John Rackhan

by Ipomoea

  "Louise," he suggested, in a moment when he could be sure that only he and the old man were on the ship. "She doesn't add up. Can a gossip-writer afford to jaunt to Mars regularly? And for what? And she was on Martian Three along with me. She also recognized me awful fast considering my picture has not been in any newsreels that I know of. I just can't buy that kind of coincidence."

  "Except that you'd have to explain where she got the technical know-how to do the tricks—how she could gain access to your cabin and the Ceti Queen—"

  "She has gadgetry, plenty of it. And she is no fool, for all her wide-eyed manner. I've studied people, Venner, and it takes skill to act dim and do it right."

  "I'm not disagreeing with you, son, just offering a little contrary thought. Matter of fact I had my suspicions about Louise right from the start, which is why I invited her. to fly with us. Where I can keep an eye on her."

  "Like now?"

  "She is with Joe. At all times, you'll notice, she is with either Joe or myself. Never alone."

  "With you, maybe. But Joe? I know he's something of a paragon, but she's all woman, and she's smart, too. Maybe she is genuinely fascinated by him—and I wouldn't blame her—but maybe she is also working on him to suit her own devices."

  "That will be the day!" Venner chuckled, "!ƒ she is trying to seduce Joe she is wasting her time like no woman ever did before. Joe is my man. In a highly uncertain world, Hutten, that is one thing you can bank on."

  "Not on your say so." Hutten was emphatic now. "People are my field, Venner, and under no circumstances whatever would I bank on anyone. You can call that cynicism if you like. I call it experience."

  "Yes." Venner seemed to retreat into a shell of his own, from which he peered out at Sam thoughtfully. Then he sighed, stretched, and shook his head slowly, removed his cigar and laid it aside. There was something highly significant about the gesture.

  "I'll tell you about Joe," he said. "It's been a long time, and I've never told anyone outside of the people who were actually involved. And he isn't here." "Afraid his ego might get jarred?" "Ego? Hutten, he has no ego. Literally." "You mean he's some kind of robot, or android?" "Well now, that would depend on definition, wouldn't it? Let me tell it, and then you decide. This was eleven years ago. I was part of a team of people who were investigating some of the possible side effects of the Yashi-Matsu field. It was pretty new stuff then, and we were trying to anticipate things. Koni Hakagawa was there. He was, then, one of the finest neurosurgeons alive. Just as well, as it turned out, although he was there only as an observer in the first place. I won't tangle you with the technical stuff, except to explain that we knew there were dangers, and we had all sorts of standby precautions ready. What is relevant, for this, is that we had a big tank full of a highly complex fluid. It was quite a brew. And we were lashing it with several different kinds of stress-field waves, to observe what happened. A kind of three-dimensional wind-tunnel, if you follow me? Well now, I was in there. Literally.

  "I was cabled and shackled to a midpoint strut, and loaded down with sensor equipment, cameras, recorders, probes, thermo-couples, all kinds of junk. I had four bright young men placed around the perimeter with other gadgetry. And we got a vortex-field going. That was an achievement in itself. And it was lively, for a while. But then—something blew. We never did find out just what. The field-generator ran away, went wild, got right out of control. It shorted out a few thousand volts at one point and instantly killed the man operating it. That was just one thing. Of course, the tank was a maelstrom. I don't recall much about that bit. I was told, later, that the other three men standing by just jumped to it—no hesitation—they flung themselves into that boiling brew to try to rake me out." He stopped there, and Sam let out a breath.

  "You're saying they risked their lives to rescue you, right?"

  "I doubt if they gave a thought to that angle. We all knew we were treading right on the borders of the unknown, playing with death. We knew the score. Our attitude was that if it had to happen, better it should happen on Earth, in a laboratory, than out in space, with no help. For me, as soon as I felt the field take off I knew I was cooked. I wrote myself right off. As it happened, by one of those freaks, I got away with little more than a shake-up and a blackout. Koni, bless him, had the presence of mind to turn and run the length of the test shed, to the main power-link, and pull the feeder. The whole damn thing shut down, of course. That saved me, but those three boys, well, they were torn to pieces. Literally. I tell you, those field-effects were hellish things to play with, in those days."

