Locks bit his lip and rolled his eyes. “I don’t think so. Under other circumstances, I’d take them out at night and try to get outside the search area before daylight came. We could make ten miles on foot even with the children along. But if any of us got caught, well, they’ve seen you. And I don’t know where we could hide you. If you went with us, you wouldn’t be able to get on the train for L.A. It’s very important, though not vital, that you do. Also, we couldn’t give them your duplicate, and so they wouldn’t call off the hunt.”
Locks grinned with pain. “The Decider reeks of indecision.”
“We can have our cake and eat it, too,” Duncan said. “If you want to take the chance, but anything we do is chancy.”
He told Locks the plan that had formed in his mind like crystals precipitating while Locks had been talking. They argued quietly for a while, not so much because Locks was against it as to work out the problems. Then Locks, satisfied that Duncan’s idea had more possibility for success than the others, called the band around him. He explained what he wanted it to do. There were more arguments and some strong protests. Eventually, after an hour and a half of wrangling, he did what he seldom did. He put it to a vote, and the majority were for Duncan’s plan, though many were not enthusiastic.
“Very well,” Locks said. “We won’t wait until the organics get very close. We’ll do it now, take our time, clean up the place and do everything that’s necessary.”
That unsettled some of the band, and there were more protests. Faced with acting at once, the realization of their helplessness while the scheme was being carried out struck them hard. They could do as Locks wished but surely not right now. Wait a while.
“No!” Locks said loudly. “Damn it, no! We might not have the time to make you look like the others. We have to make us look as dusty as them and put dust on the floor, too. That’ll take time and care. We can’t predict just when the organics will get to this place. They might come tomorrow. They might get the bright idea that we have come here, and they’ll leapfrog, send a unit here.”
Though some still grumbled, all obeyed. Duncan went with a crew to haul Dong and Crossant out of the cave and up the shaft to the facility. Then they had the unpleasant task of destoning the two. They were rendered unconscious immediately by squirts of the truth mist and taken to the latest facility. The wheeled robots from the unloading area were used to transport their bodies. Dong and Crossant were laid out on forms that adjusted them so that they would stand upright when they were stoned. The forms were slid into a horizontal stoner, and power was applied. The bodies were removed by the robots’ pincer-tipped arms and carried back to the old facility.
Meanwhile, half of the band, chosen by drawing lots, had been stoned by the other half. Robots then placed the rigid and cold bodies in gaps in the rows. Evidently, at various times in the past, some stones had been removed, though for what reason was unknown. Sinn and Bedeutung returned from the ionic rooms behind one end of the facility with bags of dust scraped off the collectors. They proceeded with the delicate job of putting just enough dust on the newly stoned.
“Damn, this is complicated,” Locks said. “I hate complicated plans. One step goes wrong, and the whole structure falls down. Simple is best.”
“Agreed,” Duncan said. “But simple is out.”
Padre Cob and the beautiful Fiona returned from the new facility with the ID plates they had made in the new facility. They hung these around the necks of the bodies, and Sinn and Bedeutung blew dust on the plates.
“If the organics are fiendishly thorough,” the padre said, “and if they check out every plate against the records, they’ll expose the fraud. We’ll be sunk.”
“They won’t do that,” Duncan said. “They’ll be looking for living beings. They’ll know we’ve been here, no way of covering that up, but they’ll think we fled.”
By then, Locks and two others came back from the data bank office. The Decider said, “I erased all records of the use of the computer, and we cleaned up the place, wiped off all prints.”
When the time came for Locks to be stoned, he put his hands together in front of his chest and bowed. “So long, Bill. I’ll be seeing you.”
