by Algis Budrys
4
Five weeks — of which Martino knew nothing and during which Azarin had been unable to accomplish anything. Azarin held the telephone headpiece in one hand and opened the inlaid sandalwood box on his desk with the other. He selected a gold-tipped papyros and put the tip in one corner of his mouth where it would be out of the way. There was a perpetual match-box on his desk, and he jerked at the protruding match. It came free, but the pull had been too uneven to draw a proper spark out of the flint in the box. The match wick failed to catch light, and he thrust the match back into the box, jerked the matchbox off his desk and into the wastebasket, pulled open his desk drawer, found real matches, and lit the papyros. His lip curled tightly to hold the cigarette and let him talk at the same time.
“Yes, sir. I appreciate that the Allieds are putting great pressure on us for the return of this man.” The connection from Novoya Moskva was thin, but he did not raise his voice. Instead, he tightened it, giving it a hard, mechanical quality, as though he were driving it over the wires by force of will. He cursed silently at the speed with which Rogers had located Martino. It was one thing, negotiating with the Allieds when it was possible to say there was no knowledge of such a man. It was quite another when they could reply with the name of a specific hospital. It meant time lost that might have been stolen, and they were short of time to begin with. But there had never been any hiding anything important from Rogers for very long.
Very well, then that was the way it was. Meanwhile, however, there were these telephone calls.
“The surgeons will not have completed their final operation until tomorrow, at the earliest. I shall not be able to interrogate the man for perhaps two days thereafter. Yes, sir. I suggest the delay is the surgeons’ responsibility. They say we are lucky to have the man alive at all, and that everything they are doing is absolutely necessary. Martino’s condition was most serious. Every one of the operations was extremely delicate, and I am informed that nervous tissue regenerates very slowly, even with the most modern methods. Yes, sir. In my opinion, Medical Doctor Kothu is highly skilled. I am confirmed in this by my file copy of his certification from your headquarters.”
Azarin was gambling a little there, he knew. Central Headquarters might decide to step in whether it had an ostensible reason or not. But he thought they would wait for a time. Their own staff had passed on Kothu and the rest of the medical team in the local hospital, since it was a military establishment. They would hesitate to belie themselves. And they knew Azarin was one of their best men. At Central Headquarters, they did not laugh at him. They knew his record.
No, he could afford to gamble with his superiors. It was a valuable thing to practice, for a man who would some day be among the superiors and was readying himself for it.
“Yes, sir. Two weeks more.” Azarin bit down on the end of the papyros, and the hollow filter tube of giltwrapped pasteboard crumpled. He began chewing it lightly, sucking the smoke in between his teeth. “Yes, sir. I am aware of the already long delay. I will bear the international situation in mind.”
Good. They were going to let him go ahead. For a moment, Azarin was happy.
Then the edge of his mind nibbled at the fact that he still had no idea of where to begin his interrogation — that not the first shred of the earliest groundwork had been done.
Azarin scowled. Preoccupied, he said, “Good-bye, sir,” put the telephone down, and sat with his elbows on the desk, leaning forward, the papyros held between the thumb and the forefinger of his right hand.
He was very good at his work, he knew. But he had never before encountered precisely these conditions. Neither had Novoya Moskva, and that was a help, but it was no help on the direct problem.
These temporary detentions were normally quite cut-and-dried. The man was diplomatically pumped of whatever he would yield in a short space of time. Usually, this was little. Occasionally, it was more. But always the man was returned as quickly as possible. Except in cases where it was desirable to stir the Allieds up, for some larger purpose, it was always best not to annoy them. The Allieds, upset by something like this, could go to quite extraordinary lengths of retaliation, and no one could tell what other strategies they might not cripple with their countermoves. Similarly, there were certain methods it was best not to use on their people. Returning a man in bad condition invariably made things difficult for months afterward.
So, usually it was a day or two at most before a man was returned to the Allieds. There, Rogers would take a day or two in discovering how much Azarin had found out. And that was the sum of it. If, at times, Azarin learned something useful, Rogers neutralized it at once. In Azarin’s opinion, the entire business was a pitiful waste of time and energy.
But now, with this Martino, what did he have? He had a man who had invented something called a K-Eighty-Eight, a man of high but undocumented reputation. Once more, Azarin cursed the circumstances of the times in which he lived. Once more he was angrily conscious of the fact that it was being left for the working professional-for Anastas Azarin-to clean up the work done by such fumbling amateurs as Heywood.
Azarin stared down at his desk in blank fury. And, of course, Novoya Moskva refused to act as though such a thing was basically its own fault. They simply pressed Azarin for results. Was he not an intelligence officer, after all? What could possibly be so difficult? What could possibly have taken him five weeks?
It was always this way in dealing with clerks. They had books, after all. The books had taught them how things were done. So things were done as they had been done in 1941 and in 1963, when the books were written.
