by Denis Hughes
“You’re all right,” he said, as if relieved. “You’re not a murderer, Varden, but that other entity that belongs to you is.”
Varden gulped uncomfortably and felt for a cigarette. “How did you work all that out?” he inquired.
Blake smiled tiredly. “Oh, that? Measured electrical impulses applied to the brain tissue show reaction on the dial,” he explained. “I can listen in to the static reflexes resulting and form my own opinion. Various differing impulses bring up a whole procession of thoughts in your mind, and from them I can make a mental picture of your recent activities. It’s simple really, though it sounds a bit complicated at first.”
Varden grunted. “You’re telling me!” he said. “So I’m not a killer, eh? Well, I knew that, but it’s good to have it confirmed by an outside source.” He broke off. “Er—is there any chance of getting rid of my other half before he does any more damage?” He watched Blake anxiously, searching his face for hope of redemption.
But Blake shook his head regretfully. “Not that I know of,” he admitted. “We may think of something later on, but at the moment your second entity is a permanent attachment.” He took a turn round the office, hands behind his back, frowning. “The thing that worries me is how to keep the man intangible and let you sleep at the same time. Mind you, I can keep you awake for a year if I want to, but that’s no real solution. However…”
Varden grunted. He was dog tired and his eyelids were heavy, but he didn’t want to sleep. He daren’t! Blake seemed to understand. He gave Varden a glass of some drug which immediately livened him up, driving all desire to sleep away.
“That’ll keep you going for six hours,” Blake told him. “Now we’ll hunt out Rhonna,” He sounded almost cheerful now.
In a large, artificially lighted workshop a dozen young men were engaged on some huge piece of mechanism foreign to Varden. Rhonna was with them, looking on and occasionally speaking to one or other of them.
“What is it?” asked Varden, pointing to the towering machine. Blake smiled, but only shook his head. Then: “It can prevent a war from developing, or cause such chaos as the world has never seen,” he replied.
Rhonna joined them and they entered a comfortable room which was obviously Blake’s own study. The scientist nodded to his daughter. “He’s all right,” he said quietly. “Nothing wrong with his motives in coming here, though at one time he was ready to work against us through pressure being brought to bear on him.”
She nodded soberly. “Merrick,” she mused. “I’m glad, Bob. Glad you made me see sense, I mean.”
“What else can I do now you’ve accepted me?” he wanted to know.
Blake said, “Can you find out where this launching base is? If you can we can immobilise it without using our full output and so causing chaos in other places. That’s only for emergency.”
Varden didn’t understand, but said, “I can try. My other half may have found out by this time; or I may be able to get it from Merrick myself.”
Rhonna was on her feet at once. “I’ll fly you back to London," she said. “Merrick won’t act till he has your report.” She smiled. “It’s all right; dad discovered about it himself. Merrick still thinks you’re working for him. Very well, give him something to go on with! But get the location of that launching base.”
Varden grinned broadly. It hurt his face, but was worth it. “Come on then!” he said. “Now we’re getting somewhere!”
CHAPTER 9
FUGITIVE
Back in London, Rhonna dropped the helicopter deftly on the roof of her own apartment block.
“It’ll be here for when we come back,” she said.
Varden looked at her sharply. “You’re staying right here,” he told her. “This is my game from now on!”
She tried to protest, but knew it was useless. “I’ll be all right,” he promised. “The moment I get what we want I’ll come running, so be ready for the leap.”
She stood in front of him quickly. “Be careful, Bob,” she pleaded. “I—I don’t want anything to happen to you now.”
He looked down at her in the evening twilight. Suddenly he wanted to take her in his arms, but something stopped him. A shadow seemed to cross his eyes, dimming the appeal of her face. If his sight went… He turned quickly without even touching her hands, not even glancing over his shoulder as he made for the penthouse lift.
