The old man flicked a glance at the ventilator tower growing more distinct among the trees by the second as daylight crept across the mountains. “Nobody come through the tubes,” he said. “They shut off the ventilators and flooded the tubes with that gas first thing.” He looked at Igan. “Ventilators been going again for about three hours.”
Glisson studied Svengaard, asked, “Why are you interested in Potter?”
Svengaard remained silent.
“Answer me!” Glisson ordered.
Svengaard tried to swallow. His throat ached. He felt driven into a corner. Glisson’s words enraged him. Without warning, Svengaard lurched forward dragging Igan and Boumour, lashed out at Glisson with a foot.
The Cyborg dodged with a blurring movement, caught the foot, jerked Svengaard from the two surgeons, whirled, swung Svengaard wide and released him. Svengaard landed on his back, skidded across the ground, stopped. Before he could move, Glisson was standing over him. Svengaard lay there sobbing.
“Why are you interested in Potter?” Glisson demanded.
“Go away, go away, go away!” Svengaard sobbed.
Glisson straightened, looked around at Igan and Boumour. “You understand this?”
Igan shrugged. “It’s emotion.”
“Perhaps a shock reaction,” Boumour said.
Through their hands, Harvey signaled Lizbeth, “He’s been in shock, but this mean’s he’s coming out of it. These are medical people! Can’t they read anything?”
“Glisson reads it,” she answered. “He was testing them.”
Glisson turned around, looked squarely at Harvey. The bold understanding in the Cyborg’s eyes shot a pang of fear through Harvey.
“Careful,” Lizbeth signaled. “He’s suspicious of us.”
“Take Svengaard inside,” Glisson said.
Svengaard looked up at their driver. Glisson, the Durants called him. But the old man from the building had labeled Glisson a Cyborg. Was it possible? Were the half-men being revived to challenge the Optimen once more? Was that the reason for Seatac’s death?
Boumour and Igan lifted him, checked the fetters on his hands. “Let’s have no more foolishness,” Boumour said.
Are they like Glisson? Svengaard asked himself. Are they, too, part man, part machine? And what about the Durants?
Svengaard could feel the tear dampness in his eyes. Hysteria, he thought. Coming out of shock. He began to wonder at himself then with an odd feeling of guilt. Why does Potter’s death strike me more deeply than the death of an entire megalopolis, the extinction of my wife and friends? What did Potter symbolize to me?
Boumour and Igan half carried, half walked him into the building, down a narrow hall and into a poorly lighted, gloomy big room with a ceiling that went up to bare beams two stories above. They dropped him onto a dusty couch—bare plastic and hydraulic contour-shapers that adjusted reluctantly. The light came from two glowglobes high up under the beams. It exposed oddments of furniture scattered around the room and mounds of strange shapes covered by slick, glistening fabric. A table to his left, he realized, was made of planks. Wood! A contour cot lay beyond it, and an ancient roll-top desk with a missing drawer, and mismatched chairs. A stained, soot-blackened fireplace, with an iron crane reaching across its mouth like a gibbet, occupied half the wall across from him. The entire room smelled of dampness and rot. The floor creaked as people moved. Wood flooring!
Svengaard looked up at tiny windows admitting a sparse gray daylight that grew brighter by the second. Even at its brightest he knew it wouldn’t dispel the gloom of this place. Here was sadness that made him think of people without number—dead, forgotten. Tears rolled down his cheeks.
What’s wrong with me? he wondered.
There came a sound from the yard of the van’s turbines being ignited. He heard it lift, leave … fade away. Harvey and Lizbeth entered the room.
Lizbeth looked at Svengaard, then at Boumour and Igan who had taken up vigil on the cot. With her crouched, protective walk, she crossed to Svengaard, touched his shoulder. She saw his tears, evidence of humanity, and she wished then that he were her doctor. Perhaps there was a way. She decided to ask Harvey.
“Please trust us,” she said. “We won’t harm you. They are the ones who killed your wife and friends, not us.”
