To Live Again and the Second Trip: The Complete Novels

  Noyes realized that he had just made use of his New England heritage to justify an act of murder.

  So be it, he told himself. So be it.

  The decelerating rockets whined. They were landing in New York. Kravchenko, mocking as always, set up a clamor of derision as Noyes moved his hand away from the carniphage. But Kravchenko, Noyes knew, could not have followed the complex inner processes of decision-making. The persona was simply trying to keep him off balance and unsettled. It was not really in Kravchenko’s interest to goad him into actually drinking the carniphage; merely to get him so rattled that he’d be vulnerable to the sudden swift strike of a counter-erasure, the violent ejection by a triumphant dybbuk.

  He wondered how he was going to find Martin St. John.

  He could not simply look him up in the master directory. St. John was an Englishman, and wouldn’t be listed here. Of course, Santoliquido would know where St. John was staying. But Noyes wanted to avoid tipping his hand to Santoliquido. It was too obvious that Roditis had an interest in getting Paul Kaufmann out of his present carnate form, and if Roditis’ known confederate Noyes were suddenly to begin making inquiries about St. John, any chance Noyes might have of gaining access to St. John would disappear.

  Noyes decided to ask Elena.

  Elena seemed to know everything about everyone. She was at the center of the nexus, tentacles reaching toward Mark Kaufmann on the one hand, toward Santoliquido on the other, toward Noyes on the third. And she still had a tentacle or two left to extend in Roditis’ direction. She’d be a likely source of information.

  She had a small apartment registered in her own name in New Jersey. Noyes scarcely expected to find her there, but it was the logical place to begin. He called from the airport and was surprised to find her answering.

  Her privacy code appeared on the screen. Noyes identified himself. The screen cleared, and Elena came into view. She was nude, but the scanner cut her off at the breasts, and in any case the tiny screen in the booth did not give him much of a view.

  “I’ve just come back from a visit to Roditis,” he said. “In Indiana.”

  “You told him about—”

  “St. John? Yes.”

  “He must have been furious!”

  “Actually, he was quite cool about it,” Noyes said. “He seemed to be expecting some sort of fast shuffle of that kind, and he was braced. Listen, Elena, how soon can I get to see you?”

  “Why not right now?”

  “You’re free this evening?”

  “Very much so. Would you like to take me to Jubilisle again?”

  “No,” he said. “I’d just like a quiet visit. There are—some questions I’d like to ask.”

  “Questions, questions, questions! Very well. Come to my apartment. When should I expect you?”

  “How about an hour from now?”

  “That will do.” She tapped out the hopter program for reaching her house, fingers moving swiftly over the data keys. An instant later the program card came chuttering out of the data slot in Noyes’ telephone booth. He seized it and blew her a kiss. Grabbing his one suitcase, he rushed up the ramp and stepped into a traveler’s-aid station, where he underwent a vibrator bath while his clothes were being pressed and refurbished. Freed of the grime of his journey from Indiana, Noyes proceeded toward the hopter zone, pausing on the way for a short snack. He chartered a hopter and slipped Elena’s house program into the receptor slot. The vehicle took off, found itself hung up momentarily in a delay pattern over the crowded airport, then discovered an exit vector and made its way toward New Jersey.

  He arrived at Elena’s place a little after nine that evening.

  Noyes had never been there before. His previous meetings with Elena had taken place at his apartment. He did not know what to expect: a place of palatial luxury, perhaps, or some steamy, overdecorated temple of amour. But in reality the apartment was nothing more than a pied-à-terre, as simple and austere as his own little suite. Despite Elena’s known predilections for opulence, she did not seem to require it here, perhaps because it served only as a way station for her on those rare nights when she was not sleeping out. Greeting him in diaphanous, swirling pink robes that did very little to hide the exaggerated voluptuousness of her body, Elena seemed like some overblown tropical blossom blooming in a humble northern meadow.

