Three to Conquer (14 page)

             
"Yes. I'm the sacrificial goat. The news-channels have shouted my name and address all over the shop, and invited them to come and get me—if they can. It won't be a quick death, either."

             
"What makes you say that?"

             
"So far as I can guess, they've one weapon, and one only
—
but it's a formidable one. They can double as human beings, without possibility of detection except by some freak like
myself
. It's of the greatest importance to them to find out how I did it; they can't
counter,
a menace without knowing the nature of it. They will have to get the truth out of me in any way it can be done. Otherwise, there's no telling how many more people can tag them, or when the next moment will be their last. Their lives wouldn't be worth living."

             
"Telepaths aren't ten a penny," Jameson pointed out. "You've said so yourself."

             
"But
they
don't know that. They're left guessing, in circumstances where no guess is too farfetched. To them, it might well be that every red-haired human can smell them
—
and there are a deuce of a lot of redheads around. They've
got
to know how it's done."

             
"You're no carrot-top," said Jameson, "but if someday we find you lying around without your scalp we'll consider it fair evidence of your veracity."

             
"Thanks," conceded Harper. "You boys have a good time over my body. Enjoy a few hearty laughs, while there remains something to snicker about. Won't be long before you'll wish you were me!"

             
"You know I was only ribbing. I—"

             
He grabbed the phone before it had time to give a proper whirr, held it to his ear. Harper came to his feet, looking anticipatory.

             
"Same as before," Jameson told him, replacing the
instrument
and reaching for his hat. "They want us over at once. We might as well have stayed there in the first place."

             
"Something has broken," declared Harper, as they hustled outside and clambered into the car. "If those pics had proved to be duds, they'd have said so, with acid for sauce. They wouldn't drag us ten blocks merely to tell us the check proved a flop."

-

             
There were only two men waiting this time. One had stem, leathery features famous throughout the world: General Conway, tall, gray-haired, distinguished. The other one was Benfield, now decidedly grim.

             
"So!" rumbled General Conway, fixing Harper with a cold eye. "You are the mind-reader?"

             
"Putting it that way makes me seem like a vaudeville act," said Harper, far from overawed.

             
"Quite probably," agreed the general, thinking it wasn't so far removed, either. He examined the other carefully, from the shoes up, letting his gaze linger longest on a pair of thick and exceedingly hairy wrists. His mental diagnosis was not flattering: it determined the subject to be a powerful and presumably intelligent man, who would have the misfortune to look like an ape when in officer's uniform.
Too broad, squat and hirsute to fit the part of a captain or colonel.

             
Harper said informatively, "That's nothing; you ought to see me naked. I resemble a curly rug.
Hence the word rugged."

             
The general stiffened authoritatively. Jameson looked appalled. Benfield was too preoccupied to have any reaction.

             
"If you know what is in my mind, there's little need to speak," declared General Conway. "What does it tell you?"

             
"An awful ruckus has started," replied Harper, without hesitation. "And I'm certified sane."

             
The other nodded. "Your witness has confirmed that the
men in that car were the same three who set out for Venus about eighteen months ago. The
F.B.I,
is following their trail forward and backward, and already has found two more witnesses who say the same." He rested on a table-edge, folded his arms,
gazed
steadily at his listener. "This is a most serious business."

             
"It'll get worse," Harper promised, "if that is any consolation."

             
"This is a poor time for levity," reproved the general. "We are treating the matter with the importance it deserves. All forces of law and order in the west are combining in an effort to trace that Thunderbug back to its starting-point, in the hope that the ship may be located in that area. A forward trace is also being made, despite
the fact that it's likely to prove futile, the machine having been abandoned by this time."

             
"Neither the ship nor the car matters very much. It's those three rampaging—"

             
"We are after those as well," Conway interrupted. "All police, military and ancillary organizations have been, or soon will be, alerted. Photographs, fingerprint formulae, and other necessary information
is
being distributed as fast as we can produce. The capture is being given top priority, all other criminological investigations to be dropped pending its achievement. Unfortunately, at this stage, we cannot warn the public as a whole without creating widespread alarm and consequences that may get out of control."

             
"Good enough," approved Harper. "So this is where I go out."

