A Man of Double Deed Read online

  K. You mean that many are potential telepaths.

  C. I am sure of it, as you must be. Consider all those who have attained our perception. In youth every one was a rebel, one who would not conform. Many were violent and headstrong – none were mild, and content to take their place on the treadmills of our civilisation.

  K. I would remind you that if the suggestion for a War Section becomes fact, then not only youthful rebels will be thrown into this – melting-pot, but other, older men and women, vicious and thoroughly degraded creatures …

  C. I’ve thought of it. Ways and means must obviously be found to guide and protect the one against the other … which means more work for us.

  K. An understatement.

  C. You asked for my views, and I’ve given them.

  K. Coman, you suggest a vast project, and there are too few of us to bring it to success.

  C. How do we know that, before we try? In any case, we are agreed that a War Section should be inaugurated. If it is not, then other, and harsher methods to combat the ‘madness’ as it is called, will almost certainly be used.

  K. True. For this reason we, as keymen, should endeavour to use what powers we have in order to swing the vote in the correct direction. Will you help?

  There was a pause.

  C. You have said that I’m entitled to a rest.

  In the silence that ensued, although Karns had blocked, Coman could guess what he was thinking.

  K. You opened for me. Let me do the same for you. Look into my mind.

  This was a privilege never offered before, and, tore between the desire to comply, and the suspicion, that it was some kind of trap, Coman hesitated.

  K. You’re too clever to trick, Coman … look into me …

  He did so, and across the thousand or so miles between them there flowed into his consciousness the sense impressions – indeed the whole outlook – of a mind full of overwhelming gentleness. It was as if for a brief instant, he knew the true meaning of the much abused word ‘love’, and deep within him he felt a sharp and terrifying pain, as if his whole being was about to disintegrate. Only for an instant – then the door shut and he was outside again, with a strange, bitter-sweet, nostalgic feeling of yearning, and unutterable loss. He thought ruefully: Yes, it was a trap.

  K. The trap is in your heart, Coman … You had some bad moments today.

  C. You have eased the memory of them.

  K. There will be more, and with each you will mature more fully.

  There was another pause as Coman regained his composure and marshalled his thoughts.

  C. What do you suggest for me?

  K. I noticed that you have picked up the name Marst, with a reference to his attitude, and its importance. This is correct. He is the chairman of the Committee, and his option carries great weight. In other words, his vote could easily prove decisive. Now, there is no need to forgo the vacation you promised the two women. The World Council is to decide the matter in the Pacific Auditorium, and that area is as good a place as any in which to spend a holiday. Marst is already there, in a hotel in the City Centre. He is not an active supporter of ours, but he has always regarded us without fear, and in fact his private thoughts of us are kindly. I believe he will make up his mind favourably if he knows our common attitude. But one of us must tell him, and convince him of our view. Obviously this must be done quickly, before the Council convenes the day after tomorrow …

  C. I will do it.

  K. There are dangers of a somewhat complicated nature. First, certain malefactors have quite naturally decided that Marst must not change his mind, and have gone so far as to place a number of hoodlums in the area in order to ‘protect’ and keep a check on their safeguard. Here are their faces …

  C. I have them.

  K. Such creatures would be easy enough to outwit or evade, if it were not for the fact that they are buttressed and guarded by their turn by two jokers, * a man and a woman. Here are their faces …

  C. I see them.

  K. A week ago one of us went to the area to keep me informed of the situation as it developed. You know him – Clar Vane. His address is No 14, Seth Street, Block 6.

  C. Yes, I know him. So I have an ally.

  K. Don’t count on that. Unprepared for jokers, he was detected almost at once by the male, and although he has not yet been attacked, he is being watched and listened to constantly. If he showed any sign now of attempting to influence Marst, he would be killed. I have not recalled him because this might arouse the suspicion that I might be replacing him with somebody stronger. If you are able to make contact with him without being detected, he might be a help, but you will have to decide that for yourself. Remember that if you are discovered, you must accept failure and make good your escape immediately. There are too few of us, and I must not lose you.

  C. I shall take care.

  K. I hope so. One other thing – the girl Jonl.

  C. You saw that too.

  K. I could not help doing so, for she occupies a major part of your mind.

  C. So?

  K. Do not push her too hard, Coman. The best fruits are sometimes those which take the longest to ripen.

  * Jokers were so called because they constituted an unknown and ‘nuisance’ element among telepaths. Possessed of a limited amount of perception, usually owing to a defect in character – such as a sense of bitterness, instability, or disillusionment – some wanted to make capital from their talent while others derived pleasure from the fact that it could be used to cause serious trouble among fellow citizens and the authorities. Jokers were banned from the organisation of keymen and were thus ignorant of the Void. While keymen were given grudging recognisance and some kind of status by the World Council, jokers were regarded with deep suspicion. Not surprisingly, in the eyes of the general public there existed only a vague distinction between the two types of telepaths.

