Conceive of a camera with a lens distorted into wild astigmatism so that it can only photograph the same picture over and over---the scene that twisted it into shock. Conceive of a bit of recording crystal, traumatically warped so that it can only reproduce the same fragment of music over and over, the one terrifying phrase it cannot forget.
“She's in a state of Hysterical Recall,” Dr. Jeems ofKingstonHospital explained to Powell and Mary Noyes in the living room of Powell's house. “She responds to the key word `help' and relives one terrifying experience...”
“The death of her father,” Powell said.
“Oh? I see. Outside of that... Catatonia.”
“Permanent?” Mary Noyes asked.
Young Doctor Jeems looked surprised and indignant. He was one of the brighter young men ofKingstonHospital despite the fact that he was not a peeper, and was fanatically devoted to his work. “In this day and age? Nothing is permanent except physical death, Miss Noyes, and up atKingston we've started working on that. Investigating death from the symptomatic point of view, we've actually---”
“Later, Doctor,” Powell interrupted. “No lectures tonight. We've got work. Can I use the girl?”
“Use her how?”
“Peep her.”
Jeems considered. “No reason why not. I gave her the Déjà Èprouvé Series for catatonia. That shouldn't get in the way.”
“The Déjà Èprouvé Series?” Mary asked.
“A great new treatment,” Jeems said excitedly. “Developed by Gart... one of your peepers. Patient goes into catatonia. It's an escape. Flight from reality. The conscious mind cannot face the conflict between the external world and its own unconscious. It wishes it had never been born. It attempts to revert back to the foetal stage. You understand?”
Mary nodded. “So far.”
“All right. Déjà Èprouvé is an old XIXth Century psychiatric term. Literally, it means: `something already experienced, already tried.' Many patients wish for something so strongly that finally the wish makes them imagine that the act or the experience in which they never engaged has already happened. Get it?”
“Wait a minute,” Mary began slowly. “You mean I---”
“Put it this way,” Jeems interrupted briskly. “Pretend you had a burning wish to... oh, say, to be married to Powell and have a family. Right?”
Mary flushed. In a rigid voice she said: “Right.” For a moment Powell yearned to blast this well-meaning clumsy young normal.
“Well,” Jeems continued in blithe ignorance. “If you lost your balance you might come to believe that you'd married Powell and had three children. That would be Déjà Èprouvé. Now what we do is synthesize an artificial Déjà Èprouvé for the patient. We make the catatonic wish to escape come true. We make the experience they desire actually happen. We dissociate the mind from the lower levels, send it back to the womb, and let it pretend it's being born to a new life all over again. Got that?”
“Got it.” Mary tried to smile as her control returned.
“On the surface of the mind... in the conscious level... the patient goes through development all over again at an accelerated rate. Infancy, childhood, adolescence, and finally maturity.”
“You mean Barbara D'Courtney is going to be a baby... learn to speak... walk... ?”
“Right. Right. Right. Takes about three weeks. By the time she catches up with herself, she'll be ready to accept the reality she's trying to escape. She'll have grown up to it, so to speak. Like I said, this is only on the conscious level. Below that, she won't be touched. You can peep her all you like. Only trouble is... she must be pretty scared down there. Mixed up. You'll have trouble getting what you want. Of course, that's your specialty. You'll know what to do.”
Jeems stood up abruptly. “Got to get back to the shop.” He made for the front door. “Delighted to be of service. Always delighted to be called in by peepers. I can't understand the recent hostility toward you people...” He was gone.
“Ummm. That was a significant parting note.”
“What'd he mean, Linc?”
“Our great & good friend, Ben Reich. Reich's been backing an Anti-Esper campaign. You know... peepers are clannish, can't be trusted, never become patriots. Interplanetary conspirators, eat littleNormal babies, &c.”
“Ugh! And he's supporting the League of Patriots too. He's a disgusting, dangerous man.”