No one knew anything about this man, except that he’d invented something. They had no file on him except for his undergraduate period at the technical academy in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Cursing, Azarin wished that the SIB had, in actuality, some of the super-ferrets with which it was credited by the kind studios-the daring and supernally intelligent operatives who somehow passed through concrete walls and into vaults stuffed with alphabetically arranged Allied secrets conveniently shapirographed in Cyrillic print. He would have enjoyed having one or two of these on his staff, knowing that any information they brought, back was completely accurate, correctly interpreted, did not have to be confirmed by other operatives, was up to date, had not been planted, and, furthermore, that these operatives had not meanwhile been subverted by Rogers. Such people did occur, of course. They immediately became instructors and staff officers, because they were altogether too few.
So there he had been, this Martino, protected by the usual security safeguards common to both sides. Azarin had planned to some day add the K-Eighty-Eight to the always incomplete and usually obsolescent jigsaw puzzle of information that was the best anyone could do. But he had not planned to have it happen like this.
Now he had him. He’d had him five useless weeks already. He had him almost fatally injured, bedridden, the makings of a good cause celebre if he wasn’t back in Allied hands soon-a man who looked extremely valuable, though he might turn out not to be-a man who, therefore, ought to be returned as soon as possible and kept as long as possible, and with whom, peculiarly, neither thing could be done at once.
It was a situation which verged on the comic in some of its aspects.
Azarin finished his papyros and shredded it to bits in the ashtray. It was all far from hopeless. He already had the rough outline of a plan, and he was acting on it. He would get results.
But Azarin knew Rogers was almost inhumanly clever. He knew Rogers must be fully aware of the situation here. And Azarin did not like the thought that Rogers must be laughing at him.
5
A nurse put her head in the door of Martino’s room. He slowly lowered his hand back to his side. The nurse disappeared, and in a moment a man in a white smock and skullcap came in.
He was a wiry, curly-haired little man with olive skin, broad, chisel-shaped teeth and a knobby jaw, who smiled down cheerfully as he took Martino’s pulse.
“
I’m very glad to see you awake. My name is Kothu, I am a medical doctor, how do you feel?”
Martino moved his head slowly from side to side.
“I see. There was no help for it, it had to be done. There was very little cranial structure remaining, the sensory organs were largely obliterated. Fortunately, the nature of the damage-inflicting agency was severe flashburns which did not expose your brain tissue to prolonged heat, and followed by a slow concussive shockwave crushing your cranium without splintering. Not pleasant to hear, I know, but of all possible damages the best. The arm, I am afraid, was severed by a metallic fragment. Would you speak, please?”
Martino looked at him. He was still ashamed of the scream that had brought the nurse. He tried to picture what he must look like — to visualize the mechanisms that evidently were replacing so many of his organs — and he could not recall exactly how he had produced the scream. He tried to gather air in his lungs for the expected effort of speech, but there was only a rolling sensation under his ribs, as though a wheel or turbine impeller were spinning there.
“Effort is unnecessary,” Dr. Kothu said. “Simply speak.”
“I — ” It felt no different in his throat. He had thought to find his words trembling through the vibrator of an artificial larynx. Instead, it was his old voice. But his rib cage did not sink over deflating lungs, and his diaphragm did not push out air. It was effortless, as speech in a dream can be, and he had the feeling he could babble on and on without stopping, for paragraphs, for days, for ever. “I — One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do.”
“Thank you, that is very helpful. Tell me, do you see me clearly? As I step back and move about, do your eyes follow and focus easily?”
“Yes.” But the servomotors hummed in his face, and he wanted to reach up and massage the bridge of his nose.
“Very good. Well do you know you have been here over a month?”
Martino shook his head. Wasn’t anyone trying to get him back? Or did they think he was dead?
“It was necessary to keep you under sedation. You realize, I hope, the extent of the work we had to do?”
Martino moved his chest and shoulders. He felt clumsy and unbalanced, and somehow awkward inside, as though his chest were a bag that had been filled with stones.
“A great deal was done,” Dr. Kothu seemed justifiably proud. “I would say that Medical Doctor Verstoff did very well in substituting the prosthetic cranium. And of course, Medical Doctors Ho and Jansky were responsible for the connection of the prosthetic sensory organs to the proper brain centers, as Medical Technicians Debrett, Fonten, and Wassil were for the renal and respiratory complexes. I, myself, am in charge, having the honor to have developed the method of nervous tissue regeneration.” His voice dropped a bit. “You would do us the kindness, perhaps, to mention our names when you return to the other side? I do not know your name,” he added quickly, “nor am I intended to know your origin, but, you see, there are certain things a medical professional can perceive. On our side, we give three smallpox inoculations on the right arm. In any case — ” Kothu seemed definitely embarrassed now. “What we have done here is quite new, and quite outstanding. And on our side, in these days, they do not publish such things.”
“I’ll try.”
“Thank you. There are so many great things being done on our side, by so many people. And your side does not know. If you knew, your people would so much more quickly come to us.”
