A dim, slender figure swirled dizzily in front of him. He hoped she
was a nurse, but he could only see the flowing whiteness of her as she
moved to the door. “You can come in, Miss Farrell,” she said.
Miss Farrell came in. She was better known to Talbot as Randy, and
close up she was even more breathtaking than when he had first seen
her. His vision was steadying a little now.
“Just a few minutes--not longer,” the nurse cautioned.
Randy sat down beside him, touching his face lightly. He could feel
the gentle pressure of her fingers through the bandages. “Don’t try to
talk,” she said. “I’ll say everything that has to be said. And it won’t
take long.”
He blinked in grateful understanding. It wasn’t a wholly satisfactory
form of communication, but her nearness soothed him.
“We haven’t found out how that thermal capsule got there,” she said.
“We know it was hot, however. It had a temperature of at least a half
million degrees, despite its extreme smallness. After you get well
enough to talk freely we’ll try to reconstruct what happened.”
He nodded slightly, and the effort sent a wave of pain coursing through
him.
“So much for that,” she said. “You’ll get well. There won’t even be
scars. You’re lucky. Did you know it?”
He knew it. But he knew also that it wasn’t _only_ luck. Soleri had
saved his life at the expense of his own.
Then she said an incredible thing. “All we found of the other poor
devil was his lower arm. The card was still clutched in his hand. It
was scorched but not burned. I gave it to one of our mathematicians and
he has worked out two curves that might fit. The man was everything you
said he was--and more. I wish he’d lived.”
Talbot closed his eyes in stunned protest. She was making a mistake, a
crazy utterly incomprehensible mistake. He tried to tell her--but there
was only a gurgle in his throat.
“Don’t bat your eyes at me,” she said in mock reproof. “It’s true. The
lowest empathy index registered is zero point eight. Right? Well, this
man was zero point five. The mathematician couldn’t be sure, but he
_thought_ it might be even lower.”
She brushed the hair away from her lovely eyes. “Perhaps I should have
kept it to myself. No one could possibly have the index the curve
indicated. There are limits to human credulity.”
Again he tried to tell her that it was Soleri who had died. Soleri!
But the bandages were too tight and his weakness too overwhelming.
But how could she have made such a mistake? True, he’d been wearing
the same clothing as Soleri and the dead man had been clutching his
employment card. But a woman who had been close to Soleri, who had seen
him every day, would surely know--
She leaned over, brushing her lips against his eyes. “Don’t worry,” she
said. “I disposed of the remains--and put him on the payroll. Roving
assignment, reporting only to you. After six months we can arrange to
make it appear that he was killed in an accident.”
His eyes! She’d known Soleri well enough to remember that the dead
man’s eyes were dark, not gray. Women were never in error about things
like that. He blinked frantically, but she failed to draw the correct
conclusion.
“Why six months?” she smiled. “Because I have the company’s interest
at heart. Otherwise we’d have to pay the full death benefit. If he’s
on the payroll after six months the insurance company must assume the
responsibility. His salary will be much less than the death benefit.
He’s dead. Nothing we can do will bring him back. We may as well save
some money.”
The logic was acceptable, but she had the wrong man. He groaned in
frustration and the sound escaped as a muffled protest from his
tortured and burned throat.
Instantly the nurse reappeared.
“That’s all, Miss Farrell. He’ll rest better for knowing what happened.
But I think you’ve told him enough.”
Randy bent over. “Everything’s all right,” she whispered. “Get well.”
And then the nurse found an unbandaged region on his right shoulder and
jabbed him. He ceased to feel or hear anything.
It was that way for the next few days, a dim and shadowy routine which
he was vaguely and occasionally aware of. From time to time he felt
stronger but the nurse had a needle ready and always used it. They
intended to make certain that he did not prematurely exert himself.
Finally a day came when the nurse wasn’t there. It had apparently been
decided that he was ready to rejoin the living. He lay motionless on
the bed, staring down at his folded arms. His right hand was bandaged;
his left was not. He raised both hands to his face. The bandages were
fewer, lighter than before.
Sooner or later, he told himself, the bandages would have to come
off. Then what? Then the truth would be known to everyone. Still, he
wasn’t in an enviable position. He had gone at such an early hour to
Soleri’s office that no one had seen him. He had only Soleri’s word as
to his honesty of purpose--and Soleri was dead. Randy had made things
worse with her silly attempt to hush things up. He was in a serious
mess--and had no way of knowing what was going to come out of it.
He got up shakily. He had made up his mind. He must leave the hospital.