  Chapter IV

  SECTION 12 of Earth, in the year 2090, took the form of a rectangle four thousand miles wide, stretching from approximately a thousand miles north of the Tropic of Cancer, down to the Antarctic, and comprising the majority of the Pacific Islands. Ten years after the Atomic Disaster, a great city – the Fifteenth – had been built of glass and plastic, five hundred feet high on tubular legs implanted in the sea bed, the whole construction rather like a giant pier that wound over and around the islands beneath it for a distance of nearly six hundred miles. By the end of the twenty-first century this area had become a playground for the very wealthy, as well as one of the three seats of World Government.

  The Auditorium wherein, for four months in every year, the machinery of government assembled and legislated, was situated with its attendant buildings at one end of the City, in the middle of a large, genuine parkland – one of the few built under government protection since the change in Earth’s atmospheric conditions after the Disaster.

  The Fifteenth City itself, at first intended as a vibrant example of man’s ingenuity with the new materials at his disposal in the Space Age, had, with the increasing flow of such materials together with the influence of alien, if friendly, intelligences, developed into a strange, almost nightmarish, mixture of architectural monstrosities, for the main part garishly coloured, so full of surprises and embroideries as to induce a stupefying effects on the visitor of sensibility. Not only the idea of aliens, but actual reproductions of parts of their towns and dwellings had been incorporated in the City. It was possible to walk down a wide thoroughfare flanked with the tall, narrow buildings of a bygone age of Mars, and to turn a corner to find oneself stumbling over a facsimile of the ridged earth of a Saturnian byway, past low, banite stone buildings with their distinctive smell, and then to come upon a perfect replica of a Venusian highway, complete with fire pillars, and the triangular dwellings of the beings from that planet. Over all was the noise of bedlam, and at night the sky blazed with light beams and hallucinatory effects.

  In these circumstances it was not surprising that many of th
e City’s more staid residents had in time gravitated to the islands below, where, despite the barrenness of their surroundings, they were at least assured of a measure of peace and quiet, and also some safety from the increasing violence which now disrupted not only this city, but every other on the globe.

  It was at a dwelling on one of these islands, built and furnished by local government for an ex-spaceman name Deenan, that Coman was wont to call whenever he had cause to visit the Section. The two men had been friends for many years, had, in fact, been drafted together on many inter-planetary expeditions, and when the miracle of the Time-step had been discovered, they had both been on the first manned voyage into deep space. It was on this trip that Deenan had succumbed to a virulent and deadly alien disease which had changed him from a young and magnificently fit man, to a broken caricature of his former self, saved from death only by the speed and skill of the surgeon officiating on the voyage.

  Some time during the night following the exchange with Karns, Coman propped himself on one elbow and said: ‘You both expressed the wish for a change of scenery, and some kind of holiday. Can you get free of duties, Jonl?’

  She ran her fingers through her hair, the nails biting into his scalp with sensual gentleness, and murmuring into his ear:

  ‘Easily. I’ve been helping the Professor for weeks, to prepare a treatise concerning the difference in structure which has occurred in the Coccinellidae – lady-bird to you – since the Disaster. But he can jolly well finish the last few pages himself.’

  ‘What on earth is the difference?’ asked Sein.

  ‘Well, for one thing the feelers have now sprouted extra segments, and for another —’

  ‘Good enough,’ said Coman. ‘Then we’re for the Pacific in the morning. We’ll take a south-beamed vehicle at ten o’clock, and be there at twelve-fifteen.’

  ‘Oh marvellous!’ exclaimed Sein.

  But Jonl asked: ‘On your master’s instructions – or suggestions, as you call them?’

  ‘Precisely,’ he answered, his eyes seeking hers under the lowered eyelashes.

  ‘Claus … you don’t think I’m too – octopus-like, do you?’

  ‘No fear,’ he said, ‘I wish you had two pairs of hands, or even more.’

  ‘Good. You’re not going to kill somebody are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, what have you got to do there?’ she asked, her eyes on his now.

  ‘Just to see and talk to a few people. I shall be with you most of the time.’

  ‘I’ve often heard of “The Glass City”, but I’ve never been there,’ Sein remarked.

  ‘It’s not all glass,’ said Jonl, ‘it’s mostly plastic, in fact, and a ghastly affair – but certainly worth seeing. I’ve been there once with Claus, and we stayed at the house of a most peculiar man —’

  ‘You’ll probably see him again tomorrow,’ Coman warned.

  ‘Oh no! Sein will be scared stiff!’

  ‘You underestimate her,’ he replied, and to Sein: ‘His face and body were badly disfigured, and since there was no ‘bank’ of human parts available, at the time, they had to be rebuilt with metal and plastic. But he is quite harmless. It happened while we were on an expedition – a disease from which two others died.’

  ‘Poor man, as if I’d be frightened by a friend of yours.’

  ‘Just wait until you see him – and listen to him,’ said Jonl. But she was smiling. ‘Well, at least we’ll have a holiday of sorts. I suppose it’s merely a coincidence that the War Section business is about to be settled in the very place we happen to be going?’

  ‘Not quite. One request I’d like to make, and that is: try to forget that I’m a keyman while we are there.’

  ‘I wish we could,’ said Jonl. ‘Now, if we’re leaving at ten in the morning, it’s going to be a rush. I shall have to put in an appearance at the Museum to pull the necessary strings, and then a certain amount of shopping will be essential. So can we go to sleep now?’

