He was steered into a room where three people were waiting: A beetle-browed man sitting behind a desk, wearing an army general's uniform. Mr. Byers from Los Angeles, standing by the desk and smiling triumphantly. And the "mystery girl," in a chair in a corner of the room with her right wrist manacled to a hook in the wall.
Kent felt slightly acquainted with all three.
The man behind the desk said, "I'm sure there's no need for introductions, so—"
"I disagree," said Kent, determined to show some spunk if only verbally. "Mr. Byers I've met, but the young lady I've only admired from afar. And as for you, General Preston, I know who you are, but I don't know you in your present role. Do they give out medals these days for shooting piano players?"
Preston chuckled. "Good boy! I admire brashness in the face of danger. You might have made a decent soldier, Lindstrom, if this sick land of ours didn't regard 'decent soldier' as a contradictory term. To save argument I'll go along with your pretense of ignorance. The young lady's name is Peggy Blodget, of course.
"As for myself—I assume you are also pretending ignorance of my political views?"
"It's no pretense," said Kent. "Politics bore me."
"Very well. Since the collapse of communism, this once great nation of ours has gone to pot, Lindstrom." The general's eyes glittered. "We're giving away our unmatched wealth to good-for-nothing loafers. We, the greatest power in the world, have gone flabby. We no longer exercise our strength, either diplomatically or militarily. We don't lead by precept. We've turned into a bunch of bleeding-hearts and soft touches. What we don't give away we waste on effeminate living. You're a prime example, boy. A potential fighting man, playing sissy slop on the piano!"
"What's sissy about the 'Hammer-Klavier'?" Kent flared.
"Shut up and listen! I'm no man to waste words. I'm a man of action, a man who makes his speeches, but who then goes a step further than the cheap politicians who are ruining our country. I back up my speeches with deeds."
"Such deeds as shooting sissy piano players?" Kent retorted.
"Such as eliminating any fool who gets in my way," the general told him grimly. "And you, interfering with our Miss Blodget here, were doing exactly that."
Kent shrugged. "But what can you gain from doing things like that, and stealing secret weapons, general? A man like you! What are you after?"
Preston stared at him. "I'm after this nation's salvation, boy. That can be won only if my friends and myself assume top leadership, preferably with the support of the public, but without it if the public prefers to remain asleep."
"Dictatorship, huh?" muttered Kent, and then he rushed on before the general had time to blow his top: "But how does Miss Blodget figure in this? She doesn't look the type."
"Miss Blodget, as you well know, has a special talent," said the general. "And she was favorably impressed by my speeches. Thus, when she realized the patriotic thing for her to do was to offer her talent to her country, she came to me." He turned and gazed at the young woman, then added, "Unfortunately, Miss Blodget's patriotism lacks realism. She is slow to convince that to make an omelet, eggs must be broken. So she attempted desertion, first without and later with your assistance."
"What's this talent of hers?" asked Kent.
General Preston fidgeted impatiently. "I'm getting tired of this game!" he snapped. "We will waste no more time telling you things you've known for months."
The girl spoke for the first time. "I'm a telepath, Kent. That makes me useful to the general when I'm within my eighty-yard range of the United Nations, or the White House, or the Pentagon. Of course, he doesn't get my help willingly."
"Shut up!" bellowed Preston. "You answer my questions, nobody else's!" He glared at Kent. "When I sought to eliminate you, boy, it was because you were in my way. But I can use you alive now. Miss Blodget is sentimental about her home town—Los Angeles. That was the major present purpose of our arms cache there. I had to pose a very real, very serious threat to the peace of her city, to bring her to terms and win her cooperation. Since she's telepathic, she can't be bluffed.
"Now, thanks to you, that threat and our most important supply of weapons has been stolen from us. And you've earned yourself a new job! You, boy, are my replacement for Los Angeles. Obviously, Miss Blodget cares very much what happens to you. She'll cooperate to keep you safe." He smiled coldly and continued:
"That's why I set this little trap for you, with her as the bait. Mr. Byers was sent to Los Angeles to feed you the information that Miss Blodget was being brought here." The general paused and gazed at Kent curiously. "I was beginning to wonder, however, if you were going to fall for it. Byers had never been to this ranch before. So he didn't know it was my chief stronghold, and would be a trap for you. Also, he didn't know my real purpose in sending him to see you. What made you suspicious, Lindstrom? Why didn't you get here last night when I expected you? I even had a responser hidden in your clopter to warn us of your approach. Where did you go first?"
Kent shrugged distractedly and didn't reply. Pard, he remembered, had been sleeping the whole time Byers had been near him yesterday. Was that why he didn't get Preston's message? And Peggy Blodget was a telepath with an eighty-yard range . . . and Pard knew her. Also, Pard had acted so strangely in New York and New Jersey last night, waking people up and then moving on as if he had learned something from them, and . . . and it all began to make a terrifying kind of sense!
But why hadn't Pard ever told him?
"It would be hard for him to explain," answered Peggy, "and he knew you wouldn't take the news very well."
"I told you to shut up, girl!" roared Preston. She grinned a sad but unbowed little grin, and Kent suddenly knew she was the most wonderful girl in the universe.
Preston was speaking to him again. "Later on, Lindstrom, I may give you an assignment similar to Miss Blodget's—her covering the U.N. and Washington and you on a roving basis, each responsible for the other's safety. But that would require dividing my inner circle—the gentlemen in this room today—into two teams, with several new members to be trusted with the secret of Miss Blodget and yourself. That would be risky right now. Later, perhaps . . .
"But now, Lindstrom, let's put Miss Blodget into a proper frame of mind. She must feel pity for you, and a sense of responsibility. You both know what I have in mind, but the real experience should be far more convincing than my mental image of it. I believe, Lindstrom, that the end segment of the little finger is quite important to a piano player. Isn't that true?"
