A Man of Double Deed

by Leonard Daventry

  ‘Those kind of people react automatically. The inauguration of a War Section would probably help rather than hinder them.’

  And yet you’ve done your best to get it!’ she exclaimed.

  Ignoring this, he went on: ‘So they employed Harkor to do this little job on his own – gave him carte blanche.’

  ‘Yes. He paid these others himself, picked them from the local villain role of dishonour. Actually he had a little gang of his own, three men, non-telepaths, whose forte was gambling. They moved about on a high-powered motor cruiser, all over the Pacific, and they knew every angle on every game of chance in the book.’

  ‘Where are these three now?’

  Linnel shrugged again. ‘I think he left them with the boat on one of the islands below. They may now be looking for whoever killed him, but on the other hand they may just cut and run.’

  ‘Well, thanks for letting me know.’

  Her shoulders shook with near hysteria. ‘I’ve only just remembered them, and anyway, it may all be just a great big lie. You could never tell with Harkor.’

  Coman did not reply to this but continued to gaze out of the window. Not far to the west he saw the bridge from which he, Jonl and Sein had looked across to the house of the Raylonds, and his heartbeat quickened for an instant.

  ‘Is this – it, then?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, we must part,’ he replied.

  ‘How does one become a keywoman?’

  Coman turned to face her, ignoring the message of yearning she was sending him. ‘You’re not serious, and you know it. When and if you are ever ready to be one, you’ll know what to do.’

  Linnel got up from the bed and came close to him without troubling to cover her nakedness. ‘I don’t know what I want. I used to think sex was just – well, sex – until you arrived. Why do you have to complicate something that everyone regards as a natural function, a bit of fun, with a lot of old-fashioned spiritual rubbish?’

  Her voice was almost bitter. Coman made no move to touch her and she turned away and began to dress. Then suddenly she caught the thought: Robot.

  ‘What did you mean by that?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘You know what I mean. You are less than a normal human being, despite your gift of telepathy – you are a robot. I let you look into my mind many times during the night, but you allowed me nothing. It was like making love to a machine.’

  ‘Stop it!’

  ‘Why are you afraid, Linnel? You have a precious gift, a faculty which should double your awareness of life and all its problems, yet you want nothing of it, except what it can buy. To us – to a male and female telepath – there is a great secret in the union of bodies, a key to life itself.’

  ‘And death too,’ she said, shuddering, for she had been unable to shut her mind completely during the night.

  ‘You see, we must part,’ he said.

  They ate breakfast in silence and by the time they had finished it was nine.

  Coman rose, laying his fingers along her cheek. ‘Goodbye, my dear. One of my faults is impatience – do you forgive?’

  Her eyes regarded him brightly. ‘Just. Shall we meet again?’

  Who can tell? he thought, and she said ‘Goodbye then, and turned from him.

  At the door, he paused and looked back at her, then said: ‘Take care, Linnel.’

  But her face was averted, her thoughts were barred from him, and after a moment more he shut the door behind him and went down to the City pavements.

  Chapter XI

  COMAN HAD RECOVERED the key earlier and, at first, he loitered near the box containing the Connector, in case he might have been followed, or the safe was being kept under observation. But no one seemed interested and at last he opened it and found the precious instrument. It was then ten o’clock and the World Council was due to hear the Committee’s findings in half an hour.

  By the time he reached the island again and was ascending the steps to Deenan’s home it was twenty past the hour. Deenan was painting on a large square of cardboard and the robot was standing in its corner. As Coman entered only the robot took notice.

  ‘Who you? What you want?’

  ‘Not again!’

  ‘Quiet tinface, and bring the man a drink, said Deenan. He turned to Coman. ‘So the wanderer returns. What do you think of this?’

  Coman stared at it. Unlike the other paintings it was representational, and reminded him of the reconstructed pictures of past history found in the museums. Wet roadways and shining pavements, and little figures scurrying through a mist of rain – not at all like the minutely calculated showers received nowadays but a rain which one could imagine falling continually, for hour upon hour, seeping through clothes, even through bricks and mortar – an all-enveloping, almost depressing, kind of rain. The more he gazed at it the more bizarre yet authentic it looked.

  ‘Where did you get the idea?’ he asked.

  ‘I found it humming in the wires,’ said Deenan, tapping his head.

  ‘I see. Do you mind if I switch on the newscast?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  Taking the drink the robot had bought him, Coman flicked the appropriate switch and settled down in a chair to watch. Naturally, the occasion had temporarily pushed all other news from the channel, and the screen showed the interior of the Great Hall, the camera first lingering upon the banks of computers and the vast array of machinery used for the work and protection of the building and its occupants, then along the serried ranks of the members of World Government, stretching from floor to ceiling, and finally pausing in the centre and becoming trained in close-up on the figure of the ancient President, Jal Monar, who was, his enemies said, a telepath and a secret member of the keymen’s organisation.

