THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST
Fritz Leiber
“I wish,” said the Young Captain, police chief of High
Chicago, the turbulent satellite that hangs over the merid-
ian of the mid-western groundside city, “I wish that some-
times the telepathic races of the Galaxy weren’t such
consistent truth-tellers and silence-keepers.”
“Your four suspects are all telepaths?” the- Old Lieu-
tenant asked.
“Yes. I also wish I had more than half an how to
decide which one to accuse; But Earth-side has muscled
into the case and the pressure is on. If I can’t reason it
out, I must make a guess. A bare half-hour they give
me.”
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t waste it with a pensioned-
off old louey.”
The Young Captain shook his head decisively. “No. You
think. You have time to now.”
The Old Lieutenant smiled. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t.
And I doubt if I can give you any special angles on tele-
paths, Jim. It’s true I’ve lately been whiling away the
time on informal study of alien thought systems with
Khla-Khla the Martian, but—”
“I didn’t come to you looking for a specialist on tele-
pathy,” the Young Captain asserted sharply.
“Very well then, Jim. You know what you’re doings
Let’s hear your case. And give me background. I don’t
keep up with the news.’
The Young Captain looked skeptical. “Everyone in High
Chicago has heard about the murder—not two furlongs
from here—of the representative of the Arcturian peace
party.’
“I haven’t,” the Old Lieutenant said. “Who are the
Arcturians? I tell you, for an oldster like me, the Now
is just one more historical period. Better consult someone
else, Jim.”
“No. The Arcturians are the first non-related humanoid
race to turn up in the Galaxy. Non-related to Earth
humans, that is. True, they have three eyes, and six fin-
gers on each hand, but they are hairless mammalian
bipeds just the same. One of their females is the current
burlesque sensation of the Star and Garter.”
“The police found that a good spot to keep their eyes on
in my day too,” the Old Lieutenant recalled, nodding.
“Are the Arcturians telepaths?”
“No. I’ll come to the telepathy angle later. The Arcturi-
ans are split into two” parties: those who want to enter the
Commerce Union and open their planets to alien star-
ships, including Earth’s—the peace party, in short—and
those who favour a policy of strict non-intercourse which,
as far as we know, always intimately leads to war. The war
party is rather the stronger of the two. Any event may tip
the balance.”
“Such as a representative of the peace party coming
quietly to Earth and getting himself bumped before he
even gets down from High Chicago?”