Three to Conquer (27 page)

             
Leeming broke into his meditation by saying, "I don't like it and I don't think
I'll
get away with it.
Nevertheless
I am willing to bait Conway, providing you're standing by to back me up. He might listen to you when he won't to me."

             
"You don't know until you've tried."

             
"Let's go to my office," suggested Leeming. "You get hold of him,
then
I'll see what can be done."

-

             
Harper called Jameson first, said, "I'm at the Biological Research Laboratories, as probably you are aware, you having had something to do with bringing me here. I'm going to put through a call to General Conway. Doctor Leeming wants a brief talk with him."

             
"Then why get on to me?" Jameson asked.

             
"Because I've tried to reach Conway before, remember? Neither Leeming nor I have the time or patience to be bol
l
ixed around by every underling in Washington. It's up to you to tell them to shove my call straight through.
"

             
"
See here, Harper—"

             
"Shut up!" Harper ordered. "You've used me plenty. Now I'm using you. Get busy and do as you're told."

             
He slammed the instrument onto its rack, sat down in a handy chair, scowled at the phone and snorted.

             
Leeming said apprehensively, "Who is this Jameson?"

             
"A big cheese in the F.B.I."

             
"And
you
tell
him
where
he
gets off?"

             
"It's the first time," said Harper, "and from what I know of him, it'll also be the last."

             
His call went
through,
a youthful face appeared in his instrument's visiscreen.

             
"My name is Wade Harper," he told the face. "I want to speak to General Conway and it's urgent."

             
"Just a moment, please." The face went away, was replaced by another, older, more officious.

             
"About what do you wish to talk to the General?" inquired the newcomer.

             
"What's it to you?" demanded Harper toughly. "Go straight to Connie and find out, once and for all, whether or not he will condescend to have a word with me."

             
"I'm afraid I cannot do that unless I can first brief him on the subject matter of your—" The face ceased talking, glanced sidewise, said hurriedly, "Pardon me a moment," and disappeared. A few seconds later it returned, wearing a startled expression. "Hold on, Mr. Harper. We're switching you through as speedily as possible."

             
Harper grinned at the now-empty screen, which registered eccentric patterns as the line was switched through intercom-boards, then cleared and held General Conway's austere features.

             
"What is it, Mr. Harper?"

             
Giving a short, succinct explanation, Harper handed the phone to Leeming, who detailed the current state of affairs, ending by expressing his need for a human subject and the hope that Conway could do something about it.

             
"I disapprove such a tactic," declared Conway flatly.

             
Leeming reddened.
"In that case.
General, we can make no more progress. We are balked."

             
"Nonsense, man
!
I appreciate your desire and the ingenuity of what you suggest. But I cannot spend valuable hours seeking some legal means of making use of a condemned felon, when such a move is superfluous and unnecessary."

             
"I make the request only because I deem it necessary," Leeming pointed out.

             
"You are wrong. You have been sent four bodies of known victims. Two more have become available today, and you will receive them shortly. With the spread of this peril, and the increase in number of people affected, it becomes inevitable that before long we shall succeed in capturing one alive. What more could you want than that?"

             
Leeming sighed and persisted patiently, "A live victim would help but not conclusively. The most incontrovertible proof of a cause is a demonstration that it creates the characteristic effect. I cannot demonstrate contagion with the aid a subject already riddled with it."

             
"Perhaps not," agreed Conway. "But such a subject, being more communicative than a dog, can be compelled to identify the cause himself. It should not be beyond your wits to devise a suitable technique for enforcing what might be termed self-betrayal."

             
"Offhand, I can think of only one way to achieve that," Leeming said. "And the trouble with it is that it's likely to be long and tedious, and it will mean considerable working in the dark."

             
"What method?"

             
"Assuming that this virus is the true cause—which is still a matter of doubt—we must seek an effective antigen. Our proof will then rest upon our ability to cure the live specimen. If we fail
—"

             
"A cure has
got
to be found," asserted Conway.
"Somehow, anyhow.
The only alternative is long-term, systematic extermination of all victims on an eventual scale that none dare contemplate. Indeed, we could well be faced by a majority problem far too large for a minority to overcome; in which case the minority is doomed, and humanity along with it."

