The Stutterer Part 3

"Yes. My name is Tom Jordan," Jordan said.

"Mine's Berkhammer." It must have been warm in California because the sheriff pulled out a large handkerchief and mopped his brow. When he was done with that he blew his nose loudly. "Hay fever," he announced.

"Want to see my credentials?"

"Oh sure, sure," the sheriff hastily replied. He scrutinized the card and badge that Jordan displayed. After a moment, he said, "I don't know why I'm looking at those. They might be fakes for all I know. Never saw them before and I'll probably never see them again."

"They're genuine."

"The deuce with formality," the sheriff said heavily. "There's some kid around here who thinks he saw that ... that machine you're supposed to be looking for."

"When was that?" Jordan asked.

"About four hours ago. Here, I'll let you talk to him yourself." He pulled his big bulk to one side, and a boy and his father walked into the picture. The boy was red-eyed, as though he had been crying. The father was a tall, stoop-shouldered farmer, dressed like his son in plastic overalls.

The sheriff patted the boy on the back. "Come on, Jimmy. Tell the man what you saw."

"I saw him," the boy said sullenly. "I walked up the highway with him."

Jordan leaned forward toward the screen.

"How did you know who he was?"

"I knew because when he stepped on the ground, he sank into it up to his knee. He tried to say the ground was soft, but it was hard. I know it was hard."

"Why did you wait so long to tell anybody?" Jordan asked softly.

The boy looked at him with defiance and dislike in his eyes and kept his small mouth clamped shut.

His father nudged him roughly in the ribs.

"Answer the man," he commanded.

Jimmy looked down at his shoes.

"Because he asked me not to tell for a while," he said curtly.

"Stubborn as nails," the father said not without pride in his voice.

"Got more loyalty to a lousy machine than to the whole human race."

"Which way did he go, Jimmy?"

"Toward Red Mountain. I think maybe to the power house. He asked me where it was."

"What do you think he wants with that?" the sheriff asked of Jordan.

Jordan shrugged and shook his head.

"Maybe it's all in the kid's head," the sheriff suggested. "These wild teledepth programs they look at give them all kinds of ideas."

"It isn't in my head," Jimmy said violently. "I saw him. He stepped on the ground and stuck his foot into it. I talked to him. And I know something else. He stutters."

"What?" said the sheriff. "Now I know you're lying."

The father started dragging the boy by the arm. "Come on home, Jimmy.

You got one more licking coming."

Jordan, however, was sure the boy was not lying. "Leave him alone," he said. "He's right. He did see him." He took a fast look at the timepiece on his panel board. "I'll be down in an hour and a half. Wait for me."

He flicked the switch off, and kicked up the motors. The s.h.i.+p shot southward almost as rapidly as a projectile.

He had topped the Sierras and had just turned into the great central valley of California when, with the impact of a blow, a frightening thought occurred to him.

He flicked the screen on again, and he caught the sheriff sitting behind his desk industriously scratching himself in one armpit.

"Listen," Jordan said, speaking very fast. "You've got to send out a national alarm. You must get every man you can down to the power plant.

You've got to stop him from getting in."

The sheriff stopped scratching himself and stared at Jordan.

"What are you so het up about, young man?"

"Do it, and do it now," Jordan almost shouted. "He'll tear the pile apart and let the hafnium go off. It'll blow half the state off the planet."

The sheriff was unperturbed. "Mr. Star boy," he said sarcastically, "any grammar school kid knows that if someone came within a hundred yards of one of those power-house piles, he'd burn like a match stick. And besides why would he want to blow himself to pieces?"

"He's made out of permallium." Jordan was shouting now.

The sheriff suddenly grew pale. "Get off my screen. I'm calling Sacramento."

Jordan set the s.h.i.+p for maximum speed, well beyond the safety limit. He kept peering ahead into the dusk, momentarily fearful that the whole countryside would light up in one brilliant flash. In a few minutes he was sweating and trembling with the tension.

Over Walnut Grove, he recognized the series of dams, reservoirs and water-lifts where the Sacramento was raised up out of its bed and turned south. For greater speed, he came close to Earth, flying at emergency height, reserved ordinarily for police, firemen, doctors and ambulances.

He set his course by sight following the silver road of the river, losing it for ten or fifteen miles at a time where it pa.s.sed through subterranean tunnels, picking it up again at the surface, always shooting south as fast as the atmosphere permitted.

At seven thirty, when the sun had finally set, he sighted the lights of Red Mountain, and he cut his speed and swung in to land. There was no trouble picking out the power plant; it was a big dome-shaped building surrounded by a high wall. It was so brilliantly lit up, that it stood out like a beacon, and there were several hundred men milling about before it.

He settled down on the lawn inside the walls, and the sheriff came bustling up, a little more red in the face than usual.

"I've been trying to figure for the last hour what the devil I would do to stop him if he decided to come here," Berkhammer said.

"He's not here then?"

The sheriff shook his head. "Not a sign of him. We've gone over the place three times."