  "They were all killed?"

  "No. That's the point. I told you we had special standby measures. A first-class medical team was one of them. Koni was a bonus. We—not me, I was hospitalized for days—got out the bits. I've heard the account several times since. Miracles were done that afternoon and night. Call it medicine, surgery, patchwork—whatever you like—but we managed to salvage enough parts to make one whole man. That's oe.

  Hutten swallowed, and again, then found his voice. "You're saying he is a composite? Of three men?"

  "That's one way of putting it. We did him proud. The best. We were salvaging, trying to atone, to pay tribute, doing everything we could. We made him as perfect as we possibly could, as near perfect as any man has ever been. And he lived and we were glad. But he had lost something. That boy, Joe, has health, strength, a genius I.Q. and some very delicate sensibilities, talents, all sorts of things. Except ego, a sense of identity. He has near perfect recall for just about anything, and I have made it my business to see that he has access to everything that could possibly interest anyone. He can wear a personality to order. If I commanded him to be Einstein, Freud, Julius Caesar, Abraham Lincoln— or even Sherlock Holmes, Don Quixote or Tarzan—he would become just that until I told him to stop. Then he would become nobody again. I mean that. Nobody. The one thing he does have that comes close to being identity is an absolute dependence on me/'

  "Good Lord!" Sam thought hard, recalling all he could of the massive man's actions and words. He began to see the pattern.

  "Come to think of it," he agreed, "I've never heard him express a personal opinion. He always quotes facts."

  "That's why I never argue with him. And there's something else. You saw the way Hakagawa honored him? That's not just because of what he did, at all. If you know anything at all about Eastern philosophy you'll know that they have long claimed the pathway to wisdom is to eliminate the self. The self is nothing—you've heard it? Joe is the perfect example, to them. And he is brilliant, no doubt of that."

  Sam pondered a little more. "I begin to see why you feel confident about him and Louise."

  "Obvious, isn't it? Personal attraction, personal reactions, don't work on Joe. They can't. Even with me—and his whole existence revolves around me—he won't bend a fraction of a datum to satisfy my personal will. If I was fool enough to try, that is."

  "Yes." Sam digested that and his mind flew off along another tack. "You're an old man, Venner. What's going to happen to Joe when you're gone?"

  "I've provided for that. Not good, but the best I can do."

  "You don't think you ought to seek out some suitable woman and sign him over to her? You could, you know. You could instruct him to love, to honor and cherish her—and he would do it!"

  "I've thought about it." The old man reached for his cigar again, scowling. "I can't bring myself to it, Hutten. I've never fancied the idea of giving a woman even partial power over me. Why I never married. I just can't see giving one complete control over a man, the way it would be with Joe. Can't see it."

  "In his case there would be no conflict." Sam grinned. "And you'd make some woman extremely happy. Still, that's a different problem. I still think Louise will bear watching."

  He continued to think so, without doing anything about it, right up until the caravan was twenty-four hours away from break-out in the Ceti system. Then something happened to shunt his suspicions along a different track altog
ether. It was the nearness of arrival which prompted him to say, idly, "Seeing that I lost my personal gear when the Ceti

  Queen blew, I suppose I had better provide myself with more. I need a new suit, if nothing else."

  Shipboard casualness had imposed no great needs on him, but it would be different once they were aground on Verdan. Louise took him up on it.

  "That's an idea. I think my credit card will stretch just a bit, to a new outfit. By all accounts, Verdan is quite a progressive place. I don't want to look like a hag!"

  "Be my guest, this time," he said promptly. "In fact—and I should have said this a lot sooner; forgive me—I'm sure I speak for my father when I invite all of you to accept his hospitality, once we are down. I'm sure he would want that/'

  "I'm not too proud to accept," she declared. "Shall we go? The warp-ship galleries will be crowded if we leave it until the last minute."

  Joe went with them as a matter of course, using the ready-made excuse that the old man needed a new shirt. Venner favored a traditional style of dress that had gone out around the end of the century, but the machines could cope, even with that. The marketing levels of the warp-ship were weD patronized as they arrived but they managed to find one auto-fab machine free. Hutten inserted his card in the slot and invited Louise to go first.

