"She meant Dada. Is it her fault if she's too young to articulate?" Powell knelt alongside Barbara. "Say Dada, baby. Dada? Dada? Say Dada."

"Haja," Barbara replied with an enchanting drool.

Powell gave it up. He went down past the conscious level to the preconscious.

h.e.l.lo, Barbara.

"You again?"

Remember me?

"I don't know."

Sure you do. I'm the guy who pries into your private little turmoil down here. We fight it out together.

"Just the two of us?"

Just the two of us. Do you know who you are? Would you like to know why you're buried way down here in this solitary existence?

"I don't know. Tell me."

Well, dear infant, once upon a time you were like this before... an ent.i.ty merely existing. Then you were born. You had a mother and a father. You grew up into a lovely girl with blonde hair and dark eyes and a sweet graceful figure. You traveled from Mars to earth with your father and you were--- "No. There's no one but you. Just the two of us together in the darkness."

There was your father, Barbara.

"There was no one. There is no one else."

I'm sorry dear. I'm really sorry, but we must go through the agony again. There's something I have to see.

"No. No... please. It's just the two of us alone together. Please, dear spook..."

It'll be just the two of us together, Barbara. Stay close, dear. There was your father in the other room... the orchid room... and suddenly we heard something... Powell took a deep breath and cried: "Help, Barbara. Help---"

And they whipped upright in a listening att.i.tude. Sensation of bedclothes. Cool floor under running feet and the endless corridor until at last they burst through the door into the orchid room and screamed and dodged the startled grasp of Ben Reich while he raised something to father's mouth. Raised what? Hold that image. Photograph it. Christ! That horrible m.u.f.fled explosion. The back of the head burst out and the loved, the adored, the worshipped figure crumpling unbelievably, tearing at their hearts while they moaned and crawled across the floor to s.n.a.t.c.h a malignant steel flower from the waxen--- "Get up, Linc! For heaven's sake!"

Powell found himself dragged to his feet by Mary Noyes. The air was crackling with indignation.

"Can't I leave you alone for a minute? Idiot!"

"Have I been kneeling here long, Mary?"

"At least a half hour. I came in and found you two like this..."

"I got what I was after. It was a gun, Mary. An ancient explosive weapon. Clear picture. Take a look..."

"Mmmm. That's a gun?"

"Yes."

"Where'd Reich get it? Museum?"

"I don't think so. I'm going to play a long shot. Kill two birds. Leave me at the phone..."

Powell lurched to the phone and dialed BD-12,232. Presently, Church's twisted face appeared on the screen.

"Hi, Jerry."

"h.e.l.lo... Powell." Cautious. Guarded.

"Did Gus Tate buy a gun from you, Jerry?"

"Gun?"

"Explosive weapon. XXth Century style. Used in the D'Courtney murder."

"No!"

"Yes indeed. I think Gus Tate is our killer, Jerry. I was wondering if he bought the gun from you. I'd like to bring the picture of the gun over and check it with you." Powell hesitated and then stressed the next words gently: "It'd be a big help, Jerry, and I'll be extremely appreciative. Extremely. Wait for me. I'll be up in half an hour."

Powell hung up. He looked at Mary. Image of an eye winking. "That ought to give little Gus time to hustle over to Church's place."

"Why Gus? I thought Ben Reich was---" She caught the picture Powell had sketched in at @kins' house. "Oh. I see. It's a trap for both Tate and Church. Church sold the gun to Reich."

"Maybe. It's a long-shot. But he does run a hock-shop, and that's next door to a museum."

"And Tate helped Reich use the gun on D'Courtney? I don't believe it."

"Almost a certainty, Mary."

"So you're playing one against the other."

"And both against Reich. We've failed on the Objective Level all the way down the line. From here on in it's got to be peeper tricks or I'm through."

"But suppose you can't play them against Reich? What if they call Reich in?"

"They can't. We lured Reich out of town. Scared Keno Quizzard into running for his life, and Reich's out somewhere trying to cut him off and gag him."

"You really are a thief, Linc. I bet you did steal the weather."

"No," he said. "Dishonest Abe did." He blushed, kissed Mary, kissed Barbara D'Courtney, blushed again and left the house in confusion.

CHAPTER 11

The p.a.w.nshop was in darkness. A single lamp burned on the counter, sending out its sphere of soft light. As the three men spoke, they leaned in and out of the illumination, their faces and gesticulating hands suddenly appearing and disappearing in staccato eclipses.

"No," Powell said sharply. "I didn't come here to peep anybody. I'm sticking to straight talk. You two peepers may consider it an insult to have words addressed to you. I consider it evidence of good faith. While I'm talking. I'm not peeping."

"Not necessarily," Tate answered. His gnome face popped into the light. "You've been known to finesse, Powell."

"Not now. Check me. What I want from you two, I want objectively. I'm working on a murder. Peeping isn't going to do me any good."

"What do you want, Powell?" Church cut in.

"You sold a gun to Gus Tate."

"The h.e.l.l he did." Tate said.

"Then why are you here?"

"Am I supposed to take an outlandish accusation like that lying down?"

"Church called you because he sold you the gun and he knows how it was used."

