Eric Frank Russell
Three to Conquer
1. The Voice Within
He was a squat man with immense breadth of shoulder, hairy hands and bushy eyebrows. Wade Harper maintained constant, unblinking attention on the road as he drove into trouble at sixty miles an hour.
It was April 1, 1980—All Fools' Day, he thought wryly. They had two or three moving roadways in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York; there were also six airtight stations up on the Moon. But except for rear engines and doped-alcohol fuel, motorcars were little different from those of thirty years ago.
For the past ten years there had been talk of mass-produced helicopters at two thousand dollars apiece. Nothing had ever come of it. Maybe it was just as well, considering the likely death-roll when drunks, halfwits and hot-rod enthusiasts took to the skies.
For the same ten years popular science articles-had been forecasting a landing upon Mars within the next five; nothing had come of that, either.
His train of thought snapped when an unknown voice sounded within his peculiar mind, saying, "It hurts! Oh, God, it… hurts!"
The road was wide, straight and thickly wooded on both sides. The only other vehicle in sight was a lumbering tanker, mounting a slight slope, two miles ahead. A glance in the rearview mirror confirmed that there was nothing behind. Despite this, the squat man registered no surprise.
"Hurts!" repeated the voice, weakening rapidly. "Didn't give me a chance!"
The squat man slowed until his speedometer needle fell below twenty. He made a dexterous U-tum and drove back to a rutted dirt road, knowing that the voice had come from that direction.
In the first five hundred yards there were two sharp bends, one to the right, one to the left. Around the second bend a car stood squarely in the middle of the road, effectively blocking to all comers. The squat man braked hard, and swerved over the grass verge to avoid a collision.
He got out, leaving his door open; he stood still and listened with his mind, rather than with his ears.
"Betty…" whispered the eerie voice. "Three fellows and a pain in the guts. Darkness. Can't get up. Ought to tell Forst. Where are you, Forst?"
Turning, the squat man ran heavily along the verge, clambered down a short bank and found the man in the ditch. He did not look long, not more than two seconds. Mounting the bank with furious hate, he dug a flask out of his car-pocket and took it down to him.
Raising the other's head, Harper poured a thin trickle of spirit between pale lips. He did not say anything; he asked no questions, uttered no words of comfort and encouragement. Cradling the head on his forearm, he tried only to maintain the fading spark of life. And while he did it, he listened — not with his ears.
"Tall, blond guy," murmured the other's mind, coming from a vast distance. "Blasted at me… others got out… slung me off the road. Betty, I'm…"
The mental stream cut off. The squat man dropped his flask, lowered the other's head and examined him without touching. Dead beyond doubt. He made note of the number on the badge fixed to the uniform jacket.
Leaving the body in the ditch, he went to the stalled car and sat in the driver's seat. He found a hand-microphone and held it while he fumbled with switches.
"Hello!" he called, working a likely looking lever. "Hello!"
Immediately a voice responded, "State police barracks. Sergeant Forst."
"My name is Wade Harper. Can you hear me?"
"Barracks," repeated the voice, a trifle impatiently. "Forst speaking."
Evidently, Forst couldn't hear. Harper tried again, with a different adjustment. "Hello! Can you hear me?"
"Yes. What goes on there?"
"I'm calling from Car Seventeen. One of your officers is dead in a ditch nearby." He gave the badge number.
There sounded a quick intake of breath, then, "That's Bob Alderson. Where are you now?"
Harper gave detailed directions, and added, "He's been shot twice, once in the belly and once through the neck. It must have happened recently because he was still living when I got to him. He died in my arms."
"Did he tell anything?"
"Yes, a tall, fair-haired fellow did it. There were others with him — no number stated, no descriptions."
"Were they in a car?"
"He didn't say, but you can bet on that."
"Stay where you are, Mr. Harper. We'll be right out."
A sharp click sounded and a new voice broke in with, "Car Nine, Lee and Bates. We picked that up, Sarge, and are on our way. We're two miles off."
Replacing the microphone, Harper returned to the top of the bank and gazed down upon the body. Somebody named Betty was going to know heartbreak this night.
Within a few minutes, heavy tires squealed on the main artery; a car came into the dirt road. Harper raced round the bend and signalled the car down, lest it hit the block. Two state troopers piled out. They had a bitter air…
They went down into the ditch, came up, said, "He's gone all right. Some louse is going to be sorry."
"I hope so," said Harper.
The taller of the two surveyed him curiously and asked, "How did you happen to find him way up here?"
Harper was prepared for that; he had practiced the art of concealment since childhood. At the ripe age of nine, he had learned that knowledge can be resented, and that certain means of acquiring it can be feared.
"I had to pay dog-respects to a tree, and found this car planted in the road. At first, I thought somebody else had the same idea; then I heard him moan in the ditch."
"Five hundred yards is a long way to come just for that," observed the tall one. "Fifty would have been enough, wouldn't it?"
"Maybe."
"How much farther would you have gone if the road hadn't been blocked?"
"Couldn't say." Harper shrugged indifferently. "A fellow just looks for a spot that strikes his fancy and stops there, doesn't he?"
"I wouldn't know," said the trooper.
The second trooper chipped in with, "Lay off, Bert. Ledsom will be here any minute. Let him handle this; it's what he's paid for."
Bert grunted, and the pair started hunting for evidence. In a short time they found fresh tire-tracks across a soft patch twenty yards higher up the road. Soon afterward, they discovered a shell in the grass. They were examining the shell when three more cars arrived.
A man with a bag got down into the ditch, came up after a while and said wearily, 'Two bullets, about.32 caliber. Either could have caused death. No burn marks. Fired from range of a few yards. The slugs aren't in him."
Another, with captain's chevrons, spoke to the two nearest troopers. "Here's the ambulance — lift him out of there." To several others, "You boys look for those slugs. We've got to find them." To Lee and Bates he said, "Put a plank over those tracks; we'll make moulage casts of them. See if you can pick up the other shell. Work up the road for the gun as well; the punk may have thrown it away."
He joined Harper. "I'm Captain Ledsom. It was smart of you to use Alderson's radio to get us."
"Seemed the sensible thing to do."
"People don't always do the sensible thing, especially if they're anxious not to be involved." Ledsom surveyed him with cool authority. "How did you find Alderson?"
"I trundled up here to answer the call of nature — and there he was."
"Came up quite a piece, didn't you?"
"You know how it is. On a narrow track like this, you tend to look for a spot where you can turn the car to go back."
"Yes, I guess so. You wouldn't want to park on a bend, either." He appeared satisfied with the explanation, but Harper could see into Ledsom's mind with complete clarity. He suspected everyone within a fifty-mile radius. "Exactly what did Alderson say before he passed out?"