The Jackson Killer - Philip E High

Lassen spun the glass slowly in his hand, watching the tiny whirlpool in the wine. He did not really care for alcohol, local or imported, but it served a purpose. One sipped, one looked lonely and one waited.

He glanced casually at the noisy party at the nearby table. One of the women was beginning to wear the look, the kind of look Colonial women wear when they see a lonely stranger.

Colonial hospitality, God bless it, it saved a lot of work.

He caught the woman's eye and smiled. A careful smile which was neither suggestive or arrogant but reserved, friendly and a little shy. He had practised it successfully on many occasions and it would serve his purpose now.

He waited, staring at his glass, his face intent as if lost in thought.

Lassen was handsome in a taughtly aristocratic kind of way, smooth, well groomed and the bleakness in his eyes was only visible in a certain light at a certain angle. A vaguely repellent quality is something an Eliminator acquires and must learn to hide successfully.

'Excuse me,' said a voice at his elbow.

Lassen started slightly as if surprised. 'Yes?' One of the men, a big red faced specimen in a shiny suit.

'Thought you might like to join us.' The fellow was grinning like an ape, close relative, no doubt. 'Saw you were a stranger. Hate you to think the people of Kaylon were unfriendly, plenty of room at our table.'

Lassen looked pleasantly surprised, a little emotional but still faintly reserved., The correct reactions in the correct order for a given situation.

'How kind, but I would not dream of intruding on a purely private -'

'Private, hell, on Kaylon nothing is private. Come on, join us.'

'Well, if you are quite sure -'

He permitted himself to be led to the table and introduced. They found a vacant chair, filled a glass and pressed food upon him.

He gave a clever impression of slowly unbending and even laughed moderately at some of the jokes but he was sighing inwardly. Colonials were always the same, brash, crude, hungry for an Earth they had never seen and infected with a vague sense of inferiority. Nonetheless he had to bear with them, they were part of the job, just as this alleged place of amusement was part of the job. What better place to start the rot than the principle night spot of a Colonial city. Long experience had taught him that rumour, his kind of rumour, would spread like wildfire on a pioneer planet. It was more effective than the most modern forms of communication and far quicker; in a few hours even the remotest posts in the Backlands would have it in detail.

One chose the spot, started the rumour and waited. It was as simple as that.

* * * *

His orders assured him that the prey was on this boisterous half-developed planet. It was just a question of dropping the right word in the right place and smoking him out.

He had, to endure nearly two hours of banal merriment and pioneer

'shop' before the chance came.

'Staying on Kaylon long, Mr Lassen?' It was Dirk, the red-faced fellow in the shiny out-dated evening dress.

'Not long, Mr Dirk. Once my business is cleared up I shall be on my way.'

'Oh, you have business here? I thought you were waiting ship connections.'

'No, definitely business and very important.'

'What kind of business, if that's not a leading question?' Hunter, a wizened little man with a limp moustache.

'I am an Eliminator, Mr Hunter.'

'Eliminator!'They stared at him.

'I suppose you mean pests,' said Hunter finally. 'But we don't have much here, apart from the tiger-rats which will take another hundred years to control.'

Lassen pushed his empty plate to one side. 'I don't kill pests, Mr Hunter - I kill men.'

Their open mouths and wide eyes echoed the words soundlessly.

'Men - he kills men."

A coldness seemed to fall on their faces, the red lips of the women thinned and, without moving, they seemed to draw away from him.

'Bluntly you are a paid assassin?' The words were spoken by a slender, dark-haired man who had been introduced to him as David Kearsney.

'Not an assassin, sir, a government agent from the Eliminator Corps.'

'A flowery title for the same thing, isn't it?' Kearsney's face was cold.

'You kill men.'

Lassen sipped his wine. 'Only a certain type of man - I'm a Jackson killer.'

There was a strained silence then someone laughed a little nervously.

'My name's Jackson.'

