Ahead of Time Page 9

  For Quentin wasn't a superbrain. Very definitely he was not. The higher an I.Q., the less need there is for self-justification, direct or indirect. And, oddly, Talman suddenly felt absolved of any lingering compunctions. The real Bart Quentin would never have been guilty of paranoid thought patterns.

  So——

  Quentin's articulation was clear; there was no slurring. But he no longer spoke with soft palate, tongue and lips, by means of a column of air. Tonal control was noticeably altered now, however, and the Transplant's voice varied from a carrying whisper to almost a shout.

  Talman grinned. He was feeling better, somehow.

  "We're human," he said, "but we're still sober."

  "Nuts. Look at the telltale. We're getting close to Earth."

  "Come off it, Quent," Talman said wearily. "You're bluffing, and we both know you're bluffing. You can't stand an indefinite amount of high frequency. Save time and give up now."

  "You give up," Quentin said. "I can see everything you do. The ship's a mass of traps anyway. From up here all I have to do is watch until you get close to one. I'm planning my game ahead, every gambit worked out to checkmate for one of you. You haven't got a chance. You haven't got a chance. You haven't got a chance."

  From up here, Talman thought. Up where? He remembered little Cotton's remark that geometry could be used to locate the Transplant. Sure. Geometry and psychology. Halve the ship, quarter it, keep bisecting the remainders——

  Not necessary. Up was the key word. Talman seized upon it with an eagerness that didn't show on his face. Up, presumably, reduced by half the area they'd have to search. The lower parts of the ship could be ruled out. Now he'd have to halve the upper section, using the celestial globe, say, as the dividing line.

  The Transplant had eye cells spotted all over the ship, of course, but Talman tentatively decided that Quentin thought of himself as situated in one particular spot, not scattered over the whole ship, localized wherever an eye was built in. A man's head is his locus, to his own mind.

  Thus Quentin could see the red spot on the celestial globe, but that didn't necessarily mean that he was located in a wall facing that hemisphere of the sphere. The Transplant had to be trapped into references to his actual physical relation to objects in the ship—which would be hard, because this could be done best by references to sight, the normal individual's most important link with his surroundings. And Quentin's sight was almost omnipotent. He could see everything.

  There had to be a localization—somehow.

  A word-association test would do it. But that implied co-operation. Quentin wasn't that drunk!

  Nothing could be gauged by learning what Quentin could see—for his brain was not necessarily near any one of his eyes. There would be a subtle, intrinsic realization of location on the Transplant's part; the knowledge that he—blind, deaf, dumb except through his distant extensor sensory mechanisms—was in a certain place. And how, except by too obviously direct questioning, could Quentin be made to give the right answers?

  It was impossible, Talman thought, with a hopeless sense of frustrated anger. The anger grew stronger. It brought sweat to his face, rousing him to a dull, aching hatred of Quentin. All this was Quentin's fault, the fact that Talman was prisoned here in this hateful spacesuit and this enormous deathtrap of a ship. The fault of a machine——

  Suddenly he saw the way.

  It would, of course, depend on how drunk Quentin was. He glanced at Fern, questioned the man with his eyes, and in response Fern manipulated a dial and nodded.

  "Damn you," Quentin said in a whisper.

  "Nuts," Talman said. "You implied you haven't any instinct for self-preservation any more."

  "I . . . didn't——"

  "It's true, isn't it?"

  "No," Quentin said loudly.

  "You forget I'm a psychologist, Quent. I should have seen the angles before. The book was open, ready to read, even before I saw you. When I saw Linda."

  "Shut up about Linda!"

  Talman had a momentary, sick vision of the drunken, tortured brain somewhere hidden in the walls, a surrealistic nightmare. "Sure," he said. "You don't want to think about her yourself."

  "Shut up."

  "You don't want to think about yourself, either, do you?"

  "What are you trying to do, Van? Get me mad?"

  "No," Talman said, "I'm simply fed up, sick and disgusted with the whole business. Pretending that you're Bart Quentin, that you're still human, that we can deal with you on equal terms."

