“It doesn’t matter. The secret’s in you and we know how to use it. All right, now I’m going to give you some tests, and I want you to tell me exactly what comes into your mind. The instruments will check on it, so lying won’t do any good. Ready?”
It went on and on, while new shifts came in. The clock on the wall indicated only an hour, but it might have been a century, when Obanion sighed and turned his work over to another.
Expeto’s thoughts were reeling. He grabbed the breather gratefully, let his head thump back. There must be a way.
“What day is this?” he asked. At their silence, he frowned. “Cooperate means both working together. I’ve been doing my part. Or is it too much to answer a sun-pie question?”
The new man nodded slowly. “You’re right. You deserve some answers, if I can give them without breaking security. It’s June eighth, nineteen ninety-one—eleven p.m.”
It checked with figures that had appeared in the back of his mind, ruining the one theory he’d had. “The President is William Olsen?”
The doctor nodded, killing the last chance at a theory. For a time, he’d thought that perhaps the aggressive countries had won, and that this was their dictatorship. If he’d been injured in a war… but it was nonsense, since no change had occurred in his time sense or in the administration.
“How’d I get here?”
The doctor opened his mouth, then closed it firmly. “Forget that, Expeto. You’re here. Get this nonsense of a past off your mind—you never had one, understand? And no more questions. We’ll never finish in less than three hours, as it is.”
Expeto stood up slowly, shaking himself. “You’re quite right. You won’t finish. I’m sick of this. Whatever I did, you’ve executed your justice in killing the me that was only a set of memories. And whatever I am, I’ll find for myself. To hell with the lot of you!”
He expected zep-guns to appear, and he was right. The walls suddenly opened hi panels, and six men with guns were facing him, wearing the oppressive khaki. But something hi him seemed to take over. He had the doctor in one arm and a zep-gun from the hand of a major before anyone else could move. He faced them, waiting for the bullets that would come, but they drew
back, awaiting orders. Expeto’s foot found the door, kicked at it; the lock snapped.
Obanion’s voice cut through it all. “Don’t! No shooting! Expeto, I’m the one you want. Let Smith go, and I’ll accompany you, until you’re ready to let me go. Fair enough?”
Smith was protesting, but the doctor cut him short. “My fault, since I’m responsible. And the Government be damned. I’m not going to have a bunch of good men killed. His reaction’s too fast. We can learn things this way, maybe better. All right, Expeto—or do you want to kill them?”
Expeto dropped the gun a trifle and nodded, while the emotions in his head threatened to make him blank out. He knew now that he could never kill even one of them. But they apparently weren’t as sure. “Take me outside, and you can go back,” he told Obanion.
The doctor wiped sweat from his forehead, managed a pasty smile and nodded. Surprisingly, he stepped through a different door, and down a short hall, where men with rifles stood irresolutely. Then they were outside.
Obanion turned to go back, and then hesitated. Surprisingly, he dropped an arm onto Expeto’s shoulder. “Come on back inside. We can understand you. Or… All right, I guess you’re going. Thanks for taking my offer.”
The door closed, and Expeto was alone. Above him, most of the building was dark, but he saw a few lighted windows, and some with men and women working over benches and with equipment. There was no sign of beds. All right, so it was some Government laboratory.
The most important monster in the world, the useful paranoiac they’d saved by amnesia. The monster they intended to persecute back to paranoia, in hopes he’d recover his memory, and the secret they wanted. Let them have the secret—but let him have peace and quiet, where his brain could recover by itself. Then he’d gladly give it to them. Or would he? Would he really be a monster again? Or might he learn the strange reason for there being men and women, the puzzle which seemed so simple that the woman had felt mere contact would solve it?
Funny that there were so many sciences, but no science of life—or was there? Maybe he’d been such a scientist—psychology, zoology, biology, whatever they’d call it from the Greek. Maybe the secret lay there, and it had completely burned out that part of his mind.
Then he heard the sound of a motor and knew they weren’t going to let him go. He wasn’t to have a moment of freedom they could prevent. He swung about sharply, studying the horizon. There were lights and a town. There’d be people, and he could hide among them.
He whipped his legs into action, driving on at a full run. The light of the moon was barely enough for him to see the ground clearly, but he managed a good deal more speed than the hallways had permitted. He heard the car behind on the road he found, and doubled his speed, while the sound of the motor slowly weakened as the distance increased.
He breathed easier when he hit the outskirts of the town, and slowed to a casual walk, imitating the steps of a few people he saw about. This was better. In the myriad of streets and among the countless others, he would be lost. The only trouble was that he was on a main street, and the lights would give him away to anyone who knew him.
He picked up a paper from a waste receptacle, and moved off to the left, seeking a less brilliantly lighted street. Now and again he glanced at the print, looking for some trace. But aside from the news that his mind recognized as normal for the tunes, there was nothing on any mysterious, all-important person, nor on anyone who was either a monster or a savior.
Ahead of him, a lone girl was tapping along on the sidewalk. He quickened his step, and she looked back, making the identity complete as her tiny bolero drifted back in the breeze to expose all but the tip of her breasts. She hesitated as he caught up with her, looking up uncertainly. “Yes?”
She couldn’t know the answers. Obviously she had never seen him. How could she tell him what he wanted to know?
“Sorry, I thought you were someone else. No, wait. You can tell me something. Where can I find a place to stay?”
“Oh. Well, the Alhambra, I guess.” She smiled a little. “Back there—see where the sign is?”
She brushed against his arm as she turned, and a faint gasp sounded. Her hand suddenly contracted on his bare skin, then jerked back sharply, while she began stepping slowly away.
“No!” It was a small wail as he caught her shoulder. Then she slumped against him, wilting as he pulled her toward his face. He released her, to see her fall down in a sagging heap.
For a moment, the sickness in him rose in great waves, undulating and horrible as he dropped beside her. But when he felt the pulse in her hand still beating, it left. He hadn’t killed her, only frightened her into unconsciousness.
He stood there, tasting that.
And finally he turned about and headed for the Alhambra. There was nothing he could do for her; she’d recover, in time, and it would be better if she didn’t see him there. Then maybe she’d decide it was all a fantasy.
He watched a streak mount the horizon bitterly, remembering that the men had been discussing the two bases on the moon in the room where he’d first heard voices. They could face war, such as the rocket he saw being prepared, raining down in hell bombs from a quarter of a million miles, and only fear it vaguely. But he could drive someone senseless by touching her!
He found the night clerk busy watching a television set with the screen badly adjusted to an overbalance of red, and signed the register with the full name he’d hoped once was his. George Expeto, from—make it from New York. It wouldn’t matter.
“Twenty dollars,” the clerk told him.
Dollars? He shook his head slowly, trying to think.
Something about dollars and cents. But it made no sense.
The clerk’s eyes were hard. “No dough, eh? O.K., try to fool someone else. No baggage, no dough, no room. Scram.”
