said sharply. "By whom and for howlong?"
He told her of Jaffers' call, and winced at the sudden dismay in herface.
"At best you've killed an inoffensive psychiatrist with your problem,"she said. "At worst--" She came around O'Donnell's desk toward him, hermanner abruptly decisive. "We've less time than I hoped. Come out ofhere, quickly."
In the corridor, she opened her handbag and took out a thick whiteenvelope. "There's no time now for explanations. The clippings will giveyou an idea of what you're up against. Lose your spy if you can anddon't go near your apartment. I'll be at your cabin tonight at 21:00.You'll learn the rest then."
She pressed a stud at the elevator bank and chose an ascending lift.Alcorn realized that there would be a turbo-copter waiting for her onthe roof.
She faced Philip before entering the cage. "You have no chance at allexcept with us. Remember that, or you'll regret it for the rest of your_very_ short life."
Alcorn made no attempt to follow.
"... except with us," Janice Wynn had said.
_Us?_
She was like himself, gifted with his own talent. She was connectedsomehow with the faceless people of his hallucinations.
Who were they, and where were they, and what did they want of him?
* * * * *
He was still groping for the answers when Kitty came toward him. Shegave a little cry of dismay when she saw his face.
"You look simply awful, Philip! Is it another of your--"
With Kitty's arrival, Alcorn's premonition of disaster returned.Something was going to happen to him, _was_ happening to him, and unlesshe moved carefully, it could involve Kitty as well. He had to keep Kittyout of this, which meant that he must stay clear of her until he wassafe.
"It's nothing," he said hastily. "I'll call you later, Kitty. I'veanother appointment now that can't wait."
She put out a hesitant hand. "Philip...."
He wanted desperately to tell her the whole improbable story, to revealhis fears and get the reassurance she was able to give him.
But he couldn't risk involving Kitty in any danger.
"It's nothing," he repeated. He went down the lift quickly because heknew that if he delayed to comfort her, he would never have the courageto go at all.
His only clear thought, as he shouldered his way into the late-afternoonthrong outside CA, had been to escape from Kitty and from the too-vividmemory of Janice Wynn. Now that he must choose a course, he was broughtup short by the fact that, so long as he was tailed by Jaffers' men,there was literally no place for him to go.
He could not go to his apartment because of Jaffers' surveillance. Hehad no intention of meeting Janice Wynn at his Catskill cabin at 21:00.Her obvious knowledge--and, therefore, _theirs_--of the location ruledthat out as a refuge.
He looked about for the inevitable man in gray and found him followingat his careful hundred feet. The crowd caught and bore them both alonglike chips in a millrace, keeping the interval constant.
Alcorn let himself be carried along, feeling the slow release of tensionthat spread outward from him through the throng. The physical pressurewas also eased. People slowed their dogged pace and smiled at utterstrangers.
He had wondered often how the people affected by his circle of calmaccounted for their sudden change of mood. He had dreamed that one dayhe might walk in such a crowd and enter another island of serenity likehis own and thus find another human being gifted like himself. Someonewith his own needs and longings, who would not melt into readycomplaisance when he drew near, but who would speak honestly andclearly, who would understand how he felt and why.
Ironically, when that moment had come in O'Donnell's office, it hadn'tbrought him the fulfillment he had expected. It had left, instead, apanic beyond belief.
Why? What was he afraid of?
There was nothing evil or dangerous in his own gift--why should he fearanother possessing the same wild talent? Damn it, he thought, what sortof fate could be so terrible that its foreshadowing alone could throwhim into such an anxious state?
How could he be sure that the faceless people were hostile? If they werelike Janice Wynn, and if Janice were like himself, it might follownaturally that--
The rustle of the envelope in his pocket was like an answer, provingthat his problem, if nothing else, was real.
"... for the rest of your _very_ short life," she had said.
