The Parallel Man (16 page)

In the end it was a child and a clerk who led us to Mortifer. Paul Sobeski, who was acting as my secretary, had supervised the first sorting out of the flood of messages which followed my appeal for information about Mortifer. After over a week of work he came to me one day and said, “I’d like you to hear two record chips taken from the calls we got about Mortifer. Put together, I think that they might give us a valuable clue.”

When the first chip was inserted in the playback it showed on the View an elderly woman with a precise, fussy air. “I am the chief dispatcher for the Central Chemical Concern,” she said. “We used to supply the laboratory of Academician Mortifer at the Academy in Thorn. In dispatching one gets used to a certain pattern of supplies for a given customer; in many cases one could fill the order almost automatically. But there is enough judgment involved that the job can’t be computerized. After the election of Our Tribune orders from the Mortifer laboratory ceased and I rather expected to have an overstock on some rare items. However, I’ve noticed that all of these items continue to be ordered. The orders are spread out between a dozen different customers, many of them new customers. Those who aren’t new haven’t ordered these particular items in the past. Put together the orders from those dozen firms almost exactly duplicate the typical order from the Mortifer laboratory. Most of the firms are east of the mountains, but when occasionally I get a rush order for an item it almost always goes west. Two special rush orders have gone to a rather odd location; a little town on the edge of Lake of the Crater Crown Preserve. My husband and I have vacationed in that Preserve; I can’t think of any enterprise in that little town which could possibly use such chemicals.”

She paused and blushed very slightly. “When I was a girl I used to be very fond of stories about King Casmir the Protector. When Our Tribune came to us . . . Well, I just wouldn’t want anything to happen to Our Tribune. I used to respect Academician Mortifer, but if he is trying to kill Our Tribune he must be a very wicked man and he should be caught as soon as possible.”

The playback ceased and I turned to Paul. “As soon as we have time I’d like to thank that woman in person, Paul,” I said. “Wanda has offered me various family heirlooms from the time of Casmir the Tenth; see if you can find something among them that this woman might like and ask Wanda if she will give it to me to pass on to our informant as a token of appreciation.”

Paul made a note with his pen on a pad of paper—a scholar’s affectation in this day of recording chips—and said, “I’m sure she will. The next message is from a child; a boy who lives on a farm near that Crown Preserve.”

The boy might have been a farm lad of my old times; sturdy, freckled, clad in a faded shirt. “Well, I don’t know if this will be any help,” his recorded image said, “but it’s sure funny. We live just on the edge of Lake of the Crater Preserve. Us kids around here always used to swim in the Lake, and the rangers never said anything. But a couple of years ago the Preserve was pretty well closed down; they said the scientists from the Academy in Thorn were using the lake for experiments. When Dad tried to protest he didn’t get anywhere; eventually he found out that Councillor Mortifer was behind these experiments and in those days, before Tribune Casmir came, you just couldn’t buck old Mortifer.”

He paused and spoke a little more awkwardly. “Well, us kids were mad, and we’ve been sneaking over at night and in the early mornings to swim. I’m sorry if we’ve been breaking the law but we didn’t think it was fair. So anyway my friend Jimmy and I have seen some awfully funny stuff going on in that lake. They take boats out at night and drop big cases of stuff right into the water in the middle of the Lake. And we’ve seen transport discs going down into the water too, and one time we almost got caught when we were swimming and a transport disc came right out of the water. So since old Mortifer was behind getting the Lake closed I figure that maybe it was something Tribune Casmir oughta know. And . . . if this is some help to you, could you maybe see . . . about getting the Lake open again for swimming, Tribune?”

Paul and I both chuckled as the playback finished. “Once we had those two leads we did some further checking and found some other leads pointing to that location,” said Paul. “We’re pretty sure that it’s a secret stronghold of Mortifer’s; perhaps his main base now you’ve driven him underground. There’s a good chance that he himself might be there. I’d like your permission to send in an assault team of monitors; the charges pending against Mortifer are serious enough to get us a search and seize warrant from the High Court of Justice.”

