Robert Emmett McDowell

“ Why should anyone go to all that trouble to disguise himself exactly like Vickers—even to the ill-fitting gray suit? There was something sinister about the whole affair.
Just then Vickers tripped, lost his precarious balance and fell sprawling.
He scrambled to his feet in time to see the stranger leap into an air taxi.
"Look at his eyes!" a woman cried out at his elbow. "Look at his eyes!"
Vickers hastily lowered his inner lids, cursing under his breath. There wasn't another cab in sight. He'd better clear out before he was the focal point of a riot. Normal humans weren't fond of mutants. ”

“ Vickers regarded him with open dislike, then turned on his heel, started across the spaceport at a cautious shuffle.
Freedom!
He couldn't leave the moon. He had to accept whatever work the parole board secured for him—more than likely some stinking job deep in the moon pits. He must report for a check-up and a psycho-therapeutic treatment every four weeks. He couldn't marry or hold property or change jobs.
And if he fell from grace again, it meant sterilization and a life sentence on Jupiter. ”

“ The Chinese was saying: "You're a violent man, Vickers, a dangerous man. We were afraid that you might not see eye to eye with us in our aims."
"No," Vickers protested, really shocked. "No, I'm not a violent man. I do what I must and do it as quickly and effectively as I can. But I'm not violent."
Thorpe's eyes twinkled. Seizing a pencil he wrote something, held it up for them all to see, at the same time tapping the cast on his jaw.
Vickers couldn't repress his grin. Tani squeezed his hand.
Thorpe had written: "The gods help us all, if he ever does get violent!" ”

“ Tani was waiting in the air taxi with the door open. A white, strained Tani with a face like a mask.
"Dad," she cried.
Fralick tumbled into the taxi. Vickers started to shut the door, but Tani held it open.
"Get in," she begged in a tight voice. "Quick!"
"No," he said. "The ISP would spot me in that air taxi and stop us. You can get through all right by yourselves."
Consternation mirrored itself on Tani's waxen features. She shook her head. "We're not going without you."
"Yes, you are!" he said; "no time to explain. I'll meet you at the blue door." ”

“ Vickers," indicating a door across the room; "they're waiting for you."
"Who's waiting for me?"
"Mr. Thorpe. The president of International Spy Ring, Inc. Right in here, sir."
The utterly absurd title of the company struck him anew. The seven great nations would no more permit such a business to exist than they would sit supinely by and allow an armed invasion.
In the first place they all maintained their own very efficient espionage and counter espionage systems. They couldn't afford to let one nation grow more powerful than the rest. At any costs they had to preserve the status quo. ”

“ Thorpe gave him a shrewd look. "This is Tani Fralick," he introduced the girl. "I'm sure you've heard of her father. He's the physicist...."
Vickers sat bolt upright. Fralick was probably the most renowned man on Earth, Mars or Venus. He certainly was the Systems greatest physicist. Fralick was head of the United States' Bureau of Research. It was practically treason for his daughter to be in the offices of such an organization as "International Spy Ring, Inc."
Thorpe said: "Tani's father has been abducted by the Arab Federation." ”

“ Through the soles of his feet he could feel the pavement vibrating faintly, as deep inside the bowels of the moon, the mechanical mining worms gnawed out the ore, chewed it, digested it, spat it out as metal ingots. ”

“ Fralick looked vaguely embarrassed. "I—we've another favor to ask you, Vickers. We want you to come in with us."
"What?" said Vickers in a stunned voice.
"We want you in International Spy Ring, Inc. Need you. We—well, we wouldn't expect you to accept a minor position of course. Not a man of your calibre. If you'll join us, Vickers, you can take charge of the field work. None of us is so well fitted for active duty as you with your enviable vision, your resourcefulness." ”

“ The blue door was hard to focus on—like a slightly blurred picture. He opened his nictitating lids.
To his utter bewilderment, he found himself looking through the door into the theatre lobby. The blue door didn't lead anywhere. It wasn't even a door, he realized, but an illusion!
Vickers had been examined many times. "The peculiarity of your vision," one eminent psycho-biologist had told him, "lies in your ability to see matter as it actually is. Tenuous unmaterial energy. There's more space between the nucleus of an atom and its electrons in proportion than between the sun and its planets. ”

