Collected Short Fiction, page 453
Carver said quietly, “Have you had any trouble since you arrived?”
“No. Should I expect any?”
The lean man shrugged. “There are one hundred Medlin agents on Earth right now. Yesterday we discovered a cache of secret Medlin documents. We have the names of the hundred and their photographs. We also know they plan to wipe us out.”
“How many Darruui are on Earth?”
“You are the tenth to arrive.”
Harris’ eyes widened. One hundred Medlins against ten Darruui! “Stiff odds,” he said.
Carver nodded. “But we know their identities. We can strike first. Unless we eliminate them, we will not be able to proceed with our work here.”
The music reached an ear-splitting crescendo. Moodily Harris stared at the nude chorus-line as it gyrated. He sensed some glandular disturbance at the sight and frowned. By Darruui standards, the girls were obscenely ugly.
But this was not Darruu.
He said, “How do we go about eliminating them?”
“You have weapons. I’ll supply you with the necessary information. If you can get ten of them before they get you, you’ll be all right.” He drew forth a billfold and extracted a snapshot from it. “Here’s your first one, now. Kill her and report back to me. You can find her at the Spaceways Hotel.”
Harris felt a jolt. “I’m staying at that hotel.”
“Indeed? Here. Look at the picture.”
Harris took the photo from the other. It was a tridim in full color. It showed a blonde girl wearing a low-cut black sheath.
Controlling his voice, he said, “This girl’s too pretty to be a Medlin agent.”
“That’s why she’s so deadly,” Carver said. “Kill her first. She goes under the name of Beth Baldwin.”
Harris stared at the photo a long while. Then he nodded. “Okay. I’ll get in touch with you again when the job’s done.”
IT WAS nearly two in the morning when he returned to the hotel. He had spent nearly an hour with the man who called himself John Carver. He felt tired, confused, faced with decisions that frightened him.
Beth Baldwin a Medlin spy? How improbable that seemed! But yet Carver had had her photo.
It was his job to kill her, now. He was a Servant of the Spirit. He could not betray his trust.
First HI find out for certain, though.
He took the gravshaft to the 58th floor, but instead of going to his room he turned left and headed toward the room whose number she had given him—5820. He paused a moment, then nudged the door-signal.
There was no immediate response, so he nudged it again. This time he heard the sound of a doorscanner humming just above him, telling him that she was awake and just within the door.
He said, “It’s me—Abner. I have to see you, Beth.”
“Hold on,” came the sleepy reply from inside. “Let me get something on.”
A moment passed, and then the door slid open. Beth smiled at him. She had “put something on,” but the something had not been much—a flimsy gown that concealed her body as if she were wearing so much gauze.
But Harris was not interested in her body just now, attractive though it was. She held a tiny glittering weapon in her hand. Harris recognized the weapon. It was the Medlin version of the disruptor-pistol.
“Come on in, Abner.” Numbly he stepped forward, and the door shut behind him. Beth gestured with the disruptor.
“Sit down over there.”
“How come the gun, Beth?”
“You know that answer without my having to tell it to you. Now that you’ve seen Carver, you know who I am.” He nodded. “A Medlin agent.”
It was hard to believe. He stared at the girl who stood ten feet from him, a disruptor trained at his skull. The Medlin surgeons evidently were a: skillful as those of Darruu, it seemed, for the wiry pebble-skinned Medlins were even less humanoid than the Darruui—and yet he would swear that those breasts, the flaring hips, the long well-formed legs, were genuine.
She said, “We had information on you from the moment you entered the orbit of Earth, Abner—or should I say Aar Khiilom?”
“How did you know that name?”
She laughed lightly. “The same way I knew you were from Darruu, the same way I knew the exact moment you were going to come out of your room before.”
“The same way you knew I was coming here to kill you just now?”
She nodded.
Harris frowned. “Medlins aren’t telepathic. There isn’t a single telepathic race in the galaxy.”
“None that you know about, anyway.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing,” she said.
He shrugged. Apparently the Medlin spy system was formidably well organized. This nonsense about telepathy was merely to cloud the trail. But the one fact about which there was no doubt was—
“I came here to kill you,” Harris said. “But you trapped me. I guess you’ll kill me now.”
“Wrong. I just want to talk,” she said.
“If you want to talk, put some clothing on. Having you sitting around like this disturbs my powers of conversation.”
She said pleasantly, “Oh? You mean this artificial body of mine stirs some response in that artificial body of yours? How interesting!” Without turning her back on him, she drew a robe from the closet and slipped it on over the filmy gown. “There. Is that easier on your glandular balance?”
“Somewhat.”
The Darruui began to fidget. There was no way he could activate his emergency signal without moving his hands, and any sudden hand-motion was likely to be fatal. He sat motionless while sweat streamed down the skin they had grafted to his own.
Beth said, “You’re one of ten Darruui on Earth. Others are on their way, but there are only ten of you here now. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
“Why should I?” Harris said tightly.
She nodded. “A good point.