Lassen made a deprecating gesture. 'You confuse a name with a social malaise.' He looked about him. 'The work of the Corps is necessary, just as the elimination of pests is necessary.'

'Governments, and their agents, can always justify their excesses on reasonable grounds,' said Dirk bitterly. 'But as far as you rate with us here, you're a paid gun-slinger.'

'I have my duty, I do it.'

'Oh, spare us that one. That was the plea of war criminals back in pre-space days. Today a man must answer to his own conscience, his own conceptions of right and wrong, or did you eliminate those first?'

Lassen looked at them coldly. 'I see by your expressions you are unfamiliar with the Proxeta Uprising. I would respectfully suggest that an outline of Galactic history should be added to your school curriculum before passing judgment. As reasonable men, you must see that capital punishment cannot exist without an executioner.'

'You enjoy your work presumably.'

Lassen frowned. He had not expected a question like that on a pioneer world. It was altogether too penetrating and savoured slightly of interrogation.

'I object to that remark, Mr Kearsney.' Lassen rose and bowed slightly. 'Thank you for your hospitality and good-night.' He turned and strode towards the door.

For some time after he had gone, no one spoke.

'An assassin,' said Dirk, finally. He looked miserably about him. 'I'm sorry, I never suspected -'

'It was my idea,' said his wife quickly.

'No one is to blame - God!' Hunter tugged angrily at his moustache.

'We all made a fuss of him.'

'I think,' said Dirk, 'someone should see the ladies home, this is something we should talk over.'

When they had gone, Hunter sat down and said: 'Well?' He looked slightly perplexed.

Dirk scowled at him. 'Don't say "well" like that. The obvious question is - what are we going to do?'

'Do?'

'Do about him. He's come to Kaylon to kill someone, one of us, we've got to stop him.'

'Easy, now,' Hunter looked alarmed. 'Don't go rushing into things, he's a trained killer. Further, he's a government agent and the law is on his side.'

'Did you see him produce anything to prove it?' Dirk was almost shouting. 'In any case why did he relish telling us so much?'

'I should think that was fairly obvious.' Kearsney was leaning back in his chair, frowning slightly. 'He wanted us to talk about it. You know how quickly such a story would spread, eventually Jackson - whoever Jackson is

- would hear about it. A normal man - and we assume Jackson is a normal man - would either run or betray himself by trying to eliminate the eliminator. It's no good keeping silent about it, in the first place we may not be the first people he's told and in the second the women know. The story will probably reach Jackson before we leave the room.'

Hunter rose. 'A call to Central Information wouldn't be out of place, would it?' He pushed his chair angrily under the table. 'I've never heard of the Proxeta Uprising.'

'Check on Jackson while you're at it,' Dirk called after him.

Hunter entered the booth frowning. Dirk was a good fellow, a reliable friend and all that sort of thing but too damned impetuous. His type of reaction could get them all killed, there were limits to Colonial loyalties. Not that he didn't understand, it was just Dirk's way of rushing things.

He dialled CI and scowled at the mouthpiece of the caller. Lassen's words had implied an ignorance they had been unable to refute. How the hell could they be expected to know about an uprising in another part of the galaxy? Terran history and their own ten generation colonisation programme had been all their educators had considered necessary. True, the CI memory banks contained the entire knowledge of the Empire but there just wasn't the time to use it. Despite a ten generation colony, three large cities and a twelve million population, Kaylon was still a beach-head. You had to fight to stay on it. Beyond the cities and the roadways, there were still the jungles and, of course, the tiger-rats. In the Backlands you lived behind the barrier screens and if you went out, you used an armoured vehicle.

'Central Information,' said a pleasant recorded voice. 'Subject, please.'

When he returned to his table they looked at him expectantly.

'I got some but not all.' Hunter lowered himself into his chair and reached for the whisky. 'The Proxeta Uprising was an attempt by ten worlds in sector 72 to set up an independent autonomy outside the Empire. The attempt was opposed for the obvious economic and military reasons and developed into major war which lasted nearly five years.' He paused and sipped his drink. 'If it's any help, the instigator and self-style leader of the insurgent forces was a man named Howard F. Jackson.'

