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Twelve Times Zero - Howard Carleton Browne · Twelve Times Zero

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  Speaker 1: Chapter one of Twelve Times Zero by Howard Brown. This
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  is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  LibriVox dot org. Read by Ben Tucker, Chapter one. They
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  brought him into one of the basement rooms. He moved
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  slowly and with a kind of painful dignity, as a
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  man moves on his way to the firing squad. A
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  rumpled shock of black hair pointed up the extreme pallor
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  of a gaunt face empty at the moment of all expression,
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  harsh light from an overhead fixture winked back from tiny
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  beads of perspiration dotting the waxen skin of his forehead.
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  The three men with him watched him out of faces
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  as expressions as his own. They were ordinary men who
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  wore ordinary clothing in an ordinary way. Yet in the
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  way they moved and in the way they stood, you
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  knew they were hard men who were in a hard
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  and largely unpleasant business. One of them motioned casually toward
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  a stree backed chair, almost exactly in the center of
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  the room. Sit there, Cordell, he said, a quiet voice,
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  not especially deep, yet it seemed to bounce off the
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  painted concrete walls. Wordless, the young man obeyed, sitting he
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  seemed as stiff and uncompromising as before. The man who
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  had spoken made a vague gesture, and the overhead light
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  went out, replaced simultaneously by strong rays from a spotlight
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  aimed full at the eyes of the seated figure. Involuntarily,
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  the young man's head turned aside to avoid the searing brilliance,
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  but a hand came out of the wall of darkness
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  and jerked it back again. Just to remind you, the
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  quiet voice continued conversationally. I am Detective Lieutenant Kirk, Homicide Bureau.
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  A pair of hands thrust a second chair toward the
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  circle of light. Kerk swung it around and dropped on
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  to the seat, resting his arms along the back, facing
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  the man across a distance of hardly more than inches.
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  In the pitiless glare of the spotlight, Cordell's cheek bones
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  stood out sharply, and under his deep set eyes were
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  dark smudges of exhaustion. His rigid posture, his blank expression,
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  his silence, these seemed not so much indications of defiance
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  as they did the result of some terrible and deep
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  seated shock. Let's go over it again, Cordell, Kerk said.
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  The young man swallowed audibly against the silence. One of
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  his hands twitched, came up almost to his face as
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  though to shield his eyes, then dropped limply back. That light,
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  he mumbled, stays on, Kerk said, briskly. The quicker you
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  tell us, the answers, the quicker, We all relax, okay.
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  Cordell shook his head numbly, not so much in negation
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  as an effort to clear the fog from his tortured mind.
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  I told you, he cried hoarsely. What more do you want? Yesterday?
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  I told you the whole thing. His voice began to
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  border on hysteria. What good's my trying to tell you?
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  If you won't listen, how's a guy suppose then try
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  telling it straight? Kerk snapped, You think you're fooling around
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  with half wits. Sure, you told us a crazy pack
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  of goofball dreams about a blond babe clubbing two grown
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  people to death, then disappearing in a ball of blue light.
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  You figure uncoppying a plea on its sanity. It's the truth,
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  Cordell shouted, as God hears me it's true. Suddenly, he
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  buried his face in his hands, and long, tearing sobs
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  shook his slender frame. One of the other men reached
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  out as though to drag the young man's face back
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  into the withering rays of the spotlight, but Kerk motioned
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  him away without haste. The lieutenant fished a cigar from
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  the breast pocket of his coat and began almost leisurely
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  to strip away its culliphane wrapper. A kitchen match burst
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  into flame under the flick of a thumb nail, and
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  a cloud of blue tobacco smoke writhed into the cone
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  of hot light. Cordel Kerk said mildly. Slowly. The young
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  man's shoulders stopped there shaking, and after a long moment,
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  his wan tear stained face came back into the light.
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  I I'm sorry, he mumbled. Kerk waved away the layer
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  of smoke hanging between them. He said, wearily, Let's try
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  once more, step by step. Maybe this time. He let
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  the sentence trail off, but the inference was clear. An
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  expression of hopeless resignation settled over Cordell's features. Where do
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  you want me to start? Take it? From five o'clock
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  the afternoon, it happened the tortured man wet his lips.
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  Five o'clock was when my shift went off at the plan.
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  The plant, in case you've forgotten, is the Aimes Chemical
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  comp and I'm a foreman in the dry packaging department.
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  Save your sarcasm, Kerk said equably. Yeah. I changed clothes
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  and punched out. Around five fifteen. Janita had called me
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  about four and said to pick her up at Professor
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  Gilmore's laboratory at what time, No special time, just when
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  I could get out there. We were going to have
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  dinner and take in a movie. No particular picture, she said,
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  we'd pick one out of the paper at dinner. Go on. Well,
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  it must have been about a quarter to six when
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  I got out to the university. I parked in front
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  of the laboratory wing and went in at the main entrance.
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  I walked down the corridor to the Professor's office. His
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  typist was knocking out some letters, and there were a
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  couple of students hanging around waiting for him to show up.
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  How about a smoke, Lieutenant Kirk nodded to one of
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  the men behind him in A package of cigarettes was
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  extended to the man under the light A match was proffered,
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  and the young man ignited the white tube, his hands
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  shaking badly. The Lieutenant crossed his legs the other way.
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  Let's hear the rest of it, friend, What for? Bitterness
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  tinged Cordell's voice. You don't believe a word I'm saying
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  up to now? I do well? I said something or
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  other to Almah, she's the Prof's secretary, and went on
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  through the door to the hall that leads to the
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  private lab. When I got Kirk held up a hand.
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  Wait a minute, you're busting right in on the professor
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  like that doesn't sound right. Why not wait in the
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  office for your wife? What for? Cordell squinted at him
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  in surprise. He and I get got along fine when
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  when Nita first went to work for him, he said
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  to drop in at the lab anytime, not to wait
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  in the outer office like a freshman or something. Go ahead, well,
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  the young man hesitated. We're back to the part you
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  don't believe, officer. I can't hardly believe it myself, but
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  so help me, it's gospel. I saw it. I'm waiting,
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  Cordell said doggedly. The lab door was open, a crack.
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  I heard a woman's voice in there, and it wasn't
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  my wife's. It was a voice like like cracked ice,
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  you know, cold and kinda well, brittle and deadly. That's
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  the only way I can describe it. Anyway. I sort
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  of hesitated there outside the door. I didn't want to
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  go bulling in on something that wasn't none of my business.
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  But on the other hand, I figured my wife was
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  in there. Else Almah would have said, so you hear
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  anything besides this collection of ice cubes. The young man's
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  jaw hardened. I'm giving it the way it happened. You
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  want the rest or you want to trade wise cracks.
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  One of the men behind Kirk lunged forward. Why you
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  cheap punk? Kirk stopped him with an arm. I'll handle this,
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  Miller to Cordel, I ask you a question. Answer it.
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  I heard Professor Gilmour only a couple words. Then two
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  quick flashes of light lit up the frosted glass door panel.
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  That's when I heard these two thumps, like when somebody
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  falls down. I shoved open the door fast, and right
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  then I saw her. Kerk nodded for no apparent reason,
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  and was careful about knocking a quarter inch of ash
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  off his cigar, tell me about her. The young man's
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  hands were shaking again. He sucked at his cigarette and
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  let the smoke come out with his words. She was
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  clear over on the other side of the lab, standing
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  a good two feet off the floor, in the middle
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  of a big blue ball of some kind of soft fire,
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  blue fire that sort of pulsed, you know. Anyway, there
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  she was this hell of a good looking blonde looking
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  right smack at me, and there was this funny kind
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  of gun in her hand. She aimed it and I
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  ducked just as this dim flash a light came out
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  of it. Something hit me on the side of the head,
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  and I well, I guess I blinked out. Then what Well,
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  like I said yesterday, I suppose I just naturally came
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  out of it. I'm all spread out on the floor
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  with the damnedest headache you ever saw. Over by the
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  window is the prof. And he wet his lips, and
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  what Nita. They're dead, Lieutenant, just kind of all piled
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  up over there, dead, their heads busted in and the
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  U the He sat there, his mouth working but no
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  sound coming out, his eyes, staring straight into the blazing light,
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  the cigarette smoldering forgotten between the first two fingers of
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  his left hand. Almost gently, Kerk said, let's go back
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  to where you were standing outside the door. You heard
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  this woman talking. What did she say? Cordell looked sightlessly
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  down at his hands. Nothing that made sense. Sounded near
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  as I can remember, like twelve times zero, then some
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  words or more numbers, maybe I'm not sure. Then she
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  said chain to a two hundred thousand years, and the
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  professor said something about his colleagues having no idea and
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  he had warned them, and the blonde said three in
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  the past five months, and then something about taking in washing.
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  The detective named Miller gave a derisive grunt. Oo've all
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  the goddamn stories, Kerk, You're gonna listen, Eddie. Kerk silenced
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  him with a gesture, go on, Cordel. The young man
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  slowly lifted the cigarette to his mouth, dragged heavily on it,
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  then let it fall to the floor. That's all. That's
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  when the light started flashing in there, and I tried
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  to be a hero. Shrry, You've left nothing out. You've
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  got it all the truth like you wanted, Kirk said, patiently,
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  give it up, Cordell, you're saying as the next guy.
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  Give that story to a jury and they'll figure you're
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  trying to make SAPs out of them. And when a
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  jury gets sore at a defendant, he gets the limit.
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  And in case you didn't know, in this state, the
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  limit for murder is the hot seat. The prisoner stared
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  at him woodenly. You know I didn't kill my wife
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  or Professor Gilmour. I had no reason to, no motive.
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  There's got to be a motive. The police officer rubbed
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  his chin reflectively. Uh huh, motive. How long you married? Cordell?
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  Six years? Children? No aimes chemical? Pay you a good salary,
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  enough enough for two to live on? Sure? How long
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  did your wife work for Professor Gilmore? Four years? Next month?
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  What was her job? His assistant? Pretty big job for
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  a woman, wasn't it. Jannita held two degrees in nuclear physics.
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  You mean this Adam Baum stuff that was part of it.
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  Gilmore's a big name in that field, I understand. Kirk said,
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  maybe the biggest kind of young to rate that high.
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  Wouldn't you say? He couldn't have been much past forty?
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  Cornell shrugged? He was thirty eight, and a genius. Genius
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  has nothing to do with age. I hear not married.
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  I understand that's right. A slow frown was forming on
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  Cordell's face. How old was your wife, Kirk asked. The
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  frown deepened, but the young man answered promptly enough, Juanito's
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  my age twenty nine, Martin Kirk eyed his cigar casually. Why,
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  he said, did you want her to walk out on
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  her job, to give up her career? Cordell stiffened. Who
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  says I did? He snapped, Are you denying it? You're
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  damn well right, I'm denying it. What is this? Kirk
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  was slow shaking his head, almost pityingly. On at least
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  two occasions, friends of you and your wife have heard
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  you say you wished she'd stay home where she belonged
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  and cut out this playing around with a mess of
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  test tubes. Those are your words, Cordell. Every guy, the
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  young man retorted, who's got a working wife says something
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  like that now and then. It's only natural. Kirk's jaw hardened.
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  But every guy's wife doesn't get murdered. The other looked
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  at him unbelievingly. Good God, he burst out, Are you
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  saying I killed Banita because I wanted her to stop
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  working of all the there's more, snapped the homicide man.
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  When you pass Professor Gilmore's secretary in his outer office yesterday,
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  what did you say to her? Say to her, the
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  prisoner echoed, in a dazed way. I don't know that,
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  I some kidding remark. I guess how do you expect
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  me to remember a thing like that? I'll tell you
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  what you said, Kirk said coldly. It goes like this, Alma,
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  ye think the profs through makin love to my wife.
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  Cordell's head snapped back and his jaw dropped in utter amazement.
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  What of all you nutsend? Never said anything like that
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  in my life? Who says I said that? Without haste?
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  Kerk slid a hand into the inner pocket of his
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  coat and brought out two folded sheets of paper, which
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  he opened and spread out on his knee. Listen to
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  this friend, he said, softly. My name is miss Alma Daikon.
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  I reside at eleven forty two Monroe Street, and am
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  employed as secretary to Professor Gregory Gilmore. At approximately five
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  fifty on the afternoon of October nineteenth, Paul Kordell, husband
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  of missus Juanita Cordell, laboratory. Assistant to Professor Gilmore passed
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  my desk on his way into the laboratory. I made
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  no effort to stop him, since my employer had previously
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  instructed me to allow mister Cordele to go directly to
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  the laboratory at any time without being announced. Kirk looked
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  up at the man in the chair opposite him. Okay,
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  so far, Paul Cordell nodded numbly. At the time stated above,
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  Kirk continued reading from the paper. Mister Cordell stopped briefly
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  in front of my desk. He seemed very angry about something.
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  He said, Hi, all, may ye think the profts through
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  making love to my wife? Before I could say anything,
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  he turned away and walked into the corridor leading to
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  the laboratory. I continued my work until about five minutes later,
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  when mister Cordele came running back into the office and
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  told me to call the police that Professor Gilmour and
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  Miss Cordell had been murdered. Since there is an automatic
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  closer on the corridor door, I did not see mister
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  Cordele enter the laboratory itself. I do know, however, that
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  Professor Gilmore and missus Cordell were alone in the laboratory
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  less than ten minutes before mister Cordell arrived, as I
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  just left them alone there after taking some dictation from
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  my employer. Since I went directly to my desk, and
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  since there is no entrance to the laboratory other than
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  through my office, I can stay with certainty that mister
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  Cordell was the only person to enter the laboratory between
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  five that afternoon and five fifty five, when mister Cordell
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  came out of the laboratory and told me of the murders,
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  I hereby deposed that this is a true and honest
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  statement to the best of my knowledge, that it was
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  given freely on my part, and that I have read
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  it before affixing my signature to its pages, signed almah
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  Ka Dakin. There was an almost ominous crackle to the
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  document as Lieutenant Kirk folded it and returned it to
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  his pocket. Paul Cordell appeared utterly stunned by what he
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  had heard, and his once stiffly squared shoulders were slumped
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  like those of an old man. I don't have to
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  tell you. Kirk said that the only window in that
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  laboratory is both permanently sealed and heavily barred no one,
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  but you could have murdered those two people. You say
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  you saw them kill by some kind of a gun,
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  Yet a qualified physician states both deaths were caused by
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  a terrific blow from a blunt instrument. We found a
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  lot of things around the lab you could have used
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  to do the job, but nothing at all of anything
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  like a projectile fired from a gun. The prisoner obviously
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  wasn't listening, but she lied, he stammered wildly. All I
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  said to Almah Dakin was a couple of words, three
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  or four at the most, about not working too hard.
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  Why should she put me on a spot like that?
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  I just don't get it. Why should she go out
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  of her way to make trouble? Dawning suspicion replaced his bewilderment,
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  I get it, you cops put her up to this.
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  That's it. You need a fall guy, and I'm a
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  let listen to me. Cordell Kirk cut in impatiently. You knew,
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  or thought you knew, your wife was having an affair
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  with Professor Gilmore. You tried to break it up to
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  get her to leave her job. She wasn't having any
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  of that, and the more she refused, the soarer you got. Yesterday,
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  you walked in on them unannounced, found them in each
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  other's arms, and knocked them both off in a jealous rage.
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  When you cooled down enough to see what you had done,
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  you invented this wild yarn about a blonde and a
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  ball of fire, hoping to get off on an insanity plea.
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  I want a lawyer, Cordell shouted. Kerk ignored the demand.
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  You're going back to yourself for a couple hours. Buster,
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  think this over when you're ready to tell it right.
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  I wanted in the form of a witnessed statement on paper.
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  If you do that, if you cooperate with the authorities,
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  you can probably get off with a fairly light sentence,
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  maybe even an outright acquittal on the old unwritten law plea.
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  I don't make any promises. Gilmour was a prominent man
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  and a valuable one that might influence a jury against you.
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  But it's the only chance you've got, and I'm telling
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  you by God to take it. Cordell was standing now,
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  his face working sure. I get it. While you're after
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  is a confession? What do you care if it's a
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  flock alives. My wife wouldn't even look at another man.
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  Not you or anybody else is going to make me
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  say different. That blonde killed them. I tell you, and
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  I'll tell a jury the same thing. They'll believe me.
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  They're not a bunch of lousy framing cops. You'll find
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  out who's Lieutenant Martin Kirk warily ground out his cigar
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  against the chair rung. All right, boys, take him back upstairs.
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  End of chapter one. Chapter two of twelve Times zero
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  by Howard Brown. The slibrivox recording is in the public domain.
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  Read by Ben Tucker. Chapter two. It was a gray,
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  chill day late in November, and by four thirty that afternoon,
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  the ceiling lights were on Chenowhich, the young plainclothes man
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  recently transferred a homicide from robbery detail, stopped at Martin
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  Kirk's cubby hole and slid an evening paper across the
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  battered brown linoleum top of the lieutenant's desk. Mis Auna
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  interest ye, he said, jabbing a chewed thumbnail at an
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  item under a two column head. Halfway down the left
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  side of page one, Cordell draws death nod killer of
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  wife and Adam wizard to face chair in January. Paul Cordell,
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  twenty nine, was today doomed by criminal Court Justice Edwin
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  p Read to death by electrocution the morning of January
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  eleventh for the murders of his wife, Juanita twenty nine,
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  and her employer, world famous nuclear scientist Gregory Gilmore. A
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  jury last week found Cordell guilty of the brutal slayings,
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  despite his testimony that it was a mysterious blond woman
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  floating in a ball of blue fire who had blasted
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  the victims with a ray gun on that October afternoon.
