COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 153
"No. I neutralized frequencies that would have tipped Mayall off. But I doubt if we can get to the settlement without announcing ourselves."
"We may. Two men might have a chance where a small army wouldn't. Where's the best place to … to ring his bell?"
"Under the circumstances," Harding told him, "it's straight ahead, inland, toward those hills. Plenty of brush for cover here. The cosmosphere can't show everything, and Mayall's no fool—but spectral analysis showed that brush has had nonlethal frequencies used on it. There are microphone pickups, too, so—"
"So our trick ought to work, eh?" Turner said solemnly, tapping out his pipe over the rail. "You call out your code phrase and Mayall will hear it. Don't see how we can miss. Only, don't go getting any funny notions, my friend. You and I haven't got a chance unless we stick together. I can't help remembering you and Mayall worked together for a good many years. I keep wondering how a man feels, once he's kicked off an Integration-Team."
Harding laid his hands on the hot rail and slid the palms back and forth slowly. Then he tightened his grip so that every vibration of the boat carried up through his nerves to his responsive brain.
"A man misses it," he said dryly. "Come on. We're wasting time."
The frequency caught them in the middle of the brush field. They had been only partially prepared for this. From now on everything would have to be played out free-hand, on the spur of the moment. Turner, who had been walking ahead, flung up a warning arm. Harding felt the beginning tremor a moment before Turner did, and with desperate speed he sucked air deep into his lungs and let it out again in a shout that must have made the hidden microphones planted along the shore rattle in their clamps.
"Mayall!" he roared. "Mayall!" And then he added a phrase that had no meaning to Turner, a quick, glib phrase which only an Integrator of Team Twelve-Wye-Lambda would know.
While he shouted, Harding let his muscles relax with a sort of frantic limpness, a lightning speed and control. Barely in time. The last syllables of his yell still hung in midair as he dropped into a crouch. The brush closed over his head and the vibration froze him motionless against the warm earth.
After that there was nothing but silence. The sky burned blue. The air hummed. His shouted words hung echoing in the stillness.
It seemed to Harding that he heard a sort of caught breath sough out of somewhere, hidden microphones catching the sound of it with a note of surprise. But Harding was almost instantly distracted by the urgent and immediate problem of Edward Harding, and the difficulty of staying alive.
First his eyes began to sting, because he couldn't blink. Almost immediately thereafter a frightening sensation of darkness and dizziness swept up from the brown earth and down from the clear blue sky, a shadow enfolding him from without which seemed to come hollowly and emptily from within at the same time.
He had stopped breathing.
That wasn't the worst, of course. The autonomic nervous system controls the heart, too. He hadn't anticipated this. The cosmoscope had revealed only nonlethal frequencies in this barrier field. Somehow it hadn't occurred to him that "non-lethal" is a comparative term. He felt his heart lurch heavily in his chest, aware of its nonmotion as he had never been fully aware of its beating. Doggedly for a long instant, while that caught breath of surprise from some hidden throat echoed in the microphones, and the shadow of darkness hovered, he crouched helpless under this paralyzing power.
Then out of a dozen separate little mouths, vibrating tinnily low down in the brush, a harsh, familiar voice called out.
"Harding?" it cried incredulously. "Harding, is it you? Here? Welcome to Akassi, Harding!" Sardonic menace sounded in the voice. It paused briefly and then rattled off a series of signal numbers that meant nothing to Harding. "I'm cutting the paralysis," Mayall's harsh voice said exultantly. "I don't want you to die—that fast."
Blood roared in Harding's ears. A sense of wide-opening distances lifted dizzily around him as the frequency-lock let go. The shadows from without and from within drew back, rose beyond the sky, sank deep into the earth, closed up like a black flower's petals and became a seed inside Harding again. Briefly and strangely he knew what death would be like, some day, Gigantic around him and tiny within him lay latent the enormous dark. Black seed within, black cloak without. When one swooped down to meet the other's swift unfolding, then the last hour would strike.
