Anything You Can Do!

incubito cum puella est_.

  Sometimes a man is aware of the holes in his memory. ("What was the nameof that fellow I met at Eddie's party? Can't remember it for the life ofme.") At other times, a memory may lay dormant and unremembered, leavingno apparent gap, until a tag of some kind brings it up. ("That girl withthe long hair reminds me of Suzie Blugerhugle. My gosh! I haven't thoughtof her for years!") Both factors seemed to be operating in Bart Stanton'smind at this time.

  Incredibly, he had never, in the past year at least, had occasion to tryto remember much about his past life. He had known who he was withoutthinking about it particularly, and the rest of his knowledge--language,history, politics, geography, and so on--had been readily available forthe most part. Ask any educated man to give the product of the primes 2,13, and 41, or ask him to give the date of the Norman Conquest, and he cangive the answer without having to think of where he learned it or whotaught it to him or when he got the information.

  But now the picture and the name in the paper had brought forth a reactionin Stanton's mind, and he was trying desperately to bring the informationout of oblivion.

  Did he have a mother? Surely--but could he remember her? _Yes!_ Certainly.A pretty, gentle, rather sad woman. He could remember when she had died,although he couldn't remember ever having attended the funeral.

  What about his father?

  He could find no memory of his father, and, at first, that bothered him.He could remember his mother--could almost see her moving around in theapartment where they had lived ... in ... in ... in Denver! Sure! And hecould remember the building itself, and the block, and even Mrs.Frobisher, who lived upstairs! And the school! A great many memories camecrowding back, but there was no trace of his father.

  And yet....

  Oh, of _course_! His father had been killed in an accident when Martinbartwere very young.

  _Martinbart!_

  The name flitted through his mind like a scrap of paper in a high wind,but he reached out and grasped it.

  Martinbart. Martin-Bart. Mart 'n' Bart. Mart _and_ Bart.

  The Stanton Twins.

  It was curious, he thought, that he should have forgotten his brother. Andeven more curious that the name in the paper had not brought him instantlyto mind.

  Martin, the cripple. Martin, the boy with the radiation-shattered nervoussystem. The boy who had had to stay in a therapy chair all his lifebecause his efferent nerves could not control his body. The boy whocouldn't speak. Or, rather, _wouldn't_ speak because he was ashamed of thegibberish that resulted.

  Martin. The nonentity. The nothing. The nobody.

  The one who watched and listened and thought, but could do nothing.

  Bart Stanton stopped suddenly and unfolded the newspaper again under theglow of the street lamp. His memories certainly didn't gibe with _this_!

  His eyes ran down the column of type.

  "... Mr. Martin has, in the eighteen months since he came to the Belt, run up an enviable record, both as an insurance investigator and as a police detective, although his connection with the Planetoid Police is, necessarily, an unofficial one. Probably not since Sherlock Holmes has there been such mutual respect and co-operation between the official police and a private investigator."

  The was only one explanation, Stanton thought. Martin, too, had beentreated by the Institute. His memory was still blurry and incomplete, buthe did suddenly remember that a decision had been made for Martin to takethe treatment.

  He chuckled a little at the irony of it. They hadn't been able to make asuperman of Martin, but they _had_ been able to make a normal andextraordinarily capable man of him. Now it was Bart who was the freak, theodd one.

  _Turn about is fair play,_ he thought. But somehow it didn't seem quitefair.

  He crumpled the newspaper, dropped it into a nearby waste chute, andwalked on through the night toward the Neurophysical Institute.

  XII

  INTERLUDE

  "You understand, Mrs. Stanton," said the psychiatrist, "that a great partof Martin's trouble is mental as much as physical. Because of the natureof his ailment, he has withdrawn, pulled himself away from communicationwith others. If these symptoms had been brought to my attention earlier,the mental disturbance might have been more easily analyzed and treated."

  "I'm sorry, Doctor," said Mrs. Stanton. Her manner betrayed weariness andpain. "It was so--so difficult. Martin could never talk very well, youknow, and he just talked less and less as the years went by. It was sogradual that I never really noticed it."