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  Ignoring the girl from Mars Angle, alienists for the prosecution
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  pronounced the handsome defendant sane, and his attorneys were powerless
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  to offset the damage. The final blow to Cordell's hopes
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  for acquittal, however, was administered by the state's key witness,
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  All m Taken, Gilmour's former secretary. For more than three hours,
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  she underwent one of the most grilling cross examinations in
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  local courtroom. Kirk shoved the paper aside. What could he
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  expect when he wouldn't even listen to his own lawyers?
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  Little appeal they have to, but it'll be a waste
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  of time. He leaned back in the creaking swivel chair
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  and began to unwrap the cellophane from a cigar. In away,
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  he said, thoughtfully, I hate to see that kid end
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  up in the fireless cooker. In this business, you get
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  so you can recognize an act when you see one.
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  And I'd swear Cordell wasn't lying about that blonde and
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  her blue fire. At least he thought he wasn't. Jennawith yawned.
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  I say he was nuts then, and he's nuts now.
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  One of them bug doctors know. I never seen one
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  yet could count his own fingers. The telephone on Martin
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  Kirk's desk rang while he was lighting his cigar. He
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  tossed the match on the floor to join a dozen others,
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  and picked up the receiver. Homicide Lieutenant Kirk speaking, It
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  was the patrolman in the outer office. Woman out here
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  wants to see you, Lieutenant, ask for you personally? What
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  about She won't say. All I get is it's important
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  an she talks to you or nobody? What's her name? No, sir,
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  not even that want me to get rid of her.
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  Kerk eyed the mount of paperwork on his desk and side.
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  Probably a tax payer, all right, send her back here.
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  A moment later, the patrolman loomed up outside the cubby
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  hole door. The woman in tow. Lieutenant Kirk remained seated,
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  nodded briskly toward the empty chair alongside his desk. Please
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  sit down, madam, you wanted to see me, you are,
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  mister Kirk. A warm voice almost on the husky side,
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  Lieutenant Kirk. Of course, I am sorry. While she was
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  being graceful about getting into the chair, Kirk stared at
• 21:33
  her openly. She was worth staring at. She was tall
• 21:37
  for a woman, and missed being voluptuous by exactly the
• 21:39
  right margin. Her face was more lovely than beautiful, chiefly
• 21:43
  because of large eyes so blue they were almost purple.
• 21:46
  Her skin was flawless, her blonde hair worn in a
• 21:49
  medium bob, fluffed out, and her smooth fitting tobacco brown
• 21:52
  suit must have been bought by appointment. She looked to
• 21:55
  be in her mid twenties and was probably thirty. Her
• 21:58
  expression was solemn, in her smile fleeting as was becoming
• 22:01
  to any one calling on a homicide bureau. She placed
• 22:04
  on a corner of Kerk's desk, an alligator bag that
• 22:07
  matched her shoes, and tucked pale yellow gloves the color
• 22:10
  of her blouse under the bag's strap. Her slim fingers ringless,
• 22:14
  moved competently and without haste. I am nigh at North,
• 22:18
  Lieutenant Kirk. What's on your mind? Miss North? She regarded
• 22:23
  him gravely, seeing gray blue eyes that never quite lost
• 22:26
  their chill, A thin nose bent slightly to the left
• 22:29
  from an encounter with a drunken longshoreman years before, the
• 22:32
  lean lines of a solid jaw, the dark hair that
• 22:36
  was beginning to thin out above the temples after thirty
• 22:38
  five years. Even those who love him, she thought, must
• 22:42
  fear this man a little. Martin Kirk felt his cheeks
• 22:45
  flush under the frank appraisal of those purple eyes. You
• 22:49
  ask for me by name, Miss North. Why aren't you
• 22:52
  the officer who arrested the young man who to day
• 22:55
  was sentenced to die. Only years of practice at letting
• 22:59
  nothing open surprise him kept Kerk's jaw from dropping. You
• 23:03
  mean Cordel, Yes, I'm the one. What about it? What
• 23:08
  have you got to do with Paul Cordell, Nia North
• 23:11
  said quietly, A great deal. I'm afraid you see, I'm
• 23:16
  the woman who doesn't exist, the one the newspapers call
• 23:20
  the girl from Mars. It was what he had expected
• 23:23
  from her first question about the case, and he murder.
• 23:26
  Hitting the headlines brought at least one psycho out of
• 23:28
  the woodwork, driven by some deep seated sense of guilt
• 23:31
  into making a phony confession. Those who were harmless were
• 23:35
  eased aside. The violent got detained for observation. But Nia
• 23:39
  North showed none of the signs of the twisted mind.
• 23:42
  She was coherent, attractive, and obviously there was money somewhere
• 23:45
  in her vicinity. While the last two items could have
• 23:48
  been true of a raving maniac, Kirk was human enough
• 23:51
  to be swayed by them. I'm afraid, he said, you've
• 23:55
  come to the wrong man about this, Miss North. A
• 23:58
  smile was frank and winning enough to start. The case
• 24:01
  is out of my hands, has been since the District
• 24:03
  Attorney's office took over. Why don't you take it up
• 24:06
  with them? Her short laugh was openly cynical. I tried
• 24:10
  to the day the trial ended. I got as far
• 24:13
  as a fourth assistant, who told me the case was closed,
• 24:17
  that new and conclusive evidence would be necessary to reopen it,
• 24:20
  and would I excuse him, is he had a goth date.
• 24:24
  When I said I could give him new evidence, he
• 24:26
  looked at his watch and wanted me to write a letter.
• 24:28
  So I wrote one, and his secretary promised to hand
• 24:31
  it to him personally. I'm still waiting for an answer.
• 24:35
  These things take time, Miss North. If I were you,
• 24:38
  i'd I even tried to see Judge read. I got
• 24:41
  as far as bailiff. If i'd state my business and
• 24:44
  writing I did. That's the last I've heard from Judge
• 24:47
  Reid or Bailiff. Kirk picked up his cigar from the
• 24:50
  edge of the desk and tapped the ash on to
• 24:52
  the floor. Shall I, he said, his lips quirking, ask
• 24:56
  you to write me a letter. Nia North failed to
• 24:59
  respect the light touch. I'm through filling waste baskets, she
• 25:03
  said flatly. Either you do something about this or the
• 25:06
  newspapers get the entire story. Not that I'll enjoy being
• 25:09
  a public spectacle, but at least they'll give me some action. Uh,
• 25:14
  what do you want done? She put both elbows on
• 25:17
  the desktop and bent toward him. He caught the faint
• 25:19
  odor of bath salts rising from under the rounded neck
• 25:22
  line of her blouse. That man must go free. Lieutenant,
• 25:26
  he didn't kill his wife or Gregory Gilmore? Well, who did?
• 25:32
  She looked straight into his eyes. I did why? Slowly
• 25:38
  she straightened and leaned back in the chair, her gaze
• 25:40
  shifting to a point beyond his left shoulder. Nothing you
• 25:44
  haven't heard before, she said tonelessly. We met several months
• 25:49
  ago and fell in love. I let him make the rules,
• 25:52
  and after a while he got tired of playing. I didn't,
• 25:55
  and I wanted him back. For weeks he avoided me,
• 25:59
  So Ya decided to kill him. She seemed genuinely astonished
• 26:03
  at the remark. Certainly not. But when I saw him
• 26:06
  take this woman, this assistant of his or whatever she was,
• 26:10
  into his arms, I suppose I went a little crazy. Now,
• 26:15
  Kirk said, we're getting down to cases. You know the
• 26:18
  evidence given at the trial, particularly that given by Gilmore's secretary.
• 26:23
  Of course, then you know this Dacan woman was in
• 26:26
  the laboratory until a few minutes before Cordel showed up.
• 26:30
  You know that nobody could have gone into that laboratory
• 26:32
  without her seeing them. You know that Alma Dagan testified
• 26:36
  that there were only two people in there, Gilmore and
• 26:38
  Jannita Cordel. So, miss North, how did you get in
• 26:42
  there after Alma Dakin left and before Paul Cordell arrived?
• 26:48
  But I didn't. The Lieutenant's air of triumph sagged under
• 26:51
  a sudden frown. What do you mean you didn't, I
• 26:55
  didn't enter the laboratory after Greg's secretary left it. I
• 26:58
  was there all alone. Kirk's head came up sharply. You what,
• 27:05
  I was there all the time? The girl repeated, since noon,
• 27:08
  to be exact, I planned it that way. I knew
• 27:11
  everybody would be out to lunch between twelve and one,
• 27:14
  so I went to the laboratory with the intention of
• 27:16
  facing Greg there on his return. When I heard him
• 27:19
  and missus Cordell coming along the corridor, I sort of
• 27:22
  lost my nerve and hid in a coat closet. Martin
• 27:26
  Kirk had completely dropped his air of good humored patience
• 27:28
  by this time. You telling me you were hiding in
• 27:31
  there for almost five hours without them knowing it. Nya
• 27:35
  North shrugged her shoulders. They had no reason to look
• 27:38
  in the closet. I'll admit I hadn't intended to spy
• 27:42
  on Gregg, but I kept waiting for him to say
• 27:45
  or do something that would prove or disprove he was
• 27:47
  in love with Juanita Cordel, And not until his secretary
• 27:50
  left and he was alone with her did I discover
• 27:53
  what was between them. I must have come out of
• 27:55
  that dark hole like a tiger, Lieutenant. They jumped apart,
• 27:58
  and two people never looked guiltier. He said something particularly
• 28:01
  nasty to me, and I grabbed up a short length
• 28:04
  of shiny metal from the work bench and hit him
• 28:06
  across the side of the head. Before he knew what
• 28:08
  was happening, he fell down, and the Cordell woman opened
• 28:11
  her mouth to scream, and and I hit her too.
• 28:15
  She paused, as though to permit Kirk to comment. Go on,
• 28:20
  he said, hoarsely, there's not much left, the girl said.
• 28:24
  I was standing there, still holding that piece of metal,
• 28:27
  when the door crashed open and the dead woman's husband
• 28:29
  ran in. He started a lunge across the room at me,
• 28:32
  and I threw the thing I was holding at him.
• 28:34
  It struck him and he fell down. My only thought
• 28:36
  was to hide, for I realized I couldn't go out
• 28:38
  through the outer office and the only window was barred,
• 28:41
  so I hid in that closet again. It was only
• 28:44
  a few minutes before Paul Cordell regained consciousness. He staggered
• 28:48
  out of the room and down the hall, and I
• 28:49
  could hear a lot of excited talk in Gregg's secretary
• 28:52
  calling the police. Then I didn't hear anything at all
• 28:55
  for a moment, so I came out of the closet
• 28:57
  and looked down the hall. The office door was but
• 29:00
  it seemed so quiet in there that I tiptoed quickly
• 29:02
  to the inner door, opened it a crack, and peered through.
• 29:05
  The office was deserted. Evidently Cordell and Miss Dakon had
• 29:08
  gone out to direct the police when they showed up.
• 29:11
  When I saw there was no one in the main
• 29:13
  hall of the building itself, I simply walked out and
• 29:16
  left by another exit. No one had passed even noticed me.
• 29:20
  For a long time after NYA. North had finished speaking,
• 29:22
  Martin Kirk sat as though carved from stone, staring blindly
• 29:25
  into space. She knew he was thinking furiously, weighing the
• 29:29
  plausibility of what he had heard, trying to arrive at
• 29:32
  some method of corroborating it in a way that would
• 29:34
  stand up in a court of law. Miss North, she
• 29:38
  came out of a reverie with a start to find
• 29:40
  the Lieutenant's eyes boring into hers. This shiny hunk of
• 29:44
  metal you used, Where is it now? I'm sure I
• 29:48
  wouldn't know. Probably some place in the laboratory unless somebody
• 29:52
  took it away. I do seem to remember picking it
• 29:54
  up and tossing it back with several others like it
• 29:57
  on the bench. Then it's still there, he said slowly.
• 30:03
  Judge Reid ordered the room sealed up until after the trial.
• 30:06
  And then there's a closet where you wearing gloves that afternoon,
• 30:09
  Miss North, She said, no, you're thinking of finger prints,
• 30:14
  if you're telling the truth, He said, there's almost certain
• 30:17
  to be some of your prints on the inside of
• 30:19
  that closet door, maybe even on that length of metal,
• 30:22
  if we can find it. She said, almost carelessly. That's
• 30:25
  all you need to clear Paul Cordell, isn't it? It
• 30:29
  would certainly help. He swung around in the chair, scooped
• 30:32
  up the telephone and gave a series of rapid fire orders,
• 30:35
  then dropped the instrument on its cradle and turned back
• 30:37
  to where she sat watching him curiously. He said, a
• 30:42
  few things I still don't get, like this business of yours,
• 30:45
  standing two feet off the floor in a ball of
• 30:47
  blue light, and the flashes a light just before Cordell
• 30:50
  heard his wife and Gilmore fall to the floor. Even
• 30:53
  the snatches of conversation he caught while still in the hall,
• 30:55
  he couldn't have dreamed all that stuff up, at least
• 30:58
  not without some basis. She had opened her bag and
• 31:01
  taken out a cigarette. Kerk ignited one of his kitchen matches,
• 31:05
  and she bent her head for a light. He could
• 31:07
  see the flawless curve of one cheek and the smooth
• 31:09
  cap of blonde hair, and he resisted the urge to
• 31:11
  pass a hand lightly across both. Something was stirring inside
• 31:15
  the Lieutenant, something that had long been absent, and he
• 31:19
  reflected wryly, all because of a girl who had just
• 31:22
  finished confessing to two particularly unpleasant murders. Nia North raised
• 31:28
  her head and their eyes met met and held her
• 31:31
  lips parted slightly as she caught the unmistakable message in
• 31:34
  those gray blue depths. The moment passed, the spell was broken,
• 31:39
  and she leaned back in the chair and laughed a
• 31:40
  little shakily. I read about the statements of his and
• 31:43
  the paper's lieutenant. I think perhaps I can at least
• 31:47
  partially explain them, as I remember there were several Bunsen
• 31:50
  burners lighted on the laboratory bench near that window. They
• 31:53
  give off a blue flame, you know, and I must
• 31:55
  have been standing near them when Paul Cordell came charging in.
• 31:58
  In his confused frame of mind, he may have pictured
• 32:00
  me as being in a ball of flame. Sounds possible,
• 32:04
  the man admitted, frowning. What about those flashes of light
• 32:09
  you've got me there, unless they were reflections of sunlight
• 32:11
  through the window from the windshield of a passing car, perhaps,
• 32:16
  And the things he heard you and Gilmore saying, she
• 32:19
  shook her head regretfully. There I'm simply in the dark.
• 32:23
  I don't see how he could have twisted what little
• 32:25
  we said into the utterly fantastic nonsense he claims to
• 32:28
  have heard. Kirk rubbed a hand slowly along the side
• 32:32
  of his neck, still frowning. He could have confused that
• 32:36
  length of metal in your hand as a gun. Well,
• 32:40
  his shoulders lifted in the ghost of a shrug. It
• 32:43
  all seems to add up except one thing. Cordell had
• 32:46
  been tried and convicted, leaving you in the clear. Why
• 32:49
  come down here voluntarily and stick your lovely head and
• 32:51
  a noose. The girl smiled faintly, lovely head. Lieutenant Kirk
• 32:57
  flushed to the eyebrows slipt out. Why the confession, she said, soberly.
• 33:04
  I was so sure they'd let him off. When you
• 33:07
  know someone's innocent, you can't realize that others won't know
• 33:09
  it too, I suppose. But when I learned he'd been
• 33:12
  found guilty and actually condemned to die, well, I know
• 33:15
  it sounds noble in all that, but I couldn't let
• 33:17
  him go to his death for something i'd done. Surely
• 33:20
  such a thing has happened before in your experienced lieutenant.
• 33:23
  He watched as she drew smoke from the cigarette deeply
• 33:25
  into her lungs and let it flow out in twin
• 33:28
  streamers from her nostrils. Only rich men, he thought, could
• 33:32
  afford a woman like this, And somehow it made him resentful.
• 33:36
  What right did she have to walk in here and
• 33:38
  flaunt a body like that in his face? She went
• 33:41
  with mink stoles and cabin cruisers and cocktails at the
• 33:44
  Sherry Netherland, and her shoe bill would exceed his yearly salary.
• 33:48
  She would be competent, and more than a little cynical
• 33:51
  and not too concerned with morals or the lack of them.
• 33:54
  That kind of woman could kill and would kill on
• 33:58
  the spur of the moment. And if the provocate was
• 34:00
  strong enough, well, Lieutenant, she said it lightly, almost with disinterest.
• 34:05
  Then Kirk was all right again, and he was looking
• 34:07
  at a woman who had just confessed to murder. You
• 34:10
  heard the phone call I made a moment ago, miss North.
• 34:13
  Two men from the crime lab are already on their
• 34:15
  way to the university. If they find your finger prints
• 34:18
  inside that closet, if they can turn up anything to
• 34:21
  prove you've been in Gregory Gilmour's laboratory, then you and
• 34:24
  that evidence in your confession get turned over to the
• 34:26
  DA and Paul Cordell will be on his way to freedom.
