The scene shifted, as Pellig escaped from the pack of people clustered around the front of the store. The clerk was lost from sight. Al Davis was puzzled. Had Pellig destroyed the clerk? Pellig was speeding lithely down the sidewalk; his body was built for rapid motion. He turned a corner, hesitated, and then disappeared into a public theater.
The theater was dark. Pellig blundered in confusion: a bad strategy, Davis realized. The darkness wouldn't affect the teeps, who depended not on sight but on telepathic contact. The operator's mind was as obvious in darkness as in broad daylight; and the movements of the body were impeded.
The operator now realized his mistake and sought an exit. But already vague shapes were moving in on him. The questioning figures were only partly visible. Pellig hesitated, then dashed into a lavatory. A woman followed him to the door and halted briefly. In that interval Pellig burned his way through the wall of the lavatory with his thumb-gun and emerged in the alley behind the theater.
The body stood considering, trying to make up its mind. The vast shape of the Directorate building loomed ahead, a golden tower that caught the mid-day sunlight and sparkled it back. Pellig took a deep shuddering breath and started toward it at a relaxed trot...
And the red button twitched.
The body stumbled. The new operator, dazed with surprise, fought for control. The body smashed into a heap of garbage, struggled up, and then loped on. Nobody followed. There were no visible pursuers. The body reached a busy street, glanced around, and then hailed a robot-operated public taxi.
A moment later the cab roared off, in the direction of the Directorate tower. Other cars and people flitted past, as it gained speed. In the back, Pellig relaxed against the soft seat cushions, face placid. This operator was learning confidence fast. He nonchalantly lit a cigarette and examined the passing streets. He cleaned his nails, reached down to touch a burned spot on his trouser leg, tried to interest the robot driver in conversation, then settled comfortably back.
Something strange was happening. Davis turned his eyes to the location schematics, which showed the space-relationship of the body to the Directorate offices. _The body had gone too far._ Incredibly, the teep network had failed to stop it.
_Why?_
Sweat stood out on Davis' palms and armpits. A dazzling nausea licked through him. Maybe it was going to work. Maybe the body would actually get through.
Calmly, confidently, lounging in the back seat of the public taxi, Keith Pellig sped toward the Directorate offices, his thumb-gun resting loosely in his lap.
Major Shaeffer stood in front of his desk and bellowed with fright.
"It's not possible," drummed the disorganized thoughts of the Corpsman nearest him. "It _isn't, isn't, isn't_ possible."
"There must be a reason," Shaeffer managed to think back.
"We lost him." Incredulous, fearful, the thoughts dinned back and forth through the web-strands of the network. "Shaeffer, _we lost him!_ Walter Remington picked him up as he stepped off the ship. He had him. He caught the whole syndrome. The assassin's thumb-gun, his fear, his strategy, his personality-characteristics. And then—"
"You let him get away."
"Shaeffer, _he disappeared._" A running stream of disbelief. "Suddenly he was gone. He vanished in thin air. I tell you, we _did not lose him._ At the second station he ceased to exist."
"How?"
"I don't know." There was numb misery in the man. "Remington passed him to Allison at the clothing store. The impressions came clear as glass; no doubt of it. The assassin began to run through the store. Allison kept lock easily; his thoughts stood out the way an assassin's thoughts do, that highly-colored etched intentness."
"He must have raised a shield."
"There was no diminution. The entire personality was cut off instantly—not merely the thoughts."
Shaeffer's mind dived crazily. "It's never happened to us before." He cursed in a loud, wild voice that shook the objects on his desk. "And Wakeman's on Luna. We can't teep him; I'll have to use the regular ipvic."
"Tell him something's terribly wrong. Tell him the assassin disappeared into thin air."
Shaeffer hurried to the transmission room. As he was jerking the closed-circuit to the Lunar resort into life, a new flurry of excited thoughts chilled him.
"I've picked him up!" An eager Corpswoman, relayed by the network from one to another. "I've got him!"
"Where are you?" A variety of insistent demands came from up and down the network. There were quick, urgent calls as the frantic teeps collected for action, "Where is he?"
"Theater. Near the clothing store." Rapid, disjointed instructions. "He's heading into the men's room. Only a few feet from me; shall I go in? I can easily—" The thought broke off.
Shaeffer squalled a shattering blast of despair and rage down the network. "Go on!"
Silence. And then... the mind screamed.
Shaeffer clapped his hands futilely to his head and closed his eyes. Gradually the storm died down. All up and down the network the violence rolled and lapped. Mind after mind was smashed, short-circuited, blacked-out by the overload. Shattering pain lashed through the entire web of telepaths, back to the original mind. Three in a row.
"Where is he?" Shaeffer shouted. "What happened?" The next station responded faintly. "She lost him. She's dropped from the network. Dead, I think. Burned-out." Bewilderment. "I'm in the area but I can't catch the mind she was scanning. The mind she was scanning is gone!"
Shaeffer managed to raise Peter Wakeman on the ipvic vidscreen. "Peter," he croaked aloud, "we're beaten."
"What do you mean? Cartwright isn't even there!"
"We picked up the assassin and then lost him. We picked him up again later on, a few minutes later—in another location. Peter, _he got past three stations._ And he's still moving. How he-"
"Listen to me," Wakeman interrupted. "Once you get hold of his mind, stay with him. Close ranks; follow him until the next station takes over. Maybe you're too far apart. Maybe—"
"I've got him," a thought came to Shaeffer. "He's near me. I'll find him; he's close by."
The network yammered excitement and suspense.
"I'm getting something strange." Doubt mixed with curiosity, and was followed by startled disbelief.
"There must be more than one assassin. But that's not possible." Growing excitement. "I can actually see him. Pellig just got out of a cab—he's walking along the street ahead of me. He's going to enter the Directorate building by the main entrance; it's all there in his mind. I'll kill him. He's stopping for a streetlight. Now he's thinking of crossing the street and going—"
Nothing.
Shaeffer waited. And still nothing came. "Did you kill him?" he demanded. "Is he dead?"
"He's gone!" The thought came, hysterical and giggling. "He's standing in front of me and at the same time he's gone. He's here and he isn't here. Who are you? Who do you want to see? Mr. Cartwright isn't here just now. What's your name? Are you the same man I... or is there... that we haven't out this is going out is _out_..."
The damaged teep dribbled off into infantile mutterings, and Shaeffer dropped him from the network. It didn't make sense. It wasn't possible. Keith Pellig was still there, standing face to face with a Corpsman, in easy killing-distance— yet Keith Pellig had vanished from the face of the Earth!
At the viewing screen rigged up for monitoring the progress of the assassin, Verrick turned to Eleanor Stevens. "We were wrong. It's working better than we had calculated. Why?"