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  _CHAPTER TEN_

  "One of us will have to watch all the time," Greg told Russ. "We can'ttake any chances. Stutsman will try to reach us sooner or later and wehave to be ready for him."

  He glanced at the new radar screen they had set up that morning besidethe bank of other controls. Any ship coming within a hundred miles ofthe laboratory would be detected instantly and pinpointed.

  The board flashed now. In the screen they saw a huge passenger shipspearing down toward the airport south of them.

  "With the port that close," said Russ, "we'll get a lot of signals."

  "I ordered the Belgium factory to rush work on the ship," said Greg."But it will be a couple of weeks yet. We just have to sit tight andwait. As soon as we have the ship we'll start in on Chambers; but untilwe get the ship, we just have to dig in and stay on the defensive."

  He studied the scene in the screen. The ship had leveled off, wasbanking in to the port. His eyes turned away, took in the laboratorywith its crowding mass of machinery.

  "We don't want to fool ourselves about Chambers," he said. "He may nothave the power here on Earth that he does on the other planets, but he'sgot plenty. Feeling the way he does, he'll try to finish us off in ahurry now."

  Russ reached out to the table that stood beside the bank of controls andpicked up a small, complicated mechanism. Its face bore nine dials, withthe needles on three of them apparently registering, the other sixmotionless.

  "What is that?" asked Greg.

  "A mechanical detective," said Russ. "A sort of mechanical shadow. Whileyou were busy with the stock market stunt, I made several of them. Onefor Wilson and another for Chambers and still another for Craven." Hehoisted and lowered the one in his hand. "This one is for Stutsman."

  "A shadow?" asked Greg. "Do you mean that thing will trail Stutsman?"

  "Not only trail him," said Russ. "It will find him, wherever he may be.Some object every person wears or carries is made of iron or some othermagnetic metal. This 'shadow' contains a tiny bit of that ridiculousmilitary decoration that Stutsman never allows far away from him. Findthat decoration and you find Stutsman. In another one I have a chunk ofWilson's belt buckle, that college buckle, you know, that he's so proudof. Chambers has a ring made of a piece of meteoric iron and that's thebait for another machine. Have a tiny piece off Craven's spectacles inhis machine. It was easy to get the stuff. The force field enables a manto reach out and take anything he wants to, from a massive machine to amicroscopic bit of matter. It was a cinch to get the stuff I needed."

  Russ chuckled and put the machine back on the table. He gestured towardit.

  "It maintains a tiny field similar to our television field," heexplained. "But it's modified along a special derivation with a magneticresult. It can follow and find the original mass of any metallicsubstance it may contain."

  "Clever," commented Greg.

  Russ lit his pipe, puffed comfortably. "We needed something like that."

  The red light on the board snapped on and blinked. Russ reached out andslammed home the lever, twirled dials. It was only another passengership. They relaxed, but not too much.

  * * * * *

  "I wonder what he's up to," said Russ.

  Stutsman's car had stopped in the dock section of New York. Crumbling,rotting piers and old tumbledown warehouses, deserted and unused sincethe last ship sailed the ocean before giving way to air commerce, loomeddarkly, like grim ghosts, in the darkness.

  Stutsman had gotten out of the car and said: "Wait here."

  "Yes, sir," said the voice of the driver.

  Stutsman strode away, down a dark street. The televisor kept pace withhim and on the screen he could be seen as a darker shape moving amongthe shadows of that old, almost forgotten section of the Solar System'sgreatest city.

  Another shadow detached itself from the darkness of the street, shuffledtoward Stutsman.

  "Sir," said a whining voice, "I haven't eaten ..."

  There was a swift movement as Stutsman's stick lashed out, a thud as itconnected with the second shadow's head. The shadow crumpled on thepavement. Stutsman strode on.

  Greg sucked in his breath. "He isn't very sociable tonight."

  Stutsman ducked into an alley where even deeper darkness lay. Russ, witha delicate adjustment, slid the televisor along, closer to Stutsman,determined not to lose sight of him for an instant.

  The man suddenly turned into a doorway so black that nothing could beseen. Sounds of sharp, impatient rappings came out of the screen asStutsman struck the door with his stick.

  Brilliant illumination sprang out over the doorway, but Stutsman seemednot to see it, went on knocking. The colors on the screen werepeculiarly distorted.

  "Ultra-violet," grunted Greg. "Whoever he's calling on wants to have agood look before letting anybody in."

  The door creaked open and a shaft of normal light spewed out into thestreet, turning its murkiness to pallid yellow.

  Stutsman stepped inside.

