Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell (43 page)

Deciding that the radio might as well be answered, the pilot flipped his switch and snapped, “Corry here.”

A voice drummed from the tiny loudspeaker. “Tell Mr. Thorstern to grab a gun and send a dozen slugs between his feet. Those two guys are squatting on the undercarriage.”

“He knows,” said the pilot.

“He knows?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Good grief!” The voice turned in an aside to someone else. “The boss already knows.” Then it came back. “What’s he doing about it?”

“Nothing,” the pilot reported.

“Nothing? How’s that?”

“Don’t ask me. I’m only the pilot.”

“You don’t mean—” The others rising tones suddenly cutoff. Came a sharp click as the distant transmitter closed down.

“He’s jumped to conclusions,” observed Raven. “He thinks you and Mr. Corry are tied up in sacks and that he’s been talking to
me. ”

“And who may you be?” inquired Mr. Corry, his tone suggesting that only hoboes came aboard in mid-air.

Thorstern spoke for the first time. “Keep out of this—there’s nothing you can do.”

His bothered brain provided an interesting example of how inconsequential thoughts sometimes come uppermost in times of crisis. He was in a jam. Judging by what had occurred at the castle, it was a very tight one. There was every reason to believe he was in danger of his life and before long might follow the hapless Greatorex into oblivion. Added to which was the quasi-guilty realization that he had asked for trouble and could not justifiably complain about getting it aplenty.

But all he thought of at that moment was, “An antigrav cab has a load-limit of five hundred pounds. A copter can haul more than a ton. If I’d used an antigrav I wouldn’t be in this fix. It couldn’t have lifted with two inside and two clinging outside. After this, no more copters for me—not unless I have an escort.”

“You have an escort—my friend and myself,” Raven pointed out. He shoved the door open. “Come on. We’re stepping out.”

Thorstern stood up slowly. “I’d break my neck.”

“You’ll be all right. We'll have hold of you.”

“What’s to stop you letting go?”

“Not a thing.”

The pilot chipped in. “If you two are floaters let me tell you it’s against the law to leave an air machine while it’s flying over an inhabited area.”

Taking no notice of this, Raven continued with Thorstern, “You have several alternatives. Firstly, you can make a snatch at that side pocket and see what happens. Or jump out on your own and see how high you bounce. Or crash the copter and be scraped out of the junkpile. But if you prefer you can come with us and get down in one piece.”

Thorstern’s mental reaction to that was, “He can hypnotize me into doing anything he wishes, anything at all, even to dying against my will, by remote influence, through a scanner. It would be better to do things of my own accord. I can bide my time. It’s his hour now—mine later. Other circumstances provide other opportunities.”

“That’s using hoss-sense,” Raven approved. “Stay with us until we blunder. You can then tear out our hearts.”

“I know you’re a telepath and can treat my mind like an open book.” Thorstern moved toward the door. “And more besides. There is nothing I can do about it— yet.

He braced himself as Raven backed out ahead of him, grasped an arm, and Charles reached up to take the other. Just as those able to levitate almost from birth have minds conditioned by their own peculiar ability, so are others conditioned by their limitations.

Thorstern had brains and his full share of animal courage but nevertheless his whole nature rebelled against an unhampered leap into space. With a parachute or an antigrav belt he would not have hesitated for a moment. With no more than other, hostile hands grasping him it wasn’t so good.

So he closed his eyes and held his breath as they left the machine. He felt sick in the pit of his stomach when they plummeted down. Thick atmosphere heavy with vapor enshrouded him and streamed upward, making his pants belly out and his hair stand on end. The air stream whistled past his ears.

He was conjuring fearful visions of a rocky wall or tilted roof rocketing from underneath whiteness to smash his legs or break his body when a powerful pull on both arms slowed him down. Still he kept his eyes shut and strove to control his insides. A gable end rose from the mist, brushed his feet, slid upward. He landed in a street.

High above the pilot was gabbling into his transmitter. “Couple of fellows grabbed him at two thousand four hundred feet. I took it for granted they were floaters but they went down like stones. Eh? No, he didn’t resist or give me any orders. Near as I can tell they must have hit in Sector Nine, somewhere around Reece Avenue.” A pause, followed by, “Not if I know him. There was something mighty queer about the whole business. He went without wanting to—but he went!”

