To Live Again

Chapter 13

“Dead?” Mark Kaufmann asked. “How could he possibly be dead? The St. John body was in good health. I saw it myself before I went to San Francisco.”

The medic shook his head. “There was a total breakdown of autoimmunity. A civil war inside him, so to speak. No hope whatever of saving him.”

—Murder, Paul’s persona said. But it did not take any great shrewdness to see that. Mark said, “Can such a thing happen naturally?”

“Most unlikely. You realize, Mr. Kaufmann, that it’s statistically possible for such a thing to occur, but—”

“Not very probable?”

“No. Not at all.”

“What was it, then? Carniphage?”

“These are not the effects of a carniphage,” said the medic. “However, the poisoner today has an extremely wide choice of drugs. I’ve been running a data check, comparing effects with possible causes, and this is what I’ve come up with.”

He handed Kaufmann a data sheet. It was headed: CYCLOPHOSPHAMIDE-8 Mark scanned it hastily. “Is this drug easily available?”

“I’d say it costs roughly a million dollars fissionable an ounce,” the medic replied. “The lethal dose is perhaps a hundredth of an ounce, though.”

“Expensive, but not prohibitive. Rare?”

“It can be had. The sources are difficult to reach, but they exist. With enough money—”

“Yes, with enough money,” Mark said. “Have you found any traces of this — this cyclophosphamide in the body?”

“It leaves no traces. It metabolizes completely in use, and the only indication it leaves is in its effect.”

“In other words, proof of use has to be empirical, deduced from the ruin it makes out of the victim?”

“Essentially, yes,” said the medic smoothly. “The quaestorate is now conducting a second autopsy, and naturally will be making every effort to determine the actual cause of death. But I venture to predict that the ultimate verdict will be the same as mine: poisoning by cyclophosphamide-8.”

“All right. Thank you. Go.” — You need to tighten your security net, Paul told him. A murder committed in your own apartment is shameful. “There are finite limits to security,” Mark said. He moved about the apartment, scuffing at the carpet. This incident left him tense and baffled and angry. He did not mind at all that someone had discorporated Martin St. John. the dybbuk Paul Kaufmann, so speedily after the transplant. But it offended him that St. John could be discorporated right here, of all places. And he was troubled by the possibility that suspicion of the discorporation might come to rest on him.

It was poor business. If the quaestorate hatched the idea that he was in any way connected with the murder, he’d be hauled down on a mindpick warrant, and not all the money in the universe could buy him out of that. Naturally, the mindpick would show that he had no complicity in the discorporation of Martin St. John, since in fact he had not been involved at all.

But at the same time the mindpick would reveal the illegal presence in his mind of the persona of Paul Kaufmann.

This had to be the work of Roditis, Mark thought. To take advantage of his absence by sneaking an agent in here to kill St. John, thereby opening him to mindpick and disgrace — no, no, Roditis could have no inkling of what he had been up to in San Francisco, and it was a mistake to attribute to the man more deviousness than he actually possessed — unless, that is, Roditis had his hooks into the lamasery too, and had instantly received word that Mark had come there to undergo a sub rosa persona transplant…

Exhausted by the intricacy of his own hypotheses, Mark sank down on a couch to collect himself.

—Fool, you’re panicking over this. “Let me think, Paul. Please.” — Think all you like. But think fast! An hour from now you may be under arrest.

“No, there’s more time than that. The quaestorate hasn’t finished the autopsy. And then they’ll have to move through channels, deciding if they dare to arrest me, swearing out the warrant, arranging the mindpick. I’ve got at least twenty-four hours.” Paul did not reply. His head aching, Mark attempted to reconstruct the sequence of events. He had seen Donahy Tuesday afternoon. That same day Santoliquido had called to announce his intention of transplanting Paul’s persona into the vacated St. John body. On Wednesday, Mark had inspected the St. John body, then had flown to San Francisco. Also on Wednesday, Donahy had abstracted last year’s persona recording of Paul Kaufmann from the archives. Wednesday night, in San Francisco, Donahy had transplanted the persona into Mark. Mark had remained out there on Thursday, resting and adapting to the powerful new persona. Meanwhile, in New York on Thursday, the most recent Paul Kaufmann persona had been transplanted into the St. John body, and St. John had been taken to Mark’s apartment for recuperation. Sometime late Thursday night St. John had been murdered.

