“But that man said he uses it regularly.”

“Yeah. He’s an addict I guess. Probably new in town... never seen him before.”

“But that drug is illegal!”

“That’s how I know you’re an off-worlder. You see – there are no illegal drugs on Tolive.”

“That can’t be true!”

“I assure you, sir, it is. Anything in particular you’d like to order?”

“No,” Dalt said, turning slowly and walking away. “Nothing, thanks.”

This place will take some getting used to, he told Pard as they crossed the street to the park and took a seat on the grass beneath one of the native conifers.

(“Yes. Apparently they do not have the usual taboos that most of humanity carried with it from Earth during the splinter-world period.”)

I think I like some of those taboos. Some of the stuff in that first shop was positively degrading. And as for making it possible for anybody with a few credits to become a Zem addict ... I don’t like it.

(“But you must admit that this appears to be a rather genteel populace. Despite the lack of a few taboos traditional to human culture, they all seem quite civilized so far. Admit it.”)

All right, I admit it.

Dalt glanced across the park and noticed that there were a number of people on the white monument. Letters, illegible from this distance, had been illuminated on a dark patch near the monument’s apex. As he watched, a cylinder arose from the platform and extended what appeared to be a stiff, single-jointed appendage with some sort of thong streaming from the end. A shirtless young man was brought to the platform. There was some milling around, and then his arms were fastened to an abutment.

The one-armed machine began to whip him across his bare back. [74]

 

 

VII

 

“Finish that drink before we talk,” EI said.

“There’s really not much to talk about,” Dalt replied curtly. “I’m getting off this planet as soon as I can find a ship to take me.”

They drank in silence amid the clatter and chatter of a busy restaurant, and Dalt’s thoughts were irresistibly drawn back to that incredible scene in the park just as he himself had been irresistibly drawn across the grass for a closer look, to try to find some evidence that it was all a hoax. But the man’s cries of pain and the rising welts on his back left little doubt. No one else in the park appeared to take much notice; some paused to look at the sign that overhung the tableau, then idly strolled on.

Dalt, too, looked at the sign:

 

A. Nelso
Accused of theft of
private ground car on 6-9.
Convicted of same on 20-9.
Appeal denied.
Sentence of public punishment to
o.6 Gomler units to be
Administered on 24-9.

 

The whipping stopped and the sign flashed blank. The man was released from the pillory and helped from the platform. Dalt was trying to decide whether the tears in the youth’s eyes were from pain or humiliation, when a young, auburn-haired woman of about thirty years ascended the platform. She wore a harness of sorts that covered her breasts and abdomen but left her back exposed. As attendants locked her to the pillory, the sign came to life again: [75-76]

 

H. T. Hammet
Accused of theft of
miniature vid set from
retail store on 8-9.
Convicted of same on 22-9.
Appeal denied.
Sentence of public punishment to
0.2 Gomler units to be
Administered on 24-9.

 

The cylinder raised the lash, swung its arm, and the woman winced and bit her lower lip. Dalt spun and lurched away.

(“Barbaric!”) Pard said when they had crossed the street and were back among the storefronts.

What? No remarks about being squeamish?

(“Holograms of deviant sexual behaviour posed for by volunteers are quite different from public floggings. How can supposedly civilized people allow such stone-age brutality to go on?” )

I don’t know and I don’t care. Tolive has just lost a prospective citizen.

A familiar figure suddenly caught his eye. It was El.

“Hi!” she said breathlessly. “Sorry I’m late.”

“I didn’t notice,” he said coldly. “I was too busy watching that atavistic display in the park.”

She grabbed his arm. “C’mon. Let’s eat.”

“I assure you, I’m not hungry.”

“Then at least have a drink and we’ll talk.” She tugged on his arm.

(“Might as well, Steve. I’d be interested in hearing how she’s going to defend public floggings.”)

Noting a restaurant sign behind him, Dalt shrugged and started for the entrance.

“Not there,” El said. “They lost their sticker last week. We’ll go to Logue’s – it’s about a quarter-way around,”

El made no attempt at conversation as she led him around to the restaurant she wanted. During the walk, Dalt allowed his eyes to stray toward the park only once. Not a word was spoken between them until they were seated inside with drinks before them. [76]

Logue’s modest furnishings and low lighting were offset by its extravagant employment of human waiters.

It was not until the waiter had brought Dalt his second drink that he finally broke the silence.

“You wanted me to see those floggings, didn’t you, he said, holding her eyes. “That’s what you meant about catching ‘a little of the flavour of Tolive.’ Well, I caught more than a little, I caught a bellyful!”

Maddeningly patient, El sipped her drink, then said, “Just what did you see that so offended you?”

“I saw floggings!” Dalt sputtered. “Public floggings! The kind of thing that had been abandoned on Earth long before we ever left there!”

“Would you prefer private floggings?” There was a trace of a smile about her mouth.

“I would prefer no floggings; and I don’t appreciate your sense of humour. I got a look at that woman’s face and she was in pain.”

“You seem especially concerned over the fact that women as well as men were pilloried today.”

“Maybe I’m Just old-fashioned, but I don’t like to see a woman beaten like that.”

El eyed him over her glass. There are a lot of old-fashioned things about you ... do you know that you lapse into an archaic speech pattern when you get excited?” She shook herself abruptly. “But we’ll go into that another time; right now I want to explore your high-handed attitude toward woman.”

“Please –” Dalt began, but she pushed on.

I happen to be as mature, as responsible, as rational as any man I know, and if I commit a crime, I want you to assume that I knew exactly what I was doing. I’d take anything less as a personal insult.”

“Okay. Let’s not get sidetracked on that age-old debate. The subject at hand is corporal punishment in a public place.”

“Was the flogging being done for sport?” El asked. “Were people standing around and cheering?”

“The answers are ‘no’ and ‘no’ – and don’t start playing Socrates with me.” [77]

El persisted. “Did the lash slice deeply into their backs? Were they bleeding? Were they screaming with pain?”

“Stop the questions! No, they weren’t screaming and they weren’t bleeding, but they were most definitely in pain!”

“Why was this being done to these people?”

Dalt glared at her calm face for a long moment. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I have this feeling that you’re going to be very important to IMC and I didn’t want you to quietly slip away after you read the Contract.”

“The IMC contract? I read that and there’s nothing –”

“Not that one. The Tolive Contract.”

“I don’t understand,” Dalt said with a quick shake of his head.

“I didn’t think you would, I mean,” she added quickly, “that Dr. Webst was very excited about something this morning and I figured he never gave you your copy or explained anything about it.”

“Well, you’re right on that account. I haven’t the vaguest idea of what you’re talking about.”

“Okay, then I’ll take it upon myself to give you an outline of what you can expect from Tolive and what Tolive expects from you. The Contract sounds rather cold and terrible unless you know the background of the planet and understand the rationale for some of the clauses.”

“I don’t think you should waste your breath.”

“Yes, you do. You’re interested now, though you won’t admit it.”

Dalt sighed reluctantly. “I admit it. But I can’t think of anything you can say that’ll make public floggings look good.”

“Just listen.” She finished her drink and signalled for another. “Like most of the Federation member planets, Tolive was once s splinter world. It was settled by a very large group of anarchists who left Earth as one of the first splinter colonies. They bore no resemblance to the bearded, bomb-throwing stereotype from the old days of Earth, nor to the modern-day Broohnins. They merely held that no man has the right to rule another. A noble philosophy, wouldn’t you say?”

Dalt gave a noncommitta1 shrug.

“Good. Like most anarchists of their day, however, they were [78] anti-institutionalists. This eventually caused some major problems. They wanted no government at all: no police, no courts, no jails, no public works. Everything was to be handled by private firms. It took a couple of generations to set things up, and it worked quite well ... at first. Then the private police forces got out of hand; they’d band together and take over a town and try to set up some sort of neofeudal state. Other police forces had to be hired to come in and roust them out, and there’d be a lot of bloodshed and property destruction.” She paused briefly as the waiter brought a fresh drink and El recommended that they order the vegetable platter.

“So,” she continued, “after this happened a few too many times, we – my ancestors, that is – decided that something had to be done to deal with the barbarians in our midst. After much debate, it was finally decided to create a bare minimum of public institutions: police, judiciary, penal, and administration.”

“No legislature?”

“No. They balked at creating posts for men who like to make rules to control other men; the very concept of a legislature was suspect – and still is, as far as I’m concerned. I mean, what kind of a man is it who wants to spend his life making plans and rules to alter or channel lives other than his own? There’s a basic flaw in that kind of man.”

“It’s not so much a desire to rule,” Dalt said. “With many it’s merely a desire to be at the centre of things, to be in on the big decisions.”

“And those decisions mean power. They feel they are far better suited to make decisions about your life than you are. An ancient Earthman said it best: ‘In every generation there are those who want to rule well – but they mean to rule. They promise to be good masters – but they mean to be masters.’ His name was Daniel Webster.”

“Never heard of him. But tell me: how can you have a judiciary if you have no law?”