“If all goes well,” Duncan said. He shut the cylinder door and pressed the POWER button on the box behind the cylinder. The only living being in the vast and silent building, he got onto the platform on the robot’s rear and pushed the button that initiated the program. The long arms of the robot raised as it rolled forward. Its pincers closed on the immensely heavy body of Locks inside the cylinder, lifted it, and withdrew it. Turning its wheels, the robot carried the body to a gap in a row and deposited it standing. Duncan punched the rest of the instructions to the machine. Having already set the timing on the box connected to the cylinder power cable, he entered the stoner and closed the door. For six seconds, he stared out the round window. The robot was waiting. It would open the door, remove him, and place him in the gap in the row designated as SSF-1-X22-36. There he would stand, the fake ID card around his neck, until the robot, per instructions, returned six days from now. It would open the door of the stoner designated SSSF-413B, then go to Duncan, lift him, carry him to the cylinder, insert him, and close the door. That should be at 6:30 P.M. next Wednesday. At 7:00 P.M. the timer on the box would turn on the destoning power. And he would step out and begin the work of destoning the others.
After the machine had put Duncan in the proper place, it would lift the box, full of dust, from the platform in front of it and would sprinkle the dust over Duncan and over the tracks it had made. It would continue to do this until it entered the new facility, where there was no noticeable dust. Before it rejoined the other robots in their storage place, it would put the dust box in a shelf in another storage room.
Duncan was not even aware that the power had come on and he had been unconscious for six days. Eyes still open, he stared out the window at the robot a few feet from the door. Its square green body with the round many-eyed head and whirling antenna atop it was advancing now. Its arm reached out, and the door swung open. He stepped out, muttering, “Either it’s OK, or the robot is screwed up.”
“ZY,” he said. “What is the date and the time of day?”
A digital display on the “belly” of the robot flashed: WED D7-W1 MO VAR 7 p.
Wednesday, Day-Seven, Week-One, Month (of) Variety 7:00 P.M.
So, either the organics had not gotten here yet, in which case they might enter at any moment, or they had come and gone. A glance at the many footprints on the floor showed him that they had been here.
Ignoring the dust on himself—the robot had put on too much—he swiftly checked that the others in the band had been undisturbed. He expected that they would, since, if one had been found, all of them would. But he had to make sure. Having ascertained that they were still standing in their proper places, he walked through the warehouse and through two others to the new facility. This he went into cautiously, because, for all he knew, the organics could be unloading another shipment of stonees. All was quiet, however, and a swift exploration of the offices showed that these were also unoccupied.
On his way back to the oldest facility, he stopped before the stonee named Snick. What in hell bothered him about her? What made his curiosity rise like undigested food in his throat? The logical answer was that he had known her, and not slightly. Logic then demanded that he revitalize her and find out what was scratching at some door in his mind.
Not now. He had a lot to do in a short time.
10
“They plugged it up all right,” Padre Cob said.
He, Duncan, and Locks were standing by the trap door opening onto the shaft. The square hole was filled with a whitish solid substance.
“What do we do now?” the giant said. “Our food supply is gone, and so’s our escape route.”
“The storeroom has plenty of food,” the Decider said. “But if they should make a recheck sweep, we’ve no place to hide. It won’t matte
r for a while, anyway. We’re moving out tonight.”
“You changed your mind?” the padre said.
“Yes. We can’t stay cooped up here. It’s getting on everybody’s nerves.”
Locks sent four people to destone the amount of food and medical supplies needed for ten days. When they came back, he explained what he had in mind for the band. Some objected because they were exposing themselves to capture.
“Sure,” he said. “But when aren’t we? As soon as the organics find Duncan’s body—his duplicate’s, I mean—they’ll go back to normal routine. Meanwhile, we’ll be holed up elsewhere, and we’ll be able to get out into the open, breathe the fresh air, roam the woods, shoot the state’s deer, enjoy life day to day as God decreed it.”
“Until we get caught,” someone muttered.
“That’s the dressing on the salad of life,” Padre Cob said. “The piquancy of danger. Where else can you get it but in the wilds?”
