Short Fiction by Poul Anderson (free ebook novel .txt) 📕

was F.B.I., but she seemed strangely eager to hunt him down.

“Okay, le’s get outta here.”

Casimir: “You go on. I’ll wait here just in case and come up to the house pretty soon. I’m tired of following you around.”

“Okay. Le’s go, Joe.”

It was another four minutes or so before the pain and tension in his lungs became unendurable. Dalgetty knew he would be helpless as he rose, still in his semi-hibernating state, but his body was shrieking for air. Slowly he broke the surface.

The woman gasped. Then the automatic jumped into her hand and leveled between his eyes. “All right, friend. Come on out.” Her voice was very low and shook a trifle but there was grimness in it.

Dalgetty climbed onto the ledge beside her and sat with his legs dangling, hunched in the misery of returning strength. When full wakefulness was achieved he looked at her and found she had moved to the farther end of the cave.

“Don’t try to jump,” she said. Her eyes caught the vague light in a wide glimmer, half frightened. “I don’t know what to make of you.”

Dalgetty drew a long breath and sat upright, bracing himself on the cold slippery stone. “I know who you are,” he said.

“Who, then?” she challenged.

“You’re an F.B.I. agent planted on Bancroft.”

Her gaze narrowed, her lips compressed. “What makes you think so?”

“Never mind⁠—you are. That gives me a certain hold on you, whatever your purposes.”

The blond head nodded. “I wondered about that. That remark you made to me down in the cell suggested⁠—well, I couldn’t take chances. Especially when you showed you were something extraordinary by snapping those straps and bursting the door open. I came along with the search party in hope of finding you.”

He had to admire the quick mind behind the wide smooth brow. “You damn near did⁠—for them,” he accused her.

“I couldn’t do anything suspicious,” she answered. “But I figured you hadn’t leaped off the cliff in sheer desperation. You must have had some hiding place in mind and under water seemed the most probable. In view of what you’d already done I was pretty sure you could hold your breath abnormally long.” Her smile was a little shaky. “Though I didn’t think it would be inhumanly long.”

“You’ve got brains,” he said, “but how much heart?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, are you going to throw Dr. Tighe and me to the wolves now? Or will you help us?”

“That depends,” she answered slowly. “What are you here for?”

His mouth twisted ruefully. “I’m not here on purpose at all,” Dalgetty confessed. “I was just trying to get a clue to Dr. Tighe’s whereabouts. They outsmarted me and brought me here. Now I have to rescue him.” His eyes held hers. “Kidnapping is a Federal offense. It’s your duty to help me.”

“I may have higher duties,” she countered. Leaning forward, tautly, “But how do you expect to do this?”

“I’m damned if I know.” Dalgetty locked moodily out at the beach and the waves and the smoking spindrift. “But that gun of yours would be a big help.”

She stood for a moment, scowling with thought. “If I don’t come back soon they’ll be out hunting for me.”

“We’ve got to find another hiding place,” he agreed. “Then they will assume I survived after all and grabbed you. They’ll be scouring the whole island for us. If we haven’t been located before dark they’ll be spread thin enough to give us a chance.”

“It makes more sense for me to go back now,” she said. “Then I can be on the inside to help you.”

He shook his head. “Uh-uh. Quit making like a stereoshow detective. If you leave me your gun, claiming you lost it, that’s sure to bring suspicion on you the way they’re excited right now. If you don’t I’ll still be on the outside and unarmed⁠—and what could you do, one woman alone in that nest? Now we’re two with a shooting iron between us. I think that’s a better bet.”

After a while, she nodded. “Okay, you win. Assuming”⁠—the half-lowered gun was raised again with a jerking motion⁠—“that I will aid you. Who are you? What are you, Dalgetty?”

He shrugged. “Let’s say I’m Dr. Tighe’s assistant and have some unusual powers. You know the Institute well enough to realize this isn’t just a feud between two gangster groups.”

“I wonder.⁠ ⁠…” Suddenly she clanked the automatic back into its holster. “All right. For the time being only though!”

Relief was a wave rushing through him. “Thank you,” he whispered. Then, “Where can we go?”

“I’ve been swimming around here in the quieter spots,” she said. “I know a place. Wait here.”

She stepped across the cave and peered out its mouth. Someone must have hailed her, for she waved back. She stood leaning against the rock and Dalgetty saw how the sea-spray gleamed in her hair. After a long five minutes she turned to him again.

“All right,” she said. “The last one just went up the path. Let’s go.” They walked along the beach. It trembled underfoot with the rage of the sea. There was a grinding under the snort and roar of surf as if the world’s teeth ate rock.

The beach curved inward, forming a small bay sheltered by outlying skerries. A narrow path ran upward from it but it was toward the sea that the woman gestured. “Out there,” she said. “Follow me.” She took off her shoes as he had done and checked her holster: the gun was waterproof, but it wouldn’t do to have it fall out. She waded into the sea and struck out with a powerful crawl.

VI

They climbed up on one of the hogback rocks some ten yards from shore. This one rose a good dozen feet above the surface. It was cleft in the middle, forming a little hollow hidden from land and water alike. They crawled into this and sat down, breathing hard. The sea was loud at their backs and the air felt cold on their wet skins.

Dalgetty leaned back against the