Three to Conquer (29 page)

             
Gobble-gobble.
Harper returned to his office and sat erect in his chair. He felt under one arm to make sure the gun was readily available.

             
"Moira," he said quietly, "there's a packet for Schultz-Masters ready in the shop. It's urgent. I'd like you to take it to the post office at once. See that it goes by the midday mail. You need not hurry back. It'll do if you return after lunch."

             
"What about this correspondence, Mr. Harper?"

             
"You'll have all afternoon to cope with it. Put a move on and get rid of that consignment so that
I'll
have an answer ready if Schultz-Masters start bawling over the phone."

             
"Very well."
She adjusted her hat, picked up her handbag, went into the workshop and collected the package.

             
Going to the window, Harper watched her hurrying along the street in the direction opposite to that from which danger was coming. Well, that got her away from the scene of prospective trouble.

             
A couple of burly characters walked ten yards behind her rapidly clicking heels. They knew where she was going, because the mike planted in the office had informed Norris, or whoever happened to be listening in. But they weren't going to let her out of their sight and hadn't from the start of fixing the trap. It was just as well.

             
He did not open the window, as he had done at the approach of Ambrose Baum.

             
This time he was not going to make the mistake of transmitting a mental stab and getting the foe to flee with the knowledge so ardently sought. He was going to do no more than listen, and thus leave the other mind blissfully unconscious of its open state.

             
Leaving the window, he flopped into his chair and stared unseeingly at Moira's desk while he listened and waited. It was a unique and most curious experience, despite previous brief encounters.

             
Even though directing his attention elsewhere, Harper was able to do some thinking of his own. What if
this were
none other than William Gould? How could he hope to walk in on Harper' and get away with whatever he planned to do?

             
It was hardly likely that his purpose was to kill, even at cost of his own life, because the foe would gain little enough from that. The prize they wanted, and must secure at all costs, accurate knowledge of the means by which they could be identified. To slay the only one able to reveal this secret would leave them as perilously ignorant as before.

             
Their sole rational tactic was to capture and hold Harper for long enough to force the truth out of him. Once successfully grabbed, the technique of compulsion would be simple and effective. They'd take possession of him exactly as others had become possessed, after which they would find the wanted datum recorded in his mind, and it would be theirs, entirely theirs to use as they wished.

             
The alien thought-stream had grown much stronger now, and was replete with brief, unrecognizable scenes like glimpses of some nightmarish landscape. Harper removed attention from it for a moment while he scoured the area for minds like it. Perhaps there were a dozen or
twenty, converging by prearrangement upon his address, hoping to take him by sheer weight of numbers.

             
There were not. He failed to detect any others.

             
Still, he did not probe. Neither did he warn Norris, as he was supposed to do. He sat tight, determined for the time being to play things his own way.

             
The other mind was now passing beneath his window, but Harper did not try to take a look that, if noticed, might create premature alarm.

             
It turned in at the front door, and immediately the thought-stream switched to human terms. The arrival had come into contact with a couple of agents on guard and immediately adapted itself to cope with a human situation.

             
Harper read the minds of the agents, even as they swapped a few words with the newcomer.

             
He picked up the agents' mental images as they let the enemy walk through. He changed attention to Norris, outside sitting on a bench in the
workshop,
almost saw through his eyes as idly he watched the other reach the door.

             
Then the gobbler entered, and Harper said in the manner of one completely fooled, "Hello, Riley; what brings you here?"

-

             
Helping himself to the absent Moira's chair, Riley seated himself carefully, looked at Harper and all unwittingly gave him a piece of his mind.

             
"He is supposed to know us on sight in some mysterious way. Everything adds up to that fact. But he does not react in this case. That is strange. Something's wrong somewhere."

             
Vocally, Riley responded, "I'm keeping my finger on your pulse."

             
"Why?"

             
"There's a five thousand dollar reward in the bag for whoever finds Alderson's killer. Captain Ledsom hasn't
forgotten
it, despite all the hullabaloo about three fellows who've done nobody knows what. I haven't forgotten it, either. It's a lot of money."

             
"So you're hoping to sell me for that sum eventually?"

