He shrugged, and tried to open the top file. It was locked. He tried
the others, with no better luck.
Then he heard the voices in the anteroom.
For some reason, he sensed danger. He knew he shouldn't be in the file
room, that if he were found his visit to Dr. Minton might come to a
sudden end. He couldn't take the chance. He tiptoed to the front door
of the file room and turned the knob. He slipped out, and ran on his
toes down the empty corridor.
Quickly, without thought of the consequence, Ron opened still another
door and closed it behind him.
He looked at the shining brass fixtures and ultra modern appliances,
and wondered what a kitchen was doing in a government medical building.
Then, when he heard a sound in the adjoining room, he reasoned that he
had stumbled into someone's living quarters.
He went to a brown mahogany door and pushed against it gently, until he
widened the crack sufficiently to make out the figure walking up and
down in the other room.
When the man crossed his line of vision, Ron's breath tumbled out in a
gasp.
It was his own body. His thirty-year-old body, with its six-foot-two
frame of big bones and long muscles, its sandy, close-cropped hair, its
brooding eyes and full mouth. It was Ron Carver. It was himself as he
had been before.
"Here's the little rascal," a voice said behind him.
* * * * *
The crinkly-haired man took his arm roughly.
"Okay, kid. Let's hear it."
"Hear what?" Ron said plaintively. "I wasn't doing anything!"
"Sure," the guard sneered. "He wasn't doin' a thing. Just snoopin'
around, that's all."
The swinging door opened.
"What's going on here?"
Ron Carver looked at himself; at his own face, now strange and stony;
at his own eyes, now bright and disinterested; at his own mouth, now
a thin line of discontent. He heard his own voice, in a dangerous
inflection he had never known before.
"Sorry, sir," the guard said, reddening. "Didn't know you were inside.
Wouldn't have disturbed you--"
"How did he get here?"
"Gosh, sir, I really don't know. He says he was lookin' for Dr.
Minton--"
"Minton," Ron Carver's voice said. "Yes, of course. He would be looking
for Minton, wouldn't he?"
"Sir?"
"Never mind. Bring the boy into my quarters. Then get Dr. Minton up
here at once."
"Yes, sir!"
They pushed the swinging door open and shoved Ron ahead of them. The
room was an anomaly in this pristine government building, a warm room
of deep-colored woods and thick carpeting. He was placed in a leather
chair, his feet not touching the floor. The two men exited, and Ron
Carver's body walked to an oaken desk and sat in the padded swivel
chair behind the blotter.
"Well," he said. "This is something of a surprise for me."
"And how about me?" Ron said hoarsely.
The man laughed. "Yes, we are both surprised. Was it Robert Burns? Yes,
of course. 'To see ourselves as others see us....'" He chuckled, and
reached for a cigarette. "Filthy habit, this. Don't know how I picked
it up. Possibly a deep-seated trait of yours, Mr. Carver. Odd how
these things can be transferred."
The door opened again.
"Dr. Minton!" Ron leaped to his feet.
The doctor's face went white behind the gray beard and moustache.
"Then you've found him," he said softly, to neither of them in
particular.
"No," Ron Carver's body answered. "I didn't find him, doctor. Rather,
he found us. Isn't that right, Mr. Carver?"
"Yes!" Ron said. "And now I want to know the truth!"
"I, too, need answers," the Ron-body said stiffly. "I need answers at
once, Dr. Minton. I would think this requires an explanation."
"I couldn't do it," the doctor whispered. "I couldn't do what you
wanted, Scholar."
"Do what?" Ron said.
"All right, then," the Ron-body said coldly. "You failed once. But
you're far too intelligent to make the same mistake twice. So you have
your assignment, Dr. Minton. I will get you the help you need. But kill
this--this remnant--"
He turned away in disgust, and picked up the telephone. He spoke under
his breath for a few moments, and then hung up. "Dr. Luther will be
here in just a moment. He'll arrange things with the laboratory. It
will all be very painless and quick."
Ron said: "What are you talking about?" He looked wildly towards the
old man, who had aged even further since entering the room. "Dr.
Minton--"
The door opened. A brisk young man, carrying a small valise, appeared.
"All set downstairs," he said.
"Good," the Ron-body answered. "Then get it over with."
Ron struggled for a moment in the young man's grip, but he found it
iron.
"Please, Ron." Doctor Minton's eyes were moist. "Don't make any
trouble. Please...."
