'Don't find it so,” said Tauncer suddenly. “The creaking irritates me.” He opened his eyes, and Birrel had the feeling that he had been keeping them closed for some time, shamming, while he took stock of the situation.
'Well,” he said to Birrel. “I'm an acknowledged expert with the sonic beam. Just as a matter of curiosity, would you mind telling me how you did it?'
Birrel said, “We had warning — a friend of mine named Tom.'
Tauncer looked puzzled, but let it go. He looked up at Birrel with an insolent lack of fear.
'How did you know I was here?” Birrel demanded.
'We followed you,” said Tauncer. “It was easy.'
Birrel shook his head. “No. You didn't follow us here. If you had done that, you wouldn't have waited half the night to act. You found out about this place somehow, and came here. How did you find out?'
Tauncer smiled.
Birrel thought rapidly. No one had known about this old farm selected for their rendezvous except Ferdias and he, himself, and Karsh. And the inexorable mathematics of that simple equation admitted of only one solution. Karsh had not come to the rendezvous. And that aborted call the night before on his personal porto wavelength, that strange sigh and silence — it all added up to the same thing.
A rage began to grow in Birrel. He had not met Karsh many times, in the past. He was certainly not his friend, for Ferdias’ chief agent could not afford the luxury of friends. But, all the same, he had liked the gray, quiet, dedicated man.
He looked down at Tauncer and he tried to control his anger. It would not get him anywhere and he needed to think clearly, now of all times. Now, he saw, the Earthman had regained consciousness, too, and was looking up at him, scared, wary, and as viciously resentful as a trapped rodent.
'You've got no right to do this to me,” he told Birrel loudly. “I'm a citizen of Earth, and you're an alien here,'
'Shut up, Harper,” said Tauncer boredly. Harper swallowed, but he shut up.
Birrel said suddenly. “You caught up with Karsh last night, didn't you?'
Tauncer was too skilled in tricks to show the slightest emotion. He said mildly, “Did we?” But the Earthman, Harper, was not so good. His face changed for a fleeting moment, and, to Birrel, that was proof enough.
He was quite sure that Karsh was dead. Tauncer, who must have come to Earth before the Fifth ever arrived, had won his years-long duel with Ferdias’ agent. The vera-probe would have emptied Karsh of all his knowledge, and there would have been no reason then to leave him alive.
Birrel felt the disastrous impact of it. He had depended on Karsh to tell him what his course was to be in this dangerous and highly complicated situation. There would be no one to tell him anything now. There was no use calling Ferdias for orders, for Ferdias could not possibly estimate things from faraway Vega. He would have to think out his own decisions and he would have to do it quickly. The very fact that Tauncer had made this attempt proved that the crisis was sharpening fast. There might be very little time left before the blow-up.
He said to Tauncer, “Now you can tell me some things.'
Tauncer's eyes looked up brightly at him, the contemptuous eyes of the adroit and wily man measuring the honest clod for another defeat.
'You'll get no more from me than I got from you, Birrel — and you know it.'
Birrel said grimly, “I'm pressed for time. I'll get it out of you.'
'With the vera-probe? You don't know how to operate it.
'That's true,” said Birrel. “But there are other ways.” He took the shocker from Lyllin's hand and motioned to her to get up. “Go on into the other room, dear. I don't think you'd enjoy this.'
She looked at him as though he was someone she had just met and was not sure she liked.
'Try to understand” he said. “I don't do this sort of thing every day.'
'Of course,” she said. She went into the next room, and he shut the door behind her. He came back to the two men.
Tauncer laughed. “Bluff.'
'You're sure of that?'
'Quite sure. You're a good fighting man, but you haven't the stuff in you for this kind of work. If nothing else, the way your wife looked at you just now would stop you.'
Birrel nodded. “I think a lot of my wife. But I think a lot of something else, too, and that's the Fifth squadron. So you're going to tell me things, Tauncer. Like the present position and plans of the Orionid First and Third squadrons.'
'It won't work,” Tauncer said decisively. “I don't want to boast, but I'm plenty tough in my own way. To make me talk you'd have to do things that no decent, honorable dolt like you could do. I feel quite safe.'
Birrel looked with grim meaning at the Earthman, Harper. “He doesn't look as tough as you.'
Tauncer chuckled. “Oh, Harper's just the ordinary two-for-a-cent traitor you can buy on any planet to help you — he doesn't know anything. Go ahead and work him over, if you don't believe me.'
Harper's voice rose angrily. “That's a fine thing to say!'
Birrel felt an increasing frustration. Tauncer lay there, bound and helpless, and yet the man had a boundless self-confidence, as though he held all the cards in his hands. What made him so confident? And why, after he had learned of this rendezvous from Karsh, had he come here? To kill Birrel, after questioning him with the probe, to demoralize the Fifth by suddenly removing its commander, a stroke timed to coincide with the appearance of Solleremos’ squadrons?
He had to know where those squadrons now were and what they were going to do and when. Tauncer knew that, and must be made to tell, as quickly as possible. There was only one way Birrel could see to make him.
He went into the next room and closed the door. Lyllin flashed a glance at him from where she sat.
'I was bluffing,” he said. “And it didn't work.'
He took out his porto, set it to Brescnik's wave, and pressed the call button. Brescnik answered almost at once.
'Something has come up,” said Birrel. “I don't think there's a lot of time.'
'Shall I go on Alert?'
Birrel hesitated. He wanted to say, Yes. He desperately wanted every man in the Fifth at his post, right now. But he dared not order an Alert, not without some proof of Solleremos’ intentions that he could show Charteris and Mallinson. Otherwise they would surely interpret the Alert as evidence that Ferdias was indeed planning a grab for Earth.
'No,” he said, after a moment. “Not yet. I need a man up here. Someone who can use a vera-probe.'
A brief silence indicated Brescnik's puzzlement, but heroically he refrained from asking questions.
'There should be someone among our technicians,” he said. “I'll find one.'
'Send him up here as fast as you can,” said Birrel, and gave directions. “Keep on Ready.'
He turned off his porto and then swung around to Lyllin. “I have to stay here a while longer. I want you to go back to New York.'
She said evenly, “No,'
He started to get angry. But he stopped. There was a certain look on Lyllin's face that he knew.
'All right, but you're making it tougher for me,” he grumbled, and left her and went back to the other room.
Tauncer and Harper lay where he had left them, Harper looking a little scared, but Tauncer's eyes still bold and confident.
'So you're having Brescnik send up a vera-probe operator?” said Tauncer.
Birrel was for an instant thunderstruck, wondering how Tauncer could have overheard, and Tauncer laughed at his expression. Only then did Birrel realize that the other had merely made a logical estimate of what he would do.
It shook him, all the same, to realize that even though he was a prisoner, Tauncer was thinking way ahead of him.
'Clever of you,” Birrel said grimly. “Thanks for reminding me of just how clever you are.'
He went into the dusty, back rooms of the old house. One had been a bedroom and still contained two beds with old-fashioned, ornate metal frames. Birrel eyed them, then went back and picked up Tauncer by the shoulders and dragged him roughly to the bedroom. He shoved him onto one of the beds and then went and got the coil of
