Cris Johnson was still alive. He emerged from the settling clouds of ash, blackened and singed. But unhurt. He had avoided each beam. He had weaved between them and among them as they came, a dancer leaping over glittering sword-points of pink fire. He had survived.
"No," Wisdom murmured, shaken and grim. "Not a telepath. Those were at random. No prearranged pattern."
The three of them looked at each other, dazed and frightened. Anita was trembling. Her face was pale and her blue eyes were wide. "What, then?" She whispered. "What is it? What does he have?"
"He's a good guesser," Wisdom suggested.
"He's not guessing," Baines answered. "Don't kid yourself. That's the whole point."
"No, he's not guessing." Wisdom nodded slowly. "He knew. He predicted each strike. I wonder... Can he err? Can he make a mistake?"
"We caught him," Baines pointed out.
"You said he came back voluntarily." There was a strange look on Wisdom's face. "Did he come back after the clamp was up?"
Baines jumped. "Yes, after."
"He couldn't have got through the clamp. So he came back." Wisdom grinned wryly. "The clamp must actually have been perfect. It was supposed to be."
"If there had been a single hole," Baines murmured, "he would have known it -- gone through."
Wisdom ordered a group of armed guards over. "Get him out of there. To the euth stage."
Anita shrieked. "Wisdom, you can't --"
"He's too far ahead of us. We can't compete with him." Wisdom's eyes were bleak. "We can only guess what's going to happen. He knows. For him, it's a sure thing. I don't think it'll help him at euth, though. The whole stage is flooded simultaneously. Instantaneous gas, released throughout." He signalled impatiently to the guards. "Get going. Take him down right away. Don't waste any time."
"Can we?" Baines murmured thoughtfully.
The guards took up positions by one of the chamber locks. Cautiously, the tower control slid the lock back. The first two guards stepped cautiously in, lash-tubes ready.
Cris stood in the center of the chamber. His back was to them as they crept toward him. For a moment he was silent, utterly unmoving. The guards fanned out, as more of them entered the chamber. Then --
Anita screamed. Wisdom cursed. The golden figure spun and leaped forward, in a flashing blur of speed. Past the triple line of guards, through the lock and into the corridor.
"Get him!" Baines shouted.
Guards milled everywhere. Flashes of energy lit up the corridor, as the figure raced among them up the ramp.
"No use," Wisdom said calmly. "We can't hit him." He touched a button, then another. "But maybe this will help."
"What --" Baines began. But the leaping figure shot abruptly at him, straight at him, and he dropped to one side. The figure flashed past. It ran effortlessly, face without expression, dodging and jumping as the energy beams seared around it.
For an instant the golden face loomed up before Baines. It passed and disappeared down a side corridor. Guards rushed after it, kneeling and firing, shouting orders excitedly. In the bowels of the building, heavy guns were rumbling up. Locks slid into place as escape corridors were systematically sealed off.
"Good God," Baines gasped, as he got to his feet. "Can't he do anything but run?"
"I gave orders," Wisdom said, "to have the building isolated. There's no way out. Nobody comes and nobody goes. He's loose here in the building -- but he won't get out."
"If there's one exit overlooked, he'll know it," Anita pointed out shakily.
"We won't overlook any exit. We got him once; we'll get him again."
A messenger robot had come in. Now it presented its message respectfully to Wisdom. "From analysis, sir."
Wisdom tore the tape open. "Now we'll know how it thinks." His hands were shaking. "Maybe we can figure out its blind spot. It may be able to out-think us, but that doesn't mean it's invulnerable. It only predicts the future -- it can't change it. If there's only death ahead, its ability won't..."
Wisdom's voice faded into silence. After a moment he passed the tape to Baines.
"I'll be down in the bar," Wisdom said. "Getting a good stiff drink." His face had turned lead-gray. "All I can say is I hope to hell this isn't the race to come."
"What's the analysis?" Anita demanded impatiently, peering over Baines' shoulder. "How does it think?"
"It doesn't," Baines said, as he handed the tape back to his boss. "It doesn't think at all. Virtually no frontal lobe. It's not a human being -- it doesn't use symbols. It's nothing but an animal."
"An animal," Wisdom said. "With a single highly-developed faculty. Not a superior man. Not a man at all."
Up and down the corridors of the DCA Building, guards and equipment clanged. Loads of Civil Police were pouring into the building and taking up positions beside the guards. One by one, the corridors and rooms were being inspected and sealed off. Sooner or later the golden figure of Cris Johnson would be located and cornered.
"We were always afraid a mutant with superior intellectual powers would come along," Baines said reflectively. "A deeve who would be to us what we are to the great apes. Something with a bulging cranium, telepathic ability, a perfect semantic system, ultimate powers of symbolization and calculation. A development along our own path. A better human being."
"He acts by reflex," Anita said wonderingly. She had the analysis and was sitting at one of the desks studying it intently. "Reflex -- like a lion. A golden lion." She pushed the tape aside, a strange expression on her face. "The lion god."
"Beast," Wisdom corrected tartly. "Blond beast, you mean."
"He runs fast," Baines said, "and that's all. No tools. He doesn't build anything or utilize anything outside himself. He just stands and waits for the right opportunity and then he runs like hell."
"This is worse than anything we've anticipated," Wisdom said. His beefy face was lead-gray. He sagged like an old man, his blunt hands trembling and uncertain. "To be replaced by an animal! Something that runs and hides. Something without a language!" He spat savagely. "That's why they weren't able to communicate with it. We wondered what kind of semantic system it had. It hasn't got any! No more ability to talk and think than a -- dog."
"That means intelligence has failed," Baines went on huskily. "We're the last of our line -- like the dinosaur. We've carried intelligence as far as it'll go. Too far, maybe. We've already got to the point where we know so much -- think so much -- we can't act."
"Men of thought," Anita said. "Not men of action. It's begun to have a paralyzing effect. But this thing --"
"This thing's faculty works better than ours ever did. We can recall past experiences, keep them in mind, learn from them. At best, we can make shrewd guesses about the future, from our memory of what's happened in the past. But we can't be certain. We have to speak of probabilities. Grays. Not blacks and whites. We're only guessing."
"Cris Johnson isn't guessing," Anita added.
"He can look ahead. See what's coming. He can -- prethink. Let's call it that. He can see into the future. Probably he doesn't perceive it as the future."
"No," Anita said thoughtfully. "It would seem like the present. He has a broader present. But his present lies ahead, not back. Our present is related to the past. Only the past is certain, to us. To him, the future is certain. And he probably doesn't remember the past, any more than any animal remembers what happened."