  _Poor woman_, the doctor thought. _She's not well, herself. She shouldhave married again, rather than carry the whole burden alone. Her role asa doting mother hasn't helped either of the boys to overcome the handicapsthat were already present._

  "I've tried to do my best for Martin," Mrs. Stanton went on unhappily."And so has Bart. When they were younger, Bart used to take him out allthe time. They went everywhere together. Of course, I don't expect Bart todo that so much any more; he has his own life to live. He can't takeMartin out on dates or things like that. But when he's home, Bart helps mewith Martin all the time."

  "I understand," said the doctor. _This is no time to tell her thatBartholomew's tests indicate that he has subconsciously resented Martin'spresence for a long time. She has enough to worry about._

  "I don't understand," said Mrs. Stanton, breaking into sudden tears. "Idon't understand why Martin should behave this way! Why should he just sitthere with his eyes closed and ignore us both?"

  The doctor comforted her in a warmly professional manner, then, as hertears subsided, he said: "We don't understand all of the factorsourselves, Mrs. Stanton. Martin's reactions are, I admit, unusual. Hisbehavior doesn't quite follow the pattern that we usually expect from suchcases as this. His physical disability has drastically modified the courseof his mental development, and, at the same time, makes it difficult forus to make any analysis of is mental state."

  "Is there _any_thing you can do, Doctor?"

  "We don't know yet," he said gently. He considered for a moment, thensaid: "Mrs. Stanton, I'd like for you to leave both the boys here for afew days, so that we can perform further tests. That will help us a greatdeal in getting at the root of Martin's trouble."

  She looked at him with a little surprise. "Why, yes, of course. But ...why should Bart stay?"

  The doctor weighed his words carefully before he spoke.

  "Bart is our control, Mrs. Stanton. Since the boys are geneticallyidentical, they should have been a great deal alike in personality if ithadn't been for Martin's accident. In other words, our tests of Bart willtell us what Martin _should_ be like. That way we can tell just how muchand in what way Martin deviates from what he should ideally be. Do youunderstand?"

  "Yes. Yes, I see. All right, Doctor--whatever you say."

  After Mrs. Stanton had left, the psychiatrist sat quietly in his chair andstared thoughtfully at his desk top for several minutes. Then, making hisdecision, he picked up a small book that lay on his desk and looked up anumber in Arlington, Virginia. He punched out the number on his phone, andwhen the face appeared on his screen, he said: "Hello, Sidney. Look, Ihave a very interesting case out here that I'd like to talk to you about.Do you happen to have a telepath who's strong enough to take a meshingwith an insane mind? If my suspicions are correct, I'll need a man with animpregnable sense of identity, because he's going to get into the weirdestsituation I've ever come across."

  XIII

  _Pok! Pok! Ping!_

  _Pok! Pok! Ping!_

  _Pok! Pok! Ping!_

  The action in the handball court was beautiful to watch. The robotmechanism behind Bart Stanton would fire out a ball at random intervalsranging from a tenth to a quarter of a second, bouncing them off the wallin a random pattern. Stanton would retrieve the ball before it hit theground, bounce it off the wall again to strike the target on the movingrobot. Stanton had to work against a machine; no ordinary human beingcould have given him any competition.
>
  _Pok! Pok! Ping!_

  _Pok! Pok! Ping!_

  _Pok! Pok! PLUNK._

  "One miss," Stanton said to himself. But he fielded the next one nicelyand slammed it home.

  _Pok! Pok! Ping!_

  The physical therapist who was standing by glanced at his watch. It wasalmost time.

  _Pok! Pok! Ping!_

  The machine, having delivered its last ball, shut itself off with a smugclick. Stanton turned away from the handball court and walked toward thephysical therapist, who held out a robe for him.

  "That was good, Bart," he said, "real good."

  "One miss," Stanton said as he shrugged into the robe.

  "Yeah. Your timing was a shade off there, I guess. But you ran a fullminute over your previous record."

