Instant of Decision Read online

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  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Space Science Fiction May 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  INSTANT OF DECISION

  BY RANDALL GARRETT

  ILLUSTRATED BY EBEL

  How could a man tell the difference if all the reality of Earth turned out to be a cosmic hoax? Suppose it turned out that this was just a stage set for students of history?

  * * * * *

  When the sharp snap of a pistol shot came from the half-finishedbuilding, Karnes wasn't anywhere near the sandpile that received theslug. He was fifteen feet away, behind the much more reliableprotection of a neat stack of cement bags that provided cover all theway to a window in the empty shell of brick and steel before him.

  Three hundred yards behind him, the still-burning inferno of what hadbeen the Assembly Section of Carlson Spacecraft sent a reddish,unevenly pulsating light over the surrounding territory, punctuatingthe redness with intermittent flashes of blue-white from flaringmagnesium.

  For an instant, Karnes let himself hope that the shot might be heardat the scene of the blaze, but only for an instant. The roar of fire,men, and machine would be too much for a little pop like that.

  He moved quietly along the stacked cement bags, and eased himself overthe sill of the gaping window into the building. He was in a littlehallway. Somewhere ahead and to his left would be a door that wouldlead into the main hallway where James Avery, alias James Harvey,alias half-a-dozen other names, was waiting to take another pot-shotat the sandpile.

  The passageway was longer than he had thought, and he realized that hemight have been just a little careless in coming in through thewindow. With the firelight at his back, he might make a pretty goodtarget from farther down the hall, or from any of the dark, emptyrooms that would someday be officers'.

  Then he found it. The slight light from the main hallway came throughenough to show him where to turn.

  Keeping in the darkness, Karnes' eyes surveyed the broad hallway forseveral seconds before he spotted the movement near a stairway. Afterhe knew where to look, it was easy to make out the man's crouchedfigure.

  Karnes thought: _I can't call to him to surrender. I can't let him getaway. I can't sneak across that hall to stick my gun in his ribs. And,above all, I cannot let him get away with that microfilm._

  _Hell, there's only one thing I can do._

  Karnes lifted his gun, aimed carefully at the figure, and fired.

  * * * * *

  Avery must have had a fairly tight grip on his own weapon, becausewhen Karnes' slug hit him, it went off once before his body spreaditself untidily across the freshly set cement. Then the gun fell outof the dead hand and slid a few feet, spinning in silly littlecircles.

  Karnes approached the corpse cautiously, just in case it wasn't acorpse, but it took only a moment to see that the caution had beenunnecessary. He knelt, rolled the body over, unfastened the pants,pulled them down to the knees and stripped off the ribbon of adhesivetape that he knew would be on the inside of the thigh. Underneath itwere four little squares of thin plastic.

  As he looked at the precious microfilm in his hand, he sensedsomething odd. If he had been equipped with the properly developedmuscles to do so, he would have pricked his ears. There was a softfootstep behind him.

  He spun around on his heel, his gun ready. There was another manstanding at the top of the shadowy stairway.

  Karnes stood up slowly, his weapon still levelled.

  "Come down from there slowly, with your hands in the air!"

  The man didn't move immediately, and, although Karnes couldn't see hisface clearly in the shimmering shadows, he had the definite impressionthat there was a grin on it. When the man did move, it was to turnquickly and run down the upper hallway, with a shot ringing behindhim.

  Karnes made the top of the stairway and sent another shot after thefleeing man, whose outline was easily visible against the pre-dawnlight that was now beginning to come in through a window at the farend of the hall.

  The figure kept running, and Karnes went after him, firing twice moreas he ran.

  _Who taught you to shoot, dead-eye?_ he thought, as the man continuedto run.

  At the end of the hall, the man turned abruptly into one of theoffices-to-be, his pursuer only five yards behind him.

  * * * * *

  Afterwards, Karnes thought it over time after time, trying to findsome flaw or illusion in what he saw. But, much as he hated to believehis own senses, he remained convinced.

  The broad window shed enough light to see everything in the room, butthere wasn't much in it except for the slightly iridescent gray objectin the center.

  It was an oblate spheroid, about seven feet high and eight or ninefeet through. As Karnes came through the door, he saw the man step_through_ the seemingly solid material into the flattened globe.

  Then globe, man and all, vanished. The room was empty.

  Karnes checked his headlong rush into the room and peered around inthe early morning gloom. For a full minute his brain refused even toattempt rationalizing what he had seen. He looked wildly around, butthere was no one there. Suddenly he felt very foolish.

  _All right. So men can run into round gray things and vanish. Now usea little sense and look around._

  There was something else in the room. Karnes knelt and looked at thelittle object that lay on the floor a few feet from where the grayglobe had been. A cigarette case; one of those flat, coat-pocket jobswith a jet black enamel surface laid over tiny checked squares thatwould be absolutely useless for picking up fingerprints. If there wereany prints, they'd be on the inside.

  He started to pick it up and realized he must still be a bit confused;his hands were full. His right held the heavy automatic, and betweenthe thumb and forefinger of his left were the four tiny sheets ofmicrofilm.

  Karnes holstered the pistol, took an envelope from his pocket, put thefilms in it, replaced the envelope, and picked up the cigarette case.It was, he thought, a rather odd-looking affair. It--

  "Awright, you. Stand up slow, with your hands where I can see 'em."

  _Great God_, thought Karnes, I _didn't know they were holding a teaparty in this building_. He did as he was told.

  There were two of them at the door, both wearing the uniform ofCarlson Spacecraft. Plant protection squad.

  "Who are you, bud?" asked the heavy-jawed one who had spoken before."And whataya doin' here?"

  Karnes, keeping his hands high, said: "Take my billfold out of my hippocket."

  "Okay. But first get over against that wall and lean forward."Evidently the man was either an ex-cop or a reader of detectivestories.

  * * * * *

  When Karnes had braced himself against the wall, the guard wentthrough his pockets, all of them, but he didn't take anything outexcept the pistol and the billfold.

  The card in the special case of the wallet changed the guard's manneramazingly.

  "Oh," he said softly. "Government, huh? Gee, I'm sorry, sir, but wedidn't know--"

  Karnes straightened up, and put his hands down. The cigarette casethat had been in his right hand all along dropped into his coatpocket.

  "That's all right," he said. "Did you see the lad at the foot of thestairs?"

  "Sure. Jim Avery. Worked in Assembly. What happened to him?"

  "He got in the way of the bu
llet. Resisting arrest. He's the jasperthat set off the little incendiaries that started that mess out there.We've been watching him for months, now, but we didn't get word ofthis cute stroke until too late."

  The guard looked puzzled. "Jim Avery. But why'd he want to do that?"

  Karnes looked straight at him. "Leaguer!"

  The guard nodded. You never could tell when the League would pop uplike that.

  Even after the collapse of Communism after the war, the world hadn'tlearned anything, it seemed. The Eurasian League had seemed, at first,to be patterned after the Western world's United Nations, but ithadn't worked out that way.

  The League was jealous of the UN lead in space travel, for one thing,and they had neither the money nor the know-how to catch up. The UNmight have given them help, but, as the French delegate had remarked:"For what reason should we arm a potential enemy?"

  After all, they argued, with the threat of the UN's Moonbase hangingover the League to