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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31501-h.zip b/31501-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c625ea --- /dev/null +++ b/31501-h.zip diff --git a/31501-h/31501-h.htm b/31501-h/31501-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f3f8e04 --- /dev/null +++ b/31501-h/31501-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3178 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Sensitive Man, by Poul Anderson + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +.tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 35%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 100%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sensitive Man, by Poul William Anderson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Sensitive Man + +Author: Poul William Anderson + +Release Date: March 4, 2010 [EBook #31501] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SENSITIVE MAN *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p class="center">This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe January 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p></div> +<p> </p> +<div class="sidenote"><i>Conspiracy seems to be as much a part of our times as it +was in the times of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot. Hence it finds +frequent reflection in all branches of fiction, including science +fiction. Yet, as in life, something new has been added, the most +gigantic conspiracy of all, the human conspiracy against conspirators. +Which makes for a fine stirring story in this short novel of the +future by Mr. Anderson, one of our best young authors.</i></div> +<p> </p> +<h1>the<br /> + +sensitive<br /> + +man</h1> +<p> </p> +<h2><i>by ... Poul Anderson</i></h2> +<p> </p> +<div class="blockquot"><p>One man stood between a power-hungry cabal<br /> and world +mastery—but a man of unusual talents.</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The Mermaid Tavern had been elaborately decorated. Great blocks of +hewn coral for pillars and booths, tarpon and barracuda on the walls, +murals of Neptune and his court—including an outsize animated picture +of a mermaid ballet, quite an eye-catcher. But the broad quartz +windows showed merely a shifting greenish-blue of seawater, and the +only live fish visible were in an aquarium across from the bar. +Pacific Colony lacked the grotesque loveliness of the Florida and Cuba +settlements. Here they were somehow a working city, even in their +recreations.</p> + +<p>The sensitive man paused for a moment in the foyer, sweeping the big +circular room with a hurried glance. Less than half the tables were +filled. This was an hour of interregnum, while the twelve to eighteen +hundred shift was still at work and the others had long finished their +more expensive amusements. There would always be a few around, of +course—Dalgetty typed them as he watched.</p> + +<p>A party of engineers, probably arguing about the compression strength +of the latest submarine tank to judge from the bored expressions of +the three or four rec girls who had joined them. A biochemist, who +seemed to have forgotten his plankton and seaweed for the time being +and to have focussed his mind on the pretty young clerk with him. A +couple of hard-handed caissoniers, settling down to some serious +drinking.</p> + +<p>A maintenance man, a computerman, a tank pilot, a diver, a sea +rancher, a bevy of stenographers, a bunch of very obvious tourists, +more chemists and metallurgists—the sensitive man dismissed them all. +There were others he couldn't classify with any decent probability but +after a second's hesitation he decided to ignore them too. That left +only the group with Thomas Bancroft.</p> + +<p>They were sitting in one of the coral grottos, a cave of darkness to +ordinary vision. Dalgetty had to squint to see in and the muted light +of the tavern was a harsh glare when his pupils were so distended. +But, yes—it was Bancroft all right and there was an empty booth +adjoining his.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty relaxed his eyes to normal perception. Even in the short +moment of dilation the fluoros had given him a headache. He blocked it +off from consciousness and started across the floor.</p> + +<p>A hostess stopped him with a touch on the arm as he was about to enter +the vacant cavern. She was young, an iridescent mantrap in her brief +uniform. With all the money flowing into Pacific Colony they could +afford decorative help here.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, sir," she said. "Those are kept for parties. Would you +like a table?"</p> + +<p>"I'm a party," he answered, "or can soon become one." He moved aside a +trifle so that none of the Bancroft group should happen to look out +and see him. "If you could arrange some company for me...." He fumbled +out a C-note, wondering just how such things could be done gracefully.</p> + +<p>"Why, of course, sir." She took it with a smoothness he envied and +handed him a stunning smile in return. "Just make yourself +comfortable."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty stepped into the grotto with a fast movement. This wasn't +going to be simple. The rough red walls closed in on top of him, +forming a space big enough for twenty people or so. A few +strategically placed fluoros gave an eerie undersea light, just enough +to see by—but no one could look in. A heavy curtain could be drawn if +one wanted to be absolutely secluded. Privacy—<i>uh</i>-huh!</p> + +<p>He sat down at the driftwood table and leaned back against the coral. +Closing his eyes he made an effort of will. His nerves were already +keyed up to such a tautness that it seemed they must break and it took +only seconds to twist his mind along the paths required.</p> + +<p>The noise of the tavern rose from a tiny mumble to a clattering surf, +to a huge and saw-edged wave. Voices dinned in his head, shrill and +deep, hard and soft, a senseless stream of talking, jumbled together +into words, words, words. Somebody dropped a glass and it was like a +bomb going off.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty winced, straining his ear against the grotto side. Surely +enough of their speech would come to him, even through all that rock! +The noise level was high but the human mind, if trained in +concentration, is an efficient filter. The outside racket receded from +Dalgetty's awareness and slowly he gathered in the trickle of sound.</p> + +<p>First man: "—no matter. What can they do?"</p> + +<p>Second man: "Complain to the government. Do you want the FBI on our +trail? I don't."</p> + +<p>First man: "Take it easy. They haven't yet done so and it's been a +good week now since—"</p> + +<p>Second man: "How do you know they haven't?"</p> + +<p>Third man—heavy, authoritative voice. Yes, Dalgetty remembered it now +from TV speeches—it was Bancroft himself: "<i>I</i> know. I've got enough +connections to be sure of that."</p> + +<p>Second man: "Okay, so they haven't reported it. But why not?"</p> + +<p>Bancroft: "You know why. They don't want the government mixing into +this any more than we do."</p> + +<p>Woman: "Well, then, are they just going to sit and take it? No, +they'll find some way to—"</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">HELLO, THERE, MISTER!!!</span>"</p> + +<p>Dalgetty jumped and whirled around. His heart began to race, until he +felt his ribs tremble and he cursed his own tension.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">WHY, WHAT'S THE MATTER, MISTER? YOU LOOK—</span>"</p> + +<p>Effort again, forcing the volume down, grasping the thunderous heart +in fingers of command and dragging it toward rest. He focussed his +eyes on the girl who had entered. It was the rec girl, the one he had +asked for because he had to sit in this booth.</p> + +<p>Her voice was speaking on an endurable level now. Another pretty +little bit of fluff. He smiled shakily. "Sit down, sweet. I'm sorry. +My nerves are shot. What'll you have?"</p> + +<p>"A daiquiri, please." She smiled and placed herself beside him. He +dialed on the dispenser—the cocktail for her, a scotch and soda for +himself.</p> + +<p>"You're new here," she said. "Have you just been hired or are you a +visitor?" Again the smile. "My name's Glenna."</p> + +<p>"Call me Joe," said Dalgetty. His first name was actually Simon. "No, +I'll only be here a short while."</p> + +<p>"Where you from?" she asked. "I'm clear from New Jersey myself."</p> + +<p>"Proving that nobody is ever born in California." He grinned. The +control was asserting itself, his racing emotions were checked and he +could think clearly again. "I'm—uh—just a floater. Don't have any +real address right now."</p> + +<p>The dispenser ejected the drinks on a tray and flashed the +charge—$20. Not bad, considering everything. He gave the machine a +fifty and it made change, a five-buck coin and a bill.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Glenna, "here's to you."</p> + +<p>"And you." He touched glasses, wondering how to say what he had to +say. Damn it, he couldn't sit here just talking or necking, he'd come +to listen but.... A sardonic montage of all the detective shows he had +ever seen winked through his mind. The amateur who rushes in and +solves the case, <i>heigh-ho</i>. He had never appreciated all the detail +involved till now.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>There was hesitation in him. He decided that a straightforward +approach was his best bet. Deliberately then he created a cool +confidence. Subconsciously he feared this girl, alien as she was to +his class. All right, force the reaction to the surface, recognize it, +suppress it. Under the table his hands moved in the intricate symbolic +pattern which aided such emotion-harnessing.</p> + +<p>"Glenna," he said, "I'm afraid I'll be rather dull company. The fact +is I'm doing some research in psychology, learning how to concentrate +under different conditions. I wanted to try it in a place like this, +you understand." He slipped out a 2-C bill and laid it before her. "If +you'd just sit here quietly it won't be for more than an hour I +guess."</p> + +<p>"Huh?" Her brows lifted. Then, with a shrug and a wry smile, "Okay, +you're paying for it." She took a cigarette from the flat case at her +sash, lit it and relaxed. Dalgetty leaned against the wall and closed +his eyes again.</p> + +<p>The girl watched him curiously. He was of medium height, stockily +built, inconspicuously dressed in a blue short-sleeved tunic, gray +slacks and sandals. His square snub-nosed face was lightly freckled, +with hazel eyes and a rather pleasant shy smile. The rusty hair was +close-cropped. A young man, she guessed, about twenty-five, quite +ordinary and uninteresting except for the wrestler's muscles and, of +course, his behavior.</p> + +<p>Oh, well, it took all kinds.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty had a moment of worry. Not because the yarn he had handed her +was thin but because it brushed too close to the truth. He thrust the +unsureness out of him. Chances were she hadn't understood any of it, +wouldn't even mention it. At least not to the people he was hunting.</p> + +<p>Or who were hunting him?</p> + +<p>Concentration, and the voices slowly came again: "—maybe. But I think +they'll be more stubborn than that."</p> + +<p>Bancroft: "Yes. The issues are too large for a few lives to matter. +Still, Michael Tighe is only human. He'll talk."</p> + +<p>The woman: "He can be made to talk, you mean?" She had one of the +coldest voices Dalgetty had ever heard.</p> + +<p>Bancroft: "Yes. Though I hate to use extreme measures."</p> + +<p>Man: "What other possibilities have we got? He won't say anything +unless he's forced to. And meanwhile his people will be scouring the +planet to find him. They're a shrewd bunch."</p> + +<p>Bancroft, sardonically: "What can they do, please? It takes more than +an amateur to locate a missing man. It calls for all the resources of +a large police organization. And the last thing they want, as I've +said before, is to bring the government in on this."</p> + +<p>The woman: "I'm not so sure of that, Tom. After all, the Institute is +a legal group. It's government sponsored and its influence is +something tremendous. Its graduates—"</p> + +<p>Bancroft: "It educates a dozen different kinds of psychotechnicians, +yes. It does research. It gives advice. It publishes findings and +theories. But believe me the Psychotechnic Institute is like an +iceberg. Its real nature and purpose are hidden way under water. No, +it isn't doing anything illegal that I know of. Its aims are so large +that they transcend law altogether."</p> + +<p>Man: "What aims?"</p> + +<p>Bancroft: "I wish I knew. We've only got hints and guesses, you know. +One of the reasons we've snatched Tighe is to find out more. I suspect +that their real work requires secrecy."</p> + +<p>The woman, thoughtfully: "Y-y-yes, I can see how that might be. If the +world at large were aware of being—manipulated—then manipulation +might become impossible. But just where does Tighe's group want to +lead us?"</p> + +<p>Bancroft: "I don't know, I tell you. I'm not even sure that they do +want to—take over. Something even bigger than that." A sigh. "Let's +face it, Tighe is a crusader too. In his own way he's a very sincere +idealist. He just happens to have the wrong ideals. That's one reason +why I'd hate to see him harmed."</p> + +<p>Man: "But if it turns out that we've got to—"</p> + +<p>Bancroft: "Why, then we've got to, that's all. But I won't enjoy it."</p> + +<p>Man: "Okay, you're the leader, you say when. But I warn you not to +wait too long. I tell you the Institute is more than a collection of +unworldly scientists. They've got <i>someone</i> out searching for Tighe +and if they should locate him there could be real trouble."</p> + +<p>Bancroft, mildly: "Well, these are troubled times, or will be shortly. +We might as well get used to that."</p> + +<p>The conversation drifted away into idle chatter. Dalgetty groaned to +himself. Not once had they spoken of the place where their prisoner +was kept.</p> + +<p>All right, little man, what next? Thomas Bancroft was big game. His +law firm was famous. He had been in Congress and the Cabinet. Even +with the Labor Party in power he was a respected elder statesman. He +had friends in government, business, unions, guilds and clubs and +leagues from Maine to Hawaii. He had only to say the word and +Dalgetty's teeth would be kicked in some dark night. Or, if he proved +squeamish, Dalgetty might find himself arrested on a charge like +conspiracy and tied up in court for the next six months.</p> + +<p>By listening in he had confirmed the suspicion of Ulrich at the +Institute that Thomas Bancroft was Tighe's kidnapper—but that was no +help. If he went to the police with that story they would (a) laugh, +long and loud—(b) lock him up for psychiatric investigation—(c) +worst of all, pass the story on to Bancroft, who would thereby know +what the Institute's children could do and would take appropriate +counter-measures.</p> + + +<h2>II</h2> + +<p>Of course, this was just the beginning. The trail was long. But time +was hideously short before they began turning Tighe's brain inside +out. And there were wolves along the trail.</p> + +<p>For a shivering instant, Simon Dalgetty realized what he had let +himself in for.</p> + +<p>It seemed like forever before the Bancroft crowd left. Dalgetty's eyes +followed them out of the bar—four men and the woman. They were all +quiet, mannerly, distinguished-looking, in rich dark slack suits. Even +the hulking bodyguard was probably a college graduate, Third Class. +You wouldn't take them for murderers and kidnappers and the servants +of those who would bring back political gangsterism. But then, +reflected Dalgetty, they probably didn't think of themselves in that +light either.</p> + +<p>The enemy—the old and protean enemy, who had been fought down as +Fascist, Nazi, Shintoist, Communist, Atomist, Americanist and God knew +what else for a bloody century—had grown craftier with time. Now he +could fool even himself.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty's senses went back to normal. It was a sudden immense relief +to be merely sitting in a dimly-lit booth with a pretty girl, to be no +more than human for a while. But his sense of mission was still dark +within him.</p> + +<p>"Sorry I was so long," he said. "Have another drink."</p> + +<p>"I just had one." She smiled.</p> + +<p>He noticed the $10-figure glowing on the dispenser and fed it two +coins. Then, his nerves still vibrating, he dialed another whiskey for +himself.</p> + +<p>"You know those people in the next grotto?" asked Glenna. "I saw you +watching them leave."</p> + +<p>"Well, I know Mr. Bancroft by reputation," he said. "He lives here, +doesn't he?"</p> + +<p>"He's got a place over on Gull Station," she said, "but he's not here +very much, mostly on the mainland, I guess."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty nodded. He had come to Pacific Colony two days before, had +been hanging around in the hope of getting close enough to Bancroft to +pick up a clue. Now he had done so and his findings were worth little. +He had merely confirmed what the Institute already considered highly +probable without getting any new information.</p> + +<p>He needed to think over his next move. He drained his drink. "I'd +better jet off," he said.</p> + +<p>"We can have dinner in here if you want," said Glenna.</p> + +<p>"Thanks, I'm not hungry." That was true enough. The nervous tension +incidental to the use of his powers raised the devil with appetite. +Nor could he be too lavish with his funds. "Maybe later."</p> + +<p>"Okay, Joe, I might be seeing you." She smiled. "You're a funny one. +But kind of nice." Her lips brushed his and then she got up and left. +Dalgetty went out the door and punched for a top-side elevator.</p> + +<p>It took him past many levels. The tavern was under the station's +caissons near the main anchor cable, looking out into deep water. +Above it were store-houses, machine rooms, kitchens, all the +paraphernalia of modern existence. He stepped out of a kiosk onto an +upper deck, thirty feet above the surface. Nobody else was there and +he walked over to the railing and leaned on it, looking across the +water and savoring loneliness.</p> + +<p>Below him the tiers dropped away to the main deck, flowing lines and +curves, broad sheets of clear plastic, animated signs, the grass and +flowerbeds of a small park, people walking swiftly or idly. The huge +gyro-stabilized bulk did not move noticeably to the long Pacific +swell. Pelican Station was the colony's "downtown," its shops and +theaters and restaurants, service and entertainment.</p> + +<p>Around it the water was indigo blue in the evening light, streaked +with arabesques of foam, and he could hear waves rumble against the +sheer walls. Overhead the sky was tall with a few clouds in the west +turning aureate. The hovering gulls seemed cast in gold. A haziness in +the darkened east betokened the southern California coastline. He +breathed deeply, letting nerves and muscles and viscera relax, +shutting off his mind and turning for a while into an organism that +merely lived and was glad to live.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty's view in all directions was cut off by the other stations, +the rising streamlined hulks which were Pacific Colony. A few airy +flex-strung bridges had been completed to link them, but there was +still an extensive boat traffic. To the south he could see a blackness +on the water that was a sea ranch. His trained memory told him, in +answer to a fleeting question, that according to the latest figures +eighteen-point-three percent of the world's food supply was now being +derived from modified strains of seaweed. The percentage would +increase rapidly, he knew.</p> + +<p>Elsewhere were mineral-extracting plants, fishery bases, experimental +and pure-research stations. Below the floating city, digging into the +continental shelf, was the underwater settlement—oil wells to +supplement the industrial synthesizing process, mining, exploration in +tanks to find new resources, a slow growth outward as men learned how +to go deeper into cold and darkness and pressure. It was expensive but +an over-crowded world had little choice.</p> + +<p>Venus was already visible, low and pure on the dusking horizon. +Dalgetty breathed the wet pungent sea-air into his lungs and thought +with some pity of the men out there—and on the Moon, on Mars, between +worlds. They were doing a huge and heart-breaking job—but he wondered +if it were bigger and more meaningful than this work here in Earth's +oceans.</p> + +<p>Or a few pages of scribbled equations, tossed into a desk drawer at +the Institute. Enough. Dalgetty brought his mind to heel like a +harshly trained dog. He was also here to work.</p> + +<p>The forces he must encounter seemed monstrous. He was one man, alone +against he knew not what kind of organization. He had to rescue one +other man before—well, before history was changed and spun off on the +wrong course, the long downward path. He had his knowledge and +abilities but they wouldn't stop a bullet. Nor did they include +education for this kind of warfare. War that was not war, politics +that were not politics but a handful of scrawled equations and a +bookful of slowly gathered data and a brainful of dreams.</p> + +<p>Bancroft had Tighe—somewhere. The Institute could not ask the +government for help, even if to a large degree the Institute was the +government. It could, perhaps, send Dalgetty a few men but it had no +goon squads. And time was like a hound on his heels.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The sensitive man turned, suddenly aware of someone else. This was a +middle-aged fellow, gaunt and gray-haired, with an intellectual cast +of feature. He leaned on the rail and said quietly, "Nice evening, +isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Dalgetty. "Very nice."</p> + +<p>"It gives me a feeling of real accomplishment, this place," said the +stranger.</p> + +<p>"How so?" asked Dalgetty, not unwilling to make conversation.</p> + +<p>The man looked out over the sea and spoke softly as if to himself. +"I'm fifty years old. I was born during World War Three and grew up +with the famines and the mass insanities that followed. I saw +fighting myself in Asia. I worried about a senselessly expanding +population pressing on senselessly diminished resources. I saw an +America that seemed equally divided between decadence and madness.</p> + +<p>"And yet I can stand now and watch a world where we've got a +functioning United Nations, where population increase is leveling off +and democratic government spreading to country after country, where +we're conquering the seas and even going out to other planets. Things +have changed since I was a boy but on the whole it's been for the +better."</p> + +<p>"Ah," said Dalgetty, "a kindred spirit. Though I'm afraid it's not +quite that simple."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The man arched his brows. "So you vote conservative?"</p> + +<p>"The Labor Party <i>is</i> conservative," said Dalgetty. "As proof of which +it's in coalition with the Republicans and the Neofederalists as well +as some splinter groups. No, I don't care if it stays in, or if the +Conservatives prosper or the Liberals take over. The question is—who +shall control the group in power?"</p> + +<p>"Its membership, I suppose," said the man.</p> + +<p>"But just who is its membership? You know as well as I do that the +great failing of the American people has always been their lack of +interest in politics."</p> + +<p>"What? Why, they vote, don't they? What was the last percentage?"</p> + +<p>"Eight-eight-point-three-seven. Sure they vote—once the ticket has +been presented to them. But how many of them have anything to do with +nominating the candidates or writing the platforms? How many will +actually take time out to <i>work</i> at it—or even to write their +Congressmen? 'Ward heeler' is still a term of contempt.</p> + +<p>"All too often in our history the vote has been simply a matter of +choosing between two well-oiled machines. A sufficiently clever and +determined group can take over a party, keep the name and the slogans +and in a few years do a complete behind-the-scenes <i>volte-face</i>." +Dalgetty's words came fast, this was one facet of a task to which he +had given his life.</p> + +<p>"Two machines," said the stranger, "or four or five as we've got now, +are at least better than one."</p> + +<p>"Not if the same crowd controls all of them," Dalgetty said grimly.</p> + +<p>"But—"</p> + +<p>"'If you can't lick 'em, join 'em.' Better yet, join all sides. Then +you <i>can't</i> lose."</p> + +<p>"I don't think that's happened yet," said the man.</p> + +<p>"No it hasn't," said Dalgetty, "not in the United States, though in +some other countries—never mind. It's still in process of happening, +that's all. The lines today are drawn not by nations or parties, but +by—philosophies, if you wish. Two views of man's destiny, cutting +across all national, political, racial and religious lines."</p> + +<p>"And what are those two views?" asked the stranger quietly.</p> + +<p>"You might call them libertarian and totalitarian, though the latter +don't necessarily think of themselves as such. The peak of rampant +individualism was reached in the nineteenth century, legally speaking. +Though in point of fact social pressure and custom were more +strait-jacketing than most people today realize.</p> + +<p>"In the twentieth century that social rigidity—in manners, morals, +habits of thought—broke down. The emancipation of women, for +instance, or the easy divorce or the laws about privacy. But at the +same time legal control began tightening up again. Government took +over more and more functions, taxes got steeper, the individual's life +got more and more bound by regulations saying 'thou shalt' and 'thou +shalt not.'</p> + +<p>"Well, it looks as if war is going out as an institution. That takes +off a lot of pressure. Such hampering restrictions as conscription to +fight or work, or rationing, have been removed. What we're slowly +attaining is a society where the individual has maximum freedom, both +from law <i>and</i> custom. It's perhaps farthest advanced in America, +Canada, and Brazil, but it's growing the world over.</p> + +<p>"But there are elements which don't like the consequences of genuine +libertarianism. And the new science of human behavior, mass and +individual, is achieving rigorous formulation. It's becoming the most +powerful tool man has ever had—for whoever controls the human mind +will also control all that man can do. That science can be used by +anyone, mind you. If you'll read between the lines you'll see what a +hidden struggle is shaping up for control of it as soon as it reaches +maturity and empirical useability."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes," said the man. "The Psychotechnic Institute."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty nodded, wondering why he had jumped into such a lecture. +Well, the more people who had some idea of the truth the +better—though it wouldn't do for them to know the whole truth either. +Not yet.</p> + +<p>"The Institute trains so many for governmental posts and does so much +advisory work," said the man, "that sometimes it looks almost as if it +were quietly taking over the whole show."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty shivered a little in the sunset breeze and wished he'd +brought his cloak. He thought wearily, <i>Here it is again. Here is the +story they are spreading, not in blatant accusations, not all at once, +but slowly and subtly, a whisper here, a hint there, a slanted news +story, a supposedly dispassionate article.... Oh, yes, they know their +applied semantics.</i></p> + +<p>"Too many people fear such an outcome," he declared. "It just isn't +true. The Institute is a private research organization with a Federal +grant. Its records are open to anyone."</p> + +<p>"All the records?" The man's face was vague in the gathering twilight.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty thought he could make out a skeptically lifted brow. He +didn't reply directly but said, "There's a foggy notion in the public +mind that a group equipped with a complete science of man—which the +Institute hasn't got by a long shot—could 'take over' at once and, by +manipulations of some unspecified but frightfully subtle sort, rule +the world. The theory is that if you know just what buttons to push +and so on, men will do precisely as you wish without knowing that +they're being guided. The theory happens to be pure jetwash."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know," said the man. "In general terms it sounds pretty +plausible."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty shook his head. "Suppose I were an engineer," he said, "and +suppose I saw an avalanche coming down on me. I might know exactly +what to do to stop it—where to plant my dynamite, where to build my +concrete wall and so on. Only the knowledge wouldn't help me. I'd have +neither the time nor the strength to use it.</p> + +<p>"The situation is similar with regard to human dynamics, both mass and +individual. It takes months or years to change a man's convictions and +when you have hundreds of millions of men...." He shrugged. "Social +currents are too large for all but the slightest, most gradual +control. In fact perhaps the most valuable results obtained to date +are not those which show what can be done but what cannot."</p> + +<p>"You speak with the voice of authority," said the man.</p> + +<p>"I'm a psychologist," said Dalgetty truthfully enough. He didn't add +that he was also a subject, observer and guinea pig in one. "And I'm +afraid I talk too much. Go from bad to voice."</p> + +<p>"Ouch," said the man. He leaned his back against the rail and his +shadowy hand extended a pack. "Smoke?"</p> + +<p>"No, thanks, I don't."</p> + +<p>"You're a rarity." The brief lighter-flare etched the stranger's face +against the dusk.</p> + +<p>"I've found other ways of relaxing."</p> + +<p>"Good for you. By the way I'm a professor myself. English Litt at +Colorado."</p> + +<p>"Afraid I'm rather a roughneck in that respect," said Dalgetty. For a +moment he had a sense of loss. His thought processes had become too +far removed from the ordinary human for him to find much in fiction or +poetry. But music, sculpture, painting—there was something else. He +looked over the broad glimmering water, at the stations dark against +the first stars, and savored the many symmetries and harmonies with a +real pleasure. You needed senses like his before you could know what a +lovely world this was.</p> + +<p>"I'm on vacation now," said the man. Dalgetty did not reply in kind. +After a moment—"You are too, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>Dalgetty felt a slight shock. A personal question from a +stranger—well, you didn't expect otherwise from someone like the girl +Glenna but a professor should be better conditioned to privacy +customs.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said shortly. "Just visiting."</p> + +<p>"By the way, my name is Tyler, Harmon Tyler."</p> + +<p>"Joe Thomson." Dalgetty shook hands with him.