people in less than two decades. There was something too awfully methodical about their city.
It didn't show any of the right traits. No, not a single one. It was as though they'd deliberately set out to build themselves a city of the future intended to impress and amaze—one, also, geared to the maximum in efficiency.'
Kay listened quietly. Finally she suggested, with a little shudder:
'Gestapo?'
'Couldn't be anything else, sweet.' Ballister fell silent in the contemplation of bucking the secret police that had held the German empire of conquest together by torture, fire and sword for years beyond its normal lifespan. They were wise, villainous and tricky, the Gestapo.
It had been thought that the majority of them had been killed off by the Captives' Revolt years ago. Surely there couldn't be enough left to fill that city!
'It's a bridgehead,' he said at last. 'A stepping-stone for attack on an unprecedented scale and in an altogether new technique. You guess what that is?'
'Like the story about the rabbits, perhaps,' Kay suggested diffidently.
'There were two rabbits being chased by a pack of hounds. They were tired, completely winded. There was no chance of them outrunning the hounds, who were young and fresh. So one rabbit said to the other rabbit: 'Let's hide in that bush until we outnumber them.' '
'Maybe,' said Ballister. 'Too bad reconnaissance is out of the question.
They must be patrolling the woods seven deep looking for us.' He brooded for a while, then exploded: 'And the young monster of a hydro-dam? What's that for?'
'Electric light,' said Kay. She reconsidered after a moment. 'No.
Because they have a strict curfew, so they don't need street-lights. And that dam would deliver twenty times the power needed for street-lighting. Maybe a hundred times that. I'm no installations engineer, boy.'
'It's very important, that dam. Otherwise they wouldn't risk building a big, suspicious thing like that. And they do want to hide it; they did their best along that line to keep us from noticing it.'
'What?' squeaked the girl. 'That chauffeur stopped the car and pointed it out, and we've been taken to inspect it half a dozen times! Keep us from noticing it, forsooth!'
Ballister sat quietly and grinned like a cat.
The girl considered, then blushed and admitted shamefacedly: 'You're right. They even fooled me, the psychist. They threw it into our faces so often that we were supposed to take it for granted and not think about the thing. The Purloined Letter, et seq.'
'Good kid!' said Ballister with faked heartiness. 'I wish to heaven that one of us was a real scientist—physics and nuclear chemistry. Because the one purpose of that dam is obviously to power the machinery I saw in the basement before the chase-scene. And I don't know what the machinery does …'
'So it's all solved, huh?' Kay asked belligerently. 'As simple as pi square? The Gestapo's been repudiated by the German people, so they choose this method as a bridgehead on the continent for future use when the Swastika shall ride again.'
'That's what it looks like,' said Ballister self-satisfiedly.
'Things are seldom what they seem. That's what it ain't. How would even a heavily-disciplined Gestapo unit do what they've done in the time they've had?'
Ballister was rocked back on his heels. 'Blast it,' he said bitterly. 'The man-hour formulae make it a rank impossibility. It's so far outside the realms of possibility that I'd bet my boots on it.' A thought struck him:
'But the city's there, Kay!'
'Ignore it, boy. There's trickery involved. We'll have to find out where.'
He looked at her glumly. 'Reconnaissance?'
'Yep. Both of us.'
Bazasch knew things about stalking that would pop the eyes of a Scottish stag-hunter. He had the knack of slipping along without enough covering to hide a rabbit, and in the little space of a week he tried to teach Kay and Ballister what he knew. In his own inarticulate way he got some of the principles over, though he despaired of ever making guerillistas of them.
Mournfully he explained that one had to be born to the fellowhood of stalkers and then be taken in hand by a wise old man who could explain things. He, Jose, could not explain. So long he had not talked to anybody but himself that the language sometimes seemed to be going altogether.
And between the grueling hikes-under-cover in the mountains the two Americans were gathering together their data, inferring wildly, working sometimes by association rather than logic, jumping through time and space in their reasoning rather than let go of a theory.
They evolved conclusive—to them—proof that Sir Mallory was the prime scoundrel behind the Pyrenese Peoples' Republic. Checking back on his mental notebook Ballister recalled what might be considered evidence to that effect:
'I had my eyes on him the moment he showed up in our little twosome.
Whether he's the real Sir Mallory turned traitor doesn't matter much.
He may have popped the real Sir Mallory and taken his place with disguises. Anyway, you recall the outrageous bombing of the Hotel de Oslo et d'Universe, or whatever it was. That was the feeblest bombing I ever encountered, and yet Sir Mallory and a few old hens got excited about it.
'He proposed a military police of unlimited powers. That was a very bad sign. It was the first step towards wrecking the Conference. It denied democracy itself, the principle the Conference was constructed on. There could have been no bombing or killing half so disruptively effective as that move.'
Kay wearily agreed. Her knees were scratched, and her hands were calloused with crawling. But she'd got over her illness and felt hard as nails. The rough-and-ready bullet extraction that Bazasch had performed on Ballister had healed nicely.
6
Showdown
On the big night there was no moon. Jose had planned it that way, he claimed. They started at dusk, carrying their first two meals.
It was a horrible grind for an old man, a girl and a recently-shot person.
They made crevasses that seemed impossible, climbed lofty trees to sight. After some hours of the terrible labor they sighted the lights of the landing field glowing dimly through the night. Fearing no cars they made good time along the highway, turning quietly into three roadside shadows when they passed the blockhouse that surmounted the dam.
They found the city to be a bigger blotch of black in the general darkness.
Slipping down the alleys and lanes of the city, silent as so many ghosts, the three made their way to the center of town. By prearranged plan Ballister unlatched the front door of the Mayor's little office building.
They entered behind him; Ballister felt for the cellar door. It swung open and a blaze of light poured through, shocking, dazzling after the hours-long trek through pitch-blackness.
'Aha!' whispered Bazasch. His cat's eyes contracted; from his belt flicked a knife, eight wicked inches of blank steel. It slipped through the air, lodged in the throat of a burly 'Basque' who had made the mistake of drawing his gun.
'Close it,' said Kay, dashing down the stairs to kick the gun away from the hand of the 'Basque,' wounded but not yet dead. She finished him for the moment with a kick to the side of his head.
Ballister and Bazasch tore after her, the door bolted as securely as it could be.
Kay inspected the tower of machinery, marvelling. 'Don't ask me,' she finally griped. 'I agree with my ignorant colleague. Whatever it is, it drinks lots of juice and it looks like a concrete mixer.'
Ballister picked up the gun. It was a hefty hand-weapon, a wide-gage projector of lead slugs that mushroomed effectively. 'What do we do now?' he asked weakly. 'That individual sent in an alarm, to be sure, before he even drew.'