But I assure you we have all the information about you we need, so you needn’t try to make up tales. To continue: you and your outfit are here for the purpose of subverting Terran allegiance and winning Earth over to the side of Darruu.”
“And you Medlins are here for much the same kind of reason.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” the girl said. “We’re here to help the Terrans, not to dominate them. We Medlins don’t believe in violence if peaceful means will accomplish our goals.”
“Very nice words,” Harris said. “But how can you help the Terrans?”
“It’s a matter of genetics. This isn’t the place to explain in detail.”
He let that pass. “So you deliberately threw yourself in contact with me earlier, let me take you out to dinner, walked around arm-in-arm—and all this time you knew I was a disguised Darruui?”
“Of course. I also knew that when you pretended to be sick it was because you had to contact your chief operative, and that when you said you were going to visit a friend you were attending an emergency rendezvous. I also knew what your friend Carver was going to tell you to do, which is why I had my gun ready when you rang.”
He stared at her. “Suppose I hadn’t gotten that emergency message. We were going to come here and drink and probably make love. Would you have gone to bed with me even knowing what you knew?”
“Most likely,” she said without emotion. “It would have been interesting to see what sort of biological reactions the Darruui surgeons are capable of building.”
A FLASH of hatred ran through Harris-Khiilom. He had been raised to hate Medlins anyway; they were the ancestral enemies of his people, galactic rivals for four thousand years or more. Only the fact that she was clad in the flesh of a handsome Earthgirl had kept Harris from feeling his normal revulsion for a Medlin.
But now it surged forth at this revelation of her calm and callous biological “curiosity.”
He wondered how far her callousness extended. Also, how good her aim was.
He mastered his anger and said, “That’s a pretty coldblooded way of thinking, Beth.”
“Maybe. I’m sorry about it.”
“I’ll bet you are.”
She smiled at him. “Let’s forget about that, shall we? I want to tell you a few things.”
“Such as?”
“For one: did you know that you’re fundamentally disloyal to the Darruui cause?”
Harris laughed harshly. “You’re crazy!”
“Afraid not. Listen to me, Abner. You’re homesick for Darruu. You never wanted to come here in the first place. You were born into a caste that has certain obligations, and you’re fulfilling those obligations. But you don’t know very much about what you’re doing here on Earth, and for half a plugged unit you’d give the whole thing up and go back to Darruu.”
“Very clever,” he said stonily. “Now give me my horoscope for the next six months.”
“Easy enough. You’ll come to our headquarters and learn why my people are on Earth—”
“I know that one already.”
“You think you do,” she said smoothly. “Don’t interrupt. You’ll learn why we’re on Earth; once you’ve seen that, you’ll join us and help to protect Earth against Darruu.”
“And why will I do all these incredible things?”
“Because it’s in your personality makeup to do them. And because you’re falling in love.”
“With a lot of fake female flesh plastered over a scrawny Medlin body? Hah!”
She remained calm. Harris measured the distance between them, wondering whether she would use the weapon after all. A disruptor broiled the neural tissue; death was instantaneous and fairly ghastly.
He decided to risk it. His assignment was to kill Medlins, not to let himself be killed by them. He had nothing to lose by making the attempt.
In a soft voice he said, “You didn’t answer. Do you really think I’d fall in love with something like you?”
“Biologically we’re Earthers now, not Medlins or Darruui. It’s possible.”
“Maybe you’re right. After all, I did ask you to cover yourself up.” He smiled and said, “I’m all confused. I need time to think things over.”
“Of course. You—”
He sprang from the chair and covered the ten feet between them in two big bounds, stretching out one hand to grab the hand that held the disruptor. He deflected the weapon toward the ceiling. She did not fire. He closed on her wrist and forced her to drop the tiny pistol. Pressed against her, he stared into eyes blazing with anger.
The anger melted suddenly into passion. He stepped back, reaching for his own gun, not willing to have such close contact with her. She was too dangerous. Better to kill her right now, he thought. She’s just a Medlin. A deadly one.
He started to draw the weapon from his tunic. Suddenly she lifted her hand; there was the twinkle of something bright between her fingers, and then Harris recoiled, helpless, as the bolt of a stunner struck him in the face like a club against the back of his skull.
She fired again. He struggled to get his gun out, but his muscles would not obey.
He toppled forward, paralyzed.
CHAPTER IV
HARRIS felt a teeth-chattering chill as he began to come awake. The stunner-bolt had temporarily overloaded his motor neurons, and the body’s escape from the frustration of paralysis was unconsciousness. Now he was waking, and the strength was ebbing slowly and painfully back into his muscles.
The light of morning streamed in through a depolarized window on the left wall of the unfamiliar room in which he found himself. He felt stiff and sore all over, and realized he had spent the night—where?—
He groped in his pockets. His weapons were gone; they had left his wallet.
He got unsteadily to his feet and surveyed the room. The window was beyond his reach; there was no sign of a door. Obviously some section of the wall folded away to admit people to the room, but the door and door-jamb, wherever they were, must have been machined as smoothly as a couple of jo-blocks, because there was no sign of a break in the wall.
