"Barbell! He's heard you! Watch it!"
But Stanton had already heard the movement of the Nipe. He jerked off
the communicator and threw it down the stairs behind him. He wanted no
encumbrances now!
He ran quickly out into the center of the big underground room, away
from the open stairwell.
And then, as fast as any express train that had ever moved through these
subterranean ways, the Nipe came around a corner thirty feet away, his
four violet eyes gleaming, his limbs rippling beneath his centipede-like
body.
From fifteen feet away, he launched himself through the air, his
outstretched hands ready to kill.
But Stanton's marvelous neuromuscular system was already in action.
At this stage of the game, it would be utter suicide to let the Nipe
get in close. Stanton couldn't fend off eight grasping hands with his
own two. He leaped to one side, and the Nipe got his first surprise in
ten years when Stanton's fist slammed against the side of his snouted
head, knocking him in the direction opposite that in which Stanton had
moved.
The Nipe landed, turned, and charged back toward the man. This time he
reared up, using his two rearmost pairs of limbs for locomotion, while
the two forward pairs were held out, ready to kill.
He got surprise number two when Stanton's fist landed on the tip of his
rather sensitive snout, rocking his head back. His own hands met nothing
but air, and by the time he had recovered from the blow, Stanton was
well back, out of the way.
_He's so small!_ Stanton thought wonderingly. Even when he reared up,
the Nipe's head was only three feet above the concrete floor.
The Nipe came in again--more cautiously this time.
Stanton punched again with a straight right. The Nipe moved his head
aside, and Stanton's knuckles merely grazed the side of the alien's
head, just below the lower right eye.
At the same time, one of the Nipe's hands swung in in a chopping right
hook that took Stanton just below the ribs. Stanton leaped back with a
gasp of pain.
The Nipe didn't use fists. He used his open hand, fingers together, like
a judo fighter.
The Nipe came forward, and, as Stanton danced back, the Nipe made a grab
for his ankle, almost catching it. There were too many hands to watch!
Stanton had two advantages: weight and reach. His arms were almost half
again as long as the Nipe's.
Against that, the Nipe had all those hands; and with his low center of
gravity and four-footed stance, it would be hard to knock him down. On
the other hand, if Stanton lost his footing, the fight would be over
fast.
Stanton lunged suddenly forward and planted a left in the Nipe's right
upper eye, then followed it with a right uppercut to the Nipe's jaw as
his head snapped back. The Nipe's four hands cut inward from the sides
like sword blades, but they found no target.
Backing away, Stanton realized he had another advantage. The Nipe
couldn't throw a straight jab! His shoulders--if that's what they should
be called--were narrow and the upper arm bones weren't articulated
properly for such a blow. The alien could throw a mean hook, but he had
to get in close to deliver it.
On the other side of the coin was the fact that the Nipe knew plenty
about human anatomy--from the bones out. Stanton's knowledge of Nipe
anatomy was almost totally superficial.
He wished he knew if and where the Nipe had a solar plexus. He would
like to punch something soft for a change.
Instead, he tried for another eye. He danced in, jabbed, and danced out.
The Nipe had ducked again, taking the blow on the side of his head.
Then the Nipe came in low, at an angle, trying for the groin. For his
troubles, he got a knee in the jaw that staggered him badly. One
grasping hand clutched at Stanton's right thigh and grabbed hard.
Stanton swung his fist down like a pendulum and knocked the arm aside.
But there was a slight limp in his movements as he back-pedaled away
from the Nipe. That full-handed pinch had hurt like the very devil!
Stanton was angry now, with the hot, controlled anger of a fighting man.
He stepped in quickly and slammed two fast hard jabs into the point of
the Nipe's snout, jarring the monster backward. And this time it was
the Nipe who scuttled back out of the way.
Stanton moved in fast to press his advantage and landed a beaut on the
Nipe's lower left eye. Then he tried a body blow. It wasn't too
successful. The alien had an endoskeleton, but he also had a tough hide
that was somewhat like thick, leathery chitin.
Stanton pulled back, getting out of the way of the Nipe's open-handed
judo cuts.
