Ten From Infinity | Page 6

Just who are you to say what the people should or
should not know?"
"Decisions of that nature are made upstairs, Senator. I don't presume to
possess the judgment needed in such matters."
"You're an arrogant bureaucrat! Your kind comes and goes because
when you get too goddamned arrogant the people rise up in their wrath
and knock you off."
Marcia Holly, Brent's secretary, was studiously transcribing some notes
and Brent turned his scowl on her because, damn it, she was laughing
like hell at the whole thing. And, by God, a secretary didn't have the
right to laugh at a United States Senator, even with her eyes, no matter
how much a congenital idiot he was.
"I'm sorry, Senator," Brent said. "If you have a complaint, please take it
up with my superiors. Just now I--"
"Your superiors? And who the devil are they? Who can find them?
Where do they have offices? Go around trying to find your superiors
and nobody ever heard of you."
Brent half smiled as he felt a sneaking admiration for Crane. The
son-of-a-bitch had a disarming quality of honesty. If he planned to
knife you, he drove straight in, the knife held high.
"One of the disadvantages of being a negative personality, Senator,"
Brent murmured.

"Sure! You're about as negative as a charging grizzly," Crane snorted
and headed for the door as though his air had been cut off.
After his bulk had vanished into the corridor, Brent turned a scowl on
Marcia Holly. "And what are you snickering about."
She raised large blue, innocent eyes. "Me? I? Oh, golly. I just found a
cute little Freudian slip in these notes and--"
"Shut up. Are they all here?"
"Birch of the State Department sent regrets. A duty call on the
Tasmanian Embassy or something."
"Okay--and next week he'll be screaming to high heaven about being
left out."
Marcia's laughing eyes agreed. "Ain't it the truth?" she marveled.
Brent strode past her and expertly mussed her sleek hairdo in a quick
gesture. As he entered his private conference room, he turned and
grinned at her silent fury.
Inside, they were all waiting for him, seated around a teakwood table.
The wall-to-wall carpeting was wine-red. The chairs were deep and
upholstered. And the men who sat in them were distinguished only by
their surroundings and their uniforms. Their metal and their worth were
hidden inside.
Brent moved to the end of the table and scanned them moodily. "Okay,
gentlemen. I'll talk. Then if you have any questions--shoot them." He
took a deep breath and began:
"We are faced with a situation that must be kept top secret for two
reasons: First, it may be the first move in an attempt to subjugate or
destroy our planet; two, it is so utterly ridiculous on its face that a
public announcement would be greeted by hoots of laughter from pole
to pole." Brent's ugly scowl deepened at what he seemed to feel was an

injustice. "Even the Eskimos would get a yack out of it."
The group waited, withholding judgment, evidently waiting to see
whether or not it was a laughing matter. They were conceding nothing.
Brent studied them for a moment and then went on.
"Last week, in Denver, early in the morning," he said, "a man was
found dead on a residential-section street. There was no apparent cause
of death. A routine autopsy revealed some peculiar things about the
man's insides. For one thing, he had two hearts--"
Jones of the Air Force, a dignified, gray-haired man, paused in firing
his cigar and gave the impression he was lighting his way through the
darkness. Bright of the Navy, a thin man with a huge Adam's apple,
allowed it to bob three times in deference to the startling nature of
Brent's statement. Pender of the Army raised one eyebrow and let it fall.
To a keen observer, Hagen of the FBI would have revealed prior
knowledge by reacting not at all.
His mind was on the kid. He was thinking, Christ! With all the damned
miracle drugs and characters orbiting the earth in crazy capsules, they
still haven't figured out a way to keep a six-year-old from getting a cold.
He remembered the kid waving from the window yesterday
morning--when he'd been ordered East to attend this
clambake--standing there beside Miriam, waving good-bye and barking
like a sea lion. What the hell was wrong with doctors? Why didn't they
get with it on a stupidly simple thing like the common cold?
" ... two hearts and--" Brent reached to the left and pulled down a chart
on a window shade-type rack that stood beside his chair, "--a rather
interesting arrangement of the internal organs." He pointed with a thick
finger. "You'll notice that the liver is exceptionally small,