“ Thorpe rubbed his hands together, his grin broadening.
"We sold them the plans. In fact, we sold those same plans to the Black Republic, the Arab Federation, China and New Spain as well. The only reason we didn't sell them to the United States is because they happened to be the ones who had developed them."
He paused to let his words sink in. "That may seem unethical, but it's our policy. In our small way, we feel that we help to preserve the status quo."
"Rubbish!" said Vickers. "If you'd done that, they would have sent the lot of you off to Jupiter."
"They try." Thorpe looked at his watch. ”

“ Vickers threw a gas grenade. The guards were blotted out by a fountain of pale green mist. It wasn't deadly, but it would knock out the Arabs, close off the passage temporarily.
Fralick was sobbing for breath. Suddenly Vickers grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Here! This way! Through the harem."
With the atomic knife he freed the door which he'd sealed a few minutes before. A few minutes! He glanced at his watch. Eighteen minutes exactly; it seemed like hours! He was over his time. He put his shoulder to the door, threw it back with a crash.
There was a cluster of frightened women in the corridor. ”

“ Vickers stiffened. "Is that straight?"
"Quite. But don't alarm yourself. They'll never get past the blue door."
Far from being soothing, Thorpe's reassurance had just the opposite effect on Vickers. For the first time, he began to doubt that he could get through that blue door himself. There was something so damned complacent about the man behind the desk—
In sudden alarm, Vickers opened his nictitating lids, flicked a quick glance around.
The room was quite real, but there was no sign of Luna City nor of the moon's desolate surface. He sucked in his breath. ”

“ Tani pleaded.
"Yes. But not very plainly. He's in a tiny cell almost in the center of the embassy. There's a guard in front of the door."
"Is—is he all right? They haven't hurt him?"
Vickers concentrated on the vague outlines of the man lying on his bunk. A thin man, elderly, with hollow cheeks. "So that's Doctor Fralick," he thought, "greatest theoretical physicist since Einstein." ”

“ The U.S. is hushing it up. They don't want it broadcast that their top experimental physicist has been stolen. They don't even know who has him or where he is. Tani has asked us to get her father back."
"Where is he?"
Thorpe didn't look so cherubic as he drummed on the desk top.
"Here. Luna City. He's being held in the embassy of the Arab Federation."
Vickers said: "Why don't you turn your information over to the U.S.?"
"It's not as simple as that. The Arabs would kill him before they'd give him up." ”

“ You made monkeys out of the ISP for a while. How many men have you broken out of the Jupiter Penal Mines and readjustment camps?"
"I don't know," said Vickers. "It was a good racket while it lasted."
"But you couldn't finagle your own escape, could you?"
"It's easier to work from the outside," Vickers rejoined laconically.
Thorpe said in a nasty voice: "That's just the point I'd like to make. Either you help us release Fralick, or we'll frame you and turn you over to the ISP."
Vickers' eyes narrowed. He leaned suddenly across the desk, hit Thorpe on the chin with his balled fist! ”

“ Then he saw Vickers' eyes, and he looked startled.
Vickers had his nictitating lids lowered; his eyes seemed almost normal. Almost but not quite!
"What the devil!" the ISP man wet his lips. "Vickers! By God, I should have recognized the name. Vickers, eh?" He seemed about to say more, then changed his mind. "Move along. You're holding up the line."
"My passport."
"Pick it up at the parole board. If you don't report there in twenty-four hours, you'll be picked up yourself and shipped back to Jupiter. You're a two-time loser, Vickers; you can't afford to get into trouble again." ”

“ Beyond the wall lay the embassy of the Arab Federation.
"What do you see?" demanded Tani in a suppressed voice.
Vickers and the girl were in the house of Seth Adda, an ex-senator and a friend of Tani's father. He had been happy to lend Tani his house, which was on the eighth level flush against the Arabian Embassy.
Vickers was dressed in a snuff-brown burnoose, the national Arab costume. He said:
"There's a sleeping room just beyond the wall. This part of the embassy must be the private quarters of one of the officials. The room opens on a hall. ”

“ It was the one place in Luna City where the ISP couldn't reach him. But would the ring give him sanctuary? He didn't know.
"They will," he thought; "they will, by Heaven, or take the consequences!"
He said: "Here's where I leave you, officer. Thanks for the lift," and slid out of the patrol boat.
The ISP man had guts. Vickers had taken his automatic, but the agent reached for the emergency guns in the locker. Before he could shoot, though, Vickers had disappeared through the blue door.
He sprang from the patrol boat, started after him. He was three feet from the blue door when it vanished. ”

“ They're big, Clyde. You don't know how big. They've offices on Earth and Mars and Venus, too. The ISP can't do a thing. They can't get past the blue doors. You can't fight the Ring. They're invulnerable. ”