'Jackson, eh?, Dirk pulled at his chin, frowning. 'Where does that get us?'

'Nowhere. What we're looking for is not classified under the Jackson heading. When I tried, CI simply referred me back to the uprising. As the original Jackson was executed for war crimes over sixty years ago, Lassen, obviously, is looking for someone or something else.'

'He could be looking for a symbol,' said Dirk in a thoughtful voice.

'Something which the original Jackson embodied or represented.'

'I formed the same opinion.' Hunter drained his glass and lit a cigarette. 'Jackson was regarded by his followers as a superman.'

'Superman!' Dirk scowled at the other without seeing him. 'Here on Kaylon! Surely we should have got wind of him?'

'If I were a superman,' said Kearsney in a soft voice, 'I'd he low until I was ready to make myself felt.'

Hunter nodded quickly. 'Makes sense that, damn good sense.'

Dirk reached for the nearest bottle. 'And what do we do about our superman, assuming of course, our guess is right?'

'What the hell are we supposed to do?' Hunter's voice was suddenly challenging.

Dirk flushed angrily. 'Damn it, he's one of us isn't he?'

'Easy, easy.' Kearsney's voice was soothing but firm. 'We want to know why Lassen wants him first.'

'I couldn't agree more.' Hunter was looking angry and nervous. 'You can carry this pioneer-unity-stuff too far. It's all very well talking of covering or aiding him just because he's one of us but we've got to think first. In the first place we'd be putting ourselves on the wrong side of Galactic law. In the second - and to be frank - I don't fancy tangling with a trained killer. I've done my share of fighting in the Backlands but this is something we might not come out of alive if we don't use our heads.'

'You make a good point,' Dirk admitted grudgingly. 'But it goes against the grain, very much so.' He frowned at his empty glass and refilled it. 'I suppose this eliminator business is on the level?'

Hunter nodded slowly. 'I'm afraid so, yes. I checked CI. There is, definitely, a government, or more correctly, a military organisation known as the Elimination Corps.'

Dirk shook his head slowly. 'A murder squad - you can call it that, can't you? In this day and age it doesn't seem possible - what the hell do they do?'

Hunter smiled at him twistedly. 'The same as Lassen told us - they kill Jacksons.'

* * * *

Lassen lay on his bed, the thin handsome face intent and thoughtful. He was almost fully dressed but his body in the neat, one-piece suit was completely relaxed.

The Eliminator was waiting. He had removed his shoes and loosened his collar but these were the only mild relaxations he permitted himself.

The hotel room, like the man, was neat and uncluttered, with personal belongings in their proper places. The smart carry-case open at the foot of the bed suggested only that he was about to pack and only an astute observer would have noticed the slight bulge beneath the sheet and close to his right hand.

Lassen was thinking about Jackson. Sooner or later the rumour would reach him and the man would react. His name might be Smith, Hereward, Brown, anything, but he would know what the news meant instantly. Only a Jackson would know he was a Jackson because only a Jackson would spend day after day in CI absorbing knowledge like a sponge and, in so doing, would learn about himself.

When Jackson heard there was an Eliminator on the planet, there were only two courses open to him, fight or run because he would know straight away that hiding from an Eliminator was out of the question. Neither solution was a happy one, however clever you were, fighting a trained man backed by the scientific know-how of an entire Empire was not a job with the odds in your favour.

Escape, on the other hand, was even less attractive. Every planet, however advanced, has only one escape route - the ferry ports. To get off the planet, you had to take the ferry, there was no other way and preventing such attempts was almost too easy. All one needed was a stellar shipping list, the ferry wouldn't blast off until a ship was in orbit. No, in point of fact, a planet had only one escape route, one rat-run, which was too easy to plug.

The alternative, therefore, was to kill the Eliminator and then run; hoping to put light years behind you before his successor took up the chase.

