"He's not here," Baines said, as the first man reached him. "He got away. Inform Wisdom back at the lab."
"We've got this section blocked off."
Baines turned to Nat Johnson, who stood in dazed silence, uncomprehending, his son and daughter beside him. "How did he know we were coming?" Baines demanded.
"I don't know," Johnson muttered. "He just -- knew."
"A telepath?"
"I don't know."
Baines shrugged. "We'll know, soon. A clamp is out, all around here. He can't get past, no matter what the hell he can do. Unless he can dematerialize himself."
"What'll you do with him when you -- if you catch him?" Jean asked huskily.
"Study him."
"And then kill him?"
"That depends on the lab evaluation. If you could give me more to work on, I could predict better."
"We can't tell you anything. We don't know anything more." The girl's voice rose with desperation. "He doesn't talk."
Baines jumped. "What?"
"He doesn't talk. He never talked to us. Ever."
"How old is he?"
"Eighteen."
"No communication." Baines was sweating. "In eighteen years there hasn't been any semantic bridge between you? Does he have any contact? Signs? Codes?"
"He -- ignores us. He eats here, stays with us. Sometimes he plays when we play. Or sits with us. He's gone days on end. We've never been able to find out what he's doing -- or where. He sleeps in the barn -- by himself."
"Is he really gold-colored?"
"Yes. Skin, eyes, hair, nails. Everything."
"And he's large? Well-formed?"
It was a moment before the girl answered. A strange emotion stirred her drawn features, a momentary glow. "He's incredibly beautiful. A god come down to earth." Her lips twisted. "You won't find him. He can do things. Things you have no comprehension of. Powers so far beyond your limited --"
"You don't think we'll get him?" Baines frowned. "More teams are landing all the time. You've never seen an Agency clamp in operation. We've had sixty years to work out all the bugs. If he gets away it'll be the first time --"
Baines broke off abruptly. Three men were quickly approaching the porch. Two green-clad Civil Police. And a third man between them. A man who moved silently, lithely, a faintly luminous shape that towered above them.
"Cris!" Jean screamed.
"We got him," one of the police said.
Baines fingered his lash-tube uneasily. "Where? How?"
"He gave himself up," the policeman answered, voice full of awe. "He came to us voluntarily. Look at him. He's like a metal statue. Like some sort of -- god."
The golden figure halted for a moment beside Jean. Then it turned slowly, calmly, to face Baines.
"Cris!" Jean shrieked. "Why did you come back?"
The same thought was eating at Baines, too. He shoved it aside -- for the time being. "Is the jet out front?" he demanded quickly.
"Ready to go," one of the CP answered.
"Fine." Baines strode past them, down the steps and onto the dirt field. "Let's go. I want him taken directly to the lab." For a moment he studied the massive figure who stood calmly between the two Civil Policemen. Beside him, they seemed to have shrunk, become ungainly and repellent. Like dwarves... What had Jean said? A god come to earth. Baines broke angrily away. "Come on," he muttered brusquely. "This one may be tough; we've never run up against one like it before. We don't know what the hell it can do."
The chamber was empty, except for the seated figure. Four bare walls, floor and ceiling. A steady glare of white light relentlessly etched every corner of the chamber. Near the top of the far wall ran a narrow slot, the view windows through which the interior of the chamber was scanned.
The seated figure was quiet. He hadn't moved since the chamber locks had slid into place, since the heavy bolts had fallen from outside and the rows of bright-faced technicians had taken their places at the view windows. He gazed down at the floor, bent forward, hands clasped together, face calm, almost expressionless. In four hours he hadn't moved a muscle.
"Well?" Baines said. "What have you learned?"
Wisdom grunted sourly. "Not much. If we don't have him doped out in forty-eight hours we'll go ahead with the euth. We can't take any chances."
"You're thinking about the Tunis type," Baines said. He was, too. They had found ten of them, living in the ruins of the abandoned North African town. Their survival method was simple. They killed and absorbed other life forms, then imitated them and took their places. Chameleons, they were called. It had cost sixty lives, before the last one was destroyed. Sixty top-level experts, highly trained DCA men.
"Any clues?" Baines asked.
"He's different as hell. This is going to be tough." Wisdom thumbed a pile of tape-spools. "This is the complete report, all the material we got from Johnson and his family. We pumped them with the psych-wash, then let them go home. Eighteen years -- and no semantic bridge. Yet, he looks fully developed. Mature at thirteen -- a shorter, faster life-cycle than ours. But why the mane? All the gold fuzz? Like a Roman monument that's been gilded."
"Has the report come in from the analysis room? You had a wave-shot taken, of course."
"His brain pattern has been fully scanned. But it takes time for them to plot it out. We're all running around like lunatics while he just sits there!" Wisdom poked a stubby finger at the window. "We caught him easily enough. He can't have much, can he? But I'd like to know what it is. Before we euth him."
"Maybe we should keep him alive until we know."
"Euth in forty-eight hours," Wisdom repeated stubbornly. "Whether we know or not. I don't like him. He gives me the creeps."
Wisdom stood chewing nervously on his cigar, a red-haired, beefy-faced man, thick and heavy-set, with a barrel chest and cold, shrewd eyes deep-set in his hard face. Ed Wisdom was Director of DCA's North American Branch. But right now he was worried. His tiny eyes darted back and forth, alarmed flickers of gray in his brutal, massive face.
"You think," Baines said slowly, "this is it?"
"I always think so," Wisdom snapped. "I have to think so."
"I mean --"
"I know what you mean." Wisdom paced back and forth, among the study tables, technicians at their benches, equipment and humming computers. Buzzing tape-slots and research hook-ups. "This thing lived eighteen years with his family and they don't understand it. They don't know what it has. They know what it does, but not how."
"What does it do?"
"It knows things."
"What kind of things?"
Wisdom grabbed his lash-tube from his belt and tossed it on a table. "Here."
"What?"
"Here." Wisdom signalled, and a view window was slid back an inch. "Shoot him."
Baines blinked. "You said forty-eight hours."
With a curse, Wisdom snatched up the tube, aimed it through the window directly at the seated figure's back, and squeezed the trigger.
A blinding flash of pink. A cloud of energy blossomed in the center of the chamber. It sparkled, then died into dark ash.
"Good God!" Baines gasped. "You --"
He broke off. The figure was no longer sitting. As Wisdom fired, it had moved in a blur of speed, away from the blast, to the corner of the chamber. Now it was slowly coming back, face blank, still absorbed in thought.