But a Freeholder lady might not know about that.
She couldn’t avoid noticing the implications of an IPA antiradiation field. . . .
* * *
Dowland moved thirty steps back from the door, took out his gun, and pressed a stud on the side of his belt. Immediately, a faint blue glow appeared about him. Not too pronounced a glow even on the darkening slope, but quite visible to anyone watching from one of the windows. He took a deep breath, sucking air in through the minor hampering effect of the field.
The rest was a matter of carrying through with the act. He’d known from the instant of looking at the door that he was wasting his fire on metasteel. But he slammed a few shots into the five-inch target of the lock, then worked his way methodically about the building, watching the weatherproofing shatter away from an unmarred silvery surface beneath. The gun made very little noise, but Miguel’s hogs were screaming themselves hoarse again by the time he was finished.
Dowland switched off the AR field, and went back to the house. When he came along the short entrance hall, she was waiting for him, standing half across the living room, hands clasped behind her back. She looked at him questioningly.
“No luck, Dowland?”
Dowland shook his head. “Not a bit.” He started to shrug the jacket from his shoulders, saw her dart the gun out from behind her, and turned his left hand slightly, squeezing down on the black elastic capsule he was holding between thumb and forefinger. Jill probably never noticed the motion, certainly did not see or feel the tiny needle that flashed from the capsule and buried itself in the front of her thigh. Shocked bewilderment showed for an instant on her face; then her knees gave way, the gun dropped from her hand. She went down slowly, turned over on her side on the thick carpet, and lay still.
Well, Dowland thought, he had his proof. . . .
Jill Trelawney opened her eyes again about five minutes later. She made a brief effort to get out of the deep armchair in which she found herself, then gave that up. The dark blue eyes fastened on Dowland, standing before the chair. He saw alarm and anger in them; then a cold watchfulness.
“What did you do?” she asked huskily.
“I shot first,” Dowland said. “It seemed like a good idea.”
Her glance shifted to Miguel on the couch across the room.
“How long was I unconscious?”
“Just a few minutes.”
“And why . . .” She hesitated.
“Why are you feeling so weak? You’ve absorbed a shot of a special little drug, Miss Trelawney. It does two things that are very useful under certain circumstances. One of them is that it keeps the recipient from carrying out any sudden or vigorous action. You might, for example, be able to get out of that chair if you tried hard enough.
“But you’d find yourself lying on the carpet then. Perhaps you’d be able to get up on your hands and knees. You might even start crawling from the room—but you’d do it very slowly.”
Dowland paused. “And the other thing the drug does is to put the person into an agreeable frame of mind, even when he’d rather not be agreeable. He becomes entirely cooperative. For example, you’ll find yourself quite willing to answer questions I ask.”
“So you are a police investigator,” she said evenly.
“That’s right.” Dowland swung another chair around beside him, and sat down facing her. “Let’s not waste any more time, Miss Trelawney. Were you going to shoot me just now?”
She looked briefly surprised.
“No,” she said. “Not unless you forced me to it. I was going to disarm you and lock you in a cellar downstairs. You would have been safe there as long as was necessary.”
“How long would that be?”
“Until I get help.”
“Help from whom?”
Angry red flared about Jill’s cheekbones. “This is incredible!” she said softly. “Help from Carter.”
“Firebrand Carter?” Dowland asked.
“Yes.”
“He’s associated with your uncles?”
“Yes.”
“Who heads the group?”
“Miguel and Carter head it together. They’re very close friends.”
“And who else is in it—besides Paul and yourself?”
She shook her head. “There must be quite a few people in it, but I don’t know their names. We feel it’s best if we know as little as possible about one another at present.”
“I see. But they’re all Terran Freeholders?”
“Yes, of course.”
“How did you happen to be told about Carter?”
“In case of an emergency here, I’m to contact him on a tight-beam number.”
“And just what,” Dowland asked, “have your uncles been doing here?”