No one recognised him as he went through the streets to Viki’s place. At one corner he caught sight of a news-cast screen that was showing a picture of his own face. He realised with a shock that it must be a photograph of himself taken in the morgue before he cheated death and walked out. It left him with a nasty sensation of unreality as he hurried on. But his made-up features still offered disguise of a kind.
On purpose he went up the fire escape to Viki’s flat, not wanting to run any risks and wishing to take the woman by surprise if he could. It might strengthen his hand, though he was not yet sure what approach to make.
There was no one in the lounge when he entered through the window. He could smell perfume and the tang of whiskey. He walked through to the bedroom, moving on silent feet.
“I was waiting for you, brother! How goes it?”
Varden halted abruptly, his heart missing a beat. Then he saw the man, lying on the big double bed with his fingers laced at the back of his neck. Some of Viki’s clothes were strewn about the floor as if she had dressed in a hurry. His gaze took in the scrawled words on the mirror.
“So they’ve gone, have they?” he bit out grimly. “What are you hanging about for?”
“To see if you’d come back, or if I’d have to fetch you.”
Varden stared at him in blind hatred. “I said I’d be back, and I’ve kept my word!”
Varden the Naked swung his legs to the ground and strolled to the un-curtained window, glancing out. When he turned he was grinning wickedly. “So I see,” he murmured. “A pity you weren’t here to see them go, Bob. They were more or less on fighting terms by then! I scared the living daylights out of little Viki, and Merrick wasn’t much better off. Then they beat it for the high seas!”
Varden frowned incredulously. “You mean they’ve run off without waiting for me?” he blurted.
Varden Two nodded thoughtfully. “I imagine they didn’t think it necessary to hang around any longer,” he said.
“How long have they been gone?”
“Long enough to get there.”
“Where, blast you!”
“The yacht, somewhere in the Atlantic from what I gathered.” He came away from the window, making for the lounge. “If I were you, brother, I wouldn’t take on so,” he advised. “Just let it ride. The war’s about due to begin, and I reckon you’re a lot too late to influence it one way or the other by now. You’ve shot your bolt.”
Varden stiffened, fighting to curb the outburst that would send him thrashing at this grinning creature with the insolent voice. Instead he went into the lounge, hunting round for a possible clue. If only he knew the whereabouts of the yacht! It was then that he found the blotter with the writing on it. He recognised his own handwriting, but knew he had not penned the words.
Varden swung round, his last reserve of patience gone. He hurled himself forward in a savage onslaught, his fist striking his enemy on the temple. Then they were tangling it briskly on the floor, weaving and diving and smashing at each other. Once Varden thought he was going out, but recovered and landed a blow that made the other man fade for a moment or two.
“You’re asking for trouble, Bob!”
He crouched, teeth bared. “I’ll kill you if it’s the last thing I ever do!” he grated, darting in again.
Varden Two ducked. Varden crashed against a desk and sobbed with pain.
“Don’t forget what happens when you lose your senses!” He picked up a heavy vase and hurled it. Varden rolled away as it shattered against the wall. Then he came up more cautiously. In a sudden movement that took his opponent off balance, he fixed his hand
on the other man’s throat and squeezed and squeezed till blood was pounding in his own temples with the exertion.
Varden Two began to go limp, sagging to the floor in a heap. Varden watched him eagerly, waiting for his body to disappear. A second or two more would have done it. The door burst open and uniformed men poured through, filling the lounge and rushing Varden, hurling him away so that he lost his grip on his other entity. Varden Two no longer faded.
“All right, boys!” yelled a big patrolman. “Get him down to the car! He won’t slip us this time!”
Varden was roughly handled, bundled out of the flat and down to the entrance foyer in the lift. Varden Two rode with them, content now to watch his counterpart’s discomfort, content to laugh tauntingly in the knowledge that whatever they did they could not kill him.
Varden sat in the lift between two men. There were handcuffs on his wrists and steely fingers bit the flesh of his arms. They were taking no chances with him this time.
