Collected Short Fiction, page 1262
Mondschein’s eyes widened. “You’re trying to draw me into some sort of conspiracy? You must be out of your mind.”
“I risk my life telling you this.”
“Yes. You do. And I risk my life listening.”
“You are essential to our success. Essential. You must help us.”
“Look,” said Mondschein, “if Alvarado simply wants to do away with me, he doesn’t have to bother with anything as elaborate as this. Nobody in the world cares whether I live or die. It isn’t necessary to inveigle me into a fantastic nonexistent plot on his life. He can just have me shot. All right? All right?”
“This is not a trap. As God is my witness, I am not here as part of a scheme to ensnare you. I beg for your assistance. If you wish, report me to the authorities, and I will be tortured and the truth will come out and I will be executed, and then you will know that I was honest with you.”
Wearily Mondschein said, “What is all this about?”
“You possess the ability to distinguish between the brothers of Alvarado and Alvarado himself.”
“The brothers?”
“The clones. There is a secret method, known only to you, that allows you to tell the true Alvarado from the false.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“It is so. You need not pretend. I have access to very high sources.”
Mondschein shrugged. “For the sake of argument let’s say that it’s so. What then?”
“When we aim our blow at Alvarado, we want to be certain we are assassinating the real one.”
“Yes. Of course you do.”
“You can guide our hand. He often appears in public, but no one knows whether it is really he, or one of the brothers. And if we strike down one of the brothers, thinking we have killed the true Alvarado—”
“Yes,” Mondschein said. “I see the problem. But assuming that I’m able to tell the difference, and I’m not conceding that I can, what makes you think I’d want to get mixed up in your plot? What do I stand to gain from it, other than useless revenge on a man who did me harm a very long time ago? Will his death give me back my life? No, I simply want to live out my last few years in peace. Kill Alvarado without me, if you want to kill him. If you’re not sure whether you’re killing the right one, kill them all. Kill them one by one until there are none at all left.”
“I could kill you,” Aristegui said. “Right now. I should. After what I have told you, you own my life.”
Again Mondschein shrugged. “Then kill me. For whatever good it’ll do you. I’m not going to inform on you.”
“Nor cooperate with me.”
“Neither one nor the other.”
“All you want is to live in peace,” said Aristegui savagely. “But how do you know you will? Alvarado has asked you to work for him again, and you have refused.” He held up a hand. “Yes, yes, I know that. I will not kill you, though I should. But he might, though he has no reason to. Think about that, Senor Doctor.”
He rose and glared at Mondschein a moment, and left without another word.
Mondschein’s body clock had caught up with Tierra Alvarado time by this time. But that night, once again, he lay until dawn in utterly lucid wakefulness before exhaustion at last brought him some rest. It was as though sleep were a concept he had never quite managed to understand.
l
The next summons came from Alvarado himself.
The Presidential Palace, which Mondschein remembered as a compact, somewhat austere building in vaguely Roman style, had expanded in the course of a quarter of a century into an incomprehensible mazelike edifice that seemed consciously intended to rival Versailles in ostentatious grandeur. The Hall of Audience was a good sixty meters long, with rich burgundy draperies along the walls and thick blood-red carpeting. There was a marble dais at the far end where the Maximum Leader sat enthroned like an emperor. Dazzling sunlight flooded down on him through a dome of shimmering glass set in the ceiling. Mondschein wondered if he was supposed to offer a genuflection.
There were no guards in the room, only the two of them. But security screens in the floor created an invisible air-wall around the dais. Mondschein found himself forced to halt by subtle pressure when he was still at least fifteen meters short of the throne. Alvarado came stiffly to his feet and they stood facing each other in silence for a long moment.
It seemed anticlimactic, this confrontation at last. Mondschein was surprised to discover that he felt none of the teeth-on-edge uneasiness that the man had always been able to engender in him. Perhaps having seen the clone-Alvarado earlier had taken the edge off the impact.
Alvarado said, “You have found all the arrangements satisfactory so far, I hope, doctor?”
“In the old days you called me Rafael.”
“Rafael, yes. It was so long ago. How good it is to see you again, Rafael. You look well.”
“As do you.”
“Yes. Thank you. Your villa is satisfactory, Rafael?”
“Quite satisfactory,” said Mondschein. “I look forward to a few last years of quiet retirement in my native country.”
“So I am told,” Alvarado said.
He seemed overly formal, weirdly remote, hardly even human. In the huge hall his crisp, cool voice had a buzzing androidal undertone that Mondschein found unfamiliar. Possibly that was an atmospheric diffraction effect caused by the security screens. But then it occurred to Mondschein that this too might be one of the clones. He stared hard, trying to tell, trying to call on the intuitive sense that once had made it possible for him to tell quite easily, even without running the alpha-wave test. The AAA Class clones had been intended to be indistinguishable from the original to nine decimal places, but nevertheless when you collapsed the first twenty or thirty years of a man’s life into the three-year accelerated-development period of the cloning process you inevitably lost something, and Mondschein had always been able to detect the difference purely subjectively, at a single glance. Now, though, he wasn’t sure. It had been simple enough to see that the Alvarado who had greeted him in the Ministry of Scientific Development was a replica, but here, at this distance, in this room that resonated with the presence of the Maximum Leader, there were too many ambiguities and uncertainties.
