Part 4

"It's no joke," I pleaded. "Believe me, it isn't. Please make it as fast as you can. Civilization may be at stake." On that deliberately ominous note, I hung up.

Immediately I began thinking of the things I should have done, the machinery I should have set in motion instead of the one thing I had done. By all means, I ought to have notified the police directly. My notion that telenosis influenced all the police desk sergeants in town was hysterical, baseless. Well, I could call back, even now--

But I couldn't.

The car was moving at a relatively slow speed--but still over fifty miles an hour, on a narrow unpaved, downgrade road. Through the side window I saw dark trees and shadowy brush gliding by.

And then through the window I saw lighted storefronts, mail boxes, a few vague pedestrians on smooth sidewalks, and two dogs running tirelessly beside the car, barking as they ran....

Repeated pounding on the heavy black box did not restore reality.

Now I did not dare use the phone again or even think about it. I was sitting beside the driver, and the driver was sitting erect at the wheel.

On a sudden, stupid impulse, I struck at the driver's head, and my hand went through it without touching anything. I groped with my hand until I felt the man's limp head where my eyes said his shoulder was.

With a suppressed shudder, I drew my hand away and sat back in the seat to wait. It couldn't be long now.

The car turned a corner and continued at a much slower pace. It went perhaps a hundred yards before it pulled to the curb and stopped. Across the street I saw the police station. The entrance looked like any other store or business entrance, but a marquee-sign above the entrance read: "Section 4 Police Station."

The driver sat motionless behind the wheel. He would not move, I knew, until....

I shrugged, picked up the defense mech, and opened the door.

Pedestrians walked by along the sidewalk, and autos glided in both directions on the street. Dogs yapped at my heels. I ignored them. They did not exist.

But I knew the police station did exist.

I walked directly toward the entrance--a long kitty-corner across the street. When a powerfully humming auto headed toward me, I closed my eyes and braced myself and continued walking.

It is not a pleasant sensation to be run down by a car--even a dream-car with no substance.

My skin was prickly and my palms moist. I could feel the blood pounding in my head.

The door to the police station was open. A short flight of stairs went up to another door that was closed. I did not ring the bell, but opened the door and stepped into the reception room.

The room was empty except for the uniformed policeman sitting at the radio bank on the other side of the railing with his back to me. He wore earphones.

As the door clicked shut, the policeman turned in his swivel chair to face me.

"Hello, Langston, we've been expecting you," he said.

It was Isaac Grogan.

I smiled and replied with calmness that amazed me:

"Yes, I daresay you have, Zan Matl Blekeke."

* * * * *

Maxwell and I were alone in the small, bare, brightly lighted but windowless room.

Blekeke had spent a half-hour after my arrival trying to find out how much I knew. But after my initial shocker--letting him know that I recognized him--I had kept my mind closed tightly; and I was keeping it closed now. Blekeke was still listening in--I had no doubt of that. Maxwell knew it too, for he made no attempt at conversation.

He sat with his back to the walls in one corner, and I crouched in another corner, and we sat there, staring at the walls and at each other, not daring to speak or to think.

After about ten or fifteen minutes the door opened, and Blekeke stepped in. He was wearing earphones, and a wire trailed behind him. In one hand he carried a blaster.

He smiled broadly and nodded, once at each of us. "Something show you," he said. "Watching."

He pushed a button on the wall beside the door and the lights died. For an instant everything was black, and I braved myself. Then the wall beside Blekeke glowed, flickered--and a scene in black and white came into focus.

"This observer room," Blekeke said. "Show what camera top meeting hall see."

The scene was dim; a half-moon bobbed and splashed in ocean waves in the background. In the right foreground, close and large, dark and dull, was the spaceship.

It was Martian, but not military. An old cargo carrier. Its rear jets were extinguished, but the ship was vibrating.

_Leaving?_ I wondered--and Blekeke caught my thought over the telenizer earphones.

_No--just arriving_, was his answer in my mind. _But it leave again very soon. You with. Soon no matter what you know. What did. Soon gone._

_How soon?_ I demanded.

Blekeke spoke aloud: "Very soon. Fifteen, twenty, half-hour minutes. Looking more. All way right."

I looked at the extreme right edge of the picture, where a rough, shadowy hillock arose. While I watched, an opening appeared in the hillock and a dim human figure emerged. It stood erect and walked across the stretch of gravel beach toward the spaceship. Another figure came from the hillock aperture and followed the first.

