EMPIRE by Clifford D. Simak Read Free Book Online Page A

to us.”
    “You told him to go back and see if he couldn’t find something else, didn’t you?” asked Grant.
    “Yes, I did,” Chambers told him. “But apparently he couldn’t find it.”
    “I tried,” pleaded Wilson. Perspiration stood out on his forehead. The cigarette in his mouth was limp and dead. “One of them was always there. I never could get hold of any papers. I asked questions, but they were too busy to answer. And I couldn’t ask too much, because then they would have suspected me.”
    “No, you couldn’t do that,” commented Craven with an open sneer.
    * * * *
    In the laboratory Russ pounded the arm of his chair with a clenched fist. “The rat sold us out!”
    Greg said nothing, but his face was stony and his eyes were crystal-hard.
    On the screen Chambers was speaking to Wilson. “Do you think you could find something out if you went back again?”
    Wilson squirmed in his chair.
    “I’d rather not.” His voice sounded like a whimper. “I’m afraid they suspect me now. I’m afraid of what they’d do if they found out.”
    “That’s his conscience,” breathed Russ in the laboratory. “I never suspected him.”
    “He’s right about one thing, though,” Greg said. “He’d better not come back.”
    Chambers was talking again: “You realize, of course, that you haven’t been much help to us. You have only warned us that another kind of power generation is being developed. You’ve set us on our guard, but other than that we’re no better off than we were before.”
    Wilson bristled, like a cowardly animal backed into a corner. “I told you what was going on. You can be ready for it now. I can’t help it if I couldn’t find out how all them things worked.”
    “Look here,” said Chambers. “I made a bargain with you and I keep my bargains. I told you I would pay you twenty thousand dollars for the information you gave me when you first came to see me. I told you I’d pay you for any further additional information you might give. Also I promised you a job with the company.”
    Watching the financier, Wilson licked his lips. “That’s right,” he said.
    Chambers reached out and pulled a checkbook toward him, lifted a pen from its holder. “I’m paying you the twenty thousand for the warning. I’m not paying you a dime more, because you gave me no other information.”
    Wilson leaped to his feet, started to protest.
    “Sit down,” said Chambers coldly.
    “But the job! You said you’d give me a job!”
    Chambers shook his head. “I wouldn’t have a man like you in my organization. If you were a traitor to one man, you would be to another.”
    “But . . . but . . .” Wilson started to object and then sat down, his face twisted in something that came very close to fear.
    Chambers ripped the check out of the book, waved it slowly in the air to dry it. Then he arose and held it out to Wilson, who reached out a trembling hand and took it.
    “And now,” said Chambers, “good day, Mr. Wilson.”
    For a moment Wilson stood uncertain, as if he intended to speak, but finally he turned, without a word, and walked through the door.
    * * * *
    In the laboratory Russ and Greg looked at one another.
    “Twenty thousand,” said Greg. “Why, that was worth millions.”
    “It was worth everything Chambers had,” said Russ, “because it’s the thing that’s going to wreck him.”
    Their attention snapped back to the screen.
    Chambers was hunched over his desk, addressing the other two.
    “Now, gentlemen,” he asked, “what are we to do?”
    Craven shrugged his shoulders. There was a puzzled frown in the eyes back of the thick-lensed glasses. “We haven’t much to go on. Wilson doesn’t know a thing about it. He hasn’t the brain to grasp even the most fundamental ideas back of the whole thing.”
    Chambers nodded. “The man knew the mechanical setup perfectly, but that was all.”
    “I’ve constructed the apparatus,” said Craven. “It’s astoundingly