The Planet Killers

Chapter XV

“They’ve got me on the list,” he told Lori in the safety of the hotel room. “That means that Karnes has already regretted letting me walk out of his office the way I did.”

Lori’s face was tight with anxiety. “Do you think they’re searching the city for you?”

“I’m sure of it. I know all about how Security runs a manhunt. They’ll have every means of transportation covered. Not even a flea will be able to get out of this city without being spotted. And they’ll flash word to the city police, too. By the time twenty-four hours has passed, there’ll be close to a million people looking for me in this city. And by the time forty-eight hours has passed, the probability is about ten to one that I’ll be holed up in the Keep for an indefinite period of preventive detention.”

“No, Roy! Isn’t there some way?”

“To escape?” Gardner smiled. “Yes, one way. But only a Security man would know about it. How fond are you of my face, Lori?”

“You mean plastic surgery?”

He nodded. “It’s the only way. I know a man, a good man. He’ll give me a new face and a new identity while I wait. Also a new passport. He’s an expert. The only trouble is, there won’t be anyone on Herschel capable of giving me back my old face. The operation is a difficult one; there aren’t likely to be skilled plastic surgeons on a frontier world. But you won’t miss my face, will you? My nose is too sharp, my eyebrows too heavy. I could use a different mouth, too. I’ve gotten so used to the official Security scowl that my lips won’t smile the right way any more.”

“It’s a good face, Roy. It’s a strong face, an honest face. It’s your face.”

“I can keep my face and go to jail, or I can get a new face and settle on Herschel with you. Which do you want it to be?”

After a pause Lori said, “That’s a silly question. But make it a face I can love, Roy. Don’t let him make you unreal. Be different, but don’t be false. Do you know what I mean?”

“I think so.” Gardner scratched his chin reflectively. “Listen, get yourself down to the Bureau and make out an application for Herschel. Put yourself down as single and no prospects; colony-worlds are always happy to get good-looking unmarried women. When you’ve got your papers in order, find out when the next ship leaves and make a reservation for one. Don’t give them any hint that you figure on having a traveling companion. When you’ve done all that, check out of the hotel room and get yourself another one somewhere else. I’ll find a room near the spaceport until blastoff time. We won’t have any contact with each other from today until the time that ship leaves for Herschel, and when we meet aboard the ship it’s going to look strictly like an accident, love at first sight.”

“Do we have to do it that way, Roy? The ship might not be leaving for a month!”

“Then we go our separate ways for a month,” Gardner said. “There’s no alternative. We have to avoid giving Security any connection between us. I know how they work, Lori.”

“All right, then,” she said hesitantly. “But I hope it won’t be a month.”

He smiled. “So do I.”

They kissed and went their separate ways again, not looking back. The separation was going to be difficult, Gardner thought, but it was essential. Security would have ways of checking back on Gardner and linking him with the girl. Smee could give them that much information. All they needed to do was check forward and discover that the girl was leaving for Herschel, and they could easily pick up her traveling companion and give him an overhauling in the Interrogation Chamber. But if she kept her own counsel, had no contact with him, then Security would be helpless.

It was late afternoon now. Twilight was descending on the city; shadows were long; and people were hurrying homeward. Gardner kept close to the buildings, moving on foot, his eyes lowered to avoid calling attention to himself. He knew he still had a little time. The pickup alarm was probably flashing all over, but Karnes would be too smart to sound a general alarm, complete with pictures in the telex and all. Because if he did that, it might prove the motive for Gardner to spill what he knew about the Lurion project. And, once Gardner spoke out, the project would be hopelessly shattered. If they went through with it, it would look strangely suspicious that Lurion should die in exactly the way the renegade Security man had predicted.

But, Gardner thought, Karnes had one ace in his sleeve: the knowledge that Gardner almost certainly would not expose the project. For, if he did that, it would be a heavy blow to Earth’s prestige; it might damage forever Earth’s reputation as an ethical world. And Gardner was still loyal to his native planet. Karnes knew that. No Security man could shuck off his loyalty overnight, however strong the provocation.

So Karnes could be sure that Gardner would not blab, at least not for a while. Soon, perhaps, the compulsion to speak out would outweigh the bonds of loyalty; but Karnes hoped to have Gardner in custody long before that.

An hour later, Gardner was halfway across the city, making his way through shabby, darkened streets that had not been repaved for generations. This was the poor quarter of the city, where the human refuse came to rest at tide’s end.

