The Stuff of Dreams: 6/7
by Nancy Smith and Linda Garrick
12
Their destination was, it turned out, a small, dingy apartment in one of the worst sections of town. A tall, thin woman with curlers in her hair answered Alan's knock. She was holding a cigarette between two fingers and blue smoke spiraled upward. Her blue slacks were smudged and too tight, her white blouse buttoned incorrectly and far from clean. "Yeah?" she demanded.
"I'm looking for your husband," Alan told her. "He wanted to talk to me about a deal we're involved in."
The woman eyed him narrowly. "Vic didn't tell me about no deals."
"We'd just reached the talking stage," Alan improvised. "Is he around?"
The woman shook her head. "He left for work a little early today -- said he had something to do."
Alan swallowed. "Did he take anything with him?"
She stared at him rather hard. "Yeah -- two big packages. Said he had to deliver them to somebody. What's this all about, anyway?" She went pale suddenly. "Are you the cops? Is Vic in trouble again?"
Alan felt sorry for her, but he dared not take the time to explain it to her -- and what could he possibly say, anyway? 'Your husband is about to dump about a hundred kilos of Ceregon dream dust into the L.A. water supply -- but don't worry: I'm sure we can stop him in time ...'
"Vic'll explain it to you later," he said rapidly, turned and ran back down the steps.
He burst out the doors of the apartment house to find Mark and Kevin waiting for him.
"Well?" Linley demanded.
"He's already gone! Hurry!"
They leaped back into the aircar. Mark punched the car's communicator. "DataNet Service!"
"DataNet Service," a pleasant female voice responded. "May we help you?"
"Address o' the Greater Los Angeles Water Processin' Plant," Linley said.
The screen lit up and Alan set the coordinates into the car's computer. The little vehicle lifted, turned once more to the north and dived into the high speed traffic lane.
"Now what?" Bronson asked.
"I have to call the station," Alan said. He was punching the combination into the communicator. "Waldorf, this is Alan."
"Waldorf here. What's the scoop?"
Alan swallowed. "This is a Class One Emergency," he said as calmly as possible. "A large quantity of the substance that we found on the controls of the aircar is about to be dumped into the L.A. water supply. We're on our way to try to stop it. If we fail, be ready to break in on the city communications with a warning. We'll let you know the outcome shortly."
"Roger," Cross's voice responded. "We'll be ready if we're needed."
"Out," Alan said.
There was a short pause before Griffen spoke. "I take it he was already gone."
Alan nodded silently, mentally urging the car to greater speed. It seemed hours but it was in reality less than twenty minutes before the car dropped into the uncontrolled traffic lane.
He set the vehicle down in the middle of the parking lot, not bothering to enter by the gate and thereby setting off the sensor alarm, nor did he bother to find a parking space. They scrambled hastily out, just as a lot security guard came running toward them. "Hey! You can't park here!"
Wolenski whipped out his forged I.D. "Lieutenant Jefferson, L.A. Police! We've had a bomb threat! Get the building cleared! Hurry!"
The security guard stared at him for a moment and then turned, speaking rapidly into his communicator. A voice responded. The man turned back. "They're clearing the building now, sir."
"Good," Wolenski said. "What's the quickest way into the building?"
"This way, sir." The guard led them across the lot at a run.
As they neared the side entrance, Alan could see people streaming from the doors and moving rapidly away from the building. They forced their way through the swirling mob, the security guard attempting to clear their path. Once inside, Wolenski turned to the man. "You can go now. Thanks."
"Right. Good luck." The security guard disappeared into the crowd of excited people. Mark glanced at Alan. "Now what?"
Alan grasped his wrist with one hand and Bronson's with the other. "I think I can trace it. This way." He closed his eyes, reaching out with clairvoyance, feeling at the same time the steady flow of energy from his two living power packs. Kevin, actually, was his emergency power source. Even the powerful Alan Westover could not tolerate such an enormous load of energy as that supplied by Mark and Kevin for a sustained period of time without risking permanent damage to his psychic powers, but for a brief time it could be done.
Two large packages, and a man bent on sabotaging the water system. He would not know, of course, what the chemical was that he was dumping into the water, but he must know that it was illegal. Yes, there it was: a strong pull to the right. Without further hesitation, he strode rapidly in the direction that his extra senses drew him. Time was running out. Trying to quell the sense of urgency growing within him, Alan concentrated on his quarry.
**********
13
Andrei Wolenski watched the slender young man with a sense of awe. Alan and he had a checkered history, but over the years he had acquired a vast respect for the boy who had become the Jilectans' most wanted man.