• 34:29
  And if those men don't find anything, then he told
• 34:33
  her rudely, you're just another crackpot and I'm tossing you
• 34:37
  and your phony confession out of here. They found the
• 34:40
  finger prints, several perfect ones, on the inner door of
• 34:43
  the laboratory coat closet, but even more conclusive was their
• 34:46
  discovery of a short length of polished metal pipe among
• 34:49
  the dismantled parts of a Clayton centrifuge. At one end
• 34:52
  of the pipe were the imprints of four finger tips,
• 34:55
  at the other a microscopic trace of human blood. We
• 34:59
  had no business at the first time, Lieutenant, the crime
• 35:02
  laboratory technician told Kirk ruefully, I'd have sworn we pulled
• 35:05
  the place apart last month. But this time we got
• 35:07
  the murder weapon and we got the prince, and those
• 35:09
  prints matched the ones we took off that blonde. Hey,
• 35:12
  how bout that, Lieutenant, I thought this court l guide
• 35:14
  did that job. Slowly, Kirk replaced the receiver and eyed
• 35:18
  Nia North across the desk from him. Looks like you're elected,
• 35:22
  he said, somberly. I'm telling you straight. The DA isn't
• 35:25
  going to like this at all, not even any part
• 35:27
  of it. Her brow wrinkled. I'm afraid I don't understand.
• 35:31
  Doesn't he want murder cases solved? Kirk smiled crookedly. You're
• 35:37
  forgetting this case was solved over a month ago. You
• 35:40
  any idea what it can mean to a politician to
• 35:43
  have to admit publicly that he's made a mistake, especially
• 35:46
  a mistake that's going to get all the publicity. This
• 35:48
  one's bound to District Attorney, Railroads, innocent man, tragic miscarriage
• 35:53
  of justice averted only by chance. Stuffy editorials in the
• 35:57
  opposition press about in company and high offices, and how
• 36:01
  the voters must keep out anybody who goes round executing
• 36:04
  the innocent and helpless. Looks like Arthur Koller Troy is
• 36:08
  going to be a mighty unpopular man around these parts
• 36:10
  an election less than five months away. He glanced up
• 36:14
  at the office clock. It was nearly nine o'clock in
• 36:16
  the evening, and both of them were showing signs of wear.
• 36:19
  Kirk left his chair and went over to the water cooler,
• 36:22
  drank two cupfuls, and brought one back to the girl.
• 36:25
  She thanked him with a wand smile and gulped down
• 36:27
  the contents. He took the empty paper container and crumpled
• 36:30
  it slowly. Might as well get a hold of him,
• 36:33
  he muttered, it's going to be mighty damn rough sister,
• 36:37
  You sure you want to go through with it? She
• 36:39
  lifted an eyebrow at him. That's a peculiar question for
• 36:43
  a homicide officer to ask, isn't it? I suppose? So
• 36:48
  His eyes shifted to the phone on his desk, stayed
• 36:51
  there for a long moment, then he shrugged hugely and
• 36:53
  picked up the receiver. It was well after two in
• 36:56
  the morning before Martin Kirk reached his apartment. He showered
• 37:00
  and got into a fresh pair of pajamas and went
• 37:02
  into the small, sparsely furnished living room. He moved slowly
• 37:06
  and with no spring in his step, and the set
• 37:08
  of his features was harsh and strained in the soft
• 37:10
  light from the floor lamp. Troy had been even more
• 37:13
  difficult than he had feared. What had begun as plain
• 37:16
  irritability at being disturbed had passed by successive stages to
• 37:20
  amused disbelief, open anger, and finally reluctant conviction that Paul
• 37:24
  Cordell was innocent of the crimes for which he had
• 37:26
  been sentenced to die. A male stenographer from his staff
• 37:30
  was called in and Nyan North dictated a complete statement,
• 37:34
  which she signed. Troy questioned her for nearly two hours,
• 37:37
  getting in every possible angle of her private life, as
• 37:40
  well as minute details of her actions on the day
• 37:43
  of the murders. Kirk had not been present during that
• 37:45
  part of the night, but he figured it wouldn't be
• 37:47
  much different from what he had heard many times before.
• 37:50
  He mixed himself a drink and was surprised to discover
• 37:53
  that his hands were shaking noticeably. Well, why not a
• 37:57
  day like the one he had just been through would
• 37:59
  put the shake and grants to whom. Even as he
• 38:02
  made the excuse, he knew it wasn't the real reason.
• 38:05
  There had been cases that kept him on his feet
• 38:06
  for as much as forty eight hours, cases where men
• 38:09
  had pointed guns at him and pulled the triggers, and
• 38:12
  the shakes never came. No, it was the girl, Naya
• 38:16
  north Nya, a strange name, but no stranger than the
• 38:21
  girl herself. Now, how about that? Why should he think
• 38:25
  her strange? Because she had taken a life or two? Hell,
• 38:28
  lots of people did that and no one called them strange,
• 38:32
  criminal or unmoral, or greedy or angry? Yes, but not strange.
• 38:37
  She looked like other women, only a lot better. She
• 38:41
  dressed like them, walked like them, talked like them. So
• 38:44
  why strange? Because she was strange? Nothing you could put
• 38:49
  your finger on made her that way. But that's the
• 38:52
  way she was. He threw his cigar savagely into the fireplace.
• 38:57
  He went over and made another drink and poured it
• 38:59
  down fast, and the other one after it right on
• 39:01
  its heels. Then he went to bed tomorrow today rather
• 39:06
  was a working day, and work days were tough days,
• 39:08
  and he needed his rest. He didn't get much of it, though.
• 39:12
  The phone woke him a few minutes after seven o'clock.
• 39:15
  It was Arthur caller Troy at the other end, and
• 39:17
  the DA was too angry to be coherent. It seemed
• 39:21
  Nia North had disappeared from her locked cell during the
• 39:24
  night end of chapter two Chapter three of twelve Times
• 39:35
  zero by Howard Brown. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 39:39
  public domain. Read by Ben Tucker. Chapter three. I don't
• 39:46
  give a triple to still damn what you say? Troy snarled, Now,
• 39:51
  why he's got enough money to make that kind of payoff?
• 39:53
  Five men, Lieutenant, five men and five locked doors stood
• 39:55
  between that girl in the street, and you sit there
• 39:58
  and try to tell me some body bought all five
• 40:01
  of em off. Then Kerk said, heatedly, what's your explanation?
• 40:08
  It had been going on this way for over an hour.
• 40:10
  The morning sun came in weakly at the window behind
• 40:13
  Troy's huge, polished mahogany desk, picking up random reflections from
• 40:17
  the collection of expensive gadgets littering the glass top. Troy
• 40:21
  began to wear another path in the moss colored broad
• 40:23
  loom carpeting. He was big and broad and getting puffy
• 40:27
  around the middle, like a one time half pack going
• 40:29
  to seed. His round, heavy featured face was even more
• 40:32
  florid than usual in his heavy growth of reddish blonde hair.
• 40:35
  Needed a comb. Martin Kirk pushed himself deeper into the
• 40:39
  depths of a brown leather chair and watched the da
• 40:41
  through brooding eyes. He wanted a cigar, but it was
• 40:45
  too early in the morning for that kind of indulgence.
• 40:47
  He needed a good breakfast and a couple of cups
• 40:49
  of coffee before. I don't explain it, Troy said, in
• 40:53
  quieter tones. He was standing by the window now, staring
• 40:56
  down into the boulevard passing that side of the Criminal
• 40:59
  Courts building. It's one of those things that can make
• 41:01
  me think my sainted mother wasn't so wrong when she
• 41:04
  used to tell about elves and gnomes and leprechauns and berries.
• 41:09
  And Kirk made a sound deep in his throat. The
• 41:12
  North was a hell of a long way from being
• 41:14
  a leprechaun. Somebody wanted her out of here for some reason,
• 41:18
  and they got her out. I want to know who
• 41:19
  took her out, why she was taken, and where she
• 41:21
  is now. And I'm gonna find out the answers to
• 41:24
  all three. If I have to turn this town on
• 41:25
  it's ear, go ahead, Troy said, hop right to it,
• 41:29
  and I wish you luck only leave me and my
• 41:31
  people out of it. Seems me your money damned anxious
• 41:35
  to be left out, Arthur caller. Troy turned on his
• 41:38
  heel and strode towards the lieutenant until he was towering
• 41:41
  over him. Just what he said between his teeth? Do
• 41:45
  you mean by that crack? Figure it out yourself, Kirk snapped,
• 41:51
  And I'm sure you can. Troy reared back as though
• 41:55
  the police officer pulled a gun on him. Why why
• 41:58
  you I'll have you busted for making a dirty and sinuet.
• 42:01
  You couldn't bust a daisy chain at the police department,
• 42:04
  Kirk growled. The commissioner hates your guts, and you know
• 42:07
  that as well as I do. Now, let's cut out
• 42:09
  all this hokey pokey and pick up a few loose ends.
• 42:12
  The first thing, what about Paul Cordell. All the wide
• 42:16
  eyed fury seemed to go out of Troy's face like
• 42:18
  water down the bathtub drain. He turned away and walked
• 42:21
  slowly back to his desk chair and sat down. He said,
• 42:25
  what about Cordell in a soft voice. Morning Paper Kirk said,
• 42:30
  reports he was taken up to Hillcrest last night. The
• 42:33
  warden out there's probably got him in death row already.
• 42:36
  Uh huh, Well, let's get him out of there. For
• 42:39
  the evidence we've got, plus NYA. North Swarn's statement, Judge
• 42:42
  Reid will have to bring him back down here and
• 42:43
  release him at least on bail until we can find
• 42:46
  the girl. The man's innocent, mister DA have you forgotten? Yes, yes, yes,
• 42:53
  what I've forgotten? He's innocent, Troy said, quietly, matter of fact,
• 42:58
  he's guilty as hell. The Lieutenant half rose from his chair. Now,
• 43:02
  wait a minute. You heard that girl's story, and you've
• 43:04
  got the evidence I turned over to you right here
• 43:06
  in this office last night. What more I'll tell you
• 43:09
  what more? Troy snapped, That girl was a fraud, Her
• 43:12
  story was down right line, That evidence was faked. Let
• 43:15
  me tell you something else, mister. Within five minutes after
• 43:17
  the guard downstairs reported your girlfriend missing. I had five
• 43:19
  squads of my men out running down the personal information
• 43:22
  she gave me a few hours before. And you know
• 43:24
  what they found out. Every bit of what she told
• 43:26
  me was false. Hear that false. It took my men
• 43:29
  about one hour to prove as much, for the simple
• 43:31
  reason that not one lead panned out, not one. And
• 43:34
  you know what I think, Martin Kirk opened his mouth,
• 43:37
  but nothing came out but a strangled croak. I think
• 43:39
  you and this dame worked out the whole thing between
• 43:41
  the two of you to save Cordell's neck. Who could
• 43:44
  do a better job of faking evidence than a crooked cop.
• 43:46
  What's more, you might have gotten away with it too,
• 43:48
  Only it suddenly dawned on the girl that she was
• 43:50
  getting in too deep, and so Kirk cut in hotly.
• 43:54
  She calmly walked through five locked sets of iron bars
• 43:57
  and went back to Mars. He stood up and crossed
• 44:00
  to the desk and leaning down with his palms in
• 44:02
  the center of the brown blotter. You won't get away
• 44:04
  with it, Troy. You didn't want any part of this
• 44:07
  new development. From the minute I called you on the
• 44:08
  phone last night, you knew it could show you and
• 44:11
  your whole organization up as a bunch of bunglers and incompetence.
• 44:14
  So you got rid of the girl, thinking that without
• 44:16
  her the truth of those murders would never get out
• 44:18
  to the voters. Well it won't work, Fatso the evidence
• 44:22
  I dug up is strong enough to reopen the case
• 44:24
  without Nya North. All I have to do is put
• 44:26
  the evidence in front of Judge Reid. And Troy was
• 44:28
  smiling wolfishly. What evidence, Lieutenant Kirk stiffened. You know, damn well,
• 44:35
  what evidence. It's in your files right now. Nia North's statement,
• 44:39
  the strips of paneling from the coat closet, the murder weapon.
• 44:42
  I turned the whole works over to you. The DA
• 44:45
  was shaking his head. We don't keep worthless junk around here,
• 44:48
  my boy. The Cordel case is closed, The guilty man
• 44:52
  is awaiting execution. Sure you run along and tell the
• 44:55
  judge all about it. Tell the newspapers, tell Cordel's defense,
• 45:00
  tell the world, for all I care see who will
• 45:02
  touch it without something more concrete than your highly imaginative
• 45:06
  day dreams. For all you can prove, the girl might
• 45:09
  have confessed the whole thing was a hoax, and we
• 45:11
  tossed her right out of here last night. I'm a
• 45:14
  busy man, Lieutenant. Good morning, good luck, and kindly close
• 45:18
  the door on your way out. End of chapter three.
• 45:28
  Chapter four of twelve Times zero by Howard Brown. This
• 45:33
  slibrivox recording is in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker.
• 45:39
  Chapter four, Lieutenant Martin Kirk shoved the pile of mimeographed
• 45:44
  pages aside. Three hours spent him going through the complete
• 45:47
  transcript of the Cordell trial, and nothing to show for
• 45:50
  it but stiff muscles and an aching head. Give it up.
• 45:54
  A small voice in the back of his mind urged,
• 45:57
  you haven't got a leg to stand on as far
• 45:58
  as getting any action out of the authorities. Troy and
• 46:02
  his gang put the fear of God in that purple
• 46:03
  eyed dame and shipped her out of the state. You lose, brother,
• 46:07
  and so does that poor devil up in Death's row.
• 46:10
  He drummed his fingers over and over on the arm
• 46:12
  of his chair and listened to every day's sounds of
• 46:14
  a normal day at the homicide Bureau. A new day,
• 46:18
  a new set of problems, and why knock yourself out
• 46:20
  over something that doesn't concern you thing to do was
• 46:24
  go down to the corner tavern and have a couple
• 46:26
  of fast ones and watch an old movie on television. Yes, sir,
• 46:30
  that's exactly what he'd do. He went back to the
• 46:33
  mimiographed pages for the fourth time. He read through Cordell's
• 46:36
  testimony of what had happened that October afternoon, and it
• 46:39
  was there that he came across the first possible break
• 46:42
  in the stone wall. Once more, Martin Kirk went over
• 46:46
  the few lines, although by this time he could have
• 46:48
  come close to reciting them from memory. It was an
• 46:51
  exert from Arthur Caller Troy's cross examination of the defendant
• 46:55
  after Cordell's council, in a last desperate effort to swing
• 46:58
  the tide of a losing battle, had played him on
• 47:00
  the stand. Question by Troy, Now, mister Cordell, I direct
• 47:05
  your attention to the point in your testimony at which
• 47:08
  first entered Professor Gilmour's outer office. At what time was this? Answer?
• 47:15
  At about five forty five pm? Question? Who was in
• 47:20
  the office at the time? Answer Alma Dacon, the Professor's secretary,
• 47:25
  and a couple of students, although they were at the
• 47:28
  other end of the room and I didn't pay much
• 47:29
  attention to him. Question, but you did pay attention, as
• 47:33
  you call it to Miss Dacon. Answer, well, I spoke
• 47:38
  to her, if that's what you mean. Question, That's exactly
• 47:41
  what I mean, mister Cordell. And what was it you
• 47:44
  said to her? Answer something about it was too late
• 47:49
  in the day to be working so hard? Question that
• 47:52
  was all? Answer? Yes, sir question. Remember, mister Cordell, you're
• 47:58
  under oath. Now I ask you again, was that all
• 48:01
  you said to her at that time? Answer? Yes, sir, question,
• 48:08
  It isn't possible you've forgotten some additional remark. Think carefully,
• 48:13
  please answer no, sir, that's all I said. I swear it.
• 48:18
  Question very well, Now, how well do you know miss Dacon?
• 48:23
  Answer just to speak to question? Have you ever seen
• 48:27
  her outside Professor Gilmore's office? Answer no, sir, question, ever
• 48:33
  ask her for a date? Answer no, sir question. Did
• 48:37
  you ever have an argument with her, a discussion of
• 48:39
  any kind that may have become a bit heated? Answer no,
• 48:43
  sir question. Then to your knowledge, she'd have no reason
• 48:47
  to dislike you. Answer no, sir question. Very good. Now,
• 48:53
  mister Cordell, I want to read to you an exert
• 48:55
  from the testimony given by Miss Dacon in this court.
• 48:59
  Mister Cordell was looking very angry when he came in.
• 49:02
  He came up to me and bent down over the
• 49:04
  desk and said, solo. I could hardly hear him. Hi almah,
• 49:08
  you think the professors through making love to my wife.
• 49:11
  I now ask you, Paul Cordell, isn't that what you
• 49:14
  said to Alma Daikon, not that she was working too
• 49:17
  hard or whatever it was you claim to have said. Answer, No, sir,
• 49:22
  I didn't say anything like she said. I did. I
• 49:25
  would insult my wife by saying such a thing. To
• 49:27
  a third question, just answer the questions, mister Cordell. Then
• 49:32
  you contend that Miss Daken deliberately lied in her testimony.
• 49:36
  Answer she was mistaken question? Oh, come now, Miss Dacon
• 49:42
  is an intelligent girl. She couldn't misunderstand or twister your
• 49:45
  words to that extent. Now could she answer? Then she lied,
• 49:51
  I'd never said anything like that question? What reason would
• 49:56
  she have for lying, Mister Cordell? By your own statement,
• 49:59
  she hardly knew you, always greeted you pleasantly on the
• 50:02
  times you came to the office, never got into any
• 50:04
  arguments with you. And never saw you outside the office.
• 50:07
  She had worked for Professor Gilmore for five or six months,
• 50:11
  has excellent references, and is well liked by her friends.
• 50:14
  Yet you're asking us to believe that she coldly and
• 50:18
  deliberately lied to get you in trouble? Is that true? Answer?