“Building a machine that will enable then to move back through time.”
“With the help of YM-400?”
“Yes.”
* * *
Dowland stared at her thoughtfully, feeling a little chilled. She believed it, of course; she was incapable of lying now. But he didn’t believe it. He’d heard that some Overgovernment scientists considered time-travel to be possible. It was a concept that simply had no reality for him.
But he thought of the rumors about YM—and of Miguel found lying inexplicably outside the laboratory building. He asked carefully, “Have they completed the machine?”
“Yes. They were making the first full-scale test of it this morning—and they must have been at least partly successful.”
“Because of Miguel?”
“Yes.”
“You feel,” Dowland said, “that Miguel first went somewhere else—or somewhen else, let’s say—and then came back and wound up a little bit away from where he’d started?”
“Yes.”
“Any idea of how he was hurt?”
The girl shook her head. “The grid-power failure shows there was an accident of some kind, of course. But I can’t imagine what it was.”
“What about Paul? Do you think he’s still in the lab?”
“Not unless he’s also injured—or dead.”
Dowland felt the chill again. “You think he may be in some other time at this moment?”
“Yes.”
“And that he’ll be back?”
“Yes.”
“Can you describe that machine?” he asked.
“No. I’ve never seen the plans, and wouldn’t understand them if I did. And I’ve never been inside the lab.”
“I see. Do you have any reason, aside from the way Miguel reappeared, to think that the test was a partial success?”
“Yes. At three different times since this morning I’ve heard the sounds of a river flowing under the house.”
“You heard what?” Dowland said.
“A river flowing under the house. The noises were quite unmistakable. They lasted for about thirty minutes on each occasion.”
“What would that indicate?” he asked.
“Well, obviously . . . this time period and another one—the one in which that river flows—have drawn close to each other. But the contact is impermanent or imperfect at present.”
“Is that the way the machine is supposed to operate?”
“I don’t know how the machine is supposed to operate,” Jill Trelawney said. “But that’s what seems to have happened.”
Dowland studied her face for a moment. “All right,” he said then, “let’s leave it for now. Who developed this machine?”
“Miguel did. Paul helped, in the later stages. Others have helped with specific details—I don’t know who those other people were. But essentially it was Miguel’s project. He’s been working on it for almost twenty years.”
And that simply couldn’t be true. Unless . . .
“Miss Trelawney,” Dowland said, “do you know what Miguel’s I.Q. reading is?”
“Of course. It’s 192.”
“And Paul’s?”
“189.” She smiled. “You’re going to ask whether they faked lower levels when they were tested by the university authorities. Yes, they did. This thing has been prepared for a long time, Dowland.”
“What’s your own I.Q., Miss Trelawney?”
“181.”
* * *
Her dossier I.Q., based on records of her known activities and behavior, was an estimated 128. The Freeholders did seem to have planned very thoroughly for the success of this operation.
“Do you know who hijacked the YM-400?” Dowland asked.
“Yes. Paul arranged for that.”
“Have you seen the stuff yourself?”
“I have. Two small cases of blue ingots. A very dark blue. Individually, the ingots appear to be quite heavy, though they aren’t very large.”
That described exactly what the Overgovernment was looking for. Dowland asked, “How much of it is in the laboratory?”
“It’s all there.”
He felt his scalp crawling. “All of it! Haven’t your uncles heard that YM is an incredibly dangerous thing to play around with?”
“Of course. But Miguel examined it very carefully after it was obtained. If reasonable precautions are taken, there is no way in which it can become dangerous. The conclusion was that the Overgovernment has spread rumors as a bluff, to try to prevent the YM from being used.”
“What’s happened around here,” Dowland said, “might indicate it wasn’t a bluff.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions, Dowland. A great many other things may have gone wrong.”
“Perhaps. But an I.Q. of 136 keeps telling me that we’re in considerable danger at the moment.”