The Science Fiction Anthology. Fritz Leiber

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      She controlled herself. “We must find a way to leave here,” she said, calmly.

      “They won’t find us.”

      “Oh, yes they will,” she said. “Don’t underestimate them. Agents are picked from the most intelligent people on Earth. It will be a small job for them. Don’t forget they know who you are. Even if you hadn’t been so stupid as to tell them, they’d know. They knew my pattern from the time your father was alive. They got yours when we were together years ago, teasing them. They linked your pattern with mine. They know that your father and I had a son. Your birth was recorded. The only difficult aspect of their job now is to find where you live, and it won’t be impossible. They will drive their cars through every city on Earth with those new detectors, until they pick up your pattern or mine. I’m afraid it’s time to leave Earth.”

      Earl sat down suddenly, “It’s just as well. I thought maybe some day I might hate them too, or learn to like them. But I can do neither, so I am halfway between, and no man can live this way.”

      She did not answer him. Finally he said, “It doesn’t make sense to you, does it?”

      “No, it doesn’t. This is not the time for such discussions, anyway. The Agents have their machines working at top speed, while we sit here and talk.”

      Suddenly they were not alone.

      No sound was generated by the man’s coming. One instant they were talking alone, the next he was here. Earl saw him first. He was a middle-aged man whose hair was completely white. He stood near the desk, easily, as if standing there were the most natural way to relax. He was entirely nude ... but it seemed natural and right.

      Then Mrs. Jamieson saw him.

      “Benjamin!” she cried. “I knew someone would come.”

      He smiled. “This is your son?”

      “Yes,” she said. “We are ready.”

      “I remember when you were born,” he said, and smiled in reminiscence. “Your father was afraid you would be twins.”

      Earl said, “Why was my father killed?”

      “By mistake. Back in those days, like now, there were good Konvs and bad. One of those not selected by Stinson to join us was enraged, half crazy with envy. He killed two women there in Bangkok. The Agents thought Jamieson—I mean, your father—did it. Jamieson was the greatest man among us. It was he who first conceived the theory that there was a basic, underlying law in the operation of the cylinders. Even now, no one knows how the idea of love ties in with the Stinson Effect; but we do know that hate and greed as motivating forces can greatly minimize the cylinders’ power. That is why the undesirables with cylinders have never reached Centaurus.”

      Heavy steps sounded on the porch outside.

      “We’d better hurry,” Mrs. Jamieson said.

      Benjamin held out his hands. They took them, to increase the power of the cylinders. As the Agents pounded on the door, Mrs. Jamieson flicked one thought of hatred at them, but of course they did not hear her. Benjamin’s hands gripped tightly.

      Mrs. Jamieson slowly opened her eyes....

      She no longer felt the hands. She was still in the room! Benjamin and her son were gone. Her outstretched hands touched nothing.

      Her power was gone!

      The Agents stepped into the room over the broken door. She stared at them, then ran to Earl’s desk, fumbling for the gun.

      The Agents’ guns rattled.

      Love, Benjamin said, the greatest of these is love. Or did someone else say that? Someone, somewhere, perhaps in another time, in some misty, forgotten chip of time long gone, in another frame of reference perhaps....

      Mrs. Jamieson could not remember, before she died.

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