22 (AUG. 12, TUES.)
He who is wrapped in purple robes,With planets in His care,Had pity on the least of thingsAsleep upon a chair.
—William Butler Yeats
Maybe it was our high-class company, or maybe it was just that the Monolithians figured everything was going swimmingly for them. Whatever the reason, they treated us royally after Spookie Masters joined our little captive society.
The cuisine improved. Our jailers brought in cigarettes and cigars and fairly recent copies ofHarper'sandThe New Yorker. They rolled back a wall so Joy Linx could have a private bedroom and handed out blankets all around. They even brought in typewriters and stacks of copy paper. It was all quite cozy, except that we were still prisoners and that none of our captors ever spoke to us.
Spookie came out of the bathroom, wiping leftover lather off his face, and said, "What are they doing? I don't want to settle down here. We've got to find a way to bust out of this joint."
"Now," Rod said, "if that isn't an ace-high, triple-plated, razzle-dazzle idea, I've never heard one." He was having a second cup of our breakfast coffee. "And just how do you think we should carry out your splendid plan, Mr. Masters?"
"Cut it out, Rod," Spookie said. "I know I talk big. But have we explored all the possibilities? I suppose you've gone over this room with a fine-tooth comb, but how about Joy's? Maybe there's some way out from there."
"Miss Linx is still enjoying her beauty sleep," Rod said. "But it's a thought. Let's rout her out."
But the door opened and Joy said, "I heard that, you fiends. First respectable night's sleep I had, too, since I was thrown in among you great big leering men."
"Don't lump me in with these raffish reporters, ma'am," Spookie said. "I'm the soul of honor."
"I treat that remark with the doubt it deserves," Joy said. "But all this gay banter aside, men, I've been tinkering with a thought. Were you watching when they opened up the wall to make my room? Well, I was. There was a certain way our woolly friend touched the wall. Maybe if we felt around on the other side in here...."
We gave the wall a thorough going-over, fingering it, rapping on it and occasionally kicking it in frustration. Just as we were about to give up, it rolled back, revealing another room, bare except for some crates. There was a door to the corridor and Spookie went to it quickly. It opened easily and he peered out through a crack.
"Nobody out there," he said. "Let's go!"
I had opened the only one of the crates whose lid wasn't fastened down. It was filled nearly to the top with flat, black boxes about the size of a paperback book. I had no idea what they were but slipped several into my jacket pockets before following the others into the corridor.
It was still empty after we'd slunk quite a distance from our plush prison. We went down the spiral ramp, trying to head back to the press room, on the theory that we'd be safer among our own kind—though it was obvious now that every Earthman aboard was at the mercy of the Monolithians. Rod had our story and his chief interest at the moment was finding a way to file it to Earth uncensored.
Spookie went first, then Rod, followed by Joy. I brought up the rear.
I hadn't tied my shoes and they were flopping against the bare floor, making a racket. I stopped to tie them and the others disappeared around the bend.
Before I could catch up with them a Monolithian had caught me.
For a fraction of a second I didn't recognize him. He'd come up quietly behind me and just stood there until I noticed him.
"Hello, Sam," he said. "No, don't get up."
I remained on one knee and automatically finished the knot I was making as I looked up.
The fraction of a second over, I saw who it was. Me.
I tried to think of something to do or say, but all I could do was stare in fascination. He looked just a trifle wrong, but again I realized almost immediately that this was only because I was seeing not the mirror image I was used to, but an exact, unreversed duplicate.
He was looking at me with an almost hypnotic stare. My mind began to falter, like a car engine with bad cylinders.
"Up now, but slowly," my Monolithian duplicate said. He didn't seem to be armed. He was dressed exactly as I was, in jacket and slacks.
I got to my feet, unable to look away from his eyes.
"You are powerless to do anything except what I tell you," he said. It was true. I was only half thinking now, my attention concentrated on this superbly confident other self of mine. Somewhere among the missing cylinders, however, was my recollection that this was the creature who had taken my place in bed with Mae. My head hurt at the thought, coupled with his proximity. I longed to take him by the neck and throttle him until he was dead, dead, dead. But I was powerless to move except as he directed.