In his time, Lassen had experienced a variety of attacks, most of them ingenius and all doomed to failure. A single individual pitting his skill against the scientific knowledge of an Empire was a task even a Jackson couldn't handle.

Lassen smiled to himself. That was the trouble with Jacksons, they were too smart for their own good and, worse, most of them were only half-Jacksons. A real Jackson would place himself in a position where the chance of detection and subsequent elimination was almost an impossibility.

The neat carry-case at the foot of the bed purred softly and instantly he was tense. His right hand slid beneath the sheet, gripping the butt of the Pheeson Pistol, his left hand twisted the buckle of his belt activating the personal deflector screen.

'Postal service,' said a pleasant recorded voice. 'A parcel for Mr. Lassen.'

Something thudded into the delivery basket.

Lassen eyed the small package warily and without moving. The automatic postal system was more than thorough and would automatically reject explosives but there were quite a number of lethal devices requiring no explosives whatever. He had seen deadly little clockwork mechanisms firing poison needles by compressed air, 'treated' papers which killed the careless by impregnation through the skin...

'Postal service,' said the voice again. 'A parcel for Mr Lassen.'

There was a second plop in the delivery basket.

Lassen stiffened. A tiny pin-point of brilliant light had appeared which began to expand like a minor sun.

At the foot of the bed, the carry-case hissed and began to vibrate slightly. Forces rushed from it, blanketing the heat and the light and crushing them backwards. There was an impression of suffocation and growing weakness. The brilliant light seemed to fall in on itself, turned to a dull red which faded to blackness and a few grey whisps of smoke.

Lassen rose slowly and crossed the room. The delivery basket still dripped hot metal but the charred mass within it was completely dead.

He shook his head thoughtfully. Clever, quite clever, two parcels, probably despatched from widely different points but timed to arrive within seconds of each other. Each parcel was, of course, harmless in itself but deadly when brought together. Altogether it was an ingenious method of getting reactives into critical contact through the carefully vetted postal system.

He nodded to himself with satisfaction. This one was a real Jackson. Further, and far more important, the reaction had been swift which meant only one thing, he was in the city. He might even have been in the same room, possibly among those at the table to take counter action so swiftly.

Lassen shrugged. The auto-senders recorded details of their users as a protection against loss or fraud; tracing Jackson or his stooges required only an examination of the records.

He stroked his chin thoughtfully. Routine, once the prey reacted he betrayed himself and that was the end. Not that this fellow wasn't far above average, his reactions had been swift but with precise and careful planning but, like all Jacksons, there was the inevitable weakness. It was characteristic that they would concede a technical superiority because it was the product of a joint effort but never, no never the superior intelligence of the operator and that was where they lost the fight.

Lassen lit a cigarette and crossed the room. Having made the first move, Jackson would, at the same time, be preparing for escape. All he, Lassen, had to do was plug the rat hole.

He touched a button. 'Hello? Ferry port? Can you give me the date and time of the next stellar liner, please?'

* * * *

Hunter opened the door of his apartment half-way and hesitated. 'Oh, hello, Dirk,' he said a little ungraciously. 'Something important?'

'It's about Jackson.'

'Now look - if you've got some crazy scheme, count me out, we'll have that cleared up from the start.'

Dirk scowled at him. 'It's merely information - information which I don't intend to talk about in the passage. Do you mind?'

'Oh, very well.' Hunter stood aside with obvious reluctance. 'Come in.'

He waved his hand at the nearest chair. 'Make yourself at home, I'll dial you a drink - whisky as usual?'

'Thanks.' Dirk dropped into the chair and fumbled for a cigarette.

'Careful aren't you?'

'I prefer to call it sensible.' Hunter passed the drink. 'A difference of opinion, that's all.' He sat down. 'What is this information?'

Dirk puffed at the cigarette. 'I know about Jackson, all there is to know, everything, that is, except his identity.'

'The hell you do - where did you get it?'