“Oh, there’s law – Just no legislature. The minimum necessary legal code was formulated and incorporated into the Contract. Local police apprehend those who break the Contract and local Judges determine to what extent it has been broken. The penal authority [79] carries out the sentence, which is either public flogging or imprisonment.”

 “What?” Dalt said mockingly. “No public executions?”

El found no amusement in his attitude. “We don’t kill people – someone just may be innocent.”

“But you flog them! A person could die on that pillory!”

“That pillory is actually a highly sophisticated physiological monitor that measures physical pain in Gomler units. The judge decides how many Gomler units should be administered and the machine decides when that level has been reached relative to the individual in the pillory. If there are any signs of danger, the sentence is immediately terminated.” They paused as the waiter placed the cold vegetable platters before them.

“He goes to prison then, I guess,” Dalt said, eagerly biting into a mushroom-shaped tomato. Delicious.

“No. If he’s undergone that much stress, he’s considered a paid-up customer. Only our violent criminals go to jail.”

Dalt looked bewildered. “Let me get this straight: Nonviolent criminals receive corporal punishment while violent criminals are merely locked away? That’s a ridiculous paradox!”

“Not really. Is it better to take a young man such as the car thief out there today and lock him up with armed robbers, killers, and kidnappers? Why force a sneak thief to consort with barbarians and learn how to commit bigger and better crimes? We decided to break that old cycle. We prefer to put him through a little physical pain and a lot of public humiliation for a few minutes, and then let him go. His life is his own again, with no pieces missing. Our system is apparently working because our crime rate is incredibly low compared to other planets. Not out of fear, either, but because we’ve broken the crime-imprisonment-crime-imprisonment cycle. Recidivism is extremely low here!”

“But your violent criminals are merely sent to prison?”

“Right, but they’re not allowed to consort with one another. The prison has historically acted as a nexus for the criminal subculture and so we decided to dodge that pitfall. We make no attempt at rehabilitation – that’s the individual’s job. The purpose of the prison [80] on Tolive is to isolate the violent criminal from peaceful citizens and to punish him by temporarily or permanently depriving him of his freedom. He has a choice of either solitary confinement or of being blocked and put to work on a farm.”

Dalt’s eyes were wide “A work farm! This sounds like the Dart Ages!”

“It’s preferable to reconditioning him into a socially acceptable little robot, as is done on other, more ‘enlightened’ planets. We don’t believe in tampering with a man’s mind against his will; if he requests a mind block to make subjective time move more quickly, that’s his decision.”

“But work farms!”

“They have to help earn their keep some way. A blocked prisoner has almost no volition; consequently, the farm overhead is low. He’s put to work at simple agrarian tasks that are better done by machine, but this manages to defray some of the cost of housing and clothing him. When the block is finally removed – as is done once a year to give him the option of remaining blocked or returning to solitary – he is usually in better physical condition than when he started. However, there’s a piece of his life missing and he knows it ... and he doesn’t soon forget. Of course, he may never request a block if he wishes to press his case before the court – but he spends his time in solitary, away from other criminals.”

“Seems awful harsh,” Dalt muttered with a slow shake of his head.

El shrugged. “They’re harsh men. They’ve used physical force or the threat of it to get what they want and we don’t take kindly to that on Tolive. We insist that all relationships be devoid of physical coercion. We are totally free and therefore totally responsible for our actions – and we hold each other very close to that responsibility. It’s in the Contract.”

“But who is this Contract with?”

(“It’s ‘whom’.”) Pard interjected.

Silence!

“Tolive.” El replied.

“You mean the Tolivian government?” [81]

“No, the planet itself. We declared our planet a person; just as corporations were declared legal entities many centuries ago.”

“But why the planet?”

“For the sake of immutability. In brief: All humans of sound mind must sign the Contract within six months of their twentieth birthday – an arbitrary age; they can sign beforehand if they wish – or on their arrival on the planet. The Contract affirms the signer’s right to pursue his own goals without interference from the government or other individuals. In return for a sum not to exceed more than five per cent of his annual income, this right will be protected by the agents of the planet – the police, courts, et cetera. But if the signer should inject physical coercion or the threat of it into any relationship, be must submit to the customary punishments; which we’ve already discussed. The Contract cannot be changed by future generations, thus we safeguard human rights from the tamperings of the fools, do-gooders, and power-mongers who have destroyed every free society that has ever dared to rear its head along the course of human history.”

Dalt paused. “It all sounds so noble, yet you make a dangerous drug like Zemmelar freely available and you have stores that sell the most prurient, sick material I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s sold because there are people who want to buy it.” El replied with another shrug. “If a signer wants to pollute his body with chemicals in order to visit an artificial Nirvana, that’s his business. The drugs are available at competitive prices, so he doesn’t have to steal to feed his habit; and he either learns how to handle his craving or he takes a cure, or he winds up dead from an overdose. And as for prurience, I suppose you stopped in at Lin’s – he’s our local pornographer. All I’ll say about that is that I’m not for telling another individual how to enjoy himself … but didn’t you hunt up any other lit shops? There’s a big one on the square that sells nothing but classics: from The Republic to No Treason to The Rigrod Chronicles; from Aristotle to Hugo to Heinlein to Borjay. And down on Ben Tucker Drive is a shop specializing in new Tolivian works. But you never bothered to look for them.”

“The scene in the park cut short my window shopping,” Dalt replied [82] tersely. They ate in silence for a moment and Pard took the opportunity to intrude.

(“What’re you thinking?”)

I’m thinking that I don’t know what to think.

(“Well, in the meantime, ask her about that tax.”)

Good idea! Dalt swallowed a mouthful and cleared his throat “How do you justify a tax in a voluntary society?”

“It’s in the Contract. A ceiling of five per cent was put on it because; if a government spends much more than that, it’s doing more than it should.”

“But you don’t even have any government to speak of; how does it spend even that much?”

“Federation dues, mostly: We have no army so we have to depend on the Fed Patrol for protection from external threat. The rest of the expenses go to the police, judiciary, and so on. We’ve never reached five per cent, by the way.”

“So it’s not a completely voluntary society, then.” Dalt stated.

“Signing the Contract is voluntary, and that’s what counts.” She ran her napkin across her mouth. “And now I’ve got to run. Finish your meal and take your time and think about what we’ve discussed. If you want to stay, Webst will probably be waiting back at the complex. And don’t worry about the bill ... it’s on me today.” She leaned over, brushed her lips against his cheek, and was gone before Dalt could say a word.

(“Quite an exit.”) Pard said with admiration.

Quite a woman. Dalt replied, and went back to eating.

(“Still ready to take the first shuttle out of here?”)

I don’t know. Everything seems to fit together in some weirdly logical way.

(“Nothing weird about it at all. It works on the principle that humans will act responsibly if you hold them responsible for their actions. I find it rather interesting and want to spend some time here; and unless you want to start the fiercest argument of our partnership, you’ll agree.”)

Okay. We’ll stay.

(“No argument?”) [83]

None. I want to get to know El a little – a lot! – better.

(“Glad to hear it.”)

And the funny thing is: the more time I spend with her, the less she reminds me of Jean.

(“That’s because she’s really nothing at all like Jean; she’s far more mature, far more intelligent. As a matter of fact, Ellen Lettre is one of the more fascinating things on this fascinating planet.”)

Dalt’s lack of response as he cleared his plate was tacit agreement. On the way out, his eye was caught by a golden seal on the door. It read: “Premises, kitchen, and food quality graded Class I by Nauch & Co., Inc.” The date of the most recent inspection was posted below.

(“I guess that’s the Tolivian equivalent of a department of public health,”) Pard said. (“Only this Nauch is probably a private company that works on a subscription basis. When you think about – “)

Pard paused as a ground car whined to a halt before the restaurant and Dr. Webst leaped out. He looked relieved at the sight of Dalt.

“Glad I found you,” he said as he approached. “I met Dr. Lettre back at the complex and asked her when you were coming back; she said she wasn’t sure if you were coming back at all.”

“That was a possibility.”

“Well, look, I don’t know what this is all about, but you must come back to the complex with me immediately.”

Dalt stiffened. “You’re not trying to make an order out of that, I hope.”

“No, of course not. It’s just that I’ve made some startling discoveries about you that may have great medical significance. I’ve doubled-checked everything.”

“What are you talking about?” Dalt had a sudden uneasy feeling.

Webst grabbed Dalt’s arm and guided him toward the car. “I’m babbling, I know, but I’ll explain everything on the way over to the complex.” He paused in midstride. “Then again, maybe it’s you who should do the explaining.”

“Me?” Dalt was genuinely puzzled.

“Yes. Just who or what are you, Mr. Dalt?” [84]

---

 

VIII

 

“This is my psi pattern,” Webst said, pointing to an irregular red line undulating across the viewscreen in his office. “It shows the low level of activity found in the average human – nothing special about my psi abilities. Now, when we focus the detector on you, look what happens.” He touched a panel and two green lines appeared on the screen. The one at the lower end was very similar to Webst’s and occasionally superimposed itself on it at certain points.

