Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell (66 page)

“You may voice it,” said Harper, trying to be lordly.

“To whom must I go to get the answers?”

“General Conway.”

“Jumping Jehoshaphat!” ejaculated Riley. He hitched his pants lest they fall down. “Is it
that
important?”

“Unfortunately, yes. And if they haven’t seen fit to give you the details I mustn’t do so either. If I told you all I’d usurp authority, and I’m given to understand it’s a dreadful thing to usurp authority. It’s the unforgivable sin. It breeds anarchy with all its attending features of godlessness, promiscuousness and every form of untaxable naughtiness. Compile your own list—you know more about the wicked.” He reached for another letter from the waiting pile. “Close the door gently as you go out. The glass won’t hold under more than another two of your assaults.”

“I could assault somebody right now,” Riley informed, showing big teeth. “Two burglaries, one hold-up and one case of arson last night. I’m supposed to dismiss them with a light laugh. I’m supposed to concentrate exclusively on looking for three guys named McDonald, Langley and Gould, and do it while robbed of four prowl cars. Nothing else matters but finding a trio of toughies against whom no criminal charge has been entered.”

“Nothing else matters,” Harper agreed.

Riley leaned closer and whispered, “Be a pal and tell me—what have they done?”

“Ask Conway.”

“Thanks for nothing.” Riley rattled the glass as he departed.

“Director of Research, Swain Laboratories, Trenton, N.J.,” Harper recited while Moira snatched at her pencil. “In response to your inquiry for slow-motion pneumatic micromanipulators suitable for use with type-Z electron microscopes, we have pleasure in quoting for our—” He glanced at the door which had opened. “Well?”

Agent Norris said, “We heard the conversation through the mike. What’s that police officer to you?”

“A friend. He thinks he’s entitled to my confidence.” He sniffed, rubbed his nose, added, “I think so too.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I know him of old. He’s to be trusted.”

“Make note of Harper’s friends and intimates,
" droned Norris’s mind, repeating orders in mistaken secrecy.
“They are to be thoroughly checked.”
Vocally, he informed, “We let him through to you, being who he is. But we were wondering why he should come out with such peremptory demands for an explanation. What is good enough for the Commissioner ought to be plenty good enough for him, shouldn’t it?”

“He’s in a privileged position so far as I’m concerned.”

“Are you sure he did not have an ulterior motive in cross-examining you?”

“I did not look to see. I don’t peer into everybody’s nut, regardless. Besides, I’m busy trying to rescue myself from imminent bankruptcy. What motive could he have?”

“You can guess as well as anyone else—except that you don’t have to guess,” said Norris. “In a situation such as this it’s wise to suspect everyone, including your own mother.”

He went out, joined Rausch in the machine-shop. Harper continued with his mail. When lunch-time arrived and Moira had gone out to eat, Harper summoned Norris to the office.

“Moira is a nice girl. She tops me by three inches because I’ve pulled both her legs so often that they’ve stretched. But we get along all right.”

“What’s this to me?” Norris asked.

“I wouldn’t like her to get hurt if she was around when a hatchet-man broke in. She’s another worm on the same hook and I’m not paying her for taking those risks.”

“You’re the one who’s supposed to warn us of an attack,” Norris pointed out. “Without you we’re working blind.”

“I know. But I’m not holding her hand twenty-four hours per day. Do you suppose it might be best to get rid of her for a while? How about me sending her on paid leave until this affair is over?”

“No. You can play your part only by sticking to normal routine. Make enough changes and a trap starts looking like a trap.”

“They might jump her outside, hoping to use her to get at me. It wouldn’t work, thank God. I’d know what was coming before it got here. Yet I’d hate to turn the guns on her because she’d ceased to be Moira any more. What’s done can’t be undone. I’d like to prevent the doing in the first place.”

“She must take her chances the same as everybody else,” said Norris impassively. “It’s no worse for one than for another.”

“It is worse,” Harper contradicted, “because one’s more likely to be picked on than another. I’d be happier if she had a guard, day and night.”

