The compleat collected s.., p.58
The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 58
Two things saved his life; his frantic attempt to twist aside and fend off the blade with his arm, and the two quickly spoken syllables from the girl which caused her brother to hesitate in mid-lunge. Lockhart's upflung arm deflected the blade from his throat, but there was a tearing, burning sensation in his right shoulder before he saw it withdrawn for a second—and lethal—attempt.
Evasive action was impossible to him; he could not take his eyes off that thin, wicked blade with the red streaks on its tip. Shock kept the pain from registering fully, and his only thought was a bemused observation that aliens were supposed to have ray-guns and not swordsticks. He was still gazing hypnotically at the point of the weapon when it dawned on him that it was not coming any nearer. Two big, bony hands were restraining the arm which held it, and Lockhart recognized the professor's hands even before the other's strained and sweating face swam into his field of vision.
The struggle was brief, bitter and noisy. Kelly was doing a lot of swearing. Lockhart knew because some of it was in a peculiar type of English. Still with a strangely detached feeling about the whole thing, Lockhart saw the swordstick fall to the floor, and the girl close in on the struggling pair. He saw her fists thud into the professor's back in a double kidney punch, then Brian was hunched forward and gasping painfully, and Kelly and his sister were gone.
Hedley appeared a few seconds later and bustled them outside, loudly proclaiming, for the benefit of the crowd, that they were going in search of a policeman. Back at the hotel, Lockhart dressed the punctured shoulder. It was not a serious wound, and he hurried back to Hedley's room as quickly as possible to make his report.
"... But didn't you try to follow them?" the agent was saying as Lockhart entered. His voice was scathing.
"She punched me in the kidneys," the professor replied hotly. He added, "That's dangerous in a man of my age."
"Oh, skip it," Hedley said, noticing Lockhart. Before listening to his account of the conversation with the girl he asked curtly about the wound, and when Lockhart had finished the agent said shortly, "You did very well, Doctor."
He was quiet then, for a long time.
"Are you sure of your facts?" he finally said, addressing the professor. "You positively identified the language spoken by the man?"
"He only spoke that particular form of English when he was—er—excited," Professor Brian answered. "The rest was unintelligible, but I heard enough to be sure. The swordstick, his dress, and his seeming effeminacy make it conclusive."
Turning to Lockhart, Hedley said drily, "You'll be glad to know that the professor has tracked down our Mr. Kelly." His mouth quirked downwards as if fighting the urge to burst into laughter, or maybe profanity. "He is, or was, a native of England during the middle 1700's. What is more, he resided there recently, because the professor assures me that his language shows no dilution by the colloquialisms of later periods, as would be the case if he had lived through those years."
Abruptly Hedley pushed himself from his chair and began pacing the room. He halted suddenly, and clenched his big fist over a brass knob on his bedstead. "What can we do? Where can we start?" he said dully. "Space travel was bad, but now we have time-travel to deal with as well.
"Did those old men come from the stars, or from our own future, or both? And what part do they play in this? We now have proof that there are extra-terrestrial beings at present on Earth, but now we have to discover when as well as where they've come from."
The brass knob came away suddenly in his hand. Hedley gazed at it curiously for a moment. Absent-mindedly he added, "And, of course, why they're here."
Chapter Four
THERE SEEMED to be three distinct groups of aliens now. First came the old men, harmless and fanatically uncommunicative, whose behavior had first aroused the department's suspicions. There was the group that had been responsible for the St. Armande fire, a group which almost certainly contained a large number of Earthmen. A third group, possibly of only a few individuals, were opposed to the war-breeding activities of the second group, and they disapproved of their treatment of the old men, who were group one. And, just to tangle the skein further, there was a time-traveling Earthman from two hundred years in the past.
