"No," Powell said sharply. "I didn't come here to peep anybody. I'm sticking to straight talk. You two peepers may consider it an insult to have words addressed to you. I consider it evidence of good faith. While I'm talking. I'm not peeping."
"Not necessarily," Tate answered. His gnome face popped into the light. "You've been known to finesse, Powell."
"Not now. Check me. What I want from you two, I want objectively. I'm working on a murder. Peeping isn't going to do me any good."
"What do you want, Powell?" Church cut in.
"You sold a gun to Gus Tate."
"The hell he did." Tate said.
"Then why are you here?"
"Am I supposed to take an outlandish accusation like that lying down?"
"Church called you because he sold you the gun and he knows how it was used."
Church's face appeared. "I sold no gun, peeper, and I don't know how any gun was used. That's my objective evidence. Eat it."
"Oh, I'll eat it," Powell chuckled. "I know you didn't sell the gun to Gus. You sold it to Ben Reich."
Tate's face came back into the light. "Then why'd you—"
"Why?" Powell stared into Tate's eyes. "To get you here for a talk, Gus. Let it wait a minute. I want to finish with Jerry." He turned toward Church. "You had the gun, Jerry. It's the kind of thing you would have. Reich came here for it. It's the only place he could come. You did business together before. I haven't forgotten the Chaos Swindle..."
"God damn you!" Church shouted.
"It swindled you out of the Guild." Powell continued. "You risked and lost everything for Reich... just because he asked you to peep and squeal on four members of the Stock Exchange. He made a million out of that swindle... just by asking a dumb peeper for a favor."
"He paid for that favor!" Church cried.
"And now all I'm asking for is the gun," Powell answered quietly.
"Are you offering to pay?"
"You know me better than that, Jerry. I threw you out of the Guild because I'm mealy-mouthed Preacher Powell, didn't I? Would I make a shady offer?"
"Then what are you paying for the gun?"
"Nothing, Jerry. You'll have to trust me to do the fair thing; but I'm making no promises."
"I've got a promise," Church muttered.
"You do? Ben Reich, probably. He's long on promise. Sometimes he's short on delivery. You'll have to make up your mind. Trust me or trust Ben Reich. What about the gun?"
Church's face disappeared from the light. After a pause, he spoke from the darkness. "I sold no gun, peeper, and I don't know how any gun was used. That's my objective evidence for the court."
"Thanks, Jerry." Powell smiled, shrugged, and turned again to Tate. "I just want to ask you one question, Gus. Skipping over the fact that you're Ben Reich's accessory... that you pumped Sam @kins about D'Courtney and got the orbits set for him... Skipping over the fact that you went to the Beaumont party with Reich, ran interference for him and've been running interference ever since—"
"Wait a minute, Powell—"
"Don't get panicky, Gus. All I want to know is whether I've guessed Reich's bribe correctly. He couldn't bribe you with money. You make too much. He couldn't bribe you with position. You're one of the top peepers in the Guild. He must have bribed you with power, eh? Is that it?"
Tate was peeping him hysterically, and the calm assurance he found in Powell's mind, the casual acceptance of Tate's ruin as an accomplished fact jolted the little peeper with a series of shocks too sudden for adjustment. And he was communicating his panic to Church. All this Powell had planned in preparation for one crucial moment that was to come later.
"Reich could offer you power in his world," Powell continued conversationally, "But it isn't likely. He wouldn't give up any of his own, and you wouldn't want any of his kind. So be must have offered you power in the Esper world. How could he do that? Well, he finances the League of Esper Patriots. My guess is he offered you power through the League... A coup d'état, maybe? A dictatorship in the Guild? Probably you're a member of the League."
"Listen, Powell..."
"That's my guess, Gus." Powell's voice hardened. "And I've got a hunch I can make my guess good. Did you imagine we'd let you and Reich smash the Guild as easily as that?"
"You'll never prove anything. You'll—"
"Prove? What?"