  Stanton looked at him. "You re-set the timer again," he said accusingly.But there was a grin on his face.

  The P.T. man grinned back. "Yup. Come on, step into the mummy case." Hewaved toward the narrow niche in the wall of the court, a niche just bigenough to hold a standing man. Stanton stepped in, and various instrumentpick-ups came out of the walls and touched his body. Hidden machinesrecorded his heartbeat, blood pressure, brain activity, muscular tension,and several other factors.

  After a minute, the P.T. man said, "O.K., Bart; let's hit the steam box."

  Stanton stepped out of the niche and accompanied the therapist to anotherroom, where he took off the robe again and sat down on the small stoolinside an ordinary steam box. The box closed, leaving his head free, andthe box began to fill with steam.

  "Did I ever tell you what I don't like about that machine?" Bart asked asthe therapist draped a heavy towel around his head.

  "Nope. Didn't know you had any gripe. What is it?"

  "You can't gloat after you beat it. You can't walk over and pat it on theshoulder and say, 'Well, better luck next time, old man.' It isn't a goodloser, and it isn't a bad loser. The damn thing doesn't even know it lost,and if it did, it wouldn't care."

  "I see what you mean," said the P.T. man, chuckling. "You beat the pantsoff it and what d'you get? Not even a case of the sulks out of it."

  "Exactly. And what's worse, I know perfectly good and well that it's onlyhalf trying. The damned thing could beat me easily if you just turned thatknob over a little more."

  "You're not competing against the machine, anyway," the therapist said."You're competing against yourself, trying to beat your own record."

  "I know. And what happens when I can't do _that_ any more, either?"Stanton asked. "I can't just go on getting better and better forever. I'vegot limits, you know."

  "Sure," said the therapist easily. "So does a golf player. But everygolfer goes out and practices by himself to try to beat his own record."

  "Bunk! The real fun in _any_ game is beating someone else! The big kick ingolf is in winning over the other guy in a twosome."

  "How about crossword puzzles or solitaire?"

  "Solve a crossword puzzle, and you've beaten the guy who made it up. Insolitaire, you're playing against the laws of chance, and even that canbecome pretty boring. What I'd like to do is get out on the golf coursewith someone else and do my best and then lose. Honestly."

  "With a handicap...." the therapist began. Then he grinned weakly andstopped. On the golf course, Stanton was impossibly good. One long driveto the green, one putt to the cup. An easy thirty-six strokes for eighteenholes; an occasional hole-in-one sometimes brought him below that, anoccasional worm-cast or stray wind sometimes raised his score.

  "Sure," Stanton said. "A handicap. What kind of handicap do you want on ahandball game with me?"

  The P.T. man could imagine himself trying to get under one of Stanton'slightning-like returns. The thought of what would happen to his hand if hewere to accidentally catch one made him wince.

  "We wouldn't even be playing the same game," Stanton said.

  The therapist stepped back and looked at Stanton. "You know," he saidpuzzledly, "you sound bitter."

  "Sure I'm bitter," Stanton said. "All I get is exercise. All the fun hasgone out of it." He sighed and grinned. There was no point in worrying theP.T. man. "I'll just have to stick to cards and chess if I wantcompetition. Speed and strength don't help anything if I'm holding twopair against three of a kind."

  Before the therapist could say anything, the door opened and a tall, leanman stepped into the fog-filled room. "You are broiling a lobster?" heasked the P.T. blandly.

  "Steaming a clam," came the correction. "When he's done, I'll pound him tochowder."

  "Excellent. I came for a clam-bake," the tall man said.

  "You're early then, George," Stanton said. He didn't feel in the mood forlight humor, and the appearance of Dr. Yoritomo did nothing to improve hishumor.

  George Yoritomo beamed, crinkling up his heavy-lidded eyes. "Ah! A talkingclam! Excellent! How much longer does he have to cook?"

  "Twenty-three minutes, why?"

  "Would you be so good as to return at the end of that time?"

  The therapist opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and said:"Sure, Doc. I can get some other stuff done. I'll see you then. I'll beback, Bart." He went out through the far door.

