‘You see, I am perfectly safe from being “shot”, as you call it,’ Lola said. ‘So I’ll come down and work with you. You might have your news services put out a bulletin, though. I never have killed anyone, and am not going to do so here, but anyone who tries to shoot me or bomb me or anything will lose both hands at the wrists just before he fires. That would keep them from killing anyone standing near me, don’t you think?’
‘I should think it would,’ General Cordeen thought, and a pall of awe covered the linked minds. The implications of the naively frank remark just uttered by this apparently inoffensive and defenseless young woman were simply too overwhelming to be discussed.
‘Anything else on the agenda, Clee?’ Lola asked.
There was not, and the starship’s guests were returned, each to his own home place.
And not one of them was exactly the same as he had been.
64
FOUR
‘I think I’ll oome along with you and bodyguard you, Lola,’ Belle said the following morning after breakfast. ‘Glee’s going to be seven thousand miles deep in mathematics and Jim’s doing his stuff at the observatory, and I can’t help either of ’em at the moment. You’d do a better job, wouldn’t you, if you could concentrate on it?’
‘Of course. Thanks, Belle. But remember, it’s already been announced – no death. Just hands. I can’t really believe that I’ll be attacked, but they seem pretty sure of it.’
‘I’d like to separate anyone like that from his head instead of his hands, but as it is published so it will be performed.’
‘How about wearing some kind of halfway comfortable shoes instead of those slippers?’ Garlock asked. “That could turn out to be a long, tough brawl, and your feet’ll be begging for mercy before you get back here.’
‘Uh-uh. Very comfortable and a perfect fit. Besides, if I have to suffer just a little bit for good appearance’s sake in a matter of intergalactic amity…’
‘A matter of showing off, you mean.’
‘Why, Clee!’ Belle widened her eyes at him. ‘How you talk! But they’re ready, Lola – let’s go.’
The two girls disappeared from the Main, to appear on the speakers’ stand in front of the Capitol Building. President Benton was there, with his cabinet, General Cordeen and his staff, and certain other personages.
‘Oh, Miss Bellamy, too? I’m very glad you are here,’ Benton said, as he shook hands cordially with both.
Thank you. I came along as bodyguard. May I meet your Secret Service Chief, please?’
‘Why, of course. Miss Bellamy, may I present Mr. Aven-gord?’
‘You have the hospital room ready? … Where is it, please?’
‘Back of us, in the wing…’
65
‘Just think of it, please, and I’ll follow your thought… ah, yes, there it is. I hope it won’t be used. You agree with General Cordeen that there will be one or more attempts at assassination?’
Tm very much afraid so. This town is literally riddled with enemy agents, and of course we don’t know all of them -especially not the best ones. They know that if these meetings go through, they’re sunk; so they’re desperate. We’ve got this whole area covered like dew – we’ve arrested sixteen suspects already this morning – but all the advantage is theirs.’
‘Not all of it, sir,’ Belle smiled at him cheerfully. ‘You have me, and I am a Prime Operator. That is, a wielder of power of no small ability. Oh, you are right. There’s an attempt now being prepared.’
While Belle had been greeting and conversing, she had also been scanning. Her range, her sensitivity, and her powers were immensely greater than Lola’s – were probably equal to Gar-lock’s own. She scanned by miles against the scant yards covered by the Secret Service.
‘Where?’
‘Give me your thought.’ The Secret Service man did not know what she meant – telepathy was of course new to him -so she seized his attention and directed it to a certain window in a building a couple of miles away on a hill.
‘But they couldn’t, from there!’
‘But they can. They have a quite efficient engine of destruction – a “rifle” is their thought. Large, and long, with a very good telescope on it – with cross-hairs. If I scan their minds more precisely you may know the weapon… Ah, they think of it as a “Buford Mark Forty Anti-Aircraft Rifle”.’
‘A Buford! My God, they can hit any button on her clothes – get her away, quick!’ He tried to jump, but could not move.
‘As you were,’ she directed. ‘There was another Buford there, and another over there.’ She guided his thought. ‘Two men to each Buford. There are now six handless men in your hospital room. If you will send men to those three places you will find the Bufords and the hands. Your surgeon will have no difficulty in matching the hands to the men. If any seek to remove either Bufords or hands before your men get there, I will de-hand them, also.’
66
The Secret Service man was completely flabbergasted. Cordeen had told him, with much pounding on his desk and in searing, air-blueing language, what to expect – or, rather, to expect anything, no matter what and with no limits whatever -but he hadn’t believed it then and simply could not believe it now. God damn it, such things couldn’t happen. And this beautiful, beautifully-stacked, half-naked girl, who couldn’t be a day over twenty-five… Even if it had been their leader, Captain Garlock himself…
‘I am twenty-three of your years old, not twenty-five,’ she informed him coldly, ‘and I will permit no distinction of sex. In your culture the women may still be allowing you men to believe in the fallacy of the superiority of the male, but know right now that I can do anything any man ever born can do, and do it better.”
‘Oh, I’m … I’m sure … certainly…’ Avengord’s thought was incoherent.
‘If you want me to work with you you’d better start believing right now that there are a lot of things you don’t know,’ Belle went on relentlessly. ‘Stop believing that just because a thing hasn’t already happened on this mudball planet of yours, it can’t happen anywhere or anywhen. You do believe, however, whether you want to or not, things you see with your own eyes?’
‘Yes. I can not be hypnotized.’
‘I’m very glad you believe that much.’ Avengord did not notice that she neither confirmed nor denied the truth of his statement. ‘To that end you will go now into the hospital room and see the bandaging going on. You will see and hear the news broadcast going as as I prepared it.’
He went, and came back a badly shaken man.
‘But they’re sending it out exactly as it happened!’ he protested. ‘They’ll all scatter out so fast and far we’ll never catch them!’
‘By no means. You see, the amputees didn’t believe that they would lose their hands. Their superiors didn’t believe it, either; they assured each other and their underlings that it was just bluff and nonsense. And since they are all even more materialistic and hidebound and unbelieving than you are, they are all now highly confused – at a complete loss.’
67
‘You can say that again. If I, working with you and having you pounding it into my head, couldn’t more than half believe it…’
‘So they’re now very frightened, as well as confused, and the director of their whole spy system is now violating rule and precedent by sending out messengers to summon his highest agents to confer with him in his secret place.’
‘If you’ll tell me where, I’ll get over to my office…’
‘No. We’ll both be in your office in plenty of time. We’ll watch Lola get started. It will be highly instructive for you to watch a really capable Operator at work.’
President Benton had been introduced, and had in turn finished introducing Lola. The crowd, many thousands strong, was cheering. Lola was stepping into the carefully marked speaker’s place.
‘You may disconnect these’ – she waved a hand at the battery of microphones – ‘since I do not use speech. Not only do I not know any of your various languages, but no one language would suffice. My thought will go to every person on your world.’
‘World?’ the president asked in surprise. ‘Surely not behind the Curtains? They’ll jam you, I’m afraid.’
‘My thought, as I shall drive it, will not be stopped,’ Lola assured him. ‘Since this world has no telepathy, it has no mind-blocks and I can cover the planet as easily as one mind. Nor does it matter whether it’s day or night, or whether anyone is awake or asleep. All will receive my message. Since you wish a record, the cameras may run, although they are neither necessary nor desirable for me. Everyone will see me in his mind, much better than on the surface of any teevee tube.’