"Your word against mine. I—"
"You little fool. Haven't you ever been at a peeper trial? We don't run 'em like a court of law, where you swear and then I swear and then a jury tries to figure who's lying. No, little Gus. You stand up there before the board and all the 1sts start probing. You're a 1st, Gus. Maybe you could block two... Possibly three... But not all. I tell you, you're dead."
"Wait a minute, Powell. Wait!" The mannequin face was twitching with terror. "The Guild takes confession into account. Confession before the fact. I'll give you everything right now. Everything. It was an aberration. I'm sane now. Tell the Guild. When you get mixed up with a damned psychotic like Reich, you fall into his pattern. You identify yourself with it. But I'm out of it. Tell the Guild. Here's the whole picture... He came to me with a nightmare about a Man With No Face. He—"
"He was a patient?"
"Yes. That's how he trapped me. He dragooned me! But I'm out of it now. Tell the Guild I'm cooperating. I've recanted. I'm volunteering everything. Church is your witness..."
"I'm not witness," Church shouted. "You dirty squealer. After Ben Reich promised—"
"Shut up. You think I want permanent exile? Like you? You were crazy enough to trust Reich. Not me, thank you. I'm not that crazy."
"You whining yellow peeper. Do you think you'll get off? Do you think you'll—"
"I don't give a damn!" Tate cried. "I don't take that kind of medicine for Reich. I'll bust him first. I'll walk into court and sit on the witness stand and do everything I can to help Powell. Tell that to the Guild, Linc. Tell them that—"
"You'll do nothing of the kind," Powell snapped.
"What?"
"You were trained by the Guild. You're still in the Guild. Since when does a peeper squeal on a patient?"
"It's the evidence you need to get Reich, isn't it?"
"Sure, but I'm not taking it from you. I'm not letting any peeper disgrace the rest of us by walking into court and blabbing."
"It could mean your job if you don't get him."
"To hell with my job. I want it, and I want Reich... but not at this price. Any peeper can be a right pilot when the orbit's easy; but it takes guts to hold to the Pledge when the heat's on. You ought to know. You didn't have the guts. Look at you now..."
"But I want to help you, Powell."
"You can't help me. Not at the price of ethics."
"But I was an accessory!" Tate shouted. "You're letting me off. Is that ethics? Is that — ?"
"Look at him," Powell laughed. "He's begging for Demolition. No, Gus. We'll get you when we get Reich. But I can't get him through you. I'll play this according to the Pledge." He turned and left the circle of light. As he walked through the darkness toward the front door, he waited for Church to take the bait. He had played the entire scene for this moment alone... but so far there was no action on his hook.
As Powell opened the door, flooding the pawnshop with the cold argent street light, Church suddenly called: "Just a minute."
Powell stopped, silhouetted against the door. "Yes?"
"What have you been handing Tate?"
"The Pledge, Jerry. You ought to remember it."
"Let me peep you on that."
"Go ahead. I'm wide open." Most of Powell's blocks opened. What was not good for Church to discover was carefully jumbled and camouflaged with tangentional associations and a kaleidoscopic pattern, but Church certainly could not locate a suspicious block.
"I don't know," Church said at last. "I can't make up my mind."
"About what, Jerry? I'm not peeping you."
"About you and Reich and the gun. God knows, yo
u're a mealy-mouthed preacher, but I think maybe I'd be smarter to trust you."
"That's nice, Jerry. I told you, I can't make any promises."
"Maybe you're the kind that doesn't have to make promises. Maybe the whole trouble with me is that I've always been looking for promises instead of—"
At that moment, Powell's restless radar picked up death out on the street He whirled and slammed the door. "Get off the floor. Quick." He took three steps back toward the globe of light and vaulted onto the counter. "Up here with me. Jerry, Gus. Quick, you fools!"
A queasy shuddering seized the pawnshop and shook it into horrible vibration. Powell kicked the light globe and extinguished it.
"Jump for the ceiling light bracket and hold on. It's a Harmonic gun. Jump!" Church gasped and leaped up into the darkness. Powell gripped Tate's shaking arm. "Too short, Gus? Hold out your hands. I'll toss you." He flung Tate upward and followed himself, clawing for the steel spider arms of the bracket. The three hung in space, cushioned against the murderous vibrations enveloping the store... vibrations that created shattering harmonics in every substance in contact with the floor. Glass, steel, stone, plastic... all screeched and burst apart. They could hear the floor cracking, and the ceiling thundered. Tate groaned.
