Anderson, Poul - Novel 17

by Inheritors of Earth (v2. 1)

  "I didn't know, but I'm sorry."

  "But exactly where is your wife now?"

  "I told you. She left me."

  "But you've seen her more recently than eight months." He removed a pocket notebook from his overcoat and flipped the pages slowly. "Ah—here it is. She was last seen at your house two months ago—somewhat less than that." He slammed the notebook shut and gazed at Alec expectantly.

  A wave of guilt consumed Alec. He tried to shrug it off. Why should he feel guilty? He deliberately told Cargill the truth: "Anna and I don't hate each other. We don't see any reason to attempt to ignore each other."

  "As you may know, your wife employed me to do a bit of detecting for her. I undertook the mission in all good conscience. However, sometime after beginning the job, she suddenly refused to answer any of my calls. I received a brief note thanking me for my work and expressing a lack of need to see me again. I was, of course, rather puzzled."

  "I—I didn't know about any of this," Alec said. So that was why Ralston had seen Anna and Cargill together before the Mencken murder. "What was this job she hired you for?"

  Cargill went on, pretending that he had not heard Alec: "So you can see why I'm interested, concerned. Why I'd like to know where she is now."

  "She's with friends," Alec said.

  "Where?"

  "Oh, back East someplace."

  "The Atlantic coast?"

  "No, not that far. The Middle West someplace. Wyoming, Colorado."

  "How did she get there? The tube?"

  "No, it's an out of the way place. The tube doesn't go there. I think she flew."

  "What flight? What line?"

  "Now look," Alec said. He stood, towering over Cargill. "What's any of this to you? There is a thing called privacy. Anna happens to be my wife—not yours."

  "I never insinuated otherwise, though of course I would be honored by the privilege. Still, I wonder about people. You understand—my profession."

  "Well, wonder about someone else." Alec stepped back, lingered half in the air, finally sat down. Cargill's stately composure perplexed him. The radiations he gave off were as steady and impenetrable as ever. "To tell the truth," he said, "I don't know exactly where she is. I think it's Wyoming but she wouldn't let me have an address. I think she wants to lead her own life—without me."

  "And the android?" Cargill asked.

  "The android?" Alec laughed, unable to resist the opportunity. "You mean Eathen? Don't you know? He left at the same time Anna did. He's enlisted in the Ah Tran movement. I wonder if I could demand to have him sent back. Like the fugitive slaves before the Civil War. He's property—not a person. In fact, I think he's actually a disciple of Ah Tran."

  "Yes," Cargill said, "he is. But—what I want to know about—" he leaned forward, quivering with suppressed anticipation "—is what about you?"

  "Me?"

  "Are you intending to enlist too?"

  "Hardly. My work is science—not crazy mysticism."

  "The two are not incompatible." Cargill leaned back, apparently satisfied at having made some private point, and crossed his hands over the waist of his great coat. "Both are devices by which man attempts to comprehend and measure the vast unknown. With science, the technique is firm knowledge gathered through experiment and observation. With mysticism, sheer inspiration is used. The one follows the other. Einstein, for example, merely confirmed what many mystics had been saying for centuries. When the two are combined—"

  "They can't be," Alec said, leaping to his feet. He was strangely and greatly irritated by this nonsense. "If you don't mind, Inspector, I'm very busy. I've enjoyed this talk, but some other time, please."

  "Oh, of course. Certainly." Cargill nodded sharply once, smiled, stood, brushing at the front of his coat. But he made no effort to leave. "How about you, Alec?" he said, suddenly. "Aren't you curious about your wife's whereabouts?" He shoved his hands in the deep pockets of his coat, burying them both, and began rocking on the balls of his feet. "I could tell you exactly where she is."

  Alec stood up too, sensing the approach of a sudden crisis. "How do you know? Are you following her? Isn't that against the law? Isn't that harassment?" All his months of suppressed fury at Cargill began to pour out at once. "Where she is—where anyone is—happens to be none of your business. Anna is a free citizen. She hasn't committed any crime. She didn't kill Ted Mencken."