</p> + +<p>"We might continue our conversation if you're going to be around for +awhile," said Tyler. "You raised some interesting points."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty considered. It would be worthwhile staying as long as +Bancroft did, in the hope of learning some more. "I may be here a +couple of days yet," he said.</p> + +<p>"Good," said Tyler. He looked up at the sky. It was beginning to fill +with stars. The deck was still empty. It ran around the dim +upthrusting bulk of a weather-observation tower which was turned over +to its automatics for the night and there was no one else to be seen. +A few fluoros cast wan puddles of luminance on the plastic flooring.</p> + +<p>Glancing at his watch, Tyler said casually, "It's about +nineteen-thirty hours now. If you don't mind waiting till twenty +hundred I can show you something interesting."</p> + +<p>"What's that?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, you'll be surprised." Tyler chuckled. "Not many people know about +it. Now, getting back to that point you raised earlier...."</p> + +<p>The half hour passed swiftly. Dalgetty did most of the talking.</p> + +<p>"—and mass action. Look, to a rather crude first approximation a +state of semantic equilibrium on a world-wide scale, which of course +has never existed, would be represented by an equation of the form—"</p> + +<p>"Excuse me." Tyler consulted the shining dial again. "If you don't +mind stopping for a few minutes I'll show you that odd sight I was +talking about."</p> + +<p>"Eh? Oh-oh, sure."</p> + +<p>Tyler threw away his cigarette. It was a tiny meteor in the gloom. He +took Dalgetty's arm. They walked slowly around the weather tower.</p> + +<p>The men came from the opposite side and met them halfway. Dalgetty had +hardly seen them before he felt the sting in his chest.</p> + +<p><i>A needle gun!</i></p> + +<p>The world roared about him. He took a step forward, trying to scream, +but his throat locked. The deck lifted up and hit him and his mind +whirled toward darkness.</p> + +<p>From somewhere will rose within him, trained reflexes worked, he +summoned all that was left of his draining strength and fought the +anesthetic. His wrestling with it was a groping in fog. Again and +again he spiraled into unconsciousness and rose strangling. Dimly, +through nightmare, he was aware of being carried. Once someone stopped +the group in a corridor and asked what was wrong. The answer seemed to +come from immensely far away. "I dunno. He passed out—just like that. +We're taking him to a doctor."</p> + +<p>There was a century spent going down some elevator. The boat-house +walls trembled liquidly around him. He was carried aboard a large +vessel, it was not visible through the gray mist. Some dulled portion +of himself thought that this was obviously a private boat-house, since +no one was trying to stop—trying to stop—trying to stop....</p> + +<p>Then the night came.</p> + + +<h2>III</h2> + +<p>He woke slowly, with a dry retch, and blinked his eyes open. Noise of +air, he was flying, it must have been a triphibian they took him onto. +He tried to force recovery but his mind was still too paralyzed.</p> + +<p>"Here. Drink this."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty took the glass and gulped thirstily. It was coolness and +steadiness spreading through him. The vibratto within him faded, and +the headache dulled enough to be endurable. Slowly he looked around, +and felt the first crawl of panic.</p> + +<p><i>No!</i> He suppressed the emotion with an almost physical thrust. Now +was the time for calm and quick wit and—</p> + +<p>A big man near him nodded and stuck his head out the door. "He's okay +now, I guess," he called. "Want to talk to him?"</p> + +<p>Dalgetty's eyes roved the compartment. It was a rear cabin in a large +airboat, luxuriously furnished with reclining seats and an inlaid +table. A broad window looked out on the stairs.</p> + +<p><i>Caught!</i> It was pure bitterness, an impotent rage at himself. <i>Walked +right into their arms!</i></p> + +<p>Tyler came into the room, followed by a pair of burly stone-faced men. +He smiled. "Sorry," he murmured, "but you're playing out of your +league, you know."</p> + +<p>"Yeah." Dalgetty shook his head. Wryness twisted his mouth. "I don't +league it much either."</p> + +<p>Tyler grinned. It was a sympathetic expression. "You punsters are +incurable," he said. "I'm glad you're taking it so well. We don't +intend any harm to you."</p> + +<p>Skepticism was dark in Dalgetty but he managed to relax. "How'd you +get onto me?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, various ways. You were pretty clumsy, I'm afraid." Tyler sat down +across the table. The guards remained standing. "We were sure the +Institute would attempt a counterblow and we've studied it and its +personnel thoroughly. You were recognized, Dalgetty—and you're known +to be very close to Tighe. So you walked after us without even a +face-mask....</p> + +<p>"At any rate, you were noticed hanging around the colony. We checked +back on your movements. One of the rec girls had some interesting +things to tell of you. We decided you'd better be questioned. I +sounded you out as much as a casual acquaintance could and then took +you to the rendezvous." Tyler spread his hands. "That's all."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty sighed and his shoulders slumped under a sudden enormous +burden of discouragement. Yes, they were right. He was out of his +orbit. "Well," he said, "what now?"</p> + +<p>"Now we have you <i>and</i> Tighe," said the other. He took out a +cigarette. "I hope you're somewhat more willing to talk than he is."</p> + +<p>"Suppose I'm not?"</p> + +<p>"Understand this." Tyler frowned. "There are reasons for going slow +with Tighe. He has hostage value, for one thing. But you're nobody. +And while we aren't monsters I for one have little sympathy to spare +for your kind of fanatic."</p> + +<p>"Now there," said Dalgetty with a lift of sardonicism, "is an +interesting example of semantic evolution. This being, on the whole, +an easy-going tolerant period, the word 'fanatic' has come to be +simply an epithet—a fellow on the other side."</p> + +<p>"That will do," snapped Tyler. "You won't be allowed to stall. There +are questions we want answered." He ticked the points off on his +fingers. "What are the Institute's ultimate aims? How is it going +about attaining them? How far has it gotten? Precisely what has it +learned, in a scientific way, that it hasn't published? How much does +it know about us?" He smiled thinly. "You've always been close to +Tighe. He raised you, didn't he? You should know just as much as he."</p> + +<p><i>Yes</i>, thought Dalgetty, <i>Tighe raised me. He was all the father I +ever had, really. I was an orphan and he took me in and he was good.</i></p> + +<p>Sharp in his mind rose the image of the old house. It had lain on +broad wooded grounds in the fair hills of Maine, with a little river +running down to a bay winged with sailboats. There had been +neighbors—quiet-spoken folk with something more real about them than +most of today's rootless world knew. And there had been many +visitors—men and women with minds like flickering sword-blades.</p> + +<p>He had grown up among intellects aimed at the future. He and Tighe had +traveled a lot. They had often been in the huge pylon of the main +Institute building. They had gone over to Tighe's native England once +a year at least. But always the old house had been dear to them.</p> + +<p>It stood on a ridge, long and low and weathered gray like a part of +the earth. By day it had rested in a green sun-dazzle of trees or a +glistering purity of snow. By night you heard the boards creaking and +the lonesome sound of wind talking down the chimney. Yes, it had been +good.</p> + +<p>And there had been the wonder of it. He loved his training. The +horizonless world within himself was a glorious thing to explore. And +that had oriented him outward to the real world—he had felt wind and +rain and sunlight, the pride of high buildings and the surge of a +galloping horse, thresh of waves and laughter of women and smooth +mysterious purr of great machines, with a fullness that made him pity +those deaf and dumb and blind around him.</p> + +<p>Oh yes, he loved those things. He was in love with the whole turning +planet and the big skies overhead. It was a world of light and +strength and swift winds and it would be bitter to leave it. But Tighe +was locked in darkness.</p> + +<p>He said slowly, "All we ever were was a research and educational +center, a sort of informal university specializing in the scientific +study of man. We're not any kind of political organization. You'd be +surprised how much we differ in our individual opinions."</p> + +<p>"What of it?" shrugged Tyler. "This is something larger than politics. +Your work, if fully developed, would change our whole society, perhaps +the whole nature of man. We <i>know</i> you've learned more things than +you've made public. Therefore you're reserving that information for +uses of your own."</p> + +<p>"And you want it for your purposes?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Tyler. After a moment, "I despise melodrama but if you +don't cooperate you're going to get the works. And we've got Tighe +too, never forget that. One of you ought to break down if he watches +the other being questioned."</p> + +<p><i>We're going to the same place! We're going to Tighe!</i></p> + +<p>The effort to hold face and voice steady was monstrous. "Just where +are we bound?"</p> + +<p>"An island. We should be there soon. I'll be going back again myself +but Mr. Bancroft is coming shortly. That should convince you just how +important this is to us."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty nodded. "Can I think it over for awhile? It isn't an easy +decision for me."</p> + +<p>"Sure. I hope you decide right."</p> + +<p>Tyler got up and left with his guards. The big man who had handed him +the drink earlier sat where he had been all the time. Slowly the +psychologist began to tighten himself. The faint drone of turbines and +whistle of jets and sundered air began to enlarge.</p> + +<p>"Where are we going?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">CAN'T TELL YOU THAT. SHUDDUP, WILL YOU?</span>"</p> + +<p>"But surely...."</p> + +<p>The guard didn't answer. But he was thinking. +<i>Ree-villa-ghee-gay-doe—never would p'rnounce that damn Spig name ... +cripes, what a God-forsaken hole!... Mebbe I can work a trip over to +Mexico.... That little gal in Guada....</i></p> + +<p>Dalgetty concentrated. Revilla—he had it now. Islas de Revillagigedo +a small group some 350 or 400 miles off the Mexican coast, little +visited with very few inhabitants. His eidetic memory went to work, +conjuring an image of a large-scale map he had once studied. Closing +his eyes he laid off the exact distance, latitude and longitude, +individual islands.</p> + +<p>Wait, there was one a little further west, a speck on the map, not +properly belonging to the group. And—he riffled through all the facts +he had ever learned pertaining to Bancroft. Wait now, Bertrand Meade, +who seemed to be the kingpin of the whole movement—yes, Meade owned +that tiny island.</p> + +<p><i>So that's where we're going!</i> He sank back, letting weariness overrun +him. It would be awhile yet before they arrived.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty sighed and looked out at the stars. Why had men arranged such +clumsy constellations when the total pattern of the sky was a big and +lovely harmony? He knew his personal danger would be enormous once he +was on the ground. Torture, mutilation, even death.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty closed his eyes again. Almost at once he was asleep.</p> + + +<h2>IV</h2> + +<p>They landed on a small field while it was still dark. Hustled out into +a glare of lights Dalgetty did not have much chance to study his +surroundings. There were men standing on guard with magnum rifles, +tough-looking professional goons in loose gray uniforms. Dalgetty +followed obediently across the concrete, along a walk and through a +garden to the looming curved bulk of a house.</p> + +<p>He paused just a second as the door opened for them and stood looking +out into darkness. The sea rolled and hissed there on a wide beach. He +caught the clean salt smell of it and filled his lungs. It might be +the last time he ever breathed such air.</p> + +<p>"Get along with you." An arm jerked him into motion again.</p> + +<p>Down a bare coldly-lit hallway, down an escalator, into the guts of +the island. Another door, a room beyond it, an ungentle shove. The +door clashed to behind him.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty looked around. The cell was small, bleakly furnished with +bunk, toilet and washstand, had a ventilator grille in one wall. +Nothing else. He tried listening with maximum sensitivity but there +were only remote confused murmurs.</p> + +<p><i>Dad!</i> he thought. <i>You're here somewhere too.</i></p> + +<p>He flopped on the bunk and spent a moment analyzing the aesthetics of +the layout. It had a certain pleasing severity, the unconscious +balance of complete functionalism. Soon Dalgetty went back to sleep.</p> + +<p>A guard with a breakfast tray woke him. Dalgetty tried to read the +man's thoughts but there weren't any to speak of. He ate ravenously +under a gun muzzle, gave the tray back and returned to sleep. It was +the same at lunch time.</p> + +<p>His time-sense told him that it was 1435 hours when he was roused +again. There were three men this time, husky specimens. "Come on," +said one of them. "Never saw such a guy for pounding his ear."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty stood up, running a hand through his hair. The red bristles +were scratchy on his palm. It was a cover-up, a substitute symbol to +bring his nervous system back under full control. The process felt as +if he were being tumbled through a huge gulf.</p> + +<p>"Just how many of your fellows are there here?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Enough. Now get going!"</p> + +<p>He caught the whisper of thought—<i>fifty of us guards, is it? Yeah, +fifty, I guess.</i></p> + +<p>Fifty! Dalgetty felt taut as he walked out between two of them. Fifty +goons. And they were trained, he knew that. The Institute had learned +that Bertrand Meade's private army was well-drilled. Nothing obtrusive +about it—officially they were only servants and bodyguards—but they +knew how to shoot.</p> + +<p>And he was alone in mid-ocean with them. He was alone and no one knew +where he was and anything could be done to him. He felt cold, walking +down the corridor.</p> + +<p>There was a room beyond with benches and a desk. One of the guards +gestured to a chair at one end. "Sit," he grunted.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty submitted. The straps went around his wrists and ankles, +holding him to the arms and legs of the heavy chair. Another buckled +about his waist. He looked down and saw that the chair was bolted to +the floor. One of the guards crossed to the desk and started up a tape +recorder.</p> + +<p>A door opened in the far end of the room. Thomas Bancroft came in. He +was a big man, fleshy but in well-scrubbed health, his clothes +designed with quiet good taste. The head was white-maned, leonine, +with handsome florid features and sharp blue eyes. He smiled ever so +faintly and sat down behind the desk.</p> + +<p>The woman was with him—Dalgetty looked harder at her. She was new to +him. She was medium tall, a little on the compact side, her blond hair +cut too short, no makeup on her broad Slavic features. Young, in hard +condition, moving with a firm masculine stride. With those tilted gray +eyes, that delicately curved nose and wide sullen mouth, she could +have been a beauty had she wanted to be.</p> + +<p><i>One of the modern type</i>, thought Dalgetty. <i>A flesh-and-blood +machine, trying to outmale men, frustrated and unhappy without knowing +it and all the more bitter for that.</i></p> + +<p>Briefly there was sorrow in him, an enormous pity for the millions of +mankind. They did not know themselves, they fought themselves like +wild beasts, tied up in knots, locked in nightmare. Man could be so +much if he had the chance.</p> + +<p>He glanced at Bancroft. "I know you," he said, "but I'm afraid the +lady has the advantage of me."</p> + +<p>"My secretary and general assistant, Miss Casimir." The politician's +voice was sonorous, a beautifully controlled instrument. He leaned +across the desk. The recorder by his elbow whirred in the flat +soundproofed stillness.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Dalgetty," he said, "I want you to understand that we aren't +fiends. There are things too important for ordinary rules though. Wars +have been fought over them in the past and may well be fought again. +It will be easier for all concerned if you cooperate with us now. No +one need ever know that you have done so."</p> + +<p>"Suppose I answer your questions," said Dalgetty. "How do you know +I'll be telling the truth?"</p> + +<p>"Neoscopolamine, of course. I don't think you've been immunized. It +confuses the mind too much for us to interrogate you about these +complex matters under its influence but we will surely find out if you +have been answering our present questions correctly."</p> + +<p>"And what then? Do you just let me go?"</p> + +<p>Bancroft shrugged. "Why shouldn't we? We may have to keep you here for +awhile but soon you will have ceased to matter and can safely be +released."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty considered. Not even he could do much against truth drugs. +And there were still more radical procedures, prefrontal lobotomy for +instance. He shivered. The leatherite straps felt damp against his +thin clothing.</p> + +<p>He looked at Bancroft. "What do you really want?" he asked. "Why are +you working for Bertrand Meade?"</p> + +<p>Bancroft's heavy mouth lifted in a smile. "I thought you were supposed +to answer the questions," he said.</p> + +<p>"Whether I do or not depends on whose questions they are," said +Dalgetty. <i>Stall for time! Put it off, the moment of terror, put it +off!</i> "Frankly, what I know of Meade doesn't make me friendly. But I +could be wrong."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Meade is a distinguished executive."</p> + +<p>"Uh-huh. He's also the power behind a hell of a lot of political +figures, including you. He's the real boss of the Actionist movement."</p> + +<p>"What do you know of that?" asked the woman sharply.</p> + +<p>"It's a complicated story," said Dalgetty, "but essentially Actionism +is a—a <i>Weltanschauung</i>. We're still recovering from the World Wars +and their aftermath. People everywhere are swinging away from great +vague capitalized causes toward a cooler and clearer view of life.</p> + +<p>"It's analogous to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, which also +followed a period of turmoil between conflicting fanaticisms. A belief +in reason is growing up even in the popular mind, a spirit of +moderation and tolerance. There's a wait-and-see attitude toward +everything, including the sciences and particularly the new +half-finished science of psychodynamics. The world wants to rest for +awhile.</p> + +<p>"Well, such a state of mind has its own drawbacks. It produces +wonderful structures of thought but there's something cold about them. +There is so little real passion, so much caution—the arts, for +instance, are becoming ever more stylized. Old symbols like religion +and the sovereign state and a particular form of government, for which +men once died, are openly jeered at. We can formulate the semantic +condition at the Institute in a very neat equation.</p> + +<p>"And you don't like it. Your kind of man needs something big. And mere +concrete bigness isn't enough. You could give your lives to the +sciences or to inter-planetary colonization or to social correction, +as many people are cheerfully doing—but those aren't for you. Down +underneath you miss the universal father-image.</p> + +<p>"You want an almighty Church or an almighty State or an almighty +<i>anything</i>, a huge misty symbol which demands everything you've got +and gives in return only a feeling of belonging." Dalgetty's voice was +harsh. "In short, you can't stand on your own psychic feet. You can't +face the truth that man is a lonely creature and that his purpose must +come from within himself."</p> + +<p>Bancroft scowled. "I didn't come here to be lectured," he said.</p> + +<p>"Have it your way," answered Dalgetty. "I thought you wanted to know +what I knew of Actionism. That's it in unprecise verbal language. +Essentially you want to be a Leader in a Cause. Your men, such as +aren't merely hired, want to be Followers. Only there isn't a Cause +around, these days, except the common-sense one of improving human +life."</p> + +<p>The woman, Casimir, leaned over the desk. There was a curious +intensity in her eyes. "You just pointed out the drawbacks yourself," +she said. "This <i>is</i> a decadent period."</p> + +<p>"No," said Dalgetty. "Unless you insist on loaded connotations. It's a +necessary period of rest. Recoil time for a whole society—well, it +all works out neatly in Tighe's formulation. The present state of +affairs should continue for about seventy-five years, we feel at the +Institute. In that time, reason can—we hope—be so firmly implanted +in the basic structure of society that when the next great wave of +passion comes it won't turn men against each other.</p> + +<p>"The present is, well, analytic. While we catch our breath we can +begin to understand ourselves. When the next synthetic—or creative or +crusading period, if you wish—comes, it will be saner than all which +have gone before. And man can't afford to go insane again. Not in the +same world with the lithium bomb."</p> + +<p>Bancroft nodded. "And you in the Institute are trying to control this +process," he said. "You're trying to stretch out the period of—damn +it, of decadence! Oh, I've studied the modern school system too, +Dalgetty. I know how subtly the rising generation is being +indoctrinated—through policies formulated by <i>your</i> men in the +government."</p> + +<p>"Indoctrinated? Trained, I would say. Trained in self-restraint and +critical thinking." Dalgetty grinned with one side of his mouth. +"Well, we aren't here to argue generalities. Specifically Meade feels +he has a mission. He is the natural leader of America—ultimately, +through the U.N., in which we are still powerful, the world. He wants +to restore what he calls 'ancestral virtues'—you see, I've listened +to his speeches and yours, Bancroft.</p> + +<p>"These virtues consist of obedience, physical <i>and</i> mental, to +'constituted authority'—of 'dynamism,' which operationally speaking +means people ought to jump when he gives an order—of .... Oh, why go +on? It's the old story. Power hunger, the recreation of the Absolute +State, this time on a planetary scale.</p> + +<p>"With psychological appeals to some and with promises of reward to +others he's built up quite a following. But he's shrewd enough to know +that he can't just stage a revolution. He has to make people want him. +He has to reverse the social current until it swings back to +authoritarianism—with him riding the crest.</p> + +<p>"And that of course is where the Institute comes in. Yes, we have +developed theories which make at least a beginning at explaining the +facts of history. It was a matter not so much of gathering data as of +inventing a rigorous self-correcting symbology and our paramathematics +seems to be just that. We haven't published all of our findings +because of the uses to which they could be put. If you know exactly +how to go about it you can shape world society into almost any image +you want—in fifty years or less! You want that knowledge of ours for +your purposes!"</p> + +<p>Dalgetty fell silent. There was a long quietness. His own breathing +seemed unnaturally loud.</p> + +<p>"All right." Bancroft nodded again, slowly. "You haven't told us +anything we don't know."</p> + +<p>"I'm well aware of that," said Dalgetty.</p> + +<p>"Your phrasing was rather unfriendly," said Bancroft. "What you don't +appreciate is the revolting stagnation and cynicism of this age."</p> + +<p>"Now you're using the loaded words," said Dalgetty. "Facts just <i>are</i>. +There's no use passing moral judgments on reality, the only thing you +can do is try to change it."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Bancroft. "All right then, we're trying. Do you want to +help us?"</p> + +<p>"You could beat the hell out of me," said Dalgetty, "but it wouldn't +teach you a science that it takes years to learn."</p> + +<p>"No, but we'd know just what you have and where to find it. We have +some good brains on our side. Given your data and equations they can +figure it out." The pale eyes grew wholly chill. "You don't seem to +appreciate your situation. You're a prisoner, understand?"</p> + +<p>Dalgetty braced his muscles. He didn't reply.</p> + +<p>Bancroft sighed. "Bring him in," he said.</p> + +<p>One of the guards went out. Dalgetty's heart stumbled. <i>Dad</i>, he +thought. It was anguish in him. Casimir walked over to stand in front +of him. Her eyes searched his.</p> + +<p>"Don't be a fool," she said. "It hurts worse than you know. Tell us."</p> + +<p>He looked up at her. <i>I'm afraid</i>, he thought. <i>God knows I'm afraid.</i> +His own sweat was acrid in his nostrils. "No," he said.</p> + +<p>"I tell you they'll do everything!" She had a nice voice, low and +soft, but it roughened now. Her face was colorless with strain. "Go on +man, don't condemn yourself to—mindlessness!"</p> + +<p>There was something strange here. Dalgetty's senses began to reach +out. She was leaning close and he knew the signs of horror even if she +tried to hide them. <i>She's not so hard as she makes out—but then why +is she with them?</i></p> + +<p>He threw a bluff. "I know who you are," he said. "Shall I tell your +friends?"</p> + +<p>"No, you don't!" She stepped back, rigid, and his whetted senses +caught the fear-smell. In a moment there was control and she said, +"All right then, have it your way."</p> + +<p>And underneath, the thought, slowed by the gluiness of panic, <i>Does he +know I'm FBI?</i></p> + +<p><i>FBI!</i> He jerked against the straps. Ye gods!</p> + +<p>Calmness returned to him as she walked to her chief but his mind +whirred. Yes, why not? Institute men had little connection with the +Federal detectives, who, since the abolition of a discredited +Security, had resumed a broad function. They might easily have become +dubious about Bertrand Meade on their own, have planted operatives +with him. They had women among them too and a woman was always less +conspicuous than a man.</p> + +<p>He felt a chill. The last thing he wanted was a Federal agent here.</p> + +<p>The door opened again. A quartet of guards brought in Michael Tighe. +The Briton halted, staring before him. "<i>Simon!</i>" It was a harsh +sound, full of pain.</p> + +<p>"Have they hurt you, Dad?" asked Dalgetty very gently.</p> + +<p>"No, no—not till now." The gray head shook. "But you...."</p> + +<p>"Take it easy, Dad," said Dalgetty.</p> + +<p>The guards hustled Tighe over to a front-row bench and sat him down. +Old man and young locked eyes across the bare space.</p> + +<p>Tighe spoke to him in the hidden way. <i>What are you going to do? I +can't sit and let them—</i></p> + +<p>Dalgetty could not reply unheard but he shook his head. "I'll be +okay," he answered aloud.</p> + +<p><i>Do you think you can make a break? I'll try to help you.</i></p> + +<p>"No," said Dalgetty. "Whatever happens you lie low. That's an order."</p> + +<p>He blocked off sensitivity as Bancroft snapped, "Enough. One of you is +going to yield. If Dr. Tighe won't, then we'll work on him and see if +Mr. Dalgetty can hold out."</p> + +<p>He waved his hand as he took out a cigar. Two of the goons stepped up +to the chair. They had rubberite hoses in their hands.</p> + +<p>The first blow thudded against Dalgetty's ribs. He didn't feel it—he +had thrown up a nerve bloc—but it rattled his teeth together. And +while he was insensitive he'd be unable to listen in on....</p> + +<p>Another thud, and another. Dalgetty clenched his fists. What to do, +what to do? He looked over to the desk. Bancroft was smoking and +watching as dispassionately as if it were some mildly interesting +experiment. Casimir had turned her back.</p> + +<p>"Something funny here, chief." One of the goons straightened. "I don't +think he's feeling nothing."</p> + +<p>"Doped?" Bancroft frowned. "No, that's hardly possible." He rubbed his +chin, regarding Dalgetty with wondering eyes. Casimir wheeled around +to stare. Sweat filmed Michael Tighe's face, glistening in the chill +white light.</p> + +<p>"He can still be hurt," said the guard.</p> + +<p>Bancroft winced. "I don't like outright mutilation," he said. "But +still—I've warned you, Dalgetty."</p> + +<p>"<i>Get out, Simon</i>," whispered Tighe. "<i>Get out of here.</i>"</p> + +<p>Dalgetty's red head lifted. Decision crystalized within him. He would +be no use to anyone with a broken leg, a crushed foot, an eye knocked +out, seared lungs—and Casimir was FBI, she might be able to do +something at this end in spite of all.</p> + +<p>He tested the straps. A quarter inch of leatherite—he could snap them +but would he break his bones doing it?</p> + +<p><i>Only one way to find out</i>, he thought bleakly.</p> + +<p>"I'll get a blowtorch," said one of the guards in the rear of the +room. His face was wholly impassive. Most of these goons must be +moronic, thought Dalgetty. Most of the guards in the twentieth-century +extermination camps had been. No inconvenient empathy with the human +flesh they broke and flayed and burned.</p> + +<p>He gathered himself. This time it was rage, a cloud of fury rising in +his mind, a ragged red haze across his vision. That they would <i>dare</i>!</p> + +<p>He snarled as the strength surged up in him. He didn't even feel the +straps as they popped across. The same movement hurtled him across the +room toward the door.</p> + +<p>Someone yelled. A guard leaped in his path, a giant of a man. +Dalgetty's fist sprang before him, there was a cracking sound and the +goon's head snapped back against his own spine. Dalgetty was already +past him. The door was shut in his face. Wood crashed as he went +through it.</p> + +<p>A bullet wailed after him. He dodged down the corridor, up the nearest +steps, the walls blurred with his own speed. Another slug smacked into +the paneling beside him. He rounded a corner, saw a window and covered +his eyes with an arm as he leaped.</p> + +<p>The plastic was tough but a hundred and seventy pounds hit it at +fifteen feet per second. Dalgetty went through!</p> + +<p>Sunlight flamed in his eyes as he hit the ground. Rolling over and +bouncing to his feet he set out across lawn and garden. As he ran his +vision swept the landscape. In that state of fear and wrath he could +not command much thought but his memory stored the data for +re-examination.