‘Safeguards against such an eventuality have already been built into the organisation,’ said Coman.
‘Perhaps. It will be up to the outsiders, normals like myself, to make sure that such safeguards are shown to be efficient.’
Coman sighed. ‘I need hardly remind you that at the moment you are in little danger from us. We are the ones who live always under the threat of extinction.’
Marst smiled again. ‘You must expect that, Coman. You already possess amazing powers compared to the great majority of mankind. You are able even to kill, and avoid the penalty.’ Coman looked at him sharply, and he nodded. ‘Yes, I know about Mannein, the god. You, or one like you, killed him. What right had you to do that – to take the law into your hands and break it, and yet escape the consequences of your deed?’
Coman was silent. Marst was a normal, as great a man in his way as Karns, but still normal. He knew nothing of the Void, of the strange and powerful influences working and striving, one against the other, beneath Man’s consciousness. Perhaps even if he had he would not have regarded such knowledge as important to the question. The myriad rules and regulations which now covered every instant of a person’s daily life might be of small importance, but to him right was right, and wrong was wrong – there were no devious ways between, no holocaust of grey shadows separating black from white. He represented the old, the original human being who saw little, but saw that clearly, and was secure in the belief that there existed always a hard, bright line between good and evil. And perhaps he was the best human being.
Nevertheless homo sapiens had changed, was changing from century to century, and the increasing knowledge of himself and the ‘material’ world around him, together with the vast universe beyond, brought endless confusion and a catastrophic sense of absurdity to every act and every thought. It seemed wellnigh impossible for an intelligent man of that age, convinced that he stood on shifting sands, aware of his own constant state of flux, to discern a meaning for his own existence. Yet Coman believed passionately in the value of the latest breakthrough in awareness, the intercommunion of minds. As a telepath it was natural for him to do so, and he was inspired also by the hope that through it Man might come to some kind of innocence again. None of this could be explained to Marst in words. Coman stared at the elder man and lit another cigarette.
Marst nodded. ‘You wish I was a telepath, don’t you?’
‘It did pass through my mind.’
‘I would not, even if I could.’
‘I know that. You will not accept it as part of our evolution.’
‘I cannot accept it. It is against all that I hold valuable. Human beings were not meant to penetrate each other in that way. It’s – almost indecent. To my mind it destroys the whole dignity of the individual, and that is something in which I’ve always believed. I’m sorry but …’ He hesitated, his voice gentle.
‘Please go on.’
‘Well, I think telepaths are the most unfortunate of people. The power you have attained must give you more unhappiness than joy. I think that you must live on the very hairlines between sanity and madness.’
A part both of Coman and the girl cringed, for Marst had found the most vulnerable chink in the armour of all telepaths.
‘Yet we believe in ourselves, in all men,’ said Coman. ‘We still have some sort of faith.’ There was another silence during which Marst nodded thoughtfully. Suddenly Coman stood up. ‘I won’t take up any more of your time. I’ve said what I came to say and I can only hope that you will reconsider the question of a War Section during the hours left to you before you bring your decision to the World Council.’
Marst was visibly surprised by his apparent desire to discontinue the argument, but Coman was not quite finished. He said, as if on an afterthought: ‘You were right when you pointed out that the killing of Mannein was an unpunished crime. Let me admit here and now that I was responsible for the killing. If you wish to make a telerecording I am willing to repeat the confession.’
Marst stared at him blankly. ‘Do you realise the gravity of that statement?’
‘Of course. I am ready to face a court of law in due course and to accept whatever punishment they may mete out to me.’
There was a long pause and then Marst rose also. ‘Very well, we shall make the recording.’
He led the way into the anteroom and in the presence of Linnel as witness the picture and voice were imprinted and then sealed in a canister.
‘How soon can I expect arrest?’ asked Coman.
Marst held the recording in his hand and seemed to weigh it thoughtfully, his face inscrutable. ‘I have other things more pressing to consider at this moment, as you know, Coman. I may or may not decide to send this to the authorities. The confession impressed me, as you intended, but I can assure you that from the beginning I never doubted your sincerity. I know the circumstances surrounding Mannein’s idolatry by the multitude and I am willing to believe that his death was the best thing which could have happened, in the circumstances. Nevertheless, you have broken one of the few laws that all men must abide by, and you should pay the penalty. We shall see. For the time being the matter is in abeyance and will remain confidential. My secretary is bound to silence by the oath of her profession, and so I advise you to make the best of the time left to you.’
He offered his hand in the old-fashioned way, and as Coman took it, said: ‘Miss Cray will let you out.’
As the door to the inner-room shut behind Marst they looked at each other – Conan impassively, Linnel with blank amazement. At length she sank down on her chair and said: ‘I just don’t understand you. Surely you must know the penalty if you’re found guilty? Inescapable death in the Arena.’
‘Or perhaps banishment to the War Section,’ he murmured.
She stared at him with new comprehension. ‘So you think – you actually believe that your confession will act as a lever?’
‘It is a possibility. Anyway, it was the last shot in my armoury.’
