diameter, domed with a double layer of controlled quartz that could give graded
illumination from full to total darkness including monochrome light to within
one tenth of an angstrom. Now, at noon, the sunlight was modulated slightly so
that it flooded the tables and benches, the crystal and silver apparatus, the
cover-alled workers with a gentle peach radiance.
"Shall we stroll?" Powell suggested pleasantly.
"I haven't much time, Mr. Powell, but..." Jordan hesitated.
"Of course not. Very kind of you to give us an hour, but we need you
desperately."
"If it's anything to do with D'Courtney," Jordan began.
"Who? Oh yes. The murder. Whatever put that into your mind?"
"I've been hounded," Jordan said grimly.
"I assure you, Dr. Jordan. We're asking for research guidance, not information
on a murder case. What's murder to a scientist? We're not interested."
Jordan unfolded a little. "Very true. You have only to look at this laboratory
to realize that."
"Shall we tour?" Powell took Jordan's arm. To the entire laboratory he
broadcast: "Stand by, peepers! We're pulling a fast one."
Without interrupting their work, the lab technicians responded with loud
raspberries. And amid a hail of derisory images came the raucous cry of a
backbiter: "Who stole the weather, Powell?" This apparently referred to an
obscure episode in Dishonest Abe's lurid career which no one had ever succeeded
in peeping, but which never failed to make Powell blush. It did not fail now. A
silent cackle filled the room.
"No. This is serious, peepers. My whole case hangs on something I've got to coax
out of this man."
Instantly the silent cackle was stilled.
"This is Dr. Wilson Jordan," Powell announced. "He specializes in visual
physiology and he's got information I want him to volunteer. Lets make him feel
paternal. Please fake obscure visual problems and beg for help. Make him talk."
They came by ones, by twos, in droves. A red-headed researcher, actually working
on a problem of a transistor which would record the TP impulse, hastily invented
the fact that TP optical transmission was astigmatic and humbly requested
enlightenment. A pair of pretty girls, engrossed in the infuriating dead-end of
long range telepathic communication, demanded of Dr. Jordan why transmission of
visual images always showed color aberration, which it did not. The Japanese
team, experts on the extra sensory Node, center of TP perceptivity, insisted
that the Node was in curcuit with the Optic Nerve (it wasn't within two
millimeters of same) and besieged Dr. Jordan with polite hissings and specious
proofs.
At 1:00 P.M., Powell said: "I'm sorry to interrupt, Doctor, but your hour is
finished and you've got important business to---"
"Quite all right. Quite all right," Jordan interrupted. "Now my dear doctor, if
you would try a transaction of the optic---" &c.
At 1:30 P.M., Powell gave the time-signal again. "It's half past one. Dr.
Jordan. You jet at five. I really think---"
"Plenty of time. Plenty of time. Women and rockets, you know. There's always
another. The fact is, my dear sir, your admirable work contains one significant
flaw. You have never checked the living Node with a vital dye. Ehrlich Rot,
perhaps, or Gentian Violet. I would suggest..." &c.
At 2:00 P.M., a buffet luncheon was served without interrupting the feast of
reason.
At 2:30 P.M., Dr. Jordan, flushed and ecstatic, confessed that he loathed the
idea of being rich on Callisto. No scientists there. No meetings of the minds.
Nothing on the level of this extraordinary seminar.
At 3:00 P.M., he confided to Powell how he had inherited his foul estate. Seemed
that Craye D'Courtney originally owned it. The old Reich (Ben's father) must
have swindled it one way or another, and placed it in his wife's name. When she
died, it went to her son. That thief Ben Reich must have had conscience qualms
for he threw it into open court, and by some legal hokey-pokey Wilson Jordan
came up with it.
"And he must have plenty more on his conscience," Jordan said. "The things I saw
when I worked for him! But all financiers are crooks. Don't you agree?"
"I don't think that's true of Ben Reich," Powell replied, striking the noble
note. "I rather admire him."