Out in the foyer he came under the hostile and curious eyes of a growing crowd who shouted for his blood. He was the Killer!
A large black gyro-car was parked at the curb. He was pushed in, with men all round him. More handcuffs were put on his wrists, fastening him to two of the policemen. And all the time he was thinking: they can’t kill me; I don’t belong in this time at all; I belong in a plane over the Atlantic in a storm; they can’t kill me because I don’t exist anymore.
Looking up through the transparent roof of the car he saw the grinning face of his other self, staring back at him. He screamed several times before one of the men in the car smashed his mouth with a knotted fist.
The car sped swiftly through the heart of the city. Varden tried not to look up at the entity on the roof, riding like a fiend in triumph. He asked the nearest patrolman how they’d caught up with him. He’d been recognised coming up the fire escape by someone in one of the other flats.
The bomb came down as the car was streaking round a corner. At one instant the life of London was its own tumbled tangle of movement and noise. Then the bomb fell.
Varden saw a great gout of orange and violet flame shoot skywards and blossom in a gigantic flower of death. Heat and blast seemed to catch him in a tearing grasp. He heard men screaming around him, saw their blood flowing from ears and mouths. The gyro-car was lifted up and hurled through the air, a twisted mass of metal. Fire enveloped him in its searing breath, and the stench of burning flesh turned him sick. As the shattered car sailed upwards he saw blocks of buildings melt into rubble, erupting torn and broken bodies in the worst disaster his mind could comprehend. Then the gyro-car smashed against the earth again, one tiny pile of wreckage among a million others.
Pain tore his body to fragments, he went blind and the dark was glowing with fire, wracked with the agony of hell. Then the dark was no longer red but black. He was conscious of no more pain, only stillness. And inside himself he laughed horribly.
*
Varden opened his eyes to see a bright red glow all round him. He wondered about it for a minute or two, then knew it was fire.
He struggled up weakly, peering round. There had been a lot of men in that car, he remembered. They were still round him, parts of them. The handcuffs were gone from his wrists. He saw a moist, glistening red thing that had been a man’s face close to his shoulder. One of the handcuffs was still attached to someone’s wrist, only the wrist wasn’t fixed to a body anymore.
Shuddering violently, he clawed his way out through a hole in the side of the car. There was death and carnage wherever he looked. And fire. For the first time he remembered to examine himself. His clothes hung in burnt scorched shreds from his frame, and there was soot on his skin. But no sign of burns.
Varden stood among the rubble of shattered concrete and laughed with hideous abandon. God, why couldn’t he die? He started to work his way to where the pavement had once been. There were only jumbled piles of masonry now. A ghastly loneliness enveloped him. Even to the end of the world he would walk in this dreadful immunity, he thought. Presently he stopped and sank down on a pile of rubble, to get a grip on himself and think more clearly. No more voices cried from the debris, there was nothing alive to cry now. He looked down at his feet, finding them planted on the naked body of a man. Blast had stripped it of skin, stripped it of everything but its barest outline.
The heat of the blazing fire reminded him that although he was immortal he could still feel pain. He got to his feet and stared round, wondering which direction to take, how to get out of this hell that was Merrick’s creation.
And then he remembered Rhonna and a cold dread settled on his heart like an icy clamp. If she’d been killed . . .
He started running, panic riding his shoulder when he thought of the woman with red hair and freckles. She couldn’t die! She mustn’t be dead! More than anything else he wanted her to live. He’d be content to endure a living hell of his own for that. But what chance could she have stood? What earthly chance did anything normal stand in that blasting, tearing burst?
When he reached what he thought had been the block in which Rhonna lived he found only rubble. And more death. He searched with frantic speed, handling the shattered flesh of the dead in an effort to find out whether Rhonna was among them. But it was a hopeless task. He knew she couldn’t have lived in this holocaust of slaughter. He covered his eyes with his hands and sat very still, broken sobs vibrating his frame.