             
"On the contrary, this is where you stay in. We have you, and we intend to keep you. There's a war on, and you're drafted."

             
"Then I apply for indeterminate leave forthwith."

             
"Permission denied," snapped Conway, too concerned even to smile. He walked around the table, sat down behind it, let' his fingers tap restlessly on its surface. "The air forces are
out in full strength
scouting
for that ship. Every civilian plane that can be mustered is under orders to assist. We have confiscated the bodies of that girl and the trooper, and handed them over to scientists for special examination. Everything that can be done has been or soon will be done. The issue of the moment is that of how to deal with you.
"

             
"
Me?"

             
"Yes. There are a lot of questions that must he answered. Have you any explanation of your telepathic power? Can you say how it originated?"

             
"No."

             
"It just happened?"

             
"So far as I can recall, I was bo
rn
that way."

             
"H'm
!"
Conway was dissatisfied. "We are making exhaustive search into the backgrounds of your parents and grandparents. If possible, we must discover the reason why you are what you are."

             
"Personally," remarked Harper, "I couldn't care less about the reason. It has never interested me."

             
"It interests us. We m
u
st determine, as soon as we can, whether any more of your kind may be hanging around and, if so, in what number. A
l
so, whether there is any positive method of finding them and conscripting them until this crisis is over."

             
"After which, they in turn will be treated from the crisis viewpoint," thrust Harper. "And your big problem will be how to put them out of hum's way until such time as they
may be needed again."

             
"Now see here—"

             
"I know what you're thinking, and you cannot conceal it from me. I know that authority is squatting on the ho
rn
s of a large and sharp-pointed dilemma. A telepath is a menace to those in power, but a protection against foes such as we are facing right now. You cannot destroy the menace without depriving yourselves of the protection. You cannot ensure mental privacy except at the prospective price of mental
s
lavery. You're in a first-class jam that doesn't really exist because it's purely imaginary, and born of the conditioning of non-telepathic minds."

             
Conway made no attempt to dispute this vigorous revealing of his thoughts. He sat in silence, his cold attention on Harper, and spoke only when he had finished.

             
"And what makes you say that there is no such quandary?
"

             
"
Because all the irrational bigots swarming on this cockeyed world invariably jump to the conclusion that anyone radically different from themselves must be bad. It inflates badly shrivelled egos to look at things that way.
Every man his own paragon of virtue and goodness."
He glowered at General Conway and said with ire, "A telepath has a code of ethics fully as good as anyone else's, and perhaps a damn-sight better because he has to beat off more temptation. I don't listen unless circumstances make it necessary. I don't hear unless I'm shouted at."

             
The other was blunt enough to appreciate straight talk; he was openly impressed. Leaning back in his chair, Conway surveyed Harper afresh.

             
"We've done a great deal of checking on you already. You heard Trooper Alderson from a distance of approximately six hundred yards. Without listening, I presume?"

             
"I heard his death-cry. On the neural band, it's as effective as a scream; I couldn't help hearing."

             
"You have helped nail a number of wanted criminals, and it is now obvious how you did it. But you never listen?"

             
"Guilt yells across the street. Fear bellows like an angry bull."

             
"Is there
anything
that broadcasts on a level sufficiently muted to escape your attention?"

             
"Yes—ordinary, everyday, innocent thoughts.
"

             
"
You do not listen to those?"

             
"Why on earth should I bother? Do you try to sort out every spoken word from the continual hum of conversation around you in a restaurant? Does a busy telephone operator
take time off to absorb the babble going through her switchboard? If I went around trying to pick up everything that's going on, I'd have qualified for a straitjacket ten years ago. Continual, ceaseless mental yap can torture a telepath unless he closes his mind to it."

             
By now, Conway was three-quarters convinced. His mind had made considerable readjustment. He resumed his table-
tapping,
cast an inquiring glance at Benfield and Jameson. They immediately put on the blank expressions of impartial onlookers, not qualified to make decisions.

             
"I understand," continued Conway, "that to date you have not encountered another telepath?"

             
"No," agreed Harper regretfully.

             
"But if two of you passed by .without listening, neither of you would become aware of the other's existence?"