Planet in Peril (16 page)

“A glass for Uncle Hiram? You find me one, Sara?” While Sara was getting it,
Dinkuhl
picked up the two already filled. He gave one to Charles; the other he held in his hand, holding it with his palm cupped above it. When Sara came back, he gave it to her, and took the glass she brought and poured out a tot for himself.

“To all honest men,” he said. He bowed to Sara. “And honest women.”

She coughed a little as she drank. “What is it?”

“All right? Liqueur grappa. I have a source.”

She smiled. “A good one, I should say.”

“All my sources are.”
Dinkuhl
considered her speculatively. “You know something? Charles here has been telling me he’s disappointed in you. He thinks you’re lying down on the job. He—”

Charles stepped across to stand in front of
Dinkuhl
. He said tightly:

“I don’t know what’s got into you, Hiram. But, for the last time, lay off. Lay off!”

Dinkuhl
said: “You know, I never met Sara. But I know enough about her to know she wouldn’t have needed your help in a slanging match, Charlie.” To Sara, he said: “Well, honey?”

She said uncertainly: ‘1 feel dizzy.”

Dinkuhl
took her gently round the shoulders. “Come and lie down, honey. You need rest. Easy now. Couch over here.”

He got her on to the couch, and made her comfortable. She shook her head, as though trying to shake off cobwebs.

Dinkuhl
said: “You’re going to sleep, honey.”

His voice was significant, and as though in response she jerked up. “You mean
…
? The drink!”

Charles demanded: “Just what have you been doing?”
Dinkuhl
said gently: “What’s your name, honey? Before you go to sleep, what’s your name?”

Her speech was becoming slurred; unable to sustain the effort she had made, she sank back again. “Sara
Koupal
. You know—”

Dinkuhl
shook his head. “No. Not that. Your real name.”

She tried to speak again, but it was beyond her. For a brief moment she looked at them in agony and fear, and then her eyes closed, and she was unconscious. Charles had rushed over to her, and he sat beside her now, holding her limp hand. He turned to look up at
Dinkuhl
.

“Something good, Hiram. It had better be something good.”

Dinkuhl
said: ‘Don't think
I’m
happy. I wasn't happy when I told Burt, either. That was why I put the question to you the last time I was over. I could see you were happy with the girl, and it made it hard. It was a relief that you should make it so clear things were worrying you, when I came this time. They were, weren't they?”

Charles felt that anger, and every other positive emotion, had been drained from him. He looked at Sara's quietly breathing body. Sara's? A Sara surprisingly unhelpful in the work, a Sara he could almost think of as trying to cover up her own ignorance. The doubts that he had dammed up were now flooding around him; his thoughts bobbed like chips on the tide.

Dinkuhl
said: “You see, I had had access to those UC Contact Section reports—they included Sara's
psychoplan
. A wench of spirit. But even if that line hadn't been so strongly marked, it was still reasonable that a girl who showed herself so clearly to be interested in you should have had a different reaction to me. The first time I came over here, I clowned, I made snide remarks. She took them, like a little woolly lamb. It wasn't right, Charlie. It wasn't right for a normal girl, and it was very wrong for one with a
psychoplan
like Sara’s.”

Charles looked at him, and back to the girl's figure.

“You mean, they've done something to her? What? And why, in God's name?”

“That isn't Sara, Charlie. It never was Sara.”

Charles shook his head. “I know her. It's Sara. Her voice alone—"

Di
nkuhl
bent over the girl. He pulled the neck of her tunic down a fraction, and pointed. There was a line on the skin, barely visible, perhaps an inch long.

“
Gannery's
operation. Re-formation of the vocal cords. You can get precision with it and I guess this job was a precision job."

“How did you know that would be there?"

“It had to be. I knew she was a phony. You remember the time she'd been showing that blueprint-thing on the wall screen? You took her off to show her the diamond polishing bench. I had a look in her little room while you were away. She had been copying that sketch from a
photostat
of the original that Sara did. Why should she need to copy, unless it was because she wasn’t Sara at all? They had primed her well, but you can't prime a person with years of scientific experience.”

Charles stared at the motionless girl. “I can’t believe it. That little scar ... it could be something else."

Dinkuhl
stood beside him. “You remember being Charlie Macintosh, Charlie? Macintosh was a real guy —works at an obscure GD station in South Africa. Would have been a laugh if you'd met up with him. Burt went to some trouble to pick him: he had to be someone who matched you closely, but with extra flesh at all points. You can build up; you can't whittle down. He had full cheeks, while you have thin ones."

He paused, gazing at the face of the girl who had been Sara. “An interesting face. Good-looking, but not precisely beautiful. The temples bulging a little just above the brow line. Unusual, that."

From his pocket,
Dinkuhl
took a small knife; he flipped the catch and the sapphire blade leapt out, gleaming dully. Charles watched in fascination as he bent down toward the unconscious face. He heard himself saying: “Stop . . !” With a deft motion,
Dinkuhl
sliced the girl's flesh at the base of the forehead.

He held up a strip of flesh that he had cut away. There was no bleeding from the incision. The cut had laid bare not flesh but plastic. Now, beyond any doubt, Charles knew he had been loving a mask.
Dinkuhl
tossed the strip into a disposer; he walked away from the girl, and leaned against a bench on the opposite side of the room. He looked at Charles.

“Well, Charlie boy? What’s it going to be?”

Charles said dully: “You tell me. How do you expect I should know?”

“People are always entitled to be told the truth. No, I’m not riding you, Charlie. I’m not the strictly monogamous type, but I can guess how bad it is. This way, though,
it’s
quick. You would have had to find out sooner or later. They still operate on the assumption that scientists are dumb. Hell, you were finding out already. It was better this way.”