  They embraced tentatively and distantly. Elena evidently was ready for any kind of overtures he cared to make, but Noyes was too tense, too bound up in his own situation, to do more than go through a kind of ritualistic contact.

  They broke away. She offered drinks. He settled into a chair; she chose a divan. Her robes parted to reveal tawny thighs. Noyes wondered if, as a matter of strategy, he should respond to her wanton unvoiced invitation. Or was she only teasing him? He was well aware that in all their relationships she regarded him only as a surrogate for other men. Sexually, she reached through him to make love to Jim Kravchenko. And when she passed secret information to him about the doings of Mark Kaufmann or Santoliquido, it was in the hope of winning favor with Roditis.

  He said, “I need your help, Elena. I’m trying to find Martin St. John.”

  Her eyebrows rose. Her full lips drew apart. “Roditis is after him so soon?”

  Noyes made an effort to conceal his reaction. “I’d simply like to talk to the man.”

  “About what?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It might,” she said.

  Fidgeting, Noyes improvised. “All right. Roditis is interested in working out a deal with Paul Kaufmann. As long as old Kaufmann’s back in circulation and Roditis can’t have the persona himself, he’d like to come to an understanding with him. You see, Roditis is worried that Paul and Mark will form a family alliance to crush him. So he’d like to drive a wedge between them as rapidly as possible. Does that make sense to you?”

  “A great deal of sense.”

  “So I’ve been sent here to make contact with Kaufmann/St. John. Only I don’t know where to find him.”

  “And you think I do?”

  “If anyone does, you do. Certainly Santoliquido’s aware of St. John’s location, and probably Mark as well. You’re close to both of them. So—”

  “You’re right,” said Elena. “I do know.”

  “Will you tell me?”

  She stirred idly. Her robes opened, probably not by accident, and for a brief dazzling moment her entire body was bare to him. Noyes let his eyes rest on the huge globes of her breasts. She had mounted a fusion node in the great valley between them, and its tireless sparkle lulled him. Just as casually, Elena covered herself.

  Softly she said, “Perhaps I might tell you. But there would be a price, Charles.”

  “Name it. Any amount.”

  She laughed. “Not money. A favor.”

  “What?” he asked uneasily.

  “You carry the persona of a man who once meant a great deal to me,” Elena said. “You stand between me and that man, Charles. If I lead you to Martin St. John, you will step aside and make that man available to me. Yes? I can take you to St. John tonight.”

  “You mean I should have Kravchenko erased and let his persona be given to someone else?”

  “Not exactly,” she replied. “I mean that you should allow him to take you over. So that I may enjoy him directly in your body.”

  Noyes was thrown into such turmoil that Kravchenko nearly was able to eject him then and there. He struggled for control. Never had he experienced so direct a blow to his ego. Calmly, casually, Elena had invited him to commit suicide for her convenience! His ups worked incoherently. At length he said, “You have no right to ask that of me. It’s insane to think that I’d do any such thing!”

  “Is it? Why do you carry that flask of carniphage, then?”

  “Well—”

  “Your suicidal tendencies are well-known. Very well, Charles: here’s your moment. Be of some use. Restore Jim Kravchenko to the world he loves, and remove yourself from the world you h
ate. While at the same time fulfilling your obligations to Roditis by speaking with St. John. Yes? It is perfect, you see.”

  In a stunned silence Noyes contemplated the symmetry of Elena’s proposal. True enough, he had already contracted with himself to swallow the carniphage once he had done this last deed for Roditis. Elena seemed to recognize, somehow, that he had declared himself superfluous. In the long run, what difference did it make which exit he chose? To drink the carniphage would be a petty way of revenging himself on Kravchenko for many slights, but in short order Kravchenko’s persona would be in a new body, and what then of his revenge? This way, at least, he could graciously step aside and deliver up his body to Kravchenko, not for Kravchenko’s sake but for Elena’s.