Now it was Friday afternoon, and Mark, back from San Francisco, found himself in deep trouble. Just when everything had been going so well, too. He and Paul had adjusted to one another remarkably smoothly. There had been none of the tests of strength, none of the jockeying and probing that might have been anticipated when strong-willed old uncle entered strong-willed nephew’s mind. Paul had been delighted at getting a new carnate trip, fascinated by the shady way Mark had obtained his persona, and absolutely overjoyed to learn that a second and later version of himself was also going to be at large in dybbuk form. He showed no resentment of the fact that the provision in his will barring transplant to a member of his family had been circumvented, possibly because that codicil had been added after this particular persona had been recorded. Recognizing Roditis as the real family enemy, Paul was willing to aid his nephew in every way, while at the same time helping to isolate and immobilize the dybbuk-Paul whom Santoliquido had spawned. Of course, Mark was prepared for conflict with his uncle sooner or later, possibly even a sneaky attempt to go dybbuk at his expense. But for now, at least, their mutual adaptation was splendid, and Mark reveled at having the crusty, indomitable old brigand finally safe in his mind.

Then, to fly home and walk into this — Well, there were certain obvious first steps to take. The most obvious of all was to check last night’s scanner records and see who had been in his apartment. He had a pretty good idea. There weren’t many people who had even conditional access, and the only one with full access, Risa, was still in Europe, so far as he knew.

The scanner file gave him the quick answer. Elena had been here. She had applied for admission just before eleven last night, and the robots had let her in. Mark saw her on the tape, and there was nothing unusual about her expression, as there might have been if she had come to commit a discorporation.

But who was this who had come in with her? This tall, blond fellow with the taut, edgy look in his eyes?

Noyes? Charles Noyes? Noyes of Roditis Securities?

Elena had brought him here?

—There’s your killer, Paul said. He must be. “Not so fast,” Mark muttered. “Noyes is Roditis’ man, sure, but Roditis doesn’t do foolish things. If he wanted to kill St. John, he wouldn’t send someone like Noyes here to do the job. It’s too transparent.”

—What do you know about Noyes? I recall that he’s not too stable.

“No, not very.” — Then perhaps Roditis picked a bungler. Run the tape a little further.

Mark moved it along. The figures of Elena and Noyes appeared at the door again some ten minutes later. Noyes looked more tense than ever, almost close to collapse. And Elena, now, gave every impression of hysteria. Obviously something significant had happened in those ten minutes — such as the murder of Martin St. John. The two figures were exchanging hurried conversation at the door. Mark could not read their lips, nor was there any audio on the scanner tape, but he knew that a simple computer analysis of lip patterns would tell him what they were saying. He watched Noyes hurry from the apartment. Then Elena disappeared from the door. About twenty minutes later she left looking calmer. That concluded the Thursday night record. The file of outgoing calls showed none until one in the morning, when a robot had noticed St. John dead and had summoned the quaestors.

“That’s it, then.” Mark said. “She let him in, and he killed St. John.”

—There’s no proof. It’s all circumstantial, Mark. Where’s the weapon? Where are the witnesses? St. John might have been killed by someone else before Noyes ever got here, for all your records show. A blowdart through a window, maybe.

“It’s enough to authorize a mindpick, Paul. And a mindpick will show Noyes’ guilt. I’ve got to get him picked before anyone thinks of mindpicking me, or they’ll find you.” — You might try talking to Elena, Paul suggested. But Elena did not answer when he called her apartment. Curiously, she had not even left a forwarding number. Mark buzzed her inner number, thinking that perhaps she had posted a forwarding number for limited distribution to close friends, but that drew a blank too. Where was she? She never went anywhere without notifying him first. And she surely knew that he was due back in New York sometime today.

He phoned Santoliquido next. As usual, it was a slow, bothersome job to get through to him. When Santoliquido appeared, his quizzical expression showed that he had heard the news.

“Where have you been, Mark?”

“Away on business since late Wednesday. And when I got backSt. John—”

“I know. The quaestors notified me.”

“What is this all about Frank?”

“I haven’t any idea. But of course I have my suspicions.”

“Such as?”

