"Possibly," said Anderson.
"Even if he is, he can't do much to harm us," Adams told them, calmly. "That place of his is simply clogged with spy rigs."
"Any reports in yet?" asked Blackburn.
"Just generally. Nothing specific. Sutton has been taking it easy. Had a few calls. Made a few himself. Had a visitor or two."
"He knows he's being watched," said Clark. "He's putting on an act."
"There's a rumor around," said Blackburn, "that Benton challenged him."
Adams nodded. "Yes, he did. Ash tried to back out of it. That doesn't sound as if he's dangerous."
"Maybe," speculated Clark, almost hopefully, "Benton will close our case for us."
Adams smiled thinly. "Somehow I think Ash may have spent the afternoon thinking up a dirty deal for our Mr. Benton."
Anderson had fished the pipe out of his pocket, was loading it from his pouch. Clark was fumbling for a cigarette.
Adams looked at Shulcross. "You have something, Mr. Shulcross."
The language expert nodded. "But it's not too exciting. We opened Sutton's case and we found a manuscript. We photostated it and replaced it exactly as it was. But so far it hasn't done us any good. We can't read a word of it."
"Codes," said Blackburn.
Shulcross shook his head. "If it were code our robots would have cracked it. In an hour or two. But it's not a code. It's language. And until you get a key a language can't be cracked."
"You've checked, of course."
Shulcross smiled glumly. "Back to the old Earth languages…back to Babylon and Crete. We cross-checked every lingo in the galaxy. None of them came close."
"Language," said Blackburn. "A new language. That means Sutton found something."
"Sutton would," said Adams. "He's the best agent that I have."
Anderson stirred restlessly in his chair. "You like Sutton?" he asked. "Like him personally?"
"I do," said Adams.
"Adams," said Anderson, "I've been wondering. It's a thing that struck me funny from the first."
"Yes, what is it?"
"You knew Sutton was coming back. Knew almost to the minute when he would arrive. And you set a mousetrap for him. How come?"
"Just a hunch," said Adams.
For a long moment all four of them sat looking at him. Then they saw he meant to say no more. They rose to leave the room.
XI
Across the room a woman's laughter floated, sharp-edged with excitement.
The lights changed from the dusk-blue of April to the purple-gray of madness and the room was another world that floated in a hush that was not exactly silence. Perfume came down a breeze that touched the cheek with ice…perfume that called to mind black orchids in an outland of breathless terror.
The floor swayed beneath Sutton's feet and he felt Eva's small fist digging hard into his arm.
The Zag spoke to them and his words were dead and hollow sounds dripping from a mummied husk.
"What is it that you wish? Here you live the lives you yearn for…find any escape that you may seek…possess the things you dream of."
"There is a stream," said Sutton. "A little creek that ran…"
The light changed to green, a faerie green that glowed with soft, quiet life, exuberant, springtime life and the hint of things to come, and there were trees, trees that were fringed and haloed with the glistening, sun-kissed green of the first bursting buds.
Sutton wiggled his toes and knew the grass beneath them, the first tender grass of spring, and smelled the hepaticas and bloodroot that had almost no smell at all…and the stronger scent of sweet Williams blooming on the hill across the creek.
He told himself, "It's too early for sweet Williams to be in bloom."
The creek gurgled at him, as it ran across the shingle down into the Big Hole and he hurried forward across the meadow grass, cane pole tight-clutched in one hand, the can of worms in the other.
A bluebird flashed through the trees that climbed the bluff across the meadow and a robin sang high in the top of the mighty elm that grew above the Big Hole.
Sutton found the worn place in the bank, like a chair with the elm's trunk serving as a back, and he sat down in it and leaned forward to peer into the water. The current ran strong and dark and deep, swirling in to hug the higher bank, gurgling and sucking with a strength that set up tiny whirlpools.
Sutton drew in his breath and held it with pent-up anticipation. With shaking hands he found the biggest worm and pulled it from the can, baited up the hook.
Breathlessly, he dropped the hook into the water, canted the pole in front of him for easy handling. The bobber drifted down the swirling slide of water, floated in an eddy where the current turned back upon itself. It jerked, almost disappeared, then bobbed to the surface and floated once again.
Sutton leaned forward, tensed, arms aching with the tenseness. But even through the tenseness, he knew the goodness of the day…the utter peace and tranquillity…the freshness of the morning, the soft heat of the sun, the blue of sky and the white of cloud. The water talked to him and he felt himself grow and become a being that comprehended and became a part of the clean, white ecstasy that was the hills and stream and meadow…earth, cloud, water, sky and sun.
And the bobber went clear under!
He jerked and felt the weight of the fish that he had caught. It sailed in an arc above his head and landed in the grass behind him. He laid down his pole, scrambled to his feet and ran.
The chub flopped in the grass and he grabbed the line and held it up. It was a whopper! A good six inches long!
Sobbing in his excitement, he dropped to his knees and grasped the fish, removed the hook with fingers that fumbled in their trembling.
A six-inch one to start with, he said, talking to the sky and stream and meadow. Maybe every one I catch will be that big. Maybe I'll catch as many as a dozen and all of them will be six inches long. Maybe some of them will be even bigger. Maybe…
"Hello," said a childish voice.
Sutton twisted around, still on his knees.
A little girl stood by the elm tree and it seemed for a moment that he had seen her somewhere before. But then he realized that she was a stranger and he frowned a little, for girls were no good when it came to fishing. He hoped she wouldn't stay. It would be just like her to hang around and spoil the day for him.
"I am," she said, speaking a name he did not catch, for she lisped a little.
He did not answer.
"I am eight years old," she said.
"I am Asher Sutton," he told her, "and I am ten…going on eleven."
She stood and stared at him, one hand plucking nervously at the figured apron that she wore. The apron, he noticed, was clean and starched, very stiff and prim, and she was messing it all up with her nervous plucking.
"I am fishing," he said and tried very hard to keep from sounding too important. "And I just caught a whopper."
He saw her eyes go large in sudden terror at the sight of something that came up from behind him and he wheeled around, no longer on his knees, but on his feet, and his hand was snaking into the pocket of his coat.
The place was purple-gray and there was shrill woman-laughter and there was a face in front of him…a face he had seen that afternoon and never would forget.
A fat and cultured face that twinkled even now with good fellowship, twinkled despite the deadly squint, despite the gun already swinging upward in a hairy, pudgy fist.
Sutton felt his fingers touch the grip of the gun he carried, felt them tighten around it and jerk it from the pocket. But he was too late, he knew, too late to beat the spat of flame from a gun that had long seconds' start.
Anger flamed within him, cold, desolate, deadly anger. Anger at the pudgy fist, at the smiling face…the face that would smile across a chessboard or from behind a gun. The smile of an egotist who would try to beat a robotic that was designed to play the perfect game of chess…an egotist who believed that he could shoot down Asher Sutton.