The Parallel Man (15 page)

“Your tool for what?” I asked as calmly as I could.

“Why, to rule Carpathia first and after that a wider realm,” said the other man mockingly. “With the proper opportunities Casmir could have built an interstellar kingdom, not just united a planet. You’ve made a good start here ‘Casmir King’; any day your puppets in the Council could propose a restoration of the monarchy with you as king and the people would pass the measure. Perhaps that’s what I’ll have ‘Casmir King’ do when he leaves this island.”

“And how do you propose to make me do that?” I asked as mockingly as I could.

“Oh, not you,” said the man on the rock, and put his hands to his head. He pulled something from his head and face and looked up at me with a smile. The smile was the crooked smile of Mortifer, but the face revealed in the moonlight was my own face!

“Another clone, of course,” said the man on the rock, “but with my memories instead of those of Casmir the Tenth. That proved—unfortunate—in your case. Besides that I’ve come to the conclusion that the factor I’m looking for is genetic; I can ignore Casmir’s background and training.”

“And the original Mortifer?” I asked softly.

The other man shrugged. “He still exists, so even if you killed this body, ‘Casmir King,’ you wouldn’t have defeated me. But I’ll kill you, of course, and then go back to your followers and take over what you’ve built up. I suppose that I’d better smash your face in or else someone might raise uncomfortable questions. A pity; I’d like to get you in the laboratory and take you apart carefully.”

“You haven’t got me yet, either to smash or to take apart,” I said mockingly.

The other man gave a nasty laugh, all the more disconcerting because it was in my own voice. I realized that when he spoke it was the speech patterns and intonations that made him sound like Mortifer; the voice had always been mine.

“I can take you when I wish,” he said. “Do you think that I’d set up an experiment without an emergency cutoff in case things went wrong? All I have to do is speak one word that will key a reflex I put into you in the tanks. Your breath, your heart, your whole involuntary nervous system will stop. Brain damage in a few moments, death in a few more; I won’t even have to touch you. You can’t possibly reach me in time to keep me from saying that one fatal word. So keep your distance my barbarian warrior; you don’t have long to live in any case and I’d like to know a little more before I finish you.”

I felt as if an icy hand were squeezing my guts, but I forced my wits to work. “And what happens to your body when that word is spoken?” I said softly. “Or even if that word won’t kill you, isn’t there another which will? Do you think that the original Mortifer will leave you alive after you’ve served his purposes? Let me help you get rid of him and let me live to help you. I’m in your hands if what you say is true; I could never be a threat to you. I’ll do whatever you want, put on the mask of Mortifer you wore here and pretend to be your prisoner . . .” My hand groped frantically in the pouch behind me; if that nest was old enough the yolk of the eggs should be thick and glutinous. Would they do? They had to, there was nothing else I could get in time.

“No,” said the other man, “I don’t dare trust you . . .” I crunched the eggs in my hand and clapped my hands to my ears, filling my ear holes with a mess of yolk, white and shell. Yelling like a maniac I ran at the other man with my stick. His mouth was working but I could hear nothing, but an undifferentiated sound. I thrust at his throat with the sharpened end of my stick but he was as quick as I; he struck the stick aside and grabbed for me.

We grappled and rolled on the beach, bodies equally matched and skills of combat seemingly equal too. Several times he almost held me down, while he tried to shout in my ear. Every blow I could land went to his mouth, his throat, his diaphragm. He kneed me and I doubled over in pain, the flaked stone knife digging into my gut as I bent. We were too equally matched; I had to use that knife. I plucked it from my waistband and aimed up for his stomach, but a sudden wriggle of his body deflected my aim and I felt it slip between his ribs. Blood gushed and an expression of astonishment came over the face so like my face; the limbs relaxed. I thought it was a mortal blow, but I dared not trust him; my hand groped for a rock on the beach and I smashed his skull with it.

Before my blood could cool I hit again and again, obliterating his face as he had planned to obliterate mine.

I stumbled to the edge of the water and washed myself compulsively retching but unable to bring up anything. A fragment of an old verse ran through my mind:

I fought a dead man on the shore

And I think the man was me . . .

