Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell (33 page)

“He knows you’re keeping him waiting and why,” the tall man pointed out. With ill-concealed uneasiness he kept watch on the box. “He knows exactly what you’re doing and what you have in mind to do. He can snatch all your thoughts straight out of your head.”

“Let him. What can he do about it?” Kayder poked the box across the desk and nearer the facing chair. A few shining specks soared out of it, danced around the room. “You worry too much, Santil. You telepaths are all alike: obsessed by the fancied danger of open thoughts.” He chirped again, giving his lips a peculiarly dexterous twist and somehow creating a ripple of nigh inaudible sounds between his front teeth. More living motes ascended, spun into invisibility. “Show him in.”

Santil was glad to get out, his companion likewise. So far as they were concerned, when Kayder started playing around with his boxes the best place was elsewhere. All thoughts of Venus duck and roast tree almonds could be abandoned for the time being.

Their attitude gratified Kayder. It enhanced his sense of personal power. Superiority over pawns is a thing worth having, but to rise above those with redoubtable talents of their own is greatness indeed, his self-satisfied gaze swung slowly round the room, traveling from box to case to exotic vase to lacquered casket, some open, some closed, and he did not care who was reading his mind. A little green spider-thing stirred in its sleep in his right-hand pocket. He was the only man on Earth who had a nerveless, courageous, almost invincible army within sweep of his hand.

The professional smile of a trader welcoming big business suffused his heavy features as Raven came in. He pointed to a chair, was silent as he weighed up the black, glossy hair, the wide shoulders, narrow hips. Collar-ad model, he decided, except for those silver-flecked eyes. He did not like the latter feature, not one little bit. There was something about those eyes. They sort of looked too far, penetrated too deeply.

“They do,” said Raven, without expression. “Very much so.”

In no way disconcerted, Kayder gave back, “I’m not nervous, see? I’ve had too many mind-pickers around me too long. Sometimes I can’t think up a smart crack without six of them snickering all over the place before I’ve had time to voice it.” He favored the other with another swift, calculating once-over. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“So nice of me to come. What’s the motive?”

“I wanted to know what you’ve got.” Kayder would much rather have stalled over that and offered something deceptive. But as he’d remarked he was accustomed to telepaths. When your mind is as wide open as a spectroscreen’s Sunday colorstrips the only thing you can do is admit what is on it. “I’m led to believe you’re extra-special.”

Leaning forward, hands on knees, Raven asked, “Who led you?”

Kayder gave a grating laugh. “You want to know that when you can read it in my mind?”

“It isn’t in your mind. Perhaps a hypno dutifully eliminates it for you every now and again as a safety measure. If so, something can be done about it. A stamp can be erased but not the impression underneath.”

“For somebody extra-special you lag behind in the matter of wits,” Kayder opined. He was always pleased to reduce the status of a telepath. “What a hypno can do, another and better hypno can undo. When I want to keep something right out of my skull I can find better and more effective ways.”

“Such as?”

“Such as not taking it into my mind in the first place.”

“Meaning you get your information from an unknown source?”

“Of course. I asked that it be kept from me. What I don’t know I can’t tell and nobody can lug it out of me against my will. The best mind-picker this side of Creation can’t extract what isn’t there,”

“An excellent precaution,” approved Raven, peculiarly pleased with it. He swiped at something in mid-air, swiped again.

“Don’t do that!” Kayder ordered, registering a deep scowl.

“Why not?”

“Those marsh nudges belong to me.”

“That doesn’t entitle them to whine around my ears, does it?” He smacked hands together, wiped out a couple of the near-invisible specks. The rest sheered away like a tiny dust cloud. “Besides, there are plenty more where these came from.” Kayder stood up, his face dark.

In harsh, threatening tones he said, “Those midges can do mighty unpleasant things to a man. They can make his legs swell until each one is thicker than his torso. The swelling creeps up. He becomes one immense elephantine bloat utterly incapable of locomotion.”

