A Man of Double Deed

by Leonard Daventry

  Deenan’s eyes opened. ‘I read it long ago. It was in a book of poems discovered by an archaeologist in the runs of the old city of Birmingham. Nobody knows who wrote it and nobody can really figure what it means. Do you want to her the rest of it?’

  ‘Surely.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And when the birds began to fly, ’twas like a shipwreck in the sky,

  And when the sky began to crack, ’twas like a rod across my back,

  And when my back began to smart, ’twas like a penknife in my heart,

  And when my heart began to bleed, then I was dead, and dead indeed.’

  ‘It sounds splendid. Do you know what it means?’

  ‘Why, it’s full of significance, and you make your own meaning. To me it compensates for so much. Come to think of it – you’re a man of double deed, you and Karns, and the others …’

  ‘How did you know about them?’

  ‘I just knew.’

  In a metal and plastic face there can be no expression, and in a fabricated mind there can be no subterfuge – only doors that open and close. Yes or no. It was true – he just knew.

  ‘When you spoke about your head, did you mean that you’ve undergone repairs to it recently?’

  ‘Of course. They yanked me away one morning and performed some maintenance work without so much as a “pardon me if I’m interrupting”. The devils said they were putting in new wiring but I expect it was just an excuse to play about. The scum!’

  But Deenan didn’t really think too badly of them. It was just that he resented the fact that they had never given him any kind of penis with which to perform the natural function. Probably the surgeons had considered such an appendage unnecessary. At any rate, all he possessed was an aperture which, although satisfactory for what was required, had, by its incongruity, set up an irritation neurone even in a brain which was two-parts robot.

  ‘Has it been – too bad, here on this island?’ asked Coman, and regretted the question instantly.

  Deenan sat up, and as his heavy head came forward, held it in his hands and gave out a kind of groan. ‘Too bad, Coman? You are the only one who ever comes to see me, and even you will not bring friends any more.

  Coman was silent. Deenan went on: ‘I was a bit of a fool last time, when you brought that girl, but I’m changed now. I’ve accepted myself for what I am.’

  The strange voice was pathetic in its entreaty, and Coman sighed. ‘If you have accepted yourself, then you must wait no longer for people to come to see you. You must go to them.’

  There was a short silence while the borrowed eyes stared into his and then Deenan began laughing, his mouth opening and closing like a visor. Digging his toes into the fine sand and waving his arms up and down, he exclaimed at last: ‘Of course I must! The world is ready for me and I’m ready for them! I’ll …’

  Just then a dark shape appeared round the headland some two miles to the east, and they both turned, attracted by the sound of its engines across the calm waters.

  ‘We have visitors after all!’ exclaimed Deenan. ‘A deputation from the outside, no doubt, come to carry me in state to the Council chambers.’

  He rose, but Coman, filled with a sudden premonition, grasped his arm and pulled him down again. The boat was long and sleek, a five-berthed Bellern powered by Buamier twin engines, capable, he guessed, of up to a hundred and fifty knots in this sea. As it came closer he saw that it was of luxury design, a model of the type used by the very wealthy for long trips in the Pacific, and on the foredeck the figure of a man squatted behind a thin, L-shaped gun, rather larger than the ones used by Linnel and Harkor, and mounted on shining legs. Hardly had he noted this when the gun fired once, soundlessly, emitting a white arc of vapour which glittered fractionally and then disappeared. Away to the right, in the direction of Deenan’s bungalow, there was a sudden puff of smoke and a redness … then nothing but a smokeball which rose slowly, dispersing around the giant pylon helping to support the City, and was gone.

  Well, they didn’t take long to find me, Coman thought, and: How many more damned ray-guns have we to face?

  ‘What kind of party is this?’ asked Deenan.

  ‘Keep well down. I’m afraid you’ll just have to go out into the world,’ replied Coman.

