'Really, you Americans!' said Wells, getting to his feet and brushing himself off. 'I see you've brought some of your Wild West with you to London. Loaded for bear, I see. Or perhaps for werewolf? I have come seeking your three compatriots or whichever of you is in charge.'
'Mr. Wells, my name is Scott Neilson. You obviously know a great deal already, but 1 have a feeling that we may be in danger here. Everyone else seems to be missing and it's not like Colonel Steiger to leave the command post unmanned. It is imperative that we go somewhere where we can speak safely.'
'Have you a place in mind?' said Wells.
'For the moment,' Neilson said, 'the best solution seems to be to keep in motion, at least until I can figure out what's happening.'
They left the hotel and hailed a coach. Neilson held the door for Wells as he got in, looked around quickly, then got in after Wells and told the coachman to drive them to Trafalgar Square.
The coach headed down Northumberland Avenue towards the intersection of Strand and Charing Cross Road, the central point of London, at the southeast corner of Trafalgar Square, where the monument to Lord Nelson stood. The coachman drove slowly, sitting atop his scat and smoking a bent Dublin pipe. Inside the coach, Neilson leaned back against the scat and drew a deep breath.
'I hardly expected to see you, of all people,' he said to Wells. 'How did you escape from Moreau?'
'Escape?' said Wells. 'There was no need of escaping. I was never a prisoner of Phillipe Moreau. He is my friend.'
'I wonder how much you know about your new friend,' said Neilson wryly.
'I know that he is from another time,' said Wells. 'More specifically, from another time line, as I believe you people put it, a universe which exists alongside this one. I know that he had developed the techniques to create the creatures that you seek as part of a wartime laboratory effort known as Project Infiltrator and I know that he abandoned that project to work with Nikolai Drakov, whom you people from the future are pursuing. I have met three of you before, you are the fourth, but I do not know for certain how many of you there are. In any event, I have come to offer you my help and that of Phillipc Moreau.'
'Jesus “ Neilson said, 'he told you everything!'
'And I am satisfied that he was telling me the truth,' said Wells. He had decided not to mention his trip into the future. 'Your reaction merely confirms it.'
'Only you don't realize that Moreau is the one behind all this.'
'Apparently. Mr. Neilson,' said Wells, 'it is you and your compatriots who do not realize that Phillipe Moreau had nothing to do with these killings. He blames himself for having taught Nikolai Drakov the art of creating these creatures, but they were solely Drakov's work and not Moreau's. Moreau had tried to stop him when he realized what Drakov had done, how he had used him, and they fought. Drakov left him for dead, but Moreau survived and has been on his trail ever since. We met utterly by accident, when he came to the offices of the Pall Mall Gazette, in search of more detailed information about one of the murders. He had tracked Drakov to London and he was convinced that a hominoid had been responsible for the murder! He had no idea that he would find me there and, in fact, he did not know who I was at first. When I became suspicious, he tried to leave, but I would not let him. Then he found out who I was and decided to take me into his confidence. When I mentioned to him that I had heard the name of Nikolai Drakov before, and the circumstances in which I had heard it, he immediately realized who my three visitors had been and he told me that they were law enforcement agents from the future and that there might be more of you than just the three I met. He also told me that he was enormously relieved to hear that you were on the scene, because it meant that the chances of stopping Nikolai Drakov and his creatures were increased.'
'And you believed all this?'
'Implicitly,' said Wells. 'Moreau warned me that you would be incredulous and I see it as my responsibility to convince you that what he told me was the truth.'
Neilson exhaled heavily. 'If all that's true, then why didn't Moreau come to us himself?'
'Would you have listened to him?' Wells said.
Neilson recalled Steiger's order to shoot Moreau on sight and shook his head. 'No, probably not. We would have killed him. And chances are it would probably have been the right thing to do.'
'Chances?' Wells said. 'You would take a man's life merely on the chance that it was the right thing to do? I see Moreau was right in not coining to you himself. What sort of people are you?”
'Not very noble ones, apparently,' said Neilson. 'And not very trusting, either, I don't think you fully understand just what it is you've become involved in, Mr. Wells. Liberal principles are something we just plain can't afford. There's far too much at stake. Even if what Moreau told you was the truth, and he has obviously convinced you, we simply could not afford to trust him. As reprehensible as it may seem, we could take the chance that killing him would be the right thing to do, but we could not afford to take the chance that trusting him would be. In the case of the former, if we were wrong, only one life would be affected and it would be a life that does not belong in this timestream. In the latter case, it could affect billions of lives and I am not exaggerating. We are at war and Moreau is the enemy. Given such a choice, what would you do?'
'War,' said Wells reflectively. 'Do you know what Oscar Wilde said about war as it may take place in the future? He said, 'A chemist on each side will approach the frontier with a bottle.' And from what I understand, he was far closer to the truth than he ever realized. I don't think I will tell him. He would be aghast at the thought of one of his cynically ironic observations reduced to a mundane reality.' Wells shook his head. 'And now it is I who am becoming cynical. I, who have sought to kindle a love of science in students, look about me now and see that we in this time are in the midst of a sort of 'disease' about technology and industry, that we are not certain what to make of it exactly, that it frightens us more than a little, and then I look at you and think perhaps that it should frighten us a great deal more. The forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps and they crush the truth a little in taking hold of it. That is why every scientific generalization is tentative and every process of scientific reasoning demands checking and adjustment by experiment. But you seem frightened by the process, afraid that the truth may not justify the risk. You would rather pulverize the truth in your clumsy mental forceps rather than take the chance that it may not bear out your hypothesis. What would I do if I were in your place, Mr. Neilson? I tell you frankly that I would take the risk, because to destroy a life so casually, merely on the chance that it might endanger others, whether it be millions, billions or even trillions, is to place all those other lives in jeopardy of the direst sort merely by the fact of setting a precedent for such a draconian philosophy.'
Neilson sat silent for a moment. 'You argue most persuasively. Mr. Wells,' he said at last. 'However, the decision is not mine to make. I am a soldier and I am under orders to shoot Moreau on sight.'
'In that case,' said Wells, 'I shall have to make certain that Moreau stays out of your sight, at least until I am able to convince your superiors of the truth.'
'But how do you know it is the truth?' said Neilson. 'Have you any proof? Isn't it possible that Moreau is actually in league with Drakov, as we suspect, and that they are using you as a pawn in their plan? Either way, we have to find Moreau. I have explicit orders concerning you, as well. You have been exposed to things that you have no business knowing. I have to take you back with me to my superiors.'
'Only it seems that you do not know where they are,• said Wells. 'That would appear to pose something of a problem.'
'And I can think of only one solution.' Neilson said. 'We have been keeping your house under surveillance. Unless something has occurred to change that, we're sure to encounter at least one of our people there. Whatever happens, I can't let you out of my sight. You know too much and you could be in danger.”
`'Am Ito take it, then, that I am your prisoner?' said Wells.
`'I would prefer if you thought of me as your bodyguard,' said Neilson. 'At least for the time being, until we can sort things out.'
Wells nodded. 'It really makes no difference. We both want the same thing. You want to deliver me to your superiors and I want very much to speak with them. I will put myself into your hands. Shall I direct the coachman to take us to my home?'
9
