Blake endured as the floor rolled in sickening waves under his feet. There was no measure of time. He could only hold to reason and sanity typified by the door knob sticky with his sweat.
He was dully surprised that his ears could still catch the sound which brought an abrupt end to that malevolent assault: the buzz of the warning within the office. There was an instant withdrawal on the part of the enemy. Blake heard the sound of the elevator.
Erskine or Saxton returning? If so, were they about to walk in unwarned upon the danger lurking out there? There was nothing he could do, no way he could prevent it.
The elevator bumped to a stop, paused, and then began a jerky descent. And it took with it the presence which had haunted the room. The whine thinned, to be followed by utter silence—that other had gone.
Blake was on his knees, his forehead resting against the door, his stomach churning. He started to crawl. With the aid of the nearest chair he got to his feet and staggered on, making the bathroom just in time. Weak with retching, he leaned against the wall. For the worst of that attack had been the feeling of being utterly befouled.
When he could keep his feet he pulled off his clothing and stepped into the shower. Only when the water had alternately cooked and frozen his flesh for long moments did he begin to feel clean once more. Dressing was a task. He was as tired as if he were moving about for the first time after a long and serious illness.
Blake wavered out into the living room to collapse on the couch. So far he had concentrated on the obvious, on being wretchedly sick, on bathing and dressing. His mind refused to be pushed beyond those immediate actions. But now to think about it made him sick again. He began to repeat random lines of poetry, slogans, anything with rhythm. But between one word and another, oozing over and through and by those lines his lips shaped, he recalled painfully that strange attack. He was alone now; he would swear to that. And yet the invisible slime left by that visitor was thick in the air he drew into his lungs. He could almost smell its stench.
That sound—the elevator again! Blake tried to sit up. The walls whirled. He clawed wildly at the fabric of the couch. Then he blacked out.
He awakened in his bed, hungry and oddly alert from the second of returning consciousness. From somewhere came the murmur of voices. He got up. Doors were open in the hall and he listened without shame.
". . . canvassed the whole town, up, down and sidewise. His story is true. Foster child of the Walkers . Found in an alley by two cops . . . the whole fantastic thing. He's well enough liked but he seems to have no very close friends." There was no mistaking Hoyt's drawl.
"Found in an alley—" Saxton sounded thoughtful. "I wonder. Yes I do wonder."
"Any signs of substitution and erasure, or applied false memories?" Kittson's demand cut through.
"Nobody I met showed them. I don't see how he could possibly be a plant—"
"Not a plant, no," that was Saxton again. "But perhaps something else. We aren't all knowing. No close friends. If what we suspect is true, that would inevitably follow. And the evidence of the selector was certainly emphatic enough. We can't afford yet to take the position of 'who I don't know is against me.' And he did come to Mark's aid at the Shelborne."
"Just how do you rate him, Jas?" Erskine asked.
"Latent psi, of course. Which bothers him as it naturally would. Intelligent with something else I can not put name to yet. What are you going to do with him, Mark?"
"What I'd like to know," Erskine again, "is what happened here this afternoon. He'd blacked out; perfectly limp when we found him. Took both of us to stow him in bed."
"What would happen if a psi with the sort of barrier that lad naturally possessed met a mind probe?" Kittson inquired with chill dryness.
"But that would mean—!" Saxton's voice was a shrill protest.
"Certainly. And we'd better begin thinking about Pranj's being able to do just that. I want to ask that young man some questions as soon as he is awake. You did give him a restorer shot?"
"About third strength," Saxton assented. "After all, I'm not sure of the reactions of his race. I'm not even sure about his race." The last sentence might have been a thought spoken aloud.
Blake walked into the room. All four of them eyed him without surprise.
"What do you want to ask me?" he spoke to Kittson.
"What happened here this afternoon?"
Choosing his words carefully, trying to keep all emotion out of it, Blake detailed his adventure. There was no disbelief around that circle. A little of his belligerence ebbed. Were they used to such attacks? If so, what in the world—or who in the world—was this quartette of hunters trailing?
