Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell (61 page)

“In view of the name, yes!”

“What did she call you?”

“A terrestrial bastard,” informed Harper, hard-eyed.

For a full two minutes Jameson sat there like one paralyzed. His thoughts milled wildly around and he was momentarily oblivious of the fact that the other could read them as easily as if they shone in neons.

Then he asked, “Are you sure of that?”

“The only person in the world who can be positive about someone else’s mind is a telepath,” assured Harper. “I’ll tell you something else: I shot her because I knew I couldn’t kill her. It was a physical impossibility.”

“How d’you make that out?”

“No living man could harm Jocelyn Whittingham—because she was already dead.”

“Now see here, we have a detailed police report—”

“I killed something else,” said Harper, with devastating effect. “The thing that had already slaughtered her.”

Jameson promptly went into another whirl. He had a cool, incisive mind used to dealing with highly complicated but essentially normal problems. This was the first time within his considerable experience that he had been slapped in the face by a sample of the supernormal. Even now he strove to cope with it in rational, everyday terms. It was about as easy as trying to use a yardstick to measure the distance to the Moon.

One thing surprised the observing Harper, namely, that much of the other’s confusion stemmed from the fact that he lacked certain information he could reasonably be expected to possess. High up in the bureaucratic hierarchy Jameson might be, evidently he was not high enough. All the same, he had enough pull to take the matter further and get some action.

Harper said, “You’ve got the bald account from police sources. It isn’t enough. I’d like to give you my side of the story.”

“Go ahead,” invited Jameson, glad to concentrate on something that might clear up the muddle.

Commencing with his pick-up of the dying Alderson’s broadcast, Harper took it through to the end.

Then he said, “No ordinary human being is ever aware of his mind being read. He gains no sense of physical contact that might serve to warn him. He remains completely unconscious of being pried into. I have been absorbing your thoughts the whole time we’ve been here together; your senses have not registered the probe in any way whatever, have they?”

“No,” Jameson admitted.

“And if I had not told you that I’m a telepath, and satisfied you as to the truth of it, you’d have found no cause to suspect that your mind is wide open to me, would you?”

“No,”

“Well,” went on Harper reminiscently, “the instant I touched the mind inside Jocelyn Whittingham it felt the contact, knew whence it came, took wild alarm and hated me with a most appalling ferocity. In the same instant I detected all its reactions and recognized it as non-human. The contact did not last a fiftieth of a second but it was enough. I knew it as nothing born of woman. I knew it as surely as your own eyes can tell you that a rattlesnake is not a mewling babe.”

“If it wasn’t human,” inquired Jameson, with much skepticism, “what was it?”

“That I don't know.”

“Of what shape or form?”

“The shape and form of the Whittingham girl. It
had
to be that. It was using her body.”

Disbelief suddenly swamped Jameson’s brain. “I will concede that you are either a genuine telepath or the practitioner of some new and superb trick that makes you look like one. But that doesn’t mean I have to swallow this murder story. What your defense boils down to is that you shot a corpse animated by God knows what. No jury on earth will give such an incredible plea a moment’s consideration.”

“I’ll never face a jury,” Harper told him.

“I think you will—unless you drop dead beforehand. The law must take its course.”

“For the first time in my naughty life I’m above the law,” said Harper, impressively confident. “What’s more, the law itself is going to say so.”

“How do you reach that remarkable conclusion?”

“The law isn’t interested only in the death of Jocelyn Whittingham. It is even more concerned about the slaying of Trooper Alderson, he having been a police officer. And you can’t pin
that
one on me if you try from now to Christmas. Reason why you can’t is because I didn’t do it.”

“Then who did?” Jameson challenged.

“A-a-ah!” Harper eyed him meaningfully. “Now you’re getting right down to the heart of the matter. Who killed Alderson and why?”

“Well?”

“Three men in a Thunderbug. Three men who, in all probability, resented Alderson’s intrusion at a critical moment when the Whittingham girl was being taken over.”

“Taken over?”