"Hang on, Gus. It's one of Quizzard's killers. Careless bunch. They've missed me before."
Tate blacked out. Powell could sense every conscious synapse losing hold. He probed for Tate's lower levels: "Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. HOLD. HOLD. HOLD!"
Destruction loomed up in the little peeper's subconscious and in that instant Powell realized that no Guild conditioning could ever have prevented Tate from destroying himself. The death compulsion struck. Tate's hands relaxed and he dropped to the floor. The vibrations ceased an instant later, but in that second Powell heard the thick, gravid choke of bursting flesh. Church heard it too and started to scream.
"Quiet, Jerry! Not yet. Hang on."
"D-did you hear him? DID YOU HEAR HIM?"
"I heard. We're not safe yet. Hang on!"
The pawnshop door opened a slit. A razor edge of light shot in and searched the floor. It found a broad red and gray organic puddle of flesh, blood, and bones, hovered for three seconds, then blinked out. The door closed.
"All right, Jerry. They think I'm dead again. You can have your hysterics now."
"I can't get down, Powell. I can't step on..."
"I don't blame you." Powell held himself with one hand, took Church's arm and swung him toward the counter. Church dropped and shuddered. Powell followed him and fought hard against nausea.
"Did you say that was one of Quizzard's killers."
"Sure. He owns a squad of psychgoons. Every time we round 'em up and send 'em to Kingston, Quizzard gets another batch. They follow the dope trail to his place."
"But what have they got against you? I—"
"Clever-up, Jerry. They're Ben's deputies. Ben's getting panicky."
"Ben? Ben Reich? But it was in my shop. I might have been here."
"You were here. What the hell difference did that make?"
"Reich wouldn't want me killed. He—"
"Wouldn't he?" Image of a cat smiling.
Church took a deep breath. Suddenly he exploded: "The son of a bitch! The goddam son of a bitch!"
"Don't feel like that, Jerry. Reich's fighting for his life. You can't expect him to be too careful."
"Well, I'm fighting, too, and that bastard's made up my mind for me. Get ready, Powell. I'm opening up. I'm going to give you everything."
After he finished with Church and returned from Headquarters and the Tate nightmare, Powell was grateful for the sight of the blonde urchin in his home. Barbara D'Courtney had a black crayon in her right hand and a red crayon in her left. She was energetically scribbling on the walls, her tongue between her teeth and her dark eyes squinted in concentration.
"Baba!" he exclaimed in a shocked voice. "What are you doing?"
"Drawrin pitchith," she lisped. "Nicth pitchith for Dada."
"Thank you, sweetheart," he said. "That's a lovely thought. Now come and sit with Dada."
"No," she said, and continued scribbling.
"Are you my girl?"
"Yeth."
"Doesn't my girl always do what Dada asks?"
She thought that one over. "Yeth," she said. She deposited the crayons in her pocket, her bottom on the couch alongside Powell, and her grubby paws in his hands.
"Really, Barbara," Powell murmured. "That lisping is beginning to worry me. I wonder if your teeth need braces?"
The thought was only half a joke. It was difficult to remember that this was a woman seated alongside him. He looked into the deep dark eyes shining with the empty brilliance of a crystal glass awaiting its fulfilling measure of wine.
Slowly he probed through the vacant conscious levels of her mind to the turbulent preconscious, heavily hung with obscuring clouds like a vast dark nebula in the heavens. Behind the clouds was the faint flicker of light, isolated and childlike, that he had grown to like. But now, as he threaded his way down, that flicker of light was the faint spicule of a star that burned with the hot roar of a nova.
Hello, Barbara. You seem to—
He was answered with a burst of passion that made him backtrack fast.
"Hey, Mary!" he called. "Come quick!"
Mary Noyes popped out of the kitchen. "You in trouble again?"
