The sharp snap of the bone made him wince.
Without pausing, he reset the broken radius and ulna.
Ava quickly splinted the forearm.
While Ava was doing that, Leif shot Jesper’s serum into Halla’s upper arm. If the hormone activator worked as fast as it usually did, the bone would be knit within two or three days.
“You’ve got the blueprints?” he asked.
Ava said, “No. They’re over there.”
“Get it ready, will you?”
He took out his scalpel, dipped it in a bottle of sterilizer, and poured the liquid over a piece of cotton. Then he threw back the sheet and untied her gown so that her whole front was exposed. He swabbed her solar plexus with the dripping cotton, laid it down, and expertly gashed the skin to simulate the wounds.
Ava smeared a handful of jelly on the raw cuts; if no infection occurred, the torn tissue, stimulated by the jelly, would replace itself within a few days. There would be no scars.
“Give me that camera,” he said. Ava handed it to him. He set the dials and shot two external photos and two internal, a pair for the arm and a pair for the gashes.
A minute later he took the developments from the box and looked at them.
“Fine. This ought to satisfy Candleman. But Trausti’s pictures will be in the file, or in his pocket.”
Ava smiled with beautiful white teeth.
“Oh, no. Not in his pockets,” Ava said. “I picked them and deposited them in the sanctity of my bosom. See.”
Ava’s delicate fingers darted to a gap in the highnecked dress and pulled out two sheets of film.
“You darling,” said Leif. “When did you do that?”
“I met him when I was on the way down here. He stopped me for a second to say that he was certain Mrs. Dannto was dead. His pictures proved it. He seemed quite proud to have caught you in a mistake.”
Ava laughed and said, “Now, he won’t be so full of baseless vanity.”
“Better destroy it.”
“Naturally. Leif, sometimes you act as if you were the only one with brains.”
“Temper, temper, baby. Come here and I’ll reward you with a big, juicy kiss.”
“You’d not look so good with all your teeth knocked out.”
He laughed. Bending over Halla he resumed the examination she had once interrupted with a knee in his jaw.
“What’s your interest in this babe?” asked Ava sourly.
“Jealous, honey?”
“Aargh,” croaked Ava, asking no more, because it was hopeless.
Leif’s fingers had felt the two small bumps hidden in the hair on top of her head. And the X-ray had shown him the organ which occupied the posterior fornix. He tied up her gown and replaced the sheet.
“She’ll sleep for twelve hours. You stand guard. I have to go down to the PM again to clear up the Ingolf mess. Or make it worse. I’ll relieve you later.”
Abruptly, he wheeled.
“Oh, oh, fingerprints! I know I’m being overly cautious, but I wouldn’t put it past Candleman to compare this Halla’s prints with the other’s.”
“I’m ahead of you, Leif. You won’t believe it. They’re identical. She told me that while you were gone.”
“The CWC has done a good job on her.”
“My impression was that the two were born that way.”
“Impossible.”
“But true.”
‘What about retina-patterns?”
“The same, also.”
Leif ran his hand through his thick yellow waves.
“Nothing that has happened since Rachel called me this morning has been believable. Well, ours not to question why, and you know the rest of that dismal line. I’m going, Ava.”
“J.C.,” said Ava, pointing her finger at him.
“J.C.,” he replied, smiling and making a similar gesture.
When he walked into the PM, he wasn’t surprised to see Candleman and Shant. They were examining the recent records in the Labtech. Nearby, two sergeants were sprinkling powder over the walls and floors. Another was taking photos. A fourth had opened the cremator door and was vainly trying to scrape ashes from the thoroughly washed interior.
Seeing the doctor, the chief Uzzite straightened up and glared. He said in his monotone, “Why did you cremate Ingolf yourself, instead of leaving him for the assistants to burn?”
Leif smiled, safe in the assurance that he had several times previously done just that to other bodies and for the reason that he wanted it established as part of his behavior pattern in case such an emergency as the present arose.