Obviously deriving sadistic satisfaction from the power of his private army, he continued, “The swelling reaches the heart, at which point the victim expires somewhat noisily. But death does not halt the process. It goes on, makes the neck twice as wide as the head. Finally it blows up the head to a ghastly balloon with hairs scattered singly across its overstretched scalp. By that time the button eyes are sunk four to six inches deep.” He stopped while he relished his own descriptive ability, then ended, “A midge victim is by far the most repulsive cadaver between here and Sirius.”

“Interesting if melodramatic,” commented Raven, cool and undisturbed. “How unpleasant to know I’m unlikely to be the subject of their attentions.”

“What makes you think that?” Kayder beetled black brows at him.

“Several items. For example, what information are you going to get out of me when I’m bloated and buried?”

“None. But I won’t need it when you’re dead.”

“An excusable error on your part, my friend. You would be surprised by how much vital information you lack but are going to acquire someday.”

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind.” Raven motioned it aside. “Sit down and compose yourself. Think of the consequences of bloating me. Nobody but a Venusian insectivocal could arrange such an end. So far as we know you’re the only one on this planet.”

“I am,” admitted Kayder with some pride.

“That narrows the suspects, doesn’t it? Terran Intelligence takes one look at the corpse and plants a finger straight on you. They call it murder. They’ve a penalty for that.”

Observing the dust cloud, Kayder said meaningly, “
If
there is a body for Intelligence to brood over. What if there is not?”

“There won’t be a body. I’ll arrange for it to be disintegrated and thus tidy things up a bit.”

“You will arrange it? We’re talking about your corpse, not mine.”

“We are talking about what is neither yours nor mine.”

“You’re way out in the blue,” declared Kayder, feeling a horrible coldness on the back of his neck. “You’re alone where the Moon shines.” Bending forward, he pressed a button on his desk, meanwhile eyeing the other as one would watch a suspected lunatic.

Santil opened the door, edged partway through. His entry was reluctant and represented the minimum necessary to answer the summons.

“Have you heard anything?” Kayder demanded.

“No.”

“Have you been trying?”

“It was no use. I can overhear only your mind. He can talk and think and feel around while his own mind pretends it’s a vacuum. That’s more than I can do, more than any telepath I ever met could do.”

“All right. You may go.” Kayder waited until the door closed. “So you’re a new kind of mind-probe, a sort of armor plated telepath, One who can pick without being picked. That confirms what Grayson told me.”

“Grayson?” echoed Raven. He shrugged. “He who is only half informed is ill informed.”

“That goes for you too!”

“Of course it does. I’ve plenty to learn.” Idly he swung a foot to and fro, studying it with a bored air, then said with casual unexpectedness, “I’d like to learn who organized the Baxter blowup.”

“Huh?”

“They suffered a big blast this morning. It was bad, really bad.”

“Well, what’s that to me?”

“Nothing,” Raven admitted, deeply disappointed.

There was good cause for his discontent. A rush of thoughts had poured through Kayder’s mind in four seconds flat, and he had perceived every one of them.

A big blowup at Baxter’s? Where do I come in? What is he getting at? Putting that huge dump out of action would be rather a masterstroke but we haven’t got round to it yet. I wonder whether higher-ups back home have started arranging special jobs without reference to me. No, they wouldn’t do that. Besides, there’s no point in duplicating organizations and keeping one hidden from the other.

But he suspects me of knowing something about this. Why? Has some false clue led him this way? Or could it be that those itchy Martians have begun to pull fast ones of their own in such a way that we get saddled with the blame? I wouldn’t put it beyond them. I don’t trust the Martians overmuch.

Raven ended his train of thought by opining, “I doubt whether you trust anyone or anything except, perhaps, these bugs of yours.” His attention went to the still swirling cloud. He seemed to have no trouble in distinguishing and identifying every microscopic creature within it. The unflinching gaze roamed on, examining boxes, cases, vases, caskets, estimating the relative powers of their contents, sitting in judgment upon each. “And someday even those will let you down if only because bugs must always be bugs.”

“When you talk about insects you’re talking to an authority,” growled Kayder. He glowered straight ahead. “You’ve read all my thoughts. I can’t blank them out like a telepath and therefore they’ve been wide open to you. So you know that this Baxter affair is no business of mine. I had nothing whatever to do with it.”

