Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Space Science Fiction May 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
PURSUIT
_by_ LESTER DEL REY
Illustrated by ORBAN
* * * * *
I
Fear cut through the unconscious mind of Wilbur Hawkes. With almostphysical violence, it tightened his throat and knifed at his heart. Itdarted into his numbed brain, screaming at him.
He was a soft egg in a vast globe of elastic gelatine. Two creaturesswam menacingly through the resisting globe toward him. The gelatinefought against them, but they came on. One was near, and made a mysticpass. He screamed at it, and the gelatine grew stronger, throwing themback and away. Suddenly, the creatures drew back. A door opened, andthey were gone. But he couldn't let them go. If they escaped....
Hawkes jerked upright in his bed, gasping out a hoarse cry, and thesound of his own voice completed the awakening. He opened his eyes toa murky darkness that was barely relieved by the little night-light.For a second, the nightmare was so strong on his mind that he seemedto see two shadows beyond the door, rushing down the steps. He foughtoff the illusion, and with straining senses jerked his head around theroom. There was nothing there.
Sweat was beading his forehead, and he could feel his pulse racing. Hehad to get out--had to leave--at once!
He forced the idea aside. There was something cloudy in his mind, buthe made reason take over and shove away some of the heavy fear. Hisfingers found a cigarette and lighted it automatically. The firstfamiliar breath of smoke in his lungs helped. He drew in deeply again,while the tiny sounds in the room became meaningful. There was theinsistent ticking of a clock and the soft shushing sound of a taperecorder. He stared at the machine, running on fast rewind, andreversed it to play. But the tape seemed to be blank, or erased.
He crushed the cigarette out on a table-top where other butts lay indisorder. It looked wrong, and his mind leaped up in sudden franticfear, before he could calm it again. This time, reason echoed hisemotional unease.
Hawkes had never smoked before!
But his fingers were already lighting another by old habit. Histhoughts lurched, seeking for an answer. There was only a vague senseof something missing--a period of time seemed to have passed. It feltlike a long period, but he had no memory of it. There had been thefinal fight with Irma, when he'd gone stalking out of the house,telling her to get a divorce any way she wanted. He'd opened themail-box and taken out a letter--a letter from a Professor....
His mind refused to go further. There was only a complete blank afterthat. But it had been in midwinter, and now he could make out thefaint outlines of full-leafed trees against the sky through thewindow! Months had gone by--and there was no faintest trace of them inhis mind.
_They'll get you! You can't escape! Hurry, go, GO!..._
The cigarette fell from his shaking hands, and he was half out of thebed before the rational part of his mind could cut off the fearthoughts. He flipped on the lights, afraid of the dimness. It didn'thelp. The room was dusty, as if unused for months, and there was acobweb in one corner by the mirror.
His own face shocked him. It was the same lean, sharp-featured face asever, under the shock of nondescript, sandy hair. His ears still stuckout too much, and his lips were a trifle too thin. It looked no morethan his thirty years; but it was a strained face, now--painted withweeks of fatigue, and grayish with fear, sweat-streaked and withnervous tension in every corded tendon of his throat. His somewhatbony, average-height figure shook visibly as he climbed from the bed.
Hawkes stood fighting himself, trying to get back in the bed, but itwas a losing battle. Something seemed to swing up in the corner of theroom, as if a shadow moved. He jerked his head toward it, but therewas nothing there.
He heard his breath gasping harshly, and his knuckles whitened. Therewas the taste of blood in the corner of his mouth where he was bitinghis lips.
_Get out! They'll be here at once! Leave--GO!_
* * * * *
His hands were already fumbling with his under-clothing. He drew onbriefs jerkily, and grabbed for the shirt and suit he had never seenbefore. He was no longer thinking, now. Blind panic was winning. Hethrust his feet into shoes, not bothering with socks.
A slip of paper fell from his coat, with big sprawled Greek letters.He saw only the last line as it fell to the floor--some equation thatended with an infinity sign. Then psi and alpha, connected by a dash.The alpha sign had been scratched out, and something written over it.He tried to reach it, and more papers spilled from his coat pocket.The fear washed up more strongly. He forgot the papers. Even thecigarettes were too far away for him to return to them. His wallet layon the chair, and he barely grabbed it before the urge overpowered himcompletely.
The doorknob slipped in his sweating hands, but he managed to turn it.The elevator wasn't at his floor, and he couldn't stop for it. Hisfeet pounded on the stairs, taking him down the three floors to thestreet at a breakneck pace. The walls of the stairway seemed to berushing together, as if trying to close the way. He screamed at them,until they were behind, and he was charging out of the front door.
A half-drunken couple was coming in--a fat, older man and a slim girlhe barely saw. He hit them, throwing them aside. He jerked from theentrance. Cars were streaming down West End Avenue. He dashed across,paying no attention to them. His rush carried him onto the oppositesidewalk. Then, finally, the blind panic left him, and he was leaningagainst a building, gasping for breath, and wondering whether hisheart could endure the next beat.
Across the street, the fat man he had hit was coming after him. Hawkesgathered himself together to apologize, but the words never came. Asecond blinding horror hit at him, and his eyes darted up towards thewindows of his apartment.
It was only a tiny glow, at first, like a drop from the heart of asun. Then, before he could more than blink, it spread, until the wholeapartment seemed to blaze. A gout of smoke poured from the shatteringwindow, and a dull concussion struck his ears.
The infernally bright flame flickered, leaped outward from the window,and died down almost as quickly as it had come, leaving twisted,half-molten metal where the window frames had been.
They'd almost gotten him! Hawkes felt his legs weaken and quiver,while his eyes remained glued to the spot that had lighted the wholestreet a second before. They'd tried--but he'd escaped in time.
It must have been a thermite bomb--nothing but thermite could be thathot. He had never imagined that even such a bomb could give so muchheat so quickly. Where? In the tape-recorder?
He waited numbly, expecting more fire, but the brief flame seemed tohave died out completely. He shook his head, unbelieving, and startedto cross the street again, to survey the damage or to join the crowdthat was beginning to collect.
* * * * *
The fear surged up in him again, halting his step as if he'd struck aphysical barrier. With it came the sound of an auto-horn, the buttonheld down permanently. His eyes darted down the street, to see a long,gray sedan with old-fashioned running-boards come around the corner ontwo wheels. Its brakes screeched, and it skidded to a halt besideHawkes' apartment building.
A slim young man in gray tweeds leaped out of it and came to a stop.He threw back heavy black hair with a toss of his head and ran intothe crowd that parted to
let him through. Someone began pointingtowards Hawkes.
Hawkes tried to slide around the corner without being seen, but aflashlight in the young man's hands pinpointed him. A yell went up.
"There he goes!"
His feet sounded hopelessly on the sidewalk as he dashed up towardBroadway, but behind came the sound of others in pursuit, and theshouting was becoming a meaningless babble as others took it up. Therewas no longer any doubt. Someone was certainly after him--there'd beenno time to turn in an alarm over the fire in his apartment. They'dbeen coming for him before that started.
What hideous crime could he have committed during the period hecouldn't remember? Or what spy-ring had encircled him?
He had no time to think of the questions, even. He ducked into thethin swarm of a few people leaving a theater just as the pursuinggroup rounded the corner, with the slim young man in the lead.
Their cries were enough. Hands reached for him from the theater crowd,and a foot stretched out to trip him up. Terror lent speed to hislegs, but he could never outdistance them, as