“Candleman,” he said, “I don’t hold that a man in a post of authority loses face if he uses his hands for manual labor. We’re short of help here in every way, and I like to save time. Check my efficiency ratings and my psych records, if you wish.”
“I’ve a man doing that now,” growled the chief.
“I thought we lamechians were above suspicion?”
“This is routine,” said the chief.
Leif smiled.
He looked around and then decided he might as well drop his bomb now as later.
He called in an imperious tone to Shant.
“Doctor, whose body is that out in the hall?”
Shant’s face crimsoned, and he said, “I—I—don’t know. It was there when we came in.”
“Well, wheel it in. You know it’s against our policy to leave it out where its sight may depress people and give them unreal thoughts.”
Shant clenched his fists, ground his teeth, and glanced at the Uzzites to see if they were watching his humiliation. But he walked stiff-legged into the hall and brought the cart and its burden into the TM. Idly, as if he weren’t really interested, Shant picked up the tag to examine it.
His jaw dropped; so did the tag.
Candleman said, “What’s the matter?” His storklike legs carried him towards the runty pathologist.
Shant threw off the sheet and exposed the face of the corpse so Candleman could see it.
“ Jacques Cuze!” said Candleman. He halted in midstride as if someone had struck him in the face.
For the first time since he’d known him, Leif saw the man’s face crumble. It was like a glacier falling into the sea.
“Thorleifsson!” bellowed Candleman. “Where is he?”
One of the sergeants stepped up to his agitated chief and whispered in his ear.
Candleman listened and then said, “Very well. But put out a QB for him. He shouldn’t be prowling around unless I authorized it. He’ll pay for this dereliction of duty.”
Candleman, thought Leif, must really be upset. Leif didn’t give him a chance to regain his balance. He, too, strode to the body. And looking at it, gasped, “That’s Ingolf! The man I dissected!”
Shant blinked. “That’s impossible! Obviously.”
“So it is. But there he is. And less than an hour ago I saw him reduced to ashes.”
Leif thought fast. He’d have to contact Zack Roe and tell him to order their agent in the Census Bureau to do some fast work. Candleman would undoubtedly take the finger-and-retina prints of the man on the cart and compare them with those in the files. The CWC agent could, before then, plant Ingolf’s prints in the records of a man who’d been dead, say, a hundred years. Or better yet, a man who was the contemporary of the Forerunner. Two and a half centuries ago.
The filer would then“accidentally” discover this. The announcement would create a consternation, add to the mystery and the tensely superstitious air everybody was breathing now that the Forerunner was expected to stop time and return from his temporal travels.
Signs and wonders they wanted; let them have them.
The dunnologists would, of course, theorize that the dead man had two bodies in present time and one in the past because, he, too, was traveling in time. For years it’d been a near-dogma that if a man journeyed in time and then returned to a period where he’d once lived, he would find himself with a duplicate.
Or with as many bodies as the times he returned.
Obviously, Ingolf had proved this beyond question.
But the case would be a hopeless paradox, one to be argued in the professional Journal of Chronos and Fields of Presentation and exploited by propagandists as adventure stories in the comics.
There would be the mystery. Who, really, was Ingolf? What did the gashed initials mean? Why the stiletto? For Shant would soon find that the mutilations had been committed after Ingolf’s death.
If Ingolf had died once two hundred and fifty years ago and twice today, and seemingly as a result of the activities of the notorious and nefarious J.C., who, then, was he? A disciple of the Forerunner? Had the wicked Back-runner, Sigmen’s half-brother and immortal enemy, Jude Changer, killed him? Not once, but thrice? And would he do it again?
Or was it the feared underground Frenchman, Jacques Cuze, that shadowy and insane figure who clung to the idea that he could rid his beloved and long-lost country of the Forerunner’s disciples?
“ Yokes Kutse,” said Candleman, echoing Leif’s thought with his Icelandic pronunciation. “That man has been here under my nose. And I’ve allowed him to escape.”