Svengaard pulled away.
How dare she have pity on me? he thought. But she had reached some chord in him. He could feel himself shattering.
Oppressive silence settled over the room.
Harvey came up, guided his wife to a chair at the table.
“It’s wood,” she said, touching the surface, wonder in her voice. Then, “Harvey, I’m very hungry.”
“They’ll bring food as soon as they’ve disposed of the van,” he said.
She clutched his hand and Svengaard watched, fascinated by the nervous movement of her fingers.
Glisson and the old man returned presently, slamming the door behind them. The building creaked with their movement.
“We’ll have a forest patrol vehicle for the next stage,” Glisson said. “Much safer. There’s a thing you all should know now.” The Cyborg moved a cold, weighted stare from face to face. “There was a marker on top of the van’s load section which we abandoned last night.”
“Marker?” Lizbeth said.
“A device for tracing us, following us,” Glisson said.
“Ohhh!” Lizbeth put a hand over her mouth.
“I do not know how closely they were following,” Glisson said. “I was altered for this task and certain of my devices were left behind. They may know where we are right now.”
Harvey shook his head. “But why … ?”
“Why haven’t they moved against us?” Glisson asked. “It’s obvious. They hope we’ll lead them to the vitals of our organization.” Something like rage came into the Cyborg’s features. “It may be we can surprise them.”
16
In the Survey Room, the great globe’s instrumented inner walls lay relatively quiescent. Calapine and Schruille of the Tuyere occupied the triple thrones. The dais turned slowly, allowing them to scan the entire surface. Kaleidoscopic colors from the instruments played a somnolent visible melody across Calapine’s features—a wash of greens, reds, purples.
She felt tired with a definite emotion of self-pity. There was something wrong with the enzymic analyzers. She felt sure of it, wondering if the Underground had somehow compromised the function of the pharmacy computers.
Schruille was no help. He’d laughed at the suggestion.
Allgood’s features appeared on a call screen before Calapine. She stopped the turning dais as he bowed, said, “I call to report, Calapine.” She noted the dark circles under his eyes, the drugged awareness in the way he held his head stiffly erect.
“You have found them?” Calapine asked.
“They’re somewhere in the wilderness area, Calapine,” Allgood said. “They have to be in there.”
“Have to be!” she sneered. “You’re a foolish optimist, Max.”
“We know some of the hiding places they could’ve chosen, Calapine.”
“For every one you know, they’ve nine you don’t know,” she said.
“I have the entire area ringed, Calapine. We’re moving in slowly, checking everywhere as we go. They’re there and we’ll find them.”
“He babbles,” she said, glancing at Schruille.
Schruille returned a mirthless smile, looked at Allgood through the prismatic reflector. “Max, have you found the source of the substitute embryo?”
“Not yet, Schruille.”
He stared up at them, his face betraying his obvious confusion at the militancy and violence of his Optimen.
“Do you seek in Seatac?” Calapine demanded.
Allgood wet his lips with his tongue.
“Out with it!” she snapped. Ahhh, the fear in his eyes.
“We’re searching there, Calapine, but the—”
“You think we were too pre
cipitate?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“You’re acting strangely,” Schruille said. “Are you afraid of us?”
He hesitated, then, “Yes, Schruille.”
“Yes, Schruille!” Calapine mimicked.
Allgood looked at her, the fear in his eyes tempered by anger. “I’m taking every action I know, Calapine.”
She marked a sudden precision in his manner behind the anger. Her eyes went wide with wonder. Was it possible? She looked at Schruille, wondering if he had seen it.
“Max, why did you call us?” Schruille asked.
“I … to report, Schruille.”
“You’ve reported nothing.”
Hesitantly, Calapine brought up her instruments for a special probe of Allgood, stared at the result. Horror mingled with rage in her. Cyborg! They had defiled Max! Her Max!
“There’s only need for you to obey us,” Schruille said.
Allgood nodded, remained silent.
