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“Yes.”
“I’ve been trying,” Gosseyn went on, “to account for my easy acquiescence to such outside advice. And I think now it was because, way in the back of my mind, there’s been a desire to ease out from under all this and let somebody else take over the whole burden, or at least a part of it. I was so unwilling to recognize that I was in this affair as deep as I could go—so unwilling that the first thing I did was to get myself killed.
“Frankly,” he finished, “I’m counting on that Drae powder of yours to disorganize any group protective system now organized. But first, I want you to buy a map of the city, then we’ll look up the home address of Dr. Lauren Kair. If he’s not available, I’ll accept anybody but Dr. David Lester Enright, with whom I once made an appointment.”
Prescott said, “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
Gosseyn spoke without rancor. “Oh, no, you won’t.” He explained gently, “We’re in this together, each the guard of the other. I’ll go into the drugstore behind you and look up Dr. Kair’s address while you buy the map.”
Doctor Kair’s house gleamed whitely in the light from a corner lamp and from two dim globes that cast a pale radiance around their base, presumably indicating that the family was home. They vaulted the fence like wraiths. As they paused in the shadows of shrubbery, Prescott whispered, “Are you sure Dr. Kair is the man you want to see?”
“Yes,” said Gosseyn. He was about to leave it at that, when the thought came that the author of The Egotist on Non-Aristotelian Venus deserved better. He added, “He’s written some books.”
It was a very Aristotelian way of putting it, but he was intent now. The house of Dr. Kair, and Dr. Kair himself, offered a unique problem. Here was a residence so protected against intruders by a group system that not even the most skillful gangs operating during the policeless period would dare to try to break in. The method of entry had to be aboveboard and not too involved, with a safe method of escape if the protective system was set in play. Gosseyn whispered, “This Drae powder you used—it affects the brain?”
“Instantly. It works on the nerves in the upper nostril cavities, thus making a direct path to the brain. One whiff is usually enough.”
Gosseyn nodded, then turned his attention back to Dr. Kair’s house. In minutes, if nothing went wrong, a great semanticist, specializing in the human brain, would be questioning, examining, and diagnosing his brain. His brain, the existence of which had drawn Hardie and “X” into a vortex of events and brought about their death. Nothing mattered so much as finding out the why and how of this strange brain of his.
Gosseyn whispered his plan. Prescott would go to the door and identify himself as a Venusian. Undoubtedly, before admitting him, Dr. Kair would sound the group warning, placing his neighbors on the alert. But that was unimportant. The Drae powder would take care of an emergency.
Gosseyn asked, “How much of the powder would you use?”
“A pinch—one capsule. I put eight capsules into the air system at the palace, about a teaspoonful. It’s very potent, but the antidote we took will still protect us.” He added, “I’d better be ringing that doorbell.”
Half a minute later, he was doing just that.
The fog drifted in through the open door with them. By agreement, they left the door partly open. It brought the night, and the safety of the night, closer. For Gosseyn, who was satisfied now with nothing less than every thinkable precaution, that unclosed door was the difference between ease and unease.
Dr. Kair was a tall, huskily built man of fifty, with a smooth, strongly jowled face. As Gosseyn came in, the doctor looked at him curiously with a pair of the most piercing gray eyes Gosseyn had ever seen. Gosseyn bore the scrutiny quietly. He knew better than to rush this early confidence-building stage. Minutes spent now might save hours later.
The psychiatrist wasted no time. As soon as Gosseyn had explained his purpose, he disappeared into his den and emerged again almost immediately carrying a small lie detector.
“Mr. Gosseyn,” he said, “no Venusian or advanced null-A will accept for a moment the astonishing press and radio statements issued this evening by the government information bureau about President Hardie’s assassination. In all my life I have never heard or seen anything so calculated to arouse the emotions of the ignorant and of the great mass of the half educated. Not since the dark ages of the mind has such an attempt been made to appeal to the mob spirit, and the final evidence of their venality is their accusation against Venusians and against the Machine. There is unquestionably an ulterior motive behind those statements, and that, in itself, entitles you to a hearing before all just men.” He broke off. “You are prepared to face a lie detector?”
“Anything, sir,” Gosseyn said, “so long as I do not have to lose consciousness. I’m sure you can understand the reason for that.”
The doctor could. And in all the tests that followed, there was not an instant when Gosseyn did not have his hands and his mind free. All the tests! There were dozens; there were scores. For those involving machines, the doctor’s laboratory-den, just off the center hall, was ideally located. With two exceptions, all the instruments could be moved to a chair from which Gosseyn could look slantwise through the den door at the partly open outer door.
Some of the machines glowed at him with hot electronic eyes that warmed his skin and dazzled him. Others were as bright as burnished metal, but cold and unfeelable. Still others showed no visible lights, yet buzzed or hummed or throbbed with power as their unhuman senses examined him. As test followed test, Gosseyn told his story.
His account was interrupted three times, twice when he had to hold still while ultra-sensitive rays examined the nature of the cells in his extra brain, and finally when Dr. Kair exclaimed sharply, “Then you did not yourself kill any of these men?”
Prescott looked up at the question. “No, I was the one who did that.” He laughed grimly. “As you’ve guessed from what Gosseyn has said, I’m a person who had to choose between null-A and my position. I’ll have to plead temporary insanity if I’m ever brought to trial.”
Dr. Kair gazed at him soberly. “No plea of insanity,” he said, “has ever been accepted from a null-A. You’ll have to think of a better story than that.”
“Story!” thought Gosseyn, and looked at Prescott—for the first time really looked at him.
The man’s eyes were ever so slightly narrowed, watching him. One of his hands moved casually toward the gun in his right-hand coat pocket. It must have been an unconscious action; he couldn’t really have expected to succeed, because Gosseyn beat him easily to the draw.
“I would say,” said Gosseyn quietly a moment later, after they had disarmed the man, “that the house is surrounded.”