“This is a hospital, a place of healing,” said Droste. “With your permission our Healers will give you a quick going over and see what sort of shape you’re in. You show the signs of freshly healed hurts.” I nodded without showing any emotion, but a sudden stab of hope shot through me. Whatever these people were, enchanters or something else, they seemed to have powers that would have been called magical in Carpathia. Their healing arts must be well advanced beyond anything known in my homeland. Perhaps, perhaps they could heal me of the Falling Sickness and make me a whole man again. I had often thought that I would trade my kingdom for freedom from the Falling Sickness; perhaps my wish had been strangely granted.
I followed Droste over to a part of the roof that seemed no different from the rest except that it had a large circle painted on it. We came to a halt and I looked at Droste in puzzlement, but suddenly the part of the roof within the circle flashed white and then began to sink slowly. I could not quite check an instinctive movement and Droste said quietly, “Just another means of transportation. It will take us down to the examining room.” I nodded and rested my hands on the hilt of my sword, noting as I did so that the sword point went a little way into the material below my feet. Perhaps at need I could hack my way out of any place I wanted free of.
But when the sinking circle stopped in a room filled with more gleaming objects across which lights flashed I was faced with a small woman with an untidy mop of gray hair, clothed in a close-fitting white garment. “Please put the sword and your outer garments on the table there and come over to the examination area,” she said crisply, and I obeyed meekly. She reminded me strongly of my old nurse and I could imagine her reaction if I demanded to keep my sword.
The “examining area” was another circle on the floor, but this one did not move. I stood within it and my skin tingled, then turned hot and cold as the gray-haired woman moved from one to another of the small tables and chests which ringed the circle on which I stood. Another woman dressed in white came from somewhere else in the room and looked at me in surprise. I concealed my own surprise, for her skin was darker than that of an old herdsman burned by the suns of many summers, and her hair was a mass of tightly coiled black ringlets. After the first surprise of her appearance I found her beautiful in her own way and I gave her a smile. She smiled back and said, “Hello, Casmir.”
“Perhaps you’d better tell him how you happen to know his name,” said Justinian Droste, who had been standing in the background.
The dark woman said, “We met about a month ago when I was on night duty at Central Receiving Hospital in Alba Cirque. He hadn’t seen a dark-skinned person before and we talked a little about that. He was a bit worried about a history of what sounded like epileptic seizures, but from the nerve-path scarring it looked as if someone had used a neural interrupter on him repeatedly over a period of a couple of years. They were treating him with Lysergol and the scarring should be . . . Oh!”
She was looking at the surface of one of the tables and her face was troubled. “The scarring is back, as bad as ever!” she said. “I don’t see how that’s possible, in fact I’d say it was medically impossible. Unless . . .” She looked at me with a question in her eyes.
“No, my Lady,” I said. “I have not seen you before—to my loss.” I turned to Droste, “It seems that I have a double,” I told him.
He nodded, his face grim. “Not only you but the whole setup in which we found you.” Some things which he and the man called Andres had said flashed through my mind: “The same man,” Andres had said, and Droste had spoken of a map of “the other place” as a guide to Castle Thom.
There was an indrawn breath from the dark woman and she said softly, “The Mortifer case!”
I caught her eyes and spoke gently, but with authority. “You have guessed something, Lady. Can you riddle me this riddle?”
She looked gravely into my eyes and said, “You and the man I met must be clones, duplicates grown from the cells of a prototype. There are new techniques for retrieving memories from the cellular record of the prototype; that was what Academician Mortifer was experimenting with, from the reports I’ve heard. Experiments have been done on animals but experimentation on humans is strictly forbidden by commonwealth law, and clones have the same rights as natural-borns.” Her eyes went to Droste. “You’re Justinian Droste, aren’t you?” she asked, “of the Citizen’s Liberties Union? Your group tracked down Mortifer’s experiments and denounced him to the authorities.”