“She has. We tied a couple of men on to her at the start. Same applies to your other employees. We’ve covered all your regular contacts as well. If anyone tries the tactic of approaching you in familiar form they’re going to have a hard time finding one suitable and fancy free.”

“I could find one any minute,” Harper declared.

Norris jerked an eyebrow. “Somebody not under continual observation?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s your duty to tell me.”

“An agent,” said Harper. “Any agent. Who is watching the watchers?”

“That problem is beyond solution. Our men are working in pairs already. We could group them in threes, fours, tens or twenties and find it not enough. The line has to be drawn somewhere between the desirable and the performable. They’re operating in pairs, and that makes it impossible for one man to be taken by himself.”

“So they must be confiscated two at a time?”

“If that can be done.”

“The enemy can do anything that human beings can do. For all I know to the contrary they can also do one or two things that we can’t.”

“We’ll see about that,” promised Norris.

The fourth successive day of ordinary, uneventful business routine found Harper bored with playing bait for fish that apparently had ceased to exist. His chosen role didn’t seem such a bright idea after all. Perhaps he had based it on a grossly exaggerated sense of his own importance. Perhaps Venusian plans already had developed far enough to remove fear of premature detection. Perhaps they’d become sufficiently well established no longer to care a damn for Harper or any of his ilk.

Meanwhile he had become fed up with being followed wherever he went, finding G-men lounging at every street corner, occupying nearby tables in restaurants, standing beside him in comfort stations, breathing down his neck at the theater, mooching outside his bedroom night-times. The price of human liberty was to sacrifice his own.

Monotony was broken and faith in his purpose restored when he arrived at the office early, spread the morning paper across his desk and found a news item tucked away at bottom of a column inside.

Savannah, GA. A brief but bloody gun-battle took place near here at midnight when F.B.I. agents raided the Rankovic farm. Two men were killed, four taken into custody. Two more are believed to have escaped. Declining to reveal the purpose of the raid, Area Director Stephen Maddox states that the F.B.I. acted upon direct orders from Washington.

It was a most unusual report in several respects. For one, it had been played down. For another, the precise location was not stated and no names were mentioned other than that of Maddox. Lastly, this fight had occurred when all forces of law and order were engaged in one task and one only. Obviously, therefore, the incident had some bearing on the main issue.

This was confirmed ten minutes later when Jameson phoned long distance. “Seen the news?”

“I’ve just been reading it.”

“It should have been on the dawn radiocast but we kept it off. We’re having a heck of a time persuading news services to minimize such items. Naturally they want to know why and we can’t tell them.”

“What happened?” asked Harper, watching the other’s face in the visiscreen.

“I can’t say too much even on an officially cleared line. In brief, one of our men picked up Langley’s trail, followed it to the Rankovic farm. Langley must have moved out during the short lapse of time between our man’s report and the raid. Anyway, we didn’t get him. The fox had bolted, leaving the hole still warm.”

“More’s the pity.”

“Two are dead. Their bodies are being shipped out for examination,” Jameson went on. “Of the four we captured three emphatically deny that they took any active part in the battle. They say they merely happened to be in the house when the shooting started and took cover until it ended. We’ve given them the paraffin test and the result is negative.”

“What about the fourth?”

“He’s brother of one of the casualties. Says he was in bed, woke up when the ruckus started. Pulled on his pants and ran downstairs, joined his brother and another guy in slinging slugs out the windows. He swears that none of them knew they were firing upon the law.”

“Sounds plausible,” commented Harper.

“He gave up when tear-gas got him. By that time the other two were going cold. All four captives recognize Langley’s picture, know nothing about him except that he’d been rooming there a couple of days and left at ten-forty or not much more than an hour before the raid.”

“Almost seems as if he’d been tipped off.”

“He couldn’t possibly have been. He was just plain lucky. Anyhow, I’ve not called merely to tell you the story. There’s more to it than that. When we made the raid we surrounded the place, knocked and demanded entry. Somebody fired back through the door. Therefore, although Langley wasn’t present, it made little difference—the house still concealed someone anxious not to be grabbed. What does that suggest to you?”

