Ahead of Time

by Henry Kuttner

  "Nobody did."

  "I didn't know what I'd find here."

  "The police didn't expect us to head for Earth," Brown said, rumpling his gray hair with a shapeless paw. "And that was your idea."

  "Yeah. Consulting psychologist to——"

  "—to criminals. Want to step out?"

  "No," Talman said frankly, "not with the profits we've got in sight already. This thing's big."

  Brown grinned. "Sure it is. Nobody ever organized crime before, in just this way. There wasn't any crime worth a row of pins until we started."

  "Where are we now, though? On the run."

  "Fern's found a foolproof hideout."

  "Where?"

  "In the Asteroid Belt. We need one thing, though."

  "What's that?"

  "An atomic power plant."

  Talman looked startled. But he saw that Brown wasn't kidding. After a moment, he put down his glass and scowled.

  "I'd say it's impossible. A power plant's too big."

  "Yeah," Brown said, "except that this one's going by space to Callisto."

  "Highjacking? We haven't enough men——"

  "The ship's under Transplant-control."

  Talman cocked his head to one side. "Uh. That's out of my line——"

  "There'll be a skeleton crew, of course. But we'll take care of them—and take their places. Then it'll simply be a matter of unhitching the Transplant and rigging up manuals. It isn't out of your line at all. Fern and Cunningham can do the technical stuff, but we've got to find out first just how dangerous a Transplant can be."

  "I'm no engineer."

  Brown went on, ignoring the comment. "The Transplant who's handling this Callisto shipment used to be Bart Quentin. You knew him, didn't you?"

  Talman, startled, nodded. "Sure. Years ago. Before——"

  "You're in the clear, as far as the police are concerned. Go to see Quentin. Pump him. Find out. . . . Cunningham will tell you what to find out. After that, we can go ahead. I hope."

  "I don't know. I'm not——"

  Brown's brows came down. "We've got to find a hideout! That's absolutely vital right now. Otherwise, we might as well walk into the nearest police station and hold out our hands for cuffs. We've been clever, but now—we've got to hide. Fast!"

  "Well . . . I get that. But do you know what a Transplant really is?"

  "A free brain. One that can use artificial gadgets."

  "Technically, yeah. Ever seen a Transplant working a power-digger? Or a Venusian sea-dredge? Enormously complicated controls it'd normally take a dozen men to handle?"

  "Implying a Transplant's a superman?"

  "No," Talman said slowly, "I don't mean that. But I've got an idea it'd be safer to tangle with a dozen men than with one Transplant."

  "Well," Brown said, "go up to Quebec and see Quentin. He's there now, I found out. Talk to Cunningham first. We'll work out the details. What we've got to know are Quentin's powers and his vulnerable points. And whether or not he's telepathic. You're an old friend of Quentin, and you're a psychologist, so you're the guy for the job."

  "Yeah."

  "We've got to get that power plant. We've got to hide, now!"

  Talman thought that Brown had probably planned this from the beginning. The fat man was shrewd enough; he'd been sufficiently clever to realize that ordinary criminals would stand no chance in a highly technical, carefully specialized world. Police forces could call on the sciences to aid them. Communication was excellent and fast, even between the planets. There were gadgets—— The only chance of bringing off a successful crime was to do it fast and then make an almost instantaneous getaway.

  But the crime had to be planned. When competing against an organized social unit, as any crook does, it's wise to create a similar unit. A blackjack has no chance against a rifle. A strong-arm bandit was doomed to quick failure, for a similar reason. The traces he left would be analyzed; chemistry, psychology, and criminology would track him down; he'd be made to confess. Made to, without any third-degree methods. So——

  So Cunningham was an electronics engineer. Fern was an astrophysicist. Talman himself was a psychologist. Big, blond Dalquist was a hunter, by choice and profession, beautifully integrated and tremendously fast with a gun. Cotton was a mathematician—and Brown himself was the co-ordinator. For three months the combination had worked successfully on Venus. Then, inevitably, the net closed, and the unit filtered back to Earth, ready to take the next step in the long-range plan. What it was Talman hadn't known till now. But he could readily see its logical necessity.