Droste nodded and turned to me. “You had to know sooner or later,” he said, “and perhaps this is as good a way as any. Our group, as Nurse Nerere says, is opposed to experimentation on human beings—or sapient beings of any species for that matter. Most attempts at such experimentation need rather elaborate technological support; we have ways of getting to know about such things. Not long ago we got on the track of Mortifer’s experiments. First we found the first cavern, with your double and an identical setup to the one we took you from. We arrived at a rather dramatic moment, in fact.”
He hesitated, then went on. “I’ll tell you about that another time. Anyway, we investigated the setup and found some rather curious relay equipment. Eventually we traced the relays and found your cavern. There don’t seem to be any more. So far as I can tell, Mortifer had set up two identical men in identical surroundings and was subjecting them to identical stimuli. What he hoped to prove I’m not sure.”
I looked at my hands, at what I could see of my body. “Then I am . . . a . . . a homunculus?” I asked. “Made by Mortifer in the image of some real man?” My voice I think I kept steady, but only with a tremendous effort.
“No,” said the dark woman fiercely, “you’re as human as any of us; you’ve just been birthed by a more elaborate process. Ordinary conception uses cells from both parents; your cells are taken only from your prototype. But his cells contain genetic coding from two parents. Probably the most sensible way to look at it is that you, your double and your prototype are identical triplets, except that the prototype was born first and by more traditional means.”
“Your humanity is recognized by the Commonwealth,” said Droste, “and I’ll soon give you evidence of that. For that matter it’s recognized by the church your prototype belonged to, if that matters to you. It would have to him; he was a devout man by all accounts. But Mortifer might have interfered with those memories; it would fit what I know of the man.”
I was calmer now, not only because of their words but because I was realizing that no matter what my birth I was alive and in possession of my powers. Then another dismaying thought struck me. “My . . . prototype . . . he must be. . .”
Droste nodded and said calmly, “Dead these five hundred years. But before he died he unified Carpathia he’s remembered as the greatest of their kings. And your double gave signs of some rather unusual talents before he disappeared.”
I gazed at him in consternation, suddenly realizing how much I had been looking forward to seeing my other self. “Disappeared?” I said.
Droste nodded. “He left Central Receiving soon after Nurse Nerere talked to him. At first we thought he’d been kidnapped, but it seems he foiled a kidnap attempt on his own and went exploring . . . We’ve traced him as far as Carpathia, the real Carpathia. But the trail ends there; he seems to have vanished completely after the destruction of Mortifer’s laboratory.”
12. The Jagellon Gift
I glanced sharply at Droste. “Mortifer is a man of these times then?” I asked.
Droste shrugged. “Perhaps of these times and the times of Casmir the Tenth,” he said. “There’s a Mortifer in many of the old tales and legends of Carpathia. It may just be a family name, but there seems to be no record of a young Mortifer or a father and son Mortifer alive at the same time. We have techniques for extending life; what’s popularly called Life-stretch. The ordinary limit is about three hundred years, but Mortifer knows a lot about the life sciences. Perhaps he’s found a way to extend his own life eve
n longer; perhaps he’s even cloned himself and transferred memories. We just don’t know.”
“So the Mortifer I remember. . .” I said slowly.
“May be a mixture of memories of the ‘original’ Mortifer and the one alive today, if they aren’t the same man,” said Droste. “But there’s one further complication. As far as we can guess as to what he was up to Mortifer’s plan must have involved giving you and your double the same experiences at the same times. When you and your double both saw Mortifer at least one of them must have been an android. There’s something called a repeating android, which is a duplicate of a human keyed to exactly duplicate the actions taken by that human. A ruler who feared assassination might have a duplicate throne room built, hidden away somewhere. In the hidden room he might interact with holovision pictures of the people in the real room; they would see the android do just the actions the ruler was performing. But if an assassin torched the android the ruler would be unharmed.”
“So Mortifer, too, has a double,” I said slowly, as my mind raced over the possible complications of this.
