"A multiple-personality synthetic?"
"Then we can't go by mind-touch. We'll have to lock on physical-visual appearance."
"You can catch murder-thoughts," Wakeman disagreed, as he buckled on a protective suit. "But don't expect continuity. The thought-processes will cut off without warning. Be prepared for the impact; that's what destroyed the Corps at Batavia."
"Does each separate complex bring a new strategy?"
"Apparently. Find him and kill him. As soon as you catch the murder-thought burn him to ash."
Wakeman poured himself a drink. He locked his helmet in place, snapped on the air-temp feed lines, collected a gun and hurried to one of the exit sphincters.
The arid, barren expanse of waste was a shock. He stood fumbling with his humidity and gravity control, adjusting himself to the sight of an infinity of dead matter. The moon was a ravaged, blasted plain of gaping craters where the original meteors had smashed away the life of the satellite. Nothing stirred, no wind or flutter of life. Whereever he looked there was only the pocked expanse of rubble. The face of the moon had dried up and split. The skin had been eroded; only the skull was left, and as Wakeman stepped gingerly forward he felt that he was tramping over the features of a death's head.
While Wakeman was hurrying across the deserted landscape someone's thoughts were jubilantly hammered into his brain. "Peter, I've spotted him! He landed just now, a quarter of a mile from me!"
The Corpsman was excitedly voluble. "He landed like a meteor. I saw a flash—I went to investigate——"
So Keith Pellig was that close to his prey? Wakeman cut his gravity-pressure to minimum and rushed forward wildly. In leaps and bounds he dashed towards his fellow Corpsman; panting, gasping for breath, he moved nearer the assassin.
He stumbled and pitched on his face. As he struggled up the hiss of escaping air whined in his ears. With one hand he dragged out the emergency repair pack; with the other he fumbled for his gun. He had dropped it somewhere in the debris around him.
The air was going fast. He forgot the gun and concentrated on patching his protective suit. The plastic hardened instantly, and the terrifying hiss ended. As he began searching for the weapon among the boulders and dust a Corpsman's thought was transmitted to him.
"He's moving! He's heading towards the right place!"
"Where are you?" He set off at a bounding trot in the direction of the Corpsman. A high ridge rose ahead of him; he sprinted up it and half-slid, half-rolled down the far-side. A vast bowl stretched out in front of him. The Corps- man's thoughts came to him strongly now. He was close by.
And for the first time he caught the thoughts of the assassin.
Wakeman stopped, rigid. "That's not Pellig!" he radiated back wildly. "That's Herb Moore!"
Moore's mind pulsed with frenzied activity. Unaware that he had been detected, he had let down all barriers. His eager, high-powered thoughts poured out in a flood.
Wakeman stood frozen, concentrating on the stream of mental energy lapping at him. It was all there, the whole story. Moore's super-charged mind contained every fragment of it.
A variety of human minds. Altering personalities hooked to an intricate switch-mechanism. Coming and going in chance formation, without pattern. Minimax, randomness, M-game theory...
It was a lie.
Wakeman recoiled. Beneath the surface of game-theory was another level, a submarginal syndrome of hate and desire and terrible fear. Jealousy of Benteley. Terror of death. Moore was a driven man, dominated by the torment of dissatisfaction, culminating in ruthless cunning.
The twitch of the Pellig machinery wasn't random.
Moore had complete control. He could switch operators into and out of the body at any time; he could set up any combination he pleased; he was free to hook and unhook himself at will.
Moore spotted the Corpsman trailing him. The Pellig body shot quickly upward, poised, then rained a thin stream of death down on the scurrying telepath. The man shrieked once, then his physical being dissolved in a heap of ash. Like a cloud of volatile gas his mind hung together, then showly began to scatter. Its weak thoughts faded. The man's consciousness, his being, dissolved; the mind ceased to be a unit; the man was dead.
Wakeman cursed his lost gun. He cursed himself and Cartwright and everybody in the system. He threw himself behind a bleak boulder and lay crouched as Pellig drifted slowly down and landed lightly on the dead surface. Pellig glanced about him, seemed satisfied and began a cautious prowl.
"Get him!" Wakeman radiated desperately. "He's almost ours!"