“Never mind,” said Santoliquido. “They’re unfounded at present. The important thing is that your uncle is discorporate again, and we have to start the whole process from the beginning.”

Mark felt a secret pleasure at the knowledge that his uncle was far from discorporate. He heard the old man’s silent, complacent chuckle within him.

To Santoliquido he said, “Do you expect Roditis to reapply?”

“Why shouldn’t he? The persona’s available again.”

“And you’ve run out of ways to avoid giving it to him.” Santoliquido nodded. “For the moment at least”

“Listen to me, Frank, I want one last favor. Stall him off. If only for a few days. I can’t explain now, but I’ve got reason to think you’ll be wasting everyone’s time if you give Paul to Roditis now. Will you wait at least until the report of the quaestors is issued?”

“I’ll do that, yes,” Santoliquido agreed. “Good.” Mark paused a moment. Then, in a carefully more relaxed tone, he said, “You haven’t seen Elena lately, have you?”

With the same deliberate casualness Santoliquido replied, “Lately? Well, let’s see … I had lunch with her yesterday. Is that lately enough?”

“I meant today.”

“No. The last I saw of her was one in the afternoon yesterday. You’ve phoned her apartment?”

“Of course,” Mark said. “I suppose she’s taken a little trip. I imagine I’ll be hearing from her soon.”

Roditis said, “So it’s all done, and you’re back here, and no one’s the wiser, Charles. Was that so bad?”

Kravchenko attempted to keep his facial muscles fixed in the bland, idiotic expression of benignity that he imagined Charles Noyes customarily to have worn. He was on edge, here in Roditis’ Indiana headquarters, for this was the first test of his dybbukhood. If he failed to fool Roditis, he’d be on the scrapheap by nightfall.

He said carefully, “Well, John, I don’t deny I was uneasy about it But it went off more smoothly than I dared hope.

“And now we’ll get you blanked, and splice in a set of phony memories for last night, and you’ll be safe.

“Yes, John.”

“Want to take a little workout first? Get yourself back into shape?”

“I think we’d better tend to the blanking first,” said Kravchenko. “I’ve got a few things on my mind that I’m better off without.”

Roditis nodded. “Right. Come with me.” Kravchenko followed the stocky little financier through the maze of the building. He did not much like the idea of submitting to a blanking; he hated to surrender consciousness, hated to go under the machine. But so long as he still carried around memories of the discorporation of Martin St. John, he ran serious risks. Noyes, whom he pretended to be, might well be under suspicion of that discorporation. It they picked him up, ran a routine mindpick on him, and found the evidence, all would be up not only for Noyes — whose personae would be destroyed because of his crime — but for Kravchenko as well, since the routine mindpick would be followed by a deep pick that would reveal who was actually running the Noyes body. Kravchenko thought he could conceal his dybbuk status if the pick merely went scraping around looking for a specific event, the discorporation episode. But he was finished for good if they sank the pick beyond the surface. His only hope of avoiding that was to blank out everything having to do with last night. Which Roditis now proposed to do.

Technicians were readying the blanking apparatus. Kravchenko studied it warily. A blanking was something like getting a persona transplant-in reverse. Instead of having taped information poured into your receptive brain, you yielded information. Instead of being doped with mnemonic drugs to damp out memory decay, they washed your mind with a selective memory suppressant, carefully measured to obliterate a certain chronological segment of the memory bank Kravchenko distrusted all this fiddling with the brain. Yet he admitted the necessity of it.

“Will you lie down here?” a technician said. Kravchenko waited. They gave him injections. They strapped electrodes to his skull. They took EEG readings of Noyes” brain waves. Silently they bustled about while Roditis hovered somberly in the background.

“Ready, now,” someone said. A helmet was lowered over his head. “Don’t worry about a thing. Charles,” came Roditis’ confident voice. “We’ll clean you up in no time.”

“Now,” said a technician.

Kravchenko went tense, imagining that switches were being thrown and contacts made. He could see nothing. His drugged mind grew foggy. Abruptly he heard what sounded like a colossal explosion, and in the same instant a burst of intolerably bright lightning shot through his brain. He felt as though his skull had split apart Chaos enfolded him. He was swept away by a terrible tide — down, down, down-out of control-helpless-and with his last conscious thought he asked himself how this could be happening, when a blanking was supposed to be such a trivial thing. Then he was swallowed up in darkness.

