of this thing, fast!”
“So he had to try it.” Earlman relieved Don of the dead weight. “Penn is going to love you for this.”
Don sucked air, fighting to rid himself of hate. “Take him back to the hotel. I’ll worry about Penn when I have to.”
“And Klieger?”
“I’ll take care of him.”
Don had almost forgotten Klieger in the savage fury of the past few minutes. He found him standing by one of the exhibits, staring at a relic of the past as if he were trying to drink its beauty and impress its image on his brain. Gently he picked up the piece, a man entranced by the artistic perfection of ancient craftsmen and, looking at him, Don felt his stomach tighten with a sudden, sick understanding.
* * * *
Penn didn’t trust women. The receptionist was a man as were all his personnel. He took one look at Don then lunged for a buzzer.
“Why bother?” Don headed past him towards the inner office. “Just tell the general that I’m on my way in.”
“But—?”
“How did I get this far without being stopped?” Don shrugged. “You figure it out.”
Penn wasn’t alone. Earlman, more haggard than ever, sat smoking unhappily and Don guessed that he had been receiving the full weight of the general’s anger. He grinned as the door slammed shut behind him.
“Hi, Max, you look as if you’ve been having a bad time.”
“Don!” Earlman lunged to his feet. “Where have you been? It’s more than a week now. Where’s Klieger?”
“Klieger.” Don smiled. “At this moment he is somewhere in Soviet territory being interrogated by every lie-detection device known to man.”
For a moment there was a deathly silence then Penn leaned forward.
“All right, Gregson, you’ve had your joke. Now produce Klieger or take the consequences.”
“It’s no joke.” Don stared grimly into the general’s eyes. “That’s what I’ve been doing this past week. Talking to Klieger, fixing his passage, dodging your hunters.”
“Traitor!”
Don didn’t answer.
“You dirty, stinking traitor!” Suddenly Penn became icy calm and his calmness was more terrible than his rage. “This is a Democracy, Gregson, but we know how to protect ourselves. You should have gone with Klieger to the safety of your friends.”
“Friends! You think I did it for them?” Don looked down at his hands, they were shaking. Deliberately he sat down, lit a cigarette, waited for his anger to pass.
“You demand loyalty,” he said. “Blind, unswerving, unthinking loyalty. You think that those who are not with you must be for the enemy but you are wrong. There is a greater loyalty than to an individual, a nation or a group of nations. There is a loyalty to the human race. One day, please God, both sides may realize that.”
“Don!”
Earlman leaned forward. Gregson gestured him back to his chair,
“Just listen, Max, you too, General. Listen and try to understand.”
He paused, dragging at the cigarette, his broad-planed face revealing some of his fatigue.
“The answer,” he said, “lay in the Ming vase.”
“The one Klieger stole from the antique shop?” Earlman nodded. “What about it, Don? Why was it so important?”
He was, Don knew, acting as a barrier between him and the wrath of the general and he was suddenly glad that he was there. Penn, alone, might never have found the patience to listen.
“Klieger can see into the future,” continued Don. “Never forget that. He was the star ‘resident’ at Cartwright House and stayed there for ten years. Then, for no apparent reason, he decided to take off. He did. He stole money—he had to live, and he stole a vase, to him a thing of wondrous beauty. The answer lies in why he did it.”
“A thief!” Penn snorted. “He was a thief. That’s the answer.”
“No,” said Don quietly. “The reason is that time was running out—and he knew it!”
They stared at him. They didn’t understand, not even Earlman, certainly not Penn and yet, to Don, it was all clear. So ghastly clear.
“What a man does is determined by his character,” said Don. “Given a certain stimulus he will react in a certain way—and this is predictable. Think of Klieger and what he was. Meek, mild, inoffensive, willing to do as he was told without question. He did it for ten years while his talent was being trained so that he could ‘see’ further and clearer into the future. Then one day he ‘sees’ something that drives him desperate.
“Desperate enough to break the habits of a lifetime. He persuaded the others to help him escape. They thought that he was doing it to help them, perhaps they wanted to prove something, that isn’t important now. Klieger is. He walked out. He stole. He tried to fill every waking hour with what he considered to be the ultimate of beauty. A different man would have gambled, drank, chased women. Klieger loves old and precious things. He stole a Ming vase.”
“Why?” Despite himself Penn was interested.
“Because he saw the ultimate war!”
Don leaned forward, his cigarette forgotten, his eyes burning with the necessity of making them see what he knew was the truth.
“He saw the end of everything. He saw his own death and he wanted, poor devil, to live a little before he died.”
It made sense. Even to Penn it made sense. He had seen the secret records, the breakdown of a man’s character, the psychological dissection and extrapolations. Security was very thorough.
“I—” Penn swallowed. “I can’t believe it.”
“It’s the truth.” Don remembered his cigarette. “He told me—we had plenty of time for talking. How else do you think we managed to catch him? He could have remained free forever had he tried. But he was tired, afraid, terrified. He wanted to see the exhibition and he expected to die by Bronson’s bullet.”
“Now wait a minute!” Earlman frowned, a crease folding his forehead. “No man in his right mind would willingly go to his death. It doesn’t make sense.”
“No?” Don was grim. “Think about it.”
“A bullet is quick and clean,” mused Earlman. “But he didn’t die! Bronson was stopped!”
“That is why I turned ‘traitor’.” Don crushed out his cigarette. “By stopping Bronson I proved that the future is a variable, that even an expert clairvoyant like Klieger can only see the probable future, not the inevitable one. It gave us hope. Both of us.”
He
