Chapter VII

The visiphone buzzed shrilly that afternoon, and Roberts' worried face appeared in the screen. "Paul," he said sharply. "There are some bad rumors around. I think something's up."

Paul cursed. "What kind of rumors?"

"All kinds," said Roberts sourly. "They're saying the hunt for the Alien is a fraud, that nobody is doing anything at all about it. There were a couple of out-and-out charges that Psi-Highs are teaming up with the Alien to make an attack on the government--"

"My god, can't somebody put the lid on that man?"

"That wasn't Towne's work. It was some other Federal Isolationist Senator on one of the propaganda programs the Normal Supremacy party has on TV. There's talk that the Civil Rights bloc in the Liberal Council is getting ready to switch to the American Council side and force a Presidential election. And that could put Towne in the White House. He's getting ready to move, Paul. We haven't got very long. The word has been sneaking out all over. Towne is behind it, of course, but he's smooth; oh, he's smooth. Congress hasn't been joined into two solid political parties for two hundred years, but they're doing it now, and it'll be a bloody battle. If Towne can get the Civil Rights bloc to switch to his Council he's got the Senate in the palm of his hand."

"Who's the leader of the Civil Rights men?" Faircloth's voice was sharp.

"That's just the thing. It has been Mike Veriday. His brother's a Psi-High. But his stock has taken an awful nosedive since this rumor campaign started. The polls have got him trailing Kingsley from Kentucky by three per cent, losing ground fast. Now Kingsley, it seems, is in some mean financial trouble that Towne got him into, and Towne is ready to clear him of some nasty charges if he plays along--" He paused for a long moment. "We haven't got much time, Paul."

"Well, I hope we don't need much. But I think you can call in as many of our men as you need to. If things get too hot for you, list Jean and myself as missing, and throw out a dragnet for us. Because I think we'll be very much outside the law in another day or so."

Roberts blinked at him. "Better tell me what you're planning, Paul."

"Don't worry what I'm planning. The less you know about it the better. Just one thing, though. You remember Eagle Rock? The place we built up on Timagami when we were in college? Put three men at a number where I can reach them, and give them the location of Eagle Rock. Then tell them to stand by with a fast jet scooter. Got that? And don't let _this_ leak, no matter what happens."

"I wish you'd tell me--"

"We're fighting for our lives, now, Bob. And for every Psi-High in the country. I won't tell you."

Roberts nodded, and doused his cigar. "Eagle Rock," he said. "You can count on it."

Paul flipped the set off and sank back to wait for the Alien to make contact.

* * * * *

He struck at ten o'clock that evening, with a ferocity beyond their wildest expectations.

They had known that he was near. The reports had come in, and they had plotted and calculated his pathway, and waited. It was only a matter of time, and the carefully planted information built a tangled, devious circle with a single Psi-High individual in the center.

Jean Sanders.

It had to be Jean. Paul hated it. He wished it could be him, that he could somehow protect her, but Jean Sanders was the only possible person to bait the trap. Her psi-powers had been developed carefully and painstakingly for years under the care of Dr. Reuben Abrams and his staff at the Hoffman Medical Center. A Psi-High individual was helpless to use his powers without training. Just as a child was trained through long, gruelling years to use the mental faculties of thought, and perception, and logic, a psi-positive mind required training to control its powers of perception and physical control, if its powers were ever to be used.

Paul knew that all too well. He had the psi-positive factor, too. He had not realized, in his teens, when he had plagued and baited the two Psi-High boys in his high school class, that there might be a time factor in psi-positive developement. Other Psi-Highs showed the signs of abnormal sensory apparatus at the age of one, or three, or seven. The schools caught them, tested them, registered them and sent them out into a life of fear and suspicion and hatred. They were considered freaks, the more dangerous because there was no physical identification that could be used to separate them from ordinary human beings.

And certain men had seen the great power that stood waiting for the man who took advantage of the people's fears. Ambition is blinding; certain men could see the danger to the comfortable, careless wielding of power if Psi-High minds were to work their way into government. But minds, like Paul Faircloth's mind, matured at different ages, and at different times. And some slipped through the barrage of testing, undetected, only to discover later that it was not the backs of the cards they were reading, but the mind of their opponent that held the cards.

The faculty was feeble in people like Paul. He could not read minds. He could not sort and integrate the confused tendrils of conscious and unconscious thought that broke like an endless stream from a human mind; he could not separate the reality of here-and-now thinking from the strands of fantasy, and memory, and supposition, and frustration, and desire, and half-understanding, and confusion that lay beneath the surface of those minds. He could detect falsehood and he could feel suspicion; he could sense love as he had never felt it before, and he could feel himself gripped in the helpless frustration of pity; he could savor excitement with a thousand tingling nerves, and he could sense the blackest depths of despair, but he could not sort them out to make a coherent picture of the thoughts streaming from a human mind. It took a lifetime of training of a Psi-High mind to do that.

But Jean Sanders could. That was why she was waiting in the room with him when the Alien struck.