“Dangerous but not disgusting, Mary. He's got charm. That's what makes him doubly dangerous. People always expect villains to look villainous. Well, maybe we can take care of Reich before it's too late. Bring Barbara down, Mary.”
Mary brought the girl downstairs and seated her on the low dais. Barbara sat like a calm statue. Mary had dressed her in blue leotards and combed her blonde hair back, tying it into a fox-tail with blue ribbon. Barbara was polished and shining; a lovely waxwork loll.
“Lovely outside; mangled inside. Damn Reich!”
“What about him?”
“I told you, Mary. I was so mad at Chooka Frood's coop, I handed it to that red slug Quizzard and his wife... And when I peeped Reich upstairs, I threw it in his teeth. I---”
“What did you do to Quizzard?”
“Basic Neuro-Shock. Come up to the Lab sometime and we'll show you. It's new. If you make 1st we'll teach you. It's like the scrambler but psychogenic.”
“Fatal?”
“Forgotten the Pledge? Of course not.”
“And you peeped Reich through the floor? How?”
“TP reflection. The Voyeur Chamber wasn't wired for sound. It had open acoustical ducts. Reich's mistake. He was transmitting down the channel and I swear I was hoping he had the guts to shoot. I was going to blast him with a Basic that would have made Case History.”
“Why didn't he shoot?”
“I don't know, Mary. I don't know. He thought he had every reason to kill us. He thought he was safe... Didn't know about the Basic, even though Quizzard's Decline & Fall jolted him... But he couldn't.”
“Afraid?”
“Reich's no coward. He wasn't afraid. He just couldn't. I don't know why. Maybe next time it'll be different. That's why I'm keeping Barbara D'Courtney in my house. She'll be safe here.”..
“She'll be safe inKingstonHospital .”
“But not quiet enough for the work I've go to do.”
“?”
“She's got the detailed picture of the murder locked up in her hysteria. I've got to get at it... piece by piece. When I've got it, I've got Reich.”
Mary arose. “Exit Mary Noyes.”
“Sit down, peeper! Why d'you think I called you? You're staying here with the girl. She can't be left alone. You two can have my bedroom. I'll convert the study for myself.”
“Choke it, Linc. Don't jet off like that. You're embarrassed. Let's see if I can't maybe thread-needle through that mind block.”
“Listen---”
“No you don't, Mr. Powell.” Mary burst into laughter. “So that's it. You want me for a chaperone. Victorian word, isn't? So are you, Linc. Positively atavistic.”
“I brand that as a lie. In toffy circles I'm known as the most progressive---”
“And what's that image? Oh. Knights of the Round Table. Sir Galahad Powell. And there's something underneath that. I---” Suddenly she stopped laughing and turned pale.
“What'd you dig?”
“Forget it.”
“Oh, come on, Mary.”
“Forget it, Linc. And don't peep me for it. If you can't reach it yourself, you'd better not get it secondhand. Especially from me.”
He looked at her curiously for a moment, then shrugged. “All right, Mary. Then we'd better go to work.”
To Barbara D'Courtney he said: “Help, Barbara.”
Instantly she whipped upright on the dais in a listening attitude, and he probed delicately... Sensation of bedclothes... Voice calling dimly... Whose voice, Barbara? Deep in the preconscious she answered: “Who is that?” A friend, Barbara. “There's no one. No one. I'm alone.” And she was alone, racing down a corridor to thrust a door open and burst into an orchid room to see---”What, Barbara?” “A man. Two men.” Who? “Go away. Please go away. I don't like voices. There's a voice screaming. Screaming in my ears...” And she was screaming while instincts of terror made her dodge from a dim figure that clutched at her to keep her from her father. She turned and circled... What is your father doing, Barbara? “He---No. You don't belong here. There's only the three of us. Father and me and---” And the dim figure caught her. A flash of his face. No more. Look again, Barbara. Sleek head. Wide eyes. Small chiselled nose. Small sensitive mouth. Like a scar. Is that the man? Look at the picture. Is that the man? “Yes. Yes. Yes.” And then all was gone.
