“Of course not. I was in the time chamber with the others!”
“You fell to dust, I suppose.” Paynter’s voice was impatiently amused. “Wait a minute. I thought I noticed something in the crowd near you. Hold on.”
I felt him move. The picture flashed on before me, picked up again the scene on the slope. Paynter gave some orders in an undertone, and the camera paused, halting in mid-stride a man who had just entered the edge of the picture.
It was De Kalb.
No, not De Kalb—Belem. He turned his face to the camera and light glinted on the quicksilver eyes.
The daylight flashed suddenly red again. The crowd nearby surged, chattering around me—my duplicate—as he fell. And Belem staggered. You could see the cold resolute Mechandroid brain gather itself to resist whatever assault this was upon its integrity. And the Mechandroid succeeded where the merely human had failed. Belem stumbled a little, leaned against the rock I had seen myself circle a moment before in the film, slid down so that he half crouched against it, his face in his hands.
Then quietly, in about a quarter of a minute, he rose and walked back toward the Kerry transmitter, moving stiffly even for him, his face bewildered.
Paynter was saying in my ear, “So that’s where he was!” But deep in the center of my mind a stirring of surprise gathered all my attention. Belem was watching too. Belem was thinking in almost the same words Paynter used, “So that is what happened! Now—now I almost understand.”
16. The Subterrane
There was silence in the Swan Garden for a long moment. Then Paynter lifted the helmet from my head and stood looking down thoughtfully at me. The crystalline bower came back around me. I was looking into Murray’s face but it was Paynter, from Colchan Three and this middle future, who spoke.
“There were four asleep in the cave,” he said. “There were four who blanked out for a time when the sleepers disintegrated. That must mean we living four were duplicates in more than appearance to those who were destroyed. I don’t understand, of course.
“The integrating machines are working on it now. Eventually they’ll hand us all the factors and their conclusions. Meanwhile, Cortland, I think I caught an impression of yours while our minds were in rapport. Is Topaz a duplicate of that woman in the cave?”
“Dr. Essen,” I said. “I think she is. Yes.” But silently, to myself, I was thinking. “They all have identities but me. I’m myself. And yet I saw Jerry Cortland dissolve. That must mean that I’m the nameless man, the one who came up the hillside from nowhere and fainted. When he woke up, he was Jerry Cortland—me. And I’ll never dare sleep in this world for fear that when I wake I’ll be—him. Not myself. I saw myself disintegrated in the cave for a purpose, by some means I don’t understand. I’m dead. When this man wakes up, I’ll—”
“All right, Cortland,” Paynter said briskly. “I’ll leave you here for an hour. You’ll be quite safe, of course. Topaz will rejoin you in a moment or two.”
“Am I a prisoner?” I asked.
“Well, no, not exactly.” He gave me a grim smile. “You want the same things we do, I suppose. An answer to all this. I’m assuming you’ve told us the truth. I’m as sure of that as it’s possible to be. Of course you may have powers you’ve been able to hide from us, so we’ll keep an eye on you until we know more. Topaz will bring you to me in an hour. By then I hope well have an answer from the integrators.”
He gave me a stiff salute of farewell and turned away, pushed among the lacy palmetto growths and was gone, presumably into the matter-transmitter. I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t killed me.
For there had been five in the time-axis, not four. And the fifth was the most dangerous thing ever let loose upon a galaxy. The nekronic killer had come out with me. How, I could not guess, if it were true that I was not Jerry Cortland, but a nameless man from the hillside below the Laurentian cavern. The Infection was not in the flesh then but in the—mind? The memory? At any moment I knew I might feel that blinding shock thrilling through me, the exploding burst of energy that meant another death.
Paynter knew. He had read my memories. He wasn’t top man, of course. When his findings were integrated the orders might be simply, “Kill Cortland.” It’s what I’d have done in their place. It was only logical.
So they expected me to wait, did they? Wait for what, the firing squad?
Well, maybe I wouldn’t do it. I felt like laughing when I remembered how complicated life had seemed back in my own day. There I’d had only one time, one space, one Jerry Cortland to consider. And even then I’d been on the rollercoaster with a splinter in the seat of my pants. Now Jerry Cortland was dead. He was lying in a heap of dust in a cavern somewhere on another planet for all I knew.
Illogical? Oh, sure. For now I was up against something too big for the human mind to comprehend, really and—irrationally—I felt cheerful.
I saw another of the pale green oranges floating along the stream and plucked it out deftly, sank my teeth into it. It was alcoholic, in a mildly exhilarating way. I let the tingling juice run down my throat and—
“You are in great danger,” a voice in my brain said coldly and suddenly.
I clapped my free hand to my head and pressed the bone beneath the skin in some primitive impulsive attempt to massage the devils out of my brain. He was there—De Kalb, Belem—with his cold metal gaze looking out through my eyes and his cold metal thoughts moving through mine.
“Can you read my mind?” I asked, all but vocally, making the question clear in the front of my mind.
“No. Only when you put your thoughts as clearly as this. Please try to keep them clearer. That fruit you are eating—it fogs the mind. Throw it away. I must consult you now.”
Deliberately I took another deep bite of the alcoholic orange. No one had invited him into my mind, I thought somewhat incoherently, the Swan Garden looking pleasantly blurred before me. I had no real reason to trust either De Kalb or Belem. I didn’t like the way the Mechandroid could crawl into my head, pull up a chair and settle down for a free sight-seeing trip.
If it worked the other way now—I’d enjoy a quick round-trip through Topaz mind, for instance. She was not only lovely but unpredictable as an ocelot. I’d have given a good deal to look into her mind. I imagined it would surprise me. And as for Paynter—I knew his type. He had that conviction of absolute rightness that makes fanatics. He hadn’t left me entirely on my own, I was pretty sure.
“Drop that fruit,” the voice in my mind said. “Drop that fruit.”
I didn’t intend to. I started to flex my elbow to bring the orange up for another bite—but my muscles weren’t working very well. They weren’t working at all. My arm went lax, my fingers turned into putty and the orange fell with a splash back into the stream. Regretfully I watched it bob away.
“Do you see that purple fruit?” the inexorable voice inquired. “There, coming over the bend. Catch it.”
I decided to do nothing.
I found myself plucking a purple object shaped like a cigar from the stream, lifting it to my mouth, biting off a section. It was succulent too, but astringent. The giddy elation began to leave me. More soberly I took a second bite.
“Very good,” Belem’s disembodied voice said. “I don’t want to work that hard again. It isn’t easy to do this. You may need all the strength I can give you sooner than you think. Don’t make me exhaust myself fighting you.”
“How do you work it?” I inquired with the front part of my consciousness. “Where are you, anyhow? Isn’t it crowded in there? Look out for the left lobe—it’s slippery.”