Lloyd Biggle Jr.: The Chronocide Mission

“And then, long afterward, Hy discovered the workroom. He was an educated man ruined by drink. He was getting ready to claim he had invented the lens himself and patent it. Johnson lens—Honsun Len. Of course.”

“Why don’t we just release the wardrobe and put a guard on it?” Jeff suggested.

“There is no way we can guard it,” Brock said. He was thinking about the lens that had been snatched from his own laboratory. Perhaps they were watching—and getting ready to suck up the drawings and lenses at any moment.

He dashed into the next room and came back with a small bookcase. He moved the lenses to the center of the bench and placed the bookcase on top of them and the drawings, open-side down.

“I need something heavy,” he said.

“I saw a few bags of ready-mix cement beside the rear entrance.”

“The very thing.”

They brought them, one at a time, and stacked them atop the bookcase. From Egarn’s description, Brock didn’t think the small machine had sufficient power to deal with the weight. Even the large machine, the one that accidentally snatched Egarn out of the past and then sent him back again, would have difficulty handling that much mass, and Egarn had said it wasn’t all that accurate anyway. The setup was as safe as he could make it.

“We’ll leave the wardrobe open,” he said. “You stand guard, Jeff. Shout if anything peculiar starts to happen. Now I must make a phone call. Then maybe I will know what to do next.”

“I’ll call off the search,” Alida said. “Are you going to tell the detective?”

“No,” Brock said. “We know how DuRosche fits into this, and we know what Hy’s connection is, but we still have no explanation for the murders that would be acceptable to a police officer.”

He and Alida climbed the stairs—she to look for the students, and he to make his telephone call—but the phone in Egarn’s retreat rang unanswered. Brock tried again. And again. When he gave up, he was frowning worriedly.

As he turned away, the telephone rang. Brock snatched at it. It was Fred Ulling, the detective. “Any new developments there?”

“Yes,” Brock said. “We found DuRosche’s secret workroom. He was an amateur inventor. He had an invention he was almost ready to patent when he had his stroke. Hy found it and planned to steal it and patent it in his own name. That is as much as I’m able to explain.”

“It’s no explanation at all. What does all that have to do with the murders?”

“Murders are your department. Secret workrooms and inventions are mine.”

“Whatever it is you’re sitting on, it is hot and about to go boom. Six people from that neighborhood have telephoned complaints about loiterers and prowlers. What are they after? DuRosche’s invention?”

“That’s as good an answer as any.”

“Then I’d better get some men in there quickly.”

Brock said slowly, “If you come charging in here with an army of police, you may set off a war.”

“A war? Who are those people?”

“You might call them foreign agents trying to grab DuRosche’s invention.”

The detective was silent for a moment. Brock had finally said something that made sense to him. “I’ll move some officers in there quietly,” he said. “The focus of activity seems to be Cobbs Hill Park, which is a few blocks south of you. They must have been hiding out in the park. Now they are crossing Interstate 490 on Culver and then spreading out through the residence streets south of East Avenue. It’s odd they aren’t using cars.”

“They aren’t hiding out in the park,” Brock said. “They are landing there.”

“ Landing? Are you sober?”

“Too much so, I’m afraid. When they have this neighborhood completely under control, they will start landing here.”

“To do what?” the detective demanded.

“That I don’t know. But this house may be under siege very shortly—if it isn’t already. I am going to look around now and see what can be done.”

“Help is on the way,” the detective said. “Just hang on and don’t do anything rash.”

Alida had been listening. “Now that’s cheerful advice,” Brock told her, hanging up. “Don’t do anything rash. How many students are still here?”

“Seven,” Alida said. “They’re having coffee and rolls in the dining room. They will be glad to stay as long as the rolls last. If seven aren’t enough, we easily can get more.”

“No. Seven are too many. This isn’t a parlor game. This suddenly has become very, very dangerous business.”

“It has been very, very dangerous all along,” Alida said soberly. “Four people have died.”

“Which is an excellent reason for not involving more people than we have to.”

Brock went down the hallway to the front door and stepped outside. He was surprised to find it so dark—he hadn’t been aware of how late it was. No outside lights were on. The few lighted windows on the ground floor gave out only shallow rectangles of illumination. The street light on DuRosche Court was very distant and faint. The night seemed peaceful, but a shadow suddenly scudded across the drive and vanished into the shrubbery. Brock hurried down the steps to the cover of a bush and squinted into the gathering night.

He called softly, “Arne?”

Arne slipped from the nearby shadows, making no sound at all.

Brock wanted to know if the house was surrounded. He pointed down the drive. Then he pointed to one side and the other and made a circular motion. On the third third try, Arne suddenly understood.

His limited English vocabulary included yes and no. He pointed down the drive—yes. To the side that adjoined the street, no. To the other side, no. To the rear, no.

So they weren’t surrounded—yet.

Brock was worried about the students and about the servants, too. The maids and the nurse were getting ready to leave. They had stayed later than usual—the uproar caused by the search had upset their routine. Now he was wondering how the invaders would react. They might suspect the students or servants of trying to smuggle out the plans.

Should the plans be destroyed? That seemed to be Egarn’s intention, but Brock hesitated to take such a drastic step without consulting him. Had the invaders found him despite Colonel Lobert’s precautions?

If the invaders tried to storm the house, Arne’s weapon could focus the ultimate power of the universe on them. It also could devastate the neighborhood and kill a lot of innocent people. The invaders, since they came from the same place Arne did, probably had the same weapon. If Arne used his, what would prevent them from blasting the house to splinters?

Alida called to him from the door. “Telephone,” she said. “It’s a Colonel Lobert.”

He took all of the front steps in one leap.

The colonel said, “We spotted some suspicious-looking characters nosing around the motel we were using. They were masquerading as Zoro, or the Three Musketeers, or something. We didn’t like their looks, so we smuggled Egarn out the back way and left the room’s lights on and the TV going. The characters haven’t missed us yet—they are still hanging around there. I just checked with the proprietor. So we may have got away cleanly, but I’m not taking any bets yet. I can’t figure out how they got onto us. They must be clairvoyant.”

“That’s as good a way to describe it as any,” Brock said.

“We are at a different motel, now—one a long, long way from the other. Better write down this number.” He dictated it, and the professor wrote. “Egarn isn’t feeling well—I’ve sent for a doctor. He doesn’t look well, either. He must be rather be rather old.”

“Several hundred years,” the professor said.