"Mind probe," Kittson was definite. "You are sure he did not physically enter the office?"
"As sure as I can be without having watched him."
"Well, Stan?" Kittson's attention shifted to the boyish Erskine who was curled up on the couch.
The slight blond man nodded. "I told you Pranj was an adept. He did a lot of experimenting the Hundred never knew about. That's why he's so deadly. If Walker hadn't been psi, and a barrier psi at that, he'd have sucked him dry like this!" He snapped his fingers.
"What is psi?" Blake broke in, determined to have a few answers which would make sense as far as he was concerned.
"Psi—parapsychological powers—is extrasensory perception in different fields, abilities which mankind as a whole has not yet learned to exploit." Saxton had turned schoolmaster again. "Telepathy—the communication between one mind and another without the need for oral speech; Telekinesis—transportation of material objects by power of will; Clairvoyance—witnessing of events occurring at a distance. Prevision—foretelling of events to come; Levitation—the ability to move one's body through the air—these are phenomena which have been recognized in part. And such attributes may be latent in an individual; unless he is pushed by circumstances into using them, he may not know that he possesses psi abilities."
"Why," Kittson broke into the lecture, "did you open your door on Monday morning, Walker—just at the right moment for me?"
Blake answered with the truth. "Because I thought that I had to—"
"Did that compulsion come suddenly?" Saxton wanted to know.
Blake shook his head. "No. I'd been feeling—well, uneasy for about an hour. It always works that way."
"Then you've had it before. Does it always foretell danger?"
"Yes. But not danger to me—or at least not always."
"And afterwards," Kittson was addressing Saxton now, "I was unable to take him over because of his natural shield."
"I don't see why we should be surprised," Hoyt contributed for the first time. "It stands to reason that since we were the same stock in the beginning, we're going to discover latents here and there. We're lucky that so far we haven't run into any true power men—"
"Do you mean," Blake selected his words carefully, "that all of you have such powers and can use them at will?"
For a long moment they were silent, the other three looking to Kittson as if waiting his decision. He shrugged.
"He knows too much; we'll have to take him all the way. If Pranj's men pick him up now . . . And we can't keep him under wraps forever, though this is beginning to look like a long term job." He held out his hand and the package of cigarettes lying near Erskine's knee floated lightly across several feet of space to make a neat landing on his palm.
"Yes, we have control over some psi powers. The degree varies as to the person and his training. Some are better telepaths than telekinesists. We have a few teleports—people able to project themselves from one point to another. Precognition is common to a degree—"
"And you aren't F.B.I. agents!" Blake added.
"No, not agents of the F.B.I. We are members of another law enforcement body, perhaps just now more important to the well being of this world. We are Wardsmen. Jas has told you of the possibility worlds, only it isn't his hobby or only a theory but cold fact. There are bands, levels, whatever you wish to call them, of worlds. This world has been reproduced innumerable times by historical events. My race is no older than yours, but by some chance we developed an extremely mechanized civilization several thousand years ago.
"Unfortunately we possessed the common human trait of combativeness and the result was an appalling atomic war. Why we did not end by blowing ourselves out of existence as other level worlds have done and are doing right now, we shall never know. But instead of total destruction, the result, for a handful of widely scattered survivors, was a new type of life. Probably the second generation after the war was largely mutant, but we learned to use psi powers.
"War was outlawed. We turned our energy to the conquest of space, only to discover that the planets in our system were largely inimical to man. Expeditions left for the stars—none have yet returned. Then one of our historian-scientists discovered the levels of 'Successor Worlds' as we term them. Travel, not backward or forward in time, but across it, became common. And, because we are human, trouble developed too. It was necessary to keep a check on irresponsible travelers, prevent criminals from looting on other time lines where their powers gave them vast advantage. Thus the organization we represent came into being.