“That’s what I expected from you: another normal pattern. And I got it ... but what the hell is that?” He was pointing to the large, smoothly flowing sine-wave configuration in the upper part of the screen. “We have tried this out on thousands of individuals and I have never once seen a pattern that even vaguely approximates that, neither in configuration nor in amplitude.

“Whatever it is,” Webst continued as he blanked the screen, “it seems to like you, ’cause it goes where you go. At first I thought it was a malfunction, that’s why I brought you over to Big Blue, where we have another model. But the same pattern appeared as soon as you walked into the building – and disappeared as soon as you left. So, what have you got to say for yourself, Mr. Dalt?”

Dalt shrugged with convincing bafflement. “I really don’t know what to say.” Which was true. His mind raced in an attempt to give Webst, obviously an expert in psionics, a plausible but fictitious explanation. The machine in question was a fairly recent development of IMC research – it detected levels of psionic capacity, even in the nascent stage, and was planned for interplanetary marketing to the psi schools which were springing up on every planet. The current thrust of Webst’s research was in the field of psionics and psycho-therapy, so he took the liberty of screening for psi ability everyone who entered his office. He felt he had hit pay dirt with Dalt.

“You mean to say that you’ve never had any inkling of psi ability?” Webst asked. Dalt shook his head. “Well then, are there any blank spots in your memory ... do you ever find yourself somewhere and can’t recall how you got there?” [85]

“What are you driving at?”

“I’m looking for a dissociative reaction or a second personality – something, anything, to explain that second level of activity. I don’t want to alarm you,” he said gently, “but you’re only allowed one: one mind, one psi level. The only conclusion I can draw is that you either have two minds or the most unusual single mind in the galaxy.”

(“He was right the first time.”)

I know, but what do we do?

(“Play dumb, of course. We wanted to get out of microbiology and into psych – this may be our chance.”)

Dalt mulled this over. Finally, “This is all very interesting, Dr. Webst, but quite meaningless as far as my professional life is concerned.” That should put the conversation on the track we want.

“That’s what I’d like to discuss with you,” Webst replied. “If I can get a release from Dr. Hyne, would you be interested in spending some time with my department assisting us with some experiments?”

“Just what kind of experiments?”

Webst came around his desk to stand before Dalt. “I’ve been trying to find a use for psionics in psychotherapy. We are daily trying to probe the minds of these so-called horrors cases in an effort to find out why they don’t respond to conventional therapy. I have no doubt that it’s the path of the future – all we need is the right technology and the right psi talents.

“Remember Sally Ragna? The girl who hides in the corner and no known psychotherapy can reach? That’s the kind of patient I’m after. We’ve developed an instrument to magnify psi powers, and right now a man with one per cent of your aptitude is trying to get a look inside her mind.”

Webst suddenly stiffened and his eyes burned into Dalt. “Right now! Would you come over to Big Blue right now and give it a try? All I want you to do is take a quick look – just go in and out, no more!”

(“This is our chance,”) Pard urged. (“Take it!”) He was obviously anxious to give it a try.

“All right,” said Dalt, who had a few reservations lurking in the back of his mind. “Might as well give it a try and see if anything at all can be done.” [86]

In Big Blue they seated him before Sally Ragna, who wasn’t cringing now, due to heavy sedation. The psi booster Webst had mentioned, a gleaming silver disk, was slung above them.

This is a waste of time, Dalt told Pard.

(“I don’t think so. I’ve learned one thing, anyway: That machine of Webst’s isn’t worth a damn – I’m not getting a bit of boost from it. But I don’t think I’ll need it. I’ve made a few probes using the same technique I played with on the liner and I’m meeting with very little resistance. I’m sure I can get in. One thing, though ... I’m going to have to take you with me.”)

I don’t know if I like that.

(“It’s necessary, I’m afraid. I’ll need every ounce of reserve function to stay oriented once I get in there, and I may even have to draw on your meagre psi power.”)

Dalt hesitated. The thought of confronting madness on its own ground was deeply frightening. His stomach lurched as he replied, Okay, let’s do it. But be careful!

(“I’m frightened too, friend.”)

The thought flashed across Dalt’s mind that he had never before considered the possibility of Pard being frightened of anything. Concerned, yes ... but frightened –

The thought disappeared as his view of Sally Ragna and the room around them swirled away and he entered the place where Sally was spending her life:

 

/countless scintillating pinpoints of light that somehow gave off no illumination poured into treelike shapes/
/a sky of violet shot through with crimson flashes that throw shadows in paradoxical directions/
/an overall dimness that half obscures living fungus forms that crawl and leap and hang from the pointillistic trees/
/moving forward now/
/past a cube of water with schools of fish each made of two opposing tails swimming forever in stasis/
/mountains crumble to the right/
/breach-born ahead is a similar range/
/which disappears as they step off a sudden precipice and float through a dank forest and are surrounded by peering, glowing, unblinking yellow eyes/
/descent/
/to a desert road stretching emptily and limitlessly ahead/
/and suddenly a town has sprung up around them, its buildings built at impossible [87] angles/
/a stick man walks up and smiles as his form fills out and then swells, bloats, and ruptures, spewing mounds of writhing maggots upon the ground/
/the face and body begin to dissolve but the mouth remains, growing larger and nearer/
/it opens to show its double rows of curved teeth/
/and growing still larger it moves upon them, enveloping them, closing upon them with a SNAP/

 

Dalt next found himself on the floor with Webst and a technician bending over him. But it was Pard who awakened him.

(“Get up, Steve! Now! We’ve got to go back in there as soon as possible!” )

Dalt rose slowly to his feet and brushed his palms. “I’m all right,” he told Webst. “Just slipped out of the chair.” And to Pard: You must be kidding!

(“I assure you, I am not. That was a jolting experience, and if we don’t go back immediately; that constructed reality in there will probably build up a reflex resistance that will keep us out in the future.”)

That’s fine with me.

(“But we can do something for this girl; I’m sure of it,”)

Dalt waved Webst and his technician away. “I’m going to try again,” he muttered, and repositioned himself before the girl. Okay, Pard. I’m trusting you.

 
 

/and then they were in a green-fogged bog as ochre hands reached up for them from the rank marsh grasses to try to poll them into the quicksand/
/the sun suddenly appeared overhead but am quickly muffled by the fog/
/it persisted, however, and slowly the fog began to thin and burn away/
/the land tilted then and the marsh began to drain/
/the rank grasses began to wither and die in the sun/
/slowly a green carpet of neatly trimmed grass unrolled about them, covering and smothering the ever-clutching hands/
/a giant, spheroid boulder rolled in from the horizon at dazzling speed and threatened to overrun them until a chasm yawned suddenly before it and swallowed it/
/dark things crept toward them from all ’sides, trailing dusk behind them/
/suddenly a high, smooth, safe wall encircled them and sunlight prevailed/ [88]

 

Dalt was suddenly back in the room again with Sally Ragna, only this time he was seated on the chair instead of the floor.

(“We’ll leave her in that sanctuary by herself for a few minutes while I get the lay of the land here.”)

You made all those changes, then?

(“Yes, and it was easier than I thought it would be. I met a lot of resistance at first when I tried to bring the sun out, but once I accomplished that, I seemed to be in full control. There were a couple of attempts to get at her again, but they were easily repulsed.”)

What now?

(“Now that we’ve made her comfortable in her sylvan nunnery – which is as unreal as the horror show she’s lived in all these years, but completely unthreatening – we’ll bring her back to reality.”)

Ah, but what is reality?

(“Please, Steve. I haven’t time for such a sophomoric question. Just go along with me, and for a working definition we’ll just say that reality is what trips you up when you walk around with your eyes closed. But no more talk ... now comes the hard part. Up until now we’ve been seeing what she sees; the task at hand is to reverse that situation. Here goes.”)

 

They were back in again as Pard’s apparent benign reconstruction had held – but change began almost immediately:

 

/The sunlit high, smooth, wall encircled them/
/the wall dissolved into a smooth grassy sward that stretched to the far horizon/
/a bare green panel first appeared to the left;/
/then three more panels formed to box them in/
/... a lighted ceiling with an odd piece of metallic machinery appeared to overhung them/
/… and there, just a short distance before them, sat a man with a golden hand and a flamestone slung at his throat, whose dark hair was interrupted by a patch of silver at the crown/

 

 A sudden blurring and they were looking at Sally again. Only this time she was looking back – and smiling. As tears slid down her cheeks, the smile faded and she collapsed into unconsciousness. [89]

---

 

IX

 

“You’ve done something,” Webst said later at the office after Sally had been examined and returned to her bed, “something beneficial. Can’t be sure just yet, but I can smell it! Did you see her smile at you? She’s never smiled before. Never!”

Webst’s enthusiasm whirled past Dalt without the slightest effect. He was tired, tired as he’d never been before. There was a vague feeling of dissociation, too; he’d visited the mind of another and had returned home to find himself subtly altered by the experience.

