Chapter V

Jean Sanders tossed her pencil down on the desk and flopped down cross-legged on the floor. "I think we're going around in circles," she said disgustedly. "Three separate circles," she added, with an owlish glance at Bob Roberts.

"All right, we're tired," the Security chief sighed. "We've been at this for hours."

"It's here," Faircloth said stubbornly. "We've got all the information we need, if we can only pin down the application. Or at least we've got enough information to make a start."

"The more I see of the whole business," said the girl, "the more it looks fishy to me." She lit a cigarette thoughtfully. Her face was slender, with black brows and big grey eyes, and her slim figure made her look sixteen. "And it gets fishier and fishier the more we talk."

Paul nodded. "Exactly. There's something that we aren't seeing or realizing or that we just don't know about this creature."

"Well, let's try classifying what we do know," said Roberts. "We've got a picture that isn't worth a plugged nickel. We've got a few photos of the outside of the ship before it exploded. We know that he's psi-triple-high, fully telepathic, with the ability to fuzz up his observer's perception of him."

"Disguise," said Jean. "It isn't perfect. He needs that to hide the wrinkles in the disguise."

Faircloth walked across the room, staring at the walls. "Then there's the ship. It was found near Gutenberg, Iowa, on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi, three months ago. That's a fact. Farm kids found the ship but didn't go near it. Scared stiff. Told their father and he called Security. I don't suppose there was any way of telling how long the ship had been there?"

Roberts shook his head. "Biologists and geologists both had a whack at it, but the explosion destroyed all the flora and ground area within twenty feet of it."

"Well, anyway, no occupant of the ship was found, and no trace of where the occupant might have gone. Security sent a scout squad down to photograph the ship and it blew into a million pieces."

"That's right."

"How many of the million pieces were recovered?"

"About ten. Magnesium alloy. Told us nothing."

Faircloth nodded. "Okay. Then the Psi-High report came in from Des Moines, and you turned up the farmer and his wife who saw the Alien the first night. What was their name? Bettendorf, I think. Jacob Bettendorf. Rather dull folks. They fed him and sent him on his way. Noticed nothing odd, but the farmer said his eyes felt tired all the time the creature was there. How did their description jive with the others you've gotten?"

Roberts shrugged. "The same--or I should say, uniformly different. Nobody seems to agree. It's obvious that they don't actually see him in any detail at all. They just think they do."

"You know," said the girl, suddenly, "that's one of the things that bothers me. A lot of those people out there are Ben Towne's stoutest supporters. They don't like Psi-Highs. They keep their eyes open for people that act like Psi-Highs--you know, the way we're likely to nod and start answering a question before a person gets it half asked--or the way we sometimes forget our expressions when we've had an accidental peep at some sweet innocent young girl's inner thoughts. Those people can spot that. But the Alien went right through. Not even a suspicion."

"He got into the city fast, though," said Roberts. "City folks are likely to be a lot less observant than country people."

"All right," said Paul. "That fits well enough. Now, since he destroyed his ship, we can assume that he is planning to stay a while. That probably means that there have been others before him. He's too confident for an advance scout. He knew he could mingle, and stay, and observe, and learn, and get away with it. Probably his job is to accumulate information, detailed information about human beings, and with full blown telepathy he must really be making hay. And unless I miss my guess, the information he wants most of all is information about Psi-Highs." Faircloth faced Roberts and the girl. "This is beginning to add up now. I don't think we're going to catch him in a dragnet. No matter how skillfully it's laid. No matter how many Psi-Highs we have on it, and no matter how well trained they are."

Roberts looked disgusted. "Then you're saying that we aren't going to get him, period."

"Oh, no. I think we can catch him. At least I've got an angle that's worth trying. We'll have no way of evaluating it first, because of the nature of the thing, but in the end we'll either have the Alien or we won't, and I think there's a good chance that we will. If we keep playing the Chicago game we'll lose every time."

"But what went wrong in Chicago?" Roberts cried.

"Nothing, except that we were licked before we started. Look at it this way. He's outguessed us every time. And if you analyze that a little, it's not really surprising that he has because he's telepathic. He does not need a twenty-page report and a road map to know what's going on around him. All he needs is a hint. Just a bare touch of man's mind, a slight flicker of contact, and he has enough of a head start to sit down and figure out everything that's going to happen from then on. Just like a chess game. You play along and suddenly your opponent makes a move that reveals a whole gambit which you hadn't been able to see before. But our Alien friend spots the gambit on the basis of the first move instead of the tenth. We make a move and he has it pinned. He knows we operate along fairly logical lines. He can follow out the logical possibilities before they happen, and there's no possible way we can trap him. Psi-Highs or no Psi-Highs."

