The Sensitive Man Read online

such means as you? Mutant or androidor"--she caught her breath--"or actually a creature from outer space,the stars. Simon Dalgetty, what are you?"

  "If I answered that," he said with desolation in his voice, "I'dprobably be lying anyway. You've got to trust me this far."

  She sighed. "All right." He didn't know if she was lying too.

  He laid the rifle down and folded his hands on top of his head. Shewalked behind him, down the slope toward the light, her submachine-gunat his back.

  As he walked he was building up a strength and speed no human ought topossess.

  One of the sentries pacing through the garden came to a halt. Hisrifle swung up, and the voice was a hysterical yammer: "Who goes?"

  "It's me, Buck," cried Elena. "Don't get trigger-happy. I'm bringingin the prisoner."

  "Huh?"

  Dalgetty shuffled into the light and stood slumped, letting his jawhang slack as if he were near falling with weariness.

  "You _got_ him!" The goon sprang forward.

  "Don't holler," said Elena. "I got this one, all right, but there areothers. You keep on your beat. I got his weapons from him. He'sharmless now. Is Mr. Bancroft in the house?"

  "Yeah, yeah--sure." The heavy face peered at Dalgetty with more than atinge of fear. "But lemme go along. Yuh know what he done last time."

  "Stay on your post!" she snapped. "You've got your orders. I canhandle him."

  VIII

  It might not have worked on most men but these goons were not verybright. The guard nodded, gulped and resumed his pacing. Dalgettywalked on up the path toward the house.

  A man at the door lifted his rifle. "Halt, there! I'll have to callMr. Bancroft first." The sentry went inside and thumbed an intercomswitch.

  Dalgetty, poised in a nervous tautness that could explode intophysical strength, felt a clutch of fear. The whole thing was sofiendishly uncertain--anything could happen.

  Bancroft's voice drifted out. "That you, Elena? Good work, girl! How'dyou do it?" The warmth in his tone, under the excitement, madeDalgetty wonder briefly just what the relationship between those twohad been.

  "I'll tell you upstairs, Tom," she answered. "This is too big foranyone else to hear. But keep the patrols going. There are more likethis creature around the island."

  Dalgetty could imagine the primitive shudder in Thomas Bancroft,instinct from ages when the night was prowling terror about a tinycircle of fire. "All right. If you're sure he won't--"

  "I've got him well covered."

  "I'll send over half a dozen guards just the same. Hold it."

  The men came running from barracks, where they must have been waitingfor a call to arms, and closed in. It was a ring of tight faces andwary eyes and pointing guns. They feared him and the fear made themdeadly. Elena's countenance was wholly blank.

  "Let's go," she said.

  A man walked some feet ahead of the prisoner, casting glances behindhim all the time. There was one on either side, the rest were at therear. Elena walked among them, her weapon never wavering from hisback. They went down the long handsome corridor and stood on thepurring escalator. Dalgetty's eyes roved with a yearning in them--howmuch longer, he wondered, would he be able to see anything at all?

  The door to Bancroft's study was ajar and Tighe's voice drifted out.It was a quiet drawl, unshaken despite the blow it must have been tohear of Dalgetty's recapture. Apparently he was continuing aconversation begun earlier:

  "... science goes back a long way, actually. Francis Bacon speculatedabout a genuine science of man. Poole did some work along those linesas well as inventing the symbolic logic which was to be such a majortool in solving the problem.

  "In the last century a number of lines of attack were developed. Therewas already the psychology of Freud and his successors, of course,which gave the first real notion of human semantics. There were thebiological, chemical and physical approaches to man as a mechanism.Comparative historians like Spengler, Pareto and Toynbee realized thathistory did not merely happen but had some kind of pattern.

  "Cybernetics developed such concepts as homeostasis and feedback,concepts which were applicable to individual man and to society as awhole. Games theory, the principle of least effort and Haeml'sgeneralized epistemology pointed toward basic laws and the analyticalapproach.

