Anything You Can Do!

narrow and the upper armbones weren't articulatedproperly for such a blow. He could throw a mean hook, but he had to get inclose to deliver it.

  On the other side of the coin was the fact that the Nipe knew plenty abouthuman anatomy--from the bones out. Stanton's knowledge of Nipe anatomy wasalmost totally superficial.

  He wished he knew if and where the Nipe had a solar plexus. He would liketo punch something soft for a change.

  Instead, he tried for another eye. He danced in, jabbed and danced outagain, The Nipe had ducked again, taking it on the side of his head.

  Then the Nipe came in low, at an angle, trying for the groin. For histroubles, he got a knee in the jaw that staggered him badly. One graspinghand clutched at Stanton's right thigh and grasped hard. Stanton swung hisfist down like a pendulum and knocked the arm aside.

  But there was a slight limp in his movement as he back-pedaled away fromthe Nipe. That full-handed pinch had hurt!

  Stanton was angry now, with the hot, controlled anger of a fighting man.He stepped in and slammed two fast, hard jabs into the point of theNipe's snout, jarring the monster backwards. This time, it was the Nipewho scuttled backwards.

  Stanton moved in to press his advantage and landed a beaut on the Nipe'slower left eye. Then he tried a body blow. It wasn't too successful. Thealien had an endoskeleton, but he also had a hide that was like somewhatleathery chitin.

  He pulled back, out of the way of the Nipe's judo cuts.

  His fists were beginning to hurt, and his leg was paining him badly wherethe Nipe had clamped on to it. And his ribs--

  And then he realized that, so far, the Nipe had only landed one blow!

  _One punch and one pinch,_ he thought with a touch of awe. _The only otherdamage he's inflicted has been to my knuckles!_

  The Nipe charged in again, then he leaped suddenly and clawed forStanton's face with his first pair of hands. The second and third pairschopped in toward the man's body. The last pair propelled him off thefloor.

  Stanton stepped back and let him have a right just below the jaw, wherehis throat would have been if he'd been human.

  The Nipe arced backwards in a half-somersault and landed flat on his back.

  Stanton backed up a little more, waiting, while the Nipe wriggled feeblyfor a moment. _The Marquis of Queensbury should have lived to see this,_he thought.

  The Nipe rolled over and crouched on all eight limbs. His violet eyeswatched Stanton, but the man could read no expression on that inhumanface.

  "_You did not kill._"

  For a moment, Stanton found it hard to believe that the hissing, gutturalvoice had come from the crouching monster.

  "_You did not even_ try _to kill._"

  "I have no wish to kill you," Stanton said evenly.

  "_I can see that. Do you ... Are you...._" He stopped, as if baffled."_There are not the proper words. Do you follow the Customs?_"

  Stanton felt a surge of triumph. This was what George Yoritomo had guessedmight happen!

  "If I must kill you," he said carefully, "I, myself, will do the honors.You will not go uneaten."

  The Nipe sagged a little, relaxing all over. "_I had hoped it was so. Itwas the only thinkable thing. I saw you on the television, and it was onlythinkable that you came for me._"

  Stanton blinked, stunned. What was the Nipe thinking? But, of course, heknew. And he saw that even his brother's return had been a part of theplan.

  "_I knew you were out in the asteroids,_" the Nipe went on. "_But I haddecided you had come to kill. Since you did not, what are your thoughts,Stanley Martin?_"

  "That we should help each other," Stanton said.

  It was as simple as that.

  XVII

  Stanton sat in his hotel room, smoking a cigarette, staring at the wall,and thinking.

  He was alone again. All the fuss, feathers, and fooferaw were over.Farnsworth was in another room of the suite, making his plans for acomplete physical examination of the Nipe. Yoritomo was having the time ofhis life, holding a conversation with the Nipe, drawing the alien out andgetting him to talk about his own race and their history. And Mannheim wasplotting the next phase of the capture--the cover-up.