This was her moment, Elena thought. Jim was downstairs undergoing his blanking; afterwards, he’d be resting for a few hours. Now was her chance to add Roditis to her collection.

She hadn’t felt like telling Jim that one of her motives in accompanying him to Evansville was to seduce John Roditis. Newly returned to corporate status by her scheming, Kravchenko would not understand that he was not going to be the only man in her life. She loved him passionately; but she wanted Roditis. Two hours ago, when she and Kravchenko had arrived here, Elena had met Roditis for the first time. They had exchanged perhaps ten words; Roditis had hardly seemed to take notice of her. He was too preoccupied with the maneuvers surrounding the St John discorporation, as was only natural. But she had taken notice of him. That muscular, powerful body held promise of physical delight; and the strength of the man was unmistakable. To Elena, a connoisseur of strong men, Roditis seemed an ideal mixture of raw power and intuitive intelligence. Santoliquido and Mark Kaufmann and the others had palled on her; Kravchenko, now that he was back, offered many pleasures, but he was shallow, a floater, a playboy; new adventures beckoned to her. With Roditis.

She said, “I’ve always been curious about you. It’s strange we never had occasion to meet before.”

“I don’t move in your high-society circles.” Roditis seemed distant even bored. “You really should, you know. We aren’t such ogres. A man of your vigor, your enterprise — you’d inject some new vitality into our group.” Surreptitiously she moved closer to him. Elena regretted that she was not dressed for her purpose; she had flown to Evansville in workaday travel clothes, and there had been no chance to change into something more clinging, something more revealing. In this drab garb she felt as though locked into armor. Yet it was a handicap she felt she could overcome.

Roditis said, “I object to snobbery, Miss Volterra. I am a wealthy man, yes, but no playboy. My values are not those of your set. I have work to do every day.”

“You ought to let yourself enjoy the benefits of your work,” she purred. She stood beside him now, at his desk, examining the sonic sculpture. “How beautiful,” she said. As she reached forward to caress the piece the soft hill of her breast pressed into Roditis’ elbow. It was hardly a subtle gesture, but she did not regard Roditis as a subtle man.

He moved smoothly away, breaking the contact. Elena nibbled her lip. She threw him a coquettish glance; she asked him about the sculpture, found that it had been made by one of his personae, praised it extravagantly; she adopted a posture so sensual it might almost have been self-parody. Roditis seemed unmoved. What’s the matter with the man, she wondered?

Her approach became even more direct. She flattered him; she told him how thrilled she was to have met him at last; she cornered him behind his own desk and filled his ears with praise. She could not have made it more obvious if she had stripped and sprawled out spread-legged on the carpet. And Roditis grew more brusque, more withdrawn, as she fought to reach him.

It was a dismal moment. Elena sensed that she was being refused, which had never happened to her before, and she could not imagine why. From what she knew of Roditis he was unmarried, heterosexual, promiscuous. Why, then — ?

To hell with it, Elena told herself. She thrust herself into his arms. Her breasts crushed up against him. Panting, eager, she hunted for his lips, while her hands clawed the muscular ridges of his back. By now she was so angry that she felt only the counterfeit of desire; but she came on in seemingly uncontrollable passion, determined to sweep Roditis off his feet. He would have her on the floor, she resolved. A wild bestial coupling. She’d show him her abilities, and afterwards he’d need less coaxing.

His hands went to her breasts. Not to caress, though, but to shove. He pushed her back, disengaged himself, adjusted his clothing. He looked ruffled; his eyes were steely. In a frosty voice he said, “This is no pleasure palace, Miss Volterra. This is a workingman’s office. I’m not in the mood for a wrestling match now.”

She cursed him eloquently in Italian. Then, inspired, she went on to roast him in Greek; but not even that got a rise out of him. Incredulously she stared as he summoned a robosecretary and instructed it to show Miss Volterra to her lodgings.

“Dog!” she cried. “Eunuch!” Roditis glowered, slammed fist into palm, and switched up the vents to get the reek of her perfume out of the room. Damn her! He could hardly believe what had happened — the coarseness of her, the grossness of her assault. He had known from the very first naturally, why she was here, hitchhiking along with Noyes to get an introduction to him. All that ogling and rump-wiggling when she had first showed up had not failed to get through to him. And now, in his office, the winks, the ever broader hints, the breast nuzzling against his arm, finally the desperate lunge and clutch — he had not expected the famed Elena Volterra to be quite so blunt.