The address was something Gardner never had forgotten. The store was where he remembered it to be: the windows were just as dingy, the neons just as noisy, the sidewalk in front just as filthy. Only the old man had changed. He was now even older.

Gardner let himself in and stood by the door. The old man peered at him out of eyes dulled and yellowed by years. “Yes? Repair your shoes?”

Gardner grinned. “You mean you don’t remember me, Hollis?”

“My name isn’t Hollis! Why do you call me… ?” He paused. “Gardner?”

“The same.”

The old man showed brittle stumps of teeth in a broad grin. “You young devil! What brings you around here?” The grin faded immediately. “You aren’t going to turn me in, are you? Not after all these years?”

Gardner shook his head. “Far from it, Hollis. I need a new face and I need a new passport, all in a hurry; overnight, if you can manage it.”

“Are you serious? Have you gotten in trouble?”

“Big trouble,” Gardner confirmed. “I had a quarrel with Karnes over procedures, and resigned my commission. He didn’t move fast enough to grab me while I was in his office, but he’s got the word out now. I’m to be picked up and detained. I know too much.”

The oldster hobbled out from behind his bench and peered up at Gardner. “Come in back,” he said. “I’ll lock up the store. You go straight through, turn right, open the door.”

Gardner did as he was told and found himself in a tiny but well-equipped little office, hidden away in the rear of the shop. He smiled. Security could be troublesome, but a good Security Agent could always use some of his own knowledge to evade capture.

Hollis had been a Security Agent once, and a good one. He had been a plastic surgeon, specializing in disguising Agents for special missions. But he, too, had quarreled with Karnes over procedures, and had resigned from the Corps. Gardner had never known the exact circumstances of the quarrel, though Hollis had let it be known that it was a matter of ethics. Karnes had sent out an order for Hollis’ pickup, but Hollis had slipped through the net, changed his appearance, and set up shop in a dismal part of the city, cobbling for a living but practicing plastic surgery for the benefit of the underworld.

Gardner had stumbled over the old man’s refuge three years before. It was his duty to report Hollis to Karnes but the old man had pleaded desperately and had finally swayed Gardner into forgetting to turn him in.

Now it was time to let Hollis repay that favor.

“They’ve got my passport number on the list,” Gardner said. “It’s a top-priority search. I’ve got to get off Earth fast, or I’ll never get another chance.”

Hollis grinned. “You needn’t worry. I’ll have you fixed so well they’ll never spot you. Overnight, you say?”

“It’s best that way.”

“Too bad. If I had a week, I could fix you so they’d never have a chance. Alter your bone structure, change your whole physique. But I suppose I can do enough tonight to get you through. How do you want to look?”

“The same, only different—get what I mean? I’m not handsome now. I don’t want you to give me a handsome face, but don’t disfigure me either.”

“I could turn you into a godling, you know. No woman would resist you.”

“I’ve got a woman already,” Gardner said. “She likes me pretty much the way I am. See if you can make the alterations without changing the basic character of the face.”

“Hmm. See what I can do.”

Hollis took out a pad and stylus and began to sketch out a face, keeping the sheet away from Gardner’s angle of vision. Gardner fidgeted. Fifteen minutes later, Hollis grunted his satisfaction.

“There. Take a look.”

The face that looked up at the paper bore no resemblance to his own. The nose was flatter, rounder; the lips were wider and fuller. The chin protruded a little in a rugged, not unattractive way.

“It looks all right,” Gardner said.

“I’ll alter the color of your hair, of course, and of your eyes. And you’d better grow a mustache, too. How about identifying scars?”

“I’ve got a slash on my forearm.”

“I’ll cover it with synthoflesh,” Hollis said. “Nobody will tell the difference. The synthoflesh will wither away in about a year. It’ll be gradual. Your lips and chin will return pretty much to what they are now. But the angle of your ears is going to stay different, and the shape of your nose. Unless you find someone who can put you back the way you were.”

“I doubt that I will.”

“All right, then. Lie down on the table. Get your shirt off while I’m preparing the anesthetic.”

Gardner waited, tensely, while the old man bustied busily about, getting things ready. He wondered if it would be painful; he wondered if he would ever get used to a different face looking back at him from mirrors. Then the anesthetic cone descended over his face, and he ceased to wonder.

His next sensation was the sound of Hollis’ voice saying warningly, “Don’t move.”

Gardner opened his eyes. His face ached, his head throbbed.

“Don’t try to talk, either,” Hollis said. “I finished an hour ago, but you’ve got to let things set. Here, take a peek.”