  Stanton smiled a little. Colonel Mannheim was a great one for planning,all right. Every little detail was taken care of. It sometimes made hisplans more complex than necessary, Stanton suspected. Mannheim tended totry to account for every eventuality, and, after he had done that, hewould set aside reserves here and there, just in case they might be usefulif something unforeseen happened.

  Stanton got up, walked over to the window, and looked down at the streetsof Government City, eight floors below.

  All things considered, the Government had done the right thing. And, inpicking Mannheim, they had picked the right man. What would the averagecitizen think if he knew the true story of the Nipe? If he discoveredthat, at this very moment, the Nipe was being treated almost as an honoredguest of the Government? If he suspected that the Nipe could have beenkilled easily at any time during the past six years?

  Would it be possible to explain that, in the long run, the knowledgepossessed by the Nipe was tremendously more valuable to the Race of Manthat the lives of a few individuals?

  Could those people down there, and the others like them all over theworld, be made to understand that, by his own lights, the Nipe had beenacting in a most civilized and gentlemanly way he knew? Would they seethat, because of the priceless information stored in that alien brain, theNipe's life had to be preserved at any cost?

  Dr. Yoritomo assumed that Mannheim would spread a story about the Nipe'sdeath--perhaps even display a carefully-made "corpse". But Stanton had thefeeling that the colonel had something else up his sleeve.

  The phone rang. Stanton walked over, thumbed the answer stud, and watchedDr. Farnsworth's face take shape on the screen.

  "Bart, I just saw the tapes of your fight with the Nipe, Incredible! I'mgoing to have them run over again, slowed down, so that I can see whatwent on, and I'd like to have you tell as best you can, what went on inyour mind at each stage of the fight."

  "You mean right now? I have an appointment--"

  Farnsworth waved a hand. "No, no. Later. Take your time. But I am honestlyamazed that you won so easily. I knew you were good, and I knew you'd win,but I honestly expected you to be injured."

  Stanton looked down at his bandaged hands, and felt the ache of his brokenrib and the blue bruise on his thigh. In spite of the way it looked, hehad actually been hurt worse than the Nipe had. That boy was _tough_!

  "The trouble was that he couldn't adapt himself to fighting in a new way,"he told Farnsworth. "He fought me as he would have fought another Nipe,and that didn't work. I had the reach on him, and I could maneuverfaster."

  "It looked to me as though you were fighting him as you would fightanother human being," Farnsworth said.

  Stanton grinned. "I was, in a modified way. But _I_ won--the Nipe didn't."

  Farnsworth grinned back. "I see. Well, I'll let you know when I'm readyfor your impressions. Probably tomorrow some time."

  "Fine."

  * * * * *

  He walked back over to the window, but this time he looked at the horizon,not at the street.

  Farnsworth had called him "Bart". It's funny, Stanton thought, how habitcan get the best of a man. Farnsworth had known the truth all along, andnow he knew that his patient--_former_ patient--was aware of the truth.And still, he had called him "Bart".

  _And I still think of myself as Bart,_ he thought. _I probably alwayswill._

  And why not? Martin Stanton no longer existed--in fact he had never hadmuch of a real existence. He was only a bad dream; only "Bart" was real.

  Take two people, genetically identical. Damage one of them so badly thathe is helpless and useless--and always only a step away from death. It isinevitable that the weaker will identify himself with the stronger.

  The vague telepathic bond that always links identical twins (they "thinkalike
", they say) becomes unbalanced under such conditions. Normally,there is a give-and-take, and each preserves the sense of his ownidentity, since the two different sets of sense receptors give differentviewpoints. But if one of the twins is damaged badly enough something musthappen to the telepathic link. Usually, it is broken.

  But the link between Mart and Bart Stanton had not been broken. It hadbecome a one-way channel. Martin, in order to escape the prison of his ownbody, had become a receptor for Bart's thoughts. He felt as Bart felt--thethrill of running after a baseball, the pride of doing something cleverwith his hands.

  In effect, Martin ceased to think. The thoughts in his mind were Bart's.The feeling of identity was almost complete.

  To an outside observer, it appeared that Martin had become a catalepticschizophrenic, completely cut off from reality. The "Bart" part of him