was in him."
"One thing, Doc. I don't know a thing about blood fractions orepidemics. My half of the personality didn't study medicine." I took upthe mirror again and broodingly studied the face there. The high thincheeks, high forehead shaded by coarse dark hair which Jay Allison hadslicked down now heavily rumpled. I still didn't think I looked anythinglike the doctor. Our voices were nothing alike either; his had beenpitched rather high, falsetto. My own, as nearly as I could judge, was afull octave deeper, and more resonant. Yet they issued from the samevocal chords, unless Forth was having a reasonless, macabre joke.
"Did I honest-to-God study medicine? It's the last thing I'd thinkabout. It's an honest trade, I guess, but I've never been thatintellectual."
"You--or rather, Jay Allison is a specialist in Darkovan parasitology,as well as a very competent surgeon." Forth was sitting with his chin inhis hands, watching me intently. He scowled and said, "If anything, thephysical change is more startling than the other. I wouldn't haverecognized you."
"That tallies with me. I don't recognize myself." I added, "--and thequeer thing is, I didn't even _like_ Jay Allison, to put it mildly. Ifhe--I can't say _he_, can I?"
"I don't know why not. You're no more Jay Allison than I am. For onething, you're younger. Ten years younger. I doubt if any of hisfriends--if he had any--would recognize you. You--it's ridiculous to goon calling you Jay_{2}. What should I call you?"
"Why should I care? Call me Jason."
"Suits you," Forth said enigmatically. "Look, then, Jason. I'd like togive you a few days to readjust to your new personality, but we arereally pressed for time. Can you fly to Carthon tonight? I'vehand-picked a good crew for you, and sent them on ahead. You'll meetthem there. You'll find them competent."
* * * * *
I stared at him. Suddenly the room oppressed me and I found it hard tobreathe. I said in wonder, "You were pretty sure of yourself, weren'tyou?"
Forth just looked at me, for what seemed a long time. Then he said, in avery quiet voice, "No. I wasn't sure at all. But if you didn't turn up,and I couldn't talk Jay into it, I'd have had to try it myself."
* * * * *
Jason Allison, Junior, was listed on the directory of the Terran HQ as"Suite 1214, Medical Residence Corridor." I found the rooms without anytrouble, though an elderly doctor stared at me rather curiously as Ibarged along the quiet hallway. The suite--bedroom, minusculesitting-room, compact bath--depressed me; clean, closed-in and neutralas the man who owned them, I rummaged them restlessly, trying to findsome scrap of familiarity to indicate that I had lived here for the pasteleven years.
Jay Allison was thirty-four years old. I had given my age, withouthesitation, as 22. There were no obvious blanks in my memory; from themoment Jay Allison had spoken of the trailmen, my past had rushed backand stood, complete to yesterday's supper (only had I eaten that suppertwelve years ago)? I remembered my father, a lined silent man who hadliked to fly solitary, taking photograph after photograph from his planefor the meticulous work of Mapping and Exploration. He'd liked to haveme fly with him and I'd flown over virtually every inch of the planet.No one else had ever dared fly over the Hellers, except the bigcommercial spacecraft that kept to a safe altitude. I vaguely rememberedthe crash and the strange hands pulling me out of the wreckage and theweeks I'd spent, broken-bodied and delirious, gently tended by one ofthe red-eyed, twittering women of the trailmen. In all I had spent eightyears in the Nest, which was not a nest at all but a vast sprawling citybuilt in the branches of enormous trees. With the small and delicatehumanoids who had been my playfellows, I had gathered the nuts and budsand trapped the small arboreal animals they used for food, taken myshare at weaving clothing from the fibres of parasite plants cultivatedon the stems, and in all those eight years I had set foot on the groundless than a dozen times, even though I had travelled for miles throughthe tree-roads high above the forest floor.
Then the Old-One's painful decision that I was too alien for them, andthe difficult and dangerous journey my trailmen foster-parents andfoster-brothers had undertaken, to help me out of the Hellers andarrange for me to be taken to the Trade City. After two years ofphysically painful and mentally rebellious readjustment to daytimeliving, the owl-eyed trailmen saw best, and lived largely, by moonlight,I had found a niche for myself, and settled down. But all of the lateryears (after Jay Allison had taken over, I supposed, from a basicpattern of memory common to both of us) had vanished into the limbo ofthe subconscious.
