No Shield From The Dead
No conceivable force could
penetrate Terri's shield. Yet he was defenseless.
****
It was a nice little party, but a
bit obvious. Terri Mac saw through it before he had taken half a dozen steps
into the apartment. A light flush staining his high cheek-bones. “This is
ridiculous,” he said.
The light chatter ceased.
Cocktail glasses were set down on various handy tables and ledges; and all faces
in the room turned toward a man in his late fifties who sat propped up
invalid-wise on pillows in a chair in a corner of the room.
“The Comptroller is
perspicacious,” said the old man, agreeably, waving one hand in a casual
manner. “On your way, children.”
And the people present smiled and
nodded. Quite as if it were an ordinary leave-taking, they pushed past Terri
Mac and filed out the door. Even the blonde, Terri had picked up at the embassy
ball and who had brought him here, strolled off casually, but in a decidedly
less drunken fashion than she had exhibited earlier in the evening.
“Sit down,” said the old man.
Terri Mac did so, gazing searchingly at the skinny frame and white eyebrows in
an unsuccessful effort to connect him with something in memory.
“This is ridiculous,” he
repeated.
“Really?” The old man smiled
benignly. “And why so?”
“Why—” the situation was so
obvious that Terri fumbled—a little at a loss for words. “Obviously you intend
some form of coercion, or else you would have come to me along recognized
channels. And any thought of coercion is obviously—well, ridiculous.”
“Why?”
“Why? You senile old fool, don't
you know that I'm shielded? Don't you know all government officials from the
fifth class up wear complete personal shields that are not only crack-proof but
contain all the necessary elements to support life independently within the
shield for more than twenty hours? Don't you know that I'll be missed in two
hours at the most and tracked down in less than sixty minutes more? Are you
crazy?”
The old man chuckled, rubbing dry
hands together. He said, “I'm shielded too. You can't get at me. And now the
room's shielded. You can't get out of it.”
Terri stared at him. The initial
shock was passing. His own statements about the completeness of his protection
had brought back confidence, and his natural coolness was returning. “What do
you want?” he asked, eyeing the other narrowly.
“Pleasure of your company,” said
the old man. “There are some very strong connections between us. Yes, very
strong. We must get to know each other personally.”
***
It occurred to Terri that he had
misinterpreted the situation. Relief came, mixed with a certain amount of
chagrin at the way in which he allowed himself to show alarm. He had looked
ridiculous. He leaned back in the chair and allowed a note of official hauteur
and annoyance to creep into his voice. “I see,” he said. “You want something?”
The old man nodded energetically.
“I do. Indeed I do.”
“And you think you have some kind
of a bargaining tool that is useful but might not be so if it became known to
official channels.”
“Well--” said the old man
cautiously.
“Don't waste my time,”
interrupted Terri, harshly. “I'm not an ordinary politician. No man who works
his way up to the fifth level of the government is. I didn't get to where I am
today by pussy-footing around and I haven't the leisure to spend on people who
do. Now what do you want?”
The other cackled. “Now, what do
you think?” he said, putting one finger to his nose cunningly.
“You are old,” Terri said. “And
therefore cautious. Consequently you would not risk trying to force something
from me, but are almost certainly trying to sell me something. Now what do I
want? Not the usual things, certainly. Within my position I have all the material
things a man could want; and within my shield I enjoy complete immunity. No one
but the Central Bureau, itself, can crack this shield. And no one but they can
prevent the conditioned reflex that stops my heart if for some reason the
shield should be broached. I have a hold on every man beneath me that prevents
him from knifing me in the back. There could be only one thing that I want that
you could give me--” he leaned forward, staring into the deep-pouched eyes—” and
that is a means of getting at the man above me. Am I right?”
“No,” said the old man.
Terri stiffened.
“No?” he echoed in angry
incredulity.
Their eyes locked. For a long
time they held, and at last Terri looked away.
The old man sighed--sipped
noisily from a drink on the table beside his chair.
“Wait!” said Terri. To his own
surprise, his voice was eager, even a little timorous in its hopefulness. “Wait.
I've got it. There will be a test. There always is a test every time a man
moves up. His superiors watch him when he doesn't suspect it. It will be that
way for me when I am ready for the fourth level. And you have some kind of advance
information. You know what the test will be. Maybe you know the man who will
administer it. You want to sell me this information.”
The other said nothing.
“Well,” Terri spread his hands
openly. “I am interested. I'll buy. What do you want. Money? A favor?
Protection?”
“No.”
“No?” Terri shouted, starting up
from his chair. “What do you mean by no? Can't you say anything but 'no'?” A
rage possessed him. He flung himself forward two furious steps to stand
threateningly over the aged figure. “You doddering idiot! Say what you want,
and quickly! My two hours are nearly up. I'll be missed. They'll be here in a
few minutes. The Bureau Guards. They'll crack the room shield. They'll rescue
me. And they'll take you into custody. To be questioned. To be executed. At my
order. Do you understand? Your life depends on me.”
After a little, the old man
chuckled again. “Yes,” he muttered, in a high-pitched old voice. “That's the
way it'll be.”
Terri stared at him. “You don't
seem to understand. You're going to die.”
“Oh yes,” said the old man,
nodding his head indulgently. “I'll die. But I'm an old man. I'd die anyway in
a year or so--maybe in a day or so. But for you—for a young man like you. The
up and coming young governmental with everything to lose.” He leered slyly at
Terri. “Your death won't be so easy for you to take.”
“I die?” echoed Terri, stupefied.
“But I'm not going to die. They're coming to rescue me.”
“Oh, are they?” said the old man,
ironically.
“Of course!” said Terri. “Of
course, why shouldn't they?”
The old man winked one faded eye
portentously.