There was no response; no Corpsmen were close enough to pick up and relay his thoughts. With the death of the nearest Corpsman the network had shattered. Pellig was walking through an undefended gap.
Wakeman leaped to his feet. He lugged an immense boulder waist-high and staggered to the top of the inclined rise. Below him Keith Pellig walked, bland, almost smiling. Wakeman managed to raise the rock above his head. He swayed, lifted it higher—and hurled it, bouncing and crashing, at the synthetic.
Pellig saw the rock coming. He scrambled away in a spring that carried him yards from the path of the boulder. From his mind came a blast of fear and surprise, of panic. He raised his thumb-gun towards Wakeman.
And then Herb Moore had gone from the body.
The Pellig body altered subtly. Wakeman's blood froze at the uncanny sight; a man was changing before his eyes. The features shifted, melted momentarily, then reformed. But it wasn't the same face—because it wasn't the same man. Moore had gone and a new operator had taken over. From the pale blue eyes a different personality peered.
"Wakeman!" the thoughts came. "Peter Wakeman!"
Wakeman straightened up. The new operator had recognized him. Wakeman probed quickly and deeply. For a moment he couldn't place the personality; it was familiar but obscured by the immediacy of the situation. But he knew it, all right.
It was Ted Benteley.
Chapter XII
Out in dead space, beyond the known system, the creaking ore carrier lumbered along. In the control bubble Groves sat listening intently, his dark face rapt.
"The Disc is still far away," the voice murmured in his mind. "Don't lose contact with my own ship."
"You're John Preston," Groves said softly.
"I am very old," the voice replied. "I have been here a long time."
"A century and a half," Groves said.
"I have waited. I knew you would come. My ship will hover nearby; you will probably pick up its mass from time to time. If everything goes correctly I'll be able to guide you to a landing point on the Disc."
"Will you be there?" Groves asked. "Will you meet us?"
There was no answer.
He got unsteadily to his feet and called Konklin. A moment later both Konklin and Mary Uzich hurried into the control bubble. Jereti loped a few paces behind. "You heard him?" Groves said thickly.
"It was Preston," Mary whispered.
"He must be as old as hell," Konklin said. "A little old man, waiting out here in space for us to come. Waiting all these years..."
"I think we'll get there," Groves said. "Even if they managed to kill Cartwright we'll still reach the Disc."
"What did Cartwright say?" Jereti asked Groves. "Did it perk him up to hear about Preston?"
Groves hesitated. "Cartwright was preoccupied."
"But surely he———"
"He's about to be murdered!" Groves savagely flicked the controls. "He hasn't time to think about anything else."
Nobody said anything for a while. Finally Konklin asked: "Has there been any news?"
"I can't get Batavia. Military black-out has completely screened out the ipvic lines. I picked up emergency troop movements from the inner planets towards Earth, and Directorate wings heading home."
"What's that mean?" Jereti asked.
"Pellig has reached Batavia. And something has gone wrong. Cartwright must have his back to the wall. The Corps must have failed
."
Wakeman shouted frantically. "Benteley! Listen! Moore has it rigged; you're being tricked. It's not random."
It was hopeless. Without atmosphere his voice died in his helmet. Benteley's thoughts radiated to him clear and distinct but there was no way in which Wakeman could communicate back. He was boxed-in, baffled. The figure of Keith Pellig and the mind of Ted Benteley were only a few yards from him—but he could make no contact.
Benteley's thoughts were mixed. It's Peter Wakeman, he was thinking. Realization of danger; an image of Cartwright; the job of killing; aversion and doubt; distrust of Verrick; dislike of Herb Moore. Benteley was undecided. For an instant the thumb-gun wavered.
Wakeman scrambled down the ridge and on to the plain. Frantically he scrawled on in the ancient dust:
MOORE TRICKED YOU. NOT RANDOM
Benteley realized that a one-sided conversation was going on with himself as transmitter and the telepath as receiver. "Go on, Wakeman," Benteley radiated harshly. "What do you mean?"
Wakeman wrote desperately.