• 50:24
  All I know is she lied? The break was there
• 50:28
  all right? Kirk thought grimly, For if Cordell was innocent,
• 50:31
  then he had told the truth during the trial, And
• 50:34
  if he had told the truth about his remark to
• 50:36
  Alma d then automatically Almah Dakin's testimony was untrue. Kirk
• 50:43
  ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture of bafflement.
• 50:46
  What possible reason could Gilmore's secretary have for going out
• 50:50
  of her way to lie about Cordell's remark. Was it
• 50:53
  because she was so certain he had killed her employer
• 50:56
  that she wanted to make sure he would be punished.
• 51:00
  Was it because she wanted to shield the real killer.
• 51:03
  Maybe she was a friend of Nya North's and had
• 51:05
  known the blonde girl was in Gilmore's laboratory all along.
• 51:09
  She might even have deliberately steered every one out of
• 51:11
  her office after Cordell discovered the bodies making it possible
• 51:15
  for Nya to slip out unseen. It was a slender lead,
• 51:18
  but the only one large enough to get even a
• 51:21
  finger nail grip on. He drew the phone over in
• 51:24
  front of him and began a series of calls designated
• 51:27
  to give him more information about Almah Dakin. A call
• 51:30
  to the university took him through a couple of secretaries
• 51:33
  before he reached the right person. Her name was Miss Slithe,
• 51:37
  personnel director of all non teaching employees. Miss Dakin why,
• 51:42
  of course, a lovely girl and very dependable. She had
• 51:45
  come to the university in search of a position, only
• 51:47
  a day or two before Miss Collins, Professor Gilmore's previous secretary,
• 51:50
  had resigned, since Miss Dikon's references showed that she had
• 51:54
  worked for a short time as secretary to doctor Carney,
• 51:57
  one of the co discoverers of the Adambaum. According to
• 52:00
  Miss s Lilife, she had been engaged to take Miss
• 52:02
  collins place. Professor Gilmour poor Man had been very pleased
• 52:06
  with the change, and everybody was happy. Miss Collins at
• 52:09
  inheriting a vast large sum of money from a relative
• 52:11
  she had never even heard of. Miss Dakon at being
• 52:14
  able to get such a nice position, and dear Professor
• 52:17
  Gilmore at finding such a satisfactory replacement when miss slife
• 52:21
  had run down. Kirk said, this, Doctor Carney, why did
• 52:25
  miss Dakon leave him? The woman at the other end
• 52:28
  of the wire seemed astonished by Kirk's ignorance. Why I
• 52:32
  assumed everybody knew about doctor Carney. He died of a
• 52:34
  heart attack about eight months ago. What goodness, there's no
• 52:39
  need to shout, mister Kirk. He was connected with Clement
• 52:42
  University out in California and suffered a stroke of some
• 52:44
  kind while at work. Kirk thanked her dazedly and broke
• 52:48
  the connection. This, he told himself, was too much of
• 52:51
  a coincidence to be a coincidence. Too prominent nuclear scientists
• 52:56
  dying suddenly within seven months of each other, at opposite
• 53:00
  ends of the country, and both of them with the
• 53:02
  same secretary at the time of their deaths. A sudden
• 53:06
  thought sent him leaping rapidly through the trial transcript to
• 53:09
  the place where Paul Cordell had told of the disjointed
• 53:11
  phrases he claimed to have heard. Before he pushed into
• 53:14
  Professor Gilmour's laboratory, the words he sought seemed to stand
• 53:18
  out in letters of fire three in the past five months. Again,
• 53:24
  he caught up the telephone receiver, aware that his heart
• 53:26
  was pounding with excitement, and dialed a number Bolton. Hello,
• 53:30
  let me talk to Jerry Ferness. Jerry, this is Martin
• 53:33
  Kirk at Homicide. Look do something for me. I want
• 53:36
  to find out how many top nuclear fission boys have
• 53:38
  died in the past four or five months. No, no,
• 53:41
  nothing like that. Some of the boys down here were
• 53:44
  having an argument about sure, I'll hold on. He propped
• 53:49
  the receiver between his ear and shoulder and groped for
• 53:51
  a cigar and the office. Beyond the partition of his
• 53:54
  cubby hole, a woman was sobbing. Chenowich went past his
• 53:57
  open door, whistling a radio commercial. The receiver against his
• 54:00
  ear began to vibrate. Yeah, Jerry, four of them. Eh,
• 54:05
  let's have their names. He picked up a pencil and
• 54:08
  took down the information. Uh huh, three heart attacks and
• 54:12
  one murder. Check? You mean all of them? Tough life?
• 54:17
  I guess yeah, sure, anytime so long. He replaced the
• 54:22
  receiver with slow care and leaned back to study the
• 54:24
  list of names, not counting the last name Gilmore's. Three
• 54:28
  world renowned men in the field of nuclear physics had
• 54:31
  dropped dead from heart failure within the designated span of months. Coincidence, maybe,
• 54:38
  but he was in no mood for coincidences. If the
• 54:41
  deaths of these four scientists was the result of some
• 54:44
  sinister plan, who was responsible, some foreign power concerned about
• 54:49
  this country's growing mastery of nuclear fission, was it his
• 54:52
  duty to notify the FBI of his findings and let
• 54:55
  them take over from here. He shook his head too
• 54:59
  early for any thing like that. He needed more evidence,
• 55:03
  evidence not to be explained away as coincidence. Once more,
• 55:07
  Lieutenant Martin Kirk went back to analyzing the broken phrases
• 55:10
  Cordell had picked up while eavesdropping that October afternoon. Twelve
• 55:15
  times zero made no sense at all, unless it could
• 55:18
  be the combination of a safe hardly possible. No combination
• 55:22
  he had ever heard of would read that way. The
• 55:26
  next one then chained to two hundred thousand years. Another
• 55:31
  blank could mean anything or nothing. Next a sounded like
• 55:36
  the professor said something like his colleges had no idea,
• 55:40
  and he'd see they were warned right away. Kurt bit
• 55:44
  thoughtfully down on a corner of his lip. Gilmore didn't
• 55:48
  own any colleges, and how do you go about warning one.
• 55:52
  Maybe the word was college, meaning the one where he
• 55:56
  had his laboratory. But actually it wasn't a college at all.
• 55:59
  It was a university. Not much difference to the man
• 56:02
  in the street, but to the professor. Wait a minute,
• 56:06
  college is colleagues. It was his colleagues. Gilmore had promised
• 56:10
  to warn, and the word meant men and women in
• 56:13
  the same line of work as the professor nuclear physics.
• 56:19
  Things Kirk told himself for the elation were looking up.
• 56:23
  The business about three in the past five months was next,
• 56:26
  but he felt sure of what that had meant. But
• 56:28
  the last of the quotations went nowhere at all. Something
• 56:32
  about taking in washing under less tragic circumstances a nonsense line,
• 56:38
  but Cordell hadn't actually heard the words clearly enough to
• 56:40
  quote them with authority. That could mean he had heard
• 56:44
  words that sounded like taking in washing, taking, baking, making, slaking, raking.
• 56:52
  List seemed endless. Washing could have been the first two
• 56:55
  syllables of Washington and Washington would be the place where
• 56:59
  the Atomic Energy Commission hung out. Still too hazy, he
• 57:03
  leaned back and put his feet up, and attacked the
• 57:05
  three mysterious words from every conceivable angle. No dice side
• 57:11
  of the ambling figure of patrolman Chenowitch passing the office
• 57:14
  door caught his eye, reminding him that two heads were
• 57:17
  often better than one. Hey, Frank Chenowich came in. Yell, Lieutenant,
• 57:21
  something doing. I'm trying to figure out a little problem,
• 57:25
  Kirk explained carelessly. Let's say you hear a guy talking
• 57:28
  in the next room. You can't really make out the
• 57:30
  words he's saying, but right in the middle of his mumbling,
• 57:33
  you hear what sounds like taking in washing, and you
• 57:36
  know that can't be right, so you try to think
• 57:38
  out what he actually did say. It was obvious Chenowich
• 57:42
  had fallen off on the first curve, so completely off
• 57:44
  that Kirk didn't bother finishing what was much too involved
• 57:47
  to begin with. The patrolman was staring at him in
• 57:51
  monstrous perplexity. Geez, Lieutenant, I don't get it unless the
• 57:56
  guy's going to open up one of these here laundries.
• 57:59
  That way, he'd be taken in the washing. But I
• 58:02
  don't know what else. Kirk's feet hit the floor with
• 58:05
  a solid thump, and he grabbed Chinowich's wrist with fingers
• 58:07
  that bit in like steel. Say that again, he shouted,
• 58:11
  Say it just that way. The patrolman recoiled in alarm.
• 58:16
  What's got into your, lieutenant? Say what? Taking in washing?
• 58:21
  Taken in washing? What for? Kirk's grin threatened to split
• 58:27
  his face. The same words, he said, but you say
• 58:31
  them different. Only your weighs the right way. Thanks pal,
• 58:35
  Now get out of here. Chenowich went. His mouth was
• 58:39
  still open and his expression still troubled, but he went.
• 58:42
  The last of the killer's cryptic remarks was now clear,
• 58:45
  for Kirk realized that taken rhymed with the words you
• 58:49
  never associate with taking Bacon, for instance, or daycon Alma Dacon,
• 58:55
  former secretary to two widely separated and now dead nuclear scientists.
• 59:00
  Her name had been mentioned by the slayer of Professor
• 59:02
  Gilmour only seconds before she had clubbed the savant to death.
• 59:06
  But now that taking had come out, Dacon, what did
• 59:09
  the rest of the phrase mean? Dacon in washing made
• 59:12
  no sense. What sounded like washing, washing? Washing? Watching? It
• 59:18
  was close? In fact, nothing he could think of came closer,
• 59:22
  all right? Dacon in watching no Dakon is watching. That
• 59:26
  made sense, but Alma Daikon hadn't been watching anything at
• 59:29
  the time of the killing. She, according to Cordel, was
• 59:32
  at her desk in the outer office that would leave
• 59:34
  Dacon was watching as the right combination, watching for the
• 59:38
  right opportunity for murder. What did it mean? Well, assuming
• 59:43
  from her past record that Alma Dakon was mixed up
• 59:45
  in the deaths of two prominent men of science, it
• 59:49
  argued that she and Nia North were accomplices and a
• 59:51
  scheme to rid America of her nuclear fission experts. The nice,
• 59:55
  smooth story of killing Gilmore because of unrequited love was
• 59:59
  probably as much which a lie as the personal information
• 1:00:02
  Nigh North had given Arthur Caller Troy. The North girl
• 1:00:05
  had confessed to murdering Gilmour and Juanita Cordell. As a
• 1:00:09
  confessed killer, she must be taken into custody and booked
• 1:00:13
  on suspicion of homicide. Taking her was Martin Kirk's job,
• 1:00:17
  and it seemed he had a contact that would lead
• 1:00:19
  him to her, namely Alma Dakin. Lieutenant Kirk grabbed his
• 1:00:24
  hat and went out the door. End of chapter four.
• 1:00:34
  Chapter five of twelve times zero by Howard Brown. This
• 1:00:39
  LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker,
• 1:00:45
  Chapter five. The address for Alma Dakin turned out to
• 1:00:49
  be a small, three story walk up apartment building on
• 1:00:52
  a quiet residential street near the outskirts of town. At
• 1:00:56
  two in the afternoon, Hardly anyone was visible on the sidewalks,
• 1:01:00
  and dumbly an occasional automobile passed. Kirk parked his car
• 1:01:04
  half a block further on down and got out into
• 1:01:06
  the chilly November air. He entered the building foyer and
• 1:01:10
  looked at the name plates above the twin rows of buttons.
• 1:01:13
  The one for Alma Dacon told him the number of
• 1:01:15
  her apartment was three C. He pushed the button several times,
• 1:01:20
  but without response. The foyer was very quiet at this
• 1:01:23
  time of day, and he could hear the faint rasp
• 1:01:26
  of her bell through the speaking tube. Kirk was on
• 1:01:29
  the point of shifting his thumb to the button marked
• 1:01:31
  superintendent when a sudden thought stayed his hand. It was
• 1:01:35
  not the kind of thought a conscientious, rule abiding police
• 1:01:38
  officer would harbor for a moment. The lieutenant, however, was
• 1:01:41
  fully aware he had no business working on a closed
• 1:01:43
  case to begin with. And when you're breaking one set
• 1:01:46
  of rules, you might as well break them all. He
• 1:01:49
  rang four of the other bells before the lock on
• 1:01:51
  the inner door began to click, pushing it open, He
• 1:01:54
  waited until a female voice floated down the stairs. Who
• 1:01:57
  is it police apartment, ma'am? You folks on that green
• 1:02:01
  buick parked out front? There was no buick green or
• 1:02:05
  otherwise along the street curving, but Kerk figured she wouldn't
• 1:02:08
  know that. Why no, officer, I can't imagine. Oh sorry,
• 1:02:12
  we bothered you, lady. Kerk le liket. The door swing
• 1:02:15
  into place, hard enough to be heard upstairs, but this
• 1:02:18
  time he was on the right side of it. There
• 1:02:21
  was a moment of silence, then he caught the sound
• 1:02:23
  of retreating feet, and the door closed. Without waiting further,
• 1:02:27
  the lieutenant mounted the stairs to the third floor, his
• 1:02:29
  feet soundless on the carpeted treads. The entrance to three
• 1:02:33
  Sea was secured by a tumbler type lock from an
• 1:02:36
  inner pocket. Kirk took out a small flat leather case
• 1:02:39
  and a thin edged tool from that. Working with the
• 1:02:42
  smooth efficiency of the expert, he loosened the door molding
• 1:02:46
  near the lock and inserted the tool blade until it
• 1:02:48
  found the bolt. This eased back, turned the door handle,
• 1:02:52
  and a moment later was standing in a small living room,
• 1:02:55
  tastefully furnished in modern woods. His first action was to
• 1:02:59
  enter the tiny kitchen and unbolt the door leading to
• 1:03:01
  the rear porch. In case Alma Dacon arrived at an
• 1:03:04
  inopportune moment, he could be halfway down the outer steps
• 1:03:07
  while she was still engaged with the front door lock.
• 1:03:10
  Since he had pressed the molding back into place, there
• 1:03:12
  would be nothing to indicate his presence. Within ten minutes,
• 1:03:16
  Kirk had ransacked every inch of the living room in
• 1:03:19
  search of something, anything, that would point to Alma Dakon
• 1:03:22
  as being more than a nine to five secretary. And
• 1:03:25
  while he found nothing, no one, not even the girl
• 1:03:27
  who lived here, could tell that an intruder had been
• 1:03:29
  at work. The bedroom seemed even less promising. At first.
• 1:03:34
  Dresser drawers gave up only the pleasantly personal articles of
• 1:03:37
  the average young woman. Miss Dakin had turned out was
• 1:03:40
  almost indecently fond of frothy undergarments and black, transparent nightgowns,
• 1:03:45
  interesting but not at all important to the overall problem. Kirk,
• 1:03:50
  his search completed, sat down on the edge of the
• 1:03:52
  bed's footboard and totaled up what he had learned. It
• 1:03:55
  didn't take long, for he knew absolutely no more about
• 1:03:57
  Alma Dakin than he had before entering her apartment. No
• 1:04:01
  personal papers, no letters from a yearning boyfriend in the
• 1:04:04
  old hometown, no savings or checking account passbook, not even
• 1:04:08
  a scrawled line of birthday or Christmas greetings on the
• 1:04:11
  fly leaves of the apartment's seven books. To Kirk's trained mind,
• 1:04:15
  the very lack of such things the fact that Almah
• 1:04:18
  Dakin lived in a vacuum was highly significant. It smacked
• 1:04:21
  of her having something to hide, and his already strong
• 1:04:24
  suspicion of her was solidified into certainty of her guilt.
• 1:04:28
  But certainty was a long way from rock ribbed evidence,
• 1:04:32
  and that was something he must have to proceed further.
• 1:04:35
  He was ready to leave when it dawned on him
• 1:04:37
  that he had not yet looked under the bed. Kneeling,
• 1:04:41
  he pushed up the hanging edge of the green batique
• 1:04:43
  spread and peered into the narrow space. Nothing not even
• 1:04:47
  a decent accumulation of dust. The light from the window
• 1:04:50
  was too faint, however, to reach a section of the
• 1:04:52
  floor near the foot board. Kirk climbed to his feet
• 1:04:55
  and attempted to shove that end to one side. The
• 1:04:59
  bed failed to move. He blinked in mild surprise and
• 1:05:02
  tried again. It was only by exerting almost his entire
• 1:05:05
  strength that he was able to shift the thing at all,
• 1:05:08
  and then no more than a few inches. He felt
• 1:05:10
  his pulseter with a thrill of incipient discovery. Once he
• 1:05:14
  made sure nothing was anchoring the bed to the floor,
• 1:05:16
  he began to tap lightly against the wood in an
• 1:05:19
  effort to detect a possible false panel. Within two minutes
• 1:05:22
  he located an almost microscopic crack in the head board,
• 1:05:25
  cleverly concealed by a decorative design. Running along the base.