  He looked up at the City, vague in a shimmering haze of heat. Surely someone up there had seen what was going on? Nothing happened however. No police platforms or paralysing rays. Nothing at all. He gazed intently at the boat. It had shut off its engines and was drifting close to the shore. The man behind the gun still had his face to the sights, arms akimbo, fingers on the button. Two other men had appeared and were staring at the shore through binoculars. All were dressed in seafaring rig, long rubber boots and the rest. Coman thought hard.

  Linnel had said there were only three men and all were visible. He possessed only the shock-gun and the needle weapon himself, mere toys, effective up to about twenty or so yards. And Deenan was unarmed. Against the gun on the boat they had no answer and he could only hope that the enemy would now turn round and disappear into the blue. At first it seemed that this might happen, but then some sort of argument appeared to develop among the men on the boat. Coman guessed that the house was completely destroyed and that one, or possibly two, were convinced that he and Deenan were dead, but the opposing faction wished to make sure. Deenan was cursing under his breath and Coman had difficulty in restraining him from rushing along the beach.

  ‘For the last time – keep down! If they see you we’ll be burnt to a cinder. The paintings are gone and you’ll have to start again …’ He stopped, catching Deenan’s thought before it was uttered: ‘To hell with the paintings. It’s my little tin brother I’m thinking about. The wicked bastards have murdered him in his corner!’

  By all the galaxies, thought Coman, he had a fellow-feeling for that. Grasping the other by the arm he pulled him down into a little hollow fringed with tufts of grass, and then peered again in the direction of the boat. Two of the men were now clambering down a small ladder attached to the stern and in another moment had begun wading towards the sand, perhaps two hundred yards away. Both carried blaster-pistols which they held chest high. The other man had retired into the forecabin, and in another minute the engines were started and the boat began to move sluggishly along the shore-line, keeping pace with the two men. These, as if gifted with second sight, began to trudge in Coman’s and Deenan’s direction as soon as they hit the beach. They advanced like the two points of an opening fan, one staying on the sand and the other coming inland at a shallow angle, while the boat kept in a position in line with the first man.

  It was impossible to escape or remain hidden for more than another minute or so. Keeping his head down Coman dug into his jacket and, after a moment of hesitation, handed Deenan the shock-gun. Once upon a time the other had been a crack shot. It was impossible to know his present capabilities, but Coman said as quickly and clearly as possible: ‘When I show myself you take the fellow on my side, and I’ll go for the other. One shot, and make it count – then drop flat and crawl.’

  Deenan said nothing, and Coman could only hope that he understood. The first man was about fifteen yards away now, coming straight towards them, thinking: It was round about here I saw … And the other was perhaps twenty yards away, but down the incline. Both of them were proceeding warily, guns at the ready.

  ‘Now!‘ cried Coman, and jumped upright.

  It took more nerve than he had bargained for, to stand in front of an enemy searching for him with a blaster, and to ignore that enemy completely. In the instant he aimed at the man on the beach his blood seemed to turn to water … There was a shout, and many things seemed to happen at once. The weapon in his hand whispered and he heard the blaster and the shock-gun almost simultaneously. Then, his scalp burning, but knowing himself still alive, he threw his body after that of the man Deenan had shot, his hands scrabbling for the blaster fallen in the sand. Finding it, he fired once at the rolling m
an and turned immediately, his eyes focusing desperately as sky, sea and beach whirled before him. Deenan was running down the incline and the man on the shore was moving too, trying to aim …

  The boat engines had stopped again, and suddenly the gun in the bows whined almost imperceptibly. The next instant one – or was it both? – of the men below seemed to burst into flame. Setting his teeth, Coman started running towards the water. The ray-gun turned and he zigzagged wildly. As it fired again the ground near him seemed to erupt in a darkness of smoke and flying sand particles. Then he was in the water, and so close to the boat that the gun could not find him. Reaching the ladder, he climbed it at speed, expecting to be cut down at any moment. But as the engined sounded beneath him he knew that his opponent was back in the wheelhouse.