“Perhaps not any longer,” said Droste. “We found the remains of a repeating android in the ruins of Mortifer’s laboratory. Perhaps he has another up his sleeve though; he certainly has enough accumulated wealth and expertise to build a dozen of them. His duplicates, however, can only do what the real Mortifer is doing. Your double is another human being, very much like you but free and independent. Even if it’s true, as some claim, that clones given identical stimuli would act the same, he’s had thirty days of experiences you haven’t had. But I’m inclined myself to believe that clones are individual persons who could react differently even given the same history and environment.”
“Be that as it may,” I said. “I have a good idea of what my double is doing now. He pursued Mortifer to—what did you call it?—his laboratory. When he found only this duplicating thing you told me of I think that he must have continued to pursue the real Mortifer. Find Mortifer and you’ll find the other Casmir not far behind him, I suspect.”
Justinian Droste gave me a wry smile. “We’ve been hunting Mortifer ever since we first had evidence of his experiments,” he said. “Your double had better luck than we did. My best plan now is to give you every assistance I can and let you see if you can duplicate the success of the other Casmir. And may the Mercy help Mortifer if either of you catch him! First things first though.” He turned to the gray-haired woman. “Does he need any treatment?” he asked.
The woman surveyed me with a disgruntled air. “Oh, he’s healthy enough,” she said. “I’ve seldom seen a better physical specimen. I’d like to give him an injection of Lysergol for that nerve-path scarring. Normally it’s not policy to let anyone with that in their blood out of custody since the Lysergol will inhibit the action of a neural interrupter. In this case I presume that’s something of an advantage.”
I looked to the dark woman for an explanation and she did not fail me. “A neural interrupter is a device which can render you unconscious; our peace officers use it for social control. Both you and your double have had one used on you repeatedly. I suspect that Mortifer simply rendered you unconscious when something started to go wrong in his experiments. That would account for the ‘falling sickness’ that the other Casmir described. As I told him, there’s no organic reason for you to suffer fainting spells.”
My heart leaped; this made up for much. “My thanks, Lady,” I said. “When my quest is done I would like to thank you more adequately.” I turned to Droste. “This land is strange to me,” I told him. “I’ll find Mortifer but it will be quicker if you help.”
He nodded. “You’ll have all the help that the Citizen’s Liberty Union can give you,” he said, “and to begin with, I’d like to register you as a citizen of the Commonwealth. It obliges you to keep our laws. But I think you’ll find those simple and reasonable enough. In return you’ll have the privileges of a citizen, which include a basic allowance of credit for food and other necessities. Anything beyond that you’ll have to earn by your own efforts. But I have the authority to put you on staff as a temporary investigator for the C.L.U.; we can cover your expenses and even pay you a modest wage. By the time you find Mortifer I suspect you will have found a place in our society that you want to occupy.”
I hesitated but then agreed. I knew nothing of the laws of this land and perhaps it was rash to agree to obey them, but from what I have seen of Droste and the others they seemed decent folk; I thought that I could live by the laws they lived by. I was asked to put my hand on a gray box and repeat my name. “Casmir the King. . .” I began, then stopped, remembering what my kingdom consisted of. “Casmir T. King,” said a voice from the box. Then a light flashed and the voice said, “Duplicate file, Casmir F. Thorn.”
“I could have told you that,” said the gray-haired woman.
“The C and C chip keys on the genotype; when I worked in Maternity we always had trouble recording identical twins. The simplest thing to do immediately is to key it as a lost chip replacement until you can get it straightened out with Central.” Droste nodded and she did something to the box that caused the light to go out. I felt a faint tingle on my wrist and when I raised my hand from the box I found a circular patch of blue on my wrist.
The dark woman came to my aid again. “It’s just a patch of stuff that sticks to your skin,” she said. “Move it around to avoid skin irritation. If you want to buy anything you’ll put your patch in contact with a terminal and credit will be transferred from your personal account. Any credit you earn will probably be transferred directly to your account. The color of the patch indicates your credit balance. Green is normal; yellow and orange indicate increasing depletion of the account and red means that you’re broke. Blue, indigo and violet indicate increasing credit surplus. Since yours is blue I presume that the C.L.U. has already credited you for the job they want you to do . . .”