The problem was giving Lockhart a splitting headache to add to the trouble his shoulder was giving him. The wound was superficial, a small, neat puncture that had gone through the deltoid muscle without touching the bone, made by an instrument of razor sharpness and aseptic cleanliness. Penicillin dressings and a firm bandage would have it as good as new in a week, but the constant jogging and swaying motion of their speeding car was not helping toward a pain-free recovery. The eye which Lockhart turned on the scenic grandeur all around him was, as a result of this, decidedly jaundiced.
Hugging the restless edge of the sea, the Antrim Coast Road wound beneath soaring limestone cliffs and around gray, foam-flecked headlands, and tiny bays where the sea was like blue grass. Their objective was Portballintrae.
Hedley had intended going to Portballintrae since the moment he found out Miss Kelly lived there. But when Draper's report arrived the visit became a five-star crash priority.
Draper had reported the department free of alien influences; its organizational tree was such an impenetrable tangle that it was impossible for any small group to gain effective control of it. He had added that the department approved of Hedley's recent actions, and some new information, in the form of a photograph, a dossier, and a copy of an FBI field office report, had been enclosed for his attention.
The copy report, stamped MOST SECRET, concerned three old men who had killed themselves while with a party touring Yellowstone National Park. The circumstances, not to mention the poison used, had been of a very disquieting nature, though the old men themselves had seemed harmless. By backtracking their movements prior to the triple suicide the FBI had traced them to a hotel in a small Irish coastal town, where the trail had come to a dead end. An agent who had been vacationing in Ireland was at present in residence at this hotel. The FBI man was called Keeler. He was staying in a place called The Bay Hotel, Portballintrae.
"Navigator to pilot," Fox sing-songed to Hedley behind the wheel. "We're here."
THE BAY Hotel was a sprawling, three-story building set on the main road overlooking the small harbor of Portballintrae, and it boasted a large private lawn and an enclosed car-park. It looked prosperous, in a quiet sort of way, and completely ordinary. But, Lockhart reminded himself, Miss Kelly lived somewhere nearby, and this hotel had apparently given birth to three old men whose deaths had the United States Federal authorities in a condition of extreme anxiety. Appearances were deceptive.
Lockhart, his mind only on the thought of supper—or whatever meal the hotel could provide at eight-thirty in the evening—was leaving his room when the purpose of their coming here was abruptly brought back to him.
He saw the time-traveler.
It was only a glimpse through an opening door some ten yards along the corridor, but identification was positive. And the speed with which the door closed again told Lockhart that the other had seen him. Lockhart flung open the door of the room belonging to Hedley and the professor, yelled, "Come on!" and broke into a run down the corridor.
He burst through the door as the time-traveler was trying to lock it, sending the slight figure stumbling back into the room. Lockhart followed him up, swinging a vicious right. It connected high on the other's cheek, spinning him half around and throwing him against a wardrobe. He moaned faintly and slid to his knees, his hand groping toward the breast pocket of his jacket. Lockhart grabbed at the wrist, put his knee behind the elbow joint and pulled the arm back until a shiny metallic object thudded onto the carpet.
It resembled a revolver, but more streamlined, and the barrel was solid except for a tiny pin-hole at the business end. Probably it was a twin to the weapon which had shot Gates in Paris. Lockhart hit him again.
"Doctor," Hedley said mildly from the doorway, "we want him to be able to talk. Don't make work for yourself."
Lockhart straightened up. He had been mad for the last few minutes, homicidally insane. He wasn't the type who charged blindly into bedrooms and beat their occupants into insensibility, especially when he could very easily have been killed doing it. He looked at the weapon on the floor and shuddered. But he had wanted to get his hands on this murderous little so-and-so since that morning in Cook's. The shameful memory of how he had let himself be wounded and then just stood watching while the professor kept him from being killed had not helped his anger. Lockhart had been a tightly-wound spring, and at sight of the time-traveling Kelly he had gone snap!
But he was not proud of himself for it.
"I hope you haven't broken his jaw," Hedley said worriedly.
Lockhart ran exploring fingers along the lower jaw, glanced inside the mouth at the even rows of teeth and said shortly, "He's all right. He'll come round in a few minutes." They lifted the unconscious figure onto the bed.
