XV
The feeling of paralysis slid from Gosseyn. He dived jerkily for the nearest guard, and came up gun in hand. He stood then, holding the gun tensely, watching for movement in any of the bodies. There was none. Everybody lay very still.
Gosseyn began hurriedly to disarm the guards. Whatever the reason for the opportunity that had come to him, there was no time to waste. The job finished, he paused, and once more stared at the strange scene. There were nine guards. They slumped on the floor, their bodies forming an odd pattern as if, like so many ninepins, they had all been tumbled with one shove. Gosseyn noted, without thinking about it, that Eldred Crang was not among those present. His gaze wandered swiftly over the remaining bodies, the two women and the three men. He thought, almost blankly, “I’m not grasping this as I ought. I’ve got to get out of here. Somebody may come.”
He didn’t budge. There was another, a mighty thought in his mind: Were they really dead? That thought sent him plunging beside “X.” Unthinking, he placed a hand on the plastic cage that supported “X”s middle. The fleshless smoothness of it made him jerk his hand away in abrupt repulsion. It was hard to think of the fellow as human. He forced himself to bend near the face and listen. A slow, rhythmic warmth bathed his ear. Gosseyn straightened. “X” was alive. They must all be alive.
He was about to climb to his feet when a sound at one of the doors froze him briefly where he was. Then, gun pointed, he flattened himself to the floor. As he lay there, eyes slitted, he cursed himself for having delayed. He could have been hundreds of feet away by this time.
The door opened and John Prescott came in.
Gosseyn got up, trembling from the reaction. Prescott grinned at him nervously. “Aren’t you glad you took that antidote?” he said. “I put Drae powder in the air-conditioning machine, and you’re the only one who—” He broke off. “What’s wrong? Am I too late?”
It was a fast diagnosis. By accident, Gosseyn’s gaze had touched Amelia Prescott’s still body, where it lay on the floor near the huge Thorson. And memory had flooded through him. He said grimly, “Prescott, your wife had something injected into her arm before the others were affected by the powder. It was supposed to kill her. Better examine her.”
There was time for examinations, now that the strange unconsciousness of these people had been explained. If the air-conditioning system had spread the anesthetic, then this scene of silent, slumped bodies would be repeated in every room. The only danger now was that somebody would come in from outside. Gosseyn watched as the Venusian listened briefly at his wife’s heart, then took a little bottle out of his pocket. The bottle stopper had a syringe attached to it. Prescott pressed the needle into her thigh and looked up.
“That contains fluorescine,” he explained. “If she’s alive, her lips will turn greenish in about a minute.”
After two minutes, the woman’s lips remained pale and dead. The man stood up and looked around him curiously. And the odd thing, then, was that Gosseyn had no premonition. He watched the Venusian walk stiffly over to the pile of guns and carefully select two guns. That was the dominating impression, the care with which the man examined his weapons.
What followed was too swift for interference. Prescott walked over and put a bullet through “X”s right eye. Blood spread over the man’s face like a small, vivid fire. Prescott whirled. Shoving the gun against Hardie’s forehead, he fired again. He ran down the line of guards then, body bent low, firing with both guns. He was twisting toward Thorson when he stopped. A bewildered look came into his face. The astounded Gosseyn caught him there and tore the automatics out of his hands.
“You incredible fool!” Gosseyn shouted. “Do you realize what you’ve done?”
An hour later, when they abandoned their stolen car deep in the fog-bound city, and the night around them was like a pall of gray-black smoke, they heard the first roaring of the news from a public-address speaker.
“Stand by for an important announcement from the President’s palace!”
That was one voice. Another, sterner voice came on.
“It is my sad duty to announce that President Michael Hardie was assassinated this evening by a man known as Gilbert Gosseyn, an agent of the Games Machine. The immensity of the plot against the people of Earth is only beginning to be apparent. Gosseyn, whose escape was assisted by so-called Venusian detectives, is tonight the object of the greatest manhunt in recent history. All law-abiding citizens are ordered to remain at home. Anyone found on the streets will have only himself to blame if he is roughly handled.
It was the mention of the Machine that brought to Gosseyn realization of the full implications of that hasty killing. The reference to him as its agent, and the attempt to tie in Venusian detectives—it was the first public attack against the sacred symbols of null-A that he had ever heard. Here was the declaration of war.
The fog wisped around them as they stood there. It was so thick Gosseyn could see Prescott two feet away as a shadow only. Radar, of course, could penetrate the fog as if it did not exist, but that would require instruments and the machines to transport them. A radar searchlight could silhouette them instantly, but it would have to be pointed at them first. In such a fog on such a night, bad luck could destroy him; otherwise he was safe. For the first time since events had seized hold of him, he was free to cany out his own purposes. Free, that is, with one limitation.
He turned to stare at Prescott, still the unknown factor. Recriminations for what had happened were, of course, useless. But even in this dark, miasmic night, it was difficult to know what to do with the man. Prescott had helped him to escape. Prescott knew much that could be valuable to him. Not now, not tonight. Now he had another, more urgent purpose. But in the long run Prescott might be very important to him.
If possible, he must try to keep this galactic convert to null-A as a companion. Swiftly, Gosseyn explained what was in his mind.
“A psychiatrist—and it can’t be anyone I’ve contacted before—is obviously the first man on my list. There just isn’t anything as important as finding out what in my brain has frightened everybody.”
“But,” protested Prescott, “hell be under group protection.”
Gosseyn smiled tolerantly into the night. He was physically and mentally at ease, conscious of his absolute superiority to his environment. “Prescott,” he said, “I’ve been in this jam quite a while now. I’ve been like a bewildered child, timidly following other people’s orders. I’ve told you, for instance, how I allowed the Machine to persuade me to be recaptured.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been trying,” Gosseyn went on, “to account for my easy acquiescence to such outside advice. And I think now it was because, way in the back of my mind, there’s been a desire to ease out from under all this and let somebody else take over the whole burden, or at least a part of it. I was so unwilling to recognize that I was
“Frankly,” he finished, “I’m counting on that Drae powder of yours to disorganize any group protective system now organized. But first, I want you to buy a map of the city, then we’ll look up the home address of Dr. Lauren Kair. If he’s not available, I’ll accept anybody but Dr. David Lester Enright, with whom I once made an appointment.”
Prescott said, “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
Gosseyn spoke without rancor. “Oh, no, you won’t.” He explained gently, “We’re in this together, each the guard of the other. I’ll go into the drugstore behind you and look up Dr. Kair’s address while you buy the map.”
Doctor Kair’s house gleamed whitely in the light from a corner lamp and from two dim globes that cast a pale radiance around their base, presumably indicating that the family was home. They vaulted the fence like wraiths. As they paused in the shadows of shrubbery, Prescott whispered, “Are you sure Dr. Kair is the man you want to see?”
“Yes,” said Gosseyn. He was about to leave it at that, when the thought came that the author of