“No,” broke in Droste, “we haven’t.” He gave a short laugh. “Since this is a duplicate chip that must mean that the other Casmir has earned a credit surplus somehow. Furthermore that credit surplus was either originated here at Home or else a surcharge was paid to post it in Central Credit. I think we can stop worrying about your double, ‘Casmir King’; he seems to be doing very well in our society.”
Before they let me go free from the “hospital” they held a thing to my arm which they said would put a healing liquid in my blood and subjected me to a few more of their glittering boxes. I used the opportunity to find that the dark woman’s name was Molly Nerere and that she could always be reached through Central Receiving Hospital in Alba Cirque. At last I was allowed to leave with Droste; we ascended again to the roof and took our flying disc again to another monstrous building. Another sinking disc took us to a corridor with several doors. At Droste’s instruction I pressed my wrist with its colored patch on a shining metallic plaque near one door. The door flashed white and vanished and we walked into a room with a bed, table and chairs, decorated in muted colors.
“This is a fairly standard transient hostel room,” said Droste. “You can pay more for something more luxurious if you like but that’s on your personal credit; the C.L.U. will credit your account to cover this.” He moved about the room, showing me how to get food from a niche in the wall and cleanse myself in what he called the “convenience.” “If I were you I’d rest for a while,” Droste told me. “The oval patch on the wall is called a View; if you press the contact on the bed frame there it will show you pictures that you may find interesting. It’s for entertainment more than for education but you can learn quite a bit from watching it. I’ll be back in the morning with what information I can get on Mortifer and on ‘Casmir Thorn.’ You’re certainly free to leave the room and wander around the city but I think you may have had enough culture shock for one day.”
I was suddenly conscious of a great weariness. As soon as Droste left me I flung myself on the bed and fell asleep almost immediately, though my dreams
were troubled. When I awoke I broke my fast to the accompaniment of music and a picture of a rushing mountain stream; the result of my first experiment with the “View.” It made me long for the woods of my boyhood, or rather, I realized, the boyhood of King Casmir the Tenth of Carpathia.
I thought of leaving the room then but the thought of the mistakes I might make in finding my way about discouraged me. Instead I began to see what I could learn from the “View.” The solid-looking, marvelously realistic pictures it showed soon fascinated me and when Droste returned he found me propped up on the bed watching the pictures.
He laughed when he saw what I was watching. “They call those ‘soaps’ for some reason,” he said. “They’re dramas of domestic life; a very good choice for learning some everyday things about our society. I can’t get over how quickly both you and the other Casmir have adapted yourself to our society. Ability to adapt is one component of intelligence of course, but it’s more than that. Most people are strongly conditioned by their culture; they expect things to go a certain way and react with confusion or hostility if things aren’t as they expect.”
I shrugged. “The change from my old life was so drastic and so sudden that there was no choice except to learn quickly and to seize every opportunity,” I said.
Droste laughed again. “Well, your double certainly seized every opportunity. So far as we can reconstruct his adventures this is what happened; an attempt was made to kidnap him from the hospital in Alba Cirque by a man disguised as an android by wearing a blue cap that simulated the blue dome of an android control unit. The other Casmir overpowered the kidnapper and left him in his own hospital bed, then made his way out of the hospital. Then somehow he hooked up with a rather criminal type named Joseph Pellow who was also disguised as an android. Apparently Pellow was attempting to spy on or steal from a rich merchant, Flavia Lorne, by using the android disguise. However, Lorne is none too honest herself; she involved your double in a scheme to impersonate her cousin. She was on the brink of financial ruin and the idea was to convince her creditors that her wealthy cousin was on good terms with her and would back her financially. The other Casmir used his impersonation to make friends with a wealthy trader named Benton who is an enthusiast for hunting wild animals. The other Casmir so impressed Benton and his sister Mirianne that they used their business connections to get him starpassage to Carpathia. Have you realized, Casmir, that the real Carpathia is a world circling another star?”
The Parallel Man Page 10