Charles shook himself. He saw the truth of
Dinkuhl’s
statements, but that still didn’t make it easy to act on them. To find that he had been deceived in this way was somehow worse than when he had thought Sara killed. He looked up at
Dinkuhl
, almost in inquiry.

“Raven?”

“Just a fine old Southern gentleman. Ledbetter was no more than peanuts. Raven’s good. All these tricky arrangements made on the assumption that they were going to get you away from Telecom. We only made it easier for him by arranging the break ourselves. Raven’s the kingpin, all right. You’ve reached the managerial top, Charlie. You can’t go higher. This is where they put gloves on before they reach for their knives.”

Charles looked at
Dinkuhl
helplessly. “What’s the best thing to do? I should like to see Raven. Is that silly?”

“No. Not at all silly. Inevitable, I should say.” He glanced around the lab. “I should hazard a guess that the usual precautions are in operation. Even if they aren’t, I can think of easier things than just walking out of a place like this. The air of casualness has, to my mind, a somewhat studied look.”

"I guess so. That kind of crook doesn’t take chances” “Don’t be bitter, Charlie—not about individuals. It doesn’t pay any percentage.”
Dinkuhl
raised his head slightly. There was the sound of a door sliding open in the lobby. “A visitor. Red-handed. In this same country, and besides, the wench is not dead.”

It was Raven himself. He stopped just inside the door. His bright amused eyes took in the tableau—
Dinkuhl
leaning against the bench, Charles still sitting on the couch beside the girl’s recumbent body.

Raven said: “Good morning, Mr.
Grayner
. And Mr.
Dinkuhl
.” He peered toward the girl. “The lady would appear to be indisposed.”

Automatically, Charles said: “Good morning, sir.”
Dinkuhl
leaned back a little further. He drawled:

“I guess the lady drank something that disagreed with her. Would there be any objection to your introducing her to us, Director, so we shall know whom to apologize to?”

Dinkuhl
watched with bland unconcern as Raven walked across to the couch, and bent down to examine the girl. Raven straightened up again a moment later, and looked at them both.

“Would you gentleman object if I were to arrange for Miss Levine to be taken away and put properly to bed? I doubt if she is likely to recover her faculties for some hours yet.”

Charles did not say anything.
Dinkuhl
nodded.

“Go right ahead. It’s your home territory. We should appreciate it to have Miss Levine attended to.”

Raven went across to the
callscreen
. They heard him asking for two stretcher-men. Then he switched off and turned his attention back to them. He said:

“This has been rather unfortunate. I had hoped it would be delayed for some time—a few more weeks, at any rate. But we must put up with events as they fall out.”

“Life,”
Dinkuhl
said gravely, “is like that. I hope you
will arrange to convey our regrets to Miss Levine when she wakes up. She will understand it was
nothing
personal.”

Raven said: “And you, Mr.
Grayner
? Your regrets as well?”

The implication was obvious, and Charles resented it. But he was prevented from saying anything immediately by the arrival of the stretcher-men. They put the girl gently on to the stretcher. Raven said: “To her rooms, please, and then get a nurse for her.”

Charles felt Raven watching him while the little procession left the room. He said, as the door slid closed behind them:

“A lot of regrets, Director. But they are all concerned with being made a fool of. No regrets about finding the truth out. Assistant Levine was doing her duty, I guess. No one’s fault if it came out this way.”

“If we must use these titles,” Raven said softly, “we should use the right ones. Manager Levine. An exceptionally brilliant and talented young lady, and we are very proud of her.”

“With the views I now hold of Atomics,” Charles said bitterly, “that fails to surprise me.”

‘Tour views are understandable. They would be understandable even if you had no
t had the benefit of Mr.
Dinkuhl’
s
tutelage. But I hope they will not be permanent. You are an intelligent man, Mr.
Grayner
—that is not flattery, but a statement germane to the situation. Mr.
Dinkuhl
is also of high intelligence, but his intellect is hampered by his emotions; particularly by that overriding urge to destruction, which is so marked a feature of his attitude toward society. I have discussed this point with you before.”

Dinkuhl
said lazily: “That’s me. Samson, with each arm around a pillar.”

Charles said: “You convinced me that Hiram had taken an unreasonably pessimistic view. But part of the conviction at least was from believing that you, and Atomics, represented something higher than the others.”

“To my great regret,” Raven said, “I felt obliged to give you that somewhat exaggerated impression of my personal integrity. It was made necessary by the experiences you had already undergone. I should like you to believe that I would have preferred to be frank with you or, since I could not be frank, dishonest in the normal human fashion.”

“You can tell the truth?”

“From this time on, Mr.
Grayner
, I shall use nothing else with you. There would be no point.”

Charles said: “Where is Sara
Koupal
? Who has her?” “I do not know. We have looked very hard and we have not found her—neither her nor
Humayun
. You can imagine that we have spared no efforts to find both of them. They may be dead. It is a conclusion to which the absence of any information is tending to force us. You see that I am being frank now, Mr.
Grayner
.”

“Are you?”
Dinkuhl
asked. “Or could you be trying to persuade Charlie that he might as well make do with a near-miss? Another dab of plastic, and Miss Levine's as good as new.”

“No, Mr.
Dinkuhl
,” Raven said. “You misjudged me. I was being frank. You are putting things in their worst aspect though I will admit to hoping that Mr.
Grayner
may overcome his present resentment against Miss Levine. But that was not in my mind at that time.” He glanced at Charles. “Miss Levine took this duty on with great reluctance. She accepted the task only on my personal plea, and because she was the one person available who could be made to resemble Miss
Koupal
physically, and at the same time be capable of deceiving you for a time on points of personality and technical skill. Her failure—for I'm afraid it was failure—in this latter is a pointer to its difficulty. No one else could have done it anywhere near as well.”