  The man at the door jerked his head. "Back room," he said.

  * * * * *

  The televisor slid through the door into the lighted room behindStutsman. Dust lay thick on the woodwork and floors. Patches of plasterhad broken away. Furrows zigzagged across the floor, marking the path ofheavy boxes or furniture which had been pushed along in utter disdain ofthe flooring. Cheap wall-paper hung in tatters from the walls, streakedwith water from some broken pipe.

  But the back room was a startling contrast to the first. Rich,comfortable furniture filled it. The floor was covered with asteel-cloth rug and steel-cloth hangings, colorfully painted, hid thewalls.

  A man sat under a lamp, reading a newspaper. He rose to his feet, likethe sudden uncoiling of springs.

  Russ gasped. That face was one of the best known faces in the entireSolar System. A ratlike face, with cruel cunning printed on it that hadbeen on front pages and TV screens often, but never for pay.

  "Scorio!" whispered Russ.

  Greg nodded and his lips were drawn tight.

  "Stutsman," said Scorio, surprised. "You're the last person in the worldI was expecting. Come in. Have a chair. Make yourself comfortable."

  Stutsman snorted. "This isn't a social call."

  "I didn't figure it was," replied the gangster, "but sit down anyway."

  Gingerly Stutsman sat down on the edge of a chair, hunched forward.Scorio resumed his seat and waited.

  "I have a job for you," Stutsman announced bluntly.

  "Fine. It isn't often you have one for me. Three-four years ago, wasn'tit?"

  "We may be watched," warned Stutsman.

  The mobster started from his chair, his eyes darting about the room.

  Stutsman grunted disgustedly. "If we're watched, there isn't anything wecan do about it."

  "We can't, huh?" snarled the gangster. "Why not?"

  "Because the watcher is on the West Coast. We can't reach him. If he'swatching, he can see every move we make, hear every word we say."

  "Who is it?"

  * * * * *

  "Greg Manning or Russ Page," said Stutsman. "You've heard of them?"

  "Sure. I heard of them."

  "They have a new kind of television," said Stutsman. "They can see andhear everything that's happening on Earth, perhaps in all the SolarSystem. But I don't think they're watching us now. Craven has a machinethat can detect their televisor. It registers certain field effects theyuse. They weren't watching when I left Craven's laboratory just a fewminutes ago. They may have picked me up since, but I don't think so."

  "So Craven has made a detector," said Greg calmly. "He can tell whenwe're watching now."

  "He's a clever cuss," agreed Russ.

  "Take a look at that machine now," urged Scorio. "See if they'rewatching. You shouldn't have come here. You should have let me know andI would have met you some place. I can't have people knowing where myhideout is."

  "Qu
iet down," snapped Stutsman. "I haven't got the machine. It weighshalf a ton."

  Scorio sank deeper into his chair, worried. "Do you want to take achance and talk business?"

  "Certainly. That's why I'm here. This is the proposition. Manning andPage are working in a laboratory out on the West Coast, in themountains. I'll give you the exact location later. They have some paperswe want. We wouldn't mind if something happened to the laboratory. Itmight, for example blow up. But we want the papers first."

  * * * * *

  Scorio said nothing. His face was quiet and cunning.

  "Give me the papers," said Stutsman, "and I'll see that you get to anyplanet you want to. And I'll give you two hundred thousand inInterplanetary Credit certificates. Give me proof that the laboratoryblew up or melted down or something else happened to it and I'll boostthe figure to five hundred thousand."

  Scorio did not move a muscle as he asked: "Why don't you have some ofyour own mob do this job?"

  "Because I can't be connected with it in any way," said Stutsman. "Ifyou slip up and something happens, I won't be able to do a thing foryou. That's why the price is high."

  The gangster's eyes slitted. "If the papers are worth that much to you,why wouldn't they be worth as much to me?"

  "They wouldn't be worth a dime to you."

  "Why not?"

  "Because you couldn't read them," said Stutsman.

  "I can read," retorted the gangster.

  "Not the kind of language on those papers. There aren't more than twodozen people in the Solar System who could read it, perhaps a dozen whocould understand it, maybe half a dozen who could follow the directionsin the papers." He leaned forward and jabbed a forefinger at thegangster. "And there are only two people in the System who could writeit."

  "What the hell kind of a language is it that only two dozen people couldread?"

  "It isn't a language, really. It's mathematics."

  "Oh, arithmetic."

  "No," Stutsman said. "Mathematics. You see? You don't even know thedifference between the two, so what good would the papers do you?"

  Scorio nodded. "Yeah, you're right."