His fists were beginning to hurt, and his leg was paining him badly
where the Nipe had clamped onto it. And his ribs were throbbing where
the Nipe had landed that single blow.
And then he realized that, so far, the Nipe had only landed that one
blow!
_One punch and one pinch_, Stanton thought with a touch of awe. _The
only other damage he's inflicted has been to my knuckles!_
The Nipe charged in again, then he leaped suddenly and clawed for
Stanton's face with his first pair of hands. The second and third pairs
chopped in toward the man's body. The last pair propelled him off the
floor.
Stanton stepped back and drove in a long, hard right, hitting him just
below the jaw, where his throat would have been if he had been human.
The Nipe arced backward in a half somersault and landed flat on his
back.
Stanton backed up a little more, waiting, while the Nipe wiggled feebly
for a moment. _The Marquis of Queensberry should have lived to see
this_, he thought.
The Nipe rolled over and crouched on all eight limbs. His violet eyes
watched Stanton, but the man could read no expression on that inhuman
face.
"_You did not kill._"
For a moment, Stanton found it hard to believe that the hissing,
guttural voice had come from the crouching monster.
"_You did not even_ try _to kill._"
"I have no wish to kill you," Stanton said evenly.
"_I can see that. Do you ... Are you ..._" He stopped, as if baffled.
"_There are not the proper words. Do you follow the Customs?_"
Stanton felt a surge of triumph. This was what George Yoritomo had
guessed might happen!
"If I must kill you," Stanton said carefully, "I, myself, will do the
honors. You will not go uneaten."
The Nipe sagged a little, relaxing all over. "_I had hoped it was so. It
was the only thinkable thing. I saw you on the television, and it was
only thinkable that you came for me._"
Stanton sighed inwardly. That part of Colonel Mannheim's strategy had
worked, too. The Nipe had seen all the publicity releases that had been
so carefully tailored for him.
"_I knew you were out on the asteroids_," the Nipe went on. "_But I had
decided that you had come to kill. Since you did not, what are your
thoughts, Stanley Martin?_"
"That we should help each other," Stanton said.
It was as simple as that.
_[23]_
Stanton sat in his hotel room, smoking a cigarette, staring at the wall,
and thinking.
He was alone again. All the fuss and feathers and foofaraw were over.
Dr. Farnsworth was in another room of the suite, making his plans for a
complete physical examination of the Nipe. Dr. George Yoritomo was
having the time of his life, holding a conversation with the Nipe,
drawing the alien out, and getting him to talk about his own race and
their history.
And Stanley Martin was plotting the next phase of the capture--the
cover-up.
Stanton smiled a little. Colonel Mannheim had been a great one for
planning, all right. Every little detail was taken care of. It had
sometimes made his plans more complex than necessary, Stanton suspected.
Mannheim had tended to try to account for every possible eventuality,
and, after he had done that, he had set aside a few reserves here and
there, just in case they might be useful if something unforeseen
happened.
All things considered, the Government had certainly done the right
thing. And, in picking Mannheim, they had picked the right man.
Stanton got up, walked over to the window, and looked down at the
streets of Government City, eight floors below.
What would those people down there think if they were told the true
story of the Nipe? What would the average citizen say if he discovered
that, at this very moment, the Nipe was being treated almost as an
honored guest of the Government? More, what would he say if he suspected
that the Nipe--the horrible, murderous, man-eating Nipe--could have been
killed easily at any time during the past six years?
Would it be possible for anyone to explain to the common average man
that, in the long run, the knowledge possessed by the Nipe was
tremendously more valuable to the race of Man than the lives of a few
individuals?
Could those people down there, and the others like them all over the
world, be made to understand that, by his own lights, the Nipe had been
behaving in the most civilized and gentlemanly fashion he knew? Could
they ever be made to understand that, because of the tremendous wealth
of priceless information stored in that alien brain, the Nipe's life had
to be preserved at any cost?
Or would they scream for blood?
Dr. Farnsworth assumed that Stanley Martin was going to spread a story
about the Nipe's death--a carefully concocted story about how Stanley
Martin had found the beast and the police had killed it. There might,
Farnsworth assumed, be a carefully made "corpse" for the mob to hiss at.