I frowned. “If I know Mortifer he won’t be taken easily; he probably has half a dozen escape routes. I think that our best chance is to intercept the next big shipment and get ourselves dropped into Mortifer’s stronghold in some of these big crates the boy spoke of.”

Paul sighed. “You say ‘ourselves.’ You
are
going to insist on going then?”

I grinned at him. “Did you doubt it?”

He smiled wryly back. “Not really. All right; the Tribune has certain powers of investigation which we can probably stretch to cover this. You’re certainly as much an expert at hand-to-hand combat as most monitors, and they’ll certainly follow you with enthusiasm. But take every precaution, Casmir. Carpathia is recovering nicely from Mortifer, but we’ll need you around, at least as a symbol, for some time yet. Besides that, your friends would miss you.”

“And I you,” I said. “Don’t worry, Paul. This new life is much too interesting to throw away recklessly. I’ll wear earplugs against that ‘magic word’ of Mortifer’s and take some other precautions, too. Ask the Healers if it’s safe for the whole assault group to have Lysergol injections so we can’t be knocked out by neural interruption. We’ll carry those Fire Service shields against torching and wear regular monitor’s body shields against projectiles. If we can get inside the defenses by being delivered like packages, I have hopes that those things will be enough.”

Paul nodded. “Yes and you’d better wear Support Suits and carry a reasonable air supply too. That way if Mortifer floods the place or tries some sort of gas attack you’ll be all right. In fact, with Support Suits you can be neatly sealed inside those cases and not have to be worried about air holes or what happens when they drop you in the Lake.”

For all that, we were uncomfortable enough in our packing cases as the boat carried us over the surface of the Lake of the Crater. Some of us had been in those cases longer than others; we had tried to insert ourselves into Mortifer’s supply chain as unobtrusively as possible, burglaring warehouses in the dead of night to substitute monitors for supplies. An “accident” involving a cargo disc had enabled us to substitute the last few cases in the confusion. Luckily Mortifer tended to use standard sized chests large enough, though barely, to hold a man. A few boxes too small to hold a monitor were packed with equipment we hoped would prove useful.

The sound of the engine that drove the boat ceased, and I heard clanking sounds through my packing case. Very careful observation from the shore by our agents had told us the routine that was followed; the boat was moored to a buoy tethered just below the surface and the cases were tipped overboard from the side of the boat, which then returned to a boathouse on the shore of the lake.

Presently, the case I was in was lifted and dropped into the water. I was head-down for a moment, then the case was righted by the weights which had been placed at my feet to make the case weigh the same amount as the one we had substituted it for. Presently, there was a bump and silence for a while. Then the case was pushed sideways for a way and there was another pause. A loud humming began and I felt myself descending again. Then there was a gurgle of water running away.

I moved aside a little hatch which had been built into my case and peered out through the piece of dark translucent material which, I hoped, concealed my spyhole. The cases were standing in a large circular chamber from which water was gradually draining; harsh white lights behind protective transparent panels lit the scene. When the water was gone a heavy round door opened in one wall and blue-domed androids with cargo handling equipment came into the room. I let them take a case or two to the door so that there was one case inside the door and another blocking it. Then I simultaneously keyed a machine I held and kicked the release that made my case fall away in two halves.

The androids froze, as they had at the false Castle Thom when Droste and his men invaded it. I blew a blast on a whistle which I had carried on a chain round my neck and all of the cases carrying monitors split and spilled out their contents. Each man or woman ran to perform assigned tasks; making sure the door was well blocked so that it could not be closed on us, retrieving pieces of equipment from the smaller cases.

We formed up in skirmishing order and went down the corridor upon which the door opened. No effort had been made to close the door, though it was remotely, not manually, operated. Either our invasion had been unobserved or else the enemy was playing a waiting game. Reluctantly I keyed the contact that would turn off my sound receptors; from now on I must travel deaf and let others be my ears. We were all anonymous in dark-colored Support Suits, but Mortifer knew me well enough to realize that I would want to be in the assault group myself. If he spoke the word that would stop my heart and breath there might be no time for my companions to aid me, even though one of them was a Healer and carried emergency medical equipment.