The thought came from Blekeke: _Cultists. Evidence. Prove my success._

_Success in what? Why? How?_

Blekeke pushed the button on the wall again, and the lights were suddenly on, and the wall bare.

"No harm tell you now," he said. "Gone soon. No matter."

* * * * *

He leaned against the wall and crossed his fragile arms across his huge red chest. He said:

"Mars home dying. You know. Need more somewhere. Earth best, but some Earthmen deciding not want." He shrugged. "Dear Late Doctor--" he did not bother making the mystic sign--"was brilliant man. Dr. Homer Reighardt--know name? Psychiatrist. Very old. No, I not kill; death natural. I wanted live longer, but...." he shrugged again. "Learned much from, howso. He founded cult. I his servant after joining. He idea very innocent--cure not really sick with mild 'nosis."

He smiled modestly. "I also brilliant person. Learn tech part much rapid. Apply own idea, which not so innocent. Fact, very insidious. Telenize right persons, they _want_ Martian then! Vote to let come, yups?"

Maxwell broke in: "Then why didn't you start in on the right people at once? Why not set up your headquarters in Belgrade and telenize the World Council members, instead of playing around with a bunch of hypochondriacs here?"

Blekeke held up his hand. "So fast not so. Must work with what got. Doctor machine very simple, and he telling me not all. Not trusting even me all way. Needing much work, then. Muchness development. Six months I working, then need testing. SRI, oaks? So now have proof for Mars government, which verysome cautious. Demanding evidence."

This time I broke in. "Blekeke," I said, with some of the respect I was beginning to feel for him, "you're a patriot, I guess, and I have to admire you for that. But you're also a damned fool. You can't get away with this--and I think you know it. There are just too many loop-holes."

"Where loop-hole?"

"Well, in the first place, I made a phone call before I got here--while I was in the car and my defense mech was on. As a result, the police will be here in a very few minutes--probably before you can get to the rocket--"

Blekeke smiled blandly. "Where second place?"

"In the second place, assuming that you do get to the spaceship and take off before the police get here, it still won't matter. They _know_, now, who has been operating the telenizer. They can track you down. You'll be picked up long before you get to Mars." I stood up and strode purposefully toward him. "Give me the blaster, dammit. You're licked before you're even started."

Blekeke frowned and pointed the blaster at my chest. "Please. So fast not so. Go back corner, please."

I obediently returned to the corner and sat down. It had been worth a try.

The Martian lowered the weapon and smiled. "You too brave. I not like kill. But pfoof for loop-hole. All plugged. Looking what front-door camera see. Polices here now."

He pushed the button on the wall.

* * * * *

A police auto was screeching to a halt in the driveway before the big house, and a half-dozen uniformed men, armed with deadly blasters, were piling out. Another car was whipping around the final curve.

I knew that Maxwell was giving me a look of gratitude, but suddenly I wasn't sure it was warranted. I had assumed on a sort of blind faith that the police would get here in time--but as I watched the scene, I didn't feel so good.

For the policemen were not charging the house. They were not even looking at it.

They were milling around, aimlessly. No, not aimlessly, exactly. They were looking _for_ something; but they weren't seeing it. One of them got back in the car and used the radio, and the others wandered around, glancing unseeingly in all directions.

"Mass telenosis?" I asked quietly, not taking my eyes from the scene, feeling my heart pound harder as I caught a glimpse of the bobbing, slower lights of another vehicle on the road far back.

Blekeke said, "Yups. Plug all loop-hole. Police not see house, not see ship. No one see ship leave, not knowing Blekeke on board. Complete vanish." He shrugged. "Ship keep commercial schedule. Take auxiliary power to right course, then switch rocket. Stopped on way, maybe, so what? Telenize searchers, yups?"

"What about the house?" I asked.

"Go boom when we leave," Blekeke said.

Maxwell said, "Judas! Everyone will just assume that we and Blekeke and all the cultists have gone boom, too. That's likely to end the investigation right there. Slow it down plenty, at least."

Blekeke nodded applaudingly. "Yups. Is so."

He pushed the wall-button and we had the spaceship scene again. Men and Martians were loading large crates into the port of the ship. The other bulky boxes were being moved across the beach from the opening in the hill.

"Leaving soon now," Blekeke said as he switched the lights on. "That most of vital equipment. Other going boom. We work awful quickness, yups?"