Martino said nothing An uncomfortable moment dragged by, and then Dr. Kothu said, “We must get you ready. One thing remains to be done, and we will have accomplished our best. That is the arm.” He smiled as he had when he first came in. “I will see you again in the operating theater, and when we are finished, you will be as good as new.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
Kothu left, and the nurses came in. They were two women dressed in heavily starched, thick white uniforms with headdresses that were banded tightly across their foreheads and draped back to their shoulders, completely covering their hair. Their faces were a little rough-skinned, but clear, and expressionless. Their lips were compressed, as they had been taught to keep them by the traditions of their nursing academies, and they wore no cosmetics. Because none of the standard cues common to women of the Allied cultures were present, it was impossible to guess at their ages and arrive at an accurate answer. They undressed him and washed him without speaking to each other or to him. They removed the pad from his shoulder, painted the area with a colored germicide, loosely taped a new sterile pad in place, and moved him to an operating cart which one of them brought into the room.
They worked with complete competence, wasting no motion and dividing the work perfectly; they were a team that had risen above the flesh and beyond all skills but their one, completely mastered own, who had so far advanced in the perfect practice of their art that it did not matter whether Martino was there or not.
Martino remained passively silent, watching them without getting in their way, and they handled him as though he were a practice mannequin.
6
Azarin strode down the corridor toward Martino’s room, with Kothu chattering beside him.
“Yes, Colonel, although he is not yet really strong, it is only a matter now of sufficient rest. All the operations were a great success.”
“He can talk at length?”
“Not today, perhaps. It depends on the subject of discussion, of course. Too much strain would be bad.”
“That will be largely his choice. He is in here?”
“Yes, Colonel.” The little doctor opened the door wide, and Azarin marched through.
He stopped as though someone had sunk a bayonet in his belly. He stared at the unholy thing in the bed.
Martino was looking at him, with the sheets around his chest. Azarin could see the dark hole where his eyes were, lurking out from the metal. The good arm was under the covers. The left lay across his lap, like the claw of something from Mars. The creature said nothing, did nothing. It lay on its bed and looked at him.
Azarin glared at Kothu. “You did not tell me he would look like this.”
The doctor was thunderstruck. “But I did! I very carefully described the prosthetic appliances. I assured you they were perfectly functional — engineering marvels — if, regrettably, not especially cosmetic. You approved!”
“You did not tell me he would look like this,” Azarin growled. “You will now introduce me.”
“Of course,” Doctor Kothu said nervously. He turned hastily toward Martino. “Sir, this is Colonel Azarin. He has come to see about your condition.”
Azarin forced himself to go over to the bed. His face crinkled into its smile. “How do you do?” he said in English, holding out his hand.
The thing in the bed reached out its good hand. “I’m feeling better, thank you,” it said neutrally. “How do you do?” Its hand, at least, was human. Azarin gripped it warmly.
“I am well, thank you. Would you like to talk? Doctor Kothu, you will bring me a chair, please. I will sit here, and we will talk.” He waited for Kothu to place the chair. “Thank you. You will go now. I will call you when I wish to leave.”
“Of course, Colonel. Good afternoon, sir,” Kothu said to the thing in the bed, and left.
“Now, Doctor of Science Martino, we will talk,” Azarin said pleasantly, settling himself in his chair. “I have been waiting for you to recover. I hope I am not inconveniencing you, sir, but you understand there are things that have waited — records to be completed, forms to fill in, and the like.” He shook his head. “Paperwork, sir. Always paperwork.”
“Of course,” Martino said. Azarin had difficulty fitting the perfectly normal voice to the ugly face. “I suppose our people have been annoying your people to get me back, and that always means a great deal of writing back and forth, doesn’t it?”
Here is a clever one, Azarin thought. Within the first minute, he was trying to find out if his pe
ople were pressing hard. Well, they were, God knew they were, if Novoya Moskva’s tone of voice meant anything.
“There is always paperwork,” he said, smiling. “You understand, I am responsible for this sector, and my people wish reports.” So, now you may guess as much as you wish. “Are you comfortable? I hope everything is as it should be. You understand that as colonel in command of this sector, I ordered that you be given the best of all medical attention.”
“Quite comfortable, thank you.”
“I am sure that you, as a Doctor of Science, must be even more impressed with the work than I, as a simple soldier.”
“My specialty is electronics, Colonel, not servomechanics.”
Ah. So now we are even.
Less than even, Azarin thought angrily, for Martino had yet to give him any sign of being helpful. It did not matter, after all, how much Martino did not find out.
These first talks were seldom very productive in themselves. But they set the tone of everything that followed. It was now that Azarin had to decide what tactics to use against this man. It was now that the lines would be drawn, and Azarin measured against Martino.
But how could anyone see what this man thought when his face was the face of a metal beast — a carved thing, unmoving, with no sign of anything? No anger, no fear, no indecision — no weakness!
Azarin scowled. Still, in the end, he would win. He would rip behind that mask, and secrets would come spilling out.
If there is time, he reminded himself. Six weeks, now. Six weeks. How far would the Allieds stretch their patience? How far would the Allieds let Novoya Moskva stretch theirs?