* * * * *
The laboratory was in the basement of the building, an antiseptic room
with the acrid odor of chemicals. Dr. Luther prepared something in a
hypodermic syringe, while Dr. Minton strapped his former patient onto
a padded examining table.
"Doctor ..." Ron whispered.
"Hush, Ron. It's all right...."
"But what is all this? Who am I?"
The doctor frowned. "You're Ronald Carver. You're the same Ronald
Carver you always were. But you have made an exchange of bodies. That
is all."
"But why? How?"
"I don't really know. God help us. It was _his_ project from start to
finish--that thing upstairs."
"Who is he?"
"A phenomenon. A mutation. A freak. A genius. A god. I can't explain
him. He was born twelve years ago, to normal parents in the middle
west. He was a recognized prodigy at the age of six months, a
mathematical wizard at one, a scientific genius at three.... You've
heard of this kind of thing, Ron. Once a generation, something like
this. And once a millenium--a horror like this one."
"I don't understand! What is Project Scholar?"
"He is. All by himself. The government has taken charge of his
abilities, at least for the time being." He snorted. "He's already done
things I wouldn't have believed possible in five thousand years of
evolution. And yet he is still only twelve years old...."
"Only twelve?" Ron squirmed in the straps. "Doctor! This body--"
"Yes, Ron. It's his, of course. He grew angry with it; wanted to
discard it, like everything else which doesn't fit his conception of
the fitness of things. It was awkward--a giant's brain in a child's
body. So he developed a solution--an operation, involving the total
transference of electrical energy...."
The doctor's shaggy head bowed. "He needed human help for that. That's
when I was brought in as assistant. And it was my function to select
the perfect body as a temporary house for his ego...."
"Temporary?"
"When this body ages and grows feeble, there will be another. Our
friend has outwitted Death itself."
The doctor looked up, his jaw firm.
"I was instructed to destroy his body when the transference was
completed. I couldn't do it, Ron. I managed to spirit you away where
you would be cared for. It was almost a year before you came to your
senses after the operation. By that time, I didn't know what to do with
you. My first thought was the Roverwood Home, where I am a director,
where you would be lost among many, many boys' faces...."
"But why me, doctor? Why me?"
"I had to choose someone, Ron. It was merely a question of who...."
Dr. Luther entered, priming the needle.
"Ready?" he said.
"One moment." The doctor's hand covered Ron's mouth, and he felt the
contours of a small round pill against his lips. He realized he was
meant to swallow it, and he did.
"Ready now," Dr. Minton said.
Dr. Luther performed the injection.
"Good night, sweet prince," he said gently.
* * * * *
When Ron awoke, it was under a blanket of darkness and ice.
He blinked until his eyes became accustomed to the impoverished light
that was glowing behind a glass-paned door.
He was on a block of some cold composition, in what must have been the
Medical Center's morgue. He reacted with revulsion at the thought,
and leaped off. Then he saw that his left hand was holding a sheet of
paper. He carried it to the meager light source and read it quickly:
_Ron_--
_Don't wait another moment. You'll find a suit of clothes in the
closet left. Leave through back stairway marked N. There is money
in suit. Use it to leave the city. Do not return if you value
your safety and the life of_
_M._
He found the clothes as directed, a neatly-cut suit of boy's clothing,
with a small wallet stuffed with bills amounting to three hundred
dollars. He dressed rapidly, opened the door, and peered down the hall.
It was empty as he ran silently towards the exit marked N.
Now he was doubly in debt to Dr. Minton. But he couldn't spare the
doctor even now, for his life had been given a new direction and
purpose.
He was going to kill the Scholar.
He walked rapidly through the dark streets towards the public parking
lot where the helicopter had been stored. He took the lift to the roof,
and walked up to it quickly.
"It's about time, pal."
It was Shock, his hair tousled over his hard, bright eyes. There was a
gun in his hand.
"I've been waitin' an hour, you punk. Think you were gettin' off so
easy?"
"Look, Shock--"
"You thought you were a clever boy, didn't you? Well, I got news for
you--"
"Look, I don't want to be leader. I just needed a copter for a few
hours."
"Yeah, sure. Only you forgot something. We put Finder equipment on this
baby a long time ago, so we could keep tabs on it."
"You can _have_ the copter--"
"I don't want just the copter, Ronnie boy. I want to square a few
things with you."
"Look, Shock. I'll make a deal with you. I'll give you two hundred
bucks for that gun."