“Well, I certainly hope I didn’t go through all that for nothing.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.” said a voice behind him. He turned to see El walking across the room. “She’s sleeping now,” she said, sliding easily into a chair, “and without a hypnotic. You’ve gotten through to her, no question about it.”

Webst leaned forward on his desk. “But just what is it you’ve done?” he asked intently. “What did you see in there?”

Dalt opened his mouth to protest, to put off all explanations and descriptions until tomorrow, but Pard cut him off.

(“Tell them something. They’re hungry for information.”)

How can I describe all ... that?

(“Try. Just skim the details.”)

Dalt gave a halting summary of what they had seen and done, then: “In conclusion, it’s my contention that the girl’s underlying lesion was not organic but conceptual. Her sense of reality was completely aberrant, but as to how this came to be, I do not know.” He hesitated and El thought she saw him shudder ever so slightly. “For a moment I got the feeling that I was working against something ... something dark and very alien, just over the horizon. At one point I thought I actually touched it, or it reached for me, or –” He shook himself. “I don’t know. Maybe it was part of her fantasy complex. Anyway, what matters is that she was a very sick girl and I think I’ve helped her.”

“I take it, then,” Webst said, “that we can assume that these [90] acute, unremitting, chemonegative schizophrenics are actually only conceptually deranged. Okay, I’ll buy that. But why are they deranged?”

Dalt remembered the dark thing he had sensed in Sally’s mind and the word “imposed” rushed into his thoughts, but he pushed it away. “Can’t help you there as yet. But let’s get her back on her feet and worry about why it happened later on. Chemotherapy was no good because her enzyme chains are normal; and psychotherapy has been useless because, as far as this patient was concerned, the psychotherapist didn’t exist. Apparently, only a strong psionic thrust and subsequent reconstruction of the fantasy world is of any value. And by the way, her mind was extremely easy to enter. Perhaps in erecting an impenetrable barrier against reality, it left itself completely open to psionics.”

EI and Webst were virtually glowing with the exhilaration of discovery. “This is incredible!” Webst declared. “A whole new direction in psychotherapy! Mr. Dalt, I don’t know how we can repay you!”

(“Tell him what he can pay you.”)

We can’t take money for helping that poor girl!

(“He’s going to ask you to do it again ... and again. That was no sylvan picnic in there – it’s risky business. I won’t allow us to enter another mind unless we’re compensated for it. Value given for value received, remember?”)

That’s crass.

(“That’s life. Something that costs nothing is usually worth the price.”)

That’s trite.

(“But true. Quote him a figure.”)

Dalt thought for a moment, then said, “I’ll require a fee for Sally ... and any others you want me to try.” He named a sum.

“That sounds reasonable.” Webst nodded. “I won’t dicker with you.”

El’s face reflected amusement tinged with amazement. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”

Webst smiled too. “He’s welcome to every credit we can spare if he can bring those horrors patients around. We’ll even try to get a [91] bigger budget. I’ll talk to Dr. Hyne and have you transferred to this department; meanwhile, there’s an ethical question you should consider. You are in effect performing an experimental procedure on mentally incompetent patients who are incapable of giving their consent.”

“What about their guardians?”

“These patients have no guardians, no identity. And a guardian would be irrelevant as far as the ethical question is concerned – that is up to you. In the physician role, you’ve got to decide whether an experimental procedure – or even an established procedure – will have a greater chance of benefiting the patient than doing harm to him, and whether the possible benefits are worth the risk. And the patient must come first; not humanity, not science, but the patient. Only you can decide.”

“I made that decision before I invaded Sally,” Dalt replied with a touch of acid. “The gains were mutual: I would learn something, she would, hopefully, receive therapeutic value. The risks, as far as I could foresee, would all be mine.”

Webst considered this. “Mr. Dalt,” he said finally, “I think you and I are going to get along just fine.” He extended his hand and Dalt grasped it firmly.

EI came to his side and hooked her arm around his. “Welcome to the department,” she said with a half smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “This is quite a turnaround from the man who swore a few hours ago that he was taking the next shuttle out.”

“I haven’t forgotten that episode, believe me. I can’t quite accept the code you Tolivians live by as yet, but I think I’d like to stick around and see if it works as well as you say it does.”

The viewphone had beeped again while they were talking. Webst took the call, then suddenly headed for the door. “That was Big Blue – Sally just woke up and asked for a drink of water!” Nothing more needed to be said; El and Dalt immediately fell in behind him as he made his way to the carport.

The last sanguine rays of the sun slipping into the plaza found the ambulatory patients clustered in hushed, muttering knots. And all eyes suddenly became riveted on the car that held Webst, Dalt, and El as it pulled up beside Big Blue. An elderly woman broke [92] away from a small group and came forward, squinting at the trio in the waning light.

“It’s him!” she cried hoarsely as she reached the car. “He’s got the silver patch of hair, the flamestone, and the golden hand that heals!” She clutched the back of Dalt’s suit as he turned away. “Touch me with your healing hand!” she cried. “My mind is sick and only you can help me! Please! I’m not as sick as Sally was!”

“No, wait!” Dalt said, whirling and shrinking away. “It doesn’t work that way!”

But the woman seemed not to hear him, repeating, “Heal me! Heal me!” And over her shoulder he could see the other patients in the plaza crowding forward.

Webst was suddenly at his side, his face close, his eyes shining in the fading darkness. “Go ahead,” he whispered excitedly, “touch her. You don’t have to do anything else, just reach out that left hand and lay it on her head.”

Dalt hesitated; then, feeling foolish, pressed the heel of his palm against her forehead. The woman covered her face at his touch and scurried away, muttering, “Thank you, thank you,” through her hands.

With that, it was as if a dam had burst. The patients were suddenly swirling all around him and Dalt found himself engulfed by a torrent of outstretched hands and cries of, “Heal me! Heal me! Heal me! Heal me!” He was pushed, pulled, his clothes and limbs were plucked at, and it was only with great dif8culty that El and Webst managed to squeeze him through the press of supplicants and into the quiet of Big Blue.

“Now you know why he’s at the top of his profession, El said softly, nodding her head toward Webst as she pressed a drink into Dalt’s hand, a hand that even now, in the security of Big Blue, betrayed a slight but unmistakable tremor. The experience in the plaza had unnerved him – the hands, the voices, reaching and crying for him in the twilight, seeking relief from the psychological and physiological afflictions burdening them; the incident, though only moments past, was becoming increasingly surreal in retrospect.

He shook himself and took a deep gulp of the drink “I don’t follow.” [93]

“The way he sized up the situation immediately as mass hysteria and put it to good use: the enormity of placebo effect in medicine has never been fully appreciated, even to this day. There were a lot of chronically ill patients in that plaza who had heard of a man who performed a miraculous cure and they all wanted a piece of that miracle for themselves.”

“But how did they find out?”

El laughed. “The grapevine through these wards could challenge a subspace laser for speed of transmission!”

Webst flicked off the viewphone from which he had been receiving a number of hurried reports, and turned to them, grinning. “Well, the blind see, the deaf hear, and the lame walk,” he announced, then burst out laughing at the horrified expression on Dalt’s face. “No, nothing as dramatic as that, I’m afraid, but we have had a few remarkable symptomatic remissions.”

“Not because of me!” Dalt snapped, his tone betraying annoyance. “I didn’t do a thing – those people only think I did.”

“Exactly! You didn’t cure them per se, but you did act as a catalyst through which the minds of those people could gain some leverage on their bodies.”

“So I’m a faith-healer, in other words.”

“Out in the plaza, you were – and still are, now more than ever. We have a rare opportunity here to study the phenomenon of the psychosomatic cure, something which fascinates the student of behaviour more than anything else. It’s the power of the mind over the body in action ... we know almost nothing of the dynamics of the relationship.”

(“I could tell them a few things about that.”) Pard muttered.

You’ve said quite enough tonight, friend.

“And you’re a perfect focal point,” Webst added. “You have a genuine healing ability in a certain area, and this along with an undeniably unique appearance evidently works to give you an almost messianic aura in susceptible minds.”

(“Defensively worded in the best scientific tradition.”)

Webst continued in lowered tones, talking to himself more than to anyone else. “You know, I don’t see why the same phenomenon couldn’t be duplicated on any other planet in the human system, [94] and on a much larger scale. Every planet has its share of horrors cases and they’re all looking for a way to handle them. If we limit the amount of information we release – such as keeping your identity a secret – the inevitable magnification that occurs with word-of-mouth transmission will have you raising the dead by the time you finish your work here. And by then every human planet will be clamouring for your services. And while you’re reconstructing sick minds, Dr. Lettre and I will be carefully observing the epiphenomena.”

“Meaning the psychosomatic cures?”

El nodded, getting caught up in Webst’s vision. “Right. And it would be good for Tolive, too. He-Who-Heals-Minds – pardon the dramatic phrasing – will come from Tolive, and that should counteract some of the smears being spread around.”

“How does that sound, Mr. Dalt... or should I say, ‘Healer’?”