</p> + + +<h2>V</h2> + +<p>The house was a rambling two-story affair, all curves and planes +between palm trees, the island sloping swiftly from its front to a +beach and dock. On one side was the airfield, on another the guard +barracks. To the rear, in the direction of Dalgetty's movement, the +ground became rough and wild, stones and sand and saw-grass and clumps +of palmettos, climbing upward for a good two miles. On every side, he +could see the infinite blue sparkle of ocean. Where could he hide?</p> + +<p>He didn't notice the slashing blades through which he raced and the +dry gulping of his lungs was something dreadfully remote. But when a +bullet went past one ear, he heard that and drew more speed from some +unknown depth. A glance behind revealed his pursuers boiling out of +the house, men in gray with the hot sunlight blinking off their guns.</p> + +<p>He ducked around a thicket, flopped and belly-crawled over a rise of +land. On the farther side he straightened again and ran up the long +slope. Another slug and another. They were almost a mile behind now +but their guns had a long reach. He bent low, zigzagging as he ran. +The bullets kicked up spurts of sand around him.</p> + +<p>A six-foot bluff loomed in his path, black volcanic rock shining like +wet glass. He hit it at full speed. He almost <i>walked</i> up its face and +in the instant when his momentum was gone caught a root and yanked +himself to the top. Again he was out of their sight. He sprang around +another hulk of stone and skidded to a halt. At his feet, a sheer +cliff dropped nearly a hundred feet to a white smother of surf.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty gulped air, working his lungs like a bellows. A long jump +down, he thought dizzily. If he didn't crack his skull open on a reef +he might well be clawed under by the sea. But there was no other place +for him to go.</p> + +<p>He made a swift estimate. He had run the upward two miles in a little +over nine minutes, surely a record for such terrain. It would take the +pursuit another ten or fifteen to reach him. But he couldn't double +back without being seen and this time they'd be close enough to fill +him with lead.</p> + +<p><i>Okay, son</i>, he told himself. <i>You're going to duck now, in more than +one sense.</i></p> + +<p>His light waterproof clothes, tattered by the island growth, would be +no hindrance down there, but he took off his sandals and stuck them in +his belt pouch. Praise all gods, the physical side of his training had +included water sports. He moved along the cliff edge, looking for a +place to dive. The wind whined at his feet.</p> + +<p>There—down there. No visible rocks though the surf boiled and smoked. +He willed full energy back into himself, bent his knees, jack-knifed +into the air.</p> + +<p>The sea was a hammer blow against his body. He came up threshing and +tumbling, gasped a mouthful of air that was half salt spray, was +pulled under again. A rock scraped his ribs. He took long strokes, +always upward to the blind white shimmer of light. He got to the crest +of one wave and rode it in, surfing over a razorback reef.</p> + +<p>Shallow water. Blinded by the steady rain of salt mist, deafened by +the roar and crash of the sea, he groped toward shore. A narrow pebbly +beach ran along the foot of the cliff. He moved along it, hunting a +place to hide.</p> + +<p>There—a sea-worn cave, some ten feet inward, with a yard or so of +fairly quiet water covering its bottom. He splashed inside and lay +down, exhaustion clamping a hand on him.</p> + +<p>It was noisy. The hollow resonance of sound filled the cave like the +inside of a drum but he didn't notice. He lay on the rocks and sand, +his mind spiraling toward unconsciousness, and let his body make its +own recovery.</p> + +<p>Presently he regained awareness and looked about him. The cave was +dim, with only a filtered greenish light to pick out black wall's and +slowly swirling water. Nobody could see much below the surface—good. +He studied himself. Lacerated clothes, bruised flesh and a long +bleeding gash in one side. That was not good. A stain of blood on the +water would give him away like a shout.</p> + +<p>Grimacing, he pressed the edges of the wound together and willed that +the bleeding stop. By the time a good enough clot was formed for him +to relax his concentration the guards were scrambling down to find +him. He didn't have many minutes left. Now he had to do the opposite +of energizing. He had to slow metabolism down, ease his heartbeat, +lower his body temperature, dull his racing brain.</p> + +<p>He began to move his hands, swaying back and forth, muttering the +autohypnotic formulas. His incantations, Tighe had called them. But +they were only stylized gestures leading to conditioned reflexes deep +in the medulla. <i>Now I lay me down to sleep</i>....</p> + +<p>Heavy, heavy—his eyelids were drooping; the wet walls receding into a +great darkness, a hand cradling his head. The noise of surf dimmed, +became a rustle, the skirts of the mother he had never known, come in +to bid him goodnight. Coolness stole over him like veils dropping one +by one inside his head. There was winter outside and his bed was snug.</p> + +<p>When Dalgetty heard the nearing rattle of boots—just barely through +the ocean and his own drowsiness—he almost forgot what he had to do. +No, yes, now he knew. Take several long, deep breaths, oxygenate the +bloodstream, then fill the lungs once and slide down under the +surface.</p> + +<p>He lay there in darkness hardly conscious of the voices, dimly +perceived.</p> + +<p>"A cave here—a place for him to hide."</p> + +<p>"Nah, I don't see nothing."</p> + +<p>Scrunch of feet on stone. "Ouch! Stubbed my damn toe. Nah, it's a +closed cave. He ain't in here."</p> + +<p>"Hm? Look at this, then. Bloodstains on this rock, right? He's <i>been</i> +here, at least."</p> + +<p>"Under water?" Rifle butts probed but could not sound the inlet.</p> + +<p>The woman's voice. "If he is hiding down below he'll have to come up +for air."</p> + +<p>"When? We gotta search this whole damn beach. Here, I'll just give the +water a burst."</p> + +<p>Casimir, sharply—"Don't be a fool. You won't even know if you hit +him. Nobody can hold his breath more than three minutes."</p> + +<p>"Yeah, that's right, Joe. How long we been in here?"</p> + +<p>"One minute, I guess. Give him a couple more. Cripes! D'ja see how he +ran? He ain't human!"</p> + +<p>"He's killable, though. Me, I think he's just rolling around in the +surf out there. This could be fish blood. A 'cuda chased another fish +in here and bit it."</p> + +<p>Casimir: "Or if his body drifted in, it's safely under. Got a +cigarette?"</p> + +<p>"Here y'are, Miss. But say, I never thought to ask. How come you come +with us?"</p> + +<p>Casimir: "I'm as good a shot as you are, buster, and I want to be sure +this job's done right."</p> + +<p>Pause.</p> + +<p>Casimir: "Almost five minutes. If he can come up now he's a seal. +Especially with his body oxygen-starved after all that running."</p> + +<p>In the slowness of Dalgetty's brain there was a chill wonder about the +woman. He had read her thought, she was FBI, but she seemed strangely +eager to hunt him down.</p> + +<p>"Okay, le's get outta here."</p> + +<p>Casimir: "You go on. I'll wait here just in case and come up to the +house pretty soon. I'm tired of following you around."</p> + +<p>"Okay. Le's go, Joe."</p> + +<p>It was another four minutes or so before the pain and tension in his +lungs became unendurable. Dalgetty knew he would be helpless as he +rose, still in his semi-hibernating state, but his body was shrieking +for air. Slowly he broke the surface.</p> + +<p>The woman gasped. Then the automatic jumped into her hand and leveled +between his eyes. "All right, friend. Come on out." Her voice was very +low and shook a trifle but there was grimness in it.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty climbed onto the ledge beside her and sat with his legs +dangling, hunched in the misery of returning strength. When full +wakefulness was achieved he looked at her and found she had moved to +the farther end of the cave.</p> + +<p>"Don't try to jump," she said. Her eyes caught the vague light in a +wide glimmer, half frightened. "I don't know what to make of you."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty drew a long breath and sat upright, bracing himself on the +cold slippery stone. "I know who you are," he said.</p> + +<p>"Who, then?" she challenged.</p> + +<p>"You're an FBI agent planted on Bancroft."</p> + +<p>Her gaze narrowed, her lips compressed. "What makes you think so?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind—you are. That gives me a certain hold on you, whatever +your purposes."</p> + +<p>The blond head nodded. "I wondered about that. That remark you made to +me down in the cell suggested—well, I couldn't take chances. +Especially when you showed you were something extraordinary by +snapping those straps and bursting the door open. I came along with +the search party in hope of finding you."</p> + +<p>He had to admire the quick mind behind the wide smooth brow. "You damn +near did—for them," he accused her.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't do anything suspicious," she answered. "But I figured you +hadn't leaped off the cliff in sheer desperation. You must have had +some hiding place in mind and under water seemed the most probable. +In view of what you'd already done I was pretty sure you could hold +your breath abnormally long." Her smile was a little shaky. "Though I +didn't think it would be <i>inhumanly</i> long."</p> + +<p>"You've got brains," he said, "but how much heart?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"I mean, are you going to throw Dr. Tighe and me to the wolves now? Or +will you help us?"</p> + +<p>"That depends," she answered slowly. "What are you here for?"</p> + +<p>His mouth twisted ruefully. "I'm not here on purpose at all," Dalgetty +confessed. "I was just trying to get a clue to Dr. Tighe's +whereabouts. They outsmarted me and brought me here. Now I <i>have</i> to +rescue him." His eyes held hers. "Kidnapping is a Federal offense. +It's your duty to help me."</p> + +<p>"I may have higher duties," she countered. Leaning forward, tautly, +"But how do you expect to do this?"</p> + +<p>"I'm damned if I know." Dalgetty locked moodily out at the beach and +the waves and the smoking spindrift. "But that gun of yours would be a +big help."</p> + +<p>She stood for a moment, scowling with thought. "If I don't come back +soon they'll be out hunting for me."</p> + +<p>"We've got to find another hiding place," he agreed. "Then they will +assume I survived after all and grabbed you. They'll be scouring the +whole island for us. If we haven't been located before dark they'll be +spread thin enough to give us a chance."</p> + +<p>"It makes more sense for me to go back now," she said. "Then I can be +on the inside to help you."</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "Uh-uh. Quit making like a stereoshow detective. If +you leave me your gun, claiming you lost it, that's sure to bring +suspicion on you the way they're excited right now. If you don't I'll +still be on the outside and unarmed—and what could you do, one woman +alone in that nest? Now we're two with a shooting iron between us. I +think that's a better bet."</p> + +<p>After a while, she nodded. "Okay, you win. Assuming"—the half-lowered +gun was raised again with a jerking motion—"that I will aid you. Who +are you? <i>What</i> are you, Dalgetty?"</p> + +<p>He shrugged. "Let's say I'm Dr. Tighe's assistant and have some +unusual powers. You know the Institute well enough to realize this +isn't just a feud between two gangster groups."</p> + +<p>"I wonder...." Suddenly she clanked the automatic back into its +holster. "All right. For the time being only though!"</p> + +<p>Relief was a wave rushing through him. "Thank you," he whispered. +Then, "Where can we go?"</p> + +<p>"I've been swimming around here in the quieter spots," she said. "I +know a place. Wait here."</p> + +<p>She stepped across the cave and peered out its mouth. Someone must +have hailed her, for she waved back. She stood leaning against the +rock and Dalgetty saw how the sea-spray gleamed in her hair. After a +long five minutes she turned to him again.</p> + +<p>"All right," she said. "The last one just went up the path. Let's go." +They walked along the beach. It trembled underfoot with the rage of +the sea. There was a grinding under the snort and roar of surf as if +the world's teeth ate rock.</p> + +<p>The beach curved inward, forming a small bay sheltered by outlying +skerries. A narrow path ran upward from it but it was toward the sea +that the woman gestured. "Out there," she said. "Follow me." She took +off her shoes as he had done and checked her holster: the gun was +waterproof, but it wouldn't do to have it fall out. She waded into the +sea and struck out with a powerful crawl.</p> + + +<h2>VI</h2> + +<p>They climbed up on one of the hogback rocks some ten yards from shore. +This one rose a good dozen feet above the surface. It was cleft in the +middle, forming a little hollow hidden from land and water alike. They +crawled into this and sat down, breathing hard. The sea was loud at +their backs and the air felt cold on their wet skins.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty leaned back against the smooth stone, looking at the woman, +who was unemotionally counting how many clips she had in her pouch. +The thin drenched tunic and slacks showed a very nice figure. "What's +your name?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Casimir," she answered, without looking up.</p> + +<p>"First name, I mean. Mine is Simon."</p> + +<p>"Elena, if you must know. Four packs, a hundred rounds plus ten in the +chamber now. If we have to shoot them all, we'd better be good. These +aren't magnums, so you have to hit a man just right to put him out of +action."</p> + +<p>"Well," shrugged Dalgetty, "we'll just have to lumber along as best we +can. I oak we don't make ashes of ourselves."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>no</i>!" He couldn't tell whether it was appreciation or dismay. +"At a time like this too."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't make me very popular," he agreed. "Everybody says to elm +with me. But, as they say in France, ve are alo-o-one now, mon cherry, +and tree's a crowd."</p> + +<p>"Don't get ideas," she snapped.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll get plenty of ideas, though I admit this isn't the place to +carry them out." Dalgetty folded his arms behind his head and blinked +up at the sky. "Man, could I use a nice tall mint julep right now."</p> + +<p>Elena frowned. "If you're trying to convince me you're just a simple +American boy you might as well quit," she said thinly. "That sort +of—of emotional control, in a situation like this, only makes you +less human."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty swore at himself. She was too damn quick, that was all. And +her intelligence might be enough for her to learn....</p> + +<p><i>Will I have to kill her?</i></p> + +<p>He drove the thought from him. He could overcome his own conditioning +about anything, including murder, if he wanted to, but he'd never want +to. No, that was out. "How did you get here?" he asked. "How much does +the FBI know?"</p> + +<p>"Why should I tell you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it'd be nice to know if we can expect reinforcements."</p> + +<p>"We can't." Her voice was bleak. "I might as well let you know. The +Institute could find out anyway through its government connections—the +damned octopus!" he looked into the sky. Dalgetty's gaze followed the +curve of her high cheekbones. Unusual face—you didn't often see such an +oddly pleasing arrangement. The slight departure from symmetry....</p> + +<p>"We've wondered about Bertrand Meade for some time, as every thinking +person has," she began tonelessly. "It's too bad there are so few +thinking people in the country."</p> + +<p>"Something the Institute is trying to correct," Dalgetty put in.</p> + +<p>Elena ignored him. "It was finally decided to work agents into his +various organizations. I've been with Thomas Bancroft for about two +years now. My background was carefully faked and I'm a useful +assistant. But even so it was only a short while back that I got +sufficiently into his confidence to be given some inkling of what's +going on. As far as I know no other FBI operative has learned as +much."</p> + +<p>"And what have you found out?"</p> + +<p>"Essentially the same things you were describing in the cell, plus +more details on the actual work they're doing. Apparently the +Institute was onto Meade's plans long before we were. It doesn't speak +well for your purposes, whatever they are, that you haven't asked us +for help before this.</p> + +<p>"The decision to kidnap Dr. Tighe was taken only a couple of weeks +ago. I haven't had a chance to communicate with my associates in the +force. There's always someone around, watching. The set-up's well +arranged, so that even those not under suspicion don't have much +chance to work unobserved, once they've gotten high enough to know +anything important. Everybody spies on everybody else and submits +periodic reports."</p> + +<p>She gave him a harsh look. "So here I am. No official person knows my +whereabouts and if I should disappear it would be called a deplorable +accident. Nothing could be proved and I doubt if the FBI would ever +get another chance to do any effective spying."</p> + +<p>"But you have proof enough for a raid," he ventured.</p> + +<p>"No, we haven't. Up till the time I was told Dr. Tighe was going to be +snatched I didn't know for certain that anything illegal was going on. +There's nothing in the law against like-minded people knowing each +other and having a sort of club. Even if they hire tough characters +and arm them the law can't protest. The Act of Nineteen Ninety-nine +effectively forbids private armies but it would be hard to prove Meade +has one."</p> + +<p>"He doesn't really," said Dalgetty. "Those goons aren't much more than +what they claim to be—bodyguards. This whole fight is primarily on +a—a mental level."</p> + +<p>"So I gather. And can a free country forbid debate or propaganda? Not +to mention that Meade's people include some powerful men in the +government itself. If I could get away from here alive we'd be able to +hang a kidnapping charge on Thomas Bancroft, with assorted charges of +threat, mayhem and conspiracy, but it wouldn't touch the main group." +Her fists clenched. "It's like fighting shadows."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"You war against the sunset-glow. The judgment follows fast my lord!" +quoted Dalgetty. <i>Heriots' Ford</i> was one of the few poems he liked. +"Getting Bancroft out of the way would be something," he added. "The +way to fight Meade is not to attack him physically but to change the +conditions under which he must work."</p> + +<p>"Change them to what?" Her eyes challenged his. He noticed that there +were small gold flecks in the gray. "What does the Institute want?"</p> + +<p>"A sane world," he replied.</p> + +<p>"I've wondered," she said. "Maybe Bancroft is more nearly right than +you. Maybe I should be on his side after all."</p> + +<p>"I take it you favor libertarian government," he said. "In the past +it's always broken down sooner or later and the main reason has been +that there aren't enough people with the intelligence, alertness and +toughness to resist the inevitable encroachments of power on liberty.</p> + +<p>"The Institute is trying to do two things—create such a citizenry and +simultaneously to build up a society which itself produces men of that +kind and reinforces those traits in them. It can be done, given time. +Under ideal conditions we estimate it would take about three hundred +years for the whole world. Actually it'll take longer."</p> + +<p>"But just what kind of person is needed?" Elena asked coldly. "Who +decides it? <i>You</i> do. You're just the same as all other reformers, +including Meade—hell bent to change the whole human race over to your +particular ideal, whether they like it or not."</p> + +<p>"Oh, they'll like it," he smiled. "That's part of the process."</p> + +<p>"It's a worse tyranny than whips and barbed wire," she snapped.</p> + +<p>"You've never experienced those then."</p> + +<p>"You <i>have</i> got that knowledge," she accused. "You have the data and +the equations to be—sociological engineers."</p> + +<p>"In theory," he said. "In practice it isn't that easy. The social +forces are so great that—well, we could be overwhelmed before +accomplishing anything. And there are plenty of things we still don't +know. It will take decades, perhaps centuries, to work out a complete +dynamics of man. We're one step beyond the politician's rule of thumb +but not up to the point where we can use slide rules. We have to feel +our way."</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless," she said, "you've got the beginnings of a knowledge +which reveals the true structure of society and the processes that +make it. Given that knowledge man could in time build his own +world-order the way he desired it, a stable culture that wouldn't know +the horrors of oppression or collapse. But you've hidden away the very +fact that such information exists. You're using it in secret."</p> + +<p>"Because we have to," Dalgetty said. "If it were generally known that +we're putting pressure on here and there and giving advice slanted +just the way <i>we</i> desire, the whole thing would blow up in our faces. +People don't like being shoved around."</p> + +<p>"And still you're doing it!" One hand dropped to her gun. "You, a +clique of maybe a hundred men...."</p> + +<p>"More than that. You'd be surprised how many are with us."</p> + +<p>"You've decided <i>you</i> are the almighty arbiters. Your superior wisdom +is going to lead poor blind mankind up the road to heaven. I say it's +down the road to hell! The last century saw the dictatorship of the +elite and the dictatorship of the proletariat. This one seems to be +birthing the dictatorship of the intellectuals. I don't like any of +them!"</p> + +<p>"Look, Elena." Dalgetty leaned on one elbow and faced her. "It isn't +that simple. All right, we've got some special knowledge. When we +first realized we were getting somewhere in our research we had to +decide whether to make our results public or merely give out selected +less important findings. Don't you see, no matter what we did it would +have been us, the few men, who decided? Even destroying all our +information would have been a decision."</p> + +<p>His voice grew more urgent. "So we made what I think was the right +choice. History shows as conclusively as our own equations that +freedom is not a 'natural' condition of man. It's a metastable state +at best, all too likely to collapse into tyranny. The tyranny can be +imposed from outside by the better-organized armies of a conqueror, or +it can come from within—through the will of the people themselves, +surrendering their rights to the father-image, the almighty leader, +the absolute state.</p> + +<p>"What use does Bertrand Meade want to make of our findings if he can +get them? To bring about the end of freedom by working on the people +till they themselves desire it. And the damnable part of it is that +Meade's goal is much more easily attained than ours.</p> + +<p>"So suppose we made our knowledge public. Suppose we educated anyone +who desired it in our techniques. Can't you see what would happen? +Can't you see the struggle that would be waged for control of the +human mind? It could start as innocuously as a businessman planning a +more effective advertising campaign. It would end in a welter of +propaganda, counter-propaganda, social and economic manipulations, +corruption, competition for the key offices—and so, ultimately, there +would be violence.</p> + +<p>"All the psychodynamic tensors ever written down won't stop a +machine-gun. Violence riding over a society thrown into chaos, +enforced peace—and the peace-makers, perhaps with the best will in +the world, using the Institute techniques to restore order. Then one +step leads to another, power gets more and more centralized and it +isn't long before you have the total state back again. Only this total +state could <i>never</i> be overthrown!"</p> + +<p>Elena Casimir bit her lip. A stray breeze slid down the rock wall and +rumpled her bright hair. After a long while she said, "Maybe you're +right. But America today has, on the whole, a good government. You +could let them know."</p> + +<p>"Too risky. Sooner or later someone, probably with very idealistic +motives, would force the whole thing into the open. So we're keeping +hidden the very fact that our most important equations exist—which is +why we didn't ask for help when Meade's detectives finally learned +that they know."</p> + +<p>"How do you know your precious Institute won't become just such an +oligarchy as you describe?"</p> + +<p>"I don't," Simon said, "but it's improbable. You see, the recruits who +are eventually taught everything we know are pretty thoroughly +indoctrinated with our own present-day beliefs. And we've learned +enough individual psych to do some real indoctrinating! They'll pass +it on to the next generation and so on.</p> + +<p>"Meanwhile we hope the social structure and the mental climate is +being modified in such a way that eventually it would be very +difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to impose absolute control by +any means. For as I said before, even an ultimately developed +psychodynamics can't do everything. Ordinary propaganda, for instance, +is quite ineffective on people trained in critical thinking.</p> + +<p>"When enough people the world over are sane we can make the knowledge +general. Meanwhile we've got to keep it under wraps and quietly +prevent anyone else from learning the same things independently. Most +such prevention, by the way, consists merely of recruiting promising +researchers into our own ranks."</p> + +<p>"The world's too big," she said very softly. "You can't foresee all +that'll happen. Too many things could go wrong."</p> + +<p>"Maybe. It's a chance we've got to take." His own gaze was somber.</p> + +<p>They sat for awhile in stillness. Then she said, "It all sounds very +pretty. But—what are you, Dalgetty?"</p> + +<p>"Simon," he corrected.</p> + +<p>"What are you?" she repeated. "You've done things I wouldn't have +believed were possible. <i>Are you human?</i>"</p> + +<p>"I'm told so." He smiled.</p> + +<p>"Yes? I wonder! How is it possible that you—"</p> + +<p>He wagged a finger. "Ah-ah! Right of privacy." And with swift +seriousness, "You know too much already. I have to assume you can keep +it secret all your life."</p> + +<p>"That remains to be seen," Elena said, not looking at him.</p> + + +<h2>VII</h2> + +<p>Sundown burned across the waters and the island rose like a mountain +of night against the darkening sky. Dalgetty stretched cramped muscles +and peered over the bay.</p> + +<p>In the hours of waiting there had not been much said between him and +the woman. He had dropped a few questions, with the careful casualness +of the skilled analyst, and gotten the expected reactions. He knew a +little more about her—a child of the strangling dying cities and +shadowy family life of the 1980's, forced to armor herself in +harshness, finding in the long training for her work and now in the +job itself an ideal to substitute for the tenderness she had never +known.</p> + +<p>He felt pity for her but there was little he could do to help just +now. To her own queries he gave guarded replies. It occurred to him +briefly that he was, in his way, as lonesome as she. <i>But of course I +don't mind—or do I?</i></p> + +<p>Mostly they tried to plan their next move. For the time, at least, +they were of one purpose. She described the layout of house and +grounds and indicated the cell where Michael Tighe was ordinarily +kept. But there was not much they could do to think out tactics. "If +Bancroft gets alarmed enough," she said, "he'll have Dr. Tighe flown +elsewhere."</p> + +<p>He agreed. "That's why we'd better hit tonight, before he can get that +worried." The thought was pain within him. <i>Dad, what are they doing +to you now?</i></p> + +<p>"There's also the matter of food and drink." Her voice was husky with +thirst and dull with the discouragement of hunger. "We can't stay out +here like this much longer." She gave him a strange glance. "Don't you +feel weak?"</p> + +<p>"Not now," he said. He had blocked off the sensations.</p> + +<p>"They—<i>Simon!</i>" She grabbed his arm. "A boat—hear?"</p> + +<p>The murmur of jets drifted to him through the beating waves. "Yeah. +Quick—underneath!"</p> + +<p>They scrambled over the hogback and slid down its farther side. The +sea clawed at Dalgetty's feet and foam exploded over his head. He +hunched low, throwing one arm about her as she slipped. The airboat +murmured overhead, hot gold in the sunset light. Dalgetty crouched, +letting the breakers run coldly around him. The ledge where they clung +was worn smooth, offered little to hold onto.</p> + +<p>The boat circled, its jets thunderous at low speed. <i>They're worried +about her now. They must be sure I'm still alive.</i></p> + +<p>White water roared above his head. He breathed a hasty gasp of air +before the next comber hit him. Their bodies were wholly submerged, +their faces shouldn't show in that haze of foam—but the jet was +soaring down and there would be machine-guns on it.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty's belly muscles stiffened, waiting for the tracers to burn +through him.</p> + +<p>Elena's body slipped from his grasp and went under. He hung there, not +daring to follow. A stolen glance upward—yes, the jet was out of +sight again, moving back toward the field. He dove off the ledge and +struck into the waves. The girl's head rose over them as he neared. +She twisted from him and made her own way back to the rock. But when +they were in the hollow again her teeth rattled with chill and she +pressed against him for warmth.</p> + +<p>"Okay," he said shakily. "Okay, we're all right now. You are hereby +entitled to join our Pacific wet-erans' club."</p> + +<p>Her laugh was small under the boom of breakers and hiss of scud. +"You're trying hard, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"I—<i>oh</i>, oh! Get <i>down</i>!"</p> + +<p>Peering over the edge Dalgetty saw the men descending the path. There +were half a dozen, armed and wary. One had a WT radio unit on his +back. In the shadow of the cliff they were almost invisible as they +began prowling the beach.</p> + +<p>"Still hunting us!" Her voice was a groan.</p> + +<p>"You didn't expect otherwise, did you? I'm just hoping they don't come +out here. Does anybody else know of this spot?" He held his lips close +to her ear.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't believe so," she breathed. "I was the only one who cared +to go swimming at this end of the island. But...."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty waited, grimly. The sun was down at last, the twilight +thickening. A few stars twinkled to life in the east. The goons +finished their search and settled in a line along the beach.</p> + +<p>"Oh-oh," muttered Dalgetty. "I get the idea. Bancroft's had the land +beaten for me so thoroughly he's sure I must be somewhere out to sea. +If I were he I'd guess I'd swum far out to be picked up by a +waterboat. So—he's guarding every possible approach against a landing +party."