  In the vast wilderness of the Asteroid Belt they could hide forever, if necessary, emerging to pull off a coup whenever opportunity offered. Safe, they could build up an underground criminal organization, with a spy-system flung broadcast among the planets—yes, it was the inevitable way. Just the same, he felt hesitant about matching wits with Bart Quentin. The man wasn't—human— any more——

  He was worried on the way to Quebec. Cosmopolitan though he was, he couldn't help anticipating tension, embarrassment, when he saw Quent. To pretend to ignore that—accident—would be too obvious. Still—— He remembered that, seven years ago, Quentin had possessed a fine, muscular physique, and had been proud of his skill as a dancer. As for Linda, he wondered what had happened on that score. She couldn't still be Mrs. Bart Quentin, under the circumstances. Or could she?

  He watched the St. Lawrence, a dull silver bar, below the plane as it slanted down. Robot pilots—a narrow beam. Only during violent storms did standard pilots take over. In space it was a different matter. And there were other jobs, enormously complicated, that only human brains could handle. A very special type of brain, at that.

  A brain like Quentin's.

  Talman rubbed his narrow jaw and smiled wanly, trying to locate the source of his worry. Then he had the answer. Did Quent, in this new incarnation, possess more than five senses? Could he detect reactions a normal man could not appreciate? If so, Van Talman was definitely sunk.

  He glanced at his seatmate, Dan Summers of Wyoming Engineers, through whom he had made the contact with Quentin. Summers, a blond young man with sun-wrinkles around his eyes, grinned casually.

  "Nervous?"

  "Could be that," Talman said. "I was wondering how much he'll have changed."

  "Results are different in every case."

  The plane, beam controlled, slid down the slopes of sunset air toward the port. Quebec's lighted towers made an irregular backdrop.

  "They do change, then?"

  "I suppose, psychically, they've got to. You're a psychologist, Mr. Talman. How'd you feel, if——"

  "There might be compensations."

  Summers laughed. "That's an understatement. Compensations . . . why, immortality's only one such . . . compensation!"

  "You consider that a blessing?" Talman asked.

  "Yes, I do. He'll remain at the peak of his powers for God knows how long. There'll be no deterioration. Fatigue poisons are automatically eliminated by irradiation. Brain cells can't replace themselves, of course, the way . . . say . . . muscular tissue can; but Quent's brain can't be injured, in its specially built case. Arteriosclerosis isn't any problem, with the plasmic solution we use—no calcium's deposited on the artery walls. The physical condition of his brain is automatically and perfectly controlled. The only ailments Quent can ever get are mental."

  "Claustrophobia—— No. You say he's got eye lenses. There'd be an automatic feeling of extension."

  Summers said, "If you notice any change—outside of the perfectly normal one of mental growth in seven years—I'll be interested. With me—well, I grew up with the Transplants. I'm no more conscious of their mechanical, interchangeable bodies than a physician would think of a friend as a bundle of nerves and veins. It's the reasoning faculty that counts, and that hasn't altered."

  Talman said thoughtfully, "You're a sort of physician, to the Transplants, anyway. A layman might get another sort of reaction. Especial
ly if he were used to seeing . . . a face."

  "I'm never conscious of that lack."

  "Is Quent?"

  Summers hesitated. "No," he said finally, "I'm sure he isn't. He's beautifully adjusted. The reconditioning to Transplant life takes about a year. After that it's all velvet."

  "I've seen Transplants working, on Venus, from a distance. But there aren't many spotted away from Earth."

  "We haven't enough trained technicians. It takes literally half a lifetime to train a man to handle Transplantation. A man has to be a qualified electronic engineer before he even starts." Summers laughed. "The insurance companies cover a lot of the initial expense, though."

  Talman was puzzled. "How's that?"

  "They underwrite. Occupational risk, immortality. Working in atomic research is dangerous, my friend!"

  They emerged from the plane into the cool night air. Talman said, as they walked toward a waiting car, "We grew up together, Quentin and I. But his accident happened two years after I left Earth, and I never saw him since."