The monitors carried equipment to override any ordinary door lock and we left no room unexplored as we passed along the corridor. This was a storage and service area; one room held neat stacks of supplies, another a transport disc in the process of repair. There were stored foods in some rooms and one was a wine cellar. Mortifer, I remembered, prided himself on his discriminating palate for wine, and since he was not a man to indulge his servants it was an encouraging sign that Mortifer himself lived here at least some of the time.

Now we passed small utilitarian bedrooms, all empty. Some human staff must live here then, at least part of the time. Presently a few more pretentious bedrooms showed that Mortifer sometimes housed guests or had human servants to whom he allowed some luxuries.

We now reached a more elaborate door closing off the passage; our lock-opening machine took several minutes to solve the problem of opening it. Eventually the door flashed open and we entered a long, richly decorated corridor; there were soft carpets underfoot and paintings on the wall. As we went down the corridor at a trot a man in dark clothing emerged from a side room carrying a tray with dishes on it. A neural interrupter flashed and he dropped to the floor, but not before he had time to utter a warning cry into a disc on his wrist. I couldn’t hear what he had yelled, of course, but it was probably enough to warn Mortifer.

I reached over my shoulder and pulled my sword from its sheath strapped to my back, and all of our party unslung fire-shields and held them at the ready. We went down the corridor at a trot, dashing past doors, as members of our party peeled off to deal with whatever the side rooms might contain.

The corridor ended in a circular anteroom from which three elaborate doors opened; solid doors hung on hinges—not the usual doors which flashed white and vanished to allow entrance. As we came to the anteroom some instinct made me halt my group. We waited, pressed against the corridor wall until the men who had fallen behind to deal with the side rooms joined us, signalling “All clear.” The Healer touched me on the shoulder and handed me a little message square. In glowing letters on its surface I read, “Hidden speakers giving alarm. Have several times repeated sequence of nonsense syllables; may be your ‘deathword.’

I nodded and signaled for a very special member of our group; an andro with a highly unusual power source and very simple programming. It dashed out into the anteroom, headed for the center door. Flame flared from the ceiling and when the andro protected itself with an upflung shield, the floor under it flashed white and the andro dropped from sight into some pit or abyss below.

I grinned mirthlessly and waved some of our special equipment forward. A device which vibrated so intensely that I could feel it through the soles of my feet immobilized the floor, while heavy-duty torchers flared out to destroy the painted ceiling of the anteroom and the weapons hidden above it.

My voice sounding strange in my deadened ears, I said, “Squad Three, left door. Squad Four, right door. Squads One and Two through the center door with me. Go!”

We crossed the antechamber in a few bounds and fell on the doors. On each side of me I could hear the other squads battering on locked or barricaded doors, but the central door burst open as we threw our weight on it and we burst into a room very much like the pictures I had seen of Mortifer’s laboratory at the Academy in Thorn.

Mortifer himself was seated on a thronelike chair with a console of contacts and flashing lights before him. Behind him a display screen showed us ourselves bursting into the room as if in a mirror. Mortifer’s mouth moved but of course I could hear nothing. Then with his crooked smile on his face he touched a contact before him. The room shuddered and the floor pressed on my feet. The screen behind Mortifer showed the surface of the lake now, and a strange object breaking its surface. Suddenly I realized that this room in which we stood was part of some flying vehicle, in which Mortifer was trying to escape.

I stepped forward, sword at the ready and Mortifer smiled again. He pressed another contact and on the screen behind him, written in letters of fire appeared the words

AVAUNT FRANKENSTEIN!

My vision blurred, my knees buckled as I dropped to the floor dimly conscious that both heart and breath had ceased.

I regained consciousness to find the Healer from my assault team tending over me. My head ached and my breathing was heavy and unnatural. I realized that my breathing was not under my control. “Relax a minute more,” whispered the Healer, and I realized that he had turned on my sound receptors. “We had a program all set to defuse that reflex once it was triggered,” murmured the Healer. “Give it a moment to operate and I can shut off the heart-lung field.”