</p> + +<p>"What can we do?" whispered Elena. "Even if we can swim around their +radius of sight we can't land just anywhere. Most of the island is +vertical cliff. Or can you...?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "Regardless of what you may think I don't have vacuum +cups on my feet. But how far does that gun of yours carry?"</p> + +<p>She stole a glance over the edge. Night was sweeping in. The island +was a wall of blackness and the men at its foot were hidden. "You +can't <i>see</i>!" she protested.</p> + +<p>He squeezed her shoulder. "Oh yes I can, honey. But whether I'm a good +enough shot to.... We'll have to try it, that's all."</p> + +<p>Her face was a white blur and fear of the unknown put metal in her +voice. "Part seal, part cat, part deer, part what else? I don't think +you're human, Simon Dalgetty."</p> + +<p>He didn't answer. The abnormal voluntary dilation of pupils hurt his +eyes.</p> + +<p>"What else has Dr. Tighe done?" Her tone was chill in the dark. "You +can't study the human mind without studying the body too. What's he +done? Are you the mutant they're always speculating about? Did Dr. +Tighe create or find homo superior?"</p> + +<p>"If I don't plug that radio com-set before they can use it," he said, +"I'll be homo-genized."</p> + +<p>"You can't laugh it off," she said through taut lips. "If you aren't +of our species I have to assume you're our enemy—till you prove +otherwise!" Her fingers closed hard on his arm. "Is that what your +little gang at the Institute is doing? Have they decided that mere +humanity isn't good enough to be civilized? Are they preparing the way +for your kind to take over?"</p> + +<p>"Listen," he said wearily. "Right now we're two people, very mortal +indeed, being hunted. So shut up!"</p> + +<p>He took the pistol from her holster and slipped a full clip into its +magazine. His vision was at high sensitivity now, her face showed +white against the wet rock with gray highlights along its strong +cheekbones beneath the wide frightened eyes. Beyond the reefs the sea +was gunmetal under the stars, streaked with foam and shadow.</p> + +<p>Ahead of him, as he rose to his feet, the line of guards stood out as +paler darknesses against the vertiginous island face. They had mounted +a heavy machine-gun to point seaward and a self-powered spotlight, +not turned on, rested nearby. Those two things could be dangerous but +first he had to find the radio set that could call the whole garrison +down on them.</p> + +<p><i>There!</i> It was a small hump on the back of one man, near the middle +of the beach. He was pacing restlessly up and down with a tommy-gun in +his hands. Dalgetty raised the pistol with slow hard-held +concentration, wishing it were a rifle. <i>Remember your target practice +now, arm loose, fingers extended, don't pull the trigger but +squeeze—because you've got to be right the first time!</i></p> + +<p>He shot. The weapon was a military model, semi-noiseless and with no +betraying streak of light. The first bullet spun the goon on his heels +and sent him lurching across sand and rock. Dalgetty worked the +trigger, spraying around his victim, a storm of lead that <i>must</i> ruin +the sender.</p> + +<p>Chaos on the beach! If that spotlight went on with his eyes at their +present sensitivity, he'd be blind for hours. He fired carefully, +smashing lens and bulb. The machine-gun opened up, stuttering, wildly +into the dark. If someone elsewhere on the island heard that +noise—Dalgetty shot again, dropping the gunner over his weapon.</p> + +<p>Bullets spanged around him, probing the darkness. One down, two down, +three down. A fourth was running along the upward path. Dalgetty fired +and missed, fired and missed, fired and missed. He was getting out of +range, carrying the alarm—<i>there!</i> He fell slowly, like a jointed +doll, rolling down the trail. The two others were dashing for the +shelter of a cave, offering no chance to nail them.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty scrambled over the rock, splashed into the bay and struck out +for the shore. Shots raked the water. He wondered if they could hear +his approach through the sea-noise. Soon he'd be close enough for +normal night vision. He gave himself wholly to swimming.</p> + +<p>His feet touched sand and he waded ashore, the water dragging at him. +Crouching, he answered the shots coming from the cave. The shriek and +yowl were everywhere around him now. It seemed impossible that they +should not hear up above. He tensed his jaws and crawled toward the +machine-gun. A cold part of him noticed that the fire was in a random +pattern. They couldn't see him then.</p> + +<p>The man lying by the gun was still alive but unconscious. That was +enough. Dalgetty crouched over the trigger. He had never handled a +weapon like this but it must be ready for action—only minutes ago it +had tried to kill him. He sighted on the cave mouth and cut loose.</p> + +<p>Recoil made the gun dance till he caught onto the trick of using it. +He couldn't see anyone in the cave but he could bounce lead off its +walls. He shot for a full minute before stopping. Then he crawled away +at an angle till he reached the cliff. Sliding along this he +approached the entrance and waited. No sound came from inside.</p> + +<p>He risked a quick glance. Yes, it had done the job. He felt a little +sick.</p> + +<p>Elena was climbing out of the water when he returned. There was a +strangeness in the look she gave him. "All taken care of?" she asked +tonelessly.</p> + +<p>He nodded, remembered she could hardly see the movement, said aloud, +"Yes, I think so. Grab some of this hardware and let's get moving."</p> + +<p>With his nerves already keyed for night vision it was not difficult to +heighten other perceptions and catch her thinking ... <i>not human</i>. +<i>Why should he mind if he kills human beings when he isn't one +himself?</i></p> + +<p>"But I do mind," he said gently. "I've never killed a man before and I +don't like it."</p> + +<p>She jerked away from him. It had been a mistake, he realized. "Come +on," he said. "Here's your pistol. Better take a tommy-gun too if you +can handle it."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said. He had lowered his reception again, her voice fell +quiet and hard. "Yes, I can use one."</p> + +<p><i>On whom?</i> he wondered. He picked up an automatic rifle from one of +the sprawled figures. "Let's go," he said. Turning, he led the way up +the path. His spine prickled with the thought of her at his back, +keyed to a pitch of near-hysteria.</p> + +<p>"We're out to rescue Michael Tighe, remember," he whispered over his +shoulder. "I've had no military experience and I doubt that you've +ever done anything like this either, so we'll probably make every +mistake in the books. But we've got to get Dr. Tighe."</p> + +<p>She didn't answer.</p> + +<p>At the top of the path Dalgetty went down on his stomach again and +slithered up over the crest. Slowly he raised his head to peer in +front of him. Nothing moved, nothing stirred. He stooped low as he +walked forward.</p> + +<p>The thickets fenced off vision a few yards ahead. Beyond them, at the +end of the slope, he could glimpse lights. Bancroft's place must be +one glare of radiance. How to get in there without being seen? He drew +Elena close to him. For a moment she stiffened at his touch, then she +yielded. "Any ideas?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No," she replied.</p> + +<p>"I could play dead," he began tentatively. "You could claim to have +been caught by me, to have gotten your gun back and killed me. They +might lose suspicion then and carry me inside."</p> + +<p>"You think you could fake <i>that</i>?" She pulled away from him again.</p> + +<p>"Sure. Make a small cut and force it to bleed enough to look like a +bullet wound—which doesn't usually bleed much, anyway. Slow down +heartbeat and respiration till their ordinary senses couldn't detect +them. Near-total muscular relaxation, including even those unromantic +aspects of death which are so rarely mentioned. Oh yes."</p> + +<p>"Now I know you aren't human," she said. There was a shudder in her +voice. "Are you a synthetic thing? Did they make you in the +laboratory, Dalgetty?"</p> + +<p>"I just want your opinion of the idea," he muttered with a flicker of +anger.</p> + +<p>It must have taken an effort for Elena to wrench clear of her fear of +him. But then she shook her head. "Too risky. If I were one of those +fellows, with all you've already done to make me wonder about you, the +first thing I'd do on finding your supposed corpse would be to put a +bullet through its brain—and maybe a stake through its heart. Or can +you survive that too?"</p> + +<p>"No," he admitted. "All right, it was just a thought. Let's work a bit +closer to the house."</p> + +<p>They went through brush and grass. It seemed to him that an army would +make less noise. Once his straining ears caught a sound of boots and +he yanked Elena into the gloom under a palmetto. Two guards tramped +by, circling the land on patrol. Their forms loomed huge and black +against the stars.</p> + +<p>Near the edge of the grounds Dalgetty and Elena crouched in the long +stiff grass and looked at the place they must enter. The man had had +to lower his visual sensitivity as they approached the light. There +were floodlights harsh on dock, airfield, barracks and lawn, with +parties of guards moving around each section. Light showed in only one +window of the house, on the second story. Bancroft must be there, +pacing and peering out into the night where his enemy stirred. Had he +called by radio for reinforcements?</p> + +<p>At least no airboat had arrived or left. Dalgetty knew he would have +seen one in the sky. Dr. Tighe was here yet—if he lived.</p> + +<p>Decision grew in the man. There was a wild chance. "Are you much of an +actress, Elena?" he whispered.</p> + +<p>"After two years as a spy I'd better be." Her face bore a hint of +puzzlement under the tension as she looked at him. He could guess her +thought—<i>For a superman, he asks some simple-minded questions. But +then what is he? Or is he only dissembling?</i></p> + +<p>He explained his idea. She scowled. "I know it's crazy," he told her, +"but have you anything better to offer?"</p> + +<p>"No. If you can handle your part...."</p> + +<p>"And you yours." He gave her a bleak look, but there was an appeal in +it. Suddenly his half-glimpsed face looked strangely young and +helpless. "I'll be putting my life in your hands. If you don't trust +me you can shoot. But you'll be killing a lot more than me."</p> + +<p>"Tell me what you are," she said. "How can I know what the ends of the +Institute are when they're using such means as you? Mutant or android +or"—she caught her breath—"or actually a creature from outer space, +the stars. Simon Dalgetty, what are you?"</p> + +<p>"If I answered that," he said with desolation in his voice, "I'd +probably be lying anyway. You've got to trust me this far."</p> + +<p>She sighed. "All right." He didn't know if she was lying too.</p> + +<p>He laid the rifle down and folded his hands on top of his head. She +walked behind him, down the slope toward the light, her submachine-gun +at his back.</p> + +<p>As he walked he was building up a strength and speed no human ought to +possess.</p> + +<p>One of the sentries pacing through the garden came to a halt. His +rifle swung up, and the voice was a hysterical yammer: "Who goes?"</p> + +<p>"It's me, Buck," cried Elena. "Don't get trigger-happy. I'm bringing +in the prisoner."</p> + +<p>"Huh?"</p> + +<p>Dalgetty shuffled into the light and stood slumped, letting his jaw +hang slack as if he were near falling with weariness.</p> + +<p>"You <i>got</i> him!" The goon sprang forward.</p> + +<p>"Don't holler," said Elena. "I got this one, all right, but there are +others. You keep on your beat. I got his weapons from him. He's +harmless now. Is Mr. Bancroft in the house?"</p> + +<p>"Yeah, yeah—sure." The heavy face peered at Dalgetty with more than a +tinge of fear. "But lemme go along. Yuh know what he done last time."</p> + +<p>"Stay on your post!" she snapped. "You've got your orders. I can +handle him."</p> + + +<h2>VIII</h2> + +<p>It might not have worked on most men but these goons were not very +bright. The guard nodded, gulped and resumed his pacing. Dalgetty +walked on up the path toward the house.</p> + +<p>A man at the door lifted his rifle. "Halt, there! I'll have to call +Mr. Bancroft first." The sentry went inside and thumbed an intercom +switch.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty, poised in a nervous tautness that could explode into +physical strength, felt a clutch of fear. The whole thing was so +fiendishly uncertain—anything could happen.</p> + +<p>Bancroft's voice drifted out. "That you, Elena? Good work, girl! How'd +you do it?" The warmth in his tone, under the excitement, made +Dalgetty wonder briefly just what the relationship between those two +had been.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you upstairs, Tom," she answered. "This is too big for +anyone else to hear. But keep the patrols going. There are more like +this creature around the island."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty could imagine the primitive shudder in Thomas Bancroft, +instinct from ages when the night was prowling terror about a tiny +circle of fire. "All right. If you're sure he won't—"</p> + +<p>"I've got him well covered."</p> + +<p>"I'll send over half a dozen guards just the same. Hold it."</p> + +<p>The men came running from barracks, where they must have been waiting +for a call to arms, and closed in. It was a ring of tight faces and +wary eyes and pointing guns. They feared him and the fear made them +deadly. Elena's countenance was wholly blank.</p> + +<p>"Let's go," she said.</p> + +<p>A man walked some feet ahead of the prisoner, casting glances behind +him all the time. There was one on either side, the rest were at the +rear. Elena walked among them, her weapon never wavering from his +back. They went down the long handsome corridor and stood on the +purring escalator. Dalgetty's eyes roved with a yearning in them—how +much longer, he wondered, would he be able to see anything at all?</p> + +<p>The door to Bancroft's study was ajar and Tighe's voice drifted out. +It was a quiet drawl, unshaken despite the blow it must have been to +hear of Dalgetty's recapture. Apparently he was continuing a +conversation begun earlier:</p> + +<p>"... science goes back a long way, actually. Francis Bacon speculated +about a genuine science of man. Poole did some work along those lines +as well as inventing the symbolic logic which was to be such a major +tool in solving the problem.</p> + +<p>"In the last century a number of lines of attack were developed. There +was already the psychology of Freud and his successors, of course, +which gave the first real notion of human semantics. There were the +biological, chemical and physical approaches to man as a mechanism. +Comparative historians like Spengler, Pareto and Toynbee realized that +history did not merely happen but had some kind of pattern.</p> + +<p>"Cybernetics developed such concepts as homeostasis and feedback, +concepts which were applicable to individual man and to society as a +whole. Games theory, the principle of least effort and Haeml's +generalized epistemology pointed toward basic laws and the analytical +approach.</p> + +<p>"The new symbologies in logic and mathematics suggested +formulations—for the problem was no longer one of gathering data so +much as of finding a rigorous symbolism to handle them and indicate +new data. A great deal of the Institute's work has lain simply in +collecting and synthesizing all these earlier findings."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty felt a rush of admiration. Trapped and helpless among enemies +made ruthless by ambition and fear, Michael Tighe could still play +with them. He must have been stalling for hours, staving off drugs +and torture by revealing first one thing and then another—but subtly, +so that his captors probably didn't realize he was only telling them +what they could find in any library.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The party entered a large room, furnished with wealth and taste, lined +with bookshelves. Dalgetty noticed an intricate Chinese chess set on +the desk. So Bancroft or Meade played chess—that was something they +had in common, at least, on this night of murder.</p> + +<p>Tighe looked up from the armchair. A couple of guards stood behind +him, their arms folded, but he ignored them. "Hello, son," he +murmured. There was pain in his eyes. "Are you all right?"</p> + +<p>Dalgetty nodded mutely. There was no way to signal the Englishman, no +way to let him hope.</p> + +<p>Bancroft stepped over to the door and locked it. He gestured at the +guards, who spread themselves around the walls, their guns aimed +inward. He was shaking ever so faintly and his eyes glittered as with +fever. "Sit down," he said. "<i>There!</i>"</p> + +<p>Dalgetty took the indicated armchair. It was deep and soft. It would +be hard to spring out of quickly. Elena took a seat opposite him, +poised on its edge, the tommy-gun in her lap. It was suddenly very +still in the room.</p> + +<p>Bancroft went over to the desk and fumbled with a humidor. He didn't +look up. "So you caught him," he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Elena. "After he caught me first."</p> + +<p>"How did you—turn the tables?" Bancroft took out a cigar and bit the +end off savagely. "What happened?"</p> + +<p>"I was in a cave, resting," she said tonelessly. "He rose out of the +water and grabbed me. He'd been hiding underneath longer than anybody +would have thought possible. He forced me out to a rock in the bay +there—you know it? We hid till sundown, when he opened up on your men +on that beach. He killed them all.</p> + +<p>"I'd been tied but I'd managed to rub the strips loose. It was just a +piece off his shirt he tied me with. While he was shooting I grabbed a +stone and clipped him behind the ear. I dragged him to shore while he +was still out, took one of the guns lying there and marched him here."</p> + +<p>"Good work." Bancroft inhaled raggedly. "I'll see that you get a +proper bonus for this, Elena. But what else? You said...."</p> + +<p>"Yes." Her gaze was steady on him. "We talked, out there in the bay. +He wanted to convince me I should help him. Tom—he isn't human."</p> + +<p>"Eh?" Bancroft's heavy form jerked. With an effort he steadied +himself. "What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"That muscular strength and speed, and telepathy. He can see in the +dark and hold his breath longer than any man. No, he isn't human."</p> + +<p>Bancroft looked at Dalgetty's motionless form. The prisoner's eyes +clashed with his and it was he who looked away again. "A telepath, did +you say?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered. "Do you want to prove it, Dalgetty?"</p> + +<p>There was stillness in the room. After a moment Dalgetty spoke. "You +were thinking, Bancroft, 'All right, damn you, can you read my mind? +Go ahead and try it and you'll know what I'm thinking about you.' The +rest was obscenities."</p> + +<p>"A guess," said Bancroft. There was sweat on his cheeks. "Just a good +guess. Try again."</p> + +<p>Another pause, then, "'Ten, nine, seven, A, B, M, Z, Z ...' Shall I +keep on?" Dalgetty asked quietly.</p> + +<p>"No," muttered Bancroft. "No, that's enough. What are you?"</p> + +<p>"He told me," put in Elena. "You're going to have trouble believing +it. I'm not sure if I believe it myself. But he's from another star."</p> + +<p>Bancroft opened his lips and shut them again. The massive head shook +in denial.</p> + +<p>"He is—from Tau Ceti," said Elena. "They're way beyond us. It's the +thing people have been speculating about for the last hundred years."</p> + +<p>"Longer, my girl," said Tighe. There was no emotion in his face or +voice save a dry humor, but Dalgetty knew what a flame must suddenly +be leaping up inside him. "Read Voltaire's <i>Micromegas</i>."</p> + +<p>"I've read such fiction," said Bancroft harshly. "Who hasn't? All +right, why are they here, what do they want?"</p> + +<p>"You could say," spoke Dalgetty, "that we favor the Institute."</p> + +<p>"But you've been raised from childhood...."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes. My people have been on Earth a long time. Many of them are +born here. Our first spaceship arrived in Nineteen Sixty-five." He +leaned forward in the chair. "I expected Casimir to be reasonable and +help me rescue Dr. Tighe. Since she hasn't done so I must appeal to +your own common sense. We have crews on Earth. We know where all our +people are at any given time. If necessary I can die to preserve the +secret of our presence but in that case you will die too, Bancroft. +The island will be bombed."</p> + +<p>"I...." The chief looked out the window into the enormity of night. +"You can't expect me to—to accept this as if...."</p> + +<p>"I've some things to tell you which may change your mind," said +Dalgetty. "They will certainly prove my story. Send your men out +though. This is only for your ears."</p> + +<p>"And have you jump me!" snapped Bancroft.</p> + +<p>"Casimir can stay," said Dalgetty, "and anyone else you are absolutely +certain can keep a secret and control his own greed."</p> + +<p>Bancroft paced once around the room. His eyes flickered back and forth +over the watching men. Frightened faces, bewildered faces, ambitious +faces—it was a hard decision and Dalgetty knew grimly that his life +rested on his and Elena's estimate of Thomas Bancroft's character.</p> + +<p>"All right! Humphrey, Zimmermann, O'Brien, stay in here. If that bird +moves shoot him. The rest of you wait just outside." They filed out. +The door closed behind them. The three guards left posted themselves +with smooth efficiency, one at the window and one at either adjoining +wall. There was a long quiet.</p> + +<p>Elena had to improvise the scheme and think it at Dalgetty. He nodded. +Bancroft planted himself before the chair, legs spread wide as if +braced for a blow, fists on hips.</p> + +<p>"All right," he said. "What do you want to tell me?"</p> + +<p>"You've caught me," said Dalgetty, "so I'm prepared to bargain for my +life and Dr. Tighe's freedom. Let me show you—" He made a move as if +to rise.</p> + +<p>"Stay where you are!" snapped Bancroft, and three guns swiveled around +to point at the prisoner. Elena backed away until she stood beside the +one near the desk.</p> + +<p>"As you will." Dalgetty leaned back again, casually shoving his chair +a couple of feet. He was now facing the window and, as far as he could +tell, sitting exactly on a line between the man there and the man at +the farther wall. "The Union of Tau Ceti is interested in seeing that +the right kind of civilizations develop on other planets. You could be +of value to us, Thomas Bancroft, if you can be persuaded to our side, +and the rewards are considerable." His glance went for a moment to the +girl and she nodded imperceptibly. "For example...."</p> + +<p>The power rushed up in him. Elena clubbed her gun butt and struck the +man next to her behind the ear. In the fractional second before the +others could understand and react Dalgetty was moving.</p> + +<p>The impetus which launched him from the chair sent that heavy padded +piece of furniture sliding across the floor to hit the man behind him +with a muffled thud. His left fist took Bancroft on the jaw as he went +by. The guard at the window had no time to swing his gun back from +Elena and squeeze trigger before Dalgetty's hand was on his throat. +His neck snapped.</p> + +<p>Elena stood over her victim even as he toppled and aimed at the man +across the room. The armchair had knocked his rifle aside. "Drop that +or I shoot," she said.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty snatched up a gun for himself, leveling it at the door. He +more than half expected those outside to come rushing in, expected +hell would explode. But the thick oak panels must have choked off +sound.</p> + +<p>Slowly, the man behind the chair let his rifle fall to the floor. His +mouth was stretched wide with supernatural fear.</p> + +<p>"My God!" Dr. Tighe's long form was erect, shaking, his calm broken +into horror. "Simon, the risk...."</p> + +<p>"We didn't have anything to lose, did we?" Dalgetty's voice was thick +but the abnormal energy was receding from him. He felt a surge of +weariness and knew that soon the payment must be made for the way he +had abused his body. He looked down at the corpse before him. "I +didn't mean to do that," he whispered.</p> + +<p>Tighe collected himself with an effort of disciplined will and stepped +over to Bancroft. "He's alive, at least," he said. "Oh my God, Simon! +You could have been killed so easily."</p> + +<p>"I may yet. We aren't out of the woods by any means. Find something to +tie these two others up with, will you, Dad?"</p> + +<p>The Englishman nodded. Elena's slugged guard was stirring and +groaning. Tighe bound and gagged him with strips torn from his tunic. +Under the submachine-gun the other submitted meekly enough. Dalgetty +rolled them behind a sofa with the one he had slain.</p> + +<p>Bancroft was wakening too. Dalgetty located a flask of bourbon and +gave it to him. Clearing eyes looked up with the same terror. "Now +what?" mumbled Bancroft. "You can't get away—"</p> + +<p>"We can damn well try. If it had come to fighting with the rest of +your gang we'd have used you as a hostage but now there's a neater +way. On your feet! Here, straighten your tunic, comb your hair. Okay, +you'll do just as you're told, because if anything goes wrong we'll +have nothing at all to lose by shooting you." Dalgetty rapped out his +orders.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Bancroft looked at Elena and there was more than physical hurt in his +eyes. "Why did you do it?"</p> + +<p>"FBI," she said.</p> + +<p>He shook his head, still stunned, and shuffled over to the desk +visiphone and called the hangar. "I've got to get to the mainland in a +hurry. Have the speedster ready in ten minutes. No, just the regular +pilot, nobody else. I'll have Dalgetty with me but it's okay. He's on +our side now."</p> + +<p>They went out the door. Elena cradled her tommy-gun under one arm. +"You can go back to the barracks, boys," said Bancroft wearily to the +men outside. "It's all been settled."</p> + +<p>A quarter hour later Bancroft's private jet was in the air. Five +minutes after that he and the pilot were bound and locked in a rear +compartment. Michael Tighe took the controls. "This boat has legs," he +said. "Nothing can catch us between here and California."</p> + +<p>"All right." Dalgetty's tones were flat with exhaustion. "I'm going +back to rest, Dad." Briefly his hand rested on the older man's +shoulder. "It's good to have you back," he said.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, son," said Michael Tighe. "I can't tell you how wonderful +it is to be free again."</p> + + +<h2>IX</h2> + +<p>Dalgetty found a reclining seat and eased himself into it. One by one +he began releasing the controls over himself—sensitivities, nerve +blocs, glandular stimulation. Fatigue and pain mounted within him. He +looked out at the stars and listened to the dark whistle of air with +merely human senses.</p> + +<p>Elena Casimir came to sit beside him and he realized that his job +wasn't done. He studied the strong lines of her face. She could be a +hard foe but just as stubborn a friend.</p> + +<p>"What do you have in mind for Bancroft?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Kidnapping charges for him and that whole gang," she said. "He won't +wriggle out of it, I can guarantee you." Her eyes rested on him, +unsure, a little frightened. "Federal prison psychiatrists have +Institute training," she murmured. "You'll see that his personality is +reshaped <i>your</i> way, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"As far as possible," Simon said. "Though it doesn't matter much. +Bancroft is finished as a factor to be reckoned with. There's still +Bertrand Meade himself, of course. Even if Bancroft made a full +confession I doubt that we could touch him. But the Institute has now +learned to take precautions against extra-legal methods—and within +the framework of the law we can give him cards and spades and still +defeat him."</p> + +<p>"With some help from my department," Elena said. There was a touch of +steel in her voice. "But the whole story of this rescue will have to +be played down. It wouldn't do to have too many ideas floating around +in the public mind, would it?"</p> + +<p>"That's right," he admitted. His head felt heavy, he wanted to rest it +on her shoulder and sleep for a century. "It's up to you really. If +you submit the right kind of report to your superiors it can all be +worked out. Everything else will just be detail. But otherwise you'll +ruin everything."</p> + +<p>"I don't know." She looked at him for a long while. "I don't know if I +should or not. You may be correct about the Institute and the justice +of its aims and methods. But how can I be sure, when I don't know +what's behind it? How do I know there wasn't more truth than fiction +in that Tau Ceti story, that you aren't really the agent of some +non-human power quietly taking over all our race?"</p> + +<p>At another time Dalgetty might have argued, tried to veil it from her, +tried to trick her once again. But now he was too weary. There was a +great surrender in him. "I'll tell you if you wish," he said, "and +after that it's in your hands. You can make us or break us."</p> + +<p>"Go on then." Her tone withdrew into wariness.</p> + +<p>"I'm human," he said. "I'm as human as you are. Only I've had rather +special training, that's all. It's another discovery of the Institute +for which we don't feel the world is ready. It'd be too big a +temptation for too many people, to create followers like me." He +looked away, into the windy dark. "The scientist is also a member of +society and has a responsibility toward it. This—restraint—of ours +is one way in which we meet that obligation."</p> + +<p>She didn't speak, but suddenly one hand reached over and rested on +his. The impulsive gesture brought warmth flooding through him.</p> + +<p>"Dad's work was mostly in mass-action psych," he said, making his tone +try to cover what he felt, "but he has plenty of associates trying to +understand the individual human being as a functioning mechanism. A +lot's been learned since Freud, both from the psychiatric and the +neurological angle. Ultimately, those two are interchangeable.</p> + +<p>"Some thirty years ago one of the teams which founded the Institute +learned enough about the relationship between the conscious, +subconscious and involuntary minds to begin practical tests. Along +with a few others I was a guinea pig. And their theories worked.</p> + +<p>"I needn't go into the details of my training. It involved physical +exercises, mental practice, some hypnotism, diet and so on. It went +considerably beyond the important Synthesis education which is the +most advanced thing known to the general public. But its aim—only +partially realized as yet—its aim was simply to produce the +completely integrated human being."