His words reached Duncan faintly. The plane was heading for the woods.
“For Christ’s sake!” Duncan muttered, then thought that Cabtab would have agreed with the words of the phrase though not with the sense in which Duncan meant them.
Keeping the craft very close to the treetops but within sight of the road, Duncan flew for six miles. Near a deserted place, with no lights of town or house or vehicle visible, he lowered the plane between two large trees. When it had landed, he got out of the craft and dragged the organic out. The flashing lights were bright enough for Duncan to see that Lu’s eyes were open. If he was scared, his face did not show it. That was going to make it harder for Duncan. He did not like killing a brave man. Come to think of it, he did not like killing anybody, cowardly or courageous. But, whatever his character, or characters, had been before he became William St.-George Duncan, he was now a man who would do whatever had to be done. Within certain limits. He could never kill a child.
Using the organic’s proton gun, Duncan shot him once through the middle of his chest. Lu fell on his side. Duncan rolled him over and removed the cloth hand-and-leg cuffs and the gag. Putting these into a pocket, he scorched the side of Lu’s right leg to simulate a near-hit. Then he climbed into the cockpit and steered the craft through the forest. After half a mile of slow going, he lifted it above the trees and sped along the road. Two miles from where he had left Lu’s corpse, he landed the plane. After placing the limp body of the duplicate on the grass of the meadow, he stood above it and aimed the proton gun at the left knee. The ball at the end of the barrel spat a purplish beam; the clothing and the flesh exploded. Despite the heavy downpour, he smelled briefly the stink of incinerated flesh.
He knelt by the duplicate. Its face was serene. If its nerves felt pain, its brain did not.
He took the organic’s long hunting knife from his belt and shoved the blade a few inches into the stomach. The wound would not be immediately fatal, but the duplicate would soon bleed to death. He pulled the knife out and threw it into the cockpit.
When the organics found the duplicate’s corpse early in the morning, or whenever, they would look around for Patroller Lu. It would not take them long. Then they would try to figure out what happened. The scenario that Duncan hoped they would image would be thus: Immediately after reporting that he was coming home, Lu would have been surprised by the refugee, Duncan. Or Lu would have surprised Duncan. In either event, the two had struggled. Lu had shot Duncan, but the outlaw had managed to struggle with him. During the fight, Lu’s proton gun had been wrested from him or knocked out of his hand. Lu had then used his knife to stab Duncan. But Duncan had gotten to the gun and shot Lu. After which, Duncan had flown off in the plane. He had pulled the knife from his wound, but, feeling himself sinking, had landed the plane. Before he had gotten more than a few steps from it, he had collapsed and died.
If the ganks accepted that, the hunt was ended.
Duncan strode through the rain across the meadow. The grass would leave no footprints, and the mud from his shoes would be washed away. If only no government vehicle came along, he would go unobserved. At this time of morning, it was unlikely that there would be any traffic. As he had hoped, no vehicles appeared. When he was within a mile of the village, he went into the woods. His progress was slower here, but it was necessary to be concealed. Finally, before dawn, he entered the new facility. Locks and Cabtab were just inside the door and waiting for him. In a monotone, Duncan described what he had done. Locks winced when told of the killing; Cabtab crossed himself and began chanting in Japanese.
“It’s war,” Duncan said. “He was a soldier, and he died.”
“Would you like to confess now?” Cabtab said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Duncan said, and he walked away.
11
“If my feelings were easily hurt, they’d be throbbing with pain now,” Duncan said.
“Why is that?” Locks said.
The padre answered for him. “Because, my dear leader, he is being shunned by all except you and me and perhaps Wilde. He has killed a man and did not do so in self-defense. Although, if you consider all the implications and ramifications, he did, in a sense, a strong sense, put an end to the organic in defense not only of himself but of all the band. He stated quite clearly that he might have to slay the man, in fact, probably would. Yet not one of us stopped him. So we are all guilty. But they won’t consider that. He alone is the guilty one, the Cain who has murdered his brother, though…”
“So they shrink from me. They don’t say what’s in their mind, no open criticism, but they regard me as something of a monster,” Duncan said. He shrugged.
“If a child had suddenly come upon us as the organic did,” Padre Cob said, “would you have killed him?”
“No,” Duncan said. “I wouldn’t have been able to.”
“And why not? A child could have exposed us. That was why you killed the organic, wasn’t it? Because he could not be allowed to reveal that we were there? If you would spare the child, why not the adult?”
Duncan shifted impatiently in the chair. “Fortunately, I was not put to that test. In reality—”
“In reality,” Locks said savagely, “Duncan could do nothing but what he did. He sacrificed the man to save the rest of us. You people are pathetic. Disgusting.”
The padre ignored Locks. He said, “Doesn’t it bother you any? No little bites of conscience?”
“I’ve had a few nightmares,” Duncan said. “A small price to pay.”
“Let’s get away from the hypothetical and the philosophical,” Locks said. “We have enough real problems.”