  "As a Transplant? Uh-huh. Well, it's an unfortunate name. Some jackass tagged the label on, whereas propaganda experts should have worked it out. Unfortunately it stuck. Eventually we hope to popularize the—Transplants. Not yet. We're only starting. We've only two hundred and thirty of them so far, the successful ones."

  "Many failures?"

  "Not now. In the early days——It's complicated. From the first trephining to the final energizing and reconditioning, it's the most nerve-racking, brain-straining, difficult technical task the human mind's ever worked out. Reconciling a colloid mechanism with an electronic hookup—but the result's worth it."

  "Technologically. I wonder about the human values."

  "Psychologically? We-ell . . . Quentin will tell you about that angle. And technologically you don't know the half of it. No colloid machine, like the brain, has ever been developed—till now. And this isn't purely mechanical. It's merely a miracle, the synthesis of intelligent living tissue with delicate, responsive machinery."

  "But handicapped by the limitation of the machine—and the brain."

  "You'll see. Here we are. We're dining with Quent——"

  Talman stared. "Dining?"

  "Yeah." Summers' eyes showed quizzical amusement. "No, he doesn't eat steel shavings. In fact——"

  The shock of meeting Linda again took Talman by surprise. He had not expected to see her. Not now, under these altered conditions. But she hadn't changed much; she was still the same warm, friendly woman he remembered, a little older now, yet very lovely and very gracious. She had always had charm. She was slim and tall, her head crowned by a bizarre coiffure of honey-amber coils, her brown eyes without the strain Talman might have expected.

  He took her hands. "Don't say it," he said. "I know how long it's been."

  "We won't count the years, Van." She laughed up at him. "We'll pick up right where we left off. With a drink, eh?"

  "I could use one," Summers said, "but I've got to report back to headquarters. I'll just see Quent for a minute. Where is he?"

  "In there." Linda nodded toward a door and turned back to Talman. "So you've been on Venus? You look bleached enough. Tell me how it's been."

  "All right." He took the shaker from her hands and swirled the Martinis carefully. He felt embarrassment. Linda lifted an eyebrow.

  "Yes, we're still married, Bart and I. You're surprised."

  "A little."

  "He's still Bart," she said quietly. "He may not look it, but he's the man I married, all right. So you can relax, Van."

  He poured the Martinis. Without looking at her, he said, "As long as you're satisfied——"

  "I know what you're thinking. That it'd be like having a machine for a husband. At first . . . well, I got over that feeling. We both did, after a while. There was constraint; I suppose you'll feel it when you see him. Only that isn't important, really. He's—— Bart." She pushed a third glass toward Talman, and he looked at it in surprise.

  "Not——''

  She nodded.

  The three of them dined together. Talman watched the two-foot-by-two cylinder resting on the table opposite him and tried to read personality and intelligence into the double lenses. He couldn't help imagining Linda as a priestess, serving some sort of alien god-image, and the concept was disturbing. Now Linda was forking chilled, sauce-daubed shrimps into the metallic compartment and spooning them out when the amplifier signaled.

  Talman had expected a flat, toneless voice, but the sonovox gave depth and timbre whenever Quentin spoke.

  "Those shrimps are perfectly usable, Van. It's only habit that makes us throw chow out after I've had it in my foodbox. I taste the stuff, all right—but I haven't any salivary juices."

  "You—taste 'em."

  Quentin laughed a little. "Look, Van. Don't try to pretend this seems natural to you. You'll have to get used to it."

  "It took me a long time," Linda said. "But after a while I found myself thinking it was just the sort of silly thing Bart always used to do. Remember the time you put on that suit of armor for the Chicago board meeting?"

  "Well, I made my point," Quentin said. "I forget what it was now, but—we were talking about taste. I can taste these shrimps, Van. Certain nuances are lacking, yeah. Very delicate sensations are lost on me. But there's more to it than sweet and sour, salt and bitter. Machines could taste years ago."

  "There's no digestion——"

  "And there's no pylorospasm. What I lose in refinements of taste I make up for in freedom from gastrointestinal disorders."

  "You don't burp any more, either," Linda said. "Thank God."

  "I can talk with my mouth full, too," Quentin said. "But I'm not the super-machine-bodied-brain you're subconsciously thinking I am, chum. I don't spit death rays."