</p> + +<p>Dalgetty paused. The wind flowed and muttered beyond the wall.</p> + +<p>"There is no sharp division between conscious and subconscious or even +between those and the centers controlling involuntary functions," he +said. "The brain is a continuous structure. Suppose, for instance, +that you become aware of a runaway car bearing down on you.</p> + +<p>"Your heartbeat speeds up, your adrenalin output increases, your sight +sharpens, your sensitivity to pain drops—it's all preparation for +fight or flight. Even without obvious physical necessity the same +thing can happen on a lesser scale—for example when you read an +exciting story. And psychotics, especially hysterics, can produce some +of the damnedest physiological symptoms you ever saw."</p> + +<p>"I begin to understand," she whispered.</p> + +<p>"Rage or fear brings abnormal strength and fast reaction. But the +psychotic can do more than that. He can show physical symptoms like +burns, stigmata or—if female—false pregnancy. Sometimes he becomes +wholly insensitive in some part of his body via a nerve bloc. +Bleeding can start or stop without apparent cause. He can go into a +coma or he can stay awake for days without getting sleepy. He can—"</p> + +<p>"Read minds?" It was a defiance.</p> + +<p>"Not that I know of." Simon chuckled. "But human sense organs are +amazingly good. It only takes three or four quanta to stimulate the +visual purple—a little more actually because of absorption by the +eyeball itself. There have been hysterics who could hear a watch +ticking twenty feet away that the normal person could not hear at one +foot. And so on.</p> + +<p>"There are excellent reasons why the threshold of perception is +relatively high in ordinary people—the stimuli of usual conditions +would be blinding and deafening, unendurable, if there weren't a +defense." He grimaced. "I <i>know</i>!"</p> + +<p>"But the telepathy?" Elena persisted.</p> + +<p>"It's been done before," he said. "Some apparent cases of mindreading +in the last century were shown to be due to extremely acute hearing. +Most people sub-vocalize their surface thoughts. With a little +practice a person who can hear those vibrations can learn to interpret +them. That's all." He smiled with one side of his mouth. "If you want +to hide your thoughts from me just break that habit, Elena."</p> + +<p>She looked at him with an emotion he could not quite recognize. "I +see," she breathed. "And your memory must be perfect too, if you can +pull any datum out of the subconscious. And you can—do everything, +can't you?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "I'm only a test case. They've learned a great deal by +observing me but the only thing that makes me unusual is that I have +conscious control of certain normally subconscious and involuntary +functions. Not all of them by a long shot. And I don't use that +control any more than necessary.</p> + +<p>"There are sound biological reasons why man's mind is so divided and +plenty of penalties attached to a case like mine. It'll take me a +couple of months to get back in shape after this bout. I'm due for a +good old-fashioned nervous breakdown and while it won't last long it +won't be much fun while it does last."</p> + +<p>The appeal rose in his eyes as he watched Elena. "All right," he said. +"Now you have the story. What are you going to do about it?"</p> + +<p>For the first time she gave him a real smile. "Don't worry," she said, +"Don't worry, Simon."</p> + +<p>"Will you come hold my hand while I'm recuperating?" he asked +anxiously.</p> + +<p>"I'm holding it now, you fool," Elena answered.</p> + +<p>Dalgetty chuckled happily. Then he went to sleep.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Sensitive Man, by Poul William Anderson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SENSITIVE MAN *** + +***** This file should be named 31501-h.htm or 31501-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/5/0/31501/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Sensitive Man + +Author: Poul William Anderson + +Release Date: March 4, 2010 [EBook #31501] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SENSITIVE MAN *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe January 1954. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. + copyright on this publication was renewed. + + +[_Conspiracy seems to be as much a part of our times as it + was in the times of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot. Hence it finds + frequent reflection in all branches of fiction, including science + fiction. Yet, as in life, something new has been added, the most + gigantic conspiracy of all, the human conspiracy against conspirators. + Which makes for a fine stirring story in this short novel of the + future by Mr. Anderson, one of our best young authors._] + + + the + + sensitive + + man + + + _by ... Poul Anderson_ + + + One man stood between a power-hungry cabal and world + mastery--but a man of unusual talents. + + * * * * * + + + + +The Mermaid Tavern had been elaborately decorated. Great blocks of +hewn coral for pillars and booths, tarpon and barracuda on the walls, +murals of Neptune and his court--including an outsize animated picture +of a mermaid ballet, quite an eye-catcher. But the broad quartz +windows showed merely a shifting greenish-blue of seawater, and the +only live fish visible were in an aquarium across from the bar. +Pacific Colony lacked the grotesque loveliness of the Florida and Cuba +settlements. Here they were somehow a working city, even in their +recreations. + +The sensitive man paused for a moment in the foyer, sweeping the big +circular room with a hurried glance. Less than half the tables were +filled. This was an hour of interregnum, while the twelve to eighteen +hundred shift was still at work and the others had long finished their +more expensive amusements. There would always be a few around, of +course--Dalgetty typed them as he watched. + +A party of engineers, probably arguing about the compression strength +of the latest submarine tank to judge from the bored expressions of +the three or four rec girls who had joined them. A biochemist, who +seemed to have forgotten his plankton and seaweed for the time being +and to have focussed his mind on the pretty young clerk with him. A +couple of hard-handed caissoniers, settling down to some serious +drinking. + +A maintenance man, a computerman, a tank pilot, a diver, a sea +rancher, a bevy of stenographers, a bunch of very obvious tourists, +more chemists and metallurgists--the sensitive man dismissed them all. +There were others he couldn't classify with any decent probability but +after a second's hesitation he decided to ignore them too. That left +only the group with Thomas Bancroft. + +They were sitting in one of the coral grottos, a cave of darkness to +ordinary vision. Dalgetty had to squint to see in and the muted light +of the tavern was a harsh glare when his pupils were so distended. +But, yes--it was Bancroft all right and there was an empty booth +adjoining his. + +Dalgetty relaxed his eyes to normal perception. Even in the short +moment of dilation the fluoros had given him a headache. He blocked it +off from consciousness and started across the floor. + +A hostess stopped him with a touch on the arm as he was about to enter +the vacant cavern. She was young, an iridescent mantrap in her brief +uniform. With all the money flowing into Pacific Colony they could +afford decorative help here. + +"I'm sorry, sir," she said. "Those are kept for parties. Would you +like a table?" + +"I'm a party," he answered, "or can soon become one." He moved aside a +trifle so that none of the Bancroft group should happen to look out +and see him. "If you could arrange some company for me...." He fumbled +out a C-note, wondering just how such things could be done gracefully. + +"Why, of course, sir." She took it with a smoothness he envied and +handed him a stunning smile in return. "Just make yourself +comfortable." + +Dalgetty stepped into the grotto with a fast movement. This wasn't +going to be simple. The rough red walls closed in on top of him, +forming a space big enough for twenty people or so. A few +strategically placed fluoros gave an eerie undersea light, just enough +to see by--but no one could look in. A heavy curtain could be drawn if +one wanted to be absolutely secluded. Privacy--_uh_-huh! + +He sat down at the driftwood table and leaned back against the coral. +Closing his eyes he made an effort of will. His nerves were already +keyed up to such a tautness that it seemed they must break and it took +only seconds to twist his mind along the paths required. + +The noise of the tavern rose from a tiny mumble to a clattering surf, +to a huge and saw-edged wave. Voices dinned in his head, shrill and +deep, hard and soft, a senseless stream of talking, jumbled together +into words, words, words. Somebody dropped a glass and it was like a +bomb going off. + +Dalgetty winced, straining his ear against the grotto side. Surely +enough of their speech would come to him, even through all that rock! +The noise level was high but the human mind, if trained in +concentration, is an efficient filter. The outside racket receded from +Dalgetty's awareness and slowly he gathered in the trickle of sound. + +First man: "--no matter. What can they do?" + +Second man: "Complain to the government. Do you want the FBI on our +trail? I don't." + +First man: "Take it easy. They haven't yet done so and it's been a +good week now since--" + +Second man: "How do you know they haven't?" + +Third man--heavy, authoritative voice. Yes, Dalgetty remembered it now +from TV speeches--it was Bancroft himself: "_I_ know. I've got enough +connections to be sure of that." + +Second man: "Okay, so they haven't reported it. But why not?" + +Bancroft: "You know why. They don't want the government mixing into +this any more than we do." + +Woman: "Well, then, are they just going to sit and take it? No, +they'll find some way to--" + +"HELLO, THERE, MISTER!!!" + +Dalgetty jumped and whirled around. His heart began to race, until he +felt his ribs tremble and he cursed his own tension. + +"WHY, WHAT'S THE MATTER, MISTER? YOU LOOK--" + +Effort again, forcing the volume down, grasping the thunderous heart +in fingers of command and dragging it toward rest. He focussed his +eyes on the girl who had entered. It was the rec girl, the one he had +asked for because he had to sit in this booth. + +Her voice was speaking on an endurable level now. Another pretty +little bit of fluff. He smiled shakily. "Sit down, sweet. I'm sorry. +My nerves are shot. What'll you have?" + +"A daiquiri, please." She smiled and placed herself beside him. He +dialed on the dispenser--the cocktail for her, a scotch and soda for +himself. + +"You're new here," she said. "Have you just been hired or are you a +visitor?" Again the smile. "My name's Glenna." + +"Call me Joe," said Dalgetty. His first name was actually Simon. "No, +I'll only be here a short while." + +"Where you from?" she asked. "I'm clear from New Jersey myself." + +"Proving that nobody is ever born in California." He grinned. The +control was asserting itself, his racing emotions were checked and he +could think clearly again. "I'm--uh--just a floater. Don't have any +real address right now." + +The dispenser ejected the drinks on a tray and flashed the +charge--$20. Not bad, considering everything. He gave the machine a +fifty and it made change, a five-buck coin and a bill. + +"Well," said Glenna, "here's to you." + +"And you." He touched glasses, wondering how to say what he had to +say. Damn it, he couldn't sit here just talking or necking, he'd come +to listen but.... A sardonic montage of all the detective shows he had +ever seen winked through his mind. The amateur who rushes in and +solves the case, _heigh-ho_. He had never appreciated all the detail +involved till now. + + * * * * * + +There was hesitation in him. He decided that a straightforward +approach was his best bet. Deliberately then he created a cool +confidence. Subconsciously he feared this girl, alien as she was to +his class. All right, force the reaction to the surface, recognize it, +suppress it. Under the table his hands moved in the intricate symbolic +pattern which aided such emotion-harnessing. + +"Glenna," he said, "I'm afraid I'll be rather dull company. The fact +is I'm doing some research in psychology, learning how to concentrate +under different conditions. I wanted to try it in a place like this, +you understand." He slipped out a 2-C bill and laid it before her. "If +you'd just sit here quietly it won't be for more than an hour I +guess." + +"Huh?" Her brows lifted. Then, with a shrug and a wry smile, "Okay, +you're paying for it." She took a cigarette from the flat case at her +sash, lit it and relaxed. Dalgetty leaned against the wall and closed +his eyes again. + +The girl watched him curiously. He was of medium height, stockily +built, inconspicuously dressed in a blue short-sleeved tunic, gray +slacks and sandals. His square snub-nosed face was lightly freckled, +with hazel eyes and a rather pleasant shy smile. The rusty hair was +close-cropped. A young man, she guessed, about twenty-five, quite +ordinary and uninteresting except for the wrestler's muscles and, of +course, his behavior. + +Oh, well, it took all kinds. + +Dalgetty had a moment of worry. Not because the yarn he had handed her +was thin but because it brushed too close to the truth. He thrust the +unsureness out of him. Chances were she hadn't understood any of it, +wouldn't even mention it. At least not to the people he was hunting. + +Or who were hunting him? + +Concentration, and the voices slowly came again: "--maybe. But I think +they'll be more stubborn than that." + +Bancroft: "Yes. The issues are too large for a few lives to matter. +Still, Michael Tighe is only human. He'll talk." + +The woman: "He can be made to talk, you mean?" She had one of the +coldest voices Dalgetty had ever heard. + +Bancroft: "Yes. Though I hate to use extreme measures." + +Man: "What other possibilities have we got? He won't say anything +unless he's forced to. And meanwhile his people will be scouring the +planet to find him. They're a shrewd bunch." + +Bancroft, sardonically: "What can they do, please? It takes more than +an amateur to locate a missing man. It calls for all the resources of +a large police organization. And the last thing they want, as I've +said before, is to bring the government in on this." + +The woman: "I'm not so sure of that, Tom. After all, the Institute is +a legal group. It's government sponsored and its influence is +something tremendous. Its graduates--" + +Bancroft: "It educates a dozen different kinds of psychotechnicians, +yes. It does research. It gives advice. It publishes findings and +theories. But believe me the Psychotechnic Institute is like an +iceberg. Its real nature and purpose are hidden way under water. No, +it isn't doing anything illegal that I know of. Its aims are so large +that they transcend law altogether." + +Man: "What aims?" + +Bancroft: "I wish I knew. We've only got hints and guesses, you know. +One of the reasons we've snatched Tighe is to find out more. I suspect +that their real work requires secrecy." + +The woman, thoughtfully: "Y-y-yes, I can see how that might be. If the +world at large were aware of being--manipulated--then manipulation +might become impossible. But just where does Tighe's group want to +lead us?" + +Bancroft: "I don't know, I tell you. I'm not even sure that they do +want to--take over. Something even bigger than that." A sigh. "Let's +face it, Tighe is a crusader too. In his own way he's a very sincere +idealist. He just happens to have the wrong ideals. That's one reason +why I'd hate to see him harmed." + +Man: "But if it turns out that we've got to--" + +Bancroft: "Why, then we've got to, that's all. But I won't enjoy it." + +Man: "Okay, you're the leader, you say when. But I warn you not to +wait too long. I tell you the Institute is more than a collection of +unworldly scientists. They've got _someone_ out searching for Tighe +and if they should locate him there could be real trouble." + +Bancroft, mildly: "Well, these are troubled times, or will be shortly. +We might as well get used to that." + +The conversation drifted away into idle chatter. Dalgetty groaned to +himself. Not once had they spoken of the place where their prisoner +was kept. + +All right, little man, what next? Thomas Bancroft was big game. His +law firm was famous. He had been in Congress and the Cabinet. Even +with the Labor Party in power he was a respected elder statesman. He +had friends in government, business, unions, guilds and clubs and +leagues from Maine to Hawaii. He had only to say the word and +Dalgetty's teeth would be kicked in some dark night. Or, if he proved +squeamish, Dalgetty might find himself arrested on a charge like +conspiracy and tied up in court for the next six months. + +By listening in he had confirmed the suspicion of Ulrich at the +Institute that Thomas Bancroft was Tighe's kidnapper--but that was no +help. If he went to the police with that story they would (a) laugh, +long and loud--(b) lock him up for psychiatric investigation--(c) +worst of all, pass the story on to Bancroft, who would thereby know +what the Institute's children could do and would take appropriate +counter-measures. + + +II + +Of course, this was just the beginning. The trail was long. But time +was hideously short before they began turning Tighe's brain inside +out. And there were wolves along the trail. + +For a shivering instant, Simon Dalgetty realized what he had let +himself in for. + +It seemed like forever before the Bancroft crowd left. Dalgetty's eyes +followed them out of the bar--four men and the woman. They were all +quiet, mannerly, distinguished-looking, in rich dark slack suits. Even +the hulking bodyguard was probably a college graduate, Third Class. +You wouldn't take them for murderers and kidnappers and the servants +of those who would bring back political gangsterism. But then, +reflected Dalgetty, they probably didn't think of themselves in that +light either. + +The enemy--the old and protean enemy, who had been fought down as +Fascist, Nazi, Shintoist, Communist, Atomist, Americanist and God knew +what else for a bloody century--had grown craftier with time. Now he +could fool even himself. + +Dalgetty's senses went back to normal. It was a sudden immense relief +to be merely sitting in a dimly-lit booth with a pretty girl, to be no +more than human for a while. But his sense of mission was still dark +within him. + +"Sorry I was so long," he said. "Have another drink." + +"I just had one." She smiled. + +He noticed the $10-figure glowing on the dispenser and fed it two +coins. Then, his nerves still vibrating, he dialed another whiskey for +himself. + +"You know those people in the next grotto?" asked Glenna. "I saw you +watching them leave." + +"Well, I know Mr. Bancroft by reputation," he said. "He lives here, +doesn't he?" + +"He's got a place over on Gull Station," she said, "but he's not here +very much, mostly on the mainland, I guess." + +Dalgetty nodded. He had come to Pacific Colony two days before, had +been hanging around in the hope of getting close enough to Bancroft to +pick up a clue. Now he had done so and his findings were worth little. +He had merely confirmed what the Institute already considered highly +probable without getting any new information. + +He needed to think over his next move. He drained his drink. "I'd +better jet off," he said. + +"We can have dinner in here if you want," said Glenna. + +"Thanks, I'm not hungry." That was true enough. The nervous tension +incidental to the use of his powers raised the devil with appetite. +Nor could he be too lavish with his funds. "Maybe later." + +"Okay, Joe, I might be seeing you." She smiled. "You're a funny one. +But kind of nice." Her lips brushed his and then she got up and left. +Dalgetty went out the door and punched for a top-side elevator. + +It took him past many levels. The tavern was under the station's +caissons near the main anchor cable, looking out into deep water. +Above it were store-houses, machine rooms, kitchens, all the +paraphernalia of modern existence. He stepped out of a kiosk onto an +upper deck, thirty feet above the surface. Nobody else was there and +he walked over to the railing and leaned on it, looking across the +water and savoring loneliness. + +Below him the tiers dropped away to the main deck, flowing lines and +curves, broad sheets of clear plastic, animated signs, the grass and +flowerbeds of a small park, people walking swiftly or idly. The huge +gyro-stabilized bulk did not move noticeably to the long Pacific +swell. Pelican Station was the colony's "downtown," its shops and +theaters and restaurants, service and entertainment. + +Around it the water was indigo blue in the evening light, streaked +with arabesques of foam, and he could hear waves rumble against the +sheer walls. Overhead the sky was tall with a few clouds in the west +turning aureate. The hovering gulls seemed cast in gold. A haziness in +the darkened east betokened the southern California coastline. He +breathed deeply, letting nerves and muscles and viscera relax, +shutting off his mind and turning for a while into an organism that +merely lived and was glad to live. + +Dalgetty's view in all directions was cut off by the other stations, +the rising streamlined hulks which were Pacific Colony. A few airy +flex-strung bridges had been completed to link them, but there was +still an extensive boat traffic. To the south he could see a blackness +on the water that was a sea ranch. His trained memory told him, in +answer to a fleeting question, that according to the latest figures +eighteen-point-three percent of the world's food supply was now being +derived from modified strains of seaweed. The percentage would +increase rapidly, he knew. + +Elsewhere were mineral-extracting plants, fishery bases, experimental +and pure-research stations. Below the floating city, digging into the +continental shelf, was the underwater settlement--oil wells to +supplement the industrial synthesizing process, mining, exploration in +tanks to find new resources, a slow growth outward as men learned how +to go deeper into cold and darkness and pressure. It was expensive but +an over-crowded world had little choice. + +Venus was already visible, low and pure on the dusking horizon. +Dalgetty breathed the wet pungent sea-air into his lungs and thought +with some pity of the men out there--and on the Moon, on Mars, between +worlds. They were doing a huge and heart-breaking job--but he wondered +if it were bigger and more meaningful than this work here in Earth's +oceans. + +Or a few pages of scribbled equations, tossed into a desk drawer at +the Institute. Enough. Dalgetty brought his mind to heel like a +harshly trained dog. He was also here to work. + +The forces he must encounter seemed monstrous. He was one man, alone +against he knew not what kind of organization. He had to rescue one +other man before--well, before history was changed and spun off on the +wrong course, the long downward path. He had his knowledge and +abilities but they wouldn't stop a bullet. Nor did they include +education for this kind of warfare. War that was not war, politics +that were not politics but a handful of scrawled equations and a +bookful of slowly gathered data and a brainful of dreams. + +Bancroft had Tighe--somewhere. The Institute could not ask the +government for help, even if to a large degree the Institute was the +government. It could, perhaps, send Dalgetty a few men but it had no +goon squads. And time was like a hound on his heels. + + * * * * * + +The sensitive man turned, suddenly aware of someone else. This was a +middle-aged fellow, gaunt and gray-haired, with an intellectual cast +of feature. He leaned on the rail and said quietly, "Nice evening, +isn't it?" + +"Yes," said Dalgetty. "Very nice." + +"It gives me a feeling of real accomplishment, this place," said the +stranger. + +"How so?" asked Dalgetty, not unwilling to make conversation. + +The man looked out over the sea and spoke softly as if to himself. +"I'm fifty years old. I was born during World War Three and grew up +with the famines and the mass insanities that followed. I saw +fighting myself in Asia. I worried about a senselessly expanding +population pressing on senselessly diminished resources. I saw an +America that seemed equally divided between decadence and madness. + +"And yet I can stand now and watch a world where we've got a +functioning United Nations, where population increase is leveling off +and democratic government spreading to country after country, where +we're conquering the seas and even going out to other planets. Things +have changed since I was a boy but on the whole it's been for the +better." + +"Ah," said Dalgetty, "a kindred spirit. Though I'm afraid it's not +quite that simple." + + * * * * * + +The man arched his brows. "So you vote conservative?" + +"The Labor Party _is_ conservative," said Dalgetty. "As proof of which +it's in coalition with the Republicans and the Neofederalists as well +as some splinter groups. No, I don't care if it stays in, or if the +Conservatives prosper or the Liberals take over. The question is--who +shall control the group in power?" + +"Its membership, I suppose," said the man. + +"But just who is its membership? You know as well as I do that the +great failing of the American people has always been their lack of +interest in politics." + +"What? Why, they vote, don't they? What was the last percentage?" + +"Eight-eight-point-three-seven. Sure they vote--once the ticket has +been presented to them. But how many of them have anything to do with +nominating the candidates or writing the platforms? How many will +actually take time out to _work_ at it--or even to write their +Congressmen? 'Ward heeler' is still a term of contempt. + +"All too often in our history the vote has been simply a matter of +choosing between two well-oiled machines. A sufficiently clever and +determined group can take over a party, keep the name and the slogans +and in a few years do a complete behind-the-scenes _volte-face_." +Dalgetty's words came fast, this was one facet of a task to which he +had given his life. + +"Two machines," said the stranger, "or four or five as we've got now, +are at least better than one." + +"Not if the same crowd controls all of them," Dalgetty said grimly. + +"But--" + +"'If you can't lick 'em, join 'em.' Better yet, join all sides. Then +you _can't_ lose." + +"I don't think that's happened yet," said the man. + +"No it hasn't," said Dalgetty, "not in the United States, though in +some other countries--never mind. It's still in process of happening, +that's all. The lines today are drawn not by nations or parties, but +by--philosophies, if you wish. Two views of man's destiny, cutting +across all national, political, racial and religious lines." + +"And what are those two views?" asked the stranger quietly. + +"You might call them libertarian and totalitarian, though the latter +don't necessarily think of themselves as such. The peak of rampant +individualism was reached in the nineteenth century, legally speaking. +Though in point of fact social pressure and custom were more +strait-jacketing than most people today realize. + +"In the twentieth century that social rigidity--in manners, morals, +habits of thought--broke down. The emancipation of women, for +instance, or the easy divorce or the laws about privacy. But at the +same time legal control began tightening up again. Government took +over more and more functions, taxes got steeper, the individual's life +got more and more bound by regulations saying 'thou shalt' and 'thou +shalt not.' + +"Well, it looks as if war is going out as an institution. That takes +off a lot of pressure. Such hampering restrictions as conscription to +fight or work, or rationing, have been removed. What we're slowly +attaining is a society where the individual has maximum freedom, both +from law _and_ custom. It's perhaps farthest advanced in America, +Canada, and Brazil, but it's growing the world over. + +"But there are elements which don't like the consequences of genuine +libertarianism. And the new science of human behavior, mass and +individual, is achieving rigorous formulation. It's becoming the most +powerful tool man has ever had--for whoever controls the human mind +will also control all that man can do. That science can be used by +anyone, mind you. If you'll read between the lines you'll see what a +hidden struggle is shaping up for control of it as soon as it reaches +maturity and empirical useability." + +"Ah, yes," said the man. "The Psychotechnic Institute." + +Dalgetty nodded, wondering why he had jumped into such a lecture. +Well, the more people who had some idea of the truth the +better--though it wouldn't do for them to know the whole truth either. +Not yet. + +"The Institute trains so many for governmental posts and does so much +advisory work," said the man, "that sometimes it looks almost as if it +were quietly taking over the whole show." + +Dalgetty shivered a little in the sunset breeze and wished he'd +brought his cloak. He thought wearily, _Here it is again. Here is the +story they are spreading, not in blatant accusations, not all at once, +but slowly and subtly, a whisper here, a hint there, a slanted news +story, a supposedly dispassionate article.... Oh, yes, they know their +applied semantics._ + +"Too many people fear such an outcome," he declared. "It just isn't +true. The Institute is a private research organization with a Federal +grant. Its records are open to anyone." + +"All the records?" The man's face was vague in the gathering twilight. + +Dalgetty thought he could make out a skeptically lifted brow. He +didn't reply directly but said, "There's a foggy notion in the public +mind that a group equipped with a complete science of man--which the +Institute hasn't got by a long shot--could 'take over' at once and, by +manipulations of some unspecified but frightfully subtle sort, rule +the world. The theory is that if you know just what buttons to push +and so on, men will do precisely as you wish without knowing that +they're being guided. The theory happens to be pure jetwash." + +"Oh, I don't know," said the man. "In general terms it sounds pretty +plausible." + +Dalgetty shook his head. "Suppose I were an engineer," he said, "and +suppose I saw an avalanche coming down on me. I might know exactly +what to do to stop it--where to plant my dynamite, where to build my +concrete wall and so on. Only the knowledge wouldn't help me. I'd have +neither the time nor the strength to use it. + +"The situation is similar with regard to human dynamics, both mass and +individual. It takes months or years to change a man's convictions and +when you have hundreds of millions of men...." He shrugged. "Social +currents are too large for all but the slightest, most gradual +control. In fact perhaps the most valuable results obtained to date +are not those which show what can be done but what cannot." + +"You speak with the voice of authority," said the man. + +"I'm a psychologist," said Dalgetty truthfully enough. He didn't add +that he was also a subject, observer and guinea pig in one. "And I'm +afraid I talk too much. Go from bad to voice." + +"Ouch," said the man. He leaned his back against the rail and his +shadowy hand extended a pack. "Smoke?" + +"No, thanks, I don't." + +"You're a rarity." The brief lighter-flare etched the stranger's face +against the dusk. + +"I've found other ways of relaxing." + +"Good for you. By the way I'm a professor myself. English Litt at +Colorado." + +"Afraid I'm rather a roughneck in that respect," said Dalgetty. For a +moment he had a sense of loss. His thought processes had become too +far removed from the ordinary human for him to find much in fiction or +poetry. But music, sculpture, painting--there was something else. He +looked over the broad glimmering water, at the stations dark against +the first stars, and savored the many symmetries and harmonies with a +real pleasure. You needed senses like his before you could know what a +lovely world this was. + +"I'm on vacation now," said the man. Dalgetty did not reply in kind. +After a moment--"You are too, I suppose?" + +Dalgetty felt a slight shock. A personal question from a +stranger--well, you didn't expect otherwise from someone like the girl +Glenna but a professor should be better conditioned to privacy +customs. + +"Yes," he said shortly. "Just visiting." + +"By the way, my name is Tyler, Harmon Tyler." + +"Joe Thomson." Dalgetty shook hands with him. + +"We might continue our conversation if you're going to be around for +awhile," said Tyler. "You raised some interesting points." + +Dalgetty considered. It would be worthwhile staying as long as +Bancroft did, in the hope of learning some more. "I may be here a +couple of days yet," he said. + +"Good," said Tyler. He looked up at the sky. It was beginning to fill +with stars. The deck was still empty. It ran around the dim +upthrusting bulk of a weather-observation tower which was turned over +to its automatics for the night and there was no one else to be seen. +A few fluoros cast wan puddles of luminance on the plastic flooring. + +Glancing at his watch, Tyler said casually, "It's about +nineteen-thirty hours now. If you don't mind waiting till twenty +hundred I can show you something interesting." + +"What's that?" + +"Ah, you'll be surprised." Tyler chuckled. "Not many people know about +it. Now, getting back to that point you raised earlier...." + +The half hour passed swiftly. Dalgetty did most of the talking. + +"--and mass action. Look, to a rather crude first approximation a +state of semantic equilibrium on a world-wide scale, which of course +has never existed, would be represented by an equation of the form--" + +"Excuse me." Tyler consulted the shining dial again. "If you don't +mind stopping for a few minutes I'll show you that odd sight I was +talking about." + +"Eh? Oh-oh, sure." + +Tyler threw away his cigarette. It was a tiny meteor in the gloom. He +took Dalgetty's arm. They walked slowly around the weather tower. + +The men came from the opposite side and met them halfway. Dalgetty had +hardly seen them before he felt the sting in his chest. + +_A needle gun!