• 1:05:30
  He ran his fingers lightly along the carvings until they
• 1:05:32
  encountered a small projection which gave slightly under pressure. Kirk
• 1:05:37
  pressed down harder on the knob. A tiny click sounded
• 1:05:40
  against the silence, and a section of wood some three
• 1:05:43
  feet square swung out. Lifting it aside, the detective found
• 1:05:46
  himself staring at an instrument board of some kind with
• 1:05:49
  a series of buttons and dials countersunk into it. The
• 1:05:53
  board itself formed a part of what was obviously a
• 1:05:55
  machine of some sort, which evidently contained its own power,
• 1:05:59
  for there seemed to be no lead end court for
• 1:06:01
  plugging into a wall socket. It could, Kirk thought, be
• 1:06:05
  a short wave radio transmitter. If it was, it looked
• 1:06:09
  like none he had ever come across before. On the
• 1:06:11
  other hand, it could be some sort of infernal machine
• 1:06:14
  ready to blow half the city to bits at the
• 1:06:16
  turn of a dial. Even as his mind was weighing
• 1:06:19
  the advisability of tampering with the thing, his fingers were
• 1:06:22
  reaching for the various controls. Gingerly he moved one or
• 1:06:25
  two of the dials, but nothing happened. A little more
• 1:06:28
  boldly now he began to depress the buttons. As the
• 1:06:31
  third sank in, a low humming sound began to fill
• 1:06:33
  the room. Before Kirk could find a cut off switch
• 1:06:36
  of some kind, the faint light of day streaming through
• 1:06:38
  the rooms, one window winked out, plunging him into a
• 1:06:41
  blackness so infinitely deep that it was like being buried alive.
• 1:06:46
  Nothing can plunge a man into the sheerest panic like
• 1:06:48
  the absence of light, even a man like Martin Kirk,
• 1:06:51
  who had walked almost daily with danger for the past
• 1:06:54
  fifteen years, and since the form panic takes varies with
• 1:06:58
  the individual. The lieutenants reaction was an utter inability to
• 1:07:01
  move so much as a finger. Abruptly, the low humming
• 1:07:05
  note ceased entirely, replaced immediately by the sound of a
• 1:07:08
  human voice. My Fox Contact established proceed almost as though
• 1:07:14
  the words had tripped a lever in his brain. Kirk's
• 1:07:16
  paralysis ended. Both his hands seemed to swoop of their
• 1:07:20
  own volition to the invisible control panel, and their fingers
• 1:07:23
  danced across the dials and buttons. My Fox said the
• 1:07:28
  voice again. It seemed to swell and recede, like a
• 1:07:31
  direct radio newscast from half around the world. Contact to stop.
• 1:07:36
  The word ended as though it had run into a wall.
• 1:07:38
  The humming note came back, then ceased, and without warning,
• 1:07:42
  daylight from the window washed over the bewildered and thoroughly
• 1:07:44
  frightened police officer. Not until five minutes had passed was
• 1:07:48
  Martin Kirk sufficiently in control of his nervous system to
• 1:07:51
  even attempt replacing the loose panel on the headboard. When
• 1:07:55
  at last he managed to do so, he returned to
• 1:07:56
  the bed to its original position, closed and bolted the kitchen,
• 1:08:00
  or took one last look around to make sure nothing
• 1:08:02
  was out of place, then slunk out of the apartment.
• 1:08:05
  By the time he was back behind the wheel of
• 1:08:07
  his car and had burned up half a cigar, Kirk's
• 1:08:10
  brain was ready to function with something like its normal ability.
• 1:08:14
  He sat limp as Satan's collar, trying to piece together
• 1:08:17
  the significance of the last half hour's events. There was
• 1:08:22
  no longer any doubt that Alma Dakin was in this
• 1:08:24
  mess up to her bangs, linked as she was to
• 1:08:26
  the murders, and Kirk was convinced heart disease had nothing
• 1:08:30
  to do with it. Of those scientists he would have
• 1:08:32
  sworn she was a foreign agent bent on weakening America's defenses.
• 1:08:36
  Except for one thing. That machine. The kind of mind
• 1:08:40
  that could design and put together a mechanism like that
• 1:08:42
  was not of this planet. No longer did Paul Cordell's
• 1:08:46
  story of a girl who floated in a ball of
• 1:08:48
  blue fire sound like the ravings of a deranged brain,
• 1:08:52
  and the seeming miracle of Nya North's escape from a
• 1:08:55
  cell block now passed from fantasy to the factual. What
• 1:08:59
  to do about it? Martin Kirk at this moment, undoubtedly
• 1:09:02
  the most bewildered man alive, put his head in his
• 1:09:05
  hands and tried to reach a decision. Take his story
• 1:09:07
  to the police commissioner. It would mean a pat it
• 1:09:10
  cell and without even bothering to see if Alma Dakin
• 1:09:13
  possessed a machine more complicated than an electric iron some
• 1:09:17
  government agency. By the time the red tape was unsnarled,
• 1:09:20
  the former Secretary could have reached Pakistan on foot, slowly
• 1:09:24
  from the depths of his terror of the unknown, Martin
• 1:09:27
  Kirk's training and police procedure began to make itself felt.
• 1:09:31
  A plan started to form, hazy at first, then in
• 1:09:34
  a sharp and orderly pattern, he left the car and
• 1:09:37
  returned to the apartment building. A glimpse of his badge
• 1:09:40
  and a few incisive orders masked as request reduced the
• 1:09:43
  superintendent to a state of almost obsequious cooperation. Nor was
• 1:09:48
  the tenant of Apartment three D a middle aged spinster,
• 1:09:51
  and he less anxious to assist the law. It seemed
• 1:09:54
  she had an older sister living on the other side
• 1:09:56
  of town who would be happy to put her up
• 1:09:58
  for a few days. She departed within the hour, a
• 1:10:01
  traveling bag in one fist, before that hour was gone Chinowitch,
• 1:10:05
  in response to a sizzling phone call, skidded a department
• 1:10:09
  car to a stop at the curb a block from
• 1:10:11
  the building. He delivered a dictograph to his superior, listened
• 1:10:14
  to a grim warning to keep his mouth shut about
• 1:10:16
  this at headquarters, asked a couple of questions that drew
• 1:10:20
  no answers, and departed as swiftly as he had come.
• 1:10:23
  The next step was the dangerous one. The superintendent admitted
• 1:10:27
  Kirk to the dacon apartment and went down to the
• 1:10:29
  foyer to ring the bell in case the girl arrived
• 1:10:31
  at the wrong time. He soothed a lieutenant's anxiety somewhat
• 1:10:35
  by explaining that she seldom returned to the place before
• 1:10:38
  seven o'clock, over three hours from now, but Kirk was
• 1:10:41
  taking no chances. By five o'clock, he had all Ma
• 1:10:44
  Kirk's bedroom bugged and the instrument in working order and
• 1:10:47
  thoroughly tested. He was painstaking about removing all traces of
• 1:10:51
  plaster and sawdust and bits of wires before pushing the
• 1:10:53
  dresser back into place to cover the dictograph's receiver. He
• 1:10:57
  found the superintendent stiffly on guard in the four and
• 1:11:00
  gave him his final instructions. The man listened respectfully, repeated
• 1:11:05
  them back to Kirk to convince him there would be
• 1:11:06
  no slip up, and the lieutenant went back upstairs to
• 1:11:09
  three D to take up his vigil. He was in
• 1:11:12
  the spinster's bedroom working out a crossword puzzle, earphones in place,
• 1:11:16
  when he heard the sound of the bedroom door closing
• 1:11:18
  in the next apartment. The time was seven eighteen end
• 1:11:23
  of chapter five, Chapter six of twelve Times zero by
• 1:11:33
  Howard Brown. The slipprivox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:11:38
  Read by Ben Tucker. It was like being in her
• 1:11:41
  room with his eyes shut, the soft scraping of drawers
• 1:11:44
  opening and closing, the creak of a chair being sat in,
• 1:11:48
  the cushioned thump of shoes dropped to the carpeted floor,
• 1:11:51
  even the rustle of a nylon slipp as she drew
• 1:11:53
  it over her head. It seemed much too early for
• 1:11:56
  her to turn in for the night. Was he going
• 1:11:58
  to be forced to sit there and listen to two
• 1:12:00
  while the fourteen hours of feminine snoring? It would be
• 1:12:03
  damned unlikely in view of what was a cinch to
• 1:12:05
  be a running through her mind. Minutes later, he heard
• 1:12:08
  her leave the bedroom, followed at once by the muted
• 1:12:11
  roar of a running shower. After that had lasted a
• 1:12:14
  normal length of time, the sound ceased, and naked feet
• 1:12:16
  were audible in the bedroom rug There was more opening
• 1:12:19
  and closing of drawers, the whisper of clothing being donned,
• 1:12:22
  and an irregular clicking sound like tapping glass against glass,
• 1:12:26
  which he finally interpreted as part of the ritual of
• 1:12:29
  alternately combing and brushing hair while in front of the
• 1:12:32
  glass topped vanity. If there was anything of a panicky
• 1:12:35
  nature in her movements, it would take better ears than
• 1:12:37
  his to detect it. But for Alma Dickon to get
• 1:12:40
  away with her kind of job required the nerves of
• 1:12:43
  lion trainer, no matter what pressure she was subjected to.
• 1:12:46
  Kirk stretched his legs, dug a cigar from the breast
• 1:12:49
  pocket of his coat, and got it burning, then went
• 1:12:51
  back to the crossword with half his attention, keeping alert
• 1:12:54
  for any significant sound from the other apartment. His ears
• 1:12:57
  as a minion of the law had adequately condemned him
• 1:13:00
  to the utter boredom that went with the ordinary stakeout.
• 1:13:04
  Several times the subject left the bedroom, but he was
• 1:13:06
  able to pick up sounds familiar enough to trace as
• 1:13:09
  emanating from the living room or kitchen, but nothing she
• 1:13:12
  did was worthy of notice in the hometown paper or
• 1:13:15
  even on the margin of a police blotterer. At nine
• 1:13:18
  twenty four, Alma Dakin again entered the bedroom. A hunch
• 1:13:21
  or a sixth sense, or whatever years of experience in
• 1:13:24
  a single field he gives A man told Kirk that
• 1:13:26
  this time something would pomp. He put aside the newspaper,
• 1:13:30
  placed a sheet of blank paper on the cover of
• 1:13:32
  a historical romance lifted from the spinster's night stand, and
• 1:13:35
  got out a pencil. A motor whined unexpectedly from the
• 1:13:39
  opposite side of the apartment wall, and he could hear
• 1:13:42
  a heavy object roll with well oiled smoothness a short
• 1:13:45
  distance across the carpet. He decided it was the bed
• 1:13:48
  being moved out from the wall by mechanical means rather
• 1:13:50
  than muscle, and it was clear to him now how
• 1:13:53
  she was able to get at that hidden radio or
• 1:13:55
  whatever it was. For the second time that day, Kirk
• 1:13:59
  heard the eerie humming, a sound he realized that ordinarily
• 1:14:02
  would have been completely inaudible beyond the girl's bedroom walls. Suddenly,
• 1:14:06
  the hum was chopped off, and a familiar voice spoke
• 1:14:08
  familiar words My thoughts contact established proceed a message for
• 1:14:15
  Oran Almah Dakin, a series of almost undetectable clicking sounds,
• 1:14:19
  then Almah. Despite the fact that the voice was coming
• 1:14:23
  through an amplifier, there was no distortion, anything wrong. It
• 1:14:28
  was a man's voice, clear, vibrant, young, and with no
• 1:14:31
  trace of an alien accent. Kirk's theory of an interplanetary
• 1:14:35
  menace lost some of its strength. A I'm not sure, Oran,
• 1:14:40
  the girl said hesitantly. There was a policeman at my
• 1:14:43
  apartment to day, the same one Naya went to the building.
• 1:14:46
  Superintendent told me. That's odd. There's no way you can
• 1:14:51
  be tied in with her, or is there not that
• 1:14:55
  I know of, Oran, unless they've decided to check back
• 1:14:58
  on me, just for the sake of something to do.
• 1:15:00
  If that's what's happened, and they've learned I was working
• 1:15:03
  for doctor Carney at the time of his death, they
• 1:15:05
  may get an idea. The three deaths are related, and
• 1:15:08
  once a police officer gets suspicion, he can hound you unmercifully.
• 1:15:12
  That's what worries me, orin you know, I'm not really
• 1:15:14
  an accomplished liar. Shall we bring you here at least
• 1:15:18
  long enough to build you a new identity? A pause,
• 1:15:21
  then the girl's voice again. Something else puzzles me too.
• 1:15:26
  There's no mention of Nia's confession in the newspapers. What
• 1:15:30
  you mean they haven't released Cordel. What will Tamu say
• 1:15:34
  if they have. Nobody knows about it. I told you
• 1:15:37
  Naya should have remained in their hands until the young
• 1:15:39
  man was set free. You don't know my people as
• 1:15:41
  I do, orin none of you do. But the evidence. Nobody,
• 1:15:46
  not even the most stupid of earth men, could have
• 1:15:47
  ignored that evidence. Tamu won't like this, I can't help it,
• 1:15:52
  orin I keep telling you, orin you must use a
• 1:15:54
  new set of standards for this world. If it's people
• 1:15:57
  thought as yours do, none of these unpleasant things would
• 1:16:00
  have to happen. Another pause before the man's voice came
• 1:16:04
  over Kirk's ear, poones, we didn't dare leave Naya in
• 1:16:07
  their hands. That's why we brought her back here. Look
• 1:16:11
  at the chance we took by permitting them to hold
• 1:16:13
  her even briefly. If only she hadn't blundered in the
• 1:16:16
  first place. His voice trailed off, then came back suddenly
• 1:16:20
  brisk well two late four regrets. We won't risk letting
• 1:16:24
  them question you Field seven and say three hours time enough,
• 1:16:29
  more than enough. Her relief was unmistakable. It'll be wonderful
• 1:16:33
  visiting mythox again or in I hope Matthew will allow
• 1:16:37
  me to stay for a long time. I hope so too, Darling.
• 1:16:41
  But our work comes first. None of us dares let
• 1:16:43
  down for even a moment. See you soon, and don't
• 1:16:46
  neglect to eliminate the Contrabeam. It will be gone seconds
• 1:16:50
  after we break contact Field seven at let's see twelve thirty.
• 1:16:56
  I'll be there, farewell, Almah. The dim humming came back again,
• 1:17:00
  followed briefly by no sound at all. Then there was
• 1:17:04
  the noise of drawers being opened and closed with a
• 1:17:06
  kind of brisk and cheerful haste. Almahdakin was preparing to
• 1:17:10
  take it on the lamb. Martin kirk knew he had
• 1:17:13
  only a limited time to plan his own course of action.
• 1:17:17
  One way was to walk into the adjoining apartment, place
• 1:17:19
  Alma Dakin under arrest and force the whole story from her.
• 1:17:23
  A moment's reflection, however, caused him to abandon the idea
• 1:17:26
  any such move would end his chances of getting his
• 1:17:29
  hands on Nia North. More than anything else, he wanted her,
• 1:17:32
  and he closed his mind to the broader aspects of
• 1:17:35
  what had taken and was still taking place. No, his
• 1:17:39
  job was to follow Almadakin to her rendezvous with this
• 1:17:42
  man orin, and in some way forced the two of
• 1:17:45
  them into turning Niya North over to him. This time
• 1:17:48
  she could stick around long enough to stand trial, even
• 1:17:51
  if he had to handcuff her to the bars of
• 1:17:53
  her cell. From beyond the wall, he caught the sounds
• 1:17:56
  of suit cases being snapped shut, followed by the fading
• 1:17:59
  echo of footstep pps. He jerked the earphones from his
• 1:18:02
  head and went quickly to the hall door in time
• 1:18:04
  to catch a glimpse of Almah Dakin on her way
• 1:18:05
  to the building stairs, a bulging suitcase in each hand.
• 1:18:09
  Kirk raced for the kitchen of three d flung open
• 1:18:12
  the door, and went down the rear steps with astonishing agility.
• 1:18:15
  He was opening the door of his car by the
• 1:18:17
  time the girl came out of the front entrance. He
• 1:18:19
  watched her place the bags in the trunk of a
• 1:18:21
  small sand colored coop then slip in behind its wheel
• 1:18:24
  and start the motor. The Coup passed his parked car,
• 1:18:28
  turned the corner, and disappeared before it had reached the
• 1:18:31
  next intersection. Kirk was rolling smoothly half a block to
• 1:18:34
  her rear. Two hours later, both cars were moving along
• 1:18:37
  a winding country road miles from civilization. Kirk was driving
• 1:18:42
  without lights, bad enough under favorable circumstances, but sheer folly,
• 1:18:46
  considering the sky was completely overcast, so that he was
• 1:18:49
  denied even the faint radiance of the stars. Fortunately, there
• 1:18:53
  was no other traffic in this desolate section at eleven
• 1:18:55
  o'clock at night, so that his only danger was in
• 1:18:58
  failing to remain on the twist road. Finally, near the
• 1:19:02
  crest of a particularly steep hill, two flaring red lights
• 1:19:06
  warned him his quarry was applying the brakes of her car.
• 1:19:10
  He cut his engine long enough to hear the Coup's
• 1:19:12
  motor die. Then he swung his wheel to the right
• 1:19:14
  and coasted to a halt on the soft shoulder of
• 1:19:16
  the road under cover of bushes and trees, naked of
• 1:19:20
  foliage at this time of the year, Kirk worked his
• 1:19:22
  way silently ahead until he could make out the dim
• 1:19:25
  figure of the girl as she dragged the pair of
• 1:19:27
  bags from the boot. Without a backward glance, she turned
• 1:19:31
  away from the road, and an instant later was lost.