Roberts scowled at him. "Then what do you propose?"

Faircloth grinned. "It should be obvious by this time. We feed the computer with all the evidence we have, and let it meditate a while and plot out a supremely logical approach to trap the creature on the basis of what we know of him now. Then we take that supremely logical approach, and change it a bit. We change it into a completely _illogical_ approach."

* * * * *

The call they were waiting for came through at three o'clock one morning, after they had almost given it up in despair.

It had been a long, heartbreaking wait. Time after time Faircloth had pleaded that they must have been very close in Chicago, closer than they realized, that the Alien was just temporarily frightened, because there had been no sign, no due to the Alien's whereabouts, no sign that he was even in existence since the Chicago raid. Yet Faircloth felt sure that sooner or later the contact would come.

It was possible, of course, that the change in the search pattern had worried the Alien. Logically, a dragnet should have been set up in Chicago, and the entranceways to all the large cities guarded carefully. That was what the computer had said. "Probability is very strong that the Alien desires to remain in a city, but suggests that Chicago may not be the optimum location for him. Recommended heavy Security measures be taken in Chicago and surrounding cities of size. The probability is very high that the Alien is seeking some specific information. Advise close control of all spaceports, air, and rolling-road escapeways--"

And so forth. That was what the computer had said. Of course, the computer was far from infallible, but its analysis and recommendations were utterly logical on the basis of the information given it. That was exactly why they were carefully ignored.

It was a gamble, and no one was more aware of this than Faircloth. All Security personnel were withdrawn from the Chicago area, Psi-High and otherwise, except for a small crew headed by Ted Marino, who were scattered throughout the city. A gamble, but it was not entirely guesswork that made Paul so certain that the Alien, if left quite alone, would try to make contact with a Psi-High mind sooner or later. Of course, that conclusion itself was the result of logical reasoning. No matter what efforts were made to remove logic from the approach, it crept in. It had to creep in.

It was logical that a telepathically sensitive creature visiting a strange planet would seek to learn something about the segment of the population that could expose his presence. He would seek signs of his own kind of thought. Paul knew too well that a Psi-High mind that was cut off and alone was a sick mind. That was why Psi-Highs always settled in the cities, why they sought each other with such fierce, desperate clannishness which in itself had bred suspicion of them in the minds of psi-negatives. It was not a matter of choice, with them. It was a desperate need. And Paul knew how overpowering that need could be.

No, logically, the Alien would make contact with a human Psi-High, sooner or later. It would not be difficult to keep control of such a contact. The Psi-Highs were very few, numbering in the hundreds, scattered in colonies in the larger cities of the North American States. With painstaking care each one was contacted and warned, and those in Security Service were spotted in the most likely places for the contact they were waiting for. The roads were left free, and the airports and spaceports were not checked. An invisible network of human minds lay across the country, delicately tuned, waiting for the spark of contact.

Faircloth was asleep when the call finally came. He rolled groggily out of bed, his heart racing, and groped for the visiphone screen. Ted Marino's face materialized on the silvery curve; a frightened, shaking Marino whose eyes were wide with horror, whose hands jerked nervously as he unsuccessfully tried to control them. His voice was on the thin edge of hysteria. "He hit me, Paul. Just a little while ago."

Paul leaned forward, staring at the pale form in the screen. "Ted, are you hurt?"

"No, no. But oh, god!"

"It couldn't have been just another Psi-High contacting you? It's deadly important, Ted--"

Marino shook his head vehemently. "No, no, no. It _couldn't_ have been. I've been in Psi-High contact enough to know what it's like. This was different. It was like he'd lifted off my skull and scooped out my brains."

Faircloth lit a smoke, trembling. "Did you try to fight it?"

The man nodded. "I tried. He was clear in before I knew what had happened, but I tried. I--I think it puzzled him. It didn't do any good at all. He just brushed it aside."

"Ted," said Faircloth. "Now listen. Forget about it. Don't write up a report. Don't even think about it. As far as you're concerned, the job is over. Get dressed, and travel south--down to Florida, Rio, any old place, it doesn't matter where, just go. Use an expense account and have yourself the time of your life."

Marino's eyes opened in amazement. "Are you crazy? I thought this was what--"

"It is. Do what I say and don't worry about it. You're finished on this job. When you've gotten a good rest come back to the Hoffman Center and take up your training with Dr. Abrams where you left off." Paul flipped the switch and turned back to the room, his heart pounding a staccato cadence in his throat. He grinned triumphantly and began to pack his bag.

The chase was on, but this time, the mouse was chasing the cat.