_ + +The world roared about him. He took a step forward, trying to scream, +but his throat locked. The deck lifted up and hit him and his mind +whirled toward darkness. + +From somewhere will rose within him, trained reflexes worked, he +summoned all that was left of his draining strength and fought the +anesthetic. His wrestling with it was a groping in fog. Again and +again he spiraled into unconsciousness and rose strangling. Dimly, +through nightmare, he was aware of being carried. Once someone stopped +the group in a corridor and asked what was wrong. The answer seemed to +come from immensely far away. "I dunno. He passed out--just like that. +We're taking him to a doctor." + +There was a century spent going down some elevator. The boat-house +walls trembled liquidly around him. He was carried aboard a large +vessel, it was not visible through the gray mist. Some dulled portion +of himself thought that this was obviously a private boat-house, since +no one was trying to stop--trying to stop--trying to stop.... + +Then the night came. + + +III + +He woke slowly, with a dry retch, and blinked his eyes open. Noise of +air, he was flying, it must have been a triphibian they took him onto. +He tried to force recovery but his mind was still too paralyzed. + +"Here. Drink this." + +Dalgetty took the glass and gulped thirstily. It was coolness and +steadiness spreading through him. The vibratto within him faded, and +the headache dulled enough to be endurable. Slowly he looked around, +and felt the first crawl of panic. + +_No!_ He suppressed the emotion with an almost physical thrust. Now +was the time for calm and quick wit and-- + +A big man near him nodded and stuck his head out the door. "He's okay +now, I guess," he called. "Want to talk to him?" + +Dalgetty's eyes roved the compartment. It was a rear cabin in a large +airboat, luxuriously furnished with reclining seats and an inlaid +table. A broad window looked out on the stairs. + +_Caught!_ It was pure bitterness, an impotent rage at himself. _Walked +right into their arms!_ + +Tyler came into the room, followed by a pair of burly stone-faced men. +He smiled. "Sorry," he murmured, "but you're playing out of your +league, you know." + +"Yeah." Dalgetty shook his head. Wryness twisted his mouth. "I don't +league it much either." + +Tyler grinned. It was a sympathetic expression. "You punsters are +incurable," he said. "I'm glad you're taking it so well. We don't +intend any harm to you." + +Skepticism was dark in Dalgetty but he managed to relax. "How'd you +get onto me?" he asked. + +"Oh, various ways. You were pretty clumsy, I'm afraid." Tyler sat down +across the table. The guards remained standing. "We were sure the +Institute would attempt a counterblow and we've studied it and its +personnel thoroughly. You were recognized, Dalgetty--and you're known +to be very close to Tighe. So you walked after us without even a +face-mask.... + +"At any rate, you were noticed hanging around the colony. We checked +back on your movements. One of the rec girls had some interesting +things to tell of you. We decided you'd better be questioned. I +sounded you out as much as a casual acquaintance could and then took +you to the rendezvous." Tyler spread his hands. "That's all." + +Dalgetty sighed and his shoulders slumped under a sudden enormous +burden of discouragement. Yes, they were right. He was out of his +orbit. "Well," he said, "what now?" + +"Now we have you _and_ Tighe," said the other. He took out a +cigarette. "I hope you're somewhat more willing to talk than he is." + +"Suppose I'm not?" + +"Understand this." Tyler frowned. "There are reasons for going slow +with Tighe. He has hostage value, for one thing. But you're nobody. +And while we aren't monsters I for one have little sympathy to spare +for your kind of fanatic." + +"Now there," said Dalgetty with a lift of sardonicism, "is an +interesting example of semantic evolution. This being, on the whole, +an easy-going tolerant period, the word 'fanatic' has come to be +simply an epithet--a fellow on the other side." + +"That will do," snapped Tyler. "You won't be allowed to stall. There +are questions we want answered." He ticked the points off on his +fingers. "What are the Institute's ultimate aims? How is it going +about attaining them? How far has it gotten? Precisely what has it +learned, in a scientific way, that it hasn't published? How much does +it know about us?" He smiled thinly. "You've always been close to +Tighe. He raised you, didn't he? You should know just as much as he." + +_Yes_, thought Dalgetty, _Tighe raised me. He was all the father I +ever had, really. I was an orphan and he took me in and he was good._ + +Sharp in his mind rose the image of the old house. It had lain on +broad wooded grounds in the fair hills of Maine, with a little river +running down to a bay winged with sailboats. There had been +neighbors--quiet-spoken folk with something more real about them than +most of today's rootless world knew. And there had been many +visitors--men and women with minds like flickering sword-blades. + +He had grown up among intellects aimed at the future. He and Tighe had +traveled a lot. They had often been in the huge pylon of the main +Institute building. They had gone over to Tighe's native England once +a year at least. But always the old house had been dear to them. + +It stood on a ridge, long and low and weathered gray like a part of +the earth. By day it had rested in a green sun-dazzle of trees or a +glistering purity of snow. By night you heard the boards creaking and +the lonesome sound of wind talking down the chimney. Yes, it had been +good. + +And there had been the wonder of it. He loved his training. The +horizonless world within himself was a glorious thing to explore. And +that had oriented him outward to the real world--he had felt wind and +rain and sunlight, the pride of high buildings and the surge of a +galloping horse, thresh of waves and laughter of women and smooth +mysterious purr of great machines, with a fullness that made him pity +those deaf and dumb and blind around him. + +Oh yes, he loved those things. He was in love with the whole turning +planet and the big skies overhead. It was a world of light and +strength and swift winds and it would be bitter to leave it. But Tighe +was locked in darkness. + +He said slowly, "All we ever were was a research and educational +center, a sort of informal university specializing in the scientific +study of man. We're not any kind of political organization. You'd be +surprised how much we differ in our individual opinions." + +"What of it?" shrugged Tyler. "This is something larger than politics. +Your work, if fully developed, would change our whole society, perhaps +the whole nature of man. We _know_ you've learned more things than +you've made public. Therefore you're reserving that information for +uses of your own." + +"And you want it for your purposes?" + +"Yes," said Tyler. After a moment, "I despise melodrama but if you +don't cooperate you're going to get the works. And we've got Tighe +too, never forget that. One of you ought to break down if he watches +the other being questioned." + +_We're going to the same place! We're going to Tighe!_ + +The effort to hold face and voice steady was monstrous. "Just where +are we bound?" + +"An island. We should be there soon. I'll be going back again myself +but Mr. Bancroft is coming shortly. That should convince you just how +important this is to us." + +Dalgetty nodded. "Can I think it over for awhile? It isn't an easy +decision for me." + +"Sure. I hope you decide right." + +Tyler got up and left with his guards. The big man who had handed him +the drink earlier sat where he had been all the time. Slowly the +psychologist began to tighten himself. The faint drone of turbines and +whistle of jets and sundered air began to enlarge. + +"Where are we going?" he asked. + +"CAN'T TELL YOU THAT. SHUDDUP, WILL YOU?" + +"But surely...." + +The guard didn't answer. But he was thinking. +_Ree-villa-ghee-gay-doe--never would p'rnounce that damn Spig name ... +cripes, what a God-forsaken hole!... Mebbe I can work a trip over to +Mexico.... That little gal in Guada...._ + +Dalgetty concentrated. Revilla--he had it now. Islas de Revillagigedo +a small group some 350 or 400 miles off the Mexican coast, little +visited with very few inhabitants. His eidetic memory went to work, +conjuring an image of a large-scale map he had once studied. Closing +his eyes he laid off the exact distance, latitude and longitude, +individual islands. + +Wait, there was one a little further west, a speck on the map, not +properly belonging to the group. And--he riffled through all the facts +he had ever learned pertaining to Bancroft. Wait now, Bertrand Meade, +who seemed to be the kingpin of the whole movement--yes, Meade owned +that tiny island. + +_So that's where we're going!_ He sank back, letting weariness overrun +him. It would be awhile yet before they arrived. + +Dalgetty sighed and looked out at the stars. Why had men arranged such +clumsy constellations when the total pattern of the sky was a big and +lovely harmony? He knew his personal danger would be enormous once he +was on the ground. Torture, mutilation, even death. + +Dalgetty closed his eyes again. Almost at once he was asleep. + + +IV + +They landed on a small field while it was still dark. Hustled out into +a glare of lights Dalgetty did not have much chance to study his +surroundings. There were men standing on guard with magnum rifles, +tough-looking professional goons in loose gray uniforms. Dalgetty +followed obediently across the concrete, along a walk and through a +garden to the looming curved bulk of a house. + +He paused just a second as the door opened for them and stood looking +out into darkness. The sea rolled and hissed there on a wide beach. He +caught the clean salt smell of it and filled his lungs. It might be +the last time he ever breathed such air. + +"Get along with you." An arm jerked him into motion again. + +Down a bare coldly-lit hallway, down an escalator, into the guts of +the island. Another door, a room beyond it, an ungentle shove. The +door clashed to behind him. + +Dalgetty looked around. The cell was small, bleakly furnished with +bunk, toilet and washstand, had a ventilator grille in one wall. +Nothing else. He tried listening with maximum sensitivity but there +were only remote confused murmurs. + +_Dad!_ he thought. _You're here somewhere too._ + +He flopped on the bunk and spent a moment analyzing the aesthetics of +the layout. It had a certain pleasing severity, the unconscious +balance of complete functionalism. Soon Dalgetty went back to sleep. + +A guard with a breakfast tray woke him. Dalgetty tried to read the +man's thoughts but there weren't any to speak of. He ate ravenously +under a gun muzzle, gave the tray back and returned to sleep. It was +the same at lunch time. + +His time-sense told him that it was 1435 hours when he was roused +again. There were three men this time, husky specimens. "Come on," +said one of them. "Never saw such a guy for pounding his ear." + +Dalgetty stood up, running a hand through his hair. The red bristles +were scratchy on his palm. It was a cover-up, a substitute symbol to +bring his nervous system back under full control. The process felt as +if he were being tumbled through a huge gulf. + +"Just how many of your fellows are there here?" he asked. + +"Enough. Now get going!" + +He caught the whisper of thought--_fifty of us guards, is it? Yeah, +fifty, I guess._ + +Fifty! Dalgetty felt taut as he walked out between two of them. Fifty +goons. And they were trained, he knew that. The Institute had learned +that Bertrand Meade's private army was well-drilled. Nothing obtrusive +about it--officially they were only servants and bodyguards--but they +knew how to shoot. + +And he was alone in mid-ocean with them. He was alone and no one knew +where he was and anything could be done to him. He felt cold, walking +down the corridor. + +There was a room beyond with benches and a desk. One of the guards +gestured to a chair at one end. "Sit," he grunted. + +Dalgetty submitted. The straps went around his wrists and ankles, +holding him to the arms and legs of the heavy chair. Another buckled +about his waist. He looked down and saw that the chair was bolted to +the floor. One of the guards crossed to the desk and started up a tape +recorder. + +A door opened in the far end of the room. Thomas Bancroft came in. He +was a big man, fleshy but in well-scrubbed health, his clothes +designed with quiet good taste. The head was white-maned, leonine, +with handsome florid features and sharp blue eyes. He smiled ever so +faintly and sat down behind the desk. + +The woman was with him--Dalgetty looked harder at her. She was new to +him. She was medium tall, a little on the compact side, her blond hair +cut too short, no makeup on her broad Slavic features. Young, in hard +condition, moving with a firm masculine stride. With those tilted gray +eyes, that delicately curved nose and wide sullen mouth, she could +have been a beauty had she wanted to be. + +_One of the modern type_, thought Dalgetty. _A flesh-and-blood +machine, trying to outmale men, frustrated and unhappy without knowing +it and all the more bitter for that._ + +Briefly there was sorrow in him, an enormous pity for the millions of +mankind. They did not know themselves, they fought themselves like +wild beasts, tied up in knots, locked in nightmare. Man could be so +much if he had the chance. + +He glanced at Bancroft. "I know you," he said, "but I'm afraid the +lady has the advantage of me." + +"My secretary and general assistant, Miss Casimir." The politician's +voice was sonorous, a beautifully controlled instrument. He leaned +across the desk. The recorder by his elbow whirred in the flat +soundproofed stillness. + +"Mr. Dalgetty," he said, "I want you to understand that we aren't +fiends. There are things too important for ordinary rules though. Wars +have been fought over them in the past and may well be fought again. +It will be easier for all concerned if you cooperate with us now. No +one need ever know that you have done so." + +"Suppose I answer your questions," said Dalgetty. "How do you know +I'll be telling the truth?" + +"Neoscopolamine, of course. I don't think you've been immunized. It +confuses the mind too much for us to interrogate you about these +complex matters under its influence but we will surely find out if you +have been answering our present questions correctly." + +"And what then? Do you just let me go?" + +Bancroft shrugged. "Why shouldn't we? We may have to keep you here for +awhile but soon you will have ceased to matter and can safely be +released." + +Dalgetty considered. Not even he could do much against truth drugs. +And there were still more radical procedures, prefrontal lobotomy for +instance. He shivered. The leatherite straps felt damp against his +thin clothing. + +He looked at Bancroft. "What do you really want?" he asked. "Why are +you working for Bertrand Meade?" + +Bancroft's heavy mouth lifted in a smile. "I thought you were supposed +to answer the questions," he said. + +"Whether I do or not depends on whose questions they are," said +Dalgetty. _Stall for time! Put it off, the moment of terror, put it +off!_ "Frankly, what I know of Meade doesn't make me friendly. But I +could be wrong." + +"Mr. Meade is a distinguished executive." + +"Uh-huh. He's also the power behind a hell of a lot of political +figures, including you. He's the real boss of the Actionist movement." + +"What do you know of that?" asked the woman sharply. + +"It's a complicated story," said Dalgetty, "but essentially Actionism +is a--a _Weltanschauung_. We're still recovering from the World Wars +and their aftermath. People everywhere are swinging away from great +vague capitalized causes toward a cooler and clearer view of life. + +"It's analogous to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, which also +followed a period of turmoil between conflicting fanaticisms. A belief +in reason is growing up even in the popular mind, a spirit of +moderation and tolerance. There's a wait-and-see attitude toward +everything, including the sciences and particularly the new +half-finished science of psychodynamics. The world wants to rest for +awhile. + +"Well, such a state of mind has its own drawbacks. It produces +wonderful structures of thought but there's something cold about them. +There is so little real passion, so much caution--the arts, for +instance, are becoming ever more stylized. Old symbols like religion +and the sovereign state and a particular form of government, for which +men once died, are openly jeered at. We can formulate the semantic +condition at the Institute in a very neat equation. + +"And you don't like it. Your kind of man needs something big. And mere +concrete bigness isn't enough. You could give your lives to the +sciences or to inter-planetary colonization or to social correction, +as many people are cheerfully doing--but those aren't for you. Down +underneath you miss the universal father-image. + +"You want an almighty Church or an almighty State or an almighty +_anything_, a huge misty symbol which demands everything you've got +and gives in return only a feeling of belonging." Dalgetty's voice was +harsh. "In short, you can't stand on your own psychic feet. You can't +face the truth that man is a lonely creature and that his purpose must +come from within himself." + +Bancroft scowled. "I didn't come here to be lectured," he said. + +"Have it your way," answered Dalgetty. "I thought you wanted to know +what I knew of Actionism. That's it in unprecise verbal language. +Essentially you want to be a Leader in a Cause. Your men, such as +aren't merely hired, want to be Followers. Only there isn't a Cause +around, these days, except the common-sense one of improving human +life." + +The woman, Casimir, leaned over the desk. There was a curious +intensity in her eyes. "You just pointed out the drawbacks yourself," +she said. "This _is_ a decadent period." + +"No," said Dalgetty. "Unless you insist on loaded connotations. It's a +necessary period of rest. Recoil time for a whole society--well, it +all works out neatly in Tighe's formulation. The present state of +affairs should continue for about seventy-five years, we feel at the +Institute. In that time, reason can--we hope--be so firmly implanted +in the basic structure of society that when the next great wave of +passion comes it won't turn men against each other. + +"The present is, well, analytic. While we catch our breath we can +begin to understand ourselves. When the next synthetic--or creative or +crusading period, if you wish--comes, it will be saner than all which +have gone before. And man can't afford to go insane again. Not in the +same world with the lithium bomb." + +Bancroft nodded. "And you in the Institute are trying to control this +process," he said. "You're trying to stretch out the period of--damn +it, of decadence! Oh, I've studied the modern school system too, +Dalgetty. I know how subtly the rising generation is being +indoctrinated--through policies formulated by _your_ men in the +government." + +"Indoctrinated? Trained, I would say. Trained in self-restraint and +critical thinking." Dalgetty grinned with one side of his mouth. +"Well, we aren't here to argue generalities. Specifically Meade feels +he has a mission. He is the natural leader of America--ultimately, +through the U.N., in which we are still powerful, the world. He wants +to restore what he calls 'ancestral virtues'--you see, I've listened +to his speeches and yours, Bancroft. + +"These virtues consist of obedience, physical _and_ mental, to +'constituted authority'--of 'dynamism,' which operationally speaking +means people ought to jump when he gives an order--of .... Oh, why go +on? It's the old story. Power hunger, the recreation of the Absolute +State, this time on a planetary scale. + +"With psychological appeals to some and with promises of reward to +others he's built up quite a following. But he's shrewd enough to know +that he can't just stage a revolution. He has to make people want him. +He has to reverse the social current until it swings back to +authoritarianism--with him riding the crest. + +"And that of course is where the Institute comes in. Yes, we have +developed theories which make at least a beginning at explaining the +facts of history. It was a matter not so much of gathering data as of +inventing a rigorous self-correcting symbology and our paramathematics +seems to be just that. We haven't published all of our findings +because of the uses to which they could be put. If you know exactly +how to go about it you can shape world society into almost any image +you want--in fifty years or less! You want that knowledge of ours for +your purposes!" + +Dalgetty fell silent. There was a long quietness. His own breathing +seemed unnaturally loud. + +"All right." Bancroft nodded again, slowly. "You haven't told us +anything we don't know." + +"I'm well aware of that," said Dalgetty. + +"Your phrasing was rather unfriendly," said Bancroft. "What you don't +appreciate is the revolting stagnation and cynicism of this age." + +"Now you're using the loaded words," said Dalgetty. "Facts just _are_. +There's no use passing moral judgments on reality, the only thing you +can do is try to change it." + +"Yes," said Bancroft. "All right then, we're trying. Do you want to +help us?" + +"You could beat the hell out of me," said Dalgetty, "but it wouldn't +teach you a science that it takes years to learn." + +"No, but we'd know just what you have and where to find it. We have +some good brains on our side. Given your data and equations they can +figure it out." The pale eyes grew wholly chill. "You don't seem to +appreciate your situation. You're a prisoner, understand?" + +Dalgetty braced his muscles. He didn't reply. + +Bancroft sighed. "Bring him in," he said. + +One of the guards went out. Dalgetty's heart stumbled. _Dad_, he +thought. It was anguish in him. Casimir walked over to stand in front +of him. Her eyes searched his. + +"Don't be a fool," she said. "It hurts worse than you know. Tell us." + +He looked up at her. _I'm afraid_, he thought. _God knows I'm afraid._ +His own sweat was acrid in his nostrils. "No," he said. + +"I tell you they'll do everything!" She had a nice voice, low and +soft, but it roughened now. Her face was colorless with strain. "Go on +man, don't condemn yourself to--mindlessness!" + +There was something strange here. Dalgetty's senses began to reach +out. She was leaning close and he knew the signs of horror even if she +tried to hide them. _She's not so hard as she makes out--but then why +is she with them?_ + +He threw a bluff. "I know who you are," he said. "Shall I tell your +friends?" + +"No, you don't!" She stepped back, rigid, and his whetted senses +caught the fear-smell. In a moment there was control and she said, +"All right then, have it your way." + +And underneath, the thought, slowed by the gluiness of panic, _Does he +know I'm FBI?_ + +_FBI!_ He jerked against the straps. Ye gods! + +Calmness returned to him as she walked to her chief but his mind +whirred. Yes, why not? Institute men had little connection with the +Federal detectives, who, since the abolition of a discredited +Security, had resumed a broad function. They might easily have become +dubious about Bertrand Meade on their own, have planted operatives +with him. They had women among them too and a woman was always less +conspicuous than a man. + +He felt a chill. The last thing he wanted was a Federal agent here. + +The door opened again. A quartet of guards brought in Michael Tighe. +The Briton halted, staring before him. "_Simon!