  In another moment he was over the rail and the boat was swinging away from the beach. He saw the face of the man he was after through the window of the forecabin. It must have been an ugly mug at the best of times but now it was crazed and distorted by fear and hatred. It’s mouth moved and shouted incomprehensible noises and for an instant Coman stared at it fascinated. As he raised the blaster at last the face disappeared, the wheel spun, and in another second his opponent rushed out of the cabin and jumped clean over the side of the boat.

  His limbs trembling with sudden reaction, Coman watched the squat figure flounder to its feet and begin blundering through the high waves, his arms flailing from side to side. He could do nothing but grin weakly, his free hand feeling automatically for a cigarette. As he lit up, the figure reached the shore and ran, stumbling inland. He could have hit it easily with the ray-gun, but he felt no inclination to bother, his eyes now ranged westwards to the two black objects sprawled among the dunes. The boat was drifting fast now towards the headland, and Coman turned and went into the wheelhouse, pushed the starter button and, as the motors boomed, swung the craft round against the current. When he reached the scene of the fight once more, he switched off and brought the boat gently in to the sand.

  He found Deenan a few yards from the smoking body of the dead man and for a moment thought that he too had been killed. However, his flesh parts seemed unharmed and although a section of the metal stomach appeared roughened and discoloured by heat, and the ‘window’ there was distorted and opaque, breath still came from between the plastic lips and Coman could see the strong pulse of the heartbeat through vessels apparent behind another panel. He knelt and lifted the heavy form and, as he did so, the eyeshutters clicked back and the mouth opened and framed a terrible obscenity.

  ‘Do you know me?’ asked Coman, thinking that perhaps the brain structure had been damaged.

  Deenan laughed and, disdaining help, struggled to his feet and stood, swaying, a grotesque figure with shining buttocks from the centre of which stretched a highly tensile rod, while, below, his brown legs emerged from the metal shell looking somehow horrible tender and vulnerable.

  ‘How could I forget you? You turned the boat round and came back.’

  Coman’s face was stony with suppressed emotion. ‘Do you meant to say you lay there believing I might vamoose?’

  ‘Why not? I’m of no use to you.’

  Coman said nothing to this and gazed up at the sky. When the robot in the house had melted, an alarm signal must have been transmitted to the Central Department of Police, yet there was still no sign of help or inspection. There was only one answer to this mystery and he accepted it without undue worry or anger.

  ‘You’d better find your clothes and then get dressed,’ he said, and together they trudged to the top of the incline, eventually finding the few possessions Deenan now had left in the world unharmed where he had left them.

  ‘Come and have a look at your new home,’ said Coman pointing to the boat below, which now showed signs of shortly being taken by the tide. Without further ado they hurried down, and pushing it free, climbed aboard.

  When they were well out to sea, Coman carried out an inspection and inventory, and was well pleased with his prize. Fifty feet in length, it possessed three cabins aft and one forward, with a multitude of luxuries and refinements. Besides the ray-gun, which he dismantled and stowed, there was a regular armoury of weapons and enough provisions to keep an army during a long siege. He then examined Deenan thoroughly to make sure there were no major lesions in his machinery and with relief found only superficial flesh burns which could be treated on the spot by a visit to the boat’s medicine chest.

  After this Coman left him to make coffee and, picking a quiet spot, operated the shortwave device on his wrist once more. At length he heard Jonl’s voice.

  ‘Claus?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank goodness.’

  ‘Why – are you in trouble?’

  ‘No, you idiot, I wondered if you were.’

  ‘Whatever made you think that?’

  ‘I’m not a complete imbecile you know. You are safe, aren’t you, darling?’

  ‘Absolutely, and I’ve finished my business here.’

  ‘I guessed that after hearing the latest news. Then you can come and collect us whenever you like.’

  ‘How are things with you?’

  ‘Just boring, and a little awkward.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Jark Raylond believes he is in love with me – I mean really in love.’

  ‘Ah. Do you think he is?’