For the first time they had met, Alan had been only a boy. Wolenski had been the Subcommander of the Jilectan battlecruiser "Wolverine", and in the beginning it had seemed a routine enough assignment. A Terran space cadet had escaped the Patrol squad sent to arrest him, stolen a skippership and fled to Midgard. They had pursued and Mark, the ship's Strike Commander, had left Wolenski in command while he had led the search parties in pursuit of the frightened cadet. Wolenski had thought nothing of it when some fifty hours later the Strike Commander called in to report his capture of the fugitive. He had recalled the remaining search parties and resigned himself to a wait while Linley and his subordinate brought in the fugitive.
But then all communications with his superior officer ended abruptly and Wolenski thought that perhaps the young prisoner had managed to free himself and dispose of his captors. Search parties were dispatched but, some forty hours later, Linley arrived at the ship, the cadet in tow. Wolenski had hardly glanced at the boy when the patrolmen brought him on board. Linley had spoken briefly to Wolenski over the ship's communicator from his quarters, telling him to handle the ship's departure in three hours -- hardly an unreasonable request, considering the five grueling days he had spent in the jungle bringing in the prisoner. It never occurred to Wolenski that any drastic change had occurred in his hard-nosed commanding officer.
Until the frantic call from Patrolman Coots shattered the routine of the control room, reporting the escape of the prisoner and the death of Lord Salthvor. The ship's resident Jilectan had been killed by Westover, and accompanying this incredible news was the appalling fact that he'd obviously been aided by Linley, himself. Wolenski was quite unable to explain the aberration of his Strike Commander, either to himself or to the Board of Inquiry that investigated him some time later. Somewhere in the back of his mind, however, lurked the vague conviction that Linley must be suffering a nervous breakdown brought on by the heavy pressures of his job. He certainly would not be the first such officer to do so.
But the next meeting with Westover and Linley killed that notion. That had been the Toomelli's Moon affair. Left in command of the "Wolverine" while his Strike Commander, Ronald Griffen, attended the interrogation of Walter Kaley in the top security station, he'd put the very competent Lieutenant Elliott in charge on the bridge and was relaxing in his quarters when the roar of the repulsers jerked him out of his badly-needed nap. He'd rushed to the bridge to discover Griffen in the pilot's seat, in the process of hijacking his own ship, ably assisted by Mark Linley and Alan Westover. Linley had been friendly and cordial, but as emotionlessly efficient as Wolenski remembered him, and just as obviously a close friend of the now legendary Westover. It was the first time he had ever spoken to the famous psychic, and he'd been more puzzled than ever. Why Linley had thrown away a promising career for a boy not yet out of his teens remained a mystery, but it was apparent that Linley was as rational as he had ever been. Wolenski couldn't understand it.
Until the third meeting. Westover and Linley had somehow penetrated the Patrol Research Station on Troth. Through no fault of their own, the alarm sounded before they could make good their escape, and they were forced to commandeer the staff car of now Strike Commander Wolenski, and his driver. The car crashed into the thick jungle growth of the world, injuring Linley severely. In the following days, Wolenski witnessed a demonstration of bravery and personal devotion to a friend such as he had never believed possible. In spite of jungle, carnivorous natives, searching patrolmen, hostile prisoners and tropical fever, Alan Westover had fought doggedly to save Linley's life. Wolenski found himself, much against his will, beginning to admire and respect the young Terran psychic, and at last to understand Linley's previously inexplicable actions. Friends such as Alan Westover were rare indeed. As the days went by, Wolenski found himself more and more in sympathy with his desperate young captor and his nearly hopeless attempt to save the life of his partner. In the end, he'd followed the precedent of many others before him and became the third Strike Commander to throw away career and security to aid the gallant little psychic when all seemed lost.
Nor did he regret it. The Terran Underground, far from the lawless mass of revolutionaries that it had always appeared to be, turned out to be a well-organized group directed by Terran Military Intelligence, with a subtle and ingenious plan that stood a very good chance of driving the aliens from the Sector not many years hence. Wolenski found himself a respected officer, provided with mind-shielding against psychics, Jilectan and Terran, and was given a cause to fight for. He ceased to regard the aliens as all-powerful demi-gods and seized his chance to strike back at them. He had almost forgotten what it was like to have the companionship of people who were friends and comrades rather than mercenaries, first and foremost for themselves. It was a dramatic switch. In the beginning, his reasons for defecting had been unclear, even to him, but not anymore. He knew, without a doubt that, should he need it now, there were people willing to risk their lives for him, and he found himself praying that they would be in time to save the Terran city from the fate the Jilectans had planned for it.