I realized that I was lying on a carpeted floor with a forest of legs around me; my two squads had surrounded me, sheltering me with their bodies. The floor under me vibrated as I remembered the transport disc vibrating on my first ride in one, when we had passed near the starship taking off. I heard Mortifer’s voice over the heads of my men. “You may arrest me as much as you wish, monitor, but in a few minutes we will be on my starship and I think my defenses will hold you off until then. You had better lay down your weapons or my men will cut you down as soon as we are inside the cargo bay.”

The leader of Squad One knelt by my side and whispered, “Any instructions, ser?”

Fighting the heavy involuntary breathing I whispered back, “Keep him talking . . . give up weapons if you must . . . drop a flamer near my hand . . .”

A great shadow darkened the sky above us and I could see that the giant transport disc which formed the “floor” of Mortifer’s secret laboratory was floating up into an open cargo bay on the great black disc of a starship. I heard my squadleader talking as calmly as if he had been standing on the streets of Thorn, “Academician Mortifer, this will get you nowhere. Kidnapping aboard a starship is a Commonwealth offense. Our support team undoubtedly had you under observation and a U.C. ship will be dispatched after you from Thorn starport. You will be stopped before you can go Q and come back to face increased charges.”

“Nothing on Carpathia can stop this ship or keep my ship from slipping away into quasi-space,” snapped Mortifer. “Drop your weapons or my men will cut you down.” The squad leader gave a quiet order and weapons rained down about me, one flamer dropping neatly into my open hand.

Under cover of this the Healer whispered, “We’ve killed the reflex; I’m turning off the field.” My breathing became normal again, but I practiced breathing as shallowly as I could; I might have to play dead in hopes of seizing some opportunity later. I heard the ominous clang of the closing doors of the cargo bay and the hiss of air equalizing pressure.

I was still sheltered by my monitors when I heard a woman’s voice from a direction that could only be on the floor of the cargo bay. “Everything all right, Councillor Mortifer?” the voice asked. I turned my head slowly and stealthily so that when my squads moved away my “dead” open eyes could see as much as possible.

“On my part, yes,” said Mortifer’s voice, “but what about yours? This starship isn’t Sceptre!”

“The Tribune had Sceptre impounded,” said the woman’s voice. “We had to seize this trading ship to carry out your instructions to meet you here.” The fascinating thing about that was that it was a lie; we had not been able to trace the ownership of any starship to Mortifer or his friends; I had never even heard of the starship Sceptre, much less given orders to impound her. Someone was playing Mortifer false; had some of his own folk revolted?

“Fool,” snapped Mortifer, showing his usual stupidity about handling his subordinates. If that tale had been true the woman deserved commendation, not insults. “Fool,” he repeated. “Nothing could have caught Sceptre, but you’ve trapped us on some lumbering trader which will be run down before we can slip into quasi-space.”

“I assure you, Councillor, not a single starship will lift to pursue us,” said the woman. “What do you want done with these monitors?”

“Over against that wall for the moment,” said Mortifer and the squads of monitors filed off of the disc which held the laboratory, showing me a group of humans in support suits not unlike ours with heavy weapons trained on my monitors. The woman who had been speaking to Mortifer was evidently the pale, red-haired woman who stood not far from me. I saw that she too wore a monitor’s uniform and remembered the woman monitor who had tricked Casmir Thorn into Mortifer’s hands. “Freeze this body until I can get around to dissecting it,” said Mortifer matter of factly. That gave me a little time; whatever move I made would have to be made before I went into the freezer. They would hardly be foolish enough to put me in it in my support suit; even turned off it would impede the quick-freeze action.

“Shall I intern the monitors in some of the crew rooms?” asked the red-haired woman.

“No,” said Mortifer almost casually. “They are of no use to me. Cut them down.”

The woman looked at him and became even paler. “Ser, I can’t do that,” she said.

“Can’t!” said Mortifer. I half saw from the corner of my eye that he had risen from his console and was coming toward me. “You’ve disobeyed me for the last time, bitch. I’ll torch you first and then cut the others down myself.” He reached down for a flamer dropped by one of my monitors. With a roll and a bound I had him from behind; one of my arms around his throat and my sword point touching his neck just under his ear.