_" It was a harsh +sound, full of pain. + +"Have they hurt you, Dad?" asked Dalgetty very gently. + +"No, no--not till now." The gray head shook. "But you...." + +"Take it easy, Dad," said Dalgetty. + +The guards hustled Tighe over to a front-row bench and sat him down. +Old man and young locked eyes across the bare space. + +Tighe spoke to him in the hidden way. _What are you going to do? I +can't sit and let them--_ + +Dalgetty could not reply unheard but he shook his head. "I'll be +okay," he answered aloud. + +_Do you think you can make a break? I'll try to help you._ + +"No," said Dalgetty. "Whatever happens you lie low. That's an order." + +He blocked off sensitivity as Bancroft snapped, "Enough. One of you is +going to yield. If Dr. Tighe won't, then we'll work on him and see if +Mr. Dalgetty can hold out." + +He waved his hand as he took out a cigar. Two of the goons stepped up +to the chair. They had rubberite hoses in their hands. + +The first blow thudded against Dalgetty's ribs. He didn't feel it--he +had thrown up a nerve bloc--but it rattled his teeth together. And +while he was insensitive he'd be unable to listen in on.... + +Another thud, and another. Dalgetty clenched his fists. What to do, +what to do? He looked over to the desk. Bancroft was smoking and +watching as dispassionately as if it were some mildly interesting +experiment. Casimir had turned her back. + +"Something funny here, chief." One of the goons straightened. "I don't +think he's feeling nothing." + +"Doped?" Bancroft frowned. "No, that's hardly possible." He rubbed his +chin, regarding Dalgetty with wondering eyes. Casimir wheeled around +to stare. Sweat filmed Michael Tighe's face, glistening in the chill +white light. + +"He can still be hurt," said the guard. + +Bancroft winced. "I don't like outright mutilation," he said. "But +still--I've warned you, Dalgetty." + +"_Get out, Simon_," whispered Tighe. "_Get out of here._" + +Dalgetty's red head lifted. Decision crystalized within him. He would +be no use to anyone with a broken leg, a crushed foot, an eye knocked +out, seared lungs--and Casimir was FBI, she might be able to do +something at this end in spite of all. + +He tested the straps. A quarter inch of leatherite--he could snap them +but would he break his bones doing it? + +_Only one way to find out_, he thought bleakly. + +"I'll get a blowtorch," said one of the guards in the rear of the +room. His face was wholly impassive. Most of these goons must be +moronic, thought Dalgetty. Most of the guards in the twentieth-century +extermination camps had been. No inconvenient empathy with the human +flesh they broke and flayed and burned. + +He gathered himself. This time it was rage, a cloud of fury rising in +his mind, a ragged red haze across his vision. That they would _dare_! + +He snarled as the strength surged up in him. He didn't even feel the +straps as they popped across. The same movement hurtled him across the +room toward the door. + +Someone yelled. A guard leaped in his path, a giant of a man. +Dalgetty's fist sprang before him, there was a cracking sound and the +goon's head snapped back against his own spine. Dalgetty was already +past him. The door was shut in his face. Wood crashed as he went +through it. + +A bullet wailed after him. He dodged down the corridor, up the nearest +steps, the walls blurred with his own speed. Another slug smacked into +the paneling beside him. He rounded a corner, saw a window and covered +his eyes with an arm as he leaped. + +The plastic was tough but a hundred and seventy pounds hit it at +fifteen feet per second. Dalgetty went through! + +Sunlight flamed in his eyes as he hit the ground. Rolling over and +bouncing to his feet he set out across lawn and garden. As he ran his +vision swept the landscape. In that state of fear and wrath he could +not command much thought but his memory stored the data for +re-examination. + + +V + +The house was a rambling two-story affair, all curves and planes +between palm trees, the island sloping swiftly from its front to a +beach and dock. On one side was the airfield, on another the guard +barracks. To the rear, in the direction of Dalgetty's movement, the +ground became rough and wild, stones and sand and saw-grass and clumps +of palmettos, climbing upward for a good two miles. On every side, he +could see the infinite blue sparkle of ocean. Where could he hide? + +He didn't notice the slashing blades through which he raced and the +dry gulping of his lungs was something dreadfully remote. But when a +bullet went past one ear, he heard that and drew more speed from some +unknown depth. A glance behind revealed his pursuers boiling out of +the house, men in gray with the hot sunlight blinking off their guns. + +He ducked around a thicket, flopped and belly-crawled over a rise of +land. On the farther side he straightened again and ran up the long +slope. Another slug and another. They were almost a mile behind now +but their guns had a long reach. He bent low, zigzagging as he ran. +The bullets kicked up spurts of sand around him. + +A six-foot bluff loomed in his path, black volcanic rock shining like +wet glass. He hit it at full speed. He almost _walked_ up its face and +in the instant when his momentum was gone caught a root and yanked +himself to the top. Again he was out of their sight. He sprang around +another hulk of stone and skidded to a halt. At his feet, a sheer +cliff dropped nearly a hundred feet to a white smother of surf. + +Dalgetty gulped air, working his lungs like a bellows. A long jump +down, he thought dizzily. If he didn't crack his skull open on a reef +he might well be clawed under by the sea. But there was no other place +for him to go. + +He made a swift estimate. He had run the upward two miles in a little +over nine minutes, surely a record for such terrain. It would take the +pursuit another ten or fifteen to reach him. But he couldn't double +back without being seen and this time they'd be close enough to fill +him with lead. + +_Okay, son_, he told himself. _You're going to duck now, in more than +one sense._ + +His light waterproof clothes, tattered by the island growth, would be +no hindrance down there, but he took off his sandals and stuck them in +his belt pouch. Praise all gods, the physical side of his training had +included water sports. He moved along the cliff edge, looking for a +place to dive. The wind whined at his feet. + +There--down there. No visible rocks though the surf boiled and smoked. +He willed full energy back into himself, bent his knees, jack-knifed +into the air. + +The sea was a hammer blow against his body. He came up threshing and +tumbling, gasped a mouthful of air that was half salt spray, was +pulled under again. A rock scraped his ribs. He took long strokes, +always upward to the blind white shimmer of light. He got to the crest +of one wave and rode it in, surfing over a razorback reef. + +Shallow water. Blinded by the steady rain of salt mist, deafened by +the roar and crash of the sea, he groped toward shore. A narrow pebbly +beach ran along the foot of the cliff. He moved along it, hunting a +place to hide. + +There--a sea-worn cave, some ten feet inward, with a yard or so of +fairly quiet water covering its bottom. He splashed inside and lay +down, exhaustion clamping a hand on him. + +It was noisy. The hollow resonance of sound filled the cave like the +inside of a drum but he didn't notice. He lay on the rocks and sand, +his mind spiraling toward unconsciousness, and let his body make its +own recovery. + +Presently he regained awareness and looked about him. The cave was +dim, with only a filtered greenish light to pick out black wall's and +slowly swirling water. Nobody could see much below the surface--good. +He studied himself. Lacerated clothes, bruised flesh and a long +bleeding gash in one side. That was not good. A stain of blood on the +water would give him away like a shout. + +Grimacing, he pressed the edges of the wound together and willed that +the bleeding stop. By the time a good enough clot was formed for him +to relax his concentration the guards were scrambling down to find +him. He didn't have many minutes left. Now he had to do the opposite +of energizing. He had to slow metabolism down, ease his heartbeat, +lower his body temperature, dull his racing brain. + +He began to move his hands, swaying back and forth, muttering the +autohypnotic formulas. His incantations, Tighe had called them. But +they were only stylized gestures leading to conditioned reflexes deep +in the medulla. _Now I lay me down to sleep_.... + +Heavy, heavy--his eyelids were drooping; the wet walls receding into a +great darkness, a hand cradling his head. The noise of surf dimmed, +became a rustle, the skirts of the mother he had never known, come in +to bid him goodnight. Coolness stole over him like veils dropping one +by one inside his head. There was winter outside and his bed was snug. + +When Dalgetty heard the nearing rattle of boots--just barely through +the ocean and his own drowsiness--he almost forgot what he had to do. +No, yes, now he knew. Take several long, deep breaths, oxygenate the +bloodstream, then fill the lungs once and slide down under the +surface. + +He lay there in darkness hardly conscious of the voices, dimly +perceived. + +"A cave here--a place for him to hide." + +"Nah, I don't see nothing." + +Scrunch of feet on stone. "Ouch! Stubbed my damn toe. Nah, it's a +closed cave. He ain't in here." + +"Hm? Look at this, then. Bloodstains on this rock, right? He's _been_ +here, at least." + +"Under water?" Rifle butts probed but could not sound the inlet. + +The woman's voice. "If he is hiding down below he'll have to come up +for air." + +"When? We gotta search this whole damn beach. Here, I'll just give the +water a burst." + +Casimir, sharply--"Don't be a fool. You won't even know if you hit +him. Nobody can hold his breath more than three minutes." + +"Yeah, that's right, Joe. How long we been in here?" + +"One minute, I guess. Give him a couple more. Cripes! D'ja see how he +ran? He ain't human!" + +"He's killable, though. Me, I think he's just rolling around in the +surf out there. This could be fish blood. A 'cuda chased another fish +in here and bit it." + +Casimir: "Or if his body drifted in, it's safely under. Got a +cigarette?" + +"Here y'are, Miss. But say, I never thought to ask. How come you come +with us?" + +Casimir: "I'm as good a shot as you are, buster, and I want to be sure +this job's done right." + +Pause. + +Casimir: "Almost five minutes. If he can come up now he's a seal. +Especially with his body oxygen-starved after all that running." + +In the slowness of Dalgetty's brain there was a chill wonder about the +woman. He had read her thought, she was FBI, but she seemed strangely +eager to hunt him down. + +"Okay, le's get outta here." + +Casimir: "You go on. I'll wait here just in case and come up to the +house pretty soon. I'm tired of following you around." + +"Okay. Le's go, Joe." + +It was another four minutes or so before the pain and tension in his +lungs became unendurable. Dalgetty knew he would be helpless as he +rose, still in his semi-hibernating state, but his body was shrieking +for air. Slowly he broke the surface. + +The woman gasped. Then the automatic jumped into her hand and leveled +between his eyes. "All right, friend. Come on out." Her voice was very +low and shook a trifle but there was grimness in it. + +Dalgetty climbed onto the ledge beside her and sat with his legs +dangling, hunched in the misery of returning strength. When full +wakefulness was achieved he looked at her and found she had moved to +the farther end of the cave. + +"Don't try to jump," she said. Her eyes caught the vague light in a +wide glimmer, half frightened. "I don't know what to make of you." + +Dalgetty drew a long breath and sat upright, bracing himself on the +cold slippery stone. "I know who you are," he said. + +"Who, then?" she challenged. + +"You're an FBI agent planted on Bancroft." + +Her gaze narrowed, her lips compressed. "What makes you think so?" + +"Never mind--you are. That gives me a certain hold on you, whatever +your purposes." + +The blond head nodded. "I wondered about that. That remark you made to +me down in the cell suggested--well, I couldn't take chances. +Especially when you showed you were something extraordinary by +snapping those straps and bursting the door open. I came along with +the search party in hope of finding you." + +He had to admire the quick mind behind the wide smooth brow. "You damn +near did--for them," he accused her. + +"I couldn't do anything suspicious," she answered. "But I figured you +hadn't leaped off the cliff in sheer desperation. You must have had +some hiding place in mind and under water seemed the most probable. +In view of what you'd already done I was pretty sure you could hold +your breath abnormally long." Her smile was a little shaky. "Though I +didn't think it would be _inhumanly_ long." + +"You've got brains," he said, "but how much heart?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean, are you going to throw Dr. Tighe and me to the wolves now? Or +will you help us?" + +"That depends," she answered slowly. "What are you here for?" + +His mouth twisted ruefully. "I'm not here on purpose at all," Dalgetty +confessed. "I was just trying to get a clue to Dr. Tighe's +whereabouts. They outsmarted me and brought me here. Now I _have_ to +rescue him." His eyes held hers. "Kidnapping is a Federal offense. +It's your duty to help me." + +"I may have higher duties," she countered. Leaning forward, tautly, +"But how do you expect to do this?" + +"I'm damned if I know." Dalgetty locked moodily out at the beach and +the waves and the smoking spindrift. "But that gun of yours would be a +big help." + +She stood for a moment, scowling with thought. "If I don't come back +soon they'll be out hunting for me." + +"We've got to find another hiding place," he agreed. "Then they will +assume I survived after all and grabbed you. They'll be scouring the +whole island for us. If we haven't been located before dark they'll be +spread thin enough to give us a chance." + +"It makes more sense for me to go back now," she said. "Then I can be +on the inside to help you." + +He shook his head. "Uh-uh. Quit making like a stereoshow detective. If +you leave me your gun, claiming you lost it, that's sure to bring +suspicion on you the way they're excited right now. If you don't I'll +still be on the outside and unarmed--and what could you do, one woman +alone in that nest? Now we're two with a shooting iron between us. I +think that's a better bet." + +After a while, she nodded. "Okay, you win. Assuming"--the half-lowered +gun was raised again with a jerking motion--"that I will aid you. Who +are you? _What_ are you, Dalgetty?" + +He shrugged. "Let's say I'm Dr. Tighe's assistant and have some +unusual powers. You know the Institute well enough to realize this +isn't just a feud between two gangster groups." + +"I wonder...." Suddenly she clanked the automatic back into its +holster. "All right. For the time being only though!" + +Relief was a wave rushing through him. "Thank you," he whispered. +Then, "Where can we go?" + +"I've been swimming around here in the quieter spots," she said. "I +know a place. Wait here." + +She stepped across the cave and peered out its mouth. Someone must +have hailed her, for she waved back. She stood leaning against the +rock and Dalgetty saw how the sea-spray gleamed in her hair. After a +long five minutes she turned to him again. + +"All right," she said. "The last one just went up the path. Let's go." +They walked along the beach. It trembled underfoot with the rage of +the sea. There was a grinding under the snort and roar of surf as if +the world's teeth ate rock. + +The beach curved inward, forming a small bay sheltered by outlying +skerries. A narrow path ran upward from it but it was toward the sea +that the woman gestured. "Out there," she said. "Follow me." She took +off her shoes as he had done and checked her holster: the gun was +waterproof, but it wouldn't do to have it fall out. She waded into the +sea and struck out with a powerful crawl. + + +VI + +They climbed up on one of the hogback rocks some ten yards from shore. +This one rose a good dozen feet above the surface. It was cleft in the +middle, forming a little hollow hidden from land and water alike. They +crawled into this and sat down, breathing hard. The sea was loud at +their backs and the air felt cold on their wet skins. + +Dalgetty leaned back against the smooth stone, looking at the woman, +who was unemotionally counting how many clips she had in her pouch. +The thin drenched tunic and slacks showed a very nice figure. "What's +your name?" he asked. + +"Casimir," she answered, without looking up. + +"First name, I mean. Mine is Simon." + +"Elena, if you must know. Four packs, a hundred rounds plus ten in the +chamber now. If we have to shoot them all, we'd better be good. These +aren't magnums, so you have to hit a man just right to put him out of +action." + +"Well," shrugged Dalgetty, "we'll just have to lumber along as best we +can. I oak we don't make ashes of ourselves." + +"Oh, _no_!" He couldn't tell whether it was appreciation or dismay. +"At a time like this too." + +"It doesn't make me very popular," he agreed. "Everybody says to elm +with me. But, as they say in France, ve are alo-o-one now, mon cherry, +and tree's a crowd." + +"Don't get ideas," she snapped. + +"Oh, I'll get plenty of ideas, though I admit this isn't the place to +carry them out." Dalgetty folded his arms behind his head and blinked +up at the sky. "Man, could I use a nice tall mint julep right now." + +Elena frowned. "If you're trying to convince me you're just a simple +American boy you might as well quit," she said thinly. "That sort +of--of emotional control, in a situation like this, only makes you +less human." + +Dalgetty swore at himself. She was too damn quick, that was all. And +her intelligence might be enough for her to learn.... + +_Will I have to kill her?_ + +He drove the thought from him. He could overcome his own conditioning +about anything, including murder, if he wanted to, but he'd never want +to. No, that was out. "How did you get here?" he asked. "How much does +the FBI know?" + +"Why should I tell you?" + +"Well, it'd be nice to know if we can expect reinforcements." + +"We can't." Her voice was bleak. "I might as well let you know. The +Institute could find out anyway through its government connections--the +damned octopus!" he looked into the sky. Dalgetty's gaze followed the +curve of her high cheekbones. Unusual face--you didn't often see such an +oddly pleasing arrangement. The slight departure from symmetry.... + +"We've wondered about Bertrand Meade for some time, as every thinking +person has," she began tonelessly. "It's too bad there are so few +thinking people in the country." + +"Something the Institute is trying to correct," Dalgetty put in. + +Elena ignored him. "It was finally decided to work agents into his +various organizations. I've been with Thomas Bancroft for about two +years now. My background was carefully faked and I'm a useful +assistant. But even so it was only a short while back that I got +sufficiently into his confidence to be given some inkling of what's +going on. As far as I know no other FBI operative has learned as +much." + +"And what have you found out?" + +"Essentially the same things you were describing in the cell, plus +more details on the actual work they're doing. Apparently the +Institute was onto Meade's plans long before we were. It doesn't speak +well for your purposes, whatever they are, that you haven't asked us +for help before this. + +"The decision to kidnap Dr. Tighe was taken only a couple of weeks +ago. I haven't had a chance to communicate with my associates in the +force. There's always someone around, watching. The set-up's well +arranged, so that even those not under suspicion don't have much +chance to work unobserved, once they've gotten high enough to know +anything important. Everybody spies on everybody else and submits +periodic reports." + +She gave him a harsh look. "So here I am. No official person knows my +whereabouts and if I should disappear it would be called a deplorable +accident. Nothing could be proved and I doubt if the FBI would ever +get another chance to do any effective spying." + +"But you have proof enough for a raid," he ventured. + +"No, we haven't. Up till the time I was told Dr. Tighe was going to be +snatched I didn't know for certain that anything illegal was going on. +There's nothing in the law against like-minded people knowing each +other and having a sort of club. Even if they hire tough characters +and arm them the law can't protest. The Act of Nineteen Ninety-nine +effectively forbids private armies but it would be hard to prove Meade +has one." + +"He doesn't really," said Dalgetty. "Those goons aren't much more than +what they claim to be--bodyguards. This whole fight is primarily on +a--a mental level." + +"So I gather. And can a free country forbid debate or propaganda? Not +to mention that Meade's people include some powerful men in the +government itself. If I could get away from here alive we'd be able to +hang a kidnapping charge on Thomas Bancroft, with assorted charges of +threat, mayhem and conspiracy, but it wouldn't touch the main group." +Her fists clenched. "It's like fighting shadows." + + * * * * * + +"You war against the sunset-glow. The judgment follows fast my lord!" +quoted Dalgetty. _Heriots' Ford_ was one of the few poems he liked. +"Getting Bancroft out of the way would be something," he added. "The +way to fight Meade is not to attack him physically but to change the +conditions under which he must work." + +"Change them to what?" Her eyes challenged his. He noticed that there +were small gold flecks in the gray. "What does the Institute want?" + +"A sane world," he replied. + +"I've wondered," she said. "Maybe Bancroft is more nearly right than +you. Maybe I should be on his side after all." + +"I take it you favor libertarian government," he said. "In the past +it's always broken down sooner or later and the main reason has been +that there aren't enough people with the intelligence, alertness and +toughness to resist the inevitable encroachments of power on liberty. + +"The Institute is trying to do two things--create such a citizenry and +simultaneously to build up a society which itself produces men of that +kind and reinforces those traits in them. It can be done, given time. +Under ideal conditions we estimate it would take about three hundred +years for the whole world. Actually it'll take longer." + +"But just what kind of person is needed?" Elena asked coldly. "Who +decides it? _You_ do. You're just the same as all other reformers, +including Meade--hell bent to change the whole human race over to your +particular ideal, whether they like it or not." + +"Oh, they'll like it," he smiled. "That's part of the process." + +"It's a worse tyranny than whips and barbed wire," she snapped. + +"You've never experienced those then." + +"You _have_ got that knowledge," she accused. "You have the data and +the equations to be--sociological engineers." + +"In theory," he said. "In practice it isn't that easy. The social +forces are so great that--well, we could be overwhelmed before +accomplishing anything. And there are plenty of things we still don't +know. It will take decades, perhaps centuries, to work out a complete +dynamics of man. We're one step beyond the politician's rule of thumb +but not up to the point where we can use slide rules. We have to feel +our way." + +"Nevertheless," she said, "you've got the beginnings of a knowledge +which reveals the true structure of society and the processes that +make it. Given that knowledge man could in time build his own +world-order the way he desired it, a stable culture that wouldn't know +the horrors of oppression or collapse. But you've hidden away the very +fact that such information exists. You're using it in secret." + +"Because we have to," Dalgetty said. "If it were generally known that +we're putting pressure on here and there and giving advice slanted +just the way _we_ desire, the whole thing would blow up in our faces. +People don't like being shoved around." + +"And still you're doing it!" One hand dropped to her gun. "You, a +clique of maybe a hundred men...." + +"More than that. You'd be surprised how many are with us." + +"You've decided _you_ are the almighty arbiters. Your superior wisdom +is going to lead poor blind mankind up the road to heaven. I say it's +down the road to hell! The last century saw the dictatorship of the +elite and the dictatorship of the proletariat. This one seems to be +birthing the dictatorship of the intellectuals. I don't like any of +them!" + +"Look, Elena." Dalgetty leaned on one elbow and faced her. "It isn't +that simple. All right, we've got some special knowledge. When we +first realized we were getting somewhere in our research we had to +decide whether to make our results public or merely give out selected +less important findings. Don't you see, no matter what we did it would +have been us, the few men, who decided? Even destroying all our +information would have been a decision." + +His voice grew more urgent. "So we made what I think was the right +choice. History shows as conclusively as our own equations that +freedom is not a 'natural' condition of man. It's a metastable state +at best, all too likely to collapse into tyranny. The tyranny can be +imposed from outside by the better-organized armies of a conqueror, or +it can come from within--through the will of the people themselves, +surrendering their rights to the father-image, the almighty leader, +the absolute state. + +"What use does Bertrand Meade want to make of our findings if he can +get them? To bring about the end of freedom by working on the people +till they themselves desire it. And the damnable part of it is that +Meade's goal is much more easily attained than ours. + +"So suppose we made our knowledge public. Suppose we educated anyone +who desired it in our techniques. Can't you see what would happen? +Can't you see the struggle that would be waged for control of the +human mind? It could start as innocuously as a businessman planning a +more effective advertising campaign. It would end in a welter of +propaganda, counter-propaganda, social and economic manipulations, +corruption, competition for the key offices--and so, ultimately, there +would be violence. + +"All the psychodynamic tensors ever written down won't stop a +machine-gun. Violence riding over a society thrown into chaos, +enforced peace--and the peace-makers, perhaps with the best will in +the world, using the Institute techniques to restore order. Then one +step leads to another, power gets more and more centralized and it +isn't long before you have the total state back again. Only this total +state could _never_ be overthrown!" + +Elena Casimir bit her lip. A stray breeze slid down the rock wall and +rumpled her bright hair. After a long while she said, "Maybe you're +right. But America today has, on the whole, a good government. You +could let them know." + +"Too risky. Sooner or later someone, probably with very idealistic +motives, would force the whole thing into the open. So we're keeping +hidden the very fact that our most important equations exist--which is +why we didn't ask for help when Meade's detectives finally learned +that they know." + +"How do you know your precious Institute won't become just such an +oligarchy as you describe?" + +"I don't," Simon said, "but it's improbable. You see, the recruits who +are eventually taught everything we know are pretty thoroughly +indoctrinated with our own present-day beliefs. And we've learned +enough individual psych to do some real indoctrinating! They'll pass +it on to the next generation and so on. + +"Meanwhile we hope the social structure and the mental climate is +being modified in such a way that eventually it would be very +difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to impose absolute control by +any means. For as I said before, even an ultimately developed +psychodynamics can't do everything. Ordinary propaganda, for instance, +is quite ineffective on people trained in critical thinking. + +"When enough people the world over are sane we can make the knowledge +general. Meanwhile we've got to keep it under wraps and quietly +prevent anyone else from learning the same things independently. Most +such prevention, by the way, consists merely of recruiting promising +researchers into our own ranks." + +"The world's too big," she said very softly. "You can't foresee all +that'll happen. Too many things could go wrong." + +"Maybe. It's a chance we've got to take." His own gaze was somber. + +They sat for awhile in stillness. Then she said, "It all sounds very +pretty. But--what are you, Dalgetty?" + +"Simon," he corrected. + +"What are you?" she repeated. "You've done things I wouldn't have +believed were possible. _Are you human?_" + +"I'm told so." He smiled. + +"Yes? I wonder! How is it possible that you--" + +He wagged a finger. "Ah-ah! Right of privacy." And with swift +seriousness, "You know too much already. I have to assume you can keep +it secret all your life." + +"That remains to be seen," Elena said, not looking at him. + + +VII + +Sundown burned across the waters and the island rose like a mountain +of night against the darkening sky. Dalgetty stretched cramped muscles +and peered over the bay. + +In the hours of waiting there had not been much said between him and +the woman. He had dropped a few questions, with the careful casualness +of the skilled analyst, and gotten the expected reactions. He knew a +little more about her--a child of the strangling dying cities and +shadowy family life of the 1980's, forced to armor herself in +harshness, finding in the long training for her work and now in the +job itself an ideal to substitute for the tenderness she had never +known. + +He felt pity for her but there was little he could do to help just +now. To her own queries he gave guarded replies. It occurred to him +briefly that he was, in his way, as lonesome as she. _But of course I +don't mind--or do I?_ + +Mostly they tried to plan their next move. For the time, at least, +they were of one purpose. She described the layout of house and +grounds and indicated the cell where Michael Tighe was ordinarily +kept. But there was not much they could do to think out tactics. "If +Bancroft gets alarmed enough," she said, "he'll have Dr. Tighe flown +elsewhere." + +He agreed. "That's why we'd better hit tonight, before he can get that +worried." The thought was pain within him. _Dad, what are they doing +to you now?_ + +"There's also the matter of food and drink." Her voice was husky with +thirst and dull with the discouragement of hunger. "We can't stay out +here like this much longer." She gave him a strange glance. "Don't you +feel weak?" + +"Not now," he said. He had blocked off the sensations. + +"They--_Simon!_" She grabbed his arm. "A boat--hear?" + +The murmur of jets drifted to him through the beating waves. "Yeah. +Quick--underneath!" + +They scrambled over the hogback and slid down its farther side. The +sea clawed at Dalgetty's feet and foam exploded over his head. He +hunched low, throwing one arm about her as she slipped. The airboat +murmured overhead, hot gold in the sunset light. Dalgetty crouched, +letting the breakers run coldly around him. The ledge where they clung +was worn smooth, offered little to hold onto. + +The boat circled, its jets thunderous at low speed. _They're worried +about her now. They must be sure I'm still alive._ + +White water roared above his head. He breathed a hasty gasp of air +before the next comber hit him. Their bodies were wholly submerged, +their faces shouldn't show in that haze of foam--but the jet was +soaring down and there would be machine-guns on it. + +Dalgetty's belly muscles stiffened, waiting for the tracers to burn +through him. + +Elena's body slipped from his grasp and went under. He hung there, not +daring to follow. A stolen glance upward--yes, the jet was out of +sight again, moving back toward the field. He dove off the ledge and +struck into the waves. The girl's head rose over them as he neared. +She twisted from him and made her own way back to the rock. But when +they were in the hollow again her teeth rattled with chill and she +pressed against him for warmth. + +"Okay," he said shakily. "Okay, we're all right now. You are hereby +entitled to join our Pacific wet-erans' club." + +Her laugh was small under the boom of breakers and hiss of scud. +"You're trying hard, aren't you?" + +"I--_oh_, oh! Get _down_!" + +Peering over the edge Dalgetty saw the men descending the path. There +were half a dozen, armed and wary. One had a WT radio unit on his +back. In the shadow of the cliff they were almost invisible as they +began prowling the beach. + +"Still hunting us!" Her voice was a groan. + +"You didn't expect otherwise, did you? I'm just hoping they don't come +out here. Does anybody else know of this spot?" He held his lips close +to her ear. + +"No, I don't believe so," she breathed. "I was the only one who cared +to go swimming at this end of the island. But...." + +Dalgetty waited, grimly. The sun was down at last, the twilight +thickening. A few stars twinkled to life in the east. The goons +finished their search and settled in a line along the beach. + +"Oh-oh," muttered Dalgetty. "I get the idea. Bancroft's had the land +beaten for me so thoroughly he's sure I must be somewhere out to sea. +If I were he I'd guess I'd swum far out to be picked up by a +waterboat. So--he's guarding every possible approach against a landing +party." + +"What can we do?" whispered Elena. "Even if we can swim around their +radius of sight we can't land just anywhere. Most of the island is +vertical cliff. Or can you...?" + +"No," he said. "Regardless of what you may think I don't have vacuum +cups on my feet. But how far does that gun of yours carry?" + +She stole a glance over the edge. Night was sweeping in. The island +was a wall of blackness and the men at its foot were hidden. "You +can't _see_!" she protested. + +He squeezed her shoulder. "Oh yes I can, honey. But whether I'm a good +enough shot to.... We'll have to try it, that's all." + +Her face was a white blur and fear of the unknown put metal in her +voice. "Part seal, part cat, part deer, part what else? I don't think +you're human, Simon Dalgetty." + +He didn't answer. The abnormal voluntary dilation of pupils hurt his +eyes. + +"What else has Dr. Tighe done?" Her tone was chill in the dark. "You +can't study the human mind without studying the body too. What's he +done? Are you the mutant they're always speculating about? Did Dr. +Tighe create or find homo superior?" + +"If I don't plug that radio com-set before they can use it," he said, +"I'll be homo-genized." + +"You can't laugh it off," she said through taut lips. "If you aren't +of our species I have to assume you're our enemy--till you prove +otherwise!" Her fingers closed hard on his arm. "Is that what your +little gang at the Institute is doing? Have they decided that mere +humanity isn't good enough to be civilized? Are they preparing the way +for your kind to take over?" + +"Listen," he said wearily. "Right now we're two people, very mortal +indeed, being hunted. So shut up!" + +He took the pistol from her holster and slipped a full clip into its +magazine. His vision was at high sensitivity now, her face showed +white against the wet rock with gray highlights along its strong +cheekbones beneath the wide frightened eyes. Beyond the reefs the sea +was gunmetal under the stars, streaked with foam and shadow. + +Ahead of him, as he rose to his feet, the line of guards stood out as +paler darknesses against the vertiginous island face. They had mounted +a heavy machine-gun to point seaward and a self-powered spotlight, +not turned on, rested nearby. Those two things could be dangerous but +first he had to find the radio set that could call the whole garrison +down on them. + +_There!