“You!” Calapine hissed. She leaned toward the screen. “You dared! Why? Why, Max?”
Schruille said, “What … ?”
But in the shocked instant of her questions, Allgood had seen that he was discovered. He knew it was his end, could see it in her eyes. “I saw … I found the dopplegangers,” he stammered.
An angry twist of her hand rolled one of the rings on her throne arm. Sonics sent a shock wave chattering across Allgood, blurred his image. His lips moved soundlessly, eyes staring. He collapsed.
“Why did you do that?” Schruille asked.
“He was Cyborg!” she grated, and pointed to the evidence of the instruments.
“Max? Our Max?” He looked at the instruments, nodded.
“My Max,” she said.
“But he worshipped you, loved you.”
“He does nothing now,” she whispered. She blanked the screen, continued to stare at it. Already, the incident was receding from her mind.
“Do you enjoy direct action?” Schruille asked.
She met his gaze in the reflector. Enjoy direct action? There was indeed a kind of elation in … violence.
“We have no Max now,” Schruille said.
“We’ll waken another doppleganger,” she said. “Security can function without him for now.”
“Who’ll waken the doppleganger?” Schruille asked. “Igan and Boumour are no longer with us. The pharmacist, Hand, is gone.”
“What’s keeping Nourse?” she asked.
“Enzymic trouble,” Schruille said, a note of glee in his voice. “He said something about a necessary realignment of his prescription. Bonellia hormone derivatives, I believe.”
“Nourse can awaken the doppleganger,” she said. She wondered momentarily then why they needed the doppleganger. Oh, yes. Max was gone.
“There’s more to it than merely awakening Max’s duplicate,” Schruille said. “They’re not as good as they once were, you know. The new Max must be educated for his role, fitted into it gently. It could be weeks … months.”
“Then one of us can run Security,” she said.
“You think we’re ready for it?” Schruille asked.
“There’s a thrill in this sort of decision-making,” she said. “I don’t mind saying I’ve been deeply bored during the past several hundred years. But now—now, I feel alive, vital, alert, fascinated.” She looked up at the glowing banks of scanner eyes, a full band of them, showing their fellow Optimen watching activities in the Survey Room. “And I’m not alone in this.”
Schruille glanced up at the glittering arctic circle of the globe’s inner wall. “Aliveness,” he murmured. “But Max … he is dead.”
She remembered then, said, “Any Max can be replaced.” She looked at Schruille, turning her head to stare past the prism. “You’re very blunt today, Schruille. You’ve spoken of death twice that I recall.”
“Blunt? I?” He shook his head. “But I didn’t erase Max.”
She laughed aloud. “My own reactions thrill me, Schruille!”
“And do you find changes in your enzymic demands?”
“A few. What is that? Times change. It’s part of being. Adjustments must be made.”
“Indeed,” he said.
“Where’d they find a substitute for the Durant embryo?” she asked, her mind shooting off at a tangent.
“Perhaps the new Max can discover,” Schruille said.
“He must.”
“Or you will grow another Max?” Schruille said.
“Don’t mock me, Schruille.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
Again, she looked directly at him.
“What if they produced their own embryo for the substitution?” Schruille asked.
She turned away. “In the name of all that’s proper, how?”
“Air can be filtered clean of contraceptive gas,” Schruille said.
“You’re disgusting!”
“Am I? But haven’t you wondered what Potter concealed?”
“Potter? We know what he concealed.”
“A person devoted to the preservation of life … such as that is,” Schruille said. “What did he hide in his mind?”
“Potter is no more.”
“But what did he conceal?”
“You think he knew the source of the … outside interference?”
“Perhaps. And he would know where to find an embryo.”
“Then the record will show the source, as you said yourself.”
“I’ve been reconsidering.”
She stared at him in the prism. “It’s not possible.”
“That I could reconsider?”
“You know what I mean—what you’re thinking.”
“But it is possible.”
“It isn’t!”
“You’re being stubborn, Cal. A female should be the last person to deny such a possibility.”