  There was a moment in which she seemed to hesitate, then:

  ‘I don’t honestly know – and does it matter, Claus? It would be too easy to say that it’s only desire. He’s tried to make me, but in a rather gentlemanly fashion – somewhat different from his first approach. Apparently we’re having a party tonight composed of the local intelligentsia, and there will be a lot of food and drink stimulants and, I think, probably live sexual entertainment.’

  ‘To put you in the mood perhaps?’

  She laughed on a rather high key. ‘Maybe. I’ve tried to make it clear that there’s only one man in my life but either he cannot or will not understand.’

  ‘And Sein?’

  ‘He’s not interested in her, although I imagine she may find herself in difficulties during the party.’

  ‘I begin to see why I should come for you both as soon as possible.’

  ‘Good. I hope there will be no – difficulty, but, well, it’s beginning to make me uneasy.’

  ‘What is?’

  Through the crackle of atmospherics he could detect a note of strain. ‘He seems so set in his purpose, and his mother also appears to think it’s a marvellous idea. She’s a slightly formidable old thing to look at but very pleasant at heart, and seems to have more than a little influence in the social life. But she adores her son and aids and abets him in his inclinations.’

  ‘I see. Shall I be able to get through the house barriers all right?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll ask for the guards to expect you. By the way …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are we really going to have a holiday now?’

  He hesitated only a fraction of a second. ‘Yes. I have a little sea voyage planned – fishing, swimming, sunbathing and so on.’

  ‘Oh, wonderful! When can we expect to see you?’

  ‘This afternoon at about four o’clock. Until then, Jonl.’

  Chapter XII

  THERE WERE TWO guards at the gate, both rather humanoid in construction. They moved as in unison and while one spoke the other fingered a blaster.

  ‘Please, yes?’

  ‘Claus Coman.’

  They inspected him in silence and then the one who had spoken unfastened the gate and let him inside.

  ‘You will step on to the belt, please, and behave with politeness.’

  As he was carried gently across a large lawn containing a round pond with a fountain sparkling in the evening sun, Coman could not avoid speculation on the new idea, that of sending messages via robots. At the best of times robot speech left much to be desired, owing to the vagaries engendered by min
ute defects sometimes incorporated during construction or, more often, occurring during temperature changes. One usually listened to them with only part attention, knowing roughly the formulae imprinted on the tapes, and disregarding word constructions, and even sentences, which might have seemed strange coming from humans. Now that thought messages were to be mixed in sometimes with the speech forms, it might prove difficult not to infer messages which were in fact non-existent.

  The time was four-thirty and, as he was alter than he had intended, Coman wondered whether the ‘party’ Jonl had mentioned was already under way. He wanted nothing but to get the two girls away and on to the boat which, he hoped, was now cruising somewhere between Ellice and Samoa. Deenan had seemed eager and capable enough, and Coman was relying on him to look after things until they returned to a spot agreed upon as suitable for embarkation. Whether or not the police would take an active part in another attack on his life, or merely continue to remain inert while others, if others remained, made further attempts he had no means of knowing. At any rate he now had in his grasp the means of making all four of them scarce, while the machinery of creating a War Section ground into action.

  When he reached the house they were waiting for him in the open doorway, accompanied by Jark Raylond. The girls greeted him only with their eyes but Jark said: ‘Well, well, you’re a little early – but no matter, the rest of the guests won’t be long. Come in and have a drink.’

  ‘Thank you, no,’ said Coman. ‘It was very good of you to entertain Jonl and Sein while I was engaged elsewhere, but we shouldn’t take further advantage.’

  ‘Come now, what sort of return is that for my hospitality? At least you can stop for a drink and meet my mother. You’re not escaping from somebody, are you?’

  Coman stared at him, but there was nothing in the young man’s mind except the usual complexities of frustration and helplessness that marked the sickness of the age – and of course a now almost desperate desire for Jonl, prompting him, in the face of Coman’s arrival, to seek new and devious methods of realising his ambition.