and protection. I'm going to play our cards for everything they're worth.'
'Barney, isn't there a chance that we might compromise?' She waved aside the protests that sprang to his lips. 'I know,' she said. 'The Syndicate's the greediest octopus that ever got its suckers around the life-blood of a world. It's utterly contemptible—and yet, it's too powerful for its own good—and maybe for ours. Couldn't we compromise and lull their suspicions?'
'Not one bloody chance in a billion!' Train snapped harshly.
'Independent Fourteen's our only trump card, but it's the winner in this game as soon as we see fit to play it.'
'I guess you're right, Barney,' said Ann wearily. 'Call up Mr. Hartly on that gimmick while I warm up Fourteen.' She turned to a corner of the room cleared except for a bulky piece of machinery, protrusive with tubes and coils, built around heavy castings bolted together, mounted on wheels. Ann fingered a switchboard carefully, and tubes began to glow with fiery electrical life while sparks snapped from point to point.
'Mr. Hartly, please,' said Train quietly into a grid of his instrument.
'Hartly speaking,' boomed from a loudspeaker connected with the tiny device. 'Who is this?'
'Dr. Train. Do you remember?'
There was a sudden click. 'You can't hang up, Hartly. If you look, you'll find that your phone's blown out. I'm using irregular channels.'
A long pause, then Hardy's voice came through again, this time tinged with wonder. 'How did you get back from M-15, Train, and when did you do it?'
'You paid me to come back, Hartly. I drew the full salary of a guard while returning to Earth on his regular vacation. I've been here some twenty days.'
'Extraordinary,' breathed the great man. 'And I suppose you've been setting up that silly machine of yours?'
'Not so silly,' replied Train ominously. 'It works like Merlin's wand—
that neat and efficient.'
'Then it's no use my sending men around to Miss Riley's flat—I assume that is where you are—to arrest you as an escaped convict.'
'No use whatsoever. I can make them feel very foolish, if I so desire. Or I can simply wipe them out without any fuss at all. I'm a practical man, Hartly. Most scientists are—you were one once, yourself, I understand.'
'Bacteriologist. Occupied in saving lives. It was wonderful for awhile, but I found eventually that there was no future in it.'
'Despicable attitude, Hartly. It shows up throughout your career. It was your career, by the by, that I want to discuss with you, anyway.'
'What about my career?'
'Just two words, Hartly. It's over.'
Hartly's chuckle was silk-smooth. 'How so, Doctor? I was under the impression that it had barely begun.'
'I'm warning you, Hartly, not to take this as a joke. I haven't forgotten what it was you wanted to do to me on M-15, and what I was supposed to be doing in the process. I'd have more scruples about killing a scorpion than you, Hartly.'
'No doubt about that,' came the answer. 'So would many misguided persons. But the interesting thing about it is that they have always ended up among insuperable difficulties. You may make me a concrete proposition, Doctor.'
'I may and I will! The proposition is this: your unqualified resignation from the directorship and organization of World Research Syndicate, and an assignment to me of unlimited reorganization powers for the period of one year.'
Hartly's voice was mocking in tone. 'Yes? World Research is a rather large enterprise. Do you think one year would be enough?'
'Ample. Your answer?'
A long pause, then: 'My answer is unqualified refusal.'
'Based on what? Make no mistake: I shan't hesitate to blot you out any longer than you would hesitate to do the same to me—unless you capitulate. And the difference, T J., is that I can do it and you cannot.'
'Admitted,' came back Hartly's voice cheerfully. 'But surely, Doctor, you didn't think that I have not been preparing—in fact, been prepared—for just such an occasion as this ever since I came into power?'
'Explain,' snapped the scientist. 'And talk fast and straight.'
Hartly's voice was now unperturbed. 'When a question of conflict arises, it's either a matter of personal gain or benefit to the world. I've been faced by determined men before, Train. Those who were after personal advancement could be compromised with and later eliminated by quick thinking and quicker action.
'However, altruists presented a different problem. Most of them could not be bribed. Some of them were powerful enough, by reason of their ability or backing, or both, to issue a flat defiance to me. Those I threatened with the thing they loved most—humanity.'
'Come to the point, Hardy. I'm not too patient a man in some ways.'
'I was a bacteriologist once,' went on Hartly. 'And, in the course of my research, I developed a nasty variety of bread-mold. It attacks anything organic and spreads like wildfire. I know of nothing to check it, nor does anyone else. It thrives at any temperature and flourishes off corrosive agents.'
'So?'
'So, Doctor Train, make one false move, as they say in melodrama, and I release an active culture of that mold; you will then see your flesh crumble away. I realize that alone wouldn't stop you, but the thought of what will then happen to the teeming millions of Earth will.'
Another silence, then: 'I decided long ago, Train, that no one would wipe me out. True, someone might come along with bigger and better power, even as you have done, but, as you can see, if there's any blotting out to be done, I shall do it myself.
'It will mean the end of World Research and of me. It will also mean the end of all animal life on this planet. If you want a Pyrrhic victory, Train, you may have it.'
'It's horrible!' cried Ann, her eyes wide with the shock of it. 'Can he do it, Barney?'
'Miss Riley,' came through the voice. 'Perhaps you remember the occasion of our first meeting. Do you think me the type of man to try a bluff?'
Train turned to the transmitter of his tiny outfit. 'I know you're not bluffing, Hartly. I know also that you'll try every means of persuasion you know first, because you don't particularly want to be wiped out, even by you own hands, yet. But it won't work; you'll try this last resort of yours because the ethics of business, which doesn't blink at the murder of an individual, wouldn't blink at the murder of a planet.
'We're going to make a call on you very soon, Hartly. My wife, myself, and Independent Fourteen.'
5
Train paused for a moment in thought. 'Ann,' he said, 'do you think Hogan would want to help us?'
'That's a fine favor to ask of any neighbor. Let's see.'
They knocked on the door of an adjoining apartment, and the staccato rattle of a typewriter suddenly cut short. The door swung open, and a little man presented himself. 'Afternoon, Trains,' he said. 'What can I do for you?'
'Hogan,' began Ann winsomely, 'we think you ought to take the afternoon off. Your work's telling on you.'
'Not so I've noticed it. What do you want me to do? More shopping for copper tubing? I'm a busy man, Mrs. Train.'
'We know that, Hogan,' broke in Barney. 'But can you spare us a few hours? We need help badly. You'll have to push some heavy machinery and maybe do a bit of scrapping …'
'A fight! Why didn't you say so in the first place? Wait; I'll get me gun.'
He vanished, and they heard the typewriter rattle off a few more steaming paragraphs.