"Just how do you mean?" I asked, more to kill time than out of real curiosity.

"Ha! You not knowing how quickness we work since morning--since getting Maxwell brain band on measure machine Sun Ray...."

Maxwell exclaimed; "Oh, hell, of course! Son of a blunder! _That's_ how you got it."

* * * * *

I had already figured that out, and I guessed it was the information Blekeke had gained from Maxwell's mind that was forcing him to act now, before he had planned.

"When learned you planning 'vestigate SRI, had move fast," Blekeke corroborated. "So did. Not know you law man till then. Only that Langston mind stopped 'nosis. Not even knowing why. Worried for while--whew!" He wiped the mock perspiration from his brow and smiled.

I said, "The thugs who attacked Maxwell and me were Grogan's men. May I ask now--just out of curiosity--were they telenized, or was Grogan?"

Blekeke seemed happy to reply. "Grogan. Reighardt happened work on Grogan in CI. Also your brain wave number in file, but I getting first on Sun Ray machine."

I had wondered about that, and there was another question that was bothering me.

"When you started that blood dripping in the bathtub," I said, "was that a deliberate attempt to scare me away, or was that part of the standard treatment?"

"Standard," Blekeke replied. "Subject no longer trust own senses after. But recognize 'nosis, so trying frighten you. Work good on others."

I started to ask another question, but he switched on the spaceship loading scene again.

A crane was hauling the last huge crate into the hold. All the humans--the SRI cultists--were apparently aboard ship. None were visible. A few Martians stood near the ship, some of them looking toward the hillock opening, and some watching the loading.

Suddenly two policemen came into view on the screen, walking casually over the hill in which the opening was located. At the top they halted and looked out over the ocean.

One of the men looked over his shoulder and pulled a bottle from an inside pocket. He offered it to his companion, who shook his head. The man shrugged and took a deep swallow himself, tucking the bottle inside his jacket again.

I caught a sudden note of mild alarm from Blekeke's mind, which reminded me that he was still listening for careless thoughts of mine.

The policemen continued walking toward the beach, heading to the right of the spaceship. I saw one of the Martians step back into the shadow of the ship. The others followed the policemen with their eyes.

"We best going now," Blekeke said. He reached to turn off the picture....

And his hand froze. He saw the same thing I saw, and at just about the same time.

He saw a dog.

And he must have felt the triumphant, incoherent chortle that gushed from my mind.

* * * * *

The dog was a small, ragged, spotted terrier. It came trotting absentmindedly over the hill after the policemen, and at the top it stopped. It quivered. It sat down, pointed its nose at the spaceship and opened its mouth in a howl I could almost hear.

Then the scene was gone; the lights in the room glowed; Blekeke was pointing the blaster at me.

And his trigger finger was trembling.

He was shaking, very slightly, all over. His red-hued skin had turned a much paler shade.

I don't think I moved a muscle while I waited for him to speak.

"I should killing you," he said. "Right now, I should killing you. Then maybe killing me. Or make boom." He laughed shrilly, almost hysterically. "You very cleverish. Finding one weakener. Tell polices bringing dogs."

"Why, no," I said. "As a matter of fact, I told the dogs to bring the police."

That caught his interest. His hand on the blaster relaxed enough so that I could breath.

"That call I made from the car, coming here," I said. "It wasn't to the police. After the results of my first call to them, I thought it was just possible that you had somehow telenized all the desk sergeants. I wasn't thinking too sharp just then. Anyway, I called the city dog pound, instead. I told 'em to get as many dogs out here as fast as they possibly could."

Blekeke spoke in a very soft voice. "Cleverly, cleverly. And I giving self way."

"You sure did," I agreed. "There's dogs in every damn vision you dream up, you hate 'em so much. Same way some people have snakes."

Blekeke gestured with the blaster. He had regained some of his color, and he wasn't trembling. "Getting up now. We leaving. Not kill if not necessary."

Maxwell and I stood up. Blekeke backed through the door, motioning for us to follow. He walked us ahead of him along a corridor and down two flights of stairs, staying a safe distance behind us.

The entrance to the tunnel was in the basement, through a door that looked like any other door.

Blekeke took off the earphones he was wearing and tossed them aside.

"This 'nizer blow up with house," he said.

The tunnel was wide, straight and brightly lighted. The opposite end was a small black dot, but it didn't take us long to get there.

My thoughts were running wild, now that no one was listening.

