ron Goulart - Challengers of the Unknown (16 page)

Prof didn't go all the way elsewhere this time. But alien images came tumbling through his mind.

The bleak, misted landscape, the great black birds kiting through the muffled sky.

The torches, circling.

The temple awaiting him.

A creature different than the others, older, incredibly older. A robe of glistening crimson over its bent shoulders. Arms raised skyward.

The doorway.

Exile.

He didn't want to cross that threshold.

He did not want to leave his world and cross over to . . .

To here.

A hand came raking through the water, reaching for him.

Prof fired yet again.

The monster's arms went flapping up and then ...

It was no longer there.

"Beg pardon?" muttered Prof.

The water was agitated and bubbling at the place where the creature had been.

"Ace?"

"Yeah, I saw."

"I think I know what happened, though I'm not sure exactly how."

"Get yourself back in here now; we'll talk about it while we head for home."

Prof noticed he was swimming in aimless and widening circles. "He just simply disappeared," he said. "This stun weapon acted as a key for him; it opened the door on our side."

"Get back in here," ordered Ace.

"Maybe his exile is over," said Prof as he swam for the hatch. "And we end up without so much as a trophy for the mantel."

"It's a sad day for American espionage." Holden Chote plucked a red blossom from the flower bush at his elbow. "Two of my most trusted agents prove to be untrustworthy."

"Spying's that way," Ace told the NEA chief by way of consolation. "You pay people to spy, somebody comes along and offers them higher pay to spy for them."

Chote's porky nose wrinkled. "There's a good deal more than money to the espionage trade," he said. "I'm aware it's not currently fashionable to appear patriotic, but I joined the National Espionage Agency originally because I love America and want to serve her."

"Everybody isn't like you," Ace said from his wrought-iron chair. "Or have you noticed?"

"Denny Yewell in the pay of some kind of Nazi conspirators." Chote walked aimlessly around the garden of the Challenger's rented house in the Ereguayan capital. "And Alex Hentoff, too. What a truly bizarre turn of events."

"Don't forget PetroSur, and its parent company back in the States. They had a part in all this."

"That remains to be established."

"Does it?"

"I realize Alex is claiming PetroSur financed his disreputable activities. We need more than the word of a man such as he proved to be."

"Want us to investigate?"

"Save yourselves for the more supernatural problems that arise," the National Espionage man said.

Ace watched the plump man ramble around the walled garden. "You've been out to the .underground facility?"

"Earlier today, yes."

"The secret of the Escabar Process for holding back aging. Did you find the formula down there?"

"A very difficult question to answer, Ace."

"Meaning you found it but NEA and Washington want you to pretend you didn't."

"You can come to whatever conclusion you wish. I'll neither confirm nor deny."

"After you boys test out the formula, who gets to avail themselves of it?"

"If such a Process does exist, and if the formula is in the hands of the United States government, then it is up to that government to issue a statement as to the ultimate disposition of the matter."

"Well put," said Ace. "Have you ever considered signing on as somebody's press secretary?"

"You've chosen a different path in life," said Chote, circling a birdbath. "Therefore you're not compelled to do the things some of us have to do."

"Nobody's compelled to do anything."

"Easy for a Challenger to say. At any rate, I don't want to debate the issue further," said Chote as he

dropped his fingertips absently in the water of the birdbath. "You'll turn in, I take it, a full report on the monster?"

"Soon as we get back home."

Chote's head nodded slowly a few times. "When I assigned the Challengers of the Unknown to investigate the creature, I'd heard rumors there was more going on in the Lake Sombra area than the reappearance of a legendary monster. I'm pleased you cleared most of it up."

"This guy wasn't legendary."

Chote asked, "What do you think happened to the thing? Why did it suddenly vanish on you?"

"When Prof was out there in the depths of the lake of shadows struggling with it, he tuned in on the creature's mind apparently," said Ace. "Could be the thing did that to all its victims, hypnotized them and gave them a glimpse into its head. We don't know for sure, since Profs the only one who lived after a confrontation. Prof thinks, and I tend to go along with him, that our creature was an exile from some other world."

"Other world?" Chote blinked. "You mean a planet, like Mars or Venus?"

"He's not somebody our astronauts are likely to meet in the immediate future," Ace answered. "He may have come from another planet, a planet immeasurably far from our own world. Or he may have come from some other dimension, some unknown world which parallels our own."

Shaking his head, Chote dropped his hands to his sides. "They're never going to accept anything like that in Washington."

"Our creature was from a world even stranger than Washington." Ace grinned briefly. "He crossed some sort of threshold, found himself here. The type of gun we used on him helped him cross back to wherever it was he came from."

"Then it might come back?" "Might, though I somehow doubt it." "Well, I came by to thank you all for the help you gave us," said Chote. "Are the rest of the Challengers here? I'd like to congratulate each of them personally."

"Afraid not. I'm the only one at home," said Ace. "Everyone else is out trying to catch up on the vacations this assignment interrupted."

"Perhaps that's for the best," said Chote with a slight sigh. "I don't know how much good-natured kidding I could stand today."