• 1:19:33
  Aside among the trees, there was nothing of the frontiersman
• 1:19:37
  in Lieutenant Martin Kirk. But fortunately the same was true
• 1:19:41
  of Almah Daikin, where anyone accustomed to moving across natural
• 1:19:45
  terrain could have lost the officer with ease. In her case,
• 1:19:48
  he need only pause briefly from time to time and
• 1:19:50
  use his ears. At last, the seemingly interminable forest ended,
• 1:19:54
  and the girl sank wearily down on an up ended suitcase. Kirk,
• 1:19:59
  perspiring free under the folds of his top coat, halted
• 1:20:02
  in the shelter of a tree bowl, and waited. Beyond
• 1:20:05
  where the girl sat was a large natural clearing covered
• 1:20:08
  with a fringe of winter grass. The silence was close
• 1:20:11
  to being absolute. Only the faint keening of a chill
• 1:20:14
  wind and the restless creak of barren branches kept it
• 1:20:17
  from becoming unbearable. Gradually, his eyes became more and more
• 1:20:21
  accustomed to the absence of light worthy of the name,
• 1:20:24
  and he began to identify objects as something more than
• 1:20:26
  formless shadows. Alma Daikin appeared to be much closer to
• 1:20:30
  him than he had realized. He eyed her slim back malevolently,
• 1:20:34
  and when she lighted a cigarette, the wind bringing the
• 1:20:36
  odor of tobacco to his nostrils, he could cheerfully have
• 1:20:39
  strangled her for adding to his torture. Time crawled by
• 1:20:44
  an hour by reckoning was ten minutes by the illuminated
• 1:20:46
  dial of his wrist watch. His leg muscles began to
• 1:20:49
  twitch under the strain of holding the same position. Twice
• 1:20:53
  he managed to hold at bay explosive sneezes. He worried
• 1:20:56
  at being able to do so again. The last five
• 1:20:59
  minut minutes before twelve thirty was like being broken on
• 1:21:02
  the rack. He caught himself straining his ears for the
• 1:21:05
  sound of a motor, of a faint humming, of anything
• 1:21:08
  to indicate Oran was arriving nothing, and at twelve thirty
• 1:21:13
  still nothing. Martin Kirk had had all he could take.
• 1:21:17
  He was through standing out on a windy hill like
• 1:21:19
  some goddamn something seemed to flicker in the night air
• 1:21:22
  above the clearing, and he was staring, slack jawed at
• 1:21:24
  a circular structure the size of a small house standing
• 1:21:27
  in the center of a clearing, as though it had
• 1:21:29
  been there for years. Before the lieutenant could get his
• 1:21:32
  jaw off his necktie. Almah Dakin had uttered a cry
• 1:21:35
  of relief and was racing toward the nearest edge of
• 1:21:37
  the gleaming vessel. A panel in its side slid noiselessly back,
• 1:21:40
  and the tall figure of a man was outlined in
• 1:21:42
  the opening. Almah. He shouted and sprang to the ground
• 1:21:46
  to meet her. They came together, almost violently, midway between
• 1:21:50
  the clearing's edge and the ship. She clung to him
• 1:21:52
  as he bent his head to meet her lips. Kirk
• 1:21:55
  glanced past them at the open portal. Dim light from
• 1:21:58
  within cast a soft glow against the night. Nothing moved
• 1:22:02
  in the narrow segment of the interior visible from where
• 1:22:04
  he was standing, and Kirk had a moment of what
• 1:22:07
  was as close to fear as he was able to know,
• 1:22:10
  a little time of bewilderment when his guard slipped just
• 1:22:13
  a trifle. What in the hell was all this? Into
• 1:22:17
  his solid world had come strange and unreasonable things, crazy
• 1:22:21
  ships and people who didn't play according to the rules
• 1:22:23
  he had learned over thinkless drudging years as an honest cop.
• 1:22:28
  A few tiny beads of sweat formed on his upper lip.
• 1:22:32
  Then his stubborn inherent fatalism came to his aid. He grinned,
• 1:22:36
  without humor, the hell with it. Whatever came up, a screwball,
• 1:22:40
  flying saucer, or a berserk psycho waving a gun, you
• 1:22:44
  played it the same, according to your own rules. This thing,
• 1:22:47
  whatever it was, bridged the gap to a killer. And
• 1:22:50
  when you found such a bridge, you crossed it. Martin Kirk,
• 1:22:54
  his gun clutched tightly, moved like a casual shadow. He
• 1:22:57
  eased his way along the hull of ship and slipped inside.
• 1:23:01
  He had never seen anything like this. The lighting, for
• 1:23:04
  one thing, It came from nowhere. And somehow the stuff
• 1:23:06
  had a mood. It seemed alive, an intelligent force watching him,
• 1:23:10
  mocking him, sneering at him. And so potent was the
• 1:23:14
  mood of the hole set up so sharp as need
• 1:23:16
  of release, that he muttered, the hell with you, and
• 1:23:19
  softly followed a circular corridor which curved off the hull.
• 1:23:23
  They were coming toward the ship, or in an almah,
• 1:23:25
  coming while he still hunted a hole. He kept on going.
• 1:23:28
  If he met anybody, they were going to go down,
• 1:23:31
  but he didn't. He found a steel stairway and a
• 1:23:33
  pocket at its base to hold his body. It wasn't
• 1:23:36
  a dark pocket. Light was everywhere, but the stairway hit
• 1:23:40
  him and the pair passed by and went on down
• 1:23:42
  the corridor. He realized his right hand was aching and
• 1:23:45
  relaxed his grip on the gun butt he clutched. He
• 1:23:48
  straightened up, and the tense, little mirthless grin played on
• 1:23:51
  his lips. Okay, now where was she and how did
• 1:23:55
  it work? Could he find her and haul her off
• 1:23:57
  the silly tilt a whirl? He thought not. Either his
• 1:24:00
  eyes were bad or this thing had appeared from nowhere.
• 1:24:03
  Something inside snapped. Quit thinking that way, whatever it looked like, think, write,
• 1:24:08
  follow the rules, look for the dame. His grin deepened. Sure,
• 1:24:13
  he started walking around the eerie corridor in the direction
• 1:24:16
  opposite that taken by Oran and Almah Dakin. He walked
• 1:24:20
  a long time, and there were no doors or anything else,
• 1:24:23
  so the only thing to do was keep walking, he thought.
• 1:24:26
  When I come to that stairway, I'll be back where
• 1:24:28
  I started. But where's that? What good is a hall?
• 1:24:31
  You keep going around and around in the ship, lurched
• 1:24:34
  and threw him to the floor and was going somewhere,
• 1:24:37
  but it didn't go anywhere. Of that, he was sure
• 1:24:41
  maybe he had been fooled, but it seemed the ship
• 1:24:43
  settled back after that single lurch and lay there like
• 1:24:46
  a choice segment out of some one's pet nightmare. Kerk
• 1:24:50
  got to his feet and rubbed the place's leg had
• 1:24:52
  violently met the floor. He walked on and there was
• 1:24:55
  the steel stairway again, and it was all very damned
• 1:24:58
  silly because he knew he had circled the ship at
• 1:25:01
  least three times, but lucky because the footsteps sounded again,
• 1:25:06
  and as he dived toward the pocket, the wall of
• 1:25:08
  the ship opened to form a doorway. They forgot something,
• 1:25:12
  He thought, What kind of superman are these? They can
• 1:25:15
  build a ship that has a stairway every third trip around,
• 1:25:18
  and still they go away and forget things. The grin
• 1:25:21
  was tighter than ever whistle in the dark, boy, But
• 1:25:24
  admit it, you're scared, sure, But what's that got to
• 1:25:27
  do with it? Or In and Almah left the ship.
• 1:25:30
  Martin Kirk pushed his head around the staircase. He crouched
• 1:25:33
  for some time, staring through the open segment of the
• 1:25:36
  hull at the outside world, and his poor, stupid orthodox
• 1:25:39
  mind asked a pitifully logical question, how could it get
• 1:25:44
  light with the sun at high noon? In fifteen minutes?
• 1:25:48
  After a long, motionless time, the silence became such a
• 1:25:51
  roaring thing in Kerk's ears he could stand it no longer.
• 1:25:56
  He got up and walked to the doorway. Something had
• 1:25:58
  gone somewhere, either the ship or the world. He had known,
• 1:26:02
  because out there was a different world, and he knew
• 1:26:05
  damn well he had never seen it before. End of
• 1:26:09
  chapter six Chapter seven of twelve Times zero by Howard Brown.
• 1:26:22
  This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
• 1:26:25
  Ben Tucker. Chapter seven, Martin Kirk stepped out into a
• 1:26:30
  circle of lush vegetation, and in doing so he learned something.
• 1:26:35
  He learned that the human mind is a far more
• 1:26:37
  adaptable mechanism than most people imagine. That. They can pelt
• 1:26:41
  you with goofballs and you get sweat on your lip
• 1:26:44
  and have to talk to yourself to keep from sliding
• 1:26:46
  off your rocker. But after a while, when your mind
• 1:26:49
  seems half way over the edge, it straightens up suddenly
• 1:26:53
  and starts going along a defense mechanism against insanity. He
• 1:26:57
  didn't know. He only knew that when the tiger roared,
• 1:27:01
  he whirled around with his gun leveled, saw the six
• 1:27:03
  inch teeth got wholesomely insanely scared, and then everything was
• 1:27:07
  all right. He knew he was all right when he
• 1:27:10
  got the right reaction from the sight of the almost
• 1:27:12
  naked girl holding the tiger. For a long moment, it
• 1:27:16
  was a frozen action tableau, the huge orange and black beast,
• 1:27:20
  the wide eyed young brunette nudiced, and the tropical forest
• 1:27:24
  with a great, big fat sun overhead. The girl's voice
• 1:27:27
  nailed it all down. Don't be afraid, Rondo won't hurt you.
• 1:27:33
  Kerk's resentment flared warmly, and had resentment been a tangible thing,
• 1:27:36
  he would have kissed it. You're tootin righty, won't, sister.
• 1:27:40
  This isn't a toy. I'm holding. Rondeo is very gentle.
• 1:27:45
  Kerk eyed the girl. Why don't you put some clothes on?
• 1:27:49
  Her teeth were as bright and even as little white knives,
• 1:27:52
  but her smile took the edge off them. Only people
• 1:27:55
  in the city wear clothes. I wear them when I'm
• 1:27:58
  in the city, when I come out here, I you
• 1:28:01
  don't wear any clothes? Tell me where am I? Don't
• 1:28:05
  you know? Let's not play games. If I knew, I
• 1:28:08
  wouldn't ask you. Did you come on the ship? You
• 1:28:11
  saw me get out of it? Didn't you now answer
• 1:28:13
  my question? And he realized how certain he was of
• 1:28:17
  what her answer would be on my thoughts, well, fancy that?
• 1:28:22
  Now tell me something else? Do you know what language
• 1:28:25
  you're speaking? Of course? English? And why should you speak English?
• 1:28:29
  On my thoughts? Haven't you got a language of your own? Certainly?
• 1:28:33
  But you're obviously from Earth. I thought you were a watcher.
• 1:28:37
  I tried English. If you hadn't responded, I'd have spoken
• 1:28:40
  to you in other Earth languages? How many do you know?
• 1:28:45
  Eleven hundred and seventeen with various dialects four thousand and
• 1:28:50
  there aren't that many? She looked puzzled, then her face cleared, Oh,
• 1:28:54
  you mean Earth languages. I was referring to those of
• 1:28:57
  the five galaxies. Going to be surprised at anything, he
• 1:29:01
  told himself doggedly, not at anything. Do you know any
• 1:29:05
  one named Nia North? There was a childlike seriousness in
• 1:29:10
  her manner. It tended to deny the maturity of her body.
• 1:29:14
  Or was it the other way around Martin. Kirk wasn't sure,
• 1:29:18
  and grimly assured himself that he didn't give a damn.
• 1:29:21
  The girl said, I don't know anyone by that name,
• 1:29:23
  but I could find her for you. How would you
• 1:29:26
  go about it? I go to the city and check
• 1:29:28
  the video directory, naturally, naturally, and you'd put your clothes
• 1:29:32
  on before you went. Of course, I would we go
• 1:29:35
  without clothing. Only out here in the playground, Kirk realized
• 1:29:38
  he had been holding the gun rigidly in front of him.
• 1:29:41
  The tiger had dropped to the ground and lay outstretched
• 1:29:43
  like a lazy, good natured dog. Kirk lowered the gun,
• 1:29:47
  setting his eyes again on the girl. A minute ago,
• 1:29:50
  you thought I was a watcher? What did you mean?
• 1:29:54
  He would have framed his questions with more guile, but
• 1:29:56
  something told him it wasn't necessary. This child of nature
• 1:30:00
  was utterly without guile. She said, an earth watcher? What
• 1:30:04
  did you think? I meant? I didn't know, or I
• 1:30:06
  wouldn't have asked, it clarified, Dakin is watching. Sure, what
• 1:30:13
  the hell else would a watcher do but watch? But
• 1:30:17
  why and for what? Kirk was mystified. But it didn't matter,
• 1:30:21
  he asserted inwardly, and turned his mind back to the
• 1:30:23
  straight line, the copse line. Will you put on your
• 1:30:27
  clothes and go into the city and locate Niga North
• 1:30:29
  for me? If it will help you, it will. Where
• 1:30:34
  can I wait for you? If you want to see
• 1:30:37
  Niga North? Why don't you come with me? Kirk shrugged?
• 1:30:41
  Why not? So long as the score was completely unknown
• 1:30:44
  to him? Why not follow the path of least resistance?
• 1:30:48
  Get your clothes on, he said. The girl turned and
• 1:30:51
  started leading the tiger back toward a grove of trees.
• 1:30:54
  After a few steps, she turned back, a look of
• 1:30:56
  sober thought on her face. Are all earth so assertive?
• 1:31:01
  She asked. Kirk grinned, as long as it works, this
• 1:31:05
  one is baby. But what if it stops working? His
• 1:31:08
  reply was not audible, and the girl turned finally to
• 1:31:11
  disappear into the bushes. Kirk then experienced a strange feeling
• 1:31:15
  of unreality, which persisted until the girl returned. My name
• 1:31:20
  is Rama, the girl said solemnly. She wore tight fitting trousers,
• 1:31:24
  a loose blouse, and had a silver colored aircar with
• 1:31:26
  room in the back for the tiger. Kirk knew it
• 1:31:29
  was an aircar when the car lifted from the ground
• 1:31:32
  from no apparent means of acceleration, and skimmed along just
• 1:31:35
  above the trees. He sat beside Rama and asked about
• 1:31:39
  that ship I came here in How fast does it travel?
• 1:31:42
  And how far is it from my thoughts to Earth?
• 1:31:45
  The distance is around two hundred thousand light years, but
• 1:31:48
  the ship doesn't really travel at all. Maybe you could
• 1:31:53
  go into a little more detail, Kirk said, wearily. It's
• 1:31:58
  very simple distance. As you earn flings regard, it is
• 1:32:01
  not distance at all. Space bends to a greater or
• 1:32:04
  lesser degree, depending upon its immediate function in whatever time
• 1:32:08
  space equation you are using. Thank you very much, Kirk replied,
• 1:32:13
  and silently added, keep to the line, Hold to your
• 1:32:16
  own values on Earth, wherever it is, a man is
• 1:32:20
  waiting to go to the chair for a murder he
• 1:32:22
  didn't commit. Use whatever equation you want to that still
• 1:32:25
  adds up to the same. These people may be a
• 1:32:29
  lot smarter than you are, but they can't twist that
• 1:32:31
  one and make you believe it comes out any different.
• 1:32:35
  A strange city of graceful flying spirals was coming over
• 1:32:38
  the horizon. It moved closer, and the aircar arked into
• 1:32:41
  a halt on a huge cement landing area punctuated with
• 1:32:45
  small circles of a different material. Rama jumped from the cockpit,
• 1:32:49
  and Kirk followed to hear the soft thought of the
• 1:32:51
  cat's four paws landing beside him. The cat went over
• 1:32:55
  and sat down on one of the circles. Rama followed,
• 1:32:58
  stood beside the animal and called, don't you want to
• 1:33:01
  go down to street level? Of course, how stupid of
• 1:33:05
  me not to know how. The circle dropped silently beneath
• 1:33:09
  them in a bright metal tube, in which the door
• 1:33:12
  soon appeared to let them out into a broad street
• 1:33:14
  filled with casually moving pedestrians. Kirk noted that none of
• 1:33:19
  them seemed in any hurry. That here and there was
• 1:33:22
  an individual dressed like himself, Watchers on furlough or vacation,
• 1:33:26
  he thought a trifle bitterly. This picture was far from complete,
• 1:33:30
  but enough of it added up to furnish a name
• 1:33:32
  for them. Quizzling was a good one, perhaps traitor was better.
• 1:33:38
  All in all, he found one satisfaction. He could travel
• 1:33:41
  about as he pleased. A short walk brought them to
• 1:33:43
  a huge four or five story wall, the like of
• 1:33:46
  which Kirk had never seen. It was symmetrically covered with small,
• 1:33:50
  opaque glass windows, beside each of which was a dial,
• 1:33:53
  not unlike the ones on Earth telephones catwalks of some
• 1:33:57
  bright metal covered the wall. On these atwalk's, numerous people
• 1:34:01
  were busy with the strange business. Kirk could not follow.
