Un-Man Read online

  “I don’t know,” whispered Rosenberg. “I shouldn’t think so.”

  “I wouldn’t really have believed it,” she said. “I’d have thought he was trying to tell me a story for some unknown reason. Only there was that other man with him, and except for their hair being dyed I couldn’t tell them apart—and you were along too, and seemed to accept the story—” She clutched his arm. “Is it true? Is my husband really dead?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered grayly. “I think they were telling the truth, but how can I know?”

  “It’s more than my own sanity,” she said in a tired voice. “I’ve got to know what to tell Bobby. I can’t say anything now.”

  Rosenberg looked at the ground.

  His words came slowly and very soft: “I think your best bet is to sit tight for a while. This is something which is big—maybe the biggest secret in the universe. And it’s either very good or very bad. I’d like to believe that it was good.”

  “But what do you know of it?” She held his eyes with her own, he couldn’t look away, and her hand gripped his arm with a blind force. “What can you tell me? What do you think?”

  He ran a thin, blue-veined hand through his grizzled hair and drew a breath. “Well,” he said, “I think there probably are a lot of these—identical Un-men. We know that there are . . . were . . . three, and I got the impression there must be more. Why not? That Lampi was a foreigner, he had an accent, so if they’re found all over the world—”

  “Un-man.” She shivered a little, sitting there in the dappled shade and sunlight. “It’s a hideous word. As if they weren’t human.”

  “No,” he said gently. “I think you’re wrong there. They . . . well, I knew their prototype, and he was a man.”

  “Their . . . no!” Almost, she sprang to her feet. With an effort, she controlled herself and sat rigid. “Who was that?”

  “His name was Stefan Rostomily. He was my best friend for fifteen years.”

  “I. . . don’t know . . . never heard of him.” Her tones were thick.

  “You probably wouldn’t have. He was off Earth all that time. But his name is still a good one out on the planets. You may not know what a Rostomily valve is, but that was his invention—he tinkered it up one week for convenience, sold it for a good sum, and binged that away.” Rosenberg chuckled dimly. “It made history, that binge. But the valve has meant a lot to Martian colonists.”

  “Who was he?”

  “He never said much about his background. I gathered he was a European, probably Czech or Austrian. He must have done heroic things in the underground and guerrilla fighting during the Third War. But it kind of spoiled him for a settled career—by the time things began to calm a little, he’d matured in chaos and it was too late to do any serious studying. He drifted around Earth for a while, took a hand in some of the fighting that still went on here and there. . . he was with the U.N. forces that suppressed the Great Jehad, I know. But he got sick of killing, too, as any sane man would—and in spite of his background, Mrs. Donner, he was basically one of the sanest men I ever knew. So at last he bluffed his way onto a spaceship . . . didn’t have a degree, but he learned engineering in a hurry, and he was good at it. I met him on Venus, when I was prospecting around; I may not look it, but I’m a geologist and mineralogist.

  We ended up on Mars. Helped build Sandy Landing, helped in some of the plantation development work, prospected, mapped and surveyed and explored—we must’ve tried everything. He died five years ago. A cave-in. I buried him there on Mars.”

  The trees about them whispered with wind.

  “And these others are . . . his sons?” she murmured. She was trembling a little now.

  Rosenberg shook his head. “Impossible. These men are him. Stef in every last feature, come alive and young again. No child could ever be that close to his father.”

  “No. No, I suppose not.”

  “Stef was a human being, through and through,” said Rosenberg. “But he was also pretty close to being a superman. Think of his handicaps—childhood gone under the Second War and its aftermath, young manhood gone in the Third War, poor, self-educated, uprooted. And still he was balanced and sane, gentle except when violence was called for—then he was a hellcat, I tell you. Men and women loved him—he had that kind of personality. He’d picked up a dozen languages, and he read their literatures with more appreciation and understanding than most college professors. He knew music and composed some good songs of his own—rowdy but good—they’re still being sung out on Mars. He was an artist, did some fine murals for several buildings, painted the Martian landscape like no camera has ever shown it—though he was good with a camera, too. I’ve already told you about his inventiveness, and he had clever hands that a machine liked. His physique stood up to anything—he was almost sixty when he died and could still match any boy of twenty. He . . . why go on? He was everything, and good at everything.”