They were deep in the maze of the water processing plant, now. Wolenski had never been in such a structure before and had very little knowledge of its layout. Alan walked ahead, his eyes closed, guided around obstacles by his power packs. That relationship was as astonishing as all the rest. He'd been amazed to learn that his former Strike Commander was a psychic in all but fact, his power usable only by Alan Westover. Their psychic partnership explained the close tie between them that Wolenski had only wondered about before. It also explained why Kevin Bronson, the Subcommander of the "Leviathan", had shot and killed Lord Tralthvor on interstellar video to save Alan's life, for, to a lesser degree, Bronson was also linked with Alan. It was a secret of the Underground known only to the psychics and the few nons who had the need to know, a secret that the Jilectans did not share and a powerful weapon for their side. The existence of the psychic power pack explained a good deal that he had speculated about for years. It occurred to him briefly to wonder if power packs had existed among the Jilectans at some time in their history, when they were becoming a race if psychics. Was it possible that Terrans might one day be a wholly psychic race, much as the Jilectans of today? The thought was intriguing.
Machinery was running somewhere ahead and now Alan paused, a look of concentration on his face. "There's somebody ahead of us."
Wolenski drew his blaster.
The sounds of the employees leaving the huge plant had long since ceased. The person that Alan had detected must be their quarry. A door appeared before them, locked from the inside, but Alan rested a hand on it and, with the ease that had always astounded Wolenski, the lock clicked open. The panel slid noiselessly aside.
Beyond was a large, brightly lighted room and from somewhere ahead he could hear the rumble of machinery, much louder now. Wolenski saw Alan glance in the direction of that telltale rumble, his eyes narrowed. He moved suddenly, throwing himself flat. "Down!" he shouted.
They obeyed instantly and from somewhere ahead a blaster cracked, the sound echoing eerily around the mammoth room. Ahead and to the left, Wolenski saw motion. The blaster cracked again and Linley's blaster answered, the beam striking a panel behind his target. Alan reached out a hand to each of his power packs and a blaster flipped smartly into the air to clatter noisily to the floor. It slid rapidly across the concrete surface toward them. Griffen scrambled to his feet and charged.
Their quarry voiced a terrified shout and there was the clatter of feet as someone ran. With a roar of fury, Kevin Bronson charged after Griffen.
"Mark!" Alan's shout was shrill over the rumble of the machinery and the shouts of pursued and pursuers that echoed through the cavernous space. "The machine! Turn it off!"
"How?" Linley shouted desperately.
"The control panel! The red switch -- it's the master switch!" Alan was on his feet, dashing forward toward the panel that Linley's blaster shot had struck. Mark and Wolenski followed.
And stopped short. The red switch, and a good portion of the control panel as well, was burned, fused, immobile.
"It has to be turned off!" Alan looked frantic. "This is where they add the bacteria-killing chemicals to the water! He put the packages in with the others and set them to be opened and go in next! I read him!"
"Holy hell!" Linley grabbed the manual switch, dragging at it with all his great strength. It was useless. Welded by the blaster shot, the controls were immovable.
There *had* to be a way to turn it off! The answer hit Wolenski suddenly as he watched Mark straining at the switch. He lifted his blaster, flipping the setting to emergency maximum.
"Get back!" he shouted.
His companions obeyed, scrambling back from the mechanism. Wolenski fired.
With a deafening roar that echoed around the room, the power cell of the blaster gave up its charge in a single, mighty burst of flame. The master control panel vanished into a lump of molten metal. The sound of the machinery faltered for a minute ...
And resumed.
"Auxiliary control!" Alan gasped. "There's a backup somewhere!"
"Where?" Mark shouted.
"I don't know! It might not even be in this room!" Alan glanced frantically around. "It's about to dump the first package into the opener. We aren't going to make it!"
"Concentrate!" Mark grasped Alan's arm. "Find it!"
Alan closed his eyes. Wolenski watched him, his heart pounding suffocatingly in his chest.
"It's in the room above us." Alan's voice, although detached, was shaking. "This way." He started for the door.
With a suddenness that brought a strangled shout from Wolenski, the room was plunged into utter darkness. The rumble of the machinery died.
"What th' hell?" Mark sounded bewildered. "What happened?"
Alan's laughter was a little hysterical. "The circuit breaker! Somebody tripped the circuit breaker!"