'CI,' Dirk sipped his drink with faint complacence. 'I checked the psychiatric section, the master-selector soon cottoned on to what I wanted after a few questions.' He gulped his drink and put down the empty glass.

'A Jackson is a mutant primary.'

Hunter, who had just finished dialling for another drink, nearly dropped the glass. 'Mutant! I thought all those yarns about monsters was an exploded myth? This is on the level?'

Dirk looked at him directly. 'Absolutely.' He picked up the second drink and scowled at it absently. 'As Lassen reminded us, we don't avail ourselves of CI enough and now that I have I rather wish I hadn't - we're all mutants.'

Hunter was suddenly a little pale. 'How come?'

Dirk shrugged. 'The early days of atomics, the unshielded ships when we began to challenge space.' He sighed. 'According to CI eighty-seven per cent of the human race are mutant.' He found another cigarette and lit it quickly. 'Naturally the most complex part of the body suffered first - the brain. Nearly all of us have - what shall I call it? - abnormal additions.'

'I don't feel any different.' Hunter laughed weakly and without humour.

'You shouldn't, your abnormality is latent, you are not a primary, that's the difference between you and - Jackson.'

'And just what is a Jackson?' Hunter was patently relieved.

'A human being with an incomprehensible IQ - in short, a superman.'

Hunter frowned at him. 'What's wrong with having a few supermen around?'

Dirk shrugged. 'Unfortunately and, it seems, inevitably, they're all raging paranoics. The original Jackson had a staggering IQ, incredible qualities both of leadership and organisation and the unshakable conviction he was the Chosen Saviour of Mankind.' Dirk shook his head, frowning. 'He nearly succeeded in proving it too, his ten planet autonomy nearly licked the Empire.'

'And there's no cure?'

'None. Conditioning leaves a drooling idiot which is crueller than execution, putting them in prison is too uncertain to be worth risking.'

Hunter picked up his drink, frowned at it, and put it down again without drinking it. 'That justifies Lassen or does it?'

Dirk made a helpless movement with his hands. 'I'm neither moralist nor philosopher - ten million died in the Proxeta Uprising.'

Hunter sipped the drink without tasting it. 'So somewhere on Kaylon is a Jackson; now we know the truth I think that lets us out.'

Dirk gulped his drink and banged down the glass. 'Of course, you'd love that kind of loyalty if you were Jackson, wouldn't you? And who the hell am I to argue with you.' He strode to the door which opened at his approach. 'I can see I've been wasting my time here, perhaps elsewhere I can find a colonist with guts and -'

The door slid shut behind him cutting off the final words.

Hunter frowned briefly, then shrugged. Poor old Dirk, in ten minutes he would calm down and begin to think for himself. Tomorrow, no doubt, he would be back, red faced and apologetic. Somehow you couldn't help liking him despite his tantrums and impetuosity.

Hunter's thoughts turned to more important matters. Dirk's information explained a lot of things, particularly the compulsory time-wasting psychiatric checks which one suffered twice every year. The authorities were not only checking for Jacksons but were determined to nip them in the bud before they developed. Was that why Lawson, Meeker and several more had been taken away for specialist treatment immediately after their checks? He rather thought it might be.

There were still important questions unanswered. What turned a normal into a primary, a potential into an active?

Thoughtfully he pressed the caller button and dialled Central Information.

The answers were detailed but obscure and boiled down to two factors comprehensible to the layman - intense emotional shock and conditions and environment conducive to paranoia.

Hunter thought about it. Did the peculiar social order of short-term office applicable to the whole Empire depend on that one factor. One could become a President, Mayor, Minister, General or Executive but only for six months. After which the constitution and galactic law demanded that one stepped down for another leader to assume the mantle of power.

It was said that absolute power corrupts and a sustained position of absolute power might be considered as conducive to paranoia. A man entrusted too long with power might come to believe in his own God-like qualities and so develop into a Jackson.