MOORE WILL KILL BOTH YOU AND CARTWRIGHT
Benteley's mind radiated amazement, suspicion. His thumb-gun came quickly up... bomb
Wakeman, panting for breath, sought a new surface on which to write. But he had written enough. Benteley was filling in the details himself—his fight with Moore, his relations with Eleanor Stevens. Moore's jealousy. The thumb-gun was lowered.
"They're seeing this," Benteley thought. "All the operators at their screens. And Moore—he's seeing it, too."
Wakeman leaped up and ran forward. Gesturing excitedly, trying to shout across the airless void, he got within two feet before Benteley halted him by an ominous wave of the thumb-gun.
"Stay away from me," was the thought Benteley radiated. "I'm still not sure of you. You're working for Cartwright."
Again Wakeman scratched frantically:
PELLIG SET TO DETONATE WHEN CLOSE TO CARTWRIGHT. MOORE WILL SWITCH YOU INTO PELLIG BODY AT THAT MOMENT.
"Does Verrick know?" Benteley demanded. yes
"Eleanor Stevens?" yes
Benteley's mind flashed anguish. "How do I know this is true? Prove it!"
EXAMINE YOUR PELLIG BODY. LOCATE POWER LEADS. TRACE CIRCUIT TO BOMB.
Benteley's fingers flew as he ripped at the synthetic chest and found the main wiring that interlaced the body beneath the layer of artificial skin. He tore loose a whole section of material and probed deep, as Wakeman crouched a few feet away, heart frozen in his chest.
Benteley was wavering. The last clinging mist of loyalty to Verrick was giving way to hatred and disgust. "All right, Wakeman, I'm taking the body back. All the way to Chemie." He leaped into activity. Realization that Moore was watching made his fingers a blur of motion as he inspected the reactor and jet controls, and then, without a sound, flashed the synthetic robot and ship up into the black sky, towards Earth.
The body had moved almost a quarter of a mile before Herb Moore sent the selector mechanism twitching.
Shatteringly, without warning, Ted Benteley found himself sitting in his chair at A.G. Chemie.
On the miniature screen before him Benteley could see the Pellig body hurtling downwards, racing over the scampering figure of Peter Wakeman and directing its thumb-gun. Wakeman saw what was coming. He stopped running and stood, oddly calm and dignified, as the synthetic body dropped low, spun, and then incinerated him. Moore was in control again.
In an instant Benteley was at the door of the cubicle, reaching for the heavy steel handle.
The door was sealed.
Back at the humming banks of machinery, he tore at relays, and there was a flashing pop as the main power cables shorted, sending up acrid fumes and bringing meters to zero. The door swung open, its lock now inoperative. Benteley raced down the hall towards Moore's central lab. On the way he crashed into a lounging Hill guard. Benteley knocked him down, grabbed his gun, turned the corner and plunged into the lab.
There he ended Herb Moore's existence as a living human being.
The effect on the Pellig body was instantaneous. It gave a convulsive leap, whirled and darted grotesquely, a crazed thing swooping aimlessly. All at once, as if Moore were putting some prearranged plan into operation, random motion ceased. The body moved in a purposeful circle and in a flash shot off for deep space.
On the screen, the Luna surface receded. It dwindled and became a ball, then a dot, then it was gone.
The lab doors burst open. Verrick and Eleanor Stevens entered quickly. "What did you do?" Verrick demanded hoarsely. "He's gone crazy. He's heading away from..."
He saw the lifeless body of Herb Moore.
"So that's it," he said softly.
Benteley got out of the lab—fast. Verrick didn't try to stop him; he stood staring at Moore's corpse, numbed with shock.
Down the ramp Benteley raced and plunged into the dark street. As a group of Chemie personnel streamed hesitantly out after him he entered the taxi yard and hailed one of the parked urbtrans ships.
"To Bremen!" Benteley gasped. He snapped his seat-straps into place and braced his neck against the take-off impact.
The small high-speed ship shot swiftly into the sky, and A.G. Chemie fell behind.
"Get me to the interplanetary flight base," Benteley ordered.
He wondered how much of his conversation with Wake-man had been picked up by the balance of the Corps. Whether he liked it or not, Luna was the only place that offered a chance of safety. All nine planets were now Hill-operated death traps: Verrick would never rest until he had paid him back. But there was no telling what reception he would get from the Directorate. He might be shot on sight as one of Verrick's agents, he might be regarded as Cartwright's saviour.