“Drop your weapons,” I called to the red-haired woman and her followers. To my surprise they broke into broad grins and lowered their weapons immediately. A door flashed open behind them and a tall man accompanied by a dog came out of it. The dog was a ghost-hound, not Trinka but a younger dog, and I thought a male. The man had a face tanned by some fiercer sun than that of Carpathia, a scar on his forehead and a flamboyant blond mustache. But the eyes were my eyes and the grin my grin as he laid his hand on the ghost-hound’s head and said, “Peace, my brother. I’m Casmir Thorn, and this piratical-looking bunch are my crew-mates on Starship
Argo
, in which you stand.” The ghost-hound remained placidly white as he went on. “The lady with the fiery locks is our friend, Nadia Ivanovna, who had the courage to pretend to still be Mortifer’s creature after she had changed her allegiance to me.”

Our eyes met across the room; he knew as well as I the strength of the Jagellon Gift. “Our apologies for the mummery, but we had to lure Mortifer away from the controls of that thing you rode up here on; he could have done considerable damage to
Argo
from that console and he was shielded besides. The sword is probably not necessary, brother, but keep a good hold on Mortifer’s throat; he may have a few other ‘death-words’ for you or me and I’d prefer not to find out the hard way. Nadia, my dear, if you would use a neural interrupter On Mortifer I doubt if you would do my brother any harm; I’m sure he is as full of Lysergol as I would be in his place.”

Looking rather stunned, Nadia Ivanovna looked to me for permission and when I grinned at her and nodded, she pointed a familiar stubby weapon at Mortifer, who struggled frantically in my arms. There was a purple flash and he slumped, but I did not release him.

“Quite right, brother,” said Casmir Thorn. “He might be faking. Nadia, a stasis suit for the distinguished Academician.” The red-haired woman slipped a sort of gray shroud over Mortifer and two of my monitors took charge of him.

“We seem to have done it, brother,” I said to Casmir Thorn.

He grinned. “With both of us against him, poor Mortifer had very little chance,” he said. “Not to mention our allies. Gorda, go see if Mortifer is really fast asleep.” The young ghost-hound padded over to where the shrouded Mortifer was held by the monitors, sniffed at him, yawned and sat down and scratched.

I laughed. “Mortifer seems to be no threat,” I said. “I suppose Gorda is the replacement ghost-hound we ordered.”

Casmir Thorn nodded. “I hope that you don’t mind paying a rather high freight rate for him,” he said. “My captain is a good friend but also a shrewd business woman. Gorda comes direct from Chrysonomia, the only planet where humans and Caphellans live together. I recommend that we each spend some time there.”

I nodded thoughtfully; the ghost-hounds had renewed the interest in Caphellans which had been stirred by my first meeting with one. “They may have much to teach us,” I agreed. I walked over to stand near Casmir Thorn, and both crew members and monitors withdrew respectfully, leaving us alone at one side of the cargo bay. “You’ve been on
Argo
since you destroyed Mortifer’s laboratory in Thorn?” I asked.

“Oh, he did that himself to keep his secrets from falling into the hands of the mob that came to rescue me. I never learned that young scholar’s name . . .” said Casmir Thorn.

“Paul Sobeski,” I said. “He’s my secretary now. If you had contacted him again, you might be Tribune now instead of me.”

He shrugged. “Nadia got me out of the exploding laboratory and warned me about the deathword. Since I didn’t know when Mortifer might spring that on me, it seemed safer to take up Captain Petros on an offer of a berth on
Argo
, leaving Nadia to work from within. But when I heard of an order for a Caphellan ghost-hound by Casmir King, Tribune of Carpathia, clone of King Casmir the Tenth . . .”

I laughed. “You didn’t want to miss out on the end,” I told him.

He laughed in his turn. “Of course not,” he said. “And just as well for you that I got here in time, contacted Nadia, and arranged to disable
Sceptre
and have
Argo
make the rendezvous. Of course, either of us alone might have done it, but as it was what you didn’t do, I did . . .”

“And what you didn’t do, I did,” I finished. “Yes, that’s something to be thought of for the future. Not that we always want to work together. . .”