Presently my shuddering ceased and I walked back to look at the body, its head now a bloody mess. “Forgive me, brother,” I said uselessly. From the moment I had known what he was I had known he had to die. He might have had the Jagellon gift, and the combination of that gift and Mortifer’s mind was too dangerous to let loose in the world. But the necessity was bitter; another score against Mortifer. Had I committed suicide, fratricide or simple murder? I wondered. At any rate there was another death I must accomplish; it was too dangerous to parley with Mortifer any longer, or try to question him; I must kill him on sight.

I examined the body minutely, but it told me nothing. Was this yet a third clone or had Mortifer captured “Casmir Thorn,” stolen his memories and replaced his mind with Mortifer’s? There was no way that I could see of telling. What would have happened to this man eventually; would the Jagellon heritage have overcome the Mortifer memories given time enough? I wanted to think so, and that made this death yet more bitter. Wearily I made a rough cairn of beach rocks over the body, entered the water again and swam with slow strokes back to the place where I had gone into the river to swim to the island. Once ashore, I dispatched technical crews to the island, took a transport disc to the Castle and summoned my closest advisors.

“I met a duplicate of myself on the island,” I told them bluntly. “Mortifer’s plan was that the duplicate come back and take my place. Before we go any farther I want you each to question me about things that have happened since we met until you are absolutely sure that I am the man you elected Tribune.”

Once the inquisition was over I told them the whole story of my encounter on the island and told them for the first time about “Casmir Thorn.” Then I drew some morals. “I am vulnerable,” I told them. “If the man on the island told the truth—and his behavior tells me he did—Mortifer can kill me any time that he can have one word spoken in my ear. I see no way of guarding against that; one of you might tell me tomorrow that a man named Rumplestiltskin had been trying to reach me and I might fall over dead before your eyes.”

“Not necessarily,” said Wanda Jagellon. “I was a nurse for a while before I got involved in politics and I’ll wager that once the reflex is triggered you can be kept alive in a heart-lung field until a psychoneurologist can find the reflex and override it. I’ll give orders to have a medical team with the right equipment standing by in the Castle.”

“My thanks to you, Lady Wanda,” I said with a lighter heart. “That makes the case less desperate, but still it restricts me to places where I can get such medical help quickly. Furthermore, Mortifer could strike me down at a moment of crisis and leave all in confusion. It is past time that we had another Tribune; will you take on the task, my lady?”

She nodded with a little smile. “The people will accept a Jagellon woman I think, but only as your deputy. I’ll be the junior Tribune and take over if you are incapacitated.”

“My thanks,” I said. “It is no light burden that you take on, as well you know. The other problem, though, is what to do if Mortifer introduces another duplicate at some crucial moment. Mortifer has secret supporters still, and many resources. What if a duplicate appeared on the View with some lying tale? At best it would confuse the people and destroy confidence in us; at worst it might enable Mortifer to take over somehow.”

Wanda frowned. “Your strictly legal powers depend on the Council being in session. Things are slow; we can keep the Council in recess for a while.”

Paul Sobeski tapped his fingers on the table around which we sat. “What we need is some means of identifying you as yourself which a duplicate can’t easily reproduce—or steal. The trouble is that all the means of identification in our society depend on genotypes and a clone would have the same genotype and key the same identity tests. And it has to be a publicly visible sign of identity. You could have a fire-drake tattooed on your chest and we would know that a duplicate without the tattoo wasn’t you, but as soon as you publicize anything of that kind Mortifer could reproduce it on his clone.”

“There are unique gems in the Treasury here at the Castle . . .” began Ladislas Mankowitz.

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t put it past Mortifer to duplicate any material object. He duplicated Castle Thorn itself—twice! Anyway if we put our trust in something like that Mortifer has only to steal it somehow and it becomes a weapon against us.”

Ladislas knit his brows. “Something alive?” he suggested tentatively. “A dog perhaps.”

“Not a dog,” I said. “Any duplicate would smell just as I do and I don’t think a dog could tell us apart. The difference between me and a duplicate made by Mortifer would be in the mind and a dog can’t smell your mind . . .”

“No,” said Wanda softly, but with excitement, “not an ordinary dog. But a Caphellan ghost-hound can!” She turned to Ladislas. “Get on to the exotic importers, Ladislas. I doubt if there’s a ghost-hound on Carpathia, so put in a special order. I’ll use my personal credit to give Mortifer a little less chance of getting to us.” She turned to me. “The Caphellans are extreme empaths . . .”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve met one.”

