Chapter VI: Sprung by the Foe

John Cauldron made contact with Peter Moray shortly after Virginia had gone. Moray, busy with the details at hand, had not given much time to thinking out the course of the future. Besides, it was Moray's business to act upon orders from above. His was not the planner's lot.

"What's cooking?" he asked Cauldron.

"We're putting on a security silence on the space resonators," replied Cauldron.

"Why?"

"Whether they think Bronson insane or not, whether he lives or dies, we must see that there are as many bits of radioisotopic phosphor in Earth One as possible."

"Yes, but--"

"Bronson may be judged insane. However, give him a chance and he will demonstrate the space resonator. If he should pick up an Earth Two broadcast or even a molecular pattern it will lend weight to his tale. On the other hand, Bronson will be given credit--sane or otherwise--for the invention of a new level of communication.

"When it becomes known that gross matter can be shipped across space with the same scientific concept people will rush madly to develop and build delivery sets."

"I get it."

"Sure," replied Cauldron. "It's easy enough. Tell Virginia--"

"She's gone already. She left to take care of Bronson."

"Oh blast! Look, Moray, how are people dressed there?"

"Why--I wouldn't know. Bronson was in pajamas when I intercepted him and it's just barely morning now. I've not really been out yet."

"You should have taken time to get Virginia fixed up as close to one of the women of this world as possible."

"Why?"

"Because she'll be less conspicuous," said Bronson. "If they get to peering into Bronson's mind they'll come to the conclusion that he isn't as mad as his tale sounds. Give them one overly-conspicuous character to look at and they will definitely begin to think loud thoughts."

"Well, why shouldn't Virginia get along?" demanded Moray.

"You're a young squirt," snapped Cauldron shortly. "You weren't around before the blow-up. You haven't the vaguest idea of how much time and hard money was spent by women on the luxury of appearing beautiful. That has been curtailed on Earth Two by necessity and emergency. But I'll bet a tall hat that they are still shelling out plenty there. Is there a telephone book handy?"

"Yeah," said Moray.

"Then crack it to the classified section and tell me how many pages there are of beauty shops, beauty salons, beauticians, or whatever they're called."

Silence ensued for several minutes and then Peter Moray returned and gave Cauldron the answer.

"You see?" replied Cauldron. "You have no idea of how life is lived when there is no cause for fear."

"So--"

"So I'd feel better if Virginia were heading for that place in something better than a hand-made dress of reclaimed cloth, a self-done hairdo and flat-heeled slippers. Besides," he chuckled wryly, "it would help her morale no end."

Harry Maddox turned from the hapless spectacle of Ed Bronson and shrugged. "He's safe," he said. "Now what?..."

* * * * *

"They've gone into a security silence," said Kingston. "As we expected."

"Then our friend Bronson is no longer needed?"

"Nope. They'll get along without him, now. What worries me is that the psychiatrist may get to work on Bronson long enough to establish a reasonable doubt in their minds."

"Even so," said Maddox thoughtfully, "we're stuck. Supposing we were to kill him? It's obviously impossible in that room. It is equally impossible for him to escape nor can we arrange it."

"What we need is a person who might be quite willing to murder Bronson in cold blood for the sake of murder itself--or even better, for some mundane motive."

"What about the characters from Earth Two?" suggested Maddox.

"Let's find 'em," snapped Kingston, apparently struck with an idea.

Maddox had little trouble in locating Moray. He looked in on Peter Moray for a moment, and then went in search of Virginia. Virginia, apparently, had disappeared.

It was quite impossible to search every possible place in Albuquerque for a glimpse of Virginia and, after covering the pathway to and from Bronson's cottage to the police station and thence to the police hospital, Maddox gave up and returned to Moray, who had stopped speaking to Cauldron. As Moray turned away from the equipment, the telephone rang, and he went to it, wondering.

Moray lifted the phone and said, gingerly, "Yes? This is the Brons--"

"Moray! This is Virginia. I'm going to dig Bronson out of the clink and bring him home. You hide or at least lie low. Follow?"

"Where are you?"

Virginia named an address.

Kingston snapped, "Get that address--quick. Know where it is?"

"Heck," drawled Maddox insolently, "This is the same Albuquerque. Sure I know the address."

The video screen showed a blur, and settled on the showroom of a ladies' apparel shop. Virginia was just hanging up the telephone and Maddox whistled.

"Knockout," he said succinctly.

"She got the works," grinned Kingston. "Thanks to her we can watch."

"Well," said Maddox thoughtfully, "there goes your party with murderous intent, and quite worldly too."

Kingston nodded. "That automatic in her bag isn't an unaccustomed weapon," he said thoughtfully. "And she can and will claim attack. Self defense...."

Clad in a printed silk that graced her svelte body caressingly, with the sheerest of hose, the seams of which ran die-true down from the hem of her dress to her sandal-shod, tiny feet, Virginia Carlson of Earth Two was well on her way to being the most fetching woman in three worlds. Her hair had been coiffed to perfection and her face had been made up by an expert.

Virginia looked soft and sweet and perfect. She was a sight that made men turn to watch but not to whistle because she radiated some quality that rendered the wolf-whistle a definite insult.

Then, patting the automatic confidently, Virginia turned down along the street once more and headed for the police hospital. Though she could not know it, the plane of focus of the video resonator followed her. Maddox and Kingston were watching her as she went.

"Once this is finished," thought Virginia, "I shall enjoy living like this!"

Her feet, unaccustomed to dancing, did a pointless little step. Her eyes sparkled, iris wide even in the morning sunshine, for Earth One had no eternal light in the sky to keep a dazzling brightness day and night. She pirouetted once and the sleek silk frock whirled and clung to her legs. As she stopped, the weight of the automatic in her bag hit her and reminded her of a job to be done before all this could be hers.

