Read Ebook: Infinity's Child by De Vet Charles V

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Ebook has 275 lines and 14005 words, and 6 pages

"Yes," Buckmaster answered. "But we will have a vaccine before long." He knew this was purely bluff.

"Possibly." Wagner pulled his cheeks up but his eyes remained chilled and cold. He had the trick of smiling mirthlessly. "But even if I were to grant you that, we estimate that already nearly half of your organization is dead from the Plague. There will be more before you can do anything. The rest we can hunt down at our leisure. So you see, even if we let you live, you'd soon be a man without a party."

"We could start all over again if we had to." The first signs of feeling came back with a twinge of pain at the tip of the little finger on his left hand.

"I doubt it very much."

"What would I be expected to do?" Buckmaster asked.

"Simply this. Go back among your former comrades and act normal. But let me know what they're planning. In time we'd get them anyway, but with your help, the job will be easier--cleaner, let us say."

"In other words, you want me to act as the Judas ram?"

"Call it what you like," Wagner's eyes narrowed. "Just remember that you've nothing to lose."

"And after?"

"You can name your own price. Within reason, of course."

"And if I refuse?"

Wagner laughed. It wasn't necessary for him to answer. Buckmaster had seen the results of Wagner's sadism in the past. Whatever else might be mystifying to him he knew one thing: The instinct of self-preservation was still as strong as ever. He did not want to take the chance that the extraneous will he felt within him would be strong enough to combat what Wagner would try to do to him.

"Let's say I agree," he said. "What comes next?"

"Can you move your limbs yet?" Wagner asked.

Buckmaster flexed his fingers and lifted his arms. "I believe I'm strong enough to walk," he said.

Buckmaster shook his head.

"Well, no matter. Lie back and relax. Now look into my eyes. Concentrate on the right one."

Buckmaster knew what was coming now. Mind contact!

Subtly he felt the first tentative probe of Wagner's thought antenna. One part of his brain accepted it passively, but another part used the probe as a bridge.

Wagner's thoughts seemed unguarded. Buckmaster easily read everything there. He had to hide his surprise at what he learned. Things that Wagner, by no process of logic would ever reveal to him. Reflections concerning the Plague. Remembrances of snatches of conversation with the General. Wagner's relations with women. Sex occupied many of his thoughts. The fear of Olson was there, in spite of Wagner's brave words earlier.

Then Buckmaster read about himself in Wagner's mind and was certain something was wrong here. He saw that Wagner had no intention of ever letting him live, no matter how useful he might be. There was death for himself as soon as that usefulness was over.

"Damn it," Wagner cursed, "relax. Let your mind open up to me. Are you deliberately trying to get yourself back in trouble by being stubborn?"

Then he knew. The contact had been one-way. He had read Wagner's mind because Wagner had not realized he could do it, and had not thrown up a guard.

Cautiously Buckmaster let fragments of careful thoughts escape. The moment he lowered the barriers of his mind he felt Wagner's power beat against him, wave upon wave. The sensation was frightening.

Wagner seemed satisfied. Buckmaster could read very little in his mind now.

"Done," Wagner said. "Now, one last warning. Don't try to double-cross me, or you'll regret the day you were born."

Buckmaster's choices of action were very few. He doubted that he could make it but at least he should try to get to Duluth.

At the toll bridge across the arm of the lake he bought a ticket. Nobody bothered him. He breathed easier as he rested against the iron railing waiting for the gate to open; then stopped breathing as a tall man--one of the Ruskies--leaned over beside him and said, "It won't work, friend."

Buckmaster tore up his ticket. Strangely, there was a sense of relief. The force--the presence within him--whatever it was, wanted him to return to his friends. It didn't compel him, it used no coercion. It merely presented good reasons for doing so. He could do more good there than by fleeing, it suggested. And, so strongly as almost to blot out all other emotions, was the implanted desire--an urgent, compelling command--to stay and kill Koski.

As Buckmaster started back, the thought struck him: Was he merely a pawn being moved by this inner power? Did he no longer have freedom of action? Was his will still his own?

Wagner was annoyed to receive the summons from Koski. He fumed inwardly as he mounted the stairs to the General's second floor receiving room. It was always humiliating to be summoned like a common officer when he was in fact the ruler of the city.

Koski had slipped baldly during the past few years but Wagner knew better than to put the old figurehead out of the way. He needed the power of that prestige until he had made his own position impregnable.

Originally Wagner had been an unlettered lad from the steppes. When he had been made Koski's orderly, he had used his native cunning and slyness to ingratiate himself with the old commander. Soon Koski had made him his personal adjutant. From that advantageous position of trust it had been relatively simple for him to use his insidious talents to secure advantages for himself.

"You wanted to see me, Sir?" Wagner asked.

"Yes," the General answered, the shaggy hairs of his eyebrows meeting in a frown. "Have the doctors found a remedy for the Plague yet? It has gone so far now that soon the manpower we must have for the Campaign will be threatened."

"Not yet, Sir, but they are within sight of it." Wagner was always careful to keep the scorn he felt from his voice. The old dodderer was useful and must be pampered--for awhile.

The General still clung to his dream of the Campaign. His ultimate plan, from the time he had taken over Superior, had been to use the city as a base from which to spread his rule, until he had control of the entire continent--in the name of the mother country, of course. He had never let himself see that it was but a dream. He was certain that he would find other pockets of his fellow-men who, like himself had set up autonomous governments. With their aid he still hoped for an ultimate victory over the enemy. This would always remain enemy territory to him.

"If we don't stop the Plague before it spreads to our own men, I'll be forced to use the Weapon," Koski growled. His great bony features had lost all power of expression except their habitual scowl, but his voice was still deep and vibrant. "I'll kill every man, woman, and child in the country!"

Wagner had to admire the will to destruction that still rode the old man. He may have weakened in his mind but he had never softened. And the Weapon? It was the one secret that Wagner had not been able to learn.

"Yes, Sir," Wagner agreed. "If you should ever feel the need to use the Weapon, I ask you to remember that my only wish is to be of aid to my General."

Koski's washed blue eyes grew crafty. "I fully realize that. But I will need no help. You may accept my compliments and withdraw."

Wagner muttered a soft oath under his breath as he bowed humbly.

"As you can see, I didn't die," Buckmaster said. The two chairs in the small room were occupied by the men he faced. He sat on a steel-framed bed.

"No." Lester Oliver was thoughtful. "I'm wondering why you didn't. Do you have any explanation?"

"Only something that you wouldn't understand, unless it happened to you," Buckmaster answered. "I couldn't explain it."

"Try." Oliver spoke softly, but Buckmaster knew that behind that softness Oliver hid a bulldog tenacity.

Carefully, patiently Buckmaster told about the Force, trying to make them sense it as he had.

"You feel then," Cecil Cuff, the other man in the room, said, "that you're in the grip of something over which you have no direct control?"

"Yes."

"Are you certain that it is not the contact Wagner imposed on you?"

"It came before Wagner was present," Buckmaster replied.

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