“Don’t stare at me like that. How do I know precisely what occurred? All I do know is that something must have happened, something did happen to produce the result I discovered.”

Jameson looked baffled.

“Three men,” continued Harper, giving it emphasis. “In green suits, matching green ties, gray shirts and collars. Three men wearing uniforms with which nobody is familiar. Why haven’t those uniforms been recognized?”

“Because they were not uniforms at all,” Jameson hazarded. “They merely looked that way, having a sort of official cut, let us say.”

“Or because they were uniforms that nobody knows about,” suggested Harper. “Because the government has said nothing to anybody. Because officialdom hasn’t breathed a word to a soul. Is the taxpayer always told where his money is going?”

“What the devil are you getting at?”

“We’re pulling the Moon to pieces and nobody thinks anything of it. It’s been going on long enough to have become commonplace. A moon-boat is now about as remarkable as a Cunarder used to be. We’re so sophisticated about such matters that we’ve lost the capacity for surprise.”

“I’m aware of all this, since I live in the present,” said Jameson, a trifle impatiently. “What of it?”

“Who’s cooked up notions of exploiting Venus or Mars? Have you sent anyone there to take a look and, if so, when was it? Are they due back by now? Were they three men in green uniforms with gray shirts?”

“My God!” ejaculated Jameson, becoming visibly strained.

“Three men went somewhere, got more than they bargained for, involuntarily brought it back to spread around. That’s my theory. Try it for size.”

“If I approach the proper quarter with such a fantasy they’ll think I’m cracked.”

“I know why you fear that; I can read your mind, remember? Firstly, you personally know of no space-expedition, have heard not the slightest hint of one. Secondly, you cannot credit my diagnosis. Right?”

“Fat lot of use denying it.”

“Then look at it this way: I know even if you don’t that for a fragmentary moment I touched a genuinely alien mind in possession of a human body. That entity could not have solidified out of sheer nothingness. It must have arrived in some concealed manner. Somebody must have brought it. The only possible suspects are those three men.”

“Go on,” encouraged Jameson.

“We have not the vaguest notion how long those three have been gallivanting around. Maybe for a week, maybe for a year.” He fixed his listener with an accusative stare. “Therefore the Whittingham girl may not be the first or by any means the last. That trio may have given the treatment to a hundred and be busily tending to a hundred more while we’re sitting here making useless noises. If we continue to flatten our fannies long enough they’ll enslave half the world before we wake up.” Jameson fidgeted and gloomed hesitantly at the phone.

“Brockman of Special Services,” said Harper. “He’s the guy you’ve got in mind right now.” He made an urgent gesture. “All right, get through to him. What is there to lose? Perhaps he’ll tell you what he wouldn’t dream of telling me. Ask him if an expedition is out in space and when it’s due back.”

“Ten to one he’ll ignore the question and want to know why I’m asking,” Jameson protested. “I can hardly offer him your notions, and second hand at that.”

“He’ll try to pull down your pants only if there’s no such expedition,” Harper asserted. “But if in fact there is one, and it’s a top secret, your query will make his mustache drop off, if he has a mustache. He’ll hotfoot over to find how the news got out. Try him and let’s hear what he says.”

Doubtfully, Jameson picked up the phone, said in resigned tones, “Get me Special Services Department, Mr. Brockman.”

When the call went through Jameson spoke in the reluctant manner of one compelled to announce the arrest of Snow White and all the seven dwarfs.

“We’re on to something peculiar here. I won’t take up your time with the full details. It would help considerably if you can tell me whether a new space-venture has been made in secret.” He listened a bit while his expression gradually went flat. “Yes, it’s highly important that we should know one way or the other. Will you? Thanks a lot!” He planted the phone.

“He doesn’t know?” said Harper.

“Correct.”

“Should
he know?”

“I assumed that he would. I could be wrong. The more highly confidential a piece of knowledge, the fewer entrusted with it and the further we’ll have to seek for an answer, if there is a satisfactory answer.” Taking a large blue handkerchief from his breast pocket he mopped his brow although he was not perspiring. “Brockman will call back as soon as he can make it.”

