Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell (74 page)

He had finished dictating and was presiding in the workshop when Norris returned sour-faced and said, “You wouldn’t think so many people could have a superficial but passable resemblance to one wanted man.”

“Meaning they’d grabbed another dud?”

“Yes. A paint salesman sufficiently like McDonald to make the pinch excusable. Moreover, he was in a devil of a hurry, lost his temper, tried to crash a roadblock. That was his undoing.”

“Look,” said Harper, “McDonald escaped loaded with luggage and had at least an hour’s start. Do you really suppose that he is still in this town?”

“No, I don’t. I reckon the chances are a hundred to one against it. Not only have we found no trace of him but none of the Reeds or their car either. I think they slipped through the cordon and are now way out in the wilds. But we’re passing up no chances no matter how remote.”

“All right. Then I'll tell you something: if those three have escaped they’ve left at least one contact here.”

“How do you know that?” Norris demanded.

“Because we whizzed past one yesterday. I tried to get the cavalcade to go after him but they refused to stop. They had their orders and they stuck to them. It shows how blind obedience can make a hash of initiative.”

Norris did not like that last remark but let it go by and inquired, “Did you get any clue to his identity?”

“Not a one. If I had I’d have told you last night and saved your time. He might be anybody, anybody at all. The best I can do is guess.”

“Go ahead and do some guessing. You’ve made a few lucky shots so far.”

“This is a wild one fired entirely at random,” Harper told him, almost apologetically. “I can’t get rid of the idea that about the safest place in the world for a hunted man is a town where every man jack is hunting for some other character. He benefits from the general distraction, see? His safety factor is increased more than somewhat by virtue of the obvious fact that you can concentrate on one thing only by ignoring other things.”

“Go on,” urged Norris, interested.

“So if the presence of my carcass makes this town an area of irresistible attraction to the opposition, and everyone here is chasing around in search of McDonald—”

“Finish it, man, finish it!”

“What a wonderful set-up for William Gould.” Harper regarded the other levelly. “Who’s looking for
him?”

“The entire country. You know that.”

“I’m not considering the entire country. I’m thinking only of this town. Unlike the rest of the country, it’s obsessed by McDonald to such an extent that Gould could step in and baby-sit for you and you’d pay him two dollars with thanks.” He drummed restless fingers on the desk while that sank in, then added for good measure, “After which it would never be the same baby again.”

Rausch chipped in, “Whether that guess is on or off the mark makes no difference. Gould is wanted as badly as McDonald. It would do no harm to distribute a local reminder of that fact.”

“It wouldn’t at that,” agreed Norris. “You go out and see to it right now.” Norris watched Rausch hurry out then returned attention to Harper. “Where do you dig up these notions?”

“The onlooker sees the most of the game. And as I told you before, I’ve been on the run myself while you have not. It helps a lot when one tries to put oneself in the other fellow’s shoes. That’s why the first and perhaps one of the best detectives in history was an ex-con with a long record.”

“Who was that?”

“Eugene Francoise Vidocq.”

“I’ll look him up some day,” Norris promised. “If by then I’m not in the jug busily completing my education.”

“You’ll never look him up. He died long before you were born. All the same,
I—”

He shut up as his mental searchlight made one of its periodic circlings and found something in the surrounding ocean of emanations. He was quiet while his mind listened.

It was coming again.

Gobble-gobble.

Failing to notice this sudden preoccupation, Norris prompted, “You were about to say?”

“Nothing of consequence. Let it pass.”

Harper made a disparaging gesture, returned to his office and sat erect in his chair. He felt under one arm to make sure the gun was readily available.

“Moira,” he said quietly, “there’s a packet for Schultz-Masters ready in the shop. It’s urgent. I’d like you to take it to the post office at once. See that it goes by the midday mail. You need not hurry back. It’ll do if you return after lunch.”

“What about this correspondence, Mr. Harper?”

“You’ll have all afternoon to cope with it. Put a move on and get rid of that consignment so that I’ll have an answer ready if Schultz-Masters start bawling over the phone.”