He said, “The Minister explained to me that the national genetic laboratories are facing heavy competition from abroad, that you want me to step in and pull things together. But I can’t do it. My technical knowledge is hopelessly out of date. I’m simply not familiar with current work in the field. If I had known ahead of time that the reason you had decided to let me come home was to that you wanted me to go back into the labs, I never would have—”
“Forget about the labs,” Alvarado said. “That isn’t why I invited you to return.”
“But the Minister of Scientific Development said—”
“Let the Minister of Scientific Development say anything he wishes. The Minister has his agenda and I have mine, doctor.” He had dropped the first-name talk, Mondschein noticed. “Is it true that there is a method of determining whether a given individual is an authentic human or merely a highly accurate clone?”
Mondschein hesitated. Something was definitely wrong here.
“Yes,” he said finally. “There is. You know that there is.”
“You are too certain of what I know and what I do not know. Tell me about this method, doctor.”
He was more and more certain that he was talking to one of the clones. Alvarado must be staging one of his elaborate charades.
“It involves matching brain rhythms. When I created the AAA Class Alvarado clones, I built a recognition key into them that would enable me, using a simple EEG hookup, to distinguish their brain-wave patterns from yours. I did this at your request, so that in the case of a possible coup d’état attempt by one of the clones you’d be able to unmask the pretender. The method uses my own brain waves as the baseline. If you jack my EEG output into a comparator circuit and overlay it with yours, the two patterns will conflict, the way any two patterns from different human beings will. But if my EEG gets matched against one of your clones, the pattern will drop immediately into alpha rhythms, as if we’re both under deep hypnosis. It amazes me that you’ve forgotten this.” He paused. “Unless, of course, you’re not Alvarado at all, but simply one of his—what’s the word?—one of his brothers.”
“Very good, doctor.”
“Am I right?”
“Come closer and see for yourself.”
“I can’t. The security screens—”
“I have switched them off.”
Mondschein approached. There was no air resistance. When he was five meters away he felt the unmistakable click of recognition.
“Yes, I am right. Even without an EEG test. You’re a clone, aren’t you?”
“That is so.”
“Is the real Alvarado too busy for me today, or is it that he doesn’t have the courage to look me in the eye?”
“I will tell you something very strange, which is a great secret,” said the clone. “The real Alvarado is no longer in command here. For the past several months I have run the government of Tierra Alvarado. No one here is aware of this, no one at all. No one except you, now.”
For a moment Mondschein was unable to speak.
“You seriously expect me to believe that?” he said at last.
The clone managed a glacial smile. “During the years of your absence there have been several internal upheavals in Tierra Alvarado. On three occasions assassination plots resulted in the deaths of Alvarado clones who were playing the role of the Maximum Leader at public ceremonies. Each time, the death of the clone was successfully covered up. The conspirators were apprehended and things continued as if nothing had occurred. On the fourth such occasion, an implosion grenade was thrown toward the Maximum Leader’s car while he was en route to Iquique for a ceremony of rededication. I happened to be accompanying him on that journey so that I could double for him in the riskier parts of the ceremony, when the general public would be present. The impact of the grenade was tremendous. There were many fatalities and serious injuries. In the confusion afterward I was mistaken for the true Maximum Leader. I quickly understood the situation and began to act accordingly. And so it has been ever since.”
Mondschein realized that he was trembling.
“So Alvarado’s dead?”
The clone looked smug. “His reign is over. His time is finished.”
What a strange concept that was. Alvarado dead! His old enemy was really dead! Mondschein felt a flash of satisfaction and surprise—and then a curious sense of loss.
“Why are you telling me all this?” he asked, after a moment. “Assuming that it’s true, and not just some game that your master is playing with me, why do you want to take chances this way? What if I tried to expose you and bring the whole crazy system down?”
“You would not do that,” said the clone.
“Why not?”
“You have said it yourself: you want only to live out your remaining years in peaceful retirement. If you denounced me, who would believe you? And even if you were believed, would things be better in Tierra Alvarado in the wake of my overthrow? No, doctor, the status quo is your only hope. And I am the status quo.”
Mondschein nodded. “Even so, why confide in me at all?”
“So that you may protect me.”
“How could I do that?”
“You hold the key to identification, this alpha-rhythm thing. I did know that you had such a thing, though not the details of it. Others know it also. Your possession of it gives you great power here. If there were a challenge to my legitimacy, you would be the only arbiter of the truth, do you see?”
“Yes,” said Mondschein. “Yes, I do.”