             
"And you think that the life of one hardened criminal is too high a price to pay for freedom from that fate?" asked Leeming shrewdly.

             
"I think nothing of the sort," Conway contradicted. "I would unhesitatingly sacrifice the entire populations of our prisons had I the power to do so, and were I convinced that it was our only hope. But I have not the power and I am not convinced of the necessity."

             
"Let me speak to him," urged Harper, seeing Leeming's look of despair. He got the phone, gazed belligerently at the face in the screen knowing that it was now looking at his own. "General Conway, you say you lack the power and you're not persuaded?"

             
"That is correct," Conway agreed.

             
"The President, if consulted, might think differently. He has the necessary authority—or, if not, can obtain it. Aren't you usurping his right to make a decision about this?"

             
"Usurping?" Conway repeated the word as if it were the ultimate in insults. He gathered himself together with visible effort, spoke in tones of restraint, "The President cannot work more than twenty-four hours per day. Therefore he deputes certain of his powers and responsibilities. I am now exercising some of the authority so assigned."

             
"By virtue of which you have his ear, while others have not," Harper riposted. "So how about putting the matter to him?"

             
"No."

             
"All right.
I am no longer asking you to do so; I am telling you to do so."

             
"Telling me?" The other registered incredulity.

             
"That's what I said: I am telling you. Refusal to co-operate is a game at which two can play. You can take Leeming's proposition to the President or count me out of this fracas, as from now."

             
"You cannot do that."

             
I can.

             
"You know full well that we're dependent upon you to make positive identification where opportunity arises. You cannot possibly stand idly by, knowing what's happening, watching it happen and doing nothing."

             
"I can; and what's more, I shall. You aren't the only one who can make like a mule."

             
"This is outrageous!" General Conway exploded.

             
"It's mutinous, too," indorsed Harper, showing indecent relish. "It's barefaced treachery. You could have me shot for it. Try it and see what good it does you. I'd be even less useful dead than dumb."

             
Conway breathed heavily while h
is face showed exasperation, then he said, "Against my better judgment, I will take this up with the President and do my best to persuade him. I promise to try to get the required action with a minimum of delay, but I offer no guarantee of success."

             
"Your word is good enough for me," said Harper. "You're an officer and a gentleman. And in our antagonistic ways we're both working for the same end, aren't
we?"

             
He got a grunt of irritation for that, put down the phone, eyed Leeming. "He
'
ll do it; he's the sort who sticks to a promise like grim death once it's been forced out of him." He consulted his wristwatch. "Before I go, there's one thing I'd like to know, if you can tell me."

             
"What's that?"

             
"How does this progressive disease become epidemic? How is it passed from one to another?"

             
"The same way as the dog got it. That girl Joyce Whittingham had received an injection in the upper arm, presumably with the blood of a victim."

             
"We can't say for certain that the dog has it."

             
"No, but we do know the Whittingham girl had it; and we know she'd received an injection.
So had two others.
The fourth corpse had a plaster-covered cut that told the same story. My guess is that their reactions were the same as the dog's—a few minutes' confusion, collapse into a brief fit, rapid recovery."

             
"Well, the fact that contact alone evidently is not sufficient helps a little,"
mused
Harper. "It means a prospect has to be grabbed arid held long enough to receive and get over a shot, eh?"

             
Leeming nodded and went on, "If this virus is not the actual cause, it's a definite by-product; and, if it's not
the cause, well"—he spread his hands expressively—"we're at a complete loss for any other."

             
"Anything else you can tell me about it?"

             
"Yes. It locates itself in the brain and spinal column; that is its natural habitat. The rest is theory and you can have it for what it's worth. I believe that the virus increases until it overflows into the bloodstream and thereby creates an urge to transmit the surplus, to seek another circulatory system leading to another brain and spinal column."

             
"Humph!" Harper stewed that a while.

             
If these assumptions happened to be correct, that imprisoned dog might well be capable of creating its own rescuer and much-wanted ally by getting in one good snap at an unwary leg, or by licking a hand on which was a minute cut. The presence of virus in its saliva could open the gates to freedom and a wholesale conversion of human forms.