  At this Sein gave a muffled laugh, and Coman remarked dryly: ‘We’re fit for little else, thanks mainly to you.’

  Although travel within the City limits was free, it was necessary to pay for journeys between Sections. Coman obtained three tickets for one of the high-flying liners, together with the appropriate visas, contacted the local police and arranged for the burglar alarm cover on No. 7 to be locked in a frequency known only to the robot monitoring system. Then, with only minutes to spare, he joined the two girls waiting inside the airport.

  They gazed at him with mute irritation, for the fact that the ‘clock’ in his brain had always proved infallible did not allay their impatience with his trick of always treating time with apparent contempt. He smiled disarmingly.

  ‘You look almost too good to be true.’

  ‘Last borders – come now!’ roared the loudspeakers.

  ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ said Coman, and as the airliner two hundred yards away gave a great soughing noise in preparation for departure, he took them both by the arm and stepped on to the moving pathway.

  It was quite and comfortable inside the ship. Although a human pilot was not strictly necessary, the airlines had found that during terrestrial flight a man at or near the controls had a reassuring effect on nervous passengers, and so one was provided for these journeys. Dressed in a smart uniform, complete with gold braid, he sat up front, easily accessible to V.I.P.s, while the robot controls moved, winked and made their various sounds without interruption.

  A hostess was also provided, complete with drinks and pills. This particular girl was ash-blonde, charmingly dressed in a tight-fitting uniform open from neck to waist. Coming along the aisle, she gazed curiously at Coman and his two companions, her imagination intrigued by the sight of their insignias. He heard her thinking: Ye gods, I wonder what kind of games they get up to between them! But outwardly she smiled engagingly and asked: ‘Would you like something to drink?’

  After taking their orders and bringing the drinks, the hostess stood for an instant, the fingers of one hand twitching upon one of he collar lapels, her eyes steady upon those of Coman. Divining the extent of her curiosity and realising that she was the sort who preferred watching to participating, he shook his head and she flushed.

  ‘Will that be all?’ she asked.

  ‘Absolutely,’ he replied, giving her a konea, and with a tiny shrug she left them.

  ‘Now what was all that about?’ asked Sein.

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ said Jonl.

  Coman said nothing, but emptied his glass and settled back in his seat. Closing his eyes, he opened the retina of his perceptions to embrace the thoughts of the passengers around them.

  A woman with two children on her way to visit relatives on Phoenix Island. A commercial traveller for a firm of dental machinery manufacturers. A gladiator from one of the arenas on his way to further combat, and by his side his current girlfriend, a video-book actress. Two women in their middle-thirties who both worked as shop-scanners in a big market, sitting with linked hands. An elderly man who sat staring into space thinking: What the devil is it all about? The endless ticking of machinery, the red, bleu, green, yellow and violet lights … the faceless ones who do this and that for you, with their electronic minds forever clicking and buzzing … where is it all leading to? Where are we going with our new ways of living and dying … and the young people going insane? When I was a lad … ah, they were good times, then, despite the rather primitive conditions in which we had to live … Coman grimaced. How many men, in how many ages, had thought and would continue to think thus – and to no purpose? In the seat behind, another man was planning the murder of a woman he had grown to love but who had recently told him she was tired of their association. Coman felt it all. The pain and the sickness in the man’s heart, the agony which had induced the desperate but resolute decision to kill her and then himself, that very evening in the Fifteenth City.

  Coman retreated from this miasma of misery. All telepaths so
on learnt to disassociate themselves from these kind of thoughts. Not to interfere, or to attempt any sort of preventive action. Not to interfere, or to attempt any sort of preventive action, unless perhaps an incident was imminent, or one’s own personal safety was threatened. During the first year of his awareness Coman had, in one instance, tried to use the gift in order to prevent someone from committing suicide and more by luck than judgement, had succeeded. But on another occasion, while endeavouring to prevent the rape of a child, he had been singularly unsuccessful and instead had caused the child’s death. The lesson was well learned.

  Above the pilot a screen lighted upon a flow of news pictures and commentary. A pile of butchered bodies had been found in the cellar of an eminent psychiatrist’s mountain retreat. A famous human film star was being seen around with a Venusian female. An Earth colony on Sirus had been wiped out by non-human elements using weapons believed to have been manufactured and supplied by human sympathisers here on Earth. The mystery of the destruction of three interplanetary vessels had now been solved. The cause had been traced to the appearance of a new kind of metal fatigue, and not to the machinations of an alien enemy. The whole world was waiting for a decision in No. 12 Section as to whether or not a War Sections should be brought into being. If it were there would be many problems to be dealt with, including the size of such a Section, whether or not it should be formed on this planet or on another less habitable – or even on a large satellite somewhere in space. What weapons the inmates should be allowed to use against one another, what kind of watch should be kept on them, whether in fact the whole thing should or should not be thrown open for all scanning networks, in order to provide a continual ‘show’ for ordinary, law-abiding citizens to watch. Professor Pein, the well-known sociologist, was in the studio to give his considered opinions on these problems …