Raven said, “Your pilot Corry is on the police band and screaming for help.”

“I don’t think it will be of much use.” Thorstern looked around, trying to identify his surroundings in the dim light and poor visibility. “But no matter.”

“Becoming fatalistic?”

“I accept conditions temporarily beyond my power to change. At my time of life I have learned to wait. No game goes wholly in one’s favor all the time.” Pulling out a handkerchief he wiped beads of condensation from his lavish mop of hair. “It is the last move that counts.”

The statement was devoid of misplaced confidence or braggadocio. It was the voice of experience, the considered opinion of one whose complicated plans frequently had suffered obstructions, delays, setbacks, all of which had been overcome next week, next month or the following year. He could display infinite patience when the need arose, still keeping the main purpose in sight and pushing toward it the instant the way became clear.

He was admitting that this unlucky night he was beaten and might well be finished for keeps, but warning them that so long as he lived there was always tomorrow, another day. It was a form of defiance, a revealing of teeth when cornered. There wasn’t much else he could do—just then.

Mavis opened the door and let them in without being summoned by knock or ring. Expressing neither pleasure nor surprise, she had the matter-of-fact air of one who has kept in constant touch with events and knew what was happening at any given moment.

In the manner of a mother mildly reproving a small and wayward child, she said to Charles, “You are going to regret this. I can feel it coming.” With that, she returned to her kitchen.

“Now we’ve got still another type of mutant,” grumbled Charles, unabashed. He flopped into a chair, making its well-worn seat bulge down between the legs. “A prognosticator.”

Staring toward the kitchen in open approval, Thorstern remarked, “It’s a pleasure to hear somebody talking sense.”

“Everyone talks sense according to his or her particular lights. Each man his own oracle.” Raven pushed a pneumaseat toward him. “Sit down. You don’t have to freeze up stiff just because you’re in bad company.”

The other sat. Already he was striving to drive away a series of thoughts that insisted on coming into his mind. He was most anxious not to nurse them because they could be seen whenever either of these two saw fit to peer inside his skull and, for all he knew, they were peering without cease.

He could not be certain of constant eavesdropping. A telepath can feel or sense or detect another mind groping within his own. A non-telepath cannot. Thorstern was unordinary rather than extraordinary and that was a handicap of which he was acutely conscious in his present predicament; at other and safer times he would have dismissed the handicap with a lordly wave. So he tried to swat the thoughts as one would swipe at half a dozen annoying flies, but they hung around and kept buzzing.

“This pair of multi-mutants can protect their thoughts. Probably the woman can also. But I can’t hide mine and doubt whether they can shield them from others. Already the patrols will be scouring the streets, some concentrating on this neighborhood. They’ll include whatever telepaths can be dug up at this late hour. So unless this room has built-in screens to give privacy there’s a fair chance that some passing mind-probe will recognize my thought-stream and trace its source. He will then summon the troops and—”

He managed to shoo it away for a few seconds, but again it returned to completion. “Wish I knew whether a spray of thoughts is as individually characteristic as a voice. Maybe they all seem alike. If so, I’ll be out of luck unless I can choose the right moment to radiate an unmistakable giveaway. If this pair happen to pick it up too, they may do something drastic. I’ll have to take a chance on that.”

Giving Raven a surly eye, he said, “I have jumped out in mid-air. I have sat down when told. I have obeyed orders. What next?”

“A talk.”

“It’s two in the morning. You could have talked tomorrow and at a reasonable hour.” He pursed sour lips. “Was there any real need for all this preliminary melodrama?”

“Unfortunately, yes! You’ve made it hard to gain contact. Moreover, you’ve chased me around as it I were the dog that snitched the Sunday roast.”

“
Me?
” Thorstern lifted an incredulous eyebrow.

“You and the organization over which you preside.”

“Meaning my extensive trading interests? Nonsense! We have something better to do than chivvy people. Seems to me you’re animated by a persecution complex.”