“There are twenty-one other surviving clones. One of them might take it into his head to overthrow me, thinking that he could rule the country at least as well. It is quite a comfortable existence, being a clone of the Maximum Leader, but it is not pleasant to serve as his double, exposed to all the risks of public appearances. It is a much better life, believe me, to be Maximum Leader and have others double for you, than to be a double yourself, never knowing when the bullet will come. Besides which, there is the wielding of authority for its own sake. That is a highly desirable thing, if you are of the sort who desires such things, and we are. After all, we are all of us Alvarados to the core, as you know better than anyone else.”
“So you think that if one of your vat-brothers suddenly tries to say that he’s the real Alvarado, not you, then I’d be willing to come forward and test him and expose him as a clone for you?”
“So I hope and trust.”
“Why would I want to take the side of one clone against another? It’s of no importance to me which one of you calls himself President here.”
“But I am the one who calls himself President just now. I might kill you if you didn’t cooperate.”
“And if I don’t care whether I live or die?”
“You probably care how you die,” the Alvarado-clone said. “You would not die in an easy or a gentle way, that I could promise you. On the other hand, if you pledge that you will aid me, when and if the need arises, I will see to it that you live out the remaining years of your life in the most complete happiness that I can make available. It seems to me a very reasonable offer.”
“It is,” Mondschein said. “I see that it is.”
“You protect me, and I will protect you. Do we have a deal?”
“If I say no, what are my chances of leaving this building alive today?”
The clone smiled. It was the pure Alvarado-smile. “They would be quite poor.”
“Then we have a deal,” Mondschein said.
l
The weeks went by. June gave way to July and the year descended toward its winter depths. Often there was fog; some nights there was frost; always the dry harsh wind blew from the west. Mondschein slept poorly. He heard nothing from the Maximum Leader or any of his minions. Evidently all was tranquil in the ruling circles.
He rarely left the villa. His meals were prepared for him according to his wishes, which were uncomplicated. He had a few books. No one came to see him. Sometimes during the day he went out with his driver to explore the city. It was larger than he expected, spreading long, thin tentacles of slum toward the north and south—as in any impoverished country, everyone from the villages was moving to the capital, God only knew what for—and very shoddy everywhere except in its grand governmental district.
On two of these excursions Mondschein was granted a glimpse of the supposed President Alvarado. The first time, his car was halted at a police roadblock and he waited for half an hour in an immense tie-up until at last the President passed by in a motorcade coming from the airport, with the Director-General of the Republic of the Orinoco, here on a state visit, riding beside him in the armored bubble-roof car while the spectators who lined the boulevard offered sullen acclaim. On the second occasion, far in the outskirts, Mondschein stumbled upon the ceremonial dedication of what he was told was the Grand Sanitation Facility of the Northeast, and there was the familiar figure of the Maximum Leader on high in the reviewing stand, surrounded by fierce-eyed, heavily armed bodyguards and orating bravely into the biting wind.
At other times while traversing the city Mondschein caught sight of various of the clones going about some business of their own. It was not at all unusual to encounter one. Doubtless the populace was quite used to it. Wherever you looked you could find one or two of the Maximum Leader’s “brothers.” Five or six of them headed government ministries—a meeting of the Cabinet must have been like a hall of mirrors—and the others, apparently, simply stood by to serve as presidential doubles when needed, and lived as private citizens the rest of the time. The real Alvarado, if there still was one, could probably have passed in the streets without causing a stir, everyone assuming he was just a clone: a fine kind of shell game that could keep the whole population fooled all the time.
Colonel Aristegui came to the villa again, eventually.
“We are ready to make our move, doctor.”
“Move, then. I don’t want to know anything about it.”
Aristegui looked tense, grim, right at the breaking point. “We need very little from you. Station yourself in the crowd, and when our man asks you, is this one the real one, simply nod or shake your head. We want no more from you than that. Later, when he is dead, we’ll ask you to examine the body and confirm that it is the body of the dictator and not one of the imitations. A small service, and you will live forever in the hearts of your countrymen.”
“There’s no way I can give you the kind of information you want just by looking at him from a distance.”
“It can be done, and you are the one who can do it. This much I know.”
“No,” Mondschein said. “What you think you know is wrong. I can’t help you. And in any case I don’t want to. I told you that before, Colonel. I’m not interested in joining your conspiracy. It isn’t any affair of mine.”
“It is an affair of every loyal citizen of this country.”
Mondschein looked at him sadly. He could at least warn Aristegui, he thought, that there was no real Alvarado there to shoot, that they were all clones. But would the Colonel believe him? In any case what Aristegui was trying to do was fundamentally futile. Kill one Alvarado, another would move into his place and announce that he was the authentic article. Aristegui could bring down one or two, maybe, but he couldn’t get them all. This country was going to be ruled by Alvarados for a long time to come.
“They took my citizenship away twenty-five years ago,” Mondschein said, after a pause. “I’m here now purely as a guest of the nation, remember? Good guests don’t conspire against their hosts. Please go away, Colonel. I haven’t heard a thing you’ve said to me today. I’m already beginning to forget even that you were here.”