• 1:34:04
  This is the video directory, Ramus said. She gave no
• 1:34:08
  further explanation, but while Rondo lazily rubbed noses with a
• 1:34:12
  bear cub sitting on its haunches waiting for its master,
• 1:34:15
  she spun the dial with practical efficiency. Now, if Nia
• 1:34:19
  North is in the city and wishes to see you,
• 1:34:21
  her image will appear in the mirror. As Kirk watched,
• 1:34:25
  and the bear slapped the grinning tiger with a playful paw,
• 1:34:28
  the opaque glass cleared and the tall, willowy figure of
• 1:34:31
  Nia North appeared in miniature. You may speak in here,
• 1:34:34
  Ramas said, solemnly, indicating a small screened opening beside the mirror.
• 1:34:39
  My she's pretty, isn't she. Nia North was entirely composed.
• 1:34:43
  She wore a pale blue gown, and from the background
• 1:34:46
  in the mirror, Kirk gathered that she was at home.
• 1:34:49
  Aren't you surprised? Kirk asked, Now, a slight frown increased,
• 1:34:53
  the lovely Nya's brow a little perhaps, How did you
• 1:34:56
  get to my thoughts? And why did you come? A
• 1:34:59
  slight matter? Murder? A murder you confess to? Or has
• 1:35:02
  it slipped your mind? Aren't you being rather absurd? That's
• 1:35:06
  all done with not as far as Paul Cordell is concerned,
• 1:35:09
  he's going to the chair. Only he isn't. We're going
• 1:35:12
  back and straighten a few things out. Genuine surprise was
• 1:35:16
  reflected now, and possibly a certain contempt my opinion of you, lessons.
• 1:35:21
  I hadn't rated you as a complete fool. How did
• 1:35:23
  you get here the same way you did? I suppose
• 1:35:26
  is there more than one way? Nia's frown deepened? Do
• 1:35:31
  you mean you were brought not intentionally? I stowed away
• 1:35:34
  on that funny round ship that doesn't go anywhere and
• 1:35:37
  travels far. The beautiful brow immediately cleared. Oh, I see,
• 1:35:43
  Nya observed with amusement. And you know exactly how you'll
• 1:35:47
  get me back to Earth? I suppose thousands of light years.
• 1:35:50
  It's a long walk. I'll take one thing at a
• 1:35:53
  time and worry about them in order of appearance. The
• 1:35:55
  main thing for you to remember is this. You may
• 1:35:58
  be as smart as all get out, But you broke
• 1:36:00
  an American law on American soil, by your own confession,
• 1:36:03
  and by God, you're going back in answer for it. Idiot,
• 1:36:08
  I can have you. Kirk's mood changed to quizzical. It's
• 1:36:12
  entirely beside the point, but still I don't get your baby.
• 1:36:15
  Why the switcheroo? You walked in and confessed, then you
• 1:36:17
  took a powder. Now you sneer in my teeth? What
• 1:36:20
  do you use for a rudder? Sweetheart? I followed orders.
• 1:36:24
  Nya flared with a mixture of anger and sullenness. I
• 1:36:27
  am now free of the assignment. Kirk pursed his lips thoughtfully.
• 1:36:31
  He wouldn't be sort of a hatchet woman for this
• 1:36:34
  high blown outfit, would you? I can think offhand of
• 1:36:37
  a few other names. Carney, Blats, Kennedy. What gives with
• 1:36:40
  knocking off nuclear physicist? Baby Naya did not answer. When
• 1:36:45
  she started to turn away from the mirror, Kirk glanced
• 1:36:47
  at the silent Rama standing with her hand on the
• 1:36:49
  tiger's head. Is there any way I can call on
• 1:36:52
  the lady in the mirror personally? Not if she doesn't
• 1:36:56
  want to receive you, Rama said, she was studying Kirk
• 1:36:59
  with whisper full dark eyes. Naya turned back quickly. I'll
• 1:37:04
  gladly receive you. It's time I taught you a lesson. Fine,
• 1:37:09
  what's your address? But Naya was gone. The little mirror
• 1:37:13
  turned opaque. Kerk shot a question and glance at Raymu.
• 1:37:17
  Does yes mean no one this cock eyed planet? Her
• 1:37:21
  car will come? Rayma murmured, But the petep dark beauty
• 1:37:25
  seemed interested in other things. You didn't tell me your name. Sorry,
• 1:37:30
  rude of me. It's Martin Kirk. He'd been pretty nice
• 1:37:33
  to me and wish there was some way I could
• 1:37:34
  show my appreciation. You're going to see Niya North. Yes,
• 1:37:40
  she's a murderess. I'm taking her back to my planet.
• 1:37:43
  I'm afraid that wouldn't be possible you too, honey. Kirk
• 1:37:47
  reached out and flicked one of the raven curls. If
• 1:37:50
  things were different, you and I might be able to
• 1:37:52
  have fun. I spend a lot of time where you
• 1:37:55
  found me. Maybe I doubt if I can make it,
• 1:38:00
  but keep your clothes on after this. As a personal
• 1:38:02
  favor to me, she was the very soul of solemnity.
• 1:38:07
  I don't understand you. I really don't understand you at all.
• 1:38:12
  At that moment, an aircar much smaller than Rama's dropped
• 1:38:16
  gently into the street beside Kirk. Good lord, this thing
• 1:38:19
  smell me out. It came to the mirror on Nica's
• 1:38:23
  private wavelength. Get in, it will take you to her.
• 1:38:26
  Kirk crawled into the car. The last thing he saw
• 1:38:29
  before it lifted into the air were Rama's dazzling black eyes.
• 1:38:32
  The last words he heard were goodbye, Martin Kirk, I
• 1:38:36
  will visualize you. The car swung up above the graceful
• 1:38:40
  spidery buttresses and moved across the city. Kirk filled in
• 1:38:44
  the time by trying to figure out what made the
• 1:38:46
  things go. He hadn't gotten to first base when the
• 1:38:49
  car lost altitude and came to rest on a balcony
• 1:38:52
  hung with seeming perilousness on a sheer white wall. Kirk
• 1:38:56
  stepped out. A large glass panel had been pushed back,
• 1:38:59
  and Nigha sta waiting in the opening. Nice of you
• 1:39:02
  to receive me, Kirk said, have you got your bags
• 1:39:05
  packed for a trip stateside? Please come this way. Nya
• 1:39:11
  turned and moved through the room. Just off the balcony.
• 1:39:14
  On the far side, another door gave exit She passed
• 1:39:17
  through it and turned as though waiting for Kirk. He
• 1:39:19
  took one step, two, three, four. Then something came from
• 1:39:23
  somewhere and almost tore his jaw off. He went out
• 1:39:27
  in an explosion of black light. End of chapter seven.
• 1:39:38
  Chapter eight of twelve Times zero by Howard Brown. The
• 1:39:42
  LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Ben Tucker.
• 1:39:47
  Chapter eight, Kirk came to with the feeling that his
• 1:39:51
  period of unconsciousness had been momentary. Nia was standing as
• 1:39:55
  she had stood before, just beyond the inner doorway. The
• 1:39:58
  mocking smile was still on her face. Did you trip?
• 1:40:03
  Kirk got groggily to his feet. No, Angel, That's the
• 1:40:07
  way I always cross room. As it came upright, his
• 1:40:10
  hand reached toward the bulge made by his shoulder holster,
• 1:40:13
  but it didn't get that far. He had not seen
• 1:40:16
  from whence the first blow came, But that was not
• 1:40:18
  true with the second. From a tiny opening in the
• 1:40:21
  door jam, a pinpoint of light appeared. It hung there
• 1:40:24
  for a moment, then it brightened, expanded, and shot forth
• 1:40:27
  as a slim beam. It contained a silvery radiance. In
• 1:40:30
  the kick of a Missouri mule, It slammed against Kirk's jaw,
• 1:40:33
  but not quite so hard this time, only hard enough
• 1:40:36
  to send him down again amidst a cloud of shooting stars.
• 1:40:40
  He shook his head and got to his hands and knees.
• 1:40:44
  I was a a trained flashlight. He began coming up
• 1:40:49
  as soon as he didn't need his right hand for rising,
• 1:40:52
  He reached for his gun. The light beam seemed to
• 1:40:54
  resent this. It hit him in the solar plexus, this
• 1:40:57
  time a sickening blow that fed nausea down through his legs.
• 1:41:00
  He tightened his stomach against the agony and began getting
• 1:41:03
  up again. You see how useless it is, Naya asked
• 1:41:08
  beside us. You earthlings are children. Will you stop being foolish?
• 1:41:11
  Or must I kill you? Kirk squinted craftily at the
• 1:41:15
  pinpoint of light with one closed eye. Clever, little devil,
• 1:41:19
  What the hell? Nude innocence? Tigers on leashes like beams
• 1:41:24
  that knock your teeth out? Paul Cordell with a shaved
• 1:41:27
  spot on his head. You got your bag packed for
• 1:41:31
  a little trip, baby. For a brief moment, genuine fear
• 1:41:34
  flamed in Naya's eyes and in Kirk's mind. Dumb babe,
• 1:41:39
  what she got to be? Scared of they hit you
• 1:41:41
  with nothing and make it stick. Kirk croaked. Grab your bag, baby,
• 1:41:46
  we'll go find that flying biscuit. We got a date
• 1:41:49
  with Arthur Caller Troy. He was really cagy this time.
• 1:41:53
  When the light beam shot out, he hurled himself to
• 1:41:55
  the side, but he could have saved the effort. A
• 1:41:58
  beam came from the other door and he stepped right
• 1:42:00
  into it. That one really tore his head off. Somebody
• 1:42:04
  was talking. It was a man, and he had a deep,
• 1:42:07
  resonant voice, a voice full of authority and censure. I'm
• 1:42:11
  surprised at you, Naya. I never suspected you of having
• 1:42:14
  a sadistic streak. Nia's sullen reply. Do you think anyone
• 1:42:19
  can do the work I do and remain unmarked? I
• 1:42:22
  suppose not, But as I remember it, you asked to
• 1:42:26
  serve as a benefit to humanity. We won't go into it.
• 1:42:31
  But Nia pressed the point. I have always followed orders.
• 1:42:36
  I placed myself in possible jeopardy on Earth by clearing
• 1:42:39
  Paul Cordell. But Paul Cordell was not cleared, not through
• 1:42:44
  any fault of mine. But why this what end does
• 1:42:48
  torturing this poor unfortunate serve. Martin Kirk cautiously opened one eye.
• 1:42:54
  It brought to his brain the image of a large
• 1:42:55
  blue globe. A man of fine and commanding appearance stood
• 1:42:59
  within the globe, suspended about a foot from the floor.
• 1:43:02
  The globe and the man gave every indication of having
• 1:43:05
  just come through the opaque glass wall of the room,
• 1:43:08
  And as Kerk watched, the man was lowered slowly to
• 1:43:11
  the floor, and the globe became a blue mist that
• 1:43:13
  spiraled lazily and was gone. Kerk opened both eyes, now stirred,
• 1:43:18
  and climbed dizzily to his feet. You bump into the
• 1:43:21
  damnedest things around here, he said, But let's get down
• 1:43:25
  to the important business. My name is Martin Kirk. I'm
• 1:43:28
  an American police officer. One of your subjects committed a
• 1:43:32
  murder on American soil. I hope you aren't going to
• 1:43:34
  be difficult about extradition. The other could not hide his surprise,
• 1:43:39
  nor did he try to. Amazing, he murmured. Then I
• 1:43:44
  am Tamboo, the overlord of the galaxy. I wonder if
• 1:43:48
  Nya's cruelty hasn't affected your mind. If you mean I'm nuts,
• 1:43:52
  I think maybe you're right, but it wasn't little playful here?
• 1:43:56
  Who did it? I've gone through a lot, and I
• 1:43:58
  don't speak with any sense of bragging. I've seen more
• 1:44:00
  funny things happen than any one man should see in
• 1:44:03
  so short a time. So maybe I am off my rocker.
• 1:44:07
  So I like your permission to take my prisoner back
• 1:44:09
  to Earth so I can give all my time to
• 1:44:12
  regaining my sanity. Tommy regarded Kirk with thoughtful eyes. I
• 1:44:17
  think we should have a talk. I would like a talk.
• 1:44:21
  I would like nothing better than to chew the fat
• 1:44:24
  with you for hours on end if my jaw didn't
• 1:44:26
  hurt so damn much. So I'll just take my prisoner
• 1:44:29
  and go. Do I have to sign a paper or something?
• 1:44:33
  The overlord's surprise was fast becoming a kind of fascinated. Awe, Kirk,
• 1:44:37
  you said, He pointed to the door leading to the
• 1:44:40
  inner room. Please go in, sir, there's no use of
• 1:44:43
  our standing out here while we discuss your problem. The
• 1:44:48
  lieutenant eyed the door frame warily. I tried getting through
• 1:44:51
  there before, but the light got in my eyes. You
• 1:44:54
  can trust me. The police officer stepped cautiously through the
• 1:44:58
  opening and on in to a luxuriously furnished room. Tomu,
• 1:45:03
  dressed much the same as one of Earth's better bankers,
• 1:45:05
  followed him in and suggested he sit down. Why, Kirk
• 1:45:09
  demanded bluntly, let's stop kitten and micing around, mister Tomu.
• 1:45:14
  I'm not comfortable here, and I want to leave with her.
• 1:45:18
  He tilted his head toward the watching, sullen faced Nia North,
• 1:45:22
  and now Tamu said, believe me, it will be as
• 1:45:27
  easy for you to return to Earth an hour from now.
• 1:45:30
  You seem weary to the point of exhaustion. I ask
• 1:45:34
  you again, sit down and get back some of your strength.
• 1:45:37
  Naya will find you something to eat. Kirk's stubborn determination
• 1:45:41
  to force an immediate showdown wavered. It had been born
• 1:45:44
  largely afeared to begin with, and the thought of relief
• 1:45:47
  for his burning throat was impossible to resist. I could
• 1:45:51
  use a drink, he admitted. Tomu gestured, and Nya North
• 1:45:55
  turned to leave the room, but Kirk leaped forward to
• 1:45:58
  block her off. Nothing doing, and I don't take my
• 1:46:00
  eyes off you, baby, I'll just pass up that drink.
• 1:46:04
  The girl glanced at the overlord and shrugged helplessly. Tomu said,
• 1:46:09
  have a girl bring in something while we're waiting. I
• 1:46:11
  suggest all three of us get comfortable. While Nia was
• 1:46:15
  speaking into a tiny screen set into one of the
• 1:46:17
  silk covered walls, Tomu and the man from Earth sat
• 1:46:21
  down across from each other on a pair of fragile
• 1:46:23
  legged chairs. The Overlord leaned back and sighed, you've asked
• 1:46:28
  my leave to return to Earth and to take Nya
• 1:46:31
  back with you to stand trial for murder. Have you
• 1:46:34
  considered that I may refuse that permission? I don't think
• 1:46:39
  I have to consider it, Kirk said, promptly, you don't.
• 1:46:43
  Tomu was mystified again. Why not? May you tell me
• 1:46:47
  you're the overlord? I take that to me and you're
• 1:46:50
  in charge. That means you have laws to govern your people,
• 1:46:53
  and that means you believe in laws. One of your
• 1:46:56
  subjects has broken the law off my country. You can't
• 1:46:59
  refuse till let her take the consequences any more than
• 1:47:02
  if the situation was reversed. Tomu was shaking his head
• 1:47:06
  and smiling slightly. I'm afraid you're not taking into consideration
• 1:47:10
  one fact, mister Kirk, Nigh and North broke your law,
• 1:47:14
  as you call it, on express and definite instructions from me.
• 1:47:19
  Martin Kirk made a show of astonishment. Let me get
• 1:47:23
  this straight, you ordered Professor Gilmour, and Juanita Cordell murdered.
• 1:47:28
  Is that what you're telling me? Yes? Why exactly the
• 1:47:33
  reason I suggested we have a talk to make you
• 1:47:37
  see why they and others in the same classification could
• 1:47:41
  not be allowed to live. Men like Carney Kennedy blats
• 1:47:47
  tom ou blinked. My respect for you increases, Martin Kirk.
• 1:47:52
  Don't let it throw you. I'm a police officer, and
• 1:47:54
  police officers are trained to do the job right. The
• 1:47:58
  overlord crossed his legs and settled deeper in to the chair.
• 1:48:01
  Mythox needs men like you, Martin Kirk. That is why
• 1:48:04
  I am going to give you a chance for life.
• 1:48:06
  For this, you must understand. If I wanted it, you
• 1:48:09
  would be dead within seconds. A chill slid along the
• 1:48:13
  stubborn back of the lieutenant, but nothing showed in his
• 1:48:15
  impassive expression, and he did not speak. But because we
• 1:48:20
  do need you, I am going to tell you things
• 1:48:22
  no earth man knows. I believe that once you understand
• 1:48:26
  why my Thos has undertaken to meddle in the affairs
• 1:48:29
  of another world, And I tell you frankly that our
• 1:48:32
  doing so is as abhorrent to us as anything you
• 1:48:35
  can imagine. Once you understand our reasons, you will cheerfully,
• 1:48:38
  even eagerly join us. And if I don't you know
• 1:48:44
  the answer to that, I'm sure. A slim, fair haired
• 1:48:48
  girl in a pale green togalike dress entered the room
• 1:48:51
  carrying a tray holding tall glasses of some sparkling blue beverage.
• 1:48:55
  She offered it first to Kerk, then the others. The
• 1:48:57
  lieutenant removed one of the glasses, waited until Tomu and
• 1:49:01
  Naya had done the same, But not until they had
• 1:49:03
  drunk some of the liquid did he tilt his own glass.
• 1:49:06
  The cold taking liquid hit him like a bombshell. A bombshell.