“Langley had made himself a pal.”

“Yes, and he may have made himself more than one. Some fellow named Waggoner pulled out same time as Langley. We know nothing about him except that he and Langley are teamed up. We have a good description and, of course, the search is continuing for both.”

“You learned nothing about the other two?” Harper asked.

“McDonald and Gould? No, not in that locality. They appear to have split up. They’re trying to make it harder for us by keeping apart.” He paused while the screen showed him to be consulting a document below the level of the distant scanner. “I want these four captives put to the test without delay. They may not be what they appear to be."

“Want me to come there?”

“No. It would spoil that set-up at your end. We're flying the four to you. Give them the penetrating eye and say whether they are or they aren’t.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Thanks a lot. There’s something else too. So far nobody has taken a bite at your buttocks. As you said yourself, it all depends on whether they knew the identity of that girl and whether or not the filling station murder was a coincidence. To date we have no evidence to show that they actually know they’re being sought or that they know we have learned of the ship’s return. So it’s—”

“Has the ship been found yet?” interjected Harper.

“Not a sign of it. It couldn’t have been destroyed beyond recognition; a professional breaking-up yard with gas-cutters and furnaces would take a month to get rid of that mass of metal. Latest theory is that it’s concealed somewhere in sub-Arctic wastes or has been dumped in the ocean. The latter seems the more likely. In that case the crew must have got ashore by using their rubber raft. We're raking the coasts in effort to discover it.”

“Well, it’s an idea. What were you saying about nobody biting me?”

“I was pointing out that up to last night they may not have known for sure that the hunt is already in full cry. But the newspaper yap specifically mentioning the Rankovic farm could be a giveaway if Langley reads it. We tried to persuade the press to leave it alone or at least suppress the name of the farm. For our pains we got a bleat about freedom of speech and liberty of publication. There’s now a fair chance that the fugitives are no longer basking in a sense of false security. They may look into the question of what ended it and belatedly trace the cause to you. You’d do well to be extra-wary from now on.”

“I’ll tell Norris,” said Harper. “He’s my nursemaid.”

“There’s no need to. If he isn’t actually listening-in he’ll soon be informed by somebody who is listening. All your calls are being monitored.”

“Solely
as a measure of protection?” inquired Harper.

“Yes,” said Jameson, without hesitation. He cut off. The visiscreen clouded, went blank.

“Lousy liar!” Harper glowered at the wall. “They are more bothered about my big ears than my whole skin.”

The suspected quartet arrived a few minutes before the office was due to close. Norris lined them up in the machine-shop where they stood manacled together, staring around, openly puzzled by their presence in such a place as this. Half a dozen agents shared their company and watched them narrow-eyed.

Norris went into the office and said, “They’re here. How about it?”

“No luck,” Harper told him. “They are normal enough to be downright dull.”

“Okay.” He went out, came back. “I’ve had three of them taken away. Jameson wants your report on the remaining guy. He admits taking part in the shooting, claims that he didn’t realize what he was doing. Is he telling the truth?”

Shoving aside the papers with which he’d been dealing, Harper appeared to lay back while he pondered the question. He listened, picked up a worry that nagged like toothache but failed to provide an answer. So he probed, drove the mind in the other room away from its present anxiety and on to the recent cause.

“It’s true enough. He got a scare that sent him into a panic.”

“That’s all we want to know.”

Harper watched him depart, sighed deeply, slid the papers into a drawer and looked at his watch. It was time to call it a day.

At three o’clock the following afternoon the elusive foe put in its first appearance. Harper was taking it easy just then, his chair tilted on its back legs, his feet on the rim of the desk, his mind wide open as idly he watched Moira sorting invoices.

His mental faculty had two distinct methods of functioning which he liked to symbolize as radio and radar. When he was playing at radio he merely listened and put up with whatever programs were being broadcast in the vicinity. If he switched to radar he transmitted a pulse of his own which stimulated some other mind into producing a required response.