If he’d had just a little longer Bascombe thought he could have pulled it off, could maybe have moved the Department of Interdimensional Affairs out of the Department of Science and right up to cabinet level.
“Just tell us about it, Spaceman Hitchcock,” Secretary Markham said. “Don’t worry about the formalities. This Major Johnston offered you a deal?”
“No, sir,” Hitchcock said. “He offered the lieutenant a deal, and the lieutenant wouldn’t take it. Me, they just told to come back here and report-I didn’t have to do a thing in return.”
Markham nodded, and Bascombe frowned.
“And what was it that you were to report, Spaceman?” Marshal Albright asked.
“He said-Major Johnston said to just tell you what happened, and that they want to talk, they aren’t hostile. That’s all. And that you get the lieutenant and the others back when you agree to talk, and not before.”
“And do you think that’s the truth?” Albright asked.
Hitchcock blinked. “Do I think what’s the truth, sir?”
“That these people aren’t hostile.”
“I don’t know, sir. They treated us all right, but…well, that doesn’t mean much.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Albright agreed. He glanced at the silent figure of his personal telepath, then at the Secretary of Science.
Bascombe wondered how Albright could stand having a telepath with him all the time. It was supposed to be a great honor to have one’s own telepath, with one at all hours of the day or night, but that was an honor Bascombe could do without-a damn mutant freak spying on him every second. Bad enough working with them when he was on duty.
Markham had one, as well, of course. Bascombe supposed the telepaths had names and identities of their own, but no one had introduced them; they were just there, part of the background.
That was a drawback to political advancement he had never really considered.
Secretary Markham leaned forward and said, “Spaceman Hitchcock, this Major Johnston is the highest-ranking official we’ve yet contacted on Earth. Do you think you could go to Terra and tell the Emperor about him?”
Hitchcock went white, and Bascombe winced. In all his years of political jockeying he had never yet had the honor of reporting directly to His Imperial Majesty, and here this poor frightened gee-puller was being offered an audience.
That was an honor Bascombe did want-but he wasn’t about to get it.
Hitchcock stammered incoherently until Albright finally broke in. “Never mind, Spaceman; I don’t think we need to send you to Terra.”
Hitchcock relaxed, but at the same time a look of hurt disappointment crossed his face.
“Yet,” Albright added. “I’m sure that eventually His Majesty will want to meet you and thank you.”
Hitchcock nodded.
Albright and Markham leaned together to confer for a moment, and Albright’s telepath leaned in with a word or two as well; then Markham turned and looked straight at Bascombe.
“Mr. Bascombe,” he said, “I believe we’ve heard everything we need from Spaceman Hitchcock for the present, but there are a few things we’d like to ask you. If you would be so kind…?”
He gestured toward the interrogation chair, where an Imperial guard was guiding Hitchcock to his feet.
Bascombe straightened. Here it was, at last. If he could sell this, he was made.
If not, he was ruined.
He rose and rounded the table, watching the telepaths as he went.
* * * *
“He doesn’t look very healthy,” Johnston said, eyeing the pale, black-garbed figure. It was a deliberate understatement; the gaunt stranger looked downright corpselike.
“Doesn’t seem to be able to talk, sir,” the lieutenant said. “I haven’t gotten a sound out of him-not so much as a grunt. He just sits there.”
“Do you speak English?” Johnston asked loudly.
The stranger didn’t stir; he simply sat, staring straight ahead. A layer of grayish dust covered the family room sofa, but this mysterious person didn’t seem to notice. Johnston looked at the stranger’s hands, and at the largely-undisturbed dust.
He hadn’t touched the couch anywhere except where he now sat.
That didn’t seem natural.
An airman stood beside the couch, one hand on the stranger’s shoulder. Johnston looked at that, and the lieutenant followed his gaze.
“If we don’t physically hold him he starts walking away,” the lieutenant explained. “Frankly, sir, I think he’s mentally disturbed-autistic, or something. We can’t communicate with him at all.”
“Then how’d he get into the basement here?” Johnston asked.
“I don’t know, sir-I didn’t see him arrive. Just all of a sudden he was there.”
“We might just let him go and see what he does,” Johnston said.
No one answered. The black-clad stranger didn’t move.
The fellow looked like a corpse, Johnston thought. It was hard to believe he could move at all.
“Let him go,” Johnston said.
The airman hesitated, then lifted his hand.
The pale man stood, rising smoothly from the couch without a single wasted motion, and began walking. Johnston, the lieutenant, the FBI man, and one of the three airman followed; at Johnston’s command the other two airmen remained in the family room.
Johnston had expected the stranger to aim for the front door, but instead the silent visitor marched up the stairs and into the master bedroom. There he paused for a moment, scanning the room, then headed for one of the dusty, cluttered dressers. He picked up a hairbrush, then another, and another; clutching the three brushes in one hand he turned and scanned the room again.
“Hairbrushes?” the lieutenant asked incredulously.
The stranger spotted his target, and picked up the pink plastic wastebasket from beside a bureau. He dropped the brushes into it and headed for the door.
The FBI man and the airman stepped quickly aside.
“Major, do you know what’s going on here?” the FBI man asked.
Johnston shook his head.
The stranger had to step carefully when he searched Rachel Brown’s room-the floor was strewn with toys. Johnston saw him hesitate at the sight of the plush alligator on the girl’s empty, unmade bed, the first time the man had acted like a human being, instead of a machine.
Or maybe he was just trying to figure out whether the alligator was a hairbrush.
But no, the child’s hairbrush was on her bureau, and a wastebasket was at the foot of her bed. The black-clad stranger collected both items and headed back for the stairs, a wastebasket in each hand, hairbrushes in each wastebasket.
“Stop him!” Johnston called to the airmen in the family room.
The pair blocked the foot of the stairs, and the pale stranger stopped and simply stood, as if waiting for them to step aside.
“You aren’t going to let him go, sir?” the lieutenant asked.
“I don’t think so,” Johnston said. “Not yet, anyway. He’s got what he came for, I’d say-but why does he want them?”
“Trash, sir?” one of the airmen at the foot of the stairs asked. “He just took the trash?”
“And hairbrushes,” the lieutenant said.
“What good would that be to anyone?” the airman who had accompanied the officers asked.
“Maybe he’s gonna use voodoo on someone,” the airman who hadn’t previously spoken suggested. “Get some hair and nail-parings for the voodoo doll, y’know?”
“God knows this guy looks like a zombie!” said the airman beside him.
The others smiled, but Johnston looked at the back of the stranger’s head and seriously considered it.
It was true, this guy did look like a walking corpse.
Jewell and Thorpe had said that there was a universe on the other side of the basement wall where magic, or something one hell of a lot like magic, really worked.