And she was kneeling again, placid, doll-like, dead.
Powell wiped perspiration from his face and took the girl back to the dais. He was badly shaken... worse than Barbara D'Courtney. Hysteria cushioned the emotional impact for her. He had nothing. He was reliving her terror, her horror, her torture, naked and unprotected.
“It was Ben Reich, Mary. Did you get the picture, too?”
“Couldn't stay in long enough, Linc. Had to run for cover.”
“It was Reich; all right. Only question is, how in hell did he kill her father? What did he use? Why didn't old D'Courtney put up a fight to defend himself? Have to try again. I hate to do this to her...”
“I hate you to do this to yourself.”
“Have to.” He took a deep breath and said: “Help, Barbara.”
Again she whipped upright on the dais in a listening attitude. He slipped in quickly. Gently, dear. Not so fast. There's plenty of time. “You again?” Remember, me, Barbara? “No, No, I don't know you. Get out.” But I'm part of you, Barbara. We're running down the corridor together. See? We're opening the door together. It's so much easier, together. We help each other. “We?” Yes, Barbara, you andI. “But why don't you help me now?” How can I, Barbara? “Look at father! Help me stop him. Stop him. Stop him. Help me scream. Help me! For pity's sake, help me!”
She knelt again, placid, doll-like, dead.
Powell felt a hand under his arm and realized he was not supposed to be kneeling too. The body before him slowly disappeared; the orchid room disappeared, and Mary Noyes was straining to raise him.
“You first this time,” she said grimly.
He shook his head and tried to help Barbara D'Courtney. He fell to the floor.
“All right, Sir Galahad. Cool a while.”
Mary raised the girl and led her to the dais. Then she returned to Powell. “Ready for help now, or don't you think it's manly?”
“The word is virile. Don't waste your time trying to help me up. I need brain power. We're in trouble.”
“What'd you peep?”
“D'Courtney wanted to be murdered.”
“No!”
“Yep. He wanted to die. For all I know he may have committed suicide in front of Reich. Barbara's recall is confused. That point's got to be cleared up. I'll have to see D'Courtney's physician.”
“That's Sam @kins. He and Sally went back to Venus last week.”
“Then I'll have to make the trip. Do I have time to catch theten o'clock rocket? Call Idlewild.”
Sam @kins, E.M.D. 1, received Cr. 1,000 per hour of analysis. The public knew that Sam earned two million credits per year, but it did not know that Sam was efficiently killing himself with charity work. @kins was one of the burning lights of the Guild long-range education plan, and leader of the Environment Clique which believed that telepathic ability was not a congenital characteristic, but rather a latent quality of every living organism which could be developed by suitable training.
As a result, Sam's desert house in the brilliant aridMesa outside Venusburg was overrun by charity cases. He invited everyone in the low income brackets to trek their problems out to him, and while he was solving them, he was carefully attempting to foster telepathy in his patients. Sam's reasoning was quite simple. If, say, peeping were a question of developing unused muscles, it might well be that the majority of people had been too lazy or lacked opportunity to do so. But when a man is caught up in the press of a crisis, he can not afford to be lazy; and Sam was there to offer opportunity and training. So far, his results had been the discovery of 2% Latent Espers, which was under the average of the Guild Institute interviews. Sam remained undiscouraged.
Powell found him charging through the rock garden of his desert home vigorously destroying desert flowers under the impression that he was cultivating, and conducting simultaneous conversations with a score of depressed people who followed him about like puppies. The perpetual clouds of Venus radiated dazzling light. Sam's bald head was burned pink. He was snorting and shouting at plants and patients alike.
“Damn it! Don't you tell me that's a Glow-wart. It's a weed. Don't I know a weed when I see it? Hand me the rake, Bernard.”
A small man in black handed him the rake and said: “My name is Walter, Dr. @kins.”
