The Randall Garrett MEGAPACK®. Randall Garrett

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СКАЧАТЬ stepped over to the blue aluminum wall, reached out a hand, and lowered one finger. Instantly, the powerful magnet anchored his hand to the wall, held by the dense magnetic field to the steel beam beneath the aluminum sheath. That one magnet alone could support his full body weight, and he had six magnets to work with.

      Slowly, carefully, David Houston began to crawl up the wall.

      Turn on a magnet in the right hand; lift up the left hand and anchor it higher; turn on the right hand and lift it even with the left, then anchor it again; do the same with both legs; then begin the process all over again, turning the magnets off and on in rotation.

      Up and up he went. Past the forty-sixth floor, past the forty-seventh, the forty-eighth, and the forty-ninth. Not until he reached the fiftieth floor did he attempt to open one of the windows.

      There was a magnetic lock inside the window, but Houston had taken that, too, into account. The powerful magnet in his right glove slid it aside easily. Houston lifted the window and stepped inside.

      He had ten more floors to go.

      He took off the suit and rolled it up into a tight package, then dropped it out the window. It landed with a barely audible thump. Houston took a deep breath, drew his stun gun, and headed for the stairway.

      * * * *

      On the landing of the sixtieth floor of the Lasser Building, David Houston paused for a moment.

      “Sounds like you’re out of breath,” said the voice in his ear.

      “You try climbing all that way sometime,” Houston whispered. “I’m no superman, you know.”

      “Shucks,” said the voice, “you’ve disillusioned me. What now?”

      “I’m going to try to get a little information,” Houston told him. “Hold on.”

      On the other side of the door, he could hear faint sound, as if someone were moving around, but he could hear no voices.

      Carefully, he sent out a probing thought, trying to see if he could attune his mind with that of someone inside without betraying himself.

      He couldn’t detect anything. The sixtieth floor covered a lot of space; if whoever was inside was too far away, their thoughts would be too faint to pick up unless Houston stepped up his own power, and he didn’t want to do that.

      Cautiously, he reached out a hand and eased open the door.

      The hallway was brightly lit, but there was no one in sight. The unaccustomed light made Houston blink for a moment before his eyes adjusted to it; the hallways and landings below had been pitch dark, forcing him to use a penlight to find his way up.

      He stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

      Now he could hear voices. He stopped to listen. The conversation was coming from an office down the hall—if it could be called a conversation.

      There would be long periods of silence, then a word or two: “But not that way.” “Until tomorrow.” “Vacillates.”

      There were three different voices.

      Houston moved on down the hall, his stun gun ready. A few yards from the door, he stopped again, and, very gently, he sent out another thought-probe, searching for the minds of those within, carefully forging his way.

      * * * *

      And, at that crucial instant, a voice spoke in his ear.

      “Houston! What’s going on? You haven’t said a thing for two full minutes!”

      “I’m all right!” Houston snapped. Only the force of long training and habit kept him from shouting the words aloud instead of keeping them to a subvocal whisper.

      “All right or not,” said the other, “we’re coming in in seven minutes, as ordered. Meanwhile, there’s a news bulletin for you; the British division has picked up another Controller—a woman named Dorrine Kent. Two in one night ought to be a pretty good bag.”

      For a moment, Houston’s mind was a meaningless blur.

      Dorrine!

      And then another voice broke through his shock.

      “Dear me, sir! Calm yourself! You’re positively fizzing!”

      Houston jerked. Standing in the doorway of the office was Norcross Lasser, with a benign smile on his face and a deadly-looking .38 automatic in his hand. Behind him stood John Sager and Loris Pederson, their faces wary.

      “Please drop that stun gun, Mr. Cop.”

      * * * *

      In those few moments, Houston had regained control of himself. He realized what had happened. The interruption of his thought-probe had startled him just a little, but that little had been enough to warn the Controller.

      He wondered which of the three men was the actual Controller.

      He began to lower his weapon, then, suddenly, with all the force and hatred he could muster, he sent a blistering, shocking thought toward the man with the gun.

      Lasser staggered as though he’d been struck. His gun wavered, and Houston fired quickly with his stun gun. At the same time, Lasser’s automatic went off.

      The bullet went wild, and the stun beam didn’t do much better. It struck Lasser’s hand, paralyzing it, but it didn’t knock out Lasser.

      The mental battle that ensued only took a half second, but at the speed of thought, a lot of things can happen in a half second.

      Houston realized almost instantaneously that he had made a vast mistake. He had badly underestimated the enemy.

      There was no need to worry, now, about which one of the men was a Controller—all three of them were!

      As soon as Sager and Pederson realized what had happened, they leaped—mentally—into the battle. Lasser, already weakened by the unexpected mental blow from Houston, lost consciousness when the others let loose their blasts because his mind was still linked with Houston’s, and he absorbed a great deal of the mental energy meant for Houston’s brain.

      Houston, fully warned by now, held up a denial wall which screened his mind from the worst that Sager and Pederson could put out, but he knew he couldn’t hold out for long.

      “Come in—now!” he said hoarsely into the microphone.

      “Stupid swine!” Sager susurrated sibilantly.

      Pederson said nothing aloud, but his brain was blazing with fear and hatred. His gun hand jerked towards a holster under his arm. Lasser was still crumpling towards the floor.

      The entire action had taken less than a second.

      Houston tried to fire again with his stun gun, but it required every bit of concentration he could sum up to hold off the combined mental assaults of Sager and Pederson.

      But they, too, were СКАЧАТЬ