Then Joy came back around the bend behind him. I threw myself against him and he fell off balance. She had only a few seconds to take in the situation. She swung up her handbag and gave him a good clout on the head. He crumpled to the floor. She hit him again, on the downswing, and the sharp metal corner of her bag banged into his skull. He was out.
"Thanks, Joy. You're a lifesaver."
"Maybe," she said. "If we don't get out of here we'll both be more like wads of second-hand chewing gum. What are youdoing?"
I'd pulled my unconscious image to a sitting position against the wall of the corridor and was going through his pockets.
"Little identity switch," I told her.
He had nothing at all in his inside breast pocket, but there was a clip-on pencil and a small notebook in his shirt pocket. I exchanged them for the little notebook and clip-on pencil I keep in the same place. I exchanged wallets, too, not without a pang for the eighty-odd dollars in expense money that was in mine. I put off examining his. For good measure I switched the handkerchiefs we both carried in our right hip pockets and the few coins in the change pockets of our jackets.
"Looks like a fair exchange," Joy said. "Now what? Can't we hurry up?"
"Where are the others?"
"I don't know. I came back when I missed you."
I found a door that opened and pulled my duplicate into the room. It was an empty cabin, obviously unused. I propped him against a chair and Joy said, "Shall I give him another whack?"
"No, let's just leave him. We don't want to kill the guy. He looks as if he'll be out for quite a while."
We decided to head for the landing stage. On the way I asked Joy about something that had been puzzling me: "Just how did you know which one of us to hit?"
She thought for a moment. "Intuition, I guess. You were the one who was attacking—using physical violence—so you couldn't have been the Monolithian. He would have been armed with one of his super weapons. I didn't really think about it." She looked at me and said, apparently only half-jokingly, "Youareyou, aren't you?"
My head was beginning to throb again. "I hope so."
We reached the big open area near the landing stage.
"This is where we have to look very matter-of-fact," I told Joy. "I have a small hunch. Just play it by ear."
There were only a few people near the transparent airlock. All but one of them wore the Monolithian woolen cloaks. I didn't recognize the man dressed in Earth clothing. He certainly wasn't one of the reporters.
Joy and I tried to stroll nonchalantly toward the airlock. I had only the vaguest of plans for finding out as subtly as possible when the next flight—if any—left for Earth.
One of the cloaked men came toward us. He smiled. "Mr. Kent?"
"That's right."
"Your ID card, please."
I handed him the wallet I'd appropriated. He unfolded it and looked for a long few seconds at the White House card under the cellophane window. Then he handed the wallet back.
"Yes, sir," he said. "Your pilot is ready, as arranged. Will the lady be accompanying you?"
"Yes," I said. "My secretary, Miss Linx." The throb in my head was worse. I supposed it was the tension.
"Okay, Sam." He winked. He turned and gave an order. The inner pane of the airlock rose swiftly and a tiny craft, no more than three times the size of my Volkswagen, rolled out from the side. Joy and I walked toward it. So did the one man in Earth clothing. Without a glance at us, he went into the pilot's compartment forward.
Joy and I had reached the steps leading to the passenger space aft when the Monolithian in the cloak said, "One last thing, Mr. Kent. The last formality."
Throb-throb, went my head. Joy looked at me questioningly and put her hand inside my elbow. I squeezed it to my body.
"All right," I said as if annoyed. "Let's get it over with."
There was just the slightest trace of suspicion in his eyes as he said, "What word from you shall I send to our colleagues?"
The throbbing in my skull grew more intense. "Duty," I said, not knowing why. But I said it firmly.
The Monolithian nodded. "And—?"
"Duty and dedication," I said without hesitation. My head felt as if Buddy Rich and Zutty Singleton and Gene Krupa were all pounding away inside. I was genuinely annoyed now. "Let's go," I said sharply. "There's no time to lose."
"You're right," the Monolithian said. Joy and I got in and he went up to the pilot, his suspicions apparently at rest, and told him, "Take Mr. Kent and Miss Linx to Earth."