"Of course. Of course," Jordan agreed hastily. "After all, he does have a
conscience. That's admirable indeed. I wouldn't want him to think that I---"
"Naturally." Powell became a fellow-conspirator and captivated Jordan with a
grin. "As fellow scientists we can deplore; but as men of the world we can only
praise."
"You do understand." Jordan shook Powell's hand effusively.
And at 4:00 P.M., Dr. Jordan informed the genuflecting Japanese that he would
gladly volunteer his most secret work on Visual Purple to these fine youngsters
to aid them in their own research. He was handing on the torch to the next
generation. His eyes moistened and his throat choked with sentiment as he spent
twenty minutes carefully describing the Rhodopsin Ionizer he had developed for
Monarch.
At 5:00 P.M., the Guild scientists escorted Dr. Jordan by launch to his Callisto
Rocket. They filled his stateroom with gifts and flowers; they filled his ears
with grateful testimonials, and he accelerated toward Jupiter's IVth Satellite
with the pleasant knowledge that he had materially benefited science and never
betrayed that fine and generous patron, Mr. Benjamin Reich.
Barbara was in the living room on all-fours, crawling energetically. She had
just been fed and her face was eggy.
"Hajajajajaja," she said. "Haja."
"Mary! Come quick! She's talking!"
"No!" Mary ran in from the kitchen. "What'd she say?"
"She called me Dada."
"Haja," said Barbara. "Hajajajahajaja."
Mary blasted him with scorn. "She said nothing of the kind. She said Haja." She
returned to the kitchen.
"She meant Dada. Is it her fault if she's too young to articulate?" Powell knelt
alongside Barbara. "Say Dada, baby. Dada? Dada? Say Dada."
"Haja," Barbara replied with an enchanting drool.
Powell gave it up. He went down past the conscious level to the preconscious.
Hello, Barbara.
"You again?"
Remember me?
"I don't know."
Sure you do. I'm the guy who pries into your private little turmoil down here.
We fight it out together.
"Just the two of us?"
Just the two of us. Do you know who you are? Would you like to know why you're
buried way down here in this solitary existence?
"I don't know. Tell me."
Well, dear infant, once upon a time you were like this before... an entity
merely existing. Then you were born. You had a mother and a father. You grew up
into a lovely girl with blonde hair and dark eyes and a sweet graceful figure.
You traveled from Mars to earth with your father and you were---
"No. There's no one but you. Just the two of us together in the darkness."
There was your father, Barbara.
"There was no one. There is no one else."
I'm sorry dear. I'm really sorry, but we must go through the agony again.
There's something I have to see.
"No. No... please. It's just the two of us alone together. Please, dear
spook..."
It'll be just the two of us together, Barbara. Stay close, dear. There was your
father in the other room... the orchid room... and suddenly we heard
something... Powell took a deep breath and cried: "Help, Barbara. Help---"
And they whipped upright in a listening attitude. Sensation of bedclothes. Cool
floor under running feet and the endless corridor until at last they burst
through the door into the orchid room and screamed and dodged the startled grasp
of Ben Reich while he raised something to father's mouth. Raised what? Hold that
image. Photograph it. Christ! That horrible muffled explosion. The back of the
head burst out and the loved, the adored, the worshipped figure crumpling
unbelievably, tearing at their hearts while they moaned and crawled across the
floor to snatch a malignant steel flower from the waxen---
"Get up, Linc! For heaven's sake!"
Powell found himself dragged to his feet by Mary Noyes. The air was crackling
with indignation.
"Can't I leave you alone for a minute? Idiot!"
"Have I been kneeling here long, Mary?"
"At least a half hour. I came in and found you two like this..."
"I got what I was after. It was a gun, Mary. An ancient explosive weapon. Clear
picture. Take a look..."
"Mmmm. That's a gun?"
"Yes."
"Where'd Reich get it? Museum?"
"I don't think so. I'm going to play a long shot. Kill two birds. Leave me at
the phone..."
Powell lurched to the phone and dialed BD-12,232. Presently, Church's twisted
face appeared on the screen.
"Hi, Jerry."