The explanation, of course, might not be the right one but certainly went a long way to account for a dithery administration and infuriating policy changes. The short-term-office was beginning to make sense at last.

Hunter sighed and sat down. He supposed, in due course, he'd hear what had happened and who the Jackson had been. He hoped to God it was not one of his friends. The thought made him warm slightly towards Dirk who, no doubt, was at this moment, trying to bamboozle some other unfortunate into some impractical rescue scheme.

It was a good guess. Dirk was working hard on Kearsney.

* * * *

'I'm sorry, Dirk.' Kearsney shook his head slowly. 'I don't think this business really concerns me. Remember, I'm not a colonist I'm an immigrant, I've only been here two years.'

'You're splitting hairs, we took you in, made you one of us, you're just making -' Dirk's rather hectoring voice trailed suddenly into silence, he was staring past Kearsney and into the small bedroom. When he spoke again his tone was friendly and almost too casual. 'Going on a holiday?'

Kearsney glanced at the half packed cases and said, easily, 'Oh those - No, not a holiday, old chap, a Backlands job, some sort of administrative muddle at Salzport.'

Dirk lit a cigarette. 'The floater for Salzport,' he said in a detached voice, 'left eight hours ago. There won't be another for ten days.'

'Really?' Kearsney's teeth gleamed briefly in an unreal smile. 'I shall have to wait then, I must have got hold of an old timetable by mistake.'

'Yes, you must.' Dirk leaned against the wall and stared into the bedroom. 'You don't pack stellar cases for the Backlands.'

'I do - any objection?'

Dirk exhaled smoke. 'Panzer-grubs will eat everything but the locks before you've been there thirty minutes.'

'That's my worry.' Kearsney crossed the room and removed a suit from a wall cupboard. 'We'll have a chat some other time, eh? I'm rather busy just now - do you mind?'

Dirk detached himself from the wall. 'Sure, even I can take a very broad hint.' At the door he turned. 'Good luck, Dave. He'll get no help from us and, if we can find a way of obstructing him, we'll do a damn thorough job.' The door slid shut behind him.

He left Kearsney staring unseeingly before him. So Dirk knew, or thought he knew, exactly how things stood. Under the bluster and impetuosity was an astute and singularly observant man, not many would have spotted those cases and drawn the right conclusions. His loyalties too, although misplaced, were not only understandable but peculiar to colonies in general. He understood clearly how easy it must have been for Howard F. Jackson to weld ten planets into formidable unity. Colonies were fertile soil for insurrection, not because they disliked Earth but by circumstance. Fighting to stay put on a hostile world bred more than ordinary ties of unity, you fought with and for your neighbour and learned that unless you did you both perished. This, of course, bred an attitude of my-neighbour-right-or-wrong and the outsider took the can back.

The 'Prodge' rang, interrupting his train of thought and he flicked the receptor switch irritably. What now?

'Taking a trip, Mr Kearsney?' The projected three-dimensional image of Lassen looked meaningly at the cases.

Kearsney shrugged, bluff was obviously out of the question. 'You didn't waste any time,' he said, evenly.

'Tracing your stooges was not difficult.' The projection paused to light a cigarette. 'That was quite a neat trick with the reactives but I'm afraid you won't get another chance. No time. Will you give yourself up or do you prefer to do things the hard way?'

Kearsney made a small movement with his hand. 'The hard way.'

Lassen smiled faintly. 'Excellent, I was afraid you might disappoint me. Where will it be?'

'I'll meet you in the hills somewhere along Eastern Highway at noon, tomorrow.'

'And you hope to rid yourself of me in a duel?'

'That is the general idea.' Kearsney's voice was expressionless.

'Time and date could be significant.'

Kearsney shrugged. 'You've probably worked that one out for yourself. The ferry lifts at 3 pm standard time, if I win I have time to make the ferry.'

'And you believe you'll win?'

Kearsney's jaw set stubbornly. 'I can hope.'

