Skarwold pushed a switch and Katz's autodoc sprayed sedative into his lungs. Katz flopped back and began to breathe deeply. Skarwold turned on Katz's sleep-inducer.
Abruptly Garner asked, "Are any of these people the least bit psychic?"
Arnold Diller, fusion drive inspector (all conventional types), took a deep breath and began turning his head back and forth. Not gently. It seemed he was trying to break his own neck.
"I wish we could have found someone with a high telepathic aptitude," said Garner. Between the palms of his hands he rolled the sawdust fragments of a cigarette. "He would have stood a better chance. Look at the poor guy!"
Skarwold said, "I think he's got a good chance." Garner shook his head. "He's only a poor man's prescient. If he were any good at that he'd have been running instead of hiding when the ET blew up. How could it protect him against telepathy anyway? He-" Skarwold joggled his arm for silence.
"Diller!" said Skarwold, with authority. Diller stopped tossing his head and looked up. "Can you understand me, Diller?"
Diller opened his mouth and started to strangle. He closed it again, and nodded, breathing through his nose.
"My name is Skarwold, and I'm your doctor." He paused as if in doubt. "You are Arnold Diller, aren't you?"
"Yes." The voice was rusty, hesitant, as if from long disuse. Something inside Garner relaxed, and he noticed his handful of sawdust and dropped it.
"How do you feel?"
"Terrible. I keep wanting to breathe wrong, talk wrong. Could I have a cigarette?" Garner handed him a lighted one. Diller's voice began to sound better, more proficient. "That was strange. I tried to make you give me a cigarette. When you just sat there I wanted to get mad." He frowned. "Say, how do I rate a human doctor, anyway?"
"What happened to you isn't programmed into the 'docs," Skarwold said lightly. "It's a good thing you had the sense to hide when you did. The others were closer. They're in much worse shape. Is your prescient sense working?"
"It's not telling me anything. I can never count on it anyway. Why?"
"Well, that's why I picked you. I thought if you missed it you could get over the notion that you were a certain alien."
"A certain-" Diller started strangling. He stopped breathing entirely for a moment, then resumed slowly, through distended nostrils. "I remember," he said. "I saw this thing coming across the field, with a bunch of people trailing after it, and I wondered what it was. Then something went wrong in my head. I didn't wait any more. I just ran like hell and got behind a building. Something going on in my head kept bugging me, and I wanted to get closer to it but I knew that was wrong, and I wondered if I was going crazy, and then, aarrrghgh-" Puller stopped and swallowed; his eyes were mad with fear until he could breathe again.
"All right, Diller, it's all right," Skarwold kept repeating. Diller's breathing went back to normal, but he didn't talk. Skarwold said, "I'd like to introduce Mr. Garner of the United Nations Technological Police."
Diller gave a polite nod. His curiosity was plain. Garner said, "We'd like to catch this alien before he does any more damage. If you don't mind, I think you may have some information that we don't."
Diller nodded.
"About five minutes after that telepathic blast hit you, the alien took off for outer space. An hour later he was followed by a man who has reason to believe that he is the alien. He has false memories. They're both headed in the same general direction. They're after something. Can you tell me what it is?"
"No," said Diller.
"You may have gotten something in that mental blast. Please try to remember, Diller."
"I don't remember anything, Gamer."
"But»
"You old fool! Do you think I want to choke to death? Every time I start to think about what happened I start strangling! I start thinking funny too; everything looks strange. I feel surrounded by enemies. But worst of all, I get so depressed! No. I don't remember anything. Get out."
Gamer sighed and ostentatiously put his hands on the chair controls. "If you change your mind-"
"I won't. So there's no need to come back."
"I won't be able to. I'm going after them."
"In a spaceship? You?"
"I've got to," said Garner. Nevertheless he glanced involuntarily at his crossed legs crossed this morning, by hand. "I've got to," he repeated. "There's no telling what they want, but it must be something worthwhile. They're going to too much trouble to get it. It could be a weapon, or a signal device to call their planet."
The travel chair whirred.
"Half a minute," said Diller.
Gamer turned off the motor and waited. Diller leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. His face began to change. It was no longer an expression he wore, a mirror of his personality, but a random dispersal of muscle tension. His breathing was ragged.
Finally he looked up. He started to speak and failed. He cleared his throat and tried again. "An amplifier. The- the bastard has an amplifier buried on the eighth planet."
"Fine! What does it amplify?"
Diller started to choke.
"Never mind," said Gamer. "I think I know." His chair left the room, going much too fast.
"They're both ruunin' scared," said Luke. "Headed for Neptune at one gee, with your husband an hour and a half behind."
"But aren't you sending someone after him?" Judy begged. "He isn't responsible, he doesn't know what he's doing!"
"Sure. We're sending me. He's got my partner, you know." Seeing Mrs. Greenberg's reaction, he quickly added, "They're in one ship. We can't protect Lloyd without protecting your husband."
They sat in Judy's hotel room sipping Tom Collinses. It was eleven hundred of a blazing August morning.
"Do you know how he got away?" Judy asked.
"Yah. The ET knocked everybody crosseyed when he threw that tantrum at the port. Everybody but Greenberg. Your husband simply picked out a ship that was on standby and had Lloyd take it up. Lloyd knows how to fly a Navy ship, worse luck."
"Why would Mr. Masney be taking Larry's orders?"
"Because Larry hypnotized him. I remember the whole performance."
Judy looked down at her lap. The corners of her mouth began to twitch. She began to giggle, and then to laugh. Just as the laughter threatened to become sobs, she clenched her teeth hard, held the pose for a moment, then sagged back in her chair.
"I'm all right now," she said. Her face held no laughter, only exhaustion.
"What was that all about?"
"It doesn't matter. Why would they be going to Neptune?"
"I don't know. We're not even sure that's where they're going. Don't you have some sort of telepathic link with your husband?"