Instant of Decision by Randall Garrett (lightest ebook reader .TXT) 📗

he would circle; he wouldn't be dumb enough to head in the right direction until he was out of sight. Or would he?

"Get on that radio again," he told the radioman, "—and tell them I want that man alive. Get that—alive!"

"Right." The officer switched on his microphone and began to talk.

Karnes pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes in an attempt to concentrate. With Lansberg shot up, that put the Brittain case in his hands. Theoretically, he should be pumping the prisoners down below to find out how much higher the spy ring went.

But his real interest lay in Brittain, himself. There was no doubt that he had received another message from the impressor before he had thrown it down.

Evidently, when the thing broke, the unknown energies which powered it had short-circuited, paralyzing everyone in the room with their mind-impressing effect.

Then why hadn't it affected Brittain? Perhaps his recent exposure to a normal dosage had immunized him. There was no way of knowing—there never would be.

But what was the message Brittain had received from the impressor that would make him react so violently? It couldn't be the same one that he, Karnes, had received.

Continued on Stratum Two!

Sure; that was it! Like the pages in a book. He, himself, had been hit with page one; Brittain had page two. Page three? Lost forever.

Why hadn't they found that 'copter by now? It ought to be easy enough to spot.

He walked over to the edge of the building and looked down. The police were herding the prisoners into the ground cars. Presently, they were gone. One of the police officers touched his shoulder.

"Ready to go, Mr. Karnes?"

Karnes nodded and climbed into the 'copter. The machine lifted and headed toward the Central Police Station.

He was still trying to think when the phone rang. The policeman picked it up.

"3217. Brown speaking. Oh? Yeah, just a second. It's for you, Mr. Karnes."

Karnes took the instrument. "Karnes speaking."

"Radio Central, Mr. Karnes," came the voice. "We just got some more on Brittain. About ten minutes ago, he abandoned the police 'copter. Officer Powers was in the seat, shot through the head. We'll get the essobee on a murder rap, now."

"Where was the 'copter abandoned?"

Radio Central told him and went on: "Funny thing was, he didn't try to hide it or anything. And he stole another 'copter from a private citizen. We're trying to get the description now. I'll call you if anything further comes in."

"Fine." Karnes hung up. The address where Brittain had left the 'copter was in almost a direct line between the apartment building and Long Island Spaceport. But if Brittain were actually heading there, why should he leave such a broad and obvious trail?

He turned to the officer who was driving the 'copter.

"I've got a hunch. Swivel this thing around and head for Long Island. I've got a funny feeling that Brittain will be there. He—"

The phone rang again, and Karnes grabbed it.

"Mr. Karnes, we've found that civilian's 'copter! It's at Long Island Spaceport! Just a second, the stuff's still coming in." Pause. "Get this: A man answering to Brittain's description bought a ticket for the West Coast rocket.

"As you know, that's UN territory, and we have no jurisdiction. The rocket is sealed for takeoff, but they're holding it for us until you get there!"

"Right! I'm headed there now!" he answered quickly.

It was twelve minutes later that the police 'copter settled just outside the rocket enclosure. Karnes had already notified the pilot to be ready for him. He sprinted up the ramp and stood at the airlock of the transcontinental rocket.

It sighed open, and Karnes stepped inside. He was met by a frightened stewardess.

"Tell him to get in here and not to try any funny stuff!" snapped a voice from the passenger cabin.

Brittain was standing at the forward end of the passenger compartment with a levelled gun.

The rocket was tilted at forty-five degrees for the takeoff, and the passenger's seats had swiveled with a section of the flooring to keep them level, which gave the effect of a stairway which climbed toward the pilot's cabin in the forward section of the ship. Brittain's position was at the top of the stairway.

Karnes raised his hands and kept them carefully away from his hip holster.

"All right," called Brittain, "Close that door and get this ship off the ground."

The pilot could hear him through the intercom system. The airlock door slid shut again.

"You and the stewardess get into a seat," the spy continued sharply. "If you try anything funny, I start shooting the other passengers if I can't hit you."

Karnes saw then what hold Brittain had on the pilot. The rocketeer couldn't afford to risk the lives of his passengers.

He and the stewardess slid into the acceleration seats and strapped themselves in. Brittain stepped down the tiered floor and took a rear seat near a frightened-looking blonde girl.

"Anything funny, and Blondie here gets a bullet. Okay, pilot. Take her up!"

There was a faint hiss, and then the rockets began their throbbing roar. Acceleration pressure began to shove the passengers back in their seats. Karnes leaned back and tried—successfully—to suppress the smile of triumph that kept trying to come to his lips.

Brittain had finally made a mistake.

One hundred and twenty-five miles over Pennsylvania, the rockets cut out, and the ship went into free fall. And Brittain's mistake became evident.

With the abrupt cessation of weight, the padded acceleration seats expanded again, pressing the passengers up against their safety straps. But Brittain had failed to strap himself in.