“I concede it willingly. No hypno wiped it off your mental slate else you wouldn’t have been so confused and frankly speculative about it.” He pulled thoughtfully at one ear. “An hour ago I’d have betted heavily that you were the guilty party. I’d have lost. Thanks for saving my money.”

“You must need it. How much did you pay Steen?”

“Nothing. Not a button.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?”

“Like everyone else, Steen can stand only so much,” Raven informed. “Time comes when a man is called upon to put up with more than he can stomach. Either he runs out while the going is good or he stands fast until he cracks. You’d better write Steen off as a case of battle fatigue.”

“He’ll be dealt with in due course,” promised Kayder, lending it menace. “What did you do to Haller?”

“Not so much. Trouble with him is that he’s overeager and trying to summon up some gumption. He’ll be dead pretty soon.”

“I’m told his brain is—” Kayder’s voice drifted away, came back on a higher note. “Did you say
dead?"

“Yes.” Raven studied him with cold amusement. “What’s wrong with that? We all die eventually. You’ll be dead someday. Furthermore, it’s only a couple of minutes since you yourself were openly gloating over what I’d look like after your bugs had been to work on me. You enjoyed death then!”

“I can enjoy it right now,” Kayder retorted, his blood-pressure shooting upward. His thin, mobile lips took on a queer twist.

The telephone yelped on his desk as if in protest of what was in his mind. For a moment he gaped at the instrument in the manner of one who had forgotten its existence. Then he grabbed it.

“Well?”

It chattered metallically against his ear while a series of expressions chased across his features. Finally he racked it, leaned back in his seat, wiped his forehead.

“Haller has done it.”

Raven shrugged with a callousness that appalled the other.

“They say,” continued Kayder, “that he babbled a lot of crazy stuff about brighteyed moths flying through the dark. Then he put himself down for keeps.”

“Was he married?”

“No.”

“Then it’s of little consequence.” Raven dismissed it like a minor incident unworthy of a moments regret. “It was to be expected. He was overeager, like I told you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Never mind. It’s too early. You’re not yet old enough to be told.” Standing up he seemed to tower over the other. His right hand contemptuously brushed the dust cloud away. “All I will tell you is this: in the same circumstances you would sit in front of me and joyfully cut your own throat from ear to ear, laughing as you did it.”

“Like heck I would!”

“Yes, like heck you
would!”

Kayder pointed an authoritative finger. “See here, we’ve met each other. We kidded ourselves we were going to take each other and we’ve found it’s not worth the bother. You’ve got nothing out of me, nothing. I’ve got all I want out of you, which is that as something super-super you bear a strong resemblance to a flat tire. There’s the way out.”

“Think as you please.” Raven’s smile was irritating. “What I hoped to get out of you was the identity of a traitor and perhaps, something on this Baxter case. Intelligence can deal with anything else.”

“Bah!” Laying a hand palm upward on his desk, Kayder emitted inviting chirrups. Whirling motes descended and settled over his fingers. “Terran Intelligence has mooched behind me for months. I’m so used to their company I’d feel lost without them. They’ll have to produce a better hypno than any we have got before they can arrange some effective unblanking.” Lipping his hand over the box he watched the midges pour down like powder. “Just to show you how little I care I don’t mind telling you they’ve every reason to try to nail me down. So what? I’m a Terran engaged in legitimate business and nothing can be proved against me.”

“Not yet,” qualified Raven, going to the door. “But remember those brighteyed moths that Haller mentioned. They should have an especial interest for you as an insectivocal—even though the laugh is on you!” He went out, glanced through the open door and finished by way of afterthought, “Thanks for all that stuff on your underground base.”

“What?”
Kayder dropped the box, midges and all.

“Don’t reproach yourself or the hypno who expunges it from your mind every time you leave the base. He made a good, thorough job of it. There wasn’t a trace.” The door swung to, the click of its lock sounding right on top of his concluding remark, “But it made a beautifully detailed picture in friend Santil’s mind.” Diving a hand under his desk, Kayder pulled out a mike, switched it on. His hand trembled and his voice was hoarse. Veins of fury stood out on his forehead.