  "There'll be no dealing——"

  "That's not what I meant, and you know it. I've just realized what you are." He let the words hang in the dim air. He imagined he could hear Quentin's heavy breathing, though he knew it was merely an illusion.

  "Please shut up, Van," Quentin said.

  "Who's asking me to shut up?"

  "I am."

  "And what's that?"

  The ship jumped. Talman almost lost his balance. The line hitched to the pillar saved him. He laughed.

  "I'd be sorry for you, Quent, if you were—you. But you're not."

  "I'm not falling for any trick."

  "It may be a trick, but it's the truth too. And you've wondered about it yourself. I'm dead certain of that."

  "Wondered about what?"

  "You're not human any more," Talman said gently. "You're a thing. A machine. A gadget. A spongy gray hunk of meat in a box. Did you really think I could get used to you—now? That I could identify you with the old Quent? You haven't any face!"

  The soundbox made noises. They sounded mechanical. Then—— "Shut up," Quentin said again, almost plaintively. "I know what you're trying to do."

  "And you don't want to face it. Only you've got to face it, sooner or later, whether you kill us now or not. This . . . business . . . is an incident. But the thoughts in your brain will keep growing and growing. And you'll keep changing and changing. You've changed plenty already."

  "You're crazy," Quentin said. "I'm no . . . monster."

  "You hope, eh? Look at it logically. You haven't dared to do that, have you?" Talman held up his gloved hand and ticked off points on his sheathed fingers. "You're trying very desperately to keep your grip on something that's slipping away—humanity, the heritage you were born to. You hang on to the symbols, hoping they'll mean the reality. Why do you pretend to eat? Why do you insist on drinking brandy out of a glass? You know it might just as well be squirted into you out of an oil can."

  "No. No! It's an aesthetic——"

  "Garbage. You go to teleshows. You read. You pretend you're human enough to be a cartoonist. It's a desperate, hopeless clinging to something that's already gone from you, all these pretenses. Why do you feel the need for binges? You're maladjusted, because you're pretending you're still human, and you're not, any more."

  "I'm . . . well, something better——"

  "Maybe . . . if you'd been born a machine. But you were human. You had a human body. You had eyes and hair and lips. Linda must remember that, Quent.

  "You should have insisted on a divorce. Look—if you'd only been crippled by the explosion, she could have taken care of you. You'd have needed her. As it is, you're a self-sufficient, self-contained unit. She does a good job of pretending. I'll admit that. She tries not to think of you as a hopped-up helicopter. A gadget. A blob of wet cellular tissue. It must be tough on her. She remembers you as you used to be."

  "She loves me."

  "She pities you," Talman said relentlessly.

  In the humming stillness the red telltale crept across the globe. Fern's tongue stole out and circled his lips. Dalquist stood quietly watching, his eyes narrowed.

  "Yeah," Talman said, "face it. And look at the future. There are compensations. You'll get quite a bang out of meshing your gears. Eventually you'll even stop remembering you ever were human. You'll be happier then. For you can't hang on to it, Quent. It's going away. You can keep on pretending for a while, but in the end it won't matter any more. You
'll be satisfied to be a gadget. You'll see beauty in a machine and not in Linda. Maybe that's happened already. Maybe Linda knows it's happened. You don't have to be honest with yourself yet, you know. You're immortal. But I wouldn't take that kind of immortality as a gift."

  "Van——"

  "I'm still Van. But you're a machine. Go ahead and kill us, if you want, and if you can do it. Then go back to Earth and, when you see Linda again, look at her face. Look at it when she doesn't know you're watching. You can do that easily. Rig up a photoelectric cell in a lamp or something."

  "Van . . . Van!"

  Talman let his hands drop to his sides. "All right. Where are you?"

  The silence grew, while an inaudible question hummed through the yellow vastness. The question, perhaps, in the mind of every Transplant. The question of—a price.

  What price?

  Utter loneliness, the sick knowledge that the old ties were snapping one by one, and that in place of living, warm humanity there would remain—a mental monster?