Where was the synthetic body going?
The flight field was manned by Hill personnel. Benteley could see intercon liners and transports resting here and there, and great hordes of people. Among the people Hill guards moved about keeping order. Suddenly Benteley changed his mind.
"Don't land here. Isn't there a military field near?"
"The Directorate maintains a small military repair field at Narvik. You want to go there? It's forbidden for non-military ships to set down in that area. I'll have to drop you over the side."
"That sounds like exactly what I want."
Leon Cartwright was fully awake when the Corpsman came running to his quarters. "How far away is he?" Cartwright asked. Even with the injection of sodium pentathol he had slept only a few hours. "Pretty close, I suppose."
"Peter Wakeman is dead," the Corpsman said.
Cartwright got quickly to his feet. "Who killed him?"
"The assassin."
"Then he's here." Cartwright yanked out his hand weapon. "What kind of defence can we put up? How did he find me? What happened to the network at Batavia?"
Rita O'Neill entered the room, white-faced and panting. "The Corps broke down completely. Pellig forced his way to the inner fortress and found you had gone."
Cartwright glanced at her, then back at the Corpsman. "What happened to your people?"
"Our strategy failed," the Corpsman said simply. "Verrick had some kind of deception. I think Wakeman had it analysed before he died."
"Wakeman's dead?" Rita asked in astonishment.
"Pellig got him," Cartwright explained. "That cuts us off from the Corps. We're completely on our own." He turned to the Corpsman. "Have you definitely located the assassin?"
"Our emergency network has collapsed. When Wakeman was killed we lost connection with Pellig."
"If Pellig has got this far," Cartwright said thoughtfully, "we haven't much chance of stopping him."
"Wakeman was handling it," Rita blazed savagely. "You can do much better. His brain was nothing compared with yours." As Cartwright produced a gun she continued: "You're going to defend yourself with that thing? That's all you're going to do?"
At that moment a Corpsman interrupted: "Mr. Cartwright, a ship from Earth
has landed. Major Shaeffer was abroad with the remaining Corpsmen. He's coming up the ramp now."
Cartwright fumbled in his coat pocket for cigarettes. "Strange," he said to Rita, "that Wakeman is dead, despite his careful planning."
"I'm not sorry for him. I wish you'd do something instead of just standing there."
"There's not a lot left to do. If one man is determined to kill another there's not much that can be done to stop him."
"I think I liked you better when you were afraid.' Rita said bitterly. "At least I understood that."
"I'll make a concession," Cartwright said. "I'll sit facing the door." He settled gingerly on the edge of a table, his gun in his palm. "What does Pellig look like?" he asked the Corpsman.
"Young. Thin. Blond. No special characteristics."
"What kind of weapon is he using?"
"A thumb-gun. That's a heat beam principle."
"I want to recognize Pellig when I see him," Cartwright explained to Rita. "He may be the next person through that door."
The next person through the door was Major Shaeffer.
"I brought this man with me," Shaeffer said to Cartwright, as he entered the room. "As you'll want to talk to him."
A dark, neatly-dressed man in his early thirties had entered slightly behind Shaeffer.
"This is Ted Benteley," Shaeffer said. "A serf of Reese Verrick's."
Benteley was sharp and tense, more on edge than they had first realized. "Shaeffer is incorrect," he said. "I'm not under oath to Verrick any longer. I've left him."
"You broke your oath?" Cartwright asked.
"He broke his oath to me. I left in a considerable hurry and came here direct from A.G. Chemie; there were complications."
"He killed Herb Moore," Shaeffer amplified.
"Not exactly," Benteley corrected. "I killed his body, his physical self."
He began to explain the situation. When he was half through Cartwright interrupted with a question: "Where's—well, I suppose we should still call it Pellig. When we last heard of him he was only a few miles from here."
"The Pellig body is on its way towards deep space," Benteley said. "Moore isn't interested in you any more; now he's got his own problems. When he realized he was stuck in the synthetic body he left Luna and headed straight out."
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