“Now, you’re being truly disgusting!”
“We know Potter found a self-viable,” Schruille pressed. “They could have many self-viables—male and female. We know historically the capabilities of such raw union. It’s part of our natural ancestry.”
“You’re unspeakable,” she breathed.
“You can face the concept of death but not this,” Schruille said. “Most interesting.”
“Disgusting!” she barked.
“But possible,” Schruille said.
“The substitute embryo wasn’t self-viable!” she pounced.
“All the more reason they might’ve been willing to sacrifice it for one that was, eh?”
“Where would they find the vat facilities, the chemicals, the enzymes, the—”
“Where they’ve always been.”
“What?”
“They’ve put the Durant embryo back into its mother,” Schruille said. “We can be certain of this. Would it not be equally logical to leave the embryo there to begin with—never remove it, never isolate the gametes in a vat at all?”
Calapine found herself speechless. She sensed a sour taste in her mouth, realized with a feeling of shock that she wanted to vomit. Something’s wrong with my enzyme balance, she thought.
She spoke slowly, precisely, “I am reporting to pharmacy at once, Schruille. I do not feel well.”
“By all means,” Schruille said. He glanced up and around at the watching scanners—a full circle of them.
Delicately, Calapine eased herself out of her throne, slid down the beam to the lock segment. Before letting herself out, she cast a look up at the dais, faintly remembering. Which Max was … erased? she asked herself. We’ve had many of him … a successful model for our Security. She thought of the others, Max after Max after Max, each shunted aside when his appearance began to annoy his masters. They stretched into infinity, images in an endless system of mirrors.
What is erasure to such as Max? she wondered. I am an unbroken continuity of existence. But a doppleganger doesn’t remember. A doppleganger breaks the continuity.
Unless the cells remember.
She thought of the embryo within Lizbeth Durant. Disgusting, but simple. So beautifully simple. Her gorge began to rise. Whirling, Calapine dropped down to the Hall of Counsel, ran for the nearest pharmacy outlet. As she ran, she clenched the hand that had slain Max and helped destroy a megalopolis.
17
“She’s sick, I tell you!”
Harvey bent over Igan shaking him out of sleep. They were in a narrow earth-walled room, ceiling of plasmeld beams, a dim yellow glowglobe in one corner. Sleeping pads were spread against the walls, Boumour and Igan on two of them foot to foot, the bound form of Svengaard on another, two of the pads empty.
“Come quickly!” Harvey pleaded. “She’s sick.”
Igan groaned, sat up. He glanced at his watch—almost sunset on the surface. They’d crawled in here just before daylight and after a night of laboring on foot up seemingly endless woods trails behind a Forest Patrol guide. Igan still ached from the unaccustomed exercise.
Lizbeth sick?
She’d had three days since the embryo had been placed within her. The others had healed this rapidly, but they hadn’t been subject to a night of stumbling along rough forest trails.
“Please hurry,” Harvey pleaded.
“I’m coming,” Igan said. And he thought, Listen to his tone change now that he needs me.
Boumour sat up opposite him, asked, “Shall I join you?”
“Wait here for Glisson,” Igan said.
“Did Glisson say where he was going?”
“To arrange for another guide. It’ll be dark soon.”
“Doesn’t he ever sleep?” Boumour asked.
“Please!” Harvey begged.
“Yes!” Igan snapped. “What’re her symptoms?”
“Vomiting … incoherent.”
“Let me get my bag.” Igan retrieved a thick black case from the floor near his head, glanced across at Svengaard. The man’s breathing still showed the even rhythm of the narcotic they’d administered before collapsing into sleep themselves. Something had to be done about Svengaard. He slowed them down.
Harvey pulled at Igan’s sleeve.
“I’m coming! I’m coming!” Igan said. He freed his arm, followed Harvey through a low hole at the end of the room and into a room similar to the one they’d just vacated. Lizbeth lay on a pad beneath a single glowglobe across from them. She groaned.
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