“Very well.” She adjusted her hat on her head, picked up her handbag, went into the workshop and collected the package.

Going to the window, he watched her hurrying along the street in the direction opposite to that from which danger was coming. Well, that got her away from the scene of prospective trouble.

A couple of burly characters walked ten yards behind her rapidly clicking heels. They knew where she was going because the mike planted in the office had informed Norris or whoever happened to be listening-in. But they weren’t going to let her out of their sight and hadn’t done from the start of fixing the trap. It was just as well.

He did not open the window as he had done at the approach of Ambrose Baum. Leaving it fastened, he stood behind it surveying as much of the street as could be seen while stretching his receptive power to the utmost.

This time he was not going to make the mistake of transmitting a mental stab and getting the foe to flee with the knowledge so ardently sought. He was going to do no more than listen and thus leave the other mind blissfully unconscious of its open state. True, that meant he dare not stimulate desired information and had to rest content with whatever the hidden thinker saw fit to offer, regardless of whether said offerings made sense or nonsense.

Leaving the window he flopped into his chair, stared unseeingly at Moira’s desk while he listened and waited. It was a unique and most curious experience despite previous brief encounters.

Judging by the chronically slow increase in amplitude of the distant impulses the oncoming entity was progressing at little more than a crawl; probably walking warily with frequent pauses for pretended examinations of shop windows. It was not hesitant in the manner of one fearful and on edge. On the contrary, it was cold-bloodedly aware of many dangers and trying to side-step any that became apparent.

The mind did not identify itself in human terms because at the moment it was not thinking in human terms. Cogitatively, it was bilingual. The queer ganderlike gobble-gobble was another-world sound track synchronized with another-world thought-forms. It was obedient to a habit born of countless centuries of possession by doing its thinking in the mental terms of its faraway hosts. Occupation of a completely human-type brain in no way handicapped this function. All brains utilize the data filed therein and this one was armed with knowledge of two worlds and at least two distinct species.

Even though directing his attention elsewhere, Harper was able to do some thinking of his own. What if this gradually nearing sneaker were none other than William Gould? How could he hope to walk in on Harper and get away with whatever he schemed to do?

It was hardly likely that his purpose was to kill, even at cost of his own life, because the foe would gain little enough from that. The prize they wanted and must secure at all costs was accurate knowledge of the means by which they could be identified. To slay the only one able to reveal this secret would leave them as perilously ignorant as before.

Their sole rational tactic was to capture and hold Harper for long enough to force the truth out of him. Once successfully grabbed, the technique of compulsion would be simple and effective. They’d take possession of him exactly as others had become possessed, after which they would find the wanted datum recorded in his mind, and it would be theirs, entirely theirs to use as they wished.

Nothing less than that would tell them what they had to combat and enable them to devise means of mastering any similar threats from any other source. Therefore the oncomer must be at least a scout tentatively tasting local defenses or at most a would-be kidnapper hoping to pull the job single-handed somehow, heaven alone knew how.

In the latter event there must be more to the present situation than was yet evident to the eyes. The enemy was far from stupid. No delegate of theirs would try to snatch Harper in these circumstances unless playing a part that offered at least a moderate chance of success.

The alien thought-stream had grown much stronger now and was replete with brief, unrecognizable scenes like glimpses of some nightmarish landscape. Harper removed attention from it for a moment while he scoured the area for minds like it. Perhaps there were a dozen or twenty converging by prearrangement upon his address, hoping to take him by sheer weight of numbers.

There were not. He failed to detect any others. Only one was approaching and if any more of them were around they must be lurking beyond detectable range. If so, had they chosen their concealing distance by pure accident or had they started to make some very shrewd guesses?

Still he did not probe. Neither did he warn Norris as he was supposed to do. He sat tight, determined for the time being to play things his own way. Regulation tactics had gained nothing but several corpses and a picture of a fuzzy ball. A little irregularity might prove more profitable. He did not bother to consider the risk involved or the possible cost to his own skin. His lack in this respect was more the measure of his impatience than his courage.