• 1:49:09
  On the pleasant side, he could almost literally feel his
• 1:49:13
  strength flowing back, his senses sharpened, and the poisons of
• 1:49:17
  fatigue and mental strain disappear. I'm listening, he said. Tamu
• 1:49:23
  set his glass on the edge of a nearby table
• 1:49:25
  and bent forward his manner earnest. It won't take long,
• 1:49:29
  Martin Kirk, hear me. We of my thoughts so far
• 1:49:32
  in advance of the peoples of Earth, both spiritually and scientifically.
• 1:49:38
  Life on our planet materialized in much the same manner
• 1:49:40
  as on your own world. But countless ages before, almost
• 1:49:44
  the same process of evolution took place. But somewhere along
• 1:49:48
  the line, humanity on Mythos managed to reach full development
• 1:49:52
  without the flaws of character found among so many of
• 1:49:55
  Earth's inhabitants. When I tell you that we find it
• 1:49:58
  almost impossible to voisen untruth, that taking a human life
• 1:50:02
  wilfully for any reason is equally difficult, the crime of
• 1:50:06
  any nature is almost unknown here, then you will see
• 1:50:10
  the difference between the two planets. For ages. Our scientists
• 1:50:14
  have observed the events taking place on Earth. By perfecting
• 1:50:19
  a method for changing matter from taren to contra turen,
• 1:50:22
  we have managed to bridge the million light years of
• 1:50:25
  space separating our worlds. As we saw fit thousands of
• 1:50:29
  years ago, we could have gained control of your ball
• 1:50:31
  of clay and turned mankind into any pattern we might choose.
• 1:50:36
  That is not our way, Martin Kirk. Free will is
• 1:50:39
  our heritage too, and we respect it in ourselves, and
• 1:50:43
  for that reason must respect it in others. So long
• 1:50:47
  as Earth's peoples confined their most destructive tendencies to themselves,
• 1:50:51
  we kept our hands off even while we failed to
• 1:50:54
  understand such senseless conduct. And then one day we witnessed
• 1:50:59
  an explosion on Earth's surface, an explosion different from any
• 1:51:03
  of the countless ones before it. That explosion was the
• 1:51:06
  first man made release of atomic energy, a process we
• 1:51:09
  had known how to bring about for ages, but one
• 1:51:12
  we would never use, for we have learned the secret
• 1:51:15
  of limitless power without the transformation of mass into energy.
• 1:51:20
  Your way is the way of destruction, Martin Kirk, Ours
• 1:51:24
  is exactly the opposite. For the first time, the leaders
• 1:51:27
  of Mythox knew the meaning of fear. Fear that once
• 1:51:31
  Earth's scientists had found the secret of nuclear fission, they
• 1:51:34
  would go on to the one extreme forbidden throughout the
• 1:51:37
  universe itself. And so we acted not in the way
• 1:51:41
  your people would have acted were the situations reversed, For
• 1:51:44
  we were still determined that there would be no intervention
• 1:51:46
  on our part in Earth's affairs, and that is still
• 1:51:49
  our way, just as it must always be. But there
• 1:51:52
  must be one exception to this rule. No one on
• 1:51:56
  Earth must be allowed to blunder into the extreme. I
• 1:51:59
  mentioned a moment ago Tamu, overlord of Mythox, paused to
• 1:52:04
  drink from his glass and to cast a speculative glance
• 1:52:07
  at the stolid face of Martin Kirk. He might as
• 1:52:10
  well have studied the contours of a brick wall. The
• 1:52:13
  road to that blunder had been opened the day your
• 1:52:15
  learned men first split the atom. If they persisted down
• 1:52:19
  that path, it was bound to follow that they would
• 1:52:22
  attempt the thing we feared, the splitting of hydrogen atoms,
• 1:52:26
  the hydrogen bomb, as you call it. We know what
• 1:52:29
  that would mean, a chain reaction that would wipe out
• 1:52:32
  an entire galaxy in one blinding flash. Our galaxy, Martin Kirk,
• 1:52:38
  yours and mine. Do you have any thought at all
• 1:52:41
  on what that means? The question was rhetorical Even before
• 1:52:45
  Kerk could shake his head. The Overlord pressed on Mythos
• 1:52:50
  and Earth are two grains of dust on opposite sides
• 1:52:52
  of a galaxy, a spiral formation of stars and planets.
• 1:52:56
  Two hundred thousand light ears wide and twenty thousand thick
• 1:53:00
  between us. Lie countless other worlds, a vast number of
• 1:53:03
  them supporting life, not always or even often, life as
• 1:53:07
  we know it, but life none the less. There is
• 1:53:09
  not one of those worlds, Martin Kirk. We do not
• 1:53:11
  know as thoroughly as we do our own. Fortunately, for
• 1:53:15
  our purpose, only a relative few have progressed along a
• 1:53:18
  line which can lead to danger for the rest Yours
• 1:53:21
  is one of those which has, and that is why
• 1:53:24
  we of Mythox have taken a well masked place in
• 1:53:27
  your affairs. So far as they relate to nuclear physics.
• 1:53:32
  Every scientist of your world, male or female, is constantly
• 1:53:36
  under the eye of a watcher. These watchers are members
• 1:53:39
  of your own races, people who have enlisted in the
• 1:53:42
  fight to save not just their world or mine, but
• 1:53:45
  millions of worlds. When a watcher learns a physicist is
• 1:53:49
  close to the one key to success in his effort
• 1:53:51
  to make a hydrogen bomb, an equation begins twelve times
• 1:53:56
  zero point seven nine. We are notified, and a killer
• 1:54:00
  from our own people is sent to execute that scientist. Yes,
• 1:54:05
  Martin Kirk, we have those among us, a very few,
• 1:54:08
  who are capable of killing on orders and for cause.
• 1:54:12
  Nya here is one of them. She was sent to
• 1:54:14
  take the lives of Gregory Gilmore and Juanita Cordel, but
• 1:54:17
  she bungled, and instead of their deaths resembling heart failure,
• 1:54:20
  they were obviously murdered Almah Dakin tried to cover up
• 1:54:24
  the truth by making it appear both scientists had died
• 1:54:27
  at the hands of a jealous husband. She succeeded both
• 1:54:30
  because of her perjured testimony in the fact that Paul
• 1:54:33
  Cordell insisted on telling the truth. But when we of
• 1:54:36
  Mythox learned what had happened, Nya was sent back to
• 1:54:39
  confess the crime. She entered the laboratory only a few
• 1:54:42
  hours before she came to your office. While she was
• 1:54:44
  in the laboratory the second time, the clues you found
• 1:54:47
  were put there. Our mistake was in thinking that once
• 1:54:51
  proof was offered clearing Cordel, the innocent man would be freed.
• 1:54:55
  For once more, we credited earthlings with the same code
• 1:54:58
  of ethics we have Mythots adhere to. You've succeeded in
• 1:55:01
  following Naya here. Only a man composed of equal parts
• 1:55:04
  of Earth, bulldog and genius could have done so. Martin Kirk,
• 1:55:08
  I offer you a place among us and a life
• 1:55:10
  devoted to making sure the galaxy of which we both
• 1:55:12
  are a part, does not perish. What say you? Several minutes,
• 1:55:17
  tracked by the eyes of both Tamu and Naya North
• 1:55:20
  were glued to the grim visage of homicide Lieutenant Kirk.
• 1:55:24
  It was impossible for either of them to know what
• 1:55:26
  thoughts were turning behind that stone face. Abruptly, he stood up.
• 1:55:31
  I'm a cop. I leave your kind of problem to
• 1:55:34
  the people who are good at it. My people, Tamu.
• 1:55:37
  You see, I belong to my world, not yours. But
• 1:55:40
  you've got a solid argument one i'd be a fool
• 1:55:43
  not to consider. Let me sleep on it. Tomorrow morning,
• 1:55:46
  we'll talk about it some more than I'll give you
• 1:55:48
  my answer right now. I'm too worn out to think
• 1:55:50
  in a straight line, of course. The Overlord rose to
• 1:55:54
  his feet. Find Martin Kirk comfortable quarters, Naya, and leave orders.
• 1:55:59
  He is to be disturbed until he is ready to
• 1:56:01
  join us. On his way down a corridor behind the
• 1:56:04
  same slip of a girl who had brought him his drink,
• 1:56:07
  Martin Kirk was thinking they didn't even frisk me for
• 1:56:10
  a gun. Martin Kirk went into his apartment and lay
• 1:56:14
  for a while, looking at the ceiling. After a time,
• 1:56:17
  he got up and went out again. End of chapter eight.
• 1:56:26
  Chapter nine of Twelve Times Zero by Howard Brown. The
• 1:56:31
  slibrivox recordings in the public domain read by Ben Tucker,
• 1:56:36
  chapter nine. The soft silvery radiance which this planet seemed
• 1:56:41
  to feature, bathed the metal hallway as Kirk marched stolidly
• 1:56:45
  toward the slim, arching stairway that led toward Naya's floor.
• 1:56:50
  This was certainly a strange building, he thought. The architects
• 1:56:53
  of mythox knew how to use curves. They utilized them
• 1:56:57
  for utility and beauty, to a point where a straight
• 1:56:59
  line was something to be surprised at. Pretty smart people,
• 1:57:02
  the Mythoxians, in more ways than one, and Kirk, for
• 1:57:06
  no apparent reason, thought of a phrase common among children
• 1:57:09
  during his own childhood, who died and left you boss?
• 1:57:13
  He counted the markings over one door. He had seen
• 1:57:16
  those markings before Nia and North lived here, and Nya
• 1:57:20
  North was in. Kirk walked softly across the large foyer
• 1:57:24
  room and quietly pushed open a door to the left. Nya,
• 1:57:27
  clad as always in beauty, lay sleeping on a bed
• 1:57:30
  that stood out from the wall and two narrow rods
• 1:57:32
  of metal and needed no other support. As Kirk opened
• 1:57:36
  his mouth, Naya awakened, so she was looking calmly at
• 1:57:39
  him as he spoke up, Baby, you've got a date
• 1:57:42
  with a hot electrode a lot of light years from here.
• 1:57:44
  It's a hike, so Horiz and shine. Nia sat up,
• 1:57:48
  very slowly, very gracefully. She was what men dream of
• 1:57:52
  finding in bed, beside them, what they marry to keep
• 1:57:55
  in bed beside them. You must be mad, hatter, baby
• 1:58:00
  into your duds. He saw a glance at the doorjamb
• 1:58:04
  of the bedroom entrance, saw the shadow of disappointment in
• 1:58:07
  her lovely eyes. You didn't put those Joe Louis light
• 1:58:11
  rays in your bedroom, did you. Nya set her feet
• 1:58:14
  on the floor and drew herself to full height. She
• 1:58:16
  wore light blue, a gown that hung his hat, that
• 1:58:19
  of Guinevere as that of the mate of Shallot. But
• 1:58:22
  Nia was contempt. She was contempt clothed in cold blue,
• 1:58:26
  then contempt naked, as she allowed the gown to fall
• 1:58:29
  to the floor. A few minutes later, she was contempt
• 1:58:31
  clothed for the street in tight breeches and a loose blouse.
• 1:58:36
  You go first, Kirk said, and do as you're told.
• 1:58:39
  You may be in my foxy and but this forty
• 1:58:41
  five doesn't know that it puts big holes in anybody.
• 1:58:45
  As Nia walked serenely toward the hall door. There was
• 1:58:47
  only a touch of sullenness at the corners of her mouth.
• 1:58:51
  She turned her head to speak over her shoulder, hiding
• 1:58:55
  behind a woman, brave earth man, Yes, and no, I'm
• 1:58:59
  hiding behind a woman from those damned straight left rays.
• 1:59:02
  I'm not a brave earth man. I spent most of
• 1:59:04
  my time scared to death. That's why all of us
• 1:59:07
  are getting back to as quick so I can draw
• 1:59:09
  an easy breath, all of us. Oh yes, didn't I
• 1:59:14
  tell you? You're taking me to the places I can
• 1:59:16
  find Almah, Dakin and Oran. We're gonna have witnesses and testimony,
• 1:59:20
  and the party who gets burned isn't going to be
• 1:59:22
  Paul Cordell. I won't hold it, honey. Kirk had picked
• 1:59:26
  up two items upon leaving Nia's apartment, a pair of
• 1:59:29
  filmy silk stockings and a white scarf. He jerked Nya's
• 1:59:33
  hands behind her back and somewhat of a surprise move.
• 1:59:35
  Before she recovered her wrists were tightly bound. She gasped, you, madman,
• 1:59:42
  just before he definitely pulled the scarf across her mouth
• 1:59:44
  and twisted it into an effective gag. He stepped back
• 1:59:48
  to admire his handiwork now, we're already or in an Almah.
• 1:59:53
  Nia shook her head in a slow negative. Kirk pushed
• 1:59:56
  her gently into the hall and rounded to face her. Yes, baby,
• 2:00:00
  he said, YE ought to know. Now, I won't be stopped.
• 2:00:03
  I need Orn to fly that space buggy. If I
• 2:00:06
  don't get him, we can't go. Then there'd be nothing
• 2:00:09
  left for me to do, but even the score for
• 2:00:11
  Paul Cordell. He'll have to go, but you'll keep him company.
• 2:00:15
  Nia stood like a statue, apparently considering. Then she moved
• 2:00:19
  slowly down the corridor in the opposite direction from which
• 2:00:21
  Kerk had come, down three curving flights, and stopping finally
• 2:00:25
  in front of a door identical to her own. Kerk
• 2:00:28
  stepped forward and leaned firmly on the knob. The door opened.
• 2:00:31
  He knew where the bedroom was in these apartments. Now.
• 2:00:34
  He pushed Naya ahead of him into the bedroom and
• 2:00:36
  saw Almah lying with her eyes closed. Kerk whirled just
• 2:00:40
  in time to level his gun and bring or in
• 2:00:41
  to a dead stop over by the bed. High born
• 2:00:45
  as Orin complied, Kerk leered at Naya. I was clever,
• 2:00:50
  but I had it doped I spotted them for husband
• 2:00:52
  and wife, or the my thought's equivalent, quite some time back,
• 2:00:56
  A good chance shot to hell. What do you want here? Orin,
• 2:01:00
  demanded a chauffeur. We're heading earthward on the first ship,
• 2:01:05
  that's the one out in the jungle. But you talk
• 2:01:08
  to Tamu. I thought I'd been suckered. No, no, my
• 2:01:12
  friend on the forest. They called me the boy with
• 2:01:14
  the one track mind. I can see what they meant.
• 2:01:19
  Or inside, I thought you would tell your wife to
• 2:01:23
  get dressed. We're getting an air sled. You might have
• 2:01:27
  the decency to I won't turn back. You can stand
• 2:01:30
  between us. That's the best I can do. Almah dressed
• 2:01:34
  swiftly in a costume similar to Naya's. When they were
• 2:01:36
  ready to leave, Kirk said, now let's get it straight
• 2:01:39
  once and for all. I'll stand for no fast moves.
• 2:01:42
  It's earth or some quick slugs. Do you follow me?
• 2:01:47
  They did not speak, but they evidently believed Kirk, because
• 2:01:50
  fifteen minutes later, the party of four stood beside the
• 2:01:52
  ugly ship while thick trees and grasses whispered around them.
• 2:01:56
  Inside in the corridor, or In stopped and turned, as
• 2:02:00
  though having thought of a convincing argument he was bent
• 2:02:03
  upon trying. Kirk poked him sharply in the ribs with
• 2:02:06
  the barrel of the forty five, and he moved on
• 2:02:08
  after the women, toward the latter, and thence to the
• 2:02:10
  motor room. Once inside, or In turned and spoke sharply.
• 2:02:15
  Won't you reconsider push the levers jack the right ones? Tim,
• 2:02:20
  who is a reasonable man. We could talk to him again.
• 2:02:23
  He would make even a more generous offer. I'm waiting.
• 2:02:28
  Certainly you did not refute the logic of his argument.
• 2:02:31
  We are in the right. Our case is just. The
• 2:02:34
  galaxies must be protected from the right levers jack, from
• 2:02:39
  those who, through ignorant, stupidity or ferocity, would destroy it.
• 2:02:44
  One more minute of this and there'll be dead people
• 2:02:46
  aboard the ship. You're helpless, really, you can't fly this
• 2:02:51
  ship without me. Therefore, my life is safe. I merely
• 2:02:53
  refuse to launch it. Would you like a dead wife
• 2:02:58
  or en whitened perceptibly? She may be a wife to you,
• 2:03:02
  but to me, she's just a doll who helped lie
• 2:03:04
  a man into the chair. You wouldn't do it. You
• 2:03:08
  haven't got the nerve to shoot down a man or
• 2:03:10
  a woman in cold blood. Kirk looked steadily into Oran's eyes.
• 2:03:15
  You don't believe that, do you, bud. Oran held the
• 2:03:18
  gaze for a long time, then he dropped his eyes. No,
• 2:03:23
  I don't believe it. Then get to work. One last offer,
• 2:03:28
  won't you reconsider join us? No very well, and Oran,
• 2:03:36
  a fixed, taut look on his face, reached forth his
• 2:03:38
  hand and touched a button on the panel board. It
• 2:03:41
  was a very special button, a button for use only
• 2:03:44
  when all hope was gone. The exploding spacetime ship lighted
• 2:03:48
  the countryside to blinding brilliance. Ap January twenty first, shortly
• 2:03:55
  after midnight to day, Paul Cordell, convicted killer in the
• 2:03:58
  famous Woman from Mars Cake, was put to death in
• 2:04:01
  the electric chair at the State Penitentiary. End of chapter nine.
• 2:04:08
  End of twelve Times zero by Howard Brown