The left headlight was broken. I thanked my lucky stars for being the
cautious type. I always carried a spare. I got it, and tools, from the
trunk of the car. Ten minutes later the job was done.
Now I had one more job to do. I'd put it off long enough. I realized
that now. Thordsen's discovery of my secret identity had precipitated
things. He was dead now, but while I was in the mood I might as well
get it all done.
It was wrong. I knew it was wrong. But I was Fred Martin and it was
something to cling to, to hold to forever. It was better to be Fred
Martin than to be nothing.
In the glove compartment was a gun, a small size thirty-eight
automatic. It belonged to Orville Snyder. I took it out and put it in
my pocket. Then I backed my car out of the garage and turned it into
the driveway. As I edged across the sidewalk I looked up the street.
Police cars were there with their ogling red eyes. And an ambulance.
Fear clutched at me. Maybe Thordsen wasn't dead.
I fought down the fear. If Thordsen lived, I was done. That possibility
made it all the more imperative that I kill--
I didn't know her name. Even now I couldn't get her name. Some
psychological block kept it from me.
I sat back, mentally, and looked at the situation. The realization
slowly simmered through that it wasn't _I_ who had killed Thordsen.
It wasn't _I_ who was driving so intently, with my fingers gripping
the steering wheel so tensely. I had thought so because I seemed to
_possess_ thoughts, tie myself to them and believe them mine.
I tried to feel regret for Dave Thordsen. I couldn't, because Fred
Martin didn't. I tried to feel horror at what was coming. I couldn't.
All I could feel was an overwhelming desire to point the gun at that
woman and fire, and see her crumble to the floor.
I didn't recognize the house. I remembered the concrete porch painted
with red enamel. I parked the car at the curb and walked to the porch
with swift nervous steps. But I was taking care to keep my footsteps
silent.
At the front door I took my keys from my pocket and slipped the right
one carefully into the lock. With infinite caution I turned it until I
heard the ever so faint click of the lock opening. Then I opened the
door, inch by inch.
I recognized the living room where my first memory of events had begun.
It was deserted. In another part of the house a radio was going,
playing soft music. A woman's voice, singing, came to my ears. It
wasn't on the radio. It was off key and untrained.
I took out the gun and made sure the safety catch was off. I pulled
the loading mechanism back far enough to make sure a bullet was in the
chamber. With the gun in my hand, I crossed to a door. I hesitated
briefly, then twisted the knob and gave the door a light push that made
it swing open wide.
* * * * *
The singing stopped. I saw her across the room, sitting before a large
mirror. And she saw me in the mirror. She saw the gun, too.
"No, Orville!" she said. Her hand went up to her mouth, but she didn't
turn.
I lifted the gun and aimed carefully. Even as I pulled the trigger I
tried desperately not to, and at the same time I sensed that the only
reason I could try not to was because a part of Fred Martin was also
trying to stop this killing.
I wasn't able to have a thought of my own. I was a chameleon, a freak
aggregation of fragmentary thoughts from other people's minds, brought
together in a temporal continuity held together by the concept, _I_.
Or was I?
Right now I was in the living room again. I had found pen and paper in
a desk, and was writing. What I was writing was a confession for the
murder of my wife. I read her name where I had written it. Thelma. It
was weird to not have known her name until I read it after writing it.
But what else was this I was writing? I was going to kill myself? But I
wasn't. I had built up my other identity too carefully. The note was a
cover-up.
It was finished. I left it on the desk and hurried out of the house.
The skinny man next door was standing on his lawn looking at the door
as I came out.
"What was that in there, Orville?" he asked. "I thought I heard a
shot."
"Shot?" I said. "Oh. I remember. Thelma was turning to another station
and had the volume too loud."
I went to my car and slipped in behind the wheel. He was still studying
the house uneasily. In a few more minutes he would knock to make sure
she was all right. Then he would call the police.
But by that time Orville Snyder would be no more.
I knew the plan now. The river had less than fifty miles to go to the
ocean. More than one person had committed suicide by leaping from a
bridge, without their body ever being found. Once one of the bodies had
washed ashore five hundred miles down the coast.
I was going to stop on a bridge and leave my coat, with the gun in it,
and with my wallet in it, to serve as proof that I had jumped.
But it wasn't I. It was Fred Martin. I was fighting to destroy the
illusion of his surface thoughts being mine, of my being Fred Martin.
It was no use. The most I could accomplish was a conscious realization
of the fact.
Abruptly I tried another line. If I couldn't divorce myself from him
could I actually control him for a brief moment? I had done so before,
when he wasn't under emotional tension.
I looked at the concrete streetlight standards on the curb. I was
travelling fast. Forty-five. If I could twist the wheel and crash into
a light standard....
I fought for control of my arms. Beads of perspiration formed on my
face. I didn't want to kill myself. Why did I think of such an absurd
thing?