EVERYBODY was in the room now, gazing curiously at the man on the bed. Hedley gave curt, low-voiced orders, and Simpson left to keep watch in the corridor while Fox went to seek out the FBI man, Keeler. The agent gave Lockhart a peculiar look and said, "Perhaps you'd better go to the other side of the bed, Doctor. There's a possibility that he may side with us, but if he wakes up and sees you ..." He left the sentence hanging. Both he and the professor moved nearer to the bed.
It was a most unusual interrogation, conducted with such extreme and flowery courtesy that the initial introductions and exchanges of compliments took all of fifteen minutes. Kelly was really the Honorable Cedric—plus six or seven other names—Bowen-Walmsley, and he was obviously pleased that the professor was able to converse with him in his own brand of English. Some of the conversation made Lockhart smile, especially when Cedric referred to Hedley as a Bow Street Runner. But when he began to describe the work of something called the "Agency" on Earth, there was nothing funny about it at all.
Apparently the Earth-human employees of this Agency were ignorant of its true plans. There were several hundred of them occupying positions of importance in most of the world's governments, but they worked only for the promise of continual rejuvenation and the power and riches which longevity would bring. Usually it was very dirty work indeed. The coming war was a sample.
"But why?" Lockhart burst out suddenly. "Why are they doing it to us?"
Cedric, who had raised himself to a sitting position on the bed by this time, twisted around in surprise. He had not been aware of a fourth party in the room. When he saw Lockhart his teeth came together with a click. A slender white hand went up to the raw patch on his cheek and his features stiffened with the tension of anger. He got slowly to his feet, turned to face Lockhart, then made a sweeping and graceful bow from the waist. He smiled then, but only with his mouth.
Suddenly the professor, his face white and actually beaded with sweat, was between them.
"You would have to shoot off your big mouth!" he whispered fiercely. "Dammit, why couldn't you ..." He broke off, grimaced and said softly, but with great emphasis, "Be careful what you say now. Very careful. Unless you've been holding out on us and are an expert swordsman."
IT WAS the professor, talking with speed and great eloquence, who got him out of it.
The way Brian put it, it had all been a most deplorable misunderstanding. In ignorance, they had acted toward each other as enemies, but now they were allies. They should also be friends. Blood had, after all, been spilled on both sides, and the professor was sure that no further satisfaction would be required from either gentleman.
Lockhart, thinking of his throbbing shoulder and measuring it against the quarter-inch nick which his signet ring had made in Cedric's cheek, decided that he had the bigger grievance, but he didn't bring up the point. Instead he gave an awkward imitation of Cedric's grandiloquent bow and flourish and forced his mouth into what he hoped was a smile.
Cedric returned the bow, his smile also a trifle forced. Technically, they were friends, but the atmosphere was still rather strained in the room. Then Lockhart saw Hedley motioning him to the door.
"Doctor," Hedley said when they were outside. "I'm inclined to believe our 'Honorable' friend's story. So far it fits the facts as we know them. However, I make a point of not trusting anyone's feelings in cases like this, not even my own. That is why I want you to question the Kelly girl right away. We'll be able to check his story that way."
"But ..." Lockhart began. Things were happening too fast for him. And the last time he had met the girl ...
"Fox will go with you, just in case there's another bodyguard," the agent went on. "But you had better handle the questioning. Don't worry, you'll make out all right." He turned and asked Simpson, who was a few yards further down the corridor, "Has Fox come back yet?"
Simpson grinned broadly, as if at some secret joke. "He's just gone into his room."
Fox was standing in the middle of the room. There was a wide, dark stain on the breast of his well-fitting fawn suit and he was dabbing at his right ear with a towel. He looked annoyed.
Hedley indicated the stain. "How—" he began.
"Routine, just routine," Fox mimicked savagely. "I got shot with a ray-gun. Dammit, why didn't they tell us the whole family was here?"