The grey shields of his eyes glared as if he thought the man were in the PM and waiting to stab him.
“Dr. Barker!” announced the QB. Leif strode to the wall and flicked the toggle.
“In the PM,” he said.
“The Archurielite, Dr. Barker.”
The girl’s voice trembled.
“Don’t get scared, sweetheart. He won’t bite you.”
Dannto’s double chin appeared in the box, followed by the rest of him. Scowling, he said, “I heard that remark!”
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
“You know what I mean!” bellowed Dannto. Face red, he struggled with himself and then said, “Never mind that. How’s my wife?”
“The first reports of the accident were very much exaggerated. She’s not badly hurt at all. She’ll be up and out of bed tomorrow. But just now you can’t see her. I gave her a sedative that’ll put her under for twelve hours.”
“Can’t I look at her on QB?”
“It’s not working. And we don’t want anybody in the room to disturb her.”
“Not working? By Sigmen, somebody’ll pay for this!” He looked over Leif’s shoulder. “Candleman, have you investigated the tech responsible?”
“Shib, abba. But I can’t find Lieutenant Thorleifsson. He was sent to question the fellow.”
“Why can’t you find him?”
“ Abba, there is something very peculiar here.” Candle-man, grey eyes steady, explained in his deep monotone.
When the Uzzite stepped back so Dannto could see the initials on Ingolf’s chest, the Archurielite breathed, “Jude Changer!”
Dannto made a quick recovery.
“Where’s the cordon you should have thrown up around the hospital?”
“I just now learned of Jacques Cuze’s presence here,” retorted Candleman. “And you’ve been monopolizing the QB since then.”
“Jacques Cuze?” said Dannto. “This is clearly the work of Jude Changer.”
“In that case,” said Candleman, face rigid but voice tinged with anger, “a cordon would be useless. You can’t pursue a man who slips in and out of time like a snake through the grass.”
“It’s your business to find out whether it is Jude or not,” roared Dannto. “How do you know I’m right? You’re an Uzzite; you take nobody’s word.”
Candleman blinked at the change of tactics, stepped up to the wall and cut off the priest’s image. He dialed UHQ. “Captain, send forty men down to the Rigorous Mercy Hospital at once.”
The captain tried to hide the comic he’d been reading and at the same time look calm and dignified.
“ Abba, we haven’t got that many men available.”
“Get them down here in ten minutes.”
“Shib, abba.”
Ten minutes later, the Sandalphon, Dannto, entered the PM.
He waddled up to the Uzzite and put his treetrunk-thick arm around the bony shoulders.
“Jake, old man,” he said. “I’m sorry I got angry with you. I know you’re doing your best and that you’re the most efficient of all Uzzites. But you must understand that I am very much concerned with Halla’s welfare, and anything that affects her disturbs me very much. Moreover, this J.C. business is most upsetting. Those initials have been appearing with alarming frequency in the most unexpected and implausible places for the last three years. And, so far, we haven’t found the person responsible for them.”
Candleman stepped away so Dannto had to drop his arm. “I accept your apology,” he said, “but you’ve got to understand that it’s a very sore point with me. That man, Jacques Cuze, has been plaguing me so long and so persistently that I am about to let my other duties go and turn the attention of the whole department to the matter. I have something planned that will, I swear by Sigmen, catch him.”
“I’m sure you will. If Jacques Cuze actually exists. Personally, I think he’s a myth,” replied Dannto. “I think Jude Changer is to blame for those initials.”
“Perhaps you’re both barking up the wrong tree,” said Leif, smiling at his own temerity and inability to resist a pun. “Gentlemen, if we get off into a theological discussion, we’ll be lost. There are more immediate things that deserve our attention.
“For one thing, abba, I’d like to get your permission to move your wife to the penthouse. Inasmuch as my wife is taking care of yours, it will be more convenient for both of them. And, moreover, as Candleman has hinted that the accident might not be one after all, I think she’ll be a lot safer in our place.”
