Those Who Watch

Panting, her breasts bobbling under her jacket, she came up beside him, all smiles. “Hello, David! You don’t look pleased to see me!”

“Leonore? How come — what—?”

“I live right near here. I saw you getting out of the car, and I recognized you right away. Did you come here to visit me? How nice of you!”

“As a matter of fact, I — I—”

“Yes, David?”

“Look, I’m here to see somebody else now, Leonore. I didn’t know you lived here. I — I’ll see you some other time.”

She pouted. “All right. Who are you visiting?”

“Does it matter?”

“I was just wondering. Maybe it’s someone I know.”

“It isn’t, I assure you. I—”

Bridger’s words died away. Something small and cold was pressing against the meat of his back. A low male voice said, “Get into the car, Kranazoi, and don’t make trouble. This is an antiperso

David Bridger — Bar-48-Codon-adf — felt the sidewalk turn into a yawning gulf beneath his feet.

“No,” he said. “You’re making a mistake. I’m not Krana — whoever you said. I’m David Bridger of San Francisco, and-”

The low voice cut in. “We can smell your miserable Kranazoi stink a block away, so save your breath. You’ve been caught, and get used to it. Into the car, now.”

“This is an outrage,” Bar-48-Codon-adf said thickly. “I’m merely checking on a covenant violation. Three Dirnans unlawfully descended to Earth, and obviously there were more than that. You’ll all be brainburned for this! You—”

“Into the car. Ten seconds, then you get the grenade. One? Two? Three? Four?”

Bar-48-Codon-adf got into the car. Not his own, but one he had not even noticed, that had come quietly up the street while he was eyeing the Falkner house. For the first time he saw his captor: a big, blocky Earthman who clearly was no Earthman at all. He sat beside Bar-48-Codon-adf, holding the grenade lightly but alertly. The girl he had known as Leonore was in the front seat. She still looked youthful and i

There was a third person in the car — an older woman. Bar-48-Codon-adf watched dismally as she got out, walked across the street, and rang the bell of the Falkner house. He had tracked down one of the lost Dirnans, all right. But he had found her only to lose her to her own devilish kind.

Nineteen

Glair listened apprehensively to the melodious chime of the doorbell. Who could that be? Not Tom coming back; Tom would use his thumb-print to open the door. A salesman? A poll-taker? A policeman? She froze. She was in the bedroom, practicing her walking. Tom had warned her not to open the door to anyone. The chime sounded again, and Glair walked warily over to the sca

An Earthwoman in middle years stood in front of the house. Glair’s first reaction was to shut the sca

Thuw? Was that Thuw standing there?

Thuw belonged to the Sartak-Thuw-Leenor sexual group. Glair had known them some years now. They had all been on Ganymede together during their last rest period. In fact, she and Sartak had—

But the tiny gray viewing field of the door-sca

“Who is it?’she said.

“Glair?” came a warm voice. “You can open up. We’ve found you, Glair.”

The voice was speaking in Dirnan.

“I’m coming, Thuw! I’ll be right there!”

Glair hobbled to the front door, unsealed it, waited in joyous suspense as it all too slowly rolled back. An instant later she was in Thuw’s arms, and the sweet scent of her own people flooded her nostrils, and she trembled with delight and relief, and also with sadness.

Thuw stepped inside. Glair closed the door and sealed it again.

“We have a car outside,” Thuw said. “Sartak and Leenor are waiting in it.”

“How did you find me?”

“It wasn’t easy.” Thuw laughed. “Actually, what we did was put a fat Kranazoi spy on your trail, and then followed him. It was Leenor’s idea. Wasn’t it clever?”

“A — Kranazoi spy — ?”

“He’s outside in the car, too. Sartak’s got him covered with a grenade. He must have come to Earth to find the three of you, and managed to pick up rumors about an AOS officer who had found something in the desert. He traced you to here. We followed him and took custody.”

Glair caught her breath. “So it’s that easy to find out about me and Tom?”

“Tom?”

“The AOS man.”

Shrugging, Thuw said, “It’s possible to find anything out, with work. The important thing is that we’ve located you, now, and you’ll be safe on Ganymede in a little while. How badly were you injured when you landed?”

“I broke both my legs. Tom’s been taking good care of me. As you see, these bodies heal fast.”

“Well, you’ll be getting a real medical going-over at the base.” Thuw looked around. “Where’s your suit?”

“It’s hidden away,” Glair said. “I can get it. It’s in good shape, except the communicator broke when I landed.”

“So we discovered,” said Thuw. “Well, get it, and I’ll take it out to the car. And put some clothes on, so we can drive you through the streets without being arrested. We’ll take you to the rendezvous point in the desert, and in another hour you’ll be on your way to — “-

“No,” Glair said.

“No? I don’t-”

“I have to wait till Tom comes home,” she said. “Sit down. Talk to me a while, Thuw. There’s no rush to leave, is there? You haven’t said a word to me about Mirtin and Vorneen, Are they alive? Do you know where they are?”

“Mirtin’s back on Ganymede already,” Thuw said.

Glair shivered in relief. “Oh, wonderful! He wasn’t hurt, then?”

“His back was broken. But he’s recovering well, A differ-! ent search group spotted him a couple of weeks back. His communicator was still operating, only the signal was distorted, and a team working down from Sante Fe found him in a cave in the desert near one of the Indian villages. I talked to him. He sends his best, Glair.”

“And Vorneen?”

“We’ve traced him ourselves. He’s right here in this city, or rather in the suburbs of it. He’s been living on the northern outskirts, in the home of a woman named Kathryn Mason.”

Glair laughed. “Good old Vorneen. He’d find himself a woman any time, on any world! Have you been in contact with him?”

“Not yet. But we’ve scouted the house. He’s limping, but he seems to be in good health. So the three of you came through a rough time without any real damage. And now you can all relax a while.”

“Yes,” Glair murmured. “We can relax. How did you find Vorneen?”

“Through the local Contact Cult, as a matter of fact,”

“Really? You mean, the woman he’s living with is a member, and told the cult about him?”

“Evidently she didn’t tell the cult anything,” Thuw said. “We aren’t sure. What we did was monitor the visitor lists of the cult office, on the assumption that anybody who found a stranger from another world would check with the cult for information. We tapped their computer bank, took down a list of everyone who had been at the office since the night of the crash, and checked them all out. Kathryn Mason was about the hundredth one we surveyed. The neighbors said she’d been acting strangely. A couple of gossipy ones let us know that she was living with a man. We put a peeper through the window last night, and there was Vorneen. Now we can pick him up, and—”