  “I know,” she answered. “Martin was the same way.” Her brief smile was wistful. “Believe me, I had a time hooking him. Real competition there.” After a moment she added thoughtfully: “There must be a few such supermen walking around in every generation. It’s just a matter of a happy genetic accident, a huge preponderance of favorable characteristics appearing in the same zygote, a highly intelligent mesomorph. Some of them go down in history. Think of Michelangelo, Vespucci, Raleigh—men who worked at everything, science, politics, war, engineering, exploration, art, literature. Others weren’t interested in prominence, or maybe they had bad luck. Like your friend.”

  “I don’t know what the connection is with these Un-men,” said Rosenberg. “Stef never said a word to me—but of course, he’d’ve been sworn to secrecy, or it might even have been done without his knowledge. Only what was done? Matter duplication? I don’t think so—if the U.N. had matter duplication, it wouldn’t be in the fix it is now. What was done—and why?”

  Jeanne didn’t answer. She was looking away now, across the ravine to the high clear beauty of mountains beyond. It was blurred in her eyes. Suddenly she got up and walked away.

  XIII.

  There was a night of stars and streaming wind about the jet. The Moon was low, throwing a bridge of broken light across the heaving Atlantic immensity. Once, far off, Naysmith saw a single meteoric streak burning upward, a rocket bound for space. Otherwise he sat in darkness and alone.

  He had been locked into a tiny compartment in the rear of the jet. Wade and his entourage, together with a pilot and a couple of guards, sat forward; the jet was comfortably furnished, and they were probably catching up on their sleep. Naysmith didn’t want a nap, though the weakness of hunger and his injuries was on him. He sat staring out of the port, listening to the mighty rush of wind and trying to estimate where they were.

  The middle Atlantic, he guessed, perhaps fifteen degrees north latitude. If Christian’s prognosis of Besser’s reactions was correct, they were bound for the secret world headquarters of the gang, but Wade and the others hadn’t told him anything. They were over the high seas now, the great unrestful wilderness which ran across three-fourths of the planet’s turning surface, the last home on Earth of mystery and solitude. Anything could be done out here, and when fish had eaten the bodies who would ever be the wiser?

  Naysmith’s gaze traveled to the Moon, riding cold above the sea. Up there was the dominion over Earth. Between the space-station observatories and the rocket bases of the Lunar Guard, there should be nothing which the forces of sanity could not smash. The Moon had not rained death since the Third War, but the very threat of that monstrous fist poised in the sky had done much to quell a crazed planet. If the Service could tell the Guard where to shoot—

  Only it couldn’t. It never could, because this rebellion was not the armed uprising of a nation with cities and factories and mines. It was a virus within the body of all humankind. You wouldn’t get anywhere bombing China, except to turn four hundred million innocent victims who had been your friends against you�
�because it was a small key group in the Chinese government which was conspiring against sanity.

  You can blast a sickness from outside, with drugs and antibiotics and radiation. But the darkness of the human mind can only be helped by a psychiatrist—the cure must come from within itself.

  If the U.N. were—not brought tumbling down, but slowly eaten away, mutilated and crippled and demoralized—what would there be to shoot at? Sooner or later, official orders would come disbanding its police and Lunar Guard. Or there were other ways to attack those Moon bases. If they didn’t have the Secret Service to warn them, it would be no trick for an enemy to smuggle military-equipment to the Moon surface itself and blow them apart from there.