But it wasn't I who didn't want to kill myself. It was Fred.
With that realization I jerked the steering wheel, feeling myself lurch
against the door as the car headed for the curb.
I was two people, and aware of the thoughts of both. I was Fred, and
he had done a curious thing in this last second of his life. He had
rejected the knowledge of impending death. To him the light standard
was Thordsen, and he was once again going to kill him.
And I was myself, aware suddenly that perhaps this was death for me
too, for with Fred's death there was nothing to transfer to.
I couldn't face it. I changed my mind and jerked frantically at the
wheel to avert the crash. And at the same time I felt myself lifted. I
saw the sidewalk and buildings spin. I had time to realize the car had
hit the curb and was turning over....
* * * * *
I frowned at the doodles I had drawn on the notepad. One was a
triangle. Another was a crude circle, resting on the bottom of the
triangle.
"Dr. Mintner," a voice said behind me.
I turned my head, startled. A man I had never seen before was standing
there, a plastic lab apron covering his shirt front.
"What is it?" I said.
My thoughts were whirling. I was Mintner. I had always been Mintner.
"I think I know what to do about that problem of the dialectric," he
said.
I smiled. The inexperienced fool. I had worked on that problem for two
years. It wasn't going to be solved easily. "Yes?" I said.
"I studied it from a different angle than the one you did," he said.
"That was what you suggested when I started here two months ago. Try
new lines of approach."
"That's right," I said. I smiled encouragingly.
"The dialectric isn't suited for computers," he said. "You tried to
find one that was. I tried that too, and covered your ground. Then I
asked myself, if it isn't suited to computers, what is it good for?
It's no good for computers because it doesn't discharge completely.
Or rather, it does and it doesn't. Its structure is altered by
the saturation charge and subsequent discharge in the computation
processes. But random and not-so-random charges build up again for some
reason, and interfere with computations after the machine has been used
a few times. I puzzled over this. It was too much like true memory. I
think what we have in this computer setup is more like a non-living
thinking brain than a simple computer. If we change the bleeder
leaks to the control grids--or maybe even cut them out altogether so
that the basic charge doesn't dissipate, and feed in something other
than figures and equations we can find out. Another thing, we'll have
to shield the charge circuits. I've been looking at those completed
computers in the back room. The charge circuits have unshielded
sections that can act like untuned radar antennae--a little too short
in wavelength for radar, but there's all kinds of unknown infra-reds
bouncing around."
What he was saying had penetrated with an impact that left me paralyzed
and cold. A million things clicked together in one final synthesis of
the problem of my identity.
"I think you might have something there," I heard myself say. "Uh,
don't touch any of those computers in the storeroom. Try some unused
dialectric mix and start from scratch. Get to work on it right away."
I waited until he had gone back to his bench--the one I had considered
mine when I was so sure I was Fred Martin. I was trembling in every
muscle as I stood up, even though I knew that outwardly I appeared to
be a bored and indifferent lab boss.
I crossed over to the door to the storeroom where the abandoned
computers were stored. When I reached it I paused and looked around the
lab. My two new assistants were busy at their benches. They weren't
looking my way.
I went in and closed the door, placing my back to it. In front of me
was an aisle. Walling the aisle were two tiers of open box storage
spaces. Some of them were empty. In several dozen were computers, all
constructed in this lab, all identical, and all unusable because they
held random charges that produced errors in mathematical calculations.
It was like a tomb here in the storeroom. Quiet. The computers rested
in their niches like bodies in a morgue. And one of them was me.
Here, somewhere, was my body. It was a neat body with its brown crackle
finish and orderly keyboard. But it was like all the others and there
was no way of telling which one was me.
I took step after slow step, pausing at each one, trying to probe with
mental fingers and find some indication of which I was. I paused at
each, and when I was through I still didn't know.
* * * * *
There was a way of finding out. My new assistant had mentioned it. I
could take each of these computers and shield the wires that served as
antennae, transmitting my thoughts and receiving those of Mintner.
But how could I be sure that he would unshield my antenna wires once he
had covered them and severed my contact with him? It was a risk I was
going to have to take. I started to tremble again. Somewhere in this
storeroom, in one of these sepulchral niches, was _I_! I had to know
which one.
I went back to the lab and returned with a kit of small tools. My
fingers were calm and sure now. My trembling was gone. I took the front
panel off the first computer near the door. The short wires from the
dialectric mix to the tube bank were in plain view, easily accessible.
I stood there studying them, considering and discarding a dozen plans
for shielding them so they could be quickly unshielded again.
Finally I decided on a procedure that was as foolproof as any I could
possibly devise. Rubber pads, with aluminum plates to be put over the
rubber.
After that it was merely a matter of carrying out the routine. I built
the rubber shields and the aluminum ones. I fitted them carefully
over the wires on the first machine, then as carefully took them off.
Nothing had happened.