Free A Handful of Time by Rosel George Brown

camouflage, where you consciously accept the deceit but something you are not conscious of in your mind may not.
    “We’ve got scientists working on chromato-sensitive instruments. It’s not just a matter of detecting color. It’s a matter of detecting a certain kind of color and perhaps alien matter in almost infinitesimal quantities. Only enough to be barely invisible, if you see what I mean. And perhaps set at an angle oblique to normal vision.”
    “So they couldn’t find it.”
    “Oh, yes, they found it. Minute variations in wave patterns. On the side of a house. But we couldn’t see it, even with the instruments we had. We’re still working on it.
    “But I don’t need to tell you now how glad to see you we are.”
    “You don’t need to tell me,” I said. “You’ve told me all I need to know about how you investigate the subliminal motivation. But there’s something else that’s even more important.
    “I don’t sleep nights any more.”
     
    He sighed and held on to his pipe as though it was the last sure thing in the universe. “I know,” he said. “It’s so monstrous we hardly ever talk about it here. Where do the messages come from?”
    “Where?”
    “I don’t know. But I do think this. Given time and money, we may find out. First we investigate the messages. Find out what they mean. Find out what sort of material or force they’re made of. Then we can experiment. Rub them out, when we know how. See what happens. Write some ourselves. Write a question and see if it’s answered. All we need is time and money. And there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have plenty of both.
    “Maybe whoever or whatever put the messages there is dead or gone now. Then all we have to do is erase the messages and see what the human race can do with a few centuries of real free will.”
    “And suppose whoever or whatever is not gone?”
    “How can I answer that?” Dr. Thane answered almost irritably. “I can’t make your mind comfortable. My own mind isn’t comfortable. We just have to face it and fight it our own way. We can’t even run. There’s no place to run to. And you might as well understand right now that you’re top secret, high priority security and all the other mumbo jumbo.”
    “Because of what you told me?”
    “Because of what you already knew. We’re keeping you here. In the project building.”
    “Look,” I said. “I don’t mind helping. I’ll do everything humanly possible to help you. Die, if necessary. But I don’t want to be stuck in a prison. I’ve got my own life, too.”
    “You want to keep it, don’t you?”
    I stood up. The room was stale and a little chilly. “Is that a threat?”
    “Oh, sit down,” Dr. Thane said. “Do you think I carry a space gun? You need to stay here for your own protection. Didn’t it occur to you that who or what is behind the messages might have some interest in not having its little game interfered with? That you might furnish some clue we might otherwise never find? Here we have guards.”
    I was sitting down. Hot on the outside and getting colder within, down to a little point of ice somewhere deep inside. “I have a feeling guards wouldn’t do much good.”
    “Maybe not. Maybe this is all cloak and dagger for nothing. Still, I think you’d better stay.”
    “I will,” I said stiffly.
    “Tomorrow we’ll dig in,” Dr. Thane said. “Get to sleep early and prepare to be busier than you’ve ever been in your life. We’ll be at it every minute.”
     
    I don’t know how you prepare to be busy. I had a reasonably comfortable little room, with a single bed and a wash stand against one wall. The walls were that “soothing” shade of green that you come to associate with the impersonal desolation of public places.
    I’m used to sleeping in strange places. But I’m not used to having guards pacing discreetly outside my door. It made me feel silly.
    I opened the door. “You boys like a-drink?” I called, for I had found