Eric Russell - Three to Conquer

“Is he—?”

“Yes, he is; and it’s my fault. He had entry to this office and it cost him his soul.”

“I thought you were supposed to be able to smell them coming,” Norris complained. “What’s the use of us guarding you for half a mile around if they can walk in like this and—”

“I knew he was coming.”

“Then why didn’t you tell us? I was listening in to your conversation and thought it decidedly fishy. You were needling him for some reason or other. But seeing that you had sounded no alarm, we—”

“Look,” said Harper firmly, “this is no time for explanations or post-mortems. Rush him to Doctor Leeming at the Bio Lab as fast as you can make it. And don’t give him the slightest opportunity to finish himself on the way there. I’m giving you fair warning that if he can’t escape he’ll kill himself by any means at hand. He must be delivered alive and in one piece.”

“All right.”

Norris signed to the others. They lifted Riley, who now had Steel cuffs on wrists and ankles and was still unconscious. They carried him out.

Mopping his lips again, Harper stared moodily at the wreckage of his office. He was not really seeing it, though. He was physically and spiritually shaken, and striving to overcome it.

Moira came in saying, “I left all my money behind, so I couldn’t—” She halted, went wide-eyed, let go a gasp. “Why, Mr. Harper, what on earth has happened?”

“I had a fit of sneezing.”

Dragging his desk upright and restoring his chair to its legs, he sat and continued to ruminate while Moira scrabbled for loose papers. Then suddenly he smacked a hand to his forehead and ejaculated, “I go dafter as I get older!”

He dashed out while Moira knelt in the middle of the floor and gaped after him.

On the sidewalk, Norris and Rausch were standing with hands in pockets while watching two cruisers speed along the street.

Norris greeted him with, “He’s gone. They’ll hand him over to Leeming in no time.” Then a mite doubtfully, “And I hope you know what you’re doing. There’ll be plenty of trouble if we’ve blundered in this case.”

“You haven’t dealt with the half of it yet,” said Harper hurriedly. “There’s a gang of them hiding in his home. What’s more, I’ve reason to think they knew of his capture the moment he was slapped to sleep. Ten to one, it got them on the run forthwith; you’ll have to move fast to nab them.”

“We can do no more than, our best,” said Norris, unimpressed and making no move.

“McDonald’s there, and several others,” Harper urged. He scowled impatiently at the other. “Well, are you going to take action or do I have to go myself?”

“Easy now,” Norris advised. He gave a slow smile. “We know exactly where Riley lives; he’s been followed time and again.”

“What of it?”

“When we carted him out, a raid on his house became the next logical step. Five cars with twenty men have gone there. They’ll grab everyone they can lay hands on. Afterwards, and if necessary, we’ll use you to tell us who is which.”

“So you’ve been thinking ahead of me, eh?”

“It happens sometimes.” Norris was smiling again. “You can’t lead the field all the way; nobody can do that, no matter what his mental speed.”

“Thanks for the reminder. Send a man round the garbage cans to get a few ashes, will you? I wish to put them upon my head while work proceeds.”

He returned to the office. Moira had already succeeded in restoring some semblance of order. She filed the last of the scattered papers in the cabinet, closed it with an emphatic slam, surveyed him much as a long-suffering mother would regard an irresponsible child. That did nothing for his ego, either.

“Thank you, Angel. Now go get your lunch.”

He waited until she had departed, picked up the phone, made a long-distance call to Leeming.

“A live one is on the way to you right now and, with luck, there’ll be several more to come. Don’t tell me what you propose to do to the first arrival. I don’t want to know.”

“Why not?” Leeming asked, exhibiting curiosity through the visicreen. “It is somebody close to you?”

“Yes. A big, lumbering, good-natured cop I’ve known for years. I hate to think of you carving him up.”

“He won’t be carved; we’ve done all we need of that on dead bodies. Living victims will be used as test subjects for likely vaccines.”

“What’s the chance of developing a satisfactory cure?” Harper asked.

“There’s another problem far more important,” Leeming gave back. “Namely, whether we can find one in adequate time. We can succeed and yet fail because success comes too late.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I refuse to commit myself at this stage. We aren’t the only ones on the job. In a crisis of this sort the government turns to anyone and everyone who can lend a hand, private laboratories included. Somebody else may strike lucky and come up with a solution while we’re still seeking it. All we can do here is work like hell and pray.”

“If produceable, an effective vaccine should be innocuous, shouldn’t it?” Harper pursued.

“What do you mean?”

“The cure shouldn’t be little better than the disease?”

“What the devil are you getting at?”

Harper hesitated, continued carefully, “I’ll tell you something. That virus cannot think by itself, any more than you can drive a nonexistent car; but it can think when in possession of a brain. And I know one thing it thinks about. It is scared to death of meningococci.”

“What?” yelled Leeming, thunderstruck.

“I’m giving you a genuine basic fact. That alien nightmare has a nightmare of its own. No living thing can be possessed by it and have cerebrospinal meningitis at one and the same time. Something has to go under, and it’s the virus that does the going.”

“Where did you learn all this?”

“From a victim. The one they’re taking down to you at this moment.’

“How did you find out?”

“He told me without realizing it. He named his alien obsession, and I’m giving it to you for what it’s worth.”

Leeming breathed heavily, excitement showing in his eyes.

“It could be, too. It really could be. Areas of local infection are identical. Brain and spinal column. You can see what that means—a fight for living space.”

“Supposing you squirt someone full of meningococci,” Harper went on, “and he becomes cured with respect to the cure itself?”

“That’s something we’ve yet to discover,” said Leeming, grim and determined.

“Well, I’ve no choice but to leave it with you. All I ask is for you to remember that your first test-subject is my friend.”

He cut off, racked the phone, sat twisting his fingers and staring at them. After a while he held his face in his hands, and murmured, “It had to be Riley and his wife. Poor devils!”

In the late afternoon, Norris beckoned him out of Moira’s hearing, said, “They got Mrs. Riley, Mrs. Reed and two men named Farley and Moore. We’ve discovered that the women are sisters. Farley and Moore were friends of the Reeds. Moore was a close business associate of the Baum brothers. You can see the link-up and how trouble has spread from one to another.”

“Did they put up a fight?”

“You bet they did. When the boys got there the house was empty and the front door still swinging. The rats had run for it but hadn’t had time to escape from sight. Mrs. Riley, Farley and Moore were nabbed on the street half a mile away. They needed three men apiece to hold them.”

“And what of the others?” Harper asked.

“Mrs. Reed was picked up in a store pretending to be one of the crowd. She reacted like a wildcat. Reed himself stepped off a roof rather than be taken. McDonald was trapped in a parking lot while trying to steal a car. He was armed; he shot it out to the finish.”