"It's true enough; he got a scare that sent him into a panic."
"That's all we want to know."
At three o'clock the following afternoon, Harper was taking it easy, his chair tilted on its back legs, his feet on the rim of the desk, his mind wide open as idly he watched Moira sorting invoices.
His mental faculty had two distinct methods of functioning, which he liked to symbolize as radio and radar. When he was playing at radio, he merely listened and put up with whatever programs were being broadcast in "the vicinity. If he switched to radar, he transmitted a pulse of his own which stimulated some other mind into producing a required response.
When he listened, ninety-nine times out of a hundred it was stuff not worthy of a moment's attention. But when he probed, he got what he wanted by nudging the other mind into thinking of it. So far as ordinary human beings were concerned, it made no difference which method he adopted because they were unconscious of both.
With a Venusian mind it wasn't the same; that had been his first lesson, learned when he contacted the entity owning the Whittingham girl. In some subtle way the Venusians differed. He could listen to one, radio-fashion, without it realizing that it was being overheard. But if, radar-like, he prodded one to compel release of a wanted fact, it felt the prod and took immediate alarm.
Right now, Harper was slowly and rhythmically rocking the chair and straining its hind legs, which gave forth protesting squeaks. Over the last few days he had not listened continuously; it was impossible to do that and give attention to other matters. Besides, it was sufficient for his mind to make a two-seconds sweep around the neighborhood every couple of minutes, much like a lighthouse beam circling across dark and stormy seas.
He rocked and made his umpteen hundredth or thousandth sweep, ceased punishing the chair, sat erect. Moira glanced at him expectantly, saw that his attention was not on her, and resumed her sorting. He listened again to something far away, perhaps a thousand yards or more, half-hidden in the general hubbub. It grew nearer, slowly but steadily, at a rate corresponding with walking pace. It was an inhuman mind gaggling like an angry gander.
"Norris!" he yelled.
Moira gave a jerk, dropped a bunch of papers, scrabbled for them on the floor.
The door whisked open and the agent looked in. "What's the matter?"
"I think this is it."
"You mean—?"
"It's coming on two feet. No car. On the sidewalk taking a stroll."
"Stay where you are!" ordered Norris. He bolted from sight.
Going to the window, Harper looked onto the road ten feet below. He opened the casement, and leaned out to get a better view.
If there was one pedestrian in sight, there must have been a thousand. The mind he sought had to be among that cluster on the left-hand side of the road, between four and five hundred yards to the north. His directional sense assured him of that much, but it could hot detach one individual from a distant bunch of nondescripts.
Still leaning out and watching, he waited for the weird mind to draw closer. Three hundred yards, two hundred, one fifty. By now he had narrowed the possibility down to three people — a smart housewife tripping along perkily; a plump and prosperous-looking businessman in his early forties; a lanky, lantern-jawed individual who slunk along close to the Wall.
Behind him, Norris reappeared and said, "All set. Now can you—?"
Ignoring him, Harper made a vicious mental stab along the receiving-line. The result came back in a split second: intense shock, wild alarm, frantic desire to escape and carry a warning elsewhere.
The housewife kept going, without faltering or changing pace. The lanky slinker maintained pace and manner. The plump man stopped in his tracks, glared wildly around, swung on one heel and started back whence he had come, at a rapid walk.
Harper jumped out the window. He heard a gasp from Norris, and an exclamation from Moira, before he landed heavily. His gun was already in his right fist as he regained balance and plunged forward, in the wake of the escapee.
Something in the expressions of passers-by told the quarry that things had begun to happen behind him. Lifting arms to sides, he broke into a headlong run. For one of his portly build, he showed a remarkable turn of speed.
A bewildered clerk carrying a large box danced in front of the charging Harper, who snarled, "Out of my way, Stupid!" brushed him aside and pounded on. Back of him, someone was shouting indistinguishable words in authoritative tones. On the comer, six hundred yards ahead, someone else blew a shrill whistle. A police-car siren started wailing. Two agents stepped out of a doorway ahead of the fugitive, weapons in hands, and bawled an order to halt. Two more came racing down the opposite side of the road.
The plump man wasn't finished yet. Taking as little notice of the guns as one would of peashooters, he dived through the main door of an office building. Harper went in five seconds later, red-faced and breathing hard; two agents followed close upon his heels. A car squealed into the curb, unloaded four more.
One of a bank of self-operated elevators was going up fast, taking the fugitive with it. Stopping at its folding gate, Harper scowled upward, watched the other's feet disappear from sight. One pair of agents raced up nearby stairs; two more jumped into an adjoining elevator and boosted it skyward.
Putting the muzzle of his weapon to the gate's lock, Harper fired, broke it, hauled the gate open and halted the elevator at the third-floor level. He had hoped to get the quarry stuck between floors, but the apparatus proved to be of automatic-levelling type and responded to sudden loss of power by letting its box sink into adjustment.
Listening to the minds above, he detected the fugitive's break-out onto the third floor, the nearness to him of the agents on the stairs, and knew what was going to happen before he could prevent it.
He galloped up the stairs with sweat beading his brow. He had covered the first flight and half the second, taking steps three at a time, when overhead there sounded a terrific blast, a tinkle of falling' glass, a brief pause followed by a hammering burst of explosions. His speed upped itself another twenty per cent while his lungs heaved.
While taking the turn from second to third, he heard the yowl of an alien spark becoming extinguished in a useless body, also the wild, despairing cry of something more human on its way out. He slowed down, mounting the remaining stairs at normal pace, knowing that he was too late.
The third floor corridor was a shambles. Three agents stood in a little group looking over the scene. One was holding a heavy riot gun still warm in the muzzle. Another was mopping blood that dripped steadily from his left ear. The third was gazing gloomily at the body of a fourth sprawled near the top of the stairs, crimson splotches on chest and face.
Ten yards from the elevator lay the corpse of the plump man. He was not a pleasant sight.
11. The Elusive One
The man with the dripping ear bent over the agent who lay supine by the stairs, slid a hand under his vest, felt around and rasped, "He's dead." He stood up, patted a crimson-spotted handkerchief to the side of his head. "If he hadn't beaten me to the top, he mightn't have got it. And if I hadn't been four steps lower, I'd have got it all over and right through."
"We soared past him in that other box," explained the one with the riot gun to Harper. "When he stopped so suddenly, we overshot him and had to back down. It was just then that he got out and tossed an egg at the other pair. A splinter went right through the floor and between my feet. We jerked open the gate, saw him running down there, and gave him a burst before he could throw any more."