  "I'm in no hurry. I'll wait. If you can stand a personal suggestion, I think you'd do well in blue, a dark blue with a sheen."

  "Blue? With my complexion?" She was immediately aghast and applied to Joe, who indicated a knob and lens to one side of the auto-fab console.

  "Why not try the colorimetric analyzer?"

  "Is that what that thing is for? What do I do?"

  "When you strip for the profile scanner," Joe explained, "if you depress this knob the machine circuits will analyze your dominant color tones and suggest appropriate harmonics."

  "I never knew that before. I always pick my own. Maybe I'll try it. You have any hot ideas on design, Sam?"

  Thus appealed to, Sam cast his eye over the screen-display of styles and chose one vaguely Greek in effect, a short-fall gown heavily pleated, pendant from one shoulder and corded at the waist. She raised a brow at him.

  "Can you really see me in that, in blue?"

  "Why not? For an occasion, of course. With your hair up, and wearing sandals, yes. For regular, you can't beat the standard cape and pants. But try blue. I think you'll be surprised."

  She ushered them outside to wait, and he was idly casting his glances over the more outrageous styles for men when his eye was caught and held by an even more outrages is assemblage of curves and lines hovering in front of a candy counter not too far away. He looked again, deliberately, then turned his back and nudged Joe.

  "Over there." He jerked his head discreetly. "Don't look now. The silver blonde with the shape."

  Joe revolved casually, came back to his original position. "You mean the lady wearing a sun-stone on a necklace?"

  "If that fiery red ball is a sun-stone, yes. Listen. She was on Martian Three as a stewardess, called herself Corinne Eklund. Now she's here. Suspicious?"

  "Very much so. What do you suggest?"

  "It's a problem." Sam studied it carefully. "We could do to know a lot more about her, but it had better not be me. She would see through this feeble disguise in nothing flat. And I can't see Louise in the part, can you? Looks like you're booked to play detective. Can you?"

  "Of course. Leave it to me. You had better take this." Joe brought out romething slim and stick-like, handed it to Sam. "Press the base if you wish to speak to me, then wait until I can manufacture a suitable moment. Otherwise, just listen." He moved off smoothly. Sam edged his way around the auto-fab booth and took a moment to study the thing in his hand. It looked like nothing more exciting than a silver pencil, but even as he was staring at it, wondering which end was the base, he heard Joe's voice, very faint, but clear.

  "Excuse me, miss, if I intrude. I just had to speak to you. About that magnificent sun-stone."

  "Oh! This, you mean?"

  "That's right. I have never seen a specimen cut just like that before, not as a jewel."

  "You know something about them?"

  "Yes, indeed. I think I can claim to know as much about .them as anyone. As gem-stones, that is. I am not now referring to their use as electromagnetic transducers. That is a quite different field. May I ask where you obtained that oner

  Listening intently, Sam recognized her voice readily, but he would never have known Joe's at all, not with that suave politeness in it. He went on now, smoothly affable:

  "I'm sorry, I should have introduced myself. Orbert.

  Adam Orbert. I have some small reputation as a connoisseur of fine gems, but I don't expect you'll have heard of me."

  "I haven't, no. But I'm glad to make your acquaintance just the same. I'm Corinne Eklund. You say this fire-ball is a sun-stone? I didn't know that. All I know is that I had it from Daddy as a birthday gift."

  "Your father must be immensely rich."

  "He has enough, yes. He's Gunnar Eklund, of Verdan."

  "Ah yes." Joe sounded appropriately impressed. "I have heard that name. Isn't he the one they call the Cattle Baron?"

  "That's right. Will you be staying long on Verdan, Mr. Orbert?"

  "I hadn't planned to. You see, Ophir is really the center for gems. I hadn't anticipated fir din ?r many on Verdan."

  "Well now." She began to sound arch. "You were wrong, weren't you? And if you really want to know where Daddy got this, you'll have to ask him, won't you?"

