_[5]_
Two-fifths of a second. That was all the time Bart Stanton had from thefirst moment his supersensitive ears heard the first faint whisper ofmetal against leather.
He made good use of the time.
The noise had come from behind and slightly to the left of him, so hedrew his left-hand weapon and spun to the left as he dropped to acrouch. He had turned almost completely around, drawn his gun, and firedthree shots before the other man had even leveled his own weapon.
The bullets from Stanton's gun made three round spots on the man'sjacket, almost touching each other, and directly over the heart. The manblinked stupidly for a moment, looking down at the spots.
"My God," he said softly.
Then he returned his own weapon slowly to its holster.
The big room was noisy. The three shots had merely added to the noise ofthe gunfire that rattled intermittently around the two men. And eventhat gunfire was only a part of the cacophony. The tortured molecules ofthe air in the room were so besieged by the beat of drums, the blare oftrumpets, the crackle of lightning, the rumble of heavy machinery, thesquawks and shrieks of horns and whistles, the rustle of autumn leaves,the machine-gun snap of popping popcorn, the clink and jingle of fallingcoins, and the yelps, bellows, howls, roars, snarls, grunts, bleats,moos, purrs, cackles, quacks, chirps, buzzes, and hisses of a myriad ofanimals, that each molecule would have thought that it was being shovedin a hundred thousand different directions at once if it had had a mindto think with.
The noise wasn't deafening, but it was certainly all-pervasive.
Bart Stanton had reholstered his own weapon and half opened his lips tospeak when he heard another sound behind him.
Again he whirled, his guns in his hands--both of them this time--and hisforefingers only fractions of a millimeter from the point that wouldfire the hair triggers.
But he did not fire.
The second man had merely shifted the weapons in his holsters and thendropped his hands away.
The noise, which had been flooding the room over the speaker system,died instantly.
Stanton shoved his guns back into place and rose from his crouch. "Realcute," he said, grinning. "I wasn't expecting that one."
The man he was facing smiled back. "Well, Bart, perhaps we have provedour point. What do you think, Colonel?" The last was addressed to thethird man, who was still standing quietly, looking worried and surprisedabout the three spots on his jacket that had come from the specialharmless projectiles in Stanton's gun.
Colonel Mannheim was four inches shorter than Stanton's five-ten, andwas fifteen years older. But in spite of the differences, he would havelaughed if anyone had told him five minutes before that he couldn'toutdraw a man who was standing with his back turned.
His bright blue eyes, set deep beneath craggy brows in a tanned face,looked speculatively at the younger man.
"Incredible," he said gently. "Absolutely incredible." Then he looked atthe other man, a lean civilian with mild blue eyes a shade lighter thanhis own. "All right, Farnsworth; I'm convinced. You and your staff havequite literally created a superman. Anyone who can stand in anoise-filled room and hear a man draw a gun twenty feet behind him isincredible enough. The fact that he could and did outdraw and outshootme after I had started--well, that's almost beyond comprehension."
He looked back at Bart Stanton. "What's your opinion? Do you think youcan handle the Nipe, Stanton?"
Stanton paused imperceptibly before answering, while his ultrafast mindconsidered the problem before arriving at a decision. Just how muchconfidence should he show the colonel? Mannheim was a man withtremendous confidence in his own abilities, but who was neverthelesscapable of recognizing that there were men who were his superiors in onefield or another.
"If I can't dispose of the Nipe," Stanton said, "no one can."
Colonel Mannheim nodded slowly. "I believe you're right," he said atlast. His voice was firm with inner conviction. He shot a glance atFarnsworth. "How about the second man?"
Farnsworth shook his head. "He'll never make it. In another two years wecan put him into reasonable shape again, but his nervous system justcouldn't stand the gaff."
"Can we get another man ready in time?"
"Hardly. We can't just pick a man up off the street and turn him into asuperman. Even if we could find another subject with Bart's geneticpossibilities, it would take more time than we have to spare."
"No way at all of cutting the time down?"
"This isn't magic, Colonel," Farnsworth said. "You don't change a nobodyinto a physical and mental giant by saying _abracadabra_ or by teachinghim how to pronounce _shazam_ properly."
"I'm aware of that," said the colonel without rancor. "It's just that Ikeep feeling that five years of work on Mr. Stanton should have taughtyou enough to be able to repeat the process in less time."
Farnsworth repeated the head-shaking. "Human beings aren't machines,Colonel. They require time to heal, time to learn, time to integratethemselves. Remember that, in spite of our increased knowledge ofanesthesia, antibiotics, viricides, and obstetrics, it still takes ninemonths to produce a baby. We're in the same position, if not more so.After all, we can't even allow for a premature delivery."
"I know," said Mannheim.
"Besides," Dr. Farnsworth continued, "Stanton's body and nervous systemare now close to the theoretical limit for human tissue. I'm afraid youdon't realize what kind of mental stability and organization arerequired to handle the equipment he has now."