But not yet.
Someone was coming toward them through the brush. Crouched in hiding, Harding saw Turner's barrel-shaped bulk rise painfully to its full height directly between him and the approaching man. That was the plan, or part of it. He drew a deep breath, grateful anew for the air he breathed. The gun balanced delicately in his hand. He tightened his finger until it pressed cool metal hard. Then he was part of the gun. He couldn't miss.
He could still see nothing except Turner's back outlined against a clear sky, but he knew the familiar, harsh voice that spoke.
"Who are you? How did you—" There was a pause. Then, "Turner! It's Turner! I didn't send for you!"
Turner spoke quickly. "Hold on," he wheezed. "I know you didn't. Just let me get my breath back, will you? Near killed me!" He took a step sidewise and lurched heavily, rubbing his leg and swearing in a thick voice. Mayall turned automatically to face him, and now at last Harding saw his face.
It shocked him, somehow, to see that Mayall had grown a beard. He couldn't help wondering instantly, first of all, how the beard would show up in the Composite Image. If Mayall had a Team here—and he must have—would all those blended faces seem to wear it? Or would it be obliterated by the six other superimposed images?
Otherwise Mayall had not changed much. The hollow black eyes burned, under strong, meeting black brows. The gaunt body stooped forward. But Harding did not remember the eyes as quite so fiercely bright, or the mouth as quite so bitter and so violent. And the short, neatly clipped graying beard was a note of unfamiliarity that made Mayall somehow a complete stranger.
Turner muttered: "My leg's asleep," and bent to rub it, stumbling farther around so that he brought Mayall's back squarely toward the hidden Harding.
"Stand still," Mayall snapped. "You shouldn't have come. I'll have to kill you now, and I need you outside. Why did you do it, you infernal idiot?"
"Take it easy," Turner said, painfully straightening. Harding could see through the leaves the outline of the gun in his jacket pocket. From here it looked as if Mayall were quite unarmed. One hand held a microphone, the other hung empty. Mayall could order the paralysis turned on again whenever he chose, of course, but surely it would trap him in the same field if he did. Frowning, Harding waited.
"Now let me say my say before you fly off the handle," Turner was plating the bearded man. "Won't cost you anything to listen, will it? I—"
"Shut up," Mayall said, his voice sinking to a hoarse, angry whisper. "Nobody joins me. Nobody! A machine doesn't need assistants, you fool! You haven't anything to say that I want to hear. Wait."
He turned his head a little and Harding saw the thin mouth tighten to a grimace that was half grin and half snarl of pure ferocity. Harding was aware of a sudden shock at the violence that gleamed through the smile, so near the surface of the man's mind it seemed to glare white-hot through his grimace. Mayall was not perhaps really insane—but he wasn't sane, either.
"Wait!" Mayall said, and his breath came suddenly loud in the clear, sunny silence. "You didn't come alone. I heard Harding's voice."
Turner let out his breath in a heavy sigh.
"All right, Harding," he said, keeping his eyes carefully away from the crouching man in the underbrush. "All right, let him have it. Shoot, man—shoot!"
Mayall said, "What?" and swung quickly around, raking the brush with eager glances in the wrong direction. The fat, swift hand on Turner's other side dropped toward the pocket where the gun lay.
"All right, Mayall," Turner said in a satisfied voice. "Stand still. We've got you now. Harding, shoot! Shoot!"
Harding stood up in the crackling brush, flicked his gun level and shot the revolver out of Turner's hand.
The bullet went cleanly through the fat man's wrist and whined into the brush beyond. Turner's thick fingers opened. His revolver fell spinning in the sunlight. There was an instant's total silence, broken only by the whispering sound of waves on the distant beach and the raucous scream of a bird somewhere inland, beyond the low hills. The wind brought a vagrant thump-thump-thump of machinery from the glitter of roofs half seen above the hill.