He looked up. There was a grid in the ceiling. Airconditioning, no doubt—and probably a spy-mechanism also. He stared at the grid and said, “Okay. I’m awake now. You can come work me over.”
There was no immediate response. Surreptitiously Harris slipped a hand inside his waistband and squeezed a fold of flesh between his thumb and index finger. The action set in operation a minute amplifier embedded there; a distress signal, directionally modulated, was sent out to any Darruui agents who might be within a thousand-mile radius. He completed the gesture by lazily scratching his chest, stretching, yawning.
He waited.
Finally a segment of the door flipped upward out of sight, and three figures entered.
He recognized one of them: Beth. She smiled at him and said, “Good morning, Major.”
Harris glared sourly at her. Behind her stood two males—one an ordinary-looking sort of Farther, the other rather special. He was about six feet six, well-proportioned for his height, with a regularity of feature that seemed startlingly beautiful.
Beth said, “Major Abner Harris, formerly Aar Khiilom of Darruu—this is Paul Coburn of Medlin Intelligence and David Wrynn of Earth.”
“A real Earthman? Not a phony like the rest of us?”
Wrynn smiled pleasantly and said, “I assure you I’m a home-grown product, Major Harris.” His voice was like the mellow boom of a well-tuned cello.
The Darruui folded his arms. “Well. How nice of you to introduce us all. Now what?”
“Still belligerent,” be heard Beth murmur to the other Medlin, Coburn. Coburn nodded. The giant Earthman merely looked unhappy in a calm sort of way.
Harris eyed them all coldly. “If you’re going to torture me, why not get started with it?”
“Who said anything about torture?” Beth asked.
“Why else would you bring me here? Obviously you want to wring information from me. Well, go ahead. I’m ready for you.”
Coburn chuckled and fingered his double chins. “Don’t you think we know that torture’s useless on you? That if we tried any kind of forcible neural extraction of information from your mind your memory-chambers would automatically short-circuit?”
Harris’ jaw dropped. “How did you know—” He stopped. The Medlins evidently had a fantastically efficient spy service. The filter-circuit in his brain was a highly secret development.
Beth said, “Relax and listen to us. We aren’t out to torture you. We know already all you can tell us.”
“Doubtful. But go ahead and talk.”
“We know how many Darruui are on Earth. And we know approximately where they are. We’d like you to serve as a contact man for us.”
“And do what?”
“Kill the other nine Darruui on Earth,” Beth said simply.
Harris smiled. “Is there any special reason why I should do this?”
“For the good of the universe.”
He laughed derisively. “For the good of Medlin, you mean.”
“No. Listen to me. When we arrived on Earth—it was years ago, by the way—we quickly discovered that a new race was evolving here. A super-race, you might say. One with abnormal physical and mental powers. But in most cases children of this new race were killed or mentally stunted before they reached maturity. People tend to resent being made obsolete—and even a super-child is unable to defend himself until he’s learned how. By then it’s usually too late.”
It was a nice fairy-tale, Harris thought. He made no comment, but listened with apparent interest.
Beth continued, “We discovered isolated members of this new race here and there on Earth. We decided to help them—knowing they would help us, some day, when it became necessary. We protected these children. We brought them together and raised them in safety. David Wrynn here is one of our first discoveries.”
Harris glanced at the big Earthman. “So you’re a superman?”
Wrynn smiled. “I’m somewhat better equipped for life than most other Earthmen. My children will be as far beyond me as I am beyond my parents.”
“Our purpose here on Earth is to aid this evolving race until it’s capable of taking care of itself—which won’t be too long now. There are more than a hundred of them, of which thirty are adult. But now Darruui agents have started to arrive on Earth. Their purpose is to obstruct us, to interfere with our actions, and to win Earth over to what they think is their ‘cause.’ They don’t see that they’re backing a dead horse.”
“Tell me,” Harris said. “What’s your motive in bringing into being this superrace?”
“Motive?” Beth said. “You Darruui always think in terms of motives, don’t you? Profit and reward. Major, there’s nothing in this for us but the satisfaction of knowing that we’re bringing something wonderful into being in the universe.”
Harris swallowed that with much salt. The concept of altruism was not unknown on Darruu, certainly, but it seemed highly improbable that a planet would go to the trouble of sending emissaries across space for the sole purpose of serving as midwives to an emerging race of superbeings on Earth.
No, he thought. It was simply part of an elaborate propaganda maneuver whose motives did not lie close to the surface. There were no supermen. Wrynn was probably a Medlin himself, on whom the surgeons had done a specially good job.
Whatever the Medlins’ motive, he determined to play along with them. By now Carver had probably picked up his distress signal and had worked out the location of the place where he was being held.
He said, “So you’re busily raising a breed of super-Earthmen, and you want me to help? How?”
“We told you. By disposing of your comrades before they make things complicated for us.”
“You’re asking me to commit treason against my people, in other words.”
“We know what sort of a man you are,” Beth said. “You aren’t in sympathy with the Darruui imperialistic ideals. You may think you are, but you aren’t.”
