The Sensitive Man Read online

Institute men had little connection with theFederal detectives, who, since the abolition of a discreditedSecurity, had resumed a broad function. They might easily have becomedubious about Bertrand Meade on their own, have planted operativeswith him. They had women among them too and a woman was always lessconspicuous than a man.

  He felt a chill. The last thing he wanted was a Federal agent here.

  The door opened again. A quartet of guards brought in Michael Tighe.The Briton halted, staring before him. "_Simon!_" It was a harshsound, full of pain.

  "Have they hurt you, Dad?" asked Dalgetty very gently.

  "No, no--not till now." The gray head shook. "But you...."

  "Take it easy, Dad," said Dalgetty.

  The guards hustled Tighe over to a front-row bench and sat him down.Old man and young locked eyes across the bare space.

  Tighe spoke to him in the hidden way. _What are you going to do? Ican't sit and let them--_

  Dalgetty could not reply unheard but he shook his head. "I'll beokay," he answered aloud.

  _Do you think you can make a break? I'll try to help you._

  "No," said Dalgetty. "Whatever happens you lie low. That's an order."

  He blocked off sensitivity as Bancroft snapped, "Enough. One of you isgoing to yield. If Dr. Tighe won't, then we'll work on him and see ifMr. Dalgetty can hold out."

  He waved his hand as he took out a cigar. Two of the goons stepped upto the chair. They had rubberite hoses in their hands.

  The first blow thudded against Dalgetty's ribs. He didn't feel it--hehad thrown up a nerve bloc--but it rattled his teeth together. Andwhile he was insensitive he'd be unable to listen in on....

  Another thud, and another. Dalgetty clenched his fists. What to do,what to do? He looked over to the desk. Bancroft was smoking andwatching as dispassionately as if it were some mildly interestingexperiment. Casimir had turned her back.

  "Something funny here, chief." One of the goons straightened. "I don'tthink he's feeling nothing."

  "Doped?" Bancroft frowned. "No, that's hardly possible." He rubbed hischin, regarding Dalgetty with wondering eyes. Casimir wheeled aroundto stare. Sweat filmed Michael Tighe's face, glistening in the chillwhite light.

  "He can still be hurt," said the guard.

  Bancroft winced. "I don't like outright mutilation," he said. "Butstill--I've warned you, Dalgetty."

  "_Get out, Simon_," whispered Tighe. "_Get out of here._"

  Dalgetty's red head lifted. Decision crystalized within him. He wouldbe no use to anyone with a broken leg, a crushed foot, an eye knockedout, seared lungs--and Casimir was FBI, she might be able to dosomething at this end in spite of all.

  He tested the straps. A quarter inch of leatherite--he could snap thembut would he break his bones doing it?

  _Only one way to find out_, he thought bleakly.

  "I'll get a blowtorch," said one of the guards in the rear of theroom. His face was wholly impassive. Most of these goons must bemoronic, thought Dalgetty. Most of the guards in the twentieth-centuryextermination camps had been. No inconvenient empathy with the humanflesh they broke and flayed and burned.

  He gathered himself. This time it was rage, a cloud of fury rising inhis mind, a ragged red haze across his vision. That they would _dare_!

  He snarled as the strength surged up in him. He didn't even feel thestraps as they popped across. The same movement hurtled him across theroom toward the door.

  Someone yelled. A guard leaped in his path, a giant of a man.Dalgetty's fist sprang before him, there was a cracking sound and thegoon's head snapped back against his own spine. Dalgetty was alreadypast him. The door was shut in his face. Wood crashed as he wentthrough it.

  A bullet wailed after him. He dodged down the corridor, up the neareststeps, the walls blurred with his own speed. Another slug smacked intothe paneling beside him. He rounded a corner, saw a window and coveredhis eyes with an arm as he leaped.

  The plastic was tough but a hundred and seventy pounds hit it atfifteen feet per second. Dalgetty went through!

  Sunlight flamed in his eyes as he hit the ground. Rolling over andbouncing to his feet he set out across lawn and garden. As he ran hisvision swept the landscape. In that state of fear and wrath he couldnot command much thought but his memory stored the data forre-examination.

