“Quiet, both of you!” Thurdan paused a moment, listening to the obliging silence, then said, “Mantell’s a valuable man to me. I don’t want to lose him. But Starhaven’s policy has always been to play the close ones, never to take unnecessary risk. If that SP man was telling the truth, Mantell’s a spy—the first one ever to get past the gate! Erik, get your machine set up for the probe.”
Harmon shrugged. “If you insist, Ben.”
“I do.”
Harmon started for the door. Thurdan called after him, “Get Dr. Polderson in to take the reading.”
Polderson was Harmon’s chief assistant. The old scientist turned and looked up, bitter-faced. “I’m still capable of handling the machine myself, Ben.”
“Maybe you are—or maybe you aren’t. But I want somebody else to take the reading on Mantell. Is that understood?”
“Very well,” Harmon said with obvious reluctance, after a brief pause.
Mantell could see what the old man had at stake— his professional pride. Well, he would be vindicated, of course, Mantell thought. Polderson’s reading would coincide with the one Harmon had taken on his arrival, in all but one trifling detail—that detail being the conspiracy.
Mantell’s hands were shaking as he walked through the passageway from Thurdan’s office to the psychprobe laboratory.
It would be over soon. Everything.
The laboratory looked very much the same as it had the other time. There was the couch, the psychprobing paraphernalia, the rows of books and the mysterious gadgetry. Only one thing was new: Polderson.
Dr. Harmon’s right-hand man was a cadaverous youngster with deep-set, dark brooding eyes and the outgoing gaiety of a decomposing corpse. He peered at Mantell with some curiosity.
“Are you the subject?” he asked in a grave voice.
“I am,” Mantell said hesitantly. Behind him, walking in the shuffle of the extremely old, came Harmon. Thurdan and Myra had remained behind, in the other office.
Polderson intoned, “Would you kindly lie down on this couch for the psychprobe reading? Dr. Harmon, is the machine ready?”
“I want to make a few minor checks,” the old man muttered. “Have to see that everything’s functioning as it ought to be. This must be a perfect reading. Absolutely perfect.”
He was puttering around in back of the machine, doing something near a cabinet of drugs. Mantell watched nervously.
Harmon looked up, finally, and, crossing the room, smiled a withered smile, clapped Polderson affectionately on the back and said, “Do a good job, Polderson. I know you’re capable of it.”
Polderson nodded mechanically. But when he turned his attention back to fastening Mantell into the machine, his eyes seemed to have lost their former intense glitter, and now were vague and dream-veiled.
Dr. Harmon was grinning. He held up one hand for Mantell to see.
Strapped to the inside of his middle finger was the tiny bulb of a pressure-injection syringe. And Polder-son, shambling amiably about the machine, had been neatly and thoroughly drugged.
Chapter XIV
Mantell climbed obediently onto the couch and permitted Polderson to strap him in. He placed the cold probe-dome on Mantell’s head. Harmon hovered nearby, smiling to himself, watching.
Suddenly the old doctor leaned over and whispered something in Polderson’s ear. The first few words were inaudible to Mantell, but he caught the conclusion: “—see to it that his probe-chart is identical to the earlier one in all respects. You understand that? Identical!”
Polderson nodded dimly. He crossed the room, opened a pressure-sealed file drawer, and thoughtfully examined a foho that probably contained the record of Mantell’s last probing, while Mantell watched curiously and wondered exactly what was going on.
Polderson seemed satisfied after a few moments’ scrutiny. He nodded his head in content, closed the file, and turned back to the machine.
Mantell, waiting for the probing to begin, suddenly heard the sound of voices.
Myra was saying, “Ben, I tell you it’s cruel to probe him a second time! He might lose his mind, for all you know! He might—”
Mantell heard the sound of a slap, and winced. Then Thurdan threw open the lab door and bellowed, “Harmon/ I thought I told you to have an assistant conduct the psychprobel”
“I’m so doing,” Harmon said mildly. “Dr. Polderson here is performing the actual probe. I’m merely supervising the mechanics of the work.”
“I don’t want you anywhere near Polderson or near Mantell or near the machine while this is going on,” Thurdan snapped. “I want an absolutely untinkered response.”
Sighing, Harmon nodded and moved away. He said, “Then let’s all wait in your office. It’s bad to have so many people in here while a probe is going on.”
And he moved slowly and with considerable display of wounded dignity past Thurdan into the passageway. Thurdan turned and followed him, closing the door. Mantell was alone with Polderson—and the machine.
Polderson’s lean fingers caressed the keyboard of the psychprobe as if he were fondling a loved one. In a drug-shrouded voice he murmured, “Relax, now, relax. You’re much too tense. You have to ease up a little. Ease up, I tell you.”
“I’m eased,” Mantell lied. He was stiff with tension. “I’m as eased as I’m going to get.”
“Loosen up, please. You’re much too tense, Mr. Mantell. Much too tense. There’s really no danger. None at all. The probe is a scientific instrument, totally harmless, that merely—”
Wham!
For the second time since he had come to Starhaven Mantell felt as if his skull had been cleft in two. He rocked under the impact of the probe, clung feebly to consciousness for an instant, and let go.
When he woke he found himself staring up into the face of Ben Thurdan.
The smiling face of Ben Thurdan.
Thurdan said in surprisingly gentle tones, “Are you up, Johnny?”
Mantell nodded groggily.
“I guess I owe you an apology, Mantell,” Thurdan said. “Polderson just snowed me your new psychprobe chart. The reading’s the same as it was when Harmon took it. That SP man was talking nonsense.”
“You could have saved me a headache,” Mantell said. His skull was spinning on a dizzy orbit. “I told you all along I wasn’t an SP man.”
“I couldn’t accept that, Johnlly. I have to make sure— have to! Do you see that, Johnny?”
“Sort of. But I hope you’re not going to probe me any time somebody says some crazy thing about me.”
Thurdan chuckled warmly. “I think I can trust you now, Johnny.”
“I hope so, Ben.”
Mantell looked around and saw other figures in the room: Polderson, Dr. Harmon, Myra. His head began to stop whirling just a little. The effects of the psychprobe were diminishing.
“And I owe you an apology, too, Erik,” Thurdan was saying to Harmon. “Don’t ever say Ben Thurdan can’t back down when he’s wrong. It takes a big man to admit he’s made a mistake. Eh, there?”
Harmon smiled, showing yellowed teeth. “Right you are, Ben. Right you are!”
Thurdan turned and left. Myra followed him.
Harmon said, “All right, Polderson. Thanks for your help. I’ll take care of the lab now, and you can go.”
“Certainly, Dr. Harmon.”
Polderson left also. Mantell was alone with the old scientist.
“We had a close escape that time,” Harmon said, •leaning close to him and whispering confidentially. “Would you care for a drink, Mr. Mantell?”
“Please. Yes.”
A closet in the far corner of the laboratory divulged a small portable bar. Harmon dialed two sour chokers, took them from the bar as they came filtering out, and brought them across the room. He handed one to Mantell, who took it and sipped thirstily.