"Hello... Powell." Cautious. Guarded.
"Did Gus Tate buy a gun from you, Jerry?"
"Gun?"
"Explosive weapon. XXth Century style. Used in the D'Courtney murder."
"No!"
"Yes indeed. I think Gus Tate is our killer, Jerry. I was wondering if he bought
the gun from you. I'd like to bring the picture of the gun over and check it
with you." Powell hesitated and then stressed the next words gently: "It'd be a
big help, Jerry, and I'll be extremely appreciative. Extremely. Wait for me.
I'll be up in half an hour."
Powell hung up. He looked at Mary. Image of an eye winking. "That ought to give
little Gus time to hustle over to Church's place."
"Why Gus? I thought Ben Reich was---" She caught the picture Powell had sketched
in at @kins' house. "Oh. I see. It's a trap for both Tate and Church. Church
sold the gun to Reich."
"Maybe. It's a long-shot. But he does run a hock-shop, and that's next door to a
museum."
"And Tate helped Reich use the gun on D'Courtney? I don't believe it."
"Almost a certainty, Mary."
"So you're playing one against the other."
"And both against Reich. We've failed on the Objective Level all the way down
the line. From here on in it's got to be peeper tricks or I'm through."
"But suppose you can't play them against Reich? What if they call Reich in?"
"They can't. We lured Reich out of town. Scared Keno Quizzard into running for
his life, and Reich's out somewhere trying to cut him off and gag him."
"You really are a thief, Linc. I bet you did steal the weather."
"No," he said. "Dishonest Abe did." He blushed, kissed Mary, kissed Barbara
D'Courtney, blushed again and left the house in confusion.
11
The pawnshop was in darkness. A single lamp burned on the counter, sending out
its sphere of soft light. As the three men spoke, they leaned in and out of the
illumination, their faces and gesticulating hands suddenly appearing and
disappearing in staccato eclipses.
"No," Powell said sharply. "I didn't come here to peep anybody. I'm sticking to
straight talk. You two peepers may consider it an insult to have words addressed
to you. I consider it evidence of good faith. While I'm talking. I'm not
peeping."
"Not necessarily," Tate answered. His gnome face popped into the light. "You've
been known to finesse, Powell."
"Not now. Check me. What I want from you two, I want objectively. I'm working on
a murder. Peeping isn't going to do me any good."
"What do you want, Powell?" Church cut in.
"You sold a gun to Gus Tate."
"The hell he did." Tate said.
"Then why are you here?"
"Am I supposed to take an outlandish accusation like that lying down?"
"Church called you because he sold you the gun and he knows how it was used."
Church's face appeared. "I sold no gun, peeper, and I don't know how any gun was
used. That's my objective evidence. Eat it."
"Oh, I'll eat it," Powell chuckled. "I know you didn't sell the gun to Gus. You
sold it to Ben Reich."
Tate's face came back into the light. "Then why'd you---"
"Why?" Powell stared into Tate's eyes. "To get you here for a talk, Gus. Let it
wait a minute. I want to finish with Jerry." He turned toward Church. "You had
the gun, Jerry. It's the kind of thing you would have. Reich came here for it.
It's the only place he could come. You did business together before. I haven't
forgotten the Chaos Swindle..."
"God damn you!" Church shouted.
"It swindled you out of the Guild." Powell continued. "You risked and lost
everything for Reich... just because he asked you to peep and squeal on four
members of the Stock Exchange. He made a million out of that swindle... just by
asking a dumb peeper for a favor."
"He paid for that favor!" Church cried.
"And now all I'm asking for is the gun," Powell answered quietly.
"Are you offering to pay?"
"You know me better than that, Jerry. I threw you out of the Guild because I'm
mealy-mouthed Preacher Powell, didn't I? Would I make a shady offer?"
"Then what are you paying for the gun?"
"Nothing, Jerry. You'll have to trust me to do the fair thing; but I'm making no
promises."
"I've got a promise," Church muttered.
"You do? Ben Reich, probably. He's long on promise. Sometimes he's short on