What do you think?

(“Sounds absolutely wonderful to me, as long as we don’t start to believe what people will be saying about us.”)

“Interesting,” Dalt replied slowly, “very interesting. But why don’t we see how things go here on Tolive before, we start star-hopping.” He had a lot of adjustments to make, physically and intellectually, if he was going to spend any time here.

“Right!” Webst said, and headed back to the viewphone. “And I’m sure it’s been a long day for you. I’ll have the plaza cleared and you can return to your hotel as soon as you like.”

“That’s not the place I had in mind,” Dalt muttered to El, “but I guess the sunset’s long gone by now out there on the plain.”

El shrugged warmly. “The sunrise is just as good.” [95]

---

INTERLUDE: A Soliloquy for Two   Can’t you do anything? (“I’ve already tried ... a number of times. And failed.”) I didn’t know that. Why didn’t you tell me? (“I know how much she means to you, so I made the attempts on my own. The most recent was yesterday. When you entered her body, I entered her mind – that seems to be her most vulnerable moment.”) And? (“The cells won’t respond. I’m unable to exert any influence over the components of another body. They simply will not respond.”) Oh. A long pause, then an audible sigh. All things must pass, eh? (“Except us.”) Yeah. Except us. [97]

---

YEAR 271  THE HEALER’S advent coincided with a period of political turmoil within the Federation. The Restructurist movement was agitating with steadily increasing influence for a more active role by the Federation in planetary and interplanetary affairs. This attitude directly contradicted the laissez-faire orientation of the organization’s character. His departure from human affairs occurred as political friction was reaching its peak and was as abrupt as his arrival. Certain scholars claim that he was killed in a liner crash off Tarvodet, and there is some evidence to support this. His more fanatical followers, however, insist that he is immortal and was driven from his calling by political forces. Their former premise is obviously ridiculous, but the latter may well have some basis in fact. from  The Healer: Man & Myth by Emmerz Fent [98]

---

 

X

 

The Healer, the most recognizable figure in the human galaxy, stood gloved, cloaked, cowled, and unrecognized amid the small group of mourners as the woman’s body was tenderly placed within the machine that would reduce it to its component elements. He felt no need for tears. She had lived her life to the fullest, the letter half of it at his side. And when the youth treatments had finally become ineffective and she’d begun to notice a certain blurring on the perimeters of her intellectual function, she ended her life, calmly and quietly, to insure that she’d be remembered by her lover as the proud woman she had always been, not the lesser person she might become. And only The Healer, her lover, knew how she had died.

The wrinkled little man next to him suspected, of course. And approved. They and the others watched in silence as the machine swallowed her body, and all drank deeply of the air about them as it became filled with her molecules, each witness trying to incorporate into himself a tiny part of a cherished friend.

The old man looked at his companion, who had never deigned to show a year’s worth of aging in all the time he had known him – at least not on the surface. But there had been strain and fatigue growing behind the eyes during the past few years. A half century of sickness and deformity of mind and body, outstretched hands and blank eyes lay behind him and possibly endless years of the same awaited him.

“You look weary, my friend.”

“I am.” The others began to drift away. “It all seems so futile. For every mind I open, two more are reported newly closed. The pressure continually mounts – ‘come to us’ – ‘no, come to us, we need you more!’ Everywhere I go I’m preceded by arguments, threats, [99] and bribes between vying clinics and planets. I seem to have become a commodity.”

The old man nodded with understanding. “Where to now?”

“Into private practice of some sort, I suppose. I’ve stayed with IMC this long only because of you... and her. As a matter of fact, a certain sector representative is waiting for me now. DeBloise is the name.”

“A Restructurist. Be careful.”

“I will.” The Healer smiled. “But I’ll hear what he has to say. Stay well, friend,” he said and walked away.

The wrinkled man gazed wistfully after him. “Ah, if only I had your talent for that.”

 

 

Sector Representative DeBloise had for some time considered himself quite an important man, yet it took him a few minutes to adjust to the presence of the individual seated calmly across the desk from him, a man of unmistakable appearance who had gained almost mythical stature in the past few decades: The Healer.

“In brief, sir,” DeBloise said with the very best of his public smiles, “we of the Restructurist movement wish to encourage you to come to our worlds. You seem to have made a habit of avoiding us in the past.”

“That’s because I worked through the IMC network in which the Restructurist worlds refuse to participate ... something to do with the corps’ support of the LaNague charter, I’m told.”

“That’s part of it.” The smile became more ingratiating as he said, “Politics seems to work its way into everything, doesn’t it. But that’s irrelevant now, since it was the news that you’d no longer be with IMC that brought me here to Tolive. I want you to come to Jebinose; our Bureau of Medicine and Research will pay all your fees.”

“I’m sorry,” The Healer said slowly, “but I deal only with patients, not with governments.”

“Well, if you mean to come to Jebinose and practice independently of the Bureau, I’m afraid we couldn’t allow that. You see, we’ve set very high and very rigid standards for the practice of [100] medicine on our planet and I’m afraid allowing you such license, despite your reputation, would set a bad precedent.”

“If a patient wishes my services, he or his guardian should be free to engage them. Why should some bureau have anything to say in the matter?”

“What you ask is impossible,” DeBloise said with a shake of his head. “Our people must be protected from being duped by frauds.”

The Healer’s smile was rueful as he rose to his feet. “That is quite evident. And thus Jebinose is not for me.”

DeBloise’s face suddenly hardened, the smile forgotten “It’s quite evident to me, Healer” – he spat the word – “that you’ve spent too much time among these barbaric Tolivians. All right, play your game: but I think you should know that a change is in the wind and that we shall soon be running the entire Federation our way. And when we do, we’ll see to it that every planet gets its fair share of your services!”

“Perhaps there will be no Healer, then,” came the quiet reply.

“Don’t try to bluff me!” DeBloise laughed. “I know your type. You glory in the adulation that greets you everywhere you go. It’s more addicting than Zemmelar.” There was a trace of envy in his voice. “But Restructurists are not so easily awed. You are a man – a uniquely talented one, yes, but still just one man – and when the tide turns for us, you will join in the current or be swept under.”

The Healer’s eyes blazed but his voice was calm. “Thank you, Mr. DeBloise. You have just clarified a problem and prompted a decision that has been growing increasingly troublesome over the past decade or so.” He turned and strode from the room.

Nearly two and a half centuries passed before The Healer was seen again. [101]

 

 

---

YEAR 505   NOT long after the disappearance of The Healer, the so-called DeBloise scandal came to the fore. The subsequent Restructurist walk-out led to the Federation-Restructurist civil war (“war” is hardly a fitting term for those sporadic skirmishes) which was eventually transformed into a full-scale interracial war when the Tarks decided to interfere. It was during the height of the Terro-Tarkan conflict that the immortality myth of The Healer was born. Oblivious to the wars, the horrors continued to appear at a steady rate and the psycho-sciences had gained little ground against the malady. For that reason, perhaps, a man with a stunning resemblance to The Healer appeared and began to cure the horrors with an efficacy that rivalled that of the original. Thus an historical figure became a legend. Who he was and why he chose to appear at that particular moment remains a mystery. from The Healer: Man & Myth by Emmerz Fent [102]

---

 

XI

 

Dalt locked the flitter into the roof cradle, released the controls, and slumped into the seat.

(“There. Don’t you feel better now?”) Pard asked.

“No,” Dalt replied aloud. “I feel tired. I just want to go to bed.”

(“You’ll thank me in the morning. Your mental outlook will be better, and you won’t even be stiff because I’ve been putting you through isometrics in your sleep every night.”)

“No wonder I wake up tired in the morning!”

(“Mental fatigue, Steve. Mental. We’ve both gotten too involved in this project and the strain is starting to tell.”)

“Thanks a lot,” he muttered as he slid from the cab and shuffled to the door. “The centuries have not dulled your talent for stating the obvious.”

And it was obvious. After The Healer episode, Dalt and Pard had shifted interests from the life sciences to the physical sciences and pursued their studies amid the Federation-Restructurist war without ever noticing it. That muddled conflict had been about ready to die out after a century or so, due to lack of interest, when a new force injected itself into the picture. The Tarks, in an attempt at subterfuge as clumsy as their previous attempts at diplomacy, declared a unilateral alliance with the Restructurist coalition and promptly attacked a number of Federation bases along a disputed stretch of expansion border. Divide and conquer is a time-tested ploy, but the Tarks neglected to consider the racial variable. Humans have little compunction about killing each other over real or imagined differences, but there is an archetypical repugnance at the thought of an alien race taking such a liberty. And so the Feds and Restructurists promptly united and declared jihad on the Tarkan Empire. [103]

Naturally, weapons research blossomed and physicists became very popular. Dalt’s papers on field theory engendered numerous research offers from companies anxious to enter the weapons market. The Tarkan force shield was allowing their ships to penetrate deep into Terran territory with few losses, and thus became a prime target for big companies like Star Ways, whose offer Dalt accepted.