  Talman grinned uneasily. "Was I thinking that?"

  "I'll bet you were. But——" The timbre of the voice changed. "I'm not super. I'm plenty human, inside, and don't think I don't miss the old days sometimes. Lying on the beach and feeling the sun on my skin, little things like that. Dancing in rhythm to music, and——"

  "Darling," Linda said.

  The voice changed again. "Yeah. It's the small, trivial factors that make up a complete life. But I've got substitutes now—parallel factors. Reactions quite impossible to describe, because they're . . . let's say . . . electronic vibrations instead of the familiar neural ones. I do have senses, but through mechanical organs. When impulses reach my brain, they're automatically translated into familiar symbols. Or——"' He hesitated. "Not so much now, though."

  Linda laid a bit of planked fish in the food-compartment. "Delusions of grandeur, eh?"

  "Delusions of alteration—but no delusion, my love. You see, Van, when I first turned into a Transplant, I had no standard of comparison except the arbitrary one I already knew. That was suited to a human body—only. When, later, I felt an impulse from a digger gadget, I'd automatically feel as if I had my foot on a car accelerator. Now those old symbols are fading. I . . . feel . . . more directly now, without translating the impulses into the old-time images."

  "That would be faster," Talman said.

  "It is. I don't have to think of the value of pi when I get a pi signal. I don't have to break down the equation. I'm beginning to sense what the equation means."

  "Synthesis with a machine?"

  "Yet I'm no robot. It doesn't affect the identity, the personal essence of Bart Quentin." There was a brief silence, and Talman saw Linda look sharply toward the cylinder. Then Quentin continued in the same tone. "I get a tremendous bang out of solving problems. I always did. And now it's not just on paper. I carry out the whole task myself, from conception to finish. I dope out the application, and . . . Van, I am the machine!"

  "Machine?" Talman said.

  "Ever noticed, when you're driving or piloting, how you identify yourself with the machine? It's an extension of you. I go one step farther. And it's satisfying. Suppose you could car
ry empathy to the limit and be one of your patients while you were solving his problem? It's an—ecstasy."

  Talman watched Linda pour sauterne into a separate chamber. "Do you ever get drunk any more?" he asked.

  Linda gurgled. "Not on liquor—but Bart gets high, all right!"

  "How?"

  "Figure it out," Quentin said, a little smugly.

  "Alcohol's absorbed into the blood stream, thence reaching the brain—the equivalent of intravenous shots, maybe?"

  "I'd rather put cobra venom in my circulatory system," the Transplant said. "My metabolic balance is too delicate, too perfectly organized, too upset by introducing foreign substances. No, I use electrical stimulus—an induced high-frequency current that gets me high as a kite."

  Talman stared. "And that's a substitute?"

  "It is. Smoking and drinking are irritants, Van. So's thinking, for that matter! When I feel the psychic need for a binge, I've a gadget that provides stimulating irritation—and I'll bet you'd get more of a bang out of it than you would out of a quart of mescal."

  "He quotes Housman," Linda said. "And does animal imitations. With his tonal control, Bart's a wonder." She stood up. "If you'll excuse me for a bit, I've got some K.P. Automatic as the kitchen is, there are still buttons to push."

  "Can I help?" Talman offered.

  "Thanks, no. Stay here with Bart. Want me to hitch up your arms, darling?"

  "Nope," Quentin said. "Van can take care of my liquid diet. Step it up, Linda—Summers said I've got to get back on the job soon."

  "The ship's ready?"

  "Almost."

  Linda paused in the doorway, biting her lips. "I'll never get used to your handling a spaceship all by yourself. Especially that thing."

  "It may be jury-rigged, but it'll get to Callisto."

  "Well . . . there's a skeleton crew, isn't there?"

  "There is," Quentin said, "but it isn't needed. The insurance companies demand an emergency crew. Summers did a good job, rigging the ship in six weeks."

  "With chewing gum and paper clips," Linda remarked. "I only hope it holds." She went out as Quentin laughed softly. There was a silence. Then, as never before, Talman felt that his companion was . . . was . . . had changed. For he felt Quentin gazing at him, and—Quentin wasn't there.