstrous, irresistibly compelling. Their blaze seemed to fill the cosmos and sear the onlooker’s brain. A deep, droning voice came with the blaze, at first faintly, but racing nearer over immense distances at immense velocity and building up to a masterful roar.

“Raven’s not here.”

“Raven’s not here,” mumbled Grayson in dreamy tones, his mind overwhelmed.

“We have seen nothing of him. We were too late.”

Grayson repeated it like an automaton.

“Too late by forty minutes,” the mentally paralyzing voice of Steen insisted.

“Too late by forty minutes,” indorsed Grayson.

“He took off in a gold colored, twenty-tube racing craft number XB109, the property of the World Council.”

Grayson echoed it word for word. He had the rigid pose and inane expression of a waxy one gathering dust in a tailor’s window.

“Destination unknown.”

That, too, was parroted.

“There is nobody in this villa but a fat woman, a telepath of no consequence.”

“There is nobody,” mumbled Grayson, glassy-eyed, half blind, half dead and mentally enslaved. “There is nobody . .. nobody... but a fat woman of no consequence.”

Steen said, “Pick up your gun. Let’s go back and tell Haller.”

He pushed past the fat woman of no consequence, Grayson following sheeplike. Neither favored Leina with so much as a glance. Her own attention was on Steen, studying his face, reaching for what lay behind the mask, silently talking at him, reproving him, but he took no notice. His disregard was obvious, deliberate and determined.

She closed the door behind them, sighed and wrung her hands in the manner of women since the beginning of time. There were stumbling sounds behind her. Turning, she faced the figure of David Raven swaying uncertainly two yards away.

The figure bent forward, hands over its face, rubbing its features as though not sure on which side of its head they were placed. It was feeling the alien, the unfamiliar, and horrified by its own sense of touch. The hands came away, revealed a tormented countenance and eyes full of fundamental shock.

“Mine,” he said in a voice that was neither Raven’s nor Steen’s but combined some of the characteristic qualities of both. “He snatched away that which is mine and mine alone! He deprived me of myself!”

He paused staring at her in manner not quite sane while his face continued to picture the psychic struggle within him. Then he edged forward, arms outstretched, fingers crooked.

“You knew about this. By the blackest clots in space, you knew about it and helped. You big ungainly schemer, I could kill you for it!” His fingers trembled with sheer emotion as he reached for her neck while she stood unmoving, impassive, an indescribable something shining through her great orbs. The hands touched her neck, closed around. She made no move to resist.

For several seconds he held her like that, hands cupped around her throat, ripping lightly and not contracting, while his features underwent a peculiar series of contortions. Finally he let go, backed away hurriedly with shock added to shock. He found his voice again.