“And that's your whole trouble,” @kins grunted, tearing out a clump of rubbery red. It changed colors in prismatic hysteria and emitted a plaintive wail which proved it was neither weed nor Glow-wart but the disconcerting Pussy-Willow of Venus.
@kins eyed it with disfavor, watching the collapsing air-bladders cry. Then he glared at the small man. “Semantic escape, Bernard. You live in terms of the label, not the object. It's your escape from reality. What are you running away from, Bernard?”
“I was hoping you'd tell me, Dr. @kins,” Walter replied.
Powell stood quietly, enjoying the spectacle. It was like an illustration from a primitive Bible. Sam, an ill-tempered Messiah, glowering at his humble disciples. Around them the glittering silica stones of the rock-garden, crawling with the dry motley-colored Venus plants. Overhead, the blinding nacre glow; and in the background, as far as the eye could reach, the red, purple, and violet Bad-Lands of the planet.
@kins snorted at Walter/Bernard: “You remind me of the redhead. Where is that make-believe courtesan anyway?”
A pretty red-headed girl jostled through the crowd and smirked: “Here I am, Dr. @kins.”
“Well, don't preen yourself, because I labelled you.” @kins frowned at her and continued on the TP level: “You're delighted with yourself because you're a woman, aren't you? It's your substitute for living. It's your phantasy. ` I'm a woman,' you tell yourself. `Therefore, men desire me. It's enough to know that thousands of men could have me if I'd let them. That makes me real.' Nonsense! You can't escape that way. Sex isn't make-believe. Life isn't make-believe. Virginity isn't an apotheosis.”
@kins waited impatiently for a response, but the girl merely smirked and postured before him. Finally he burst out: “Didn't any of you hear what I told her?”
“I did, teacher.”
“LincolnPowell! No! What are you doing here? Where'd you sneak up from?”
“From Terra, Sam. Came for a consultation and can't stay long. Got to jet back on the next rocket.”
“Couldn't you phone Interplanetary?”
“It's complicated, Sam. Has to be done peeper-wise. It's the D'Courtney case.”
“Oh. Ah. Hm. Right. Be with you in a minute. Go get something to drink,” @kins let out a warning blast. “SALLY. COMPANY.”
One of @kins' flock unaccountably flinched and Sam turned on the man excitedly. “You heard that, didn't you?”
“No sir. I didn't hear anything.”
“Yes you did. You picked up a TP broadcast.”
“No, Dr. @kins.”
“Then why did you jump?”
“A bug bit me.”
“It did not,” @kins roared. “There are no bugs in my garden. You heard me yell to my wife.” And then he began a frightful racket. “YOU CAN ALL HEAR ME. DON'T SAY YOU CAN'T. DON'T YOU WANT TO BE HELPED? ANSWER ME. GO AHEAD. ANSWER ME!”
Powell found Sally @kins in the cool, spacious living room of the house. The ceiling was open to the sky. It never rained on Venus. A plastic dome was enough to provide shade from the sky that blazed through the seven hundred hour-long Venus day. And when the seven hundred hour night began its deadly chill, the @kinses simply packed up and returned to their heated city-unit in Venusburg. Everyone on Venus lived in thirty-day cycles.
Sam came bouncing into the living room and engulfed a quart of ice-water. “Ten credits down the drain, black market,” he shot at Powell. “You know that? We've got a water black market on Venus. And what the devil are the police doing about it? Never mind, Linc. I know it's out of your jurisdiction. What's with D'Courtney?”
Powell presented the problem. Barbara D'Courtney's hysterical recall of the death of her father was susceptible of two interpretations. Either Reich had killed D'Courtney, or merely been a witness to D'Courtney's suicide. Old Man Mose would insist on that being cleared up.
“I see. The answer is yes. D'Courtney was suicidal.”
“Suicidal? How?”
“He was crumbling. His adaptation pattern was shattering. He was regressing under emotional exhaustion and on the verge of self-destruction. That's why I rushed over to Terra to cut him off.”