Maybe Farnsworth was right. But Stanton had the feeling that Martin and
George Yoritomo had something else up their collective sleeve.
The phone hummed. Stanton walked over, thumbed the answer button, and
watched George Yoritomo's face take shape on the screen.
"Bart! I have just had the privilege of viewing the tapes of your fight
with our friend, the Nipe. Incredible! I watched the original on the
screen, of course, but I had to run the tapes. I wanted to slow it down,
so that I could see what actually happened. Magnificent, that right of
yours! _So!_" He jabbed a fist out, shadowboxing with Stanton over the
phone circuit.
"Awww, it weren't nuthin', Maw," Stanton drawled. "I jes' sorta flang
out a fist an' he got in the way."
"Of course! But such a fling! Seriously, Bart, I want to run those tapes
over again, and I want you to tell me, as best you can, just what went
on in your mind at each stage of the fight. It will be most
informative."
"You mean right now? I have an appointment--"
Yoritomo waved a hand. "No, no. Later. Take your time. But I am honestly
amazed that you won so easily. I knew you were good, and I was certain
you'd win, but I must admit that I honestly expected you to be
injured."
Stanton looked down at his bandaged hands and felt the ache of his
broken rib and the pain of the blue bruise on his thigh. In spite of the
way it looked, he had actually been hurt worse than the Nipe had. That
boy was _tough_!
"The trouble was that he couldn't adapt himself to fighting in a new
way, just as you predicted," he told Yoritomo. "He fought me, I assume,
in just the way he would have fought another Nipe. And that didn't work.
I had the reach on him, and I could maneuver faster. Besides, he can't
throw a straight punch with those shoulders of his."
"It appeared to me," Yoritomo said with a broad grin, "that you were
fighting him as you would fight another human being. Eh?"
Stanton grinned back. "I was, in a modified way. But I wasn't confined
to a pattern. Besides, I won--the Nipe didn't. And that's all that
counts."
"It is, indeed. Well, I'll let you know when I'm ready for your
impressions of the fight. Probably tomorrow some time--say, in the
afternoon?"
"Fine."
George Yoritomo nodded his thanks, and his image collapsed and faded
from the screen.
Stanton walked back over to the window, but this time he looked at the
horizon, not the street.
George Yoritomo had called him "Bart". It's funny, Stanton thought, how
habit can get the best of a man. Yoritomo had known the truth all along.
And now he knew that his pupil--or patient--whichever it was--was aware
of the truth. And still, he had called him "Bart".
_And I still think of myself as Bart_, he thought. _I probably always
will._
And why not? Why shouldn't he? Martin Stanton no longer existed--in a
sense, he had never existed. And in actual fact, he had never had much
of a real existence. He was only a bad dream. He had always been a bad
dream. And now that the dream was over, only "Bart" was real.
He thought back, remembering George Yoritomo's explanation.
"Take two people," he had said. "Two people genetically identical.
Damage one of them so badly that he is helpless and useless--to himself
and to others. Damage him so badly that he is always only a step away
from death.
"The vague telepathic bond that always links identical twins (they
'think alike', they say) becomes unbalanced under such conditions.
"Normally, there is a give-and-take. One mind is as strong as the other,
and each preserves the sense of his own identity, since the two
different sets of sense receptors give different viewpoints. But if one
of the twins is damaged badly enough, then something must happen to that
telepathic linkage.
"Usually it is broken.
"But the link between you and your brother was not broken. Instead, it
became a one-way channel.
"What happens in such a case? The damaged brother, in order to escape
the intolerable prison of his own body, becomes a receptor for the
stronger brother's thoughts. The weaker feels as the stronger feels. The
experience of the one becomes the experience of the other--the thrill of
running after a baseball, the pride of doing something clever with the
hands, the touch of a girl's kiss upon the lips--all these become the
property of the weaker, since he is receiving the thoughts of the
stronger. There is, of course, no flow in the other direction. The
stronger brother has no way of knowing that his every thought is being
duplicated in his brother's mind.