A bookrack was crammed with large microcards; I slipped one into theviewer, with a queer sense of spying, and found myself listeningapprehensively to hear that measured step and Jay Allison's falsettovoice demanding what the hell I was doing, meddling with hispossessions. Eye to the viewer, I read briefly at random, somethingabout the management of compound fracture, then realized I hadunderstood exactly three words in a paragraph. I put my fist against myforehead and heard the words echoing there emptily; "laceration ...primary efflusion ... serum and lymph ... granulation tissue...." Ipresumed that the words meant something and that I once had known what.But if I had a medical education, I didn't recall a syllable of it. Ididn't know a fracture from a fraction.
In a sudden frenzy of impatience I stripped off the white coat and puton the first shirt I came to, a crimson thing that hung in the line ofwhite coats like an exotic bird in snow country. I went back torummaging the drawers and bureaus. Carelessly shoved in a pigeonhole Ifound another microcard that looked familiar; and when I slipped itmechanically into the viewer it turned out to be a book onmountaineering which, oddly enough, I remembered buying as a youngster.It dispelled my last, lingering doubts. Evidently I had bought it beforethe personalities had forked so sharply apart and separated, Jason fromJay. I was beginning to believe. Not to accept. Just to believe it hadhappened. The book looked well-thumbed, and had been handled so much Ihad to baby it into the slot of the viewer.
Under a folded pile of clean underwear I found a flat half-empty bottleof whiskey. I remembered Forth's words that he'd never seen Jay Allisondrink, and suddenly I thought, "The fool!" I fixed myself a drink andsat down, idly scanning over the mountaineering book.
* * * * *
Not till I'd entered medical school, I suspected, did the two halves ofme fork so strongly apart ... so strongly that there had been days andweeks and, I suspected, years where Jay Allison had kept me prisoner. Itried to juggle dates in my mind, looked at a calendar, and got such amental jolt that I put it face-down to think about when I was a littledrunker.
I wondered if my detailed memories of my teens and early twenties werethe same memories Jay Allison looked back on. I didn't think so. Peopleforget and remember selectively. Week by week, then, and year by year,the dominant personality of Jay had crowded me out; so that the youngrowdy, more than half Darkovan, loving the mountains, half-homesick fora non-human world, had been drowned in the chilly, austere young medicalstudent who lost himself in his work. But I, Jason--I had always beenthe watcher behind, the person Jay Allison dared not be? Why was he pastthirty--and I just 22?
A ringing shattered the silence; I had to hunt for the intercom on thebedroom wall. I said, "Who is it?" and an unfamiliar voice demanded,"Dr. Allison?"
I said automatically, "Nobody here by that name," and started to putback the mouthpiece. Then I stopped and gulped and asked, "Is that you,Dr. Forth?"
It was, and I breathed again. I didn't even want to think about what I'dsay if somebody else had demanded to know why in the devil I wasanswering Dr. Allison's private telephone. When Forth had finished, Iwent to the mirror, and stared, trying to see behind my face the sharpfeatures of that stranger, _Doctor_ Jason Allison. I delayed, even whileI was wondering what few things I should pack for a trip into themountains and the habit of hunting parties was making mental lists aboutheat-socks and windbreakers. The face that looked at me was a youngface, unlined and faintly freckled, the same face as always
except thatI'd lost my suntan; Jay Allison had kept me indoors too long. Suddenly Istruck the mirror lightly with my fist.
"The hell with you, Dr. Allison," I said, and went to see if he had keptany clothes fit to pack.
* * * * *
Dr. Forth was waiting for me in the small skyport on the roof, and sowas a small 'copter, one of the fairly old ones assigned to MedicalService when they were too beat-up for services with higher priority.Forth took one startled stare at my crimson shirt, but all he said was,"Hello, Jason. Here's something we've got to decide right away; do wetell the crew who you really are?"
I shook my
The Planet Savers Page 4
