Eric Russell - Three to Conquer

“I have no authority to make such an extrajudicial bargain.”

“Somebody has; find that somebody and keep kicking his pants until he wakes up.”

“I doubt whether anyone less than the President could do it, and even he’d have to stretch his powers to the limit.”

“All right; then chivvy the President. If you don’t go after him, somebody else will—and for a more formidable purpose.”

“Look, Wade, talk comes cheap. Performance is a different matter altogether. Have you ever tried moving the top brass?”

“Yes.”

“How far did you get?” Leeming asked with interest.

“I reached General Conway and got him on the hop good and proper. Come to think of it, he’s the boy to ask. Tell him exactly what’s happened here, what I’ve said to you, what you want to do about it. Tell him your test-subject must be a man and nothing less than a man. Dump the problem right in his lap and tell him that, so far as you’re concerned, he’s stuck with it. He won’t nurse it any longer than he can help, you can bet on that!”

Harper studied the dog again while letting Leeming think it over. The Labrador whined, made pawing motions between the bars. It looked every inch a dog and nothing else save a dog. But that was no proof for or against. Elsewhere slunk creatures who bore equally close resemblance to people, but who were not people. The number one question: was this animal still a mere dog or had it become in effect a weredog?

He tried to listen to its mind as it begged his attention and he heard precisely nothing. A blank, a complete blank. His natural range of reception just wasn’t wide enough to pick up emanations from other than his own species. He switched from listening and probed at it sharply, fiercely, in a manner that had brought immediate reaction from hiders in human shape. It had no effect upon the dog, which continued its fawning, with obvious unconsciousness of his mental stabbing.

Leeming broke into his meditation by saying, “I don’t like it and I don’t think I’ll get away with it. Nevertheless I am willing to bait Conway, providing you’re standing by to back me up. He might listen to you when he won’t to me.”

“You don’t know until you’ve tried.”

“Let’s go to my office,” suggested Leeming. “You get hold of him, then I’ll see what can be done.”

Harper called Jameson first, said, “I’m at the Biological Research Laboratories, as probably you are aware, you having had something to do with bringing me here. I’m going to put through a call to General Conway. Doctor Leeming wants a brief talk with him.”

“Then why get on to me?” Jameson asked.

“Because I’ve tried to reach Conway before, remember? Neither Leeming nor I have the time or patience to be bollixed around by every underling in Washington. It’s up to you to tell them to shove my call straight through.”

“See here, Harper—”

“Shut up!” Harper ordered. “You’ve used me plenty. Now I’m using you. Get busy and do as you’re told.”

He slammed the instrument onto its rack, sat down in a handy chair, scowled at the phone and snorted.

Leeming said apprehensively, “Who is this Jameson?”

“A big cheese in the F.B.I.”

“And you tell him where he gets off?”

“It’s the first time,” said Harper, “and from what I know of him, it’ll also be the last.”

His call went through, a youthful face appeared in his instrument’s visiscreen.

“My name is Wade Harper,” he told the face. “I want to speak to General Conway and it’s urgent.”

“Just a moment, please.” The face went away, was replaced by another, older, more officious.

“About what do you wish to talk to the General?” inquired the newcomer.

“What’s it to you?” demanded Harper toughly. “Go straight to Connie and find out, once and for all, whether or not he will condescend to have a word with me.”

“I’m afraid I cannot do that unless I can first brief him on the subject matter of your—” The face ceased talking, glanced sidewise, said hurriedly, “Pardon me a moment,” and disappeared. A few seconds later it returned, wearing a startled expression. “Hold on, Mr. Harper. We’re switching you through as speedily as possible.”

Harper grinned at the now-empty screen, which registered eccentric patterns as the line was switched through intercom-boards, then cleared and held General Conway’s austere features.

“What is it, Mr. Harper?”

Giving a short, succinct explanation, Harper handed the phone to Leeming, who detailed the current state of affairs, ending by expressing his need for a human subject and the hope that Conway could do something about it.

“I disapprove such a tactic,” declared Conway flatly.

Leeming reddened. “In that case. General, we can make no more progress. We are balked.”

“Nonsense, man! I appreciate your desire and the ingenuity of what you suggest. But I cannot spend valuable hours seeking some legal means of making use of a condemned felon, when such a move is superfluous and unnecessary.”

“I make the request only because I deem it necessary,” Leeming pointed out.

“You are wrong. You have been sent four bodies of known victims. Two more have become available today, and you will receive them shortly. With the spread of this peril, and the increase in number of people affected, it becomes inevitable that before long we shall succeed in capturing one alive. What more could you want than that?”

Leeming sighed and persisted patiently, “A live victim would help but not conclusively. The most incontrovertible proof of a cause is a demonstration that it creates the characteristic effect. I cannot demonstrate contagion with the aid a subject already riddled with it.”

“Perhaps not,” agreed Conway. “But such a subject, being more communicative than a dog, can be compelled to identify the cause himself. It should not be beyond your wits to devise a suitable technique for enforcing what might be termed self-betrayal.”

“Offhand, I can think of only one way to achieve that,” Leeming said. “And the trouble with it is that it’s likely to be long and tedious, and it will mean considerable working in the dark.”

“What method?”

“Assuming that this virus is the true cause—which is still a matter of doubt—we must seek an effective antigen. Our proof will then rest upon our ability to cure the live specimen. If we fail—”

“A cure has got to be found,” asserted Conway. “Somehow, anyhow. The only alternative is long-term, systematic extermination of all victims on an eventual scale that none dare contemplate. Indeed, we could well be faced by a majority problem far too large for a minority to overcome; in which case the minority is doomed, and humanity along with it.”

“And you think that the life of one hardened criminal is too high a price to pay for freedom from that fate?” asked Leeming shrewdly.

“I think nothing of the sort,” Conway contradicted. “I would unhesitatingly sacrifice the entire populations of our prisons had I the power to do so, and were I convinced that it was our only hope. But I have not the power and I am not convinced of the necessity.”

“Let me speak to him,” urged Harper, seeing Leeming’s look of despair. He got the phone, gazed belligerently at the face in the screen knowing that it was now looking at his own. “General Conway, you say you lack the power and you’re not persuaded?”

“That is correct,” Conway agreed.

“The President, if consulted, might think differently. He has the necessary authority—or, if not, can obtain it. Aren’t you usurping his right to make a decision about this?”