  V

  The house was a rambling two-story affair, all curves and planesbetween palm trees, the island sloping swiftly from its front to abeach and dock. On one side was the airfield, on another the guardbarracks. To the rear, in the direction of Dalgetty's movement, theground became rough and wild, stones and sand and saw-grass and clumpsof palmettos, climbing upward for a good two miles. On every side, hecould see the infinite blue sparkle of ocean. Where could he hide?

  He didn't notice the slashing blades through which he raced and thedry gulping of his lungs was something dreadfully remote. But when abullet went past one ear, he heard that and drew more speed from someunknown depth. A glance behind revealed his pursuers boiling out ofthe house, men in gray with the hot sunlight blinking off their guns.

  He ducked around a thicket, flopped and belly-crawled over a rise ofland. On the farther side he straightened again and ran up the longslope. Another slug and another. They were almost a mile behind nowbut their guns had a long reach. He bent low, zigzagging as he ran.The bullets kicked up spurts of sand around him.

  A six-foot bluff loomed in his path, black volcanic rock shining likewet glass. He hit it at full speed. He almost _walked_ up its face andin the instant when his momentum was gone caught a root and yankedhimself to the top. Again he was out of their sight. He sprang aroundanother hulk of stone and skidded to a halt. At his feet, a sheercliff dropped nearly a hundred feet to a white smother of surf.

  Dalgetty gulped air, working his lungs like a bellows. A long jumpdown, he thought dizzily. If he didn't crack his skull open on a reefhe might well be clawed under by the sea. But there was no other placefor him to go.

  He made a swift estimate. He had run the upward two miles in a littleover nine minutes, surely a record for such terrain. It would take thepursuit another ten or fifteen to reach him. But he couldn't doubleback without being seen and this time they'd be close enough to fillhim with lead.

  _Okay, son_, he told himself. _You're going to duck now, in more thanone sense._

  His light waterproof clothes, tattered by the island growth, would beno hindrance down there, but he took off his sandals and stuck them inhis belt pouch. Praise all gods, the physical side of his training hadincluded water sports. He moved along the cliff edge, looking for aplace to dive. The wind whined at his feet.

  There--down there. No visible rocks though the surf boiled and smoked.He willed full energy back into himself, bent his knees, jack-knifedinto the air.

  The sea was a hammer blow against his body. He came up threshing andtumbling, gasped a mouthful of air that was half salt spray, waspulled under again. A rock scraped his ribs. He took long strokes,always upward to the blind white shimmer of light. He got to the crestof one wave and rode it in, surfing over a razorback reef.

  Shallow water. Blinded by the steady rain of salt mist, deafened bythe roar and crash of the sea, he groped toward shore. A narrow pebblybeach ran along the foot of the cliff. He moved along it, hunting aplace to hide.

  There--a sea-worn cave, some ten feet inward, with a yard or so offairly quiet water covering its bottom. He splashed inside and laydown, exhaustion clamping a hand on him.

  It was noisy. The hollow resonance of sound filled the cave like theinside of a drum but he didn't notice. He lay on the rocks and sand,his mind spiraling toward unconsciousness, and let his body make itsown recovery.

  Presently he regained awareness and looked about him. The cave wasdim, with only a filtered greenish light to pick out black wall's andslowly swirling water. Nobody could see much below the surface--good.He studied himself. Lacerated clothes, bruised flesh and a longbleeding gash in one side. That was not good. A stain of blood on thewater wou
ld give him away like a shout.

  Grimacing, he pressed the edges of the wound together and willed thatthe bleeding stop. By the time a good enough clot was formed for himto relax his concentration the guards were scrambling down to findhim. He didn't have many minutes left. Now he had to do the oppositeof energizing. He had to slow metabolism down, ease his heartbeat,lower his body temperature, dull his racing brain.

  He began to move his hands, swaying back and forth, muttering theautohypnotic formulas. His incantations, Tighe had called them. Butthey were only stylized gestures leading to conditioned reflexes deepin the medulla. _Now I lay me down to sleep_....

  Heavy, heavy--his eyelids were drooping; the wet walls receding into agreat darkness, a hand cradling his head. The noise of surf dimmed,became a rustle, the skirts of the mother he had never known, come into bid him