* * * * *
The sudden sharpening of awareness that preceded a new seizure raspedhim again. He felt the tranquillity about him, and then the arcticmontage swallowed it all, and once again he stood bodiless on thesnow-packed streets of the metal village.
The faceless people moved purposefully now, and beyond them loomed thetowering bulk of scaffolding erected about the pit where the greatbronze cylinder of a ship lay....
Pit?
Scaffolding?
Ship?
He stopped so abruptly that a man behind him stumbled and regainedbalance only by clutching Alcorn's shoulder.
"Sorry," the man murmured, and moved on.
The mirage vanished; the crowd behind pushed on, parting politely aboutAlcorn. The mass farther back surged restlessly, hurrying, grumblinglike an impatient corporate organism. The Jaffers agent, caught in thepress, was borne helplessly nearer.
Alcorn realized his opportunity and stood fast, waiting while the tideof bodies flowed past. The man in gray saw his intention and struggledfrantically to break free of the pinioning crowd.
He failed.
A sort of grim satisfaction fell upon Alcorn when the man's face lostits urgency and settled into smiling unconcern. The gift _was_ a weaponof sorts. The way to escape--at least from Jaffers' surveillance--wasopen.
He fell in beside the spy, paying less attention now to the man himselfthan to the matter of disposing of him. The garish facade of a nearbyjoy-bar solved his problem.
"Come with me," Alcorn ordered.
* * * * *
The joy-bar was less than half full at this early hour, but noisy enoughfor midnight. A concealed battery of robotics ground out a brassy blareof music, integrating random pitches--selected by electronicservo-computers--into the jarring minor cacophony that had become thelatest rage.
The early patrons were intently watching the long telescreen above thebar when Alcorn came in. A quarterstaff bout--a frantic, bloody sportrevived from God only knew how many centuries before--was in progressthere, matching a heavily muscled Nordic with a sandy bristle of hairagainst a swarthy, hairless Eurasian. The Nordic, from his twistedstance, had a couple of broken ribs already; the Eurasian's right eardangled redly.
Alcorn seated himself opposite Jaffers' operative in an isolated boothand fed the coin-slot for drinks.
"Drink," he said grimly. "You're going to be drunker, my friend, thanyou've ever been in your inquisitive life."
The uproar died out before the drinks arrived. Only the blaring musicmachines and the blood-roar of the telescreen remained, and a suddenlyplacid bartender turned both down to a murmur.
The rest was routine to Philip Alcorn's experience. Men at the barturned to each other like old friends, forgetting submerged frustrationsas readily as they forgot the vicious slash-and-parry on the screen. Theplace drowsed in a slow and comfortable silence.
The Jaffers man tossed off his drink and dialed another. Alcorn, raisinghis own, remembered Janice Wynn's letter in his pocket and set the glassdown, untasted.
The clippings, she had said, would give him an idea of what he was upagainst.
His hands shook so violently when he ripped open the envelope that healmost dropped it.
* * * * *
Eight clippings were inside, small teleprinted scissorings from digestnewssheets that were available at any street-corner dispenser. He readthem quickly, and was more puzzled than before until he realized thatthey fell into two general groups of interlocking similar
ities.
Four were accounts of unexplained disappearances. A moderatelysuccessful research chemist named Ellis had vanished from the offices ofhis New York chemical firm; a neighborhood pharmacist in Minneapolis, aspinster tea-shop proprietress in Atlanta and a female social worker inLos Angeles had disappeared with equal thoroughness, completely bafflingthe efforts of police to find them.
None of these people had been of more than minor importance, even in hisown immediate circle. Alcorn felt that these events had been reportedonly because the efficiency of missing-persons bureaus made permanentdisappearance next to impossible. Even so, only one clipping--that onEllis, the New York chemist--bothered to run a photograph.
The other four accounts dealt with violent deaths, all rising fromsudden outbreaks of mob hysteria. Two of the victims had been small-townclergymen, a profession which made their lynchings as startling as theywere inexplicable; both