The dogs had bothered Blekeke, but how badly? He seemed so damned sure of himself now. No hesitation at all. Or--was it merely resignation? I didn't know. But if he once got us aboard that spaceship, his plan had a ridiculously good chance of succeeding.

... And would that be so bad? Were his motives so ignoble, or his methods so very atrocious?

I drove that line of thought from my mind. I could think about that later....

* * * * *

From the outside entrance of the tunnel, the dark spaceship seemed disturbingly close, and the expanse between it and us free of impediments of any kind. Only fifty or sixty quick steps, and then.... The Martians at the ship saw us and climbed aboard. The ship was beginning to vibrate again.

The two policemen were wandering around by the water's edge. We could hear the dogs howling. Several others had joined in now, but we couldn't see them. They were above us.

"Walk slow to ship," Blekeke instructed, tenseness obvious in his voice. "Casual. Like nothing. I right behind."

Maxwell and I glanced at each other and stepped from the aperture to the gravelly beach and started walking very slowly and casually toward the spaceship.

We had gone about ten feet when we heard, in the short intervals when the dogs weren't howling, the crunching footsteps of Blekeke behind us. They were faltering.

I couldn't resist a backward glance.

I saw about a half-dozen dogs on the hill behind and above Blekeke. They were squatting on their haunches, noses pointed at the spaceship, and they were creating the damnedest racket I had ever heard. Surely the cops would at least _suspect_ something!

Blekeke was walking stiffly, slowly, keeping the blaster pointed at us, making a visible effort not to turn around.

"Hey, you goddam dogs!" one of the policemen on the beach shouted. "Shut the hell up!" He picked up a rock and threw it, but he was too far away. The missile whizzed low over my head. I ducked instinctively, turning to see where the stone hit. It missed the dogs by a good fifteen or twenty feet.

Other policemen were appearing from the direction of the road, running anxiously toward the dogs, looking in the direction the dogs were pointing.

And seeing nothing.

Other dogs were appearing, too, some well within the vision of Blekeke--but another quick glance showed me that he was staring rigidly ahead and walking steadily.

We were entering the shadow of the spaceship. Less than twenty feet to go. Even in the dim light, I could almost distinguish the features of the Martian waiting there to haul us aboard.

* * * * *

The policemen on the beach were now walking back to join the others. The one who had yelled and thrown the stone now whistled shrilly, and shouted, "Commere, you lousy, flea-bitten mutts, and shut up!"

He whistled again. Insistently.

One dog stopped howling and slunk forward timidly, then halted.

The whistle was a shrill command.

I heard a soft gasp, perhaps a sob, from Blekeke.

The dog trotted slowly, reluctantly, forward, tail between its legs, growling and whining at the same time.

"Running! Running! Hurry!" Blekeke screamed.

Instead, I turned around to watch, and so did Maxwell.

The policeman continued to whistle. Another dog, a large, shaggy collie, left the pack. But it was not timid, and it paid no attention to the policemen--it had seen Blekeke, and it rushed at him, snarling and yapping.

The Martian made a gurgling noise. A shudder shook his frame, and he turned and fired.

I was watching, without really comprehending what I saw, the policeman who had been whistling. Abruptly he stopped whistling. He was _looking_. But not at the dogs, nor at the other policemen. Not even at the shaggy collie that vanished suddenly in a blinding flash.

He was looking at the spaceship. And seeing it. He rubbed a hand across his eyes.

When the collie was hit, the terrier which had slunk forward turned. At five feet from Blekeke, it growled and leaped at him.

Blekeke collapsed. The blaster dropped from his hand, and he crumpled into a trembling, twitching, sobbing lump on the ground.

I rushed to grab the blaster, and Maxwell kicked the snarling, frightened dog away.

At the same time, the policeman yelled, "Jupiter! It _is_ a spaceship! I knew I seen somethin'. I may have had a drink, but I ain't crazy!"

He fired while he was yelling, and the Martian who had been leaning from the port ducked inside. The ship shuddered and rose quickly, with a rumble that was almost drowned by the racket the dogs were making.

The policeman rubbed his eyes. "Huh?... I coulda swore I saw a spaceship. Right _there_. Just _now_. Just a second ago."

"Man, you really _are_ drunk," his companion said.

The house blew up an instant later. No policemen were killed or injured in the explosion. They were all gathered on the beach to see why the dogs were howling.

It took a bit of explaining.