The sound of voices brought his head up sharply, voices among the dead. The dead can’t speak, he thought dully. But it was not the dead who spoke. He saw rescue workers, police, troops. They came from beyond the splintered buildings and the piles of rubble. Everyone couldn’t be dead in London. That was a funny thing, he thought. He laughed and someone grabbed his arm.
“Are there any more alive?” asked a patrolman urgently. “How did you get away with it?”
Varden peered at him blankly. His eyesight was worse now. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m immortal. There’s another of me somewhere, but you’ll never find him.”
People pressed round him curiously, pityingly. Some shook their heads. He was led back through the rubble and death to a parked helicopter rescue plane. A pale faced girl was in it, laying out dressings and drugs on a built-in cabinet top. Her hands were unsteady as she worked.
“Here you are, Miss,” someone said. “First casualty. Bomb shocked. Better dope him up and keep him quiet.”
She put Varden on a bunk. The plane was as big as a troop carrier, he realised. But he didn’t want any dope. He mustn’t sleep whatever happened, even now when it didn’t matter anymore.
The girl was young and badly shaken. “Lie still,” she told him. “You’ll be all right.”
“What’ll happen now?” he asked.
“What do you think?” Her eyes blazed for a moment. “We shan’t stand for an attack like this! The Air Force is already on the move. If they want war they’ll get it!”
“They didn’t start it!” he said desperately. “Merrick did that. Don’t you understand? You’ve got to stop them!”
A look of comprehension crossed her face. “Of course,” she said gently. “Lie still and rest now. There’s nothing to worry about.” She was coming towards him with a hypodermic.
“Oh, you fool, you fool!” he gasped. “You’re as blind as the rest of them!” He swung himself off the bunk and rushed her. She screamed and cowered. He didn’t have to hit her. Then he was outside the plane again, staring round wildly. More aircraft were dropping from the sky, landing all over the city in the faint hope of finding life. He joined the groups of rescue workers, barely noticed among them. If he could get hold of a plane, he thought. He must. An Air Force machine dropped down nearby. An officer with a strained white face stepped out, calling something to the men as he approached. Varden wondered if he could make it.
“All civilian planes being commandeered,” someone said quietly. “By God, we’ll give ’em hell for this! Joe, take a look at this kid
I’ve just found.”
Joe looked and shuddered. Varden moved on hurriedly. He had seen worse sights than that in the past few minutes. Some of the planes that hovered overhead carried floodlights on their undersides, lighting the scene in all its horror. Several more planes moved aimlessly to and fro, searching. One stayed over Varden and the group he was with for a full minute. A patrolman waved to it, yelling for it to land. They needed all the help they could get.
Varden left the group and followed it. There were no rescue workers close to where it was landing. A few policemen moved about, commandeering other planes on Air Force orders. If Varden could get in ahead…He hurried.
Someone left the plane as he approached. Four patrolmen came up from the opposite side, calling to the pilot. Varden broke into a stumbling run. He could beat them yet! He was close to the pilot now, ready to strike. He must have that plane! He must reach Blake!
“Bob! Thank God! Quickly!” The pilot seized him by the arm as he tensed himself to fight. He saw Rhonna’s face in the flickering fire glow, the glaring floods from above. The freckles stood out more sharply. They raced for the plane, the police on their heels. Varden pushed Rhonna in front of him. She’d left the engine running. As she settled at the controls he turned to meet the first attack. There was cold hate inside him, tightening his stomach. He heard the plane lift a little. Then a man was on him, trying to stop him as he turned to jump for the plane. He lashed out with all his strength. More men closed in, wild to prevent what they thought was looting. Varden crashed a fist in the nearest face, blanking it out. Someone made a grab at his arm, but the remains of his jacket tore loose. He grasped the edge of the plane door as Rhonna yelled at him. Then he scrambled in as she lifted the craft off the ground. He felt her lean over and haul him in, then collapsed in a heap on the floor. When he pulled himself together they were zooming upwards in a perpendicular lift.