"What family?" Hedley said impatiently.
"Keeler's. His wife and kid are with him," Fox answered, glowering. "That kid! If you can imagine a little brat who stands in front of a radio, yelling the answers before the panel can deal with them—he's an ex-quiz-kid, apparently—while watering everybody in sight with that two-hundred-shot space-blaster of his ..."
"They did say he was on vacation. But that's unimportant. Does he know anything that we don't?"
Fox shook his head. He reported that the FBI man had good descriptions of the three Yellowstone suicides. Cautious questioning of one of the maids had elicited the fact that the old men had arrived at the Bay Hotel suddenly about ten months ago, but she had insisted that they could not be as old as Keeler described them. Keeler had then shown her the photographs his chief had sent, head and shoulder shots of the men taken after their death, and touched up a bit. She was still sure that they were the same men, she had told him, but the photographs made them look very much older.
The reception clerk and manager of the hotel could not tell him where the three had come from previous to their arrival there. Since asking those questions, certain small but irritating accidents had befallen Keeler which, had he been an ordinary guest, would have caused him to leave the hotel.
"... And just one other thing," Fox concluded. "Keeler says that there is a peculiar character who seems to work here, who answers the description of our Mr. Kelly, and he sometimes meets a girl in the village who could be the Miss Kelly that we're looking for. That's all."
Lockhart only half heard Fox's closing sentences. He was wondering about the sudden aging of those three men. What did it mean? Longevity; accelerated aging. He gave up.
Hedley's mind must have been working along the same lines. He said suddenly, "Doctor. Go see Miss Kelly; you know the address. Tell Fox what's been happening on the way." To Fox he said, "I'll see Keeler later. Go with the doc. Move!"
He turned quickly and re-entered Cedric's bedroom.
ON THE way out they took a wrong turn and found themselves in a big, heavily-carpeted lounge. There was a plentiful scattering of easy chairs, most of which were occupied. As his eyes traveled round the room Lockhart was reminded outrageously of a cartoon he had seen where a member of a select London club had passed away behind his copy of The Times, without anyone noticing the fact for weeks.
The occupants were all old men. Some were reading papers, but mainly they just sat staring, heavy-eyed with the fatigue of extreme old age, at the sunset which poured a flood of amber light through the big French windows. Suddenly Lockhart remembered that other sunset in Paris, and the old, old man who had died watching it. Involuntarily he shivered as he turned about.
They noticed a little plaque marked "Adult's Lounge" on the door as they left. Fox, in an awed whisper, said, "Just how adult can you get?"
The girl was living in a place called Daly's Guest House, a small hotel set on the sea-front. Its landlady told Lockhart that she thought Miss Kelly was in and would he mind waiting in the lounge. Lockhart did not mind at all; he hadn't any idea of how to conduct the coming interview and the prospect was making him feel shaky about the knees. A chance to sit down was just what he needed.
This lounge also looked out across the bay. The sunset was dying a glorious death, and far out to sea the smoke of a coal barge scrawled a black crayon line across the horizon, accentuating rather than spoiling its beauty. Just across the road a shadowy figure was leaning against the seawall, smoking. Fox was on station. But Lockhart knew somehow that he would not be needing help this time.
It was growing dark in the room. Lockhart had just switched on a table-lamp when the girl arrived.
Looking at her Lockhart now wondered if she really was a girl in her late twenties or, distasteful as the thought was, did she possess a rejuvenated body which had lived through several normal lifetimes. He could not decide. She seemed surprised to see him, but not afraid, and he saw her eyes go to the small tear in the shoulder of his jacket. She spoke first.
"I'm glad Cedric did not kill you this morning," she began, and stopped. There was a brief pause, then she went on hurriedly, "The fact that there are Earth-humans with knowledge of the Agency's crimes on this planet means that evidence of inhuman practice can be brought against them, and makes possible a plan I have which will destroy them. It should also stop the coming war, providing we can act quickly."