Church's face appeared. "I sold no gun, peeper, and I don't know how any gun was used. That's my objective evidence. Eat it."

"Oh, I'll eat it," Powell chuckled. "I know you didn't sell the gun to Gus. You sold it to Ben Reich."

Tate's face came back into the light. "Then why'd you---"

"Why?" Powell stared into Tate's eyes. "To get you here for a talk, Gus. Let it wait a minute. I want to finish with Jerry." He turned toward Church. "You had the gun, Jerry. It's the kind of thing you would have. Reich came here for it. It's the only place he could come. You did business together before. I haven't forgotten the Chaos Swindle..."

"G.o.d d.a.m.n you!" Church shouted.

"It swindled you out of the Guild." Powell continued. "You risked and lost everything for Reich... just because he asked you to peep and squeal on four members of the Stock Exchange. He made a million out of that swindle... just by asking a dumb peeper for a favor."

"He paid for that favor!" Church cried.

"And now all I'm asking for is the gun," Powell answered quietly.

"Are you offering to pay?"

"You know me better than that, Jerry. I threw you out of the Guild because I'm mealy-mouthed Preacher Powell, didn't I? Would I make a shady offer?"

"Then what are you paying for the gun?"

"Nothing, Jerry. You'll have to trust me to do the fair thing; but I'm making no promises."

"I've got a promise," Church muttered.

"You do? Ben Reich, probably. He's long on promise. Sometimes he's short on delivery. You'll have to make up your mind. Trust me or trust Ben Reich. What about the gun?"

Church's face disappeared from the light. After a pause, he spoke from the darkness. "I sold no gun, peeper, and I don't know how any gun was used. That's my objective evidence for the court."

"Thanks, Jerry." Powell smiled, shrugged, and turned again to Tate. "I just want to ask you one question, Gus. Skipping over the fact that you're Ben Reich's accessory... that you pumped Sam @kins about D'Courtney and got the orbits set for him... Skipping over the fact that you went to the Beaumont party with Reich, ran interference for him and've been running interference ever since---"

"Wait a minute, Powell---"

"Don't get panicky, Gus. All I want to know is whether I've guessed Reich's bribe correctly. He couldn't bribe you with money. You make too much. He couldn't bribe you with position. You're one of the top peepers in the Guild. He must have bribed you with power, eh? Is that it?"

Tate was peeping him hysterically, and the calm a.s.surance he found in Powell's mind, the casual acceptance of Tate's ruin as an accomplished fact jolted the little peeper with a series of shocks too sudden for adjustment. And he was communicating his panic to Church. All this Powell had planned in preparation for one crucial moment that was to come later.

"Reich could offer you power in his world," Powell continued conversationally, "But it isn't likely. He wouldn't give up any of his own, and you wouldn't want any of his kind. So be must have offered you power in the Esper world. How could he do that? Well, he finances the League of Esper Patriots. My guess is he offered you power through the League... A coup d'etat, maybe? A dictatorship in the Guild? Probably you're a member of the League."

"Listen, Powell..."

"That's my guess, Gus." Powell's voice hardened. "And I've got a hunch I can make my guess good. Did you imagine we'd let you and Reich smash the Guild as easily as that?"

"You'll never prove anything. You'll---"

"Prove? What?"

"Your word against mine. I---"

"You little fool. Haven't you ever been at a peeper trial? We don't run 'em like a court of law, where you swear and then I swear and then a jury tries to figure who's lying. No, little Gus. You stand up there before the board and all the 1sts start probing. You're a 1st, Gus. Maybe you could block two... Possibly three... But not all. I tell you, you're dead."

"Wait a minute, Powell. Wait!" The mannequin face was twitching with terror. "The Guild takes confession into account. Confession before the fact. I'll give you everything right now. Everything. It was an aberration. I'm sane now. Tell the Guild. When you get mixed up with a d.a.m.ned psychotic like Reich, you fall into his pattern. You identify yourself with it. But I'm out of it. Tell the Guild. Here's the whole picture... He came to me with a nightmare about a Man With No Face. He---'

"He was a patient?"

"Yes. That's how he trapped me. He dragooned me! But I'm out of it now. Tell the Guild I'm cooperating. I've recanted. I'm volunteering everything. Church is your witness..."

"I'm not witness," Church shouted. "You dirty squealer. After Ben Reich promised---"

"Shut up. You think I want permanent exile? Like you? You were crazy enough to trust Reich. Not me, thank you. I'm not that crazy."

"You whining yellow peeper. Do you think you'll get off? Do you think you'll---"

"I don't give a d.a.m.n!" Tate cried. "I don't take that kind of medicine for Reich. I'll bust him first. I'll walk into court and sit on the witness stand and do everything I can to help Powell. Tell that to the Guild, Linc. Tell them that---"

"You'll do nothing of the kind," Powell snapped.

"What?"

"You were trained by the Guild. You're still in the Guild. Since when does a peeper squeal on a patient?"

"It's the evidence you need to get Reich, isn't it?"

"Sure, but I'm not taking it from you. I'm not letting any peeper disgrace the rest of us by walking into court and blabbing."