The other stared at him for a long second before speaking. 'Hope is a luxury you cannot really afford, Mr Kearsney.'

There was a faint click and the projection vanished.

* * * *

Lassen climbed into the ground car without haste and re-checked the dials on the additional facia. He had spent six hours on the vehicle and was satisfied that the changes he had made were sufficiently comprehensive to take care of most contingencies.

This Jackson was well above the average and it was unlikely that he would depend solely on his own skill with weapons. An Eliminator thought ahead and was prepared for eventualities before they arose.

Lassen touched the starter button, pressed the thrust pedal and felt the wheel-less vehicle roll smoothly forward on its cushion of air.

After ten minutes driving, his instruments told him that he was being followed. A second vehicle was hanging doggedly on his tail a cautious two miles to his rear.

He shrugged. Colonists, probably labouring under the delusion they could help the fugitive when the shooting started. Well they would not be the first natives to obstruct the course of justice and get themselves killed along with the fugitive they were trying to aid.

The car jerked suddenly as his additional braking system took over and slithered to a halt.

A bare hundred feet in front of him a needle of white flame leapt a hundred feet into the air leaving a wide shallow crater.

Lassen switched the braking system to normal and approached the point of the explosion cautiously. It had been close, his instruments had detected and detonated the booby trap only just in time, another second...

Through the window of the car he studied the crater, frowning. The device itself was obsolete but the means gave one pause for thought. Only one explosive would leave a burnished effect in the crater and that was Trachonite.

Lassen frowned. It was difficult to imagine an unstable substance like trachonite being manufactured outside a fully equipped laboratory, yet this Jackson had not only constructed it but compressed the unstable elements into a pill-size device which could be tossed casually from a car window.

Lassen's wariness, if not his respect, increased considerably.

After another three minutes driving, he stopped the car and cut the motor.

He was now deep into the brown boulder-strewn slopes of the hills and a good forty miles from the city. Somewhere within the next two or three miles he decided, Jackson would be lying in wait.

Lassen leaned forward and began to manipulate his search instruments. Within three minutes he picked up a heart-beat and, a few seconds later, a respiration pattern.

Carefully he triangulated the position, picked up the rada-binoculars and studied the rising slopes to the left of the highway. Hum, yes, prone between the two large boulders at-the top of the slope. Not a very subtle position really, open ground yes, but a more experienced fighter would have chosen a position with limited approaches which could be booby-trapped. Open ground, although providing no cover, made such devices worthless.

Right, distance one mile, two hundred and sixty-four feet, he'd walk out and take this on his two feet.

Lassen prepared himself without haste. He strapped on the thigh holster, adjusted the buckles of the deflector belt and stepped out of the car, carefully locking it behind him.

He gave no thought to the car which had been trailing him. He had already dismissed them mentally as 'natives'. As such they would not possess weapons worth worrying about, a Corps deflector screen would take care of any type of portable weapon. They might, of course, attempt to sabotage his car. Well, they could try. Kicking aside the charred bodies when he returned would not worry him unduly.

There was a sudden thud and some sort of missile kicked up a spurt of dust at the side of the road.

Lassen shrugged indifferently, left the road and began to walk up the rocky slopes. There was no hurry and in any case he had to wait. The Pheeson pistol, although limited in range, could be fired effectively from inside a deflector screen. At five hundred feet the weapon would make short work of the Jackson and the huge rock behind which he thought he was hiding.

A bullet slapped suddenly into the screen and went whining away into the distance.

Lassen smiled with faint contempt and paused to light a cigarette. He always rather enjoyed this part. In a few minutes no doubt Jackson would switch his weapon to automatic and fire long frantic bursts in a futile effort to stop him.

Another bullet slapped into the screen, then another and another.

At the tenth direct hit a compact mechanism strapped to his wrist began to chatter shrilly urgently.

A little stiffly Lassen raised his left arm and stared at the instrument, a coldness seemed to be rising upwards from the pit of his stomach. It wasn't possible, it just wasn't possible.