The other mind was now passing beneath his window but he did not try to take a look that, if noticed, might create premature alarm. If it continued onward along the sidewalk, ignoring his front door, he was going to get out fast and nail it. But if it came in he was going to sit right there and meet it as man to mock-man.

It turned in at the front door and immediately the thought-stream switched to human terms with all the brilliant clarity of the pane when it is suddenly adjusted after being mistily off-focus. There was a reason for that. The arrival had come into contact with a couple of agents on guard and immediately adapted itself to cope with a human situation. It was done with speed and polished perfection possible only to a lifeform that had never worn anything but fleshy masks because it had no face of its own.

And in that pregnant moment Harper learned whom to expect. He read it in the minds of the agents even as they swapped a few words with the newcomer. “Is the orangoutang here? Or has he gone out chasing a percentage?”

“He’s warming his office chair.”

“Mind if I bust in?”

“Go help yourself.”

Harper smiled grimly. He picked up the agents’ mental images as they let the enemy walk through. He changed attention to Norris, outside sitting on a bench in the workshop, almost saw through his eyes as idly he watched the other reach the door.

Then the gobbler entered and Harper said in the manner of one completely fooled, “Hello, Riley. What brings you here?”

Helping himself to the absent Moira’s chair, Riley seated himself carefully, looking at Harper and all unwittingly gave him a piece of his mind.

“He is supposed to know us on sight in some mysterious way. Everything adds up to that fact. But he does not react in this case. That is strange. Somethings wrong somewhere. ”

Vocally, Riley responded, “I’m keeping my finger on your pulse.”

“Why?”

“There’s a five thousand dollar reward in the bag for whoever finds Alderson’s killer. Captain Ledsom hasn’t forgotten it despite all the hullabaloo about three fellows who’ve done nobody knows what. I haven’t forgotten it either. It’s a lot of money.”

“So you’re hoping to sell me for that sum eventually?”

“No, I’m not. I don’t believe you did it. But I think you know more than you’ve told. And I’m betting that when all this ruckus is over you’ll get busy on it.”

“And then?”

“You may need my help. Or I may need yours. Between the two of us we might lay hands on that sack of gold.”

“You’re becoming mercenary in your old age, and sloppy to boot.”

“What do you mean, sloppy?”

Carefully steering the conversation into mentally revealing channels, Harper said, “Fooling with Moira while I’m away.”

“Bunk!”

“Cajoling her with a theater ticket.”

That did it.

The responding flash of secret thought lasted no more than two or three seconds but was detailed enough to present the picture. Moira innocently enjoying the show in seat U.17. William Gould apparently doing likewise in U.18. Conversation between acts, a planned pick-up and stroll home—with Moira finishing up no longer human.

Gould was young, attractive, had enough glamour to make the plot workable. Only a previous date had spoiled it. In any case, Moira’s unshakable escort would have proved troublesome unless Gould escaped them by persuading her to invite him into her home. Perhaps that was what he had planned. The brief stream from Riley’s brain lacked data on this point.

“I couldn’t use it,” said Riley. “What should I have done with it? Masticate it?”

“You could have given it to your wife.”

Another picture came in response to that and confirmed what Harper had reluctantly taken for granted. Riley’s wife was no longer a wife. She was a living colony of fuzzy balls that had the urge to spread but were utterly indifferent to the sex of the host. By implication, that added one more datum to knowledge of the foe, namely, that a person could not be confiscated by means of sexual union with one of the possessed. The virus could not or preferred not to penetrate by osmosis; it needed direct entry from the suffused bloodstream to the new bloodstream.

“She doesn’t like to go by herself,” said Riley. “What are you griping about, anyway? Why should you care where Moira goes or what she does of an evening?”

And then,
“There’s something significant in this sudden concern for Moira. It smacks of deep suspicion. I don’t see how he can be suspicious. Either he actually knows or he doesn’t, and by the looks of it he does not know. ”