  But yet it was so damned humiliating—to have a woman suggest that he voluntarily let his own persona go dybbuk. Did she really think he was as worthless as that? Yes. Yes, she did. He scowled. Perhaps, he thought, it was time for him to junk his old-line ideals and try a little craftiness. He could always promise to do as Elena wished, and change his mind afterward. The important thing now was to get at St. John.

  He said heavily, “You ask a stiff price.”

  “I know. But there’s logic to it. Isn’t there?”

  “Yes. Yes.” He paced about, clenching his fists. “All right,” he said. “Damn you, yes! Have your Kravchenko!”

  “A deal, then?”

  “A deal. Where is Martin St. John?”

  “He was taken to Mark Kaufmann’s Manhattan apartment.”

  Noyes gasped. “I should have known it. But I can’t see him there, Elena! I can’t walk right into Mark’s own house and—”

  “Mark went to California yesterday on business,” said Elena. “He won’t be back until tomorrow. His daughter’s still in Europe. There’s no one in his apartment but St. John and the servants looking after him. I’ll take you there now.”

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  She shed her robes with no trace of modesty while he watched, and selected light sprayon garments. They went out. The hopter journey to Manhattan was swift. Noyes felt as though trapped in a dream, with every event converging on a predestined climax with incredible rapidity and ease.

  At the door of Kaufmann’s apartment, Elena presented her thumb. The door did not open. She explained, “I don’t have instant-access privileges. The scanner reports that I’m here, and checks to see if there’s any order to bar me. In the absence of a specific order, I can come in.”

  “Why all the precaution?”

  “Mark sometimes has other women with him,” she said simply, as the door opened.

  Noyes had never been in Mark Kaufmann’s home before. It was elegant and spacious, with wings of rooms stretching to the sides and straight ahead. A blank-faced, snub-headed robot appeared. Elena said, “We’re here to visit Mr. St. John.”

  The robot ushered them into a bedroom of huge size, dark, decked with brocaded draperies rising from projectors at the baseboards along the floor. Tones of green, cerise, and violet played across the ceiling. Sitting propped up in bed was a weary-looking, blue-eyed young man with light yellow hair, sallow skin, a rounded nose, a weak chin. Noyes paused at the doorway.

  He realized, numbed, that he was in the presence of Paul Kaufmann.

  There was an electric moment of confrontation. The unprepossessing figure in the bed seemed to take on strength and intensity as though it were flowing to him from some inner reserve. The eyes brightened; the head rose; the chin jutted. Above the bed was mounted a solido portrait of Paul Kaufmann in late middle age, an imperious eagle of a man. Despite the total difference in physical appearance, the man in the bed suddenly had that same imperious look.

  “Yes?” he said. “Who are you?” The voice was cracked and unfocused; Paul Kaufmann, only hours into his borrowed body, had not yet mastered it.

  “My name is Charles Noyes. I believe you already know Elena Volterra.”

  “Noyes? Noyes of Roditis Securities?”

  “That’s right,” Noyes said. “You know me?”

  “It was my business to know the Roditis organization, yes. Well, what are you doing here? How did you get in? Roditis men don’t belong here.”

  “I brought him,” said Elena. “He asked to see you, and I owed him a favor.”

  “Take him away,” Kaufmann/St. John snapped. He waved his hand in what was meant as a gesture of dismissal; but his coordination was still poor, and his arm flapped in an awkward overswing that brought it slapping against the headboard.

  Elena looked stymied. She did not move.

  “Away,” came the petulant command. “Out of here. Out of here! I must rest. I’ve been through a great deal. If you knew what it was like to die, to awaken, to enter a strange body…” His words trickled away into incoherence. The Kaufmann dybbuk seemed exhausted by the effort of speaking. The brilliance and intensity vanished from the eyes as though a switch had been thrown; he was resting, regaining his powers.

  Elena said doubtfully, “If he doesn’t want to see you—”

  “He’ll give me five minutes,” Noyes told her. “Look, wait outside for me, yes? I won’t be with him long.”