“Look, we’ve been through all this before. The turn loses its novelty the second time round. Didn’t you get a record of our conversation with your very accomplished impersonator?”

Much as he would have liked to deny all knowledge of any malleables doubling for him, Thorstern was too wise to let his mouth utter something simultaneously contradicted by his mind. He could not hope to deceive with mere words. But he could be evasive, play for time, fight a delaying action.

So he said, truthfully, “I’ve not had the details of what you told Greatorex. All I do know is that he is dead and that you had a hand in it. I don’t like it.” His voice gained a touch of toughness. “Eventually you won’t like it, either!”

Charles emitted a short laugh and interjected, “That’s a nice, vivid, satisfying picture of people hanging by their necks. Your imagination operates in full colors. I like the way you make their tongues stick out, black and swollen. A few of the details are inaccurate. The knots are in the wrong place—and I don’t possess two left feet.”

“Do I have to endure criticism in addition to mental prying?” Thorstern asked Raven.

“He couldn’t resist it. Sadistic pleasures ask for adverse comment.” He paced to and fro, the prisoner’s gaze following. “Under the delusion that Greatorex was really you, we asked him to stop cutting off Terra’s toes. He fed us a phony line, doing it as to the manner born. We gave him fair warning that toe-cutting is a practice the victim has every right to resent. He insisted on playing the tune as before. Superb as his act proved to be, he was hamstrung by his own limitations.”

“Why?” asked Thorstern, watching beetle-browed.

“Not being you, it was not within his power to make a major decision on your behalf. Knowing you, he wouldn’t dare. He could do no more than play to the best of his ability the part in which he had been so well drilled. By virtue of his peculiar position he was without the initiative that could have saved him.” He made a that-is-that gesture. “And so he is dead.”

“For which you are now sorry?”

“Sorry?” Raven faced him, eyes bright with silvery motes shining in the irises. “Certainly not! We couldn’t care less!”

It sent a most unpleasant sensation down Thorstern’s spine. When there was a highly desirable end in view he could be decidedly cold-blooded himself, but never did he display it with such unashamed callousness. An unctuous washing of hands with much solemn deploring was his technique for brushing off a cadaver with decent dignity. If Greatorex—less burdened with guilt than himself—could be dismissed so airily, like a piece of trash . . .

“Seems there are others who enjoy sadistic pleasures,” he stabbed, reasonably enough.

“You misunderstand. We are not happy about the matter but neither do we grieve. Call it splendid indifference.”

“Practically the same thing.” This was an opportune moment to appeal to a telepathic patrol if one happened to be nearby. “I don’t know how you did it, but I call it murder!”

Mavis came in with a percolator and cups. She poured for three, set out a plate of cookies, retired without a word.

“You wish to talk about murder?” Raven asked. “That’s a subject you’re qualified to discuss.”

That was an obtuse crack at himself, Thorstern felt. An undeserved one. Whatever else he might be, he was not a bloodthirsty monster. True, he was running what whining Terrans saw fit to call an undeclared war but in reality was a liberation movement. True also that a few lives had been taken despite instructions that blows be struck to exact minimum loss of life and maximum loss of economic power.

A few killings had been inevitable. He had approved only those absolutely necessary to forward his designs. Not one more, not one of any sort. And even those he had dutifully deplored. He was by far the most humane conqueror in history, bidding fair to achieve the biggest and most spectacular results at the least cost to all concerned.

“Would you care to explain that remark? If you are accusing me of wholesale slaughter I’d like you to state one instance, one specific case.”

“There are only individual cases in the past. The greater atrocities are located in the future, if you consider them essential—and if you live that long.”

“Ye gods, another prognosticator!” commented Charles, this time completely without humor. Indeed, he made it smack of grim foreboding.

Raven continued with Thorstern, “Only you know how true that is, how far you are prepared to go, how great a cost you are willing to pay to boss a world of your own. But it is written in the depths of your mind. It stands out in letters of fire:
no price is too high.
”

Thorstern could find nothing to say. There wasn’t an effective answer. He knew what he wanted. He wanted it cheaply, with as little trouble as possible. But if tough opposition should jack the price sky-high in terms of cash or lives it would still be paid, with regrets, but paid.