Isaac Asimov - Asimov's Mysteries

'Maybe,' said the other, with no smile at all. 'But let me continue. A routine search in the neighborhood of the stranded ship revealed no signs of the skim boat. Then Luna Station reported receipt of weak signals of uncertain origin. They had been tabbed as coming from the western rim of Mare Imbrium, but it was uncertain whether they were of human origin or not, and no vessel was believed to be in the vicinity. The signals had been ignored. With the skim boat in mind, however, the search party headed out for Imbrium and located it. Jennings was aboard, dead. Knife wound in one side. It's rather surprising he hadlived as long as he did.

'Meanwhile the medico's were becoming increasingly dis turbed at the nature of Strauss's babbling. They contacted the Bureau and our two men on the Moon-one of them happened to be Ferrant-arrived at the ship.

'Ferrant studied the tape recordings of the babblings. There was no point in asking questions, for there was, and is, no way of reaching Strauss. There is a high wall between the universe and himself-probably a permanent one. However, the talk in delirium, although heavily repetitious and disjointed, can be made to make sense. Ferrant put it together like a jigsaw puzzle.

'Apparently Strauss and Jennings had come across an object of some sort which they took to be of ancient and non-human manufacture, an artifact of some ship wrecked eons ago. Apparently it could somehow be made to twist the human mind.'

Davenport interrupted. 'And it twisted Strauss's mind? Is that it?'

That's exactly it. Strauss was an Ultra-we can say "was" for he's only technically alive-and Jennings did not wish to surrender the object. Quite right, too. Strauss babbled of using it to bring about the self-liquidation, as he called it, of the undesirable. He wanted a final, ideal population of five million.

There was a fight in which only Jennings, apparently, could handle the mind-thing, but in which Strauss had a knife. When Jennings left, he was knifed, but Strauss's mind had been destroyed.'

'And where was the mind-thing?'

'Agent Ferrant acted decisively. He searched the ship and the surroundings again. There was no sign of anything that was neither a natural Lunar formation nor an obvious product of human technology. There was nothing that could be the mind-thing. He then searched the skim boat and its surroundings. Again nothing.'

'Could the first search team, the ones who suspected nothing-could they have carried something off?' They swore they did not, and there is no reason to suspect them of lying. Then Ferrant's partner--'

'Who was he?'

'Gorbansky,' said the District Head.

'I know him. We've worked together.'

'I know you have. What do you think of him?'

'Capable and honest.'

'All right. Gorbansky found something. Not an alien artifact. Rather, something most routinely human indeed. It was an ordinary white three-by-five card with writing on it, spindled, and in the middle finger of the right gauntlet. Presumably Jennings had written it before his death and, also presumably, it represented the key to where he had hidden the object.'

'What reason is there to think he had hidden it?'

'I said we had found it nowhere.'

'I mean, what if he had destroyed it, as something too dangerous to leave intact?'

That's highly doubtful. If we accept the conversation as reconstructed from Strauss's ravings-and

Ferrant built up what seems a tight word-for-word record of it-Jennings thought the mind-thing to be of key importance to humanity. He called it "the clue to an umimaginable scientific revolution." He wouldn't destroy something like that. He would merely hide it from the Ultras and try to report its whereabouts to the government. Else why leave a clue to its whereabouts?'

Davenport shook his head, 'You're arguing in a circle, chief. You say he left a clue because you think there is a hidden object, and you think there is a hidden object because he left a clue.'

'I admit that. Everything is dubious. Is Strauss's delirium meaningful? Is Ferrant's reconstruction valid? Is

Jennings' due really a clue? Is there a mind-thing, or a Device, as Jennings called it, or isn't there? There's no use asking such questions. Right now, we must act on the assumption that there is such a Device and that it must be found.'

'Because Ferrant disappeared?'

'Exactly.'

'Kidnapped by the Ultras?'

'Not at all. The card disappeared with him.'

'Oh-I see.'

'Ferrant has been under suspicion for a long time as a secret Ultra. He's not the only one in the Bureau under suspicion either. The evidence didn't warrant open action; we can't simply lay about on pure suspicion, you know, or we'll gut the Bureau from top to bottom. He was under surveillance.'

'By whom?'

'By Gorbansky, of course. Fortunately Gorbansky had filmed the card and sent the reproduction to the headquarters on Earth, but he admits he considered it as nothing more than a puzzling object and included it in the information sent to Earth only out of a desire to be routinely complete. Ferrant-the better mind of the two, I suppose-did see the significance and took action. He did so at great cost, for he has given himself away and has destroyed his future usefulness to the Ultras, but there is a chance that there will be no need for future usefulness. If the Ultras control the Device--'

'Perhaps Ferrant has the Device already.'

'He was under surveillance, remember. Gorbansky swears the Device did not turn up anywhere.'

'Gorbansky did not manage to stop Ferrant from leaving with the card. Perhaps he did not manage to stop him from obtaining the Device unnoticed, either.'

Ashley tapped his fingers on the desk between them in an uneasy and uneven rhythm. He said at last, 'I don't want to think that. If we find Ferrant, we may find out how much damage he's done. 'I'll l then, we must search for the Device. If Jennings hid it, he must have tried to get away from the hiding place. Else why leave a clue? It wouldn't be found in the vicinity.'

'He might not have lived long enough to get away.'

Again Ashley tapped, 'The skim boat showed signs of having engaged in a long, speedy flight and had all but crashed at the end. That is consistent with the view that Jennings was trying to place as much space as possible between himself and some hiding place.'

'Can you tell from what direction he came?'

'Yes, but that's not likely to help. From the condition of the side vents, he had been deliberately tacking and veering.'

Davenport sighed. 'I suppose you have a copy of the card with you.'

'I do. Here it is.' He flipped a three-by-five replica toward Davenport. Davenport studied it for a few moments. It looked like this:

Davenport said, 'I don't see any significance here.'

'Neither did I, at first, nor did those I first consulted. But consider. Jennings must have thought that Strauss was in pursuit; he might not have known that Strauss had been put out of action, at least, not permanently. He was deadly afraid, then, that an Ultra would find him before a Moderate would. He dared not leave a clue to open. This'-and the Division Head tapped the reproduction-'must represent a clue that is opaque on the surface but clear enough to anyone sufficiently ingenious.'

'Can we rely on that?' asked Davenport doubtfully. 'After all, he was a dying, frightened man, who might have been subjected to this mind-altering object himself. He need not have been thinking clearly, or even humanly. For instance, why didn't he make an effort to reach Lunar Station? He ended half a circumference away almost. Was he too twisted to think clearly? Too paranoid to trust even the Station? Yet he must have tried to reach them at first since they picked up signals. What I'm saying is that this card, which looks as though it is covered with gibberish, is covered with gibberish.'