Later, when Duncan and Locks were in the data bank office, the latter said, “I think time is running out on us. One of these days, one or more of us is going to get fed up with this way of living. We’re not as happy as we all pretend, you know, and someone’s going to surrender to the ganks. Once that’s done, the rest of us won’t have long. The worst part of it is that the ganks will know all about you then. The hunt will be on again.”
“I know,” Duncan said. “But what else can we do?”
Locks had turned off the computer after getting his final instructions from his informant. He rose from the chair and said, “The weather is almost what we ordered. Let’s make sure everything’s ready and we’ve left no evidence of having been here.”
In two hours, the seven who had made the first raid on the biolab would make the second. Having some time to spare, Duncan went to the new facility and stood for a while before Panthea Snick. Her face was stirring up something in him, a faint pleasure. Behind that, he was sure, was a stronger feeling. Of what? Whatever it was, it could only be determined by awakening her. He was still thinking of this when the group left the new facility. The sharp immediacy of the mission cut out all thoughts of her. He walked head down through a strong wind. As on the first raid, the only lights were those from the building windows. Following the same route, the seven entered the biolab and stationed the same guards as before. Locks erased the data concerning the growing of Product HBD-10X-TS-7° and entered the orders for its removal by Wednesday. Thus, when Thursday awoke, it would find this data in the diurnal-exchange bank. This was limited to those transfers of information which were extremely important.
Wednesday would get a separate order saying that Thursday had removed the duplicate. The danger was that someone might investigate and expose the double entries, but this was not likely to happen. Who in one day cared what the other day did if it seemed legitimate and did not interfere with the smooth operation of one’s own day?
By the time that Locks was finished with the computer, the still-alive but unconscious duplicate had been lifted from the vat by the overhead crane, put into a shower to wash off the fluid, dried, clothed, and put into a bodybag. This bag had been brought from the facility because a missing bag from the biolab stores might cause an investigation.
When he looked upon his own not-quite-dead face, Duncan felt somewhat remote, as if both he and the corpse were not a part of reality.
“That’s not the face I see in the mirror,” he muttered. “It has nothing to do with me.”
Nevertheless, he was relieved when the bag was zipped up to the duplicate’s nose.
After the fluid that had dripped on the floor was mopped up, two men carried the body out on a stretcher that had been brought from the warehouse. Duncan was the first through the door to the outside because, for some reason, he felt personally responsible for the duplicate. It was as if he was conducting his own soul to hell. Just as he swung the door out, he saw through the window a figure advancing toward him. It was a few feet away, lit by the interior light, vague in the darkness and the rain. Beyond it were some flashing red and orange lights.
The man wore a transparent slicker that was so thin that it could be folded and put easily inside a shirt pocket. It could be opened very quickly by pulling on both sides to break the weak magnetic hold. This took only a second, but Duncan had slammed against the door to open it and had run out by the time the man had the slicker unlocked. The organic also had to unstrap the holster before he could snatch out the proton gun. He was just bringing it up when Duncan’s head slammed into his chin. They went over, Duncan on top. He reared up and chopped the man in the neck with the side of his hand. The second blow had probably not been needed; the man was limp and silent.
Locks was by then beside the two. He bent over and said, “What the hell is he doing here?”
Duncan stood up, his head hurting slightly. “He’s an organic.” He pointed at the small canoe-shaped two-man aircraft hovering a foot above the ground, its lights flashing. “I don’t know what he was doing here, but he must have been returning late from a patrol. He saw the lights here and came down to investigate. But he couldn’t have been too suspicious or he’d have had his gun ready.”
The others had by then arrived. The two men lowered the stretcher to the ground. Sinn said, “What do we do now? This sure tears it!”
The Decider stood while the rain beat upon him, chewing his lip and staring into the darkness as if the answer was walking toward him from the night.