“But we ought to duplicate experiences where possible,” said Casmir Thom. “I think I can persuade Captain Petros to train another green recruit when you can get away . . .”

“. . . And you should have no trouble getting elected Tribune; the Jagellon legend is still very strong on Carpathia,” I replied.

“Paul Sobeski and some others know about us, but we’ll have to break the news of your existence to the people eventually.”

“You’ll need to meet a nurse named Molly and an ultraviolet named Benton—and his sister,” said the other Casmir, “and we both need to consult with Justinian Droste.”

“I’ve met Molly,” I said, “and that reminds me our credit accounts are the same, unless Droste has taken steps to get it straightened out, and I don’t think he has.”

Casmir Thom shrugged. “Leave it as it is, if they’ll let us,” he said. “Half of my pay as a starship crewman goes to Central Credit at Home, the other half I get in ecus. So we have credit at Home . . .”

“. . . And plenty on Carpathia,” I told him. “The Tribune’s stipend is fairly modest, but I haven’t had a chance to spend much of it.”

“Good,” said Casmir Thom. “I’ve spent most of my ecus on artifacts from off-world . . .”

Just then a crewman approached us and said a little uncertainly, “Casmir?”

The other Casmir grinned and said, “We’re both Casmir, Jogo, but he’s only the Tribune of Carpathia and I’m the second supercargo of
Argo
.”

“Aw well, we can’t all be lucky,” said the crewman with perfect seriousness. “He looks just like you did when you came aboard. Anyway, Captain wants you both on the bridge. Says if you don’t want to go right back to Thorn she wants to know who’s paying for all this time on GE. In fact I guess she wants to know that anyway.”

“I think I can answer that one,” I said. “And I’d like to communicate with my backup crew, too. Will someone find my monitors somewhere to rest up?”

“Sure,” said Jogo. “I’ll take ‘em to the crew lounge and give ‘em a drink if they’ll take it; we’re not going Q anytime soon.”

“Tell them from me that they’re off duty except for the ones in charge of Mortifer,” I said, “and they’ll get their chance to celebrate later.”

“Yesser,” said Jogo and strode off with the catlike tread that seemed to be characteristic of starcrew.

The other Casmir chuckled. “You must have impressed him to get a ‘ser,’ ” he said. “We starflitters rather look down on you planetaries.”

Once back in Thorn Mortifer was handed over to Universal Commonwealth authorities; safer than trying to keep him on Carpathia where some of his secret sympathizers might work to free him. I requested the Council to reimburse Captain Elena Petros for all expenses incurred by
Argo
and to open the Lake of the Crater for swimming by local children as soon as possible. Such “requests” were increasingly mere formalities which worried me more than a little. I didn’t mind being watchdog of Carpathia’s liberties, but I had no desire to be her king.

It was late that night when all of the formalities were over and Casmir Thom and I paced the battlements of Castle Thorn in the moonlight. Soberly I told Casmir Thorn of the last time I had seen a face like mine by moonlight.

“Needless to say, I would have done the same,” he told me. “Our talents and Mortifer’s mind was a combination just too dangerous to take any chances with.”

“What are the limits of our talent?” I asked him. “Would a man like Justinian Droste or a woman like Wanda Jagellon do something against their conscience because of the loyalty we inspire?”

He shook his head slowly. “I hope not,” he said. “Otherwise the burden becomes almost too great to bear. Perhaps the Caphellans can help us find our limits—and our strengths. Will you flit when
Argo
lifts or shall I?”

“I’d better go this time,” I said. “Otherwise you’ll be too far ahead of me in the crew hierarchy. You can stand for Tribune or not as you please; things are quiet now. You can live here in the castle in any case; the Knights are regarding us as co-Commanders, and the rooms go with that office, not with the Tribune’s office.”

He nodded. “Perhaps I’ll wait and see,” he said. “We don’t want to slip into being defacto kings and a rest from a Casmir as Tribune might help there. Besides, I want to explore some of the back country, see how much it has changed. No need for us to parallel exactly, so long as each keeps in touch with the other’s experience.”

“Will we always parallel?” I mused. “Could we ever come into conflict?”