"We maintain order among travelers but in no way may we interfere with action on another level. Before we take a case we are given a complete briefing on language, history, customs of the level on which we must operate. Some levels are forbidden to anyone except official observers. Others no one dares to enter—civilization—or the lack of it—there has taken such a twist that it is unsafe.
"There are dead, radioactive worlds, worlds foul with man-made plagues, worlds held in subjection under governments so vicious that their inhabitants are no longer strictly human. Then there are others where civilization is poised on a trigger edge, where the mere presence of an outsider might wreck the status quo.
"Which brings us to the case now in point. We are after—well, by the standards of our culture he is a criminal. Kmoat Vo Pranj is one of those super egos who craves power as an addict craves his drug. We no longer have nationality divisions within our world, but we do have differences of race due to barriers caused by the atomic war of the past. Saxton and I represent a group descended from members of a military unit which was cut off for several hundred years in the extreme north on this continent. Hoyt's ancestors took to living underground in that island known to you as Great Britain, developing a separate culture of their own. While Erskine, like the man we hunt, is a member of a third grouping, limited to less than a million, all springing from a handful of technicians who remained in a compact community in the South American mountains, working for expert control of psi powers."
"In addition to which," Erskine's voice was colorless, remote, "we also produce from time to time variations of the stock who have the unpleasant natures of our remote warlord ancestors. Pranj wants a world to conquer. Not being able to realize that ambition on our level, in fact now that he is recognized for what he is, he will be subjected to corrective treatment, he seeks an outlet for his energy elsewhere. He played the role of a normal so well that he was able to enter our Service and mastered training to the point of level travel without supervision.
"Now he is in search of a level where civilization is ready to allow him full scope. Having found such a world, he will build up an organization and make himself ruler of the planet. Part of his unbalance is a super self-confidence. He lacks all elements of self-doubt, remorse or any softer virtue. Our purpose is not only to take him into custody but to repair any damage he might have already done."
"You think he is here—right here?" Blake had passed the point of accepting or not accepting the fantastic story; he was merely listening.
"You may have met him this afternoon—if not face to face," was Erskine's sober and apparently sane reply.
Kittson produced a small cube of some clear substance. For a moment it rested on his palm, then it lifted, to sail across to the hand Blake extended rather gingerly. Through the clear envelope he looked down at a tiny figure, bright with color, glowing with a life-like hue as if the cube did encase a living manikin. The tiny man had the same sharply marked cheekbones, delicately cut thin lips, blond hair which were Erskine's. But there was in addition a subtle difference and the longer Blake studied the figure the more marked the difference became. Erskine was aloof, his air of detachment must be inborn, yet one sensed that there was no malice, no assumption of superiority in his manner. This statuette was of a man who was ruthless. There was a shadow about the corners of the lips, a slight shade about the eyes. It was a cruel face, an arrogant face, and a very powerful one.
"That is Pranj—or rather as Pranj was before he disappeared," Kittson explained. "What type of disguise or cover he may have assumed we do not yet know. We have to locate him in spite of it."
"Is he working alone?"
Hoyt shook his head. "You met one of his dupes at the Shelborne. He has recruits, none of whom, we think, know the real truth. He provides some of them with varied gadgets which tend to make it harder for us."
"Any one of us," Kittson took up the explanation, "can master mentally the types Pranj draws to him, if they are unshielded. That thug in the hotel was wearing a shield to protect his mind against mine."
"That disc you found in his mouth?"
"Just so. Luckily an essential ingredient in those can be obtained only on our level. And Pranj can not have too many to scatter around."
"Let us get back to this afternoon," Erskine cut in. "I think we can be sure Pranj made us a visit. Somebody used a probe on Walker and we didn't. Pranj—do you agree?"
Saxton sighed. "We must move. Such a pity."
"But we are lucky in this much," Erskine had not finished. "What if he had come when all of us were gone? We might never have known until too late that he had spotted this place. So we're ahead there. What about it, Mark, do we move?"