Bronson must be stopped--somehow!

Virginia knew how.

With a fetching smile on her face Virginia entered the police hospital and asked for the police physician. Doctor Mason came and was a bit set back by the obviously high quality of his caller.

"You're--?"

"Virginia Wells. I'm a friend of Mr. Bronson."

"Indeed? A peculiar case, Miss Wells," he observed gravely.

"Not at all," she said with a smile. "Mr. Bronson, as a hobby, has been writing fiction and we got into an argument as to whether high authority could hear a rather bizarre tale without thinking the story teller was insane. I won."

"So that's it," grunted Doctor Mason. "He sounded sincere enough to me."

Virginia shrugged shapely shoulders and hurled at him the dazzle of her smile. "After all," she said in an entrancing contralto, "he is a successful author even though he doesn't work at it one hundred percent of the time. He should be able to concoct a story that would hold water, and he should be convincing. Why, that's his business!"

"Um."

Mason left the office for a moment and came back with Bronson at his heels--dressed.

* * * * *

Virginia gave Bronson a warning look and then laughed at him. "Like spending the night in the clink, Ed?" she asked brightly.

"No!" he snapped.

"You needn't have," she said with a smile. "All you had to do was tell them the truth. Why, they'd have thrown Orson Welles into jail for the Martian Invasion if he hadn't been famous."

Bronson started. The Orson Welles affair had taken place a long time ago--before either of them were born, in fact. This rather glorious girl was trying to tell him something.

"Yeah," he drawled, stalling for time.

"All right, so you lost," she told him. "And now, if you don't have to stay here for playing pranks, we can go on home and write it up."

Bronson looked at Mason. Mason shrugged. "What's the pitch?" he asked. "As for me, no--we don't want you though I'd like to have you reprimanded for wasting time."

"Come to think of it, Doctor Mason, how should a man try to tell high authority of some impending form of outrageous doom?" asked Virginia.

"Why--" stammered Doctor Mason, "I--"

"Yes," snapped Bronson angrily. "Tell us!"

"Why?"

"Because," said Virginia, sweetly, "some day someone is really going to come up with invaders from outer space or some other unbelievable little item and, while the big bright brass is psychoanalyzing the discoverer, the invasion or the doom will take place."

"Why--I'm--"

"Forget it, Mason," said Bronson. Then, because he was completely unaware of his visitor's name or anything else about her save that she knew something that prompted her to aid him, Bronson turned to the girl and held out an elbow.

"May I escort you home, Madame Pompadour?"

Virginia smiled at him with exaggerated enticement. "Only if you want to be Benjamin Franklin, dear."

Doctor Mason stood up and hurled the door open angrily. "Get the devil out of here!" he snapped. He was still looking for a fine vocabulary when they left. Once outside and on the street beyond, Ed Bronson paused.

"Now," he said seriously, "what in the name of eternal sin is this?"

"I had to get you out of there," she said. "I'm glad you are sharp enough to follow suit."

"You can be glad that Mason did not choose to question me about you," snapped Bronson. "I'd have denied you deeply."

"All a part of your tale to convince," she smiled. "I'd have forced it into the open--forced Mason to let us meet. Then we'd make out."

"Fine, fine," he said with a bitter grin. "Just tell me what the score is right now."

"I happen to know that you are right," she told him.

"But--"

She nodded. She explained at length that she had been tinkering in her cellar and had come in with something that had permitted her to hear his half of the initial discussion with the girl named Carlson.

She paused at that point and grinned at him. "Just to keep the record clear," she said, "I'm Virginia Wells."

"Well, Miss Wells, I'm grateful. But what does a girl like you find interesting in tinkering in the cellar?"

"You call me Virginia like everybody else," she told him. "As for tinkering in the cellars, when has a woman's appeal anything to do with the liking for science--and furthermore I might even resent the phrase 'like you' that was hurled at me. Do you think anybody that looks like this must necessarily be completely vacant above the ears?"

Bronson smiled. "Not every girl," he said with a sour smile. "But the percentage assays high."

Virginia took a deep breath. Thin though her story was, he'd accepted it for the nonce.

"Where do we go from here?" he asked. "I want to reason this thing out."

Virginia smiled tolerantly. "My equipment isn't very good," she said. "I'd like to see yours."

Bronson smiled. For hours he had been itching to show someone the equipment and this was his chance. He was going to take the opportunity regardless of where the chance came. Virginia had known that too!

The girl tucked a slender hand into the crook of his elbow. "Let's go," she said with a bright smile.

Bronson nodded and they started toward his home.

He walked easily, she thought, neither too fast nor too slowly. His stride seemed to coincide with hers so that the periods of out-of-step walking were minimized. They were not nonexistent, for Ed Bronson was a tall, long-legged man and, though Virginia's legs were long and slender, she was not so tall as Ed Bronson by seven inches.

"I might suggest," said Bronson thoughtfully, "that we can do a bit of talking while we collect us some lunch. Me--I'm hungry."

Virginia paused. Visiting a restaurant was another thing that was seldom done on Earth Two, excepting by those who found it essential. This she viewed as another luxury and she wanted to try it. On the other hand, she had too thin a story prepared regarding her 'experiments' with the space-resonant crystals of radioisotopic phosphor, of her listening to Bronson and his subsequent rescue from the asylum.

Yet--Virginia shrugged slightly--she could probably handle this. Besides, she could learn more of Earth One were she to visit with Bronson.

Virginia nodded and smiled at him. Bronson paused in mid-stride and turned toward a small restaurant he knew. Inwardly he chuckled to himself. It was not always that a woman rescuer, fellow scientist and friend-indeed was so very delectable. Bronson was proud to have such a woman in his company.