Dannto whirled. “Not an accident? Candleman, you didn’t tell me that!”
“Forgive me, abba. I didn’t want to upset you.”
“Who do you think is behind it?”
Candleman held out his big bony hands, palms up.
“Jacques Cuze. Who else?”
“But why should he try to kill Halla?”
“Because through her he can hurt you. Because he is a devil, an unreal person.”
“It would be like Jude Changer to do something like that,” said Dannto. “According to what I’ve heard, he will stop at nothing in order to change real time into pseudo-time. Candleman, we’ve got to stop him.”
“You’ll have to give me carte blanche.”
“You’ve got it.”
“What about my request?” said Leif.
“Oh, certainly. Excellent idea. She’ll be much safer and get better care there.”
“And I’ll have two men stationed at the entrance to your penthouse,” said Candleman. “I don’t want any repetition of the accident.”
Leif replied, stiffly, “I think she’ll be safe. I’ll be there at all times.”
“Nevertheless, I insist.”
Leif shrugged and said to Dannto, “Would you like to come along while we move your wife? Later, we can eat at my place. I’m rather hungry, and we can discuss further details.”
Dannto’s cavernous belly rumbled. He laughed, though somewhat embarrassedly, and said, “There’s your answer.”
Chapter 10
WHILE HALLA WAS being moved, Leif noted that Dannto accepted the woman as his wife. He’d thought he would, but he still breathed relief. Later, after Halla had been put in one of the bedrooms, and a nurse installed with her, Leif, Ava, Dannto and Candleman sat down to eat. The latter had been invited by the Archurielite.
Candleman’s eyes were grey nets, scooping up every detail of the penthouse. As he bent over his locust soup with loud sucking noises, he cocked his head this way and that to hear better what each said.
Leif guessed that both the maid who served them their food and the nurse now attending Halla had been briefed by the Uzzite. They could watch the doctor and his wife and report their every move. All as a matter of routine, of course. You didn’t suspect a lamech-bearer of unreality.
; “Leif,” said Dannto, in a good mood now that he was filling his belly, “you remember that last month you diagnosed a beneficent tumor that had to come out. Why not do it now? I could spend the night here.”
“Very good idea,” said Leif. “You’ll be fit for work by morning, if you want to.”
He thought, what kind of hold did the original Halla have over this Robin Redbreast? She must have had something. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, but he knew that it took more than that to make a man devoted.
He wondered if her sister had the same.
He intended to find out.
Candleman sucked in the last of his soup and reached out for the grassbread.
“I must insist on being allowed to watch the operation,” he said.
Leif replied coldly, “I think you’re making too many hints concerning my unreality.”
“I’m sure Candleman didn’t mean that,” said Dannto.
“Of course not,” Candleman said in his deep monotone. “But how do I know that Jacques Cuze won’t try something?”
“You’ll have to watch the operation on the OB,” said Leif. “It might make my assistants nervous to know the great Candleman’s suspicious eye was on them. And nervous doctors and nurses are liable to make a fatal slip.”
Candleman opened his mouth to protest, but Dannto stalled him.
“That’s right. You’ll do that, Jake.”
The Uzzite’s lips clamped.
“Shib. But I’ll have men stationed outside the doors.”
Leif made a mental note to have the OB go out of order during the operation. And wondered what good tech he’d frame for this job.
Peter Sorn was the victim. He’d been blamed for the breakdown of the QB in Halla’s room. Let it happen again, the same day, and young Sorn would, as likely as not, go to H.
Too bad. Leif liked Peter Sorn. But he couldn’t allow personal feelings to interfere. This was war, even if cold. Removing Sorn from the ranks of the techs would be one more step toward the realization of the March goal.
“How long will it take?” said Dannto.
“About half an hour. Maybe less. Afterward, you should get a good night’s rest. In the morning the blueprint jelly will have healed you enough so you may resume your ordinary duties. No exertion, of course. Perhaps you’d better not stay in the same room with your wife tonight.”