The full impact was just beginning to hit him. Any of them might be teeps. The word passed on, scanned from one mind to the next. The teep network was a connected ring; he had run up against the first station and that was the trigger. There was no use trying to outrun Walter; the next teep would rise up ahead of him and intercept him.
He halted, then ducked into a store. He was surounded by fabrics and materials, a dazzling display of colors and textures on all sides of him. A few well-dressed women were examining and languidly buying. He sped past a counter toward a rear door.
At the door a clerk cut him off, a fat man in a blue suit, pudding face flushed with indignation. “Say, you can’t come back here! Who the hell are you?” His fat body wedged itself in the way.
Davis’ mind raced frantically. He dimly sensed rather than saw the group of figures quietly entering the swank entrance behind him. He ducked down and then hurtled himself past the astonished clerk, down an aisle between counters. He bowled over a terrified old woman and emerged beside a vast display rack that majestically revolved to reveal its anatomy. What next? They were at both doors; he had trapped himself. He thought frantically, desperately. What next?
While he was trying to decide, a silent _whoosh_ picked him up and slammed him violently against the protective ring that circled his body. He was back at Farben.
Before his eyes a miniature Pellig raced and darted on the microscopic screen. The next operator was already working to solve the problem of escape, but Davis wasn’t interested. He sagged limply in his chair and allowed the complex wiring attached to his body—his _real_ body—to drain off the bursts of adrenalin that choked his chest and heart.
Another red button, not his own, was illuminated. He could ignore the shrill sounds scratching at his ears; somebody else had to work out the answer, for awhile. Davis tried to reach his hand up to the good-luck charm inside his shirt, but the protective ring stopped him. It didn’t matter: he was already safe.
On the screen Keith Pellig burned through the plate-plastic window of the luxurious clothing store and floundered out onto the street. People screamed in horror; there was pandemonium and confusion.
The fat red-faced clerk stood as if turned to stone. While everyone else raced around frantically, he stood motionless, his lips twitching, his body jerking in convulsive spasms. Saliva dribbled from his thick mouth. His eyes rolled inward. Suddenly he collapsed in a blubbery heap.
The scene shifted, as Pellig escaped from the pack of people clustered around the front of the store. The clerk was lost from sight. Al Davis was puzzled. Had Pellig destroyed the clerk? Pellig was speeding lithely down the sidewalk; his body was built for rapid motion. He turned a corner, hesitated, and then disappeared into a public theater.
The theater was dark. Pellig blundered in confusion: a bad strategy, Davis realized. The darkness wouldn’t affect the teeps, who depended not on sight but on telepathic contact. The operator’s mind was as obvious in darkness as in broad daylight; and the movements of the body were impeded.
The operator now realized his mistake and sought an exit. But already vague shapes were moving in on him. The questioning figures were only partly visible. Pellig hesitated, then dashed into a lavatory. A woman followed him to the door and halted briefly. In that interval Pellig burned his way through the wall of the lavatory with his thumb-gun and emerged in the alley behind the theater.
The body stood considering, trying to make up its mind. The vast shape of the Directorate building loomed ahead, a golden tower that caught the mid-day sunlight and sparkled it back. Pellig took a deep shuddering breath and started toward it at a relaxed trot . . .
And the red button twitched.
The body stumbled. The new operator, dazed with surprise, fought for control. The body smashed into a heap of garbage, struggled up, and then loped on. Nobody followed. There were no visible pursuers. The body reached a busy street, glanced around, and then hailed a robot-operated public taxi.
A moment later the cab roared off, in the direction of the Directorate tower. Other cars and people flitted past, as it gained speed. In the back, Pellig relaxed against the soft seat cushions, face placid. This operator was learning confidence fast. He nonchalantly lit a cigarette and examined the passing streets. He cleaned his nails, reached down to touch a burned spot on his trouser leg, tried to interest the robot driver in conversation, then settled comfortably back.
Something strange was happening. Davis turned his eyes to the location schematics, which showed the space-relationship of the body to the Directorate offices. _The body had gone too far._ Incredibly, the teep network had failed to stop it.