Unless, he thought she regarded him as the sort of man who was lured with such tactics.

The episode had jangled his nerves. She was a handsome woman, yes, well up to advance word; no doubt it would have been an interesting hour or two in bed for him. But Roditis had enough handsome women to keep him busy for centuries. This was one he would not touch, though she had the beauty of Helen of Troy. He was unwilling to push Mark Kaufmann too far. He was about to get his uncle’s persona; he would not try to take his woman too. Once the elder Kaufmann was safe in Roditis’ brain, he planned to strike a truce with Mark; and it would be much harder to arrange that if Elena Volterra were in the picture too.

Of course, Roditis conceded, he had just made an undying enemy out of Elena. Hell hath no fury, etc. That could have its strategic uses too, though. What was Elena, anyway? A bed-hopper, a gossip, a seeker of vicarious power, an animated bundle of desires and greedy ambitions, a fleshy construct of breasts and buttocks and thighs and loins. Mark Kaufmann, who controlled real power, had not been able to harm him; what damage could Elena do?

She might succeed only in forging a Roditis-Kaufmann alliance. If she screamed loudly enough to Mark about the “insult” visited upon her, it might just give Mark the idea that John Roditis didn’t mean to grab everything within his reach. And that could be the beginning of the Kaufmann-Roditis dйtente that Roditis saw as the key to major power expansion.

So let her do her wont, Roditis thought. There’s no way the slut can hurt me. None! Noyes, crouching in darkness, was amazed to find light lancing through. Sudden brightness from above told him that the lid which had been crushing down on him was cracking. He stirred; he tested his strength and found that he could lift the lid.

What was happening? Why was Kravchenko losing control? For an uncertain and perhaps infinite span of time Noyes had lain huddled in a corner of his own mind, Kravchenko’s prisoner. No sensory inputs had reached him here. He was wholly cut off; and he had assumed that eventually Kravchenko would bear down and finish the job of destroying him. First came ejection from motor control, and then loss of the voluntary brain centers, and finally the ripping away of all contacts, so that the dybbuk would be alone in the body they had formerly shared. Bleakly Noyes had awaited his fate. He could not comprehend the turn of events; but quite plainly Kravchenko’s grasp had slipped.

Noyes burst from confinement and flooded back into every lobe of his brain.

He encountered Kravchenko. The persona seemed dazed and helpless, lost in a fog. It was an easy matter for Noyes to recapture motor and sensory power from him.

He let his eyelids flutter open and took stock. He found himself lying on a laboratory table, with apparatus strapped to his skull and chest, and technicians bustling about him. “He’s coming out of it,” one of them said. Noyes thought at first that he was in a soul bank, but then he recognized his surroundings: this was Roditis’ place in Indiana. What had they been doing to his body at the moment of his unexpected return to control, though?

A technician said, “You look a little shaken up, Mr. Noyes. Everything all right?”

“I — well, more or less,” he said. He sat up. It was not difficult for him to operate his body, and that was encouraging; it told him that relatively little time had passed since Kravchenko had thrust him out. Tentatively he formed a theory that this was only the day after St. John’s discorporation. According to the plan, he was supposed to have returned to Evansville to have all knowledge of the crime blanked. Presumably that was what had been taking place in this laboratory.

But if I’ve been blanked, Noyes wondered, how is it that I still remember the discorporation?

He realized that he would have to move warily until he could draw some clues from those about him. Something very strange had taken place, and he had to be careful not to tip his hand.

Roditis entered the room, scowling, tense. He brightened as he saw Noyes, though, and said, “Well, Charles, how did it go?”

“F-fine,” Noyes said. “My ears are ringing just a little, maybe.”

“They say you sometimes have a hangover after something like that.” Roditis dismissed the technicians with an impatient wave of one hand. His face grew serious once more. In a low voice he said, “Have you heard the news, Charles? Martin St. John was discorporated last night in New York!”

So this was a test of how well he had been blanked. Noyes said, “St. John? St. John? I’m not sure I place the name.”