“Good, then I don’t need to explain the Caphellans,” she said. “As you might guess they find it extremely painful to go among other species who have uncontrolled emotions by Caphellan standards. To a Caphellan you or I are constantly ‘shouting’ our emotions and are completely ‘deaf’ to the emotions of others. Imagine living among deaf people who constantly bawled at the top of their voices. So Caphellans living in other societies are extremely reclusive. At home Caphellans have little use for pets; they get constant emotional support from other Caphellans. An isolated Caphellan feels the lack of that support so they’re bred a sub-sapient Caphellan life-form into a sort of a super-pet for Caphellans who have to live away from other Caphellans. They form a unique emotional bond with their master or mistress . . .”

I frowned. “I don’t see why if I got such a creature Mortifer couldn’t acquire one too and bond it to his duplicate.”

Wanda smiled, “Ah, but you don’t know the unique characteristics of a ghost hound. They sniff out hatred and fear; that should make it harder for a traitor to get near you. But most important they can detect when a person is lying. In particular, if its master lies a ghost-hound ‘blushes’; turns a deep rich red all over.” She added dryly, “They aren’t popular pets among non-empaths.”

“It may just work,” I said slowly. “There’s a Caphellan at the Academy, or was when I landed here on Carpathia. See if it has a ghost-hound and will cooperate in making some sort of presentation of it to me on the View. Don’t cancel the order to the importers, Ladislas; even if the Caphellan parts with his beast I presume that it will want a replacement.”

The Caphellan was located and agreed to trade us the ghost-hound for a round trip starpassage to Caphella. “In the emotional freeze of a starflit I won’t miss my pet,” the creature said, “and after restoring my soul by communion with my people I can bring back a young Lar, a “ghost-hound” as you call them. My own beast is getting rather old. Ordinarily it would not transfer its loyalties to a new owner, but in your case I think there will be no trouble.” The Caphellan gave me an enigmatic glance from its three eyes and I remembered that it had been able to detect operation of the Jagellon Gift.

We had a rather impressive little ceremony broadcast on the View. The Caphellan presented me with his ghost-hound.

“I am returning to Caphella for a while and can find another,” it said. “Your planet has been kind to me; I think that this will be for the good of your planet and your Tribune.”

I thanked him and turned to face the receptors which sent out my image to the Views in homes and public buildings all over Carpathia. “I have never lied to you, so far as I remember,” I said. “If I try to do so from now on, you will easily catch me out, for Trinka, my ghost-hound, will always be with me. If I do tell you a lie, see what happens.” I thought for a moment and then said earnestly. “I am completely happy about never being able to tell a lie without Trinka giving me away.” I grinned as a flood of red color flowed over Trinka’s body from the tip of her nose to her feathery tail. It was a remarkable sight, for Trinka looked not unlike a white Afghan hound, but her fur was not hair but a sort of soft quills filled with liquid, which is what in fact changed color.

I looked into the receptors again. “Even an honest man does not like to
have
to tell the truth,” I said. “The reason that I have accepted Trinka, and will keep her with me constantly, is that Mortifer, my enemy and yours, is still plotting against us. He has tried to kill me and will try again, and for that reason I am going to have to restrict my activities for a while. I ask you to give your votes to Wanda Jagellon as Second Tribune, so that she can help me with my duties and take over if Mortifer succeeds in putting me out of action. Mortifer may also try to substitute someone for me; someone who looks like me in every way, but is a creature of his own. So long as you see Trinka with me you will know that you can trust what I say if I warn you of a danger or ask you to take action. If you see me without my ghost-hound, beware! Even if it looks like me it may not be me.” That should take care of the most obvious moves that Mortifer could make, having a duplicate commit some atrocity for instance to destroy my popularity. Better tell Ladislas not to cancel the order for another ghost-hound though; poor Trinka was probably a prime target for assassination now.

“I tell you most sincerely that Mortifer is a danger to Carpathia and even to the Commonwealth as well as to me. Any citizen who has information that might help us find him is urged to contact us at the Tribune’s special code; for the time being that View will be manned by a team of operators who will record your information.”

I looked into the receptors then and said softly, “Mortifer, kill me if you can, for if you do not I will put an end to you and your plans.”