The ingravity parachute resembled a metal harness, with pads to protect the body where the pressure was greatest. It had power attachments, but they were for maneuvering sideways during the fall. The slowest rate of fall ever clocked was approximately five miles per hour, which meant that the device had an efficiency of slightly better than ninety per cent.
Accordingly, it rivaled the electric motor, the steam turbine, the atomic drive for spaceships, and the suction pump as a “perfect” machine. By pressing the proper power buttons, Gosseyn had no trouble landing squarely on the balcony that led into Patricia Hardie’s apartment. He would have liked to pay the Games Machine a visit first, but that was out of the question. The Machine would be guarded like the crown jewels of olden days. But nobody would think of his coming back to the palace—he hoped.
He took the slight blow of the landing with bended knees and came up like a boxer, on his toes. The parachute was a zipper affair; one tug and he was out of it. He lowered it swiftly but quietly to the floor. And then he was at the French doors. The doors opened with a thin, sharp click. Gosseyn didn’t worry about the sound.
His plan was based on speed and on a very clear memory of where Patricia Hardie’s bed had been located. He had been undecided as to exactly how he should treat her. She might believe that he had killed her father; and here, now, on the scene, with the decision no longer to be postponed, he realized he had to take that possibility into account.
He pinned her down in the bed and put his hand over her mouth. He gagged her, tied her, then drew back and switched on the light. He looked down at her and said, “Sorry if I was rough with you.”
He was sorry. But there was more behind the words than that. As soon as he had located and rendered harmless the Distorter, he hoped to effect his escape from the palace with her help.
He saw that her eyes were fixed on a point behind him. Gosseyn whirled. From the doorway Eldred Crang said, “I wouldn’t try anything.”
His hazel eyes glowed with reflected light. He stood at ease, flanked by two men with blasters. Gosseyn put up his hands as Crang spoke again.
“It was very foolish of you, Gosseyn, to think an airplane could fly directly over the palace tonight. However, I have a surprise for you. Prescott was released a little while ago, and he called up. On the basis of his report, I have persuaded Thorson to let me handle you in my own way.”
Gosseyn waited, but the first hope was on him. Crang, the secret null-A, had
“It struck us some little while ago that whoever planted you on us that first time didn’t care whether or not you were killed. In fact, we believe that after your extra brain was discovered it was intended that you be put to death. Promptly, you were brought onto the scene a second time, this time on Venus, to accomplish another limited objective. I won’t tell you what it was, but I assure you that you accomplished it. Once more, however, the person behind you seemed unconcerned with your personal welfare. The conclusion is inescapable. There must be a third Gosseyn body waiting to come to life as soon as the second body is out of the way.”
He smiled. His eyes shone like fire. “This man who is behind you, Gosseyn, has quite a problem. It is obvious that he would not dare to have two living bodies out at one time. For one thing, it would be too complicated; for another, it has dangerous possibilities of each body developing other duplicates of itself, with each duplicate as egotistical and powerful as the others. You can see where that might lead.”
Crang shook his head slightly.
“Thorson argued that we should hold you prisoner, but I maintain that death or imprisonment are but facets of the same thing. And that either would be the signal for the appearance of Gosseyn III. We don’t want that. And if we don’t kill you, then no one else will except you yourself—or some other agent of the invisible chess player.
“Accordingly, we have decided to release you unconditionally, in the belief that you will protect yourself from harm.”
He hadn’t expected that. Just what he should hope for he couldn’t decide. Not freedom. He had been trying to gauge the limitations of Crang’s position, and even to wonder why Crang, a null-A supporter, would oppose the coming of Gosseyn III. The abrupt announcement, favorable from his own point of view, puzzling from Crang’s, caught him by surprise.
“You’re going to
“The charges against you,” said Crang in a precise voice, “are being dropped. All police stations are being notified to that effect. At this moment you are free. Nothing that you, with your undeveloped brain, can do matters to us. It is too late to interfere with our plans. You may tell anybody you please anything you please.”
He turned. His manner was easy but not friendly. “Guards,” he said, “take this man up to his apartment, see that he gets breakfast, and fit him with suitable street clothes. Let him remain in the palace till about nine o’clock, but he can leave earlier if he desires.”
Gosseyn allowed himself to be led away. He dared not speak to Patricia and dared not thank Crang for fear that Thorson might be listening in. Day was bright though still misty over the city of the Machine as Gosseyn emerged into the open shortly after nine o’clock.
XX
Excitation rather than inhibition is important in correlation because from what has been said it appears that so far as is known, inhibition is not transmitted as such. The existence of inhibitory nervous correlation is, of course, a familiar fact, but in such cases the inhibitory effect is apparently produced not by transmission of an inhibitory change but by transmission of an excitation, and the mechanism of the final inhibitory effect is obscure.
Out on the street, Gosseyn said softly to himself, “Somebody will be following me. Thorson won’t just let me wander off into remoteness.”
He was the only person who got on the bus at the head of the street. He watched the gray pavement slide away behind the machine. About two blocks to the rear was either a black or blue coupe; he couldn’t be sure of the color. He sighed as it turned into a side street and disappeared from sight. A very fast car came from the far distance beyond the palace and raced past the bus, which was stopping for a woman. She paid him no attention, but he kept his surreptitious gaze on her until she got off after twenty blocks or so.
“Maybe,” he decided, “they’ve guessed where I’m going—first the hotel, then the Games Machine.”
At the hotel, where the first Gosseyn had left his possessions, including some two hundred dollars in paper money, the clerk said, “Sign here, please.”
Gosseyn hadn’t thought of that. He took the pen, a vision of jail looming up. He signed with a flourish, and then smiled to himself as he realized what an almost nerveless person he had become.
He watched the clerk disappear into a back room. Half a minute later the man emerged with a key.
“You know the way to the vault,” he said.
Gosseyn did. But he was thinking, “Even my signature’s the same, an automatic sameness.” The explanation for such identity had better be good.
He spent ten minutes rummaging through the suitcases. It was the three suits he was interested in. He had, he remembered, set the thermostat on one of them at 66° Fahrenheit, whereas normal for him was 72.
As he had recalled, two of the readings were 72, one was 66. He took off the clothes that had been given him at the palace and put on one of his own suits. It fitted perfectly. Gosseyn sighed. In spite of everything, it was hard to accept the similarity between himself and a dead man.
He found his money where he had laid it, between the leaves of one of his books. He counted off seventy- five dollars in tens and fives, put the suitcases back in the vault, and returned the keys to the desk. Out on the