  * * * * *

  After the door closed, Dr. Yoritomo pulled up a chair and sat down. "Newdevelopments," he said, "as you may have surmised."

  "I guessed," Stanton said. "What is it?" He flexed his muscles under thecaress of the hot, moist currents in the box.

  He wondered why it was so important that the psychologist interrupt himwhile he was relaxing after strenuous exercise. Yoritomo looked excited,in spite of his calm. And yet Stanton knew that there couldn't be anythingurgent or Yoritomo would have acted differently.

  It was relatively unimportant now, anyway, Stanton thought. Having madehis decision to act on his own had changed his reaction to the decisionsof others.

  Yoritomo leaned forward in his chair, his thin lips in an excited smile,his black-irised eyes sparkling. "I had to come tell you. The sheer, utterbeauty of it is too much to contain. Three times in a row was almostabsolute, Bart; the probability that our hypothesis is correct wascomputed as straight nines to seven decimals. But now! The fourth time!Straight nines to _twelve_ decimals!"

  Scanton lifted an eyebrow. "Your Oriental calm is deserting you, George.I'm not reading you."

  Yoritomo's smile became broader. "Ah! Sorry. I refer to the theory we havebeen discussing--about the memory of the Nipe. You know?"

  Stanton knew. Dr. Yoritomo was, in effect, one of his traininginstructors. _Advanced Alien Psychology,_ Stanton thought; _SeminarCourse. The Mental Whys & Wherefores of the Nipe, or How to Outthink theEnemy in Twelve Easy Lessons. Instructor: Dr. George Yoritomo._

  After six years of watching the recorded actions of the Nipe, Yoritomo hadevolved a theory about the kind of mentality that lay behind the fourbaleful violet eyes in that alien head. Now he evidently had proof of thattheory. He was smiling and rubbing his long, bony hands together. ForGeorge Yoritomo, that was the equivalent of hysterical excitement.

  "We have been able to predict the behavior of the Nipe!" he said. "For thefourth time in succession!"

  "Great. But how does that fit in with that rule you once told me about?You know, the one about experimental animals."

  "Ah, yes. The Harvard Law. 'A genetically standardized strain, underprecisely controlled laboratory conditions, when subjected to carefullycalibrated stimuli, will behave as it damned well pleases.' Yes. Verytrue.

  "But an animal could not do otherwise, could it? Only as it pleases. Andit could not please to behave as something it is not, could it?"

  "Draw me a picture," Stanton said.

  "I mean that any organism is limited in its choice of behavior. A hamster,for instance, cannot choose to behave in the manner of a Rhesus monkey. Adog cannot choose to react as a mouse would. If I prick a rat with aneedle, it may squeal, or bite, or jump--but it will not bark. Never. Norwill it leap up to a trapeze,
hang by its tail, and chatter curses at me.Never.

  "By observing an organism's reactions, one can begin to see a pattern. Ifyou tell me that you put an armful of hay into a certain animal'senclosure, and that the animal trotted over, ate the hay, and brayed, Ican tell you with reasonable certainty that the animal has long ears. Doyou see?"

  "You haven't been able to pinpoint the Nipe that easily, have you?"Stanton asked.

  "Ah, no. The more intelligent a creature is, the greater its scope ofaction. The Nipe is far from being so simple as a monkey or a hamster. Onthe other hand--" He smiled widely, showing bright, white teeth. "--he isnot so bright as a human being."

  "_What!?_ I wouldn't say he was exactly stupid, George. What about allthose prize gadgets of his?" He blinked. "Wipe the sweat off my forehead,will you? It's running into my eyes."

  * * * * *

  Dr. Yoritomo wiped with the towel as he continued. "Ah, yes. He is quitecapable in that respect, my friend. It is his great memory--at once hisfinest asset and his greatest curse."

  He draped the towel around Stanton's head again and stepped back, his faceunsmiling. "Imagine having a near-perfect memory."

  Stanton's jaw muscles tightened.