Eric Russell - Three to Conquer

“Indeed?” King was openly skeptical. “Then how do you account for the nature of your call to Brockman twenty minutes ago?”

“I suspected it then,” Harper chipped in. “But now I know.” He studied King levelly, and added, “At the moment, you’re thinking that if the world is to be afflicted with such creatures as telepaths, it might be a good thing to put them out of harm’s way, and fast.”

“You know too much,” said King. “No government could function with any degree of security with people like you hanging around.”

“I’ve been hanging around enough years to make me wish they were fewer. We haven’t had a bloody revolution yet.”

“But we have a suspected murderer dragged into a government office by a departmental director of the F.B.I.,” said King. “It is certainly a new and previously unheard-of practice. I hope they had the forethought to search you for concealed weapons.”

By Harper’s side, Jameson reddened and interjected, “Pardon me, Mr. King, but there is far more to this issue than the aspect that seems to irritate you.”

“Such as what?”

“The ship is back,” Harper put in.

All four jerked, as though stabbed with needles.

King demanded, “When did it return? Where did it land?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then how do you know it is back?”

“He found a trace of the crew,” informed Jameson. “Or that’s how it looks.”

Harper contradicted carefully, “No, I don’t think I did; I think the crew is dead.”

“So the crew died and you haven’t the faintest notion of where their ship is planted?” inquired King. “Nevertheless you know that the ship has returned?”

“I do.”

“It made the trip all on its own? A unique spatial convulsion flung it thirty million miles or more across the void, and dumped it somewhere unknown to all and unsuspected by anyone but you?”

“Your sarcasm is pointless, doesn’t help any, and furthermore it gives me a pain in the seat,” snapped Harper, becoming tough. “The ship was brought here by a bunch of Venusians. How d’you like that, eh?”

King didn’t like it at all. His mind unhesitatingly rejected the bald statement, started sorting out a dozen objections.

The bespectacled man on his right took advantage of the pause to chip in.

“Piloting a space-ship is not an easy matter.”

“No, Mr. Smedly, I guess it isn’t.”

“It’s highly technical; it requires a great deal of know-how.”

“That,” said Harper, “is precisely the hell of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Anyone who can hijack a ship and run it forthwith, without any tuition, can take over anything else we’ve got with as little trouble.” He gave them a few seconds to stew the point, then added for good measure, “Bit by bit, piece by piece, until they have everything and we have nothing—not even our souls.”

“That idea is detestable,” said King, beginning to feel cold.

“It should be,” agreed Harper. “And further, you’d do well to abandon this latest notion you’re concocting.”

“What notion?”

“That I’m the agent of a scheming gang across the ocean who are trying to pull a fast one. All that feuding is over, as from today. They’re in the same mess along with the rest of humanity; they’re going to become just as scared as I am right now.”

“I doubt it. They’ll be equally suspicious; they’ll blame us for trying to disturb the world with a better and bigger bogey.”

“It won’t matter a cuss who blames whom when we’re no longer human. Come to that, we won’t be capable of apportioning blame.”

King argued stubbornly, “It seems to me that you’re taking a devil of a lot for granted on the basis of very little evidence. That evidence may be real enough to you. To us, it comes secondhand. Even if we accept you as a genuine telepath, I can conceive no logical reason for supposing that a telepath is impervious to delusions. Do you seriously expect us to alert the entire defenses of this country on the strength of an unproved story?”

“No, I don’t,” admitted Harper. “I’m not that daft.”

“Then, what do you expect of us?”

“First, I wanted official confirmation of my suspicion that a ship really has been sent somewhere beyond the Moon. That is why I came all the way here, and avoided being picked up by local police who know too little and bark too much. Somehow or other I had to learn about that ship.”

“Secondly?”

“I now expect action, within reasonable limits. If it produces the proof you require, I expect further action on a national scale.”

“It is far easier to talk about getting proof than to go out and dig it up. If it exists, why didn’t you find it yourself and bring it with you? Surely your own common sense should tell you that the wilder a story, the more proof it requires to make convincing?”

“I know,” said Harper. And I reckon I could have got enough to make you leap out of your shirt if only I’d possessed an item hidden in your top-secret files.”

“To what are you referring?”

“The photographs of those three spacemen.” He eyed King and his confreres with the sorrowful reproof of one surprised by their inability to perceive the obvious. “We have a witness who got a good, close look at two of those three, and made careful note of them. Show him your pictures. If he says they’re the boys, that settles it. The balloon goes up next minute.”

Jameson waggled his eyebrows and put in, “Yes, that is the logical move. It should decide the matter one way or the other. We can do better than that, too. We can remove any element of doubt.”

“How?” inquired King.

“A dozen, twenty, or forty people may have noticed that Thunderbug and the three men with it. I can put agents on the job of tracing that back-track and finding the witnesses. If all of them say the same thing, namely, that those three men are your missing pilots—” He let it die out, thereby making it sound highly sinister.

“To enable you to do that,” King pointed out, “we would have to get those photographs released from secret files and provide you with a large number of copies.”

“Of course.”

“But that means the general dissemination of reserved data.”

Harper emitted a loud groan, rubbed his jaw, and recited the -names of the twelve apostles.

Staring at him distastefully, King said, “I’ll see what the appropriate department decides.”

“While you’re at it,” Harper suggested, “you can persuade some other appropriate department to seize the body of Jocelyn Whittingham, and subject it to an expert autopsy. I don’t know whether that will tell us anything, but it might. The bet is worth taking, anyway.”

“I’ll see what they decide,” repeated King. He went out with visible unwillingness. The remaining three fidgeted.

King was gone a long time. Eventually, he returned with a heavily built, military-looking man named Benfield. The latter grasped three large photographs which he exhibited to Harper as he spoke.

“Know these fellows?”

“No.”

“Sure of that?”

“I’m positive. They’re complete strangers to me.”

“Humph! Can you say that they answer to the descriptions of the trio you have in mind?”

“Fairly well. I could be more definite if those pics were in color. The uniforms convey nothing in black and white.”

“They are dark green uniforms with silver buttons, gray shirts, green ties.”

“Apart from the silver buttons, the details match up.”

“All right. We’ll make an immediate check. Who’s this witness?”

Harper told him about the old man at the filling station, while Benfield made note of it on a scratch-pad.