  "Oh, I know that," said Cargill.

  "And neither did I."

  "I'm sure of that too."

  "Then, if you know so much, maybe you can also say who did kill him."

  "Yes," said Cargill, "I can say that. I can say who killed Timothy Ralston also."

  "You know—no! You can't know that! You—!"

  There was a soft tapping at the door. Alec called, "Come in!" then turned back to Cargill. How could he know? If he knew that much, then didn't it mean he must also know everything, and that was impossible. He had to be bluffing. Some trick designed to force a confession.

  "I thought you might like more coffee," Sylvia said, holding the flask out toward Cargill.

  "Oh, yes." Cargill smiled. "Thank you." He brought his right hand out of his coat pocket. He reached out toward the coffee. In a flash, Alec realized that the hand was clutching a gun. He saw it for only a split second. He didn't think Sylvia saw it at all. Her expression never wavered. Cargill fired. An inch-wide, gaping, black hole opened in the center of Sylvia's forehead. She didn't utter a sound. The coffee flask slipped from her fingers and crashed to the floor, splattering hot liquid in every direction. Scalded, Alec cried out.

  Then Sylvia fell over.

  Cargill replaced the gun in his pocket. "Well, how about that?" he said, with amazement. "I did it." He let out a loud, solid, satisfied sigh. He shook his fingers proudly at Alec. "A matter of reflexes, I suppose. And quick, quick thinking." He grinned.

  Alec wasn't listening. He was staring at Sylvia's still form, unable to raise his eyes from the sight. She was dead—that was it—dead.

  From what seemed a great distance, Cargill's words penetrated his brain: "I suppose I do owe you some sort of explanation."

  Eighteen

  Alec found that he could not concentrate upon Cargill's explanation as long as Sylvia Mencken's body was lying on the floor only a few yards away. Cargill suggested they either move the body or themselves.

  Alec didn't want to touch her. "Let's go out front," he said.

  They settled in the first room. Cargill carefully checked to ensure the door was locked, then sat behind the receptionist's desk. Alec dropped on the couch.

  Not for the first time, Alec regretted he no longer had a gun. How could he have been so foolish as to let Astor's men take it and not give it back? He should have known he'd need it again.

  "Why?" Alec said, at last.

  "To save you," Cargill said. The tone of his voice was cold, unemotive, almost official. "And to save your people."

  "Save?" he asked, hollowly. "How? By killing the one thing that mattered to me?''

  Cargill shook his head slowly. "She meant nothing to you. Ask yourself. Did you love her?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "Because she was important to me."

  "She was going to kill you. The same as she killed Mencken and Ralston and maybe many, many others."

  Alec did laugh now. "Are you trying to tell me Sylvia was one of the others? That she killed her own father?"

  "That's what I'm saying."

  "Well—well, you're wrong. For all I know—and it makes sense too—you might be one of them. How do you know about my people? The only ones who know are us—and them."

  "Oh, that's common knowledge," Cargill said, blandly.

  "Everyone knows?" Alec asked, without particular disbelief. In his present state, he was willing to accept anything he was told—except about Sylvia.

  "The men at the highest levels of government do. And me. It really wasn't much of a secret. If there had only been a few of yo
u—no more than a dozen—and if you had chosen to protect your secret zealously, avoiding personal contact except when it was absolutely essential, you might have been able to remain hidden—though, frankly, I doubt it. In our present society, privacy and secrecy are quite extinct. I assume you are aware of the National Computer Data Bank. Each of us—no matter how outwardly insignificant—occupies a personal niche within that network. Our every known move is recorded and filed. If any one person within the system begins to function in ways differing noticeably from the established norm, then his name pops out. When several names have popped out under similar circumstances, an investigation automatically follows—an attempt is made to determine if any relationship exists among these various names.