"Kid!" Bronson's bellow reverberated around the room.
"Here!" Alan's higher voice awoke more echoes. "We're right here!"
The beam of a handlight broke the gloom and two large figures, dragging a smaller one between them loomed suddenly out of the darkness. Wolenski found his own pocket light and switched it on, flashing the beam over the three. Bronson was holding the smaller man in a genuine Viceregal Patrol armlock, and the prisoner had apparently put up some resistance, for he looked considerably the worse for wear. He blinked sullenly in the beam of the handlight, one eye already swelling closed with a huge, purple bruise.
"Where's Lyn?" Griffen asked hoarsely. "What the devil happened?"
"Here I am." Lyn's petite figure materialized from the shadows. "Everything all right?"
Alan began to laugh. "*You* did it!"
"Did what?" Bronson asked.
Wolenski also laughed. "While we were all over there dithering about the controls, Lyn went and tripped the circuit breaker, didn't you?"
Lyn smiled and nodded. "It seemed the obvious thing. The right telekinetic touch and --" She waved an arm. "I'm sure glad I put in all that extra time practicing, though."
"Me too," Alan said. "Now we'd better get hold of the dream dust and get out of here before the real cops show up to investigate the bomb threat."
"Check, Colonel." Griffen glanced down at the captive that he and Bronson had brought back. "I'm sure our friend here can show us where to find it. Can't you, pal?"
**********
14
"Our man at the scene," the newscaster was saying, "reports that five men and a young woman claiming to be police took away two large packages and a prisoner. Unfortunately, the only videocamera on the scene developed technical problems --" the young man made a face and smiled charmingly at his unseen audience. "So we don't have any pictures. The whole affair seems to have been conducted with the utmost secrecy. The plant spokesman reports the only damage to be a master control panel, which was totally destroyed. Police investigators believe it to be the result of a blaster set on emergency maximum. What the connection may be to this puzzling incident is not understood. Police spokesmen deny any knowledge of the event and only assure us that an investigation into it is proceeding satisfactorily." The videocaster's face and voice expressed doubt. "In any case, Loni," he continued, looking at his charming female co-anchor, seated to his left, "nobody's talking at present."
Loni smiled at him. "Maybe they'll have more for us later, Jack. We'll keep on this investigation and report to our viewers what we uncover." She faced the camera. "In an interesting sidelight, an employee of the plant, a maintenance tech, was arrested on a drug charge late this evening. Victor Grayson was originally detained on a charge of disorderly conduct at a major shopping mall in downtown Los Angeles. He was then charged with resisting arrest and attempted assault on a police officer. A quantity of --" The newscaster struggled through a chemical name, "... Otherwise known as Ceregon dream dust, was discovered in the pocket of his jacket. He was taken to Hillside Medical Center and treated for drug overdosage and further charged with possession of illegal drugs --"
In the living room of the tiny Underground station, Major Cross looked at Alan with a faint smile. "Am I wrong to suspect that the malfunction of that camera wasn't an accident?"
Alan grinned. "Why what on Earth makes you think that, Waldorf?"
"Let's say," the major said, "that that kind of accident around you tends to be planned. Do you think they'll ever figure out what happened?"
"Maybe," Alan said. "We'll file a report with the main office. They'll pass along the real story to the right people."
"Yes." Cross looked thoughtful. "But what's to prevent the Jils from trying this again in another city? It's not a pleasant thought."
Mark Linley frowned. "There's no guarantees, o' course, but we'll be on the watch for them from now on, and they'll know it. Remember, they're tryin' to take us over without a war -- an' an attack like that on a Terran city is plenty o' provocation for one. This was a test, an' it blew up in their faces. I don't think they're gonna try again -- at least for a while."
"It might not be a bad idea," Lyn said, "to let Halthzor know -- unofficially, of course -- that we *know* he engineered it, and the Underground has the resources to make him pay if it happens again."
"Not a bad idea," Griffen said. His attention shifted back to the video screen. "Listen!"
"... Wreck of an aircar late this evening," the male newscaster was saying. "The body was identified as that of Nelson Raymond Cramer, a Pasadena attorney with a wide range of clients. His aircar evidently crashed while in route to Las Vegas for the weekend. Mr. Cramer had apparently been drinking heavily. He leaves behind his wife, Arlene and two grown children, all of whom are residents of Los Angeles --"
"I'd say --" Wolenski took a swig of beer, "that our glorious lords and masters just gave Mr. Cramer his final payment."
**********
tbc