“It would save valuable time to ring the White House and ask the President. Don’t tell me
he
won’t know what’s going on.”

Jameson was shocked. “Look, leave me to handle this in my own way, will you?”

“Sure. But the longer we take over this the sooner you may start handling things in some unearthly way.” Harper registered a sour grin. “Not having my gun I’d then be forced to strangle you with my own hands—if I could do so without
you
taking
me
over.”

“Shut up!” ordered Jameson, looking slightly sick. He scowled at the phone which promptly emitted a yelp. The unexpectedness of it made him jerk in his chair. He snatched it up, said, “Well?” and let half a dozen expressions run over his face. Then he racked the phone, came to his feet, said, “They want us over there immediately.”

“And we know why, don’t we?”

Offering no response, Jameson led the way down, got into a car driven by an agent who resembled a cross between a haberdashery salesman and a wrestling champ. They rolled ten blocks, went up to the twentieth floor of a glass and concrete building, entered an office in which waited four serious men.

These four glanced briefly at Harper without recognizing him despite all the recent publicity. Apparently they rarely got around to reading the newspapers or watching the video.

The oldest of the quartet, a lean-faced individual with sharp eyes and fine white hair, snapped at Jameson, “What’s all this about a space-expedition? Where did you pick up such a story?”

Seeing nothing for it but to pass the buck, Jameson indicated his companion. “This is Wade Harper. State police have him tagged as a murderer. He came to us an hour or so ago. My query arose from his story.”

Four pairs of eyes shifted to Harper. “What story?”

These men were edgy and Harper could see it. He could also see why they had the willies: they were deeply concerned about reserved data becoming public property. And he could see, too, that for the moment Jameson had forgotten his special aptitude. It isn’t easy for people to become accustomed to an almost mythical abnormality in the thoroughly normal-looking.

Addressing the white-haired man, he filched his name and said. “Mr. King, I know for a fact that eighteen months ago we sent a ship to Venus, the nearest planet. That ship was the result of twenty years of governmental experimentation. It bore a crew of three hand-picked men. Its return has two alternative dates. If the crew found conditions unbearable the ship should have been back last November. If conditions permit them to exist and indulge a little exploration they’re due in mid June, about five weeks hence. The fact that they are not known to have returned is officially considered encouraging. The government awaits their arrival before giving the news to the world.”

King heard all this with facial impassivity that he fondly imagined concealed his boiling thoughts. He asked with forced calmness, “And how did you obtain this information?”

It was too much for Jameson who had listened with amazement to the recital and been awakened by it. “This man is telepathic, Mr. King. He has proved it to my satisfaction. He has picked the facts out of your mind.”

“Indeed?” King was openly skeptical. “Then how do you account for the nature of your call to Brockman twenty minutes ago?”

“I suspected it then,” Harper chipped in. “But now I
know.
” He studied King levelly, added, “At the moment you’re thinking that if the world is to be afflicted with such creatures as telepaths it might be a good thing to put them out of harm’s way, and fast.”

“You know too much,” said King. “No government could function with any degree of security with people like you hanging around.”

“I’ve been hanging around enough years to make me wish they were fewer. We haven’t had a bloody revolution yet.”

“But we have a suspected murderer dragged into a government office by a departmental director of the F.B.I.,” said King, making it sound like a legitimate grievance. “It is certainly a new and previously unheard-of practice. I hope they had the forethought to search you for concealed weapons.”

By Harper’s side Jameson reddened and interjected, “Pardon me, Mr. King, but there is far more to this issue than the aspect that seems to irritate you.”

“Such as what?”

“The ship is back,” Harper put in.

All four jerked as though stabbed with needles.

King demanded, “When did it return? Where did it land?”

“I don’t know.”

They relaxed, suddenly confident that Harper was talking through the rear of his neck.

“Then how do you know it is back?”

“He found a trace of the crew,” informed Jameson. “Or that’s how it looks.” Harper contradicted carefully, “No, I don’t think I did. I think the crew is dead.”