The tiny finger of the dial refuted the denial with precise indifference, it was already quivering uncertainly on the red danger line.

The coldness in Lassen's stomach seemed to rise upwards and embrace his heart. The bullets were 'rigged', they carried some minute energy-sapping device which drew power away from the screen every time they hit.

With dull resignation Lassen realised he had passed the point of no return. The prey was still beyond the range of his Pheeson pistol and he would be cut down before he could run back. There were no rocks behind which to take cover while he made adjustments and circuit changes to strengthen the screen

He broke into a stumbling run towards the distant rocks, knowing that with this Jackson he had lost.

Dully his mind tried to find reasons. There was nothing capable of breaking a Corp deflector screen, if there was...

He was only beginning to understand when the twentieth bullet penetrated the weakening screen and exploded in his lungs.

Kearsney walked slowly down the slopes and stood staring down at the still body.

In death Lassen seemed to have lost his arrogance and the face was calm and peaceful like that of a sleeping child.

Kearsney shook his head slowly, only half aware of shouts in the distance.

'Wake up, Dave, over here.'

He turned slowly. On the distant road a figure stood waving by a dilapidated ground car.

'Over here - over here. We can get you to the ferry with minutes to spare.'

When he reached them, he saw that Hunter was crouched over the wheel and that Dirk was holding the door open in readiness.

'You killed him.' Hunter's voice was awed. 'You took an Eliminator.'

'We'll destroy both cars later,' said Dirk. 'If someone follows up on the next ship they'll have a hard job deducing the real facts. No one on this planet will volunteer information, you can sleep easy on that point.'

Kearsney heard himself say: 'You'll have to blow up Lassen's car, it's probably booby trapped.'

'We'll fix that - get in.'

Kearsney glanced back once as the car rolled swiftly down the winding road. 'You couldn't arrange a quiet burial for him, could you?'

'Burial!' Dirk stared at him, his expression almost outraged. 'What the hell for? We don't want to draw attention to this business when another killer comes. In any case, panzer-grubs will have had the body, including the bones, inside twelve hours. Burial!' He snorted. 'What for?'

'He died in the line of duty, isn't that enough?'

Dirk laughed harshly. 'When I start thinking of last rites for murderers I'll be going soft in the head.'

Kearsney shrugged. He wasn't getting through and never would. He supposed in a way it was understandable, the outsider saw only one side of the coin. Yet, could they but realise it, up there in those hills lay the body of a dedicated man or, if you preferred it, a hero.

A man whose dangerous business it had been to hunt down the intellectual wild beasts who had somehow evaded the careful psychiatric checks and risen later to threaten the structure of society.

Wild beasts which local authorities were ill-equipped to handle and could not subdue without the loss of many good men and countless innocent people. . Wild beasts who, in the last eight hundred years, had presented an account for eighty-seven million lives.

He realised suddenly that the car had stopped and Dirk was helping him out.

'Told you we'd do it, you've got sixteen minutes.'

Kearsney glanced back at the distant hills. Yes, a hero, selected, as all Eliminators were selected, not for their cold blooded capacity for killing but for their dedication to the race of man.

An Eliminator knew he was doomed from the moment he signed the necessary papers.

There was no short-term-office in the Eliminator Corps for, after the first few killings, he was too mentally shocked to retire with his own conscience.

After a few more, he had passed the point of no return and become to believe in his own God-like immunity.

Throughout the Empire there was no task so demanding and no walk of life so conducive to paranoia. Inevitably the agent moved from latent to positive and became as those he was ordered to destroy.

The Corps, who kept a tight check on its personnel, knew when an agent's usefulness was past and he was given what appeared to be a routine assignment.

Dully he heard his own voice say: 'Thank you both, thank you.'

Yes, an assignment which seemed routine but was actually a decoy job. A job like this one with someone waiting at the other end.

'Yes, yes, goodbye - goodbye -'

The Jackson killer turned slowly and walked towards the waiting ship.