  "In the case of your people, such a relationship was easily uncovered. You see and visit each other much too often. You intermarry. You talk on the public phone lines and exchange information. All of this, of course, ends up on file. And then there is the one common denominator that most obviously binds you all: lack of known parentage. You are all orphans. Plainly, as soon as this information became known, a full-scale investigation was launched. To your credit, it failed to penetrate your deepest secrets. Other common factors were discovered. Your achievements indicated common ability and intelligence— and also a strong tendency toward erratic conduct and eccentric behavior. The suicide rate among you was ten times the national average.

  "The investigators—I have scanned their reports—interviewed employers, employees, fellow workers, acquaintances, and—when they could be found—personal friends. As I said, nothing was revealed. In the final report, you are described as "Quantity X": a tight, secret conspiracy of intelligent orphans. But the purpose of this conspiracy—if any—remained unknown. Obviously, the highest officials were not satisfied. I was asked to look into the matter. I agreed and promptly uncovered the true facts."

  "That we were supermen?" Alec shrugged. He barely heard every other word of Cargill's supposed recollection. He was seeing Sylvia's body. The gaping hole in her skull.

  "I should be humble about this," Cargill said. "The solution came less from my own endeavors than by accident. Did you know a man—a Superior, I should say—named Blalock?"

  "He jumped off the top of the Ferry Tower."

  "Yes. And died. But, before taking the final plunge, in a raving fit—my police duties include suicide as well as murder—Blalock spurted out the brief facts of his life. I suspect others—keeping in mind your racial tendency toward flipping out—have heard the same story. There was one significant difference in the response this time. While the others had undoubtedly dismissed the story as the paranoid ravings of a madman, I chose to believe every word Blalock said."

  "Good for you."

  Cargill nodded. "Thank you. But—the story I got from Blalock—it was naturally somewhat sketchy and disorganized. So I did some additional checking and snooping and, along the way, managed to uncover a second common denominator, one apparently ignored by the computers as unexceptional—the present dwindling birthrate, you know. I refer, of course, to your lack of natural offspring. Not a statistical impossibility—hardly—but, in view of your lack of known parentage, intriguing."

  "We're sterile," Alec said, dully. "So what?"

  Cargill nodded, smiling. "I know."

  "Is there anything you don't know?" Alec asked, more wistful than arrogant. Cargill's knowledge seemed to strip him of whatever identity he had left to himself. His life was public property. He belonged to others—to Cargill, to anyone with a penchant for snooping. It made him sick.

  "I delivered my report," Cargill continued. "The facts as I knew them. That you were an apparently advanced form of humanity. Extremely intelligent. Presumably a mutation. At the time I had not confirmed the presence of the telepathic factor and so did not mention it."

  "Not telepathy," Alec said.

  "Yes, I realized that soon enough. The limitations of the talent, that is. I got to know a few of you rather well. I asked questions here and there. It soon became clear that no one was able to read my mind, that I could conceal what I wished from you with no great expense of effort and that concealment in itself was not sufficiently extraordinary to arouse suspicion."

  "Incomplete," Alec murmured. "Incomplete supermen."

  "Well put. Yes—exactly. But—back to my report—I made a recommendation which, as far as I know, was accepted. I described you as a sterile mutation unable to survive into a second generation. Thus, I recommended that no specific action be taken against you. I pointed out that the majority of your people were more apt to aid the common public good through your undeniable ability and intelligence—your android project is a prime example of what I meant—rather than harm it."

  "Us?" Alec was laughing. "Harmless? Oh, if only you knew." The revelation that Cargill did not know everything struck Alec as tremendously amusing. He couldn't stop laughing. It was so funny. Then why not tell him everything? Let him know just how ridiculous he was? Harmless? "Don't you read the headlines?" he cried. "Don't you know that war is coming? That civilization is about to perish? Harmless? Us? That war happens to be our war. We started it—you'll fight it—and, in the end, we'll win it."

  Cargill shook his head and deliberately radiated great sadness. He waved a limp hand toward the back room. "She started it, Alec. Not you."

  He had had enough. He came to his feet, waving his arms furiously. "Leave her alone! Haven't you done enough? You killed her. What more—?"

  "Sit down," Cargill said, sharply.