"In effect, the damaged brother ceases to think. The thoughts in his
mind are those of the healthy brother. The feeling of identity becomes
almost complete.
"To the outside observer, the damaged brother appears to be a cataleptic
schizophrenic, completely cut off from reality. And, in a sense, he is."
Stanton walked over to the nightstand by the bed, took another cigarette
from the pack, lit it, and looked at the smoke curling up from the tip.
_So Martin became a cataleptic schizophrenic_, he thought.
The mind of Martin had ceased to think at all. The "Bart" part of him
had not wanted to be disturbed by the garbled, feeble sensory
impressions that "Mart's" body provided. Like many another
schizophrenic, Martin had been living in a little world cut off from the
actual physical world around his body.
The difference between Martin's condition and that of the ordinary
schizophrenic had been that Martin's little dream world had actually
existed. It had been an almost exact counterpart of the world that had
existed in the perfectly sane, rational mind of his brother, Bart. It
had grown and developed as Bart had, fed by the one-way telepathic flow
from the stronger mind to the weaker.
There had been two Barts--and no Mart at all.
But there had been only one human being between them. Bart Stanton had
been a strong, capable, intelligent, active human being. The duplicate
of his mind was just a recording in the mind of a useless,
radiation-blasted hulk.
And then the Neurophysical Institute had come into the picture. A new
process had been developed by Dr. Farnsworth and his crew, by which a
human being could be reconstructed--made, literally, into a superman.
All the techniques had been worked out in careful and minute detail. But
there was one major drawback. Any normal human body would resist the
process--to the death, if necessary--just as a normal human body will
resist a skin graft from an alien donor or the injection of an alien
protein.
But the radiation-damaged body of Martin Stanton had had no resistance
of that kind. It had long been known that deep-penetrating ionizing
radiation had that effect on an organism. The ability to resist was
weakened, almost destroyed.
With Martin Stanton's body--perhaps--the process might work.
So Bartholomew Stanton, who had become Martin's legal guardian after the
death of their mother, had given permission for the series of operations
that would rebuild his crippled brother.
The telepathic link, of course, had to be shut off--for a time, at
least. If it remained intact, Martin would never be able to think for
himself, no matter what was done to his body. Part of that cutting-off
process could be done during the treatment of Martin--but only if
Bartholomew would co-operate. He had done his part. He had submitted to
deep hypnosis, and had allowed himself to be convinced that his name was
Stanley Martin, to think of himself as Stanley Martin. The Martin name
was one that the real Martin's mind would reject utterly. That mind
wanted nothing to do with anything named Martin.
"Stanley Martin," then, had gone out to the asteroids. In his mind had
been implanted the further instructions that he was not to return to
Earth nor to attempt to investigate the Nipe under any circumstances.
The simple change of name and environment had been just enough to snap
the link during a time when Martin's brain had been inactivated by cold
therapy and anesthetics.
Only the sense of identity had remained. The patient was still
"Bart"--but now he was being forced to think for himself.
Mannheim had used them both, naturally. Colonel Mannheim had the ability
to use anyone at hand, including himself, to get a job done.
Stanton looked at his watch. It was almost time.
Mannheim had sent for "Stanley Martin" when the time had come for him to
return in order to give the Nipe data that he would be sure to
misinterpret. A special series of code phrases in the message had
released "Stanley Martin" from the hypnotic suggestions that had held
him for so long. He knew now that he was Bartholomew Stanton.
_And so do I_, thought the man by the window. _We have a lot to
straighten out, we two._
There was a knock at the door.
Stanton walked over and opened it, trying not to think.
It was like looking into a mirror.
"Hello, Bart," he said.
"Hello, Bart," said the other.
In that instant, complete telepathic linkage was restored. In that
instant, they both knew what only one of them had known before--that,
for a time, the telepathic flow had been one-way again, but this time in
the opposite direction--that "Stanley Martin" had been shaken that
afternoon when his own mind had become the receptor for the other's
thoughts, and he had experienced completely the entire battle with the
Nipe. His release from the posthypnotic suggestion had made it possible.
There was no need for further words.
_E duobus unum._
There was unity without loss of identity.