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"You know you can't get away with this, Murray," I said. It was, I think,
almost the first thing I
had said to him since we took off half an hour ago. After all, there had been
little to say. The situation was out of all our hands, as Murray had meant it
to be, from the moment he spoke into the telephone.
"I have got away with it, Cortland," he said, not looking at me.
"De Kalb has connections as powerful as yours," I told him. "Besides, I think
I can prove I'm not responsible for those deaths."
"I think you are, Cortland. If there's any truth in what De Kalb was saying, I
believe you're a carrier."
"But you're not doing this because you think I'm' guilty. You're doing it to
stop De Kalb."
"Certainly." He snapped his lips shut. I shrugged. That, of course, was
obvious.
We flew on in silence. Murray was uneasy, perhaps from the experience of the
Record. I think now that he had entirely shut his mind to that. I think he was
denying it had ever happened. But his hands and feet still jittered on the
controls until I itched to take the plane away from him and fly it myself.
It was a nice little ship, a six-passenger job that could have flown alone,
almost, as any good plane can do in smooth air if the pilot will only let it.
I would probably have said just then, if you'd asked me, that I was in plenty
of trouble. My troubles hadn't started. They were about to.
The first intimation was the sound Murray made a sort of deep, startled,
incredulous grunt. I
stopped to turn toward him. And then time stopped.
I had a confused awareness that something was moving through the ship,
something dark and frighteningly swift. But this time there was a difference.
The thing I had first encountered in a
Rio alley had returned. The first pulse of that nova of blinding brilliance
burst outward from the core and center of my body. But it did not rise to its
climactic explosion of pure violence. The energy suddenly was shut off at the
source. The plane was empty of that monstrous intruder.
Beside me Murray hunched over the controls, slowly bending forward. I could
not see his face. That instant of relief passed in a flashing time-beat.
Again the pulse throbbed through me. And again it was shut off. There was
something terribly wrong with gravity. The earth stood upright in a blurred
line that bisected the sky and was slowly, slowly toppling over from left to
right. The weight of
Murray's body, slumped heavily forward, was throwing the ship out of control.
I couldn't move not while those erratic jumping shocks kept pounding at me.
But I had to move. I had to get hold of the controls. And then, as I put forth
all my strength, the explosion channeled into my brain different, somehow
incomplete. I could feel a swiftly-fading ebb-tide draining into the empty
void.
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Then it was gone altogether.
Another part of my mind must have taken over then. And it must have been
efficient. Myself, I
seemed to be floating somewhere in a troubled void with the image of Murray's
lolling head and limp arms. Murray dead. Dead? He must be dead. I knew that
nekronic shock too well.
In the mindless void where my awareness floated I knew that I was a bad spot
temporally. Jerry
Cortland was in a bad spot. Murray's headquarters must be expecting him in
already with a murder suspect in tow. I was the murder suspect and murder had
been done again. And Murray and I had been alone in mid-air when it happened.
The efficient part of my mind knew what to do. I left it at that. I had no
recollection whatever
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fighting the plane out of its power dive or of turning in a long high circle
as I got lost altitude back. But that must have happened. Time and distance
meant nothing to the half of my mind that floated but the other half very
efficiently flew the plane.
"All right now?" De Kalb's voice inquired.
I sat up shakily. The room was swimming around me but it was a familiar room,
I could see Dr.
Essen bending above a couch and I could see polished boots and a shoulder with
something shiny on it. I must have brought Murray back. Murray dead? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]