Slowly, slowly, Turner lifted his gaze to Harding's. He was gray-white with shock and disbelief, but as Harding met his eyes the whiteness vanished in a swift uprush of deep, angry red. Turner caught his breath and gabbled. There was no other word for it.
"Harding! Harding—I'm Turner! You've shot me! I hired you! What … why did you do it? Why?" His eyes darted to Mayall and back. "Is it a double cross? It can't be! You wouldn't dare! You know Mayall hates your guts!" His voice cracked. "Why, Harding, why?"
Mayall's laughter cut into the disorganized babble. His eyes burned like hot coals deep in the sockets of his skull. His face had the half-demented ferocity of a tiger's, grinning over bared teeth.
"You chose the wrong tool, Turner. So you got tired of playing second fiddle, eh? Thought you'd hire an Integration man and take over, didn't you?" He laughed harshly. "There was one thing you didn't know. But—"
"Shoot him, Harding!" Turner cried, clutching his wrist tight and staring down at the welling blood. His hands were shaking like his voice, and a recurrent tremor ran over him so that his whole unwieldy body quivered like a large jelly. "Go on, shoot!"
Mayall laughed. "Go on, shoot!" he echoed in a mocking falsetto. "Go on, Ed. Why not shoot me?"
"You know why," Harding said.
"Why not?" Turner's voice was high with terror.
It was Mayall who answered him, with mocking politeness.
"You didn't know?" he demanded of the quivering fat man. "Hadn't you heard about the posthypnotic compulsions they jinx you with when you join an Integration Team? Didn't you know that no Team member can ever injure another Team member, no matter what his provocation is?"
Turner stared stupidly at the man. His jaw dropped a little.
"But"—he swung toward Harding—"You … you didn't tell me! You let me think … it's not true, is it, Harding? Go ahead and shoot, before he—"
"Go ahead, Harding, try!" Mayall's voice was ironic. "Pull the trigger! Maybe you can do it. I'm not on the Team any more, remember?"
"Neither am I," Harding said gently.
A slow grin spread over Mayall's haggard face. His eyes burned.
"Kicked off too, eh?" he said, exultation in his voice. "That's good. That's wonderful! Kicked off just like me! How do you like it now, Ed? How does it feel?" The grin faded slowly. "A little bit lonely, maybe? You don't fit in anywhere?" His voice softened reminiscently. "You can't really think without an Integrator, you're an expert on an Integrator but you aren't allowed near one. You try joining lots of outfits. No good. What you want is the Team again, the chance to use your mind and your talents. You're lost without a Team."
Suddenly and harshly he laughed. "Well, I've got a Team!" he said. "My own. My own backers, my own Integrator. Everything you tried to take away from me when you got me kicked out. Now you know what it's like. Maybe you think I'll take you in. I'm not the fool you think, Harding. I know you! You have to be top dog or nothing. But you've made the last mistake of your life." He hefted the microphone and laughed his harsh, mirthless laugh.
"I've got the drop on you, even without a gun. You can't touch me, you fool. I see it in your stupid face. But I can kill you!"
Turner made an unsteady, bleating sound and swung round violently toward Harding, blood spattering from his wrist.
"It isn't true!" he said hysterically. "You can kill him if you try! Pull the trigger, Harding! This is suicide if you don't!"
Mayall showed his teeth. "That's right," he said. "But he can't do it. We were closer than brothers once. Cain and Abel." He laughed. "Any last words, Harding?" He lifted the microphone. "All I have to do is recite a series of numbers into this," he said. "It's automatic. The field reacts to the same group only once, in progressive series, so you needn't bother trying to memorize it. Then the frequency hits you both. I may let you die right now, or I may—"
"You won't do a thing," Harding said, smiling. "You can't, George. It would constitute an injury to me, and you can't do it."