She turned from him, her mind suddenly released from the bondage of her will, showing itself to him as a raging confusion of bitterness, anger and frustration. ‘So that’s a keyman!’
He looked into her curiously, trying to do so coolly, without tenderness, but he could not deny a sensation of excitement in his heart. The things she had learnt during the last twenty minutes had made a strong, almost a shattering impact on the mechanism of thought patterns her mind had built up in order to cope with life, and the situations life had brought to her in the years since childhood. Tried and hitherto trusted formulae, values and non-values, and the easy circuits to ‘understanding’ made automatic by long built-in relays, had suffered badly; and the other emotions he had aroused in her made things even more chaotic. She said:
‘So you’re tied to a woman, or is it two?’ she said. ‘I might have guessed that kind of situation existed. You had no real intention of making love to me, had you?’
‘Going to bed is only a part of love.’
‘No it isn’t! Not to me it isn’t.’ She turned a pale face to his, her eyes glinting through tears. ‘You don’t think I believe in all the complicated rubbish you call love, do you? I don’t tie myself to anybody. What a great fool you must really be, in spite of your apparent cleverness. And the two women – what birdbrains! What will happen to them when you get it – and get it you surely will, if not from the law then from some well-wisher with a gun. I suppose they’ll go about in widow’s weeds as in ancient times, looking up to Heaven and snivelling – until another prize idiot comes along. In this kind of world, you believe in love?’ She began to laugh, her narrow shoulders shaking uncontrollably, and then stopped to stare at him once more, her face suddenly hard. ‘Long ago I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to be hurt by anybody.’
‘I know that.’
‘Yes, you know everything, you cunning bastard.’
He grimaced and, lighting another cigarette, leaned against the wall. Something, some strange for
eboding was drifting like a cloud of darkness deep in his subconscious, and he felt vastly uneasy. Suddenly restless, he wanted to leave now, immediately, but his feet seemed as if held to the floor and he could only explain his reluctance to move by the fact that he was concerned about the young woman in the chair.
She was devastated. She believed that she would be hunted and killed by the mob when Harkor found out about Coman. She wanted Coman and at the same time hated the fact of his existence. He knew that at this moment she felt as lost and deprived as he had felt when Karns had closed the door of his mind at the end of the last session with the Connector. Wandering in the fear and confusion of her thoughts he realised that some of this terror was being communicated to his own mind, but as he made to withdraw he felt the child in her, fully alive to his presence, holding on to him, desperately, longingly. Yet he had little of the strength she needed. Only Karns, could give freely that sort of strength, the kind that enabled one to look straight into the face of apparent futility, to see the meaninglessness of one’s secret hopes and desires, and to accept, and go on …
‘This man Karns,’ she whispered, ‘is he a man, or something more?’
‘Nothing more,’ Coman replied. Conquering his feeling of inertia, he went to her and put his hand gently on her face, along the jaw-line. ‘Even some non-telepaths have to face these kinds of hell. Many don’t, are able to slip round or avoid the issues one way or another, but all telepaths are confronted with them eventually, whether they like it or not. I happen to be the key you picked up and used to open the door, but if it hadn’t been me it would have been somebody or something else.’
‘I suppose you mean that I’m in love with you.’ She said flatly, without bitterness or tenderness.
‘No. I symbolise a lot of things which lie outside the prison of your mind and you’ve suddenly started to feel something, or need something other than yourself.’
‘And that’s supposed to be – good?’
‘I’m trying to find the answer to that puzzle myself.’
She stared at him for a long moment. ‘You’d better go. Suppose he comes back and finds you’re still here?’
‘Very well. Now listen, don’t worry about what transpired between Marst and me. Nobody except we three need know of it and you can make up a story to account for my being here. For instance, I came here to confess to Mannein’s murder – use that. It’s almost true and you have the evidence – even Harkor would be taken in by that.’
‘You’d let him have that?’
‘Why not? From now on I shall be close to Harkor and I shall see that he does you no harm. All I want is for Marst to be left alone to make up his mind.’
‘I’m supposed to let one of them know if he decides one way or the other.
‘Good. Then so far as you are concerned he has not and will not, until the moment he and his Committee come to the Main Auditorium tomorrow.’
‘Do you know something?’ she said. He looked at her inquiringly and a ghost of a smile chased cross her face. ‘I keep wondering how you’ve managed to live so long.’
He smiled in return and as he went to the door Linnel felt the fingers of his mind upon hers lengthening, the touch becoming lighter, almost imperceptible, until at last, as he went down the corridor, she knew she was alone. For a long while she sat, trying to resolve the conflict which now possessed his mind, and to see clearly the man who had sparked it into being.
The character Coman had shown her during the last thirty minutes; the apparent recklessness of his attitude to the law, to personal danger and to all the other terrors she, as a telepath, knew so well; his contempt of men like Harkor, whom she loathed and feared; all these things bespoke an attitude of mind and a temper which staggered her. It was, in fact, a revelation to a spirit such as hers, one which had always moved slyly, unobtrusively, often vindictively, out of an innate fear and unhappiness which could only be allayed by sexual excitement. This cage around her mind which now, for the first time, showed signs of weakening, still prevented her from realising that she saw the best part of him at this time, and that he too was subject to the same uncertainties, stressed and even the blind fears which had mastered her for so long.