The expanding seat shoved forward and toward the ceiling. Before he could recover from his surprise, Karnes had undone his own seat belt and snapped his body through the air toward Brittain. They collided with a thump and Brittain's body slammed against the roof of the cabin with agonizing force. The gun came out of his hand and clanged against a wall, then drifted off harmlessly. Brittain was out cold.

Karnes handcuffed him securely and, with the stewardess' help, tugged him back to the baggage compartment. One of the passengers was quietly retching into a vacuum disposal chute.

With Brittain securely strapped into an empty baggage rack, Karnes swam back to the pilot's compartment, pulling himself along the railing that ran along the floor.

The pilot looked relieved. "Thank heaven you got the devil! He got wise when we delayed the takeoff, and threatened to start shooting my passengers. There wasn't a thing I could do."

"I know. Let me use your radio."

It took a couple of minutes to get UN International Investigation on the hookup, but Karnes finally was talking to his superior in the UN office. He reported what had happened.

"Fine, Karnes," came the tight-beamed voice. "Now, here's something else you ought to know. Our radar net has spotted robot rockets coming in over the Pole. So far, five of them have been hit by interceptor rockets, but we don't have them all by a long shot.

"Evidently, the League feels that they're ready to slam us, now that they've got Moonbase and two of our spacecraft plants out of the way. The war is on, Karnes."

Karnes acknowledged, they cut the connection.

There was one thing burning hotly in his brain. Brittain had fled New York without seeming to care how far they traced him or what kind of trail he left behind. Why?

He jerked open the door of the pilot's cabin, and, not bothering to use the rail, launched himself toward the rear of the ship, flipping himself halfway down to land with his feet against the baggage room door. He pulled the door open and pushed inside.

Brittain was still groggy, so Karnes began slapping his face methodically, rocking his head from side to side.

"Okay! Okay! Stop it!" Brittain yelled, fully awake.

Karnes stopped, and Brittain blinked, owlishly. Karnes' hunch factory was still operating at full blast; he was fairly sure that the lie he was about to tell would have all of the desired effect.

"You didn't really think you could get away, did you, bud?" he asked, nastily. "We're headed back for New York now, and you'll stand trial for murder as well as sabotage and espionage."

Brittain's eyes widened in horror.

"What did that mind impressor tell you?" Karnes went on.

Brittain was trying to keep his mouth shut, but at that moment there was a glare of light which flashed bluely through the hard quartz of a nearby window.

From somewhere far to the north, another interceptor rocket had found the atomic warhead of an enemy bomb.

Brittain knew and recognized that flash. He screamed wordlessly and then began to sob like a hysterical child.

Karnes began to slap him again. "Come on, what was it?"

"Don't—don't let them go back to New York! It said—it said—" he gasped and took a deep breath "—WE'LL ALL BE KILLED!" he screamed.

"Why?" Karnes's voice was cold.

"BOMB!" Brittain screamed again.

After a few more minutes of questioning, Karnes finally got the rest of the story from him.

The Galactics had found that on this date a nuclear bomb would get through the UN screen and completely destroy most of Greater New York. Only one other bomb would get through, but it would be thrown off course and land somewhere in the Pacific, having missed Los Angeles entirely.

"Anything else?" asked Karnes after a few seconds of silence from Brittain. "Didn't it say they would have to prevent that?"

Brittain's voice was dull now. "All it said was that the records would have to be preserved. It said that things must go on exactly as before. It said that nothing must interfere with the complete development, whatever that means."

Karnes pushed his way out of the room and back towards the pilot's compartment. What the pilot had to say was no news to Karnes.

"Radio from New York says that a bomb missed LA and hit the ocean. That was a close one."

Karnes nodded silently, and leaned back in the stewardess' seat to think.

No wonder Brittain had been so anxious to get out of New York.

New York would be destroyed, but that was inevitable. The thing that had bothered him, his dilemma, was solved.

Was this the real Earth that he lived in, or a museum that had been set up by the Galactics? If it was old Earth, then man would solve his present problems and go on to solve the problem of time travel and interstellar transportation. The present war would be just another little incident in the far past, like the battles of Gettysburg and Agincourt.

And if it were the museum Earth? No difference. For the Galactics had decided not to interfere. They had decided to let the race of Earth go on as it was—exactly as it had gone before. It made no difference, really. No difference at all. A perfect duplication of an original was the original, in every meaningful way.

"Funny," said the pilot abruptly, "I'm not getting any signal from New York."

Karnes took a deep breath and bit at his lower lip. But he did not look toward the horror that was New York. The city was gone, but the world was there—solid and real!

You'd better expand your museum a little bit, boys, he thought. We'll need to include Mars and Venus before very long. And then the stars.

End of Project Gutenberg's Instant of Decision, by Gordon Randall Garrett