The grind of high-pressure research, however, was beginning to take its toll on Dalt; and Pard, ever the physiopsychological watch-dog, had finally prevailed in convincing Dalt to shorten his work-day and spend a few hours on the exercise courts.

Wearily, Dalt tapped out the proper code on the entry plate and the door slid open. Even now, drained as he was in body and mind, , he realized that his thoughts were starting to drift toward the field-negation problem back at Star Ways labs. He was about to try to shift his train of thought when a baritone voice did it for him.

“Do you often talk to yourself, Mr. Cheserak? Or should I call you Mr. Dalt? Or would you prefer Mr. Storgen?” The voice came from a dark, muscular man who had made himself comfortable in one of the living-room chairs; he was pointing a blaster at the centre of Dalt’s chest. “Or how about Mr. Quet?” he continued with a self-assured smile, and Dalt noticed two other men, partly in shadow, standing behind-him. “Come now! Don’t just stand there. Come in and sit down. After all, this is your home.”

Eyeing the weapon that followed his every move, Dalt chose a chair opposite the intruders. “What do you want?”

“Why, your secret, of course. We thought you’d be out longer and had hardly begun our search of the premises when we heard your flitter hit the dock. Very rude of you to interrupt us.”

Dalt shook his head grimly at the thought of humans conspiring against their own race. “Tell your Tark friends that we’re no closer to piercing their force shields than we were when the war started.”

The dark man laughed with genuine amusement. “No, my friend, I assure you that our sympathies concerning the Terro-Tarkan war are totally orthodox. Your work at Star Ways is of no interest to us.”

“Then what do you want?” he repeated, his eyes darting to the other two figures; one a huge, steadfast hulk, the other slight and [104] fidgety. All three, like Dalt, wore the baggy cover-suits with matching peaked skullcaps currently in fashion in this end of the human part of the galaxy. “I keep my money in a bank, so –”

“Yes, I know,” the seated man interrupted. “I know which bank and I know exactly how much. And I also have a list of all the other accounts you have spread among the planets of this sector.”

“How in the name of –” The stranger held up his free hand and smiled. “None of us has been properly introduced. What shall We call you, sir? Which of your many aliases do you prefer?”

Dalt hesitated, then said, “Dalt,” grudgingly.

“Excellent! Now, Mr. Dalt, allow me to introduce Mr. Hunter” – indicating the hulk – “and Mr. Giff” – the fidget. “I am Aaron Kanlos and up until two standard years ago I was a mere president of an Interstellar Brotherhood of Computer Technicians local on Ragna. Then one of our trouble shooters working for the Tellalung Banking Combine came to me with an interesting anomaly and my life changed. I became a man with a mission: to find you.”

As Dalt sat in silence, denying Kanlos the satisfaction of being told to go on, Pard said, (“I don’t like the way he said that.”)

“I was told,” Kanlos finally went on, “that a man named Marten Quet had deposited a check from Interstellar Business Advisers into an account he had just opened. The IBA check cleared but the man didn’t.”

Again he looked to Dalt for a reaction. Finding a blank stare, he continued: “The computer, it seems, was insisting that this Mr. Quet was really a certain Mr. Galdemar and duly filed an anomaly slip which one of our technicians picked up. These matters are routine on a planet such as Ragna, which is a centre for intrigue in the interstellar business community; keeping a number of accounts under different names is the rule rather than the exception in those circles. So, the usual override code was fed in, but the machine still would not accept the anomaly. After running a negative check for malfunction, the technician ordered a full printout on the two accounts.” Kanlos smiled at this. “That’s illegal, of course, but his curiosity was piqued. The pique became astonishment when he read [105] the listings, and so naturally he brought the problem to his superior.”

(“I’m sure he did!”) Pard interjected, (“Some of these computer-union bosses have a tidy little blackmail business on the side.”)

Be quiet! Dalt hissed mentally.

“There were amazing similarities,” Kanlos was saying. “Even in the handwriting, although one was right-handed and the other obviously left-handed. Secondly, their fingerprints were very much alike, one being merely a distortion of the other. Both were very crude methods of deception. Nothing unusual there. The retinal prints were, of course, identical; that was why the computer had filed an anomaly. So why was the technician so excited? And why had the computer ignored the override code? As I said, multiple accounts are hardly unusual.” Kanlos paused for dramatic effect, then: “The answer was to be found in the opening dates of the accounts. Mr. Quet’s account was only a few days old... Mr. Galdemar’s had been opened two hundred years ago!”

“I was sceptical at first, at least until I did some research on retinal prints and found that two identical sets cannot exist. Even clones have variations in the vessels of the eyegrounds. So, I was faced with two possibilities: either two men generations apart possessed identical retinal patterns, or one man has been alive much longer than any man should be. The former would be a mere scientific curiosity; the latter would be of monumental importance.”

Dalt shrugged. “The former possibility is certainly more likely than the latter.”

“Playing coy, eh?” Kanlos smiled. “Well, let me finish my tale so you’ll fully appreciate the efforts that brought me to your home. Oh, it wasn’t easy, my friend, but I knew there was a man roaming this galaxy who was well over two hundred years old and I was determined to find him. I sent out copies of the Quet/Galdemar retinal prints to all the other locals in our union, asking them to see if they could find accounts with matching patterns. It took time, but then the reports began to trickle back – different accounts on different planets with different names and fingerprints, but always the same retinal pattern. There was also a huge trust fund – a truly staggering amount of credits – on the planet Myrna in the name of [106]

Cilo Storgen, who also happens to have the Quet/Galdemar pattern.

“You may be interested to know that the earliest record found was that of a man known simply as ‘Dalt,’ who had funds transferred from an account on Tolive to a bank on Neeka about two and a quarter centuries ago. Unfortunately, we have no local on Tolive, so we couldn’t backtrack from there. The most recent record was, of course, the one on Ragna belonging to Mr. Galdemar. He left the planet and disappeared, it seems. However, shortly after his disappearance, a Mr. Cheserak – who had the same retinal prints as Mr. Galdemar and all of the others, I might add – opened an account here on Meltrin. According to the bank, Mr. Cheserak lives here... alone.” Kanlos’s smile took on a malicious twist “Care to comment on this, Mr. Dalt?”

Dalt was outwardly silent but an internal dispute was rapidly coming to a boil.

Congratulations, mastermind!

(“Don’t go putting the blame on me!”) Pard countered. (“If you’ll just think back, you’ll remember that I told you –”)

You told me – guaranteed me, in fact – that nobody’d ever connect all those accounts. As it turns out, you might as well have left a trail of interstellar beacons!

(“Well, I just didn’t think it was necessary to go to the trouble of changing our retinal print. Not that it would have been difficult – neovascularisation of the retina is no problem – but I thought changing names and fingerprints would be enough. Multiple accounts are necessary due to shifting economic situations, and I con- tend that no one would have caught on if you hadn’t insisted on opening that account on Ragna. I warned you that we already had an account there, but you ignored me.”)

Dalt gave a mental snort. I ignored you only because you’re usually so overcautious. I was under the mistaken impression that you could handle a simple. little deception, but –

The sound of Kanlos’s voice brought the argument to a halt. “I’m waiting for a reply, Mr Dalt. My research shows that you’ve been around for two and a half centuries. Any comment?”

“Yes.” Dalt sighed. “Your research is inaccurate.” [107]

“Oh, really?” Kanlos’s eyebrows lifted. “Please point out my error, if you can.”

Dalt spat out the words with reluctant regret. “I’m twice that age.”

Kanlos half started out of his chair. “Then it’s true!” His voice was hoarse. “Five centuries... incredible!”

Dalt shrugged with annoyance. “So what?”

“What do you mean, so what?’ You’ve found the secret of immortality, trite as that phrase may be, and I’ve found you. You appear to be about thirty five years old, so I assume that’s when you began using whatever it is you use. I’m forty now and don’t intend to get any older; Am I getting through to you, Mr. Dalt?”

Dalt nodded. “Loud and clear.” To Pard: Okay, what do I tell . him?

(“How about the truth? That’ll be just about as useful to him as any fantastic tale we can concoct on the spur of the moment.”)

Good idea. Dalt cleared his throat. “If one wishes to become immortal, Mr. Kanlos, one need only take a trip to the planet Kwashi and enter a cave there. Before long, a slug-like creature will drop off the cave ceiling onto your head; cells from the slug will invade your brain and set up an autonomous symbiotic mind with consciousness down to the cellular level. In its own self-interest, this mind will keep you from aging or even getting sick. There is a slight drawback, however: Legend on the planet Kwashi has it that only one in a thousand will survive the ordeal. I happen to be one who did.”

“I don’t consider this a joking matter,” Kanlos said with an angry frown.

“Neither do I!” Dalt replied, his eyes cold as be rose to his feet. “Now I think I’ve wasted just about enough time with this charade. Put your blaster away and get out of my house1 I keep no money here and no elixirs of immortality or whatever it is you hope to find. So take your two –”

“That will be enough, Mr. Dalt!”  Kanlos shouted. He gestured to Hinter. “Put the cuff on him!”