Duncan dropped to one knee and felt the man’s pulse. When he rose, he said, “He’s still alive.” He spoke to Locks. “We could put him in a stoner. He won’t be able to tell his story before next Wednesday. By then… No, that won’t work. He’ll tell what he saw, they’ll investigate. They’ll find out what we did.”
Sinn said, “He has to be shut up. Permanently.”
“Kill him?” Duncan said.
“Or stone and hide him.”
Duncan could see the pitfalls abounding in this idea. He said, slowly, “No. He has to be killed.”
There was silence for a moment.
Duncan was the first to speak. “It has to be done. It also has to look as if he saw me—my duplicate, I mean—and went after me and in the struggle we killed each other. And it has to be some miles from here.”
“Well,” Locks said, “I hate it, but, as you say, we have no choice. However, how will it be explained? What was he doing so far away from here? He surely must have reported in that he was done with whatever he was supposed to do and was heading for home base.”
That was easily checked by running the tape on his radio set. Sinn opened the canopy over the front seat of the aircraft, reached in, touched the controls, and started the recording. It was as Locks had said. The organic, Second-Class Patroller Lu, had reported to HQ that he was now coming home. His night probes had failed to find any signs of the refugee Duncan.
By the time that the recording was finished, the organic’s arms and legs had been bound and his mouth gagged. Duncan said, “Fortunately, he didn’t report the lights in the biolab. Run the coordinates again, Sinn, where he last called in from. The plane has to be found near there.”
Locks, his voice lined with asperity, asked Duncan what he had in mind. Evidently, he was troubled because Duncan seemed to be taking over. His inability to see a way out of their predicament must also have made him angry at himself.
“I’ll have to fly the plane to that area,” Duncan said. “I’ll take the duplicate and Lu along. And I’ll have to set it up so that it looks as if I—the duplicate—jumped him. I’ll have to kill both of them.” He paused. “Unless somebody else volunteers for the job.”
As he had known, no one wanted it. After a few seconds, he said, “Is that OK with you, chief?”
“It’s the best we can do,” Locks said. “In one way, we’re lucky. We won’t have to carry the duplicate for five or so miles in the dark and rain and then walk back. It’ll take you a few minutes to get five miles from here. I suggest you
arrange this…matter…near the road. You can follow it back; you know your way from here. We’ll go back to the facility. The fewer there are of us outside, the better.”
The padre had been silent until now. He said, “Is there no way we can avoid murder? It’s against all my principles…”
“When you became an outlaw, you signed up to kill if you had to,” Duncan said. “If you don’t, you endanger everybody. Yes, it has to be done.”
“Very well,” the giant said. “But I insist on giving Lu the last rites before you take him away. The…other, too.”
“Jesus Christ, man!” Locks said. “Every second we stay here, we increase the danger! Besides, that thing has no soul!”
“You don’t know that,” Padre Cob said. “I insist. You may go on if you wish.” He opened the little black bag he carried and drew from it a crucifix and some objects the names and uses of which Duncan did not know.
Duncan checked out the cockpit instruments while waiting for the priest to finish the ritual. He was irked, but he would be wasting time arguing with Cabtab. He knew how stubborn the man could be. What irritated him most was that Patroller Lu was not a Catholic or of any religion. Anybody who practiced a religion was automatically barred from membership in the police force or in any government position. No matter. Padre Cob would administer the rites to Satan himself if Satan were unconscious. Duncan would not have put it past Cabtab to knock out the devil to prevent his protests.
Duncan looked at the panel chronometer. Wednesday’s people had gone into the cylinders. In ten more minutes, Thursday’s would be stirring.
After what seemed a long time, the padre’s broad serious face appeared by Duncan. “It’s done. May they find enlightenment when they arrive at the Great There.”
Duncan did not ask him where There was. He said, “See you, Padre. You’d better get the hell out of here.”
“Be sure to confess your awful sin when you get back!” the priest cried as the plane lifted up. “I can’t give you absolution unless you sincerely repent: But who is going to absolve me?”