Chapter IX
THE MAN WHO had loitered in the passage, evidently satisfied that all was well, had now gone, and there was no one about. Coman waited for the lift, found it empty and was quickly taken to the ground floor., The lobby was crowded but he noticed that the two men were still there. Neither gave him more than a glance and he breathed more easily. One, with a news sheet in his hand, was studying a list of contenders in the next Games session; the other, after noticing that Coman had come down, made tracks to the lift, probably in order to check with Linnel. This meant that the man reading the news sheet would either find an excuse to detain Coman until the check was made or follow him to see where he went. It would be an easy matter to shake him off, but it was preferable to leave them both without suspicions, and so Coman stayed near the desk, press-buttoning a phone subscriber-scanner and pretending to study its contents. Of course, there was the possibility that Linnel would betray him.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the robot, heard it blipping and buzzing and, now and then, its smooth cultured voice, answering calls or dealing with questions from some of the people who came and went in a stream. It was while a fat woman, holding a grizzling child by the hand, was putting a string of queries regarding aircar routes to different parts of the city that the strange, and impossible thing happened. In the middle of the robot’s answers – patient, detailed replies delivered carefully, in simple basic English – Coman heard or thought he heard the words ‘Vane is dying.’
Had he heard it with his ear or with his mind? He gazed at the woman and the robot but both appeared oblivious to his presence. He was sure that the robot had articulated the words, for the tone and manner of the voice had been unmistakable. Yet neither the woman nor the machine seemed aware of the incongruity or meaning of the sentence. However, the important thing was that he knew it was true.
The dark uneasiness that had been troubling Coman was now explained. Vane was dying, although he had left him alive and well only an hour before. For a moment questions clamoured or answer in his brain, but then suddenly he was cold and still, his mind exploring the implications of this new situation and the part he had to play in it. He sensed rather than saw the first man return to give a signal of reassurance to the other, than he gently put the tiny machine he was holding back on the counter and walked slowly to the exit doors.
No one followed and in a moment he had reached the pavement. It was no more than half a mile to Vane’s lodgings and, controlling his burning impatience, he walked instead of taking a belt, looking for a place to deposit the gun he had taken from Linnel. It was the most dangerous weapon one could possess and he wanted none of it. In retrospect he found it inconceivable that she should have carried it and he could only imagine that they had made her do so – ‘they’ or perhaps just Harkor. From what he had learnt, it was the kind of thing which Harkor would enjoy doing.
Eventually he found a rubbish disposal unit and, making sure he was not seen, and having wiped the gun clean of prints with his handkerchief, he dropped it into the hole and heard it taken by the centrifugal force deep inside. The weapon’s construction made disintegration impossible and it would end up among other miscellaneous metal objects in a dump on one of the islands below, eventually to be found and sent to the forensic laboratories at the Central Police Departments. He then made his way through the now artificially lighted walk-channels to Vane’s lodging house, and all the time the dark cloud around his heart closed in almost tangibly, until it was like an iron hand squeezing.
He had told Vane to leave the city immediately and had then changed his mind and told him to wait. For this reason he was partly responsible for whatever had happened. What could have happened? The thug he had needled must still be fast asleep and Harkor surely had found no reason to cause tr
ouble of this magnitude? Perhaps Vane had suffered some kind of accident, perhaps …
As he reached the building, waves of sick pain almost smothered his senses and, with hardly a glance at the occupants of the lobby, he went up the stairs two at a time until he came to the door from behind which the pain pulsations originated. And as he reached it they stopped on a high, thin vibration. Vane was dead. Yet he had taken some while to die. Behind the door pain and grief had, for one man, mounted to a savage crescendo, ending in madness and death.
There were, he sensed, two other men in the room. One was Harkor, the other a creature Coman had not met, another hoodlum who stood by a window gazing into the lighted city, his thoughts occupied with a woman he intended to have that night. Harkor was sunk into a stupor of satiated cruelty mixed, however, with a certain frustration, so lost to his immediate surroundings that by a stroke of fortune he had not sensed the presence of the keyman who stood in the corridor outside. Somewhere behind Coman the desk clerk below was looking for the hotel detective. And Vane was sitting bound and gagged, and dead.
In extreme danger or urgency all Coman’s thought processes and all his emotions were subjugated, completely under the dominion of a new master which resided deep within the labyrinth of his mind. Rather like a cold and calculating eye, it was the final and most important guardian of his physical being, and while in normal times it seemed to sleep, on an occasion such as this it immediately took control, and Coman was changed into something no longer quite human. Thoughts came in quick succession. Was the door locked? Could he try it without giving a warning? Impossible. He took out the shock-gun, released the safety catch, froze every surface in his mind, knocked gently on the door with just the right amount of polite deliberation, then stepped back to the opposite wall and waited.
‘Yes?’ came a voice behind the door.
A Man of Double Deed Page 12