  "But—" Alec shrugged and sat.

  "Listen to me," Cargill said. "Don't you want to know the truth?"

  "Not if it's really all lies. She never started anything in her life."

  "Not by herself, no. I'm talking about those men and women—those individuals—Sylvia was one, but hardly the only one—of whose existence you have long been aware."

  "The others."

  "You call them that. More accurately, they are the unknown mothers and fathers of your race."

  "Sylvia? My mother?" Alec laughed.

  "That is possible, though not, I grant, very likely."

  "Nothing that you say is."

  "Then—" Cargill smiled "—you tell me: who are they?"

  "What? The others? Why, I—" Alec stopped, confused. "I'm not sure. We never really knew. People, I guess. People who learned what we were and tried—they used to burn witches."

  "Weren't you listening?" Cargill asked, like a stern teacher correcting a lazy pupil. "Didn't you hear me describe my report? A decision was made to ignore your people. I can assure you no vigilante group has been formed to do what the government chooses not to do. The others are not human beings, Alec. Think again."

  "I don't believe you," he finally said.

  Cargill smiled warmly, as if this were the answer he had been seeking. "Of course you don't. Why? Because they wouldn't let you. But that does not change the facts. They are who they are. They possess the ability—in how great a measure I do not know—to control the thoughts and feelings of others. That was why, as soon as Sylvia entered the room, I knew I had to kill her in an instant."

  "And you did," Alec said. They were back there again. In that room. The body. The gaping hole. The blood.

  "I employed the same ruthlessness she employed when she murdered Mencken and Ralston. No more, no less."

  "Sylvia didn't kill Mencken." There was a fact that exploded that theory. Alec struggled to recollect it. "He was her father."

  "Oh, no. Like you, Sylvia was an orphan. She entered Mencken's household some two years ago and rather extraordinarily—since she was twenty-four—he adopted her." Then, displaying the first real human emotion since Alec had known him, Cargill stood up, circled the desk, came over, and laid a thin arm across Alec's shoulders.

  "I'm very sorry. But the facts, alas, are the facts. They cannot be made otherwise."

  "Why?" Alec asked.

  "Why did she kill him? That's easy enough. The android p
roject. I believe he wished to stop."

  "He used to talk about it but—"

  "And he was involved in the Ah Tran movement, I believe."

  "Yes, but what-?"

  Cargill raised his free hand. "We can discuss all that later. For now, I think it's sufficient to point out that Mencken's murder was not without its blessing. The killing brought me into the case. Knowing who you and your wife really were caused me to take an especially active interest in the matter. I did a little snooping—quite a little, in fact. And there was also the fact that, somewhat before the murder, Anna hired me to find her father. However, before I could complete my investigation, she suddenly—I told you this—took me off the case. I became suspicious. I did a little snooping. I found the father and, in the course of that, cracked the whole mess wide open."

  "Her father? You found him. But he's dead, the same as mine."

  "I expect yours is quite alive too. Anna's father, a creature named Karlton Ford, lives in Wyoming. He is an extremely wealthy individual. This war you are so eager to claim as your own—my research indicates the greater share of the credit should go to Mr. Ford."

  Alec shook his head. In spite of himself, he was listening now. But he was confused. Cargill seemed to enjoy establishing a set of wild premises and then, a moment later, casually destroying the framework he had so carefully erected and introducing some wholly new outrageous fact. "I'm afraid you'll have to explain more fully," he said, at last.

  Cargill agreed. Drawing away, he paced the room, telling Alec what he knew about the Inheritors, their plans for the war, their talents and abilities and the nature of their hybrid descendants. "I consider it amazing," Cargill said, "that they did not choose to kill all of you at birth. Too difficult, perhaps—or too dangerous—and they may have guessed that you would prove helpful later in furthering their ends."

  Alec held himself in check, striving to suppress the desire, the urge, but finally he could not resist.

  He laughed.

  Cargill stopped pacing and turned, plainly horrified. "Don't you believe me? I have proof—firm proof—evidence. I can—"