_Why?_
Sweat stood out on Davis’ palms and armpits. A dazzling nausea licked through him. Maybe it was going to work. Maybe the body would actually get through.
Calmly, confidently, lounging in the back seat of the public taxi, Keith Pellig sped toward the Directorate offices, his thumb-gun resting loosely in his lap.
Major Shaeffer stood in front of his desk and bellowed with fright.
“It’s not possible,” drummed the disorganized thoughts of the Corpsman nearest him. “It _isn’t, isn’t, isn’t_ possible.”
“There must be a reason,” Shaeffer managed to think back.
“We lost him.” Incredulous, fearful, the thoughts dinned back and forth through the web-strands of the network. “Shaeffer, _we lost him!_ Walter Remington picked him up as he stepped off the ship. He had him. He caught the whole syndrome. The assassin’s thumb-gun, his fear, his strategy, his personality-characteristics. And then—”
“You let him get away.”
“Shaeffer, _he disappeared._” A running stream of disbelief. “Suddenly he was gone. He vanished in thin air. I tell you, we _did not lose him._ At the second station he ceased to exist.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.” There was numb misery in the man. “Remington passed him to Allison at the clothing store. The impressions came clear as glass; no doubt of it. The assassin began to run through the store. Allison kept lock easily; his thoughts stood out the way an assassin’s thoughts do, that highly-colored etched intentness.”
“He must have raised a shield.”
“There was no diminution. The entire personality was cut off instantly—not merely the thoughts.”
Shaeffer’s mind dived crazily. “It’s never happened to us before.” He cursed in a loud, wild voice that shook the objects on his desk. “And Wakeman’s on Luna. We can’t teep him; I’ll have to use the regular ipvic.”
“Tell him something’s terribly wrong. Tell him the assassin disappeared into thin air.”
Shaeffer hurried to the transmission room. As he was jerking the closed-circuit to the Lunar resort into life, a new flurry of excited thoughts chilled him.
“I’ve picked him up!” An eager Corpswoman, relayed by the network from one to another. “I’ve got him!”
“Where are you?” A variety of insistent demands came from up and down the network. There were quick, urgent calls as the frantic teeps collected for action, “Where is he?”
“Theater. Near the clothing store.” Rapid, disjointed instructions. “He’s heading into the men’s room. Only a few feet from me; shall I go in? I can easily—” The thought broke off.
Shaeffer squalled a shattering blast of despair and rage down the network. “Go on!”
Silence. And then . . . the mind screamed.
Shaeffer clapped his hands futilely to his head and closed his eyes. Gradually the storm died down. All up and down the network the violence rolled and lapped. Mind after mind was smashed, short-circuited, blacked-out by the overload. Shattering pain lashed through the entire web of telepaths, back to the original mind. Three in a row.
“Where is he?” Shaeffer shouted. “What happened?” The next station responded faintly. “She lost him. She’s dropped from the network. Dead, I think. Burned-out.” Bewilderment. “I’m in the area but I can’t catch the mind she was scanning. The mind she was scanning is gone!”
Shaeffer managed to raise Peter Wakeman on the ipvic vidscreen. “Peter,” he croaked aloud, “we’re beaten.”
“What do you mean? Cartwright isn’t even there!”
“We picked up the assassin and then lost him. We picked him up again later on, a few minutes later—in another location. Peter, _he got past three stations._ And he’s still moving. How he-”
“Listen to me,” Wakeman interrupted. “Once you get hold of his mind, stay with him. Close ranks; follow him until the next station takes over. Maybe you’re too far apart. Maybe—”
“I’ve got him,” a thought came to Shaeffer. “He’s near me. I’ll find him; he’s close by.”
The network yammered excitement and suspense.
“I’m getting something strange.” Doubt mixed with curiosity, and was followed by startled disbelief.
“There must be more than one assassin. But that’s not possible.” Growing excitement. “I can actually see him. Pellig just got out of a cab—he’s walking along the street ahead of me. He’s going to enter the Directorate building by the main entrance; it’s all there in his mind. I’ll kill him. He’s stopping for a streetlight. Now he’s thinking of crossing the street and going—”