_ It was a small hump on the back of one man, near the middle +of the beach. He was pacing restlessly up and down with a tommy-gun in +his hands. Dalgetty raised the pistol with slow hard-held +concentration, wishing it were a rifle. _Remember your target practice +now, arm loose, fingers extended, don't pull the trigger but +squeeze--because you've got to be right the first time!_ + +He shot. The weapon was a military model, semi-noiseless and with no +betraying streak of light. The first bullet spun the goon on his heels +and sent him lurching across sand and rock. Dalgetty worked the +trigger, spraying around his victim, a storm of lead that _must_ ruin +the sender. + +Chaos on the beach! If that spotlight went on with his eyes at their +present sensitivity, he'd be blind for hours. He fired carefully, +smashing lens and bulb. The machine-gun opened up, stuttering, wildly +into the dark. If someone elsewhere on the island heard that +noise--Dalgetty shot again, dropping the gunner over his weapon. + +Bullets spanged around him, probing the darkness. One down, two down, +three down. A fourth was running along the upward path. Dalgetty fired +and missed, fired and missed, fired and missed. He was getting out of +range, carrying the alarm--_there!_ He fell slowly, like a jointed +doll, rolling down the trail. The two others were dashing for the +shelter of a cave, offering no chance to nail them. + +Dalgetty scrambled over the rock, splashed into the bay and struck out +for the shore. Shots raked the water. He wondered if they could hear +his approach through the sea-noise. Soon he'd be close enough for +normal night vision. He gave himself wholly to swimming. + +His feet touched sand and he waded ashore, the water dragging at him. +Crouching, he answered the shots coming from the cave. The shriek and +yowl were everywhere around him now. It seemed impossible that they +should not hear up above. He tensed his jaws and crawled toward the +machine-gun. A cold part of him noticed that the fire was in a random +pattern. They couldn't see him then. + +The man lying by the gun was still alive but unconscious. That was +enough. Dalgetty crouched over the trigger. He had never handled a +weapon like this but it must be ready for action--only minutes ago it +had tried to kill him. He sighted on the cave mouth and cut loose. + +Recoil made the gun dance till he caught onto the trick of using it. +He couldn't see anyone in the cave but he could bounce lead off its +walls. He shot for a full minute before stopping. Then he crawled away +at an angle till he reached the cliff. Sliding along this he +approached the entrance and waited. No sound came from inside. + +He risked a quick glance. Yes, it had done the job. He felt a little +sick. + +Elena was climbing out of the water when he returned. There was a +strangeness in the look she gave him. "All taken care of?" she asked +tonelessly. + +He nodded, remembered she could hardly see the movement, said aloud, +"Yes, I think so. Grab some of this hardware and let's get moving." + +With his nerves already keyed for night vision it was not difficult to +heighten other perceptions and catch her thinking ... _not human_. +_Why should he mind if he kills human beings when he isn't one +himself?_ + +"But I do mind," he said gently. "I've never killed a man before and I +don't like it." + +She jerked away from him. It had been a mistake, he realized. "Come +on," he said. "Here's your pistol. Better take a tommy-gun too if you +can handle it." + +"Yes," she said. He had lowered his reception again, her voice fell +quiet and hard. "Yes, I can use one." + +_On whom?_ he wondered. He picked up an automatic rifle from one of +the sprawled figures. "Let's go," he said. Turning, he led the way up +the path. His spine prickled with the thought of her at his back, +keyed to a pitch of near-hysteria. + +"We're out to rescue Michael Tighe, remember," he whispered over his +shoulder. "I've had no military experience and I doubt that you've +ever done anything like this either, so we'll probably make every +mistake in the books. But we've got to get Dr. Tighe." + +She didn't answer. + +At the top of the path Dalgetty went down on his stomach again and +slithered up over the crest. Slowly he raised his head to peer in +front of him. Nothing moved, nothing stirred. He stooped low as he +walked forward. + +The thickets fenced off vision a few yards ahead. Beyond them, at the +end of the slope, he could glimpse lights. Bancroft's place must be +one glare of radiance. How to get in there without being seen? He drew +Elena close to him. For a moment she stiffened at his touch, then she +yielded. "Any ideas?" he asked. + +"No," she replied. + +"I could play dead," he began tentatively. "You could claim to have +been caught by me, to have gotten your gun back and killed me. They +might lose suspicion then and carry me inside." + +"You think you could fake _that_?" She pulled away from him again. + +"Sure. Make a small cut and force it to bleed enough to look like a +bullet wound--which doesn't usually bleed much, anyway. Slow down +heartbeat and respiration till their ordinary senses couldn't detect +them. Near-total muscular relaxation, including even those unromantic +aspects of death which are so rarely mentioned. Oh yes." + +"Now I know you aren't human," she said. There was a shudder in her +voice. "Are you a synthetic thing? Did they make you in the +laboratory, Dalgetty?" + +"I just want your opinion of the idea," he muttered with a flicker of +anger. + +It must have taken an effort for Elena to wrench clear of her fear of +him. But then she shook her head. "Too risky. If I were one of those +fellows, with all you've already done to make me wonder about you, the +first thing I'd do on finding your supposed corpse would be to put a +bullet through its brain--and maybe a stake through its heart. Or can +you survive that too?" + +"No," he admitted. "All right, it was just a thought. Let's work a bit +closer to the house." + +They went through brush and grass. It seemed to him that an army would +make less noise. Once his straining ears caught a sound of boots and +he yanked Elena into the gloom under a palmetto. Two guards tramped +by, circling the land on patrol. Their forms loomed huge and black +against the stars. + +Near the edge of the grounds Dalgetty and Elena crouched in the long +stiff grass and looked at the place they must enter. The man had had +to lower his visual sensitivity as they approached the light. There +were floodlights harsh on dock, airfield, barracks and lawn, with +parties of guards moving around each section. Light showed in only one +window of the house, on the second story. Bancroft must be there, +pacing and peering out into the night where his enemy stirred. Had he +called by radio for reinforcements? + +At least no airboat had arrived or left. Dalgetty knew he would have +seen one in the sky. Dr. Tighe was here yet--if he lived. + +Decision grew in the man. There was a wild chance. "Are you much of an +actress, Elena?" he whispered. + +"After two years as a spy I'd better be." Her face bore a hint of +puzzlement under the tension as she looked at him. He could guess her +thought--_For a superman, he asks some simple-minded questions. But +then what is he? Or is he only dissembling?_ + +He explained his idea. She scowled. "I know it's crazy," he told her, +"but have you anything better to offer?" + +"No. If you can handle your part...." + +"And you yours." He gave her a bleak look, but there was an appeal in +it. Suddenly his half-glimpsed face looked strangely young and +helpless. "I'll be putting my life in your hands. If you don't trust +me you can shoot. But you'll be killing a lot more than me." + +"Tell me what you are," she said. "How can I know what the ends of the +Institute are when they're using such means as you? Mutant or android +or"--she caught her breath--"or actually a creature from outer space, +the stars. Simon Dalgetty, what are you?" + +"If I answered that," he said with desolation in his voice, "I'd +probably be lying anyway. You've got to trust me this far." + +She sighed. "All right." He didn't know if she was lying too. + +He laid the rifle down and folded his hands on top of his head. She +walked behind him, down the slope toward the light, her submachine-gun +at his back. + +As he walked he was building up a strength and speed no human ought to +possess. + +One of the sentries pacing through the garden came to a halt. His +rifle swung up, and the voice was a hysterical yammer: "Who goes?" + +"It's me, Buck," cried Elena. "Don't get trigger-happy. I'm bringing +in the prisoner." + +"Huh?" + +Dalgetty shuffled into the light and stood slumped, letting his jaw +hang slack as if he were near falling with weariness. + +"You _got_ him!" The goon sprang forward. + +"Don't holler," said Elena. "I got this one, all right, but there are +others. You keep on your beat. I got his weapons from him. He's +harmless now. Is Mr. Bancroft in the house?" + +"Yeah, yeah--sure." The heavy face peered at Dalgetty with more than a +tinge of fear. "But lemme go along. Yuh know what he done last time." + +"Stay on your post!" she snapped. "You've got your orders. I can +handle him." + + +VIII + +It might not have worked on most men but these goons were not very +bright. The guard nodded, gulped and resumed his pacing. Dalgetty +walked on up the path toward the house. + +A man at the door lifted his rifle. "Halt, there! I'll have to call +Mr. Bancroft first." The sentry went inside and thumbed an intercom +switch. + +Dalgetty, poised in a nervous tautness that could explode into +physical strength, felt a clutch of fear. The whole thing was so +fiendishly uncertain--anything could happen. + +Bancroft's voice drifted out. "That you, Elena? Good work, girl! How'd +you do it?" The warmth in his tone, under the excitement, made +Dalgetty wonder briefly just what the relationship between those two +had been. + +"I'll tell you upstairs, Tom," she answered. "This is too big for +anyone else to hear. But keep the patrols going. There are more like +this creature around the island." + +Dalgetty could imagine the primitive shudder in Thomas Bancroft, +instinct from ages when the night was prowling terror about a tiny +circle of fire. "All right. If you're sure he won't--" + +"I've got him well covered." + +"I'll send over half a dozen guards just the same. Hold it." + +The men came running from barracks, where they must have been waiting +for a call to arms, and closed in. It was a ring of tight faces and +wary eyes and pointing guns. They feared him and the fear made them +deadly. Elena's countenance was wholly blank. + +"Let's go," she said. + +A man walked some feet ahead of the prisoner, casting glances behind +him all the time. There was one on either side, the rest were at the +rear. Elena walked among them, her weapon never wavering from his +back. They went down the long handsome corridor and stood on the +purring escalator. Dalgetty's eyes roved with a yearning in them--how +much longer, he wondered, would he be able to see anything at all? + +The door to Bancroft's study was ajar and Tighe's voice drifted out. +It was a quiet drawl, unshaken despite the blow it must have been to +hear of Dalgetty's recapture. Apparently he was continuing a +conversation begun earlier: + +"... science goes back a long way, actually. Francis Bacon speculated +about a genuine science of man. Poole did some work along those lines +as well as inventing the symbolic logic which was to be such a major +tool in solving the problem. + +"In the last century a number of lines of attack were developed. There +was already the psychology of Freud and his successors, of course, +which gave the first real notion of human semantics. There were the +biological, chemical and physical approaches to man as a mechanism. +Comparative historians like Spengler, Pareto and Toynbee realized that +history did not merely happen but had some kind of pattern. + +"Cybernetics developed such concepts as homeostasis and feedback, +concepts which were applicable to individual man and to society as a +whole. Games theory, the principle of least effort and Haeml's +generalized epistemology pointed toward basic laws and the analytical +approach. + +"The new symbologies in logic and mathematics suggested +formulations--for the problem was no longer one of gathering data so +much as of finding a rigorous symbolism to handle them and indicate +new data. A great deal of the Institute's work has lain simply in +collecting and synthesizing all these earlier findings." + +Dalgetty felt a rush of admiration. Trapped and helpless among enemies +made ruthless by ambition and fear, Michael Tighe could still play +with them. He must have been stalling for hours, staving off drugs +and torture by revealing first one thing and then another--but subtly, +so that his captors probably didn't realize he was only telling them +what they could find in any library. + + * * * * * + +The party entered a large room, furnished with wealth and taste, lined +with bookshelves. Dalgetty noticed an intricate Chinese chess set on +the desk. So Bancroft or Meade played chess--that was something they +had in common, at least, on this night of murder. + +Tighe looked up from the armchair. A couple of guards stood behind +him, their arms folded, but he ignored them. "Hello, son," he +murmured. There was pain in his eyes. "Are you all right?" + +Dalgetty nodded mutely. There was no way to signal the Englishman, no +way to let him hope. + +Bancroft stepped over to the door and locked it. He gestured at the +guards, who spread themselves around the walls, their guns aimed +inward. He was shaking ever so faintly and his eyes glittered as with +fever. "Sit down," he said. "_There!_" + +Dalgetty took the indicated armchair. It was deep and soft. It would +be hard to spring out of quickly. Elena took a seat opposite him, +poised on its edge, the tommy-gun in her lap. It was suddenly very +still in the room. + +Bancroft went over to the desk and fumbled with a humidor. He didn't +look up. "So you caught him," he said. + +"Yes," replied Elena. "After he caught me first." + +"How did you--turn the tables?" Bancroft took out a cigar and bit the +end off savagely. "What happened?" + +"I was in a cave, resting," she said tonelessly. "He rose out of the +water and grabbed me. He'd been hiding underneath longer than anybody +would have thought possible. He forced me out to a rock in the bay +there--you know it? We hid till sundown, when he opened up on your men +on that beach. He killed them all. + +"I'd been tied but I'd managed to rub the strips loose. It was just a +piece off his shirt he tied me with. While he was shooting I grabbed a +stone and clipped him behind the ear. I dragged him to shore while he +was still out, took one of the guns lying there and marched him here." + +"Good work." Bancroft inhaled raggedly. "I'll see that you get a +proper bonus for this, Elena. But what else? You said...." + +"Yes." Her gaze was steady on him. "We talked, out there in the bay. +He wanted to convince me I should help him. Tom--he isn't human." + +"Eh?" Bancroft's heavy form jerked. With an effort he steadied +himself. "What do you mean?" + +"That muscular strength and speed, and telepathy. He can see in the +dark and hold his breath longer than any man. No, he isn't human." + +Bancroft looked at Dalgetty's motionless form. The prisoner's eyes +clashed with his and it was he who looked away again. "A telepath, did +you say?" + +"Yes," she answered. "Do you want to prove it, Dalgetty?" + +There was stillness in the room. After a moment Dalgetty spoke. "You +were thinking, Bancroft, 'All right, damn you, can you read my mind? +Go ahead and try it and you'll know what I'm thinking about you.' The +rest was obscenities." + +"A guess," said Bancroft. There was sweat on his cheeks. "Just a good +guess. Try again." + +Another pause, then, "'Ten, nine, seven, A, B, M, Z, Z ...' Shall I +keep on?" Dalgetty asked quietly. + +"No," muttered Bancroft. "No, that's enough. What are you?" + +"He told me," put in Elena. "You're going to have trouble believing +it. I'm not sure if I believe it myself. But he's from another star." + +Bancroft opened his lips and shut them again. The massive head shook +in denial. + +"He is--from Tau Ceti," said Elena. "They're way beyond us. It's the +thing people have been speculating about for the last hundred years." + +"Longer, my girl," said Tighe. There was no emotion in his face or +voice save a dry humor, but Dalgetty knew what a flame must suddenly +be leaping up inside him. "Read Voltaire's _Micromegas_." + +"I've read such fiction," said Bancroft harshly. "Who hasn't? All +right, why are they here, what do they want?" + +"You could say," spoke Dalgetty, "that we favor the Institute." + +"But you've been raised from childhood...." + +"Oh yes. My people have been on Earth a long time. Many of them are +born here. Our first spaceship arrived in Nineteen Sixty-five." He +leaned forward in the chair. "I expected Casimir to be reasonable and +help me rescue Dr. Tighe. Since she hasn't done so I must appeal to +your own common sense. We have crews on Earth. We know where all our +people are at any given time. If necessary I can die to preserve the +secret of our presence but in that case you will die too, Bancroft. +The island will be bombed." + +"I...." The chief looked out the window into the enormity of night. +"You can't expect me to--to accept this as if...." + +"I've some things to tell you which may change your mind," said +Dalgetty. "They will certainly prove my story. Send your men out +though. This is only for your ears." + +"And have you jump me!" snapped Bancroft. + +"Casimir can stay," said Dalgetty, "and anyone else you are absolutely +certain can keep a secret and control his own greed." + +Bancroft paced once around the room. His eyes flickered back and forth +over the watching men. Frightened faces, bewildered faces, ambitious +faces--it was a hard decision and Dalgetty knew grimly that his life +rested on his and Elena's estimate of Thomas Bancroft's character. + +"All right! Humphrey, Zimmermann, O'Brien, stay in here. If that bird +moves shoot him. The rest of you wait just outside." They filed out. +The door closed behind them. The three guards left posted themselves +with smooth efficiency, one at the window and one at either adjoining +wall. There was a long quiet. + +Elena had to improvise the scheme and think it at Dalgetty. He nodded. +Bancroft planted himself before the chair, legs spread wide as if +braced for a blow, fists on hips. + +"All right," he said. "What do you want to tell me?" + +"You've caught me," said Dalgetty, "so I'm prepared to bargain for my +life and Dr. Tighe's freedom. Let me show you--" He made a move as if +to rise. + +"Stay where you are!" snapped Bancroft, and three guns swiveled around +to point at the prisoner. Elena backed away until she stood beside the +one near the desk. + +"As you will." Dalgetty leaned back again, casually shoving his chair +a couple of feet. He was now facing the window and, as far as he could +tell, sitting exactly on a line between the man there and the man at +the farther wall. "The Union of Tau Ceti is interested in seeing that +the right kind of civilizations develop on other planets. You could be +of value to us, Thomas Bancroft, if you can be persuaded to our side, +and the rewards are considerable." His glance went for a moment to the +girl and she nodded imperceptibly. "For example...." + +The power rushed up in him. Elena clubbed her gun butt and struck the +man next to her behind the ear. In the fractional second before the +others could understand and react Dalgetty was moving. + +The impetus which launched him from the chair sent that heavy padded +piece of furniture sliding across the floor to hit the man behind him +with a muffled thud. His left fist took Bancroft on the jaw as he went +by. The guard at the window had no time to swing his gun back from +Elena and squeeze trigger before Dalgetty's hand was on his throat. +His neck snapped. + +Elena stood over her victim even as he toppled and aimed at the man +across the room. The armchair had knocked his rifle aside. "Drop that +or I shoot," she said. + +Dalgetty snatched up a gun for himself, leveling it at the door. He +more than half expected those outside to come rushing in, expected +hell would explode. But the thick oak panels must have choked off +sound. + +Slowly, the man behind the chair let his rifle fall to the floor. His +mouth was stretched wide with supernatural fear. + +"My God!" Dr. Tighe's long form was erect, shaking, his calm broken +into horror. "Simon, the risk...." + +"We didn't have anything to lose, did we?" Dalgetty's voice was thick +but the abnormal energy was receding from him. He felt a surge of +weariness and knew that soon the payment must be made for the way he +had abused his body. He looked down at the corpse before him. "I +didn't mean to do that," he whispered. + +Tighe collected himself with an effort of disciplined will and stepped +over to Bancroft. "He's alive, at least," he said. "Oh my God, Simon! +You could have been killed so easily." + +"I may yet. We aren't out of the woods by any means. Find something to +tie these two others up with, will you, Dad?" + +The Englishman nodded. Elena's slugged guard was stirring and +groaning. Tighe bound and gagged him with strips torn from his tunic. +Under the submachine-gun the other submitted meekly enough. Dalgetty +rolled them behind a sofa with the one he had slain. + +Bancroft was wakening too. Dalgetty located a flask of bourbon and +gave it to him. Clearing eyes looked up with the same terror. "Now +what?" mumbled Bancroft. "You can't get away--" + +"We can damn well try. If it had come to fighting with the rest of +your gang we'd have used you as a hostage but now there's a neater +way. On your feet! Here, straighten your tunic, comb your hair. Okay, +you'll do just as you're told, because if anything goes wrong we'll +have nothing at all to lose by shooting you." Dalgetty rapped out his +orders. + + * * * * * + +Bancroft looked at Elena and there was more than physical hurt in his +eyes. "Why did you do it?" + +"FBI," she said. + +He shook his head, still stunned, and shuffled over to the desk +visiphone and called the hangar. "I've got to get to the mainland in a +hurry. Have the speedster ready in ten minutes. No, just the regular +pilot, nobody else. I'll have Dalgetty with me but it's okay. He's on +our side now." + +They went out the door. Elena cradled her tommy-gun under one arm. +"You can go back to the barracks, boys," said Bancroft wearily to the +men outside. "It's all been settled." + +A quarter hour later Bancroft's private jet was in the air. Five +minutes after that he and the pilot were bound and locked in a rear +compartment. Michael Tighe took the controls. "This boat has legs," he +said. "Nothing can catch us between here and California." + +"All right." Dalgetty's tones were flat with exhaustion. "I'm going +back to rest, Dad." Briefly his hand rested on the older man's +shoulder. "It's good to have you back," he said. + +"Thank you, son," said Michael Tighe. "I can't tell you how wonderful +it is to be free again." + + +IX + +Dalgetty found a reclining seat and eased himself into it. One by one +he began releasing the controls over himself--sensitivities, nerve +blocs, glandular stimulation. Fatigue and pain mounted within him. He +looked out at the stars and listened to the dark whistle of air with +merely human senses. + +Elena Casimir came to sit beside him and he realized that his job +wasn't done. He studied the strong lines of her face. She could be a +hard foe but just as stubborn a friend. + +"What do you have in mind for Bancroft?" he asked. + +"Kidnapping charges for him and that whole gang," she said. "He won't +wriggle out of it, I can guarantee you." Her eyes rested on him, +unsure, a little frightened. "Federal prison psychiatrists have +Institute training," she murmured. "You'll see that his personality is +reshaped _your_ way, won't you?" + +"As far as possible," Simon said. "Though it doesn't matter much. +Bancroft is finished as a factor to be reckoned with. There's still +Bertrand Meade himself, of course. Even if Bancroft made a full +confession I doubt that we could touch him. But the Institute has now +learned to take precautions against extra-legal methods--and within +the framework of the law we can give him cards and spades and still +defeat him." + +"With some help from my department," Elena said. There was a touch of +steel in her voice. "But the whole story of this rescue will have to +be played down. It wouldn't do to have too many ideas floating around +in the public mind, would it?" + +"That's right," he admitted. His head felt heavy, he wanted to rest it +on her shoulder and sleep for a century. "It's up to you really. If +you submit the right kind of report to your superiors it can all be +worked out. Everything else will just be detail. But otherwise you'll +ruin everything." + +"I don't know." She looked at him for a long while. "I don't know if I +should or not. You may be correct about the Institute and the justice +of its aims and methods. But how can I be sure, when I don't know +what's behind it? How do I know there wasn't more truth than fiction +in that Tau Ceti story, that you aren't really the agent of some +non-human power quietly taking over all our race?" + +At another time Dalgetty might have argued, tried to veil it from her, +tried to trick her once again. But now he was too weary. There was a +great surrender in him. "I'll tell you if you wish," he said, "and +after that it's in your hands. You can make us or break us." + +"Go on then." Her tone withdrew into wariness. + +"I'm human," he said. "I'm as human as you are. Only I've had rather +special training, that's all. It's another discovery of the Institute +for which we don't feel the world is ready. It'd be too big a +temptation for too many people, to create followers like me." He +looked away, into the windy dark. "The scientist is also a member of +society and has a responsibility toward it. This--restraint--of ours +is one way in which we meet that obligation." + +She didn't speak, but suddenly one hand reached over and rested on +his. The impulsive gesture brought warmth flooding through him. + +"Dad's work was mostly in mass-action psych," he said, making his tone +try to cover what he felt, "but he has plenty of associates trying to +understand the individual human being as a functioning mechanism. A +lot's been learned since Freud, both from the psychiatric and the +neurological angle. Ultimately, those two are interchangeable. + +"Some thirty years ago one of the teams which founded the Institute +learned enough about the relationship between the conscious, +subconscious and involuntary minds to begin practical tests. Along +with a few others I was a guinea pig. And their theories worked. + +"I needn't go into the details of my training. It involved physical +exercises, mental practice, some hypnotism, diet and so on. It went +considerably beyond the important Synthesis education which is the +most advanced thing known to the general public. But its aim--only +partially realized as yet--its aim was simply to produce the +completely integrated human being." + +Dalgetty paused. The wind flowed and muttered beyond the wall. + +"There is no sharp division between conscious and subconscious or even +between those and the centers controlling involuntary functions," he +said. "The brain is a continuous structure. Suppose, for instance, +that you become aware of a runaway car bearing down on you. + +"Your heartbeat speeds up, your adrenalin output increases, your sight +sharpens, your sensitivity to pain drops--it's all preparation for +fight or flight. Even without obvious physical necessity the same +thing can happen on a lesser scale--for example when you read an +exciting story. And psychotics, especially hysterics, can produce some +of the damnedest physiological symptoms you ever saw." + +"I begin to understand," she whispered. + +"Rage or fear brings abnormal strength and fast reaction. But the +psychotic can do more than that. He can show physical symptoms like +burns, stigmata or--if female--false pregnancy. Sometimes he becomes +wholly insensitive in some part of his body via a nerve bloc. +Bleeding can start or stop without apparent cause. He can go into a +coma or he can stay awake for days without getting sleepy. He can--" + +"Read minds?" It was a defiance. + +"Not that I know of." Simon chuckled. "But human sense organs are +amazingly good. It only takes three or four quanta to stimulate the +visual purple--a little more actually because of absorption by the +eyeball itself. There have been hysterics who could hear a watch +ticking twenty feet away that the normal person could not hear at one +foot. And so on. + +"There are excellent reasons why the threshold of perception is +relatively high in ordinary people--the stimuli of usual conditions +would be blinding and deafening, unendurable, if there weren't a +defense." He grimaced. "I _know_!" + +"But the telepathy?" Elena persisted. + +"It's been done before," he said. "Some apparent cases of mindreading +in the last century were shown to be due to extremely acute hearing. +Most people sub-vocalize their surface thoughts. With a little +practice a person who can hear those vibrations can learn to interpret +them. That's all." He smiled with one side of his mouth. "If you want +to hide your thoughts from me just break that habit, Elena." + +She looked at him with an emotion he could not quite recognize. "I +see," she breathed. "And your memory must be perfect too, if you can +pull any datum out of the subconscious. And you can--do everything, +can't you?" + +"No," he said. "I'm only a test case. They've learned a great deal by +observing me but the only thing that makes me unusual is that I have +conscious control of certain normally subconscious and involuntary +functions. Not all of them by a long shot. And I don't use that +control any more than necessary. + +"There are sound biological reasons why man's mind is so divided and +plenty of penalties attached to a case like mine. It'll take me a +couple of months to get back in shape after this bout. I'm due for a +good old-fashioned nervous breakdown and while it won't last long it +won't be much fun while it does last." + +The appeal rose in his eyes as he watched Elena. "All right," he said. +"Now you have the story. What are you going to do about it?" + +For the first time she gave him a real smile. "Don't worry," she said, +"Don't worry, Simon." + +"Will you come hold my hand while I'm recuperating?" he asked +anxiously. + +"I'm holding it now, you fool," Elena answered. + +Dalgetty chuckled happily. Then he went to sleep. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Sensitive Man, by Poul William Anderson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SENSITIVE MAN *** + +***** This file should be named 31501.txt or 31501.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/5/0/31501/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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