Kenneth Bulmer by The Wizard of Starship Poseiden Page A

Earth.
    One
afternoon with the lights shining eerily in the long laboratory the telephone
rang and Howland answered peevishly, a clipboard balanced on one knee.
    "Is that Doc Howland?"
    "Yes. Who is
that?"
    "Lissen, doc. Meet me tonight at
eleven-thirty sharp. First door up the stairs on the left, 711 Sirius Street.
Got it?" A pause. "And don't tell anyonel"
    "Who is that? What do
you mean—meet you?"
    "No
time for any more, doc. Just be there, see? Else you'll be in trouble,
too."
    And the line went dead.
    Howland
put the phone back feeling as though he'd spoken to a madman as Haffner bustled
through, holding a test tube to the light.
    "This
batch is coming along beautifully, Peter. Why— what's the matter? Feel
ill?"
    That
hoarse, husky voice rasped into his memory. "And don't tell anyonel"
    "No,
no, Willi. Just tired. This particular audio virus we're chasing is a cunning
brute."
    "But we're almost there." Haffner
exuded confidence now in strange contrast to Howland's pale and washed out wanness.
"We can begin production in as big a quantity as Randolph wants." He
chuckled. "Provided this batch is the right one."
    Howland
excused himself and went away to think. After a half hour of fruitless
brain-searching he still couldn't place that voice. Yet he had heard it before,
and recently. The threat ringing in those rasping tones had been unmistakable.
He'd do tonight. He knew that all right. But if Mallow was mixed up in this
somewhere . . .
    Seven-eleven Sirius Street turned out to be
one of those sleazy apartment houses, fifty stories tall, clustering in grey
spires around where once there had been river traffic and docks and the
cheerful tooting of steam whisdes. Now transport jetted out from the airfields
and the tall spires crumbled along with the centuries they had known.
    Going
up the stairs, Howland found the first door up on the left. He knocked. His
heavy leather gloves against the cold deadened the sound and he was about to
drag one off, unable to find a bell, when the door sagged inwards, creaking
evilly. A pulse began to hammer in Howland's temple. Keeping his gloves on he
pushed the door.
    The
room beyond the open door was in darkness and Howland fumbled along the wall
for a switch. He found it. Light slashed down dramatically from an unshielded
bulb, reflected from the central shining object in the room.
    Around
that the room was dusty, meagre, thin with the poverty and neglect of years. A
bed sagged in a corner, the bedclothes dragged on to the floor. A chair lay
overturned. But in the center—a man lay on his face, his body in foppish
clothes hunched, those clothes now dreadfully bedabbled with blood.
    And
from the middle of the man's back jutted the shining silver hilt of a
knife—shining and reflecting the brilliance of the light Howland had just
switched on.
    For
perhaps three seconds he stood there, his finger on the switch. Then he heard
the door bang from below, hoarse voices, the tramp of feet.
    The
light went out under his pressing finger. He turned to face the corridor,
feeling trapped. The possibility of explanations eluded him. He had to get
away—get away, now!
    Like
a madman he rushed for the stairs, began to pad up four at a time, his lean and
lanky body jackknifing with the effort, synthirubber boots soundless on the
treads.
    Below him, like an echo chamber insanely
repeating the same maniacal words over and over again, the voices of men
floated up. "Open up in therel" "Come on, in there-police!"
And, finally, exasperated: "Break the door down."
    So he must have pulled the door to after him
and the snap catch had caught. That was giving him vital seconds.
    But
the police had known which room to go to. Had the same throaty voice warned
them—as it had done him? Or was the owner of that voice now lying, horribly
dead with a dagger in his back, down there in that evil little room?
    Four
landings above, Howland halted and punched the elevator buttons. He waited in
agony as the lift slowly