  "The new symbologies in logic and mathematics suggestedformulations--for the problem was no longer one of gathering data somuch as of finding a rigorous symbolism to handle them and indicatenew data. A great deal of the Institute's work has lain simply incollecting and synthesizing all these earlier findings."

  Dalgetty felt a rush of admiration. Trapped and helpless among enemiesmade ruthless by ambition and fear, Michael Tighe could still playwith them. He must have been stalling for hours, staving off drugsand torture by revealing first one thing and then another--but subtly,so that his captors probably didn't realize he was only telling themwhat they could find in any library.

  * * * * *

  The party entered a large room, furnished with wealth and taste, linedwith bookshelves. Dalgetty noticed an intricate Chinese chess set onthe desk. So Bancroft or Meade played chess--that was something theyhad in common, at least, on this night of murder.

  Tighe looked up from the armchair. A couple of guards stood behindhim, their arms folded, but he ignored them. "Hello, son," hemurmured. There was pain in his eyes. "Are you all right?"

  Dalgetty nodded mutely. There was no way to signal the Englishman, noway to let him hope.

  Bancroft stepped over to the door and locked it. He gestured at theguards, who spread themselves around the walls, their guns aimedinward. He was shaking ever so faintly and his eyes glittered as withfever. "Sit down," he said. "_There!_"

  Dalgetty took the indicated armchair. It was deep and soft. It wouldbe hard to spring out of quickly. Elena took a seat opposite him,poised on its edge, the tommy-gun in her lap. It was suddenly verystill in the room.

  Bancroft went over to the desk and fumbled with a humidor. He didn'tlook up. "So you caught him," he said.

  "Yes," replied Elena. "After he caught me first."

  "How did you--turn the tables?" Bancroft took out a cigar and bit theend off savagely. "What happened?"

  "I was in a cave, resting," she said tonelessly. "He rose out of thewater and grabbed me. He'd been hiding underneath longer than anybodywould have thought possible. He forced me out to a rock in the baythere--you know it? We hid till sundown, when he opened up on your menon that beach. He killed them all.

  "I'd been tied but I'd managed to rub the strips loose. It was just apiece off his shirt he tied me with. While he was shooting I grabbed astone and clipped him behind the ear. I dragged him to shore while hewas still out, took one of the guns lying there and marched him here."

  "Good work." Bancroft inhaled raggedly. "I'll see that you get aproper bonus for this, Elena. But what else? You said...."

  "Yes." Her gaze was steady on him. "We talked, out there in the bay.He wanted to convince me I should help him. Tom--he isn't human."

  "Eh?" Bancroft's heavy form jerked. With an effort he steadiedhimself. "What do you mean?"

  "That muscular strength and speed, and telepathy. He can see in thedark and hold his breath longer than any man. No, he isn't human."

  Bancroft looked at Dalgetty's motionless form. The prisoner's eyesclashed with his and it was he who looked away again. "A telepath, didyou say?"

  "Yes," she answered. "Do you want to prove it, Dalgetty?"

  There was stillness in the room. After a moment Dalgetty spoke. "Youwere thinking, Bancroft, 'All right, damn you, can you read my mind?Go ahead and try it and you'll know what I'm thinking about you.' Therest was obscenities."

  "A guess," said Bancroft. There was sweat on his cheeks. "Just a goodguess. Try again."

  Another pause, then, "'Ten, nine, seven, A, B, M, Z, Z ...' Shall Ikeep on?" Dalgetty asked quietly.

  "No," muttered Bancroft. "No, that's enough. What are you?"


  "He told me," put in Elena. "You're going to have trouble believingit. I'm not sure if I believe it myself. But he's from another star."

  Bancroft opened his lips and shut them again. The massive head shookin denial.

  "He is--from Tau Ceti," said Elena. "They're way beyond us. It's thething people have been speculating about for the last hundred years."

  "Longer, my girl," said Tighe. There was no emotion in his face orvoice save a dry