  And in the end—what? Complete and immediate collapse into the dog-eat-dog madness which had come so close once to ruining all civilization? (Man won’t get another chance. We were luckier than we deserved the last time.) Or a jerry-built world empire of oppression, the stamping out of that keen and critical science whose early dawn-light was just beginning to show man a new path, a thousand-year nightmare of humanity turned into an ant hill? There was little choice between the two.

  Naysmith sighed and shifted on the hard bare seat. They could have had the decency to give him some clothes and a cigarette—a sandwich at the very least. Only, of course, the idea was to break down his morale as far as possible.

  He tried again, for the thousandth time, to evaluate the situation, but there were too many unknowns and intangibles. It would be stupid to insist that tonight was a crisis point in human history. It could be—then again, if this attempt of the Brotherhood ended in failure, if the Brothers themselves were all hunted down, there might come some other chance, some compensating factor—Might! But passive reliance on luck was ruin.

  And in any case, he thought bleakly, tonight would surely decide the fate of Norbert Naysmith.

  The jet slanted downward, slowing as it wailed out of the upper air. Naysmith leaned against the wall, gripping the edge of the port with manacled hands, and peered below. Moonlight washed a great rippling mass of darkness, and in the center of it something which rose like a metal cliff.

  A sea station!

  I should have guessed it, thought Naysmith wildly. His brain felt hollow and strange. The most logical place, accessible, mobile, under the very nose of the world but hidden all the same. I imagine the Service has considered this possibility—only how could it check all the sea stations in existence? It isn’t even known how many there are.

  This one lay amidst acres of floating weed. Probably one of the specially developed sea plants with which it was hoped to help feed an over-crowded planet; or maybe this place passed itself off as an experiment station working to improve the growth. In either case, ranch or laboratory, Naysmith was sure that its announced activities were really carried out, that there was a complete working staff with all equipment and impeccable dossiers. The gang’s headquarters would be underneath, in the submerged bowels of the station.

  An organization like this had to parallel its enemy in most respects. Complex and world-wide—no, System-wide, if it really included Pilgrim fanatics who wanted to take over all Mars—it would have to keep extensive records, have some kind of communications center—This is it! This is their brain!

  The shiver of excitement faded into a hard subsurface tingle. A dead man had no way of relaying his knowledge to Fourre.

  There was a landing platform at one end of the great floating structure. The pilot brought his jet down to a skillful rest, cut the motors, and let silence fall. Naysmith heard the deep endless voice of the sea, rolling and washing against the walls. He wondered how far it was to the next humanity. Far indeed. Perhaps they were beyond the edge of death.

  The door opened and light filtered into the compartment. “All right, Naysmith,” said the guard. “Come along.”

  Obediently, the Un-man went out between his captors to stand on the platform. It was floodlit, cutting off the view of the ocean surging twenty or thirty feet under its rails. The station superstructure, gymbal-mounted and gyro-stabilized above its great caissons, wouldn’t roll much even in the heaviest weather. There were two other jets standing nearby. No sign of armament, though Naysmith was sure that missile tubes were here in abundance and that each mechanic carried a gun.

  The wind was chill on his body as he was led toward the main cabin. Wade strode ahead of him, cloak flapping wildly in the flowing, murmuring night. To one side, Naysmith saw Borrow’s stiff white face and the sunken expressionlessness of Lewin. Perhaps those two would be allowed to work him over.

  They entered a short hallway. At the farther end, Wade pressed his hand to a scanner. A panel slid back in front of an elevator cage. “In,” grunted one of the S-men.

  Naysmith stood quietly, hemmed into a corner by the wary bodies of his guards. He saw that Borrow and Jennings were shivering with nervous tension. A little humorless smile twisted his mouth. Whatever else happened, the Brotherhood had certainly given the enemy a jolt.

  The elevator sighed to a halt. Naysmith was led out, down a long corridor lined with doors. One of them stood ajar, and he saw walls covered with micro-file cabinets—yes, this must be their archive. A besmocked man went the other way, carrying a computer tape. Unaided human brains were no longer enough even for those who would overthrow society. Too

  big, too big.

