He heard faint voices as he went down the next flight of steps to the first floor. One voice was Olliver’s and the other that of a woman. He listened outside the door and when, after a while, he’d heard no other voices, he opened it and walked in.
Jon Olliver was seated behind a massive mahogany desk. For once, as he saw Crag, his poker face slipped. There was surprise in his eyes as well as in his voice as he said, “How in Heaven’s name did you make it, Crag? I quit expecting you after I found the search was centering here. I thought you’d get in touch with me later, if at all.”
Crag was looking at the woman. She was the technician who had given him his start toward freedom that afternoon. At least her features were the same. But she didn’t wear the glasses now, and the technician’s cap didn’t hide the blazing glory of her hair. And, although the severe uniform she’d worn that afternoon hadn’t hidden the voluptuousness of her figure, the gown she wore now accentuated every line of it. In the latest style, baremidriffed, there was only a wisp of material above the waist. And the long skirt fitted her hips and thighs as a sheath fits a sword.
She was unbelievably beautiful.
She smiled at Crag, but spoke to Olliver. She said, “What does it matter how he got here, Jon? I told you he’d come.”
Crag pulled his eyes away from her with an effort and looked at Olliver.
Olliver smiled too, now. He looked big and blond and handsome, like his campaign portraits.
He said, “I suppose that’s right, Crag. It doesn’t matter how you got here. And there’s no use talking about the past. We’ll get to brass tacks. But let’s get one more thing straight, first-an introduction.”
He inclined his head toward the woman standing beside the desk. “Crag, Evadne. My wife.”
CHAPTER THREE
Evadni
CRAG ALMOST laughed. It was the first time Olliver had been stupid. To think-Well, it didn’t matter. He ignored it.
“Are we through horsing around now?” he asked.
Apparently Olliver either didn’t recognize the archaic expression or didn’t know what Crag meant by it. He raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean, Crag?”
“Making me take unnecessary risks just to show you how good I am.”
“Oh, that. Yes, we’re through horsing around. Pull up a chair, Crag. You sit down too, Evadne.”
When they were comfortable, Olliver said, “First the background, Crag. You know the general political situation, but from the outside you probably don’t know how bad it is.”
“I know enough,” Crag said.
“A two-party system, but both crooked. The only fortunate thing is the reasonably close balance of power between them. The Guilds-powerful organizations that evolved out of the workmen’s unions of half a dozen centuries ago, pitted against the Syndicates-the Gilded-ruthless groups of capitalists and their reactionary satellites. The Guilds using intimidation as their weapon and the Gilded using bribery. Each group honeycombed with spies of the other-“
“I know all that.”
“Of course. A third party, a middle-of-the-road one, is now being organized, under cover. We must get a certain amount of capital and of power before we can come out into the open.” He smiled. “Or they’ll slap us down before we get really started.”
“All I want to know,” said Crag, “is what you want me to do. You can skip the build-up.”
“All right. A certain man has a certain invention. He doesn’t know it’s valuable. I do. With that invention, our party could have unlimited funds. Billions. We’ve raised a war chest of several million among ourselves already. But it isn’t enough. A party, these days, needs billions.”
“Sounds simple,” Crag said, “but have you offered the inventor the million you offered me?”
“He won’t sell at any price. For one thing, he’s immensely wealthy already, and a million wouldn’t mean anything to him. For another, the thing is incidentally a weapon and it would be illegal for him to sell it.”
“What do you mean, incidentally a weapon?” Crag looked at him narrowly.
“That’s its primary purpose, what it was made to be. But it’s not a very efficient weapon; it kills, but it takes too long. It takes seconds, and whoever you killed with it could get you before he died. And the range is very limited.
“Its real importance, which he does not realize, lies in a by-product of its action.”
Crag said, “All right, that part’s none of my business. But tell me who and where the guy lives and what I’m looking for.”
Olliver said, “When the times comes, you’ll get the details. Something comes first-for your protection and mine. You won’t be able to do this job right if you’re wanted by the police, being hunted. For one thing, it’s not on Earth. And you know-or should-how tough it is to get off Earth if the police are looking for you.”
“Tough, but it can be done.”
“Still, an unnecessary risk. And anyway, I promised you your freedom as part of this deal. I meant your full freedom, not as a hunted man.”
“And how do you expect to swing that?” Crag asked.
“With Evadne’s help. She’s a psycher technician.”
Crag turned and looked at her again. It didn’t make him like her any better, but it did surprise him. To be a psycher technician you had to have a degree in psychiatry and another in electronics. To look at Evadne you wouldn’t think of degrees, unless they were degrees of your own temperature.
Olliver said, “Now don’t get excited, Crag, when I tell you that I’m going to send you-with your consent-to the psycher. It’ll be a short-circuited one, with Evadne running it; it won’t have any effect on you at all. But Evadne will certify you as adjusted.”
Crag frowned. “How do I know the machine will be shorted?”
“Why would we cross you up on it, Crag? It would defeat our own purpose. If you were adjusted, you wouldn’t do this job for me-or want to.”
Crag glanced at the woman. She said, “You can trust me, Crag, that far.”
It was a funny way of putting it and, possibly for that reason, he believed her. It seemed worth the gamble. If they thought he’d been through the psycher, he really would be free. Free to go anywhere, do anything. And otherwise he’d be hunted the rest of his life; if he was ever picked up for the slightest slip he’d be identified at once and sent to the psycher as an escaped convict. And without a psycher technician to render it useless.
Olliver was saying, “It’s the only way, Crag. By tomorrow noon you’ll be a free man and can return here openly. I’ll hire you-presumably to drive my autocar and my space cruiser-and keep you here until it’s time to do the little job for me. Which will be in about a week.”
Crag decided quickly. He said, “It’s a deal. Do I go out and give myself up?”
Olliver opened a drawer of the big desk and took out a needle gun. He said, “There’s a better way. Safer, that is. You killed a guard, you know, and they might shoot instead of capturing you if you went out of here. I’ll bring them in instead, and I’ll have you already captured. You came here to kill me, and I captured you: They won’t dare to shoot you then.”
Crag nodded, and backed up against the wall, his hands raised.
Olliver said, “Go and bring them in, my dear,” to Evadne.
Crag’s eyes followed her as she went to the door. Then they returned to Olliver’s. Olliver had raised the needle gun and his eyes locked with Crag’s. He said softly, “Remember, Crag, she’s my wife.”