He knew it was foolish, but that didn’t stop him. He swung his legs
over the side of the bed and found to his relief that he could stand.
He teetered precariously for an instant and then stood upright.
There was a closet on the opposite side of the room. He wobbled toward
it, wrenched the door open. It contained a robe but no clothes. As he
braced himself in the doorway he caught sight of his face in the mirror
on the back of the door. His brow was gleaming with perspiration and
his eyes glittered darkly in the expanse of white. The bandages would
have to come off.
It was painful but not as bad as he had thought it might be. He found
an edge and pried at the masklike plaster. The bandages came off in one
piece. His raw skin burned as air came in contact with it. It stung and
burned, but he scarcely noticed the pain.
He stared at his reflection.
Now he knew what Randy had refused to tell him because she didn’t
believe it herself. The empathy index of the man she supposed dead was
not zero point five. It was much less than that.
It was zero.
And zero was identity.
The face looking back at him was not that of Hal Talbot. It was Evan
Soleri. It was Evan Soleri even to the dark eyes and the stubble of
black hair that was beginning to grow in on his burned scalp.
Talbot or Soleri, he went back to bed.
He lay very still. His mind raced back, to the scene in the office. He
had _thought_ there were two sounds, the strange one slightly before
the thermal explosion. But the first had not been a sound at all. He
knew that now. It was Evan Soleri’s mental reaction to the approach
of death. No one else could have heard it--no one except a man whose
empathy index was zero. It was the crisis that had brought out his
latent ability. He had responded by recreating himself as the identity
of a person a microsecond removed from extinction.
He had done this successfully--but what came next?
He had been thinking of escape. It was no longer possible. As far as
his immediate future was concerned he _was_ Evan Soleri. He might be
able to prove otherwise. But it could be a dangerous undertaking. They
might think he’d had his face surgically altered with the deliberate,
prior intention of replacing Soleri.
Besides--well, he had liked Soleri. Without a second’s thought Soleri
had given his life for a man he hardly knew. Quite possibly the person
who had tossed in the thermal bomb had meant to kill Talbot. But he
owed the unknown assassin something for that too.
His face hardened. In his new identity as Soleri he was in the
best possible position to track down the assailant. Soleri had been
powerful, wealthy, the head of the research department. The place to
begin was right here, where it had started. He’d be Soleri.
Talbot-Soleri rang for the nurse. He’d been inactive long enough. He
had no very definite plans, but he’d take care of things as they came
up. The nurse came in. She stared at him in consternation.
“You are not supposed to sit up,” she said. “And you must have been mad
to take those bandages off. Here, I’ll put them back.”
He scowled at her, and she didn’t come near. “Get Miss Farrell,” he
said. “Tell her I must see her at once.”
“The doctor gave strict orders that you’re not to be disturbed,” said
the nurse hesitantly. She paled as he returned her stare, for there was
a dangerous light in his eyes.
“Get her,” he demanded.
When Randy entered the room there was a moment of complete silence. She
seemed stunned by his aspect of well-being.
“The miracle of medicine,” he said dryly. “Randy, I want to look over
the personnel records of everyone in the department. Please get them
and bring them to me here.”
“Everything?” She looked at him in amazement. “You went over the
technical staff last week.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he told her. “I’ve got some ideas I want to tie
down.” That was true, of course, but mostly he wanted to make sure he
wouldn’t slip up on anyone he was supposed to recognize. He’d get by
anyway, naturally. He could always claim a slight loss of memory due to
shock. But such a claim wouldn’t inspire confidence--and he didn’t want
anyone to become suspicious.
“While you’re at it bring the office staff too,” he added. There was
one person he’d have to know as much about as possible. Much of it
wouldn’t be in any file. But he’d worry about the intangibles later.
Randy plainly thought his request was foolish, but she complied. Soon
files were wheeled to his bedside. That was the nice thing about being
a big wheel in a big company, and no pun intended. Everything was
handy. Even the hospital was inside the plant.
But there were also disadvantages. The company was so big that
there was a lot to learn. Still, he had to begin somewhere. Randy
undoubtedly thought some of his requests were strange, but she brought
what he asked for. Though not eidetic, his memory was good. He began
industriously to absorb the information. Names, faces, facts and
diagrams settled firmly in his mind.
It was a lengthy, painful process. Sometimes he became confused as to
his actual identity. Was he Talbot or Soleri? The thought occurred to
him that he might never be able to step out of the character he had
consciously as well as unconsciously assumed.
There was no data on what might happen to him. None at all.