Mayall flourished the mike, breathed gently into its black mouth. His eyes burned at Harding over the instrument. Everything was very still around them. Distant surf hissed upon sand, the brush rustled in a light breeze, machinery thudded like the beat of blood deep inside the arteries of the body, as if the island were alive. Three gulls sailing over on narrow wings turned curious heads sidewise to observe, yellow-eyed, the motionless men below. Beyond Mayall's bearded head the heaven-pointing muzzle of the spaceship loomed like a silver halo. Invisible above it hung Venus, blanked out by the blue dazzle of the day but swinging as if on tangible cord that linked it irrevocably to Akassi. Sixty-one thousand of the ex-Earthborn pinned high upon the chart of the heavens by a diamond pinhead waited, though they did not know it yet, the outcome of this conflict on Akassi.
"I'm free," Mayall said, holding the mike against his mouth. "I know when I hate a man. I can kill you whenever I choose."
"You said that before," Harding pointed out. "Go ahead."
"All I have to do is give the series into the mike," Mayall said.
"Yes. Go on. Do it."
Mayall drew an oddly unsteady breath and said into the microphone:
"Three-forty-seven-eighty … ah … eighty-two." He paused briefly. "Eighty-five," he corrected himself. And waited.
Nothing happened.
The brush rustled. The surf breathed against the shore. Mayall flushed angrily, gave Harding a quick, defensive glance, and said into the mike, "Cancel. Three-forty-seven-seventy-five—"
The breeze whispered among leaves. The distant throb beat like blood in their ears. But no shadow stooped out of the sky and no shiver in the air answered Mayall's command.
Turner laughed, a half-hysterical giggle. "So it's true" he said. "You can't!"
Mayall's face went dark with anger and a pulse began to throb heavily in his forehead. He shook the microphone, cursed the insensate machinery and stammered the numbers a third time into the diaphragm, stumbling twice as he spoke them.
For a timeless moment the three men stood motionless, waiting.
Then Turner laughed aloud and wheeled ponderously upon Harding. Ten feet of space separated them, and Harding had let his gun-hand drop—
The impact of the fat man's sudden onslaught caught him off guard and sent him staggering. The gun flew out of his hand as Turner's great, unstable bulk all but knocked him off his feet. They reeled together for an instant.
When they got their balance again Turner's huge forearm was locked across Harding's throat, blood from his wounded wrist trickled down Harding's shirt, and Turner's good hand pressed the point of a small, cold, very sharp knife against Harding's jugular.
The fat man was breathing hard.
"All right, Mayall," he said with a painful briskness, though his voice still shook. "My turn now. If this whole idea's a trick, let's find out about it! I don't know what you've got to gain by lying to me, but you can't kill me unless you kill Harding. Go ahead—turn on the paralysis again. But before you can give your signal, I can cut Harding's throat. Go on. What's stopping you?"
Mayall's face darkened terrifyingly with rage. The grizzled beard jutted straight out with the set of his jaw, and the pulse at his temple throbbed.
"Don't tempt me, Turner!" he said in a grating whisper.
Turner laughed again. "Is it true?" he asked incredulously. "I almost think it is! I almost believe you've got to save Harding's life! All right, then." The knife-point pressed deeper. Harding felt the sharp twinge of breaking skin, and then a sticky trickling. "I'll kill him unless you do as I say."
"I wouldn't bet on it, Turner," Mayall said in a choked voice. "I—"
"I've got to bet on it," Turner wheezed past Harding's ear. "It's my one chance. I'm gambling for my life. And I'll win. You'd have turned on the paralysis by now if you dared. How do you walk through it, Mayall? No, never mind. I want to know first of all what this game is. No, Harding, don't move!"
He shook Harding a little. "I want some answers! Are you working in cahoots with Mayall? Why did you come here, if you knew you couldn't protect yourself from him? Unless you're working together, I don't see—"
Mayall made a sudden, involuntary gesture of rejection.
"You think I'd work with him? You think I could ever trust him again?"
