"Talk to your psychiatrist," Taber said. "In the meantime, keep that
crowd out there from spilling in here."
Taber pushed out through the choked entrance to the areaway and went
back up the street. It was alive with activity now and he passed
unnoticed. No one recognized him as the man who had given chase in the
bloody business that would make headlines that evening in every New York
newspaper.
And yet the radio and TV news commentators gave it no special attention.
It went in along with other items of the day's news as a more or less
routine big-city happening.
One national-hookup headliner stated: "In New York City today, a man
identified as John Dennis, address unknown, went berserk in a
fashionable Upper East Side apartment. Dennis, wielding a knife, killed
a man and a woman, and seriously wounded another man before he was cut
down by police bullets.
"A jet airliner, down in the North Atlantic today, imperiled the lives
of seventy-six ..."
* * * * *
Frank Corson lay propped on two pillows in a private room of the Park
Hill Hospital. Rhoda Kane sat in a chair beside the bed. She was pale
and very beautiful. The fire was now gone from her body and the fever
from her eyes.
"They say he wasn't human. They say he was an android." She shuddered,
looked down quickly, then slowly raised her head.
"Yes."
"I'll--I'll never understand. I get sick thinking about it. I'll just
never understand."
"He was human and yet not human. He had extraordinary powers that we
don't begin to understand, so that what happened to you is no disgrace."
"It's a terrible disgrace."
"It happened to me, too. When he told me to sit down I had to do it. I
was helpless."
"But you fought! You overcame it."
Frank Corson smiled wryly. "No, I didn't. It was just that he'd had
little time to work on me. It was a single mental blow, so to speak,
that laid me out. Like one punch in the ring. Gradually, I came out of
it."
"I think I _tried_ to fight."
"Of course, you did. The disgrace was mine. I acted like a child. I
should have realized that something extraordinary had happened. But I
nursed my miserable little ego like a three-year-old."
"How could you know? My cruelty to you--"
"Don't talk like that! I knew about the ninth android, and I met the
tenth one in front of your apartment that second morning. I should have
associated. Brent Taber did, otherwise we might both be dead."
"It's all over now. It doesn't make any difference."
"No, it doesn't make any difference."
She looked at him in silence for several moments. "You've changed,
Frank."
"Yes, I guess I have. I guess we all grow up eventually. We all face
reality and live with it."
"Frank--I think I'm going to cry."
He could not turn his eyes in her direction. He looked straight ahead
but his voice was soft. "Go ahead, Rhoda. I understand."
They were silent for a time, then Rhoda began to cry quietly into her
handkerchief. After a while even that sound was stilled.
He turned to look at her. She was standing beside the bed. He almost
reached out and took her hand, but drew his own back at the last minute.
"How soon will you be leaving?" she asked.
"The wound was superficial. I really didn't need to be hospitalized. I'm
being released tomorrow morning. I'll probably leave immediately."
"You'll make a fine doctor, Frank."
"Thank you, I'll try."
"Good-bye, Frank."
"Good-bye--darling."
She turned and fled.
And judging by the deep sadness in his soul, he knew he had hit bottom.
There was no place to go but up.
* * * * *
Brent Taber's phone rang.
"Hello, Taber. Halliday here."
"How are you, Halliday."
"Tops, old man. Ragged by the stress of it all, of course, but tops."
Taber waited. Halliday waited. Seeing that he would get no help, he
said, "By the way, that little ... misunderstanding we had, the Senator
Crane thing, I'm sure you realized that our talk was ... well, the words
were put into my mouth. I felt the same way about the oaf as you did.
But sometimes, in the line of duty, old man ... well, I know you were
reading between my lines all the time."
"I'm pretty good at that."
"I knew we understood each other."
"Is that what you called about?"
"Yes, but I've got a little tip for you. They want to see you upstairs.
I happen to know they liked the way things turned out. Just between you
and me, the humiliation of Crane made certain high officials pretty
happy. I was queried and I gave you all the credit."
"Before or after the good Senator fell on his face?"
Halliday laughed. "Okay, pal. You're entitled to your little dig. But
you know this--I'm with you and I always will be."
"And I'm with you, too, pal," Brent said wearily and hung up.
The phone rang again. Automatically, Brent picked up the receiver.
"Brent? Porter on this end. How is it with you, old man?"
"Ducky. Just ducky."