Produced by Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, LN Yaddanapudi andthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttps://www.pgdp.net
WHAT THE LEFT HAND ... WAS DOING
By DARRELL T. LANGART
Illustrated by Freas
_There is no lie so totally convincing as something the other fellow already knows-for-sure is the truth. And no cover-story so convincing...._
The building itself was unprepossessive enough. It was an old-fashioned,six-floor, brick structure that had, over the years, served first as aprivate home, then as an apartment building, and finally as theheadquarters for the organization it presently housed.
It stood among others of its kind in a lower-middle-class district ofArlington, Virginia, within howitzer range of the capitol of the UnitedStates, and even closer to the Pentagon. The main door was five steps upfrom the sidewalk, and the steps were flanked by curving balustrades ofornamental ironwork. The entrance itself was closed by a double doorwith glass panes, beyond which could be seen a small foyer. On bothdoors, an identical message was blocked out in neat gold letters: _TheSociety For Mystical and Metaphysical Research, Inc._
It is possible that no more nearly perfect cover, no more misleadingfront for a secret organization ever existed in the history of man. Itpossessed two qualities which most other cover-up titles do not have.One, it was so obviously crackpot that no one paid any attention to itexcept crackpots, and, two, it was perfectly, literally true.
Spencer Candron had seen the building so often that the functionalbeauty of the whole setup no longer impressed him as it had severalyears before. Just as a professional actor is not impressed by beingallowed backstage, or as a multimillionaire considers expensive luxuriesas commonplace, so Spencer Candron thought of nothing more than his ownpersonal work as he climbed the five steps and pushed open theglass-paned doors.
Perhaps, too, his matter-of-fact attitude was caused partially by theanalogical resemblance between himself and the organization. Physically,Candron, too, was unprepossessing. He was a shade less than five eight,and his weight fluctuated between a hundred and forty and a hundred andforty-five, depending on the season and his state of mind. His faceconsisted of a well-formed snub nose, a pair of introspective gray eyes,a rather wide, thin-lipped mouth that tended to smile even when relaxed,a high, smooth forehead, and a firm cleft chin, plus the rest of thenormal equipment that normally goes to make up a face. The skin wasslightly tanned, but it was the tan of a man who goes to the beach onsummer weekends, not that of an outdoorsman. His hands were strong andwide and rather large; the palms were uncalloused and the fingernailswere clean and neatly trimmed. His hair was straight and light brown,with a pronounced widow's peak, and he wore it combed back and ratherlong to conceal the fact that a thin spot had appeared on the top rearof his scalp. His clothing was conservative and a little out of style,having been bought in 1981, and thus three years past being up-to-date.
Physically, then, Spencer Candron, was a fine analog of the Society. Helooked unimportant. On the outside, he was just another average manwhom no one would bother to look twice at.
The analogy between himself and the S.M.M.R. was completed by the factthat his interior resources were vastly greater than anything thatshowed on the outside.
The doors swung shut behind him, and he walked into the foyer, thenturned left into the receptionist's office. The woman behind the desksmiled her eager smile and said, "Good morning, Mr. Candron!"
Candron smiled back. He liked the woman, in spite of her semifanaticovereagerness, which made her every declarative sentence seem to endwith an exclamation point.
"Morning, Mrs. Jesser," he said, pausing at the desk for a moment. "Howhave things been?"
Mrs. Jesser was a stout matron in her early forties who would have beenperfectly happy to work for the Society for nothing, as a hobby. Thatshe was paid a reasonable salary made her job almost heaven for her.
"Oh, just _fine_, Mr. Candron!" she said. "Just _fine_!" Then her voicelowered, and her face took on a serious, half conspiratorial expression."Do you know what?"
"No," said Candron, imitating her manner. "What?"
"We have a gentleman ... he came in yesterday ... a _very_ nice man ...and very intelligent, too. And, you know what?"