  She nodded and left the room.

  Noyes did not pretend to himself that Elena would fail to comprehend what he was about to do. But he doubted that she would expose him. He closed the door carefully behind her.

  Kaufmann/St. John looked harsh and arrogant again. “I order you to leave!”

  Approaching the bed, Noyes said quietly, “Just a few minutes. I want to talk. Do you find it very confusing, coming back to the world? You expected to have to fight through to dybbuk, didn’t you? Not to have a body handed to you like this. You know, there was quite a dispute over who was going to be your carnate. Roditis was very anxious to get you. But Santoliquido flimflammed him by finding this empty body. Don’t you agree it might have been more interesting to wake up in Roditis’ skull?”

  As he spoke, Noyes steadily drew nearer the bed.

  Paul Kaufmann glowered at him. The flaccid muscles of his new face strained with the effort to rise and hurl the intruder from his room. But he could not do it.

  “If you don’t leave here at once—”

  “Can’t we discuss things peacefully?” Noyes asked. His long fingers enfolded the container of the cyclophosphamide-8 capsule. “Here. Have a drink of water. Let me tell you about a deal Roditis has in mind. A great profit opportunity.”

  He picked up a drinking glass in his left hand, filled it halfway with water, and began to bring the concealed capsule toward it. But it was no use. Those strange washed-out blue eyes moved twitchingly, taking in everything. Noyes realized he could not bring off the sleight-of-hand successfully. Kaufmann/St. John would guess what he was trying to do and would put up a fight, clumsily, perhaps, but effectively enough to spill the irreplaceable poison or to get the robot servitors into the room.

  Noyes could not afford to be subtle.

  He leaned toward the man in the bed. In a low voice he said, “You’ll be better off in a different carnate form.”

  “What do you—”

  As the lips parted, Noyes shot his hand forward, applied pressure to the lemon-colored box to open it, and sent the deadly capsule into his victim’s mouth. At the same time he pressed two forked fingers of his other hand against Kaufmann/St. John’s Adam’s apple. The man gulped. The capsule went down.

  There was scathing fury in the blue eyes.

  Kaufmann/St. John flailed impotently at Noyes with weak, badly coordinated arms. His hands wobbled as if about to fly from their wrists. But the face was a study in malevolence; all the full vitality of Paul Kaufmann was harnessed and hurled forth in a crescendo of frustrated rage and vindictive hostility. Clusters of muscles churned and spasmed beneath the surface of his cheeks. Exposed to that blast of hatred, Noyes recoiled, singed by the fire of this incredible old man.

  But then, within the minute, the discorporation began.

  Noyes watche
d only the beginning of it. Backing away from the bed, he saw the fire go out, saw the look of puzzlement and anguish appear. Strange internal events were commencing. The floodgates of the ductless glands had opened all at once, pouring forth an impossible mixture of secretions that mingled and reacted violently. The synchrony of heart and lungs was destroyed. The brain itself scorned the messages of its sensory perceptors. Instant by instant, the body of Martin St. John proceeded toward self-destruction.

  Noyes fled.

  Elena caught hold of him in the corridor outside. “Where are you going? What happened?”

  “Get a doctor,” Noyes burst out. “He’s sick—some kind of stroke, I don’t know—”

  “What did you do to him?”

  “We were just talking. He got angry. And then—”

  A wild, screeching groan came from the bedroom, a sound ripped from tortured and disintegrating vocal cords. Elena went in. She emerged only moments later, looking appalled.

  “You gave him a poison!” she cried.

  “No. I don’t know what happened. While I was with him, suddenly—”

  “Don’t lie. Roditis sent you here to kill him. And you told me you just wanted to talk to him!”

  “Elena—”

  With savage fury she pulled at him, tugging him out of the apartment. She seemed almost berserk with fear and shock. But in the fresh air she calmed; she had had a moment to digest the event, and her control had returned.