  Yes, he had wondered—this Transplant who had been Bart Quentin. He had wondered, while the proud, tremendous machines that were his body stood ready to spring into vibrant life.

  Am I changing? Am I still Bart Quentin?

  Or do they—the humans—look on me as——How does Linda really feel about me now? Am I——

  Am I—— It?

  "Go up on the balcony," Quentin said. His voice was curiously faded and dead.

  Talman made a quick gesture. Fern and Dalquist sprang to life. They climbed, each to a ladder, on opposite sides of the room, but carefully, hitching their lines to each rung.

  "Where is it?" Talman asked gently.

  "The south wall—— Use the celestial sphere for orientation. You can reach me——" The voice failed.

  "Yes?"

  Silence. Fern called down, "Has he passed out?"

  "Quent!"

  "Yes—— About the center of the balcony. I'll tell you when you reach it."

  "Easy," Fern warned Dalquist. He took a turn of his line about the balcony rail and edged forward, searching the wall with his eyes.

  Talman used one arm to scrub his fogged faceplate. Sweat was trickling down his face and flanks. The crawling yellow light, the humming stillness from machines that should be roaring thunderously, stung his nerves to unendurable tension.

  "Here?" Fern called.

  "Where is it, Quent?" Talman asked. "Where are you?"

  "Van," Quentin said, a horrible, urgent agony in his tone. "You can't mean what you've been saying. You can't. This is—— I've got to know! I'm thinking of Linda!"

  Talman shivered. He moistened his lips.

  "You're a machine, Quent," he said steadily. "You're a gadget. You know I'd never have tried to kill you if you were still Bart Quentin."

  And then, with shocking abruptness, Quentin laughed.

  "Here it comes, Fern!" he shouted, and the echoes crashed and roared through the vaulted chamber. Fern clawed for the balcony rail.

  That was a fatal mistake. The line hitching him to that rail proved a trap—because he didn't see the danger in time to unhook himself.

  The ship jumped.

  It was beautifully gauged. Fern was jerked toward the wall and halted by the line. Simultaneously the great celestial globe swung from its support, in a pendulum arc like the drive of a Gargantuan fly swatter. The impact snapped Fern's line instantly.

  Vibration boomed through the walls.

  Talman hung on to a pillar and kept his eyes on the globe. It swung back and forth in a diminishing arc as inertia overcame momentum. Liquid spattered and dripped from it.

  He saw Dalquist's helmet appear over the rail. The man yelled, "Fern!"

  There was no answer.

  "Fern! Talman!"

  "I'm here," Talman said.

  "Where's——" Dalquist turned his head to stare at the wall. He screamed.

  Obscene gibberish tumbled from his mouth. He yanked the blaster from his belt and aimed it at the maze of apparatus below.

  "Dalquist!" Talman shouted. "Hold it!"

  Dalquist didn't hear.

  "I'll smash the ship," he screamed. "I'll——"

  Talman drew his own blaster, steadied the muzzle against the pillar, and shot Dalquist in the head. He watched the body lean over the rail, topple, and crash down on the floor plates. Then he rolled over on his face and lay there, making sick, miserable sounds.

  "Van," Quentin said.

  Talman didn't answer.

  "Van!"

  "Yeah!"

  "Turn off the inductor."

  Talman got up, walked unsteadily to the device, and ripped wires loose. He didn't bother to search for an easier method.

  After a long while the ship grounded. The humming vibration of currents died. The dim, huge control chamber seemed oddly empty now.

  "I've opened a port," Quentin said. "Denver's about fifty miles north. There's a highway four miles or so in the same direction."

  Talman stood up, staring around. His face looked ravaged.

  "You tricked us," he mumbled. "All along, you were playing us like fish. My psychology——"

  "No," Quentin said. "You almost succeeded."

  "What——"

  "You don't think of me as a gadget, really. You pretended to, but a little matter of semantics saved me. When I realized what you'd said, I came to my senses."

  "What I said?"

  "Yeah. That you'd never have tried to kill me if I'd still been Bart Quentin."

