James H. Schmitz Agents of Vega

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was a menace to the world. Fredericks, the morose eavesdropper, had to be
silenced with his employer to assure Barney of his undisputed possession of
the
Tube.
Could he still let the thing go, let McAllen live? He couldn't, Barney
decided. He'd dealt himself a hand in a new game, and a big one a fantastic,
staggering game when one considered the possibilities in the Tube. It meant
new interest, it meant life for him. It wasn't in his nature to pull out. The
part about McAllen was cold necessity. A very ugly necessity, but
McAllen pleasantly burbling something as they walked down the short hall to
the front door
already seemed a little unreal, a roly-poly, muttering, fading small ghost.
In the doorway Barney exchanged a few words he couldn't have repeated them an
instant later with the ghost, became briefly aware of a remarkably firm hand
clasp, and started down the cement walk to the street. Evening had come to
California at last; a few houses across the street made dim silhouettes
against the hills, some of the windows lit. He felt, Barney realized,
curiously tired and depressed. A few steps behind him, he heard McAllen
quietly closing the door to his home.
The walk, the garden, the street, the houses and hills beyond, vanished in a
soundlessly violent explosion of white light around Barney Chard.
* * *
His eyes might have been open for several seconds before he became entirely
aware of the fact. He was on his back looking up at the low raftered ceiling
of a room. The light was artificial, subdued; it gave the impression of
nighttime outdoors. Memory suddenly blazed up. "Tricked!" came the first
thought. Outsmarted. Outfoxed. And by
Then that went lost in a brief, intense burst of relief at the realization he
was still alive, apparently unhurt. Barney turned sharply over on his side bed
underneath, he discovered and stared around.
The room was low, wide. Something indefinably odd
He catalogued it quickly. Redwood walls, Navaho rugs on the floor, bookcases,
unlit fireplace, chairs, table, desk with a typewriter and reading lamp.
Across the room a tall dark grandfather clock with a bright metal disk instead
of a clock-face stood against the wall. From it came a soft, low thudding as
deliberate as the heartbeat of some big animal. It was the twin of one of the
clocks he had seen in McAllen's living room.
The room was McAllen's, of course. Almost luxurious by comparison with his
home, but wholly typical of the man.
And now Barney became aware of its unusual feature; there were no windows.
There was one door, so far to his right he had to twist his head around to see
it. It stood half open; beyond it a few feet of a narrow passage lay within
his range of vision, lighted in the same soft manner as the room. No sound
came from there.
Had he been left alone? And what had happened? He wasn't in McAllen's home or
in that fishing shack at the lake.
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The Tube might have picked him up somehow in front of McAllen's house,
transported him to the Mallorca place. Or he might be in a locked hideaway
McAllen had built beneath the Sweetwater Beach house.
Two things were unpleasantly obvious. His investigations hadn't revealed all
of McAllen's secrets. And the old man hadn't really been fooled by Barney
Chard's smooth approach. Not, at any rate, to the extent of deciding to trust
him.
Hot chagrin at the manner in which McAllen had handed the role of dupe back to
him flooded Barney for a moment.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. His coat had been
hung neatly over the back of a chair a few feet away; his shoes stood next to
the bed. Otherwise he was fully clothed. Nothing in the pockets of the coat
appeared to have been touched; billfold, cigarette case, lighter, even the
gun, were in place; the gun, almost
startlingly, was still loaded. Barney thrust the revolver thoughtfully into
his trousers pocket. His wrist watch seemed to be the only item missing.
He glanced about the room again, then at the half-open door and the stretch of
narrow hallway beyond. McAllen must have noticed the gun. The fact that he
hadn't bothered to take it away, or at least to unload it, might have been
reassuring under different circumstances. Here, it could have a very
disagreeable meaning. Barney went quietly to the door, stood listening a few
seconds, became convinced there was no one within hearing range, and moved on
down the hall.
In less than two minutes he returned to the room, with the first slow welling
of panic inside him. He had found a bathroom, a small kitchen and pantry, a
storage room twice as wide and long as the rest of the place combined, crammed
with packaged and crated articles, and with an attached freezer. If it was
mainly stored food, as Barney thought, and if there was adequate ventilation
and independent power, as seemed to be the case, then McAllen had constructed
a superbly self-sufficient hideout. A man might live comfortably enough for
years without emerging from it.
There was only one thing wrong with the setup from Barney's point of view. The
thing he'd been afraid of. Nowhere was there an indication of a window or of
an exit door.
The McAllen Tube, of course, might make such ordinary conveniences
unnecessary. And if the Tube was the only way in or out, then McAllen
incidentally had provided himself with an escape-proof jail for anyone he
preferred to keep confined. The place might very well have been built several
hundred feet underground. A rather expensive proposition but, aside from that,
quite feasible.
Barney felt his breath begin to quicken, and told himself to relax. Wherever
he was, he shouldn't be here long.
McAllen presently would be getting in contact with him. And then
His glance touched the desk across the room, and now he noticed his missing
wrist watch on it. He went over, picked it up, and discovered that the long
white envelope on which the watch had been placed was addressed to him.
For a moment he stared at the envelope. Then, his fingers shaking a little, he
tore open the envelope and pulled out the typewritten sheets within.
* * *
The letterhead, he saw without surprise, was OLIVER B. McALLEN.
The letter read:
Dear Mr. Chard: An unfortunate series of circumstances, combined with certain
character traits in yourself, make it necessary to inconvenience you in a
rather serious manner. To explain: The information I gave you regarding the
McAllen Tube and my own position was not entirely correct. It is not the
intractable instrument I presented it as being it can be "shut off" again
quite readily and without any attendant difficulties. Further, the decision to
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