"Not yet. Soon maybe. Our patient's on the mend."
"I haven't noticed any difference."
"Come on inside with me. She's made contact with her Id. Down on the lowest level. Almost had my brains burned out."
"What do you want? A chaperone? Someone to protect the secrets of her sweet girlish passions?"
"Are you comic? I'm the one who needs protection. Come and hold my hand."
"You've got both of yours in hers."
"Just a figure of speech." Powell glanced uneasily at the calm doll face before him and the cool relaxed hands in his. "Let's go."
He went down the black passages again toward the deep-seated furnace that was within the girl... that is within every man... the timeless reservoir of psychic energy, reasonless, remorseless, seething with the never-ending search for satisfaction. He could sense Mary Noyes mentally tiptoeing behind him. He stopped at a safe distance.
Hi, Barbara.
"Get out!"
This is the spook.
Hatred lashed out at him.
You remember me?
The hatred subsided into the turbulence to be replaced by a wave of hot desire.
"Linc, you'd better jet. If you get trapped inside that pleasure-pain chaos, you're gone."
"I'd like to locate something."
"You can't find anything in there except raw love and raw death."
"I want her relations with her father. I want to know why he had those guilt sensations about her."
"Well, I'm getting out."
The furnace fumed over again. Mary fled.
Powell teetered around the edge of the pit, feeling, exploring, sensing. It was like an electrician gingerly touching the ends of exposed wires to discover which of them did not carry a knock-out charge. A blazing bolt surged near him. He touched it, was stunned, and stepped aside to feel a blanket of instinctual self-preservation choke him. He relaxed, permitted himself to be drawn down into a vortex of associations and began sorting. He struggled to maintain his frame of reference that was crumbling in that chaos of energy.
Here were the somatic messages that fed the cauldron; cell reactions by the incredible billion, organic cries, the muted drone of muscletone, sensory sub-currents, blood-flow, the wavering superheterodyne of blood pH... all whirling and churning in the balancing pattern that formed the girl's psyche. The never-ending make-and-break of synapses contributed a crackling hail of complex rhythms. Packed in the changing interstices were broken images, half-symbols, partial references... The ionized nuclei of thought.
Powell caught part of Plosive i
mage, followed it to the letter P... to the sensory association of a loss, then by cross circuit to the infant's sucking reflex at the breast... to an infantile memory of... her mother? No. A wet-nurse. That was encrusted with parental associations... Negation. Minus Mother... Powell dodged an associated flame of infantile rage and resentment, the Orphan's Syndrome. He picked up P again, searched for a related Pa... Papa... Father.
Abruptly he was face to face with himself.
He stared at the image, teetered on the verge of disintegration, then scrambled back to sanity.
Who the hell are you?
The image smiled beautifully and was gone.
P... Pa... Papa... Father. Heat-of-love-and-devotion-associated-with... He was face to face with his image again. This time it was nude, powerful; its outlines haloed with an aura of love and desire. Its arms outstretched.
Get lost. You embarrass me.
The image disappeared. Damn it! Has she fallen in love with me?
"Hi, spook."
There was her picture of herself, pathetically caricatured, the blonde hair in strings, the dark eyes like blotches, the lovely figure drawn into flat, ungracious planes... It faded, and abruptly the image of Powell-Powerful-Protective-Paternal rushed at him, torrentially destructive. He stayed with it, grappling. The back of the head was D'Courtney's face. He followed the Janus image down to a blazing channel of doubles, pairs, linkages and duplicities to — Reich? Imposs — Yes, Ben Reich and the caricature of Barbara, linked side to side like Siamese twins, brother and sister from the waist upward, their legs turning and twisting separately in a sea of complexity below. B linked to B. B & B. Barbara & Ben. Half joined in blood. Half—
"Linc!"
A call far off. Directionless.
"Lincoln."
It could wait a second. That amazing image of Reich had to—
"Lincoln Powell! This way, you fool!"
"Mary?"
"I can't find you."
"Be out in a few minutes."
"Linc, this is the third time I've tried to locate you. If you don't come out now, you're lost."