  At the end of the hall, Naysmith was ushered into a large room. It was almost as if he were back in Wade’s torture chamber—the same bright lights, the same muffling walls, the same instruments of inquisition. His eyes swept its breadth until they rested on the three men who sat behind a rack of neuroanalyzers.

  The Brothers could tell each other apart—there were enough subtle environmental differences for that. Naysmith recognized Lampi, who seemed undamaged except for a black eye; he must have been taken directly here on orders. There was also Carlos Martinez of Guatemala, whom he had met before, and a third man whom he didn’t recognize but who was probably South American.

  They smiled at him, and he smiled back. Four pairs of blue eyes looked out of the same lean muscular faces, four blond heads nodded, four brains flashed the same intangible message: You too, my Brother? Now we must endure.

  Naysmith was strapped in beside Martinez. He listened to Wade, speaking to Lucientes who had been suspected of being the Argentine sector chief of the rebels: “Besser hasn’t come yet?”

  “No, he is on the way. He should be here very soon.”

  Besser is the real head, then, the organizing brain—and he is on his way!

  The four Brothers held themselves rigid, four identical faces staring uncannily ahead, not daring to move or exchange a glance. Besser is coming!

  Wade took a restless turn about the room. “It’s a weird business,” he said thinly. “I’m not sure I like the idea of having all four together—in this very place.”

  “What can they do?” shrugged Lucientes. “My men captured Villareal here in Buenos Aires yesterday. He had been an artist—supposedly—and dropped out of sight when word first came about a fugitive Un-man answering that description. But he made a childish attempt to get back to his apartment and was arrested without difficulty. Martinez was obtained in Panama City with equal ease. If they are that incompetent—”

  “But they aren’t! They’re anything but!” Wade glared at the prisoners. “This was done on purpose, I tell you. Why?”

  “I already said—” Naysmith and Villareal spoke almost simultaneously. They stopped, and the Argentine grinned and closed his mouth. “I told you,” Naysmith finished. “We wanted to bargain. There was no other quick and expedient way of making the sort of contact we needed.”

  “Were four of you needed?” snapped Wade. “Four valuable men?”

  “Perhaps not so valuable,” said Lewin quietly. “Not if there are—any number of them still at large.”

  “They are not supernatural!” protested Lucientes. “They are flesh and blood—they can feel pain, a
nd cannot break handcuffs. I know! Nor are they telepaths or anything equally absurd. They are—” His voice faltered.

  “Yes?” challenged Wade. “They are what?”

  Naysmith drew into himself. There was a moment of utter stillness. Only the heavy breathing of the captors—the captors half terrified by an unknown, and all the more vicious and deadly because of that—had voice.

  The real reason was simple, thought Naysmith—so simple that it defeated those tortuous minds. It had seemed reasonable, and Christian’s logic had confirmed the high probability, that one man identical with the agent who had been killed would be unsettling enough, and that four of them, from four different countries, would imply something so enormous that the chief conspirator would want them all together in his own strongest and most secret place—that he himself would want to be there at the questioning.

  Only—what happened next?

  “They aren’t human!” Borrow’s voice was shrill and wavering. “They can’t be—not four or five or a thousand identical men. The U.N. has its own laboratories, Fourre could easily have had secret projects carried out—”

  “So?” Lewin’s eyes blinked sardonically at the white face.

  “So they’re robots . . . androids . . . synthetic life . . . whatever you want to call it. Test-tube monsters!”

  Lewin shook his head, grimly. “That’s too big a stride forward,” he said. “Science—no human science will be able to do that for centuries to come. You don’t appreciate the complexity of a living human being—and all our best efforts haven’t yet synthesized even one functioning cell. I admit these fellows have something—superhuman—about them. They’ve done incredible things. But they can’t be robots. It isn’t humanly possible.”