“An Englishman. The persona of Paul Kaufmann had been transplanted to him. You remember, don’t you?”

“I’m afraid I’m a little hazy about all that. Discorporated, you say? Do the quaestors have any clues?”

“I doubt it,” Roditis replied. “The poor quaestors are always three jumps behind the criminals. It’s so hard to enforce the law properly when a murderer can have all sense of guilt blotted from his mind, By the way, Charles, where’d you spend the night?”

He was caught off guard. Desperately improvising he said, “If you have to know, John, I was with a woman. I’ll give you the details if you wish, but a gentleman really doesn’t—”

Roditis chuckled. “No, a gentleman doesn’t. But she’s a hot one, isn’t she? Elena, I mean.” He slapped Noyes heartily on the back. “She’s waiting here in town. I’d like you to escort her back to New York right away, yes, Charles?”

“Whatever you say?”

“And now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s exercise time.” Roditis went out. Noyes, relieved, paced around the room as he drew together the strands of the mystery. He had discorporated St. John, and then Elena and Kravchenko had teamed up to push him out of his mind. Noyes shuddered at the recollection. Afterwards, the dybbuk-Kravchenko and Elena had flown out here, with Kravchenko obviously masquerading as Noyes. That was how it must have been, Noyes decided. And, naturally, Roditis had wanted to blank the crime from Noyes’ mind.

But the blanking had gone awry. Noyes thought he understood why. A blanking was a simple thing, in its way, but only if no unknown factors fouled up the settings of the machine. Doubtless they had calibrated their dials for the brainwaves of Charles Noyes — and then had tried to blank the Noyes brain, unaware that they were really working on the mind of Jim Kravchenko. The clashing of Noyes’ brain waves with Kravchenko’s consciousness had driven the dybbuk into shock, permitting Noyes to resume control. But Noyes had not been blanked after all, since he had been cut off, beyond the reach of the instruments.

So I am a murderer and still unblanked, Noyes thought and I have won out over my own dybbuk, and Roditis is sending me back to New York with Elena. What do I do now? May all the Buddhas help me, what do I do now?

Mark Kaufmann spent much of Friday afternoon patiently tracking down leads in the hope of solving the double mystery of St. John’s discorporation and Elena’s disappearance. Through various channels he was able to gain access to a great deal of information normally available only to the investigators of the quaestorate. The world was full of scanners, monitors, and other data-recording devices that took down impartial, impersonal accounts of the comings and goings of individuals, and with luck and influence one could tap this ocean of data for one’s own needs. Not all the information received was immediately relevant, but Kaufmann sifted it searching out the patterns. He had a better-than-normal faculty for finding patterns in seemingly random data. And now he had the advantage of his uncle’s judicious, practiced eye to aid him in his examination.

He knew by now that Noyes had come in from Evansville and had made contact with Elena some hours before the discorporation of Martin St. John. Now both of them had vanished, but this was not a world in which anyone could stay vanished for long. Keying in to the data bats of the transport terminals, Kaufmann succeeded in learning that Noyes had flown to Evansville at one that afternoon. Closer examination of the passenger list of that flight showed that Elena had been with him.

—Has she been keeping company with Roditis in the past? “No, never,” Mark told his uncle’s persona. “They haven’t even met.”

—Sure? “Positive. Noyes must have set this up for her.” He puzzled over the quid pro quo. He knew that Elena had developed a fascination for Roditis and was yearning to meet him. Very well. She had taken Noyes to the apartment where Martin St. John was being kept. St. John had met a mysterious death. Now Noyes had taken her to Evansville, and, presumably, to an assignation with Roditis.

It looked very much like a sellout — Put tracers on Elena right away, Paul advised. Get men busy in Evansville. Pick her up and bring her back here for questioning before she does any more damage.

“I’m already doing so,” said Mark. It took him a few minutes to arrange for the surveillance, not only of Elena, but of Noyes as well. Whenever they left Roditis, they’d be watched and followed, and at the proper moment they’d be taken into custody. Elena had never done anything overtly treacherous before, but Mark knew her capabilities. He visualized a conspiracy involving Noyes, Roditis, Elena, and perhaps even Santoliquido, by which Paul’s persona was speedily liberated from the hapless St. John body, and just as speedily reincorporated into John Roditis on second application.

