The Zap Gun (25 page)

"Y-yes." But his attention was still fixed on the travails of the tiny roly-poly creature. It was having a terrible time, becoming more confounded and more embroiled in the tortured ways and byways of the maze each second.

The harder it tried the deeper it became enmeshed. And that's not right, Febbs thought or rather felt. He experienced its torment, and that torment was appalling. Something had to be done about it, and now.

"Hey," he said feebly. "How do I get this animal, whatever it is, out?"

The telepathic voice informed him, "On the left-hand side of the maze you will find a gaily-colored blue stud. Depress that stud, Mr. Febbs."

Eagerly he pressed it.

He felt at once, or imagined he felt (which was it? The distinction seemed to have evaporated) a diminution of the terror surging within the trapped animal.

But almost at once that terror returned—and this time with renewed, even increased, severity.

"You would like," the telepathic voice said, "to get the man in the maze out. Would you not, Mr. Febbs? Be honest. Let's not kid ourselves. Is this not right?"

"Right," Febbs whispered, nodding. "But it's not a man, is it? I mean, it's just a bug or an animal or something. What is it?"

He needed to know. The answer was urgent to him. Maybe I can lift it out, he thought. Or yell to it. Somehow communicate with it so it sees how to get away and that I'm up here, trying for its sake.

"Hey!" he said to the scampering creature as it rebounded from one barrier to the next as the structure, the pattern, of the maze altered and realtered, always outwitting it. "Who are you? What are you? Do you have a name?"

"I have a name," the trapped creature thought back frantically to him, linking itself, its travails, with him. Sharing its plight with Surley G. Febbs desperately and gladly.

He felt himself enmeshed now, not looking down at the maze from above but—seeing the barriers ahead of him, looming. He was—

He was the creature in the maze. "My name," he squealed, appealing to the enormous, not fully-understood entity above him whose countenance, whose presence, he had sensed for a moment... but now who seemed to be gone. He could no longer locate it. He was alone again as he faced the shifting walls on every side.

"My name," he squealed, "is Surley G. Febbs and I want to get out! Can you hear me, whoever you are up there? Can you do something for me?"

There was no answer. There was nothing, no one, above.

He scampered on alone.

At five-thirty that morning, still at his work-desk within his own conapt, Don Packard, the chief KACH-man from Division Seventeen of New York City, dictated with microphone in hand the memoranda which would comprise the documents served during the now beginning day of ordinary, normal men and women.

"With regard to the conspiracy composed of the six recently-added concomodies to the UN-W Natsec Board," he declared into the mike, and paused briefly for a sip of coffee. "That conspiratorial organization no longer exists. Its five members have been barbarously exterminated by the leader, S. G. Febbs. Febbs himself is now in a state of permanently induced psychotic withdrawal."

Although this was the information which the client, General George Nitz, wanted, it did not seem sufficient. So Don Packard amplified.

"At eleven o'clock a.m. yesterday, May 12, 2004, as revealed by KACH's several monitoring devices, the conspirators met in subsurface conapt 2A of Festung Washington, D.C. building 507969584. This was their fourth meeting but the first and only time each of the concomodies brought with him/her the component from weapon item 401.

"I will not list the names of the six conspirators inasmuch as their names are already known to the Board.

"Reassembly of weapon item 401, which is the first non-b weapon of the new variant line, was begun by S. G. Febbs utilizing essential precision tools purchased at enormous cost.

"While reassembling the weapon item 401 S. G. Febbs outlined to his fellow conspirators the political and economic basis of the radical new system which he proposed to erect in place of the old, including the assassinations of well-known public figures."

Pausing once more, Don Packard sipped more coffee. Then resumed his dictation, which, as he spoke it, was being autonomically transcribed into written document form by the apparatus before him.

"At four p.m. an ordinary 'stant mail robot delivered a plain-wrapped registered parcel to apartment 28 of conapt building 507969584. S. G. Febbs accepted the parcel and without opening it resumed his reassembling of the weapon.

"When the reassembly was completed, S. G. Febbs, as I have already stated (supra), exterminated these five co-conspirators, leaving only himself in possession of a now-proven, working model of weapon 401, the sole working model known to exist."

Again Don Packard paused for more coffee. He was tired, but his job was almost over. Then he would carry a copy of the document now being dictated to General Nitz. It was all routine.

Packard wound up: "S. G. Febbs fell victim to the Empathic-Telepathic whatever-it's-called Maze and shortly succumbed—in fact in record time, beating the smallest period established by voluntary prisoners from the Wes-bloc federal pen on Callisto.

"S. G. Febbs," he declared into the mike in conclusion, "is now at Wallingford Clinic, where he will remain indefinitely. However—"

At this point he broke off dictation and stared thoughtfully at his coffee cup. Since General Nitz was his client in this matter, Don Packard concluded his report with a footnote of his observations.

"It would seem," he began thoughtfully, "that since, due to the recent Emergency, Vincent Klug now has continual, legal access to the uniquely enormous autofac network of Lanferman Associates of California, and can run off in any quantity he wishes these damn mazes altered from the original weapon which was so effective against the aliens from Sirius, it might well be expedient to serve on Vincent Klug the instrument which has aided the Board so greatly in the past: an honorary but absolutely legally-binding commission in the Wes-bloc armed forces. Thus, should the need ever arrive—"

He paused once more, but this time not voluntarily.

The doorbell of his high-rent, high-rise, unlisted conapt had incredibly rung, and at not quite six a.m. Weird hour.

Well, it undoubtedly was a messenger from the Board, anxious to receive his report on the conspiracy of the six concomodies.

It was not, however, a military aide who faced him. In the hall stood a spic-and-span-new shiny 'stant mail delivery robot, with an ordinary wrapped brown-paper parcel under its arm.

"Mr. Don Packard? I have a registered parcel for you."

What the hell is it now? Packard asked himself irritably. Just when at last, he was about to knock off for the night and get some rest.

"Sign here," the 'stant mail robot said, "if you are Mr. Packard or if not Mr. Packard then on line two instead." It presented a form, pen and flat surface of itself on which to jot.

Bleary-eyed, witless from a long night of ceaseless heavy work-load in which a good deal had happened, Don Packard of the private police agency KACH signed for and accepted the parcel. More monitoring or recording equipment, I suppose, he said to himself. They're always "improving" these irritating technological contraptions which we have to lug around.

He carried the parcel grumpily back to his desk.

And opened it.