She was walking across the room when it happened. She stiffened, screamed, and even Paul's untrained mind caught the impact of the wave of fear and revulsion that swept from her mind. She sank to the floor, and Paul stood by, watching helplessly as she twisted and writhed in the blind agony of the powerful invasion. "Please," she choked, white faced. "Get me a pillow. Then--then listen--"

"Don't fight him," Paul whispered. "Let him in. Let him clear in. And then jump on him for all you're worth. Dig, dig deep--"

Her eyes became huge, like the eyes of an animal, frightened beyond hope, cornered, attacked and helpless to fight back. Her neck strained back, and her teeth clenched. The blood drained from her face as she began moaning. "I can't, Paul--" she cried, "I--I can't get in--"

"You've got to--" Frantically Paul tried to thrust out with his mind, tried to dig through the wall of immense power that was present in the room. The Alien was close, very close, and the presence of his mind was overwhelming. Paul tried to break through, and then suddenly he felt a pang of white heat sear through his brain, driving him back, a sharp, savage stroke that doubled him up, clasping his hands helplessly to his ears as he fell and writhed on the floor in pain. And then suddenly it was gone as swiftly as it had come. He lay panting for a moment. Then he managed to crawl across the room to Jean. He sank his head to her chest, heard the slow pounding of her heart. He shook her, gently; her eyes flickered open, her face filled with horror and loathing. "Oh, Paul, I got--I got so little--"

"What did you get, darling?"

"Nothing. A picture or two, nothing more. Oh, he was so strong, I couldn't make a dent--"

"What pictures?"

She sat up, her breath coming in gasps. "Nothing definite. Ben Towne--yes, there was something about him--just the flash of a mental picture, no rationality connected with it. And some papers, some sort of file--" She clasped her hands to her head. "He--he stripped me clean! I can't--"

"Jeannie! There must have been something else--"

She looked up at him, a strange light in her eyes. "I don't understand it," she whispered. "There was a picture of a farm--yes, a farm, and a dog, and blood on a pair of pants--"

Paul sat back, staring at her stupidly. And then, suddenly, a light flashed on in his mind, a flash so incredible that he hardly dared think of it. In an instant he was on his feet, the blood pounding in his throat. He began throwing clothes into a bag as the girl sat there, watching him dully, in growing alarm. "Stay here," he said. "I'll call you--"

"Paul--where--"

"It's my show, now, darling. Wait, rest, you'll be all right. Rest, and say a prayer or two. Because I've got this Alien nailed for sure this time."

* * * * *

It was incredibly dangerous and utterly necessary. Paul found a visiphone booth in the rear of a station where there were few people, and quickly threw an adapter across the camera, and spun a roll of film in. The film started when the party at the other end flipped on the switch. The conversation was brief. Paul gave the address of a roof-garden apartment in Central Washington, and then disconnected. After removing the film, he reconnected with a number he had given Roberts a few hours before. Ted Marino's face appeared, and Paul heaved a sigh of relief. "How many men do you have, Ted?"

"Two."

"All Psi-High?"

"Certainly."

Paul nodded. "All right, we're beyond the law from now on, Ted. If you or any of the rest want out, take off."

Marino's dark eyes sparkled. "Roberts said this is the kill," he said.

"It's not the kill you think. But it's a kill, all right. Take the men to this address." He gave the roof-garden number. "Have a jet scooter there, and see that nobody spots it. Use Security insignia. Send out a bleeper if anything goes wrong. I'll be there."

He rang off, and moments later was rising high above the city in his own scooter. In ten minutes he had reached the roof-garden, and settled the little ship down gently on its gyros. He walked inside and sat down in the darkness, and waited.

He heard another jet scooter land. Marino walked in with two other men Paul remembered vaguely. He nodded to them, and they also sat down. Paul fingered the shocker in his pocket, his nerves screaming a thousand warnings in his ears.

The guard robot on the ground floor bleeped sharply. Paul reached for the lock-release switch, and heard the elevator start to whine. He unlocked the door and left it ajar, then motioned to one of the men. "Cover the hallway, and back them up when they come. Don't be surprised at who it is."

The man disappeared down the hall. Paul sat quietly, and then heard the elevator open. There were footsteps, and a tapping sound. The footsteps stopped at the door.

"Come on in," he called sharply. "Bob'll be with you in just a minute."

The door swung open and Senatorial Councilman Ben Towne walked into the room, followed by two tight-faced men. One of the men had a hand in his jacket pocket. Towne blinked at Faircloth, and his grin began to fade into alarm. "Who in the hell are you?"

"One of Roberts' men."

"Roberts said you had the Alien," Towne snarled. His green eyes peered around the room.

Marino swung on the man to the right, bringing him down with a blow to the temple. Paul slapped Towne's cane to the floor, and pounced on the other guard like a cat. The Councilman staggered against the door jamb, trying desperately to reach his cane. Moments later the guards were helpless, and Paul and Marino dragged Towne out to the middle of the room. "The files," Paul said sharply. "Where do you keep them?"

Towne's breath came heavily. "You damned snakes can't get away with this--"

"The files, Councilman."

His eyes went around the room fearfully. "The boys know where they are," he said finally, his voice so low it was hardly audible.

"Any duplicates?"

"Not of the files you want."

Paul nodded to the two men. "Take them down and get the files. Then turn the men and files over to Roberts. Tell him to see that the men forget all about this." He turned back to Towne. "You're taking a little ride."

"When this hits the papers it'll be the end of the road for you freaks," Towne snarled. "You can't stop it now--"

"We'll see," said Faircloth. "Now shut up and get moving."

They left the cane in the room. Paul helped Marino load him aboard the jet scooter. "Take him up to Eagle Rock. Keep him there. Dismantle the engine, if you have to, to keep him there. I'll be there in a few hours."

Marino nodded. "Should I report to Roberts?"

"Don't bother. Roberts would have a stroke. I brought Towne over here on a dummy visiphone film of Roberts, which will put him in enough hot water as it is."

"And where are you going?"

"I'm taking a plane west. I've got a visit to make. I've got to see a man about a dog."