"There's no use in violence," Flanders said. "No possible use in violence. It was only because we reached a crisis sooner than expected that I've told you what I have. You weren't ready for even that much. You weren't fit to know. We were taking quite a chance of pushing you too fast. I couldn't possibly tell you more."
"Not fit to know!" Vickers repeated savagely.
"Not ready. You should have had more time. And to tell you what you ask, to tell you now, just isn't possible. It would — create complications for you. Impair your efficiency and your value."
"But I know _that_ answer already," Vickers told him angrily. "Ready or not, I know the answer to Crawford and his friends, and that's more than the rest of you have done, with all the time you've spent on it. I have the answer now, everything you'd hoped for; I know the secret weapon and I know how to counteract it. You said I should stop Crawford and I can."
"You're sure of that?"
"Completely sure," Vickers said. "But this other person, this third person…"
There was a suspicion creeping into his mind, a frightful suspicion.
"I have to know," he said.
"I just can't tell you; I can't possibly tell you," Flanders repeated.
Vickers' grip on the nightshirt had loosened; now he let his hand drop. The nagging thing tearing at his mind was a torture, a terrible, rising torture. Slowly he turned away.
"Yes, I'm sure," Vickers said again. "I'm sure I know _all_ the answers. I know, but what the hell's the use."
He went into his room and shut the door.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
THERE had been a moment when he had seen his course straight and clear before him — the realization that Kathleen Preston might have been no more than a conditioned personage, that for years the implanted memory of the walk in the enchanted valley had blinded him to the love he bore Ann Carter and the love that he now was sure she felt for him, glossed over with their silly quibbling and their bitter quarreling.
Then had come the realization, too, that his parents slept away the years in suspended animation, waiting for the coming of that world of peace and understanding to which they had given so much.
And he had not been able to turn his back upon them.
Perhaps, he told himself, it was as well, for now there was this other factor — making more than one life out of a single life.
It was a sensible way to do things, and perhaps a valid method, for the mutants needed manpower and when you needed manpower you did the best you could with what you had at hand. You placed in the hands of robots the work that could be left to robots and you took the life of living men and women and out of each of those lives you made several lives, housing the divisional lives in the bodies of your androids.
He was not a person in his own right, but a part of another person, a third of that original Jay Vickers whose body lay waiting for the day when his life would be given back to him again.
And Ann Carter was not a person in her own right, either, but the part of another person. Perhaps a part — and for the first time he forced himself to allow his suspicion to become a clear and terrible thought — perhaps a part of Jay Vickers, sharing with him and with Flanders the life that had been held originally by one.
Three androids now shared the single life: he and Flanders and someone else. And the question beat at him, whispering in his brain: who could that other be?
The three of them were bound by a common cord that almost made them one, and in time the three of them must let their lives flow back into the body of the original Jay Vickers. And when that happened, he wondered, which of them would continue as Jay Vickers? Or would none of them — would it be an equivalent of death for all three and a continuation of the consciousness that Jay Vickers himself had known? Or would the three of them be mingled, so that the resurrected Jay Vickers would be a strange three-way personality combining what was now himself and Flanders and the unknown other?
And the love he bore Ann Carter? In the face of the possibility that Ann might be that unknown other, what about the tenderness he suddenly had felt for her after the moonlight-androses years — what of that love now?
There could be no such love, he knew. If Ann were the third, there could be no love between them. You could not love yourself as you would another person. You could not love a facet of yourself or let a facet of yourself love you. You could not love a person who was closer than a sister or a mother…
Twice he had known love of a woman and twice it had been taken from him and now he was trapped with no other choice but to do the job that had been assigned to him.
He had told Crawford that when he knew what was going on, he'd come back and talk to him and between the two of them they'd see if there was a compromise.
But there was no compromise now, he knew.
Not if his hunch was right.
And Flanders had said that hunch was a better way of reasoning, a more mature, more adult way of arriving at the answer to a problem that was up to you to solve. A method, Flanders had told him, that did away with the winding path of reason that the human race had used through all its formative years.
For the secret weapon was the old, old weapon of deliberate war, waged with mathematical cynicism and calculated precision.
And how many wars, he wondered, could the human race survive? And the answer seemed to be: _Just one more real war_.
The mutants were the survival factor in the race of Man; and now there was nothing left to him, neither Kathleen nor Ann, nor even, perhaps, the hope of personal humanity — he must work as best he could to carry forward the best hope of the human race.
Someone tapped at the door.
"Yes," said Vickers. "Come on in."
"Breakfast will be ready, sir," said Hezekiah, "by the time that you get dressed."
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
FLANDERS was waiting in the dining room when Vickers came down the stairs.
"The others left," said Flanders. "They had work to do. And you and I have plotting."
Vickers did not answer. He pulled out a chair and sat down across from Flanders. The sunlight from the windows came down across Flanders' shoulders and his head stood out against the window glass in bold relief, with the whiteness of his hair like a fuzzy halo. His clothes, Vickers saw, still were slightly shabby and his necktie has seen better days, but he still was neat and his face shone with the scrubbing he had given it.
"I see that Hezekiah found some clothes for you," said Flanders. "I don't know what we'd do without Hezekiah. He takes care of us."
"Money, too," said Vickers. "A pack of it was lying on the dresser with the shirt and tie. I didn't take the time to count it, but there'd seem to be several thousand dollars."
"Of course. Hezekiah thinks of everything."
"But I don't want several thousand dollars."
"Go ahead," said Flanders. "We've got bales of it."
"Bales of it!"
"Certainly. We keep making it."
"You mean you counterfeit it?"
"Oh, bless me, no," said Flanders. "Although it's something we have often thought of. Another string to our bow, you might say."
"You mean flood the normal world with counterfeit money?"
"It wouldn't be counterfeit. We could duplicate the money exactly. Turn loose a hundred billion dollars of new money in the world and there'd be hell to pay."
"I can see the point," said Vickers. "I'm amazed you didn't do it."
Flanders looked sharply at him. "I have a feeling that you disapprove of us."
"In some ways I do," said Vickers.
Hezekiah brought in a tray with tall glasses of cold orange juice, plates of scrambled eggs and bacon, buttered toast, a jar of jam and a pot of coffee.