Kent nodded slowly.
"The removal of yours, from both hands, will not be extremely painful," Preston continued. "I'm no savage who goes in for idle torture. But I believe this will have a salutary effect on you and Miss Blodget with a minimum of bloodshed. Gentlemen, you may proceed."
Give me control, twitched Pard.
"No!" Kent yelled aloud. "The Chopin Configuration!"
Yes, agreed Pard.
"What's that?" asked the general as two of his henchmen, after shoving their pistols into shoulder holsters, moved in on their captive while the third covered them.
Kent had neither the time nor the intention to explain that the "Chopin Configuration" was a special way of sharing responsibilities between Pard and himself—a way he hoped would enable them to fight like two men instead of one. In several of the first Chopin compositions he had learned to play, the left-hand part was far more demanding than the right-hand part. Kent had found that the best way to handle these pieces was to give Pard control of the entire body, except for the right hand and arm. This arrangement he called the "Chopin Configuration," although he used it frequently in playing other works.
And now, if there was going to be a fight, Kent did not intend to sit jittering helplessly in his skull while Pard alone took on five able-bodied men! Especially not with Peggy watching!
"Take the eyes, too!" Peggy called, and he knew she was relaying a message from Pard, who could fight without seeing.
"Your show of indifference doesn't move me, Miss Blodget," chuckled General Preston, misinterpreting her meaning. "Just the small fingertips, gentlemen."
Kent lashed out with a sudden judo chop at the neck of the man on his side, but the blow landed on the chin and stunned the man only slightly, while—
The man on Pard's side moved in swiftly, and Pard gave with his motion, clamped the man's throat hard in the bend of his arm and swung him around as a shield against the covering gunman, who was looking for a clear shot, while—
Kent kept grabbing at his staggered opponent, and finally caught his jacket arm and jerked him into the melee, and fumbled under the man's jacket for his gun, while—
Pard broke his man's neck, then whirled the tangle around once and flung the body at the feet of the advancing gunman, where it flopped disconcertingly to the gunman's momentary dismay, then reached around to clamp his fingers on the throat of Kent's reviving opponent, while—
Kent yanked out the man's pistol just in time to raise it and shoot the advancing gunman as Pard's motion brought that enemy into view, while—
Pard went for the knife in the man's belt and slung it at Byers, who had moved away from the desk and was drawing his own pistol, but the knife missed, while—
General Preston had extracted his old army revolver from the desk and was aiming it at the no longer shielded Lindstrom, while—
Kent located Byers and put a bullet in that worthy's arm, causing him to drop his gun and lurch toward the door, while—
Peggy removed a slender shoe and threw it awkwardly with her free left hand at General Preston's temples, but only grazed his nose, while—
Preston whirled angrily and snapped a shot at her, and missed because she knew when to duck, while—
Kent finally got focused on the general, and put a bullet squarely between his eyes.
The rest was mere mop-up.
Kent's first opponent was still moving. He was crawling rapidly toward Byers' gun when Kent's bullet stopped him for good.
Pard ran out in the hall after Byers, whose retreating back was thirty feet away.
"Shoot him!" shouted Peggy. Kent didn't raise the gun.
"Idiot!" snapped Peggy as Pard suddenly reached the left hand over, yanked the pistol from Kent's grasp, and drilled Byers.
"Why'd ya do that?" Kent mumbled thickly. "He had no fight left in him."
"Because he knew about us," Peggy called out. "He was the only one left who did!"
Pard went back in the room, examined the bodies briefly, then got a key from Preston's pocket and unsnapped Peggy's manacles. She immediately went to the desk, studied the array of controls for a moment, then did things to them.
"Five minutes to get out of here," she said, dashing for the door with Pard following.
As they ran across the yard Kent puffed, "How is it you can talk if you and Pard are . . . are alike?"
"Because I'm a natural telepath. He seems to be accidental. That operation isolated him at an age when the urge to communicate was very strong. My hemispheres are joined."
"You're the only one he's found?" asked Kent.
"Yes."
"I'm glad it's you, Peggy. You're a beautiful girl."
She laughed lightly. "Keep running. This place is going to blow sky-high in a couple of minutes!"
"We'll be running the rest of our lives," Kent fretted.
"No. We've chopped the head off Preston's monster, and it'll die now. We'll even make that Toronto rehearsal this evening." She slid into an erosion gully and Pard leaped down beside her. They huddled there and waited.
A few seconds later all hell broke loose behind them. The sound and concussion of air and earth hit them with solid, jolting blows. Pard held her closely. It was like being next door to a major battlefield.
But it ended quickly. Peggy lifted her head with a half-frightened giggle. "We're safe, but we'd better scram."
They climbed out of the gully and walked on swiftly toward the car. "This has been a rough couple of days, Peggy," said Kent, "but I'm suddenly quite sure it was worth it."
"Why, thank you, kind sir." She smiled winningly.
"I'm especially glad for Pard," he added. "Life must've been pretty dismal for him up to now. It's great to find somebody he likes, and who can talk to him. He shouldn't feel so secondary from now on,"
"Pard? Secondary?" asked Peggy.
"Yeah. You know. Having to play second fiddle to me all the time."
She looked amused but said nothing. Kent was vaguely uncomfortable about the way this conversation was going. But of course, he told himself, she can anticipate my words before I say them. No wonder she responds a little strangely. I'll get accustomed to that.
They reached a level path and her hand caught his. An instant later he was delighted to find her in his arms, and the kiss she gave him was hard to believe. It was magnificent!
Then his bright new world turned dark—because she was murmuring passionately into his ear: "Pard, oh dear, wonderful Pard! I love you so!"
Kent was dismally certain he would never get accustomed to that!