Hollis held a mirror in front of his face. Gardner stared into the glass and saw blue eyes staring back. His eyes had been brown. Brown hair now was orange-red. His nose was different, his chin jutted, his mouth was broader. It was a stranger’s face. Yet, somehow, he knew it was his own.

“It’s ten o’clock in the morning,” Hollis told him. “I’ve been working on you all night, snipping muscles, beaming you with quickheal, rearranging, grafting synthoflesh. Look at your arm.”

Gardner picked up his arm. The long white scar along the inside of his forearm, a relic of an old sporting accident, was gone. Hollis had matched the old skin perfectly. Even the hair growing on his arm matched. It was all an even red now.

“I’ve treated your follicles so that your head and body hair will grow in red for about a year,” Hollis said. “After that, it’ll gradually return to its old color. You’ll have to figure out some explanation for your neighbors, but you’ve got time to worry about that.” Hollis reached behind him and picked up a sheaf of documents. “By the way here are your papers. Your name is Gregory Stone, now. I faked a complete background for you. Make sure you study it till you’re letter-perfect. I guess it’s safe for you to talk, now. The incisions ought to be healed by this time.”

As cautiously as though made of sand, he rose to a sitting position and looked down at himself. “You’ve made me a lot heavier,” he said.

“There’s twenty pounds of synthoflesh around your middle,” Hollis said. “You’ll absorb it rapidly enough. But just for now it makes quite a difference in your physique.”

“You’re a magician, Hollis!”

“Just a craftsman,” Hollis murmured. “I didn’t do anything to you that any other plastic surgeon couldn’t have done. I simply did it quicker and better, that’s all.”

“When will I be fully healed?”

“Go easy for a day or so. Don’t shave and don’t get into any horseplay. After that, you’ll be fine. And the only way they can identify you is by your retinal index. I can’t change that ~ But nobody’s going to check your index unless you provoke them to. There’s no reason for anyone to suspect you of being Roy Gardner.”

“Unless Karnes decides to take eyeprints of everybody leaving Earth for the next couple of months.”

Hollis shrugged. “If he does that, you’ll be caught. But it would cost him practically his entire budget to do it. Are you worth it?”

“I might be,” Gardner said grimly. “But there’s no use worrying about it now. You can’t get into my eyes to change thines. How much do I owe you?”

“Seventy credits.”

“Don’t be silly. This job is worth at least a thousand, Hollis!”

The old man smiled. “Seventy credits represents my operating expenses. The rest of the fee would be.recompense for skills. In your case, Gardner, the labor is on the house. You’ll need your money, wherever it is you’re going. I haven’t forgotten that I was indebted to you when you walked in last night. Go, now. And remember—your name is now Gregory Stone.”

By noon, Gregory Stone was on line at the branch office of the Bureau of Emigration. He had spent some time locked in a public washroom, studying the papers Hollis had forged while he slept. Gregory Stone was a year older than Roy Gardner, had been born not in Massachusetts but in Maine, and he had worked on a public-owned farm all his life. Hollis had supplied a convincing-looking employment certificate.

All of Roy Gardner’s funds had been deposited in a new account, opened by Gregory Stone and made transferable to the Central Bank of Herschel. Roy Gardner no longer existed. The heavy-set redhaired man who had filled out the application was Gregory Stone.

Gregory Stone slid the papers across to the clerk, a different clerk in a different branch from the one where Gardner had tried to apply the day before. The clerk, smiling as fixedly as the other one had, went through the routine motions in a flurry of hands and elbows. The applicant underwent an uneasy moment as the clerk checked the passport number against a list by his side, but there were no difficulties. A clatter of rubber stamps finally validated the departure permit.

“We wish you success in your ventures, Mr. Stone. Your papers are in order.”

“Thanks,” Gardner-Stone said mechanically.

He wandered away, into the section where flight arrangements were made. The next voyage to Herschel, he learned, would depart in five days. It was a four-stop affair, with Herschel the end of the line. Travel time, six weeks one way. He filled out the form, requesting a single one-way passage, and waited while the robot brains checked to see if there still was room aboard. There was. He was assigned a compartment.

“You have three days to make final payment, Mr. Stone,” the clerk informed him.

“I’ll make it right now,” he said.

He wrote out a check drawn against Gregory Stone’s new bank account, countermarked it with Gregory Stone’s new thumbprint, and handed it across. The check was validated. Five minutes later, Gardner walked out of the building with a set of cleared papers and a paid-in-full ticket to Herschel in his pocket.