  "If you feel he wouldn't mind?"

  "I'm sure he wouldn't. I will tell him to expect you. Maybe there might be one or two other attractions for you, Mr. Orbert. You'll be very welcome. What ship are you traveling on?"

  Sam tensed, but Joe was suavely equal to the situation.

  "I'm traveling privately. Thank you for your patience, Miss Eklund, and your kind invitation. It will be my pleasure to call on you and your father just as soon as my business permits."

  Louise came out of the booth all in blue cape and pants and with a package under her arm.

  "There!" she said. "What d'you think?"

  Sam pushed past her, slung the curtain, and dialed himself standard dark gray pants and cape, slinging his travel-weary others into the disposal bin. The communicator was silent for a while, then, as he was wriggling into the newly fabricated garments, he heard Louise demanding, "Where did you go, Joe?"

  "Just on an errand."

  Sam hurried out in time to divert a rigorous inquisition, and to say, "I heard all that. Is there really a cattle baron called Eklund?"

  "Oh yes. Quite genuine."

  "Then how come his daughter is working her way through college as a stewardess?"

  "One might also ask," Joe responded calmly, "how come Rex Hutten's son is working in college, as a teacher?"

  "You have a point," Sam admitted, and Venner agreed, when they got back and told him the tale. He was more interested in the sun-stone.

  "You say it was cut as a gem, Joe?"

  "Not necessarily. She was wearing it as such, and it was cut into a perfect sphere, suspended by cups. Not a very good cut. She didn't seem to be aware of its value."

  "Another coincidence," the old man growled, "and where does it get us? If she's Gunnar Eklund's girl, and a dimwit, she can't be your menace, Hutten. But we'll keep her in mind. Maybe your father will be able to tell us a lot more. I hope so."

  VIII

  At break-out Verdan hung there against the starred velvet of space like a blue-and-gold fruit.

  "We're small and private," Venner said. "We should get down fast. Your father expecting you?"

  "He should be. I sent a reply ethergram right away. . .

  Joe's radio chattered, catching their attention. A tinny voice demanded, "Repeat and confirm you have Samuel deMorgan Hutten aboard, Venner Three. Confirm. Our information is the said Samuel deMorgan Hutten deceased in Ceti Queen disaster, recent, Mars."r />
  "Hell!" Sam groaned, as Joe sent the confirmation. "There should have been some way of letting the old man know."

  "Too late now," Venner muttered. "At any rate he's due for a pleasant surprise once we get down."

  The view-screen gave them a picture of a broad continent very similar to Earth's Africa in shape, and Joe took the little ship down smoothly to the landing field located right on the southernmost tip. At close range they saw the nucleus of what could become a sprawling city, but was as yet little more than dockside warehouses, plant and a thin fringe of dwelling complexes. The first flush of breezes as they opened up and went out were hot and scented enough to emphasize the resemblance to Africa, but Sam, worried, wasted no time in getting to a visor-booth. His credit card cleared him for a call to Hutten House, some five hundred miles to the north, but the face that grew on the screen was unfamiliar. Every bit as rugged and weather-beaten as his father's, but a stranger.

  "This is Ken Scott, Chief of Police, Northwheat Sector. You're Sam Hutten?"

  "I am. Would you put my father on, please?"

  The leathery face hardened. "I can't do that, mister. Bet-

  ter brace yourself for a shock. Rex Hutten's dead. Found

  him myself, about an hour ago." -

  Sam went numb, was only vaguely aware of Venner elbowing him firmly to one side and snapping into the receiver, "This is Orbert Venner, representing Interplanetary Security. Hold everything. We'll be there as soon as it's humanly possible."

  The next hour was nightmare for Sam, backed by the steady scream of a chartered jet as Joe urged it north, and choked with futile thoughts of guilt and sorrow. It was almost impossible to imagine that craggy, hard-driving old man as still and cold, and on top of that was the acid of guilt, of wishing that he had got word, somehow, to let his father know. It took savagery from Venner to drag him up out of the gloom.

  "Damn it, Hutten, I said snap out of it! It's over and done with; you can't call anything back. But you can use your head!"