“Fine young man,” he said. “Up
and coming young man. Brilliant. Never a thought for the people he trampled on
the way up the ladder. Dear me, no.”
“What do you mean?” said Terri.
The old eyes, looking up
suddenly, pierced him.
“Do you remember Kilaren?”
“K-Kilaren?”
“Kilaren,” recited the old man as
if quoting from a newspaper. “The beautiful young secretary of a provincial
governor whose lecherous and unnatural pursuit drove her to suicide. So that
one day to escape the governor, she jumped or fell from a high window. And the
people of the province, who had for a long time heard ugly stories and rumors, finally
mobbed the office and lynched the governor, hanging him from the same window
from which the girl had jumped. They said that even the fall had not spoiled
her beauty, but that was probably false.” The old man's words dwindled away
into silence.
“If so what of it?” said Terri. “What's
that to do with me?”
“Why, you were there. You were
the governor's aide, and when the mob had gone home and feeling had slackened
off, you stepped into the gap and seized up the reins of government, handling
matters so skillfully that you were immediately promoted to an under-post at
Government City.”
“What of it?”
“Why it was all your doing,”
replied the other, in a mildly reproving voice, “the rumors, the stories, the
mob, even the suicide. Poor Kilaren—a pitiful pawn in your ruthless game to
eliminate the governor in your mad dash up the ladder.”
“I never touched her!” cried
Terri, his voice cracking. “I swear it.”
“Who said you did? The type of
mind that stoops to murder would never have gotten you this far. But you were
the one who hired her, knowing the governor's tendencies. You were the one that
gave her work that kept her, night after night, alone with the man. You preyed
upon her fear of losing her job. You threw the sin in her face after she had committed
it. You told her what she might have been, and what she was, and what she would
be. You broke her, day after day. In the sterile privacy of the office you
reviled her, scorned her, brought her to believe that she was what she was not,
a creature of filth and dishonor. You blocked off all avenues of escape but the
one that led through one high window. You killed her!”
“No!”
“Yes!”
***
Terri brought his quivering hands
together and clenched them in his lap. He stared at the old man. “Who are you?”
“I was a friend of hers. We lived
in the same hotel-apartment. She had no family. I believe you knew that when
you hired her.”
“I see,” said Terri. He drew a
long, deep, shuddering breath, and leaned back in the chair. “So that's the
story,” he said, his voice strengthening, “I might have known it. Blackmail.
There are always fools that want to try blackmail.”
“No,” said the old man. “Not
Blackmail, Comptroller. I want your life.”
Terri laughed shortly,
contemptuously. “No knowledge that you have can threaten my life.”
“They will come,” said the old
man, leaning wearily back against his cushions. “As you said, the Bureau Guards
will come; and I think I shall kill myself when I hear them starting to crack
the shield around this room. They will come in and find you with a dead man.
What will you tell them, Terri?”
“Tell them? Anything I choose.
They won't question me.”
“No. The guards won't. But the
Bureau will. How can they raise a man to the fourth level when there is a
two-hour mystery in his background? They will want to know what you were doing
here.”
“I was kidnapped,” said Terri.
“By whom? Can you prove it? And
why?”
“I've been held a prisoner here.”
“By a dead man? No, no, Terri.
The circumstances are suspicious. You walk away from the embassy under your own
power. You disappear and are found in a shielded room with a man who has
committed suicide. This must be explained, and in the end you will have to tell
them the truth.”
“And what if I do?” said Terri,
truculently.
“But the truth is so fantastic,
Terri. So uncheckable. I am dead, and I am the only one who could have
supported your story. These people who were here when you came in are common
actors. They have no idea why I wanted you decoyed here. These are my rooms.
And there is no obvious connection between me and the dead Kilaren. And perhaps
I will decide to live just long enough to denounce you as a traitor when they enter.”
Ashen-faced, Terri stared.
“The Bureau will have to question
you. They will clamp a block on your mind so that you can't operate the reflex
that stops your heart. And they will question you over and over again, because
the Bureau cannot afford to take chances. You will go into a private hell of
your own, Terri Mac. You will tell the story of your own evil to that girl over
and over again, pleading to be believed. And they will not believe you. And in
the end they will kill you, just to be on the safe side. Because, you see, you
might have been doing something traitorous in these two shielded hours.”
Terri's head bobbed limply, like
a drunken man's. He made one last effort.
“Why?” he said. “Why do you do
this? Your life. For a girl who was no connection to you?”
The old man folded his hands.
“I was a little like your
governor,” he said. “We all have our sins. I loved Kilaren and the shock of her
death wrecked my health.” He cocked his head suddenly on one side. “Listen,” he
said.
From beyond the closed door of
the room, a high-pitched humming was barely audible. It grew in volume, going
up the scale. Terri leaped to his feet; and for the space of a couple of
seconds, he lunged first this way then that, like a wild animal beating against
its trap. Then, as if all will had at last gone out of him, he stopped in the
middle of the room and closed his eyes. For a fraction of a moment he stood there,
before a faint convulsion seized him and he fell.
With a faint smile on his face,
the old man reached out to a hidden switch and cut the shield about the room.
Uniformed guards tumbled through the door, to pull up in dismay at the sight of
the body on the floor.
“I'm sorry,” said the old man, “I
must have turned the shield on by mistake. I was trying to signal someone. The
Comptroller seems to have had a heart attack.”
End
Note.
This story was published in 1953. According to the Gutenberg Project, there is no
evidence that copyright was renewed thereafter. The only changes to the text
were to clean up punctuation, correct one typo, and then there was the word ‘anent’
which we took to mean ‘about’. That was fairly early in the text. It reads well
enough, but there is no guarantee that there is not a lacunae or hole in the
text.
Thank you for reading.