"I'm sure I don't," Colonel Mannheim agreed. "I doubt if anyone besidesStanton himself _really_ knows." He looked at Bart Stanton. "That's itthen, son. You're it. You're the only answer we've found so far. And theonly answer visible in the foreseeable future to the problem posed bythe Nipe."
The colonel's face seemed to darken. "Ten years," he said in a lowvoice. "Ten years that inhuman monster has been loose on Earth. He'sbecome a legend. He's replaced Satan, the Bogeyman, Frankenstein'smonster, and Mumbo Jumbo, Lord of the Congo, in the public mind. Readthe newsfacs, watch the newscasts. Take a look at popular fiction. He'severywhere at once. He can do anything. He's taken on the attributes ofthe djinn, the vampire, the ghoul, the werewolf, and every other horrorand hobgoblin that the mind of man has conjured up in the past halfmillion years."
"That's hardly surprising, Colonel," Bart Stanton said with a wry smile."If a human being had gone on a ten-year rampage of robbery and murder,showing himself as callously indifferent to human life and property asyou and I would be to the life and property of a cockroach, and if, inaddition, he proved impossible to catch, such a person would be lookedupon as a demon too. And if you add to that the fact that the Nipe is_not_ human, that he is as frightening in appearance as he is inactions, what can you expect?"
"I agree," said Dr. Farnsworth. "Look at Jack the Ripper and considerhow he terrorized London a couple of centuries ago."
"I know," said Colonel Mannheim. "There have been human criminals whoseactions could be described as 'inhuman', but the Nipe has some touchesthat few human criminals have thought of and almost none would have thecapacity to execute. If he has time to spare, his victims become anannoying problem in identification when they're found. He leaves nothingbut well-gnawed bones. And by 'time to spare', I mean twenty or thirtyminutes. The damned monster has a very efficient digestive tract, ifnothing else. He eats like a shrew."
"And if he doesn't have time, he beats them to death," Bart Stanton saidthoughtfully.
Colonel Mannheim frowned. "Not exactly. According to the evidence--"
Dr. Farnsworth interrupted him. "Colonel, let's go into the lounge,shall we? Aside from the fact that standing around in an empty chamberlike this isn't the most comfortable way to discuss the fate of mankind,this room is scheduled for other work."
Colonel Mannheim grinned, caught up by the touch of lightness that thebiophysicist had injected into the conversation. "Very well. I could dowith some coffee, if you have some."
"All you wan
t," said Dr. Farnsworth, leading the way toward the door ofthe chamber and opening it. "Or, if you'd prefer something with a littlemore power to it...."
"Thanks, no," said Mannheim. "Coffee will do fine. How about you,Stanton?"
Bart Stanton shook his head. "I'd love to have some coffee, but I'llleave the alcohol alone. I'd just have the luck to be finishing a drinkwhen our friend, the Nipe, popped in on us. And when I do meet him, I'mgoing to need every microsecond of reflex speed I can scrape up."
They walked down a soft-floored, warmly lit corridor to an elevatorwhich whisked them up to the main level of the Neurophysical InstituteBuilding.
Another corridor led them to a room that might have been the common roomof one of the more exclusive men's clubs. There were soft chairs andshelves of books and reading tables and smoking stands, all quietlyluxurious. There was no one in the room when the three men entered.
"We can have some privacy here," Dr. Farnsworth said. "None of the restof the staff will come in until we're through."
He walked over to a table, where an urn of coffee radiated soft warmth."Cream and sugar over there on the tray," he said as he began to fillcups.
The cups were filled and the three men sat down in a triangle of chairsbefore any of them spoke again. Then Bart Stanton said:
"I made the remark that if the Nipe doesn't have time to eat his victimshe just beats them to death, and you started to say something, Colonel."
Colonel Mannheim took a sip from his cup before he spoke. "Yes. I wasgoing to say that, according to the evidence we have, he _always_ beatshis victims to death, whether he manages to eat them or not."
"Oh?" Stanton looked thoughtful.
"Oh, he's not cruel about it," the colonel said. "He kills quickly andneatly. The thing is that he never, under any circumstances, uses anyweapons except the weapons that nature gave him--hands or feet or clawsor teeth. He never uses a gun or a knife or even a club. Dr. Yoritomohas some theories about that which I won't go into now. He'll tell youabout them pretty soon."
Stanton thought about the Japanese scientist and smiled. "I know. Dr.Yoritomo has threatened to tell me all kinds of theories."
"And believe me he will," said Mannheim with a soft chuckle. He tookanother sip of his coffee and then looked up at Stanton. "You've beenthrough five years of hell, Mr. Stanton. In addition, you've been prettymuch isolated here. Dr. Farnsworth, here, has tried to keep youinformed, but, as I understand it, it has only been during the last fewmonths that you've actually been able to absorb and retain informationreliably. At least, that's the report I get. How do you feel about it?"
Bart Stanton thought for a moment. It was true that he'd been out oftouch with what had been going on outside the walls of the NeurophysicalInstitute for the past five years. In spite of the reading he'd done andthe newscasts he'd watched and the TV tapes he'd seen, he still had noreal feeling for the situation.
