The Stutterer | Page 8

watched, the intruder handled it with impunity, pulling a length of wire out of his pocket and making some sort of a connection.
It was too much for the old man. Electricity was obviously being stolen. He roared out at the top of his voice, and stumped over to the wall where he threw the alarm switch. Immediately, a hundred arc lights flashed on, lighting the level brighter than the noon sun, and a tremendously loud siren started wailing its warning to the whole countryside.
The intruder jumped up as though he had been stabbed. He dropped the wires, and after a wild look around him, he ran at full speed toward the far exit.
"Hold on there," Yudovich shouted and tried to give chase, but his swollen, crooked knees almost collapsed with the effort.
His eyes fell on a large wrench lying on a worktable, and he snatched it up and threw it with all his strength. In his youth he had been a ball player with some local fame as a pitcher, and in his later life, he was addicted to playing horseshoes. His aim was, therefore, good, and the wrench sailed through the air striking the runner on the back of the head. Sparks flew and there was a loud metallic clang, the wrench rebounding high in the air. The man who was struck did not even turn his head, but continued his panicky flight and was gone in a second.
When he realized there was no hope of effecting a capture, Yudovich stumped over to see the amount of the damage. A hole had been torn in the floor, but the cable itself was intact.
Something strange caught his attention. Wherever the intruder had put his foot down, there were many radiating cracks in the composition floor, just as though someone had struck a sheet of ice with a sledge hammer.
"I'll be danged," he said to himself. "I'll be danged and double danged."
He turned off the alarm and then went downstairs to the teledepth screen to notify the sheriff's office.
A few hundred yards from the powerhouse, Jon Hall stood in the darkness, listening to the voices of his fellows. There were eighteen of them, not seventeen, for a short while before the one in the ice cave had been captured, and they railed at him with a bitter hopeless anger.
He looked toward the bright lights of the powerhouse, considering whether he should return. "It's too late," said one of them. "The alarm is already out." "Go into the town and mix with the people," another suggested. "If you stay within a half mile of the hafnium pile, the detection man will not be able to pick up your radiation and maybe you will have a second chance."
They all assented in that, and Hall, weary of making his own decisions turned toward the town. He walked through a tree-lined residential street, the houses with neatly trimmed lawns, and each with a copter parked on the roof. In almost every house the teledepths were turned on and he caught snatches of bulletins about himself: "... Is known to be in the Mojave area." "... About six feet in height and very similar to a human being. When last seen, he was dressed in--" "Governor Leibowitz has promised speedy action and attorney general Markle has stated--"
The main street of Ballarat was brilliantly lighted. Many of the residents, aroused by the alarm from the powerhouse, were out, standing in small groups in front of the stores and talking excitedly to one another.
He hesitated, unwilling to walk through the bright street, but uncertain where to turn. Two men talking loudly came around the corner suddenly and he stepped back into a store entrance to avoid them. They stopped directly in front of him. One of them, an overalled farm hand from his looks, said, "He killed a kid just a little while ago. My brother-in-law heard it."
"Murderer," the other said viciously.
The farmer turned his head and his glance fell on Hall. "Well, a new face in town," he said after a moment's inspection. "Say I bet you're a reporter from one of the papers, aren't you?"
Hall came out of the entrance and tried to walk around the two men, but the farmer caught him by the sleeve.
"A reporter, huh? Well, I got some news for you. That thing from Grismet just killed a kid."
Hall could restrain himself no longer.
"That's a lie," he said coldly.
The farmer looked him up and down.
"What do you know about it," he demanded. "My brother-in-law got it from somebody in the state guard."
"It's still a lie."
"Just because it's not on the teledepth, you say it's a lie," the farmer said belligerently. "Not everything is told on the teledepth, Mr. Wiseheimer. They're keeping it a secret. They don't want to scare the people."
Hall started