I placed the facsimile sheet on her desk and waited while she activated
the circuit, which would release the catch on her side of the door.
_Who had it been? There had been four of us. Volunteers. We had been
selected, briefed and trained separately. We had been housed separately
during the mental and physical tortures of the surgical and the psych
labs. The ship which had brought us to Earth had released us at
separate points above the Earth capital. Only our ultimate goal was the
same. But now there was one less of us to accomplish that goal! And we
had lost the element of surprise._
The door clicked twice and swung open. I stepped through, just in time
to see the rotund shape of Senator Chambers go out a private exit on
the far side of the room. Both doors closed at almost the same moment
and I stood alone before the Secretary of Defense for the planet Earth.
The secretary sat behind a desk on the far side of the room. He was a
powerful man, in keeping with the importance of the job he filled. But
the huge memory bank which he relied upon and which filled the entire
wall behind his desk seemed to dwarf him.
Without looking up immediately, Secretary Bartlett carefully rewound a
tape he had been referring to and fed it back into the open mouth of
the memory unit.
* * * * *
He said, "Spicer, we've been talking about you. Do you have anything
new on this alien incident? Chambers said an impulse cleared the Master
Machine last night, indicating there may have been some sort of ship
overhead."
"No, sir," I lied. "My people are working on it, but we don't have much
more to go on than appeared in the latest fac-report."
"If there was a ship overhead, it was protected by a new type of
anti-identification device. The Master Machine probed for more than six
minutes and registered only a void. Chambers, of course, is always--"
Bartlett didn't finish the sentence. His words trailed off into a
moment of puzzled silence as he turned and looked squarely at me for
the first time.
Something had gone wrong. Something that I had done or hadn't done had
revealed to him that I wasn't General Spicer.
Secretary Bartlett started to rise. "Why, you're not Spicer! You're an
impostor!"
His eyes displayed neither fear nor surprise, but his hand was less
than a time point from the alarm buzzer on the top of his desk when I
touched the tiny stud on the hilt of my useless-looking swagger stick.
For the tick of a pulse, he sat there with his body bathed in the
colored ray, his finger poised above the warning buzzer. Then his body
began to glow. I closed my eyes when the heat and brightness reached
my face. When I opened them, there was nothing left of Bartlett but a
swirl of dust motes.
Stepping behind the desk, I stripped off the thin plasti-mask which had
disguised my features to look like those of General Spicer. My hands
moved almost automatically. Each motion had been rehearsed, timed,
analyzed, and timed again.
I reversed my coat, hiding the gold markings of the Security Police,
and revealing the precious-metal insignia which had been worn by the
Secretary of Defense. The now-useless ID card, which I had obtained
earlier when I destroyed the real General Spicer, was dropped into the
office incendiary tube, along with the mask and the removable steel
cappings of my boots.
By the time I had finished, only the swagger stick remained to connect
me with General Spicer. I carefully telescoped its length, twisting
and turning the artfully designed tubing, until it was identical to
Bartlett's cane of state, leaning against the desk. The real cane I
disposed of by dropping it into the incendiary tube after the other
articles.
I turned the stiff black collar of my coat up, in the same manner
that Bartlett had worn his. The upturned collar hid the tiny metal
electrodes protruding from the base of my neck, under each ear.
* * * * *
When I sat down behind the desk, the image reflected up at me from
the chromed top was, feature for feature, that of Defense Secretary
Bartlett. The electro-surgical knives, wielded by experts, had done a
good job. I grimaced. I puffed out my cheeks. I rolled my eyes. And, in
turn, the reflected image grimaced, puffed out its cheeks, and rolled
its eyes. The texture of my skin was that of Bartlett's. Even the pore
structure.
This had been the final big hurdle. The rest was now up to me.
No! More accurately, the rest depended upon routine--a routine
established more than 70 Earth years ago--a routine so inflexible that
it had not been broken for a single day. My mission was to break that
routine.
Destruction of Spicer and Bartlett was important only as a means to an
end. As soon as they were missed, others would fill their places. I
had to destroy _all_ Spicers and _all_ Bartletts. I had to destroy the
residents of Washington, of London, of New York, of Earth!
My mission was to destroy so that we could live. That was what the
technicians in the psych-labs had told me. That was what the physicians
behind the electro-surgical knives had told me. It had been drummed
into me over and over, through every phase of the mental and physical
preparation that I had been put through.
So I sat in Bartlett's office, looking like Bartlett, waiting. I knew
almost to the exact time point when the buzzer on the desk in front of
me would sound. I expected it, but when the strident tone filled the
room, I jumped.
I thumbed the switch on the desk video-com and the features of the
redheaded secretary looked out at me from the recessed screen. I
deepened my voice to mimic Bartlett's.
"Yes, Meta?"
The video-com was a two-way security system and I knew that she could
see me, too. She continued to stare, and I felt the scar tissue
tighten around the electrodes in my neck.
Through some flaw in transmission, for a brief moment, I thought I saw
the twinkle of an expression deep in her eyes. But that was impossible.
Her lips twitched and the transmission flaw, or whatever it might have
been, was corrected. Her eyes were as inscrutable as ever.
She said, "It's 1324, sir. The inspection group will be here in two
minutes. Shall I bring them in?"
I nodded my head to one side slightly, in a manner peculiar to
Bartlett. "Thank you, Meta. Yes, of course. Bring them in as soon as
they arrive."
I switched the video-com off and let my fingers lightly play with the
button on the desk that activated the lock on Bartlett's private door
into the inner corridor. It was a temptation to open the door and
attempt to go the rest of the way on my own. But I wouldn't make it.
Not even disguised as Defense Secretary Bartlett. I had been warned not
to try.
* * * * *
My only hope lay in the routine set up by Earth's scientists more
than 70 years ago--the daily inspection of the unit. As a member of
the inspection party, I could pass through the security guards. More
important, as a member of the group, I would arrive at the protective
force sphere at the hub of the Pentagon at the only time and at the
only place the force sphere could be breached.