"I didn't say that. I'll ask for volunteers. Your father's influence
will help. If you're both determined to go, I can't stop you. In any
case, you'll need Alston. He's just returned from Tihar and he knows
more about it than anyone else. I'm waiting for his report. You can
catch him at psycho, if you like. He'll be through soon."
She moved toward the door. "If I miss him there, I'll be back," she
promised. "How'll I know him?"
"Ask anyone. Alston is well-known. But don't promise anything you can't
make good. He's the most dangerous man on Venus."
"I believe you're afraid of him," Kial Nasron said, pausing at the
door.
"I am," admitted Hailard.
* * * * *
The cubicle was small, stifling hot in spite of air-conditioning.
Alston remembered groping to a chair and sagging into it. Armrests
came together like clamps, enforcing physical immobility. Men had been
known to go mad in the psycho-laboratories, and such precaution was
necessary. Invisible robot arms reached out to fit the plastic helmet
tightly on his head. Other clamps and electrodes gripped wrists and
ankle with inhumanly icy precision of contact.
There was always momentary impulse to resist, physically and mentally.
One strained against the manacles and tried to darken brain horizons,
both useless effort. But for a muted humming of tubes, the place was
soundless. Lightless, save for the brief swirls of flaring color on the
audio-screen. An illusion of infinite space built around him. Tension
released suddenly. Involuntarily, Alston relaxed, became dreamily aware
of the metallic voice of the machine starting its ritual of questions.
"Who are you?"
Alston responded with name and number.
"How long have you been on Venus?"
"Why were you sentenced?"
"How long does it usually take you to recuperate from the prescribed
two months of timber-cruising?"
"Can you explain why your present venture was prolonged so far beyond
the legal limit for exposure?"
Alston could and did. It was an elaborate lie, but he did not even
remember that he lied. He was conscious that something was wrong
with himself and his memories, but the false structure of his recent
adventures and emotions flowed from his subconscious without wavering.
Desperately he tried to erase all dangerous recollection from his mind.
But his conscious mind was alert, wary, attempting by plausible lies,
evasions and half-truths to defeat the purpose of the examination.
Detection was certain, sooner or later. The machine would realize the
artificial nature of his memory blocks and trace them to their source.
A battery of electronic brains has more efficiency than emotion. Even
primed as he was by a visit to the outlawed auto-hypnotic devices
hidden in the old native quarter of Castarona, there was no real chance
of deceiving the robot brains. He did not expect that, but he did hope
to confuse the issue long enough, cause enough delay, to give him his
one chance of escape. His plan was carefully worked out. Not foolproof,
but a matter of extremely delicate timing. It could work. But now....
By a supreme effort, he tried to banish all thought of escape from his
thought-patterns, tried to smudge-out the record of all recent emotion,
tried to forget everything that had happened to him in the Tihar
Forest. Especially....
At first Alston answered in words, speaking aloud from habit. Vocal
response was not required, meant nothing to the machine. The sounds
were noted and filed for future reference. Precise brain-wave pattern
measurements and analysis of physiological reactions combined into
far more exact information about him than any word or thought formed
consciously by the subject. The robot psychograph was lie detector,
encephalograph, and electronic calculator. Its prying fingers reached
into the human soul and came forth with stark truth.
Sharp, incisive, implacable, the psychograph probed with its mechanical
voice. Alston responded, his mind dulling, drifting on the vagaries
of memory stream, lulled by the drone of heating tubes, the rustling
hiss of his own breathing, the click of relays. Naked danger lay in
this state for Alston, yet he dared not brace himself against the
questioning. Synthetic memories would serve better if he yielded to his
subconscious. His voice descended to wordless mumbling, then died away
in cushioned silence.
Above all, no thought of escape, of dying or disappearance.
Alston was no different from other men except for the dogtag. He was
cast in the same mold of common humanity, but the identification dogtag
fastened on an impervium wire round his neck made the difference.
A man with the VE convict dogtag broadcasting its invisible and
inaudible signal cannot escape, cannot merely disappear. At any time,
wherever he was, its signal could be tuned in and his exact position
located. If the tag were forcibly removed by breaking the wire, almost
an impossibility with impervium, the signal automatically became an
alarm to summon patrol fliers from Castarona or Quanta City. The
escapee would be picked up within a radius of five miles from the start
of his break.
* * * * *
The field staff of Venusian Exports were a tough, hard-bitten, reckless
crew, consisting largely of convict labor recruited from Luna Prison
or the mines of Callisto. After serving part of their terms, they were
permitted to volunteer and be paroled in custody of the company. In
most cases, it was an escape from the frying pan into the fire. One
year in the deep mines and five years on Venus in constant danger and
under intolerable living conditions, Alston had developed certain
facets of his remarkable personality at the expense of social instincts
which seemed of no further use to him.
Guilty or innocent, he had been sentenced and he was there. The
abstract justice involved no longer mattered. He was vague about
details that seemed several lifetimes ago, and six years of nursing
a cumulative hatred of mankind had made him as wary, cunning and
treacherous as any other wild beast.
The fact that his cage occupied over a million square miles of the
northern hemisphere of Venus merely irritated him with the illusion
of freedom. For a man serving an indeterminate sentence, legal
release ceases to be even a vague dream. Except by death, few convict
laborers left the company, legally or otherwise. The escape to actual
outlawry might be another illusion, but Alston had worked out a plan
which seemed a fair gamble. It hinged on three facts not known by the
company, the most important of which was discovered by him on his
recent expedition. And it began with his death, or with a reasonably
exact facsimile of it....
Always supposing that the psychograph examination did not nip his plan
in the bud. An hour or two would be the most he could hope for, but it
might be enough.
Among other fantastic mutant plants of the Tihar Forest is a
giant-sized pitcher-plant, or fly-killer. From its aromatic juices can
be distilled a drug causing artificial catalepsy. Under proper dosage,
the condition simulates death so convincingly as to defy medical
detection. A microscopic overdose results in violent convulsions or
actual death. But the real joker, as far as Alston was concerned,
lay in the brevity of the cataleptic effect. Timing would be deadly
important. His death must occur far enough from the incinerators to
guarantee recovery before his body was burned; yet close enough so that
his dogtag could be removed and sent to the central records office
before his dreadful awakening.
Afterward, it might be rough, and someone was very likely to get hurt.
But with careful timing there was an excellent chance that he would get
free minus the tag, and be well on his way to the Tihar Forest before
his deception was discovered.
A harsh burr of sound from the screen roused him. The psycho test was
over. There was no indication of findings. He slumped in the chair
while the machine clicked and hummed and blinked signals. Invisible
robot hands released the clamps and removed the helmet. Weak and
strained, Alston had to be helped to his feet and guided gently to the
door.
Outside, he blinked while his eyes adjusted to the lighted corridor.
After the gloom of the cubicle, normal illumination was blinding.
The next two hours would tell the tale. He hoped the coming interview
with Hailard would be brief. Every minute counted....