“The hypothetical, the philosophical, the ethical, the fantastic, the imaginative are all parts of reality,” the padre said loudly, and he patted his enormous stomach as if that, to him, embodied the real. “The sum is made up of the parts. The hypothetical, the philosophical, the ethical…”
“Let’s stick to the point at hand,” Locks growled. “Now, you want to go with Duncan to L.A. That’s going to require a tremendous change in plans. I have to communicate with the informant, get his permission, and if I do, set up a new ID for you, get passes and visas, and all that. Are you sure that you want to leave us, Padre? You have a lot of people depending upon you for spiritual comfort.”
“As I told you, Chief, I had a vision the other night. An angel appeared to me in a blaze of light, and it told me to get going, to leave this place and my flock and go forth. To wipe the mud of this desert from my feet and walk among the men and women of the great cities. My mission—”
“I know, I know,” Locks said tiredly. “I heard you at least three times. Very well. If you get permission, you may go. But you know what your flock will say. You’re a rat deserting a sinking ship.”
“They don’t have to stay here,” Padre Cob said.
Locks swiveled around in the chair and began operating the computer. Duncan stood up. “I’m going to take a walk.”
Once more he was standing before the gray figure of Panthea Snick. What was he going to do about her? Logic and circumstances required that he leave her just as he had found her. To destone her to ease the itch of curiosity and then to stone her again would be cruel. If she had an incurable disease, he would have to do just that and she might think that she had been vivified because her disease was now curable. She did not, however, look as if she had been in ill health. Probably, she was here because she had committed some crime. In which case, she could be recruited into the band.
On the other hand, one more member would make more problems for Locks. He had enough as it was. Duncan doubted that he would give permission to destone Snick.
“I have to know what it is about her that bugs me so much,” Duncan muttered.
Have to overcame should not.
He went to the carrier-robot section, activated and programmed a robot and walked behind it as it carried the heavy figure to a stoner and deposited it within it. It did not take long to close t
he door and apply the power, then swing the door open. The woman stepped out of the cylinder, her face pale and wondering. Duncan said, softly, “Don’t be frightened, Panthea Snick. You are among friends.”
That was a lie of kindness, of course. There was no guarantee that anyone else would be friendly to her. Nor was Duncan sure he could be called a friend.
Her bewildered expression vanished, and she smiled.
“Jeff Caird!”
That was one of the names the psychicist had said was his basic persona. His feeling that he had known her was based on fact.
He led her to a table, asked her to sit down, and handed her a glass of water. “I’m a victim of amnesia,” he said. “Maybe you can tell me who Jeff Caird is and who you are and how we happened to know each other?”
Snick downed the entire glassful, then said, “First, tell me where this place is and just how you managed to destone me?”
She was now in complete self-control. Gone was the look of confusion, and her color had come back. Her voice was crisp and authoritative.
He told her where the warehouse was located, but he said, “I insist that you answer my questions first.”
That she wanted to argue with him was evident. Nevertheless, she must have decided that, for the time being, he was the master. She gave him a flitting smile and launched into a long tale, which he did not interrupt. When she was finished, he was silent for a little while. Then he said, “So, you’re an organic. An ex, I mean. And you’re here because certain government officials thought that you knew too much. They shut you up by accusing you of a crime you didn’t commit and then framed you with false evidence and stoned you.”
She looked impatient. “That’s what I said.”
Jefferson Cervantes Caird had been a citizen of the state of Manhattan, an organic officer, upright and dedicated, loyal to the government, and a distinguished fighter against crime. On the surface. Secretly, he belonged to an organization that was highly unlawful. It had its origin in Gilbert Ching Immerman, a biologist who had discovered a means for prolonging life far beyond the normal span. Instead of sharing it with all of humanity, he had kept it for himself and some members of his family. As the family had grown through several generations, it had formed a secret organization, the immermans. Later, it had started to take in members who were not of the family, though these were relatively few. Within two hundred subyears, the family had gained many powerful positions. By the time that Caird was born, there were members in many countries and some in the world council.
When Caird had become an adult, he had also become a daybreaker. Instead of going into the stoner at the end of Tuesday, leaving it the morning of the next Tuesday, he became a Wednesday citizen with a different name, ID, and profession. On each day of the rest of the week, he had a new ID and profession. His adoption of these personae had been so successful that he became each person, on its particular day, retaining only a shadowy memory of the others. To carry out the deception, he had to retain a certain link to his other selves. After all, to be effective in performing his courier duties in the organization, he must know something of his seven personalities, and what had occurred on each day.
But he had gone overboard. He had kept the separate “souls” too separated from one another.
That had resulted finally in each persona trying to gain complete control of the others so that these could be dissolved.
The struggle had not started until shortly before Caird had been caught after a frantic flight from the organics.
Before that, an immerman scientist named Castor had gone mad and had been imprisoned in a Manhattan rehabilitation institution. The immermans, afraid that Castor might reveal the existence of their organization, made sure that he would not do so after being put in the institution. They had arranged that only members of their organization would have close contact with him. But Castor had murdered his chief keeper, escaped, and then killed Caird’s Tuesday wife. Castor meant to murder Caird, also, because Caird had been the arresting officer.