There had been long hazy periods during that five years. He hadundergone extensive glandular and neural operations of great delicacy,many of which had resulted in what could have been agonizing painwithout the use of suppressors. As a result of those operations, hepossessed a biological engine that, for sheer driving power and nicetyof control, surpassed any other known to exist or to have ever existedon Earth--with the possible exception of the Nipe. But those five yearsof rebuilding and retraining had left a gap in his life.
Several of the steps required to make the conversion from man tosuperman had resulted in temporary insanity; the wild, swingingimbalances of glandular secretions seeking a new balance, the erraticmisfirings of neurons as they attempted to adjust to highernerve-impulse velocities, and the sheer fatigue engendered by cells thatwere acting too rapidly for a lagging excretory system, all hadcontributed to periods of greater or lesser abnormality.
That he was sane now, there was no question. But there were holes in hismemory that still had to be filled.
He admitted as much to Colonel Mannheim.
"I see." The colonel rubbed one hand along the angle of his jaw,considering his next words. "Can you give me, in your own words, ageneral summary of the type of thing the Nipe has been doing?"
"I think so," Stanton said.
His verbal summary was succinct and accurate. The loot that the Nipe hadbeen stealing had, at first, seemed to be a hodgepodge of everything. Itwas unpredictable. Money, as such, he apparently had no use for. He hadtaken gold, silver, and platinum, but one raid for each of theseelements had evidently been enough, with the exception of silver, whichhad required three raids over a period of four years. Since then, hehadn't touched silver again.
He hadn't yet tried for any of the radioactives except radium. He'dtaken a full ounce of that in five raids, but hadn't attempted to gethis hands on uranium, thorium, plutonium, or any of the other elementsnormally associated with atomic energy. Nor had he tried to steal any ofthe fusion materials--the heavy isotopes of hydrogen or any of thelithium isotopes. Beryllium had been taken, but whether there was anysignificance in the thefts or not, no one knew.
There was a pattern in the thefts and robberies, nonetheless. They hadbegun small and had increased. Scientific and technicalinstruments--oscilloscopes, X-ray generators, radar equipment, masersets, dynostatic crystals, thermolight resonators, and so on--werestolen complete or gutted for various parts. After a while, he had goneon to bigger things--whole aircraft, with their crews, had vanished.
That he had not committed anywhere near all the crimes that had beenattributed to him was certain; that he _had_ committed a great many ofthem was equally certain.
There was no doubt at all that his loot was being used to makeinstruments and devices of unknown kinds. He had used several of them onhis raids. The one that could apparently phase out any electromagneticfrequency up to about a hundred thousand megacycles--includingsixty-cycle power frequencies--was considered a particularly cute item.So was the gadget that reduced the tensile strength of concrete to aboutthat of a good grade of marshmallow.
After he had been operating for a few years, there was no installationon Earth that could be considered Nipe-proof for more than a fewminutes. He struck when and where he wanted and took whatever he needed.
It was manifestly impossible to guard against the Nipe, since no oneknew what sort of loot might strike his fancy next, and there wastherefore no way of knowing where or how he would hit next.
Nor could he ever be found after one of his raids. They were plotted andfollowed through with diabolical accuracy and thoroughness. He struck,looted, and vanished. And he wasn't seen again until his next strike.
Colonel Mannheim, who had carefully puffed a cigar alight and smoked itthoughtfully during Stanton's recitation, dropped the remains of thecigar into an ash receptacle. "Accurate but incomplete," he saidquietly. "You must have made some guesses. I'd like to hear them."
Stanton finished the last of his coffee and glanced at Dr. Farnsworth.The biophysicist was thoughtfully looking down at his own cup, hisexpression unreadable.
_All right_, Stanton thought, _he's looking for something. I'll let himhave both barrels and see if I hit the target_.
"I've thought about it," he admitted. He got up, went over to the coffeeurn, and refilled his cup. "I've got a pet theory of my own. It's just anotion, really. I wouldn't dare reduce it to syllogistic form, becauseit might not hold much water, logically speaking. But the evidence seemsconclusive enough to me."
He walked back to his seat. Colonel Mannheim was watching him, a look ofinterest on his face, but he said nothing.
"To me," Stanton said, "it seems incredible that the combinedintelligence and organizational ability of the UN Government isincapable of finding anything out about one single alien, no matter howcompetent he may be. Somehow, somewhere, someone must have gotten a lineon the Nipe. He must have a base for his operations, and someone shouldhave found it by this time.
"I may be faster and stronger and more sensitive than any other livinghuman being, but that doesn't mean I have supe
rhuman powers, or that I'ma magician. And I'm quite certain that you, Colonel, don't credit mewith such abilities. You don't believe that I can do in a short timewhat the combined forces of the Government couldn't do in ten. Certainlyyou wouldn't rely too heavily on it.
"And yet, apparently, you are.
"To me, that can only mean that you have another ace up your sleeve. You_know_ we're going to get the Nipe fairly quickly. You either have asure way of tracing him, or you already know where he is.
"Which is it?"
Colonel Mannheim sighed. "We know where he is," he said. "We have knownfor six years."