The Second Randall Garrett Megapack. Randall Garrett

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      He went out the door again and headed down the street. Mrs. Jesser had been right; it hadn’t taken him long. He’d been in Taggert’s office a little over one minute, and less than half a dozen actual words had been spoken. The rest of the conversation had been on a subtler level, one which was almost completely nonverbal. Not that Spencer Candron was a telepath; if he had been, it wouldn’t have been necessary for him to come to the headquarters building. Candron’s talents simply didn’t lie along that line. His ability to probe the minds of normal human beings was spotty and unreliable at best. But when two human beings understand each other at the level that existed between members of the Society, there is no need for longwinded discourses.

      * * * *

      The big stratoliner slowed rapidly as it approached the Peiping People’s Airfield. The pilot, a big-boned Britisher who had two jobs to do at once, watched the airspeed indicator. As the needle dropped, he came in on a conventional landing lane, aiming for the huge field below. Then, as the needle reached a certain point, just above the landing minimum, he closed his eyes for a fraction of a second and thought, with all the mental power at his command: NOW!

      For a large part of a second, nothing happened, but the pilot knew his message had been received.

      Then a red gleam came into being on the control board.

      “What the hell?” said the co-pilot.

      The pilot swore. “I told ’em that door was weak! We’ve ripped the luggage door off her hinges. Feel her shake?”

      The co-pilot looked grim. “Good thing it happened now instead of in mid-flight. At that speed, we’d been torn apart.”

      “Blown to bits, you mean,” said the pilot. “Let’s bring her in.”

      By that time, Spencer Candron was a long way below the ship, falling like a stone, a big suitcase clutched tightly in his arms. He knew that the Chinese radar was watching the jetliner, and that it had undoubtedly picked up two objects dropping from the craft—the door and one other. Candron had caught the pilot’s mental signal—anything that powerful could hardly be missed—and had opened the door and leaped.

      But those things didn’t matter now. Without a parachute, he had flung himself from the plane toward the earth below, and his only thought was his loathing, his repugnance, for that too, too solid ground beneath.

      He didn’t hate it. That would be deadly, for hate implies as much attraction as love—the attraction of destruction. Fear, too, was out of the question; there must be no such relationship as that between the threatened and the threatener. Only loathing could save him. The earth beneath was utterly repulsive to him.

      And he slowed.

      His mind would not accept contact with the ground, and his body was forced to follow suit. He slowed.

      Minutes later, he was drifting fifty feet above the surface, his altitude held steady by the emotional force of his mind. Not until then did he release the big suitcase he had been holding. He heard it thump as it hit, breaking open and scattering clothing around it.

      In the distance, he could hear the faint moan of a siren. The Chinese radar had picked up two falling objects. And they would find two: one door and one suitcase, both of which could be accounted for by the “accident.” They would know that no parachute had opened; hence, if they found no body, they would be certain that no human being could have dropped from the plane.

      The only thing remaining now was to get into the city itself. In the darkness, it was a little difficult to tell exactly where he was, but the lights of Peiping weren’t far away, and a breeze was carrying him toward it. He wanted to be in just the right place before he set foot on the ground.

      By morning, he would be just another one of the city’s millions.

      * * * *

      Morning came three hours later. The sun came up quietly, as if its sole purpose in life were to make a liar out of Kipling. The venerable old Chinese gentleman who strolled quietly down Dragon Street looked as though he were merely out for a placid walk for his morning constitutional. His clothing was that of a middle-class office worker, but his dignified manner, his wrinkled brown face, his calm brown eyes, and his white hair brought respectful looks from the other passers-by on the Street of the Dragon. Not even the thirty-five years of Communism, which had transformed agrarian China into an industrial and technological nation that ranked with the best, had destroyed the ancient Chinese respect for age.

      That respect was what Spencer Candron relied on to help him get his job done. Obvious wealth would have given him respect, too, as would the trappings of power; he could have posed as an Honorable Director or a People’s Advocate. But that would have brought unwelcome attention as well as respect. His disguise would never stand up under careful examination, and trying to pass himself off as an important citizen might bring on just such an examination. But an old man had both respect and anonymity.

      Candron had no difficulty in playing the part. He had known many elderly Chinese, and he understood them well. Even the emotional control of the oriental was simple to simulate; Candron knew what “emotional control” really meant.

      You don’t control an automobile by throwing the transmission out of gear and letting the engine run wild. Suppressing an emotion is not controlling it, in the fullest sense. “Control” implies guidance and use.

      Peiping contained nearly three million people in the city itself, and another three million in the suburbs; there was little chance that the People’s Police would single out one venerable oldster to question, but Candron wanted an escape route just in case they did. He kept walking until he found the neighborhood he wanted, then he kept his eyes open for a small hotel. He didn’t want one that was too expensive, but, on the other hand, he didn’t want one so cheap that the help would be untrustworthy.

      He found one that suited his purpose, but he didn’t want to go in immediately. There was one more thing to do. He waited until the shops were open, and then went in search of second-hand luggage. He had enough money in his pockets to buy more brand-new expensive luggage than a man could carry, but he didn’t want luggage that looked either expensive or new. When he finally found what he wanted, he went in search of clothing, buying a piece at a time, here and there, in widely scattered shops. Some of it was new, some of it was secondhand, all of it fit both the body and the personality of the old man he was supposed to be. Finally, he went to the hotel.

      The clerk was a chubby, blandly happy, youngish man who bowed his head as Candron approached. There was still the flavor of the old politeness in his speech, although the flowery beauty of half a century before had disappeared.

      “Good morning, venerable sir; may I be of some assistance?”

      Candron kept the old usages. “This old one would be greatly honored if your excellent hostelry could find a small corner for the rest of his unworthy body,” he said in excellent Cantonese.

      “It is possible, aged one, that this miserable hovel may provide some space, unsuited though it may be to your honored presence,” said the clerk, reverting as best he could to the language of a generation before. “For how many people would you require accommodations?”

      “For my humble self only,” Candron said.

      “It can, I think, be done,” said the clerk, giving him a pleasant smile. Then his face took on an expression of contrition. “I hope, venerable one, that you will not think this miserable СКАЧАТЬ