The phone chimed.

He switched it on and found that Risa was calling — not from Europe, surprisingly, but from the New York airport.

“You said you were coming back next week,” he told her. “It’s a woman’s privilege to change her mind. I got bored over there. And I missed you. There’s a hopter waiting, and I’ll be home in a hurry.”

“Wonderful, Risa.” She looked at him strangely. “Mark? Is there anything wrong?”

“Why?”

“You’re very drawn. You’ve got a peculiar expression on your face.”

“It’s been a hectic day, love. Too hectic for me even to begin explaining now. I’ll fill everything in when you’re here.”

They broke contact. Mark felt pleased at Risa’s arrival. In this time of crisis, with unexpected things happening much too swiftly, it would be good to have her around. A man had to depend on family at a time like this. Paul within him… Risa beside him…

He smiled. It was a tacit admission that Risa had crossed the borderline from childhood to womanhood these past few weeks. You didn’t think of a child as a potential ally. But she had shown him her true strength, first in the matter of obtaining a persona for herself, then by her sleuthing to find Tandy’s killer. He would cease to delude himself into thinking she was a child, now. She was a woman, a Kaufmann woman, and he wanted her with him.

She reached the apartment more quickly than he expected. Her European adventures seemed to have sobered and matured her; or was it the presence of an extra mind within her own? She was the same slim, boyish-bodied girl who had left so suddenly for Stockholm not long before, but the cast of her features was different now, the set of her lips, the glow of her eyes.

Paul was astonished. — This is Risa? he asked, as she entered. Your little girl? Mark, how long was I in storage?

“You haven’t seen her for over a year, your time,” Mark told his uncle quietly. “It’s been a big year for her.”

—She’s impressive. She has the right bearing. There’s no doubt she’s a Kaufmann, is there?

Moving gracefully, almost sinuously, in a style she must certainly have learned from Tandy Cushing, Risa crossed the room to her father, embraced him, brushed his lips with hers. Then she stepped back and eyed him searchingly.

“You’ve changed,” she said. “I was just about to say that to you.”

“I know I’ve changed, Mark. I have Tandy with me now. But you — you’re different tool”

“In what way?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Your eyes — your whole way of standing—”

“I told you, Risa, it’s been a frightful day. I’m tired.” She shook her head. “It’s not fatigue I see. Fatigue subtracts. You’ve got something extra. You’re standing taller. You could almost be Uncle Paul, you know, except that the face and hair are wrong. But you hold yourself the way he did.”

Mark smiled feebly. “The Kaufmann genes win out.”

“I’m serious. Mark, have you had some sort of persona transplant since I went overseas?”

“Sure,” he said. “I bribed Santoliquido and he gave me Uncle Paul.” Better to make a joke about it, he thought, and destroy the possibility that she’ll sniff out the truth.

“Really, Mark. You did get a transplant, didn’t you? Maybe not Uncle Paul, but it’s someone new. I’m sure of it.”

“Sorry, sweet. I don’t mean to shake your faith in your own womanly intuition, but it just isn’t so. What you think you see in me is the nervous reaction of a bone-tired man.” The phone chimed. “Excuse me, will you?”

As he turned away from her, Mark passed a mirror and peered into its oval depths. Yes, he thought. She’s right. There is a change.

I didn’t notice it, but she, who was away—

The effect was an odd one: as though an overlay of Paul’s features had been placed on his own. There was a tension about his facial muscles, perhaps resulting from some new disposition of his features. Mark felt a twinge of distress. If Paul had infiltrated him to this extent so fast, was an attempt at going dybbuk lying just ahead? Paul was, above all else, sly. This present mood of benign cooperation might simply be Paul’s way of setting him up for the kill.

And, also, he wasn’t happy about the accuracy of Risa’s guess. She was a smart girl, of course, but was it so obvious that he had taken possession of Paul’s persona? If she saw it, would others? He was ruined unless he maintained the secret.

He picked up the telephone on the fifth chime. “Yes?”

“Miss Volterra is on her way back to New York,” a flat, mechanical voice reported. “She left Evansville twenty minutes ago.”

“Is she being tracked?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Noyes?”

“He’s with her. They seem to have had a quarrel. He looks upset. And she’s the angriest-looking woman I’ve ever seen.”