  While he gazed at this venerable face, with the countless lines criss-crossing the parchment-like skin, Coman wondered again about that particular accusation – an accusation which, as far as he knew, had no basis in fact. Jal Monar was a hundred years old and could remember the broken desert that Earth had become on the collapse of the old world. Still in command of all his faculties, a man of infinite cunning and sagacity – such a man, if a telepath, would surely be the leader of all telepaths. But Karns was leader, and by no stretch of the imagination could Monar and Karns be the same man. There was a new movement in the hall and now the cameras moved, showing men filing to their places at a table shaped like a half-moon on the floor of the hall at the right hand of the Government benches.

  The commentator said: ‘Now the Committee is taking its place and we shall soon know its findings and the recommendation it will make. All the pundits have had their say during the last few weeks, and speculation as to the ultimate decision has been space-wide. Now at last we shall know, and, whichever way the Committee points, one thing seems almost certain: the Government will go that way. If it is “No”, then this particular solution of the problem of anti-social violence will not be put forward again in our time; if it is “Yes”, then a debate on the complete machinery to create and enforce the presence of a War Section will start immediately … Here is Alte Marst, the chairman of the Committee, ex-controller of the Venusian Field Scheme, for ten years High Commissioner of the Second Section, a man of high stature who, it is rumoured, wanted nothing to do with this particular problem, and was persuaded to take only with great difficulty.

  Marst’s face was expressionless. He took his place and sat, flanked on each side by four men and six women, all well known for their sense of integrity in a world swiftly discarding such qualities as dubious. Whichever way their votes went, detractors and calumniators would be ready to accuse them of false or mistaken motives. But, nevertheless, it had been generally agreed that any decision they might reach would be preferable to one gained simply by feeding all relevant data into computers.

  Marst had now risen and suddenly there was silence. The camera lenses ranged over the thousands of faces belonging to the hundreds of factions drawn from all corners of Earth and from its dominions in Spa
ce. He began with a preamble dealing with the events leading up to the establishment of a Committee, a resumé of the measures hitherto tried to combat violence, the painful necessity to distinguish between dishonesty and theft, as practices not only by the common criminal but by business combines and even (lamentably) in certain government circles, and that of violence to the person – of the new wave of apparently senseless homicidal outbreaks which had begun thirteen months previously among individuals between the ages of fifteen and twenty and which, far from showing signs of abating, had, during the last few months, risen to terrifying proportions, despite the many measures introduced to combat the menace.

  He went on: ‘Expert psychiatrist assure us that it is a form of mental illness, but their diagnoses differ widely, and all confess themselves helpless to cure the sickness, offering only the poor consolation that it cannot be permanent and that perhaps in another year or two it will have run its course, like a fever. Meanwhile, thousands of innocent human beings are being maimed and killed week after week, sometimes by the very children they have brought into the world. Nor is the madness confined to any one section of the population.’

  He paused a moment, his face raised, showing signs of intense strain and fatigue. ‘We are forced to ask ourselves, “Has the human race reached a point of decline? Is it beginning to show in its children the first signs of a madness which will destroy it utterly?” And, reluctantly perhaps, but nevertheless firmly in the face of this new horror, this Committee has become convinced that strong, revolutionary measures are called for and must be taken. It is not enough, nor has it ever been completely satisfactory, to kill those who kill. Yet neither is it possible to treat them as sick people if we do not know the seat of their illness. And so …’ – his voice had become quieter but remained clear and distinct – ‘after great deliberation, this Committee has unanimously decided to advise the World Council to initiate the formation of a new Section, a Section for the containment of all humans found guilty of crimes of violence, such a Section to be designated by the word “War”, of an area at lest two thousand miles in length and breadth, to be located preferably on a planet other than this one.’

  Hardly had he finished these words when a great rush of sound came from the huge audience, an uproar of comment and speculation which drowned even the commentator’s exclamations.

  Coman switched off the newscaster and watched the shrinking dot of light until it finally disappeared from the screen, then he gave a deep sigh and lit another cigarette. When he looked round for Deenan he found he had gone, probably for another walk along the beach. The painting had been flung upon the floor and the robot was standing in its corner, its blank eyes seemingly fixed unwaveringly upon him. Although he knew that it was incapable of personal feelings it was difficult to dismiss the sensation that in some way it disliked and feared him. Picking up the Connector Coman took it into the room where he had spent his first night and shut the door.

  Without the aid of screen or music, it was some while before he could clear his mind of extraneous thought and enter that dimension wherein he might find one or more of his fellows. At length he heard them and there were many. The subject was robots, and it was not long before he found the secret of the messages and other mysteries which had bothered him.

  It appeared that a keyman named Sarre, a laboratory technician in Dusseldorf, Section 7, had during experiments discovered that stite, a cobalt-tungsten alloy containing ebin, possessed the same, or nearly the same, properties as crionium, in that it could be used in place of that element to send and receive thought messages over long distances. Even more important was the fact that during the last two years this alloy had been used extensively in the construction of the brain units in robot mechanisms. Sarre, had not been slow to realise the importance of this to all keymen and, in collaboration with two others, had built a machine with which he was not only able to obtain visual impressions received by robots containing stite, some thousands of miles distant, but with greater difficulty was able occasionally to send thoughts through the same linkage.