             
"No, I'm not. I don't believe you did it, but I think you know more than you've told. And I'm betting that when
all this
ruckus is over, you'll get busy on it.
"

             
"
And then?"

             
"You may need my help, or I may need yours. Between us, we might lay hands on that sack of gold."

             
"You're becoming mercenary in your old age, and sloppy to boot."

             
"What do you mean, sloppy?"

             
Carefully steering the conversion into mentally revealing channels, Harper said, "Fooling with Moira while I'm away.
"

             
"
Bunk."

             
"Cajoling her with a theater ticket."

             
That did it.

             
The responding flash of secret thought lasted no more than two or three seconds, but was detailed enough to present the picture. Moira innocently enjoying the show in seat U.17.
William Gould apparently doing likewise in U.18.
Conversation between acts, a planned pick-up and a stroll home
—
with Moira finishing up no longer human.

             
Gould was young, attractive, had enough glamour to make the plot workable; only a previous date had spoiled it.

             
"I couldn't use it," said Riley. "What should
I
have done with it? Masticate it?"

             
"You could have given it to your wife."

             
Another picture came in response to that and confirmed what Harper had reluctantly taken for granted. Riley's wife was no longer a wife. She was a living colony of fuzzy balls that had the urge to spread, but were utterly indifferent to the sex of the host. By implication, that added one more datum to knowledge of the foe—namely, that a person could not be confiscated by means of sexual union with one of the possessed. The virus needed direct entry from the suffused bloodstream to the new bloodstream.

             
"She doesn't like to go by herself," said Riley. "What are you griping about, anyway? Why should you care where Moira goes or what she does of an evening?"

             
And then,
"There's something significant in this sudden concern for Moira. It smacks of deep suspicion. I don't see how he can be suspicious. Either he actually knows or he doesn't, and by the looks of it, he does not know."

             
"According to the Feds, I'm in some sort of danger," informed Harper. "If so, Moira shares it simply by working with me and being closest to me. I don't want her to suffer for my sake."

             
That had its calculated effect by lulling the other mind. It was much like playing a conversational version of chess, Harper thought.

             
The next moment Riley emphasized the simile by making a dangerous move. "That may be so. But I am not Gould, McDonald or Langley. So why pick on me?"

             
Eyeing him steadily, Harper said, "I am not yawping about you personally. I am uneasy because I don't know who gave you that ticket."

             
The mental answer came at once:
Gould.

             
"What does it matter?" Riley evaded. "How was he to know I wouldn't use it myself, or that I'd offer it to Moira?"

             
"Oh, let's drop the subject," Harper suggested, with pretended weariness. "This chase after three men has got me jumpy enough to question the motives of my own mother."

             
Soothing lotion again.
The opposing grain accepted it, because it was plausible.

             
"The sooner they're picked up the better
I'll
like it," continued Harper, offering fresh bait. "Take McDonald, for instance. He was around these parts quite recently. A smart copper like you ought to be able to find him."

             
Eureka! Out came the reaction, as clearly as if written upon paper. Gould, McDonald, the Reeds and two others previously
unknown
were clustered together in Riley's own house, waiting—waiting for Harper to come along on the strength of whatever pretext Riley could think up.

             
So here was the real purpose of the visit. Riley had not vet got around to the enticement, but would do so before leaving.

             
The intelligence now animating Riley proved itself sharp enough to bait the baiter. "What makes you think that I should succeed where a regiment of agents has failed?"

             
Harper had to react fast to that one.
"Only because you're a local boy.
They're out-of-towners. You have sources of information not available to them. You know the ropes, or ought to after all these years."

             
It was not quite enough to halt the probe.

             
"Then why didn't they rely on the police instead of pushing themselves in by the dozens?"

             
"Ask me another," Harper said, shrugging. "Probably someone's decided that the more men on the job, the better."

             
"It has bought them nothing so far, has it?" asked Riley, seemingly a little sarcastic.

             
But it was not sarcasm; it was an invitation to make mention of the Baums, to come out with a reply indicating how they'd been recognized for what they were.

             
The mind of Riley was working fast, driven on by the urgency of the slime that commanded it. But seek as he might, he could not find a satisfactory explanation of the contrast between his own immunity and the speedy downfall of others of his type.