“Hmmm. That's a blow, Sam. Then he could have blown the back of his head out, eh?”
“What? Blown the back of his head out?”
“Yes. Here's the picture. We don't know what the weapon was, but---”
“Wait a minute. Now I can give you something definite. If D'Courtney died that way he certainly did not commit suicide.”
“Why not?”
“Because he had a poison fixation. He was set on killing himself with narcotics. You know suicides, Linc. Once they've fixed on a particular form of death, they never change it. D'Courtney must have been murdered.”
“Now we're jetting places, Sam. Tell me, why was D'Courtney set on suicide by poison?”
“You supposed to be funny? If I knew, he wouldn't have been. I'm not too happy about all this, Powell. Reich turned my case into a failure. I could have saved D'Courtney. I---”
“You made any guesses why D'Courtney's pattern was crumbling?”
“Yes. He was trying to take drastic action to escape deep guilt sensations.”
“Guilt about what?”
“His child.”
“Barbara? How? Why?”
“I don't know. He was fighting irrational symbols of abandonment... desertion... shame... loathing... cowardice. We were going to work on that. That's all I know.”
“Could Reich have figured and counted on all this? That's something Old Man Mose is going to fuss about. When we present him the case.”
“Reich might have guessed---No. Impossible. He'd need expert help to---”
“Hold it, Sam. You've got something hidden under that. I'd like to get it if I can...”
“Go ahead. I'm wide open.”
“Don't try to help me. You're just mixing everything. Easy, now... association with festivity... • party... conversation at---my party. Last month. Gus Tate, an expert himself, but needing help on a similar patient of his own, he said. If Tate needed help, you reasoned, Reich certainly would need help.” Powell was so upset he spoke aloud. “Well how about that peeper!”
“How about what?”
“Gus Tate was at theBeaumont party the night D'Courtney was killed. He came with Reich, but I kept hoping---”
“Linc, I don't believe it!”
“Neither did I, but there it is. Little Gus Tate was Reich's expert. Little Gus laid it out for him. He pumped you and turned his information over to a killer. Good old Gus. What price the Esper Pledge now?”
“What price Demolition!” @kins answered fiercely.
From somewhere inside the house came an announcement from Sally @kins: “Linc. Phone.”
“Hell! Mary's the only one who knows I'm here. Hope nothing's happened to the D'Courtney girl.”
Powell loped down a hall toward the v-phone alcove. In the distance he saw Beck's face on the screen. His lieutenant saw him at the same moment and waved excitedly. He began talking before Powell was within earshot.
“... gave me your number. Lucky I caught you, boss. We've got twenty-six hours.”
“Wait a minute. Take it from the top, Jax.”
“Your Rhodopsin man, Dr. Wilson Jordan, is back from Callisto. Now a man of property by courtesy of Ben Reich. I came back with him. He's on earth for twenty-six hours to settle his affairs, and then he rockets back to Callisto to live on his brand new estate forever. If you want anything from him, you'd better come quick.”
“WillJordan talk?”
“Would I call you Interplanetary if he would? No, boss. He's got money-measles. Also he's grateful to Reich who (I am now quoting) generously stepped out of the legal picture in favor of Dr. Jordan and justice. If you want anything, you'd better come back to Terra and get it yourself.”
“And this,” Powell said, “is our Guild Laboratory, Dr. Jordan.”
Jordanwas impressed. The entire top floor of the Guild building was devoted to laboratory research. It was a circular floor, almost a thousand feet in 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, atnoon , 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.”
Jordanunfolded a little. “Very true. You have only to look at this laboratory to realize that.”
“Shall we tour?” Powell tookJordan '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.
At1:00 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.
At1:30 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 Röt, perhaps, or Gentian Violet. I would suggest...” &c.
At2:00 P.M. , a buffet luncheon was served without interrupting the feast of reason.
At2:30 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.
At3:00 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 captivatedJordan 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 at4:00 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.
At5:00 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.