In retrospect, having felt the stunning power of a supertelepath’s mind, he had realized that the Guardians in the terminal chamber could have prevented his escape without even raising a finger. Chastening though it was to do so, he had to presume that the Guardians had leaped far ahead of him in their thinking and might even have known what he was going to do before the awareness had reached his own consciousness. But there was some comfort in the thought that they must also have analysed Belzor’s possible responses and would not have permitted Jerome to take the Thabbren into the ship unless they were confident it would reach Earth in safety. Perhaps—strange thought—it was only supertelepaths who were vulnerable to psychic attack from an interplanetary distance. Perhaps Belzor, like a poisonous insect which can sting only once, had sacrificed some vital constituent of his being in that transcendentally lethal onslaught and could not repeat it. Or, to apply plain Terran-style pragmatism, it might be that Belzor saw no point in taking a long shot at a target which was winging its way towards him…
“I can see a shuttle,” Teinert called from the opposite side of the cabin. “They’re coming up to get you, Pavel baby. How does it feel?”
“Great.” Jerome shifted his position so that he could see the gleaming wedge-shaped speck which was almost lost in the rolling immensities of Earth. What he could not see was the NASA space station, Reagan I, which was slipping along just ahead of the Quicksilver in an identical orbit, like a bead on the same invisible wire.
There had been a great deal of high-level activity in the past few days, and as the outcome of unknown numbers of political and military exchanges it had been decided that Jerome’s necessary visit to the station should be kept as brief as possible. Buxton and Teinert were scheduled to spend several days there as part of their debriefing programme, but the controversial Russian/non-Russian castaway—the stateless astronaut—was to be whisked through in a matter of minutes, presumably for security reasons. The station, though supposedly a civilian research establishment, was known to be of strategic importance to the military.
“It looks like you’ll soon be home,” Hal Buxton said, studiedly casual.
“Yes.” Jerome knew him well enough to pick up the faint emphasis on the last word. It was an indirect reference to the fact that the Soviet Union was still categorically denying all knowledge of Jerome. As part of the relationship tacitly agreed upon by the three men, the question of Jerome’s origins was no longer discussed. That was the working arrangement, devised to suit the psychological needs of men in a near-impossible situation. He accepted their unprovable tales about marathon drinking and sexual exploits and the landing of giant fish—and they accepted his unprovable claim to have been born in a place more remote from their everyday experience than fabulous Samarkand. But the long journey was ending, and the transient need to believe was being ground away by the obdurate need to know.
“Perhaps you’ll send us a picture postcard,” Teinert said. “If they have those things in Okhotsk.”
Jerome could feel the barriers dropping into place. “Look,” he said desperately, “there are times when you have to go against yourself.”
Buxton grinned. “I know—and there’s information you’re not at liberty to divulge.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I’m sorry,” Buxton said with what might have been genuine sincerity. “What do you think is going to happen when you get down there?”
“That’s a good question,” Jerome replied, his gaze fixed on the silent-climbing shuttle. “A very good question.”
CHAPTER 12
“Hello,” the Government man said as he manoeuvred himself into the seat beside Jerome. “My name is Dexter Simm, and the first thing I’m going to do is copy your fingerprints. I’m sure you won’t mind, but even if you do mind I’m going to copy them anyway, and if necessary I’ll get these gentlemen to hold you down while I’m doing it.”
Simm inclined his head in the direction of two impassive young men who sat at the front end of the shuttle’s passenger compartment. They wore business suits which conspicuously had been chosen to look inconspicuous, and they gave Jerome the impression of being expert at physically subduing people.
“I don’t mind,” he said lightly, offering Simm both his hands, “But is this the way you greet all Russian visitors?”
“Russian my ass! I don’t know where you’re from, big man, but you’re not Russian.”
Working swiftly, Simm pressed Jerome’s fingertips against a slip of plastic which he then slid into a flat black box. One of his subordinates left his seat and came down the central aisle, swinging along awkwardly in the absence of gravity. He took the box from Simm, carried it up front and disappeared into the screened-off flight deck. Jerome guessed that a worldwide computer check on his prints would have been completed before the shuttle entered the atmosphere, and he derived perverse satisfaction from the thought. If there was one line of enquiry which was guaranteed to draw a blank it was looking for Dorrinian fingerprints in Terran files.
“Nice ring you’ve got there.” Simm tried to touch the jewel on Jerome’s left hand and looked up in amusement and surprise when Jerome snatched his hand back. “What are you so jumpy about?”
“What are you so hostile about?” Jerome countered. “Was it something I said?”
“As a matter of fact, that just about sums it up.” Simm stared at Jerome for a moment with open dislike. He was a thick-shouldered man, fiftyish and balding, whose body still looked powerful in spite of the fat which had been layered on it by years of sedentary work. His face was that of the corporate hard man—shrewd but unimaginative, knowledgeable but uncultured.
“I’ve had the job of studying every statement you’ve made in the last three months,” he said, “and I can tell you I’ve never seen such a total crock of…” Simm broke off as a bell sounded to announce that the shuttle was casting free of the space station. A second later he gripped the arms of his chair in evident alarm as the craft gave a wallowing lurch and the night-black observation ports along one side of the compartment suddenly blazed with sunlight. Engines sounded intermittently, sending vibrations racing through the wall and ceiling panels. Jerome, having voyaged from beyond the Sun, was unaffected, but Simm’s face had developed a greyish pallor and there was the transparent ghost of a moustache on his upper lip.
“And you have the nerve to ask why I’m hostile,” he said, apparently deciding to sublimate fear into anger. “Just look at the state of me! I shouldn’t be up here in this aluminum bucket, playing spacemen. Do you know we nearly had to set up a special department just to deal with you? Nobody would decide if you were an immigration problem, or an FBI problem, or a military problem, or a NASA problem, or a CIA problem, or a KGB…Well, no—the Soviet connection got scrubbed pretty fast. Like I said before, you’re no Russian.”
“I never claimed to be a true Russian,” Jerome said. “The Far East Region isn’t…”
“Don’t start splitting hairs! I’m not in the mood.”
Jerome had been too wrapped up in the bizarre complexities of his own life to have thought previously about how various US agencies would react to his claims and his actual arrival on Earth. The one thing he could predict about the near future was that Dorrinian supertelepaths would get to him, no matter where he was, but what was going to become of him after he had handed over the Thabbren? Would the Dorrinians free him from detention, or would he be left to fend off inquisitors until that unimaginable moment when the Great Secret ceased to be a secret?