The big man lumbered forward carrying a sack in his right hand. From it he withdrew a metal globe with a shiny cobalt surface that was interrupted only by an oval aperture. Dalt’s hands were inserted [108] there as Giff came forward with a key. The aperture tightened around Dalt’s wrists as the key was turned and the sphere suddenly became stationary in space. Dalt tried to pull it towards him but it wouldn’t budge; nor could he push it away. It moved freely, however, along a vertical axis.

(“A gravity cuff,”) Pard remarked. (“I’ve read about them but never expected to be locked into one.”)

What does it do?

(“Keeps you in one spot. It’s favoured by many law enforcement agencies. When activated, it locks onto an axis through the planet’s centre of gravity. Motion along that axis is unrestricted, but that’s it; you can’t go anywhere else. This seems to be an old unit. The newer ones are supposedly much smaller.”)

In other words, we’re stuck.

(“Right.”)

“... and so that ought to keep you safe and sound while we search the premises,” Kanlos was saying, his veneer of civility restored. “But Just to make sure that nothing happens to you,” he smiled, “Mr. Giff will stay with you.”

“You won’t find anything,” Dalt said doggedly, “because there isn’t anything to find.”

Kanlos eyed him shrewdly. “Oh, we’ll find something, all right. And don’t think I was taken in by your claim of being five hundred years old. You’re two hundred fifty and that’s about it – but that’s longer than any man should live. I traced you back to Tolive, which happens to be the main research centre of the Interstellar Medical Corps. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the trail ends there. Something was done to you there and I intend to find out what.”

“I tell you, nothing was –”

Kanlos held up a hand. “Enough! The matter is too important to bandy words about. I’ve spent two years and a lot of money looking for you and I intend to make that investment pay off. Your secret is worth untold wealth and hundreds of years of life to the man who controls it. If we find no evidence of what we’re looking for on the premises, we’ll come back to you, Mr. Dalt. I deplore physical violence and shall refrain from using it until I have no other choice. Mr. Hinter here does not share my repugnance for violence. If our [109] search of the lower levels is fruitless, he will deal with you.” So saying, he turned and led Hinter below.

Giff watched them go, then strode quickly to Dalt’s side. He made a hurried check of the gravcuff, seemed satisfied, then stole off to one of the darker corners of the room. Seating himself on the floor, he reached into his pocket and removed a silvery disk; with his left hand he pushed back his skullcap and parted the hair atop his head. The disk was attached here as Gill leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. Soon, a vague smile began to play around his lips.

(“A button-head!”) Pard exclaimed.

Looks that way. This is a real high class crew we’re mixed up with. Look at him! Must be one of those sexual recordings.

Gill had begun to writhe on the floor, his legs twisting, flexing, and extending with pleasure.

(“I’m surprised you don’t blame yourself for it”)

I do, in a way –

(“Knew it!”)

– even if it is a perversion of the circuitry we devised for electronic learning.

(“Not quite true. If you remember, Tyrrell’s motives for modifying the circuits from cognitive to sensory were quite noble. He – ”)

I know all about it, Pard.... The learning circuit and its sensory variation both had noble beginnings The original, on which Dalt’s patent had only recently expired, had been intended for use by scientists, physicians, and technicians to help them keep abreast of the developments in their sub – or sub-sub-specialties. With the vast amount of research and experimentation taking place across the human sector of the galaxy, it was not humanly possible to keep up to date and still find time to put your knowledge to practical use. Dalt’s (and Pard’s) circuitry supplied the major breakthrough in transmitting information to the cognitive centres of the brain at a rapid rate.

Numerous variations and refinements followed, but Dr. Rico Tyrrell was the first to perfect the sensory mode of transmission. He used it in a drug rehabilitation program to duplicate the sensory effects of addictive drugs, thus weaning his patients psychologically [110] off drugs after their physiological dependence was gone. The idea was quickly pirated, of course, and cassettes were soon available with sensory recordings of fantastic sexual experiences of all varieties.

Giff was whimpering now and flopping around on the floor.

(“He’s got to be a far-gone button-head to have to tune-in at a time like this... and right in front of a stranger, at that.”)

I understand some of those cassettes are as addictive as Zemmelar, and chronic users become impotent in real sexual contexts.

(“How come we’ve never tried one?”)

Dalt gave a mental sniff. I’ve never felt the need. And when the time comes that I need my head wired so I can get a little –

There was a groan in the corner: Giff had reached the peak of the recording. His body was arched so that only his palms, his heels, and the back of his skull were in contact with the floor. His teeth were clamped on his lower lip to keep him from crying out. Suddenly he slumped to the floor, limp and panting.

That must be quite a cassette!

(“Most likely one of those new numbers that combines simultaneous male and female orgasms – the ultimate in sexual sensation.”)

And that’s all it is: sensation. There’s no emotion involved.

(“Right. Superonanism.”) Pard paused as they watched their sated guard. (“Do you see what’s hanging from his neck?”)

Yeah. A flamestone. So?

(“So it looks exactly like yours – a cheap imitation, no doubt, but the resemblance is remarkable. Ask him about it”)

Dalt shrugged with disinterest, then noticed Giff starring. “are you quite finished?”

The man groggily lifted his slight frame into a sitting position. “I disgust you, don’t I,” he stated with a low voice, keeping his eyes averted to the floor as he disconnected the cassette from his scalp.

“Not really, Dalt replied, and sincerity was evident in his voice. A few centuries ago he would have been shocked, but he had learned in the interim to view humanity from a more aloof vantage point – a frame of mind he had consciously striven for since his days as The Healer. It had been difficult to maintain at first, but as [111] the years slid by, that frame of mind had become a natural and necessary component of his psyche.

He didn’t despise Giff, nor did he pity him. Giff was merely one expression of the myriad possibilities open to human existence.

Dalt moved the gravcuffs downward and seated himself cross-legged on the floor. When Giff had stowed the cassette in a sealed compartment in his overalls, Dalt said, “That’s quite a gem you have tied around your neck. Where’d you steal it?”

The fidgety man’s eyes flashed uncharacteristically. “It’s mine! It may not be real but it’s mine. My father gave one to all his children, just as his own mother gave one to him.” He held out the stone and gazed at its inner glow.

“Hm!” Dalt grunted. “Looks just like mine.”

Giff rose to his feet and approached Dalt. “So you’re a Son of The Healer, too?”

“Wha’?”

“The stone... it’s a replica of the one The Healer wore centuries ago. All Children of The Healer wear one.” He was standing over Dalt now and as he reached for the cord around his neck, Dalt idly considered ramming the gravcuff upward into Giff’s face.

(“That won’t work,”) Pard warned. (“Even if you did manage to knock him unconscious, what good would it do us? Just play along; I want to hear more about these Children of The Healer.”)

So Dalt allowed Giff to inspect his flamestone as he sat motionless. “I’m no Son of The Healer. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t aware that The Healer ever had children.”

Giff let go of Dalt’s gem and let it dangle from its cord again. “Just a figure of speech. We call ourselves his children – great-great-great-grandchildren would be more accurate – because none of us would have been born if it hadn’t been for him.”

Dalt gave him a blank stare and Giff replied in an exasperated tone, “I’m a descendant of one of the people he cured a couple of hundred years ago. She was a victim of the horrors. And if The Healer hadn’t come along and straightened her out, she’d have been institutionalized for all her life; her two sons would never have been born, would never have had children of their own, and so on.” [112]

(“And you wouldn’t be here standing guard over us, idiot!”) Pard muttered.

“The first generation of Children of The Healer,” Giff went on, “was a social club of sorts, but the group soon became too large and too spread out. We have no organization now, just people who keep his name alive through their families and wear these imitation flamestones. The horrors still strikes everywhere and some say The Healer will return.”

“You believe that?” Dalt asked.

Giff shrugged. “I’d like to.” His eyes studied Dalt’s flamestone. “Your’s is real, isn’t it?”

Dalt hesitated for an instant, engaged in a lightning conference. Should I tell him?

(“I think it’s our only chance. It certainly won’t worsen our situation.”)

Neither Pard nor Dalt was afraid of physical violence or torture. With Pard in control of all physical systems, Dalt would feel no pain and could at any time assume a deathlike state – with a skin temperature cooled by intense vasoconstriction and cardiopulmonary activity slowed to minimal support levels.

Yeah. And I’d much prefer getting out of these cuffs and turning a few tables; to rolling over and playing dead.

(“That would gall me, too. Okay – play it to the hilt.”)

“It’s real, all right,” Dalt told Giff “It’s the original.”

Giff’s mouth twisted with scepticism. “And I’m president of the Federation.”

Dalt rose to his feet, lifting the gravcuff with him. “Your boss is looking for a man who’s been alive for two or three centuries, isn’t he? Well, I’m the man.”

“We know that.”

“I’m a man who never sickens, never ages... now what kind of a healer would The Healer be if be couldn’t heal himself. After all, death is merely the culmination of a number of degenerative disease processes.”