  When he had gathered this information, Coman immediately sent a thoughtcall to Karns and waited as patiently as he could for the old man to make contact. At last he did so.

  K. Greetings. The thing is done, and you are still alive.

  C. For better or for worse. And Vane is dead.

  For a moment Coman felt the communication of a shared anguish, a pain which could not be translated into word-image. Then:

  K. I believe that death, for one of you, was inevitable. Try not to grieve too long, Coman.

  C. So. And to me – you know my position, and that Marst will hold me to my unspoken promise.

  K. I know it. Are you afraid of the consequences?

  C. That is a question to which you, of all people, must know the answer.

  Silence for a moment, and Coman knew that if he wished he might enter the other’s inner consciousness. Yet he would not.

  K. Why will you not? Because of Vane?

  C. I have the knowledge of guilt and loathing, a sickness, of myself, even of you.

  K. It is all nothing.

  C. Nothing. Is there anything at all which has meaning?

  K. You have meaning to me, Coman.

  C. And when I’m gone —?

  K. Why, the world and the stars, and all the billions of galaxies will be gone also, dust in a bowl which curves back upon itself for eternity. Look into me.

  C. No. I neither deserve nor want your comfort.

  K. Very well. Yet you must mend yourself and gain the strength to endure new and perhaps more desperate things – probably in a new world of savagery, hardship and sudden death.

  C. Only the second noun promises novelty. Do you know the name of this world?

  K. No. There are many suggestions but nothing has been decided. Countless problems must be weighed, not only by those in authority but by keymen too: whether or not you should go, who will follow, and how it shall be done. And we have recently something which may be of use to us —

  C. Communications via robots?

  K. Yes, we make some kind of progress, as you see. The secret must be well kept or the use of stite will either be discontinued or prohibited. At another time I would have revealed the discovery to those in authority, but in the present circumstances I feel it would be an unnecessarily frank gesture.

  C. You might have let me know something about it beforehand.

  K. I had sensed the existence of such research, but it was not until the day you actually left the 7th Section that Sarre called me and gave me details. I immediately arranged for him to try to follow your movements and to communicate with you if possible. His efforts, though not wholly satisfactory, proved encouraging.

  C. They were not at all satisfactory. To be told that ‘Vane is dying’ is of little use. A message sent earlier reporting his danger would have been more to the point.

  K. Please do not remain embittered. Sarre did the best he could and suffered as badly as any of us in the knowledge that with a little more research and practice it might have been possible to save Vane. Let us leave the subject. I calculate that you have about three weeks’ grace before the War Section becomes a reality, and you must make the most of that time. Above all you must keep alive. Many forces are ranged against you, and the police, far from being your protection, may constitute one of your greatest threats. I wish to think with you about the girl.

  C. Linnel?

  K. No, the other – closer to your heart – Jonl. She is ripe for telepathic development and, with your persuasion and help, should pass safely through the several barriers of shock and bewilderment to take up her new responsibilities.

  C. Only a few days ago you advise me not to hurry her.

  K. I should not have to tell you that, in the last hours, a new note has been struck, and its reverberations already change our condition. No matter how it may turn out in practice, the decision in favour of a War Section quickens our lives and and adds new
dimensions to our meaning as keymen and keywomen. Soon you may be gone from her, but during the time remaining your must do your best with her.

  C. And Sein?

  K. You have no need to worry about her. She already has your seed within her and everything will be done to protect her and the unborn one.

  There was a silence while Coman digested this and then Karns continued.

  K. As for the third woman – try to forget her. She is of no further use. Sometimes, in the mud of the dying Thames one may see a slug, its ugliness transformed by a fortunate chance of sunlight, its slime iridescent with a new and marvellous beauty. Yet it is a slug still, and remains so. When the sunbeam moves past, it is its dark and squalid self once more. Now, think about Jonl for a little and I shall endeavour to advise you on certain problems and barriers you may encounter.

  Afterwards Coman took the Connector outside and, on Karns’ advice, smashed it against a rock and threw it into the sea. He then walked along the beach in search of Deenan and at last found him, lying among the dunes, quite naked under the sun. Again Coman was struck by the ramshackle appearance of this caricature of a man. The flesh of his neck and both sides of his head remained, together with his ears and the base of his skull, his arms and legs, the upper part of his rib cage, his shoulders and his arm joints, but the rest was a sheen of grey metal, except for the various plastic ‘windows’ through which certain organs could be seen performing their different functions.

  Coman squatted on his haunches and studied him with interest and affection for a few moments, then Deenan spoke, without removing the shutters from his alien eyeballs.

  ‘There was a man of double deed, who sowed his garden full of seed,

  And when the seed began to grow, ’twas like a garden full of snow,

  And when the snow began to fall, ’twas like the birds upon the wall.’

  ‘Where did you get that?’ asked Coman.