Candron shook his head. "No," he repeated. "What?"
Mrs. Jesser's face took on the self-pleased look of one who hasimportant inside knowledge to impart. "He has actual photographs ...three-D, full-color _pho_tographs ... of the con_trol_ room of a flyingsaucer! And one of the Saucerites, too!"
"Really?" Candron's expression was that of a man who was both impressedand interested. "What did Mr. Balfour say?"
"Well--" Mrs. Jesser looked rather miffed. "I don't really _know_! Butthe gentleman is supposed to be back to_mor_row! With some _more_pictures!"
"Well," said Candron. "Well. That's really fine. I hope he hassomething. Is Mr. Taggert in?"
"Oh, yes, Mr. Candron! He said you should go on up!" She waved a plumphand toward the stairway. It made Mrs. Jesser happy to think that shewas the sole controller of the only way, except for the fire escape,that anyone could get to the upper floors of the building. And as longas she thought that, among other things, she was useful to the Society.Someone had to handle the crackpots and lunatic-fringe fanatics thatcame to the Society, and one of their own kind could do the job betterthan anyone else. As long as Mrs. Jesser and Mr. Balfour were on duty,the Society's camouflage would remain intact.
Spencer Candron gave Mrs. Jesser a friendly gesture with one hand andthen headed up the stairs. He would rather not have bothered to take thestairway all the way up to the fifth floor, but Mrs. Jesser had sharpears, and she might wonder why his foot-steps were not heard all theway up. Nothing--but _nothing_--must ever be done to make Mrs. Jesserwonder about anything that went on here.
* * * * *
The door to Brian Taggert's office was open when Candron finally reachedthe fifth floor. Taggert, of course, was not only expecting him, but hadlong been aware of his approach.
Candron went in, closed the door, and said, "Hi, Brian," to thedark-haired, dark-eyed, hawk-nosed man who was sprawled on the couchthat stood against one corner of the room. There was a desk at the otherrear corner, but Brian Taggert wasn't a desk man. He looked like aheavy-weight boxer, but he preferred relaxation to exercise.
But he did take his feet from the couch and lift himself to a sittingposition as Candron entered. And, at the same time, the one resemblancebetween Taggert and Candron manifested itself--a warm, truly humansmile.
"Spence," he said warmly, "you look as though you were bored. Want ajob?"
"No," said Candron, "but I'll take it. Who do I kill?"
"Nobody, unless you absolutely have to," said Taggert.
Spencer Candron understood. The one thing that characterized the realmembers of The Society for Mystical and Metaphysical Research--not the"front" members, like Balfour and Mrs. Jesser, not the hundreds of"honorable" members who constituted the crackpot portion of themembership, but the real core of the group--the thing that characterizedthem could be summed up in one word: _understanding_. Without that oneessential property, no human mind can be completely free. Unless a humanmind is capable of understanding the only forces that can be pittedagainst it--the forces of other human minds--that mind cannot availitself of the power that lies within it.
Of course, it is elementary that such understanding must also apply tooneself. Understanding of self must come before understanding of others._Total_ understanding is not necessary--indeed, utter totality is verylikely impossible to any human mind. But the greater the understanding,the freer the mind, and, at a point which might be called the
"criticalpoint," certain abilities inherent in the individual human mind becomecontrollable. A change, not only in quantity, but in quality, occurs.
A cube of ice in a glass of water at zero degrees Celsius exhibitscertain properties and performs certain actions at its surface. Some ofthe molecules drift away, to become one with the liquid. Other moleculesfrom the liquid become attached to the crystalline ice. But, the icecube remains essentially an entity. Over a period of time, it may changeslowly, since dissolution takes place faster than crystallization at thecorners of the cube. Eventually, the cube will become a sphere, orsomething very closely approximating it. But the change is slow, and,once it reaches that state, the situation becomes static.
But, if you add heat, more and more and more, the ice cube will change,not only its shape,