  Talman was struggling slowly out of his spacesuit. Fresh, clean air had already replaced the poison atmosphere of the ship. He shook his head dazedly.

  "I don't see it."

  Quentin's laughter rang out, filling the chamber with its warm, human vibrancy.

  "A machine can be stopped or destroyed, Van," he said. "But it can't be—killed."

  Talman didn't say anything. He was free of the bulky suit now, and he turned hesitantly toward a doorway. He looked back.

  "The door's open," Quentin said.

  "You're letting me go?"

  "I told you in Quebec that you'd forget our friendship before I did. Better step it up, Van, while there's still time. Denver's probably sent out helicopters already." Talman swept one questioning look around the vast chamber. Somewhere, perfectly camouflaged among those mighty machines, was a small metal cylinder, cradled and shielded in its hidden socket. Bart Quentin——

  His throat felt dry. He swallowed, opened his mouth, and closed it again.

  He turned on his heel and went out. The muffled sound of his footsteps faded.

  Alone in the silent ship, Bart Quentin waited for the technicians who would refit his body for the Callisto flight.

  Year Day

  IRENE CAME BACK on Year Day. It's a lost day for those of us who were born before 1980. The calendar day that comes between the end of the old year and the start of the new, the day when the lid's off. New York was noisy. Beamed commercials followed me right along, even when I swung over onto the fast roadway. I'd forgotten my earplugs, too.

  Irene's voice spoke to me out of the little round grid above the windshield. It was funny how clearly I could hear it, even above all the noise.

  "Bill," the voice said. "Where are you, Bill?"

  It had been six years since I heard the voice. For a minute everything else blanked out and it was as if I were driving along in silence, hearing nothing but Irene. Then I all but sideswiped a police car and the noise, the commercials, the tumult were normal again.

  "Let me in, Bill," Irene's voice said out of the little grid. For just a second I almost thought I could. Her voice sounded so small and clear I thought I could reach up my hand and open the grid and take her down, tiny and perfect in my palm, standing there with her high heels denting my hand like little needles. Year Day gives me ideas like that. Anything goes.

  I pulled myself together. "Hello, Irene." My voice was perfectly calm. "I'm on my way home. Be there in fifteen minutes. T
he super will let you in."

  "I'll wait, Bill," the small, clear voice told me.

  Then I heard the faraway click of the mike on my apartment door, and I was alone in the car again, feeling strange, feeling afraid, not sure if I wanted to see her but automatically pulling into the high-speed lane so I could get home quicker.

  New York is noisy all the time. On Year Day the pace doubles. Everybody off work, out for a good time, in a spending mood if they ever are. The commercials went crazy. The air bounced and shivered with them. Once or twice the roadway passed through an area lined with special mikes and amplifiers to pick up sound and send out reactions enough out of phase to add up to silence. There were a couple of five-minute drifts like that, like driving in a dream after all the noise, but every minute on the minute a caressing voice told me, "This silence is coming to you by courtesy of Paradise Homes. Freddi Lester speaking."

  I don't know if Freddi Lester exists. Maybe he's a filmstrip composite. Maybe he isn't. Certainly he's too perfect to be real. A lot of men bleach their hair now and wear it in curls over the forehead, like Freddi. I've seen his face, projected ten feet high, sliding along the sides of buildings on the street in a circle of light, gliding and molding itself to every projection, and women reaching up to touch it as if it were real. "Breakfast time with Freddi. Hypnolearn while you sleep—with Freddi's voice. Buy into Paradise Homes." Yeah.

  The roadway rushed out of a silent zone and the blare and roar of Manhattan hit me. BUY—BUY—BUY! over and over again, in a million different ways, with light and sound and rhythm.

  She stood up when I came in. She didn't say anything. She was wearing her hair a new way, and her make-up was different, but I'd have known her anywhere, in a fog, in pitch dark, with my eyes shut. Then she smiled, and I saw that the six years had maybe changed her a little after all, and I hesitated for a second, feeling afraid again. I remembered how right after our divorce a TV call had come from a woman made up to look exactly like Irene. She wanted to sell me advertising insurance.