"Yes. I'm sure that this level world is his main objective. If he is hopping for safety, he'll come back to fight. And he can't have his way here until he removes us, a job which we shall make as difficult as possible. Now," he turned to Blake, "it's up to you. Frankly, you know too much for our comfort. You'll have to come in with us."
Blake stared down at the carpet. Big of them to offer him a choice, he thought wryly. He did not doubt that he would be efficiently dealt with if he said "no." But after this afternoon he found that he had not the slightest idea of replying in the negative.
"I agree."
They accepted that without thanks or comment. He might have said that it was a pleasant night out. And then he was forgotten as Kittson gave orders:
"We'll move tomorrow after Jas has a chance to check on number two. Hoyt, you patrol the Crystal Bird beat. There's no hope of getting at him there, but try and discover how many of the attendant goons are wearing shields. Erskine—"
The blond man shook his head. "I've a job of my own. Today I thought I spotted a Ming-Hawn throat jewel in one of those antique jewelry shops along the parkway. The store was closed, so I'll have to make sure the first thing in the morning."
"Ming-Hawn!" Saxton's voice trailed off into a breathy hiss.
Kittson studied a smoke ring. "Might be. If Pranj's hard up for ready cash, a few things of that nature sold in the right places would be a good fund raising project."
"But any expert seeing it would ask questions! And he doesn't want exposure any more than we do!" protested the other.
"I don't know about exposure. Not all Ming-Hawn pieces are so distinctive that they would be recognized as alien art. You weren't absolutely sure yourself, were you, Stan?"
"Almost certain. I want to handle it. But it's worth investigating. Suppose I take Walker with me."
For one anxious moment Blake was afraid that Kittson would refuse. But reluctant or not, the agent finally agreed. And when he woke in the morning, after a dream-filled night, Blake was aware of an inner excitement which was not a warning.
With Erskine he descended to the basement of the building, traversed a dingy pawn shop there. The proprietor of this daw's nest did not even look up as they went out his front door. They reached the corner just in time to swing on board a bus. Before they had gone five blocks they were in another section of town with wider streets and smarter shops. And having crossed to thriving intersections Erskine signalled to leave the bus.
"Second from the corner."
The shop Erskine indicated was aristocratically somber in black and gold paint. There was a wrought iron grill covering the lower part of the show window to protect but not conceal the display within. Erskine pointed to a piece close to the glass.
It was a pendant of a silvery metal set with discs of black, on the surface of each of which were intricate patterns in enamels. There was something vaguely oriental about the piece and yet Blake could not place it as belonging to any Eastern art he had ever seen.
"Ming-Hawn right enough. We've got to find out how it came here."
Erskine went into the shop and addressed the man who had risen from behind a desk to greet them.
"You are Mr. Arthur Beneirs?"
"Yes. There is something I may show you gentlemen?"
"I am told that you buy as well as sell curiosities, Mr. Beneirs?"
The man shook his head. "Not from the general public, sir. I am sometimes called in to bid upon objects which must be sold to settle estates. But otherwise—no."
"You would, however, value an art object?" persisted Erskine.
"Perhaps—"
"This, for example?" Erskine held out the crystal ball Blake had himself held two days before.
"Rock crystal," Beneirs turned it about. But to Blake's amazement this time there was no change in the color of the sphere. It remained clear and uncloudy.
Then, without a word, he put it down, went straight to the window and took out the pendant. When he handed it to Erskine he spoke rapidly, as one reciting a memorized lesson.
"This was brought to me two days ago with other antique jewelry by an attorney, Geoffrey Lake. I have often had dealings with him before in estate sales. He did not tell me from whom he had received it, but I think it was given to him to sell privately. Lake is a man of good reputation—his office is in the Parker Building, suite 140. The price I paid was two hundred and fifty dollars."
Erskine brought out a wallet and counted out some bills. With almost mechanical movements Beneirs picked up the money while Erskine put the piece in his wallet. He then pocketed the crystal. Beneirs, as if they were now invisible, went back to his seat behind the desk, paying no more attention to them.