In his Wednesday persona, Caird was told by an immerman that he had to find and kill Castor before the nonimmerman organics caught him. Castor must not be allowed to expose the organization. Reluctantly, Caird had obeyed the order. Meanwhile, a Sunday organic, Panthea Pao Snick, had questioned Caird. She was, in fact, looking for members of another outlaw organization, but Caird thought that she was on his trail. Then he found out that his own people now considered him to be dangerous to them because Snick seemed so close to catching him.
As Bob Tingle of the Wednesday World, Caird had killed Castor while the madman was trying to murder him. At least, that was what the psychicist had told Caird he had told her during a session under the truth mist. Caird himself had only a shadow’s shadow of a memory of that event.
Snick was sitting in a chair and drinking another glass of water when Duncan asked her if she knew anything about the rescue.
“Nothing.”
She seemed to be rising out of her shock and disorientation. Her large brown eyes were clear now. And beautiful. They seemed to be appealing to him, but that surely was his subjective impression. What was going on behind those eyes might be something different.
Duncan said, “I was told that I found you in a cylinder, stoned, where Castor had put you. Apparently, he was saving you for torture and mutilation before he killed you.”
The woman shuddered.
“But the immermans got you, too. They destoned you, drugged you, and then used the truth mist on you. When they were done with you, they stoned you again. You were unconscious all that time. That’s why you don’t recall anything that happened during that time.”
“I was looking for a subversive named Morning Rose Doubleday,” she said. “Then I stumbled across the existence of another group, yours. I was informed about Castor and told to keep an eye out for him. I didn’t know then that he was an immerman. In fact, I hadn’t even known that such a subversive group existed.”
“I thought you suspected me of something when you questioned me,” Duncan said. “I didn’t know then that you wanted to use me in your pursuit of Doubleday because I was a data banker.”
“An immerman named Gaunt, a cell-section head, conducted the questioning of you. He wanted to kill and mutilate you to make the organics think Castor did it. That’d divert suspicion from us. I objected. But I was overruled. Then Castor showed up, and after he was killed, the organics came. I had to run. Next day, Thursday, as Charlie Ohm, I was summoned to the Tower of Evolution.”
He was silent for a few seconds. Then, shaking his head, he spoke softly. “I don’t know what the hell I did in the Tower. The psychicist skipped that part. She did tell me about my flight and capture.”
Snick smiled and said, “Oh, I can tell you some of what happened there! That’s only because my interrogators told me about it, though what they knew was based on speculation. Or so they said. I wish, though… I wish…”
“Wish what?”
“That they’d not told me. If they’d kept quiet, I wouldn’t have known so much, and thus I wouldn’t have been a danger to them! They wouldn’t have decided it’d be best to accuse me of a false crime so they could stone me and get me out of the way.”
“What was the charge?”
“They accused me of being a member of the immermans!” She rose indignantly from the chair, her eyes even larger, her face twisted. “Me! One of the immermans!”
“How could they do that?” Duncan said. “The mist would prove that you weren’t.”
“I know! I demanded that they show me the interrogation recording. They did so, and there I was, unconscious and admitting that I did belong to the immermans and had been secretly working for them for a long time!”
Duncan was more than puzzled. Something was buzzing in his head as if someone wanted him to open a door.
“But you said…”
“Yes, I said I was innocent! I was! I am! What they did was to insert a computer simulation into the re
cording!”
“A simulation of you confessing while under the mist?”
“Of course!”
“But an examination of the recording by specialists would prove that the section. was simulated! Didn’t you demand that?”
“Of course I did! And it was denied me!”
Duncan was not as shocked as he had expected to be. Perhaps, in one of his personae, probably that of Caird the organic, he had heard of such duplicity. Or—he hoped not—had been involved in such.
“All right,” he said. “What were you told that made them decide not to trust you, to put you away?”
“I was asked, while I wasn’t misted, though they must’ve asked when I was misted, too, if I’d ever heard of the longevity factor.”
The buzzing in Duncan’s head stopped. The door had been opened. But the shadowy images flitting through were too thin and misshapen for him to know what they meant.
“Longevity factor?”
“I don’t know—as yet—what it means, what it implies. It must have been significant. The woman who asked me about it was immediately told to shut up. She got pale. Not red, as if embarrassed, but pale, as if terrified. She was told to leave the room. They weren’t very smart about it. If they’d been cool, said nothing, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. I replied that I’d never heard of such a thing. It was true. They knew I was not lying. Nevertheless, that’s the only thing I can think of that made them decide to stone me. Somehow, they thought that, just by their mentioning the longevity factor, I’d become dangerous.”
She was looking around at the stoned figures while talking. She stopped, rose from the chair, and said, “My God! That’s the woman who asked me about it!”
Duncan looked at the stonee she was pointing at.
“And the two by her side! They were in the room, too!”
“I think,” Duncan said, “they knew too much. They must not have been trusted enough. Whatever it was, let’s find out.”