Giff mulled this over, accepting the logic but resisting the conclusion. “What about the patch of silver hair and the golden hand?” [113]

“Pull this skullcap off and take a look. Then get some liquor from the cabinet over there and rub it on my left wrist.”

After a full minute’s hesitation, wherein doubt struggled in the mire of the afterglow of the cassette, Giff accepted the challenge and cautiously pulled the skullcap from Dalt’s head. “Nothing! What are you trying –”

“Look at the roots,” Dalt told him. “You don’t think I can walk around with that patch un-dyed, do you?”

Giff looked. The roots in an oval patch at the top of Dalt’s head were a silvery gray. He jumped away from Dalt as if stung, then walked slowly around him, examining him as if he were an exhibit in a museum. Without a word, he went to the cabinet Dalt had indicated before and drew from it a flask of clear orange fluid.

“I... I’m almost afraid to try this,” he stammered, opening the container as he approached. He poised the bottle over Dalt’s wrists where they were inserted into the gravcuff, hesitated, then took a deep breath and poured the liquor. Most of it splashed on the floor, but a sufficient amount reached the target.

“Now rub,” Dalt told him.

Without looking up, Giff tucked the flask under his arm and began to massage the fluid into the skin of Dalt’s left wrist and forearm. The liquor suddenly became cloudy and flesh-coloured. Giff took a fold of his coveralls and wiped the solution away. From a sharp line of demarcation at the wrist on down over the back of the hand, the skin was a deep, golden yellow.

“You are The Healer!” he hissed, his eyes meeting Dalt’s squarely for the first time. “Forgive me! I’ll open the cuff right now.” In his frantic haste to retrieve the key from his coveralls, Giff allowed the liquor flask to slip from beneath his arm and it smashed on the floor.

“Hey! That was real glass!” Dalt said.

Giff ignored the crash and the protest. The key was in his hand and he was inserting it into its slot. The pressure around Dalt’s wrists was suddenly eased and as he pulled his hands free, Giff caught the now-deactivated cuff.

“Forgive me,” he repeated, shaking his head and fixing his eyes [114] on the floor. “If I’d had any idea that you might be The Healer, I would’ve had nothing to do with this, I swear! Forgive – ”

“Okay! Okay! I forgive you!” Dalt said hurriedly. “Now, do you have a blaster?”

Giff nodded eagerly, reached inside his coveralls, and handed over a small hand model, cheap but effective at close range.

“Good. Now all we’ve got to do –”

“Hey!” someone yelled from the other side of the room. “What’s going on?”

Dalt spun on reflex, his blaster raised. It was Hinter and he had his own blaster ready. There was a flash, then Dalt felt a searing pain as the beam from Hinter’s weapon burned a hole through his chest two centimetres to the left of his sternum. As his knees buckled, everything went black and silent.

 

---

 

XII

 

Rushing to the upper level at the sound of Giff’s howl, Kanlos came upon a strange tableau: the prisoner – Dalt, or whatever his name was – was lying on his back with the front of his shirt soaked with blood and a neat round hole in his chest... very dead. Giff kneeled over him, sobbing and clutching the empty gravcuff to his abdomen; Hinter stood mutely to the side, blaster in hand.

“You fool!” he screamed, white-faced with rage. “How could you be so stupid!”

Hinter took an involuntary step backward. “He had a blaster! I don’t care how valuable a guy is, when he points a blaster in my direction, I shoot!”

Kanlos strode toward the body. “How’d he get a blaster?”

Hinter shrugged. “I heard something break up here and came to investigate. He was out of the cuff and holding the blaster when I came in.”

“Explain,” he said, nudging the sobbing Giff with his foot.

“He was The Healer!”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” [115]

“He was! He proved It to me.”

Kanlos considered this. “Well, maybe so. We traced him back to Tolive and that’s where The Healer first appeared. It all fits. But why did you let him loose?”

“Because I am a Son of The Healer!” Giff whispered. “And now I’ve helped kill him!”

Kanlos made a disgusted face. “Idiots! I’m surrounded by fools and incompetents! Now we may never find out how they kept him alive this long.” He sighed with exasperation. “All right. We’ve still got a few rooms left to search.”

Hinter turned to follow Kanlos. “What about him?” he said, indicating Giff.

“Useless button-head. Forget him.”

They went below, leaving Giff crouched over the body of The Healer.

---

 

 

XIII

 

(“C’mon. Wake up!”)

Wha’ happen?

(“Hinter burned a hole right through your heart, my friend.”)

Then how come I’m still alive?

(“Because the auxiliary heart I constructed in your pelvis a couple of hundred years ago has finally come in handy.”)

I never knew about that.

(“I never told you. You know how you get when I start making improvements.”)

I’ll never object again. But what prompted you to build another heart?

(“I’ve always been impressed by what happened to Anthon when you blasted a hole in his chest, and it occurred to me that it just wasn’t safe to have the entire circulatory system dependent on a single pump. So I attached the auxiliary organ to the abdominal aorta, grew a few bypass valves, and let it sit there... Just in case.”)

I repeat: I’ll never object again. [116]

(“Good. I’ve got a few ideas about the mineral composition of your bones that I – “)

Later. What do we do now?

(“We send the button-head home, then we take care of those two below. But no exertion; we’re working on only one lung.”

How about waiting for them with the blaster?

(“No. Better idea: Remember the sights we came across in the minds of all those people with the horrors?”)

I’ve never quite been able to forget.

(“Neither have I, and I believe I can recreate enough of them to fill this house with a concentrated dose of the horrors... concentrated enough to insure that those two never bother us or anyone else again.”)

Okay, but let’s get rid of Giff.

---

 

 

XIV

 

Without warning, the body in front of Giff suddenly rolled over and achieved a sitting position. “Stop that blubbering and get out of here,” it told him.

Giff’s mouth hung open as he looked at the obviously alive and alert man before him with the gory front and the hole in his chest where his heart should be. He looked torn between the urge to laugh with joy and scream with horror. He resolved the conflict by vomiting.

When his stomach had finally emptied itself, he was told to go to the roof, take the emergency chute down to the ground, and keep on going.

“Do not,” the body emphasized, “repeat: do not dally around the grounds if you value your sanity.”

“But how...” he began.

“No questions. If you don’t leave now I won’t be responsible for what happens to you.”

Without another word but with many a backward glance, Giff headed for the roof. At last look, he saw the body climb unsteadily to its feet and walk toward one of the chairs. [117]

Dalt sank into a chair and shook his head. “Dizzy!” He muttered.

(“Yeah. It’s a long way from the pelvis to the brain. Also, there’s some spasm in the aortic arch that I’m having trouble controlling. But we’ll be all right.”)

I’ll have to trust you on that. When do we start with the horrors?

(“Now. I’ll block you out because I’m not sure that even you can take this dose.”)

I was hoping you’d say that, Dalt thought with relief, and watched everything fade into formless greyness.

And from the bloody punctured body slumped in the chair, there began to radiate evil, terror, horror. A malignant trickle at first, then a steady stream, then a gushing torrent. The men below stopped their search and began to scream.

 

---

 

XV

 

Dalt finished inspecting the lower rooms and was fully satisfied that the two gurgling, drooling, blank-eyed creatures that had once been Kanlos and Hinter were no longer a threat to his life and his secret. He walked outside into the cool night air in a vain attempt to soothe his labouring right lung and noticed a form slumped in the bushes.

It was Giff. From the contorted position of his body it was evident that he had fallen from the roof and broken his neck.

“Looks like this Son of The Healer couldn’t follow directions,” Dalt said. “Must’ve waited up on the roof and then went crazy when the horrors began and ran over the edge.”

(“Lot’s son.”)

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

(“Nothing. Just a distorted reference to an episode in an ancient religious book.”) Pard said, then switched the subject. (“You know, it’s amazing that there’s actually a cult of Healer-followers awaiting his return.”)

“Not really so amazing. We made quite an impression... and left a lot undone.”

(“Not because we wanted to. There was outside interference.”) [118]

“Right. But that won’t bother us now, with the war going on.”

(“You want to go back to it, don’t you?”)

“Yes, and so do you.”

(“Guess you’re right. I’d like to learn to probe a little deeper this time. And maybe find out whoever or whatever’s behind the horrors.”)

“You’ve hinted at that before. Care to explain?”

(“That’s all it is, I’m afraid: a hint... a glimpse of something moving behind the scenes. I’ve no theory, no evidence. Just a gnawing suspicion.”)

“Sounds a little farfetched to me.”

(“We’ll see. But first we’ll have to heal up this hole in the chest, get the original heart working again – if I may quote you: ‘What kind of a healer would The Healer be if he couldn’t heal himself?’ – and try to think up some dramatic way for The Healer to reappear.”)

After a quick change of clothes, they went to the roof and steered their flitter into the night, leaving it to the Meltrin authorities to puzzle out two babbling idiots, a broken button-head, and a respected physicist named Cheserak who had vanished without a trace. They blamed it on the Tarks, of course. [119]